On the Immortality of the Soul

Contents

Reading pages: 1–10 · 11–16

1. 1Augustine argues that since knowledge is unchangeable and eternal, can exist only in what lives, and exists in the human mind, the mind must always live.
2. 2Reason, being unchangeable, cannot be a harmony of the changeable body; so the mind, which is reason or contains it inseparably, always lives.
3. 3Augustine argues that the mind can move bodies in time without itself being changed, since its intention, memory, and expectation hold together what passes, and that even if it undergoes some change, change is not the same as perishing.
4. 4Since the unchangeable principles of the arts exist inseparably in the mind and cannot be lost, transferred, or begotten by it, but are found within it, the human mind is immortal.
5. 5The changes the soul undergoes, through the body or its own affections, are like changes of color or shape in wax: they do not destroy the subject, and so do not threaten the soul in which unchangeable reason resides.
6. 6Defining reason as the mind's gaze, its contemplation, or the truth contemplated, Augustine argues that the mind joined to reason cannot be separated from it by any power, and that reason, which supremely is, gives the mind being, so that it cannot perish.
7. 7Augustine answers the objection that turning from reason makes the mind tend toward nothing, by showing that even a body, though infinitely divisible, tends toward nothing without ever reaching it; much less can the mind.
8. 8Since body is made and kept in being by an incorporeal Maker who never lets it lose its form entirely, much less can the mind, which is better than any body, lose what makes it mind; so it never dies.
9. 9The mind is itself a kind of life, and since nothing lacks itself, the mind cannot be deprived of life and so cannot die.
10. 10Augustine refutes the view that the soul is a tempering or mixture of the body: the mind can turn away from the body to behold intelligible things, which no bodily quality could do, so it is a substance and cannot die.
11. 11If the mind's being comes from the supreme being, which is truth, the only thing that could take it away would be its contrary, falsity; but falsity can only deceive, and only the living can be deceived, so nothing can destroy the mind.
12. 12Since being has no contrary except not being, nothing can be contrary to the supreme being from which the mind has its existence; so the mind may lose wisdom by turning away, but cannot lose its being.
13. 13Augustine argues that the soul cannot be turned into a body: it cannot will it, no body is strong enough to compel it, another soul can compel it only through its own desires, which never include this, and God, who cares for the soul, would not do it.
14. 14Sleep does not threaten to turn the soul into a body, since it affects only the bodily senses; true principles understood even in a dream remain true on waking, so sleep diminishes only the soul's use of the body, not its life.
15. 15Because form passes from the supreme being to the body through the soul, which stands between them, the soul gives form rather than losing it, and so cannot be changed into a body.
16. 16The rational soul cannot be turned into an irrational soul or a body, for it gives form rather than receiving it, and it is not in place: it is present whole in every part of the body at once, as sensation shows.