LECTIO FIVE

             § 53. In the preceding chapters Aristotle has shown the old philosophers agreeing in their analysis of the soul, in that they all regarded it as the origin of movement and knowledge. In the section beginning now he shows how they variously interpreted that common presupposition. This section falls into three parts: in the first he shows the root of the divergence of these philosophers in their teaching on the soul; the second enumerates the various points of difference (beginning at 'Hence some'); the third summarises all that we have to consider in these differences (at 'All, taken together'). The root of the divergence of the philosophers in their teaching on the soul is to be looked for in the way they analysed it into its ultimate elements; as they disagreed about these elements so did they differ about the soul. They all agreed that the soul was made up of ultimate elements, but they could not agree that it was made up of the same elements; and, differing as to the elements, they differed in their theories of the soul.

             § 54. They differ in two ways about the ultimate elements: first, as to their essential nature, i.e. 'what' they are; secondly, as to their number, 'how many' they are. As regards their essential nature, some said these principles were corporeal (fire or water or air) while others said they were incorporeal and immaterial, such as those who spoke of numbers and ideas; and there were others, like the Platonists, who blended both views and allowed that there existed both sensibly perceptible and separate immaterial principles. As to their number or multiplication, there were some who admitted only one principle. Heraclitus, for instance, said it was air; and someone else, fire; while others said there were many principles--Empedocles for instance, who maintained the theory of the four elements. And their theories of the soul in respect of the elements followed these various hypotheses concerning ultimate elements. Those who held to a theory of material first principles, like Empedocles, said the soul was composed of such; and those, like Plato, who held to immaterial principles, said that the soul was composed of these. But one and all considered the soul to be the chief source of movement.

             § 55. Next, at 'Hence some', he proceeds to run through the more particular differences between the philosophers. It should be noted that of those who thought that a corporeal thing was the first principle, not one deigned to identify this with mere earth. Some said it was fire, others air, others water, but nobody said it was earth, except those who thought that all the four elements together were the first principle. (The reason being that, with its density, earth seemed always to presuppose some more ultimate principle). Aristotle, then, does three things here. He gives first the views of those who identified the first principle and the soul itself with fire; secondly, of those who held that they were air (at 'Now Diogenes'); and thirdly, the opinion of those who held that water was both the first principle and the soul (beginning at: 'Some cruder thinkers').

             § 56. As to the first of these groups, we should note that since movement and knowledge were ascribed to the soul, it appeared to some that the soul possessed these properties in the highest degree; and as movement and knowledge seemed to connote what is lightest and most rarified, they concluded that the soul was fire, which is the lightest and most rarified of bodies. And while many were of this opinion and thought the soul was fire, Democritus more subtly and rationally explained 'the reason for either fact', that is, he expressed more clearly the nature of movement and of knowledge. He held, as we have seen, that all things are made of atoms; and though for him these atoms were primary he maintained, nevertheless, that the round ones were of the nature of fire, so that the soul, he said, was composed of spherical atoms. Considered as first principles, these atoms were by nature cognitive, but considered as spherical they were mobile; hence he said that the soul knows and moves all things precisely because it is made up of these round, indivisible bodies. And in assuming that they were of the nature of fire, he agreed with those who thought that everything was fiery.

             § 57. Then at 'Anaxagoras, however', Aristotle gives the view of Anaxagoras who agreed with the others already mentioned in ascribing knowledge and motion to the soul. Anaxagoras, as we saw, sometimes appears to distinguish between soul and intellect, but sometimes he uses both terms as though they meant the same thing. He ascribes to the soul motive power and knowledge, but he also says that intellect knows and moves all things, thus identifying the soul and the intellect. But he differed from the others in this, that whereas Democritus held that the soul was corporeal by nature, being composed of material elements, Anaxagoras said that intellect was 'simple', excluding intrinsic division from its essence, and 'unmixed', excluding composition with anything else, and 'pure', excluding any addition to it from outside. But he ascribed movement and knowledge to one and the same principle, i.e. the intellect; for intellect of its nature knows; and movement pertains to it, so he said, because it moves everything else.

             § 58. Next, at 'It seems that Thales', he states the opinion of a philosopher called Thales who had only this in common with the others mentioned above, that he identified soul with a motive force. This Thales was one of the Seven Wise Men; but while the others studied moral questions, Thales devoted himself to the world of nature and was the first natural philosopher. Hence Aristotle remarks 'from what they recollect etc.', referring to those who said that water was the basic principle of things. For Thales thought that the way to find the principle of all things was by searching into the principle of living things, and since all the principles or seeds of living things are moist, he thought that the absolutely first principle must be the most moist of things; and this being water, he said water was that principle. Yet he did not follow his theory to the point of saying that soul was water; rather, he defined it as that which has motive force. Hence he asserted that a certain stone, the magnet, had a soul because it moved iron. Anaxagoras and Thales, then, are included in the present list; not for identifying the soul with fire, but because the former said that the soul was the source of knowledge and sensation, and the latter that it was at the origin of movement.

             § 59. Where he says, 'Now Diogenes . . .' Aristotle alludes to those who thought that air was the first principle and the soul. There were three of these. First there was Diogenes who held that air was the first principle and also the finest-grained of all bodies, and that the soul therefore was air,--hence its power to know and move. The knowing power was due to the fact that air was (as he said) the first principle; for as knowledge is through likeness, as we have seen, the soul could not know all things unless it included the principles of all. And the moving power was due, he said, to the fact that air was the finest-grained of bodies and therefore the most mobile.

