into man only. To the latter he gave the name of spiraculum, which was of course suggested by the text, "Spiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vitæ." M. Bouillet, in his edition of Bacon's philosophical works, condemns this doctrine of man's having two souls, and goes on to remark that Bacon was led to adopt it in deference to the opinions of the schoolmen, and that it is also sanctioned by S. Augustine. In these remarks he is much less accurate than usual; the truth being that the doctrine of the duality of the soul is condemned very strongly by S. Augustine and by the schoolmen, and that there is no doubt as to the source from which Bacon derived it, namely from the writings of Telesius. The notion of a lower soul, distinct in essence from the higher principle of man's nature, is in reality much older than Telesius. We find it for instance among the Manichees a circumstance which makes it singular that S. Augustine should have been supposed to countenance it. Both in his work De Ecclesiæ Dogmatibus, and nearly in the same words in that De Animâ, he rejects in the most precise and accurate manner the doctrine of two distinct souls, affirming that there is but one, which is at once the principle of nutrition, of sensation, and of reason. In opposing the tenets of the Manichæans, he has more than once condemned the same doctrine, though less at length than in the works just mentioned. The schoolmen also peremptorily rejected the doctrine which M. Bouillet has affirmed that Bacon derived from them. Thus S. Thomas Aquinas says, "Impossibile est in uno homine esse plures animas per essentiam differentes, sed una tantum est anima intellectiva quæ vegetativæ et sensitivæ et intellectivæ officiis fungitur." 993 And this follows at once from the received opinion, that the soul is joined to the body as its form (ut forma unitur corpori). It would be easy to multiply citations to the same effect; but as no schoolman could venture to contradict an emphatically expressed opinion of S. Augustine, it appears unnecessary to do so. 1 De Augmentis iv. 3. 4 2 (Euvres Philosophiques de Bacon. Paris, 1834.-J. S. 3 S. Thom. Prim. Q. 76. a. 3. Concl. 4 With what bold ignorance the schoolmen are sometimes spoken of is well seen in Dr. Gutwauer's preface to his edition of Leibnitz De Principio Individui. The sixth proposition in the Corollarium attached to this disputation is as follows:"Hominis solum una est anima quæ vegetativam et sensitivam virtualiter includat." -The learned Doctor declares that in this statement Leibnitz set himself in direct opposition to the schoolmen, and that it contains the germ of Leibnitz's own psychology; the statement being almost a literal transcript of that of St. Thomas Aquinas. Sum. i. Telesius of Cozensa, whom Bacon has commended as "thebest of the novellists," was one of the Italian reformers of philosophy. Tennemann's remark that the reform which he attempted to introduce was but partial, as having reference only to the natural sciences, is not altogether accurate, but it describes with sufficient correctness the general character of his writings. They contain an attempt to explain all phenomena, including those of animal life, on the hypothesis of the continuous conflict and reciprocal action of two formal principles, heat and cold. His other doctrines are either subordinated to this kind of dualism, or are merely the necessary complements of a system of philosophy. In proposing to inquire into the nature and origin of the soul, he had no other end in view than to arrive at an explanation of the phenomena of sensation, voluntary motion, &c., which should be in accordance with his fundamental hypothesis. He therefore sets out from the physiological point of view; and in order to explain the phenomena of animal and vegetable life, refers them to an indwelling spiritus, or animal soul, which in plants resides in the bark and fibres, and in animals in the white and exsanguine parts of the body, the bones being however excepted. The animal and vegetable souls are in essence alike, but the latter is "paulo quam qui in animalibus inest crassior." In both cases the origin of this anima is the same; it is educed from the seed (educta ex semine), and is to all intents as truly material as any other part of the body. In the application of these views to the soul of man, Telesius was met by considerations of another order. The soul educed ex semine, was (like the body which it animated, and of which it was only the subtlest portion) propagated by generation; whereas it was decided by orthodox theology that souls are not ex traduce, do not pass from parent to child in the way Telesius must have supposed. The soul is a gift, which after death is to return to Him who gave it. I do not conceive that Telesius's attempt to co-ordinate this doctrine with his own views arose merely from a wish to avoid the imputation of heresy. His writings are, I think, free from that tone of mocking deference to authority by which those of many of his contemporaries are Q. 76. a. 3., to which I have already referred. Leibnitz scarcely thought that in following the Angelic Doctor, he was protesting against scholasticism. 1 De Rerum Nat. v. 1. et vi. 26. disfigured. They have, on the contrary, much of the melancholy earnestness which characterises those of his disciple Campanella. The difference between the faculties of men and brutes appeared to him to be such that merely a subtler organisation of the spiritus would be insufficient to account for it. Man's higher faculties are to be ascribed to a higher principle, and this can only be conceived of as a divinely formed soul. The question as to the relation between the two souls may be presented under two aspects, namely what are the faculties in man which ought to be ascribed to each of them? and again are these two souls wholly independent, and if not, how are they connected? The criterion by which Telesius would decide what ought to be reserved as the peculiar appanage of the divinely created soul, appears to be this that which in man is analogous to the faculties we recognise in brutes ought to be ascribed to the principle by which they are animated and which we possess in common with them. Whatever, on the contrary, seems peculiar to man, more especially the sense of right and wrong, which is the foundation of all morality, ought to be ascribed to the principle which it is our prerogative to possess. 