On the Soul
By Aristotle
Written 350 B.C.E
Translated by J. A. Smith
Part 1
Let the foregoing suffice as our account of the views concerning the soul
which have been handed on by our predecessors; let us now dismiss them
and make as it were a completely fresh start, endeavouring to give a precise
answer to the question, What is soul? i.e. to formulate the most general
possible definition of it.
We are in the habit of recognizing, as one determinate kind of
what is, substance, and that in several senses, (a) in the sense of matter
or that which in itself is not 'a this', and (b) in the sense of form or
essence, which is that precisely in virtue of which a thing is called 'a
this', and thirdly (c) in the sense of that which is compounded of both
(a) and (b). Now matter is potentiality, form actuality; of the latter
there are two grades related to one another as e.g. knowledge to the exercise
of knowledge.
Among substances are by general consent reckoned bodies and especially
natural bodies; for they are the principles of all other bodies. Of natural
bodies some have life in them, others not; by life we mean self-nutrition
and growth (with its correlative decay). It follows that every natural
body which has life in it is a substance in the sense of a
composite.
But since it is also a body of such and such a kind, viz. having
life, the body cannot be soul; the body is the subject or matter, not what
is attributed to it. Hence the soul must be a substance in the sense of
the form of a natural body having life potentially within it. But substance
is actuality, and thus soul is the actuality of a body as above characterized.
Now the word actuality has two senses corresponding respectively to the
possession of knowledge and the actual exercise of knowledge. It is obvious
that the soul is actuality in the first sense, viz. that of knowledge as
possessed, for both sleeping and waking presuppose the existence of soul,
and of these waking corresponds to actual knowing, sleeping to knowledge
possessed but not employed, and, in the history of the individual, knowledge
comes before its employment or exercise.
That is why the soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural
body having life potentially in it. The body so described is a body which
is organized. The parts of plants in spite of their extreme simplicity
are 'organs'; e.g. the leaf serves to shelter the pericarp, the pericarp
to shelter the fruit, while the roots of plants are analogous to the mouth
of animals, both serving for the absorption of food. If, then, we have
to give a general formula applicable to all kinds of soul, we must describe
it as the first grade of actuality of a natural organized body. That is
why we can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the soul
and the body are one: it is as meaningless as to ask whether the wax and
the shape given to it by the stamp are one, or generally the matter of
a thing and that of which it is the matter. Unity has many senses (as many
as 'is' has), but the most proper and fundamental sense of both is the
relation of an actuality to that of which it is the actuality. We have
now given an answer to the question, What is soul?-an answer which applies
to it in its full extent. It is substance in the sense which corresponds
to the definitive formula of a thing's essence. That means that it is 'the
essential whatness' of a body of the character just assigned. Suppose that
what is literally an 'organ', like an axe, were a natural body, its 'essential
whatness', would have been its essence, and so its soul; if this disappeared
from it, it would have ceased to be an axe, except in name. As it is, it
is just an axe; it wants the character which is required to make its whatness
or formulable essence a soul; for that, it would have had to be a natural
body of a particular kind, viz. one having in itself the power of setting
itself in movement and arresting itself. Next, apply this doctrine in the
case of the 'parts' of the living body. Suppose that the eye were an animal-sight
would have been its soul, for sight is the substance or essence of the
eye which corresponds to the formula, the eye being merely the matter of
seeing; when seeing is removed the eye is no longer an eye, except in name-it
is no more a real eye than the eye of a statue or of a painted figure.
We must now extend our consideration from the 'parts' to the whole living
body; for what the departmental sense is to the bodily part which is its
organ, that the whole faculty of sense is to the whole sensitive body as
such.
We must not understand by that which is 'potentially capable of
living' what has lost the soul it had, but only what still retains it;
but seeds and fruits are bodies which possess the qualification. Consequently,
while waking is actuality in a sense corresponding to the cutting and the
seeing, the soul is actuality in the sense corresponding to the power of
sight and the power in the tool; the body corresponds to what exists in
potentiality; as the pupil plus the power of sight constitutes the eye,
so the soul plus the body constitutes the animal.
From this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from
its body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has parts)
for the actuality of some of them is nothing but the actualities of their
bodily parts. Yet some may be separable because they are not the actualities
of any body at all. Further, we have no light on the problem whether the
soul may not be the actuality of its body in the sense in which the sailor
is the actuality of the ship.
This must suffice as our sketch or outline determination of the
nature of soul.
Part 2
Since what is clear or logically more evident emerges from what
in itself is confused but more observable by us, we must reconsider our
results from this point of view. For it is not enough for a definitive
formula to express as most now do the mere fact; it must include and exhibit
the ground also. At present definitions are given in a form analogous to
the conclusion of a syllogism; e.g. What is squaring? The construction
of an equilateral rectangle equal to a given oblong rectangle. Such a definition
is in form equivalent to a conclusion. One that tells us that squaring
is the discovery of a line which is a mean proportional between the two
unequal sides of the given rectangle discloses the ground of what is
defined.
We resume our inquiry from a fresh starting-point by calling attention
to the fact 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 provided
any one alone of these is found in a thing we say that thing is living.
Living, that is, may mean thinking or perception or local movement and
rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth. Hence we
think of plants also as living, for they are observed to possess in themselves
an originative power through which they increase or decrease in all spatial
directions; they grow up and down, and everything that grows increases
its bulk alike in both directions or indeed in all, and continues to live
so long as it can absorb nutriment.
This power of self-nutrition can be isolated from the other powers
mentioned, but not they from it-in mortal beings at least. The fact is
obvious in plants; for it is the only psychic power they
possess.
This is the originative power the possession of which leads us
to speak of things as living at all, but it is the possession of sensation
that leads us for the first time to speak of living things as animals;
for even those beings which possess no power of local movement but do possess
the power of sensation we call animals and not merely living
things.
The primary form of sense is touch, which belongs to all animals.
just as the power of self-nutrition can be isolated from touch and sensation
generally, so touch can be isolated from all other forms of sense. (By
the power of self-nutrition we mean that departmental power of the soul
which is common to plants and animals: all animals whatsoever are observed
to have the sense of touch.) What the explanation of these two facts is,
we must discuss later. At present we must confine ourselves to saying that
soul is the source of these phenomena and is characterized by them, viz.
by the powers of self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and
motivity.
Is each of these a soul or a part of a soul? And if a part, a part
in what sense? A part merely distinguishable by definition or a part distinct
in local situation as well? In the case of certain of these powers, the
answers to these questions are easy, in the case of others we are puzzled
what to say. just as in the case of plants which when divided are observed
to continue to live though removed to a distance from one another (thus
showing that in their case the soul of each individual plant before division
was actually one, potentially many), so we notice a similar result in other
varieties of soul, i.e. in insects which have been cut in two; each of
the segments possesses both sensation and local movement; and if sensation,
necessarily also imagination and appetition; for, where there is sensation,
there is also pleasure and pain, and, where these, necessarily also
desire.
