Take, instead of matter, an organic body; who can tell us what it is? It is extended, occupies space, say the Cartesians. But is this certain? Leibnitz disputes it, and it is not easy to attach any precise meaning to the assertion "it occupies space," if we have any just notion of space and time, the pons asinorum of psychologists. What is called actual or real space is the relation of co-existence of creatures; and is simply nothing abstracted from the related. It would be a great convenience if philosophers would learn that nothing is nothing, and that only God can create something from nothing. Space being nothing but relation, to say of a thing that it occupies space, is only saying that it exists, and exists in a certain relation to other objects. This relation may be either sensible or intelligible; it is sensible, or what is called sensible space, when the objects related are sensible. Extension is neither the essence nor a property of matter, but the sensible relation of an object either to some other objects or to our sensible perception. It is, as Leibnitz very well shows, only the relation of continuity. Whirl a wheel with great force and rapidity, and you will be unable to distinguish its several spokes, and it will seem to be all of one continuous and solid piece. Intelligible space as distinguished from sensible space is the logical relation of things, or, as more commonly called, the relation of cause and effect. When we conform our notions of space to the real order, and understand that the sensible simply copies, imitates, or symbolizes the intelligible, we shall see that we have no authority for saying extension is even a property of body or of matter.
That extension is simply the sensible relation of body, not its essence, nor even a property of matter, is evident from what physiologists tell us of organic or living bodies. There can be no reasonable doubt that the body I now have is the same identical body with which I was born, and yet it contains, probably, not a single molecule or particle of sensible matter it originally had. As I am an old man, all the particles or molecules of my body have probably been changed some ten or twenty times over; yet my body remains unchanged. It is evident, then, since the molecular changes do not affect its identity, that those particles or molecules of matter which my body assimilates from the food I take to repair the waste that is constantly going on, or to supply the loss of those particles or molecules constantly exuded or thrown off, do not compose, make up, or constitute the real body. This fact is commended to the consideration of those learned men, like the late Professor George Bush, who deny the resurrection of the body, on the ground that these molecular changes which have been going on during life render it a physical impossibility. This fact also may have some bearing on the Catholic mystery of Transubstantiation. St. Augustine distinguishes between the visible body and the intelligible body—the body that is seen and the body that is understood—and tells us that it is the intelligible, or, as he sometimes says, the spiritual, not the visible or sensible, body of our Lord that is present in the Blessed Eucharist. In fact, there is no change in the sensible body of the bread and the wine, in Transubstantiation. The sensible body remains the same after consecration that it was before. The change is in the essence or substance, or the intelligible body, and hence the appropriateness of the term transubstantiation to express the change which takes place at the words of consecration. Only the intelligible body, that is, what is non-sensible in the elements bread and wine, is transubstantiated, and yet their real body is changed, and the real body of our Lord takes its place. The nonsensible or invisible body, the intelligible body, is then, in either case, assumed by the sacred mystery to be the real body; and hence, supposing us right in our assumption that our body remains always the same in spite of the molecular changes—which was evidently the doctrine of St. Augustine—there is nothing in science or the profoundest philosophy to show that either transubstantiation or the resurrection of the flesh is impossible, or that God may not effect either consistently with his own immutable nature, if he sees proper to do it. Nothing aids the philosopher so much as the study of the great doctrines and mysteries of Christianity, as held and taught by the church.
The distinction between seeing and intellectually apprehending, and therefore between the visible body and the intelligible body, asserted and always carefully observed by St. Augustine when treating of the Blessed Eucharist, belongs to a profounder philosophy than is now generally cultivated. Our prevailing philosophy, especially outside of the church, recognizes no such distinction. It is true, we are told, that the senses perceive only the sensible properties or qualities of things; that they never perceive the essence or substance; but then the essence or substance is supposed to be a mere abstraction with no intelligible properties or qualities, or a mere substratum of sensible properties and qualities. The sensible exhausts it, and beyond what the senses proclaim the substance has no quality or property, and is and can be the subject of no predicate. This is a great mistake. The sensible properties and qualities are real, that is, are not false or illusory; but they are real only in the sensible order, or the mimesis, as Gioberti, after Plato and some of the Greek fathers, calls it in his posthumous works. The intelligible substance is the thing itself, and has its own intelligible properties and qualities, which the sensible only copies, imitates, or mimics. All through nature there runs, above the sensible, the intelligible, in which is the highest created reality, with its own attributes and qualities, which must be known before we can claim to know anything as it really is or exists. We do not know this in the case of body or matter; we do not and cannot know what either really is, and can really know of either only its sensible properties.