1 As to the connexion between the two, Telesius decides "both on grounds of human reason and from the authority of Scripture" that they cannot be wholly independent of each other, and he accordingly affirms that the divinely created soul is the Form of the whole body, and especially of the spiritus itself. That the soul is the Form of the body he could not without heresy deny 2, although he condemns Aristotle for saying so; asserting that Aristotle refers to the spiritus, and not to the true soul, with which probably he was unacquainted. The tendency of these views is towards materialism; the immaterial principle being annexed to the system, as it were, ab extra. Accordingly Telesius's disciple Donius, whom Bacon has more than once referred to, omits it altogether.* Comparing the views of Telesius with those of Bacon, we 1 De Rerum Naturâ, v. 2. 2 The collection known as the Clementines contains an authoritative decision on this point. "Ut quisque deinceps asserere defendere aut tenere pertinaciter præsumpserit, quod anima rationalis non sit forma corporis humani per se et essentialiter tanquam hæreticus sit censendus." I quote from Vulpes on Duns Scotus, Disp. 46. a. 5. To this decision Telesius seems to allude, De Rer. Nat. v. 40. Campanella has expressly mentioned it. 3 De Rer. Nat. v. 3. 4 See his De Nat. Hominis, see that in both the duality of the soul is distinctly asserted, and that in both the animal soul is merely material. Our knowledge of the divinely derived principle must rest principally on revelation. Let this knowledge be drawn, he counsels us, from the same fountain of inspiration from whence the substance of the soul itself proceeded. Bacon rejects or at least omits Telesius's formula, that this higher soul is the Form of the body—a formula to which either in his system or that of Telesius no definite sense could be attached. He differs from his predecessor in this also, that with him the spiritus is more a physiological and less a psychological hypothesis than with Telesius-it is at least less enwrapped in a psychological system than we find it in the De Rerum Naturâ. On the other hand, he has not, I think, recognised so distinctly as Telesius or Campanella the principle that to the rational soul alone is to be referred the idea of moral responsibility; and the fine passage on the contrast of public and private good in the seventh book of the De Augmentis seems to show (if Bacon meant that the analogy on which it is based should be accepted as anything more than an illustration) that he conceived thatsomething akin to the distinction of right and wrong is to be traced in the workings, conscious or unconscious, of all nature. (16.) We are here led to mention another subject, on which again the views of Telesius appear to have influenced those of Bacon. That all bodies are animated, that a principle of lifepervades the whole universe, and that each portion, beside its participation in the life of the world, has also its proper vital principle, are doctrines to which in the time of Bacon the majority of philosophical reformers were at least strongly inclined. The most celebrated work in which they are set forth is perhaps the De Sensu Rerum of Campanella. The share which it had in producing the misfortunes of his life is well known, and need not here be noticed. In one of his letters to Thomasius2, Leibnitz points out how easy the transition is from the language which the schoolmen held touching substantial forms and the workings of nature to that of Campanella: "Ita reditur ad tot deunculos quot formas substantiales et Gentilem prope polytheismum. Et certe 1 Proceeding e matricibus elementorum, De Augm. iv. 3. omnes qui de substantiis illis incorporalibus corporum loquuntur non possunt mentem suam explicare nisi translatione a Mentibus sumptâ. Hinc enim attributus illis appetitus vel instinctus ille naturalis ex quo et sequitur cognitio naturalis, hinc illud axioma: Natura nihil facit frustra, omnis res fugit sui destructionem, similia similibus gaudent, materia appetit formam nobiliorem, et alia id genus. Quum tamen reverâ in naturâ nulla sit sapientia, nullus appetitus, ordo vero pulcher ex eo oriatur, quia est horologium Dei." To the censure implied in these remarks Aristotle is himself in some measure liable, seeing that he ascribed the various changes which go on around us to the half-conscious or unconscious workings of an indwelling power which pervades all things, and to which he gives the name of Nature. Nature does nothing in vain and of things possible realises the best, but she does not act with conscious prevision. She is, so to speak, the instinct of the universe. It is on account of these views that Bacon charges Aristotle with having set aside the doctrine of a providence, by putting Nature in the place of God. Nevertheless Bacon himself thought it possible to explain large classes of phenomena by referring them, not certainly to the workings of Nature, but to the instincts and appetites of individual bodies. His whole doctrine of simple motions is full of expressions which it is very difficult to understand without supposing that Bacon had for the time adopted the notion of universally diffused sensation. Thus the "motus nexûs" is that in virtue of which bodies, as delighting in mutual contact, will not suffer themselves to be separated. All bodies, we are told, abhor a solution of continuity, and the rising of cream is to be explained by the desire of homogeneous elements for one another. The distinction which Bacon has elsewhere taken between sensation and perception, which corresponds to Leibnitz's distinction between apperception and perception, does not appear to accord with these expressions. He there asserts that inanimate bodies have perception without sensation. But such words as desire and horror imply not only a change worked in the body to which they are applied in virtue of the presence of another, but also a sense of that presence, that is, in Bacon's language, not only perception but sensation. 1 De Aug. iii. 4. |