Part 132

Theæ. Yes.

Socr. And moreover, that one thing commingled first with one thing and then with another, will produce not the same, but different things.

Theæ. Certainly.

Socr. Let us speak, then, of you and me and other things in the same manner, of Socrates in health, and again of Socrates ill. Whether shall we say that the latter is similar to the former or dissimilar?

Theæ. By Socrates ill, do you mean the whole of the latter opposed to the whole of the former, Socrates in health?

Socr. You understand me perfectly; that is the very thing I mean.

Theæ. Dissimilar, surely.

43. Socr. And is it not different inasmuch as it is dissimilar?

Theæ. Necessarily so.

Socr. And should you not speak in the same way of Socrates asleep, and in the several states we just now described?

Theæ. I should.

Socr. But will not each of those things whose nature it is to make any thing something else, when it lights upon Socrates in health, treat me as one thing, and when ill, as a different thing?

Theæ. How should it not?

Socr. And shall we not produce different things in each case, both I the patient, and that the agent?

Theæ. How not?

Socr. Now when I drink wine, being in health, it appears to me pleasant and sweet.

Theæ. Yes.

Socr. For, from what has been already granted, the agent and the patient produce sweetness and perception, both being put in motion together; and the perception proceeding from the patient causes the tongue to perceive, but the sweetness proceeding from the wine and set in motion about it, causes the wine both to be and to appear sweet to a healthy tongue.

44. Theæ. Certainly, what was granted before comes to this.

Socr. But when it lights on me, being ill, first of all does not a different thing in reality light on one who is not the same person? for it approaches one who is dissimilar.

Theæ. Yes.

Socr. But Socrates in this state, and the wine drunk, again generate different things, with regard to the tongue a perception of bitterness, and with regard to the wine bitterness produced and set in motion, and that, indeed, not bitterness, but bitter, and me not perception, but perceiving.

Theæ. Exactly so.

Socr. Therefore I shall never become any thing else while I perceive thus; for a different perception of a different thing causes the percipient to be changed and different: nor will that, which thus affects me, by coming in contact with another, though it produces the same effect, ever become such as it was to me; for by generating a different thing from a different thing it will become changed.

Theæ. Such is the case.

Socr. Neither, then, shall I become such by myself, nor will it become such by itself.

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Footnote 153: