CHAPTER II: NATURE OF MAN.

NATURE OF MAN. __________________________________________________________________

§ 1. Scripture Doctrine.

The Scriptures teach that God formed the body of man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life and he became nphs chyh, a living soul. According to this account, man consists of two distinct principles, a body and a soul: the one material, the other immaterial; the one corporeal, the other spiritual. It is involved in this statement, first, that the soul of man is a substance; and, secondly, that it is a substance distinct from the body. So that in the constitution of man two distinct substances are included.

The idea of substance, as has been before remarked, is one of the primary truths of the reason. It is given in the consciousness of every man, and is therefore a part of the universal faith of men. We are conscious of our thoughts, feelings, and volitions. We know that these exercises or phenomena are constantly changing, but that there is something of which they are the exercises and .manifestation. That something is the self which remains unchanged, which is the same identical something, yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow. The soul is, therefore, not a mere series of acts; nor is it a form of the life of God, nor is it a mere unsubstantial force, but a real subsistence. Whatever acts is, and what is is an entity. A nonentity is nothing, and nothing can neither have power nor produce effects. The soul of man, therefore, is an essence or entity or substance, the abiding subject of its varying states and exercises. The second point just mentioned is no less plain. As we call know nothing of substance but from its phenomena, and as we are forced by a law of our nature to believe in the existence of a substance of which the phenomena are the manifestation, so by an equally stringent necessity we are forced to believe that where the phenomena are not only different, but incompatible, there the substances are also different. As, therefore, the phenomena or properties of matter are essentially different from those of mind, we are forced to conclude that matter and mind are two distinct substances; that the soul is not material nor the body spiritual. "To identify matter with mind," says Cousin, in a passage before quoted," or mind with matter; it is necessary to pretend that sensation, thought, volition, are reducible, in the last analysis, to solidity, extension, figure, divisibility, etc.; or that solidity, extension, figure, etc.. are reducible to sensation, thought, will."
[71] It may be said, therefore, despite of materialists and idealists, that it is intuitively pertain that matter and mind are two distinct substances; and such has been the faith of the great body of mankind. This view of the nature of man which is presented in the original account of his creation, is sustained by the constant representations of the Bible.

Truths on this Subject assumed in Scripture.

The Scriptures do not formally teach any system of psychology, but there are certain truths relating both to our physical and mental constitution, which they constantly assume. They assume, as we have seen, that the soul is a substance; that it is a substance distinct from the body; and that there are two, and not more than two, essential elements in the constitution of man. This is evident, (1.) From the distinction everywhere made between soul and body. Thus, in the original account of the creation a clear distinction is made between the body as formed from the dust of the earth, and the soul or principle of life which was breathed into It from God. And in Gen. iii. 19, it is said, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." As it was only the body that was formed out of the dust, it is only the body that is to return to dust. In Eccles. xii. 7, it is said, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Is. x. 18, Shall consume . . . . both soul and body." Daniel says (vii. 15), "I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body." Our Lord (Matt. vi. 25) commands his disciples to take no thought for the body; and, again (Matt. x. 28), "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Such is the constant representation of the Scriptures. The body and soul are set forth as distinct substances, and the two together as constituting the whole man. (2.) There is a second class of passages equally decisive as to this point. It consists of those in which the body is represented as a garment which is to be laid aside; a tabernacle or house in which the soul dwells, which it may leave and return to. Paul, on a certain occasion, did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. Peter says he thought it meet as long as he was in this tabernacle to put his brethren in remembrance of the truth, "knowing," as he adds, "that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle." Paul, in 2 Cor. v. 1, says, "If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God." In the same connection, he speaks of being unclothed and clothed upon with our house which is from heaven; and of being absent from the body and present with the Lord, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. To the Philippians (i. 23, 24) he says, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." (3.) It is the common belief of mankind, the clearly revealed doctrine of the Bible, and part of the faith of the Church universal, that the soul can and does exist and act after death. If this be so, then the body and soul are two distinct substances. The former may be disorganized, reduced to (lust, dispersed, or even annihilated, and the latter retain its conscious life and activity. This doctrine was taught in the Old Testament, where the dead are represented as dwelling in Sheol, whence they occasionally reappeared, as Samuel did to Saul. Our Lord says that as God is not the God of the dead but of the living, his declaring himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now alive. Moses and Elijah conversed with Christ on the Mount. To the (lying thief our Lord said, "To-day shalt thou" (that in which his personality resided) "be with me in Paradise." Paul, as we have just seen, desired to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. He knew that his conscious personal existence was to be continued after the dissolution of his body. It is unnecessary to dwell on this point, as the continued existence of the soul in full consciousness and activity out of the body and in the interval between death and the resurrection, is not denied by any Christian Church. But if this be so it clearly proves that the soul and body are two distinct substances, so that the former can exist independently of the latter.

Relation of the Soul and Body.

