ANILE, ANTONINO. – Physician, educator, and writer, one of the most notable representatives of Catholic scientific literature in the 20th century, born at Pizzo in Calabria on 20 November 1869, died at Raiano in 1943. Professor of anatomy at universities, he was several times deputy of the Partito Popolare and, in the post-war period, Minister of Education in the two Facta ministries (1922). His work, socially educational in character, is that of a naturalist and a poet; in reaction to the legacy of 19th-century scientific materialism, he continually stresses the necessity of ascending from nature to God. Indeed, one of his most significant works, *Bellezza e verità delle cose*, may be considered “a poetic-scientific illustration of the five ways of St Thomas” (D. Mondrone).
Principal works: *La salute del pensiero*, Bari 1916; *Nella scienza e nella vita*, Bologna 1920; *Poesie*, complete collection, ibid. 1921; *Vigilie di scienza e di vita*, 2nd ed., Bari 1921; *Sonetti religiosi*, Bologna 1923; *La cultura cattolica*, Turin 1924; *Nuovi sonetti religiosi*, Milan 1931; *Bellezza e verità delle cose*, Florence 1935; *Le ore sacre*, Florence 1937; *L’ombra della montagna*, Milan 1939; *Questo è l’uomo*, Florence 1943.
The difficulties encountered in defining the *anima* have repeatedly diverted inquiry into an endless variety of opinions, a circumstance that provided ample occasion for a keen observer of human frailty such as Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim to reproach philosophers for having indulged in more incongruous speculation here than elsewhere (*De vanitate scientiarum*, ch. 52, in *Opera omnia*, II, Lyons 1600, pp. 85 ff.). Yet within this very fact there lies a meaning: the persistent and ever-renewed interest in the inquiry, which cannot be explained without some initial and abiding evidence to which one seeks to return in order to guide the inquiry itself. St Thomas, in a precise formula, located this initial evidence in the certainty of existence and viewed the difficulties as arising from the ontological determination of the essence of the *anima*. The formula seems to offer no way out, given the heterogeneity and indivisibility that St Thomas expressly affirms between the two orders of essence and existence. Nevertheless, the *anima* attests its existence in the concrete and actual exercise of life, and this may constitute a firm point of departure even for the investigation of its nature. In other words, vital manifestations—understood as acts of conscious life—have a twofold character: a) inasmuch as “acts” they attest the principle that currently produces them; b) inasmuch as they display a “content,” they may be taken as “signs” and properties pointing to a corresponding nature. The following discussion adheres to this schema.
2. ETYMOLOGY
The origin of the term *a.* is connected with that category of vital manifestations which spontaneous thought deemed most evident and common. In ancient, classical, and Semitic languages, it has an intimate kinship with “spirit,” breath, and wind. In Hebrew (see below, n. II), and similarly in Arabic, the terms for breath, wind, and spirit are employed. In Greek, Plato derives *ψυχή* (*psyche*) from ἀναπνεύω (*anapneō*, “to breathe”) and from ἀνάψυχον (*anapsychon*, “refreshing”); and he also finds more persuasive the etymology of *ψυχή* as ὀνείς ἐξίς ὀνείς (*oneis exis oneis*, “that which holds, carries nature”) (*Cratylus*, 399-400). The Sanskrit *Atman*, by which the *a.* is designated in many passages of the *Rgveda*, also means breath, from which the German *atmen* (“to breathe”) is derived (cf. Max Müller, *The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy*, London 1928, pp. 71-72). Aristotle, along with breath and movement, indicates “cooling” as *ψυχή* (*psyche*) = ἀναπνεύω (*anapneō*) (*De Anima*, II, 2, 405 b, 29), an etymology that Montolio traces back to Philolaus rather than to Apponius, as Diels maintains with Philoponus (E. Zeller-R. Mondolfo, *La filosofia dei Greci nel suo sviluppo storico*, part 1, II, p. 561). The etymology of “cooling” is accepted by Origen, who interprets it in a spiritual sense: he speaks of “the spirit which, having fallen from its original fervor through its own fault, was punished and purified by union with the body”: “...inde quod ex illa pace luna naturali et divino refixisse videatur, et ideo in hoc quo nunc est statu et vocabulo sita est” (*De Principiis*, II, 8: PG 11, 222 D, 223 A). This etymology was vigorously rejected by Pseudo-Athanasius (cf. *De corpore et anima*: PG 28, 1432-33) and expressly condemned, at the proposal of Emperor Justinian, by the Second Council of Constantinople under Patriarch Mennas (canon IV).The etymology of *a.* as “cooling” was certainly occasioned by the observation of the effect, so easily observable, that moving air has upon hot bodies. It seems to have been favored by the Stoics, though they were not its originators, as H. Karpp suggests (*Soranus*, *vier Bücher*, II, 1).1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 74, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 75, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 76, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 77, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 78, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 79, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 80, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 81, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 82, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 83, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 84, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 85, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 86, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 87, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 88, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 89, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 90, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 91, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 92, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 93, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 94, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 95, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 96, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 97, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 98, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 99, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 100, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 101, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 102, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 103, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 104, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 105, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 106, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 107, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 108, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 109, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 110, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 111, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 112, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 113, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 114, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 115, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 116, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 117, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 118, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 119, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 120, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 121, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 122, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 123, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 124, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 125, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 126, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 127, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 128, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 129, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 130, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 131, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 132, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 133, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 134, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 135, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 136, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 137, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 138, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 139, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 140, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 141, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 142, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 143, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 144, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 145, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 146, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 147, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 148, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 149, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 150, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 151, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 152, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 153, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 154, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 155, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 156, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 157, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 158, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 159, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 160, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 161, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 162, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 163, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 164, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 165, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 166, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 167, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 168, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 169, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 170, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 171, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 172, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 173, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 174, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 175, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 176, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 177, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 178, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 179, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 180, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 181, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 182, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 183, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 184, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 185, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 186, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 187, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 188, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 189, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 190, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 191, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 192, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 193, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 194, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 195, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 196, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 197, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 198, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 199, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 200, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 201, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 202, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 203, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 204, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 205, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 206, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
### EXISTENCE
The soul is a “natural form” and is the principle of life in living beings. For Aristotle, “it is ridiculous to attempt to prove the existence of nature” (Phys., I, 1. 193 a, 3 ff.): manifest things reveal themselves, they are not proved, and it is self-evident “a sensu” and “secundum sensum,” as St Thomas comments, that there are in reality many things that possess within themselves the principle of movement, such as animals, plants, and natural bodies, unlike artificial things. The difference imposes itself upon immediate perception through the primary evident characteristics of the one and the other, upon which the normal course of individual life itself is founded.
The soul, and more distinctly than inanimate natures, shares in this evidential character of existence: this means that living beings present certain unmistakable “characters” by which they are immediately distinguished, not only from artificial things, but even from inanimate natures. The most apparent of these is the capacity of the soul to move itself to action: “Living manifestly befits animals... For an animal is said to live when it begins to have movement from itself, and it is judged to be alive as long as such movement appears in it; when, however, it no longer has any movement from itself, but is moved only by another, then it is said to be an animal dead through lack of life” (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 18, a. 1). It is the immediate evidential character of this that generates the immediate evidence of life and of the existence of the soul in living beings.
Alongside and beyond the evidence of lower life and the soul of another, there is the evidence that each person possesses of the existence of his own soul, an evidence that is not bare but lived in acts: “For in this a person perceives that he has a soul, and lives, and exists, in that he perceives himself to feel, to understand, and to perform other such operations of life” (De Veritate, X, 8). In the perception of the object and of the act there is a composition of the existence of the soul: “...when the acts of the soul are perceived, the principle of such acts is perceived to inhere” (ibid., X, 9). Nothing is more certain than this knowledge: “According to this, the knowledge of the soul is most certain, in that each person in himself perceives that he has a soul and that acts of the soul inhere in him” (ibid., X, 8 ad 8). Objects and acts, acts and soul, are not “dismembered limbs” but form a dynamic totality that presents itself only as a whole, in which the components hold together. Moderns speak rather of the experience of the ego, which is evidently an experience of the existence of the soul by which the ego maintains itself united and affirms itself as an operative center.
