1. Of even greater significance than the choice of the object or of the moment of observation is the discretionary alteration of the observed, for here the possibility of the acuteness of judgement is revealed. Tyndall wanted to find out during his studies on fermentation what happens if the air, which comes in contact with the fermenting substance, is altered by freeing it from those floating small dust particles which can be shown in it by means of a light beam.. He removed the dust particles very simply by covering the inside surface of the box, in which he carried out the experiment, with glycerol. After some time even the smallest dust particles stuck to the wall, like flies on a tar-covered fence.Again imagination was responsible that this thought occurred to his mind.
2. The expedients which facilitate the observation and frequently are the only means to make it feasible. There is a difficulty which makes it impossible to observe the retina through the pupil although the latter is completely translucent. The difficulty is that precisely during observation, as the idiom states, one stands in one’s own light. Aflame put between the observed and the observing eye would illuminate the former but make its observation impossible. The thought occurred to HELMHOLTZ’S mind to place between both eyes a small mirror with a small aperture in such a way that a lateral light beam would fall in the subject’s eye which now can be observed through the aperture. This synergism of imagination and critical judgment resulted in the invention of the ophthalmoscope. So much for the first part of the mechanism. The result of its application is accurate knowledge of our environment; but this knowledge relates to a cornplexwhole, to conglomerations of causes and effects.
3.Several musicians,A,B,C, etc., simultaneously play different instruments behind a curtain.We think of these musicians as a coherent whole of causes; the concert generated by them is the (harmonious) conglomerate of effects. The question as to the connection between each given cause and its effect then concerns knowledge of the instrument played by each musician. The simplest expedient would certainly be to ask all musicians to stop playing for a moment except one, for example,A. But this is not always possible and the musicians can only all together play a bit more softly or somewhat louder. Suppose, also, in another instance at which one must confine himself to have A stop or to let him change his manner of playing.This example refers only to the simplest case, in which one can regulate the participation of the musicians as desired for the experiment. Yet, even in the most complicated cases, all depends upon the observation of agreement or difference in the playing of the individual instruments.
2. The expedients which facilitate the observation and frequently are the only means to make it feasible. There is a difficulty which makes it impossible to observe the retina through the pupil although the latter is completely translucent. The difficulty is that precisely during observation, as the idiom states, one stands in one’s own light. Aflame put between the observed and the observing eye would illuminate the former but make its observation impossible. The thought occurred to HELMHOLTZ’S mind to place between both eyes a small mirror with a small aperture in such a way that a lateral light beam would fall in the subject’s eye which now can be observed through the aperture. This synergism of imagination and critical judgment resulted in the invention of the ophthalmoscope. So much for the first part of the mechanism. The result of its application is accurate knowledge of our environment; but this knowledge relates to a cornplexwhole, to conglomerations of causes and effects.
3.Several musicians,A,B,C, etc., simultaneously play different instruments behind a curtain.We think of these musicians as a coherent whole of causes; the concert generated by them is the (harmonious) conglomerate of effects. The question as to the connection between each given cause and its effect then concerns knowledge of the instrument played by each musician. The simplest expedient would certainly be to ask all musicians to stop playing for a moment except one, for example,A. But this is not always possible and the musicians can only all together play a bit more softly or somewhat louder. Suppose, also, in another instance at which one must confine himself to have A stop or to let him change his manner of playing.This example refers only to the simplest case, in which one can regulate the participation of the musicians as desired for the experiment. Yet, even in the most complicated cases, all depends upon the observation of agreement or difference in the playing of the individual instruments.
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