These writers see that certain of the senses
are located in the head, and are unable to discern the reason for
this; they see also that the brain is the most peculiar of all the
animal organs; and out of these facts they form an argument, by
which they link sensation and brain together. It has, however, already
been clearly set forth in the treatise on Sensation, that it is the
region of the heart that constitutes the sensory centre. There also it
was stated that two of the senses, namely touch and taste, are
manifestly in immediate connexion with the heart; and that as
regards the other three, namely hearing, sight, and the centrally
placed sense of smell, it is the character of their sense-organs which
causes them to be lodged as a rule in the head. Vision is so placed in
all animals. But such is not invariably the case with hearing or
with smell. For fishes and the like hear and smell, and yet have no
visible organs for these senses in the head; a fact which demonstrates
the accuracy of the opinion here maintained. Now that vision, whenever
it exists, should be in the neighbourhood of the brain is but what one
would rationally expect. For the brain is fluid and cold, and vision
is of the nature of water, water being of all transparent substances
the one most easily confined.
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