Nevertheless, the soul has been denied: mechanism has affirmed that vital functions do not require any new principle distinct from the forces of the inorganic world; materialism has found the existence of the spiritual soul in man inconceivable. It is therefore necessary to provide a “demonstration” of the existence of life and the soul that satisfies the objections raised. A demonstration “ostensive,” not deductive, which would have no meaning at all; it consists in showing that the exercise of experience, whether spontaneous or reflective, obliges us to recognize certain characteristic “signs” in which the existence of life and the soul is manifested. Our spontaneous certainty is strengthened and becomes critical and firm in reflection, in which we can gather the following results: 1) Absolute certainty—from which it is impossible to refrain without renouncing thought and denying oneself—of the existence of one’s own soul: there is no consciousness of thought, tendency, feeling, or passion unless an ego that thinks, tends, feels, and is passionate is perceived...; and the ego, as has been said, belongs first of all to the soul. 2) A very solid certainty, though less intimate than the preceding, of the existence of the souls of other men: too evident is the similarity, indeed the identity, in behavior and bodily form to allow doubt about the presence of principles and forces identical to those that we “live” in ourselves. 3) Less, but still well founded, is the conviction regarding the existence of the soul in animals, for the same reason of analogy in behavior and bodily structure; only that the criterion is thus far limited to the manifestations of sensitive life. Vegetative life presents a particular difficulty.
Mechanism has made much of the obscurity in which the functions of vegetative life are accomplished and of the presence in it of energies and substances acting in the inorganic world. To this real difficulty, no sufficient answer is given when one limits oneself, as is the tendency of contemporary vitalism, to attributing to the living being the characters of spontaneity, form, individuality, and totality (F. De Sarlo, *Vita e Psiche. Saggio di Filosofia della Biologia*, Florence 1935). Such characters are common to all “nature,” in a more or less pronounced form according to the perfection of the nature itself. Yet in living beings they are realized in a different “mode,” in a more perfect “mode,” than in inorganic nature. Those characters in the living being belong to life, because in it they are generated, maintained, and unfolded in an immanent way, that is, in such a way that the operations of the living being redound primarily to the advantage of the living being itself (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 5, a. 2). Whereas the actions and reactions of the inorganic world redound to the advantage of something else and form an operative cycle always open, those of living beings form a cycle that concludes in the living being and the more intimately the higher the form of life (cf. C. Gent., IV, 11). Now, immanence is an immediate datum of consciousness for the higher functions such as understanding, willing, feeling, and being passionate: they form the most manifest nucleus of the ego and of its specific nature, and we follow with our inner gaze the growth in perfection that comes to us with every act. Immanence is recognized in its own sphere even in vegetative life, because we observe, and can see and experience, that its effects redound first of all to the advantage of the living being. In the embryo it is the living substance that organizes and develops; in the formed organism it is the individual that conserves, repairs, defends, grows, and then multiplies into subjects of the same nature that perpetuate the species. None of this occurs in the inorganic world, and descriptive and causal study undertaken by modern biology has made immanence evident in a tangible and visible way even in the depths of the unexplored life of purely physiological life. This is, however, a value of integrative importance and not absolutely necessary, since the characters of life impose themselves upon ordinary observation before science, and would not be found in the latter if they were not first and more clearly so in the former. For this reason, immediate perception of the existence of the soul has been defended in the manner indicated.
4. DEFINITION
Bodies are called “animated” when operations of life (immanent) appear to be performed in them at one of their levels (vegetative, sensitive, intellective). The bodies are then said to be “animated” and alive by virtue of the soul, and not insofar as they are bodies: otherwise every body would be alive, which is not the case. The soul is therefore that which gives the living being its nature as such and enables it to operate in this way; it is the first principle that specifies the body and moves it to vital functions. From the standpoint of functions and perceived evidence, Aristotle defines the soul as “that by which we first live, sense, and think” (De Anima, II, 2, 414 a, 12-13). Insofar as it is the soul that determines the being of the living as such, the soul is the “first perfection” of the living being itself. However, the soul cannot be the first principle of vital functions in just any body, but only in a body capable of performing the works of life, that is, a body “endowed with organs.” Aristotle called the first perfection “act” and “form,” and the subject suited to receive it “potency”: “Therefore, in order to give the most general definition of the soul as such, it must be said that it is the first perfection (act) of an organic natural body” (De Anima, II, 1, 412 b, 5-6).From the functional and essential definition of the soul there follows a threefold causality with respect to the body (De Anima, II, 4, 415 b, 7-17). First, it is the “substantial form” of the living being, for life is communicated to the body by the soul. It is also the “end” or “telos” of the living being; bodies, in fact, have organs and structures not for their own sake, but in view of the soul that they receive and the functions that the soul is to perform, for which they serve as “instruments.” Consequently, the soul is also the first “motive” principle—not only for local movement, which is limited to the more highly organized animals, but for all the works of life, from the lowest to the highest: all have their root in the soul and receive from it impulse and direction of development. The soul stands to the body “as the edge of the axe stands to the iron of the axe, as the act of vision stands to the eye” (De Anima, I, 412 b, 11 sgg.). From this the mechanistic objection is refuted, which claims that the presence of the soul is superfluous, on the ground that the physical-chemical forces also take part in the works of life. The reality is that these forces achieve in the living being “new” effects that they do not achieve in the inorganic world, and operate in a more perfect way: this means that such forces are not left to the impetus of natural tendency, but are moved to produce effects of a higher order and value by a higher cause. “Natural heat,” to use ancient terminology, burns and consumes without limit; in the living being, however, it builds flesh, humors, and tissues—not infinitely, but according to the structural plan, the size, and the form proper to each species of animal. The mechanistic requirement is preserved: natural heat intervenes as a cause of vital functions; not, however, as the principal and responsible cause of the effect, but as a secondary and instrumental cause (for Aristotle and St. Thomas v.: De Anima, II, 4, 416 b, 25-28; De Part. Animal., II, 652 b, 9; De Generat. Animal., II, 4, 470 b, 26 sgg.; In Lib. I De Anima, lect. XIV, n. 200; ibid., Lib. II, lect. IX, n. 348; In Lib. De Sensu et Sensato, lect. X, n. 139 and n. 149; Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 78, a. 2 and 4; De Anima, 13, ad 14 and art. 2; Q. De Spirit. Creaturis, a. 2).
By positing the relationship between soul and body as that of act to potency and precisely as form to matter, Aristotle initiated metaphysical consideration of the soul, in which, if he did not attain full clarity at every point, he nonetheless outlined its first results with the lucid intuition of an innovator. 1) First, the soul is not coextensive with being, nor even with life: there is no form of being beneath the soul, that is, the entire inorganic world; and likewise the life of spiritual substances is above the soul, which is the principle of life in bodies. 2) The soul is a substance, not in the Platonic sense of subsisting in itself as sufficient and self-moving, but in the new sense introduced by the Aristotelian conception of natural essences as syntheses, “synolon” of matter and form. The substance is the “synolon” itself, the living being as a whole; since the “synolon” implies the union of constitutive principles, these do not constitute it in the dignity and consistency of substance unless they themselves belong to the substantial order. Substances, therefore, in their own way—that is, as “principles”—are the body and the soul, and the soul more than the body insofar as act surpasses potency. 3) The soul is a simple substance: a qualification that belongs to every substantial form that is the “first act” of the body; if it were composite in itself, it would be the first act of a matter antecedent to the body, and the substantial unity of the living being would be endangered, as we shall see. 4) Consequently, the soul is an incorporeal substance: the complete substance is said to be corporeal, not the principle that gives the species to the body, for being is unity. The soul may be called material when in its operation it is inseparably bound to matter, but not corporeal. Incorporeal, the soul is in itself nonextended, since even extension is an attribute of the composite alone.
