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| The Fidelity of the Senses, Impugned by Plato, Vindicated by Christ Himself.
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Chapter XVII.—The
Fidelity of the Senses, Impugned by Plato, Vindicated by Christ
Himself.
Then, again, when we encounter the question (as to
the veracity of those five senses which we learn with our alphabet;
since from this source even there arises some support for our heretics.
They are the faculties of seeing, and hearing, and smelling, and
tasting, and touching. The fidelity of these senses is impugned with
too much severity by the Platonists,1606
and according
to some by Heraclitus also, and Diocles, and Empedocles; at any rate,
Plato, in the Timæus, declares the operations of the senses
to be irrational, and vitiated1607
| 1607 Coimplicitam
“entangled” or “embarrassed.” See the
Timæus pp. 27, 28. | by our opinions or
beliefs. Deception is imputed to the sight, because it asserts that
oars, when immersed in the water, are inclined or bent, notwithstanding
the certainty that they are straight; because, again, it is quite sure
that that distant tower with its really quadrangular contour is round;
because also it will discredit the fact of the truly parallel fabric of
yonder porch or arcade, by supposing it to be narrower and narrower
towards its end; and because it will join with the sea the sky which
hangs at so great a height above it. In the same way, our hearing
is charged with fallacy: we think, for instance, that that is a noise
in the sky which is nothing else than the rumbling of a carriage; or,
if you prefer it1608
the other way, when
the thunder rolled at a distance, we were quite sure that it was a
carriage which made the noise. Thus, too, are our faculties of
smell and taste at fault, because the selfsame perfumes and wines lose
their value after we have used them awhile. On the same principle our
touch is censured, when the identical pavement which seemed rough to
the hands is felt by the feet to be smooth enough; and in the baths a
stream of warm water is pronounced to be quite hot at first, and
beautifully temperate afterwards. Thus, according to them, our senses
deceive us, when all the while we are (the cause of the
discrepancies, by) changing our opinions. The Stoics are more moderate
in their views; for they do
not load with the obloquy of deception every one of the senses, and at
all times. The Epicureans, again, show still greater consistency, in
maintaining that all the senses are equally true in their testimony,
and always so—only in a different way. It is not our organs of
sensation that are at fault, but our opinion. The senses only
experience sensation, they do not exercise opinion; it is the soul that
opines. They separated opinion from the senses, and sensation
from the soul. Well, but whence comes opinion, if not from the senses?
Indeed, unless the eye had descried a round shape in that tower, it
could have had no idea that it possessed roundness. Again, whence
arises sensation if not from the soul? For if the soul had no body, it
would have no sensation. Accordingly, sensation comes from the soul,
and opinion from sensation; and the whole (process) is the soul. But
further, it may well be insisted on that there is a something which
causes the discrepancy between the report of the senses and the reality
of the facts. Now, since it is possible, (as we have seen), for
phenomena to be reported which exist not in the objects, why should it
not be equally possible for phenomena to be reported which are caused
not by the senses, but by reasons and conditions which intervene, in
the very nature of the case? If so, it will be only right that they
should be duly recognised. The truth is, that it was the water which
was the cause of the oar seeming to be inclined or bent: out of the
water, it was perfectly straight in appearance (as well as in
fact). The delicacy of the substance or medium which forms a
mirror by means of its luminosity, according as it is struck or shaken,
by the vibration actually destroys the appearance of the straightness
of a right line. In like manner, the condition of the open space which
fills up the interval between it and us, necessarily causes the true
shape of the tower to escape our notice; for the uniform density of the
surrounding air covering its angles with a similar light obliterates
their outlines. So, again, the equal breadth of the arcade is sharpened
or narrowed off towards its termination, until its aspect, becoming
more and more contracted under its prolonged roof, comes to a vanishing
point in the direction of its farthest distance. So the sky blends
itself with the sea, the vision becoming spent at last, which had
maintained duly the boundaries of the two elements, so long as its
vigorous glance lasted. As for the (alleged cases of deceptive)
hearing, what else could produce the illusion but the similarity of the
sounds? And if the perfume afterwards was less strong to the smell, and
the wine more flat to the taste, and the water not so hot to the touch,
their original strength was after all found in the whole of them pretty
well unimpaired. In the matter, however, of the roughness and
smoothness of the pavement, it was only natural and right that limbs
like the hands and the feet, so different in tenderness and
callousness, should have different impressions. In this way, then,
there cannot occur an illusion in our senses without an adequate cause.
