Bernhard Riemann: Mass

“Forming mind-masses amalgamate, combine or compound themselves in definite degree, partly with each other, partly with older mind-masses. The manner and strength of these combinations depend on conditions which are but imperfectly recognised by Herbart… They depend chiefly upon the inner relationship of the mind-masses.”

“There remains only the assumption that the ponderable masses within the rigid earth-crust are supporters of the soul-life of the earth.”

“The soul is a compact of mind-masses combined in a most intimate and manifold manner. It grows constantly by accession of mind-masses, and upon these depend its development.”

“The simplest and most common manifestation of the activity of older mind-masses is Reproduction, which consists in the striving of the active mind-mass to engender one similar to itself.”

“Every mind-mass strives to produce a like formed mind-mass and accordingly strives to produce that form of motion of the matter by which it was formed.”

“Mind-masses entering the soul appear to us as ideas, the quality of the latter depending on the inner state of the former.”

“Mind-masses, once formed, are imperishable, their combinations are indissoluble; only the relative strength of these combinations is altered by the incoming of new mind masses.”

“An immediate consequence of these principles of explanation is that the souls of organic beings, i. e., the compacts of mind-masses, arisen during life, continue to exist after death. (Their isolated persistence is not sufficient). But in order to explain the orderly development of organic nature in which the earlier collected experiences obviously serve as basis for the later creations, it is necessary to assume that these mind-masses enter into a greater compact of mind-masses, the Earth-Soul, and that these serve a higher soul-life according to the same laws as the mind-masses engendered in our nerve-processes observe in their service of our own soul-life.”

“If… part of the related mind-masses hang together among themselves, then these are not only immediately excited but also mediately and consequently in proportion more powerfully than the rest.”

“With every simple act of thinking, something permanent, substantial, enters our soul. This substantial somewhat appears to us as a unit but (in so far as it is the expression of something extended in space and time) it seems to contain an inner manifoldness; I therefore name it "mind-mass."”