As I explained in the
preceding chapter, the Sacrament of the Eucharist is simply the
reflection of the belief in immortality; it is, for the believer, the
proof, by a mystical experience, that the soul is immortal and will
enjoy God eternally. And the concept of substance was born, above all
and before all, of the concept of the substantiality of the soul, and
the latter was affirmed in order to confirm faith in the persistence of
the soul after its separation from the body. Such was at the same time
its first pragmatic application and its origin. And subsequently we
have transferred this concept to external things. It is because I feel
myself to be substance--that is to say, permanent in the midst of my
changes--that I attribute substantiality to those agents exterior to me,
which are also permanent in the midst of their changes--just as the
concept of force is born of my sensation of personal effort in putting a
thing in motion.
Read carefully in the first part of the _Summa Theologica_ of St. Thomas
Aquinas the first six articles of question lxxv., which discuss whether
the human soul is body, whether it is something self-subsistent, whether
such also is the soul of the lower animals, whether the soul is the man,
whether the soul is composed of matter and form, and whether it is
incorruptible, and then say if all this is not subtly intended to
support the belief that this incorruptible substantiality of the soul
renders it capable of receiving from God immortality, for it is clear
that as He created it when He implanted it in the body, as St.
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