What is a body? In our last cnapter we have anticipated the answer. A body is a part of the physical world, and we have seen that Nature by itself is wholly unreal. It was an aspect of the Whole, set apart by abstraction, and, for some purposes, taken as independent reality. So that, in saying that a body is one piece of Nature, we have at once pointed out that it is no more than appearance. It is an intellectual construction out of material which is not self-subsistont. This is its general character as physical; but, as to the special position given to the organic by natural science, I prefer to say nothing. It is, for us, an (undefined) arrangement possessing temporal continuity,1 and a certain amount of identity in quality, the degree and nature of which last I cannot attempt to fix.
1 I shall have to say something more on this point lower down. The bodies which wc know have also continuity in space. Whether this is essential will be discussed hereafter.
And I think, for metaphysics, it is better also to make relation to a soul essential for a body (Chapter xxii.). But what concerns us at this moment is, rather, to insist on its phenomenal character. The materials, of which it is made, are inseparably implicated with sensation and feeling. They are divorced from this given whole by a process, which is necessary, but yet is full of contradictions. The physical world, taken as separate, involves the relation of unknown to unknown, and of these makeshift materials the particular body is built. It is a construction riddled by inconsistencies, a working point of view, which is of course quite indispensable, but which cannot justify a claim to be more than And the soul is clearly no more self-subsistent than the body. It is, on its side also, a purely phenomenal existence, an appearance incomplete and inconsistent, and with no power to maintain itself as an independent " thing." The criticism of our First Book has destroyed every claim of the self to be, or to correspond to, true reality. And the only task here before us is, accepting this result, to attempt to fix clearly the meaning of a soul. I will first make a brief statement, and then endeavour to explain it and to defend it against objections. The soul1 is a finite centre of immediate experience, possessed of a certain temporal continuity of existence, and again of a certain identity in character. And the word " immediate " is emphatic. The soul is a particular group of psychical events, so far as these events are taken merely as happening in time. It excludes consideration of their content, so far as this content (whether in thought or volition or feeling) qualifies something beyond the serial existence of these events. Take the whole experience of any moment, one entire " this- now," as it comes, regard that experience as changed and as continued in time, consider its character solely as happening, and, again, as further influencing the course of its own changes — this is perhaps the readiest way of defining a soul.1 But I must endeavour to draw this out, and briefly to explain it.
It is not enough to be clear that the soul is phenomenal, in the sense of being something which, as such, fails to reach true reality. For, unless we perceive to some extent how it stands towards other sides of the Universe, we are likely to end in complete bewilderment. And a frequent error is to define what is " psychical " so widely as to exclude any chance of a rational result For all objects and aims, which come before me, are in one sense the states of my soul. Hence, if this sense is not excluded, my body and the whole world become " psychical " phenomena; and amid this confusion my soul itself seeks an unintelligible place as one state of itself. What is most important is to distinguish the soul's existence from what fills it, and yet there are few points, perhaps, on which neglect is more common. And we may bring the question home thus. If we were to assume (Chapter xxvii.) that in the Universe there is nothing beyond souls, still within these souls the same problem would call for solution. We should still have to find a place for the existence of soul, as distinct both from body and from other aspects of the world.
It may assist us in perceiving both what the soul is, and again what it is not, if we view the question from two sides. Let us look at it, first, from the experience of an individual person, and then, afterwards, let us consider the same thing from outside, 1 I have for the moment excluded relation to a body. It is better not to define the soul as "the farts immediately experienced within one organism " for several reasons. I shall return to this point.
and from the ground of an admitted plurality of souls.
If then, beginning from within, I take my whole given experience at any one moment, and if I regard a single "this-now," as it comes in feeling and is " mine," — may I suppose that in this I have found my true soul? Clearly not so, for (to go no farther) such existence is too fleeting. My soul (I should reply) is not merely the something of one moment, but it must endure for a time and must preserve its self-sameness. I do not mean that it must itself be self-conscious of identity, for that assertion would carry us too far on the other side. And as to the amount of continuity and of self-same character which is wanted, I am saying nothing here. I shall touch later on both these questions, so far as is necessary, and for the present will confine myself to the general result. The existence of a soul must endure through more than one presentation; and hence experience, if immediate and given and not transcending the moment, is less than my soul.
