Aristotle

“ To speak generally, harmony is a combination of tones rather than the acute or the grave singly, as for the Touch, the warmed or cooled is genial, rather than the hot or cold, simply; for, as sensibility is proportion, so qualities, in excess, pain or pervert the senses.
Each sense is perceptive of its own appointed subjects, is innate in its own organ, as a special organ, and judges of the distinctions of qualities, as sight judges of white and black ”

“ Thus, all these philosophers define Vital Principle by the three properties, motion, feeling, and incorporeity, each of which is referrible to first causes. Such of them, therefore, as define it by the faculty of knowing, make it to be an element or a derivative from the elements, and, with one exception, their opinions coincide;—for they all maintain that like is known to like, and, since the Vital Principle recognises all things, they constitute it out of all first causes. But such as admit of only one cause and one element, set down Vital Principle as being that one, be it fire or air ”

“ Should any one inquire why we have been furnished 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 number, 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 the appetite has no deliberative will, as appetite sometimes overcomes and impels the will, and sometimes the will overcomes and impels the appetite, as a ball is bandied to and fro; or appetite rules and impels appetite, when intemperance has the ascendancy. But that which is superior is ever naturally more dominant, and productive of motion in three different directions; but the intelligent faculty has no motion—it remains at rest. ”

“ The same mode of illustration, through those two terms, is still continued—impression may be to an extent to destroy sensibility, and obliterate, of course, sensation, or it may be to that genial extent which raises, so to say, potentiality to reality, and renders the being conscious of external objects. So an individual, with knowledge yet potential, that is, possessed but not exercised, can, by reflecting upon it, without any change being wrought, render it a reality; for the possession of knowledge, like the endowment of sensibility, implies the self-same two-fold condition. ”

“ The voice is, in fact, a sound expressive of something—it is not, that is, as in coughing, a mere sound of the air inspired; and speech is the percussion, by the living principle, of the air in the trachea, against the trachea itself. As proof of which, we are unable to speak when holding the breath, that is, when we neither inspire nor expire; for the act of holding the breath sets in motion the air which is inspired. It is now manifest why fishes, having no pharynx, are without a voice; and they have no pharynx, because they neither admit the air nor breathe. ”

“ There are writers who maintain that the Vital Principle has been diffused through the universe, whence probably Thales was led to think that all things are full of gods. But the opinion is not without its difficulties. Why, it may be asked, does not the Vital Principle, when in the air or fire, form an animal rather than when in the elements in combination, although seemingly more generally situated in either of those elements alone? It might also be inquired why the Vital Principle, which is in the air, is more exalted and more enduring than that which is in animals. ”

“ The most unreasonable by far of all the opinions upon Vital Principle is that which holds it to be a number with self-motion, for it is beset with insuperable objections; those, in the first place, which result from the idea of motion, and then those more particular objections to speaking of it as a number. How, indeed, is it possible to think of an unit in motion? by what or how, being indivisible and homogeneous, is it to be moved? If said to be both motor and moved, it must have distinction of some kind. ”

“ The object of perception is spoken of in a three-fold manner, as there are two ways in which we speak of perceiving objects distinctly, and one in which we speak of perceiving them accidentally; and of those two ways one signifies the property which is peculiar to each sense, and the other the property which is common to all the senses. I mean by peculiar property that which cannot be perceived by any other than its own sense, and concerning which that sense cannot be deceived—as colour for sight, sound for hearing, and savour for taste. ”

“ Now, every appetite tends to some object, for the appetite, which is the beginning of the practical mind, has ever some object in view, and that object is the beginning of the action. So that these two, appetite and practical thought, may reasonably be regarded as motor powers—for the object longed for impels to move, and then, through it, the practical intelligence impels, because its origin is the object longed for; and when imagination may incite to move, it never does set in motion without appetite. Thus, it is the object longed for alone which produces motion ”

“ The Tongue is here introduced, whether by inadvertence or in submission to common opinion, as if it were a sense, or the sole organ for speech; and yet, as the chief of the organs for taste and speech, it may be said to constitute one of the distinguishing features of humanity. As no creature, however, is without a tongue, it can scarcely be supposed to be wanting, and yet, as it would not seem to be so essential as some other parts, life might, perhaps, for a time, be maintained without it. ”

“ Shall it then be said that those other qualities also act upon bodies? But all bodies 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 subject to impression. What then is smell but impression of some kind? But smelling is a sentient perception; and the air having been impressed by odour, becomes quickly sensible to us. ”

“ Hence, an opinion, arrived at by a chain of reasoning drawn from particulars which we hold to be true, cannot but affect us differently from imaginings which are of our own coining, and which we know to be fictitious. A succeeding passage, which shews that imagination cannot be opinion, is to the same purport for, being derived from particulars, its issue is, so to say, independent of us; but imagination may be exercised upon any combinations which the will may choose to recall. ”

“ But the knowledge of the accidents contributes, largely, in its turn, towards knowing what the thing, essentially, is; for whenever we may be able, from the appearance of any substance, to recount the whole or the greater number of its accidents, we are then best prepared to say what its essence is. Thus, the essence is the proper beginning for every demonstration, so that all the definitions, which do not make known, or make it easy to conjecture what may be the accidents of any substance, are to be regarded as dialectic and unprofitable subtleties. ”

