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CONTENTS 


Preface 

page vi 


SECTION I 


CHAP. I 

Medicine and Defective Vision 

I 

2 

A Method of Visual Re-Education 

6 

3 

Sensing + Selecting + Perceiving « Seeing 

n 

4 

Variability of Bodily and Mental Func- 



tioning 

21 

5 

Causes of Visual Mai -Functioning: 



Disease and Emotional Disturbances 

z 6 


SECTION II 


6 

Relaxation 

36 

7 

Blinking and Breathing 

41 

8 

The Eye, Organ of Light 

47 

9 

Central Fixation 

55 

lO 

Methods of Teaching the Eyes and Mind 



to Move 

60 

XI 

Flashing 

68 

12 

Shifting 

74 

n 

The Mental Side of Seeing 

85 

M 

Memory and Imagination 

89 

15 

Myopia 

104 

i6 

Long Sight, Astigmatism, Squint 

113 

17 

Some Difficult Seeing-Situations 

122 

i8 

Lighting Conditions 

132 

Appendix I 

138 

Appendix 11 

M3 


V 



PREFACE 


AT sixteen, I had a violent attack of keratitis punctata^ which 
x\ left me (after eighteen months of near-blindness, during 
which I had to depend on Braille for my reading and a guide for 
my walking) with one eye just capable of light perception, and 
the other with enough vision to permit of my detecting the two- 
hundred-foot letter on the Snellen Chart at ten feet. My inability 
to see was mainly due to the presence of opacities in the cornea; 
but this condition was complicated by hyperopia and astigmat- 
ism, For the first few years, my doctors advised me to do my 
reading with the aid of a powerful hand magnifying glass. But 
later on I was promoted to spectacles. With the aid of these I 
was able to recognize the seventy-foot line at ten feet and to 
read tolerably well — provided always that I kept my better 
pupil dilated with atropine, so that I might see round a particu- 
larly heavy patch of opacity at the centre of the cornea. True, 
a measure of strain and fatigue was always present, and there 
were occasions when I was overcome by that sense of complete 
physical and mental exhaustion which only eye-strain can pro- 
duce. Still, I was grateful to be able to see as well as I could. 

Things went on in this way until the year 1939, when, in spite 
of greatly strengthened glasses, I found the task of reading in- 
creasingly difficult and fatiguing. There could be no doubt of 
it : my capacity to see was steadily and quite rapidly failing. But 
just as I was wondering apprehensively what on earth I should 
do, if reading were to become impossible, I happened to hear of 
a method of visual re-education and of a teacher who was said 
to make use of this method with conspicuous success. Educa- 
tion sounded harmless enough and, since optical glass was no 
longer doing me any good, I decided to take the plunge. With- 
in a couple of months I was reading without spectacles and, what 
was better still, without strain and fatigue. The chronic tensions, 

vi 



PREFACE 


and the occasional spells of complete exhaustion, were things of 
the past. Moreover, there were definite signs that the opacity in 
the cornea, which had remained unchanged for upwards of 
twenty-five years, was beginning to clear up. At the present 
time, my vision, though very far from normal, is about twice as 
good as it used to be when I wore spectacles, and before I had 
learnt the art of seeing; and the opacity has cleared sufficiently 
to permit the worse eye, which for years could do no more than 
distinguish light from darkness, to recognize the ten-foot line 
on the chart at one foot. 

It is, first of all, to repay a debt of gratitude that I have written 
this little book — gratitude to the pioneer of visual education, the 
late Dr. W. H. Bates, and to his disciple, Mrs. Margaret D. 
Corbett, to whose skill as a teacher I owe the improvement in 
my own vision. 

A number of other books on visual education have been pub- 
lished — ^notably Dr. Bates’s own. Perfect Sight Without Glasses 
(New York, 1920), Mrs. Corbett’s How to Improve Your Eyes 
(Los Angeles, 1938) and The Improvement of Sight by Natural 
Methods^ by C. S. Price, M,B.E., D.O. (London, 1934). All 
have their merits ; but in none (of those, at least, that I have read) 
has an attempt been made to do what I have tried to do in the 
present volume : namely, to correlate the methods of visual edu- 
cation with the findings of modem psychology and critical phil- 
osophy. My purpose in making this correlation is to demon- 
strate the essential reasonableness of a method, which turns out 
to be nothing more nor less than the practical application to the 
problems of vision of certain tlieoretical principles, universally 
accepted as tme. 

Why, it may be asked, have orthodox ophthalmologists failed 
to make these applications of universally accepted principles.^ 
The answer is clear. Ever since ophthalmology became a science, 
its practitioners have been obsessively preoccupied with only one 
aspect of the total, complex process of seeing — the physiological. 
They have paid attention exclusively to eyes, not at all to the 

vii 



THE ART OF SEEING 


viii 

mind which makes use of the eyes to see with. I have been 
treated by men of the highest eminence in their profession ; but 
never once did they so much as faintly hint that there might be 
a mental side to vision, or that there might be wrong ways of 
using the eyes and mind as well as right ways, unnatural and 
abnormal modes of visual functioning as well as natural and nor- 
mal ones. After checking the acute infection in my eyes, which 
they did with the greatest skill, they gave me some artificial lenses 
and let me go. Whether I used my mind and be-spectacled eyes 
well or badly, and what might be the effect upon my vision of 
improper use, were to them, as to practically all other orthodox 
ophthalmologists, matters of perfect indifference. To Dr. Bates, 
on the contrary, these things were not matters of indifference ; 
and because they were not, he worked out, through long years 
of experiment and clinical practice, his peculiar m|^hod of visual 
education. That this method was essentially sound, is proved 
by its efficacy. 

My own case is in no way unique ; thousands of other sufferers 
from defects of vision have benefited by following the simple 
rules of that Art of Seeing which we owe to Bates and his 
followers. To make this Art more widely known is the final 
purpose of the present volume. 



CHAPTER I 


Medicine and Defective Vision 

M ed icus cur at^, — the doctor treats, nature 

heals. The old aphorism sums up the whole scope and 
purpose of medicine, which is to provide sick organisms with the 
internal and external conditions most favourable to the exercise 
of their own self-regulative and restorative powers. If there 
were no vis medicatrix naturae^ no natural healing powers, medi- 
cine would be helpless, and every small derangement would either 
kill outright or settle down into chronic disease. 

When conditions are favourable, sick organisms tend to re- 
cover through their own inherent powers of self-healing. If they 
do not recover, it means either that the case is hopeless, or that 
the conditions are not favourable — ^in other words, that the medi- 
cal treatment being applied is failing to achieve what an adequate 
treatment ought to achieve. 

ORDINARY TREATMENT OF DEFECTIVE SIGHT 

In the light of these general principles let us consider the cur- 
rent medical treatment of defects of vision. In the great majority 
of cases the only treatment consists in fitting the patient with 
artificial lenses, designed to correct the particular error of re- 
fraction which is held to be responsible for the defect. Medkus 
curat ; and in most cases the patient is rewarded by an immediate 
improvement in vision. But in the meanwhile, what about 
Nature and her healing process ? Do glasses eliminate the causes 
of defective vision? Do the organs of sight tend to revert to 
normal functioning as the result of the treatment with artificial 
lenses ? The answer to these questions is. No. Artificial lenses 
neutralize the symptoms, but do not get rid of the causes of de- 
fective vision. And so far from improving, eyes fitted with tfiese 

A I 



THE ART OF SEEING 

devices tend to grow progressively weaker and to require pro- 
gressively stronger lenses for the correction of their symptoms. 
In a word, medicus curat^ natura NON sanau From this we can 
draw one of two conclusions: either defects in the organs of 
seeing are incurable, and can only be palliated by mechanical 
neutralization of symptoms ; or else something is radically wrong 
with the current methods of treatment. 

Orthodox opinion accepts the first and more pessimistic alter- 
natives, and insists that the mechanical palliation of symptoms 
is the only kind of treatment to which defective organs of vision 
will respond. (I am leaving out of account all cases of more or 
less acute disease of the eyes, which are treated by surgery and 
medication, and confining myself to those much more common- 
place visual defects now treated by means of lenses.) 

CURE OR PALLIATION OF SYMPTOMS? 

If orthodox opinion is right — ^if the organs of vision are in- 
capable of curing themselves, and if their defects can only be 
palliated by mechanical devices — then the eyes must be totally 
different in kind from other parts of the body. Given favourable 
conditions, all other organs tend to free themselves from their 
defects. Not so the eyes. When they show symptoms of weak- 
ness, it is foolish, according to orthodox theory, to make any 
serious effort to get rid of the causes of those symptoms; it is a 
waste of time even to try to discover a treatment which will assist 
nature in accomplishing its normal task of healing. Defective eyes 
are, ex hypothesis practically incurable ; they lack the vis medicatrix 
naturae. The only thing that ophthalmological science can do 
for them is to provide them with the purely mechanical means for 
neutralizing their symptoms. The only qualifications to this 
strange theory come from those who have made it their business 
to look into external conditions of seeing. Here, for example, 
are some relevant remarks taken from the book Seeing and 
Human Welfare by Dr. Matthew Luckiesh, Director of the 
General Electric Company’s Lighting Research Laboratory. Eye- 


2 



MEDICINE AND DEFECTIVE VISION 

glasses (those ‘valuable crutches/ as Dr. Luckiesh calls them) 
‘counteract effects of heredity, age, and abuse \ they do not deal 
with causes.’ ‘ Suppose that crippled eyes could be transformed 
into crippled legs. What a heart-rending parade we would wit- 
ness on a busy street! Nearly every other person would go 
limping by. Many would be on crutches and some on wheel 
chairs. How many of these defects of the eye are due to poor 
conditions for seeing, that is, to indifference towards seeing.^ 
Statistics are not available, but a knowledge of seeing and its re- 
quirements indicates that most of them are preventable and most 
of the remainder can be improved or arrested by adequate and 
proper conditions.’ And again, ‘even the refractive defects and 
other abnormalities of eyes induced by abuses are not necessarily 
permanent. When we become ill. Nature does her part, if we do 
ours, towards getting well. Eyes have various recuperative 
powers, at least to some degree. Reducing their abuse by im- 
proving seeing conditions is always helpful, and there are many 
cases on record where great improvement has followed on this 
procedure. Indeed, without correction of the abuse, the disorder 
generally becomes progressively worse.^ These are encouraging 
words that leave us with the hope that we are to be given a de- 
scription of some new and genuinely aetiological treatment of 
visual defects, to take the place of the purely symptomatic treat- 
ment at present in vogue. But tliis hope is only imperfectly ful- 
filled. ‘Poor lighting,’ Dr. Luckiesh goes on, ‘is the most im- 
portant and universal cause of eye-strain, often leading to pro- 
gressive defects and disorders.’ His whole book is an elaboration 
of this theme. Let me hasten to add that, within its limitations, 
it is an admirable book. To those suffering from defects of, 
vision the importance of good lighting is very great indeed ; and 
one can only be grateful to Dr. Luckiesh for his scientific clari- 
fication of the meaning ‘good lighting’ in terms of standard, 
measurable entities such as foot-candles. One’s only complaint 
is that foot-candles are not enough. In treating other parts of 
the organism doctors are not content to ameliorate merely the 

3 



THE ART OF SEEING 


external conditions of functioning; they also seek to improve the 
internal conditions, to work directly on the physiological en- 
vironment of the sick organ as well as on the physical environ- 
ment outside the body. Thus when legs are crippled, doctors 
refuse to let their patients rely indefinitely on crutches. Nor do 
they consider that the laying down of rules for avoiding acci- 
dents constitutes sufficient treatment for the condition of being 
crippled. On the contrary, they regard the use of crutches as 
merely a palliative and temporary expedient, and while paying 
attention to external conditions, they also do their best to im- 
prove the internal conditions of the defective part, so that nature 
may be helped to do its work of healing. Some of these measures, 
such as rest, massage, applications of heat and light, make no 
appeal to the patient’s mind, but are aimed directly at the affected 
organs, their purpose being to relax, to increase circulation and 
to preserve mobility. Other measures are educational and in- 
volve, on the patient’s part, a co-ordination of mind and body. 
By means of this appeal to the psychological factor astonishing 
results are often obtained. A good teacher, using the right tech- 
nique, can often educate a victim of accident or paralysis into 
gradual recovery of his lost functions, and through that recovery 
of function, into the re-establishment of the health and integrity 
of the defective organ. If such things can be done for crippled 
legs, why should it not be possible to do something analogous 
for defective eyes? To this question the orthodox theory pro- 
vides no answer — merely takes it for granted that the defective 
eye is incurable and cannot, in spite of its peculiarly intimate 
relationship with the psyche, be re-educated towards normality 
by any process of mind-body co-ordination. 

The orthodox theory is, on the face of it, so implausible, so 
intrinsically unlikely to be true, that one can only be astonished 
that it should be so generally and so unquestioningly accepted. 
Nevertheless, such is the force of habit and authority that we all 
do accept it. At the present time it is rejected only by those 
who have personal reasons for knowing it to be imtrue. I myself 

4 



MEDICINE AND DEFECTIVE VISION 

happen to be one of these. By the greatest of good fortune I was 
given the opportunity to discover by personal experience that 
eyes do not lack the vis medicatrix naturae^ that the palliation of 
symptoms is not the only treatment for defective vision, that the 
function of sight can be re-educated towards normality by appro- 
priate body-mind co-ordination, and finally that the improve- 
ment in functioning is accompanied by an improvement in the 
condition of the damaged organ. This personal experience has 
been confirmed by my observation of many others who have 
gone through the same process of visual education. It is there- 
fore no longer possible for me to accept the currently orthodox 
theory, with its hopelessly pessimistic practical corollaries. 


5 



CHAPTER II 


A Method of Visual Re-Education 

I N the early years of the present century Dr. W. H. Bates^ a 
New York oculist, became dissatisfied with the ordinary 
symptomatic treatment of eyes. Seeking a substitute for arti- 
ficial lenses, he set himself to discover if there was any way of 
re-educating defective vision into a condition of normality. 

As the result of his work with a large number of patients he 
came to the conclusion that the great majority of visual defects 
were functional and due to faulty habits of use. These faulty 
habits of use were invariably related, he found, to a condition of 
strain and tension. As was to be expected from the unitary 
nature of the human organism, the strain affected both the body 
and the mind. 

Dr. Bates discovered that, by means of appropriate techniques, 
this condition of strain could be relieved. When it had been 
relieved — ^when patients had learnt to use their eyes and mind in 
a relaxed way — ^vision was improved and refractive errors tended 
to correct themselves. Practice in the educational techniques 
served to build up good seeing habits in place of the faulty habits 
responsible for defective vision, and in many cases function came 
to be completely and permanently normalized. 

Now, it is a well-established physiological principle that im- 
proved functioning always tends to result in an improvement in 
the organic condition of the tissues involved. TTie eye. Dr. 
Bates discovered, was no exception to this general rule. When 
the patient learnt to relax his tenseness and acquired proper 
seeing-habits, the vis medkatrix naturae was given a chance to 
operate — ^with the result that, in many cases, the improvement of 
functioning was followed by a complete restoration of the health 
and oiganic integrity of the diseased eye. 

6 



A METHOD OF VISUAL RE-EDUCATION 

Dr. Bates died in 1931, and up to the time of his death he con- 
tinued to perfect and develop his methods for the improvement 
of visual function. Furthermore, during the last years of Dr. 
Bates’s life and since his death, his pupils, in various parts of the 
world, have devised a number of valuable new applications of 
the general principles which he laid down. By means of these 
techniques large numbers of men, women and children, suffering 
from visual defects of every kind, have been successfully re- 
educated into normality or towards normality. For anyone who 
has studied a selection of these cases, or who has himself under- 
gone the process of visual re-education, it is impossible to doubt 
that here at last is a method of treating imperfect sight which is 
not merely symptomatic, but genuinely aetiological — 3 , method 
which does not confine itself to the mechanical neutralization of 
defects but aims at the removal of their physioloj^cal and psycho- 
logical causes. And yet, in spite of the long period during which 
it has been known, in spite of the quality and quantity of the re- 
sults obtained through its employment by competent instructors. 
Dr. Bates’s technique still remains unrecognized by the medical 
and optometrical professions. It is, I think, worth while, before 
going any further, to enumerate and discuss the principal reasons 
for this, to my mind, deplorable state of things. 

REASONS FOR ORTHODOX DISAPPROVAL 

In the first place, the very fact that the method is unrecognized 
and lies outside the pale of orthodoxy is a sufficient invitation to 
the petty adventurers and charlatans who hang upon the skirts 
of society, ever ready and eager to take advantage of human 
suffering. There exist, scattered about the world, some scores 
or perhaps hundreds of well-trained and thoroughly conscien- 
tious teachers of Dr. Bates’s method. But there are also, unfor- 
tunately, a number of ignorant and unscrupulous quacks, who 
know litde more of the system n^e. The faa is de- 

plorable, but not at all surprising. The number of those who 

7 



THE ART OF SEEINQ 

fail to obtain relief from the current symptomatic treatment of 
visual defect is considerable, and the Bates Method has a high 
reputation for effectiveness in such cases. Moreover, the tech- 
nique is unorthodox; therefore no standards of competence are 
legally imposed upon its teachers. A large potential clientele, a 
desperate need of help, and no questions asked as to knowledge, 
character and ability! These are the ideal conditions for the 
practice of charlatanism. What wonder, then, if certain un- 
scrupulous people have taken advantage of the opportunities 
thus offered? But because some unorthodox practitioners are 
charlatans, it does not logically follow that all must be. I repeat 
that it does not logically follow; but, alas, as the history of 
almost any professional group clearly demonstrates, orthodox 
opinion would always very much like it to follow. That is one 
of the reasons why, in this particular case, the unwarranted as- 
sumption that the whole business is mere quackery is widely 
accepted, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. The cure for 
charlatanism is not the suppression of an intrinsically sound 
method, but proper education for, and control of, its teachers. 
Proper education and control are equally the cure for that licensed 
charlatanism among opticians, which has been described and de- 
nounced in articles appearing in The Reader's Digest (1937) and 
the New York World-Telegram (1942). 

The second reason for the non-acceptance of the method may 
be summed up in three words : habit, authority and professional- 
ism. The symptomatic treatment of defective sight has been 
going on for a long time, has been carried to a high degree of 
perfection, and, within its limitations, is reasonably successful. 
If it fails in a certain proportion of cases to provide even ade- 
quate palliation of the symptoms, that is nobody’s fault, but a 
condition inherent in the nature of things. For years, the highest 
medical authorities have all asserted this to be the case — and who 
will venture to question a recognized authority? Certainly not 
the members of the profession to which .the authority belongs. 
Every guild and trade has its own esprit de corps^ its private 

8 



A METHOD OF VISUAL RE-EDUCATION 

patriotism, which makes it resent all rebellion from within and 
all competition or criticism from without. 

Next there is the matter of vested interest. The manufacture 
of optical glass is now a considerable industry, and its retail sale, 
a profitable branch of commerce, to which access can be had 
only by persons who have undertaken a special technical train- 
ing. That there should be, among these licensed persons, a 
strong dislike to any new technique, which threatens to make 
the use of optical glass unnecessary, is only natural. (It is per- 
haps worth remarking that, even if the value of Dr. Bates's tech- 
nique were generally recognized, there would be small likelihood 
of any immediate or considerable decline in the consumption of 
optical glass. Visual re-education demands from the pupil a 
certain amount of thought, time and trouble. But thought, time 
and trouble are precisely what the overwhelming majority of 
men and women are not prepared to give, unless motivated by a 
passionate desire or an imperious need. Most of those who can 
get along more or less satisfactorily with the help of mechanical 
seeing-aids, will continue to do so, even when they know that 
there exists a system of training which would make it possible 
for them, not merely to palliate symptoms, but actually get rid 
of the causes of visual defect. So long as the art of seeing is not 
taught to children as a part of their normal education, the trade 
in artificial lenses is not likely to suffer more than a trifling loss 
by reason of the official recognition of the new technique. Human 
sloth and inertia will guarantee the opticians at least nine-tenths 
of their present business.) 

Another reason for the orthodox attitude in this matter is of a 
strictly empirical nature. Oculists and optometrists affirm that 
they have never wimessed the phenomena of self-regulation and 
cure described by Bates and his followers. Therefore they con- 
clude that such phenomena never take place. In this syllogism 
the premises are true, but the conclusion is imsound. It is quite 
true that oculists and optometrists have never observed such 
phenomena as are described by Bates and his followers. But this 

9 



THE ART OF SEEING 

is because they have never had any dealings with patients who 
had learned to use their organs of vision in a relaxed, unstrained 
way. So long as the organs of vision are used under a condition 
of mental and physical tension, the vis mecKcatrix naturae will 
not manifest itself, and the visual defects will persist, or actually 
become worse. Oculists and optometrists will observe the 
phenomena described by Bates as soon as they begin to relieve 
the strain in their patients* eyes by means of Bates’s method of 
visual education. Because the phenomena cannot occur under 
the conditions imposed by orthodox practitioners, it does not 
follow that they will not occur when these conditions are changed, 
so that the healing powers of the organism are no longer hindered, 
but given free play. 

To this empirical reason for rejecting the Batesian technique 
must be added one more — this time in the realm of theory. In 
the course of his practice as an oculist. Dr. Bates came to doubt 
the truth of the currently accepted hypothesis regarding the eye’s 
power of accommodation to near and distant vision. This matter 
was for long the subject of heated debate, until finally, a couple 
of generations ago, orthodox medical opinion decided in favour 
of the Helmholtz hypothesis, which attributes the eye’s power 
of accommodation to the action of the ciliary muscle upon the 
lens. Working with cases of defective vision. Dr. Bates observed 
a number of facts which the Helmholtz theory seemed powerless 
to explain. After numerous experiments on animals and human 
beings, he came to the conclusion that the principal factor in 
accommodation was not the lens, but the extrinsic muscles of the 
eyeball, and that the focussing of the eye for near and distant 
objects was accomplished by the lengthening and shortening of 
the globe as a whole. The papers describing his experiments 
were printed in various medical journals at the time, and have 
been summarized in the opening chapters of his book. Perfect 
Sight Without Glasses. 

Whether Dr. Bates was right or wrong in his rejection of the 


lO 



A METHOD OF VISUAL RE-EDUCATION 

Helmholtz theory of accommodation, I am entirely unqualified 
to say. My own guess, after reading the evidence, would be 
that both the extrinsic muscles and the lens play their part in 
accommodation. 

This guess may be correct; or it may be incorrect. I do not 
greatly care. For my concern is not with die anatomical me- 
chanism of accommodation, but with the art of seeing — and the 
art of seeing does not stand or fall with any particular physio- 
logical hypothesis. Believing that Bates’s dieory of accommo- 
dation was untrue, the orthodox have concluded that his tech- 
nique of visual education must be unsound. Once again this is 
an unwarranted conclusion, due to a failure to understand the 
nature of an art, or psycho-physical skill.^ 

THE NATURE OF AN ART 

Every psycho-physical skill, including the art of seeing, is 
governed by its own laws. These laws are established empiric- 
ally by people who have wished to acquire a certain accomplish- 
ment, such as playing the piano, or singing, or walking the tight 
rope, and who have discovered, as the result of long practice, the 
best and most economical method of using their psycho-physical 
organism to this particular end. Such people may have the most 
fantastic views about physiology; but this will make no differ- 
ence so long as their theory and practice of psycho-physical func- 
tioning remain adequate to their purpose. If psycho-physical 
skills depended for their development on a correct knowledge of 
physiology, then nobody would ever have learnt any art what- 
soever. It is probable, for example, that Bach never thought 
about the physiology of muscular activity; if he ever did, it is 
quite certain that he thought incorrectly. That, however, did 
not prevent him from using his muscles to play the organ with 
incomparable dexterity. Any given art, I repeat, obeys only its 
own laws; and these laws are the laws of efiFecdve psycho- 


^ See Appendix I. 



THE ART OF SEEING 

physical functioning, as applied to the particular activities con- 
nected with that art. 

The art of seeing is like the other fundamental or primary 
psycho-physical skills, such as talking, walking and using the 
hands. These fundamental skills are normally acquired in early 
infancy or childhood by a process of mainly unconscious self- 
instruction. It takes apparently several years for adequate seeing 
habits to be formed. Once formed, however, the habit of using 
the mental and physiological organs of vision correctly becomes 
automatic — in exactly the same way as does the habit of using 
the throat, tongue and palate for talking, or the legs for walking. 
But whereas it takes a very serious mental or physical shock to 
break down the automatic habit of talking or walking correctly, 
die habit of using the seeing organs as they should be used can 
f be lost as the result of relatively trivial disturbances. Habits of 
correct use are replaced by habits of incorrect use ; vision suffers, 
and in some cases the mal-functioning contributes to the appear- 
ance of diseases and chronic organic defects of the eyes. Occa- 
sionally nature effects a spontaneous cure, and the old habits of 
correct seeing are restored almost instantaneously. But the ma- 
jority must consciously re-acquire the art which, as infants, they 
were able to learn unconsciously. The technique of this process 
of re-education has been worked out by Dr. Bates and his 
followers. 

BASIC PRINCIPLE UNDERLYING THE PRACTICE 
OF EVERY ART 

How can we be sure, it may be asked, that this is the correct 
technique? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the 
first and most convincing test of the s3rstem is that it works. 
Moreover, the nature of the training is such that we should ex- 
pect it to work. For the Bates Method is based upon precisely 
the same principles as those which underlie every successful 
system ever devised for the teaching of psycho-physical skill. 
Whatever the art you may wish to learn — whether it be acro- 


12 



A METHOD OF VISUAL RE-EDUCATION , 

batics or violin playing, mental prayer or golf, acting, singing, 
dancing or what you will — there is one thing that every good 
teacher will always say : Learn to combine relaxation with activ- 
ity; learn to do what you have to do without strain; work 

To speak of combining activity with relaxation may seem para- 
doxical ; but in fact it is not. For relaxation is of two kinds, 
passive and dynamic. Passive relaxation is achieved in a state 
of complete repose, by a process of consciously ‘letting go.’ As 
an antidote to fatigue, as a method of temporarily relieving ex- 
cessive muscular tensions, together with the psychological ten- 
sions that always accompany them, passive relaxation is excellent. 
But it can never, in the nature of things, be enough. We cannot 
spend our whole lives at rest, consequently cannot be always 
passively relaxing. But there is also something to which it is 
legitimate to give the name of dynamic relaxation. Dynamic re- 
laxation is that state of the body and mind which is associated 
with normal and namral functioning. In the case of what I have 
called the fundamental or primary psycho-physical skills, nor- 
mal and natural functioning of the organs involved may some- 
times be lost. But having been lost, it may subsequently be 
consciously re-acquired by anyone who has learnt the suitable 
techniques. When it has been re-acquired, the strain associated 
with impaired functioning disappears and the organs involved do 
dieir work in a condition of dynamic relaxation. 

Mal-functioning and strain tend to appear whenever the con- 
scious ‘P interferes with instinctively acquired habits of proper 
use, either by trying too hard to do well, or by feeling unduly 
anxious about possible mistakes. In the building up of any 
psycho-physical skill the conscious ‘I* must give orders, but not 
too many orders — must supervise the forming of habits of proper 
functioning, but without fuss and in a modest, self-denying way. 
The great truth discovered on the spiritual level by the masters 
of prayer, that ‘thejmore Aere^b “I,” the less there.is of 
God,’ has been discovered again and again on the physiological 

13 



THE ART OF SEEING 

level by the masters of the various arts and skills. The more 
there is of the ‘1/ the less there is of Nature — of the right and 
normal functioning of the organism. The part played by the 
conscious ‘T in lowering resistance and preparing the body for 
disease has long been recognized by medical science. When it 
frets too much, or is frightened, or worries and grieves too long 
and too intensely, the conscious may reduce its body to such 
a state that the poor thing will develop, for example, gastric 
ulcers, tuberculosis, coronary disease and a whole host of func- 
tional disorders of every kind and degree of seriousness. Even 
decay of the teeth has been shown, in the case of children, ito be 
frequently correlated with emotional tensions experienced by the 
conscious *1.’ That a function so intimately related to our psy- 
chological life as vision should remain unaffected by tensions 
having their origin in the conscious ‘T is inconceivable. And, 
indeed, it is a matter of common experience that the power of 
seeing is greatly lowered by distressing emotional states. As 
one practises the techniques of visual education, one discovers 
the extent to which this same conscious ‘P can interfere with the 
processes of seeing even at times when no distressing emotions 
are present. And it interferes, we discover, in exactly the same 
way as it interferes with the process of playing tennis, for ex- 
ample, or singing — by being too anxious to achieve the desired 
end. But in seeing, as in all other psycho-physical skills, the 
anxious effort to do well defeats its own object; for this anxiety 
produces psychological and physiological strains, and strain 
is incompatible with the proper means for achieving our end, 
namely normal and natural functioning. 


14 



CHAPTER III 


Sensing+Selecting+Perceiving^Seein^ 

B efore undertaking a detailed description of the techniques 
employed by Dr. Bates and his followers, I propose to de- 
vote a few pages to a discussion of the process of seeing. Such 
a discussion will serve, I hope, to throw some light on the under- 
lying reasons for these techniques, some of which might other- 
wise appear inexplicable and arbitrary. 

When we see, our minds become acquainted with events in 
the outside world through the instrumentality of the eyes and the 
nervous sjrstem. In the process of seeing, mind, eyes and nerv- 
ous S3rstem are intimately associated to form a single whole. 
Anything which affects one element in this whole exercises an 
influence tipon the other elements. In practice, we find that it 
is possible to act directly only upon the eyes and the mind. The 
nervous system which connects them cannot be influenced except 
indirectly. 

The structure and mechanism of the eye have been studied in 
minute detail, and good descriptions of these things can be found 
in any text-book of ophthalmology or physiological optics. I 
will not attempt to summarize them in this place; for my con- 
cern is not with anatomical structures and physiological mechan- 
isms, but with the process of seeing — the process whereby these 
structures and mechanisms arej^ed to provide our mind with 
visual knowledge of the external world. 

