THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL 215 



"A further diflBculty," he says, "arises as to whether all at- 

 tributes 'of the soul are also shared by that which has the soul 

 or whether any of them are peculiar to the soul itself: a 

 problem which it is imperative, and yet by no means easy, 

 to solve. It would appear that in most cases it neither acts 

 nor is acted upon apart from the body: as, e.g., in anger, 

 courage, desire, and sensation in general. Thought, if any- 

 thing, would seem to be peculiar to the soul. Yet if thought 

 is a sort of imagination, or something not independent of 

 imagination, it will follow that not even thought is inde- 

 pendent of the body. If, then, there be any functions or af- 

 fections of the soul that are peculiar to it, it will be possible 

 for the soul to be separated from the body: if, on the other 

 hand, there is nothing peculiar to it, the soul will not be 

 capable of separate existence." ("Peri Psyches," Bk. I, 

 chap. I, 9.) We shall see that the human soul has certain 

 operations which it discharges independently of the intrinsic 

 coagency of the organism, e.g., abstract thought (not to be 

 confounded with the concrete imagery of the imagination) 

 and deliberate volition (to be distinguished from the urge 

 of the sensual appetite). Hence, over and above the organic 

 functions, which it discharges in conjunction with the material 

 organism, the human soul has superorganic functions, of which 

 it is itself, in its own right, the exclusive agent and recipient. 

 In other words, it exists far its own sake and not merely to 

 perfect the body. 



The Aristotelian argument for the spirituality of the human 

 soul consists in the application of a self-evident principle or 

 axiom to certain facts of internal experience. The axiom in 

 question is the following: "The nature of an agent is revealed 

 by its action"; or, to phrase it somewhat differently: "Every 

 being operates after the same manner that it exists." The 

 factual data, to which reference is made, are man's higher 

 psychic functions, in which the soul alone is the active cause 

 and receptive subject, namely: the rational or superorganic 

 functions of thinking and willing. The argument may be for- 



