A similar account may be given of all other cases, e.g. how evil
or black is cognized; they are cognized, in a sense, by means of their
contraries. That which cognizes must have an element of potentiality
in its being, and one of the contraries must be in it. But if there is
anything that has no contrary, then it knows itself and is actually
and possesses independent existence.
Assertion is the saying of something concerning something, e.g.
affirmation, and is in every case either true or false: this is not
always the case with mind: the thinking of the definition in the sense
of the constitutive essence is never in error nor is it the
assertion of something concerning something, but, just as while the
seeing of the special object of sight can never be in error, the
belief that the white object seen is a man may be mistaken, so too
in the case of objects which are without matter.
7
Actual knowledge is identical with its object: potential knowledge
in the individual is in time prior to actual knowledge but in the
universe it has no priority even in time; for all things that come
into being arise from what actually is. In the case of sense clearly
the sensitive faculty already was potentially what the object makes it
to be actually; the faculty is not affected or altered. This must
therefore be a different kind from movement; for movement is, as we
saw, an activity of what is imperfect, activity in the unqualified
sense, i.
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