Aristotle
[Footnote 18: Ibid. p. 410, b. 10.]
Some philosophers have assumed (continues Aristotle) that soul
pervades the whole Kosmos and its elements; and that it is inhaled by
animals in respiration along with the air.[19] They forget that all
plants, and even some animals, live without respiring at all;
moreover, upon this theory, air and fire also, as possessing soul,
and what is said to be a better soul, ought (if the phrase were
permitted) to be regarded as animals. The soul of air or fire must be
homogeneous in its parts; the souls of animals are not homogeneous,
but involve several distinct parts or functions.[20] The soul
perceives, cogitates, opines, feels, desires, repudiates; farther, it
moves the body locally, and brings about the growth and decay of the
body. Here we have a new mystery:[21]--Is the whole soul engaged in
the performance of each of these functions, or has it a separate part
exclusively consecrated to each? If so, how many are the parts? Some
philosophers (Plato among them) declare the soul to be divided, and
that one part cogitates and cognizes, while another part desires. But
upon that supposition what is it that holds these different parts
together? Certainly not the body (which is Plato's theory); on the
contrary, it is the soul that holds together the body; for, as soon
as the soul is gone, the body rots and disappears.[22] If there be
anything that keeps together the divers parts of the soul as one,
that something must be the true and fundamental soul; and we ought
not to speak of the soul as having parts, but as essentially one and
indivisible, with several distinct faculties. Again, if we are to
admit parts of the soul, does each part hold together a special part
of the body, as the entire soul holds together the entire body? This
seems impossible; for what part of the body can the Noûs or Intellect
(_e.g._) be imagined to hold together? And, besides, several kinds of
plants and of animals may be divided, yet so that each of the
separate parts shall still continue to live; hence it is plain that
the soul in each separate part is complete and homogeneous.[23]
[Footnote 19: Ibid. ii. p. 404, a. 9: [Greek: tou= zê=n o(/ron
ei)=nai tê\n a)napnoê/n], &c. Compare the doctrine of Demokritus.]
[Footnote 20: Ibid. v. p. 411, a. 1, 8, 16.]
[Footnote 21: Ibid. a. 30.]
[Footnote 22: Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 411, b. 8.]
[Footnote 23: Ibid. b. 15-27.]
Aristotle thus rejects all the theories proposed by antecedent
philosophers, but more especially the two following:--That the soul
derives its cognitive powers from the fact of being compounded of the
four elements; That the soul is self-moved. He pronounces it
incorrect to say that the soul is moved at all.[24] He farther
observes that none of the philosophers have kept in view either the
full meaning or all the varieties of soul; and that none of these
defective theories suffices for the purpose that every good and
sufficient theory ought to serve, viz., not merely to define the
essence of the soul, but also to define it in such a manner that the
concomitant functions and affections of the soul shall all be
deducible from it.[25] Lastly, he points out that most of his
predecessors had considered that the prominent characteristics of
soul were--to be motive and to be percipient:[26] while, in his
opinion, neither of these two characteristics is universal or
fundamental.
[Footnote 24: Ibid. a. 25.]
[Footnote 25: Ibid. i. p. 402, b. 16, seq.; v. p. 409, b. 15.]
[Footnote 26: Ibid. ii. p. 403, b. 30.]
Aristotle requires that a good theory of the soul shall explain alike
the lowest vegetable soul, and the highest functions of the human or
divine soul. And, in commenting on those theorists who declared that
the essence of soul consisted in movement, he remarks that their
theory fails altogether in regard to the Noûs (or cogitative and
intellective faculty of the human soul); the operation of which bears
far greater analogy to rest or suspension of movement than to
movement itself.[27]
[Footnote 27: Aristot. De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, a. 32: [Greek: e)/ti
d' ê( no/êsis e)/oiken ê)remê/sei tini\ ê)\ e)pista/sei ma=llon ê)\
kinê/sei.]]
We shall now proceed to state how Aristotle steers clear (or at least
believes himself to steer clear) of the defects that he has pointed
out in the psychological theories of his predecessors. Instead of
going back (like Empedokles, Plato, and others) to a time when the
Kosmos did not yet exist, and giving us an hypothesis to explain how
its parts came together or were put together, he takes the facts and
objects of the Kosmos as they stand, and distributes them according
to distinctive marks alike obvious, fundamental, and pervading; after
which he seeks a mode of explanation in the principles of his own
First Philosophy or Ontology. Whoever had studied the Organon and the
Physica of Aristotle (apparently intended to be read prior to the
treatise De Animâ) would be familiar with his distribution of _Entia_
into ten Categories, of which Essence or Substance was the first and
the fundamental. Of these Essences or Substances the **most
complete and recognized were physical or natural bodies; and among
such bodies one of the most striking distinctions, was between those
that had life and those that had it not. By life, Aristotle means
keeping up the processes of nutrition, growth, and decay.[28]
[Footnote 28: Ibid. II i. p. 412, a. 11: [Greek: ou)si/ai de\
ma/list' ei)=nai dokou=si ta\ sô/mata, kai\ tou/tôn ta\ phusika/;
tô=n de\ phusikô=n ta\ me\n e)/chei zôê/n, ta\ d' ou)k e)/chei; zôê\n
de\ le/gô, tê\n di' au)tou= trophê\n kai\ au)/xêsin kai\ phthi/sin.]]
