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| The Opinions of Philosophers Respecting the Substance of the Soul. The Error of Those Who are of Opinion that the Soul is Corporeal, Does Not Arise from Defective Knowledge of the Soul, But from Their Adding There to Something Foreign to It. What is Meant by Finding.
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Chapter 7.—The Opinions of Philosophers Respecting the
Substance of the Soul. The Error of Those Who are of Opinion that
the Soul is Corporeal, Does Not Arise from Defective Knowledge of
the Soul, But from Their Adding There to Something Foreign to It.
What is Meant by Finding.
9. When, therefore, it thinks
itself to be something of this kind, it thinks itself to be a
corporeal thing; and since it is perfectly conscious of its own
superiority, by which it rules the body, it has hence come to pass
that the question has been raised what part of the body has the
greater power in the body; and the opinion has been held that this
is the mind, nay, that it is even the whole soul altogether. And
some accordingly think it to be the blood, others the brain, others
the heart; not as the Scripture says, “I will praise Thee, O
Lord, with my whole heart;” and, “Thou shall love the Lord thy
God with all thine heart;”724
for this word by misapplication or
metaphor is transferred from the body to the soul; but they have
simply thought it to be that small part itself of the body, which
we see when the inward parts are rent asunder. Others, again, have
believed the soul to be made up of very minute and individual
corpustules, which they call atoms, meeting in themselves and
cohering. Others have said that its substance is air, others fire.
Others have been of opinion that it is no substance at all, since
they could not think any substance unless it is body, and they did
not find that the soul was body; but it was in their opinion the
tempering together itself of our body, or the combining together of
the elements, by which that flesh is as it were conjoined. And
hence all of these have held the soul to be mortal; since, whether
it were body, or some combination of body, certainly it could not
in either case continue always without death. But they who have
held its substance to be some kind of life the reverse of
corporeal, since they have found it to be a life that animates and
quickens every living body, have by consequence striven also,
according as each was able, to prove it immortal, since life cannot
be without life.
For as to that fifth kind of body,
I know not what, which some have added to the four well-known
elements of the world, and have said that the soul was made of
this, I do not think we need spend time in discussing it in this
place. For either they mean by body what we mean by it,
viz., that of which a part is less than the whole in extension
of place, and they are to be reckoned among those who have believed
the mind to be corporeal: or if they call either all substance, or
all changeable substance, body, whereas they know that not all
substance is contained in extension of place by any length and
breadth and height, we need not contend with them about a question
of words.
10. Now, in the case of all these
opinions, any one who sees that the nature of the mind is at once
substance, and yet not corporeal,—that is, that it does not
occupy a less extension of place with a less part of itself, and a
greater with a greater,—must needs see at the same time that they
who are of opinion that it is corporeal725
| 725 [The distinction between corporeal
and incorporeal substance is one that Augustin often insists upon.
See Confessions VII. i-iii. The doctrine that all substance is
extended body, and that there is no such entity as spiritual
unextended substance, is combatted by Plato in the Theatetus. For a
history of the contest and an able defence of the substantiality of
spirit, see Cudworth’s Intellectual System, III. 384 sq.
Harrison’s Ed.—W.G.T.S.] | do not err from defect of knowledge
concerning mind, but because they associate with it qualities
without which they are not able to conceive any nature at all. For
if you bid them conceive of existence that is without corporeal
phantasms, they hold it merely nothing. And so the mind would not
seek itself, as though wanting to itself. For what is so present to
knowledge as that which is present to the mind? Or what is so
present to the mind as the mind itself? And hence what is called
“invention,” if we consider the origin of the word, what else
does it mean, unless that to find out726
is to “come into” that which is
sought? Those things accordingly which come into the mind as it
were of themselves, are not usually said to be found out,727
although
they may be said to be known; since we did not endeavor by seeking
to come into them, that is to invent or find them out. And
therefore, as the mind itself really seeks those things which are
sought by the eyes or by any other sense of the body (for the mind
directs even the carnal sense, and then finds out or invents, when
that sense comes to the things which are sought); so, too, it finds
out or invents other things which it ought to know, not with the
medium of corporeal sense, but through itself, when it “comes
into” them; and this, whether in the case of the higher substance
that is in God, or of the other parts of the soul; just as it does
when it judges of bodily images themselves, for it finds these
within, in the soul, impressed through the body.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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