Soul (prop.ri!l"i, TTVti'jua, the rational s\Ar\i; but oc- casionally t'S3, ^i'x>)i the animal principle of life), that vital, immaterial, active substance, or principle, in man whereby he perceives, remembers, reasons, and wills. The rational soul is simple, uncompounded, and imma- terial, not composed of matter and form ; for matter can never think and move of itself as the soul does. In the fourth volume of the Memoirs of the Literary and Philo- sophical Society of Manchester the reader will find a verj' valuable paper by Dr. Ferrier, proving, by evidence ap- parently complete, that every part of the brain has been injured without atfecting the act of thought. It will be ditficult for aiiv man to peruse this without being con- vinced that the modern theory of the Materialists is shaken from its very foundation. See Materialism.
The soul is rather to be described as to its operation than to be defined as to its essence. Various, indeed, have been the opinions of philosophers concerning its substance. In the second book of his treatise llepl ^i'X'5^' Aristotle has given two definitions of it. In the first of these he calls it "the Entelechy (EvTt\(xfin)j or first form of an organized body which has potential life." The Epicureans thought it a subtile air. composed of atoms, or primitive corpuscles. The Stoics maintained it was a fiame, or portion of iieavonly light. The Car- tesians make thinking the essence of the soul. Critias, a Sophist, regarded the blood as the seat and substratum of the soul. According to Plato, '"The first or invisible element of the soul in man is tlie instrument of rational cognition, the other element is the organ of perception and representation. With this soul, having its seat in the head, are combined the courageous and the appeti- tive souls, the whole resembling the composite force of a driver and two steeds." Aristotle distinguished several forms of soul, viz. the rational, which is purely spiritual, and infused by the immediate inspiration of (iod, the apipetitive, which was the source of desire and will — the
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motiet of locomotion; the sensitive, which, bcins: com- mon to man and brutes, is supposed to be formed of the element, and is the cause of sensation and feelinjr, ami, lastly, the ret/elalire soul, or (>rineiple of growth and nutrition, as the lirst is of understaniling, and the sec- ond iif animal life.
Modern philosophy has made many attempts to define the soul, of which we give the following resume. "It is not J that thinks, but iV thinks in me; and it is not J that am, hut it is something in me" (Haggesen, ZmV- »chi: run f'ic/ite, xxxiv, 153). '"Spirit is a substance, immediately immanent in thinking, or of wliich think- ing is immediately tlie form of activity. Spirit is tliink- ing sul)stance, the soul is dynamically present in the entire organism" (Ciialyhails, ibiJ, xx, G9). "We are compelled to suppose that there must he a real essence as the substantial bearer of all psychical conditions. This essence is the soul. It must stand with other real essences in causal relation, in order to the generation in it (if manifold internal comlitions. In brief, the soul needs the body, the body neeils tlie soul" (Cornelius, Ztiurhr.fur exude P/iilosophie, iv, 99-102). " In the organism formed of atoms, which are spiritual essences, one unfolds its spiritual force to the point of self-con- sciousness; this atom, which as gasiform atom inter- penetrates the entire organism and occupies space as a centre, is the soul" (Drossljach, //(irmoiiif der Ki-tjtbnisse d. \iiliir/o)sc/iun/f, p. 101-129, 229). "The phenomena of i>ody and soul hang together as internal and external phenomena of the same essence, Tiiis primary essence is. however, nothing more than the conjunction of phe- nomena themselves in the unity of the general conscious- ness. The soul becomes aware only of its own proper phenomena, the body becomes aware only through that which appears of it to the soul itself. It is a common essence which appears externally as body, internally as Soul" ( Fechner, J'hi/siral. vnd phUdSaph. A tomenMire, 2d C'd. p. 258, 259). " The soul is no more than nature ; it is a |>henumenon of the internal sense" (J. G. Fichte, Crundhii/e d.ges. Wissenschaftskhre, 1794, 1802). " The fact of self-consciousness can only be explained on the sup|>osition that the soul is a real essence, distinct from the organism, capal)le of refiectinn upon itself, that is, of consciousness." " Soul and liody are diverse substances, l)ut in the most intimate union and mutual interpenetra- tion. It is the idea of its body." •' Every soul acipiires for itself an organic body. The external material body is but the changing image of the internal process of soul and life" ( 1. 11. Ficiite, Ztilnrln: xii, 246; xxv, 17ii- |7h ). " Spirit is but a higher ))otency, a mere con- tiiuiaiion of develo|>ment of the animal soul, and the animal soid itself is a mere exallaiion of the vital force of the plant. These three principles are in man, in vir- tue of his self-consciousness, comprehended in one and the same Kgo" (Fischer, Meltijilijinik, p. 3(;-38; Sitz der tS,,lf,^.H^ 1((). "The soul is a substantial essence. The inmoKt essence, the Kgo, is unattainable to our cognition" (Frohschammer, At/i)iiuiim, ii, IK). 1 19). "The body is the name life as the soul, and yet they may be spoken of as lying asunder. A soul without body would be nothing living, and the converse is true. The soid pos- its and proiluces itself; it has a body in itself, not with- out which it composes one total and actual, and in which il is onHiipreM'nl"( Hegel, Wrike, v, Ki; viii, 22, 23; xv, 339 : xviii, 29, 93). " We have no cognition of what is »l rid ly the essence of our soul. We cannot rca<'h the Ego iim-lf with our consciousness; we can only reach it in the couhiantly shifting modifications, as it thinks, feels, wilN, es|H'rinlly as it pos.s«'sscs the power of representa- tion." " Thewiul is a simple essence wilhonl parts, and wilhoul plurality in its ipialily, whose intellectual man- ifoldneHs is conditionecl by a varieil concurrence with other and yet real eHsences" (Ilerbart. IIV;//-. i. 193. etc.). " riie Kgo is an ahsohiie unity, and. as it is no object of outward hciih*., is immaterial; and though it is present in Hpnie. ami o|iernteM in it, occupies no space and has no •la-cial place in the body. The body is. rather, but