162 



DISCOVERY 



Shakespeare correctly attributing the giddiness to 

 the organ involved. Shakespeare has not failed to note 

 the subjective sensations which a giddy person experi- 

 ences when stable, external objects seem to be moving 

 round him and particularly in the direction opposite to 

 that towards which he last moved. Thus wc have in 

 The Taming of the Shrew (Act V, So. 2) — 



" He that is giddy thinks the world turns round." 



Hamlet (Act III, Sc. 4) makes a remark in reference 

 to the functional activities of the nervous system of so 

 profoimd a character that we hesitate to believe that 

 Shakespeare really knew all it involves : 



" Sense, sure, you have, 

 Else you could not have motion." 



The principle that sensory impressions must precede 

 motor in the education of the nervous system is now 

 regarded as of immense practical importance. It is a 

 fact which, of course, could not have been known to 

 Shakespeare that those tracts in the central nervous- 

 system which subserve sensation are developed 

 functionally a considerable time before those which 

 subserve movement. Shakespeare's marvellous obser- 

 vation had, however, shown him the truth of this 

 important generalisation without the possibility of his 

 having had any acquaintance with the physiological 

 bases for it. 



As one would be prepared to believe, the more 

 exclusively the topic has to do with the human mind, 

 the more penetrating is Shakespeare's treatment of it. 



The oftenest quoted example of this is the psychic 

 blindness of Lad\- Macbeth : 



" Doctor : You see her e^'es are open. 

 Gentlewoman : Ay, but their sense is shut." 



That the eyes are open is not enough to ensure vision 

 unless the centre for vision in the brain is also in activity 

 is the physiology underlying this passage. 



It is a state of mind-blindness, the result of extreme 

 abstraction of the attention, a condition analogous to 

 the state of the brain in hypnotism where a person can 

 by suggestion be made blind although his eyes are 

 open. Lady Macbeth is described as " fast asleep " 

 but with open eyes. This is not natural sleep, for in it 

 the eyelids are always closed. Shakespeare correctly 

 describes a condition popularly called " trance," in 

 which, although the eyes may be open, there is no vision 

 in the imconscious brain behind them. 



Shakespeare clearly believed the brain to be the organ 

 of the fonnation of images or ideas. One more example 

 of this may be given from the Alerry Wives (Act IV, 

 Sc. 2) : 



" Ford : Well, he's not here I seek for. 

 Page : No, nor nowhere else, but in your biain." 



Coloured after-images or, as some call them, the results 

 of retinal fatigue, are also alluded to in one of the plays. 

 In The Taming of the Shrew (Act IV, Sc. 5) Katherine 

 says : 



" Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes 

 That have been so bedazzled with the sun 

 That everything I look on seemcth green." 



This is a literal experience known to many : if the 

 eyes are over-stimulated by exceedingly bright sun- 

 light and one goes indoors suddenly, everything takes 

 on a rather ghastly greenish hue. 



A very striking passage involving biological interest 

 we may take from Hamlet (Act I, Sc. 5), where the Ghost 

 remarks ; 



" The glow-worm shows the matin to be near. 

 And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire." 



A minor point of interest is in connection with the 

 paling of the light because of the dawn. The light of 

 the glow-worm, in common with all lights, would begin 

 to appear paler as the morning daylight increased. 

 More technically, the light of the glow-w'orm is relatively 

 feeble owing to the stimulation of the retina by a much 

 intenser light. It is the same phenomenon as the ex- 

 treme paleness of the moon's light when seen during 

 the day. But there is a much more interesting word 

 in this passage — the word " uneffectual " as applied 

 to the "fire " or light of the worm. Surely Shake- 

 speare means to convev the notion that the "fire" of 

 the glow-worm is uneffectual because it is unaccom- 

 panied by heat. Now the fact has been established 

 only quite recently that, when organisms emit light by 

 an oxidative process known as chemiluminescence, the 

 chemical energy is used directly for conversion to light- 

 energy without passing through the stage of heat. 

 In this sense, then, the light of the glow-wonn is an 

 uneffectual fire, because, being accompanied by no heat, 

 it could set fire to nothing. Fire that will not set fire 

 to anything is indeed uneffectual. 



It need hardly be pointed out that it is only Nature 

 that has succeeded in producing light without heat. 

 Man has never yet achieved what he so greatly desires,. 

 a source of light without an accompanying very high 

 temperature, for the heat generated along with light 

 is wasted energy as far as illuminating purposes are 

 concerned. The spectrum of animal light shows it to 

 be devoid of vibrations both towards the red and the 

 violet end of the spectrum ; it is, therefore, chemically 

 (photographically) inert, which is another aspect of 

 its ineffectiveness. 



But this is not the only Shakespearean allusion to the 

 glow-worm, for Pericles says (Act II, Sc. 3) : 



" Where now his son's like a glow-worm in the night, 

 The which hath fire in darkness, rone in light." 



