Chapter 2

Myself does not express the pure concept of the soul

61. I cannot doubt that I who feel, think, speak, am the soul. The soul, therefore, as I presently conceive it, is that being which I intend to express when I use the word myself.

62. But does this myself express the soul properly without any addition grafted upon it by the activity of my mind? This question cannot be answered without a prior analysis of the concept expressing myself. I have already undertaken this and found that myself expresses not only the soul, but the soul united with many relationships resulting from various mental acts that have to be undertaken before I can enunciate myself. I refer the reader to this analysis,(34) and add here some comments which will serve to confirm and perfect it.

63. The person who says myself (understanding what he says) performs an interior act by which he enunciates his own soul. Myself, therefore, is 'the vocal sign enunciated by an intellective soul (or more generally by an intellective subject) of his own act when he turns attention internally to himself and perceives himself.'

64. Let us stop here. Already the following is clear.

1. The soul enunciating myself is a real soul. - Myself, therefore, does not express a pure idea. It does not express simply the concept, but also the perception of the soul. That word adds perceived reality to the noun soul (that is, to the idea, the essence of the soul).

65. 2. Myself is not the perception of any soul whatsoever, but of my own soul. - Here, the relationship of the soul with itself, a relationship of identity, is added to the general concept of soul by the word myself. It contains a second element distinct from the concept of the soul; it is a soul which perceives itself.

66. 3. The soul does not turn back on itself, nor perceive itself, unless it is stimulated and drawn to do so by some new, particular feeling, passive or active, arising within itself. The substantial feeling of the soul, because natural and uniform, is not suitable for arousing the attention of the soul itself. This attention is a new, particular act and, as such, requires as its sufficient cause a new, particular stimulus to arouse it. The soul which says myself does not enunciate itself in its primal state, but as found in a state already overlaid with activity. It enunciates itself as modified, experiencing, active. Myself, therefore, expresses the soul with the addition of a third element, that is, some modification which has come about as the result of passion or action. In general, myself expresses 'the soul which has moved to second acts'; it does not express the soul in its potentiality, as it is found initially, but in its actuality. In fact, experience shows that when we begin to enunciate myself, we do not enunciate it by itself but in union with a verb that expresses our action: for example, 'I, that is, myself, feel, will, think, work, and so on'. Only by abstraction and analysis do I later come to separate 'I (myself)' from its verb by considering what myself expresses on its own, cut off from its context, without which, however, it is never found in fact. I have to conclude, therefore, that it expresses the principle of the soul's activity, that is, the soul in so far as it is the principle of its various actions.

67. 4. Again if, in enunciating myself, the soul expresses itself as operating - if it means 'that which does something', that which for example, wills - the expression includes a fourth element and can be translated as follows: 'The person who wills is the same principle who perceives himself and as a consequence says myself.' Myself therefore includes another reflection, and through it another relationship of identity, by which the person who speaks and enunciates myself, understands that he who perceives himself as operating is an identical being with the self who operates.(35)

68. Summing up all the differences that can be found between the meaning of human soul and the word myself, we make the following synthesis:

1. Human soul expresses a simple, general concept of the soul, the essence of the soul;

2. Myself expresses:

a) an intellective perception of the soul in which, as in every other perception, there is, in addition to the general concept of the thing, the affirmation of the reality given by feeling;

b) not every intellective perception of the soul, but the perception that a soul produces about itself when it contemplates the feeling that constitutes it in being, and hence knows itself as an ens;

c) a perception of itself in a state of activity, not in the primal state where special potencies are still not granted it; it expresses a soul that perceives;

d) finally, it expresses the soul as conscious of the identity proper to itself as perceiving itself and activating itself, or as prepared for action.

Notes

(34) AMS, 805-811.

(35) Others have observed that the formation of myself includes a reflection by the soul. Abbé Feller started from this observation in his confutation of Buffon who attributed myself even to beasts: 'The learned naturalist', he says, 'has fallen into this error because he supposes that myself is made up only of sensation and memory (t. 4, p. 52). But myself is purely intellectual and the result of reflection; it is the fruit and enjoyment of thought. It is clear, therefore, that it cannot be found in beasts, granted the principles which he himself, the naturalist, has established about the nature of human beings and animals' (Catechismo Filos., n. 147).