It may be true that fire cannot burn it, water cannot wet it, wind cannot dry it, and earth cannot bury it.

But as Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Thomas Mann have shown us, the owner can sell it. Or did they?

This is exactly what a young man in Jiaxing in East China's Zhejiang Province did recently: He tried to sell his soul. He posted it for sale on the mainland's top online auction site, Taobao.

And as if that's not enough of a shock, there were 58 soul-searching buyers.

The posting was taken down last fortnight. An Alibaba.com (Taobao's parent body) spokesman said the company didn't have a "specific policy on the selling of souls." The site wanted more proof that the seller could actually provide the goods.

Could anything be funnier? How could anyone have proof of being able to sell one's soul? Is the soul a consumer good?

The man could not have sold his soul (on Tabao or anywhere else) if he were a Buddhist, for according to Buddhism there is no permanent, abiding self or soul. Nor could he have done so if Aristotle was right. The soul is the most important purpose we are meant to serve, according to the Greek philosopher. The soul is a man's potential for rational activity, something he cannot give up.

The vast majority of Chinese people hold the soul in deep reverence. And even though Christians, Muslims and Hindus believe in the soul's separate existence, it's impossible to separate it from its owner. Hence Taobao's decision to allow the sale if the seller provided written permission from a "higher authority" is utterly ridiculous. How can anyone possibly do that?

All this would have seemed a big joke to one man: Dr Johann Faust (1488-1541), the German alchemist and magician who is said to have sold his soul to the "Devil in exchange for all the power, knowledge and pleasure in the world for 24 years." The "satanic" deal was condemned by one and all, and the expression "to sell one's soul" that first appeared around 1570 still refers to a dishonourable act done for money or power.

Yet that deal continued to inspire brilliant literature, as seen in the works of Marlowe, Goethe and Mann, and great music by the likes of Ludwig van Beethoven, Frank Liszt and Richard Wagner.

It's unlikely that the unnamed youth would have been inspired by Faust's tale. For when the time came for Mephistopheles to claim his part of the bargain, legend has it that he wrenched the soul from Faust's body.

Perhaps science fiction could suggest a possible way out. Some scientists dismiss the soul as a "fiction," yet others say science cannot explain either the soul or consciousness. Many of them, however, identify both concepts with physical processes in the brain.

If the brain is the seat of the soul, there are ways to "transfer" it, they say. For example, the brain can be uploaded on a computer after using a scanner to map its entire electrical circuit, or it can be "copied" through neuro-imaging and a "duplicate" made. Or, it may be transplanted, either intact or in slices to be stitched together again.

Plato, who sliced up the human soul into reason, emotions and passions, would not have approved. A soul that is being sold, he would have said, has already lost its proper harmony and hierarchy as the owner's greed has made the lower passions triumph over reason. Such a soul would be damaged goods.

His teacher Socrates identified the soul with knowledge, happiness and, above all, virtue. Better suffer an injustice, he said, than do one. The first may injure your body but the second will harm your soul, which is a human's most precious possession.

So if they really want a soul, those who logged on to Taobao should forget about the youth's soul and start working on their own.

And that applies to all of us  those who didn't see the ad or didn't think of buying it even after seeing it too!