sapid; and the insapid implies whatever has a faint
or nauseous savour, or a savour altogether perversive
of taste. The potable and the impotable seem alike
to be the origin of taste, for they both are sapid ; but
then the first has a nauseous savour, and is perversive
of taste, while the last is genial to the sense ; the po-
table is common, besides, to the touch and taste.
Since whatever is sapid is humid, it follows that the
organ of taste may neither be humid realty, nor yet
be incapable of becoming humid ; for the taste suffers
impression by the sapid body, in so far as it is sapid.
It is, therefore, necessary that the sentient organ, if
not moist, should, for its function, be capable of be-
coming so : and, as proof of this, the tongue, when
82
116 ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. [BK. II.
very dry or very moist, is not sensible of sapid im-
pressions as in the former instance, it is a tangible
rather than a sapid impression which is made by a
fluid when first tasted; and when very moist, it is
sensible only of the fluid already present, just as it
happens when, after tasting something pungent, we
proceed to taste a different fluid. It is thus that all
savours appear to the sick to be bitter, because the
tongue, with which they taste, is charged with a mois-
ture having that savour.
Kinds of savour are, like shades of colour, simple
when in broad contrast as the sweet and bitter with
their sequences, of the former the oily and of the lat-
ter the brackish ; and intermediate to these are the
pungent, rough, astringent, and sour, which seem to
include almost all the varieties of savour.
In fine, the sapid sense, when in potentiality, is
such as is the sapid object; and the sapid object,
when in reality, is productive, in the sense, of its own
savour.
PRELUDE TO CHAPTER XL
COMMENTATORS have differed widely in their interpretation
of Aristotle's meaning in the opening passage upon
the Touch. But it may, with some confidence, be
assumed that, from being unacquainted with the
nervous system, and observing the wide-spread and
varying delicacy of the sense, he was led to suppose
that it might either be diffused, so to speak, as several
organs, over the body, or be somehow identified with
or included in the flesh which covers the body. l The
flesh is the muscular substance, and as it envelopes, so
to say, the body, it was probably supposed to be the
seat or cause of the sense, as every part is sensible to
Touch; and the analogue of flesh is the colourless sub-
stance of the Insanguinea insects, <tc. *And there
is a close analogy between the two substances, "as
the muscles of the highest class of animals, during
their development pass through the soft, colourless,
1 De Partib. Aid. i. 8. i. 3.
3 Grant's Outlines of Comp. Anat.
118 PEELUDE TO CHAP. XI. [BK. II.
homogeneous and gelatinous condition of the Inverte-
brata, before assuming the red colour." As the
Touch, besides, was regarded as the first in order of
the senses and characteristic of animals, so the flesh
was said to be the origin of all other parts of animal
bodies, bone and skin, sinews, veins, hair and nails ;
and this hypothesis may have confirmed the opinion
that it is either the sense or the seat of the sense of
Touch.
CHAPTER XI.
THE same reasoning holds good for the tangible
quality as for the Touch ; for if the Touch be not a
single but a manifold sense, it follows that tangible
qualities must be manifold also. Now, it is difficult
to determine whether the Touch is a manifold or a
single sense, and difficult also to say what the organ
may be which is percipient of tangible qualities ; that
is, whether or not it is the flesh, and that which, in
other creatures, is analogous to flesh; but yet the
flesh is only the medium, and the essential organ,
therefore, must be something different from flesh, and
situated internally.
Each sense seems to be perceptive of only one
contrary, as Sight of white and black, Hearing of
CH. XI.] ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 119
acute and grave, and Taste of bitter and sweet ; but
several contraries belong to the sense of Touch, as hot
and cold, wet and dry, hard and soft, with others.
There is, it is true, a kind of solution for this diffi-
culty, in that the other senses also admit of several
contraries; as in the voice there are not only the
acute and grave but also the strong and weak, the
rough and smooth, with yet other contrasts; and
there are many and varied shades of colour. Still it
is not clear what that subjacent something is, which
is to the tangible impression what the Hearing is
to Sound.
