BOOK VI. Having distinguished substance into body and not body, he remarks that, "body exists in two classes, in the vegetative and the non-vegetative; but the vegetative comprise two things, plants and animals, and animals are divided into men, and many other ENGLAND. things. Substance is thus the genus generalissimum, and man, a species specialissima. LITERARY HISTORY OF "Argumentation is either by syllogism; by induction; or by example. The definition and the syllogism are distinguishable into the rectum," by which truth is acquired, and into the false, which is only the probable." His "PHILOSOPHICA" contains many passages that deserve the attention of those who may like to study Arabian metaphysics. We will now proceed to consider the Scholastic Philosophy, one of our branches from the Aristotelian and Arabian stocks, CHAP. XI. Introduction of the Aristotelian Philosophy into England— Analysis of Porphyry's Isagoge-History and Opinions of Aristotle-Analysis of Aristotle's Categories. THE Arabian HE study most cultivated in England and in Europe Subjects by the more active minds in the twelfth century, was of the that mixture of logic and metaphysics which had philosocharacterized the Arabian philosophy, and which phers. abounds in the works of the schoolmen. The human mind in its various operations-the senses, and their perceptions-the causes and essences, and relations of things-intellect in the abstract; its logical exercitations-the divine nature, the future existence of the soul, and the anatomy of the organs of sense'-were favorite topics with the great Arabian 'AVICENNA considers the eyes to be what principally display, in us, the dispositions of the soul :-if they be of a middling size, they express what is good and pious; if tremulous, they indicate light-mindedness; if long open, want of modesty, or imbecility; if deep seated, subtlety; if extended forward, folly. Overhanging eyebrows imply an envious mind. He makes these moral differences between animals:-the cow, little anger; the mountain boar, vehement folly and sharp fury; the camel, gentle and clean; the serpent, astute in evil motions; lions, brave and magnanimous; wolves, brave, ingenious, ungrateful and savage; foxes, ingenious in bad actions; dogs, irascible and laborious; apes and elephants, very cunning and familiar; geese, bashful and cautious; peacocks, envious, handsome, and admirers of their own beauty; the camel and the donkey, of good memory; but man alone can forget, and recal what he has forgotten. He says, that Aristotle first said that the arteries began from the heart; and others, that the veins arose from the liver. In what is termed, by his Paduan editors, his golden work on the soul, Avicenna considers the heart as the first principle of bodily life, and on which it chiefly depends. From the heart the soul vivifies the animal; and from that is diffused through the other parts, and thence actions and movements proceed in the limbs. From the heart the energies of life flowing to the brain, whence the nerves arise, some perform their actions there, some emanate to other parts, as to the pupil of the eye, and muscles of motion. From the heart BOOK sages. To men of their refined and acute minds, the VI. specious works of Aristotle proved an irresistible LITERARY temptation to fathom his apparent profundity, and to HISTORYOF exercise themselves by his rules; and many Arabians ENGLAND. became his translators and commentators;2 their ex ample diffused a taste for logic and for Aristotle, far beyond what Greece itself, in the highest prevalence of the Peripatetics, had at any time experienced.3 Aristotle was first contemplated in the Abstract of Boetius, and in the Introduction of Porphyry. On this latter work Averroes commented, and his commentary was the text-book on which the Norman monks lectured at Cambridge, as we have already remarked." Ingulf states himself to have studied Aristotle, and to have excelled in logic. It is probable that he studied Aristotle in Porphyry or Boetius. As the Aristotelian philosophy was introduced into the nourishing powers issue to the liver, and thence by the veins through all the body, feeding even the heart. Most of the nerves of feeling originate from the first part of the brain, and many of those of movement from its posterior portion nearer the spine. He places what he calls the virtus formalis,' and the 'communis sensus,' in the forepart of the brain. The spirit fills the ventricle there. Cogitation and memory are in the two other ventricles, but the place of memory is behind; so that the spirit of thought is in the middle, that is, between the treasury of the forms and that of the intentions. The space between these is equal. 2 The Arabian account of Aristotle's writings, quoted by Casiri, 304308, states the principal Arab translators and commentators of the various works of Aristotle. Buhle, in his late copious editions of Aristotle, has prefixed a short notice of the Arabian interpreters of Aristotle. Vol. 1. p. 321. Bipont, 1791. 