Chapter 49

146Ibid. I. xxiii. p. 731, a. 27.

147Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. iii. p. 736, b. 12.

148Ibid. I. ii. p. 716, a. 4-17; xix. p. 726, b. 33; xx. p. 728, a. 17; xxi. p. 729, b. 6-27.

Both the nutritive and the sentient souls have, each of them respectively, a special bodily agency and movement belonging to them. But the NoÃ»s, or the noÃ«tic soul, has no partnership with any similar bodily agency. There is no special corporeal potentiality (to speak in Aristotelian language) which it is destined to actualize. It enters from without, and emanates from a still more exalted influence of that divine celestial substance from which all psychical or vitalizing heat proceeds.149It is superinduced upon the nutritive and sentient souls, and introduces itself at an age of the individual later than both of them. Having no part of the bodily organism specially appropriated to it, this variety of soul â€” what is called the NoÃ»s â€” stands distinguished from the other two in being perfectly separable from the body;150that is, separable from the organized body which it is the essential function of the two lower souls to actualize, and with which both of them are bound up. The NoÃ»s is not separable from the body altogether; it belongs essentially to the divine celestial body, and to those luminaries and other divine beings by whom portions of it are tenanted. Theorizing contemplation â€” the perfect, unclouded, unembarrassed, exercise of the theoretical NoÃ»s â€” is the single mental activity of these divinities; contemplation of the formal regularity of the Kosmos, with its eternal and faultless rotations,and with their own perfection as participating therein. The celestial body is the body whereto NoÃ»s, or the noÃ«tic soul, properly belongs;151quite apart from the two other souls, sentient and nutritive, upon which it is grafted in the animal body; and apart also from all the necessities of human action, preceded by balanced motives and deliberate choice.152

149Ibid. II. iii. p. 736, b. 27: λείπεται δὲ τὸν νοῦν μόνον θύραθεν ἐπεισιέναι, καὶ θεῖον εἶναι μόνονÂ· οὐθὲν γὰρ αὐτοῦ τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ κοινωνεῖ σωματικὴ ἐνέργεια. The words θεῖον εἶναιμόνονmust not be construed strictly, for in the next following passage he proceeds to declare thatallψυχή, ψυχικὴ δύναμις or ἀρχή, partakes of the divine element, and that in this respect there is only a difference of degree between one ψυχὴ and another.

150Ibid. p. 737, a. 10: ὁ καλούμενος νοῦς. De AnimÃ¢, II. ii. p. 413, b. 25; iii. p. 415, a. 11.

151Respecting τὸ ἄνω σῶμα, see the copious citations in Trendelenburgâ€™s note ad Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, II. vii.; Comm. p. 373.

152Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. viii. p. 1178, b. 20: τῷ δὴ ζῶντι τοῦ πράττειν ἀφῃρημένῳ, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον τοῦ ποιεῖν, τί λείπεται πλὴν θεωρίας; ὥστε ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνέργεια, μακαριότητι διαφέρουσα, θεωρητικὴ ἂν εἴη. â€” See also Metaphysic.Λ.v. p. 1074, b. 26-35.

From this celestial body, a certain influence of NoÃ»s is transferred to some of the mortal inhabitants of earth, water, and air. Thus a third or noÃ«tic soul â€” or rather a third noÃ«tic function â€” is added to the two existing functions, sensitive and nutrient, of the animal soul, which acquires thereby an improved aptitude for, and correlation with, the Formal and Universal. We have already stated that the sensitive soul possesses this aptitude to a certain extent; it receives the impression of sensible forms, without being impressed by the matter accompanying them. The noÃ«tic function strengthens and sharpens the aptitude; the soul comes into correlation with those cogitable or intellective forms which are involved in the sensible forms;153it rises from the lower generalities of the Second Philosophy, to the higher generalities of the First Philosophy.

153Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, III. viii. p. 432, a. 6: ἐν τοῖς εἴδεσι τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητά ἐστιν.

As the sentient or percipient soul is the form or correlate of all perceivables, and thus identified with them in nature, all of them having existence only in relation to it, â€” so the cogitant or intellective soul is the form or correlate of all cogitables, all of which exist relatively to it, and only relatively.154It is in fact the highest of all forms â€” the Form of Forms; the mental or subjective aspect of all formal reality.

154Ibid. p. 432, b. 2: ὁ νοῦς εἴδος εἰδῶν καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις εἶδος αἰσθητῶν.