Man, then, according to the Scriptures, is a created spirit in vital union with a material organized body. The relation between these two constituents of our nature is admitted to be mysterious. That is, it is incomprehensible. We do not know how the body acts on the mind, or how the mind acts on the body. These however, are plain, (1.) That the relation between the two is a vital union, in such a sense as that the soul is the source of life to the body. When the soul leaves the body the latter ceases to live. It loses its sensibility and activity, and becomes at once subject to the chemical laws which govern unorganized matter, and by their operation is soon reduced to dust, undistinguishable from the earth whence it was originally taken. (2.) It is a fact of consciousness that certain states of the body produce certain corresponding states of the mind. The mind takes cognizance of, or is conscious of, the impressions made by external objects on the organs of sense belonging to the body. The mind sees, the mind hears, and the mind feels, not directly or immediately (at least in our present and normal state), but through or by means of the appropriate organs of the body. It is also a matter of daily experience that a healthful condition of the body is necessary to a healthful state of the mind; that certain diseases or disorders of the one produce derangement in the operations of the other. Emotions of the mind affect the body; shame suffuses the cheek; joy causes the heart to beat and the eyes to shine. A blow on the head renders the mind unconscious, i.e., it renders the brain unfit to be the organ of its activity; and a diseased condition of the brain may cause irregular action in the mind, as in lunacy. All this is incomprehensible, but it is undeniable. (3.) It is also a fact of consciousness that, while certain operations of the body are independent of the conscious voluntary action of the mind, as the processes, of respiration, digestion, secretion, assimilation, etc., there are certain actions dependent on the will. We can will to move; and we can exert a greater or less degree of muscular force. It is better to admit these simple facts of consciousness and of experience, and to confess that, while they prove an intimate and vital union between the mind and body, they do not enable us to comprehend the nature of that union, than to have recourse to arbitrary and fanciful theories which deny these facts, because we cannot explain them. This is done by the advocates of the doctrine of occasional causes, which denies any action of the mind on the body or of the body on the mind, but refers all to the immediate agency of God. A certain state of the mind is the occasion on which God produces a certain act of the body; and a certain impression made on the body is the occasion on which God produces a certain impression on the mind. Leibnitz's doctrine of a preëstablished harmony is equally unsatisfactory. He denied that one substance could act on another of a different kind; that matter could act on mind or mind or matter. He proposed to account for the admitted correspondence between the varying states of the one and those of the other on the assumption of a prearrangement. God had foreordained that the mind should have the perception of a tree whenever the tree was presented to the eye, and that the arm should move whenever the mind had a volition to move. But he denied any causal relation between these two series of events.

Realistic Dualism.

The Scriptural doctrine of the nature of man as a created spirit in vital union with an organized body, consisting, therefore, of two, and only two, distinct elements or substances, matter and mind, is one of great importance. It is intimately connected with some of the most important doctrines of the Bible; with the constitution of the person of Christ, and consequently with the nature of his redeeming work and of his relation to the children of men; with the doctrine of the fall, original sin, and of regeneration; and with the doctrines of a future state and of the resurrection. It is because of this connection, and not because of its interest as a question in psychology, that the true idea of man demands the careful investigation of the theologian.

The doctrine above stated, as the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the Church, is properly designated as realistic dualism. That is, it asserts the existence of two distinct res, entities, or substances; the one extended, tangible, and divisible, the object of the senses; the other unextended and indivisible, the thinking, feeling, and willing subject in man. This doctrine stands opposed to materialism and idealism, which although antagonistic systems in other respects, agree in denying any dualism of substance. The one makes the mind a function of the body; the other makes the body a form of the mind. But, according to the Scriptures and all sound philosophy, neither is the body, as Delitzsch [72] says, a precipitate of the mind, nor is the mind a sublimate of matter.

The Scriptural doctrine of man is of course opposed to the old heathen doctrine which represents him as the firm in which nature, der Naturgeist, the anima mundi, cones to self-consciousness; and also to the wider pantheist, doctrine according to which men are the highest manifestations of the one universal principle of being and life; and to the doctrine which represents man as the union of the impersonal, universal reason or logos, with a living corporeal organization. According to this last mentioned view, man consists of the body (soma), soul (psuche), and logos, or the impersonal reason. This is very nearly the Apollinarian doctrine as to the constitution of Christ's person, applied to all mankind. __________________________________________________________________

[71] Elements of Psychology, Henry's translation, N. Y. 1856 p. 370.

[72] Biblische Psychologie, p. 64. __________________________________________________________________

§ 2. Trichotomy.

It is of more consequence to remark that the Scriptural doctrine is opposed to Trichotomy, or the doctrine that man consists of three distinct substances, body, soul, and spirit: soma, psuche, and pneuma; corpus, anima, and animus. This view of the nature of man is of the more importance to the theologian because it has not only been held to a greater or less extent in the Church, but also because it has greatly influenced the form in which other doctrines have been presented; and because it has some semblance of support from the Scriptures themselves. The doctrine has been held in different forms. The simplest, the most intelligible, and the one most commonly adopted is, that the body is the material part of our constitution; the soul, or psuche, is the principle of animal life; and the mind, or pneuma, the principle of our rational and immortal life. When a plant dies its material organization is dissolved and the principle of vegetable life which it contained disappears. When a brute dies its body returns to dust, and the or principle of animal life by which it was animated, passes away. When a man dies his body returns to the earth, his psuche ceases to exist, his pneuma alone remains until reunited with the body at the resurrection. To the pneuma, which is peculiar to man, belong reason, will, and conscience. To the psuche which we have in common with the brutes, belong understanding, feeling, and sensibility, or, the power of sense-perceptions. To the soma belongs what is purely material. [73] According to another view of the subject, the soul is neither the body nor the mind; nor is it a distinct subsistence, but it is the resultant of the union of the pneuma and soma. [74] Or according to Delitzsch, [75] there is a dualism of being in man, but a trichotomy of substance. He distinguishes between being and substance, and maintains, (1.) that spirit and soul (pneuma and psuche) are not verschiedene Wesen, but that they are verschiedene Substanzen. He says that the nphs chyh, mentioned in the history of the creation, is not the compositum resulting from the union of the spirit and body, so that the two constituted man; but it is a tertium quid, a third substance which belongs to the constitution of his nature. (2.) But secondly, this third principle does not pertain to the body; it is net the higher attributes or functions of the body, but it pertains to the spirit and is produced by it. It sustains the same relation to it that breath does to the body, or effulgence does to light. He says that the psuche, (soul) is the apaugasma of the pneuma and the bond of its union with the body.

