"I asked him whether he had ever cared to study the _anima_, or what they call the psychology of animals. I added that Aristotle had evidently done so, as his works explicitly prove, and that after he had surveyed all sorts of souls in the vegetable, animal and human kingdom, both normal and pathological, he wrote his treatise 'De Anima,' the real sense of which must escape him who has not taken such a wide range of the question. Ah--you ought to have seen the professor! He jumped from his seat, took another whisky and soda and said: 'My young friend, the first thing in science is to distinguish well. _Bene docet qui bene distinguit._ You speak of animals. What have they to do with human psychology? Their souls are studied by my colleague who goes in for comparative psychology; or rather by several of my colleagues, one of whom studies the comparative psychology of the senses; the other that of the emotions; the third that of memory; the fourth--the fifth--the sixth, etc., etc., etc.
"'I, I stick to my point. I have my speciality. You might think that my speciality is psychology, or Aristotle's psychology. Not at all. This is all too vague, too general. My speciality is quite special; a particularly singular speciality: the text of Aristotle's psychology. And even that goes too far; for what I really call my speciality is _my_ version of the text which is said to have been written by Aristotle.
"'Now at last we are on firm ground. What under those conditions need I trouble about cats and rats? The latter, the rats, have, I admit, some little importance for me. They have in their time devoured parts of Aristotle's manuscripts, and I have now to reconstitute what they have swallowed. I am to them a kind of literary Beecham's Pill. But as to cats, mules or donkeys? What have they to do with me? Can they influence my version of the text? Hardly.
"'My young friend, if Aristotle himself came to me, I should tell him: "My good man, unless you accept my version of your text, you are out of court. I am a professor, and you are only an author. Worse than that--a Greek author. As theologians fix the value and meaning of gospel-words; as the State makes a piece of worthless paper worth five pounds sterling by a mere declaration; even so we say what you Aristotle did say. What _you_ said or meant is indifferent; what we say you said or meant is alone of consequence." How then could even Aristotle refute me regarding my view of his views? It is logically impossible.