[60] Aristot. De Animâ, II. iii. p. 414, b. 2; p. 415, a. 3; III. i. p. 424, b. 22; xiii. p. 435, b. 15.
[61] Ibid. II. xii. p. 424, a. 32-b. 4: διὰ τί ποτε τὰ φυτὰ οὐκ αἰσθάνεται, ἔχοντά τι μόριον ψυχικὸν καὶ πάσχοντά τι ὑπὸ τῶν ἁπτῶν; καὶ γὰρ ψύχεται καὶ θερμαίνεται· αἴτιον γὰρ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν μεσότητα, μηδὲ τοιαύτην ἀρχὴν οἵαν τὰ εἴδη δέχεσθαι τῶν αἰσθητῶν, ἀλλὰ πάσχειν μετὰ τῆς ὕλης.
Themistius ad loc. p. 144, ed. Spengel: πάσχει (τὰ φυτά) συνεισιούσης τῆς ὕλης τοῦ ποιοῦντος, &c.
[62] Aristot. De Animâ, II. xii. p. 424, a. 19.
[63] Ibid. a. 24: αἰσθητήριον δὲ πρῶτον ἐν ᾧ ἡ τοιαύτη δύναμις, &c. — III. xii. p. 434, a. 29.
[64] Ibid. III. ii. p. 425, b. 25: ἡ δὲ τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ ἐνέργεια καὶ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ἡ αὐτὴ μέν ἐστι καὶ μία, τὸ δ’ εἶναι οὐ ταὐτὸν αὐταῖς. — II. v. p. 418, a. 3: τὸ δ’ αἰσθητικὸν δυνάμει ἐστὶν οἷον τὸ αἰσθητὸν ἤδη ἐντελεχείᾳ, — πάσχει μὲν οὖν οὐχ ὅμοιον ὄν, πεπονθὸς δ’ ὡμοίωται καὶ ἔστιν οἷον ἐκεῖνο. Also p. 417, a. 7, 14, 20.
There were conflicting doctrines current in Aristotle’s time: some said that, for an agent to act upon a patient, there must be likeness between the two; others said that there must be unlikeness. Aristotle dissents from both, and adopts a sort of intermediate doctrine.
The sentient soul is communicated by the male parent in the act of generation,[65] and is complete from the moment of birth, not requiring a process of teaching after birth; the sentient subject becomes at once and instantly, in regard to sense, on a level with one that has attained a certain actuality of cognition, but is not at the moment reflecting upon the cognitum. Potentiality and Actuality are in fact distinguishable into lower and higher degrees; the Potential that has been actualized in a first or lower stage, is still a Potential relatively to higher stages of Actuality.[66] The Potential may be acted upon in two opposite ways; either by deadening and extinguishing it, or by developing and carrying it forward to realization. The sentient soul, when asleep or inert, requires a cause to stimulate it into actual seeing or hearing; the noëtic or cognizant soul, under like circumstances, must also be stimulated into actual meditation on its cognitum. But there is this difference between the two. The sentient soul communes with particulars; the noëtic soul with universals. The sentient soul derives its stimulus from without, and from some of the individual objects, tangible, visible, or audible; but the noëtic soul is put into action by the abstract and universal, which is in a certain sense within the soul itself; so that a man can at any time meditate on what he pleases, but he cannot see or hear what he pleases, or anything except such visible or audible objects as are at hand.[67]
[65] Aristot. De Gener. Animal. II. v. p. 741, a. 13, b. 7; De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 17.
[66] Aristot. De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 18-32. See above, p. 457, [note a].