PHYSIOLOGY. 475 



2907. Sight is thus a tension between optic and cen- 

 tral brain ; as illumination is tension between planetary 

 and solar aether. 



2908. Illumination and vision are of one kind, only 

 occurring in two different sorts of worlds. The planet 

 sees by means of the illumination, the animal illuminates 

 or gives out light by means of seeing. Sight is a light- 

 sense. 



2909. Now, the illumination is a fixation of aether, a 

 coloration, and thus a descent of the aether into what is 

 terrestrial. In seeing we perceive the aether, as to how it 

 becomes world ; in hearing we perceived the world, as to 

 how it became aether. 



2910. Seeing and hearing are opposite functions ; the 

 first indicates the creation, the latter the return of the 

 creation into chaos. 



2911. Through sight we become acquainted with the 

 universe, through hearing with the miniature universe, or 

 man. Sight passes out of us, hearing into us; or 

 through sight Man is posited in the world, through hear- 

 ing among his fellow-men. Sight is the speech of the 

 world, hearing that of the planet. 



2912. Sight is the speech or language of the universe, 

 hearing the language of Man. Through sight the world 

 reveals unto us its spirit or its thoughts ; but through 

 hearing man only discloses what are his own. As words 

 are but the representations of the disintegrated body of 

 Man, so are the world-forms the representatives of the 

 disintegrated body of the primary spirit. The word is a 

 rigidified, crystallized thought of Man ; a natural body is 

 a rigidified, crystalline thought of the primary act a 

 word of God. 



2913. Through hearing self-consciousness originates ; 

 through sight consciousness of the world, universal con- 

 sciousness. By means of the former we only become 

 acquainted with human relations which is under- 

 standing ; by the latter with those that are universal 

 this being reason. 



:2D14. Without the ear there would be no under- 

 standing, without the eye no reason. 



