1

stance, that St. Paul, when he wrote the beautiful benediction, "May your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire," was speaking of the three nerve-centre levels which will be discussed in the next chapter. On the other hand most writers pass over altogether that interesting and suggestive conception of the nature of man which St. Paul especially developed. He had not indeed at his disposal the results of modern anatomical and psychological research if he had possessed that knowledge, what splendid use he would have made of it! But he had, as a result of his spiritual insight and his fresh knowledge of the human heart, an intensely strong conception of the real nature of man- a conception which has been generally ignored by later theologians, and which he, with other New Testament writers, expressed by a distinctive use of the words "spirit" (pneuma) and "soul" (psychè).

It may be that once or twice in the New Testament these words are employed as synonyms in our modern fashion.2 None the less when the soul is contrasted with the spirit, or when the word is used as an adjective, it means that part of man's mind which he has in common with the animals, while the spirit means that part which he has in common with God—which is indeed from the Holy Spirit of God. Thus man consists of body, soul, and spirit · the material body, the animal part of the mind, and

1 I Thes. 5 23.

2 The use of the two words may be a matter of poetic diction in the Magnificat,-" My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour" (Lk. 1 46-7) and St. Paul seems to use the word soul" mainly to avoid tautology in Phil. 1 27.

the mind which is the seat of Wisdom. And here I use the word Wisdom in the noble breadth of its biblical connotation, as including reason, and virtue, and godliness.

The New Testament writers do not then divide the non-material part of man into what is "mental" and what is "spiritual," since they include wisdom in the spirit.1 Nor have we here to deal with the conscious and subconscious parts of the mind,- parts which after all are constantly interchanging, as when a memory or a poem rises into consciousness. The New Testament writers are looking at the nature of man from another point of view, and that the highest and completest, as well as the most simple. And nothing, surely, can be more illuminating or more true than this conception of man as consisting of body, soul, and spirit.

By virtue of his spirit he is man, made thus truly in the image of God. By virtue of his soul he is an animal, and shares the life which is manifested in such variety of beauty and strength by the brute creation. It is the soul that we are mainly thinking of in this book when we discuss the undermind, because it is the soul that affects the functioning of the body; but much of the spirit also is subconscious, since only a part of it is illuminated by consciousness at one time. A sensual man may thrust most of his spirit into the subconscious realm: a spiritual man will live in the spirit, be conscious of the spirit, sometimes, indeed, to the extent of letting the animal part of him lose its proper share in the balance of health.

1 See p. 122.

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There is, then, such a thing as the psychè or soul," contrasted with the "spirit." The line cannot perhaps be drawn precisely between man and the rest of the animal world, because in a few higher animals there is some "spirit"- there is, for instance, some discrimination, some virtue in a dog. Though we may not consider that "brain secretes dog's soul," as Browning ironically suggested in Tray," yet a dog is much less than a dog if his brain-cortex is removed: a rabbit, on the other hand, lives in a way that does "not greatly transcend automatism," and consequently his cortical centres may be removed without creating much obvious disturbance.1 Thus, a rabbit or a pigeon has developed little more than a “soul,” and can do pretty well when entirely deprived of the cerebral machinery of the spirit.

It is a pity that the loose modern use of the word "soul," as if it meant the same as "spirit," has obscured popular theology and has practically sacrificed that fine and necessary word. True, we retain a trace of the old distinction in our use of " psychic as a lower thing than "spiritual," but the Apostles did not mean "psychic" in our specialized sense by

xikós, and we must translate it "soulish" to retain the original meaning — a rabbit is "soulish," but we should hardly call it psychic.

Because of this confusion men have had a crude and material conception of what is meant by the resurrection of the body, and we still talk about the immortality of the soul-losing the distinction between the survival of the soul and the survival of

1 D. Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain, 1886, p. 422.

the spirit: it may be, for instance, that the alleged apparitions and other psychic phenomena after death are really manifestations of the soul- of some lower and unessential part of the personality, while the spirit has returned to God who gave it. St. Paul, with a clear distinction of the terms, was able to discuss the problem of immortality with piercing simpleness. The first Adam, he said, was a living soul, the last a life-giving spirit;1 "the first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven." 2 So he looks forward to a resurrection: the "soulish" body came first, and afterwards that which is spiritual; and " if there is a soul-body, there is also a spirit-body,' "3 thus at death the body is sown a soul-body," to be " raised a spirit-body."

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People think they are uttering a scriptural sentiment when they welcome death as the liberation of the soul from the body, but St. Paul looked forward to a transformation of the body from the soulish to the spiritual condition to a body, we might say, no longer under the control of an undermind nor subject to material conditions — he looked for "our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." And this is what the accounts of our Lord's Resurrection tell us of: we are beginning to understand them better now, because we find in them a consistent witness to laws which our growing knowledge is coming to require in those accounts there

11 Cor. 15 45 (R. V.).

2 Ibid. v. 47 (R. V.).

4

3 Ibid. v. 44. In our Bibles owμa vxikóv is translated "natural body," though in other places Yuxiós is rendered "sensual."

4 Rom. 8 23.

is still a body, still, that is to say, a vehicle and manifestation of the personality, but it has been transmuted by the fulness of spiritual control; the soulbody has become a spirit-body. The material work of the undermind is no longer required, because the overmind has clothed itself in its appropriate manifestation, and is independent of the physical machinery.

1

In this life, also, according to the New Testament view, a man may be in his measure either "soulish" or spiritual: of those who lived on the higher level it was said that "the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God," while those whose lives centre round the animal passions and instincts are "earthly, soulish, devilish," or are "soulish, not having the spirit." Some men are indeed like rabbits very soulish. The ascent of man is the growth of his spirit, and the difference between the rabbity type of man, and he whose life is busy in the higher regions is truly expressed in the saying that " the soulish man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God he that is spiritual judgeth all things.'

but

This conception of a hierarchy in the mind leads us on to the subject of our next chapter.

1 Rom. 8 16.

2 Jas. 3 15.

3 Jude 19. Here, as in Jas. 315, Yuxikói is translated sensual," in the A. V. and R. V., with or natural, or animal" in R. V. margin.

4 I Cor. 214-15.