The Complete Works of Aristotle

by Barnes, Jonathan, Aristotle

  [445b1] 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 [5] qualities—colour, savour, odour, sound, weight, cold or heat, heaviness or lightness, hardness or softness—also infinitely divisible? Or, is this impossible?

  Each of them is productive of sense-perception, since, in fact, all derive their name from the very circumstance of their being able to stimulate this. Hence if their power is divisible, our perception of them should likewise be divisible to infinity, and every part of a body should be a perceptible magnitude. For it is impossible, e.g., to [10] see a thing which is white but not of a certain magnitude.

  Since if it were not so, we might conceive a body existing but having no colour, or weight, or any such quality; accordingly not perceptible at all. For these quantities are the objects of sense-perception. On this supposition, every perceptible object should be regarded as composed of non-perceptible parts. Yet it must be really composed of perceptible parts, since assuredly it does not consist of mathematical qualities. Again, by what faculty should we discern and cognize [15] these? Is it by thought? But they are not objects of thought; nor does thought think of objects in space, except when it acts in conjunction with sense-perception. At the same time, if this be the case it seems to tell in favour of the atomistic hypothesis; for thus, indeed, the question might be solved. But it is impossible. Our views on the subject of atoms are to be found in our treatise on movement. [20]

  The solution of these questions will bring with it also the answer to the question why the species of colour, taste, sound, and other sensible qualities are limited. For in all classes of things lying between extremes the intermediates must be limited. But contraries are extremes, and every object of sense-perception involves contrariety; e.g. in colour, white and black; in savour, sweet and bitter, and in all the [25] other sensibles also the contraries are extremes. Now, that which is continuous is divisible into an infinite number of unequal parts, but into a finite number of equal parts, while that which is not per se continuous is divisible into species which are finite in number. Since then, the several sensible qualities of things are to be reckoned as species, while continuity always subsists in these, we must take account of the difference between the potential and the actual. It is owing to this difference that we do not see its ten-thousandth part in a grain of millet, although sight has [446a1] embraced the whole grain within its scope; and it is owing to this, too, that the sound contained in a quarter-tone escapes notice, and yet one hears the whole strain, inasmuch as it is a continuum; but the interval between the extreme sounds escapes the ear. So, in the case of other objects of sense, extremely small constituents are unnoticed; because they are only potentially not actually visible, unless when they [5] have been parted from the wholes. So the foot-length too exists potentially in the two-foot length, but actually only when it has been separated from the whole. But increments so small might well, if separated from their totals, be dissolved in their environments, like a drop of sapid moisture poured out into the sea. But even if this were not so still, since the increment of sense-perception is not perceptible in itself, [10] nor capable of separate existence (since it exists only potentially in the more distinctly perceivable whole of sense-perception), so neither will it be possible to perceive its correlatively small object when separated in actuality. But yet this is to be considered as perceptible: for it is both potentially so already, and destined to be actually so when it has become part of an aggregate. Thus, therefore, we have shown that some magnitudes and their sensible qualities escape notice, and the [15] reason why they do so, as well as the manner in which they are still perceptible or not perceptible in such cases. Accordingly then, when these are so great as to be perceptible actually, and not merely because they are in the whole, but even apart from it, it follows necessarily that their sensible qualities, whether colours or tastes or sounds, are limited in number.

  One might ask:—do the objects of sense-perception, or the movements [20] proceeding from them in whichever of the two ways sense-perception takes place), when these are actualized for perception, always arrive first at a middle point, as odour evidently does, and also sound? For he who is nearer perceives the odour sooner, and the sound of a stroke reaches us some time after it has been struck. Is it [25] thus also with an object seen, and with light? Empedocles, for example, says that the light from the sun arrives first in the intervening space before it comes to the eye, or reaches the Earth. This might plausibly seem to be the case. For whatever is moved, is moved from one place to another; hence there must be a corresponding interval of time also in which it is moved from the one place to the other. [446b1] But any given time is divisible; so that we should assume a time when the sun’s ray was not as yet seen, but was still travelling in the middle space.

  Now, even if one always hears and has heard—and, in general, perceives and has perceived—at the same time, and these acts do not come into being but occur [5] without coming into being—yet, just as, though the stroke which causes the sound has been already struck, the sound is not yet at the ear (and that this last is a fact is further proved by the transformation which the letters undergo, implying that the local movement takes place in the space between; for the reason why we do not succeed in catching the sense of what is said is that the air in moving towards them has its form changed): is the same also true in the case of colour and light? For [10] certainly it is not true that the beholder sees, and the object is seen, in virtue of some merely abstract relationship between them, such as that between equals. For if it were so, there would be no need that either should occupy some particular place; since to the equalization of things their being near to, or far from, one another makes no difference.

