a metaphor which perhaps facilitates the understanding of Aristotle’s idea, but is not essential to his theory. For my part, I attach far greater importance to the character of relatum, and correlatum ascribed to the two terms mind and matter, and to the actualisation[1] produced by their union.
Let me add another point of comparison. Aristotle’s theory recalls in a striking manner that of Kant on the a priori forms of thought. The form of thought, or the category, is nothing without the matter of cognition, and the latter is nothing without the application of form. “Thoughts without content given by sensation are empty; intuitions without concept furnished by the understanding are blind.” There is nothing astonishing in finding here the same illustration, since there is throughout a question of describing the same phenomenon,—the relation of mind to matter.
There remains to us to review the principal types of metaphysical systems. We shall discuss these by taking as our guide the principle we have just evolved, and which may be thus formulated: The phenomena of consciousness constitute an incomplete mode of existence.
- ↑ i.e. rendering actual.—Ed.
