II
Accepting this vital distinction, we see that the work of spiritual
man will consist in progressively subjugating whatever natural powers
he finds within him and without, rendering them all expressive of
self-conscious purpose. for we men are not altogether spiritual; in us
two elements meet. Our spirituality is superposed on a natural basis.
Like things, we have our natural aptitudes, blind tendencies,
established functions of body and mind. These are all serviceable and
organic; but to become spiritual all need to be redeemed, or drawn
over into the field of consciousness, where our special stamp may be
set upon them. When we speak of a good act, we mean an act which shows
the results of such redemption, one whose every part has been studied
in relation to every other part, and has thus been made to bear our
own image and superscription.
And this is essentially the Christian ideal, that spirit shall be lord
of nature. I ought to reject my natural life, accounting it not my
life at all. Until shaped by myself, it is merely my opportunity for
life, material furnished, out of which my true and conscious life may
be constructed. Widely is this contrasted with the pagan conceptions,
where man appears with powers as fixed as the things around him.
Indeed, in many forms of paganism there is no distinction between
persons and things.
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