“ It is obvious, however, that we may and do speak of an individual as one who hears and sees, whether or not, at the moment, conscious of sound or colour; whether that is, awake or asleep, active or quiescent, in potentiality or reality. But an individual is, strictly speaking, only then seeing and hearing when he is actually sensible of colours and sounds; just as an individual, to use Aristotle's analogy, is only then to be accounted really learned, when actually reflecting upon and exercising some one special subject of knowledge. ”

“ If imagination be a faculty by which we say that an image of some kind, and that not merely in the sense of a metaphor, is called up within us, then it is to be ranged among those faculties or powers, such as feeling, opinion, knowledge, mind, by which we form judgments and determine what may be true or false.
It is clear from what follows, that imagination is not sensation ; for sensation is either a faculty or an act, such as sight, and seeing, but an image is sometimes apparent to us without either faculty or act, as phantoms in dreams for instance ”

“ But knowledge pre-exists in the same individual, 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 ”

“ There seems, however, to have been some difficulty in refusing all motion to the Vital Principle, since the emotions and passions which emanate from it seem to be motions, or combined with motions,—as passion excites and fear depresses the motions of the heart, and deep thought furrows the brow ”

“ 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 pleasure, and wherever these, there must, of necessity, be desire. ”

“ If, then, imagination alone fulfil all the conditions indicated, and if it be all that has been said, it may be defined as motion produced by sensation in action. And since vision is a sense above all others, imagination has derived its appellation from light, because without light there is no vision; and owing to its being an abiding faculty and like sensations, animals perform many of their actions through it. Some animals are so influenced from being irrational; and others, as man, from having their understanding eclipsed, at times, by passion, disorder, or sleep. ”

“ Thus, the possession of knowledge implies the power of reflecting upon it, and this either is not change, being but an increase of knowledge and a step towards its completion, or it is change of a different kind. It is not correct, therefore, to say that an individual, when thinking, is undergoing change, any more than that a builder, when employed in building, is undergoing change; so that the process by which an individual passes, as to his thinking and reflecting faculties, from potentiality to reality, ought to have some other appellation than that of instruction. ”

“ For the sensibility is unable to distinguish impressions in excess, as a sound amid loud sounds, or a colour or odour among brilliant colours or pungent odours, but the mind, on the contrary, when thinking intensely upon any subject, can still think and with increased rather than diminished intensity upon the subordinate details; the sensibility, besides, cannot be without a body, but the mind is separable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 perception; for even when we may not see, it is still by sight that we judge both of darkness and light, although not in the same manner. That, moreover, which sees, must have been already imbued with colour, since each sentient organ must be receptive of the object of perception without its matter ”

“ Since the faculties of knowing, feeling and thinking, 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? ”

“ If the Vital Principle be to the body what Plato, in the Timæus, made the great animating principle to be to the Universe, a source of intelligence and ordered motion, there must be an accordance between terrene and celestial bodies and movements; but as earthly bodies are moved by objects of sense and perception, and as their movements are not, like those of the heavenly, in a circle, their natures must be different. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If motion, production, and impression, are in the product, it follows that sound and hearing, in an active state, must pre-exist in hearing in a potential state; for the action of the creative and the motive exists, naturally, in that which is to be acted upon. It is, therefore, no way necessary that the motor should be itself in motion. The action, then, of the sonorous body is sound or sounding, that of the auditory sense is hearing or audition; for hearing is double as sound is double, and the same applies to other senses and perceptions. ”

“ Imagination depends, in fact, but upon ourselves, as we can, at will, call it up (since it is in our own power to place images before the eyes, as do they who, for mnemonic aids, by laying down objects, form symbols) ; but to form an opinion does not depend upon ourselves, and then every opinion is, of necessity, either true or false. Whenever, besides, we may have an opinion upon any terrible and fearful incident, we are straightway affected as if it were a reality, just as We are when we think upon any desperate deed ”

“ 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 animals 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 ”

“ The object of Aristotle, then, in this treatise, was to learn the nature of that essence or principle which, under whatever denomination, is the innate source of motion, and, consequently, of vital actions in all bodies capable of being animated; for although, in the more complicated forms of being, it is involved in the manifestation of perceptions and passions, its great office still is to originate, to maintain, and to perpetuate life, through all its gradations. ”

“ Aristotle [1] makes the mind to be receptive of the subject, and the essence of the subject of thought; to be something divine, and to confer upon us contemplation, which is our sweetest, best enjoyment. "If this faculty, in its occasional exercise, as by ourselves, is happiness, it is, as the eternal attribute of the Deity, wonderful, and more wonderful in proportion as more enduring." But yet Aristotle quotes, without objection, that the mind is innate in animals, and the cause, in nature, of the world and its order ”

“ Its essence as well as its accidents.] Aristotle [4] observes that essence seems, most manifestly, to be an innate property in bodies; and, therefore, animals and plants, and parts of animals and plants, as well as natural bodies, as fire and water, air and earth, the elements, in fact, are essences; to which may be added the bodies which are derived from the elements, as the heavens, stars, sun, and moon. Some, however, regarded the boundaries of bodies, as surface, line, point, and unit, as essences, rather than bodies or solids themselves. ”