Note 6 — Chapter XVII

The resolute misinterpretation—as it often seems—of the maxim that like is known by like,—is a curious chapter in the history of Logic. All knowledge is based upon,—or, to speak more simply, is—the identity of differents: of differents, which in knowledge are identified,—of identity which in knowledge is put under difference. And yet the ordinary meaningless talk on this matter seems to assimilate knower and known to two separate things (or persons), who casually and, we may add, inexplicably know each other: which is mythology, perhaps, but not epistemology.