Note (return) — Chapter XII

"Sensation," in its lowest form, is defined by Aristotle as "an excitation of the soul through the body," 700 and, in its higher form, as the excitation of the soul by any object of knowledge. In this latter form it is used by him as synonymous with "intuition," and embraces all immediate intuitive perceptions, whether of sense, consciousness, or reason. "The universe is derived from particulars, therefore we ought to have a sensible perception (αὶσθησις) of these; and this is intellect (νοῦς)." 701 Intelligence proper, the faculty of first principles, is, in certain respects, a sense, because it is the source of a class of truths which, like the perceptions of the senses, are immediately revealed as facts to be received upon their own evidence. It thus answers to the "sensus communis" of Cicero, and the "Common Sense" of the Scottish school. Under this aspect, "Sense is equal to or has the force of Science." 702 The term "Experience" is also used to denote, not merely the perception and remembrance of the impressions which external objects make upon the mind, but as co-extensive with the whole contents of consciousness--all that the mind does of its own native energy, as well as all that it suffers from without. It is evidently used in the Posterior Analytic (bk. ii. ch. xix.) to describe the whole process by which the knowledge of universals is obtained. "From experience, or from every universal remaining in the soul, the principles of art and science arise." The office of experience is "to furnish the principles of every science" 703--that is, to evoke them into energy in the mind. 'Experience thus seems to be a thing almost similar to science and art. 704 In the most general sense, "sensation" would thus appear to be the immediate perception or intuition of facts and principles, and "experience" the operation of the mind upon these facts and principles, elaborating them into scientific form according to its own inherent laws. The "experience" of Aristotle is analogous to the "reflection" of Locke.