Now it is strange if we possess them from birth;
for it means that we possess apprehensions more accurate than
demonstration and fail to notice them. If on the other hand we acquire
them and do not previously possess them, how could we apprehend and
learn without a basis of pre-existent knowledge? For that is
impossible, as we used to find in the case of demonstration. So it
emerges that neither can we possess them from birth, nor can they come
to be in us if we are without knowledge of them to the extent of
having no such developed state at all. Therefore we must possess a
capacity of some sort, but not such as to rank higher in accuracy than
these developed states. And this at least is an obvious characteristic
of all animals, for they possess a congenital discriminative
capacity which is called sense-perception. But though sense-perception
is innate in all animals, in some the sense-impression comes to
persist, in others it does not. So animals in which this persistence
does not come to be have either no knowledge at all outside the act of
perceiving, or no knowledge of objects of which no impression
persists; animals in which it does come into being have perception and
can continue to retain the sense-impression in the soul: and when such
persistence is frequently repeated a further distinction at once
arises between those which out of the persistence of such
sense-impressions develop a power of systematizing them and those
which do not.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153