We have no evidence 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 capable of existence in isolation
from all other psychic powers. All the other parts of soul, it is evident
from what we have said, are, in spite of certain statements to the contrary,
incapable of separate existence though, of course, distinguishable by definition.
If opining is distinct from perceiving, to be capable of opining and to
be capable of perceiving must be distinct, and so with all the other forms
of living above enumerated. Further, some animals possess all these parts
of soul, some certain of them only, others one only (this is what enables
us to classify animals); the cause must be considered later.' A similar
arrangement is found also within the field of the senses; some classes
of animals have all the senses, some only certain of them, others only
one, the most indispensable, touch.
Since the expression 'that whereby we live and perceive' has two
meanings, just like the expression 'that whereby we know'-that may mean
either (a) knowledge or (b) the soul, for we can 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 since of the two
terms thus contrasted knowledge or health is the name of a form, essence,
or ratio, or if we so express it an actuality of a recipient matter-knowledge
of what is capable of knowing, health of what is capable of being made
healthy (for the operation of that which is capable of originating change
terminates and has its seat in what is changed or altered); further, since
it is the soul by or with which primarily we live, perceive, and think:-it
follows that the soul must be a ratio or formulable essence, not a matter
or subject. For, as we said, word substance has three meanings form, matter,
and the complex of both and of these three what is called matter is potentiality,
what is called form actuality. Since then the complex here is the living
thing, the body cannot be the actuality of the soul; it is the soul which
is the actuality of a certain kind of body. Hence the rightness of the
view that the soul cannot be without a body, while it csnnot he a body;
it is not a body but something relative to a body. That 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 specification of the kind or character of that body. Reflection
confirms the observed fact; the actuality of any given thing can only be
realized in what is already potentially that thing, i.e. in a matter of
its own appropriate to it. From all this it follows that soul is an actuality
or formulable essence of something that possesses a potentiality of being
besouled.
Part 3
Of the psychic powers above enumerated some kinds of living things,
as we have said, possess all, some less than all, others one only. Those
we have mentioned are the nutritive, the appetitive, the sensory, the locomotive,
and the power of thinking. Plants have none but the first, the nutritive,
while another order of living things has this plus the sensory. If any
order of living things has the sensory, it must also have the appetitive;
for appetite is the genus of which desire, passion, and wish are the species;
now all animals have one sense at least, viz. touch, and whatever has a
sense has the capacity for pleasure and pain and therefore has pleasant
and painful objects present to it, and wherever these are present, there
is desire, for desire is just appetition of what is pleasant. Further,
all animals have the sense for food (for touch is the sense for food);
the food of all living things consists of what is dry, moist, hot, cold,
and these are the qualities apprehended by touch; all other sensible qualities
are apprehended by touch only indirectly. Sounds, colours, and odours contribute
nothing to nutriment; flavours fall within the field of tangible qualities.
Hunger and thirst are forms of desire, hunger a desire for what is dry
and hot, thirst a desire for what is cold and moist; flavour is a sort
of seasoning added to both. We must later clear up these points, but at
present it may be enough to say that all animals that possess the sense
of touch have also appetition. The case of imagination is obscure; we must
examine it later. Certain kinds of animals possess in addition the power
of locomotion, 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 evident that a single definition can be given of soul
only in the same sense as one can be given of figure. For, as in that case
there is no figure distinguishable and apart from triangle, &c., so here
there is no soul apart from the forms of soul just enumerated. It is true
that a highly general definition can be given for figure which will fit
all figures without expressing the peculiar nature of any figure. So here
in the case of soul and its specific forms. Hence it is absurd in this
and similar cases to demand an absolutely general definition which will
fail to express the peculiar nature of anything that is, or again, omitting
this, to look for separate definitions corresponding to each infima species.
The cases of figure and soul are exactly parallel; for the particulars
subsumed under the common name in both cases-figures and living beings-constitute
a series, each successive term of which potentially contains its predecessor,
e.g. the square the triangle, the sensory power the self-nutritive. Hence
we must ask in the case of each order of living things, What is its soul,
i.e. What is the soul of plant, animal, man? Why the terms are related
in this serial way must form the subject of later examination. But the
facts are that the power of perception is never found apart from the power
of self-nutrition, while-in plants-the latter is found isolated from the
former. Again, no sense is found apart from that of touch, while touch
is found by itself; many animals have neither sight, hearing, nor smell.
Again, among living things that possess sense some have the power of locomotion,
some not. Lastly, certain living beings-a small minority-possess calculation
and thought, for (among mortal beings) those which possess calculation
have all the other powers above mentioned, while the converse does not
hold-indeed some live by imagination alone, while others have not even
imagination. The mind that knows with immediate intuition presents a different
problem.
It is evident that the way to give the most adequate definition
of soul is to seek in the case of each of its forms for the most appropriate
definition.
Part 4
It is necessary for the student of these forms of soul first to
find a definition of each, expressive of what it is, and then to investigate
its derivative properties, &c. But if we are to express what each is, viz.
what the thinking power is, or the perceptive, or the nutritive, we must
go farther back and first give an account of thinking or perceiving, for
in the order of investigation the question of what an agent does precedes
the question, what enables it to do what it does. If this is correct, we
must on the same ground go yet another step farther back and have some
clear view of the objects of each; thus we must start with these objects,
e.g. with food, with what is perceptible, or with what is
intelligible.
It follows that first of all we must treat of nutrition and reproduction,
for the nutritive soul is found along with all the others and is the most
primitive and widely distributed power of soul, being indeed that one in
virtue of which all are said to have life. The acts in which it manifests
itself are reproduction and the use of food-reproduction, I say, because
for any living thing that has reached its normal development and which
is unmutilated, and whose mode of generation is not spontaneous, the most
natural act is the production of another like itself, an animal producing
an animal, a plant a plant, in order that, as far as its nature allows,
it may partake in the eternal and divine. That is the goal towards which
all things strive, that for the sake of which they do whatsoever their
nature renders possible. The phrase 'for the sake of which' is ambiguous;
it may mean either (a) the end to achieve which, or (b) the being in whose
interest, the act is done. Since then no living thing is able to partake
in what is eternal and divine by uninterrupted continuance (for nothing
perishable can for ever remain one and the same), it tries to achieve that
end in the only way possible to it, and success is possible in varying
degrees; so it remains not indeed as the self-same individual but continues
its existence in something like itself-not numerically but specifically
one.
