Aristotle
ei)=nai mê/te sô/ma/ ti ê( psuchê/; sô=ma me\n ga\r _ou)k e)/sti,
sô/matos de/ ti_, kai\ dia\ tou=to e)n sô/mati u(pa/rchei, kai\ e)n
sô/mati toiou/tô|.] Compare Aristot. De Juventute et Senectute, i. p.
467, b. 14.]
[Footnote 45: Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 29.]
The animated subject is thus a form immersed or implicated in matter;
and all its actions and passions are so likewise.[46] Each of these
has its formal side, as concerns the soul, and its material side, as
concerns the body. When a man or animal is angry, for example, this
emotion is both a fact of the soul and a fact of the body: in the
first of these two characters, it may be defined as an appetite for
hurting some one who has hurt us; in the second of the two, it may be
defined as an ebullition of the blood and heat round the heart.[47]
The emotion, belonging to the animated subject or aggregate of soul
and body, is a complex fact having two aspects, logically
distinguishable from each other, but each correlating and implying
the other. This is true not only in regard to our passions, emotions,
and appetites, but also in regard to our perceptions, phantasms,
reminiscences, reasonings, efforts of attention in learning, &c. We
do not say that the soul weaves or builds (Aristotle observes[48]):
we say that the animated subject, the aggregate of soul and body,
_the man_, weaves or builds. So we ought also to say, not that the
soul feels anger, pity, love, hatred, &c., or that the soul learns,
reasons, recollects, &c., but that the man with his soul does these
things. The actual movement throughout these processes is not in the
soul, but in the body; sometimes going _to_ the soul (as in sensible
perception), sometimes proceeding _from_ the soul to the body (as in
the case of reminiscence). All these processes are at once corporeal
and psychical, pervading the whole animated subject, and having two
aspects coincident and inter-dependent, though logically
distinguishable. The perfect or imperfect discrimination by the
sentient soul depends upon the good or bad condition of the bodily
sentient organs; an old man that has become shortsighted would see as
well as before, if he could regain his youthful eye. The defects of
the soul arise from defects in the bodily organism to which it
belongs, as in cases of drunkenness or sickness; and this is not less
true of the Noûs, or intellective soul, than of the sentient
soul.[49] Intelligence, as well as emotion, are phenomena, not of the
bodily organism simply, nor of the Noûs simply, but of the community
or partnership of which both are members; and, when intelligence
gives way, this is not because the Noûs itself is impaired, but
because the partnership is ruined by the failure of the bodily
organism.
[Footnote 46: Aristot. De Animâ, I. i. p. 403, a. 25: [Greek: ta\
pa/thê lo/goi e)/nuloi/ ei)sin.] Compare II. p. 412, b. 10-25; p.
413, a. 2.]
[Footnote 47: Ibid. I. i. p. 403, a. 30.]
[Footnote 48: Ibid. iv. p. 408, b. 12. [Greek: to\ de\ le/gein
o)rgi/zesthai tê\n psuchê\n o(/moion ka)\n ei)/ tis le/goi tê\n
psuchê\n u(phai/nein ê)\ oi)kodomei=n; be/ltion ga\r i)/sôs mê\
le/gein tê\n psuchê\n _e)leei=n ê)\ mantha/nein ê)\ dianoei=sthai_,
a)lla\ _to\n a)/nthrôpon_ tê=| psuchê=|; tou=to de\ mê\ ô(s e)n
e)kei/nê| tê=s kinê/seôs ou)/sês, a)ll' o(/te me\n me/chri e)kei/nês,
o(/te d' a)p' e)kei/nês], &c. Again, b. 30: [Greek: o(/ti me\n ou)=n
ou)ch oi(=o/n te kinei=sthai tê\n psuchê/n, phanero\n e)k tou/tôn.]]
[Footnote 49: Ibid. b. 26. Compare a similar doctrine in the Timæus
of Plato, p. 86, B.-D.]
Respecting the Noûs (the theorizing Noûs), we must here observe that
Aristotle treats it as a separate kind or variety of soul, with
several peculiarities. We shall collect presently all that he says
upon that subject, which is the most obscure portion of his
psychology.
