On Sense And The Sensible   

objects in the same province of sense if they are really two,

manifestly it is still less conceivable that we should perceive

coinstantaneously objects in two different sensory provinces, as White

and Sweet. For it appears that when the Soul predicates numerical

unity it does so in virtue of nothing else than such coinstantaneous

perception [of one object, in one instant, by one energeia]: while

it predicates specific unity in virtue of [the unity of] the

discriminating faculty of sense together with [the unity of] the

mode in which this operates. What I mean, for example, is this; the

same sense no doubt discerns White and Black, [which are hence

generically one] though specifically different from one another, and

so, too, a faculty of sense self-identical, but different from the

former, discerns Sweet and Bitter; but while both these faculties

differ from one another [and each from itself] in their modes of

discerning either of their respective contraries, yet in perceiving

the co-ordinates in each province they proceed in manners analogous to

one another; for instance, as Taste perceives Sweet, so Sight

perceives White; and as the latter perceives Black, so the former

perceives Bitter.

Again, if the stimuli of sense derived from Contraries are

themselves Contrary, and if Contraries cannot be conceived as

subsisting together in the same individual subject, and if Contraries,

e.g. Sweet and Bitter, come under one and the same sense-faculty, we

must conclude that it is impossible to discern them coinstantaneously.

It is likewise clearly impossible so to discern such homogeneous

sensibles as are not [indeed] Contrary, [but are yet of different

species]. For these are, [in the sphere of colour, for instance],

classed some with White, others with Black, and so it is, likewise, in

the other provinces of sense; for example, of savours, some are

classed with Sweet, and others with Bitter. Nor can one discern the

components in compounds coinstantaneously (for these are ratios of

Contraries, as e.g. the Octave or the Fifth); unless, indeed, on