|
9. When, therefore, it thinks itself to be something of this kind,
it thinks itself to be a corporeal thing; and since it is perfectly
conscious of its own superiority, by which it rules the body, it has
hence come to pass that the question has been raised what part of the
body has the greater power in the body; and the opinion has been held
that this is the mind, nay, that it is even the whole soul
altogether. And some accordingly think it to be the blood, others the
brain, others the heart; not as the Scripture says, "I will praise
Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart;" and, "Thou shall love the
Lord thy God with all thine heart;" for this word by misapplication
or metaphor is transferred from the body to the soul; but they have
simply thought it to be that small part itself of the body, which we
see when the inward parts are rent asunder. Others, again, have
believed the soul to be made up of very minute and individual
corpustules, which they call atoms, meeting in themselves and
cohering. Others have said that its substance is air, others fire.
Others have been of opinion that it is no substance at all, since they
could not think any substance unless it is body, and they did not find
that the soul was body; but it was in their opinion the tempering
together itself of our body, or the combining together of the
elements, by which that flesh is as it were conjoined. And hence all
of these have held the soul to be mortal; since, whether it were
body, or some combination of body, certainly it could not in either
case continue always without death. But they who have held its
substance to be some kind of life the reverse of corporeal, since they
have found it to be a life that animates and quickens every living
body, have by consequence striven also, according as each was able,
to prove it immortal, since life cannot be without life.
For as to that fifth kind of body, I know not what, which some have
added to the four well-known elements of the world, and have said that
the soul was made of this, I do not think we need spend time in
discussing it in this place. For either they mean by body what we mean
by it, viz., that of which a part is less than the whole in extension
of place, and they are to be reckoned among those who have believed the
mind to be corporeal: or if they call either all substance, or all
changeable substance, body, whereas they know that not all substance
is contained in extension of place by any length and breadth and
height, we need not contend with them about a question of words.
10. Now, in the case of all these opinions, any one who sees that
the nature of the mind is at once substance, and yet not corporeal,
that is, that it does not occupy a less extension of place with a less
part of itself, and a greater with a greater, must needs see at the
same time that they who are of opinion that it is corporeal? do not err
from defect of knowledge concerning mind, but because they associate
with it qualities without which they are not able to conceive any nature
at all. For if you bid them conceive of existence that is without
corporeal phantasms, they hold it merely nothing. And so the mind
would not seek itself, as though wanting to itself. For what is so
present to knowledge as that which is present to the mind? Or what is
so present to the mind as the mind itself? And hence what is called
"invention," if we consider the origin of the word, what else does
it mean, unless that to find out is to "come into" that which is
sought? Those things accordingly which come into the mind as it were
of themselves, are not usually said to be found out, although they may
be said to be known; since we did not endeavor by seeking to come into
them, that is to invent or find them out. And therefore, as the mind
itself really seeks those things which are sought by the eyes or by any
other sense of the body (for the mind directs even the carnal sense,
and then finds out or invents, when that sense comes to the things
which are sought); so, too, it finds out or invents other things
which it ought to know, not with the medium of corporeal sense, but
through itself, when it "comes into" them; and this, whether in the
case of the higher substance that is in God, or of the other parts of
the soul; just as it does when it judges of bodily images themselves,
for it finds these within, in the soul, impressed through the body.
|
|