The soul is the cause or source of the living body. The terms cause
and source have many senses. But the soul is the cause of its body alike
in all three senses which we explicitly recognize. It is (a) the source
or origin of movement, it is (b) the end, it is (c) the essence of the
whole living body.
That it is the last, is clear; for in everything the essence is
identical with the ground of its being, and here, in the case of living
things, their being is to live, and of their being and their living the
soul in them is the cause or source. Further, the actuality of whatever
is potential is identical with its formulable essence.
It is manifest that the soul is also the final cause of its body.
For Nature, like mind, always does whatever it does for the sake of something,
which something is its end. To that something corresponds in the case of
animals the soul and in this it follows the order of nature; all natural
bodies are organs of the soul. This is true of those that enter into the
constitution of plants as well as of those which enter into that of animals.
This shows that that the sake of which they are is soul. We must here recall
the two senses of 'that for the sake of which', viz. (a) the end to achieve
which, and (b) the being in whose interest, anything is or is
done.
We must maintain, further, that the soul is also the cause of the
living body as the original source of local movement. The power of locomotion
is not found, however, in all living things. But change of quality and
change of quantity are also due to the soul. Sensation is held to be a
qualitative alteration, and nothing except what has soul in it is capable
of sensation. The same holds of the quantitative changes which constitute
growth and decay; nothing grows or decays naturally except what feeds itself,
and nothing feeds itself except what has a share of soul in
it.
Empedocles is wrong in adding that growth in plants is to be explained,
the downward rooting by the natural tendency of earth to travel downwards,
and the upward branching by the similar natural tendency of fire to travel
upwards. For he misinterprets up and down; up and down are not for all
things what they are for the whole Cosmos: if we are to distinguish and
identify organs according to their functions, the roots of plants are analogous
to the head in animals. Further, we must ask what is the force that holds
together the earth and the fire which tend to travel in contrary directions;
if there is no counteracting force, they will be torn asunder; if there
is, this must be the soul and the cause of nutrition and growth. By some
the element of fire is held to be the cause of nutrition and growth, for
it alone of the primary bodies or elements is observed to feed and increase
itself. Hence the suggestion that in both plants and animals it is it which
is the operative force. A concurrent cause in a sense it certainly is,
but not the principal cause, 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 case of all complex wholes formed in the course of nature there is
a limit or ratio which determines their size and increase, and limit and
ratio are marks of soul but not of fire, and belong to the side of formulable
essence rather than that of matter.
Nutrition and reproduction are due to one and the same psychic
power. It is necessary first to give precision to our account of food,
for it is by this function of absorbing food that this psychic power is
distinguished from all the others. The current view is that what serves
as food to a living thing is what is contrary to it-not that in every pair
of contraries each is food to the other: to be food a contrary must not
only be transformable into the other and vice versa, it must also in so
doing increase the bulk of the other. Many a contrary is transformed into
its other and vice versa, where neither is even a quantum and so cannot
increase in bulk, e.g. an invalid into a healthy subject. It is clear that
not even those contraries which satisfy both the conditions mentioned above
are food to one another in precisely the same sense; water may be said
to feed fire, but not fire water. Where the members of the pair are elementary
bodies only one of the contraries, it would appear, can be said to feed
the other. But there is a difficulty here. One set of thinkers assert that
like fed, as well as increased in amount, by like. Another set, as we have
said, maintain the very reverse, viz. that what feeds and what is fed are
contrary to one another; like, they argue, is incapable of being affected
by like; but food is changed in the process of digestion, and change is
always to what is opposite or to what is intermediate. Further, food is
acted upon by what is nourished by it, not the other way round, as timber
is worked by a carpenter and not conversely; there is a change in the carpenter
but it is merely a change from not-working to working. In answering this
problem it makes all the difference whether we mean by 'the food' the 'finished'
or the 'raw' product. If we use the word food of both, viz. of the completely
undigested and the completely digested matter, we can justify both the
rival accounts of it; taking food in the sense of undigested matter, it
is the contrary of what is fed by it, taking it as digested it is like
what is fed by it. Consequently it is clear that in a certain sense we
may say that both parties are right, both wrong.
Since nothing except what is alive can be fed, what is fed is the
besouled body and just because it has soul in it. Hence food is essentially
related to what has soul in it. Food has a power which is other than the
power to increase the bulk of what is fed by it; so far forth as what has
soul in it is a quantum, food may increase its quantity, but it is only
so far as what has soul in it is a 'this-somewhat' or substance that food
acts as food; in that case it maintains the being of what is fed, and that
continues to be what it is so long as the process of nutrition continues.
Further, it is the agent in generation, i.e. not the generation of the
individual fed but the reproduction of another like it; the substance of
the individual fed is already in existence; the existence of no substance
is a self-generation but only a self-maintenance.
Hence the psychic power which we are now studying may be described
as that which tends to maintain whatever has this power in it of continuing
such as it was, and food helps it to do its work. That is why, if deprived
of food, it must cease to be.
The process of nutrition involves three factors, (a) what is fed,
(b) that wherewith it is fed, (c) what does the feeding; of these (c) is
the first soul, (a) the body which has that soul in it, (b) the food. But
since it is right to call things after the ends they realize, and the end
of this soul is to generate another being like that in which it is, the
first soul ought to be named the reproductive soul. The expression (b)
'wherewith it is fed' is ambiguous just 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 moved and sets in movement, or (ii) what is merely
moved. We can apply this analogy here if we recall that all food must be
capable of being digested, and that what produces digestion is warmth;
that is why everything that has soul in it possesses
warmth.
We have now given an outline account of the nature of food; further
details must be given in the appropriate place.
Part 5
Having made these distinctions let us now speak of sensation in
the widest sense. Sensation depends, as we have said, on a process of movement
or affection from without, for it is held to be some sort of change of
quality. Now some thinkers assert that like is affected only by like; in
what sense this is possible and in what sense impossible, we have explained
in our general discussion of acting and being acted
upon.
Here arises a problem: why do we not perceive the senses themselves
as well as the external objects of sense, or why without the stimulation
of external objects do they not produce sensation, seeing that they contain
in themselves fire, earth, and all the other elements, which are the direct
or indirect objects is so of sense? It is clear that what is sensitive
is only potentially, not actually. The power of sense is parallel to what
is combustible, for that never ignites itself spontaneously, but requires
an agent which has the power of starting ignition; otherwise it could have
set itself on fire, and would not have needed actual fire to set it
ablaze.
