On the Soul, by Aristotle

Translated by J. A. Smith
Book i
1
HOLDING as we do that, while knowledge of any kind is a thing to be honoured and prized, one
kind of it may, either by reason of its greater exatness or of a higher dignity and greater
wonderfulness in its ob!ets, be more honourable and preious than another, on both aounts we
should naturally be led to plae in the front rank the study of the soul" #he knowledge of the soul
admittedly ontributes greatly to the ad$ane of truth in general, and, abo$e all, to our
understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the priniple of animal life" Our aim is to
grasp and understand, first its essential nature, and seondly its properties% of these some are
taught to be affetions proper to the soul itself, while others are onsidered to attah to the
animal owing to the presene within it of soul"
#o attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most diffiult things in the world"
&s the form of 'uestion whih here presents itself, $iz" the 'uestion ()hat is it*+, reurs in other
fields, it might be supposed that there was some single method of in'uiry appliable to all
ob!ets whose essential nature ,as we are endea$ouring to asertain there is for deri$ed properties
the single method of demonstration-% in that ase what we should ha$e to seek for would be this
uni'ue method" .ut if there is no suh single and general method for sol$ing the 'uestion of
essene, our task beomes still more diffiult% in the ase of eah different sub!et we shall ha$e
to determine the appropriate proess of in$estigation" If to this there be a lear answer, e"g" that
the proess is demonstration or di$ision, or some known method, diffiulties and hesitations still
beset us/with what fats shall we begin the in'uiry* 0or the fats whih form the starting/points
in different sub!ets must be different, as e"g" in the ase of numbers and surfaes"
0irst, no doubt, it is neessary to determine in whih of the summa genera soul lies, what it is% is
it (a this/somewhat, (a substane, or is it a 'uale or a 'uantum, or some other of the remaining
kinds of prediates whih we ha$e distinguished* 0urther, does soul belong to the lass of
potential existents, or is it not rather an atuality* Our answer to this 'uestion is of the greatest
importane"
)e must onsider also whether soul is di$isible or is without parts, and whether it is e$erywhere
homogeneous or not% and if not homogeneous, whether its $arious forms are different
speifially or generially1 up to the present time those who ha$e disussed and in$estigated soul
seem to ha$e onfined themsel$es to the human soul" )e must be areful not to ignore the
'uestion whether soul an be defined in a single unambiguous formula, as is the ase with
animal, or whether we must not gi$e a separate formula for eah of it, as we do for horse, dog,
man, god ,in the latter ase the (uni$ersal+ animal/and so too e$ery other (ommon prediate+/
being treated either as nothing at all or as a later produt-" 0urther, if what exists is not a plurality
of souls, but a plurality of parts of one soul, whih ought we to in$estigate first, the whole soul or
its parts* ,It is also a diffiult problem to deide whih of these parts are in nature distint from
one another"- &gain, whih ought we to in$estigate first, these parts or their funtions, mind or
thinking, the faulty or the at of sensation, and so on* If the in$estigation of the funtions
preedes that of the parts, the further 'uestion suggests itself1 ought we not before either to
onsider the orrelati$e ob!ets, e"g" of sense or thought* It seems not only useful for the
diso$ery of the auses of the deri$ed properties of substanes to be a'uainted with the essential
nature of those substanes ,as in mathematis it is useful for the understanding of the property of
the e'uality of the interior angles of a triangle to two right angles to know the essential nature of
the straight and the ur$ed or of the line and the plane- but also on$ersely, for the knowledge of
the essential nature of a substane is largely promoted by an a'uaintane with its properties1 for,
when we are able to gi$e an aount onformable to experiene of all or most of the properties of
a substane, we shall be in the most fa$ourable position to say something worth saying about the
essential nature of that sub!et% in all demonstration a definition of the essene is re'uired as a
starting/point, so that definitions whih do not enable us to diso$er the deri$ed properties, or
whih fail to failitate e$en a on!eture about them, must ob$iously, one and all, be dialetial
and futile"
& further problem presented by the affetions of soul is this1 are they all affetions of the
omplex of body and soul, or is there any one among them peuliar to the soul by itself* #o
determine this is indispensable but diffiult" If we onsider the ma!ority of them, there seems to
be no ase in whih the soul an at or be ated upon without in$ol$ing the body% e"g" anger,
ourage, appetite, and sensation generally" #hinking seems the most probable exeption% but if
this too pro$es to be a form of imagination or to be impossible without imagination, it too
re'uires a body as a ondition of its existene" If there is any way of ating or being ated upon
proper to soul, soul will be apable of separate existene% if there is none, its separate existene is
impossible" In the latter ase, it will be like what is straight, whih has many properties arising
from the straightness in it, e"g" that of touhing a bronze sphere at a point, though straightness
di$ored from the other onstituents of the straight thing annot touh it in this way% it annot be
so di$ored at all, sine it is always found in a body" It therefore seems that all the affetions of
soul in$ol$e a body/passion, gentleness, fear, pity, ourage, !oy, lo$ing, and hating% in all these
there is a onurrent affetion of the body" In support of this we may point to the fat that, while
sometimes on the oasion of $iolent and striking ourrenes there is no exitement or fear felt,
on others faint and feeble stimulations produe these emotions, $iz" when the body is already in a
state of tension resembling its ondition when we are angry" Here is a still learer ase1 in the
absene of any external ause of terror we find oursel$es experiening the feelings of a man in
terror" 0rom all this it is ob$ious that the affetions of soul are enmattered formulable essenes"
2onse'uently their definitions ought to orrespond, e"g" anger should be defined as a ertain
mode of mo$ement of suh and suh a body ,or part or faulty of a body- by this or that ause
and for this or that end" #hat is preisely why the study of the soul must fall within the siene of
Nature, at least so far as in its affetions it manifests this double harater" Hene a physiist
would define an affetion of soul differently from a dialetiian% the latter would define e"g"
anger as the appetite for returning pain for pain, or something like that, while the former would
define it as a boiling of the blood or warm substane surround the heart" #he latter assigns the
material onditions, the former the form or formulable essene% for what he states is the
formulable essene of the fat, though for its atual existene there must be embodiment of it in a
material suh as is desribed by the other" #hus the essene of a house is assigned in suh a
formula as (a shelter against destrution by wind, rain, and heat+% the physiist would desribe it
as (stones, briks, and timbers+% but there is a third possible desription whih would say that it
was that form in that material with that purpose or end" )hih, then, among these is entitled to
be regarded as the genuine physiist* #he one who onfines himself to the material, or the one
who restrits himself to the formulable essene alone* Is it not rather the one who ombines both
in a single formula* If this is so, how are we to haraterize the other two* 3ust we not say that
there is no type of thinker who onerns himself with those 'ualities or attributes of the material
whih are in fat inseparable from the material, and without attempting e$en in thought to
separate them* #he physiist is he who onerns himself with all the properties ati$e and
passi$e of bodies or materials thus or thus defined% attributes not onsidered as being of this
harater he lea$es to others, in ertain ases it may be to a speialist, e"g" a arpenter or a
physiian, in others ,a- where they are inseparable in fat, but are separable from any partiular
kind of body by an effort of abstration, to the mathematiian, ,b- where they are separate both in
fat and in thought from body altogether, to the 0irst 4hilosopher or metaphysiian" .ut we must
return from this digression, and repeat that the affetions of soul are inseparable from the
material substratum of animal life, to whih we ha$e seen that suh affetions, e"g" passion and
fear, attah, and ha$e not the same mode of being as a line or a plane"
2
0or our study of soul it is neessary, while formulating the problems of whih in our further
ad$ane we are to find the solutions, to all into ounil the $iews of those of our predeessors
who ha$e delared any opinion on this sub!et, in order that we may profit by whate$er is sound
in their suggestions and a$oid their errors"
#he starting/point of our in'uiry is an exposition of those harateristis whih ha$e hiefly been
held to belong to soul in its $ery nature" #wo harateristi marks ha$e abo$e all others been
reognized as distinguishing that whih has soul in it from that whih has not/mo$ement and
sensation" It may be said that these two are what our predeessors ha$e fixed upon as
harateristi of soul"
5ome say that what originates mo$ement is both pre/eminently and primarily soul% belie$ing that
what is not itself mo$ed annot originate mo$ement in another, they arri$ed at the $iew that soul
belongs to the lass of things in mo$ement" #his is what led Demoritus to say that soul is a sort
of fire or hot substane% his (forms+ or atoms are infinite in number% those whih are spherial he
alls fire and soul, and ompares them to the motes in the air whih we see in shafts of light
oming through windows% the mixture of seeds of all sorts he alls the elements of the whole of
Nature ,Leuippus gi$es a similar aount-% the spherial atoms are identified with soul beause
atoms of that shape are most adapted to permeate e$erywhere, and to set all the others mo$ing by
being themsel$es in mo$ement" #his implies the $iew that soul is idential with what produes
mo$ement in animals" #hat is why, further, they regard respiration as the harateristi mark of
life% as the en$ironment ompresses the bodies of animals, and tends to extrude those atoms
whih impart mo$ement to them, beause they themsel$es are ne$er at rest, there must be a
reinforement of these by similar atoms oming in from without in the at of respiration% for they
pre$ent the extrusion of those whih are already within by ounterating the ompressing and
onsolidating fore of the en$ironment% and animals ontinue to li$e only so long as they are able
to maintain this resistane"
#he dotrine of the 4ythagoreans seems to rest upon the same ideas% some of them delared the
motes in air, others what mo$ed them, to be soul" #hese motes were referred to beause they are
seen always in mo$ement, e$en in a omplete alm"
#he same tendeny is shown by those who define soul as that whih mo$es itself% all seem to
hold the $iew that mo$ement is what is losest to the nature of soul, and that while all else is
mo$ed by soul, it alone mo$es itself" #his belief arises from their ne$er seeing anything
originating mo$ement whih is not first itself mo$ed"
5imilarly also &naxagoras ,and whoe$er agrees with him in saying that mind set the whole in
mo$ement- delares the mo$ing ause of things to be soul" His position must, howe$er, be
distinguished from that of Demoritus" Demoritus roundly identifies soul and mind, for he
identifies what appears with what is true/that is why he ommends Homer for the phrase (Hetor
lay with thought distraught+% he does not employ mind as a speial faulty dealing with truth, but
identifies soul and mind" )hat &naxagoras says about them is more obsure% in many plaes he
tells us that the ause of beauty and order is mind, elsewhere that it is soul% it is found, he says, in
all animals, great and small, high and low, but mind ,in the sense of intelligene- appears not to
belong alike to all animals, and indeed not e$en to all human beings"
&ll those, then, who had speial regard to the fat that what has soul in it is mo$ed, adopted the
$iew that soul is to be identified with what is eminently originati$e of mo$ement" &ll, on the
other hand, who looked to the fat that what has soul in it knows or perei$es what is, identify
soul with the priniple or priniples of Nature, aording as they admit se$eral suh priniples or
one only" #hus 6mpedoles delares that it is formed out of all his elements, eah of them also
being soul% his words are1
0or (tis by 6arth we see 6arth, by )ater )ater,
.y 6ther 6ther di$ine, by 0ire destruti$e 0ire,
.y Lo$e Lo$e, and Hate by ruel Hate"
In the same way 4lato in the #imaeus fashions soul out of his elements% for like, he holds, is
known by like, and things are formed out of the priniples or elements, so that soul must be so
too" 5imilarly also in his letures (On 4hilosophy+ it was set forth that the &nimal/itself is
ompounded of the Idea itself of the One together with the primary length, breadth, and depth,
e$erything else, the ob!ets of its pereption, being similarly onstituted" &gain he puts his $iew
in yet other terms1 3ind is the monad, siene or knowledge the dyad ,beause it goes
unde$iatingly from one point to another-, opinion the number of the plane, sensation the number
of the solid% the numbers are by him expressly identified with the 0orms themsel$es or
priniples, and are formed out of the elements% now things are apprehended either by mind or
siene or opinion or sensation, and these same numbers are the 0orms of things"
5ome thinkers, aepting both premisses, $iz" that the soul is both originati$e of mo$ement and
ogniti$e, ha$e ompounded it of both and delared the soul to be a self/mo$ing number"
&s to the nature and number of the first priniples opinions differ" #he differene is greatest
between those who regard them as orporeal and those who regard them as inorporeal, and from
both dissent those who make a blend and draw their priniples from both soures" #he number of
priniples is also in dispute% some admit one only, others assert se$eral" #here is a onse'uent
di$ersity in their se$eral aounts of soul% they assume, naturally enough, that what is in its own
nature originati$e of mo$ement must be among what is primordial" #hat has led some to regard it
as fire, for fire is the subtlest of the elements and nearest to inorporeality% further, in the most
primary sense, fire both is mo$ed and originates mo$ement in all the others"
Demoritus has expressed himself more ingeniously than the rest on the grounds for asribing
eah of these two haraters to soul% soul and mind are, he says, one and the same thing, and this
thing must be one of the primary and indi$isible bodies, and its power of originating mo$ement
must be due to its fineness of grain and the shape of its atoms% he says that of all the shapes the
spherial is the most mobile, and that this is the shape of the partiles of fire and mind"
&naxagoras, as we said abo$e, seems to distinguish between soul and mind, but in pratie he
treats them as a single substane, exept that it is mind that he speially posits as the priniple of
all things% at any rate what he says is that mind alone of all that is simple, unmixed, and pure" He
assigns both harateristis, knowing and origination of mo$ement, to the same priniple, when
he says that it was mind that set the whole in mo$ement"
#hales, too, to !udge from what is reorded about him, seems to ha$e held soul to be a moti$e
fore, sine he said that the magnet has a soul in it beause it mo$es the iron"
Diogenes ,and others- held the soul to be air beause he belie$ed air to be finest in grain and a
first priniple% therein lay the grounds of the soul+s powers of knowing and originating
mo$ement" &s the primordial priniple from whih all other things are deri$ed, it is ogniti$e% as
finest in grain, it has the power to originate mo$ement"
Heralitus too says that the first priniple/the (warm exhalation+ of whih, aording to him,
e$erything else is omposed/is soul% further, that this exhalation is most inorporeal and in
easeless flux% that what is in mo$ement re'uires that what knows it should be in mo$ement% and
that all that is has its being essentially in mo$ement ,herein agreeing with the ma!ority-"
&lmaeon also seems to ha$e held a similar $iew about soul% he says that it is immortal beause
it resembles (the immortals,+ and that this immortality belongs to it in $irtue of its easeless
mo$ement% for all the (things di$ine,+ moon, sun, the planets, and the whole hea$ens, are in
perpetual mo$ement"
of 3ore superfiial writers, some, e"g" Hippo, ha$e pronouned it to be water% they seem to ha$e
argued from the fat that the seed of all animals is fluid, for Hippo tries to refute those who say
that the soul is blood, on the ground that the seed, whih is the primordial soul, is not blood"
&nother group ,2ritias, for example- did hold it to be blood% they take pereption to be the most
harateristi attribute of soul, and hold that perepti$eness is due to the nature of blood"
6ah of the elements has thus found its partisan, exept earth/earth has found no supporter unless
we ount as suh those who ha$e delared soul to be, or to be ompounded of, all the elements"
&ll, then, it may be said, haraterize the soul by three marks, 3o$ement, 5ensation,
Inorporeality, and eah of these is traed bak to the first priniples" #hat is why ,with one
exeption- all those who define the soul by its power of knowing make it either an element or
onstruted out of the elements" #he language they all use is similar% like, they say, is known by
like% as the soul knows e$erything, they onstrut it out of all the priniples" Hene all those who
admit but one ause or element, make the soul also one ,e"g" fire or air-, while those who admit a
multipliity of priniples make the soul also multiple" #he exeption is &naxagoras% he alone
says that mind is impassible and has nothing in ommon with anything else" .ut, if this is so,
how or in $irtue of what ause an it know* #hat &naxagoras has not explained, nor an any
answer be inferred from his words" &ll who aknowledge pairs of opposites among their
priniples, onstrut the soul also out of these ontraries, while those who admit as priniples
only one ontrary of eah pair, e"g" either hot or old, likewise make the soul some one of these"
#hat is why, also, they allow themsel$es to be guided by the names% those who identify soul with
the hot argue that sen ,to li$e- is deri$ed from sein ,to boil-, while those who identify it with the
old say that soul ,psuhe- is so alled from the proess of respiration and ,katapsuxis-" 5uh are
the traditional opinions onerning soul, together with the grounds on whih they are maintained"
3
)e must begin our examination with mo$ement% for doubtless, not only is it false that the
essene of soul is orretly desribed by those who say that it is what mo$es ,or is apable of
mo$ing- itself, but it is an impossibility that mo$ement should be e$en an attribute of it"
)e ha$e already pointed out that there is no neessity that what originates mo$ement should
itself be mo$ed" #here are two senses in whih anything may be mo$ed/either ,a- indiretly,
owing to something other than itself, or ,b- diretly, owing to itself" #hings are (indiretly
mo$ed+ whih are mo$ed as being ontained in something whih is mo$ed, e"g" sailors in a ship,
for they are mo$ed in a different sense from that in whih the ship is mo$ed% the ship is (diretly
mo$ed+, they are (indiretly mo$ed+, beause they are in a mo$ing $essel" #his is lear if we
onsider their limbs% the mo$ement proper to the legs ,and so to man- is walking, and in this ase
the sailors tare not walking" 7eognizing the double sense of (being mo$ed+, what we ha$e to
onsider now is whether the soul is (diretly mo$ed+ and partiipates in suh diret mo$ement"
#here are four speies of mo$ement/loomotion, alteration, diminution, growth% onse'uently if
the soul is mo$ed, it must be mo$ed with one or se$eral or all of these speies of mo$ement"
Now if its mo$ement is not inidental, there must be a mo$ement natural to it, and, if so, as all
the speies enumerated in$ol$e plae, plae must be natural to it" .ut if the essene of soul be to
mo$e itself, its being mo$ed annot be inidental to/as it is to what is white or three ubits long%
they too an be mo$ed, but only inidentally/what is mo$ed is that of whih (white+ and (three
ubits long+ are the attributes, the body in whih they inhere% hene they ha$e no plae1 but if the
soul naturally partakes in mo$ement, it follows that it must ha$e a plae"
0urther, if there be a mo$ement natural to the soul, there must be a ounter/mo$ement unnatural
to it, and on$ersely" #he same applies to rest as well as to mo$ement% for the terminus ad 'uem
of a thing+s natural mo$ement is the plae of its natural rest, and similarly the terminus ad 'uem
of its enfored mo$ement is the plae of its enfored rest" .ut what meaning an be attahed to
enfored mo$ements or rests of the soul, it is diffiult e$en to imagine"
0urther, if the natural mo$ement of the soul be upward, the soul must be fire% if downward, it
must be earth% for upward and downward mo$ements are the definitory harateristis of these
bodies" #he same reasoning applies to the intermediate mo$ements, termini, and bodies" 0urther,
sine the soul is obser$ed to originate mo$ement in the body, it is reasonable to suppose that it
transmits to the body the mo$ements by whih it itself is mo$ed, and so, re$ersing the order, we
may infer from the mo$ements of the body bak to similar mo$ements of the soul" Now the body
is mo$ed from plae to plae with mo$ements of loomotion" Hene it would follow that the soul
too must in aordane with the body hange either its plae as a whole or the relati$e plaes of
its parts" #his arries with it the possibility that the soul might e$en 'uit its body and re/enter it,
and with this would be in$ol$ed the possibility of a resurretion of animals from the dead" .ut, it
may be ontended, the soul an be mo$ed indiretly by something else% for an animal an be
pushed out of its ourse" 8es, but that to whose essene belongs the power of being mo$ed by