But if, still keeping to " experience," we take it in another sense, we none the less are thwarted. For experience now is as much too wide as before it was too narrow. The whole contents of my experience— it makes no difference here whether I myself or another person considers them — cannot possibly be my soul, unless my soul is to be as large as the total Universe. For other bodies and souls, and God himself, are (so far as I know them) all states of my mind, and in this sense make part of my particular being. And we are led at once to the distinction, which we noticed before (Chapter xxi.), between the diverse aspects of content and of psychical existence. Our experience in short is, essentially and very largely, ideal. It shows an ideal process which, beginning from the unity of feeling, produces the differences of self and not-self, and separates the divisions of the world from themselves BODY AND SOUL. 3OI and from me.1 All this wealth, that is, subsists through a divorce between the sides of existence and character. What is meant by any one of the portions of my world is emphatically not a mere fact of experience. If you take it there, as it exists there, it always is something, but this something can never be the object in question. We may use as an example (if you please) my horse or my own body. Both of these must, for me at least, be nothing but " experience "; for, what I do not " experience," to me must be nothing. And, if you push home the question as to their given existence, you can find it nowhere except in a state of my soul. When I perceive them, or think of them, there is, so far, no discoverable "fact" outside of my psychical condition. But such a " fact " is for me not the " fact " of my horse or, again, of my body. Their true existence is not that which is present in my mind, but rather, as perhaps we should say, present to it. Their existence is a content which works apart from, and is irreconcilable with, its own psychical being; it is a "what" discrepant with, and transcending its "that." We may put it shortly by saying that the true fact is fact, only so far as it is ideal. Hence the Universe and its objects must not be called states of my soul.
Indeed it would be better to affirm that these objects exist, so far as the psychical states do not exist. For such experience of objects is possible, only so far as the meaning breaks loose from the given existence, and has, so regarded, broken this existence in pieces. And we may state the conclusion thus. If my psychical state does not exist, then the object is destroyed; but, again, unless my state could, as such, perish, no object would exist. The two sides of fact, and of content working loose from that fact, are essential to each other. But the essence of the second is disruption of a "what" from a " that," 1 I have tried to sketch the main development in Afittd, as referred to above.
while in the union of these aspects the former has its life.
The soul is not the contents which appear in its states, but, on the other hand, without them it would not be itself. For it is qualified essentially by the presence of these contents. Thus a man, we may say, is not what he thinks of; and yet he is the man he is, because of what he thinks of. And the ideal processes of the content have necessarily an aspect of psychical change. Those connections, which have nothing which is personal to myself, cause a sequence of my states when they happen within me. Thus a principle, of logic or morality, works in my mind. This principle is most certainly not a part of my soul, and yet it makes a great difference to the sequence of my states. I shall hereafter return to this point, but it would belong to psychology to develope the subject in detail. We should have there to point out, and to classify, the causes which affect the succession of psychical phenomena.1 It is enough here to have laid stress on an essential distinction. Ideal contents appear in, and affect, my existence, but still, for all that, we cannot call them my soul.
We have now been led to two results. The soul is certainly not all that which is present in experience, nor, on the other hand, can it consist in mere experience itself, It cannot be actual feeling, or that immediate unity of quality and being which comes in the "this" (Chapter xix.). The soul is not these things, and we must now try to say what it is. It is one of these same personal centres, not taken at an instant, but regarded as a " thing." It is a feeling whole which is considered to continue in time, and to maintain a certain sameness. And the soul is, therefore, not presented fact, but is an ideal construction which transcends what is given. It is 1 I have said something on this in Mind, XII. 362-3.
emphatically the result of an ideal process; but this process, on the other hand, has been arbitrarily arrested at a very low point. Take a fleeting moment of your " given," and then, from the basis of a personal identity of feeling, enlarge this moment by other moments and build up a M thing/' Idealize "experience," so as to make its past one reality with its present, and so as to give its history a place in the fixed temporal order. Resolve its contingency enough to view it as a series of events, which have causal connections both without and within. But, having gone so far, pause, and call a halt to your process, or, having got to a soul, you will be hurried beyond it. And, to keep your soul, you must remain fixed in a posture of inconsistency. For, like every other " thing " in time, the soul is essentially ideal. It has transcended the given moment, and has spread out its existence beyond that which is " actual" or could ever be experienced. And by its relations and connections of coexistence and sequence, and by its subjection to " laws," it has raised itself into the world of eternal verity. But to persist in this process of life would be suicide. Its advance would force you to lose hold altogether on " existence," and, with that loss, to forfeit individual selfness. And hence, on the other side, the soul clings to its being in time, and still reaches after the unbroken unity of content with reality.
