by Aristotle
vehicle, as occurs in drunkenness or disease. Thus it is that in old
age the activity of mind or intellectual apprehension declines only
through the decay of some other inward part; mind itself is
impassible. Thinking, loving, and hating are affections not of mind,
but of that which has mind, so far as it has it. That is why, when
this vehicle decays, memory and love cease; they were activities not
of mind, but of the composite which has perished; mind is, no doubt,
something more divine and impassible. That the soul cannot be moved is
therefore clear from what we have said, and if it cannot be moved at
all, manifestly it cannot be moved by itself.
Of all the opinions we have enumerated, by far the most unreasonable
is that which declares the soul to be a self-moving number; it
involves in the first place all the impossibilities which follow
from regarding the soul as moved, and in the second special
absurdities which follow from calling it a number. How we to imagine a
unit being moved? By what agency? What sort of movement can be
attributed to what is without parts or internal differences? If the
unit is both originative of movement and itself capable of being
moved, it must contain difference.
Further, since they say a moving line generates a surface and a
moving point a line, the movements of the psychic units must be
lines (for a point is a unit having position, and the number of the
soul is, of course, somewhere and has position).
Again, if from a number a number or a unit is subtracted, the
remainder is another number; but plants and many animals when
divided continue to live, and each segment is thought to retain the
same kind of soul.
It must be all the same whether we speak of units or corpuscles; for
if the spherical atoms of Democritus became points, nothing being
retained but their being a quantum, there must remain in each a moving
and a moved part, just as there is in what is continuous; what happens
has nothing to do with the size of the atoms, it depends solely upon
their being a quantum. That is why there must be something to
originate movement in the units. If in the animal what originates
movement is the soul, so also must it be in the case of the number, so
that not the mover and the moved together, but the mover only, will be
the soul. But how is it possible for one of the units to fulfil this
function of originating movement? There must be some difference
between such a unit and all the other units, and what difference can
there be between one placed unit and another except a difference of
position? If then, on the other hand, these psychic units within the
body are different from the points of the body, there will be two sets
of units both occupying the same place; for each unit will occupy a
point. And yet, if there can be two, why cannot there be an infinite
number? For if things can occupy an indivisible lace, they must
themselves be indivisible. If, on the other hand, the points of the
body are identical with the units whose number is the soul, or if
the number of the points in the body is the soul, why have not all
bodies souls? For all bodies contain points or an infinity of points.
Further, how is it possible for these points to be isolated or
separated from their bodies, seeing that lines cannot be resolved into
points?
5
The result is, as we have said, that this view, while on the one
side identical with that of those who maintain that soul is a subtle
kind of body, is on the other entangled in the absurdity peculiar to
Democritus' way of describing the manner in which movement is
originated by soul. For if the soul is present throughout the whole
percipient body, there must, if the soul be a kind of body, be two
bodies in the same place; and for those who call it a number, there
must be many points at one point, or every body must have a soul,
unless the soul be a different sort of number-other, that is, than the
sum of the points existing in a body. Another consequence that follows
is that the animal must be moved by its number precisely in the way
that Democritus explained its being moved by his spherical psychic
atoms. What difference does it make whether we speak of small
spheres or of large units, or, quite simply, of units in movement? One
way or another, the movements of the animal must be due to their
movements. Hence those who combine movement and number in the same
subject lay themselves open to these and many other similar
absurdities. It is impossible not only that these characters should
give the definition of soul-it is impossible that they should even
be attributes of it. The point is clear if the attempt be made to
start from this as the account of soul and explain from it the
affections and actions of the soul, e.g. reasoning, sensation,
pleasure, pain, c. For, to repeat what we have said earlier, movement
and number do not facilitate even conjecture about the derivative
properties of soul.
