Democritus was so blind he could not distinguish white from black; but he knew the difference between good and evil, just and unjust, honorable and base, the useful and useless, great and small.

Thus one may live happily without distinguishing colors; but without acquainting yourself with things, you cannot; and this man was of opinion that the intense application of the mind was taken off by the objects that presented themselves to the eye; and while others often could not see what was before their feet, he travelled through all infinity.

It is reported also that Homer[71] was blind, but we observe his painting as well as his poetry.

What country, what coast, what part of Greece, what military attacks, what dispositions of battle, what array, what ship, what motions of men and animals, can be mentioned which he has not described in such a manner as to enable us to see what he could not see himself?
What, then! can we imagine that Homer, or any other learned man, has ever been in want of pleasure and entertainment for his mind?
Were it not so, would Anaxagoras, or this very Democritus, have left their estates and patrimonies, and given themselves up to the pursuit of acquiring this divine pleasure?
It is thus that the poets who have represented Tiresias the Augur as a wise man and blind never exhibit him as bewailing his blindness.

And Homer, too, after he had described Polyphemus as a monster and a wild man, represents him talking with his ram, and speaking of his good fortune, inasmuch as he could go wherever he pleased and touch what he would.