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Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima
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ARISTOTLE'S DE ANIMA IN THE VERSION OF WILLIAM OF MOERBEKE AND THE COMMENTARY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
TRANSLATED BY
KENELM FOSTER, O.P., M.A.
AND SILVESTER HUMPHRIES, O.P., M.A.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY IVO THOMAS, O.P., M.A.
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
FIRST PUBLISHED 1951
REPRINTED 1965 IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CUM PERMISSU SUPERIORUM ORDINIS
Originally published on The Louis Stern Memorial Fund
TRANSLATORS' NOTE
OUR intention, at first, was to translate only St. Thomas's Commentary on the {PERI PSYCHES} of Aristotle, though it was obvious from the beginning that the Commentary, being a step-by-step exposition of its text, would demand a continual reference to the latter. And clearly it would only make difficulties if we were to print, along with the Commentary, a modern translation of the Greek text known to St. Thomas in the contemporary Latin version of his fellow Dominican, William of Moerbeke. Eventually therefore it seemed best to put this version itself into English, dividing its three books according to the lectiones of the Commentary, and the latter into the conveniently numbered paragraphs of Pirotta's edition (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis in Aristotelis Librum de Anima Commentarium, cura ac studio Angeli M. Pirotta, O.P., S.T.L., Ph.D.; Turin, 1925).
The text, both of version and Commentary, printed by Pirotta, is also in the main the one translated. But Pirotta's is not a critical edition, and we have occasionally altered his text: where this is done a footnote mentions, and sometimes justifies, the alteration.
Without aiming, in the notes, at an exhaustive discussion of textual difficulties, we have not overlooked them. We have tried to help, if not always entirely to satisfy, the curious reader; noting for instance (with a translation in inverted commas of Aristotle's text) whenever Moerbeke seems to depart from the Greek text as we have it now. Throughout the Commentary Bekker references are given for all quotations from Aristotle.
Square brackets [] in the translation of Moerbeke's version indicate an addition by the translator for the sake of clarity, where such addition is more than merely grammatical, e.g. a noun added to the adjective which presupposes it.
The version has been rendered more literally than the Commentary. The latter could, it seemed, be made congenial to the modern reader only by dint of much excision and compression; in particular we have abbreviated those minutely analytical divisions with which St. Thomas introduces each of his lectiones and sometimes also a portion of a lectio. We have tried to avoid latinisms. Whether our effort to be readable has cost us anything in point of accuracy is for the experts to decide.
Our thanks are due to the Very Rev. Dr. D. Callus, O.P., for his help with textual difficulties; and, for help with the translation, to many other fellow-Dominicans, in particular to Frs. Drostan Maclaren, Sebastian Bullough, John Dominic Cheales, Columba Ryan and Henri de Riedmatten. K. F. S. H.
BOOK TWO
I. THE DEFINITION OF THE SOUL
COMMENTARY: LECTIO I
THE DEFINITION EXPLAINED. SOUL AND BODY
COMMENTARY: LECTIO II
II. THE DEFINITION JUSTIFIED. MODES OF LIFE
COMMENTARY: LECTIO III
DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOUL
COMMENTARY: LECTIO IV
III. THE SOUL'S POWERS IN GENERAL
COMMENTARY: LECTIO V
THE SOUL'S POWERS (contd.). THEIR INTERRELATION. HOW TO DEFINE EACH
COMMENTARY: LECTIO VI
IV. THE VEGETATIVE PRINCIPLE. HOW SOUL CAUSES BODY
COMMENTARY: LECTIO VII
THE VEGETATIVE PRINCIPLE (contd.). TWO ERRORS REFUTED
COMMENTARY: LECTIO VIII
THE VEGETATIVE PRINCIPLE (contd.). NUTRITION
COMMENTARY: LECTIO IX
V. SENSITIVITY. POTENCY AND ACT IN SENSATION
COMMENTARY: LECTIO X
SENSITIVITY. POTENCY AND ACT (contd.)
