PRELUDE TO CHAPTER V.



THIS chapter assumes the existence of a generic matter,
as well as something which is to give to it reality,
and thus it seems to admit of formative conditions
other than those assigned to Vital Principle ; the
mind too, although said to be immaterial, is likened
to a material agent. Aristotle 1 elsewhere, somewhat
in conformity with this, says, "even granting that
all things may be from one, or more than one primal
element, and that the self-same matter may be the
source of all beings, yet there is a peculiar matter
for each genus, as pituita is the primal matter for
sweet and oily, as the matter of bile is for bitter and
analogous qualities." An early commentator observes,
"matter is the receptacle and subject of forms,
without having in itself either figure, quality, mag-
nitude, or place ; nevertheless, it is not a mere name,
but truly exists as the basis of qualities. Matter

1 Metaphys. vu. 4. i.



156 PRELUDE TO CHAP. V. [BK. III.

exists potentially, bodies actually, with their peculiar
character ; and matter cannot be separated from
form and real existence."



CHAPTER V.

SINCE, throughout all nature, there is a matter for
each genus of entities (that which all belonging to
that genus are in potentiality), and a something which
is causative and constitutive from its making things
what they are, as art impresses its forms upon matter,
so those same distinctions must, of necessity, co-exist
in the vital principle. Such also is the mind, from
its faculty, on the one hand, of becoming all things,
and, on the other, of creating all things, as if it were
a virtuality like light ; for light, in a certain sense,
makes colours, being in potentiality, to become colours
in reality ; and the mind here meant is separate, im-
passive and homogeneous, being essentially an ener-
gizing influence.

That which acts is ever, in fact, more influential
than that which is acted upon, as the causative prin-
ciple is than the matter. Now, knowledge in activity
is identical with the subject ; but knowledge in poten-
tiality pre-exists in the individual ; and yet, strictly



CH. V.] ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 157

speaking, it does not pre-exist, as that cannot be said
to pre-exist which sometimes is, and sometimes is not
reflected on. But that alone, whatever it be, which
thinks, is separate from all else, immortal and eternal ;
and, because it is impassive, we derive from it no
memory. But the impressionable mind, on the con-
trary, is perishable ; and without it there can be no
cogitation.



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER VI.



THIS chapter does but repeat what has already been
insisted upon, that the mind or the sensibility, when
engaged upon indivisibles, that is, single ideas or
simple sensations, is not subject to error ; and that
the liability to error commences when ideas or sensa-
tions are either generalized, or judged of in their
relations. It may be added, that the want of a
sensorium or faculty for the generalization of par-
ticular sensations, and for affording to the mind,
thereby, terms for comparison, is felt so much
throughout, that the brain alone can, for some
passages, fully explain all that the words may seem
to imply.



CHAPTER VI.



WHENEVER cogitation is employed upon what may
be indivisible it is not subject to error, but when
engaged upon topics which involve both error and
truth, there is a simultaneous combination of thoughts,
whereby they are, so to say, individualized ; in the
way that Empedocles expressed himself, "Now the
heads of many creatures budded forth without necks,
and then, heads and necks were by affinity made one."
It is thus that thoughts, however disconnected, as
the incommensurable and the diameter, are by the
intelligence joined together. If the question relate
to things past or future, the mind, thinking upon
time besides, adds it to the other conditions; for
error lies ever in the combination, as when the white
is said not to be white, the error is in the addition of
the negative. Now, it is always in our power to
speak of things individually ; but then, it is not only
true or false that Clem is fair, but equally so that he
ever was or ever will be fair. It is the mind which
individualizes each subject. But since the indivisi-
ble is in the twofold state either of potentiality or



160 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. III.