In reply we must recall that we use the word 'perceive' in two
ways, for we say (a) that what has the power to hear or see, 'sees' or
'hears', even though it is at the moment asleep, and also (b) that what
is actually seeing or hearing, 'sees' or 'hears'. Hence 'sense' too must
have two meanings, sense potential, and sense actual. Similarly 'to be
a sentient' means either (a) to have a certain power or (b) to manifest
a certain activity. To begin with, for a time, let us speak as if there
were no difference between (i) being moved or affected, and (ii) being
active, for movement is a kind of activity-an imperfect kind, as has elsewhere
been explained. Everything that is acted upon or moved is acted upon by
an agent which is actually at work. Hence it is that in one sense, as has
already been stated, what acts and what is acted upon are like, in another
unlike, i.e. prior to and during the change the two factors are unlike,
after it like.
But we must now distinguish not only between what is potential
and what is actual but also different senses in which things can be said
to be potential or actual; up to now we have been speaking as if each of
these phrases had only one sense. We can speak of something as 'a knower'
either (a) as when we say that man is a knower, meaning that man falls
within the class of beings that know or have knowledge, or (b) as when
we are speaking of a man who possesses a knowledge of grammar; each of
these is so called as having in him a certain potentiality, but there is
a difference between their respective potentialities, the one (a) being
a potential knower, because his kind or matter is such and such, the other
(b), because he can in the absence of any external counteracting cause
realize his knowledge in actual knowing at will. This implies a third meaning
of 'a knower' (c), one who is already realizing his knowledge-he is a knower
in actuality and in the most proper sense is knowing, e.g. this A. Both
the former are potential knowers, who realize their respective potentialities,
the one (a) by change of quality, i.e. repeated transitions from one state
to its opposite under instruction, the other (b) by the transition from
the inactive possession of sense or grammar to their active exercise. The
two kinds of transition are distinct.
Also the expression 'to be acted upon' has more than one meaning;
it may mean either (a) the extinction of one of two contraries by the other,
or (b) the maintenance of what is potential by the agency of what is actual
and already like what is acted upon, with such likeness as is compatible
with one's being actual and the other potential. For what possesses knowledge
becomes an actual knower by a transition which is either not an alteration
of it at all (being in reality a development into its true self or actuality)
or at least an alteration in a quite different sense from the usual
meaning.
Hence it is wrong to speak of a wise man as being 'altered' when
he uses his wisdom, just as it would be absurd to speak of a builder as
being altered when he is using his skill in building a
house.
What in the case of knowing or understanding leads from potentiality
to actuality ought not to be called teaching but something else. That which
starting with the power to know learns or acquires knowledge through the
agency of one who actually knows and has the power of teaching either (a)
ought not to be said 'to be acted upon' at all or (b) we must recognize
two senses of alteration, viz. (i) the substitution of one quality for
another, the first being the contrary of the second, or (ii) the development
of an existent quality from potentiality in the direction of fixity or
nature.
In the case of what is to possess sense, the first transition is
due to the action of the male parent and takes place before birth so that
at birth the living thing is, in respect of sensation, at the stage which
corresponds to the possession of knowledge. Actual sensation corresponds
to the stage of the exercise of knowledge. But between the two cases compared
there is a difference; the objects that excite the sensory powers to activity,
the seen, the heard, &c., are outside. The ground of this difference is
that what actual sensation apprehends is individuals, while what knowledge
apprehends is universals, and these are in a sense within the soul. That
is why a man can exercise his knowledge when he wishes, but his sensation
does not depend upon himself a sensible object must be there. A similar
statement must be made about our knowledge of what is sensible-on the same
ground, viz. that the sensible objects are individual and
external.
A later more appropriate occasion may be found thoroughly to clear
up all this. At present it must be enough to recognize the distinctions
already drawn; a thing may be said to be potential in either of two senses,
(a) in the sense in which we might say of a boy that he may become a general
or (b) in the sense in which we might say the same of an adult, and there
are two corresponding senses of the term 'a potential sentient'. There
are no separate names for the two stages of potentiality; we have pointed
out that they are different and how they are different. We cannot help
using the incorrect terms 'being acted upon or altered' of the two transitions
involved. As we have said, has the power of sensation is potentially like
what the perceived object is actually; that is, while at the beginning
of the process of its being acted upon the two interacting factors are
dissimilar, at the end the one acted upon is assimilated to the other and
is identical in quality with it.
Part 6
In dealing with each of the senses we shall have first to speak
of the objects which are perceptible by each. The term 'object of sense'
covers three kinds of objects, two kinds of which are, in our language,
directly perceptible, while the remaining one is only incidentally perceptible.
Of the first two kinds one (a) consists of what is perceptible by a single
sense, the other (b) of what is perceptible by any and all of the senses.
I call by the name of special object of this or that sense that which cannot
be perceived by any other sense than that one and in respect of which no
error is possible; in this sense colour is the special object of sight,
sound of hearing, flavour of taste. Touch, indeed, discriminates more than
one set of different qualities. Each sense has one kind of object which
it discerns, and never errs in reporting that what is before it is colour
or sound (though it may err as to what it is that is coloured or where
that is, or what it is that is sounding or where that is.) Such objects
are what we propose to call the special objects of this or that
sense.
'Common sensibles' are movement, rest, number, figure, magnitude;
these are not peculiar to any one sense, but are common to all. There are
at any rate certain kinds of movement which are perceptible both by touch
and by sight.
We speak of an incidental object of sense where e.g. the white
object which we see is the son of Diares; here because 'being the son of
Diares' is incidental to the directly visible white patch we speak of the
son of Diares as being (incidentally) perceived or seen by us. Because
this is only incidentally an object of sense, it in no way as such affects
the senses. Of the two former kinds, both of which are in their own nature
perceptible by sense, the first kind-that of special objects of the several
senses-constitute the objects of sense in the strictest sense of the term
and it is to them that in the nature of things the structure of each several
sense is adapted.
Part 7
The object of sight is the visible, and what is visible is (a)
colour and (b) a certain kind of object which can be described in words
but which has no single name; what we mean by (b) will be abundantly clear
as we proceed. Whatever is visible is colour and colour is what lies upon
what is in its own nature visible; 'in its own nature' here means not that
visibility is involved in the definition of what thus underlies colour,
but that that substratum contains in itself the cause of visibility. Every
colour has in it the power to set in movement what is actually transparent;
that power constitutes its very nature. That is why it is not visible except
with the help of light; it is only in light that the colour of a thing
is seen. Hence our first task is to explain what light
is.
