On Drunkenness (181-184)

And that is not the least influential cause of the instability of one’s perceptions which arises from the position of the objects, from their distance, and from the places by which they are each of them surrounded.

Do we not see that the fishes in the sea, when they stretch out their fins and swim about, do always appear larger than their real natural size? And oars too, even though they are very straight, look as if they were broken when they are under water; and things at a great distance display false appearances to our eyes, and in this way do frequently deceive the mind.

For at times inanimate objects have been imagined to be alive, and on the contrary living animals have been

What again are we to say of the quantities occurring in things compounded? For it is through the admixture of a greater or a lesser quantity that great injury or good is often done, as in many other instances, so most especially in the case of medicines compounded by medical science.