Alhazen's Theory of Vision and Its Reception in the West

Author(s): David C. Lindberg

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Isis, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1967), pp. 321-341
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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 Alhazen's Theory of Vision
and Its Reception in the West
By David C. Lindberg*

HE MOST SERIOUS problem facing the Muslim heirs of Greek thought

was the extraordinary diversity of their inheritance. Among theories of
optics, for instance, Muslim thinkers had the following choice: the emission
theory of sight of Euclid and Ptolemy, which postulated visual rays emanat-
ing from the observer's eye; the older Epicurean intromission theory, which
reversed the rays and made them corporeal; the combined emission-intromis-
sion theories of Plato and Galen; and some enigmatic statements of Aristotle
about light as qualitative change in a medium.1 These Greek theories gener-
ated a wide assortment of optical theories in Islam, two of which came to
dominate. Hunain ibn Ishaq (d. 877), the most prolific translator of scientific
works into Arabic, argued for a combined emission-intromission theory in
the tradition of Plato and Galen.2 Al-Kindi (d. c. 873) agreed with Hunain
that rays are emitted by both the visible object and the eye, although he
couched his theory in terms of a general emanation of power having Stoic
and Neoplatonic origins and appropriated the geometrical approach to optics
appearing in the works of Euclid and Ptolemy.3 Avicenna (Ibn Sina, d. 1037)
took exception to the views of Hunain and al-Kindi, denying that visual rays
are of any use in explaining the process of sight and insisting on a complete
intromission theory.4 These and other Muslim philosophers made important
*
University of Wisconsin. A short version of Recherches sur la catoptrique grecque (Brus-
this paper was presented before a joint meet- sels: Palais de Academies, 1957).
ing of the American Association for the Ad- 2 The Book of the Ten Treatises of the Eye,
vancement of Science and the History of Science ascribed to Hunain ibn Ishdq (809-877 A.D.),
Society, December 1966. The paper is a product trans. Max Meyerhof (Cairo: Government Press,
of research supported by the National Science
1928), pp. 31-39.
Foundation.
1 Obviously this attempt at classification ob- 3 Graziella Federici Vescovini, Studi sulla
scures a host of distinctions. On Greek optics prospettiva medievale (Turin: G. Giappichelli,
see Arthur Erich Haas, "Antike Lichttheorien," 1965), Ch. 3; Alkindi, De aspectibus, in A. A.
Archiv fiir Geschichte der Philosophie, 1907, Bjornbo and Sebastian Vogl, "Alkindi, Tideus
20:345-386; J. Hirschberg, "Die Optik der alten und Pseudo-Euklid, Drei optische Werke,"
Griechen," Zeitschrift fiir Psychologie und Abhandlung zur Geschichte der mathemati-
schen Wissenschaften, 1912, 26, Pt. 3.
Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, 1898, 16:321-351;
Albert Lejeune, Euclide et Ptolemee (Louvain: 4 Eilhard Wiedemann, "Ibn Sina's An-
Bibliotheque de l'Universite, 1948); Lejeune, schauung vom Sehvorgang," Archiv fiir die Ge-
321
322 DAVID C. LINDBERG

contributions through their criticisms of Greek theories and their syntheses

of disparate elements of Greek thought; moreover, their influence on Western
optical thought was far from negligible. Yet, none of them created an in-
clusive optical system to rival that of Ptolemy; they dealt with but one or
another aspect of sight, usually in the space of a few paragraphs or a few pages.
The first comprehensive and systematic alternative to Greek optical theo-
ries was formulated by Alhazen (Ibn al-Haitham, d. c. 1039), a figure of im-
mense importance in the history of optics. Alhazen leveled a devastating
attack at prevailing optical theories and formulated a grand and viable alter-
native. Moreover, he had a profound influence on the West: his principal
work on optics (Kitab al-manazir, cited by Western authors as De aspectibus
or Perspectiva) 5 was translated into Latin late in the twelfth or early in the
thirteenth century and dominated Western optical thought until early in
the seventeenth century. Modern optical thought issues, by direct descent,
from the work of Alhazen and his immediate followers.
The central feature of Alhazen's system is its theory of direct vision, and
with this topic the Perspectiva opens.6 Alhazen notes, first, the effect of bright
lights on the eye. "We find," he says, "that when the eye looks into exceed-
ingly bright lights, it suffers greatly because of them and is injured. For when
an observer looks at the body of the sun, he cannot see it well, since his eye
suffers pain because of the light." 7 Clearly this implies an action of bright
bodies on the eye, for injury is something inflicted by an agent on a recipient
and could not, in the case of the eye, result from emission of the eye's own
ray. The phenomenon of the afterimage supports the same position:
schichte der Naturwissenschaften und der duces the substance of Alhazen's ideas. If it
Technik, 1913, 4:239-241. This is a German can be shown that there are significant differ-
translation of a short work on physics by Avi- ences between the Arabic and Latin texts, then
cenna. Avicenna expresses similar views in many I must be content with elucidating the Latin
other works. tradition, which was influential in the West. I
5 The only printed edition of this work is have repeatedly checked the Risner text against
Opticae thesaurus Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, earlier Latin manuscripts (British Museum
nunc primum editi a Federico Risnero (Basel, Royal MS 12.G.VII and Bruges MS 512) and
1572); the title Opticae thesaurus was given to find no differences in substance.
the book by Risner. Manuscripts of the Arabic The best secondary works on Alhazen's op-
text have recently been discovered (see Max tics are Vasco Ronchi, Histoire de la lumiere,
Krause, "Stambuler Handschriften islamischer trans. J. Taton (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin,
Mathematiker," Quellen und Studien zur 1956), a translation of his Storia della luce (Bo-
Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie und logna: N. Zanichelli, 1952); H. J. J. Winter,
Physik, 1936, Abt. B, 3:476, which lists five lo- "The Optical Researches of Ibn al-Haitham,"
cated in Istanbul); an edition is being pre- Centaurus, 1954, 3:190-210; Vescovini, Studi,
pared by A. I. Sabra. My study has been limited Ch. 7; Schramm, Weg zur Physik; and Leopold
to the Latin text; but it is abundantly clear- Schnaase, Die Optik Alhazens (Stargard: A.
from a comparison of English translations of Muller, 1889). There is also a two-volume study
the same section made from both Latin and by a contemporary Egyptian physicist, Mustafa
Arabic texts (Stephen L. Polyak, The Retina Nazif, Ibn al-Haitham: His Optical Researches
[Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1941], pp. 109- and Discoveries (Cairo: Nuri Press, 1942-1943).
111), from the recent study by Matthias 6 I.e., the Latin text, which seems to lack the
Schramm (Ibn al-Haythams Weg zur Physik first few brief chapters of the Arabic text. Cf.
[Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1963]), and from a Eilhard Wiedemann, "Zu Ibn al-Haitams Op-
comparison of the Opticae thesaurus with Al- tik," Arch. Gesch. Naturw. Tech., 1910, 3:4.
hazen's shorter tracts on optics translated from 7 Opticae thesaurus, I, Sec. 1. p. 1. All trans-
Arabic by Wiedemann, Baarman, Winter, and lations are rendered from this edition. Space
others-that the Latin text faithfully repro- has not permitted inclusion of the Latin text.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 323

. . . when an observer looks at a bright fire and allows it to linger in his

vision for a long time, if he then transfers his gaze to a weakly illuminated
place, he will [continue to] see the same thing [i.e., the brightness]. . . . Fi-
nally this fades away and vision returns to its normal disposition.8
After overwhelming his reader with this and similar data, Alhazen concludes,
"All these things indicate that light produces some effect in the eye."9
So far Alhazen has confined his argument to light from what we would call
self-luminous objects. Such luminous rays, filtering through mist or dust,
had been recognized since antiquity,10 but Alhazen has more in mind than
these. He argues that every visible object is seen by the emission of its own
light, though illumination by a self-luminous body is a normal prerequisite:
It has been demonstrated above that light issues in all directions opposite
any body that is illuminated with any light. Therefore when the eye is oppo-
site a visible object and the object is illuminated with light of any sort, light
comes to the surface of the eye from the light of the visible object."

However, an observer perceives the color of the visible object as well as its
light. This is a similar process and always accompanies the perception of light:
It has been shown already that the form of color of any colored body, illumi-
nated by any light whatsoever, always accompanies the light emanating from
that body to any region opposite the body. . . . Therefore the form of the
color of a visible body always accompanies the light coming to the eye from
the light of the body. And since light and color come to the surface of the
eye simultaneously, the eye perceives the color of the visible object on account
of the light coming to it from the object. It is proper, therefore, that the eye
should not perceive the color of the visible object except through the form of
color accompanying the light to the eye; and the form of color is always
mixed with the form of light . .12
.

