For we say that we see the same wax, if it
is present, and not that we simply judge that it is the same
from its having the same colour and figure. From this I
should conclude that I knew the wax by means of vision and not
simply by the intuition of the mind; unless by chance I
remember that, when looking from a window and saying I see men
who pass in the street, I really do not see them, but infer
that what I see is men, just as I say that I see wax. And yet
what do I see from the window but hats and coats which may
cover automatic machines? Yet I judge these to be men. And
similarly solely by the faculty of judgment which rests in my
mind, I comprehend that which I believed I saw with my eyes.
A man who makes it his aim to raise his knowledge above
the common should be ashamed to derive the occasion for
doubting from the forms of speech invented by the vulgar; I
prefer to pass on and consider whether I had a more evident
and perfect conception of what the wax was when I first
perceived it, and when I believed I knew it by means of the
external senses or at least by the common sense14 as it is
called, that is to say by the imaginative faculty, or whether
my present conception is clearer now that I have most
carefully examined what it is, and in what way it can be
known.
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