Matthias Scheeben’s nature/supernatural scheme depends on the assumption that matter is ponderous, an obstacle and obstruction to the free operation of spirit, an enslaving massiveness, gross and crass.

Scheeben wrote before the revolution of twentieth-century physics, so we can forgive him for not thinking out the implications of quantum physics or relativity.

Still: Had he never seen a dancer, or an acrobat? Had he never listened to a string quartet and pondered what it means for sheep gut to hale men’s souls from their bodies?