12 OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 
branch of formal instruction, those whom it may interest can, 
fortunately, have no pedagogue but themselves. To the natu- 
ral philosopher, the descriptive poet, the painter, the sculptor, 
and indeed every earnest observer, the power most important 
to cultivate, and, at the same time, hardest to acquire, is that of 
seeing what is before him. Sight is a faculty; seeing, an art. 
The eye is a physical but not a self-acting apparatus, and in 
general it sees only what it seeks. Like a mirror, it reflects 
objects presented to it; but it may be as insensible as a mirror, 
and not consciously perceive what it refiects.* 
It has been maintained by high authority, that the natural 
acuteness of our sensuous faculties cannot be heightened by 
use, and hence, that the minutest details of the image formed 
on the retina are as perfect in the most untrained as in the 
most thoroughly disciplined organ. This may be questioned, 
and it is agreed on all hands that the power of multifarious 
perception and rapid discrimination may be immensely in- 
creased by well-directed practice.t This exercise of the eye 
I troer, at Synets Sands er lagt i Oiet, 
Mens dette kun er Redskab. Synet strémmer 
Fra Sjzlens Dyb, og Oiets fine Nerver 
Gaae ud fra Hjernens hemmelige Verksted. 
HENRIK HERTZ, Kong René’s Datter, sc. ii. 
In the material eye, you think, sight lodgeth! 
The eye is but an organ. Seeing streameth 
From the soul’s inmost depths. The fine perceptive 
Nerve springeth from the brain’s mysterious workshop. 
+ Skill in marksmanship, whether with firearms or with other projectile wea- 
pons, depends more upon the training of the eye than is generally supposed, and 
Thave often found particularly good shots to possess an almost telescopic vision. 
In the ordinary use of the rifle, the barrel is guided by the eye, but there are 
sportsmen who fire with the butt of the gun at the hip. In this case, as in 
the use of the sling, the lasso, and the bolas, in hurling the knife (see BABI- 
NET, Lectures, vii., p. 84), in throwing the boomerang, the javelin, or a stone, 
and in the employment of the blowpipe and the bow, the movements of the 
hand and arm are guided by that mysterious sympathy which exists between 
the eye and the unseeing organs of the body. 
‘‘Some men wonder whye, in casting a man’s eye at the marke, the hand 
