< On the Vital Principle < Book 1

-- Chapter 5 --

The peculiar incongruity to which we have alluded, belongs as well to those who suppose Vital Principle to be some kind of body with tenuity of parts, as it does to those who with Democritus maintain that the body is moved by the Vital Principle; for if the Vital Principle is in the whole sentient body, then, being some kind of body, there must necessarily be two bodies in one and the same body. And it may be objected to those who speak of it as a number, that if so, there must be many points in a single point, or every kind of body must have Vital Principle, unless it is a number innate and different as well from other numbers, as from the points which are in the body. It results too from this theory, that an animal is moved by a number much in the same way that Democritus, as we have said, gives motion to it; for what matters it whether we speak of spherules, or large units, or units simply in motion? In either case, the animal is compelled to move from their being in motion. Such and many other such objections may be urged against those who represent Vital Principle as an intimate combination of motion and number; as it is not only impossible therefrom to give any definition of Vital Principle, but we affirm that it cannot even account for one of its accidents. And this would be evident to any one who should attempt, by this theory, to explain the affections and functions of the Vital Principle,—its reasonings, sensations, pleasures, pains, and other such manifestations; for it would be difficult, as we have already said, to form even a conjecture concerning them from it.

Now three modes of defining Vital Principle have been transmitted to us: some have represented it as the most mobile of entities from being self-motive; some as the most attenuated, and others again as the most incorporeal of entities; but we have already reviewed those opinions, and shewn how very questionable and contradictory they are. There remains for us then only to consider in what sense Vital Principle can be said to be derived from the elements. This opinion has been adopted in order to explain how the Vital Principle can perceive and recognise all beings and things; but it necessarily involves many and weighty objections. The supporters of this opinion lay it down as a fact that like recognises like, which is very much like assuming that Vital Principle is, in some way, the things themselves; but things are never homogeneous, as they contain many other particles besides their own; and many or rather infinite in number are their mutual combinations. Thus even if it be conceded that the Vital Principle may recognise and perceive the elements of which anything is constituted, by what is it to perceive or recognise the thing as a whole, whether it be a man, or flesh or bone? The same question may be put for any other compound body; as the elements, constitutive of every such body unite, not in any fortuitous manner, but in a certain proportion and combination, just as Empedocles expresses himself with respect to bone—"The bounteous earth, in her vast furnaces, out of eight parts has had allotted to her two of liquid light, of fire four, and bones were made white." It would be to no purpose then, that the elements should be in Vital Principle, unless proportion and combination were there also; for although each element may recognise its like, there will still be nothing whereby to recognise a bone or a man, unless such things be present with it also. But it is scarcely necessary to say that this cannot be; for who can have a doubt whether a stone or a man is or is not present in Vital Principle? or good or ill, or any other quality? As the term being, besides, admits of several significations (for it signifies sometimes a particular object, sometimes quantity or quality, or other one of the specified categories), shall it or not be said that Vital Principle is derived from them all ? Now, there do not appear to be any elements which are common to all the categories. Shall it then be formed only from such elements as pertain to the essence? How, in that case, is it to recognise each of the others? Shall it be said that there are, for each genus, elements and peculiar principles wherewith the Vital Principle may be formed? If so, it will be quantity, and quality and essence; but it is impossible that from the elements of quantity there should be eliminated essence without quantity.

Such and other such difficulties concur to oppose the opinion of those who say that the Vital Principle is formed from all the elements.

It is absurd to maintain that like is unimpressionable by like, and yet assert that like is able to perceive and recognise like by like; and the more so, as these writers set down feeling as they do thinking and recognising, as some kind of impression and motion. But to shew how many doubts and difficulties beset the opinion adopted by Empedocles, that "objects are recognised by the corporeal elements in the relation of like;" we have only to observe that all those parts in animal bodies, which are simply of earth, as bones, sinews and hairs, seem to be altogether without feeling, and consequently without any feeling of like, and yet, according to the theory, they ought to be perceptive. There will be a larger amount of unconsciousness than perception, besides, allotted to each principle, as each will recognise its own individuals, but be unconscious of the many others—all the others, in fact, which are unlike. It follows, too, from this theory, that the god must be the most senseless of beings, as he alone cannot recognise the element "repulsion," of which all mortal beings cannot but be conscious, since each of them is derived from all the elements.

