Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
But he who is of opinion that nothing is more of one nature than
another makes use of a sentence of Epicurus, in which he says that all
the apprehensions and imaginations given us by the senses are true.
For if of two saying, the one, that the wine is sour, and the other,
that it is sweet, neither of them shall be deceived by his sense, how
shall the wine be more sour than sweet? And we may often see that some
men using one and the same bath find it to be hot, and others find it
to be cold; because those order cold water to be put into it, as these
do hot. It is said that, a certain lady going to visit Berenice, wife
to King Deiotarus, as soon as ever they approached each other, they
both immediately turned their backs, the one, as it seemed, not being
able to bear the smell of perfume, nor the other of butter. If then
the sense of one is no truer than the sense of another, it is also
probable, that water is no more cold than hot, nor sweet ointment or
butter better or worse scented one than the other. For if any one shall
say that it seems the one to one, and the other to another, he will,
before he is aware, affirm that they are both the one and the other.
5. And as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little
passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much,
and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed
through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different
persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive
them to this, that things are no more of one quality than another? For
to pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they
see contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and
to solve this objection, they teach,—that all things being mixed and
confounded together, and yet one nevertheless being more suitable and
fitting to one, and another to another, it is not possible that there
should in all cases be a contact and comprehension of one and the same
quality, nor does the object equally affect all with all its parts,
every one meeting only those to which it has its sense commensurate
and proportioned; so that they are to blame so obstinately to insist
that a thing is either good or bad, white or not white, thinking to
establish their own senses by destroying those of others; whereas
they ought neither to combat the senses,—because they all touch some
quality, each one drawing from this confused mixture, as from a living
and large fountain, what is suitable and convenient,—nor to pronounce
of the whole, by touching only the parts, nor to think that all ought
to be affected after one and the same manner by the same thing, seeing
that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by
another. Let us then seek who those men are which bring in this opinion
that things are not more of one quality than another, if they are not
those who hold that every sensible thing is a mixture, composed of all
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