the spiritual person--"do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live?" And are Mr. Spencer's words, in which he teaches exactly the opposite doctrine, true? wherein he says: "And lastly let it be noted that what we call truth," &c., (see _ante_, p. 168,) wherein he teaches that "if ye live after the flesh," if you are guided by "_truth_," if you are able perfectly to maintain "the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations," "ye shall not surely die," you will attain to what is _successful action_, the preservation of "life," of "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," of the animal life, and thus your bodies will live forever--the highest good for man; but if you "mortify the deeds of the body," if you pay little heed to "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," you will meet with "_error_, leading to failure and therefore towards death,"--the death of the body, the highest evil which can befall man,--and so "ye shall" not "live." Proceeding in the direction already taken, we find that in his normal condition the spiritual person would not be chiefly, much less exclusively, occupied with attending to "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," but would only regard these in so far as is necessary to preserve the body as the ground through which, in accordance with the present dispensation of God's providence, that person may exert himself and employ his energies upon those objects which belong to his peculiar sphere, even the laws and duties of spiritual beings. The person would indeed employ his superior faculties to assist the lower nature in the preservation of its animal life, but this only as a means. God has ordained that through this means that person shall develop and manifest himself; yet the life, continuance in being, of the soul, is in no way dependent on this means. Strip away the whole animal nature, take from man his body, his Sense and Understanding, leave him--as he would then be--with no possible medium of communication with the Universe, and he, the I am, the spiritual person, would remain intact, as active as ever. He would have lost none of his capacity to see laws and appreciate their force; he would feel the _bindingness_ of obligation just as before; and finally, he would be just as able as in the earlier state to make a choice of an ultimate end, though he would be unable to make a single motion towards putting that choice into effect. The spiritual person, then, being such that he has in himself no element of decomposition, has no need, for the preservation of his own existence, to be continually occupied with efforts to maintain "the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations." Yet activity is his law, and, moreover, an activity having objects which accord with this his indestructible nature. With what then will such a being naturally occupy himself? There is for him no danger of decay.