Is then the sentient organ placed or not within
the flesh, or is it the flesh itself which is immediately
perceptive? It does not appear that any indication
can be obtained upon this point from sensation being
simultaneous with the tangible impression ; for, situ-
ated as we are, were any one to extend a membrane-
like substance over his flesh, the party would be
equally sensible when touched, and sensible at the
moment of contact; and yet, clearly, the sentient
organ cannot be in that membrane. It may be, how-
ever, that if the membrane were a congenital part of
the body, sensation would pass through it more
rapidly. Thus, this part of the body appears to be
disposed towards us as air would be, had air been
diffused around us ; for it would seem to us as thougli
by some one sense we perceive sound, colour, and
120 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. II.
odour, and as though sight, hearing, and smell, are
one and the same sense. But now, as the motions
emanating from external objects are distinguishable
by the medium through which they are conveyed,
the sentient organs alluded to must manifestly be dif-
ferent also. With respect to the Touch, however,
this is still obscure, for it is impossible that a
living body should be constituted out of air or water,
as it must have some solidity; and there remains
only this conclusion, that it must be a mixture of
earth, and such other particles as have affinity with
flesh, and the analogue of flesh. Thus, the body has,
of necessity, been adapted for being the medium for
the tangible sense, through which the several tangi-
ble impressions are to be conveyed; and that the
impressions are manifold is shewn in the tongue
being perceptive of tangible as well as sapid qualities.
We are sensible, in fact, by this organ of all tangible
as well as sapid qualities ; and were the rest of the
flesh, like the tongue, sensible of savour, then " Taste"
and " Touch" would seem to be one and the same
sense ; but now we perceive, since they are not con-
vertible, that they must be distinct senses.
It may be a question whether, as all bodies have
depth, that is the third magnitude, any two bodies,
which have between them another body, can be in
contact ; for neither the humid nor the liquid is incor-
poreal, as each must, of necessity, be water or hold
CH. XI.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 121
water ; and thus, it follows that, as the extreme parts
of bodies in the water are not dry, the water, with
which their extremities are covered, must be inter-
posed between them. If this be true, then it is im-
possible that one body, when in the water, should be
in immediate contact with another; and this holds
good for bodies in the air ; for the air is in the same
relation to bodies in air which water is to bodies in
water ; but owing to our being in the air, the fact as
readily escapes us, as it does aquatic animals, from
their being in water, that water is in immediate
contact with water. It may then be asked whether
there is but one mode of impression for all the senses,
or whether it is different for different senses, seeing
that taste and touch are acted upon by contact, and
the other senses from a distance ? But yet this is a
seeming difference only, for we perceive the hard and
the soft, as we do the odorous, the sonorous, and the
visible, through media ; with this difference, that the
former impressions are made by objects close to, and
the latter by objects at a distance from us. On which
account, as we perceive all things through a medium,
the medium, in the case of bodies close to us, escapes
our attention; but if, as we have already said, we
could be sensible of all tangible impressions through
a membraneous substance, without our being con-
scious of their having been so transmitted, we should
then be situated as we now are, when in water or air;
122 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. II.
for so situated, we seem to touch bodies directly, and
to have no impression from them through a medium.
But tangible differ from visible and sonorous im-
pressions, in that the latter are perceived by the me-
dium acting in some way upon us, while the former
are perceived, not by, but together with, the medium,
like a man who is struck through his shield ; for it
is not the shield which, having been struck, strikes
him, but the shield and he are simultaneously struck
together. To use a general expression, the flesh and
the tongue seem to be in the same relation to the
touch which air and water are to sight, hearing, and
smell ; are disposed towards that organ, that is, as
each of those elements is to each of those senses.
When the sentient organ itself is touched, no sensa-
tion can there or then be produced, any more than a
white object can be seen when placed immediately
over the surface of the eye; and thus it is evident
that the part perceptive of tangible impressions must
be within. Thus, it should be with the touch, as
with the other senses; and if objects, when placed upon
an organ, are not perceived, but, when placed upon the
flesh, they are perceived, we must conclude that the
flesh is only the medium for tangible impressions.
