Chapter XII: De Animâ, Etc (1)

To understand Aristotle's Psychology, we must look at it in comparison with the views of other ancient Greek philosophers on the same subject, as far as our knowledge will permit. Of these ancient philosophers, none have been preserved to us except Plato, and to a certain extent Epikurus, reckoning the poem of Lucretius as a complement to the epistolary remnants of Epikurus himself. The predecessors of Aristotle (apart from Plato) are known only through small fragments from themselves, and imperfect notices by others; among which notices the best are from Aristotle himself.

In the Timæus of Plato we find Psychology, in a very large and comprehensive sense, identified with Kosmology. The Kosmos, a scheme of rotatory spheres, has both a soul and a body: of the two, the soul is the prior, grander, and predominant, though both of them are constructed or put together by the Divine Architect or Demiurgus. The kosmical soul, rooted at the centre, and stretched from thence through and around the whole, is endued with self-movement, and with the power of initiating movement in the kosmical body; moreover, being cognitive as well as motive, it includes in itself three ingredients mixed together:--(1) The Same--the indivisible and unchangeable essence of Ideas; (2) The Diverse--the Plural--the divisible bodies or elements; (3) A Compound, formed of both these ingredients melted into one. As the kosmical soul is intended to know all the three--_Idem_, _Diversum_, and _Idem_ with _Diversum_ in one, so it must comprise in its own nature all the three ingredients, according to the received Axiom--Like knows like--Like is known by Like. The ingredients are blended together according to a scale of harmonic proportion. The element _Idem_ is placed in an even and undivided rotation of the outer or sidereal sphere of the Kosmos; the element _Diversum_ is distributed among the rotations, all oblique, of the seven interior planetary spheres, that is, the five planets, with the Sun and Moon. Impressions of identity and diversity, derived either from the ideal and indivisible, or from the sensible and divisible, are thus circulated by the kosmical soul throughout its own entire range, yet without either voice or sound. Reason and Science are propagated by the circle of _Idem_: Sense and Opinion, by those of _Diversum_. When these last-mentioned circles are in right movement, the opinions circulated are true and trustworthy.[1]

[Footnote 1: See this doctrine of the Timæus more fully expounded in 'Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,' III. xxxvi. pp. 250-256, seq.]

It is thus that Plato begins his Psychology with Kosmology: the Kosmos is in his view a divine immortal being or animal, composed of a spherical rotatory body and a rational soul, cognitive as well as motive. Among the tenants of this Kosmos are included, not only gods, who dwell in the peripheral or celestial regions, but also men, birds, quadrupeds, and fishes. These four inhabit the more central or lower regions of air, earth, and water. In describing men and the inferior animals, Plato takes his departure from the divine Kosmos, and proceeds downwards by successive stages of increasing degeneracy and corruption. The cranium of man was constructed as a little Kosmos, including in itself an immortal rational soul, composed of the same materials, though diluted and adulterated, as the kosmical soul; and moving with the like rotations, though disturbed and irregular, suited to a rational soul. This cranium, for wise purposes which Plato indicates, was elevated by the gods upon a tall body, with attached limbs for motion in different directions--forward, backward, upward, downward, to the right and left.[2] Within this body were included two inferior and mortal souls: one in the thoracic region near the heart, the other lower down, below the diaphragm, in the abdominal region; but both of them fastened or rooted in the spinal marrow or cord, which formed a continuous line with the brain above. These two souls were both emotional; the higher or _thoracic_ soul being the seat of courage, energy, anger, &c., while to the lower or _abdominal_ soul belonged appetite, desires, love of gain, &c. Both of them were intended as companions and adjuncts, yet in the relation of dependence and obedience, to the _rational_ soul in the cranium above; which, though unavoidably debased and perturbed by such unworthy companionship, was protected partially against the contagion by the difference of location, the neck being built up as an isthmus of separation between the two. The thoracic soul, the seat of courage, was placed nearer to the head, in order that it might be the medium for transmitting influence from the cranial soul above, to the abdominal soul below; which last was at once the least worthy and the most difficult to control. The heart, being the initial point of the veins, received the orders and inspirations of the cranial soul, transmitting them onward through its many blood-channels to all the sensitive parts of the body; which were thus rendered obedient, as far as possible, to the authority of man's rational nature.[3] The unity or communication of the three souls was kept up through the continuity of the cerebro-spinal column.

[Footnote 2: Plato, Timæus, p. 44, E.; 'Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.', III. xxxvi. p. 264.]

[Footnote 3: Plato, Timæus, p. 70; 'Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.', III. pp. 271-272.]

But, though by these arrangements the higher soul in the cranium was enabled to control to a certain extent its inferior allies, it was itself much disturbed and contaminated by their reaction. The violence of passion and appetite, the constant processes of nutrition and sensation pervading the whole body, the multifarious movements of the limbs and trunk, in all varieties of direction,--these causes all contributed to agitate and to confuse the rotations of the cranial soul, perverting the arithmetical proportions and harmony belonging to them. The circles of Same and Diverse were made to convey false information; and the soul, for some time after its first junction with the body, became destitute of intelligence.[4] In mature life, indeed, the violence of the disturbing causes abates, and the man may become more and more intelligent, especially if placed under appropriate training and education. But in many cases no such improvement took place, and the rational soul of man was irrecoverably spoiled; so that new and worse breeds were formed, by successive steps of degeneracy. The first stage, and the least amount of degeneracy, was exhibited in the formation of woman; the original type of man not having included diversity of sex. By farther steps of degradation, in different ways, the inferior animals were formed--birds, quadrupeds, and fishes.[5] In each of these, the rational soul became weaker and worse; its circular rotations ceased with the disappearance of the spherical cranium, and animal appetites with sensational agitations were left without control. As man, with his two emotional souls and body joined on to the rational soul and cranium, was a debased copy of the perfect rational soul and **spherical body of the divine Kosmos, so the other inhabitants of the Kosmos proceeded from still farther debasement and disrationalization of the original type of man.

[Footnote 4: Plato, Timæus, pp. 43-44; 'Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.', III. pp. 262-264.]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Timæus, p. 91; 'Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.', pp. 281-282.]

Such is the view of Psychology given by Plato in the Timæus; beginning with the divine Kosmos, and passing downwards from thence to the triple soul of man, as well as to the various still lower successors of degenerated man. It is to be remarked that Plato, though he puts soul as prior to body in dignity and power, and as having for its functions to control and move body, yet always conceives soul as attached to body, and never as altogether detached, not even in the divine Kosmos. The soul, in Plato's view, is self-moving and self-moved: it is both _Primum Mobile_ in itself, and _Primum Movens_ as to the body; it has itself the corporeal properties of being extended and moved, and it has body implicated with it besides.

The theory above described, in so far as it attributes to the soul rational constituent elements (_Idem_, _Diversum_), continuous magnitude, and circular rotations, was peculiar to Plato, and is criticized by Aristotle as the peculiarity of his master.[6] But several other philosophers agreed with Plato in considering self-motion, together with motive causality and faculties perceptive and cognitive, to be essential characteristics of soul. Alkmæon declared the soul to be in perpetual motion, like all the celestial bodies; hence it was also immortal, as they were.[7] Herakleitus described it as the subtlest of elements, and as perpetually fluent; hence it was enabled to know other things, all of which were in flux and change. Diogenes of Apollonia affirmed that the element constituent of soul was air, at once mobile, all-penetrating, and intelligent. Demokritus declared that among the infinite diversity of atoms those of spherical figure were the constituents both of the element fire and of the soul: the spherical atoms were by reason of their figure the most apt and rapid in moving; it was their nature never to be at rest, and they imparted motion to everything else.[8] Anaxagoras affirmed soul to be radically and essentially distinct from every thing else, but to be the great primary source of motion, and to be endued with cognitive power, though at the same time not suffering impressions from without.[9] Empedokles considered soul to be a compound of the four elements--fire, water, air, earth; with love and hatred as principles of motion, the former producing aggregation of elements, the latter, disgregation: by means of each element the soul became cognizant of the like element in the Kosmos. Some Pythagoreans looked upon the soul as an aggregate of particles of extreme subtlety, which pervaded the air and were in perpetual agitation. Other Pythagoreans, however, declared it to be an harmonious or proportional mixture of contrary elements and qualities; hence its universality of cognition, extending to all.[10]

[Footnote 6: Aristot. De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, a. 2.]

[Footnote 7: Ibid. ii. p. 405, a. 29.]

[Footnote 8: Ibid. p. 404, a. 8; p. 405, a. 22; p. 406, b. 17.]

[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 405, a. 13, b. 19.]

[Footnote 10: Aristot. De Animâ, I. ii. p. 404, a. 16; p. 407, b. 27.]

A peculiar theory was delivered by Xenokrates (who, having been fellow-pupil with Aristotle under Plato, afterwards conducted the Platonic School, during all the time that Aristotle taught at the Lykeium), which Aristotle declares to involve greater difficulty than any of the others. Xenokrates described the soul as "a number (a monad or indivisible unit) moving itself."[11] He retained the self-moving property which Plato had declared to be characteristic of the soul, while he departed from Plato's doctrine of a soul with continuous extension. He thus fell back upon the Pythagorean idea of number as the fundamental essence. Aristotle impugns, as alike untenable, both the two properties here alleged--number and self-motion. If the monad both moves and is moved (he argues), it cannot be indivisible; if it be moved, it must have position, or must be a point; but the motion of a point is a line, without any of that variety that constitutes life. How can the soul be a monad? or, if it be, what difference can exist between one soul and another, since monads cannot differ from each other except in position? How comes it that some bodies have souls and others not? and how, upon this theory, can we explain the fact that many animated bodies, both plants and animals, will remain alive after being divided, the monadic soul thus exhibiting itself as many and diverse? Besides, the monad set up by Xenokrates is hardly distinguishable from the highly attenuated body or spherical atom recognized by Demokritus as the origin or beginning of bodily motion.[12]

[Footnote 11: Ibid. iv. p. 408, b. 32.]

[Footnote 12: Ibid. p. 409, b. 12.]

These and other arguments are employed by Aristotle to refute the theory of Xenokrates. In fact, he rejects all the theories then current. After having dismissed the self-motor doctrine, he proceeds to impugn the views of those who declared the soul to be a compound of all the four elements, in order that they might account for its percipient and cognitive faculties upon the maxim then very generally admitted[13]--That like is perceived and known by like. This theory, the principal champion of which was Empedokles, appears to Aristotle inadmissible. You say (he remarks) that like knows like; how does this consist with your other doctrine, that like cannot act upon, or suffer from, like, especially as you consider that both in perception and in cognition the percipient and cognizant suffers or is acted upon?[14] Various parts of the cognizant subject, such as bone, hair, ligaments, &c., are destitute of perception and cognition; how then can we know anything about bone, hair, and ligaments, since we cannot know them by like?[15] Suppose the soul to be compounded of all the four elements; this may explain how it comes to know the four elements, themselves, but not how it comes to know all the combinations of the four; now innumerable combinations of the four are comprised among the _cognita_. We must assume that the soul contains in itself not merely the four elements, but also the laws or definite proportions wherein they can combine; and this is affirmed by no one.[16] Moreover, _Ens_ is an equivocal, or at least a multivocal, term; there are _Entia_ belonging to each of the ten Categories. Now the soul cannot include in itself all the ten, for the different Categories have no elements in common; in whichever Category you rank the soul, it will know (by virtue of likeness) the _cognita_ belonging to that category, but it will not know the _cognita_ belonging to the other nine.[17] Besides, even if we grant that the soul includes all the four elements, where is the cementing principle that combines all the four into one? The elements are merely matter; and what holds them together must be the really potent principle of soul; but of this no explanation is given.[18]

[Footnote 13: Ibid. v. p. 409, b. 29.]

[Footnote 14: Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 410, a. 25.]

[Footnote 15: Ibid. a. 30.]

[Footnote 16: Ibid. p. 409, b. 28; p. 410, a. 12.]

[Footnote 17: Ibid. p. 410, a. 20.]

[Footnote 18: Ibid. p. 410, b. 10.]

