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
