by the powers of
self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and motivity.
Is each of these a soul or a part of a soul? And if a part, a part
in what sense? A part merely distinguishable by definition or a part
distinct in local situation as well? In the case of certain of these
powers, the answers to these questions are easy, in the case of others
we are puzzled what to say. just as in the case of plants which when
divided are observed to continue to live though removed to a
distance from one another (thus showing that in their case the soul of
each individual plant before division was actually one, potentially
many), so we notice a similar result in other varieties of soul,
i.e. in insects which have been cut in two; each of the segments
possesses both sensation and local movement; and if sensation,
necessarily also imagination and appetition; for, where there is
sensation, there is also pleasure and pain, and, where these,
necessarily also desire.
We have no evidence as yet about mind or the power to think; it
seems to be a widely different kind of soul, differing as what is
eternal from what is perishable; it alone is capable of existence in
isolation from all other psychic powers. All the other parts of
soul, it is evident from what we have said, are, in spite of certain
statements to the contrary, incapable of separate existence though, of
course, distinguishable by definition. If opining is distinct from
perceiving, to be capable of opining and to be capable of perceiving
must be distinct, and so with all the other forms of living above
enumerated.
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