human intelligence. In the following diagram, the continuous lines may represent the material substance, and the dotted lines the immaterial:
A. Soul of Plants.
B. Animal Soul.
C. Human Soul—Nous—Intellect.
. . . . . . . . Body and mind inseparable.
II. Active intellect—cognition of the highest principles.
. . . . . . . . Pure form; detached from matter; the prime mover of all; immortal.
All the phases of life and mind are inseparably interwoven with the body (which inseparability is Aristotle's definition of the soul) except the last, the active nous, or intellect, which is detached from corporeal matter, self-subsisting, the essence of Deity, and an immortal substance, although the immortality is not personal to the individual. (The immateriality of this higher intellectual agent was net, however, that thorough-going: negation of all material attributes which we now understand by the word "immaterial.") How such a self-subsisting and purely spiritual soul could hold communication with the body-leagued souls, Aristotle was at a loss to say—the difficulty reappeared after him, and
