We have already pointed1 out that there is no necessity that what originates movement should itself be moved. There are two senses in which anything may be moved-either (a) indirectly2, owing to something other than itself, or (b) directly, owing to itself. Things are ‘indirectly moved’ which are moved as being contained in something which is moved, e.g. sailors in a ship, for they are moved in a different sense from that in which the ship is moved; the ship is ‘directly moved’, they are ‘indirectly moved’, because they are in a moving vessel3. This is clear if we consider their limbs; the movement proper to the legs (and so to man) is walking, and in this case the sailors tare4 not walking. Recognizing the double sense of ‘being moved’, what we have to consider now is whether the soul is ‘directly moved’ and participates in such direct movement.
There are four species of movement-locomotion5, alteration6, diminution7, growth; consequently if the soul is moved, it must be moved with one or several or all of these species of movement. Now if its movement is not incidental, there must be a movement natural to it, and, if so, as all the species enumerated8 involve place, place must be natural to it. But if the essence of soul be to move itself, its being moved cannot be incidental to-as it is to what is white or three cubits long; they too can be moved, but only incidentally-what is moved is that of which ‘white’ and ‘three cubits long’ are the attributes, the body in which they inhere; hence they have no place: but if the soul naturally partakes in movement, it follows that it must have a place.
Further, if there be a movement natural to the soul, there must be a counter-movement unnatural9 to it, and conversely. The same applies to rest as well as to movement; for the terminus ad quem of a thing’s natural movement is the place of its natural rest, and similarly the terminus ad quem of its enforced movement is the place of its enforced rest. But what meaning can be attached to enforced movements or rests of the soul, it is difficult even to imagine.
Further, if the natural movement of the soul be upward, the soul must be fire; if downward, it must be earth; for upward and downward movements are the definitory characteristics of these bodies. The same reasoning applies to the intermediate movements, termini, and bodies. Further, since the soul is observed to originate movement in the body, it is reasonable to suppose that it transmits to the body the movements by which it itself is moved, and so, reversing the order, we may infer from the movements of the body back to similar movements of the soul. Now the body is moved from place to place with movements of locomotion. Hence it would follow that the soul too must in accordance with the body change either its place as a whole or the relative places of its parts. This carries with it the possibility that the soul might even quit its body and re-enter it, and with this would be involved the possibility of a resurrection of animals from the dead. But, it may be contended, the soul can be moved indirectly by something else; for an animal can be pushed out of its course. Yes, but that to whose essence belongs the power of being moved by itself, cannot be moved by something else except incidentally, just as what is good by or in itself cannot owe its goodness to something external to it or to some end to which it is a means.
If the soul is moved, the most probable view is that what moves it is sensible things.
We must note also that, if the soul moves itself, it must be the mover itself that is moved, so that it follows that if movement is in every case a displacement10 of that which is in movement, in that respect in which it is said to be moved, the movement of the soul must be a departure from its essential nature, at least if its self-movement is essential to it, not incidental.
Some go so far as to hold that the movements which the soul imparts to the body in which it is are the same in kind as those with which it itself is moved. An example of this is Democritus, who uses language like that of the comic dramatist Philippus, who accounts for the movements that Daedalus imparted to his wooden Aphrodite by saying that he poured quicksilver into it; similarly Democritus says that the spherical11 atoms which according to him constitute soul, owing to their own ceaseless movements draw the whole body after them and so produce its movements. We must urge the question whether it is these very same atoms which produce rest also-how they could do so, it is difficult and even impossible to say. And, in general, we may object that it is not in this way that the soul appears to originate movement in animals-it is through intention or process of thinking.
It is in the same fashion that the Timaeus also tries to give a physical account of how the soul moves its body; the soul, it is there said, is in movement, and so owing to their mutual12 implication moves the body also. After compounding the soul-substance out of the elements and dividing it in accordance with the harmonic numbers, in order that it may possess a connate sensibility for ‘harmony’ and that the whole may move in movements well attuned13, the Demiurge bent14 the straight line into a circle; this single circle he divided into two circles united at two common points; one of these he subdivided15 into seven circles. All this implies that the movements of the soul are identified with the local movements of the heavens.
