Chapter XII: De Animâ, Etc (2)

We have already remarked, that in many animals the sentient soul is little developed; being confined in some to the sense of touch (which can never be wanting),[68] and in others to touch and taste. But even this minimum of sense--though small, if compared with the variety of senses in man--is a prodigious step in advance of plants; it comprises a certain cognition, and within its own sphere it is always critical, comparing, discriminative.[69] The sentient soul possesses this discriminative faculty in common with the noëtic soul or Intelligence, though applied to different objects and purposes; and possesses such faculty, because it is itself a mean or middle term between the two sensible extremes of which it takes cognizance,--hot and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, white and black, acute and grave, bitter and sweet, light and darkness, visible and invisible, tangible and intangible, &c. We feel no sensation at all when the object touched is exactly of the same temperature with ourselves, neither hotter nor colder; the sentient soul, being a mean between the two extremes, is stimulated to assimilate itself for the time to either of them, according as it is acted upon from without. It thus makes comparison of each with the other, and of both with its own mean.[70] Lastly, the sentient faculty in the soul is really one and indivisible, though distinguishable logically or by abstraction into different genera and species.[71] Of that faculty the central physical organ is the heart, which contains the congenital or animal spirit. The Aristotelian psychology is here remarkable, affirming as it does the essential relativity of all phenomena of sense to the appreciative condition of the sentient; as well as the constant implication of intellectual and discriminative comparison among them.

[Footnote 68: Ibid. III. xii. p. 434, b. 23: [Greek: phanero\n o(/ti ou)ch oi(=o/n te a)/neu a(phê=s ei)=nai zô=|on.]]

[Footnote 69: Ibid. ix. p. 432, a. 16: [Greek: tô=| kritikô=|, o(\ dianoi/as e)/rgon e)sti\ kai\ ai)sthê/seôs.]--III. iii. p. 427, a. 20; p. 426, b. 10-15. De Generat. Animal. I. xxiii. p. 731, a. 30-b. 5; De Somno et Vigil. i. p. 458**, b. 2. The sentient faculty is called [Greek: du/namin su/mphuton kritikê/n] in Analyt. Poster. II. xix. p. 99, b. 35.]

[Footnote 70: Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, a. 20; ix. p. 421, b. 4-11; xi. p. 424, a. 5: [Greek: kai\ dia\ tou=to kri/nei ta\ ai)sthêta/--to\ ga\r me/son kritiko/n]. III. vii. p. 431, a. 10: [Greek: e)/sti to\ ê(/desthai kai\ lupei=sthai to\ e)nergei=n tê=| ai)sthêtikê=| meso/têti pro\s to\ a)gatho\n ê)\ kako/n, ê(=| toiau=ta.] III. xiii. p. 435, a. 21.

He remarks that plants have no similar [Greek: meso/tês]--II. xii. p. 424, b. 1.]

[Footnote 71: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 449, a. 8, 17. De Motu Animal. x. p. 703, a. 15. De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a. 15, 21, 35; p. 456, a. 5. De Juventute et Senect. p. 467, b. 27; p. 469, a. 4-12.]

All the objects generating sensible perception, are magnitudes.[72] Some perceptions are peculiar to one sense alone, as colour to the eye, &c. Upon these we never make mistakes directly; in other words, we always judge rightly what is the colour or what is the sound, though we are often deceived in judging what the thing coloured is, or where the sonorous object is.[73] There are, however, some perceivables not peculiar to any one sense alone, but appreciable by two or more; though chiefly and best by the sense of vision; such are motion, rest, number, figure, magnitude. Here the appreciation becomes less accurate, yet it is still made directly by sense.[74] But there are yet other matters that, though not directly affecting sense, are perceived indirectly, or by way of accompaniment to what is directly perceived. Thus we see a white object; nothing else affecting our sense **except its whiteness. Beyond this, however, we judge and declare, that the object so seen is the son of Kleon. This is a judgment obtained indirectly, or by way of accompaniment; by _accident_, so to speak, inasmuch as the same does not accompany all sensations of white. It is here that we are most liable to error.[75]

[Footnote 72: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 449, a. 20: [Greek: to\ ai)sthêto\n pa=n e)sti\ me/gethos.]]

[Footnote 73: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vi. p. 418, a. 10-16.]

[Footnote 74: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 437, a. 8; iv. p. 442, b. 4-12. He says in this last passage, that the common perceivables are appreciable _at least by both sight and touch_--if not by all the senses.]

[Footnote 75: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vi. p. 418, a. 7-25: [Greek: le/getai de\ to\ ai)sthêto\n trichô=s, ô(=n du/o me\n kath' au(ta/ phamen ai)stha/nesthai, to\ de\ e(\n kata\ sumbebêko/s.] Also, III. i. p. 425, b. 24; iii. p. 428, b. 18-25.]

Among the five senses, Aristotle distinguishes two as operating by direct contact between subject and object (touch, taste); three as operating through an external intervening medium (vision, smell, taste). He begins with Vision, which he regards as possessing most completely the nature and characteristics of a sense.[76] The direct and proper object of vision is colour. Now colour operates upon the eye not immediately (for, if the coloured object be placed in contact with the eye, there will be no vision), but by causing movements or perturbations in the external intervening medium, air or water, which affect the sense through an appropriate agency of their own.[77] This agency is, according to Aristotle, the Diaphanous or Transparent. When actual or in energy, the transparent is called light; when potential or in capacity only, it is called darkness. The eye is of watery structure, apt for receiving these impressions.[78] It is the presence either of fire, or of something analogous to the celestial body, that calls forth the diaphanous from the state of potentiality into that of actuality or light; in which latter condition it is stimulated by colour. The diaphanous, whether as light or as darkness, is a peculiar nature or accompaniment, not substantive in itself, but inherent chiefly in the First or Celestial Body, yet also in air, water, glass, precious stones, and in all bodies to a greater or less degree.[79] The diaphanous passes at once and simultaneously, in one place as well as in another, from potentiality to actuality--from darkness to light. Light does not take time to travel from one place to another, as sound and smell do.[80] The diaphanous is not a body, nor effluvium from a body, nor any one of the elements: it is of an adjective character--a certain agency or attribute pervading or belonging to bodies, along with their extension.[81] Colour marks and defines the surface of the body _quâ_ diaphanous, as figure defines it _quâ_ extended. Colour makes the diaphanous itself visible, and its own varieties visible through the diaphanous. Air and water are transparent throughout, though with an ill-defined superficial colour. White and black, as colours in solid bodies, correspond to the condition of light or darkness in air. There are some luminous objects visible in the dark, as fire, fungous matter, eyes, and scales of fish, &c., though they have no appropriate colour.[82] There are seven species or varieties of colours, but all of them proceed from white and black, blended in different proportions, or seen one through another; white and black are the two extremes, the other varieties being intermediate between them.

