2o6 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



Minds at all, but were mere machines. Others, rcjeding this no- 

 tion of Des Cartes, but as ignorant as he of the dillcrcnce betwixt 

 the Intelledual and Animal Life, go to the other extreme, and be- 

 lieve, that Brutes have Intelligence as well as we, difTering only in 

 degree. Others, again, not dircrlminating exadtly the Vegetable 

 and the Animal Life, feem to think that Vegetables, for any thing 

 we know, may have Senfations as well as Animals, though perhaps 

 lefs perfedl. And, as to the Elemental Life, as I call it, which in- 

 forms every particle of Matter ; having no Idea at all of it, they 

 endeavour to account for the motion of fuch Bodies by certain 

 Ethers, Fluids, Subtle Matter, and I don't know what : And, per- 

 haps, from their inability to account for thefe Motions upon any hy- 

 pothefis that has the leafl: degree of plaufibility, they are driven to 

 abfolute Atheifm, and maintain that Matter can move itfclf. 



I will begin with diftingulflilng the Elemental Mind from the 

 Vegetable : And there is one diflindlion, which I have already ob- 

 ferved, taken from the Bodies that are moved ; namely, That the E- 

 lemental, or Unorganized Bodies, are much more funple and lefs 

 artificial in their ftrudture than the Vegetable. — Another difference 

 is from the nature of their Motion, which, like the Body moved, 

 is much more fimple and uniform in the Body unorganized, than 

 in the Body organized. And there is another remarkable difference 

 in the Motion, that the Body unorganized is moved altogether, and 

 not one part before another or without another : Whereas, the Vege- 

 table and Animal having Organs and Veflels, there is Motion in them, 

 when there is none in the reft of the Body ; and it is by their means 

 that the other parts of the Body are moved. 



Another very material difference is, with refpedl to the produc- 

 tion and the growth of the two kinds of Bodies. The unorganized 

 Body is produced at firft by particles of Matter, homogeneous, no 



doubt, 



