through the immediate, he will only opine that they are. Still opinion and science are not altogether conversant with the same thing, but as both the true and the false opinion are in a manner about the same thing, thus also science and opinion are conversant with the same. For as some say that true and false opinion are of the same; absurd consequences follow both in other respects, and also that he who opines falsely does not opine. Now since the same thing is stated in several ways, in one way there may be, and in another there cannot be (a true and false opinion of the same). For to opine truly that the diameter of a square is commensurate with its side, is absurd, but because the diameter about which there are (contrary) opinions is the same thing, thus also they are of the same thing, but the essence of each according to the definition is not the same. In like manner also knowledge and opinion are conversant with the same thing, for the former is so conversant with animal as that it is impossible animal should not exist, but the latter so as that it may possibly not exist, as if the one should be conversant with that which is man essentially, but the other with man indeed, yet not with what is man essentially; for it is the same thing, that is, man, but not the same as to the manner.
From these then it is clearly impossible to opine and know the same thing at the same time, for otherwise at one and the same time a man might have a notion that the same thing could and could not subsist otherwise, which is impossible. In different (men) indeed each (of these) may be possible about the same thing,