With this robust doctrine Aristotle left behind not only the pre-Socratics, who made the soul a certain special body and did not attain the genuine notion of the spiritual, but Plato himself, who at once made the soul composite and, under the influence of Orphic and Pythagorean conceptions, saw the union of the soul with the body as merely accidental and not natural. Yet the Aristotelian conception of the soul itself had its difficulties. For the development of the Christian doctrine of the soul, it must also be borne in mind that while the patristic tradition opposed Aristotle and sided with Plato, the Middle Ages approached Aristotle, and through the merit of St. Thomas incorporated Aristotelian terminology into the official doctrine of the Church. The Fathers reproach the Stagirite for having made the soul mortal, once it is reduced to the essence and form of a body. In the two most prominent Peripatetic schools, Alexander of Aphrodisias explicitly makes the soul mortal, and Averroes (v.) holds that only the separate intellect is immortal as an impersonal unity. And yet St. Thomas believed he could resist both. This suggests that the bare text was not sufficient to shed light on the greatest problems of human existence and to impose one interpretation or another; and at the same time that beneath the harsh crust of that impenetrable style there lay, perhaps implicitly but effectively, the principles that could lead to the definitive Christian solution.
### SPIRITUALITY. — The Aristotelian definition of the soul as the form of the body would seem to imply that the soul, as such, is bound in its being and activity to matter. This logical requirement of the definition contrasts with the exercise of human life in its most characteristic aspects. Man does not live merely by earthly things and sensible representations, but rather by the pursuit of intelligible and supernatural values, of the arts and sciences; he organizes his life according to particular familial and social bonds; he obeys a moral law and seeks a religion. His existence is constantly stirred by the concern to secure for himself a limitless duration and happiness, while at the same time convinced that he can dispose of the ultimate resolution of his life toward a chosen and willed destiny. Against this ever-moving yet so significant and distinct backdrop of real purposes, the conviction has arisen that the soul of man is of a different nature from corporeal forms and akin to God. No one, moreover, can claim to have intuitive evidence of the spirituality of the soul as a substance, so that the question cannot be immediately resolved on the phenomenological level. Indeed, a tension arises here between opposing exigencies: on the one hand, the materiality of the soul demanded by lower functions, and on the other, the spirituality evidenced by higher functions. It is more urgent, first of all, to see whether such higher functions actually suffice to assure the spirituality upon which its destiny depends; only afterward can one think to resolve that contrast. Moreover, the experience of spiritual life is, as has already been said, immediately lived in an intimacy and immediacy of belonging that is bound up with the fabric of our life and the originality of the person.
We can attest that of spiritual activity we have an idea incomparably more adequate than of any other activity of lower life or of nature. If, therefore, the spirituality of the soul needs to be demonstrated, it is a demonstration that proceeds directly from a tissue of lived contents, of which nothing is more truly ours or clearer to us. The demonstration of the spirituality of the soul can be approached both from the side of the intelligence and from that of the will: this is attested by the development, even under the impulse of idealism, in modern times of the so-called “sciences of the spirit” (*Geisteswissenschaften*). To many, the most persuasive and most concise of all proofs may appear to be that drawn from voluntary activity and freedom: in it, indeed, the independence of spiritual life and the character of the human person are affirmed. Yet if, instead of seeking the most apparent path, we wish to adhere to the surest, it must undoubtedly be taken from the experience of intellectual life, since freedom is founded upon reason and voluntary activity presupposes and follows the direction impressed by the intelligence.
The Thomistic demonstration essentially follows this schema: immediate apprehension of the spirituality of the acts of intellectual consciousness, inasmuch as the spirituality of the objects they bear is directly grasped (perceived); passage by argument to the spirituality of the principles from which the acts proceed, namely, the soul and its faculties (at this point, one may set aside the controversy regarding the identity or diversity of the faculties with the soul, which can and will be resolved—as we shall do—later). If here a certain technicality is unavoidable, it nonetheless has the advantage of rendering the path both shorter and more secure. The operative principles reveal themselves in the nature of the acts they produce; the acts, in turn, are known from the objects they bring to consciousness and from the manner in which they are brought to presence. Acts and objects are co-perceived and thus co-apprehended; yet it must be absolutely acknowledged that the mind grasps the objects for itself and, conditionally upon them, also the acts that make them present. The intelligence is a power and an operative principle; every power is known not in itself but through the acts it produces, the nature of which in cognitive powers is revealed by the objects: *“prius est intelligere aliquid, quam intelligere se intelligere”* (*De Veritate*, X, 8). The object of the intelligence is universal essences, “absolute natures.” Sense grasps only extended and individual qualities; the intelligence, by contrast, proceeds to conceive the absolute nature that subordinates to itself individual realizations. This means that the object, as it is in the intelligence, is free from every material conditionality because it is universal. Once I have grasped the real content of a nature, of man, of an animal..., it holds good, and I can apply it to every individual of that nature and to every species of that genus, to every man and to every dog, even if I have never seen them, even if they do not yet exist, and even if they will be born when I am no longer here to see them. Of this I am certain and pronounce with absolute certainty; whereas nothing certain can I say about the color, stature, practical skills, race, or disposition of such natures... The absolute nature, which the soul itself receives in understanding, shows that the soul itself is an absolute form, that is, freed from the bonds of matter (cf. *Sum. Theol.*, 1a, q. 75, a. 5; *De Spiritualibus Creaturis*, a. 1; *Q. De Anima*, a. 6, ad 6).
The demonstration, though it may seem perhaps arduous and formal, not only makes room for “intellectual perception,” but this in fact fulfills a primary role within II. St. Thomas assures us that the soul, in the apprehension of universals, perceives (*percipi*) that the intelligible form is spiritual; moreover, that we are conscious of the very becoming of the universal within the soul, and indeed—precisely in connection with the process of abstraction—that the very light of the intellect becomes present to us in itself. This is equivalent to an explicit affirmation of a “proper perception of the spiritual,” of a positive content that cannot be derived: a merely “negative” and privative notion of the spiritual would be nonsensical, and for man a cruel mockery. *“Et hoc experimento cognoscimus, dum percipimus nos abstrahere formas universales a conditionibus particularibus quod est facere actu intelligibilia”* (*Sum. Theol.*, 1a, q. 79, a. 4; cf. also *De Veritate*, X, 8; ibid., ad 2, ad 9).
To the knowledge of the soul, St. Thomas attributes a
precision that it does not recognize in the knowledge of material things, although this is obtained by immediate abstraction, whereas that of the intellect is achieved through a process of rigorous demonstration and thus mediately ("from above," that is, in the intelligible species). Only of the intellect, in fact, can we say that we know its ultimate and proper difference, which gives the perfect measure of its nature and capacity: *"Anima humana intelligit seipsam per suum intelligere, quod est actus proprius eius, perfecte demonstrans virtutem eius et naturam"* (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 88, a. 2, ad 3).
On the basis of these principles, it does not seem impossible to us to bring to completion, within the realm of knowledge, what has been called the "phenomenology of spiritual life" (Brentano, Dilthey, Linke, Pfänder, Scheler), of which, moreover, a notable example can be found in the analysis that St. Thomas himself makes in the Sum. Theol. (1a, 2ae) of moral life. We must also recall the results of "Denkspsychologie" (Külpe, Bühler, De Sanctis), which, through the practice of introspective method, was able to demonstrate not only the irreducibility of thought to the image-type, but also claimed to have found a thought entirely pure from images (vorstellungs-loses Denken), something that St. Thomas does not admit (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 84, a. 7). The Augustinian tendency is to affirm that the intellect "semetipsam per seipsam novit," a tendency recently taken up by B. Romeyer, who wished to win over to his side even the Dominican P. Garelli, who, however, energetically opposed him (Revue Thomiste, 12 [1929], pp. 520-33). The argument has been the subject of careful experimental research at the Catholic Institute of Paris by G. Dwelshauser, whose results were very sober and in full agreement with the Thomistic position just outlined (v. del Dwelshauwer, L'étude de la pensée, Paris 1934, lect. XVII, pp. 175-76).
