Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/541

Rh abundant. A steady sound of one constant pitch ceases to be heard until we become aware of it by its cessation. A steady light of one color, such as the yellow light of gas-flames, ceases to be noticed as a yellow light until some other color-sensation break the illusion. The same is true of smells, of tastes, of the sensations of temperature, of the sensation of rotation after a waltz, and of many others. All these are probably only different instances of the operation of some much more general physico-psychological law. It is quite consonant with these kindred phenomena that, when any region of the retina is affected by an image of objects moving steadily across the corresponding portion of the field of view in any given direction, that portion of the retina gradually loses consciousness of the motion, and perceives it only as a steady sensation, or as one of approximate rest. When, however, an object really at rest is looked at, the associative faculty seizes upon the contrast in the sensations affecting that region, and interprets the new sensation by imputing a motion in the opposite sense to the objects occupying the corresponding portion of the field of vision. I have proposed to give to the empirical law expressing these matters the name of the law of subjective complementary motion.

It is impossible to quit the subject without pointing out two lines of thought suggested by that which has been advanced.

Firstly, it is conceivable that the explanation here propounded may at some future time be superseded by a better hypothesis of a more purely physical character. Suppose, for example, that it could be shown—what I have reason to suspect, but have been foiled in all attempts to prove in any experimental fashion—that the eye has the power of altering at will the actual size of the retinal images by a double muscular adjustment between the magnifying power of the lenses of the eye and the distance of their equivalent optical center from the surface of the retina, such a fact, once established, would entirely cut away the significance of my crucial test with the rotating spirals; and the apparent expansions and contractions of objects would be merely due to the continuous attempts of the eye to retain the retinal images of one constant size. If this were so (though I have failed in every kind of attempt to devise some satisfactory test), it might also explain one little matter that is still very mysterious and unexplainable, namely, that in these illusions of expansion and contraction the changes of apparent magnitude often appear to take place by discontinuous jumps rather than by steady motions.

Secondly, it is found that these different illusions affect different individuals with very different degrees of success, some persons being much more sensitive than others to the after-workings of the subjective motion; and, indeed, there are individuals in whose case it is almost impossible to produce the illusions. Doubtless some of these differences may be accounted for by defects of vision, astigmatism, achromatopsy, myopy, and the like. But there is also a time-element in