Some philosophers have assumed (continues Aristotle) that soul pervades the whole Kosmos and its elements; and that it is inhaled by animals in respiration along with the air.[19] They forget that all plants, and even some animals, live without respiring at all; moreover, upon this theory, air and fire also, as possessing soul, and what is said to be a better soul, ought (if the phrase were permitted) to be regarded as animals. The soul of air or fire must be homogeneous in its parts; the souls of animals are not homogeneous, but involve several distinct parts or functions.[20] The soul perceives, cogitates, opines, feels, desires, repudiates; farther, it moves the body locally, and brings about the growth and decay of the body. Here we have a new mystery:[21]--Is the whole soul engaged in the performance of each of these functions, or has it a separate part exclusively consecrated to each? If so, how many are the parts? Some philosophers (Plato among them) declare the soul to be divided, and that one part cogitates and cognizes, while another part desires. But upon that supposition what is it that holds these different parts together? Certainly not the body (which is Plato's theory); on the contrary, it is the soul that holds together the body; for, as soon as the soul is gone, the body rots and disappears.[22] If there be anything that keeps together the divers parts of the soul as one, that something must be the true and fundamental soul; and we ought not to speak of the soul as having parts, but as essentially one and indivisible, with several distinct faculties. Again, if we are to admit parts of the soul, does each part hold together a special part of the body, as the entire soul holds together the entire body? This seems impossible; for what part of the body can the Noûs or Intellect (_e.g._) be imagined to hold together? And, besides, several kinds of plants and of animals may be divided, yet so that each of the separate parts shall still continue to live; hence it is plain that the soul in each separate part is complete and homogeneous.[23]

[Footnote 19: Ibid. ii. p. 404, a. 9: [Greek: tou= zê=n o(/ron ei)=nai tê\n a)napnoê/n], &c. Compare the doctrine of Demokritus.]

[Footnote 20: Ibid. v. p. 411, a. 1, 8, 16.]

[Footnote 21: Ibid. a. 30.]

[Footnote 22: Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 411, b. 8.]

[Footnote 23: Ibid. b. 15-27.]

Aristotle thus rejects all the theories proposed by antecedent philosophers, but more especially the two following:--That the soul derives its cognitive powers from the fact of being compounded of the four elements; That the soul is self-moved. He pronounces it incorrect to say that the soul is moved at all.[24] He farther observes that none of the philosophers have kept in view either the full meaning or all the varieties of soul; and that none of these defective theories suffices for the purpose that every good and sufficient theory ought to serve, viz., not merely to define the essence of the soul, but also to define it in such a manner that the concomitant functions and affections of the soul shall all be deducible from it.[25] Lastly, he points out that most of his predecessors had considered that the prominent characteristics of soul were--to be motive and to be percipient:[26] while, in his opinion, neither of these two characteristics is universal or fundamental.

[Footnote 24: Ibid. a. 25.]

[Footnote 25: Ibid. i. p. 402, b. 16, seq.; v. p. 409, b. 15.]

[Footnote 26: Ibid. ii. p. 403, b. 30.]

Aristotle requires that a good theory of the soul shall explain alike the lowest vegetable soul, and the highest functions of the human or divine soul. And, in commenting on those theorists who declared that the essence of soul consisted in movement, he remarks that their theory fails altogether in regard to the Noûs (or cogitative and intellective faculty of the human soul); the operation of which bears far greater analogy to rest or suspension of movement than to movement itself.[27]

[Footnote 27: Aristot. De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, a. 32: [Greek: e)/ti d' ê( no/êsis e)/oiken ê)remê/sei tini\ ê)\ e)pista/sei ma=llon ê)\ kinê/sei.]]

We shall now proceed to state how Aristotle steers clear (or at least believes himself to steer clear) of the defects that he has pointed out in the psychological theories of his predecessors. Instead of going back (like Empedokles, Plato, and others) to a time when the Kosmos did not yet exist, and giving us an hypothesis to explain how its parts came together or were put together, he takes the facts and objects of the Kosmos as they stand, and distributes them according to distinctive marks alike obvious, fundamental, and pervading; after which he seeks a mode of explanation in the principles of his own First Philosophy or Ontology. Whoever had studied the Organon and the Physica of Aristotle (apparently intended to be read prior to the treatise De Animâ) would be familiar with his distribution of _Entia_ into ten Categories, of which Essence or Substance was the first and the fundamental. Of these Essences or Substances the **most complete and recognized were physical or natural bodies; and among such bodies one of the most striking distinctions, was between those that had life and those that had it not. By life, Aristotle means keeping up the processes of nutrition, growth, and decay.[28]

[Footnote 28: Ibid. II i. p. 412, a. 11: [Greek: ou)si/ai de\ ma/list' ei)=nai dokou=si ta\ sô/mata, kai\ tou/tôn ta\ phusika/; tô=n de\ phusikô=n ta\ me\n e)/chei zôê/n, ta\ d' ou)k e)/chei; zôê\n de\ le/gô, tê\n di' au)tou= trophê\n kai\ au)/xêsin kai\ phthi/sin.]]

"To live" (Aristotle observes) is a term used in several different meanings; whatever possesses any one of the following four properties is said to live:[29] (1) Intellect, (2) Sensible perception, (3) Local movement and rest, (4) Internal movement of nutrition, growth, and decay. But of these four the last is the only one common to all living bodies without exception; it is the foundation presupposed by the other three. It is the only one possessed by plants,[30] and common to all plants as well as to all animals--to all animated bodies.

[Footnote 29: Ibid. ii. p. 413, a. 22: [Greek: pleonachô=s de\ tou= zê=n legome/nou, ka)\n e(/n ti tou/tôn e)nupa/rchê| mo/non, zê=n au)to/ phamen], &c.]

[Footnote 30: Ibid. I. v. p. 411, b. 27, ad fin.]

What is the animating principle belonging to each of these bodies, and what is the most general definition of it? Such is the problem that Aristotle states to himself about the soul.[31] He explains it by a metaphysical distinction first introduced (apparently) by himself into _Philosophia Prima_. He considers Substance or Essence as an ideal compound; not simply as clothed with all the accidents described in the nine last Categories, but also as being analysable in itself, even apart from these accidents, into two abstract, logical, or notional elements or _principia_--Form and Matter. This distinction is borrowed from the most familiar facts of the sensible world--the shape of solid objects. When we see or feel a cube of wax, we distinguish the cubic shape from the waxen material;[32] we may find the like shape in many other materials--wood, stone, &c.; we may find the like material in many different shapes--sphere, pyramid, &c.; but the matter has always some shape, and the shape has always some matter. We can name and reason about the matter, without attending to the shape, or distinguishing whether it be cube or sphere; we can name and reason about the shape, without attending to the material shaped, or to any of its various peculiarities. But this, though highly useful, is a mere abstraction or notional distinction. There can be no real separation between the two: no shape without some solid material; no solid material without some shape. The two are correlates; each of them implying the other, and neither of them admitting of being realized or actualized without the other.