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XI
SENSITIVITY. ACTUALISATIONS OF SENSE AND INTELLECT COMPARED
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XII
VI. SENSE OBJECTS IN GENERAL
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XIII
VII. SIGHT. ITS OBJECT
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XIV
SIGHT. HOW COLOUR IS SEEN
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XV
VIII. SOUND. ITS CAUSES. ECHO
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XVI
HEARING. ITS MEDIUM. HIGH AND LOW SOUNDS
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XVII
VOICE
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XVIII
IX. SMELL. ITS OBJECT
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XIX
SMELL. HOW IT OCCURS
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XX
X. TASTE. ITS MEDIUM, OBJECT, ORGAN, KINDS OF FLAVOUR
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XXI
XI. TOUCH. ONE SENSE OR MANY? ITS MEDIUM
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XXII
THE MEDIUM OF TOUCH (contd.). ITS ORGAN AND OBJECT
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XXIII
XII. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ON SENSATION
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XXIV
BOOK THREE
I. IS THERE A SIXTH SENSE? THE 'COMMON' SENSE-OBJECTS
COMMENTARY: LECTIO I
II. SUBJECT AND OBJECT IN SENSATION
COMMENTARY: LECTIO II
THE COMMON SENSE
COMMENTARY: LECTIO III
III. DISTINCTION OF SENSE FROM INTELLECT ERROR. IMAGINATION AND OPINION
COMMENTARY: LECTIO IV
IMAGINATION. WHAT IT IS NOT
COMMENTARY: LECTIO V
IMAGINATION. WHAT IT IS
COMMENTARY: LECTIO VI
IV. THE INTELLECT IN GENERAL
COMMENTARY: LECTIO VII
INTELLECTUAL ABSTRACTION
COMMENTARY: LECTIO VIII
PROBLEMS ARISING. INTELLECT AS INTELLIGIBLE
COMMENTARY: LECTIO IX
V. THE AGENT INTELLECT
COMMENTARY: LECTIO X
VI. INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. SIMPLE AND COMPLEX 'INTELLIGIBLES'
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XI
VII. SENSE AND INTELLECT COMPARED. THE PRACTICAL INTELLECT. ABSTRACTION AGAIN
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XII
VIII. RECAPITULATION. INTELLECT. SENSE. IMAGINATION
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XIII
IX. THE PRINCIPLE OF MOVEMENT IN LIVING BEINGS. WHAT IT IS NOT
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XIV
X. THE PRINCIPLES OF MOVEMENT IN LIVING BEINGS (contd.). WHAT THEY ARE
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XV
XI. THE PRINCIPLES OF MOVEMENT IN LIVING BEINGS (contd.)
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XVI
XII. SENSITIVITY AND LIFE. TOUCH IS THE FUNDAMENTAL SENSE
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XVII
XIII. TOUCH, THE FUNDAMENTAL SENSE
COMMENTARY: LECTIO XVIII
INTRODUCTION
I. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE COMMENTARY
The procedure adopted in this Commentary is apt to be a puzzling one for the modern reader. In the works of Aristotle himself, however difficult or unfamiliar his concepts and cast of thought may seem, we are always aware of a spirit of inquiry. Sometimes he cuts short his investigations at a point which may nowadays seem extremely naive and elementary; sometimes his conclusions raise new problems; sometimes they mark a permanent advance in understanding; but the approach is always predominantly inductive. In the de Anima as elsewhere he discusses his method of procedure, examines opinions advanced by previous thinkers, and, in feeling his way forward by very gradual stages, does not hesitate to state his difficulties and uncertainties. When we turn to St. Thomas's Commentary, we are aware of a great difference of approach. In the first place the run of Aristotle's text, jerky, pithy, even haphazard in appearance, is expounded as a minutely linked sequence of thought. Each lectio begins by shewing the place within the whole work of the passage immediately under consideration; this passage is then logically divided and subdivided down to its atomic phrases. Only after this formal analysis of the text has been made does the commentator go on to explain the material embodied in it.
Furthermore, in the subsequent material exposition, the body of the Commentary, we find a far more authoritative tone than in the original. A definite body of doctrine is being inculcated, presented in a predominantly deductive form. There are several points to be noticed about this procedure.
(1) It cannot be too clearly emphasised that the Commentary is only what it calls itself, an exposition of a text. It is that even before being an exposition of what is said in the text; that perhaps more than an exhaustive assertion of what in detail the commentator held to be the truth.
(2) Medieval Aristotelians considered that in the works of Aristotle his ideal of science, as developed in the Posterior Analytics, was in a fair way to being attained. It is by no means clear that Aristotle would have agreed with them. He modestly calls his de Anima an {historia} just as he calls his Nicomachean Ethics a {methodos}; an 'inquiry' in both cases. In his inquiries, so close in spirit to those of Socrates and Plato for all the differences in style, the medievals found a fully planned and largely developed scientific system, based on copious experiential data, harmonising these under indemonstrable self-evident principles of reason by means of achieved definitions and deductive chains of argument. It is evident that Aristotelianism had by then emerged from the chrysalis of Aristotle. The scholastics were the heirs to a tradition.
(3) Nevertheless, the concept of authority, the prestige of an Auctor regarded as classical, did hold for the medievals a value which moderns find it hard to grasp. Auctores, e.g. the Bible and the Fathers of the Church in theology, Priscian in Grammar, Aristotle in the faculty of Arts, were considered so deserving of respect that they were never rejected, but only 'interpreted' where not consistent with truth. With the exception of the Bible, however, they were not deemed infallible--there would then have been no place for such interpretation--and St. Thomas is clear that authority as a locus or sedes argumenti, while most proper to theology which is based on revealed principles, yet holds the lowest place in philosophy. The very close adherence to the text in such a philosophical commentary as the one before us must therefore be explained on the analogy of a modern edition with notes, rather than by means of an a priori judgment about the medieval attitude to Aristotle.
(4) A strongly synthetic speculative tendency is undoubtedly shewn in the demonstrative form in which the exposition is cast. There was a common 'medieval practice of throwing merely probable arguments into strictly demonstrative form', and while in many places in his works St. Thomas clearly marks the considered status of his arguments by such phrases as Ad huius evidentiam or magis videtur verum, there are others which commentators have generally agreed to qualify as probable, though the author gives no explicit guidance.
We should, then, read the Commentary as an exposition of an inquiry composed within a living tradition still vitally active in speculation. The advantages which a commentator, working thus in communion with the author of his text, has over even the most scholarly annotator for whom the text is a piece of dead history, are very great. Marcel de Corte has repeated occasion to notice the superior sureness of St. Thomas's interpretation over that of many more recent commentators, and where this is verified it must be in part ascribed to this cause.
II. DATE OF THE COMMENTARY
The version of the text of Aristotle upon which the Commentary is based, and which is here given an English rendering, is that of William of Moerbeke (1215-86). A Dominican like St. Thomas, he translated many works of Greek philosophy at the latter's instigation and was thus a genuine collaborator of the Saint. His method was that of a word for word translation, in general so closely following the original that there is usually little difficulty in seeing what was the state of the text upon which he worked. As regards the de Anima, a Latin version had been made in the twelfth century, but in this, as in many similar cases, William set out to better his predecessor, as in the fifteenth century, Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo would endeavour to improve on him. As we shall see, the dating of the Commentary is linked with that of the work of the translator.
Two recent studies do much to supersede all earlier investigations into the date when the Commentary was composed. These are G. Verbeke's Les Sources et la Chronologie du Commentaire de S. Thomas au de Anima d'Aristote in the Revue Philosophique de Louvain, LV (1947), pp. 214-348, and A. Mansion's Date de Quelques Commentaires de saint Thomas sur Aristote in Studia Mediaevalia in honorem A.R.P.R.J. Martin, O.P. (Bruges, 1948). The latter summarises all the attempts at dating the Commentary up to and including Verbeke's work.
The two standard methods of teaching in the medieval university were the lectio and the disputatio. In the lectio a text from the author under consideration was read and expounded; in the disputatio a thesis was proposed and debated. It is an example of a series of lectiones that we have in St. Thomas's Commentary on the de Anima of Aristotle, his Quaestiones Disputatae de Anima representing the alternative method. The earliest catalogue of the Saint's works, which P. Mandonnet calls the 'Official Catalogue', records that only the last two books present St. Thomas's own text, the first being a reportatio by his companion Reginald of Piperno. Reginald was the recipient of the dedication of several of the Opuscula of St. Thomas, inherited his manuscripts, and succeeded him in the chair of Theology at Naples when he died. Mandonnet considers that the Official Catalogue was Reginald's own compilation.
