THE TRIPARTITE NATURE OF MAN. 



203 



freewill ; they must work in opposite directions ; but their com- 

 petition for influence over our desires and actions provides the basis 

 for the exercise of man's freewill — namely, the choice between that 

 which is real and that which is only shadow, between progression 

 and stagnation. The spiritual influence must conquer in the long 

 run, as every step in that direction is a step towards the real which 

 can never be lost. When the body dies, the mind or plane of 

 consciousness, upon which the soul or ' form shadow ' of the 

 spiritual is cast, disappears, and with it necessarily ceases the 

 existence of the soul as a manifestation, but it then finds its true 

 being in its spiritual originator. The self-conscious ' I am ' of 

 the soul thus loses the self, the source of all imperfections, and 

 becomes God-conscious when it at last realizes its one-ness with 

 the All-loving. 



" Let me make my meaning clearer when I call the soul the shadow 

 of the real spiritual self. 



" St. Paul says that the unrighteous, that is those who have no 

 knowledge and therefore no love of God, shall be without excuse, 

 because ' the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world, 

 are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, 

 even His everlasting power and divinity.' Namely, the spiritual 

 world may actually be discerned by us provided we look in the right 

 direction, that is, inwardly at our surroundings. The invisible 

 is the real, the visible or phenomenal is only our finite imperfect 

 aspect or shadow of the infinite perfect noumenal. 



The spiritual is the wonderful power which underlies all physical 

 activity, it is the cause of all causation, immanent in every 

 phenomenon, but also transcending that phenomenon as much as 

 the Infinite Spiritual outlook transcends the finite physical aspect 

 of our perception." 



Author's Reply. 



I quite agree with Prebendary Fox and other speakers that the 

 nature of man is a deep and inexhaustible subject, and that I have 

 only touched the fringe of it. Dr. Schofield has clearly pointed 

 out what a close connection there is between spirit and soul on 

 the one side, and body on the other. 



