Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/265

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CH. III.]
NOTES.
255

with vegetable existence. "According to the argument[1], he adds, by which appetite is said to be the mediate cause of motion, there must, in living animal bodies, be some such medium; and the being, therefore, which by its nature is incapable of motion, is impressionable by appetite, through some other faculty." Plants, that is, are not affected by the appetitive stimulus as are animals.

Note 2, p. 72. As, however, we shall be more explicit, &c.] The Touch being the earliest, so to say, of the senses and distinctive of animal existence, is here held to be the cause of appetite, as appetite is of motion; and as has been observed, the Touch was supposed to exist independently of the other senses. This sense is said to be especially discriminative of food, as animals are nourished by substances which are hot and cold, dry and moist, and these qualities are subject to it; but it can distinguish only by chance such other properties (odour, colour, sound, for instance) as do not contribute to nutrition. It is not easy to attach a definite notion to the imagination here alluded to, but as Aristotle has elsewhere distinguished the rational from the sentient imagination, and as instinct only can be assigned to creatures with one sense, it may be assumed that this is its meaning.

Note 3, p. 72. It is clear, then, that there can be but one, &c.] The triangle[2] forms all rectilineal figures,

  1. De Motu An. 10. 1.
  2. Saint Hilaire.