corporeal ones.* This primitive principle might receive, in a certain improper sense, the name of common soul, or, more correctly, principle of sensitive souls (corporeal feeling). The individuality of these souls would remain intact; but they would have a common act and a special act. This special act would constitute their proper reality and substance, and hence their substantial difference, and this proper reality would be the principle of their individuation. This would agree with the doctrine of St. Thomas, that matter is the principle of the individuation of souls; although this would hold good only for purely sensitive souls. In this there seems to be no contradiction" (Psychology, $$ 554-559).

The doctrine which Rosmini here attributes to St. Thomas, and which the latter frequently repeats,† is, as every one knows, due to Aristotle, who says that "matter is chiefly and properly the subject of generation and the condition of decay” (“ ἔστι δὲ ὕλη μάλιστα μὲν καὶ κυρίως τὸ ὑποκείμενον γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς δεκτικόν. De Gen., i. 4 ; 320, a. 2 sq.). It is true that Aristotle does not say, in as many words, that matter is the principle of individuation; but it follows directly from the above statement. Specific differences and generic differences, of course, belong to species and genera (είδη καὶ γένη) themselves (“ἐπειδή ἐστι τὸ μὲν λόγος τὸ δ ̓ ὕλη, ὅσαι μὲν ἐν τῷ λόγῳ εἰσὶν ἐναντιότητες εἴδει ποιοῦσι διαφορὰν, ὅσαι δ ̓ ἐν τῷ συνειλημμένῳ τῇ ὕλῃ οὐ ποιοῦσιν.” Metaph. x. 9; 1058, a. 37 sqq.). Without matter, ideas, to use Rosmini's phrase, could not have subsistence. Each would remain a simple logical possibility, ideal, not real. Though the doctrine that individuation is the result of matter was not original with the Schoolmen, they derived from it another doctrine which, it must be admitted, Aristotle never dreamt of, viz., that the angels, being im* Cf. the lines of Tennyson (Epilogue to In Memoriam) :— "A soul shall draw from out the vast

And strike his being into bounds,

And, moved through life of lower phase,

Result in man, be born and think."

† E.g. Sum. Theolog., i. q. 3, art. 3, concl.; q. 54, 3, 2; q. 56, 1, 2;

q. 75, 4 and 5; q. 86, 1 and 3, concl., etc., etc.

material existences, and thus lacking the principle of individuation, are of necessity each a distinct species.* This doctrine, nevertheless, finds a parallel in Aristotle's theory that the stars are eternal and divine.t

132.

Pursuing these investigations further, we come to the following results :

term of

(1) That the sentient principle, or sentient The first soul, has for its first term pure extension, or un- the sensimeasured space.

tive soul is unmeasured

Its second

which it

(2) That it has for its second term a limited space. force diffused in space. Though this force, accor- term is the dingly, is a limited measure of space, space is body not thereby sundered or made discontinuous, informs. This force is the soul's own body, which is informed by it and is the seat of all its corporeal feelings.

mental

(3) That the soul feels its own body with a Fundafundamental feeling always identical, although feeling. susceptible of variation in its accidents. By means of this fundamental feeling no distinct limits are assigned to the body, which, accordingly, has no distinct figure in the feeling of the soul.

sensations.

(4) That this body is modified by the action External of other bodies external and foreign to the soul. These modifications, in so far as they are felt, are called external sensations, and are of different

* Vid. Sum. Theolog., i. q. 50, art. 2 sq., etc., etc. Cf. Sum. contra Gentes, iii. ch. 43.

† Vid. Metaph., xi. 8; 1073, a. 34: sq.: De Mundo, 2; 391, b. 16 sq.

How mea

sured space is presented to feeling.

kinds, according to the different organs of the body. But all these sensations give us a feeling of extended surface only, and by means of these surface sensations our own bodies acquire limits and a determinate figure felt by the soul.

(5) That our own bodies, as well as external bodies, occupy only one part of space, and are able to move in it, that is, to change place. These movements become the measure of so many parts of space, and thus there is presented to feeling, under certain conditions, a measured space, which may be indefinitely added to, since the possibility of movement is indefinite.

