On the Vital Principle. Q19 



prevailed, by which the vital principle was 

 reckoned the efficient caufe of generation and 

 exiftence, in all animals and plants. It then took 

 the name of the anima vegetans*. Paracelfus 

 changed this term, in his philofophy, for that of 

 fidereal fpirit, which he believed to be equally 

 independent of the body and the mindf, and to 

 defcend from the firmament, as the rational foul 

 proceeded from the Deity |.. This doftrine was 

 very ferviceable to the demonologifts ||. Van 

 Helmont, among other improvements of the 

 Paracelfian fyftem, fuggefted the theory of the 

 Archeus, without venturing to aflert the unity of 

 the rational and living fouls §. The aftions of 

 the Archeus were afterwards reduced, by Stahl, 

 to operations of the rational foul ; but Defcartes 

 appears to have been the firft modern philofopher, 

 who rejeaed the feparate exiftence of the vital 

 principle, under all denominations^. He availed 

 himfelf of the progrefs which was made in the 

 nervous phyfiology not long before, by Willis 

 and others, to form an hypothefis of the vital 

 funftions, founded on the fuppofition of the 



■ * Alfted. Encyclop. T. I. p. 603. 



t Brucker. T. V. p. 324. j Id. IV. 



II Mor. Antid. adv. Atheifmum. Glanville's Confider- 

 ations. 



(j Barthezj.chap. I. He fets Lord Verulam at the head 

 of the modern fupporters of the vital principle, p. 23. 

 f\ Id. p. 16. 



nervous 



