proper subjects, the marble would remain for ever shapeless, the harp would remain for ever silent.a

It is the same in natural beings. The animating form of a natural body is neither its organization, nor its figure, nor any other of those inferior forms which make up the system of its visible qualities; but it is the power which, not being that organization, nor that figure, nor those qualities, is yet able to produce, to preserve, and to employ them. It is, therefore, the power which first moves, and then conducts that latent process, by which the acorn becomes an oak, the embryo becomes a man. It is the power, by which the aliment of plants and animals is digested, and by such digestion transformed into a part of themselves. It is the power, as oft as the body is either mutilated or sick, that cooperates with the medicine in effecting the cure. It is the power, which departing, the body ceases to live, and the members soon pass into putrefaction and decay.

Further still, as putrefaction and decay will necessarily come, and nature would be at an end, were she not maintained by a supply; it is therefore the power that enables every being to produce another like itself, the lion to produce a lion, the oak to produce an oak; so that, while individuals perish, the species still remains, and the corruptible, as far as may be, partakes of the eternal and divine."

4 See Maximus Tyrius, Diss. i. who eloquently applies this reasoning to the Supreme Being, the Divine Artist of the universe: Εἰ δὲ καὶ νῦν ἤδη μαθεῖν ἐρᾷς τὴν ἐκείνου φύσιν, πῶς τίς αὐτὴν διηγήσηται; καλὸν μὲν γὰρ εἶναι τὸν θεὸν, καὶ τῶν καλῶν τὸ φανώτατον· ἀλλ ̓ οὐ σῶμα καλὸν, ἀλλ ̓ ὅθεν καὶ τῷ σώματι ἐπιῤῥεῖ τὸ κάλλος οὐδὲ λειμῶν καλὸς, ἀλλ ̓ ὅθεν καὶ ὁ λειμὼν καλός· καὶ ποταμοῦ κάλλος, καὶ θαλάττης, καὶ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ τῶν ἐν οὐρανῷ θεῶν, πᾶν τὸ κάλλος τοῦτο ἐκεῖθεν ῥεῖ, οἷον ἐκ πηγῆς ἀεννάου καὶ ἀκηράτου· καθόσον αὐτοῦ μετέσχεν ἕκαστα, καλὰ, καὶ ἑδραῖα, καὶ σωζόμενα· καὶ καθόσον αὐτοῦ ἀπολείπεται, αἰσχρὰ, καὶ διαλυόμενα, καὶ φθειρόμενα: “But if even now you wish to learn the nature of this Sovereign Being, after what manner shall any one be able to explain it? Divinity itself is surely beauteous, and of all beauties," &c. &c.

Those who choose to see the remaining part of this elegant original, elegantly translated, may find it in the second volume of Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristics, p. 295.

Here an attempt is made to explain the three great principles of the soul, anciently called 7d vontikdy, tò aiolŋTikov, TO OPETTIKOV, "the intellective, the sensitive, and the nutritive." The nutritive is treated first, then the sensitive, then the intellective.

See below, note t, on the word intellective, p. 280.

"This eternal and divine is what," as Aristotle says, "all beings desire, and for the sake of which they act whatever they act agreeably to nature.' Πάντα γὰρ ἐκεί νου (scil. τοῦ ἀεὶ καὶ τοῦ θείου) ὀρέγεται, κἀκείνου ἕνεκα πράττει ὅσα κατὰ φύσιν πράττει. De Anim. l. ii. c. 4. p. 28. edit. Sylb.

66

Immediately afterwards he subjoins the following remarkable passage, by which he appears to refer the whole system of natural production or generation to that one great principle: Ἐπεὶ οὖν κοινωνεῖν ἀδυνατεῖ τοῦ ἀεὶ καὶ τοῦ θείου τῇ συνεχείᾳ, διὰ τὸ μηδὲν ἐνδέχεσθαι τῶν φθαρτῶν τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ ἓν ἀριθμῷ διαμένειν, ἢ μετέχειν δύναται ἕκα στον, ταύτῃ κοινωνεῖ, τὸ μὲν μᾶλλον, τὸ δὲ ἧττον καὶ διαμένει οὐκ αὐτὸ, ἀλλ ̓ οἷον αὐτό ἀριθμῷ μὲν οὐχ ἓν, εἴδει δὲ ἕν : “ Inasmuch, therefore, as these beings (meaning the subordinate and inferior) cannot participate of the eternal and the divine in uninterrupted continuity, from its being impossible that any thing perishable and transient should remain the same and one numerically; hence it follows, that as far as each is capable of sharing it, so far it participates, one thing in a greater degree, and another in a less; and that each thing remains not precisely the same, but as it were

