Aristotle
the commencing terminus of the other half. The comparison of two
different sensations or thoughts is thus one and the same mental
fact, with two distinguishable aspects.[111]
[Footnote 110: Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 426, b. 17-29: [Greek:
ou)/te dê\ kechôrisme/nois e)nde/chetai kri/nein o(/ti e(/teron to\
gluku\ tou= leukou=, a)lla\ dei= e(ni/ tini a)/mphô dê=la
ei)=nai.--dei= de\ to\ e(\n le/gein o(/ti e(/teron; e(/teron ga\r
to\ gluku\ tou= leukou=.--a)chô/riston kai\ e)n a)chôri/stô|
chro/nô|.] III. vii. p. 431, a. 20.]
[Footnote 111: Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 427, a. 10-14: [Greek:
ô(/sper ê(\n kalou=si/ tines stigmê/n, ê(=| mia\ kai\ ê(=| du/o,
tau/tê| kai\ a)diai/retos kai\ diaire/tê; ê(=| me\n ou)=n
a)diai/reton, e(\n to\ kri=no/n e)sti kai\ a(/ma, ê(=| de\ diai/reton
u(pa/rchei, ou)ch e(/n; di\s ga\r tô=| au)tô=| chrê=tai sêmei/ô|
a(/ma.]
It is to be remarked that, in explaining this mental process of
comparison, Aristotle three several times applies it both to [Greek:
ai)/sthêsis] and to [Greek: no/êsis], p. 426, b. 22-31; p. 427, a.
9.]
Aristotle devotes a chapter to the enquiry: whether we can perceive
two distinct sensations at once (_i.e._ in one and the same moment of
time). He decides that we cannot; that the sentient soul or faculty
is one and indivisible, and can only have a single energy or
actuality at once.[112] If two causes of sensation are operative
together, and one of them be much superior in force, it will render
us insensible to the other. He remarks that, when we are pre-occupied
with loud noise, or with deep reflection, or with intense fright,
visual objects will often pass by us unseen and unnoticed.[113] Often
the two simultaneous sensations will combine or blend into one
compound, so that we shall feel neither of them purely or
separately.[114] One single act of sensational energy may however
have a double aspect; as the same individual object may be at once
white and sweet, though its whiteness and its sweetness are logically
separable.[115]
[Footnote 112: Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 447, a. 12.]
[Footnote 113: Ibid. a. 15.]
[Footnote 114: Ibid. b. 12-20.]
[Footnote 115: Ibid. p. 449, a. 14.]
To the sentient soul, even in its lowest manifestations, belong the
feelings of pleasure and pain, appetite and aversion.[116] The
movements connected with these feelings, as with all sensation, begin
and close with the central organ--the heart.[117] Upon these are
consequent the various passions and emotions; yet not without certain
faculties of memory and phantasy accompanying or following the facts
of sense.
[Footnote 116: Aristot. De Animâ, II. iii. p. 414, b. 3-16; III. vii.
p. 431, a. 9; De Somno et Vigil. i. p. 454, b. 29.]
[Footnote 117: Aristot. De Partibus Animalium, III. iv. p. 666, a.
12.]
Aristotle proceeds by gradual steps upward from the Sentient soul to
the Noëtic (Cogitant or Intelligent) soul, called in its highest
perfection Noûs. While refuting the doctrine of Empedokles,
Demokritus, and other philosophers, who considered cogitation or
intelligence to be the same as sensible perception, and while
insisting upon the distinctness of the two as mental phenomena, he
recognizes the important point of analogy between them, that both of
them include judgment and comparison;[118] and he describes an
intermediate stage called Phantasy or Imagination, forming the
transition from the lower of the two to the higher. We have already
observed that, in the Aristotelian psychology, the higher functions
of the soul presuppose and are built upon the lower as their
foundation, though the lower do not necessarily involve the higher.
