Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/160

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150
PRELUDE TO CHAP IV.

wonderful, and more wonderful in proportion as more enduring." But yet Aristotle quotes, without objection, that the mind is innate in animals, and the cause, in nature, of the world and its order; and he cites the verses of Parmenides, which seem to imply that the mind is present in the limbs of man as if it were a corporeal agent. To judge, however, from observations in the course of this treatise, he may be said, although, perhaps, not always consistently, to have considered this great principle as impassive, indiscerptible, and freed from all corporeal ties; and as being itself, only when withdrawn from matter and its influences. Thus, as matter must tend to preclude its offices, its existence, while associated with mortal beings, can be only that of potentiality.