itself, annot be mo$ed by something else exept inidentally, !ust as what is good by or in itself
annot owe its goodness to something external to it or to some end to whih it is a means"
If the soul is mo$ed, the most probable $iew is that what mo$es it is sensible things"
)e must note also that, if the soul mo$es itself, it must be the mo$er itself that is mo$ed, so that
it follows that if mo$ement is in e$ery ase a displaement of that whih is in mo$ement, in that
respet in whih it is said to be mo$ed, the mo$ement of the soul must be a departure from its
essential nature, at least if its self/mo$ement is essential to it, not inidental"
5ome go so far as to hold that the mo$ements whih the soul imparts to the body in whih it is
are the same in kind as those with whih it itself is mo$ed" &n example of this is Demoritus,
who uses language like that of the omi dramatist 4hilippus, who aounts for the mo$ements
that Daedalus imparted to his wooden &phrodite by saying that he poured 'uiksil$er into it%
similarly Demoritus says that the spherial atoms whih aording to him onstitute soul, owing
to their own easeless mo$ements draw the whole body after them and so produe its
mo$ements" )e must urge the 'uestion whether it is these $ery same atoms whih produe rest
also/how they ould do so, it is diffiult and e$en impossible to say" &nd, in general, we may
ob!et that it is not in this way that the soul appears to originate mo$ement in animals/it is
through intention or proess of thinking"
It is in the same fashion that the #imaeus also tries to gi$e a physial aount of how the soul
mo$es its body% the soul, it is there said, is in mo$ement, and so owing to their mutual
impliation mo$es the body also" &fter ompounding the soul/substane out of the elements and
di$iding it in aordane with the harmoni numbers, in order that it may possess a onnate
sensibility for (harmony+ and that the whole may mo$e in mo$ements well attuned, the Demiurge
bent the straight line into a irle% this single irle he di$ided into two irles united at two
ommon points% one of these he subdi$ided into se$en irles" &ll this implies that the
mo$ements of the soul are identified with the loal mo$ements of the hea$ens"
Now, in the first plae, it is a mistake to say that the soul is a spatial magnitude" It is e$ident that
4lato means the soul of the whole to be like the sort of soul whih is alled mind not like the
sensiti$e or the desiderati$e soul, for the mo$ements of neither of these are irular" Now mind is
one and ontinuous in the sense in whih the proess of thinking is so, and thinking is idential
with the thoughts whih are its parts% these ha$e a serial unity like that of number, not a unity
like that of a spatial magnitude" Hene mind annot ha$e that kind of unity either% mind is either
without parts or is ontinuous in some other way than that whih haraterizes a spatial
magnitude" How, indeed, if it were a spatial magnitude, ould mind possibly think* )ill it think
with any one indifferently of its parts* In this ase, the (part+ must be understood either in the
sense of a spatial magnitude or in the sense of a point ,if a point an be alled a part of a spatial
magnitude-" If we aept the latter alternati$e, the points being infinite in number, ob$iously the
mind an ne$er exhausti$ely tra$erse them% if the former, the mind must think the same thing
o$er and o$er again, indeed an infinite number of times ,whereas it is manifestly possible to
think a thing one only-" If ontat of any part whatsoe$er of itself with the ob!et is all that is
re'uired, why need mind mo$e in a irle, or indeed possess magnitude at all* On the other hand,
if ontat with the whole irle is neessary, what meaning an be gi$en to the ontat of the
parts* 0urther, how ould what has no parts think what has parts, or what has parts think what
has none* )e must identify the irle referred to with mind% for it is mind whose mo$ement is
thinking, and it is the irle whose mo$ement is re$olution, so that if thinking is a mo$ement of
re$olution, the irle whih has this harateristi mo$ement must be mind"
If the irular mo$ement is eternal, there must be something whih mind is always thinking/what
an this be* 0or all pratial proesses of thinking ha$e limits/they all go on for the sake of
something outside the proess, and all theoretial proesses ome to a lose in the same way as
the phrases in speeh whih express proesses and results of thinking" 6$ery suh linguisti
phrase is either definitory or demonstrati$e" Demonstration has both a starting/point and may be
said to end in a onlusion or inferred result% e$en if the proess ne$er reahes final ompletion,
at any rate it ne$er returns upon itself again to its starting/point, it goes on assuming a fresh
middle term or a fresh extreme, and mo$es straight forward, but irular mo$ement returns to its
starting/point" Definitions, too, are losed groups of terms"
0urther, if the same re$olution is repeated, mind must repeatedly think the same ob!et"
0urther, thinking has more resemblane to a oming to rest or arrest than to a mo$ement% the
same may be said of inferring"
It might also be urged that what is diffiult and enfored is inompatible with blessedness% if the
mo$ement of the soul is not of its essene, mo$ement of the soul must be ontrary to its nature" It
must also be painful for the soul to be inextriably bound up with the body% nay more, if, as is
fre'uently said and widely aepted, it is better for mind not to be embodied, the union must be
for it undesirable"
0urther, the ause of the re$olution of the hea$ens is left obsure" It is not the essene of soul
whih is the ause of this irular mo$ement/that mo$ement is only inidental to soul/nor is, a
fortiori, the body its ause" &gain, it is not e$en asserted that it is better that soul should be so
mo$ed% and yet the reason for whih God aused the soul to mo$e in a irle an only ha$e been
that mo$ement was better for it than rest, and mo$ement of this kind better than any other" .ut
sine this sort of onsideration is more appropriate to another field of speulation, let us dismiss
it for the present"
#he $iew we ha$e !ust been examining, in ompany with most theories about the soul, in$ol$es
the following absurdity1 they all !oin the soul to a body, or plae it in a body, without adding any
speifiation of the reason of their union, or of the bodily onditions re'uired for it" 8et suh
explanation an sarely be omitted% for some ommunity of nature is presupposed by the fat
that the one ats and the other is ated upon, the one mo$es and the other is mo$ed% interation
always implies a speial nature in the two interagents" &ll, howe$er, that these thinkers do is to
desribe the speifi harateristis of the soul% they do not try to determine anything about the
body whih is to ontain it, as if it were possible, as in the 4ythagorean myths, that any soul
ould be lothed upon with any body/an absurd $iew, for eah body seems to ha$e a form and
shape of its own" It is as absurd as to say that the art of arpentry ould embody itself in flutes%
eah art must use its tools, eah soul its body"
4
#here is yet another theory about soul, whih has ommended itself to many as no less probable
than any of those we ha$e hitherto mentioned, and has rendered publi aount of itself in the
ourt of popular disussion" Its supporters say that the soul is a kind of harmony, for ,a- harmony
is a blend or omposition of ontraries, and ,b- the body is ompounded out of ontraries"
Harmony, howe$er, is a ertain proportion or omposition of the onstituents blended, and soul
an be neither the one nor the other of these" 0urther, the power of originating mo$ement annot
belong to a harmony, while almost all onur in regarding this as a prinipal attribute of soul" It
is more appropriate to all health ,or generally one of the good states of the body- a harmony
than to prediate it of the soul" #he absurdity beomes most apparent when we try to attribute the
ati$e and passi$e affetions of the soul to a harmony% the neessary read!ustment of their
oneptions is diffiult" 0urther, in using the word (harmony+ we ha$e one or other of two ases
in our mind% the most proper sense is in relation to spatial magnitudes whih ha$e motion and
position, where harmony means the disposition and ohesion of their parts in suh a manner as to
pre$ent the introdution into the whole of anything homogeneous with it, and the seondary
sense, deri$ed from the former, is that in whih it means the ratio between the onstituents so
blended% in neither of these senses is it plausible to prediate it of soul" #hat soul is a harmony in
the sense of the mode of omposition of the parts of the body is a $iew easily refutable% for there
are many omposite parts and those $ariously ompounded% of what bodily part is mind or the
sensiti$e or the appetiti$e faulty the mode of omposition* &nd what is the mode of
omposition whih onstitutes eah of them* It is e'ually absurd to identify the soul with the
ratio of the mixture% for the mixture whih makes flesh has a different ratio between the elements
from that whih makes bone" #he onse'uene of this $iew will therefore be that distributed
throughout the whole body there will be many souls, sine e$ery one of the bodily parts is a
different mixture of the elements, and the ratio of mixture is in eah ase a harmony, i"e" a soul"
0rom 6mpedoles at any rate we might demand an answer to the following 'uestion for he says
that eah of the parts of the body is what it is in $irtue of a ratio between the elements1 is the soul
idential with this ratio, or is it not rather something o$er and abo$e this whih is formed in the
parts* Is lo$e the ause of any and e$ery mixture, or only of those that are in the right ratio* Is
lo$e this ratio itself, or is lo$e something o$er and abo$e this* 5uh are the problems raised by
this aount" .ut, on the other hand, if the soul is different from the mixture, why does it
disappear at one and the same moment with that relation between the elements whih onstitutes
flesh or the other parts of the animal body* 0urther, if the soul is not idential with the ratio of
mixture, and it is onse'uently not the ase that eah of the parts has a soul, what is that whih
perishes when the soul 'uits the body*
#hat the soul annot either be a harmony, or be mo$ed in a irle, is lear from what we ha$e
said" 8et that it an be mo$ed inidentally is, as we said abo$e, possible, and e$en that in a sense
it an mo$e itself, i"e" in the sense that the $ehile in whih it is an be mo$ed, and mo$ed by it%
in no other sense an the soul be mo$ed in spae"
3ore legitimate doubts might remain as to its mo$ement in $iew of the following fats" )e
speak of the soul as being pained or pleased, being bold or fearful, being angry, perei$ing,
thinking" &ll these are regarded as modes of mo$ement, and hene it might be inferred that the
soul is mo$ed" #his, howe$er, does not neessarily follow" )e may admit to the full that being
pained or pleased, or thinking, are mo$ements ,eah of them a (being mo$ed+-, and that the
mo$ement is originated by the soul" 0or example we may regard anger or fear as suh and suh
mo$ements of the heart, and thinking as suh and suh another mo$ement of that organ, or of
some other% these modifiations may arise either from hanges of plae in ertain parts or from
'ualitati$e alterations ,the speial nature of the parts and the speial modes of their hanges
being for our present purpose irrele$ant-" 8et to say that it is the soul whih is angry is as inexat
as it would be to say that it is the soul that wea$es webs or builds houses" It is doubtless better to
a$oid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks and rather to say that it is the man who does
this with his soul" )hat we mean is not that the mo$ement is in the soul, but that sometimes it
terminates in the soul and sometimes starts from it, sensation e"g" oming from without inwards,
and reminisene starting from the soul and terminating with the mo$ements, atual or residual,
in the sense organs"
#he ase of mind is different% it seems to be an independent substane implanted within the soul
and to be inapable of being destroyed" If it ould be destroyed at all, it would be under the
blunting influene of old age" )hat really happens in respet of mind in old age is, howe$er,
exatly parallel to what happens in the ase of the sense organs% if the old man ould reo$er the
proper kind of eye, he would see !ust as well as the young man" #he inapaity of old age is due
to an affetion not of the soul but of its $ehile, as ours in drunkenness or disease" #hus it is
that in old age the ati$ity of mind or intelletual apprehension delines only through the deay
of some other inward part% mind itself is impassible" #hinking, lo$ing, and hating are affetions
not of mind, but of that whih has mind, so far as it has it" #hat is why, when this $ehile deays,
memory and lo$e ease% they were ati$ities not of mind, but of the omposite whih has
perished% mind is, no doubt, something more di$ine and impassible" #hat the soul annot be
mo$ed is therefore lear from what we ha$e said, and if it annot be mo$ed at all, manifestly it
annot be mo$ed by itself"
Of all the opinions we ha$e enumerated, by far the most unreasonable is that whih delares the
soul to be a self/mo$ing number% it in$ol$es in the first plae all the impossibilities whih follow
from regarding the soul as mo$ed, and in the seond speial absurdities whih follow from
alling it a number" How we to imagine a unit being mo$ed* .y what ageny* )hat sort of
mo$ement an be attributed to what is without parts or internal differenes* If the unit is both
originati$e of mo$ement and itself apable of being mo$ed, it must ontain differene"
0urther, sine they say a mo$ing line generates a surfae and a mo$ing point a line, the
mo$ements of the psyhi units must be lines ,for a point is a unit ha$ing position, and the
number of the soul is, of ourse, somewhere and has position-"
&gain, if from a number a number or a unit is subtrated, the remainder is another number% but
plants and many animals when di$ided ontinue to li$e, and eah segment is thought to retain the
same kind of soul"
It must be all the same whether we speak of units or orpusles% for if the spherial atoms of
Demoritus beame points, nothing being retained but their being a 'uantum, there must remain
in eah a mo$ing and a mo$ed part, !ust as there is in what is ontinuous% what happens has
nothing to do with the size of the atoms, it depends solely upon their being a 'uantum" #hat is
why there must be something to originate mo$ement in the units" If in the animal what originates
mo$ement is the soul, so also must it be in the ase of the number, so that not the mo$er and the
mo$ed together, but the mo$er only, will be the soul" .ut how is it possible for one of the units to
fulfil this funtion of originating mo$ement* #here must be some differene between suh a unit
and all the other units, and what differene an there be between one plaed unit and another
exept a differene of position* If then, on the other hand, these psyhi units within the body are
different from the points of the body, there will be two sets of units both oupying the same
plae% for eah unit will oupy a point" &nd yet, if there an be two, why annot there be an
infinite number* 0or if things an oupy an indi$isible lae, they must themsel$es be
indi$isible" If, on the other hand, the points of the body are idential with the units whose
number is the soul, or if the number of the points in the body is the soul, why ha$e not all bodies
souls* 0or all bodies ontain points or an infinity of points"
0urther, how is it possible for these points to be isolated or separated from their bodies, seeing
that lines annot be resol$ed into points*
5
#he result is, as we ha$e said, that this $iew, while on the one side idential with that of those
who maintain that soul is a subtle kind of body, is on the other entangled in the absurdity peuliar
to Demoritus+ way of desribing the manner in whih mo$ement is originated by soul" 0or if the
soul is present throughout the whole peripient body, there must, if the soul be a kind of body, be
two bodies in the same plae% and for those who all it a number, there must be many points at
one point, or e$ery body must ha$e a soul, unless the soul be a different sort of number/other,
that is, than the sum of the points existing in a body" &nother onse'uene that follows is that the
animal must be mo$ed by its number preisely in the way that Demoritus explained its being
mo$ed by his spherial psyhi atoms" )hat differene does it make whether we speak of small
spheres or of large units, or, 'uite simply, of units in mo$ement* One way or another, the
mo$ements of the animal must be due to their mo$ements" Hene those who ombine mo$ement
and number in the same sub!et lay themsel$es open to these and many other similar absurdities"
It is impossible not only that these haraters should gi$e the definition of soul/it is impossible
that they should e$en be attributes of it" #he point is lear if the attempt be made to start from
this as the aount of soul and explain from it the affetions and ations of the soul, e"g"
reasoning, sensation, pleasure, pain, 9" 0or, to repeat what we ha$e said earlier, mo$ement and
number do not failitate e$en on!eture about the deri$ati$e properties of soul"
5uh are the three ways in whih soul has traditionally been defined% one group of thinkers
delared it to be that whih is most originati$e of mo$ement beause it mo$es itself, another
group to be the subtlest and most nearly inorporeal of all kinds of body" )e ha$e now
suffiiently set forth the diffiulties and inonsistenies to whih these theories are exposed" It
remains now to examine the dotrine that soul is omposed of the elements"
#he reason assigned for this dotrine is that thus the soul may perei$e or ome to know
e$erything that is, but the theory neessarily in$ol$es itself in many impossibilities" Its upholders
assume that like is known only by like, and imagine that by delaring the soul to be omposed of
the elements they sueed in identifying the soul with all the things it is apable of apprehending"
.ut the elements are not the only things it knows% there are many others, or, more exatly, an
infinite number of others, formed out of the elements" Let us admit that the soul knows or
perei$es the elements out of whih eah of these omposites is made up% but by what means
will it know or perei$e the omposite whole, e"g" what God, man, flesh, bone ,or any other
ompound- is* 0or eah is, not merely the elements of whih it is omposed, but those elements
ombined in a determinate mode or ratio, as 6mpedoles himself says of bone,
#he kindly 6arth in its broad/bosomed moulds
)on of lear )ater two parts out of eight,
&nd four of 0ire% and so white bones were formed"
Nothing, therefore, will be gained by the presene of the elements in the soul, unless there be
also present there the $arious formulae of proportion and the $arious ompositions in aordane
with them" 6ah element will indeed know its fellow outside, but there will be no knowledge of
bone or man, unless they too are present in the onstitution of the soul" #he impossibility of this
needs no pointing out% for who would suggest that stone or man ould enter into the onstitution
of the soul* #he same applies to (the good+ and (the not/good+, and so on"
0urther, the word (is+ has many meanings1 it may be used of a (this+ or substane, or of a
'uantum, or of a 'uale, or of any other of the kinds of prediates we ha$e distinguished" Does the
soul onsist of all of these or not* It does not appear that all ha$e ommon elements" Is the soul
formed out of those elements alone whih enter into substanes* so how will it be able to know
eah of the other kinds of thing* )ill it be said that eah kind of thing has elements or priniples
of its own, and that the soul is formed out of the whole of these* In that ase, the soul must be a
'uantum and a 'uale and a substane" .ut all that an be made out of the elements of a 'uantum
is a 'uantum, not a substane" #hese ,and others like them- are the onse'uenes of the $iew that
the soul is omposed of all the elements"
It is absurd, also, to say both ,a- that like is not apable of being affeted by like, and ,b- that like
is perei$ed or known by like, for perei$ing, and also both thinking and knowing, are, on their
own assumption, ways of being affeted or mo$ed"
#here are many puzzles and diffiulties raised by saying, as 6mpedoles does, that eah set of
things is known by means of its orporeal elements and by referene to something in soul whih
is like them, and additional testimony is furnished by this new onsideration% for all the parts of
the animal body whih onsist wholly of earth suh as bones, sinews, and hair seem to be wholly
insensiti$e and onse'uently not perepti$e e$en of ob!ets earthy like themsel$es, as they ought
to ha$e been"
0urther, eah of the priniples will ha$e far more ignorane than knowledge, for though eah of
them will know one thing, there will be many of whih it will be ignorant" 6mpedoles at any
rate must onlude that his God is the least intelligent of all beings, for of him alone is it true that
there is one thing, 5trife, whih he does not know, while there is nothing whih mortal beings do
not know, for ere is nothing whih does not enter into their omposition"
In general, we may ask, )hy has not e$erything a soul, sine e$erything either is an element, or
is formed out of one or se$eral or all of the elements* 6ah must ertainly know one or se$eral
or all"
#he problem might also be raised, )hat is that whih unifies the elements into a soul* #he
elements orrespond, it would appear, to the matter% what unites them, whate$er it is, is the
supremely important fator" .ut it is impossible that there should be something superior to, and
dominant o$er, the soul ,and a fortiori o$er the mind-% it is reasonable to hold that mind is by
nature most primordial and dominant, while their statement that it is the elements whih are first
of all that is"
&ll, both those who assert that the soul, beause of its knowledge or pereption of what is
ompounded out of the elements, and is those who assert that it is of all things the most
originati$e of mo$ement, fail to take into onsideration all kinds of soul" In fat ,:- not all beings
that perei$e an originate mo$ement% there appear to be ertain animals whih stationary, and
yet loal mo$ement is the only one, so it seems, whih the soul originates in animals" &nd ,;- the
same ob!et/on holds against all those who onstrut mind and the perepti$e faulty out of the
