“The body of a human being has a beautiful, thin, highly sensitive skin, which is not covered with an insensitive, lifeless veil.” Man's body is in noble contrast with all mere animals. It is so formed that its natural position is erect. “The eyes are in front; the ligaments of the neck are not capable of supporting, for any considerable length of time, the head when hanging down; the horizontal position would force the blood to the head so violently that stupor would be the result. The mouth serves the mind as well as the body itself. According to the most critical calculation, the muscles of the mouth are so movable that it may pronounce fifteen hundred letters.” What a wonderful musical instrument.
The mouth of the mere animal serves only physical purposes.
Man turns his head from right to left, from earth to sky, from the slimy trail of the crustacean in the ocean's bottom to the contemplation of the innumerable stars in the heavens. The human body was created for the mind; its structure is correlated with mind. The animal has a sentient life; man an intelligent, reasoning nature.
When animals are infuriated and trample beneath their feet everything that lies in their way, we do not say they are insane, but mad. “Man is an intelligent spirit,” or mind, “served by an organism.” We know that mind exists by our consciousness of that which passes within us. The propriety of the sayings of Descartes, “I think, therefore I am,” rests upon the consciousness that we are thinking beings. This intelligence is not obtained by the exercise of any of the senses. It does not depend upon external surroundings. Its existence is a fact of consciousness, of certain knowledge, and hence a fact in mental science.
We are continually conscious of the existence of the mind, which makes its own operations the object of its own thought; that it should have no existence is a contradiction in language.
Experience teaches us that the materialistic theory of the existence of the mind is utterly false. In an act of perception I distinguish the pen in my hand, and the hand itself, from my mind which perceives them. This distinction is a fact of the faculty of perception—a particular fact of a particular faculty. But the general fact of a general distinction of which this is only a special case, is the distinction of the I and not I, which belongs to the consciousness as the general faculty. He who denies the contrast between mind-knowing and matter-known is dishonest, for it is a fact of consciousness, and such can not be honestly denied. The facts given in consciousness itself can not be honestly doubted, much less denied.
Materialists have claimed that mind is simply the result of the molecular action of the brain. This theory is as unreal as [pg 151] Banquo's ghost—it will not bear a moment's investigation. It is simply confounding the action of the mind upon the brain with the mind itself. Every effect must have a cause. When I make a special mental effort what is the cause lying behind the effort? Is it the molecular action of the brain? I will to make the effort, and do it. Then will power lies behind brain action. But power is a manifest energy; there is something lying behind it to which it belongs as an attribute; what is it? Answer, will. But, where there is a will there must of a necessity be that which wills. What is it that wills to make a special mental effort—that lies away back “behind the throne” and controls the helm? It is evidently the I, myself, the “inner man,” the spirit. On one occasion, when some of the disciples of the Nazarene were sleepy, Jesus said to them, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” It is the spirit that wills to make a special mental effort. Here is the “font” of all our ideas. “What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?” 1 Cor., ii, 11. Will, as an effect, belongs to the spirit of man, as the cause lying behind. Beyond this no man can trace this subject, short of crossing over from the spirit of man to the invisible Father of spirits. The spirit of man is a wonderful intelligence! “The body without the spirit is dead, being alone.” When we analyze the physical structure back to the germ and sperm-cells we are brought face to face with the invisible builder. Call it what you may, it still remains the same invisible architect, which, being matter's master, built the organism. We live, and breathe; we die, and cease breathing. Dead bodies do not breathe. Therefore, life lies behind breath, and spirit behind life. So life and breath are both effects, which find their ultimate or cause in spirit. This at once sets aside all that materialists have said in order to show that spirit and breath are one and the same. The original term, translated by the term spirit has, in its history, away back in the past, a physical currency. The old-fashioned materialist or “soul-sleeper” finds his fort in this fact. His entire aim is to get the people back to an old and obsolete [pg 152] currency of the term “pneuma.” If we lay aside words which were used in a physical sense, in times gone by, we will not have many words to express the ideas embraced in mental science. In ancient times “pneuma” signified both mind and wind, or air. In later times it lost its physical currency, and no longer signifies, in its general currency, breath or air. The adjective, “pneumatikos,” is never used in a physical sense. It came into use too late.
We have many examples of old meanings passing away from words. “Sapientia,” in Latin originally meant only the power of tasting. At present it means wisdom, prudence, discretion, discernment, good sense, knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophy, calmness, patience. The word “sagacitas,” originally meant only the faculty of scenting, now it means the power of seeing or perceiving anything easily. In old literature we may read of the sagacity of dogs; keenness of scent. But it is now sharpness of wit; keenness of perception, subtilty, shrewdness, acuteness, penetration, ingenuity. The terms, “attentio,” “intentio,” “comprehensio,” “apprehensio,” “penetratio,” and understanding are all just so many bodily actions transferred to the expression of mental energies. There is just the same reason for giving to all these terms their old, obsolete, physical currency that there is for giving to pneuma, or spirit, the old obsolete currency of wind or air. You must ever remember that it is the business of lexicographers in giving the history of words, to set before you the first as well as the latest use of terms. In strict harmony with all this Greenfield gives “pneuma” thus:
1. Wind, air in motion, breathing, breath, expiration, respiration, spirit, i. e. the human soul, that is, the vital principle in man, life. Matthew xxvii, 50; Rev. xiii, 15.
2. Of the rational soul, mind, that principle in man which thinks, feels, desires, and wills. Matthew v, 3, 26, 41.