On Sense And The Sensible   

suffice for food- for anything which is to form a consistency must be

corporeal-, it is still much less conceivable that air should be so

corporealized [and thus fitted to be food]. But, besides this, we

see that all animals have a receptacle for food, from which, when it

has entered, the body absorbs it. Now, the organ which perceives odour

is in the head, and odour enters with the inhalation of the breath; so

that it goes to the respiratory region. It is plain, therefore, that

odour, qua odour, does not contribute to nutrition; that, however,

it is serviceable to health is equally plain, as well by immediate

perception as from the arguments above employed; so that odour is in

relation to general health what savour is in the province of nutrition

and in relation to the bodies nourished.

This then must conclude our discussion of the several organs of

sense-perception.

6



One might ask: if every body is infinitely divisible, are its

sensible qualities- Colour, Savour, Odour, Sound, Weight, Cold or

Heat, [Heaviness or] Lightness, Hardness or Softness-also infinitely

divisible? Or, is this impossible?

[One might well ask this question], because each of them is

productive of sense-perception, since, in fact, all derive their

name [of 'sensible qualities'] from the very circumstance of their

being able to stimulate this. Hence, [if this is so] both our

perception of them should likewise be divisible to infinity, and every

part of a body [however small] should be a perceptible magnitude.

For it is impossible, e.g. to see a thing which is white but not of

a certain magnitude.

Since if it were not so, [if its sensible qualities were not

divisible, pari passu with body], we might conceive a body existing

but having no colour, or weight, or any such quality; accordingly

not perceptible at all. For these qualities are the objects of