LAO. Now of this and of other matters we will discourse more at our ease
presently. Let us go.
=Fourth Dialogue=.
_Interlocutors_:
SEVERINO. MINUTOLO.
SEV. You will see the origin of the nine blind men, who state nine
reasons and special causes of their blindness, and yet they all agree in
one general reason and one common enthusiasm.[AB]
[AB] May one suggest an analogy between the nine months of
gestation, during which time the foetus goes through various stages
and conditions to complete the "individual cycle of evolution," and
the nine blind men who, at the end of their probation, are brought
to see the light--to be born--illuminated?--("Translator.")
MIN. Begin with the first!
SEV. The first of these, notwithstanding that he is blind by nature, yet
he laments, saying to the others that he cannot persuade himself that
nature has been less courteous to them than to him; seeing that although
they do not (now) see, yet they have enjoyed sight, and have had
experience of that sense, and of the value of that faculty, of which
they have been deprived, while he came into the world as a mole, to be
seen and not to see, to long for the sight of that which he never had
seen.
MIN. Many have fallen in love through report alone.
SEV. They have, says he, the happiness of retaining that Divine image
present in the mind, so that, although blind, they have in imagination
that which he cannot have.
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