Now there clearly is something which is transparent, and by 'transparent'
I mean what is visible, and yet not visible in itself, but rather owing
its visibility to the colour of something else; of this character are air,
water, and many solid bodies. Neither air nor water is transparent because
it is air or water; they are transparent because each of them has contained
in it a certain substance which is the same in both and is also found in
the eternal body which constitutes the uppermost shell of the physical
Cosmos. Of this substance light is the activity-the activity of what is
transparent so far forth as it has in it the determinate power of becoming
transparent; where this power is present, there is also the potentiality
of the contrary, viz. darkness. Light is as it were the proper colour of
what is transparent, and exists whenever the potentially transparent is
excited to actuality by the influence of fire or something resembling 'the
uppermost body'; for fire too contains something which is one and the same
with the substance in question.
We have now explained what the transparent is and what light is;
light is neither fire nor any kind whatsoever 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 presence of fire or something resembling fire in what is transparent.
It is certainly not a body, for two bodies cannot be present in the same
place. The opposite of light is darkness; darkness is the absence from
what is transparent of the corresponding positive state above characterized;
clearly therefore, light is just the presence of that.
Empedocles (and with him all others who used the same forms of
expression) was wrong in speaking of light as 'travelling' or being at
a given moment between the earth and its envelope, its movement being unobservable
by us; that view is contrary both to the clear evidence of argument and
to the observed facts; if the distance traversed were short, the movement
might have been unobservable, but where the distance is from extreme East
to extreme West, the draught upon our powers of belief is too
great.
What is capable of taking on colour is what in itself is colourless,
as what can take on sound is what is soundless; what is colourless includes
(a) what is transparent and (b) what is invisible or scarcely visible,
i.e. what is 'dark'. The latter (b) is the same as what is transparent,
when it is potentially, not of course when it is actually transparent;
it is the same substance which is now darkness, now
light.
Not everything that is visible depends upon light for its visibility.
This is only true of the 'proper' colour of things. Some objects of sight
which in light are invisible, in darkness stimulate the sense; that is,
things that appear fiery or shining. This class of objects has no simple
common name, but instances of it are fungi, flesh, heads, scales, and eyes
of fish. In none of these is what is seen their own proper' colour. Why
we see these at all is another question. At present what is obvious is
that what is seen in light is always colour. That is why without the help
of light colour remains invisible. Its being colour at all means precisely
its having in it the power to set in movement what is already actually
transparent, and, as we have seen, the actuality of what is transparent
is just light.
The following experiment makes the necessity of a medium clear.
If what has colour is placed in immediate contact with the eye, it cannot
be seen. Colour sets in movement not the sense organ but what is transparent,
e.g. the air, and that, extending continuously from the object to the organ,
sets the latter in movement. Democritus misrepresents the facts when he
expresses the opinion that if the interspace were empty one could distinctly
see an ant on the vault of the sky; that is an impossibility. Seeing is
due to an affection or change of what has the perceptive faculty, and it
cannot be affected by the seen colour itself; it remains that it must be
affected by what comes between. Hence it is indispensable that there be
something in between-if there were nothing, so far from seeing with greater
distinctness, we should see nothing at all.
We have now explained the cause why colour cannot be seen otherwise
than in light. Fire on the other hand is seen both in darkness and in light;
this double possibility follows necessarily from our theory, for it is
just fire that makes what is potentially transparent actually
transparent.
The same account holds also of sound and smell; if the object of
either of these senses is in immediate contact with the organ no sensation
is produced. In both cases the object sets in movement only what lies between,
and this in turn sets the organ in movement: if what sounds or smells is
brought into immediate contact with the organ, no sensation will be produced.
The same, in spite of all appearances, applies also to touch and taste;
why there is this apparent difference will be clear later. What comes between
in the case of sounds is air; the corresponding medium in the case of smell
has no name. But, corresponding to what is transparent in the case of colour,
there is a quality found both in air and water, which serves as a medium
for what has smell-I say 'in water' because animals that live in water
as well as those that live on land seem to possess the sense of smell,
and 'in air' because man and all other land animals that breathe, perceive
smells only when they breathe air in. The explanation of this too will
be given later.
Part 8
Now let us, to begin with, make certain distinctions about sound
and hearing.
Sound may mean either of two things (a) actual, and (b) potential,
sound. There are certain things which, as we say, 'have no sound', e.g.
sponges or wool, others which have, e.g. bronze and in general all things
which are smooth and solid-the latter are said to have a sound because
they can make a sound, i.e. can generate actual sound between themselves
and the organ of hearing.
Actual sound requires for its occurrence (i, ii) two such bodies
and (iii) a space between them; for it is generated by an impact. Hence
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 movement from
place to place.
As we have said, not all bodies can by impact on one another produce
sound; impact on wool makes no sound, while the impact on bronze or any
body which is smooth and hollow does. Bronze gives out a sound when struck
because it is smooth; bodies which are hollow owing to reflection repeat
the original impact over and over again, the body originally set in movement
being unable to escape from the concavity.
Further, we must remark that sound is heard both in air and in
water, though less distinctly in the latter. Yet neither air nor water
is the principal cause of sound. What is required for the production of
sound is an impact of two solids against one another and against the air.
The latter condition is satisfied when the air impinged upon does not retreat
before the blow, i.e. is not dissipated by it.
That is why it must be struck with a sudden sharp blow, if it is
to sound-the movement of the whip must outrun the dispersion of the air,
just as one might get in a stroke at a heap or whirl of sand as it was
traveling rapidly past.
An echo occurs, when, a mass of air having been unified, bounded,
and prevented from dissipation by the containing walls of a vessel, the
air originally struck by the impinging body and set in movement by it rebounds
from this mass of air like a ball from a wall. It is probable that in all
generation of sound echo takes place, though it is frequently only indistinctly
heard. What happens here must be analogous to what happens in the case
of light; light is always reflected-otherwise it would not be diffused
and outside what was directly illuminated by the sun there would be blank
darkness; but this reflected light is not always strong enough, as it is
when it is reflected from water, bronze, and other smooth bodies, to cast
a shadow, which is the distinguishing mark by which we recognize
light.
It is rightly said that an empty space plays the chief part in
the production of hearing, for what people mean by 'the vacuum' is the
air, which is what causes hearing, when that air is set in movement as
one continuous mass; but owing to its friability it emits no sound, being
dissipated by impinging upon any surface which is not smooth. When the
surface on which it impinges is quite smooth, what is produced by the original
impact is a united mass, a result due to the smoothness of the surface
with which the air is in contact at the other end.