Trichotomy anti-Scriptural.

In opposition to all the forms of trichotomy, or the doctrine of a threefold substance in the constitution of man, it may be remarked, (1.) That it is opposed to the account of the creation of man as given in Gen. ii. 7. According to that account God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life, and he became nphs chyh i.e., a being ('srbv nphs chyh) in whom is a living soul. There is in this account no intimation of anything more than the material body formed of the earth and the living principle derived from God. (2.) This doctrine (trichotomy) is opposed to the uniform usage of Scripture. So far from the nphs, psuche, , anima, or soul, being distinguished from the rvch, pneuma, animus, or mind as either originally different or as derived from it, these words all designate one and the same thing. They are constantly interchanged. The one is substituted for the other, and all that is, or can be predicated of the one, is predicated of the other. The Hebrew nphs, and the Greek psuche, mean breath, life, the living principle; that in which life and the whole life of the subject spoken of resides. The same is true of rvch and pneuma, they also mean breath, life, and living principle. The Scriptures therefore speak of the nphs or psuche not only as that which lives or is the principle of life to the body, but, as that which thinks and feels, which may be saved or lost, which survives the body and is Immortal. The soul is the man himself, that in which his identity and personality reside. It is the Ego. Higher than the soul there is nothing in man. Therefore it is so often used as a synonym for self. Every soul is every man; my soul is I; his soul is he. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul. It is the soul that sins (Lev. iv. 2): it is the soul that loves God. We are commanded to love God, en hole te psuche. Hope is said to be the anchor of the soul, and the word of God is able to save the soul. The end of our faith is said to be (1 Peter i. 9), the salvation of our souls; and John (Rev. vi. 9; xx. 4), saw in heaven the souls of them that were slain for the word of God. From all this it is evident that the word psuche, or soul, does not designate the mere animal part of our nature, and is not a substance different from the pneuma, or spirit. (3.) A third remark on this subject is that all the words above mentioned, rvch ,nphs , and nsmh in Hebrew, psuche and pneuma in Greek, and soul and spirit in English, are used in the Scriptures indiscriminately of men and of irrational animals. If the Bible ascribed only a psuche to brutes, and both psuche and pneuma to man, there would be some ground for assuming that the two are essentially distinct. But such is not the case. The living principle in the brute is called both nphs and rvch, psuche and pneuma. That principle in the brute creation is irrational and mortal; in man it is rational and immortal. "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" Eccles. iii. 21. The soul of the brute is the immaterial principle which constitutes its life, and which is endowed with sensibility, and that measure of intelligence which experience shows the lower animals to possess. The soul in man is a created spirit of a higher order, which has not only the attributes of sensibility, memory, and instinct, but also the higher powers which pertain to our intellectual, moral, and religious life. As in the brutes it is not one substance that feels and another that remembers; so it is not one substance in man that is the subject of sensations, and another substance which has intuitions of necessary truths, and which is endowed with conscience and with the knowledge of God. Philosophers speak of world-consciousness, or the immediate cognizance which we have of what is without us; of self-consciousness, or the knowledge of what is within us; and of God-consciousness, or our knowledge and sense of God. These all belong to one and the same immaterial, rational substance. (4.) It is fair to appeal to the testimony of consciousness on this subject. We are conscious of our bodies and we are conscious of our souls, i.e., of the exercises and states of each; but no man is conscious of the psuche as distinct from the pneuma, of the soul as different from the spirit. In other words consciousness reveals the existence of two substances in the constitution of our nature; but it does not reveal the existence of three substances, and therefore the existence of more than two cannot rationally be assumed.

Doubtful Passages Explained.

(5.) The passages of Scriptures which are cited as favouring the opposite doctrine may all be explained in consistency with the cur-rent representations of Scripture on the subject. When Paul says to the Thessalonians, "I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians v. 23). he only uses a periphrasis for the whole man. As when in Luke i. 46, 47, the virgin says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour," soul and spirit in this passage do not mean different things. And when we are commanded "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind" (Luke x. 27), we have not an enumeration of so many distinct substances. Nor do we distinguish between the mind and heart as separate entities when we pray that both may be enlightened and sanctified; we mean simply the soul in all its aspects or faculties. Again, when in Heb. iv. 12, the Apostle says that the word of God pierces so as to penetrate soul and spirit, and the joints and marrow, he does not assume that soul and spirit are different substances. The joints and marrow are not different substances. They are both material; they are different forms of the same substance; and so soul and spirit are one and the same substance under different aspects or relations. We can say that the word of God reaches not only to the feelings, but also to the conscience, without assuming that the heart and conscience are distinct entities. Much less is any such distinction implied in Phil. i. 27, "Stand fast in one spirit (en heni pneumati), with one mind (mia psuche)." There is more difficulty in explaining 1 Cor. xv. 44. The Apostle there distinguishes between the soma psuchikon and the soma pneumatikon; the former is that in which the psuche is the animating principle; and the latter that in which the pneuma is the principle of life. The one we have here, the other we are to have hereafter. This seems to imply that the psuche exists in this life, but is not to exist hereafter, and therefore that the two are separable and distinct. In this explanation we might acquiesce if it did not contradict the general representations of the Scriptures. We are constrained, therefore, to seek another explanation which will harmonize with other portions of the word of God. The general meaning of the Apostle is plain. We have now gross, perishable, and dishonorable, or unsightly bodies. Hereafter we are to have glorious bodies, adapted to a higher state of existence. The only question is, why does he call the one psychical, and the other pneumatic? Because the word psuche, although often used for the soul as rational and immortal, is also used for the lower form of life which belongs to irrational animals. Our future bodies are not to be adapted to those principles of our nature which we have in common with the brutes, out to those which are peculiar to us as men, created in the image of God. The same individual human soul has certain susceptibilities and powers which adapt it to the present state of existence, and to the earthly house in which it now dwells. It has animal appetites and necessities. It can hunger and thirst. It needs sleep and rest. But the same soul has higher powers. The earthly body is suited to its earthly state; the heavenly body to its heavenly state. There are not two substances psuche and pneuma, there is but one and the same substance with different susceptibilities and powers. In this same connection Paul says, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. Yet our bodies are to inherit that kingdom, and our bodies are flesh and blood. The same material substance now constituted as flesh and blood is to be so changed as to be like Christ's glorious body. As this representation does not prove a substantial difference between the body which now is and that which is to be hereafter, so neither does what the Apostle says of the soma psuchikon and the soma pneumatikon prove that the psuche and pneuma are distinct substances.