In all the energies here enumerated, it extends through vegetables as well as animals. But with animals, taken apart, it is that higher active faculty, which, by employing the organs of sense, peculiar to them as animals, distinguishes them, as beings sensitive, from vegetables and plants. Further than this, with man alone above the rest it is that still superior and more noble faculty, which, by its own divine vigour, unassisted perhaps with organs, makes and denominates him a being intellective and rational.t

And so much for the description of those forms, which, being purely invisible, and (it may be said) totally insensible, are no otherwise to be known, consciousness alone excepted, than by sensible operations and energies," perceived in things corporeal.

As in their very essence they imply activity, as much as matter, upon which they operate, implies passivity; hence in every natural composite we may discern the influence of two

the same, not numerically one, but one in species."

To this Virgil alludes,

At genus immortale manet. Georg. iv. See Plat. Conviv. p. 1197. C. edit. Fic. ι Τῶν δὲ δυνάμεων τῆς ψυχῆς αἱ λεχθεῖ σαι τοῖς μὲν ἐνυπάρχουσι πᾶσαι, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, τοῖς δὲ τινὲς αὐτῶν, ἐνίοις δὲ μία μóvn: "As to the powers of the soul here described, they exist all of them in some beings; some of them only in other beings; and in some beings only one of them." Arist. de An. 1. ii. c. 3. p. 26. edit. Sylb. That is to say, man possesses all; brutes possess some ; plants, one only. Man has the vegetative, the sensitive, and the intellective faculty ; brutes only the vegetative and the sensitive; plants, the vegetative alone.

See soon after, p. 28, “Avev μèv yàp Toû θρεπτικού, κ. τ. λ.

Ideoque ob consortium corporis est inter homines, bestiasque, et cætera vita carentia, societas communioque corporeorum proven tuum. Siquidem nasci, nutriri, crescere commune est hominibus cum cæteris ; sentire vero et appetere, commune demum hominibus et mutis tantum, et ratione carentibus animalibus. Cupiditas porro atque iracundia vel agrestium vel mansuetorum, appetitus irrationabilis est: hominis vero, cujus est proprium rationi mentem applicare, rationabilis: ratiocinandi enim atque intelligendi, sciendique verum appetitus proprius est hominis, quia a cupiditate atque iracundia plurimum distat. Illa quippe etiam in mutis animalibus, et multo quidem acriora, cernuntur: rationis autem perfectio et intellectus, propria Dei et hominis tantum. Chalcid. in Plat. Tim. p. 345. edit. Fabric.

"See the passage just before quoted from

Maximus Tyrius. Nothing can be of greater importance than a due attention to this distinction; I mean, the distinction between effects and causes; between effects which are visible, and causes which are invisible; between effects, the natural objects of all our sensations ; and causes, which are objects of no sensation at all.

It is with reference to this distinction that Cyrus is made to reason in his last moments by Xenophon, his philosophical historian, who thus describes him addressing his children: Où yàp dýπоν TOÛτÓ Ye σαφῶς δοκεῖτε εἰδέναι, ὡς οὐδὲν ἔσομαι ἐγὼ ἔτι, ἐπειδὰν τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου βίου τελευ τήσω· οὐδὲ γὰρ νῦν τοι τήν γ' ἐμὴν ψυχὴν ἐωρᾶτε, ἀλλ ̓ οἷς διεπράττετο, τούτοις aury s obσav kaтepwpâre. Thus excellently translated by my honourable relation, Mr. Ashley: "You ought not to imagine you certainly know, that, after I have closed the period of human life, I shall no longer exist. For neither do you now see my soul; but you conclude from its operations, that it does exist." Cyropædia, 1. viii.

Cicero has translated the same passage with great elegance, but in a manner less strict, less confined to the original:

Nolite arbitrari, O mihi carissimi filii, me, cum a vobis discessero, nusquam aut nullum fere; nec enim, dum eram vobiscum, animum meum videbatis, sed cum esset in hoc corpore, ex iis rebus, quas gerebam, intelligebatis: eundem igitur esse creditote, etiamsi nullum vibebitis. De Senect. c. 22.

