447. A certain novitiate spirit, on hearing me speak about the spirit, asked, "What is a spirit?" supposing himself to be a man. And when I told him that there is a spirit in every man, and that in respect to his life a man is a spirit; that the body is merely to enable a man to live on the earth, and that the flesh and bones, that is, the body, does not live or think at all; seeing that he was at a loss, I asked him whether he had ever heard of the soul. "What is a soul?" he replied, "I do not know what a soul is." I was then permitted to tell him that he himself was now a soul, or spirit, as he might know from the fact that he was over my head, and was not standing on the earth. I asked him whether he could not perceive this, and he then fled away in terror, crying out, "I am a spirit! I am a spirit!" A certain Jew supposed himself to be living wholly in the body, insomuch that he could scarcely be persuaded to the contrary. And when he was shown that he was a spirit, he still persisted in saying that he was a man, because he could see and hear. Such are they who, during their abode in this world, have been devoted to the body. To these examples very many more might be added, but these have been given merely in order to confirm the fact, that it is the spirit in man, and not the body, which exercises sensation.