[169] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 27, b. 22.
[170] Ibid. vii. p. 431, b. 2: τὰ μὲν οὖν εἴδη τὸ νοητικὸν ἐν τοῖς φαντάσμασι νοεῖ. — viii. p. 432, a. 3: ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐδὲ πρᾶγμα οὐθέν ἐστι παρὰ τὰ μεγέθη, ὡς δοκεῖ, τὰ αἰσθητὰ κεχωρισμένον, ἐν τοῖς εἴδεσι τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητά ἐστι, τά τε ἐν ἀφαιρέσει λεγόμενα, καὶ ὅσα τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἕξεις καὶ πάθη· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὔτε μὴ αἰσθανόμενος μηθὲν οὐθὲν ἂν μάθοι οὐδὲ ξυνείη· ὅταν δὲ θεωρῇ, ἀνάγκη ἅμα φάντασμά τι θεωρεῖν.
Herein lies one of the main distinctions between the noëtic and the sentient souls. The sentient deals with particulars, and correlates with external bodies; the noëtic apprehends universals, which in a certain sense are within the soul: hence a man can cogitate whenever or whatever he chooses, but he can see or touch only what is present.[171] Another distinction is, that the sentient soul is embodied in special organs, each with determinate capacities, and correlating with external objects, themselves alike determinate, acting only under certain conditions of locality. The possibilities of sensation are thus from the beginning limited; moreover, a certain relative proportion must be maintained between the percipient and the perceivable; for extreme or violent sounds, colours, &c., produce no sensation; on the contrary, they deaden the sentient organ.[172] But the noëtic soul (what is called the “Noûs of the soul,� to use Aristotle’s language)[173] is nothing at all in actuality before its noëtic function commences, though it is everything in potentiality. It is not embodied in any corporeal organ of its own, nor mingled as a new elementary ingredient with the body; it does not correlate with any external objects; it is not so specially attached to some particulars as to make it antipathetic to others. Accordingly its possibilities of cogitation are unlimited; it apprehends with equal facility what is most cogitable and what is least cogitable. It is thoroughly indeterminate in its nature, and is in fact at first a mere unlimited cogitative potentiality;[174] like a tablet, upon which no letters have as yet been written, but upon which all or any letters may be written.[175]
[171] Ibid. II. v. p. 417, b. 22.
[172] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 31.
[173] Ibid. a. 22: ὁ ἄρα καλούμενος τῆς ψυχῆς νοῦς (λέγω δὲ νοῦν ᾧ διανοεῖται καὶ ὑπολαμβάνει ἡ ψυχή) οὐθέν ἐστιν ἐνεργείᾳ τῶν ὄντων πρὶν νοεῖν.
[174] Ibid. a. 21: ὥστε μηδ’ αὐτοῦ εἶναι φύσιν μηδεμίαν ἀλλ’ ἢ ταύτην, ὅτι δυνατόν.
[175] Ibid. p. 430, a. 1.
We have already said that the Noûs of the human soul emanates from a peculiar influence of the celestial body, which is the special region of Form in the Kosmos. Through it we acquire an enlarged power of apprehending the abstract and universal; we can ascend above sensible forms to the cogitable forms contained therein; we can consider all forms in themselves, without paying attention to the matter wherein they are embodied. Instead of considering the concrete solid or liquid before us, we can mentally analyse them, and thus study solidity in the abstract, fluidity in the abstract. While our senses judge of water as hot and cold, our noëtic function enables us to appreciate water in the abstract — to determine its essence, and to furnish a definition of it.[176] In all these objects, as combinations of Form with Matter, the cogitable form exists potentially; and is abstracted or considered abstractedly, by the cogitant Noûs.[177] Yet this last (as we have already seen) cannot operate except along with and by aid of phantasms — of impressions revived or remaining from sense. It is thus immersed in the materials of sense, and has no others. But it handles them in a way of its own, and under new points of view; comparing and analysing; recognizing the abstract in the concrete, and the universal in the particular; discriminating mentally and logically the one from the other; and noting the distinction by appropriate terms. Such distinctions are the noümena, generated in the process of cogitation by Noûs itself. The Noûs, as it exists in any individual, gradually loses its original character of naked potentiality, and becomes an actual working force, by means of its own acquired materials.[178] It is an aggregate of noümena, all of them in nature identical with itself; and, while cogitating them, the Noûs at the same time cogitates itself. Considered abstractedly, apart from matter, they exist only in the mind itself; in theoretical speculation, the cognoscens and the cognitum are identical. But they are not really separable from matter, and have no reality apart from it.
[176] Ibid. p. 429, b. 10.