FROM THE COMMENTARIES

OF IOANNES FRANCISCUS PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, LORD

And Count of Concordia, on the Third Book of Aristotle’s On the Soul

EXTRACTED

A DIGRESSION ON THE immortality OF THE SOUL.

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What is to be done in this digression, and in what order.

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The point at which we have arrived seems to admonish us to digress from Aristotle’s exposition of the context and discuss the immortality of the soul. We must investigate what Aristotle thought about it, as well as the opinions of his disciples and interpreters, especially the Greeks. For many attempt to weaken or fortify the common and specific arguments by which the soul’s immortality is usually constructed, as well as those by which some are accustomed to assert its mortality, according to their own inclination of mind, their different studies, and their varied use of vocabulary. Every one of these adversaries struggles with all their might to drag Aristotle into their own opinion, even though he is unwilling and resistant. But this is not the path