Aristotle
Matter, pervades all nature (Aristotle affirms), and will be found in
the Noûs as elsewhere. We must recognize an _Intellectus Agens_ or
constructive, and an _Intellectus Patiens_ or receptive.[179] The
_Agens_ is the great intellectual energy pervading the celestial
body, and acting upon all the animals susceptible of its operation;
analogous to light, which illuminates the diaphanous medium, and
elevates what was mere potential colour into colour actual and
visible.[180] The _Patiens_ is the intellectual receptivity acted
upon in each individual, and capable of being made to cogitate every
thing; anterior to the _Agens_, in time, so far as regards the
individual, yet as a general fact (when we are talking of man as a
species) not anterior even in time, but correlative. Of the two, the
_Intellectus Agens_ is the more venerable; it is pure intellectual
energy, unmixed, unimpressible from without, and separable from all
animal body. It is this, and nothing more, when considered apart from
animal body; but it is then eternal and immortal, while the
_Intellectus Patiens_ perishes with the remaining soul and with the
body. Yet though the _Intellectus Agens_ is thus eternal, and though
_we_ have part in it, we cannot remember any of its operations
anterior to our own maturity; for the concurrence of the _Intellectus
Patiens_, which begins and ends with us, is indispensable both to
remembrance and to thought.[181]
[Footnote 179: Ibid. III. v. p. 430, a. 10.]
[Footnote 180: Ibid. a. 14: [Greek: kai\ e)/stin o( me\n toiou=tos
nou=s tô=| pa/nta gi/nesthai, o( de\ tô=| pa/nta poiei=n, ô(s e(/xis
tis, oi(=on to\ phô=s; tro/pon ga/r tina kai\ to\ phô=s poiei= ta\
duna/mei o)/nta chrô/mata e)nergei/a| chrô/mata.] Aristotle here
illustrates [Greek: nou=s poiêtiko/s] by [Greek: phô=s] and [Greek:
e(/xis]; and we know what view he takes of [Greek: phô=s] (De Animâ,
II. vii. p. 418, b. 9) as the [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] or [Greek: e(/xis
tou= diaphanou=s]--which _diaphanous_ he explains to be a [Greek:
phu/sis tis e)nupa/rchousa e)n a)e/ri kai\ u(/dati kai\ e)n tô=|
a)i+di/ô| tô=| a)/nô sô/mati]. Judging by this illustration, it seems
proper to couple the [Greek: nou=s poiêtiko/s] here with his
declaration in De Generat. Animal. II. p. 736, b. 28: [Greek: to\n
nou=n mo/non thu/rathen e)peise/nai kai\ thei=on ei)=nai mo/non]: he
cannot consider the [Greek: nou=s poiêtiko/s], which is of the nature
of Form, as belonging to each individual man like the [Greek: nou=s
pathêtiko/s].]
[Footnote 181: Aristot. De Animâ, III. v. p. 430, a. 17: [Greek: kai\
ou(=tos o( nou=s] (_i. e._ [Greek: poiêtiko/s) chôristo\s kai\
a)pathê\s kai\ a)migê/s, tê=| ou)si/a| ô)\n e)ne/rgeia; a)ei\ ga\r
timiô/teron to\ poiou=n tou= pa/schontos, kai\ ê( a)rchê\ tê=s
u(/lês.]--Ibid. a. 22: [Greek: chôristhei\s d' e)sti\ mo/non tou=th'
o(/per e)sti/, kai\ tou=to mo/non a)tha/naton kai\ a)i+/dion; ou)
mnêmoneu/omen de/, o(/ti tou=to me\n a)pathe/s, o( de\ pathêtiko\s
nou=s phtharto/s, kai\ a)/neu tou/tou ou)the\n noei=.] In this
obscure and difficult chapter (difficult even to Theophrastus the
friend and pupil of the author), we have given the best meaning that
the words seem to admit.]
