That which starting with the power to know learns or acquires
knowledge through the agency of one who actually knows and has the
power of teaching either (a) ought not to be said 'to be acted upon'
at all or (b) we must recognize two senses of alteration, viz. (i) the
substitution of one quality for another, the first being the
contrary of the second, or (ii) the development of an existent quality
from potentiality in the direction of fixity or nature.
In the case of what is to possess sense, the first transition is due
to the action of the male parent and takes place before birth so
that at birth the living thing is, in respect of sensation, at the
stage which corresponds to the possession of knowledge. Actual
sensation corresponds to the stage of the exercise of knowledge. But
between the two cases compared there is a difference; the objects that
excite the sensory powers to activity, the seen, the heard, &c., are
outside. The ground of this difference is that what actual sensation
apprehends is individuals, while what knowledge apprehends is
universals, and these are in a sense within the soul. That is why a
man can exercise his knowledge when he wishes, but his sensation
does not depend upon himself a sensible object must be there. A
similar statement must be made about our knowledge of what is
sensible-on the same ground, viz. that the sensible objects are
individual and external.
A later more appropriate occasion may be found thoroughly to clear
up all this.
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