Holding as we do that, while knowledge of any kind is a thing to be honoured
and prized, one kind of it may, either by reason of its greater exactness
or of a higher dignity and greater wonderfulness in its objects, be more
honourable and precious than another, on both accounts we should naturally
be led to place in the front rank the study of the soul. The knowledge
of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general,
and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some
sense the principle of animal life. Our aim is to grasp and understand,
first its essential nature, and secondly its properties; of these some
are taught to be affections proper to the soul itself, while others are
considered to attach to the animal owing to the presence within it of
soul.
To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most
difficult things in the world. As the form of question which here presents
itself, viz. the question 'What is it?', recurs in other fields, it might
be supposed that there was some single method of inquiry applicable to
all objects whose essential nature (as we are endeavouring to ascertain
there is for derived properties the single method of demonstration); in
that case what we should have to seek for would be this unique method.
But if there is no such single and general method for solving the question
of essence, our task becomes still more difficult; in the case of each
different subject we shall have to determine the appropriate process of
investigation. If to this there be a clear answer, e.g. that the process
is demonstration or division, or some known method, difficulties and hesitations
still beset us-with what facts shall we begin the inquiry? For the facts
which form the starting-points in different subjects must be different,
as e.g. in the case of numbers and surfaces.
First, no doubt, it is necessary to determine in which of the summa
genera soul lies, what it is; is it 'a this-somewhat, 'a substance, or
is it a quale or a quantum, or some other of the remaining kinds of predicates
which we have distinguished? Further, does soul belong to the class of
potential existents, or is it not rather an actuality? Our answer to this
question is of the greatest importance.
We must consider also whether soul is divisible or is without parts,
and whether it is everywhere homogeneous or not; and if not homogeneous,
whether its various forms are different specifically or generically: up
to the present time those who have discussed and investigated soul seem
to have confined themselves to the human soul. We must be careful not to
ignore the question whether soul can be defined in a single unambiguous
formula, as is the case with animal, or whether we must not give a separate
formula for each of it, as we do for horse, dog, man, god (in the latter
case the 'universal' animal-and so too every other 'common predicate'-being
treated either as nothing at all or as a later product). Further, if what
exists is not a plurality of souls, but a plurality of parts of one soul,
which ought we to investigate first, the whole soul or its parts? (It is
also a difficult problem to decide which of these parts are in nature distinct
from one another.) Again, which ought we to investigate first, these parts
or their functions, mind or thinking, the faculty or the act of sensation,
and so on? If the investigation of the functions precedes that of the parts,
the further question suggests itself: ought we not before either to consider
the correlative objects, e.g. of sense or thought? It seems not only useful
for the discovery of the causes of the derived properties of substances
to be acquainted with the essential nature of those substances (as in mathematics
it is useful for the understanding of the property of the equality of the
interior angles of a triangle to two right angles to know the essential
nature of the straight and the curved or of the line and the plane) but
also conversely, for the knowledge of the essential nature of a substance
is largely promoted by an acquaintance with its properties: for, when we
are able to give an account conformable to experience of all or most of
the properties of a substance, we shall be in the most favourable position
to say something worth saying about the essential nature of that subject;
in all demonstration a definition of the essence is required as a starting-point,
so that definitions which do not enable us to discover the derived properties,
or which fail to facilitate even a conjecture about them, must obviously,
one and all, be dialectical and futile.
A further problem presented by the affections of soul is this:
are they all affections of the complex of body and soul, or is there any
one among them peculiar to the soul by itself? To determine this is indispensable
but difficult. If we consider the majority of them, there seems to be no
case in which the soul can act or be acted upon without involving the body;
e.g. anger, courage, appetite, and sensation generally. Thinking seems
the most probable exception; but if this too proves to be a form of imagination
or to be impossible without imagination, it too requires a body as a condition
of its existence. If there is any way of acting or being acted upon proper
to soul, soul will be capable of separate existence; if there is none,
its separate existence is impossible. In the latter case, it will be like
what is straight, which has many properties arising from the straightness
in it, e.g. that of touching a bronze sphere at a point, though straightness
divorced from the other constituents of the straight thing cannot touch
it in this way; it cannot be so divorced at all, since it is always found
in a body. It therefore seems that all the affections of soul involve a
body-passion, gentleness, fear, pity, courage, joy, loving, and hating;
in all these there is a concurrent affection of the body. In support of
this we may point to the fact that, while sometimes on the occasion of
violent and striking occurrences there is no excitement or fear felt, on
others faint and feeble stimulations produce these emotions, viz. when
the body is already in a state of tension resembling its condition when
we are angry. Here is a still clearer case: in the absence of any external
cause of terror we find ourselves experiencing the feelings of a man in
terror. From all this it is obvious that the affections of soul are enmattered
formulable essences.
