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CH. II.] of action between the object and the sense, although the modes of that action are as different as material are from living properties. The succeeding passage is, by its wording, obscure, but yet it admits of being elucidated by the term on which its meaning chiefly depends; for hearing, when in potentiality, must involve both sound (as without hearing there is no sound,) and hearing, in reality, just as the Vital Principle must exist, innately in the body in potentiality, but which, under genial circumstances, is to be acted upon and made a reality; and thus, too, the power which impels may, itself, be at rest.

Note 3, p. 136. But while for some senses these two states, &c.] It is scarcely possible, owing to the difficulty of fixing upon synonyms, to make this passage clear to the general reader—the text instances two terms (ψοφήσις καὶ ἡ ἄκουσις), as potential conditions of sound and hearing (ψόφος καὶ ἡ ἀκοή), and it may be assumed that they conveyed a modified signification of the action and sensation, which another language, even were the meaning quite evident, may fail in imparting. But even the plastic Greek fails, in many instances, in discriminating, without periphrasis, the two conditions; for vision, although potential, is still vision, nor has it any other designation when made reality by colour, and this applies equally to the taste and savour. In this version, the double condition of sound is rendered by sound and sounding, that of the sense by hearing, and audition for