  Now this may with good reason take place as regards sound and odour, for [15] these, like air and water, are continuous, but the movement of both is divided into parts. This too is the ground of the fact that the object which the person first in order of proximity hears or smells is the same as that which each subsequent person perceives, while yet it is not the same.

  Some, indeed, raise a question also on these very points; they declare it impossible that one person should hear, or see, or smell, the same object as another, [20] urging the impossibility of several persons in different places hearing or smelling the same object; for the one same thing would thus be divided from itself. The answer is that, in perceiving the object which first set up the motion—e.g. a bell, or frankincense, or fire—all perceive an object numerically one and the same; while, of course, in the special object perceived they perceive an object numerically different for each, though specifically the same for all; and this, accordingly, explains how it is that many persons together see, or smell, or hear the same object. These things [25] are not bodies, but an affection or process of some kind (otherwise this would not have been, as it is, a fact of experience), though, on the other hand, they each imply a body.

  But with regard to light the case is different. For light is due to the presence of something, but it is not a movement. And in general, even in qualitative change the case is different from what it is in local movement. Local movements, of course, arrive first at a point midway before reaching their goal (and sound, it is currently believed, is a movement of something locally moved), but we cannot go on to assert this in like manner of things which undergo qualitative change. For this kind of [447a1] change may possibly take place in a thing all at once, without one half of it being changed before the other; e.g. it is possible that water should be frozen simultaneously in every part. But still, for all that, if the body which is heated or frozen is extensive, each part of it successively is affected by the part contiguous, while the part first changed in quality is so changed by the cause itself which [5] originates the change, and thus the change throughout the whole need not5 take place simultaneously and all at once. Tasting would have been as smelling now is, if we lived in a liqui
d medium, and perceived things at a distance, before touching them.

  Naturally, then, the parts of media between a sensory organ and its object are not all affected at once—except in the case of light, for the reason above stated, and also in the case of seeing, for the same reason; for light is an efficient cause of [10] seeing.

  7 · Another question respecting sense-perception is as follows: assuming, as is natural, that of two movements the stronger always tends to extrude the weaker, is it possible or not that one should be able to perceive two objects simultaneously in the same individual time? The above assumption explains why persons do not perceive what is brought before their eyes, if they are at the time deep in thought, or [15] in a fright, or listening to some loud noise. This assumption, then, must be made, and also the following: that it is easier to perceive each object of sense when in its simple form than when an ingredient in a mixture; easier, for example, to perceive wine when neat than when blended, and so also honey, and a colour, or to discern a note by itself alone, than in a chord; the reason being that component elements tend [20] to efface one another. Such is the effect of all ingredients of which, when compounded, some one thing is formed.

  If, then, the greater movement tends to expel the less, it necessarily follows that, when they concur, this greater should itself too be less distinctly perceptible than if it were alone, since the less by blending with it has removed some of its individuality, according to our assumption that simple objects are in all cases more perceptible.

  Now, if the two stimuli are equal but heterogeneous, no perception of either [25] will ensue; they will alike efface one another’s characteristics. But in such a case the perception of either stimulus in its simple form is impossible. Hence either there will then be no sense-perception at all, or there will be a perception compounded of both and differing from either. The latter is what actually seems to result from ingredients blended together, whatever may be the compound in which they are so mixed.

  Since, then, from some a. resultant object is produced, while from others no such resultant is produced, and of the latter sort are those things which belong to different sense provinces (for only those things are capable of mixture whose [447b1] extremes are contraries, and no one compound can be formed from, e.g., white and high, except incidentally, i.e. not as a concord is formed of high and low), there follows logically the impossibility of discerning such concurrent stimuli at the same time. For we must suppose that the stimuli, when equal, tend alike to efface one [5] another, since no one stimulus results from them; while, if they are unequal, the stronger alone is distinctly perceptible.