elements% for it appears that plants li$e, and yet are not endowed with loomotion or pereption,
while a large number of animals are without disourse of reason" 6$en if these points were
wai$ed and mind admitted to be a part of the soul ,and so too the perepti$e faulty-, still, e$en
so, there would be kinds and parts of soul of whih they had failed to gi$e any aount"
#he same ob!etion lies against the $iew expressed in the (Orphi+ poems1 there it is said that the
soul omes in from the whole when breathing takes plae, being borne in upon the winds" Now
this annot take plae in the ase of plants, nor indeed in the ase of ertain lasses of animal, for
not all lasses of animal breathe" #his fat has esaped the notie of the holders of this $iew"
If we must onstrut the soul out of the elements, there is no neessity to suppose that all the
elements enter into its onstrution% one element in eah pair of ontraries will suffie to enable
it to know both that element itself and its ontrary" .y means of the straight line we know both
itself and the ur$ed/the arpenter+s rule enables us to test both/but what is ur$ed does not
enable us to distinguish either itself or the straight" 2ertain thinkers say that soul is intermingled
in the whole uni$erse, and it is perhaps for that reason that #hales ame to the opinion that all
things are full of gods" #his presents some diffiulties1 )hy does the soul when it resides in air
or fire not form an animal, while it does so when it resides in mixtures of the elements, and that
although it is held to be of higher 'uality when ontained in the former* ,One might add the
'uestion, why the soul in air is maintained to be higher and more immortal than that in animals"-
.oth possible ways of replying to the former 'uestion lead to absurdity or paradox% for it is
beyond paradox to say that fire or air is an animal, and it is absurd to refuse the name of animal
to what has soul in it" #he opinion that the elements ha$e soul in them seems to ha$e arisen from
the dotrine that a whole must be homogeneous with its parts" If it is true that animals beome
animate by drawing into themsel$es a portion of what surrounds them, the partisans of this $iew
are bound to say that the soul of the )hole too is homogeneous with all its parts" If the air
suked in is homogeneous, but soul heterogeneous, learly while some part of soul will exist in
the inbreathed air, some other part will not" #he soul must either be homogeneous, or suh that
there are some parts of the )hole in whih it is not to be found"
0rom what has been said it is now lear that knowing as an attribute of soul annot be explained
by soul+s being omposed of the elements, and that it is neither sound nor true to speak of soul as
mo$ed" .ut sine ,a- knowing, perei$ing, opining, and further ,b- desiring, wishing, and
generally all other modes of appetition, belong to soul, and ,- the loal mo$ements of animals,
and ,d- growth, maturity, and deay are produed by the soul, we must ask whether eah of these
is an attribute of the soul as a whole, i"e" whether it is with the whole soul we think, perei$e,
mo$e oursel$es, at or are ated upon, or whether eah of them re'uires a different part of the
soul* 5o too with regard to life" Does it depend on one of the parts of soul* Or is it dependent on
more than one* Or on all* Or has it some 'uite other ause*
5ome hold that the soul is di$isible, and that one part thinks, another desires" If, then, its nature
admits of its being di$ided, what an it be that holds the parts together* 5urely not the body% on
the ontrary it seems rather to be the soul that holds the body together% at any rate when the soul
departs the body disintegrates and deays" If, then, there is something else whih makes the soul
one, this unifying ageny would ha$e the best right to the name of soul, and we shall ha$e to
repeat for it the 'uestion1 Is it one or multipartite* If it is one, why not at one admit that (the
soul+ is one* If it has parts, one more the 'uestion must be put1 )hat holds its parts together,
and so ad infinitum*
#he 'uestion might also be raised about the parts of the soul1 )hat is the separate role of eah in
relation to the body* 0or, if the whole soul holds together the whole body, we should expet eah
part of the soul to hold together a part of the body" .ut this seems an impossibility% it is diffiult
e$en to imagine what sort of bodily part mind will hold together, or how it will do this"
It is a fat of obser$ation that plants and ertain insets go on li$ing when di$ided into segments%
this means that eah of the segments has a soul in it idential in speies, though not numerially
idential in the different segments, for both of the segments for a time possess the power of
sensation and loal mo$ement" #hat this does not last is not surprising, for they no longer possess
the organs neessary for self/maintenane" .ut, all the same, in eah of the bodily parts there are
present all the parts of soul, and the souls so present are homogeneous with one another and with
the whole% this means that the se$eral parts of the soul are indisse$erable from one another,
although the whole soul is di$isible" It seems also that the priniple found in plants is also a kind
of soul% for this is the only priniple whih is ommon to both animals and plants% and this exists
in isolation from the priniple of sensation, though there nothing whih has the latter without the
former"
Book ii
1
L6# the foregoing suffie as our aount of the $iews onerning the soul whih ha$e been
handed on by our predeessors% let us now dismiss them and make as it were a ompletely fresh
start, endea$ouring to gi$e a preise answer to the 'uestion, )hat is soul* i"e" to formulate the
most general possible definition of it"
)e are in the habit of reognizing, as one determinate kind of what is, substane, and that in
se$eral senses, ,a- in the sense of matter or that whih in itself is not (a this+, and ,b- in the sense
of form or essene, whih is that preisely in $irtue of whih a thing is alled (a this+, and thirdly
,- in the sense of that whih is ompounded of both ,a- and ,b-" Now matter is potentiality, form
atuality% of the latter there are two grades related to one another as e"g" knowledge to the
exerise of knowledge"
&mong substanes are by general onsent rekoned bodies and espeially natural bodies% for
they are the priniples of all other bodies" Of natural bodies some ha$e life in them, others not%
by life we mean self/nutrition and growth ,with its orrelati$e deay-" It follows that e$ery
natural body whih has life in it is a substane in the sense of a omposite"
.ut sine it is also a body of suh and suh a kind, $iz" ha$ing life, the body annot be soul% the
body is the sub!et or matter, not what is attributed to it" Hene the soul must be a substane in
the sense of the form of a natural body ha$ing life potentially within it" .ut substane is
atuality, and thus soul is the atuality of a body as abo$e haraterized" Now the word atuality
has two senses orresponding respeti$ely to the possession of knowledge and the atual
exerise of knowledge" It is ob$ious that the soul is atuality in the first sense, $iz" that of
knowledge as possessed, for both sleeping and waking presuppose the existene of soul, and of
these waking orresponds to atual knowing, sleeping to knowledge possessed but not employed,
and, in the history of the indi$idual, knowledge omes before its employment or exerise"
#hat is why the soul is the first grade of atuality of a natural body ha$ing life potentially in it"
#he body so desribed is a body whih is organized" #he parts of plants in spite of their extreme
simpliity are (organs+% e"g" the leaf ser$es to shelter the periarp, the periarp to shelter the fruit,
while the roots of plants are analogous to the mouth of animals, both ser$ing for the absorption
of food" If, then, we ha$e to gi$e a general formula appliable to all kinds of soul, we must
desribe it as the first grade of atuality of a natural organized body" #hat is why we an wholly
dismiss as unneessary the 'uestion whether the soul and the body are one1 it is as meaningless
as to ask whether the wax and the shape gi$en to it by the stamp are one, or generally the matter
of a thing and that of whih it is the matter" <nity has many senses ,as many as (is+ has-, but the
most proper and fundamental sense of both is the relation of an atuality to that of whih it is the
atuality" )e ha$e now gi$en an answer to the 'uestion, )hat is soul*/an answer whih applies
to it in its full extent" It is substane in the sense whih orresponds to the definiti$e formula of a
thing+s essene" #hat means that it is (the essential whatness+ of a body of the harater !ust
assigned" 5uppose that what is literally an (organ+, like an axe, were a natural body, its (essential
whatness+, would ha$e been its essene, and so its soul% if this disappeared from it, it would ha$e
eased to be an axe, exept in name" &s it is, it is !ust an axe% it wants the harater whih is
re'uired to make its whatness or formulable essene a soul% for that, it would ha$e had to be a
natural body of a partiular kind, $iz" one ha$ing in itself the power of setting itself in mo$ement
and arresting itself" Next, apply this dotrine in the ase of the (parts+ of the li$ing body" 5uppose
that the eye were an animal/sight would ha$e been its soul, for sight is the substane or essene
of the eye whih orresponds to the formula, the eye being merely the matter of seeing% when
seeing is remo$ed the eye is no longer an eye, exept in name/it is no more a real eye than the
eye of a statue or of a painted figure" )e must now extend our onsideration from the (parts+ to
the whole li$ing body% for what the departmental sense is to the bodily part whih is its organ,
that the whole faulty of sense is to the whole sensiti$e body as suh"
)e must not understand by that whih is (potentially apable of li$ing+ what has lost the soul it
had, but only what still retains it% but seeds and fruits are bodies whih possess the 'ualifiation"
2onse'uently, while waking is atuality in a sense orresponding to the utting and the seeing,
the soul is atuality in the sense orresponding to the power of sight and the power in the tool%
the body orresponds to what exists in potentiality% as the pupil plus the power of sight
onstitutes the eye, so the soul plus the body onstitutes the animal"
0rom this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from its body, or at any rate that
ertain parts of it are ,if it has parts- for the atuality of some of them is nothing but the
atualities of their bodily parts" 8et some may be separable beause they are not the atualities of
any body at all" 0urther, we ha$e no light on the problem whether the soul may not be the
atuality of its body in the sense in whih the sailor is the atuality of the ship"
#his must suffie as our sketh or outline determination of the nature of soul"
2
5ine what is lear or logially more e$ident emerges from what in itself is onfused but more
obser$able by us, we must reonsider our results from this point of $iew" 0or it is not enough for
a definiti$e formula to express as most now do the mere fat% it must inlude and exhibit the
ground also" &t present definitions are gi$en in a form analogous to the onlusion of a
syllogism% e"g" )hat is s'uaring* #he onstrution of an e'uilateral retangle e'ual to a gi$en
oblong retangle" 5uh a definition is in form e'ui$alent to a onlusion" One that tells us that
s'uaring is the diso$ery of a line whih is a mean proportional between the two une'ual sides of
the gi$en retangle disloses the ground of what is defined"
)e resume our in'uiry from a fresh starting/point by alling attention to the fat that what has
soul in it differs from what has not, in that the former displays life" Now this word has more than
one sense, and pro$ided any one alone of these is found in a thing we say that thing is li$ing"
Li$ing, that is, may mean thinking or pereption or loal mo$ement and rest, or mo$ement in the
sense of nutrition, deay and growth" Hene we think of plants also as li$ing, for they are
obser$ed to possess in themsel$es an originati$e power through whih they inrease or derease
in all spatial diretions% they grow up and down, and e$erything that grows inreases its bulk
alike in both diretions or indeed in all, and ontinues to li$e so long as it an absorb nutriment"
#his power of self/nutrition an be isolated from the other powers mentioned, but not they from
it/in mortal beings at least" #he fat is ob$ious in plants% for it is the only psyhi power they
possess"
#his is the originati$e power the possession of whih leads us to speak of things as li$ing at all,
but it is the possession of sensation that leads us for the first time to speak of li$ing things as
animals% for e$en those beings whih possess no power of loal mo$ement but do possess the
power of sensation we all animals and not merely li$ing things"
#he primary form of sense is touh, whih belongs to all animals" !ust as the power of self/
nutrition an be isolated from touh and sensation generally, so touh an be isolated from all
other forms of sense" ,.y the power of self/nutrition we mean that departmental power of the
soul whih is ommon to plants and animals1 all animals whatsoe$er are obser$ed to ha$e the
sense of touh"- )hat the explanation of these two fats is, we must disuss later" &t present we
must onfine oursel$es to saying that soul is the soure of these phenomena and is haraterized
by them, $iz" by the powers of self/nutrition, sensation, thinking, and moti$ity"
Is eah of these a soul or a part of a soul* &nd if a part, a part in what sense* & part merely
distinguishable by definition or a part distint in loal situation as well* In the ase of ertain of
these powers, the answers to these 'uestions are easy, in the ase of others we are puzzled what
to say" !ust as in the ase of plants whih when di$ided are obser$ed to ontinue to li$e though
remo$ed to a distane from one another ,thus showing that in their ase the soul of eah
indi$idual plant before di$ision was atually one, potentially many-, so we notie a similar result
in other $arieties of soul, i"e" in insets whih ha$e been ut in two% eah of the segments
possesses both sensation and loal mo$ement% and if sensation, neessarily also imagination and
appetition% for, where there is sensation, there is also pleasure and pain, and, where these,
neessarily also desire"
)e ha$e no e$idene as yet about mind or the power to think% it seems to be a widely different
kind of soul, differing as what is eternal from what is perishable% it alone is apable of existene
in isolation from all other psyhi powers" &ll the other parts of soul, it is e$ident from what we
ha$e said, are, in spite of ertain statements to the ontrary, inapable of separate existene
though, of ourse, distinguishable by definition" If opining is distint from perei$ing, to be
apable of opining and to be apable of perei$ing must be distint, and so with all the other
forms of li$ing abo$e enumerated" 0urther, some animals possess all these parts of soul, some
ertain of them only, others one only ,this is what enables us to lassify animals-% the ause must
be onsidered later"+ & similar arrangement is found also within the field of the senses% some
lasses of animals ha$e all the senses, some only ertain of them, others only one, the most
indispensable, touh"
5ine the expression (that whereby we li$e and perei$e+ has two meanings, !ust like the
expression (that whereby we know+/that may mean either ,a- knowledge or ,b- the soul, for we
an speak of knowing by or with either, and similarly that whereby we are in health may be
either ,a- health or ,b- the body or some part of the body% and sine of the two terms thus
ontrasted knowledge or health is the name of a form, essene, or ratio, or if we so express it an
atuality of a reipient matter/knowledge of what is apable of knowing, health of what is
apable of being made healthy ,for the operation of that whih is apable of originating hange
terminates and has its seat in what is hanged or altered-% further, sine it is the soul by or with
whih primarily we li$e, perei$e, and think1/it follows that the soul must be a ratio or
formulable essene, not a matter or sub!et" 0or, as we said, word substane has three meanings
form, matter, and the omplex of both and of these three what is alled matter is potentiality,
what is alled form atuality" 5ine then the omplex here is the li$ing thing, the body annot be
the atuality of the soul% it is the soul whih is the atuality of a ertain kind of body" Hene the
rightness of the $iew that the soul annot be without a body, while it snnot he a body% it is not a
body but something relati$e to a body" #hat is why it is in a body, and a body of a definite kind"
It was a mistake, therefore, to do as former thinkers did, merely to fit it into a body without
adding a definite speifiation of the kind or harater of that body" 7efletion onfirms the
obser$ed fat% the atuality of any gi$en thing an only be realized in what is already potentially
that thing, i"e" in a matter of its own appropriate to it" 0rom all this it follows that soul is an
atuality or formulable essene of something that possesses a potentiality of being besouled"
3
Of the psyhi powers abo$e enumerated some kinds of li$ing things, as we ha$e said, possess
all, some less than all, others one only" #hose we ha$e mentioned are the nutriti$e, the appetiti$e,
the sensory, the loomoti$e, and the power of thinking" 4lants ha$e none but the first, the
nutriti$e, while another order of li$ing things has this plus the sensory" If any order of li$ing
things has the sensory, it must also ha$e the appetiti$e% for appetite is the genus of whih desire,
passion, and wish are the speies% now all animals ha$e one sense at least, $iz" touh, and
whate$er has a sense has the apaity for pleasure and pain and therefore has pleasant and
painful ob!ets present to it, and where$er these are present, there is desire, for desire is !ust
appetition of what is pleasant" 0urther, all animals ha$e the sense for food ,for touh is the sense
for food-% the food of all li$ing things onsists of what is dry, moist, hot, old, and these are the
'ualities apprehended by touh% all other sensible 'ualities are apprehended by touh only
indiretly" 5ounds, olours, and odours ontribute nothing to nutriment% fla$ours fall within the
field of tangible 'ualities" Hunger and thirst are forms of desire, hunger a desire for what is dry
and hot, thirst a desire for what is old and moist% fla$our is a sort of seasoning added to both"
)e must later lear up these points, but at present it may be enough to say that all animals that
possess the sense of touh ha$e also appetition" #he ase of imagination is obsure% we must
examine it later" 2ertain kinds of animals possess in addition the power of loomotion, and still
another order of animate beings, i"e" man and possibly another order like man or superior to him,
the power of thinking, i"e" mind" It is now e$ident that a single definition an be gi$en of soul
only in the same sense as one an be gi$en of figure" 0or, as in that ase there is no figure
distinguishable and apart from triangle, 9", so here there is no soul apart from the forms of soul
!ust enumerated" It is true that a highly general definition an be gi$en for figure whih will fit
all figures without expressing the peuliar nature of any figure" 5o here in the ase of soul and its
speifi forms" Hene it is absurd in this and similar ases to demand an absolutely general
definition whih will fail to express the peuliar nature of anything that is, or again, omitting
this, to look for separate definitions orresponding to eah infima speies" #he ases of figure
and soul are exatly parallel% for the partiulars subsumed under the ommon name in both
ases/figures and li$ing beings/onstitute a series, eah suessi$e term of whih potentially
ontains its predeessor, e"g" the s'uare the triangle, the sensory power the self/nutriti$e" Hene
we must ask in the ase of eah order of li$ing things, )hat is its soul, i"e" )hat is the soul of
plant, animal, man* )hy the terms are related in this serial way must form the sub!et of later
examination" .ut the fats are that the power of pereption is ne$er found apart from the power
of self/nutrition, while/in plants/the latter is found isolated from the former" &gain, no sense is
found apart from that of touh, while touh is found by itself% many animals ha$e neither sight,
hearing, nor smell" &gain, among li$ing things that possess sense some ha$e the power of
loomotion, some not" Lastly, ertain li$ing beings/a small minority/possess alulation and
thought, for ,among mortal beings- those whih possess alulation ha$e all the other powers
abo$e mentioned, while the on$erse does not hold/indeed some li$e by imagination alone,
while others ha$e not e$en imagination" #he mind that knows with immediate intuition presents
a different problem"
It is e$ident that the way to gi$e the most ade'uate definition of soul is to seek in the ase of
eah of its forms for the most appropriate definition"
4
It is neessary for the student of these forms of soul first to find a definition of eah, expressi$e
of what it is, and then to in$estigate its deri$ati$e properties, 9" .ut if we are to express what
eah is, $iz" what the thinking power is, or the perepti$e, or the nutriti$e, we must go farther
bak and first gi$e an aount of thinking or perei$ing, for in the order of in$estigation the
'uestion of what an agent does preedes the 'uestion, what enables it to do what it does" If this is
orret, we must on the same ground go yet another step farther bak and ha$e some lear $iew
of the ob!ets of eah% thus we must start with these ob!ets, e"g" with food, with what is
pereptible, or with what is intelligible"
It follows that first of all we must treat of nutrition and reprodution, for the nutriti$e soul is
found along with all the others and is the most primiti$e and widely distributed power of soul,
being indeed that one in $irtue of whih all are said to ha$e life" #he ats in whih it manifests
itself are reprodution and the use of food/reprodution, I say, beause for any li$ing thing that
has reahed its normal de$elopment and whih is unmutilated, and whose mode of generation is
not spontaneous, the most natural at is the prodution of another like itself, an animal produing
an animal, a plant a plant, in order that, as far as its nature allows, it may partake in the eternal
and di$ine" #hat is the goal towards whih all things stri$e, that for the sake of whih they do
whatsoe$er their nature renders possible" #he phrase (for the sake of whih+ is ambiguous% it may
