On the Soul (
Greek ,
Perì Psuchês;
Latin De Anima) is a major
treatise by
Aristotle on the nature of living things. His discussion centres on the kinds of
souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus plants have the capacity for nourishment and reproduction, the minimum that must be possessed by any kind of living organism. Lower animals have, in addition, the powers of sense-perception and
self-motion (action). Humans have all these as well as
intellect.