3954. What kind of mental picture he had had of the soul or spirit, which he called pneuma, was vividly demonstrated, for he was made to look like the mental image he had had, namely, something almost invisible, but something ethereal, moving together in waves, or hovering. Such was his mental image of the spirit. He says he had known that his spirit would live after death,
[2] because it is his inward essence, which could not die, because he was able to think, but that he had been unable to have a notion such as he now enjoyed, only that he thus conceived of the general element of thought as a kind of breath that blew with a certain motion. About its life, he said he had not specifically thought. These are the words of Aristotle.
3954. What kind of idea he had of the soul or spirit, which he called pneuma, was shown to the life, for he became [himself] what he had conceived [the soul to be], to wit, something scarcely visible, but yet something of an ethereal nature, with a kind of general undulation or self-motion. Such was the idea that he had of the spirit, saying, that he knew his spirit would survive after death, because it was his interior essence, which could not die, as it possessed the power of thought; at the same time [he said] that he could not then entertain the same idea [on the subject] which he now had, but only that the general nature of thought was that of a certain breath which he breathed with a peculiar kind of motion. As to the quality of his life, he says that he did not make it a subject of distinct thought. This is what was said by Aristotle.
3954. Qualem ideam habuit de anima aut spiritu, quem vocabat pneuma, ad vivum ostensum est, factus enim talis, sicut ideam habuit, nempe quod inconspicuus, sed sicut quoddam aetheris, communiter sicut undulans, seu se motitans, talem ideam habuit de spiritu, dicens quod noverit spiritum suum victurum post mortem, quia essentia ejus interior, quae non posset mori, quia potuit cogitare, sed quod habere notionem, qualem nunc, non potuit, modo quod commune cogitationis sic velit cujusdam halitus, qui afflaret quodam motu, de vita ejus qualis, non se cogitavisse distincte dicit, haec sunt Aristotelis.