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THE EYES OF SCIENCE, 



THE telescope, the microscope, and the spectroscope 

 give to the student of science what may be regarded as 

 three kinds of visual power in one case unlike the 

 visual qualities possessed by the natural eye, in the 

 other two surpassing these greatly in degree. We can 

 conceive creatures endowed with the powers of vision 

 which the telescope and the microscope artificially 

 supply. Indeed, it is by no means incredible that in 

 other worlds than ours creatures may exist possessing 

 powers akin to these. And although it is not easy to 

 conceive the sense of vision so increased and extended 

 that by means of it the analysis of light effected arti- 

 ficially by the spectroscope could be effected naturally, 

 yet there is nothing absolutely outside the range of 

 possibility, even in this. The eye is, indeed, an optical 

 instrument, precisely as the ear is an acoustical instru- 

 ment ; and so far as we can judge, the sense of vision 

 might have been provided with a more complex organ, 

 or series of organs, giving it greater range, as in the 

 telescope, or more complete power of magnifying 

 minute details, as in the microscope, or the power of 

 separating light rays of different refractive nature, as 

 in the spectroscope. There are other optical instruments 

 also whose powers might have had their analogues in 

 the organ of sight (as the polariscope and similar in- 

 struments) ; while there are others, as the stereoscope 