Such at least is the tendency and purpose of that noÃ«tic influence which the celestial substance imparts to the human soul; but it is realized only to a very small degree. In its characteristic theorizing efficacy, the godlike NoÃ»s counts for a small fraction of the whole soul, though superexcellent in quality.155There are but few men in whom it is tolerably developed, and even in those few it is countervailed by many other agencies.156The noÃ«tic function in men and animals existsonly in companionship with the two other psychical functions. It is subservient to the limits and conditions that they impose, as well as to the necessities of individual and social action; to all that is required for â€œacting like a man,â€� according to the Aristotelian phrase. Manâ€™s nature is complex, and not self-sufficing for a life of theorizing contemplation, such as that wherein the celestial inmates pass their immortality of happiness.157

155Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. vii. p. 1177, b. 34: εἰ γὰρ καὶ τῷ ὄγκῳ μικρόν ἐστι, δυνάμει καὶ τιμιότητι πολὺ μᾶλλον πάντων ὑπερέχει.

156Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a.18.

157Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. vii. p. 1177, b. 26: ὁ δὲ τοιοῦτος ἂν εἴη βίος κρείττων ἢ κατâ€™ ἄνθρωπον. â€” viii. p. 1178, b. 6: δεήσεται οὖν τοιούτων πρὸς τὸ ἀνθρωπεύεσθαι. â€” ix. p. 1178, b. 33: οὐκ αὐτάρκης ἡ φύσις πρὸς τὸ θεωρεῖν. Compare similar sentiments in Aristot. Metaphys.A.ii. p. 983, a. 1.

We have thus to study the noÃ«tic function according to the manifestations of it that we find in man, and to a certain extent in some other privileged animals. Bees, for example, partake in the divine gift to a certain extent; being distinguished in this respect from their analogues â€” wasps and hornets.158

158Aristot. De Gen. Animal. III. x. p. 760, a. 4: ὄντος δὲπεριττοῦ τοῦγένους καὶ ἰδίου τοῦ τῶν μελιττῶν. â€” p. 761, a. 4: οὐ γὰρ ἔχουσιν (wasps and hornets) οὐδὲν θεῖον, ὥσπερ τὸ γένος τῶν μελιττῶν. It is remarkable that περιττός, the epithet here applied by Aristotle to bees, is the epithet that he also applies to men of theoretical and speculative activity, as contrasted with men prudent and judicious in action (see Metaphys.A.ii. p. 983, a. 2; also Ethic. Nikom. VI. vii. p. 1141, b. 6). Elsewhere he calls bees φρόνιμα (Metaphys.A.i. p. 980, b. 22). See a good note of Torstrick (on Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, III. p. 428, a. 10), p. 172 of his Commentary. Aristotle may possibly have been one among the philosophers that Virgil had in his mind, in Georgics, iv. 219:â€”â€œHis quidam signis, atque hÃ¦c exempla secuti,Esse apibus partem divinÃ¦ mentis, et haustusÃ†thereos dixere: Deum namque ire per omnesTerrasque, tractusque maris, cÅ“lumque profundum,â€� &c.

â€œHis quidam signis, atque hÃ¦c exempla secuti,Esse apibus partem divinÃ¦ mentis, et haustusÃ†thereos dixere: Deum namque ire per omnesTerrasque, tractusque maris, cÅ“lumque profundum,â€� &c.

In these and other animals, and in man to a still greater degree, the theorizing activity exists; but it is either starved, or at least has to deal with materials obscure, puzzling, conflicting; while, on the other hand, the practical intellect becomes largely developed, through the pressure of wants and desires, combined with the teaching of experience. In Aristotleâ€™s view, sensible perception is a separate source of knowledge, accompanied with judgment and discrimination, independent of the noÃ«tic function. Occasionally, he refers the intellectual superiority of man to the properly attempered combination and antagonism of heat in the heart with cold in the brain, each strong and pure;159all the highly endowed animals (he says)have greater animal heat, which is the essential condition of a better soul;160he reckons the finer sense of touch possessed by man as an essential condition of the same intellectual result.161Sensible perception in its five diverse manifestations, together with its secondary psychical effects â€” phantasy and memory, accumulates in the human mind (and in some animals) a greater or less experience of particular facts; from some of which inferences are drawn as to others unknown, directing conduct as well as enlarging knowledge.162

159Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. vi. p. 744, a. 11-31: δηλοῖ δὲ τὴν εὐκρασίαν ἡ διάνοιαÂ· φρονιμώτατον γάρ ἐστι τῶν ζῷων ἄνθρωπος. We may remark that Aristotle considers cold as in some cases a positive property, not simply as the absence or privation of heat (De Partibus Animal. II. ii. p. 649, a. 18). The heart is the part wherein the psychical fire (as it were) is kept burning: τῆς ψυχῆς ὥσπερ ἐμπεπυρευμένης ἐν τοῖς μορίοις τούτοις (Aristot. De VitÃ¢ et Morte, iv. p. 469, b. 16). Virgil, in the beautiful lines of his Second Georgic (483), laments that he is disqualified for deep philosophical studies by the want of heat round his heart:â€”â€œSin, has ne possim naturÃ¦ accedere partes,Frigidus obstiterit circum prÃ¦cordia sanguis,â€� &c.

â€œSin, has ne possim naturÃ¦ accedere partes,Frigidus obstiterit circum prÃ¦cordia sanguis,â€� &c.

160Aristot. De Respirat. xiii. p. 477, a. 16.

161Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, II. ix. p. 421, a. 21.

162Aristot. Metaphys.A.i. pp. 980-1.

All this process â€” a perpetual movement of sense and memory â€” begins from infancy, and goes on independently of NoÃ»s or the noÃ«tic function properly so called; which grows up gradually at a later age, aided by the acquisition of language and by instruction conveyed through language. The supervening NoÃ»s presupposes and depends upon what has been thus treasured up by experience. Though, in the celestial body. NoÃ»s exists separately from human beings, and though it there operatesproprio motuapart from sense, such is not the case with the human NoÃ»s; which depends upon the co-operation, and is subject to the restrictions, of the complicated soul and body wherewith it is domiciled â€” restrictions differing in each individual case. Though the noÃ«tic process is distinct from sense, yet without sense it cannot take place in man. Aristotle expressly says: â€œYou cannot cogitate without a phantasm or without a continuous image.â€� Now the phantasm has been already explained as a relic of movements of sense â€” or as those movements themselves, looked at in another point of view.163â€œWhen we cogitateâ€� (he says), â€œour mental affection is the same as when we draw a triangle for geometrical study; for there, though we do not make use of the fact that the triangle is determinate in its magnitude, we still draw it of a determinate magnitude. So in cogitation, even when we are not cogitating a determinatequantum, we nevertheless set before our eyes a determinatequantum, but we do not cogitate itquatenusdeterminate.â€�164Wecannot even (he goes on to say) remember thecogitabiliawithout â€œa phantasm or sensible image; so that our memory of them is only by way of concomitanceâ€� (indirect and secondary).165Phantasy is thus absolutely indispensable to cogitation: first to carrying on the process at all; next to remembering it after it is past. Without either the visible phantasm of objects seen and touched, or the audible phantasm of words heard and remembered, the NoÃ»s in human beings would be a nullity.166

163Aristot. De Somniis, i. p. 459, a. 15; De AnimÃ¢, III. vii. p. 431, a. 17; iii. p. 428, b. 12.

164Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 449, b. 30: ἐπεὶ δὲ περὶ φαντασίας εἴρηται πρότερον ἐν τοῖς περὶ ψυχῆς, καὶ νοεῖν οὐκ ἔστιν ἄνευ φαντάσματοςÂ· συμβαίνει γὰρ τὸ αὐτὸ πάθος ἐν τῷ νοεῖν ὅπερ καὶ ἐν τῷ διαγράφεινÂ· ἐκεῖ τε γὰρ οὐθὲν προσχρώμενοι τῷ τὸ ποσὸν ὡρισμένον εἶναι τὸ τριγώνου, ὅμως γράφομεν ὡρισμένον κατὰ τὸ ποσόνÂ· καὶ ὁ νοῶν ὡσαύτως, κἂν μὴ ποσὸν νοῇ, τίθεται πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποσόν, νοεῖ δâ€™ οὐχ ᾗ ποσόν.This passage appears to be as clear a statement of the main doctrine of Nominalism as can be found in Hobbes or Berkeley. In the sixteenth section of the Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley says:â€”â€œAnd here it must be acknowledged that a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to the particular qualities of the angles or relations of the sides. â€” In like manner we may consider Peter to far forth as man, or so far forth as animal, without framing the forementioned idea, either of man or animal,inasmuch as all that is perceived is not considered.â€� Berkeley has not improved upon the statement of Aristotle.

