iv MIRROR AND IMAGE 23 



appear in the reflection inverted and nearer to you 

 than to the mirror. The very same thing, accord- 4 

 ing to him, takes place when we look at a round 

 hollow cloud from the side : the image of the 

 sun detaches itself from the cloud, and is nearer 

 us and more turned in our direction. Therefore 

 the red colour is from the sun, the dark blue is 

 from the cloud : the other hues are produced by a 

 blending of these two. 



BUT there are arguments on the other side. About 

 mirrors there are two opinions ; some people think 

 that only phantoms are seen in them ; in other 

 words, the shape of our bodies, an emanation sepa 

 rated from our bodies. Others, however, affirm 

 that images do not exist in the mirror, but that it is 

 the very bodies that are seen, the eyesight being 

 bent back and reflected on itself again. Now, the 

 point is not how do we see whatever it is we see : 

 the question is, how the image should resemble the 

 original in the cloud as in a mirror. 1 Could any 

 thing be more unlike than the sun and a rainbow in 

 which neither the colour nor the shape nor the size 

 of the sun is to be seen ? A bow is far larger 

 and, in the bright part, far redder than the sun : in 

 the other colours, too, it is different from him. 

 Besides, when you insist on comparing a mirror to 

 the atmosphere (i.e. as embodied in a cloud), you 

 must show me in the latter the same smoothness of 

 texture, the same levelness of surface, the same 



1 The reading of the MSS. is admittedly corrupt. I have followed Ruhkopf s 

 conjecture, though without conviction. The argument seems to require dissimi- 

 lis unlike, or non similis (cf. c. v. 13), instead of similis like (&quot;re 

 semble &quot; in the text) : in that case the meaning would be : how an image 

 unlike the original ought to be reflected from the cloud as from a mirror. 

 I 



