47 



i 



ihat the distant tower is really round, or the oar fa 

 the water crooked ; it is enough, in such a case, to 

 say that we receive the impression of roundness from 

 the tower, and of crookedness from the oar ; but 

 it is neither necessary nor proper to affirm, that the 

 tower is really round, or the oar broken ; for a 

 square tower may appear round at a distance, and a 

 straight stick always seems crooked in the water." 



9. Aristippus says farther, " there is not in man 

 any faculty that can j idge of the truth of things, 

 any farther than that men have given common names 

 to their own apprehensions. Thus every body talks 

 of whiteness and sweetness, but they have no com. 

 mon faculty to which they can with certainty refer 

 impressions of this kind. Every one judges by his 

 own apprehensions, and nobody can affirm that the 

 sensation which he feels when he sees a white ob- 

 ject, is the same with what his neighbour experiences 

 in regard to the same object, and because the powers 

 of apprehension are not entirely the same in all, it 

 is temerity in us to assert, that what appears in suck 

 or such a manner to one, must needs do so to every 

 body else, for one may be so constituted, that the 

 objects which offer themselves to his eye may appear 

 white, while to those of a man differently constituted 

 they seem yellow, as is manifest in those who have 

 the jaundice, or any other natural diversity of dis- 

 cernment, and who by reason ol the different con* 

 texture of their organs, are incapable ot receiving 

 from 'he same things, the same impressions that oiheis 

 do. Thus he, who has large *yes, will jee objects 

 in a different magnitude irom him whose, eyes are 

 little; and he who hath blueejes, disc-ems them under 

 colours from him who hath 



10. Plato following Protagoras, clearly distin- 

 guishes between stn-ibie qualities, and the objects 

 which cause them He ob^cm* that the same wnd 

 appears cold to -one auti hot to auother, tu one soft 



