The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  Since appetites run counter to one another, which happens when a principle of reason and a desire are contrary and is possible only in beings with a sense of time (for while mind bids us hold back because of what is future, desire is influenced by what is just at hand: a pleasant object which is just at hand presents itself as both pleasant and good, without condition in either case, (10) because of want of foresight into what is farther away in time), it follows that while that which originates movement must be specifically one, viz. the faculty of appetite as such (or rather farthest back of all the object of that faculty; for it is it that itself remaining unmoved originates the movement by being apprehended in thought or imagination), the things that originate movement are numerically many.

  All movement involves three factors, (1) that which originates the movement, (2) that by means of which it originates it, and (3) that which is moved. The expression ‘that which originates the movement’ is ambiguous: it may mean either (a) something which itself is unmoved or (b) that which at once moves and is moved. (15) Here that which moves without itself being moved is the realizable good, that which at once moves and is moved is the faculty of appetite (for that which is influenced by appetite so far as it is actually so influenced is set in movement, and appetite in the sense of actual appetite is a kind of movement), while that which is in motion is the animal. The instrument which appetite employs to produce movement is no longer psychical but bodily: hence the examination of it falls within the province of the functions common to body and soul.27 (20) To state the matter summarily at present, that which is the instrument in the production of movement is to be found where a beginning and an end coincide as e. g. in a ball and socket joint; for there the convex and the concave sides are respectively an end and a beginning (that is why while the one remains at rest, the other is moved): they are separate in definition but not separable spatially. For everything is moved by pushing and pulling. Hence just as in the case of a wheel, (25) so here there must be a point which remains at rest, and from that point the movement must originate.

  To sum up, then, and repeat what I have said, inasmuch as an animal is capable of appetite it is capable of self-movement; it is not capable of appetite without possessing imagination; and all imagination is either (1) calculative or (2) sensitive. In the latter all animals, (30) and not only man, partake.

  11 We must consider also in the case of imperfect animals, sc. those which have no sense but touch, what it is that in them originates movement. Can they have imagination or not? or desire? Clearly they have feelings of pleasure and pain, and if they have these they must have desire. [434a] But how can they have imagination? Must not we say that, as their movements are indefinite, they have imagination and desire, but indefinitely?

  Sensitive imagination, as we have said,28 is found in all animals, (5) deliberative imagination only in those that are calculative: for whether this or that shall be enacted is already a task requiring calculation; and there must be a single standard to measure by, for that is pursued which is greater. It follows that what acts in this way must be able to make a unity out of several images.

  This is the reason why imagination is held not to involve opinion, (10) in that it does not involve opinion based on inference, though opinion involves imagination. Hence appetite contains no deliberative element. Sometimes it overpowers wish and sets it in movement: at times wish acts thus upon appetite, like one sphere imparting its movement to another, or appetite acts thus upon appetite, i. e. in the condition of moral weakness (though by nature the higher faculty is always more authoritative and gives rise to movement). Thus three modes of movement are possible. (15)

  The faculty of knowing is never moved but remains at rest. Since the one premiss or judgement is universal and the other deals with the particular (for the first tells us that such and such a kind of man should do such and such a kind of act, and the second that this is an act of the kind meant, and I a person of the type intended), (20) it is the latter opinion that really originates movement, not the universal; or rather it is both, but the one does so while it remains in a state more like rest, while the other partakes in movement.

  12 The nutritive soul then must be possessed by everything that is alive, and every such thing is endowed with soul from its birth to its death. For what has been born must grow, reach maturity, (25) and decay—all of which are impossible without nutrition. Therefore the nutritive faculty must be found in everything that grows and decays.

  But sensation need not be found in all things that live. For it is impossible for touch to belong either (1) to those whose body is uncompounded or (2) to those which are incapable of taking in the forms without their matter.

  But animals must be endowed with sensation, (30) since Nature does nothing in vain. For all things that exist by Nature are means to an end, or will be concomitants of means to an end. Every body capable of forward movement would, if unendowed with sensation, perish and fail to reach its end, which is the aim of Nature; for how could it obtain nutriment? Stationary living things, it is true, have as their nutriment that from which they have arisen; but it is not possible that a body which is not stationary but produced by generation should have a soul and a discerning mind without also having sensation. [434b] (Nor yet even if it were not produced by generation. Why should it not have sensation? Because it were better so either for the body or for the soul? But clearly it would not be better for either: the absence of sensation will not enable the one to think better or the other to exist better.) (5) Therefore no body which is not stationary has soul without sensation.