What has the power of producing sound is what has the power of
setting in movement a single mass of air which is continuous from the impinging
body up to the organ of hearing. The organ of hearing is physically united
with air, and because it is in air, the air inside is moved concurrently
with the air outside. Hence animals do not hear with all parts of their
bodies, nor do all parts admit of the entrance of air; for even the part
which can be moved and can sound has not air everywhere in it. Air in itself
is, owing to its friability, quite soundless; only when its dissipation
is prevented is its movement sound. The air in the ear is built into a
chamber just to prevent this dissipating movement, in order that the animal
may accurately apprehend all varieties of the movements of the air outside.
That is why we hear also in water, viz. because the water cannot get into
the air chamber or even, owing to the spirals, into the outer ear. If this
does happen, hearing ceases, as it also does if the tympanic membrane is
damaged, just as sight ceases if the membrane covering the pupil is damaged.
It is also a test of deafness whether the ear does or does not reverberate
like a horn; the air inside the ear has always a movement of its own, but
the sound we hear is always the sounding of something else, not of the
organ itself. That is why we say that we hear with what is empty and echoes,
viz. because what we hear with is a chamber which contains a bounded mass
of air.
Which is it that 'sounds', the striking body or the struck? Is
not the answer 'it is both, but each in a different way'? Sound is a movement
of what can rebound from a smooth surface when struck against it. As we
have explained' not everything sounds when it strikes or is struck, e.g.
if one needle is struck against another, neither emits any sound. In order,
therefore, that sound may be generated, what is struck must be smooth,
to enable the air to rebound and be shaken off from it in one
piece.
The distinctions between different sounding bodies show themselves
only in actual sound; as without the help of light colours remain invisible,
so without the help of actual sound the distinctions between acute and
grave sounds remain inaudible. Acute and grave are here metaphors, transferred
from their proper sphere, viz. that of touch, where they mean respectively
(a) what moves the sense much in a short time, (b) what moves the sense
little in a long time. Not that what is sharp really moves fast, and what
is grave, slowly, but that the difference in the qualities of the one and
the other movement is due to their respective speeds. There seems to be
a sort of parallelism between what is acute or grave to hearing and what
is sharp or blunt to touch; what is sharp as it were stabs, while what
is blunt pushes, the one producing its effect in a short, the other in
a long time, so that the one is quick, the other slow.
Let the foregoing suffice as an analysis of sound. Voice is a kind
of sound characteristic of what has soul in it; nothing that is without
soul utters voice, it being only by a metaphor that we speak of the voice
of the flute or the lyre or generally of what (being without soul) possesses
the power of producing a succession of notes which differ in length and
pitch and timbre. The metaphor is based on the fact that all these differences
are found also in voice. Many animals are voiceless, e.g. all non-sanuineous
animals and among sanguineous animals fish. This is just what we should
expect, since voice is a certain movement of air. The fish, like those
in the Achelous, which are said to have voice, really make the sounds with
their gills or some similar organ. Voice is the sound made by an animal,
and that with a special organ. As we saw, everything that makes a sound
does so by the impact of something (a) against something else, (b) across
a space, (c) filled with air; hence it is only to be expected that no animals
utter voice except those which take in air. Once air is inbreathed, Nature
uses it for two different purposes, as the tongue is used both for tasting
and for articulating; in that case of the two functions tasting is necessary
for the animal's existence (hence it is found more widely distributed),
while articulate speech is a luxury subserving its possessor's well-being;
similarly in the former case Nature employs the breath both as an indispensable
means to the regulation of the inner temperature of the living body and
also as the matter of articulate voice, in the interests of its possessor's
well-being. Why its former use is indispensable must be discussed
elsewhere.
The organ of respiration is the windpipe, and the organ to which
this is related as means to end is the lungs. The latter is the part of
the body by which the temperature of land animals is raised above that
of all others. But what primarily requires the air drawn in by respiration
is not only this but the region surrounding the heart. That is why when
animals breathe the air must penetrate inwards.
Voice then is the impact of the inbreathed air against the 'windpipe',
and the agent that produces the impact is the soul resident in these parts
of the body. Not every sound, as we said, made by an animal is voice (even
with the tongue we may merely make a sound which is not voice, or without
the tongue as in coughing); what produces the impact must have soul in
it and must be accompanied by an act of imagination, for voice is a sound
with a meaning, and is not merely the result of any impact of the breath
as in coughing; in voice the breath in the windpipe is used as an instrument
to knock with against the walls of the windpipe. This is confirmed by our
inability to speak when we are breathing either out or in-we can only do
so by holding our breath; we make the movements with the breath so checked.
It is clear also why fish are voiceless; they have no windpipe. And they
have no windpipe because they do not breathe or take in air. Why they do
not is a question belonging to another inquiry.
Part 9
Smell and its object are much less easy to determine than what
we have hitherto discussed; the distinguishing characteristic of the object
of smell is less obvious than those of sound or colour. The ground of this
is that our power of smell is less discriminating and in general inferior
to that of many species of animals; men have a poor sense of smell and
our apprehension of its proper objects is inseparably bound up with and
so confused by pleasure and pain, which shows that in us the organ is inaccurate.
It is probable that there is a parallel failure in the perception of colour
by animals that have hard eyes: probably they discriminate differences
of colour only by the presence or absence of what excites 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 species of tastes run
parallel to those of smells-the only difference being that our sense of
taste is more discriminating than our sense of smell, because the former
is a modification of touch, which reaches in man the maximum of discriminative
accuracy. While in respect of all the other senses we fall below many species
of animals, in respect of touch we far excel all other species in exactness
of discrimination. That is why man is the most intelligent of all animals.
This is confirmed by the fact that it is to differences in the organ of
touch and to nothing else that the differences between man and man in respect
of natural endowment are due; men whose flesh is hard are ill-endowed by
nature, men whose flesh is soft, wellendowed.
As flavours may be divided into (a) sweet, (b) bitter, so with
smells. In some things the flavour and the smell have the same quality,
i.e. both are sweet or both bitter, in others they diverge. Similarly a
smell, like a flavour, may be pungent, astringent, acid, or succulent.
But, as we said, because smells are much less easy to discriminate than
flavours, the names of these varieties are applied to smells only metaphorically;
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 which hearing has for its object both the
audible and the inaudible, sight both the visible and the invisible, smell
has for its object 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. The same ambiguity lurks in the word 'tasteless'.