Consequently their definitions ought to correspond, e.g. anger
should be defined as a certain mode of movement of such and such a body
(or part or faculty of a body) by this or that cause and for this or that
end. That is precisely why the study of the soul must fall within the science
of Nature, at least so far as in its affections it manifests this double
character. Hence a physicist would define an affection of soul differently
from a dialectician; the latter would define e.g. anger as the appetite
for returning pain for pain, or something like that, while the former would
define it as a boiling of the blood or warm substance surround the heart.
The latter assigns the material conditions, the former the form or formulable
essence; for what he states is the formulable essence of the fact, though
for its actual existence there must be embodiment of it in a material such
as is described by the other. Thus the essence of a house is assigned in
such a formula as 'a shelter against destruction by wind, rain, and heat';
the physicist would describe it as 'stones, bricks, and timbers'; but there
is a third possible description which would say that it was that form in
that material with that purpose or end. Which, then, among these is entitled
to be regarded as the genuine physicist? The one who confines himself to
the material, or the one who restricts himself to the formulable essence
alone? Is it not rather the one who combines both in a single formula?
If this is so, how are we to characterize the other two? Must we not say
that there is no type of thinker who concerns himself with those qualities
or attributes of the material which are in fact inseparable from the material,
and without attempting even in thought to separate them? The physicist
is he who concerns himself with all the properties active and passive of
bodies or materials thus or thus defined; attributes not considered as
being of this character he leaves to others, in certain cases it may be
to a specialist, e.g. a carpenter or a physician, in others (a) where they
are inseparable in fact, but are separable from any particular kind of
body by an effort of abstraction, to the mathematician, (b) where they
are separate both in fact and in thought from body altogether, to the First
Philosopher or metaphysician. But we must return from this digression,
and repeat that the affections of soul are inseparable from the material
substratum of animal life, to which we have seen that such affections,
e.g. passion and fear, attach, and have not the same mode of being as a
line or a plane.
Part 2
For our study of soul it is necessary, while formulating the problems
of which in our further advance we are to find the solutions, to call into
council the views of those of our predecessors who have declared any opinion
on this subject, in order that we may profit by whatever is sound in their
suggestions and avoid their errors.
The starting-point of our inquiry is an exposition of those characteristics
which have chiefly been held to belong to soul in its very nature. Two
characteristic marks have above all others been recognized as distinguishing
that which has soul in it from that which has not-movement and sensation.
It may be said that these two are what our predecessors have fixed upon
as characteristic of soul.
Some say that what originates movement is both pre-eminently and
primarily soul; believing that what is not itself moved cannot originate
movement in another, they arrived at the view that soul belongs to the
class of things in movement. This is what led Democritus to say that soul
is a sort of fire or hot substance; his 'forms' or atoms are infinite in
number; those which are spherical he calls fire and soul, and compares
them to the motes in the air which we see in shafts of light coming through
windows; the mixture of seeds of all sorts he calls the elements of the
whole of Nature (Leucippus gives a similar account); the spherical atoms
are identified with soul because atoms of that shape are most adapted to
permeate everywhere, and to set all the others moving by being themselves
in movement. This implies the view that soul is identical with what produces
movement in animals. That is why, further, they regard respiration as the
characteristic mark of life; as the environment compresses the bodies of
animals, and tends to extrude those atoms which impart movement to them,
because they themselves are never at rest, there must be a reinforcement
of these by similar atoms coming in from without in the act of respiration;
for they prevent the extrusion of those which are already within by counteracting
the compressing and consolidating force of the environment; and animals
continue to live only so long as they are able to maintain this
resistance.
The doctrine of the Pythagoreans seems to rest upon the same ideas;
some of them declared the motes in air, others what moved them, to be soul.
These motes were referred to because they are seen always in movement,
even in a complete calm.
The same tendency is shown by those who define soul as that which
moves itself; all seem to hold the view that movement is what is closest
to the nature of soul, and that while all else is moved by soul, it alone
moves itself. This belief arises from their never seeing anything originating
movement which is not first itself moved.
Similarly also Anaxagoras (and whoever agrees with him in saying
that mind set the whole in movement) declares the moving cause of things
to be soul. His position must, however, be distinguished from that of Democritus.
Democritus roundly identifies soul and mind, for he identifies what appears
with what is true-that is why he commends Homer for the phrase 'Hector
lay with thought distraught'; he does not employ mind as a special faculty
dealing with truth, but identifies soul and mind. What Anaxagoras says
about them is more obscure; in many places he tells us that the cause of
beauty and order is mind, elsewhere that it is soul; it is found, he says,
in all animals, great and small, high and low, but mind (in the sense of
intelligence) appears not to belong alike to all animals, and indeed not
even to all human beings.
All those, then, who had special regard to the fact that what has
soul in it is moved, adopted the view that soul is to be identified with
what is eminently originative of movement. All, on the other hand, who
looked to the fact that what has soul in it knows or perceives what is,
identify soul with the principle or principles of Nature, according as
they admit several such principles or one only. Thus Empedocles declares
that it is formed out of all his elements, each of them also being soul;
his words are:
For 'tis by Earth we see Earth, by Water Water,
By Ether Ether divine, by Fire destructive Fire,
By Love Love, and Hate by cruel Hate.
