On The Soul   

the soul. But how is it possible for one of the units to fulfil this

function of originating movement? There must be some difference

between such a unit and all the other units, and what difference can

there be between one placed unit and another except a difference of

position? If then, on the other hand, these psychic units within the

body are different from the points of the body, there will be two sets

of units both occupying the same place; for each unit will occupy a

point. And yet, if there can be two, why cannot there be an infinite

number? For if things can occupy an indivisible lace, they must

themselves be indivisible. If, on the other hand, the points of the

body are identical with the units whose number is the soul, or if

the number of the points in the body is the soul, why have not all

bodies souls? For all bodies contain points or an infinity of points.

Further, how is it possible for these points to be isolated or

separated from their bodies, seeing that lines cannot be resolved into

points?



5



The result is, as we have said, that this view, while on the one

side identical with that of those who maintain that soul is a subtle

kind of body, is on the other entangled in the absurdity peculiar to

Democritus' way of describing the manner in which movement is

originated by soul. For if the soul is present throughout the whole

percipient body, there must, if the soul be a kind of body, be two

bodies in the same place; and for those who call it a number, there

must be many points at one point, or every body must have a soul,

unless the soul be a different sort of number-other, that is, than the

sum of the points existing in a body. Another consequence that follows

is that the animal must be moved by its number precisely in the way

that Democritus explained its being moved by his spherical psychic

atoms. What difference does it make whether we speak of small