Do we not often pronounce words of which we have only a very confused idea, or even of which we have none at all? Is not the word soul an instance? When the clapper or valve of a bellows is out of order, and when air which is in the bellows leaves it by some unexpected opening in this valve, so that it is no longer corn pressed against the two blades, and is not thrust violently towards the hearth which it has to light, French servants say--" The soul of the bellows has burst." They know no more about it than that; and this question in no wise disturbs their peace of mind.
The gardener utters the phrase " the soul of the plants," and cultivates them very well without knowing what he means by this term.
The violin-maker poses, draws forward or back the " soul of a violin " beneath the bridge in the belly of the instrument; a puny piece of wood more or less gives the violin or takes away from it a harmonious soul.
We have many industries in which the workmen give the qualification of " soul " to their machines.Never does one hear them dispute about this word.Such is not the case with philosophers.
For us the word " soul " signifies generally that which animates.Our ancestors the Celts gave to their soul the name of seel , from which the English soul , and the German seel ; and probably the ancient Teutons and the ancient Britons had no quarrels in their universities over this expression.
The Greeks distinguished three sorts of soul--(greek), which signified the sensitive soul, the soul of the senses; and that is why Love, child of Aphrodite, had so much passion for Psyche, and why Psyche loved him so tenderly : (greek), the breath which gives life and movement to the whole machine, and which we have translated by spiritus , spirit;vague word to which have been given a thousand different meanings: and finally (greek), the intelligence.
We possessed therefore three souls, without having the least notion of any of them.St.Thomas Aquinas (Summation of St.Thomas.Lyons edition, 1738) admits these three souls as a peripatetic, and distinguishes each of these three souls in three parts.(greek) was in the breast, (greek)was distributed throughout the body, and (greek) was in the head.There has been no other philosophy in our schools up to our day, and woe betide any man who took one of these souls for the other.
In this chaos of ideas there was, nevertheless, a foundation.Men had noticed that in their passions of love, hate, anger, fear, their internal organs were stimulated to movement.The liver and the heart were the seat of the passions.If one thought deeply, one felt a strife in the organs of the head; therefore the intellectual soul was in the head.Without respiration no vegetation, no life; therefore the vegetative soul was in the breast which receives the breath of air.
When men saw in dreams their dead relatives or friends, they had to seek what had appeared to them.It was not the body which had been consumed on a funeral pyre, or swallowed up in the sea and eaten by the fishes.
It was, however, something, so they maintained; for they had seen it; the dead man had spoken; the dreamer had questioned him.Was it (greek), was it (greek), was it (greek), with whom one had conversed in the dream? One imagined a phantom, an airy figure: it was (greek), it was (greek), a ghost from the shades, a little soul of air and fire, very unrestricted, which wandered I know not where.
Eventually, when one wanted to sift the matter, it became a constant that this soul was corporeal; and the whole of antiquity never had any other idea.At last came Plato who so subtilized this soul that it was doubtful if he did not separate it entirely from matter; but that was a problem that was never solved until faith came to enlighten us.
In vain do the materialists quote some of the fathers of the Church who did not express themselves with precision.St.Irenaeus says (Liv.
v.chaps.vi and vii) that the soul is only the breath of life, that it is incorporeal only by comparison with the mortal body, and that it preserves the form of man so that it may be recognized.
In vain does Tertullian express himself like this--" The corporeality of the soul shines bright in the Gospel." ( Corporalitas animae in ipso Evangelio relucescit , DE ANIMA.cap.vii.).For if the soul did not have a body, the image of the soul would not have the image of the body.
In vain does he record the vision of a holy woman who had seen a very shining soul, of the colour of air.
In vain does Tatien say expressly ( Oratio ad Graecos , c.xxiii.)--" The soul of man is composed of many parts."In vain is St.Hilarius quoted as saying in later times (St.Hilarius on St.Matthew)-" There is nothing created which is not corporeal, either in heaven, or on earth, or among the visible, or among the invisible: everything is formed of elements; and souls, whether they inhabit a body, or issue from it, have always a corporeal substance."In vain does St.Ambrose, in the sixth century say (On Abraham, liv.
ii., ch.viii.)--" We recognize nothing but the material, except the venerable Trinity alone."The body of the entire Church has decided that the soul is immaterial.
These saints fell into an error at that time universal; they were men;but they were not mistaken over immortality, because that is clearly announced in the Gospels.
We have so evident a need of the decision of the infallible Church on these points of philosophy, that we have not indeed by ourselves any sufficient notion of what is called " pure spirit," and of what is named " matter."Pure spirit is an expression which gives us no idea; and we know matter only by a few phenomena.We know it so little that we call it " substance "; well, the word substance means " that which is under '' ; but what is under will be eternally hidden from us.What is under is the Creator's secret; and this secret of the Creator is everywhere.We do not know either how we receive life, or how we give it, or how we grow, or how we digest, or how we sleep, or how we think, or how we feel.
The great difficulty is to understand how a being, whoever he be, has thoughts.Philosophical Dictionary: Soul, Sect.2 SOUL.
