On the Vital Principle/Book 3/Prelude to Chapter 1
[1]This book has been by one commentator held to be spurious, even while admitting that all the opinions are genuine, because of imputed solecisms in the style and phraseology, which seem to indicate a foreign hand. But were any one capable, as Trendellenburg observes, of adopting, with so much perspicacity, the reasoning of Aristotle, he would be much rather inclined to put forth an original work, than thus to shelter his productions under another's name. The opening passages involve great, it may be, insuperable difficulties, owing rather to the argument than to the wording, although this is obscure, for it seems to be assumed that a sense would be felt to be wanting, although it might never have been possessed; and that the consciousness of its privation would prove whether or not a sense were wanting. According to this theory, in fact, if the Touch were a sense for every impression of which we now are sensible, and if there were any property not perceptible by us, we should perceive that another sentient organ was required; but it has not been shewn that such a want, had it not previously been satisfied, could be made sensible to us. And even for the Touch itself, were there any one property, of which we are sensible, say that of hardness, which had never been perceived, we could hardly be conscious of the want; and there may be, probably are properties in the bodies around and above us of which we are unconscious, and yet remain without the feeling of a want. Each of the senses seems to be an ultimate fact; for we are satisfied that we see by the eye and hear by the ear, and that with so little attention or will that the sentient organs perform their part almost irrespectively of the percipient. In the succeeding passages, which relate to media and the elementary constitution of the senses, there is ambiguity or confusion, occasioned by the then prevailing dogmata of elements and like by like, and perhaps, it may be added, by unacquaintance with the structure of the sentient organs.
- ↑ Vide Trendell. Comment.