INTRODUCTION – II

There is another word that we must also agree on since it is one of the keys to every moral doctrine, and to that end it has provoked innumerable controversies due to the lack of a generally accepted meaning: it is the word soul. The differences of viewpoints regarding the nature of the soul come from the individual definition that each person attaches to this word. A perfect language, in which each idea would be represented by its own specialized term, would avoid many arguments; with a single word for each thing, everything would be understood.
According to some, the soul is the principle of material organic life; it has no existence of its own and at death it ceases to exist. This view is purely materialistic. In this sense and by comparison, those who have adopted this view speak of the body at death as though it were a broken instrument that no longer produces any sound; i. e., that it no longer has a soul. According to this viewpoint, the soul would be an effect rather than a cause.
Others believe that the soul is the principle of intelligence, the universal agent of which each being absorbs a portion. According to this group, there is only one soul in the entire universe. This soul distributes a spark of itself to the various intelligent beings throughout their lives. At death, each spark returns to the common source, where it merges once again into the whole, just as streams and rivers return to the ocean that gave them origin. This viewpoint differs from the preceding one in that, according to this theory, there is something more than matter within us – something that remains after death. On the other hand, it is almost as if nothing actually remained; since our individual personality no longer survives, we are no longer conscious of ourselves. According to this viewpoint, the universal soul would be God, and each being would be a portion of God. It is a type of pantheism.
Finally, according to others the soul is a moral being distinct from and independent of matter, and it preserves its individuality after death. This conception is incontestably the most common because, under one name or another, the idea of this being that survives the body is an instinctive belief that is independent of any particular teaching and can be found among all cultures to whatever degree they may have become civilized. This doctrine, in which the soul is a cause and not an effect, is that of spiritualists.
Without discussing the merit of each of these viewpoints, and considering only the linguistic side of the issue, we will state that these three applications of the word soul comprise three distinct ideas, each one requiring a different term. Thus, the word soul can have one of three meanings and each is correct from its own point of view according to its own particular definition. Language itself is to blame for having only one word available for three different ideas. In order to avoid confusion, it would be necessary to limit the meaning of the word soul to only one of those three ideas.
Choosing this or that definition would not matter, since it is simply a matter of convention; the important thing is clarity. We think that is most logical to take it in its commonest meaning, and we thus use soul to indicate the immaterial and individual being that dwells within and survives the body. Even if this being did not really exist and was no more than a product of the imagination, a term would be needed to designate it nonetheless.
Lacking such a specific term for each of the other two ideas, we will apply the label vital principle to define the material and organic life principle – whatever its source may be – which is common to all living creatures, from plants to humans. Since life can exist without the faculty of thought, the vital principle is something distinct and independent of it. The word vitality would not express the same idea, however. For some, the vital principle is a property of matter, an effect produced wherever matter is found under given conditions. According to others – and this idea is the commonest – it is found in a special, universally diffused fluid.² Each being absorbs and assimilates a portion of this fluid throughout its life much as inert bodies absorb light. This substance is the vital fluid, which, according to certain opinions, would be the same thing as the animalized electric energy, also designated as magnetic fluid, neural fluid, etc.
Whatever the case may be, there is one incontestable fact – for it results from observation – and that is that organic beings possess an inner force that produces the phenomenon of life as long as this force exists; that physical life is common to all organic beings and is independent of intelligence and thought; that intelligence and thought are faculties peculiar to certain organic species; and lastly, that among the organic species endowed with intelligence and thought, there is one that is endowed with a special moral sense that gives it incontestable ascendancy over the others: the human species.
It should be understood that in its multiple meanings the term soul does not exclude either materialism or pantheism.
Spiritualists themselves can very well understand soul according to one or the other of the first two definitions, without denying the distinct immaterial being; they would give some other name to it.
Thus, the word soul does not represent a personal opinion; it is a Proteus³ that everyone may adapt in their own way, a fact that has led to endless argument.
Even if we were to use the word soul in all three of its meanings, we might avoid confusion if we added a qualification to it in order to specify the way in which we envisage it or the application we are giving it at the time. Hence, it would be a generic term, representing simultaneously the principles of material life, intelligence and moral sense. Each of these would be distinguished by a particular attribute, like gas, for example, which may be differentiated by using the words hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Perhaps we could most correctly use the term vital soul for the principle of material life, intellectual soul for the principle of intelligence, and spiritual soul for the principle of our individuality after death. As one can plainly see, it is all a matter of words, but a very important matter for us to understand nevertheless. Thus, the vital soul would be common to all organic beings: plants, animals and humans; the intellectual soul would be the distinctive property of animals and humans, and the spiritual soul would apply only to humans.
We believe it is necessary to insist on such explanations since the Spiritist Doctrine naturally rests on the existence within us of a being independent of matter. This being survives the body at death. Since the word soul is repeated frequently throughout this work, we have thus had to set the meaning we attach to it in order to avoid any misunderstanding.
We now come to the principal objective of this preliminary instruction.
² See the footnote in question 27 for an explanation of this term – Tr.
³ A Greek sea god capable of assuming different forms – Tr.

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