Cause Principle Unity

On magic
of liquids which form a sphere to avoid disintegration, and also in falling
bodies which are attracted to a centre and tend to gather their parts into a
sphere lest they break up and disperse. This is also found in pieces of straw
or wood thrown on a fire, and in thin tissues and membranes, which recoil
to avoid, somehow, their own destruction.
This particular sense is located in all things and is a form of life,
although, in accordance with the common custom, we do not call it an animal,
which refers to a specific soul, because these components cannot be
called animals. Nevertheless, in the order of the universe, one can recognize
that there is one spirit which is diffused everywhere and in all things,
and that everywhere and in all things there is a sense of grasping things
which perceives such effects and passions.
Just as our soul produces, originally and in a general way, all vital activities
from the whole body, and even though the whole soul is in the whole body
and in each of its parts, nevertheless, it does not produce every action in the
whole body or in each of its parts. Rather, it causes vision in the eyes, hearing
in the ears and taste in the mouth (but if the eye were located in any
other place, we would see in that place, and if the organs of all the senses
were located in any one place, we would perceive everything in that place).
In the same way, the soul of the world is in the whole world, and is everywhere
so adapted to matter that, at each place, it produces the proper subject
and causes the proper actions. Therefore, although the world soul is
located equally everywhere, it does not act equally everywhere, because
matter is not arranged to be equally disposed to it everywhere. Thus, the
whole soul is in the whole body, in the bones and in the veins and in the
heart; it is no more present in one part than in another, and it is no less present
in one part than in the whole, nor in the whole less than in one part.
Rather, it causes a nerve to be a nerve in one place, a vein to be a vein elsewhere,
blood to be blood, and the heart to be the heart elsewhere. And as
these parts happen to be changed, either by an extrinsic efficient cause or by
an intrinsic passive principle, then the activity of the soul must also change.
This is the most important and most fundamental of all the principles
which provide an explanation of the marvels found in nature; namely, that
because of the active principle and spirit or universal soul, nothing is so
incomplete, defective or imperfect, or, according to common opinion, so
completely insignificant that it could not become the source of great events.
Indeed, on the contrary, a very large disintegration into such components
must occur for an almost completely new world to be generated from them.
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