This doctrine of a threefold constitution of man being adopted by Plato, was introduced partially into the early Church, but soon came to be regarded as dangerous, if not heretical. It being held by the Gnostics that the pneuma in man was a part of the divine essence, and incapable of sin; and by the Apollinarians that Christ had only a human soma and psuche, but not a human pneuma, the Church rejected the doctrine that the psuche and pneuma were distinct substances, since upon it those heresies were founded. In later times the Semi-Pelagians taught that the soul and body, but not the spirit in man were the subjects of original sin. All Protestants, Lutheran and Reformed, were, therefore, the more zealous in maintaining that the soul and spirit, psuche and pneuma, are one and the same substance and essence. And this, as before remarked, has been the common doctrine of the Church.
[76] __________________________________________________________________

[73] August Hahn, Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, p. 324.

[74] Göschel in Herzog's Encyklopädie, Article "Seele."

[75] Biblische Psychologie, § 4, p. 128.

[76] See G. L. Hahn, Theologie des N. T. Olshausen, De Trichotomia Naturæ Humanæ, e Novi Testamenti Scriptoribus recepta. Ackermann, Studien und Kritiken, 1839, p. 889. R. T. Beck. Umriss d. biblischen Seelenlehre, 1843. __________________________________________________________________

§ 3. Realism.
Its General Character.

There is still another view of the nature of man which, from Its extensive and long-continued influence, demands consideration. According to this view, man is defined to be, The manifestation of the general principle of humanity in union with a given corporeal organization. This view has been held in various forms which cannot here be severally discussed. It is only the theory in its more general features, or in the form in which it has been commonly presented. that our limits permit us to examine. It necessarily assumes that humanity, human nature as a general principle of a form of life, exists antecedently (either chronologically or logically) to individual men. "In the order of nature," says Dr. Shedd, "mankind exists before the generations of mankind; the nature is prior to the individuals produced out of it." [77] It exists, also, independently and outside of them. As magnetism is a force in nature existing antecedently, independently, and outside of any and all individual magnets; and as electricity exists independently of the Leyden jars in which it may be collected or through which it is manifested at present; as galvanism exists independently of any and all galvanic batteries; so humanity exists antecedently to individual men and independently of them. As an individual magnet is a given piece of soft iron in which the magnetic force is present and active, and as a Leyden jar is simply a coated jar in which electricity is present, so an individual man is a given corporeal organization in which humanity as a general life or force is present. To the question what is human nature, or humanity generically considered, there are different answers given. It is said to be a res, an essence, a substance, a real objective existence. It is some-thing which exists in time and space. This is the common mode of statement. The controversy between realists and nominalists, in its original and genuine form, turned upon this point. The question which for ages occupied to so great an extent the attention of all philosophers, was, What are universals? What are genera and species? What are general terms? Are they mere words? Are they thoughts or conceptions existing in the mind? Are the things expressed by general terms real objective existences? Do individuals only exist; so that species and genus are only classes of individuals of the same kind; or are individuals only the revelations or individualizations of a general substance which is the species or genus? According to the early and genuine realists, and according to the modern speculative philosophers, the species or genus is first, independent of and external to the individual. The individual is only "a subsequent modus existendi; the first and antecedent mode [in the case of man] being the generic humanity of which this subsequent serial mode is only another aspect or manifestation." [78]

Precisely, as just stated, as magnetism is antecedent to the magnet. The magnet is only an individual piece of iron in and through which generic magnetism is manifested. Thus the realist says, "Etsi rationalitas non esset in aliquo, tamen in natura remaneret." [79] Cousin quotes the complaint of Anselm against Roscelin and other nominalists, "de ne pas comprendre comment plusieurs hommes ne sont qu'un seul et même homme, -- nondum intelliget quomodo plures homines in specie sint unus homo." [80] The doctrine of his "Monologium" and "Proslogium" and "Dialogus de veritate," Cousin says, is "que non-seulement il y a des individus humains, mais qu'il y a en autre le genre humain, l'humanité, qui est une, comme il admettait qu'il y a un temps absolu que les durées particulières manifestent sans le constituer, une vérité une et subsistante par elle-même, un type absolu du bien, que tous les biens particuliers supposent et réfléchissent plus ou moins imparfaitement." [81] He quotes Abélard as stating the doctrine which he opposed, in the following words: "Homo quædam species est, res una essentialiter, cui adveniunt formæ quædam et efficiunt Socratem: illam eamdem essentialiter eodem modo informant formæ facientes Platonem et cætera individua hominis; nec aliquid est in Socrate, præter illas formas informantes illam materiam ad faciendum Socratem, quin illud idem eodem tempore in Platone informatum sit formis Platonis. Et hoc intelligunt de singulis speciebus ad individua et de generibus ad species." [82] According to one theory, "les individus seuls existent et constituent 1'essence des choses;" according to the other, "1'essence des individus est dans le genre auquel ils se rapportent; en tant qu' individus ils ne sont que des accidents." [83] All this is sufficiently plain. That which constitutes the species or genus is a real objective existence, a substance one and the same numerically as well as specifically. This one general substance exists in every individual belonging to the species, and constitutes their essence. That which is peculiar to the individual, and which distinguishes it from other individuals of the same species, is purely accidental. This one substance of humanity, which is revealed or manifested in all men, and which constitutes them men, "possesses all the attributes of the human individual; for the individual is only a portion and specimen of the nature. Considered as an essence, human nature is an intelligent, rational, and voluntary essence; and accordingly its agency in Adam partakes of the corresponding qualities." [84] "Agency," however, supposes "an agent; and since original sin is not the product of the individual agent, because it appears at birth, it must be referred to the generic agent, -- i.e., to the human nature in distinction from the human person or individual."
[85]

