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, impassive and homogeneous, being essentially an energizing influence.
That which acts is ever, in fact, more influential than that which is acted upon, as the causative principle is than the matter. Now, knowledge in activity is identical with the subject; but knowledge in potentiality pre-exists in the individual; and yet, strictly 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, impassive and homogeneous, being essentially an energizing influence.
That which acts is ever, in fact, more influential than that which is acted upon, as the causative principle is than the matter. Now, knowledge in activity is identical with the subject; but knowledge in potentiality pre-exists in the individual; and yet, strictly 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 contrary, is perishable; and without it there can be no cogitation.
Notes Layout 2 Note 1, p. 156. As if it were a virtuality like light.] The original ὡς ἕξις τις is ill represented by virtuality, and yet neither habit, state, nor condition would represent the agency of the mind as a realising principle; as that which can collect, compare, and so give reality, in generalisations, to perceptions received through the senses. "Sicut colores expectant, ut appareant, (i.e. ut colorum vice vere fungantur) ita sensuum notitiæ et quidquid ad intellectum patientem pertinet mentem agentem requirunt, ut omnes veritatis numeros habeant, et veræ notionis vim consequantur."
Note 2, p. 156. Knowledge in activity is identical with, &c.] This passage seems to be the complement of what had just been asserted, that the agent is ever more influential than the subject, and the originating cause than the matter; for the intellect, in activity, may be said to create, to identify with itself that is, the knowledge which it acquires concerning external things through abstract reasoning. Knowledge pre-exists, however, as has been said, in every well-constituted individual, because each is furnished, at birth, with faculties for acquiring knowledge; but yet it cannot strictly be said to pre-exist, since it may, or may not be developed by education or reflection; as the mind, moreover, is impassive, it is not impressionable, and cannot, therefore, be the seat of memory. But what means the impressionable mind which is perishable? may it not be again said that, suggestively, the brain is here implied; since this organ is the sensorium, the seat of memory, and dependent, besides, like all other organs, upon life, for its functions and its continuance.
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 sensations 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 particular 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 indivisible is in the twofold state either of potentiality or 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 simultaneously, 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 subjects thought upon, or the part by which, or the time in which, it thinks, are divisible, but as they are indivisible. 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; 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 invariably true; and this holds good for abstractions.
Notes Layout 2 Note 1, p. 159. In the way that Empedocles, &c.] The passage cited in support of the above opinion is not very apposite; for Empedocles, who had made "nature to be nothing more than the combination of (μίξις) and change among commingled particles," (attraction and repulsion, in other words), is quoted by Aristotle in the words, "many heads of creatures without necks budded forth;" and, as if to turn against him, as it were, his own doctrine, it is added, "they were by affinity joined together." This led Aristotle to the simile in the text, as Empedocles formed things in nature by the combination of individual particles, so may the mind eliminate new by the association of former or admitted ideas; and as, in the verse cited, head and neck lie dissevered, so, in the idea of quantity, there is nothing in common between the measure of the diagonal and the side of the square. Thus, as there is no common measure for the diagonal and the side of the square, they are, in so far, distinct; but although, in themselves, distinct, they can, in thought, be combined and made one. "By diameter may be understood the diagonal which divides the square into two equal triangles; or it may mean the diameter of the circle which is incommensurate with the circumference." In a word, it is by combination that error creeps into our judgments, and falsifies our perceptions.
Note 2, p. 159. It is the mind, &c.] The question of a fact, such as that in the example, is dependent upon the brain rather than the mind, as that organ can combine the individual notices obtained through the senses; but when the mind intervenes, so to say, and judges from what is, of what was or is to be, there is room for error. It is almost puerile to explain that the assertion "something is not white" is not, necessarily, fallacious; and that, if the object be white, the fallacy comes from the addition of the negative. The double sense of indivisibility is to the same purport; extension is clearly divisible, and, therefore, divisibility is made, actually, apparent as a fact; but the mind can realise to itself extension without parts, as indivisible, that is, and in potentiality.
Note 3, p. 160. It may not then be said, &c.] In this version, the term mind is used, and in another, "intelligence," (which is its synonym), as that which thinks, (τί ἑννόει), but the text does not so specify it; and any allusion to halves would but ill-accord with the notion of homogeneity and impassibility assigned to the thinking principle. But no theory which could be framed of the mind would aid in explaining the train of reasoning here; for, independently of the abstruse nature of all mental processes, there is, evidently about it, confusion, arising from the assumption of a something associated with sensibility, which the brain only could rectify.
Note 4, p. 160. The point and every analogous division, &c.] With respect to quantity, in relation to indivisibility, "a point which has position, (καὶ θέσιν ἔχον στιγμή) is indivisible, but a line is divisible in one, surface in two, and body in several directions;" and by privation is implied that the point is without length, depth, or breadth; the line without either breadth or depth; and the surface without depth. It is obvious, from what has been said, that every affirmation or negation must, as depending upon sentient impressions, be either true or false; but that the judgment, when deciding upon essential or abiding qualities, may be true, and that, when drawing its inferences from accidental qualities or relations of bodies, it may be erroneous.
