Sight

Sight is the noblest and most perfect of the five external senses; it contributes not only to the preservation of physical life, but serves the human person much more for the needs of spiritual life. The difference existing between the functions toward the soul and the body is such as is that of the spirit from the flesh, and serving the needs of the practical life; the arts and sciences owe the origin of life to the eye. What is the History of the philosophy of the human person; through sight the human person is introduced into the world of beauty, beautifulfulness, grace, order, harmony, brightness, magnitude, majesty, height, and marvels; he traverses the heights, distances, and intervals, and remaining in one place unmoved surveys like from a high and elevated throne, enters into the heavens as one who scales them, touching above the colossal giants, the countless worlds of the foundations of stones of all creation, and journeys as a citizen through the infinite world. How much time would suffice us for merely descriptive exposition of the virtues of sight? Who? I think no one. Let anyone who seeks to gain experience of the truth of my words once survey all around with his eyes, having once entered into a factory, into a library, into a picture gallery, into an astronomical observatory, and he will have to acknowledge the truth of my words. The divine Creator placed this precious sense in a most precious organ, the eye, worthy truly of the purpose of the creature.

This most wondrous and noble organ on account of its lofty purpose was placed upon the highest part of the body as upon an acropolis in order to survey all. Because of its great nobility and delicacy divine providence has marvelously protected it. Galen (On the Usefulness of Parts, Book III, Ch. 6) says: “With all kinds of eyelids and eyelashes and the bones around it and the skin; the eyelashes like a kind of barrier for small bodies (the Creator) set before, so that they do not easily fall into the open eyes, prevented by these hairs; and the eyelids themselves closing and shutting the eye if something larger was brought against it; and against the impact of even larger things he placed the eyebrows from above, below the cheeks, and at the large canthus the nose, and at the small canthus the projection of the cheekbone; all of which having previously received the impacts of larger bodies, the eye itself placed in a circle suffers nothing, the movement of the skin also contributing not a little to its resistance to injury; for being compressed all around, it contracts the eye into the smallest angle possible; and becoming wrinkled here like eyelids, if anything, exceeding the curvature of the bones, should be brought inward against the eyes, it first receives the impact, first suffers it, and first is endangered and damaged; and second, the eyelids under it are crushed, cut, torn, and in every way affected; like shields placed before the cornea.”

And Socrates to Aristodemus (Xenophon, Memorabilia, Ch. 4) says: “In addition to this, does it not seem to you also a work of providence that, since sight is weak, it has eyelids as doors for it, which when it is necessary to use it are opened, and in sleep are closed; and lest the winds harm it, eyelashes were implanted; and eyebrows were placed above the eyes, so that neither sweat from the head could harm it.” And how could divine providence not have taken special care about the eye of the human person, since it is destined to be a mirror even of the soul? The eyes are the mirror of the soul.

The states of the soul are often revealed; in them are reflected all the desires and passions of the heart; in them are reflected not only the sympathies, desires, and passions of the heart, but also the very most secret thoughts; the psychological character of the eye is more than evident, and its difference from the eyes of animals, whose purpose is proportionate to the needs of life, is obvious; simple examination of the position of the eyes of animals suffices for this; the eyes of animals were placed in order to see the earth, while those of the human person to gaze upon the heavens; the eagle has the keenest sight and flies very high, but its glances are directed toward earthly things and those lying in the depths of the earth; no animal gazes upon the heavens; for its head is not formed for this; the eyes of the animal differ from those of the human person as much as a photographic machine differs from a mirror; for through the eyes the human person receives perceptions and representations and has permanent and lasting impressions, while the animal has only reflections; through the eyes the human person receives the idea of the beautiful, of order, of harmony, etc., while the animal receives none of these ideas; a horse and all herbivorous animals could destroy in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the most brilliant flower in bloom when they could spare it out of appreciation for its beauty and its perfect order and even if still hungry; sole concern for beauty and harmony, but none; sole concern the filling of the stomach.

How much the eye alone testifies to the nobility and the lofty purpose of the human person! Examine all the classes of animals from quadrupeds and primates to birds and reptiles and insects and fish and mollusks and you will be persuaded that the eyes of all have no other purpose than their preservation; and in each such manner the eyes are attached as necessary for their salvation and have such construction as their diet and such power as the instinct of the co-class. The eye of the human person testifies to his spiritual nature, externalizes the internal human being, and reveals his psychical powers, which he vividly expresses as in an image. Such is the eye of the human person; let us now proceed to the examination of the sensory powers of his soul, in order that we may see manifestly the difference that distinguishes the human person from the animal.