Laws of Animality

Appendix 3. (1930).

Even among the ancients, I have not found a clear, constant explanation of the distinction between subjective and extrasubjective phenomena. Frequently they used a word expressing an extrasubjective phenomenon where they should have indicated the corresponding subjective phenomenon. We have an example in Galen. In his search for a definition of animal nature, he called it a spirit endowed with warmth (*). It is clear that the word indicates only an extrasubjective characteristic, just as in English the word 'warm', applied to warm air or a warm body, means that which produces warmth in the sensory of a being capable of such a feeling; it does not mean the feeling itself of warmth. At times the ancients must have been aware of the double meaning; indeed they were aware of it because everybody knows that some warm bodies are endowed with the faculty of feeling.

In solving the problem, they could not abandon the principle that warmth is the seat of life and feeling because its discovery was so convenient. They had recourse therefore to the following tiny distinction: no one can doubt that warmth is that which gives life and feeling, but this warmth is not elementary warmth, which is also found in inanimate bodies. Thus, without any difficulty, they invented two kinds of warmth. But if this so-called 'elementary warmth' is not that felt by all human beings, what is the new warmth, the principle of life? It has to be something different from warmth, and we certainly know nothing about it (vox, vox praetereaque nihil [it is a sound, simply a sound and nothing more]).

This example of error and scientific illusion, which human beings invent for themselves, can also be seen in Fernel's work, which I have already quoted, De naturali parti medicinae. In Book 4, c. 1, he states as certain that what gives life and feeling is warmth: 'It is a generally accepted opinion that everything that lives does so because of the warmth within it. With the help of this warmth, the living entity takes in and breaks down food with which it is nourished and sustained. The entity grows and, as living, is AFFECTED AND MOVED BY FEELING. The more perfect these actions, the greater the power of the warmth, and the richer the substance we can mentally conceive.' Caught in this opinion, he racks his brains trying to show that this warmth cannot be a common, elementary warmth, but something more sublime: 'It is above the nature of the elements'! We have therefore warmth which is not warmth!