This passage appears to be as clear a statement of the main doctrine of Nominalism as can be found in Hobbes or Berkeley. In the sixteenth section of the Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley says:â€”â€œAnd here it must be acknowledged that a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to the particular qualities of the angles or relations of the sides. â€” In like manner we may consider Peter to far forth as man, or so far forth as animal, without framing the forementioned idea, either of man or animal,inasmuch as all that is perceived is not considered.â€� Berkeley has not improved upon the statement of Aristotle.

165Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a. 13.

166About sense and hearing, as thefundamentaof intellect, see Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 437, a. 1-17.

We see that, though Aristotle recognizes a general distinction between phantasy and cogitation, and alludes to many animals as having the former without attaining to the latter, yet he also declares that in man, who possesses both, not only is cogitation dependent upon phantasy, but phantasy passes into cogitation by gradations almost imperceptible. In regard to the practical application of NoÃ»s (i.e.to animal movements determined either by appetite or by reason), he finds a great difficulty in keeping the distinction clearly marked. Substantially, indeed, he lets it drop. When he speaks of phantasy as being either calculating or perceptive, we are unable to see in what respectcalculating phantasy(which he states not to belong to other animals) differs from an effort of cogitation.167Indeed, he speaks with some diffidence respecting any distribution of parts in the same soul, suspecting that such distribution is not real but logical: you may subdivide as much as you choose.168

167Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, III. x. p. 433, a. 9-b. 30: εἴ τις τὴν φαντασίαν τιθείη ὡς νόησίν τινα â€” φαντσία δὲ πᾶσα ἢ λογιστικὴ ἢ αἰσθητικήÂ· ταύτης μὲν οὖν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ζῷα μετέχει. Also vii. p. 431, b. 7.

168Ibid. ix. p. 432, a. 23.

It thus appears clear that Aristotle restricts the NoÃ»s or noÃ«tic functionin manto the matters of sense and experience, physical or mental, and that he considers the phantasm to be an essential accompaniment of the cogitative act. Yet this does not at all detract from his view of the grandeur, importance, and wide range of survey, belonging to the noÃ«tic function. It is the portion of manâ€™s nature that correlates with the abstract and universal; but it is only a portion of his nature, and must work in conjunction and harmony with the rest. The abstract cannot be really separated from the concrete, nor the universal from one or other of its particulars, nor the essence from that whereof it isthe essence, nor the attribute from that of which it is the attribute, nor the genus and species from the individuals comprehended therein; nor, to speak in purely Aristotelian language, the Form from some Matter, or the Matter from some Form. In all these cases there is anotionalorlogicaldistinction, impressing the mind as the result of various comparisons, noted by an appropriate term, and remembered afterwards by means of that term (that is, by means of an audible or visible phantasm); but real separation there neither is nor can be. This is the cardinal principle of Aristotle, repeated in almost all his works â€” his marked antithesis against Plato. Such logical distinctions as those here noticed (they might be multiplied without number) it belongs to NoÃ»s or the noÃ«tic function to cognize. But the real objects, in reference to which alone the distinctions have a meaning, are concrete and individual; and the cognizing subject is really the entire man, employing indeed the noÃ«tic function, but employing it with the aid of other mental forces, phantasms and remembrances, real and verbal.

The noÃ«tic soul is called by Aristotle â€œthe place of Forms,â€� â€œthe potentiality of Forms,â€� â€œthe correlate of things apart from Matter.â€�169It cogitates these Forms in or along with the phantasms: the cogitable Forms are contained in the sensible Forms; for there is nothing really existent beyond or apart from visible or tangible magnitudes, with their properties and affections, and with the so-called abstractions considered by the geometer. Hence, without sensible perception, a man can neither learn nor understand anything; in all his theoretical contemplations, he requires some phantasm to contemplate along with them.170

169Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, III. iv. p. 429, a. 27, b. 22.

