Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/28

 actualized, and "actuality" refers to the actualizing principle by which form is given to the body which otherwise would be only a collection of separate parts each having its own form but the aggregate being without corporate unity until the soul gives it form; in this sense the soul is the realization of the body (cf. Aristot: Metaph. iii. 1043. a. 35). A dead body lacks this actualizing and centralizing force and is only a collection of limbs and organs, yet even so it is not an artificial collection such as a man might put together, but "a natural body having in it the capacity of life," that is to say, an organic structure designed for a soul which is the cause or reason of its existence and which alone enables the body to realize its object.

The soul contains four different faculties or powers which are not strictly to be taken as "parts" though in the passage cited above Aristotle uses the term "parts." These are, (1) the nutritive, the power of life whereby the body performs such functions as absorbing nourishment, propagating its species, and other functions common to all living beings, whether animal or vegetable: (ii) the sensible, by which the body obtains knowledge through the medium of the special senses of sight, hearing, touch, etc., and also the "common sense" by means of which these perceptions are combined, compared, and contrasted so that general ideas are obtained which ultimately rest on the sense perceptions: (iii) the locomotive, which prompts to action, as desire, appetite, will, etc., also