Chapter XII: De Animâ, Etc (3)

[Footnote 146: Ibid. I. xxiii. p. 731, a. 27.]

[Footnote 147: Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. iii. p. 736, b. 12.]

[Footnote 148: Ibid. I. ii. p. 716, a. 4-17; xix. p. 726, b. 33; xx. p. 728, a. 17; xxi. p. 729, b. 6-27.]

Both the nutritive and the sentient souls have, each of them respectively, a special bodily agency and movement belonging to them. But the Noûs, or the noëtic soul, has no partnership with any similar bodily agency. There is no special corporeal potentiality (to speak in Aristotelian language) which it is destined to actualize. It enters from without, and emanates from a still more exalted influence of that divine celestial substance from which all psychical or vitalizing heat proceeds.[149] It is superinduced upon the nutritive and sentient souls, and introduces itself at an age of the individual later than both of them. Having no part of the bodily organism specially appropriated to it, this variety of soul--what is called the Noûs--stands distinguished from the other two in being perfectly separable from the body;[150] that is, separable from the organized body which it is the essential function of the two lower souls to actualize, and with which both of them are bound up. The Noûs is not separable from the body altogether; it belongs essentially to the divine celestial body, and to those luminaries and other divine beings by whom portions of it are tenanted. Theorizing contemplation--the perfect, unclouded, unembarrassed, exercise of the theoretical Noûs--is the single mental activity of these divinities; contemplation of the formal regularity of the Kosmos, with its eternal and faultless rotations, and with their own perfection as participating therein. The celestial body is the body whereto Noûs, or the noëtic soul, properly belongs;[151] quite apart from the two other souls, sentient and nutritive, upon which it is grafted in the animal body; and apart also from all the necessities of human action, preceded by balanced motives and deliberate choice.[152]

[Footnote 149: Ibid. II. iii. p. 736, b. 27: [Greek: lei/petai de\ to\n nou=n mo/non thu/rathen e)peisie/nai, kai\ thei=on ei)=nai mo/non; ou)the\n ga\r au)tou= tê=| e)nergei/a| koinônei= sômatikê\ e)ne/rgeia.] The words [Greek: thei=on ei)=nai _mo/non_] must not be construed strictly, for in the next following passage he proceeds to declare that _all_ [Greek: psuchê/, psuchikê\ du/namis] or [Greek: a)rchê/], partakes of the divine element, and that in this respect there is only a difference of degree between one [Greek: psuchê\] and another.]

[Footnote 150: Ibid. p. 737, a. 10: [Greek: o( kalou/menos nou=s]. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 413, b. 25; iii. p. 415, a. 11.]

[Footnote 151: Respecting [Greek: to\ a)/nô sô=ma], see the copious citations in Trendelenburg's note ad Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii.; Comm. p. 373.]

[Footnote 152: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. viii. p. 1178, b. 20: [Greek: tô=| dê\ zô=nti tou= pra/ttein a)phê|rême/nô|, e)/ti de\ ma=llon tou= poiei=n, ti/ lei/petai plê\n theôri/as? ô(/ste ê( tou= theou= e)ne/rgeia, makario/têti diaphe/rousa, theôrêtikê\ a)\n ei)/ê.]--See also Metaphysic. [Greek: L]. v. p. 1074, b. 26-35.]

From this celestial body, a certain influence of Noûs is transferred to some of the mortal inhabitants of earth, water, and air. Thus a third or noëtic soul--or rather a third noëtic function--is added to the two existing functions, sensitive and nutrient, of the animal soul, which acquires thereby an improved aptitude for, and correlation with, the Formal and Universal. We have already stated that the sensitive soul possesses this aptitude to a certain extent; it receives the impression of sensible forms, without being impressed by the matter accompanying them. The noëtic function strengthens and sharpens the aptitude; the soul comes into correlation with those cogitable or intellective forms which are involved in the sensible forms;[153] it rises from the lower generalities of the Second Philosophy, to the higher generalities of the First Philosophy.

[Footnote 153: Aristot. De Animâ, III. viii. p. 432, a. 6: [Greek: e)n toi=s ei)/desi toi=s ai)sthêtoi=s ta\ noêta/ e)stin.]]

As the sentient or percipient soul is the form or correlate of all perceivables, and thus identified with them in nature, all of them having existence only in relation to it,--so the cogitant or intellective soul is the form or correlate of all cogitables, all of which exist relatively to it, and only relatively.[154] It is in fact the highest of all forms--the Form of Forms; the mental or subjective aspect of all formal reality.

[Footnote 154: Ibid. p. 432, b. 2: [Greek: o( nou=s ei)/dos ei)dô=n kai\ ê( ai)/sthêsis ei)=dos ai)sthêtô=n.]]