But wherefore, let us ask, have not all beings a Vital Principle, since every thing is either an element, or derived from one or from more than one, or from all the elements? Thus, it is necessary to every being that it should recognise some one thing, or more than one, or all things. But we are at a loss to know what that is which individualizes things: the elements are like matter; but that, whatever it be which binds the others together, must of all be the most influential. Now, it is scarcely possible that any thing should be more influential and dominant than the Vital Principle, and quite impossible that any thing should be more so than the mind; for it is probable that the mind was the first-born and sovereign in nature, while these philosophers maintain that the elements were the first of entities.

None of these philosophers, however, neither they who maintain that the Vital Principle is derived from the elements, on account of its recognising and perceiving things, nor they who regard it as the most motive of beings, can be said to speak of every Vital Principle; for all sentient creatures are not motive, as there are animals which appear to be fixed abidingly to the same spot, and yet locomotion seems, according to these philosophers, to be the only motion imparted to animals by the Vital Principle. They, too, equally err who form mind and sensibility out of the elements—for plants appear to be alive, without partaking either of locomotion or sensibility; and many animals have no understanding. But even if we may pass over these objections, and admit that the mind as well as the sensibility may be a part of the Vital Principle, still no general theory could be framed for every Vital Principle, or for it as a whole, or for it individually. Thus, the reasoning in the so-called Orphic verses has been stamped with this same error, for the poet says that "the Vital Principle, borne by the winds, enters from the universe into animals during respiration." But this cannot possibly be applicable to plants or to some animals, since there are some which do not breathe. This fact, however, had escaped the attention of those who first adopted the hypothesis.

But even if it be well to form the Vital Principle out of the elements, it by no means follows that it should be out of them all, as one or other part of the contraries is able to judge both itself and its opposite. Thus, by the straight we know both the straight and the curve, as the ruler is the judge of both, while the curve is the judge neither of itself nor the straight.

There are writers who maintain that the Vital Principle has been diffused through the universe, whence probably Thales was led to think that all things are full of gods. But the opinion is not without its difficulties. Why, it may be asked, does not the Vital Principle, when in the air or fire, form an animal rather than when in the elements in combination, although seemingly more generally situated in either of those elements alone? It might also be inquired why the Vital Principle, which is in the air, is more exalted and more enduring than that which is in animals. On either side, in fact, we are met by absurdity and contradiction; for it is very unreasonable to speak of air and fire as animals, and absurd to say that they are not so when Vital Principle is conceded to them. Those philosophers, in fact, seem to have assumed that Vital Principle is in those elements, because the whole ought to be specifically as its parts; and so it was forced upon them to admit that Vital Principle must be, specifically, the same as its parts, if creatures become living creatures by taking in something from that which surrounds them. But if the air, however subdivided, is still homogeneous, and the Vital Principle heterogeneous, it is clear that some one of its parts will, and some other will not be, in the air; and thus either the Vital Principle must be homogeneous, or else it cannot be present in every part of the universe. It is manifest, then, from what has been adduced, that the faculty of recognising does not belong to Vital Principle by virtue of its being derived from the elements; as also that it cannot with accuracy or truth be said to be self-motive.

Since the faculties of knowing, feeling and thinking, together with desiring, willing and the appetites generally, as also locomotion, growth, maturity and decay, are properties of the Vital Principle, let us inquire whether or not each of those properties is imparted to us by the Vital Principle as a whole—that is, does each of those faculties emanate from the Vital Principle as a whole? do we think, feel, act and suffer by it as a whole, or are different offices assigned to different parts? Is life in one, or more than one, or in all the parts, or is there some other cause for life than the Vital Principle?

Some writers maintain that Vital Principle is divisible, and that by one part it thinks, and by another feels desire; but what then, if it be naturally divisible, holds its parts together? Not the body certainly, we answer; for the Vital Principle, on the contrary, appears to hold it together, as from the moment of its departure the body expires and decays. If there be a something which makes it one, that something is, in the strictest sense, Vital Principle; and it will be necessary again to inquire whether that something is indivisible or with parts; if it be indivisible, then why not at once conclude that it must be Vital Principle? If it be divisible, reason will again seek to learn what that is which holds its parts together; and thus may the inquiry be continued interminably. With respect to the parts of the Vital Principle, it is difficult to determine what is the part which has been assigned to each of them in the body; for if it is the whole Vital Principle which sustains the whole body, it is probable that each of its parts sustains some one part of the body. But this is very like an impossibility; for it would be difficult even to conjecture what part the mind could connect with others, or in what way it could do so at all. Thus, plants, when divided, appear to live, and so do some species of insects, as if possessing still the same Vital Principle in a specific, although not in a numerical sense; for each of the parts has sensation and locomotion for a time, and there is no room for surprise at their not continuing to manifest those properties, seeing that they are without the organs necessary for the preservation of their nature. Nevertheless, in each of those parts coexist all parts of the Vital Principle, and those parts are, specifically, the same with each other, and with the whole—with each other, as being inseparable, and with the whole as being separable. But the living principle in plants seems to be a kind of Vital Principle, for animals and plants alike partake of it; and it is separable from the sentient principle, but yet without it no creature can possess sensibility.

