Folio 82v - the nature of man, continued.
some claim that sight comes either from the earth, or from an external air-born light or an internal light-bearing spirit, which travel from the brain through narrow passages, and, after penetrating the coating of the eye, emerge into the air and, mixed with similar matter, give vision. Vision, visus, is so called because, compared to the other senses, it is more lively, vivatior, more important, or swifter, velocior, and more powerful, vigere, as memory is, compared to the other faculties of the mind. For it is located closer to the brain, the source of all the senses. For this reason we use the word 'see' when we refer to things which pertain to the other senses. As when we say 'see how it tastes' and so on. Hearing, auditus, is so called because it receives, haurire, voices, that is, it takes up sounds from the air which has been struck by them. The sense of smell, odoratus, comes, so to speak, from the phrase, aeris odorat tactus, 'the touch of the air carrying a scent'. For smell is experienced through the touch of the air, just as the other word for 'smelling', olfactus, comes from odoribus efficiatur, 'sensation acquired from odours'. Taste, gustus, gets its name from guttur, the throat. Touch, tactus, is so called because it takes hold of and handles things, and diffuses the force of the sensation through every limb. For we explore by touch whatever we cannot judge with the other senses. There are two kinds of touch. For the sensation of touching comes either from outside the body by experience, or it arises within the body itself. Each sense has been given its own peculiar nature. For what is visible is captured by the eyes; what is audible, by the ears. Softness and hardness are assessed by touch; flavour by taste; odour is brought by the nostrils. The head, caput, is the principal part of the body and gets its name because all the senses and nerves take, capere, their beginning from there, and the entire source of energy springs from it. It is the seat of all the senses. In a certain way it takes the role of the soul itself, which takes thought for the body. The crown, vertex, is the part of the head where the hair is gathered and on which the hair parts, vertere, which is how it gets its name. The word for skull, calvaria, comes from ossa calva, bare bones,
Folio 82v - the nature of man, continued. | The Aberdeen Bestiary | The University of Aberdeen