ture as to be and
not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and
the absolute negation of being?

Yes, between them.

And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to
not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has
to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and
knowledge, if there be such?

Certainly.

Do we admit the existence of opinion?

Undoubtedly.

As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty?

Another faculty.

Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter
corresponding to this difference of faculties?

Yes.

And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I
proceed further I will make a division.

What division?

I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are
powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight
and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly
explained the class which I mean?

Yes, I quite understand.

Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and
therefore the distinctions of fire, colour, and the like, which enable
me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In
speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result; and
that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same
faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call
different. Would that be your way of speaking?

Yes.

And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you
say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it?

Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties.

And is opinion also a faculty?

Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form
an opinion.

And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not
the same as opinion?

Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that
which is infallible with that which errs?

An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a
distinction between them.

Yes.

Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct
spheres or subject-matters?

That is certain.

Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to
know the nature of being?

Yes.

And opinion is to have an opinion?

Yes.

And do we know