12 R. We must, however, wait patiently, until the remaining senses also make report to us that falsity dwells in the similitude of the true. For in the sense of hearing likewise there are almost as many sorts of similitudes: as when, hearing the voice of a speaker, whom we do not see, we think it some one else, whom in voice he resembles; and in inferior similitudes Echo is a witness, or that well-known roaring of the ears themselves, or in timepieces a certain imitation of thrush or crow, or such things as dreamers or lunatics imagine themselves to hear.
And it is incredible how much false tones, as they are called by musicians, bear witness to the truth, which will appear hereinafter: yet they too (which will suffice just now) are not remote from a resemblance to those which men call true. Do you follow this? A. And most delightedly. For here I have no trouble to understand. R. Then, to press on, do you think it is easy, by the smell, to distinguish lily from lily, or by the taste honey from honey, gathered alike from thyme, though brought from different hives, or by the touch to note the difference between the softness of the plumage of the goose and of the swan? A. It does not seem easy. R. And how is it when we dream that we either smell or taste, or touch such things?
Are we not then deceived by a similitude of effects and images, inferior in proportion to its emptiness? A. You speak truly. R. Therefore it appears that we, in all our senses, whether by equality or inferiority of likeness, are either misled by deceptive similitude, or even if we are not misled, as suspending our consent, or discovering the difference, yet that we name those things false which we apprehend as like the true. A. I cannot doubt it.
Source: Soliloquies (New Advent)