INTRODUCTION.
"This method turns aside from hypotheses
not to be tested by any known logical canon familiar to science, whether the
hypothesis claims support from intuition, aspiration or general plausibility.
And, again, this method turns aside from ideal standards which avow themselves
to be lawless, which profess to transcend the field of law. We say, life and
conduct will stand for us wholly on a basis of law, and must rest entirely in
that region of science (not physical, but moral and social science), where we
are free to use our intelligence in the methods known to us as intelligible
logic, methods which the intellect can analyse. When you confront us with
hypotheses, however sublime and however affecting, if they cannot be stated in
terms of the rest of our knowledge, if they are disparate to that world of
sequence and sensation which to us is the ultimate base of all our real
knowledge, then we shake our heads and turn aside."
FREDERICK HARRISON.
"Ethical science is already for ever
completed, so far as her general outline and main principles are concerned, and
has been, as it were, waiting for physical science to come up with
her."--Paradoxical Philosophy.
I
NATURAL Law is a new word. It is the last and
the most magnificent discovery of science. No more telling proof is open to the
modern world of the greatness of the idea than the greatness of the attempts
which have always been made to justify it. In the earlier centuries, before the
birth of science, Phenomena were studied alone. The world then was a chaos, a
collection of single, isolated, and independent facts. Deeper thinkers saw,
indeed, that relations must subsist between these facts, but the Reign of Law
was never more to the ancients than a far-off vision. Their philosophies,
conspicuously those of the Stoics and Pythagoreans, heroically sought to
marshal the discrete materials of the universe into thinkable form, but from
these artificial and fantastic systems nothing remains to us now but an ancient
testimony to the grandeur of that harmony which they failed to reach.
With Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler the first
regular lines of the universe began to be discerned. When Nature yielded to
Newton her great secret, Gravitation was felt to be not greater as a fact in
itself than as a revelation that Law was fact. And thenceforth the search for
individual Phenomena gave way before the larger study of their relations. The
pursuit of Law became the passion of science.
What that discovery of Law has done for Nature,
it is impossible to estimate. As a mere spectacle the universe to-day discloses
a beauty so transcendent that he who disciplines himself by scientific work
finds it an overwhelming reward simply to behold it. In these Laws one stands
face to face with truth, solid and unchangeable. Each single Law is an
instrument of scientific research, simple in its adjustments, universal in its
application, infallible in its results. And despite the limitations of its
sphere on every side Law is still the largest, richest, and surest source of
human knowledge.
It is not necessary for the present to more than
lightly touch on definitions of Natural Law. The Duke of Argyll[3] indicates five senses in which the word is used, but we may
content ourselves here by taking it in its most simple and obvious
significance. The fundamental conception of Law is an ascertained working
sequence or constant order among the Phenomena of Nature. This impression of
Law as order it is important to receive in its simplicity, for the idea is
often corrupted by having attached to it erroneous views of cause and effect.
In its true sense Natural Law predicates nothing of causes. The Laws of Nature
are simply statements of the orderly condition of things in Nature, what is
found in Nature by a sufficient number of competent observers. What these Laws
are in themselves is not agreed. That they have any absolute existence even is
far from certain. They are relative to man in his many limitations, and
represent for him the constant expression of what he may always expect to find
in the world around him. But that they have any causal connection with the
things around him is not to be conceived. The Natural Laws originate nothing,
sustain nothing; they are merely responsible for uniformity in sustaining what
has been originated and what is being sustained. They are modes of operation,
therefore, not operators; processes, not powers. The Law of Gravitation, for
instance, speaks to science only of process. It has no light to offer as to
itself. Newton did not discover Gravity--that is not discovered yet. He
discovered its Law, which is Gravitation, but that tells us nothing of its
origin, of its nature, or of its cause.
The Natural Laws then are great lines running not
only through the world, but, as we now know, through the universe, reducing it
like parallels of latitude to intelligent order. In themselves, be it once more
repeated, they may have no more absolute existence than parallels of latitude.
But they exist for us. They are drawn for us to understand the part by some
Hand that drew the whole; so drawn, perhaps, that, understanding the part, we
too in time may learn to understand the whole. Now the inquiry we propose to
ourselves resolves itself into the simple question, Do these lines stop with
what we call the Natural sphere? Is it not possible that they may lead further?
