A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy

by Isaac Husik

The nature of the soul has been a puzzle to thinkers and philosophers from time immemorial. Some thought it was a material substance, some regarded it as spiritual. It was identified with the essence of number by the Pythagoreans. And there have not been wanting those who, arguing from its dependence upon body, said it was an accident and not a substance. Strange to say the Mutakallimun, defenders of religion and faith, held to this very opinion. But it is really no stranger than the maintenance of the soul's materiality equally defended by other religionists, like Tertullian for example, and the opposition to Maimonides's spiritualism on the part of Abraham ben David of Posquières. The Mutakallimun were led to their idea by the atomic theory, which they found it politic to adopt as more amenable to theological treatment than Aristotle's Matter and Form. It followed then according to some of them that the fundamental unit was the material atom which is without quality, and any power or activity in any atom or group of atoms is a direct creation of God, which must be re-created every moment in order to exist. This is the nature of accident, and it makes more manifest the ever present activity of God in the world. Thus the "substantial" or "accidental" character of the soul is one that is touched on by most Jewish writers on the subject. And Israeli also refers to the matter incidentally in the "Book of the Elements."[34] Like the other Jewish philosophers he defends its substantiality.

The fact of its separability from the body, he says, is no proof of its being an accident. For it is not the separability of an accident from its substance that makes it an accident, but its destruction, when separated. Thus when a white substance turns green, the white color is not merely separated from its substance but ceases to exist. The soul is not destroyed when it leaves the body.

Another argument to prove the soul a substance is this. If the soul were an accident it should be possible for it to pass from the animal body to something else, as blackness is found in the Ethiopian's skin, in ebony wood and in pitch. But the soul exists only in living beings.

We find, besides, that the activity of the soul extends far beyond the body, and acts upon distant things without being destroyed. Hence it follows that the soul itself, the agent of the activity, keeps on existing without the body, and is a substance.

Having made clear the conception of soul generally and its relation to the body, he next proceeds to treat of the three kinds of soul. The highest of these is the rational soul, which is in the horizon of the Intelligence and arises from its shadow. It is in virtue of this soul that man is a rational being, discriminating, receptive of wisdom, distinguishing between good and evil, between things desirable and undesirable, approaching the meritorious and departing from wrong. For this he receives reward and punishment, because he knows what he is doing and that retribution follows upon his conduct.

Next to the rational soul is the animal soul, which arises from the shadow of the former. Being far removed from the light of Intelligence, the animal soul is dark and obscure. She has no knowledge or discrimination, but only a dim notion of truth, and judges by appearance only and not according to reality. Of its properties are sense perception, motion and change in place. For this reason the animals are fierce and violent, endeavoring to rule, but without clear knowledge and discrimination, like the lion who wants to rule over the other beasts, without having a clear consciousness of what he is doing. A proof that the animals have only dim notions of things is that a thirsty ass coming to the river will fly from his own shadow in the water, though he needs the latter for preserving his life, whereas he will not hesitate to approach a lion, who will devour him. Therefore the animals receive no reward or punishment (this in opposition to the Mutakallimun) because they do not know what to do so as to be rewarded, or what to avoid, in order not to be punished.

The vegetative soul proceeds from the shadow of the animal soul. She is still further removed from the light of Intelligence, and still more weighed down with shadow. She has no sense perception or motion. She is next to earth and is characterized by the powers of reproduction, growth, nutrition, and the production of buds and flowers, odors and tastes.

Next to the soul comes the Sphere (the heaven), which arises in the horizon and shadow of the vegetative soul. The Sphere is superior to corporeal substances, being itself not body, but the matter of body. Unlike the material elements, which suffer change and diminution through the things which arise out of them as well as through the return of the bodies of plants and animals back to them as their elements, the spiritual substances (and also the sphere) do not suffer any increase or diminution through the production of things out of them. For plants and animals are produced from the elements through a celestial power which God placed in nature effecting generation and decay in order that this world of genesis and dissolution should exist. But the splendor of the higher substances, viz., the three souls, suffers no change on account of the things coming from them because that which is produced by them issues from the shadow of their splendor and not from the essence of the splendor itself. And it is clear that the splendor of a thing in its essence is brighter than the splendor of its shadow, viz., that which comes from it. Hence the splendor of the vegetative soul is undoubtedly brighter than that of the sphere, which comes from its shadow. The latter becomes rigid and assumes a covering, thickness and corporeality so that it can be perceived by sight. But no other of the senses can perceive it because, although corporeal, it is near to the higher substances in form and nobility, and is moved by a perfect and complete motion, motion in a circle, which is more perfect than other motions and not subject to influence and change. Hence there is no increase or diminution in it, no beginning or end, and this on account of the simplicity, spirituality and permanence of that which moves it. The Intelligence pours of her splendor upon it, and of the light of her knowledge, and the sphere becomes intelligent and rational, and knows, without investigation or reflection, the lordship of its Creator, and that he should be praised and glorified without intermission. For this reason the Creator assigned to the Sphere a high degree from which it cannot be removed, and gave it charge of the production of time and the four seasons of the year, and the month and the day and the hour, and made it ruler of the production of perishable things in this world of generation and dissolution, so that the upper souls may find bodies to apprehend, to clothe with their light, and to make visible in them their activities according to the determination of God.

The Sphere by its motion produces the four elements, fire, air, water, earth; and the combinations of these in various proportions give rise to the minerals, plants and animals of this world, the highest of whom is man.

That the elements are those mentioned above and nothing else is proved by the definition of element and its distinction from "principle." A principle is something which, while being the cause of change, and even possibly at the basis of change, is not itself subject to change. Thus God is undoubtedly the cause of everything that happens in the world. He may therefore be called a principle of the world, but he does not enter with his essence the changing things. Hence it is absurd to speak of God as an element of the sublunar world. Matter, i. e., primary formless matter, does enter all changing things and is at the basis of all change; but it does not itself change. Hence matter also is a principle but not an element. An element is something which is itself a composite of matter and form, and changes its form to become something else in which, however, it is contained potentially, not actually. The product ultimately goes back to the element or elements from which it was made. When we follow this resolution of a given composite into its elements back as far as we can until we reach a first which is no longer produced out of anything in the same way as things were produced from it, we have the element. Such is the nature of fire, air, water, earth. All things are made from them in the manner above indicated. But there is nothing prior to them which changes its form to become fire, continues to reside potentially in fire and returns to its original state by the resolution of fire. The same applies to the other three.