In the paragraphs that follow I shall make use of the vocabu- 
lary employed by Dr. C. D. Broad in The Mind and Its Place in 
Naturey a book which, for subtlety and exhaustiveness of analysis 
and limpid c larity of exposition, takes rank among the master- 
pieo^ of modem philosophical literature. 

The process of seeing may be analysed into three subsidiary 

15 



THE ART OF SEEING 

processes — a process of sensing, a process of selecting and a 
process of perceiving. 

That which is sensed is a set of sensa within a field. (A visual 
sensum is one of the coloured patches which form, so to say, the 
raw material of seeing, and the visual field is the totality of such 
coloured patches which may be sensed at any given moment.) 

Sensing is followed by selecting, a process in which a part of 
the visual field is discriminated, singled out from the rest. This 
process has, as its physiological basis, the fact that the eye records 
its clearest images at the central point of the retina, the macular 
region with its lamntQ fovea centralis ^ the point of sharpest vision. 
There is also, of course, a psychological basis for selection; for 
on any given occasion there is generally something in the visual 
field which it is in our interest to discriminate more clearly than 
any other part of the field. 

The final process is that of perceiving. This process entails 
the recognition of the sensed and selected sensum as the appear- 
ance of a physical object existing in the external world. It is 
important to remember that physical objects are not given as 
primary data. What is given is only a set of sensa ; and a sensum^ 
in Dr. Broad’s language, is something ‘ non-referential.' In other 
words, the sensum^ as such, is a mere coloured patch having no 
reference to an external physical object. The external physical 
object makes its appearance only when we have discriminatively 
selected the sensum and used it to perceive with. It is our minds 
which interpret the sensum as the appearance of a physical object 
out in space. 

It is clear from the behaviour of infants that we do not enter 
the world with full-fledged perceptions of objects. The new- 
born child starts by sensing a mass of vague, indeterminate sensa^ 
which it does not even select, much less perceive as physical 
objects. Little by little, it learns to discriminate the sensa that 
have, for its particular purposes, the greatest interest and signi- 
ficance, and with these selected sensa it gradually comes, through 
a process of suitable interpretation, to perceive external objects. 



SENSING + SELECTING+PERCEIVING-SEEING 

This faculty for interpreting sensa in terms of external ph5^ical 
objects is probably inborn ; but it requires, for its adequate mani- 
festation, a store of accumulated experiences and a memory cap- 
able of retaining such a store. The interpretation of sensa in 
terms of physical objects becomes rapid and automatic only 
when the mind can draw on its past experience of similar sensa 
successfully interpreted in a similar way. 

In adults, the three processes of sensing, selecting and per- 
ceiving are for all intents and purposes simultaneous. We are 
aware only of the total process of seeing objects, and not of the 
subsidiary processes which culminate in seeing. It is possible, 
by inhibiting the activity of the interpreting mind, to catch a hint 
of the raw senswn^ as it presents itself to the eyes of the new-born 
child. But such hints are very imperfect at the best, and of brief 
duration. For the adult, a complete recapture of the experience 
of pure sensation, without perception of physical objects, is pos- 
sible, in most cases, only in certain abnormal conditions, when 
the upper levels of the mind have been put out of action by drugs 
or disease. Such experiences cannot be introspected while they 
are going on ; but they can often be remembered, when the mind 
has recovered its normal condition. By calling up these mem- 
ories, we can provide ourselves with an actual picture of those 
processes of sensing, selecting and perceiving, which culminate 
in the end-process of seeing physical objects in the external world. 

AN ILLUSTRATION 

Here, by way of example, is an account of an experience of my 
own, while ‘coming out* of an anaesthetic administered in this 
dentist*s chair. Returning awareness began with pure visual sen- 
sations completely devoid of significance. These, as I can re- 
member them, were not of objects existing ‘out there* in the 
familiar, three-dimensional world of everyday experience. They 
were just coloured patches, existing in and for themselves, unre- 
lated not only to the external world, but also to myself—for the 
knowledge of self was still wholly lacking, and these meamngless 
B 



THE ART OF SEEING 


and unattached sense impressions were not mim\ they simply 
were. This kind of awareness lasted for a minute or two ; then 
as the effect of the anaesthetic wore off a little further, a notable 
change took place. The coloured patches were no longer sensed 
merely as coloured patches, but became associated with certain 
objects ‘out there* in the external three-dimensional world — 
specifically, the fa9ades of houses seen through the window fac- 
ing the chair in which I was reclining. Attention travelled across 
the visual field selecting successive parts of it and perceiving 
these selected parts as physical objects. From being vague and 
meaningless, the sensa had developed into manifestations of de- 
finite things belonging to a familiar category and situated in a 
familiar world of solid objects. Thus recognized and classified, 
these perceptions (I do not call them ‘my* perceptions, for ‘I* 
had not yet made my appearance on the scene) became imme- 
diately clearer, while all sorts of details, unnoticed so long as the 
sensa lacked significance, were now perceived and evaluated. 
That which was now being apprehended was no longer a set of 
mere coloured patches, but a set of aspects of the known, because 
remembered, world. Known and remembered by whom ^ For 
a time there was no indication of an answer. But after a little 
while, imperceptibly, there emerged myself, the subject of the 
experience. And with this emergence there came, as I remem- 
ber, a further clarification of vision. What had been at first raw 
sensa and had then become, by interpretation, the appearances of 
known varieties of objects, underwent a further transformation 
and became objects consciously related to a self, an organized 
pattern of memories, habits and desires. By becoming related 
to the self, the perceived objects became more visible, inas- 
much as the self, to which they had now entered into relation, 
was interested in more aspects of external reality than had been 
the merely physiological being which had sensed the coloured 
patches, and the more developed, but still un-self-consdous being 
which had perceived these sensa as appearances of familiar objects 
*out there* in a familiar kind of world *V had now returned; 

i8 



SENSING + SELECTING + PERCEIVING-SEEING 

and since ‘F happened to take an interest in architectural details 
and their history, the things seen through the window were im- 
mediately thought of as a member of a new category — not merely 
as houses, but as houses of a particular style and date, and as 
such possessed of distinguishing characteristics which, when 
looked for, could be seen even by eyes as inadequate as my own 
then were. These distinguishing characteristics were now per- 
ceived, not because my eyes had suddenly improved, but simply 
because my mind was once more in a condition to look for them 
and register their significance. 

I have dwelt at some length on this experience, not because it 
is in any way remarkable or strange, but simply because it illus- 
trates certain facts which every student of the art of seeing must 
constantly bear in mind. These facts may be formulated as 
follows. 

Sensing is not the same as perceiving. 

The eyes and nervous system do the sensing, the mind does the 
perceiving. 

The faculty of perceiving is related to the individuaFs accumu- 
lated experiences, in otlier words, to memory. 

Clear seeing is the product of accurate sensing and correct 
perceiving. 

Any improvement in the power of perceiving tends to be 
accompanied by an improvement in the power of sensing and of 
that product of sensing and perceiving which is seeing. 

PERCEPTION DETERMINED BY MEMORY 

The fact that heightened powers of perception tend to im- 
prove the individual’s capacity for sensing and seeing is demon- 
strated, not merely under such abnormal circumstances as 1 have 
described, but in the most ordinary activities of everyday life. 
The experienced microscopist will see certain details on a slide; 
the novice will fail to see them. Walking through a wood, a 
city dweller will be blind to a multitude of things which the 
trained naturalist will see without difficulty. At sea, the sailor 

19 



THE ART OF SEEING 

will detect distant objects which, for the landsman, are simply 
not there at all. And so on, indefinitely. In all such cases im- 
proved sensing and seeing are the result of heightened powers 
of perceiving, themselves due to the memory of similar situations 
in the past. In the orthodox treatment of defective vision atten- 
tion is paid to only one element in the total process of seeing, 
namely the physiological mechanism of the sensing-apparatus. 
Perception and the capacity to remember, upon which percep- 
tion depends, are completely ignored. Why and with what theo- 
retical justification, goodness only knows. For in view of the 
enormous part which mind is known to play in the total process 
of seeing, it seems obvious that any adequate and genuinely 
aetiological treatment of defective vision must take account, not 
only of sensing, but also of the process of perceiving, as well as 
that other process of remembering, without which perceiving is 
impossible. It is a highly significant fact that, in Dr. Bates’s 
method for re-educating sufferers from defective vision, these 
mental elements in the total process of seeing are not neglected. 
On the contrary, many of his most valuable techniques are 
directed specifically to the improvement of perception and of 
that necessary condition of perception, memory. 


20 



CHAPTER IV 


VariahiUty of Bodily and Mental Functioning 

T he most characteristic fact about the functioning of the total 
organism, or of any part of the organism, is that it is not 
constant, but highly variable. Sometimes we feel well, some- 
times we feel poorly; sometimes our digestion is good, some- 
times it is bad ; sometimes we can face the most tr3dng situations 
with calm and poise, sometimes the most trifling mishap will 
leave us irritable and nervous. This non-uniformity of function- 
ing is the penalty we pay for being living and self-conscious 
organisms, unremittingly involved in the process of adapting 
ourselves to changing conditions. 

The functioning of the organs of vision — the sensing eye, the 
transmitting nervous system and the mind that selects and per- 
ceives — ^is no less variable than the functioning of the organism 
as a whole, or of any other part of the organism. People with 
unimpaired eyes and good habits of using them possess, so to 
speak, a wide margin of visual safety. Even when their see- 
ing organs are functioning badly, they still see well enough 
for most practical purposes. Consequently they are not so 
acutely conscious of variations in visual functioning as are 
those with bad seeing habits and impaired eyes. These last 
have little or no margin of safety; consequendy any diminu- 
tion in seeing power produces noticeable and often distressing 
results. 

Eyes can be impaired by a number of diseases. Some of these 
aflFect only the eye; in others, the impairment of the eye is a 
symptom of disease in some other part of the body — ^in the 
kidneys, for example, or the pancreas, or the tonsils. Many other 
diseases and many conditions of mild, chronic disorder cause no 
organic impairment of the eye, but interfere with proper func- 

2T 



THE ART OF SEEING 

tioning — often, it would seem, by a general lowering of physical 
and mental vitality. 

Faulty diet and improper posture ^ may also affect vision. 

Other causes of poor visual functioning are strictly psycho- 
logical. Grief, anxiety, irritation, fear, and indeed any of the 
negative emotions may cause a temporary, or, if chronic, an en- 
during condition of mal-functioning. 

In the light of these facts, which are matters of everyday ex- 
perience, we are able to recognize the essential absurdity of the 
average person’s behaviour, when there is a falling off in the qual- 
ity of his seeing. Ignoring completely the general condition of 
his body and his mind, he hurries off to the nearest spectacle shop 
and there gets himself fitted for a pair of glasses. The fitting is 
generally done by someone who has never seen him before and 
who therefore can have no knowledge of him either as a physical 
organism or as a human individual. Regardless of the possibil- 
ity that the failure to see properly may be due to temporary mal- 
functioning caused by some bodily or psychological derange- 
ment, the customer gets his artificial lenses and, after a short, 
sometimes a long, period of more or less acute discomfort, while 
they are being ‘broken in,’ generally registers an improvement in 
vision. This improvement, however, is won at a cost. The 
chances are that he will never be able to dispense with what Dr. 
Luckiesh calls those ‘valuable crutches,’ but that, on the con- 
trary, the strength of the crutches will have to be increased as 
his power of seeing progressively diminishes under their influ- 
ence. This is what happens when things go well. But there is 
always a minority of cases in which things go badly, and for 
these the prognosis is thoroughly depressing. 

In children, visual functioning is very easily disturbed by 
emotional shock, worry and strain. But instead of taking steps 
to get rid of these distressing psychological conditions and to 
restore proper habits of visual functioning, the parents of a child 
who reports a difficulty in seeing, immediately hurry him off 
^ See Appendix IL 
22 



BODILY AND MENTAL FUNCTIONING 

to have his symptoms palliated by artifidal lenses. As light- 
heartedly as they would buy their little boy a pair of socks or 
their little girl a pinafore, they have the child fitted with glasses, 
^us committing him or her to a complete lifertime of depend- 
ence upon a mechanical device which may neutralize the symp- 
toms of faulty functioning, but only, it would seem, by adding 
to its causes. 

DEFECTIVE EYES CAPABLE OF HAVING FLASHES 
OF NORMAL VISION 

At an early stage in the process of visual re-education one 
makes a very remarkable discovery. It is this. As soon as the 
defective organs of vision acquire a certain degree of what I have 
called dynamic relaxation, flashes of almost or completely nor- 
mal vision are experienced. In some cases these flashes last only 
a few seconds ; in others, for somewhat longer periods. 

Occasionally — ^but this is rare — the old bad habits of improper 
use disappear at once and permanendy, and with the return to 
normal functioning there is a complete normalization of the 
vision. In the great majority of cases, however, the flash goes 
as suddenly as it came. The old habits of improper use have 
re-asserted themselves ; and there will not be another flash until 
the eyes and their mind have been coaxed back towards that 
condition of dynamic relaxation, in which alone perfect seeing is 
possible. To long-standing sufferers from defective vision, the 
first flash often comes with such a shock of happy amazement 
that they cannot refrain from crying out, or even bursting into 
tears. As the art of dynamic relaxation is more and more com- 
pletely acquired, as habits of improper use are replaced by better 
habits, as visual functioning improves, the flashes of better vision^ 
become more frequent and of longer duration, until at last they 
coalesce into a continuous state of normal seeing. To perpetuate 
the flash — such is the aim and purpose of the educational tech- 
niques developed by Dr. Bates and his followers. 

The flash of improved vision is an empirical fact which can be 

^3 



THE ART OF SEEING 

demonstrated by anyone who chooses to fulfil the conditions on 
which it depends. The fact that, during a flash, one may see with 
extreme clarity objects that, at ordinary times, are blurred or 
quite invisible, shows that temporary alleviation of mental and 
muscular strain results in improved functioning and the tempor- 
ary disappearance of refractive error. 

VARIABLE EYES VERSUS INVARIABLE SPECTACLES 

Under changing conditions, the defective eye can vary the 
degree of deformation imposed upon it by habits of improper 
use. This capacity for variation which may be towards normal- 
ity or away from it is mechanically diminished or even inhibited 
altogether by the wearing of artificial lenses. The reason is 
simple. Every artificial lens is ground to correct a specific error 
of refraction. This means that an eye cannot see clearly through 
a lens, unless it is exhibiting exactly that error of refraction which 
the lens was intended to correct. Any attempt on the part of the 
spectacled eyes to exercise their natural variability is at once 
dhecked, because it always results in poorer vision. And this is 
true even in cases where the eye varies in the direction of normal- 
ity; for the eye without errors of refraction cannot see clearly 
through a lens designed to correct an error it no longer has. 

It will thus be seen that the wearing of spectacles confines the 
eyes to a state of rigid and unvarying structural immobility. In 
this respect artificial lenses resemble, not the crutches to which 
Dr. Luckiesh has compared them, but splints, iron braces and 
plaster casts. 

In this context it seems worth while to mention certain recent 
and revolutionary advances in the treatment of infantile paralysis. 
These new techniques were developed by the Australian nurse. 
Sister Elizabeth Kenny, and have been successfully used in her 
own country and in the United States. Under the old method 
of treatment the paralysed muscle groups were immobilized by 
means of splints and plaster casts. Sister Kenny will have no- 
thing to do with these devices. Instead, she makes use, from the 

M 



BODILY AND MENTAL FUNCTIONING 

first onset of the disease, of a variety of techniques aimed at re- 
laxing and re-educating the affected muscles, some of which are 
in a spastic condition of over-contraction, while others (incap- 
able of moving owing to the spasm in neighbouring muscle 
groups) rapidly ‘forget* how to perform their proper functions. 
Physiological treatment, such as the application of heat, is com- 
bined with an appeal to the patient’s conscious mind, through 
verbal instruction and demonstration. The results are remarkable. 
Under the new treatment, the recovery-rate is from seventy-five 
to one hundred per cent., depending on the site of the paralysis. 

Between the Kenny method and the method developed by Dr. 
Bates there are close and significant analogies. Both protest 
against the artificial immobilization of sick organs. Both insist 
on the importance of relaxation. Both affirm that defective func- 
tioning can be re-educated towards normality by proper nund- 
body co-ordination. And, finally, both work. 



CHAPTER V 


Carnes of Visual Mai-Functioning : Disease and 
Emotionat Disturbances 

I N the preceding chapter I spoke of the impairment of visual 
functioning due, first, to diseases having their seat in the eye 
itself or elsewhere in the body and, second, to psychological de- 
rangements connected with the negative emotions of fear, anger, 
worry, grief and the like. It goe s without sa ying that in these 
cases the restoration of perfect functioning is contingent upon 
the removal of its physiological and psychological causes of dys- 
function. Meanwhile, however, very considerable improvement 
can almost always be made by the acquisition and practice of the 
art of seeing^ 

It can be laid down as a general physiological principle that 
improvements in the ^cdqning of a part of the body always 
tend to be followed by organic improvements within that part. 
In the case of diseases which have their seat in the eye itself, old 
habits of improper functioning are very often a causative or pre- 
disposing factor. Consecpiently, the acquisition of new and 
better habits often leads to rapid improvement in the organic 
condition of the impaired eye. 

Even in those cases where the impairment of the eye is only a 
symptom of a disease having its seat in some other part of the 
body, the acquisition of habits of proper use will generally pro- 
duce a certain improvement in the organic condition of the eye. 

It is the same with psychological disorders. Perfect function- 
ing can scarcely be expected so long as there is a persistence of 
the condition of negative emotion which produced the dysfunc- 
tion. Nevertheless, consistent practice of the art of seeing can 
do much to improve functioning, even while the undesirable 
psychological condition persists ; and without practice of the art 

26 



CAUSES OF VISUAL MAL-FUNCTIONING 

of seeing it will be very difficult, even when the disturbing con- 
ditions have passed, to get rid of the habits of improper use con- 
tracted while these conditions were present. Moreover, improve- 
ment of visual function may react favourably upon the disturb- 
ing condition of mind. Most kinds of improper functioning 
result in nervous tensions. (In the case of long-sighted persons, 
especially those having a tendency to outward squint, the nervous 
tension is often extreme, and the victim may be reduced to a con- 
dition of almost insane restlessness and agitation.) Such nervous 
tensions aggravate the disturbing psychological conditions. The 
intensification of the disturbance increases the dysfunction and 
so heightens the tensions ; the heightened tensions further aggra- 
vate the disturbing conditions. And so on, in a vicious circle. 
But luckily there are also virtuous circles. Improvement of func- 
tioning relieves the tensions associated with dysfunction, and this 
relief of tension acts favourably upon the general conditions. 
Relief of tension will not, of course, get rid of the disturbing con- 
ditions ; but it may help to make them progressively more bear- 
able and less harmful in their effects on visual function. 

The moral of all this is clear. Where there is reason to believe 
that improper visual functioning is caused, wholly or in part, 
by disease or disturbing emotional conditions, take all necessary 
steps to get rid of these causes ; but in the meanwhile learn the 
art of seeing. 

CAUSES OF VISUAL MAL-FUNCTIONING: BOREDOM 

Another common impediment to good seeing is boredom, 
which lowers the general bodily and mental vitality, including 
that of the organs of vision. From a paper by Joseph E, Barmack, 
entitled ‘ Boredom and Other Factors in the Physiology of Mental 
Effort* and published (New York, 1937) in the Archives of Psy-- 
chologyy I select a couple of passages which have a certain rele- 
vance to our present subject. 

"Reports of boredom are accompanied very frequendy by 

27 



THE ART OF SEEING 

reports of increased appreciation of such distracting stimuli as 
pains, aches, eye-strain, hunger/ 

The increased appreciation of eye-strain leads to an increased 
effort to see; and this increased effort, coupled with the increased 
effort to fix the attention in spite of being bored, results (in a 
manner which will be explained in the next section) in a lowering 
of vision and consequent enhanced sense of eye-strain. 

In regard to the effect of mental states upon the condition of 
the body, Mr. Barmack writes as follows: 

‘Where there is boredom, the situation seems unpleasant, 
because one is responding to it with inadequate physiological 
adjustments, caused in turn by inadequate motivation.’ 

The converse of this statement is also true. Inadequate physi- 
ological adjustments, due to organic or functional defects (in this 
instance of the organs of seeing), react unfavourably upon motiv- 
ation by diminishing the individual’s desire to perform a given 
task, because it is so difficult for him to do it well. This in turn 
enhances the inadequacy of physiological adaptation, and so on 
in a vicious circle, boredom increasing functional defect and func- 
tional .defect increasing boredom. The process is clearly illus- 
trated in chirdren suffering from defective vision. Because the 
hyperope finds reading uncomfortable, he tends to be bored with 
close work, and his boredom increases the mal-functioning which 
makes him long-sighted. Similarly, the myope is handicapped 
when playing games or associating with people, whose faces he 
cannot clearly see at more than a short distance; consequently, 
he is bored with sports and social life, and the boredom reacts 
imfavourably on his visual defect. An improvement in vision 
changes the quality of motivation, and reduces the field in which 
boredom is experienced. Diminished boredom and improved 
motivation result in improved physiological adjustments and so 
help forward the improvement of vision. 

Once more, the moral is plain. Avoid, if possible, being bored 
yourself or boring others. But if you can’t help being bored or 

aS 



CAUSES OF VISUAL MAL-FUNCTIONING 

boring, learn the art of seeing for your own benefit, and teach it 
to your victims for theirs. 

CAUSES OF VISUAL MAL-FUNCTIONING: 

MISDIRECTED ATTENTION 

All the above-mentioned physical and psychological factors 
making for improper visual functioning are factors that lie, so 
to speak, outside the process of seeing. We have now to con- 
sider an even more fertile source of dysfunction lying within the 
seeing-process, namely improperly directed attention. 

Attention is the indispensable condition of the two mental ele- 
ments in the total process of seeing; for without attention there 
can be no selection from the general sense-field and no perception 
of the selected sensa as the appearances of physical objects. 

As with all other psycho-physical activities, there is a right 
way of directing attention, and there is also a wrong way. When 
attention is directed in the right way, visual functioning is good ; 
when it is directed in the wrong way, proper functioning is inter- 
fered with, and the ability to see falls off. 

Much has been written on the subject of attention, and many 
experiments have been performed with a view to measuring its 
intensity, its span, its effective duration, its bodily correlations. 
Only a few of these general considerations and particular facts 
are relevant to our present subject, and I shall therefore confine 
myself solely to these. 

.^entipn is essentially a process of discrimmation — an act of 
separating and isolating one particular thing or bought from all 
the other things in the sense-field and thoughts in the mind. In 
the total process of seeing, attention is closely associated with 
selection ; indeed, it is almost identical with that activity. 

The various kinds and degrees of attention may be classified 
in a number of different ways. So far as seeing is concerned, die 
most significant classification is that which divides all acts of 
attention into the two main classes of spontaneous attention and 
voluntary attention. 


*9 



THE ART OF SEEING 


Spontaneous attention is the kind of attention we share with 
the higher animals — the unforced act of selective awareness which 
is determined by the biological necessities of keeping alive and 
reproducing the species, or by the exigencies of our second nature, 
in other words, of our habits and established patterns of thought, 
feeling and behayiour. This kind of attention involves no effort 
wheh it is shifting and transitory and not much effort when it is 
prolonged — for spontaneous attention may be prolonged, even 
in the animals. (The cat lying in wait beside a mouse hole is an 
obvious example.) 

Voluntary attention is, so to speak, the cultivated variety of 
the wild, spontaneous growth. It is found only in man, and in 
animals subjected by human beings to some form of training. It 
is the attention associated with intrinsically difficult tasks, or 
with tasks which we have to perform, even though we don’t 
particularly want to. A small boy studying algebra exhibits 
voluntary attention — that is, if he exhibits any attention at all. 
The same boy playing a game exhibits spontaneous attention. 
Voluntary attention is always associated with effort, and tends 
more or less rapidly to produce fatigue. 

We must now consider the bodily correlations of attention, 
in so far as these affect the art of seeing. The first and most 
significant fact is that sensing, selecting and perceiving cannot 
take place without some degree of bodily movement. 

‘Without motor elements,’ writes Ribot, in his classical 
study. The Psychology of Attention^ ‘perception [and it is clear 
from the context that he includes under this term sensing and 
selecting as well as perceiving] is impossible. Ifjh e eye be 
kept J5xed upon j ^yfia^objeat^ m perceptioiL 

awhile^QW^^ then disap^jears. Rest the tips of 

the fingers upon a table without pressing, and the contact at 
the end of a few minutes will no longer be felt. But a motion- 
of the eye or of the finger, be it ever so slight, will re-arouse 
perception. Consciousness is only possible through change;, 
change is only possible through movement. It would be easy 

30 



CAUSES OF VISUAL MAL-FUNCTIONING 

to expatiate at great length upon this subject ; for although the 
facts are very manifest and of common experience, psychology 
has nevertheless so neglected the role sustained by move- 
ments, that it actually forgot at last that they are the funda- 
mental condition of cognition in that they are the instrument 
of the fundamental law of consciousness, which is relativity, 
change. Enough has now been said to warrant the uncondi- 
tional statement that, where there isjao nioyement, there is no 
perception-* 

It is more than fifty years since Ribot enunciated this import- 
ant truth about the connection between movement and percep- 
tion. In theory, everyone now agrees that Ribot was right ; and 
yet orthodox ophthalmologists have made no effort to discover 
how this principle could be applied in practice, so as to improve 
visual functioning. That task was left to Dr. Bates, in whose 
system the fundamental importance of movement as an aid to 
seeing is continually stressed. 

Meanwhile the researches of the experimental psychologists 
have confirmed Ribot’s categorical conclusion, and furnished 
theoretical justification for many of the practices and techniques 
taught by Dr. Bates and his followers. 

In the paper already cited. Dr. J. £. Barmack lays it down that 

* freely shifting attention is an important prop of vital activity. 
If attention is restricted to an inadequately motivating task, vital 
activity is apt to be depressed.* And the importance of mobility 
is similarly stressed by Professor Abraham Wolf, in his article on 

* Attention’ in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannka. 
'The concentration of attention upon some object or thought 
may continue for a considerable time among normal people. But 
what is commonly called an object or a thought is something very 
complex, having many parts or aspects, and our attention really 
passes from part to part, backwards and forwards all the time. 
Our attention to what may be seriously called a single thing, 
affording no opportunities for the movement of attention from 
part to part, say a small patch of colour, cannot be held for more 



THE ART OF SEEING 

than about a second, without serious risk of falling into a hyp- 
notic trance, or some similar pathological condition/ Where 
seeing is concerned, this continuous movement of attention from 
part to part of the object under inspection is normally accom- 
panied by a corresponding movement of the physical sensing- 
apparatus. The reason for this is simple. The clearest images 
are recorded in the macular area in the centre of the retina, and 
particularly at the minute fovea centralis* The mind, as it selects 
part after part of the object for perception, causes its eyes to 
move in such a way that each successive part of the object is seen 
in turn by that portion of the eye which records the clearest 
image. (Ears have nothing corresponding to the fovea centralis ; 
consequently the indispensable shifting of attention within the 
auditory field does not involve any parallel shifting of the bodily 
organ. The discriminating and selecting of auditory sensa can 
be done by the mind alone, and do not require corresponding 
movements of the ears.) 

We have seen that, to be effective, attention must be continu- 
ously on the move, and that, because of the existence of the fovea 
centralis^ the eyes must shift as continuously as the attention of 
tKe mind controlling them. But while attention is always asso- 
ciated, in normal subjects, with continuous eye movements, it is 
also associated with the inhibition of movements in other parts 
of the body. Every bodily movement is accompanied by a more 
or less vague sensation ; and when we are trying to pay attention 
to something, these sensations act as distracting stimuli. To get 
rid of such distractions, we do what we can to prevent our bodies 
from moving. If the act of attention is accompanied by manual 
or other activities connected with the object being attended to, 
we strive to eliminate all movements except those strictly neces- 
sary to our task. If we have no task to perform, we try to inhibit 
all our movements, and to keep our bodies perfectly still. We are 
all familiar with the behaviour of an audience at a concert. ^Vhile 
the music is being played, the people sit without stirring. As the 
last chord dies away, there breaks out, along with the applause 



CAUSES OF VISUAL MAL-FUNCTIONING 

(or apart from it, if the intermission is between two movements 
of a symphony), a positive tornado of coughs, sneezes and ran- 
dom fidgetings. Tlie explosive intensity of this outburst is an 
indication of the strength and completeness of the inhibitions ‘ 
imposed by attention to the music. Francis Galton once took 
the trouble to count the number of bodily movements observ- 
able in an audience of fifty persons who were listening to a rather 
boring lecture. The average rate was forty-five movements a 
minute, or one fidget, more or less, for each member of the 
audience. On the rare occasions when the lecturer deviated into 
liveliness, the fidget-rate declined by upwards of fifty per cent. 

Inhibition of unconscious activities goes hand in hand with 
that of conscious movements. Here are some of the findings in 
regard to respiration and heart beat, as summarized by R. Philip 
in a paper on Tie Measurement of Attention published (1928) by 
the Catholic University of America. 

* In visual attendon respiration is decreased in amplitude, 
but the rate is sometimes quickened, sometimes slowed ; in 
auditory attention, the rate is always slowed, but the effect 
upon amplitude is variable. Restricted breathing often gives 
a slower heart rate, particularly in the first moments of atten- 
tion. This slowed rate is to be explained from inhibited 
breathing, rather than from direct influence of attention.’ 

