Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/555

Rh In the third place, when we speak of " having knowledge," we must distinguish between the mere presence of a proposition in consciousness and actual living grasp of a truth. In a state of drunkenness or of imperfect understanding of any kind a man may have in his mind the words that express a practical rule for him ; but they may be mere words to him and not part of his real self (,§ 8). He may say " Drink is a curse," or even " I have had enough now," while he goes on drinking. We are clearly justified in applying the distinction here drawn between verbal and real assent to both premises, major and minor, uni- versal and singular. In § 13, 1147 b 9, Aristotle applies this distinction specially to the minor premise. Thus §§ 7 and 8 seem perfectly in place after § 6, which has introduced the reference to the two kinds of premises : they are no mere duplicate of § 5, but bring in a new distinction a different kind of distinction between potentiality and actuality from that which is made in § 5. It may indeed be admitted that the whole passage would seem neater and more orderly, if 7 and 8 had been placed immediately after § 5, so that the two similar sets of explanations came together. But (even apart from the advantage in having §§ 7,8 after the distinction of premises in § 6) I do not think it could be inferred that Aristotle would have placed them so. If the canons of orderly exposition, which some scholars apply to the Aristotelian writings, were ap- plied to Kant's Critiques, these would require to be largely re- written and great portions would have to be rejected as spurious.

Lastly, in §§ 9-11 we have the explanation of this inattention or non-realisation of knowledge which in the preceding sections has been shown to be the source of. In his final argument Aristotle goes more fully into the actual facts the actual phe- nomena of mind which take place in cases of. This is to investigate the matter, as distinct from the more ab- stract arguments which have preceded and which turn upon the general distinctions between potential and actual knowing, be- tween consciousness of a universal rule and consciousness of the fully particularised application of it, between lip-service and real assent. What is now given is a psychological analysis of the mental state of the, but with the help of the logical analysis of the syllogism. Aristotle has already recognised in ''Eth. Nic.'',