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