It has been questioned whether the reportatio and the remainder of the Commentary belong to the same series of lectures. In 1933 M. de Corte showed that in writing the first book of the Commentary St. Thomas evidently had before him Themistius' paraphrase of the text, probably as translated by William of Moerbeke. Still, he did not, it seemed, use Themistius in writing the last two books: hence it appeared that the first book belonged to a later series of lectures. But this opinion is no longer tenable, and the work in this field which either preceded it or depended upon it, though by no means without methodological interest, is in great part irrelevant. For in 1942 there was published by M. J. M. Millás Vallicrosa a catalogue of manuscripts in the library of Toledo Cathedral, including one of the fourteenth century in which is found Themistii paraphrasis eorum que de anima Aristotelis. This paraphrase closes with the words: Expleta fuit translatio huius operis anno Domini MCCLXVII decimo Klas decembris Viterbii; fuit autem Themistius tempore Juliani Apostate apud eum plurimum honoratus. The translation is in the manner of William of Moerbeke who is moreover known to have been at work in Viterbo in 1267-8. On the basis of this work G. Verbeke has detected that the second and third books of the Commentary do after all show evidences of reference to Themistius, not so explicit and numerous indeed as those of the first book, but none the less unmistakable. There is therefore no longer any ground for supposing the work as we have it to be in reality a conflation of two works. And the date on which Moerbeke is said to have finished his translation of the paraphrase--22nd November 1267--gives us a point before which the Commentary could not have been written. Further, the work is known to have been completed before St. Thomas left Paris in 1272. Is it possible to bring in any further precision? Here the work of F. Pelster, S.J., is important. He notes that in this work St. Thomas refers to the books of Aristotle's Metaphysics according to the method of numeration which omits K and so allows for only twelve books. The Nova Translatio of the Metaphysics by William of Moerbeke, being the first to include Book K, abandoned that method, and St. Thomas began to refer to the last book but one as 'XII' about 1271-2, viz. between writing the Prima Secundae and Secunda Secundae of the Summa Theologica. Another indication may be gathered from 695: Sunt autem plura alia quae contra hanc positionem dici possunt; quae alibi diligentius pertractavimus. The reference is on the one hand to the Averroist assignation of a unique intellectus possibilis to all men, and on the other to some work of St. Thomas which it might be possible to identify and date with certainty. The candidates are the Summa Contra Gentiles, where this question is dealt with at length, in Bk. II, cc. 59 ff., and the Opusculum De Unitate Intellectus contra Averroistas. The former was composed between 1258 and 1264; the latter would seem to be not later than 10th December 1270, the date of the Averroist condemnation at Paris. That St. Thomas was referring to the Contra Gentiles is a clear possibility; is there anything in favour of the Opusculum? The latter cites Themistius, but that reason for taking it to be later than the second and third books of the de Anima no longer has validity. Failing reasons to the contrary, the words in § 695 may therefore refer to the Opusculum, in that case but recently published; and since this treatment of one of the most important questions of the day would be far fresher in the memory of the auditors than the earlier Summa contra Gentiles, we have, on this hypothesis, a reason that goes far to account for the really surprising restraint of St. Thomas when he comes to the passages in the de Anima which he certainly knew to be crucial to the controversy.
Moreover, on 10th December 1270, Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, published a condemnation of fifteen philosophical errors, of which the first was the Averroist thesis of the unicity of the intellect. While St. Thomas's silence about this event in the Opusculum is, in the circumstances of the time and place (the Bishop's See), the strongest indication that it had not yet taken place, we may also think that, once the condemnation had been made, there would not have been much urgency to deal with the subject in a work which was primarily expository, especially if the strictly polemical Opusculum had only recently appeared. We may therefore conclude that there is considerable probability in favour of dating the Commentary as late as 1271.
III. THE AVERROIST ISSUE
We have already referred to the Averroist interpretation of the de Anima and the slight explicit attention which St. Thomas pays to it in this Commentary. Without some knowledge of the elements of the question, and of St. Thomas's attitude towards it, the importance in history of this aspect of his work would be very incompletely understood.
Speaking of the 'agent intellect' in 430a 17 Aristotle says that it is (in Moerbeke's words) separabilis et impassibilis et immixtus. That the ontological status, whether in truth or in Aristotle's theory, of the intellect so described is by no means generally agreed on by modern commentators will be evident to anyone who consults, for example, the introduction and notes of R. D. Hicks, or J. Maritain's appendix on the subject in La Philosophie Bergsonienne. The word translated separabilis is {choristos}, which might also be translated 'separate'; and the sense in which it is to be taken, whether in truth or simply in Aristotle, is the kernel of one of the most long-standing disputes in the history of philosophy.
In earlier times Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. A.D. 200) interpreted {choristos}; as 'separate' and identified the agent intellect with God. Among the Arabs Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037) considered it to be unique for all men and the lowest of the series of intelligences emanating from God. Ibn Roschd (Averroes, 1126-98) held a similar view, with an addition which the scholastics understood as the affirmation of a unique 'possible' intellect as well as a unique 'agent intellect' for all men. This way of understanding the Arabian philosopher provided common terminological ground between St. Thomas and his Averroist opponents; but it is liable to mislead us nowadays into thinking that a second 'separated substance' is in dispute. This is not correct. Averroes posited on the one side the separated agent intellect, on the other a 'passive intellect' in each individual. This last is an aptitude to receive the influence of the agent intellect, and, being perishable, is not properly an intellect at all. From the conjunction of the two arises a potency of knowledge called the 'material' intellect, incorporeal indeed, but rather the uniform influence of the agent intellect than a power belonging to each individual. It is this 'material' intellect which the scholastics discuss under the name of the 'possible intellect'.
The Averroists followed their master in identifying philosophic truth with what Aristotle had said on any subject; thus providing what is perhaps the only authentic justification for the oft-repeated charge that the Middle Ages were completely dominated by Aristotle. Opinions may always be divided as to which side had the right of the matter in Aristotelianism. St. Thomas, indeed, was convinced that the Averroists were misinterpreting their source; but this was for him only an argumentum ad hominem. In the De Caelo et Mundo (Bk. I, lectio 22) he says: Studium philosophiae non est ad hoc quod sciatur quid homines senserint, sed qualiter se habeat veritas rerum: 'the purpose of philosophy is not to know what men have thought, but what is the truth of things'. His aim was to confute the Averroists on philosophical grounds; since no claim was made that their doctrine of the unity of the intellect was in accord with Christian teaching. (It is obvious enough of course that if the only incorruptible and immortal part of the soul is not part of the soul at all, but one and the same for all men, then there is no possibility of personal immortality or of individuals receiving in an after-life the rewards and punishments which are their due.) So in the De Unitate Intellectus he says: 'We mean to shew that the aforesaid position is no less contrary to philosophical principles than to the teachings of Faith.' Moreover, 'because some are not content with what the Latins say about this matter, but proclaim themselves followers of the Peripatetics, none of whose books on the subject they have ever seen except those of Aristotle who founded the Peripatetic school, we shall shew the aforesaid position to be altogether at variance with his [Aristotle's] words and his thought'. The exegesis which then follows in the Opusculum is so indispensable a complement to the Commentary on the de Anima that we proceed to trace its development in full.
