Jacques Maritain Center: Thomistic Institute

Aristotle and Aquinas on the Division of Natural

Philosophy
Marie George

I intend to do two things in this paper. My main goal is to show to what extent Aquinas
takes inspiration from Aristotle in his exposition of the division and method of that part
of natural philosophy that treats living things. A secondary goal is to briefly compare
some of Aquinas's views on these matters with the way studies of living things are
divided and pursued nowadays.
A recommended reading on these topics is Charles De Koninck's "Introduction to the
Study of the Soul." Note also that I will sometimes refer to "the part of natural
philosophy which treats animate things" as "philosophical psychology" for the sake of
brevity.
Aquinas's treatment of the division and method of the part of natural philosophy which
treats animate things is found in the prooemium to his commentary on De Sensu et
Sensatu.(1) Aquinas begins by dividing speculative philosophy into its parts:

1 As the Philosopher says in the third book of the De Anima, as things are separable
from matter so also are the things that relate to understanding.(2) For anything
whatsoever is intelligible insofar as it is separable from matter. Whence those things
which are according to nature separated from matter are in themselves intelligible in act;
those things which are abstracted by us from material conditions become intelligible in
act through the light of our agent intellect.(3)

And because the habits of a power are distinguished in species according to the
difference of that which is the per se object of the power,(4) it is necessary that the habits
of the sciences, by which the intellect is perfected, also be distinguished according to
the difference of separation from matter; and therefore the Philosopher in the sixth book
of the Metaphysics distinguishes the genera of the sciences according to the diverse
mode of separation from matter. For those things which are separated from matter
according to being and reason pertain to metaphysics; those, however, which are
separated according to reason and not according to being pertain to mathematics; those
which in their very notion concern sensible matter pertain to natural philosophy. (5)

After Aquinas explains the main division of the speculative disciplines, he applies the
distinction which is at the basis of that division to natural philosophy:

2 And just as the diverse genera of sciences are distinguised according to this that the
things are separable from matter in diverse ways, so even in the particular sciences, and
chiefly in natural science, the parts of the science are distinguished according to the
diverse manner of separation and concretion.

The "chiefly" is significant, and I will come back to it latter. Aquinas continues with a
most puzzling statement:
And because universals are more separated from matter, therefore in natural science one
proceeds from the [more] universal to the less universal, as the Philosopher teaches in
the first book of the Physics.

I say that this statement is puzzling because the I.1 Physics teaches that we go from the
more universal to the less universal because our minds go from potency to act. We
arrive first at a vague understanding of things because our minds start from sense
experience from which the intellect is unable to immediately gather a clear
understanding of the natures of the things which present themselves to sense.(6) The
universals we first arrive at are less perfectly separated from matter; it is the
imperfection of the separation which the intellect makes that accounts for the vagueness
of our first knowledge.(7)
There is a sense in which the more universal are more separated from matter, and this
can be gathered by reading further along in the prooemium:
Whence also natural science begins to teach from those things which are most common
to all natural things, which are motion and the principle of motion, and then proceeds
through the mode of concretion, or application of common principles, to certain
determinate mobiles, of which certain are living bodies: concerning which one also
proceeds in a similar mode distinguishing this consideration in three parts. For indeed
one first considers the soul in itself, in a certain abstraction. Secondly, one considers
those things which belong to the soul according to a certain concretion, or application to
the body, but a in general way. Thirdly, one pursues the consideration by applying all
these things to individual species of animals and plants, determining what is proper to
each species. The first consideration, therefore, is contained in the book, De Anima. The
third consideration is contained indeed in the books which he writes about Animals(8)
and Plants. The middle consideration is contained in the book which he writes
concerning certain things that belong commonly either to all animals or to the greater
number of the genera of them, or even to all living things, concerning which is the
present intention of this book.
In the Physics Aristotle treats the things which are most common to all natural things,
one of the most important of which is motion. In treating motion, Aristotle speaks about
act and potency and about the need for a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quem. What
he says applies to all motions while prescinding from what is proper to any specific
motion, e.g., from the apple ripening from green to red. In order to understand specific
motions such as the apple's ripening one has to consider the matter undergoing the
change, i.e., the parts involved, their physiology and biochemistry. Similarly in the case
of the motions of animals, as Aristotle points out:

We have inquired elsewhere into the details of the movement of the various kinds of
animals, the difference between these movements, and the causes of the characteristics
which each exhibit; we must now inquire generally into the common cause of animal
movement of whatever kind--for some animals move by flight, some by swimming,
some by walking, and others by other such methods. Now that the origin of all the other
movements is that which moves itself, and that the origin of this is the immobile, and
that the prime mover must necessarily be immobile has already been determined when
we were investigating whether or not eternal movement exists, and if it does exist what
it is. It is necessary not only to grasp what is common in reason, but to grasp the
common in regard to each particular and in the things known through sense, on account
of which we seek the common notion (logos) and with which we think it is necessary
that these notions agree. For it is clear also that movement is impossible if there is
nothing in a state of rest, and above all in the animals themselves. For if any one of their
parts moves, another part must necessarily be at rest.(9)

One cannot simply deduce what part of the animal is immobile, although one knows
that there has to be such. One has to look at the material parts that make up the animal
to discover that. In addition to this need to examine the matter in natural philosophy as
one moves from the general to the particular, is another somewhat different need to do
so which is specific to understanding natural living things. As Charles De Koninck
explains:

It is not by pursuing the division of the soul into species that will allow one to attain
living things in their specific concretion. The living natural thing is a mobile being, the
animal is a living being, the elephant is an animal; but the natural living thing is not a
soul, the animal is not the sensitive soul, nor the soul of the elephant an elephant. In the
study of the living thing, the concrete application which in the treatise on the soul
proceeds gradually towards the treatises on animals and plants, does not consist in a
simple passing from the general to the particular. In the first treatise, we study the soul
in an abstraction which is in nowise expressed by its generality alone.(10)

Soul then stands to the different types of soul as abstract to concrete in the sense of
universal to particular, whereas soul stands to specific living things as abstract to
concrete in another sense.
Why does Aristotle takes up the soul first rather than living things? He does so because
living bodies are living bodies not because they are bodies, but because they possess
soul. Possessing soul is something all living things share in common as living. And just
as the definition of motion abstracts from the concrete conditions of any given type of
motion, so too the definition of soul abstracts from the concrete conditions in which the
different types of souls exist. This is not to say that the general definition of soul
abstracts entirely from matter, any more than the definition of motion does. The soul is
a form that exists in a determinate manner, whence Aristotle's pointed criticism of his
predecessors for treating the soul without any consideration of the body of which it is
the act.(11) It is only to the extent that the soul is a form in matter that it falls under the
consideration of the natural philosopher.(12) This is why Aquinas says that Aristotle in
the De Anima treats the soul in a "certain" abstraction.
The general definition of the soul, valuable though it is, only tells one in a general way
what the soul of any type of living thing is. As Aristotle puts it:

Hence it is absurd...to demand an absolutely general definition, which will fail to

express the peculiar nature of anything that is, or again, omitting this, to look for
separate definitions corresponding to each infima species. ... Hence we must ask in the
case of each order of living things: What is its soul, i.e. What is the soul of plant,
animal, man?(13)