Continuous movement of the eyes, inhibition of movement in 
the rest of the body — such is the rule where visual attention is 
concerned. And so long as this rule is observed, and there is no 
disease or psychological disturbance, visual functioning will 
remain normal. Abnormality sets in when the inhibition of 
movement, which is right and proper in the other parts of the 
body, is carried over to the eyes, where it is entirely out of place. 
This inhibition of the movement of the eyes — ^a movement of 
which we are mainly unconscious — is brou^t about by a too 
greedy desire to see. In our over-eagerness we unconsciously 
immobilize the eyes, in the same way as we have immobilized 
c 33 



THE ART OF SEEING 

the other parts of the body. The result is that we begin to stare 
at that part of the sense-field which we are trying to perceive. 
But a stare always defeats its own object; for, instead of seeing 
more, a person who has immobilized his sensing-apparatus (an 
act which also immobilizes the closely correlated attention) there- 
by automatically lowers his power of seeing, which depends, as 
we have learnt, upon the uninterrupted mobility of the sensing 
eyes and of the attending, selecting and perceiving mind asso- 
ciated with the eyes. 

Moreover, the act of staring (since it represents an effort to 
repress movements which are normal and habitual) is always 
accompanied by excessive and continuous tension, and this, in 
its turn, produces a sense of psychological strain. But where 
there is excessive and continuous tension, normal functioning be- 
comes impossible, circulation is reduced, the tissues lose their re- 
sistance and their powers of recovery. To overcome the effects 
of impaired functioning, the victim of bad seeing habits stares 
yet harder, and consequently sees less with greater strain. And 
so on, in a descending spiral. 

There is good reason to suppose that improperly directed 
attention, resulting in the immobilization of the eyes and mind, 
is the greatest single cause of visual mal-functioning. The reader 
will notice, when I come to describe them in detail, that many of 
the techniques developed by Dr. Bates and his followers are speci- 
fically aimed at restoring to the eye and mind that mobility, with- 
out which, as the experimental psychologists all agree, there can- 
not be normal sensation or perception* 


34 



SECTION II 



CHAPTER VI 


Relaxation 

I N this second section, I shall describe in some detail a number 
of beneficial techniques developed by Dr. Bates and other ex- 
ponents of the art of seeing. Printed instructions can never re- 
place the personal ministrations of a competent teacher; nor is 
it possible, in a short book, to indicate exactly how much stress 
should be laid on any given technique in any given case of visual 
mal-functioning. Every individual has his or her own particular 
problems. Equipped with adequate knowledge, any individual 
can discover the solution of those problems. But (especially in 
difficult cases) a gifted and experienced teacher will certainly 
make the discovery much more expeditiously, and be able to 
apply his knowledge much more effectively, than the sufferer 
can do for himself. And yet, in spite of all this, printed in- 
structions still have their use. For the art of seeing includes a 
number of techniques which are profitable to all, whatever 
the nature and degree of their mal-functioning. Most of 
these techniques are extremely simple; consequently there is 
very little danger of their being misunderstood by diose who 
read descriptions of them. A text-book can never be as 
good as a competent teacher; but it can certainly be better 
than nothing. 

PASSIVE RELAXATION: PALMING 

Relaxation, as we have seen, is of two kinds, passive and dy- 
namic. The art of seeing includes techniques for producing 
either kind — ^passive relaxation of the visual organs during periods 
of rest, and dynamic relaxation, through norxnal and natural func- 
tioning in times of activity. Where the organs of vision are con- 
cerned, complete passive relaxation can be achieved, but is less 

36 



RELAXATION 

beneficial than a mixed state, combining elements of both kinds 
of relaxation. 

The most important of these techniques of (predominantly) 
passive relaxation is the process which Dr. Bates called ‘ palming.* 
In palming the eyes are closed and covered with the palms of the 
hands. To avoid exerting any pressure upon the eydialls (which 
should never be pressed, rubbed, massaged or otherwise handled) 
the lower part of the palms should rest upon the cheek bones, the 
fingers upon the forehead. In this way light can be completely 
excluded from the eyes, even though the eyeballs remain un- 
touched. 

Palming can be done most satisfactorily when one is seated 
with the elbows resting upon a table, or upon a large, solidly 
stuffed cushion laid across the knees. 

When the eyes are closed and all light has been excluded by the 
hands, people with relaxed organs of vision find their sense-field 
uniformly filled with blackness. This is not the case with those 
whose visual functioning is abnormal. Instead of blackness, 
these people may see moving grey clouds, darkness streaked with 
light, patches of colour, all in an endless variety of permutations 
and coiubinations. With the achievement of passive relaxation 
of the eyes and the mind associated with them, these illusions of 
movement, light and colour tend to disappear, and are replaced 
by uniform blackness. 

In his book, Perfect Sight Without Glasses^ Dr. Bates advises 
the candidate for relaxation to * imagine black,* while palming. 
The purpose of this is to come, through ims^nation, to an actual 
seeing of black. The technique he describes works satisfactorily 
in some cases; but in others (and they probably constitute a 
majority of all sufferers from defective vision) die attempt to 
imagine black frequently leads to conscious effort and strain. 
Thus the technique defeats its own object, which is relaxation. 
Towards the end of his life, Dr. Bates modified his procedure in 
this matter, and the most successful of his followers have done 
the Same. The person who palms his eyes is no longer told to 

37 



THE ART OF SEEING 

imagine blackness, but to occupy his mind by remembering 
pleasant scenes and incidents out of his own personal history. 
After a period more or less long, according to the intensity of the 
strain involved, the field of vision will be found to be uniformly 
black. Thus, the same goal is reached as is done by imagining 
black — but without risk of making efforts or creating tensions. 
Care should be taken, when remembering past episodes, to avoid 
anything in the nature of a ‘mental stare.' By fixing the mind 
too rigidly upon a single memory image, one may easily produce 
a corresponding fixation and immobilization of the eyes. (There 
is nothing surprising or mysterious in this ; indeed, in view of the 
unitary nature of the human organism, or mind-body, this is just 
the sort of phenomenon one would expect to happen.) To avoid 
mental staring, with its concomitant fixation of the eyes, one 
should always, while palming, remember objects that are in 
movement. 

For example, one may wish to revisit in imagination the scenes 
of one's childhood. If this is done, one should imagine oneself 
walking about through the remembered landscape, noticing how 
its constituent parts change their aspects as one moves. At the 
same time, the scenes thus evoked may be peopled with human 
beings, dogs, traffic, all going about their business, while a brisk 
wind stirs the leaves, of Ae trees and hurries the clouds across the 
sky. In such a world of phantasy, where nothing is fixed or 
rigid, there will be no danger of immobilizing the inward eye in 
a fixed stare; and where the inward eye moves without restraint, 
the outward, physical eye will enjoy a similar freedom. By using 
the memory and imagination in the way I have described it is 
possible to combine, in the single act of palming, the beneficial 
features of both passive and dynamic relaxation — r^t and natural.. 

This, I believe, is one of the principal reasons why palming is 
better for the organs of vision than any form of wholly passive 
relaxation. When the activities of the memory and imagination * 
are completely inhibited, such wholly passive relaxation can be 

38 



RELAXATION 

carried, after some practice, to the point where the eyelids and 
the eyeball itself lose their tone and go soft. This condition is ^ 
so remote from the normal state of the eyes that its attainment 
does little or nothing to help in improving vision. Palming, on 
the contrary, keeps the mental powers of attention and percep- 
tion at work in the effortless, freely shifting way which is natural 
to them, at the same time as it rests the eyes. 

The other main reasons for the efficacy of palming are of a 
physical nature. There is refreshment in the temporary exclu- 
sion of light, and comfort in the warmth of the hands. More- 
over, all parts of the body carry their own characteristic poten- 
tials ; and it is possible that the placing of the hands over the eyes 
does something to the electrical condition of the fatigued organs 
— something that re-invigorates the tissues and indirectly soothes 
the mind. 

Be this as it may, the results of palming are remarkable. 
Fatigue is rapidly relieved ; and when the eyes are uncovered, 
vision is often noticeably improved, at any rate for a time. 

When there is strain and when vision is defective, there can 
never be too much palming. Many who have experienced its 
benefits deliberately set aside regular periods for palming. Others 
prefer to take such opportunities as each day may casually offer, 
or as their own fatigue may make it urgently necessary for them 
to create. In even the busiest lives there are blank and unoccu- 
pied intervals, which may profitably be used to relax the eyes and 
mind, and so to gain improved vision for further work. In all 
cases, die important thing to remember is ^at preyetidon is 
better than cure, and that, by devoting a few minutes to relaxa- 
tion, one may spare oneself many hours of fatigue and lowered 
visual efficiency. In the words of Mr. F. M. Alexander, we all 
tend to be greedy * end-gainers,* paying no attention to our 
‘means- whereby.* And yet it must be obvious to anyone who 
will give the sidiject a moments thought, that the nattro ofjhe 
means ^jnplQytd. Ml 

attained. In the case of the eyes and the mind controlling them, 

39 



THE ART OF SEEING 

means that involve unrelieved strain result in lowered vision and 
general physical and mental fatigue. By allowing ourselves in- 
tervals of the right sort of relaxation, we can improve the means- 
whereby and so arrive more easily at our end, which is, proxi- 
mately, good vision and, ultimately, the accomplishment of tasks 
for which good vision is necessary. 

*Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
all the rest shall be added.’ This saying is as profoundly true on 
the plane of the psycho-physiological skills as it is upon the 
planes of spirituality, ethics and politics. By seeking first re- 
laxed visual functioning of the kind that Nature intended us to 
have, we shall find that all the rest will be added to us, in the 
form of better sight and heightened powers of work. If, on the 
contrary, we persist in behaving as greedy and dioughdess end- 
gainers, aiming directly at better vision (through mechanical 
devices for neutralizii^ symptoms) and increased efficiency 
(through unremitting strain and effort), we shall end by seeing 
worse and getting less work done. 

Where circumstances make it difficult or embarrassing to as- 
sume the attitude of palming, it is possible to obtain a certain 
measure of relaxation by palming mentally — that is, by closing 
the eyes, imagining that they are covered with the hands and re- 
membering some pleasant scene or episode, as suggested in an 
earlier paragraph. This should be accompanied by a conscious 
"le^g go’ of the eyes — a ‘thinking of looseness’ in relation to 
the strained and dri^ tissues. Purely mental palming is not so 
beneficial as palming, which is both mental and physical; but 
it is a good second-best. 


40 



CHAPTER VII 


Blinking and Breathing 

I T is hard to say whether the kind of relaxation achieved through 
the techniques described in the present and subsequent chap- 
ters is predominantly passive or predominantly dynamic. Luckily, 
it is of no practical importance how we answer the question. 
The significant facts about them are that all of them are designed 
to relieve strain and tension; that all may and should be prac- 
tised as relaxation drills in periods specially set aside for the pur- 
pose; and that all may and should be incorporated into the 
eveiyday business of seeing, so as to produce and maintain the 
state of dynamic relaxation associated with normal functioning. 
I shall begin with a brief account of blinking, and its importance 
in the art of seeing. 

NORMAL AND ABNORMAL BLINKING HABITS 

Blinking has two main functions: to lubricate and cleanse the 
eyes with tears ; and to rest them by periodically excluding light. 
Dryness of the eyes predisposes them to inflammation, and is 
often associated with blurring of vision. Hence the imperative 
need for frequent lubrication — that is to say, for frequent blink- 
ing. Moreover, dust (as everyone knows who has ever cleaned 
a window) will stick to even the smoothest surface, and render 
the most transparent material opaque. The eyelids, as they blink, 
wash the exposed surfaces of the eyes with tears, and prevent 
them from becoming dirty. At the same time, when blinking is 
frequent, as it should be, light is excluded from the eyes during 
perhaps five per cenL or more of all the waking hours. 

Eyes in a condition of dynamic relaxation blink often and 
easily. But where there is strsun, blinking tends to occur less 
frequently, and the eyelids work tensely. This would seem to 

41 



THE ART OF SEEING 

/be due to that same misdirection of the attention, which causes 
die improper immobilization of the sensing-apparatus. 

The inhibition of movement, natural and normal in the other 
parts of the body, is carried over, not only to the eyes, but to 
their lids as well. A person who stares closes the eyelids only at 
long intervals. This fact is a matter of such common observa- 
tion that, when novelists write about a stare, they generally 
qualify the word with the epithet, ‘unwinking.’ 

Movement, as the psychologists have long been insisting, is 
one of the indispensable conditions of sensing and perceiving. 
But so long as the eyelids are kept tense and relatively immobile, 
the eyes themselves will remain tense and relatively immobile. 
Consequently, anyone who wishes to acquire the art of seeing 
well must cultivate the habit of frequent and effortless blinking. 
When mobility has been restored to the eyelids, the restoration 
of mobility to the sensing-apparatus will be comparatively easy. 
Also, the eyes will enjoy better lubrication, more rest, and the 
improved circulation that is always associated with unstrained 
muscular movement. 

Those who blink too littie and too tensely — ^and they com- 
prise a majority of the sufferers from defective vision — must 
consciously acquire, or re-acquire, the habit of blinking often and 
easily. This can be done by pausing every now and then to per- 
form a brief blinking-drill — ^half a dozen light, butterfly-wing 
blinks; then a few seconds of relaxed closure of the lids; then 
more blinks, and another closing. And so on for half a minute 
or a minute. Repeated at frequent intervals (say, every hour or 
so) these drills will help to build up the habit of frequent blink- 
ing during the rest of the day. A person who has become ‘ blink- 
conscious* will also be conscious of his own tendencies to im- 
mobilize the eyes and lids, and will be able to check the incipient 
stare by frequent and easy closures of the lids. Frequent blink- 
ing is especially important for those engaged in any form of 
difficult and detailed work, requiring dose attention. When 
busy with such tasks, it is fatally easy to fix the eyes and lids, 



BLINKING AND BREATHING 


with resulting strain, fatigue, dryness of the cornea, inflammation 
and impairment of vision. Frequent and easy blinkitjg Fill often 
bring a measure of relief that s^nis out of all proportion to the 
simplicity of the means employ^. 

Besides blinking, one may, with advantage, periodically squeeze 

the eyes tight shut, reinforcing the action of the lids with that of 
the other facial muscles. This should be done on all occasions 
when one is tempted to rub the eyes — a barbarous and brutal 
method of doing with the knuckles what the beautifully adjusted 
eyelids can do much more safely and just as effectively. It may 
also be done occasionally, even when there is no itching or other 
discomfort in the eyes — merely to increase local circulation and 
stimulate the secretion of tears. 

Massage of the eyes themselves is always undesirable; but a 
gentle rubbing of the temples will often be found soothing and 
refreshing. Eye fatigue may also be relieved by rubbing and 
kneading the muscles of the upper part of the nape of the neck. 
(In certain cases of defective vision, appropriate treatment by a 
capable osteopathjw ill often produce excellent results.) People 
who are subject to eye-strain may profitably use this rudimentary 
kind of massage upon themselves two or three times a day and 
follow it up by a period of palming. 

NORMAL AND ABNORMAL BREATHING HABITS 

As was pointed put in the first section of this book, experi- 
mental psychologists have noted a fairly regular correlation be- 
tween the state of attentiveness and a modification of the normal 
rate and amplitude of breathing. To put it more simply, they 
have noticed that, when we look at something attentively, we 
tend either to hold our breath for many seconds at a stretch, or 
alternatively, if we do breathe, to breathe less deeply than at 
ordinary times. The reason for this is that, when we are trying 
to concentrate our attention, we find that the sounds and the 
sense of muscular movement, associated with breathing, are 
sources of distraction. We try to get rid of these distractions, 

43 



THE ART OF SEEING 


either by breathing less deeply, or by suspending our breathing 
altogether during relatively prolonged periods of time. 

In their strained effort to see, people with defective vision tend 
to carry this normal interference with breathing to entirely ab- 
normal extremes. Many of them, when paying close attention 
to something they are particularly anxious to see, behave almost 
as if they were diving for pearls, and remain for incredibly long 
periods without drawing breath. But vision depends 
markable extent upon good circulation ; and circulation can be 
described as good only when it is sufficient in quantity (which 
it is not when the mind is under strain and the eyes are in a con- 
dition of nervous muscular tension), and at the same time of good 
quality (which it certainly is not when restricted breathing has 
left the blood imperfectly oxygenated). 

The quantity, of circulation in and around the eyes may be 
increased by means of relaxation, passive and dynamic. The 
jguality^can be improved by learning consciously to breathe, even 
while paying attention. Some of the techniques of relaxation 
have already been described, and I shall have occasion, later on, 
to mention several others. In this sub-section our concern is 
only with breathing. 

In correcting abnormal breathing habits, the first thing to do 
is to become aware that they are abnormal. Impress upon your- 
self the fact that, among persons with defective sight, there is a 
regular correlation between attentive looking and a quite un- 
necessary, indeed positively harmful, interference yd A 
Kept in the back of the mind, this thought will periodically pop 
out into consciousness; and if it does this at a time when you 
are paying close attention to something, the chances are that you 
will catch yourself behaving as though you were a pearl fisher 
ten fathoms under the surface of the sea. But you are not a pearl 
fisher, and the element in which you live is not water, but life- 
giving air. Therefore, fill your lungs with the stuff — not vio- 
lently, as though you were doing deep-breathing exercises, but 
in an easy, effortless way, expiration fbllowix^ inspiration in a 

44 



BLINKING AND BREATHING 

natural rhythm. Continue, while breathing in this way, to pay 
attention to the thing you want to see. (In later chapters of this 
book I shall describe die proper way of paying attention.) You 
will find it possible, after a little practice, to be just as concen- 
tratedly attentive when breathing normally, or even rather more 
deeply than at ordinary times, as it is when behaving like a pearl 
fisher. In a little while, you will find that breathing while paying 
attention has become habitual and automatic. Any improvement 
in the quality of circulation is reflected immediately in better 
vision ; and when, through relaxation, quantity has also been in- 
creased, this improvement in vision will be even greater. 

In cases of failing sight, due to old age or other causes, and in 
certain pathological conditions of the eye, some doctors, par- 
ticularly those of the Viennese school, make successful use of 
mechanical methods for increasing local circulation. Tempor- 
ary hyperaemia of the regions round the eye is produced by dry 
cupping^pf ^e temples, or by the application of leech^ or some- 
times by fastening round the neck a specially made elastic collar, 
so adjusted as to permit the blood to flow freely into the head 
through the arteries, while reducing the amount to return by 
slightly constricting the veins. ^ None of these procedures should 
be tried out, except under expert medical advice; nor, indeed, 
is it necessary in most cases that they should be tried. Relaxa- 
tion and proper breathing will bring about an equal improvement 
in circulation, more slowly indeed, but more safely and naturally, 
and by methods which are entirely under the control of the per- 
son employing them* Moreover, the resulting improvement in 
visual Auctioning and in the organic condition of the eyes will 
be the same, whichever means of increasing circulation are em- 
ployed* The mechanical methods are no better than the self- 
directed, psycho-physical methods here described. Indeed, in 
so far as Aey care mechanical, they are intrinsically less satisfiic- 
tory. If I mention them at all, it is merely in order to corrobor- 
ate the assertion that vision and the organic health of the eyes 
depend upon adequate circulation. 

a 



THE ART OF SEEING 

The extent of this dependence can he demonstrated in a very 
simple way. As you read, draw a deep breath and then exhale. 
While the air is being breathed out, you will notice that the print 
before your eyes becomes perceptibly clearer, blacker and more 
distinct. This temporary improvement of vision is due to a 
slight temporary hyperaemia in the head ; and this, in turn, is 
due to the slight constriction of the veins in the neck caused by 
the act of expiration. More than the usual amount of blood is 
present in and around the eyes — ^with the result that the sensing- 
apparatus does its work more efficiently, and the mind is given 
better material with which to do its perceiving and seeing. 


46 



CHAPTER VIII 


The EyCy Organ of Light 

I N insects and fishes, in birds and beasts and men, eyes have 
been developed with the express purpose of responding to light 
waves. Light is their element; and when they are deprived of 
light, either wholly or in part, they lose their power and even 
develop serious diseases, such as the nystagmus of coal miners. 
This does not mean, of course, that eyes must be perpetually ex- 
posed to light. Sleep is necessary to the mind that perceives, and 
for seven or eight hours at least out of the twenty- four, darkness 
is necessary to the sensing-apparatus. The eyes do their work 
most easily and efficiently when they are allowed to alternate be- 
tween good solid darkness and good bright light. 

THE CURRENT FEAR OF LIGHT 

In recent years there has grown up a most pernicious and en- 
tirely unfounded belief that light is bad for the eyes. An organ 
which, for some scores of millions of years, has been adapting 
itself very successfully to sunshine of all degrees of intensity, is 
now supposed to be incapable of tolerating daylight without 
the mitigating intervention of tinted goggles, or lamplight, except 
when diffused through ground glass or reflected from the ceiling. 
This extraordinary notion that the organ of light perception is 
unfitted to stand light has become popular only in the last twenty 
years or so. Before the war of 1914 it was, I remember, the 
rarest thing to see anyone wearing dark glasses. As a small boy, 
I would look at a be-goggled man or woman with that mixture 
of awed sympathy and rather macabre curiosity which children 
reserve for those afilicted with any kind of unusual or disfiguring 
physical handicap. Today, all that is changed. The wearing of 
black spectacles has become not merely common, but aeditable. 

47 



THE ART OF SEEING 

Just how creditable is proved by the fact that the girls in bathing 
suits, represented on the covers of fashion magazines in summer 
time, invariably wear goggles. Black glasses have ceased to be 
the badge of the afflicted, and are now compatible with youth, 
smartness and sex appeal. 

This fantastic craze for blacking out the eyes had its origin in 
certain medical circles, where a panic terror of the ultra-violet 
radiations in ordinary sunlight developed about a generation 
back; it has been fostered and popularized by the manufacturers 
and vendors of coloured glass and celluloid spectacle frames. 
Their propaganda has been effective. In the Western world, 
millions of people now wear dark glasses, not merely on the 
beach, or when driving their cars, but even at dusk, or in the dim- 
lit corridors of public buildings. Needless to say, the more they 
wear them, the weaker their eyes become and the greater their need 
for ‘protection* from the light. One can acquire an addiction to 
goggles, just as one can acquire an addiction to tobacco or alcohol. 

This addiction has its origin in the fear of light — a fear which 
those who have it feel to be justified by the discomfort they ex- 
perience when their eyes are exposed to too intense a brightness. 
The question arises: why this fear and this discomfort? Ani- 
mals get on very happily without goggles ; so do primitive men. 
And even in civilized societies, even in these days when the vir- 
tues of coloured glass are everywhere persuasively advertised, 
millions of people face the sunlight without goggles and, so far 
from suffering any ill effects, see all the better for it. There is 
every reason to suppose that, physiologically, the eyes are so 
constructed that they can tolerate illuminations of very high in- 
tensity. Why, then, do so many people in the contemporary 
wo|ld experience discomfort when exposed to light even of rela- 
tively low intensity? 

REASONS FOR THE FEAR OF LIGHT 

There seem to be two main reasons for this state of things. 
The first is connected with the silly craze for shutting out the 

48 



THE EYE, ORGAN OF LIGHT 

light, described in an earlier paragraj^. Medical alarmists and 
the advertisers, who exploit the opinions of these learned gentle- 
men for their own profit, have convinced large sections of the 
public that light is harmful to the eyes. This is not true ; but the 
belief that it is true can cause a great deal of harm to those who 
entertain it. If faith can move mountains, it can also ruin vision 
— ^as anyone may see for himself who has watched the behaviour 
of light-fearing people when suddenly exposed to sunshine. They 
hww that light is bad for them. Consequently, what grimaces ! 
What frowns ! WTiat narrowings of the lids ! What screwings- 
up of the eyes ! In a word, what manifest symptoms of strain and 
tension I Originating in a false belief, the purely mental terror 
of light expresses itself physically in terms of a strained and 
thoroughly abnormal condition of the sensing-apparatus. Eyes in 
such a condition are no longer capable of reacting as they should 
to the external environment. Instead of accepting the sunlight 
easily and as a blessing, they suflFer discomfort and even develop 
an inflammation of the tissues. Hence more pain and a heighten- 
ing of fear, a confirmation of the false faith that li^t is harmful. 

There is also another reason for the discomfort which so many 
people now experience when exposed to light. They may not 
start with any a priori terror of light; but because their seeing 
organs are strained and defective, owing to habits of wrong use, 
their eyes and mind may be incapable of reacting normally to the 
external environment. Strong light is painftil to the tense, 
strained seeing organs. Because it is painful, a fear of light de- 
velops in the mind ; and this fear becomes, in its turn, a cause of 
further strain and discomfort. 

CASTING OUT FEAR 

The fear of light, like all other kinds of fear, can be cast out of 
the mind; and the physical discomfort experienced when the 
sensing-apparatus is exposed to light can be prevented by means 
of suitable techniques. When this has been done, it will no 
longer be necessary to black out the eyes with tinted goggles. 

D 49 



THE ART OF SEEING 


Nor is this all. In the process of learning to react to light in a 
normal and natural way, defective seeing organs can do much to 
relieve the strain that impairs their visual power. Acquiring 
normal reactions to light is one of the essential procedures in the 
art of seeing. Appropriate drill in connection with sunlight will 
produce a valuable kind of passive relaxation ; and die power so 
acquired of dealing easily and effortlessly with the strongest illu- 
minations can be carried over into active life, to become an ele- 
ment in that dynamic relaxation of the seeing organs, without 
which there can never be perfect vision. 

In all cases where light causes discomfort, the first thing to do 
is to cultivate an attitude of confidence. We must bear steadily 
in mind that light is not harmful, at least in any degree of intens- 
ity we are ever likely to meet with ; and that, if in fact it produces 
discomfort, the fault is ours for being afraid of it, or for having 
habitually used our eyes in the wrong way. 

PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES 

Confidence in the harmlessness of light should be translated 
into practice by a process of gradual habituation. If the eyes 
shrink from sunlight when open, start by accustoming them to 
sunlight when they are closed. Sitting comfortably, lean back 
and, ‘letting go and thinking looseness,' close the eyes and turn 
them towards the sun. To avoid internal staring and the possi- 
bility of too prolonged an exposure to the light of any given 
portion of the retina, move the head gently but fairly rapidly 
from side to side. A lateral swing of a few inches will be quite 
sufficient, so long as it is kept up continuously. 

In some persons sunning of ike eyes will produce discomfort 
even when the lids are dosed. Where this is the case, it will be 
as well to start by directing the eyes at the sky, and not directly 
at the sun. When the light of the sky seems tolerable, one may 
turn for short periods to the sun. As soon as any discomfort is 
felt, one should turn away, palm the eyes for a little, and then 
start again. The dosed lids may be sunned for several minutes 

50 



THE EYE, ORGAN OF LIGHT 

at a stretch (with brief interruptions for palming, if the need of it 
is felt) ; and the process should be repeated several times in the 
course of the day. 

After a very little while most people will find that they can, 
without discomfort, take the sunlight upon the open eyes. The 
most satisfactory procedure is as follows. Cover one eye with 
the palm of the hand and, taking care to swing the head from 
side to side as before, allow the other eye to travel back and forth 
three or four times across the sun, blinking rapidly, lighdy and 
easily as you do so. Then cover the eye that has been exposed to 
the sunlight and repeat the same process with the other eye. 
Alternate for a minute or so ; then palm until the after-images 
disappear. When the eyes are uncovered, it will generally be 
found that vision has distinctly improved, while the organs feel 
relaxed and suffused with a warm sense of well-being. 

When the open eyes are sunned one at a time, in the manner 
described above, the light seems far less dazzling than when 
both are sunned simultaneously. Because the illumination seems 
more intense, simultaneous sunning of both eyes may result in 
involuntary shrinking, which is then overcome by an effort of 
will that results, in its turn, in a state of tension. This condition 
may postpone the achievement of the complete relaxation which 
should normally follow the process of sunning. Nevertheless, 
those who wish to sun both eyes simultaneously may do so in 
moderation without any fear of harm. It may be noted that the 
process is accompanied, at first, by a copious discharge of tears 
and followed by after-images brighter and more lasting than 
those which attend the svmning of each eye separately. The tears 
are refreshing, and the after-images soon disappear with palming. 
On the whole, however, the method of sunning one eye at a time 
is to be preferred. 

HARMLESSNESS OF SUNNING 

The enemies of Dn Bates’s method are fond of telling hair- 
raising stories about the effects of sunning the eyes. Those who 



THE ART OF SEEING 

do it are solemnly warned that they will go blind, either at once 
or (when in fact this doesn’t happen) at some future date. From 
personal experience, as well as from fairly extensive enquiries 
among people who have taught and practised the technique, I am 
convinced that these stories are wholly untrue. When the eyes 
are sunned in the manner described in the preceding paragraphs, 
no harmful effects ever follow. On the contrary, the organs are 
agreeably relaxed, circulation is speeded up, and the vision is im- 
proved. Moreover, many forms of inflammation, both of the eye 
and its lids, tend to clear up very rapidly when the eyes are 
sunned. There is nothing particularly surprising about these 
facts. Sunlight is a powerful germicide and, used in moderation, 
it acts as a valuable therapeutic agent when directed on the human 
body. There is no reason why it should not act upon the eyes in 
the same beneficial way as it acts on other external organs. 

The sun produces harmful effects upon the eyes only when 
people stare fixedly at it. For example, after following the phases 
of an eclipse, many persons report a temporary impairment of 
vision, mounting sometimes to partial or even complete blind- 
ness. In almost all cases, the condition disappears after a short 
time, leaving the sufferer none the worse. Among the many 
thousands who have used the technique developed by Dr. Bates 
and his followers, a very few have had a similar experience. Ne- 
glecting their teachers’ advice to keep the head continuously 
swinging from side to side, they have stared fixedly at the sun. 
If the results are bad, they have only themselves to blame. 

The truth of the matter is fliat, like everything else in the 
world, sunlight is good for us in reasonable quantities, bad when 
taken to excess or in the wrong way. If people are foolish enough 
to eat ten pounds of strawberries at a sitting, or swallow a quart 
of castor oil, or take a hundred aspirin tablets, they will have to 
suffer for their folly. Nevertheless, strawberries, castor oil and 
aspirin are freely sold. The fools must take their chance. It is 
the same with sunlight. Every summer a great many silly people 
sun-bathe to the point of burning their skin, running a hig^ fever 

5 ^ 



THE EYE, ORGAN OF LIGHT 

and even enlarging their spleens. Nevertheless, sun-bathing is 
permitted and encouraged, because it is pleasant and beneficial 
for people who do it reasonably. So too with the eyes. In spite 
of all the good advice that may be given, some imtegl^ will 
stare fixedly at the sun and so temporarily impair their vision.' 
This is no reason for discouraging those who have the sense to 
sun their eyes wisely from undertaking a practice which will cer- 
tainly do them good. 

