The soul is positively, intrinsically, and entitatively simple, so that the whole of it is in the whole and in each of the parts.* That this is true, is a matter of simple consciousness; indeed, were it not true, consciousness would not be possible. If the soul thought with one part and felt with another, or thought or felt one thing with one part and another with another, there would be required some still higher unity in which both these parts were at once present, otherwise there would be no unity of consciousness. And this higher unity would be the true soul, whatever the nature of its super-intelligent operations might be. It is easy to see that entitative simplicity is incompatible with materiality, at least as at present conceived. But, if the immateriality of the soul follows from its simplicity, from the former also follows its immortality.

Institutiones Philosophie Naturalis, secundum Principia S. Thoma Aquinatis, by Tilmann Pesch, S. J. Freiburg in Breisgau, Herder, 1880.

+ Cf. Die Einheit des Seelenlebens aus den Principien der Aristotelischen Philosophie entwickelt, von J. H. Schell, Freiburg in Breisgau, 1873.

"If," says Rosmini, "the soul is a substance altogether different from the body, we cannot from the death of the body infer the death of the soul. Moreover, the word death means merely the cessation in the body of the acts of life and animation. Hence the word death refers only to the body, and could not be attributed without absurdity to that which is not body. . . . It might, however, be a matter of doubt whether man would retain a feeling of his own when he was deprived altogether of bodily feeling, and even of the body itself. This doubt arises from observing that nearly all the operations of human thought require images or other bodily feelings, so that these cognitions appear to be accompanied with a bodily feeling rather than to be sensible themselves. But we hold that even intellective operations are sensible in their essence, because we believe that the essence of man himself consists in feeling. . . . The objection, for the most part, disappears, when we observe that, if intellective operations were not sensible in their own way, they could not even become so though animal feelings were added to them, since animal sensibility presents to our perception nothing but itself. Now, we can most readily distinguish what animal sensibility, bound as it is to space, presents to us from what the sensibility of merely intellective operations, free altogether from space, presents. . . . If intellective operations are accompanied with sensibility, we must say that even the first of these, the immanent essential operation, which we have called the intuition of universal being, is sensible. Although, therefore, the soul were deprived of animal feelings, divested of the body, and reduced to a pure act intuiting being, it would, nevertheless, retain a feeling of its own. But we must take care not to form a false and impure concept of this spiritual feeling. We must not add. to it anything of the nature of bodily feeling. We must, moreover, understand that the act of intuition does not at all extend beyond its object (being), so that it is, so to speak, a spiritual feeling of the object, revealing nothing but the object which is its term; but, being an activity, it has a principle different from the object to which it adheres in a

mode essential to it, so that it cannot separate from this without falling into nought. Thus the peculiar sensibility of this intuitive act is the consequence of the object intuited by it. Without the intuition of the object, this act would not be sensible, because it would not be at all. The sensibility, therefore, of primitive intuition arises from the object, as related to the subjective sentient principle. From this we may conclude that the human soul, even when separated from the body, retains a feeling of its own (although without reflection), and, therefore, retains its essence, which consists in feeling, and lives for ever" (Psychology, §§ 134–139).

This is not widely different from Aristotle's view, which is, that the intelligence generally is unconnected with the body (see De Animâ, i. 1, 9, 10; 403 a, 3 sqq. iii. 5, 2; 430 a, 22 sqq.).

When Rosmini says, "The soul, being that which gives life, is life itself," the conclusion seems not to follow from the premise. It really does, however; for the soul is a principle, and a principle has nothing to give but what it is. Hence, if the soul gives life, it is life.

In what
sense the

opinion of
Plato, that
the body
is an ob-

stacle to

the soul, is false.

126.

We have said that the soul is an intellective and sensitive principle, having by its nature the intuition of being and a feeling whose term is extended. The being intuited by the soul is altogether indeterminate, so that, unless the soul had something else, it would be unable to have any knowledge of a determinate thing, and its intellectual development would be impossible, not from want of power, but from want of material. The Creator has provided for this, by giving to the human soul that feeling whose term is the extended, by giving it space and a body. This

feeling, which has an extended term or sensum,
capable of undergoing various modifications, sup-
plies the mind with the original matter of all its
intellective operations, from which it afterwards
draws all its cognitions. In this way human
knowledge unfolds itself. It was, therefore, an
error on the part of Plato to look upon the body
as a hindrance to the flight of the soul.
truth is that, considered in itself, it is the instru-
ment whereby the soul develops and perfects
itself. But Plato's view has its justification, if,
instead of applying it to the nature of body, we
apply it to the corruption entailed upon the
animal nature by the first sin.

The

Human knowledge is a body of ideas or determinations of being, which man is enabled to make by means of sensations, that reveal to him reality. Any sensation or group or series of sensations, when objectified by means of being, produces an idea, eternal, universal, necessary. An idea is always a logically possible form of existence, and that which is once logically possible is eternally, universally, and necessarily so. Even Omnipotence cannot alter the logically possible.

127.

tended

space and

Let us now consider a little more attentively The exthis extended term. It is double, space and body, term of feeling is the latter being a force which diffuses itself in a double, limited part of space. Space in itself is im- body, and movable, simple, illimitable, indivisible; body is movable, limited, divisible, and hence composite. In consequence of the variations which body

these have

opposite

characters.

continually undergoes, there takes place a continual variation in the term of the feeling, and hence the immense variety of sensations and perceptions, and the abundance of original material supplied to human cognition.

The soul, as intelligent, has an object, unextended and eternal; as sensitive, it has a double term, whose essential characteristic is extension, and one of whose parts is subject to change, and, therefore, not eternal. Of course, extension, being a primitive element of indefinable sense, does not admit of any definition, except a relative or negative one. We may say it is an element of the term or correlate of feeling, or we may say it is interminable, immeasurable, uninterrupted, that is, continuous; but we can do no more. And the reason of this lies in the nature of extension itself, which is merely relative and negative, relative to sense and negative to limits. Extension has no substance, no noimenon, of its own. Its substance belongs to existing sensation. It is, therefore, purely phenomenal. This by no means implies that it is not, or that it is delusive. On the contrary, it is of the very essence of reality. Its relativity, that is, its phenomenality, consists in this, that it is only a moment in an entitatively simple act, of which the other side is sensation. "Extension," says Rosmini, " is something in external objects [whose reality is feeling]. It is also something in the fundamental feeling, in which, and in respect to which, it has the nature of matter and term. Moreover, extension is common to our sensations and to external bodies [ie. to sensations objectified]; but, in so far as it is in our sensations, we call it the matter of them; in so far as it is in external bodies, we call it the external term” (New Essay, vol. ii. § 822, n.).

"Pure space is the term, natural and not foreign, of the sensitive principle. It is the term in which its activity exhausts itself, and for this reason is called by us the quiescent term, although from it activity begins, when corporeal matter is added. We must observe that it is very