some one of its parts will, and some other will not be,
in the air ; and thus either the Vital Principle must
be homogeneous, or else it cannot be present in every
part of the universe. It is manifest, then, from what
has been adduced, that the faculty of recognising does
not belong to Vital Principle by virtue of its being
derived from the elements ; as also that it cannot with
accuracy or truth be said to be self-motive.

Since the faculties of knowing, feeling and think-
ing, together with desiring, willing and the appetites
generally, as also locomotion, growth, maturity and
decay, are properties of the Vital Principle, let us
inquire whether or not each of those properties is
imparted to us by the Vital Principle as a whole
that is, does each of those faculties emanate from the
Vital Principle as a whole ? do we think, feel, act and
suffer by it as a whole, or are different offices assigned
to different parts ? Is life in one, or more than one,
or in all the parts, or is there some other cause for
life than the Vital Principle ?

Some writers maintain that Vital Principle is
divisible, and that by one part it thinks, and by
another feels desire ; but what then, if it be naturally
divisible, holds its parts together? Not the body
certainly, we answer ; for the Vital Principle, on the
contrary, appears to hold it together, as from the
moment of its departure the body expires and decays.



54 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. T.

If there be a something which makes it one, that
something is, in the strictest sense, Vital Principle ;
and it will be necessary again to inquire whether that
something is indivisible or with parts ; if it be indi-
visible, then why not at once conclude that it must
be Vital Principle? If it be divisible, reason will
again seek to learn what that is which holds its parts
together ; and thus may the inquiry be continued in-
terminably. With respect to the parts of the Vital
Principle, it is difficult to determine what is the part
which has been assigned to each of them in the body ;
for if it is the whole Vital Principle which sustains
the whole body, it is probable that each of its parts
sustains some one part of the body. But this is very
like an impossibility; for it would be difficult even to
conjecture what part the mind could connect with
others, or in what way it could do so at all. Thus,
plants, when divided, appear to live, and so do some
species of insects, as if possessing still the same Vital
Principle in a specific, although not in a numerical
sense; for each of the parts has sensation and loco-
motion for a time, and there is no room for surprise
at their not continuing to manifest those properties,
seeing that they are without the organs necessary for
the preservation of their nature. Nevertheless, in
each of those parts coexist all parts of the Vital Prin-
ciple, and those parts are, specifically, the same with
each other, and with the whole with each other, as



CH. V.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 55

being inseparable, and with the whole as being sepa-
rable. But the living principle in plants seems to be
a kind of Vital Principle, for animals and plants
alike partake of it ; and it is separable from the sen-
tient principle, but yet without it no creature can
possess sensibility.



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER I.

AFTER haying delineated his subject and quoted and com-
mented on the leading opinions concerning it, Aris-
totle here reverts to the definition of Vital Principle,
which was given partially at the commencement of
the inquiry, with the intent of giving to it a signifi-
cation comprehensive enough to include all living
beings ; for he had guarded us against limiting the
inquiry to the human family. The argument com-
mences as usual with Aristotle, ab ovo, he attempts,
that is, to fix the meaning of essence, matter and
form, those primordial entities or conditions, which
make up and serve to distinguish all the beings and
things of the external world. These very abstruse
questions have been alluded to in a former note, and
passages were then cited from the Metaphysics and
other works for the purpose of obtaining, if possible,
precise notions concerning them ; but these abstrac-
tions are so shadowy, and words so fluctuating, that
they seem to elude even the perspicacity of Aristotle,



PRELUDE TO CHAP. I. 57

and the ductility of his language. Essence is said
to be a genus, to be constitutive, that is, with matter,
which, in itself, is no particular thing, of each genus
of beings or things ; but then it is form, which
realises, so to say, that combination by conferring
upon it a specific character. For form harmonises
with all the organisation of an animal ; and every
organised body, Cuvier observes, over and above the
common qualities of its tissues, has a peculiar form,
not only generally and exteriorly, but even down to
its minutest details ; and it is " this form which de-
termines the direction of each particular movement,
which supports the complicity of its life, constitutes
its species, and makes it what it is 1 ."

