"
At this we smiled and said, "Are they not contraries? how can two
contraries appear true?" To this he replied with indignation, "You are
mistaken; each is true; since truth is nothing but what a man makes
true." There was a certain person standing near, who in the world had
been a legate of the first rank. He was surprised at this assertion, and
said, "I acknowledge that in the world something like this method of
reasoning prevails; but still you are out of your senses. Try if you can
make it to be true, that light is darkness, and darkness light." He
replied, "I will easily do this. What are light and darkness but a state
of the eye? Is not light changed into shade when the eye comes out of
sunshine, and also when it is kept intensely fixed on the sun? Who does
not know, that the state of the eye in such a case is changed, and that
in consequence light appears as shade; and on the other hand, when the
state of the eye is restored, that shade appears as light? Does not
an owl see the darkness of night as the light of day, and the light of
day as the darkness of night, and also the sun itself as an opaque and
dusky globe? If any man had the eyes of an owl, which would he call
light and which darkness? What then is light but the state of the eye?
and if it be a state of the eye, is not light darkness, and darkness
light? therefore each of the propositions is true.
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