  But if a body has sensation, it must be either simple or compound. And simple it cannot be; for then it could not have touch, (10) which is indispensable. This is clear from what follows. An animal is a body with soul in it: every body is tangible, i. e. perceptible by touch; hence necessarily, if an animal is to survive, its body must have tactual sensation. All the other senses, e. g. smell, sight, hearing, (15) apprehend through media; but where there is immediate contact the animal, if it has no sensation, will be unable to avoid some things and take others, and so will find it impossible to survive. That is why taste also is a sort of touch; it is relative to nutriment, which is just tangible body; whereas sound, colour, and odour are innutritious, and further neither grow nor decay. Hence it is that taste also must be a sort of touch, (20) because it is the sense for what is tangible and nutritious.

  Both these senses, then, are indispensable to the animal, and it is clear that without touch it is impossible for an animal to be. All the other senses subserve well-being and for that very reason belong not to any and every kind of animal, but only to some, (25) e. g. those capable of forward movement must have them; for, if they are to survive, they must perceive not only by immediate contact but also at a distance from the object. This will be possible if they can perceive through a medium, the medium being affected and moved by the perceptible object, and the animal by the medium. Just as that which produces local movement causes a change extending to a certain point, (30) and that which gave an impulse causes another to produce a new impulse so that the movement traverses a medium—the first mover impelling without being impelled, the last moved being impelled without impelling, while the medium (or media, for there are many) is both—so is it also in the case of alteration, except that the agent produces it without the patient’s changing its place. [435a] Thus if an object is dipped into wax, the movement goes on until submersion has taken place, and in stone it goes no distance at all, while in water the disturbance goes far beyond the object dipped: in air the disturbance is propagated farthest of all, the air acting and being acted upon, so long as it maintains an unbroken unity. That is why in the case of reflection it is better, (5) instead of saying that the sight issues from the eye and is reflected, to say that the air, so long as it remains one, is affected by the shape and colour. On a smooth surface the air possesses unity; hence it is that it in turn sets the sight in motion, (10) just as if the impression on the
wax were transmitted as far as the wax extends.

  13 It is clear that the body of an animal cannot be simple, i. e. consist of one element such as fire or air. For without touch it is impossible to have any other sense; for every body that has soul in it must, as we have said,29 be capable of touch. All the other elements with the exception of earth can constitute organs of sense, (15) but all of them bring about perception only through something else, viz. through the media. Touch takes place by direct contact with its objects, whence also its name. All the other organs of sense, no doubt, perceive by contact, only the contact is mediate: touch alone perceives by immediate contact. Consequently no animal body can consist of these other elements.

  Nor can it consist solely of earth. (20) For touch is as it were a mean between all tangible qualities, and its organ is capable of receiving not only all the specific qualities which characterize earth, but also the hot and the cold and all other tangible qualities whatsoever. (25) That is why we have no sensation by means of bones, hair, &c., because they consist of earth. [435b] So too plants, because they consist of earth, have no sensation. Without touch there can be no other sense, and the organ of touch cannot consist of earth or of any other single element.

  It is evident, therefore, that the loss of this one sense alone must bring about the death of an animal. (5) For as on the one hand nothing which is not an animal can have this sense, so on the other it is the only one which is indispensably necessary to what is an animal. This explains, further, the following difference between the other senses and touch. In the case of all the others excess of intensity in the qualities which they apprehend, i. e. excess of intensity in colour, sound, and smell, destroys not the animal but only the organs of the sense (except incidentally, (10) as when the sound is accompanied by an impact or shock, or where through the objects of sight or of smell certain other things are set in motion, which destroy by contact); flavour also destroys only in so far as it is at the same time tangible. But excess of intensity in tangible qualities, e. g. heat, cold, or hardness, (15) destroys the animal itself. As in the case of every sensible quality excess destroys the organ, so here what is tangible destroys touch, which is the essential mark of life; for it has been shown that without touch it is impossible for an animal to be. That is why excess in intensity of tangible qualities destroys not merely the organ, but the animal itself, because this is the only sense which it must have.

  All the other senses are necessary to animals, as we have said,30 not for their being, but for their well-being. Such, e. g., is sight, (20) which, since it lives in air or water, or generally in what is pellucid, it must have in order to see, and taste because of what is pleasant or painful to it, in order that it may perceive these qualities in its nutriment and so may desire to be set in motion, and hearing that it may have communication made to it, and a tongue that it may communicate with its fellows. (25)

  * * *

  1 Cf. Phys. iii. 3.

  2 i. e. that which is involved in the structure of the sense-organ.

  3 The qualification appears to mean that the sense-organ may in other respects have other qualities. Thus the tongue can touch as well as taste.

  4 i. e. as the being affected by the forms of sensible qualities.

  5 Od. xviii. 136.

  6 404b 8–18.

