Here is another precise proof for those who still shamelessly cling to irrationality. How is it that, although the body is mortal by nature, a human being thinks about immortality and often willingly faces death for the sake of virtue? Or how, although the body is temporary, does a human being imagine eternal things, so as to despise what is immediately before him and set his desire on those things? The body could not think such things about itself, nor could it think about things outside itself. It is mortal and temporary. There must therefore be something else that thinks what is contrary to and beyond the nature of the body. What else could this be but a rational and immortal soul? For not from outside but from within, it makes higher things resound in the body, as a musician does in a lyre.
Again, although the eye is naturally made for seeing and hearing for hearing, why do these senses turn away from some things and choose others? Who turns the eye away from seeing? Who closes the hearing, which is naturally made to hear, against hearing? Who often restrains the sense of taste, which is naturally made to taste, from its natural impulse? Who holds back the hand, naturally made for action, from touching something? Who turns the sense of smell, which too was made for smelling, away so that it does not perceive? Who is it that acts in these ways against the body’s natural functions? Or how does the body, turning away from its own nature, listen to another’s counsels and allow itself to be guided by that other’s signal?
All this proves nothing other than that a rational soul governs the body. The body is not by nature able to drive itself; it is led and carried by another, just as a horse does not harness itself but is driven by the one who controls it. This is why laws are given to human beings, telling them to do what is good and turn away from wickedness. But among irrational creatures, evils remain without reasoning or judgment, since they are outside rationality and rational thought. I think, then, that what has been said shows that a rational soul exists in human beings.
Here is another precise proof for those who still shamelessly cling to irrationality. How is it that, although the body is mortal by nature, a human being thinks about immortality and often willingly faces death for the sake of virtue? Or how, although the body is temporary, does a human being imagine eternal things, so as to despise what is immediately before him and set his desire on those things? The body could not think such things about itself, nor could it think about things outside itself. It is mortal and temporary. There must therefore be something else that thinks what is contrary to and beyond the nature of the body. What else could this be but a rational and immortal soul? For not from outside but from within, it makes higher things resound in the body, as a musician does in a lyre.
Again, although the eye is naturally made for seeing and hearing for hearing, why do these senses turn away from some things and choose others? Who turns the eye away from seeing? Who closes the hearing, which is naturally made to hear, against hearing? Who often restrains the sense of taste, which is naturally made to taste, from its natural impulse? Who holds back the hand, naturally made for action, from touching something? Who turns the sense of smell, which too was made for smelling, away so that it does not perceive? Who is it that acts in these ways against the body’s natural functions? Or how does the body, turning away from its own nature, listen to another’s counsels and allow itself to be guided by that other’s signal?
All this proves nothing other than that a rational soul governs the body.
The body is not by nature able to drive itself; it is led and carried by another, just as a horse does not harness itself but is driven by the one who controls it. This is why laws are given to human beings, telling them to do what is good and turn away from wickedness. But among irrational creatures, evils remain without reasoning or judgment, since they are outside rationality and rational thought. I think, then, that what has been said shows that a rational soul exists in human beings.