Are you gravelled for an answer to this remark? Each of these will be a living thing; but they will not be many separate living things. And why? I shall explain, if you will apply your subtlety and your concentration to my words. Each living thing must have a separate substance; but since all the things mentioned above have a single soul, consequently they can be separate living things but without plurality. I myself am a living thing, and a man; but you cannot say that there are two of me for that reason. And why? Because, if that were so, they would have to be two separate existences. This is what I mean: one would have to be sundered from the other so as to produce two. But whenever you have that which is manifold in one whole, it falls into the category of a single nature, and is therefore single.
My soul is a living thing, and so am I; but we are not two separate persons. And why? Because the soul is part of myself. It will only be reckoned as a definite thing in itself, when it shall exist by itself. But as long as it shall be part of another, it cannot be regarded as different. And why? I will tell you: it is because that which is different, must be personal and peculiar to itself, a whole, and complete within itself. I myself have gone on record as being of a different opinion;959 for if one adopts this belief, not only the virtues will be living things, but so will their contrary vices, and the emotions, like wrath, fear, grief, and suspicion. Nay, the argument will carry us still further—all opinions and all thoughts will be living things. This is by no means admissible; since anything that man does is not necessarily the man himself. “What is Justice?” people say. Justice is a soul that maintains itself in a certain attitude. “Then if the soul is a living being, so is Justice.” By no means. For Justice is really a state, a kind of power, of the soul; and this same soul is transformed into various likenesses and does not become a different kind of living thing as often as it acts differently. Nor is the result of soul-action a living thing. If Justice, Bravery, and the other virtues have actual life, do they cease to be living things and then begin life over again, or are they always living things?
But the virtues cannot cease to be. Therefore, there are many, nay countless, living things, sojourning in this one soul. “No,” is the answer, “not many, because they are all attached to the one, being parts and members of a single whole.” We are then portraying for ourselves an image of the soul like that of a many-headed hydra—each separate head fighting and destroying independently. And yet there is no separate living thing to each head; it is the head of a living thing, and the hydra itself is one single living thing. No one ever believed that the Chimaera contained a living lion or a living serpent;960 these were merely parts of the whole Chimaera; and parts are not living things. Then how can you infer that Justice is a living thing? “Justice,” people reply, “is active and helpful; that which acts and is helpful, possesses impulse; and that which possesses impulse is a living thing.” True, if the impulse is its own; (but in the case of justice it is not its own;) the impulse comes from the soul. Every living thing exists as it began, until death; a man, until he dies, is a man, a horse is a horse, a dog a dog. They cannot change into anything else. Now let us grant that Justice—which is defined as “a soul in a certain attitude,” is a living thing. Let us suppose this to be so. Then Bravery also is alive, being “a soul in a certain attitude.” But which soul? That which was but now defined as Justice? The soul is kept within the first-named being, and cannot cross over into another; it must last out its existence in the medium where it had its origin. Besides, there cannot be one soul to two living things, much less to many living things. And if Justice, Bravery, Restraint, and all the other virtues, are living things, how will they have one soul? They must possess separate souls, or else they are not living things. Several living things cannot have one body; this is admitted by our very opponents. Now what is the “body”961 of justice? “The soul,” they admit. And of bravery? “The soul also.” And yet there cannot be one body of two living things. “The same soul, however,” they answer, “assumes the guise of Justice, or Bravery, or Restraint.” This would be possible if Bravery were absent when Justice was present, and if Restraint were absent when Bravery was present; as the case stands now, all the virtues exist at the same time. Hence, how can the separate virtues be living things, if you grant that there is one single soul,962 which cannot create more than one single living thing?
Again, no living thing is part of another living thing. But Justice is a part of the soul; therefore Justice is not a living thing. It looks as if I were wasting time over something that is an acknowledged fact; for one ought to decry such a topic rather than debate it. And no two living things are equal. Consider the bodies of all beings: every one has its particular colour, shape, and size. And among the other reasons for marvelling at the genius of the Divine Creator is, I believe, this—that amid all this abundance there is no repetition; even seemingly similar things are, on comparison, unlike. God has created all the great number of leaves
