Sometimes, again, the reason for making a mental distinction will be found in the reality itself. What is one and the same reality presents different aspects to the mind and evokes different concepts of itself in the mind: though really one, it is virtually manifold; and the distinction between the concepts of these various aspects is commonly known as a _virtual_ distinction. For example, when we think of any individual man as a “rational animal,” though our concept of “animal nature” is distinct from that of “rational nature,” we do not regard these in him as two realities co-existing or combining to form his human nature, but only as two distinct aspects under which we view the one reality which is his human nature. And we view it under these two aspects because we have actual experience of instances in which animal nature is really distinct and separated from rationality, _e.g._, in the brute beast. Or, again, since we can recognize three grades of life in man—vegetative, sentient, and rational—we conceive the one principle of life, his soul, as virtually three principles; and so we distinguish mentally or virtually between three souls in man, although in reality there is only one. Or, once more, when we think of the Wisdom, the Will, and the Omnipotence of God, we know that although these concepts represent different aspects of the Deity, these aspects are not distinct realities in Him; but that because of His infinite perfection and infinite simplicity they are all objectively one and the same self-identical reality. A virtual distinction is said to be _imperfect_ (thus approaching nearer to the nature of a purely logical distinction) when each of the concepts whereby we apprehend the same reality only prescinds _explicitly_ from what is expressed by the other, although one of them is found on analysis to include _implicitly_ what is expressed by the other. Such is the distinction between the _being_ and the _life_ of any living thing; or the distinction between the spirituality and the immortality of the human soul; or the distinction between _Infinite_ Wisdom and _Infinite_ Power: the distinction between the divine attributes in general. A virtual distinction is said to be _perfect_ (thus approaching nearer to the nature of a real distinction) when neither of the concepts includes either explicitly or implicitly what is expressed by the other. Such, for instance, is the distinction between the principle of intellectual life and the principle of animal or sentient life in man; for not only can these exist separately (the former without the latter, _e.g._ in pure spirits, the latter without the former, _e.g._ in brute beasts), but also it will be found that by no analysis does either concept in any way involve the other.(118)