To ask if being, existence, finitude, simplicity, complexity, &c. are notions intrinsically and independently true, must surprise those who believe that a question about truth can only concern propositions (as to whether a notion is or is not with truth to be attributed, as the phrase is, to a subject), and that falsehood lies in the contradiction existing between the subject in our ideas, and the notion to be predicated of it. Now as the notion is concrete, it and every character of it in general is essentially a self-contained unity of distinct characteristics. If truth then were nothing more than the absence of contradiction, it would be first of all necessary in the case of every-notion to examine whether it, taken individually, did not contain this sort of intrinsic contradiction. 34.] The _second_ branch of the metaphysical system was Rational Psychology or Pneumatology. It dealt with the metaphysical nature of the Soul,--that is, of the Mind regarded as a thing. It expected to find immortality in a sphere dominated by the laws of composition, time, qualitative change, and quantitative increase or decrease. The name 'rational,' given to this species of psychology, served to contrast it with empirical modes of observing the phenomena of the soul. Rational psychology viewed the soul in its metaphysical nature, and through the categories supplied by abstract thought. The rationalists endeavoured to ascertain the inner nature of the soul as it is in itself and as it is for thought.--In philosophy at present we hear little of the soul: the favourite term now is mind (spirit). The two are distinct, soul being as it were the middle term between body and spirit, or the bond between the two. The mind, as soul, is immersed in corporeity, and the soul is the animating principle of the body. The pre-Kantian metaphysic, we say, viewed the soul as a thing. 'Thing' is a very ambiguous word. By a thing, we mean, firstly, an immediate existence, something we represent in sensuous form: and in this meaning the term has been applied to the soul. Hence the question regarding the seat of the soul. Of course, if the soul have a seat, it is in space and sensuously envisaged. So, too, if the soul be viewed as a thing, we can ask whether the soul is simple or composite. The question is important as bearing on the immortality of the soul, which is supposed to depend on the absence of composition. But the fact is, that in abstract simplicity we have a category, which as little corresponds to the nature of the soul, as that of compositeness.