論人的本性 第 1 章 第 5/9 段

Concerning touch. Each of the other organs of sense the Creator made double, and circumscribed within a certain place and part of the body;

for indeed He made two eyes and two ears and two passages of sense in the nose, and He implanted two tongues in all animals;

but in some divided, as in serpents, and in others joined and united, as in men;

for this reason too He made only two front ventricles of the brain, so that from each ventricle the sensory nerves, being sent down, might make the sense-organs double;

and He made them double out of exceeding solicitude,

so that, if one were injured, the one remaining might preserve the sense.

But whereas, when most of the organs of sense are destroyed, the animal suffers no harm as regards life itself,

when touch is lost, the animal too perishes along with it.

For touch alone among the senses is common to all animals;

the other senses are not all possessed by all, but some by some;

but the more perfect animals possess them all.

Since, then, in this the animal was in peril of being or not being an animal, the Creator did not allot to touch a single part,

but well-nigh the whole body of the animal;

for except the bones and nails and horns, and the ligaments and hairs, and certain other such things, every part of the body partakes of touch.

It comes about, then, that each of the organs of sense has a twofold perception: the one of its own proper objects of sense, the other of touch, as in the case of sight;

for it both distinguishes colours and apprehends things hot and cold;

but the latter it perceives as a body, the colours as sight.

In the same way also taste and smell and hearing.

How, then, does touch belong to the whole body, if indeed we say that the senses are derived from the front ventricles of the brain? Or is it plain that, since nerves are sent down from the brain and dispersed into every part of the body, the sense of touch thereby arises?

But if this account were true, it would not be the part that is cut that felt pain, but the brain.

It is better, then, to say that the nerve is brain;

for it is a certain portion of the brain, having throughout itself the psychic spirit, just as red-hot iron holds the fire;

for this very reason, wherever a sensory nerve is implanted, that part receives sensation from it and becomes sensitive.

And it is perhaps not absurd to say that to the brain, the origin of the nerves, there is sent up not the affection itself, but a certain co-perception and announcement of the affection.

Now the proper objects of touch are the hot and the cold, the soft and the hard, the sticky and the brittle, the heavy and the light;

for these are known through touch alone.

Common to touch and sight are the sharp and the blunt, the rough and the smooth, the dry and the moist, the thick and the thin, the up and the down;

and also place, and magnitude when it is such as to be grasped in a single application of touch, and the dense and the rare, and the round when it is small, as also certain other shapes.

Likewise it also perceives the movement of the body that comes near to it, together with memory and understanding,

but only up to two or three of these, and those small and easily grasped;

or rather, sight apprehends these better than touch, just as it does the even and the uneven,

for this belongs to the class of the smooth and the rough; for unevenness mixed with hardness produces roughness, while evenness combined with density produces smoothness.

It is clear, then, from what has been said, that these senses have much fellowship with one another;

for the errors of the one the other makes plain.

In the case of a painting, at any rate, sight sees certain projections of a nose and of the other features;

but touch, coming up to it, refutes its error.

And just as sight always and in all cases sees through the medium of air, so too touch, through the medium of a staff, perceives things hard and soft and moist, but by way of inference and with the aid of the understanding;

for man possesses this sense most accurately.

In this at least, and in taste, he surpasses the other animals, though in the other three he is inferior.

For one animal excels man in one of the three senses,

but the dog in all three at once;

for it hears and sees and smells more keenly, as is plain from tracking hounds.

And the whole body is the organ of touch, as has been said before;

but chiefly the inner parts of the hands, and of these still more the tips of the fingers;

for these we have as it were accurate gauges of touch.

For the Creator fashioned the hands not merely as an organ for grasping, but also for touching;

for this reason they also have thinner skin, and muscle is spread beneath their whole inner surface, and they are devoid of hair, so that they may the better apprehend the objects of touch.

And the reason why they grow no hair is the muscle that is spread beneath them.

