2?2 OBSERVATIONS ON IRRITABILITY.
the feparated parts of animals, does not infer its real divisibility*;
nor is it neceffary to repeat the fame things again : but I cannot
help obferving, that, when M. de Haller repreients me as holding
the foul to be divifible, fo as that it may be cut into as many pieces
as the anatomift pleafes f, he inadvertently charges me with an
opinion which I not only do not maintain, but which I have
brought arguments to difprove. I fhall only add, that the indivi-
fihiiity of the foul does not depend on the unity of the body, but
on its own particular nature.
It mud be acknowledged, that there is a great deal of obfcurity
in thefe matters : but as in every part of nature wèffind abundance
of myileries, as often as we carry our inquiries to any great length;,
it can be no wonder if we meet with difficulties, almoft infurmount-
able, in accounting for the motions of animals, or tracing them
up to their fource : for, if we are far from underftanding the com¬
munication of motion and other adions of matter upon matter,,
how fhall we be able to comprehend the manner in which an im¬
material principle ads upon it ? But, as we can, from the little we
know of matter, fee that inadivity is one of its effentiai pro¬
perties, wre are hence convinced of the neceffity of afcribing the
life and motions of animals to the power of an incorporeal agent»«
S E C T. III.
TP HE learned M. de Haller, after endeavouring to prove that
irritability is independent on fenfihility, gives it as his opi¬
nion, that this remarkable property of the mufcles has its feat
in the glutinous matter conneding the earthy elements of which
their fibres are compofed %} and that irritability ought to be eonfi-
dered as a peculiar property of this glutinous fubflance, in like man¬
ner as gravity is allowed to be a. property of matter in general, al-
tho’ its caufe cannot be affigned |j.
But
* Effay on vital motions, &c. p. 183.