Chapter 7

A question about the invariability of the soul,
and the changes to which it can be subject

184. So far, we have investigated the intimate constitution of the soul and found:
1. that it is a single, simple principle, sentient and intelligent at the same time;
2. that this principle is an activity in which are contained virtually all the second acts, sense-experiences, intellections, and so on;
3. that this sphere of activity is determined by that which is first felt and first known, that is, by the felt and the known which naturally adhere to the active principle. The fundamental felt virtually comprises all future sense-experiences, and the known comprises the objects of all future, distinct intellections. These teachings give rise to a question necessary to complete our study on the identity of the soul. I ask: 'Would it be possible to change that which is first felt or understood by the soul? If a change did take place, would the soul preserve its identity?'

185. I reply that such a change would not involve any contradiction in its concept. However, we cannot say whether the identity of the soul would be preserved without first distinguishing the five conceivable changes in that which is felt or first understood. These are: removal of what is felt and what is understood, removal only of what is understood, removal only of what is felt, addition or change to what is felt, addition to what is understood. We shall look at these one by one.

186. If what is felt and understood were entirely removed, the sentient, intelligent subject would be annihilated; the soul would no longer exist.

187. If what is first understood were taken away, the human soul would lose its identity. This is explained by the order present between the principle of feeling and the principle of understanding which in the human soul are united in a single principle. The order is this: the intelligent principle is superior to the feeling principle in such a way that the former is the proximate origin of the common principle of understanding and feeling.

188. We shall understand this truth if we note that only an intelligent principle says: 'I feel'. Saying 'I feel' is a thought that a human being has about his own sensations. Thought, however, pertains to an intelligent principle. The sentient principle, on the other hand, cannot say either 'I feel' or 'I understand'; it cannot say anything, but only feel.

189. It is true that there is a common principle, above the feeling, intellective activity, which renders us aware of our sense-experiences and intellections, and unites them. This principle, however, is formed directly by the intellective activity and called 'rational' because it is an intellective act bringing about union between sense-experiences and intellections. If what is first understood were removed, intelligence would cease and with it the first principle of the soul. But the soul's own essence resides in this first rational principle, as we said. Deprived of this, the soul would ipso facto lose its identity and cease to be the ens we now call 'human soul'.

190. The opposite would occur if what is first felt were removed from the soul, which would not lose its identity because the first principle constituting its essence would be preserved. Its proximate principle of feeling would indeed cease, but the intellective activity would, as the superior principle, always contain virtually the principle of feeling, although this could not be said to actually exist.

191. Nevertheless, the state of the soul deprived of the fundamental corporeal feeling would be immensely changed. All perception, every affirmation and hence all consciousness of self would be rendered impossible. The soul would retain its own feeling, but it would have no sufficient reason, no stimulus inducing it to turn its intellective activity back on this feeling and perceive it. It is a law of the human soul that it is first drawn to act by stimuli different from itself. Only later does it place some end before itself through which it operates independently of stimuli. If, therefore, its accidental, acquired sense-experiences were taken from it, together with the fundamental corporeal feeling, it would not have by nature any real good which it could desire to reach or propose as an end of its operations. Hence, it could not even reflect upon itself.(84)

192. If something were added to what is first felt by the soul, the soul would certainly have received some substantial change. Its first active principle, however, where its essence resides, would not have changed; the soul would remain identical. But the activity of the primal principle would have been enlarged relative to the matter of its operations.

193. In this hypothetical case the soul, by preserving all that it first feels, would also keep its memory of self and of its preceding state. It would therefore be conscious of its own identity.

194. But what do we say if what is first felt is not preserved but totally changed into something else? In this supposition I maintain that the soul would preserve its own identity because it would preserve its first (intellective) principle. However, having lost its memory of its preceding state, it would not be conscious of its own identity. Memory and consciousness of this state are founded in previous perceptions, which would cease.

195. It might be thought that previously formed abstract ideas, which do not require any corporeal image, could remain. But if this were so, they would remain, I think, only as aptitudes. Even if they did remain in the depth of the soul, they could only be contemplated by it on condition that what was newly felt had some relationship, some law of association, with what was first felt. Abstract ideas, although without need of corporeal images, are nevertheless tied to sensations and images, or at least to traces of sensations and images, in such a way that, deprived of them, we cannot turn our attention to abstract ideas alone. On the one hand, we have no reason for doing so; on the other, our attention is deprived of a guide leading it to find abstract ideas and advert to them. Abstract ideas, even if present in human beings totally deprived of sense-experiences and images or vestiges referring to these ideas, would remain in the state in which they are when, bereft of consciousness, we do not think of them. But, as I said, it seems to me much more probable that such ideas would not be present in any way in human beings. They consist essentially in a relationship with what is real, but if we suppose that what is newly felt has no likeness to what was felt before, nothing real exists to which ideal being can be referred. In fact, even the substance of the soul presents no likeness of any sort with what has been felt previously.

196. There can be no hypothetical case of change in what is first understood, but only of addition to it. That which is first understood cannot change because it is of its nature unchangeable. Nor can it diminish; ideal being is totally simple in its concept. It can, however, increase in one of two ways: either by the determination of concepts within it, or through the realisation (actualisation) of essential being itself.

197. Concepts are positive or negative. Positive concepts are founded in some reality that we perceive. If concepts founded in realities perceived by us increase in the human mind, our being is not changed substantially. However these concepts increase in our understanding, they are already virtually comprised in what we have first felt and understood. If, however, we are speaking of concepts referred to realities different from those contained virtually in what we first feel, there can be no question of these concepts being given to us prior to our perception of something felt which corresponds to those concepts. In this case, we are dealing with our previous hypothesis in which there is an increase in what is first felt by us.

198. Negative concepts are those with which we know an ens that is understood not in itself but only through its relationship with another known ens. These concepts have no power to change the soul substantially however many of them it acquires.

199. The case in which that which is first understood increases through the realisation of being, the essential object, requires extremely important consideration because it takes human beings from the natural to the supernatural order. At this point, essential being, in addition to its quality as light of the mind, also becomes what is felt by the mind. But, because real being in such a case is identical with ideal being, the principle which first intuited ideal being remains identical, although it feels the reality of being. The soul or substantial subject does not lose its identity, but acquires new, infinite dignity. It is the same intellect which intuits the ideality of being and contemporaneously perceives its reality.

What has changed is properly speaking that which is felt. In other words, an essentially different felt thing is added to what was previously felt. The former is infinitely greater than the latter; it is something felt, but pertaining to intellective sense. The first principle, uniting what is felt and what is understood, and the fount of reason and will, has not changed its nature but increased it infinitely. The addition of activity brought about in it is greater and more elevated than all its previous activity. A new principle of activity has been added, that is, a principle enabling the first principle to act supernaturally.
But the first principle, which brings together in itself all the inferior activities, is called person in so far as virtually it contains one supreme activity ruling all other activities. It retains its identity as subject, therefore, but becomes a new person in so far as it receives a new activity, far superior to that which it had previously.(85)

Notes

(84) In NE, vol. 2, 612-613, I have refrained from positing the characteristic of substance in immutability. Substances are said to be unchangeable relative only to accidents.

(85) Opuscoli morali (Pogliani, 1841).