this regard, “Unlike the eye, the unaided hand is unable to 
discover whether three or more objects are on a line.” (p. 7) It 
is very obvious why Plato might have insisted that “no one 
destitute of geometry enter” his academy. A similar motive 
leads the Viennese musician Carl Orff to forbid children to study 
music in his school if they have already learned to read and 
write. The visual bias so attained he feels makes it quite 
hopeless to develop their audile-tactile powers in music. Ivins 
goes on to explain why we have the illusion of space as a kind 
of independent container, whereas in fact space is “a quality or 
relationship of things and has no existence without them.” (p. 
8) Yet in comparison with later centuries, “the Greeks were 
tactile minded and . . . whenever they were given the choice 
between a tactile or a visual way of thought they instinctively 
chose the tactile one.” (pp. 9­10) Such remained the case until 
well after Gutenberg in Western experience. Considering the