292 The Evolution of Optics. 



peoples, all civilized babies, are far-sighted. The majority of civilized 

 people are also hyperopic. Suddenly comes civilization, within fifty 

 or one hundred years, with its printing, reading, writing, commercial- 

 ism, cities, schools, and indoor life, demanding constant use of the 

 eye upon objects within a foot or two, and keeping the ciliary muscle 

 in a state of abnormal continuous tension. The habits and structures 

 of millions of years' formation are in a few years forced to do a work 

 of a very different and straining sort. Give Nature time and she will 

 turn a pseudopod into a seal's flipper, a horse's foot, a bat's wing, or a 

 man's hand. But in the instance of the eye no time has been allowed. 

 Civilization was never foreseen by evolution. Civilization, like a 

 footpad, has darted upon the eye and delivered it a vicious blow, de- 

 manding, " Your vision or your life." Myopia is one of the direct re- 

 sults of the blow, not the failed effort of Nature to heal the wound 

 of the blow. It is always a disease, never a healthy adaptation. Na- 

 ture has been given no time to make modification. Will she be able 

 to do so ? What is to be the result of this wolf-and-lamb controversy ? 

 As I am not a Brooklyn oculist, I may be pardoned the vulgarity of 

 " talking shop " a minute, and of not assuming the modesty of my 

 friend who lives among you. Indeed, I believe thoroughly in risking 

 the crude suspicion of advertising and of being credited with hobby- 

 riding, by proclaiming as from the housetops a truth of profound and 

 tragic importance. There are thousands of people in this city to-night 

 who have suffered a life of misery from headache, sick headache, nerv- 

 ous troubles, and lessened vitality simply because they are trying to 

 look at a microscopical specimen with a telescope. They have been 

 leeched, blistered, and cupped ; have taken bromides, nux vomica, caf- 

 feine, iron, antipyrine, cod-liver-oil, and tonics for years ; they have 

 wrapped their heads in whisky-soaked towels, gone to bed a day or two 

 every week, taken trips to the sea-shore or mountains, become chronic 

 invalids, or have been attacked by some serious disease that is always 

 looking out for a weakened organism in which to settle. It was all of 

 no avail. They wanted a microscope, and Nature had made a telescope 

 for them. A good oculist would make a fortune in a year if he could, 

 or would, have every case of headache in the community to treat on 

 condition that he should get fifty dollars for every cure, and give one 

 hundred dollars for every failure to cure. From fifty to eighty per 

 cent of all school-children and city folks are to-day undermining their 

 health, depleting their assimilative and nervous systems, laying the 

 sure foundations and preparations, either for themselves or their chil- 

 dren, of ill-health, disease, and early death, simply and solely from 

 lack of a proper pair of spectacles. Does that seem like crazy quack- 

 ery and hobby-riding ? It is the truest truth 1 know. Give Evolution 



