it is large, the object appears large; if it is small, the object appears small. In either case, it resembles the form existing externally.

Likewise, if it is said that the perceived object is represented within the perceiver, this does not entail that its size within the perceiver is the same as its actual size.

Hence it is said that a thing has existence in external reality, in minds, in speech, and in writing—that is, actual, mental, verbal, and written existence. It is well known that the correspondence between mental and actual existence is the correspondence of knowledge to what is known, not the correspondence of one externally existing thing to another like it. No rational person would maintain the latter. Rather, a rational person immediately recognizes a distinction between what he represents within himself and the realities existing externally.

One of the clearest instances of this is imagination. A person imagines what he has seen after it is no longer present to him, when his eyes are closed, and during sleep. He knows with certainty that this is an image and representation of the object and that it resembles it. He also knows with certainty that this representation is within him, not outside him, whether it is said to be imprinted in the soul, in a part of the body, or in both, and whether it is said that the soul perceives it or that the body is what perceives it.

On every account, people immediately recognize a distinction between the reality of that representation and the reality of what exists externally, and know that it does not match the external object—neither in its essence nor