Such at least is the tendency and purpose of that noëtic influence which the celestial substance imparts to the human soul; but it is realized only to a very small degree. In its characteristic theorizing efficacy, the godlike Noûs counts for a small fraction of the whole soul, though superexcellent in quality.[155] There are but few men in whom it is tolerably developed, and even in those few it is countervailed by many other agencies.[156] The noëtic function in men and animals exists only in companionship with the two other psychical functions. It is subservient to the limits and conditions that they impose, as well as to the necessities of individual and social action; to all that is required for "acting like a man," according to the Aristotelian phrase. Man's nature is complex, and not self-sufficing for a life of theorizing contemplation, such as that wherein the celestial inmates pass their immortality of happiness.[157]

[Footnote 155: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. vii. p. 1177, b. 34: [Greek: ei) ga\r kai\ tô=| o)/gkô| mikro/n e)sti, duna/mei kai\ timio/têti polu\ ma=llon pa/ntôn u(pere/chei.]

[Footnote 156: Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a. **18.]

[Footnote 157: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. vii. p. 1177, b. 26: [Greek: o( de\ toiou=tos a)\n ei)/ê bi/os krei/ttôn ê)\ kat' a)/nthrôpon].--viii. p. 1178, b. 6: [Greek: deê/setai ou)=n toiou/tôn pro\s to\ a)nthrôpeu/esthai.]--ix. p. 1178, b. 33: [Greek: ou)k au)ta/rkês ê( phu/sis pro\s to\ theôrei=n]. Compare similar sentiments in Aristot. Metaphys. A. ii. p. 983, a. 1.]

We have thus to study the noëtic function according to the manifestations of it that we find in man, and to a certain extent in some other privileged animals. Bees, for example, partake in the divine gift to a certain extent; being distinguished in this respect from their analogues--wasps and hornets.[158]

[Footnote 158: Aristot. De Gen. Animal. III. x. p. 760, a. 4: [Greek: o)/ntos de\ _perittou= tou=_ ge/nous kai\ i)di/ou tou= tô=n melittô=n].--p. 761, a. 4: [Greek: ou) ga\r e)/chousin] (wasps and hornets) [Greek: ou)de\n thei=on, ô(/sper to\ ge/nos tô=n melittô=n.] It is remarkable that [Greek: peritto/s], the epithet here applied by Aristotle to bees, is the epithet that he also applies to men of theoretical and speculative activity, as contrasted with men prudent and judicious in action (see Metaphys. A. ii. p. 983, a. 2; also Ethic. Nikom. VI. vii. p. 1141, b. 6). Elsewhere he calls bees [Greek: phro/nima] (Metaphys. A. i. p. 980, b. 22). See a good note of Torstrick (on Aristot. De Animâ, III. p. 428, a. 10), p. 172 of his Commentary. Aristotle may possibly have been one among the philosophers that Virgil had in his mind, in Georgics, iv. 219:-- "His quidam signis, atque hæc exempla secuti, Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis, et haustus Æthereos dixere: Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque, tractusque maris, coelumque profundum," &c.]

In these and other animals, and in man to a still greater degree, the theorizing activity exists; but it is either starved, or at least has to deal with materials obscure, puzzling, conflicting; while, on the other hand, the practical intellect becomes largely developed, through the pressure of wants and desires, combined with the teaching of experience. In Aristotle's view, sensible perception is a separate source of knowledge, accompanied with judgment and discrimination, independent of the noëtic function. Occasionally, he refers the intellectual superiority of man to the properly attempered combination and antagonism of heat in the heart with cold in the brain, each strong and pure;[159] all the highly endowed animals (he says) have greater animal heat, which is the essential condition of a better soul;[160] he reckons the finer sense of touch possessed by man as an essential condition of the same intellectual result.[161] Sensible perception in its five diverse manifestations, together with its secondary psychical effects--phantasy and memory, accumulates in the human mind (and in some animals) a greater or less experience of particular facts; from some of which inferences are drawn as to others unknown, directing conduct as well as enlarging knowledge.[162]

[Footnote 159: Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. vi. p. 744, a. 11-31: [Greek: dêloi= de\ tê\n eu)krasi/an ê( dia/noia; phronimô/taton ga/r e)sti tô=n zô=|ôn a)/nthrôpos.] We may remark that Aristotle considers cold as in some cases a positive property, not simply as the absence or privation of heat (De Partibus Animal. II. ii. p. 649, a. 18). The heart is the part wherein the psychical fire (as it were) is kept burning: [Greek: tê=s psuchê=s ô(/sper e)mpepureume/nês e)n toi=s mori/ois tou/tois] (Aristot. De Vitâ et Morte, iv. p. 469, b. 16). Virgil, in the beautiful lines of his Second Georgic (483), laments that he is disqualified for deep philosophical studies by the want of heat round his heart:--&P "Sin, has ne possim naturæ accedere partes, Frigidus obstiterit circum præcordia sanguis," &c.]

