Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/73

Rh the first thought is apt to revert to things of this nature. This is only a limited application of the term. Properly, everything is sensual that pertains to the senses. One may be exceedingly sensual, and yet not given to luxuriousness, gluttony or wine-bibbing. The sensual man, in the broader view, is one who believes only on the evidence of his senses. He will deny the existence of spirit because he cannot see it with his natural eyes or touch it with his natural fingers. He will deny the life after death, because it has not been made manifest to his bodily senses. He will deny all things supernatural, because, being neither visible nor tangible, they cannot be chemically analyzed, nor probed by the instruments of the surgeon. He will deny even a God, because He is not visible to the natural eye, and cannot be seen working out his problems of creation and preservation according to his own sensuous conception. The sensual man has never allowed the spiritual plane of his mind to be opened. He has no spiritual grasp. He cannot comprehend a spiritual idea when presented to him. He knows about the things of earth because he sees them—because they are palpable to his senses. He will even believe things he has not seen, so far as they are subjects of sensuous evidence; and will accept the testimony of other people when their reasonings are based upon natural science, such as chemistry,