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CH. IV.] parts? And then, again, is affinity the proportion, or something besides the proportion?

Such are the difficulties which present themselves; but if the Vital Principle is something different from the composition, what is that which is simultaneously destroyed with the life, in the flesh, and other parts of an animal? Besides these questions, since each of the parts of the body has not Vital Principle, unless the Vital Principle is the proportion of the composition in the parts, what is that which is destroyed when the Vital Principle has forsaken the body? It is then clear, from what has been adduced, that Vital Principle can neither be any kind of harmony, nor be moving in a circle.

But to maintain that the Vital Principle is moved by accident is to maintain, as we have said, that it moves itself as it is moved in that in which it is, and which is moved by it; and that it cannot possibly have locomotion in any other way. It might, however, with greater probability be doubted, and for the following considerations, whether it moves at all—for we are accustomed to say that the Vital Principle is daring or afraid, is angry too, and both feels and thinks, and as all these seem to be motions, it might be supposed that the Vital Principle does move. But yet this is no necessary consequence—for if to grieve, to rejoice or think are motions, in the fullest sense, then each of them is motion, and motion may be said