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ARISTOTLE ON THE THE VITAL PRINCIPLE.
[BK. III.

must move them in an opposite, and whiteness in some other direction. Can, then, that which judges be, numerically, indivisible and inseparable, yet separable in its mode of being? If so, then, in some way, as divisible, it may perceive divisible, and, in some way, as indivisible, it may perceive indivisible qualities; for in its mode of being it is separable, but, locally and numerically, it is inseparable. But is not this impossible? The same may, in potentiality, be indivisible and divisible and be the contraries; but not so in mode of being, as it is divisible in action, and cannot possibly be at once white and black, nor be simultaneously impressed by the forms of those colours, provided sensation and thought are such as we have said they are. But it is with this, as with that which some call a point, and which, in so far as it is one or dual, is indivisible or divisible. Thus, in so far as that which judges is one, it is indivisible, and its perceptions are simultaneous; and in so far as it is divisible, it employs the same point twice, simultaneously. In so far, then, as it employs the boundary as two, it judges of two things by it and perceives that they are distinct, as the boundaries of the line are distinct; but in so far as it is one, it judges by one act, and judges simultaneously.

Let what has been said then suffice for the definition of that principle, by which we maintain that an animal is made a sentient being.