Seeing as 'Deed' - II
The observation of our own visual process, which we began in the last
chapter, will serve now to free us from a series of illusory concepts
which have been connected by the onlooker-consciousness with the
phenomena brought about by light.
There is first the general assumption that light as such is visible. In
order to realize that light is itself an invisible agent, we need only
consider a few self-evident facts - for instance, that for visibility
to arise light must always encounter some material resistance in space.
This is, in fact, an encounter between light, typifying levity, and the
density of the material world, typifying gravity. Accordingly, wherever
visible colours appear we have always to do with light meeting its
opposite.
Optics, therefore, as a science of the physically perceptible is never
concerned with light alone, but always with light and its opposite
together. This is actually referred to in Ruskin's statement, quoted in
the last chapter, where he speaks of the need of the 'force' and of the
intercepting bodily organ before a science of optics can come into
existence. Ruskin's 'light', however, is what we have learnt with
Goethe to call 'colour', whereas that for which we reserve the term
'light' is called by him simply 'force'.
All this shows how illusory it is to speak of 'white' light as
synonymous with simple light, in distinction to 'coloured' light. And
yet this has been customary with scientists from the time of Newton
until today, not excluding Newton's critic, Eddington. In fact, white
exists visibly for the eye as part of the manifested world, and is
therefore properly characterized as a colour. This is, therefore, how
Goethe spoke of it. We shall see presently the special position of
white (and likewise of black), as a colour among colours. What matters
first of all is to realize that white must be strictly differentiated
from light as such, for the function of light is to make visible the
material world without itself being visible.
To say that light is invisible, however, does not mean that it is
wholly imperceptible. It is difficult to bring the perception of light
into consciousness, for naturally our attention, when we look out into
light-filled space, is claimed by the objects of the illuminated world,
in all their manifold colours and forms. Nevertheless the effect of
pure light on our consciousness can be observed during a railway
journey, for instance, when we leave a tunnel that has been long enough
to bring about a complete adaptation of the eyes to the prevailing
darkness. Then, in the first moments of the lightening of the field of
vision, and before any separate objects catch the attention, we can
notice how the light itself exercises a distinctly expanding influence
on our consciousness. We feel how the light calls on the consciousness
to participate, as it were, in the world outside the body.
It is possible also to perceive directly the opposite of light. This is
easier than the direct perception of light, for in the dark one is not
distracted by the sight of surrounding objects. One need only pay
attention to the fact that, after a complete adapting of the eyes to
the dark, one still retains a distinct experience of the extension of
the field of vision of both eyes. We find here, just as in the case of
light, that our will is engaged within the eye in a definite way; a
systolic effect proceeds from dark, a diastolic effect from light. We
have a distinct perception of both, but not of anything 'visible' in
the ordinary sense.
With regard to our visual experience of white and black, it is quite
different. We are concerned here with definite conditions of corporeal
surfaces, just as with other colours, although the conditions conveying
the impressions of white or black are of a special character. A closer
inspection of these conditions reveals a property of our act of seeing
which has completely escaped scientific observation, but which is of
fundamental importance for the understanding of optical phenomena
dynamically.
It is well known that a corporeal surface, which we experience as
white, has the characteristic of throwing back almost all the light
that strikes it, whereas light is more or less completely absorbed by a
surface which we experience as black. Such extreme forms of interplay
between light and a corporeal surface, however, do not only occur when
the light has no particular colour, but also when a coloured surface is
struck by light of the same or opposite colour. In the first instance
complete reflexion takes place; in the second, complete absorption. And
both these effects are registered by the eye in precisely the same
manner as those mentioned before. For example, a red surface in red
light looks simply white; a green surface in red light looks black.