mean either ,a- the end to ahie$e whih, or ,b- the being in whose interest, the at is done" 5ine
then no li$ing thing is able to partake in what is eternal and di$ine by uninterrupted ontinuane
,for nothing perishable an for e$er remain one and the same-, it tries to ahie$e that end in the
only way possible to it, and suess is possible in $arying degrees% so it remains not indeed as the
self/same indi$idual but ontinues its existene in something like itself/not numerially but
speifially one"
#he soul is the ause or soure of the li$ing body" #he terms ause and soure ha$e many senses"
.ut the soul is the ause of its body alike in all three senses whih we expliitly reognize" It is
,a- the soure or origin of mo$ement, it is ,b- the end, it is ,- the essene of the whole li$ing
body"
#hat it is the last, is lear% for in e$erything the essene is idential with the ground of its being,
and here, in the ase of li$ing things, their being is to li$e, and of their being and their li$ing the
soul in them is the ause or soure" 0urther, the atuality of whate$er is potential is idential with
its formulable essene"
It is manifest that the soul is also the final ause of its body" 0or Nature, like mind, always does
whate$er it does for the sake of something, whih something is its end" #o that something
orresponds in the ase of animals the soul and in this it follows the order of nature% all natural
bodies are organs of the soul" #his is true of those that enter into the onstitution of plants as well
as of those whih enter into that of animals" #his shows that that the sake of whih they are is
soul" )e must here reall the two senses of (that for the sake of whih+, $iz" ,a- the end to
ahie$e whih, and ,b- the being in whose interest, anything is or is done"
)e must maintain, further, that the soul is also the ause of the li$ing body as the original soure
of loal mo$ement" #he power of loomotion is not found, howe$er, in all li$ing things" .ut
hange of 'uality and hange of 'uantity are also due to the soul" 5ensation is held to be a
'ualitati$e alteration, and nothing exept what has soul in it is apable of sensation" #he same
holds of the 'uantitati$e hanges whih onstitute growth and deay% nothing grows or deays
naturally exept what feeds itself, and nothing feeds itself exept what has a share of soul in it"
6mpedoles is wrong in adding that growth in plants is to be explained, the downward rooting by
the natural tendeny of earth to tra$el downwards, and the upward branhing by the similar
natural tendeny of fire to tra$el upwards" 0or he misinterprets up and down% up and down are
not for all things what they are for the whole 2osmos1 if we are to distinguish and identify organs
aording to their funtions, the roots of plants are analogous to the head in animals" 0urther, we
must ask what is the fore that holds together the earth and the fire whih tend to tra$el in
ontrary diretions% if there is no ounterating fore, they will be torn asunder% if there is, this
must be the soul and the ause of nutrition and growth" .y some the element of fire is held to be
the ause of nutrition and growth, for it alone of the primary bodies or elements is obser$ed to
feed and inrease itself" Hene the suggestion that in both plants and animals it is it whih is the
operati$e fore" & onurrent ause in a sense it ertainly is, but not the prinipal ause, that is
rather the soul% for while the growth of fire goes on without limit so long as there is a supply of
fuel, in the ase of all omplex wholes formed in the ourse of nature there is a limit or ratio
whih determines their size and inrease, and limit and ratio are marks of soul but not of fire, and
belong to the side of formulable essene rather than that of matter"
Nutrition and reprodution are due to one and the same psyhi power" It is neessary first to
gi$e preision to our aount of food, for it is by this funtion of absorbing food that this psyhi
power is distinguished from all the others" #he urrent $iew is that what ser$es as food to a li$ing
thing is what is ontrary to it/not that in e$ery pair of ontraries eah is food to the other1 to be
food a ontrary must not only be transformable into the other and $ie $ersa, it must also in so
doing inrease the bulk of the other" 3any a ontrary is transformed into its other and $ie $ersa,
where neither is e$en a 'uantum and so annot inrease in bulk, e"g" an in$alid into a healthy
sub!et" It is lear that not e$en those ontraries whih satisfy both the onditions mentioned
abo$e are food to one another in preisely the same sense% water may be said to feed fire, but not
fire water" )here the members of the pair are elementary bodies only one of the ontraries, it
would appear, an be said to feed the other" .ut there is a diffiulty here" One set of thinkers
assert that like fed, as well as inreased in amount, by like" &nother set, as we ha$e said,
maintain the $ery re$erse, $iz" that what feeds and what is fed are ontrary to one another% like,
they argue, is inapable of being affeted by like% but food is hanged in the proess of digestion,
and hange is always to what is opposite or to what is intermediate" 0urther, food is ated upon
by what is nourished by it, not the other way round, as timber is worked by a arpenter and not
on$ersely% there is a hange in the arpenter but it is merely a hange from not/working to
working" In answering this problem it makes all the differene whether we mean by (the food+
the (finished+ or the (raw+ produt" If we use the word food of both, $iz" of the ompletely
undigested and the ompletely digested matter, we an !ustify both the ri$al aounts of it% taking
food in the sense of undigested matter, it is the ontrary of what is fed by it, taking it as digested
it is like what is fed by it" 2onse'uently it is lear that in a ertain sense we may say that both
parties are right, both wrong"
5ine nothing exept what is ali$e an be fed, what is fed is the besouled body and !ust beause it
has soul in it" Hene food is essentially related to what has soul in it" 0ood has a power whih is
other than the power to inrease the bulk of what is fed by it% so far forth as what has soul in it is
a 'uantum, food may inrease its 'uantity, but it is only so far as what has soul in it is a (this/
somewhat+ or substane that food ats as food% in that ase it maintains the being of what is fed,
and that ontinues to be what it is so long as the proess of nutrition ontinues" 0urther, it is the
agent in generation, i"e" not the generation of the indi$idual fed but the reprodution of another
like it% the substane of the indi$idual fed is already in existene% the existene of no substane is
a self/generation but only a self/maintenane"
Hene the psyhi power whih we are now studying may be desribed as that whih tends to
maintain whate$er has this power in it of ontinuing suh as it was, and food helps it to do its
work" #hat is why, if depri$ed of food, it must ease to be"
#he proess of nutrition in$ol$es three fators, ,a- what is fed, ,b- that wherewith it is fed, ,-
what does the feeding% of these ,- is the first soul, ,a- the body whih has that soul in it, ,b- the
food" .ut sine it is right to all things after the ends they realize, and the end of this soul is to
generate another being like that in whih it is, the first soul ought to be named the reproduti$e
soul" #he expression ,b- (wherewith it is fed+ is ambiguous !ust as is the expression (wherewith
the ship is steered+% that may mean either ,i- the hand or ,ii- the rudder, i"e" either ,i- what is
mo$ed and sets in mo$ement, or ,ii- what is merely mo$ed" )e an apply this analogy here if we
reall that all food must be apable of being digested, and that what produes digestion is
warmth% that is why e$erything that has soul in it possesses warmth"
)e ha$e now gi$en an outline aount of the nature of food% further details must be gi$en in the
appropriate plae"
5
Ha$ing made these distintions let us now speak of sensation in the widest sense" 5ensation
depends, as we ha$e said, on a proess of mo$ement or affetion from without, for it is held to be
some sort of hange of 'uality" Now some thinkers assert that like is affeted only by like% in
what sense this is possible and in what sense impossible, we ha$e explained in our general
disussion of ating and being ated upon"
Here arises a problem1 why do we not perei$e the senses themsel$es as well as the external
ob!ets of sense, or why without the stimulation of external ob!ets do they not produe
sensation, seeing that they ontain in themsel$es fire, earth, and all the other elements, whih are
the diret or indiret ob!ets is so of sense* It is lear that what is sensiti$e is only potentially, not
atually" #he power of sense is parallel to what is ombustible, for that ne$er ignites itself
spontaneously, but re'uires an agent whih has the power of starting ignition% otherwise it ould
ha$e set itself on fire, and would not ha$e needed atual fire to set it ablaze"
In reply we must reall that we use the word (perei$e+ in two ways, for we say ,a- that what has
the power to hear or see, (sees+ or (hears+, e$en though it is at the moment asleep, and also ,b-
that what is atually seeing or hearing, (sees+ or (hears+" Hene (sense+ too must ha$e two
meanings, sense potential, and sense atual" 5imilarly (to be a sentient+ means either ,a- to ha$e a
ertain power or ,b- to manifest a ertain ati$ity" #o begin with, for a time, let us speak as if
there were no differene between ,i- being mo$ed or affeted, and ,ii- being ati$e, for
mo$ement is a kind of ati$ity/an imperfet kind, as has elsewhere been explained" 6$erything
that is ated upon or mo$ed is ated upon by an agent whih is atually at work" Hene it is that
in one sense, as has already been stated, what ats and what is ated upon are like, in another
unlike, i"e" prior to and during the hange the two fators are unlike, after it like"
.ut we must now distinguish not only between what is potential and what is atual but also
different senses in whih things an be said to be potential or atual% up to now we ha$e been
speaking as if eah of these phrases had only one sense" )e an speak of something as (a
knower+ either ,a- as when we say that man is a knower, meaning that man falls within the lass
of beings that know or ha$e knowledge, or ,b- as when we are speaking of a man who possesses
a knowledge of grammar% eah of these is so alled as ha$ing in him a ertain potentiality, but
there is a differene between their respeti$e potentialities, the one ,a- being a potential knower,
beause his kind or matter is suh and suh, the other ,b-, beause he an in the absene of any
external ounterating ause realize his knowledge in atual knowing at will" #his implies a third
meaning of (a knower+ ,-, one who is already realizing his knowledge/he is a knower in
atuality and in the most proper sense is knowing, e"g" this &" .oth the former are potential
knowers, who realize their respeti$e potentialities, the one ,a- by hange of 'uality, i"e" repeated
transitions from one state to its opposite under instrution, the other ,b- by the transition from the
inati$e possession of sense or grammar to their ati$e exerise" #he two kinds of transition are
distint"
&lso the expression (to be ated upon+ has more than one meaning% it may mean either ,a- the
extintion of one of two ontraries by the other, or ,b- the maintenane of what is potential by the
ageny of what is atual and already like what is ated upon, with suh likeness as is ompatible
with one+s being atual and the other potential" 0or what possesses knowledge beomes an atual
knower by a transition whih is either not an alteration of it at all ,being in reality a de$elopment
into its true self or atuality- or at least an alteration in a 'uite different sense from the usual
meaning"
Hene it is wrong to speak of a wise man as being (altered+ when he uses his wisdom, !ust as it
would be absurd to speak of a builder as being altered when he is using his skill in building a
house"
)hat in the ase of knowing or understanding leads from potentiality to atuality ought not to be
alled teahing but something else" #hat whih starting with the power to know learns or
a'uires knowledge through the ageny of one who atually knows and has the power of
teahing either ,a- ought not to be said (to be ated upon+ at all or ,b- we must reognize two
senses of alteration, $iz" ,i- the substitution of one 'uality for another, the first being the ontrary
of the seond, or ,ii- the de$elopment of an existent 'uality from potentiality in the diretion of
fixity or nature"
In the ase of what is to possess sense, the first transition is due to the ation of the male parent
and takes plae before birth so that at birth the li$ing thing is, in respet of sensation, at the stage
whih orresponds to the possession of knowledge" &tual sensation orresponds to the stage of
the exerise of knowledge" .ut between the two ases ompared there is a differene% the ob!ets
that exite the sensory powers to ati$ity, the seen, the heard, 9", are outside" #he ground of this
differene is that what atual sensation apprehends is indi$iduals, while what knowledge
apprehends is uni$ersals, and these are in a sense within the soul" #hat is why a man an exerise
his knowledge when he wishes, but his sensation does not depend upon himself a sensible ob!et
must be there" & similar statement must be made about our knowledge of what is sensible/on the
same ground, $iz" that the sensible ob!ets are indi$idual and external"
& later more appropriate oasion may be found thoroughly to lear up all this" &t present it must
be enough to reognize the distintions already drawn% a thing may be said to be potential in
either of two senses, ,a- in the sense in whih we might say of a boy that he may beome a
general or ,b- in the sense in whih we might say the same of an adult, and there are two
orresponding senses of the term (a potential sentient+" #here are no separate names for the two
stages of potentiality% we ha$e pointed out that they are different and how they are different" )e
annot help using the inorret terms (being ated upon or altered+ of the two transitions
in$ol$ed" &s we ha$e said, has the power of sensation is potentially like what the perei$ed
ob!et is atually% that is, while at the beginning of the proess of its being ated upon the two
interating fators are dissimilar, at the end the one ated upon is assimilated to the other and is
idential in 'uality with it"
6
In dealing with eah of the senses we shall ha$e first to speak of the ob!ets whih are
pereptible by eah" #he term (ob!et of sense+ o$ers three kinds of ob!ets, two kinds of whih
are, in our language, diretly pereptible, while the remaining one is only inidentally
pereptible" Of the first two kinds one ,a- onsists of what is pereptible by a single sense, the
other ,b- of what is pereptible by any and all of the senses" I all by the name of speial ob!et
of this or that sense that whih annot be perei$ed by any other sense than that one and in
respet of whih no error is possible% in this sense olour is the speial ob!et of sight, sound of
hearing, fla$our of taste" #ouh, indeed, disriminates more than one set of different 'ualities"
6ah sense has one kind of ob!et whih it diserns, and ne$er errs in reporting that what is
before it is olour or sound ,though it may err as to what it is that is oloured or where that is, or
what it is that is sounding or where that is"- 5uh ob!ets are what we propose to all the speial
ob!ets of this or that sense"
(2ommon sensibles+ are mo$ement, rest, number, figure, magnitude% these are not peuliar to any
one sense, but are ommon to all" #here are at any rate ertain kinds of mo$ement whih are
pereptible both by touh and by sight"
)e speak of an inidental ob!et of sense where e"g" the white ob!et whih we see is the son of
Diares% here beause (being the son of Diares+ is inidental to the diretly $isible white path we
speak of the son of Diares as being ,inidentally- perei$ed or seen by us" .eause this is only
inidentally an ob!et of sense, it in no way as suh affets the senses" Of the two former kinds,
both of whih are in their own nature pereptible by sense, the first kind/that of speial ob!ets of
the se$eral senses/onstitute the ob!ets of sense in the stritest sense of the term and it is to them
that in the nature of things the struture of eah se$eral sense is adapted"

#he ob!et of sight is the $isible, and what is $isible is ,a- olour and ,b- a ertain kind of ob!et
whih an be desribed in words but whih has no single name% what we mean by ,b- will be
abundantly lear as we proeed" )hate$er is $isible is olour and olour is what lies upon what
is in its own nature $isible% (in its own nature+ here means not that $isibility is in$ol$ed in the
definition of what thus underlies olour, but that that substratum ontains in itself the ause of
$isibility" 6$ery olour has in it the power to set in mo$ement what is atually transparent% that
power onstitutes its $ery nature" #hat is why it is not $isible exept with the help of light% it is
only in light that the olour of a thing is seen" Hene our first task is to explain what light is"
Now there learly is something whih is transparent, and by (transparent+ I mean what is $isible,
and yet not $isible in itself, but rather owing its $isibility to the olour of something else% of this
harater are air, water, and many solid bodies" Neither air nor water is transparent beause it is
air or water% they are transparent beause eah of them has ontained in it a ertain substane
whih is the same in both and is also found in the eternal body whih onstitutes the uppermost
shell of the physial 2osmos" Of this substane light is the ati$ity/the ati$ity of what is
transparent so far forth as it has in it the determinate power of beoming transparent% where this
power is present, there is also the potentiality of the ontrary, $iz" darkness" Light is as it were
the proper olour of what is transparent, and exists whene$er the potentially transparent is
exited to atuality by the influene of fire or something resembling (the uppermost body+% for
fire too ontains something whih is one and the same with the substane in 'uestion"
)e ha$e now explained what the transparent is and what light is% light is neither fire nor any kind
whatsoe$er of body nor an efflux from any kind of body ,if it were, it would again itself be a
kind of body-/it is the presene of fire or something resembling fire in what is transparent" It is
ertainly not a body, for two bodies annot be present in the same plae" #he opposite of light is
darkness% darkness is the absene from what is transparent of the orresponding positi$e state
abo$e haraterized% learly therefore, light is !ust the presene of that"
6mpedoles ,and with him all others who used the same forms of expression- was wrong in
speaking of light as (tra$elling+ or being at a gi$en moment between the earth and its en$elope,
its mo$ement being unobser$able by us% that $iew is ontrary both to the lear e$idene of
argument and to the obser$ed fats% if the distane tra$ersed were short, the mo$ement might
ha$e been unobser$able, but where the distane is from extreme 6ast to extreme )est, the
draught upon our powers of belief is too great"
)hat is apable of taking on olour is what in itself is olourless, as what an take on sound is
what is soundless% what is olourless inludes ,a- what is transparent and ,b- what is in$isible or
sarely $isible, i"e" what is (dark+" #he latter ,b- is the same as what is transparent, when it is
potentially, not of ourse when it is atually transparent% it is the same substane whih is now
darkness, now light"
Not e$erything that is $isible depends upon light for its $isibility" #his is only true of the (proper+
olour of things" 5ome ob!ets of sight whih in light are in$isible, in darkness stimulate the
sense% that is, things that appear fiery or shining" #his lass of ob!ets has no simple ommon
name, but instanes of it are fungi, flesh, heads, sales, and eyes of fish" In none of these is what
is seen their own proper+ olour" )hy we see these at all is another 'uestion" &t present what is
ob$ious is that what is seen in light is always olour" #hat is why without the help of light olour
remains in$isible" Its being olour at all means preisely its ha$ing in it the power to set in
mo$ement what is already atually transparent, and, as we ha$e seen, the atuality of what is
transparent is !ust light"
#he following experiment makes the neessity of a medium lear" If what has olour is plaed in
immediate ontat with the eye, it annot be seen" 2olour sets in mo$ement not the sense organ
but what is transparent, e"g" the air, and that, extending ontinuously from the ob!et to the organ,
sets the latter in mo$ement" Demoritus misrepresents the fats when he expresses the opinion
that if the interspae were empty one ould distintly see an ant on the $ault of the sky% that is an
impossibility" 5eeing is due to an affetion or hange of what has the perepti$e faulty, and it
annot be affeted by the seen olour itself% it remains that it must be affeted by what omes
between" Hene it is indispensable that there be something in between/if there were nothing, so
far from seeing with greater distintness, we should see nothing at all"
)e ha$e now explained the ause why olour annot be seen otherwise than in light" 0ire on the
other hand is seen both in darkness and in light% this double possibility follows neessarily from
our theory, for it is !ust fire that makes what is potentially transparent atually transparent"
#he same aount holds also of sound and smell% if the ob!et of either of these senses is in
immediate ontat with the organ no sensation is produed" In both ases the ob!et sets in
mo$ement only what lies between, and this in turn sets the organ in mo$ement1 if what sounds or
smells is brought into immediate ontat with the organ, no sensation will be produed" #he
same, in spite of all appearanes, applies also to touh and taste% why there is this apparent
differene will be lear later" )hat omes between in the ase of sounds is air% the orresponding
medium in the ase of smell has no name" .ut, orresponding to what is transparent in the ase
of olour, there is a 'uality found both in air and water, whih ser$es as a medium for what has
smell/I say (in water+ beause animals that li$e in water as well as those that li$e on land seem to
possess the sense of smell, and (in air+ beause man and all other land animals that breathe,
perei$e smells only when they breathe air in" #he explanation of this too will be gi$en later"
!
