that is sound and finely composed has parts that confirm rather than contradict one another. This differs from clear differentiation in the specific sense, which is the opposite of resemblance in the specific sense. Resemblance in the specific sense occurs when something resembles another thing in one respect but differs from it in another, so that some people mistakenly think it is that very thing, or is equivalent to it, when it is not. Clear differentiation means distinguishing the two so that neither is confused with the other.

Such resemblance arises only through a feature shared by the two things, while a distinction between them remains. Some people fail to recognize that distinction and thus find the matter confusing, whereas others recognize it. Resemblance that prevents a person from distinguishing between things may therefore be relative to the observer: it confuses some people but not others. Scholars possess knowledge of such matters that dispels this confusion for them. For example, some people confuse what they have been promised in the Hereafter with what they witness in this world, imagining that they are alike. Scholars, however, know that they are not alike, even though they resemble one another in certain respects.

The misleading ambiguities through which some people go astray belong to this category: truth and falsehood resemble one another within them, leaving some people confused. Those who have been granted knowledge of how to distinguish between the two do not confuse truth with falsehood.

Faulty analogy belongs to this category of misleading ambiguities, for it likens one thing, in certain respects, to something that does not resemble it in those respects. Whoever knows how to distinguish between the two things recognizes the difference that dispels the confusion