The usual interpretation of this phenomenon, namely, that it consists
in a subjective 'contrast' impression of the eye - a red surface in red
light looking brighter, a green surface darker, than its surroundings,
and thereby causing the illusion of white or black - is a typical
onlooker-interpretation against which there stands the evidence of
unprejudiced observation. The reality of the 'white' and the 'black'
seen in such cases is so striking that a person who has not seen the
colours of the objects in ordinary light can hardly be persuaded to
believe that they are not 'really' white or black. The fact is that the
white and the black that are seen under these conditions are just as
real as 'ordinary' white and black. When in either instance the eye
registers 'white' it registers exactly the same event, namely, the
total reflexion of the light by the surface struck by it. Again, when
the eye registers 'black' in both cases it registers an identical
process, namely, total absorption of the light.1
Seen thus, the phenomenon informs us of the significant fact that our
eye is not at all concerned with the colour of the light that enters
its own cavity, but rather with what happens between the light and the
surface on which the light falls. In other words, the phenomenon shows
that our process of seeing is not confined to the bodily organ of the
eye, but extends into outer space to the point where we experience the
visible object to be.2
This picture of the visual process, to which we have been led here by
simple optical observation, was reached by Thomas Reid through his own
experience of how, in the act of perceiving the world, man is linked
intuitively with it. We remember that he intended in his philosophy to
carry ad absurdum the hypothesis that 'the images of the external
objects are conveyed by the organs of sense to the brain and are there
perceived by the mind'. Common Sense makes Reid speak as follows: 'If
any man will shew how the mind may perceive images of the brain, I will
undertake to shew how it may perceive the most distant objects; for if
we give eyes to the mind, to perceive what is transacted at home in its
dark chamber, why may we not make the eyes a little longer-sighted? And
then we shall have no occasion for that unphilosophical fiction of
images in the brain.' (Inq., VI, 12.) Reid proceeds to show this by
pointing out, first, that we must only use the idea of 'image' for
truly visual perceptions; secondly, that the sole place of this image
is the background of the eye, and not any part of the nervous system
lying beyond; thirdly, that even this retina-image, as such, does not
come to our consciousness, but serves only to direct the consciousness
to the cause of the image, namely, the external object itself. In what
follows we shall deal with an observation which will show how right
Reid was in this respect.
Those familiar with this observation (well known indeed to those living
in the hilly and mountainous districts both here and on the Continent)
know that when distant features of the landscape, in an otherwise clear
and sunlit atmosphere, suddenly seem almost near enough to touch, rainy
weather is approaching. Likewise a conspicuous increase in distance,
while the sky is still overcast, foreshadows fine weather.
This effect (the customary 'explanation' of which is, as usual, of no
avail to us and so need not concern us here) ranks with phenomena
described in optics under the name of 'apparent optical depth', a
subject we shall discuss more fully in the next chapter. It suffices
here to state that it is the higher degree of humidity which, by
lending the atmosphere greater optical density (without changing its
clarity), makes distant objects seem to be closer to the eye, and vice
versa. (If we could substitute for the air a much lighter gas - say,
hydrogen - then the things we see through it would look farther off
than they ever do in our atmosphere.)
Observations such as these show us that (a) when external light strikes
the retina of our eye, our inner light is stimulated to move out of the
eye towards it; (b) in pressing outward, this inner light meets with a
certain resistance, and the extent of this determines at what distance
from the eye our visual ray comes to rest as the result of a kind of
exhaustion. Just as the outer light reaches an inner boundary at our
retina, so does the inner light meet with an outer boundary, set by the
optical density of the medium spread out before the eye, Outer and
inner light interpenetrate each other along the whole tract between
these two boundaries, but normally we are not conscious of this
process. We first become conscious of it where our active gaze - that
is, the inner light sent forth through the eye - reaches the limit of
its activity. At that point we become aware of the object of our gaze.
So here we find confirmed a fact noted earlier, that consciousness - at
least at its present state of evolution - arises where for some reason
or other our volition conies to rest.
