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manifest any forces other than mechanical, physical, and chemical, and it does not seem unlikely that the true cause of these is the feeling inherent in the first elements, not having power to manifest itself otherwise for want of the proper organization.

66

Second, in compounds made up of a larger number of elements, we ought to begin to observe a certain regularity of organization, such as we find in the minerals, and the similar aggregation which is remarked chiefly in the metals. Third, if the composition is more complicated, it ought to produce the organization of the vegetables, which are altogether destitute of organs similar to those with which man expresses pleasure, pain, his instincts, etc. But in this organization there is a system of self-reproducing stimuli. All that is wanting is the external signs of feeling felt and signified by man. We cannot, therefore, know what degree of unity, accentration and excitation there is in the feeling which may exist in vegetables.

"Fourth, with a more cunning organization we find manifested, besides these characteristics, the phenomenon of irritability or contradistention, which, though not capable of manifesting with certainty the existence of feeling, approaches feeling, through the similarity which the movements of such irritable or contradistensive bodies have to the spontaneous movements arising from feeling, and in their texture, which resembles that of felt organs.

"Fifth and finally, with an organization still more complicated and perfect than the preceding, there are manifested the extra-subjective phenomena, commonly called animal, which are properly those that certify to the presence of feeling, of the continuance of the term of feeling, of the unity of action in the feeling itself-a unity capable of dominating all movements, which, though not deriving their principle from it, owe to it their continuance and direction. These movements, again, produce the stimuli which re-excite the feeling, when its excitation flags, and restore it to its previous state" (Psychology, vol. i. §§ 541, 542).

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.

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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.

140.

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.

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