Key Arguments

• The reasonable soul could by no means be educed from the power of matter unlike prior bodily functions discussed.
• It must be expressly created, not emergent from material arrangements.
• It is not sufficient that the soul be merely lodged in the body like a pilot in a ship; such a loose relation would at most move the members.
• A closer union with the body is necessary for sensations and appetites similar to ours, which are requisite to constitute a real man.

Source Quotes

It is also very worthy of remark, that, though there are many animals which manifest more industry than we in certain of their actions, the same animals are yet observed to show none at all in many others: so that the circumstance that they do better than we does not prove that they are endowed with mind, for it would thence follow that they possessed greater reason than any of us, and could surpass us in all things; on the contrary, it rather proves that they are destitute of reason, and that it is nature which acts in them according to the disposition of their organs: thus it is seen, that a clock composed only of wheels and weights can number the hours and measure time more exactly than we with all our skin. I had after this described the reasonable soul, and shown that it could by no means be educed from the power of matter, as the other things of which I had spoken, but that it must be expressly created; and that it is not sufficient that it be lodged in the human body exactly like a pilot in a ship, unless perhaps to move its members, but that it is necessary for it to be joined and united more closely to the body, in order to have sensations and appetites similar to ours, and thus constitute a real man. I here entered, in conclusion, upon the subject of the soul at considerable length, because it is of the greatest moment: for after the error of those who deny the existence of God, an error which I think I have already sufficiently refuted, there is none that is more powerful in leading feeble minds astray from the straight path of virtue than the supposition that the soul of the brutes is of the same nature with our own; and consequently that after this life we have nothing to hope for or fear, more than flies and ants; in place of which, when we know how far they differ we much better comprehend the reasons which establish that the soul is of a nature wholly independent of the body, and that consequently it is not liable to die with the latter and, finally, because no other causes are observed capable of destroying it, we are naturally led thence to judge that it

Key Concepts

• reasonable soul, and shown that it could by no means be educed from the power of matter
• but that it must be expressly created;
• it is not sufficient that it be lodged in the human body exactly like a pilot in a ship, unless perhaps to move its members,
• it is necessary for it to be joined and united more closely to the body, in order to have sensations and appetites similar to ours, and thus constitute a real man.

Context

Part 5, lines 865–900: Transition from mechanistic physiology to dualism—asserting divine creation of the rational soul and its intimate union with the human body.