Sight in Savages. 183 
to observe and infer, and his inferences, like those 
of the savage, were sometimes wrong. 
The savage sight is no better than ours for the 
simple reason that a better is not required. Nature 
has given to him, as to all her creatures, only what 
was necessary, and nothing for ostentation. Stand- 
ing on the ground, his horizon is a limited one; 
and the animals he preys on, if often sharper-eyed 
and swifter than he, are without intelligence, and 
thus things are made equal. He can see the rhea 
as far as the rhea can see him; and if he possessed 
the eagle’s far-seeing faculty it would be of no 
advantage to him. The high-soaring eagle requires 
to see very far, but the low-flying owl is near-sighted. 
And so on through the whole animal world: each kind 
has sight sufficient to find its food and escape from 
its enemies, and nothing beyond. Animals that live 
close to the surface have a very limited sight. 
Moreover, other faculties may usurp the eye’s place, 
or develop so greatly as to make the eye of only 
secondary importance as an organ of intelligence. 
The snake offers a curious case. No other sense 
seems to have developed in it, yet I take the snake 
to be one of the nearest-sighted creatures in exist- 
ence. From long observation of them I am con- 
vinced that small snakes of very sluggish habits do 
not see distinctly farther than from one to three 
yards. But the sluggish snake is the champion faster 
in the animal world, and can afford to lie quiescent 
until the wind of chance blows something eatable in 
its way; hence it does not require to see an object 