Is it probable that the Hand which ruled them gave up the work where most of
all they were required? Did that Hand divide the world into two, a cosmos and a
chaos, the higher being the chaos? With Nature as the symbol of all of harmony
and beauty that is known to man, must we still talk of the super-natural, not
as a convenient word, but as a different order of world, an unintelligible
world, where the Reign of Mystery supersedes the Reign of Law?
This question, let it be carefully observed,
applies to Laws not to Phenomena. That the Phenomena of the Spiritual World are
in analogy with the Phenomena of the Natural World requires no restatement.
Since Plato enunciated his doctrine of the Cave or of the twice-divided line;
since Christ spake in parables; since Plotinus wrote of the world as an imaged
image; since the mysticism of Swedenborg; since Bacon and Pascal; since "Sartor
Resartus" and "In Memoriam," it has been all but a commonplace with thinkers
that " the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made." Milton's question--
" What if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Each to other like more than on earth is thought?
"
is now superfluous. "In our doctrine of
representations and correspondences," says Swedenborg, " we shall treat of both
these symbolical and typical resemblances, and of the astonishing things that
occur, I will not say in the living body only, but throughout Nature, and which
correspond so entirely to supreme and spiritual things, that one would swear
that the physical world was purely symbolical of the spiritual world.[4]" And Carlyle: " All visible things are emblems.
What thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly speaking is not there
at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some idea and body it
forth."[5]
But the analogies of Law are a totally different
thing from the analogies of Phenomena and have a very different value. To say
generally, with Pascal, that "La nature est une image de la grace," is merely
to be poetical. The function of Hervey's "Meditations in a Flower Garden," or,
Flavel's "Husbandry Spiritualized," is mainly homiletical. That such works have
an interest is not to be denied. The place of parable in teaching, and
especially after the sanction of the greatest of Teachers, must always be
recognised. The very necessities of language indeed demand this method of
presenting truth. The temporal is the husk and framework of the eternal, and
thoughts can be uttered only through things.[6]
But analogies between Phenomena bear the same
relation to analogies of Law that Phenomena themselves bear to Law. The light
of Law on truth, as we have seen, is an immense advance upon the light of
Phenomena. The discovery of Law is simply the discovery of Science. And if the
analogies of Natural Law can be extended to the Spiritual World, that whole
region at once falls within the domain of science and secures a basis as well
as an illumination in the constitution and course of Nature. All, therefore,
that has been claimed for parable can be predicated a fortiori of
this--with the addition that a proof on the basis of Law would want no
criterion possessed by the most advanced science.
That the validity of analogy generally has been
seriously questioned one must frankly own. Doubtless there is much difficulty
and even liability to gross error in attempting to establish analogy in
specific cases. The value of the likeness appears differently to different
minds, and in discussing an individual instance questions of relevancy will
invariably crop up. Of course, in the language of John Stuart Mill, "when the
analogy can be proved, the argument founded upon it cannot be resisted."[7] But so great is the difficulty of proof that
many are compelled to attach the most inferior weight to analogy as a method of
reasoning." Analogical evidence is generally more successful in silencing
objections than in evincing truth. Though it rarely refutes it frequently
repels refutation; like those weapons which though they cannot kill the enemy,
will ward his blows. . . . It must be allowed that analogical evidence is
at least but a feeble support, and is hardly ever honoured with the name of
proof."[8] Other authorities on the other hand,
such as Sir William Hamilton, admit analogy to a primary place in logic and
regard it as the very basis of induction.