Its contents, therefore, are allowed only to qualify the series of temporal events. And this result is a mere compromise. Hence the soul persists through a contrivance, and through the application of matter to a particular purpose. And, because this application is founded on and limited by no principle, the soul in the end must be judged to be rooted in artifice. It is a series, which depends on i transcendence, and yet desires to be taken as sensible fact. And its inconsistency is now made man in its use of its contents. These (we have seen) are as wide as tne Universe itself, and, on this account, they are unable to qualify the soul. And yet, on the other hand, they must do so, if the soul is to have the quality which makes it itself. Hence these contents must be taken from one side of their being, and the other side, for a particular end, is struck out. In order for the soul to exist, "experience" must be mutilated. It must be regarded so far as it makes a difference to that series of events which is taken as a soul; it must be considered yxsX. to that extent to which it serves as the adjective of a temporal series — serves to make the " thisness " of the series of. a certain kind, and to modify its past and its future " thisness." But, beyond this, experience is taken merely to be present to the soul and operative within it. And the soul exists precisely so far as the abstraction is maintained. Its life endures only so long as a particular purpose holds. And thus it consists in a convenient but one-sided representation of facts, and has no claim to be more than a useful appearance.
In brief, because the existence of the soul is not experienced and not given, because it is made by, and consists in, transcendence of the " present," and because its content is obviously never one with its being, its "what" always in flagrant discrepancy with its " that " — therefore its whole position is throughout inconsistent and untenable. It is an arrangement natural and necessary, but for all that phenomenal and illusive, a makeshift, valuable but still not genuine reality. And, looked at by itself, the soul is an abstraction and mutilation. It is the arbitrary use of material for a particular purpose. And it persists only by refusing to see more in itself than subserves its own existence.
It may be instructive, before we go on, to regard the same question from the side of the Absolute. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that in the Whole there is no material which is not a state of some soul (Chapter xxvii). From this we might be tempted to conclude that these souls are the Reality, or at least must be real. But that conclusion would be false, for the souls would fall within the realm of appearance and error. They would be, but, as such, they would not have reality. They would require a resolution and a re-composition, in which their individualities would be transmuted and absorbed (Chapter xvi.). For we have seen that the Absolute is the union of content and existence. It stands at a level above, and comprehending, those distinctions and relations in which the imperfect unity of feeling is dissipated. Let us then take the indefinite plurality of the " this-nows," or immediate experiences, as the basis and startingpoint, and, on the other side, let us take the Absolute as the end, and let us view the region between as a process from the first to the second. It will be a field of struggle in which content is divorced from, and strives once more towards, unity with being.
Our assumption in part will be false, since (as we have seen) the immediately given is already inconsistent.1 But, in order to instruct ourselves, let us suppose here that the u fact " of experience is real, and that, above it once more, the Absolute gains higher reality — still where is the soul? The soul is not immediate experience, for that comes given at one moment; and the soul still less can be the perfected union of all being and content. This is obvious, and, if so, the soul must fall in the middlespace of error and appearance. It is the ideal manufacture of one extreme with a view to reach the other, a manufacture suspended at a very low stage, and suspended on no defensible ground. The plurality of souls in the Absolute is, therefore, appearance, and their existence is not genuine. But 1 Compare Chapters xv., xix., xxi.
because the upward struggle of the content to ideal perfection, having made these souls, still rises both in them and above them, they, in themselves, are nearer the level of the lower reality. The first and transitory union of existence and content is, with souls, less profoundly broken up and destroyed. And hence souls, taken as things with a place in the time-series, are said to be facts and actually to exist. Nay on their existence, in a sense, all reality depends. For the higher process is carried on in a special relation with these lower results; and thus, while moving in its way, it affects the souls in their way; and thus everything happens in souls, and everything is their states. And this arrangement seems necessary; but on the other hand, if we view it from the side of the Absolute, it is plainly selfinconsistent. To gain consistency and truth it must be merged, and recomposed in a result in which its specialty must vanish. Souls, like their bodies, are, as such, nothing more than appearance.
And, that we may realize this more clearly, we find ourselves turning in a circular maze. Just as the body was for Nature, and upon the other hand Nature merely through relation to a body, so in a different fashion it is with the soul. For thought is a state of souls, and therefore is made by them, while, upon its side, the soul is a product of thought. The "thing," existing in time and possessor of 11 states," is made what it is by ideal construction. But this construction itself appears to depend on a psychical centre, and to exist merely as its " state." And such a circle seems vicious. Again, the body is dependent on the soul, for the whole of its material comes by way of sensation, and its identity is built up by ideal construction. And yet this manufacture takes place as an event in a soul, a soul which, further, exists only in relation to a body.1 1 I am not denying here the possibility of soul without body. See below, p. 340.