1 Blainville, i"* ley on.



BOOK THE SECOND.



CHAPTER I.

THUS have the opinions handed down by former
writers upon Vital Principle been delineated ; and
now let us retrace our steps, and again, as if at the
outset of our inquiry, endeavour to define what it is
and what the most general expression for it.

We say, then, that essence is a particular genus
of entities, and that of it part is matter, which in
itself is not any one particular object, as it is other
than form and species from which each object derives
its particular denomination; and that, in the third
place, there is the derivative from both these. Now
matter is potentiality, species reality, and that in a
twofold acceptation, as knowledge and as reflexion ;
but bodies, and above all natural bodies, seem to be
essences; for they are, in fact, the origins of other
bodies. Among natural bodies some have and some
have not life ; and by life we mean the faculties of
self-nourishment, self-growth and self-decay. Thus,



CH. I.] ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 59

every natural body partaking of life may be regarded
as an essence ; but then it is an essence in combination,
as^ has been said. And since the body is such a
combination, being possessed of life, it cannot be
Vital Principle ; for as it is itself more truly subject
and matter, it cannot be among the subordinates of a
subject. It follows, then, that the Vital Principle
must be an essence, as being the form of a natural
body holding life in potentiality ; but essence is a
reality, the reality, that is, of a body such as has
been described. Now reality is, in the twofold signi-
fication, either of knowledge or of reflexion ; and that
it may be regarded as knowledge is manifest in that
sleep and watching co-exist as original properties, in
Vital Principle ; and equally manifest that watching
is analogous to reflexion upon knowledge, as that
sleep represents knowledge possessed but not em-
ployed. But knowledge pre-exists in the same indi-
vidual, and the Vital Principle is, therefore, the
original reality of a natural body endowed with life
in potentiality ; only this is to be understood of a
body which may be organised. Thus, the parts even
of plants are organs, but then they are organs which
are altogether simple, as the leaf is the covering of the
pericarp, and the pericarp of the fruit ; and the roots
are analogous to the mouth, for both take in food.
If, then, there be any general expression for every
kind of Vital Principle, it may be set down as " the



60 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. II.

incipient reality of a natural body which is orga-
nised"

It is, therefore, to no purpose to inquire whether
Vital Principle and the body are one, any more than
whether wax and the impress upon it are one, or
whether the matter formative of any object and the
object formed are one ; for one and being have many
significations, but they are correctly designated as
reality.

It has thus been explained generally what the
Vital Principle is, and shewn that it is an essence,
in its abstract signification, which implies the par-
ticular mode of being in any particular body, as if
any instrument, an axe, for instance, were a natural
body, the mode of being in the axe would be, at
once, both its essence and its Vital Principle; for,
were it once to be withdrawn, then, save in name, it
could be an axe no longer. All this, however, relates
to an axe, but Vital Principle is the mode and the
cause of being, not in any thing like an axe but,
in a natural body, having within it a principle of
motion and of rest.

But what has been said may be better understood
by reference to the parts of a body. Thus, if the eye
were an animal, vision would be its Vital Principle,
as vision, abstractedly considered, is the essence of
the eye ; but the eye is the matter of vision, and if
vision be wanting, then, save in name, it is an eye no



CH. I.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 61

longer, any more than is that an eye which is repre-
sented in sculpture or painting. All that has here
been assumed of a part may be made applicable to
the whole living body; for, as there is an analogy
between part and part, so is there between the whole
sensibility and the whole sentient body, in the ratio
of its sensibility ; but this must be understood of a
body which yet retains its Vital Principle, and is, in
potentiality, alive. The seed and the fruit are the
representatives of such a body in potentiality ; and as
cutting is the reality of an axe, vision that of an eye,
so watching is the reality of Vital Principle ; which is
to the body what vision is to an eye, and its own
property to any instrument ; but this is to be under-
stood of a body in potentiality. Thus, as an eye is a
pupil and vision, so an animal is a body and Vital
Principle.

