The peculiar incongruity to which we have alluded, belongs as well to those who suppose Vital Principle to be some kind of body with tenuity of parts, as it does to those who with Democritus maintain that the body is moved by the Vital Principle; for if the Vital Principle is in the whole sentient body, then, being some kind of body, there must necessarily be two bodies in one and the same body. And it may be objected to those who speak of it as a number, that if so, there must be many points in a single point, or every kind of body must have Vital Principle, unless it is a number innate and different as well from other numbers, as from the points which are in the body. It results too from this theory, that an animal is moved by a number much in the same way that Democritus, as we have said, gives motion to it; for what matters it whether we speak of spherules, or large units, or units simply in motion? In either case, the animal is compelled to move from their being in motion. Such and many other such objections may be urged against those who represent Vital Principle as an intimate combination of motion and number; as it is not only impossible therefrom to give any definition of Vital Principle, but we affirm that it cannot even account for one of its accidents. And this would be evident to any one who should attempt, by this theory, to explain the affections and functions of the Vital Principle,—its reasonings, sensations, pleasures, pains, and other such manifestations; for it would be difficult, as we have already said, to form even a conjecture concerning them from it.
Now three modes of defining Vital Principle have been transmitted to us: some have represented it as the most mobile of entities from being self-motive; some as the most attenuated, and others again as the most incorporeal of entities; but we have already reviewed those opinions, and shewn how very questionable and contradictory they are. There remains for us then only to consider in what sense Vital Principle can be said to be derived from the elements. This opinion has been adopted in order to explain how the Vital Principle can perceive and recognise all beings and things; but it necessarily involves many and weighty objections. The supporters of this opinion lay it down as a fact that like recognises like, which is very much like assuming that Vital Principle is, in some way, the things themselves; but things are never homogeneous, as they contain many other particles besides their own; and many or rather infinite in number are their mutual combinations. Thus even if it be conceded that the Vital Principle may recognise and perceive the elements of which anything is constituted, by what is it to perceive or recognise the thing as a whole, whether it be a man, or flesh or bone? The same question may be put for any other compound body; as the elements, constitutive of every such body unite, not in any fortuitous manner, but in a certain proportion and combination, just as Empedocles expresses himself with respect to bone—"The bounteous earth, in her vast furnaces, out of eight parts has had allotted to her two of liquid light, of fire four, and bones were made white." It would be to no purpose then, that the elements should be in Vital Principle, unless proportion and combination were there also; for although each element may recognise its like, there will still be nothing whereby to recognise a bone or a man, unless such things be present with it also. But it is scarcely necessary to say that this cannot be; for who can have a doubt whether a stone or a man is or is not present in Vital Principle? or good or ill, or any other quality? As the term being, besides, admits of several significations (for it signifies sometimes a particular object, sometimes quantity or quality, or other one of the specified categories), shall it or not be said that Vital Principle is derived from them all ? Now, there do not appear to be any elements which are common to all the categories. Shall it then be formed only from such elements as pertain to the essence? How, in that case, is it to recognise each of the others? Shall it be said that there are, for each genus, elements and peculiar principles wherewith the Vital Principle may be formed? If so, it will be quantity, and quality and essence; but it is impossible that from the elements of quantity there should be eliminated essence without quantity.
Such and other such difficulties concur to oppose the opinion of those who say that the Vital Principle is formed from all the elements.
It is absurd to maintain that like is unimpressionable by like, and yet assert that like is able to perceive and recognise like by like; and the more so, as these writers set down feeling as they do thinking and recognising, as some kind of impression and motion. But to shew how many doubts and difficulties beset the opinion adopted by Empedocles, that "objects are recognised by the corporeal elements in the relation of like;" we have only to observe that all those parts in animal bodies, which are simply of earth, as bones, sinews and hairs, seem to be altogether without feeling, and consequently without any feeling of like, and yet, according to the theory, they ought to be perceptive. There will be a larger amount of unconsciousness than perception, besides, allotted to each principle, as each will recognise its own individuals, but be unconscious of the many others—all the others, in fact, which are unlike. It follows, too, from this theory, that the god must be the most senseless of beings, as he alone cannot recognise the element "repulsion," of which all mortal beings cannot but be conscious, since each of them is derived from all the elements.
But wherefore, let us ask, have not all beings a Vital Principle, since every thing is either an element, or derived from one or from more than one, or from all the elements? Thus, it is necessary to every being that it should recognise some one thing, or more than one, or all things. But we are at a loss to know what that is which individualizes things: the elements are like matter; but that, whatever it be which binds the others together, must of all be the most influential. Now, it is scarcely possible that any thing should be more influential and dominant than the Vital Principle, and quite impossible that any thing should be more so than the mind; for it is probable that the mind was the first-born and sovereign in nature, while these philosophers maintain that the elements were the first of entities.
