Note 11 — LECTURE IX.
Reading edition
We do not assent to the notions of ancient philosophers and poets, who believed the doctrine that the world is animated by a soul, like the human body, which is the spirit of Deity himself; but that by the operation of wise and perfect laws, he exerts a supervision in the creation and preservation of all things animate and inanimate. Virgil stated the opinions of his times, in his Æneid, B. VI. l. 724.
"Principio cœlum, ac terras, camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum, Lunæ, Titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
"Know, first, that heaven, and earth's compacted frame, And flowing waters, and the starry flame, And both the radiant lights, one common soul Inspires and feeds—and animates the whole. This active mind, infused thro all the space, Unites and mingles with the mighty mass." Dryden, b. VI. l. 980.
This sentiment, he probably borrowed from Pythagoras and Plato, who argue the same sentiment, and divide this spirit into "intellectus, intelligentia, et natura"—intellectual, intelligent, and natural. Whence, "Ex hoc Deo, qui est mundi anima: quasi decerptæ particulæ sunt vitæ hominum et pecudum." Or, "Omnia animalia ex quatuor elementis et divino spiritu constare manifestum est. Trahunt enim a terra carnem, ab aqua humorem, ab ære anhelitum, ab igne fervorem, a divino spiritu ingenium."—Timeus, chap. 24, and Virgil's Geor. b. 4, l. 220, Dryden's trans. l. 322.
Pope alludes to the same opinion in these lines:
"All are but parts of one stupendous whole. Whose body nature is, and God the soul."