FORE:So far, Aristotle regards the soul as a function, or energy, or perfection of the body, from which it can no more be separated than vision from the eye. It is otherwise with the part of mind which he calls Nous, or Reasonthe faculty which takes cognisance of abstract ideas or the pure forms of things. This corresponds, in the microcosm, to the eternal Nous of the macrocosm, and, like it, is absolutely immaterial, not depending for its activity on the exercise of any bodily organ. There is, however, a general analogy between sensation and thought considered as processes of cognition. Previous to experience, the Nous is no thought in particular, but merely a possibility of thinking, like a smooth wax tablet waiting to be written on. It is determined to some particular idea by contact with the objective forms of things, and in this determination is raised from power to actuality. The law of moderation, however, does not apply to thought. Excessive stimulation is first injurious and then destructive to the organs of sense, but we cannot have too much of an idea; the more intense it is the better are we able to conceive all the367 ideas that come under it, just because ideation is an incorporeal process. And there seems to be this further distinction between sensation and thought, that the latter is much more completely identified with its object than the former; it is in the very act of imprinting themselves on the Nous that the forms of things become perfectly detached from matter, and so attain their final realisation. It is only in our consciousness that the eternal ideas of transient phenomena become conscious of themselves. Such, we take it, is the true interpretation of Aristotles famous distinction between an active and a passive Nous. The one, he tells us, makes whatever the other is made. The active Nous is like light raising colours from possibility to actuality. It is eternal, but we have no remembrance of its past existence, because the passive Nous, without which it can think nothing, is perishable.
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FORE:In the face of such facts, to say, as Mr. Froude does, that Epicureanism was the creed of the men of science in the time of Julius Caesar111an assertion directly contradicted by Lange112is perhaps only of a piece with Mr. Froudes usual inaccuracy when writing about ancient history; but such declarations as that of Mr. Frederic Pollock, that the Epicurean system56 was a genuine attempt at a scientific explanation of the world; and was in its day the solitary protest against the contempt of physics which prevailed in the other post-Aristotelian schools;113 of Prof. Trezza, that the Epicurean school summed up in itself the most scientific elements of Greek antiquity;114 of Dr. Woltjer, that with respect to the laws and principles of science, the Epicureans came nearest of all the ancients to the science of our own time;115 and finally, of M. Ernest Renan, that Epicureanism was the great scientific school of antiquity,116 are absolutely amazing. The eminent French critic just quoted has elsewhere observed, with perfect justice, that the scientific spirit is the negation of the supernatural; and perhaps he argues that the negation of the supernatural must, reciprocally, be the scientific spirit. But this is only true when such a negation is arrived at inductively, after a disinterested survey of the facts. Epicurus started with the denial of supernatural interference as a practical postulate, and then hunted about for whatever explanations of natural phenomena would suit his foregone conclusion. Moreover, an enquirer really animated by the scientific spirit studies the facts for their own sake; he studies them as they actually are, not resting content with alternative explanations; and he studies them to the fullest extent of which his powers are capable. Epicurus, on the contrary, declares that physics would not be worth attending to if the mind could be set free from religious terrors in any other manner;117 he will not let himself be tied down to any one theory if there are others equally inconsistent with divine agency to be had;118 and when his demands in this respect are satisfied, that is, when the appearances vulgarly ascribed to supernatural causation have been provided with natural causes, he leaves off."The Reverend Head has been notified already ten times that he would be shot, and he is frequently being arrested for alleged shooting from the building. This shooting is actually done by German soldiers alone, who are loafing and looting, as I myself noticed a short time ago. The Head took me to a room where an old man of ninety, who had just received the extreme unction, lay dying. By his side sat a broken-hearted little old woman, his wife. This old man had been taken prisoner with other men of Vis, and forced to work at a new bridge. The poor fellow broke down under the strain; it cost him his life."
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FORE:"We shall probably never know," she said after a pause. "But as to your own trouble, Gordon, dear Gordon, why don't you confide in me?"Nunc ratio nulla st restandi, nulla facultas,
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