The distinctions of the body, as body, are tangible
distinctions, and by these I mean distinctions such as
distinguish the elements, as hot, cold, dry and moist,
upon which we have heretofore spoken in our treatise
CH. XI.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 123
upon the Elements. The organ which perceives those
distinctions is that of Touch ; and the part in which
resides, primarily, the so-called sense of Touch is, in
potentiality, what tangible impressions are in re-
ality; for all sensation is a kind of impression. So
that whatever, by its agency, makes something else to
be as itself, can do so only from that something being
already, as itself, in potentiality. Hence, we are not
sensible of hot and cold, hard and soft, when mani-
fested in the same degree as in ourselves, but perceive
them only when in excess, as if the sensibility were
some kind of mean between the contraries of sentient
impressions, and able, as such, to judge of sentient
perceptions. The mean, in fact, is critical for it is
either of the extremes in its relation to the other;
and as that which is to perceive white and black may
be neither one nor the other actually, and yet both
potentially, so it is with the other senses, and with
touch, which may be neither hot nor cold.
As vision was said to be, in some sense, perceptive
of the visible and the invisible, and the other senses
equally of their opposites, so Touch may be said to be
perceptive of the tangible and the intangible ; and by
intangible is meant as well what differs but slightly
from what is tangible, as air for instance, as what is
in such excess as to be destructive of all sensation.
We have thus then spoken, although but super-
ficially, upon each of the senses.
PKELUDE TO CHAP. XII.
HAVING treated of each of the senses, Aristotle here
proceeds to consider the source of sensation, the
sensibility, that is, which is typified as plastic wax,
from its capability of receiving the form of an object
without its matter. This comparison is indeed a
happy one ; and it has been often employed by
writers in modern times, and "among others by
Bossuet 1 ." The chapter shews that for perception
there must be a due relation between impression and
sense, and that plants are insentient because they
have no faculty for the reception of the forms of
objects ; and it concludes by shewing that the agency
of some properties, as light, sound, <kc., is confined
to the sentient organs.
1 Connoissance de Dieu.
CHAPTER XII.
IT must be admitted, for the senses in general, that
each one is receptive of the perceptible forms of
things without the matter, as wax takes the impress
from a seal-ring, without the iron or gold of which
the ring is made ; takes the device, that is, without
the metal on which the device is inscribed. In like
manner, the sense is impressed by each object having
colour, or savour, or sound ; not, however, after the
appellation of the object but, according as it is of a
certain quality, and in a given relation to the sense.
It is the primal organ in which this faculty exists ;
and it is identical with the object perceived, although
different from it in mode of being ; for, otherwise, the
percipient would be some kind of magnitude. But it
cannot belong either to that percipient or to sensation
to be magnitude, as they are rather a relation to, and
a faculty for the perception of the qualities of each
object. Thus, it is, from these reasons, made manifest
why sentient impressions in excess destroy the sen-
tient organs ; for if the motion of the impression be
stronger than that of the organ, then the relation
126 ARISTOTLE ON THE [l3K. II.
which constitutes sensation is dissolved, as harmony
and tone become discordant, when the chords are
struck too forcibly.
But why do not plants feel, seeing that they also
possess a living part, and are impressionable by tan-
gible qualities ? And that they are so impressionable
is shewn in their being both cooled and heated ; but
the cause is that they have not that mediate faculty,
nor any such principle as admits of their receiving
only the forms of things ; that along with forms they
are affected by the matter also.
It may be questioned whether impressions can be
made by odour upon what may be without smell, or
by colour upon what may be without vision, and so
for other qualities and senses. But if that which is
smelt be odour, then odour, if it produce anything,
must produce smell, and thus nothing without smell
can be affected by odour, and the same holds good
for the other senses; neither can beings which are
sentient be affected, save in so far as they are sen-
tient. All which is made evident in that neither
light nor darkness, sound nor odour, can act upon
bodies, although that which is present with them
may, as air with thunder splits wood. But yet tan-
gible and sapid qualities do act upon bodies; for,
otherwise, by what could inanimate things be acted
upon and changed ? Shall it then be said that those
other qualities also act upon bodies ? But all bodies
CH. XII.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 127
are not impressionable by odour and sound, and those
which are so are indefinite and mobile, such as is the
air ; for the air gives out odour, as if it had been sub-
ject to impression. What then is smell but impres-
sion of some kind? But smelling is a sentient per-
ception ; and the air having been impressed by odour,
becomes quickly sensible to us.