Now let us, to begin with, make ertain distintions about sound and hearing"
5ound may mean either of two things ,a- atual, and ,b- potential, sound" #here are ertain things
whih, as we say, (ha$e no sound+, e"g" sponges or wool, others whih ha$e, e"g" bronze and in
general all things whih are smooth and solid/the latter are said to ha$e a sound beause they an
make a sound, i"e" an generate atual sound between themsel$es and the organ of hearing"
&tual sound re'uires for its ourrene ,i, ii- two suh bodies and ,iii- a spae between them%
for it is generated by an impat" Hene it is impossible for one body only to generate a sound/
there must be a body impinging and a body impinged upon% what sounds does so by striking
against something else, and this is impossible without a mo$ement from plae to plae"
&s we ha$e said, not all bodies an by impat on one another produe sound% impat on wool
makes no sound, while the impat on bronze or any body whih is smooth and hollow does"
.ronze gi$es out a sound when struk beause it is smooth% bodies whih are hollow owing to
refletion repeat the original impat o$er and o$er again, the body originally set in mo$ement
being unable to esape from the ona$ity"
0urther, we must remark that sound is heard both in air and in water, though less distintly in the
latter" 8et neither air nor water is the prinipal ause of sound" )hat is re'uired for the
prodution of sound is an impat of two solids against one another and against the air" #he latter
ondition is satisfied when the air impinged upon does not retreat before the blow, i"e" is not
dissipated by it"
#hat is why it must be struk with a sudden sharp blow, if it is to sound/the mo$ement of the
whip must outrun the dispersion of the air, !ust as one might get in a stroke at a heap or whirl of
sand as it was tra$eling rapidly past"
&n eho ours, when, a mass of air ha$ing been unified, bounded, and pre$ented from
dissipation by the ontaining walls of a $essel, the air originally struk by the impinging body
and set in mo$ement by it rebounds from this mass of air like a ball from a wall" It is probable
that in all generation of sound eho takes plae, though it is fre'uently only indistintly heard"
)hat happens here must be analogous to what happens in the ase of light% light is always
refleted/otherwise it would not be diffused and outside what was diretly illuminated by the sun
there would be blank darkness% but this refleted light is not always strong enough, as it is when
it is refleted from water, bronze, and other smooth bodies, to ast a shadow, whih is the
distinguishing mark by whih we reognize light"
It is rightly said that an empty spae plays the hief part in the prodution of hearing, for what
people mean by (the $auum+ is the air, whih is what auses hearing, when that air is set in
mo$ement as one ontinuous mass% but owing to its friability it emits no sound, being dissipated
by impinging upon any surfae whih is not smooth" )hen the surfae on whih it impinges is
'uite smooth, what is produed by the original impat is a united mass, a result due to the
smoothness of the surfae with whih the air is in ontat at the other end"
)hat has the power of produing sound is what has the power of setting in mo$ement a single
mass of air whih is ontinuous from the impinging body up to the organ of hearing" #he organ
of hearing is physially united with air, and beause it is in air, the air inside is mo$ed
onurrently with the air outside" Hene animals do not hear with all parts of their bodies, nor do
all parts admit of the entrane of air% for e$en the part whih an be mo$ed and an sound has not
air e$erywhere in it" &ir in itself is, owing to its friability, 'uite soundless% only when its
dissipation is pre$ented is its mo$ement sound" #he air in the ear is built into a hamber !ust to
pre$ent this dissipating mo$ement, in order that the animal may aurately apprehend all
$arieties of the mo$ements of the air outside" #hat is why we hear also in water, $iz" beause the
water annot get into the air hamber or e$en, owing to the spirals, into the outer ear" If this does
happen, hearing eases, as it also does if the tympani membrane is damaged, !ust as sight eases
if the membrane o$ering the pupil is damaged" It is also a test of deafness whether the ear does
or does not re$erberate like a horn% the air inside the ear has always a mo$ement of its own, but
the sound we hear is always the sounding of something else, not of the organ itself" #hat is why
we say that we hear with what is empty and ehoes, $iz" beause what we hear with is a hamber
whih ontains a bounded mass of air"
)hih is it that (sounds+, the striking body or the struk* Is not the answer (it is both, but eah in
a different way+* 5ound is a mo$ement of what an rebound from a smooth surfae when struk
against it" &s we ha$e explained+ not e$erything sounds when it strikes or is struk, e"g" if one
needle is struk against another, neither emits any sound" In order, therefore, that sound may be
generated, what is struk must be smooth, to enable the air to rebound and be shaken off from it
in one piee"
#he distintions between different sounding bodies show themsel$es only in atual sound% as
without the help of light olours remain in$isible, so without the help of atual sound the
distintions between aute and gra$e sounds remain inaudible" &ute and gra$e are here
metaphors, transferred from their proper sphere, $iz" that of touh, where they mean respeti$ely
,a- what mo$es the sense muh in a short time, ,b- what mo$es the sense little in a long time" Not
that what is sharp really mo$es fast, and what is gra$e, slowly, but that the differene in the
'ualities of the one and the other mo$ement is due to their respeti$e speeds" #here seems to be a
sort of parallelism between what is aute or gra$e to hearing and what is sharp or blunt to touh%
what is sharp as it were stabs, while what is blunt pushes, the one produing its effet in a short,
the other in a long time, so that the one is 'uik, the other slow"
Let the foregoing suffie as an analysis of sound" =oie is a kind of sound harateristi of what
has soul in it% nothing that is without soul utters $oie, it being only by a metaphor that we speak
of the $oie of the flute or the lyre or generally of what ,being without soul- possesses the power
of produing a suession of notes whih differ in length and pith and timbre" #he metaphor is
based on the fat that all these differenes are found also in $oie" 3any animals are $oieless,
e"g" all non/sanuineous animals and among sanguineous animals fish" #his is !ust what we should
expet, sine $oie is a ertain mo$ement of air" #he fish, like those in the &helous, whih are
said to ha$e $oie, really make the sounds with their gills or some similar organ" =oie is the
sound made by an animal, and that with a speial organ" &s we saw, e$erything that makes a
sound does so by the impat of something ,a- against something else, ,b- aross a spae, ,-
filled with air% hene it is only to be expeted that no animals utter $oie exept those whih take
in air" One air is inbreathed, Nature uses it for two different purposes, as the tongue is used both
for tasting and for artiulating% in that ase of the two funtions tasting is neessary for the
animal+s existene ,hene it is found more widely distributed-, while artiulate speeh is a luxury
subser$ing its possessor+s well/being% similarly in the former ase Nature employs the breath
both as an indispensable means to the regulation of the inner temperature of the li$ing body and
also as the matter of artiulate $oie, in the interests of its possessor+s well/being" )hy its former
use is indispensable must be disussed elsewhere"
#he organ of respiration is the windpipe, and the organ to whih this is related as means to end is
the lungs" #he latter is the part of the body by whih the temperature of land animals is raised
abo$e that of all others" .ut what primarily re'uires the air drawn in by respiration is not only
this but the region surrounding the heart" #hat is why when animals breathe the air must
penetrate inwards"
=oie then is the impat of the inbreathed air against the (windpipe+, and the agent that produes
the impat is the soul resident in these parts of the body" Not e$ery sound, as we said, made by
an animal is $oie ,e$en with the tongue we may merely make a sound whih is not $oie, or
without the tongue as in oughing-% what produes the impat must ha$e soul in it and must be
aompanied by an at of imagination, for $oie is a sound with a meaning, and is not merely the
result of any impat of the breath as in oughing% in $oie the breath in the windpipe is used as
an instrument to knok with against the walls of the windpipe" #his is onfirmed by our inability
to speak when we are breathing either out or in/we an only do so by holding our breath% we
make the mo$ements with the breath so heked" It is lear also why fish are $oieless% they ha$e
no windpipe" &nd they ha$e no windpipe beause they do not breathe or take in air" )hy they do
not is a 'uestion belonging to another in'uiry"
"
5mell and its ob!et are muh less easy to determine than what we ha$e hitherto disussed% the
distinguishing harateristi of the ob!et of smell is less ob$ious than those of sound or olour"
#he ground of this is that our power of smell is less disriminating and in general inferior to that
of many speies of animals% men ha$e a poor sense of smell and our apprehension of its proper
ob!ets is inseparably bound up with and so onfused by pleasure and pain, whih shows that in
us the organ is inaurate" It is probable that there is a parallel failure in the pereption of olour
by animals that ha$e hard eyes1 probably they disriminate differenes of olour only by the
presene or absene of what exites fear, and that it is thus that human beings distinguish smells"
It seems that there is an analogy between smell and taste, and that the speies of tastes run
parallel to those of smells/the only differene being that our sense of taste is more disriminating
than our sense of smell, beause the former is a modifiation of touh, whih reahes in man the
maximum of disriminati$e auray" )hile in respet of all the other senses we fall below many
speies of animals, in respet of touh we far exel all other speies in exatness of
disrimination" #hat is why man is the most intelligent of all animals" #his is onfirmed by the
fat that it is to differenes in the organ of touh and to nothing else that the differenes between
man and man in respet of natural endowment are due% men whose flesh is hard are ill/endowed
by nature, men whose flesh is soft, wellendowed"
&s fla$ours may be di$ided into ,a- sweet, ,b- bitter, so with smells" In some things the fla$our
and the smell ha$e the same 'uality, i"e" both are sweet or both bitter, in others they di$erge"
5imilarly a smell, like a fla$our, may be pungent, astringent, aid, or suulent" .ut, as we said,
beause smells are muh less easy to disriminate than fla$ours, the names of these $arieties are
applied to smells only metaphorially% for example (sweet+ is extended from the taste to the smell
of saffron or honey, (pungent+ to that of thyme, and so on"
In the same sense in whih hearing has for its ob!et both the audible and the inaudible, sight
both the $isible and the in$isible, smell has for its ob!et both the odorous and the inodorous"
(Inodorous+ may be either ,a- what has no smell at all, or ,b- what has a small or feeble smell"
#he same ambiguity lurks in the word (tasteless+"
5melling, like the operation of the senses pre$iously examined, takes plae through a medium,
i"e" through air or water/I add water, beause water/animals too ,both sanguineous and non/
sanguineous- seem to smell !ust as muh as land/animals% at any rate some of them make diretly
for their food from a distane if it has any sent" #hat is why the following fats onstitute a
problem for us" &ll animals smell in the same way, but man smells only when he inhales% if he
exhales or holds his breath, he eases to smell, no differene being made whether the odorous
ob!et is distant or near, or e$en plaed inside the nose and atually on the wall of the nostril% it is
a disability ommon to all the senses not to perei$e what is in immediate ontat with the organ
of sense, but our failure to apprehend what is odorous without the help of inhalation is peuliar
,the fat is ob$ious on making the experiment-" Now sine bloodless animals do not breathe,
they must, it might be argued, ha$e some no$el sense not rekoned among the usual fi$e" Our
reply must be that this is impossible, sine it is sent that is perei$ed% a sense that apprehends
what is odorous and what has a good or bad odour annot be anything but smell" 0urther, they
are obser$ed to be deleteriously effeted by the same strong odours as man is, e"g" bitumen,
sulphur, and the like" #hese animals must be able to smell without being able to breathe" #he
probable explanation is that in man the organ of smell has a ertain superiority o$er that in all
other animals !ust as his eyes ha$e o$er those of hard/eyed animals" 3an+s eyes ha$e in the
eyelids a kind of shelter or en$elope, whih must be shifted or drawn bak in order that we may
see, while hardeyed animals ha$e nothing of the kind, but at one see whate$er presents itself in
the transparent medium" 5imilarly in ertain speies of animals the organ of smell is like the eye
of hard/eyed animals, unurtained, while in others whih take in air it probably has a urtain o$er
it, whih is drawn bak in inhalation, owing to the dilating of the $eins or pores" #hat explains
also why suh animals annot smell under water% to smell they must first inhale, and that they
annot do under water"
5mells ome from what is dry as fla$ours from what is moist" 2onse'uently the organ of smell is
potentially dry"
1#
)hat an be tasted is always something that an be touhed, and !ust for that reason it annot be
perei$ed through an interposed foreign body, for touh means the absene of any inter$ening
body" 0urther, the fla$oured and tasteable body is suspended in a li'uid matter, and this is
tangible" Hene, if we li$ed in water, we should perei$e a sweet ob!et introdued into the
water, but the water would not be the medium through whih we perei$ed% our pereption
would be due to the solution of the sweet substane in what we imbibed, !ust as if it were mixed
with some drink" #here is no parallel here to the pereption of olour, whih is due neither to any
blending of anything with anything, nor to any efflux of anything from anything" In the ase of
taste, there is nothing orresponding to the medium in the ase of the senses pre$iously
disussed% but as the ob!et of sight is olour, so the ob!et of taste is fla$our" .ut nothing exites
a pereption of fla$our without the help of li'uid% what ats upon the sense of taste must be
either atually or potentially li'uid like what is saline% it must be both ,a- itself easily dissol$ed,
and ,b- apable of dissol$ing along with itself the tongue" #aste apprehends both ,a- what has
taste and ,b- what has no taste, if we mean by ,b- what has only a slight or feeble fla$our or what
tends to destroy the sense of taste" In this it is exatly parallel to sight, whih apprehends both
what is $isible and what is in$isible ,for darkness is in$isible and yet is disriminated by sight%
so is, in a different way, what is o$er brilliant-, and to hearing, whih apprehends both sound and
silene, of whih the one is audible and the other inaudible, and also o$er/loud sound" #his
orresponds in the ase of hearing to o$er/bright light in the ase of sight" &s a faint sound is
(inaudible+, so in a sense is a loud or $iolent sound" #he word (in$isible+ and similar pri$ati$e
terms o$er not only ,a- what is simply without some power, but also ,b- what is adapted by
nature to ha$e it but has not it or has it only in a $ery low degree, as when we say that a speies
of swallow is (footless+ or that a $ariety of fruit is (stoneless+" 5o too taste has as its ob!et both
what an be tasted and the tasteless/the latter in the sense of what has little fla$our or a bad
fla$our or one destruti$e of taste" #he differene between what is tasteless and what is not
seems to rest ultimately on that between what is drinkable and what is undrinkable both are
tasteable, but the latter is bad and tends to destroy taste, while the former is the normal stimulus
of taste" )hat is drinkable is the ommon ob!et of both touh and taste"
5ine what an be tasted is li'uid, the organ for its pereption annot be either ,a- atually li'uid
or ,b- inapable of beoming li'uid" #asting means a being affeted by what an be tasted as
suh% hene the organ of taste must be li'uefied, and so to start with must be non/li'uid but
apable of li'uefation without loss of its distinti$e nature" #his is onfirmed by the fat that the
tongue annot taste either when it is too dry or when it is too moist% in the latter ase what ours
is due to a ontat with the pre/existent moisture in the tongue itself, when after a foretaste of
some strong fla$our we try to taste another fla$our% it is in this way that sik persons find
e$erything they taste bitter, $iz" beause, when they taste, their tongues are o$erflowing with
bitter moisture"
#he speies of fla$our are, as in the ase of olour, ,a- simple, i"e" the two ontraries, the sweet
and the bitter, ,b- seondary, $iz" ,i- on the side of the sweet, the suulent, ,ii- on the side of the
bitter, the saline, ,iii- between these ome the pungent, the harsh, the astringent, and the aid%
these pretty well exhaust the $arieties of fla$our" It follows that what has the power of tasting is
what is potentially of that kind, and that what is tasteable is what has the power of making it
atually what it itself already is"
11
)hate$er an be said of what is tangible, an be said of touh, and $ie $ersa% if touh is not a
single sense but a group of senses, there must be se$eral kinds of what is tangible" It is a problem
whether touh is a single sense or a group of senses" It is also a problem, what is the organ of
touh% is it or is it not the flesh ,inluding what in ertain animals is homologous with flesh-* On
the seond $iew, flesh is (the medium+ of touh, the real organ being situated farther inward" #he
problem arises beause the field of eah sense is aording to the aepted $iew determined as
the range between a single pair of ontraries, white and blak for sight, aute and gra$e for
hearing, bitter and sweet for taste% but in the field of what is tangible we find se$eral suh pairs,
hot old, dry moist, hard soft, 9" #his problem finds a partial solution, when it is realled that in
the ase of the other senses more than one pair of ontraries are to be met with, e"g" in sound not
only aute and gra$e but loud and soft, smooth and rough, 9"% there are similar ontrasts in the
field of olour" Ne$ertheless we are unable learly to detet in the ase of touh what the single
sub!et is whih underlies the ontrasted 'ualities and orresponds to sound in the ase of
hearing"
#o the 'uestion whether the organ of touh lies inward or not ,i"e" whether we need look any
farther than the flesh-, no indiation in fa$our of the seond answer an be drawn from the fat
that if the ob!et omes into ontat with the flesh it is at one perei$ed" 0or e$en under present
onditions if the experiment is made of making a web and strething it tight o$er the flesh, as
soon as this web is touhed the sensation is reported in the same manner as before, yet it is lear
that the or is gan is not in this membrane" If the membrane ould be grown on to the flesh, the
report would tra$el still 'uiker" #he flesh plays in touh $ery muh the same part as would be
played in the other senses by an air/en$elope growing round our body% had we suh an en$elope
attahed to us we should ha$e supposed that it was by a single organ that we perei$ed sounds,
olours, and smells, and we should ha$e taken sight, hearing, and smell to be a single sense" .ut
as it is, beause that through whih the different mo$ements are transmitted is not naturally
attahed to our bodies, the differene of the $arious sense/organs is too plain to miss" .ut in the
ase of touh the obsurity remains"
#here must be suh a naturally attahed (medium+ as flesh, for no li$ing body ould be
onstruted of air or water% it must be something solid" 2onse'uently it must be omposed of
earth along with these, whih is !ust what flesh and its analogue in animals whih ha$e no true
flesh tend to be" Hene of neessity the medium through whih are transmitted the manifoldly
ontrasted tatual 'ualities must be a body naturally attahed to the organism" #hat they are
manifold is lear when we onsider touhing with the tongue% we apprehend at the tongue all
tangible 'ualities as well as fla$our" 5uppose all the rest of our flesh was, like the tongue,
sensiti$e to fla$our, we should ha$e identified the sense of taste and the sense of touh% what
sa$es us from this identifiation is the fat that touh and taste are not always found together in
the same part of the body" #he following problem might be raised" Let us assume that e$ery body
has depth, i"e" has three dimensions, and that if two bodies ha$e a third body between them they
annot be in ontat with one another% let us remember that what is li'uid is a body and must be
or ontain water, and that if two bodies touh one another under water, their touhing surfaes
annot be dry, but must ha$e water between, $iz" the water whih wets their bounding surfaes%
