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Aristotle on the matter of mind 211when, in Gen. an. 5.7, he says that he has been discussing those aspectsof voice that have not yet been dealt with in On the Soul and On SensePerception. 15Yet not always can differences in Aristotle’s treatment of a particular soulpower at different places be so easily related to the principles or strategiesunderlying the arrangement of his biological works. To continue withthe example of sense-perception, there is a discrepancy between his ratherformal and abstract enunciations on visual perception in De an. 2.7 (the‘canonical’ doctrine of sight being moved by the visible object through themedium of the transparent) and, on the other hand, his rather technicaldiscussions of various forms and degrees of sharpness of sight and seeing over a great distance in Gen. an. 5, and of observing certaincosmic phenomena such as haloes as a result of reflection inMeteorologica 3, which seem to presuppose an emanatory view on visualperception consisting in visual ‘rays’ departing from the eye and reachingthe object of sight (or failing to do so properly). Even if this ‘emanatory’doctrine is not identical to the view that Aristotle seems to reject in OnSense Perception and On the Soul, it remains unclear how it is to be accommodatedwithin the ‘canonical’ theory of visual perception expounded inthose works. 16In general, one gets the impression that divergences like this 17 tend tooccur when Aristotle is dealing with the more ‘technical’ or ‘mechanical’aspects of how soul powers actually operate and how, in particular cases orcircumstances, these operations may deviate from the normal procedure.In dealing with these deviations, Aristotle sometimes refers to physical orphysiological mechanisms or entities in respect of which it is not quite clearhow they fit in the general picture or what part, if any, they play in the normalprocedure. Thus in the example of visual perception over great distances,Aristotle does not explain what atmospheric conditions are conducive tothe process of the object setting the visual faculty in motion, resulting insuccessful seeing. Similarly with regard to the ‘type’ of the melancholics 18– one of Aristotle’s favourite examples of deviations in the area of action15 788 a 34-b 2. As for the relationship between ‘psychology’ and ‘biology’ in Aristotle, it would beinteresting to examine the relationship between Gen. an. 5 on the one hand and On the Soul andOn Sense Perception on the other; the many references in the former to the latter (786 b 23ff.; 781a 21; 779 b 22) should indicate that Aristotle is very much aware of possible differences in levels ofexplanation or in status of the psychic phenomena to be discussed in either of these works.16 On this problem see van der Eijk (1994) 183 and 189–91.17 Other examples are Aristotle’s discussion of the central sense faculty in De an. 3.2, Sens. 6 and Somn.vig. 2, or his doctrine of the ‘kindled soul’ in De iuv. 469 b 16 and Resp. 474 b 13, or the problem ofanimal intelligence (see below and Coles (1997)).18 See ch. 5 in this volume.