Soul, Nature, Consciousness

With no obvious methodological basis, Descartes departs from Plato and Aristotle by restricting the concept of Soul to Mind, with the influential implication that other animals and plants are only soulless mechanisms.  Now, his motivation might not be Theological, since though Pantheistic, but with just as little methodological basis, Spinoza distinguishes his version of the Human Soul, the self-aware Mode, from the rest of Nature. Thus, the Modern concept of Soul seems exclusively attributable, at least at the outset, to Humans, regardless of how defined.  Nor, does Nietzsche's discovery of depth Psychology entail a repudiation of that exclusivity.  Instead, it is only after the rise of the Biological concept of Nature, and, in particular, the Evolutionist establishment of a continuum between Humans and other animal species, that Soul can be re-attributed to the rest of Nature.  Thus, similarly, insofar as Descartes identifies Consciousness and Soul, the rise of Evolutionism entails that the former, too, can be attributed to all living beings.