[Footnote 76: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 429, a. 2: [Greek: ê( o)/psis ma/lista ai)sthêsi/s e)stin.] Also Metaphysica, A. init.]

[Footnote 77: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 12, 14, 19; Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, iii. p. 440, a. 18: [Greek: ô(/st' eu)thu\s krei=tton pha/nai, tô=| kinei=sthai to\ metaxu\ tê=s ai)sthê/seôs u(po\ tou= ai)sthêtou= gi/nesthai tê\n ai)/sthêsin, a(phê=| kai\ mê\ tai=s a)por)r(oi/ais.]--Ib. ii. p. 438, b. 3: [Greek: ei)/te phô=s ei)/t' a)ê/r e)sti to\ metaxu\ tou= o(rôme/nou kai\ tou= o)/mmatos, ê( dia\ tou/tou ki/nêsi/s e)stin ê( poiou=sa to\ o(ra=n.]]

[Footnote 78: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 9: [Greek: tou=to ga\r ê)=n au)tô=| to\ chrô/mati ei)=nai, to\ kinêtikô=| ei)=nai tou= kat' e)ne/rgeian diaphanou=s phô=s e)sti/n.]--Ib. ii. p. 418, b. 11-17: [Greek: o(/tan ê)=| e)ntelechei/a| diaphane\s u(po\ puro\s ê)\ toiou/tou oi(=on to\ a)/nô sô=ma;--puro\s ê)\ toiou/tou tino\s parousi/a e)n tô=| diaphanei=.]]

[Footnote 79: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 418, b. 4. De Sensu et Sensili, ii. p. 438, a. 14, b. 7; iii. p. 439, a. 21, seq.: [Greek: o(\ de\ le/gomen diaphane/s, ou)k e)/stin i)/dion a)e/ros ê)\ u(/datos, ou)d' a)/llou tô=n ou(/tô legome/nôn sôma/tôn, a)lla/ ti/s e)sti\ koinê\ phu/sis kai\ du/namis, ê(\ chôristê\ me\n ou)k e)/stin, e)n tou/tois d' e)sti/, kai\ toi=s a)/llois sô/masin e)nupa/rchei, toi=s me\n ma=llon toi=s d' ê(=tton.]]

[Footnote 80: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vi. p. 446, a. 23, seq., b. 27: [Greek: tô=| ei)=nai ga/r ti phô=s e)sti/n, a)ll' ou) ki/nêsi/s tis.] Empedokles affirmed that light travelling from the Sun reached the intervening space before it came to the earth; Aristotle contradicts him.]

[Footnote 81: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 418, b. 18: [Greek: e)/sti de\ to\ sko/tos ste/rêsis tê=s toiau/tês e(/xeôs e)k diaphanou=s, ô(/ste dê=lon o(/ti kai\ ê( _tou/tou parousi/a_ phô=s e)sti/n.]--Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, iii. p. 439, a. 26: [Greek: ê( me\n ou)=n tou= phôto\s phu/sis e)n ao)ri/stô| tô=| diaphanei= e)sti/n; tou= d' e)n toi=s sô/masi diaphanou=s to\ e)/schaton, o(/ti me\n ei)/ê a)/n ti, dê=lon; o(/ti de\ tou=to e)sti\ to\ chrô=ma, e)/k tô=n sumbaino/ntôn phanero/n.--e)/sti me\n ga\r e)n tô=| tou= sô/matos pe/rati, a)ll' ou)/ ti to\ tou= sô/matos pe/ras, a)lla\ tê\n au)tê\n phu/sin dei= nomi/zein, ê(/per kai\ e)/xô chrômati/zetai, tau/tên kai\ e)nto/s.]]

[Footnote 82: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 2-25; Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, iv. p. 442, a. 20,--seven colours.]

The same necessity for an intervening medium external to the subject, as in the case of vision, prevails also in the senses of hearing and smell. If the audible or odorous object be placed in contact with its organ of sense, there will be no hearing or smell. Whenever we hear or smell any object, there must be interposed between us and the object a suitable medium that shall be affected first; while the organ of sense will be affected secondarily through that medium. Air is the medium in regard to sound, both air and water in regard to smell; but there seems besides (analogous to the transparent in regard to vision) a special agency called the Trans-Sonant, which pervades air and enables it to transmit sound; and certainly another special agency called the Trans-Olfacient, which pervades both air and water, and enables them to transmit smell.[83] (It seems thus that something like a luminiferous ether--extended, mobile, and permeating bodies, yet still incorporeal in itself--was an hypothesis as old as Aristotle; and one other ether besides, analogous in property and purpose--an odoriferous ether; perhaps a third or soniferous ether, but this is less distinctly specified by Aristotle.)

[Footnote 83: Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 25-35; De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 442, b. 30; Themistius ad Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii., viii. p. 115, Spengel. Of the three names, [Greek: to\ diaphane/s--to\ diêche/s--to\ di/osmon], the last two are not distinctly stated by Aristotle, but are said to have been first applied by Theophrastus after him. See the notes of Trendelenburg and Torstrick; the latter supposes Themistius to have had before him a fuller and better text of Aristotle than that which we now possess, which seems corrupt. In our present text, the transparent as well as the trans-olfacient ether are clearly indicated, the trans-sonant not clearly.]

Sound, according to Aristotle, arises from the shock of two or more solid bodies communicated to the air. It implies local movement in one at least of those bodies. Many soft bodies are incapable of making sound; those best suited for it are such as metals, hard in structure, smooth in surface, hollow in shape. The blow must be smart and quick, otherwise the air slips away and dissipates itself before the sound can be communicated to it.[84] Sound is communicated through the air to the organ of hearing; the air is one _continuum_ (not composed of adjacent particles with interspaces), and a wave is propagated from it to the internal ear, which contains some air enclosed in the sinuous ducts within the membrane of the tympanum, congenitally attached to the organ itself, and endued with a certain animation.[85] This internal air within the ear, excited by the motion propagated from the external ear, causes hearing. The ear is enabled to appreciate accurately the movements of the external air, because it has itself little or no movement within. We cannot hear with any other part of the body; because it is only in the ear that nature has given us this stock of internal air. If water gets into the ear, we cannot hear at all; because the wave generated in the air without, cannot propagate itself within. Nor can we hear, if the membrane of the ear be disordered; any more than we can see, when the membrane of the eye is disordered.[86]

[Footnote 84: Aristot. De Animâ, **II. viii. p. 419, b. 4 seq. He calls air [Greek: psathuro/s, eu)/thruptos] (p. 420, a. 1-8),--[Greek: eu)diai/retos, eu)o/listhos] (Themistius, pp. 116, 117, Sp.)--"quod facilé diffluit" (Trendelenburg, Comm. p. 384). He says that for sonorous purposes air ought to be [Greek: a)throu=n]--compact or dense: sound reverberates best from metals with smooth surface, p. 420, a. 25.]

