Aristotle
impressions. One of them is akin to the sense of taste--odour and
savour going together--an affection (to a great degree) of the
nutritive soul; so that the same odour is agreeable when we are
hungry, disagreeable when our hunger is fully satisfied. This first
kind of impression is common to men with other animals; but there is
a second, peculiar to man, and disconnected from the sense of taste,
viz., the scent of flowers, unguents, &c., which are agreeable or
disagreeable constantly and _per se_.[96] Nature has assigned this
second kind of odours as a privilege to man, because his brain, being
so large and moist, requires to be tempered by an additional stock of
drying and warming olfactory influence.
[Footnote 88: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 7. De Sensu et
Sensili, v. p. 445, a. 6; iv. p. 441, a. 1. De Partibus Animal. II.
xii. p. 656, a. 31; p. 657, a. 9.]
[Footnote 89: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 21: [Greek: kata\
de\ tê\n a(phê\n pollô=| tô=n a)/llôn zô/|ôn diaphero/ntôs a)kriboi=
(o( a)/nthrôpos). dio\ kai\ phronimô/tato/n e)sti tô=n zô/|ôn.
sêmei=on de\ to\ kai\ e)n tô=| ge/nei tô=n a)nthrô/pôn para\ to\
ai)sthêtê/rion tou=to ei)=nai eu)phuei=s kai\ a)phuei=s, _par' a)/llo
de\ mêde/n_; oi( me\n ga\r sklêro/sarkoi a)phuei=s tê\n dia/noian,
oi( de\ malako/sarkoi eu)phuei=s.]]
[Footnote 90: Ibid. a. 26.]
[Footnote 91: Ibid. b. 9-19. [Greek: to\ a)/neu tou= a)napnei=n mê\
ai)stha/nesthai _i)/dion_ e)pi\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn; dê=lon de\
peirôme/nois.] He seems to think that this is not true of any animal
other than man.]
[Footnote 92: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 443, a. 3-31; p.
444, b. 9.]
[Footnote 93: Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, b. 23. He instances
brimstone, [Greek: a)/sphaltos], &c.]
[Footnote 94: This is difficult to understand, but it seems to be
what Aristotle here means.--De Animâ, II. ix. p. 422, a. 6: [Greek:
e)/sti d' ê( o)smê\ tou\ xêrou=, ô(/sper o( chumo\s tou= u(grou=; to\
d' o)sphrantiko\n ai)sthêtê/rion duna/mei toiou=ton.]--De Sensu et
Sensili, v. p. 443, a. 1-9: [Greek: e)/sti d' o)sphranto\n ou)ch ê(=|
diaphane/s, a)ll' ê)=| pluntiko\n ê)\ r(uptiko\n e)gchu/mou
xêro/têtos;--ê( e)n u(grô=| tou= e)gchu/mou xêrou= phu/sis o)smê/,
kai\ o)sphranto\n to\ pa/thos, dê=lon e)k tô=n e)cho/ntôn kai\ mê\
e)cho/ntôn o)smê/n], &c. Also p. 443, b. 3-7.
In the treatise De Sensu et Sensili, there is one passage (ii. p.
438, b. 24), wherein Aristotle affirms that smell is [Greek:
kapnô/dês a)nathumi/asis, e)k puro/s]; but we also find a subsequent
passage (v. p. 443, a. 21, seq.) where he cites that same doctrine as
the opinion of others, but distinctly refutes it.]
[Footnote 95: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 444, a. 10, 22, 24:
[Greek: ê( ga\r tê=s o)smê=s du/namis thermê\ tê\n phu/sin e)sti/n.]]
[Footnote 96: Ibid. p. 443, b. 17; p. 444, a. 6. 15, 28: [Greek:
i)/dion de\ tê=s tou= a)nthrô/pou phu/seô/s e)sti to\ tê=s o)smê=s
tê=s toiau/tês ge/nos dia\ to\ plei=ston e)gke/phalon kai\
u(gro/taton e)/chein tô=n zô/|ôn ô(s kata\ me/gethos.]
Plato also reckons the pleasures of smell among the pure and
admissible pleasures (Philebus, p. 51, E.; Timæus, p. 65, A., p. 67,
A.).]