6. THE INTELLECTIVE SOUL AS THE SUBSTANTIAL FORM OF THE BODY.
The spirituality of the soul implies its independence from the body in being and operation; but if it is by nature independent of the body, it is not clear how it can be its act and first perfection, as Aristotle’s definition maintains—a difficulty that fueled the opposition of the Neoplatonists to Aristotle and provoked Latin Averroism (v.). Yet both the Platonic position of the soul as a complete substance and the Averroist position of a single separate intellect proved one-sided for at least two reasons: first, because, in the totality of experiential and conscious data, they sought to account for only a particular group of phenomena, neglecting the others and the unity of the whole; and second, because they bent the demands of principles to a univocal meaning not sufficiently justified. St. Thomas, instead, first firmly establishes both the spirituality of the soul and the necessity that the intellectual principle be the substantial form of the human body; only later does he concern himself with showing the "mode" in which the compatibility of these two conclusions can be conceived. It is clear that the difficulty of comprehending the "mode of union" cannot undermine the certainties that can be attained regarding the fact of the union itself. For St. Thomas, this fact must be placed beyond all doubt. His procedure, in essence, reduces to the emphasis on a fact and a principle, both of which are unassailable: from them there directly follows the conclusion that "the intellectual principle must be in man the unique substantial form of the body."
a) The fact: *hic homo singularis intelligit*. Each person has a clear and unshakable certainty of being himself, as a singular, historical, and integral subject, to think, to love, to feel passion... when he thinks, loves, or feels passion for something. He is convinced that such states of consciousness are in him and not in others or of others; that they are not infrequently in contrast with those of others; that they are often incommunicable to others, and that this incommunicability is bound up with the very character of his own personality, individual responsibility, and morality. Thought, moreover, is the activity
that posits the thesis of the unity of the substantial form; the body of Christ during the three days of His death, in the absence of the soul in limbo, could not be said to be numerically identical with that which had agonized on the cross. St. Thomas was able to reply that the principal and constitutive identity is that which is had according to the union in the identical suppositum or person, which in Christ remained intact even when, with the advent of death, the union of essence between the soul and the assumed body in humanity was temporarily broken. Both the soul and the body of Christ preserved in that time their own union with the person of the Word, and such a union is sufficient to preserve the numerical identity of the body of Christ in expectation of the resurrection (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 50, a. 5; Quodlib., IV, a. 8).
4) The human soul, insofar as it is by nature ordered to be the substantial form of a body, so that it is truly the act of matter, is multiplied and individuated by the body in which it is received: many bodies mean that there are many souls, and many souls multiply intelligences so that there is one for each individual (De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, cap. 5, § 103, ed. Keeler, p. 67). Separated from the body by death, souls still retain this individuation, inasmuch as they preserve the unity of form of a given body (ibid., § 104).
5) There remained, however, the initial difficulty that had provoked dualist solutions, namely, that of uniting a spiritual principle with a material body: "how can realities belonging to opposite genera of being coexist?" In his affirmative response, St. Thomas makes use of the Neoplatonic principle of the "continuity of degrees of being," which he could read in a source of recognized authority, the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Faithful to his Neoplatonic sources, he affirmed the "affinity" or contact of beings at the extreme ends of their natures: *"Divina sapientia coniungit fines primorum principiis secundorum"* (De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 7; PG 3, 873), which St. Thomas rephrases as: *"supremum infimi attingit infimum supremi."* Granted that the human soul is the lowest among spiritual substances and that the human body is the most noble and perfect of living bodies, there is no reason why they cannot be united as form and matter: *"Et ideo anima humana, quae est infima in ordine substantiarum spiritualium, esse suum communicare potest corpori humano, quod est dignissimum, ut fiat ex anima et corpore unum sicut ex materia et forma"* (De Spiritualibus Creaturis, a. 2, fin.).
6) One difficulty still remained. The spiritual soul, once it is the only form of man, must be the root and principle of all the operations performed in man, and therefore also of the sensitive and vegetative operations: how, then, can a spiritual soul possess within itself so diverse energies? St. Thomas answers with the principle: “The higher a power is, the more it comprehends within itself, not in a composite but in a unified manner... Hence a more perfect form brings about through one principle all that inferior forms bring about through diverse principles and even more” (*De Spiritualibus Creaturis*, a. 3). In this way, just as the form of inorganic bodies gives the body the being and the being-a-body; and the form of the plant gives the being-a-body and, in addition, life; and the sensitive soul, beyond life, gives sensibility: so too the rational soul confers upon man all of this and, in addition, rational being. To support his position, St. Thomas cites two Aristotelian principles: a) “Species rerum sunt sicut numeri” (*Metaph.*, IX, 3, 1043 b, 33), and thus they differ according to degrees of perfection; b) “Sicut trigonum est in tetragono et tetragonum in pentagono, ita nutritivum est in sensitivo (et sensitivum in intellectivo)” (*De Anima*, II, 3, 414 b, 31). It has been observed that the last inclusion, of the sensitive in the intellective, is missing in the Aristotelian text and that it is therefore an addition made by St. Thomas to counter the opposing position. It should be noted, however, that the Stagirite announces the principle in the most general form: “For always in what comes after, what comes before is contained potentially” (*De Anima*, II, 3, 414 b, 29-30), and this in itself suggested that extension. (St. Thomas discusses the question thoroughly in *De Unitate Intellectus*, cap. 1, §§ 48-49, ed. Keeler, p. 32).
**A. AND POTENCIES.** — The consequences of the substantial union of the soul with the body are shown with greater clarity in the dynamic organization of the soul considered in its potencies. The soul is nothing other than the first and remote principle of operation: to produce its operations, which are accidental perfections, it requires proximate principles that are accidental activities (*Sum. Theol.*, 1ª, q. 54, a. 1-3 and q. 77, a. 1). Every operative faculty that cannot be coordinated within the scope of a single formal object stands on its own and requires a particular potency, which must not be hypostasized and separated from the soul and from the affinities that link it to the entire organism of the living being’s action. Since it has been recognized that the soul, as the most perfect form, contains “eminently” the inferior perfections, it unfolds them in the body through the activity of the potencies. Thus, one can distinguish a twofold order of potencies in man:
a) Order of nature, according to their emanation from the soul, according to which the intellective potencies precede and condition the derivation of the sensitive, and these the derivation of the vegetative;
b) Order of operation or functionality, according to which the inferior potencies precede and condition the actualization of the superior ones (*Sum. Theol.*, 1ª, q. 77 in its entirety).
The human soul, which is spiritual in the order of substance, is not entirely so—and cannot be—in the order of action: it thinks and wills, to be sure, but before thinking and willing it must sense; and before sensing, and in order to sense, it must be able to construct the organs of sense and maintain them in a state of efficiency. Now one can better understand why the spiritual soul can be the substantial form of the body and why it must be the only form of man. The human soul, in the most ordinary exercise of mature consciousness, shows itself to have a sphere of operations that entirely transcends (“omnino excedentem”) the conditions of matter: for this reason it is called a spiritual substance and a form “that subsists in itself.” But man also has sensitive and vegetative operations, which, even if they appear less intimately linked to the ego or even unfold below the level of consciousness, nonetheless impose themselves as indispensable to the exercise of the former and as certainly belonging to the whole of the person. It is not the body that contains the soul, but the soul that contains the body because it maintains it in life; and it is the soul that needs the body to form the complete man and to unfold the virtuality of its potencies. Though it is spirit, the soul is “part” of a corporeal nature; and if it is true that in the union the human body rises to a higher dignity, it is nevertheless more true that the union redounds directly to the benefit of the soul itself. Properly speaking: “Unio corporis et animae non est propter corpus, ut corpus scilicet nobilitetur, sed propter animam quae indiget corpore ad sui perfectionem” (*De Spiritualibus Creaturis*, a. 6). The soul needs the body precisely for its specific operation, which is understanding: “Anima unitur corpori et propter bonum quod est perfectio substantialis, ut scilicet completur species humana; et propter bonum quod est perfectio accidentalis, ut scilicet perficiatur in cognitione intellectiva, quam anima ex sensibus acquirit” (*De Anima*, a. 1, ad 7; *De Spirit. Creat.*, a. 7, tertia ratio). If the body were not of benefit to the soul for the act of understanding, it would be useless, and thus the union of the soul to the body would remain inexplicable (*Sum. Theol.*, 1ª, q. 84, a. 4). Here gnoseology and metaphysics meet at the desired point; St. Thomas shows this with evident satisfaction by referring to St. Augustine: “Anima cum sit pars humanae naturae non habet perfectionem suae naturae nisi in unione ad corpus. Quod patet ex hoc, quod in virtute ipsius animae est quod fluant ab ea quaedam potentiae, quae non sunt actus organorum corporalium, secundum quod excedit corporis proportionem; et iterum quod fluant ab ea potentiae, quae sunt actus organorum, in quantum potest contingi a materia corporali. (Nec) est aliquid perfectum in sua natura, nisi actu explicari possit quod in eo virtute continetur. Unde anima, licet possit esse et intelligere a corpore separata, tamen non habet perfectionem suae naturae cum est a corpore separata, ut Augustinus dicit, XII de Gen. ad lit. (xxxv, 68).” (*De Spirit. Creat.*, a. 2, ad 5, ed. Keeler, p. 22).