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 representative of a sensorium, which physiology could not then supply; and thus, although the wording may differ, the purport is the same. The term ἐνέργεια (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 ἐντελέχεια, to δύναμις, still the two terms are not synonymous; for the former (the ἐνέργεια) seems to relate to action in some form, and the latter to completion or development of something out of an imperfect or nascent condition. Action must be implied, it is true, in completion or development, and, therefore, the ἐνέργεια may be contained in the ἐντελέχεια, although this may not hold good reciprocally. But the first paragraph may be cited as an example of what apparently needs elucidation—"knowledge, is, it is said, when active, (latinè, in actu,) (ἡ κατ' ἐνέργειαν ἐπιστήμη), identical with," &c.—"la science en acte est identique," &c.—"scientia autem, ea quæ 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 completeness, although present, probably, to Aristotle, is not obvious to a modern student. The definition of the term, although dwelt upon at length, fails, it may be from the difficulty inseparable from abstract speculations, to shew either what is strictly implied by it, or how it differs from the ἐντελέχεια; it is evident that motion, in some modified sense, in the process of completion, is to be understood; but beyond this, vague as it may be, explanation cannot be carried. Potentiality is related to it as to the ἐντελέχεια, but the relation is too dependent upon verbal distinctions, 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 knowledge 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 impression 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 painful, it is, as it were, affirmative or negative, and it bids to flee from or pursue after something; and perceptions 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 properties of some one body they will be as the properties 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 suggests 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 abstractions, 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 concave 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 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 comprehend abstractions.
Notes Layout 2 Note 1, p. 165. Images belong, naturally, to the thinking principle, &c.] This very suggestive comparison between intellectual and sentient perceptions, seems, even in the absence of knowledge of the brain, to assume that practical thoughts must be derived from the senses, and, therefore, through a sensorium; and as impressions may be genial or otherwise, the faculties suggest pursuit or flight. The practical mind, in fact, never thinks without an image which acts, in its turn, so to say, upon it, as the air, which has been impressed by colour, does upon the pupil and the pupil upon something else (that is, the retina), and so sound upon the hearing; but the last term, that is, the visual or auditory sense, is one, as the mean or medium, however modified in condition, is one. It will be evident, with but little consideration, that the obscurity which is palpable in the succeeding passages is occasioned by the absence of the brain, and can be cleared away only by its introduction; and that, with it, the analogies of unit and limit acquire some kind of signification.
Note 2, p. 166. Thus the cogitative faculty dwells, &c.] Aristotle seems here to consider images or thoughts, present in memory, as necessary to ratiocination, and he has elsewhere said that an individual without senses could neither learn nor understand; but he is evidently alluding to a higher faculty than the sensibility, and which is able, by abstract reasoning, to draw, from present appearances or images, conclusions as to future occurrences, and, by that prevision, to determine what should or should not be done.
Note 3, p. 166. And with respect to all which, &c.] This passage seems, although obscure from its brevity, to imply that without action, when thoughts are not carried out that is, there can for us be neither good nor bad, as these are relations pertaining to individuals, and dependent, not upon any universal law but, upon social institutions; but that truth, being the same for ever, is, even when not exercised, in an absolute relation to all men, and in opposition to all falsehood.
Note 4, p. 166. The mind dwells upon abstractions, &c.] The term abstractions here, as in an earlier passage, signifies mathematical questions, which, from not being referrible to any particular body, admit of being treated as such; and so a snub-nose, as the realisation of a particular form, may, by that form apart from matter, be regarded as an abstraction. The argument is then resumed that the mind, when thinking, is, when active or in act, the subject thought upon. The closing passage, by its questioning whether "the mind, without being itself immaterial, can comprehend abstractions," seems to militate against the arguments adduced to prove that it is impassive and homogeneous, freed, that is, from all the conditions of matter; but it is yet doubtful where (whether or not in "the metaphysics") this argument may, according to promise, have been continued.
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 paragraphs are rendered less definite than might be wished for, by the recurring particle πως and by the substitution of ὄντα for πράγματα, 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 potentiality, unless, indeed, as they are in abeyance, without perception that is, so objects, not being perceived, are without properties.
Chapter VIII.
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 themselves 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 sensually perceived. Since there is, seemingly, nothing 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 themselves 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 sensually perceived. Since there is, seemingly, nothing separate from perceptible magnitude, it must be admitted that all subjects of cogitation are in perceptible 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.
Notes Layout 2 Note 1, p. 169. But the question here must necessarily refer, &c.] This argument, while maintaining the opinion that sensibility is receptive of form without matter, is an objection to the doctrine of Empedocles and others, who, having derived the Vital Principle from material elements, made perception to be material also, in the relation of like by like. But here it is said that, as the hand is the instrument for making instruments, so the mind is the archetype of forms, and sensibility the recipient of the forms of things without their matter, perceived through the senses. Aristotle, however, does make imagery, the power that is, of recalling forms, to be essential to cogitation, and, consequently, to reflection; although doubting whether there may not be thoughts which cannot have a sentient origin.
Note 2, p. 170. Imagination, on the other hand, &c.] Imagination, or the faculty which calls up images is, necessarily, different from that which determines the truth or falsehood of any proposition, and which affirms or denies; for affirmation or negation, as the predicant of something held to be true or erroneous, is, as was said, a combination of thoughts; and thoughts, being made up of simple ideas, are not, like the imagination, under our own control. Thus, while the former may be regarded as a single faculty, and, in some sense, independent of the judgment, the latter involves many and opposing ideas and perceptions. But what is here meant by primal thoughts (τὰ δὲ πρῶτα νοήματα)? Do the words imply innate ideas, or conceptions of pure abstraction, such as creation, virtue, responsibility, and others? Or must it be admitted that no definite sense can be attached to them? If primal mean innate thoughts, (thoughts, that is, no way dependent upon sentient properties,) then such are distinguishable at once from those which are derived from images, although these are not, themselves, images in reality.
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 speculations which may now seem idle, and distinctions which are almost futile. Aristotle 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, εἰς νοῦν καὶ ὄρεξιν. Thus, as imagination and perception 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 regarded only as the seat or source of the touch; and yet the flesh was said to be the origin and very body of an animal. The strength of all animals is, he adds, in the tendons (ἡ ἰσχὺς ἐν τοῖς νεύροις), and, therefore, strength is greatest when they are full grown; for the young have weak joints and deficient sinews.
Chapter IX.