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may be active, and it may be only virtual or faint; but although to us inaudible, it is not to be supposed that silence any more than darkness is ever absolute; so that the text has limited the range of sound too absolutely by the activity of the sense. Aristotle[1] assigned, as has been said, a high privilege to this sense, because through it instruction is orally conveyed, and thus the blind from birth are more intelligent (φρονιμώτεροι), he observes, than "the deaf and dumb;" but the argument would have been more correct had the second term been omitted, as individuals are of necessity dumb when hearing is quite shut out. The phraseology, however, is still sanctioned in common parlance.
- ↑ De Sensu et sensili I.11.