Light and color, the first twenty-two visible intentions identified by Al-
hazen, are perceived by sense alone without the support of any process of
ratiocination. The remaining twenty visible intentions-including such
things as remoteness, position, shape, magnitude, motion, rest, and beauty -
are perceived visually, but only by processes of recognition, distinction,
and argumentation performed by the virtus distinctiva. Light and color re-
main the primary visible intentions, and the others are perceived through
their mediation.13
Six conditions must be fulfilled if the forms of light and color (issuing
8 Ibid. nately; consequently, I have made no attempt
9 Ibid. to distinguish between them in my English
translation. In the passage quoted, Alhazen
lOE.g., Galen, De usu partium, X, 12, in speaks of light, but elsewhere (e.g., p. 14) he
(Euvres anatomiques, physiologiques et medi- speaks of the form of light
cales de Galien, trans. Charles Daremberg, Vol. 12 Ibid., p. 7.
I (Paris: J.-B. Baillire, 1854), p. 639. 13 Ibid., II, Ch. 2, pp. 34 if. (chapter desig-
11Opt. thes., I, Sec. 14, p. 7. Here and else- nations go back to the Arabic original; see
where, the Latin text of Alhazen's treatise em- n. 23 below). On the meaning of "intention"
ploys the terms lux and lumen indiscrimi- see Vescovini, Studi, pp. 64-69, 80-85.
324 DAVID C. LINDBERG

from an object in all directions) are to enter the eye of the observer and
bring about perception: 14 (1) There must be a certain distance between the
eye and the visible object. (2) The visible object must be directly in front of
the eye, that is, within the visual field. (3) The object must be either self-
luminous or illuminated by light from another body. (4) The visible object
must possess magnitude; that is, lines drawn from the extremities of the
visible object to the center of the eye must intercept, on the surface of
the glacial humor (crystalline lens), "a segment of sensible magnitude by
comparison with the whole surface of the glacial humor."15 (5) The medium
or media between the object and the observer must be transparent. (6) The
object must be dense and solid. This final requirement is instructive regard-
ing the nature of light. In the first place, the object must be dense and solid
because only dense and solid bodies have color and part of the act of vision
is perception of the color of the body. Secondly, if the body were not dense
and solid (i.e., if it were transparent), the light by which it is illuminated
would pass through without opposition. In this event, there would be no
light in the surface of the body capable of emanating its form to the
observer:
When there is a transparent body opposite the eye and it is illuminated by
light from the direction of the observer, the light passes through it and is
not fixed in its surface; and thus in the surface of the body opposite the eye
there will be no light from which a form can come to the eye.16

Evidently the light (or the form of light) issuing from a nonluminous body is
not its own but has been deposited there by an illuminating body.
The foregoing discussion makes it clear (1) that the forms of light and
color issue in all directions from self-luminous or illuminated bodies through
transparent media and (2) that the forms of light and color make an impres-
sion on the eye. But it might still be argued that the forms of light and color
do not issue from the visible object unless triggered by rays emanating from
the observer's eye; that is, one could still claim that visual rays play a neces-
sary role in vision. In order to demonstrate the futility of this hypothesis of
visual rays, Alhazen undertakes a long and tightly knit argument. Let us
suppose, he says, "that rays issue from the eye and pass through the trans-
parent body [between the eye and the object] to the object of sight and that
perception occurs by means of those rays." 17 Either these rays take something
from the object and return it to the eye, or they do not. If they do not, the
eye cannot perceive the object by means of them. But this is counter to the
original supposition that rays issue from the eye to perceive the object. Con-
sequently, it must be concluded that the rays do transmit something from
the object to the eye:
14 Opt. thes., I, Ch. 7, pp. 22-23. World, Alhazen embraced the emission theory,
15 Ibid., I, Sec. 40, p. 23. but I am making no attempt in this article to
16 Ibid., Sec. 42, p. 23. examine the development of Alhazen's theories;
17 Ibid., Sec. 23, p. 14. Here Alhazen assumes cf. Eilhard Wiedemann, "Zur Geschichte der
that which he proposes to disprove. In his Lehre vom Sehen," Annalen der Physik und
earlier treatise, On the Configuration of the Chemie, 1890, neue Folge, 39:473.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 325

Therefore [according to the emission view] those [visual] rays that perceive
the visible object transmit something to the eye, by means of which the eye
perceives the object. And since the rays transmit something to the eye, by
means of which the eye perceives the object, the eye perceives the light and
color in the visible object by no other means than through something coming
to the eye from the light and color in the object. .. .18

Thus, even in the emission theory, sight is ultimately achieved by communi-

cation of something from the object to the eye. Since it has already been
demonstrated that the forms of light and color emanate in all directions from
the visible object without the hypothesis of visual rays, of what advantage
are the visual rays? As Alhazen expresses this impressive argument,
. . . sight occurs only as something of the visible object comes from the ob-
ject [to the eye], whether or not rays issue from the eye. Now it has already
been declared that sight is achieved only if the body intermediate between
the eye and the visible object is transparent, and it is not achieved if the
medium is opaque. . . . Since . . . the forms of the light and color in the
visible object reach the eye (if they were [originally] opposite the eye), that
which comes from the visible object to the eye (through which the eye per-
ceives the light and color in the visible object no matter what the situation
[with respect to visual rays]) is merely that form, whether or not rays issue
[from the eye]. Furthermore, it has been shown that the forms of light and
color are always generated in air and in all transport bodies and are always
extended to the opposite regions, whether or not the eye is present. There-
fore the egress of rays [from the eye] is superfluous and useless.19
Not yet satisfied that he has disposed of the theory of visual rays, Alhazen
launches a further attack. If it is assumed, once again, that sight is due to
something issuing from the eye, either that thing is body or it is not. If it is
body, it follows that when one looks at the vault of the heavens, body flows
from the eye to fill the entire space between the heavens and the eye, yet
without destroying or diminishing the eye in any way. Since that is obviously
impossible, that which flows from the eye is not body. But if that which issues
from the eye is not body, it cannot perceive the the object, since "there is no
perception except in bodies."20 Thus, by means of a reductio ad absurdum,
Alhazen has demonstrated that a ray issuing from the eye cannot be respon-
sible for sight; but he has not demonstrated that no ray issues from the eye.
However, he concludes that if the rays are not responsible for sight, they
are not sensible; therefore they are conjectural, "and nothing ought to be
believed except through reason or by sight."21
Although it appears that Alhazen has completely discredited the theory
of visual rays, the obscurity of the text has led to recent confusion on this
18 Opt. thes., I, Sec. 23, p. 14. require that the ray issuing from the eye be
19 Ibid. Note Alhazen's appeal to the prin- material.
ciple of economy. 21 ". . . et nihil debet putari nisi per ra-
20 Ibid. This also excludes the possibility, tionem vel a visu" (ibid.). The last three words
Alhazen thinks, that something issuing from in this Latin text are not found in the Risner
the eye could take something from the visible edition but are included in British Museum
object and return it to the eye; that too would Royal MS 12.G.VII, fol. 7v.
326 DAVID C. LINDBERG