[Footnote 31: Ibid. II. p. 413, b. 11: [Greek: ê( psuchê\ tô=n ei)rême/nôn tou/tôn a)rchê/].--Ibid. I. p. 412, a. 5: [Greek: ti/s a)\n ei)/ê koino/tatos lo/gos au)tê=s].]

[Footnote 32: Aristot. De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, b. 7: [Greek: to\n kêro\n kai\ to\ schê=ma].]

This distinction of Form and Matter is one of the capital features of Aristotle's _Philosophia Prima_. He expands it and diversifies it in a thousand ways, often with subtleties very difficult to follow; but the fundamental import of it is seldom lost--two correlates inseparably implicated in fact and reality in every concrete individual that has received a substantive name, yet logically separable and capable of being named and considered apart from each other. The Aristotelian analysis thus brings out, in regard to each individual substance (or _Hoc Aliquid_, to use his phrase), a triple point of view: (1) The Form; (2) The Matter; (3) The compound or aggregate of the two--in other words, the inseparable _Ens_, which carries us out of the domain of logic or abstraction into that of the concrete or reality.[33]

[Footnote 33: Aristot. Metaphys. Z. iii. p. 1029, a. 1-34; De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, a. 6; p. 414, a. 15.

In the first book of the Physica, Aristotle pushes this analysis yet further, introducing three _principia_ instead of two:--(1) Form, (2) Matter, (3) Privation (of Form); he gives a distinct general name to the negation as well as to the affirmation; he provides a sign _minus_ as counter-denomination to the sign _plus_. But he intimates that this is only the same analysis more minutely discriminated, or in a different point of view: [Greek: dio\ e)/sti me\n ô(s du/o lekte/on ei)=nai ta\s a)rcha/s, e)/sti d' ô(s trei=s] (Phys. I. vii. p. 190, b. 29).

_Materia Prima_ (Aristotle says, Phys. I. vii. p. 191, a. 8) is "knowable only by analogy"--_i.e._, explicable only by illustrative examples: as the brass is to the statue, as the wood is to the couch, &c.; natural substances being explained from works of art, as is frequent with Aristotle.]

Aristotle farther recognizes, between these two logical correlates, a marked difference of rank. The Form stands first, the Matter second,--not in time, but in notional presentation. The Form is higher, grander, prior in dignity and esteem, more _Ens_, or more nearly approaching to perfect entity; the Matter is lower, meaner, posterior in dignity, farther removed from that perfection. The conception of wax, plaster, wood, &c., without amy definite or determinate shape, is confused and unimpressive; but a name, connoting some definite shape, at once removes this confusion, and carries with it mental pre-eminence, alike as to phantasy, memory, and science. In the logical hierarchy of Aristotle, Matter is the inferior and Form the superior;[34] yet neither of the two can escape from its relative character: Form requires Matter for its correlate, and is nothing in itself or apart,[35] just as much as Matter requires Form; though from the inferior dignity of Matter we find it more frequently described as the second or correlate, while Form is made to stand forward as the _relatum_. For complete reality, we want the concrete individual having the implication of both; while, in regard to each of the constituents _per se_, no separate real existence can be affirmed, but only a nominal or logical separation.

[Footnote 34: Aristot. De Gener. Animal. II. i. p. 729, a. 10. Matter and Form are here compared to the female and the male--to mother and father. Form is a cause operative, Matter a cause co-operative, though both are alike indispensable to full reality. Compare Physic. I. ix. p. 192, a. 13: [Greek: ê( me\n ga\r u(pome/nousa sunaiti/a tê=| morphê=| tô=n ginome/nôn e)sti/n, ô(/sper mê/têr;--a)lla\ tou=t' e)/stin ê( u(/lê, ô(/sper a)\n ei) thê=lu a)/r)r(enos kai\ ai)schro\n kalou= (e)phi/eto).]--De Partibus Animalium, I. i. p. 640, b. 28: [Greek: ê( ga\r kata\ tê\n morphê\n phu/sis kuriôte/ra tê=s u(likê=s phu/seôs].

Metaphys. Z. iii. p. 1029, a. 5: [Greek: to\ ei)=dos tê=s u(/lês pro/teron kai\ ma=llon o)/n]--p. 1039, a. 1.

See in Schwegler, pp. 13, 42, 83, Part II. of his Commentary on the Aristotelian Metaphysica.]

[Footnote 35: Aristot. Metaph. Z. viii. p. 1033, b. 10, seq.]

This difference of rank between Matter and Form--that the first is inferior and the last the superior--is sometimes so much put in the foreground, that the two are conceived in a different manner and under other names, as Potential and Actual. Matter is the potential, imperfect, inchoate, which the supervening Form actualizes into the perfect and complete; a transition from half-reality to entire reality or act. The Potential is the undefined or indeterminate[36]--what may be or may not be--what is not yet actual, and may perhaps never become so, but is prepared to pass into actuality when the energizing principle comes to aid. In this way of putting the antithesis, the Potential is not so much implicated with the Actual as merged and suppressed to make room for the Actual: it is as a half-grown passing into a full-grown; being itself essential as a preliminary stage in the order of logical generation.[37] The three logical divisions--Matter, Form, and the resulting Compound or Concrete ([Greek: to\ su/nolon, to\ suneilêmme/non]), are here compressed into two--the Potential and the Actualization thereof. Actuality ([Greek: e)ne/rgeia, e)ntele/cheia]) coincides in meaning partly with the Form, partly with the resulting Compound; the Form being so much exalted, that the distinction between the two is almost effaced.[38]

[Footnote 36: Ibid. [Greek: Th]. viii. p. 1050, b. 10. He says, p. 1048, a. 35, that this distinction between Potential and Actual cannot be defined, but can only be illustrated by particular examples, several of which he proceeds to enumerate. Trendelenburg observes (Note **ad Aristot. De Animâ, p. 307):--"[Greek: Du/namis] contraria adhuc in se inclusa tenet, ut in utrumque abire possit: [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] alterum excludit." Compare also ib. p. 302. This _May or May not be_ is the widest and most general sense of the terms [Greek: du/namis] and [Greek: dunato/n], common to all the analogical or derivative applications that Aristotle points out as belonging to them. It is more general than that which he gives as the [Greek: ku/rios o(/ros tê=s prô/tês duna/meôs--a)rchê/ metablêtikê\ e)n a)/llô| ê)\ ê(=| a)/llo], and ought seemingly to be itself considered as the [Greek: ku/rios o(/ros]. Cf. Arist. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. xii. p. 1020, a. 5, with the comment of Bonitz, who remarks upon the loose language of Aristotle in this chapter but imputes to Aristotle a greater amount of contradiction than he seems to deserve (Comm. ad Metaphys. pp. 256, 393).]

