Note 886 — BOOK VII.835 MAN, HIS BIRTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INVENTION OF THE ARTS.

It is well known that nothing of this kind was ever observed in any human eye, nor have we any method of accounting for the origin of this singular notion.—B. Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, says that he has no doubt whatever that the common expression “no one can say ‘black is my eye’” [or rather “black is the white of my eye”]—meaning that no one can justly speak ill of me, was derived from the notion of the enchanting, or bewitching, eye. He quotes from Reginald Scott’s “Discovery of Witchcraft:” “Many writers agree with Virgil and Theocritus in the effect of bewitching eyes, affirming ‘that in Scythia there are women called the Bythiæ, having two balls, or rather blacks, in the apples of their eyes.’ These, forsooth, with their angry looks, do bewitch and hurt, not only young lambs, but young children.” See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. iii. pp. 44-46. See also Ennemoser’s Hist. of Magic, vol. ii. pp. 160, 161. Bohn’s Editions.