On the Vital Principle/Book 2/Prelude to Chapter 12
Prelude to Chap. XII.
Having treated of each of the senses, Aristotle here proceeds to consider the source of sensation, the sensibility, that is, which is typified as plastic wax, from its capability of receiving the form of an object without its matter. This comparison is indeed a happy one; and it has been often employed by writers in modern times, and "among others by Bossuet [1]." The chapter shews that for perception there must be a due relation between impression and sense, and that plants are insentient because they have no faculty for the reception of the forms of objects; and it concludes by shewing that the agency of some properties, as light, sound, &c., is confined to the sentient organs.
- ↑ Connoissance de Dieu.