The definitive formula, according to which the union of the soul to the body must therefore be conceived, is that which affirms: *Quod in hoc homine non est alia forma substantialis quam anima rationalis, et quod per eam homo non solum est homo, sed animal et vivum et corpus et substantia et ens* (*De Spiritu. Creat.*, a. 3). The human soul contains “virtute” the sensitive and vegetative forms: those which were taken as forms distinct from one another in the opposing theories take on the nature and task of potencies in service to the single form that is the spiritual soul. The spiritual soul is not the immediate subject of the spiritual potencies; the others are properly found in the animated organs that they move. Therefore, because it is spiritual, the soul may also be called sensitive and vegetative “eminently.”
7. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. — Since their natures differ, so too do the origin and destiny of the souls of brute animals (of plants and animals) and of the human soul. For the former, it can be said briefly that they have a cycle of existence entirely similar to that of other natural forms: initially they are found “in potentia materiae,” from which they are brought into existence by the action of a proportionate agent—through one or another of the various modes of reproduction—to return, when the cycle is completed or its development is impeded, to the same “potentia materiae.”
Differently for the human soul (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 118 in its entirety). Its spiritual nature prevents us from conceiving it as produced by the forces present in the general elements, which are material; nor can one think of a transmission from soul to soul (spiritual traducianism, which left St. Augustine uncertain) through a certain separation of the soul of the children from that of the parents, which would ultimately subject the spirit to the conditions of life proper to material things. The origin of the human soul is therefore solely by way of creation (v. CREAZIONISMO) and directly from God, the only creative cause. Since the soul is the substantial form of the individual body, God creates one soul for each individual in such a way that the causality of the generative act in the human species stops at the formation of the body. This does not prevent parents from being truly father and mother of the whole person who is born, because if the end of generation is properly the nature, the subject is the person itself, in a manner analogous to what is held regarding the divine maternity of the Virgin Mary (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 35, a. 1).
At all times, spiritualist creationists have debated the time and manner of the infusion of the soul into the body or animation: whether at the very first instant of conception, or later, and, in this second case, how the succession and ascent from life to life are to be conceived. St. Thomas defended delayed animation, basing himself on the principle that, since the soul is the form of an organic body, it cannot be united to the body until at least the principal organs have been outlined. In this second hypothesis, St. Thomas, rejecting opinions he deemed insufficient (formation of the fetus by the sole virtue of the semen until the infusion of the rational soul, continuous development of all three souls that succeed one another from the same virtue of the fetus), admits the succession in the embryo of various generations and corruptions until the infusion of the rational soul (De Anima, a. 11, ad 1; cf. Quodlib., I, 9; IV, 6).
Of a spiritual nature, the human soul does not share the fate of lower souls. The subsistent form is that which has the act of being “per se” and holds it necessarily united to itself. It therefore receives the act of being in itself first and then communicates it to the body, which “is drawn to being by the soul” (De Spiritualibus Creaturis, a. 2, ad 8); when the body is no longer capable of serving as its subject and potency, it retains the act of being that it had communicated and continues in being, assuming another form of life.
It is by analogy to the nature and inner dynamism of the soul that we think of the nature of angels and of God Himself: Catholic doctrine on the Trinity, on the Incarnate Word, on angelology can present itself to our minds with a precise meaning on the basis of the soul’s experience of its functions and the knowledge it can form of its nature. If our knowledge were limited to material essences and we had of the soul and its life only a negative knowledge, we would have no key to penetrate even the vestibule of the higher world or to foresee the excellence of that which will be the definitive homeland and beatitude of man (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 88, a. 1, ad 1; cf. ibid., q. 27, a. 1; Contra Gentiles, III, 46; De Veritate, X, 8, ad 8). The Catholic truth of the soul created “in the image of God” coincided with the attribution of spirituality that pagan philosophy had made to the light of reason, and the foundation of Christian philosophy was thus established.
8. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE
The supernatural mission of the Church is not concerned with affirming and defending a particular philosophical conception of the nature and soul in general. What the Church has directly concerned herself with is the right understanding of the nature, origin, and destiny of the soul and of the “human person.” Basing herself on the sources of Revelation, she has proposed to the faithful certain precise truths of faith, without which the elevation of man to the supernatural order, the Incarnation, the Redemption, the immortality and resurrection of the body, and the diversity of destinies that await, according to merits, after death, would be impossible. Arising from the proliferation of erroneous theories that were being circulated, the official interventions of the supreme authority of the Church aimed, beyond any systematic concern, to defend the faithful from profane novelties and the vanity of philosophical speculation. The brief notes that follow are intended to indicate the most salient moments of the Church’s solicitude for the defense of the sacred deposit of revealed truth, so as to ensure her children the right path of eternal life.A first group of heresies concerning the soul is represented by Gnosticism. Many Gnostic sects taught the Platonic trichotomy (flesh, soul, and spirit), the mediated creation of the soul (by some Aeon), and a form of panpsychism often associated with Manichaean dualism. Among the most prominent advocates are Marcion, Cerdo, and Valentinus. A form of Gnostic emanationism is defended by the Priscillianists, against whom the symbol attributed to the First Council of Toledo is directed, though it is considered a private compilation by some bishop of Galicia (5th century), as well as by the De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus of Gennadius: “... We say that the soul of man is not a divine substance or a part of God, but a creature created by the divine will” (Denz. U., no. 20; V. can. 11, no. 31).
According to the account of Filastrius (De Haeresibus liber, ed. P. Oehler), Manicheans and Gnostics attributed rationality to animals (ch. 100), placed the body before the soul, and held that the body, not the soul, was created in the image of God (ch. 97). The Manicheans, in consequence of their dualism, are said to have admitted two souls in man, one from the principle of good and the other from that of evil; or else to have derived the soul from the principle of good and the body from that of evil, conceiving the soul as a luminous fluid. The Manichaean controversy occupied St. Augustine for a long time and intensely; the canons against the Manicheans and Priscillianists from the Council of Braga are drawn from his works (Denz. U., nos. 235, 239, 240). Yet it was certainly Origen who caused the greatest upheaval within the ranks of orthodoxy. The Canons against Origen, established by the Second Council of Constantinople, convened by the patriarch Mennas at the instigation of Emperor Justinian, who had composed a detailed refutation (Liber adversus Origenem) of the original errors contained in De Principiis, attribute to him the following errors: the pre-existence of souls; the identity of nature between souls and angels; the transmutation of nature among angels, the souls of men, and animals; the belief that the sun, moon, and stars are fallen spiritual substances; and the assertion that those spiritual substances, originally identical in nature, were bound to bodies following their cooling in the contemplation of the Word, and that in proportion to their fault they were consigned to gross bodies such as ours and to the cold and shadowy bodies of the lower nature (Canons, I-IV, XIV-XV, in Acta Conciliorum, ed. Harduin, III, cols. 286-87;
V. also: Denz
U., nos. 203-204, 208).The trichotomist doctrine of man, proposed by Plato, taken up by the Gnostics and spread by the Neoplatonists, attempted in the first three centuries, under the protection of a terminology that easily lent itself to equivocation, to win over even some Christian writers. It is generally attributed to the direct influence of Plotinus and Plutarch the heresy of Apollinare of Laodicea (d. 392 B.C.), repeatedly condemned by the ecumenical councils and summarized by the Council of Florence (year 1441) in the following terms: «... Apollinarem quoque (anathématizat), qui intelligens si anima corpus informans negetur in Christo, humanitatem veram ibidem non fuisse, solam posuit animam sensitivam, sed detatem Verbi vicem rationalis animae tenuisse» (Denz.-U., n. 710). A lingering trace of trichotomy is certainly to be seen in the admission of two souls in man. From Gennadius (De eccl. dogm., cap. 15) we know that it was upheld by a certain «Iacob et alii Syrorum»; St. Thomas frequently cites the chapter of Gennadius in defence of his own conception of the soul (v. C. Gentiles, II, 58 fin; Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 76, a. 3 sed contra; Q. De Anima, a. 11; De Spiritual. Creat., a. 3; Quodlib., I, a. 6). In the Canons contra Philum of the Fourth Council of Constantinople (ecum. VIII, a. 569-70) there is also the condemnation of the duality of the soul, expressly as contrary to Holy Scripture, tradition and ecclesiastical magisterium: «Veteri et Novo Testamento unam animam rationalem et intellectualem habere hominem docente et omnibus deliquis Patribus et magistris Ecclesiae eandem opinionem asseverantibus: in tantum impietatis quidam, malorum inventionibus dantes operam, devenerunt, ut duas eum habere animas impudenter dogmatizare et quibusdam irrationalibus conatibus per sapientiam quae stulta facta est, propriam haeresim confirmare pertentent» (can. 11; Denz.-U., n. 338).
