Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/224

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with slow motion is like the great flame whence sounds issue in the air; the exceedingly great noise made by the rare, when the air which is rare and swift mingles with that which is rare and in [slow] motion, is like the flame of fire issuing from a great gun and striking against the air; likewise the flame when it issues from a cloud strikes the air as it begets the thunderbolt. Therefore we will say that the spirit cannot produce a voice unless the air be set in motion, but since there is no air within, it cannot discharge what it does not possess; and if it wishes to move that air in which it is incorporated, it is necessary that the spirit should multiply itself; but that which has no quantity cannot be multiplied. In the fourth place it is said, that no rare body can move if it has not a stable spot whence it may take its motion, and more especially is this the case when an element must move in its own element, which does not move of itself, excepting by uniform evaporation at the centre of the thing evaporated ; as occurs in the case of the sponge squeezed in the hand under water, whence the water escapes in every direction with equal motion through the spaces between the fingers of the hand which squeezes it. As to whether the spirit has an articulate voice and can be heard, and as to what are hearing and sight—the wave of the voice travels through the air as the images of objects travel to the eye.

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