Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine (continued)
does not perceive. Whence it is evident that your senses are yours alone, and mine are mine alone.
A. Would you say the same about the interior sense too, or is there a difference?
E. No difference, surely. For certainly my own interior sense perceives my sensations, and yours perceives yours; so that I am frequently asked by someone who sees something whether I too see it, because only I perceive whether I see it or not, not he who asks me.
A. How about reason: has not each one of us his own? For it may happen that I understand something that you do not; and you cannot know whether I understand, but I know.
E. It is evident that we have each of us individually his own rational mind.
16. A. But now will you be able to say too that we have each individual suns which we see or moons or morning stars or such like things; even though it be true that each sees them through his own individual sense?
E. I would never say that.
A. Many of us, therefore, can see one thing at the same time, while the senses through which we perceive the one thing that we see together are separate and individual; so that while my sense is one and yours is another, it can nevertheless happen that what we see is not one mine and another yours, but a single thing, appearing to both of us and seen simultaneously by both. E. That is very evident.
A. Also we may hear simultaneously some one voice; and although my hearing is one and yours another, yet the voice we hear is not one voice for me and another for you, but whatever has sounded is simultaneously present to both of us as a single and undivided thing to be heard.
E. That too is evident.
17. A. But now as to the other bodily senses you must note what we are saying: that in what touches this matter they neither act altogether like those two of the eyes and ears, nor altogether unlike them. For you and I can fill our nostrils from the same air and perceive its condition by its odor, and likewise can both taste of one honeycomb or any other food or drink, and perceive its condition by its flavor; and though it is one, our sensations are separate, yours for you and mine for me, so that while we both perceive the same odor or flavor, you do not perceive by my sense