ABSTRACT
In the history of the concepts of mind and soul, the philosophical speculations of Rene Descartes (1596-1650) occupy a crucial position. Descartes offers two accounts of the basic nature of human being: a physical theory about soul, couched in medical-organic terms, and a metaphysical theory about the mind and its relation to ensouled living bodies. He had a long-standing interest in the organic properties and functions of animal beings, especially those features that conferred life on animate things. Spinoza argues that the mind's natural love of God is the same as our understanding of the universe, our virtue, our happiness, our well-being and our salvation. The unity of corporeal substance depends on the fact that the substantial form is a unity in itself, one that endures by its own nature. Leibniz was the first metaphysician in the western tradition who sought to construct reality out of units which possess a property structure wholly beyond the reach of our everyday experiences.
