| 2. Nor is this explanation inconsistent with Aristotle's words subjoined: "About the intellect and the speculative faculty the case is not yet clear: but it seems to be another kind of soul." He does not hereby mean to separate the intellect from the common definition of 'soul,' but from the peculiar natures of the other parts of soul: as one who says that fowls are a different sort of animal from land animals, does not take away from the fowl the common definition of 'animal.' Hence, to show in what respect he called it "another kind," he adds: "And of this alone is there possibility of separation, as of the everlasting from the perishable." Nor is it the intention of Aristotle, as the Commentator aforesaid pretends, to say that it is not yet clear whether intellect be soul at all, as it is clear of other and lower vital principles. For the old text has not, "Nothing has been declared," or "Nothing has been said," but "Nothing is clear," which is to be understood as referring to the peculiar properties of intellect, not to the general definition (of soul). But if, as the Commentator says, the word 'soul' is used not in the same sense of intellect and other varieties, Aristotle would have first distinguished the ambiguity and then made his definition, as his manner is: otherwise his argument would rest on an ambiguity, an intolerable procedure in demonstrative sciences. | |