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I may have used some similar expression, though I do not remember it. 
Now we come to a statement of the most important and serious character. 
Mr. English says : — 
“ Psyche is the vital ethical capacity in man, and its tenderest thoughts, 
its highest and holiest aspirations, are not seldom trodden underfoot by the 
dominance of that Pneuma, which even devils have.” 
It may be true that the Pneuma in devils treads underfoot what is good in 
man ; but remember that the Pneuma is, according to this paper, the essence 
of Almighty God, and of the angels. Then Mr. English puts a very indefinite 
qualification upon that assertion. He says : — 
“ I do not here say that Pneuma has nothing to do with religion and 
morality.” 
If it embraces the intellect, it must have something to do with them. Then 
he says : — 
“ It has its part to fill in the constitution of the human conscience, and 
also in religion and morality ; but it is not, I venture to think, upon distinct 
grounds, the ground of Holy Scripture, the basis of either.” 
A line further on, he says : — 
“ The basis of religion, as well as of morality, is to be found in man’s 
psychical, rather than pneumatical, nature ; a principle well worth further 
development and illustration than I can here afford to give it.” 
I am sorry he should have made such a statement, and not have given us 
some reason for his belief. Again ; — 
“ For it seems to me that reason and rationalism have well-nigh gone mad 
in these our times. Intellect has its proper sphere, but it cannot take the 
place of the soul without stripping morality and religion of all that is holy 
and tender, and good.” 
Then what is the result of all this ? The Pneuma, being stripped of all 
morality, and ceasing to be the centre of what we call the higher affections of 
our nature, is reduced down to pure intellect, or something very like it ; and 
the Psyche, or soul, being perishable, the whole of the moral nature of man 
perishes along with it. The following passage is still more remarkable : — 
“ The Pneuma is a foundation, I venture to think, quite incapable of 
bearing the kind of superstructure which we mean when we speak of what is 
holy, and just, and good.” 
The Pneuma is unable to bear the superstructure of what is holy, just, and 
good ! God is a Pneuma, and therefore He is neither holy, just, nor good ! 
The Chairman. — That is scarcely a fair interpretation. 
Mr. Row. — That is the strictly logical consequence of what Mr. English says. 
The Chairman. — He speaks of the Pneuma in man. 
Mr. Row. — But he tells us more than once that it relates to the Divine 
Spirit. 