This process from general definition of the soul to the definitions of the three main
types of soul is not by way of deducing the latter from the former. The only way of
going from one level of concreteness to another is by recourse to experience. Although
what is demonstrated about the soul is true of each the these three types of soul, it is true
of them insofar as they are souls, not insofar as they are a specific type of soul. Not only
is this true, but once again as De Koninck points out, given that one is ultimately trying
to understand the nature of the different sorts of living things, and not just their souls:
one sees quite well that the term 'concretion' must be understood in a more rigorous
sense than that of the passage from the general to the particular: it is no longer a simple
comparison of the abstract and the concrete according to the order of predication, but
the soul which in its proper nature relates to the living body as that by which this thing
is living and by which it is this sort of living thing. Having studied the nature of the
memory in a certain abstraction, one must seek to know which are the animals that are
endowed with it, and what exactly its corporeal instrument is, and how and of what it is
constituted, and how it functions; and the desire of perfect science carries us to seek the
difference, even as to the organ, between the memory of elephants and that of bees.(14)

Let us now inquire why Aquinas says that it is "chiefly" in natural philosophy that the
parts are distinguished according to the diverse mode of separation from matter.
Consider how the other sciences relate to matter: mathematics abstracts from sensible
matter; metaphysics treats being insofar as it is separable from matter.(15) Certainly,
arithmetic is more abstract than geometry, because it does not take in account position
as geometry does. However, within the mathematical disciplines there is no movement
from more abstract to more concrete. Sometimes there is a movement from general to
specific, as is the case when the conclusion of a proposition concerning triangle is used
in a subsequent proposition concerning isoceles triangle (as is the case in Euclid, Book
I, propositions 5 and 6). However, the movement to the particular here is not one which
takes matter more into account. As for metaphysics: what it studies is being qua being
and the principles and causes thereof. When it treats of material substance, it does so in
order to understand something about the nature of substance.(16) And since material
substances are best known to us, metaphysics starts by examining them and then moves
towards immaterial substances which are better known in themselves, but less know to
us.(17) The proceeding then is away from what is material, which is only taken as a
starting point because it is better known to us. It is natural philosophy that considers
sensible matter, for natural things are composites of both matter and form.(18)
In light of the above, it makes sense to say that because natural science procedes from
the more universal to the less, (as Aristotle teaches in the Physics), in natural science
one in fact first treats things which are more separated from matter, for these are more
universal (e.g., the soul) and then procedes to things which are less separated from
matter, for they are the less universal (e.g., the specific parts specific living things need
in order to exercise their life activities). Having a sensitive soul is more commonly
shared among living things than being capable of flight; and understanding flight
requires investigating the material wings are made from. Thus while the more universal
is more material in the sense that this knowledge does not allow us to know the natures
of the infimae species which are what are most in act; it less material in the sense that in
the case of natural things knowledge of species requires an understanding of matter as
well of as form,(19) and the first universals we form in regard to living things (such as the
notion that they have souls) abstracts from this matter.
True as this may be, it leaves unexplained explain why Aquinas says that "since the
more universal are more separated from matter, therefore in natural science one
procedes from the more universal to the less universal, as the Philosopher teaches in I
Physics."
Returning to Aquinas's commentary: Aquinas explains what the middle treatises cover
by showing how they bear on the four grades of livings thing outlined by Aristotle in II
DA c. 3:
3 Whence it is to be considered that in the second book of the De Anima he determined
four grades of life. The first of them is that which only has the nutritive part of soul,
through which it lives, as is the case of plants. There are certain living things, however,
which along with this also have sense without progressive motion, as is the case of
imperfect animals such as shellfish. There are others which have in addition progressive
local motion, as is the case of perfect animals such as the horse and the cow. There are
others that in addition have intellect, as is the case of humans. For although the
appetitive is posited as a fifth genus of power of soul, nevertheless it does not constitute
a fifth grade of living thing, since it always accompanies sensation.

He then explains why there is no natural treatise that deals with the intellect and the
intelligible:

4. Of these powers, however, the intellect is not the act of any part of the body, as is
proven in the third book of the De Anima:(20) whence it cannot be considered through
concretion or application to the body or to some bodily organ. The most concrete form
of intellect exists in the soul; the highest form of it exists in separated substances. And
therefore Aristotle does not compose a book on the intellect and the intelligible apart
from the De Anima: or if he would have done so, it would not pertain to natural science,
but rather to metaphysics, to which it belongs to consider separated substances.(21) All
the other powers are acts of some part of the body: and therefore there can be a special
consideration of them by application to the body or bodily organs apart from the
consideration which is made concerning them in the De Anima.

Aquinas then procedes to name which works of Aristotle treat which of the grades of
life activity:

5. It is necessary therefore that the middle consideration be distinguished in three parts:

one of which contains those things which pertain to the living insofar as they are living:
and this is contained in the book he writes On Death and Life, in which he also
determines about Respiration and Expiration, through which life is preserved in certain
living things; and in On Youth and Old Age, into which the states of life are diversified.
Similarly, he also takes up what pertains to the living as such in a book entitled On
Causes of Length and Shortness of Life, and in a book which he wrote On Health and
Sickness which pertains to the disposition of life, and in the book which he is said to
have written on On Nutriment and Nourishable, which two books we do not yet have.
Other books pertain to the motive part: specifically two books, namely, On the Cause of
the Motion of Animals, and On the Progression of Animals in which questions
concerning the parts of animals suited for motion are settled. A third [group of books]
pertains to the sensitive part concerning which one can consider both that which pertain
to the act of the interior or of the exterior sense; and as to this the consideration of the
sensitive part is contained in this book, which is entitled On Sense and the Sensed, i.e.,
on the Sensitive and the Sensible, under which is also contained the treatise On Memory
and Reminiscence. And further, it pertains to the consideration of the sensitive part to
determine what makes the difference concerning the sense as to what ought to be sensed
which he determines through [regarding] sleep and waking in the book entitled On
Dream and Waking.

Aristotle in his own introduction to De Sensu does not mention On Nutriment and
Nourishable, nor either of the treatises pertaining to animal motion, nor On Dreams.
However, there no doubt as to how Aristotle would have situated these three as to grade
of life. What is more questionable is whether Aristotle would have grouped those three
treatises along with the other middle treatises, for the Movement of Animals ends:
"We have now dealt with the reasons for the parts of each animal, the soul, and also
sense-perception, sleep, memory, and general movement. It remains to deal with the
generation of animals."(22)
Aristotle's enumeration of the subjects here goes from the object of the most specific
treatment, to the object of the most general treatment, to the objects of four middle
treatises, ending with an object that receives the most specific sort of treatment. It
should noted that this listing is not necessarily meant to indicate the correct grouping of
these topics, but possibly only the order in which Aristotle actually covered them. Since
generally there is no dependence from the point of view of demonstration of the more
specific treatises on the more general ones, the more specific subjects could be
examined, albeit not best examined, before the more general ones. Thus from the point
of view of determining how Aristotle would divide these treatises, relatively little is to
be gained by establishing the historical order in which they were written.(23)
Aquinas, after dividing the middle part of philosophical psychology goes on to state the
order in which these subdivisions are best studied:

6. But because it is necessary to go through things which are more similar to things
which are dissimilar, such seems to reasonably be the order of the these books, that after
the book De Anima in which determinations are made concerning the soul in itself,
immediately follows this book about Sense and the Sensed because sensing itself
pertains more to the soul than to the body: after which is ordered the book about dreams
and waking which implies the binding and loosing of sense. Then follow the books
which pertain to the motive power which is rather near to the sensitive part. Lastly,
however, are ordered the books which pertain to the common consideration of the living
thing, because this consideration chiefly concerns the disposition of the body.

