על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א ס״בOn the Special Laws, Book I 62
א׳
1[337] The champions of the senses sound their praises in lofty terms. They discuss and classify them according to the purposes which they serve and tell us that two, smell and taste, are the basis of life, and two, sight and hearing, of good life.
ב׳
2[338] Taste acts as a conductor of the sustenance which food gives, and the nostrils do the same for the air on which every created being depends. Air too is a means of sustenance, constant and unceasing, and nourishes and preserves us not only when awake but also while we sleep. We have a clear proof of this; for if the course of respiration backwards and forwards is stopped ever so little by the interception of the natural influx of breath from outside, death will inexorably and inevitably follow.
ג׳
3[339] To turn to the senses which minister to philosophy and secure for us the good life, sight sees the light which is the most beautiful of all that is and by means of the light sees everything else, sun, moon, stars, heaven, earth, sea, the countless varieties of plants and animals, in general, all kinds of bodies, shapes, colours and magnitudes, the contemplation of which creates a subtle intelligence and generates a great thirst for knowledge.
ד׳
4[340] But apart from these benefits sight gives us others of the highest value, by enabling us to distinguish between kinsfolk and strangers, friends and enemies, and to shun the harmful and choose the beneficent. And while it is true that each of the other members of the body has its appropriate and very indispensable use, as the feet for walking and running and the other activities to which the legs are instrumental, and the hands for doing and giving and receiving things, the eyes may be said to have a common value and to create the conditions under which these members and all the others can operate successfully.
ה׳
5[341] The strongest testimony to this truth is afforded by the blind, who cannot make the proper use of their hands or feet and thus verify the name of incapable given to them in the past, more, we are told, in pity than as a reproach. For when the eyes are destroyed, the capacities of the body are not merely overthrown, but actually perish.
ו׳
6[342] In hearing too we have something very marvellous. By means of it we distinguish melodies and metres and rhythm, and with them the harmonies and consonances, and the varieties of genera and systems and all the elements of music; and again, the multitudinous kinds of set speeches delivered in the law-courts, in the senate, in laudations, as well as the language used in historical narrative and dialogues and discussions of matters of business which we are bound to have with those with whom we come in contact from time to time. For we may say in sum that the voice has a twofold capacity for speech and song. Both these are assessed by the ears to the benefit of the soul. For both are medicaments,
ז׳
7[343] health-giving and life-preserving. Song charms away the passions and controls the irregular element in us with its rhythm, the discordant with its melodies, the immoderate with its measures. And each of these three assumes every variety of form, as the musicians and poets testify, belief in whom necessarily becomes habitual in those who have received a good education. Speech checks and hampers impulses to vice and effects the cure of those in whom foolish and distressful thoughts have gained the mastery. It deals more gently with the docile, more drastically with the rebellious, and thus becomes the source of the greatest possible benefits.