THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL 203 



chophysical spiritualism of Descartes. By the latter all con- 

 scious or physic functions are regarded as spiritual. The for- 

 mer, however, recognizes the fundamental difference which 

 exists between the lower or animal, and the higher or rational 

 functions of our conscious life. Sense-perception and sensual 

 emotion belong to the former class, and must be regarded as 

 organic functions, whose agent and subject is neither the soul 

 alone nor the organism alone, but the soul-informed organism 

 or substantial composite of body and soul. Rational thinking 

 and willing, on the contrary, are classified as superorganic or 

 spintual functions, inasmuch as they exclude the coagency 

 of the organism and have the soul alone for their active cause 

 and receptive subject. 



The soul, in fine, is the formal principle or primary source 

 of the threefold life in man, namely, the metabolic life, which 

 man shares with plants, the sentient life, which he shares with 

 animals, and the rational life, which is uniquely human. The 

 human soul is often spoken of as the mind. In their dictionary 

 sense, both terms denote one and the same reality, namely, the 

 human entelechy or vital principle in man, but the connotation 

 of these terms is different. The term soul signifies the vital 

 principle in so far as it is the primary source of every kind 

 of life in man, that is, vegetative, sentient, and rational. The 

 term mind, however, connoting conscious rather than uncon- 

 scious life, signifies the vital principle in so far as it is the root 

 and ground of our conscious life (both sentient and rational). 

 Here, however, the distinction is of no great moment, and the 

 terms may be regarded as synonymous. The definitions which 

 we have given are, of course, blasphemous in the ears of our 

 modern neo-Kantian phenomenalists, whose preference is for 

 a functional, rather than a substantial, mind or soul; but we 

 will pay our respects to them later. 



It is clear, however, from what has been said, that, for 

 evidences of the superiority and spirituality of the human soul, 

 we must recur, not to the external manifestations of our nu- 

 tritive life, but to the internal manifestations of our conscious 



