y of these souls existing from
all eternity; but actual infinity is impossible, according to the doctrine
of the same Aristotle. Therefore it is a necessary conclusion that the
souls, that is, the forms of organic bodies, must perish with the bodies,
or at least this must happen to the passive understanding that belongs to
each one individually. Thus there will only remain the active understanding
common to all men, which according to Aristotle comes from outside, and
which must work wheresoever the organs are suitably disposed; even as the
wind produces a kind of music when it is blown into properly adjusted organ
pipes.

8. Nothing could have been weaker than this would-be proof. It is not true
that Aristotle refuted metempsychosis, or that he proved the eternity of
the human kind; and after all, it is quite untrue that an actual infinity
is impossible. Yet this proof passed as irresistible amongst Aristotelians,
and induced in them the belief that there was a certain sublunary
intelligence and that our active intellect was produced by participation in
it. But others who adhered less to Aristotle went so far as to advocate a
universal soul forming the ocean of all individual souls, and believed this
universal soul alone capable of subsisting, whilst individual souls are
born and die. According to this opinion the souls of animals are born by
being separated like drops from their ocean, when they find a body which
they can animate; and they die by being reunited to the ocean of souls when
the body is destroyed, as streams are lost in the sea. Many even went so
far as to believe that God is that universal soul, although others thought
that this soul was subordinate and created. This bad doctrine is very
ancient and apt to dazzle the common herd. It is expressed in these
beautiful lines of Vergil (_Aen._, VI, v. 724):

_Principio coelum ac terram camposque liquentes,_
_Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque astra,_
_Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus_
_Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet._
_Inde hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum._

[79]
And again elsewhere (_Georg._, IV, v. 221):

_Deum namque ire per omnes_
_Terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum:_
_Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,_
_Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas._
_Scilicet huc reddi deinde ac resoluta