Of the hands, the harder are stronger for grasping,

but the softer are more accurate for touch;

just as, of the nerves also, the hard are more suited to movement, but the soft to sensation.

For these very things are the organs of touch.

For it is through these that the sensation of touch comes to be.

On Taste. We said in what preceded that sight sees along straight lines;

but smell and hearing perceive not only along a straight line but from every direction.

Touch and taste, however, discern neither along straight lines nor from every direction,

but only then, when they draw near to their own proper objects of sense—except for those cases already distinguished.

Now taste is that which apprehends flavors;

its organs are the tongue—and especially its tip—and, together with these, the palate; in these lie the nerves conveyed from the brain, spread out flat, which report the apprehension that has taken place to the ruling faculty.

These, then, are the so-called gustatory qualities of flavors:

sweetness, sourness, pungency, astringency, harshness, bitterness, saltiness, oiliness.

For it is these that taste discriminates.

It is with respect to these qualities that water too is called 'without quality,' since it displays none of these qualities in the tasting.

For with respect to the other qualities, such as coldness and moistness, it possesses its quality innately.

Astringency and harshness differ from each other by a greater or lesser degree of astringency.

These, then, are just about the only simple gustatory qualities;

for in each kind of animal and of plants there are qualities peculiar to it.

For thus, as it may happen, we apprehend one quality of pork and another of goat's flesh.

Hence, even without having learned what sort of meat was set before us, we recognize it by the taste;

and this would not be so if the quality of each of the things tasted were not different. From which it follows that one could not embrace them under general categories, since they are infinite and altogether differing from one another; for even in those cases where some one of the simple qualities predominates, the difference among the things tasted according to their kind is nevertheless recognizable in these as well.

In the dried fig, the raisin, and the date, at any rate, one quality predominates—that of sweetness—yet taste distinguishes the difference of the kinds.

On Hearing. Hearing is that which perceives voices and sounds;

it discerns their sharpness and deepness, their smoothness and roughness, and their magnitude.

The organs of this sense too are the soft nerves from the brain and the structure of the ears, and especially the cartilaginous portion of them; for cartilage is well suited to sounds and echoes.

Man alone and the ape do not move their ears, whereas all the other animals that have ears move them.

On Smell. Smell comes to be through the nostrils, but is completed at the extremities of the front ventricles of the brain.

For these, being by nature most vapor-like, easily apprehend vapors.

For it has been said before as well that each of the sense-organs apprehends its own proper objects of sense according to a certain likeness and kinship.

The brain did not, however, send down a sensory nerve to smell as it did to the other sense-organs;

rather, by the extremities of its own nerves it fulfills the need and receives the transmission of the vapors.

The most general distinction among vapors is that of fragrance and stench, and that which lies between them, which is neither fragrant nor foul.

Fragrance arises when the moist humors within bodies have been perfectly concocted;

the intermediate condition arises in a middling degree;

and stench arises when they are more deficiently concocted, or not concocted at all.

On the Reasoning Faculty. Concerning the imaginative faculty, then—its power, its organs, its parts, and the communion and difference of its parts—enough has been said in the manner possible and as briefly as may be;

of the reasoning faculty, in general, belong judgments, assents, avoidances, and impulses;

and specifically, the intellections of the things that are, the virtues and the sciences, the principles of the arts, and the deliberative and the elective faculty;

and this faculty is also that which through dreams prophesies to us the future—which the Pythagoreans, following the Hebrews, say to be the only true divination.

The organ of this faculty too is the middle ventricle of the brain and the psychic spirit within it.

On the Faculty of Memory. The memorial faculty is the cause and the storehouse of memory and recollection;

and memory is, as Origen says, an image left behind from some sensation that was manifested in actuality;

but, as Plato says, it is the preservation of sensation and of intellection.

For the soul apprehends sensible things through the sense-organs, and opinion arises;

and it apprehends intelligible things through the intellect, and intellection arises.

Whenever, therefore, it preserves the impressions both of what it has opined and of what it has intellected, it is said to remember.

