ON THE SOUL

Chapter One: Concerning the Proofs

What the powers of the soul are.

The text begins with a decorative woodcut initial 'Q'.
Whoever wishes to describe any thing and assert its true essence original: "quiditatem," a technical Scholastic term meaning 'what-ness' before its existence has first been confirmed, shall be numbered by wise men among those who wander from the right path. Therefore, it is necessary for us to strive first in the affirmation of the discovery and existence of the powers of the soul, before effort is spent on the definition of any one of them or in a demonstrative discourse about them. And since the properties most properly attributed to the powers of the soul are two things—one of which is motion and the other is apprehension or perception—it is fitting for us to declare that in every moving body there is an instrument or cause of its motion. Furthermore, it appears to us from this that a body moving with a motion added beyond its natural motion—such as beyond the motion of a heavy thing downward or a light thing upward—possesses a moving instrument or a moving cause which we name the "soul" Latin: "anima" or a "power of the soul." And it is manifest that whenever certain bodies are judged to be apprehensive or perceiving, then apprehension is not proven to be fitting or proportional to them except because of a power existing within them from which it is possible for apprehension to proceed. Let us begin, therefore, and say that concerning these things in which reason is not entirely hindered: whenever things share in something and differ in another, then that in which they share is different from that in which they differ. And we find indeed that all bodies share in this: that
A they are "body." Then we find them differing after that in the fact that they are moved; and if it were not so, then nothing would be found having rest—indeed, motion would not be found at all, except for motion over a round space, or circular motion. For straight motions are already affirmed to be from their own form or from their definition; namely, that they do not proceed or terminate except from rest to rest. It is manifest, however, that motion is not attributed to bodies simply because they are "body," but rather because of a cause added beyond their corporeality The state of being a physical body. From which indeed...