But this “naturalistic” view of soul did not prevent Aristotle from arguing that since the intellect had the power of receiving the form of, for example, froghood (skimming off the universal from the clearly known particular frog, so to speak) and taking it on itself without thereby becoming a frog, the intellect (νου̂ς) must be something very special indeed. It must be something immaterial—even though no such strange quasi-substance need be postulated to explain most human activity, any more than it need be postulated to explain the frog’s.8