We know that if matter exists at all, it must have an essence or substance; but what the substance really is human science has not learned and cannot learn. We really know, then, of matter in itself no more than we do of spirit, except that matter has its sensible copy, which spirit has not. Matter, as to its substance, is supersensible, and as to the essence or nature of its substance is superintelligible, as is spirit; and we only know that it has a substance; and of substance itself, we can only say, if it exists, it is a vis activa, as opposed to nuda potentia, which is a mere possibility, and no existence at all. Such being the case, we agree with Professor Huxley, that neither spiritualism nor materialism is, in his sense, admissible, and that each is a philosophical error, or, at least, an unprovable hypothesis.
But here our agreement ends and our divergence begins. The Holy See has required the traditionalists to maintain that the existence of God, the immateriality of the soul, and the liberty of man can be proved with certainty by reason. We have always found the definitions of the church our best guide in the study of philosophy, and that we can never run athwart her teaching without finding ourselves at odds with reason and truth. We are always sure that when our theology is unsound our philosophy will be bad. There is a distinction already noted between spirit and matter, which is decisive of the whole question, as far as it is a question at all. Matter has, and spirit has not, sensible properties or qualities. These sensible properties or qualities do not constitute the essence or substance of matter, which we have seen is not sensible, but they distinguish it from spirit, which is non-sensible. This difference, in regard to sensible qualities and properties, proves that there must be a difference of substance, that the material substance and the immaterial substance are not, and cannot be one and the same substance, although we know not what is the essence or nature of either.
We take matter here in the sense of that which has properties or qualities perceptible by the senses, and spirit or spiritual substance as an existence that has no such properties or qualities. The Holy See says the immateriality, not spirituality, of the soul, is to be proved by reason. The spirituality of the soul, except in the sense of immateriality, cannot be proved or known by philosophy, but is simply a doctrine of divine revelation, and is known only by that analogical knowledge called faith. All that we can prove or assert by natural reason, is, that the soul is immaterial, or not material in the sense that matter has for its sign the mimesis, or sensible properties or qualities. We repeat, the sensible is not the material substance, but is its natural sign. So that, where the sign is wanting, we know the substance is not present and active. On the other hand, where there is a force undeniably present and operating without the sign, we know at once that it is an immaterial force or substance.
That the soul is not material, therefore is an immaterial substance, we know; because it has none of the sensible signs or properties of matter. We cannot see, hear, touch, smell, nor taste it. The very facts materialists allege to prove it material, prove conclusively, that, if anything, it is immaterial. The soul has none of the attributes or qualities that are included, and has others which evidently are not included, in the definition of matter. Matter, as to its substance, is a vis activa, for whatever exists at all is an active force; but it is not a force or substance that thinks, feels, wills, or reasons. It has no sensibility, no mind, no intelligence, no heart, no soul. But animals have sensibility and intelligence; have they immaterial souls? Why not? We have no serious difficulty in admitting that animals have souls, only not rational and immortal souls. Soul, in them, is not spirit, but it may be immaterial. Indeed, we can go further, and concede an immaterial soul, not only to animals but to plants, though, of course, not an intelligent or even a sensitive soul; for if plants, or at least some plants, are contractile and slightly mimic sensibility in animals, nothing proves that they are sensitive. We have no proof that any living organism, vegetable, animal, or human, is or can be a purely material product. Professor Huxley has completely failed, as we have shown, in his effort to sustain his theory of a physical or material basis of life, and physiologists profess to have demonstrated by their experiments and discoveries that no organism can originate in inorganic matter, or in any possible mechanical, chemical, or electrical arrangement of material atoms, and is and can be produced, unless by direct and immediate creation of God, only by generation from a preexisting male and female organism. This is true alike of plants, animals, and man. Nothing hinders you, then, from calling, if you so wish, the universal basis of life anima or soul, and asserting, the psychical basis, in opposition to Professor Huxley's physical basis, of life; only you must take care and not assert that plants and animals have human souls, or that soul in them is the same that it is in man.
