IF ALL SOULS BE ONE IN THE WORLD-SOUL, WHY SHOULD THEY NOT TOGETHER FORM ONE?
1. Just as the soul of each animal is one, because she is entirely present in the whole body, and because she is thus really one, because she does not have one part in one organ, and some other part in another; and just as the sense-soul is equally one in all the beings which feel, and just as the vegetative soul is everywhere entirely one in each part of the growing plants; why then should your soul and mine not form a single unity? Why should not all souls form but a single one? Why should not the universal (Soul) which is present in all beings, be one because she is not divided in the manner of a body, being everywhere the same? Why indeed should the soul in myself form but one, and the universal (Soul) likewise not be one, similarly, since no more than my own is this universal (Soul) either material extension, or a body? If both my soul and yours proceed from the universal (Soul), and if the latter be one, then should my soul and yours together form but a single one. Or again, on the supposition that the universal (Soul) and mine proceed from a single soul, even on this hypothesis would all souls form but a single one. We shall have to examine in what (this Soul which is but) one consists.
SOULS MAY NOT FORM A NUMERIC UNITY. BUT MAY FORM A GENERIC UNITY.
Let us first consider if it may be affirmed that all souls form but one in the sense in which it is said that the soul of each individual is one. It seems absurd to pretend that my soul and yours form but one in this (numerical) sense; for then you would be feeling simultaneously with my feeling, and you would be virtuous when I was, and you would have the same desires as I, and not only would we both have the same sentiments, but even the identical sentiments of the universal (Soul), so that every sensation felt by me would have been felt by the entire universe. If in this manner all the souls form but one, why is one soul reasonable, and the other unreasonable, why is the one in an animal, and the other in a plant? On the other hand, if we do not admit that there is a single Soul, we will not be able to explain the unity of the universe, nor find a single principle for (human) souls.