Leonardo believed that an intense study of nature was what brought knowledge to the world. It was through our most important of the senses, the eye, that the world came into our brain, where it was interpreted and stored in the ‘sensus communis’ for the understanding of the soul. The soul’s primary role was to understand the workings of nature, not to concentrate on Neoplatonic thoughts of abstract speculation. Truth was not to be found in investigating the soul, but understanding the world.
