parts, so that the phrase "parts of the soul," frequently employed by philosophers, is commonly used. By the word "parts", however, they do not intend to imply that the soul is divided into parts as are bodies, but they merely enumerate the different activities of the soul as being parts of a whole, the union of which makes up the soul.
Thou knowest that the improvement of the moral qualities is brought about by the healing of the soul and its activities.[1] Therefore, just as the physician, who endeavors to cure the human body, must have a perfect knowledge of it in its entirety and its individual parts, just as he must know what causes sickness that it may be avoided, and must also be acquainted with the means by which a patient may be cured, so, likewise, he who tries to cure the soul, wishing to improve the moral qualities, must have a knowledge of the soul in its totality and its parts, must know how to prevent it from becoming diseased, and how to maintain its health.[2]
So, I say that the soul has five faculties; the nutritive [also known as the "growing" faculty], the sensitive, the imaginative,
- ↑ The phrase, the improvement of the moral qualities (תקון המדות, Ar. אצלאח אלאכלאק), is one which M. probably borrowed from Ibn Gabirol, author of Tiḳḳun Middot ha-Nefesh (The Improvement of the Moral Qualities) to designate the practical task of ethics. Cf. Rosin, Ethik, pp. 12, 37, n. 5. M. is not concerned with a theoretical discussion of ethics, but with the problem as to how one's moral qualities are to be improved, which is a practical question. Therefore, the science of curing the soul is to him as practical as is that of healing the body. What Aristotle says in Eth. Nic., II, 2 may well apply here. "Since, then, the object of the present treatise is not mere speculation, as it is of some others (for we are inquiring not merely that we may know what virtue is, but that we may become virtuous, else it would be useless), we must consider as to the particular actions how we are to do them, because, as we have just said, the character of the habits that shall be formed depends on these."
- ↑ Philo, too, speaks of a physician of the soul (Quod Omnis Probus Liber, I, 2). Cf. Eth. Nic., I, 12, where Aristotle states that it is necessary for the Politician (moralist) to have a certain knowledge of the nature of the soul, just as it is for the oculist to have a knowledge of the whole body, and in fact more so, as Politics (ethics) is more important than the healing art.