Why doesn't Aquinas base the order of study of these treatises on the principle that one
ought to procede from what is more universal to what is less universal? Why does he
recommend here that things that are more common to living things, e.g., aging, life and
death, be treated later than what is less common, e.g., sleeping and waking?
One might in addition ask from whence comes the principle that one should procede
from the more similar to the less, even apart from the question of why Aquinas finds it
applicable here. To my knowledge Aristotle never enunciates such a principle.(24) It is
not difficult, however, to see that an understanding of one thing that is similar to another
is helpful for understanding that other. And as a matter of fact knowledge of the De
Anima sometimes facilitates understanding things considered in the middle treatises.
For example, in the Movement of Animals Aristotle says: "Now whether soul is moved
or not, and if it is moved, how it is moved, has already been discussed in our treatise On
Soul. ... it remains to inquire how the soul moves the body and what is the origin of
movement in an animal."(25) Now, someone who had grappled with the question of
whether the soul is moved is in a better position to inquire into the question of how the
soul moves the body for having done so, since the two questions share in common being
concerned with motion and the soul. Two other cases where likeness facilitates
understanding (the likeness here being in the line of genus and species are): On Sleep
where Aristotle relates what he said about the common sense in the DA to the activity of
sleeping,(26) and On Dreams where Aristotle relies on what he said about the imagination
in DA in order to show what faculty is responsible for dreaming.(27) Thus the questions
addressed in the DA are closely related to those found in the middle treatises. And one
sees instances of similar continuity between the middle treatises and the final treatises,
e.g., a discussion of the brain in the Parts of Animals makes reference back to its role in
sleep which was discussed in On Sleep.(28)
Another reason for invoking the principle of going from similar to dissimilar here, and
one that arguably Aquinas had in mind, concerns the importance of seeing the
continuity of the studies of natural living things. Both for Aristotle and for Aquinas, one
of the most fatal errors to be made when studying living things is to think that they are
simply the sum total of their parts. One would be more likely to fall into this error, and
lose sight of the formal aspect of living things, if after studying the soul in general, one
immediately took up the aspects of the living things which are understood to a large
extent by looking to the body. Aquinas, following Aristotle, is very aware that a
detailed treatment of the parts is liable to lead people in the direction of reductionism. It
is not an accident that Aristotle addresses reductionism at great length in the Parts of
Animals, but rather it is he feels a need to do so because this treatise considers the
material causes of animal activity.(29)
There is a need to determine whether to proceed from common to specific, from
vegetative soul to carrot soul with its appropriate body, but there is also a need to
determine in what order to proceed amonst the vegetative, motor, and sensitive
activities, for these do not stand to each other as universal to particular If one is going to
treat these activities at a general level, which to treat first? The sensitive activities
shows less material determination and more formal determination, the vegetative vice
versa. To facilitate understanding and to avoid the lure of materialism, it is better to start
with the sensitive activities.(30)
Let us now finish the commentary:

7. ... He says, therefore, as for the soul in itself, this has already been determined in the
De Anima, namely, where he defined the soul. Moreover, he subsequently settled
questions concerning the virtues and powers of it: but I say that this [was done] 'from
the side of the soul.' For since the powers of the soul, aside from the intellect are the
acts of certain parts of the body, they can be considered in two ways: one way according
as they pertain to the soul, as certain powers or virtues of it; in another way from the
side of the body. Therefore, in the De Anima the powers themselves are determined
from the side of the soul itself, but what follows now is to consider animals, and 'all
things having life' which he adds on account of plants 'namely, by determining what are
the proper operations of them,' that is, of the individual species of animal and plants;
'And those things which are common', namely, to all living things, or to all animals, or
to many genera of them. 'Those things therefore which were said about the soul are
understood or supposed,' i.e., used themselves in the following works as suppositions
that have already been manifested. 'We will speak about the remaining ones, [starting]
first from the first' i.e., first about what is common, and afterwards about what is proper.
For this is the due order of natural science, as was determined in the beginning of the
Physics.

The powers of the soul can be treated insofar as they are powers of the soul, and also
from the point of view of the body. DA treats the powers in the former way, but now the
consideration is about plants and animals and this cannot be without also considering
their bodies. The latter consideration can go on at more general or more specific levels,
e.g., one can consider the teeth of carnivores or of dogs, and the more general
consideration is more reasonably undertaken first because that way one avoids
repetition and also better respects the way our minds naturally work.
Thus, the middle treatises are concerned with many of the same activities as the DA, but
regard them more from the point of view of the body, as do the final treatises which
which look at them in even more detail. The DA's main concern is first to formulate a
general definition of the soul and then to investigate its properties, and subsequently(31)
to define the specific types of souls and examine their properties. The principal types of
souls are known through the powers of these souls (which in turn are known through
their activities, and these in turn through their objects). Thus in the DA the immediate
interest in the powers of the soul is so as to determine the types of soul. Once this is
accomplished, the powers can be studied in more depth in order to give an
understanding of the living things whose powers they are. And in fact as De Koninck
points out:
Since the soul is not perfect in itself, to pursue a very complete knowledge of the soul is
at the same time to pursue the knowledge of living things in their totality of natural
living things.(32)
One might argue that it would be better to subdivide philosophical pyschology in two.
One either looks at faculties from the point of view of the soul or from that of the body.
When one looks at things from the side of the body, one can do so more generally or
more specifically at many levels of generality-specificity, e.g., animal-vertebrate-
quadruped-horse-Mustang, and thus one might argue that there is no real reason to
designate some of those treatments as intermediary.
It is my thesis that the idea of middle treatises is most justifiable in the case of sense
powers, whereas it seems more arbitrary in the case of the vegetative powers. For, while
all powers can be studied at a more general or more specific level, e.g., digestion vs.
digestion in mammals vs. digestion in mice, some powers are more rooted in the body
to start with, e.g., the vegetative powers compared to the senses,(33) and the external
senses compared to the internal senses. For this reason even a general consideration of
the vegetative powers already involves much reference to the body, whereas this is less
so in the case of the sense powers. The DA will point out that unlike non-living matter,
a plant can transform foreign material into itself, whence the need to speak of a
vegetative soul. However, once one asks a question as to how this transformation takes
place, one immediately enters the realms of physiology, chemistry, and physics. In the
case of the sensitive soul, on the other hand, there is much one can say about activities
proper to it without going into their material aspects. The possibility of doing so can be
gathered from a passage in Aristotle:

Hence a physicist would define a passion of soul differently from a dialectician; the
latter would define e.g. anger as the appetite for returning pain for pain, or something
like that, while the former would define it as a boiling of the blood or warm substance
surrounding the heart. The latter assigns the material conditions, the former the form or
formulable essence; for what he states is the formulable essence of a fact, though for its
actual existence there must be embodiment of it in a material such as is described by the
other. Thus the essence of a house is assigned in such a formula as 'a shelter against
destruction by wind, rain, and heat'; the physicist would describe it as 'stones, bricks,
and timbers'; but there is a third possible description which would say that it was that
form in that material with that purpose or end. Which, then, among these is entitled to
be regarded as the genuine physicist? The one who confines himself to the material, or
the one who restricts hmself to the formulable essence alone? Is it not rather the one
who combines both in a single formula?(34)
Aristotle's answer is that the natural philosopher does take interest in both matter and
form. Now, of the two, form is more nature than matter.(35) Thus, so long as an
understanding of the form is sought without completely disregarding the matter,
knowledge of form is knowledge which is more to be desired by the natural
philosopher. Now, to the extent that an activity is more formal, more can be said about
it with only a vague reference to the body.(36) This is why St. Thomas is able to present a
fairly lengthy natural treatment of the passions in the Summa Theologiae. Aquinas does
raise questions that have physical implications, for example, whether hope abounds in
young people and intoxicated people, (I-II 40.6), and whether sadness is mitigated by
crying (I-II 38.2).(37) However, his consideration consists mostly of psychological
questions such as whether experience is a cause of hope (I-II 40.5). Now, not all of the
powers of the sensible soul are as amenable to so formal an analysis, for some of them
are more immersed in matter. As De Koninck points out:

Although the higher powers [such as memory] are conditioned by a more diversified
physical structure, one should not be astonished that an abstract study of them has
greater latitude and that it already makes us know a lot of things with a great deal of
certitude. Indeed the operations, of themselves more disengaged from matter, are in this
regard more accessible to abstraction. In contrast, the external senses and the vegetable
functions...are more recalcitrant to this abstraction and they demand right away that one
designate the organs and that one apply oneself to the study thereof.(38)

Thus, the only type of intermediary treatment that seems possible in the case of the
vegetative powers lies in treating them in a more general way as opposed to a less. The
senses, especially the internal senses, and the emotions, however, which are less
immersed in matter admit of a treatment less abstract than that which is involved in
defining the soul and more abstract that that involved in determining the specific
material causes which partly account for their activities.
It is worth pointing out here that we are more conscious of our higher life activities than
of the lower ones. For example, one is more aware of what reminscence involves than
what sight and digestion involve. One is conscious that reminiscing involves tracing
steps backwards mentally, whereas one is not conscious of what sight entails beyond the
mere awareness of color and seeing, and generally one is virtually or totally oblivious of
what goes on in digestion. These latter things are known chiefly through external
observation and experience.
Now we are ready to ask whether Aquinas is really basing himself on Aristotle when he
divides philosophical psychology into three.
At the very beginning of On Sense and the Sensible Aristotle says that he has already
treated the soul "in itself", undoubtedly referring to the DA (which again is not to say
that he entirely disregards the body; indeed the soul is defined as the first act of a
natural body with organs DA 412b5, #233).
Aristotle then says that he is going on to look at animals, and he pretty much gives a
complete list of what Aquinas says falls under the consideration of the middle treatises.
In the PA 639a20 Aristotle also names together five of the things Aquinas says are
treated by the middle treatises: sleep, respiration, growth, decay, and death. Aristotle
groups them together insofar as they are attributes which are same though occurring in
different groups. In a number of cases the treatises in question are linked to one another
by either an opening or a closing statement, e.g. Length of Life ends by saying: "It
remains for us to discuss youth and age, life and death....." Aristotle explicitly says that
these treatises examine what pertain to soul and body, rather than what pertains to the
soul in itself.
As for those treatises Aquinas ranks third, Aristotle sees PA(39) and Generation of
Animals as going together, as can be see from the end of the PA and the also from the
beginning of Generation of Animals, the common link being that both bear on the
material cause:

With one exception we have now spoken about all the parts that are present in animals,
both generally concerning them, and also taking them group by group and dealing
separately with the parts peculiar to each, and have shown in what way each part exists
on account of the cause which is of a corrsponding kind: I refer to the cause which is
'that for the sake of which' a thing exists. As we know, there are four basic causes... ...
And with one exception I have already spoken about all of these causes.... [F]or animals
the matter of them is their parts.... Consequently, of the parts it remains to describe
those which subserve animals for the purpose of generation, about which I have so far
said nothing definite....(40)

The History of Animalsis also to be grouped with PA and the Generation of Animals, for
Aristotle says: "I have already described with considerable detail in my Researches
upon Animals(41) what and how many are the parts of which the various animals are
composed. We must now leave on one side what was said there, as our present task is to
consider what are the causes through which each animal is as I there described it."(42)
So Aristotle himself pretty clearly indicates that the treatises are to be grouped into
three types, and that the first sort is most formal and the last sort is most material, while
the others fall in between as to formality-materiality. Aristotle did not regard this
division as being as strict as the division between the three speculative disciplines. In
On Sense and the Sensible (c. 4) before he takes up smell and flavor he mentions
without apology that he has already discussed sound and voice in DA. Given that the
treatises are meant to complement one another, this sort of thing is to be expected.
It does not appear to be the case that Aristotle divides the middle treatises according to
the different grades of life, going from the more formal to the less.(43) Aristotle, rather,
separates the powers into two groups, one group containing "the most important
characteristics of animals" such as sensation, and in the other things which are
"common to all things that have a share in life, and others which are peculiar to certain
animals."(44) Again, he does not mention the treatises concerning animal motion which
Aquinas situates between those concerned with sense and those chiefly concerned with
the body.
As to the order of the treatises: Aristotle tells us repeatedly that the proper order to
follow is to go from the general to the specific.(45) Within the middle treatises Aristotle
says that he is going to begin with what naturally comes first, and he starts with a
treatment of sensation despite the fact that sensation is less common than aging.
Aristotle apparently thought that it was obvious enough why one ought to proceed in
this way, but leaves others the task of making the rationale explicit. Thomas gathered
that it is best to go from the similar to the dissimilar. And I in turn gather that one ought
to do so because similar issues shed light on each other, and the gradual passage from
more formal to the more material helps one avoid the pitfall of reductionism.
Benedict Ashley maintains that Aquinas and Albert are not in accord with Aristotle as
to the way of proceeding in philosophical psychology:

The most serious departure from Aristotle's own order is Albert's [and Aquinas's] failure
to appreciate (as Averroes did) what is perhaps the best example of Aristotle's method
of developing a first principle from a very careful analysis of extensive empirical data,
which is to be found in the way Aristotle moves from description and classification in
the Historia animalium to theoretical analysis in De partibus animalium to the actual
process of forming a real definition which is to serve as a principle of demonstration in
De Anima. (46)

What is overlooked here is that the DA requires no extensive empirical data to be