*
The foregoing observations have served to awaken us in a preliminary
way to the fact that an essential part of our act of seeing takes place
outside our bodily organ of vision and that our visual experience is
determined by what happens out there between our gaze and the medium it
has to penetrate. Our next task will be to find out how this part of
our visual activity is affected by the properties of the different
colours. We shall thereby gain a further insight into the nature of the
polarity underlying all colour-phenomena, and this again will enable us
to move a step further towards becoming conscious of what happens in
our act of seeing.
We shall start by observing what happens to the two sides of the
colour-scale when the optical medium assumes various degrees of
density.
For the sky to appear blue by day a certain purity of the atmosphere is
needed. The more veiled the atmosphere becomes the more the blue of the
sky turns towards white; the purer and rarer the atmosphere, the deeper
the blue, gradually approaching to black. To mountain climbers and
those who fly at great heights it is a familiar experience to see the
sky assume a deep indigo hue. There can be no doubt that at still
higher altitudes the colour of the sky passes over into violet and
ultimately into pure black. Thus in the case of blue the field of
vision owes its darkening to a decrease in the resistance by which our
visual ray is met in the optical medium. It is precisely the opposite
with yellow. For here, as the density of the medium increases, the
colour-effect grows darker by yellow darkening first to orange and then
to red, until finally it passes over into complete darkness.
This shows that our visual ray is subject to entirely different dynamic
effects at the two poles of the colour-scale. At the blue pole, the
lightness-effect springs from the resistant medium through which we
gaze, a medium under the influence of gravity, while the darkness is
provided by the anti-gravity quality of cosmic space, which as a
'negative' resistance exercises a suction on the eye's inner light. At
the yellow pole it is just the reverse. Here, the resistant medium
brings about a darkening of our field of vision, while the
lightness-effect springs from a direct meeting of the eye with light,
and so with the suctional effect of negative density.
Our pursuit of the dynamic causes underlying our apperception of the
two poles of the colour-scale has led us to a point where it becomes
necessary to introduce certain new terms to enable us to go beyond
Goethe's general distinction between Finsternis (darkness) and Licht
(light). Following Goethe, we have so far used these two terms for what
appears both in blue and yellow as the respective light and dark
ingredients. This distinction cannot satisfy us any more. For through
our last observations it has become clear that the Finsternis in blue
and the Licht in yellow are opposites only in appearance, because they
are both caused by Levity, and similarly that the lightening effect in
blue and the darkening effect in yellow are both effected by Gravity.
Therefore, to distinguish between what appertains to the primary
polarity, Levity-Gravity, on the one hand, and their visible effects in
the secondary polarity of the colours, on the other, we shall
henceforth reserve the term darkness and, with it, lightness for
instances where the perceptible components of the respective colours
are concerned, while speaking of Dark and Light where reference is made
to the generating primary polarity.
*
If we are justified in thus tracing the colour-polarity to a
polarically ordered interplay between levity and gravity, we may then
pursue the following line of thought. We know from earlier
considerations that wherever such an interplay between the poles of the
primary polarity takes place, we have to do, in geometric terms, with
the polarity of sphere and radius. We may therefore conclude that the
same characteristics will apply to the way in which the blue of the sky
and the yellow of the sunlight are encountered spatially. Now we need
only observe how the blue heavens arch over us spherically, on the one
hand, and how the yellow brightness of the sun penetrates the air
ray-wise, on the other, in order to realize that this really is so.
Having thus established the connexion of the two poles of the
colour-scale with the spherical and radial structure of space, we are
now able to express the Goethean ur-phenomenon in a more dynamic way as
follows: On the one hand, we see the blue of the heavens emerging when
levity is drawn down by gravity from its primal invisibility into
visible, spherical manifestation. In the yellow of the sunlight, on the
other hand, we see gravity, under the influence of the sun's levity,
gleaming up radially into visibility. The aspect of the two
colour-poles which thus arises before us prompts us to replace Goethe's
'lightened Dark' by Earthward-dawning-Levity, and his 'darkened Light'
by Heavenward-raying-Gravity.