[Footnote 37: _Ens potentiâ_ is a variety of _Ens_ (Arist. Metaph. [Greek: D]. vii. p. 1017, b. 6), but an imperfect variety: it is [Greek: o)\n a)tele/s], which may become matured into [Greek: o)\n te/leion, o)\n e)ntelechei/a|] or [Greek: e)nergei/a|] (Metaphys. [Greek: Th]. i. p. 1045, a. 34).

Matter is either remote or proximate, removed either by one stage or several stages from the [Greek: su/nolon] in which it culminates. Strictly speaking, none but proximate matter is said to exist [Greek: duna/mei]. Alexander Schol. (ad Metaph. [Greek: Th]. p. 1049, a. 19) p. 781, b. 39: [Greek: ê( po/r)r(ô u(/lê ou) le/getai duna/mei. ti/ dê/ pote? o(/ti ou) parônumia/zomen ta\ pra/gmata e)k tê=s po/r)r(ô a)ll' e)k tê=s prosechou=s; le/gomen ga\r to\ kibô/tion xu/linon e)k tê=s prosechou=s, a)ll' ou) gê/i+non e)k tê=s po/r)r(ô.]]

[Footnote 38: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: Ê]. i. p. 1042, a. 25, seq. He scarcely makes any distinction here between [Greek: u(/lê] and [Greek: du/namis], or between [Greek: morphê\] and [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] (cf. [Greek: Th]. viii. p. 1050, a. 15).

Alexander in his Commentary on this book ([Greek: Th]. iii. p. 1047, a. 30) p. 542, Bonitz's edit., remarks that [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] is used by Aristotle in a double sense; sometimes meaning [Greek: ki/nêsis pro\s to\ te/los], sometimes meaning the [Greek: te/los] itself. Comp. [Greek: Ê]. iii. p. 1043, a. 32; also the commentary of Bonitz, p. 393.]

Two things are to be remembered respecting Matter, in its Aristotelian (logical or ontological) sense: (1) It may be Body, but it is not necessarily Body;[39] (2) It is only intelligible as the correlate of Form: it can neither exist by itself, nor can it be known by itself (_i.e._, when taken out of that relativity). This deserves notice, because to forget the relativity of a relative word, and to reason upon it as if it were an absolute, is an oversight not unfrequent. Furthermore, each variety of Matter has its appropriate Form, and each variety of Form its appropriate Matter, with which it correlates. There are various stages or gradations of Matter; from _Materia Prima_, which has no Form at all, passing upwards through successive partial developments to _Materia Ultima_; which last is hardly[40] distinguishable from Form or from _Materia Formata_.

[Footnote 39: Aristot. Metaph. Z. xi. p. 1036, a. 8: [Greek: ê( d' u(/lê a)/gnôstos kath' au(tê/n. u(/lê d' ê( me\n ai)sthêtê/, ê( de\ noêtê/; ai)sthêtê\ me\n oi(=on chalko\s kai\ xu/lon kai\ o(/sê kinêtê\ u(/lê, noêtê\ de\ ê( e)n toi=s ai)sthêtoi=s u(pa/rchousa mê\ ê(=| ai)sthêta/, oi(=on ta\ mathêmatika/.]--p. 1035, a. 7.

Physica, III. vi. p. 207, a. 26; De Generat. et Corrupt. I. v. p. 320, b. 14-25.]

[Footnote 40: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 414, a. 25: [Greek: e(ka/stou ga\r ê( e)ntele/cheia e)n tô=| duna/mei u(pa/rchonti kai\ tê=| oi)kei/a| u(/lê pe/phuken e)ggi/nesthai.]--Physica, II. ii. p. 194, b. 8: [Greek: e)/ti tô=n pro/s ti ê( u(/lê; a)/llô| ga\r ei)/dei a)/llê u(/lê.]--Metaph. [Greek: Ê]. vi. p. 1045, b. 17: [Greek: e)/sti d', ô(/sper ei)/rêtai, kai\ ê( e)scha/tê u(/lê kai\ ê( morphê\ tau)to/ kai\ duna/mei, to\ de\ e)nergei/a|.] See upon this doctrine Schwegler's Commentary, pp. 100, 154, 173, 240, Pt. 2nd. Compare also Arist. De Gener. Animal. II. i. p. 735, a. 9; also De Coelo, IV. iii. p. 310, b. 14.]

The distinction above specified is employed by Aristotle in his exposition of the Soul. The soul belongs to the Category of Substance or Essence (not to that of Quantity, Quality, &c.); but of the two points of view under which Essence may be presented, the soul ranks with Form, not with Matter--with the Actual, not with the Potential. The Matter to which (as correlate) soul stands related, is a natural body (_i.e._, a body having within it an inherent principle of motion and rest) organized in a certain way, or fitted out with certain capacities and preparations to which soul is the active and indispensable complement. These capacities would never come into actuality without the soul; but, on the other hand, the range of actualities or functions in the soul depends upon, and is limited by, the range of capacities ready prepared for it in the body. The implication of the two constitutes the living subject, with all its functions, active and passive. If the eye were an animated or living subject, seeing would be its soul; if the carpenter's axe were living, cutting would be its soul;[41] the matter would be the lens or the iron in which this soul is embodied. It is not indispensable, however, that all the functions of the living subject should be at all times in complete exercise: the subject is still living, even while asleep; the eye is still a good eye, though at the moment closed. It is enough if the functional aptitude exist as a dormant property, ready to rise into activity, when the proper occasions present themselves. This minimum of Form suffices to give living efficacy to the potentialities of body; it is enough that a man, though now in a dark night and seeing nothing, will see as soon as the sun rises; or that he knows geometry, though he is not now thinking of a geometrical problem. This dormant possession is what Aristotle calls the First Entelechy or Energy, _i.e._, the lowest stage of Actuality, or the minimum of influence required to transform Potentiality into Actuality. The Aristotelian definition of Soul is thus: The first entelechy of a natural organized body, having life in potentiality.[42] This is all that is essential to the soul; the second or higher entelechy (actual exercise of the faculties) is not a constant or universal property.[43]

[Footnote 41: Aristot. De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, b. 18: [Greek: ei) ga\r ê)=n o( o)phthalmo\s zô|o/n, psuchê\ a)\n ê)=n au)tou= ê( o)/psis; au(/tê ga\r ou)si/a o)phthalmou= ê( kata\ to\n lo/gon. o( d' o)phthalmo\s u(/lê o)/pseôs, ê(=s a)poleipou/sês ou)ke/t' o)phthalmo/s, plê\n o(mônu/môs, katha/per o( li/thinos kai\ o( gegramme/nos.]]