understood, but rather it starts from the common experience we all normally acquire
without making any special effort to seek it out. We know that cats see us, and dogs
whelp if their tails are stepped on, whereas plants show no signs of awareness of the
outside world or of emotion, but they do grow. One does not have to take a course in
biology to know these things. And these are the sort of things Aristotle starts from when
defining the soul.(47)
Before I go on to examine how this division and way of proceeding compares to the
way disciplines are divided and pursued nowadays, I would like to point out a
somewhat paradoxical tension in the manner of proceeding Aquinas recommends. It is
certainly the case that frog is more knowable in itself than amphibian, and amphibian
than animal because it is more distinct and more in act. To understand a frog we start by
understanding what the soul in general is, and then the animal soul, but since the soul
does not have a complete nature we have to study the natural matter with which the soul
forms a complete nature.(48) Thus in order to complete our knowledge of living things we
have to look more and more at the matter from which they are made. Matter, however,
is less nature than form is.(49) Moreover it lacks the intelligibility of form: Thus, in
pursuing a distinct knowledge of specific types of living things, one is at the same time
pursuing knowledge of what of itself has lesser intelligibility.
The above seems to concord with the fact that in the DA Aristotle speaks of knowledge
of the soul as being desirable both because the soul is the most wonderful thing in the
world and because knowledge about it is very certain(50) (at least as to that it exists),
whereas in the PA he speaks of knowledge about animals as being desirable on account
of its certitude and on account of the fact that animals manifest intelligent design.(51) The
excellence of a branch of knowledge is determined more by its object than by its
certitude. It follows then that the knowledge of natural living things that the lover of
wisdom would pursue would be primarily as to their soul which is the act of the body
and is more the nature of living things,(52) and then knowledge of those activities where
the soul predominates. As to the specific living things' activities and parts, one would
seek knowledge of them in order to obtain a more distinct knowledge of some of the
specific sorts of living things and to see concrete examples of finality in nature. It does
not seem that one would pursue the knowledge of the parts of every type of living thing,
given that time is limited, and there are more excellent subjects to study. Yet the fact
remains that until the infimae species are known even to the details of their physiology
that perfect knowledge of living things is not yet achieved(53)
It would be worthwhile to pursue this matter further, but I must turn now to address
briefly the question of how Aquinas's division and recommended course of study
measures up against the way studies concerning living things are divided up and the
order in which they are pursued nowadays.
For the most part philosophy and science are nowadays regarded as two separate
disciplines each with their own way of proceding and overlapping as to subject matter at
relatively few points such as the origin of life. This is not the place to embark on an
analysis of why this happened. I will limit myself to a few comments as to how this
dichotomy affects the way modern commentators examine Aristotle's study of living
things. Now, as Arthur Hippler observes: "by and large, the so-called 'psychological
treatises' (On the Soul, Sense and the Sensible, Memory and Recollection) were studied
completely apart from the 'biological treatises' and vice versa."(54)
Those who endorse this dichotomy often do so on the grounds that the De Anima is
mostly devoted to analysing general concepts, whereas treatises such as PA are devoted
to matters which are not solved so much by reasoning, as by making specific
observations.(55) In DA a dialectical investigation of the opinions of earlier thinkers is
very important for arriving at the definition of the soul. Whereas in the PA there are
relatively few places when Aristotle mentions the views of others.(56) The PA relies more
on focused observation and a limited amount of experiment in order to determine the
function of the different parts (resembling to some extent modern science). Thus, there
does appear to be reason to differentiate the DA from the PA in terms of conceptual
analysis as opposed to empiricism. However, the division conceptual vs. empirical
fosters the false notion that philosophy is about ideas detached from experience,
whereas science is based on facts devoid of universal understanding. For this reason, the
two should rather be distinguished according to the experience each starts from, namely,
common experience as opposed to proper experience.
Hippler brings out another complementary reason why modern authors tend to divide
the DA, On Sense and the Sensible, On Memory and Reminiscence, against the other
treatises, namely, on the grounds that the former treatises are based chiefly on internal
experience and thus pertain to psychology, whereas the latter are based chiefly on
external experience and thus pertain to biology.(57) I do not intend here to discuss in any
detail whether the difference between external and internal experience is sufficient
grounds for distinguishing disciplines. However, a few basic points should be kept in
mind: First, that sciences are distinguished by their formal object i.e., by the subject
matter considered and the way in which it is considered. Secondly, it is one thing to
acknowledge a difference in method and use this as a basis for differentiating branches
of learning, and it is another to conclude that the branches thus differentiated are
thereby entirely dissociated and independent of one another. Astronomy studies mobile
bodies by use of mathematics, and yet due to its goal is considered a part of natural
philosophy rather than a branch of mathematics.(58)
In the case of the treatises which study living things, whether they start chiefly from
internal or from external experience, they are all ordered to the ultimate goal of
understanding the various composites of matter and form that have the capacity to move
themselves. Indeed, if there is legitimate grounds for subdividing philosophical
psychology, one would expect that there be some difference in method, since method
has to be adapted to the object of study, which again in the case of the living, is the soul
in a certain abstraction, abilities of living things insofar as they are understandable by
relating soul to body in a general way, and finally in a much more determinate way,
taking in account the the specific bodily make-up of the different sorts of living
things.(59) Again many nowadays find the DA's reliance on internal experience adequate
reason to completely dissociate it from biology as being non-scientific.
There are other factors which favor the dissociation of DA and the middle treatises from
biology, one being the recent growth of biological knowledge which makes it
impossible for one person to master all of it, much less have time for questions of a
more philosophical nature. (Introductory Cell Biology now fills a large book rather than
a single chapter.) And the practical need for specialization in order to survive as a
scientist only makes philosophy seem more of a luxury.
As for the middle treatises, the modern disciplines which are the closest to them are
psychology and other studies concerning the nature of mind, consciousness, and
sensation (Philosophy of Mind, Artificial Intelligence, etc.). There are many interesting
research projects being carried on within these areas ranging from the determining the
causes behind the formation of false memories to examining the differences in male and
female cognitive abilities to understanding the various forms of chemical
communication used by animals. Often these sorts of studies ask questions similar to
ones that Aristotle asked or would have asked, had he more factual knowledge at his
disposal. For example, Aristotle inquired into the causes of good and poor memory,(60)
and also sought to understand the importance of the sense of smell in humans as
compared to animals.(61)
Despite the similiarity as to interest in modern research and Aristotle's middle treatises,
there is a wide divergance as to how to approach the questions, reductionism ruling
supreme nowadays. For example, in a single issue of Science & Spirit Magazine
(subtitle: Restoring Life's Balance), a magazine devoted to discussing the relation
between science and religion we read: "Based on our model ...it seems that all unitary
experiences-from watching a beautiful sunset to the most profound states of
enlightenment-may have their basis in the flux of our neurotransmitters."(62) "There is no
privileged center, no soul, no place where it all comes together--aside from the brain
itself. Actually Aristotle's concept of a soul is not bad--the 'vegetative soul' of a plant is
not a thing somewhere in the plant; it is simply its homeostatic organization, the proper
functioning of its various systems, maintaining the plant's life."(63) "A second sense of
'consciousness' is self-knowledge--the ability to monitor one's own state and reflect
back on it. Again, this is child's play for the computational theory: any information
processing system can register its own state--for example, you computer probably does
a self-check every time you boot it up."(64) "The very crux of the Darwinian explanation
of the distinctiveness of humankind is that we are ordered, and thus can function in
ways that are not possible for other animals. It is not that we have something different at
the substance level, but rather that we are different because of the way that we are put
together: by natural selection for adaptive ends."(65) "My understanding of the soul is that
it is the almost infinitely complex, dynamic, information-bearing pattern, carried at any
instant by the matter of my animated body and continuously developing throughout all
the constituent changes of my bodily make-up during the course of my earthly life."(66)
It is a very common problem when scientists turn philosopher (or when philosophers
imitate scientists) that they start from the bottom up, with the result that they reject form
as any thing other than an end result of the material parts. A case in point is the book
Whatever Happened to the Soul?.(67) The blurb says it all:

As science crafts detailed accounts of human nature, what has become of the soul? This
collaborative project strives for greater consonance between contemporary science and
the Christian faith...Their central theme is a non-dualistic account of the human person
that does not consider the 'soul' an entity separable from the body; scientific statements
about the physical nature of human being are about exactly the same entity as are
theological statements concerning the spiritual nature of human beings.

