Aristotle
who dwell in the peripheral or celestial regions, but also men,
birds, quadrupeds, and fishes. These four inhabit the more central or
lower regions of air, earth, and water. In describing men and the
inferior animals, Plato takes his departure from the divine Kosmos,
and proceeds downwards by successive stages of increasing degeneracy
and corruption. The cranium of man was constructed as a little
Kosmos, including in itself an immortal rational soul, composed of
the same materials, though diluted and adulterated, as the kosmical
soul; and moving with the like rotations, though disturbed and
irregular, suited to a rational soul. This cranium, for wise purposes
which Plato indicates, was elevated by the gods upon a tall body,
with attached limbs for motion in different directions--forward,
backward, upward, downward, to the right and left.[2] Within this
body were included two inferior and mortal souls: one in the thoracic
region near the heart, the other lower down, below the diaphragm, in
the abdominal region; but both of them fastened or rooted in the
spinal marrow or cord, which formed a continuous line with the brain
above. These two souls were both emotional; the higher or _thoracic_
soul being the seat of courage, energy, anger, &c., while to the
lower or _abdominal_ soul belonged appetite, desires, love of gain,
&c. Both of them were intended as companions and adjuncts, yet in the
relation of dependence and obedience, to the _rational_ soul in the
cranium above; which, though unavoidably debased and perturbed by
such unworthy companionship, was protected partially against the
contagion by the difference of location, the neck being built up as
an isthmus of separation between the two. The thoracic soul, the seat
of courage, was placed nearer to the head, in order that it might be
the medium for transmitting influence from the cranial soul above, to
the abdominal soul below; which last was at once the least worthy and
the most difficult to control. The heart, being the initial point of
the veins, received the orders and inspirations of the cranial soul,
transmitting them onward through its many blood-channels to all the
sensitive parts of the body; which were thus rendered obedient, as
far as possible, to the authority of man's rational nature.[3] The
unity or communication of the three souls was kept up through the
continuity of the cerebro-spinal column.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Timæus, p. 44, E.; 'Plato and Other Comp. of
Sokr.', III. xxxvi. p. 264.]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Timæus, p. 70; 'Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.',
III. pp. 271-272.]
But, though by these arrangements the higher soul in the cranium was
enabled to control to a certain extent its inferior allies, it was
itself much disturbed and contaminated by their reaction. The
violence of passion and appetite, the constant processes of nutrition
and sensation pervading the whole body, the multifarious movements of
the limbs and trunk, in all varieties of direction,--these causes all
contributed to agitate and to confuse the rotations of the cranial
soul, perverting the arithmetical proportions and harmony belonging
to them. The circles of Same and Diverse were made to convey false
information; and the soul, for some time after its first junction
with the body, became destitute of intelligence.[4] In mature life,
indeed, the violence of the disturbing causes abates, and the man may
become more and more intelligent, especially if placed under
appropriate training and education. But in many cases no such
improvement took place, and the rational soul of man was
irrecoverably spoiled; so that new and worse breeds were formed, by
successive steps of degeneracy. The first stage, and the least amount
of degeneracy, was exhibited in the formation of woman; the original
type of man not having included diversity of sex. By farther steps of
degradation, in different ways, the inferior animals were
formed--birds, quadrupeds, and fishes.[5] In each of these, the
rational soul became weaker and worse; its circular rotations ceased
with the disappearance of the spherical cranium, and animal appetites
with sensational agitations were left without control. As man, with
his two emotional souls and body joined on to the rational soul and
cranium, was a debased copy of the perfect rational soul and
**spherical body of the divine Kosmos, so the other inhabitants of
the Kosmos proceeded from still farther debasement and
disrationalization of the original type of man.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Timæus, pp. 43-44; 'Plato and Other Comp. of
Sokr.', III. pp. 262-264.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Timæus, p. 91; 'Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.',
pp. 281-282.]
Such is the view of Psychology given by Plato in the Timæus;
beginning with the divine Kosmos, and passing downwards from thence
to the triple soul of man, as well as to the various still lower
successors of degenerated man. It is to be remarked that Plato,
though he puts soul as prior to body in dignity and power, and as
having for its functions to control and move body, yet always
conceives soul as attached to body, and never as altogether detached,
not even in the divine Kosmos. The soul, in Plato's view, is
self-moving and self-moved: it is both _Primum Mobile_ in itself,
and _Primum Movens_ as to the body; it has itself the corporeal
properties of being extended and moved, and it has body implicated
with it besides.