PRELUDE TO CHAPTER I.
'Tms book has been by one commentator held to be
spurious, even while admitting that all the opinions
are genuine, because of imputed solecisms in the
style and phraseology, which seem to indicate a
foreign hand. But were any one capable, as Tren-
dellenburg observes, of adopting, with so much per-
spicacity, the reasoning of Aristotle, he would be
much rather inclined to put forth an original work,
than thus to shelter his productions under another's
name. The opening passages involve great, it may
be, insuperable difficulties, owing rather to the argu-
ment than to the wording, although this is obscure,
for it seems to be assumed that a sense would be felt
to be wanting, although it might never have been
possessed ; and that the consciousness of its privation
would prove whether or not a sense were wanting.
According to this theory, in fact, if the Touch were
a sense for every impression of which we now are
1 Vide Trendell. Comment.
PRELUDE TO CHAP. I. 129
sensible, and if there were any property not percep-
tible by us, we should perceive that another sentient
organ was required ; but it has not been shewn that
such a want, had it not previously been satisfied,
could be made sensible to us. And even for the
Touch itself, were there any one property, of which
we are sensible, say that of hardness, which had
never been perceived, we could hardly be conscious
of the want ; and there may be, probably are pro-
perties in the bodies around and above us of which
we are unconscious, and yet remain without the feel-
ing of a want. Each of the senses seems to be an
ultimate fact ; for we are satisfied that we see by
the eye and hear by the ear, and that with so little
attention or will that the sentient organs perform
their part almost irrespectively of the percipient.
In the succeeding passages, which relate to media
and the elementary constitution of the senses, there
is ambiguity or confusion, occasioned by the then
prevailing dogmata of dements and like by like, and
perhaps, it may be added, by unacquaintance with
the structure of the sentient organs.
BOOK THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I.
WE may be satisfied, from the observations which
follow, that there is no sense besides the five be-
sides, that is, Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and
Touch ; for if Touch be the sense for every impression
of which we are sensible, and if we have this sense,
then, as all the conditions of whatever is tangible, in
so far as tangible, are made perceptible to us by the
Touch, it follows that, if any sensation be wanting,
some sentient organ must be wanting to us also.
Now, all the bodies which are perceived by touch-
ing are made sensible to us by the Touch which has
been allotted to us ; and all those which are perceived,
not by touching but, through media, are made sensi-
ble to us by simple bodies that is, by air and water.
We are so constituted, in fact, that, if several objects,
differing generically from one another, could be per-
ceived through one medium, an individual, having a
sentient organ such as that medium, would, neces-
CH. I.] ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 131
sarily, be sensible of impressions through both me-
dia as if the sentient organ should be of air, then, as
air is the medium for sound and colour, the individual
would be sensible of both impressions through the
same organ. Should there, however, be more than
one medium for the transmission of the same impres-
sion, as air as well as water (since both are diapha-
nous,) serves for the transmission of colour, then an
individual, having an organ constituted of either of
those elements, would perceive impressions transmit-
ted through them both. The sentient organs, how-
ever, are constituted of those two simple bodies, air
and water, exclusively for the pupil is of water, the
hearing of air, and the smell either of one or other ;
but fire forms no part of any organ, or rather it is an
element common to all, as there is nothing sentient
without heat ; and earth either does not enter at all
into any sentient part, or it has been in some especial
and peculiar manner combined with the Touch.