But, where we move in circles like these, and where, pushing home our enquiries, we can find nothing but the relation of unknown to unknown — the conclusion is certain. We are in the realm of appearance, of phenomena made by disruption of content from being, arrangements which may represent, but which are not, reality. Such ways of understanding are forced on us by the nature of the Universe, and assuredly they possess their own worth for the Absolute (Chapter xxiv.). But, as themselves and as they come to us, they are no less certainly appearance. So far as we know them, they are but inconsistent constructions; and, beyond our knowledge, they are forthwith beyond themselves. The underlying and superior reality in each case we have no right to call either a body or a soul. For, in becoming more, each loses its title to that name. The body and soul are, in brief, phenomenal arrangements, which take their proper place in the constructed series of events; and, in that character, they are both alike defensible and necessary. But neither is real in the end, each is merely phenomenal, and one has no title to fact which is not owned by the other.
We have seen, so far, that soul and body are, each alike, phenomenal constructions, and we must next go on to point out the connection between them. But, in order to clear the ground, I will first attempt to dispose of several objections, (i) It will be urged against the phenomenal view of the soul that, upon this, the soul loses independent existence. If it is no more than a series of psychical events, it becomes an appendage to the permanent body. For a psychical series, we shall be told, has no inherent bond of continuity; nor is it, even as a matter of fact, continuous; nor, again, does it offer anything of which we can predicate "dispositions/1 Hence, if phenomenal, the soul sinks to be an adjective of the body. (2) And, from another side, we shall hear it argued that the psychical series demands, as its condition, a transcendent soul or Ego, and indeed without this is unintelligible. (3) And, in the third place, we may be assured that some psychical fact is given which contains more than phenomena, and that hence the soul has by us been defined erroneously. I must endeavour to say something on these objections in their order.
1. I shall have to show lower down that it is impossible to treat soul as the bare adjective of body, and I shall therefore say nothing on that point at present. " But why," I may be asked, " not at least assist yourself with the body? Why strain yourself to define the soul in mere psychical terms? Would it not be better to call a soul those psychical facts from time to time experienced within one organism? " I am forced to reply in the negative. Such a definition would, in psychology, perhaps not take us wrong, but, for all that, it remains incorrect and indefensible. For, with lower organisms especially, it is not so easy to fix the limits of a single organism. And, again further, we might perhaps wish to define the organism by its relation to a single soul; and, if so, we should have fallen into a vicious circle. Nor is it, once more, even certain that the identities of soul and of body coincide. We, I presume, are not sure that one soul might not have a succession of bodies. And, in any case, we certainly do not know that one organism can be organic to no more than one soul. There might be more than one psychical centre at one time within the same body, and several bodies might be organs to a higher unknown soul. And, even if we disregard these possibilities as merely theoretical, we have still to deal with the facts of mental disease.
It seems at best doubtful if in some cases the soul can be said to have continuous unity, or if it ought strictly to be called single. And then, finally, there remains the question, to which we shall return, whether an organism is necessary in all cases for the existence of a soul. We have perhaps with this justified our refusal to introduce body into our definition of soul.1 But without this introduction what becomes of the soul? " What," we shall be asked, " at any time can you say that the soul is, more especially at those times when nothing psychical exists? And where will you place the dispositions and acquired tendencies of the soul? For, in the first place, the psychical series is not unbroken, and, in the second place, dispositions are not psychical events. Are you then not forced back to the body as the one continuous substrate? " This is a serious objection, and, though our answer to it may prove sufficient, I think no answer can quite satisfy.
I must begin by denying a principle, or, as it seems to me, a prejudice with regard to continuity. Real existence (we must allow) either is or is not; and hence I agree also that, if in time, it cannot cease and reappear, and that it must, therefore, be continuous. But, on the other hand, we have proved that reality does not exist in time, but only appears there. What we find in time is mere appearance; and with regard to appearance I know no reason why it should not cease and reappear without for 1 I may be allowed to say here why I think such phrases as 11 individual," or " individualistic point of view," cannot serve to fix the definition of " soul." To regard a centre of experience from an individualistic point of view may mean to view it as a series of psychical events. But if so, the meaning is only meant, and is certainly not stated. And the term "individual" sins by excess as well as by defect. For it may stand for " Monad " or 11 Ego "; and in this case the soul is at once more than phenomenal, and we have on our hands the relation of its plurality to the one Monad — a difficulty which, as we have seen, is insuperable. On the other hand " individualistic" might imply that the soul's contents do not, in any sense, transcend its private existence. The term, in short, requires definition, quite as much as does the object which it is used to define.
