also so described. In the same way, then, as cutting is the full realization of an axe, or actual seeing the realization of the eye, so also waking may be said to be the full realization of the body. .. The body, on the other hand, is merely the material to which soul gives reality; and just as the eye is both the pupil and its vision, so also the living animal is at once the soul and the body in connexion." ”米 It is clear that we are here far beyond the popular dualism, according to which body and soul are two separate entities, temporarily related to each other in a mysterious way. It is true that Aristotle does not consistently maintain himself at the point of view here indicated. He even hints, towards the end of the same passage, that though the soul as a whole is inseparable from the body, it is yet conceivable that "some parts of it" may be separable because related. to the body in a different way from the other parts, adding, "It is further matter of doubt whether soul as the perfect realization of body may not stand to it in the same separable relation as a sailor to his boat." But the view above given is the one which is the most consistent with his philosophy as a whole, and will be admitted to be far the more interesting and suggestive of the two.† Aristotle had, of course, *De An. II. c. i. §§ 8 foll. (Wallace's tr., p. 63; cp. his introd., p. xlv.). + Grant's remark (op. cit. i. p. 296)—“ As long as the soul is described as bearing the relation to the body of sight to the eye, of a flower to the seed, of the impression to the wax, we may be content to consider this a piece of ancient physical philosophy. Our interest is different [he means more justly claimed] when the soul is said to be related to the body' as a sailor to his boat' "—seems just the reverse of the truth. no notion of the structure of the nervous system and the close connexion which modern physiology has cstablished between mental operations and cerebral changes, but he here anticipates the results forced * upon us by these facts, which make the crude dualism of popular opinion no longer tenable. As he himself says, "The definition we have just given should make it evident that we must no more ask whether the soul and the body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed upon it are one, or generally inquire whether the material and that of which it is the material are one."* On this ground he rejects the doctrine of the Pythagoreans that the same soul may inhabit different bodies, as inconsistent with its individuality. If we suppose that the body exists as the tool or instrument of the soul, to say that the same soul may equally well inhabit several bodies is as much as to say that' a carpenter may serve himself in his trade equally with a flute or with an axe. The theory here stated, by making soul completely dependent on body, might seem at first sight to approximate to the materialistic hypothesis. It is true that Aristotle avoids the cruder form of materialism which simply identifies body and soul by describing the latter as the "function" or "realization of the body. But it is doubtful whether this of itself would save him; for the function of a body, e.g. of a muscle, may be said after all to be nothing more than the body itself in a particular condition or in the execution *De An. II. c. i. § 7 (Wallace's tr., p. 61). of particular movements.* The truth is, however, that function or realization, in Aristotle's language, is far more than a mere condition or mode of motion. The function is that which gives form to the body, being the end or purpose for which the body exists. True, the body must be there before the function can be performed; a particular organ must be developed before it can be used. But it is a mistake to say that the organ is the cause of the function. The truth, in fact, is just the contrary. The function is the cause of the organ. This is true even in the physiological sense that the organ is developed under the stress of the need to perform the act. It is still truer in the philosophical sense that we only understand the organ when we take it in connexion with the function it performs. All this is well brought out by Aristotle himself, who criticizes Anaxagoras for saying that man is intelligent because he has hands. This is the reverse, or at least only one side of the truth. It would be truer to say that man has hands because he is intelligent; "for the instrument must be fitted to its work, not the work to the instrument."† Aristotle is thus as far as possible removed from the point of view of modern materialism, which asserts that mind can only be known through a study of the material processes which accompany it. So far is this from being true that we can only understand the physiological phenomena in the light of the psychical, which give them meaning and value. * See Höffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 60. If there are still readers who fear that in thus emphasizing the relation of soul to body we are detracting from the spirituality of life, we may be permitted to suspect that they have failed to grasp the distinction, so vital to all clear thinking, between the value and the origin of a thing-what a thing is in itself, and the materials or the natural processes which are its conditions. A flower is not less a flower because of the earth out of which it springs, or a statue a statue because it is resolvable into carbonate of lime. The glory of the flower and of the statue is that their materials have been transfigured in the making of them, as it is the glory of these materials to be so transfigured. Similarly, it is the glory of the soul to have moulded and transfigured the body, just as it is the glory of the body to have been moulded and transfigured by the soul.* § 2. The "Parts" of the Soul. [I. c. xiii. §§ 10 foll.] The philosophical principle of form and matter, which is applied to explain the relation of soul and body, shows us also in what sense the Aristotelian division between the "parts" of the soul as we have it in these sections must be taken. We have already seen that Aristotle conceives of nature as revealing herself in a progressive series of forms, beginning with the lower and inorganic, and rising finally to the life of conscious reason. While nature thus presents us * Cf. Bosanquet's Psychology of the Moral Self, pp. 124, 125. with a continuous series of graduated forms, each of which stands to that above it as matter to form, means to end, yet at certain points we meet with clearly marked divisions corresponding to popular distinctions. Confining ourselves to organic life, we have first the merely vegetative life of plants, with their two main properties of growth and propagation. Above this we have the animal forms, endowed in addition to these with the properties of sensation, pain and pleasure, appetite, to which we must add in the case of some of the higher animals a large gift of intelligence, and the rudiments of moral character. Finally, in the rational soul of man, which is the crown of all that goes before, we have the attribute of reason displaying itself not only in a higher degree of intelligence, but in the faculty of apprehending the supersensible and entering into the meaning of the whole.* As separate stages of organic development, and again, as separate elements in human nature, it is clear enough what we are to understand by these different "souls." But it is not so plain how we are to conceive of their union in individual organisms. A reference, however, to what Aristotle elsewhere says, leaves us in no doubt as to his own view on this subject. Thus, in criticizing Plato's threefold division of the soul into reason, passion, and desire, Aristotle points. out that it commits the mistake of splitting up the soul into parts, and forces us to assume, contrary to fact, that each has a specific organ in the body. The * Zeller, op. cit. ii. p. 21 foll. |