The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition

From the PROEM. THE notion that the physical body of man is as it were the exteriorization of an invisible subtle embodiment of the life of the mind is a very ancient belief. Conjectures concerning it vary with every stage of culture and differ within every stage. But the underlying conception invariably holds its ground, and makes good its claim to be one of the most persistent persuasions of mankind in all ages and climes. It is, however, the prevailing habit of the...
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From the PROEM.
THE notion that the physical body of man is as it were the exteriorization of an invisible subtle embodiment of the life of the mind is a very ancient belief.
Conjectures concerning it vary with every stage of culture and differ within every stage. But the underlying conception invariably holds its ground, and makes good its claim to be one of the most persistent persuasions of mankind in all ages and climes.
It is, however, the prevailing habit of the sceptical rationalism of the present day to dismiss summarily all such beliefs of antiquity as the baseless dreams of a pre-scientific age, and to dump them all indiscriminately into the midden of exploded superstitions. But this particular superstition, I venture to think, cannot be justly disposed of in so contemptuous a fashion.
Not only do the acute intellects who upheld it in the past, dispose one to a favourable consideration of their plea that a far-reaching truth underlies this world wide contention ; but I am persuaded that, the more deeply modern research penetrates into the more recondite regions of biology, psycho-physiology and psychology, the more readily will reason be inclined to welcome the notion as a fertile working hypothesis to co-ordinate a considerable number of the mental, vital and physical phenomena of human personality which otherwise remain on our hands as a confused and inexplicable conglomerate.
The notion of a subtle embodiment seems admirably fitted to provide a middle ground on which what, at present, are mutually exclusive views, may be focused and brought into helpful co-operation.
It may indeed prove to be that mediating ground in concrete reality which is so badly needed to provide a basis of reconciliation between the two dominant modes of opposed and contradictory abstractionizing that characterize the spiritualistic and materialistic philosophy of the present day the too exclusively subjective theorizing of the one and the too exclusively objective speculation of the other.
And indeed the time seems ripe for a favourable revision of this ancient hypo thesis. For already there are many signs that the most recent idealistic and most recent realistic movements of thought are beginning to approximate more closely to one another on a number of important points.
It is beginning to be seen on all sides that the physical, the biological and the psychological activities of man as a unitary reality are so intimately interblended, that no arbitrary selection of any one of these standpoints can provide a satisfactory solution of the nature of the concrete whole which human personality presents.
The old-fashioned materialism, which reached its culminating stage in the latter half of the last century, is now generally discredited, if not dead and buried. The ever more subtle analysis of matter is revealing well-nigh boundless vistas of hitherto undreamed-of possibilities locked up within the bosom of nature, ever more subtle and potent modes of energy that may ere long be made available for our use.