and
playing on the flute, agreeably to the custom of the Pythagoreans, and
having books read to him night and day, in all which he did not want
eyes, contrived to teach geometry, which, one would think, could hardly
be done without the assistance of eyes, telling his scholars how and
where to draw every line. They relate of Asclepiades, a native of
Eretria, and no obscure philosopher, when some one asked him what
inconvenience he suffered from his blindness, that his reply was, "He
was at the expense of another servant." So that, as the most extreme
poverty may be borne if you please, as is daily the case with some in
Greece, so blindness may easily be borne, provided you have the support
of good health in other respects. Democritus was so blind he could not
distinguish white from black; but he knew the difference between good
and evil, just and unjust, honorable and base, the useful and useless,
great and small. Thus one may live happily without distinguishing
colors; but without acquainting yourself with things, you cannot; and
this man was of opinion that the intense application of the mind was
taken off by the objects that presented themselves to the eye; and
while others often could not see what was before their feet, he
travelled through all infinity. It is reported also that Homer[71] was
blind, but we observe his painting as well as his poetry. What country,
what coast, what part of Greece, what military attacks, what
dispositions of battle, what array, what ship, what motions of men and
animals, can be mentioned which he has not described in such a manner
as to enable us to see what he could not see himself? What, then! can
we imagine that Homer, or any other learned man, has ever been in want
of pleasure and entertainment for his mind? Were it not so, would
Anaxagoras, or this very Democritus, have left their estates and
patrimonies, and given themselves up to the pursuit of acquiring this
divine pleasure? It is thus that the poets who have represented
Tiresias the Augur as a wise man and blind never exhibit him as
bewailing his blindness. And Homer, too, after he had described
Polyphemus as a monster and a wild man, represents him talking with his
ram, and speaking of his good fortune, inasmuch as he could go wherever
he pleased and touch what he would. And so far he was right, for that
Cyclops was a being of not much more understanding than his ram.

XL. Now, as to the evil of being deaf. M. Crassus was a li