Cause Principle Unity

Cause, principle and unity
the formal principle? I leave for a better and more detailed analysis the
examination of the thousand natural reasons that can be added to this
topical or logical one.
DICSONO. I am not concerned to have you exert yourself over this
point, for there is no philosopher enjoying some reputation, even among
the Peripatetics, who does not hold that the world and its spheres are
animated in some way. For now, I would like to understand how, in your
opinion, this form comes to introduce itself into the matter of the universe.
TEOFILO. It joins itself to it in such a way that the nature of the body,
which is not beautiful in itself, comes to participate as far as it can in beauty,
for there is no beauty which does not consist of some species or form, and
there is no form that is not produced by the soul.
DICSONO. I seem to be hearing something very novel. Are you claiming,
perhaps, that not only the form of the universe, but also all the forms
of natural things are souls?
TEOFILO. Yes.
DICSONO. But who will agree with you there?
TEOFILO. But who could reasonably refute it?
DICSONO. Common sense tells us that not everything is alive.
TEOFILO. The most common sense is not the truest sense.
DICSONO. I can readily believe that that last point is defensible. But it
is not enough for one to be be able to defend a thing to render it true: we
must be able to provide a proof.
TEOFILO. That is not difficult. Are there not philosophers who say that
the world is animated?
DICSONO. Many of the leading ones do say so.
TEOFILO. Then, why do those same philosophers not declare that the
world’s parts are animated?
DICSONO. They, indeed, say it, but only of the principal parts, those
which are the true parts of the world, for when they affirm that the soul is
entire in the entire world, and entire in any of its parts, they are as reasonable
as when they hold that the soul of living creatures we can perceive is
wholly present throughout their bodies.
TEOFILO. So, which do you think are not true parts of the world?
DICSONO. Those which are not primary bodies, as the Peripatetics call
them: the Earth, with the waters and other parts that, as you say, constitute
the entire creature, along with the moon, the sun and other bodies. Besides
these principal organisms, there are those that are not primary parts of the
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