point.22 Friedrich Risner, editor of the only printed edition of Alhazen's

optics (1572), divided the work into sections and gave each a title. Section 24
of Book I he entitled: "Vision seems to occur through avvavyetav, that is, rays
simultaneously received and emitted." 23Alhazen's text immediately beneath
this title begins as follows:
It has been asserted on account of this [i.e., the argument of the previous
section] that both schools of thought [presumably emission and intromission]
speak the truth and that both beliefs are correct and consistent; but one does
not suffice without the other, and there can be no sight except through that
which is maintained by both schools of thought.24
A number of historians, deceived by Risner's title, have concluded that in
the opening lines of Section 24 Alhazen backs down on his denial of the
existence of visual rays.25 But, in fact, Alhazen never admits the real existence
of the rays. He is willing only to allow mathematicians, who are concerned
with a mathematical account of the phenomena rather than with the real
nature of things, to use visual rays to represent the geometrical properties
of sight. Indeed, these rays or lines are indispensable if one is to understand
how sight occurs, for through them one is able to visualize "the nature of
the arrangement according to which the eye is affected by the form [of light
or color]."26 But, according to Alhazen, all mathematicians who postulate
visual rays "use only imaginary lines in their demonstrations, and they call
them 'radial lines.' "27 Moreover, the belief "of those who consider radial
22 There was no confusion in medieval visio, nisi per illud, quod aggregatur ex duabus
Europe. Roger Bacon (Opus majus, V, 1, Dist. 7, sectis" (Opt. thes., I, Sec. 24, p. 15). The open-
Ch. 3) and John Pecham (Perspectiva commu- ing phrase is somewhat ambiguous, and the
nis, I, Props. 44-46) were fully aware of Al- context is of little help. The passage could
hazen's uncompromising opposition to visual equally well be translated, "It has been demon-
rays as agents that go out and seize something strated on account of this . . ," which alters
from the object and convey it back to the eye. the meaning subtly but significantly. The
23 "Visio videtur fieri per avvav,yetav, id est Arabic text is not relevant at this point, since
receptos simul et emissos radios" (Opt. thes., I, I am concerned with the misleading character
Sec. 24, p. 15). Aetius Placita, IV, 13, 11 (Her- of Risner's title and the Latin text immedi-
mann Diels, Doxographi Graeci [3rd ed., Berlin: ately following it. However, either translation
W. de Gruyter, 1958], p. 404) uses the term is capable of being interpreted as an admission
-vva6vyeta (simultaneous radiation) to describe by Alhazen that visual rays exist.
Plato's double-emission theory of sight (Plato 25 For example, Ronchi states that Alhazen,
does not use the term himself; see Haas, "Licht-
"apres avoir affirm6 nettement que la vision
theorien," p. 393, n. 100), and it is clear that ne se fait pas au moyen de rayons emis par
Risner is comparing Alhazen's theory to just
l'eil, en vient a une sorte de compromis et
such a double-emission theory. avance que la vision semble se faire concur-
It should be noted that Risner added the remment par des rayons recus et par des rayons
sections, but the division of chapters goes back 6mis" (Histoire, pp. 39-40). Following Ronchi
to the Arabic original; cf. Risner's edition with and Risner, I made the same mistake in my
the summary of chapters in the Arabic text article "The Perspectiva communis of John
contained in Lutfi M. Sa'di, "Ibn-al-Haitham Pecham: Its Influence, Sources, and Content,"
(Alhazen), Medieval Scientist," University of Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences,
Michigan Medical Bulletin, 1956, 22, No. 6:258- 1965, 18:47-48.
259.
24 "Et declaratum est ex hoc, quod duae sec- 26 Opt. thes., I, Sec. 24, p. 15.
tae dicant verum: et quod duae opiniones sint 27 Ibid., Sec. 23, p. 15. Cf. Galen, De usu
rectae et convenientes: sed non completur al- partium, X, 12, in (Euvres, trans. Daremberg,
tera earum, nisi per alteram, neque potest esse Vol. I, p. 639.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 327

lines to be imaginary is true, and the belief of those who suppose that some-
thing [actually] issues from the eye is false."28 Thus visual rays (or radial
lines) are mere geometrical constructions, useful in demonstrating the proper-
ties of sight. They can serve as a mathematical hypothesis, but they have no
physical existence. However, if these rays are imaginary, why imagine them
to issue from the eye rather than from the visible object? This is probably a
concession, first, to traditional geometrical optics (e.g., the work of Euclid
and Ptolemy), which had been combined with belief in visual rays; and sec-
ond, to the natural intelligibility of a center of perspective from which rays
emanate to perceive visible things.
An intromission theory of vision brings new urgency to the determination
of which ocular organ is the sensitive one. Indeed, the question changes from
"Which organ is the source of the rays?" to "Which organ receives the rays?";
and this change in question widens the scope of permissible answers. In the
visual ray theory, there was little alternative to placing the source of rays
at the center of the eye so that the rays would be unrefracted as they emerged
and, consequently, capable of accurately determining the location of objects
in space.29 The intromission theory, however, opens the question to further
investigation. Nevertheless, Alhazen's conclusion was substantially the same
as that of antiquity. Islamic prohibitions against dissection left Muslim in-
vestigators with little choice but to rely on Greek descriptions of the eye and
pronouncements regarding the sensitive organ. Alhazen's description of the
eye varies only in minor details from the descriptions of Galen and Rufus of
Ephesus, and Alhazen even admits that it is drawn from earlier anatomical
treatises.30 He identifies four tunics (consolidativa, uvea, cornea, and aranea)
and three humors (aqueous humor, vitreous humor, and crystalline lens),31
and follows Galen closely in arguing that the glacial humor (crystalline lens) is
the sensitive organ: "If injury should befall the glacial humor, the other
tunics remaining sound, sight is destroyed; if the other tunics should be
corrupted, their transparency and the health of the glacial humor being re-
28 Opt. thes., I, Sec. 23, p. 15. taken from Arabic manuscripts of Alhazen's
29 Cf. L'Optique de Claude Ptolemee dans Kitab al-manizir and other Islamic authors,
la version latine d'apres I'arabe de l'emir Eu- including one dated 1083 and apparently copied
gene de Sicile, ed. Albert Lejeune (Louvain: by Alhazen's son-in-law, see Polyak, Retina,
Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1956), pp. 114-119 and Figs. 7-12.
pp. 148-149. 31 Galen (2nd half of the 2nd century) iden-
30 Opt. thes., I, Sec., 13, p. 7. Galen and Rufus tifies the same three humors, but he is a bit
were the most important ancient sources on ambiguous on the tunics. He describes seven
the anatomy and physiology of the eye, though tunics, but these appear to be circles or layers
Alhazen's direct dependence on them cannot be rather than tunics in the usual sense. Cf.
demonstrated. The drawings of the eye con- Galen, De usu partium, X, 2, trans. Daremberg,
tained in the Risner edition (p. 6 of Alhazen's Vol. I, pp. 609-614. On Galen's anatomy of
Opt. thes. and p. 87 of Witelo's Optica, bound the eye and theory of vision, see Hirschberg,
with the Opt. thes.) do not originate with Alha- "Die Optik der alten Griechen," pp. 347-351;
zen or Witelo, but were taken from the De cor- Polyak, Retina, pp. 97-101. Rufus of Ephesus
poris humani fabrica (1st ed., 1543) of Andreas (1st half of the 2nd century) describes four
Vesalius; cf. J. Hirschberg, Geschichte der tunics, but they do not correspond exactly to
Augenheilkunde, in Graefe-Saemisch Hand- the four tunics described by Alhazen. On Ru-
buch der gesamten Augenheilkunde, Vol. XIII fus, see iEuvres de Rufus d'Atphese, ed. and
(Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1908), p. 149. trans. Charles Daremberg and Ch. Lmile Ruelle
For a description and reproductions of diagrams (Paris: J. B. Bailliere, 1879), pp. 154, 170-172.
328 DAVID C. LINDBERG

tained, sight is not destroyed." 32 Alhazen specifies, further, that the sensitive
part of the glacial humor is its front surface, which is concentric with the
cornea.33
Thus far a very general account of Alhazen's theory of vision has been
presented: the forms of light and color emanate from bodies in all directions;
they pass through the transparent cornea of the eye and fall on the front
surface of the glacial humor. But enormous obstacles remain to be overcome.
Chief of these is to show how various parts of the same object are distinguished
from each other.34 The observer perceives not only the presence of light and
color, but particular patterns of light and color. Clearly, vision is more than
mere reception of forms; reception occurs in such a way that different objects
(or different parts of the same object) perceived at the same time are perceived
as being distinct and in their true spatial relationship. It appears as though
this could be explained by attributing the perception of different parts of
the object, scattered about the visual field, to different parts of the surface
of the glacial humor. But this raises a serious difficulty: from each part of the
object the forms of light and color emanate in all directions; consequently,
every part of the glacial humor should receive forms of light and color
from every part of the object, and total confusion should result.
Alhazen overcame the difficulty by considering the visual field point by
point.35 Every point on a visible object radiates the forms of its light and
color in all directions, but only the form directed toward the center of curva-
ture of the front surface of the eye is incident on the eye perpendicularly
and enters without refraction.36 Shifting to the language of geometrical lines,
Alhazen points out that from every point on an object there are infinitely
many lines incident on the front of the eye, but only one line from each
point is incident perpendicularly and is hence unrefracted. The forms that
are unrefracted are most efficacious in vision, and refracted forms yield only
an indistinct impression. By thus restricting himself to forms or rays propa-
gated rectilinearly, Alhazen has eliminated all possibility of confusion in the
eye: there is a single ray from every point on the object, passing in a straight
line toward the center of the observer's eye.37 Because these rays are recti-
32 Opt. thes., I, Sec. 16, p. 8. Cf. Galen, De is sensitive to the presence of light but not to
usu partium, X, 3, trans. Daremberg, Vol. I, the direction from which it came. This gener-
p. 608. A similar argument is presented by ates the problem of distinguishing various parts
Hunain ibn Ishaq (Ten Treatises of the Eye, of the visual field.
p. 4) and by later authors such as Bacon and s3 Ibid., Sec. 18, pp. 9-10.
Pecham. 36 It is uncertain in this context whether
33". . . et erit forma ordinata, sicut est "point" means "very small area" or "that
ordinata in superficie rei visae, et in parte ista which has no part." In Bk. IV, Alhazen argues
superficiei glacialis" (Opt. thes., I, Sec. 24, p. that reflection of a sensible ray must occur from
15). Cf. ibid., Sec. 40, p. 23. "Oportet, ut cen- a sensible point, having a latitude equal to that
trum superficiei glacialis et centrum superficiei of the ray; although he gives no indication, Al-
visus sint unum punctum" (ibid., Sec. 23, p. 14). hazen might have considered the same analy-
34 In the emission theory, the eye is an sis applicable in the present case. Cf. ibid., IV,
organ with directional sensitivity: rays issue Sec. 16, p. 112.
forth in all directions, and the location of the 37 Note that all tunics (or, more accurately,
object in space is determined by the direction all those before the back surface of the lens-
of the ray terminating on it. In discarding the see n. 39) are concentric with the cornea, so
emission theory, Alhazen gave up this direc- that rays perpendicular to the cornea are per-
tional sensitivity: the front surface of the lens pendicular to all tunics.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 329

