"Is the soul and body together, as a pair of horses or a composite beast like a centaur is one thing?"
— St. Augustine (354-430)
Author
Date
388
Metaphor
"Is the soul and body together, as a pair of horses or a composite beast like a centaur is one thing?"
Metaphor in Context
Since it is almost universally agreed that we are made up of soul and body, and since for the purpose or our present discussion such an agreement can be taken for granted, what we must ask now is what man really is: is he both these constituents, or is he body only, or soul only? For although soul and body are two things, and neither of them alone is called 'man' in absence of the other (for a body is no man unless it is animated by a soul, nor is a soul a man without a body which it animates), it nevertheless happens that one or the other of these is alone taken for and referred to as man. What, then, shall we say man is? Is the soul and body together, as a pair of horses or a composite beast like a centaur is one thing? Or shall we say that he is a body only, albeit a body used by a soul which it rules?... Or, finally, shall we call a man a knight, not the man and his horse together, but we do so on account of the horse he rides. The solution of this problem is difficult--or, if it be easy to see, it nonetheless requires a lengthy explanation, and it is not necessary here and now to undertake the labor and delay.
(1.4.6)
(1.4.6)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Paul S. MacDonald's History of the Concept of Mind: Speculations About Soul, Mind and Spirit from Homer to Hume (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003): 150.
Date of Entry
06/23/2003
Date of Review
05/14/2007
