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On magic<br />
parts of another body, but rather, all action comes from quality and form<br />
and ultimately from soul. The soul first changes the dispositions, and then<br />
the dispositions change bodies. Thus, bodies act on distant bodies, on nearby<br />
ones and on their own parts, by means of a certain harmony, joining and<br />
union which comes from form. For, since every body is governed by a soul<br />
or a spirit which connects its parts, and since one soul acts on another<br />
nearby soul in any direction and wherever it is, it follows necessarily that a<br />
soul moves that body, wherever it is, because it is controlled by, and subordinate<br />
to, that soul. Whoever is aware of this indissoluble continuity of<br />
the soul and its necessary connection to a body will possess an important<br />
principle both to control natural things and to understand them better.<br />
From this follows clearly the reason why a void, i.e., a space empty of any<br />
body, does not exist. For no body can leave one place without being<br />
replaced by another. During life, the soul does leave its own body, but it<br />
cannot leave the universal body, nor can it be abandoned by the universal<br />
body, if you prefer to state it that way. For, when it leaves one simple or<br />
complex body, it moves into another simple or complex body, or from one<br />
body left behind, it goes to and enters into another. Thus, it has an indissoluble<br />
connection with universal matter. And since its own nature is to be<br />
a continuous whole everywhere, we realize that it exists together with a<br />
material body everywhere. From this, we conclude that the void does not<br />
exist in the sense of a space with no matter in it, but rather a void is a space<br />
in which different bodies move and succeed each other. It also follows that<br />
the motion of the parts of one body towards the parts of another body is<br />
continuous. Motion occurs through a continuous space which is not interrupted<br />
by any void located between full spaces, unless we wish to say that<br />
a space in which there is no sensible body is a void.<br />
A continuous body is an unobservable body, that is, an airy or ethereal<br />
spirit. It is very active and very powerful and very similar to the soul, and<br />
it is quite different from the dense sluggishness found in observable, composite<br />
substances. The above mentioned powers of unobservable spiritual<br />
bodies are the source of all the powers in observable bodies themselves.<br />
Indications of this are the airy spirit which agitates and embroils all the<br />
seas, and the invincible force of the winds which, even when they are rather<br />
calm and quiet, disturb the earth, break trees and destroy houses. Lucretius<br />
put it well when he said that it is this spiritual body which performs all<br />
actions in observable things. 8 Many philosophers have thought that this<br />
8 Lucretius, De rerum natura, V, 235ff.<br />
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