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 goveim unorganized matter, and by their operation is soon reduced to dust, undistinguisliable 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 belong- ing to the bod}'. The mind sees, the mind heurs, 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 tliat a lieakhful con- dition 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 tiie 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 uncon- scious, 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 cer- tain operations of the body are independent of the conscious volun- tary 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 advo- cates 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 tlie 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 preestablished 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 on matter. He proposed to
46 PART II. Cii. II. —NATURE OF MAN.
account for the admitted correspondence between the varying states of the one and those of the other on the assumption of a prearrange ment. God had foreordained that the mind should have the per- ception of a tree wlienever the tree was presented to the eye, and that the arm should move whenever the mind had a voHtion to move. But he denied any causal relation between these two series of events.
Realistic Dualism.
The Scriptui'al 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, ia 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 re- deeming 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 theolocian.
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 philoso- phy, neither is the body, as Delitzsch ^ 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 form in which nature, der Naturgeist, the anima mundi, comes to self-consciousness ; and also to the wider pantheistic 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 irnpersonal, universal reason or Xoyos, with a living corporeal organization. According to this last mentioned view, man con- sists of the body (o-cof-a), soul ("/"w)* and Voyos, or the impersonal
1 Biblische Psychologic, p. 64.