3 The followers of Aristotle never formed more than a sect in Greece. The Platonists, the Epicureans, and the Academics were far more popular. Averroes says, that he expounds Porphyry at the request of some friends; but that, in his own opinion, this introduction was not necessary, because the great master's terms were sufficiently intelligible. Levi Ghersonides also made his annotations; in which he remarks, that he differs from Aristotle in considering the art not to be science, but an organum to the sciences, by which the intellect may judge between the false and the true. p. 1. See before, v. 4. p. 153, . 6 Ingulf. Hist. PP. 62 & 73. XI. England, as it was in almost every other country, by CHAP. the celebrated Isagoge, or Introduction of Porphyry, we shall form a better notion of the men and history of the scholastic ages, if we take a view of its principal contents. ANALYSIS OF PORPHYRY'S ISAGOGE. PORPHYRY mentions that he wrote this little work because he thought it necessary for the student of Aristotle's Categories to know, first, what he meant by his genus, species, proprium, and accidents: the theory of these being useful for definitions, and essential in all that concerned distinctions and demonstrations. He says, 'that abstaining from all deeper questions, he would try by a few remarks as an introduction, to explain succinctly the first elements of the more simple topics.' He therefore declines all discussion, whether genera and species really subsist in nature, or exist only in the naked thoughts of the mind; whether, if sub❤ sisting, they are bodily substances or incorporeal; and whether they have any separate being, or are inherent in the objects of physical sense; because he considers these to be points, and to require a more elaborate disquisition." very abstruse Of genus and species he remarks, that neither of them are singly spoken of; for genus is called a congregation of things which have a relation to some one thing else, and to each other. As the genus of the Heraclidæ is so named from Hercules, and from the many other persons who, by descending from him, have a relation with each other, and have, therefore, this appellation to distinguish them from other genera. Genus may be also named from a place as well as a parent. Thus Pindar is called a Theban, and Plato an Athenian. It is also used of things to which species are subjected, according to their apparent likenesses; for genus is then the principal or head of all that are arranged under it, and seems to comprise them.9 In this triple sense is genus used by Aristotle, who denominates that to be a genus which may be predicated of many things that I quote Porphyry's work from the edition of it in Buhle's Bipont edition of it, prefixed to the works of Aristotle, v. 1. 369-416, and select in the text the most material parts, as literally translating it as is consistent with perspicuity. 8 Porph. 2. Isag. c. 1. p. 369. Ibid. c. 2. p. 371. ILISTORY LOSOPHY. LITERARY BOOK differ in species-as the genus, animal. Of the things predicated VI. of this, some belong to one individual only; as Socrates, or this person, or that thing. Some of many; as genera, species, differences, and accidents, which are common to several, and not ENGLAND. peculiar to any one. Thus animal is the genus; man the species; his rationality, the difference; his risibility, the proprium, or his peculiar property; while white, black, sitting or walking, were the accidents.1o HISTORY OF But while genus thus differ from those things which are predicated of any one object, by being predicated of many, species, tho also predicated of many, is not spoken of those which differ in species, but of those which differ only in number. Thus the species, man, is so spoken of both Socrates and Plato, who as men differ only in number; but the genus, animal, is applied equally to man, ox, and horse, which differ in species as well as in number." Genus differs from the proprium, or appropriated peculiarity, because this is applied to one species only, of which it is the proprium, and to the individuals under it; as laughter belongs to man, and every man, but to nothing else."2 Genus also differs from difference, and from the accidents which are common to all; because, although these are predicated of multitudes, which differ in species, yet they are not predicated of them by reason of what they really are, but of the sort of things they are; for if we be asked what the thing is of which these are spoken, we answer, genus. We do not say, 'differences and species;' because these terms are not attributed to any substance for being what it is, but for its being the kind of thing it happens to be.13 Then if we be asked what sort of thing a man is, we say, rational; or what kind of thing a crow is, we reply, black;-rational is the difference in the one case, and black the accident in the other but if we are questioned what thing or substance a man is, we shall answer, an animal, because that is the genus of man." SPECIES is that which is arranged under a genus, and of which the genus is predicated in that respect in which it really exists. It is that which is predicated of many things that differ in number, according to its being what it is.' In every category or predicament there are some things that are most general, and some that are most special. 10 Porph. Isag. c. 2. p. 372, 3. 12 Ibid. 1 Ibid. 11 Ibid. p. 373. 13 Ibid. p. 37415 Ibid. p. 376. |