Now as to what thou askest concerning the spirit and its
“return” to this world of humanity and this elemental space: Know that spirit
in general is divided into five sorts—the vegetable spirit, the animal spirit,
the human spirit, the spirit of faith, and the divine spirit of sanctity.
The vegetable spirit is the virtue augmentative, or growing
or vegetative faculty, which results from the admixture of the simple elements,
with the co-operation of water, air and heat.
The animal spirit is the virtue perceptive resulting from
the admixture and absorption of the vital elements generated in the heart,
which apprehend sense impressions.
The human spirit consists of the rational, or logical,
reasoning faculty, which apprehends general ideas and things intelligible and
perceptible.
Now these “spirits” are not reckoned as Spirit in the
terminology of the Scriptures and the usage of the people of the Truth,
inasmuch as the laws governing them are as the laws which govern all phenomenal
being (i.e., all existences belonging to the phenomenal or material universe,
called “the world of generation and corruption”), in respect to generation,
corruption, production, change and reversion, as is clearly indicated in the
Gospel where it says: “Let the dead bury their dead;” “That which is born of
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit”; inasmuch
as he who would bury these dead was alive with the vegetative, animal and
rational human soul, yet did Christ—to whom be glory! — declare such dead and
devoid of life, in that this person was devoid of the Spirit of Faith, which is
of the Kingdom of God.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’, vol. 1)