In the same way Plato in the Timaeus fashions soul out of his elements;
for like, he holds, is known by like, and things are formed out of the
principles or elements, so that soul must be so too. Similarly also in
his lectures 'On Philosophy' it was set forth that the Animal-itself is
compounded of the Idea itself of the One together with the primary length,
breadth, and depth, everything else, the objects of its perception, being
similarly constituted. Again he puts his view in yet other terms: Mind
is the monad, science or knowledge the dyad (because it goes undeviatingly
from one point to another), opinion the number of the plane, sensation
the number of the solid; the numbers are by him expressly identified with
the Forms themselves or principles, and are formed out of the elements;
now things are apprehended either by mind or science or opinion or sensation,
and these same numbers are the Forms of things.
Some thinkers, accepting both premisses, viz. that the soul is
both originative of movement and cognitive, have compounded it of both
and declared the soul to be a self-moving number.
As to the nature and number of the first principles opinions differ.
The difference is greatest between those who regard them as corporeal and
those who regard them as incorporeal, and from both dissent those who make
a blend and draw their principles from both sources. The number of principles
is also in dispute; some admit one only, others assert several. There is
a consequent diversity in their several accounts of soul; they assume,
naturally enough, that what is in its own nature originative of movement
must be among what is primordial. That has led some to regard it as fire,
for fire is the subtlest of the elements and nearest to incorporeality;
further, in the most primary sense, fire both is moved and originates movement
in all the others.
Democritus has expressed himself more ingeniously than the rest
on the grounds for ascribing each of these two characters to soul; soul
and mind are, he says, one and the same thing, and this thing must be one
of the primary and indivisible bodies, and its power of originating movement
must be due to its fineness of grain and the shape of its atoms; he says
that of all the shapes the spherical is the most mobile, and that this
is the shape of the particles of fire and mind.
Anaxagoras, as we said above, seems to distinguish between soul
and mind, but in practice he treats them as a single substance, except
that it is mind that he specially posits as the principle of all things;
at any rate what he says is that mind alone of all that is simple, unmixed,
and pure. He assigns both characteristics, knowing and origination of movement,
to the same principle, when he says that it was mind that set the whole
in movement.
Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded about him, seems to
have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has
a soul in it because it moves the iron.
Diogenes (and others) held the soul to be air because he believed
air to be finest in grain and a first principle; therein lay the grounds
of the soul's powers of knowing and originating movement. As the primordial
principle from which all other things are derived, it is cognitive; as
finest in grain, it has the power to originate movement.
Heraclitus too says that the first principle-the 'warm exhalation'
of which, according to him, everything else is composed-is soul; further,
that this exhalation is most incorporeal and in ceaseless flux; that what
is in movement requires that what knows it should be in movement; and that
all that is has its being essentially in movement (herein agreeing with
the majority).
Alcmaeon also seems to have held a similar view about soul; he
says that it is immortal because it resembles 'the immortals,' and that
this immortality belongs to it in virtue of its ceaseless movement; for
all the 'things divine,' moon, sun, the planets, and the whole heavens,
are in perpetual movement.
of More superficial writers, some, e.g. Hippo, have pronounced
it to be water; they seem to have argued from the fact that the seed of
all animals is fluid, for Hippo tries to refute those who say that the
soul is blood, on the ground that the seed, which is the primordial soul,
is not blood.
Another group (Critias, for example) did hold it to be blood; they
take perception to be the most characteristic attribute of soul, and hold
that perceptiveness is due to the nature of blood.
Each of the elements has thus found its partisan, except earth-earth
has found no supporter unless we count as such those who have declared
soul to be, or to be compounded of, all the elements. All, then, it may
be said, characterize the soul by three marks, Movement, Sensation, Incorporeality,
and each of these is traced back to the first principles. That is why (with
one exception) all those who define the soul by its power of knowing make
it either an element or constructed out of the elements. The language they
all use is similar; like, they say, is known by like; as the soul knows
everything, they construct it out of all the principles. Hence all those
who admit but one cause or element, make the soul also one (e.g. fire or
air), while those who admit a multiplicity of principles make the soul
also multiple. The exception is Anaxagoras; he alone says that mind is
impassible and has nothing in common with anything else. But, if this is
so, how or in virtue of what cause can it know? That Anaxagoras has not
explained, nor can any answer be inferred from his words. All who acknowledge
pairs of opposites among their principles, construct the soul also out
of these contraries, while those who admit as principles only one contrary
of each pair, e.g. either hot or cold, likewise make the soul some one
of these. That is why, also, they allow themselves to be guided by the
names; those who identify soul with the hot argue that sen (to live) is
derived from sein (to boil), while those who identify it with the cold
say that soul (psuche) is so called from the process of respiration and
(katapsuxis). Such are the traditional opinions concerning soul, together
with the grounds on which they are maintained.