Beginning with the definition of the soul in de Anima II, as the 'first actuality of an organic physical body' St. Thomas insists that this is intended by Aristotle to apply to all souls whatsoever. The subsequent passage (412b 10) is adduced in proof: 'It has been said universally what the soul is, etc.' Nor is the intellective part excluded, for 'From this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from its body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has parts), for the actuality of some of them is nothing but the actuality of their bodily parts. Yet some may be separable, not being the actualities of any body at all' (413a 3-9), i.e. the intellectual parts are not organic powers, but are nevertheless allowed to be parts of the soul. This passage introduces the crucial word {choristos}. The whole dispute may be summed up in the question: In what sense is the soul or any part of it separable from the body? St. Thomas's full conclusion is that the intellectual soul can exist without the body, retaining its sense powers only radically; that in its state of union with the body, it is the latter's substantial form; and that whereas the sense powers actually 'inform' their organs, the intellectual powers 'inform' no corresponding material part. Whatever Aristotle's opinion, he certainly reaches no conclusion that is so precisely stateable; and in the Opusculum St. Thomas is only concerned to show that the Philosopher held the intellectual powers to be genuinely parts of the soul. So he continues by emphasising the universal applicability of the definition of soul. Aristotle, seeking to determine more clearly whether the soul is the form of the body or merely its 'motor', examines the activities of living things and enumerates 'thinking or perception or local movement and rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth'. Some of these can exist without the others but, whatever the explanation of that, 'the soul is the source of these phenomena and is characterised by them, namely by the powers of self-nutrition, sensation, thinking and motivity' (413b 13).
Aristotle's next question, 'Is each of these a soul or a part of a soul?', St. Thomas assigns to his wishing to consider Plato's view that different vital operations pertain to different souls in the living thing. Aristotle goes on: 'In the case of certain of these powers, the answers to these questions are easy, in the case of others we are puzzled what to say', viz. 'we have no evidence as yet about mind or the power to think' (413b 15). These statements, says St. Thomas, refer to the questions asked, and mean that it is not clear whether the intellect is soul, or part of soul, and, if the latter, whether 'merely distinguishable by definition or a part distinct in local situation as well'. Averroes and his followers 'perversely expound' the statements as though they indicated that Aristotle wished to shew that the intellect is not part of soul. 'It seems to be a different kind of soul,' says Aristotle (413b 25), thus occasioning another 'perverse exposition' from the Averroists--as though a 'soul' could only be called intellectual equivocally, or the definition could not be adapted to a soul of this sort, i.e. an intellectual one.
Aristotle continues: 'It seems to be a widely different kind of soul, differing as what is eternal from what is perishable'; and so 'it alone is capable of existence in isolation from all other psychic powers'. This last translation goes, however, beyond the text, and in St. Thomas's sense. The Averroists said 'in isolation from the body', but that, as St. Thomas points out, is not under discussion. The immediate question for Aristotle is whether the various powers are distinct from the soul and each other, and in what way. St. Thomas summarises the passage thus: 'It was asked above whether one part of the soul is separated from another in concept only or in place. Here he leaves the question so far as intellect is concerned, and comes to no conclusion about that; but of the other parts of the soul he says that they are evidently not separable, viz. in place, though they differ in concept. Having then established that soul is vegetative, sensitive, intellective and motive, he wants to shew that the soul with all these parts is united to the body, not as a sailor to a ship, but as form to matter. And so the general definition of soul, outlined above, will have been confirmed.'
This confirmation follows when it is said that the soul is 'the primary principle', not only of our living, sensing and moving, but also of our understanding; and concludes with the statement that 'it follows that the soul must be a ratio or formulable essence, not matter or subject' (414a 14)--the process of argument clearly implying that the intellective soul, as well as other forms of soul, is envisaged throughout.
St. Thomas's review of the second Book concludes with the argument that when Aristotle speaks of the intellective part or power of soul (intellectivum) he means intellect itself (intellectus); for in explaining his division of the powers of the soul he says: 'still another order of animate beings, viz. man . . . (possesses) the power of thinking, i.e. mind' (414b 19). That the two are the same, and also that the definition of soul covers all the aforesaid 'parts' of it, Aristotle makes still clearer with the following: 'It is now evident that a single definition can be given of soul only in the same sense as one can be given of figure. For, as in that case there is no figure distinguishable and apart from triangle etc., so here there is no soul apart from the forms of soul just enumerated' (414b 22ss).
With a reference to the second Book's final statement on the intellect--'Lastly, certain living beings, a small minority, possess calculation and thought'--St. Thomas ends his consideration of the matter so far as this part of the de Anima is concerned. We would point out the thoroughness of his examination and the minutely consequential treatment of the text, the same style of treatment, in fact, as we have noted in the Commentary. The method will perhaps be sought in vain in any modern commentary, though it is particularly needed and helpful in reading so disjointed a style as Aristotle's. St. Thomas's interest in the matter appears in his brief digression at this point, remarkable in so purposeful a work as the Opusculum, on 'the wonderful order and carefulness of Aristotle's treatment'. In particular he refers to the fact that the philosopher begins his third Book with just those questions on the intellect which had been left undecided in the second.
At the close of Book II, 3, Aristotle reserves his detailed treatment of the speculative intellect to a later stage. This comes in III, 4-8. The phrase of reservation is (415a 11): {'peri de tou Theoretikou nou heteros logos'}--'but we reserve discussion about the speculative intellect'. Now Averroes took this as excluding intellect from psychological treatment, perhaps understanding {'logos'}, ratio, in the sense of 'definition'. That, in St. Thomas's view, is another 'perverse exposition'; as though intellect was 'neither soul nor part of soul'. But the subject is clearly being postponed, and is resumed with the words (429a 10), 'Turning now to the part of the soul with which the soul knows and thinks', another point against the Averroist interpretation. St. Thomas continues, 'Nor ought we to say that this refers to the distinction between the possible and agent intellects, as some people imagine (sicut aliqui somniant)'. For that distinction had not yet been put forward.