[Footnote 85: Aristot. De Animâ, II. viii. p. 419, b. 34 seq.: [Greek: ou(=tos d' (o( a)ê\r) e)sti\n o( poiô=n a)kou/ein, o(/tan kinêthê=| sunechê\s kai\ ei(=s;--psophêtiko\n me\n ou)=n to\ kinêtiko\n e(no\s a)e/ros sunechei/a| me/chris a)koê=s. a)koê=| de\ sumphuê\s a)ê/r; dia\ de\ to\ e)n a)e/ri ei)=nai, kinoume/nou tou= e)/xô to\ ei)/sô kinei=. dio/per ou) pa/ntê| to\ zô=|on a)kou/ei, ou)de\ pa/ntê| die/rchetai o( a)ê/r; ou) ga\r pa/ntê| e)/chei a)e/ra to\ kinêso/menon me/ros kai\ e)/mpsuchon.--dia\ ta\s e(/likas] (p. 420, a. 13).

The text of this passage is not satisfactory. It has been much criticised as well as amended by Torstrick; see his Comment. p. 148 seq. I cannot approve his alteration of [Greek: e)/mpsuchon] into [Greek: e)/mpsophon].]

[Footnote 86: Aristot. De Animâ, II. viii. p. 420, a. 9: [Greek: o( d' e)n toi=s ô)si\n e)gkatô|kodo/mêtai pro\s to\ a)ki/nêtos ei)=nai, o(/pôs a)kribô=s ai)stha/nêtai pa/sas ta\s diaphora\s tê=s kinê/seôs.]--p. 420, a. 14. [Greek: ou)d' (a)kou/omen) a)\n ê( mê/nigx ka/mê|, ô(/sper to\ e)pi\ tê=| ko/rê| de/rma o(/tan ka/mê|.]]

Voice is a kind of sound peculiar to animated beings; yet not belonging to all of them, but only to those that inspire the air. Nature employs respiration for two purposes: the first, indispensable to animal life,--that of cooling and tempering the excessive heat of the heart and its adjacent parts; the second, not indispensable to life, yet most valuable to the higher faculties of man,--significant speech. The organ of respiration is the larynx; a man cannot speak either when inspiring or expiring, but only when retaining and using the breath within. The soul in those parts, when guided by some phantasm or thought, impels the air within against the walls of the trachea, and this shock causes vocal sounds.[87]

[Footnote 87: Aristot. De Animâ, II. viii. p. 420, b. 5-p. 421, a. 6. [Greek: ô(/ste ê( plêgê\ tou= a)napneome/nou a)e/ros u(po\ tê=s e)n tou/tois toi=s mori/ois psuchê=s pro\s tê\n kaloume/nên a)rtêri/an phônê/ e)stin. ou) ga\r pa=s zô/|ou pso/phos phônê/, katha/per ei)/pomen (e)/sti ga\r kai\ tê=| glô/ttê| psophei=n kai\ ô(s oi( bê/ttontes) a)lla\ dei= e)/mpsucho/n te ei)=nai to\ tu/pton kai\ meta\ phantasi/as tino/s; sêmantiko\s ga\r dê/ tis pso/phos e)sti\n ê( phônê/; kai\ ou) tou= a)napneome/nou a)e/ros, ô(/sper ê( bê/x, a)lla\ tou/tô| tu/ptei to\n e)n tê=| a)rtêri/a| pro\s au)tê/n.]]

Aristotle seems to have been tolerably satisfied with the above explanation of sight and hearing; for, in approaching the sense of Smell with the olfacients, he begins by saying that it is less definable and explicable. Among the five senses, smell stands intermediate between the two (taste and touch) that operate by direct contact, and the other two (sight and hearing) that operate through an external medium. Man is below other animals in this sense; he discriminates little in smells except the pleasurable and the painful.[88] His taste, though analogous in many points to smell, is far more accurate and discriminating, because taste is a variety of touch; and in respect to touch, man is the most discriminating of all animals. Hence his great superiority to them in practical wisdom. Indeed the marked difference of intelligence between one man and another, turns mainly upon the organ of touch: men of hard flesh (or skin) are by nature dull in intelligence, men of soft flesh are apt and clever.[89] The classifying names of different smells are borrowed from the names of the analogous tastes to which they are analogous--sweet, bitter, tart, dry, sharp, smooth, &c.[90] Smells take effect through air as well as through water; by means of a peculiar agency or accompaniment (mentioned above, called the Trans-Olfacient) pervading both one and the other. It is peculiar to man that he cannot smell except when inhaling air in the act of inspiration; any one may settle this for himself by making the trial.[91] But fishes and other aquatic animals, which never inhale air, can smell in the water; and this proves that the trans-olfacient agency is operative to transmit odours not less in water than in air.[92] We know that the sense of smell in these aquatic animals is the same as it is in man, because the same strong odours that are destructive to man are also destructive to them.[93] Smell is the parallel, and in a certain sense the antithesis of taste; smell is of the dry, taste is of the moist: the olfactory matter is a juicy or sapid dryness, extracted or washed out from both air and water by the trans-olfacient agency, and acting on the sensory potentialities of the nostrils.[94] This olfactory inhalation is warm as well as dry. Hence it is light, and rises easily to the brain, the moisture and coldness of which it contributes to temper; this is a very salutary process, for the brain is the wettest and coldest part of the body, requiring warm and dry influences as a corrective. It is with a view to this correction that Nature has placed the olfactory organ in such close proximity to the brain.[95] There are two kinds of olfactory impressions. One of them is akin to the sense of taste--odour and savour going together--an affection (to a great degree) of the nutritive soul; so that the same odour is agreeable when we are hungry, disagreeable when our hunger is fully satisfied. This first kind of impression is common to men with other animals; but there is a second, peculiar to man, and disconnected from the sense of taste, viz., the scent of flowers, unguents, &c., which are agreeable or disagreeable constantly and _per se_.[96] Nature has assigned this second kind of odours as a privilege to man, because his brain, being so large and moist, requires to be tempered by an additional stock of drying and warming olfactory influence.

[Footnote 88: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 7. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 445, a. 6; iv. p. 441, a. 1. De Partibus Animal. II. xii. p. 656, a. 31; p. 657, a. 9.]

[Footnote 89: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 21: [Greek: kata\ de\ tê\n a(phê\n pollô=| tô=n a)/llôn zô/|ôn diaphero/ntôs a)kriboi= (o( a)/nthrôpos). dio\ kai\ phronimô/tato/n e)sti tô=n zô/|ôn. sêmei=on de\ to\ kai\ e)n tô=| ge/nei tô=n a)nthrô/pôn para\ to\ ai)sthêtê/rion tou=to ei)=nai eu)phuei=s kai\ a)phuei=s, _par' a)/llo de\ mêde/n_; oi( me\n ga\r sklêro/sarkoi a)phuei=s tê\n dia/noian, oi( de\ malako/sarkoi eu)phuei=s.]]

