Soul and

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE PERCEPTION OF SUBSTANCE.

1. OUR first knowledge of spirit and of matter is body known obtained from an intuitive, or immediate, cognition of by intuitive our own souls and our own bodies, that is, from our perception. The primary consciousness of our own souls as in different states principles thus oband operations, and from a perception of our own tained. bodies as affecting our souls and as being affected by them. All subsequent knowledge is derived and

Plato quoted.

developed from this.

The primary lesson taught by this immediate cognition contains two closely related truths. We perceive, first, that the soul is not the body, nor the body the soul; and, secondly, that the qualities (that is, the powers) of the soul, and the qualities, or powers, of the body, are extremely different in nature from one another. Spirit in relation to matter, and matter in relation to spirit, is both ἄλλον and ἀλλοιον. This double distinction, intuitively made, is admirably illustrated by a passage in a dialogue of Plato. Socrates is conversing with Alcibiades.

"Hold, now," says Socrates, "with whom do you converse at present? Is it not with me? Alcib. Yes. Socr. And I also with you? Alcib. Yes. Socr. It is Socrates then who speaks? Alcib. Assuredly. Socr. And Alcibiades who listens? Alcib. Yes. Socr. Is it not with language that Socrates speaks? Alcib. What now? Of course. Socr. To converse, and to use language, are not these then the same? Alcib. The very same. Socr. But he who uses a thing and the thing used, are these not different? Alcib. What do you mean? Socr. A currier,

does he not use a cutting-knife and other instruments? Alcib. Yes. Socr. And the man who uses the cutting-knife,-- is he different from the instrument he uses? Alcib. Most certainly. Socr. In like manner the lyrist, — is he not different from the lyre he plays on? Alcib. Undoubtedly. Socr. This, then, was what I asked you just now, Does not he who uses a thing seem to you always different from the thing used? Alcib. Very different. Socr. But the currier, - - does he cut with his instruments alone, or also with his hands? Alcib. Also with his hands. Socr. He then uses his hands? Alcib. Yes. Socr. And in his work he uses also his eyes? Alcib. Yes. Socr. We are agreed, then, that he who uses a thing and the thing used are different? Alcib. We are. Socr. The currier and the lyrist are therefore different from the hands and eyes with which they work? Alcib. So it seems. Socr. Now, then, does not a man use his whole body? Alcib. Unquestionably. Socr. But we are agreed that he who uses, and that which is used, are different? Alcib. Yes. Socr. A man is therefore

different from his body? Alcib. So I think. Socr. What then is the man? Alcib. I cannot say. Socr. You can say, at least, that the man is that which uses the body? Alcib. True. Socr. Now, does anything use the body but the mind? Alcib. Nothing. Socr. The mind is therefore the man? Alcib. The mind alone."

This dialogue brings out the intuitive conviction of mankind. The truth which it enunciates is to be found in the language and literature of all nations; and every form of monistic philosophy, in attempting to destroy the distinction between mind and matter, simply rolls up the stone of Sisyphus, that it may fall back again to the plain of common sense.

The words of Hierocles express the judgment of the race,

Our specific

" Σὺ γὰρ εἶ ἡ ψυχή· τὸ δὲ σῶμα σόν.”
"The soul thou art; the body,—it is thine."

2. Let us now consider, more specifically, the conconceptions ceptions of soul and of body which intuition enables of soul and us to form. body. These for the most part are entertained Preliminary in contrast with one another. The distinctive attriremarks. butes of the two kinds of substance being extremely different from one another, yet being constantly perceived in correlation, our conceptions of the substances which they characterized are naturally opposed. We do not always and necessarily conceive of the mental and of the material as differing from each other; each may be, and often is, regarded positively and independently. But because the two are so frequently viewed in correlation, it is not strange that in our ordinary conceptions of them the idea of difference and negation should mingle with our apprehension of what is positive.

This is especially noticeable in our conception of body. Hence many philosophers make the starting-point-the primary element of their definition of matter to be that it is the non-ego; in other words, the substance which mind perceives as different from itself. In like manner we find a tendency to define the soul as immaterial, - that is, as devoid of the distinctive attributes of body. There is nothing wrong in this.

For in defining the leading cognitional conceptions of the intellect, we should present, as nearly as may be, the analytical expression of these conceptions as they are actually and ordinarily entertained. In this way only we can hope to exhibit truly the workings of the mind itself, and therein also to attain exact and clear views of the objects of its thought. Philosophical definitions, formed independently of the common sense and judgment of mankind, or without an impartial and careful interpretation of that judgment, have often proved the chief corner

stones for an edifice of error. The cause of truth is always served most perfectly when the conceptions of the mind are given according to their full natural development.

Spirit and

fined.

With these views, and remembering that substance matter de- is that form of entity which occupies space and is endowed with power, we venture two definitions. We say, first, that mind, or spirit, is the thinking, self-active, and intangible substance; and, secondly, that body, or matter, is the unthinking, self-helpless, and tangible, or solid, substance. As these statements are opposed to each other throughout, they may be made the subject of a common discussion.

Thinking and

The first element in our definition of spirit has in unthinking all ages been regarded as the principal characteristic substance. of this kind of substance, and as sufficient of itself to Epicharmus. form a distinctive definition. By a natural antithesis, also, matter has always been regarded as the unthinking substance. Mind-mind only-thinks.

