2i8 A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



Nature^ therefore, * is that mind, or principle of motion in body, 

 * whidi adls for a certain end or purpofe, but without knowledge of 

 ' that end, without confcioufnefs, intelligence, deliberation, or inten- 

 ' tion, and fatally or neceflarily.' And, in thefe properties, I have fhown, 

 that all the vital principles I have mentioned, that in unorganized bo- 

 dized bodies, and that in organized, whether vegetable or animal, a- 

 gree : And I am now to inquire into the difference betwixt them, and 

 what each has peculiar to itfelf. 



And, to begin with the motive principle in the vegetable, compared 

 with that in the unorganized body : By the vital principle in the 

 vegetable, it is nourifhed, grows, and propagates its kind ; whereas 

 the fame principle in the unorganized body does no more than move 

 it in a certain and determinate way, (for nothing in nature is undeter- 

 mined or fortuitous.) The con^Vquence of this difference neceffarily 

 is, that the movement of the latter is Hmple and uniform, either up 

 or doivn^ to or fro?n^ one another : Whereas the movements of the 

 vegetable, by which fuch operations are performed, muft needs be ma- 

 ny and various. 2dly^ The principle of union, which, as I have faid, 

 is in all natural fubffances, and makes every one of them what it is, 

 and nothing elfe, muft needs be different in unorganized and vegetable 

 fubftances : For, in the unorganized, it appears to be nothing elic but 

 the attradion and coheHon of homogeneous particles ; whereas, in the 

 vegetable, as well as in the animal, there is a certain nature by which 

 the plant is preierved and kept together, and all the feveral parts of 

 which it is com^wfed are made to co-operate to the fame end, viz. the 

 growth, prelervatlon, and propagation of the plant : And it is by this 

 kind of mind or genius^ as we m.ay call it, of each particular plant, 

 that the plant continues ftill the fame, though every particle of its 

 emitter be changed. 



And 



