ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



9 



his body and soul, would be to antedate what has been a subsequent 

 result of self-introspection. But it must have occurred to him,, 

 almost in the birthday of human tliought, that his nature was 

 not single but composite. He realised, however faintly at firsts 

 that there was in his nature one part which issued commands 

 and another part which obeyed them. He realised, too, that 

 there was in his nature not only his material body, but some- 

 thing else that was different from the body, something immaterial, 

 impalpable, invisible. For it was evident that he himself was 

 not always the same, that there are times when his being seemed 

 to live and act as a single whole, and other times when one part 

 of his being seemed to be present, and the other part to be 

 temporarily divorced from it. 



Among the experiences which conferred upon his mind the 

 essential dualism of his nature, it is probable that the contrast 

 between waking and sleeping was powerful as it was natural.. 

 For the greater part of his life he is conscious, intelligent, active, 

 energetic ; he sees, he feels, he thinks, he converses and others; 

 converse with him ; he is occupied in eating and drinking and 

 in the regular avocations and pleasures of his nature ; he 

 exercises the power of will and enjoys the satisfaction of 

 gratifying it, and suffers the pain of finding it disappointed and 

 defeated. But for the lesser part he is as one living though 

 without life ; he is feeble as a babe ; he lies at the mercy oa 

 circumstances; he is bereft of consciousness, character andi 

 judgment; he is little more than a dull brute, quite inert., 

 insensible of all that passes before his closed eyes, and impotent: 

 to defend himself against the assault of man or beast. 



This attitude of strenuousness and helplessness is manV 

 personal daily experience ; and it was inevitable that 

 primitive man should reflect upon it. What account of it 

 could he render to himself ? He could scarcely, I think, avoid 

 the inference that something, which existed and was active within 

 him during his waking hours, passed out of him for a while,, 

 when he fell asleep — that something he called his soul or his 

 spirit. But there was a further question that must have 

 suggested itself to primitive man : If the spirit departs from 

 the body during sleep, what becomes of it ? The body remains,. 



B 2 