Part 3
We must begin our examination with movement; for doubtless, not
only is it false that the essence of soul is correctly described by those
who say that it is what moves (or is capable of moving) itself, but it
is an impossibility that movement should be even an attribute of
it.
We have already pointed out that there is no necessity that what
originates movement should itself be moved. There are two senses in which
anything may be moved-either (a) indirectly, owing to something other than
itself, or (b) directly, owing to itself. Things are 'indirectly moved'
which are moved as being contained in something which is moved, e.g. sailors
in a ship, for they are moved in a different sense from that in which the
ship is moved; the ship is 'directly moved', they are 'indirectly moved',
because they are in a moving vessel. This is clear if we consider their
limbs; the movement proper to the legs (and so to man) is walking, and
in this case the sailors tare not walking. Recognizing the double sense
of 'being moved', what we have to consider now is whether the soul is 'directly
moved' and participates in such direct movement.
There are four species of movement-locomotion, alteration, diminution,
growth; consequently if the soul is moved, it must be moved with one or
several or all of these species of movement. Now if its movement is not
incidental, there must be a movement natural to it, and, if so, as all
the species enumerated involve place, place must be natural to it. But
if the essence of soul be to move itself, its being moved cannot be incidental
to-as it is to what is white or three cubits long; they too can be moved,
but only incidentally-what is moved is that of which 'white' and 'three
cubits long' are the attributes, the body in which they inhere; hence they
have no place: but if the soul naturally partakes in movement, it follows
that it must have a place.
Further, if there be a movement natural to the soul, there must
be a counter-movement unnatural to it, and conversely. The same applies
to rest as well as to movement; for the terminus ad quem of a thing's natural
movement is the place of its natural rest, and similarly the terminus ad
quem of its enforced movement is the place of its enforced rest. But what
meaning can be attached to enforced movements or rests of the soul, it
is difficult even to imagine.
Further, if the natural movement of the soul be upward, the soul
must be fire; if downward, it must be earth; for upward and downward movements
are the definitory characteristics of these bodies. The same reasoning
applies to the intermediate movements, termini, and bodies. Further, since
the soul is observed to originate movement in the body, it is reasonable
to suppose that it transmits to the body the movements by which it itself
is moved, and so, reversing the order, we may infer from the movements
of the body back to similar movements of the soul. Now the body is moved
from place to place with movements of locomotion. Hence it would follow
that the soul too must in accordance with the body change either its place
as a whole or the relative places of its parts. This carries with it the
possibility that the soul might even quit its body and re-enter it, and
with this would be involved the possibility of a resurrection of animals
from the dead. But, it may be contended, the soul can be moved indirectly
by something else; for an animal can be pushed out of its course. Yes,
but that to whose essence belongs the power of being moved by itself, cannot
be moved by something else except incidentally, just as what is good by
or in itself cannot owe its goodness to something external to it or to
some end to which it is a means.
If the soul is moved, the most probable view is that what moves
it is sensible things.
We must note also that, if the soul moves itself, it must be the
mover itself that is moved, so that it follows that if movement is in every
case a displacement of that which is in movement, in that respect in which
it is said to be moved, the movement of the soul must be a departure from
its essential nature, at least if its self-movement is essential to it,
not incidental.
Some go so far as to hold that the movements which the soul imparts
to the body in which it is are the same in kind as those with which it
itself is moved. An example of this is Democritus, who uses language like
that of the comic dramatist Philippus, who accounts for the movements that
Daedalus imparted to his wooden Aphrodite by saying that he poured quicksilver
into it; similarly Democritus says that the spherical atoms which according
to him constitute soul, owing to their own ceaseless movements draw the
whole body after them and so produce its movements. We must urge the question
whether it is these very same atoms which produce rest also-how they could
do so, it is difficult and even impossible to say. And, in general, we
may object that it is not in this way that the soul appears to originate
movement in animals-it is through intention or process of
thinking.
It is in the same fashion that the Timaeus also tries to give a
physical account of how the soul moves its body; the soul, it is there
said, is in movement, and so owing to their mutual implication moves the
body also. After compounding the soul-substance out of the elements and
dividing it in accordance with the harmonic numbers, in order that it may
possess a connate sensibility for 'harmony' and that the whole may move
in movements well attuned, the Demiurge bent the straight line into a circle;
this single circle he divided into two circles united at two common points;
one of these he subdivided into seven circles. All this implies that the
movements of the soul are identified with the local movements of the
heavens.
Now, in the first place, it is a mistake to say that the soul is
a spatial magnitude. It is evident that Plato means the soul of the whole
to be like the sort of soul which is called mind not like the sensitive
or the desiderative soul, for the movements of neither of these are circular.
