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implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being destroyed' (408b). Again: 'We have no evidence as yet about mind or the power to think; it seems to be a widely different kind of soul, differing as what is eternal from what is perishable; it alone is capable of existence in isolation from all other psychic powers. All the other parts of soul, it is evident from what we have said, are, in spite of certain statements to the contrary, incapable of separate existence' (413b). The mind is the part of us that understands mathematics and philosophy; its objects are timeless, and therefore it is regarded as itself timeless. The soul is what moves the body and perceives sensible objects; it is characterized by self-nutrition, sensation, feeling, and motivity (413b); but the mind has the higher function of thinking, which has no relation to the body or to the senses. Hence the mind can be immortal, though the rest of the soul cannot.

To understand Aristotle's doctrine of the soul, we must remember that the soul is the 'form' of the body, and that spatial shape is one kind of 'form'. What is there in common between soul and shape? I think what is in common is the conferring of unity upon a certain amount of matter. The part of a block of marble which afterwards becomes a statute is, as yet, not separated from the rest of the marble; it is not yet a 'thing', and has not yet any unity. After the sculptor has made the statue, it has unity, which it derives from its shape. Now the essential feature of the soul, in virtue of which it is the 'form' of the body, is that it makes the body an organic whole, having purposes as a unit. A single organ has purposes lying outside itself; the eye, in isolation, cannot see. Thus many things can be said in which an animal or plant as a whole is the subject, which cannot be said about any part of it. It is in this sense that organization, or form, confers substantiality. That which confers substantiality upon a plant or animal is what Aristotle calls its 'soul'. But 'mind' is something different, less intimately bound up with the body; perhaps it is a part of the soul, but it is possessed by only a small minority of living beings (415a). Mind as speculation cannot be the cause of movement, for it never thinks about what is practicable, and never says what is to be avoided or what pursued (432b).

A similar doctrine, though with a slight change of terminology, is set forth in the Nicomachean Ethics. There is in the soul one element that is rational, and one that is irrational. The irrational part is two-fold: the vegetative, which is found in everything living, even in plants, and the appetitive, which exists in all animals (1102b). The life of the rational soul consists in contemplation, which is the complete happiness of man though not fully attainable. 'Such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue (the practical kind). If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life in accordance with it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything' (1177b).

It seems, from these passages, that individuality—what distinguishes one man from another—is connected with the body and the irrational soul, while the rational soul or mind is divine and impersonal. One man likes oysters, and another likes pineapples; this distinguishes between them. But when they think about the multiplication table, provided they think correctly, there is no difference between them. The irrational separates us, the rational unites us. Thus the immortality of