Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/203

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CH. XIII.]
ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE.
193

earth have no feeling. It is impossible then that there should be any other sense without that of Touch; and its organ is neither of earth nor any other element exclusively. Thus, it is manifest that the Touch is the only sense of which animals cannot be deprived without dying; that animals only can possess it; and that it alone of the senses is necessary to animal existence. On which account, other sentient impressions in excess (as those of colour, sound and odour) may injure the organs but do not destroy the animal, excepting it be by chance, as when with sound there is an impulse and a blow, or as when, by visual or odorous impressions, other influences are set in motion, which destroy the animal through the Touch and when savour destroys life it does so by communicating simultaneously a tangible impression. But the excess of tangible impression, whether hot, cold or hard, destroys the animal, because as every impression in excess destroys the sentient organ, so the tangible destroys that of Touch, and it is by the Touch that animal life has been defined; and it has been shewn that an animal cannot possibly exist without the Touch. Thus, the excess of tangible impressions destroys not the organ only but the animal, as that sense alone is necessary to its existence. Animals, in fact, possess, as has been said, the other senses, not merely for existence but, for higher enjoyment: they have sight, in order that, as they live