Now mind is one and continuous in the sense in which the process of thinking
is so, and thinking is identical with the thoughts which are its parts;
these have a serial unity like that of number, not a unity like that of
a spatial magnitude. Hence mind cannot have that kind of unity either;
mind is either without parts or is continuous in some other way than that
which characterizes a spatial magnitude. How, indeed, if it were a spatial
magnitude, could mind possibly think? Will it think with any one indifferently
of its parts? In this case, the 'part' must be understood either in the
sense of a spatial magnitude or in the sense of a point (if a point can
be called a part of a spatial magnitude). If we accept the latter alternative,
the points being infinite in number, obviously the mind can never exhaustively
traverse them; if the former, the mind must think the same thing over and
over again, indeed an infinite number of times (whereas it is manifestly
possible to think a thing once only). If contact of any part whatsoever
of itself with the object is all that is required, why need mind move in
a circle, or indeed possess magnitude at all? On the other hand, if contact
with the whole circle is necessary, what meaning can be given to the contact
of the parts? Further, how could what has no parts think what has parts,
or what has parts think what has none? We must identify the circle referred
to with mind; for it is mind whose movement is thinking, and it is the
circle whose movement is revolution, so that if thinking is a movement
of revolution, the circle which has this characteristic movement must be
mind.
If the circular movement is eternal, there must be something which
mind is always thinking-what can this be? For all practical processes of
thinking have limits-they all go on for the sake of something outside the
process, and all theoretical processes come to a close in the same way
as the phrases in speech which express processes and results of thinking.
Every such linguistic phrase is either definitory or demonstrative. Demonstration
has both a starting-point and may be said to end in a conclusion or inferred
result; even if the process never reaches final completion, at any rate
it never returns upon itself again to its starting-point, it goes on assuming
a fresh middle term or a fresh extreme, and moves straight forward, but
circular movement returns to its starting-point. Definitions, too, are
closed groups of terms.
Further, if the same revolution is repeated, mind must repeatedly
think the same object.
Further, thinking has more resemblance to a coming to rest or arrest
than to a movement; the same may be said of inferring.
It might also be urged that what is difficult and enforced is incompatible
with blessedness; if the movement of the soul is not of its essence, movement
of the soul must be contrary to its nature. It must also be painful for
the soul to be inextricably bound up with the body; nay more, if, as is
frequently said and widely accepted, it is better for mind not to be embodied,
the union must be for it undesirable.
Further, the cause of the revolution of the heavens is left obscure.
It is not the essence of soul which is the cause of this circular movement-that
movement is only incidental to soul-nor is, a fortiori, the body its cause.
Again, it is not even asserted that it is better that soul should be so
moved; and yet the reason for which God caused the soul to move in a circle
can only have been that movement was better for it than rest, and movement
of this kind better than any other. But since this sort of consideration
is more appropriate to another field of speculation, let us dismiss it
for the present.
The view we have just been examining, in company with most theories
about the soul, involves the following absurdity: they all join the soul
to a body, or place it in a body, without adding any specification of the
reason of their union, or of the bodily conditions required for it. Yet
such explanation can scarcely be omitted; for some community of nature
is presupposed by the fact that the one acts and the other is acted upon,
the one moves and the other is moved; interaction always implies a special
nature in the two interagents. All, however, that these thinkers do is
to describe the specific characteristics of the soul; they do not try to
determine anything about the body which is to contain it, as if it were
possible, as in the Pythagorean myths, that any soul could be clothed upon
with any body-an absurd view, for each body seems to have a form and shape
of its own. It is as absurd as to say that the art of carpentry could embody
itself in flutes; each art must use its tools, each soul its
body.
Part 4
There is yet another theory about soul, which has commended itself
to many as no less probable than any of those we have hitherto mentioned,
and has rendered public account of itself in the court of popular discussion.
Its supporters say that the soul is a kind of harmony, for (a) harmony
is a blend or composition of contraries, and (b) the body is compounded
out of contraries. Harmony, however, is a certain proportion or composition
of the constituents blended, and soul can be neither the one nor the other
of these. Further, the power of originating movement cannot belong to a
harmony, while almost all concur in regarding this as a principal attribute
of soul. It is more appropriate to call health (or generally one of the
good states of the body) a harmony than to predicate it of the soul. The
absurdity becomes most apparent when we try to attribute the active and
passive affections of the soul to a harmony; the necessary readjustment
of their conceptions is difficult. Further, in using the word 'harmony'
we have one or other of two cases in our mind; the most proper sense is
in relation to spatial magnitudes which have motion and position, where
harmony means the disposition and cohesion of their parts in such a manner
as to prevent the introduction into the whole of anything homogeneous with
it, and the secondary sense, derived from the former, is that in which
it means the ratio between the constituents so blended; in neither of these
senses is it plausible to predicate it of soul. That soul is a harmony
in the sense of the mode of composition of the parts of the body is a view
easily refutable; for there are many composite parts and those variously
compounded; of what bodily part is mind or the sensitive or the appetitive
faculty the mode of composition? And what is the mode of composition which
constitutes each of them? It is equally absurd to identify the soul with
the ratio of the mixture; for the mixture which makes flesh has a different
ratio between the elements from that which makes bone. The consequence
of this view will therefore be that distributed throughout the whole body
there will be many souls, since every one of the bodily parts is a different
mixture of the elements, and the ratio of mixture is in each case a harmony,
i.e. a soul.
