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men to seek diverse parts of the world ; it is the principle of mathematics; its science is most cer- tain; it has measured the height and the magni- tude of the stars; it has discovered the elements and their abodes ; it has been able to predicft the events of the future, owing to the course of the stars; it has begotten architecture and perspec- tive and divine painting. O most excellent above all the things created by God! What praise is there which can express thy nobility? What peo- ples, what tongues, are they who can perfectly describe thy true working? It is the window of the human body, through which the soul gazes and feasts on the beauty of the world ; by reason of it the soul is content with its human prison, and without it this human prison is its torment; and by means of it human diligence has discovered fire by which the eye wins back what the dark- ness has stolen from it. It has adorned nature with agriculture and pleasant gardens. But what need is there for me to indulge in long and elevated discourse? What thing is there which acfts not by reason of the eye? It impels men from the East to the West; it has discovered navigation; and in this it excels nature, because the simple products of the earth are finite and the works which the eye makes over to the hands are infinite, as the painter shows in his portrayal of countless forms of animals, herbs, plants and places.

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