Taste is a variety of touch, and belongs to the lower or nutritive
soul, as a guide to the animal in seeking or avoiding different sorts
of food. The object of taste is essentially liquid, often strained
and extracted from dry food by warmth and moisture. The primary
manifestation of this sensory phenomenon is the contrast of drinkable
and undrinkable.[97] The organ of taste, the tongue, is a mean
between dryness and moisture; when either of these is in excess, the
organ is disordered. Among the varieties of taste, there are two
fundamental contraries (as in colour, sound, and the objects of the
other senses except touch) from which the other contrasts are
derived. These fundamentals in taste are sweet and bitter;
corresponding to white and black, acute and grave, in colours and
sounds. The sense of taste is potentially sweet or bitter; the
gustable object is what makes it sweet or bitter in actuality.[98]
[Footnote 97: Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, a. 30-33. De Sensu et
Sensili, i. p. 436, b. 15; iv. p. 441, b. 17: [Greek: dia\ tou=
xêrou= kai\ geô/dous diêthou=sa (ê( phu/sis) kai\ kinou=sa tô=|
thermô=| poio/n ti to\ u(gro\n paraskeua/zei. kai\ e)/sti tou=to
chumo\s to\ gigno/menon u(po\ tou= ei)rême/nou xêrou= pa/thos e)n
tô=| u(grô=|.]--Ib. b. 24: [Greek: ou) panto\s xêrou= a)lla\ tou=
trophi/mou].]
[Footnote 98: Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, b. 5-16; II. xi. p.
422, b. 23: [Greek: pa=sa/ te ga\r ai)/sthêsis mia=s e)nantiô/seôs
ei)=nai dokei=], &c.]
The sense of touch, in which man surpasses all other animals, differs
from the other senses by not having any two fundamental contraries
giving origin to the rest, but by having various contraries alike
fundamental. It is thus hardly one sense, but an aggregate of several
senses. It appreciates the elementary differences of body _quâ_
body--hot, cold, dry, moist, hard, soft, &c. It is a mean between
each of these two extremes; being potentially either one of them, and
capable of being made to assimilate itself actually to either.[99] In
this sense, the tangible object operates when in contact with the
skin; and, as has been already said, much of the superiority of man
depends upon his superior fineness and delicacy of skin.[100] Still
Aristotle remarks that the true organ of touch is not the skin or
flesh, but something interior to the flesh. This last serves only as
a peculiar medium. The fact that the sensation arises when the object
touches our skin, does not prove that the skin is the true organ; for,
if there existed a thin exterior membrane surrounding our bodies, we
should still feel the same sensation. Moreover, the body is not in
real contact with our skin, though it appears to be so; there is a
thin film of air between the two, though we do not perceive it; just
as, when we touch an object under water, there is a film of water
interposed between, as is seen by the wetness of the finger.[101] The
skin is, therefore, not the true organ of touch, but a medium between
the object and the organ; and this sense does in reality agree with
the other senses in having a certain medium interposed between object
and organ. But there is this difference: in touch the medium is close
to and a part of ourselves; in sight and hearing it is exterior to
ourselves, and may extend to some distance. In sight and hearing the
object does not affect us directly; it affects the external medium,
which again affects us. But in touch the object affects, at the same
time and by the same influence, both the medium and the interior
organ; like a spear that, with the same thrust, pierces the warrior's
shield and wounds the warrior himself.[102] Apparently, therefore,
the true organ of touch is something interior, and skin and flesh is
an interposed medium.[103] But what this interior organ is, Aristotle
does not more particularly declare. He merely states it to be in
close and intimate communication with the great central focus and
principle of all sensation--the heart;[104] more closely connected
with the heart (he appears to think) than any of the other organs of
sense, though all of them are so connected more or less closely.
[Footnote 99: Ibid. xi. p. 422, b. 17 seq.]
[Footnote 100: Aristot. Histor. Animal. I. xv. p. 494, b. 17. Man is
[Greek: leptodermo/tatos tô=n zô=|ôn] (Aristot. De Partib. Animal.
ii. p. 657, b. 2), and has the tongue also looser and softer than any
of them, most fit for variety of touch (p. 660, a. 20) as well as for
articulate speech.]