From Empedocles at any rate we might demand an answer to the following
question for he says that each of the parts of the body is what it is in
virtue of a ratio between the elements: is the soul identical with this
ratio, or is it not rather something over and above this which is formed
in the parts? Is love the cause of any and every mixture, or only of those
that are in the right ratio? Is love this ratio itself, or is love something
over and above this? Such are the problems raised by this account. But,
on the other hand, if the soul is different from the mixture, why does
it disappear at one and the same moment with that relation between the
elements which constitutes flesh or the other parts of the animal body?
Further, if the soul is not identical with the ratio of mixture, and it
is consequently not the case that each of the parts has a soul, what is
that which perishes when the soul quits the body?
That the soul cannot either be a harmony, or be moved in a circle,
is clear from what we have said. Yet that it can be moved incidentally
is, as we said above, possible, and even that in a sense it can move itself,
i.e. in the sense that the vehicle in which it is can be moved, and moved
by it; in no other sense can the soul be moved in space.
More legitimate doubts might remain as to its movement in view
of the following facts. We speak of the soul as being pained or pleased,
being bold or fearful, being angry, perceiving, thinking. All these are
regarded as modes of movement, and hence it might be inferred that the
soul is moved. This, however, does not necessarily follow. We may admit
to the full that being pained or pleased, or thinking, are movements (each
of them a 'being moved'), and that the movement is originated by the soul.
For example we may regard anger or fear as such and such movements of the
heart, and thinking as such and such another movement of that organ, or
of some other; these modifications may arise either from changes of place
in certain parts or from qualitative alterations (the special nature of
the parts and the special modes of their changes being for our present
purpose irrelevant). Yet to say that it is the soul which is angry is as
inexact as it would be to say that it is the soul that weaves webs or builds
houses. It is doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or
learns or thinks and rather to say that it is the man who does this with
his soul. What we mean is not that the movement is in the soul, but that
sometimes it terminates in the soul and sometimes starts from it, sensation
e.g. coming from without inwards, and reminiscence starting from the soul
and terminating with the movements, actual or residual, in the sense
organs.
The case of mind is different; it seems to be an independent substance
implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being destroyed. If it
could be destroyed at all, it would be under the blunting influence of
old age. What really happens in respect of mind in old age is, however,
exactly parallel to what happens in the case of the sense organs; if the
old man could recover the proper kind of eye, he would see just as well
as the young man. The incapacity of old age is due to an affection not
of the soul but of its vehicle, as occurs in drunkenness or disease. Thus
it is that in old age the activity of mind or intellectual apprehension
declines only through the decay of some other inward part; mind itself
is impassible. Thinking, loving, and hating are affections not of mind,
but of that which has mind, so far as it has it. That is why, when this
vehicle decays, memory and love cease; they were activities not of mind,
but of the composite which has perished; mind is, no doubt, something more
divine and impassible. That the soul cannot be moved is therefore clear
from what we have said, and if it cannot be moved at all, manifestly it
cannot be moved by itself.
Of all the opinions we have enumerated, by far the most unreasonable
is that which declares the soul to be a self-moving number; it involves
in the first place all the impossibilities which follow from regarding
the soul as moved, and in the second special absurdities which follow from
calling it a number. How we to imagine a unit being moved? By what agency?
What sort of movement can be attributed to what is without parts or internal
differences? If the unit is both originative of movement and itself capable
of being moved, it must contain difference.
Further, since they say a moving line generates a surface and a
moving point a line, the movements of the psychic units must be lines (for
a point is a unit having position, and the number of the soul is, of course,
somewhere and has position).
Again, if from a number a number or a unit is subtracted, the remainder
is another number; but plants and many animals when divided continue to
live, and each segment is thought to retain the same kind of
soul.
It must be all the same whether we speak of units or corpuscles;
for if the spherical atoms of Democritus became points, nothing being retained
but their being a quantum, there must remain in each a moving and a moved
part, just as there is in what is continuous; what happens has nothing
to do with the size of the atoms, it depends solely upon their being a
quantum. That is why there must be something to originate movement in the
units. If in the animal what originates movement is the soul, so also must
it be in the case of the number, so that not the mover and the moved together,
but the mover only, will be the soul. But how is it possible for one of
the units to fulfil this function of originating movement? There must be
some difference between such a unit and all the other units, and what difference
can there be between one placed unit and another except a difference of
position? If then, on the other hand, these psychic units within the body
are different from the points of the body, there will be two sets of units
both occupying the same place; for each unit will occupy a point. And yet,
if there can be two, why cannot there be an infinite number? For if things
can occupy an indivisible lace, they must themselves be indivisible. If,
on the other hand, the points of the body are identical with the units
whose number is the soul, or if the number of the points in the body is
the soul, why have not all bodies souls? For all bodies contain points
or an infinity of points.