             § 60. Then at 'Heraclitus, however' he states the second opinion, that of Heraclitus who thought that not mere air but vapour, the blend of air and water, was the first principle. He could not allow that this was either water by itself, or fire, or air; it had to be something betwixt and between, because, being a materialist, he was concerned to find a principle midway between the opposite extremes of material quality. Thinking that vapour answered this requirement most precisely, he said that the soul was vapour; which explained its extraordinary capacity to know and to move. His view was, indeed, that everything was in continual flux, that nothing stayed the same even for one hour, and that no definite statement could be made about anything. And it was just because vapour is so unstable that he identified it with the first principle of all things; which, he said, was a soul. As the first principle, soul has the power to know, whilst as the least material and most fluid of things it has movement.

             § 61. Thirdly, at 'Alcmaeon seems . . .' he gives the third opinion, Alcmaeon's, which agrees with the others only as regards movement. This man said that the soul was pre-eminently a thing in motion, resembling in this the immortal heavenly bodies with their heavenly and divine nature. For he thought that the perpetual movement of the sun and moon and the rest, was the cause of their being immortal; and that the same inference was valid in the case of the soul.

             § 62. Then at 'Some cruder thinkers', Aristotle states an opinion of some who made water the first principle. For there were certain rather crude followers of Thales who tried to make the principle of one particular thing an analogy of the first principle of Nature as a whole. Observing that moisture was fundamental to living things they concluded that it must be the first principle of all things; in short, that the latter was water. So far indeed they followed their master, Thales; but whereas he, though admitting water to be the first principle, would not, as we have seen, allow that the soul was water, but rather a motive force, his cruder disciples (such as Hippo) asserted that it was water. Hippo tried to refute those who said the soul was blood with the argument that blood is not the generating seed (which they called 'the inchoate soul') of animate things. He identified this with water on account of its humidity.

             § 63. Next, at 'Others, such as Critias', he alludes to a philosopher who was more interested in the soul's knowledge. He was still cruder in his expressions, saying that the soul itself was blood. His reason was that sense-perception only takes place in animals through the medium of blood: for the bloodless organs, such as bones, nails and teeth are without sensation (he forgot the nerves which are extremely sensitive and yet bloodless). If then, he said, the soul is the root of knowledge, the soul must be blood. It was Critias who said this.

             § 64. In case anyone should wonder why he has not mentioned earth along with the other elements, Aristotle, at 'Opinions have etc.', explains that his predecessors' views on the soul followed on what they thought about the first principles; and as nobody judged earth to be a first principle, nobody said it was the soul; unless we count those--such as Democritus and Empedocles--who said that soul was, or was composed of, all the principles.

             § 65. Then, at 'All, taken together', he summarises, concluding this part of the enquiry; and first with reference to the elements or principles themselves, and then with regard to the contrarieties that are found in them.

             First, then, he notes that the soul has been described by all in terms of these three notes: fineness of grain or texture (incorporeality); knowledge; movement; and that each of these notes has been also traced back to a first principle. For that is called a principle which is simple. Also a 'principle', it is said, is essentially cognitive (for, to recall what was said above, since like is known by like, they said that the soul was composed of, or even was, the elements of all things. Anaxagoras, to be sure, is an exception with his pure unmixed Intellect). Again, they identified the chief motive-force in things with a 'principle' since a principle is what is least corporeal. And the soul's knowledge of all things proves, they said, that it was composed of all the principles or elements. All their theories turn on this correspondence between the soul and the first principles. Whoever posited some one cause or principle or element, such as fire, air or water, identified just that one with the soul. So, too, whoever upheld many principles either identified them with the soul or with its component elements.

             § 66. Having excepted Anaxagoras, touching the theory of the soul's composition, he goes on, at 'But Anaxagoras', to show how this man differed from the others. He alone, says Aristotle, denied the passivity of the intellect, its share in the nature of the things that it knows. But how intellect knows, Anaxagoras does not say; nor can one infer anything certain from what he does say.

             § 67. To end this section, Aristotle summarises what he has to say touching the contrariety of the above-mentioned principles to one another. Some, he says, arrange the first principles of things in pairs of opposites; and the soul also they regard as a synthesis of contraries. Thus Empedocles thought that the heat and cold, the moisture and dryness which he found in the elements were intrinsic to the soul also. As earthy, he said, we know earth, as watery water, and so on. Others found their first principle in only one element, whose particular quality they then attributed to the soul. If it was fire, then the soul, they said, was hot; if water, then the soul was cold. According to the principle assumed so was the quality attributed to the soul, as though it shared in the nature of heat or cold etc. This is clear from the names they gave to the soul. Those who said it was hot gave it names derived from zaein or zooein, meaning to live, which itself comes from zeein, meaning to boil; while others who said it was cold called it psychron, meaning cold, whence comes psyche, a term applied to the soul because the coolness caused by breathing preserves animal life. Those who thought the soul by nature hot, named it from life; those who thought it by nature cold, from respiration. And Aristotle concludes by saying that the foregoing are the opinions handed down about the soul, together with the grounds on which they are maintained.

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