It is then obvious that neither Vital Principle nor
any of its parts, even granting that it may be divi-
sible, can be separate from the body ; for of some of
its parts it is the reality; and yet there is nothing to
preclude the possibility of some others being separate,
as there are some which do not contribute to the
reality of any body. It is doubtful, however, whether
the Vital Principle is the reality of a body in the
sense that a mariner is of his vessel.

Thus far, then, have we proceeded in our attempt
to define and delineate Vital Principle.



PKELUDE TO CHAPTER II.



As the purport of this chapter is to determine the essen-
tial or characteristic properties of the Vital Principle
in order to attain to a solid definition, it commences,
very appropriately, with a short disquisition upon
that form, and a protest against any deviation from
its real purport ; and thus the argument of the
foregoing chapter is continued. The opening para-
graph is necessarily obscure, from the nature of its
topic, but it may be practically at least elucidated,
by reference to similar topics in the other works.
It is observed by Aristotle 1 , that the antecedent is,
absolutely speaking, more apprehensible than the
sequence, as a point e. g. is than a line, a line than a
surface, and a surface than a solid ; so too an unit is
more apprehensible than a number (for the unit is
the origin of all number), as a single letter is than
a syllable. But sometimes, on the other hand,
the reverse of this happens for as it is the solid,

1 Topica, vi. 4, 5.



PRELUDE TO CHAP. II. 63

especially, which falls under the senses, so the twrface
is more apprehensible than the line, and the line
than the point; as the multitude (pi iro\\o\) are
already conversant with them, while the sequences
are to be acquired only by attention, or some peculiar
mental faculty. Thus, to speak generally, it is best
to gather knowledge concerning sequences through
their antecedents ; for this is by far the most scien-
tific mode of conducting an inquiry. In fine, what-
ever falls under the senses seems, from being familiar
to us, to be more apprehensible than principles or
causes, which are more or less abstractions ; as, the
falling of a stone seems to be more apprehensible
than the principle of Gravitation. But as the know-
ledge of any subject may be also acquired through
the study of its accidents, that is, its essential pro-
perties, so it is suggested that the knowledge of Vital
Principle may be arrived at through the study of
its faculties.



CHAPTER II.



SINCE that which is evident and, when abstract-
edly considered, more apprehensible may be derived
from particulars which are by their nature obscure,
although to us more apparent, let us again attempt,
bearing this in mind, to attain to a comprehensive
view of Vital Principle. It is not only correct that
the wording of a definition should shew, as do most
definitions, what a thing is, but it ought also to
embody and make apparent the cause of its being
what it is. But the terms usually employed make
definitions to be kinds of conclusions; as if, for
instance, to the question "what is a quadrature?" it
be answered, that it is to find an equilateral rectan-
gular figure equal to another figure with unequal
sides, such a definition is the statement of the con-
clusion; if it be said that the quadrature is " the
discovery of a mean proportional," this conveys the
cause of the thing.

We say, then, resuming our inquiry at its outset,
that the animate is distinguished from the inanimate
by having life. Now the term life has many accepta-



CH. II.] ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 65

tions, but if one only of the following properties,
viz. mind, sensibility, locomotion, and rest, as well
as the motion concerned in nutrition, growth, and
decay be manifested in any object, we say that that
object is alive. And, therefore, all plants seem to be
alive, for they all appear to have within them a
faculty and a principle by which they acquire growth
and undergo decay in opposite, directions; for they do
not grow upwards exclusively, but they grow equally
in both these and all other directions, and are alive
throughout so long as they are able to imbibe nourish-
ment. It is possible for nutrition to subsist inde-
pendently of the other functions, but the others cannot
possibly, in mortal beings, subsist without it; and
this is manifest in plants, since no other than it has
been allotted to them. Thus, it is by this faculty of
nutrition that life is manifested in living beings, but an
animal is characterized above all by sensibility ; for
we say that creatures endowed with sensibility are
not merely living beings but animals, although they
may neither be motive nor change their locality.
Touch is the sense first manifested in all creatures,
and, as the nutritive faculty can be manifested inde-
pendently of Touch and other senses, so the sense of
Touch can be manifested independently of any other.
We call nutritive function that part of Vital Principle
of which plants partake ; but all animals appear besides

5



66 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. II.

it to have the sense of Touch ; and we shall, hereafter,
explain why each of those functions has been allotted.
Let it suffice, for the present, to say that Vital Prin-
ciple is the source of the nutritive, the sentient, cogi-
tative and motive faculties ; and that by them it has
been defined.

