[Sidenote: Judgment based upon sensation.]
In the third place the atomic theory offers an explanation of the
uniqueness of each natural existence, which Bruno's philosophical
theory already assumed. The ever moving atoms present a mechanism by
which the infinite diversity and infinite succession of change in
things may be brought about. The _appearance_ of similarity, exactness,
etc., is, as we have found, an illusion. Mathematically exact figures
or bodies--a true circle, for example--are unattainable by sense, even
if they exist in nature; but they do not exist in nature. Sense is the
primary faculty, through which the material of all others must pass,
so that what has not entered through that window of the soul cannot be
known at all. But a single point out of place on the circumference of a
circle makes it cease to be a true circle, and our sense-apprehension
is necessarily so confused and indistinct that we cannot distinguish
between the true and the false, where truth depends upon so
inappreciable a difference. Moreover sense-knowledge is relative to
the knowing subject, or to the subject's position with regard to the
object. What to the eye of one is too large is to another too small; a
sound which is pleasant to one ear is not so to another; the food which
to the hungry man tastes sweet, to the full man is nauseous; the ape to
the ape is beautiful, but to the man is of laughter-inspiring ugliness.
Hence the circumspect will not say "this has a good odour, taste,
sound, this has a beautiful appearance," but will add "to me," "now,"
"sometimes." Nothing is good or evil, pleasant or painful, beautiful or
ugly, _simply_ and _absolutely_; but the same objects in relation to
individual subjects receive from the senses contrary denominations,
as they in fact produce contrary effects. In deciding what is to be
called good or bad, honourable or base, nature and custom have been
the chief agents, and alterations have issued from the slow rise and
victory of different opinions. Among the Druids and Magi certain things
were performed publicly at sacrifices which now, even when committed in
privacy, are regarded as execrable, and are so by way of law, and in
the present condition of affairs. Philosophy, as it teaches to abstract
from particulars, to bring the nature and condition of things as far
as possible under an absolute judgment, must define differently the
useful and good in an _absolute_ sense, from the useful and good as
_contracted_ to the human species. Objectively there is no definitely
good or definitely evil, definitely true or definitely false, so that
from one point of view we may say that all things are good; from
another that all things are evil; from a third that nothing is good
or evil, as neither of the contraries is true; from a fourth that all
things are both good and evil, as each of the contraries is true.
No sense deceives or is deceived: each judges of its proper object
according to its own measure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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