We have now to show that this picture of the dynamic relationship which
underlies the appearance of the colour-polarity in the sky is valid
also for other cases which are instances of the ur-phenomenon of the
generation of colour in Goethe's sense, but seem not to lend themselves
to the same cosmic interpretation. Such a case is the appearance of
yellow and blue when we look through a clouded transparent medium
towards a source of light or to a black background. There is no special
difficulty here in bringing the appearance of yellow into line with its
macrotelluric counterpart, but the appearance of blue requires some
consideration.
We have seen that a corporeal surface appears as black if light
striking it is totally absorbed by it. Thus, wherever our eye is met by
the colour black, our visual ray is engaged in a process whereby light
disappears from physical space. Now we need only bring this process
into consciousness - as we have tried to do before in similar instances
- to realize that what happens here to the visual ray is something
similar to what it undergoes when it is directed from the earth into
cosmic space.
Note, in this respect, the principle of the mirror as another instance
of the fact that the interplay between light and an illumined surface
can have on the visual ray an effect similar to that of external space.
For the optical processes which occur on the surface of a mirror are
such that, whilst taking place on a two-dimensional plane, they evoke
in our consciousness pictures of exactly the same nature as if we were
looking through the mirror into the space behind it.
*
The value of our picture of the colour-polarity is shown further if we
observe how natural phenomena based on the same kind of polarity in
other realms of nature fit in with it. We remember that one of Goethe's
starting-points in his investigation of the riddle of colour was the
observation that of the totality of colours one part is experienced as
'warm' and the other as 'cold'. Now we can go further and say that the
colours of the spherical pole are experienced as cold, those of the
radial pole as warm. This corresponds precisely to the polarity of
snow-formation and volcanic activity. The former, being the spherically
directed process, requires physically low temperatures; the latter,
being the radially directed process, requires high temperatures. Here,
once more, we see with what objectivity the human senses register the
facts of the outer world.
Another realm of phenomena based on a similar polar order is that of
electricity. When we studied the negative and positive poles of the
vacuum tube, with regard to the polar distribution of radius and
sphere, our attention was drawn to the colours appearing on the two
electrodes - red at the (positive) anode, blue at the (negative)
cathode. Again we find a coincidence with the natural order of the
colours.
Note how the qualitative dynamic method employed here brings into
direct view the relationship between light and electricity, while it
precludes the mistake of tracing light processes to those of
electricity, as modern science does. Nor are electric processes
'explained' from this point of view merely as variations of light
processes. Rather is the relation between light and electricity seen to
be based on the fact that all polarities arising perceptibly in nature
are creations of the same primeval polarity, that of Levity and
Gravity. The interplay of Levity and Gravity can take on many different
forms which are distinguished essentially by differences in cosmic age.
Thus the colour-polarity in its primal form, made manifest by the
heavens, differs as much from the corresponding polarity shown by the
vacuum tube, as does the lightning in the heights from the electric
spark.
*
With the aid of what we have learnt here concerning outer
light-processes we shall turn once more to the activity of our own
inner light.
We may expect by now that our eye is fitted with two modes of seeing
activity, polar to each other, and that the way in which they come into
operation depends on whether the interplay of positive and negative
density outside the eye leads to the appearance of the blue-violet or
of the yellow-red side of the colour-scale. Such a polarity in the
activity of the eye can indeed be established. Along with it goes a
significant functional difference between the two eyes (not unlike that
shown of the two hands).
To observe this we need simply to compare the two eyes of a person in a
photograph by covering alternately the right and the left half of the
face. Nearly always it will be found that the right eye looks out
clearly into the world with an active expression, and the left eye with
a much gentler one, almost held back. Artists are well aware of this
asymmetry, as of others in the human countenance, and are careful to
depict it. An outstanding example is Raphael's Sistine Madonna, where
in the eyes and whole countenance both of Mother and Child this
asymmetry can be studied in a specially impressive way.
