activities: the pursuit of an object or flight from it, inclination and avoidance, anger and affection, fear and courage, cruelty and compassion, love and hate, and many other similar psychic qualities.[1] All parts of the body are subservient to these activities, as the ability of the hand to grasp, that of the foot to walk, that of the eye to see, and that of the heart to make one bold or timid. Similarily, the other members of the body, whether external or internal, are instruments of the appetitive faculty.[2]
Reason, that faculty peculiar to man, enables him to understand, reflect, acquire knowledge of the sciences, and to discriminate between proper and improper actions.[3] Its functions are partly practical and partly speculative (theoretical), the practical being, in turn, either mechanical or intellectual. By means of the speculative power, man knows things as they really are, and which, by their nature, are not subject to change. These are called the sciences[4] in general. The mechanical power is that by
- ↑ המקרים הנפשיים, psychic accidents. Cf. Moreh, I, 51. "It is a self evident fact that the attribute is not inherent in the object to which it is ascribed, but it is superadded to its essence, and is consequently an accident." See, also, ibid., I, 73. Fourth Proposition. With M.'s description of the appetitive faculty compare that of al-Farabi, in התחלות הנמצאות, p. 2:והמעוררת היא אשר בה יהיה ההתעוררת האנושית כשיבקש הדבר או שיברח ממנו, או שיתעבהו או שימאסהו, או שירחיקהו, ובו יהיה השנאה והאהבה, והריעות והאיבה, והיראה והבטחון, והכעס והרצון, והאכזריות והרחמנות ושאר מקרי הנפש.
- ↑ Cf. Moreh, I, 46.: הכלים כולם באמת אחד הנראה מהם והפנימי כולם כלים לפעולת הנפש המתחלפות וכ׳. All the organs of the body are employed in the various actions of the soul. Cf. Aristotle, De Anima, III, 10, ed. Hicks, pp. 152 and 153.
- ↑ Cf. Millot ha-Higgayon, c. XIV (beg.): "The word dibbur as used by former philosophers of cultured nations, is a homonym having three significations. In the first place, it is used to designate that power peculiar to man by which he forms conceptions, acquires a knowledge of the sciences, and differentiates between the proper and the improper. This is called the reasoning faculty or soul." Cf. Ibn Daud, Emunah Ramah, I, 6.
- ↑ Cf. Eth. Nic., VI, 3: "What science is is plain from the following considerations, if one is to speak accurately, instead of being led away by resemblances. For we all conceive that what we scientifically know cannot be otherwise than it is … So, then, whatever comes within the