linear, they maintain a fixed order, and "the form will be arranged on
the surface of the glacial humor just as it is on the surface of the visible ob-
ject."38 A one-to-one correspondence, which insures clear and unconfused
perception, has thus been established between points on the object and points
on the surface of the glacial humor.39
When the propagation of forms in straight lines is expressed in geometrical
terms, one has a pyramid with base on the visible object and vertex at the
center of the observer's eye.40 From each point on the base, a line can be
drawn to the vertex in the eye, representing the path of the form by which
vision of that point is achieved. This pyramid is a geometrical representation
of the process of sight and aids the investigator in understanding the process.41
Alhazen has thus succeeded in restoring the visual pyramid of Euclidean and
Ptolemaic optics and, thereby, the inherent intelligibility of Greek emission
theories of vision. But, significantly, he has done so within an intromis-
sion framework. For the first time an intromission theory of vision has be-
come a viable alternative, adequate to compete on geometrical as well as
physical and physiological terms with the theory of visual rays.
Alhazen's theory of vision, as presented above, is confined mostly to the first
of the seven books of his Perspectiva. Book II contains his psychology of per-
ception. Book III continues in a psychological vein, dealing with the errors of
vision, including those associated with binocular vision. Books IV and V are
concerned with reflection from plane mirrors and curved mirrors (both con-
cave and convex) of spherical, conical, and cylindrical figure. In Book VI Al-
hazen discusses the errors in perception resulting from vision by reflected rays
(i.e., errors in number, location, and size of images). Book VII is devoted to
refraction of rays. There is no doubt that Alhazen contributed to geometrical
studies of reflection and refraction, but his significant innovations were
limited to his theory of vision. Although he extended Ptolemy's geometrical
optics to new cases and to a higher level of sophistication, it was still Ptole-
38 Ibid., I, Sec. 24, p. 15. phie des Mittelalters, 1911, 10, Pt. 5). The same
39 In this paper I have not probed deeply general scheme is found in the writings of
into Alhazen's psychology of perception. In Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo; on differences
brief, he argues that vision is not completed in between the psychology of Alhazen and his
the glacial humor (lens), but by the virtus dis- Latin followers, see Vescovini, Studi, Chs. 4, 7.
tinctiva belonging to the ultimum sentiens, 40 In works translated from the Arabic, the
which is situated in the anterior part of the
term pyramis is used even when the figure has
brain. The forms of light and color penetrate
a round base and hence could aptly be desig-
the glacial humor and, at the interface separat-
nated by the term conus. See Marshall Clagett,
ing the glacial humor and vitreous humor "The De curvis superficiebus Archimenidis: A
(which is before the center of the eye), are re- Medieval Commentary of Johannes de Tinemue
fracted away from the center of the eye and
on Book I of the De sphaera et cylindro of
never actually converge to a vertex. The forms
are then conducted through the vitreous humor Archimedes," Osiris, 1954, 11:298.
and hollow optic nerve-all the time maintain- 41 Opt. thes., I, Sec. 24, p. 15. An earlier
ing their proper disposition-to the optic chias- point can now be clarified: Alhazen is willing
ma, where they join the forms from the other for mathematicians to talk about imaginary rays
eye. They continue through the visual spirit issuing from the eye in pyramidal form because
to the anterior part of the brain. Cf. Opt. thes., if rays emanate from the center of the eye, the
I, Ch. 5, pp. 15 ff.; II, Ch. 1, pp. 24 ff. For a pyramid of vision is formed without further
full-length study of Alhazen's psychology of ado; there are no rays not perpendicular to
perception, see Hans Bauer, Die Psychologie the surface of the eye to interfere with the
Alhazens (Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Philoso- geometrical scheme.
330 DAVID C. LINDBERG

maic optics that he was extending. He played the game with more finesse than
Ptolemy, but it was still the same game. The novelty of Alhazen's theory of
vision had no influence on traditional geometrical optics; not only can geo-
metrical optics be pursued without commitment to any particular theory of
vision, but Alhazen was even willing to allow "mathematicians" to continue
to express themselves in terms of the discredited emission theory.

II

The wave of translations from Arabic to Latin in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries included Alhazen's Kitab al-manazir. The name of the translator
and provenance of the translation are unknown, but the treatise was evidently
translated in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. The earliest known
Western citation appears in a work of Jordanus de Nemore,42 who flourished
in the early part of the thirteenth century, but its diffusion in the first half of
the thirteenth century was not sufficiently wide to have brought it to the
attention of Robert Grosseteste, who wrote on optics in the first third of the
century.43 The full impact of Alhazen's new optical theories is first seen in
the writings of Roger Bacon, John Pecham, and Witelo, all of whom wrote
on optics in the 1260's and 1270's.44
The eagerness with which Alhazen's optics was received in the West was
doubtless due to its promise of contributing to an already flourishing optical
tradition. Kept alive (if barely) by the encyclopedic tradition of the early
Middle Ages, optical theory was nourished dramatically by early translations
of scientific works into Latin and brought into prominence by Robert Grosse-
teste, who revived optical and other scientific studies at Oxford early in the
thirteenth century.45 Among the optical treatises available to Bacon, Pecham,
42 See Marshall Clagett, Archimedes in the ford: Clarendon Press, 1953), and Vescovini,
Middle Ages, Vol. I (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Studi. On Pecham, see my "The Perspectiva
Press, 1964), p. 669. communis of John Pecham." All texts and
43 Richard C. Dales, "Robert Grosseteste's translations from Pecham's Perspectiva com-
munis are drawn from my forthcoming edition
Scientific Works," Isis, 1961, 52:394-402, dates
Grosseteste's optical works between 1231 and (Univ. Wisconsin Press). The best sources on
Bacon's optics are in Roger Bacon Essays, ed.
1235. Occasionally al-Bitriji (d. early 13th cen-
A. G. Little (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914),
tury) is quoted as having asserted that Alhazen's but further work is in order. However, Bacon's
Perspectiva was circulating in the West during theories are readily accessible in the English
his lifetime: "Nam licet perspectiva Alhacen
translation of his Opus majus (The Opus Ma-
sit in usu aliquorum sapientium Latino-
rum. . ... (Cf. Lucien Leclerc, Histoire de la jus of Roger Bacon, trans. R. B. Burke, Phila-
medecine Arabe, Vol. II [Paris: E. Leroux, delphia: Univ. Pennsylvania Press, 1928). On
Witelo, see Clemens Baeumker, Witelo, ein Phi-
1876], p. 516.) However, this is not a quotation
from al-Bitrfji, but from a fragment of the losoph und Naturforscher der XIII. Jahrhun-
derts (Beitrige zur Geschichte der Philosophie
Opus tertium of Roger Bacon, which (in Paris, des Mittelalters, 1908, 3, Pt. 2); Baeumker bases
Bibliotheque Nationale, Latin MS 10264, fol. some of his argument on the conclusion that
186) is wrongly entitled Liber tertius Alpetra- Witelo was the author of De intelligentiis, a
gii; cf. Un fragment inedit de l'Opus tertium conclusion now clearly recognized as false. On
de Roger Bacon, ed. Pierre Duhem (Quaracchi:
Witelo, see also my introduction to a forthcom-
Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1909), p. 75.
ing facsimile reprint of the Risner edition (New
44 On medieval Western optics in general, see York: Johnson Reprint, Sources of Science).
A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Ori- 45 On Grosseteste's sources, see Crombie,
gins of Experimental Science, 1100-1700 (Ox- Grosseteste, pp. 116-117.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 331