Generic Humanity.

What God created, therefore, was not an individual man, but the species homo, or generic humanity, --an intelligent, rational, and voluntary essence; individual men are the manifestations of this substance numerically and specifically one and the same, in connection with their several corporeal organizations. Their souls are not individual essences, but one common essence revealed and acting in many separate organisms.

This answer to the question proposed above, What is human nature generically considered, which makes it an essence or substance common to all the individuals of the race, is the most common and the most intelligible. Scientific men adopt a somewhat different phraseology. Instead of substances, they speak of forces. Nature is defined to be the sum of the forces operating in the external world. Oxygen is a force; magnetism, electricity, etc., are forces. "A species is . . . . based on a specific amount or condition of concentred force, defined in the act or law of creation." [86] Humanity, or human nature, is the sum of the forces which constitute man what he is. The unity of the race consists in the fact that these forces are numerically as well as specifically the same in all the individuals of which it is composed.

The German theologians, particularly those of the school of Schleiermacher, use the terms life, law, and organic law. Human nature is a generic life, i.e., a form of life manifested in a multitude of individuals of the same kind. In the individual it is not distinct or different from what it is in the genus. It is the same organic law. A single oak may produce ten thousand other oaks; but the whore forest is as much an inward organic unity as any single tree.

These may be convenient formulas to prevent the necessity of circumlocutions, and to express a class of facts; but they do not convey any definite idea beyond the facts themselves. To say that a whole forest of oaks have the same generic life, that they are as truly one as any individual tree is one, means simply that the nature is the same in all, and that all have been derived from a common source. And to say that mankind are a unit because they have the same generic life, and are all descended from a common parent, either means nothing more than that all men are of the same species, i.e., that humanity is specifically the same in all mat kind or it means all that is intended by those who teach that genera and species are substances of which the individual is the mere modus existendi. As agency implies an agent, so force, which is the manifestation of power, supposes something, a subject or substance in which that power resides. Nothing, a nonentity, can have no power and manifest no force. Force, of necessity, supposes a substance of which it is the manifestation. If, therefore, the forces are numerically the same, the substance must be numerically the same. And, consequently, if humanity be a given amount and kind of concentred force, numerically and not merely specifically the same in all men, then are men homoousioi, partakers of one and the same identical essence. The same remarks apply to the term life. Life is a predicable, not an essence. It supposes a subject of which it is predicable. There can be no life unless something lives. It is not a thing by itself. if, therefore, the generic life of man means anything more than the same kind of life, it must mean that that which lives in all men is identically the same numerical substance.

Objections to Realism.

According to the common doctrine, the soul of every man is an individual subsistence, of the same kind but not of the same numerical substance as the souls of his fellow-men, so that men are homoi-, but not homoousioi. In support of this view and in opposition to the doctrine that "all men are one man," or, that human nature is numerically one and the same essence of which individual men are the modes of manifestation, it may be remarked, --

1. That the latter doctrine is a mere philosophical hypothesis. It is a simple assumption founded on what is possible. It is possible that the doctrine in question may be true. So in itself it is possible that there should be an anima mundi, a principle of life immanent in the world, of which all living organisms are the different manifestations; so that all vegetables, all animals, and man himself, are but different forms of one and the same numerical living substance, just as the multitudinous waves of the sea in all their infinite diversity of size, shape, and hue, are but the heavings of one and the same vast ocean. In like manner it is possible that all the forms of life should be only the various manifestations of the life of God. This is not only possible, but it is such a simple and grand idea that it has fascinated the minds of men in all ages, so that the prevailing hypothesis of philosophers as to the constitution of the universe has been. and still is, pantheistic. Nevertheless, pantheism is demonstrably false, because it contradicts the intuitive convictions of our moral and religious nature. It is not enough, therefore, that a theory be possible or conceivable. It must have the support of positive proof.

2. Such proof the doctrine under consideration does not find in the Bible. It is simply a hypothesis on which certain facts of the Scriptures may be explained. All men are alike; they have the same faculties, the same instincts and passions; and they are all born in sin. These and other similar facts admit of an easy explanation on the assumption that humanity is numerically one and the same substance of which individuals are only so many different manifestations; just as a thousand different magnets reveal the magnetic force which is the same in all, and therefore all magnets are alike. But as the facts referred to may be explained on divers other assumptions, they afford no proof of this particular theory. It is not pretended that the Bible directly teaches the doctrine in question. Nor does it teach anything which necessitates its adoption. On the contrary, it teaches much that is irreconcilable with it.