In the Middle Ages the most notable deviation is attributed to the head of the Spirituals, the Franciscan P. G. COLIVI (v.), who in the antinomian controversy concerning the plurality of forms in man had denied that the intellective soul could be called, as such, the substantial form of the body, whose information was to be left to the lower souls and forms. The Council of Vienne in the Dauphiné (ecum. XV, a. 1311), held under Clement V, condemned as heretical the doctrine of Olivi and defined as a truth of faith «that the rational or intellective soul was "per se" and essentially» the form of the human body. The Viennese definition thus identifies, whereas Olivi distinguished, the rational and intellective soul, and by using the terms «forma per se et essentialiter», marks the terminus in the development of the formulae of Catholic doctrine and is of capital importance not less in the field of faith than of theology. «Porro doctrinam omnem seu positionem temere asserentem, aut vertentem in dubium, quod substantia animae rationalis seu intellectiva vere ac per se humani corporis non sit forma, velut erroneam ac veritatis catholicae inimicam fidei, praedicto sacro approbante concilio, reprobamus; definientes, ut cunctis nota sit fidei sincera veritas ac praecludatur universis erroribus aditus, ne subintret, quod quisquis deinceps asserere, defendere seu tenere pertinaciter praesumpserit, quod anima rationalis seu intellectiva non sit forma corporis humani per se et essentialiter tanquam haereticus sit censendus» (Denz.-U., 481).
A further step forward was taken by the Fifth Lateran Council (ecum. XVIII, session VIII, a. 1513). Desiring to put an end to the plague of the renewed philosophical sects of the Averroists and the Averroists, the Council extensively restated the Clementine definition of 1311 to which it added the Catholic truth to be opposed to the two condemned sects: «... verum in immortali, pro corporum, quibus infunditur, multitudine singulariter multiplicabilis, et multiplicata, et multiplicanda sit». At the same time it condemned the theory of the «double truth» to which those philosophers (especially the Averroists) had recourse who protested that they held to divine truth even though they were certain that human reason demonstrated the contrary (Denz.-U., n. 738). The same Viennese definition is found in the condemnation made by Pius IX of the anthropological errors of A. Günther and followers (Denz.-U., n. 1655 and note) where it is reaffirmed that the intellective soul is in man the only vital principle.
Of the 40 propositions of A. ROSMINIANI (v.), condemned by decree of the Holy Office on 14 Dec. 1887, no less than five concern errors on the origin of the soul and the nature of its union with the body (nn. 20-24; Denz.-U., nn. 1910-14), in which the consequences of his philosophical system are reflected. And in 1865 the Holy Congregation of the Index had obliged the priest Agostino Bonnetty, founder and director of the Annales de philosophie chrétienne, to subscribe, among other things, to the following proposition: «Ratiocinatio Dei existentiam, animae spiritualitatem, hominis libertatem cum certitudine probare potest» (Denz.-U., 1650).
On the development of the concepts of soul and spirit: F. Rüsche, Blut, Leben und Seele. Ihr Verhältnis nach Auffassung der griechischen und hellenistischen Antike, der Bibel und der alten alexandrinischen Theologie. Eine Vorarbeit zur Religionsgeschichte des Opfers (Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums, 5, suppl.), Paderborn 1930; id., Das Seelenpneumas. Seine Entwicklung von der Geschichte. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der antiken Pneumaslehre (Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums, 18, fasc. 3), Paderborn 1933. On the development of the classical-Christian concept of pneuma: O. G. Verbeek, L'évolution de la doctrine de pneumas du Stoicisme à s. Augustin, Louvain 1945.
Rome. Cemetery of Praetextatus.
### On the Soul (5. Thomas and Christian Thought)
A. Dupont, *La spiritualité de l'âme*, Lyon 1887; M. J. Gardair, *Corps et âme*, Paris 1892; G. T. Driscoll, *Christian Philosophy; A Treatise of Human Soul*, New York 1898; A. Farges, *Le cerveau, l'âme et les facultés*, Italian trans., Siena 1900; A. Gemelli, *L'enigme della vita*, 2nd ed., Florence 1914; G. Mattiussi, *Le XXIV Testi della filosofia di s. Tommaso d'Aquino*, Rome 1917; A. Vonier, *The Human Soul*, London 1920; A. Zacchi, *L'uomo*, pt. 1, Rome 1921; J. Gruender, *Psychology without a Soul*, 3rd ed., St. Louis 1922; id., *The Meaning of the Human Soul*, in *Catholic Medical Guardian*, 1927; C. Gutberlet, *Der Mensch, sein Ursprung und seine Entwicklung*, Italian trans., Florence 1927; A. Williwohl, *Seele und Geist. Ein Aufbau der Psychologie*, in *Mensch, Gott, Welt*, IV, Freiburg in Br. 1938; B. Nardi, *Anima e corpo nel pensiero di s. Tommaso*, in *Giornale critico della filosofia italiana*, 23 (1942), pp. 50 seq.
On the knowledge of the spirituality of the soul: M. Liberatore, *Del composto umano*, 3rd ed., Naples 1880; C. Fabro, *Percezione e pensiero*, ch. VIII: *La percezione dello spirituale*, Milan 1941, pp. 351 seq. — The numerous commentaries, both literal and in the form of *quaestiones*, by scholastics on the *De Anima* should also be consulted for medieval thought; for modern thought and issues, the manuals of psychology by neoscholastics (esp.: Mercier, Renner, Fröbes, Malher, De La Vaissière).
On the origin of the soul: M. Th. Coconnier, *L'âme humaine, existence et nature*, Paris 1890 (a complete exposition and defense of the Thomist doctrine on the soul); W. Reany, *The Creation of Human Soul. A Clear and Concise Exposition from Psychological, Theological and Historical Aspects*, London 1929.
On animation: A. Lanza, *La questione del momento in cui l'anima razionale è infusa nel corpo*, Rome 1939 (v. ANIMAZIONE).
On the elementary definition: T. M. Zigliara, *De mente Concilii Viennensis in definiendo dogmate unionis animae humanae cum corpore*, Rome 1879.
Among modern authors: W. McDougall, *Body and Mind: A History and Defense of Animism*, 4th ed., London s.d.; A. Bain, *Mind and Body, The Theories and their Relations*, ibid. 1900; A. Binet, *L'Âme et le Corps*, Paris 1910; E. Becher, *Gehirn und Seele*, in *Die Psychologie in Einzeldarstellungen*, V, Heidelberg 1911; J. Geyser, *Die Seele. Ihr Verhältnis zu, Beziehungen zu, Liebe*, Leipzig 1914; D. Feuling, *Das Leben der Seele. Einführung in psychologische Schau*, Salzburg 1940 — the first attempt at a comprehensive phenomenology of the life of the soul against the backdrop of Catholic doctrine.
