Differences between the mind and the soul.

If the theologians of the present day condemn it, they will fall into a contradiction with themselves that will certainly somewhat embarrass them. For the rest, as men are born without ideas of virtue, vice, &c. whatever system the theologians adopt, they will never prove that thought is the essence of the soul; and that the soul, or the faculty of sensation, cannot exist in us, without its being put in action, that is to say, without our having either ideas or sensations.

The organ exists, when it does not sound. Man is in the same state with the organ, when in his mother's womb; or when overcome with labour, and not troubled by dreams, he is buried in a profound sleep. If all our ideas moreover, can be ranged under some of the classes of our knowledge, and we can live without having any ideas of mathematics, physics, morality, mechanics, &c. it is then not metaphysically impossible to have a soul without having any ideas.

The savages have little knowledge, they have nevertheless souls. There are some of them who have no ideas of justice, nor even words to express that idea. They say, that a man deaf and dumb, having suddenly acquired his hearing and speech, confessed, that before his cure, he had no idea of God or of death.

The king of Prussia, prince Henry, Hume, Voltaire, &c. have no more soul than Bertier, Lignac, Seguy, Gauchat, &c. The former, however, have minds as superior to the latter, as they have to monkeys, and other animals that are exhibited in public shews.

Pompignan,

Differences between the mind and the soul.

Pompignan, Chaumeix, Caveirac *, &c. have certainly very little understanding, however, we always say of them, he speaks, he writes, and even he has a soul. Now, if having very little understanding, a man has not the less soul, ideas cannot make any part of it; they are not essential to its being. The soul, therefore, may exist independently of all ideas, and of all understanding.

Let us here recapitulate the most remarkable differences between the soul and the mind.

The first is, that we are born with a perfect soul, but not with a perfect mind.

The second, that we can lose our mind, or understanding, while we yet live, but that we cannot lose the soul but with life itself.

The third, that thought is not necessary to the existence of the soul.

Such was doubtless the opinion of the theologians, when they maintained, after Aristotle, that it was to the senses the soul owed its ideas. Let it not be imagined, however, that the mind can be considered as entirely independent of the soul. Without the faculty of sensation, memory, the productive power of the

* The names of these despicable mortals are not known in Germany, or in any part of Europe, except by some of M. Voltaire' minor pieces. But for him their existence would never have been known.

mind

The mind the effect of the soul.

mind, would be without the functions, it would be of no effect. The existence of our ideas and our mind, supposes that of the faculty of sensation. This faculty is the soul itself: whence I conclude, that if the soul be not the mind, the mind is the effect of the soul, or the faculty of sensation +.

* The Treatise on the Mind, says, that memory is nothing more than a continued, but weakened sensation. In fact, the memory is nothing more than the effect of the faculty of sensation.

+ I shall be asked, perhaps, what is the faculty of sensation, and what produces this phenomenon in us? The following is the opinion of a celebrated English chymist, on the soul of animals : "We find, says he, in bodies, two sorts of properties, the exis"tence of one of which is permanent and unalterable; such are im"penetrability, gravity, mobility, &c. These qualities appertain "to physics in general."

There are in the same bodies other properties, whose transient and fugitive existence is by turns produced and destroyed by certain combinations, analyses, or motions in their interior parts. These sorts of properties form the different branches of natural history, chymistry, &c. and belong to particular parts of physics.

Iron, for example, is a composition of phlogiston and a particular earth. In this compound state it is subject to the attractive power of the magnet. When this iron is decomposed, that property vanishes: the magnet has no influence over a ferruginous earth deprived of its phlogiston.

When a metal is combined with another substance, as a vitriolic acid, this union destroys in like manner in iron the property of being attracted by the magnet.

Fixed alkali, and a nitrous acid have each of them separately an CHAP.

Objects on which the mind acts.

CHAP. III.

OF THE OBJECTS ON WHICH THE MIND ACTS.

WHAT is nature? The assemblage of all beings. What can be the employment of the mind in the

infinite number of different qualities; but when they are united, no vestige of those qualities remains; each of them then ferments with nitre.

In the common heat of the atmosphere, a nitrous acid will disengage itself from all other bodies, to combine with a fixed alkali.

If this combination be exposed to a degree of heat, proper to put the nitre into a red fusion, and any inflammable matter be added to it, the nitrous acid will abandon the fixed alkali, to unite with the inflammable substance, and in the act of this union arises the elastic force whose effects are so surprising in gunpowder.

All the properties of fixed alkali are destroyed, when it is combined with sand, and formed into glass, whose transparency, indissolubility, electric power, &c. are, if I may be allowed the expression, so many new creations, that are produced by this mixture, and destroyed by the decomposition of glass.

Now in the animal kingdom, why may not organisation produce in like manner that singular quality we call the faculty of sensation? All the phenomena that relate to medicine and natural history, evidently prove that this power is in animals nothing more than the result of the structure of their bodies; that this power begins with the formation of their organs, lasts as long as they subsist, and is at last destroyed by the dissolution of the same organs.

universe?

Objects on which the mind acts.

universe? That of an observer of the relations which objects have to each other, and to us: the relations that objects have to me are small in number. I am presented with a rose: its colour, its form, and smell please, or displease me. These are the relations it has to me. Every relation of this kind is reducible to the agreeable or disagreeable manner in which an object affects me. It is the conclusive observation of such relations that constitutes taste, and its rules.

With regard to the relations which objects have to each other, they are as numerous as are, for example, the different objects which I can compare to the form, the colour, and smell of my rose. The relations of this sort are immense, and their observation belongs more directly to the sciences.

If the metaphysicians ask me, what then becomes of the faculty of sensation in an animal? That which becomes, I should answer them, of the quality of attracting the magnet in iron that is decomposed.

See Treatise on the Principles of Chymistry.

CHAP.