uman spirit. Why need there
be, if the difference between an animal and a man be one of degree alone,
and not of kind?

We answer: That there is a flesh in man, brain and nerves, emotions and
passions, identical with that of animals, we do not deny. We should be
fools if we did deny it; for the fact is hideously and shamefully patent.
None knew that better than St Paul, who gave a list of the works of the
flesh, the things which a man does who is the slave of his own brain and
nerves--and a very ugly list it is--beginning with adultery and ending
with drunkenness, after passing through all the seven deadly sins. And
neither St Paul nor we deny, that in this fleshly, carnal and animal
state the vast majority of the human race has lived, and lives still, to
its own infinite misery and confusion; and that it has a perpetual
tendency, whenever lifted out of that state, to fall back into it again,
and perish.

But St Paul says, and we say: That crushed under this animal nature there
is in man a spirit. We say: That below all his consciousness lies a
nobler element; a divine spark, or at least a divine fuel, which must be
kindled into life by the divine Spirit, the Spirit of God. And we say
that in proportion as that Spirit of God kindles the spirit of man, he
begins to act after a fashion for which he can give no logical reason;
that by instinct, and without calculation of profit or loss, pleasure or
pain, he begins to act on what he calls duty, honour, love,
self-sacrifice. But what these are he cannot analyse. Mere words cannot
define them. He can only obey that which prompts him, he knows not what
nor whence; and say with Luther of old: "I can do no otherwise. God help
me."

And we say that such men and women are the salt of the earth, who keep
society from rotting; that by such men and women, and by their example
and influence, direct and indirect, has Christendom been raised up out of
the accursed slough into which Europe and, indeed, the whole known world,
had fallen during the early Roman Empire; and that to this influence, and
therefore to the Holy Spirit of God alone, and not to any prudential
calculations, combined experiences, or so-called philosophies of men, is
owing all which keeps Europe from being a hell on earth. And we say,
moreover, that those who deny this, and dream of a morality and a
civilization without The Spirit of God, are unconsciously throwing down
the ladder by which they themselves