Page "religion" Paragraph 10

There is nothing in the whole range of human experience more widely known and universally felt than spirit.

Apart from spirit there could be no community, for it is spirit which draws men into community and gives to any community its unity, cohesiveness, and permanence.

Think, for example, of the spirit of the Marine Corps.

Surely this is a reality we all acknowledge.

We cannot, of course, assign it any substance.

It is not material and is not a `` thing '' occupying space and time.

Yet it exists and has an objective reality which can be experienced and known.

So it is too with many other spirits which we all know: the spirit of Nazism or Communism, school spirit, the spirit of a street corner gang or a football team, the spirit of Rotary or the Ku Klux Klan.

Every community, if it is alive has a spirit, and that spirit is the center of its unity and identity.