3 tO REALITY.
feiting identity. A phenomenon A is produced by certain conditions, which then are modified. Upon this, A, wholly or partially, retires from existence, but, on another change, shows itself partly or in full. A disappears into conditions which, even as such, need not persist; but, when the proper circumstances are re-created, A exists once again. Shall we assert that, if so, A's identity is gone? I do not know on what principle. Or shall we insist that, at least in the meantime, A cannot be said to be? But it seems not clear on what ground. If we take such common examples as a rainbow, or a waterfall, or the change of water into ice, we seek in vain for any principle but that of working convenience. We feel sure that material atoms and their motion continue unaltered, and that their existence, if broken, would be utterly destroyed. But, unless we falsely take these atoms and their motion for ultimate reality, we are resting here on no basis beyond practical utility. And even here some of us are too inclined to lapse into an easy-going belief in the " potential." But, as soon as these atoms are left behind, can we even pretend to have any principle?
We call an organism identical, though we do not suppose that its atoms have persisted. It is identical because its quality is (more or less) the same, and because that quality has been (more or less) all the time there. But why an interval must be fatal, is surely far from evident. And, in fact, we are driven to the conclusion that we are arguing without any rational ground. As soon as an existence in time is perceived to be appearance, we can find no reason why it should not lapse, and again be created. And with an organism, where even the matter is not supposed to persist, we seem to have deserted every show of principle.1 There is a further point which, before proceeding, 1 On the subject of Identity see more below. And compare Chapter ix.
BODY AND SOUL. 3 I I we may do well to notice. We saw in the last chapter that part of Nature could hardly be said to have actual existence (p. 277). Some of it seemed (at least at some times) to be only hypothetical or barely potential; and I would urge this consideration here with regard to the organism. My body is to be real because it exists continuously; but, if, on the other hand, that existence must be actual, can we call it continuous? The essential qualities of my body (whatever these are) are certainly not, so far as we know, perceived always. But, if so, and if they exist sometimes not for perception but for thought, then most assuredly sometimes they do not exist as such, and hence their continuity is broken. Thus we have been forced to another very serious admission. We not only are ignorant why continuity in time should be essential, but, so far as the organism goes, we do not know that it possesses such continuity. It seems rather to exist at times potentially and merely in its conditions. This is a sort of existence which we shall discuss in the following chapter, but it is at all events not existence actual and proper.
After these more general remarks we may proceed to the difficulties urged against our view of the soul. We have defined the soul as a series of psychical events, and it has been objected that, if so, we cannot say what the soul is at any one time. But at any one time, I reply, the soul is the present datum of psychical fact, plus its actual past and its conditional future. Or, until the last phrase has been explained, we may content ourselves with saying that the soul is those psychical events, which it both is now and has been. And this account, I admit, qualifies something by adjectives which are not, and to offer it as an expression of ultimate truth would be wholly indefensible. But then the soul, I must repeat, is itself not ultimate fact It is appearance, and any description of it must contain inconsistency. And, if any one objects, he may be invited to define, for example, a body moving at a certain rate, and to define it without predicating of the present what is either past or future. And, if he will attempt this, he will, I think, perhaps tend to lose confidence.
But we have, so far, not said what we mean by 44 dispositions." A soul after all, we shall be reminded, possesses a character, if not original, at least acquired.
And we certainly say that it is, because of that which we expect of it. The soul's habits and tendencies are essential to its nature, and, on the other hand, they cannot be psychical events. Hence (the objection goes on to urge) they are not psychical at all, but merely physical facts. Now to this I reply first that a disposition may be 44 physical," and may, for all that, be still not an actual fact. Until I see it defined so as to exclude reference to any past or future, and freed from every sort of implication with the conditional and potential, I shall not allow that it has been translated into physical fact. But, even in that case, I should not accept the translation, for I consider that we have a right everywhere for the sake of convenience to use the 44 conditional." Into the proper meaning of this term I shall enquire in the next chapter, but I will try to state briefly here how we apply it to the soul. In saying that the soul has a disposition of a certain kind, we take the present and past psychical facts as the subject, and we predicate of this subject other psychical facts, which we think it may become. The soul at present is such that it is part of those conditions which, given the rest, would produce certain psychical events. And hence the soul is the real possibility of these events, just as objects in the dark are the possibility of colour. Now this way of speaking is, of course, in the end incorrect, and is defensible only on the ground of convenience. It is