It is easy, with respect to some of those faculties,
to perceive, whether any one of them is the Vital
Principle, or a part of Vital Principle, and if a part
whether it is distinct from other parts substantively,
or in an abstract sense only; but there are others
which seem to elude investigation. Thus, as some
plants appear, after having been divided, and after
the parts have been separated, still to be alive, as if
the living principle, in each plant, were in reality one,
in potentiality more than one, so we see the same
occurrence in other distinctions of the Vital Principle,
as in insects which have been divided ; for each of
the parts manifests sensibility and locomotion, and if
sensibility, then imagination and desire, as wherever
there is feeling, there must be sense of pain and plea-
sure, and wherever these, there must, of necessity, be
desire. We have nothing very certain to offer upon
the subject of the mind and the reflective faculties;
but the mind seems to be another kind of Vital Prin-
ciple, and alone to be capable of existing apart from
the body, as the everlasting exists apart from the



CH. II.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 67

perishable. Thus, it is manifest, from what has been
adduced, that the other parts of the Vital Principle
are not, as some say, distinct from the body, although
it is clear that, when considered absolutely, they are
different from it ; for the mode of being in a sentient
must differ from that in a cogitative being, since
feeling differs from thinking, and this applies equally
to other functions and faculties. All those faculties
besides belong to some animals, particular ones only
to others, and there are others to which one only
has been allotted, and this constitutes distinctions
among animals, the cause of which shall hereafter be
considered. But something very like this has taken
place with respect to the senses, for some animals
have them all; others have particular ones only,
and there are others again which have but one ;
but that one is Touch, which of all is the most
necessary.

As that by which we live and feel, like that by
which we understand, has a twofold signification,
since we speak of that by which we understand some-
times as Knowledge, and sometimes as the Vital Prin-
ciple, for we say that we understand by either of
them ; so equally does this apply to that by which
we are in health, and which sometimes refers to a
particular part of the body, and sometimes to the
whole body. Now, the two faculties alluded to, know-

52



68 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. II.

ledge and health, are a form, a " specific something"
a " relation," and an action, as it were, of a recipient,
capable in the one case of knowing, and in the other
of maintaining health (for the action of creative ener-
gies seems to be innate in the impressionable and
suitably constituted subject), but the Vital Principle
is that by which we live, feel and think, from life's
outset; so that, although it may be the cause and
form, it cannot be matter and subject. Thus, the
essence has a threefold signification, as we have said,
in the sense of form, of matter, and the compound of
the two ; and of these matter is potentiality, and form
reality ; and since the living being is a compound of
the two, the body is not the reality of the Vital Prin-
ciple, but it, on the contrary, is the reality of a par-
ticular kind of body. On which account it is happily
assumed by some that the Vital Principle can neither
be without the body, nor be itself a body of any kind ;
for a body it is not, but yet it is something of the
body, and, therefore, present innately in the body,
and that peculiarly constituted. It is not, that is, in
any kind of body, as the earlier writers have main-
tained, when they attached it to a body without in
the least defining either the nature or quality of the
body; although it must be against all probability
that any kind of recipient should receive any thing
taken by chance. But here all takes place as might



CH. II.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 69

reasonably be expected for the realising influence
exists congenitally in its own subject, while yet
potential, and constituted of matter fitted for its
agency. It is then manifest, from what has been
adduced, that the realising influence and cause can act
only upon that which is potentially capable of be-
coming such or such a reality.



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER III.

