the body after an easy natural death, than after a sudden and
violent one; and so Buffon begins his first volume by saying that
"we can descend, by almost imperceptible degrees, from the most
perfect creature to the most formless matter--from the most highly
organised matter to the most entirely inorganic substance." {150d}

Is the line to be so drawn as to admit any of the non-living within
the body? If we answer "yes," then, as we have seen, moiety after
moiety is filched from us, till we find ourselves left face to face
with a tenuous quasi immaterial vital principle or soul as animating
an alien body, with which it not only has no essential underlying
community of substance, but with which it has no conceivable point
in common to render a union between the two possible, or give the
one a grip of any kind over the other; in fact, the doctrine of
disembodied spirits, so instinctively rejected by all who need be
listened to, comes back as it would seem, with a scientific
imprimatur; if, on the other hand, we exclude the non-living from
the body, then what are we to do with nails that want cutting, dying
skin, or hair that is ready to fall off? Are they less living than
brain? Answer "yes," and degrees are admitted, which we have
already seen prove fatal; answer "no," and we must deny that one
part of the body is more vital than another--and this is refusing to
go as far even as common sense does; answer that these things are
not very important, and we quit the ground of equity and high
philosophy on which we have given ourselves such airs, and go back
to common sense as unjust judges that will hear those widows only
who importune us.

As with the non-living so also with the living. Are we to let it
pass beyond the limits of the body, and allow a certain temporary