Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/61

CH. V.] the elements, on account of its recognising and perceiving things, nor they who regard it as the most motive of beings, can be said to speak of every Vital Principle; for all sentient creatures are not motive, as there are animals which appear to be fixed abidingly to the same spot, and yet locomotion seems, according to these philosophers, to be the only motion imparted to animals by the Vital Principle. They, too, equally err who form mind and sensibility out of the elements—for plants appear to be alive, without partaking either of locomotion or sensibility; and many animals have no understanding. But even if we may pass over these objections, and admit that the mind as well as the sensibility may be a part of the Vital Principle, still no general theory could be framed for every Vital Principle, or for it as a whole, or for it individually. Thus, the reasoning in the so-called Orphic verses has been stamped with this same error, for the poet says that "the Vital Principle, borne by the winds, enters from the universe into animals during respiration." But this cannot possibly be applicable to plants or to some animals, since there are some which do not breathe. This fact, however, had escaped the attention of those who first adopted the hypothesis.

But even if it be well to form the Vital Principle out of the elements, it by no means follows that it should be out of them all, as one or other part of the