On the Marvelous Occurrences in the World

diverse vapors or corrupt humors. Hence, such people are commonly sick, or near to being sick, or they are children, or women, or those similar to them. Therefore, a strong imagination concerning a likeness preserved within, along with a small external appearance or the intemperance of some circumstance, makes wonders appear in the healthy and in the sick; so that a strongly fearful man, walking at night, will think a wolf is an enemy or a devil, to the extent that he fears them and holds his imagination toward them. A devout man, however, will easily suspect an angel, and will judge it so.

On the error of hearing. Chapter II.

A large ornamental drop cap 'C' begins the paragraph, set within a woodcut frame depicting foliage.

Regarding hearing, many errors occur by reason of the internal faculty judging badly, by reason of the indisposition of the organ, by reason of the medium, and on the part of the agents and concurrences, which are many; among these are nearly the individual eight numbered above, besides the object of hearing and its likeness, which is that by which hearing is produced. Note that just as color is the object of sight, and is perceived by sight, with light mediating, so sound is the object of hearing, and is perceived by it, with motion mediating. Therefore, sound is heard with motion, and it is not perceived without motion; so much so that there are those who assert that sound is motion thus produced, and thus perceived by hearing, and nothing else; but to maintain this is difficult, says Oresme Nicole Oresme, a 14th-century scholastic philosopher. I