1 Cf. Aristotle De anima 434 a 9. The Platonic doctrine that opinion,δόξα, is discussion of the soul with herself, or the judgement in which such discussion terminates (Cf. Unity of Plato's Thought, p. 47) is here applied to the specific case of the practical reason issuing in an affirmation of the will.
2 ἀβουλεῖν recalls the French coinage “nolonté,” and the southern mule's “won't-power.” Cf. Epistle vii. 347 A, Demosthenes Epistle ii. 17.
3 Cf. Aristotle's ἀνθέλκειν, De anima 433 b 8. “All willing is either pushing or pulling,” Jastrow, Fact and Fable in Psychology, p. 336. Cf. the argument in Spencer's First Principles 80, that the phrase “impelled by desires” is not a metaphor but a physical fact. Plato's generalization of the concepts “attraction” and “repulsion” brings about a curious coincidence with the language of a materialistic, physiological psychology (cf. Lange, History of Materialism, passim), just as his rejection in the Timaeus of attraction and actio in distans allies his physics with that of the most consistent materialists.
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