Such are the three ways in which soul has traditionally been
defined; one group of thinkers declared it to be that which is most
originative of movement because it moves itself, another group to be
the subtlest and most nearly incorporeal of all kinds of body. We have
now sufficiently set forth the difficulties and inconsistencies to
which these theories are exposed. It remains now to examine the
doctrine that soul is composed of the elements.
The reason assigned for this doctrine is that thus the soul may
perceive or come to know everything that is, but the theory
necessarily involves itself in many impossibilities. Its upholders
assume that like is known only by like, and imagine that by
declaring the soul to be composed of the elements they succeed in
identifying the soul with all the things it is capable of
apprehending. But the elements are not the only things it knows; there
are many others, or, more exactly, an infinite number of others,
formed out of the elements. Let us admit that the soul knows or
perceives the elements out of which each of these composites is made
up; but by what means will it know or perceive the composite whole,
e.g. what God, man, flesh, bone (or any other compound) is? For each
is, not merely the elements of which it is composed, but those
elements combined in a determinate mode or ratio, as Empedocles
himself says of bone,
The kindly Earth in its broad-bosomed moulds
Won of clear Water two parts out of eight,
And four of Fire; and so white bones were formed.
Nothing, therefore, will be gained by the presence of the elements
in the soul, unless there be also present there the various formulae
of proportion and the various compositions in accordance with them.
Each element will indeed know its fellow outside, but there will be no
knowledge of bone or man, unless they too are present in the
constitution of the soul. The impossibility of this needs no
pointing out; for who would suggest that stone or man could ent
er into
the constitution of the soul? The same applies to 'the good' and
'the not-good', and so on.
Further, the word 'is' has many meanings: it may be used of a 'this'
or substance, or of a quantum, or of a quale, or of any other of the
kinds of predicates we have distinguished. Does the soul consist of
all of these or not? It does not appear that all have common elements.
Is the soul formed out of those elements alone which enter into
substances? so how will it be able to know each of the other kinds
of thing? Will it be said that each kind of thing has elements or
principles of its own, and that the soul is formed out of the whole of
these? In that case, the soul must be a quantum and a quale and a
substance. But all that can be made out of the elements of a quantum
is a quantum, not a substance. These (and others like them) are the
consequences of the view that the soul is composed of all the
elements.
It is absurd, also, to say both (a) that like is not capable of
being affected by like, and (b) that like is perceived or known by
like, for perceiving, and also both thinking and knowing, are, on
their own assumption, ways of being affected or moved.
There are many puzzles and difficulties raised by saying, as
Empedocles does, that each set of things is known by means of its
corporeal elements and by reference to something in soul which is like
them, and additional testimony is furnished by this new consideration;
for all the parts of the animal body which consist wholly of earth
such as bones, sinews, and hair seem to be wholly insensitive and
consequently not perceptive even of objects earthy like themselves, as
they ought to have been.
Further, each of the principles will have far more ignorance than
knowledge, for though each of them will know one thing, there will
be many of which it will be ignorant. Empedocles at any rate must
conclude that his God is the least intelligent of all beings, for of
him alone is it true that there is one thing, Strife, which he does
not know, while there is nothing which mortal beings do not know,
for ere is nothing which does not enter into their composition.
In general, we may ask, Why has not everything a soul, since
everything either is an element, or is formed out of one or several or
all of the elements? Each must certainly know one or several or all.
The problem might also be raised, What is that which unifies the
elements into a soul? The elements correspond, it would appear, to the
matter; what unites them, whatever it is, is the supremely important
factor. But it is impossible that there should be something superior
to, and dominant over, the soul (and a fortiori over the mind); it
is reasonable to hold that mind is by nature most primordial and
dominant, while their statement that it is the elements which are
first of all that is.
