acre of the
infinite area been taken in by his finite faculties? Is his conscious
environment the whole environment? Or is there, among these outermost
circles, one which with his multitudinous correspondences he fails to
reach? If so, this is Death. The question of Life or Death to him is the
question of the amount of remaining environment he is able to compass.
If there be one circle or one segment of a circle which he yet fails to
reach, to correspond with, to know, to be influenced by, he is, with
regard to that circle or segment, dead.

What then, practically, is the state of the case? Is man in
correspondence with the whole environment or is he not? There is but one
answer. He is not. Of men generally it cannot be said that they are in
living contact with that part of the environment which is called the
spiritual world. In introducing this new term spiritual world, observe,
we are not interpolating a new factor. This is an essential part of the
old idea. We have been following out an ever-widening environment from
point to point, and now we reach the outermost zones. The spiritual
world is simply the outermost segment, circle, or circles of the natural
world. For purposes of convenience we separate the two just as we
separate the animal world from the plant. But the animal world and the
plant world are the same world. They are different parts of one
environment. And the natural and spiritual are likewise one. The inner
circles are called the natural, the outer the spiritual. And we call
them spiritual simply because they are beyond us or beyond a part of us.
What we have correspondence with, that we call natural; what we have
little or no correspondence with, that we call spiritual. But when the
appropriate corresponding organism appears, the organism, that is, which
can freely communicate with these outer circles, the distinction
necessarily disappears. The spiritual to it becomes the outer circle of
the natural.

Now of the great mass of living organisms, of the great mass of men, is
it not to be affirmed that they are out of correspondence with this
outer circle? Suppose, to make the final issue more real, we give this
outermost circle of environment a name. Suppose we call it God. Suppose
also we substitute a word for "correspondence" to express more
intimately the personal relation. Let us call it Communion. We can now
determine accurately the spiritual relation of different sections of
mankind. Those who