There are grave thinkers who are not satisfied with the doctrine that ascribes the apparent and even striking marks of mind in animals to instinct, a term which serves to cover our ignorance, but tells us nothing; still less are they satisfied with the Cartesian doctrine that the animal is simply a piece of mechanism moved or moving only by mechanical springs and wheels like a clock or watch. Theologians are reluctant chiefly, we suppose, to admit that animals have souls, because they are accustomed to regard all souls, as to their substance, the same, and because it has seemed to them that the admission would bring animals too near to men, and not preserve the essential difference between the animal nature and the human. But we see no difficulty in admitting as many different sorts or orders of souls as there are different orders, genera, and species of living organisms. God is spirit, and the angels are spirits; are the angels therefore identical in substance with God? The human soul is spiritual; is there no difference in substance between human souls and angels? We know that men sometimes speak of a departed wife, child, or friend as being now an angel in heaven; but they are not to be understand literally, any more than the young man in love with a charming young lady who does not absolutely refuse his addresses, when he calls her—a sinful mortal, not unlikely—an angel. In the resurrection men are like the angels of God, in the respect that they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but the spirits of the just made perfect, that stand before the throne, are not angels; they are still human in their nature. If, then, we may admit spirits of different nature and substance, why not souls, and, therefore, vegetable souls, animal souls, and human souls, agreeing only in the fact that they are immaterial, or not material substances or forces?
It perhaps may be thought that to admit different orders of souls to correspond to the different orders, genera, and species of organisms, would imply that the human soul is generated with the body; contrary to the general doctrine of theologians, that the soul is created immediately ad hoc. The Holy See censured Professor Frohshamer's doctrine on the subject; but the point condemned was, as we understand it, that the professor claimed creative power for man. But it is not necessary to suppose, even if plants and animals have souls, that the human soul is generated with the body, in any sense inconsistent with faith. The church has defined that "anima est forma corporis," that is, as we understand it, the soul is the vital or informing principle, the life of the body, without which the body is dead matter. The organism generated is a living not a dead organism, and therefore if the soul is directly and immediately created ad hoc, the creative act must be consentaneous with the act of generation, a fact which demands a serious modification of the medical jurisprudence now taught in our medical schools. Some have asserted for man alone a vegetable soul, an animal soul, and a spiritual soul, but this is inadmissible; man has simply a human soul, though capable of yielding to the grovelling demands of the flesh as well as to the higher promptings of the spirit.
But we have suffered ourselves to be drawn nearer to the borders of the land of impenetrable mysteries than we intended, and we retrace our steps as hastily as possible. Our readers will understand that what we have said of the souls of plants and animals is said only as a possible concession, but not set forth as a doctrine we do or design to maintain; for it lies too near the province of revelation to be settled by philosophy. All we mean is that we see on the part of reason no serious objection to it. Perhaps it may be thought that we lose, by the concession, the argument for the immortality of the soul drawn from its simplicity; but, even if so, we are not deprived of other, and to our mind, much stronger arguments. But it may be said all our talk about souls is wide of the mark, for we have not yet proved that man is or has a soul distinguishable from the body, and which does or can survive its dissolution, and that our argument only proves that, if a man has a soul, it is immaterial. The materialist denies that there is any soul in man distinct from the body, and maintains that the mental phenomena, which we ascribe to an immaterial soul, are the effects of material organization. But that is for him to prove, not for us to disprove. Organization can give to matter no new properties or qualities, as aggregation can give only the sum of the individuals aggregated. Matter we have taken all along, as all the world takes it, as a substance that has properties and qualities perceptible by the senses, and it has no meaning except so far as so perceptible. Any active force that has no mimesis or sensible qualities, properties, or attributes, is an immaterial, not a material substance. That man is or has an active force that feels, thinks, reasons, wills, we know as well as we know anything; indeed, better than we know anything else. These acts or operations are not operations of a material substance. We know that they are not, from the fact that they are not sensible properties or qualities, and therefore there must be in man an active force or substance that is not material, but immaterial. Material substance is, we grant, a vis activa; but if it has properties or qualities, it has no faculties. It acts, but it acts only ad finem, or to an end, never propter finem, or for an end foreseen and deliberately willed or chosen. But the force that man has or is, has faculties, not simply properties or qualities, and can and does act deliberately, with foresight and choice, for an end. Hence, it is not and cannot be a substance included in the definition of matter.