A postscript concerning Wagner's eyestrain / by Wm. Ashton Ellis.

  • Ellis, William Ashton, 1852-1919.
Date:
[1908]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A postscript concerning Wagner's eyestrain / by Wm. Ashton Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    8/32 (page 8)
    SO far as that is possible with a man so extremely reti- cent, save indirectly, about his bodily condition. In vol II. of Parerga our philosopher devotes a special chapter to denunciation of street-noises (whip- cracking in particular), the personal application whereof is unmistakable in this sentence: “Eminent minds have always rebelled against any kind of in- terruption or disturbance, above all by noise.” From a letter of his, to be presently cited, we happen to know that Schopenhauer had been all but stone- deaf of one ear, “as result of an illness,” for nearly thirty years ere that remark was published, and about the latter period was “gradually and gently losing use of the other;” consequently it can scarcely have been over-alertness of the auditory organ itself, that inspired him with his abhorrence. On the other hand, Dr. Gould has observed an “extreme sensitiveness to noise” in many of his eyestrain patients, and re- marks on its presence in Carlyle, who was by no means musically inclined. Turn back to Welt I. § i8, and you find a passage which may possibly date from the other extremity of Schopenhauer’s literary life, though it is more probably of composite origin: “Every stronger af- fection of those organs of sense [sight, hearing and touch] is painful, i.e., goes against the will, to whose objectivity they also belong.—Neurasthenia {Nerven- schwdche) is shewn when impressions which ought