-And again
with regard to the future, as Plato says, surely the opinion of the
physician and that of the ignorant man are not equally weighty, for
instance, on the question whether a man will get well or not.-And
again, among sensations themselves the sensation of a foreign object
and that of the appropriate object, or that of a kindred object and
that of the object of the sense in question, are not equally
authoritative, but in the case of colour sight, not taste, has the
authority, and in the case of flavour taste, not sight; each of
which senses never says at the same time of the same object that it
simultaneously is 'so and not so'.-But not even at different times
does one sense disagree about the quality, but only about that to
which the quality belongs. I mean, for instance, that the same wine
might seem, if either it or one's body changed, at one time sweet
and at another time not sweet; but at least the sweet, such as it is
when it exists, has never yet changed, but one is always right about
it, and that which is to be sweet is of necessity of such and such a
nature. Yet all these views destroy this necessity, leaving nothing to
be of necessity, as they leave no essence of anything; for the
necessary cannot be in this way and also in that, so that if
anything is of necessity, it will not be 'both so and not so'.
And, in general, if only the sensible exists, there would be
nothing if animate things were not; for there would be no faculty of
sense. Now the view that neither the sensible qualities nor the
sensations would exist is doubtless true (for they are affections of
the perceiver), but that the substrata which cause the sensation
should not exist even apart from sensation is impossible.
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