206 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



comes necessary to inquire by what efforts so subtile and 

 minute a breath can put such gross and solid bodies in 

 motion. Therefore, as this part is deficient, let due inquiry 

 be made concerning it. 



Sense and sensibility have been much more fully and 

 diligently inquired into, as well in general treatises upon 

 the subject as in particular arts; viz., perspective, music, 

 etc. ; but how justly, is not to the present intention. And, 

 therefore, we cannot note them as deficient; yet there are 

 two excellent parts wanting in this doctrine: one upon the 

 difference of perception and sense, and the other upon 

 the form of light. In treating of sense and sensibility, 

 philosophers should have premised the difference between 

 perception and sense, as the foundation of the whole: for 

 we find there is a manifest power of perception in most nat 

 ural bodies, and a kind of appetite to choose what is agree 

 able, and to avoid what is disagreeable to them. Nor is 

 this meant of the more subtile perceptions only; as when 

 the loadstone attracts iron, or flame flies to petrol, or one 

 drop of water runs into another; or when the rays of light 

 are reflected from a white object, or when animal bodies 



TOU vov KOI TTJ? flewprjTiKijs Sui/a/u.ews ovBeirta Qavepov. AAA. eoi/ce tyvxw yevos erepov elvai, 

 /cat TOVTO U.OVQV evde^erat ^wpifjeafleu Ko.6a.rrep aifiiop TOU &amp;lt;j&amp;gt;9aprov (Arist. De An. ii. 2) * 



and as this power is not a simple act, but the effect of a vital substance, 

 possessing the principle of activity virtually in itself, he implies its capabil 

 ity to communicate motion to surrounding bodies even in a state of immo 



bility ; lO cos ya-p ov fjiovov ^u86s eo-ri TO TTJJ ovffiav avTTjs TOI auTijv elcai olav fyaalv oi 

 AeyovTes elvai T\IV tyvx*iv TO KIVOVV av-ro y Swdpevov Kivelv aAX ev n rlav aSvvaTtav T& 



vndpxeiv avrij nivrtviv. (Arist. ibid. iii. 1.) With regard to the precise mean 

 ing of the word entelechy there have been many disputes among the learned. 

 The origin of the term ought to be allowed to indicate its signification; but 

 Aristotle used it in distinct senses, as signifying not only a simple act or func 

 tion of an unsubstantial quality, but also as the act of a substantial power; and 

 his followers have never hit upon a generic term capable of uniting the two 

 notions. Many have abandoned it as untranslatable. Budseus uses the word 

 efficacia; Cicero paraphrases it as a certain continuous and eternal motion 

 (Tusc. i. 10), which only implies the motion of unsubstantial qualities, to which 

 Bacon confined it. This signification, however, was but the exceptional use of 

 the term, and does not coincide with the general applications of it in the Greek 

 schools. Hermonlaus Barbarus is said to have been so much oppressed with 

 this difficulty of translation, that he consulted the evil spirit by night, entreating 

 to be supplied with a more common and familiar substitute for this word; the 

 mocking fiend, however, suggested only a word equally obscure, and the trans 

 lator, discontented with this, invented for himself the word perfectibilia. Ed. 



