ular are its acts, and the less arbitrary is its behavior. Moreover, the more immovable the secondary gods are, the more they resemble him in whom there is neither movement nor change of any kind. As immovable beings, any number of them can exist in one and the same sphere. The planets, which are inferior in dignity to the fixed stars, are likewise immortal and uncreated beings endowed with lifeand activity.1 The movers of the planets impart to their respective spheres movements that are opposed to the divine and perfect movement of the Tр@τоs ovрavós, thereby declaring their independence of the Deity and their hostility towards the universal order. We have here the beginning of evil, but so small a beginning that the life of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun and the Moon,2 is, as compared with the life of the earth, a divine, perfect, and happy existence.

The operation of the four elements, and the perpetual change of bodies resulting from it (the Távra peî of Heraclitus), are confined to the terrestrial and sublunary sphere. This is the sphere of becoming, birth, and death, and — in so far as púσis signifies production, generation, or becoming the stage of nature proper as distinguished from the sky, which is the abode of the supernatural, that is, of the unchangeable and everlasting.3 The opposition between earth and heaven, évláde and ékeî, the Here and the Beyond, the natural and the supernatural, has not, it is true, the same meaning and import in Aristotle as in Catholicism; still it is certain that this dualism adds to his cosmology a tinge of Platonic mysticism that contrasts with his ontological principles. It was this dualistic conception of an earth placed in the centre of the world and a God placed at the periphery, as far from the earth as possible, that

1 De cœlo, 292.

2 Both sun and moon are considered as planets.

* Met., XI., 6, 12.

caused the Church to adopt the Aristotelian system, and led to its being forced upon the minds of men as revealed truth, even after the great majority of scientists had taken sides with Copernicus.

Aristotle's meteorology is more independent than his astronomical theories, which are based on the preconceptions of his age. The terrestrial atmosphere comprises two regions (TÓTO), one of which is moist and cold, and surrounds the earth and the ocean; while the other is formed of an element that is lighter and warmer than air, called Tup by Heraclitus, and extends to the vault of the heavens.1 In the highest atmosphere are situated the comets and the milky-way (!). The lower atmosphere produces winds, storms, rainbows, and other meteors, which are explained, in the same way as earthquakes and tides, by the reciprocal action between the upper and lower atmospheric strata and the waters of the earth. Aristotle's theory, or at least his explanation of aerial and ocean currents, contains, as we see, a shadow of the truth. But it is in the sphere of natural science proper that his genius bursts forth in all its grandeur.

The organic world is the real domain of final causes. Here, more than anywhere else, nature reveals herself as an artist of infinite capacity, universally choosing the simplest and the best means of arriving at her goal. What distinguishes nature from art (Téxvn) is this: The goal at which the artist aims exists in his thought as a clearly-conceived idea, while in nature it exists as an instinct. There is an end to be realized in the case of the bird which creates itself as well as in the case of the bed that is made by the joiner. In order to become a reality, the end be needs the hands of the joiner; the end bird realizes itself; in both instances, however, final causes play an important part. But, what of the objection that nature sometimes

1 Meteorology, 1, 3.

produces monsters? Well, mistakes may be made in her domain as well as in the domain of art. A grammarian may, in spite of his knowledge, make a mistake in spelling; a physician, though skilful, may administer the wrong medicine. So, too, errors can creep into the operations of nature, and monstrosities are merely deviations from a goal that is aimed at without success.1 Nature desires the best? without always being able to achieve it.

Fur

Her mistakes must be charged to matter, not to the active idea. thermore, it would be absurd to deny natural teleology simply because we do not see in nature a deliberating motive principle. Art does not deliberate either; in the majority of cases there is no need of reflection. Art moves from without, nature from within. If the art of naval construction were in the wood, it would resemble nature in its action. Hence nature acts teleologically as well as art.5 The end or purpose is the very principle that makes her act, and pre-exists in principle in the organisms produced by her.