It seems, though, that in this passage Plato calls intellection not intellection in the strict sense but discursive reasoning.

For sensible things are remembered in themselves, but intelligible things only incidentally, since the memory even of the objects of reasoning results from a preceding representation;

and as for the things intelligible in the strict sense, we remember that we learned or heard them,

but we do not have a memory of their essence;

for the apprehension of intelligible things does not come from a preceding representation, but from instruction or from a natural conception.

And if we are said to remember the things we previously saw, or heard, or in some other way came to know,

the things capable of being remembered are those that come to be and pass away, that are constituted in time;

and memory is indeed of things absent, yet it does not come to be from the things that are absent.

It is called recollection whenever forgetfulness has intervened between the memories.

For recollection is the recovery of a memory that has become faded;

and it becomes faded through forgetfulness;

and forgetfulness is the loss of memory;

but the one kind is permanent, the other only to a certain degree, and it is of this latter that recollection takes place.

There is, however, another sort of recollection, which is not the forgetting of things derived from sensation and intellection, but of natural conceptions;

and we call 'natural' those conceptions which belong to all men without being taught.

This Plato says is recollection of the Ideas;

and what the Idea is, we shall say in what follows.

The imaginative faculty, then, hands over the appearances to the reasoning faculty;

and the reasoning or discursive faculty, having received and judged them, passes them on to the memorial faculty.

The organ of this faculty too is the hindmost ventricle of the brain, which they also call the cerebellum and the paregkranis, and the psychic spirit within it.

And since we assert that the beginnings and roots of the senses are the front ventricles of the brain, that of the reasoning faculty is the middle one, and that of the memorial faculty is the hindmost, it is necessary to demonstrate whether these things are indeed so, lest we should seem to believe irrationally what is being said.

And the most sufficient proof is that which is taken from the very functioning of the parts.

For when the front ventricles are injured in whatever manner, the senses are impeded, yet the reasoning faculty still remains preserved;

and when the middle ventricle alone is affected, the intellect is deranged, but the sense-organs remain, preserving sensation according to nature;

and if both the front ventricles and the middle one are affected, the reasoning is deranged together with the senses;

and when the cerebellum is affected, memory alone is destroyed, while sensation and reasoning are in no way harmed [it is clear, of course, that our discourse is not now about voluntary motion];

but if, together with the front ventricles, both the middle and the hindmost suffer some harm, then sensation, reasoning, and memory are all corrupted at once, in addition to the whole living creature's being in danger of perishing.

This becomes evident through many other afflictions and symptoms as well, but most especially from phrenitis.

For among those suffering from phrenitis, some preserve their senses intact, while the reasoning faculty alone is impaired.

Galen records such a case of a man afflicted with phrenitis, who, while a certain wool-worker was plying his trade in his house, rose up, took some glass vessels, rushed to the windows, and called out to the passers-by, naming each of the vessels by name, asking whether they wished it to be thrown down.

And when the bystanders said they wished it, he first hurled down each of the vessels;

then he asked those present whether they also wished the wool-worker to be thrown down;

and when they, thinking the matter to be a joke, said that for that very reason they wished it, he seized the wool-worker and thrust him down from above.

This man was sound in his senses;

for he knew that these were vessels and that this was a wool-worker;

but others are drawn along by an empty imagination, thinking they see things that are not seen;

yet in other respects they reason correctly.

These have suffered damage only in the anterior ventricles of the brain, while the middle one has remained unaffected.

From the afflictions that attend each part, the functions belonging to those parts are impeded;

for the living creature is damaged in that very activity which the affected part is by nature fitted to perform, just as when the foot is affected we are hindered in walking.

For this is the function the foot possesses.

On the internal and the uttered word. This, then, is one division of the psychic faculty, according to which certain parts of the body are co-divided along with it;

but there is another division, in a different manner, of the rational faculty of the soul: namely, what is called the internal word (logos endiathetos) and the uttered word (logos prophorikos).

The internal word is the movement of the soul that takes place in the discursive faculty without any utterance;

wherefore we often, even in silence, run through an entire discourse within ourselves;

and in dreams we hold conversations;

and it is chiefly in this respect that we are all rational.

For we are rational not so much in respect of the uttered word as in respect of this internal one.

Those who by disease have lost their voice are none the less rational.

But the uttered word has its activity in the voice and in the languages.

And the organs of the voice are many.

For the muscles within the intercostal spaces, the chest, the lung, the windpipe, the larynx and especially its cartilaginous part, the recurrent nerves, the glottis, and all the muscles that move these parts, are the organs of utterance.

But the organ of articulate speech is the mouth.

For in it speech is shaped and formed and, as it were, given its figure;

the tongue and the uvula serving the office of a plectrum;

while the teeth and the particular opening of the mouth fulfil, as in a lyre, the function of the strings, the nose too contributing something to euphony or cacophony, as is evident from those who sing.

They also divide the soul in another way, into faculties or forms or parts: into the vegetative, which is also called the nutritive and the passible; into the sensitive; and into the rational.

Of the organs of each of these, some have already been mentioned, and others will be spoken of in what follows.

Zeno the Stoic says that the soul has eight parts, dividing it into the ruling faculty (hegemonikon), the five senses, the vocal faculty, and the generative faculty.

But Panaetius the philosopher would have the vocal faculty to be a part of impulsive motion, saying so most rightly;

and the generative faculty to be not a part of the soul, but of nature.

Aristotle, in his Physics, says that the parts of the soul are five: the vegetative, the sensitive, that which moves according to place, the appetitive, and the intellectual;

calling vegetative that which nourishes, causes growth and generation, and forms the bodies;

and he calls the vegetative also the nutritive, naming the whole after its most excellent part, namely the nourishing part, from which the other parts of the vegetative faculty derive their existence.

Thus he speaks in the Physics;

but in the Ethics he divides the soul into the two primary and most generic parts: the rational and the irrational;

and he subdivides the irrational into that which is obedient to reason and that which is not amenable to reason.

Concerning the rational, then, we have spoken in the foregoing;

but concerning the irrational we shall now treat.

On the irrational part or form of the soul, which is also called the passible and the appetitive. Some say that irrationality exists in its own right, as being an irrational soul, and not a part of the rational soul.

First, because it is found existing in its own right in the irrational animals;

from which it is evident that it is something complete, and not a part of another;

and next, because it is among the most absurd of things that the irrational should be a part of the rational.

But Aristotle says that it is both a part and a faculty, and he divides it into two, as we have said;

and these are commonly called also the appetitive faculty;

and to this belongs also impulsive motion.

For appetite is the principle of motion;

for animals, having felt appetite, dart forth into impulsive motion.

Of the irrational part, one portion does not obey reason, while the other is obedient to reason;

and again, that which is obedient to reason is divided into two: the concupiscible and the irascible.

The organ of the concupiscible faculty—that which operates through sensation—is the liver;

the organ of the irascible is the heart, a hard part capable of vigorous motion, appointed for hard service and intense impulse, just as the liver, a soft viscus, has become the organ of soft desire.

These are called obedient to reason because they are by nature fitted to obey reason, to be subordinated to it, and to be moved as reason commands, in the case of men who are in their natural state.

And these passions too are constitutive of the animal nature;

for without them life cannot subsist.

But since 'passion' is spoken of in more than one sense, we must first distinguish the ambiguity of the term.

For 'passion' is used also of the bodily, such as diseases and wounds;

and 'passion' is used also of the psychic, concerning which our present discourse is, namely desire and anger.

Now, commonly and generically, a passion of a living creature is that upon which pleasure or pain follows.

For pain follows upon the passion, and the passion itself is not pain.

For if this were so, then everything that undergoes a passion would also feel pain;

but as it is, things without sensation undergo passions, yet do not feel pain;

therefore the passion is not the pain, but rather the sensation of the passion is.

And this must also be considerable, in order that it may fall under sensation.

This is the definition of the psychic passions:

a passion is a movement of the appetitive faculty, perceptible, occasioned by the imagination of good or evil.

A passion is an irrational movement of the soul, arising through the supposition of something good or evil.

Passion in the generic sense they define thus:

A passion is a motion in one thing arising from another.

An activity, on the other hand, is a motion that acts of itself;

and that is called self-acting which is moved from within itself.

Thus, then, anger too is an activity of the spirited faculty, but a passion of the two parts of the soul, and moreover of our whole body, whenever it is violently driven by anger toward actions.

For the motion has come to be in one thing from another, which is just what we said passion to be.

And in yet another way an activity is called a passion, namely whenever it is contrary to nature.

For an activity is a motion in accordance with nature;

and so, according to this account, an activity, whenever it is moved not in accordance with nature, is called a passion, whether it be moved of itself or by something else.

The motion of the heart in the pulses, then, is an activity;

but its motion in palpitations is a passion.

For the motion in palpitations also arises from the heart itself, but not in accordance with nature;

and the motion of the pulses likewise arises from it, but in accordance with nature.

It is no wonder, then, that one and the same thing should be named both a passion and an activity.

For insofar as they are motions arising from the passive faculty of the soul itself, they are certain activities;

but insofar as they are immoderate and contrary to nature, they are not activities but passions.

Thus, then, the motion of the irrational part is a passion according to both significations.

Yet not every motion of the passive faculty is called a passion;

but only the more vehement ones, which advance so as to reach perception.

For the small and imperceptible ones are not yet passions.

For a passion must also possess a magnitude worthy of note.

Wherefore there is added to the definition of passion the phrase 'a perceptible motion.'

For the small motions, escaping perception, do not produce a passion, as has been said.

Concerning the appetitive faculty. As we have said, then, the irrational part of the soul that is obedient to reason is divided into two, the appetitive and the spirited;

and again the appetitive faculty is divided into two, into pleasures and pains;

for desire, when it attains its object, produces pleasure;

and again, in another way, desire when divided produces in all four kinds together with itself.

For since of existing things some are good and some are bad;

and some are already present, while others are anticipated;

according to these modes, the two being multiplied into two, the affections of desire are divided into four.

For there is the good and the bad;

and again the present and the anticipated.

An anticipated good is desire;

again, an anticipated evil is fear.

For pleasure and desire are concerned with good things;

but fear and pain with bad things.

Wherefore some divide passion into four: desire, pleasure, fear, and pain.

And by 'good' and 'bad' we mean either things that truly are so, or things that are merely reckoned to be so.

The evil passions arise in the soul through these three causes:

through bad upbringing, out of ignorance, and by reason of a poor bodily constitution.

For not having been well brought up from childhood so as to be able to master the passions, we fall away into their immoderation;

and out of ignorance bad judgments are implanted in the rational faculty of the soul, so that we think evil things to be good and good things evil;

and some passions also arise from the poor constitution of the body.

For those of a bitter, choleric humor are prone to anger, and those hot and moist in temperament are prone to lust;

and a bad habit must be treated by a good habit, ignorance by learning and knowledge, and the poor constitution must be cured bodily, restoring it as far as possible to the mean temperament by a suitable regimen, by exercises, and by medicines, if we should even have need of these.

Concerning pleasures. Of pleasures, some are of the soul and some of the body.

Of the soul are those which belong to the soul itself in and of itself, such as those concerned with studies and contemplation; for these and such like belong to the soul alone;

but bodily pleasures are those which come to be through the communion of body and soul, and for this reason are called bodily, such as those concerned with foods and sexual intercourse.

But of the body alone one could find no proper pleasures, but only passions, such as incisions, fluxes, and the qualities that arise according to temperament.

For every pleasure is attended by perception;

and we have shown perception to belong to the soul.

It is clear, then, that pleasure is among the things spoken of in many senses.