170Ibid. vii. p. 431, b. 2: τὰ μὲν οὖν εἴδη τὸ νοητικὸν ἐν τοῖς φαντάσμασι νοεῖ. â€” viii. p. 432, a. 3: ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐδὲ πρᾶγμα οὐθέν ἐστι παρὰ τὰ μεγέθη, ὡς δοκεῖ, τὰ αἰσθητὰ κεχωρισμένον, ἐν τοῖς εἴδεσι τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητά ἐστι, τά τε ἐν ἀφαιρέσει λεγόμενα, καὶ ὅσα τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἕξεις καὶ πάθηÂ· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὔτε μὴ αἰσθανόμενος μηθὲν οὐθὲν ἂν μάθοι οὐδὲ ξυνείηÂ· ὅταν δὲ θεωρῇ, ἀνάγκη ἅμα φάντασμά τι θεωρεῖν.

Herein lies one of the main distinctions between the noÃ«tic and the sentient souls. The sentient deals with particulars, and correlates with external bodies; the noÃ«tic apprehends universals, which in a certain sense are within the soul: hence a man can cogitate whenever or whatever he chooses, but he can see or touch only what is present.171Another distinction is, that the sentient soul is embodied in special organs, each with determinate capacities, and correlating with external objects, themselves alike determinate, acting only under certain conditions of locality.The possibilities of sensation are thus from the beginning limited; moreover, a certain relative proportion must be maintained between the percipient and the perceivable; for extreme or violent sounds, colours, &c., produce no sensation; on the contrary, they deaden the sentient organ.172But the noÃ«tic soul (what is called the â€œNoÃ»s of the soul,â€� to use Aristotleâ€™s language)173is nothing at all in actuality before its noÃ«tic function commences, though it is everything in potentiality. It is not embodied in any corporeal organ of its own, nor mingled as a new elementary ingredient with the body; it does not correlate with any external objects; it is not so specially attached to some particulars as to make it antipathetic to others. Accordingly its possibilities of cogitation are unlimited; it apprehends with equal facility what is most cogitable and what is least cogitable. It is thoroughly indeterminate in its nature, and is in fact at first a mere unlimited cogitative potentiality;174like a tablet, upon which no letters have as yet been written, but upon which all or any lettersmay bewritten.175

171Ibid. II. v. p. 417, b. 22.

172Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, III. iv. p. 429, a. 31.

173Ibid. a. 22: ὁ ἄρα καλούμενος τῆς ψυχῆς νοῦς (λέγω δὲ νοῦν ᾧ διανοεῖται καὶ ὑπολαμβάνει ἡ ψυχή) οὐθέν ἐστιν ἐνεργείᾳ τῶν ὄντων πρὶν νοεῖν.

174Ibid. a. 21: ὥστε μηδâ€™ αὐτοῦ εἶναι φύσιν μηδεμίαν ἀλλâ€™ ἢ ταύτην, ὅτι δυνατόν.

175Ibid. p. 430, a. 1.

We have already said that the NoÃ»s of the human soul emanates from a peculiar influence of the celestial body, which is the special region of Form in the Kosmos. Through it we acquire an enlarged power of apprehending the abstract and universal; we can ascend above sensible forms to the cogitable forms contained therein; we can consider all forms in themselves, without paying attention to the matter wherein they are embodied. Instead of considering the concrete solid or liquid before us, we can mentally analyse them, and thus study solidity in the abstract, fluidity in the abstract. While our senses judge of water as hot and cold, our noÃ«tic function enables us to appreciate water in the abstract â€” to determine its essence, and to furnish a definition of it.176In all these objects, as combinations of Form with Matter, the cogitable form exists potentially; and is abstracted or considered abstractedly, by the cogitant NoÃ»s.177Yet this last (as we have already seen) cannot operate except along with and by aid of phantasms â€” of impressions revived or remaining from sense. It is thus immersed in the materials of sense, and has no others. But it handles them in a way of its own, and under new points of view; comparing and analysing; recognizing the abstract in the concrete, and the universal in the particular;discriminating mentally and logically the one from the other; and noting the distinction by appropriate terms. Such distinctions are thenoÃ¼mena, generated in the process of cogitation by NoÃ»s itself. The NoÃ»s, as it exists in any individual, gradually loses its original character of naked potentiality, and becomes an actual working force, by means of its own acquired materials.178It is an aggregate ofnoÃ¼mena, all of them in nature identical with itself; and, while cogitating them, the NoÃ»s at the same time cogitates itself. Considered abstractedly, apart from matter, they exist only in the mind itself; in theoretical speculation, thecognoscensand thecognitumare identical. But they are not really separable from matter, and have no reality apart from it.

