Thus, the first thing to be made out is what daylight is. Daylight is apparently something that lets something else be seen through it, διαφανές [transparent].11 This daylight is not of itself visible, but only by means of a color, alien to it.12 Daylight is what allows something to be seen, namely, the actual color (οἰκεῖον χρῶμα 13) of the things that I have in daylight.14 Aristotle discovered that daylightness is not a body
(τί μὲν οὖν τὸ διαφανὲς καὶ τί τὸ φῶς, εἴρηται, ὅτι οὔτε πῦρ οὔθ᾿ ὅλως σῶμα οὐδ᾿ ἀπορροὴ σώματος οὐδενός ... , ἀλλὰ πυρὸς ἢ τοιούτου τινὸς παρουσία ἐν τῷ διαφανεῖ),15
[As for what the transparent [[Helle]] is and what light is, it has been explained that it is neither fire nor a body at all nor even the outflow of a body ... but presence of fire or some such thing in the transparent,]
that it does not move,16 but is instead the heaven's actual manner of existing,17 allowing things to be seen, the day's being. Daylight is a manner of presence of [something] (παρουσία,18 ἐντελέχεια19). Empedocles taught that light moves; καὶ οὐκ ὀρθῶς Ἐμπεδοκλῆς [but Empedocles was not right).20 Trendelenburg saw in the Aristotelian doctrine a relapse; but this judgment shows that he did not understand Aristotle at all.21
Αἴσθησις [perception] is the manner of existing of something living in its world. The manners of perceiving things are characterized by Aristotle by means of the sort of thing perceived, what is accessible in the perceiving. There are three sorts22 of αἰσθητά: 1. ἴδια, 2. κοινά, 3. συμβεβηκότα [things perceived: 1. special, 2. common, 3. incidentally at hand].
[1.] An ἴδιον23 is something accessible through one specific manner of perceiving and only through that manner of perceiving. It has the character of being ἀεί ἀληθές [always true].24 Seeing, insofar as it exists, always uncovers
11. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b4.
12. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b4ff.
13. Op. cit., Beta 7, 419a2.
14. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b2f.
15. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418bI3-17.
16. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b2lf.
17. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b9.
18. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b16.
19. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b12, 418b30.
20. Op. cit., Beta 7, 418b20f.
21. Aristotelis de anima libri tres. Ad interpretum Graecorum auctoritatem et codicum fidem recognovit commentariis illustravit F. A. Trendelenburg. Editio altera emendata et aucta. [The three books of Aristotle's "On the soul," with F. A. Trendelenburg's inspection of the authority of the Greek interpreters and the faithfulness of the codices and his illustration with commentaries; second, improved and enlarged edition.] (Berlin 1877), 306: "Itaque Empedoclis sententia vero, quod recentior aetas invenit, proprior, quam Aristoteles" [Thus, in truth, the opinion of Empedocles is more proper, as the age recently discovered, than that of Aristotle].
22. Aristotle, De anima (Biehl, Apelt), Beta 6, 418a8.
23. Op. cit., Beta 6, 418al1.
24. Op. cit., Gamma 3, 427b12.