LECTIO FOUR

             § 43. Having shown how some have approached a knowledge of soul through movement, the Philosopher now turns to those who came to it by way of sensation or knowledge. He does this in two stages. First he shows where the latter were in agreement; and secondly, at 'Empedocles, for instance,' where they disagreed.   He begins then by saying that all who studied the soul in or through its knowing and sensing agreed in holding that the soul was composed of the principles of things; but some 'made', i.e. posited, many such principles, while others posited only one. Even the earliest philosophers assumed these principles to be in the soul, as though compelled by the force of truth itself; they dreamed, as it were, of the truth. The truth, in fact, is that knowledge is caused by the knower containing a likeness of the thing known; for the latter must be in the knower somehow. The early philosophers, however, thought that it existed in the knower in its own natural being, i.e. with the being that it has in itself. Like, they said, must be known by like. If then the soul is to know all things it must contain a likeness of all things according to their natural mode of being. They could not distinguish between the mode of existence that a thing has in the mind or the eye or the imagination from that which it has in itself. Therefore, since whatever is of a thing's essence is a constituent principle of the thing, and to know its constituent principles is to know the thing itself, these philosophers maintained that the reason why the soul can know all things is that it is made up of the principles of all things. This theory was common to them all.

             § 44. But they differed about these principles. They did not all admit the same; one admitted many, another only one, and one this and another that. Hence they disagreed also about the constituents of the soul.

             § 45. So, at 'Empedocles, for instance,' Aristotle states these differences. He gives first the opinion of Empedocles, saying that the early philosophers who studied the soul by way of its sense-perceptions thought it was composed of the elements. Those who admitted only one principle said that this precisely was the soul; and those who admitted many said that the soul was made up of many; thus Empedocles held that the soul was constituted by all the elements, and that each of these was itself a soul. Note that Empedocles admitted six principles: four material, namely earth, water, fire and air; and two active and passive principles, namely strife and friendship. And since he assumed that the soul knew all things, he said it was composed of all these principles. Thus as earthy we know earth; as ethereal or airy we know air; as aequous we know water; and as fiery, of course, we know fire. Through love we know love, and through 'sad hate' we know hatred. 'Sad' comes in here because Empedocles wrote in verse.

             § 46. Next, when he says 'In the same way Plato', Aristotle states the opinion of Plato who also, he says, made the soul consist of elements, i.e. be constituted by the principles of things. And as evidence for this statement he takes three passages from Plato. The first is from the Timaeus, where Plato says that there are two elements or first principles, Identity and Difference. For there is a certain kind of nature that is simple and unchanging, as are immaterial things; and this nature he calls Identity. And there is another kind which does not stay the same, but undergoes change and division, as do material things; and this nature he calls Difference. And it is of these two principles, of Identity and Difference, that the soul, he says, is composed; not that the two are in the soul as its parts; but rather as in the mean between extremes; for the rational soul is by nature lower and less noble than the higher and purely immaterial substances, but it is higher and nobler than inferior material things.

             § 47. Now this opinion rests on the principle already mentioned, that like is known by like. For it seemed to Plato that if the soul knew all things, and if Identity and Difference were fundamental principles, then the soul itself must be constituted of Identity and Difference; in so far as it participated in 'Identity' the soul, he thought, knew the 'identical', while so far as it participated in 'Difference' it knew the 'different', i.e. material things. Hence the actual process of the soul in knowing things. For when it gathers things together under genera and species, then, said Plato, it manifests Sameness or Identity, but when it attends to accidents and differentiations he finds in it Difference. That is how Plato in the Timaeus understood the soul as made up of principles.

             § 48. The second passage, showing that this was Plato's theory, Aristotle refers to when he says 'In the lectures "On Philosophy".' Here too the soul is represented as constituted from principles. Note, in this connection, that Plato took the objects known by the intellect to be things in themselves, existing apart from matter in perpetual actuality, and the causes of knowledge and of being in things of sense. For Aristotle this view involved so many difficulties that he was compelled to excogitate the theory of the 'agent intellect'. But from Plato's position it followed that to what could be thought of in the abstract corresponded subsistent and actual realities. We can, however, form abstractions in two ways: one is by proceeding from particulars to universals; and the other is that by which mathematical objects are abstracted from objects of sense. So Plato found himself obliged to posit three types of subsistent being: the objects of sense-perception; mathematical objects; and universal ideas--these last being the cause, by participation, of the other two types.

             § 49. Plato also held that numbers were causes of real things, being unaware of the distinction between unity as identical with being, and unity as the principle of the number that is a kind of quantity. Hence he inferred that universals were of the nature of number; for the universal existing separately is the cause of things whose substance is numerical. He said indeed that the constituent principles of all beings were 'species' and 'specific number', which he called specific in the sense of being constituted from 'species'. And he reduced number itself to unity and duality as to its fundamental elements; for, as nothing can proceed from one alone, there must, he thought, be some nature, subordinate to unity, whence multiplicity might proceed; and this nature he called duality.

             § 50. Thus Plato envisaged three classes of beings, graded according to their connection with matter. As sensible objects are more material than the objects considered in mathematics, and the latter more so than the universal ideas, he placed sense-objects on the lowest level, and above them mathematical objects, and above these the separately existing universals and ideas. Universals differ from mathematical objects in this that the latter include numerical differences within the same species, whereas ideas and separated substances exhibit no numerical differences in the one species; there is but one idea for each species. These ideas, he said, are numerical in nature, and from them are derived such numerical qualities of sensible things as length, breadth and depth. Hence he said that the idea of length was the primary duality, for length is from unit to unit, from point to point; and that of breadth was the first trinity, for the triangle is the first of plane figures; and that of depth, which includes both length and breadth, was the first quaternity, for the first solid figure is the pyramid which is constructed of four angles. So too the sensitive soul, in Plato's system, implied a Soul existing separately as its cause, and constituted, like the other 'separate' things and ideas, by number, that is, by the unity and duality which for him were fundamental in things.

