at man's reason is the
actualization of this eternal reason, and in that sense "comes from
God" and returns to Him. We may add, too, that since God, though real,
is not to be regarded as an existent individual, our return to Him
cannot be thought as a continuation of individual existence. Personal
immortality is inconsistent with the fundamentals of Aristotle's
system. We ought not to suppose that he contradicted himself in this
way. Yet if Aristotle used language which seems to imply personal
immortality, this is neither meaningless nor dishonest. It is as true
for him as for others that the soul is eternal. But eternal does not
mean everlasting in time. It means timeless. And reason, even our
reason, is timeless. The soul has eternity in it. It is "eternity in
an hour." And it is this which puts the difference between man and the
brutes.

{304}

We have traced the scale of being from inorganic matter, through
plants and animals, to man. What then? What is the next step? Or does
the scale stop there? Now there is a sort of break in Aristotle's
system at this point, which has led many to say that man is the top of
the scale. The rest of Aristotle's physics deal with what is outside
our earth, such as the stars and planets. And they deal with them
quite as if they were a different subject, having little or nothing to
do with the terrestrial scale of being which we have been considering.
But here we must not forget two facts. The first is that Aristotle's
writings have come down to us mutilated, and in many cases unfinished.
The second is that Aristotle had a curious habit of writing separate
monographs on different parts of his system, and omitting to point out
any connexion between them, although such a connexion undoubtedly
exists.

Now although Aristotle himself does not say it, there are several good
reasons for thinking that the true interpretation of his meaning is
that the scale of being does not stop at man, that there is no gap in
the chain here, but that it proceeds from man through planets and
stars--which Aristotle, like Plato, regarded as divine beings--right
up to God himself. In the first place, this is required by the logic
of his system. The scale has formless matter at the bottom and
matterless form at the top. It should proceed direct from one to the
other. It is essential to his philosophy that the universe is a single
continuous chain. There is no place for such a hiatus between man and
the high