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