from all this it follows that in water two bodies annot be in ontat with one another" #he same
holds of two bodies in air/air being to bodies in air preisely what water is to bodies in water/but
the fats are not so e$ident to our obser$ation, beause we li$e in air, !ust as animals that li$e in
water would not notie that the things whih touh one another in water ha$e wet surfaes" #he
problem, then, is1 does the pereption of all ob!ets of sense take plae in the same way, or does
it not, e"g" taste and touh re'uiring ontat ,as they are ommonly thought to do-, while all other
senses perei$e o$er a distane* #he distintion is unsound% we perei$e what is hard or soft, as
well as the ob!ets of hearing, sight, and smell, through a (medium+, only that the latter are
perei$ed o$er a greater distane than the former% that is why the fats esape our notie" 0or we
do perei$e e$erything through a medium% but in these ases the fat esapes us" 8et, to repeat
what we said before, if the medium for touh were a membrane separating us from the ob!et
without our obser$ing its existene, we should be relati$ely to it in the same ondition as we are
now to air or water in whih we are immersed% in their ase we fany we an touh ob!ets,
nothing oming in between us and them" .ut there remains this differene between what an be
touhed and what an be seen or an sound% in the latter two ases we perei$e beause the
medium produes a ertain effet upon us, whereas in the pereption of ob!ets of touh we are
affeted not by but along with the medium% it is as if a man were struk through his shield, where
the shok is not first gi$en to the shield and passed on to the man, but the onussion of both is
simultaneous"
In general, flesh and the tongue are related to the real organs of touh and taste, as air and water
are to those of sight, hearing, and smell" Hene in neither the one ase nor the other an there be
any pereption of an ob!et if it is plaed immediately upon the organ, e"g" if a white ob!et is
plaed on the surfae of the eye" #his again shows that what has the power of perei$ing the
tangible is seated inside" Only so would there be a omplete analogy with all the other senses" In
their ase if you plae the ob!et on the organ it is not perei$ed, here if you plae it on the flesh
it is perei$ed% therefore flesh is not the organ but the medium of touh"
)hat an be touhed are distinti$e 'ualities of body as body% by suh differenes I mean those
whih haraterize the elements, $iz, hot old, dry moist, of whih we ha$e spoken earlier in our
treatise on the elements" #he organ for the pereption of these is that of touh/that part of the
body in whih primarily the sense of touh resides" #his is that part whih is potentially suh as
its ob!et is atually1 for all sense/pereption is a proess of being so affeted% so that that whih
makes something suh as it itself atually is makes the other suh beause the other is already
potentially suh" #hat is why when an ob!et of touh is e'ually hot and old or hard and soft we
annot perei$e% what we perei$e must ha$e a degree of the sensible 'uality lying beyond the
neutral point" #his implies that the sense itself is a (mean+ between any two opposite 'ualities
whih determine the field of that sense" It is to this that it owes its power of diserning the
ob!ets in that field" )hat is (in the middle+ is fitted to disern% relati$ely to either extreme it an
put itself in the plae of the other" &s what is to perei$e both white and blak must, to begin
with, be atually neither but potentially either ,and so with all the other sense/organs-, so the
organ of touh must be neither hot nor old"
0urther, as in a sense sight had for its ob!et both what was $isible and what was in$isible ,and
there was a parallel truth about all the other senses disussed-, so touh has for its ob!et both
what is tangible and what is intangible" Here by (intangible+ is meant ,a- what like air possesses
some 'uality of tangible things in a $ery slight degree and ,b- what possesses it in an exessi$e
degree, as destruti$e things do"
)e ha$e now gi$en an outline aount of eah of the se$eral senses"
12
#he following results applying to any and e$ery sense may now be formulated"
,&- .y a (sense+ is meant what has the power of reei$ing into itself the sensible forms of things
without the matter" #his must be onei$ed of as taking plae in the way in whih a piee of wax
takes on the impress of a signet/ring without the iron or gold% we say that what produes the
impression is a signet of bronze or gold, but its partiular metalli onstitution makes no
differene1 in a similar way the sense is affeted by what is oloured or fla$oured or sounding,
but it is indifferent what in eah ase the substane is% what alone matters is what 'uality it has,
i"e" in what ratio its onstituents are ombined"
,.- .y (an organ of sense+ is meant that in whih ultimately suh a power is seated"
#he sense and its organ are the same in fat, but their essene is not the same" )hat perei$es is,
of ourse, a spatial magnitude, but we must not admit that either the ha$ing the power to
perei$e or the sense itself is a magnitude% what they are is a ertain ratio or power in a
magnitude" #his enables us to explain why ob!ets of sense whih possess one of two opposite
sensible 'ualities in a degree largely in exess of the other opposite destroy the organs of sense%
if the mo$ement set up by an ob!et is too strong for the organ, the e'uipoise of ontrary 'ualities
in the organ, whih !ust is its sensory power, is disturbed% it is preisely as onord and tone are
destroyed by too $iolently twanging the strings of a lyre" #his explains also why plants annot
perei$e" in spite of their ha$ing a portion of soul in them and ob$iously being affeted by
tangible ob!ets themsel$es% for undoubtedly their temperature an be lowered or raised" #he
explanation is that they ha$e no mean of ontrary 'ualities, and so no priniple in them apable
of taking on the forms of sensible ob!ets without their matter% in the ase of plants the affetion
is an affetion by form/and/matter together" #he problem might be raised1 2an what annot smell
be said to be affeted by smells or what annot see by olours, and so on* It might be said that a
smell is !ust what an be smelt, and if it produes any effet it an only be so as to make
something smell it, and it might be argued that what annot smell annot be affeted by smells
and further that what an smell an be affeted by it only in so far as it has in it the power to
smell ,similarly with the proper ob!ets of all the other senses-" Indeed that this is so is made
'uite e$ident as follows" Light or darkness, sounds and smells lea$e bodies 'uite unaffeted%
what does affet bodies is not these but the bodies whih are their $ehiles, e"g" what splits the
trunk of a tree is not the sound of the thunder but the air whih aompanies thunder" 8es, but, it
may be ob!eted, bodies are affeted by what is tangible and by fla$ours" If not, by what are
things that are without soul affeted, i"e" altered in 'uality* 3ust we not, then, admit that the
ob!ets of the other senses also may affet them* Is not the true aount this, that all bodies are
apable of being affeted by smells and sounds, but that some on being ated upon, ha$ing no
boundaries of their own, disintegrate, as in the instane of air, whih does beome odorous,
showing that some effet is produed on it by what is odorous* .ut smelling is more than suh
an affetion by what is odorous/what more* Is not the answer that, while the air owing to the
momentary duration of the ation upon it of what is odorous does itself beome pereptible to the
sense of smell, smelling is an obser$ing of the result produed*
Book iii
1
#H&# there is no sixth sense in addition to the fi$e enumerated/sight, hearing, smell, taste,
touh/may be established by the following onsiderations1
If we ha$e atually sensation of e$erything of whih touh an gi$e us sensation ,for all the
'ualities of the tangible 'ua tangible are perei$ed by us through touh-% and if absene of a
sense neessarily in$ol$es absene of a sense/organ% and if ,:- all ob!ets that we perei$e by
immediate ontat with them are pereptible by touh, whih sense we atually possess, and ,;-
all ob!ets that we perei$e through media, i"e" without immediate ontat, are pereptible by or
through the simple elements, e"g" air and water ,and this is so arranged that ,a- if more than one
kind of sensible ob!et is perei$able through a single medium, the possessor of a sense/organ
homogeneous with that medium has the power of perei$ing both kinds of ob!ets% for example,
if the sense/organ is made of air, and air is a medium both for sound and for olour% and that ,b-
if more than one medium an transmit the same kind of sensible ob!ets, as e"g" water as well as
air an transmit olour, both being transparent, then the possessor of either alone will be able to
perei$e the kind of ob!ets transmissible through both-% and if of the simple elements two only,
air and water, go to form sense/organs ,for the pupil is made of water, the organ of hearing is
made of air, and the organ of smell of one or other of these two, while fire is found either in none
or in all/warmth being an essential ondition of all sensibility/and earth either in none or, if
anywhere, speially mingled with the omponents of the organ of touh% wherefore it would
remain that there an be no sense/organ formed of anything exept water and air-% and if these
sense/organs are atually found in ertain animals%/then all the possible senses are possessed by
those animals that are not imperfet or mutilated ,for e$en the mole is obser$ed to ha$e eyes
beneath its skin-% so that, if there is no fifth element and no property other than those whih
belong to the four elements of our world, no sense an be wanting to suh animals"
0urther, there annot be a speial sense/organ for the ommon sensibles either, i"e" the ob!ets
whih we perei$e inidentally through this or that speial sense, e"g" mo$ement, rest, figure,
magnitude, number, unity% for all these we perei$e by mo$ement, e"g" magnitude by mo$ement,
and therefore also figure ,for figure is a speies of magnitude-, what is at rest by the absene of
mo$ement1 number is perei$ed by the negation of ontinuity, and by the speial sensibles% for
eah sense perei$es one lass of sensible ob!ets" 5o that it is learly impossible that there
should be a speial sense for any one of the ommon sensibles, e"g" mo$ement% for, if that were
so, our pereption of it would be exatly parallel to our present pereption of what is sweet by
$ision" #hat is so beause we ha$e a sense for eah of the two 'ualities, in $irtue of whih when
they happen to meet in one sensible ob!et we are aware of both ontemporaneously" If it were
not like this our pereption of the ommon 'ualities would always be inidental, i"e" as is the
pereption of 2leon+s son, where we perei$e him not as 2leon+s son but as white, and the white
thing whih we really perei$e happens to be 2leon+s son"
.ut in the ase of the ommon sensibles there is already in us a general sensibility whih enables
us to perei$e them diretly% there is therefore no speial sense re'uired for their pereption1 if
there were, our pereption of them would ha$e been exatly like what has been abo$e desribed"
#he senses perei$e eah other+s speial ob!ets inidentally% not beause the peripient sense is
this or that speial sense, but beause all form a unity1 this inidental pereption takes plae
whene$er sense is direted at one and the same moment to two disparate 'ualities in one and the
same ob!et, e"g" to the bitterness and the yellowness of bile, the assertion of the identity of both
annot be the at of either of the senses% hene the illusion of sense, e"g" the belief that if a thing
is yellow it is bile"
It might be asked why we ha$e more senses than one" Is it to pre$ent a failure to apprehend the
ommon sensibles, e"g" mo$ement, magnitude, and number, whih go along with the speial
sensibles* Had we no sense but sight, and that sense no ob!et but white, they would ha$e tended
to esape our notie and e$erything would ha$e merged for us into an indistinguishable identity
beause of the onomitane of olour and magnitude" &s it is, the fat that the ommon
sensibles are gi$en in the ob!ets of more than one sense re$eals their distintion from eah and
all of the speial sensibles"
2
5ine it is through sense that we are aware that we are seeing or hearing, it must be either by
sight that we are aware of seeing, or by some sense other than sight" .ut the sense that gi$es us
this new sensation must perei$e both sight and its ob!et, $iz" olour1 so that either ,:- there will
be two senses both peripient of the same sensible ob!et, or ,;- the sense must be peripient of
itself" 0urther, e$en if the sense whih perei$es sight were different from sight, we must either
fall into an infinite regress, or we must somewhere assume a sense whih is aware of itself" If so,
we ought to do this in the first ase"
#his presents a diffiulty1 if to perei$e by sight is !ust to see, and what is seen is olour ,or the
oloured-, then if we are to see that whih sees, that whih sees originally must be oloured" It is
lear therefore that (to perei$e by sight+ has more than one meaning% for e$en when we are not
seeing, it is by sight that we disriminate darkness from light, though not in the same way as we
distinguish one olour from another" 0urther, in a sense e$en that whih sees is oloured% for in
eah ase the sense/organ is apable of reei$ing the sensible ob!et without its matter" #hat is
why e$en when the sensible ob!ets are gone the sensings and imaginings ontinue to exist in the
sense/organs"
#he ati$ity of the sensible ob!et and that of the peripient sense is one and the same ati$ity,
and yet the distintion between their being remains" #ake as illustration atual sound and atual
hearing1 a man may ha$e hearing and yet not be hearing, and that whih has a sound is not
always sounding" .ut when that whih an hear is ati$ely hearing and whih an sound is
sounding, then the atual hearing and the atual sound are merged in one ,these one might all
respeti$ely hearkening and sounding-"
If it is true that the mo$ement, both the ating and the being ated upon, is to be found in that
whih is ated upon, both the sound and the hearing so far as it is atual must be found in that
whih has the faulty of hearing% for it is in the passi$e fator that the atuality of the ati$e or
moti$e fator is realized% that is why that whih auses mo$ement may be at rest" Now the
atuality of that whih an sound is !ust sound or sounding, and the atuality of that whih an
hear is hearing or hearkening% (sound+ and (hearing+ are both ambiguous" #he same aount
applies to the other senses and their ob!ets" 0or as the/ating/and/being/ated/upon is to be
found in the passi$e, not in the ati$e fator, so also the atuality of the sensible ob!et and that
of the sensiti$e sub!et are both realized in the latter" .ut while in some ases eah aspet of the
total atuality has a distint name, e"g" sounding and hearkening, in some one or other is
nameless, e"g" the atuality of sight is alled seeing, but the atuality of olour has no name1 the
atuality of the faulty of taste is alled tasting, but the atuality of fla$our has no name" 5ine
the atualities of the sensible ob!et and of the sensiti$e faulty are one atuality in spite of the
differene between their modes of being, atual hearing and atual sounding appear and
disappear from existene at one and the same moment, and so atual sa$our and atual tasting,
9", while as potentialities one of them may exist without the other" #he earlier students of
nature were mistaken in their $iew that without sight there was no white or blak, without taste
no sa$our" #his statement of theirs is partly true, partly false1 (sense+ and (the sensible ob!et+ are
ambiguous terms, i"e" may denote either potentialities or atualities1 the statement is true of the
latter, false of the former" #his ambiguity they wholly failed to notie"
If $oie always implies a onord, and if the $oie and the hearing of it are in one sense one and
the same, and if onord always implies a ratio, hearing as well as what is heard must be a ratio"
#hat is why the exess of either the sharp or the flat destroys the hearing" ,5o also in the ase of
sa$ours exess destroys the sense of taste, and in the ase of olours exessi$e brightness or
darkness destroys the sight, and in the ase of smell exess of strength whether in the diretion of
sweetness or bitterness is destruti$e"- #his shows that the sense is a ratio"
#hat is also why the ob!ets of sense are ,:- pleasant when the sensible extremes suh as aid or
sweet or salt being pure and unmixed are brought into the proper ratio% then they are pleasant1
and in general what is blended is more pleasant than the sharp or the flat alone% or, to touh, that
whih is apable of being either warmed or hilled1 the sense and the ratio are idential1 while
,;- in exess the sensible extremes are painful or destruti$e"
6ah sense then is relati$e to its partiular group of sensible 'ualities1 it is found in a sense/organ
as suh and disriminates the differenes whih exist within that group% e"g" sight disriminates
white and blak, taste sweet and bitter, and so in all ases" 5ine we also disriminate white from
sweet, and indeed eah sensible 'uality from e$ery other, with what do we perei$e that they are
different* It must be by sense% for what is before us is sensible ob!ets" ,Hene it is also ob$ious
that the flesh annot be the ultimate sense/organ1 if it were, the disriminating power ould not
do its work without immediate ontat with the ob!et"-
#herefore ,:- disrimination between white and sweet annot be effeted by two agenies whih
remain separate% both the 'ualities disriminated must be present to something that is one and
single" On any other supposition e$en if I perei$ed sweet and you perei$ed white, the
differene between them would be apparent" )hat says that two things are different must be one%
for sweet is different from white" #herefore what asserts this differene must be self/idential,
and as what asserts, so also what thinks or perei$es" #hat it is not possible by means of two
agenies whih remain separate to disriminate two ob!ets whih are separate, is therefore
ob$ious% and that ,it is not possible to do this in separate mo$ements of time may be seen+ if we
look at it as follows" 0or as what asserts the differene between the good and the bad is one and
the same, so also the time at whih it asserts the one to be different and the other to be different
is not aidental to the assertion ,as it is for instane when I now assert a differene but do not
assert that there is now a differene-% it asserts thus/both now and that the ob!ets are different
now% the ob!ets therefore must be present at one and the same moment" .oth the disriminating
power and the time of its exerise must be one and undi$ided"
.ut, it may be ob!eted, it is impossible that what is self/idential should be mo$ed at me and the
same time with ontrary mo$ements in so far as it is undi$ided, and in an undi$ided moment of
time" 0or if what is sweet be the 'uality perei$ed, it mo$es the sense or thought in this
determinate way, while what is bitter mo$es it in a ontrary way, and what is white in a different
way" Is it the ase then that what disriminates, though both numerially one and indi$isible, is at
the same time di$ided in its being* In one sense, it is what is di$ided that perei$es two separate
ob!ets at one, but in another sense it does so 'ua undi$ided% for it is di$isible in its being but
spatially and numerially undi$ided" is not this impossible* 0or while it is true that what is self/
idential and undi$ided may be both ontraries at one potentially, it annot be self/idential in
its being/it must lose its unity by being put into ati$ity" It is not possible to be at one white and
blak, and therefore it must also be impossible for a thing to be affeted at one and the same
moment by the forms of both, assuming it to be the ase that sensation and thinking are properly
so desribed"
#he answer is that !ust as what is alled a (point+ is, as being at one one and two, properly said
to be di$isible, so here, that whih disriminates is 'ua undi$ided one, and ati$e in a single
moment of time, while so far forth as it is di$isible it twie o$er uses the same dot at one and the
same time" 5o far forth then as it takes the limit as two+ it disriminates two separate ob!ets with
what in a sense is di$ided1 while so far as it takes it as one, it does so with what is one and
oupies in its ati$ity a single moment of time"
&bout the priniple in $irtue of whih we say that animals are peripient, let this disussion
suffie"
3
#here are two distinti$e peuliarities by referene to whih we haraterize the soul ,:- loal
mo$ement and ,;- thinking, disriminating, and perei$ing" #hinking both speulati$e and
pratial is regarded as akin to a form of perei$ing% for in the one as well as the other the soul
disriminates and is ognizant of something whih is" Indeed the anients go so far as to identify
thinking and perei$ing% e"g" 6mpedoles says (0or (tis in respet of what is present that man+s
wit is inreased+, and again ()hene it befalls them from time to time to think di$erse thoughts+,
and Homer+s phrase (0or suhlike is man+s mind+ means the same" #hey all look upon thinking
as a bodily proess like perei$ing, and hold that like is known as well as perei$ed by like, as I
explained at the beginning of our disussion" 8et they ought at the same time to ha$e aounted