Cornelio Fabro
II. THE SOUL IN SACRED SCRIPTURE
### 1. In the Old Testament
Like other truths, the doctrine on the soul (its existence and nature) is not presented systematically in the Old Testament, but speaks in the language of its time and of the Israelite people. To establish the doctrine actually expressed or implied, one must therefore analyze this popular language. The Old Testament distinguishes in man two elements that are almost constitutive: one material, the other superior (spiritual); thus, for example, Gen 2:7; Job 10:9-12; Eccl 12:7. The material element is called *‘āphār* (dust, earth) or *bāśār* (flesh); to designate the superior element there are several names, particularly *rûaḥ* (generally translated “spirit”) and *nēp̄eš* (generally translated “soul”); less frequent are *nišmâ* (breath, Gen 2:7; 1 Kgs 17:17; Isa 2:22) and *lēḇ* or *lēḇāḇ* (“heart”; cf. Ps 73[72]:26). The different names express the same psychic reality considered from different points of view; they do not primarily indicate the substance of the soul, but rather the different aspects or activities of it; the usual translations “spirit,” “soul” are therefore not exact and in no way equivalent to the technical terms of our scholastic philosophy.
### 2.
When the Old Testament speaks of *rûaḥ*, it refers to the life imparted to man by a divine breath (Zech 12:1; Job 12:10; cf. Ezek 37:6, where the vivification of the people is described with terms taken from the life of individuals), residing in him as the principle of vital activities, first of all of animal (sensitive) life, secondarily of intellectual, ethical, and religious life. The communication of life through the divine breath is common to man and beast (cf. Ps 104[103]:29 sq.); hence one also speaks of the *rûaḥ* of beasts (Gen 6:17; 7:15); thus Eccl 3:19: “there is but one breath [*rûaḥ*] for all.” Qoheleth confesses ignorance of the fate of this *rûaḥ* when it leaves the body of man (3:21). That the *rûaḥ* is a spiritual substance in the scholastic sense is not clearly stated in the Old Testament, but it is implied by ascribing to it higher psychic activities—intellectual, moral, religious—especially in the eschatological passages of Ezekiel. Thus it is said that the Lord will give, in the messianic age, a “new *rûaḥ*” (Ezek 11:19; 18:31; 36:26; Ps 51[50]:12); in the *rûaḥ* thoughts ascend (Ezek 11:5); the *rûaḥ* seeks and desires the Lord (Isa 26:9), is cast down (Isa 66:2; Prov 15:13), humble (Prov 16:19; 29:23), magnanimous (Ps 51[50]:14).
### 3.
Another aspect of the psychic part of man is expressed by the word *nēp̄eš*, which originally perhaps meant the throat, then the breath passing through the throat distinguishing the living body from the lifeless; hence *nēp̄eš* also means life, but rather insofar as it is more closely bound to the body, indeed to the blood of the living being (Lev 17:11, 14). The *nēp̄eš* is considered primarily, though not exclusively, as the subject of lower vital activities (vegetative, sensitive). It is often used almost synonymously with life (to take away the *nēp̄eš* = “to kill”; to save the *nēp̄eš* = “to deliver”), indeed the use of *nēp̄eš* instead of a personal or reflexive pronoun is very common (my *nēp̄eš* dies = “I die,” Num 23:10; Jonathan loves David as his *nēp̄eš*, “as himself”). It also designates man as an individual, a person (70 *nēp̄eš*, Ex 1:5), especially in the juridical formula *nēp̄eš hî* (“if anyone”).
Though *rûaḥ* and *nēp̄eš* signify life from different points of view, they often merge in application to psychic phenomena; not rarely in poetic parallelism they are used together to designate the “whole man.” In the last period of the Old Testament a new terminology appears, with *nĕšāmâ* (*rûaḥ*) designating the vivifying spirit of God, while *ḥayyâ* (*nēp̄eš*) is the higher internal principle in man; thus 2 Macc 6:30; 7:37; 14:38; Wis 4:14; 7:27; 8:19 sq.; 9:15; 10:16.
### 4.
Since *nēp̄eš* and *rûaḥ* do not denote two substances but rather two aspects of the activity of a single principle, in the Old Testament one cannot speak of trichotomy, as in the system of Plato (σῶμα — *nēp̄eš* — νοῦς). The Old Testament clearly attests (cf. Gen 27:2, 4, 22; 7:22; Lev 17:11; Ps 104[103]:29 sq.; Job 27:3; 33:3-4; Ezek 37:8) that the constitutive parts of man are only those two which in scholastic terminology are called “body” and “soul.” The preexistence of the soul is not found in the Old Testament; in Wis 8:19-20 the context excludes such an interpretation.
### 5.
The problem of the immortality of the soul is not posed
formally in the books of the Old Testament before the Book of Wisdom, lacking a term that signifies exclusively the upper part of man as substance; rather, one speaks of the immortality of man, who, even after bodily death, has a certain life, albeit diminished and almost shadowy, no longer here on earth but in *sheol*, where man reunites with his fathers (e.g., Gen. 25, 8). The inhabitants of *sheol* are never called *néphés*, *néphášoth*, and much less *rûaḥ*, *rûlôth*, but *réphá'îm* (the "languid ones"). The obvious conclusion that, once the body is dead and decomposed, it can only be the *a.* that survives in *sheol* is not explicitly found before the Book of Wisdom (3, 1-3).
6. The superiority of man over animals in the Old Testament is not derived from the possession of a spiritual and immortal *a.*, but is expressed through the idea of likeness to God (Gen. 1, 26; 5, 1-3; 9, 6; Ps. 8, 6 ff.; Eccl. 17, 3; Wis. 2, 23). However, since this likeness consists in man being endowed with intelligence and free will, implicitly resembling God coincides with having a spiritual *a.*, essentially superior to the *a.* of brute beasts.
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II. IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
The authors of the New Testament do not offer, any more than those of the Old, a systematic philosophical exposition of the nature of the *a.* Their conception of man is first and foremost that of the Old Testament, and their psychological language is that in use in the Septuagint. To designate the higher element of man in opposition to the lower, corporeal element (body or flesh), the terms used here and there are almost the same (heart, soul, spirit) and often indicate, like their Hebrew equivalents, only different aspects of the same psychic reality.
1. In particular, the heart (*lēḇ*) is the center of all sensible, intellectual, and moral life: man believes, doubts, speaks, discusses with or in the heart (e.g., Mk. 2, 6-8; 6, 52; 8, 17; Lk. 24, 25; Rom. 10, 8-16).
2. Like *néphés*, the *a.* (*ψυχή*), although opposed to the material body (Mt. 10, 28; 26, 38), is sometimes the subject of purely sensible activities (Lk. 12, 19-23; cf. Mt. 6, 25; Rev. 18, 14) and always maintains a close relationship with the body or flesh. Thus it often denotes life itself, sometimes the living being (Mk. 3, 4; Rom. 2, 9; etc.) and even seems to replace the reflexive pronoun (Mt. 10, 39; cf. Lk. 9, 24-25; etc.).
3. Alongside *ψυχή*, the New Testament also uses *πνεῦμα*, as the Old Testament used *rûaḥ* alongside *néphés*; but it attributes to "spirit" only properly spiritual activities. Indeed, *πνεῦμα* is less its subject than its principle, except for rare exceptions generally justified by the context (Lk. 1, 47; Acts 17, 16; 1 Cor. 14, 14; elsewhere it refers to the Holy Spirit). The Fourth Gospel says, for example, that the *a.* of Jesus Christ is troubled (Jn. 12, 27), but that He was troubled in His spirit (13, 21). Thus, far from replacing the *a.*, one can be named alongside the other (1 Thess. 5, 23; Phil. 1, 27; Heb. 4, 12). The Gnostics and later Apollinarius wrongly based their trichotomous conception of the human composite on these texts, a conception doubtless widespread in the environment in the form of *νόμος*, *ψυχή*, *σῶμα*, but unknown both to the New and Old Testaments. In St. Paul, there is no question of two parts of the *a.* as two substances, but rather of two aspects: either *ψυχή* is understood as "the *a.* in the whole of its functions, especially vital and sensible ones," and *πνεῦμα* as "the same *a.* in its higher intellectual functions," or one may prefer to see in *πνεῦμα* the human *a.* living the supernatural life, according to an usage dear to St. Paul.
