Consider, O reader, how far we can lend credence to the ancients who strove to define the soul and life,--things which cannot be proved; while those things which can be clearly known and proved by experience remained during so many centuries ignored and misrepresented! The eye, which so clearly demonstrates its functions, has been up to my time defined in one manner by countless authorities; I by experience have discovered another definition.
經驗到不了的地方
自然變幻無窮，其中奧秘，非經驗所能窮盡
Nature is full of infinite causes which are beyond the pale of
experience.
權威從來隻是被借用
記憶，而非智力才是言必稱權威的推理者倚仗的資本。
He who in reasoning cites authority is making use of his memory rather than of his intellect.
感官是知識的土壤
感官是靈魂的靈魂。我們用感知拾得知識。
若感官停運，人類的一切日常功能將喪失，如生而盲啞之人。
All our knowledge is the offspring of our perceptions.
The sense ministers to the soul, and not the soul sense; and where the sense which ministers ceases to serve the soul, all the functions of that sense are lacking in life, as is evident in those who are born dumb and blind.
眼睛為感官之王
你們覺得，沉思方可得道，視覺卻在妨礙此種真思，因此，許多哲學家為求真理，自願遺棄視覺。要我來說，感官之中，眼睛為王。它盡忠職守，那些嘈雜混亂，蘊含無數謊言的偽科學演講，在它麵前無半點可乘之機。聽覺也起著同樣的效用。感情，盼望每一個感官均和諧運作，因此，它對於唐突尤為敏感。拋棄視覺的哲學家，隻為了更流暢的演講。其實，此舉形同瘋子。為何他不在狂流來襲時閉上雙眼，等過後再睜開呢？愚蠢到拋棄視覺的哲學家，他的演說值得信任嗎？他不過是個瘋子而已。
And if thou sayest that sight impedes the security and subtlety of mental meditation, by reason of which we penetrate into divine knowledge, and that this impediment drove a philosopher to deprive himself of his sight, I answer that the eye, as lord of the senses, performs its duty in being an impediment to the confusion and lies of that which is not science but discourse, by which with much noise and gesticulation argument is constantly conducted; and hearing should do the same, feeling, as it does, the offence more keenly, because it seeks after harmony which devolves on all the senses.
And if this philosopher deprived himself of his sight to get rid of the obstacle to his discourses, consider that his discourses and his brain were a party to the act, because the whole was madness. Now could he not have closed his eyes when this frenzy came upon him, and have kept them closed until the frenzy consumed itself? But the man was mad, thediscourse insane, and egregious the folly of destroying his eye-sight.