Thus, there can remain only this conclusion, that,
were there no air or water, there could be no sentient
organ; and organs so constituted are actually pos-
sessed by animals now living. All the senses, in fact,
are possessed by animals which are neither imperfect
nor mutilated ; for the mole appears to have eyes be-
neath its skin. So that, unless there is some kind of
body hitherto unknown and some kind of impression
unsuited to bodies here on earth, it may be affirmed
92
132 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. III.
that no sense can be wanting to us. But neither is it
possible that there should be any special organ for
the perception of common properties, (such as motion,
rest, magnitude, form, number and unity), of which
we are made sensible, by each special sense, acci-
dentally ; for we perceive all such by motion as we do
magnitude, and as we do form, as form is a kind of
magnitude ; the state of rest we are sensible of by the
absence of motion, and number we perceive by the
want of continuity and by particular senses, for each
sense is perceptive of unity. So that, evidently, there
cannot be a peculiar sense for the perception of any
one of those properties, as motion, for instance ; with
respect to which we shall be ever situated as we now
are, when, by sight, we judge of something sweet.
And this we are able to do from our happening to
possess a sense which is perceptive of double impres-
sions, and by the way in which those impressions
coincide, we recognise what the thing is ; were this
not the case, then, in no wise, except by chance,
could we perceive that the thing was sweet, any
more than we could tell that an individual is the son
of Cleon, not because he is really so, but because he
is fair ; and fairness is an accident pertaining to the
son of Cleon. And yet we have a common sense for
the perception of common properties and that not
casually, although it is not a peculiar sense ; for, were
it so, then in no otherwise could we perceive those
CH. I.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 133
properties than, as has just been said, we see that an
individual is the son of Cleon. The senses, however,
do perceive, casually, the special qualities of each
other ; but then they do so, not as distinct senses but,
as becoming one sense, as when double impressions
may be made simultaneously upon the same organ,
as by bile, which is bitter and yellow. But as it
belongs not to either sense to say that both qualities
belong to one substance, we are exposed to error, and
led to think that if a fluid be yellow it must be bile.
Should any one inquire why we have been fur-
nished with several senses in place of having only
one, it might be answered, " that we have so been
constituted in order that the sequences and common
properties of bodies, as motion, magnitude, and num-
ber, may the less readily escape our notice." If
vision, in fact, were our only sense and it perceptive
only of whiteness, then all other qualities would more
readily escape our notice and seem to be identical, on
account of colour and magnitude being in an invariable
sequence to one another. But as here common proper-
ties are manifested in different bodies, it is evident that
each of those properties (colour and magnitude) must
also be different.
PRELUDE TO CHAPTER II.
THIS chapter opens with a continuation of the discussion
upon the senses, and, assuming sensation to be an
ultimate fact, it argues that vision (taken as an ex-
ample), must be the office of the eye, or some other
sense; if the office of some other sense, then it,
unlike every other, will have had assigned to it two
different modes of impression. Add to this, that
like the visual sense, which perceives colour only, it
must be imbued with colour, and this would inter-
fere with its own peculiar office. The further objec-
tion to another than its own sense for vision, in its
requiring an infinite series of perceptions, is neither
clear nor apposite ; for, had a sense been made per-
ceptive of double impressions, that faculty would be,
as much as a single sense, an ultimate fact. The
passage has been a fruitful topic for commentators,
as might be supposed, but it still remains the subject
of conjecture.
CHAPTER II.
SINCE we are sensible that we see and hear, we cannot
but be sensible that we see by sight or by some
other sense ; but, if we see by some other sense, then
it will be perceptive of sight and colour, the subject
of sight ; and thus there will be either two senses for
the same office, or the sight itself will be the percipient.
If, besides, there is some other than the visual sense
for sight, we shall have to admit an infinite series of
perceptions, or else this other sense, whatever it may
be, will be the visual percipient ; and this might as
well have been conceded to the first sense. But here
there is a difficulty if to perceive by sight is seeing,
and if that which is seen is colour or something
having colour, then, if any sense is to see that which
sees, that sense must first have colour. It is then
manifest that perception by sight is not a single per-
ception ; for even when we may not see, it is still by
sight that we judge both of darkness and light, al-
though not in the same manner. That, moreover, which