We see here the full extent of Aristotle's difference from the
Platonic doctrine, in respect to the immortality of the soul. He had
defined soul as the first actualization of a body having potentiality
of life with a determinate organism. This of course implied, and he
expressly declares it, that soul and body in each individual case
were one and indivisible, so that the soul of Sokrates perished of
necessity with the body of Sokrates.[182] But he accompanied that
declaration with a reserve in favour of Noûs, and especially of the
theorizing Noûs; which he recognized as a different sort of soul, not
dependent on a determinate bodily organism, but capable of being
separated from it, as the eternal is from the perishable.[183] The
present chapter informs us how far such reserve is intended to go.
That the theorizing Noûs is not limited, like the sentient soul, to a
determinate bodily organism, but exists apart from that organism and
eternally--is maintained as incontestable: it is the characteristic
intellectual activity of the eternal celestial body and the divine
inmates thereof. But the distinction of Form and Matter is here
pointed out, as prevailing in Noûs and in Soul generally, not less
than throughout all other Nature. The theorizing Noûs, as it exists
in Sokrates, Plato, Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Xenokrates,
&c., is individualized in each, and individualized differently in
each. It represents the result of the _Intellectus Agens_ or Formal
Noûs, universal and permanent, upon the _Intellectus Patiens_ or
noëtic receptivity peculiar to each individual; the co-operation of
the two is indispensable to sustain the theorizing intellect of any
individual man. But the _Intellectus Patiens_, or _Receptivus_,
perishes along with the individual. Accordingly, the intellectual
life of Sokrates cannot be continued farther. It cannot be prolonged
after his sensitive and nutritive life has ceased; the noëtic
function, as it exists in him, is subject to the same limits of
duration as the other functions of the soul. The intellectual man is
no more immortal than the sentient man.
[Footnote 182: Ibid. II. i. p. 413, a. 3.]
[Footnote 183: Ibid. ii. p. 413, b. 24: [Greek: peri\ de\ tou= nou=
kai\ tê=s theôrêtikê=s duna/meôs ou)de/n pô phanero/n, a)ll' e)/oike
psuchê=s ge/nos e(/teron ei)=nai, kai\ tou=to mo/non e)nde/chetai
chôri/zesthai, katha/per to\ a)i+/dion tou= phthartou=.]]
Such is the opinion here delivered by Aristotle. And it follows
indeed as a distinct corollary from his doctrine respecting animal
and vegetable procreation in general. Individuality (the being _unum
numero_ in a species) and immortality are in his view incompatible
facts; the one excludes the other. In assigning (as he so often does)
a final cause or purpose to the wide-spread fact of procreation of
species by animals and vegetables, he tells us that every individual
living organism, having once attained the advantage of existence,
yearns and aspires to prolong this for ever, and to become immortal.
But this aspiration cannot be realized; Nature has forbidden it, or
is inadequate to it; no individual can be immortal. Being precluded
from separate immortality, the individual approaches as near to it as
is possible, by generating a new individual like itself, and thus
perpetuating the species. Such is the explanation given by Aristotle
of the great fact pervading the sublunary, organized
world[184]--immortal species of plants, animals, and men, through a
succession of individuals each essentially perishable. The general
doctrine applies to Noûs as well as to the other functions of the
soul. Noûs is immortal; but the individual Sokrates, considered as
noëtic or intellectual, can no more be immortal than the same
individual considered as sentient or reminiscent.
[Footnote 184: Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 20,
seq.; De Animâ, II. iv. p. 415, a. 26, seq.; OEconomica, I. iii. p.
1343, b. 23.]
