therefore not be correct, for according to it not alone
some parts of the movement, but absolutely all parts alike must remain
invisible. It still remains, therefore, to ask why the greater part of
the movement eludes observation. The correct explanation will account
not only for the impossibility of seeing the first part of the
movement but also for the possibility of seeing the remainder.

[7] Ostwald, F., _Revue Scientifique_, 1896, 4e Serie, V., p.
466.

Apart from the experience of the eye watching itself in a glass, Dodge
(_loc. citat._) found another fact which strongly suggested
anaesthesia. In the course of some experiments on reading, conducted by
Erdmann and Dodge, the question came up, how "to explain the meaning
of those strangely rhythmic pauses of the eye in reading every page of
printed matter." It was demonstrated (_ibid._, p. 457) "that the
rhythmic pauses in reading are the moments of significant
stimulation.... If a simple letter or figure is placed between two
fixation-points so as to be irrecognizable from both, no eye-movement
is found to make it clear, which does not show a full stop between
them."

With these facts in view Dodge made an experiment to test the
hypothesis of anaesthesia. He proceeded as follows (_ibid._, p. 458):
"A disc of black cardboard thirteen inches in diameter, in which a
circle of one-eighth inch round holes, one half inch apart, had been
punched close to the periphery all around, was made to revolve at such
a velocity that, while the light from the holes fused to a bright
circle when the eye was at rest, when the eye moved in the direction
of the disc's rotation from one fixation point, seen through the fused
circle of light, to another one inch distant, three clear-cut round
holes were seen much brighter than the band of light out of which they
seemed to emerge. This was only possible when the velocity of the
holes was sufficient to keep their images at exactly the same spot on
the retina during the movement of the eye. The significant thing is
that the individual round spots of light thus seen were much more
intense than the fused line of light seen while the eyes were at rest.
Neither my assistant nor I was able to detect any difference in
brightness between them and the background when altogether
unobstructed." Dodge finds that this experiment 'disproves' the
hypothesis of anaesthesia.

If by 'anaesthesia' is meant a condition of the retinal end-organs in