On the Vital Principle/Book 3/Prelude to Chapter 4
This chapter is upon the mind (ὁ νοῦς) and Aristotle's inquiry is, whether it is part of that principle which gives life to the body, or altogether distinct from corporeal relations. It seems to be at once determined that there is no affinity between the mind and sensibility, the ministrations of which trench so closely upon cogitation; and that the mind, therefore, existing independently of the body, is related to subjects of thought, abstractions that is, as is sensibility to sensism and sensation. Anaxagoras regarded all things as combinations save mind, which alone he held to be homogeneous and pure. Aristotle[1] makes the mind to be receptive of the subject, and the essence of the subject of thought; to be something divine, and to confer upon us contemplation, which is our sweetest, best enjoyment. "If this faculty, in its occasional exercise, as by ourselves, is happiness, it is, as the eternal attribute of the Deity, wonderful, and more wonderful in proportion as more enduring." But yet Aristotle quotes, without objection, that the mind is innate in animals, and the cause, in nature, of the world and its order; and he cites the verses of Parmenides, which seem to imply that the mind is present in the limbs of man as if it were a corporeal agent. To judge, however, from observations in the course of this treatise, he may be said, although, perhaps, not always consistently, to have considered this great principle as impassive, indiscerptible, and freed from all corporeal ties; and as being itself, only when withdrawn from matter and its influences. Thus, as matter must tend to preclude its offices, its existence, while associated with mortal beings, can be only that of potentiality.
- ↑ Metaphys. I. 8, 13; XI. 7, 8; I. 3, 10; III. 5, 12.