actuality, there is nothing to preclude the mind when
thinking upon extension, from thinking upon it as
indivisible, for it is indivisible, actually, and in time
which is indivisible ; as time, like extension, is both
divisible and indivisible. It may not then be said
that the mind thinks upon any subject in each half;
for extension exists only in potentiality, unless it have
been divided. But the mind, when thinking upon
each of the halves separately, divides the time simul-
taneously, and then time becomes such as the two
extensions ; and if the mind make a whole of the two
halves, it does the same with time in its relation to
them. The mind, however, thinks upon the indivisible
as species and not as quantity, in an indivisible portion
of time and by an indivisible part of Vital Principle ;
and this neither by accident, nor in so far as the sub-
jects thought upon, or the part by which, or the time
in which, it thinks, are divisible, but as they are indi-
visible. There is, in fact, in such cases a something
indivisible, although it may not be separate, which
makes time and extension to be one; and which holds
good for all continuity, whether of time or extension.
Now, the point and every analogous division, and
whatever is as the point indivisible, are made known
as being privation of something. The reasoning upon
other subjects is like this, for were it asked how the
mind is to recognise bad or black, it may be answered,
that it recognises them in some way by their contraries;



CH. VI.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 161

but that which recognises them must, in potentiality,
be the thing recognised, and be present also in it. If
to any one of the senses there is no contrary, then that
sense recognises itself, is in activity and separate from
all else. An affirmation, like a negation, is something
in relation to something, and is always either true or
false ; but not so with the mind, as it is true when it
judges of any thing after its essence, and may not be
true when it judges of something in its relation to
something else. Thus, the visual perception of any
particular object is true, but whether a something
white which is seen be or be not a man is not in-
variably true ; and this holds good for abstractions.



11



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER VII.

COMMENTATORS are generally agreed in regarding this
chapter as a series of ill-connected repetitions of
former statements and doctrines ; but, although
repetitions, they will be found to illustrate or tend
to the completion of some preceding opinions. It
maintains, in fact, the same dogmata, adopts the
same illustrations, and assumes a faculty, the repre-
sentative of a sensorium, which physiology could not
then supply ; and thus, although the wording may
differ, the purport is the same. The term evepyfia
(which was before alluded to) is employed, in a more
especial manner in this chapter, and as neither its
meaning is obvious nor its equivalent easily selected,
it may be well to offer a few words in explanation of
it. Although it is opposed, like the e'i/xeA.e'^;eia, to
8i/i/a/ji<?, still the two terms are not synonymous ; for
the former (the evepyeia) seems to relate to action
in some form, and the latter to completion or deve-
lopment of something out of an imperfect or nascent



PRELUDE TO CHAP. VII. 163

condition. Action must be implied, it is true, in
completion or development, and, therefore, the evep-
yeta may be contained in the evreXe-^eia, although this
may not hold good reciprocally. But the first para-
graph may be cited as an example of what apparently
needs elucidation "knowledge, is, it is said, w/ten
active, (latine, in actu,) (tj KOT' evepjeiav tTrumjpti),
identical with," &c. "la science en acte est iden-
tique," &c. " scientia autem, ea quae* est actu, est
idem quod res" and knowledge or science here, by
metonymy, may, probably, mean the faculty by which
knowledge is acquired or exercised ; but what means this
peculiar state which identifies the knowledge with the
reason? All function presupposes activity and inertia ;
but the last as much implies identification as the first,
so that the distinction between activity and complete-
ness, although present, probably, to Aristotle, is not
obvious to a modern student. The definition 1 of the
term, although dwelt upon at length, fails, it may be
from the difficulty inseparable from abstract specula-
tions, to shew either what is strictly implied by it,
or how it differs from the eWeAc'^eja; it is evident
that motion, in some modified sense, in the process
of completion, is to be understood ; but beyond this,

1 Metaphytica, vni. 6. I.

11-2



164 PRELUDE TO CHAP. VII. [BK. III.

vague as it may be, explanation cannot be carried.
Potentiality is related to it as to the evTe\i%eia, but
the relation is too dependent upon verbal distinc-
tions, which cannot be transferred, to admit of being
made evident even to the student of the original ;
and thus it may be asked, what is meant by know-
ledge is, "when active" identical &c. or the same
words where they recur ?



CHAPTER VII.

