The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Thirdly, the vital power of man, as you say, can manifest its activity
only by means of its material organs. This is true; for, so long as the
soul is in the body, it must work together with it, according to the
axiom, “Every agent acts according as it is in act.” But does the work of
the vital power in the material organs warrant your conclusion that the
soul needs to be supported by a material substratum? Quite the contrary.
For, what needs a material substratum is an accident, and no accident is
active; and therefore the vital power, whose activity is manifested in the
material organs, is no accident, and therefore needs no material
substratum, and, while existing in the material organs, exists no less in
itself. Had you considered that the soul, which manifests its activity by
means of its material organs, exercises the same activity within itself
also, you would have easily discovered that the soul has a being
independent of its material organs, and that these organs are the organs
of sensibility, not of intelligence.
But I am not going to make a dissertation on the soul, as my object is
only to show the inconclusiveness of your reasoning. Your chapter on
“Brain and Soul,” with its twenty‐eight pages of medical and physiological
erudition, offers no proof of your assumption beyond the three sophisms I
have refuted. All the rest consists of facts which have not the least
bearing on the question. “The whole science of man,” as you say, “is a
continuous proof in favor of the connection of brain and mind.” This is
what your facts demonstrate; but your object was to show that “the soul is
a product of the development of the brain”; and this your facts do not
demonstrate, as is evident from your need of resorting to fallacies to
make them lie to truth. It is on the strength of such fallacies that you
make bold to despise your opponents, forgetting all your shortcomings, and
committing a new blunder in the very act of assailing the spiritualistic
philosophers. According to you, “the whole science of man is a continuous
proof in favor of the connection of brain and mind; and all the verbiage
of philosophical psychologists in regard to the separate existence of the
soul and its independence of its material organ is without the least value
in opposition to the power of facts.” You should be ashamed, doctor, of
this style of reasoning.
_Büchner._ Why, if you please?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account