Those who have learnt to take the sun on the closed and open 
eyes, wiH note a progressive diminution of their susceptibility to 
glare and bright illuminations. The fear of light and the discom- 
fort caused by light will vanish, and along with them will go the 
tinted goggles, the frowns and grimaces, and the strain that is 
always associated with fear and discomfort. 

To maintain normal reactions to light, one should carry over 
into active life a modified version of the sunning technique, which 
is practised during periods specially set aside for the purpose. 
If the light seems unpleasantly bright when one goes out of doors, 
one should close the eyes for a moment, ‘let go and think loose- 
ness,* then re-open as gently and relaxedly as possible. After 
this the eyes should be raised to the sun, which may be taken for 
a few seconds on the closed lids and afterwards (always with a 
swing of the head) on the open eyes. When one looks down 
again, the brightness of the world around will seem very toler- 
able, and there will be no sense of strain or tension. These pro- 
cedures should be repeated at frequent intervals when one is out 
\of doors on a bright day. They will help to keep the eyes in a 
Istate of dynamic relaxation and to improve the vision. 

At night one may use a bright source of artificial light in lieu 
’ of the sun. For this purpose, as well as for reading, I have found 
a 1 50-watt spot- or flood-light very useful. These bulbs, which 
are like self-contained head-lamps, with a curved and silvered 
back and a circular transparent front, tfarou^ which the concen- 
trated beam of light is projected, will give a thousand foot- 
candles at three or four feet Using the same procedure as with 

53 



THE ART OF SEEING 

the sun, one may take this light on the closed and open eyes. 
Improved relaxation, circulation and vision follow exactly as with 
the sun. Those who wish to increase the illumination may do 
so by reflecting the light from a spot-lamp into their eyes by 
means of a convex shaving mirror. At the focus of the mirror 
there will be warmth and illumination not greatly inferior to that 
of the sun itself, when looked at on a bright summer’s day. 


U 



CHAPTER IX 


Centred Fixation 

I N the present chapter and the two which follow I shall give an 
account of certain procedures designed to encourage mobility 
in the defective organs of vision. For more than half a century, 
as we have seen, experimental psychologists have proclaimed 
that adequate cognition of the external world depends upon 
movement. This fact is, obviously and on the face of it, enor- 
mously significant for vision. And yet, for some inexplicable 
reason, orthodox ophthalmologists have never paid the smallest 
attention to it. As a class, they have been, and still are, content 
to prescribe crutches for the mechanical palliation of symptoms, 
and to leave the matter at that. The first person to devote any 
serious thought to this manifestly important problem was Dr. 
W. H. Bates — and all he got for his pains was the professional 
cold shoulder and the reputation of being a crank, or even a 
quack. 

Before describing any of the procedures designed to encourage 
habits of mobility, I shall give a brief account of the mental and 
physiological conditions which make such procedures necessary. 
As explained in the first section of this book, attention is natur- 
ally mobile, and shifts continually from one part of the appre- 
hended physical object to another part, one aspect of the thought 
under consideration to another aspect. Where seeing is con- 
cerned, this continuous shifting of the mind is normally accom- 
panied by continuous shifting of the sensing-apparatus. The 
reason for this must be sought in the structure of the eye, which 
records perfeedy dear images only at the central pordon of the 
retina known as die macula baeay with its point of sharpest pre- 
cision, the fovea centraMs* 

This rule, that we see best only diat small area at which we are 

55 



THE ART OF SEEING 

looking directly, out of the centre of sight, has one important 
exception. At night, when there is a minimum of light, we do 
our best and clearest sensing with the outer portions of the retina. 
This fact was discovered centuries ago by the astronomers, who 
found that, when looking direcdy at a constellation, they could 
see only the brighter stars, whereas, when they looked somewhat 
to one side of it, they could detect other stars of smaller magni- 
tude. In the words of the eminent French physicist, Frangois 
Arago, ‘ in order to see a very dimly lighted object, it is necessary 
not to look at it.* For this reason, when trying to find your way 
in the dark, you should not look straight ahead; for then you 
will not see the dimmer objects immediately in front of you. If, 
on the contrary, you turn your head, first to one side, then to 
the other, you will see what is directly in firont of you ‘out of the 
comer of your eye.* 

Exactly the opposite is the case where vision in the daytime, 
or under bright artificial illumination, is concerned. In these cir- 
cumstances (and all that follows applies to vision under good 
illumination), one senses and sees best only that portion of the 
visible environment which throws its image upon the macula and 
fovea: images recorded by the outer portions of the retina are 
less distinct as to form, and less accurate as to colour, than those 
recorded by the minute centra! area. 

At average reading distance from the eyes — say fourteen 
inches — one can easily see the whole page of a book. But the 
area seen with greatest clarity will be a circle of about half an 
inch in diameter, while the maximum degree of precision will be 
confined to a single letter at the centre of that circle. This single 
letter represents that part of the total visible environment whose 
image falls, at a given moment, upon xhit fovea centralis ; the half- 
inch circle, that part whose image falls upon the macula sux^^ 
roundmg the fovea centralis. All the rest of the printed page gets 
recorded by the outer portions of the retina, and is consequendy 
sensed less dearly. 

Because of the existence of this central area of clearer sensing, 

56 



CENTRAL FIXATION 

die mobility of attention necessarily entails a corresponding mo- 
bility of the eyes. For, as the mind shif^ts its attention to a given 
part of the regarded obfect, the eyes are moved automatically and 
unconsciously, so that the part being attended to shall be the part 
most clearly sensed — or, to put the matter in physiological terms, 
so that the light rays reflected from the part that is being attended 
to shall fall directly upon the macida and fovea centralis. 
this happens we are said Jo,^.sens^ing with central^ i^ In 

order ito sense every part of an object with central fixation, or in 
other words, with maximum the eye must .make an enor- 

mous number of minute and rapid shifts from point to point. 
When it fails to shift, it fails to see all parts of the object with 
central fixation and therefore with maximum clarity. 

Mobility, then, is the normal and natural condition of the 
selecting and perceiving mind ; and, because of the need for cen- 
tral fixation, mobility is also the normal and natural condition of 
the sensing eye. During infancy and childhood, most people 
learn unconsdously to keep their eyes and mind in this condition 
of mobility, and to do their sensing with central fixation. But 
unfortunately, for any one of a great variety of reasons, the habits 
of proper use may be lost. In one way or another, the consdous 
interferes with natural and normal functioning. The result is 
that attention comes to be directed fixedly, instead of with a con- 
tinuous easy movement from point to point, while the eyes cease 
to shift, and develop a stare. Mal-functioning produces mental 
and physical strains, which, in their turn, produce more mal- 
functioning. Owing to strain and mal-functioning, the sensing- 
apparatus undergoes distortion, and errors of refraction and 
other undesirable physical conditions result. Vision deteriorates, 
and as the bad h^its of use become ingrained with time, the 
eyes (above all, when fitted with spectades) lose more and more 
of their power of self-regulation and resistance to disease. 

That staring should always be accompanied by strain and an 
impairment of vision is not in the least surprising. For when 
people stare, they try to achieve the impossible; they try to see 

57 



THE ART OF SEEING 

every part of a large area as clearly as every other part. But the 
structure of the eye is such that it cannot sense every part of the 
area as clearly as it senses that one small part which is being 
looked at with central fixation — in other words, that part whose 
image falls upon the macula zxA fovea centralis. And the nature 
of the mind is such that it cannot do a proper job of perceiving, 
unless its attention is continually shifting from point to point of 
the regarded object. To stare is to ignore these necessary con- 
ditions of normal sensing and normal seeing. In his greedy 
anxiety to achieve his end, which is to do the greatest possible 
amount of good seeing in the shortest possible time, the starer 
neglects the only means whereby this end can be achieved. In- 
stead, he tries to do the impossible. The results are just as bad 
as one would expect them to be — strain, with consequent errors 
of refraction and poor vision. 

Occasionally, the habit of central fixation is never acquired, 
most often owing to diseases of the eye during infancy. In the 
great majority of cases, however, it is acquired, along with the 
other habits of normal use, and only lost at a later date — owing, 
generally, to the interference of the conscious T,’ whose fears and 
worries, whose cravings and griefs and ambitions are for ever 
interfering with the normal functioning of the physical organs, 
the nervous system and the mind. When the habit of central 
fixation has been lost for some time, the macula and fovea seem 
to lose some of their natural sensibility through disuse. At the 
same time the habit of trying to sense objects equally clearly with 
all parts of the retina leads to an over-stimulation of some or all 
of the eccentric areas, which do their best to increase their sensi- 
bility in order to respond to this stimulation. Sometimes this 
process goes so far that a person will, so to speak, manufacture 
for himself a false macula somewhere on the outer edges of his 
retina. When this happens, he gets his dearest vision, not when 
looking straight in front of him, but only when the object is 
regarded at an angle. This sideways vidon can never be any- 
thing like so dear as nozmal vision in the central, macular area. 

58 



CENTRAL FIXATION 

But owing to the macula* s loss of sensibility through disuse^ and 
to the strength of long-established bad habits, it is the best vision 
that such an eye and mind can have. 

In the majority of cases, however, the loss of the good habits 
of mobility and central fixation, and the acquisition of the bad 
habit of staring, or l^ng to see of a large area equally 

well, do hot result in this extreme degree of eccehfflc fixation. 
The starer still looks straight ahead. But because he tries to see 
everything equally well, he reduces the sensibility of his macula 
andjfoveaand builds up an undesirable and abnormal relationship 
between the perceiving mind and the peripheral areas of the 
retina, which are now used for sensing as much as, or more than, 
the central areas. Eccentric fixation is diffused over the whole 
retina, instead of being confined, as in the extreme cases, to a 
false macula at one particular point. 

Without central fixation and mobility there cannot be normal 
vision. Hence the great importance of procedures which teach 
the normal-sighted person how to preserve the good habits, on 
which (though he generally does not know it) his good sight 
depends, and which help the person with defective vision to 
overcome the bad habits, responsible for his bad sight. For 
those who have never learnt central fixation, and for those 
whose eccentric fixation is extreme, the services of a skilled and 
experienced teacher will probably be indispensable. The rest, 
if they are shown how, can do much to help themselves. It is for 
them that I describe the simple, but effective, techniques which 
follow. 


59 



CHAPTER X 


Methods of Teaching the Eyes and Mind to Move 

C ENTRAL fixation can be taught directly, by methods which 
permit the pupil to experience the fact that he cannot see 
every part of a large area with equal clarity. Or it may be taught 
indirectly, by methods which build up habits of mobility — 
methods vdiich compel the mind to shift its attention and the eye 
to shift its area of greatest sensitivity from point to point of the 
regarded object. 

Use of the direct method entails a certain danger of increasing 
the strains from which the pupil already suffers. It seems best, 
therefore, to approach the goal indirectly. Just as, in the case of 
palming, the b^t way to see black is not to try to see it, but to 
remember pleasant scenes and events out of the past, so the best 
way to achieve central fixation is not to try to see one small area 
better than all others, but to cultivate the mobility which is the 
necessary condition for seeing successive small areas of an object 
with maximum clarity. Accordingly, I shall begin by describing 
a number of procedures for increasing the mobility of the eyes 
and mind; and only when this has been done shall I give an 
account of methods aimed directly at making the pupil conscious 
of central fixation. Those whose sight is defective will be well j 
advised to follow the same order in their educational practice. - 
First learn to keep the eyes and the attention in constant easy 
movement; then, when movement has re-activated them, learn 
consciously to recognize the manifestations of central fixation 
and, by recognizing them, to increase tfaeir intensity. 

SWINGING 

Whenever we move, objects in die external world appear to 
move in the opposite direction. Those which are nearest to us 

6o 



TEACHING THE EYES AND MIND TO MOVE 

seem to move most rapidly, and the rate of apparent movement 
diminishes with the increase of distance from the eyes, so that 
objects at a great distance seem to be almost stationary, even 
when viewed from an express train or a speeding car. 

The various procedures, to which Dr. Bates gave the name of 
* swinging,’ are primarily designed to make the person who prac- 
tises them aware of this apparent movement of external objects 
and, by this means, to encourage a condition of free mobility in 
the sensing-apparatus and the controlling mind. Where such 
mobility exists, psychological and ocular tensions are relaxed, 
staring is replaced by rapidly shifting central fixation, and there 
is a marked improvement in vision. 

It is possible to invent and practise a great number of swings ; 
but all of them are variations on one or other of a few frmda- 
mental tjrpes, which alone will be described. 

The Short Swing should be performed while standing in front 
of a window, or in a doorway, or anywhere else where one can 
arrange to look gast some near-by object at some more distant 
object. For example, the upright bar of a window frame may 
serve as the near-by object, while a tree or part of a house on the 
other side of the street will serve as the more distant object. In- 
side a room, the near-by object can be a tall standard lamp, or a 
piece of string hanging from the ceiling light, while a picture on 
the wall or an ornament on the mantelpiece will do for the more 
distant object. Standing with the feet about ei|^teen inches 
apart, one should swing the body,^ regularly, gently and n^ too 
rapidly,, from side to side, throwing the weight on to each foot 
alternately. The swing should not be wide — less than a foot in 
all is quite sufficient — and the head should not be turned in rela- 
tion to the shoulders, but should remain looking straight ahead, 
moving in unison with the^JamL As one swings to the right, 
the near-by object (say the window bar) will appear to move to 
the left across ffie more distant object. As one swings to the left, 
it will appear to move to the ri^t. This apparent movement 
should be noted during a number of swings; thm the eyes should 

6i 



THE ART OF SEEING 

be closed. Still swinging from side to side, visualize the appar- 
ent movement of the window bar across the tree at the end of 
the garden or the house across the street. Then open again and, 
during a few more swings, watch the real bar as it moves back 
and forth. Close again and visualize. And so on for a minute 
or two, or longer. 

This procedure has several advantages. It makes the mind 
aware of movement and, so to say, friendly to it. It helps to 
break the defective eye’s bad habit of staring. It produces auto- 
matically a shifting of attention and of the fovea centralis. All 
these contribute directly to the dynamic relaxation of the organs 
of seeing. An indirect contribution to the same result comes 
from the rhythmic movement of swinging, which acts upon mind 
and body in the same soothing way as do the movements of the 
cradle and the rocking-chair. 

To these soothing effects of the Short Swing, the Long Swing 
adds direct and beneficial action upon the spine by gentle and re- 
peated twisting. When practising this swing, one stands with 
the feet apart, as before; but instead of confining the movement 
of the body to a pendulum-like short sway, one swings in a wider 
arc, turning the trunk upon the hip s and the head upon the shoul- 
ders as one does so. As one swings to the left, the weight is 
thrown on to the left foot, while the heel of the right is lifted. 
Conversely, the left heel is lifted as one turns to the right. The 
eyes, as they travel from one side to the other, cover an arc of 
one hundred and eighty degrees, or even more, and the external 
world seems to oscillate back and forth in a wide sweep. No 
attempt should be made to pay attrition to an3rthing in the eyes’ 
moving sense-field. The attitude of mind, while one is practis- 
ing this swing, should be one of complete passivity and indiffer- 
ence. One just Mets the world go by’ without caring, without 
even making any effort to perceive what it is that is gomg by. 
The selecting and perceiving mind is out of action, and one is 
down to pure sensing — a physiological organism tjJdng a holi- 
day from the conscious ‘I,’ 

6i 



TEACHING THE EYES AND MIND TO MOVE 

Such a holiday from the self is extremely restful. Moreover, 
since it is generally the conscious that is responsible for poor 
seeing (either through harbouring negative emotions, or through 
misdirecting its attention, or in some other way ignoring nature’s 
rules for normal visual functioning), this temporary inhibition of 
the self’s activities is helpful in breaking the old habits of im- 
proper use and clearing the ground for the building up of new 
and better habits. In the Long Swing, the sensing-apparatus 
temporarily escapes from its bondage to a mind that misuses it 
by immobilizing it into a rigid stare, and learns once more how 
to function in a condition of free and unstrained mobility, 

A variant of the Short Swing, which may be practised while 
sitting and in an inconspicuous manner, has been called the Pencil 
Swing, In this swing, the near-by object is a pencil (or one’s 
own forefinger will do just as well) held vertically about six 
inches in front of the nose. Swinging the head from side to side, 
one notes the apparent movement of the pencil across the more 
distant features of one’s environment The eyes should be closed 
from time to time, and this apparent movement should be fol- 
lowed with the inward eye of Ae imagination. When the eyes 
are opened, they may be focussed alternately on the pencil and 
on the more distant objects across which it seems to pass. 

Swinging can and should be carried over from the periods 
specially set aside for it into the activities of daily life. Perfect 
vision is impossible without continuous movement of the sens- 
ing-apparatus and the attention; and it is by cultivating an 
awareness of the apparent movements of external objects that 
the staring eyes and immobilized mind can most easily and rapidly 
be educated out of their sight-impairing habits. Hence, for those 
with defective vision, the importance of applying the principle 
of the swing in every variety of visual situation. 

To begin with, whenever you move, let the world go by and 
be aware of its going by. Note, as you walk or travel by car or 
bus, the approach and passing of trees, houses, lamp-posts, pave- 
ments, Indoors, when you turn yottr head, be conscious of the 

63 



THE ART OF SEEING 

way in which near-by objects move across more distant objects* 
By becoming conscious of the seeming mobility of the environ- 
ment, you increase the mobility of the eyes and mind and so 
create the conditions for better vision. 

OTHER AIDS TO MOBILITY 

Swinging is of fundamental importance in the re-establishment 
of normal visual functioning, and should be practised as much 
as possible. But there are also other procedures for cultivating 
habits of mobility and, indirectly, of central fixation. Here are 
a few of them. 

Throw up a rubber ball with the right hand, and catch it, as it 
falls, in the left. Or, better, take a ball in either hand, throw up 
that in the right hand and, while it is in the air, transfer the ball 
in the left hand to the right hand, then use the left hand to catch 
the other ball as it comes down. By means of this rudimentary 
form of juggling one can impart to simple ball throwing a 
continuous easy rhythm, not present when a single ball is used. 
The eyes should be on the ball as it is thrown up by the right 
hand, should follow it up to the top of its trajectory and down 
again till it is caught by the left hand. (They should not stare 
up into the sky, waiting for the ball to appear within their field 
of vision.) After a long spell of close work, a brief interlude 
of this simple juggling will do much to loosen and relax the 
eyes. 

Out of doors, this procedure can be used, not only to remind 
the eyes to move, but also to establish habits of light tolerance. 
Start by throwing the ball up against a dark background, such 
as a tree. Then move so that the ball has to be watched as it 
traverses the less brightly illuminated portions of the sky. * Think 
looseness’ as you watch it rise and fall, and blink frequently* 
Then, as the eyes and mind become accustomed to the light, 
move again, so that the ball has a yet bri^ter background. The 
last two or three throws may be made while one is almost facing 
the sun* 



TEACHING THE EYES AND MIND TO MOVE 

Dice and do min oes may also be used to restore to eyes and 
mind the mobility without which there can be no proper central 
fixation and, consequently, no normal seeing. 

Take three or four dice, throw them on a table, glance quickly 
from one to another and then, after a second, turn away or close 
the eyes and name the numbers appearing on their upper faces. 
If the game is played by two people (as it always must be in the 
case of children), the instructor should throw the dice, give the 
pupil a second in which to glance from one to the other, then 
cover them with his hand and ask for the numbers. This pro- 
cedure encourages rapid shifting of the attention and the eyes, 
and at the same time stimulates the interpreting mind in ways 
which will be described when we come to the subject of ‘ flashing.* 

JDominoes can also be used to break the habit of staring, and 
to spur the eyes and mind into the indispensable condition of 
mobility. Procure a set of dominoes — preferably a set which 
goes up to double nine, or even to double twelve. Arrange a 
random selection of the dominoes in, say, three rows of eight or 
ten each, within the lid of a cardboard box. Wedge them tightly, 
or glue them into place, so that the lid may be handled without 
upsetting the dominoes. Stand the lid on edge upon a table, so 
that the mosaic of dominoes faces you, as you sit at a convenient 
distance regarding them. Alternatively, if distant vision is be- 
yond your powers, hold the lid in your hand, where the dominoes 
can be easily seen, increasing the distance as vision improves. 
Now, as rapidly as you can, name the numbers in the upper 
halves of the first row of dominoes; then in the lower halves; 
then in the upper and lower halves, successively, of the other 
rows. Do this without any thought of test-passing, with mind 
relaxed and eyes easily moving from domino to domino, and 
blinking at frequent intervals. Close the eyes for a few seconds 
between each row. Then start again, and name the number of 
dots, first, in each horizontal line of every figure on the upper 
and lower halves of the dominoes, next in each vertical line, next 
in the diagonals. Then complicate the procedure a litde by 
£ 65 



THE ART OF SEEING 

counting the total number of dots in the vertical lines of the 
upper and lower figures of each domino taken together. 

Valuable in all cases of defective vision associated with strain 
and staring, these domino drills, together with the others which 
will be described in the chapter on ‘flashing,’ are particularly 
useful in cases of astigmatism. 

Astigmatism occurs when the radius of curvature of the cor- 
nea is not the same in all meridians. Light rays passing through 
this distorted medium are focussed in an irregular way. In many 
sufferers, the condition shows a considerable measure of varia- 
bility. Spectacles tend to fix the cornea rigidly in that particular 
condition of distortion present at the moment of the oculist’s 
examination. Consequently there is little hope of recovery, so 
long as one wears artificial lenses. But if the astigmatic person 
will discard his artificial lenses, learn the art of passive and dy- 
namic relaxation, and cultivate habits of mental and ocular mobil- 
ity, he can do much to diminish, or even altogether eliminate his 
disability. Dominoes are very easy to see; consequently the 
rapid shifting of eyes and mind, encouraged by the domino drills, 
is almost effortless. Tension is relaxed, and at the same time, 
as the eyes move from dot to dot, an enormous number of acts 
of sensing are performed, in this relaxed condition, through 
every part of the cornea. This seems to have the effect of ‘ iron- 
ing out’ die distortions in the cornea. Exacdy how, we do not 
know. But if, as seems likely, the disability was originally due 
to mental and muscular tensions, there is no cause for surprise if 
the disability should disappear when the sufferer has learnt the 
art of sensing and perceiving without tension. Anyhow, the 
fact remains ^t asthmatic persons see disdncdy better after the 
domino drills than before. As old habits of visual functioning 
are broken down and replaced by new and better habits, the im- 
provement tends to become permanent. 

The ‘ironing-out’ process can often be accderated by a pro- 
cedure which may be described as a kind of concentrated or 
streamlined version of the domino drills. Take the lid, in which 

66 



TEACHING THE EYES AND MIND TO MOVE 

the rows of dominoes have been firmly fixed^ and, holding it in 
both hands three or four inches before the face, move it back- 
wards and forwards horizontally. This side-to-side movement 
should not be greater than six or eight inches, and should be 
accompanied by a corresponding movement of the head in the 
opposite direction. Thus, when the lid is moved to the left, the 
head should be turned slightly to the right, and vice versa. No 
effort should be made to see the numbers on the individual dom- 
inoes, and the combined movement of lid and head should be 
just great enough to create the illusion that one is not looking at 
separate dots, but at more or less continuous lines, created by the 
apparent running together of the dots. After a minute or two of 
this horizontal swinging, the direction of movement should be 
changed to the vertical plane. Hold the lid with its long axis at 
right angles to the floor, and move it up and down, accompany- 
ing the movement of the hands with a movement of the head in 
an opposite direction, exactly as in the horizontal swing. 

These exercises may seem rather odd, undignified and point- 
less. But the significant thing about them is that (in conjunction 
with the other procedures here described) they have helped many 
astigmatic people to improve their vision, first temporarily and 
later permanently. 



CHAPTER XI 


Flashing 

T he procediu-e which Dr. Bates called ‘flashing* is important 
for what it does to foster mobility, and to increase the powers 
of the perceiving and interpreting mind. 

Flashing may be described as the a ntithesi s of sttring. In- 
stead of fixing the object with one’s regard, instead of immobiliz- 
ing eyes and mind, and straining to see all parts of it equally well 
at the same time, one glances quickly at it (flashes it), ^en closes 
the eyes and remembers what has been sensed in the course of 
this rapid dart into the unknown. 

After aTittle practice in flashing, one makes the interesting 
discovery that the sensing-apparatus takes in a good deal 
more than the perceiving mind is aware of — especially when 
the perceiving mind has built up bad habits of strain and 
effort. There is a sense in which we see without knowing 
it. It will be worth while, I think, to devote a few para- 
graphs to the discussion of this ‘unconscious vision’; for the 
subject is of considerable theoretical interest, as well as of 
great practical importance. 

UNCONSCIOUS VISION 

‘Unconscious vision’ is a somewhat inaccurate expression, 
which is applied to several distinct classes of phenomena. 

There is, to begin with, the ‘unconscious vision’ we have 
when we make a rapid reflex movement to avoid some danger, 
Ttdiich the eyes sense and the muscles react to, before the mind 
has had time to interpret the menacing sensum as a potentially 
dangerous external object. In such cases the nervous system 
works more quickly than the mind, which does not perceive 
said consciously see until affer the danger-avoiding reaction has 

68 



FLASHING 

^^been initiated. During a fraction of a second, there has been 
unconscious vision and unconscious muscular activity. 

Of a similar nature is the kind of ‘unconscious vision’ ex- 
hibited by a man who threads his way through traffic, or walks 
across difficult country, while engaged in conversation or sunk 
in thought. He has no distinct conscious awareness of the objects 
around him, and yet his body behaves as though he were aware — 
stopping and going, turning and avoiding obstacles, just as it 
would do, if his mind were on the problem of walking with 
safety, instead of being on his talk or his thoughts. In this case, 
the mind is in a position at any moment to become fully aware of 
what is being sensed, and occasionally it actually does become 
aware. In the intervals, however, there is a measure of imcon- 
scious vision — of sensing with a minimum of perceiving. 

Finally, there is that most normal and commonplace kind of 
imconsdous vision, which we have, at any given moment, of all 
those parts of the sense-field which we do not select for the pur- 
pose of perception. The world is filled with an infinity of objects ; 
but at any given moment our concern is only with a very few of 
them. From the total visual field we select those sensa which 
happen to interest us, and leave the rest imattended to and un- 
perceived. Where vision is normal, it is always physiologically 
and psychologically possible for us to select the sensa which in 
fact we do not choose to attend to or perceive. This type of 
unconscious vision is, in the last analysis, voluntary; if we 
don’t consciously see, it is simply because we don’t want to see, 
because it doesn’t suit us to see. 

There are other cases, however, in which the unconsciousness 
is involuntary, in which the mind is incapable of making itself 
aware ofwhat the eyes are sensing. When this happen s, we look, 
but do not lliis may be due to the fact that nothing is 
sSiseH^ or that the sensa are so extremely indistinct that dhey 
cannot possibly be interpreted. But this i^ by no means always 
the case. Sometimes sensing takes place, and the sensa are suffi- 
dendy distinct to be used for perceiving widi. But in fact they 

69 



THE ART OF SEEING 

are not so used ; and though theoretically we might see what we 
look at, actually we do not see it. In such cases there is always 
a measure of ocular ^d miental stral^^ 

(primarily as cause and secondarily as consequence) to some 
habitual error of refraction. It is true that the unperceived sensa 
belonging to persons in such a condition of strain are more or less 
faint and indistinct. Nevertheless they can be interpreted and 
perceived as appearances of external objects. The fact that they 
are not so interpreted and perceived is due to the condition of 
strain, which interpo ses a kind of barrier between the sensing 
eyes and the perceiving mind. 

Now, sensa (as Dr. Broad has concluded after considering all 
the available evidence) always leave ‘mnemic trac^* of the kind 
that may subsequently be revived and give rise to a memory- 
image. (Concerning the nature of these mnemic traces, or 
*engrams,* nobody as yet knows anything at all. They may be 
purely physical, or purely psychological, or simultaneously phy- 
sical and psychological. The only thing we are justified in 
assuming about them is that they exist and can give rise, under 
favourable conditions, to memory-images.) 

The experience of those who have undertaken a course of 
visual re-education adds further weight to the evidence for the 
h3q)othesis that sensa leave traces, and can therefore be remem- 
bered, even when, at the time, they were unperceived by the 
conscious mind. When people with defective vision take a 
flashing glance at some object, it often happens that they do not 
see it at all, or see it only as a dim blu r. But on turning away and 
closing the eyes, they frequently discover that they have a 
memory-image of what was sensed. Often this image is so ex- 
tremely tenuous ^ that they are hardly conscious of its being there 
at all. But if they stop anxiously trying to bring it up into con- 
sciousness, and just make a random guess at its nature, it very 
frequently turns out that the guess is correct. Fro m t his we may 
?pjjGlu<if^,jfrat^ for us to remmb^^^^ we ^n^,” 

but did not see, provided always t^t the meniad tensions asso* 



FLASHING 


datedj^^ conscious ‘ I * are relaxgd»., eithgj: through hyp- 
nosis, 

This final proviso is of the highest practical significance. 
Strain, as I have said, erects a barrier betw;^ the sensm^ eyes, 
anffthejper^mng^^^^ Biit if the strained organs of vision are 

relaxed, as they can be by palming, sunning and swinging, the 
barrier is lowered; and though it may not be possible at first to 
perceive what the sensing-apparatus t^es in, as it regards a given 
external object, it becomes increasingly easy, when the eyes are 
closed, to make a correct guess at the nature of the memory- 
image arising from the traces left by the act of sensing. 