Not Supported by Consciousness.

3. The hypothesis under consideration derives no support from consciousness. We are conscious of our own existence. We are (in one sense) conscious of the existence of other men. But we are not conscious of a community of essence in ourselves and all other men. So far from this being the common interpretation which men put on their consciousness, it is diametrically opposed to it. Every man believes his soul to be a distinct, individual substance, as much as he believes his body to be distinct and separate from every other human body. Such is the common judgment of men. And nothing short of the direct assertion of the Bible, or arguments which amount to demonstration, can rationally be admitted to invalidate that judgment. It is inconceivable that anything concerning the constitution of our nature so momentous in its consequences, should be true, which does not in some way reveal itself in the common consciousness of men. There is nothing more characteristic of the Scriptures, and there are few things which more clearly prove its divine origin, than that it takes for granted and authenticates all the facts of consciousness. It declares us to be what we are revealed to ourselves as being in the very constitution and present condition of our nature. It recognizes the soul as rational, free, and responsible. It assumes that it is distinct from the body. All this we know from consciousness. But we do not know that the essence or substance of our soul is numerically the same as the substance of the souls of all men. If the Bible teaches any such doctrine it teaches something outside of the teachings of consciousness, and something to which those teachings, in the judgment of the vast majority of men, even the most enlightened, are directly opposed.

Realism Contrary to the Teachings of Scripture.

4. The Scriptures not only do not teach the doctrine in question, but they also teach what is inconsistent with it. We have already seen that it is a clearly revealed doctrine of the Bible, and part of the faith of the Church universal, that the soul continues to exist after death as a self-conscious, individual person. This fact is inconsistent with the theory in question. A given plant is a material organization, animated by the general principle of vegetable life. If the plant is destroyed the principle of vegetable life no longer exists as to that plant. It may exist in other plants; but that particular plant ceased to exist when the material organization was dissolved. Magnetism continues to exist as a force in nature, but any particular magnet ceases to be when it is melted, or volatilized. In like manner, if a man is the manifestation of a generic life, or of humanity as an essence common to all men, then when his body dies the man ceases to exist. Humanity continues to be, but the individual man no longer exists. This is a difficulty which some of the advocates of this theory endeavour to avoid by giving up what is essential to their own doctrine. Its genuine and consistent advocates admit it in its full force. The anti-Christian portion of them acknowledge that their doctrine is inconsistent with the personal immortality of man. The race, they say, is immortal, but individual men are not. The same conclusion is admitted by those who hold the analogous pantheistic, or naturalistic doctrines. If a man is only the modus existendi, a form in which a common substance or life reveals itself, it matters not whether that substance be humanity, nature, or God, when the form, the material organism, is destroyed, the man as a man ceases to exist. Those advocates of the doctrine who cling to Christianity, while they admit the difficulty, endeavour to get over it in different ways. Schleiermacher admits that all philosophy is against the doctrine of the personal existence of man in a future state. His whole system leads to the denial of it. But he says that the Christian must admit it on the authority of Christ. Olshausen, in his commentary on the New Testament, says, when explaining 1 Cor. xv. 19, 20, and verses 42-44, that the Bible knows nothing of the immortality of the soul. He pronounces it to be a heathen. idea. A soul without a body loses its individuality. It ceases to be a person, and of course loses self-consciousness and all that is connected with it. As, however, the Scriptures teach that men are to exist hereafter, he says their bodies must also continue to exist, and the only existence of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection, which he admits, is in connection (i.e., vital union) with the disintegrated particles of the body in the grave or scattered to the ends of the earth. This is a conclusion to which his doctrine legitimately leads, and which he is sufficiently candid to admit. Dr. Nevin, a disciple of Schleiermacher, has to grapple with the same difficulty. His book entitled "The Mystical Presence," is the clearest and ablest exposition of the theology of Schleiermacher which has appeared in our language, unless Morell's "Philosophy of Religion" be its equal. He denies [87] all dualism between the soul and body. They are "one life." The one cannot exist without the other. He admits that what the Bible teaches of the separate existence of the soul between death and the resurrection, is a difficulty "which it is not easy, at present, to solve." He does not attempt to solve it. He only says that the difficulty is "not to reconcile Scripture with a psychological theory, but to bring it into harmony with itself." This is no solution. It is a virtual admission that he cannot reconcile the Bible with his psychological theory. The doctrine that man is a modus existendi of a generic humanity, or the manifestation of the general principle of humanity, in connection with a given corporeal organization, is inconsistent with the Scriptural doctrine of the separate existence of the soul, and therefore must be false.

Inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Trinity.

