Sight in Savages. 173 
mightier arms than others; but it was perhaps 
assumed that the complex structure and extreme 
delicacy of the eye would make it less adaptive than 
other and coarser organs. Whatever the origin of 
the error may have been, it is certain that it has 
received the approval of scientists, and that they 
never open their lips on the subject except to give 
it fresh confirmation. Their researches have 
brought to light a great variety of eye-troubles, 
which, in many cases, are not troublesome at all, 
until they are discovered, named with a startling 
name, and described in terms very alarming to 
persons of timid character. Frequently they are 
not maladies, but inherited defects, like bandy legs, 
prominent teeth, crushed toes, tender skin, and 
numberless other malformations. That such eye- 
defects are aS common among savages as among 
ourselves, I do not say, and to this matter I shall 
return later on; but until the eyes of savages are 
scientifically examined, it seems a very bold thing 
to say that defective colour-sense is due to the 
inimical conditions of our civilization ; for we know 
as little about the colour-sense of savages as we 
do about the colour-sense of the old Greeks. That 
the savage sight is vastly more powerful than ours 
was perhaps not so bold a thing to say, seeing 
that in this matter our teachers were misled by 
travellers’ tales, and perhaps by other considerations, 
as, for instance, the absence of artificial aids to 
sight among the children of nature. The redskin 
may be very old, but as he sits sunning himself 
