THE RELATIONS OF MINDS TO OTHER THINGS. 215 ciple. Fichte calls it the inner body, Ulrici likens it to a fluid of non-molecular composition. These theories remind us of the ' theosophic ' doctrines of the present day, and carry us back to times when the soul as vehicle of con- sciousness was not discriminated, as it now is, from the vital principle presiding over the formation of the body. Plato gave head, breast, and abdomen to the immortal rea- son, the courage, and the appetites, as their seats respec- tively. Aristotle argues that the heart is the sole seat. Elsewhere we find the blood, the brain, the lungs, the liver the kidneys even, in turn assigned as seat of the whole or part of the soul.* The truth is that if the thinking principle is extended we neither know its form nor its seat ; whilst if unextended, it is absurd to speak of its having any space-relations at all. Space-relations we shall see hereafter to be sensible things. The only objects that can have mutual relations of position are objects that are perceived coexisting in the same felt space. A thing not perceived at all, such as the inextended soul must be, cannot coexist with any perceived objects in this way. No lines can be felt stretching from it to the other objects. It can form no terminus to any space-inter- val. It can therefore in no intelligible sense enjoy position. Its relations cannot be spatial, but must be exclusively cognitive or dynamic, as we have seen. So far as they are dynamic, to talk of the soul being ' present ' is only a figure of speech. Hamilton's doctrine that the soul is present to the whole body is at any rate false : for cognitively its pres- ence extends far beyond the body, and dynamically it does not extend beyond the brain. f
- For a very good condensed history of the various opinions, see W.
Volkmann von Volkmar, Lehrbuch d. Psychologie, § 16, Anm. Complete references to Sir W. Hamilton are given in J. E. Walter, Perception of Space and Matter, pp. 65-6. f Most contemporary writers ignore the question of the soul's seat. Lotze is the only one who seems to have been much concerned about it, and his views have varied. Cf. Medicinische Psychol., § 10. Microcos- mus, bk. III. ch. 2. Metaphysic, bk. iii. ch. 5. Outlines of Psychol., part II. ch. 8. See also G. T. Fechner, Psychophysik, chap, xxxvii.