So far two questions about intellect have been left unsolved. The first is whether it is separated from the other parts of the soul by definition only or also spatially. This doubt is resumed at the opening of III, 4, but Aristotle at once proceeds to examine the altera ratio with mention of which he had closed the discussion of intellect in Book II,--the question, namely, of the nature of the latter's difference from 'the other parts': 'we have to enquire what differentiates this part.' He intends therefore, says St. Thomas, to assign a difference compatible with either alternative of the preceding doubt. Hence it is clear that he does not mean to assign as a difference that intellect is a separate substance from the body, for this would not be compatible with both alternatives; but that it differs in its mode of operation; which is why, continues St. Thomas, Aristotle adds 'and how thinking can take place'. 'So then', he concludes, 'from what we have been able to gather from Aristotle's words up to now, it is clear that he meant the intellect to be a part of that soul which is the actuality of a physical body.'
IV. ARISTOTLE'S METHOD IN DEFINITION
The importance of the establishment of the definition of soul at the opening of the second Book will be readily appreciated when we recall the Aristotelian ideal of scientific knowledge. Moreover the difficulties that in principle surround the establishment of definitions give this passage value as a typical example worked out in a detailed way. St. Thomas's analysis of the passage is an exquisite piece of ordered exposition. For all these reasons we offer some comments on it.
At the opening of the Posterior Analytics Aristotle asserts that 'All instruction given or received by way of argument proceeds from pre-existent knowledge' (71a). This pre-existent knowledge may be 'admission of the fact' which is being investigated, or 'comprehension of the meaning of the term used'. There is a clear instance of the latter assumption in our Commentary (§ 220): Per animam enim intelligimus id quo habens vitam vivit.--'By soul we understand that by which a living thing is alive.' There is a certain elementary understanding of the terms used, and so of the nature of the facts to which they are referred, which must be shared by any who will conduct an inquiry in common, or even dispute together. It is by no means clear from Aristotle's always very concise text whether he makes the other assumption or not. Certainly it takes St. Thomas's minute dissection to bring to light any suggestion that Aristotle actually argues for the fact of soul. This occurs in § 219, referring to 412a 14-15, which the Latin version renders: physicorum autem alia quidem habent vitam, alia autem non habent. Vitam autem habere dicimus id quod per seipsum alimentum et augmentum et decrementum habet. This explanation, as St. Thomas says, is given rather by way of example than definition, but the point is that unless the distinction between living and non-living things is given in reality, it would be useless to pursue the inquiry.
In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle continues by analysing the most genuinely scientific knowledge into undemonstrated knowledge of ultimate premisses and the syllogisms based on them, which show in their middle terms the cause of their conclusions. Of the undemonstrated premisses some will be metaphysical truths applicable in all sciences, others will be definitions proper to the subject-matter under consideration. Of the former class we have several instances in this part of the Commentary, notably in the preliminary distinctions from which the search for the soul's definition must begin, quasdam divisiones ex quibus habetur via ad investigandum definitionem animae (§ 212)--as, for instance, that 'being is divided into the ten categories' and that 'some substances are bodies, others not'. There is also an example of a definition proper to psychology: 'life is essentially that by which anything has the power to move of itself' (§ 219). This definition is here undemonstrated. But the most interesting question for the epistemologist or logician is to what extent such definitions are in principle demonstrable, and how they come to be apprehended. Plato's constant recurrence to this theme was of course familiar to Aristotle, and while his own theory of syllogistic demonstration enabled him to build a more complete and systematic picture of the various aspects of scientific knowledge, he did not neglect an attempt to deal with this fundamental one. The difficulties he experienced in doing so can be seen in the second Book of the Posterior Analytics, a great part of which is precisely concerned with the manner of our acquiring definitions. At the outset comes the distinction we have already noted between questions of fact--i.e. of existence, and of nature--i.e. of definition. The former must be answered affirmatively before the latter can be significantly asked; if we do not think there is such a thing as soul, we cannot ask what soul is. The soul can only be defined if it exists in some appropriate sense. What that appropriate sense is, has considerable relevance to the case in question. It is of course no individual soul that is being defined--only universals are susceptible of definition--but it would be a mistake to read the Commentary with some specific kind of soul predominantly in mind. As Marcel de Corte says: 'From the outset of the de Anima he [Aristotle] carefully points out that the human soul is not the basis of his study, and that the explanation at which he aims is to include in a general way every kind of soul' (cf. de Anima, 402b 3). As the same writer remarks, the exclusively analogical standpoint is adopted by Aristotle for this purpose. There is no univocal genus, soul, for intellective, sensitive non-intellective, vegetative non-sensitive souls. We are prepared for this attitude by the important passage, 402b 1 ff: 'We must also consider whether soul is divisible or not, and whether all souls are specifically the same or not; and in the latter case, whether it is in species that they differ or merely in genus. For the current statements and inquiries about soul seem to bear only on the human soul. Again, we must be careful not to pass over the question whether soul has, like "animal", only one definition, or a different one for each kind of soul, e.g., that of horse or dog or man or god. Now "animal" as a universal is either nothing at all or posterior; and the same is true of every general predicate.' The sense of this passage from the first Book, which dominates the opening proceedings of the second, has not been better given than by Alexander of Aphrodisias. 'Aristotle means to say that if horse, dog, man and god were not of the same genus, each of them would have its own definition, in which case the term "animal" which is affirmed of them all in common would either signify no particular nature and be a mere homonym, or, if significant, would be so in the way that terms with different meanings are applicable to things subordinated one to another as prior and posterior. For the term universally affirmed of things of this kind doubtless designates a certain nature, but one which is not the same in each of its possessors. That is why it is "posterior" to them. What is affirmed of a number of subjects as a genus cannot be suppressed without at the same time suppressing all the subsumed subjects, but not conversely. And therefore the genus is naturally prior. But a common predication made of things related as prior and posterior disappears if the first of the subjects is suppressed, and hence it is not previous to but consequent on them. Now Aristotle shows that the soul is a form of this kind.' Soul in fact is diversely realised in plants, brutes and men; what in plants is a vegetative soul, in brutes is a vegetative-sensitive one, and in men a vegetative-sensitive-intellective one. In each higher nature the defining characteristic of the lower soul is present, but subordinated to the defining characteristic of its own soul. Suppress plants, there will still be animate bodies; brutes and men are species of animate body. But suppress vegetative soul, there will be no souls; the three kinds of soul are not species of a common genus. They are all called 'soul' because of an analogy of function, diversely effected in the various cases. Hence, since a definition is properly constructed by assigning specific differences to a genus, soul, in general, cannot, strictly speaking, be defined. That is not to say that a formula cannot be devised which will be accurately descriptive of the common, but not univocal, nature which is diversely realised in different types of soul. And it is such a formula for which Aristotle searches, and by methods which do not differ in principle from those governing the quest of definitions in the strict sense.