Now, in the first place, it is a mistake to say that the soul is a spatial16 magnitude. It is evident that Plato means the soul of the whole to be like the sort of soul which is called mind not like the sensitive or the desiderative soul, for the movements of neither of these are circular. Now mind is one and continuous in the sense in which the process of thinking is so, and thinking is identical with the thoughts which are its parts; these have a serial17 unity18 like that of number, not a unity like that of a spatial magnitude. Hence mind cannot have that kind of unity either; mind is either without parts or is continuous in some other way than that which characterizes a spatial magnitude. How, indeed, if it were a spatial magnitude, could mind possibly think? Will it think with any one indifferently of its parts? In this case, the ‘part’ must be understood either in the sense of a spatial magnitude or in the sense of a point (if a point can be called a part of a spatial magnitude). If we accept the latter alternative, the points being infinite in number, obviously the mind can never exhaustively traverse them; if the former, the mind must think the same thing over and over again, indeed an infinite number of times (whereas it is manifestly possible to think a thing once only). If contact of any part whatsoever19 of itself with the object is all that is required, why need mind move in a circle, or indeed possess magnitude at all? On the other hand, if contact with the whole circle is necessary, what meaning can be given to the contact of the parts? Further, how could what has no parts think what has parts, or what has parts think what has none? We must identify the circle referred to with mind; for it is mind whose movement is thinking, and it is the circle whose movement is revolution, so that if thinking is a movement of revolution, the circle which has this characteristic movement must be mind.
If the circular movement is eternal, there must be something which mind is always thinking-what can this be? For all practical processes of thinking have limits-they all go on for the sake of something outside the process, and all theoretical processes come to a close in the same way as the phrases in speech which express processes and results of thinking. Every such linguistic20 phrase is either definitory or demonstrative. Demonstration21 has both a starting-point and may be said to end in a conclusion or inferred result; even if the process never reaches final completion, at any rate it never returns upon itself again to its starting-point, it goes on assuming a fresh middle term or a fresh extreme, and moves straight forward, but circular movement returns to its starting-point. Definitions, too, are closed groups of terms.
Further, if the same revolution is repeated, mind must repeatedly think the same object.
Further, thinking has more resemblance to a coming to rest or arrest than to a movement; the same may be said of inferring.
It might also be urged that what is difficult and enforced is incompatible22 with blessedness; if the movement of the soul is not of its essence, movement of the soul must be contrary to its nature. It must also be painful for the soul to be inextricably bound up with the body; nay23 more, if, as is frequently said and widely accepted, it is better for mind not to be embodied24, the union must be for it undesirable25.
Further, the cause of the revolution of the heavens is left obscure. It is not the essence of soul which is the cause of this circular movement-that movement is only incidental to soul-nor is, a fortiori, the body its cause. Again, it is not even asserted that it is better that soul should be so moved; and yet the reason for which God caused the soul to move in a circle can only have been that movement was better for it than rest, and movement of this kind better than any other. But since this sort of consideration is more appropriate to another field of speculation26, let us dismiss it for the present.
The view we have just been examining, in company with most theories about the soul, involves the following absurdity27: they all join the soul to a body, or place it in a body, without adding any specification28 of the reason of their union, or of the bodily conditions required for it. Yet such explanation can scarcely be omitted; for some community of nature is presupposed by the fact that the one acts and the other is acted upon, the one moves and the other is moved; interaction always implies a special nature in the two interagents. All, however, that these thinkers do is to describe the specific characteristics of the soul; they do not try to determine anything about the body which is to contain it, as if it were possible, as in the Pythagorean myths, that any soul could be clothed upon with any body-an absurd view, for each body seems to have a form and shape of its own. It is as absurd as to say that the art of carpentry could embody29 itself in flutes30; each art must use its tools, each soul its body.
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1
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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3
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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4
tare
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| n.皮重；v.量皮重 | |
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5
locomotion
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| n.运动，移动 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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7
diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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8
enumerated
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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displacement
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| n.移置，取代，位移，排水量 | |
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spherical
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| adj.球形的；球面的 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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13
attuned
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| v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音 | |
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14
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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subdivided
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| 再分，细分( subdivide的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
spatial
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| adj.空间的，占据空间的 | |
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serial
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| n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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linguistic
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| adj.语言的，语言学的 | |
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21
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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28
specification
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| n.详述；[常pl.]规格，说明书，规范 | |
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29
embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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30
flutes
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| 长笛( flute的名词复数 )； 细长香槟杯（形似长笛） | |
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