The starting-point of our inquiry3 is an exposition of those characteristics which have chiefly been held to belong to soul in its very nature. Two characteristic marks have above all others been recognized as distinguishing that which has soul in it from that which has not-movement and sensation. It may be said that these two are what our predecessors have fixed4 upon as characteristic of soul.
Some say that what originates movement is both pre-eminently5 and primarily soul; believing that what is not itself moved cannot originate movement in another, they arrived at the view that soul belongs to the class of things in movement. This is what led Democritus to say that soul is a sort of fire or hot substance; his ‘forms’ or atoms are infinite in number; those which are spherical6 he calls fire and soul, and compares them to the motes7 in the air which we see in shafts8 of light coming through windows; the mixture of seeds of all sorts he calls the elements of the whole of Nature (Leucippus gives a similar account); the spherical atoms are identified with soul because atoms of that shape are most adapted to permeate9 everywhere, and to set all the others moving by being themselves in movement. This implies the view that soul is identical with what produces movement in animals. That is why, further, they regard respiration10 as the characteristic mark of life; as the environment compresses the bodies of animals, and tends to extrude11 those atoms which impart movement to them, because they themselves are never at rest, there must be a reinforcement of these by similar atoms coming in from without in the act of respiration; for they prevent the extrusion12 of those which are already within by counteracting13 the compressing and consolidating14 force of the environment; and animals continue to live only so long as they are able to maintain this resistance.
The doctrine15 of the Pythagoreans seems to rest upon the same ideas; some of them declared the motes in air, others what moved them, to be soul. These motes were referred to because they are seen always in movement, even in a complete calm.
The same tendency is shown by those who define soul as that which moves itself; all seem to hold the view that movement is what is closest to the nature of soul, and that while all else is moved by soul, it alone moves itself. This belief arises from their never seeing anything originating movement which is not first itself moved.
Similarly also Anaxagoras (and whoever agrees with him in saying that mind set the whole in movement) declares the moving cause of things to be soul. His position must, however, be distinguished16 from that of Democritus. Democritus roundly identifies soul and mind, for he identifies what appears with what is true-that is why he commends Homer for the phrase ‘Hector lay with thought distraught’; he does not employ mind as a special faculty17 dealing18 with truth, but identifies soul and mind. What Anaxagoras says about them is more obscure; in many places he tells us that the cause of beauty and order is mind, elsewhere that it is soul; it is found, he says, in all animals, great and small, high and low, but mind (in the sense of intelligence) appears not to belong alike to all animals, and indeed not even to all human beings.
All those, then, who had special regard to the fact that what has soul in it is moved, adopted the view that soul is to be identified with what is eminently originative of movement. All, on the other hand, who looked to the fact that what has soul in it knows or perceives what is, identify soul with the principle or principles of Nature, according as they admit several such principles or one only. Thus Empedocles declares that it is formed out of all his elements, each of them also being soul; his words are:
For ‘tis by Earth we see Earth, by Water Water,
By Ether Ether divine, by Fire destructive Fire,
By Love Love, and Hate by cruel Hate.
In the same way Plato in the Timaeus fashions soul out of his elements; for like, he holds, is known by like, and things are formed out of the principles or elements, so that soul must be so too. Similarly also in his lectures ‘On Philosophy’ it was set forth19 that the Animal-itself is compounded of the Idea itself of the One together with the primary length, breadth, and depth, everything else, the objects of its perception, being similarly constituted. Again he puts his view in yet other terms: Mind is the monad, science or knowledge the dyad (because it goes undeviatingly from one point to another), opinion the number of the plane, sensation the number of the solid; the numbers are by him expressly identified with the Forms themselves or principles, and are formed out of the elements; now things are apprehended20 either by mind or science or opinion or sensation, and these same numbers are the Forms of things.
Some thinkers, accepting both premisses, viz. that the soul is both originative of movement and cognitive21, have compounded it of both and declared the soul to be a self-moving number.
As to the nature and number of the first principles opinions differ. The difference is greatest between those who regard them as corporeal22 and those who regard them as incorporeal23, and from both dissent24 those who make a blend and draw their principles from both sources. The number of principles is also in dispute; some admit one only, others assert several. There is a consequent diversity in their several accounts of soul; they assume, naturally enough, that what is in its own nature originative of movement must be among what is primordial25. That has led some to regard it as fire, for fire is the subtlest of the elements and nearest to incorporeality26; further, in the most primary sense, fire both is moved and originates movement in all the others.
