Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/47

 CHAPTER V THE RECOVERY OF A LOST INSTRUMENT

"Hilkiah said, I have found the Book of the Law in the House of the Lord."— xxii. 8. To form any adequate conception of the situation in which the founders of the modern pulsation-Logic found themselves, we must imagine a state of things somewhat of this kind.

Suppose that in some social convulsion, every ophthalmoscope were now to be destroyed, and all the men who use the instrument were to perish, leaving behind a few of those who had been accustomed to see it used, and to clean or otherwise handle it. We must suppose a great many ophthalmoscope-drawings preserved, with notes proving that these purported to be drawings of the retina.

After society had settled down again, the drawings might begin to attract attention. Thereupon would set in fierce discussion in the medical world. There would be a tradition' that certain medical draughtsmen of the 19th century had a means of knowing what the living retina looks like; a means not accessible to ordinary men. Traditions would be handed down that the condition necessary for seeing how to do the drawings was induced by holding to one's eye a certain machine. These traditions would be different in form, according as the servant in whose recorded reminiscences it had originated had been accustomed to see his master use this or that form of handle or frame. It might come to be a point of faith to believe that the drawings were done while the artist was wholly or partially entranced.