for error also% for it is more intimately onneted with animal existene and the soul ontinues
longer in the state of error than in that of truth" #hey annot esape the dilemma1 either ,:-
whate$er seems is true ,and there are some who aept this- or ,;- error is ontat with the
unlike% for that is the opposite of the knowing of like by like"
.ut it is a reei$ed priniple that error as well as knowledge in respet to ontraries is one and
the same"
#hat perei$ing and pratial thinking are not idential is therefore ob$ious% for the former is
uni$ersal in the animal world, the latter is found in only a small di$ision of it" 0urther,
speulati$e thinking is also distint from perei$ing/I mean that in whih we find rightness and
wrongness/rightness in prudene, knowledge, true opinion, wrongness in their opposites% for
pereption of the speial ob!ets of sense is always free from error, and is found in all animals,
while it is possible to think falsely as well as truly, and thought is found only where there is
disourse of reason as well as sensibility" 0or imagination is different from either perei$ing or
disursi$e thinking, though it is not found without sensation, or !udgement without it" #hat this
ati$ity is not the same kind of thinking as !udgement is ob$ious" 0or imagining lies within our
own power whene$er we wish ,e"g" we an all up a piture, as in the pratie of mnemonis by
the use of mental images-, but in forming opinions we are not free1 we annot esape the
alternati$e of falsehood or truth" 0urther, when we think something to be fearful or threatening,
emotion is immediately produed, and so too with what is enouraging% but when we merely
imagine we remain as unaffeted as persons who are looking at a painting of some dreadful or
enouraging sene" &gain within the field of !udgement itself we find $arieties, knowledge,
opinion, prudene, and their opposites% of the differenes between these I must speak elsewhere"
#hinking is different from perei$ing and is held to be in part imagination, in part !udgement1 we
must therefore first mark off the sphere of imagination and then speak of !udgement" If then
imagination is that in $irtue of whih an image arises for us, exluding metaphorial uses of the
term, is it a single faulty or disposition relati$e to images, in $irtue of whih we disriminate
and are either in error or not* #he faulties in $irtue of whih we do this are sense, opinion,
siene, intelligene"
#hat imagination is not sense is lear from the following onsiderations1 5ense is either a faulty
or an ati$ity, e"g" sight or seeing1 imagination takes plae in the absene of both, as e"g" in
dreams" ,&gain, sense is always present, imagination not" If atual imagination and atual
sensation were the same, imagination would be found in all the brutes1 this is held not to be the
ase% e"g" it is not found in ants or bees or grubs" ,&gain, sensations are always true, imaginations
are for the most part false" ,One more, e$en in ordinary speeh, we do not, when sense
funtions preisely with regard to its ob!et, say that we imagine it to be a man, but rather when
there is some failure of auray in its exerise" &nd as we were saying before, $isions appear to
us e$en when our eyes are shut" Neither is imagination any of the things that are ne$er in error1
e"g" knowledge or intelligene% for imagination may be false"
It remains therefore to see if it is opinion, for opinion may be either true or false"
.ut opinion in$ol$es belief ,for without belief in what we opine we annot ha$e an opinion-, and
in the brutes though we often find imagination we ne$er find belief" 0urther, e$ery opinion is
aompanied by belief, belief by on$ition, and on$ition by disourse of reason1 while there
are some of the brutes in whih we find imagination, without disourse of reason" It is lear then
that imagination annot, again, be ,:- opinion plus sensation, or ,;- opinion mediated by
sensation, or ,>- a blend of opinion and sensation% this is impossible both for these reasons and
beause the ontent of the supposed opinion annot be different from that of the sensation ,I
mean that imagination must be the blending of the pereption of white with the opinion that it is
white1 it ould sarely be a blend of the opinion that it is good with the pereption that it is
white-1 to imagine is therefore ,on this $iew- idential with the thinking of exatly the same as
what one in the stritest sense perei$es" .ut what we imagine is sometimes false though our
ontemporaneous !udgement about it is true% e"g" we imagine the sun to be a foot in diameter
though we are on$ined that it is larger than the inhabited part of the earth, and the following
dilemma presents itself" 6ither ,a while the fat has not hanged and the ,obser$er has neither
forgotten nor lost belief in the true opinion whih he had, that opinion has disappeared, or ,b- if
he retains it then his opinion is at one true and false" & true opinion, howe$er, beomes false
only when the fat alters without being notied"
Imagination is therefore neither any one of the states enumerated, nor ompounded out of them"
.ut sine when one thing has been set in motion another thing may be mo$ed by it, and
imagination is held to be a mo$ement and to be impossible without sensation, i"e" to our in
beings that are peripient and to ha$e for its ontent what an be perei$ed, and sine mo$ement
may be produed by atual sensation and that mo$ement is neessarily similar in harater to the
sensation itself, this mo$ement must be ,:- neessarily ,a- inapable of existing apart from
sensation, ,b- inapable of existing exept when we perei$e, ,suh that in $irtue of its
possession that in whih it is found may present $arious phenomena both ati$e and passi$e, and
,suh that it may be either true or false"
#he reason of the last harateristi is as follows" 4ereption ,:- of the speial ob!ets of sense is
ne$er in error or admits the least possible amount of falsehood" ,;- #hat of the onomitane of
the ob!ets onomitant with the sensible 'ualities omes next1 in this ase ertainly we may be
deei$ed% for while the pereption that there is white before us annot be false, the pereption
that what is white is this or that may be false" ,>- #hird omes the pereption of the uni$ersal
attributes whih aompany the onomitant ob!ets to whih the speial sensibles attah ,I
mean e"g" of mo$ement and magnitude-% it is in respet of these that the greatest amount of
sense/illusion is possible"
#he motion whih is due to the ati$ity of sense in these three modes of its exerise will differ
from the ati$ity of sense% ,:- the first kind of deri$ed motion is free from error while the
sensation is present% ,;- and ,>- the others may be erroneous whether it is present or absent,
espeially when the ob!et of pereption is far off" If then imagination presents no other features
than those enumerated and is what we ha$e desribed, then imagination must be a mo$ement
resulting from an atual exerise of a power of sense"
&s sight is the most highly de$eloped sense, the name 4hantasia ,imagination- has been formed
from 4haos ,light- beause it is not possible to see without light"
&nd beause imaginations remain in the organs of sense and resemble sensations, animals in
their ations are largely guided by them, some ,i"e" the brutes- beause of the non/existene in
them of mind, others ,i"e" men- beause of the temporary elipse in them of mind by feeling or
disease or sleep"
&bout imagination, what it is and why it exists, let so muh suffie"
4
#urning now to the part of the soul with whih the soul knows and thinks ,whether this is
separable from the others in definition only, or spatially as well- we ha$e to in'uire ,:- what
differentiates this part, and ,;- how thinking an take plae"
If thinking is like perei$ing, it must be either a proess in whih the soul is ated upon by what
is apable of being thought, or a proess different from but analogous to that" #he thinking part
of the soul must therefore be, while impassible, apable of reei$ing the form of an ob!et% that
is, must be potentially idential in harater with its ob!et without being the ob!et" 3ind must
be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible"
#herefore, sine e$erything is a possible ob!et of thought, mind in order, as &naxagoras says, to
dominate, that is, to know, must be pure from all admixture% for the o/presene of what is alien
to its nature is a hindrane and a blok1 it follows that it too, like the sensiti$e part, an ha$e no
nature of its own, other than that of ha$ing a ertain apaity" #hus that in the soul whih is
alled mind ,by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and !udges- is, before it thinks, not
atually any real thing" 0or this reason it annot reasonably be regarded as blended with the
body1 if so, it would a'uire some 'uality, e"g" warmth or old, or e$en ha$e an organ like the
sensiti$e faulty1 as it is, it has none" It was a good idea to all the soul (the plae of forms+,
though ,:- this desription holds only of the intelleti$e soul, and ,;- e$en this is the forms only
potentially, not atually"
Obser$ation of the sense/organs and their employment re$eals a distintion between the
impassibility of the sensiti$e and that of the intelleti$e faulty" &fter strong stimulation of a
sense we are less able to exerise it than before, as e"g" in the ase of a loud sound we annot
hear easily immediately after, or in the ase of a bright olour or a powerful odour we annot see
or smell, but in the ase of mind thought about an ob!et that is highly intelligible renders it more
and not less able afterwards to think ob!ets that are less intelligible1 the reason is that while the
faulty of sensation is dependent upon the body, mind is separable from it"
One the mind has beome eah set of its possible ob!ets, as a man of siene has, when this
phrase is used of one who is atually a man of siene ,this happens when he is now able to
exerise the power on his own initiati$e-, its ondition is still one of potentiality, but in a
different sense from the potentiality whih preeded the a'uisition of knowledge by learning or
diso$ery1 the mind too is then able to think itself"
5ine we an distinguish between a spatial magnitude and what it is to be suh, and between
water and what it is to be water, and so in many other ases ,though not in all% for in ertain ases
the thing and its form are idential-, flesh and what it is to be flesh are disriminated either by
different faulties, or by the same faulty in two different states1 for flesh neessarily in$ol$es
matter and is like what is snub/nosed, a this in a this" Now it is by means of the sensiti$e faulty
that we disriminate the hot and the old, i"e" the fators whih ombined in a ertain ratio
onstitute flesh1 the essential harater of flesh is apprehended by something different either
wholly separate from the sensiti$e faulty or related to it as a bent line to the same line when it
has been straightened out"
&gain in the ase of abstrat ob!ets what is straight is analogous to what is snub/nosed% for it
neessarily implies a ontinuum as its matter1 its onstituti$e essene is different, if we may
distinguish between straightness and what is straight1 let us take it to be two/ness" It must be
apprehended, therefore, by a different power or by the same power in a different state" #o sum
up, in so far as the realities it knows are apable of being separated from their matter, so it is also
with the powers of mind"
#he problem might be suggested1 if thinking is a passi$e affetion, then if mind is simple and
impassible and has nothing in ommon with anything else, as &naxagoras says, how an it ome
to think at all* 0or interation between two fators is held to re'uire a preedent ommunity of
nature between the fators" &gain it might be asked, is mind a possible ob!et of thought to
itself* 0or if mind is thinkable per se and what is thinkable is in kind one and the same, then
either ,a- mind will belong to e$erything, or ,b- mind will ontain some element ommon to it
with all other realities whih makes them all thinkable"
,:- Ha$e not we already disposed of the diffiulty about interation in$ol$ing a ommon
element, when we said that mind is in a sense potentially whate$er is thinkable, though atually
it is nothing until it has thought* )hat it thinks must be in it !ust as haraters may be said to be
on a writingtablet on whih as yet nothing atually stands written1 this is exatly what happens
with mind"
,3ind is itself thinkable in exatly the same way as its ob!ets are" 0or ,a- in the ase of ob!ets
whih in$ol$e no matter, what thinks and what is thought are idential% for speulati$e
knowledge and its ob!et are idential" ,)hy mind is not always thinking we must onsider
later"- ,b- In the ase of those whih ontain matter eah of the ob!ets of thought is only
potentially present" It follows that while they will not ha$e mind in them ,for mind is a
potentiality of them only in so far as they are apable of being disengaged from matter- mind
may yet be thinkable"
5
5ine in e$ery lass of things, as in nature as a whole, we find two fators in$ol$ed, ,:- a matter
whih is potentially all the partiulars inluded in the lass, ,;- a ause whih is produti$e in the
sense that it makes them all ,the latter standing to the former, as e"g" an art to its material-, these
distint elements must likewise be found within the soul"
&nd in fat mind as we ha$e desribed it is what it is what it is by $irtue of beoming all things,
while there is another whih is what it is by $irtue of making all things1 this is a sort of positi$e
state like light% for in a sense light makes potential olours into atual olours"
3ind in this sense of it is separable, impassible, unmixed, sine it is in its essential nature
ati$ity ,for always the ati$e is superior to the passi$e fator, the originating fore to the matter
whih it forms-"
&tual knowledge is idential with its ob!et1 in the indi$idual, potential knowledge is in time
prior to atual knowledge, but in the uni$erse as a whole it is not prior e$en in time" 3ind is not
at one time knowing and at another not" )hen mind is set free from its present onditions it
appears as !ust what it is and nothing more1 this alone is immortal and eternal ,we do not,
howe$er, remember its former ati$ity beause, while mind in this sense is impassible, mind as
passi$e is destrutible-, and without it nothing thinks"
6
#he thinking then of the simple ob!ets of thought is found in those ases where falsehood is
impossible1 where the alternati$e of true or false applies, there we always find a putting together
of ob!ets of thought in a 'uasi/unity" &s 6mpedoles said that (where heads of many a reature
sprouted without neks+ they afterwards by Lo$e+s power were ombined, so here too ob!ets of
thought whih were gi$en separate are ombined, e"g" (inommensurate+ and (diagonal+1 if the
ombination be of ob!ets past or future the ombination of thought inludes in its ontent the
date" 0or falsehood always in$ol$es a synthesis% for e$en if you assert that what is white is not
white you ha$e inluded not white in a synthesis" It is possible also to all all these ases di$ision
as well as ombination" Howe$er that may be, there is not only the true or false assertion that
2leon is white but also the true or false assertion that he was or will he white" In eah and e$ery
ase that whih unifies is mind"
5ine the word (simple+ has two senses, i"e" may mean either ,a- (not apable of being di$ided+ or
,b- (not atually di$ided+, there is nothing to pre$ent mind from knowing what is undi$ided, e"g"
when it apprehends a length ,whih is atually undi$ided- and that in an undi$ided time% for the
time is di$ided or undi$ided in the same manner as the line" It is not possible, then, to tell what
part of the line it was apprehending in eah half of the time1 the ob!et has no atual parts until it
has been di$ided1 if in thought you think eah half separately, then by the same at you di$ide
the time also, the half/lines beoming as it were new wholes of length" .ut if you think it as a
whole onsisting of these two possible parts, then also you think it in a time whih orresponds
to both parts together" ,.ut what is not 'uantitati$ely but 'ualitati$ely simple is thought in a
simple time and by a simple at of the soul"-
.ut that whih mind thinks and the time in whih it thinks are in this ase di$isible only
inidentally and not as suh" 0or in them too there is something indi$isible ,though, it may be,
not isolable- whih gi$es unity to the time and the whole of length% and this is found e'ually in
e$ery ontinuum whether temporal or spatial"
4oints and similar instanes of things that di$ide, themsel$es being indi$isible, are realized in
onsiousness in the same manner as pri$ations"
& similar aount may be gi$en of all other ases, e"g" how e$il or blak is ognized% they are
ognized, in a sense, by means of their ontraries" #hat whih ognizes must ha$e an element of
potentiality in its being, and one of the ontraries must be in it" .ut if there is anything that has
no ontrary, then it knows itself and is atually and possesses independent existene"
&ssertion is the saying of something onerning something, e"g" affirmation, and is in e$ery ase
either true or false1 this is not always the ase with mind1 the thinking of the definition in the
sense of the onstituti$e essene is ne$er in error nor is it the assertion of something onerning
something, but, !ust as while the seeing of the speial ob!et of sight an ne$er be in error, the
belief that the white ob!et seen is a man may be mistaken, so too in the ase of ob!ets whih
are without matter"

&tual knowledge is idential with its ob!et1 potential knowledge in the indi$idual is in time
prior to atual knowledge but in the uni$erse it has no priority e$en in time% for all things that
ome into being arise from what atually is" In the ase of sense learly the sensiti$e faulty
already was potentially what the ob!et makes it to be atually% the faulty is not affeted or
altered" #his must therefore be a different kind from mo$ement% for mo$ement is, as we saw, an
ati$ity of what is imperfet, ati$ity in the un'ualified sense, i"e" that of what has been
perfeted, is different from mo$ement"
#o perei$e then is like bare asserting or knowing% but when the ob!et is pleasant or painful, the
soul makes a 'uasi/affirmation or negation, and pursues or a$oids the ob!et" #o feel pleasure or
pain is to at with the sensiti$e mean towards what is good or bad as suh" .oth a$oidane and
appetite when atual are idential with this1 the faulty of appetite and a$oidane are not
different, either from one another or from the faulty of sense/pereption% but their being is
different"
#o the thinking soul images ser$e as if they were ontents of pereption ,and when it asserts or
denies them to be good or bad it a$oids or pursues them-" #hat is why the soul ne$er thinks
without an image" #he proess is like that in whih the air modifies the pupil in this or that way
and the pupil transmits the modifiation to some third thing ,and similarly in hearing-, while the
ultimate point of arri$al is one, a single mean, with different manners of being"
)ith what part of itself the soul disriminates sweet from hot I ha$e explained before and must
now desribe again as follows1 #hat with whih it does so is a sort of unity, but in the way !ust
mentioned, i"e" as a onneting term" &nd the two faulties it onnets, being one by analogy and
numerially, are eah to eah as the 'ualities diserned are to one another ,for what differene
does it make whether we raise the problem of disrimination between disparates or between
ontraries, e"g" white and blak*-" Let then 2 be to D as is to .1 it follows alternando that 21 &11
D1 ." If then 2 and D belong to one sub!et, the ase will be the same with them as with and .%
and . form a single identity with different modes of being% so too will the former pair" #he same
reasoning holds if be sweet and . white"
#he faulty of thinking then thinks the forms in the images, and as in the former ase what is to
be pursued or a$oided is marked out for it, so where there is no sensation and it is engaged upon
the images it is mo$ed to pursuit or a$oidane" 6"g"" perei$ing by sense that the beaon is fire, it
reognizes in $irtue of the general faulty of sense that it signifies an enemy, beause it sees it
mo$ing% but sometimes by means of the images or thoughts whih are within the soul, !ust as if it
were seeing, it alulates and deliberates what is to ome by referene to what is present% and
when it makes a pronounement, as in the ase of sensation it pronounes the ob!et to be
pleasant or painful, in this ase it a$oids or persues and so generally in ases of ation"
#hat too whih in$ol$es no ation, i"e" that whih is true or false, is in the same pro$ine with
what is good or bad1 yet they differ in this, that the one set imply and the other do not a referene
to a partiular person"
#he so/alled abstrat ob!ets the mind thinks !ust as, if one had thought of the snubnosed not as
snub/nosed but as hollow, one would ha$e thought of an atuality without the flesh in whih it is
embodied1 it is thus that the mind when it is thinking the ob!ets of 3athematis thinks as
separate elements whih do not exist separate" In e$ery ase the mind whih is ati$ely thinking
is the ob!ets whih it thinks" )hether it is possible for it while not existing separate from spatial
onditions to think anything that is separate, or not, we must onsider later"
!
