32. Since the influence exteriorly exercised by the heavens on us, on animals, and on human affairs generally has been excluded from physical causes (of astrology) and from voluntary decisions of divinities, it remains for us to find some cause to which it may reasonably be attributed. First, we will have to admit that this universe is a single living being, which contains within its own organism all living beings; and that it contains a single Soul, which is communicated to all its parts; namely, to all beings that form part of the universe. Now every being that is contained in the sense-world is a part of the universe. First, and unrestrictedly, it is a part of the universe by its body. Then, it is again part of the universe by its soul, but only so far as it participates (in the natural and vegetative power) of the universal Soul. The beings which only participate in (the natural and vegetative power) of the universal Soul are completely parts of the universe. Those who participate in another soul (the superior power of the universal Soul), are not completely parts of the universe (because they are independent by their rational souls); but they experience passions by the actions of the other beings, as far as they have something of the universe (so far as by their irrational souls, they participate in the natural and vegetative power of the universe), and in the proportion in which they possess some part of the universe. This universe is therefore a single living being that is self-sympathetic. The parts that seem distant are not any the less near, as, in each animal, the horns, nails, fingers, the organs at distance from each other, feel, in spite of the interval which separates them, the affection experienced by any other one of them. In fact, as soon as the parts are similar, even when they are separated by an interval instead of being placed by each others' side, they sympathize by virtue of this their similarity, and the action of the distant one is felt by all the others. Now in this universe which is a single living being, and which forms a single organism, there is nothing distant enough in place not to be near because of the nature of this being whose unity makes it self-sympathetic. When the suffering being resembles the acting one, it experiences a passion conformable to its nature; when on the contrary it differs, it experiences a passion that is foreign to its nature, and painful. It is therefore not surprising that though the universe be single, one of its parts can exert on another a harmful influence, since it often happens to ourselves that one of our parts wounds another by its action; as for instance, that the bile, setting anger in motion, should crush and tear some other part of the body. Now something analogous to this bile which excites anger, and to other parts that form the human body, is discovered in the universe. Even in plants there are certain things which form obstacles to others, and even destroy them.