But, fortunately, we are spared all discussion on
this worn subject, for two cogent reasons. For one thing, we do not demand of
Nature directly to prove Religion. That was never its function. Its function is
to interpret. And this, after all, is possibly the most fruitful proof. The
best proof of a thing is that we see it; if we do not see it, perhaps
proof will not convince us of it. It is the want of the discerning faculty, the
clairvoyant power of seeing the eternal in the temporal, rather than the
failure of the reason, that begets the sceptic. But secondly, and more
particularly, a significant circumstance has to be taken into account, which,
though it will appear more clearly afterwards, may be stated here at once. The
position we have been led to take up is not that the Spiritual Laws are
analogous to the Natural Laws, but that, they are the same Laws. It is
not a question of analogy but of Identity. The Natural Laws are not the
shadows or images of the Spiritual in the same sense as autumn is emblematical
of Decay, or the falling leaf of Death. The Natural Laws, as the Law of
Continuity might well warn us, do not stop with the visible and then give place
to a new set of Laws bearing a strong similitude to them. The Laws of the
invisible are the same Laws, projections of the natural not supernatural.
Analogous Phenomena are not the fruit of parallel Laws, but of the same
Laws--Laws which at one end, as it were, may be dealing with Matter, at the
other end with Spirit. As there will be some inconvenience, however, in
dispensing with the word analogy, we shall continue occasionally to employ it.
Those who apprehend the real relation will mentally substitute the larger
term.
Let us now look for a moment at the present state
of the question. Can it be said that the Laws of the Spiritual World are in any
sense considered even to have analogies with the Natural World? Here and there
certainly one finds an attempt, and a successful attempt, to exhibit on a
rational basis one or two of the great Moral Principles of the Spiritual World.
But the Physical World has not been appealed to. Its magnificent system of Laws
remains outside, and its contribution meanwhile is either silently ignored or
purposely set aside. The Physical, it is said, is too remote from the
Spiritual. The Moral World may afford a basis for religious truth, but even
this is often the baldest concession; while the appeal to the Physical universe
is everywhere dismissed as, on the face of it, irrelevant and unfruitful. From
the scientific side, again, nothing has been done to court a closer fellowship.
Science has taken theology at its own estimate. It is a thing apart. The
Spiritual World is not only a different world, but a different kind of world, a
world arranged on a totally different principle, under a different governmental
scheme.
The Reign of Law has gradually crept into every
department of Nature, transforming knowledge everywhere into Science. The
process goes on, and Nature slowly appears to us as one great unity, until the
borders of the Spiritual World are reached. There the Law of Continuity ceases,
and the harmony breaks down. And men who have learned their elementary lessons
truly from the alphabet of the lower Laws, going on to seek a higher knowledge,
are suddenly confronted with the Great Exception.
Even those who have examined most carefully the
relations of the Natural and the Spiritual, seem to have committed themselves
deliberately to a final separation in matters of Law. It is a surprise to find
such a writer as Horace Bushnell, for instance, describing the Spiritual World
as "another system of nature incommunicably separate from ours," and further
defining it thus: "God has, in fact, erected another and higher system, that of
spiritual being and government for which nature exists; a system not under the
law of cause and effect, but ruled and marshalled under other kinds of laws."[9] Few men have shown more insight than Bushnell
in illustrating Spiritual truth from the Natural World; but he has not only
failed to perceive the analogy with regard to Law, but emphatically denies
it.
In the recent literature of this whole region
there nowhere seems any advance upon the position of "Nature and the
Supernatural." All are agreed in speaking of Nature and the
Supernatural. Nature in the Supernatural, so far as Laws are concerned,
is still an unknown truth.
"The Scientific Basis of Faith" is a suggestive
title. The accomplished author announces that the object of his investigation
is to show that "the world of nature and mind, as made known by science,
constitute a basis and a preparation for that highest moral and spiritual life
of man, which is evoked by the self-revelation of God."[10] On the whole, Mr. Murphy seems to be more philosophical
and more profound in his view of the relation of science and religion than any
writer of modern times. His conception of religion is broad and lofty, his
acquaintance with science adequate. He makes constant, admirable, and often
original use of analogy; and yet, in spite of the promise of this quotation, he
has failed to find any analogy in that department of Law where surely, of all
others, it might most reasonably be looked for. In the broad subject even of
the analogies of what he defines as "evangelical religion" with Nature, Mr.
