In general, flesh and the tongue are related to the real organs of
touch and taste, as air and water are to those of sight, hearing,
and smell. Hence in neither the one case nor the other can there be
any perception of an object if it is placed immediately upon the
organ, e.g. if a white object is placed on the surface of the eye.
This again shows that what has the power of perceiving the tangible is
seated inside. Only so would there be a complete analogy with all
the other senses. In their case if you place the object on the organ
it is not perceived, here if you place it on the flesh it is
perceived; therefore flesh is not the organ but the medium of touch.
What can be touched are distinctive qualities of body as body; by
such differences I mean those which characterize the elements, viz,
hot cold, dry moist, of which we have spoken earlier in our treatise
on the elements. The organ for the perception of these is that of
touch-that part of the body in which primarily the sense of touch
resides. This is that part which is potentially such as its object
is actually: for all sense-perception is a process of being so
affected; so that that which makes something such as it itself
actually is makes the other such because the other is already
potentially such. That is why when an object of touch is equally hot
and cold or hard and soft we cannot perceive; what we perceive must
have a degree of the sensible quality lying beyond the neutral
point.
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