The fundamental feeling, which plays so conspicuous a part in Rosmini's theory of cognition, has already been alluded to (under § 80). It is the feeling which the soul at all times has of its body, and is the direct result and form of the combination of the two. It has its seat in the sensitive parts of the body, and is entirely distinct from life. It is, so to speak, the calm ocean of feeling, of which all particular feelings are so many ruffles or waves. "When we perceive our own bodies, through the fundamental feeling, which is given to us by our being alive, we perceive our bodies as one with us. They become in this way, through individual union with our spirits, part of the sentient subject" (New Essay, vol. ii. § 702). Of course such a feeling as this, if undisturbed and uninterrupted, is not likely to enter into consciousness. But "we must distinguish between the existence of a feeling in us and the attention we pay to it. We may very well experience a sensation or a feeling, without reflecting on it or being conscious of it; now, without reflecting on it and thereby acquiring consciousness of it, we should never be able to say to ourselves that we had experienced that feeling; nay, if we could not observe it, we might pertinaciously deny it.

He who has not been able to distinguish feeling from the consciousness of feeling, has never come to understand the essential difference between sensation and idea.

Sensation

can never become aware of itself; it is the understanding that becomes aware of sensation. The consciousness which we receive of sensation is nothing but the intellective perception of it. . . . Although this feeling [the fundamental feeling] exists, it must be very difficult now to recognize and seize it, since we are not in the habit of attending to anything in us, except when we feel a change. Where no change takes place, there is no consciousness, no comparison, no reflection. At the same time, although a change is necessary in order to enlist our attention, it is not necessary, in order that we may feel. . . . The size and shape of our bodies, as perceived by vision and touch, are not included in the vital feeling of which we speak" (New Essay, vol. ii. §§ 710-712).

Herbert Spencer, from an entirely different point of view, acknowledges the existence of the fundamental feeling. He says, "It will be manifest that, besides the few distinct waves of nervous change working their distinct effects, there are multitudinous indistinct waves, secondary and tertiary, travelling in all directions, working their distinct effects. Since such reflected and re-reflected disturbances everywhere act as stimuli, we must regard the entire nervous system as at all times discharging itself” (Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pt. 1. cap. 4, §§ 38, 39). What is this general and continual discharge but the obverse of the fundamental feeling? The assumption of this feeling enables as to solve the much-vexed question whether the human mind is always conscious. It is not always conscious, but it has always a fundamental feeling, through a disturbance in which attention may be roused and, thereby, consciousness awakened (cf. Psychology, vol. ii. § 1367, n.; and New Essay, vol. ii. § 537).

As to the manner in which we become conscious of measured space, Rosmini forestalled by many years the doctrines of Bain, Spencer, and those who hold that it is acquired through the senses and the conscious movement of the

U

muscular system (New Essay, vol. ii. §§ 838, 839; cf. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. pt. vi. cap. xiv.).

of our own bodies.
definitely possible.

According to Rosmini, then, "we form the idea of extension and space in two ways: first, through the fundamental feeling, accompanied by the faculty of spontaneous motion which our bodies have; second, through the sensation of touch aided by said faculty. Indefinite space, in the former way, is produced by a movement in all the directions of a solid space felt by us, that is, of the space This movement we conceive as inIndefinite space, in the second way, is produced by the possible movement of a felt superficies in all directions besides that of its own plane" (New Essay, § 839). According to this theory, space is at once subjective and extra-subjective. As subjective, it is known through the fundamental feeling; as extra-subjective, through touch and motion. In this way are reconciled the doctrine of Kant, who regarded space as merely subjective, and that of those psychologists who hold that it is an acquired perception, derived from the terms, or as they incorrectly say, the objects, of sense.

In regard to the mode in which external bodies are perceived, see under § 80.

The soul exercises no action on its first term; but towards its

second it
is both
passive
and active.

133.

In connection with its first term, that is, with unmeasured space, the sensitive principle exercises no activity. It merely has it for its term, without being able to cause any modification in it. In connection with its second term-that is, its own body-on the contrary, it is not only receptive or passive, but also active; and this passivity and activity, which are reciprocal and manifold, are governed by the most wonderful laws.