taken in the sense in which those who employ them know they will be understood, they fail of their design. The sacred writings being the words of God to man, we are bound to take them in tlie sense in which those to whom they were originally addressed must inevitably have taken them. What is the meaning of the word "spirit?" or rather, What is the usus loquendi of the Hebrew and Greek words to which our word "spirit" corresponds? In answer- ing tliis question, we learn what our Lord meant when he said God is a Spirit. Originally the words run and -n-vevjja meant the mov- ing air, especially the breath, as in the phrase Trreu/xa piov ; then any invisible power ; then the human soul. In saying, therefore, that God is a Spirit, our Lord authorizes us to believe that whatever is essential to the idea of a spirit, as learned from our own conscious- ness, is to be referred to God as determining his nature. On this subject consciousness teaches, and has taught all men, —
1. That th^souHs a substaTice ; that our thoughts and feelings have a common ground, of which they are the vai'ying states or acts. Substance is that which has an objective existence, and has permanence and power. Even Kant says : " Wo Handlung, mithin Thatigkelt und Kraft ist, da ist auch Substanz," where oper- ation, and consequently activity and power are, there is substance.^ This is not only the common conviction of men, but it is admitted by the vast majority of philosophers. As before remarked, that there should be action without something acting,' is as unthinkable as that there should be motion without something moving.
2. Consciousness teaches that the soul is an individual subsist- ence. This is included in the consciousness of the unity, identity, and permanence of the soul. It is not that we are conscious sim- ply of certain states of the soul, from which we infer its substance and subsistence ; but that such are the contents of the knowledge given to us in the consciousness of self. Des Cartes' famous aphor- ism, Cogito ergo sum, is not a syllogism. It does not mean that existence is inferred from the consciousness of thought ; but that the consciousness of thought involves the consciousness of exist- ence. Des Cartes himself so understood the matter, for he says : " Cum advertimus nos esse res cogitantes, prima quaedam notio est quje ex nuUo syllogismo concluditur ; neque etiam cum quis dicit ' Ego cogito, ergo sum, sive existo,' existentiam ex cogitatione per syllogismum deducit, sed ta.nquam rem per se notam simplici men- tis intuitu agnoscit." ^ Mansel says : " Whatever may be the va-
1 Werke, edit. Leipzifr, 1838, vol. ii. p. 173.
3 Meditationes de Prima Phiiosophla, Responsio ad Secundas ObjecUones, III., edit, Amster* lam, 1685. p. 74.
878 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. V, — Divine Attributbs.
riety of the phenomena of consciousness, sensations by this or that organ, vohtions, thoughts, imaginations, of all we are immediately conscious as affections of one and the same self. It is not by any after-effort of reflection that I combine together sight and hearing, thought and volition, into a factitious unity or compounded whole : in each case I am immediately conscious of myself seeing and hear- ing, willing and thinking. This self-personalit}'", like all other simple and immediate presentations, is indefinable ; but it is so because it is superior to definition." ^ This individual subsistence is thus involved in the consciousness of self, because in self-consciousness we distinguish ourselves from all that is not ourselves.
3. As power of some kind belongs to every substance, the power which belongs to spirit, to the substance self, is that of thought, feeling, and volition. All this is given in the simplest form of con- sciousness. We are not more certain that we exist, than that we think, feel, and will. We know ourselves only as thus thinking, feeling, and willing, and we therefore are sure that these powers or faculties are the essential attributes of a spirit, and must belong to every spirit.
4. Consciousness also informs us of the unity or simplicity of the soul. It is not compounded of ^IPerent elements. It is com- posed of substance and form. It is a simple substance endowed with certain attributes. It is incapable of separation or division.
5. In being conscious of our individual subsistence, we are con- scious of personality^ Every individual subsistence is not a person. But every individual subsistence which thinks and feels, and has the power of self-determination, is a person ; and, therefore, the consciousness of our subsistence, and of the powers of thought and volition, is the consciousness of personality.
6. We are also conscious of being moral_^gents, susceptible of moral character, and the subjects of moral obligation.
7. It need not be added that every spirit must j)ossess self-con- sciousness. This is involved in all that has been said. Without self-consciousness we should be a mere power in nature. This is the very ground of our being, and is necessarily involved in the idea of self as a real existence.
It is impossible, therefore, to overestimate the importance of the truth contained in the simple proposition, God is a Spirit. It is in- volved in that proposition tiiat God is immaterial. None of the prop- erties of matter can be predicated of Him. He is not extended or divisible, or compounded, or visible, or tangible. He has neither
1 Prolegomena LogicajBosion, 1860, p. 123. See also Dr. McCosh's IntuUiom of tke Mind^ p. 148.