Aristotle's Psychology: On the Soul and Parva Naturalia

M. Rodier’s text of the De anima with translation and notes (2 vols., Paris, 1900) is a notable product of French scholarship, in which the widely scattered materials of interpretation have been brought together and utilized with singular industry and insight. M. Rodier’s volumes have been prepared with a bias of interest different from that with which my own work is written, concerned, as they are, largely with questions of text, of philological criticism, and of the literary aspects of interpretation. They do not include the Parva naturalia. The aim of the present translation and introduction is rather to make easily accessible to English scholars the scientific content of these Aristotelian treatises, and thereby to facilitate inquiry into the history of philosophical and psychological ideas. For this reason my work does not duplicate the much wider and more ambitious investigations of M. Rodier, to whose scholarly labour I wish to pay my warmest tribute.

I desire further to record here my grateful acknowledgment of various and valuable help from my colleagues, Professors Bennett, Creighton, and Titchener. Professor Titchener has read the proof-sheets of the entire volume, and to him I am especially indebted for many suggestions and criticisms.