THREE MORE PROOFS OF THE INCORPOREITY OF THE SOUL.
5. (h.) (The body has but a single kind of motion, while the soul has different ones.) If the soul is a body, how does it happen that she has different kinds of motion instead of a single one, as is the case with the body? Will these movements be explained by voluntary determinations, and by (seminal) reasons? In this case neither the voluntary determinations, nor these reasons, which differ from each other, can belong to a single and simple body; such a body does not participate in any particular reason except by the principle that made it hot or cold. See Eneada-II-6, on ‘logos’.
BODIES CAN LOSE PARTS, NOT SO THE SOUL.
(i.) (Souls cannot, as do bodies, lose or gain parts, ever remaining identical.) The body has the faculty of making its organs grow within a definite time and in fixed proportions. From where could the soul derive them? Its function is to grow, not to cause growth, unless the principle of growth be comprehended within its material mass. If the soul that makes the body grow was herself a body, she should, on uniting with molecules of a nature similar to hers, develop a growth proportional to that of the organs. In this case, the molecules that will come to add themselves to the soul will be either animate or inanimate; if they are animate, how could they have become such, and from whom will they have received that characteristic? If they are not animate, how will they become such, and how will agreement between them and the first soul arise? How will they form but a single unity with her, and how will they agree with her? Will they not constitute a soul that will remain foreign to the former, who will not possess her requirements of knowledge? This aggregation of molecules that would thus be called soul will resemble the aggregation of molecules that form our body. She would lose parts, she would acquire new ones; she will not be identical. But if we had a soul that was not identical, memory and self-consciousness of our own faculties would be impossible.
THE SOUL IS EVERYWHERE ENTIRE; THAT IS NOT THE CASE WITH THE BODY.
(j.) (The soul, being one and simple, is everywhere entire, and has parts that are identical to the whole; this is not the case with the body.) If the soul is a body, she will have parts that are not identical with the whole, as every body is by nature divisible. If then the soul has a definite magnitude of which she cannot lose anything without ceasing to be a soul, she will by losing her parts, change her nature, as happens to every quantity. If, on losing some part of its magnitude, a body, notwithstanding, remains identical in respect to quality, it does not nevertheless become different from what it was, in respect to quantity, and it remains identical only in respect to quality, which differs from quantity. What shall we answer to those who insist that the soul is a body? Will they say that, in the same: body, each part possesses the same quality as the total soul, and that the case is similar with the part of a part? Then quantity is no longer essential to the nature of the soul; which contradicts the hypothesis that the soul needed to possess a definite! magnitude. Besides the soul is everywhere entire; now it is impossible tor a body to be entire in several places simultaneously, or have parts identical to the whole. If we refuse the name of soul to each part, the soul is then composed of inanimate parts. Besides, if the soul is a definite magnitude, she cannot increase or diminish without ceasing to be a soul; but it often happens that from a single conception or from a single germ are born two or more beings, as is seen in certain animals in whom the germs divide (Eneada-V, 7, 3); in this case, each part is equal to the whole. However superficially considered, this fact demonstrates that the principle in which the part is equal to the whole is essentially superior to quantity, and must necessarily lack any kind of quantity. On this condition alone can the soul remain identical when the body loses its quantity, because she has need of no mass, no quantity, and because her essence is of an entirely different nature. The soul and the (seminal) reasons therefore possess no extension.