and Witelo were works by Greek, Muslim, and Latin authors. There were,
of course, Alhazen and Grosseteste. In addition to these two, Pecham cites
al-Kindi, Aristotle, the pseudo-Euclidean Catoptrica, and a medieval abridge-
ment of Euclid's Optica; he appears to have known, also, Alhazen's De specu-
lis comburentibus (a short work distinct from the Perspectiva), and he may
have used Ptolemy's Optica.46 Bacon cites all these on optics, as well as Avi-
cenna, Averroes, Tideus, Constantinus Africanus, and Augustine.
Though but one of many authorities, Alhazen exerted by far the dominant
influence. Bacon continually cites him by name, and Pecham and Witelo
consciously patterned their major optical works after his Perspectiva, respec-
tively condensing and expanding its treatment. Pecham continually bows to
the authority of Alhazen, whom he cites as "the Author" or "the Physicist";
and Risner, publisher of the printed works of Alhazen (Latin text) and Witelo
in a single volume, has indicated their close relationship by elaborate cross-
references. But aside from citations and format, the theories of vision ex-
pressed by Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo are essentially the same as Alhazen's.47
All describe the anatomy of the eye similarly, with only small differences in
detail. Vision, according to Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo, occurs through rays
issuing from the visible object and falling perpendicularly on the surface of
the eye and the glacial humor. Nonperpendicular rays are refracted and con-
tribute to vision only incidentally. Through the visual pyramid, consisting
solely of perpendicular rays issuing from the object and converging toward
a vertex at the center of the eye,48 the forms of the light and color of the ob-
ject are arranged on the surface of the glacial humor precisely as on the sur-
face of the object; consequently a one-to-one correspondence is established,
which insures clarity of vision. In order to establish this theory of vision,
Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo even rely on the same evidence and the same
arguments as Alhazen. All four, for example, cite the pain experienced by the
eye in looking at bright lights as evidence that light and color make some kind
of impression on the eye, and Pecham (like Alhazen) begins his treatise with
a description of such evidence.49
It should be evident, then-and historians have long agreed on this-that
the main outlines of Alhazen's theory of sight, as well as his more abstract
geometry of image formation by reflection and refraction and many minor
details, were incorporated in the optical works of Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo.
Alhazen's theory was comprehensive and systematic; it was superior in almost
every respect to anything the West had known before. To some extent it also
46 For a fuller discussion of Pecham's sources, away from the center of the eye at the interface
see my edition of the Perspectiva communis. between the glacial humor and vitreous humor.
47 Crombie, Grosseteste, gives Bacon, Pecham, This prevents inversion or reversal of the forms
and Witelo far too much credit for experi- as they are conducted through the optic nerves;
mental or observational prowess and attaches cf. n. 39.
too much significance to Grosseteste's influence 49 Perspectiva communis, I, Prop. 1. On Al-
on their optical theories. For the most part, hazen, see above. Cf. Bacon, The Opus Majus
Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo did not observe, of Roger Bacon, ed. J. H. Bridges (London:
experiment, or read Grosseteste; they read Al- Williams and Norgate, 1900), V, 1, Dist. 5, Ch. 1,
hazen and other Islamic and Greek authorities. Vol. II, pp. 30-32;Witelo, Opticae libri decem,
48 As in Alhazen's theory, the rays do not ed. Risner (bound with Opt. thes.), III, pp.
actually converge to a vertex, but are refracted 87-88, 91.
332 DAVID C. LINDBERG

filled an intellectual void; the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, al-Kindi,

and Grosseteste said little about the anatomical and physiological details of
sight. These treatises dealt primarily with geometrical optics, on which they
were in substantial agreement with Alhazen. Conflict was therefore at a mini-
mum. Where earlier authorities had spoken, Alhazen agreed; where they had
been silent, he provided a theory that was overwhelmingly systematic and
comprehensive.
Nevertheless, strong reservations have been expressed about the assimila-
tion of Alhazen's optics in the West, particularly with regard to the properties
of the emanated entity. Vasco Ronchi, one of the most articulate and prolific
writers on the history of optics in recent years, has repeatedly characterized
medieval Western optics as a corruption of Muslim views and a return to the
less satisfactory theories of Greek antiquity. According to Ronchi, Alhazen
had set the theory of sight on the road leading to Kepler and modern optics
by decomposing "l'objet visible en elements punctiformes, ce qui faisait
perdre a la vision de l'objet lui-meme le caractere d'une operation globale
qu'on ne pouvait scinder." 50By treating the object a point at a time, Alhazen
had escaped the absurdities of Epicurean eidola, while still operating within
an intromission framework. "Les 'eidola' et les 'ecorces,'" Ronchi writes,
"sont mortes." 51And so they were. The question is whether they stayed dead.
Ronchi thinks not. Eidola and rinds reappeared, he insists, in the "species"
of Western optics. Scholastic scientists, with a few exceptions, attempted to
reconcile eidola (poorly disguised in new terminology) with Alhazen's revo-
lutionary contributions. The result, Ronchi insists, was "une construction
grotesque."52 Simply put, Ronchi feels that species are eidola. He sums up
this viewpoint most forcefully when, after describing the diffusion of Al-
hazen's ideas and the inability of Western scientists to understand them,
he writes,
What ensued was an indescribable atrophy of thought. Ideas tended more or
less to cluster about the doctrine of species, a new edition of the ancient
eidola. These species, however, were produced by the lumen, when it im-
pinged upon a body, and they moved along the observer's visual rays as
though along rails guiding them toward the eyes. During this motion they
contracted in order to be able to enter the pupil. The contraction no longer
constituted a serious obstacle [as it had in ancient times] because Ibn al-
Haitham's mechanism had provided a sort of justification for it.
In other words, an effort was made to combine the classical with the new.
The merger was a monstrosity, with which the philosophers and mathema-
ticians of the later Middle Ages tried to reason when confronted by optical
problems.53
An important question remains: To precisely which Western thinkers is
Ronchi's analysis to be applied? According to the most sympathetic interpre-
tation, Ronchi recognizes only three Western philosophers who assimilated
Alhazen's revolutionary theories regarding the process of sight: Bacon, Pe-
50 Ronchi, Histoire, p. 38. 53 Ronchi, Optics, The Science of Vision,
51 Ibid., p. 37. On eidola, see below. trans. Edward Rosen (New York: New York
52 Ibid., p. 55. Univ. Press, 1957), p. 32.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 333

cham, and Witelo. On the other hand, he singles out Dante Alighieri (d.
1321), Gregorius Reisch (d. 1525), and Giambattista della Porta (d. 1615) as
examples of men who failed to grasp Alhazen's theory, and from an examina-
tion of their works purports to demonstrate the universal (or almost uni-
versal) failure of scientists of the late Middle Ages to understand or adopt
Alhazen's important innovations.54 In Ronchi's view, then, Alhazen's ideas
were assimilated by Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo in the thirteenth century,
but afterwards forgotten, rejected, or misunderstood until the time of Mau-
rolycus and Kepler at the end of the sixteenth century.
But Ronchi has often been misleading, and this "sympathetic interpreta-
tion" of Ronchi's views does not jump out at the reader of his works. In his
main work on the history of optics Ronchi gives not the slightest indication
that Bacon and Pecham had anything to do with the diffusion of Alhazen's
ideas.55 Moreover, Ronchi's condemnation of the idea of species is sweeping;
in no work does he admit any exceptions to the grotesqueness or acknowledge
any varieties of the idea. Thus he leaves the clear impression that the species
concept in all its forms was a departure from the teaching of Alhazen; and
this impression is reinforced by the fact that in most of Ronchi's works only
Witelo, who never used the term "species," is recognized as a faithful follower
of Alhazen.56 Finally, in his most explicit statement of the period during
which this "atrophy of thought" occurred, Ronchi writes,
... pendant quatre ou cinq siecles les idees d'Alhazen n'ont eu aucune
consequence appreciable. Si, pendant ce laps de temps, on recherche dans
les oeuvres le plus remarquables du monde occidental quelles etaient les idees
predominantes au sujet de la lumiere, on retrouve celles de la period grecque.57
Since the light of understanding dawns again toward the end of the sixteenth
century with the printing of Alhazen's Perspectiva,58 four or five centuries
take one back to the eleventh or twelfth century-before the translation of
Alhazen's work into Latin. Consequently, the passage must be interpreted
as asserting either that Alhazen's theory was not adopted by Bacon, Pecham,
54 Histoire, pp. 45-49, 57-73. These three 56 Histoire, pp. 44-45; Ronchi, "Sul con-
men are hardly the best representatives (with tributo di Ibn-al-Haitham alle teorie della vi-
the possible exception of della Porta) of medie- sione e della luce," in Actes du VIIIe Congres
val or even late-medieval Western optics. International d'Histoire des Sciences (Jerusalem,
Against Ronchi one might even argue that 1953), p. 520.
since Dante, Reisch, and della Porta failed to 57 Histoire, p. 45.
grasp Alhazen's theories, they could not have 58 Ronchi (ibid.) asserts that Risner, publisher
been serious students of optics. At any rate, of the 1572 edition, was also its translator from
Ronchi's thesis would be more impressive if Arabic to Latin. Elsewhere he identifies Witelo
it could be demonstrated with respect to such as the translator ("Complexities, Advances, and
competent natural philosophers and optical Misconceptions in the Development of the
theorists as Theodoric of Freiberg, Blasius of Science of Vision: What is being Discovered?"
Parma, and Friedrich Risner. in Scientific Change, ed. A. C. Crombie [New
York: Basic Books, 1963], p. 546). Actually,
55 Ronchi's main work on the history of neither is correct. The book was rendered into
optics is Storia della luce, translated into French Latin by an unknown translator late in the 12th
as Histoire de la lumiere. The only work (to or early in the 13th century, more likely the
my knowledge) in which Ronchi mentions latter. Risner merely edited the medieval trans-
Bacon and Pecham as followers of Alhazen is lation, as he relates in the preface to his edi-
his Optics, The Science of Vision, p. 31, and tion; Witelo had nothing whatsoever to do
there they receive but two sentences. with it.
334 DAVID C. LINDBERG

