Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

4. The Ear, framed with windings and turnings, to keep any thing from entering to offend the Brain; so disposed as to admit sounds with the greatest safety and delight;^* filled with an air within, by the motion whereof the sound is transmitted to the Brain: As sounds are made in the Air by diffusing themselves, as you see Circles made in the water by the flinging in a stone. This is the Gate of knowledge, whereby we hear the Oracles of God, and the instruction of men for arts: Tis by this they are exposed to the mind, and the mind of another Man framed in our understandings.

4. The Ear, framed with windings and turnings, to keep any thing from entring to offend the Brain; so disposed as to admit sounds with the greatest safety and delight;^* filled with an air within, by the motion whereof the sound is transmitted to the Brain: As sounds are made in the Air by diffusing themselves, as you see Circles made in the water by the flinging in a stone. This is the Gate of knowledge, whereby we hear the Oracles of God, and the instruction of men for arts: Tis by this they are exposed to the mind, and the mind of another Man framed in our understandings.

1. *Eccles. 12.4.

5. What a curious Workmanship is that of the Eye, which is in the body, as the Sun in the World; set in the head as in a Watch-Tower, having the softest nerves for the receiving the greater multitude of Spirits necessary for the act of Vision? How is it provided with defence, by the variety of Coats to secure and accommodate the little humour and part whereby the vision is made? Made of a round figure and convex, as most commodious to receive the species of objects; shaded by the eye-brows and eye-lids, secured by the eye-lids which are its ornament and safety; which refresh it when it is too much dried by heat, hinder too much light from insinuating it self into it to offend it, cleanse it from impurities, by their quick motion preserve it from any invasion, and by contraction confer to the more evident discerning of things: Both the eyes seated in the hollow of the bone for security; yet standing out that things may be perceived more easily on both sides: And this little Member can behold the earth, and in a moment view things as high as Heaven.