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| (82) Ad tertium, cum dicitur: 'Omnis oppinio que contradicit sensui est mala oppinio', dico quod ista ratio procedit ex falsa ymaginatione; ymaginatur enim naute quod ideo non videant terram in pelago existentes de navi, quia mare sit altius quam ipsa terra; sed hoc non est; ymo esset contrarium, magis enim viderent. Sed est hoc, quia frangitur radius rectus rei visibilis inter rem et oculum a convexo aque; nam cum aquam formam rotundam habere oporteat ubique circa centrum, necesse est in aliqua distantia ipsam efficere obstantiam alicuius convexi. | (82) As to the third, when it said: 'Any idea which contradicts the senses is a false idea,' I say that the argument proceeds upon a fallacious imagination. For the sailors suppose that the reason why they cannot see the land when they are on deck is that the sea is higher than the land; but it is not so; nay, the contrary result would follow, for they would see more. But it happens because the direct ray from the visible thing is intercepted, between the thing and the eye, by the convexity of the water. For since the water must needs have a spherical form in every direction around its centre, it must necessarily, at any considerable distance, interpose the obstacle of a certain convexity. |