January 1926
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
12
The brute does not objectify self. If the pig could once say, ‘ I am a pig’ it would thereby cease to be a pig.” 2. “ The brute has only precepts; man has also concepts. The brute knows white things, but not whiteness. Man alone has the power of abstraction and of thought. 3. “ Hence the brute has no language. ‘Language is the expression of general notions by symbols.' Words are the symbols of. concepts. Where there are no concepts there can be no words. The parrot utters cries; but ‘no parrot ever yet spoke a true word.’ Since language is a sign, it presupposes the existence of an intellect capable of under standing the sign,— in short, language is the effect of mind, not the cause of mind.” 4. “ The brute forms no Judgments— e. g., that this is like that, accompanied with belief. Hence there is no sense of the ridiculous, and no laughter.” 5. "The brute has no reasoning— no sense that this fol lows from that, accompanied by a feeling that the sequence is necessary. Association of ideas is the typical process of the brute mind, though not that of the mind of man.” 6. “ The brute has no general ideas or intuitions, as of space, time, substance, cause, right. Hence there is no gen eralizing, and no proper experiences or progress. No hun ter’s dog ever, learned to put wood on a fire, to keep itself from freezing.” 7. “ The brute has no conscience and no religious nature. No dog ever brought back to the butcher the meat it had stolen. ‘The aspen trembles without fear, and dogs skulk without guilt.’ ” 8. "The brute has determination, but not self-determina tion. There is no conscious forming of a purpose, and no self-movement toward a predetermined end. The donkey is determined, but not self-determined. ‘Man though impli cated in nature through his bodily organization, is in his personality super-natural; the brute is wholly submerged in nature................ Man is like a ship in the sea— in it, yet above it— guiding its course, by observing the heavens, even against wind and current. A brute has no such power; it is in nature like a balloon, wholly Immersed in air, and driven about by its currents, with no power of steering.’ ” "By what Mivatt calls a process of ‘inverse anthropomor phism’ we clothe the brutes with the attributes of freedom; but it does not really possess them. The brute lives only in the present— lives a sort of dream-life, in which the will acts only as it is acted upon. It has no power to choose between motives, it simply obeys motive. The necessitarian philosophy, therefore, is a correct and excellent philosophy for the brute. The man’s power of Initiative— in short, man’s free will— renders it impossible to explain his higher nature as a mere natural development from the inferior creatures. Even Huxley has said that, taking mind into account, there 18 between man and the highest beast an ' ‘enormous gulf’, a ‘divergence immeasurable’ and ‘ practi cally infinite.’ ” (To be continued)
I—Man’s creation is referred to before the formation o f his body (Gen. 1:26, 27). One thing is perfectly clear in the Word of God, and that is, man is distinguished from his body. He may be in or out of it, as Paul clearly states. He says, “ I knew a man in Christ, above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth” (2 Cor. 1 2 :2 ); and he also speaks of being “ unclothed" and of being “ absent from the body” (2 Cor. 6: 4, 8 ); and further he compares the body and the spirit, and the dissolution of the one from the other to the departure of a ship from port (Phil. 1:23). Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration spoke of his “ decease," namely His “ exodus"— the “ going out from the body," even as the children of Israel went out from Egypt. •(The word “ decease” in Luke 9:31, is rendered "departing” in Heb, 11:22, in referring to the exodus of Israel from Egypt). Yet one other Scripture: The Holy Spirit calls attention to the fact that the Spirit may be separated from the body in the following words: “ The body without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26 ). It does not say, “ The spirit is dead," but the body. The above Scriptures recognize the existence of the cpnscious ego, called "spirit,” apart from the body. When was man created? At the same time as his body? No. Genesis 1:26, 27 is the calling into being of the man himself. Gfhnt says, “ It is in possession of spirit that man is by creation the offspring of God, who is Spirit, and the •God and Father of spirits.’ That is, of angels, who are sons of God, and of the spirits of men. He is not the Father of beasts, who yet have and are ‘living souls.’ Thus man came forth from the hand of God, like Him, a spirit.” Cowper distinguishes man from his body in the following lines: “ It is not from his form, in which we trace Strength Joined with beauty, dignity with grace, That man, the master of this globe, derives II —Man’s distinctiveness is emphasized in God’s distinct act in making him a “ living soul” (Gen. 2 :7 ). Man is allied with the animal world, for the expression “ living soul” is the same as rendered “ living creature,” which is applied to animals (Gen. 1:21). Literally it means in each case, “ a soul of life.” Yet God’s act in breathing into the beautiful, clay-formed body of Adam, causes him to stand apart from the rest of the animal world, as J. G. Gregory says,. “ The soul— the animal life— God gave to man in com mon with all other creatures of His hand. He was to have all which they had—¡body and soul— although in vast superiority; but these bnly, as it were, in most inferior sup plement to that which they had not; but which in his pri marily created being man received, (or rather, we should say, became) at the almighty bidding of the eternal God, a spirit like Himself.” Thus man is not a mere organism, like an animal; he is an intelligent being endowed with organs. The difference between the brute creation and man in his intelligence has x been well summarized by Dr. A. H. Strong in the following contrasts and the quotations which he gives: 1. "The brute is conscious, but man is self-conscious. His right of empire over all that lives. That form, indeed, the associate of mind, Vast in its powers, ethereal in its kind, That form, the labour of Almighty skill. Framed for the service of a free-born will, Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control, But borrows all its grandeur from the soul, Here is the state, the splendor and the throne, An intellectual kingdom, all her own."
The tim ely series of articles on A n th ro p o lo g y by Dr. Marsh, o f which this is the first Installment, presents an unusual opportunity for readers o f The K in g 's Business to help check the insidious tide of false teaching which is w ork ing such harm today. Give it a wide distribution am ong y o u r friends.
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