Spirit and Soul
The supposition that man is endowed with a spiritual as well as a material body, which serves as a sort of substratum for the soul to exist or reside in, and which was held by some of the old divines and metaphysicians during the early ages, arises from the consciousness of a necessity for some medium of real existence for the soul, and from the conviction that a being wholly immaterial cannot subsist by itself. But surely it is at once more satisfactory and rational to concede to the soul a real existence, than to deny it such an existence, and yet to endeavour to atone for such a deficiency by annexing another being to it. Whether, therefore, we grant to man a spiritual body, denying that the soul itself has any sort of material existence, or whether we conclude that the soul itself consists in a sort of spiritual essence, such as some suppose annexed to the soul as its spiritual body, does not appear to be a matter of very essential importance. On the whole, nevertheless, there seems to me neither warrant nor necessity for supposing the existence of such a spiritual body in our present state; although we may conclude that after the resurrection, as indeed the Scriptures expressly assure us, such frames will be annexed to our souls instead of the gross material frames they now inhabit. But if our material bodies are then to be rendered spiritual, what will become of our already acquired spiritual bodies? We shall then possess two spiritual bodies of the same nature, which seems unreasonable. I conclude, therefore, that what is called the spiritual body, is but in reality the substance of the soul; and that what is by those contending for a spiritual body during our condition in this life, believed to be the soul, consists in reality only, either in certain of the qualities, or in certain operations of this being, which they would thus reduce to a mere abstract nonentity.
Another important question may here be raised as to the nature of these two beings, spirit and soul, which is whether they are in any case separable and divisible one from another, as the body and soul are, or whether they are always and necessarily united. If they are ever on any occasion separable, then are they two distinct and independent beings, and the one may act and exist wholly independent of the other. But if, as will no doubt be contended by all who maintain that there is a spirit as well as a soul within us, they are absolutely united and inseparable—the soul never acting except through the agency of the spirit—in that case I maintain, with the utmost confidence, that there is necessarily only one being within us; that the soul is merely the material substance or substratum of the spirit; and that the spirit is but the active property of the soul.
Although we know not of the existence of the soul or spirit by sight, as even our own eyes we are unable to see; † nor by corporeal feeling, although it is by the soul alone that we really feel, because to feeling as well as to sight it is too refined to be palpable; we are, nevertheless, convinced of the actual existence of our souls through the medium of consciousness, which is, as it were, the self-perception of the soul, and by which we have as satisfactory an assurance of its real existence, as of that of our material frames by touch or sight. It is, nevertheless, possible that spirits might not only be existent, but about us, although they are invisible to us, ‡ even supposing them to be material, which would be the case if their substance was of a very fine transparency, greater than that of water, or crystal, or the air, or certain gases; or if they were intangible, like the substance of certain fluids, as in the case of electricity, which have at the same time great power. In a celestial atmosphere, which we may infer to be specially adapted for celestial and spiritual beings, spirits may not only be visible to each other, but to spiritualised bodies also, and their energies and capacities may be then vastly extended. Visibility and tangibility are, nevertheless, by no means essential qualities even to all material substances, and cannot consequently be necessary in the constitution of spirits. The wind and many gases of the most powerful kind, as also electricity and magnetism, we can neither see nor touch.
The spiritual constitution of man is, moreover, probably in many respects strictly analogous to his material, and that in a variety of ways.||
The soul, or spirit, has been erroneously stated by some physiologists to be the mere action of the brain and nervous system.§ As contrary to reason is it to assert that a man who guides and conducts a ship is the mere action of the ship. The brain and the nervous system may, however, be made to act without the mind, which must therefore be an independent principle of itself. And if it be objected, as an insuperable difficulty to the existence of soul or spirit, that, although we are aware of consciousness, we are utterly unable to conceive of soul, surely there is a still greater difficulty in believing in consciousness, without supposing the existence of soul also.
Of the several branches of knowledge which the mind of man is capacitated to embrace, those which concern its own nature and being, and the nature and being of existences of the same order with our souls—invisible, immortal, and spiritual—are of the highest and most transcendent description to which we can aspire. Of the real existence of spiritual beings we are, moreover, as well assured as we are of the existence of those which are material. That beings of this nature are of different orders and degrees, we are also convinced. And so far as we are able either to obtain information, or to reason upon the subject, the variety of spiritual existences is quite as extensive as is that of material beings. ¶ Probably, indeed, it is much greater, and may be of an extent absolutely infinite. Indeed, to every animated material being some spiritual existence may be supposed to be annexed. In addition to which there are doubtless numerous spiritual existences, wholly independent of, and unconnected with, any material being or frame. If we only bear in mind, in the lower ranks of creation, even in the insect world, how many different species there are of animated beings, each endowed with its separate independent order of instinctive intelligence, we cannot but conclude that the diversities of spiritual beings or existences, having relation to this order alone, must be at least equally numerous with those orders. We must consider also what varieties of animals there are throughout each order of creation in a corresponding manner; whence it is but reasonable to conclude that the several kinds of spiritual existence correspond with those of animal creation, and are as numerous and as extensive. How vast, and indeed almost infinite, then, must be the variety of spiritual existences when taken together through all their orders!
It may, moreover, not unreasonably be inferred not only that there is, in many important and even essential respects, a strict analogy between the soul and the body; but that as different animated frames are endowed with various organs of several kinds, each respectively adapted for the particular purposes they are specially intended to serve—some being extensively, and in a very complicated manner in this respect constituted, and others having but very little and very simple organisation: so, among souls and spiritual beings, some may be gifted with many and various faculties and capacities, while others have but very few, and certain of them scarcely any faculties or capacities whatever, but merely powers or endowments of a lower kind, not even intelligent in their nature. And this variation may exist, not only among different species of souls and spirits, but also to a large extent among different souls and spirits of the same species.
If we proceed to take a survey of the universe at large, we must first look up to God as the Supreme Head of it, both as its Author and as the Being of highest perfection throughout the system. Then follow different orders of purely spiritual intelligences, of which there must be presumed to be as many, varying as much one from another in their endowments and nature, as there are different kinds of animals in our world. Next to these exalted beings comes man—a compound of them and of animal nature; and after man succeed the several orders of animals, commencing with those most nearly allied to him, and gradually descending in the scale until we reach those who in their constitution appear to be nearly verging on vegetation. The vegetable creation follows the animal, commencing with that kind which is most allied to the latter, and descending in the scale until we verge on mere mineral creations. Last in the order, these and other inert and lifeless productions, close the magnificent array of the Creator’s works.
* From A Philosophical Treatise on the Nature and Constitution of Man, by George Harris, LL.D., F.S.A. London: Bell and Sons; 1876.
† Mr. Wake well observes that positive science allows the existence of matter in so attenuated a condition, that it can be known only by the effects of its motion; and that the mere non-perceptibility of spirit is no proof of its non-existence.—Chapters on Man, p. 293.
‡ Dr. Henry More contends that the existence of apparitions affords an undeniable argument for that of spirits or incorporeal substances.—of the Soul, p. 90.
|| Malebranche says that the inclinations of spirits seem to be in the spiritual world what the motions of bodies are in the material.—Search after Truth, b. iv., c. i., s. 1.
§ Smee’s Instinct and Reason, pp. 12,16, 218.
¶ Locke appears to have been impressed with the notion that there are “numberless” orders of beings, both above and below vs,—Essay on the Understanding, b, iii, c. vi., s, 14.
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Editor's notes
London Spiritualist, No. 279, December 28, 1877, p. 303