A good teacher can do much to help one in bringing up into 
consciousness the memory-images of what was merely sensed, 
not actually seen. Children, who are less self-conscious than 
their elders, respond particularly well to such a teacher’s sugges- 
tions and encouragements. For example, a child is shown some 
object, say a domino, or a printed letter, or word, from a distance 
at which he cannot normally see it. He is told to take a flashing 
glance at it, then close his eyes and * r each up into the air for it.’ 
The child obeys the order quite literally, raises a hand, closes it 
on emptiness, then lowers it, opens it, looks into his palm and 
gives the correct answer, as though he were reading from notes. 

After a certain amount of practice, the barrier between sensing 
and perceiving (always present in persons with defective vision) 
is so far lowered that unconscious vision (or the revival through 
memory of the traces left by sensing) gives place to conscious 
vision (or the perceiving of what is sensed in the same moment 
as it is sensed). In the early stages, there is generally a rather 
long interval between the act of sensing and the act of perceiving. 
Several seconds^ may elapse before the ^i erson can say what he 
has seOT. The psychological barrier interposed by strain be- 
the eyes and the mind has been lowered, indeed, but not 
yet completely eliminated. But as time goes on the interval is 
progressively shortened, until at last sensing and perceiving take 
place as they normally should, almost simultaneously* 

71 



THE ART OF SEEING 


TECHNIQUES OF FLASHING 

Flashing, like swinging, can be practised during the activities 
of everyday life. For those whose vision is defective, the temp- 
tation to stare is always strong. Resist i t^ and acquire instead the 
habit of taking rapid glances at things, then averting or momen- 
tarily closing the eyes and remembering what was sensed. Blll- 
boar4s»and^QpritQnts provide excellent material on which to 
practise flashing, as one walks or is carried past them in car or 
bus. Xhe mental attitude of one who is looking at the world in 
quici, brief flashes should be one of easy indifference. Just as, 
while swinging, one lets the world go by without making any 
effort to get to know it in detail, so, while flashing, one should 
rid one’s mind of any over-anxious desire to see, and just be con- 
tent to glance, first outwards at the physical object, then inwards 
at the memory-image of it. If the inward image corresponds 
with the outward object, as seen at a second and nearer glance, 
well and good. If it fails to correspond, but is merely a blur, 
that also is well and good. Nothing is so unfavourable to seeing 
as the competitive, prize- winning, test-passing spirit Efforts on 
the part of the conscious ‘P defeat their own object Jt is jyhen 
you stop^nyin^jo^ 

Casual flashing should be supplemented by drills during^ 
geriqdi s^c^c^Uy set aside for the purp ose. The objects^ used 
m these drills should be fairly small, simple, clear-cut and familiar. 
Here, for example, are some effective procedures, in which use 
is made of a set of dominoes. 

Relax the eyes by palming for a few moments ; then pick up a 
domino at random, hold it out at arm’s length, pass the eyes 
across .it in a quick glance and immediately close them. Even if 
the dots were not distinctly seen, it is probable that they were 
sensed, and that the sensing will have left a trace which can be 
revived as a memory-image. With the eyes still closed tell your- 
self what you remember to have made out of the upper half of 
the domino, then of the lower half. Open the eyes and, if neces- 

7 ^ 



FLASHING 

sary, bring the domino nearer for a verifioation of your guess. 
If the guess was right, well and good. If it was wrong, well and 
good. Take another domino and start again. 

A more elaborate version of the same procedure is as follows. 
Take a dozen dominoes and stand them in a row along the edge 
of a table. Seat yourself in front of them at the limit of con- 
venient seeing. Swing your eyes from left to right along the row, 
counting the dominoes as rapidly as you possibly can. (This sets 
the immobilized eyes and attention shifting at unaccustomed 
speed, and is a most salutary exercise in itself.) Then bring the 
eyes back to the first domino and, closing the lids, name the 
numbers in the upper and lower halves respectively. Open the 
eyes again and verify your guess. Then count the whole row 
once again and, glancing back to the second domino, flash, close, 
and name the numbers. Continue counting and flashing, imtil 
you reach the end of the line. 

If your eyes are myopic, and it is hard to see at anything but 
short range, perform this drill for the first time within easy seeing 
distance; then move back and repeat. Familiarity with the 
dominoes will eliminate mental hazards and make the more dis- 
tant seeing easier. It is possible in this way gradually to stretch 
the range of vision. 

Where distant vision is easy, and difficulty is experienced only 
at the near point, this process should be reversed. Begin at some 
distance away; then move closer and go through the drill again. 


73 



CHAPTER XII 


Shifting 

P RIMARILY designed to encourage mental and ocular mobility, 
the exercises described in the preceding chapters also serve, 
indirectly, to teach the art of central fixation. Having learnt, by 
means of tihiein, to keep the eyes and attention in constant move- 
ment, and being therefore less subject than before to the vice of 
mental and physical staring, we may safely proceed to a some- 
what more direct approach to central fixation. jEy^iiow, how- 
ever, the approach will not be completely direct. Before attempt- 
ing to become fully conscious of &e fact that we always see one 
small area more distinctly than all the rest, we shall be well 
advised to take some simple lessons in the art of continuous and 
concentrated looking. Swinging encourages the eyes and mind 
to make movements of considerable amplitude, and flashing 
teaches rapidity of motion and interpretative reaction. It is now 
necessary to teach ourselves small-scale shifting; for it is upon 
this small-scale shifting of eyes and mind that continuous, con- 
centrated and attentive seeing depends. As I have pointed out 
before, the structure of the eyes and the nature of the mind are 
such that normal vision simply cannot take place without inces- 
sant small-scale shifting. 

When regarding any object continuously and attentively, 
people with normal vision keep their eyes and attention shift- 
ing unconsciously in a series of almost imperceptibly small 
movemSifs from point People wtffdefea vision, 

' contrary, greatly reduce the number of such move- 
ments and tend to stare. It is therefore necessary for them to 
build up consciously the habit of small-scale shifting whidi 
th^ acquired unconsciously during childhood and subsequently 
lost. 


74 



SHIFTING 


ANALYTICAL LOOKING 

The best way to do this is to leam to ‘ look analytically * at any 
object you wish to consider with close attention. Do not stare ; 
stop trying to see all parts of the object equally clearly at the same 
time. Instead, deliberately tell yourself to see it piece-meal, sens- 
ing and perceiving, one at a time, all the more significant parts of 
which it is composed. 

For example, when looking at a house, note the number of 
windows, chimneys and doors. Follow with your eyes the out- 
line of its silhouene against the sky. Let your glance run hori- 
zontally along tfie line of the eayes^ and vertically up and down 
the wall spaces between the windows. And so on. 

This kind of analj^cal looking is recommended in all systems 
designed to improve the powers of memory and concentration. 
It enables the looker to form clear mental concepts of what he 
has seen. Instead of staring and vaguely recording an image, to 
which he gives the name of ‘house,* the person who does his 
looking analytically will be able to tell you a number of interest- 
ing and significant facts about that house — that it has, let us say, 
four windows and a front door on the ground floor and five win- 
dows above, one chimney at either end, and a tiled roof, ^{his 
detajJledJaujwledgfii?^^^ hQUSe,.whid;iis the resdt of aiw^ 
looki ng, wi ll tend to improve Ae vision of iSie same object when 
regarded on su bsequent occas ions. Tor we see most clearly 
Silngs wHich are familiar; and an increase in our conceptual 
knowledge of an object always tends to facilitate the sensing of 
that object in the future. Thus we see that analytical looking not 
merely improves vision there and then, by compelling the eyes 
and mind to shift continuously from point to point ; it also hdps 
to improve vision at all later dates, by increasing our concepti^ 
knowledge of the object regarded, and so making it seem more 
familiar and therefore easier to sense and perceive. 

The process of analytical looking can be profitably applied 
even to such extremely familiar objects as letters, numerals, 

75 



THE ART OF SEEING 

advertising slogans and the faces of one’s relatives and friends. 
However well we may think we know such things, we shall 
almost certainly find, if we take to looking at them analytically, 
that we can get to know them a good deal better, ^^en you... 
look at letters or numerals, run the eyes over their outlines j 
observe the shapes of the pieces of background in contact with 
them, or included within them ; count the number of comers on 
a block capital letter or large numeral. If you do this, the eyes 
and attention will be forced to do a great deal of small-scale shift- 
ing, which will improve the vision ; and at the same time you 
will learn a great many hitherto unrecognized facts, the know- 
ledge of which will help you to do a better and more rapid job of 
sensing on future occasions. 

Persons with defective sight tend to do some of their intensest 
and most rigid staring when conversing with their fellow humans. 
Faces are very important to us, since it is by observing their 
changes of expression that we acquire much of our most valuable 
information about the thoughts, feelings and dispositions of those 
with whom we come in contact. To obtain this information, 
people with defective vision make the most strenuous efforts to 
see the faces of those who surround them. In other words, they 
stare harder than usual. The result is discomfort and embarrass- 
ment for the persons stared at, and poorer vision for the starer. 
The remedy is analytical looking. Do not stare at faces, in the 
vain hope of seeing every part of them as clearly as every other 
part. Instead, shift the regard rapidly over the face you are 
looking at — from eye to eye, from ear to ear, from mouth to 
forehead. You will see the details of the face and its expression 
more clearly ; and at the same time, to the person you are looking 
at, you will not seem to be staring — merely looking in a relaxed 
and easy way, with eyes to which your rapid, small-scale shifting 
imparts the brilliancy and sparkle of mobility. 

Habits of continuous and small-scale shifting should be de- 
liberately cultivated on all occasions, during the day’s activities, 
when there is need for prolonged and concentrated seeing, either 

76 



SHIFTING 

at the near or the far point. There are also certain drills, which 
it is well to practise during periods specially set aside for the ^ 
purpose. 

Teachers of the art of seeing have devised a considerable num- 
ber of shifting drills, all of them effective if properly practised. 
In this place I shall mention only one — a particularly good ex- 
ample of its kind — developed by Mrs. Margaret D. Corbett, and 
described in her book. How to Improve Your Eyes. 

The only piece of material needed for the practice of this drill 
is a sheet from one of those large, tear-off calendars, in which the 
current month is printed in large type across the upper part of 
the page, while the previous and succeeding months appear below 
in much smaller type. Inasmuch as it offers type of different 
sizes, such a sheet possesses most of the advantages of the gradu- 
ated Snellen Chart, used by oculists for testing vision. Inasmuch 
as a row of consecutive numbers presents no mental hazards, it 
possesses none of the Snellen Chart’s disadvantages — unfamili- 
arity and the intent to confuse and deceive, almost always present 
in the minds of those who design such devices for testing vision. 
Since our aim is not to test, but to improve sight, we shall do 
well to make use of the most familiar, and therefore the most 
visible and confidence-creating objects upon which to exercise. 
A calendar fulfils these conditions perfectly, and possesses the 
further merit of not having the unpleasant associations of the 
Snellen Chart. Most children and many adults dislike having 
their eyes examined, and become so nervous, when tested, that 
they see much worse than at ordinary times. Consequently, the 
Snellen Chart is apt to be surrounded, for them, by a kind of aura 
of disagreeableness, which makes it one of the least visible of 
objects. That is why Snellen Charts should be used for visual 
self-education only by those to whom they are emotionally 
neutral, and only when the user is completely familiar with every 
line of graduated type, from the big t wo-hundred-fopt letter at 
the top to the tiny ten-foot letters a t the bottom of Ae card. If 
these conditiotg are not fulf^ied, i^e Snellen Chart may easily 

77 



THE ART OF SEEING 

prove a source of anxiety and strain. A good teacher will note 
his pupil’s tendency towards strain and take steps to prevent it 
from coming tg^a head. Consequently, it is always safe for a 
good teaser to make use of the Snellen Chart as an instrument 
of visual training. The self-instructed will do better to start, at 
any rate, with other training material. 

THE CALENDAR DRILL 

In working with the calendar, we begin by loosening up the 
staring mind and eyes by means of a procedure very similar to 
that employed in one of the domino drills. Hang the calendar 
on a wall, at a level with your eyes when you are seated. See 
that the sheet is well illuminated, either by direct or reflected sun- 
light, or (if the sun is not shining) by ordinary daylight or a 
strong lamp. Draw up a chair, and sit down in front of it, at a 
point from which the larger print can be seen without difiiculty. 
Palm the eyes for a little, then set to work in the following 
way. 

Turn the head to the left, as though you were glancing over 
your shoulder ; then swing it back, gendy and not too fast, until 
the eyes rest on the figure ‘ one ’ of the large-type calendar. Take 
note of the figure, then close the eyes and breathe deeply and 
easily, swinging your head a litde as you do so, in order to keep 
the rhythm of your movement unbroken. After a few seconcb 
turn to look over the right shoulder, re-open the eyes and swing 
them back until they rest on the figure *two.* Close again as 
before, turn to the left and swing back to the * three.’ And 
so on. 

When swinging down the line towards the selected figure, 
always let the regard travel in the white space immediately below 
the print. A blank surface, such as the background to printed 
words or numerals, presents no difiiculties to the interpreting 
mind and cannot, therefore, be a source of strain. Consequendy, 
when the regard is made to move along the white space imme- 
diately under the line of type, the mind reaches its objective in a 

78 



SHIFTING 

state of relaxation — ^with the result that the attention and the eyes 
can do their work of rapid, small-scale shifting and central fixa- 
tion under the best possible conditions. 

After going through the whole month, or as much of it as you 
have time for, palm the eyes for a little, and proceed to the next 
phase of the drill. As this procedure demands a more attentive 
kind of looking than the preceding exercise, you will find your- 
self more than ordinarily tempted to hold the breath. Resist the 
temptation and, during all the time you are at practice, keep the 
breaffimg going consciously at a little more than its average 
amplitude. 

Glance at the figure * one ’ in the large-type calendar, then drop 
the eyes to the corresponding figure in the small-type calendar 
at the bottom of the sheet to the left. Look at it only for a 
moment, then close and relax for a few seconds. Open the eyes 
once more on the figure ‘one* in the large-t3T)e calendar, and 
drop to the ‘one* in the small-type calendar to the right. Close 
the eyes again in an easy, relaxed way, and keep the breathing 
going. Then re-open — this time on the large ‘two.* Drop to 
the small ‘ two * on the left. Close, breathe, re-open on the large 
‘two,* and drop to the small ‘two* on the right. Close again, 
breathe, and continue with the other numbers in the same way, 
either to the end of the month or, if the drill seems tiring, to the 
end of the first week or fortnight. 

At first there may be difficulty in seeing the small-type nu- 
merals. If there is, do not linger over them, or make an effort 
to see them. Instead of that, adopt the technique described in 
the chapter on flashing. Glance easily and unconcernedly at die 
small number; then, in the brief period during which the eyes 
are closed, note whether there is any memory-image of it. You 
will be aided in this search for the indistinct image of the smaller 
numeral by your clearer memory of the larger but otherwise 
exacdy similar numeral. Knowing just what it is you should 
have seen, you will soon find yourself seeing it — ^at fiist, perhaps, 
unconsciously, as the memory-image of something only dinily 

79 



THE ART OF SEEING 

sensed; then consciously and with increasing clarity, at the 
moment of sensing. 

After an interval of palming, proceed to the next phase of the 
drill. With eyes closed, think of any number between one and 
thirty-one. Let us assume that you begin by thinking of the 
number ‘seventeen.’ Open the eyes and, as quickly as you pos- 
sibly can, locate ‘seventeen,’ first on the large- type calendar, then 
on the small calendar on the left. Close and breathe. Then 
re-open on the large ‘seventeen’ and drop to the corresponding 
small number on the right. Close once more, breathe, think of 
another number, and go through the same procedure. After ten 
or a dozen repetitions, you will be ready to go on to the next 
phase. 

In this drill we return to the small-scale shift, which we learn 
to practise systematically, with a very short rhythmic swing, on 
such objects as letters and numerals. Look at the large ‘one.’ 
Pay attention first to the top of the numeral, then to the base; 
then shift the eyes and mind once more to the top and again to 
the base. Up and down, up and down, two or three times. 
When you have done this, close the eyes in a relaxed way and 
breathe deeply but gently. Then re-open the eyes and repeat the 
procedure on the large ‘two.’ After going through half the 
month in this way, drop to one of the small-type calendars and 
begin again, drawing your chair a little nearer, if necessary. 

The procedure should be varied by sometimes making the 
shift horizontally, swinging from one side of the numeral to the 
other side, instead of up and down, in a vertical direction. Fur- 
thermore, do not confine yourself exclusively to the numerals. 
Work also on letters — ^the sun., mon., tub., and so on, of the 
abbreviated days of the week. Do the small-scale swinging 
shift from top to bottoih of these letters, and from side to side, 
and, in the case of the broader and more angular ones, from 
comer to comer, diagonally. Letters and numerals are among 
the most familiar objects in our artificial world, and among the 
objects which it is most important for us to see clearly. It is 

8o 



SHIFTING 

therefore specially desirable that we should acquire the habit of 
small-scale shifting when we regard these objects. Conscious 
practice of the swinging shift, just described, will end by build- 
ing up a beneficent automatism. Whenever we regard a letter 
or numeral, we shall tend, unconsciously and automatically, to 
practise the small-scale shift, which compels the eyes and mind 
to do their work by central fixation and, in this way, improves 
our sensing, our perceiving and that end-product of sensing and 
perceiving, our vision. In the chapters dealing with the mental 
side of seeing, I shall describe procedures in which this tech- 
nique of the small-scale swinging shift is combined with tech- 
niques for the development of memory and imagination, and so 
rendered still more valuable. But even in its simple form, as I 
have described it in the preceding paragraphs, the procedure is 
remarkably effective. X^Tiile practising these calendar drills you 
will constantly be struck by the way in which vision improves 
when the small-scale swingingshift is made use of. The numeral 
or letter, which appeared so dim and hazy when you first looked 
at it, will come up into clear definition as you shift your attention 
a few times from top to base, or from side to side. The same 
technique should be carried over into the ordinary activities of 
life, ‘^^en confronted by letters or numerals you cannot clearly 
distinguish, try the small-scale swinging shift on them, and they 
will tend to brighten and grow more definite. 

This particular kind of shitting is simply analytical looking 
with a regular rhythm. Regular rhythmic movement is always 
relaxing, even when repeated only a few times, and this is why 
the small-scale swinging shift is so effective in promoting good 
vision. It is, unfortunately, impracticable to use this swinging 
shift on all classes of objects. On such small, clearly demarcated 
and thoroughly familiar objects as numerals and letters it is easy 
to perform the swinging shift. But where the object is lai^ 
relatively unfiimiliar, indeterminate or in motion, it is not feasible, 
for the simple reason that either there are no known and definite 
land-marks, no clearly outlined boundaries, between which to 
F 8i 



THE ART OF SEEING 

do the repeated shift, or, if there are such land-marks and bound- 
aries, the area covered by the eyes, as they shift back and forth 
from one to the other, will be so small in comparison with the 
total area of the object that an improved knowledge of that area 
will not necessarily give an improved knowledge of the whole. 
\ Consequently, in the case of large, indeterminate and unfamiliar 
I objects, the best technique of looking remains the rapid analytical 
\ regard, without repetitive rhythm. The effectiveness of this 
analytical regard may be enhanced by counting the salient features 
of the object. If there are many such features, do not try to 
count them with pedantic accuracy. What is important is not 
to know the correct total, but to make the attention realize that 
large numbers of such features exist and must be noted. So 
count only the first three or four; then skim over the rest and 
make a guess at the total, not caring whether your guess is correct 
or not. Your goal is to see more clearly, and that goal will have 
been achieved, if the pretence at counting stimulates the eyes and 
attention to do their work of rapid, small-scale shifting, in act 
after act of central fixation. 

And now, having learnt the means whereby central fixation 
may be rendered habitual and automatic, let us take the last step 
in this long series of exercises, and make ourselves fully con- 
scious of the fact that we see best only a small part of what we 
are looking at. For many of those who have undertaken the 
exercises, there will be no need to take this step, for the 
good reason that they have already acquired that awareness. It 
is hard to look at things analytically, or to practise the small- 
scale swinging shift, without discovering the fact of central 
fixation. 

Those who have not yet observed the phenomenon fnay now, 
without any serious risk of strain or effort, take the following 
steps to convince themselves of its regular occurrence. Hold up 
the forefingers of either hand about two feet from the face and 
about eighteen inches apart. Look first at the right forefinger# 
It will be seen more distinctly than the left, which appears at the 

8a 



SHIFTING 

extreme edge of the field of vision. Now turn the head and pay 
attention to the left finger, which will at once be seen more clearly 
than the right. Now bring the fingers closer together. Look 
from one to the other when they are a foot apart, then six inches, 
then three inches, then one inch, then when they are actually 
touching. In all cases, the finger regarded by the eyes and at- 
tended to by the mind, will be seen more distinctly than the 
other. 

Repeat the same process on a letter — say a large E from a front- 
page newspaper headline. Pay attention first to the top bar of 
the E, and notice that it seems clearer and blacker than the other 
two bars. Then shift attention to the bottom bar, and note 
how that is now the clearest of the three. Do the same with 
the middle bar. Next pick out a smaller E from some less 
strident^ headline and repeat the process. You will find, if 
the eyes |ind mind have lost their old bad habit of staring, 
that even in the smaller lettef there is a perceptible difference 
in distinctness between the bar which is actually being attended 
to and the bars which are not being attended to. As time 
goes on, it will be possible to observe differences in distinct- 
ness between the upper and lower part even of a small 
twelve-point or ei^t-point letter. The more perfect the 
sight, the smaller the area which can be seen with maximum 
distinctness. 

To confirm the fact of central fixation, one may reverse the 
process described above and do one’s best to see every part of a 
large letter, or every feature of a friend’s face, equally clearly at 
the same time. The result will be an almost immediate sense of 
strain and a lowering of vision. One cannot with impimity 
attempt to do the physically and psychologically impossible. 
But that, precisely, is what the person with defective sight is per- 
petually doing when he peers with such an anxious intentness at 
the world around him. Once you have convinced yourself ex- 
perimentally of this fact, and of the other, complementary fact 
that good vision comes only when the eyes and mind make 

83 




CHAPTER XIII 


The Mental Side of Seeing 

T he eyes provide us with the visual sense impressions, which 
are the raw materials of sight. The mind takes these raw 
materials and works them up into the finished product — ^normal 
vision of external objects. 

When sight is sub-normal, the defect may be due to causes 
belonging to one or other of two main categories, phj^ical and 
mental. The eyes, or the nervous system connected with them, 
may suflfer accidental injury, or be affected by disease-^in which 
case the supply of the raw materials of vision will be cut off at 
the source. Alternatively, the efficiency of the mind, as the 
interpreter of crude sensa^ may be impaired, owing to any 
one of a great number of possible psychological maladjust- 
ments. When this happens, the efficiency of the eye as a 
sensing-apparatus is also impaired; for the human mind-body 
is a single unit, and psychological mal-fimctioning is reflected ' 
in physiological mal-fimctioning. With the impairment of 
the physiological functioning of the eye, the quality of the 
raw materials, which it furnishes, falls off; and this in turn 
increases the inefficiency of the mind as a worker-up of such 
materials. 

Orthodox ophthalmologists are content to palliate the symp- 
toms of poor sight by means of * those valuable crutches,* arti- 
ficial lenses. They work only on the sensing eye and ignore 
completely the selecting, perceiving and seeing mind. It is a case 
of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. Qbvipiisly.jatMl^^ 
th(|i^.trfit, any rational, any genuinely aetiological treatment 
of ^feedve vision must take account of the mental side of seeing. 
In the method of visual re-educarion developed by Dr. W. H. 
Bates and his followers, due attention is paid, not merdy to the 

85 



THE ART OF SEEING 

provider of raw materials, but also to the producer of the finished 
article. 

Of the psychological factors whidi prevent the mind from 
doing a good job of interpretation, some are closely related to 
the process of perceiving and seeing, while others are not. In 
the latter category we must place all those negative emotions 
which are so fruitful a source of mal-functioning and, finally, of 
organic disease in every part of the body, including the eyes. T o 
the former belong certain negative emotions specifically related 
to the act of seeing, and certain mal-functionings of the memory 
and imagination — ^mal-functionings which lower the mind's efli- 
dency as an interpreter of sensa. 

^ To treat of the methods by which negative emotions may be 
avoided or dispelled is beyond the scope of this little book. I 
can only repeat in different words what was said in the opening 
section. When the conscious is afflicted to excess by such 
emotions as f gar^ anger, worry y ?^vy> ambition, the^nmd^ 

and body ^e likely To suffer. One of the important psycho- 
physical functions most commonly impaired is that of vision. 
Negative emotions impair vision, partly through direct action 
upon the neryou§^.gIanciuI^ ckculatog^.^^^ partly by 
lowmng the efl5den<?y,of the raipd. It is literally true that people 
become ‘bImJ with rage'; that fear may make the world ‘go 
black’ or ‘swim before the eyes’; that worry can be so ‘numb- 
ing’ that people cease to be able to see or hear properly, and are 
therefore frequendy involved in serious acddents. Nor are the 
effects of such negative emotions merely transient and temporary. 
If they are intense enough and suffidendy protracted, negative 
feelings such as worry, disappointed love and competitiveness, 
can produce in their victims serious organic derangements — for 
example, gastric ulcer, tuberculosis and coronary disease. They 
can also produce lasting mal-functioning of the seeing organs, 
mental and physical — ^mal-functioning that manifests itself in 
mental strain, nervous muscular tension and errors of refraction. 
Anybody who wants normal vision should dierefoie do evety- 

86 



THE MENTAL SIDE OF SEEING 

thing possible to avoid or get rid of these per nicious negative 
emotions, and in the meanwhile should learn the art of seeing, 
^ tnems of which the disasjrous dfecff such pmorionRiipnn 
theley^ a^ gnmpletelY 9r partia^y pndone. 

This seems to be all diat can be usefully said, in this place at 
any rate, about those mental obstacles to normal vision which 
are not immediately connected with the act of seeing. For a full 
discussion of negative emotions, and for methods of dealing 
with them, one must turn to the psychiatrists, the moralists and 
the writers on^ascetical and mysti^ religion. In a brief intro- 
duction to the art of seeing, I can only mention the problem, 
and pass on. 

We have now to consider those mental obstacles to normal 
vision which are intimately bound up with the actual seeing 
process. Q^rtain negative jeniQtipn^^ associated with 

the act of aeeingjpy people with sub-normal vision, have already 
been discussed. Thus, I have described die jbaiusf-ligbt, and 
the means by which that fear may be out. I have also 
mentioned that greed for vision, that over-anxiety to see too 
much too well, which results in misdirection of attention and 
in mental and physical staring; and I have dwelt at great length 
on the procedures, by means of which these bad habits may be 
changed, and the undesirable emotions, responsible for them, 
dispelled. 

We have now to consider another fear, intimately connected, 
in the minds of those suffering from defective vision, with the 
act of seeing, and responsible in some degree for the perpet uation 
of visual mal-functioning. I refer to the fear oinot seem^ 
properly. 

Let us trace the ggnealoj^ of this fear. The art of seeing in 
a normal and natural way is accpiired unconsciously during 
infancy and childhood. TTien, owing to physical disease or, 
more often, to mental strain, good seeing habits are lost ; normal 
and natural functioning is replaced by abnormal and unnatural 
functioning; the mind loses its efficiency as an interpreter, the 

87 



THE ART OF SEEING 

physical conformat^Qn of the eye is distorted and the net result 
is ^t vision is impaired. From sub-normal vision there springs, 
in most cases, a certain chronic apprtshension. The person who 
is used to seeing badly is afraid that he will see badly next time. 
In the minds of many^alBicted men and women, this fearful 
anticipation amounts to a i&Ked, intense, pessimistic c^viction 
that, for them, normal seeing is henceforth impossible. 

Such an attitude is paralysing to the minds and eyes of those 
who entertain it. They go into every new seeing-situation afraid 
that they won’t see, or even convinced in advance that they can’t 
see. The result, not unnaturally, is that they don’t see. Positive 
faith enables a man to move mountains. Conversely, negative 
faith can prevent hini from lifting a 

In seeing, as in all other activities of mind and mind-body, it 
is essential, if we are to do our work adequately, that we should 
cultivate an attitude of confidence combined with indifference — 
confidence in our capacity to do the job, and indifference to 
possible failure. We must feel sure that we can succeed some 
time, if we use the proper means and exercise sufficient patience; 
and we must not feel disappointed or annoyed if in fact we don’t 
succeed this particular time. 

Confidence qntemp^ed by indifference may be almost as 
disastrous as the Iac3c of confidence; for if we feel sure that we 
are going to succeed, and are distressed and affronted every time 
we fail, confidence will only be a source of negative emotions, 
which will, in their turn, increase the probability of failure. 

For the person whose sight is sub-normal, the correct mental 
attitude may be expressed in some such words as these. *Iknow 
theoretically that defective vision can be improved. I feel 
certain that, if I learn the art of seeing, I can improve my own 
defective vision. I am practising the art of seeing as I look now, 
and it is likely that 1 shall see better than I did; but if I don’t see 
as well as I hope, I shall not feel ^etdhied ox, aggrieved, but go 
on, until better vision comes to mfc^ 


88 



CHAPTER XIV 


Memory and Imagination 

T ihe capacity for perception depends, as I have shown in an 
earlier chapter, upon the ap^ount,, t^^ kind and the avail- 
ability of past expeiriences. But past experiences e2sf for us only 
in die memory. Therefore it is true to say that perception 
depends upon mjgmory. 

Closely related to memory is imagination, which is the power 
of recombining memories in novel ways, so as to make mental 
constructions different from anything actually experienced in the 
past. The mind’s ability to interpret sensa is affected by the 
imagination as well as the memory. 

The extent to which perception and, consequendy, vision are 
dependent upon memory and imagination is a matter x)f every- 
day experience. We see familiar things more clearly than we 
see objects about which we have no stock of memories. And 
when, under emotional stress or excitement, our imagination is 
more than ordinarily active, it often happens that we interpret 
sensa as manifestations of the objects with which our imagination 
is busy, rather than as manifestations of the objects actually 
present in the external world. 