Inner observation leads to a corresponding experience. A convenient
method is to exercise the two eyes in complete darkness, in the
following way. One eye is made to look actively into the space in front
of it, as if it would pierce the darkness with its visual ray, while
the activity of the other eye is held back, so that its gaze rests only
superficially, as it were, on the darkness in front of it. Experience
shows that most people find it natural to give the active note to the
right eye, and the passive note to the left.
Once one has grown conscious of this natural difference between the two
eyes, it is quite easily detected while one is looking normally into
the light-filled environment. We thereby realize that for the two eyes
to act differently in this way is the usual thing.
As an instance where this fact is well observed and effectively made
use of, that of shooting may be mentioned here, especially shooting at
flying game. Those who train in this sport learn to make a completely
different use of the two eyes in sighting the target. The naturally
more active eye - only once in about fifty cases is it the left - is
called by them the 'master-eye'. Whilst the less actively gazing eye is
usually employed for surveying the field as a whole into which the
target is expected to enter, the master-eye is used for making active
contact with the target itself ('throwing' oneself on the target
'through' the eye).
One further observation may be added. If one looks with rested eyes and
in very faint daylight (perhaps in the early morning on awakening) at a
white surface, while opening and closing the eyes alternately, then the
white surface looks faintly reddish to the 'master-eye', and faintly
bluish to the other.
*
Following the lines of our treatment of after-images in the last
chapter, we will next inquire into the anatomical and physiological
basis of the two opposite sight-activities. In the previous instance we
found this in the polarity of nerve and blood. This time we must look
for it in a certain twofold structure of the eye itself. We shall best
perceive this by watching the 'becoming' of the eye, thus again
following a method first shown by Goethe.
Fig. 11 shows the human eye in different stages of its embryonic
formation. The eye is clearly seen to consist of two parts essentially
different in origin. Growing out from the interior of the embryonic
organism is a structure that is gradually pushed in, and in its further
development becomes the entire posterior part of the eye, destined to
carry its life-imbued functions. A second independent part grows
towards this from outside; this is at first a mere thickening of the
embryonic skin formation, but later it loosens itself and presses
forward into the interior of the cup-shaped structure. It is gradually
enclosed by this, and evolves finally into that part of the finished
eye which embodies the optical apparatus functioning according to
purely physical laws.
This series of forms shows that in the embryonic formation of the eye
we are confronted with two processes, one of spherical, and the other
of radial orientation. Consequently the two parts of the eye are
differentiated in such a way that the posterior part, which has grown
forth radially from the embryonic organism, as the life-filled element
represents the sulphur-pole of the total eye, while the anterior part,
with its much more crystalline nature, having grown spherically towards
the organism, represents the eye's salt-pole.
Closer inspection into the connexion of the two visual activities of
the eye with its basic corporeal parts reveals that here, at the
outermost boundary of the human organism, we encounter once more that
peculiar reversal of functions which we have already several times met
in various realms of nature. For the anterior part of the eye - its
salt-pole - which has come into being through a spherically directed
formative process, seems to be the one through which we exercise the
perceptive activity streaming out radially from the eye, whilst the
posterior part - the eye's sulphur-pole - which has come into being
through radially directed formative action, serves that form of seeing
which is more receptive and is carried out in a plane-wise manner.
Considerations of this kind, and they alone, enable us also to draw
true comparisons between the different sense-organs. Take the organ of
hearing. Usually the ear is assumed to fill the same role in the field
of hearing as does the eye in the field of seeing. In fact the ear
corresponds to only one half of the eye; the other half must be looked
for in the larynx. In other words, the two parts of the eye are
represented in the realm of hearing by two separate organs, ear and
larynx. Speaking from the aspect of metamorphosis, the vital part of
our eye may be regarded as our 'light-ear'; the crystalline part, as
our 'light-larynx'. In order to come consciously to a perception of
sight we must 'listen' to the 'deeds and sufferings' of light, while at
the same time we meet them with the help of the 'speaking' of our inner
light. Something similar holds good for hearing. In fact, observation
reveals that we take in no impression of hearing unless we accompany it
with an activity of our larynx, even though a silent one. The
significance of this fact for the total function of hearing will occupy
us more fully later.
