C 23 3 
II. The Bakerian Lecture. On the Mechanism of the Eye. By 
Thomas Young, M. D. F. R. S. 
■ 
Read November 27, 1800. 
I. In the year 1793, I had the honour of laying before the 
Royal Society, some observations on the faculty by which the 
eye accommodates itself to the perception of objects at different 
distances.* The opinion which I then entertained, although it 
had never been placed exactly in the same light, was neither so 
new, nor so much forgotten, as was supposed by myself, and 
by most of those with whom I had any intercourse on the sub- 
ject. Mr. Hunter, who had long before formed a similar opi- 
nion, was still less aware of having been anticipated in it, and 
was engaged, at the time of his death, in an investigation of the 
facts relative to it ; -f an investigation for which, as far as 
physiology was concerned, he was undoubtedly well qualified. 
Mr. Home, with the assistance of Mr. Ramsden, whose recent 
loss this Society cannot but lament, continued the inquiry 
which Mr. Hunter had begun ; and the results of his experi- 
ments appeared very satisfactorily to confute the hypothesis of 
the muscularity of the crystalline lens. J I therefore thought 
it incumbent on me, to take the earliest opportunity of testify- 
ing my persuasion of the justice of Mr. Home’s conclusions, 
which I accordingly mentioned in a Dissertation published at 
• Phil. Trans, for 1793, p. 1 69. 4 Phil. Trans, for 1794, p. 21.. 
I Phil. Trans, for 1795, p. 1. 
