Spiritual
(Spir"it*u*al) a. [L. spiritualis: cf. F. spirituel. See Spirit.]
1. Consisting of spirit; not material; incorporeal; as, a spiritual substance or being.
It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
1 Cor. xv. 44. 2. Of or pertaining to the intellectual and higher endowments of the mind; mental; intellectual.
3. Of or pertaining to the moral feelings or states of the soul, as distinguished from the external actions; reaching
and affecting the spirits.
God's law is spiritual; it is a transcript of the divine nature, and extends its authority to the acts of the
soul of man.
Sir T. Browne. 4. Of or pertaining to the soul or its affections as influenced by the Spirit; controlled and inspired by the
divine Spirit; proceeding from the Holy Spirit; pure; holy; divine; heavenly-minded; — opposed to carnal.
That I may impart unto you some spiritual gift.
Rom. i. ll.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
Eph. i. 3.
If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one.
Gal. vi. 1. 5. Not lay or temporal; relating to sacred things; ecclesiastical; as, the spiritual functions of the clergy; lords
spiritual and temporal; a spiritual corporation.
Spiritual coadjuctor. (Eccl.) See the Note under Jesuit. — Spiritual court (Eccl. Law), an ecclesiastical
court, or a court having jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs; a court held by a bishop or other ecclesiastic.
Spiritual
(Spir"it*u*al), n. A spiritual function, office, or affair. See Spirituality, 2.
He assigns supremacy to the pope in spirituals, and to the emperor in temporals.
Lowell. Spiritualism
(Spir"it*u*al*ism) n.
1. The quality or state of being spiritual.
2. (Physiol.) The doctrine, in opposition to the materialists, that all which exists is spirit, or soul — that
what is called the external world is either a succession of notions impressed on the mind by the Deity,
as maintained by Berkeley, or else the mere educt of the mind itself, as taught by Fichte.
3. A belief that departed spirits hold intercourse with mortals by means of physical phenomena, as by
rappng, or during abnormal mental states, as in trances, or the like, commonly manifested through a
person of special susceptibility, called a medium; spiritism; the doctrines and practices of spiritualists.
What is called spiritualism should, I think, be called a mental species of materialism.
R. H. Hutton.
