Of the Sun Low and High. Letter II.

could be gathered; but those which must be introduced concerning other chapters will suffice.

V. Namely, we must now speak of the nature of species: in this context, the visual representations or "images" that travel from an object to the eye, or images emanating from bodies. For you, distinguished sir, adhering to Aristotle: the ancient Greek philosopher whose theories dominated medieval and early modern science, wish for these to be forms without matter. You believe that they are received as immaterial things, not only in the sense organ, but also in the medium interposed between the eye and the thing seen. You hold that since there are many such images, each one fills the entire space. There are others, however, who do not understand how an immaterial or incorporeal thing can come from a material thing or body, so that it might fill the medium and affect the sense. Consequently, they think it more probable that species, or images, are outflows original: "ἀπορροίας". This means they are substantial flows, namely little membranes, or like skins scraped off from bodies and cast through the medium toward the eyes.

This may indeed seem quite absurd at first glance to those who are accustomed to only one way of philosophizing. It should not seem so to you, however, for you approve of the Peripatetic: a follower of Aristotle's school of philosophy institution in such a way that you also wish to weigh what reason exists in others. And certainly, if species are nothing substantial, but merely accidents: in Aristotelian logic, qualities that cannot exist without a physical substance to inhabit as some claim, what creates them? The object does not take up a paintbrush to paint a likeness of itself in an instant and transmit it. What supports them? The air itself is driven away when the wind presses, yet the species are always transferred in a straight line regardless of the air. What carries them? An accident is not able to travel alone. Does the same species persist as it progresses through the air? Yet it is a known rule that an accident does not migrate from one subject to another. Is it changed through propagation? But what is the manner