A number of experiments have been made with more or less success to
explain the blind spot. It is enough for us to agree that we see
habitually with both eyes and that the “spot as big as a pea” disappears
only when we look at the cross. But when we fix our eyes on anything we
pay attention to that only and to nothing else. And it is indifferent to
us if an uninteresting object disappears, so that the moment we begin to
care about the “spot as large as a pea,” it is immediately to hand and
needs no imaginative completion. If it be objected that fixing with the
eyes and being interested are not identical, we reply that a distinction
is made only in experiment. You fix one point and are interested in the
other because you expect it to disappear. And this experiment, as
anybody will immediately recognize, has its peculiar difficulty, because
it requires much concentration not to look at the point which interests
us. This never happens in the daily life, and it will not be easy to fix
a point which is not interesting.
At the same time there are conceivable cases in which objects seen
askance may be of importance, and where the visual fixation of a single
point will not reveal every reflection that fell on the blind spot. I
have not met with a practical case in which some fact or testimony could
be explained only by the blind spot, but such cases are conceivable.
Section 40. (c) The Sense of Hearing.
We have two problems with regard to sound--whether the witnesses have
heard correctly, and whether we hear them correctly. Between both
witnesses and ourselves there are again other factors. Correct
comprehension, faithful memory, the activity of the imagination, the
variety of influences, the degree of personal integrity; but most
important is the consideration, whether the witness has heard correctly.
As a general thing we must deny in most cases completely accurate
reproduction of what witnesses have heard. In this connection dealing
with questions of honor is instructive. If the question is the recall of
slander the terms of it will be as various as the number of witnesses.
We discover that the sense, the tendency of slander is not easily
mistaken. At least if it is, I have not observed it. The witness, e.g.,
will confuse the words “scamp,” “cheat,” “swindler,” etc., and again the
words: “ox,” “donkey,” “numbskull,” etc. But he will not say that he has
heard “scamp” where what was said was “donkey.” He simply has observed
that A has insulted B with an epithet of moral turpitude or of stupidity
and under examination he inserts an appropriate term. Often people hear
only according to meanings and hence the difficulty of getting them to
reproduce verbally and directly something said by a third person. They
always engage upon indirect narration because they have heard only the
meaning, not the words. Memory has nothing to do with this matter, for
when in examination, a witness is requested to reproduce directly what
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