[Footnote 42: Aristot. De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, a. 27: [Greek: dio\ psuchê/ e)stin e)ntele/cheia ê( prô/tê sô/matos phusikou= duna/mei zôê\n e)/chontos; toiou=to de\ o(\ a)\n ê)=| o)rganiko/n.] Compare Metaphysica, Z. x. p. 1035, b. 14-27.]

[Footnote 43: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 414, a. 8-18. The distinction here taken between the first or lower stage of Entelechy, and the second or higher stage, coincides substantially with the distinction in the Nikomachean Ethica and elsewhere between [Greek: e(/xis] and [Greek: e)ne/rgeia]. See Topica, IV. v. p. 125, b. 15; Ethic. Nikom. II. i.-v. p. 1103 seq.]

In this definition of Soul, Aristotle employs his own _Philosophia Prima_ to escape the errors committed by prior philosophers. He does not admit that the soul is a separate entity in itself; or that it is composed (as Empedokles and Demokritus had said) of corporeal elements, or (as Plato had said) of elements partly corporeal, partly logical and notional. He rejects the imaginary virtues of number, invoked by the Pythagoreans and Xenokrates; lastly, he keeps before him not merely man, but all the varieties of animated objects, to which his definition must be adapted. His first capital point is to put aside the alleged identity, or similarity, or sameness of elements, between soul and body; and to put aside equally any separate existence or substantiality of soul. He effects both these purposes by defining them as essentially _relatum_ and correlate; the soul, as the _relatum_, is unintelligible and unmeaning without its correlate, upon which accordingly its definition is declared to be founded.

The real animated subject may be looked at either from the point of view of the _relatum_ or from that of the correlate; but, though the two are thus logically separable, in fact and reality they are inseparably implicated; and, if either of them be withdrawn, the animated subject disappears. "The soul (says Aristotle) is not any variety of body, but it cannot be without a body; it is not a body, but it is something belonging to or related to a body; and for this reason it is in a body, and in a body of such or such potentialities."[44] Soul is to body (we thus read), not as a compound of like elements, nor as a type is to its copy, or _vice versâ_, but as a _relatum_ to its correlate; dependent upon the body for all its acts and manifestations, and bringing to consummation what in the body exists as potentiality only. Soul, however, is better than body; and the animated being is better than the inanimate by reason of its soul.[45]

[Footnote 44: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 414, a. 19: [Greek: kai\ dia\ tou=to kalô=s u(polamba/nousin oi(=s dokei= mêt' a)/neu sô/matos ei)=nai mê/te sô/ma/ ti ê( psuchê/; sô=ma me\n ga\r _ou)k e)/sti, sô/matos de/ ti_, kai\ dia\ tou=to e)n sô/mati u(pa/rchei, kai\ e)n sô/mati toiou/tô|.] Compare Aristot. De Juventute et Senectute, i. p. 467, b. 14.]

[Footnote 45: Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 29.]

The animated subject is thus a form immersed or implicated in matter; and all its actions and passions are so likewise.[46] Each of these has its formal side, as concerns the soul, and its material side, as concerns the body. When a man or animal is angry, for example, this emotion is both a fact of the soul and a fact of the body: in the first of these two characters, it may be defined as an appetite for hurting some one who has hurt us; in the second of the two, it may be defined as an ebullition of the blood and heat round the heart.[47] The emotion, belonging to the animated subject or aggregate of soul and body, is a complex fact having two aspects, logically distinguishable from each other, but each correlating and implying the other. This is true not only in regard to our passions, emotions, and appetites, but also in regard to our perceptions, phantasms, reminiscences, reasonings, efforts of attention in learning, &c. We do not say that the soul weaves or builds (Aristotle observes[48]): we say that the animated subject, the aggregate of soul and body, _the man_, weaves or builds. So we ought also to say, not that the soul feels anger, pity, love, hatred, &c., or that the soul learns, reasons, recollects, &c., but that the man with his soul does these things. The actual movement throughout these processes is not in the soul, but in the body; sometimes going _to_ the soul (as in sensible perception), sometimes proceeding _from_ the soul to the body (as in the case of reminiscence). All these processes are at once corporeal and psychical, pervading the whole animated subject, and having two aspects coincident and inter-dependent, though logically distinguishable. The perfect or imperfect discrimination by the sentient soul depends upon the good or bad condition of the bodily sentient organs; an old man that has become shortsighted would see as well as before, if he could regain his youthful eye. The defects of the soul arise from defects in the bodily organism to which it belongs, as in cases of drunkenness or sickness; and this is not less true of the Noûs, or intellective soul, than of the sentient soul.[49] Intelligence, as well as emotion, are phenomena, not of the bodily organism simply, nor of the Noûs simply, but of the community or partnership of which both are members; and, when intelligence gives way, this is not because the Noûs itself is impaired, but because the partnership is ruined by the failure of the bodily organism.

[Footnote 46: Aristot. De Animâ, I. i. p. 403, a. 25: [Greek: ta\ pa/thê lo/goi e)/nuloi/ ei)sin.] Compare II. p. 412, b. 10-25; p. 413, a. 2.]

[Footnote 47: Ibid. I. i. p. 403, a. 30.]