Notes

​Note 1, p. 47. Now, three modes of defining Vital Principle, &c.] There is here a want of conformity with other definitions of the Vital Principle, which points either to neglect on the part of copyists, or to want of early revision; for, in one place, Aristotle has distinguished the animate from the inanimate by "motion and sensibility," while in another he has conjoined with them immateriality; and here, also, he has three terms, but incorporeity, as if to approach nearer to the doctrines of his great preceptor, is substitued for sensibility.

Note 2, p. 47. This opinion has been adopted, &c.] The elements, and the parts assigned to them in the constitution of bodies, by the schools of antiquity, have been noticed in a former note; but the notion that, as like perceives like, the Vital Principle, being derived from the elements, must perceive each like, cannot account for the perception of compound bodies, unless, (which is an absurdity) it contain, essentially, all compounds whatever. This is all very hypothetical, no doubt, but then it assumes that there are elements, and that elements combine, by affinity, in different proportions, to form different bodies; and, thus, the doctrine may be regarded as a faint outline of the matured theory of modern times. ​This is further shewn in the formation of bone, as given in the verse quoted from Empedocles, and which, besides proportion, admits heat as an agent in combination. The epithets employed by that eminent writer are not so precise as might be desired, and it cannot now be determined what was meant by the words "liquid light," or fire, (νήστις αἴγλη) (was it phosphorus, in some form?); but yet proportion and combination, under high temperature, are quite apparent—the Latin version of the quotation is:

"Cœperat ante duas tellus justissima vasis
Aeris ac fontis partes: Vulcanus et ipse
Quatuor ex octo adjunxit, quis candida magna
Vis fœcundaque naturae confecerat ossa."

Note 3, p. 49. It is absurd to maintain, &c.] We have had handed down, by the earliest writers, differences of opinion, Aristotle[1] says, upon "action and impression;" but most of them agree in making like unimpressionable by like, (since the one is not more active or passive than the other,) and the unlike and different alone to have been so constituted as to act and re-act upon one another. Democritus stood alone in maintaining that the selfsame like can be, at once, active and passive; for he would not grant that things which are, essentially, different, can mutually act and re-act upon one another. And even though things should seem to be different, there is ever something like, he maintains, by which the impression is made. The difference between these opinions, however, ​when followed out, is, after all, formal rather than substantive; for, in either case, the Vital Principle, whether like or unlike, must be material, as the opinion still implies some kind of impression, and impression implies material properties.

Note 4, p. 49. But to shew how many doubts, &c.] The earlier philosophers differed widely, as has been said, upon the elements, both as to their nature and number; but those writers are evidently wrong, Aristotle[2] observes, who admit of only one element and one nature, as they take no account of incorporeal entities. Empedocles adopted the four elements as constitutive of the matter of bodies, and hence the objection to his opinion, that "sensation is produced by corporeal elements in the relation of like;" for those parts which are formed of earth (hair, bones, &c.) are insensible; and, therefore, this element cannot be perceptive of like. This assumption of insensibility is, of course, too absolute, but such parts are no doubt withdrawn, more or less, from the general sensibility and sympathy of the living body. The term νεῦρα, it may be observed, by the way, which here signifies tendon or sinew, has now the meaning of nerves, the conductors, that is, of sentient impressions; and Galen, who lived so many ages after Aristotle, and was well acquainted with the brain, optic nerves, and office of the

nerves, still employed νεῦρον as a muscular chord. ​

Note 5, p. 50. It follows, too, from this theory, &c.] Empedocles regarded affinity (φιλίαν) as an element, but what the deity to which he refused, so to say, repulsion (τὸ νεῖκος) is uncertain ; "whether Sphærus[3] or not, it implies, at all events a being, to which ‘repulsion’ (in quern pugna non admittitur) had not been imparted." If this, like affinity, were an element, then, as each sentient being was supposed to be constituted of all the elements, that deity must have been less favoured than other beings, since he was unconscious of antagonistic properties, and therefore, relatively, less intelligent than they.

