Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/44

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34
ARISTOTLE ON THE
[BK. I.

thinking, besides, seems rather to be a kind of rest and a halt than motion; and this applies equally to the syllogism. As every condition, besides, which is compulsory and ungenial must be unhappy, so unless movement be an essential property of that mind, it must be moving against its nature, and it cannot but be painful for it to have been so connected with the body as to be unable to free itself from it; nay more, it is a lot to have been avoided, since it is better for the mind, as is commonly said, and to many seems reasonable, not to have been connected with a body at all. The cause too, of the circular movement of the sky is obscurely stated—for the essence of the Vital Principle is not the cause of that movement, as it never does, excepting it be by chance, so move, nor can the body be the cause, as it is the Vital Principle rather which gives motion to it; neither is it explained how it is better for the Vital Principle to be so circumstanced, and yet it ought to have been shewn that God had caused it to have a circular movement, as better for it to be in motion than at rest, and to move in that rather than in any other direction. But as this is an inquiry which belongs rather to other studies, it may, for the present, be laid aside.

The same incongruity which occurs in most of the theories upon Vital Principle is met with here, in that writers join Vital Principle to and place it in a