THE DISTINCTION OF BODY AND SOUL. 39 1 



and produce the distinction between the mortal and 

 immortal "parts of the soul," and this distinction 

 destroys the human personality. F'or, with any 

 strictness and consistency, more and more of our 

 psychical activities must be extruded from the im- 

 mortal part of the soul, until it is suddenly dis- 

 covered that all our activities are indelibly stamped 

 with the impress of mortality, and the " immortal 

 part " is left as an empty shell from which all con- 

 tent has been extracted, which has no feeling that 

 any one ever feels or is capable of feeling, and is 

 nothinof the continuance of which human feelinof 

 can possibly desire. And then the last step is 

 inevitable : as all the attributes which express the 

 individuality of the soul have been abstracted from, 

 nothing remains to distinguish one person's soul 

 from that of another ; and so the immortal part is 

 declared to be the Universal Soul, in which all the 

 individual souls partake and which is one and 

 the same for all. And whereas the personal indi- 

 vidual souls are transitory, the impersonal Uni- 

 versal Soul Is eternal : as a principle of metaphysics 

 the unity of Soul is after a fashion maintained, even 

 while personal immortality is declared a delusion. 

 Such is the doctrine of immortality which is the 

 genuine and logical outcome of every dualistic view 

 of the relations of body and soul, and the history 

 of philosophy shows that it may be read into, or 

 developed out of, every dualistic system.^ But 



1 With and without the leave of their authors. Thus Averroes 

 developed his impersonal immortality of the Active Reason 

 (vovs TTOLTjTLKoq) out of Aristotle's dualism, with, it must be con- 

 fessed, considerable support from the vagueness and obscurity of 

 Aristotle's language, who in this matter was unsuccessfully trying 

 to reconcile conflicting views. Similarly Spinoza's doctrine does 

 but draw conclusions implied in the dualism of Descartes. And 



