at a different size, we recognize that they have increased or decreased. Had we not perceived the original size, we could not have retained it in memory; and had we not retained it, we could not have recognized the increase or decrease.

“This concerns the mental representation and imagining of a single individual object. What, then, of the very many individual objects we retain in memory, with their shapes, forms, sizes, and positions? No storehouse capable of accommodating several people could contain them—not even one of the largest cities could do so. For among the things we retain in memory is the image of a city, with its great size and the arrangement of its parts. If it became smaller or larger, we would recognize where the increase or decrease occurred by comparing it with what we had firmly apprehended and retained in memory.”

He said:

“This suffices for anyone who considers it with a sound mind and steady reflection.”

He said:

“As for his statement concerning what is perceived by the external senses—that the matter is simple and clear, because this form is perceived only as long as the material objects are present and existent, and a body that is present and existent can be present and existent only to a body, not to something that is not a body, since a body bears no relation of presence or absence to a separate faculty, for something that occupies a place cannot stand in a relation of being present to, or absent from, something that is not in a place.”