[Footnote 101: Aristot. De Animâ, II. xi. p. 423, a. 25-32.]
[Footnote 102: Ibid. p. 423, b. 12-17: [Greek: diaphe/rei to\ a(pto\n
tô=n o(ratô=n kai\ tô=n psophêtikô=n o(/ti e)kei/nôn me\n
ai)sthano/metha tô=| to\ metaxu\ poiei=n ti ê(ma=s, tô=n de\ a(ptô=n
ou)ch u(po\ tou= metaxu\ a)ll' a(/ma tô=| metaxu/, ô(/sper o( di'
a)spi/dos plêgei/s; ou) ga\r ê( a)spi\s plêgei=sa e)pa/taxen, a)ll'
a(/m' a)/mphô sune/bê plêgê=nai.]
This analogy of the warrior pierced at the same time with his shield
illustrates Aristotle's view of the eighth Category--_Habere_: of
which he gives [Greek: ô(/plistai] as the example. He considers a
man's clothes and defensive weapons as standing in a peculiar
relation to him like a personal appurtenance and almost as a part of
himself. It is under this point of view that he erects _Habere_ into
a distinct Category.]
[Footnote 103: Aristot. De Animâ, II. xi. p. 423, b. 22-26: [Greek:
ê(=| kai\ dê=lon o(/ti e)nto\s to\ tou= a(ptou= ai)sthêtiko/n.--to\
metaxu\ tou= a(ptikou= ê( sa/rx.]]
[Footnote 104: Aristot. De Partibus Animal. II. x. p. 656, a. 30; De
Vitâ et Morte, iii. p. 469, a. 12: De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a.
23; De Sensu et Sensili, ii. p. 439, a. 2.]
Having gone through the five senses _seriatim_, Aristotle offers
various reasons to prove that there neither are, nor can be, more
than five; and then discusses some complicated phenomena of sense. We
perceive _that_ we see or hear;[105] do we perceive this by sight or
by hearing? and if not, by what other faculty?[106] Aristotle replies
by saying that the act of sense is one and the same, but that it may
be looked at in two different points of view. We see a coloured
object; we hear a sound: in each case the act of sense is one; the
energy or actuality of the _visum_, and _videns_, of the _sonans_ and
_audiens_, is implicated and indivisible. But the potentiality of the
one is quite distinct from the potentiality of the other, and may be
considered as well as named apart.[107] When we say: I perceive
_that_ I see--we look at the same act of vision from the side of the
_videns_; the _visum_ being put out of sight as the unnoticed
correlate. This is a mental fact distinct from, though following
upon, the act of vision itself. Aristotle refers it rather to that
general sentient soul or faculty, of which the five senses are
partial and separate manifestations, than to the sense of vision
itself.[108] He thus considers what would now be termed
_consciousness of a sensation_, as being merely the subjective view
of the sensation, distinguished by abstraction from the objective.
[Footnote 105: In modern psychology the language would be--"We _are
conscious_ that we see or hear." But Sir William Hamilton has
remarked that the word Consciousness has no equivalent usually or
familiarly employed in the Greek psychology.]
[Footnote 106: Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 425, b. 14.]
[Footnote 107: Ibid. b. 26; p. 426, a. 16-19.]
[Footnote 108: Aristot. De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a. 12-17; De
Animâ, III. ii. with Torstrick's note, p. 166, and the exposition of
Alexander of Aphrodisias therein cited. These two passages of
Aristotle are to a certain extent different yet not contradictory,
though Torstrick supposes them to be so.]
It is the same general sentient faculty, though diversified and
logically distinguishable in its manifestations, that enables us to
conceive many sensations as combined into one; and to compare or
discriminate sensations belonging to different senses.[109]
[Footnote 109: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 449, a. 8-20.]
White and sweet are perceived by two distinct senses, and at two
distinct moments of time; but they must be compared and discriminated
by one and the same sentient or cogitant act, and at one moment of
time.[110] This mental act, though in itself indivisible, has yet two
aspects, and is thus in a certain sense divisible; just as a point
taken in the middle of a line, while indivisible in itself, may be
looked upon as the closing terminus of one-half of the line, and as