Smelling, like the operation of the senses previously examined,
takes place through a medium, i.e. through air or water-I add water, because
water-animals too (both sanguineous and non-sanguineous) seem to smell
just as much as land-animals; at any rate some of them make directly for
their food from a distance if it has any scent. That is why the following
facts constitute a problem for us. All animals smell in the same way, but
man smells only when he inhales; if he exhales or holds his breath, he
ceases to smell, no difference being made whether the odorous object is
distant or near, or even placed inside the nose and actually on the wall
of the nostril; it is a disability common to all the senses not to perceive
what is in immediate contact with the organ of sense, but our failure to
apprehend what is odorous without the help of inhalation is peculiar (the
fact is obvious on making the experiment). Now since bloodless animals
do not breathe, they must, it might be argued, have some novel sense not
reckoned among the usual five. Our reply must be that this is impossible,
since it is scent that is perceived; a sense that apprehends what is odorous
and what has a good or bad odour cannot be anything but smell. Further,
they are observed to be deleteriously effected by the same strong odours
as man is, e.g. bitumen, sulphur, and the like. These animals must be able
to smell without being able to breathe. The probable explanation is that
in man the organ of smell has a certain superiority over that in all other
animals just as his eyes have over those of hard-eyed animals. Man's eyes
have in the eyelids a kind of shelter or envelope, which must be shifted
or drawn back in order that we may see, while hardeyed animals have nothing
of the kind, but at once see whatever presents itself in the transparent
medium. Similarly in certain species of animals the organ of smell is like
the eye of hard-eyed animals, uncurtained, while in others which take in
air it probably has a curtain over it, which is drawn back in inhalation,
owing to the dilating of the veins or pores. That explains also why such
animals cannot smell under water; to smell they must first inhale, and
that they cannot do under water.
Smells come from what is dry as flavours from what is moist. Consequently
the organ of smell is potentially dry.
Part 10
What can be tasted is always something that can be touched, and
just for that reason it cannot be perceived through an interposed foreign
body, for touch means the absence of any intervening body. Further, the
flavoured and tasteable body is suspended in a liquid matter, and this
is tangible. Hence, if we lived in water, we should perceive a sweet object
introduced into the water, but the water would not be the medium through
which we perceived; our perception would be due to the solution of the
sweet substance in what we imbibed, just as if it were mixed with some
drink. There is no parallel here to the perception of colour, which is
due neither to any blending of anything with anything, nor to any efflux
of anything from anything. In the case of taste, there is nothing corresponding
to the medium in the case of the senses previously discussed; but as the
object of sight is colour, so the object of taste is flavour. But nothing
excites a perception of flavour without the help of liquid; what acts upon
the sense of taste must be either actually or potentially liquid like what
is saline; it must be both (a) itself easily dissolved, and (b) capable
of dissolving along with itself the tongue. Taste apprehends both (a) what
has taste and (b) what has no taste, if we mean by (b) what has only a
slight or feeble flavour or what tends to destroy the sense of taste. In
this it is exactly parallel to sight, which apprehends both what is visible
and what is invisible (for darkness is invisible and yet is discriminated
by sight; so is, in a different way, what is over brilliant), and to hearing,
which apprehends both sound and silence, of which the one is audible and
the other inaudible, and also over-loud sound. This corresponds in the
case of hearing to over-bright light in the case of sight. As a faint sound
is 'inaudible', so in a sense is a loud or violent sound. The word 'invisible'
and similar privative terms cover not only (a) what is simply without some
power, but also (b) what is adapted by nature to have it but has not it
or has it only in a very low degree, as when we say that a species of swallow
is 'footless' or that a variety of fruit is 'stoneless'. So too taste has
as its object both what can be tasted and the tasteless-the latter in the
sense of what has little flavour or a bad flavour or one destructive of
taste. The difference 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. What is drinkable is the common
object of both touch and taste.
Since what can be tasted is liquid, the organ for its perception
cannot be either (a) actually liquid or (b) incapable of becoming liquid.
Tasting means a being affected by what can be tasted as such; hence the
organ of taste must be liquefied, and so to start with must be non-liquid
but capable of liquefaction without loss of its distinctive nature. This
is confirmed by the fact that the tongue cannot taste either when it is
too dry or when it is too moist; in the latter case what occurs is due
to a contact with the pre-existent moisture in the tongue itself, when
after a foretaste of some strong flavour we try to taste another flavour;
it is in this way that sick persons find everything they taste bitter,
viz. because, when they taste, their tongues are overflowing with bitter
moisture.
The species of flavour are, as in the case of colour, (a) simple,
i.e. the two contraries, the sweet and the bitter, (b) secondary, viz.
(i) on the side of the sweet, the succulent, (ii) on the side of the bitter,
the saline, (iii) between these come the pungent, the harsh, the astringent,
and the acid; these pretty well exhaust the varieties of flavour. 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 actually
what it itself already is.
Part 11
Whatever can be said of what is tangible, can be said of touch,
and vice versa; if touch is not a single sense but a group of senses, there
must be several kinds of what is tangible. It is a problem whether touch
is a single sense or a group of senses. It is also a problem, what is the
organ of touch; is it or is it not the flesh (including what in certain
animals is homologous with flesh)? On the second view, flesh is 'the medium'
of touch, the real organ being situated farther inward. The problem arises
because the field of each sense is according to the accepted view determined
as the range between a single pair of contraries, white and black for sight,
acute and grave for hearing, bitter and sweet for taste; but in the field
of what is tangible we find several such pairs, hot cold, dry moist, hard
soft, &c. This problem finds a partial solution, when it is recalled that
in the case of the other senses more than one pair of contraries are to
be met with, e.g. in sound not only acute and grave but loud and soft,
smooth and rough, &c.; there are similar contrasts in the field of colour.
Nevertheless we are unable clearly to detect in the case of touch what
the single subject is which underlies the contrasted qualities and corresponds
to sound in the case of hearing.
To the question whether the organ of touch lies inward or not (i.e.
whether we need look any farther than the flesh), no indication in favour
of the second answer can be drawn from the fact that if the object comes
into contact with the flesh it is at once perceived. For even under present
conditions if the experiment is made of making a web and stretching it
tight over the flesh, as soon as this web is touched the sensation is reported
in the same manner as before, yet it is clear that the or is gan is not
in this membrane. If the membrane could be grown on to the flesh, the report
would travel still quicker. The flesh plays in touch very much the same
part as would be played in the other senses by an air-envelope growing
round our body; had we such an envelope attached to us we should have supposed
that it was by a single organ that we perceived sounds, colours, and smells,
and we should have taken sight, hearing, and smell to be a single sense.
But as it is, because that through which the different movements are transmitted
is not naturally attached to our bodies, the difference of the various
sense-organs is too plain to miss. But in the case of touch the obscurity
remains.