*
Our insight into the polar nature of visual activity will enable us now
to link the external interplay of Light and Dark - to which the
physical colours owe their existence - to that play of forces which we
ourselves set in motion when our eye meets the world of colours in
their polar differentiation.
We established earlier that in the cold colours the role of darkness
belongs to the pole of levity or negative density, and the role of
lightness to the pole of gravity or positive density, whereas in the
case of the warm colours the roles are reversed. Let us now unite with
this the insight we have meanwhile gained into the two kinds of
activity in seeing - the receptive, 'left-eyed' and the radiating,
'right-eyed' - which mediate to us the experience of the positive or
negative density of space spread out before our eyes. Taking together
the results of outer and inner observation, we can express the polarity
ruling in the realm of colour as follows.
If lightness and darkness as elements of colour, meet us in such a way
that lightness, by reason of its positive density, calls forth
'left-eyed' activity, and darkness, by reason of its negative density,
'right-eyed' activity, then our soul receives the impression of the
colour blue and colours related to blue. If lightness and darkness meet
us so that we see the former in a 'right-eyed', and the latter in a
'left-eyed' way, then we experience this as the presence of yellow and
the colours related to it.
The reason why we usually fail to observe the different kinds of
interplay of the two modes of seeing, when we perceive one or other of
the two categories of colour, is because in ordinary sight both eyes
exercise each of the two activities without our becoming aware which is
the leading one in a particular eye. If, however, one has come to a
real experience of the inner polarity of the visual act, one needs only
a little practice to realize the distinction. For example, if one looks
at the blue sky, notably at noon-time, on the side away from the sun,
or at the morning or evening sky, shining yellow and red, one quickly
becomes conscious of how our eyes take hold of the particular
contribution which Light and Dark make to one or other of the two
colour appearances.
*
In the natural course of our argument we had to keep at first to the
appearance of colours as they come freely before us in space. The
results we have obtained, however, hold good equally well for the
permanent tints of material objects, as the following example will
show.
A fact known to science is that red and blue surface colours, when
illumined by light of steadily diminishing intensity, are seen to
reverse their normal ratio of brightness. This phenomenon can be seen
in nature, if, for instance, one observes a bed of blue and red flowers
in the fading evening light and compares the impression with that which
the same flowers make in bright daylight. If the phenomenon is
reproduced artificially, the actual transition from one state to the
other can be clearly observed. The easiest way is to place a red and a
blue surface side by side under an electric light whose intensity can
be gradually lessened by means of a sliding resistance. Here, as much
as in the natural phenomenon, our reason finds it difficult to
acknowledge that the surface gleaming in a whitish sheen should be the
one which ordinarily appears as darkling blue, and that the one
disappearing into darkness should be the surface which normally
presents itself as radiant red.
This riddle is readily solved if we apply what we have learnt about the
particular shares of lightness and darkness in these two colours, and
if we link this up with the respective forms of seeing exercised by our
two eyes. To the dim light, clearly, our eyes will respond more with
the 'left-eyed' than with the 'right-eyed' form of vision. Now we know
that it is 'left-eyed' vision which is roused by the
lightness-component in blue and the darkness-component in red. It is
only to be expected, therefore, that these elements should become
conspicuous when in the dim light our seeing is mainly 'left-eyed'.
This solution of the problem makes us realize further, that the laws
which Goethe first found for the coming into appearance of colours
freely hovering in space are indeed applicable to the fixed material
colours as well.
1 It will be well to remember here the discussion of our experience of
temperature through the sense of warmth in Chapter VIII (p. 134f.).
2 Along these lines the true solution of the problem of the so-called
coloured shadows will be found, Goethe studied this without finding,
however, a satisfactory answer.