23. Conception of sense-objects occurs when the soul or the living
being experiences perceptions by grasping the bodies' inherent
qualities, and by representing their forms to itself. The soul must
therefore perceive sense-objects either with or without the body. How
could the soul do so alone? Pure and isolated, she can conceive only
what she has within herself; she can only think. But for conception
of objects other than herself, she must previously have grasped them,
either by becoming assimilated to them, or by finding herself united to
something which may have become similar to them.