[Footnote 90: Ibid. a. 26.]

[Footnote 91: Ibid. b. 9-19. [Greek: to\ a)/neu tou= a)napnei=n mê\ ai)stha/nesthai _i)/dion_ e)pi\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn; dê=lon de\ peirôme/nois.] He seems to think that this is not true of any animal other than man.]

[Footnote 92: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 443, a. 3-31; p. 444, b. 9.]

[Footnote 93: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, b. 23. He instances brimstone, [Greek: a)/sphaltos], &c.]

[Footnote 94: This is difficult to understand, but it seems to be what Aristotle here means.--De Animâ, II. ix. p. 422, a. 6: [Greek: e)/sti d' ê( o)smê\ tou\ xêrou=, ô(/sper o( chumo\s tou= u(grou=; to\ d' o)sphrantiko\n ai)sthêtê/rion duna/mei toiou=ton.]--De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 443, a. 1-9: [Greek: e)/sti d' o)sphranto\n ou)ch ê(=| diaphane/s, a)ll' ê)=| pluntiko\n ê)\ r(uptiko\n e)gchu/mou xêro/têtos;--ê( e)n u(grô=| tou= e)gchu/mou xêrou= phu/sis o)smê/, kai\ o)sphranto\n to\ pa/thos, dê=lon e)k tô=n e)cho/ntôn kai\ mê\ e)cho/ntôn o)smê/n], &c. Also p. 443, b. 3-7.

In the treatise De Sensu et Sensili, there is one passage (ii. p. 438, b. 24), wherein Aristotle affirms that smell is [Greek: kapnô/dês a)nathumi/asis, e)k puro/s]; but we also find a subsequent passage (v. p. 443, a. 21, seq.) where he cites that same doctrine as the opinion of others, but distinctly refutes it.]

[Footnote 95: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 444, a. 10, 22, 24: [Greek: ê( ga\r tê=s o)smê=s du/namis thermê\ tê\n phu/sin e)sti/n.]]

[Footnote 96: Ibid. p. 443, b. 17; p. 444, a. 6. 15, 28: [Greek: i)/dion de\ tê=s tou= a)nthrô/pou phu/seô/s e)sti to\ tê=s o)smê=s tê=s toiau/tês ge/nos dia\ to\ plei=ston e)gke/phalon kai\ u(gro/taton e)/chein tô=n zô/|ôn ô(s kata\ me/gethos.]

Plato also reckons the pleasures of smell among the pure and admissible pleasures (Philebus, p. 51, E.; Timæus, p. 65, A., p. 67, A.).]

Taste is a variety of touch, and belongs to the lower or nutritive soul, as a guide to the animal in seeking or avoiding different sorts of food. The object of taste is essentially liquid, often strained and extracted from dry food by warmth and moisture. The primary manifestation of this sensory phenomenon is the contrast of drinkable and undrinkable.[97] The organ of taste, the tongue, is a mean between dryness and moisture; when either of these is in excess, the organ is disordered. Among the varieties of taste, there are two fundamental contraries (as in colour, sound, and the objects of the other senses except touch) from which the other contrasts are derived. These fundamentals in taste are sweet and bitter; corresponding to white and black, acute and grave, in colours and sounds. The sense of taste is potentially sweet or bitter; the gustable object is what makes it sweet or bitter in actuality.[98]

[Footnote 97: Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, a. 30-33. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 436, b. 15; iv. p. 441, b. 17: [Greek: dia\ tou= xêrou= kai\ geô/dous diêthou=sa (ê( phu/sis) kai\ kinou=sa tô=| thermô=| poio/n ti to\ u(gro\n paraskeua/zei. kai\ e)/sti tou=to chumo\s to\ gigno/menon u(po\ tou= ei)rême/nou xêrou= pa/thos e)n tô=| u(grô=|.]--Ib. b. 24: [Greek: ou) panto\s xêrou= a)lla\ tou= trophi/mou].]

[Footnote 98: Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, b. 5-16; II. xi. p. 422, b. 23: [Greek: pa=sa/ te ga\r ai)/sthêsis mia=s e)nantiô/seôs ei)=nai dokei=], &c.]

The sense of touch, in which man surpasses all other animals, differs from the other senses by not having any two fundamental contraries giving origin to the rest, but by having various contraries alike fundamental. It is thus hardly one sense, but an aggregate of several senses. It appreciates the elementary differences of body _quâ_ body--hot, cold, dry, moist, hard, soft, &c. It is a mean between each of these two extremes; being potentially either one of them, and capable of being made to assimilate itself actually to either.[99] In this sense, the tangible object operates when in contact with the skin; and, as has been already said, much of the superiority of man depends upon his superior fineness and delicacy of skin.[100] Still Aristotle remarks that the true organ of touch is not the skin or flesh, but something interior to the flesh. This last serves only as a peculiar medium. The fact that the sensation arises when the object touches our skin, does not prove that the skin is the true organ; for, if there existed a thin exterior membrane surrounding our bodies, we should still feel the same sensation. Moreover, the body is not in real contact with our skin, though it appears to be so; there is a thin film of air between the two, though we do not perceive it; just as, when we touch an object under water, there is a film of water interposed between, as is seen by the wetness of the finger.[101] The skin is, therefore, not the true organ of touch, but a medium between the object and the organ; and this sense does in reality agree with the other senses in having a certain medium interposed between object and organ. But there is this difference: in touch the medium is close to and a part of ourselves; in sight and hearing it is exterior to ourselves, and may extend to some distance. In sight and hearing the object does not affect us directly; it affects the external medium, which again affects us. But in touch the object affects, at the same time and by the same influence, both the medium and the interior organ; like a spear that, with the same thrust, pierces the warrior's shield and wounds the warrior himself.[102] Apparently, therefore, the true organ of touch is something interior, and skin and flesh is an interposed medium.[103] But what this interior organ is, Aristotle does not more particularly declare. He merely states it to be in close and intimate communication with the great central focus and principle of all sensation--the heart;[104] more closely connected with the heart (he appears to think) than any of the other organs of sense, though all of them are so connected more or less closely.

[Footnote 99: Ibid. xi. p. 422, b. 17 seq.]

[Footnote 100: Aristot. Histor. Animal. I. xv. p. 494, b. 17. Man is [Greek: leptodermo/tatos tô=n zô=|ôn] (Aristot. De Partib. Animal. ii. p. 657, b. 2), and has the tongue also looser and softer than any of them, most fit for variety of touch (p. 660, a. 20) as well as for articulate speech.]

[Footnote 101: Aristot. De Animâ, II. xi. p. 423, a. 25-32.]

