io Preliminary Considerations 



these same functions for them. Indeed in a wider sense 

 we may speak of all those parts of the whole universe of 

 which a man is conscious as being his body ; and I am 

 doubtful whether we are even justified in introducing the 

 qualifying clause. Each man is probably affected in some 

 degree by the whole universe, whether he is conscious 

 of the fact or no, and it is probably wiser to make the 

 fuller statement at once and say that in the widest sense 

 the whole universe is the body of each man in it, even 

 though he has his own fragment of it as his individual 

 body, in the common acceptation of the term. 



Again, here at once we find ourselves involved in the 

 idea of reciprocity, which lies at the heart of the pro- 

 blems we have to consider. For, when we speak of the 

 Universe as the Body of God, we imply that it is, among 

 other things, a means of His self-manifestation. Mani- 

 festation to whom? Obviously to other beings; He has 

 no need to manifest Himself in limited form to Himself. 

 The very use of the term body involves us in the idea of 

 relationship with other beings. Further, we have seen 

 that, if we give the widest meaning to the concept of 

 body, this same universe is the body of these other beings 

 (who are yet, ex hypothesi, other, and so not parts of God), 

 much of it being common to all such beings, while each 

 has his individual body or body proper a thing pecu- 

 liar to himself, and yet a part of the universe, or larger 

 body, of all other beings which is his means of mani- 

 festing himself to other human beings and to God. If we 

 adopt this body-symbol, we have therefore to face such 

 problems as those of the existence of individual bodies ; 

 of a greater body common in the main to all, of which 

 the individual body is a part (in other words we have to 

 look on the sum-total of the material environment as 

 the body of each man, while admitting that a certain 

 part of that environment becomes specialised and sub- 

 ordinated to his use as the body of common parlance) ; 



