Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/299

CH. XI.] as elementary qualities; and distinguished from visual or sonorous impressions, by being necessary to animal. It is uncertain whether the work "upon the Elements" here alluded to was a distinct work, or a chapter in one of the treatises which have been cited; but the question is of little consequence, and foreign, besides, to the purpose of these notes.

Note 5, p. 123. The mean, in fact, is critical, &c.] This is a transfer, so to say, of moral to physical relations. "Whatever is continuous and divisible comprehends," says, "the three terms, more, less, and equal, which all bear a relation either to the thing itself or to ; for the equal is a given mean between excess and deficiency. Now, the mean implies that which is  from either of the extremes, and it is one and the same in all material conditions; but the mean, in relation to us, implies a state in which there is neither excess nor deficiency." Thus, temperance nourishes and preserves the body, while excess or deficiency of food and drink tends to destroy it. Moderate exercise increases, while immoderate or insufficient exercise impairs the strength; and so for other conditions which are readily adducible.

Note 6, p. 123. As vision was said to be in some sense, &c.] The passage is obscure, but it seems to repeat a former observation, that, as the senses can judge of properties only in their mediate state, the terms invisible and intangible are, strictly speaking, incorrect