^ f. UBBARV - JScholarship - Johns Hopkins University

VISION 29
Perhaps one might say that in the daytime the sun causes
the reflexion of images in the pupil by bringing the light ^
to the eye, and this is what Democritus seems to have meant;
since that the sun should, as he says, condense the air,
pushing and striking it off from itself, is an absurd notion.
The sun naturally rarefies air instead of condensing it. It
is to be remarked also, as an anomaly in Democritus' theory,
that he gives not the eye alone, but also the remainder of
the body its part in visual perception. This he implies
when he states that the eye must contain void and moisture
for the purpose of receiving impressions more freely and
then transmitting these to the rest of the body^. A still
further anomaly is involved in Democritus' assertion that
cognate things best see their kindred, while nevertheless
he also asserts that reflexion is due to difference of
colour, which would imply that like things are not reflected
in their likes. Besides this: how are magnitudes and
distances reflected in the eye? this is a question which
he undertakes but falls to answer. Thus Democritus, in
enunciating his peculiar theory of vision, instead of settling
the old Problems, bequeaths them to us in a more diflScult
form than before.'
§ 15. ' Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, hold that (Demothe
Visual affection (tö opariKov irddos) takes place by the f^ the'^
entrance of images (Karo. flbdXoov fta-Kpicriv) ^. visual
from the body; and, as at night and in sleep the body is colder than by
day, the quantity of soul-atoms in the air at night is greater than by day.
Cf. Arist. 471'' 30 seqq. Diels, Vors., p. 391, now defends epslnixörepos.
•^ The text here translated is corrupt and obscure.
^ Iv' im irXeov Sepfip-ai Kai t^ oXXsj crwiian napaSiSS. These words
suggest the answer which Democritus would have made to Aristotle's
question (§ 13 suprd)—'Why on Democritus' thfeory does not every
other mirror, as well as the eye, see ?' ' Mirrors,' Democritus would
reply,' are not connected with a bodily organism.'
' Flut.Epit.iv.is; Stob.Ä/.i.52(Diels,Z'ö*-.,p.403). Theophrastus,
as we have seen, and Aristotle, 438* 16, both use this word uSaXov with
reference to Democritus'object of vision. Cicero, too, adPam. xv. 16. l,
implies that Democritus himself so used it: ' quae ille Gargettius et iam
ante Democritus eiSaXa, hie "spectra" nominat.' Yet nowhere do we
find the word thus used in the remains of Democritus himself. The term
which he employed usually, if not always, was 8eiKeXoj'(or SeiKijXoc), which