and Witelo or that its incorporation in their works was not an "appreciable
consequence."59
But, in fact, Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo fully assimilated the optics of
Alhazen, and their works had a very appreciable influence on succeeding
generations. The unusually large number of manuscripts and printed editions
of Pecham's Perspectiva communis (as least 47 extant manuscripts and 10
printings) and Witelo's Perspectiva (numerous manuscripts and 3 printings)
testifies to the diffusion of Alhazen's ideas throughout the later Middle Ages.
Nor were these a matter of reproduction without understanding; for example,
the 1542 edition of Pecham's Perspectiva communis was altered extensively
by its editor, the mathematician and instrument-maker George Hartmann
(1489-1564), with no distortion of the essential ideas. Moreover, Pecham's
Perspectiva communis was the subject of a number of commentaries, the
authors of which did not fail to understand the contents.60 Eventually Pe-
cham's book became the standard optical text in the medieval university, so
that even an elementary education in optics provided an understanding of
Alhazen's theories. If late medieval writers on optics did not preserve Al-
hazen's ideas on vision in their works, it was not because they failed to
comprehend, but because they were asking different questions.6'
Nevertheless, Ronchi's work has raised the question of the relationship of
medieval species to Alhazen's forms and Epicurean eidola; and if I disagree
with Ronchi's answer, I at least endorse his question, for it is most important,
deserving a detailed and unambiguous answer. I will devote the remainder
of this essay to it, restricting myself for the present to the concept of species
in its thirteenth-century form; 62 it will be my thesis that from an optical
standpoint the Western idea of species is indistinguishable (with one impor-
tant exception) from Alhazen's concept of form. Since the standard of com-
parison, as Ronchi has posed the problem, is the Epicurean eidolon, let us
first consider the latter.
Epicurus describes eidola in his Letter to Herodotus: "particles are con-
tinually streaming off from the surface of bodies. . . . And those given off,
for a long time retain the position and arrangement which their atoms had
when they formed part of the solid bodies."63 Sight occurs as these eidola
enter the observer's eye:
We must also consider that it is by the entrance of something coming from
external objects that we see their shapes and think of them. For external
59 Ronchi has already admitted, on the same larizers or amateurs like Dante and Reisch. For
page, that Witelo faithfully followed Alhazen. example, Theodoric of Freiberg, in his De luce,
However, more recently Ronchi has written was concerned not with geometrical optics but
that "at the end of the thirteenth century with a causal account of light; cf. William A.
A.D . . . [the work of Ibn al-Haitham] had as Wallace, O.P., The Scientific Methodology of
yet had no impact on the Western world" Theodoric of Freiberg (Fribourg, Switzerland:
(Scientific Change, p. 545). Univ. Press, 1959), pp. 152-161.
60 For a discussion of the medieval commen- 6 I plan to deal with the later development
the Perspectiva
taries on taries
the on
Perspectiva communis, see
communis, see my
my of the concept of species vin a future paper.
A *

edition, n. 44 above. The influence of Al-

hazen's Perspectiva is explored in more detail 63 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Phi-
in my introduction to the forthcoming reprint losophers, X, 48, trans. R. D. Hicks (London:
of the Risner edition. William Heinemann, 1925), Vol. II, pp. 577-
61 I have in mind serious scientists, not popu- 579.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 335

things would not stamp on us their own nature of colour and form through
the medium of the air which is between them and us, or by means of rays of
light or currents of any sort going from us to them, so well as by the entrance
into our eyes or minds, to whichever their size is suitable, of certain films
coming from the things themselves, these films or outlines being of the same
colour and shape as the external things themselves.64
Thus eidola (material images or skins) are stripped from the outer surfaces
of objects and propagated through space as coherent units. Because they are
of the same shape and color as the object, they faithfully communicate the
latter to the observer. But the fatal objection to the Epicurean theory, be-
sides its generally simplistic character, is the problem of shrinking the eidola
of large objects, so as to squeeze them into the observer's eye, without altering
them in shape or color-and this for all possible distances between the object
and the observer.
Now it is clear that Alhazen's forms have little in common with Epicurean
eidola. In the first place, Alhazen is willing to consider the form of each point
(or small part) of the object independently: he refers, for example, to "the
form of the light and color that comes from any point of the visible object
to the surface of the eye." 65 Since he is dealing with an image of each point
rather than a single replica of the whole object, squeezing images through
the pupil is no problem. Secondly, Alhazen's forms are not images in the
Epicurean sense. They do not consist of pieces of the object; they are not
replicas. Rather they are powers representative of the object, capable of
producing effects in a recipient. However, noting Alhazen's explanation of
reflection on the analogy of mechanical rebound, Ronchi writes, "The idea
that the rays of lumen are the trajectories of minute material corpuscles is
already expressed in his work." 66 But this is to misunderstand Alhazen. The
analogy of mechanical rebound is meant to elucidate the equal angles of
reflection, not the nature of the reflected entity. Schramm, basing his argu-
ment on a study of both the Latin and Arabic texts of the Kitab al-manazir,
has concluded that Alhazen's form is not a three-dimensional body, but rather
that which is impressed on a body through qualitative change.67 Form for
Alhazen is thus very close to Aristotelian form.
The concept of species, as applied to optics, had its origin in the Neopla-
tonic doctrine of emanation. Plotinus (d. 270 A.D.) maintained that causation
64 Ibid., X, 49, Vol. II, p. 579. For a good p. 112. Alhazen also elucidates refraction by
account of the Epicurean theory of vision, see means of mechanical analogies (ibid., VII, Sec.
Cyril Bailey, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus 8, p. 241).
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), pp. 406-413; 67 Schramm, Weg zur Physik, p. 216. A. I.
cf. Haas, "Lichttheorien," pp. 362-370. Sabra writes, ". . he [Alhazen] denies that
65 Opt. thes., I, Sec. 18, p. 9. Alhazen also light is a body . . ." ("Explanation of Optical
speaks of a single form for the whole object Reflection and Refraction: Ibn-al-Haytham,
on occasion. Descartes, Newton," Actes du dixieme congres,
66 Optics, Science of Vision, p. 30. Cf. Ron- Vol. I, p. 551). Cf. J. Baarman, "Abhandlung
chi, Histoire, p. 42, and Ronchi, "The Evolu- iiber das Licht von Ibn al-Haitham," Zeit-
tion of the Meaning of 'Light' in Natural Phi- schrift der Deutschen Morgenldndischen Ge-
losophy," in Actes du dixieme congres interna- sellschaft, 1882, 36:197-199; this is the Arabic
tional d'histoire des sciences (Ithaca, 1962), Vol. text and German translation of Alhazen's short
II, p. 725. Cf. Alhazen, Opt. thes., IV, Sec. 18, treatise On Light.
336 DAVID C. LINDBERG

may occur through a process of emanation. Indeed, all things tend to emanate
their power outside themselves. In The Enneads Plotinus writes,
All existences, as long as they retain their character, produce-about them-
selves, from their essence, in virtue of the power which must be in them-some
necessary, outward-facing hypostasis continuously attached to them and rep-
resenting in image the engendering archetypes: thus fire gives out its heat;
snow is cold not merely to itself; fragrant substances are a notable instance;
for, as long as they last, something is diffused from them and perceived where-
ever they are present.68

Light emanating from a luminous body is another example of the same effect.
In the same vein, Avicebron (d. c. 1058), whose Fons vitae was available to
Grosseteste and other thirteenth-century writers, argues that powers and rays
emanate from all simple substances on the analogy of the emanation of light
from the sun: "The essences of simple substances do not issue forth; it is
rather their powers and rays that flow forth and spread abroad. . . . Just as
light flows from the sun into the air, . . . so every simple substance extends
its ray and its light and diffuses them into that which is inferior. ". . 69
These ideas were developed by Grosseteste into the doctrine of the multi-
plication of species. As he expresses this doctrine in his De lineis, angulis et
figuris,
A natural agent propagates its power from itself to the recipient, whether it
acts on the senses or on matter. This power is sometimes called species, some-
times a similitude, and is the same whatever it may be called; and it will send
the same power into the senses and into matter, or into its contrary, as heat
sends the same thing into the sense of touch and into a cold body. For it
does not act by deliberation and choice, and therefore it acts in one way,
whatever it may meet, whether something with sense perception or some-
thing without it, whether something animate or inanimate. But the effects
are diversified according to the diversity of the recipient.70

