CHAPTER IX 



THE SOUL: THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY 



DESCARTES taught that an absolute difference 

 of kind separates matter, as that which possesses 

 extension, from spirit, as that which thinks. They 

 not only have no character in common, but it 

 is inconceivable that they should have any. On 

 the assumption, that the attributes of the two 

 were wholly different, it appeared to be a 

 necessary consequence that the hypothetical 

 causes of these attributes their respective sub- 

 stances must be totally different. Notably, in 

 the matter of divisibility, since that which has 

 no extension cannot be divisible, it seemed that 

 the chose pensante, the soul, must be an indivisible 

 entity. 



Later philosophers, accepting this notion of 

 the soul, were naturally much perplexed to under- 

 stand how, if matter and spirit had nothing in 

 common, they could act and react on one another. 

 All the changes of matter being modes of motion, 

 the difficulty of understanding how a moving ex- 



193 



