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Plato was a man of his time. He appears to have held that living bodies were infused with soul, an agency or power of self-motion that non-living things lacked. His Timaeus is his most sophisticated exposition of this position, but Phaedo, Republic, Philebus and Laws also contain pertinent passages. While Plato didn't invent this doctrine of what came to be called 'vitalism', he certainly gave it its first important written expression. Aristotle in no way disagreed with Plato's view that living things were infused with soul while non-living things were not.

Vitalism lost its vitality in the early decades of the last century (Bergson was perhaps its last well-known proponent), but creationists and ID'ers appear to have been attempting to revivify it.

The claim that there's some special force or substance ("the spark of life") whose presence in matter brings that matter to life is either true or false. Almost all modern biologists think that it's false; creationists and ID'ers seem to think that it's true.

In the next few years, we're likely to hear the announcement of the laboratory creation of a brand-new, never-before-seen living thing. I'd like to think that such an announcement will finally show that vitalism is false. But it's unlikely that everybody will be convinced. And so the wrangling will continue.

Actually, Thomists still accept the existence of the soul because Natural Scientists lack the ability to discredit it.
Philosophy is not the Biologist's area of expertise. In fact, the Natural Sciences have become so specialized they cannot transcend Empirical evidence. Philosophy has even quite specialized in the Universities (where I've given guest lectures in Philosophy) that many Philosophers are not Philosophers if you understand where I'm going. From the perspective of a Philosopher, recent advances in the Natural Sciences have allowed Philosophers to debunk the pseudo-scientific, pseudo-Philosophy's of the last two centuries with ease. The existence of the "soul" is more easily demonstrated today than in Aristotle's and Plato's times.
Don't think because an idea is not fashionable in liberal controlled Universities, that the idea is false. I was ridiculed and spit on by liberals when I wore the Navy uniform and when I was a kid. Unlike the liberal and protestant students, when I was attending the four Universities I attended (so far) acquiring the five majors I acquired, liberal professors ridiculed and discriminated against me every day, but despite that ridicule and discrimination I managed to make the Dean's list every semester, and graduate Magna Cum Laude. And I accomplished it by working a full-time job while attending school full-time.
At the age of seven, I began my instruction in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, History of Philosophy, and Theology.
Over the last twenty-five years I've been repairing the damage caused by liberals in the elementary schools, secondary schools, and universities and I can assure you the work is never-ending. (It can also be heartbreaking.)
By the time that I was twelve I had to ask the librarians to go upstairs to retrieve books about the American Revolution from the adult only section because I had already read everything in the regular section of the library about the American Revolution. By the time I was sixteen the eye doctors were telling me I would go blind if I keep reading so much. By the time I was twenty I had already studied the beliefs of every religion in the world (curiosity).
While attending public high school I had libera teachers take me to the side and inform me to my face that they were deliberately lowering my grade in an attempt to force me to quit the wrestling team. In college, I had a professor inform me in front of all the other students my "Academic career would be taken care of" if I attacked my religion. The same professor was the Democrat Party chairman of the State at the time and he was running the Governor's reelection campaign.
I served in the Armed Forces when it wasn't a good time to serve in the Armed Forces. For twenty years I faced discrimination in employment by liberals because I was a Veteran.
In my spare time I've written a more contemporary version of De Anima.