The eye is the window of the soul

Posted by Li Yar's Ghostwriter on February 06, 2004

In Reply to: The eye is the window of the soul posted by Smokey Stover on February 06, 2004

: : : "The eye is the window of the soul; the intellect and will are seen in it. The animals look for man's intentions right into his eyes. Even a rat, when you hunt and bring him to bay, looks you in the eye" =
: : : HIRAM POWERS (1805-83) Aamerican sculptor.
: : : www.madwed.com/ Quotations/Transfer
: : : also: The New Dictionary of Thought

: : Is this why American police are often portrayed wearing dark shades - it compounds the menace by adding mystery?

: I don't think Hiram Powers can have known much about animals. No doubt some animals look at a person's eyes for clues as to what the person will do, but those animals, like dogs and cats, are predators, with eyes which can look straight ahead simultaneously. They don't like being stared at by people, because they themselves use staring as a means of intimidation, either of prey or of each other. Rats, on the other hand, have eyes on either side of their heads, like rabbits, cows and other animals more often prey than preying. It's hard to imagine how a rat could stare into your eyes. It can face you, thus getting a better picture of you; but it relies greatly on peripheral vision, unlike predators, which have a greater proportion of cones in their retinas. I'm not sure about flounders, however. SS

Great! another bloody Americocentric posting Hiram Powers but he aint original. A few minutes Googling and I knew I'd find it centuries earlier - Leonardo da Vinci it apears - the following is atributed to him :

"The eye is the window of the soul...
Now do you not see that the eye embraces the beauty of the whole world?
... It counsels and corrects all the arts of mankind...
It has measured the distances and sizes of the stars;
it has discovered the elements and their location..."

(sounds like a humanistic prayer to me)

However, before anybody out-googles me, I would like to point out that it derives from Plato or Aristotle.

Hiram - how many millennia/centuries did it take him to botch the metaphor?