Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
ON FREE WILL I45 ask me whether I also see it. The reason for asking simply is that
I know whether I see or not, and the questioner does not know. Aug.—Has each of us, then, his own particular reason? For it can often happen that I know something when you do not know it, and I know that I know it, but you cannot know that. Ev.— Apparently each of us has his own private rational mind.
16. Aug.—But you cannot say that each of us has his own private sun or moon or stars or the like, though each of us sees these things with his own particular sense of sight? Ev.—No, of course I would not say that. Aug.—So, many of us can see one thing simultaneously, though our senses, by which we perceive the object we all see together, are our own. In spite of the fact that my sense and yours are two different things, what we actually see need not be two different things, one of which I see, while you see the other. There is one object for both of us, and both of us see it simultaneously. Ev.—Obviously. Aug.—We can also hear one voice simultaneously, so that, though my hearing is not your hearing, there are not two voices of which you hear one and I another. It is not as if my hearing caught one part of the sound and yours another. The one sound, and the whole of it, is heard by both of us simultaneously. Ev.—That, too, is obvious.
17. Aug.—But notice, please, what is to be said about the other senses. It is pertinent to the present discussion to observe that the case with them is not quite the same as with sight and hearing, though it is not entirely different. You and I can breathe the same air and feel its effects by smelling. Likewise we can both partake of one piece of honey, or some other food or drink, and feel its effects by tasting. That is to say, there is one object, but we each have our own senses. You have yours and I have mine. So while we both sense one odour and one taste, you do not sense it with my sense nor I with yours, nor with any sense that we can have in common. My sense is entirely mine and yours yours, even though both of us sense the same odour or the same taste. In this way these senses somewhat resemble sight and hearing. But there is this dissimilarity, which is pertinent to the present problem. We both breathe the same air with our nostrils, and taste one food. And yet I do not breathe in the same particles of air as you do, and I consume a different portion of food from that consumed by you. When I breathe I draw in as much air as is sufficient for me, and when you breathe you draw in as much as is sufficient for you, but both of us use different parts of air. If between us we consume