An enquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization / by John Barclay, M.D.

  • Barclay, John, 1758-1826.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An enquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization / by John Barclay, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    26/566 (page 6)
    Wither expresses it, the lirst continuall-motion of a bodie-naturall, having in it those instrumental! parts, wherein was possibility of lifeDinar- chus \ a harmony of heat, cold, moisture, and dry- ness: all of them, excepting Aristotle and Di- narchus, agreeing in this, that the soul is a sub- stance. Others imagined that there is but one universal soul, which emanates or is distributed in portions to all bodies, animate or inanimate. Such was the doctrine of the Manicheans. Others, again, taught that there is one universal soul, and, at the same time, many different species. Plato, who believed in the existence of a universal soul, pers, in that of Lucretius (lib. iii. v. 243. 280.) It seems, how- ever, to be generally agreed, that Aristotle uses the word ente- lecheia to express logically wh^t he meant by the soul. Le celebre Hermolaus Barbarus I'exprima en Latin mot a mot par perfeciihahia, car I'acte est un accomplissement de la puissance : et il n'avoit point besoin de consulter le diable, comme il a fait, a ce qu'on dit, pour n'apprendre que cela. (Leibnitz, Theodicee, p. 131. Amst. 1720, 12mo.) ^ The Nature of Man: a learned and usefull Tract written in Greek by Nemesius, &c. Englished by Geo: Wither. Lond. 1636, 12mo. Life, as the cause of the vital phenomena, is expressed in Greek by the term 4'^%^ l as an effect of that cause, by the term ^wrj. In English, the same word answers for both, which is often the source of much ambiguity. The Greeks were, in this instance, superior to us, not only in accuracy of ex- pression, but'distinctness of conception. f Dinarchus is supposed to be a typographical error for Di- caearchus. After several researches into various authors, the Oxford editor adds, Inde adducar ut credam, facili lapsu Dn narchum pro Dicaearcho interpolatum.