CHAPTER IV. 



ON ANIMAL LIFE. 



638. The continuance of animal nature is animal life, (The 

 life of an animal^ as such, Baumgarten's 'Metaph./ § 311.) So 

 long as an animal force operates in the animal, and there is the 

 smallest animal action left, so long the animal lives (5, 6). 



639. The continuance of the animal nature of an insentient] 

 animal may be termed simply animal life, just as the vi 

 nervosa is termed a simply animal force. This mere animt 

 nature implies the existence of the organic nature, and the 

 existence of the latter implies the existence of the mechanical 

 and physical natures : consequently, the entire nature of an 

 insentient animal (598) is made up of these; but since the 

 last mentioned may continue independently of animal life, it 

 may cease, or in other words, the animal may die, and yet the 

 organic, mechanical, and physical nature remain. Consequently, 

 the continuance of the vis nervosa is solely necessary to animal 

 life, and so long as there are the minutest traces of the vis 

 nervosa, life remains. 



640. The continuance of the animal nature of a sentient 

 animal, and especially of a purely sensational animal, may be 

 termed sensational life. Such an animal nature implies the 

 existence of the animal nature of insentient beings, and con- 

 sequently it is a whole, compounded of the two animal natures. 

 But a sentient, and particularly a sensational animal, may lose its 

 sensational life, and still be a living creature (603) ; or in other 

 words, it may die sensationally , and still live. Consequently, so 

 long as it retains in the slightest degree that animal sentient 

 force which characterises it, so long it remains sentient, and 

 exists sensationally. Again, sensational life only continues so 

 long as the soul is in such connection with the body, that it per- 

 forms any one of its movements as a sentient action : when this 

 connection is broken, mere animal life may still continue (621). 



641. The continuance of the animal nature of a reasoning 

 being may be termed its spiritual life [geistiges Leben] : this 



