Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/325

CH. IX.] of simple ideas, are not, like the imagination, under our own control. Thus, while the former may be regarded as a single faculty, and, in some sense, independent of the judgment, the latter involves many and opposing ideas and perceptions. But what is here meant by primal thoughts (τὰ δὲ πρῶτα νοήματα)? Do the words imply innate ideas, or conceptions of pure abstraction, such as creation, virtue, responsibility, and others? Or must it be admitted that no definite sense can be attached to them? If primal mean innate thoughts, (thoughts, that is, no way dependent upon sentient properties,) then such are distinguishable at once from those which are derived from images, although these are not, themselves, images in reality.

Note 1, p. 173. But a difficulty at once presents itself, &c.] There is an apparent want of discrimination here between the faculties which are the privilege and distinction of higher creatures and the functions which are essential to life, and without which there can be neither animal nor living being. In a subsequent paragraph the rational faculty or mind (καὶ ὁ καλούμενος νοῦς) is excluded from all participation in corporeal movements, and held to have no part in sentient perception. It is