Democritus has expressed himself more ingeniously than the rest on the grounds for ascribing each of these two characters to soul; soul and mind are, he says, one and the same thing, and this thing must be one of the primary and indivisible bodies, and its power of originating movement must be due to its fineness of grain and the shape of its atoms; he says that of all the shapes the spherical is the most mobile, and that this is the shape of the particles of fire and mind.
Anaxagoras, as we said above, seems to distinguish between soul and mind, but in practice he treats them as a single substance, except that it is mind that he specially27 posits28 as the principle of all things; at any rate what he says is that mind alone of all that is simple, unmixed, and pure. He assigns both characteristics, knowing and origination of movement, to the same principle, when he says that it was mind that set the whole in movement.
Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded about him, seems to have held soul to be a motive29 force, since he said that the magnet has a soul in it because it moves the iron.
Diogenes (and others) held the soul to be air because he believed air to be finest in grain and a first principle; therein lay the grounds of the soul’s powers of knowing and originating movement. As the primordial principle from which all other things are derived30, it is cognitive; as finest in grain, it has the power to originate movement.
Heraclitus too says that the first principle-the ‘warm exhalation’ of which, according to him, everything else is composed-is soul; further, that this exhalation is most incorporeal and in ceaseless flux31; that what is in movement requires that what knows it should be in movement; and that all that is has its being essentially32 in movement (herein agreeing with the majority).
Alcmaeon also seems to have held a similar view about soul; he says that it is immortal33 because it resembles ‘the immortals,’ and that this immortality34 belongs to it in virtue35 of its ceaseless movement; for all the ‘things divine,’ moon, sun, the planets, and the whole heavens, are in perpetual movement.
of More superficial writers, some, e.g. Hippo, have pronounced it to be water; they seem to have argued from the fact that the seed of all animals is fluid, for Hippo tries to refute those who say that the soul is blood, on the ground that the seed, which is the primordial soul, is not blood.
Another group (Critias, for example) did hold it to be blood; they take perception to be the most characteristic attribute of soul, and hold that perceptiveness36 is due to the nature of blood.
Each of the elements has thus found its partisan37, except earth-earth has found no supporter unless we count as such those who have declared soul to be, or to be compounded of, all the elements. All, then, it may be said, characterize the soul by three marks, Movement, Sensation, Incorporeality, and each of these is traced back to the first principles. That is why (with one exception) all those who define the soul by its power of knowing make it either an element or constructed out of the elements. The language they all use is similar; like, they say, is known by like; as the soul knows everything, they construct it out of all the principles. Hence all those who admit but one cause or element, make the soul also one (e.g. fire or air), while those who admit a multiplicity of principles make the soul also multiple. The exception is Anaxagoras; he alone says that mind is impassible and has nothing in common with anything else. But, if this is so, how or in virtue of what cause can it know? That Anaxagoras has not explained, nor can any answer be inferred from his words. All who acknowledge pairs of opposites among their principles, construct the soul also out of these contraries, while those who admit as principles only one contrary of each pair, e.g. either hot or cold, likewise make the soul some one of these. That is why, also, they allow themselves to be guided by the names; those who identify soul with the hot argue that sen (to live) is derived from sein (to boil), while those who identify it with the cold say that soul (psuche) is so called from the process of respiration and (katapsuxis). Such are the traditional opinions concerning soul, together with the grounds on which they are maintained.
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1
formulating
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| v.构想出( formulate的现在分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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2
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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3
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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4
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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5
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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6
spherical
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| adj.球形的；球面的 | |
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7
motes
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| n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点 | |
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8
shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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9
permeate
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| v.弥漫，遍布，散布；渗入，渗透 | |
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10
respiration
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| n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用 | |
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11
extrude
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| v.挤出；逐出 | |
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12
extrusion
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| n.挤出；推出；喷出；赶出 | |
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13
counteracting
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的现在分词 ) | |
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14
consolidating
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| v.（使）巩固， （使）加强( consolidate的现在分词 )；（使）合并 | |
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15
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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16
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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17
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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18
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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19
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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20
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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21
cognitive
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| adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的 | |
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22
corporeal
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| adj.肉体的，身体的；物质的 | |
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23
incorporeal
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| adj.非物质的，精神的 | |
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24
dissent
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| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
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25
primordial
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| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
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26
incorporeality
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| [法] 无形体，无形性 | |
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27
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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28
posits
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| v.假定，设想，假设( posit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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29
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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30
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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31
flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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32
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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33
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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34
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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35
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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36
perceptiveness
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| n.洞察力强，敏锐，理解力 | |
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37
partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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