This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
‘There are some who associate the senses also,
since they are of the same number, with those primal
elements, observing that touch functions against
something resistant, and is earthly, and that taste,
through moisture in the things tasted, absorbs their
qualities. Air, when it is struck, becomes voice or
sound in the hearing of it. Of the two remaining
senses, odour, which the sense of smell has received
as its portion, since it is an exhalation and is engendered by heat, bears a resemblance to fire ; and
in sight, which flashes to its goal owing to its kinship
with aether and light, there occurs a combination and
coalescence of the two, which behaves as they do. The
living being possesses no other sense, nor has the
world any other nature single and uncombined ; but
a marvellous distribution and apportionment each to
each has, as it seems, been made of the five to the
five.’
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 5.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