Murphy discovers nothing. Nor can this be traced either to short-sight or
over-sight. The subject occurs to him more than once, and he deliberately
dismisses it--dismisses it not merely as unfruitful, but with a distinct denial
of its relevancy. The memorable paragraph from Origen which forms the text of
Butler's "Analogy," he calls "this shallow and false saying"[11] He says: "The designation of Butler's scheme of religious
philosophy ought then to be the analogy of religion, legal and evangelical,
to the constitution of nature. But does this give altogether a true
meaning? Does this double analogy really exist? If justice is natural law among
beings having a moral nature, there is the closest analogy between the
constitution of nature and merely legal religion. Legal religion is only the
extension of natural justice into a future life. . . . But is this true of
evangelical religion? Have the doctrines of Divine grace any similar support in
the analogies of nature? I trow not."[12] And
with reference to a specific question, speaking of immortality, he asserts that
"the analogies of mere nature are opposed to the doctrine of immortality."[13]
With regard to Butler's great work in this
department, it is needless at this time of day to point out that his aims did
not lie exactly in this direction. He did not seek to indicate analogies
between religion and the constitution and course of Nature. His theme was, "The
Analogy of Religion to the constitution and course of Nature." And
although he pointed out direct analogies of Phenomena, such as those between
the metamorphoses of insects and the doctrine of a future state; and although
he showed that "the natural and moral constitution and government of the world
are so connected as to make up together but one scheme,"[14] his real intention was not so much to construct arguments
as to repel objections. His emphasis accordingly was laid upon the difficulties
of the two schemes rather than on their positive lines; and so thoroughly has
he made out his point, that as is well known, the effect upon many has been,
not to lead them to accept the Spiritual World on the ground of the Natural,
but to make them despair of both. Butler lived at a time when defence was more
necessary than construction, when the materials for construction were scarce
and insecure, and when, besides. some of the things to be defended were quite
incapable of defence. Notwithstanding this, his influence over the whole field
since has been unparalleled.
After all, then, the Spiritual World, as it
appears at this moment, is outside Natural Law. Theology continues to be
considered, as it has always been, a thing apart. It remains still a stupendous
and splendid construction, but on lines altogether its own. Nor is Theology to
be blamed for this. Nature has been long in speaking; even yet its voice is
low, sometimes inaudible. Science is the true defaulter, for Theology had to
wait patiently for its development. As the highest of the sciences, Theology in
the order of evolution should be the last to fall into rank. It is reserved for
it to perfect the final harmony. Still, if it continues longer to remain a
thing apart, with increasing reason will be such protests as this of the
"Unseen Universe," when, in speaking of a view of miracles held by an older
Theology, it declares:--"If he submits to be guided by such interpreters, each
intelligent being will for ever continue to be baffled in any attempt to
explain these phenomena, because they are said to have no physical relation to
anything that went before or that followed after; in fine, they are made to
form a universe within a universe, a portion cut off by an insurmountable
barrier from the domain of scientific inquiry."[15]
This is the secret of the present decadence of
Religion in the world of Science. For Science can hear nothing of a Great
Exception. Constructions on unique lines, "portions cut off by an
insurmountable barrier from the domain of scientific inquiry," it dare not
recognise. Nature has taught it this lesson, and Nature is right. It is the
province of Science to vindicate Nature here at any hazard. But in blaming
Theology for its intolerance, it has been betrayed into an intolerance less
excusable. It has pronounced upon it too soon. What if Religion be yet brought
within the sphere of Law? Law is the revelation of time. One by one slowly
through the centuries the Sciences have crystallized into geometrical form,
each form not only perfect in itself, but perfect in its relation to all other
forms. Many forms had to be perfected before the form of the Spiritual. The
Inorganic has to be worked out before the Organic, the Natural before the
Spiritual. Theology at present has merely an ancient and provisional
philosophic form. By-and-by it will be seen whether it be not susceptible of
another. For Theology must pass through the necessary stages of progress, like
any other science. The method of science-making is now fully established. In
almost all cases the natural history and development are the same. Take, for
example, the case of Geology. A century ago there was none. Science went out to
look for it, and brought back a Geology which, if Nature were a harmony, had
falsehood written almost on its face. It was the Geology of Catastrophism, a
Geology so out of line with Nature as revealed by the other sciences, that on
a priori grounds a thoughtful mind might have been justified in
dismissing it as a final form of any science. And its fallacy was soon and
thoroughly exposed. The advent of modified uniformitarian principles all but
banished the word catastrophe from science, and marked the birth of Geology as
we know it now. Geology, that is to say, had fallen at last into the great
scheme of Law. Religious doctrines, many of them at least, have been up to this
time all but as catastrophic as the old Geology. They are not on the
lines of Nature as we have learned to decipher her. If any one feel, as Science
complains that it feels, that the lie of things in the Spiritual World as
arranged by Theology is not in harmony with the world around, is not, in short,
scientific, he is entitled to raise the question whether this be really the
final form of those departments of Theology to which his complaint refers, He
is justified, moreover, in demanding a new investigation with all modern
methods and resources; and Science is bound by its principles not less than by
the lessons of its own past, to suspend. judgment till the last attempt is
made. The success of such an attempt will be looked forward to with hopefulness
or fearfulness just in proportion to one's confidence in Nature --in proportion
to one's belief in the divinity of man and in the divinity of things. If there
is any truth in the unity of Nature, in that supreme principle of Continuity
which is growing in splendour with every discovery of science, the conclusion
is foregone. If there is any foundation for Theology, if the phenomena of the
Spiritual World are real, in the nature of things they ought to come into the
sphere of Law. Such is at once the demand of Science upon Religion and the
prophecy that it can and shall be fulfilled.