[Footnote 160: Aristot. De Respirat. xiii. p. 477, a. 16.]

[Footnote 161: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 21.]

[Footnote 162: Aristot. Metaphys. A. i. pp. 980-1.]

All this process--a perpetual movement of sense and memory--begins from infancy, and goes on independently of Noûs or the noëtic function properly so called; which grows up gradually at a later age, aided by the acquisition of language and by instruction conveyed through language. The supervening Noûs presupposes and depends upon what has been thus treasured up by experience. Though, in the celestial body. Noûs exists separately from human beings, and though it there operates _proprio motu_ apart from sense, such is not the case with the human Noûs; which depends upon the co-operation, and is subject to the restrictions, of the complicated soul and body wherewith it is domiciled--restrictions differing in each individual case. Though the noëtic process is distinct from sense, yet without sense it cannot take place in man. Aristotle expressly says: "You cannot cogitate without a phantasm or without a continuous image." Now the phantasm has been already explained as a relic of movements of sense--or as those movements themselves, looked at in another point of view.[163] "When we cogitate" (he says), "our mental affection is the same as when we draw a triangle for geometrical study; for there, though we do not make use of the fact that the triangle is determinate in its magnitude, we still draw it of a determinate magnitude. So in cogitation, even when we are not cogitating a determinate _quantum_, we nevertheless set before our eyes a determinate _quantum_, but we do not cogitate it _quatenus_ determinate."[164] We cannot even (he goes on to say) remember the _cogitabilia_ without "a phantasm or sensible image; so that our memory of them is only by way of concomitance" (indirect and secondary).[165] Phantasy is thus absolutely indispensable to cogitation: first to carrying on the process at all; next to remembering it after it is past. Without either the visible phantasm of objects seen and touched, or the audible phantasm of words heard and remembered, the Noûs in human beings would be a nullity.[166]

[Footnote 163: Aristot. De Somniis, i. p. 459, a. 15; De Animâ, III. vii. p. 431, a. 17; iii. p. 428, b. 12.]

[Footnote 164: Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 449, b. 30: [Greek: e)pei\ de\ peri\ phantasi/as ei)/rêtai pro/teron e)n toi=s peri\ psuchê=s, kai\ noei=n ou)k e)/stin a)/neu phanta/smatos; sumbai/nei ga\r to\ au)to\ pa/thos e)n tô=| noei=n o(/per kai\ e)n tô=| diagra/phein; e)kei= te ga\r ou)the\n proschrô/menoi tô=| to\ poso\n ô(risme/non ei)=nai to\ trigô/nou, o(/môs gra/phomen ô(risme/non kata\ to\ poso/n; kai\ o( noô=n ô(sau/tôs, ka)\n mê\ poso\n noê=|, ti/thetai pro\ o)mma/tôn poso/n, noei= d' ou)ch ê(=| poso/n.]

This passage appears to be as clear a statement of the main doctrine of Nominalism as can be found in Hobbes or Berkeley. In the sixteenth section of the Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley says:--"And here it must be acknowledged that a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to the particular qualities of the angles or relations of the sides.--In like manner we may consider Peter to far forth as man, or so far forth as animal, without framing the forementioned idea, either of man or animal, _inasmuch as all that is perceived is not considered_." Berkeley has not improved upon the statement of Aristotle.]

[Footnote 165: Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a. 13.]

[Footnote 166: About sense and hearing, as the _fundamenta_ of intellect, see Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 437, a. 1-17.]

We see that, though Aristotle recognizes a general distinction between phantasy and cogitation, and alludes to many animals as having the former without attaining to the latter, yet he also declares that in man, who possesses both, not only is cogitation dependent upon phantasy, but phantasy passes into cogitation by gradations almost imperceptible. In regard to the practical application of Noûs (_i.e._ to animal movements determined either by appetite or by reason), he finds a great difficulty in keeping the distinction clearly marked. Substantially, indeed, he lets it drop. When he speaks of phantasy as being either calculating or perceptive, we are unable to see in what respect _calculating phantasy_ (which he states not to belong to other animals) differs from an effort of cogitation.[167] Indeed, he speaks with some diffidence respecting any distribution of parts in the same soul, suspecting that such distribution is not real but logical: you may subdivide as much as you choose.[168]

[Footnote 167: Aristot. De Animâ, III. x. p. 433, a. 9-b. 30: [Greek: ei)/ tis tê\n phantasi/an tithei/ê ô(s no/êsi/n tina--phantsi/a de\ pa=sa ê)\ logistikê\ ê)\ ai)sthêtikê/; tau/tês me\n ou)=n kai\ ta\ a)/lla zô=|a mete/chei.] Also vii. p. 431, b. 7.]

[Footnote 168: Ibid. ix. p. 432, a. 23.]

