The Parts Of Human Nature


From the standpoint of psychology human nature is divisible into parts.

The division must not be taken as absolute; for the whole is a unity,

and the parts are not discrete quanta. The division is rather a

classification of psychic states according to predominating features.

The classification corresponds, however, to the facts of experience,

and so psychology is justified in making use of it. We shall adopt it

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investigation of the psychology of Christ. The sharpest

dividing line is that between immaterial and material, between soul and

body. The states of the soul fall into three well-marked groups,

thought, will, and feeling. The physical and the psychic are not

always distinguishable. Still more uncertain and tentative is the

identification in the psychic of cognitive, volitional, and emotional

faculties. But in every man these parts are found. They are

constituents of human nature. There may be other elements as yet

unanalysed; but there can be no complete humanity that is deficient in

respect of any of these parts. We propose to take them singly in the

above order, to show their existence in the historic Christ, and to

expose the monophysite attempts to explain them away.



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