On the Vital Principle/Book 3/Prelude to Chapter 8
This chapter is a brief summary of the principal theories and arguments which have been alluded to, and it adds but little for comment. The opening paragraphs are rendered less definite than might be wished for, by the recurring particle πως and by the substitution of ὄντα for πράγματα, although the distinction between them is not very apparent. It had just been said that “knowledge, in act, is identical with what is known,” and here the same is predicated of Vital Principle, although with a qualifying addition; and the meaning, in either case, is dependent upon Aristotle's two sovereign conditions. It may be understood how the intellect as well as the sentient faculty can be regarded as identical with their subjects, in the way that a sentient organ, by reception of the form without the matter, may be said to be identified with the coloured or sonorous object; but it is not obvious how this can apply to faculty or sense in potentiality, unless, indeed, as they are in abeyance, without perception that is, so objects, not being perceived, are without properties.
Having thus summarily recounted whatever has been said upon the Vital Principle, let us repeat that it is, in some sense, all things which are; for things are the subjects either of sentient perception or of thought, and knowledge is, in some sense, things known, as sensation is things sensually perceived. But let us inquire how this is to be understood—Knowledge, then, like sensation is divided, when in potentiality, into things in potentiality, when in reality, into things in reality; and the sentient and the cogitative faculties of Vital Principle are, when in potentiality, identical with thoughts and objects of perception, in potentiality. But the question here must necessarily refer either to things or the forms of things; but the things themselves they cannot be, as it is not a stone but the form of a stone which is in the Vital Principle. Thus, the Vital Principle is, as it were, a hand, for as a hand is the instrument of instruments, so the mind is the form of forms, and sensation the form of things sensually perceived. Since there is, seemingly, nothing