On the Vital Principle/Book 3/Chapter 5

-- Chapter 5 --

Since, throughout all nature, there is a matter for each genus of entities (that which all belonging to that genus are in potentiality), and a something which is causative and constitutive from its making things what they are, as art impresses its forms upon matter, so those same distinctions must, of necessity, co-exist in the vital principle. Such also is the mind, from its faculty, on the one hand, of becoming all things, and, on the other, of creating all things, as if it were a virtuality like light; for light, in a certain sense, makes colours, being in potentiality, to become colours in reality; and the mind here meant is separate, impassive and homogeneous, being essentially an energizing influence.

That which acts is ever, in fact, more influential than that which is acted upon, as the causative principle is than the matter. Now, knowledge in activity is identical with the subject; but knowledge in potentiality pre-exists in the individual; and yet, strictly speaking, it does not pre-exist, as that cannot be said to pre-exist which sometimes is, and sometimes is not reflected on. But that alone, whatever it be, which thinks, is separate from all else, immortal and eternal; and, because it is impassive, we derive from it no memory. But the impressionable mind, on the contrary, is perishable; and without it there can be no cogitation.

Notes

Note 1, p. 156. As if it were a virtuality like light.] The original ὡς ἕξις τις is ill represented by virtuality, and yet neither habit, state, nor condition would represent the agency of the mind as a realising principle; as that which can collect, compare, and so give reality, in generalisations, to perceptions received through the senses. "Sicut colores expectant, ut appareant, (i.e. ut colorum vice vere fungantur) ita sensuum notitiæ et quidquid ad intellectum patientem pertinet mentem agentem requirunt, ut omnes veritatis numeros habeant, et veræ notionis vim consequantur."

Note 2, p. 156. Knowledge in activity is identical with, &c.] This passage seems to be the complement of what had just been asserted, that the agent is ever more influential than the subject, and the originating cause than the matter; for the intellect, in activity, may be said to create, to identify with itself that is, the knowledge which it acquires concerning external things through abstract reasoning. Knowledge pre-exists, however, as has been said, in every well-constituted individual, because each is furnished, at birth, with faculties for acquiring knowledge; but yet it cannot strictly be said to pre-exist, since it may, or may not be developed by education or reflection; as the mind, moreover, is impassive, it is not impressionable, and cannot, therefore, be the seat of memory. But what means the impressionable mind which is perishable? may it not be again said that, suggestively, the brain is here implied; since this organ is the sensorium, the seat of memory, and dependent, besides, like all other organs, upon life, for its functions and its continuance.

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