4. Indeed, when St. Paul (the usage is almost exclusively his) wishes to emphasize the properly natural character of human intelligence, he prefers to use another term, taken from the current usage of the time, *νόμος*; whether he joins the two terms *νόμος* and *πνεῦμα* (Eph. 4, 23), or opposes them to each other (1 Cor. 1, 14, 14-19), or finally *νόμος* alone appears to designate, for example, the corrupted intelligence of the pagan (Rom. 1, 28; Eph. 4, 17; etc.) or that of the sinful man struggling against the flesh, but not yet renewed by the divine Spirit (Rom. 7, 23-25). Even in this case, one could not speak of trichotomy.
5. Like the Old Testament, the New Testament views the problem of immortality rather from the point of view of man than from that of the *a.*, and attention is focused more on the resurrection of the body than on the life of the separated *a.* However, even stripped of the body, the *a.* is not supposed to live in the sleep of *sheol*, but to dwell with the Lord (2 Cor. 5, 8; Phil. 1, 23). And the fact that this separated *a.* is no longer called merely *ψυχή* (Rev. 6, 9; 20, 4), but also *πνεῦμα* (1 Pet. 3, 19; Heb. 12, 23), provides at least a precious indication in favor of its spiritual nature.
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III. THE *A.* AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES.
On the *a.* among primitive peoples, two groups of problems have been presented in the past. First, whether one could recognize in man of nature an *a.*, and in what sense; second, what concept of it the primitives had.
1. Evolutionism, at one time extended even to the study of cultures, denied primitives, along with rational intelligence, an *a.* Modern ethnology, however, has had to reach quite different conclusions based on factual data, since it was easy to observe how even peoples most primitive in their technological and social organization possess clear, deep-rooted, and deeply felt notions of religion and morality, well-established family, kinship, and social organization, a language grammatically and lexically not inferior to any other, remarkable knowledge of nature, and even marked inventive abilities, as revealed by tools, wheels, carts, agriculture, etc. Today, therefore, it is universally recognized that, for all this, the primitive essentially differs from the animal, and that, consequently, it is necessary to acknowledge in him a true human psyche. Moreover, within ethnology, currents arose that did not intend to see in this psyche a true human *a.* Some argued that it was nothing more than the result of animal instincts, and that, therefore, only these governed the primitive in his thinking and acting. Others claimed that, in the supposed ladder of ascent, the man of nature had not yet reached the full development of his personality and individuality, remaining at a stage of thinking and acting that they called collectivistic. Some held that his way of thinking still lacked logic, that is, it was in a prelogical state. Others, while acknowledging logical faculties, did not fail to proclaim intelligence inferior, deeming such inferiority caused by an essential difference in his psyche. All these a priori opinions have vainly sought confirmation in the facts. Thus, with regard to animal instinct, reference was made to cruelty, cannibalism, slavery, infanticide, and the harshness of certain initiations of youth. But, conversely, it has also been seen that the most ancient peoples,
They would have been expected to excel in brutality, yet they are far from displaying such traits; on the contrary, they follow customs that reveal an opposing mentality (e.g., marital fidelity, love for offspring, assistance to the needy, etc.) and consciously practice and carefully transmit these customs. Under the influence of pan-sexualism, it has been claimed that the primitive was entirely enslaved by the sexual sphere, which alone governed his thoughts and actions. However, even on this point, objective research has uncovered countless facts and actions that cannot be reduced to that sphere at all. Moreover, we have proof of this in reflective thought regarding the soul (v. also FAMILY; MONOGAMY; PRAYER; SACRIFICE, etc).
With regard to religious acts, modern psychology—especially that focused on religious phenomena—has experimentally demonstrated that such acts represent a characteristic activity of the spirit, essentially distinct from the sexual sphere. The notion that the primitive was driven solely by collectivistic ideas in his thoughts and actions also found no confirmation, for even among the most ancient peoples, facts emerged revealing a strong sense of individuality.
Closely connected was the theory of pre-logicism, which attributed the formation of ideas in the primitive to a priori and simplistic magical influences rather than to the natural and spontaneous logical processes arising from experience (Lévy-Bruhl). Yet agriculture, hunting, pastoralism, as well as the economic systems derived from them, and even more so weapons, tools, simple and complex traps, knowledge of animal habits and their exploitation, knowledge of the curative properties of certain plants and their applications—to name but a few—quickly undermined the foundations of this elaborate construct. They definitively proved that even the primitive possesses and follows a certain logic.
Finally, as for the supposed essential gap between civilized man and natural man, which was thought to place the latter at a lower rung of the cultural ladder, lacking the capacity for further development, it is now clear that this phenomenon depends not on internal causes but on external influences, such as prolonged isolation or climatic adversity. Evidence of this is found in the fact that individual primitives show no lesser sensitivity or responsiveness to acculturation, whether within or outside their own environment, placing them on the same level as the amorphous mass of the civilized.
Thus, ethnology, based on a thorough knowledge of all cultures, has concluded that primitives, even the most ancient, possess a truly and fully human soul and are therefore endowed with human feelings and will, fully active reasoning, enabling them to understand the world, organize socially, and trace causes back to the origins of creation.
2. Regarding the concept of the soul among primitives, we now know that no people or race believes man to be composed solely of the body. Instead, all recognize, alongside and above the body, the existence of an independent element, distinct from it, capable in certain circumstances of existing independently and influencing even vegetative life. This element constitutes the center of the individual’s spiritual powers and qualities. All also firmly believe that this element will continue to exist even after the body’s death and decomposition. So far, the agreement is unanimous. Opinions diverge, however, regarding the essence and number of souls, the origin of the individual soul, and the modalities of its existence in the afterlife. We are not equally informed about all primitives in this regard. For now, however, we can identify two major groups: more ancient peoples and matriarchal agriculturalists with ancestor or at least death cults.
Pygmies, the Vedda, southeastern Australians, and others—with few exceptions—hold that man consists of a body and a soul, describing the latter as like the wind (Maidu of California), like air (Fuegians), or like the sky (Wiradjuri in Australia): all attributes that clearly denote immateriality. Scholars refer to this concept of the soul as the "breath-soul." It is this soul that animates the body and serves as the center of self-awareness and personality. The individual soul is created and sent by the creator, either at the moment of birth (Fuegians) or beforehand (Semang of Malacca). Myths recount that the creator awakened the first man to life by breathing his spirit into a lifeless body (Kulin of Australia). When the creator calls the individual soul back, the man dies, and the soul—usually through the Milky Way—returns to the creator. The fate of the soul in the afterlife generally depends on the moral conduct of the individual. Souls of this group, as a rule, do not believe that souls return among the living after death.
The matriarchal peoples—better known in this respect from Africa and Southeast Asia with its islands—believe that man is composed not of two but of three elements: the body, the principle that animates it, and the soul. For this reason, reference is sometimes made to two souls: the life-soul and the image-soul or shadow. The life-soul (vital fluid, vital force) seems to be conceived in a pan-animistic sense. After death, it passes into another living being (human or animal) or returns to the earth, where it may be influenced or controlled by sorcerers and witches. The image-soul or shadow, which stands alongside and above the life-soul, is considered the center of the individual’s spiritual qualities, powers, and functions. Some peoples appear to see in it a kind of protective spirit, belonging more to an ancestor than to the individual himself. Others, conversely, regard it as something proper to the individual, forming the deepest foundation of his entire life. The presence or existence of this soul determines the course of life: health, illness, death. As the center of self-awareness, it is this soul that feels, thinks, and wills; it can temporarily exist outside the body even in life, but more definitively after death. Little is known about the origin of the individual soul; certain peoples believe it to be a reincarnation of ancestral souls. It survives death, and some hold that for a time it lingers near the home or corpse of the deceased before being guided, through rites, to its final abode. This is no longer, as in the first group, the sky and the seat of the Supreme Being, but the land of shadows, a kind of Hades, often located in the west, sometimes beneath the earth, sometimes above it; on islands, mountains, distant valleys, etc. From there, unlike the beliefs of the first group, souls can return among the living, sometimes only through reincarnation, other times to do good or harm.
This does not exhaust all the opinions of primitives regarding the soul. There are tribes that believe each individual has more than two and up to seven souls; however, the current state of research does not allow us to determine whether this reflects a genuine belief in multiple souls or merely a way of expressing different aspects and attributes of the soul, as the available details are not yet sufficient to justify further groupings.
For the origin of the concept of the soul in the primitive, V. ANIMISM.