176Ibid. p. 429, b. 10.

177Ibid. p. 430, a. 2-9.

178Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, II. v. p. 417, b. 23. Ibid. III. iv. p. 429, b. 7: ὅταν δύνηται ἐνεργεῖν διâ€™ αὑτοῦ.

The distinction, yet at the same time correlation, between Form and Matter, pervades all nature (Aristotle affirms), and will be found in the NoÃ»s as elsewhere. We must recognize anIntellectus Agensor constructive, and anIntellectus Patiensor receptive.179TheAgensis the great intellectual energy pervading the celestial body, and acting upon all the animals susceptible of its operation; analogous to light, which illuminates the diaphanous medium, and elevates what was mere potential colour into colour actual and visible.180ThePatiensis the intellectual receptivity acted upon in each individual, and capable of being made to cogitate every thing; anterior to theAgens, in time, so far as regards the individual, yet as a general fact (when we are talking of man as a species) not anterior even in time, but correlative. Of the two, theIntellectus Agensis the more venerable; it is pure intellectual energy, unmixed, unimpressible from without, and separable from all animal body. It is this, and nothing more, when considered apart from animal body; but it is then eternal and immortal, while theIntellectus Patiensperishes with the remaining soul and with the body. Yet though theIntellectus Agensis thus eternal, and thoughwehave part in it, we cannot remember any of its operations anterior to our own maturity; for the concurrence of theIntellectus Patiens, whichbegins and ends with us, is indispensable both to remembrance and to thought.181

179Ibid. III. v. p. 430, a. 10.

180Ibid. a. 14: καὶ ἔστιν ὁ μὲν τοιοῦτος νοῦς τῷ πάντα γίνεσθαι, ὁ δὲ τῷ πάντα ποιεῖν, ὡς ἕξις τις, οἷον τὸ φῶςÂ· τρόπον γάρ τινα καὶ τὸ φῶς ποιεῖ τὰ δυνάμει ὄντα χρώματα ἐνεργείᾳ χρώματα. Aristotle here illustrates νοῦς ποιητικός by φῶς and ἕξις; and we know what view he takes of φῶς (De AnimÃ¢, II. vii. p. 418, b. 9) as the ἐνέργεια or ἕξις τοῦ διαφανοῦς — whichdiaphanoushe explains to be a φύσις τις ἐνυπάρχουσα ἐν ἀέρι καὶ ὕδατι καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀϊδίῳ τῷ ἄνω σώματι. Judging by this illustration, it seems proper to couple the νοῦς ποιητικός here with his declaration in De Generat. Animal. II. p. 736, b. 28: τὸν νοῦν μόνον θύραθεν ἐπεισέναι καὶ θεῖον εἶναι μόνον: he cannot consider the νοῦς ποιητικός, which is of the nature of Form, as belonging to each individual man like the νοῦς παθητικός.

181Aristot. De AnimÃ¢, III. v. p. 430, a. 17: καὶ οὗτος ὁ νοῦς (i. e.ποιητικός χωριστὸς καὶ ἀπαθὴς καὶ ἀμιγής, τῇ οὐσίᾳ ὢν ἐνέργειαÂ· ἀεὶ γὰρ τιμιώτερον τὸ ποιοῦν τοῦ πάσχοντος, καὶ ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς ὕλης. â€” Ibid. a. 22: χωρισθεὶς δâ€™ ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθâ€™ ὅπερ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιονÂ· οὐ μνημονεύομεν δέ, ὅτι τοῦτο μὲν ἀπαθές, ὁ δὲ παθητικὸς νοῦς φθαρτός, καὶ ἄνευ τούτου οὐθὲν νοεῖ. In this obscure and difficult chapter (difficult even to Theophrastus the friend and pupil of the author), we have given the best meaning that the words seem to admit.