Nothing is more certain than that many things, which have no sensible qualities, may be described accurately, and compre hended adequately, by their energies and operations upon sensible objects.

such principles, while, under different proportions, and in different degrees, the active enlivens the passive, and the passive depresses the active.

It is to this that Virgil nobly alludes, when he tells us, that to every enlivened substance, every animated being, there was something appertaining of ethereal vigour and heavenly origin, as far forth as not retarded by its mortal and earthly members. Igneus est ollis vigor, et cœlestis origo

Seminibus, quantum nos noxia corpora tardant,
Terrenique hebetant artus, moribundaque membra.

Æn. vi.

Could we penetrate that mist, which hides so much from human eyes, and follow these composites to their different and original principles, we might gain, perhaps, a glimpse of two objects worth contemplating; of that which is first, and that which is last, in the general order of being; of pure energy in the Supreme Mind, the first mover of all efficients; of pure passivity in the lowest matter, the ultimate basis of all subjects.*

But lest these should be esteemed speculations rather foreign, it is sufficient to mark the analogy between things natural and artificial; how, that as there are no forms of art which did not pre-exist in the mind of man, so are there no forms of nature which did not pre-exist in the mind of God. It is through this we comprehend, how mind or intellect is the region of forms,"

Thus the Stoics: Aoke? 8 avroîs ἀρχὰς εἶναι τῶν ὅλων δύο, τὸ ποιοῦν καὶ τὸ πάσχον. τὸ μὲν οὖν πάσχον εἶναι τὴν ἄποιον οὔσιαν, τὴν ὕλην, τὸ δὲ ποιοῦν, τὸν ἐν αὐτῇ λόγον, τὸν θεόν: “ Their opinion is, that the principles of all things are two, the active principle and the passive ; that the passive principle is that substance void of all quality, matter; the active principle, that reason which exists within it, God.” Diog. Laert. vii. 134.

The following passage from Ammonius is remarkable, and well applies to the present subject: Aid paol Thy üλnv tŵ bei àvoμοίως ὡμοιῶσθαι. ὡμοιῶσθαι μὲν, ὅτι δι' ἀποφάσεως τῶν ἄλλων σημαίνεται ἑκάτερον, ἀνομοίως δὲ, ὅτι τοῦ μὲν, κρείττονος ὄντος, ἢ κατὰ πάντα τὰ ὄντα, ἀποφάσκομεν πάντα, τῆς δὲ ὕλης, χείρονος οὔσης ἢ κατὰ πάντα, ταῦτα ἀποφάσκομεν: “For this reason they say that matter is dissimilarly similar to the divinity; is similar, because each of them is explained by a negation of all other things; dissimilarly so, inasmuch as we deny all things of the divinity, by its being better than all things; we deny them of matter, by its being worse." Ammon, in Prædic. p. 50. B.

Archytas thus expresses himself in his Doric dialect: Tò μèv évtì moléov, Tò de πάσχον· οἷον ἐν τοῖς φυσικοῖς ποιέον μὲν ὁ θεὸς, πάσχον δὲ ὁ ὕλα, καὶ ποιέον καὶ πάσχον, τὰ στοιχεία : “ There is some

thing, which is agent; and something, which is patient ; thus among natural beings, God is the agent ; matter, the patient; but the elements are both agent and patient united.”

Upon this Simplicius observes, Σαφοῦς δὲ ὄντος τοῦ λεγομένου, παραδείγματα ἀρχηγικώτατα παρέθετο, ποιεῖν μὲν τὸν θεὸν εἰπὼν, ᾧ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα τὰ ποιητικὰ αἴτια συνέπεται, πάσχειν δὲ τὴν ὕλην, δι' ἦν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα μετέχει τοῦ πάσχειν, καὶ ποιεῖν δὲ καὶ πάσχειν τὰ στοιχεῖα, ὡσὰν δὴ μετέχοντα καὶ ὕλης καὶ εἴδους : “ Though what has been said is evident, he has adduced (to explain himself) the two highest and most leading instances, saying, that God is agent, whom all other active causes follow; and matter, patient, through which other beings partake of passion ; and that the elements are both agents and patients, inasmuch as they participate both of matter and of form." Simpl. in Præd. p. 84. edit. Basil. 1551.

