Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/62

52 contraries is able to judge both itself and its opposite. Thus, by the straight we know both the straight and the curve, as the ruler is the judge of both, while the curve is the judge neither of itself nor the straight.

There are writers who maintain that the Vital Principle has been diffused through the universe, whence probably Thales was led to think that all things are full of gods. But the opinion is not without its difficulties. Why, it may be asked, does not the Vital Principle, when in the air or fire, form an animal rather than when in the elements in combination, although seemingly more generally situated in either of those elements alone? It might also be inquired why the Vital Principle, which is in the air, is more exalted and more enduring than that which is in animals. On either side, in fact, we are met by absurdity and contradiction; for it is very unreasonable to speak of air and fire as animals, and absurd to say that they are not so when Vital Principle is conceded to them. Those philosophers, in fact, seem to have assumed that Vital Principle is in those elements, because the whole ought to be specifically as its parts; and so it was forced upon them to admit that Vital Principle must be, specifically, the same as its parts, if creatures become living creatures by taking in something from that which surrounds them. But if the air, however subdivided, is still homogeneous,