natural of the functions in beings which are perfect, that is, which are neither dwarfed nor spontaneously generated, is to produce another such as itself, an animal an animal, and a plant a plant, in order that they may partake, to the extent which has been allotted to them, of the Everlasting and the Divine. All creatures yearn after this, and, for the sake of it, they do all that they do naturally ; but since such beings cannot, in uninterrupted continuity, partake of the Everlasting and the Divine, because no perishable being can abidingly continue as one and the same ; yet each can partake thereof in its own allotted portion, be it larger or smaller, and still continue, if not the same, like the same, and one, if not in number, as species.
The Vital Principle is the cause and the origin of a living body. Now, cause and origin have several significations; for the Vital Principle is equally a cause, according to any one of the three defined modes of causation: as that whence motion proceeds; as that for which motion is produced; and cause, again, as the essence of living bodies. It is evident that it is a cause as an essence, since the essence is in all things the cause of their being what they are; and as life is the mode of being in living beings, so Vital Principle is the cause and the origin of all such. It is the realizing principle, besides, the cause that is of something which exists in potentiality becoming a