  Again, the soul would be more likely to perceive simultaneously, with one and the same sensory act, two things in the same sensory province, such as the low and the high in sound; for the sensory stimulation in this one province is more likely to be simultaneous than that involving two different provinces, as sight and hearing. But [10] it is impossible to perceive two objects simultaneously in the same sensory act unless they have been mixed, for their amalgamation involves their becoming one, and the sensory act related to one object is itself one, and such act when one, is, of course, simultaneous with itself. Hence, when things are mixed we of necessity perceive them simultaneously: for we perceive them by a perception actually one. For an object numerically one means that which is perceived by a perception actually one, whereas an object specifically one means that which is perceived by a sensory act [15] potentially one. If then the actualized perception is one, it will declare its data to be one object; they must, therefore, have been mixed. Accordingly, when they have not been mixed, the actualized perceptions which perceive them will be two; but in one and the same faculty the perception actualized at any single moment is necessarily one, only one stimulation or exertion of a single faculty being possible at a single instant, and in the case supposed here the faculty is one. Hence it is not possible to [20] perceive the possibility of perceiving two distinct objects simultaneously with one and the same sense.

  But if it be thus impossible to perceive simultaneously two objects in the same province of sense if they are really two, manifestly it is still less conceivable that we should perceive simultaneously objects in two different sensory provinces, as white and sweet. For it appears that when the soul predicates numerical unity it does so in [25] virtue of nothing else than such simultaneous perception while it predicates specific unity in virtue of the discriminating faculty of sense together with the mode in which this operates. What I mean, for example, is this; the same sense no doubt discerns white and black, though they are 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 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 [448a1] instance, as taste perceives sweet, so sight perceives white; and as the latter perceives black, so the former perceives bitter.

  Again, if movements of contraries are themselves contrary, and if contraries cannot subsist 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 [5] impossible to discern them simultaneously. It is likewise clearly impossible so to discern such homogeneous sensibles as are not contrary. For these are, 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 simultaneously (for these are ratios of contraries, as e.g. the octave or the fifth); unless, indeed, on condition of perceiving them as one. For thus, and not otherwise, the ratios of the extreme sounds are compounded into one ratio; since we should have together the ratio, [10] on the one hand, of many to few or of odd to even, on the other, that of few to many or of even to odd.

  If, then, the sensibles denominated co-ordinates though in different provinces of sense (e.g. I call sweet and white co-ordinates though in different provinces) [15] stand yet more aloof, and differ more, from one another than do any sensibles in the same province; while sweet differs from white even more than black does from white, it is still less conceivable that one should discern them simultaneously than sensibles which are in the same province. Therefore, if simultaneous perception of the latter be impossible, that of the former is a fortiori impossible.

  Some of the writers who treat of concords assert that the sounds combined in these do not reach us simultaneously, but only appear to do so, their real [20] successiveness being unnoticed whenever the time it involves is imperceptible. Is this true or not? One might perhaps, following this up, go so far as to say that even the current opinion that one sees and hears simultaneously is due merely to the fact that the intervals of time escape observation. But this can scarcely be true, nor is it conceivable that any portion of time should be imperceptible, or that any should be [25] unnoticeable; the truth being that it is possible to perceive every instant of time. For if it is impossible that a person should, while perceiving himself or anything else in a continuous time, be at any instant unaware of his own existence, and if there is in the time-continuum a time so small as to be absolutely imperceptible, then it is clear that a person would, during such time, be unaware of his own existence, as well as of his seeing and perceiving.

  Again, if there is any magnitude, whether time or thing, absolutely imperceptible [448b1] owing to its smallness, it follows that there would not be either a thing which one perceives, or a time in which one perceives it, unless in the sense that in some part of the given time he sees some part of the given thing. For if one sees a whole line, and perceives it during a time which forms one and the same continuum—in the sense that he does so in some portion of this time—let us suppose the part CB, [5] representing a time in which he was perceiving nothing, to be cut off from the whole. Well, then, he perceiv
es in a certain part or perceives a part of the line, after the fashion in which one sees the whole earth by seeing some given part of it, or walks in a year by walking in some given part of the year. But in the part CB he perceives nothing: therefore, he is said to perceive the whole object and during the whole time simply because he perceives in some part of AB. But the same argument [10] holds also in the case of AC; for one always perceives only, in some part and perceives only some part; and it is impossible to perceive any whole.

  Therefore, we must conclude that all magnitudes are perceptible, but their actual dimensions do not present themselves immediately. One sees the sun, or a four-cubit rod at a distance, as a magnitude, but their exact dimensions are not given in their visual presentation: indeed, at times an object of sight appears [15] indivisible, but nothing that one sees is really indivisible. The reason for this has been previously explained. It is clear then, from the above arguments, that no portion of time is imperceptible.