Let us now summarize our results about soul, and repeat that the soul is in a way all existing
things% for existing things are either sensible or thinkable, and knowledge is in a way what is
knowable, and sensation is in a way what is sensible1 in what way we must in'uire"
?nowledge and sensation are di$ided to orrespond with the realities, potential knowledge and
sensation answering to potentialities, atual knowledge and sensation to atualities" )ithin the
soul the faulties of knowledge and sensation are potentially these ob!ets, the one what is
knowable, the other what is sensible" #hey must be either the things themsel$es or their forms"
#he former alternati$e is of ourse impossible1 it is not the stone whih is present in the soul but
its form"
It follows that the soul is analogous to the hand% for as the hand is a tool of tools, so the mind is
the form of forms and sense the form of sensible things"
5ine aording to ommon agreement there is nothing outside and separate in existene from
sensible spatial magnitudes, the ob!ets of thought are in the sensible forms, $iz" both the abstrat
ob!ets and all the states and affetions of sensible things" Hene ,:- no one an learn or
understand anything in the absene of sense, and ,when the mind is ati$ely aware of anything it
is neessarily aware of it along with an image% for images are like sensuous ontents exept in
that they ontain no matter"
Imagination is different from assertion and denial% for what is true or false in$ol$es a synthesis of
onepts" In what will the primary onepts differ from images* 3ust we not say that neither
these nor e$en our other onepts are images, though they neessarily in$ol$e them*
"
#he soul of animals is haraterized by two faulties, ,a- the faulty of disrimination whih is
the work of thought and sense, and ,b- the faulty of originating loal mo$ement" 5ense and
mind we ha$e now suffiiently examined" Let us next onsider what it is in the soul whih
originates mo$ement" Is it a single part of the soul separate either spatially or in definition* Or is
it the soul as a whole* If it is a part, is that part different from those usually distinguished or
already mentioned by us, or is it one of them* #he problem at one presents itself, in what sense
we are to speak of parts of the soul, or how many we should distinguish" 0or in a sense there is
an infinity of parts1 it is not enough to distinguish, with some thinkers, the alulati$e, the
passionate, and the desiderati$e, or with others the rational and the irrational% for if we take the
di$iding lines followed by these thinkers we shall find parts far more distintly separated from
one another than these, namely those we ha$e !ust mentioned1 ,:- the nutriti$e, whih belongs
both to plants and to all animals, and ,;- the sensiti$e, whih annot easily be lassed as either
irrational or rational% further ,>- the imaginati$e, whih is, in its being, different from all, while it
is $ery hard to say with whih of the others it is the same or not the same, supposing we
determine to posit separate parts in the soul% and lastly ,@- the appetiti$e, whih would seem to
be distint both in definition and in power from all hitherto enumerated"
It is absurd to break up the last/mentioned faulty1 as these thinkers do, for wish is found in the
alulati$e part and desire and passion in the irrational% and if the soul is tripartite appetite will
be found in all three parts" #urning our attention to the present ob!et of disussion, let us ask
what that is whih originates loal mo$ement of the animal"
#he mo$ement of growth and deay, being found in all li$ing things, must be attributed to the
faulty of reprodution and nutrition, whih is ommon to all1 inspiration and expiration, sleep
and waking, we must onsider later1 these too present muh diffiulty1 at present we must
onsider loal mo$ement, asking what it is that originates forward mo$ement in the animal"
#hat it is not the nutriti$e faulty is ob$ious% for this kind of mo$ement is always for an end and
is aompanied either by imagination or by appetite% for no animal mo$es exept by ompulsion
unless it has an impulse towards or away from an ob!et" 0urther, if it were the nutriti$e faulty,
e$en plants would ha$e been apable of originating suh mo$ement and would ha$e possessed
the organs neessary to arry it out" 5imilarly it annot be the sensiti$e faulty either% for there
are many animals whih ha$e sensibility but remain fast and immo$able throughout their li$es"
If then Nature ne$er makes anything without a purpose and ne$er lea$es out what is neessary
,exept in the ase of mutilated or imperfet growths% and that here we ha$e neither mutilation
nor imperfetion may be argued from the fats that suh animals ,a- an reprodue their speies
and ,b- rise to ompleteness of nature and deay to an end-, it follows that, had they been apable
of originating forward mo$ement, they would ha$e possessed the organs neessary for that
purpose" 0urther, neither an the alulati$e faulty or what is alled (mind+ be the ause of suh
mo$ement% for mind as speulati$e ne$er thinks what is pratiable, it ne$er says anything about
an ob!et to be a$oided or pursued, while this mo$ement is always in something whih is
a$oiding or pursuing an ob!et" No, not e$en when it is aware of suh an ob!et does it at one
en!oin pursuit or a$oidane of it% e"g" the mind often thinks of something terrifying or pleasant
without en!oining the emotion of fear" It is the heart that is mo$ed ,or in the ase of a pleasant
ob!et some other part-" 0urther, e$en when the mind does ommand and thought bids us pursue
or a$oid something, sometimes no mo$ement is produed% we at in aordane with desire, as
in the ase of moral weakness" &nd, generally, we obser$e that the possessor of medial
knowledge is not neessarily healing, whih shows that something else is re'uired to produe
ation in aordane with knowledge% the knowledge alone is not the ause" Lastly, appetite too
is inompetent to aount fully for mo$ement% for those who suessfully resist temptation ha$e
appetite and desire and yet follow mind and refuse to enat that for whih they ha$e appetite"
1#
#hese two at all e$ents appear to be soures of mo$ement1 appetite and mind ,if one may $enture
to regard imagination as a kind of thinking% for many men follow their imaginations ontrary to
knowledge, and in all animals other than man there is no thinking or alulation but only
imagination-"
.oth of these then are apable of originating loal mo$ement, mind and appetite1 ,:- mind, that
is, whih alulates means to an end, i"e" mind pratial ,it differs from mind speulati$e in the
harater of its end-% while ,;- appetite is in e$ery form of it relati$e to an end1 for that whih is
the ob!et of appetite is the stimulant of mind pratial% and that whih is last in the proess of
thinking is the beginning of the ation" It follows that there is a !ustifiation for regarding these
two as the soures of mo$ement, i"e" appetite and pratial thought% for the ob!et of appetite
starts a mo$ement and as a result of that thought gi$es rise to mo$ement, the ob!et of appetite
being it a soure of stimulation" 5o too when imagination originates mo$ement, it neessarily
in$ol$es appetite"
#hat whih mo$es therefore is a single faulty and the faulty of appetite% for if there had been
two soures of mo$ement/mind and appetite/they would ha$e produed mo$ement in $irtue of
some ommon harater" &s it is, mind is ne$er found produing mo$ement without appetite ,for
wish is a form of appetite% and when mo$ement is produed aording to alulation it is also
aording to wish-, but appetite an originate mo$ement ontrary to alulation, for desire is a
form of appetite" Now mind is always right, but appetite and imagination may be either right or
wrong" #hat is why, though in any ase it is the ob!et of appetite whih originates mo$ement,
this ob!et may be either the real or the apparent good" #o produe mo$ement the ob!et must be
more than this1 it must be good that an be brought into being by ation% and only what an be
otherwise than as it is an thus be brought into being" #hat then suh a power in the soul as has
been desribed, i"e" that alled appetite, originates mo$ement is lear" #hose who distinguish
parts in the soul, if they distinguish and di$ide in aordane with differenes of power, find
themsel$es with a $ery large number of parts, a nutriti$e, a sensiti$e, an intelleti$e, a
deliberati$e, and now an appetiti$e part% for these are more different from one another than the
faulties of desire and passion"
5ine appetites run ounter to one another, whih happens when a priniple of reason and a
desire are ontrary and is possible only in beings with a sense of time ,for while mind bids us
hold bak beause of what is future, desire is influened by what is !ust at hand1 a pleasant ob!et
whih is !ust at hand presents itself as both pleasant and good, without ondition in either ase,
beause of want of foresight into what is farther away in time-, it follows that while that whih
originates mo$ement must be speifially one, $iz" the faulty of appetite as suh ,or rather
farthest bak of all the ob!et of that faulty% for it is it that itself remaining unmo$ed originates
the mo$ement by being apprehended in thought or imagination-, the things that originate
mo$ement are numerially many"
&ll mo$ement in$ol$es three fators, ,:- that whih originates the mo$ement, ,;- that by means
of whih it originates it, and ,>- that whih is mo$ed" #he expression (that whih originates the
mo$ement+ is ambiguous1 it may mean either ,a- something whih itself is unmo$ed or ,b- that
whih at one mo$es and is mo$ed" Here that whih mo$es without itself being mo$ed is the
realizable good, that whih at one mo$es and is mo$ed is the faulty of appetite ,for that whih
is influened by appetite so far as it is atually so influened is set in mo$ement, and appetite in
the sense of atual appetite is a kind of mo$ement-, while that whih is in motion is the animal"
#he instrument whih appetite employs to produe mo$ement is no longer psyhial but bodily1
hene the examination of it falls within the pro$ine of the funtions ommon to body and soul"
#o state the matter summarily at present, that whih is the instrument in the prodution of
mo$ement is to be found where a beginning and an end oinide as e"g" in a ball and soket !oint%
for there the on$ex and the ona$e sides are respeti$ely an end and a beginning ,that is why
while the one remains at rest, the other is mo$ed-1 they are separate in definition but not
separable spatially" 0or e$erything is mo$ed by pushing and pulling" Hene !ust as in the ase of
a wheel, so here there must be a point whih remains at rest, and from that point the mo$ement
must originate"
#o sum up, then, and repeat what I ha$e said, inasmuh as an animal is apable of appetite it is
apable of self/mo$ement% it is not apable of appetite without possessing imagination% and all
imagination is either ,:- alulati$e or ,;- sensiti$e" In the latter an animals, and not only man,
partake"
11
)e must onsider also in the ase of imperfet animals, s" those whih ha$e no sense but touh,
what it is that in them originates mo$ement" 2an they ha$e imagination or not* or desire*
2learly they ha$e feelings of pleasure and pain, and if they ha$e these they must ha$e desire" .ut
how an they ha$e imagination* 3ust not we say that, as their mo$ements are indefinite, they
ha$e imagination and desire, but indefinitely*
5ensiti$e imagination, as we ha$e said, is found in all animals, deliberati$e imagination only in
those that are alulati$e1 for whether this or that shall be enated is already a task re'uiring
alulation% and there must be a single standard to measure by, for that is pursued whih is
greater" It follows that what ats in this way must be able to make a unity out of se$eral images"
#his is the reason why imagination is held not to in$ol$e opinion, in that it does not in$ol$e
opinion based on inferene, though opinion in$ol$es imagination" Hene appetite ontains no
deliberati$e element" 5ometimes it o$erpowers wish and sets it in mo$ement1 at times wish ats
thus upon appetite, like one sphere imparting its mo$ement to another, or appetite ats thus upon
appetite, i"e" in the ondition of moral weakness ,though by nature the higher faulty is always
more authoritati$e and gi$es rise to mo$ement-" #hus three modes of mo$ement are possible"
#he faulty of knowing is ne$er mo$ed but remains at rest" 5ine the one premiss or !udgement
is uni$ersal and the other deals with the partiular ,for the first tells us that suh and suh a kind
of man should do suh and suh a kind of at, and the seond that this is an at of the kind meant,
and I a person of the type intended-, it is the latter opinion that really originates mo$ement, not
the uni$ersal% or rather it is both, but the one does so while it remains in a state more like rest,
while the other partakes in mo$ement"
12
#he nutriti$e soul then must be possessed by e$erything that is ali$e, and e$ery suh thing is
endowed with soul from its birth to its death" 0or what has been born must grow, reah maturity,
and deay/all of whih are impossible without nutrition" #herefore the nutriti$e faulty must be
found in e$erything that grows and deays"
.ut sensation need not be found in all things that li$e" 0or it is impossible for touh to belong
either ,:- to those whose body is unompounded or ,;- to those whih are inapable of taking in
the forms without their matter"
.ut animals must be endowed with sensation, sine Nature does nothing in $ain" 0or all things
that exist by Nature are means to an end, or will be onomitants of means to an end" 6$ery body
apable of forward mo$ement would, if unendowed with sensation, perish and fail to reah its
end, whih is the aim of Nature% for how ould it obtain nutriment* 5tationary li$ing things, it is
true, ha$e as their nutriment that from whih they ha$e arisen% but it is not possible that a body
whih is not stationary but produed by generation should ha$e a soul and a diserning mind
without also ha$ing sensation" ,Nor yet e$en if it were not produed by generation" )hy should
it not ha$e sensation* .eause it were better so either for the body or for the soul* .ut learly it
would not be better for either1 the absene of sensation will not enable the one to think better or
the other to exist better"- #herefore no body whih is not stationary has soul without sensation"
.ut if a body has sensation, it must be either simple or ompound" &nd simple it annot be% for
then it ould not ha$e touh, whih is indispensable" #his is lear from what follows" &n animal
is a body with soul in it1 e$ery body is tangible, i"e" pereptible by touh% hene neessarily, if an
animal is to sur$i$e, its body must ha$e tatual sensation" &ll the other senses, e"g" smell, sight,
hearing, apprehend through media% but where there is immediate ontat the animal, if it has no
sensation, will be unable to a$oid some things and take others, and so will find it impossible to
sur$i$e" #hat is why taste also is a sort of touh% it is relati$e to nutriment, whih is !ust tangible
body% whereas sound, olour, and odour are innutritious, and further neither grow nor deay"
Hene it is that taste also must be a sort of touh, beause it is the sense for what is tangible and
nutritious"
.oth these senses, then, are indispensable to the animal, and it is lear that without touh it is
impossible for an animal to be" &ll the other senses subser$e well/being and for that $ery reason
belong not to any and e$ery kind of animal, but only to some, e"g" those apable of forward
mo$ement must ha$e them% for, if they are to sur$i$e, they must perei$e not only by immediate
ontat but also at a distane from the ob!et" #his will be possible if they an perei$e through a
medium, the medium being affeted and mo$ed by the pereptible ob!et, and the animal by the
medium" !ust as that whih produes loal mo$ement auses a hange extending to a ertain
point, and that whih ga$e an impulse auses another to produe a new impulse so that the
mo$ement tra$erses a medium the first mo$er impelling without being impelled, the last mo$ed
being impelled without impelling, while the medium ,or media, for there are many- is both/so is
it also in the ase of alteration, exept that the agent produes produes it without the patient+s
hanging its plae" #hus if an ob!et is dipped into wax, the mo$ement goes on until submersion
has taken plae, and in stone it goes no distane at all, while in water the disturbane goes far
beyond the ob!et dipped1 in air the disturbane is propagated farthest of all, the air ating and
being ated upon, so long as it maintains an unbroken unity" #hat is why in the ase of refletion
it is better, instead of saying that the sight issues from the eye and is refleted, to say that the air,
so long as it remains one, is affeted by the shape and olour" On a smooth surfae the air
possesses unity% hene it is that it in turn sets the sight in motion, !ust as if the impression on the
wax were transmitted as far as the wax extends"
13
It is lear that the body of an animal annot be simple, i"e" onsist of one element suh as fire or
air" 0or without touh it is impossible to ha$e any other sense% for e$ery body that has soul in it
must, as we ha$e said, be apable of touh" &ll the other elements with the exeption of earth an
onstitute organs of sense, but all of them bring about pereption only through something else,
$iz" through the media" #ouh takes plae by diret ontat with its ob!ets, whene also its
name" &ll the other organs of sense, no doubt, perei$e by ontat, only the ontat is mediate1
touh alone perei$es by immediate ontat" 2onse'uently no animal body an onsist of these
other elements"
Nor an it onsist solely of earth" 0or touh is as it were a mean between all tangible 'ualities,
and its organ is apable of reei$ing not only all the speifi 'ualities whih haraterize earth,
but also the hot and the old and all other tangible 'ualities whatsoe$er" #hat is why we ha$e no
sensation by means of bones, hair, 9", beause they onsist of earth" 5o too plants, beause they
onsist of earth, ha$e no sensation" )ithout touh there an be no other sense, and the organ of
touh annot onsist of earth or of any other single element"
It is e$ident, therefore, that the loss of this one sense alone must bring about the death of an
animal" 0or as on the one hand nothing whih is not an animal an ha$e this sense, so on the
other it is the only one whih is indispensably neessary to what is an animal" #his explains,
further, the following differene between the other senses and touh" In the ase of all the others
exess of intensity in the 'ualities whih they apprehend, i"e" exess of intensity in olour, sound,
and smell, destroys not the but only the organs of the sense ,exept inidentally, as when the
sound is aompanied by an impat or shok, or where through the ob!ets of sight or of smell
ertain other things are set in motion, whih destroy by ontat-% fla$our also destroys only in so
far as it is at the same time tangible" .ut exess of intensity in tangible 'ualities, e"g" heat, old,
or hardness, destroys the animal itself" &s in the ase of e$ery sensible 'uality exess destroys
the organ, so here what is tangible destroys touh, whih is the essential mark of life% for it has
been shown that without touh it is impossible for an animal to be" #hat is why exess in
intensity of tangible 'ualities destroys not merely the organ, but the animal itself, beause this is
the only sense whih it must ha$e"
&ll the other senses are neessary to animals, as we ha$e said, not for their being, but for their
well/being" 5uh, e"g" is sight, whih, sine it li$es in air or water, or generally in what is
pelluid, it must ha$e in order to see, and taste beause of what is pleasant or painful to it, in
order that it may perei$e these 'ualities in its nutriment and so may desire to be set in motion,
and hearing that it may ha$e ommuniation made to it, and a tongue that it may ommuniate
with its fellows"
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