Republic

Or is the operation of each of them as follows? In the first place, the sensation that is set over the hard is of necessity related also to the soft, and it reports to the soul that the same thing is both hard and soft to its perception.” “It is so,” he said. Then, said I, “is not this again a case where the soul must be at a loss as to what significance for it the sensation of hardness has, if the sense reports the same thing as also soft? And, similarly, as to what the sensation of light and heavy means by light and heavy, if it reports the heavy as light, and the light as heavy?” “Yes, indeed,” he said, “these communications to the soul are strange and invite reconsideration.” “Naturally, then,” said I, “it is in such cases as these that the soul first summons to its aid the calculating reason and tries to consider whether each of the things reported to it is one or two.” Of course. “And if it appears to be two, each of the two is a distinct unit.” Yes. “If, then, each is one and both two, the very meaning of two is that the soul will conceive them as distinct. For if they were not separable, it would not have been thinking of two, but of one.” Right. “Sight too saw the great and the small, we say, not separated but confounded. “Is not that so?” Yes. “And for the clarification of this, the intelligence is compelled to contemplate the great and small, not thus confounded but as distinct entities, in the opposite way from sensation.” True. “And is it not in some such experience as this that the question first occurs to us, what in the world, then, is the great and the small?” “By all means.” “And this is the origin of the designation intelligible for the one, and visible for the other.” “Just so,” he said. “This, then, is just what I was trying to explain a little while ago when I said that some things are provocative of thought and some are not, defining as provocative things that impinge upon the senses together with their opposites, while those that do not I said do not tend to awaken reflection.” “Well, now I understand,” he said, “and agree.” “To which class, then, do you think number and the one belong?” “I cannot conceive,” he said. “Well, reason it out from what has already been said. For, if unity is adequately seen by itself or apprehended by some other sensation, it would not tend to draw the mind to the apprehension of essence, as we were explaining in the case of the finger.