Thought, in this connection, is considered not merely in its own proper nature, but as symbolizing all those peculiar powers which consciousness reveals. The term is employed in that broad sense which ordinarily should be shunned, and of which Descartes took an undue advantage when he declared that the essence of the soul consists in thought.

Although, in strict speech, intellectual activity is not even all of the experience of the soul, much less all of the soul itself, it is the most prominent part of psychical life, and the chief condition of its development. No emotion, desire, or voluntary action can take place without thought. Only to sensation thought is not prerequisite; yet it is difficult to believe that sensation could take place save in a being which should at least have a consciousness of that experience.

When we define spirit as the thinking substance, — that is, the substance endowed with sensation, intellect, emotion, desire, volition, and all those powers which we distinguish as psychical, -we simply formulate the natural and intuitive judgment of man respecting his own nature. As might be expected, the doctrine thus presented is a very ancient one. Five hundred years before Christ, Epicharmus, the Herodotus of Grecian comedy, tempering his fun with wisdom, wrote:

“ Νοῦς δρῇ καὶ νοῦς ἀκούει, τἄλλα κωφὰ καὶ τυφλά.”

words which belong, not to Epicharmus, but to all the children of Adam.

"What sees is mind, what hears is mind;

And all things else are deaf and blind."

For when we conceive of spirit as the thinking substance, we plainly deny that the other substance from which it is distinguished can think, or have psychical experience. This negative teaching of Epicharmus and of common sense is founded partly on the fact that matter never in any way manifests psychical activity, and partly, we believe, on our natural perception of the incapacity of matter to do so. Whatever evidences of plan and desire material things may at any time present, they never exhibit any intelligence or feeling of their own. The laws of their action, so far as these can be observed, are purely mechanical, or molecular.

Design, when indicated by any arrangement or organization in Nature, presents itself exactly like design when displayed in the construction and operation of some artificial machine. The most careful scrutiny finds nothing more in every such organization than an assemblage of correlated parts which act one upon another according to fixed laws, each part unvaryingly performing its own function and giving no token of conscious intelligence.

Nor does the organization as such, being simply the sum of its parts in their correlation, show an intelligence of its own. Its action is merely the resultant of the operations of its parts.

Not only so; we perceive a unity and simplicity in every thinking substance which we find wanting in every physical structure or arrangement. Thought cannot be conceived of as the interaction of any collection of heterogeneous substances, whether great or small, but only as the activity of one simple, or indivisible, substance. And seeing that every physical organization is composed of parts and particles, we feel that we might as well ascribe the intention of pulling or holding to a rope or chain as that of growing to a seed or of bearing fruit to a tree, or as well the purpose of shining and giving light to a candle as that of seeing to the eye or of hearing to the ear.

Moreover, being forced to concede an intelligent Being separate from those organizations which are the proofs of his existence, we do not confine the presence of this spirit to the structures of his own formation. We find abundant reason for ascribing to him an unrestricted sphere of activity. A theory which would confine the unseen Author of the universe within his physical creations would be no less absurd than to say that the human spirit exists within the instruments and agencies it forms and uses. It is not credible that the marvellous Mind which fashioned the universe and gave it laws was employed, while doing so, in making chains and a prison for himself. Such a task would be equally irrational and impossible for such a Being.

The selfactive and the selfhelpless

substance.

A second, and also secondary, element in our conception of spirit is that it is self-active; corresponding to which characterization, we have the attribution of self-helplessness to matter. The point of contrast between body and mind, thus presented, has not received much attention from philosophers; but we believe that it is realized and felt by men generally. We often think and speak of spirit as something active and living, and of matter as something dead and inert; of spirit as that which controls and moves, and of matter as that which is controlled and moved. Such statements express a truth, although it may be too strongly.

As we have said, substance of whatever kind is known to us as endowed with powers, both active and passive, so that, on the one hand, we cannot deny active power to matter, nor, on the other, passive power to mind. The majestic motions of the heavenly bodies, the volcanic and oceanic changes which geology considers, the growth of plants and animals, the movements of clouds and currents overhead, the chemical dissolutions and compositions going on around us, attest the activity of material potencies. On the other hand, so far at least as the present condition of our race is concerned, it is plain that the human spirit is constantly subject to the action of physical agencies, as these operate, directly or indirectly, upon our nervous system.

We cannot therefore make the distinction that mind is the substance which acts, and matter the substance which is acted upon. Matter also acts; and mind also is acted upon.

Nevertheless, there is a difference, if we can only apprehend it, between the modes of action proper to each substance. Every spirit seems to be endowed with a power of activity within itself, so that the current of its life, once opened, flows on forever. Human experience, while stimulated, guided, and modified by influences from without, properly originates from powers within. Hence a state of things is conceivable in which the soul, being freed from bodily conditions and affections, may pass a life the producing cause of which shall be wholly the energy of the soul itself. Such is the activity which we naturally ascribe to God and to angelic spirits. No such capability of automatic action is found in any particle of matter or in any material substance.

No body acts save when it is acted upon. The most violent of physical agents lie perfectly inert and helpless till some cause external to themselves arouses them. Chemical molecules show no independent activity, but simply act one upon another when the proper conditions are supplied. Mechanical motion is im