St. Thomas signalises three stages in the process: investigatio, manifestatio, demonstratio. Investigatio, 'tracking down', is referred to in §§ 212, 214, 217, 220, and consonant with the metaphor is venatio (venatur) in §§ 227 and 230. This use of the metaphor goes back to Plato who frequently speaks of the definitions, of which his characters are in search, as an elusive prey. The image is sometimes momentary, sometimes developed with considerable circumstance, as in Republic 432b ff. where the disputants surround a thicket where Justice has hidden and offer prayer to the gods before launching their attack. Aristotle, who uses the metaphor less frequently, does so once where just this matter of finding the elements of definitions is under discussion (Anal. Post., 96a 22). A dialectical rather than a demonstrative process is clearly suggested, and in the de Anima we find the investigatio preceded by certain divisions or distinctions such as it was one function of the Platonic dialectic to bring to light: Praemittit quasdam divisiones, ex quibus habetur via ad investigandum definitionem animae (§ 212, cf. supra). The gaining of definitions by means of divisions which reveal into which of their members the definiendum falls is recommended in Topics, VII, 3 ff., and the relation of this method to demonstration is considered in An. Pr., I, 31, and Anal. Post., II, 5, in the latter of which we have: 'Division demonstrates as little as does induction. For in a genuine demonstration the conclusion must not be put as a question nor depend on a concession, but must follow necessarily from its premisses, even if the respondent deny it. The definer asks "Is man animal or inanimate?" and then assumes--he has not inferred--that man is animal.'
Though there is indeed a process of reasoning implicit in division (cf. Topics, loc. cit.), sheer insight plays the greatest part and the process does not measure up to the Aristotelian ideal of demonstration. The divisions preparatory to the definition of soul and the fundamental insights gained by their means may be tabulated in accordance with St. Thomas's minute analysis.
{substance
{(i) Being { :the soul is substantial
{ (§ 214) {accident
{
{ {matter
{(ii) substance { the soul is form, and
{THE SOUL'S{ as (§ 215){form : so actuality (§ 221)
{ESSENCE { {
{(§ 214) { {composition { {
{ {
{ {(iii) degrees {habit the soul's actuality
{ { of actuality { : resembles that of the
{ { exemplified { former (§§ 227-9)
{ { in (§ 216) {use
DISTINCTIONS {
RELEVANT {
TO: {
{ {corporeal the soul is actuality
{ {(i) substances{ :of corporeal sub-
{ { (§ 217) {incor- stance (§ 220)
{ { {poreal
{ {
{ { { natural the soul actualises
{THE SOUL'S{(ii) bodies { : a natural body
{SUBJECT { (§ 218){ artificial (§§230-2)
{(§ 214) {
{
{ {living
{(iii) natural{ the soul is a principle
{ bodies { :of life (§ 220, 222-6)
{ (§ 219) {non-living
In § 233 the elements of the definition that have emerged in the light of these divisions are collected, the statement of the definition being prefaced with the hesitant: Si aliqua definitio communis debeat assignari--'If any general definition is to be given'. This reservation should be read in the light of what we have previously said about the possibility of defining soul. The only passage in these sections that is likely to give any real difficulty is § 222, in which the qualification of the subject assigned to the soul, that it is 'that which has life potentially', is explained. The need for that qualification and its explanation is occasioned by the difficulty of abstracting the notion of a body, which is the proper subject of soul, from the total body-soul entity. For the precise kind of body which soul informs is animated, i.e. besouled body. Yet if we posit that in the definition, we commit the logical error of defining idem per idem. That is the point of the maxim Compositum non ponitur in definitione formae. Yet it is clearly impossible to assign soul its proper subject without some reference to soul itself. The difficulty is at least partly overcome by saying that the body which is proper to be 'informed' by soul is that which is potentially alive. By saying 'potentially', the soul as in act, and therefore the compositum, is kept out of the definition; yet by saying 'potentially' a reference to soul is also retained, since potentiality is essentially relative to its proportionate act. The difficulty is not exclusive to this subject. S. Alexander met it in his account of the inter-relationships of space and time, and interestingly uses this very example of soul and body to explain his meaning. 'So understood, not only are they [Absolute Space and Absolute Time] useful and valid conceptions, but they are real, in the same sense as the material body of an organism can be said to be real and the life of it also real, though the life does not exist without a body of a certain sort, and the body, to be the kind of body that it is, depends on life. In other words, the reality of Space-Time may be resolved into the elements total Space and total Time, provided only it be remembered that in their combination Space is always variously occupied by Time and Time spread variously over Space.' So too the reality of animated body may be resolved into the elements soul and body, provided only it be remembered that in their combination soul is the substantial form of body and body the matter organised by soul. Sections 224 and 234 are further explanatory of the relationships, as also is much of the following lectio which contains the manifestatio, or further explanation, of the definition.
The definition given in § 233 is, says St. Thomas, 'quasi demonstrationis conclusio' (§ 212), and in the same place he promises one which will be quasi demonstrationis principium. The distinction in this place belongs wholly to the Commentary. It is not till the beginning of the second chapter, 413a 11, that Aristotle, conformably with his teaching in the Posterior Analytics, distinguishes between definitions which are like conclusions and state bare fact, from those which state a reason for the fact; and there he does not point the application of this general teaching, so recalled, to the case in question. It is our purpose to see how far St. Thomas's ascription of a logical process to his text is justified.
To explain the distinction mentioned, the commentator takes (§ 212) an example from the Posterior Analytics. Thunder is supposed to be defined as a noise in the clouds caused by the extinction of fire. This definition can be embodied in a syllogism in which the material element appears as the major term, and the formal, most explanatory element as the middle term; thus:
The extinction of fire in the clouds is a noise in the clouds;
Thunder is the extinction of fire in the clouds:
Therefore, thunder is a noise in the clouds.
In the de Anima another instance is taken. What is squaring? By definition squaring is the finding of a mean proportional between two unequal sides of an oblong, which mean is the side of an equilateral figure equal in area to the oblong. Cast in syllogistic form this becomes:
To find a mean is to find an equilateral orthogon equal to an oblong;
Squaring is to find a mean:
Therefore, squaring is to find an equilateral orthogon equal to an oblong.
Here again the middle term gives the reason for the conclusion. If the latter is taken as a definition, it has, says Aristotle in 413a 18, the nature of a conclusion, whereas the minor premiss gives the cause of the fact.
