Chapter 8

The essence of the soul is in the fundamental feeling
in so far as this feeling is substance and subject

104. The proofs, given in A New Essay for the existence of the fundamental feeling which constitutes the human being, are concerned with that part of the fundamental feeling which has as its term body and space. The proofs expounded in the preceding chapter demonstrate the existence of a feeling that extends to everything that can be understood as signified by the word myself. We need, therefore, to seek the substantial essence of the soul in the feeling that lies deep within myself.

105. From what has been said, we can already bring together certain information about the nature of such a feeling. That is:

1. When a human being enunciates myself, he does not intend to enunciate a fleeting and accidental modification, but a true, subsistent being. In other words, a substance.

2. A human being knows nothing of himself before affirming his own soul. In affirming it, he has perceived a subsistent being which is not in any other being as modification or as accident. In other words, he has perceived a substance.

106. 3. This subsistent being, this substance affirmed and expressed with the word myself, is a feeling-substance. An active, sentient and operating principle is present in this feeling. In other words, myself is a subject.