5. This theory is inconsistent with the Scriptural doctrine of the Trinity. It necessitates the conclusion that the Father, Son, and Spirit are no more one God than Peter, James, and John are one man. The persons of the Trinity are one God, because the Godhead is one essence; but if humanity be one essence numerically the same in all men, then all men are one man in the same sense that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God. This is a reductio ad absurdum. It is clearly taught in Scripture and universally believed in the Church that the persons of the Trinity are one God in an infinitely higher sense than that in which all men are one man. The precise difference is, that the essence common to the persons of the Godhead is numerically the same whereas the essence common to all men is only specifically the same, i.e., of the same kind, although numerically different. The theory which leads to the opposite conclusion must therefore be false. It cannot be true that all mankind are one essence, substance, or organic life, existing or manifesting itself in a multitude of individual persons. This is a difficulty so obvious and so fatal that it could not fail to arrest the attention of realists in all ages and of every class. The great point of dispute in the Council of Nice between the Arians and orthodox was, whether the persons of the Trinity are homoi- or homoousioi, of a like or of the same essence. If homoousioi, it was on both sides admitted that they are one God; because if the same in substance they are equal in power and glory. Now it is expressly asserted that all men are not homoi- but homoousioi, and therefore, by parity of reasoning, they must constitute one man in the same sense as there is one God, and all be equal in every attribute of their nature. [88] Of course it is admitted that there is a legitimate sense of the word in which all men may be said to be homoousioi, when by homos (same) is meant similar, or of a like kind. In this sense the Greeks said that the bodies of men and of other animals were consubstantial, as all were made of flesh; and that angels, demons, and human souls, as spiritual beings, are also homoousioi. But this is not the sense in which the word is used by realists, when speaking either of the persons of the Trinity or of men. In both cases the word same means numerical oneness; men are of the same numerical essence in the same sense in which the Father and the Son and the Spirit are the same in substance. The difference, it is said, between the two cases does not relate to identity of essence, which is the same in both, but is found in this, that "the whole nature or essence is in the divine person; but the human person is only a part of the common human nature. Generation in the Godhead admits no abscission or division of substance; but generation in the instance of the creature implies separation or division of essence. A human person is an individualized portion of humanity." [89] It must, however, be remembered that humanity is declared to be a spiritual substance. It is the same in nature with the soul, which is called an individualized portion of human nature, possessing consciousness, reason, and will. But, if spiritual, it is indivisible. Divisibility is one of the primary properties of matter. Whatever is divisible is material. If therefore humanity, as a generic substance, admits of "abscission and division," it must be material. A part of reason, a piece of consciousness, or a fragment of will, are contradictory, or unintelligible forms of expression. If humanity is of the same essence as the soul, it no more admits of division than the soul. One part of a soul cannot be holy and another unholy; one part saved and the other lost. The objection to the theory under consideration, that it makes the relation between individual men identical with that between the persons of the Trinity, remains, therefore, in full force. It is not met by the answer just referred to, which answer supposes mind to be extended and divisible.

Realism Inconsistent with what the Bible teaches of the Person and Work of Christ.

6. It is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the doctrine in question with what the Scriptures teach of the person and work of Christ. According to the Bible, the Son of God became man by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. According to the realistic doctrine, he did not assume a reasonable soul, but generic humanity. What is this but the whole of humanity, of which, according to the advocates of this doctrine, individual men are the portions. Human nature as a generic life, humanity as a substance, and a whole substance, was taken into personal union with the Son of God. The Logos became incarnate in the race. This is certainly not the Scriptural doctrine. The Son of God became a man; not all men. He assumed an individual rational soul, not the general principle of humanity. Besides this, it is the doctrine of those who adopt this theory that humanity sinned and fell in Adam. The rational, moral, voluntary substance called human nature, is, or at least was, an agent. The sin of Adam was the sin not of an individual, but of this generic substance, which by that sin became the subject both of guilt and of depravity. By reason of this sin of human nature, the theory is, that all individual men, in their successive generations, in whom this nature is revealed, or in whom, as they express it, it is individualized, mine into the world in a state of guilt and pollution. We do not now refer to the numerous and serious difficulties connected with this theory as a method of accounting for original sin. We speak of it only in its relation to Christ's person. If human nature, as a generic life, a substance of which all men partake, became both guilty and polluted by the apostasy; and that generic humanity, as distinguished from a newly created and holy rational soul, was assumed by the Son of God, how can we avoid the conclusion that Christ was, in his human nature, personally guilty and sinful? This is a legitimate consequence of this theory. And this consequence being not only false but blasphemous, the theory itself must be false As the principle that humanity is one substance, and all men are homoousioi in the sense of partaking of the same numerical essence, involves consequences destructive of the Scriptural doctrines of the Trinity and of the person of Christ, so it might easily be shown that it overthrows the common faith of the Protestant churches on the doctrines of justification, regeneration, the sacraments, and the Church. It is enough for our present purpose to remark that, as a historical fact, the consistent and thorough-going advocates of this doctrine do teach an entirely different method of salvation. Many men adopt a principle, and do not carry it out to its legitimate consequences. But others, more logical, or more reckless, do not hesitate to embrace all its results. In the works of Morell and of Dr. Nevin, above referred to, the theological student may find a fearless pressing of the genuine principle of realism, to the utter overthrow of the Protestant, and, it may be added, of the Christian faith.

7. Other objections to this theory may be more appropriately considered when we come to speak of the several doctrines to which it is applied. It is sufficient in the conclusion of the present discussion to say that what is said to be true of the genus homo, is assumed to be true of all genera and species in the animal and vegetable worlds. The individual in all cases is assumed to be only the manifestation or modus existendi of the generic substance. Thus there is a bovine, an equine, and a feline substance, having an objective existence of which all oxen, all horses, and all animals of the cat-race, are the manifestations. And so of all species, whether of plants or animals. This is almost inconceivable. Compared to this theory, the assumption of a naturgeist, or anima mundi, or of one universal substance, is simplicity itself. That such a theory should be set forth and made the foundation, or rather the controlling principle of all Christian doctrine, is most unreasonable and dangerous. This realistic doctrine, until recently, has been as much exploded as the eternal ideas of Plato or the forms of Aristotle. __________________________________________________________________

[77] History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 77.

[78] Shedd's Essays Boston, 1867, p. 259, note, and his History of Christian Doctrine. vol. ii. p. 77.

[79] Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, Paris 1840, p. 167.

[80] Cousin's Fragments Philosophiques, Paris, 1840, p. 146.

[81] Ibidem.
[82] Ibid. p. 167.
[83] Ibid. p. 171.

[84] Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 78.

[85] Ibid. p. 80.

