Volume 3: 1771 Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica!
Soul
Soul, a spiritual substance, which animates the bodies of living creatures:
it is the principal of life and activity within them.Various have been the
opinions of philosophers concerning the substance of the human soul. The
Cartesians make thinking the essence of the soul. Others again hold, that
man is endowed with three kinds of souls, viz. the rational, which is
purely spiritual, and infused by the immediate inspiration of God; the
irrational, or sensitive, which is common to man and brutes; and lastly, the
vegetative soul, or principal of growth and nutrition.That the soul is an
immaterial substance appears from hence, that its primary operations of willing
and thinking have not only no connection with the known properties of body, but
seem plainly inconsistent with some of its most essential qualities. For
the mind discovers no relation between thinking and the motion and arrangement
of parts.As to the immortality of the human soul, the arguments to prove it
may be reduced to the following heads: 1. The nature of the soul
itself, its desires, sense of moral good and evil, gradual increase in knowledge
and perfection, etc. 2. The moral attributes of God.Under the
former of these heads it is urged, that the soul, being an immaterial
intelligent substance, does not depend on the body for its existence; and
therefore may, nay, and must, exist after the dissolution of the body, unless
annihilated by the same power which gave it a being at first. This
argument, especially if the infinite capacity of the soul, its strong desire
after immortality, its rational activity and advancement towards perfection, be
likewise considered, will appear perfectly conclusive to men of a philosophical
turn; because nature, or rather the God of nature, does nothing in vain.
But arguments drawn from the latter head, viz. the moral attributes of
the Deity, are not only better adapted to convince men unacquainted with
abstract reasoning, but equally certain and conclusive with the former: for as
the justice of God can never suffer the wicked to escape unpunished, nor the
good to remain always unrewarded; therefore, arguments drawn from the manifest
and constant prosperity of the wicked, and the frequent unhappiness of good men
in this life, must convince every thinking person, that there is a future state
wherein all will be set right, and God's attributes of wisdom, justice, and
goodness, fully vindicated. We shall only add, that had the virtuous and
conscientious part of mankind no hopes of a future state, they would be of all
men most miserable: but as this is absolutely inconsistent with the moral
character of the Deity, the certainty of such a state is clear to a
demonstration.