</div>
</div>
<p>In many religious, philosophical and mythological traditions, the <b>soul</b> is the <a href="/wiki/Incorporeality" title="Incorporeality">incorporeal</a> essence of a living being.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup></p>
<p>Soul or psyche (Greek: "psychē", of "psychein", "to breathe") are the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc.</p>
<p>Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or <a href="/wiki/Immortality_of_the_soul" class="mw-redirect" title="Immortality of the soul">immortal</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup> In <a href="/wiki/Judeo-Christianity" class="mw-redirect" title="Judeo-Christianity">Judeo-Christianity</a>, only human beings have immortal souls (although immortality is disputed within Judaism and may have been influenced by Plato,<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup> and in <a href="/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Christianity" class="mw-redirect" title="Eastern Orthodox Christianity">Eastern Orthodox Christianity</a> the soul is said to be immortal by <a href="/wiki/Grace" class="mw-disambig" title="Grace">grace</a>, but not nature). For example, the Catholic theologian <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas" title="Thomas Aquinas">Thomas Aquinas</a> attributed "soul" (<i><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anima" class="extiw" title="wikt:anima">anima</a></i>) to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup> Other religions (most notably <a href="/wiki/Hinduism" title="Hinduism">Hinduism</a> and <a href="/wiki/Jainism" title="Jainism">Jainism</a>) hold that all biological organisms have souls, as did Aristotle, while some teach that even non-biological entities (such as rivers and mountains) possess souls. The latter belief is called <a href="/wiki/Animism" title="Animism">animism</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup></p>
<p>Greek philosophers, such as <a href="/wiki/Socrates" title="Socrates">Socrates</a>, <a href="/wiki/Plato" title="Plato">Plato</a>, and <a href="/wiki/Aristotle" title="Aristotle">Aristotle</a>, understood that the soul (ψυχή <i><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%88%CF%85%CF%87%CE%AE#Ancient_Greek" class="extiw" title="wikt:ψυχή">psūchê</a></i>) must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. At his defense trial, Socrates even summarized his teaching as nothing other than an exhortation for his fellow Athenians to excel in matters of the psyche since all bodily goods are dependent on such excellence (<i><a href="/wiki/Apology_(Plato)" title="Apology (Plato)">Apology</a></i> 30a–b).</p>
<p><i><a href="/wiki/Anima_mundi" title="Anima mundi">Anima mundi</a></i> is the concept of a "world soul" connecting all living organisms on planet Earth.</p>
<p></p>