We see here the full extent of Aristotleâ€™s difference from the Platonic doctrine, in respect to the immortality of the soul. He had defined soul as the first actualization of a body having potentiality of life with a determinate organism. This of course implied, and he expressly declares it, that soul and body in each individual case were one and indivisible, so that the soul of Sokrates perished of necessity with the body of Sokrates.182But he accompanied that declaration with a reserve in favour of NoÃ»s, and especially of the theorizing NoÃ»s; which he recognized as a different sort of soul, not dependent on a determinate bodily organism, but capable of being separated from it, as the eternal is from the perishable.183The present chapter informs us how far such reserve is intended to go. That the theorizing NoÃ»s is not limited, like the sentient soul, to a determinate bodily organism, but exists apart from that organism and eternally â€” is maintained as incontestable: it is the characteristic intellectual activity of the eternal celestial body and the divine inmates thereof. But the distinction of Form and Matter is here pointed out, as prevailing in NoÃ»s and in Soul generally, not less than throughout all other Nature. The theorizing NoÃ»s, as it exists in Sokrates, Plato, Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Xenokrates, &c., is individualized in each, and individualized differently in each. It represents the result of theIntellectus Agensor Formal NoÃ»s, universal and permanent, upon theIntellectus Patiensor noÃ«tic receptivity peculiar to each individual; the co-operation of the two is indispensable to sustain the theorizing intellect of any individual man. But theIntellectus Patiens, orReceptivus, perishes along with the individual. Accordingly, the intellectual life of Sokrates cannot be continued farther. It cannot be prolonged after his sensitive and nutritive life has ceased; the noÃ«tic function, as it exists in him, is subject to the same limits of duration as the other functions of the soul. The intellectual man is no more immortal than the sentient man.

182Ibid. II. i. p. 413, a. 3.

183Ibid. ii. p. 413, b. 24: περὶ δὲ τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τῆς θεωρητικῆς δυνάμεως οὐδέν πω φανερόν, ἀλλâ€™ ἔοικε ψυχῆς γένος ἕτερον εἶναι, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἐνδέχεται χωρίζεσθαι, καθάπερ τὸ ἀΐδιον τοῦ φθαρτοῦ.

Such is the opinion here delivered by Aristotle. And it follows indeed as a distinct corollary from his doctrine respecting animal and vegetable procreation in general. Individuality (the beingunum numeroin a species) and immortality are in his view incompatible facts; the one excludes the other. In assigning (as he so often does) a final cause or purpose to the wide-spread fact of procreation of species by animals and vegetables, he tells us that every individual living organism, having once attained the advantage of existence, yearns and aspires to prolong this for ever, and to become immortal. But this aspiration cannot be realized; Nature has forbidden it, or is inadequate to it; no individual can be immortal. Being precluded from separate immortality, the individual approaches as near to it as is possible, by generating a new individual like itself, and thus perpetuating the species. Such is the explanation given by Aristotle of the great fact pervading the sublunary, organized world184â€” immortal species of plants, animals, and men, through a succession of individuals each essentially perishable. The general doctrine applies to NoÃ»s as well as to the other functions of the soul. NoÃ»s is immortal; but the individual Sokrates, considered as noÃ«tic or intellectual, can no more be immortal than the same individual considered as sentient or reminiscent.

184Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 20, seq.; De AnimÃ¢, II. iv. p. 415, a. 26, seq.; Å’conomica, I. iii. p. 1343, b. 23.

We have already stated that NoÃ»s â€” Intellect â€” the noÃ«tic function â€” is that faculty of the soul that correlates with the abstract and universal; with Form apart from Matter. Its process is at once analytical, synthetical, and retentive. Nature presents to us only concretes and particulars, in a perpetual course of change and reciprocal action; in these the abstract and universal are immersed, and out of these they have to be disengaged by logical analysis. That the abstract is a derivative from the concrete, and the universal from particulars â€” is the doctrine of Aristotle. Ascending from particulars, the analysis is carried so far that at length it can go no farther. It continues to divide until it comes toindivisibles, or simple notions, the highest abstractions, and the largest universals. These are the elements out of which universal propositions are formed, the first premisses orprincipiaof demonstration. Unphilosophical minds do not reach these indivisibles at all: but it is the function of the theorizing NoÃ»s to fasten on them, and combine them into true propositions. In so far as regards the indivisibles themselves, falsehood is out of the question, andtruth also, since they affirm nothing. The mind either apprehends them, or it does not apprehend them: there is no other alternative.185But, when combined into affirmative propositions, they then are true or false, as the case may be. The formal essence of each object is among these indivisibles, and is apprehended as such by the intellect; which, while confining itself to such essence, is unerring, as each sense is in regard to its own appropriate perceivables.186But, when the intellect goes father, and proceeds to predicate any attribute respecting the essence, then it becomes liable to error, as sense is when drawing inferences.

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