Key Arguments

• He asserts that 'The starting-point in plants also seems to be a sort of soul.', introducing the lowest, most basic soul‑capacity.
• He justifies its status as soul by its generality: 'For this alone is common to both animals and plants, and it is separate', indicating that nutritive life is the shared and relatively independent principle underlying all living beings.
• This anticipates his later hylomorphic account in Book II, where the nutritive soul is the foundational faculty of life.

Source Quotes

138 But nonetheless in each of the segments all the parts of the soul are present, and they are the same in form | 411 b 25 | as each other and as the whole—as each other, because they are not separable, as the whole soul, because it is not divisible. 139 The starting-point in plants also seems to be a sort of soul. 140 For this alone is common to both animals and plants, and it is separate

Key Concepts

• The starting-point in plants also seems to be a sort of soul. 140 For this alone is common to both animals and plants, and it is separate

Context

Closing lines of I.5 (411b25–end of the excerpt), where Aristotle, having rejected rival accounts, points to the nutritive principle in plants as the minimal and common denominator of soul, paving the way for his later hierarchical account of soul-faculties.