Let us return to this question: How can the same principle exist
in all things? This question amounts to asking how each of the
sense-objects which form a plurality and which occupy different places,
can, nevertheless, participate in the same principle; for it is not
allowable to divide unity into a multitude of parts; it would be more
fitting to reduce the multitude of parts to unity, which could not
approach them. But when these parts occupy different places, they have
led us to believe that unity likewise is split up, as if the power
which dominates and which contains were divided into as many parts as
that which is contained. The hand itself (though corporeal), may hold
an entire body, such as a piece of wood several feet in length, and
other objects. In this case, the force that holds makes itself felt in
the whole object that is felt, and does not distribute itself in as
many parts as it may contain, though it be circumscribed by the limit
of the reach of the hand. Nevertheless, the hand is limited by its own
extension, and not by that of the body which is held or suspended. Add
to the suspended body some other length, and admitting that the hand
can carry it, its force will hold the entire body without dividing into
as many parts as it may contain. Now suppose that the corporeal mass
of the hand be annihilated, and, nevertheless, allow the force which,
before, existed in the hand and held the weight, to persist; will not
this same force, indivisible in the totality, be equally indivisible in
each of its parts?