Body, Mind and Spirit: Being No. XV. of Papers for the Present, for Which the Cities Committee of the Sociological Society is Responsible

1922 Sociological Review  
THE care of the body, the education of the mind, the guidance of the spirit, are current phrases of well-established tradition. Now we all desire the comforting assurance that our bodies are cared for in a way conformable to the fullest knowledge about the nature and working of bodies. And, for our children at least, we are sincerely solicitous about the education of their mind and the guidance of their spirit. We are therefore driven to ask, now and again in moments of awakened responsibility,
more » ... certain questions about the validity of the special knowledge relevant to these issues and the authenticity of its modes of application. THE respective guardians of the above traditions are, of course, our physicians, teachers and clergy. Think, however, of the specialised knowledge which informs the practice of medici^ , the art of teaching, the discipline of the church ; and agreement as to names for these particular knowledges is not so easily reached. Yet there would presumably be no dispute that Theology stands to the moral exhortations and disciplines of the churches as theory to practice. And increasingly does the practice of medicine base itself on many specialised sciences which are supposedly brought together in the general science of Biology. So also comes nowadays a similar claim from the art of teaching in relation to Psychology. Admit, then, that in Biology, Psychology and Theology, there exist three systems of knowledge which, when applied to life, give the conditions for care of body, education of mind, and guidance of spirit. BUT what of the underlying unity ? How far may the plain man go in assuming it ? True, he rarely concerns himself about the abstraction which philosophers call the unity of life. But he has a vivid sense of the concrete reality. Indeed, he practises the habit and enjoys the custom of submitting this reality to certain tests. One of these tests is severely practical, for it measures what he calls success
doi:10.1111/j.1467-954x.1922.tb02852.x fatcat:ogj6on7y5vesne7tnyzhs6ikki