Note 6, p. 50. But we are at a loss to know, &c.] Aristotle here inquires what the particular faculty or force may be which individualises, makes one, that is, of objects; and, thereby, gives to the sentient being the consciousness of identity. It cannot be a sense, as the senses are derived from the elements, and the elements are akin to matter, while that, whatever it be, which combines the faculties and powers of the body must, of all, be the most influential; and it may be inferred rather than gathered from what is said, that it cannot be either the Vital Principle or the mind. But do not all these doubts and suggestions point to a central organ where the sentient impressions, so to say, meet, and where consciousness has its seat? Does not the brain, which, as the source of sensibility was then it may be said unknown, fulfil all that is required by this suggestion? The ​brain is the organ which individualises different impressions, and so enables the mind to compare and judge; it is the organ, too, which, retaining impressions, is the seat of memory, and the source whence imagination draws its images. The mind is again spoken of as higher in nature than aught else, and thus Aristotle agrees with Anaxagoras who held that the "mind was the first of all created entities and powers."

Note 7, p. 51. Thus, the reasoning in the so-called Orphic verses, &c.] The epithet, "so-called," seems to imply that there were doubts as to the author of these verses; be this as it may, they shew that animal life was known to be especially dependent upon respiration. Aristotle's criticism seems to imply that he was not acquainted with respiration in any other form than that of air-breathing animals, and therefore, not aware that the influence of the air upon the system is necessary for the maintenance of life in all creatures. Cicero[4] maintains that "Aristotle denied the existence of the poet Orpheus;" and that the verses under that name were attributed, by the Pythagoreans, to one Cecrops.

Note 8, p. 51. If it be well to form the Vital Principle, &c.] The wording as well as the meaning of this objection to the opinion that "Vital Principle must be formed from all the elements" is embarrassed and obscure; and, owing to the brevity of the argument, it cannot be expounded with certainty ; but it seems to ​imply that as one part of a contrary can judge itself and the other, so all the elements cannot be necessary, since nature never employs means in vain. [5]" Unum sufficit ex contrariis, ut et hoc et alterum judicetur; ad recti nonnam etiam curvum exigitur; verum sui index et falsi, ut Spinoza loquitur."

Note 9, p. 52. There are writers who maintain, &c.] Aristotle seems to have interpreted this opinion differently from others, and, differently, it may be, (by regarding the beings alluded to as the representatives of Vital Properties,) from its original import. Cicero[6], for instance, attributes to Thales, one of the wisest among the seven, the opinion, that "it is expedient for men to suppose that whatever can be perceived is full of gods, for, thereby, all, as if placed in consecrated shrines, would become purer." Whatever may be the value of that version, the opinion could not be maintained when applied to the cause of living actions, the origin, that is, of living beings; for, as bodies were supposed to be formed of elements, and elements to be everywhere, the elements themselves should be transformed into animals, which involves an absurdity.

Note 10, p. 53. Since the faculties of knowing, feeling, &c.] Aristotle, quitting the question of life in its simplest form, here reverts, after enumerating the properties which characterise the highest forms of created beings, to the question, whether or not all the properties may be ​derived from one and the same principle; and if not from one and the same, what that is which combines the parts, and makes them to be one. The passage which follows is an evident allusion to the Timæus, according to which, as has been said, reason is placed, as in a soil fit for the heavenly seed, in the brain, the appetite and passions in the heart, liver, or spleen; and then comes the question, what so connects those organs as to make them mutually subsidiary to one another? not the body, certainly, it may be answered, as the body itself is but the instrument of the Vital Principle.

Note 11, p. 55. But the living principle in plants, &c.] This passage is, to appearance, obscure, owing to its construction and scientific wording, but yet its meaning is obvious: the living principle in plants, that which constitutes their vitality, is assimilation, (growth, through nutrition, that is,) and it exists in plants without sentient properties; but sentient properties cannot, of course, exist without nutrition, as nutrition is essential to life, and present, therefore, in every thing which lives.

  1. ↑ De Gen. et Corr. i. 7. i.
  2. ↑ Metaphys. I. 8. I; XIII. 4, 5.
  3. ↑ Trendel. Comment.
  4. ↑ De Nat. Deor. I. 38.
  5. ↑ Trendel. Comment.
  6. ↑ De Legibus, II. 1 1.
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