  7 The reference is perhaps to E. N. 1139b 15 ff.

  8 For these three views Cf. Pl. Tim. 52 A, Soph, A, B, Phil. 39 B.

  9 i. e. a particular form in a particular matter.

  10 a15–24.

  11 Ch. 5.

  12 In ch. 4.

  13 i. e. it must be characterized actually by one and potentially by the other of the contraries.

  14 Cf. 417b 2–16.

  15 i. e. the sweetness and the heat in a sweet-hot object.

  16 426b 12–427a 14.

  17 i. e. as one thing with two aspects; cf. l. 19.

  18 i. e. the faculty by which we discern sweet and that by which we discern hot.

  19 i. e. let the faculty that discerns sweet be to that which discerns hot as sweet is to hot.

  20 i. e. that of sense-data.

  21 This promise does not seem to have been fulfilled.

  22 i. e. a tool for using tools.

  23 Pl. Rep. 435–41.

  24 A popular view, Cf. E. N. 1102a 26–8.

  25 All three being forms of appetite.

  26 Cf. De Respiratione, De Somno.

  27 Cf. De Motu An. 702a 21–703a 22.

  28 433b 29.

  29 434b 10–24.

  30 434b 24.

  Parva Naturalia

  (The Short Physical Treatises)

  Translated by J. I. Beare

  DE MEMORIA ET REMINISCENTIA

  (On Memory and Reminiscence)

  1 [449b] We have, in the next place, to treat of Memory and Remembering, considering its nature, its cause, and the part of the soul to which this experience, as well as that of Recollecting, (5) belongs. For the persons who possess a retentive memory are not identical with those who excel in power of recollection; indeed, as a rule, slow people have a good memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are better at recollecting.

  We must first form a true conception of the objects of memory, a point on which mistakes are often made. (10) Now to remember the future is not possible, but this is an object of opinion or expectation (and indeed there might be actually a science of expectation, like that of divination, in which some believe); nor is there memory of the present, but only sense-perception. For by the latter we know not the future, nor the past, but the present only. But memory relates to the past. (15) No one would say that he remembers the present, when it is present, e. g. a given white object at the moment when he sees it; nor would one say that he remembers an object of scientific contemplation at the moment when he is actually contemplating it, and has it full before his mind;—of the former he would say only that he perceives it, of the latter only that he knows it. But when one has scientific knowledge, or perception, apart from the actualizations of the faculty concerned, he thus ‘remembers’ [that the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles]; as to the former, (20) that he learned it, or thought it out for himself, as to the latter, that he heard, or saw, it, or had some such sensible experience of it. For whenever one exercises the faculty of remembering, he must say within himself, ‘I formerly heard (or otherwise perceived) this,’ or ‘I formerly had this thought’.

  Memory is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already observed, (25) there is no such thing as memory of the present while present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they remember. (30)

  The subject of ‘presentation’ has been already considered in our work de Anima.1 Without a presentation intellectual activity is impossible. [450a] For there is in such activity an incidental affection identical with one also incidental in geometrical demonstrations. For in the latter case, though we do not for the purpose of the proof make any use of the fact that the quantity in the triangle [for example, which we have drawn] is determinate, we nevertheless draw it determinate in quantity. So likewise when one exerts the intellect [e. g. on the subject of first principles], (5) although the object may not be quantitative, one envisages it as quantitative, though he thinks it in abstraction from quantity; while, on the other hand, if the object of the intellect is essentially of the class of things that are quantitative, but indeterminate, one envisages it as if it had determinate quantity, though subsequently, in thinking it, he abstracts from its determinateness. Why we cannot exercise the intellect on any object absolutely apart from the continuous, or apply it even to non-temporal things unless in connexion with time, (10) is another question. Now, one mus
t cognize magnitude and motion by means of the same faculty by which one cognizes time [i. e. by that which is also the faculty of memory], and the presentation [involved in such cognition] is an affection of the sensus communis; whence this follows, viz. that the cognition of these objects [magnitude, motion, time] is effected by the [said sensus communis, i. e. the] primary faculty of perception. Accordingly, memory [not merely of sensible, but] even of intellectual objects involves a presentation: hence we may conclude that it belongs to the faculty of intelligence only incidentally, while directly and essentially it belongs to the primary faculty of sense-perception.

  Hence not only human beings and the beings which possess opinion or intelligence, (15) but also certain other animals, possess memory. If memory were a function of [pure] intellect, it would not have been as it is an attribute of many of the lower animals, but probably, in that case, no mortal beings would have had memory; since, even as the case stands, it is not an attribute of them all, just because all have not the faculty of perceiving time. (20) Whenever one actually remembers having seen or heard, or learned, something, he includes in this act (as we have already observed) the consciousness of ‘formerly’; and the distinction of ‘former’ and ‘latter’ is a distinction in time.