But what, I asked, if, insisting on the great differences which, in spite of a certain quality of matter shared alike by all elements in their visible form, exist between each particular kind of matter (motion, for instance, is not the same in all, some moving up, some down; nor form, nor quality either), some one were to say that there was in the same manner incorporated in, and belonging to, these elements a certain force17    εἴ τινα τούτων κατὰ τὸν αὐτὁν λόγον συνουσιωμένην τις εἶναι λέγοι δύναμιν, κ.τ.λ. The difficulty here is in τούτων, which Krabinger takes as a partitive genitive after εἶναι, and refers to the “elements”; and this is perhaps the best way of taking it. But still, as Schmidt points out, it is rather the human body than the elements themselves that ought here to be spoken of as the efficient cause of thought: and so he would either refer τούτων to τὸν αὐτὸν (“in the same way as these instances just given”), and compares Eurip. Helen., ὄνομα δὲ ταὐτὸν τῆς ἐμῆς ἔχουσά τις δάμαρτος ἄλλη (Matt. Gr. p. 706); or else would join τούτων with the preceding διάφορος (with Codd. Mon. D, E). as well which effects these intellectual insights and operations by a purely natural effort of their own (such effects, for instance, as we often see produced by the mechanists, in whose hands matter, combined according to the rules of Art, thereby imitates Nature, exhibiting resemblance not in figure alone but even in motion, so that when the piece of mechanism sounds in its resonant part it mimics a human voice, without, however, our being able to perceive anywhere any mental force working out the particular figure, character, sound, and movement); suppose, I say, we were to affirm that all this was produced as well in the organic machine of our natural bodies, without any intermixture of a special thinking substance, but owing simply to an inherent motive power of the elements within us accomplishing18    Cod. Mon. D, ἀποτελούσης. This seems a better reading than that preferred by Krabinger, ἀποτέλεσμα εἶναι: for ἀποτέλεσμα must be pressed to mean, in order to preserve the sense, “mere result,” i.e. something secondary, and not itself a principle or cause: the following ἥ, besides, cannot without awkwardness be referred to ἐνέργειαν by itself these operations—to nothing else, in fact, but an impulsive movement working for the cognition of the object before us; would not then the fact stand proved of the absolute nonexistence19    Reading οὐσιὰν οὐκ ἂν ἀποδεικνύοιτο ἦ τὸ μηδ᾽ ὅλως εἶναι; of that intellectual and impalpable Being, the soul, which you talk of?

_Γ. Τί δὲ, εἶπον, εἰ ὥσπερ κοινὸν μέν ἐστιν ἐπὶ τῆς αἰσθητῆς τῶν στοιχείων φύσεως τὸ ὑλῶδες, διαφορὰ δὲ κατὰ τὸ ἰδίαζον ἐν ἑκάστῳ εἴδει τῆς ὕλης πολλὴ (ἥ τε γὰρ κίνησις αὐτοῖς ἐκ τοῦ ἐναντίου ἐστὶν, τοῦ μὲν ἀνωφεροῦς ὄντος, τοῦ δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ κάτω βρίθοντος, τὸ δὲ εἶδος οὐ τὸ αὐτὸ, καὶ ἡ ποιότης διάφορος ἔν τινι), τούτων κατὰ τὸν λόγον συνουσιωμένην τις εἶναι λέγοι δύναμιν, τὴν τὰς νοητικὰς ταύτας φαντασίας τε καὶ κινήσεις, ἐκ φυσικῆς ἰδιότητός τε καὶ δυνάμεως ἐνεργοῦσαν; Οἷα δὴ πολλὰ βλέπομεν ὑπὸ τῶν μηχανοποιῶν ἐνεργούμενα, ἐφ' ὧν ἡ ὕλη τεχνικῶς διατεθεῖσα μιμεῖται τὴν φύσιν, οὐκ ἐν τῷ σχήματι μόνῳ δεικνῦσα τὸ ὅμοιον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν κινήσει γίνεται, καὶ φθόγγον τινὰ ὑποκρίνεται, ἠχοῦντος ἐν τῷ φωνητικῷ μέρει τοῦ μηχανήματος, καὶ οὐδέ που νοητήν τινα δύναμιν γινομένοις ἐνθεωροῦμεν τὴν καθ' ἕκαστον ἐργαζομένην τὸ σχῆμα, τὸ εἶδος, τὸν ἦχον, τὴν κίνησιν. Εἰ ταῦτα λέγομεν καὶ περὶ τὸ μηχανικὸν τοῦτο τῆς φύσεως ἡμῶν ὄργανον, μηδεμιᾶς κατὰ τὸ ἰδιάζον νοητῆς οὐσίας ἐγκεκραμένης γίνεσθαι, ἀλλά τινος τῇ φύσει τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν στοιχείων κινητικῆς δυνάμεως ἐγκειμένης, καὶ τὴν τοιαύτην ἐνέργειαν ἀποτέλεσμα εἶναι ἐφ' ἑαυτῆς: τὴν νοητὴν ἐκείνην καὶ ἀσώματον τῆς ψυχῆς οὐσίαν ἀποδεικνύοιτο, ἢ τὸ μηδόλως εἶναι;