y See Aristotle, already quoted, p. 277, in his tract De Anima, 1. iii. 4. p. 57. edit Sylb. In the eighth chapter of the same book, p. 62, he calls the soul, eidos elowv, "the form of forms ;" and that not only from its being that supreme characterizing power which gives to subordinate beings their peculiar form or character, but as it uses them, when made, agreeably to their respective natures. In this last acceptation it is the form of forms, as the hand appears to be

in a far more noble and exalted sense, than by being their passive receptacle through impressions from objects without. It is their region, not by being the spot into which they migrate as strangers, but in which they dwell as aurox@óves, the "original natives" of the country. It is in mind they first exist, before matter can receive them; it is from mind, when they adorn matter, that they primarily proceed: so that, whether we contemplate the works of art, or the more excellent works of nature, all that we look at as beautiful, or listen to as harmonious, is the genuine effluence or emanation of mind."

And now to recapitulate what we have said concerning form. We have traced its variety, from the lifeless and inanimate up to the living and animating; from figures, colours, and sensible qualities, up to the powers only knowable through their energies and operations; in other words, from those forms which are but passive elements, up to those which are efficient causes.

Even in these active, animating, and efficient forms, besides the differences which we have remarked, there is still another worth regarding. Some of them cannot act without corporeal connections, while to others such connections appear to be no way requisite. What, for example, is the vegetative power in plants, without a natural body for it to nourish and enliven? What the sensitive powers of hearing or of seeing, without the corporeal organs of an ear, or an eye? These are animating forms, which though themselves not body, are yet so far in

the organ of organs; to be that superior instrument which uses the rest, the chisel, the pencil, the lyre, &c.; all which inferior organs or instruments, without this previous and superior one to employ them, would be inefficacious and dead, and incapable of producing any single effectἡ ψυχὴ ὥσπερ ἡ χείρ ἐστι· καὶ γὰρ ἡ χεὶρ ὄργανόν ἐστιν opyávov. Arist. in loc.

In the scriptural account of creation, light, previously to its existence, is commanded to exist: "And God said, Let their be light, and there was light." So also vegetables and animals, previously to their existing, are commanded to exist. Now, whether by these commands we suppose certain verbal orders, or (what seems far more probable) only a divine volition, respect must needs have been had to certain pre-existing forms, else such words or such volitions must have been devoid of all meaning.

a A proof, that these transcendent objects are of an origin truly mental, is, that nothing but mind or intellect can recognise or comprehend them. And hence it follows, that, if this intellective faculty be wanting, as it is to inferior animals, or be unhappily debased, as too often happens to our own species; though their sensitive organs may

be exquisite to a degree, yet are such beings to such objects, as if they had no organs at all. "Eyes have they, and see not," &c.

And hence the meaning of that fine trochaic verse in the Sicilian poet and philosopher, Epicharmus:

Νοῦς ὁρᾷ καὶ νοῦς ἀκούει· τ' ἄλλα κωφὰ
καὶ τυφλά.

It is mind alone that sees, that hears; all
things besides are deaf and blind.
Clem. Alex. vol. i. p. 442. edit. Pott. Max.
Tyr. edit. 8vo. p. 12. edit. 4to. p. 203.

b Όσων γάρ ἐστιν ἀρχῶν ἡ ἐνέργεια σωματικὴ, δῆλον ὅτι ταύτας ἄνευ σώματος ἀδύνατον ὑπάρχειν· οἷον βαδίζειν ἄνευ ποδῶν. ὥστε καὶ θύραθεν εἰσιέναι ἀδύνατον –λείπεται δὲ τὸν νοῦν μόνον θύραθεν ἐπεισιέναι, καὶ θεῖον εἶναι μόνον· οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτοῦ τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ κοινωνεῖ σωματικὴ ἐνέρ γεια : "As many faculties or principles of the soul as require bodily or corporeal energy, [that is, which require a body or an organ to enable them to act,] these, it is evident, cannot exist without a body; as, for example, the locomotive faculty of walking cannot exist without feet: so that for such faculties to pass into the body from without [originally separate and detached from it] is a thing impossible: it remains, therefore, that mind or intellect

separable from it, that were their connection dissolved, they would be as unable to exert themselves, as the painter deprived of his pencil, or the harper of his harp. It is not so with that perceptive power, unmixed and pure intelligence, the objects of which being purely intelligible, are all congenial with itself. Corporeal connections appear so little wanted here, that perhaps it is then in its highest vigour, when it is wholly separated and detached. It is in this part of our animating form, that we must look for the immortal and divine; it is this indeed is all of it