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| The Simple Nature of the Soul is Asserted with Plato. The Identity of Spirit and Soul.
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Chapter X.—The
Simple Nature of the Soul is Asserted with Plato. The Identity of
Spirit and Soul.
It is essential to a firm faith to declare with
Plato1552
| 1552 See his
Phædo, p. 80; Timæus, § 12, p. 35
(Bekker, pp. 264, 265). | that the soul is simple; in other words
uniform and uncompounded; simply that is to say in respect of its
substance. Never mind men’s artificial views and theories,
and away with the fabrications of heresy!1553
| 1553 We have here
combined two readings, effigies (Oehler’s) and
hæreses (the usual one). |
Some maintain that there is within the soul a natural
substance—the spirit—which is different from it:1554
as if to have life—the function of the
soul—were one thing; and to emit breath—the
alleged1555
| 1555 This is the force of
the subjunctive fiat. | function of the
spirit—were another thing. Now it is not in all animals
that these two functions are found; for there are many which only live
but do not breathe in that they do not possess the organs of
respiration—lungs and windpipes.1556
But of what use is it, in an examination of the soul of man, to borrow
proofs from a gnat or an ant, when the great Creator in His divine
arrangements has allotted to every animal organs of vitality suited to
its own disposition and nature, so that we ought not to catch at any
conjectures from comparisons of this sort? Man, indeed, although
organically furnished with lungs and windpipes, will not on that
account be proved to breathe by one process, and to live
by another;1557
| 1557 Aliunde spirabit,
aliunde vivet. “In the nature of man, life and breath are
inseparable,” Bp. Kaye, p. 184. | nor can the ant,
although defective in these organs, be on that account said to be
without respiration, as if it lived and that was all. For by whom has
so clear an insight into the works of God been really attained, as to
entitle him to assume that these organic resources are wanting to any
living thing? There is that Herophilus, the well-known surgeon, or (as
I may almost call him) butcher, who cut up no end of persons,1558
in order to investigate the secrets of
nature, who ruthlessly handled1559
human creatures to
discover (their form and make): I have my doubts whether he succeeded
in clearly exploring all the internal parts of their structure, since
death itself changes and disturbs the natural functions of life,
especially when the death is not a natural one, but such as must cause
irregularity and error amidst the very processes of dissection.
Philosophers have affirmed it to be a certain fact, that gnats, and
ants, and moths have no pulmonary or arterial organs. Well, then, tell
me, you curious and elaborate investigator of these mysteries, have
they eyes for seeing withal? But yet they proceed to whatever point
they wish, and they both shun and aim at various objects by processes
of sight: point out their eyes to me, show me their pupils. Moths also
gnaw and eat: demonstrate to me their mandibles, reveal their
jaw-teeth. Then, again, gnats hum and buzz, nor even in
the dark are they unable to find their way to our ears:1560
point out to me, then, not only the noisy
tube, but the stinging lance of that mouth of theirs. Take any living
thing whatever, be it the tiniest you can find, it must needs be fed
and sustained by some food or other: show me, then, their organs for
taking into their system, digesting, and ejecting food. What must we
say, therefore? If it is by such instruments that life is maintained,
these instrumental means must of course exist in all things which are
to live, even though they are not apparent to the eye or to the
apprehension by reason of their minuteness. You can more readily
believe this, if you remember that God manifests His creative greatness
quite as much in small objects as in the very largest. If, however, you
suppose that God’s wisdom has no capacity for forming such
infinitesimal corpuscles, you can still recognise His greatness, in
that He has furnished even to the smallest animals the functions of
life, although in the absence of the suitable organs,—securing to
them the power of sight, even without eyes; of eating, even without
teeth; and of digestion, even without stomachs. Some animals also have
the ability to move forward without feet, as serpents, by a gliding
motion; or as worms, by vertical efforts; or as snails and slugs, by
their slimy crawl. Why should you not then believe that respiration
likewise may be effected without the bellows of the lungs, and without
arterial canals? You would thus supply yourself with a strong proof
that the spirit or breath is an adjunct of the human soul, for the very
reason that some creatures lack breath, and that they lack it because
they are not furnished with organs of respiration. You think it
possible for a thing to live without breath; then why not suppose that
a thing might breathe without lungs? Pray, tell me, what is it to
breathe? I suppose it means to emit breath from yourself. What is it
not to live? I suppose it means not to emit breath from yourself. This
is the answer which I should have to make, if “to breathe”
is not the same thing as “to live.” It must, however, be
characteristic of a dead man not to respire: to respire,
therefore, is the characteristic of a living man. But to respire is
likewise the characteristic of a breathing man: therefore also to
breathe is the characteristic of a living man. Now, if both one
and the other could possibly have been accomplished without the soul,
to breathe might not be a function of the soul, but merely to live. But
indeed to live is to breathe, and to breathe is to live. Therefore this
entire process, both of breathing and living, belongs to that to which
living belongs—that is, to the soul. Well, then, since you
separate the spirit (or breath) and the soul, separate their operations
also. Let both of them accomplish some act apart from one
another—the soul apart, the spirit apart. Let the soul live
without the spirit; let the spirit breathe without the soul. Let one of
them quit men’s bodies, let the other remain; let death and life
meet and agree. If indeed the soul and the spirit are two, they may be
divided; and thus, by the separation of the one which departs from the
one which remains, there would accrue the union and meeting together of
life and of death. But such a union never will accrue: therefore they
are not two, and they cannot be divided; but divided they might have
been, if they had been (two). Still two things may surely coalesce in
growth. But the two in question never will coalesce, since to live is
one thing, and to breathe is another. Substances are distinguished by
their operations. How much firmer ground have you for believing that
the soul and the spirit are but one, since you assign to them no
difference; so that the soul is itself the spirit, respiration being
the function of that of which life also is! But what if you insist on
supposing that the day is one thing, and the light, which is incidental
to the day, is another thing, whereas day is only the light
itself? There must, of course, be also different kinds of light,
as (appears) from the ministry of fires. So likewise will there be
different sorts of spirits, according as they emanate from God or from
the devil. Whenever, indeed, the question is about soul and spirit, the
soul will be (understood to be) itself the spirit, just as the day is
the light itself. For a thing is itself identical with that by means of
which itself exists.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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