Further, how is it possible for these points to be isolated or
separated from their bodies, seeing that lines cannot be resolved into
points?
Part 5
The result is, as we have said, that this view, while on the one
side identical with that of those who maintain that soul is a subtle kind
of body, is on the other entangled in the absurdity peculiar to Democritus'
way of describing the manner in which movement is originated by soul. For
if the soul is present throughout the whole percipient body, there must,
if the soul be a kind of body, be two bodies in the same place; and for
those who call it a number, there must be many points at one point, or
every body must have a soul, unless the soul be a different sort of number-other,
that is, than the sum of the points existing in a body. Another consequence
that follows is that the animal must be moved by its number precisely in
the way that Democritus explained its being moved by his spherical psychic
atoms. What difference does it make whether we speak of small spheres or
of large units, or, quite simply, of units in movement? One way or another,
the movements of the animal must be due to their movements. Hence those
who combine movement and number in the same subject lay themselves open
to these and many other similar absurdities. It is impossible not only
that these characters should give the definition of soul-it is impossible
that they should even be attributes of it. The point is clear if the attempt
be made to start from this as the account of soul and explain from it the
affections and actions of the soul, e.g. reasoning, sensation, pleasure,
pain, &c. For, to repeat what we have said earlier, movement and number
do not facilitate even conjecture about the derivative properties of
soul.
Such are the three ways in which soul has traditionally been defined;
one group of thinkers declared it to be that which is most originative
of movement because it moves itself, another group to be the subtlest and
most nearly incorporeal of all kinds of body. We have now sufficiently
set forth the difficulties and inconsistencies to which these theories
are exposed. It remains now to examine the doctrine that soul is composed
of the elements.
The reason assigned for this doctrine is that thus the soul may
perceive or come to know everything that is, but the theory necessarily
involves itself in many impossibilities. Its upholders assume that like
is known only by like, and imagine that by declaring the soul to be composed
of the elements they succeed in identifying the soul with all the things
it is capable of apprehending. But the elements are not the only things
it knows; there are many others, or, more exactly, an infinite number of
others, formed out of the elements. Let us admit that the soul knows or
perceives the elements out of which each of these composites is made up;
but by what means will it know or perceive the composite whole, e.g. what
God, man, flesh, bone (or any other compound) is? For each is, not merely
the elements of which it is composed, but those elements combined in a
determinate mode or ratio, as Empedocles himself says of
bone,
The kindly Earth in its broad-bosomed moulds
Won of clear Water two parts out of eight,And four of
Fire; and so white bones were formed.
Nothing, therefore, will be gained by the presence of the elements
in the soul, unless there be also present there the various formulae of
proportion and the various compositions in accordance with them. Each element
will indeed know its fellow outside, but there will be no knowledge of
bone or man, unless they too are present in the constitution of the soul.
The impossibility of this needs no pointing out; for who would suggest
that stone or man could enter into the constitution of the soul? The same
applies to 'the good' and 'the not-good', and so on.
Further, the word 'is' has many meanings: it may be used of a 'this'
or substance, or of a quantum, or of a quale, or of any other of the kinds
of predicates we have distinguished. Does the soul consist of all of these
or not? It does not appear that all have common elements. Is the soul formed
out of those elements alone which enter into substances? so how will it
be able to know each of the other kinds of thing? Will it be said that
each kind of thing has elements or principles of its own, and that the
soul is formed out of the whole of these? In that case, the soul must be
a quantum and a quale and a substance. But all that can be made out of
the elements of a quantum is a quantum, not a substance. These (and others
like them) are the consequences of the view that the soul is composed of
all the elements.
It is absurd, also, to say both (a) that like is not capable of
being affected by like, and (b) that like is perceived or known by like,
for perceiving, and also both thinking and knowing, are, on their own assumption,
ways of being affected or moved.
There are many puzzles and difficulties raised by saying, as Empedocles
does, that each set of things is known by means of its corporeal elements
and by reference to something in soul which is like them, and additional
testimony is furnished by this new consideration; for all the parts of
the animal body which consist wholly of earth such as bones, sinews, and
hair seem to be wholly insensitive and consequently not perceptive even
of objects earthy like themselves, as they ought to have
been.
Further, each of the principles will have far more ignorance than
knowledge, for though each of them will know one thing, there will be many
of which it will be ignorant. Empedocles at any rate must conclude that
his God is the least intelligent of all beings, for of him alone is it
true that there is one thing, Strife, which he does not know, while there
is nothing which mortal beings do not know, for ere is nothing which does
not enter into their composition.
In general, we may ask, Why has not everything a soul, since everything
either is an element, or is formed out of one or several or all of the
elements? Each must certainly know one or several or
all.
The problem might also be raised, What is that which unifies the
elements into a soul? The elements correspond, it would appear, to the
matter; what unites them, whatever it is, is the supremely important factor.