[Footnote 48: Ibid. iv. p. 408, b. 12. [Greek: to\ de\ le/gein o)rgi/zesthai tê\n psuchê\n o(/moion ka)\n ei)/ tis le/goi tê\n psuchê\n u(phai/nein ê)\ oi)kodomei=n; be/ltion ga\r i)/sôs mê\ le/gein tê\n psuchê\n _e)leei=n ê)\ mantha/nein ê)\ dianoei=sthai_, a)lla\ _to\n a)/nthrôpon_ tê=| psuchê=|; tou=to de\ mê\ ô(s e)n e)kei/nê| tê=s kinê/seôs ou)/sês, a)ll' o(/te me\n me/chri e)kei/nês, o(/te d' a)p' e)kei/nês], &c. Again, b. 30: [Greek: o(/ti me\n ou)=n ou)ch oi(=o/n te kinei=sthai tê\n psuchê/n, phanero\n e)k tou/tôn.]]

[Footnote 49: Ibid. b. 26. Compare a similar doctrine in the Timæus of Plato, p. 86, B.-D.]

Respecting the Noûs (the theorizing Noûs), we must here observe that Aristotle treats it as a separate kind or variety of soul, with several peculiarities. We shall collect presently all that he says upon that subject, which is the most obscure portion of his psychology.

In regard to soul generally, the relative point of view with body as the correlate is constantly insisted on by Aristotle; without such correlate his assertions would have no meaning. But the relation between them is presented in several different ways. The soul is the cause and principle of a living body;[50] by which is meant, not an independent and pre-existent something that brings the body into existence but, an immanent or indwelling influence which sustains the unity and guides the functions of the organism. According to the quadruple classification of Cause recognized by Aristotle--Formal, Material, Movent, and Final--the body furnishes the Material Cause, while the soul comprises all the three others. The soul is (as we have already seen) the Form in relation to the body as Matter, but it is, besides, the Movent, inasmuch as it determines the local displacement as well as all the active functions of the body--nutrition, growth, generation, sensation, &c.; lastly, it is also the Final Cause, since the maintenance and perpetuation of the same Form, in successive individuals, is the standing purpose aimed at by each body in the economy of Nature.[51] Under this diversity of aspect, soul and body are reciprocally integrant and complementary of each other, the real integer (the Living or Animated Body) including both.

[Footnote 50: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 415, b. 7: [Greek: e)/sti d' ê( psuchê\ tou= zô=ntos sô/matos ai)ti/a kai\ a)rchê/; tau=ta de\ pollachô=s le/getai.]]

[Footnote 51: Ibid. b. 1.]

Soul, in the Aristotelian point of view--what is common to all living bodies, comprises several varieties. But these varieties are not represented as forming a genus with co-ordinate species under it, in such manner that the counter-ordinate species, reciprocally excluding each other, are, when taken together, co-extensive with the whole genus; like man and brute in regard to animal. The varieties of soul are distributed into successive stages gradually narrowing in extension and enlarging in comprehension; the first or lowest stage being co-extensive with the whole, but connoting only two or three simple attributes; the second, or next above, connoting all these and more besides, but denoting only part of the individuals denoted by the first; the third connoting all this and more, but denoting yet fewer individuals; and so on forward. Thus the concrete individuals, called living bodies, include all plants as well as all animals; but the soul, called Nutritive by Aristotle, corresponding thereto connotes only nutrition, growth, decay, and generation of another similar individual.[52] In the second stage, plants are left out, but all animals remain: the Sentient soul, belonging to animals, but not belonging to any plants, connotes all the functions and unities of the Nutritive soul, together with sensible perception (at least in its rudest shape) besides.[53] We proceed onward in the same direction, taking in additional faculties--the Movent, Appetitive, Phantastic (Imaginative), Noëtic (Intelligent) soul, and thus diminishing the total of individuals denoted. But each higher variety of soul continues to possess all the faculties of the lower. Thus the Sentient soul cannot exist without comprehending all the faculties of the Nutritive, though the Nutritive exists (in plants) without any admixture of the Sentient. Again, the Sentient soul does not necessarily possess either memory, imagination, or intellect (Noûs); but no soul can be either Imaginative or Noëtic, without being Sentient as well as Nutritive. The Noëtic Soul, as the highest of all, retains in itself all the lower faculties; but these are found to exist apart from it.[54]

[Footnote 52: In the Aristotelian treatise De Plantis, p. 815, b. 16, it is stated that Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Demokritus, all affirmed that plants had both intellect and cognition up to a certain moderate point. We do not cite this treatise as the composition of Aristotle, but it is reasonably good evidence in reference to the doctrine of those other philosophers.]

[Footnote 53: Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 411, b. 28.]

[Footnote 54: Ibid. II. ii. p. 413, a. 25-30, b. 32; iii. p. 414, b. 29; p. 415, a. 10.]

We may remark here that the psychological classification of Aristotle proceeds in the inverse direction to that of Plato. In the Platonic Timæus we begin with the grand soul of the Kosmos, and are conducted by successive steps of degradation to men, animals, plants; while Aristotle lays his foundation in the largest, most multiplied, and lowest range of individuals, carrying us by successive increase of conditions to the fewer and the higher.

The lowest or Nutritive soul, in spite of the small number of conditions involved in it, is the indispensable basis whereon all the others depend. None of the other souls can exist apart from it.[55] It is the first constituent of the living individual--the implication of Form with Matter in a natural body suitably organized; it is the preservative of the life of the individual, with its aggregate of functions and faculties, and with the proper limits of size and shape that characterize the species;[56] it is, moreover, the preservative of perpetuity to the species, inasmuch as it prompts and enables each individual to generate and leave behind a successor like himself; which is the only way that an individual can obtain quasi-immortality, though all aspire to become immortal.[57] This lowest soul is the primary cause of digestion and nutrition. It is cognate with the celestial heat, which is essential also as a co-operative cause; accordingly, all animated bodies possess an inherent natural heat.[58]

[Footnote 55: Ibid. iv. p. 415, a. 25: [Greek: prô/tê kai\ koinota/tê du/nami/s e)sti psuchê=s, kath' ê(\n u(pa/rchei to\ zê=n a(/pasin.]--p. 415, b. 8: [Greek: tou= zô=ntos sô/matos ai)ti/a kai\ a)rchê/].--III. xii. p. 434, a. 22-30, b. 24. Aristot. De Respiratione, viii. p. 474, a. 30, b. 11.]

[Footnote 56: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 416, a. 17.]

[Footnote 57: Ibid. p. 415, b. 2; p. 416, b. 23: [Greek: e)pei\ d' a)po\ tou= te/lous a(/panta prosagoreu/ein di/kaion, te/los de\ to\ gennê=sai oi(=on au)to/, a)\n ê( prô/tê psuchê\ gennêtikê\ oi(=on au)to/.] Also De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 33.]

