Living Souls. 321 
dust being animalized, and then organized, was next set in 
motion by the inrush of the air through his nostrils into his 
lungs according to natural laws. This phenomenon was the 
neshemet el, or “breath of God,” breathing into him; and as 
it was the pabulum of life to all creatures constituted of dust, 
it was very expressively styled the “breath of ves,” and not 
the “ breath of fe.” God breathes into every man at his birth 
the breath of lives to this day, and there can be no reason, 
Scriptural or otherwise, why we should deny that He 
breathed it into Adam as He hath done into the nostrils of 
his posterity by the operation of natural laws. Man, as soon 
as he began to respire, like the embryo passing from fcetal 
to infant life, “became a /zving soul,” that is, nephesh chayiah, 
a living, breathing frame, or dody of life. All kinds of flesh, 
whether of man, beast, fowl and creeping thing, are made 
alive by the same breath and spirit. They all become, in 
consequence, living souls, so that, having a oneness of spirit, 
a man hath no superiority over a beast. 
Having now proved, as we think, beyond the possibility 
of a doubt, that men and beasts “have all one ruach, or 
spirit,” and hence are all living souls, we now approach a 
form of life, termed vegetable life, about which the Script- 
ures have little to say. Meshemet el, or atmospheric air, is 
just as essential to plants as to animals. Deprived of it they 
wither and die. No less necessary is the all-pervading rach, 
or spirit. It is in the air, though not of the air. Plants, 
equally with animals, breathe it, but it is not their breath. 
Without it, even though filled with air, they would perish. 
Perhaps it is the base of each of the elementary constituents 
of the air. Uncombined, may it not be that wonderful fluid 
whose explosions are heard in the thunder, whose fiery bolts 
overthrow the loftiest towers and rive the sturdy monarchs 
of the woods, and whose influence, though in less intensity, 
gives polarity to light, the needle, and the brain? 
Living plants are a part and parcel of the life of our 
globe. They preceded in the grand scheme of creation 
