Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/240

226 H. A. PRICHARD : (2) Whenever we say that a thing only looks so and so, we are really questioning some immediate judgment of perception. But this presupposes that, at least in certain cases, such judgments are not to be questioned but give us things as they are. Thus the assertion that the moon looks as large as the sun implies that there is something in perception which suggests that the moon is as large ; and this is only possible if, under certain circumstances, perception gives the real relative size. And under certain con- ditions, it does so. If objects are equally distant from the observer, perception successfully gives their relative size. If we thought that there were no circumstances under which we should perceive the real relative size, we could never assert that one object looks as large as another. Similarly the statement that the stick looks bent implies that, given certain physical conditions, we should see the true shape of objects. Even in the case of perspective the same thing is true. If we really mean that the roof of a building looks converging towards the ground, we must allow that in the right position we should see it as it really is, viz., horizontal. It may be objected that the necessity of foreshortening renders this impossible. But the answer is that if we admit the impossibility, we at once reconsider our original assertion and maintain that after all the roof does not look sloping. (3) Our possession of the distinction between appearance and reality and our power of determining in particular what is ap- pearance and what is reality presuppose that we understand how our apprehension of objects is conditioned by relation to us as observers. It is only because we know that our distance from an object affects its apparent size, that we can draw a distinction between the size it looks and the size it is. If we forget this, we can draw no distinction at all. The same knowledge is presupposed by that power to discount difference of distance which enables us to determine the real relative size of two objects. It is the same in the case of refraction. To be able to say that a stick looks bent, we must be aware that our perception is somehow physically con- ditioned, and we can only determine its real shape if we know the special nature of the physical conditions. Similarly it is because we understand the conditions of perspective that we can discount .them and assert if we do assert that objects look different in shape from what they are in reality. Lastly it is precisely because there are no such spatial relations between observer and observed in the case of pain, that, with respect to it, no distinction between reality and appearance can be drawn. It follows that the distinction, as used in our ordinary experience, arises from the special nature of the spatial relation between the object and the observer. Hence its application to knowledge in general and in a different connexion should arouse suspicion. To apply these results. The essential feature of the first theory referred to, is that things suffer distortion in being presented to us. Two kinds of attributes are presupposed, those belonging to things