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SECTION II. — ON SOME TERMS EMPLOYED TO DENOTE SOUL OR SPIRIT.

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ALTHOUGH," says Mr. Stewart, "by far the greater part of the transitive or derivative applications of words, depend on the casual or "unaccountable caprices of the feelings, or of the fancy, there are certain cases, in which they offer a very interesting field of philosophical speculation. Such are those in which an analogous transference of the corresponding term may be remarked universally, or very generally "in other languages, and in which, of course, the uniformity of the result must be ascribed to the "essential principles of the human frame."Philosophical Essays, p. 270. second edition.

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Perhaps there is not in language a more interesting field of speculation than in the very general, if not universal transference of the words, signifying Breath, to denote the sentient and thinking principle within us. The profound and elegant writer, from whose works the above quotation is taken, has proposed an examination of the circumstances which led to this transference as a problem, not unworthy the attention of etymologists, and has at the same time himself offered a solu

tion of it.* The subject had engaged my attention before seeing Mr. Stewart's works; and I venture to offer a different solution of the problem, and shall endeavour to show, that mankind had no thought at all about the nature of the soul, or "atoms and elements, supposed to produce "the phenomena of thought and volition," when they transferred the name of Breath to it: that it was not in fact a transference from resemblance, but from the connexion of Breath with Life and Soul.

Every language abounds with expressions, which shew, that breath has always been regarded as the principal test or indication of the presence of life. "He drew his first breath at "the last gasp, the breath was gone, to breathe his last, tout ce qui respire, animam efflare, ex"tremum halitum efflare, expirare," &c. &c.

Excudent alii spirantia mollius æra

Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus.

was at

Eneid. vi. 849.

All forms that perish other forms supply,
By turns we catch the vital breath and die.

Pope.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Genesis, chap. ii.

ver. 7.

His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish. Psalm cxlvi. 4.

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Lend me a looking glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

King Lear, Act v. sc. 3.

Hence BREATH, and the words equivalent to it in other languages, are transferred to denote life.

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death.

Leontes.

My true Paulina,

We shall not marry until thou bidst us.

Paulina.

That

Shall be when your first queen's again in breath.

Pope.

Winter's Tale, Act v. sc. 1.

Sus vero quid habet? cui quidem, ne putresceret, animam ipsam pro sale datam dicit esse Chrysippus? - Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, Lib. ii. 160.

Spiritu culpam lues. - Phædrus.

Senex de filii magis vitâ et incrementis, quam de reliquo spiritu

suo sollicitus. Valer. Maxımus, Lib. ix. сар.

Οὐ γὰρ ἐμοὶ ψυχῆς ἀντάξιον,—

Ληϊςοὶ μὲν γάρ τε βόες καὶ ἴφια μῆλα.
̓Ανδρὸς δὲ ψυχὴ πάλιν ἐλθεῖν ἔντε λεϊσὴ,

2.

Θὔθ ̓ ἑλετὴ, ἐπεὶ ἄρ κεν ἀμείψεται ἕρκος ὀδόντων.

But from our lips the vital spirit fled,
Returns no more to wake the silent dead.

Iliad, ix. 401.

Pope.

Dryden.

No man has more contempt than I of breath,
But whence hast thou the power to give me death?

The passions, attributes

Of earth and heaven, from which no power, nor being—
Nor breath from the worm upwards is exempt,

Have pierc'd his heart.

Byron.

Lastly, from the intimate connexion, if not identity of the vital or sentient, and the thinking

principles in man, the name of Breath transferred

to the former, might serve also to suggest the latter; or (as the words often, and in some of the foregoing quotations, seem to import) a confused idea of the whole-breath, life, and soultogether.

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Καὶ ἐπετρεψε το πνευμα αυτῆς, και άνετη παραχρημα.

Luke's Gospel, chap. viii. 55.

"And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway."

The passage might have been translated, "And "her breath came again," or " and life returned," without in the least affecting the meaning.

The common, and I believe universal opinion, with regard to these words, Spirit, Anima, Yʊxn, ПIvεūμa, &c. is that they are transferred to the soul metaphorically, or from a supposed resemblance of soul to breath or air. Thus Professor Hill in his Synonymes of the Latin language says,

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ANIMA, ANIMUS, MENS, agree in referring to "the soul or living principle, but differ in respect "to the powers ascribed to the being to which "each of them is properly applied. Anima sig"nifies nothing more than the principle of life, by "which animate are distinguished from inanimate "substances. By the presence of this is formed "the being called animal; distinct on the one "hand from pure spirit, and on the other from mere matter. The term comes from the Greek aveμoc, signifying air in motion. Before the Romans began to speculate on the subjects of

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pneumatology, anima would, in all probability, signify nothing but the element of air, which it "sometimes did afterwards. Thus Virgil applies "it to the blast of Vulcan's furnace:

Quantum ignes animæque valent.

"And Cicero says,

Eneid, viii. 403.

"Inter ignem et terram aquam Deus animamque posuit. “De Un. 197, b.

"It was also employed to signify breath, or air "used in respiration.

"Sub corde pulmo est, spirandique officina, attrahens et red"dens animam. Plin. 11. 37.

"From denoting the thinnest of material sub"stances, which is the fluid called air, anima has “been transferred to spirit, to which this fluid is "understood to bear the nearest resemblance. "In the first and rudest conceptions which men form of mind, it is always held to be subtilized "matter. In the eye of reason, however, it must "be as unlike to the thinnest vapour that infests "the mine, as to its grossest metals. No change "of which matter is susceptible can produce an approximation to a substance, from which it is essentially different.

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In the

Ægroto dum anima est, spes esse dicitur. · Cicero Epist. "ad. Att. 145. a. Animantia quemadmodum divido? ut dicam quædam animum habent, quædam tantum animam. Senec. Epist. 58.

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Summum credas nefas animam præferre pudori,
Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.

Juven. 8. 33.

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