- published: 05 Jan 2012
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On the Soul (Greek Περὶ Ψυχῆς (Perì Psūchês), Latin De Anima) is a major treatise by Aristotle on the nature of living things. His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus plants have the capacity for nourishment and reproduction, the minimum that must be possessed by any kind of living organism. Lower animals have, in addition, the powers of sense-perception and self-motion (action). Humans have all these as well as intellect.
The notion of soul used by Aristotle is only distantly related to the usual modern conception. He holds that the soul is the form, or essence of any living thing; that it is not a distinct substance from the body that it is in; that it is the possession of soul (of a specific kind) that makes an organism an organism at all, and thus that the notion of a body without a soul, or of a soul in the wrong kind of body, is simply unintelligible. (He argues that some parts of the soul—the intellect—can exist without the body, but most cannot.) It is difficult to reconcile these points with the popular picture of a soul as a sort of spiritual substance "inhabiting" a body. Some commentators have suggested that Aristotle's term soul is better translated as lifeforce.
In a dream I had a final vision
How come you just want to be my friend? How come?
Will you ever have to justify
The hidden meaning in your time again, hey
I'm gone, gone just like the past because I'm gone
And you won't be the last 'cause I'll be strong
Now can you hear my voice? Because I'm gone, hey
In an ordinary complication, I come to my realization, how come?
Well, you came to me with velvet skin
How come I did let you in? How come?
I'm gone, gone just like the past because I'm gone
And you won't be the last 'cause I'll be strong
Now can you hear my voice? Because I'm gone
Still it breaks me down inside as I walk through the fire
But I am a stronger man
Nothing will change me at all, you lie
In a dream I had a final vision
How come you just want to be my friend? How come?
I'm gone, gone just like the past because I'm gone
And you won't be the last 'cause I'll be strong
Now can you hear my voice? Tonight I'm gone
I'm gone, gone just like the past because I'm gone
And you won't be the last 'cause I'll be strong