58 THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. 



hensive and fundamental antitheses with which phi- 

 losophy has to do; the opposition of sense and 

 reason, of impressions and laws. In this application, 

 the German philosophers have, up to the present 

 time, rested upon this distinction a great part of the 

 weight of their systems ; as when Kant says, that 

 Space and Time are the Forms of Sensation. Even 

 in our own language, we retain a trace of the in- 

 fluence of this Aristotelian notion, in the word 

 Information, when used for that knowledge, which 

 may be conceived as moulding the mind into a 

 definite shape, instead of leaving it a mere mass of 

 unimpressed susceptibility. * <; 



Another favourite Aristotelian antithesis is that 

 of Power and Act (3i/Va/xis, evepyeia). This distinc- 

 tion is made the basis of most of the physical phi- 

 losophy of the school; being, however, generally 

 introduced with a peculiar limitation. Thus, Light 

 is defined to be " the Act of what is lucid, as being 

 lucid. And if," it is added, "the lucid be so in 

 power but not in act, we have darkness." The 

 reason of the limitation, " as being lucid," is, that a 

 lucid body may act in other ways ; thus a torch may 

 move as well as shine, but its moving is not its act 

 as being a lucid body. 



Aristotle appears to be well satisfied with this 

 explanation, for he goes on to say, " Thus Light is 

 not Fire, nor any body whatever, or the emanation 

 of any body, (for that would be a kind of body,) but 

 it is the presence of something like Fire in the 