But it is impossible that there should be something superior to, and dominant
over, the soul (and a fortiori over the mind); it is reasonable to hold
that mind is by nature most primordial and dominant, while their statement
that it is the elements which are first of all that
is.
All, both those who assert that the soul, because of its knowledge
or perception of what is compounded out of the elements, and is those who
assert that it is of all things the most originative of movement, fail
to take into consideration all kinds of soul. In fact (1) not all beings
that perceive can originate movement; there appear to be certain animals
which stationary, and yet local movement is the only one, so it seems,
which the soul originates in animals. And (2) the same object-on holds
against all those who construct mind and the perceptive faculty out of
the elements; for it appears that plants live, and yet are not endowed
with locomotion or perception, while a large number of animals are without
discourse of reason. Even if these points were waived and mind admitted
to be a part of the soul (and so too the perceptive faculty), still, even
so, there would be kinds and parts of soul of which they had failed to
give any account.
The same objection lies against the view expressed in the 'Orphic'
poems: there it is said that the soul comes in from the whole when breathing
takes place, being borne in upon the winds. Now this cannot take place
in the case of plants, nor indeed in the case of certain classes of animal,
for not all classes of animal breathe. This fact has escaped the notice
of the holders of this view.
If we must construct the soul out of the elements, there is no
necessity to suppose that all the elements enter into its construction;
one element in each pair of contraries will suffice to enable it to know
both that element itself and its contrary. By means of the straight line
we know both itself and the curved-the carpenter's rule enables us to test
both-but what is curved does not enable us to distinguish either itself
or the straight. Certain thinkers say that soul is intermingled in the
whole universe, and it is perhaps for that reason that Thales came to the
opinion that all things are full of gods. This presents some difficulties:
Why does the soul when it resides in air or fire not form an animal, while
it does so when it resides in mixtures of the elements, and that although
it is held to be of higher quality when contained in the former? (One might
add the question, why the soul in air is maintained to be higher and more
immortal than that in animals.) Both possible ways of replying to the former
question lead to absurdity or paradox; for it is beyond paradox to say
that fire or air is an animal, and it is absurd to refuse the name of animal
to what has soul in it. The opinion that the elements have soul in them
seems to have arisen from the doctrine that a whole must be homogeneous
with its parts. If it is true that animals become animate by drawing into
themselves a portion of what surrounds them, the partisans of this view
are bound to say that the soul of the Whole too is homogeneous with all
its parts. If the air sucked in is homogeneous, but soul heterogeneous,
clearly while some part of soul will exist in the inbreathed air, some
other part will not. The soul must either be homogeneous, or such that
there are some parts of the Whole in which it is not to be
found.
From what has been said it is now clear that knowing as an attribute
of soul cannot be explained by soul's being composed of the elements, and
that it is neither sound nor true to speak of soul as moved. But since
(a) knowing, perceiving, opining, and further (b) desiring, wishing, and
generally all other modes of appetition, belong to soul, and (c) the local
movements of animals, and (d) growth, maturity, and decay are produced
by the soul, we must ask whether each of these is an attribute of the soul
as a whole, i.e. whether it is with the whole soul we think, perceive,
move ourselves, act or are acted upon, or whether each of them requires
a different part of the soul? So too with regard to life. Does it depend
on one of the parts of soul? Or is it dependent on more than one? Or on
all? Or has it some quite other cause?
Some hold that the soul is divisible, and that one part thinks,
another desires. If, then, its nature admits of its being divided, what
can it be that holds the parts together? Surely not the body; on the contrary
it seems rather to be the soul that holds the body together; at any rate
when the soul departs the body disintegrates and decays. If, then, there
is something else which makes the soul one, this unifying agency would
have the best right to the name of soul, and we shall have to repeat for
it the question: Is it one or multipartite? If it is one, why not at once
admit that 'the soul' is one? If it has parts, once more the question must
be put: What holds its parts together, and so ad infinitum?
The question might also be raised about the parts of the soul:
What is the separate role of each in relation to the body? For, if the
whole soul holds together the whole body, we should expect each part of
the soul to hold together a part of the body. But this seems an impossibility;
it is difficult even to imagine what sort of bodily part mind will hold
together, or how it will do this.
It is a fact of observation that plants and certain insects go
on living when divided into segments; this means that each of the segments
has a soul in it identical in species, though not numerically identical
in the different segments, for both of the segments for a time possess
the power of sensation and local movement. That this does not last is not
surprising, for they no longer possess the organs necessary for self-maintenance.
But, all the same, in each of the bodily parts there are present all the
parts of soul, and the souls so present are homogeneous with one another
and with the whole; this means that the several parts of the soul are indisseverable
from one another, although the whole soul is divisible. It seems also that
the principle found in plants is also a kind of soul; for this is the only
principle which is common to both animals and plants; and this exists in
isolation from the principle of sensation, though there nothing which has
the latter without the former.