All, both those who assert that the soul, because of its knowledge
or perception of what is compounded out of the elements, and is
those who assert that it is of all things the most originative of
movement, fail to take into consideration all kinds of soul. In fact
(1) not all beings that perceive can originate movement; there
appear to be certain animals which stationary, and yet local
movement is the only one, so it seems, which the soul originates in
animals. And (2) the same object-on holds against all those who
construct mind and the perceptive faculty out of the elements; for
it appears that plants live, and yet are not endowed with locomotion
or perception, while a large number of animals are without discourse
of reason. Even if these points were waived and mind admitted to be
a part of the soul (and so too the perceptive faculty), still, even
so, there would be kinds and parts of soul of which they had failed to
give any account.
The same objection lies against the view expressed in the 'Orphic'
poems: there it is said that the soul comes in from the whole when
breathing takes place, being borne in upon the winds. Now this
cannot take place in the case of plants, nor indeed in the case of
certain classes of animal, for not all classes of animal breathe. This
fact has escaped the notice of the holders of this view.
If we must construct the soul out of the elements, there is no
necessity to suppose that all the elements enter into its
construction; one element in each pair of contraries will suffice to
enable it to know both that element itself and its contrary. By
means of the straight line we know both itself and the curved-the
carpenter's rule enables us to test both-but what is curved does not
enable us to distinguish either itself or the straight. Certain
thinkers say that soul is intermingled in the whole universe, and it
is perhaps for that reason that Thales came to the opinion that all
things are full of gods. This presents some difficulties: Why 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 quality when contained in the former?
(One might add the question, why the soul in air is maintained to be
higher and more immortal than that in animals.) Both possible ways
of replying to the former question 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. The
opinion that the elements have soul in them seems to have arisen
from the doctrine that a whole must be homogeneous with its parts.
If it is true that animals become animate by drawing into themselves a
portion of what surrounds them, the partisans of this view are bound
to say that the soul of the Whole too is homogeneous with all its
parts. If the air sucked in is homogeneous, but soul heterogeneous,
clearly while some part of soul will exist in the inbreathed air, some
other part will not. The soul must either be homogeneous, or such that
there are some parts of the Whole in which it is not to be found.
From what has been said it is now clear that knowing as an attribute
of soul cannot be explained by soul's being composed of the
elements, and that it is neither sound nor true to speak of soul as
moved. But since (a) knowing, perceiving, opining, and further (b)
desiring, wishing, and generally all other modes of appetition, belong
to soul, and (c) the local movements of animals, and (d) growth,
maturity, and decay are produced by the soul, we must ask whether each
of these is an attribute of the soul as a whole, i.e. whether it is
with the whole soul we think, perceive, move ourselves, act or are
acted upon, or whether each of them requires a different part of the
soul? So 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 quite other cause?
Some hold that the soul is divisible, and that one part thinks,
another desires. If, then, its nature admits of its being di
vided,
what can it be that holds the parts together? Surely not the body;
on the contrary it seems rather to be the soul that holds the body
together; at any rate when the soul departs the body disintegrates and
decays. If, then, there is something else which makes the soul one,
this unifying agency would have the best right to the name of soul,
and we shall have to repeat for it the question: Is it one or
multipartite? If it is one, why not at once admit that 'the soul' is
one? If it has parts, once more the question must be put: What holds
its parts together, and so ad infinitum?
The question might also be raised about the parts of the soul:
What is the separate role of each in relation to the body? For, if the
whole soul holds together the whole body, we should expect each part
of the soul to hold together a part of the body. But this seems an
impossibility; it is difficult even to imagine what sort of bodily
part mind will hold together, or how it will do this.
It is a fact of observation that plants and certain insects go on
living when divided into segments; this means that each of the
segments has a soul in it identical in species, though not numerically
identical in the different segments, for both of the segments for a
time possess the power of sensation and local movement. That this does
not last is not surprising, for they no longer possess the organs
necessary for self-maintenance. But, all the same, in each 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 several parts of the soul are indisseverable from one
another, although the whole soul is divisible. It seems also that
the principle found in plants is also a kind of soul; for this is
the only principle which is common to both animals and plants; and
this exists in isolation from the principle of sensation, though there
nothing which has the latter without the former.