one having in itself the power of setting
itself in movement and arresting itself. Next, apply this doctrine
in the case of the 'parts' of the living body. Suppose that the eye
were an animal-sight would have been its soul, for sight is the
substance or essence of the eye which corresponds to the formula,
the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed
the eye is no longer an eye, except in name-it is no more a real eye
than the eye of a statue or of a painted figure. We must now extend
our consideration from the 'parts' to the whole living body; for
what the departmental sense is to the bodily part which is its
organ, that the whole faculty of sense is to the whole sensitive
body as such.
We must not understand by that which is 'potentially capable of
living' what has lost the soul it had, but only what still retains it;
but seeds and fruits are bodies which possess the qualification.
Consequently, while waking is actuality in a sense corresponding to
the cutting and the seeing, the soul is actuality in the sense
corresponding to the power of sight and the power in the tool; the
body corresponds to what exists in potentiality; as the pupil plus the
power of sight constitutes the eye, so the soul plus the body
constitutes the animal.
From this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from
its body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has
parts) for the actuality of some of them is nothing but the
actualities of their bodily parts.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48