The old sempstress, who cannot read without glasses, can see 
to thread her needle with the naked eye. Why? Because she 
is more familiar with needles than with print. 

In the book he is reading, a person with normal vision comes 
upon a strange, polysyllabic, technical word, or a phrase in some 
foreign language of which he is ignorant. The letters of which 
these words are composed are precisely similar to those in which 
the rest of the book is printed; and yet this person finds it 
definitely harder to see them. Why? Because the rest of the 
book is in plain Ei^lish, while the illegible words are in German, 

89 



THE ART OF SEEING 

shall we say, or Russian, or the Graeco-Latin i srgo n of one of 
the sciences. 

A man who can work all day at the office without undue 
fatigue of the eyes, is worn out by an hour at a museum, and 
comes home with a splitting headache. Why? Because, at the 
office, he is following a regular routine and looking at words and 
figures the like of which he looks at every day; whereas, in the 
museum, everything is strange, novel and outlandish. 

Or take the case of the lady who is terrified of snakes, and 
who mistakes what to everyone else is obviously a length of 
rubber tubing for an enormous yipera ^Her vision, as tested on 
the Snellen Chart, is normal. Why, then, does she see what isn’t 
there? Because her imagination had been in the habit of using 
old memories of snakes to construct alarming images of the 
creatures, and because, under the influence of her imagination, 
her mind misinterpreted the sensa connected with the rubber 
tubing in such a way that she vividly ‘saw’ a viper. 

Such examples, which could be multiplied almost indefinitely, 
leave no doubt that perception and therefore vision depend upon 
memory and, to a lesser degree, imagination. We see best the 
things about which, or the lUces of which, we have a good stock 
of memories. And the more accurate these memories are, the 
more thorough-going and analytical the knowledge they embody, 
the better (all other things being equal) will be the vision. In- 
deed, the vision may be better, even when other things are not 
equal. Thus, the veteran microscopist may have worse sight, as 
measured on the Snellen Chart, than the first-year undergraduate 
whom he is instructing. Nevertheless, when he looks through 
his instrument, he will be able, thanks to his accurate memories 
of similar objects, to see the slide much more clearly than the 
novice can. 

The truth that perception and vision are largely dependent 
upon past experiences, as recorded by the memory, has been 
recognized for centuries. But, so far as I am aware, the first 
person ever to pay any serious thought to what I may call the 

90 



MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 

utilitarian and therapeutic corollaries of this truth was Dr. 

H. Bates. Helt was“ who first asked the question: ‘How 
can this dependence of perception and vision upon memory and, 
to a lesser degree, imagination be exploited so as to improve 
people's sight ? ' And having asked the question, he did not rest 
until he had found a number of simple and practical answers. 
His followers have been working for many years on the same 
problem, and they too have produced their quota of devices for 
improving vision by working on the memory and imagination. 
Here, I shall give an account of some of the more effective of 
these procedures. But first a few more words about certain 
significant characteristics of that most mysterious mental activity, 
remembering. 

Perhaps the most important fact about memory, in its relation 
to perception and vision, is that it will not work well under strain. 
Everyone is familiar with the experience of forgetting a name, 
straining to recapture it and ignominiously failing. ^ Jljen^f q^e^ 
is wise, one will stop trying to remembet and allpw^^^ to 
sink into a conditioi|,Qf.a^ the chances are that the 

name will comehobbing up into consciousness of its own accprc}* 
Memory works best, it would seem, when the mind is in a state 
of dynamic relaxation. 

Experience has taught the great majority of people that there 
is a correlation between good memory and dynamic relaxation 
of mind — ^ condition which always tends to be accompanied by 
dynamic relaxation of the body as well. 

They have never formulated the fact explicitly to themselves; 
but they know it unconsciously, or, to be more precise, they 
consistently act as though they knew it unconsciously. When 
they try to remember something, they instinctively *let go,* 
because they have learnt, in the course of innumerable repetitions 
of the act of remembering, that the condition of Getting go* is 
the most favourable for good memory. Now, this habit of 
*letting go* in orckr to remember persists, in many cases, even 
when bad habits of mental and physical tension have been built 

9 ^ 



THE ART OF SEEING 

up in relation to other activities, such as seeing. Consequently 
it often happens that, when people start remembering, they auto- 
matically and unconsciously put themselves into that condition 
of dynamic mental relaxation which is propitious, not only for 
memory, but also for vision. This would seem to be the explana- 
tion of the fact (first observed, so far as I know, by Dr. Bates, 
but easily observable by anyone who is ready to fulfil the neces- 
sary conditions) that the simpk act of remcm^ 
clearly and distinctly brings an inmediate improvement of 
vision. 

In some cases of defective vision, the state of mental and 
physical tension is so extreme, that the sufferers have lost the 
habit of ‘ letting go,* even when Remembering. The result is that 
they have the greatest difficulty inrecalling anything. Experienced 
teachers of the Bates Method have told me of pupils who came 
to them, incapable of remembering, ten seconds after the event, 
whether they had been looking at letters^,' numerals or pictures. 
As soon as the eyes and mind had been somewhat relaxed by 
means of palming, simning, swinging and shifting, the power to 
remember returned. The imperfect vision and the state of virtual 
in^dlity, into which the inability to remember had plunged 
these unfortunate people, were due to the same fundamental 
cause — improper functioning, associated with a high degree of 
mental and nervous muscular strain. 

Fortunately, such cases are not common; and the majority 
of those who suffer from defects of vision, due to, or aggravated 
by, mental and physical strain, still preserve the good habit, 
acquired unconsciously through the teachings of everyday ex- 
perience, o^Mettiag^*\wheneYer they make 2ui act p£cej|XC3Da- 
^ring. That is why it is possible, with most individuals, to 
maSe^e of memory as an aid to mind-body relaxation and, 
through mind-body relaxation, to vision. A person with 
defective sight looks, let us say; at a printed letter and fails to see 
it distinctly. If he closes his eyes, Mets go * and remembers some- 
thing which it is easy for him' to remember — ^remembers it 

9 ^ 



MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 

clearly and distinctly — ^he will find, on re-opening his eyes, that 
his vision has perceptibly improved. 

Because it is impossible to remember anything clearly without 
Metting go,’ improvement of vision will follow the act of remem- 
bering any object or episode, even one totally unconnected with 
the thing which, at the moment, it is desired to see. But if the 
memory is actually of this thing, or of some similar thing seen 
in the past, then the act of remembering will be doubly eflfective 
in improving vision; for it will result, not only in producing a 
beneficent relaxation of the mind-body, but also in an increased 
familiarity with the object under consideration. But we see most 
clearly those things with which we are most familiar. Conse- 
quently, any procedure which makes us more familiar with the 
object we are trying to see makes it easier for us to see it. But 
^yery act^^f- remembering that object, or another one like it,“ 
increases our familiarity with it, and so improves our vision of 
it It is because of this fact that several of the most important 
memory and imagination drills are concerned with the detailed 
remembering or visualizing- of the letters and figures which we 
are so constandy being called upon to see, both at the near point 
and in the distance. 

In the light of these preliminary explanations it will be easy, 
I hope, for the reader to understand the various procedures now 
to be described. 

MEMORY AS AN AID TO VISION 

The value of what I have called analytical looking can be 
enhanced by supplementing this procedure with deliberate acts 
of memory. Look at objects in die way described in an earlier 
chapter — shifting the attention rapidly from point to point, fol- 
lowing the oudines and counting Ae salient features of what you 
are loddng at. Then cbse your eyes, ‘let go’ and conjure up 
the-deeuest possible memory-image of what you have just seen. 

the eyes, compare this image with the reality, and repeat 
the process of analytical looking. Close the eyes, and once more 

93 



THE ART OF SEEING 

evoke the memory-image of what you have seen. After a few 
repetitions, there will be an improvement in the clarity and 
accuracy both of the memory-image and of the visual image 
recorded when the eyes are open. 

/ It is a good thing to practise these acts of analytical looking 
and remembering in relation to the objects of one’s everyday 
environment, such as the furniture of the rooms in which one 
lives and works, the shops and billboards, trees and houses of the 
streets one ordinarily frequents. This will have three good re- 
sults : it will break up the habit of staring, and encourage central 
fixation; it will compel the mind to put itself into the state of 
alert passivity, of dynamic relaxation, which alone is conducive 
to accurate remembering, and, incidentally, to clear vision; and 
it will greatly increase the mind’s knowledge of and familiarity 
with the objects it must see most frequently, and, by doing so, 
will gready facilitate the task of seeing these objects. 

Nor is this all. The procedure oudined above is also bene- 
ficial inasmuch as it teaches a proper co-ordinadon between the 
mind and its sensing-apparatus. Toq^m^y of us spend alto- 
gether too much of omJMaeiQeyntL M pne thing a ndjhialang 
of another— seeing just enough to aypidLjlinning^ into trees or 
under buses, but at die same time day-dreaming so much that, iT 
^"anyone were to ask us what we had seen, we should find it almost 
impossible to answer, for the good reason that, though we had 
sensed a great deal, we had consciously perceived almost nothing. 
This dissociation of the mind jfrom its eyes is a fnjii^i^iuse of 
impairment of vision, particularly when, as is very frequendy the 
case, the day-dreaming person sits with open eyes, staring fixedly 
and unblinkingly at one point. If you must 
your eyes, an d^ with your inw^ 3^^i^ri," ^nsabus l y follos Llhe 
episodes fabricated b y die imaginatio n. Similarly, 
wEra'e^^ged in logicaTlSfiouj^]^ do not stare at some external 
object unconnected with the problem under consideration. If 
the eyes are kept open, use them to do something relevant to the . 
intellectual processes going on within the mind. For example, 

94 



MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 

write notes which the eyes can read, or draw diagrams for them 
to study. Alternatively, if the eyes are kept closed, resist the 
temptation of immobilizing them — a temptation which is always 
strong when one is making an effort at mental concentration. Let 
the inward eye travel over imagina^ wor^ dia^ams or othe£ 
cdnstnictrbhs 

The aim at all times should be to prevent the occurrence 
of dissociations between mind and sensing-apparatus. When the 
eyes are open, make a point of seeing and of being conscious of 
what you see. When you don't want to see, but to dream or 
think, make a point of associating the eyes with your dreaming 
or thinking. By allowing the mind to go one way and the eyes 
another, you run the risk of impairing your vision, which is a 
product of the co-operation between a physical sensing-apparatus 
and a selecting and perceiving intelligence. 

IMPROVING THE MEMORY OF LETTERS 

For good as well as for evil, reading has now become one of 
the principal occupations of civilized humanity. Inability to read 
easily, whether at the near point or at a distance, is a serious 
handicap in the contemporary world. The art of reading will be 
discussed at length in one of the later chapters of this book. Here, 
I shall describe certain procedures, by means of which the forces 
of memory and imagination can be mobilized for the improve- 
ment of our vision of those basic constituents of all literature and 
science, the twenty-six letters of the alphabet and the ten 
numerals. 

One of the curious facts discovered by teachers who imdertake 
the re-education of sufferers from defective vision is that very 
large numbers of people do not have a clear mental image of the 
letters of the alphabet. Capitals, it is true, are familiar to almost 
everyone — perhaps because it is upon capital letters that the 
young child first practises the art of reading. But lower-case 
letters, though looked at hundreds of times each day, are so im- 
perfectly known that many persons find it hard to reproduce 

95 



THE ART OF SEEING 


them exactly, or to recognize a given letter from its description 
in words. This widespread ignorance of the forms of letters 
bears eloquent witness to the dissociation between eyes and mind, 
described in the preceding paragraphs. 

In this matter of reading, we are such greed y end-ga iners that 
we neglect to consider, not merely th<rpsy^hn-pl;^j^*ral means 
whereby we may accomplish the task most effectively, but also 
the external, objective means, upon which the whole process of 
reading depends, namely the letters of the alphabet. There can 
be no improvement in our ability to read until we have made our- 
selves thoroughly familiar with the letters, of which all reading 
matter is composed. Here ap.ain it is a question of combining 
analytical looking with acts ot remembering. 

Examine a letter, not with a fixed stare, but easily and with a 
rapid shift of the attention from one point to another. Close the 
eyes, Met go' and evoke the memory-image of what you have 
seen. Re-open the eyes, and check the accuracy of your memory. 
Repeat the process until the memory-image is thoroughly accur- 
ate, distinct and clear. Do the same with all the letters — and, of 
course, all the numerals as well. The exercise may be repeated 
occasionally, even when you think you know all the letters per- 


fectly. Memory can always be improved; besids§^.jfe!R..act-«^ 

and this relaxation, combined 
witElHe heightened familiarity which comes of better memory, 
will alwa 5 rs tend to improve the vision. 


When looking at letters, with the aim of familiarizing oneself 


with their forms, it is well to pay attention, not only to the black 
print, but al^a^ above all to the white backgrQund immediately 
surrounding the letters and included within them. Tliese areas 
of wKtimess a round and within le tters 
sm Jstffing N^PSettingj^ 

b^^e of its interest ui dieni, remend)ers easily. At t£e same 
time, Siere is Ie§^ ‘j^s1b3i^^ in con- 

sidering the blank background than in considering the black 
marks upon that background. It is often easier to see a letter 


96 



MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 

when it is regarded as an mtempdon of the 

paper than when it is* iooked at without conscious r^3erehce to 
the Badtground) merely as a pattern of straight and curved black 
lines. 

This process of familiarizing oneself with letters, by analytical 
looking and remembering, may profitably be supplemented by a 
drill involving the systematic iise of imagination. Examine the 
letter as before, paying attention to the shapes of the backgroimd 
aroimd and within it. Then close the ey^, *tef”g67 a 
memory-image of the letter and then deliberately imagine that 
the white background around and within it is whiter than it 
was actually seen to be — ^as white as snow or sunlit cloud or 
porcelain. 

Re-open the eyes and look again at the letter, shifting as before 
from background-shape to background-shape, and trying to see 
these shapes as white as you imagined them with your eyes shut. 
In a little while you will find that you can, without difficulty, 
create this beneficent illusion. When you succeed in doing so 
the black of the printer's ink will seem blacker by contrast, and 
there will be a perceptible improvement in vision. 

Sometimes, by way of change, one may use the imagination in , 
an analogous way upon the black letter itself. Seated before the 
calendar, pay attention first to the top of a numeral or letter, then 
to the base (or first to the left side and then to the right). After 
a few repetitions, dose the eyes, Met go’ and continue to do the 
same thing to your memory-image of the numeral or letter. 
Then, in imagination, apply two spots of intenser blackness, one 
to the top and the other to the base, or one on the left and the 
other on the right. If you find it helpful, imagine yourself apply- 
ing these spots with a fine paint brush impregnated with India 
ink. 

Shift from one blacker spot to the odier several times; than 
open the eyes and try to see die same blacker spots at the top and 
base, or on the left and right sides, of the real letter. This will 
not be difficult, because, owing to central fixation, you actually 

o 97 



THE ART OF SEEING 


will see that part of the letter or numeral, which you are attending 
to, more clearly than the rest. But imagine the spots to be even 
blacker than central fixation warrants. When you succeed in 
doing this, the whole letter will seem blacker than before, and 
will therefore be seen more clearly and remembered more dis- 
tinctly for future reference. 

These two procedures — shifting first in imagination, then in 
reality, from one area of whiter-than-actual whiteness to another 
area of whiter-than-actual whiteness, and from one more intensely 
black dot to another more intensely black dot at the opposite end 
of the letter — ^are particularly helpful in improving vision, and 
should be used (in conjunction, if possible, with palming and 
sunning) whenever the print of a book, or a distant billboard or 
notice, shows signs of blurring. 

Certain other procedures involving imagination have also 
proved their worth in visual education. The first three closely 
resemble the small-scale swinging shift — indeed, are swinging 
shifts, but of an exclusively mental kind. 

Imagine yourself seated at a writing-table, with a pad of thick 
white notepaper before you. Still in imagination, take a pen or 
a fine paint brush, dip it in India ink and, at the centre of the 
first sheet of paper, make a round black dot. Now pay atten- 
tion to the white background immediately adjoining the right 
side of the dot, then to that immediately adjoining the left, and 
repeat, swinging rhythmically back and forth. As in reality, the 
inriaginary dot will appear to move to the left, when you shift 
attention to the right, and to the right, when you shift attention 
to the left. 

The following variant on the single dot may be used if desired. 
On another sheet of imaginary paper inscribe two dots, about 
four inches apart, and between them, but about an inch below 
them, a circle of about half an inch in diameter. Imagine this 
drcle very black, and the white space within it intensely white. 
Then shift the inward eye from the dot on the right, to the dot 
on the left, and repeat the action rhydimically. The movement 

98 



MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 

of the drcle will be in the opposite direction to that of the 
attention. 

Next, in your imagination, take another sheet of paper and 
trace upon it a giant colon, composed of two big dots about half 
an inch apart, and next to it, half an inch to the right, a semi-colon 
of the same proportions. Now, shift the attention from the 
upper dot of the colon to the upper dot of the semi-colon ; then 
down to the comma of the semi-colon ; then, left, to the lower 
dot of the colon; and from that, vertically, to the upper dot. 
Repeat this rhythmic shifting round and round the square com- 
posed by the three round dots and the comma. As the mind’s 
eye travels to the right, the constellation of punctuation marks 
will appear to move to the left; as the attention descends, it will 
seem to go up ; as it shifts to the left, the apparent movement will 
be to the right ; and as it moves up to its original starting point, 
the dots will seem to descend. 

These three procedures combine the merits of the small-scale 
swinging shift with those of the imagination drill. The mind has 
to relax enough to be able to mobilize its memory-images of 
punctuation marks, and combine them into simple patterns, while 
the attention (and consequently the physical eyes) is made to 
cultivate the sight-producing habit of the small-scale swinging 
shift — a shift which, in the third procedure, becomes a rhythmic 
version of the analytical regard. 

The following procedure was devised by a Spanish follower 
of Dr. Bates, and the author of a book and various articles on the 
method. Dr. R. Amau. 

It is a kind of imaginary shifting swing — ^but a shifting swing 
with a difference, inasmuch as it seems to involve the physical 
apparatus of accommodation in ways which the ordinary swing- 
ing shift does not. 

Imagine yourself holding between the thumb and forefinger 
a ring of stout rubber or wire, sufficiently rigid to retain its cir- 
cular shape when not interfered with, but sufficiently elastic to 
assume, when squeezed, die form of an ellipse. Close the lids, 

99 



THE ART OF SEEING 

and regard this imaginary ring, running the inward eye all around 
it. Then, with your imaginary hand, gently squeeze the ring 
laterally, so that it is deformed into an ellipse with the long axis 
running vertically. Look at this ellipse for a moment, then relax 
the pressure of your hand and allow the ring to return to its 
circular form. Now, shift the position of the thumb and fore- 
finger from the sides of the ring to the top and bottom, and 
squeeze. The ring will be distorted into an ellipse with the long 
axis running horizontally. Relax the pressure, watch the ellipse 
re-transform itself into a circle, shift the position of thumb and 
forefinger to the sides of the ring and repeat the whole procedure 
ten or fifteen times, rhythmically. Exactly what happens, physio- 
logically, as one watches, in imagination, the successive trans- 
formations of circle into vertically orientated ellipse, vertically 
orientated ellipse into circle, circle into horizontally orientated 
ellipse, and horizontally orientated ellipse into circle, it is hard 
to say. But there can be no doubt, from the sensations one feels 
in and around the eye, that considerable muscular adjustments 
and re-adjustments are continually taking place as one goes 
through this cycle of visualizations. Subjectively, these sensa- 
tions seem to be the same as those experienced when one shifts 
the attention rapidly from the distance to a point very near the 
eyes and back again. Why the apparatus of accommodation 
should come into play under these conditions, it is not easy to 
understand. But fhe fact remains that it seems to do so. It is 
found empirically that this drill, while valuable in all forms of 
visual defect, is particularly useful in cases of myopia. 

Another excellent procedure, which is simultaneously an 
exercise in mind-body co-ordination, an imagination drill, and 
a small-scale shift, is * nose-writing.’ Sitting down comfortably 
in an easy chair, close your eyes and imagine that you have a 
good long pencil attached to like end of your nose. (Lovers of 
Edward L^ will remember his pictures of the *Dong.’) 
Equipped with this instrument, move your head and neck so 
as to write with yoinr protracted nose upon an imaginaxy sheet 

xoo 



MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 

of paper (or, if the pencil is thought of as being white, on an 
imaginary blackboard) eight or nine inches in front of your face. 
Begin by drawing a good-sized circle. Since your control over 
the movements of the head and neck is less perfect than your 
control of the hand, this circle will certainly look a bit angular 
and lopsided to the eyes of your imagination. Go over it half 
a dozen times, round and round, until the thickened circumfer- 
ence comes to look presentable. Then draw a line from the top 
of your circle to the bottom, and go over it six times. Draw 
another line at right angles to the first and go over that in the 
same way. Your circle will now contain a St. George^s Cross. 
Superimpose upon it a St. Andrew’s Cross, by drawing two 
diagonals, and finish off by jabbing with your imaginary pencil 
at ^e central meeting-place of the four lines. 

Tear off your scribbled sheet of paper, or, if you prefer to 
work in white on a blackboard, visualize yourself wiping away 
the chalk with a duster. Then, turning the head gendy and 
easily from one shoulder to the other, draw a large infinity sign — 
a figure of eight, lying on its side. Go over it a dozen times, 
paying attention, as the inward eye travels with the imaginary 
pencil, to the way in which the successive repetitions of the figure 
coincide or diverge. 

Wipe the blackboard once more, or prepare another clean 
sheet of paper, and, this time, use your pencil to do a litde 
writing. Begin with your own signature. Because your head 
and neck move so jerkily, it will look like the signature of an 
alcoholic illiterate. But practice makes perfect; take a new sheet 
and begin again. Do this four or five times; then write any 
other word or phrase that appeals to you. 

Like some of the other procedures described above, these 
drills may seem rather silly, childish and undignified. But this 
is not important. The important thing is diat they work. A 
litde nose-writing, followed by a few minutes of palming, will 
do wonders in relieving the fatigue of a strained mind and staring 
eyes, and will result in a perceptible temporary improvement of 

lOl 



THE ART OF SEEING 

defective vision. This temporary improvement will become 
permanent, as the normal and natural functioning fostered by 
nose-writing and the other procedures described in this book, 
becomes habitual and automatic. 

Mind and body form a single unitary whole. Consequently, 
such mental processes as remembering and imagining are facili- 
tated by the performance of bodily movements conformable to 
the objects of our thoughts — ^the kind of movements we would 
make if, instead of merely remembering and imagining, we were 
actually at work upon the things we are thinking about. For 
example, when remembering or imagining letters or numerals, it 
is often helpful to place the ball of the thumb in contact with the 
forefinger and, with it, to print the letters you are working on. 
Or, alternatively, they may be printed in nose-writing. Or again, 
if you prefer a more realistic gesture, you may pick up an 
imaginary pen and trace the signs upon an imaginary notebook. 

The aid of the body may also be enlisted through speech. As 
you remember or imagine a letter, form its name with your lips, 
or even utter it aloud. The spoken word is so intimately associ- 
ated with all our processes of thought that any familiar movement 
of the mouth and vocal cords tends automatically to evoke an 
image of the thing represented by the articulate sound, which is 
the product of that movement. Consequently, it is always easier 
to see what one is reading, when one pronounces the words 
aloud. People for whom reading is a novelty or a rather difficult 
and infrequent task — such as children, for example, and the 
imperfectly educated — ^realize this fact instinctively. In order to 
sharpen their vision for the unfamiliar symbols on the page before 
them, they habitually read aloud. Peo|Je with defective vision 
are people whcm dieir disability has reduced, so to speak, to 
the cultural ranks. However great their learning, they have 
become like children or illiterates, for whom the printed word is 
something strange and hard to decipher. This being so, they 
should, while re-acquiring the art of seeing, do the same as the 
primitives do — form the words they read with thek lips and 

xoa 



MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 

point at them with their fingers. The movement of the organs of 
speech will evoke auditory and visual images of the words 
associated with them. Memory and imagination will be stimu- 
lated, and the mind will do its work of interpretation, perception 
and seeing with increased efficiency. Meanwhile the pointing 
finger (particularly if it is kept almost imperceptibly moving 
beneath the word which is being looked at) will help to keep the 
eyes centralized and rapidly shifting over a small area of maxi- 
mum clarity of vision. In his own way and for his own purposes, 
the child is eminently wise. When disease or mal-functioning has 
reduced us, so far as reading is concerned, to the child’s level, we 
should not be ashamed to avail ourselves of this instinctive 
wisdom. 


103 



CHAPTER XV 


Myopia 

A u. persons suffering from defective vision will derive benefit 
from practising the fundamental techniques of the art of 
seeing described in the preceding chapters. In the present chapter 
and that which follows I shall indicate wa3rs in which certain of 
these fundamental techniques may be adapted to the needs of 
persons suffering spedfically from short sight, long sight, astig- 
matism and squint, and shall also give an account of some new 
procedures, particularly effective in these various manifestations 
of disease, hereditary idiosyncrasy and, above all, mal-fiinc- 
tioning. 

ITS CAUSES 

M}ropia is almost invariably an acquired condition, which 
makes its appearance during childhood. It has been attributed 
to the dose work which school children are compelled to per- 
form ; and great efforts have been made in all civilized countries 
to reduce the amount of such work done within a given period, 
to enlarge the type of text-books and to improve lighting con- 
ditions in schools. The effects of these reforms have been 
entirely disappointing. Myopia is even commoner today than it 
was in the past 

This deplo^le state of thii^ seems to be due to three prin- 
dpal causes. First, the attempt to improve the environmental 
conditions prevailitu in sdiools have failed, in certain respects, 
to go far enough. ''S^nd, in other respects, the reforms carried 
out have been misguided. third, tiie reformers have almost 
completdy n^ected psychological reasons for defective 
visiott — a n^ect which is particularly serious in die case of 
diildten. 


104 



MYOPIA 


It is in the direction of better lighting that the reformers have 
as yet not gone far enough. Dr. Luckiesh has demonstrated 
experimentally that visual tasks become easier, and that muscular 
nervous tension declines, as the intensity of illumination on a 
given task is increased from one to a hundred foot-candles. He 
made no experiments with higher intensities, but considers that 
there is every reason to suppose that muscular nervous tension 
(the index of strain and fatigue) would continue to fall off with a 
further increase of illumination to a thousand foot-candles. Now, 
a child in a well-built, well-lit modem school may think himself 
extremely lucky if he gets as much as twenty foot-candles of 
illumination to work with. In many schools he will be given as 
little as ten or even five. There is reason to believe that many 
boys and girls might be saved from myopia if they were given 
sufficient light. In existing conditions, only chilffi*en with the 
most perfect seeing habits can hope to get through their schooling 
without straining their organs of vision. But strain is the prin- 
cipal cause of mal-fimctioning, and this, so far as many children 
are concerned, means myopia. 

In their attempt to improve lighting, the reformers have not 
gone far enough. In their attempt to improve the typography 
of school books they have gone too far in a wrong direction. 
For the purposes of clear, unstrained seeing, the best print is not 
necessarily the largest. Large print, it is true, has a specious air 
of being very easy to read; but precisely because it seems so 
easy, it lures the eyes and mind into temptation. They try to see 
whole lines of this all too legible print with equal clarity at the 
same time. Central Acation. is l ost^ the eyes and attention cease 
to shift, habits of staring are developed and, instead of being 
improved, vision is actually impaired. For good seeing, the best 
print is one that is not too large, but fairly heavy, so that there is 
plenty of strong contrast between the black letters and their 
background, ^^en confronted by such print, the mind and its 
eyes are not tempted by any obvious excess of legibility to try 
to see too much too well. Instead, the smaller type encourages 

105 



THE ART OF SEEING 

them to read with central fixation and in a state of dynamic 
relaxation. Dr. Bates, indeed, made use of the smallest available 
print for re-educating defective vision. He would give his 
pupils not merely diamond type to read (the smallest that a 
printer can set up), but even those microscopic reductions of 
print which can only be made by the camera. This microscopic 
type cannot be read except when the eyes and mind are in a state 
of complete dynamic relaxation, and are doing their looking with 
perfect central fixation. With a good teacher to help him, a 
person with even very serious defects of sight (I speak here from 
personal experience) can be got into the condition in which he 
can read words printed in microscopic type. And the result is 
not eye-strain or fatigue, but a marked temporary improvement 
of vision for other objects. Working with microscopic type 
without a teacher is not too easy, and the unwary enthusiast may 
be tempted to set about it in the wrong way. Consequently I 
have not included any detailed description of this procedure. If 
I mention it here, it is merely to show that the correlation 
between large print and good seeing is not the obvious and self- 
evident thing which the designers of school books have com- 
monly imagined it to be. 

By neglecting the psychological reasons why school children 
develop defects of vision the reformers have absolutely guar- 
anteed at least a partial failure of their efforts. Even if the 
lighting of schools were improved out of all recognition, even 
if the best possible print were used in all the primers and text- 
books, large numbers of children would still undoubtedly develop 
myopia and other defects of vision. They would do so because 
they are often bored and sometimes frightened, because they 
dislike sitting cooped up for long hours, reading and listening to 
stuff which seems to them largely nonsensical, and compelled to 
perform tasks which they find not only difficult, but pointless. 
Further, the spirit of competition and the dread of blame or 
ridicule foster, in many childish minds, a chronic anxiety, whidi 
adversely affects every part of the organism, not excludii^ the 

xo6 



MYOPIA 

eyes and the mental functions associated with seeing. Nor is this 
all ; the exigencies of schooling are such that children must con- 
stantly be given novel and unfamiliar things to look at. Every 
time a new mathematical formula is inscribed on the blackboard, 
every time the class is set the task of learning a new page of Latin 
grammar, or to study a new set of features on a map, every child 
concerned is being forced to pay close and concentrated attention 
to something completely unfamiliar — that is to say, something 
which it is peculiarly difficult to see, something which sets up a 
certain amount of strain in the eyes and minds even of those who 
have the best of seeing habits. 