We have already stated that Noûs--Intellect--the noëtic function--is
that faculty of the soul that correlates with the abstract and
universal; with Form apart from Matter. Its process is at once
analytical, synthetical, and retentive. Nature presents to us only
concretes and particulars, in a perpetual course of change and
reciprocal action; in these the abstract and universal are immersed,
and out of these they have to be disengaged by logical analysis. That
the abstract is a derivative from the concrete, and the universal
from particulars--is the doctrine of Aristotle. Ascending from
particulars, the analysis is carried so far that at length it can go
no farther. It continues to divide until it comes to _indivisibles_,
or simple notions, the highest abstractions, and the largest
universals. These are the elements out of which universal
propositions are formed, the first premisses or _principia_ of
demonstration. Unphilosophical minds do not reach these indivisibles
at all: but it is the function of the theorizing Noûs to fasten on
them, and combine them into true propositions. In so far as regards
the indivisibles themselves, falsehood is out of the question, and
truth also, since they affirm nothing. The mind either apprehends
them, or it does not apprehend them: there is no other
alternative.[185] But, when combined into affirmative propositions,
they then are true or false, as the case may be. The formal essence
of each object is among these indivisibles, and is apprehended as
such by the intellect; which, while confining itself to such essence,
is unerring, as each sense is in regard to its own appropriate
perceivables.[186] But, when the intellect goes father, and proceeds
to predicate any attribute respecting the essence, then it becomes
liable to error, as sense is when drawing inferences.
[Footnote 185: Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, a. 26: [Greek: ê(
me\n ou)=n tô=n a)diaire/tôn no/êsis e)n tou/tois peri\ a(\ ou)k
e)/sti to\ pseu=dos; e)n oi(=s de\ kai\ to\ pseu=dos kai\ to\
a)lêthe/s, su/nthesi/s tis ê)/dê noêma/tôn ô(/sper e(\n
o)/ntôn.]--Metaphysica, [Greek: Th]. x. p. 1051, b. 31: [Greek:
peri\ tau=ta ou)k e)/stin a)patêthê=nai, a)ll' ê)\ noei=n ê)\ mê/.]]
[Footnote 186: Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, b. 29. This
portion of the treatise is peculiarly confused and difficult to
understand.]
One of the chief functions that Aristotle assigns to Noûs, or the
noëtic function, is that the _principia_ of demonstration and
knowledge belong to it; and not merely the _principia_, but also, in
cases of action preceded by deliberation and balance of motives, the
ultimate application of _principia_ to action. So that he styles Noûs
both beginning and end; also the beginning of the beginning; and,
moreover, he declares it to be always right and unerring--equal to
Science and even more than Science.[187] These are high praises,
conveying little information, and not reconcilable with other
passages wherein he speaks of the exercise of the noëtic function
([Greek: to\ noei=n]) as sometimes right, sometimes wrong.[188] But,
for the question of psychology, the point to be determined is, in
what sense he meant that _principia_ belonged to Noûs. He certainly
did not mean that the first principles of reasoning were novelties
originated, suggested, or introduced into the soul by noëtic
influence. Not only he does not say this, but he takes pains to
impress the exact contrary. In passages cited a few pages back, he
declares that Noûs in entering the soul brings nothing whatever with
it; that it is an universal potentiality--a capacity in regard to
truth, but nothing more;[189] that it is in fact a capacity not
merely for comparing and judging (to both of which he recognizes even
the sentient soul as competent), but also for combining many into
one, and resolving the apparent one into several; for abstracting,
generalizing, and selecting among the phantasms present, which of
them should be attended to, and which should be left out of
attention.[190] Such is his opinion about the noëtic function; and he
states explicitly that the abstract and universal not only arise from
the concrete and particular, but are inseparable from the same
really--separable only logically.
[Footnote 187: Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. VI. xii. p. 1143, a. 25, b.
10: [Greek: dio\ kai\ a)rchê\ kai\ te/los nou=s].--Analyt. Post. II.
xviii. p. 100, b. 5.]
[Footnote 188: Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 427, b. 8: [Greek:
a)ll' ou)de\ to\ noei=n, e)n ô(=| e)/sti to\ o)rthô=s kai\ mê\
o)rthô=s--dianoei=sthai d' e)nde/chetai kai\ pseudô=s.]]