Tertium Organum

not from our own point of view
is impossible for us. And 
we are never able to have a correct view of it, a view not distorted by our 
eyesight. 
Relief and perspective - these are the distortions of the objects by our eye.
They are an optical illusion, a visual deception. A cube in perspective is only 
a conventional symbol of a three-dimensional cube. And everything we see is 
only a conventional image of that conventionally real three-dimensional 
world which our geometry studies - and not the real world itself. On the basis 
of what we see, we must guess what it really is. We know that what we see is 
incorrect, and we think of the world as being different from the way we see it. 
If we had no doubts about the correctness of our sight, if we knew that the 
world was such as we saw it, it stands to reason that we would think of it as 
we see it. In practice, however, we are constantly introducing corrections into 
what we see. 
This capacity of introducing corrections in that which the eye sees 
necessarily implies the possession of concepts, for corrections are made by 
means of reasoning, which is impossible without concepts. Without this 
capacity of correcting what is seen by the eye we would see the world quite 
differently, i.e. much of what 
actually exists 
we would see wrongly, much of 
what 
actually exists
we would not see at all, and we would see a great deal of 
what, 
in reality, does not exist at all.
In the first place, we would see an 
enormous number of 
nonexistent movements. 
For direct sensation, every 
movement of our own is connected with the movement of everything around 
us. We 
know 
that this movement is illusory, but we 
see
it as real. Objects turn 
round before us, run past us, outstrip one another. Houses, past which we 
drive slowly, turn about leisurely; if we drive fast, they turn quickly; trees 
suddenly spring up before us, run away and vanish. 
This 
apparent
animation of objects, together with dreams, provided, and 
still provides, the main food for the fantasy of fairy-tales. 
to the sphere, he could not see any difference between them. When asked to describe 
his first impression of the two figures, he answered that he noticed at once the 
difference between the cube and the sphere and realized that they were not drawings, 
but could not derive from them the representation of a square and a circle, until he felt 
in his fingertips the same sensation as though he had touched a square and a circle. 
When he was allowed to handle the cube, the sphere and the pyramid, he immediately 
identified these solids by touch and was very surprised at not having recognized them at 
once by sight. He had as yet no representation of space, of perspective. All objects 
appeared flat to him. Although he knew that the nose projected and the eyes were sunk 
in cavities, the human face also looked flat to his eyes. He was overjoyed at having his 
sight restored, but in the beginning looking at things tired him; impressions 
overwhelmed and exhausted him. This is why, while enjoying perfect sight, he at times 
reverted to touch, as a form of relaxation. 

---

In those cases the 'movements' of objects may be very complex. Look at 
the strange behaviour of a cornfield seen through the window of your railway
carriage. It runs up to your very window, stops, turns about slowly and runs to 
one side. The trees in the wood clearly run at different speeds, outstripping 
one another. A whole landscape of illusory motion! And what of the sun 
which still continues, in all languages, to rise and set, and the movement of 
which was at one time so passionately defended! 
This is how it all appears to us. And although we already know that all 
these movements are illusory, we still 
see
them and are, at times, deceived. 
How many more illusions we would see if we were unable mentally to 
unravel the causes which produce them, and were to regard everything as 
existing exactly as we see it?