ABSTRACT
Man, after having gratuitously supposed himself composed of two distinct independent substances, that have no common properties, relatively with each other; has pretended that that which actuated him interiorly, that motion which is invisible, that impulse which is placed within himself, is essentially different from those which act exteriorly. The first he designated by the name of a spirit or a soul. The earliest doctors of Christianity had no other idea of the soul, than that it was material. Tertullian, Arnobius, Clement of Alexandria, Qricen, Saint Justin, Ireneæus, have all of them discoursed upon it, but have never spoken of it other than as a corporeal substance—as matter. The doctrine of spirituality, such as it exists, offers nothing but vague ideas; or rather is the absence of all ideas. Those who have distinguished the soul from the body, appear only to have distinguished their brain from themselves.
