 Having demonstrated that the earth is an organism, Fechner proceeds to argue that it also has a soul. Because the earth has a body much like our own, we are justified, on the basis of analogy, to assume that it has a soul much like our own (ZA: 110–111). If we regard freedom as a necessary characteristic of the soul, we should also attribute it to the earth, which is an even more self-sufficient and independent being (ZA: 113). All the respects in which the earth is unlike us are only reasons to attribute to it a higher soul (ZA: 115). To the objection that the earth does not have a nervous system and other organic functions like ours, Fechner replies that, though the presence of these functions proves a soul, their absence does not disprove the soul either but only the lack of an animal or human soul (ZA: 130). It is easier to prove that the earth has a soul than plants do, Fechner claims, for the simple reason that we have souls and are part of the earth (ZA: 120). We are all parts of the earth, Fechner argues at length, and just for that reason the earth must have also a soul, because a soul cannot arise from matter but only another soul (ZA: 140–1). 