Organisms differ from inorganic bodies in that they are impelled by an inner principle (yʊyń), which employs a number of organs (opyava) in order to realize its purposes. The vegetable kingdom is not an end in itself; the animal which lives on the plant is its end. Hence the soul of the plant simply performs the functions of assimilation and reproduction (TÒ OрETTIKÓν). The soul of the animal has, in addition, the faculty of feeling (Tò alonτikóv), to which is added, in higher animals, the capacity to retain senseimpressions (μvýμn). The sensations of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, meet in a common sense (кown alo@nois),

διανοητικόν).

which synthesizes them and constitutes a rudimentary form of inner apperception. The soul of the animal is susceptible of pleasure and pain; hence it strives for what makes an agreeable impression upon it, and shuns the contrary (Tò орEKTIKÓν, the active faculty or will). Hence the spontaneous movement of the animal (φορά, τὸ κινητικὸν κατὰ TÒV TÓTOV). In addition to all these endowments of animal life, the human soul possesses the faculty of knowledge or reason (Tò diavoηTIKÓν). Owing to this, man is the masterpiece of nature, the most perfect organic being (ëxe ô ἄνθρωπος τὴν φύσιν ἀποτετελεσμένην 1). He is the final goal (Téλos) at which nature aims throughout the advancing forms of the animal kingdom. Her failure to attain this goal immediately is due to the resistance of matter; but, untiring in her efforts, she makes many attempts which come nearer and nearer to the final purpose for which she strives, until the end is finally realized. So, too, the young artist tries a thousand times before completely realizing his conception.

The organic world therefore forms an ascending scale. The organisms and their corresponding souls are perfected in the measure in which the ultimate purpose of the zoological development, the human species, penetrates and overcomes inorganic matter.2 Corresponding to the elementary plant-soul we have an organism in which up and down are distinguishable, but in which there is no difference between front and back, right and left, the plant has its mouth below (the root) and its genital apparatus above (the flower); it has no back or chest. A body corresponds to the animal soul, in which is found the double opposition between up and down, right and left. In man, at last, the up and down coin cides with the absolute up and down.

Historia animalium, IX., 1.

The fundamental conception of comparative anatomy.

The animal kingdom is divided into two classes, one of which embraces sanguineous animals, viz., mammalians, birds, fishes, amphibia; while the other consists of insects, crustaceans, testaceans, and mollusks.1 Warmth is in separable from life, and the relative perfection of an animal directly depends upon the amount of heat in it. Aristotle believes in spontaneous generation on a grand scale, although he denies it in the case of higher animals. Owing to his ignorance of the facts established by modern geology in reference to the changes which the earth has undergone, he seems to assume the eternity of life and of species a parte ante as well as a parte post.

The relation existing between the organized body and the soul, its vital principle, is the same as that existing between matter and form, potentiality and actuality, capacity (dúvaμs) and function (èvreλéxela). Because of this intimate correlation, the organized body exists and lives only for the sake of the soul, which is its final cause or the purpose for which it exists (Tò où éveкa тò σwμа); but the soul, too, is a reality only in so far as it animates something, in so far as it is the soul of a body, the energy of an organism, the function of an instrument (èvreλéxela тOÛ σwμATOS). Without the body the soul may, indeed, exist potentially (dvváμe), but not actually or in reality (èvepyeía). It is, according to Aristotle, as impossible to feel, to desire, and to will, without the necessary corporeal organs, as it is to walk without feet or to make a statue out of nothing (βαδίζειν ἄνευ ποδῶν, ὁρᾶν ἄνευ ὀφθαλμῶν, ἀνδριὰς ἄνευ Xаλoû2). The soul is to the body what cutting is to the axe; the function of cutting would be the soul of the axe if the latter were a living being. Now, just as cutting is impossible without an axe, so too the constitutive functions of the soul are inseparable from the body.

1 De partibus animalium, I., 3.

• De generatione animalium, II., 3. Cf. Met., VII., 11, 11.