"To live" (Aristotle observes) is a term used in several different
meanings; whatever possesses any one of the following four properties
is said to live:[29] (1) Intellect, (2) Sensible perception, (3)
Local movement and rest, (4) Internal movement of nutrition, growth,
and decay. But of these four the last is the only one common to all
living bodies without exception; it is the foundation presupposed by
the other three. It is the only one possessed by plants,[30] and
common to all plants as well as to all animals--to all animated
bodies.
[Footnote 29: Ibid. ii. p. 413, a. 22: [Greek: pleonachô=s de\ tou=
zê=n legome/nou, ka)\n e(/n ti tou/tôn e)nupa/rchê| mo/non, zê=n
au)to/ phamen], &c.]
[Footnote 30: Ibid. I. v. p. 411, b. 27, ad fin.]
What is the animating principle belonging to each of these bodies,
and what is the most general definition of it? Such is the problem
that Aristotle states to himself about the soul.[31] He explains it
by a metaphysical distinction first introduced (apparently) by
himself into _Philosophia Prima_. He considers Substance or Essence
as an ideal compound; not simply as clothed with all the accidents
described in the nine last Categories, but also as being analysable
in itself, even apart from these accidents, into two abstract,
logical, or notional elements or _principia_--Form and Matter. This
distinction is borrowed from the most familiar facts of the sensible
world--the shape of solid objects. When we see or feel a cube of wax,
we distinguish the cubic shape from the waxen material;[32] we may
find the like shape in many other materials--wood, stone, &c.; we may
find the like material in many different shapes--sphere, pyramid,
&c.; but the matter has always some shape, and the shape has always
some matter. We can name and reason about the matter, without
attending to the shape, or distinguishing whether it be cube or
sphere; we can name and reason about the shape, without attending to
the material shaped, or to any of its various peculiarities. But
this, though highly useful, is a mere abstraction or notional
distinction. There can be no real separation between the two: no
shape without some solid material; no solid material without some
shape. The two are correlates; each of them implying the other, and
neither of them admitting of being realized or actualized without the
other.
[Footnote 31: Ibid. II. p. 413, b. 11: [Greek: ê( psuchê\ tô=n
ei)rême/nôn tou/tôn a)rchê/].--Ibid. I. p. 412, a. 5: [Greek: ti/s
a)\n ei)/ê koino/tatos lo/gos au)tê=s].]
[Footnote 32: Aristot. De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, b. 7: [Greek: to\n
kêro\n kai\ to\ schê=ma].]
This distinction of Form and Matter is one of the capital features of
Aristotle's _Philosophia Prima_. He expands it and diversifies it in
a thousand ways, often with subtleties very difficult to follow; but
the fundamental import of it is seldom lost--two correlates
inseparably implicated in fact and reality in every concrete
individual that has received a substantive name, yet logically
separable and capable of being named and considered apart from each
other. The Aristotelian analysis thus brings out, in regard to each
individual substance (or _Hoc Aliquid_, to use his phrase), a triple
point of view: (1) The Form; (2) The Matter; (3) The compound or
aggregate of the two--in other words, the inseparable _Ens_, which
carries us out of the domain of logic or abstraction into that of the
concrete or reality.[33]
[Footnote 33: Aristot. Metaphys. Z. iii. p. 1029, a. 1-34; De Animâ,
II. i. p. 412, a. 6; p. 414, a. 15.
In the first book of the Physica, Aristotle pushes this analysis yet
further, introducing three _principia_ instead of two:--(1) Form,
(2) Matter, (3) Privation (of Form); he gives a distinct general name
to the negation as well as to the affirmation; he provides a sign
_minus_ as counter-denomination to the sign _plus_. But he intimates
that this is only the same analysis more minutely discriminated, or
in a different point of view: [Greek: dio\ e)/sti me\n ô(s du/o
lekte/on ei)=nai ta\s a)rcha/s, e)/sti d' ô(s trei=s] (Phys. I. vii.
p. 190, b. 29).
_Materia Prima_ (Aristotle says, Phys. I. vii. p. 191, a. 8) is
"knowable only by analogy"--_i.e._, explicable only by illustrative
examples: as the brass is to the statue, as the wood is to the couch,
&c.; natural substances being explained from works of art, as is
frequent with Aristotle.]
Aristotle farther recognizes, between these two logical correlates, a
marked difference of rank. The Form stands first, the Matter
second,--not in time, but in notional presentation. The Form is higher,
grander, prior in dignity and esteem, more _Ens_, or more nearly
approaching to perfect entity; the Matter is lower, meaner, posterior
in dignity, farther removed from that perfection. The conception of
wax, plaster, wood, &c., without amy definite or determinate shape,
is confused and unimpressive; but a name, connoting some definite
shape, at once removes this confusion, and carries with it mental
pre-eminence, alike as to phantasy, memory, and science. In the
logical hierarchy of Aristotle, Matter is the inferior and Form the
superior;[34] yet neither of the two can escape from its relative
character: Form requires Matter for its correlate, and is nothing in
itself or apart,[35] just as much as Matter requires Form; though
from the inferior dignity of Matter we find it more frequently
described as the second or correlate, while Form is made to stand
forward as the _relatum_. For complete reality, we want the concrete
individual having the implication of both; while, in regard to each
of the constituents _per se_, no separate real existence can be
affirmed, but only a nominal or logical separation.
[Footnote 34: Aristot. De Gener. Animal. II. i. p. 729, a. 10. Matter
and Form are here compared to the female and the male--to mother and
father. Form is a cause operative, Matter a cause co-operative,
though both are alike indispensable to full reality. Compare Physic.
I. ix. p. 192, a. 13: [Greek: ê( me\n ga\r u(pome/nousa sunaiti/a