SOUL
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SOUL
the soul is a substance, but an incomplete substance,
i. e. it has a natural aptitude and exigency for exist-
ence in the body, in conjunction with which it makes
up the substantial unity of human nature; (3) though
connaturally related to the body, it is itself absolutely
simple, i. e. of an unextended and spiritual nature.
It is not wholly immersed in matter, its higher oper-
ations being intrinsically independent of the organ-
ism; (4) the rational soul is produced by special crea-
tion, at the moment when the organism is sufficiently
developed to receive it. In the first stage of embrj'-
onic development, the vital principle has merely
vegetative powers; then a sensitive soul comes into
being, educed from the evolving potencies of the organ-
ism; later yet, this is replaced by the perfect rational
soul, which is essentially immaterial and so postulates
a special creative act. Many modern theologians
have abandoned this last point of St. Thomas's teach-
ing, and maintain that a fully rational soul is infused
into the embryo at the first moment of its existence.
The Soul in Modern Thought. — Modern spec- ulations respecting the soul have taken two main directions, Idealism and Materialism. Agnosticism need not be reckoned as a third and distinct answer to the problem, since, as a matter of fact, all actual agnosticisms have an easily recognized bias towards one or other of the two solutions aforesaid. Both Idealism and Materialism in present-day philosophy merge into Monism, which is probably the most influential sj'stem outside the Catholic Church.
History. — Descartes conceived the soul as essen- tially thinking (i. e. conscious) substance, and body as essentially extended substance. The two are thus simply disparate realities, with no vital connexion between them. This is significantly marked by his theory of the soul's location in- the body. Unlike the Scholastics he confines it to a single point — the pineal gland — from which it is supposed to control the various organs and muscles through the medium of the "animal spirits", a kind of fluid circulating through the body. Thus, to say the least, the soul's biological functions aie made very remote and in- direct, and were in fact later on reduced almost to a nullity: the lower life was violently severed from the higher, and regarded as a simple mechanism. In the Cartesian theory animals are mere automata. It is only by the Divine assistance that action be- tween soul and body is possible. The Occasionalists went further, denjdng all interaction whatever, and making the correspondence of the two sets of facts a pure result of the action of God. The Leibnizian theory of Pre-established Harmony similarly refuses to admit any inter-causal relation. The superior monad (soul) and the aggregate of inferior monads which go to make up the body are like two clocks constructed with perfect art so as always to agree. They register alike, but independently: they are still two clocks, not one. This awkward Dualism was entirely got rid of by Spinoza. For him there is but one, infinite substance, of which thought and exten- sion are only attributes. Thought comprehends extension, and by that very fact shows that it is at root one with that which it comjirehends. The alleged irreducible distinction is transcended: soul and body are neither of them substances, but each is a property of the one sub.stance. Each in its sphere is the counterpart of the other. This is the meaning of the definition, "Soul is the Idea of Body". Soul is the counterpart within the sphere of the attribute of thought of that particular mode of the attribute of extension which we call the body. Such was the fate of Cartesianism.
Engli.sh Idealism had a different course. Berke- ley had begun by denying the existence of material substance, which he reduced merely to a series of impressions in the sentient mind. Mind is the only substance. Hume finished the argument by dissolv-
ing mind itself into its phenomena, a loose collection
of "impressions and ideas". The Sensist school
(Condillac etc.) and the A-ssociationists (Hartley,
the Mills, and Bain) continued in similar fashion to
regard the mind as constituted by its phenomena or
"states", and the growth of modern positive psychol-
ogy has tended to encourage this attitude. But
to rest in PhenomenaUsm as a theory is impossible,
as its ablest advocates themselves have seen. Thus,
J. S. Mill, while describing the miud as merely "a
series [i. e. of conscious phenomena] aware of "itself
as a series", is forced to admit that such a conception
involves an unresolved paradox. Again, W. James's
assertion that "the passing thought is itself the
Thinker", which "appropriates" all past thoughts in
the "stream of consciousness", simply bhnks the ques-
tion. For surely there is something which in its
turn "appropriates" the passing thought itself and
the entire stream of past and future thoughts as
well, viz. the self-conscious, self -asserting "I",
the sub.stantial ultimate of our mental life. To be
in this sense "monarch of all it surveys" in introspec-
tive observation and reflective self-consciousness, to
appropriate without itself being appropriated by
anything else, to be the genuine owner of a certain
limited section of reality (the stream of conscious-
ness), this is to be a free and sovereign (though finite)
personaUty, a self-conscious, spiritual substance in
the language of Catholic metaphysics.
Criticism. — The foregoing discussion partly antici- pates our criticism of Materialism (q. v.). The father of modern Materiahsm is Hobbes, who accepted the theory of Epicurus, and reduced all spirits either to phantoms of the imagination or to matter in a highly rarefied state. This theory need not detain us here. Later Materialism has three main sources: (1) New- tonian physics, which taught men to regard matter, not as inert and passive, but as instinct with force. Why should not life and consciousness be among its unexplored potencies? (Priestley, Tyndall, etc.) Tyndall himself provides the answer admitting that the chasm that separates psychical facts from material phenomena is "intellectually impassable". Writers, therefore, who make thought a mere "secretion of the brain " or a " phosphorescence ' ' of its subst ance ( Vogt, Moleschott) may be simply ignored. In reply to the more serious Materialism, spiritualist philoso- phers need only re-assert the admissions of the Materialists themselves, that there is an impassable chasm between the two classes of facts. (2) Psycho- physics, it is alleged, shows the most minute depen- dence of mind-functions upon brain-states. The two orders of facts are therefore perfectly continu- ous, and, though they may be superficially different, yet they must be after all radically one. Mental phenomena may be styled an epiphenomenon or by- product of material force (Huxley). The answer is the same as before. There is no analogy- for an epiphenomenon being separated by an "impassable chasm" from the causal series to which it belongs. The term is, in fact, a mere verbal subterfuge. The only sound principle in such arguments is the princi- ple that essential or "impassable" distinctions in the effect can be explained only by similar distinctions in the cause. This is the principle cm which Duahsm, as we have explained it, rests. Merely to find rela- tions, however close, between mental and physiolog- ical facts does not advance us an inch towards transcending this Dualism. It only enriches and fills out our concept of it. The mutual compenetra- tion of soul and body in their activities is just what Catholic philosophy (anticipating positive science) had taught for centuries. Man is two and one, a divisible but a vital unity. (3) Evolutionism en- deavours to explain the origin of the sou! from merely material forces. Spirit is not the basis and principle; rather it is the ultimate efflorescence of the Cosinoa.
