opinion,
that he opposed Protagoras the philosopher who asserted it, and writ
many excellent arguments concluding against him, which this fine fellow
Colotes never saw nor read, nor yet so much as dreamed of; but deceived
himself by misunderstanding a passage which is in his works, where he
determines that [Greek omitted] is no more than [Greek omitted], naming
in that place the body by [Greek omitted], and the void by [Greek
omitted], and meaning that the void has its own proper nature and
subsistence, as well as the body.

But he who is of opinion that nothing has more of one nature than
another makes use of a sentence of Epicurus, in which he says that all
the apprehensions and imaginations given us by the senses are true. For
if of two saying, the one, that the wine is sour, and the other, that it
is sweet, neither of them shall be deceived by his sensation, how shall
the wine be more sour than sweet? And we may often see that some men
using one and the same bath find it to be hot, and others find it to be
cold; because those order cold water to be put into it, as these do hot.
It is said that, a certain lady going to visit Berenice, wife to
King Deiotarus, as soon as ever they approached each other, they both
immediately turned their backs, the one, as it seemed, not being able to
bear the smell of perfume, nor the other of butter. If, then, the sense
of one is no truer than the sense of another, it is also probable, that
water is no more cold than hot, nor sweet ointment or butter better or
worse scented one than the other. For if any one shall say that it seems
the one to one, and the other to another, he will, before he is aware,
affirm that they are both the one and the other.

And as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little
passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much,
and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed
through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different
persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive
them to this, that things are no more of one nature than another? For to
pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they see
contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and to
solve this objection, they teach,--that when almost everything was
confused and mixed up together, since it has been arranged by Nature
that one thing shall fit another thing, it was no