Both the discriminating power and the time of
its exercise must be one and undivided.
But, it may be objected, it is impossible that what is
self-identical should be moved at me and the same time with contrary
movements in so far as it is undivided, and in an undivided moment
of time. For if what is sweet be the quality perceived, it moves the
sense or thought in this determinate way, while what is bitter moves
it in a contrary way, and what is white in a different way. Is it
the case then that what discriminates, though both numerically one and
indivisible, is at the same time divided in its being? In one sense,
it is what is divided that perceives two separate objects at once, but
in another sense it does so qua undivided; for it is divisible in
its being but spatially and numerically undivided. is not this
impossible? For while it is true that what is self-identical and
undivided may be both contraries at once potentially, it cannot be
self-identical in its being-it must lose its unity by being put into
activity. It is not possible to be at once white and black, and
therefore it must also be impossible for a thing to be affected at one
and the same moment by the forms of both, assuming it to be the case
that sensation and thinking are properly so described.
The answer is that just as what is called a 'point' is, as being
at once one and two, properly said to be divisible, so here, that
which discriminates is qua undivided one, and active in a single
moment of time, while so far forth as it is divisible it twice over
uses the same dot at one and the same time.
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