Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/aldous-huxley/page,578,480199-complete_works_of_aldous_huxley.html
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 familiarity will, on a third visit, permit 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.
CHAPTER XVI
Long Sight, Astigmatism, Squint
LONG SIGHT IS of two main types — hyperopia, often found in young people and persisting into later life; and presbyopia, which 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 associated (as it not infrequently is) with a very slight degree of outward squint in one of the eyes, may bring on frequent severe headaches, giddiness, fits of nausea and vomiting. The neutralizing of hyperopic symptoms by means of artificial lenses sometimes puts a stop to these painful disabilities; but sometimes it fails to do so, and the migraines and nausea persist until such rime as the sufferer learns the art of seeing.
Presbyopia is commonly regarded as one of the 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 the 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 spectacles. From this we may conclude that there is nothing inevitable or predestined about the long sight of old age.
Palming, sunning, swinging and shifting will do much to relieve the discomfort associated with hyperopia, and will put the mind and eyes into the condition of dynamic relaxation which makes normal seeing possible. These should be supplemented by imagination drills, which are particularly valuable in improving the long-sighted person’s ability to read.
Print seems grey and blurred when the hyperope looks at it.
This state of things can be improved indirectly by a constant practice of the fundamental procedures of the art of seeing — palming, sunning, swinging and shifting; and, directly, through memory and imagination. The 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 imagination.
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 condition 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 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 unstrained 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 accompanied 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, then permanently, the quality of the mental images of external objects. When this 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 condition 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, supplementing them. To the procedures which are helpful to all longsighted persons, they should add the following techniques for improving their reading.
Print can be read without undue strain somewhat nearer to the eyes than the point of maximum comfort and habitual usage. The 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 little, the reading distance can be cons
iderably 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, immediately took to exercising it on the finest print, and in this way fairly bullied nature out of her foolish habit of taking liberties 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 nineteenth century, containing the complete works of the great and the forgotten, and printed in a diamond type so small that our ancestors must indeed have had good vision to get through 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 see the words, but let the eyes wander back and forth along the white spaces between the lines of print. No mental hazards are involved in looking at a plain surface; consequently, there will be no temptation to strain, if you keep the eyes and 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 outward 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 paragraph 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 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 normality, 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 representation 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 considerable 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 close 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 pencil; 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 pencil, to some distant object at the other end of the room. When the eyes are focussed on this distant object, the pencil at the near point will seem to become two pencils. To eyes in perfect alignment, these two pencils will look as though they were about three inches apart. But where there is muscular imbalance, the distance separating the two images will appear to be a good deal less. (And if the squint is pronounced, the 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 than they were when you actually saw them. When we distinctly imagine a normal image, our eyes will tend automatically to put themselves 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 their 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 directly 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 that 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 eyes and the nerves and muscles connected with them. When peo
ple 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 circulation. 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.