478 ARISTOTLE. 



matter, that could not be entirely overcome by 

 the Supreme Architect.* 



In the Treatise of Aristotle concerning the 

 soul, or animating principle, he maintains that 

 a self-active spirit, which he terms Hvtvfia or 

 ^v^n, is the cause of all effects in the living body. 

 To this spirit he ascribed three different facul- 

 ties ; the first of which was manifested in the 

 thorax, and termed vital ; the second, or nutri- 

 tive, in the abdomen ; while the third, or rea- 

 soning faculty, was supposed to reside in the 

 head. He adds, that whether the vital principle 

 be identical with elementary fire, or something 

 analogous, constituting a fifth element, it is a 

 portion of the same principle that maintains the 



* There is reason to believe, that a more profound knowledge 

 of nature than the human mind has ever yet attained, will shew 

 that all the works of God are absolutely perfect in their kind ; 

 and that 



" All partial evil is universal good, 

 All discord harmony not understood." 



In the great circle of unceasing change that makes up the order 

 of things, the earthquake and volcano produce apparent disorder, 

 and sometimes destroy life ; but without them the earth would 

 not be fit for the habitation of man. The hurricane and tempest 

 are as necessary to the salubrity of the air, as sunshine and rain 

 to the growth of vegetation. And it is probable, that to a supe- 

 rior intelligence, death would not be regarded as an evil, any 

 more than the ripening and decaying of fruits, or the successions 

 of winter and summer, light and darkness. In short, every thing 

 in the fundamental constitution of nature, and mechanism of the 

 living frame " is very good;' and tends to produce the greatest 