For they fall under one genus and another, as the earnest pleasures and the base ones;

and some are false, others true;

and some belong to the understanding alone, according to knowledge;

while others are joined with the body, according to perception;

and of these very pleasures that are according to perception, some are natural;

and to the pleasure in drinking is opposed the pain in thirsting;

all these things, then, show that pleasure is an equivocal term.

Of the so-called bodily pleasures, some are at once necessary and natural, without which it is impossible to live;

such as the foods that fill up want, and the necessary garments;

and some are natural, but not necessary, such as unions according to nature and according to law.

For these contribute to the perpetuation of the whole race;

yet it is possible to live even without them, in virginity.

And some are neither necessary nor natural, such as drunkenness, lechery, and gluttonous excesses that go beyond need.

For these neither contribute to the succession of our race, as does lawful intercourse, nor to the sustaining of life, but even work harm besides.

The one who lives according to God, therefore, must pursue only those pleasures that are at once necessary and natural;

while the one who comes after him, ranked in the second order of the virtues, may partake both of these and of those that are natural but not necessary, with due manner, measure, time, and place;

but the others must be shunned by every means.

And simply put, one must reckon these to be good pleasures: those not entangled with pain, nor productive of repentance, nor generative of any other harm, nor passing beyond due measure, nor drawing us away from earnest works for long, nor enslaving us.

But pleasures properly so called are those which somehow accompany or are interwoven with the contemplation of the divine, with the sciences, and with the virtues. These must be reckoned among the things worthy of first and highest pursuit, since they contribute not simply to existence, nor to the preservation of the species, but to living well, to being earnest and beloved of God, and to the very perfection of man in his soul and in his intellect. Such pleasures are neither remedies for certain distresses, as are those that make up for a lack, nor do they at all have any grief going before, following after, or set against them; rather they are pure and unmingled with any material entanglement, being of the soul alone.

For according to Plato, some pleasures are false and others true.

False are all those which arise together with sense-perception and with an opinion that is not true, and which have griefs interwoven with them.

True are all those which belong to the soul alone, taken by itself in and of itself, together with knowledge, intellect, and prudence—pure and unmixed with grief, upon which no repentance ever follows.

And the pleasures that follow upon contemplation and upon noble actions they call not passions but affections.

Some, however, properly call such pleasure joy.

They define pleasure as a coming-to-be into a perceptible nature.

But this definition seems to apply to bodily pleasure alone.

For this is a kind of replenishing and healing of bodily lack, and of the grief that has arisen on account of that lack.

For when we are cold or thirsty, in healing the grief that comes from cold and thirst, we take pleasure in being warmed and in drinking.

They are therefore good incidentally, and not in themselves nor by nature.

For just as being restored to health is good incidentally, whereas being healthy is good by nature and in itself,

so also these pleasures are good incidentally, being certain healings;

but the pleasures of contemplation are good in themselves and by nature.

For they do not arise on account of any lack.

It is clear from this, then, that not every pleasure is a replenishing of a lack.

But if this is so, then unsound is the definition which says that pleasure is a coming-to-be into a perceptible nature.

For it does not comprehend all the pleasures, but leaves out that which comes from contemplation.

Epicurus too, in defining pleasure as the removal of everything that gives pain, says the same thing as those who call it a coming-to-be into a perceptible nature.

For he says that the release from what gives pain is pleasure.

But since no coming-to-be is of the same kind as, or akin to, its own results, neither must the coming-to-be of pleasure be regarded as pleasure, but as something other than pleasure.

And nothing that comes to be is at the same time both coming to be and already come to be.

Rather, it is plain that it comes to be part by part;

but he who takes pleasure has taken pleasure all at once.

Again, every coming-to-be is of that which is not yet;

but pleasure is of things that already are.

Pleasure, therefore, is not a coming-to-be.

Again, a coming-to-be is said to be swift or slow;

Again, of good things, some are a state, some an activity, and some instruments.

An activity is, for instance, the exercise that corresponds to that state.