Now if special causes, (such as we have indicated,) mislead our senses
and (through our senses) our opinions also, then we must no longer
ascribe the deception to the senses, which follow the specific causes
of the illusion, nor to the opinions we form; for these are occasioned
and controlled by our senses, which only follow the causes. Persons who
are afflicted with madness or insanity, mistake one object for
another. Orestes in his sister sees his mother; Ajax sees Ulysses
in the slaughtered herd; Athamas and Agave descry wild beasts in their
children. Now is it their eyes or their phrenzy which you must blame
for so vast a fallacy? All things taste bitter, in the redundancy
of their bile, to those who have the jaundice. Is it their taste which
you will charge with the physical prevarication, or their ill state of
health? All the senses, therefore, are disordered occasionally, or
imposed upon, but only in such a way as to be quite free of any fault
in their own natural functions. But further still, not even against the
specific causes and conditions themselves must we lay an indictment of
deception. For, since these physical aberrations happen for stated
reasons, the reasons do not deserve to be regarded as deceptions.
Whatever ought to occur in a certain manner is not a deception. If,
then, even these circumstantial causes must be acquitted of all censure
and blame, how much more should we free from reproach the senses, over
which the said causes exercise a liberal sway! Hence we are bound most
certainly to claim for the senses truth, and fidelity, and integrity,
seeing that they never render any other account of their impressions
than is enjoined on them by the specific causes or conditions which in
all cases produce that discrepancy which appears between the report of
the senses and the reality of the objects. What mean you, then, O most
insolent Academy? You overthrow the entire condition of human life; you
disturb the whole order of nature; you obscure the good providence of
God Himself: for the senses of man which God has appointed over all His
works, that we might understand, inhabit, dispense, and enjoy them,
(you reproach) as fallacious
and treacherous tyrants! But is it not from these that all creation
receives our services? Is it not by their means that a second
form is impressed even upon the world?—so many arts, so many
industrious resources, so many pursuits, such business, such offices,
such commerce, such remedies, counsels, consolations, modes,
civilizations, and accomplishments of life! All these things have
produced the very relish and savour of human existence; whilst by these
senses of man, he alone of all animated nature has the distinction of
being a rational animal, with a capacity for intelligence and
knowledge—nay, an ability to form the Academy itself! But Plato,
in order to disparage the testimony of the senses, in the
Phædrus denies (in the person of Socrates) his own ability
to know even himself, according to the injunction of the Delphic
oracle; and in the Theætetus he deprives himself of the
faculties of knowledge and sensation; and again, in the
Phædrus he postpones till after death the posthumous
knowledge, as he calls it, of the truth; and yet for all he went on
playing the philosopher even before he died. We may not, I say, we may
not call into question the truth of the (poor vilified)
senses,1609
lest we should even
in Christ Himself, bring doubt upon1610
the truth of
their sensation; lest perchance it should be said that He did
not really “behold Satan as lightning fall from
heaven;”1611
that He did
not really hear the Father’s voice testifying of
Himself;1612
or that He was
deceived in touching Peter’s wife’s mother;1613
or that the fragrance of the ointment which
He afterwards smelled was different from that which He accepted for His
burial;1614
and that the taste
of the wine was different from that which He consecrated in memory of
His blood.1615
| 1615 Matt. xxvi. 27, 28; Luke xxii. 19, 20; 1
Cor. xi. 25. | On this false
principle it was that Marcion actually chose to believe that He was a
phantom, denying to Him the reality of a perfect body. Now, not even to
His apostles was His nature ever a matter of deception. He was truly
both seen and heard upon the mount;1616
true and real
was the draught of that wine at the marriage of (Cana in)
Galilee;1617
true and real also
was the touch of the then believing Thomas.1618
Read the testimony of John: “That which we have seen, which we
have heard, which we have looked upon with our eyes, and our hands have
handled, of the Word of life.”1619
False, of
course, and deceptive must have been that testimony, if the witness of
our eyes, and ears, and hands be by nature a lie.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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