Living Souls, 3 1 7 



living soul creeping." In another verse, " let the earth bring 

 forth nephesh chayiah the living soul after its kind, cattle, and 

 creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind," and 

 lekol rumesh ol taretz asher bu nephesh chayiah to everything 

 creeping upon the earth which has in it living breath," that 

 is, the breath of lives. And lastly, " whatsoever Adam called 

 nephesh chayiah the living soul that was the name thereof." 



Not even are quadrupeds and men living souls, but they 

 are vivified by the same breath and spirit. Neshemet chayim, 

 or the breath of lives, and not the breath of life as the text of 

 the common version has it, is said to be in the inferior creat- 

 ures as well as in man. Chayim in the Hebrew is in the 

 plural nnmber, and therefore the words neshemet chayim 

 should be rendered as above. Thus, God said, " I bring a 

 flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is 

 ruach chayim spirit of lives." And in another place, " they 

 went in to Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, in 

 which is ruach chayim spirit of lives." And all flesh died that 

 moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of 

 beast, and of every creeping thing, and every man ; all in 

 whose nostrils was neshemet ruach chayim, BREATH OF SPIRIT 

 OF LIVES. Now, as has been previously affirmed, it was the 

 neshemet chayim with which God, according to the testimony 

 of Moses, inflated the nostrils of Adam. If, therefore, this 

 were a particle of the divine essence, as it is declared, which 

 became the immortal soul in man, then all other animals 

 have likewise immortal souls, for they all received breath of 

 spirit of lives in common with him. Begotten of the same 

 Invisible Power, and formed from the substance of a common 

 earth mother, man and beasts were animated by the same 

 spirit, and constituted to be living breathing frames, though 

 of different species, and in God they lived, and moved, and 

 had their continued being. 



Returning to the philology of our subject, it is to be 

 remarked that by a metonymy, or a figure of speech where 

 the container is put for the thing contained, and conversely, 