THE inquiry into the faculties and functions of living
beings is here continued, for the purpose of deter-
mining, through them, the source from which life is
derived; and the distinction between the animal and
vegetable kingdom is, incidentally, alluded to. That
distinction is placed in the presence or absence of
sentient properties; and so Lamarck 1 distinguishes
plants, by their want of irritability, that is sensi-
bility, from animals.

1 Hist. Nat. T. i. p. 77.



CHAPTER III.

ALL the faculties of Vital Principle which have been
enumerated belong, as we have said, to some crea-
tures, some only of them belong to others, and there
are creatures again which have but one ; and we spoke
of those faculties as the nutritive, appetitive, sentient,
locomotive and cogitative. Of these, the nutritive
alone belongs to plants ; but to other beings both it
and the sentient have been imparted; and if the
sentient, then the appetitive, for appetite is desire,
passion and volition ; and all animals, without excep-
tion, have the sense of Touch. But the creature to
which sensibility has been imparted cannot but be
sensible of pleasure and pain, of what is grateful and
what painful ; and if sensible of these, it must have
desire, as desire is the appetite for what is grateful.
All such creatures, moreover, have the sense for food,
as they have Touch, which is that sense ; for all ani-
mals are nourished by what is dry and moist, warm
and cold, and Touch is the sense for judging of these
qualities. But it is only by chance that the Touch
can judge of other qualities, as neither sound, colour
nor odour contribute in aught to nourishment; and



72 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. II.

savour is among tangible qualities. Hunger and
thirst are desires: the former for what is dry and
warm, the latter for what is liquid and cold ; and
savour is the condiment, as it were, for both. As,
however, we shall be more explicit upon those points
hereafter, it may, for the present, suffice to say, that
all such creatures as have the sense of Touch have
appetite ; it is uncertain whether or not they have
imagination, but this also shall be considered here-
after. There are creatures to which, besides those
faculties, locomotion has been imparted ; and others
again, as man, to which have been allotted both
reflexion and mind, together with any other and yet
nobler faculty, if such there be, than mind.

It is clear, then, that there can be but one defi-
nition for Vital Principle, as there is but one for a
geometrical figure; for as in geometry there is no
figure but the triangle and its sequences, so neither
are there any kinds of Vital Principle save those
which have been enumerated. Could there, however,
be any such common expression for figures, as with-
out being peculiar to any one, should yet be applica-
ble to all, so might there be for the Vital Principles
alluded to. It would be idle, however, to seek for
any such expression, in the case either of Vital Prin-
ciples or geometrical figures, as should neither be
applicable to any one of them individually, nor, put-
ting aside individuals, be applicable to them as an



CH. III.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 73

individual species. But still there is an analogy
between the faculties of Vital Principle and geometri-
cal figures ; for as in vital properties, so in geometri-
cal figures, the antecedent is ever present potentially
in the sequences, and as the triangle is in the square,
so the nutritive is in the sentient faculty. Thus, the
inquiry must be conducted with reference to indi-
viduals, in order to learn what is the Vital Principle
of each, as of a plant, a man, or a brute ; and where-
fore beings are thus ranged in a series.

Without the nutritive function there can be no
sensibility, but in plants the nutritive exists without
the sentient ; so again without the Touch there can
be no other sense, while Touch can exist alone, for
many animals have neither sight nor hearing, and are
altogether without smell. Among sentient creatures
some have and some have not locomotion, and, finally,
to a few calculation and judgment have been imparted;
and to such among mortal beings as are so endowed
all other faculties have been imparted likewise. But
to such as possess some one only of the faculties,
calculation has not been allotted, as some of them
have not even imagination, while others live by it
alone ; it would be foreign to our present inquiry to
enter upon the speculative intellect.

It is, then, clear that the definition which comes
closest to each one of those faculties is also the fittest
for the elucidation of Vital Principle.



I
PRELUDE TO CHAPTER IV.



THE opening paragraphs of this chapter are both obscure
and apparently contradictory ; for while it is sug-
gested that it might be well, in order to comprehend
faculties or functions, first to study the energies or