It thus appears clear that Aristotle restricts the Noûs or noëtic function _in man_ to the matters of sense and experience, physical or mental, and that he considers the phantasm to be an essential accompaniment of the cogitative act. Yet this does not at all detract from his view of the grandeur, importance, and wide range of survey, belonging to the noëtic function. It is the portion of man's nature that correlates with the abstract and universal; but it is only a portion of his nature, and must work in conjunction and harmony with the rest. The abstract cannot be really separated from the concrete, nor the universal from one or other of its particulars, nor the essence from that whereof it is the essence, nor the attribute from that of which it is the attribute, nor the genus and species from the individuals comprehended therein; nor, to speak in purely Aristotelian language, the Form from some Matter, or the Matter from some Form. In all these cases there is a _notional_ or _logical_ distinction, impressing the mind as the result of various comparisons, noted by an appropriate term, and remembered afterwards by means of that term (that is, by means of an audible or visible phantasm); but real separation there neither is nor can be. This is the cardinal principle of Aristotle, repeated in almost all his works--his marked antithesis against Plato. Such logical distinctions as those here noticed (they might be multiplied without number) it belongs to Noûs or the noëtic function to cognize. But the real objects, in reference to which alone the distinctions have a meaning, are concrete and individual; and the cognizing subject is really the entire man, employing indeed the noëtic function, but employing it with the aid of other mental forces, phantasms and remembrances, real and verbal.

The noëtic soul is called by Aristotle "the place of Forms," "the potentiality of Forms," "the correlate of things apart from Matter."[169] It cogitates these Forms in or along with the phantasms: the cogitable Forms are contained in the sensible Forms; for there is nothing really existent beyond or apart from visible or tangible magnitudes, with their properties and affections, and with the so-called abstractions considered by the geometer. Hence, without sensible perception, a man can neither learn nor understand anything; in all his theoretical contemplations, he requires some phantasm to contemplate along with them.[170]

[Footnote 169: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 27, b. 22.]

[Footnote 170: Ibid. vii. p. 431, b. 2: [Greek: ta\ me\n ou)=n ei)/dê to\ noêtiko\n e)n toi=s phanta/smasi noei=.]--viii. p. 432, a. 3: [Greek: e)pei\ de\ ou)de\ pra=gma ou)the/n e)sti para\ ta\ mege/thê, ô(s dokei=, ta\ ai)sthêta\ kechôrisme/non, e)n toi=s ei)/desi toi=s ai)sthêtoi=s ta\ noêta/ e)sti, ta/ te e)n a)phaire/sei lego/mena, kai\ o(/sa tô=n ai)sthêtô=n e(/xeis kai\ pa/thê; kai\ dia\ tou=to ou)/te mê\ ai)sthano/menos mêthe\n ou)the\n a)\n ma/thoi ou)de\ xunei/ê; o(/tan de\ theôrê=|, a)na/gkê a(/ma pha/ntasma/ ti theôrei=n.]]

Herein lies one of the main distinctions between the noëtic and the sentient souls. The sentient deals with particulars, and correlates with external bodies; the noëtic apprehends universals, which in a certain sense are within the soul: hence a man can cogitate whenever or whatever he chooses, but he can see or touch only what is present.[171] Another distinction is, that the sentient soul is embodied in special organs, each with determinate capacities, and correlating with external objects, themselves alike determinate, acting only under certain conditions of locality. The possibilities of sensation are thus from the beginning limited; moreover, a certain relative proportion must be maintained between the percipient and the perceivable; for extreme or violent sounds, colours, &c., produce no sensation; on the contrary, they deaden the sentient organ.[172] But the noëtic soul (what is called the "Noûs of the soul," to use Aristotle's language)[173] is nothing at all in actuality before its noëtic function commences, though it is everything in potentiality. It is not embodied in any corporeal organ of its own, nor mingled as a new elementary ingredient with the body; it does not correlate with any external objects; it is not so specially attached to some particulars as to make it antipathetic to others. Accordingly its possibilities of cogitation are unlimited; it apprehends with equal facility what is most cogitable and what is least cogitable. It is thoroughly indeterminate in its nature, and is in fact at first a mere unlimited cogitative potentiality;[174] like a tablet, upon which no letters have as yet been written, but upon which all or any letters _may be_ written.[175]

[Footnote 171: Ibid. II. v. p. 417, b. 22.]

[Footnote 172: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 31.]

[Footnote 173: Ibid. a. 22: [Greek: 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/) ou)the/n e)stin e)nergei/a| tô=n o)/ntôn pri\n noei=n.]]

[Footnote 174: Ibid. a. 21: [Greek: ô(/ste mêd' au)tou= ei)=nai phu/sin mêdemi/an a)ll' ê)\ tau/tên, o(/ti dunato/n.]]

[Footnote 175: Ibid. p. 430, a. 1.]

