Page "Optics" Paragraph 7

Greek philosophy on optics broke down into two opposing theories on how vision worked, the " intro-mission theory " and the " emission theory ".

The intro-mission approach saw vision as coming from objects casting off copies of themselves ( called eidola ) that were captured by the eye.

With many propagators including Democritus, Epicurus, Aristotle and their followers, this theory seems to have some contact with modern theories of what vision really is, but it remained only speculation lacking any experimental foundation.