About seventy per cent, of children are sufficiently stolid and 
well balanced to be able to go through school without visual 
mishap. The rest emerge from the educational ordeal with 
myopia or some other defect of vision. 

Some of the psychological reasons for bad sight can probably 
never be eliminated from the school ; for they seem to be in- 
herent in the very process of herding children together and 
imposing upon them discipline and book learning. Others can 
be got rid of — but only by a rare combination of good will and 
intelligence. (For instance, until all teachers become angels and 
geniuses, how are you going to prevent a considerable number of 
children in every generation from being frightened and bored ?) 

There is, however, one field in which the reasons for bad seeing 
can be eliminated fairly certainly and without much difficulty: 
it is possible to mitigate the ocular and mental strain, caused by 
the constant recurrence of situations in whidh children are called 
upon to look at something unfamiliar. The extremely simple 
technique for achieving this end was devised by Dr. Bates, and 
for some years was used successfully in a number of schools in 
different parts of the United States. Owing to changes in the 
administration of these schools ^d to pressure exerted by 
organized orthodoxy, the practices suggested by Dr. Bates were 
gradually abandoned. The fact is regrettable; for there is 
evidence that they actually did good* in preserving the children's 

107 



THE ART OF SEEING 

vision, while the nature of the practices was such that it was 
absolutely impossible that they should ever do anyone any 
harm. 

Dr. Bateses technique for relieving the strain caused by con- 
stantly looking at unfamiliar objects was exceedii^ly simple. It 
consisted merely in hanging a Snellen Chart in some conspicuous 
position in the schoolroom, and instructing the children, as soon 
as the chart was thoroughly familiar, to look at it for a few 
moments whenever they had any difficulty in seeing the'black- 
board, or a map, or the pages, say, of a grammar or geometry 
book. Because the chart was an old friend, the children had 
no difficulty in seeing its graduated letters. The act of reading 
gave them new faith in their own powers and relieved the 
strain caused by having to pay concentrated attention to 
something strange and unfamiliar. Strong in their newfound 
confidence and relaxation, the children then turned back to 
their work and found that their power of seeing it had 
markedly improved. 

The Snellen Chart possesses, as we have seen, certain dis- 
advantages. Therefore it will probably be advisable to substitute 
for it a large commercial calendar of the kind described in an 
earlier chapter. Alternatively, children may be instructed to 
turn, whenever vision falls off or fatigue sets in, to one of the 
notices or mottoes which generally hang in schoolrooms. All 
^at is necessary is that the words, letters or numerals regarded 
shall be perfectly familiar; for it is by familiarity that the ill 
effects of unfamiliarity are neutralized. 

I need hardly add that there is no reason why this procedure 
should be confined to the schoolroom. A calendar or any other 
perfecdy memorized piece of printed matter is a valuable 
addition to the furniture in any room, where people have to do 
concentrated work involving the seeing of imffimiliar objects, 
or strange combinations of familiar elements. Incipient strain 
may be very rapidly relieved by looking — ^analytically, or with 
a small-scale swinging shift — ^at the well-known words or 

io8 



MYOPIA 

numerals. Add an occasional period of palming and, if possible, 
of sunning — and there is no reason why the incipient strain 
should ever mature into fatigue and impairment of vision. 

TECHNIQUES OF RE-EDUCATION 

From this long, but not irrelevant, di gression ^ let us return to 
a consideration of the procedures for re-educating the myope 
towards normality. In the more serious cases, the help of a 
^pable teacher will probably be necessary, if any considerable 
improvement is to be achieved. But all can derive benefit, often 
a great deal of benefit, from following the fundamental rules of 
the art of seeing, particularly as these rules are adapted to the 
special needs of the short-sighted. 

\^alming, which the myope should practise as often and as long 
as he possibly can, may be made doubly valu^leirffie scenes 
and episodes remeifibered, while the eyes are closed and covered, 
are so chosen that the inward eye has to range from near to far 
over considerable distances. At one time or another, most of us 
have stood on railway bridge watching the trains as they 
approached and receded again across the landscape. Such 
memories are very profitable to the myope; for they stimulate 
the mind to come out of its narrow world of short sight and 
plunge into the distance. At the same time, the apparatus of 
accommodation, which is closely correlated with the noind, is set 
unconsciously to work. 

Friends approaching along familiar roads, horses ^llopmtg^ 
away across fields, boats glidkiig along rivers, buses arriving and 
departing — ^all such memories of depth and distance are valuable. 
Sometimes, too, it may be profitable to supplement them with 
scenes constructed by the fancy. Thus, one may imagine oneself 
rolling billiard balls down an enormously long table, or flinging 
a stone onto the ioe of a great lake and watching it skim a way 
into the distance. 

Sunning and swinging require no special modification for the 
myope. The drills designed to cure b^jy»t and 

109 



THE ART OF SEEING 

to foster mobility .^d central fixation c^n also be performed 
witKout modification, except in the case of the calendar drill, 
which may be adapted to the needs of the short-sighted person in 
the following ways. 

Begin by doing the drills at the distance from which the large 
numerals can be seen most easily. Do them first with both eyes 
together, then (covering one eye with a patch or handkerchief) 
with each eye separately. If one eye does its work of sensing 
less well than the other, give it more work — but lengthen the 
periods of palming between drills, so as to avoid fatigue. After 
a few days, when the eyes and mind have beconae acaistomed to 
doing a pertain amount; of sepii^ without die aid o£ 

(which will still have to b^ worn in times of emergency, or of 
potential danger to oneself or others, as when driving a car or 
walking in crowded streets), move the chair a foot or two further 
from the calendar and repeat the drills at that distance. In a few 
weeks it should be possible to increase very considerably the 
distance from which things can be clearly seen. 

N^yopic eyes should be given jplenty of practice in changing 
the focus ftom die nw pmnt- ^^4 To do this, pro- 

inire a small pocket calendar of the same model as the commercial 
calendar on the wall — that is to say, with one month priiited in 
large type, and the preceding and succeeding months in smaller 
type below. Hold the pocket calendar a few inches in front of 
the eyes, glance at the figure ‘one’ on the large-type month, then 
look away and locate the ‘one’ on the large-type month of the 
wall calendar. Close the eyes and relax. Then proceed to do 
the same with the succeeding figures. All the steps of the drill 
may be done in this way on the two calendars, with both eyes 
together and each eye separately and at progressively greater 
and greater distances from the wall calendar. Short-sighted 
people will find this a pretty strenuous exercise, and should 
therefore be particularly careful to interrupt the drill at frequent 
intervals for periods of palming and, if possible, sunning. If a 
small pocket calendar on some occasion, toTe 

no 



MYOPIA 


available, the face of a watch may be used instead. Hold it 
close to the eyes, glance at the ‘one' and then away to the cor- 
responding numeral on the wall calendar. Close the eyes, relax 
and go on in the same way round the whole dial. 

Myopes can read without glasses, but at a point abnormally 
close to the eyes. It is possible for them, however, to read with- 
out undue strain at points an inch or two fiu-ther away. Practice 
in reading at these further points will gradually eliminate any 
slight feeling of discomfort associated with the more distant 
vision — provided always, of course, that attention be properly 
directed and staring (die great vice of the short-sij ^ted) avQided.\ 
^fdie end of every page, or eyj^of eviiy ^agraph,i^e myope 
should look up for a few seconds to glance at some thoroughly 
familiar object aFa distahe^ s^ch as a calendar bh the wall^ 
br the view out of the window. Further hints on the art of 
reading will be given in the chapter especially devoted to that 
subject. 

When travelling by bus or car, myopes should take the 
opportunity provided of glancing with quick, ‘flashing' regards 
at the lettering on billboards, shop-fronts and the like. No,. 
attempt should be made^ ig^thold' die words so ri^ajdlld, until 
they arelcTeSly Glance for a moment, and close the eyes. 
Then, if the movement of the vehicle permits it, glance again. 
If you see, well and good; if you don't see, that also is well and 
good — for there is every reason to believe that you will see 
better some time. 

A few hints on the art of seeing movies will be given in a 
later chapter. Here, I will only remark that, for anyone who 
can bear to look at a picture more than once, the movie theatre 
may be made to provide material for a valuable exercise. On 
your first visit, look at the picture from a place in one of the 
front rows. On the next, take a seat twenty feet further back. 
Because of its familiarity, the picture will be more visible than it 
was the first time; and you will see it well even at the increased 
distance. Yet greater frmiliarity will, on a third visit, permit 


HI 



THE ART OF SEEING 

of a further retreat towards the back of the theatre. And, of 
course, if your courage, time and money are sufficient, you can 
view the picture for a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventy times 
seventh time, creeping further and further away from the screen 
on each occasion. 


Ill 



CHAPTER XVI 


Long Sighty Asttgmattsmy Sqtdnt 

L ong sight is of two main t3rpes — ^hyperopia, often found in 
/ young people and persisting into later life; and presbyopia, 
whidi commonly makes its onset in later middle age. All forms 
of long sight can be re-educated into or towards normality. 

Hyperopia often causes discomfort and pain, and when assod- 
ated (as it not infrequently is) with a very slight degree of out- 
ward squint in one of the eyes, may bring on frequent severe 
headaches, giddiness, fits of nausea and vomiting. The neutral- 
izing of hyperopic symptoms by means of ardfidal lenses some- 
times puts a stop to these painful disabilities; but sometimes it 
fails to do so, and the migraines and nausea persist until such 
time as the sufferer learns the art of seeing. 

Presbyopia is commonly regarded as one of die inevitable 
results of ageing. Like the bones of the skeleton, the lens of the 
eye hardens with age, and this hardening is supposed to prevent 
all elderly eyes from being able to accommodate at the near point. 
Nevertheless, many old people continue to accommodate up to 
die day of their death; and when sufferers from presbyopia 
undertake a suitable course of visual re-education, they soon 
learn to read at a normal distance, without the aid of spectades. 
From this we may condude that there is nothing inevitable or 
pr^esdned about the long sight of old age. 

'ralming, sunning, swinging and shifting tdll do much to re- 
lieve the discomfort associated with hyperopia, and will put the 
mind and eyes into the condition of dynamic relaxation which 
makes normal seeing possible, '^ese should be supplemented 
by imaginadon drills, which are pardcularly valuable in improv- 
ing the long-sighted person’s ability to read. 

Print seems grey and blurred when the hyperope looks at it. 
B 113 



THE ART OF SEEING 

This state of things can be improved indirectly by a constant 
practice of the fundamental procedures of the art of seeing — 
palming, sunning, swinging ^d shifting; and, directly, through 
memory and imagination.^-^TTie hyperope should look at one of 
the large numerals on his calendar, and then with closed eyes, 
‘letting go,* remember the intense blackness of the ink and reflect 
at the same time that exactly the same ink is used for printing 
the small letters, which he sees as grey and misty. Next, calling 
imagination into play, he should remember one of these smaller 
letters, imagine a blacker dot at its base and another at the top. 
After shifting from dot to dot with the inward eye, he should 
look at the real letter and do the same on that. It will soon 
blacken and, for a few seconds, he will be able to see it and the 
other letters on the page quite distinctly. Then all will blur 
again, and he will have to repeat his acts of memory and im- 
agmation. 

v/After paying attention for a little to the blackness of the 
letters, he should consider the whiteness of the background 
within and around the letters, and should exercise himself in 
first imagining and then, with the aid of the imagination, actually 
seeing it whiter than it is in reality. The vision for reading and 
other close work may be markedly improved in this way. This 
is not surprising ; for between the eyes and the mind there exists 
a two-way connection. A mental strain will cause strain and 
physical distortion in the eyes; and physical distortion in the 
eyes will cause the mind to perceive an imperfect image of the 
external object, and so increase its strain. But, conversely, if the 
mind is able, through memory and imagination, to form within 
itself a perfect image of an external object, the existence of this 
perfect image in the mind will automatically improve the con- 
dition of the strained and distorted eyes. The more perfect the 
image in the mind, the greater the improvement in the physical 
condition of the eyes. For the eyes will tend to assume the 
physical conformation, which eyes must have, if they are to 
transmit the sort of sensa that a mind can perceive in terms of a 

114 



LONG SIGHT, ASTIGMATISM, SQUINT 

perfect image of an external object. Not only is the connection 
between eyes and mind a reversible, two-way connection; it is 
also a connection for mutual benefit as well as for mutual harm. 
This is a very important fact to remember ; for we tend, for some 
curious reason, to think only of the mischief that the eyes can 
inflict upon the mind and the mind upon the eyes — of blurred 
vision, due to strain and refractive error, and of visual delusions 
produced by the imagination, of temporary failures of vision 
caused by sudden outbursts of rage or grief, and of diseases of 
the eyes brought on by chronic negative emotion. But if eyes 
and mind can harm, they can also help one another. An un- 
strained mind has undistorted eyes, and undistorted eyes do their 
work so well that they never add anything to the burdens of the 
mind. Moreover, when, through mental strain or for some 
other reason, a distortion of the eyes has been produced, the 
mind can help to remedy this distortion by doing the right, the 
beneficial thing at its end of the two-way communication line. 
It can perform acts of remembering, which are always accom- 
panied by the condition of relaxation that permits the eyes to 
return to their normal shape and normal functioning. And it 
can call up, by imagination, representations of external objects 
more perfect than those it ordinarily sees on the basis of the poor 
sensa transmitted by the distorted eyes. But when the mind has 
a perfectly clear image of an object, the eyes tend automatically 
to revert to the condition which would enable them to furnish 
the proper raw materials for making such an image. Just as the 
emotions and their outward physical expression (in the form of 
gesture, metabolic change, glandular activity and so forth) are 
indissolubly connected, so too there is an indissoluble connection, 
for good as well as for evil, between the visual image, whether 
produced by memory, imagination or the interpretation of sensa^ 
and the physical condition of the eyes. Impair or improve the 
mental image, and you automatically impair or improve the 
condition of the eyes. By means of repeated acts of memory 
and imagination it is possible to improve, temporarily at first, 

«5 



THE ART OF SEEING 

then permanently, the quality of the mental images of external 
objects. When diis has been achieved, there is first a temporary, 
then a permanent improvement in the physical condition of the 
eyes. Hence the value of memory and imagination drills in 
conditions, such as hyperopia, in which sensa and the perceptions 
based upon them are of poor quality. 

Exercises which compel the mind and eyes to change their 
focus rapidly from distance to the near point are as useful to the 
hyperope as to the myope. Such drills have already been 
described in the chapter on short sight. 

Presbyopia is essentially an inability to accommodate the eyes, 
so that they will do clear and accurate sensing at the near point. 
This failure to accommodate seems to be the result of a habit, to 
the building up of which middle-aged and elderly people are 
predisposed by the hardening of the lens. This habit can, as 
experience shows, be modified, even though the physical con- 
dition of the lens may remain, as it presumably does, unchanged. 
Like all other sufferers from defects of vision, presbyopes should 
follow the fundamental rules of the art of seeing, adapting them 
to their own particular needs and, where necessary, supple- 
menting them. To the procedures which are helpful to all long- 
sighted persons, they should add the following techniques for 
improving their reading. 

f Print can be read without undue strain somewhat nearer to the 
eyes than the point of maximum comfort and habitual usage. 
Tlie presbyope can coax his eyes and mind to get used to seeing 
at this nearer point, provided always that he interrupts his 
reading to keep the visual organs relaxed by means of palming, 
swinging and sunning. Little by litde, the reading distance can 
be considerably shortened in this way, while the eyes and mind 
acquire a renewal of flexibility. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes records the case of an old gentleman 
of his acquaintance who, * perceiving his sight to fail, immedi- 
ately took to exercising it on the finest print, and in this way 
fairly bullied nature out of her foolish h^t of taking liberties 

ii6 



LONG SIGHT, ASTIGMATISM, SQUINT 

at five-and-forty, or thereabout. And now the old gentleman 
performs the most extraordinary feats with his pen, showing that 
his eyes must be a pair of microscopes* I should be afraid to say 
how much he writes on the compass of a half-dime — ^whether 
the Psalms or the Gospels, or the Psalms and the Gospels, I 
won^t be positive.* 

This old gentleman had evidently discovered for himself what 
Dr. Bates was later to re-discover and proclaim to the world — 
the value, for people with defective sight, of very small and even 
microscopic print. Oliver Wendell Holmes is wrong, however, 
in saying that he ‘fairly bullied nature out of her habit' of giving 
people presbyopia. The sensing eyes and the perceiving mind 
cannot successfully be bullied. Any attempt to force them to 
sense and perceive always results, within a very short time, not 
in the improvement of vision, but its impairment. The old 
gentleman who trained his eyes to become a pair of microscopes, 
cannot possibly have bullied ; he must have coaxed them. And 
provided they do the same, all presbyopes may profitably follow 
his example. 

Procure a specimen of very small print. (In any second-hand 
bookshop you may find thick little duodecimos of the early nine- 
teenth century, containing the complete works of the great and 
the forgotten, and printed in a diamond type so small that oiu: 
ancestors must indeed have had good vision to get throu^ 
whole volumes of it.) Take the sunlight on the closed eyes, or, 
if there is no sun, bathe them in the light of a strong electric 
lamp. Palm for a few minutes, and then give the closed eyes 
a few more seconds of light. Thus relaxed, you can set to work 
on your small print. Holding the page either in full sunlight, 
or in the best possible substitute for sunlight, look at it easily, 
effortlessly, breathing and blinking as you do so* Make no 
attempt to sec the words, but let the eyes wander back and forth 
along the white spaces between the lines of print. No mental 
hazards are involv^ in looking at a plain surface ; consequendy, 
there will be no temptadon to strain, if you keep the eyes and 

117 



THE ART OF SEEING 

attention shifting on the white spaces between the lines. From 
far out, move the page to within a foot of the eyes, still paying 
attention to the white spaces rather than the print, and still taking 
care to breathe and blink, so as to prevent the attention from 
becoming unduly fixed and immobile. (By changing the out- 
ward expression of an undesirable mental state, one acts upon the 
mental state itself. Attention cannot be misdirected, if we take 
pains to correct the external symptoms of misdirected attention.) 
Interrupt this procedure at frequent intervals to palm and take 
the sun. This is essential ; for, as we have seen, there can be 
no bullying of the sensing eyes and the perceiving mind. If 
they are to co-operate in doing a good job of seeing, they must 
be relaxed and coaxed into working as they should. 

After a little time devoted to this drill, it will generally be 
found that individual words and whole phrases of the small-type 
reading matter will come up almost suddenly into distinct 
visibility. ^Do not allow yourself to be tempted by these first 
successes into trying to read continuously. Your aim at this 
time is not to reach the immediate and obvious goal of reading 
the page before you ; it is to acquire the means whereby this and 
similar goals may be reached in the future, without strain or 
fatigue, and with enhanced efficiency. Do not, I repeat, attempt 
to read, but go on effortlessly regarding the page, and especially 
the white spaces between the lines, at varying distances from the 
eyes. From time to time, when a word in the small type has 
come up into visibility, pick up a book with print of ordinary 
dimensions and read a paragra^ or two. It is quite likely that 
you will find you can read it more easily and closer to the eyes 
than you could before starting your work on the smaller print. 

ASTIGMATISM AND SQUINT 

Defects of vision, due to astigmatism, can be markedly 
diminished or even eliminated by anyone who will diligently 
practise the art of seeing and thereby learn how to get his mind 
and eyes to function naturally and normally. Procedures 

118 



LONG SIGHT, ASTIGMATISM, SQUINT 

specially valuable for the astigmatic have already been described 
in the paragraphs devoted to the domino drills. It is therefore 
unnecessary to go any further into the matter here. 

Sufferers from any of the more serious kinds of squint will 
find it extremely difficult to re-educate themselves into nor- 
mality, and should seek the assistance of an experienced teacher, 
who will show them how to achieve dynamic relaxation, how to 
strengthen the sight of the weaker eye, and (final and most 
difficult step) how to re-acquire the mental faculty of fusing the 
two sets of sensa delivered by the two eyes into a single repre- 
sentation of an external object. 

For those who suffer from slight muscle imbalance — ^and even 
an almost imperceptible divergence of one or both eyes may be 
the source of extreme discomfort and often of serious disabilities 
— the following simple 'double-image drill* will prove of con- 
siderable benefit. 

Relax the eyes and mind by palming; then hold a pencil at 
arm’s length, the tip pointed towards your nose. Bring the 
pencil towards you, blinking as you do so. When the pencil is 
dose to the face, change its position from horizontal to vertical, 
holding it upright immediately in front of, and about three inches 
away from, the tip of the nose. Focus on the pendl ; but, to 
avoid staring, shift the attention rapidly from top to bottom. 
Do this half a dozen times ; then look away, just above the top 
of the pendl, to some distant object at the other end of the 
room. When the eyes are focussed on this distant object, the 
pendl at the near point will seem to become two pendls. To 
eyes in perfect alignment, these two pendls will look as though 
they were about three indies apart. But where there is muscular 
imbalance, the distance separating the two images will appear to 
be a good deal less. (And if die squint is pronounc^, die 
phenomenon will not be observed at all.) Should the two images 
be seen too close together, shut the eyes, 'let go’ and imagine 
yourself still looking at the distant object, but with the two 
images of the near-by pencil somewhat further apart dian they 

119 



THE ART OF SEEING 

were when you actually saw them. When we distinctly imagine 
a normal image, our eyes will tend automatically to put them- 
selves into the condition, in which they would have to be, in 
order to supply our mind with the materials for seeing such an 
image. Consequently, when you re-open the eyes and look once 
more in reality at the distant object, the two pencils at the near 
point will seem, if your visualization has been clear and distinct, 
perceptibly further apart than they were. Close the eyes again 
and repeat the visualizing process, this time imagining the pencils 
to be yet a little further apart than before; then re-open and 
verify. Go on doing this, until you have pushed the two images 
to something like dieir normal distance one from the other. 
When this has been achieved, start to swing the head very gently 
from side to side, blinking and breathing easily as you do so — 
and, of course, still looking at the distant object. The two 
images of the pencil will appear to move back and forth in the 
opposite direction to the head, but will still keep their positions 
relative to one another. 

Provided that this drill be prepared for by palming and 
accompanied by easy blinking and breathing, it may be repeated 
at frequent intervals throughout the day. The immediate result 
will be, not fatigue, but relaxation and de-tensioning; and the 
long-range consequences will be the gradual correction of old- 
established habits of muscular imbalance. 

DISEASES OF THE EYES 

The art of seeing is not primarily a therapy. It does not, that 
is to say, aim direcdy at the cure of pathological conditions of 
the sensing-apparatus. Its purpose is to promote normal and 
natural functioning of the organs of vision — ^the sensing eyes 
and the selecting, perceiving and seeing mind. When normal 
and natural functioning has been restored, it generally happens 
diat there is a marked improvement in the organic condition of 
the tissues involved in that functioning. 

In this particular case, the tissues involved are those of the 

120 



LONG SIGHT, ASTIGMATISM, SQUINT 

eyes and the nerves and muscles connected with them. When 
people have learnt the art of seeing and conscientiously follow 
its simple rules, their eyes, if these are diseased, tend to get 
better. Even when the disease has its origin in some other part 
of the body, normal and natural visual functioning will often 
bring a certain amelioration in the local condition of the eyes. 
It cannot, of course, eliminate the condition altogether; for the 
simple reason that the sickness of the eyes is only a symptom of 
another sickness having its seat elsewhere. It can, however, help 
the eyes while the cause of their disorder is being treated, and 
may do much to prevent the vision from suffering permanent 
impairment. 

In cases where the pathological condition of the eyes is not 
a symptom of a disease in some other part of the body, the 
re-establishment of normal and natural functioning may lead 
indirectly to a complete cure. This, as I have said before, is only 
to be expected ; for habitual mal-functioning results in chronic 
nervous muscular tension and reduction in the volume of cir- 
culation. But any part of the body in which circulation is 
inadequate is particularly susceptible to disease; furthermore, 
once disease has set in, the innate capacity of the organ to regulate 
and heal itself will be abnormally reduced. Any procedure which 
restores normal functioning to the psycho-physical organs of 
vision will tend to reduce nervous muscular tension, increase 
circulation and bring back the vis medicatrix naturae to its 
normal potency. Experience shows that this is what in effect 
generally occurs when persons suffering from such conditions 
as glaucoma, cataract, iritis, detachment of the retina, learn how 
to use their eyes and minds properly instead of improperly. 
The art of seeing, I repeat, is not primarily a therapy; but, 
at one remove and indirectly, it results in the relief or cure of 
many serious diseases of the eyes. 


I2I 



CHAPTER XVII 


Some Difficult Seeing-Situadons 

I N the present chapter I propose to discuss the ways in which 
the fundamental rules of the art of seeing may be applied to 
certain common situations, which persons with defective vision 
are apt to find particularly trying. 

READING 

When we read, we are assailed, if our vision is at all defective, 
by particularly strong temptations to use our eyes and mind in 
the wrong way. Our interest in what we read intensifies our all 
too human proclivity towards end-gaining. We are so greedy 
to see the greatest possible amount of print in the shortest 
possible time, that we utterly neglect the normal and natural 
means whereby sudi an end may be achieved. Improper 
functioning becomes habitual with us, and our vision is further 
impaired. 

The first thing we have to do is to realize that end-gaining is 
self-stultifying, and that, where reading is concerned, we oiu:- 
selves are end-gainers. The next is to inhi bit, whe nevex we 
manifestations of our impatienoR and our i^ t ff llecti|^ l 

“■^hs-the early stages of visual re-education, clear and effortless 
reading cannot be accomplished without plenty of rest and 
telturation. In other words, relaxation is one of the principal 
means whereby we can achieve our end, which is to see as much 
print as possible, in the shortest possible time, with the least 
possible fkdgue and dte highest degree of intellectual efficiency. 
Consequendy, when we inhibit the mani&stadons of our im- 
padence and greed, this should be done, &st of all, for the sake 
of ^ving oiu eyes and minds die relaxadon which they so 

122 


read, the 



SOME DIFFICULT SEEING-SITUATIONS 

urgently need, but of which they are perpetually depriving them- 
^Ives through their habits of improper use. 

To provide the eyes and mind with adequate relaxation, one 
should, while reading, adopt the following simple procedures : 

First: Close the eyes for a second or two at the end of every 
sentence, or every other sentence. ‘Let go’ and visualize the 
last word you have read and the punctuation mark by which it is 
followed. When you open your eyes again, look first at this 
remembered word and punctuation mark, which will seem to be 
perceptibly more distinct than they were when originally read. 
Then go on to the next sentence. 

Second : At the end of every page or two, interrupt yourself 
for a couple of minutes to palm the eyes. To greedy end- 
gainers, this will seem the most intolerable hardship. But let 
them reflect that these interruptions will bring them more easily 
and expeditiously to their goal. Also that tliis ‘mortification* 
of their impatience will probably be very good for their 
characters 1 

Third : If sunlight is available, take the sun on the closed and 
open eyes before palming, and again, on the closed lids, after. 
If there is no sun, bathe die eyes in the light of a strong electric 
lamp. 

Fourth: While reading, sit where you can see a calendar 
or other perfecdy familiar piece of large-type reading matter 
hanging on a distant wall. Raise your eyes fnnn your book 
occasionally and look analytically at the letters or numerals. If 
you are reading by daylight, look out of the window sometimes 
into the far distance. 

Fifth : Memory and imaginadon can be enlisted in the service 
of better reading. Pause from time to time, ‘let go* and re- 
member a single letter or word rece^dy r^aix}ed. See it with 
the inward eye in terms of the white background surrounding it 
and contained within it. Then imagine die whiteness of the 
background as being whiter than you actually saw it. Re-open, 
look at the whiteness around and within the real letters and try 



THE ART OF SEEING 

to see it as white as the imaginary background you visualized 
with your eyes shut. Close the eyes once more, and begin again. 
After two or three repetitions, palm for a little while and then 
go on reading. 

As an alternative exercise, close your eyes, remember a 
recendy seen letter, take an imaginary pen and place a dot of 
intenser blackness at its top and base, or at its left-hand and 
right-hand extremities. Shift the attention from dot to dot half 
a dozen times; then open the eyes and, imagining that you see 
similar dots of intenser blackness of the real letter, do the same. 
Repeat this procedure several times, palm, and continue your 
reading. 

Sixth: In the chapter on long sight, I gave an account of the 
way in which presbyopes could improve their reading vision by 
looking effortlessly at very small print — ^more especially at the 
white spaces between the lines. The benefits of this drill are 
not confined to elderly people with failing sight. Anyone who 
has difficulty in reading may profitably make use of this pro- 
cedure at the beginning of a period of study, and at intervals 
during the period. 

So much for the simple relaxation techniques, by which a 
session with book or newspaper should be prefaced and inter- 
rupted. Let us now consider the proper way of performing the 
act of reading itself. 

Here, as in all other seeing-situations, the great enemies of 
normal vision are strain, misdirected attention, staring. In order 
to overcome these enemies, one must be careful, while reading, 
to obey the following simple rules : 

First: Do not hold your breath or keep the eyelids rigid and 
unmoving for long periods. Blink frequently and breathe 
regularly, gently and fully. 

Second: Do not stare or try to see every part of a whole line 
or phrase equally well. Keep the eyes and attention continually 
moving, and so bring central fixation into play. This is best 
accomplished by making the eyes hurry continuously back and 

124 



SOME DIFFICULT SEEING-SITUATIONS 

forth in the white space immediately under the line of print which 
is being read. Words and letters are thus caught, ^ it we re, 
between a succession of short swings. At first this tecGni^e ^ 
reading by rapid movements of the eyes in the spa^ 
between the lines may seem somewhat disconcerting. But after 
a little time we shall discover that it contributes not a little to 
clear and effordess reading. Letters and words are seen more 
easily when they are, so to speak, on the wing than when 
immobilized by a fixed stare — ^more easily, too, when they are 
considered as interruptions to a plain white background than 
when looked at as things existing in their own right and requiring 
to be deciphered. 

