All this is
perfectly true, whether the non-material element in man's nature is
_necessarily_, inherently and _by nature_, immortal or not--a question
which I do not desire to enter on.
Hence it is that a certain element of truth is recognized in the protest
of the Edinburgh Reviewer. On the other hand, as we have not only
intelligence, emotions (which are possessed in lower degree by animals),
self-consciousness, the power of abstract reasoning, and the higher
faculties of the imagination,[2] but also the consciousness of God and
the commanding sense of right and wrong; and seeing that the last-named
are different in kind from the former, we give them a separate name, and
speak of the moral or spiritual nature or capacity of man, as well as
the intellectual or mental. Some (by the way) choose "moral" to include
both, holding that ethical perceptions arise out of (or are intimately
connected with) our sense of God. Others would make a further
distinction, and confine "moral" to the (supposed) bare ethical
perception of duty or of right and wrong, and add "spiritual" to
distinguish the highest faculty of all, whereby man holds communion with
his Maker and recognizes his relation to Him.
[Footnote 1: This remark does not, of course, in any way touch the
question whether the spiritual part of a man is conscious in the
interval between death and resurrection, or whether it can be made
sensible in any way whatever to living persons.
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