In his Confessions, Augustine explores how visual metaphors tend to be applied regardless of the sense properly involved in a given perception, though this relation is not typically reversed. Though some of his Latin examples don’t map on to English idiom perfectly, it is nevertheless interesting to observe that roughly the same relation holds for us as it did for him. Could it be that our own age is enthralled to the tyranny of the visual precisely because there is a deep-seated dominance of sight in our nature? Augustine is, naturally, concerned with the ability of the eyes to excite humans to the pursuit of carnal pleasure, but it’s hard not to note that most of the commercial & political (as well as sexual) appeals to our attention draw so heavily on visual stimulus.
Augustine, Confessions 10.35:
| huc accedit alia forma temptationis multiplicius periculosa. praeter enim concupiscentiam carnis, quae inest in delectatione omnium sensuum et voluptatum, cui servientes depereunt qui longe se faciunt a te, inest animae per eosdem sensus corporis quaedam non se oblectandi in carne, sed experiendi per carnem vana et curiosa cupiditas nomine cognitionis et scientiae palliata. quae quoniam in appetitu noscendi est, oculi autem sunt ad noscendum in sensibus principes, concupiscentia oculorum eloquio divino appellata est. ad oculos enim proprie videre pertinet, utimur autem hoc verbo etiam in ceteris sensibus, cum eos ad cognoscendum intendimus. neque enim dicimus, ‘audi quid rutilet,’ aut, ‘olefac quam niteat,’ aut, ‘gusta quam splendeat,’ aut, ‘palpa quam fulgeat’: videri enim dicuntur haec omnia. dicimus autem non solum, ‘vide quid luceat,’ quod soli oculi sentire possunt, sed etiam, ‘vide quid sonet,’ ‘vide quid oleat,’ ‘vide quid sapiat,’ ‘vide quam durum sit.’ ideoque generalis experientia sensuum concupiscentia (sicut dictum est) oculorum vocatur, quia videndi officium, in quo primatum oculi tenent, etiam ceteri sensus sibi de similitudine usurpant, cum aliquid cognitionis explorant. | There is, furthermore, another more manifold and dangerous form of temptation. For, beyond the desire for the flesh, which inheres in the enjoyment of all senses and pleasures, and serving which those who have cut themselves off from You regularly perish, there is a certain vain and curious desire not of delighting oneself through the flesh, but of experiencing through it, which is cloaked in the name of thought and knowledge. Since this is part of the appetite for learning, while the eyes are the leaders among the senses in that pursuit, it is called the ‘greed of the eyes.’ For seeing properly pertains to the eyes, but we use the language of sight even when dealing with the other senses when we use them for learning. For we never say, ‘Hear what reddens’ or ‘smell how it shines’ or ‘taste how it gleams’ or ‘feel how it glows’, because all of these things can be said to be seen. We say, however, not just ‘look at what shines’ because only the eyes are able to sense it, but even ‘see what sounds’, ‘see what smells’, ‘see what tastes good’, ‘see how hard it is.’ And so, the general experience of our senses is called the concupiscence of the eyes, because the job of seeing, where the eyes have the chief office, is a thing usurped by the other senses for themselves on the basis of their similarity when they are engaged in acquiring knowledge. |
EGO LECTOR 
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