[Footnote 102: Ibid. p. 423, b. 12-17: [Greek: diaphe/rei to\ a(pto\n tô=n o(ratô=n kai\ tô=n psophêtikô=n o(/ti e)kei/nôn me\n ai)sthano/metha tô=| to\ metaxu\ poiei=n ti ê(ma=s, tô=n de\ a(ptô=n ou)ch u(po\ tou= metaxu\ a)ll' a(/ma tô=| metaxu/, ô(/sper o( di' a)spi/dos plêgei/s; ou) ga\r ê( a)spi\s plêgei=sa e)pa/taxen, a)ll' a(/m' a)/mphô sune/bê plêgê=nai.]

This analogy of the warrior pierced at the same time with his shield illustrates Aristotle's view of the eighth Category--_Habere_: of which he gives [Greek: ô(/plistai] as the example. He considers a man's clothes and defensive weapons as standing in a peculiar relation to him like a personal appurtenance and almost as a part of himself. It is under this point of view that he erects _Habere_ into a distinct Category.]

[Footnote 103: Aristot. De Animâ, II. xi. p. 423, b. 22-26: [Greek: ê(=| kai\ dê=lon o(/ti e)nto\s to\ tou= a(ptou= ai)sthêtiko/n.--to\ metaxu\ tou= a(ptikou= ê( sa/rx.]]

[Footnote 104: Aristot. De Partibus Animal. II. x. p. 656, a. 30; De Vitâ et Morte, iii. p. 469, a. 12: De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a. 23; De Sensu et Sensili, ii. p. 439, a. 2.]

Having gone through the five senses _seriatim_, Aristotle offers various reasons to prove that there neither are, nor can be, more than five; and then discusses some complicated phenomena of sense. We perceive _that_ we see or hear;[105] do we perceive this by sight or by hearing? and if not, by what other faculty?[106] Aristotle replies by saying that the act of sense is one and the same, but that it may be looked at in two different points of view. We see a coloured object; we hear a sound: in each case the act of sense is one; the energy or actuality of the _visum_, and _videns_, of the _sonans_ and _audiens_, is implicated and indivisible. But the potentiality of the one is quite distinct from the potentiality of the other, and may be considered as well as named apart.[107] When we say: I perceive _that_ I see--we look at the same act of vision from the side of the _videns_; the _visum_ being put out of sight as the unnoticed correlate. This is a mental fact distinct from, though following upon, the act of vision itself. Aristotle refers it rather to that general sentient soul or faculty, of which the five senses are partial and separate manifestations, than to the sense of vision itself.[108] He thus considers what would now be termed _consciousness of a sensation_, as being merely the subjective view of the sensation, distinguished by abstraction from the objective.

[Footnote 105: In modern psychology the language would be--"We _are conscious_ that we see or hear." But Sir William Hamilton has remarked that the word Consciousness has no equivalent usually or familiarly employed in the Greek psychology.]

[Footnote 106: Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 425, b. 14.]

[Footnote 107: Ibid. b. 26; p. 426, a. 16-19.]

[Footnote 108: Aristot. De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a. 12-17; De Animâ, III. ii. with Torstrick's note, p. 166, and the exposition of Alexander of Aphrodisias therein cited. These two passages of Aristotle are to a certain extent different yet not contradictory, though Torstrick supposes them to be so.]

It is the same general sentient faculty, though diversified and logically distinguishable in its manifestations, that enables us to conceive many sensations as combined into one; and to compare or discriminate sensations belonging to different senses.[109]

[Footnote 109: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 449, a. 8-20.]

White and sweet are perceived by two distinct senses, and at two distinct moments of time; but they must be compared and discriminated by one and the same sentient or cogitant act, and at one moment of time.[110] This mental act, though in itself indivisible, has yet two aspects, and is thus in a certain sense divisible; just as a point taken in the middle of a line, while indivisible in itself, may be looked upon as the closing terminus of one-half of the line, and as the commencing terminus of the other half. The comparison of two different sensations or thoughts is thus one and the same mental fact, with two distinguishable aspects.[111]

[Footnote 110: Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 426, b. 17-29: [Greek: ou)/te dê\ kechôrisme/nois e)nde/chetai kri/nein o(/ti e(/teron to\ gluku\ tou= leukou=, a)lla\ dei= e(ni/ tini a)/mphô dê=la ei)=nai.--dei= de\ to\ e(\n le/gein o(/ti e(/teron; e(/teron ga\r to\ gluku\ tou= leukou=.--a)chô/riston kai\ e)n a)chôri/stô| chro/nô|.] III. vii. p. 431, a. 20.]

[Footnote 111: Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 427, a. 10-14: [Greek: ô(/sper ê(\n kalou=si/ tines stigmê/n, ê(=| mia\ kai\ ê(=| du/o, tau/tê| kai\ a)diai/retos kai\ diaire/tê; ê(=| me\n ou)=n a)diai/reton, e(\n to\ kri=no/n e)sti kai\ a(/ma, ê(=| de\ diai/reton u(pa/rchei, ou)ch e(/n; di\s ga\r tô=| au)tô=| chrê=tai sêmei/ô| a(/ma.]

It is to be remarked that, in explaining this mental process of comparison, Aristotle three several times applies it both to [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] and to [Greek: no/êsis], p. 426, b. 22-31; p. 427, a. 9.]

Aristotle devotes a chapter to the enquiry: whether we can perceive two distinct sensations at once (_i.e._ in one and the same moment of time). He decides that we cannot; that the sentient soul or faculty is one and indivisible, and can only have a single energy or actuality at once.[112] If two causes of sensation are operative together, and one of them be much superior in force, it will render us insensible to the other. He remarks that, when we are pre-occupied with loud noise, or with deep reflection, or with intense fright, visual objects will often pass by us unseen and unnoticed.[113] Often the two simultaneous sensations will combine or blend into one compound, so that we shall feel neither of them purely or separately.[114] One single act of sensational energy may however have a double aspect; as the same individual object may be at once white and sweet, though its whiteness and its sweetness are logically separable.[115]

[Footnote 112: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 447, a. 12.]

[Footnote 113: Ibid. a. 15.]

[Footnote 114: Ibid. b. 12-20.]

[Footnote 115: Ibid. p. 449, a. 14.]

To the sentient soul, even in its lowest manifestations, belong the feelings of pleasure and pain, appetite and aversion.[116] The movements connected with these feelings, as with all sensation, begin and close with the central organ--the heart.[117] Upon these are consequent the various passions and emotions; yet not without certain faculties of memory and phantasy accompanying or following the facts of sense.

[Footnote 116: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iii. p. 414, b. 3-16; III. vii. p. 431, a. 9; De Somno et Vigil. i. p. 454, b. 29.]

[Footnote 117: Aristot. De Partibus Animalium, III. iv. p. 666, a. 12.]

