De praecipius visus symptomatis eorumque causis Physica & Medica contemplatio

ON THE PRINCIPAL SYMPTOMS OF VISION AND THEIR CAUSES, a Physical and Medical contemplation.

THESIS I.

Since, with the Philosopher Aristotle as authority, the dignity and estimation of the senses must be drawn from the function of each, both in akribeia accuracy/precision and in variety, so that a person is held to be more excellent than others in proportion to how much they excel in the subtlety of their proper object and in the discernment of many sensibles: the primacy is deservedly and with the best right owed to vision, which Galen pronounced "the most subtle and most clear" original: "λεπτοτατον καὶ σαφέςατον" for this very reason.

II.

For among the other species of sensibles, "the impressions of colors" original: "αἱ τῶν χρωμάτων ἐμφάσεις" are the most subtle and simple, and they exist free from all concretion of matter, the contagion of which, when carried elsewhere to the aistheterion sensory organ, is believed to sometimes dull and blunt the sensory faculty. Therefore, just as any notion perceived by sense or intellect bears the role of a form before itself, so its object, from which it has proceeded, the more subtle and pure it is, "the more akin to the light" original: "ᾠ ἀλινεινέσερον" — interpreted as akin to light/ether, the more closely its nature approaches the soul, and it provides a supply of knowledge that is no less certain than it is easy and prompt. This is what the nature of vision declares above others.

III.

For hearing, which Aristotle names the sense of the disciplines, there is a recommendation from elsewhere, "by accident" original: "κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς", insofar as it apprehends speech, the interpreter of the mind and of things, and firmly fixes the notions drawn and conceived from it in the mind; nevertheless, it is farther removed from the contemplation of the whole universe and from the investigation of those things from which the method of living well and happily has flowed. Truly, all arts have looked upon nature with skillful gaze, from which comes all the pride and glory of the eyes.

IIII.

But what the Greeks called opsis vision, the Latins called vision, [and] Cicero sometimes