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138.

between

and ani

Now, the sensitive principle may be destitute Difference of the last two kinds of feeling, but not of the first. animate If it has only the first and second kinds of feeling, mal. it may be said to be animate, but not animal. The distinctive characteristic of the animal is the organic feeling, which requires a suitable organization. We may, therefore, say that the animal, but not that the animate, dies.

Rosmini defines the animate as "an immediate extended term of a sentient principle." The animal he defines as "an individual being, endowed with material sense and instinct, with an organization and organico-excitatory movements" (Anthropology, § 45). Distinguishing between elementary and organic souls, he holds that the former cannot be destroyed by any natural force. His grounds for this opinion are two: first, that, since matter is inconceivable save as the term of a sentient principle or elementary soul, if the elementary souls were annulled, all matter would be annulled at the same time; second, that, the union between the sensitive principle and its term being immediate, nothing can either come between them, or act upon either of them, so as to withdraw the one from the other. "When the organic souls are redissolved into the elementary ones through the dissolution of the organized bodies, the existence of the souls does not cease, but is merely transformed" (Psychology, vol. i. §§ 663, 664). From this it will be seen that, according to Rosmini, the unit of natural existence is neither force nor matter, but sentience, and that through this all the material and dynamic phenomena of nature may be explained.

Laws of essential changes which the animate undergoes

in respect of its individuality.

139.

Nevertheless, the latter undergoes essential changes in respect to its individuality. These changes may be summed up in the following

laws:

(1) Every continuous extended has a single sensitive principle of continuity. This law leads us to the conclusion that, when several atoms come in contact, so as to form a continuous whole, their sensitive principles unite and become one. This new principle contains all the activity of the previous ones, not cancelled but concentrated; so that, when the one continuous is broken up into several, the principle multiplies itself into several sensitive principles. Here there is no division or composition, but only multiplication and unification.

(2) If the internal movement in a given continuous is partial, the principle of the continuous remains one, but the principles of feeling excited become as numerous as the systems of continuous

movements.

(3) If the internal harmonic movement in the parts of a continuous embrace the whole continuous, this single harmony has a single sentient principle; but, if the systems of harmonious movements in the same continuous are several, then there are several sentient principles, that is, as many as there are different systems, although, of course, they all have for their basis or first act the principle which embraces the whole of the continuous.

In regard to the multiplication of the sensitive principle, Rosmini says, "This multiplication of the sentient principle is difficult to understand, because our fancy readily imagines this principle to be a complete and subsistent being without the felt, a kind of minute corpuscle. But it is not so. We must destroy in our minds this fantastic being and concentrate our attention upon the nature of the thing. We must consider that in nature there exists only the felt, that with the felt, as such, there is necessarily united the sentient, and that this feels only the felt continuous, without feeling itself; for the reason that the animal sensum has no power of self-reflection, since, indeed, the monosyllable self is altogether inapplicable to it. If, therefore, this principle feels only the felt, and if it is sentient only in so far as it feels, it is surely clear that, if the felt be divided into two continua, the sentient will feel two continua, but, not feeling itself, it will not be able to maintain its identity in the two sensa, because they are divided, And this is what is meant by multiplication. We must, therefore, conclude that every sensitive soul is simple and indivisible, but that, nevertheless, it is multiplicable" (Psychology, vol. i. §§ 460, 461). "If the material of feeling divides itself without destroying itself, so that out of a single continuous there are formed two independent continua furnished with the conditions necessary to preserve continuity and organism, then also the sensitive principle becomes two. In other words, the animal multiplies itself through the multiplication of animate material. This . . . is what explains generation and furnishes the general formula under which are comprehended all the different modes of multiplication that are met with in the animal kingdom" (Anthropology, §§ 340, 341). "The perfection of an animal depends upon the variety, unity, and intensity of its feeling. ... Hence the perfect animals have only one sensitive centre, and their multiplication can take place only through the formation in them of a new centre independent of the first" (Ibid., § 342; cf. Theosophy, vol. v. § 331).

The human

soul, in so far as it is intellective, is

united to its own body by an original, in

born perception of it.

I40.

But the human soul is not sensitive only; it is also intellective. It is a principle at once intellective and sensitive. In so far as it is sensitive, it has for its term its own body; but, inasmuch as the intellective principle is made one with the sensitive, so that the two are but one principle with two activities, the intellective and sensitive soul, or, in one word, the rational soul, has body for its term. In so far as it is sensitive, it has a felt term; in so far as intellective, an understood term. The body, therefore, is a felt-understood term of the human soul. There is, therefore, in the soul an intellective perception of its own body, primordial and immanent, and in this perception lies the nexus between the human soul and body.

"The body is in the soul, and the soul in the body. ... Hence there is no difficulty in explaining their mutual action" (Theosophy, vol. v. p. 226, § 2). "Our extra-subjective-real body is known to us only as a force that modifies the soul by giving it extended sensations (as a sensiferous principle), and that modifies also the other similar forces, calculated to modify the soul. The extrasubjective-vulgar or anatomical body is the same force, not considered in its immediate action on the soul, but in its mediate action, and, besides, as invested with the socalled secondary qualities, colour, smell, etc. In so far, indeed, as the body acts immediately on the soul, it cannot be the object of anatomy or of the external senses, but is known only immediately by the feeling which it produces" (Anthropology, § 201). Rosmini devotes the third book of his Psychology (pp. 136-210) to a consideration of the union and reciprocal influence of soul and body.

141.

there is a

influence

soul and

The reciprocal influence of soul and body is Hence thus explained. Every reality of the nature of a physical principle is, by nature, active, and, therefore, acts between according to certain laws in its term. But since body. it cannot act in that term unless it has it as a term, and it cannot have it unless it is given to it, the principle must be receptive and passive, as well as active, with respect to its term and to that virtue which supplies, and that virtue which modifies for it, that term. It is, therefore, plain that between the human mind and its body there is communication or physical influence.

"In regard to this constant perception of the fundamental animal feeling, there must be no deception. Let us enumerate its characteristics.

"(1) By means of this perception, the soul does not perceive the extra-subjective and anatomical body, but perceives all the fundamental animal feeling, as it is, indivisible, continuous, harmonic, etc.

"(2) Hence, it does not perceive the principle alone without its term, because, without its term, the principle does not exist.

"(3) In the same way, it does not perceive the subjective body, which is the term of the feeling separated from its principle, because the mental separation of the term of the animal feeling from its principle is not made until a late stage of development, and only by means of reflection, which analyzes feeling; but there does not exist in itself a felt body separate from the sentient principle. Hence, this primitive natural perception is not sufficient by itself to give us the pure notion of subjective body, because in it this body is not isolated from its principle.

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