Critical Thinking – What is the Soul?

(a) I used to be in love with her.

(b) We used to go to school together.

(c) How did you use to spend the winter evening?

(d) Trains used to be driven by steam at one time.

(e) They did not use to go out in those days.

Used to + base verb expresses a past habit or state that no longer exists. In questions and negatives, did carries the tense, so the form becomes use to.

(b) The non-physical essence or consciousness of a person

The essay treats the soul as an immaterial, conscious self — something distinct from the body and the brain, which survives or exists independently of the physical organism. Options (a) and (c) wrongly reduce it to matter or chemistry, while (d) denies the personal identity the essay clearly grants it.

In "What is the Soul?", the author separates the body from the soul by treating the body as a physical, perishable object and the soul as a non-physical, enduring principle. The body is made of matter, subject to growth, decay and death, and can be measured, dissected and explained by science. The soul, by contrast, is the invisible centre of consciousness, thought, feeling and moral awareness — the "I" that thinks and wills but cannot be seen or weighed. The author argues that the soul cannot be reduced to physical matter because matter only moves according to mechanical laws and has no awareness of itself. No arrangement of atoms, however complex, can explain subjective experience, memory or the sense of personal identity. Since consciousness cannot be derived from blind matter, the soul must be a distinct, immaterial reality.

In Kahlil Gibran’s The Soul, critical thinking drives the discussion by rejecting fixed dogmas and treating the soul as a mystery to explore, not a possession to define. It questions inherited assumptions and invites open inquiry. The author challenges the claim “I have found the truth” by saying, “Say not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have found a truth.” This rejects absolute, exclusive truth. He questions the idea that the soul has one set path: “Say not, I have found the path of the soul. Say rather, I have met the soul walking upon my path.” The soul walks upon all paths and unfolds like a lotus, so critical thinking replaces rigid certainty with humble understanding.

The chapter “What is the Soul?” sets up a clear debate between materialists and non-materialists. Materialists argue that the soul is not a separate, immortal substance. For them, consciousness, thought, and personality are functions of the brain. Russell supports this by comparing the mind to digestion: just as the stomach digests food, the brain produces thought. When the brain is injured, drugged, or diseased, the mind changes; under anaesthesia or deep sleep, consciousness disappears. This suggests that the soul depends on the body and dies with it.

Non-materialists, by contrast, hold that the soul is immaterial, God-given, and eternal. They point to religious faith, moral conscience, and the sense that human beings are more than matter. Some also cite near-death experiences as evidence that consciousness can exist apart from the body. For them, the soul is the true self, while the body is only a temporary home.

I find the materialist view more convincing. It is based on observation and evidence, while the non-materialist view rests mainly on faith. The text’s examples of brain damage, sleep, and anaesthesia show that mind and brain are closely linked. If the soul were completely independent, such physical changes should not affect it. The non-materialist view also struggles to explain how an immaterial soul interacts with a material body. However, materialism does not fully explain subjective experience. Still, on the available evidence, the materialist perspective is stronger and more rational.