the first cause produces plants and animals, still it is from these that the perfect plant or animal springs. For the seed comes from a complete plant previously existing; the seed is not first, but the complete plant. Just as we should say that man is prior to the germnot the man who springs from it, but he from whom it

comes.

That there is then a substance which is eternal and immovable and separable from the objects of sense is evident from what has been said. And it has also been shown that this substance cannot have extension but is without parts and indivisible. For it imparts motion through endless time, and nothing limited has unlimited potentiality. Now since every magnitude is either limited or unlimited, for the reason given God cannot have limited magnitude; nor yet can he have unlimited magnitude because, in a word, there is no such magnitude.

And further that God is free from passion and from qualitative change has also been shown, for all other changes are subsequent to motion in space. Why these things are so is now clear.

DIVINE REASON AND ITS OBJECT

With 22 regard to the divine reason certain problems arise. For while it passes for the divinest of manifestations still what its nature must be in order that it should be such is a question hard to answer. For if it thinks of nothing wherein would lie its majesty? It were just like a man asleep. On the other hand if it thinks of something and that something, being different from itself, controls its thinking, it cannot be the noblest substance

22 Arist. Met. XI. Ch. 9

for in that case that which is its substance is not thinking but potentiality. And it is through actual thinking that it gets its noble character.

Further, whether its substance be reason or thinking, what does it think about? Clearly, either itself or something else; and if something else, either always the same thing, or now one thing and now another. Does it forsooth make no difference whether it thinks about what is excellent or whether it simply thinks at random? Is it not indeed absurd that it should be thinking discursively about a plurality of things? It is evident therefore that it thinks about what is most divine and most noble, and that it changes not, for it could change only for the worse, and any motion would be already such a change.

Now in the first place if the divine reason is not actual but only potential thinking, it is conceivable that it should find its everlastingness but toil and weariness. And in the second place it is evident that then something else would be nobler than reason, namely, the object of reason. For thinking, and the activity of thinking, would belong also to that which thinks the most ignoble thoughts. And consequently, if this is to be avoided— and there are some things which it is better not to see than to see-then thinking as such would not be the best thing.

The divine reason then, if it is the supremely excellent thing, has itself for its object, and its thinking is a thinking of thinking. But science, perception, opinion, discursive reasoning, seem always to have something other than themselves for their object and only incidentally to be their own object.

Again, if there is a difference between thinking and

being thought, by which of the two does reason get its nobility? For [in the case supposed] thinking and being thought are in essence not the same. However, in some cases knowledge is its own object. In the case of the creative sciences it is the immaterial substance and the essential notion that is the object of knowledge; in the case of the speculative sciences it is reason itself and thinking. Since, then, the mind is not one thing and the object of the mind another, in cases where matter is not involved, the two must be identical, and thinking is one with its object.

Still a puzzle remains if the object of thought is composite, for then there might be change from part to part within the whole. But the fact is everything immaterial is indivisible. And just as the human mind, which has for its object composite things, is related to its object in favored moments-for it does not then grasp the good in this or that part of its object, but rather the best in the whole of it, the object in this case being something different from itself—just so the divine thinking is itself related to itself through all eternity.

XV

ARISTOTLE ON PSYCHOLOGY

THE NATURE OF THE SOUL

WE1 will now

attempt to determine what soul is, and what is the most comprehensive definition that can be given of it.

Real substance is the name which we assign one class of existing things; and this real substance may be viewed from several aspects, either, first, as matter, meaning by matter that which in itself is not any individual thing; or, secondly, as form and specific characteristic in virtue of which an object comes to be described as such and such an individual; or, thirdly, as the result produced by a combination of this matter and this form. Further, while matter is merely potential existence, the form is perfect realization (a conception which may be taken in two forms, either as resembling knowledge possessed or as corresponding to observation in active exercise).

These real substances again are thought to correspond for the most part with bodies, and more particularly with natural bodies, because these latter are the source from which other bodies are formed. Now among such natural bodies, some have, others do not have life, meaning here by life the process of nutrition, increase, and decay from an internal principle. Thus every natural

1 Arist. De An. II. 1, 412 a 4. The passages from Aristotle's Psychology which follow are all taken from Wallace's translation

body possessed of life would be a real substance, and a substance which we may describe as composite.

Since then the body, as possessed of life, is of this compound character, the body itself would not constitute the soul: for body is not [like life and soul] something attributed to a subject; it rather acts as the underlying subject and the material basis. Thus then the soul must necessarily be a real substance, as the form which determines a natural body possessed potentially of life. The reality, however, of an object is contained in its perfect realization. Soul therefore will be a perfect realization of a body such as has been described. Perfect realization, however, is a word used in two senses: it may be understood either as an implicit state corresponding to knowledge as possessed, or as an explicitly exercised process corresponding to active observation. Here, in reference to soul, it must evidently be understood in the former of these two senses: for the soul is present with us as much while we are asleep as while we are awake; and while waking resembles active observation, sleep resembles the implicit though not exercised possession of knowledge. Now in reference to the same subject, it is the implicit knowledge of scientific principles which stands prior. Soul therefore is the earlier or implicit perfect realization of a natural body possessed potentially of life.

Such potential life belongs to everything which is possessed of organs. Organs, however, we must remember, is a name that applies also to the parts of plants, except that they are altogether uncompounded. Thus the leaf is the protection of the pericarp and the pericarp of the fruit; while the roots are analogous to the mouth in animals, both being used to absorb nourishment. Thus