If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the nostrils be?

If the whole body were the eye, how would it hear? If the whole were hearing, how would it smell?

If all the body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If it were all hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

If the whole body were an eye He sets aside a foolish aiming at equality, by showing the impossibility of it. "If all the members," says he, "desire the honor that belongs to the eye, the consequence will be, that the whole body will perish; for it is impossible that the body should remain safe and sound, if the members have not different functions, and a mutual correspondence between them. Hence equality interferes with the welfare of the body, because it produces a confusion that entails present ruin. What madness, then, would it be, should one member, instead of giving way to another, [1] conspire for its own ruin and that of the body!"

Footnotes

1 - "De s'accommoder et soumettre a l'un des autres membres;" -- To accommodate itself, and submit to one of the other members."

If the whole body - The idea in this verse is, that all the parts of the body are useful in their proper place, and that it would be as absurd to require or expect that all the members of the church should have the same endowments, as it would be to attempt to make the body "all eye." If all were the same; if all had the same endowments, important offices which are now secured by the other members would be unknown. All, therefore, are to be satisfied with their allotment; all are to be honored in their appropriate place.

(11) If the whole body [were] an eye, where [were] the hearing? If the whole [were] hearing, where [were] the smelling?
(11) Again speaking to them, he shows them that if that should come to pass which they desire, that is, that all should be equal one to another, there would follow a destruction of the whole body, indeed and of themselves. For it could not be a body unless it were made of many members knit together, and different from one another. And that no man might find fault with this division as unequal, he adds that God himself has joined all these together. Therefore all must remain joined together, that the body may remain in safety.

If the whole body were an eye,.... And nothing else,
where were the hearing? there would be no ear, and so no sense of hearing: and if the whole were hearing: or only consisted of a member capable of the sense of hearing,
where were the smelling? there would be no nose, the organ of smelling, and that sense would be wanting: thus if the church only consisted of ministers of the Gospel, of men of eminent light and knowledge, qualified for the preaching of the word to others, there would be no hearers; and on the other hand, if it only consisted of hearers, of such who only could hear the word to their own advantage, there would be none of a quick understanding, or of a quick smell to discern perverse things, to distinguish truth from error, to discern spirits, and direct the rest of the members to wholesome and savoury food, and preserve them from what would be hurtful and pernicious to them.

Superior as the eye is, it would not do if it were the sole member to the exclusion of the rest.