In adducing this distinction St. Thomas therefore leads us to anticipate two definitions differing as the conclusion andminor premiss of the last stated syllogism. First we are to have one like the conclusion, then one like the premiss. Now in the first lectio a definition is obtained, as we have seen, by means of division, which method, we learn in the Posterior Analytics, is not demonstration; for it leads one to the fact only, not to the reason for the fact. We may say then that on this score the definition in § 221 has the nature of a conclusion. It is more difficult to see how the other member of the distinction is verified in the third and fourth lectiones, where two definitions make their appearance without St. Thomas saying that either of them is like a principle of demonstration. In § 252, however, he says that one of them, identical with that already gained in the first lectio, will be demonstrated, but that the demonstration, unlike that in the examples of the thunder and squaring, will be a posteriori, ab effectu; and therefore will not give the reason for the conclusion (cf. §§ 245-6, 253). The middle term in fact is comparable to the major term in the foregoing instances, and the major term to their middle. Instead of the more formal definition appearing in the premisses, and the more material one in the conclusion, the positions are reversed. In the syllogism,
The prime principle of life is the form of a living body;
The soul is the prime principle of life:
Therefore, the soul is the form of a living body,
the minor premiss and conclusion are both definitions (§ 271 fin.), but that in the latter is the cause and explanation of that in the former. It has accordingly the nature of a principle of demonstration, notwithstanding the fact that it here has the place of a conclusion of an (a posteriori) demonstration.
V. SOME DIFFICULT PASSAGES IN THE COMMENTARY
We now notice a few passages in the Commentary which may cause the reader especial difficulty. The first four appear in the first Book, of which the text, as explained above, is due originally to Reginald of Piperno, not to St. Thomas.
(I) Bk. I, lectio 3 (404a 25 ff.); §§ 40-1. It is not at first sight clear how the exposition and criticism of the view of Anaxagoras given in the Commentary can be coordinated with that given by Aristotle. At 404b 1 the Latin version signalises a doubt about the position of Anaxagoras--minus certificat de ipsis; namely about the unity or diversity of soul and intellect. There follows a reason for our thinking that Anaxagoras did in fact identify them, and a reason for his doing so. Then at 404b 5--non videtur autem--a reason is given for their not being identical, but it is not evident whether this reason is attributed to Anaxagoras or is Aristotle's objection to the identification. The form of words might favour the latter interpretation, but then the fact of Anaxagoras' doubt will not have been substantiated, and the passage precisely claims to be doing this. St. Thomas conflates the two interpretations. In § 40 he states the doubt of Anaxagoras, but also argues for his having identified soul and intellect. We may note that the argument is based on an undistributed middle term:
Anaxagoras says: 'There is soul in all animals';
Anaxagoras says: 'There is intellect in all animals';
therefore it is clear that Anaxagoras identifies soul and intellect. In § 41, corresponding to 404b 5, the words 'non videtur autem etc.' appear to be taken as Aristotle's, convicting his predecessor Anaxagoras of holding contradictory views. Now, as we have seen, this can only be done if 404b 5 continues the exposition of Anaxagoras. When therefore St. Thomas says Ostendit contrarietatem etc. he can only mean that in stating the two views of Anaxagoras, Aristotle is implicitly declaring their contradiction; he is not attributing the second of them to Aristotle at all. It should be noted, in connection with the faulty argument embedded in § 40, that the version translates a text different from that given in the Teubner edition which scarcely gives rise to any of these difficulties. There 404b 1-3 reads: {pollachou men gar to aition tou kalos kai orthos ton noun legei, heterothi de touton einai ten psychen} which is clearly a statement of the twofold view of Anaxagoras. 404b 5 then becomes Aristotle's own objection to the identification of soul and intellect.
(2) Bk. I, lectio 9 (407b 30); § 133. The version has et in iis qui in communi fiunt sermonibus: this phrase turns the Greek accurately enough. The sermones qui in communi fiunt, 'public discussions', are variously interpreted as works published either by Plato or by Aristotle or by both--since the former's Phaedo and the latter's Euthedemus both deal with this subject--and current verbal disputations. But in place of this phrase the Commentary quotes quantum ad id quod est in communi, indicating either a different text, or a complete misunderstanding, or perhaps a mis-reporting by Reginald.
(3) Bk. I, lectio 10 (408b 8 ff.); § 163. The Commentary has: Dicit ergo, quod videtur praedictis philosophis quod intellectus sit quaedam substantia, quae est in fieri et nondum completa, et quod non corrumpitur. The version has: 'Intellectus autem videtur innasci substantia quaedam existens et non corrumpi', and the Greek: {ho de nous eoiken enginesthai ousia tis ousa, kai ou phtheiresthai}. Innasci turns {enginesthai} well enough; we may render the words as 'to be born in', 'to be in from birth'. There seems no good reason for the Commentator's introduction of and emphasis upon the notion of evolutionary process. The misunderstanding is the more curious when we remember that St. Thomas shows himself very familiar with a connection between nascor and natura (cf. Summa Theol., III, 2, 12). The videtur {eoiken} would in any case seem to mark the introduction of Aristotle's own views, and it is not easy to see why St. Thomas should have taken the subsequent passage as an argument ad hominem. Though this subject is not here in question, the opening sentence recalls the well-known passage in the de Generatione Animalium, 736b ss., about the origination of intellect.
(4) Bk. I, lectio 13 (411a 23); § 197. In interpreting the existet of the version by id est, immortalis est secundum eos, St. Thomas seems to have been over-ingenious in finding his way through a somewhat elliptical passage. Existet turns {hyparxei} and there is no reference, even implicit, to immortality. We may expand the last five lines of this section of the version thus:
'If then the air that is thus divided off (so as to be the soul of a living thing) be homogeneous, but the soul be composed of heterogeneous parts, something of the soul will pertain to the air and something not. So either the soul must be composed of homogeneous parts (which it manifestly is not), or, it cannot be in any and every part of the whole (air).'
The general process of the argument of § 197 is not seriously affected by this point.
(5) Bk. II, lectio 3 (413a 15); § 251. The term tetragonismus of the version means 'squaring' not 'a square'. St. Thomas's equation of it with the latter--id est quadratum--makes the argument appear more difficult than it really is: the second definition--quadratum est inventio mediae--thus becoming perforce a genetic definition instead of the essential definition intended by Aristotle.