None of these philosophers, however, neither they who maintain that the Vital Principle is derived from the elements, on account of its recognising and perceiving things, nor they who regard it as the most motive of beings, can be said to speak of every Vital Principle; for all sentient creatures are not motive, as there are animals which appear to be fixed abidingly to the same spot, and yet locomotion seems, according to these philosophers, to be the only motion imparted to animals by the Vital Principle. They, too, equally err who form mind and sensibility out of the elements—for plants appear to be alive, without partaking either of locomotion or sensibility; and many animals have no understanding. But even if we may pass over these objections, and admit that the mind as well as the sensibility may be a part of the Vital Principle, still no general theory could be framed for every Vital Principle, or for it as a whole, or for it individually. Thus, the reasoning in the so-called Orphic verses has been stamped with this same error, for the poet says that "the Vital Principle, borne by the winds, enters from the universe into animals during respiration." But this cannot possibly be applicable to plants or to some animals, since there are some which do not breathe. This fact, however, had escaped the attention of those who first adopted the hypothesis.
But even if it be well to form the Vital Principle out of the elements, it by no means follows that it should be out of them all, as one or other part of the contraries is able to judge both itself and its opposite. Thus, by the straight we know both the straight and the curve, as the ruler is the judge of both, while the curve is the judge neither of itself nor the straight.
There are writers who maintain that the Vital Principle has been diffused through the universe, whence probably Thales was led to think that all things are full of gods. But the opinion is not without its difficulties. Why, it may be asked, does not the Vital Principle, when in the air or fire, form an animal rather than when in the elements in combination, although seemingly more generally situated in either of those elements alone? It might also be inquired why the Vital Principle, which is in the air, is more exalted and more enduring than that which is in animals. On either side, in fact, we are met by absurdity and contradiction; for it is very unreasonable to speak of air and fire as animals, and absurd to say that they are not so when Vital Principle is conceded to them. Those philosophers, in fact, seem to have assumed that Vital Principle is in those elements, because the whole ought to be specifically as its parts; and so it was forced upon them to admit that Vital Principle must be, specifically, the same as its parts, if creatures become living creatures by taking in something from that which surrounds them. But if the air, however subdivided, is still homogeneous, and the Vital Principle heterogeneous, it is clear that some one of its parts will, and some other will not be, in the air; and thus either the Vital Principle must be homogeneous, or else it cannot be present in every part of the universe. It is manifest, then, from what has been adduced, that the faculty of recognising does not belong to Vital Principle by virtue of its being derived from the elements; as also that it cannot with accuracy or truth be said to be self-motive.
Since the faculties of knowing, feeling and thinking, together with desiring, willing and the appetites generally, as also locomotion, growth, maturity and decay, are properties of the Vital Principle, let us inquire whether or not each of those properties is imparted to us by the Vital Principle as a whole—that is, does each of those faculties emanate from the Vital Principle as a whole? do we think, feel, act and suffer by it as a whole, or are different offices assigned to different parts? Is life in one, or more than one, or in all the parts, or is there some other cause for life than the Vital Principle?
Some writers maintain that Vital Principle is divisible, and that by one part it thinks, and by another feels desire; but what then, if it be naturally divisible, holds its parts together? Not the body certainly, we answer; for the Vital Principle, on the contrary, appears to hold it together, as from the moment of its departure the body expires and decays. If there be a something which makes it one, that something is, in the strictest sense, Vital Principle; and it will be necessary again to inquire whether that something is indivisible or with parts; if it be indivisible, then why not at once conclude that it must be Vital Principle? If it be divisible, reason will again seek to learn what that is which holds its parts together; and thus may the inquiry be continued interminably. With respect to the parts of the Vital Principle, it is difficult to determine what is the part which has been assigned to each of them in the body; for if it is the whole Vital Principle which sustains the whole body, it is probable that each of its parts sustains some one part of the body. But this is very like an impossibility; for it would be difficult even to conjecture what part the mind could connect with others, or in what way it could do so at all. Thus, plants, when divided, appear to live, and so do some species of insects, as if possessing still the same Vital Principle in a specific, although not in a numerical sense; for each of the parts has sensation and locomotion for a time, and there is no room for surprise at their not continuing to manifest those properties, seeing that they are without the organs necessary for the preservation of their nature. Nevertheless, in each of those parts coexist all parts of the Vital Principle, and those parts are, specifically, the same with each other, and with the whole—with each other, as being inseparable, and with the whole as being separable. But the living principle in plants seems to be a kind of Vital Principle, for animals and plants alike partake of it; and it is separable from the sentient principle, but yet without it no creature can possess sensibility.