KNOWLEDGE is, when active, identical with that which
is known; but knowledge, in potentiality, pre-exists in
the individual, and yet, strictly speaking, it does not
pre-exist, as all products are from a being in reality.
Now, it is the object of perception, which appears, by
its agency, to create sensation from the sensibility
which is in potentiality ; for it suffers neither impres-
sion nor change. So that this is a different kind of
motion ; for motion was said to be the act of something
incomplete ; but an act in an absolute sense is different,
as it is the act of something complete. Thus, a simple
sensation is like to a simple affirmation or a single
idea ; and as the impression may be grateful or pain-
ful, it is, as it were, affirmative or negative, and it bids



CH. VII.] ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. 165

to flee from or pursue -after something; and percep-
tions of pain and pleasure emanate from the sentient
medium in its relation to good or evil, in so far as
things may be one or other. So actual flight from
something is identical with actual appetite, as the
fugitive impulse does not differ from the appetitive
stimulus, for they differ neither from one another nor
from the sentient medium ; and yet they do differ in
mode of being. Images belong, naturally, to the
thinking, as sensations do to the sentient principle ;
and as it may affirm or deny that anything is good
or bad, it bids to flee from or pursue after it. The
Vital Principle, therefore, never thinks without an
image; as the air has made the pupil what it is, the
pupil something else, and so with the hearing ; but
the last term is one, as the mean, to which belong
several modes of being, is one.

It has already been said by what faculty the mind
discerns that sweet differs from hot, but yet it may be
spoken of again here. It is then an unit of some kind ;
and an unit in the sense of a limit, for it is as an unit
and a limit in the relation, considered analogically and
numerically, which the unit bears to the limit. What
matters it, besides, whether our doubt is as to how
the faculty judges of things, generically, the same, or
opposite, as white and black ?

Let A = white be in relation to B = black, and let
C be to D as A is to B, and so reciprocally; if C, D be



166 ARISTOTLE ON THE [BK. III.

properties of some one body they will be as the pro-
perties A, B, and the body will be one and the same
with the other, although not the same in the mode of
being; and the same reasoning will hold good, of
course, though A be = sweet and B = white. Thus,
the cogitative faculty dwells upon ideas in images,
and by images, independently of sensation, it in some
way determines what ought to be pursued after or fled
from ; but, when acted upon by images, it is moved
to think, and, perceiving the beacon to be on fire
and moving, it comprehends, by that common property
(motion), that an enemy is at hand. Sometimes, too,
by images or thoughts present in Vital Principle, that
faculty, as if seeing, calculates and orders things future
in their relation to things present ; and when it sug-
gests that something is grateful or hurtful, it bids to
pursue after or flee from it, as its biddings always tend
to action. And with respect to all which pertains to
inaction, the true and the false are in the same genus
with the good and bad; but with this difference,
that the former have an absolute, and the latter only
a relative signification. The mind dwells upon abs-
tractions, so termed, as it thinks upon a snub nose:
in so far as it is a nose of that character it cannot be
thought upon abstractedly, but in so far as it is con-
cave the mind can, by thinking intensely upon the
form, realise to itself the nose without the flesh in
which the form is embodied. Thus, too, the mind



CH. VII.] VITAL PRINCIPLE. 167

thinks upon mathematical questions as abstractions,
although they are not really so, when they are thought
upon.

In fine, the mind when thinking, is, in act, the
thing thought upon. It shall hereafter be considered
whether or not it can be admitted that the mind,
without being itself apart from magnitude, can com-
prehend abstractions.



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER VIII.

THIS chapter is a brief summary of the principal theories
and arguments which have been alluded to, and it
adds but little for comment. The opening para-
graphs are rendered less definite than might be
wished for, by the recurring particle irto<; and by
the substitution of ovra for irpdynara, although the
distinction between them is not very apparent. It
had just been said that "knowledge, in act, is
identical with what is known," and here the same
is predicated of Vital Principle, although with a
qualifying addition; and the meaning, in either
case, is dependent upon Aristotle's two sovereign
conditions. It may be understood how the intellect
as well as the sentient faculty can be regarded as
identical with their subjects, in the way that a
sentient organ, by reception of the form without
the matter, may be said to be identified with the
coloured or sonorous object; but it is not obvious
how this can apply to faculty or sense in poten-



PRELUDE TO CHAP. VIII. 169

tiality, unless, indeed, as they are in abeyance,
without perception that is, so objects, not being
perceived, are without properties.