Every natural agent propagates its power from itself to surrounding bodies,
and this power is called "species" because the effects bear a resemblance to
the agent. Hot bodies, for example, emanate species that produce heat in the
recipient, and bright bodies emanate species that produce brightness in
the observer's eye.71
Roger Bacon and John Pecham adopted Grosseteste's doctrine of the multi-
68 Plotinus, The Enneads, V, 1, 6, trans. 71 As Grosseteste points out in the passage
Stephen MacKenna (2nd ed., London: Faber quoted, the effects do not always resemble the
and Faber, 1956), p. 374. agent; but this is an insight not possessed by
69 I have translated this from the Latin text all writers on the subject, and even in Grosse-
in Avencebrolis (Ibn Gebirol), Fons vitae, III, teste the effects are never totally unlike the
52, ed. Clemens Baeumker (Beitrdge zur Ge- agent. Bacon insists that "haec species sit similis
schichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 1895, agenti" (De multiplicatio specierum, ed. J. H.
1), p. 196. Similar ideas on the multiplication Bridges, bound with the Opus majus, Vol. II,
of power had been expressed by al-Kindi, and p. 410). Cf. Avicebron, Fons vitae, III, 53;
these may have been known to Grosseteste as Charles K. McKeon, A Study of the Summa
well; cf. Vescovini, Studi, Ch. 3. philosophiae of the Pseudo-Grosseteste (New
70 Quoted by Crombie, Grosseteste, p. 110. York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1948), pp. 87, 94.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 337

plication of species and incorporated it in their theories of vision drawn from

Alhazen. Bacon, the more vocal on the subject of species, explains,
For every efficient cause acts through its own power, which it exercises on
the adjacent matter, as the light [lux] of the sun exercises its power on the
air (which power is light [lumen] diffused through the whole world from the
solar light [lux]). And this power is called "likeness," "image," and "species"
and is designated by many other names, and it is produced by substance as
well as accident. . . . This species produces every action in this world, for
it acts on sense, on the intellect, and on all the matter of the world for the
generation of things.72
Pecham's view is similar:
Every natural body, visible or invisible, diffuses its power radiantly into other
bodies. The proof of this is by a natural cause, for a natural body acts outside
itself through the multiplication of its form. Therefore the nobler it is, the
more strongly it acts. And since action in a straight line is easier and stronger
for nature, every natural body, whether visible or not, must multiply its
species in a continuous straight line; and this is to radiate.73
Now the central question of this essay is whether or not this concept of
species was "a new edition of the ancient eidola." The answer is clear-no!
As these quotations from Bacon and Pecham indicate, species are not material
replicas, films of matter peeled from the outer surface of the object and pro-
pelled through space, but powers or forms diffused from one point to another
through the matter already there. The actual mode of multiplication or
propagation of species is very clearly described by Bacon:
But a species is not body, nor is it moved as a whole from one place to an-
other; but that which is produced [by an object] in the first part of the air
is not separated from that part, since form cannot be separated from the
matter in which it is unless it should be soul; rather, it produces a likeness
to itself in the second part of the air, and so on. Therefore there is no change
of place, but a generation multiplied through the different parts of the me-
dium; nor is it body which is generated there, but a corporeal form; . . . and
it is not produced by a flow from the luminous body, but by a drawing forth
out of the potentiality of the matter of the air.74
The multiplication of species is more like the propagation of waves than
like the motion of projectiles.
72 Opus majus, IV, Dist. 2, Ch. 1, Bridges, Huius probatio est per causam naturalem,
Vol. I, p. 111; cf. De mult. spec., Bridges, Vol. quoniam corpus naturale agit per formam suam
II, pp. 407-418. For a careful discussion of se extra se multiplicantem. Ergo quanto nobi-
Bacon's concept of species, see Vescovini, Studi, lior tanto est fortior in agendo. Et quia actio
pp. 57-60. Bacon distinguishes between lux in directum est facilior et fortior nature, necesse
and lumen in the passage quoted, but admits est ut omne corpus naturale seu visibile seu
in De mult. spec., "Sed tamen usualiter lucem non visibile suam speciem multiplicet in con-
accipimus pro lumine et e contrario" (Bridges, tinuum et directum, et hoc est radiare" (I,
Vol. II, p. 409). Prop. 27 of Pecham's revised version of Pers.
corn.). Cf. II, Prop. 5.
73 "Omne corpus naturale visibile seu non 74 Opus majus, V, 1, Dist. 9, Ch. 4, Bridges,
visibile radiose virtutem suam in alia porrigere. Vol. II, pp. 71-72.
338 DAVID C. LINDBERG

But this does not get to the nub of Ronchi's argument. His claim is not so
much that species resemble eidola in materiality as that species, like eidola,
are coherent wholes. Alhazen's principal contribution to the-theory of vision
had been to substitute a point-by-point analysis of the visual field (with
forms issuing from every point) for the coherent eidolon of Epicurean phi-
losophy, and Ronchi's view is that the concept of species was a return to
coherence. But this is surely not true of the concept in its thirteenth-century
(and most influential) form. Bacon himself felt that the difference between
species and Alhazen's forms was merely terminological,75 and he was sub-
stantially correct: in fact, the optical properties of his "visible species" and
Alhazen's "forms of light and color" are identical. Now on the question of
coherence, Alhazen, Bacon, and Pecham are all imprecise in their termi-
nology. Alhazen frequently speaks of the singular form of a whole object,
but this form has the crucial property of susceptibility to a point-by-point
analysis. Moreover, when explaining the process of sight or locating images
formed by reflection or refraction, Alhazen considers the object a point at a
time and appeals to individual rays instead of the unitary forms. This is
not unlike our practice of conceiving of a continuous body of radiation as
a composite of discrete rays, emanating from individual points on the lumi-
nous body.
On the question of coherence, Bacon and Pecham followed Alhazen's lead
in every detail. Pecham often refers to the single species of a whole object,
explaining, for example, that the "species [singular] produced by a visible
object has the essential property of manifesting the object of which it is the
likeness,"76 but this species (like Alhazen's form) is susceptible to puncti-
form analysis. On other occasions, Pecham speaks of the species of a point,
remarking, for example, that "any point of an object seen in a mirror fills
the whole surface of the mirror with its species."77 The very foundation
of the geometrical and physiological optics of Bacon and Pecham is this
ability of the visual field to be analyzed into points for individual treatment;
their optics, like Alhazen's, is based on rays (representable by geometrical
lines) rather than a coherent species.78 It is evident, then, that Bacon and
Pecham fully and successfully incorporated in their optics both Alhazen's
75 In De mult. spec., Bacon says explicitly 77 " . . quilibet punctus rei vise in speculo
that Alhazen used the term "form" to denote replet specie sua totam superficiem speculi"
species: "Forma quidem vocatur in usu Alha- (Pers. cor., I, Prop. 3 of the revised version).
zen, auctoris Perspectivae vulgatae" (Bridges, In De mult. spec., Bacon discusses both the
Vol. II, p. 410). In his Questiones supra librum species (singular) representing the whole ob-
de causis, Bacon attributes the concept of ject and the species (plural) of the individual
species to Alhazen, saying, "Item secundo Per- parts in the same argument: "Hoc enim non
spective [i.e., Alhazen's] dicitur quod lux et est quia magnitudo faciat suam speciem, sed
colores multiplicant suas species usque ad quia a tota rei magnitudine venit species coloris
sensum . . ." (ed. Robert Steele and F. M. De- et lucis, et a tota superficie. Et tunc species
lorme in Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, coloris venientes a singulis partibus rei visae
fasc. XII [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935], p. non confuduntur in una parte pupillae . . .
52). (Bridges, Vol. II, p. 429).
78 Bacon asserts unequivocally that "an in-
76". . . species genita a re visibili essen- finite number of rays issues from every point of
tiali habet rem ostendere cuius est simili- the agent" (Opus majus, IV, Dist. 3, Ch. 1,
tudo . .." (Pers. corn., II, Prop. 5). Bridges, Vol. I, p. 122).
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 339

