quote · Source-linked selection
There can be no voice where there is no motion or percussion of the air, there can be no percussion of the air where there is no instrument, there can be no such thing as an immaterial instrument; and this being so, a spirit can have neither voice, nor shape, nor force; and if it assumes a shape it can neither penetrate nor enter where the issues are closed. If any one were to say that a spirit may take bodies of various shapes by means of concentrated and compressed air, and by means of this instrument speak and move with force—I reply to this argument that where there are no nerves or bones, no force can be expended in any movement made by these imaginary spirits.
There can be no voice where there is no motion or percussion of the air, there can be no percussion of the air where there is no instrument, there can be no such thing as an immaterial instrument; and this being so, a spirit can have neither voice, nor shape, nor force; and if it assumes a shape it can neither penetrate nor enter where the issues are closed. If any one were to say that a spirit may take bodies of various shapes by means of concentrated and compressed air, and by means of this instrument speak and move with force—I reply to this argument that where there are no nerves or bones, no force can be expended in any movement made by these imaginary spirits.
Approximate author period: c. 1486 AD · medieval
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Leonardo da Vinci
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1486 AD · medieval
author lifetime midpoint (1452–1519); not quotation composition date
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Thoughts on Art and Life (1906 English edition) (1906 AD)
Thoughts on Science, complete printed unit 111; Maurice Baring translation; Boston: The Merrymount Press,1906
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Represented by the complete source-numbered selections in Thoughts on Art and Life, Maurice Baring’s1906English translation, edited by Lewis Einstein. The catalogue records1452–1519; the historical collection is a selection from notebooks, not a continuous book composed by Leonardo or independent authentication of every attributed passage.
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