We have already said that the Noûs of the human soul emanates from a peculiar influence of the celestial body, which is the special region of Form in the Kosmos. Through it we acquire an enlarged power of apprehending the abstract and universal; we can ascend above sensible forms to the cogitable forms contained therein; we can consider all forms in themselves, without paying attention to the matter wherein they are embodied. Instead of considering the concrete solid or liquid before us, we can mentally analyse them, and thus study solidity in the abstract, fluidity in the abstract. While our senses judge of water as hot and cold, our noëtic function enables us to appreciate water in the abstract--to determine its essence, and to furnish a definition of it.[176] In all these objects, as combinations of Form with Matter, the cogitable form exists potentially; and is abstracted or considered abstractedly, by the cogitant Noûs.[177] Yet this last (as we have already seen) cannot operate except along with and by aid of phantasms--of impressions revived or remaining from sense. It is thus immersed in the materials of sense, and has no others. But it handles them in a way of its own, and under new points of view; comparing and analysing; recognizing the abstract in the concrete, and the universal in the particular; discriminating mentally and logically the one from the other; and noting the distinction by appropriate terms. Such distinctions are the _noümena_, generated in the process of cogitation by Noûs itself. The Noûs, as it exists in any individual, gradually loses its original character of naked potentiality, and becomes an actual working force, by means of its own acquired materials.[178] It is an aggregate of _noümena_, all of them in nature identical with itself; and, while cogitating them, the Noûs at the same time cogitates itself. Considered abstractedly, apart from matter, they exist only in the mind itself; in theoretical speculation, the _cognoscens_ and the _cognitum_ are identical. But they are not really separable from matter, and have no reality apart from it.

[Footnote 176: Ibid. p. 429, b. 10.]

[Footnote 177: Ibid. p. 430, a. 2-9.]

[Footnote 178: Aristot. De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 23. Ibid. III. iv. p. 429, b. 7: [Greek: o(/tan du/nêtai e)nergei=n di' au(tou=.]]

The distinction, yet at the same time correlation, between Form and Matter, pervades all nature (Aristotle affirms), and will be found in the Noûs as elsewhere. We must recognize an _Intellectus Agens_ or constructive, and an _Intellectus Patiens_ or receptive.[179] The _Agens_ is the great intellectual energy pervading the celestial body, and acting upon all the animals susceptible of its operation; analogous to light, which illuminates the diaphanous medium, and elevates what was mere potential colour into colour actual and visible.[180] The _Patiens_ is the intellectual receptivity acted upon in each individual, and capable of being made to cogitate every thing; anterior to the _Agens_, in time, so far as regards the individual, yet as a general fact (when we are talking of man as a species) not anterior even in time, but correlative. Of the two, the _Intellectus Agens_ is the more venerable; it is pure intellectual energy, unmixed, unimpressible from without, and separable from all animal body. It is this, and nothing more, when considered apart from animal body; but it is then eternal and immortal, while the _Intellectus Patiens_ perishes with the remaining soul and with the body. Yet though the _Intellectus Agens_ is thus eternal, and though _we_ have part in it, we cannot remember any of its operations anterior to our own maturity; for the concurrence of the _Intellectus Patiens_, which begins and ends with us, is indispensable both to remembrance and to thought.[181]

[Footnote 179: Ibid. III. v. p. 430, a. 10.]

[Footnote 180: Ibid. a. 14: [Greek: kai\ e)/stin o( me\n toiou=tos nou=s tô=| pa/nta gi/nesthai, o( de\ tô=| pa/nta poiei=n, ô(s e(/xis tis, oi(=on to\ phô=s; tro/pon ga/r tina kai\ to\ phô=s poiei= ta\ duna/mei o)/nta chrô/mata e)nergei/a| chrô/mata.] Aristotle here illustrates [Greek: nou=s poiêtiko/s] by [Greek: phô=s] and [Greek: e(/xis]; and we know what view he takes of [Greek: phô=s] (De Animâ, II. vii. p. 418, b. 9) as the [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] or [Greek: e(/xis tou= diaphanou=s]--which _diaphanous_ he explains to be a [Greek: phu/sis tis e)nupa/rchousa e)n a)e/ri kai\ u(/dati kai\ e)n tô=| a)i+di/ô| tô=| a)/nô sô/mati]. Judging by this illustration, it seems proper to couple the [Greek: nou=s poiêtiko/s] here with his declaration in De Generat. Animal. II. p. 736, b. 28: [Greek: to\n nou=n mo/non thu/rathen e)peise/nai kai\ thei=on ei)=nai mo/non]: he cannot consider the [Greek: nou=s poiêtiko/s], which is of the nature of Form, as belonging to each individual man like the [Greek: nou=s pathêtiko/s].]