             § 51. Then at 'Again, rather differently, . . .' Aristotle alludes to the third text adduced to show that for Plato the soul was made up of elements or principles. As we have said, it was Plato's view that the specific forms and principles of things were numbers; so when he came to treat of the soul he based its knowledge of things on its fundamentally numerical composition; all of its activities, he maintained, sprang from this source. Take for instance the diverse apprehensive functionings of the soul: simple understanding, science, opinion and sensation. Simple understanding Plato connected with the idea of One; it has the nature of Unity; for in one act it apprehends a unity. Again, science for him relates to Duality since it proceeds from one to one, i.e. from principles to conclusions. And opinion relates to the first Trinity, proceeding from one to two, i.e. from principles to a conclusion which is accompanied by the fear that a different conclusion may be true; so forming a triad out of one principle and one admitted and one feared conclusion. Finally, sensation derives from the first Quaternity, i.e. from the notion of a solid body constructed (as we have said) from four angles; for bodies are the object of sensation. Since then all knowing is contained in these four, i.e. in simple understanding, science, opinion and sensation, all of which, said Plato, are in the soul in virtue of its participating in the nature of Unity, Duality, Trinity and Quaternity, it obviously follows that for Plato the separated Soul, the 'idea', as he called it, of particular souls, was constituted by numbers, which are the elements or principles of reality. So much to show that Plato regarded the soul as made up of principles.

             § 52. Next at 'But since the soul seems . . .', Aristotle observes that some philosophers defined the soul, and came to know something about it, through both movement and sensation or knowledge. He says that, as the soul seemed to them to be both self-moving and cognitive, they joined the two aspects in their definition and called it a 'self-moving number'. 'Number' refers to the cognitive power because they thought, in accordance with what has been said already, that the soul was able to know in virtue of its participating in the nature of specific number (Plato's opinion). 'Self-moving' refers to the soul's motive power.

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PREVIOUS THEORIES

SOUL AS IDENTIFIED WITH THE ELEMENTS

             OPINIONS differ however as to the elemental principles--what they are, how many they are; and the difference is greatest between those who make these corporeal and those who make them incorporeal. But some, making a mixture, have defined the principles in terms of both. They differ also as to the number, some positing one, others several. And they assign a soul to these [principles] accordingly. (For they not unreasonably assumed that what by nature causes movement was primary.)§§ 53-4

             Hence some have held it to be fire; for this is the most subtle, and much the least corporeal of the elements; moreover, it moves itself, being the first cause of movement in other things. Democritus said something which rather neatly gives the reason for either fact. He said that soul is the same as mind, and that this originates in primary indivisible particles and that it causes motion by its fineness and shape. He says that the sphere is the most light and mobile of shapes, and that fire and mind must both be of such a nature.§§ 55-6

             Anaxagoras, however (as we said above), seems to speak of soul and mind as diverse, yet he employs both terms as for a single essence. Nevertheless, he posits Intellect as the principle par excellence of the Universe, saying that this alone among beings is simple, unmixed and pure. He attributes, indeed, to the same principle both knowing and moving; saying that Intellect moves all things.§ 57

             It seems that Thales, from what they recollect of him, was also of opinion that the soul was a cause of motion,--if it is a fact that he said that the magnet had a 'soul' because it attracts iron.§ 58

             Now Diogenes, like certain others, held that air is the most subtle of all things and is their principle; and is the cause of the soul's knowing and moving. As primary, it is cognitive of all else: and as the most subtle thing, it is the motive force.§ 59

             Heraclitus, however, says that soul, as a principle, is some vapour of which it is constituted, since this is the least corporeal of substances and is always flowing; and that any moving object is known by a moving object--he and many others holding that all realities are in movement.§ 60

             Alcmaeon seems to have held opinions on the soul similar to these. For he said it was immortal because it bore a resemblance to immortal beings. And this he attributed to it because it always moves; all heavenly things seem to be in motion continually--the sun, the moon, the stars, all heaven.§ 61

             Some cruder thinkers, like Hippo, thought it was water. They seem to have been persuaded of this because semen is liquid in all animals. For he confutes those who say the soul is the blood, on the ground that semen, which is the inchoate soul, is not blood.§ 62

             Others, such as Critias, held it was blood; that sensation was most distinctive of the soul; and that it was due to the nature of blood that this power was in it.§ 63

             For opinions have been given in favour of every element excepting earth: which no one has proposed, unless whosoever may have said it was derived from all the elements, or was identical with them, did so.§ 64

             All, taken together, define soul, we may say, by three things: by movement, by sensation, and by immateriality. And each of these is reduced to elemental principles. Hence, in defining it as cognitive, they make it either an element or consist of several elements, one saying much the, same as another (with a single exception). For they say that anything is known by what resembles it, and as the soul knows all things, so they constitute it of all principles: some saying that there is one cause and one element, and that the soul is a single thing--fire or water, for example; others that there are several principles, and that the soul is multiple.§ 65

             But Anaxagoras, standing alone, says that mind is beyond the reach of influence and has nothing in common with other things. But, granted that this be true, he did not explain how it acquires knowledge, in virtue of what cause; nor is this made clear by anything else he said.§ 66

             Those who posit contraries as first principles also maintain that the soul consists of such contraries, while those who favour some one among contraries (hot or cold, or some other like these) make the soul, accordingly, one of these. Whence also some follow names, as those who allege that it is heat, because life is due to heat and is named from it. But those who identify the soul with cold say that it is named from respiration and breathing.   Such then are the opinions that have been transmitted to us about the soul, together with the reasons given for them.§ 67