Note 69 — Chapter II · THE ANIMATE WORLD
Reading edition
This would not be admissible in all cases. Some thought that the possession of Anima constituted a degree of dignity which could not be attributed to all creatures, an opinion which was due to the tendency to confuse the Anima Mundi with God, and a consequent repugnance to including in the Anima Mundi beings not worthy of the heaven of the elect. Hence the term Anima came to mean soul in the sense in which it is used in the phrase, ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die.’ For that class of thinker animals must be automata.