[Footnote 181: Aristot. De Animâ, III. v. p. 430, a. 17: [Greek: kai\ ou(=tos o( nou=s] (_i. e._ [Greek: poiêtiko/s) chôristo\s kai\ a)pathê\s kai\ a)migê/s, tê=| ou)si/a| ô)\n e)ne/rgeia; a)ei\ ga\r timiô/teron to\ poiou=n tou= pa/schontos, kai\ ê( a)rchê\ tê=s u(/lês.]--Ibid. a. 22: [Greek: chôristhei\s d' e)sti\ mo/non tou=th' o(/per e)sti/, kai\ tou=to mo/non a)tha/naton kai\ a)i+/dion; ou) mnêmoneu/omen de/, o(/ti tou=to me\n a)pathe/s, o( de\ pathêtiko\s nou=s phtharto/s, kai\ a)/neu tou/tou ou)the\n noei=.] In this obscure and difficult chapter (difficult even to Theophrastus the friend and pupil of the author), we have given the best meaning that the words seem to admit.]

We see here the full extent of Aristotle's difference from the Platonic doctrine, in respect to the immortality of the soul. He had defined soul as the first actualization of a body having potentiality of life with a determinate organism. This of course implied, and he expressly declares it, that soul and body in each individual case were one and indivisible, so that the soul of Sokrates perished of necessity with the body of Sokrates.[182] But he accompanied that declaration with a reserve in favour of Noûs, and especially of the theorizing Noûs; which he recognized as a different sort of soul, not dependent on a determinate bodily organism, but capable of being separated from it, as the eternal is from the perishable.[183] The present chapter informs us how far such reserve is intended to go. That the theorizing Noûs is not limited, like the sentient soul, to a determinate bodily organism, but exists apart from that organism and eternally--is maintained as incontestable: it is the characteristic intellectual activity of the eternal celestial body and the divine inmates thereof. But the distinction of Form and Matter is here pointed out, as prevailing in Noûs and in Soul generally, not less than throughout all other Nature. The theorizing Noûs, as it exists in Sokrates, Plato, Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Xenokrates, &c., is individualized in each, and individualized differently in each. It represents the result of the _Intellectus Agens_ or Formal Noûs, universal and permanent, upon the _Intellectus Patiens_ or noëtic receptivity peculiar to each individual; the co-operation of the two is indispensable to sustain the theorizing intellect of any individual man. But the _Intellectus Patiens_, or _Receptivus_, perishes along with the individual. Accordingly, the intellectual life of Sokrates cannot be continued farther. It cannot be prolonged after his sensitive and nutritive life has ceased; the noëtic function, as it exists in him, is subject to the same limits of duration as the other functions of the soul. The intellectual man is no more immortal than the sentient man.

[Footnote 182: Ibid. II. i. p. 413, a. 3.]

[Footnote 183: Ibid. ii. p. 413, b. 24: [Greek: peri\ de\ tou= nou= kai\ tê=s theôrêtikê=s duna/meôs ou)de/n pô phanero/n, a)ll' e)/oike psuchê=s ge/nos e(/teron ei)=nai, kai\ tou=to mo/non e)nde/chetai chôri/zesthai, katha/per to\ a)i+/dion tou= phthartou=.]]

Such is the opinion here delivered by Aristotle. And it follows indeed as a distinct corollary from his doctrine respecting animal and vegetable procreation in general. Individuality (the being _unum numero_ in a species) and immortality are in his view incompatible facts; the one excludes the other. In assigning (as he so often does) a final cause or purpose to the wide-spread fact of procreation of species by animals and vegetables, he tells us that every individual living organism, having once attained the advantage of existence, yearns and aspires to prolong this for ever, and to become immortal. But this aspiration cannot be realized; Nature has forbidden it, or is inadequate to it; no individual can be immortal. Being precluded from separate immortality, the individual approaches as near to it as is possible, by generating a new individual like itself, and thus perpetuating the species. Such is the explanation given by Aristotle of the great fact pervading the sublunary, organized world[184]--immortal species of plants, animals, and men, through a succession of individuals each essentially perishable. The general doctrine applies to Noûs as well as to the other functions of the soul. Noûs is immortal; but the individual Sokrates, considered as noëtic or intellectual, can no more be immortal than the same individual considered as sentient or reminiscent.

[Footnote 184: Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 20, seq.; De Animâ, II. iv. p. 415, a. 26, seq.; OEconomica, I. iii. p. 1343, b. 23.]

