GRADATION OF SOULS.

629

admixture of the Sentient. Again, the Sentient Soul does not necessarily possess either memory, imagination, or intellect (Nous); but no soul can be either Imaginative or Noëtic, without being sentient as well as nutritive. The Noëtic Soul, as the highest of all, retains in itself all the lower faculties; but these are found to exist apart from it.*

We may remark here that the psychological classification of Aristotle proceeds in the inverse direction to that of Plato. In the Platonic Timæus, we begin with the grand soul of the Kosmos, and are conducted by successive steps of degradation to men, animals, plants; while Aristotle lays his foundation in the largest, most multiplied, and lowest range of individuals, carrying us by successive increase of conditions to the fewer and the higher.

The lowest or Nutritive soul, in spite of the small number of conditions involved in it, is the indispensable basis whereon all the others depend. None of the other Souls can exist apart from it. It is the first constituent of the living individual-the implication of Form with Matter in a natural body suitably organized; it is the preservative of the life of the individual, with its aggregate of functions and faculties, and with the proper limits of size and shape that characterize the species ;+ it is moreover the preservative of perpetuity to the species, inasmuch as it prompts and enables each individual to generate and leave behind a successor like himself; such is the only way that an individual can obtain quasi-immortality, though all of them aspire to become immortal.§ This lowest soul is the primary cause of digestion and nutrition. It is cognate with the celestial heat, which is essential also as a co-operative cause; accordingly all animated bodies possess an inherent natural heat.||

* Aristot. De Animâ, II. 2, 413, a. 25-30, b. 32; II. 3, 414, b. 30, 415, a. 10. † Aristot. De Animâ, II. 4, 415, a. 24. πршτη Kai Koivoτátη dúvaμís ἐστι ψυχῆς, καθ' ἣν ὑπάρχει τὸ ζῆν ἅπασιν. 415, b. 9. τοῦ ζῶντος σώματος αἰτία καὶ ἀρχή. III., 12, 434, a. 22-30, b. 24.-Aristot. De Respiratione, 8, 474, a. 30, b. 11.

‡ Aristot. De Animâ, II. 4, 416, a. 17.

§ Aristot. De Animâ, II. 4, 415, b. 2, 416, b. 25. étre ở ả mò tôi τέλους ἅπαντα προσαγορεύειν δίκαιον, τέλος δὲ τὸ γεννῆσαι οἷον αὐτὸ, εἴη ἂν ἡ πρώτη ψυχὴ γεννητικὴ οἷον αὐτό. Also De Generat. Animal. II. 1, 731, b. 33.

Aristot. De Animâ, II. 4, 416, a. 10-18, b. 29.

We advance upwards now from the Nutritive Soul to that higher Soul which is at once Nutritive and Sentient ; for Aristotle does not follow the example of Plato in recognizing three souls to one body, but assigns only one and the same soul, though with multiplied faculties and functions, to one and the same body. Sensible perception, with its accompaniments, forms the characteristic privilege of the animal as contrasted with the plant.* Sensible perception admits of many diversities, from the simplest and rudest tactile sensation, which even the lowest animals cannot be without, to the full equipment of five senses which Aristotle declares to be a maximum not susceptible of increase. But the sentient faculty, even in its lowest stage, indicates a remarkable exaltation of the Soul in its character of Form. The Soul, quâ sentient and percipient, receives the Form of the Perceptum without the matter; whereas the nutritive Soul cannot disconnect the two, but receives and appropriates the nutrient substance, Form and Matter in one and combined. Aristotle illustrates this characteristic feature of sensible perception by recurring to his former example of the wax and the figure. Just as wax receives from a signet the impression engraven thereon, whether the matter of the signet be iron, gold, stone, or wood; as the impression stamped has no regard to the matter, but reproduces only the figure engraven on the signet; the wax being only potential and undefined, until the signet comes to convert it into something actual and definite ;§ so the percipient faculty in man is impressed by the substances in nature, not according to the matter of each, but according to the qualitative form of each. Such passive receptivity is the first and lowest form of sensation,||

* Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, c. 1, p. 436, b. 12. He considers sponges to have some sensation-Hist. Animal, I. 487, b. 9.

+ Aristot. De Animâ, II. 3, 414, b. 2; III. 1, 424, b. 25, 415, a. 3; III. 13, 435, b. 15.

