This classification, however, is based upon a very superficial acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle as a whole. The practice, so commonly resorted to, of determining the character of the Aristotelian philosophy by the light of one or two passages quoted from his "Metaphysics," is unjust both to Aristotle and to the history of philosophic thought. We can not expect to attain a correct understanding of the views of Aristotle concerning the sources and grounds of all knowledge without some attention to his psychology. A careful study of his writings will show that the terms "sensation" (αὶσθησις) and "experience" (ἐµπειρία) are employed in a much more comprehensive sense than is usual in modern philosophic writings.
"Sensation," in its lowest form, is defined by Aristotle as "an excitation of the soul through the body," [700] and, in its higher form, as the excitation of the soul by any object of knowledge. In this latter form it is used by him as synonymous with "intuition," and embraces all immediate intuitive perceptions, whether of sense, consciousness, or reason. "The universe is derived from particulars, therefore we ought to have a sensible perception (αὶσθησις) of these; and this is intellect (νοῦς)." [701] Intelligence proper, the faculty of first principles, is, in certain respects, a sense, because it is the source of a class of truths which, like the perceptions of the senses, are immediately revealed as facts to be received upon their own evidence. It thus answers to the "sensus communis" of Cicero, and the "Common Sense" of the Scottish school. Under this aspect, "Sense is equal to or has the force of Science." [702] The term "Experience" is also used to denote, not merely the perception and remembrance of the impressions which external objects make upon the mind, but as co-extensive with the whole contents of consciousness--all that the mind does of its own native energy, as well as all that it suffers from without. It is evidently used in the Posterior Analytic (bk. ii. ch. xix.) to describe the whole process by which the knowledge of universals is obtained. "From experience, or from every universal remaining in the soul, the principles of art and science arise." The office of experience is "to furnish the principles of every science" [703]--that is, to evoke them into energy in the mind. 'Experience thus seems to be a thing almost similar to science and art. [704] In the most general sense, "sensation" would thus appear to be the immediate perception or intuition of facts and principles, and "experience" the operation of the mind upon these facts and principles, elaborating them into scientific form according to its own inherent laws. The "experience" of Aristotle is analogous to the "reflection" of Locke.
[Footnote 700: ][ (return) ] "De Somn.," bk. i.
[Footnote 701: ][ (return) ] "Ethics," bk. vi. ch. xi.; see also ch. vi.
[Footnote 702: ][ (return) ] "De Cen. Anim."
[Footnote 703: ][ (return) ]: "Prior Analytic," bk. i. ch. xix.
[Footnote 704: ][ (return) ] "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i.
So much being premised, we proceed to remark that there is a distinction perpetually recurring in the writings of Aristotle between the elements or first principles of knowledge which are "clearest in their own nature" and those which "are clearest to our perception." [705] The causes or principles of knowledge "are prior and more known to us in two ways, for what is prior in nature is not the same as that which is prior to us, nor that which is more known (simply in itself) the same as that which is more known to us. Now I call things prior and more known to us, those which are nearer to sense; and things prior and more known simply in themselves, those which are remote from sense; and those things are most remote which are especially universal, and those nearest which are singular; and these are mutually opposed." [706] Here we have a distribution of the first or prior elements of knowledge into two fundamentally opposite classes.
(i.) The immediate or intuitive perceptions of sense,
(ii.) The immediate or intuitive apperceptions of pure reason,