In regard to soul generally, the relative point of view with body as
the correlate is constantly insisted on by Aristotle; without such
correlate his assertions would have no meaning. But the relation
between them is presented in several different ways. The soul is the
cause and principle of a living body;[50] by which is meant, not an
independent and pre-existent something that brings the body into
existence but, an immanent or indwelling influence which sustains the
unity and guides the functions of the organism. According to the
quadruple classification of Cause recognized by Aristotle--Formal,
Material, Movent, and Final--the body furnishes the Material Cause,
while the soul comprises all the three others. The soul is (as we
have already seen) the Form in relation to the body as Matter, but it
is, besides, the Movent, inasmuch as it determines the local
displacement as well as all the active functions of the
body--nutrition, growth, generation, sensation, &c.; lastly, it is
also the Final Cause, since the maintenance and perpetuation of the
same Form, in successive individuals, is the standing purpose aimed
at by each body in the economy of Nature.[51] Under this diversity of
aspect, soul and body are reciprocally integrant and complementary of
each other, the real integer (the Living or Animated Body) including
both.
[Footnote 50: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 415, b. 7: [Greek: e)/sti
d' ê( psuchê\ tou= zô=ntos sô/matos ai)ti/a kai\ a)rchê/; tau=ta de\
pollachô=s le/getai.]]
[Footnote 51: Ibid. b. 1.]
Soul, in the Aristotelian point of view--what is common to all living
bodies, comprises several varieties. But these varieties are not
represented as forming a genus with co-ordinate species under it, in
such manner that the counter-ordinate species, reciprocally excluding
each other, are, when taken together, co-extensive with the whole
genus; like man and brute in regard to animal. The varieties of soul
are distributed into successive stages gradually narrowing in
extension and enlarging in comprehension; the first or lowest stage
being co-extensive with the whole, but connoting only two or three
simple attributes; the second, or next above, connoting all these and
more besides, but denoting only part of the individuals denoted by
the first; the third connoting all this and more, but denoting yet
fewer individuals; and so on forward. Thus the concrete individuals,
called living bodies, include all plants as well as all animals; but
the soul, called Nutritive by Aristotle, corresponding thereto
connotes only nutrition, growth, decay, and generation of another
similar individual.[52] In the second stage, plants are left out, but
all animals remain: the Sentient soul, belonging to animals, but not
belonging to any plants, connotes all the functions and unities of
the Nutritive soul, together with sensible perception (at least in
its rudest shape) besides.[53] We proceed onward in the same
direction, taking in additional faculties--the Movent, Appetitive,
Phantastic (Imaginative), Noëtic (Intelligent) soul, and thus
diminishing the total of individuals denoted. But each higher variety
of soul continues to possess all the faculties of the lower. Thus the
Sentient soul cannot exist without comprehending all the faculties of
the Nutritive, though the Nutritive exists (in plants) without any
admixture of the Sentient. Again, the Sentient soul does not
necessarily possess either memory, imagination, or intellect (Noûs);
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.[54]
[Footnote 52: In the Aristotelian treatise De Plantis, p. 815, b. 16,
it is stated that Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Demokritus, all
affirmed that plants had both intellect and cognition up to a certain
moderate point. We do not cite this treatise as the composition of
Aristotle, but it is reasonably good evidence in reference to the
doctrine of those other philosophers.]
[Footnote 53: Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 411, b. 28.]
[Footnote 54: Ibid. II. ii. p. 413, a. 25-30, b. 32; iii. p. 414, b.
29; p. 415, a. 10.]
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.[55]
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;[56] 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;
which is the only way that an individual can obtain
quasi-immortality, though all aspire to become immortal.[57] 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.[58]
[Footnote 55: Ibid. iv. p. 415, a. 25: [Greek: prô/tê kai\ koinota/tê
du/nami/s e)sti psuchê=s, kath' ê(\n u(pa/rchei to\ zê=n
a(/pasin.]--p. 415, b. 8: [Greek: tou= zô=ntos sô/matos ai)ti/a kai\
a)rchê/].--III. xii. p. 434, a. 22-30, b. 24. Aristot. De
Respiratione, viii. p. 474, a. 30, b. 11.]
[Footnote 56: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 416, a. 17.]
[Footnote 57: Ibid. p. 415, b. 2; p. 416, b. 23: [Greek: e)pei\ d'
a)po\ tou= te/lous a(/panta prosagoreu/ein di/kaion, te/los de\ to\
gennê=sai oi(=on au)to/, a)\n ê( prô/tê psuchê\ gennêtikê\ oi(=on
au)to/.] Also De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 33.]
[Footnote 58: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 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.[59] 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.[60] 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.[61] 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 merely potential and undefined, until the signet comes to