Without nutrition, there is no sense; without sense, there is no
phantasy; without phantasy, there is no cogitation or
intelligence.[119] The higher psychical phenomena are not identical
with the lower, yet neither are they independent thereof; they
presuppose the lower as a part of their conditions. Here, and indeed
very generally elsewhere, Aristotle has been careful to avoid the
fallacy of confounding or identifying the conditions of a phenomenon
with the phenomenon itself.[120]
[Footnote 118: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 427, a. 20.]
[Footnote 119: Ibid. b. 14: [Greek: phantasi/a ga\r e(/teron kai\
ai)sthê/seôs kai\ dianoi/as].--Ib. vii. p. 431, a. 16: [Greek:
ou)de/pote noei= a)/neu phanta/smatos ê( psuchê/].--De Memoriâ et
Reminiscent. i. p. 449, b. 31: [Greek: noei=n ou)k e)/stin a)/neu
phanta/smatos.]]
[Footnote 120: Mill's System of Logic, Book V. ch. 3, s. 8.]
He proceeds to explain Phantasy or the Phantastic department of the
soul, with the phantasms that belong to it. It is not sensible
perception, nor belief, nor opinion, nor knowledge, nor cogitation.
Our dreams, though affections of the sentient soul, are really
phantasms in our sleep, when there is no visual sensation; even when
awake, we have a phantasm of the sun, as of a disk one foot in
diameter, though we _believe_ the sun to be larger than the
earth.[121] Many of the lower animals have sensible perception
without any phantasy: even those among them that have phantasy have
no opinion; for opinion implies faith, persuasion, and some rational
explanation of that persuasion, to none of which does any animal
attain.[122] Phantasy is an internal movement of the animated being
(body and soul in one); belonging to the sentient soul, not to the
cogitant or intelligent; not identical with the movement of sense,
but continued from or produced by that, and by that alone;
accordingly, similar to the movement of sense and relating to the
same matters.[123] Since our sensible perceptions may be either true
or false, so also may be our phantasms. And, since these phantasms
are not only like our sensations, but remain standing in the soul
long after the objects of sense have passed away, they are to a great
degree the determining causes both of action and emotion. They are
such habitually to animals, who are destitute of Noûs; and often even
to intelligent men, if the Noûs be overclouded by disease or
drunkenness.[124]
[Footnote 121: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, a. 5, b. 3; De
Somno et Vig. ii. p. 456, a. 24: [Greek: kinou=ntai d' e)/nioi
katheu/dontes kai\ poiou=si polla\ e)grêgorika/, ou) me/ntoi a)/neu
phanta/smatos kai\ ai)sthê/seô/s tinos; to\ ga\r e)nu/pnio/n e)stin
ai)/sthêma tro/pon tina/.]--Ibid. i. p. 454, b. 10.]
[Footnote 122: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, a. 10, 22, 25.]
[Footnote 123: Ibid. b. 10-15; De Somniis, i. p. 459, a. 15.]
[Footnote 124: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, b. 16: [Greek:
kai\ polla\ kat' au)tê\n] (_i.e._ [Greek: kata\ tê\n phantasi/an)
kai\ poiei=n kai\ pa/schein to\ e)/chon.]--Ibid. p. 429, a. 4:
[Greek: kai\ dia\ to\ e)mme/nein kai\ o(moi/as ei)=nai (ta\s
phantasi/as) tai=s ai)sthê/sesi, polla\ kat' au)ta\s pra/ttei ta\
zô=|a], &c.]