There must be such a naturally attached 'medium' as flesh, for
no living body could be constructed of air or water; it must be something
solid. Consequently it must be composed of earth along with these, which
is just what flesh and its analogue in animals which have no true flesh
tend to be. Hence of necessity the medium through which are transmitted
the manifoldly contrasted tactual qualities must be a body naturally attached
to the organism. That they are manifold is clear when we consider touching
with the tongue; we apprehend at the tongue all tangible qualities as well
as flavour. Suppose all the rest of our flesh was, like the tongue, sensitive
to flavour, we should have identified the sense of taste and the sense
of touch; what saves us from this identification is the fact that touch
and taste are not always found together in the same part of the body. The
following problem might be raised. Let us assume that every body has depth,
i.e. has three dimensions, and that if two bodies have a third body between
them they cannot be in contact with one another; let us remember that what
is liquid is a body and must be or contain water, and that if two bodies
touch one another under water, their touching surfaces cannot be dry, but
must have water between, viz. the water which wets their bounding surfaces;
from all this it follows that in water two bodies cannot be in contact
with one another. The same holds of two bodies in air-air being to bodies
in air precisely what water is to bodies in water-but the facts are not
so evident to our observation, because we live in air, just as animals
that live in water would not notice that the things which touch one another
in water have wet surfaces. The problem, then, is: does the perception
of all objects of sense take place in the same way, or does it not, e.g.
taste and touch requiring contact (as they are commonly thought to do),
while all other senses perceive over a distance? The distinction is unsound;
we perceive what is hard or soft, as well as the objects of hearing, sight,
and smell, through a 'medium', only that the latter are perceived over
a greater distance than the former; that is why the facts escape our notice.
For we do perceive everything through a medium; but in these cases the
fact escapes us. Yet, to repeat what we said before, if the medium for
touch were a membrane separating us from the object without our observing
its existence, we should be relatively to it in the same condition as we
are now to air or water in which we are immersed; in their case we fancy
we can touch objects, nothing coming in between us and them. But there
remains this difference between what can be touched and what can be seen
or can sound; in the latter two cases we perceive because the medium produces
a certain effect upon us, whereas in the perception of objects of touch
we are affected not by but along with the medium; it is as if a man were
struck through his shield, where the shock is not first given to the shield
and passed on to the man, but the concussion of both is
simultaneous.
In general, flesh and the tongue are related to the real organs
of touch and taste, as air and water are to those of sight, hearing, and
smell. Hence in neither the one case nor the other can there be any perception
of an object if it is placed immediately upon the organ, e.g. if a white
object is placed on the surface of the eye. This again shows that what
has the power of perceiving the tangible is seated inside. Only so would
there be a complete analogy with all the other senses. In their case if
you place the object on the organ it is not perceived, here if you place
it on the flesh it is perceived; therefore flesh is not the organ but the
medium of touch.
What can be touched are distinctive qualities of body as body;
by such differences I mean those which characterize the elements, viz,
hot cold, dry moist, of which we have spoken earlier in our treatise on
the elements. The organ for the perception of these is that of touch-that
part of the body in which primarily the sense of touch resides. This is
that part which is potentially such as its object is actually: for all
sense-perception is a process of being so affected; so that that which
makes something such as it itself actually is makes the other such because
the other is already potentially such. That is why when an object of touch
is equally hot and cold or hard and soft we cannot perceive; what we perceive
must have a degree of the sensible quality lying beyond the neutral point.
This implies that the sense itself is a 'mean' between any two opposite
qualities which determine the field of that sense. It is to this that it
owes its power of discerning the objects in that field. What is 'in the
middle' is fitted to discern; relatively to either extreme it can put itself
in the place of the other. As what is to perceive both white and black
must, to begin with, be actually neither but potentially either (and so
with all the other sense-organs), so the organ of touch must be neither
hot nor cold.
Further, as in a sense sight had for its object both what was visible
and what was invisible (and there was a parallel truth about all the other
senses discussed), so touch has for its object both what is tangible and
what is intangible. Here by 'intangible' is meant (a) what like air possesses
some quality of tangible things in a very slight degree and (b) what possesses
it in an excessive degree, as destructive things do.
We have now given an outline account of each of the several
senses.
Part 12
The following results applying to any and every sense may now be
formulated.
(A) By a 'sense' is meant what has the power of receiving into
itself the sensible forms of things without the matter. This must be conceived
of as taking place in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress
of a signet-ring without the iron or gold; we say that what produces the
impression is a signet of bronze or gold, but its particular metallic constitution
makes no difference: in a similar way the sense is affected by what is
coloured or flavoured or sounding, but it is indifferent what in each case
the substance is; what alone matters is what quality it has, i.e. in what
ratio its constituents are combined.
(B) By 'an organ of sense' is meant that in which ultimately such
a power is seated.
The sense and its organ are the same in fact, but their essence
is not the same. What perceives is, of course, a spatial magnitude, but
we must not admit that either the having the power to perceive or the sense
itself is a magnitude; what they are is a certain ratio or power in a magnitude.
This enables us to explain why objects of sense which possess one of two
opposite sensible qualities in a degree largely in excess of the other
opposite destroy the organs of sense; if the movement set up by an object
is too strong for the organ, the equipoise of contrary qualities in the
organ, which just is its sensory power, is disturbed; it is precisely as
concord and tone are destroyed by too violently twanging the strings of
a lyre. This explains also why plants cannot perceive. in spite of their
having a portion of soul in them and obviously being affected by tangible
objects themselves; for undoubtedly their temperature can be lowered or
raised. The explanation is that they have no mean of contrary qualities,
and so no principle in them capable of taking on the forms of sensible
objects without their matter; in the case of plants the affection is an
affection by form-and-matter together. The problem might be raised: Can
what cannot smell be said to be affected by smells or what cannot see by
colours, and so on? It might be said that a smell is just what can be smelt,
and if it produces any effect it can only be so as to make something smell
it, and it might be argued that what cannot smell cannot be affected by
smells and further that what can smell can be affected by it only in so
far as it has in it the power to smell (similarly with the proper objects
of all the other senses). Indeed that this is so is made quite evident
as follows. Light or darkness, sounds and smells leave bodies quite unaffected;
what does affect bodies is not these but the bodies which are their vehicles,
e.g. what splits the trunk of a tree is not the sound of the thunder but
the air which accompanies thunder. Yes, but, it may be objected, bodies
are affected by what is tangible and by flavours. If not, by what are things
that are without soul affected, i.e. altered in quality? Must we not, then,
admit that the objects of the other senses also may affect them? Is not
the true account this, that all bodies are capable of being affected by
smells and sounds, but that some on being acted upon, having no boundaries
of their own, disintegrate, as in the instance of air, which does become
odorous, showing that some effect is produced on it by what is odorous?
But smelling is more than such an affection by what is odorous-what more?
Is not the answer that, while the air owing to the momentary duration of
the action upon it of what is odorous does itself become perceptible to
the sense of smell, smelling is an observing of the result
produced?
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