Another reason which leads modern philosophers and scientists to reject Aristotle's
works on living things is the substantial amount of incorrect science contained therein.
There is no denying that Aristotle is mistaken on quite a few scientific matters. These
errors, as one might expect, are more numerous in those treatises which bear more on
the matter, and are relatively few in those which treat the faculties of living things from
a more formal perspective. For this reason, scientific inaccuracy are no grounds for
dismissing treatises such as De Memoria. It is not always easy to sort out what is good
from the treatises more concerned with the matter, and although they do contain the
occasional philosophical gem, from the point of view of facts, one is generally better off
with a modern biology book. In sorting through Aristotle, it is helpful to understand
why so much of his research into the material aspect of living things is flawed. As De
Koninck explains:

[Aristotle's] theory concludes at the coincidence between what is most elementary in

itself in material things and what is the most elementary for us in our knowledge. And
as, in fact, touch is the sense of certitude par excellence, the identification of what is
first in things from the point of view of matter with what is moreover the best know by
us, as hypothetical as this might be, will not be less tenacious. It will become too
reassuring to be put into doubt. And so it was held for a number of centuries. It is
understandable why the principle of the primacy of experience in natural science,
principle on which Aristotle insists in the treatise where he sets forth the theory of
elements, remained so long inoperative in this domain.(68)

As for the PA, the Generation of Animals, and the History of Animals, these treatises
correspond roughly with what is treated in biology today. It is the work of another paper
to speak of all the likenesses and differences between the two. I will restrict myself to
two interrelated points of difference upon which the prooemium, has direct bearing.
The first is that modern biologists tend to lose the forest for the trees, i.e., they fail to
see the more general order which is there because they focus too soon or too exclusively
on details which fall within this the more general order. An example of this is the
inability of most biology students to state what the fundamental difference between a
plant and an animal is. Students today will respond that the difference lies in the fact
that plant cells have a cell wall whereas animal cells do not. And they are quite satisfied
with that as a response. Yet of course they could distinguish plants from animals before
they even knew that cells existed, and if they reflected upon their first confused
knowledge they would have come up with what is the fundamental difference between
the two. However, their mindset is such that they immediately want details, and thus
remain ignorant about the natures of the most fundamental division of life forms.
The other classic example of profound ignorance resulting from a failure to consider the
more general before the more specific is the inability of most biologists to define life. In
fact, it is textbook orthodoxy that it is not possible to define life. This difficulty in part
arises once again from zooming in too quickly on detail. To tell that mammalian cells
are alive one uses trypan blue; to tell whether yeast cells are alive one uses some other
substance. The inability to find a specific test by which one can determine whether or
not any given thing is alive is taken as a clear indication that there is no way of knowing
what life is.
The other difference between PA and modern biology lies in the latter's reductionist
approach.(69) The rejection of the general in favor of the specific coincides with the
rejection of what is formal in favor of what is material.
What is a Thomist to do in the face of the divergances between Aquinas's views on
living things and those of our contemporaries? If we are going to enter contemporary
debates in the areas which treat natural living things there is a need to have a good grasp
of what is treated in the DA, and this presupposes knowledge of the Physics. For
example, we should be able to recognize Polkinghorne's position above amounts to
holding that the soul is a harmony, and we should know the arguments why this cannot
be the case. We should be able to define consciousness and self-consciousness. We
should be able to explain why mind in the sense of intellect cannot emerge from matter.
There is a need to sort out what is valuable from what is not in the middle treatises, to
learn the things of value, and to add to them (for example, to address the question of
what is the difference between a reflex and an instinct; and to address what the vis
cogitativa is).
There is a need to examine general methodological issues concerning the relation of
philosophy and science, an important part of which is determining the different types of
experience each start from. We need to learn from Aristotle's mistakes, and to recognize
what sort of issues can be solved from common experience and what need special
observations and/or experiment. We must defend the role of internal experience, for
without it we would not know there was such a thing as life. Aquinas is proposing in the
prooemium to De Sensu a single project of understanding living things which is
subdivided into parts on the basis of materiality formality which is a different view from
those who hold that philosophical psychology and biology are not part of the same
enterprise.
We must insist in starting the study of living things from the general and formal end.
Otherwise we are liable to be lured along a path that leads to reductionism. A colleague
recounts an incident in which he criticized a scientist who was defending the design
argument for adopting a reductionist perspective. The scientist answered to the effect
that "that's just the way biology is done nowadays, and we have to live with it." Some
philosophers, as well, unduly impressed by science, end up abandoning the notion of
substantial form or modifying the notion soul in order to fit in with the scientists. Again,
we must insist in settling the most general questions first.
Finally, there is a need for the philosopher to be educated in the sense that Aristotle
speaks of it in the PA. It is impossible to be an expert in all the different modern fields
that treat some aspect of living things. However, we can at least learn the basic
principles along with the way of proceeding used in a number of these areas. Then even
if we cannot judge everything the scientist says, at least we know where he is coming
from and can ask appropriate questions. For example, the kind of understanding of
biochemistry that Behe imparts to his reader in Darwin's Black Box is very helpful for
understanding modern design debate. The task of acquiring an educational acquaintance
in the sciences is made especially difficult by the fact that the methods used nowadays
do not always proceed from what is naturally first. It is hard to feel motivated to learn
genetics, for example, when one sees right away that geneticists are prone to make
certain very general methodological mistakes. However, the firsthand familiarity with
the is a trememdous advantage in evaluating the scientists claims.
For myself, I am glad to live in these times where we have wisdom of Aristotle and
Aquinas to build on and also a vast amount of accurate scientific knowledge at our
disposal. At the same time I feel a healthy fear in the face of the project of trying to
piece together a proper understanding of living nature. Hopefully this paper has make
some small contribution in preparing the groundwork for such a undertaking.

1. i. In Aristotelis Libros De Sensu et Sensato Commentarium. Ed. Raymundi M.

