XISTING BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMAL

Already we have talked once or twice on the subject of the spirit, but our
words have not been written down.

Know that people belong to two categories--that is to say, they constitute
two parties. One party deny the spirit and say that man also is a species
of animal; for they say: Do we not see that animals and men share the same
powers and senses? These simple, single elements which fill space are
endlessly combined, and from each of these combinations one of the beings
is produced. Among these beings is the possessor of spirit,(140) of the
powers and of the senses. The more perfect the combination, the nobler is
the being. The combination of the elements in the body of man is more
perfect than the composition of any other being; it is mingled in absolute
equilibrium; therefore, it is more noble and more perfect. "It is not,"
they say, "that he has a special power and spirit which the other animals
lack: animals possess sensitive bodies, but man in some powers has more
sensation, although, in what concerns the outer senses, such as hearing,
sight, taste, smell, touch and even in some interior powers like memory,
the animal is more richly endowed than man." "The animal, too," they say,
"has intelligence and perception." All that they concede is that man's
intelligence is greater.

This is what the philosophers of the present state; this is their saying,
this is their supposition, and thus their imagination decrees. So with
powerful arguments and proofs they make the descent of man go back to the
animal, and say that there was once a time when man was an animal, that
then the species changed and progressed little by little until it reached
the present status of man.

But the theologians say: No, this is not so. Though man has powers and
outer senses in common with the animal, yet an extraordinary power exists
in him of which the animal is bereft. The sciences, arts, inventions,
trades and discoveries of realities are the results of this spiritual
power. This is a power which encompasses all things, comprehends their
realities, discovers all the hidden mysteries of beings, and through this
knowledge controls them. It even perceives things which do not exist
outwardly--that is to say, intellectual realities which are not sensible,
and which have no outward existence because they are invisible; so it
comprehends the mind, the spirit, the qualities, the characters, the love
and sorrow o