CHAPTER VIII.

HAVING thus summarily recounted whatever has been
said upon the Vital Principle, let us repeat that it is,
in some sense, all things which are; for things are the
subjects either of sentient perception or of thought,
and knowledge is, in some sense, things known, as
sensation is things sensually perceived. But let us
inquire how this is to be understood Knowledge,
then, like sensation is divided, when in potentiality,
into things in potentiality, when in reality, into things
in reality ; and the sentient and the cogitative faculties
of Vital Principle are, when in potentiality, identical
with thoughts and objects of perception, in potentiality.
But the question here must necessarily refer either to
things or the forms of things ; but the things them-
selves they cannot be, as it is not a stone but the
form of a stone which is in the Vital Principle. Thus,
the Vital Principle is, as it were, a hand, for as a hand
is the instrument of instruments, so the mind is the
form of forms, and sensation the form of things sensu-
ally perceived. Since there is, seemingly, nothing



170 ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. [BK. III.

separate from perceptible magnitude, it must be ad-
mitted that all subjects of cogitation are in per-
ceptible forms, as well those termed abstractions as
those which relate to the conditions and changes of
the objects of perception. And, therefore, if a being
were without sentient perception, he could neither
learn nor understand ; as for reflexion the individual
must be able to call up an image of some sort, and
images are kinds of sensations, excepting that they
are immaterial. Imagination, on the other hand, is
something different from affirmation and negation,
for the true or the false is but a complication of
thoughts. But by what are primal thoughts to be
distinguished from such as are derived from images ?
Other thoughts, however, are not images, and yet
without images they could not be produced.



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER IX.

THIS and the two following chapters are upon the parts
or powers rather, which give to animals locomotion ;
but, as the nervous even the muscular system had
not then been made out, the text is encumbered,
occasionally, as might be expected, with specula-
tions which may now seem idle, and distinctions
which are almost futile. Aristotle 1 makes " animals
to move and be moved for the sake of something,
which is the limit of all their movements; and the
moving powers of an animal are, perceptibly, he
adds, thought and imagination, election, will and
desire, which are all referrible to mind and appetite,
els vovv Ka\ 5petv. Thus, as imagination and per-
ception are alike able to direct an animal, they are
in one and the same relation to the mind. The
argument, in fact, dwells upon the motive as well as
the object for progression, without a word concerning
the agency by which it is to be effected, as if the
muscular power of the body were unknown, or

1 De Gen. Animalm. v. 16 ; n. 6. 46.



172 PRELUDE TO CHAP. IX. [BK. III.

regarded only as the seat or source of the touch;
and yet the flesh was said to be tJie origin ' and very
body of an animal. The strength 2 of all animals is,
he adds, in the tendons (ij <<r^Js ci/ TO?? vevpoi^), and,
therefore, strength is greatest when they are full
grown; for the young have weak joints and deficient
sinews.



CHAPTER IX.

SINCE the Vital Principle of animals lias been
defined by the two faculties of judgment (which is
the office of thought with sentient perception), and of
locomotion, let us now, having dwelt sufficiently
upon sensation and mind, proceed to consider, with
respect to the motor power, what part of the Vital
Principle it may be. Let us consider, that is, whether
it is a part of Vital Principle and separate from it,
substantively or abstractedly, or whether it is Vital
Principle as a whole ; and if it be a part, whether it
is something peculiar and exclusive of those usually
attributed to Vital Principle, and which have been
alluded to, or whether it is to be considered as one
of them.