Aristotle proceeds by gradual steps upward from the Sentient soul to the Noëtic (Cogitant or Intelligent) soul, called in its highest perfection Noûs. While refuting the doctrine of Empedokles, Demokritus, and other philosophers, who considered cogitation or intelligence to be the same as sensible perception, and while insisting upon the distinctness of the two as mental phenomena, he recognizes the important point of analogy between them, that both of them include judgment and comparison;[118] and he describes an intermediate stage called Phantasy or Imagination, forming the transition from the lower of the two to the higher. We have already observed that, in the Aristotelian psychology, the higher functions of the soul presuppose and are built upon the lower as their foundation, though the lower do not necessarily involve the higher. Without nutrition, there is no sense; without sense, there is no phantasy; without phantasy, there is no cogitation or intelligence.[119] The higher psychical phenomena are not identical with the lower, yet neither are they independent thereof; they presuppose the lower as a part of their conditions. Here, and indeed very generally elsewhere, Aristotle has been careful to avoid the fallacy of confounding or identifying the conditions of a phenomenon with the phenomenon itself.[120]

[Footnote 118: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 427, a. 20.]

[Footnote 119: Ibid. b. 14: [Greek: phantasi/a ga\r e(/teron kai\ ai)sthê/seôs kai\ dianoi/as].--Ib. vii. p. 431, a. 16: [Greek: ou)de/pote noei= a)/neu phanta/smatos ê( psuchê/].--De Memoriâ et Reminiscent. i. p. 449, b. 31: [Greek: noei=n ou)k e)/stin a)/neu phanta/smatos.]]

[Footnote 120: Mill's System of Logic, Book V. ch. 3, s. 8.]

He proceeds to explain Phantasy or the Phantastic department of the soul, with the phantasms that belong to it. It is not sensible perception, nor belief, nor opinion, nor knowledge, nor cogitation. Our dreams, though affections of the sentient soul, are really phantasms in our sleep, when there is no visual sensation; even when awake, we have a phantasm of the sun, as of a disk one foot in diameter, though we _believe_ the sun to be larger than the earth.[121] Many of the lower animals have sensible perception without any phantasy: even those among them that have phantasy have no opinion; for opinion implies faith, persuasion, and some rational explanation of that persuasion, to none of which does any animal attain.[122] Phantasy is an internal movement of the animated being (body and soul in one); belonging to the sentient soul, not to the cogitant or intelligent; not identical with the movement of sense, but continued from or produced by that, and by that alone; accordingly, similar to the movement of sense and relating to the same matters.[123] Since our sensible perceptions may be either true or false, so also may be our phantasms. And, since these phantasms are not only like our sensations, but remain standing in the soul long after the objects of sense have passed away, they are to a great degree the determining causes both of action and emotion. They are such habitually to animals, who are destitute of Noûs; and often even to intelligent men, if the Noûs be overclouded by disease or drunkenness.[124]

[Footnote 121: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, a. 5, b. 3; De Somno et Vig. ii. p. 456, a. 24: [Greek: kinou=ntai d' e)/nioi katheu/dontes kai\ poiou=si polla\ e)grêgorika/, ou) me/ntoi a)/neu phanta/smatos kai\ ai)sthê/seô/s tinos; to\ ga\r e)nu/pnio/n e)stin ai)/sthêma tro/pon tina/.]--Ibid. i. p. 454, b. 10.]

[Footnote 122: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, a. 10, 22, 25.]

[Footnote 123: Ibid. b. 10-15; De Somniis, i. p. 459, a. 15.]

[Footnote 124: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, b. 16: [Greek: kai\ polla\ kat' au)tê\n] (_i.e._ [Greek: kata\ tê\n phantasi/an) kai\ poiei=n kai\ pa/schein to\ e)/chon.]--Ibid. p. 429, a. 4: [Greek: kai\ dia\ to\ e)mme/nein kai\ o(moi/as ei)=nai (ta\s phantasi/as) tai=s ai)sthê/sesi, polla\ kat' au)ta\s pra/ttei ta\ zô=|a], &c.]

In the chapter now before us, Aristotle is careful to discriminate phantasy from several other psychological phenomena wherewith it is liable to be confounded. But we remark with some surprise, that neither here, nor in any other part of his general Psychology, does he offer any exposition of Memory, the phenomenon more nearly approaching than any other to phantasy. He supplied the deficiency afterwards by a short but valuable tract on Memory and Reminiscence; wherein he recognizes, and refers to, the more general work on Psychology. Memory bears on the past, as distinguished both from the present and future. Memory and phantasy are in some cases so alike, that we cannot distinguish clearly whether what is in our minds is a remembrance or a phantasm.[125] Both of them belong to the same psychological department--to the central sentient principle, and not to the cogitant or intelligent Noûs. Memory as well as phantasy are continuations, remnants, or secondary consequences, of the primary movements of sense; what in itself is a phantasm, may become an object of remembrance directly and _per se_; matters of cogitation, being included or implicated in phantasms, may also become objects of remembrance, indirectly and by way of accompaniment.[126] We can remember our prior acts of cogitation and demonstration; we can remember that, a month ago, we demonstrated the three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right angles; but, as the original demonstration could not be carried on without our having before our mental vision the phantasm of some particular triangle, so neither can the remembrance of the demonstration be made present to us without a similar phantasm.[127] In acts of remembrance we have a conception of past time, and we recognize what is now present to our minds as a copy of what has been formerly present to us, either as perception of sense or as actual cognition;[128] while in phantasms there is no conception of past time, nor any similar recognition, nor any necessary reference to our own past mental states; the phantasm is looked at by itself, and not as a copy. This is the main point of distinction between phantasm and remembrance:[129] what is remembered is a present phantasm assimilated to an impression of the past. Some of the superior animals possess both memory and phantasy. But other animals have neither; their sensations disappear, they have no endurance; while endurance is the basis both of phantasy and memory.[130]

[Footnote 125: Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 451, a. 5; p. 449, a. 10.]

[Footnote 126: Ibid. p. 450, a. 22: [Greek: ti/nos me\n ou)=n tô=n tê=s psuchê=s e)sti\n ê( mnê/mê, phanero\n o(/ti ou(=per kai\ ê( phantasi/a; kai\ e)/sti mnêmoneuta\ kath' au(ta\ me\n o(/sa e)sti\ phantasta/, kata\ sumbebêko\s d' o(/sa mê\ a)/neu phantasi/as.]]

[Footnote 127: Aristot. De Memor. et. Rem. i. p. 449, b. 18.]

[Footnote 128: Ibid. b. 22: [Greek: a)ei\ ga\r o(/tan e)nergê=| kata\ to\ mnêmoneu/ein, ou(/tôs e)n tê=| psuchê=| le/gei, o(/ti pro/teron tou=to ê)/kousen ê)\ ê)/|stheto ê)\ e)no/êsen.]--Ibid. p. 452, b. 28.]

