Rev. Minot Savage (1841-1918) may be distinctly religious. But he’s also distinctly wise. And he’s still a liberal intellectual. Here’s an excerpt from his first book, Christianity -- The Science of Manhood (1873, p. 9-16):
"Body, mind, heart, spirit, -- we have found that these all are factors of man as he actually exists. Or, to give it such expression as no one can deny, man sustains physical, mental, affectional, and [spiritual] relations. The faculties which make up his fitness for these relations constitute him what he is. But unless rightly combined and proportioned, they cannot make a true manhood, any more than roots and trunk and boughs and leaves make a tree, when the roots are in the air, and one of the boughs is larger than the trunk. Relation and proportion have as much to do with making men, as do the essential elements themselves...
"The true manhood then is not found in the dominion of any one of these to the ignoring or degrading of another. It is in the right development and ranking of them all. Man should be a pyramid, having his body for the base, and his [spiritual] faculty for the apex, with heart and brain between.
"The body must be governed by the reason. The reason also must check and guide the action of heart and spirit, though they both are superior to it in their highest range and uses. A whole body, a clear, strong, quick intellect, a heart that loves the best, and an upward looking of the whole being to the absolute right and true, -- these make a man all that it is possible for him to become."
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