Consequently it is
clear that in a certain sense we may say that both parties are
right, both wrong.
Since nothing except what is alive can be fed, what is fed is the
besouled body and just because it has soul in it. Hence food is
essentially related to what has soul in it. Food has a power which
is other than the power to increase the bulk of what is fed by it;
so far forth as what has soul in it is a quantum, food may increase
its quantity, but it is only so far as what has soul in it is a
'this-somewhat' or substance that food acts as food; in that case it
maintains the being of what is fed, and that continues to be what it
is so long as the process of nutrition continues. Further, it is the
agent in generation, i.e. not the generation of the individual fed but
the reproduction of another like it; the substance of the individual
fed is already in existence; the existence of no substance is a
self-generation but only a self-maintenance.
Hence the psychic power which we are now studying may be described
as that which tends to maintain whatever has this power in it of
continuing such as it was, and food helps it to do its work. That is
why, if deprived of food, it must cease to be.
The process of nutrition involves three factors, (a) what is fed,
(b) that wherewith it is fed, (c) what does the feeding; of these
(c) is the first soul, (a) the body which has that soul in it, (b) the
food. But since it is right to call things after the ends they
realize, and the end of this soul is to generate another being like
that in which it is, the first soul ought to be named the reproductive
soul.
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