On The Soul   

the fact that, while sometimes on the occasion of violent and striking

occurrences there is no excitement or fear felt, on others faint and

feeble stimulations produce these emotions, viz. when the body is

already in a state of tension resembling its condition when we are

angry. Here is a still clearer case: in the absence of any external

cause of terror we find ourselves experiencing the feelings of a man

in terror. From all this it is obvious that the affections of soul are

enmattered formulable essences.

Consequently their definitions ought to correspond, e.g. anger

should be defined as a certain mode of movement of such and such a

body (or part or faculty of a body) by this or that cause and for this

or that end. That is precisely why the study of the soul must fall

within the science of Nature, at least so far as in its affections

it manifests this double character. Hence a physicist would define

an affection of soul differently from a dialectician; the latter would

define e.g. anger as the appetite for returning pain for pain, or

something like that, while the former would define it as a boiling

of the blood or warm substance surround the heart. The latter

assigns the material conditions, the former the form or formulable

essence; for what he states is the formulable essence of the fact,

though for its actual existence there must be embodiment of it in a

material such as is described by the other. Thus the essence of a

house is assigned in such a formula as 'a shelter against

destruction by wind, rain, and heat'; the physicist would describe

it as 'stones, bricks, and timbers'; but there is a third possible

description which would say that it was that form in that material

with that purpose or end. Which, then, among these is entitled to be

regarded as the genuine physicist? The one who confines himself to the

material, or the one who restricts himself to the formulable essence

alone? Is it not rather the one who combines both in a single formula?

If this is so, how are we to characterize the other two? Must we not

say that there is no type of thinker who concerns himself with those