[Footnote 129: Ibid. p. 450, a. 30; p. 451, a. 15: [Greek: to\ mnêmoneu/ein, ô(s ei)ko/nos ou(= pha/ntasma, e(/xis]. Themistius **ad Aristot. De Memoriâ, p. 240, ed. Spengel.]

[Footnote 130: Aristot. Analyt. Poster. ii. p. 99, b. 36: [Greek: monê\ tou= ai)sthê/matos]. It may be remarked that in the Topica Aristotle urges a dialectical objection against this or a similar doctrine (Topic. IV. iv. v. p. 125, b. 6-19), and against his own definition cited in the preceding note, where he calls [Greek: mnê/mê] an [Greek: e(/xis]. Compare the first chapter of the Metaphysica.]

But though some animals have memory, no animal except man has Reminiscence. Herein man surpasses them all.[131] Aristotle draws a marked distinction between the two; between the (memorial) retentive and reviving functions, when working unconsciously and instinctively, and the same two functions, when stimulated and guided by a deliberate purpose of our own--which he calls reminiscence. This last is like a syllogism or course of ratiocinative inference, performable only by minds capable of taking counsel and calculating. He considers memory as a movement proceeding from the centre and organs of sense to the soul, and stamping an impression thereupon; while reminiscence is a counter-movement proceeding from the soul to the organs of sense.[132] In the process of reminiscence, movements of the soul and movements of the body are conjoined,[133] more or less perturbing and durable according to the temperament of the individual. The process is intentional and deliberate, instigated by the desire to search for and recover some lost phantasm or cognition; its success depends upon the fact that there exists by nature a regular observable order of sequence among the movements of the system, physical as well as psychical. The consequents follow their antecedents either universally, or at least according to customary rules, in the majority of cases.[134]

[Footnote 131: Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453, a. 8. He draws the same distinction in Hist. Animal. I. i. p. 488, b. 26.]

[Footnote 132: Aristot. De Animâ, I. iv. p. 408, b. 17. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a. 30; ii. p. 453, a. 10: [Greek: to\ a)namimnê/skesthai/ e)stin oi(=on sullo/gismo/s tis.]]

[Footnote 133: Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453, a. 14-23.]

[Footnote 134: Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 451, b. 10: [Greek: sumbai/nousi d' ai( a)namnê/seis, e)peidê\ pe/phuken ê( ki/nêsis ê(/de gene/sthai meta\ tê/nde.]]

The consequent is either (1) like its antecedent, wholly or partially; or (2) contrary to it; or (3) has been actually felt in juxtaposition with it. In reminiscence, we endeavour to regain the forgotten consequent by hunting out some antecedent whereupon it is likely to follow; taking our start either from the present moment or from some other known point.[135] We run over many phantasms until we hit upon the true antecedent; the possibility of reminiscence depends upon our having this within our mental reach, among our accessible stock of ideas: if such be not the case, reminiscence is impracticable, and we must learn over again.[136] We are most likely to succeed, if we get upon the track or order wherein events actually occurred; thus, if we are trying to recollect a forgotten verse or sentence, we begin to repeat it from the first word; the same antecedent may indeed call up different consequents at different times, but it will generally call up what has habitually followed it before.[137]

[Footnote 135: Ibid. b. 18: [Greek: dio\ kai\ to\ e)phexê=s thêreu/omen noê/santes a)po\ tou= nu=n ê)\ a)/llou tino/s, kai\ a)ph' o(moi/ou ê)\ e)nanti/ou ê)\ tou= su/neggus.]

About the associative property of Contraries see also De Somno et Vigil. i. p. 453, b. 27.]

[Footnote 136: Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 452, a. 7: [Greek: polla/kis d' ê)/dê me\n a)dunatei= a)namnêsthê=nai, zêtei=n de\ du/natai kai\ eu(ri/skei. tou=to de\ gi/netai kinou=nti polla/, e(/ôs a)\n toiau/tên kinê/sê| ki/nêsin, ê(=| a)kolouthê/sei to\ pra=gma. to\ ga\r memnê=sthai/ e)sti to\ e)nei=nai duna/mei **tê\n kinou=san; tou=to de/, ô(st' e)x au)tou= kai\ ô(=n e)/chei kinê/seôn kinêthê=nai, ô(/sper ei)/rêtai.]]

[Footnote 137: Ibid. ii. p. 452, a. 2.]

The movements of Memory and of Reminiscence are partly corporeal and partly psychical, just as those of Sensation and Phantasy are. We compare in our remembrance greater and less (either in time or in external magnitudes) through similar internal movements differing from each other in the same, proportion, but all on a miniature scale.[138] These internal movements often lead to great discomfort, when a person makes fruitless efforts to recover the forgotten phantasm that he desires; especially with excitable men, who are much disturbed by their own phantasms. They cannot stop the movement once begun; and, when their sensitive system is soft and flexible, they find that they have unwittingly provoked the bodily movements belonging to anger or fear, or some other painful emotion.[139] These movements, when once provoked, continue in spite of the opposition of the person that experiences them. He brings upon himself the reality of the painful emotion; just as we find that, after we have very frequently pronounced a sentence or sung a song, the internal movements left in our memories are sometimes so strong and so persistent, that they act on our vocal organs even without any volition on our parts, and determine us to sing the song or pronounce the sentence over again in reality.[140] Slow men are usually good in memory, quick men and apt learners are good in reminiscence: the two are seldom found together.[141]

[Footnote 138: Ibid. b. 12: [Greek: e)/sti ga\r e)n au)tê=| ta\ o(/moia schê/mata kai\ kinê/seis.--pa/nta ga\r ta\ e)nto\s e)la/ttô, ô(/sper a)na/logon kai\ ta\ e)kto/s.]]

[Footnote 139: Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453, a. 22: [Greek: o( a)namimnêsko/menos kai\ thêreu/ôn sômatiko/n ti kinei=, e)n ô(=| to\ pa/thos.]]

[Footnote 140: Ibid. p. 453, a. 28: [Greek: e)/oike to\ pa/thos toi=s o)no/masi kai\ me/lesi kai\ lo/gois, o(/tan dia\ sto/matos ge/nêtai/ ti au)tô=n spho/dra; pausame/nois ga\r kai\ ou) boulome/nois e)pe/rchetai pa/lin a)/|dein ê)\ le/gein.]]

[Footnote 141: Ibid. i. p. 449, b. 7.]

In this account of Memory and Reminiscence, Aristotle displays an acute and penetrating intelligence of the great principles of the Association of Ideas. But these principles are operative not less in memory than in reminiscence: and the exaggerated prominence that he has given to the distinction between the two (determined apparently by a wish to keep the procedure of man apart from that of animals) tends to perplex his description of the associative process. At the same time, his manner of characterizing phantasy, memory, and reminiscence, as being all of them at once corporeal and psychical--involving, like sensation, internal movements of the body as well as phases of the consciousness, sometimes even passing into external movements of the bodily organs without our volition--all this is a striking example of psychological observation, as well as of consistency in following out the doctrine laid down at the commencement of his chief treatise: Soul as the Form implicated with Body as the Matter,--the two being an integral concrete separable only by abstraction.

