על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ג ל״דOn the Special Laws, Book III 34
א׳
1[185] Now as for the services and benefits which the eyes render to the human race, it would take a long time to enumerate them, but one, the best, must be mentioned. Philosophy was showered down by heaven and received by the human mind, but the guide which brought the two together was sight, for sight was the first to discern the high roads which lead to the upper air.
ב׳
2[186] Now philosophy is the fountain of good things, all that are truly good, and he who draws from that spring deserves praise, if he does so for the acquisition and practice of virtue, but blame, if it is for knavish ends and to outwit another with sophistry. For in the first case he resembles the convivial man who makes himself and all his fellow-guests merry, in the second the drinker who swills himself with strong wine, only to play the sot and insult himself and his neighbours.
ג׳
3[187] Now let us describe the way in which sight acted as guide to philosophy; sight looked up to the ethereal region and beheld the sun and moon and the fixed and wandering stars, the host of heaven in all its sacred majesty, a world within a world; then their risings and settings, their ordered rhythmic marchings, their conjunctions as the appointed times recur, their eclipses, their reappearances;
ד׳
4[188] then the waxing and waning of the moon, the courses of the sun from side to side as it passes from the south to the north and returns from the north to the south, thus producing the yearly seasons by which all things are brought to their consummation. Numberless other marvels did it behold, and after it had gazed around over earth and sea and the lower air, it made speed to shew all these things to the mind.
ה׳
5[189] The mind, having discerned through the faculty of sight what of itself it was not able to apprehend, did not simply stop short at what it saw, but, drawn by its love of knowledge and beauty and charmed by the marvellous spectacle, came to the reasonable conclusion that all these were not brought together automatically by unreasoning forces, but by the mind of God Who is rightly called their Father and Maker; also that they are not unlimited but are bounded by the ambit of a single universe, walled in like a city by the outermost sphere of the fixed stars; also that the Father Who begat them according to the law of nature takes thought for His offspring, His providence watching over both the whole and the parts.
ו׳
6[190] Then it went on to inquire what is the substance of the world which we see and whether its constituents are all the same in substance or do some differ from others; what are the elements of which each particular part is composed, what are the causes which brought them into being, and what are the forces or properties which hold them together and are these forces corporeal or incorporeal.
ז׳
7[191] We may well ask what title we can give to research into these matters but philosophy and what more fitting name than philosopher to their investigator. For to make a study of God and the Universe embracing all that is therein, both animals and plants, and of the conceptual archetypes and also the works which they produce for sense to perceive, and of the good and evil qualities in every created thing—shews a disposition which loves to learn, loves to contemplate and is truly wisdom-loving or philosophical.
ח׳
8[192] This is the greatest boon which sight bestowed on human life, and I think that this pre-eminence has been awarded to it because it is more closely akin to the soul than the other senses. They are all of the same family as the mind, but, just as it is with families, the place which is closest in birth and first and highest, is held by sight.
ט׳
9[193] We may find many proofs of this, for who does not know that when we rejoice the eyes are bright and smiling, when we are sad they are full of anxiety and dejection, and, if the burden is magnified and presses and crushes, they break out into tears; when anger prevails they swell and their look is bloodshot and fiery; when the temper dies down it is gentle and kindly;
י׳
10[194] when we are reflecting or inquiring the pupils are set and seem to share our thoughts, while in persons of little sense their silliness makes their vision roaming and restless. In general the emotions of the soul are shared by the eyes, and as it passes through its numberless phases they change with it, a natural consequence of their affinity. Indeed it seems to me that nowhere else in God’s creations is the inward and invisible so well represented by the outward and visible as reason is by sight.