The
same holds of two bodies in air-air being to bodies in air precisely
what water is to bodies in water-but the facts are not so evident to
our observation, because we live in air, just as animals that live
in water would not notice that the things which touch one another in
water have wet surfaces. The problem, then, is: does the perception of
all objects of sense take place in the same way, or does it not,
e.g. taste and touch requiring contact (as they are commonly thought
to do), while all other senses perceive over a distance? The
distinction is unsound; we perceive what is hard or soft, as well as
the objects of hearing, sight, and smell, through a 'medium', only
that the latter are perceived over a greater distance than the former;
that is why the facts escape our notice. For we do perceive everything
through a medium; but in these cases the fact escapes us. Yet, to
repeat what we said before, if the medium for touch were a membrane
separating us from the object without our observing its existence,
we should be relatively to it in the same condition as we are now to
air or water in which we are immersed; in their case we fancy we can
touch objects, nothing coming in between us and them. But there
remains this difference between what can be touched and what can be
seen or can sound; in the latter two cases we perceive because the
medium produces a certain effect upon us, whereas in the perception of
objects of touch we are affected not by but along with the medium;
it is as if a man were struck through his shield, where the shock is
not first given to the shield and passed on to the man, but the
concussion of both is simultaneous.
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