Spiazzi, O.P. (Turin: Marietti, 1949). Hereafter cited as De Sensu.
2. ii. This is exactly what Aristotle says at De Anima 429b22.
3. iii. Cf. De Anima 430b14-17: "And in fact mind as we have described it is what it is by
virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what it is by virtue of
making all things: this is a sort of positive state like light; for in a sense light makes
potential colors into actual colors." De Anima, trans. J.A. Smith in The Basic Works of
Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1968). Hereafter cited as
DA.
4. iv. Cf. DA 415a20-II: "But if we are to express what each is, viz. what the thinking
power is, or the perceptive, or the nutritive, we must go father back and first give an
account of thinking or perceiving, for in the order of investigation the question of what
an agent does precedes the question, what enables it to do what it does. If this is correct,
we must on the same ground go yet another step farther back and have some clear view
of the objects of each; thus we must start with these objects, e.g. with food, with what is
perceptible, or with what is intelligible."
5. v. Cf. Metaphysics Bk. VI, c. 1.
6. vi. Cf. DA 413a11: "Since what is certain in itself emerges from what in itself is
confused but more observable by us, we must reconsider our results from this point of
view."
7. vii. Aquinas, following Porphyr, associates the more universal part of the definition,
the genus, with what is material in a thing, although he says explicitly that the genus is
not the matter of the thing defined: "The genus is taken from what is material in a thing,
the difference indeed from what is formal. As the genus of man is animal, which
signifies something having a sensitive nature; which certain stands in a material way to
the intellectual nature, from which rational is taken which is the difference of man. For
rational indeed signifies something having an intellectual nature. And whence it is that
the genus contains the difference in potency, and that the genus and difference stand to
one another as matter to form...." In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis
Expositio, Ed. Raymundi M. Spiazzi, O.P. (Rome: Marietti, 1950), #1697.
8. viii. De Animalibus includes the History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and Generation
of Animals.
9. ix. Movement of Animals, trans. E.S. Forster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1968), 698a1-15.
10. x. Charles De Koninck, "Introduction to the Study of the Soul," 38. This introduction
prefaces Stanislas Cantin's Prcis de psychologie thomiste (Quebec: Laval University,
1948).
11. xi. Cf. DA 407b13-20: "The view we have just been examining, in company with
most theories about the soul, involves the following absurdity: they all join the soul to a
body, or place it in a body, without adding any specification of the reason of their union,
or of the bodily conditions required for it. Yet such explanation can scarcely be omitted;
for some community of nature is presupposed by the fact that the one acts and the other
is acted upon, the one moves and the other is moved; interaction always implies a
special nature in the two things interacting." Aristotle continues for another five lines on
this point and returns to it with insistence at 414a20-26.
12. xii. Cf. DA 413b25: "We have no evidence as yet about mind or the power to think; it
seems to be a widely different kind of soul, differing as what is eternal from what is
perishable; it alone is capable of existence in isolation from all other psychic powers.
All the other parts of the soul, it is evident from what we have said, are, in spite of
certain statement to the contrary, incapable of separate existence, though, of course,
distinguishable by definition."
13. xiii. DA 414b25-34
14. xiv. Charles De Koninck, op. cit., 42.
15. xv. Cf. In Librum Boethii de Trinitate Quaestiones Quinta et Sexta. Ed. Paul Wyser,
O.P. (Fribourg: Socit Philosophique, 1948) q. V ad 5: "being and substance are said to
be separated from matter and motion not through this that it is of the notion of them to
exist without matter and motion, as it is of the notion of ass to be without reason, but
through this that the notion of them is not in matter and motion, although sometimes
they exist in matter and motion, as animal abstracts from rational, although some animal
is rational."
16. xvi. Cf. Metaphysics, Bk. VII, cc. 2&3 regarding the need to start the consideration of
substance by first examing sensible substance since it is best known.
17. xvii. Thus while Bk. VII and VIII of the Metaphysics deal with sensible substance, it
is only in Bk. XIII that immaterial substances is taken up.
18. xviii. Cf. In Octo Libros de Physico Auditu Commentaria. Ed. Angeli M. Pirotta, O.P.
(Naples: M. D'Auria Pontificius Editor, 1953), Bk. II, lec. 4, #342.
19. xix. Cf. In Librum Boethii de Trinitate Quaestiones, q. 5, art. 3: "it belongs to man per
se that in him is found a rational soul and a body composed from the four elements;
whence without these parts man cannot be understood, but it is necessary to put them in
his definition, whence they are parts of the species and form. ... For whether it has feet
or not, so long as a conjoined thing is put together from a rational soul and a mixed
body made from the proper mixture of elements that such a form requires, it will be a
man.
20. xx. Cf. DA 429a18-28.
21. xxi. Cf. Metaphysics 1026a5-7: "...it belongs to the physicist to study even some
aspects of the soul, so far as it is not independent of matter."
22. xxii. Cf. Movement of Animals 704b1-3.
23. xxiii. In On Youth and Age 468b34 there is a reference to De Partibus. According to
Aquinas the best order of study places the De Partibus last. The fact that Aristotle
treated these things in reverse order is not particularly problematic since there is no
dependence of one on the other from the point of view of demonstration.
24. xxiv. Topics, trans. E.S. Forster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976),
108b7.
25. xxv. Movement of Animals 700b4-10.
26. xxvi. Cf. On Sleep 455a13-27.
27. xxvii. Cf. On Dreams 459a15-23.
28. xxviii. Cf. Parts of Animals 653a11-21.
29. xxix. Cf. Parts of Animals, trans. A.L. Peck (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1968), 640b5-641a14 This discussion continues through 641a33.
"Now those who were the first to study Nature in the early days spent their time in
trying to discover what the material principle or the material cause was, and what it was
like...In a like manner they describe the formation of animals and plants, saying that the
stomach and every kind of receptacle for food and for residue is formed by the water
flowing in the body, and the nostril openings are forcibly made by the passage of the
breath. Air and water, of course, according to them, are the material of which the body
is made: they all say that Nature is composed of substances of this sort. Yet if man and
the animals and their parts are products of nature...[i]t is not enough to state simply the
substances out of which they are made, as out of fire or out of earth. If we were
describing a bed or any other like article, we should endeavor to describe the form of it
rather than the matter (bronze, or wood)--or at any rate, the matter, if described would
be described as belonging to the concrete whole. For example, a bed is a certain form in
certain matter, or; alternatively, certain matter that has a certain form; so we should
have to include its shape and the manner of its form in our description of it--because the
formal nature is of more fundamental importance than the material nature. ... It must
now be evident that the statements of the physiologers are unsatisfactory. We have to
state how the animal is characterized, i.e., what is its essence and the character of the
animal itself, as well as describing each of its parts; just as with the bed we have to state
its form." (Hereafter cited as PA.)
30. xxx. In the DA Aristotle and Aquinas adopts the order opposite to that of the De
Sensu, taking up the vegetative powers before the sense powers. I do not find this
problematic, first because in the DA the vegetative faculty is being treated in a very
general way, so reductionism is not really an issue; and secondly because in this very
general treatment there are specific reason to do so, namely: "because this part is first
among the other parts in the subjects in which it is found with others: for it is as a
foundation of the others, as natural being to which its operations pertain is the
foundation of sensible being and intelligible being. And the other reason why it should
be treated earlier is because it is common to all living things: for it is separated from the
others, but the others are not separated from it, and common things should be taken up
prior to other things." In Aristotelis Librum De Anima Commentarium (Italy: Marietti,
1959), #310.
31. xxxi. Cf. DA 415a14: "It is necessary for the students of thse forms of soul first to find
a definition of each, expressive of what it is, and then to investigate its derivative
properties, and so forth."
32. xxxii. De Koninck, op. cit., 44.
33. xxxiii. Cf. Quaestio Disputata de Anima, q. 13 in which Aquinas points out that the end
result of the vegetative powers is not something other than what happens in non-living
things as the result of an external agent: "For the generative power is ordered to the end
that an individual is produced in being ...the nutritive power is order to the end that it is
conserved in being. These things, however, only obtain in inanimate bodies due to
extrinsic natural agent."
34. xxxiv. DA 402a29-403b10.
35. xxxv. Cf. Physics 193b8: "The form indeed is 'nature' more than the matter; for a thing
is more properly said to be what it is when it has attained to fulfilment than when it
exists potentially."
36. xxxvi. De Koninck, op. cit., 41: "This abstraction is possible to the extent that the soul
