the very substance of Divinity. The
substance-notion breaks into life, with tremendous effect, if once you
allow that substances can separate from their accidents and exchange
these latter. This is the only pragmatic application of the
substance-idea with which I am acquainted; and it is obvious that it
will only be treated seriously by those who already believe in the 'real
presence' on independent grounds."

Now, leaving on one side the question as to whether it is good
theology--and I do not say good reasoning because all this lies outside
the sphere of reason--to confound the substance of the body--the body,
not the soul--of Christ with the very substance of Divinity--that is to
say, with God Himself--it would appear impossible that one so ardently
desirous of the immortality of the soul as William James, a man whose
whole philosophy aims simply at establishing this belief on rational
grounds, should not have perceived that the pragmatic application of the
concept of substance to the doctrine of the Eucharistic
transubstantiation is merely a consequence of its anterior application
to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. 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
incor