It contracts and expands naturally, and so is able to pull and
to thrust from one and the same cause, exhibiting gravity compared
with the fiery element, and levity by comparison with the opposites of
fire. Now that which is to initiate movement without change of
structure must be of the kind described, for the elementary bodies
prevail over one another in a compound body by dint of
disproportion; the light is overcome and kept down by the heavier, and
the heavy kept up by the lighter.
We have now explained what the part is which is moved when the
soul originates movement in the body, and what is the reason for this.
And the animal organism must be conceived after the similitude of a
well-governed commonwealth. When order is once established in it there
is no more need of a separate monarch to preside over each several
task. The individuals each play their assigned part as it is
ordered, and one thing follows another in its accustomed order. So
in animals there is the same orderliness- nature taking the place of
custom- and each part naturally doing his own work as nature has
composed them. There is no need then of a soul in each part, but she
resides in a kind of central governing place of the body, and the
remaining parts live by continuity of natural structure, and play
the parts Nature would have them play.
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