I have an original condition 1898 with the notch rear sight and my eyes are getting to the point where they work better with a peep sight. Is there a way to get the later sight on without permanently altering the gun? Can I just swap out parts of the sight? 

'arlon' - I am not totally sure of your question or of the rear-sight that you have right now.

Maybe you have the '3-notch' model 1898 sight or a model 1902 sight without the 'swing-up peep'?

In either of those cases, a later model 1902 leaf and eye-piece can replace the original parts. You simply compress the leaf spring and lightly drive out the pivot pin, change the sight leaf and reassemble.

The model 1898 and model 1902 sight bases have different heights and different leaf springs. However, the actual leaf/eye-piece part can be switched for 'Shooting Purposes'.

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I may be in trouble. My sight that's on the gun now doesn't look anything like those. My sight is backwards!

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That would be an 1896 sight. I would swap it out with either a 1902 or 1901 sight. Just note you will need a new hand guard.

The sights can be found on Ebay, gunbroker, S&S, and other places.

And a higher front blade.

I'll just use it the way it is. I don't want to make a new gun to get a peep. (-:}

Thanks for the info on what I have.

My first full length rifle came with the same sight you have.  I bought sporters which provided the parts I needed to change it to the way I wanted it, keeping the parts to put it back to the way it came to me.  Need a sight, get a rifle that has it, need a handguard, buy a rifle with the one you need.  Sporters often don't have a handguard, so a repro was needed once.