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vol. title: vol. period: 1882 pages in vol.: 174 |
< Soul Substance. (continued from page 14-104) >
For the explanation of our soul-life we must assume that the spirit-masses produced in our nerve processes endure as parts of our soul, that their inner cohesion subsists unchanged, and they are only subject to change in so far as they enter into combination with other spirit-masses.
It is an immediate consequence of these principles that the souls of organic beings—that is, the compact spirit-masses which have arisen during their life—survive after death. (Their isolated survival is not sufficient.) But in order to explain the systematic development of organic nature, in which evidently the earlier collected experiences served as foundation to the later creations, we must assume that these spirit-masses enter a larger compact spirit-mass, and there serve a higher soul-life according to the same laws by which the spirit-masses produced in our nerve processes serve our own soul-life.
Thus, for example, as in the perception of a red surface, the spirit-masses produced in a multitude of primitive fibres[1] are combined into a single compact spirit-mass, which presents itself simultaneously in our conception. So also will the spirit-masses produced in the different individuals of a family of plants, which enter the earth-soul from parts of the earth-surface not climatically dissimilar, combine to a collective impression. As the different sense-perceptions of the same object unite in our soul to a picture of it, so will all the plants of a part of the surface of the earth give to the earth-soul the most finely-elaborated picture of the climatic and chemical condition of that part. In this manner is explained how, from the earlier life of the earth, the system of its later productions is developed.
But, according to our principles of explanation, the subsistence, indeed, of existing spirit masses needs no material support; all combination of the same, however,—at least all combination of different kinds of spirit-masses, happen only by means of new spirit-masses produced in a common nerve-process.
Upon principles which shall be developed further on we can seek the substratum of spiritual activity only in ponderable matter.”
From the “New Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”—“Although the title of this essay will not easily prepossess most readers in its favour, the tendency of it seems to me to be best so expressed. Its aim is to penetrate into the interior of nature beyond the principles of astronomy and physics laid down by Galileo and Newton. For astronomy, indeed, this speculation can have no immediate practical<... continues on page 14-111 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ The damaged word “fibres” and final letter of “which” have been restored from the exact original in The Psychological Review, November 1882, p. 436.