We come now to the highest and (in Aristotle's opinion) most honourable portion of the soul--the Noûs or noëtic faculty, whereby we cogitate, understand, reason, and believe or opine under the influence of reason.[142] According to the uniform scheme of Aristotle, this highest portion of the soul, though distinct from all the lower, presupposes them all. As the sentient soul presupposes the nutrient, so also the cogitant soul presupposes the nutrient, the sentient, the phantastic, the memorial, and the reminiscent. Aristotle carefully distinguishes the sentient department of the soul from the cogitant, and refutes more than once the doctrine of those philosophers that identified the two. But he is equally careful to maintain the correlation between them, and to exhibit the sentient faculty not only as involving in itself a certain measure of intellectual discrimination, but also as an essential and fundamental condition to the agency of the cogitant, as a portion of the human soul. We have already gone through the three successive stages--phantastic, memorial, reminiscent--whereby the interval between sensation and cogitation is bridged over. Each of the three is directly dependent on past sensation, either as reproduction or as corollary; each of them is an indispensable condition of man's cogitation; moreover, in the highest of the three, we have actually slid unperceived into the cogitant phase of the human soul; for Aristotle declares the reminiscent process to be of the nature of a syllogism.[143] That the soul cannot cogitate or reason without phantasms--that phantasms are required for the actual working of the human Noûs--he affirms in the most explicit manner.[144]

[Footnote 142: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 10: [Greek: peri\ de\ tou= mori/ou tou= tê=s psuchê=s ô(=| ginô/skei te ê( psuchê\ kai\ phronei=.] He himself defines what he means by [Greek: nou=s] a few lines lower; and he is careful to specify it as [Greek: o( tê=s psuchê=s nou=s--o( a)/ra kalou/menos tê=s psuchê=s nou=s (le/gô de\ nou=n, ô(=| dianoei=tai kai\ u(polamba/nei ê( psuchê/)]--a. 22.

In the preceding chapter he expressly discriminates [Greek: no/êsis] from [Greek: u(po/lêpsis]. This last word [Greek: u(po/lêpsis] is the most general term for _believing_ or _opining_ upon reasons good or bad; the varieties under it are [Greek: e)pistê/mê, do/xa, phro/nêsis kai\ ta)nanti/a tou/tôn] (p. 427, b. 16-27).]

[Footnote 143: Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453 a. 10.]

[Footnote 144: Ibid. p. 449, b. 31-p. 450, a. 12: [Greek: noei=n ou)k e)/stin a)/neu phanta/smatos--ê( de\ mnê/mê kai\ ê( tô=n noêtô=n ou)k a)/neu phanta/smato/s e)stin.]--De Animâ, III. vii. p. 431, a. 16.]

The doctrine of Aristotle respecting Noûs has been a puzzle, even from the time of his first commentators. Partly from the obscurity inherent in the subject, partly from the defective condition of his text as it now stands, his meaning cannot be always clearly comprehended, nor does it seem that the different passages can be completely reconciled.

Anaxagoras, Demokritus, and other philosophers, appear to have spoken of Noûs or Intellect in a large and vague sense, as equivalent to Soul generally. Plato seems to have been the first to narrow and specialize the meaning; distinguishing pointedly (as we have stated above) the rational or encephalic soul, in the cranium, with its circular rotations, from the two lower souls, **thoracic and abdominal. Aristotle agreed with him in this distinction (either of separate souls or of separate functions in the same soul); but he attenuated and divested it of all connexion with separate corporeal lodgment, or with peculiar movements of any kind. In his psychology, the brain no longer appears as the seat of intelligence, but simply as a cold, moist, and senseless organ, destined to countervail the excessive heat of the heart: which last is the great centre of animal heat, of life, and of the sentient soul. Aristotle declares Noûs not to be connected with, or dependent on, any given bodily organs or movements appropriated to itself: this is one main circumstance distinguishing it from the nutrient soul as well as from the sentient soul, each of which rests indispensably upon corporeal organs and agencies of its own.

It will be remembered that we stated the relation of Soul to Body (in Aristotle's view) as that of Form to Matter; the two together constituting a concrete individual, numerically one; also that Form and Matter, each being essentially relative to the other, admitted of gradations, higher and lower; _e.g._ a massive cube of marble is already _materia formata_, but it is still purely _materia_, relative to the statue that may be obtained from it. Now, the grand region of Form is the Celestial Body--the vast, deep, perceivable, circular mass circumscribing the Kosmos, and enclosing, in and around its centre, Earth with the other three elements, tenanted by substances generated and perishable. This Celestial Body is the abode of divinity, including many divine beings who take part in its eternal rotations, viz. the Sun, Moon, Stars, &c., and other Gods. Now, every soul, or every form that animates the matter of a living being, derives its vitalizing influence from this celestial region. All seeds of life include within them a spiritual or gaseous heat, more divine than the four elements, proceeding from the sun, and in nature akin to the element of the stars. Such solar or celestial heat differs generically from the heat of fire. It is the only source from whence the principle of life, with the animal heat that accompanies it, can be obtained. Soul, in all its varieties, proceeds from hence.[145]

[Footnote 145: Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. iii. p. 736, b. 29: [Greek: pa/sês me\n ou)=n psuchê=s du/namis e(te/rou sô/matos e)/oike kekoinônêke/nai kai\ theiote/rou tô=n kaloume/nôn stoichei/ôn; ô(s de\ diaphe/rousi timio/têti ai( psuchai\ kai\ a)timi/a| a)llê/lôn, ou(/tô kai\ ê( toiau/tê diaphe/rei phu/sis; pa/ntôn me\n ga\r e)n tô=| spe/rmati e)nupa/rchei, o(/per poiei= go/nima ei)=nai ta\ spe/rmata, to\ kalou/menon thermo/n.]]

But though all varieties of Soul emanate from the same celestial source, they possess the divine element in very different degrees, and are very unequal in comparative worth and dignity. The lowest variety, or nutritive soul--the only one possessed by plants, among which there is no separation of sex[146]--is contained potentially in the seed, and is thus transmitted when that seed is matured into a new individual. In animals, which possess it along with the sensitive soul and among which the sexes are separated, it is also contained potentially in the generative system of the female separately; and the first commencement of life in the future animal is thus a purely vegetable life.[147] The sensitive soul, the characteristic of the complete animal, cannot be superadded except by copulation and the male semen. The female, being comparatively impotent and having less animal heat, furnishes only the matter of the future offspring; form, or the moving, fecundating, cause, is supplied by the male. Through the two together the new individual animal is completed, having not merely the nutritive soul, but also the sentient soul along with it.[148]