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60 incipient reality of a natural body which is organised"

It is, therefore, to no purpose to inquire whether Vital Principle and the body are one, any more than whether wax and the impress upon it are one, or whether the matter formative of any object and the object formed are one ; for one and being have many significations, but they are correctly designated as reality.

It has thus been explained generally what the Vital Principle is, and shewn that it is an essence, in its abstract signification, which implies the particular mode of being in any particular body, as if any instrument, an axe, for instance, were a natural body, the mode of being in the axe would be, at once, both its essence and its Vital Principle; for, were it once to be withdrawn, then, save in name, it could be an axe no longer. All this, however, relates to an axe, but Vital Principle is the mode and the cause of being, not in any thing like an axe but, in a natural body, having within it a principle of motion and of rest.

But what has been said may be better understood by reference to the parts of a body. Thus, if the eye were an animal, vision would be its Vital Principle, as vision, abstractedly considered, is the essence of the eye; but the eye is the matter of vision, and if vision be wanting, then, save in name, it is an eye no