[Footnote 58: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 416, a. 10-18, b. 29.]

We advance upwards now from the nutritive soul to that higher soul which is at once nutritive and Sentient; for Aristotle does not follow the example of Plato in recognizing three souls to one body, but assigns only one and the same soul, though with multiplied faculties and functions, to one and the same body. Sensible perception, with its accompaniments, forms the characteristic privilege of the animal as contrasted with the plant.[59] Sensible perception admits of many diversities, from the simplest and rudest tactile sensation, which even the lowest animals cannot be without, to the full equipment of five senses which Aristotle declares to be a maximum not susceptible of increase.[60] But the sentient faculty, even in its lowest stage, indicates a remarkable exaltation of the soul in its character of form. The soul, _quâ_ sentient and percipient, receives the form of the _perceptum_ without the matter; whereas the nutritive soul cannot disconnect the two, but receives and appropriates the nutrient substance, form and matter in one and combined.[61] Aristotle illustrates this characteristic feature of sensible perception by recurring to his former example of the wax and the figure. Just as wax receives from a signet the impression engraven thereon, whether the matter of the signet be iron, gold, stone, or wood; as the impression stamped has no regard to the matter, but reproduces only the figure engraven on the signet, the wax being merely potential and undefined, until the signet comes to convert it into something actual and definite;[62] so the percipient faculty in man is impressed by the substances in nature, not according to the matter of each but, according to the qualitative form of each. Such passive receptivity is the first and lowest form of sensation,[63] not having any magnitude in itself, but residing in bodily organs which have magnitude, and separable from them only by logical abstraction. It is a potentiality, correlating with, and in due proportion to, the exterior _percipibile_, which, when acting upon it, brings it into full actuality. The actuality of both (_percipiens_ and _perceptum_) is one and the same, and cannot be disjoined in fact, though the potentialities of the two are distinct yet correlative; the _percipiens_ is not like the _percipibile_ originally, but becomes like it by being thus actualized.[64]

[Footnote 59: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 436, b. 12. He considers sponges to have some sensation (Hist. Animal. I. i. p. 487, b. 9).]

[Footnote 60: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iii. p. 414, b. 2; p. 415, a. 3; III. i. p. 424, b. 22; xiii. p. 435, b. 15.]

[Footnote 61: Ibid. II. xii. p. 424, a. 32-b. 4: [Greek: dia\ ti/ pote ta\ phuta\ ou)k ai)stha/netai, e)/chonta/ ti mo/rion psuchiko\n kai\ pa/schonta/ ti u(po\ tô=n a(ptô=n? kai\ ga\r psu/chetai kai\ thermai/netai; ai)/tion ga\r to\ mê\ e)/chein meso/têta, mêde\ toiau/tên a)rchê\n oi(/an ta\ ei)/dê de/chesthai tô=n ai)sthêtô=n, a)lla\ pa/schein meta\ tê=s u(/lês.]

Themistius ad loc. p. 144, ed. Spengel: [Greek: pa/schei (ta\ phuta/) suneisiou/sês tê=s u(/lês tou= poiou=ntos], &c.]

[Footnote 62: Aristot. De Animâ, II. xii. p. 424, a. 19.]

[Footnote 63: Ibid. a. 24: [Greek: ai)sthêtê/rion de\ prô=ton e)n ô(=| ê( toiau/tê du/namis], &c.--III. xii. p. 434, a. 29.]

[Footnote 64: Ibid. III. ii. p. 425, b. 25: [Greek: ê( de\ tou= ai)sthêtou= e)ne/rgeia kai\ tê=s ai)sthê/seôs ê( au)tê\ me/n e)sti kai\ mi/a, to\ d' ei)=nai ou) tau)to\n au)tai=s.]--II. v. p. 418, a. 3: [Greek: to\ d' ai)sthêtiko\n duna/mei e)sti\n oi(=on to\ ai)sthêto\n ê)/dê e)ntelechei/a|,--pa/schei me\n ou)=n ou)ch o(/moion o)/n, pepontho\s d' ô(moi/ôtai kai\ e)/stin oi(=on e)kei=no.] Also p. 417, a. 7, 14, 20.

There were conflicting doctrines current in Aristotle's time: some said that, for an agent to act upon a patient, there must be _likeness_ between the two; others said that there must be _unlikeness_. Aristotle dissents from both, and adopts a sort of intermediate doctrine.]

The sentient soul is communicated by the male parent in the act of generation,[65] and is complete from the moment of birth, not requiring a process of teaching after birth; the sentient subject becomes at once and instantly, in regard to sense, on a level with one that has attained a certain actuality of cognition, but is not at the moment reflecting upon the _cognitum_. Potentiality and Actuality are in fact distinguishable into lower and higher degrees; the Potential that has been actualized in a first or lower stage, is still a Potential relatively to higher stages of Actuality.[66] The Potential may be acted upon in two opposite ways; either by deadening and extinguishing it, or by developing and carrying it forward to realization. The sentient soul, when asleep or inert, requires a cause to stimulate it into actual seeing or hearing; the noëtic or cognizant soul, under like circumstances, must also be stimulated into actual meditation on its _cognitum_. But there is this difference between the two. The sentient soul communes with particulars; the noëtic soul with universals. The sentient soul derives its stimulus from without, and from some of the individual objects, tangible, visible, or audible; but the noëtic soul is put into action by the abstract and universal, which is in a certain sense _within_ the soul itself; so that a man can at any time meditate on what he pleases, but he cannot see or hear what he pleases, or anything except such visible or audible objects as are at hand.[67]

[Footnote 65: Aristot. De Gener. Animal. II. v. p. 741, a. 13, b. 7; De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 17.]

[Footnote 66: Aristot. De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 18-32. See above, p. 457, note a.

The extent of Potentiality, or the partial Actuality, which Aristotle claims for the sentient soul even at birth, deserves to be kept in mind; we shall contrast it presently with what he says about the Noûs.]

[Footnote 67: Aristot. De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 22: [Greek: ai)/tion de\ o(/ti, tô=n kath' e(/kaston ê( kat' e)ne/rgeian ai)/sthêsis, ê( d' e)pistê/mê tô=n katho/lou; tau=ta d' e)n au)tê=| pô/s e)sti tê=| psuchê=|.] III. iii. p. 427, b. 18.]