We have already stated that Noûs--Intellect--the noëtic function--is that faculty of the soul that correlates with the abstract and universal; with Form apart from Matter. Its process is at once analytical, synthetical, and retentive. Nature presents to us only concretes and particulars, in a perpetual course of change and reciprocal action; in these the abstract and universal are immersed, and out of these they have to be disengaged by logical analysis. That the abstract is a derivative from the concrete, and the universal from particulars--is the doctrine of Aristotle. Ascending from particulars, the analysis is carried so far that at length it can go no farther. It continues to divide until it comes to _indivisibles_, or simple notions, the highest abstractions, and the largest universals. These are the elements out of which universal propositions are formed, the first premisses or _principia_ of demonstration. Unphilosophical minds do not reach these indivisibles at all: but it is the function of the theorizing Noûs to fasten on them, and combine them into true propositions. In so far as regards the indivisibles themselves, falsehood is out of the question, and truth also, since they affirm nothing. The mind either apprehends them, or it does not apprehend them: there is no other alternative.[185] But, when combined into affirmative propositions, they then are true or false, as the case may be. The formal essence of each object is among these indivisibles, and is apprehended as such by the intellect; which, while confining itself to such essence, is unerring, as each sense is in regard to its own appropriate perceivables.[186] But, when the intellect goes father, and proceeds to predicate any attribute respecting the essence, then it becomes liable to error, as sense is when drawing inferences.

[Footnote 185: Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, a. 26: [Greek: ê( me\n ou)=n tô=n a)diaire/tôn no/êsis e)n tou/tois peri\ a(\ ou)k e)/sti to\ pseu=dos; e)n oi(=s de\ kai\ to\ pseu=dos kai\ to\ a)lêthe/s, su/nthesi/s tis ê)/dê noêma/tôn ô(/sper e(\n o)/ntôn.]--Metaphysica, [Greek: Th]. x. p. 1051, b. 31: [Greek: peri\ tau=ta ou)k e)/stin a)patêthê=nai, a)ll' ê)\ noei=n ê)\ mê/.]]

[Footnote 186: Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, b. 29. This portion of the treatise is peculiarly confused and difficult to understand.]

One of the chief functions that Aristotle assigns to Noûs, or the noëtic function, is that the _principia_ of demonstration and knowledge belong to it; and not merely the _principia_, but also, in cases of action preceded by deliberation and balance of motives, the ultimate application of _principia_ to action. So that he styles Noûs both beginning and end; also the beginning of the beginning; and, moreover, he declares it to be always right and unerring--equal to Science and even more than Science.[187] These are high praises, conveying little information, and not reconcilable with other passages wherein he speaks of the exercise of the noëtic function ([Greek: to\ noei=n]) as sometimes right, sometimes wrong.[188] But, for the question of psychology, the point to be determined is, in what sense he meant that _principia_ belonged to Noûs. He certainly did not mean that the first principles of reasoning were novelties originated, suggested, or introduced into the soul by noëtic influence. Not only he does not say this, but he takes pains to impress the exact contrary. In passages cited a few pages back, he declares that Noûs in entering the soul brings nothing whatever with it; that it is an universal potentiality--a capacity in regard to truth, but nothing more;[189] that it is in fact a capacity not merely for comparing and judging (to both of which he recognizes even the sentient soul as competent), but also for combining many into one, and resolving the apparent one into several; for abstracting, generalizing, and selecting among the phantasms present, which of them should be attended to, and which should be left out of attention.[190] Such is his opinion about the noëtic function; and he states explicitly that the abstract and universal not only arise from the concrete and particular, but are inseparable from the same really--separable only logically.

[Footnote 187: Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. VI. xii. p. 1143, a. 25, b. 10: [Greek: dio\ kai\ a)rchê\ kai\ te/los nou=s].--Analyt. Post. II. xviii. p. 100, b. 5.]

[Footnote 188: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 427, b. 8: [Greek: a)ll' ou)de\ to\ noei=n, e)n ô(=| e)/sti to\ o)rthô=s kai\ mê\ o)rthô=s--dianoei=sthai d' e)nde/chetai kai\ pseudô=s.]]

[Footnote 189: Ibid. I. ii. p. 404, a. 30, where he censures Demokritus: [Greek: ou) dê\ chrê=tai tô=| nô=| ô(s duna/mei tini\ peri\ tê\n a)lê/theian, a)lla\ tau)to\ le/gei psuchê\n kai\ nou=n.]--Compare ibid. III. iv. p. 429, a. 21, b. 30.]

[Footnote 190: Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, b. 5: [Greek: to\ de\ e(\n poiou=n, tou=to o( nou=s e(/kaston].--Ibid. xi. p. 434, a. 9.]

He describes, at the end of the Analytica Posteriora and elsewhere, the steps whereby the mind ascends gradually from sense, memory, and experience, to general principles. And he indicates a curious contrast between these and the noëtic functions. Sense, memory, phantasy, reminiscence, are movements of the body as well as of the soul; our thoughts and feelings come and go, none of them remaining long. But the noëtic process is the reverse of this; it is an arrest of all this mental movement, a detention of the fugitive thoughts, a subsidence from perturbation--so that the attention dwells steadily and for some time on the same matters.[191] Analysis, selection, and concentration of attention, are the real characteristics of the Aristotelian Noûs. It is not (as some philosophers have thought) a source of new general truths, let into the soul by a separate door, and independent of experience as well as transcending experience.

