Page 90 - STOLEN LEGACY By George G. M. James

5. The Soul.

According to Aristotle the soul possesses the following attributes (1) Identity with body, as form
with matter (2) The power which a living body possesses, i.e., the radical principle of life,
manifesting itself in the following attributes:

(a) sensitive

(b) rational

(c) nutritive

(d) appetitive

(e) locomotive.

This description of the soul by Aristotle, seems to vary somewhat from the more familiar and
current ideas held by the Atomists, on the one hand and Socrates, Plato and the Pythagoreans on
the other; for while the former believed that the soul is material and is composed of fire atoms;
the latter regarded it as a harmony of the body and a blending of opposites. (William Turner's
History of Philosophy, p. 42, 67–68). (Plato Phaedo, c. 15) (Zeller's History of Philosophy, p.
61). (De Respiratione, 4, 30, 47a).

Naturally we are now forced to ask the question: Did this doctrine of the soul originate from
Aristotle? It is clear that he did not get it from his teacher Plato, nor from the Pythagoreans and
Atomists; but from some other source outside of Greece.

As we turn our attention to ancient history, we happily discover that there are two such sources
outside of Greece (1) The Creation story in Genesis first chapter and (2) The Egyptian Book of
the Dead, which does not only contain attributes of the soul, identical with those mentioned by
Aristotle, but far more in an elaborate system of philosophy in which human nature is explained
as a unity of nine inseparable parts consisting of different bodies and souls interdependent one
upon another, the physical body being one of them. (The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Sir E. A.
Budge. Introduction, p. 29–64).

In the Genesis story, it is asserted that God made man out of matter (i.e., the dust of the earth),
and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and "man became a living soul". Here we have a
clear statement of the identity of "body and soul", taken from a document (Genesis) which
antedates Aristotle by many centuries.

89

Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy by George G. M. James
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook