There was no heresy they said in his assertion that the souls of brutes were not of an elementary nature, but of something different: provided that a just distinction were made between the rational soul and the brute soul, the difference being not merely specific but generic. For the rational soul is altogether of a spiritual nature and essence, _adeòque Ens uti vocant transcendens_, bearing the image of God in this, that properly speaking it is a spirit, as God is a Spirit. 2d. The rational soul as such, as Aristotle himself testifies, has no bodily energies, or operations; its operations indeed are performed in the body but not by the body, nor by bodily organs; but the contrary is true concerning the souls of brutes. 3dly. The rational soul, though it be closely conjoined with the body and hypostatically united therewith, nevertheless is separable therefrom, so that ever out of the body _sit ὑφιστάμενον aliquod_; but the souls of brutes are immersed in matter and in bodies, so that they cannot subsist without them. Lastly, the rational soul alone hath the privilege of immortality, it being beyond all controversy that the souls of brutes are mortal and corruptible. These differences being admitted, and saving the due prerogative, excellence, and as it were divinity of the rational soul, the Theological Faculty of Basil thought it of little consequence if any one held that the souls of brutes were of something different from elementary matter. They delivered no opinion in condemnation of his assailant's doctrine, upon the ground that the question was not within their province. “_Certum est,_” they said, “_uti formas rerum omnium difficulter, et non nisi a posteriori, et per certas περιστάσεις, cognoscere possumus; ita omnium difficillimè Animarum naturam nos pervestigare posse, nostramque, uti in aliis, ita in hac materiâ, scientiam esse, ut scitè Scaliger loquitur, umbram in sole. Ac non dubium, Deum hic vagabundis contemplationibus nostris ponere voluisse, ut disceremus imbecillitatis et cæcitatis nostræ conscientiâ humiliari, cum stupore opera ejus admirari, atque cum modestia et sobrietate philosophari._” They declared however that the rational soul differed from that of brutes in its nature, essence, properties and actions, and that this was not to be doubted of by Christians: that the soul of brutes was not spiritual, not immaterial, that all its actions were merely material, and performed by corporeal organs, and they referred to Sennertus's own works as rightly affirming that it was partible, _et dividatur ad divisionem materiæ, ita ut cum corporis parte aliquid animæ possit avelli_, inferring here as it seems from a false analogy that animal life was like that of vegetables, _quæ ex parte a plantâ avulsâ propagantur_.