Our senses are not meant to pick out black rather than white, to prefer sweet to bitter, or soft and yielding to hard and resisting objects
 Plutarch, Parallel Lives (c. 100 AD). copy citation

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Author Plutarch
Source Parallel Lives
Topic meaning senses
Date c. 100 AD
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by A. H. Clough
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/674/674-h/674-h.htm

Context

“And they were first led to do so, I think, by noticing the way in which, both in the arts and with our senses, we examine opposites. Judgment once obtained, the use to which we put it differs in the two cases. Our senses are not meant to pick out black rather than white, to prefer sweet to bitter, or soft and yielding to hard and resisting objects; all they have to do is to receive impressions as they occur, and report to the understanding the impressions as received. The arts, on the other hand, which reason institutes expressly to choose and obtain some suitable, and to refuse and get rid of some unsuitable object, have their proper concern in the consideration of the former;” source