is not entirely immersed in the matter and does not have all its concretion in the body.
Without doubt, the knowledge of the formal part will be imperfect to the extent that we
are ignorant of the matter, but it will be natural and true when one recognizes the form
as being that of a determinate matter, even when we are ignorant what precisely this
matter is. It is thus that one can recognize the imagination - the sense by which we
know sensible things even in their absence - as a sense faculty and for so much
inseparable from a determinate bodily organ without knowing precisely what this organ
is. This is why one must say that the present treatise bearing principally on the formal
part of natural living things and their operations which we know first by means of
internal experience considers the soul 'in a certain abstraction'. Although one cannot
abstract from a naturally organized body, one does not yet apply oneself to studying its
nature, nor does one seek the structure and particular function of this or that kind of
organization."
37. xxxvii. There are a number of works by other authors which are natural as they do go
into the physiological factors involved, such as Carol Taveris's Anger and Eva Brann's
Imagination ck. The greater portion of these works, however, deal with the
psychological aspects of these powers. They also include some considerations that are
so detailed, they pass beyond the generality of a middle treatise into the realm a chiefly
material consideration.
38. xxxviii. De Koninck, op. cit., 44,45. Cf. also ibid., 46, 47: "We have said that the
external senses have their concretion in matter to such a degree that they lend
themselves very little to abstract study. Thus, Aristotle has scarcely designated the
different kinds of sensible, when he takes up the proper object of sight, immediately
defines it, and undertakes explaining the nature of light by means of chemical and
physical theories...."
39. xxxix. Cf. PA 697b27: "We have now spoken severally of all the animals: we have
described their parts, and stated the reason why each is present in them. Now that this is
concluded, the next thing to do is to describe the various ways in which animals are
generated."
40. xl. Generation of Animals, trans. A.L. Peck (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1963), 715a1-15.
41. xli. Cf. History of Animals 497b5-13. The Researches on Animals is synonymous
with the History of Animals.
42. xlii. PA 646a8-12. Cf. Also History of Animals 491a7-12.
43. xliii. Averroes distinguishes the middle treatises according to basically the same
principle that of Aquinas does. He says that "In general, in this work he inquires into
those faculties which exist in animals insofar as they possess soul. These faculties are of
two kinds: first, those that are attributed to the body of an animal by virtue of the
existence of the soul in it, as for instance, sense-perception and motion; second, those
that are attributed to the soul by virtue of the body." Leaving aside the question of
whether or not it make sense to speak of animal faculties which are attributed to the soul
by virtue of the body, it is plain enough that, like Thomas, Averroes sees certain
faculties as pertaining more to the soul, others more to the body. Unlike Aquinas,
however, he does not subdivide the middle treatises into three sorts, and in doing so
seems to follow Aristotle's text more closely to the extent Aristotle only names two
groups of things (see next note). Averroes, Epitome of Aristotle's Parva Naturalia,
trans. Harry Blumberg (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America), 3.
44. xliv. Aristotle, On Sense and Sensible Objects, trans. W.S. Hett (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1975), 436a1-18: Since we have now dealt in detail with the
soul by itself, and with each of its several faculties, our next task is to consider animals
and all things possessed of life, and to discover what are their peculiar and what are
there common activities. All that has already been said about the soul is to be assumed,
but let us now discuss the remaining questions, dealing first of all with those which
naturally come first. The most important characteristics of animals, whether common or
peculiar, are clearly those which belong to both soul and body, such as sensation,
memory, passion, desire, and appetite generally, and in addition to these pleasure and
pain; for these belong to almost all living creatures. Besides these there are some which
are common to all things that have a share in life, and others which are peculiar to
certain animals. The most important of these are the four pairs, namely waking and
sleep, youth and age, inhalation and exhalation, life and death; we have now to
investigate what each of these is, and what are the reasons for their occurrence.
45. xlv. Cf. Physics 184a24; DA 413a12-15; PA 645b1-14.
46. xlvi. Benedict Ashley, "St. Albert and the Nature of Natural Science," in Albertus
Magnus and the Sciences, ed. James A. Weisheipl, OP (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1980), 93.
47. xlvii. Cf. DA 404b23 and DA 413a20-30.
48. xlviii. Cf. De Koninck, op. cit., 42.
49. xlix. Cf. Physics 193b8.
50. l. Cf. DA 402a1-4.
51. li. Cf. PA 644b28-645a15.
52. lii. Cf. PA 641a26-33: "...nature is said in two ways: of the matter and of the essence,
the latter including the efficient cause and the end. It is of course in the latter sense that
the soul or some part of it is nature in regard to the living thing. Hence on this score
especially the student of natural science should treat the soul more than the matter,
inasmuch as matter is nature more on account of the soul than vice versa. For wood is a
bed or a stool because it has the potency to be such."
53. liii. Aristotle appears to be giving a statement of purpose in regard to philosophical
psychology in the History of Animals (491a10) when he says that he intends to consider
"what differentiates animals and what is common to them all, and to try to discover the
causes of these things."
54. liv. Arthur Hippler, op. cit., 7.
55. lv. Cf. Posterior Analytics 88a5: The commensurate universal is precious because it
makes clear the cause; so that in the case of facts like these which have a cause other
than themselves universal knowledge is more precious than sense-perception and than
intuition. ... Hence it is clear that knowledge of things demonstrable cannot be acquired
by perception, unless the term perception is applied to the possession of scientific
knowledge through demonstration. Nevertheless certain points do arise with regard to
connexions to be proved which are referred for their explanation to a failure in sense-
perception: there are cases when an act of vision would terminate our inquiry, not
because in seeing we should be knowing, but because we should have elicited the
universal from seeing; if, for example, we saw the pores in the glass and the light
passing through, the reason of the kindling would be clear to us because we should at
the same time see it in each instance and intuit that it must be so in all instances. G.R.G.
Mure, trans. in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon.
56. lvi. A quick look through the PA turns up 3-4 places where Aristotle refers to others
views: at 648a26 he speaks of a dispute concerning heat in animals; at 656a12 he refers
to the views of others regarding why the senses are in the head; at 665a31 he disagress
with Democritus regarding the presence of viscera in bloodless animals.
57. lvii. Cf. Arthur Hippler, op. cit., 188.
58. lviii. Cf. Physics 193b25-194a11.
59. lix. Another difference in methodology concern the use of theories: DA does not use
them, whereas biology sometimes does. The difference in methodology again does not
change the fact the two are seeking complementary knowledge of the same subject
genus. It is worth noting the methodological difference between the Physics and modern
physics, is not so great, as biology sometimes is able to provide an understanding of
things independent of theory such as that flooding kills plants because it prevents
oxygen from getting to the roots which ordinarily would get there.
60. lx. Cf. On Memory and Reminscence 453a32-b8.
61. lxi. Cf. On Sense and the Sensible 443b30-445a15.
62. lxii. Eugene D'Aquili and Andrew Newberg, "Wired for Ultimate Reality: The
Neuropsychology of Religious Experience," in Science and Spirit Magazine, vol. 11,
no. 2, May/June 2000, 12.
63. lxiii. Daniel Dennett interviewed by Chris Floyd, in ibid., 19
64. lxiv. Steven Pinker, "Mind at Work: The Computational Consciousness," in ibid., 24.
65. lxv. Michael Ruse, "Darwin on the Brain: Reductionism and Religious Belief," in
ibid., 28
66. lxvi. John Polkinghorne quoted in ibid., 29.
67. lxvii. Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human
Nature, eds. Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony, (xx Fortress
Press, 1998).
68. lxviii. De Koninck, op. cit., 48.
69. lxix. Cf. Arthur Hippler, op. cit., 102: For modern science, the object of science is to
reduce natural things to their ultimate matter. ... For Aristotle, the principle object is the
purpose of the material parts for the whole. This is not to suggest that Aristotle is
indifferent to matter or material causes; indeed, as the study of the ensouled progresses,
it becomes more and more concerned with material causes [organs - tissues - elements].
... At the same time, one cannot grasp these elemental qualities in the animal until one
sees how they make up the flesh, fur and bone; [See Cohen 1989] similarly, one does
grasp fully flesh fur and bone until one sees how they are complete in the face, hands
and other organs. If an animal is to survive and reproduce, then always and everwhere
there are basic organs it will need, and those organs will depend on certain tissues, and
so on. The zoologist studies how the tools which the animal has make it suited to the
goals of survival and reproduction