Third: Do not jfrpwjt when you read. Frowning is a 
symptom of the nervous muscular tension produced in and 
around the eyes by misdirected attention and the effort to see. 
With the achievement of dynamic relaxation and normal 
functioning, the habit of frowning will disappear of itself. But 
its departure may be accelerated, and the physical and mental 
tensions relieved, by frequent and deliberate acts of inhibition. 
In the midst of reading, suddenly turn round upon yourself and 
catch your facial muscles at their Then close the eyes 

for a moment, ‘let go’ and deliberately smooth the brows. 

Fourth: Do not half-close the eyelids when you read. Un- 
like frowning, this procedure has a purpose. By half-dosing 
the eyelids, we reduce the size of the normal visual field and, in 
this way, eliminate some of the distracting stimuli and diffused 
illumination coming to the eyes from those parts of the page 
which are not being looked at. Most persons with defects of 
vision do their reading through a narrow loophole between their 
flashes; but the tendency is espedally marked among those 
opaddes in the cornea or other normally transparent 
tissues of the eyes. Such opadties act in much the same way as 
do the partides of water vapour suspended in the air on an 
autumn morning : they disperse the li^t in a kind of luminous 
fog, through which it is h^ to see distinctly. Partial dosure 



THE ART OF SEEING 

of the lids has the effect of cutting oflF much of the illuminated 
field and so reducing the density of the^g caused by the 
scattering of light. 

But the narrowing of the aperture between the lids demands a 
continuous muscular effort. This effort increases the tension in 
and around the eyes, and is reflected by an intensification of the 
psychological tensions in the mind. Loo Mn g between half- 
closed lids is undoubtedly^ a way^ of getting an in^ 
pfdve«fl(enTdf^?McnTr^St^to must be 

paid fbf m it can be had only at the high cost 

of increased strain and fatigue, and a progressive further impair* 
ment of the power of seeing. It is therefore very important to 
find a method for correcting this most undesirable tendency. 
Conscious relaxation of the lids, so that they remain untensed 
and open at their normal span, will not be sufficient. Indeed, ft 
is likely to result in our seeing a good deal worse than before, 
so that, in mere self-protection, we shall have to turn back to 
our old bad habits. 

Fortunately, however, there is a very simple mechanical 
method for getting the results achieved by half-closing the eyes. 
Instead of cutting out distractions and unneeded illiunination at 
the receivii^ end, that is to say, in the eye, we cut them out at 
the source — on the printed page. ^ that i5,.peeded is a sheet 
ofstoi^t blaci pajger^ a^^^r^^ Take as much of 

the black paper as will cover, say, half an average page of print, 
^cross the centre of this cut a slot slightly longer than the 
average line of print and wide enough to take in about two lines. 
(The width of the slot may be varied to suit individual tastes and 
to fit different sizes of type. This can be done by taking a strip 
of black paper, drawing it down across the top edge of the slot 
until the aperture is of the width desired, and fastening it into 
place by paper clips.) 

When everything is ready, hold the black paper flat on the 
p^ jyijth the low^ of an inch 

below the line you are reading. When you have come to the 

126 



SOME DIFFICULT SEEING-SITUATIONS 

end of the line, move the slot down to the next line. And 
so on. 

This absurdly simple little device will be found helpful by all 
who have any difficulty in reading. For those who suffer from 
comeal or other opacities, it may double the clarity of their read- 
ing vision — ^and this when the eyelids are fully open and relaxed. 

Reading through a slot facilitates that and-stare technique, of 
which I have already spoken — the rapid shifting to and fro on 
the white space immediately under the print. The straight edge 
of the black paper acts as a sort of railway track, along which the 
eyes travel easily and smoothly. Furthermore, the task of 
imaginatively seeing the white spaces between lines as whiter 
than they really are is facilitated, when these white spaces are 
regarded (and afterwards remembered) in contact wiffi a con- 
trasting black frame. 

In certain cases, the habit of trying to see clearly too much 
print at the same time may be rapidly corrected by making use 
of a small slot, not more than three-quarters of an inch long. 
Such a slot will permit its user to see only so much of any given 
line as can be taken in by the macula lutea; and rapid shifting 
within this confined space will bring Ae fovea into play. In this 
way the central area of the retina will be stimulated and set to 
work as it never was when Ae impossible attempt was made to 
see whole phrases and lines equally well at Ae same dme. The 
short slot will have to be moved rapidly from word to word along 
the line, and reading wiA its aid will probably be found rather 
exasperating, at any rate in Ae beginning. To minimize Ais 
inconvenience, alternate between Ae long slot and Ae short. It 
is easy to put up wiA brief annoyances, particularly if one 
reflects Aat, by doing so, one is building up profitable habits of 
corneal visual functioning. 

LOOKING AT UNFAMILIAR OBJECTS 

This is perhaps Ae most trying of all seeing-situations and also 
one of frequent occurrence. We are called upon to look in- 

127 



THE ART OF SEEING 

tensively at unfamiliar objects every time we go shopping, visit 
a museum, search for books in the shelves of a library, hunt 
4i^ugh drawers cupboards for some lost article, tidy up a 
box-room or attic, pa^ and unpaiSE baggage, or repair a machine. 
The problem is how to avoid or reduce the strain and fatigue 
that ordinarily follows such looking. 

First of all, make sure, if this is in your power, that what you 
are looking at is brightly illuminated. I2raw back curtains, turn 
on lights, use a dash-lamp. However, if the looking has to be 
done in some public place, you will have to put up with the 
lighting, which others consider sufficient, but which will almost 
certainly be inadequate. 

> Second, resist the temptation to stare, and do not try to see 
pearly more than a small part of the total visual held. Look 
analytically at what is before you, and keep the eyes and attention 
continuously shifting. 

Third, do not hold your breath, and blink your eyes fire- 
quendy. 

Fourth, rest as often as you can, either closing the eyes, 
* letting go* and remembering some familiar object, or, prefer- 
ably, palming. If possible sun the eyes from time to time, or 
bathe them in the light of an electric lamp. 

If these simple rules are followed, it should be possible to 
come through the ordeal without serious fatigue, discomfort or 
strain. 

MOVIES 

For many people with defective vision, a visit to the pictures 
may be the cause of much fatigue and discomfort There is no 
need for this. Looked at in the right way, movies do not strain 
die eyes and, indeed, may be made to pay handsome dividends 
in improved vision. Here are the rules which must be followed^ 
if an evening at the pcture th^tre is to be a pleasure, not a 
torture. 

First: Refrain from staring. Do not try to see the whole of 

1X8 



SOME DIFFICULT SEEING-SITUATIONS 

the screen equally welL Do not try to ‘hold’ any detail. On 
the contrary, keep the eyes and attention continuously on the 
move. 

Second: Do not forget to breathe and blink regularly. 

Third: Take the opportunity offered by boring sequences to 
rest, by closing the eyes for a few seconds and ‘letting go.' 
Even during the more exciting parts of the picture, you can find 
time occasionally to glance away for an instant into the darkness 
surrounding the illuminated screen. Use any intermission for 
palming. 

One way in which the mo^des may be used for improving 
vision has already been described in the chapter on myopia. 
Movies are also helpful in other ways, above all by making it 
possible for us to become familiar with objects and situations 
which are frequently met with in real life. 

In an essay on the relationship between life and art, Roger 
Fry has written a passage which casts a very interesting light on 
the way in which the movies can be used to improve defective 
vision. ‘We can get a curious side glimpse,' he writes in Vision 
and Design^ ‘of the nature of the imaginative life from the 
cinematograph. This resembles actual life in almost every 
respect, except that what the psychologists call the conative part 
of our reaction to sensations, that is to say, the appropriate 
resultant action, is cut off. If, in a cinematograph, we see a 
runaway horse and cart, we do not have to think of getting out 
of the way, or heroically interposing ourselves. The result is 
that, in the first place, we s€€ the event much more clearly; see 
a number of quite interesting but irrelevant things, which in real 
life could not struggle into our consciousness, bent, as it would 
be, entirely upon the problems of our appropriate reaction. I 
remember seeing in a cinematograph the arrival of a train at a 
foreign station, and the people descending from the carriages; 
there was no platform, and to my intense surprise, I saw several 
people turn right round, after reaching the ground, as though 
to orientate themselves; an almost ridiculous performance, 

1X9 


1 



THE ART OF SEEING 

which I had never noticed in all the many hundred occasions on 
which such a scene had passed before my eyes in real life. The 
fact being that, at a station, one is never really a spectator of 
events, but an actor engaged in the drama of luggage or pros- 
pective seats ; and one actually sees only so much as may help 
to the appropriate action.’ 

These lines express a very important truth: there is a funda- 
mental psychological difference between a spectator and an actor, 
between looking on at a work of art and looking on (which can 
rarely be done without intervening) at an episode of real life. 
Spectators see more, and more clearly, than do actors. Owing 
to this fact, it is possible to make use of the movies to improve 
our vision for objects and events in real life. Because you are 
not a participant in the drama, you will be able to see, more 
clearly than you could in real life, the way in which people on 
the screen perform such ordinary acts as opening a door, getting 
into a cab, helping themselves to food and so forth. Make your- 
self conscious of seeing more on the screen than you are normally 
able to do in real life, and, after the show, deliberately call back 
th^mem ory-imag es of what you saw there. TTiis will make such 
ordinary actions seem more familiar than before; and this 
increased familiarity will cause similar actions to be more visible 
to you, when they occur at some future date in real life. 

Close-ups provide a means whereby persons with defective 
vision may overcome one of their most embarrassing handicaps 
— ^the inability to recognize faces, or to catch the fine shades of 
meaning which people normally convey through facial expres- 
sion. In real life, faces sixteen feet high and eight feet wide are 
unknown ; but on the screen they are one of the most ordinary 
of phenomena. Exploit this fact in such a way as to improve 
your vision for real faces of ordinary dimensions. Look care- 
fully at the gigantic face. Carefully, but always analytically. 
Never fix a greedy stare upon a dose-up, even if it should belong 
to your favourite star. Ex^ne it m^l ite deigiJlS^;^^ the 
structure of tl^ bones, the^y^l^liaujgrq]^ and how the h^ 

130 



SOME DIFFICULT SEEING-SITUATIONS 

moves on the neck and the eyes within their orbits. And when 
the colossal face registers grief, desire, anger, doubt and the rest, 
follow the workings of lips and eyes, of the muscles of cheek 
and brow, with the closest attention. The more carefully and 
analytically you observe these things, the better and clearer will 
be your memories of the commoner facial expressions, and the 
easier will it be, at some later date, to see similar expressions on 
the faces of real people. 


131 



CHAPTER XVIII 


Lighting Conditions 

P eople with normal vision, who consistently do their sensing 
and perceiving in a condition of dynamic relaxation, can 
afford in large measure to disregard the external conditions of 
seeing. Not so the men and women whose sight is defective. 
For them, favourable external conditions are of the greatest 
importance, and the failure to secure such favourable conditions 
may do much to increase their disability, or, if they have under- 
taken a course of visual re-education, to retard their progress 
towards normality. 

The most important of all the external conditions of good 
seeing is adequate illumination. Where lighting is poor, it is 
very hard for people with defective vision to get better, very 
easy for them to get worse. 

The question now arises, what is adequate illumination.^ 

The best illumination we have is full sunshine on a clear 
summer's day. If you read in such sunshine, the intensity of the 
light falling upon the page of your book will be in the neighbour- 
hood of ten Aousand foot-candles — that is to say, the light of 
direct summer simshine is equal to the light thrown by ten 
thousand wax candles placed at the distance of one foot from 
the booL Move from full sunlight to the shade of a tree or 
house. The light on your page will still have an intensity of 
about one thousand foot-candles. On overcast days, the light 
reflected from white clouds has an intensity of several thousand 
foot-candles ; and the weather must be very gloomy for general 
outdoor intensities to fall as low as a thousand foot-candles. 

Indoors, the light near an unobstructed window may have an 
intensity of anything from one hundred to five hundted foot- 
candles, dqpen^g upon dbe brightness of the day. Ten or 

13a 



LIGHTING CONDITIONS 

fifteen feet away from the window the illumination may fall to 
as little as two foot-candles or even less, if the room is papered 
and furnished in dark colours. 

The intensity of illumination diminishes as the square of the 
distance. A 6o-watt lamp will provide about eighty foot- 
candles at one foot, about twenty at two feet, about nine at three 
feet, and, at ten feet, only four-fifths of one foot-candle. Owing 
to this rapid falling off in intensity with increase of distance, 
most parts of the average artificially lighted rooms are very 
poorly illuminated. It is common to find people reading and 
doing other forms of close work under an illumination of one or 
two foot-candles. In public buildings, such as schools and 
libraries, you will be lucky if you get as much as five foot-candles 
of illumination. 

That it should be possible to do close work under illuminations 
so fantastically low compared with those which are met with 
out of doors in daytime is a remarkable tribute to the native 
endurance and flexibility of the sensing eyes and the perceiving 
mind. So great is this flexibility and endurance that a person 
whose eyes are unimpaired, and who uses them in the way that 
nature intended them to be used, can submit for long periods to 
bad lighting conditions and suffer no harm. But for a person 
whose eyes have undergone some organic impairment, or whose 
habitual functioning is so unnatural that he can only see with 
effort and under strain, these same conditions may be disastrous. 

In his book, Seeing and Human Welfare^ Dr. Luckiesh has 
described some very interesting experiments, which demonstrate 
the undesirable consequences of poor lighting. These experi- 
ments were designed to measure nervous muscular tension (an 
accurate indicator, as Dr. Luckiesh pcnnts out, of "strain, fatigue, 
wasted effort and interna! losses') under varying conditions of 
illumination. The task assigned to the subjects of these experi- 
ments was reading; and the amount of nervous muscular strain 
was recorded by a device which measured the pressure exerted 
by two fingers of the left hand resting upon a large flat knob. 

*33 



THE ART OF SEEING 

The subjects were kept unaware of the nature and purpose of the 
investigation — ^indee^ were deliberately thrown on a wrong 
scent. This eliminated the possibility of any conscious or 
voluntary interference with the results. A very large number of 
tests showed conclusively that, in all cases, ‘there was a large 
decrease in nervous muscular tension as the intensity increased 
from one to one hundred foot-candles. The latter was the 
highest intensity investigated, because this is far above prevailing 
levels of illumination in the artificial world. There was impres- 
sive evidence that this tension would continue to decrease if 
the level of illumination were increased to one thousand foot- 
candles.’ In other tests the subjects were exposed to improperly 
placed lights that threw a glare in their eyes. This glare was 
not excessive — ^just the average, moderate glare that millions 
of human beings habitually work and play by. Nevertheless it 
was quite sufficient to increase the tell-tale nervous muscular 
tension to a marked degree. 

There is, so far as I know, only one kind of electric light bulb 
from which one can obtain a thousand foot-candles of illumina- 
tion without excessive consumption of current. That is the 
1 50- watt spotlight, described in the chapter on sunning. The 
parabolic and silvered back of this bulb acts as a reflector, and 
the light issues in a powerful beam, in which reading, sewing and 
other tasks requiring close attention and precise seeii^ can be 
performed in the best possible conditions. 

During the daytime, people with defective sight should always 
make use of the best illumination available. Whenever possible, 
dose work should be done near a window or out of doors. I 
myself have derived great benefit from reading for long periods 
at a stretch in full sunlight, either falling directly on the page, or, 
if the weadier was too hot, reflected by means of an adjustable 
mirror, so that it was possible to sit in the shade, or indoors, and 
to enjoy the advantage of seven or eight diousand foot-candles 
upon the book. For some months, indeed, after giving up the 
wearing of spectades, it was only in full sunlight, or under a 

^34 



LIGHTING CONDITIONS 

spot lamp, that I could read comfortably for any length of time. 
But as vision improved, it became possible for me to make use 
of less intense illuminations. I still, however, prefer the spot- 
light to all others, and frequently work in full sunlight. 

When reading in full sunlight, it is necessary to keep the eyes 
thoroughly relaxed by means of periodical brief sunnings and 
palmings. Many people will also find it easier to read if they 
make use of a slot cut in black paper, as described in an earlier 
chapter. When these precautions are taken, reading under ten 
thousand foot-candles can be very helpful to those whose vision 
is defective. Falling upon the centre of sight, the image of the 
intensely illuminated print stimulates a macula which has become 
sluggish and insensitive through habitual wrong use of the 
organs of seeing. At the same time, the clarity and distinctness of 
the sunlit letters exercise a most wholesome influence upon the 
mind, which loses its habitual strained anxiety about seeing and 
acquires instead an easy confidence in its ability to interpret the 
sensa brought to it by the eyes. Thanks to this confidence and 
to the stimulation of the sluggish macula^ it becomes possible, 
after a time, to do one’s seeing no less effectively under lower 
intensities of illumination. Ten thousand foot-candle reading is 
a preparation and an education for hundred foot-candle reading. 

Owing sometimes to organic defects of the eyes, sometimes 
to ingrained habits of improper functioning, sometimes to 
generalized ill-health, certain persons are peculiarly sensitive to 
intense light. For these it would be unwise to plunge directly 
into ten thousand foot-candle reading. Following the techniques 
described in the diapter on sunning, they should gradually 
accustom themselves to tolerate greater and greater intensities 
of illumination, not only directly on the closed and open eyes, 
but also on die printed page before them. In this way, they will 
come by slow degrees to be able to enjoy the advantages of good 
lighting — advantages from which their organic or functional 
photophobia had previously cut them off, forcing them to strain 
for vision in a petpetual twilit. 

135 



THE ART OF SEEING 

In conclusion, it seems worth while to say a few words about 
the fluorescent lighting, now so extensively used in factories, 
shops and offices, on account of its cheapness. There is good 
evidence that this kind of lighting adversely affects the vision 
of a minority of those who have to do close work under it. One 
reason for this must be sought in the composition of the light 
itself, which does not come from an incandescent source, as does 
natural sunlight or the light from a filament bulb. Nor is this all. 
Fluorescent lighting throws almost no shadows. Consequently 
the element of contrast, so immensely important to normal 
seeing, is conspicuously absent from rooms illuminated by 
fluorescent tubes. Shadows, moreover, help us in our estimation 
of distances, forms and textures. When shadows are absent, we 
are deprived of one of our most valuable guide-posts to reality, 
and the accurate interpretation of sensa becomes much harder. 
This is one of the reasons why the organs of vision tire so much 
more easily on a day of uniform high cloud than on one of bright 
sunshine. Fluorescent lighting produces an eflfect somewhat 
similar to that produced by the diffused glare reflected from high 
thin clouds. To eyes that have been evolved to adapt them- 
selves to light proceeding from an incandescent source, and to 
minds that have learnt to make use of shadows as guides to 
correct interpretation, perception and judgment, fluorescent 
lighting cannot but seem strange and baffling. The wonder is 
that it is only a minority of people who react unfavourably to 
such lighting. 

If you happen to belong to the unlucky ten or fifteen per cent, 
of the population which cannot work under fluorescent light 
without suffering from bloodshot eyes, swollen eyelids and 
lowered vision, the best thing you can do, of course, is to find 
a job which permits you to work out of doors, or by the light 
of incandescent filament tamps. The next best thing is to palm 
fi'equendy, and get out of the fluorescence as often as possible 
fyt 4 minutes of sunning. At night, as a substitute for 
sunning, take the light of a strong incandescmt filament lamp 

136 



LIGHTING CONDITIONS 

upon the closed and open eyes. The movies constitute another 
excellent therapeutic measure for those who suffer in this way. 
Looked at in the proper way, they can be wonderfully rcstfiil 
and refreshing to eyes which react badly to the peculiar com- 
position of fluorescent light and to minds which are baffled by 
the shadowless world of low contrasts, in which that light 
compels them to work. 


137 



APPENDIX I 


A fter I had completed the manuscript of this book, a cor- 
. respondent sent me a copy of the following article, which 
appeared as an unsigned editorial annotation in the British 
Medical Journal of September 13th, 1941. 

PERFECT SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES 

A letter in this week’s Journal from Dr. J. Pamess draws 
attention to a statement recently broadcast by Dr. Julian Huxley 
on the practice of correcting visual defects without the use of 
glasses. Before condemning such a practice it would be as well 
to examine the evidence in support of it. There are a variety of 
methods based on h3rpotheses of varying degrees of tenuity. 
The system expounded by W. H. Bates in his Cure of Imperfect 
Sight by Treatment Without Glasses (New York, 1920) has the 
advantage over competitive systems in that its principles are 
publicly stated. Bates holds that the refractive state is dynamic 
and is constantly changing. The changes in refraction are pro- 
duced by the nerves and tissues of the extra-ocular muscles, the 
lens itself playing no part in accommodation. Defective vision 
is a psychic phenomenon, affection of the brain centres first dis- 
turbing the macula and then the whole retina. Treatment aims 
at inducing * cerebral relaxation,’ for when the mind is at rest 
vision is normal. In thirty years’ work on refraction Bates found 
few people who could maintain * perfect sight’ for more than a 
few minutes at a time, and he often saw ‘the refraction diange 
half a dozen times or more in a second, the variation ranging all 
the way from twenty dioptres of myopia to normal.’ As no 
ophthalmologist has the necessary skill and speed to observe 
half a dozen or more changes in refraction in the space of a second 
(‘blitz retinoscopy,’ as it might be called), no one is in a position 
to contradict tlds basic tenet of Bates. And ophthalmologists 

138 



APPENDIX I 

still cling to the theory, based upon physiological evidence, that 
accommodation is brought about ^ the cbanglog curvam^ 
jthe Bates illustrates the influence of the mind on refraction 
by the effect of strain. Since strain implies mental unrest, changes 
in refraction occur in all conditions inducing such unrest. Thus 
‘a patient 25 years old had no error of refraction when he looked 
at a blank wall without trying to see (t.e. under complete relaxa- 
tion and total absence of strain) ; but if he said he was 26, or 
someone else said he was 26, he became myopic (as shown by 
Bates’s rapid retinoscopy). The same thing happened when he 
said or tried to imagine that he was 24. When he stated or re- 
membered the truth his vision was normal, but when he stated or 
imagined an error he had an error of refraction.’ There is also 
the case of the litde girl who told a lie. The retin oscope revealed 
a change towards myopia the moment she re^ed“^o’ to tlie 
question, ‘Did you have an ice-cream?’; while she was giving 
truthful answers ‘the retinoscope indicated no error of refrac- 
tion.* This appears to be, so to say, a physical expression of the 
inward eye of the conscience. 

A queer assortment of evidence is brought forward to prove 
that the refractive changes in the eye are produced by the extra- 
ocular muscles. There is, for example, the ‘proof’ that aphakic 
patients are able to read small type with distance glasses. That 
the daily experience of ophthalmologists is to the contrary is 
perhaps of some significance, though obviously not as significant 
as the few instances Bates records, for which, incidentally, per- 
fecdy good explanations are available, as anyone acquainted with 
the literature laiows.^ There is, indeed, an extensive and contro- 
versial literature on the actual mechanism whereby the contour 
of the lens changes during accommodation ; the facts themselves 
are not disputed — except by Bates, who produces experimental 
evidence that in the fish removal of the lens does not interfere 
with accommodation. The fish experiment is amply illustrated 
^ Amer.J* OphtkaL^ 1921, 4, 296. 

^39 



THE ART OF SEEING 

by photographs, but there is no reference to the fact that accom- 
modation in the fish is different ph3^iologically and anatomically 
from that of the mammal. Mammalian experiments, mainly on 
the rabbit and cat, are recorded, and here the rather startling 
point emerges that a nerve or muscle cut across and tied up again 
will carry an impulse on being tied, though physiologists would 
not expect any such result before days or weeks had elapsed. 
Mammalian anatomy is also illuminated in these experiments. 
Apparently the standard teaching that the cat is endowed with a 
superior oblique muscle is not correct. It should be added that 
this is only an incidental observation; but that pharmacologists 
err in believing that atropine acts only on pnstriped muscle is 
part of the general argument, for Bates found that this drug will 
paralyse the extrinsic muscles which produce accommodation. 
One experiment, illustrated in fig. 23, appears to show that the 
dead fish still has a living mind; its brain is pithed to induce 
relaxation. 

The treatment based on these revolutionary observations aims 
at mental relaxation, and the pithed fish appears to be its proto- 
type. The Bates system of treatment seems to have many de- 
votees, and one incident may be worth noting. In 1931 the 
Republican Ministry of Public Health of Prussia w arned against 
this method as a fofm of quadkery,^ but ixTOi^ite Gennany ^ 
voluminous literature on the subject has spread the odtand there 
is apparently no lack of practitioners and patients. 

It will be noticed that this article contains two main lines of 
argument. 

First: Bates’s method of visual education cannot be sound, 
because it is used by Germans. 

Second : Bates’s method of visual education cannot be sound, 
because certain experiments devised to confirm the hypothesis, 
by which Bates sought to explain the success of his method, were 
not conducted properly. 

^ KUn. MM. Augenheilk.^ 1931, 87, 514. 

140 • 



APPENDIX I 


The first argument is exactly like that which was used, more 
than a century ago, to ^ Readers of 

John Elliotson’s paperT^wili recall his account of this ludicriQus* 
'"epi^de in history of English miedicine. Owing to anti- 
French prejudice, it was twenty years or more before Laennec’s 
invention came into general use among English physicians. 

In precisely the same way, owing to prejudice against magnet-- 
izers .and mesmerists, hypnotism was under the ban of official 
"^British medicine for an even longer period. For half a century 
after Braid had formulated his classical hypothesis and Esdaile 
had performed scores of major operations under hypnotic an- 
aesthesia, the British Medical Association officially held that there 
was nothing in h}rpnotism but fraud and quackery. 

Medical history has a jhsm al way of repeating itself in these 
matters, and it looks as diou^ visual education were to suffer 
the same fate as hypnotism and the stethoscope. 

I may add that the argument from nationalism hardly seems 
justified in the present instance. The art of seeing was worked 
out by an American physician and is extensively taught at the 
present time in the United States and England. ‘ Seeing-schools * 
have also existed for many years in Germany. Some of these 
schools were doubtless bad and deserved the censure of the 
Republican Health Ministry ; but others, as it would appear from 
an article contributed in 1934 by an army surgeon to the Deutsche 
Medi(tmsche Wochenschrift, must have been excellent. In this 
article. Dr. Drenkhahn records that, in many cases of refractive 
error among army recruits, he found that marksmanship was 
better when the men wore no corrective glasses, but undl^^ 
a course of visual training at a seeing-school. To those who 
notice any falling-off of \dsion. Dr. Drenkhahn gives the follow- 
ing advice: notto^o immediate bj^ an eye sn edalisL who will 
generally prescribe glasses, but to consult the frmily physician 
and, when he has taken steps to correct the general physical and 
psychological condition, to go to a seeii]g<^ool and learn the 
proper way to use the eyes and mind. 

141 



THE ART OF SEEING 

Sg, much for the first line of argument. The second is equally 
irrelevant, being based, not on prejudice this time, but on mental 
confusion and bad logic. For, incredible as it may seem, the 
writer of the article entirely fails to distinguish between two 
totally different things: the primary evidence confirming the 
existence of certain {^enomena, and the secondary evidence ad- 
duced to substantiate the hypothesis, in terms of which those 
phenomena are explained. The phenomena, which Bates sought 
to explain in terms of his unorthodox theory of accommodation, 
were those marked improvements in vision which regularly 
followed the practice of certain educational techniques. The 
evidence for the occurrence of such phenomena can be supplied 
by the thousands of persons who, like myself, have derived 
benefit from following the procedures in question, and by the 
scores of conscientious and experienced instructors who teach 
the method. If the writer really wanted to know about this evi- 
dence, he would get in touch with a few reliable teachers, ask 
permission to watch them at work and, if his own vision is de- 
fective, take a course of visual re-education. Instead of that, he 
seeks to discredit the whole idea of visual re-education by deny- 
ing the validity of the experiments used by Bates to support his 
explanatory hypothesis. 

Needless to say, the idea of visual education emerges unscathed 
from this hopelessly misdirected attack. For it is obvious that, 
even if this secondary evidence were untrustworthy, even if the 
h3q>othesis supported by that evidence could be proved to be 
incorrect, this would make absolutely no difference to the fiicts 
which that hypothesis was originally intended to explain. In 
the history of human effort, effective arts have always preceded 
correct explanato:^ hypothesfe""^^ Thuispan art of metallurgy 
existed for several ^oiisands of years before the formulation, in 
the present century, of satislactory hypotheses to account for the 
phenomena of tempering and alloying. According to the view 
expressed in the article, the incorrectness of their hypotheses 
should have made it impossible for the old smiths and founders 

142 



APPENDIX I 

to possess an art of metal working. Again, if the writer’s argu- 
ment made sense, there could be no such thing as modem medi- 
cine. Our knowledge of the human mind-body is limited and 
patchy, and our theories about it are admittedly inadequate. 
"T^evStheless, an effective art of medicine exists, in ^te of the 
fact that many medical hypotheses will, in the future, certainly 
be proved false, while new hypotheses will be formulated, of 
which contemporary physicians cannot even dream. Bates’s 
theory of accommodation may be as incorrect as were the 
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century explanations of the efficacy 
of lime-juice in cases of scurvy. Nevertheless scurvy was cured 
by lime-juice, and Bates’s method of visual education actually 
works. 


APPENDIX II 

I N myopes especially, posture tends to be extremely bad. This 
may be directly due in some cases to the short sight, which 
encourages stooping and a hanging of the head. Conversely, 
the myopia may be due in part at least to the bad posture. F. M. 
Alexander records cases in which myopic children regained 
normal vision after beii^ taught the proper way of carrying the 
head and neck in relation to die trunL 

In adults, the correction of improper posture does not seem 
to be sufficient of itself to restore normal vision. Improvement 
in vision will be accelerated by those who learn to correct faulty 
habits of using the organism as a vdiole; but the simultaneous 
learning of the specific art of seeing is indispensable. 



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