An Eternal Career: III. What Is Man?

Socrates says to Hippocrates: "You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you call a Sophist. You do not even know whether you are committing your soul to good or evil." "I certainly think that I do not know," Hippocrates rejoined. Socrates: "Well, but are you aware of the danger which you are incurring? If you were going to commit your body to someone, and there was risk of your getting harm or good from him, would you not carefully consider and ask the opinion of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many days as to whether you should give him the care of your body? But when the soul is in question, which you hold to be of far greater value than your body, and upon the well-being of which depends your all—about this you never consulted either with your father or anyone else."

"For there is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink; the one you purchase and carry away in other vessels, and before you receive them into the body as food, you may deposit them at home and call in any experienced friend who knows what is good to be eaten or drunken, and what is not, and how much, etc.

What then is this most important part of man, the Spirit? The spirit is always conscious although few of its experiences reach the brain. It has a memory and existence apart from the body and, as Kant says: "What I think as a spirit is not remembered by me as a man." The empirical self, the familiar self, the ego, is not the spirit. This is related to the objective consciousness. Behind the shifting scenes of consciousness, and the kaleidoscopic carnival of sense impressions abides the eternal, changeless, transcendental, pure self. This is the Divine Guest, the Holy of Holies, the God within. The spirit remains pure and undefiled, and in this respect it is correct to say that man is perfect.