Pols, Edward - Mind regained

The study of mind was once an ample and commodious study, drawing into it not only our scientific interests but our moral and religious ones as well. It was long dominated by the conviction that mind itself is the deepest ordering principle of nature or at least the most important expression of that ordering principle. Although I call it the study of mind, it was also the study of the soul and--because soul was often regarded as the life principle--the study of life as well. Sometimes the mind was regarded as the highest factor in the hierarchical structure of the souls of particular human beings. Sometimes a distinction was made between a divine, infinite, and universal Mind and a human, finite, and particular mind; in that case the divine Mind was regarded as the maker of the human soul and thus of the finite mind resident in that soul.