Aristot. De Animâ, II. 12, 424, a. 32, b. 4. διὰ τί ποτε τὰ φυτὰ οὐκ αἰσθάνεται, ἔχοντά τι μόριον ψυχικὸν καὶ πάσχοντά τι ὑπὸ τῶν ἁπτῶν; καὶ γὰρ ψύχεται καὶ θερμαίνεται· αἴτιον γὰρ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν μεσότητα, μηδὲ τοιαύτην ἀρχὴν οἵαν τὰ εἴδη δέχεσθαι τῶν αἰσθητῶν, ἀλλὰ πάσχειν μετὰ τῆς ὕλης.

Themistius ad loc., p. 144, ed. Spengel. πάσχει (τὰ φυτὰ) συνεισιούσης τῆς ὕλης τοῦ ποιοῦντος, &c.

§ Aristot. De Animâ, II. 12, 424, a. 20.

|| Aristot. De Animâ, II. 12, 424, a. 25. aiolŋtýpiov dè æpŵτov ¿v ŵ ἡ τοιαύτη δύναμις, &c.-III. 12, 434, a. 29.

PROPERTIES OF THE SENTIENT SOUL.

631

not having any magnitude in itself, but residing in bodily organs which have magnitude, and separable from them only by logical abstraction. It is a potentiality, correlating with, and in due proportion to, the exterior Percipibile, which, when acting upon it, brings it into full actuality. The actuality of both (Percipiens and Perceptum) is one and the same, and cannot be disjoined in fact, though the potentialities of the two are distinct yet correlative; the Percipiens is not like the Percipibile originally, but becomes like it by being thus actualized.*

The Sentient Soul is communicated by the male parent in the act of generation,+ and is complete from the moment of birth, not requiring a process of teaching after birth; the Sentient Subject becomes at once and instantly, in regard to sense, on a level with one that has attained a certain actuality of cognition, but which is not at the moment reflecting upon the Cognitum. Potentiality and Actuality are in fact distinguishable into lower and higher degrees; the Potential that has been actualized in a first or lower stage, is still a Potential relatively to higher stages of Actuality. The Potential may be acted upon in two opposite ways; either by deadening and extinguishing it, or by developing and carrying it forward to realization. The Sentient Soul, when asleep or inert, requires a cause to stimulate it into actual seeing, or hearing; the Noëtic or Cognizant Soul, under like circumstances, must also be stimulated into actual meditation on its cognitum. But there is this difference between the two. The Sentient Soul communes with particulars; the Noëtic Soul with Universals. The Sentient Soul derives its stimulus

* Aristot. De Animâ, III. 2, 425, b. 25. T và tài của An toc xep gia καὶ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ἡ αὐτὴ μέν ἐστι καὶ μία, τὸ δ ̓ εἶναι οὐ ταὐτὸν αὐταῖς. -ΙΙ. 5, 418, 4. 3. τὸ δ' αἰσθητικὸν δυνάμει ἐστὶν οἷον τὸ αἰσθητὸν ἤδη ἐντελεχεια—πάσχει μὲν οὖν οὐχ ὅμοιον ὂν, πεπονθὸς δ ̓ ὡμοίωται καὶ ἔστιν οἷον ἐκεῖνο.-Also, 417, a. 7-14-20.

There were conflicting doctrines current in Aristotle's time; some said that for an agent to act upon a patient, there must be likeness between the two; others said that there must be unlikeness. Aristotle dissents from both, and adopts a sort of intermediate doctrine-415, a. 30, 416, a. 10.

+ Aristot. De Gener. Animal., II. 5, 741, a. 14, b. 7; De Animâ, II. 5, 417, b. 17.

Aristot. De Animâ, II. 5, 417, b. 18-31. See above, p. 623, note ‡. The extent of Potentiality, or the partial Actuality, which Aristotle claims for the sentient Soul even at birth, deserves to be kept in mind: we shall contrast it presently with what he says about the Nous.

from without, and from some of the individual objects, tangible, visible, or audible; but the Noëtic Soul is put into action by the abstract and universal, which is in a certain sense within the Soul itself; so that a man can at any time meditate on what he pleases, but he cannot see or hear what he pleases, or anything except such visible or audible objects as are at hand.*

We have already remarked, that in many animals the Sentient Soul is little developed; being confined in some to the sense of Touch (which can never be wanting),† and in others to Touch and Taste. But even this minimum of Sense-though small, if compared with the variety of senses in man-is a prodigious step in advance of plants; it comprises a certain cognition, and within its own sphere it is always critical, comparing, discriminative. The Sentient Soul possesses this discriminative faculty in common with the Noëtic Soul or Intelligence, though applied to different objects and purposes; and possesses such faculty, because it is itself a mean or middle term between the two sensible extremes of which it takes cognizance,-hot and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, white and black, acute and grave, bitter and sweet, light and darkness, visible and invisible, tangible and intangible, &c. We feel no sensation at all when the object touched is exactly of the same temperature with ourselves, neither hotter nor colder; the Sentient Soul, being a mean between the two extremes, is stimulated to assimilate itself for the time to either of them, according as it is acted upon from without. It thus makes comparison of each with the other, and of both with its own mean.§ Lastly, the sentient faculty in the Soul is

* Aristot. De Animâ, II. 5, 417, b. 20-25; III. 3, 427, b. 18. AITIOν de ὅτι τῶν καθ ̓ ἕκαστον ἡ κατ ̓ ἐνέργειαν αἴσθησις, ἡ δ ̓ ἐπιστήμη τῶν καθόλου· ταῦτα δ ̓ ἐν αὐτῇ πως ἔστι τῇ ψυχῇ,

+ Aristot. De Animâ, “III. 12, 434, “b. 24. Davepòv őtɩ ovx oïáv te ἄνευ ἁφῆς εἶναι ζῷον.

† Aristot. De Anima, III. 9, a. 16. τῷ κριτικῷ, ὃ διανοίας ἔργον ἐστὶ kai aio0ŋoews.—III. 3, 427, a. 20, 426, b. 10-15. De Generat. Animal., I. 23, 731, a. 32, b. 5; De Somno et Vigil., c. 1, 458, b. 2. The sentient faculty is called dúvaμiv ovμÝVTOV KPITIKÝV.—Analyt. Poster., II. 19, p. 99, b. 34.

§ Aristot. De Animâ, II. 10, 422, a. 20; II. 421, b. 4, 11, 423, b. 31, 424, a. 10. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο κρίνει τὰ αἰσθητὰ τὸ γὰρ μέσον κριτικόν.— III. 7, 431, a. 10. ἔστι τὸ ἥδεσθαι καὶ λυπεῖσθαι τὸ ἐνεργεῖν τῇ αἰσθητικῇ μεσότητι πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακὸν, ἡ τοιαῦτα.—ΙΙΙ. 13, 435, Α. 21.

He remarks that plants have no similar μeσóτητa-424, b. 1.

OBJECTS GENERATING SENSIBLE PERCEPTION.

633

really one and indivisible, though distinguishable logically or by abstraction into different genera and species.* Of that faculty the central physical organ is the heart, which contains the congenital or animal spirit. (The Aristotelian psychology is here remarkable, affirming as it does the essential relativity of all phenomena of sense to the appreciative condition of the Sentient; as well as the constant implication of intellectual and discriminative comparison among them.)

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

* Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, c. 7, 140, a. 8-17; De Motu Animal., 10, 703, a. 15; De Somno et Vigil., c. 2, 455, a. 15-21-35, 456, a. 5; De Juventute et Senect., 467, b. 27, 469, a. 4-12; De Partibus Animalium, III. 656, a. 10-16, 657, b. 24.

+ Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, c. 7, 449, a. 20. rò aio0ŋtòv wâv ¿orI μέγεθος.

Aristot. De Animâ, II. 6, 418, a. 10-15.

§ Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, c. 1, 437, &. 8, c. 4, 442, b. 3-12. He says in this last passage, that the common perceivables are appreciable at least by both sight and touch-if not by all the senses.

|| Aristot. De Animâ, II. 6, 418, a. 7-25. Xéyetaι dè Tò uiolŋtòv τριχῶν, ὧν δύο μὲν καθ' αυτά φαμεν αισθάνεσθαι, τὸ δὲ ἐν κατὰ ovμßeßnkos.-Also, III. 1, 425, a. 25; III. 3, 428, b. 18-25.