170 Sylvius and his Pupils. [lect. 



Further, the living body is fitted for special ends and 

 purposes; the living body does not exist for itself; it is 

 constituted to be the true and continued minister of the soul. 

 The body is made for the soul, the soul is not made for, and is 

 not the product of the body. 



" We may therefore rightly and truly conclude that all the 

 "actions of the body, both those which concern its structure 

 " and those which relate to the preservation of its composition, 

 " are carried out by the soul itself for its own uses and ends, 

 " and are directed and brought to completion, knowingly and 

 " properly, in the proportions and relations which fit those ends 

 " and uses." 



The soul builds up the body and makes use of it for its own 

 ends: 



"Vital activities are directly administered and exercised 

 "by the soul itself, and are truly organic acts carried out in 

 " corporeal instruments by a superior acting cause, in order to 

 " bring about certain effects, which are not only in general 

 "certain, and in particular necessary, but also in each and 

 " every particular adapted, in a special and yet most com- 

 plete manner, to the needs of the moment and to the 

 " various irregularities introduced by accidental external causes. 

 " Vital activities, vital movements, cannot, as some recent 

 " crude speculations suppose, have any real likeness to such 

 " movements as, in an ordinary way, depend on the material 

 " condition of a body and take place without any direct use or 

 " end or aim." 



Van Helmont, as we have seen, regarded archaei in the first 

 degree, and ferments in the second, as agents intervening 

 between matter, with its material properties, and the im- 

 material sensitive soul. Stahl ridicules the idea of there being 

 any need of a number of such intermediate agencies between 

 the soul and matter. One link between spirit and matter is 

 necessary, and one only : that one is ' motion.' 



"That which both preserves the whole body, and provides 

 "for and carries out the uses of the soul in the body, is a 

 " something which on the one hand is quite different from the 

 " essential and proper nature of the body itself, and on the 