(6) Bk. III, lectio 10 (430a 20-25); §§ 740-5. The text here has given rise, on various counts, to much perplexity. For reference in discussion it will be well to have before us the Greek text and Latin version:
{To d' auto estin he chat' energeian episteme to pragmati · he de kata dynamin chrono protera en to heni, holos d' ou chrono TOPASCIIQX all' ouch hote men noei, hote d' ou noei. Choristheis d' esti monon touth' hoper esti, kai touto monon athanaton kai aidion. Ou mnemoneuomen de hoti touto men apathes, ho de pathetikos nous phthartos, kai aneu toutou ouden noei.}
'Idem autem est secundum actum scientia rei; quae vero secundum potentiam, tempore prior in uno est. Omnino autem neque tempore. Sed non aliquando quidem intelligit, aliquando autem non intelligit. Separatus autem est solum hoc, quod vere est. Et hoc solum immortale et perpetuum est. Non reminiscitur autem, quia hoc quidem impassibile est; passivus vero intellectus, est corruptibilis, et sine hoc nihil intelligit anima.'
The English translation given below (p. 425) follows the version more closely than the latter follows the Greek. The main problems are (1) to find the antecedent of intelligit in the third sentence, (2) to find what separatus agrees with, and (3) to discover what Aristotle means by 'the passive intellect'.
(i) This question was already familiar to St. Thomas. The alternatives can be seen in Summa Theologica, I, 79, 4, obj. 2 and ad. 2m. The objection runs: 'The Philosopher (de Anima, III) says of the active (i.e. agent) intellect, that it does not sometimes understand and sometimes not understand. But our soul does not always understand: sometimes it understands, and sometimes it does not understand. Therefore the active (agent) intellect is not something in our soul.' To which St. Thomas replies: 'The Philosopher says those words not of the active (agent) intellect, but of the intellect in act: of which he had already said: Knowledge in act is the same as the thing. Or, if we refer those words to the active (agent) intellect, then they are said because it is not owing to the active (agent) intellect that sometimes we do, and sometimes we do not understand, but to the intellect which is in potentiality.' The conclusion of the objection shows the importance of the question for the Averroist thesis of the separated intellect. St. Thomas clearly shows his preference for taking intelligit to refer right back to 'knowledge in act', though finding the Averroist conclusion not necessitated by the alternative of taking it to refer to the agent intellect. Curiously, though the version does not give any help in deciding this point, the Greek seems fully to justify St. Thomas's preference. The {alla} is the strongest particle in its sentence and would seem absolutely to demand that its antecedent should be all of the sentence which precedes it. Commentators have not always seen this, but de Corte is surely right in making it one of his main arguments for taking the passage in the sense preferred by St. Thomas in the Summa and adopted by him in the Commentary.
It is matter of less moment but worthy of remark, that St. Thomas shows his penetration in overcoming, correctly, a further obscurity which is absent from the Greek but introduced by the author of the version by his writing omnino for {holos}. An early variant is {haplos} which comes to the same thing. The contrast is between knowledge in potency considered in the individual and the same considered absolutely or universally, without qualification. Omnino does not give this sense unmistakably, but St. Thomas does so understand it in the Commentary.
(ii) Separatus is commonly taken as referring only to the agent intellect, the last aspect of the intellective soul to have been considered. St. Thomas, with at least as much probability in his favour, argues for its reference to the intellective soul without qualification, on the ground that the 'possible' as well as the 'agent' intellect has been characterised as 'separate' in the foregoing passage. De Corte insists that the same interpretation is imposed by the whole theory of the soul and its parts which Aristotle presents.
We may note that the version's vere is one of its rare verbal additions to the text, admirably, however, bringing out the emphasis of the Greek. Its presence renders less objectionable St. Thomas's transference of the adverb solum into an adjective; the transference is to be explained by his taking solum with separatus rather than with est hoc quod vere est. But the presence of vere does much to retain the emphasis on the clause in which it occurs. It would be possible, consonantly with St. Thomas's principles, to translate: 'By itself, the intellect, when separated, is that which it truly is', the general sense being, in any case, that, in the state of separation from the body, intellective soul is purely intellective, the organic powers being necessarily in abeyance.
(iii) The Version turns {mnemoueuomen} by reminiscitur, but without serious consequences. With what previously mentioned period is the verb co-ordinated? It can only be with that indicated by {choristheis}. In a state of separation from the body, the intellective soul no longer remembers. Memory has already been mentioned in 408b 24-29 as perishing with the compositum of body and soul; St. Thomas refers to that passage in § 744, supra dixit in primo quod intelligere corrumpitur, quodam interius corrupto. We have already seen that the commentary on that passage (§ 163ss.) presents certain difficulties. This is the place to suggest that they may in part be caused by St. Thomas's awareness that Aristotle could not possibly be saying, in accordance with his own principles, that intelligere in the normal sense of that word is an act of the compositum as such and perishable with it. Yet the version gave him the statement, to which he here refers, Intelligere igitur et considerare marcescunt alio quodam interius corrupto. This genuine difficulty may have been the reason for the commentator's interpreting the passage as an argumentum ad hominem. But now in Book III, at the end of lectio 10 (§ 745) he has his finger on the solution: . . . destructo corpore non remanet in anima separata scientia rerum secundum eundem modum quo modo intelligit. Sed quomodo tunc intelligat, non est praesentis intentionis discutere. The word turned by intelligere is {dianoia} and its association in these two passages with memory and other acts of the compositum suggests that this term could be applied to other than distinctively spiritual acts of the mind. Indeed its being coupled with {theorein} in 408b 24 is sufficient warrant for finding such another use, since {Theorein} is often used by Aristotle both for an act of sense and an act of mind. De Corte suggests that the preposition {dia} in composition with the verb may here, as in other cases, have the sense of 'penetration'. The act signified would then be intermediate between sense perception and understanding proper: that collaboration of intellect and sense which is inescapably necessary to intellectual activity, so long as the soul is united to the body. The total aptitude for such collaboration is the 'passive' intellect of which Aristotle here alone makes mention. It is certainly impossible to equate this with the 'possible', or knowing, intellect properly so called.
We may close our discussion of this difficult passage by expanding the translation in the sense which seems to be appropriate.
'Knowledge in act is the same as the thing (actually known). But (knowledge) that is potential is, in the individual, prior in time. Absolutely, however, not even in time. Whereas (knowledge in act) does not sometimes know and sometimes not know. When mind is separated (from the body) it is simply what it truly is. It does not (then) remember, because (mind) indeed is impassible; but the passive intellect is corruptible, and without it (in this life) the soul understands nothing.'
IVO THOMAS, O.P.