"You should reflect that man can not offer a satisfactory explanation of
the fact that he can see with his eyes. In one respect, these so-called
lower creatures are higher in the scale of life than man is, for they
see (appreciate) without eyes. The surfaces of their bodies really are
sources of perception, and seats of consciousness. Man must yet learn to
see with his skin, taste with his fingers, and hear with the surface of
his body. The dissected nerve, or the pupil of man's eye, offers to the
physiologist no explanation of its intrinsic power. Is not man
unfortunate in having to risk so much on so frail an organ? The
physiologist can not tell why or how the nerve of the tongue can
distinguish between bitter and sweet, or convey any impression of
taste, or why the nerve of the ear communicates sound, or the nerve of
the eye communicates the impression of sight. There is an impassable
barrier behind all forms of nerve impressions, that neither the
microscope nor other methods of investigation can help the reasoning
senses of man to remove. The void that separates the pulp of the
material nerve from consciousness is broader than the solar universe,
for even from the most distant known star we can imagine the
never-ending flight of a ray of light, that has once started on its
travels into space. Can any man outline the bridge that connects the
intellect with nerve or brain, mind, or with any form of matter? The
fact that the surface of the bodies of some animals is capable of
performing the same functions for these animals that the eye of man
performs for him, is not more mysterious than is the function of that
eye itself. The term darkness is an expression used to denote the fact
that to the brain which governs the eye of man, what man calls the
absence of light, is unrecognizable. If men were more magnanimous and
less egotistical, they would open their minds to the fact that some
animals really possess certain senses that are better developed than
they are in man. The teachers of men too often tell the little they know
and neglect the great unseen. The cat tribe, some night birds, and many
reptiles can see better in darkness than in daylight. Let man compare
with the nerve expanse of his own eye that of the highly developed eye
of any such creature, and he will understand that the difference is one
of brain or intellect, and not altogether one of optical vision surface.
When men are able to explain how light can affect the nerves of their
own eyes and produce such an effect on distant brain tissues as to bring
to his senses objects that he is not touching, he may be able to explain
how the energy in darkness can affect the nerve of the eye in the owl
and impress vision on the brain of that creature. Should not man's
inferior sense of light lead him to question if, instead of deficient
visual power, there be not a deficiency of the brain capacity of man?
Instead of accepting that the eye of man is incapable of receiving the
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