[86] Professor James D. Dana, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1857, p. 861.

[87] Page 171.
[88] 1

[89] 2 __________________________________________________________________

§ 4. Another form of the Realistic Theory.

There is, however, another phase of this doctrine, which it is necessary to mention. The doctrine that genera and species are real substances existing prior to individuals, and independent of them, is the old, genuine, and most intelligible form of Realism. It was expressed in the schools by saying that Universalia are ante rem. The other form of the doctrine asserts that the Universalia are in re. That is that the universals exist only in the individuals; and that the individuals alone are real. "L'identité des individus," says Cousin
[90] in his exposition of this form of the doctrine, "d'un même genre ne vient pas de leur essence même, car cette essence est différente en chacun d'eux, mais de certains éléments qui se retrouvent dans tous ces individus sans aucune différence, indifferenter. Cette nouvelle théorie diffère de la première en ce que les universaux ne sont plus 1'essence de 1'être, la substance m--me des choses; mais elle s'en rapproche en ce que les universaux existent réellement, et qu'existant dans plusieurs individus sans différence, ils forment leur identité et par là leur genre." Again, [91] he says, "Le principe de la nouvelle théorie est que 1'essence de chaque chose est leur individualité, que les individus seuls existent, et qu'il n'y a point en dehors des individus d'essence appelèes les universaux, les espèces et les genres; mais que l'individu lui-même contient tout cela, selon les divers points de vue sous lequels on le considére." [92] Thus Socrates as an individual man has his own essence, which, with its peculiarities, makes him Socrates. Neglect those peculiarities and consider him as rational and mortal, then you have the idea of species; neglect rationality and mortality, and consider him as an animal, then you have the idea of the genus; neglect all these forms ("relictis omnibus formis"), and you have only the idea of substance. According to this view "les espèces et les genres, les plus élevés comme les plus inférieurs, sont les individus eux-mêmes, considérés sous divers point de vue." [93] This, according to the plain sense of the terms, amounts to the common doctrine. Individuals alone exist. Certain individuals have some distinguishing properties or attributes in common. They constitute a particular species. These and other individuals of different species have other properties common to them all, and they constitute a genus, and so orders, and classes, until we get to the highest category of being, which includes all. But if all beings are assumed to be one substance, which substance with certain added qualities or accidents constitutes a class, with certain other additions, an order, with still further modifications, a genus, a species, an individual, then we have the old theory back again, only extended so as to have a pantheistic aspect.

Some scientific men, instead of defining species as a gi cm' of individuals having certain characteristics in common, say with Professor Dana, that it "corresponds to the specific amount or condition of concentred force, defined in the act or law of creation;" or with Dr. Morton, that it is "a primordial organic form;" or with Agassiz, that it is an original immaterial principle which determines the form or characteristics of the individuals constituting a distinct group. These are only different modes of accounting for the fact that all the individuals of a given species have certain characteristics or fundamental qualities in common. To such statements there is no objection. But when it is assumed that these original primordial terms, as in the case of humanity, for example, are by the law of propagation transmitted from generation to generation, so as to constitute all the individuals of the species essentially one, that is, one in essence or substance, so that the act of the first individual of the species (of Adam, for example) being the act of the substance numerically the same in all the members of that species, is the act of each individual member, then something essentially new is added to the above given scientific definition of species, and we return to the original and genuine form of Realism in its most offensive features. It would be easy to show, (1st.) that generation or the law of propagation both in plants and in animals is absolutely inscrutable; as much so as the nature of matter, mind, or life, in themselves considered. We can no more tell what generation is, than what matter is, or what mind is. (2d.) That it is therefore unreasonable and dangerous to make a given theory as to the nature of generation or the law of propagation the basis for the explanation of Christian doctrines. (3d.) That whatever may be the secret and inscrutable process of propagation, it does not involve the transmission of the same numerical essence, so that a progenitor and his descendants are one and the same substance. This assumption is liable to all the objections already urged against the original form of the realistic doctrine. The theory is moreover destitute of all evidence either from experience or analogy. There is no conceivable sense in which all the oaks now on the earth are identical as to their substance with the oaks originally created. And there is no conceivable sense in whirl. we and all mankind are identically the same substance with Adam. If a thousand candles are successively lighted from one candle they do not thereby become one candle. There is not a communication of the substance of the first to the second, and of the second to the others in their order, so as to make it in any sense true that the substance of the first is numerically the same with that of all the others. The simple fact is that by the laws of matter ordained by God, the state in which a lighted candle is, produces certain changes or movements in the constituent elements of the wick of another candle when the two are brought into contact. which movements induce other movements in the constituent particles of the surrounding atmosphere, which are connected with the evolution of light and heat. But there is no communication of substance involved in the process. An acorn which falls from an oak to-day, is composed not of the same particles of matter from which the original acorn was formed, but of matter of the same kind, and arranged in the same way. It may be said to be imbued with chemical and vital forces of the same kind with the original acorn, but not with numerically the same forces. So of all plants and animals. We are of the same nature with Adam in the same sense that all animals of one species are the same. The sameness does not consist in numerical identity of essence or of vital forces, or of reason or will, but in the sameness of kind and community of origin.

Besides the origin and the nature of man, there are two other questions, which are more or less involved in what the Scriptures teach concerning mankind, and which demand attention before we turn to the moral and religious condition of the race. The first of these concerns the Origin of the Soul, and the second the Unity of the Race. __________________________________________________________________

[90] Fragments Philosophiques, p. 162.
[91] Ibid., p. 168.

[92] See the exposition by Abélard himself quoted on page 170 of Cousin.

[93] Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, p. 183. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________