ANCIENT THEORIES OF THE SOUL 617 belonging to each of the ten Categories. Now, the Soul cannot include in itself all the ten, for the different categories have no elements in common; in whichever category you rank the soul, it will know (by virtue of likeness) the Cognita belonging to that category, but it will not know the Cognita belonging to the other nine.* Besides, even if we grant that the Soul includes all the four elements, where is the cementing principle that combines all the four into one? The elements are merely matter; and what holds them together must be the really potent principle of soul; but of this no explanation is given.† 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. 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.§ 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 |--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 (this 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. If there be any thing that keeps together the divers parts of the Soul as one, that Something must be the true Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 410, a. 20. + Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 410, b. 12. Aristot. De Animâ, I. 2, 404, a. 10. τοῦ ζῆν ὅρον εἶναι τὴν ȧvarvony, &c. Compare the doctrine of Demokritus. § Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 411, a. 1-8-16. Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 411, a. 30. Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 411, b. 8. 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 Nous 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.* 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.t 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. Lastly, he points out that most of his predecessors had considered that the prominent characteristics of Soul were-To be motive-To be percipient : § while, in his opinion, neither of these two characteristics was universal or fundamental. 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 Nous (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. || Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 411, b. 15-25. Aristot. De Animâ, I. 1, 402, b. 18, seq.; I. 4, 408, a. 4; I. 5, 509, b. 15. § Aristot. De Animâ, I. 2. 403, b. 30. | Aristot. De Anima, I. 3, 407, a. 32. ἔτι δ ̓ ἡ νόησις ἔοικεν ηρεμήσει τινὶ ἢ ἐπιστάσει μᾶλλον ἢ κινήσει. PROPERTIES CONSTITUTING LIFE. 619 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 Philosophia Prima 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.* "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.t 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, and common to all plants as well as to all animals; to all animated bodies. What is the animating principle belonging to each of these bodies, and what is the most general definition of it? Such is Aristot. De Animâ, II. 1, 412, a. 15, 412, b. 20. οὐσίαι δὲ μάλιστ ̓ εἶναι δοκοῦσι τὰ σώματα, καὶ τούτων τὰ φυσικά· τῶν δὲ φυσικῶν τὰ μὲν ἔχει ζωὴν, τὰ δ ̓ οὐκ ἔχει· ζωὴν δὲ λέγω, τὴν δι' αὐτῶν τροφὴν καὶ αὔξησιν καὶ φθίσιν. Aristot. De Animâ, II. 1, 413, a. 21. λεγομένου, &c. +Aristot. De Animâ, II. 2, 413, a. 22. πλεοναχῶς δὲ τοῦ ζῆν πλεοναχῶς δὲ τοῦ ζῆν λεγομένου, κἂν ἕν τι τούτων ἐνυπάρχῃ μόνον, ζῇν αὐτό φαμεν, &c. Aristot. De Animâ, I. 411, b. 29, ad fin. the problem that Aristotle states to himself about the soul. 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 analyzable in itself, even apart from these accidents, into two abstract, logical, or notional elements or principiaForm 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; † 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. 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 * Aristot. De Anima, II. 413, b. 11. ἡ ψυχὴ τῶν εἰρημένων τούτων ȧpxǹ.—II. 412, a. 5. τίς ἂν εἴη κοινότατος λόγος αυτής. + Aristot. De Animâ, II. 412, b. 7. Tòν Kηpòv Kai Tò σxîμa. DISTINCTION OF MATTER AND FORM. 621 domain of logic or abstraction into that of the concrete or reality.* 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 any 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 phantasm, memory, and science. In the logical hierarchy of Aristotle, Matter is the inferior and Form the superior; † yet neither of the two can escape from its relative character; Form requires matter for its correlate, and is nothing in itself or apart, t just as much as matter requires Form; though from the inferior * Aristot. Metaphys. Z. 3, 1029, a. 1-30.; De Animâ, II. 1, 412, a. 6, 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-διὸ ἔστι μὲν ὡς δύο λεκτέον εἶναι τὰς ἀρχὰς, ἔστι δ' ώς τρεῖς (Phys. I. 7, 190, b. 28). Materia Prima (Aristotle says-Phys. I. 7, 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. + Aristot. Physic, I. 9, p. 192, a. 13-24; De Gener. Animal. II. 1, 728, a. 10. Matter and Form are here compared to the female and the maleto mother and father. Form is a cause operative, Matter a cause co-operative, though both are alike indispensable to full reality: with Form- μèv yàp ὑπομένουσα συναιτία τῇ μορφῇ τῶν γινομένων ἐστὶν ὥσπερ μήτηρ— ἀλλὰ τοῦτ ̓ ἔστιν ἡ ὕλη, ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ θῆλυ ἄῤῥενος καὶ αἰσχρὸν καλοῦ (épiero).-De Partibus Animalium, I. 1, 640, b. 30. yàp KATA TηV μορφὴν φύσις κυριωτέρα τῆς ὑλικής φύσεως—p. 646, b. 1. Metaphys., Ζ. 3, 1029, §. 6. τὸ εἶδος τῆς ὕλης πρότερον καὶ μᾶλλον ὂν -1039, a. 1. See Schwegler's German Commentary, pp. 13-42-83-in the second volume of his edition of the Aristotelian Metaphysica. Aristot. Metaph., Z. 8,1033, b. 12, seq.; . 3, 1047, a. 25. |