Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/516

 502 G. M. STRATTON : of paper with a horizontal and a vertical line on " When I asked him to point out with his finger the horizontal line," Franz writes, 1 he moved his hand slowly, as if feeling, and pointed to the vertical ; but after a short time observing his error, he corrected himself. The outline in black of a square, six inches in diameter, within which a circle had been drawn, and within the latter a triangle, was, after careful examination, recognised and correctly described by him. When he was asked to point out either of the figures, he never moved his hand directly and decidedly, but always as if feeling, and with the greatest caution ; he pointed them out, however, correctly." And various other experiments gave the same results. This also is the testimony of Uhthoff, 2 who went carefully to work to test his patient with this problem distinctly in mind. When the bright little boy, operated on by him for congenital cataracts, was required, during the first experi- ments, to point to some prominent object which he evidently saw, he continually pointed quite beside the mark, and did this again in check-experiments. In two days, however, he learned to point out accurately the things in sight. And finally, Vurpas and Eggli, 3 who also had this same question consciously before them, obtained similar results after operating on their little patient Louis. When he had learned to recognise visually an orange before him, and was required to grasp directly at it (rather than feel around for it, which he always did unless prevented), he invariably missed it, going to the right or to the left, as if sight gave no real assistance. The authors conclude that sight, in its original dissociated purity, gives no sense of direction ; and Binet, in reviewing their work, 4 suggests that the results need only mean that the sense of direction given by sight alone requires time and training for its development, and these the child as yet lacked. I see no reason why they need mean even this ; the facts may be accounted for even if we admit that the visual perceptions already gave some sense of direction, but of direction confined within the visual system ; in other words, that even at this early stage the sight-perceptions were arranged with reference to each other, and thus possessed 1 Philosophical Transactions, 1841, pp. 64-5. 2 " Weitere Beitrage zum Sehenlernen blindgeborener und spater mit Erfolg operierter Menschen," u.s.w., Zeitschrift fur Psychologic, xiv., 195. 3 " Quelques recherches psychologiques sur le sens de la vue chez deux enfants operes de cataracte double cong^nitale," Annales medico-psychol., juillet, 1896 ; reprinted almost in full in L'annee psychologique, iii., 384. 4 L'annee psychologique, iii., 389.