Brief History of the Soul, ch. 4

This chapter was extremely helpful to me. I had no previous knowledge of Thomas Reid. I was awakened and affirmed by him. His thoughts articulated both ideas I have had all along and ideas that I had been waiting to discover. Locke indicates that the soul is thought. My concern from last chapter is that this implies that those with Alzheimer's disease and those who are comatose would not have a soul; or at least 'less' of a soul. I cannot accept this position. Butler points out the need for an indivisible "I" that is regardless of memory and thought. Reid builds off of Butler in a winsome and potent style. This quote shook me to my soul: "I am not thought, I am not action, I am not feeling; I am something that thinks, and acts, and suffers. My thoughts, and actions and feelings change every moment - they have no continued, but a successive existence; but that self, or I, to which they belong, is permanent, and has the same relation to all the succeeding thoughts, actions and feelings which I call mine." Though Hume and Kant attempt to revise Reid, I think they do so insufficiently. This chapter in general, and Reid in specific, has given me great clarity into the soul.