On the Vital Principle/Book 3/Prelude to Chapter 3

On the Vital Principle
by Aristotle, translated by Charles Collier
Book 3, Prelude to Chapter 3
260403On the Vital Principle — Book 3, Prelude to Chapter 3Charles CollierAristotle


PRELUDE TO CHAPTER III.
This chapter may be regarded as a metaphysical disquisition, since its purport is to distinguish mental faculties from corporeal sensations as well as to examine the opinions of earlier writers who had maintained that cogitation is some kind of sensation; and, finally, the nature of imagination, as lying intermediately between faculties and sensations, is investigated and defined. It treats, too, although but incidentally, of the understanding, knowledge, opinion, and other topics which border on abstractions; and closes with etymology to shew the sentient origin of imagination.