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causes pleasure can never fail to be pleasant, nor can what produces pain
not be painful; but rather, it is necessary that what gives pleasure should
be pleasant and that what gives pain should in its nature be painful), so
[too] in the case of presentations, which are feelings in us: what causes
each of them is presented in every respect and unqualifiedly, and since
it is presented it cannot help but exist in truth just as it is presented [as
being]. ... [There is a lacuna here.] ... that it is productive of presen-
tation.
- And one must reason similarly for the individual [senses]. For
what is visible not only is presented as visible but also is such as it is
presented [as being]; and what is audible is not only presented as audible
but also is like that in truth; and similarly for the rest. Therefore, it
turns out that all presentations are true. And reasonably so. 205. For if,
the Epicureans say, a presentation is true if it comes from an existing
object and in accordance with the existing object, and [it] every presenta-
tion arises from the object presented (which is existent) and in accordance
with the presented object itself, [then] necessarily every presentation
is true. - Some people are deceived by the difference between the presenta-
tions which seem to come from the same perceptible, for example, a visible
thing, according to which [i.e., the difference] the object is presented as
being of varying colour or varying shape or as different in some other
way. For they supposed that one of the presentations which differ and
conflict in this way must be true and the one derived from the opposites
must be false. This is foolish and the product of men who do not have
a comprehensive view of the nature of [lit. in] things. - Let us make our case for visible things. For the solid object is
not seen in its entirety, but [we see only] the colour of the solid. And
of the colour some is on the solid itself, as in things seen from close by
and things seen from a moderate distance, and some lies outside the solid
and in the adjacent places, as in things observed from a great distance.
And since this [colour] changes in the intermediate [space] and takes on
its own shape it produces the sort of presentation which is just like what
it [i.e., the colour] itself is really like. 208. So, just as the sound which
is heard is not that in the bronze instrument being struck nor that in
the mouth of the man shouting, but rather is that which strikes our sense
[organ]; and as no one says that he who hears a faint voice from a distance
hears it falsely since when he comes closer he grasps it as being louder;
so I would not say that the vision speaks falsely because it sees the tower
as small and round from a distance but from close up sees it as larger
and square. 209. But rather [I would say] that [the vision] tells the truth,
since when the object of perception appears to it [as] small and of such