Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and ThoughtLehrs, Ernst
Religion
Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and Thought
Lehrs, Ernst
Anthroposophy; Cosmology; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832
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.
*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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