ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE - Book1

Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)


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An excerpt from the beginning of the PREFACE:

HAVING, after careful study of this Treatise, been led to the conclusion that Aristotle's object, in its composition,

was to put before the world his own opinions as well as those of former and contemporaneous writers upon the Vital

Principle, I have been induced to undertake a translation of it, in order to give the general reader the theories,

hypotheses, and opinions which prevailed, at that early period of natural and physiological knowledge, upon life and its

manifestations. The Treatise, indeed, records all the prevailing opinions upon living beings and sentient properties,

which lie scattered through Aristotle's other physiological writings; and it displays, perhaps more than any other of

his works, the extent of his knowledge, and the perspicacity of his intellect. Should it, however, be questioned whether

a work, composed at a time when the special sciences pertaining to its subject were yet in their infancy, can be now of

any value, it might be answered that, irrespective of any positive result, an interest must ever be taken in the

investigation, truthfully conducted, of nature's operations; and that this, brief as it is, comprises many of the

dogmata, of an otherwise enlightened age, upon the more abstruse topics of natural philosophy and physiology.

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that several versions of this Treatise are extant, but as they have been written

under an impression that its design is rather psychological than physiological, this misapprehension has tended to

vitiate, or render unintelligible what otherwise, as literary productions, might have done justice to the original. Some

of the translators, besides, seem to have been but imperfectly acquainted with physiology, and this want of preliminary

knowledge has sometimes led to a misapprehension of the text, and sometimes to an inadequate appreciation of what could

be only suggestive. Thus, the causes which have contributed to make the text abstruse, and even in places

unintelligible, have concurred in making the translations obscure, and occasionally incomprehensible; for besides

indications of imperfect anatomical knowledge, the arguments in the Treatise can be regarded but as suggestions, and be

elucidated only by reference to the more matured science of modern times. It cannot derogate from what is due to

Aristotle, to admit that physiology, in his age, was not only encumbered with the hypotheses of earlier schools, but

also dwarfed and distorted by imperfect acquaintance with those systems and organs of the living body, which he

perceived, intuitively, to be necessary to a full comprehension of his subject. But although the opinions and

conjectures of this Treatise may, from the advanced state of anatomy and physiology, have but little intrinsic value,

the method adopted by Aristotle may not be undeserving the attention of those who, with a wider range of special

knowledge, are better prepared for the undertaking; unless, indeed, the Vital Principle is to be set down among those

final causes, which, lying beyond the human comprehension, are to be admitted as ultimate facts. Although this may be

the case, however, some interest must be taken in a Treatise which is, not only indicative of Aristotle's style and mode

of argument, but pregnant also, by allusion, with collateral information.

This version has been made with the intention of rendering it, in so far as the analogies of language would allow, a

faithful transcript of the opinions and manner of Aristotle; and notes are added for the elucidation of passages which

by no periphrasis could be made intelligible to the general reader. It may be observed that the mind, (ὁ νοῦς), although

nowhere defined, appears, in this Treatise, to represent the abstract immaterial principle usually attributed to the

ψυχή; for it alone is excluded from all direct participation in corporeal functions or changes.