punctiform approach and Grosseteste's concept of species. They achieved

this simply by endowing species with all the optical properties of Alhazen's
forms.
At only one point in their theories of vision did Bacon and Pecham find
that species were significantly at odds with Alhazen's "forms of light and
color." Species, according to Grosseteste, issue from all natural bodies-from
eyes as well as from perceived objects; and he argues that the species issuing
from the observer's eye, as well as those emanating from the object, play a
role in sight:
Nor is it to be thought that the emission of visual rays is only imagined and
without reality, as those think who consider the part and not the whole.
But it should be understood that the visible species [issuing from the eye]
is a substance, shining and radiating like the sun, the radiation of which,
when joined with the radiation of the exterior shining body, entirely com-
pletes vision.
Wherefore natural philosophers, treating that which is natural to vision
(and passive), assert that vision is produced by intromission. However, mathe-
maticians and physicists, whose concern is with those things that are above
nature, treating that which is above the nature of vision (and active), main-
tain that vision is produced by extramission. Aristotle clearly expresses this
part of vision that occurs by extramission in the last book of De animalibus,
saying, "A deep eye sees from a distance: for its motion is neither divided
nor destroyed, but a visual power leaves it and goes straight to the objects
seen." . . . Therefore true perspective is concerned with rays emitted [by
the eye].79
In his Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, Grosseteste says further, "Vi-
sion is not completed solely in the reception of the sensible form without
matter, but is completed in the reception just mentioned and in the radiant
energy going forth from the eye."80
Philosophers of the thirteenth century were faced with the task of recon-
ciling Alhazen's denial and Grosseteste's affirmation of the existence of visual
rays. The situation was complicated, of course, by the presence of other
treatises pronouncing on the same subject-the works of al-Kindi, Euclid,
Ptolemy, Aristotle, Avicenna, and others. Bacon and Pecham felt they could
do justice to all schools of thought by acknowledging with Grosseteste that
visual rays exist and, moreover, are required for sight, while ignoring the vis-
ual rays in the further development of their theories of sight.81 After at-
tempting a rather subtle reconciliation of Aristotle, Ptolemy, al-Kindi, Euclid,
Tideus, Augustine, Alhazen, Avicenna, and Averroes, Bacon concludes,
. . . the species of the things of the world are not immediately suited of
themselves to bring to completion an action on the eye because of the nobility
79 I have translated this from Ludwig Baur's double-emanation theory of sight.
Latin text in Die philosophischen Werke des 80 Quoted by Crombie, Grosseteste, p. 114.
Robert Grosseteste (Beitrige zur Geschichte der 81 Relative to optics, Bacon says, "I have
Philosophie des Mittelalters, 1912, 9, pp. 72-73). determined not to imitate one author; rather,
The exact reference to Aristotle is De genera- I have selected the most excellent opinions
tione animalium, V, 1, 781a1-10; this passage is from each" (Un fragment de l'Opus tertium,
obviously one of the sources of Grosseteste's ed. Duhem, p. 75).
340 DAVID C. LINDBERG

of the latter. Therefore these species must be assisted and excited by the
species of the eye, which proceeds through the space occupied by the visual
pyramid, altering and ennobling the medium and rendering it commensu-
rate with sight. Thus the species of the eye prepares for the approach of the
species of the visible object and, moreover, ennobles the species of the object
so that it is wholly conformable to and commensurate with the nobility of
the animate body (i.e. the eye).82

Surprisingly, John Pecham begins by apparently attacking the emission

theory. Following Alhazen in every detail, he goes so far as to argue,
By assuming that sight occurs through rays issuing from the eye, mathema-
ticians exert themselves unnecessarily. For the manner in which vision occurs
is adequately described above [in terms of intromission], by which all the
phenomena of vision can be saved. Therefore it is superfluous to posit such
[visual] rays.83
But then Pecham finds that he must make the appropriate concessions to the
emission theory required by the concept of species and adds,- with more hesi-
tation than Bacon,
The natural light of the eye contributes to vision by its radiance. For as
Aristotle says, the eye is not merely the recipient of action, but acts itself just
as shining bodies do. Therefore the eye must have a natural light in order
to alter visible species and make them commensurate with the visual power,
for the species are emitted by the light of the sun and moderated with respect
to the eye by mixing with the natural light of the eye. . . . Since vision is of
the same kind in all animals, and certain animals are able to bestow the mul-
tiplicative power on colors by the light of their eyes so as to see them at night,
it follows that the light of the eye has some effect on [external] light. Whether
it goes beyond this, I do not determine, save only by following in the foot-
steps of the Author [i.e., Alhazen], as I have said before.84
Two conclusions emerge from this analysis of Epicurean eidola, Alhazen's
forms, and Western species. First, neither Alhazen's forms nor Western
species bear any but the most superficial resemblance to Epicurean eidola.
82 Opus majus, V, 1, Dist. 7, Ch. 4, Bridges, tutem multiplicativam dare ut ab eis nocte
Vol. II, p. 52. videri possint, sequitur ut lumen oculi aliquid
83"Mathematicos ponentes visum fieri per in lumine operetur. Et an aliquid ulterius fa-
radios ab oculo micantes superflue conari. ciat non diffinio nisi huius Auctoris, ut dictum
Visus enim sufficienter fit per modum prescrip- est, vestigia sequendo" (ibid., I, Prop. 46). Ba-
tum, per quem salvari possunt omnia circa con's and Pecham's admission that rays issue
visum apparentia. Ergo superfluum est ponere from as well as enter the observer's eye cannot,
sic radios" (Pers. corn., I, Prop. 44). of course, be viewed solely as a compromise
84 "Lumen oculi naturale radiositate sua between Grosseteste and Alhazen. Bacon and
visui conferre. Oculus enim, ut dicit Aristoteles, Pecham were influenced also by Aristotle and
non solum patitur, sed agit quemadmodum by the Galenic and Platonic traditions and
splendida. Lumen igitur naturale necessarium should be considered heirs of these teachings
est oculo ad alterandum species visibiles et ef- as well. As Pecham points out in the passage
ficiendum proportionatas virtuti visive, quo- quoted, Aristotle speaks of combined emission
niam ex luce solari diffunduntur sed ex lumine and intromission; and Pecham's argument
oculi connaturali oculo contemperantur.... about the visual power making the visible
quoniam visus in omnibus animalibus est unius species commensurate with sight is based on
rationis cum igitur quedam animalia per lu- Aristotle's remarks in De generatione anima-
men oculorum suorum sufficiant coloribus vir- lium, V, 1, 780a5-25.
 ALHAZEN'S THEORY OF VISION 341

Forms and species are powers, not corpuscles or coherent collections of cor-
puscles, and they are susceptible to punctiform analysis. Second and more
important, Alhazen's forms and Western species have identical optical prop-
erties and perform identical optical functions-with one exception. Against
Alhazen's denial of visual rays, Bacon and Pecham admitted that species
emanate from the observer's eye and play a role in sight. However, this ad-
mission of visual rays did not otherwise alter the theory of vision gained from
Alhazen,85 and Bacon and Pecham almost completely ignored the species
emanating from the observer's eye in the further development of their theo-
ries. In their theory, as in Alhazen's, powers emanating from natural bodies
produce effects in a recipient, and both theories permit point-by-point analy-
sis of the visual field and offer identical descriptions of the act of vision. Thus
the admission of visual rays by Bacon and Pecham was of small consequence
for the subsequent history of optics. It did not interfere with the transmis-
sion, through their works, of the broad outlines and most of the details of
Alhazen's theory of vision.
Witelo, whom I have ignored because of his superior status in Ronchi's
scheme of things and his failure to use the term "species" or discuss rays
emanating from the eye, shared similar views on the properties of the rays
and the nature of sight. After a careful study of Witelo's Perspectiva, Alek-
sander Birkenmajer concludes that "sous la plume de Witelo le mot 'forme'
doit etre identifie avec la species baconienne . . . dans toute la vaste eten-
due de ce term chez Bacon."86
It is evident that apart from the question of visual rays, Alhazen's theory
of vision and views on the nature of light were transmitted intact to the
West. I do not, of course, claim that the concept of species is in all respects
identical to Alhazen's concept of form; the former, for example, has meta-
physical implications missing from the latter, and Vescovini has called atten-
tion to subtle differences in the associated psychologies of perception.87 My
point is simply that the two concepts function identically as a basis for a theory
of vision and that the theories of vision built upon them by Bacon, Pecham,
and Witelo (on the one hand) and Alhazen (on the other) are substantially the
same. Bacon, Pecham, and Witelo initiated a Western optical tradition that
faithfully transmitted the essence of Alhazen's achievement in optics to Kep-
ler and his seventeenth-century contemporaries.
85 Furthermore, the species issuing from the Bridges, Vol. II, pp. 50-51.
observer's eye perform none of the functions 86 "ltudes sur Witelo, II," Bulletin inter-
that Alhazen denied to visual rays in his refu- national de l'Academie polonaise des sciences
tation of the emission theory, as Bacon himself et des lettres, 1920, p. 356.
notes in the Opus majus, V, 1, Dist. 7, Ch. 3, 87 Studi, Chs. 4, 7.