^ f. UBBARV - JScholarship - Johns Hopkins University

VISION II
shall consider these according as they bear upon the organ
{ov function), the medium, or the object of vision. It is to
be noticed that Alcmaeon, with whom we begin, has left
US no Information on what he conceived to be the nature
of the medium or the object. His recorded views are concerned
only with the visual organ, its functions, and its
relationship to the organism as a whole.
Alcmaeon of Crotona.
§ 3. ' Seeing takes place,' says Alcmaeon ^, ' by reflexion Alcmaeon
in the diaphanous dement.' ' Alcmaeon of Crotona ^ held tona on
that the eyes see through the environing water. That [each '^* *^.°^*
eye] contains fire is, indeed, manifest, for a flash takes place
within it when it receives a stroke. It is with the glittering
and diaphanous dement, however, that it sees, whenever
this reflects an image (avTL(paivri), and it sees better in
Proportion to the purity of this dement^.'
Chalcidius * teils us that Alcmaeon was the first to
practise dissection, and that to him, as well as (long afterwards)
to Callisthenes and Herophilus, many important
^ Stob. Ecl. Pkys. i. 52 (Diels, Box., p. 404, Vors. p. 104). I have
translated Diels' {Box. proU. p. 223) Suggestion avTiKap.^iv for MS.
äfri'X?p/'ii'='apprehension' by the diaphanous element, which still
brings us to the idea of reflexion. 'AiTi'Aafii//'tj'=reflexion, corresponds to
the ävTKpaivTj of Theophr. § 26; see next extract. To ascribe 'apprehensive'
power to the Siaipaves within the eye is quite out of keeping with
the doctrine of Alcmaeon, nor is he likely to have employed the term
avriXijyjris. Indeed it surprises one to find even tö 8ta(paves—a distinctively
Aristotelean word in this connexion—ascribed to him.
^ Theophr. de Sens. § 26 (Diels, Vors., p. 104).
' Wachtier, de Ale. Crot. (Teubner, 1896), p. 49, refers t« a-TiKßovn
here to the fire and t^ 8ia(f)aveT to the water within the eye. But (niKßeiv
is not often found used of the gleam of fire (which would rather be
Xa/iffetj/), whereas it is regularly used of lustre, and of the glittering of
water. Cf. Arist. 370* 18 cpaiveTai t6 vSaip ariKßeiv, and 561^ 32 iypov
evecTTi X^-uKhv Ka\ ^)(p6v, cr(j)65pa (TTiKßov. Both participles should,
notwithstanding the repetition of the article, be referred to the same
thing, viz. the ' diaphanous' element in which the image is said to be
reflected. C. Bäumker {Arist. Lekre von den äussern und innern
Sinnesvermögen, p. 49) notices that in the passage above translated, the
words hpav Se ra ariXßovri Kai tw Sia^ave'i form an iambic trimeter.
* In Plat. Tim., p. 279, ed. Wrobel, pp. 340-1, ed. Meursius.