It is idle to speculate whether the “nephesh” of the animals, or the “living self” of the man, is an entity separate from the body, and capable of existing per se—­of its own inherent nature—­apart from it.  We do not know that animal forms are the clothing of a lower-graded but separate spiritual form, or that such an animal soul or spirit can exist separately from the body; and we do not know (from the Bible)—­whatever may be the current language on the subject—­that man’s spirit is in its nature capable of anything like permanent separate existence.[1] Man is essentially one; and when the physical change called death passes over him, it does not utterly obliterate the whole being.  The non-material element is not affected any more than it is by the sleep of every night; and the man will be ultimately raised, not a spiritual or immaterial form, but provided, as before, with a body, only one of a higher capacity and better adapted to its higher environments—­the “spiritual body” of St. Paul, in a word.  The original union of mind and matter is, on any possible theory, mysterious; and the separation of them for a time is neither less so, nor more.  All this is perfectly true, whether the non-material element in man’s nature is necessarily, inherently and by nature, immortal or not—­a question which I do not desire to enter on.

Hence it is that a certain element of truth is recognized in the protest of the Edinburgh Reviewer.  On the other hand, as we have not only intelligence, emotions (which are possessed in lower degree by animals), self-consciousness, the power of abstract reasoning, and the higher faculties of the imagination,[2] but also the consciousness of God and the commanding sense of right and wrong; and seeing that the last-named are different in kind from the former, we give them a separate name, and speak of the moral or spiritual nature or capacity of man, as well as the intellectual or mental.  Some (by the way) choose “moral” to include both, holding that ethical perceptions arise out of (or are intimately connected with) our sense of God.  Others would make a further distinction, and confine “moral” to the (supposed) bare ethical perception of duty or of right and wrong, and add “spiritual” to distinguish the highest faculty of all, whereby man holds communion with his Maker and recognizes his relation to Him.

[Footnote 1:  This remark does not, of course, in any way touch the question whether the spiritual part of a man is conscious in the interval between death and resurrection, or whether it can be made sensible in any way whatever to living persons.]

[Footnote 2:  The poetic sense, the perception of the beautiful, &c.]

Whether this further distinction is justified or not, there is a distinction between the moral and the purely intellectual; and we are justified in using different terms for things that are practically different.  This the Edinburgh Reviewer seems to have forgotten.