The object of opinion and knowledge is not quite
identical; it is only in a sense identical, just as the object of true
and false opinion is in a sense identical. The sense in which some
maintain that true and false opinion can have the same object leads
them to embrace many strange doctrines, particularly the doctrine that
what a man opines falsely he does not opine at all. There are really
many senses of 'identical', and in one sense the object of true and
false opinion can be the same, in another it cannot. Thus, to have a
true opinion that the diagonal is commensurate with the side would
be absurd: but because the diagonal with which they are both concerned
is the same, the two opinions have objects so far the same: on the
other hand, as regards their essential definable nature these
objects differ. The identity of the objects of knowledge and opinion
is similar. Knowledge is the apprehension of, e.g. the attribute
'animal' as incapable of being otherwise, opinion the apprehension
of 'animal' as capable of being otherwise-e.g. the apprehension that
animal is an element in the essential nature of man is knowledge;
the apprehension of animal as predicable of man but not as an
element in man's essential nature is opinion: man is the subject in
both judgements, but the mode of inherence differs.
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