[Footnote 191: Aristot. Physica, VII. iii. p. 247, b. 9: [Greek: ê( d' e)x a)rchê=s lê=psis tê=s e)pistê/mês ge/nesis ou)k e)/stin; tô=| ga\r ê)remê=sai kai\ stê=nai tê\n dia/noian e)pi/stasthai kai\ phronei=n le/gomen.]--Also De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, b. 32, and the remarkable passage in the Analytica Poster. II. xviii. p. 100, a. 3-b. 5.]

Passing now to the Emotions, we find that these are not systematically classified and analysed by Aristotle, as belonging to a scheme of Psychology; though he treats them incidentally, with great ability and acuteness, both in his Ethics, where he regards them as auxiliaries or impediments to a rational plan of life, and in his Rhetoric, where he touches upon their operation as it bears on oratorical effect. He introduces however in his Psychology some answer to the question, What is it that produces local movement in the animal body? He replies that movement is produced both by Noûs and by Appetite.

Speaking strictly, we ought to call Appetite alone the direct producing cause, acted upon by the _appetitum_, which is here the _Primum Movens Immobile_. But this _appetitum_ cannot act without coming into the intellectual sphere, as something seen, imagined, cogitated.[192] In this case the Noûs or Intellect is stimulated through appetite, and operates in subordination thereto. Such is the Intellect, considered as Practical, the principle or determining cause of which is the _appetitum_ or object of desire; the Intellect manifesting itself only for the sake of some end, to be attained or avoided. Herein it is distinguished altogether from the Theoretical Noûs or Intellect, which does not concern itself with any _expetenda_ or _fugienda_ and does not meddle with conduct. The _appetitum_ is good, real or apparent, in so far as it can be achieved by our actions. Often we have contradictory appetites; and, in such cases, the Intellect is active generally as a force resisting the present and caring for the future. But Appetite or Desire, being an energy including both soul and body, is the real and appropriate cause that determines us to local movement, often even against strong opposition from the Intellect.[193]

[Footnote 192: Aristot. De Animâ, III. x. p. 433, b. 11: [Greek: prô=ton de\ pa/ntôn to\ o)rekto/n (tou=to ga\r kinei= ou) kinou/menon tô=| noêthê=nai ê)\ phantasthê=nai).]]

[Footnote 193: Aristot. De Animâ, III. x. p. 433, a. 25, b. 19: [Greek: dio\ e)n toi=s koinoi=s sô/matos kai\ psuchê=s e)/rgois], &c.]

Aristotle thus concludes his scheme of Psychology, comprehending all plants as well as all animals; a scheme differing in this respect, as well as in others, from the schemes of those that had preceded him, and founded upon the peculiar principles of his own First Philosophy. Soul is to organized body as Form to Matter, as Actualizer to the Potential; not similar or homogeneous, but correlative; the two being only separable as distinct logical points of view in regard to one and the same integer or individual. Aristotle recognizes many different varieties of Soul, or rather many distinct functions of the same soul, from the lowest or most universal, to the highest or most peculiar and privileged; but the higher functions presuppose or depend upon the lower, as conditions; while the same principle of Relativity pervades them all. He brings this principle prominently forward, when he is summing up[194] in the third or last book of the treatise De Animâ:--"The Soul is in a certain way all existent things; for all of them are either Perceivables or Cogitables; and the Cogitant Soul is in a certain way the matters cogitated, while the Percipient Soul is in a certain way the matters perceived." The Percipient and its _Percepta_--the Cogitant and its _Cogitata_--each implies and correlates with the other: the Percipient is the highest Form of all _Percepta_; the Cogitant is the Form of Forms, or the highest of all Forms, cogitable or perceivable.[195] The Percipient or Cogitant Subject is thus conceived only in relation to the Objects perceived or cogitated, while these Objects again are presented as essentially correlative to the Subject. The realities of Nature are particulars, exhibiting Form and Matter in one: though, for purposes of scientific study--of assimilation and distinction--it is necessary to consider each of the two abstractedly from the other.

[Footnote 194: Ibid. viii. p. 431, b. 20, seq.: [Greek: nu=n de\ peri\ psuchê=s ta\ lechthe/nta sugkephalaiô/santes, ei)/pômen pa/lin o(/ti ê( psuchê\ ta\ o)/nta pô/s e)sti pa/nta. ê)\ ga\r ai)sthêta\ ta\ o)/nta ê)\ noêta/, e)/sti de\ ê( e)pistê/mê me\n ta\ e)pistêta/ pôs, ê( d' ai)/sthêsis ta\ ai)sthêta/.]]

[Footnote 195: Ibid. p. 432, a. 2: [Greek: o( nou=s ei)=dos ei)dô=n, kai\ ê( ai)/sthêsis ei)=dos ai)sthêtô=n.]]