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Chapter uncertain; original source section: Chapter 29
2 complete historical source paragraphs and 3 editorial footnotes. Author and edition credits are shown for each record; original wording is retained.
English translation and editorial credits: Henry Austin Wilson (translator and notes), Joseph Hirst Lupton (editorial revision assistance), Henry Wace (editor).
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Otherwise Chap. xxix. The title in the Bodleian ms. of the Latin version is:—“Of different views of the origin of the soul.”
Editorial footnote · The Making of Man, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Chapter 29, editorial note cite_note-1 · Original source
XXVIII. To those who say that souls existed before bodies, or that bodies were formed before souls; wherein there is also a refutation of the fables concerning transmigration of souls.
In the discourse that is contained in the next chapter. The point has been mentioned, but the conclusions were not drawn from it in the opening section of this chapter.
Editorial footnote · The Making of Man, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Chapter 29, editorial note cite_note-5 · Original source
7. Thus this doctrine of theirs, which maintains that souls have a life by themselves before their life in the flesh, and that they are by reason of wickedness bound to their bodies, is shown to have neither beginning nor conclusion: and as for those who assert that the soul is of later creation than the body, their absurdity was already demonstrated above.
That is, the life of the spirit before its incorporation.
Editorial footnote · The Making of Man, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Chapter 29, editorial note cite_note-4 · Original source
5. Now so far in its course their doctrine, even if it does overstep the bounds of truth, at all events derives one absurdity from another by a kind of logical sequence: but from this point onwards their teaching takes the form of incoherent fable. Strict inference points to the complete destruction of the soul; for that which has once fallen from the exalted state will be unable to halt at any measure of wickedness, but will pass by means of its relation with the passions from rational to irrational, and from the latter state will be transferred to the insensibility of plants; and on the insensible there borders, so to say, the inanimate; and on this again follows the non-existent, so that absolutely by this train of reasoning they will have the soul to pass into nothing: thus a return once more to the better state is impossible for it: and yet they make the soul return from a bush to the man: they therefore prove that the life in a bush is more precious than an incorporeal state.
5. Now so far in its course their doctrine, even if it does overstep the bounds of truth, at all events derives one absurdity from another by a kind of logical sequence: but from this point onwards their teaching takes the form of incoherent fable. Strict inference points to the complete destruction of the soul; for that which has once fallen from the exalted state will be unable to halt at any measure of wickedness, but will pass by means of its relation with the passions from rational to irrational, and from the latter state will be transferred to the insensibility of plants; and on the insensible there borders, so to say, the inanimate; and on this again follows the non-existent, so that absolutely by this train of reasoning they will have the soul to pass into nothing: thus a return once more to the better state is impossible for it: and yet they make the soul return from a bush to the man: they therefore prove that the life in a bush is more precious than an incorporeal state.
Complete source paragraph · The Making of Man, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Chapter 29, source paragraph 6 · Original source
7. Thus this doctrine of theirs, which maintains that souls have a life by themselves before their life in the flesh, and that they are by reason of wickedness bound to their bodies, is shown to have neither beginning nor conclusion: and as for those who assert that the soul is of later creation than the body, their absurdity was already demonstrated above.
Complete source paragraph · The Making of Man, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Chapter 29, source paragraph 8 · Original source