Les fragments de l'œuvre d'Héraclite d'Éphèse sur la nature ; traduits de…

XV. — The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.4 thousand years, because of the God. And Pindar says that Cadmus heard from the God a kind of music neither pleasant nor soft nor melodious. For great holiness permit^ not the allurements of pleasures. Clement of Alex. Strom, i. 15, p. 358. lamblichus, de Myst. iii. 8. See also pseudo-Heraclitus, Epist. viii. XIIL— Hippolytus, Ref. haer. ix. 9, 10. Context .-—And that the hidden, the unseen and unknown to men is [better], he (Hera clitus) says in these words, " A hidden harmony is better than a visible ' ' (=. frag. 47). He thus praises and admires the unknown and unseen more than the known. And that that which is discoverable and visible to men is [better], he says in these words, "Whatever concerns seeing, hearing, and learning, I particularly honor," that is, the visible above the invisible. From such expressions it is easy to understand him. In the knowledge of the visible, he says, men allow themselves to be deceived as Homer was, who yet was wiser than all the Greeks ; for some boys killing lice deceived him saying, " What we see and catch we leave behind ; what we neither see nor catch we take with us " (frag. 1, Schuster). Thus Heraclitus honors in equal degree the seen and the unseen, as if the seen and unseen were confessedly one. For what does he say? " A hidden harmony is better than a visible," and, " Whatever concerns seeing, hearing, and learning, I particularly honor," having before particularly honored the invisible. XV. — Polybius xii. 27. Context : — There are two organs given to us by nature, sight and hearing, sight being considerably the more truthful, according to Heraclitus, "For the eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears."