our thoughts by which we can bring the ideas of a soul and of
water, or of a stone into combination, and keep them there for
long together? The ancients, indeed, said they believed their
rivers to be gods, and carved likenesses of them under the forms
of men ; but even supposing this to have been their real mind,
can it by any conceivable means become our own? Granted that a
stone is kept from falling to dust by an energy which compels its
particles to cohere, which energy can be taken out of it and
converted into some other form of energy; granted (which may or
may not be true) also, that the life of a living body is only the
energy which keeps the particles which compose it in a certain
disposition; and granted that the energy of the stone may be
convertible into the energy of a living form, and that thus,
after a long journey a tired idea may lag after the sound of such
words as "the soul of the world." Granted all the above,
nevertheless to speak of the world as having a soul is not
sufficiently in harmony with our common notions, nor does it go
sufficiently with the grain of our thoughts to render the
expression a meaning one, or one that can be now used with any
propriety or fitness, except by those who do not know their own
meaninglessness. Vigorous minds will harbour [sic] vigorous
thoughts only, or such as bid fair to become so; and vigorous
thoughts are always simple, definite, and in harmony with
everyday ideas.

We can imagine a soul as living in the lowest slime that moves,
feeds, reproduces itself, remembers, and dies. The amoeba wants
things, knows it wants them, alters itself so as to try and alter
them, thus preparing for an intended modification of outside
matter by a preliminary modification of itself. It thrives if