126 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



the fame kind; and bodies that we call inanimate perlfli in the 

 fame manner, by the diflblution and feparatlon of their parts. 

 But, even by this greateft change of things in the material world, 

 Lhcre is nothing loft or annihilated ; for the minds ftill remain and 

 animate other bodies; or perhaps the intelledlual mind of man, 

 which can a&. without body, may not be again embodied : Where- 

 as the other minds I have mentioned, which cannot act without bo- 

 dy, muft animate other bodies; for othervvife, as they can only a£l 

 in body, they could not be faid to exift, but muft be confidered as 

 annihilated. *And even the bodies of animals, and of other things 

 I have mentioned, are not annihilated, but appear again in fome other 

 form, cither as earth of one kind or another, or as vegetables. 



From what I have faid here, that there is no annihilation of any 

 thing in the univerfe, but only diflblution, that is, a fcparation of 

 the parts of which the fubjedt is compofed, it is evident that all im- 

 material fubftances muft, by their nature, be of eternal exiftence, 

 whatever change in their qualities they may undergo; for, as an 

 immaterial fubftance has not parts like body, there can be no diflb- 

 lution of it, and confequently no extindlion : So that not only our 

 minds, but every mind in the univerfe is necefl!arily immortal. 



But as to the feveral fpeciefes of animals and vegetables, it is fo 

 ordered, by the wifdom of God, that though the form of the parti- 

 cular individual perifties, it is renewed again by generation or re- 

 production; fo that 



genus immortale manet, 



Virgil. Georgk. Lib. jr. v. 2e8. 



and a divifion of things into genufes and fpeciefes, without which 

 there would be no fyftem in the univerfe, is continued. And even 

 inanimate bodies, fuch as minerals, though they be diflfolved, are 



brought 