In the chapter now before us, Aristotle is careful to discriminate
phantasy from several other psychological phenomena wherewith it is
liable to be confounded. But we remark with some surprise, that
neither here, nor in any other part of his general Psychology, does
he offer any exposition of Memory, the phenomenon more nearly
approaching than any other to phantasy. He supplied the deficiency
afterwards by a short but valuable tract on Memory and Reminiscence;
wherein he recognizes, and refers to, the more general work on
Psychology. Memory bears on the past, as distinguished both from the
present and future. Memory and phantasy are in some cases so alike,
that we cannot distinguish clearly whether what is in our minds is a
remembrance or a phantasm.[125] Both of them belong to the same
psychological department--to the central sentient principle, and not
to the cogitant or intelligent Noûs. Memory as well as phantasy are
continuations, remnants, or secondary consequences, of the primary
movements of sense; what in itself is a phantasm, may become an
object of remembrance directly and _per se_; matters of cogitation,
being included or implicated in phantasms, may also become objects of
remembrance, indirectly and by way of accompaniment.[126] We can
remember our prior acts of cogitation and demonstration; we can
remember that, a month ago, we demonstrated the three angles of a
triangle to be equal to two right angles; but, as the original
demonstration could not be carried on without our having before our
mental vision the phantasm of some particular triangle, so neither
can the remembrance of the demonstration be made present to us
without a similar phantasm.[127] In acts of remembrance we have a
conception of past time, and we recognize what is now present to our
minds as a copy of what has been formerly present to us, either as
perception of sense or as actual cognition;[128] while in phantasms
there is no conception of past time, nor any similar recognition, nor
any necessary reference to our own past mental states; the phantasm
is looked at by itself, and not as a copy. This is the main point of
distinction between phantasm and remembrance:[129] what is remembered
is a present phantasm assimilated to an impression of the past. Some
of the superior animals possess both memory and phantasy. But other
animals have neither; their sensations disappear, they have no
endurance; while endurance is the basis both of phantasy and
memory.[130]
[Footnote 125: Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 451, a. 5; p. 449,
a. 10.]
[Footnote 126: Ibid. p. 450, a. 22: [Greek: ti/nos me\n ou)=n tô=n
tê=s psuchê=s e)sti\n ê( mnê/mê, phanero\n o(/ti ou(=per kai\ ê(
phantasi/a; kai\ e)/sti mnêmoneuta\ kath' au(ta\ me\n o(/sa e)sti\
phantasta/, kata\ sumbebêko\s d' o(/sa mê\ a)/neu phantasi/as.]]
[Footnote 127: Aristot. De Memor. et. Rem. i. p. 449, b. 18.]
[Footnote 128: Ibid. b. 22: [Greek: a)ei\ ga\r o(/tan e)nergê=| kata\
to\ mnêmoneu/ein, ou(/tôs e)n tê=| psuchê=| le/gei, o(/ti pro/teron
tou=to ê)/kousen ê)\ ê)/|stheto ê)\ e)no/êsen.]--Ibid. p. 452, b.
28.]
[Footnote 129: Ibid. p. 450, a. 30; p. 451, a. 15: [Greek: to\
mnêmoneu/ein, ô(s ei)ko/nos ou(= pha/ntasma, e(/xis]. Themistius
**ad Aristot. De Memoriâ, p. 240, ed. Spengel.]
[Footnote 130: Aristot. Analyt. Poster. ii. p. 99, b. 36: [Greek:
monê\ tou= ai)sthê/matos]. It may be remarked that in the Topica
Aristotle urges a dialectical objection against this or a similar
doctrine (Topic. IV. iv. v. p. 125, b. 6-19), and against his own
definition cited in the preceding note, where he calls [Greek:
mnê/mê] an [Greek: e(/xis]. Compare the first chapter of the
Metaphysica.]
But though some animals have memory, no animal except man has
Reminiscence. Herein man surpasses them all.[131] Aristotle draws a
marked distinction between the two; between the (memorial) retentive
and reviving functions, when working unconsciously and instinctively,
and the same two functions, when stimulated and guided by a
deliberate purpose of our own--which he calls reminiscence. This last
is like a syllogism or course of ratiocinative inference, performable
only by minds capable of taking counsel and calculating. He considers
memory as a movement proceeding from the centre and organs of sense
to the soul, and stamping an impression thereupon; while reminiscence
is a counter-movement proceeding from the soul to the organs of
sense.[132] In the process of reminiscence, movements of the soul and
movements of the body are conjoined,[133] more or less perturbing and
durable according to the temperament of the individual. The process
is intentional and deliberate, instigated by the desire to search for
and recover some lost phantasm or cognition; its success depends upon
the fact that there exists by nature a regular observable order of
sequence among the movements of the system, physical as well as