But a difficulty at once presents itself, both in

1 De Part. Animalm. ir. 8. i. a De Gen. Animalm. v. 7. 16.



CH. IX.] ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PINCIPLE. 173

determining the sense in which we are to speak of
the parts of Vital Principle, and in settling how many
of them there may be. In one point of view, in fact,
the parts appear to be infinite in number and to com-
prise, not only those which some speak of as the
reasoning, passionate and appetitive, and others as the
rational and the irrational, but other parts also, which
by the distinctions employed in those classifications,
are brought into notice, and are more broadly distin-
guished from one another than are any of those to
which we have alluded. Those other parts are the
nutritive, which belongs to all plants and animals,
and the sentient, which cannot readily be placed
among either rational or irrational parts ; there is
the imaginative, besides, which differs in mode of
being from all the others, and yet it would be diffi-
cult to determine, amid the several parts of Vital
Principle, with which of them it is identical, or from
which it differs. Besides these, there is the appeti-
tive part, which, whether considered abstractedly or
functionally, would seem to differ from all others,
and yet it would be absurd to separate it from them ;
for volition is present in the rational, as decire and
passion are in the irrational part, and if the Vital
Principle be made up of these three, appetite must be
present in each of them.

But, to resume the more especial topic of this
chapter, what is that, let us ask, which confers upon



174 ARISTOTLE ON THE [fiK. III.

an animal locomotive power ? Now, it may be sup-
posed that the generative and the nutritive functions,
which are innate in all living beings, originate the
motion concerned in the processes of growth and
decay, which equally belong to them all ; and with
respect to breathing and expiration, sleep and watch-
ing, which are subjects of much difficulty, we shall
enter upon the consideration of them hereafter. Let
us, however, consider what confers upon an animal
the power of progression.

Now, it clearly is not the nutritive faculty for
the movement of progression is ever for some end,
and is associated either with imagination or appetite ;
and then no being moves unless urged to it by desire
or fear, excepting, indeed, there be impulse from with-
out ; plants, besides, were nutrition the cause, should
be locomotive, and possess some organ to fit them for
that kind of movement.

Neither can it be the sentient faculty for there
are many creatures which are sentient, and yet sta-
tionary throughout their existence ; and if nature do
nothing in vain, and never, except in the case of
beings dwarfed or deformed, omits anything neces-
sary to existence, the creatures alluded to are perfect
creatures ; and as proof of this they are reproductive,
are capable of development and subject to decay, so
that they also ought to have organs to fit them for
progression.



CH. IX.] VITAL PEINCIPLE. 175

Neither can the rational faculty or the so-called
mind be the motor power, for the speculative intel-
lect never thinks upon what is to be done, or suggests
aught concerning what should be fled from or pursued
after ; but this motion is the act of one fleeing from
or pursuing after something. Nor does that faculty,
even when reflecting upon any such object, at once
bid to flee from or to follow after it, as it often dwells
upon something terrible, or agreeable, without sug-
gesting alarm, although the heart may be set in
motion or some other part of the impression be agree-
able. Add to this, that although the mind may bid,
and the reason suggest that something should be fled
from or pursued after, the individual does not neces-
sarily move, but acts as does an intemperate person,
according to the dictates of passion. It is thus, occa-
sionally, we see that a physician, although versed in
medical science, does not cure, as if there were some-
thing other than the science which had the power of
acting according to the precepts of the science.

It may be affirmed that the appetite cannot be
the positive cause of this motion ; for the temperate,
even while desiring and yearning after something, do
not act in order to secure that for which they feel
appetite, but follow their understanding.



PRELUDE TO CHAPTER X.

THE subject of locomotion is continued, and the motor
principles are said to be appetite and mind; but
mind in the sense rather of a perceptive or sentient
than a purely intellectual faculty; and yet it is
neither the centre of sensibility nor imagination,
although it partakes of the nature of each of them.
The imagination, which many are said to follow
against judgment, is evidently the voluntary species
of which man alone partakes; and the other, which
is allotted to the lower animals, may be regarded as
instinct. The mind, as a practical faculty, is to be
distinguished from the theoretical or speculative
intellect, which has for its object the discovery of
truth, as the other has the preservation of the body.
The argument is complicated, and made less appre-
hensible by the technicality and great precision
of its wording : thus, TO opf^rov, or object desired,
is food, and appetite is the stimulus or feeling
of hunger which compels to move; the practical



PRELUDE TO CHAP. X. 177

mind (Sidvota irpaKTiKrj) is the sentient faculty, and
the beginning of the action, which is the satisfaction
of the appetite, completes or is the last of the
series. Thus, these two, the appetite and practical
thought (which is sentient perception) are motors, as
being both stimulus and desire, and the object