The theory above described, in so far as it attributes to the soul
rational constituent elements (_Idem_, _Diversum_), continuous
magnitude, and circular rotations, was peculiar to Plato, and is
criticized by Aristotle as the peculiarity of his master.[6] But
several other philosophers agreed with Plato in considering
self-motion, together with motive causality and faculties perceptive
and cognitive, to be essential characteristics of soul. Alkmæon
declared the soul to be in perpetual motion, like all the celestial
bodies; hence it was also immortal, as they were.[7] Herakleitus
described it as the subtlest of elements, and as perpetually fluent;
hence it was enabled to know other things, all of which were in flux
and change. Diogenes of Apollonia affirmed that the element
constituent of soul was air, at once mobile, all-penetrating, and
intelligent. Demokritus declared that among the infinite diversity of
atoms those of spherical figure were the constituents both of the
element fire and of the soul: the spherical atoms were by reason of
their figure the most apt and rapid in moving; it was their nature
never to be at rest, and they imparted motion to everything else.[8]
Anaxagoras affirmed soul to be radically and essentially distinct from
every thing else, but to be the great primary source of motion, and to
be endued with cognitive power, though at the same time not suffering
impressions from without.[9] Empedokles considered soul to be a
compound of the four elements--fire, water, air, earth; with love and
hatred as principles of motion, the former producing aggregation of
elements, the latter, disgregation: by means of each element the soul
became cognizant of the like element in the Kosmos. Some Pythagoreans
looked upon the soul as an aggregate of particles of extreme
subtlety, which pervaded the air and were in perpetual agitation.
Other Pythagoreans, however, declared it to be an harmonious or
proportional mixture of contrary elements and qualities; hence its
universality of cognition, extending to all.[10]
[Footnote 6: Aristot. De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, a. 2.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid. ii. p. 405, a. 29.]
[Footnote 8: Ibid. p. 404, a. 8; p. 405, a. 22; p. 406, b. 17.]
[Footnote 9: Ibid. p. 405, a. 13, b. 19.]
[Footnote 10: Aristot. De Animâ, I. ii. p. 404, a. 16; p. 407, b.
27.]
A peculiar theory was delivered by Xenokrates (who, having been
fellow-pupil with Aristotle under Plato, afterwards conducted the
Platonic School, during all the time that Aristotle taught at the
Lykeium), which Aristotle declares to involve greater difficulty than
any of the others. Xenokrates described the soul as "a number (a
monad or indivisible unit) moving itself."[11] He retained the
self-moving property which Plato had declared to be characteristic of
the soul, while he departed from Plato's doctrine of a soul with
continuous extension. He thus fell back upon the Pythagorean idea of
number as the fundamental essence. Aristotle impugns, as alike
untenable, both the two properties here alleged--number and
self-motion. If the monad both moves and is moved (he argues), it
cannot be indivisible; if it be moved, it must have position, or must
be a point; but the motion of a point is a line, without any of that
variety that constitutes life. How can the soul be a monad? or, if it
be, what difference can exist between one soul and another, since
monads cannot differ from each other except in position? How comes it
that some bodies have souls and others not? and how, upon this
theory, can we explain the fact that many animated bodies, both
plants and animals, will remain alive after being divided, the
monadic soul thus exhibiting itself as many and diverse? Besides, the
monad set up by Xenokrates is hardly distinguishable from the highly
attenuated body or spherical atom recognized by Demokritus as the
origin or beginning of bodily motion.[12]
[Footnote 11: Ibid. iv. p. 408, b. 32.]
[Footnote 12: Ibid. p. 409, b. 12.]
These and other arguments are employed by Aristotle to refute the
theory of Xenokrates. In fact, he rejects all the theories then
current. After having dismissed the self-motor doctrine, he proceeds
to impugn the views of those who declared the soul to be a compound
of all the four elements, in order that they might account for its
percipient and cognitive faculties upon the maxim then very generally
admitted[13]--That like is perceived and known by like. This theory,
the principal champion of which was Empedokles, appears to Aristotle
inadmissible. You say (he remarks) that like knows like; how does
this consist with your other doctrine, that like cannot act upon, or
suffer from, like, especially as you consider that both in perception
and in cognition the percipient and cognizant suffers or is acted
upon?[14] Various parts of the cognizant subject, such as bone, hair,
ligaments, &c., are destitute of perception and cognition; how then
can we know anything about bone, hair, and ligaments, since we cannot
know them by like?[15] Suppose the soul to be compounded of all the
four elements; this may explain how it comes to know the four
elements, themselves, but not how it comes to know all the
combinations of the four; now innumerable combinations of the four
are comprised among the _cognita_. We must assume that the soul
contains in itself not merely the four elements, but also the laws or
definite proportions wherein they can combine; and this is affirmed
by no one.[16] Moreover, _Ens_ is an equivocal, or at least a
multivocal, term; there are _Entia_ belonging to each of the ten
Categories. Now the soul cannot include in itself all the ten, for
the different Categories have no elements in common; in whichever
Category you rank the soul, it will know (by virtue of likeness) the
_cognita_ belonging to that category, but it will not know the
_cognita_ belonging to the other nine.[17] Besides, even if we grant
that the soul includes all the four elements, where is the cementing
principle that combines all the four into one? The elements are
merely matter; and what holds them together must be the really potent
principle of soul; but of this no explanation is given.[18]
[Footnote 13: Ibid. v. p. 409, b. 29.]
[Footnote 14: Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 410, a. 25.]
[Footnote 15: Ibid. a. 30.]
[Footnote 16: Ibid. p. 409, b. 28; p. 410, a. 12.]
[Footnote 17: Ibid. p. 410, a. 20.]