The Botany of Linnaeus, a purely artificial
system, was a splendid contribution to human knowledge, and did more in its day
to enlarge the view of the vegetable kingdom than all that had gone before. But
all artificial systems must pass away. None knew better than the great Swedish
naturalist himself that his system, being artificial, was but provisional.
Nature must be read in its own light. And as the botanical field became more
luminous, the system of Jussieu and De Candolle slowly emerged as a native
growth, unfolded itself as naturally as the petals of one of its own flowers,
and forcing itself upon men's intelligence as the very voice of Nature,
banished the Linnaean system for ever. It were unjust to say that the present
Theology is as artificial as the system of Linnaeus; in many particulars it
wants but a fresh expression to make it in the most modern sense scientific.
But if it has a basis in the constitution and course of Nature, that basis has
never been adequately shown. It has depended on Authority rather than on Law;
and a new basis must be sought and found if it is to be presented to those with
whom Law alone is Authority.
It is not of course to be inferred that the
scientific method will ever abolish the radical distinctions of the Spiritual
World. True science proposes to itself no such general levelling in any
department. Within the unity of the whole there must always be room for the
characteristic differences of the parts, and those tendencies of thought at the
present time which ignore such distinctions, in their zeal for simplicity
really create confusion. As has been well said by Mr. Hutton: "Any attempt to
merge the distinctive characteristic of a higher science in a lower--of
chemical changes in mechanical--of physiological in chemical--above all, of
mental changes in physiological--is a neglect of the radical assumption of all
science, because it is an attempt to deduce representations--or rather
misrepresentations--of one kind of phenomenon from a conception of another kind
which does not contain it, and must have it implicitly and illicitly smuggled
in before it can be extracted out of it. Hence, instead of increasing our means
of representing the universe to ourselves without the detailed examination of
particulars, such a procedure leads to misconstructions of fact on the basis of
an imported theory, and generally ends in forcibly perverting the least-known
science to the type of the better known."[16]
What is wanted is simply a unity of conception,
but not such a unity of conception as should be founded on an absolute identity
of phenomena. This latter might indeed be a unity, but it would be a very tame
one The perfection of unity is attained where there is infinite variety of
phenomena, infinite complexity of relation, but great simplicity of Law.
Science will be complete when all known phenomena can be arranged in one vast
circle in which a few well known Laws shall form the radii-- these radii at
once separating and uniting, separating into particular groups, yet uniting all
to a common centre. To show that the radii for some of the most characteristic
phenomena of the Spiritual World are already drawn within that circle by
science is the main object of the papers which follow. There will be found an
attempt to re-state a few of the more elementary facts of the Spiritual Life in
terms of Biology. Any argument for Natural Law in the Spiritual World may be
best tested in the a posteriori form. And although the succeeding pages
are not designed in the first instance to prove a principle, they may yet be
entered here as evidence. The practical test is a severe one, but on that
account all the more satisfactory.
And what will be gained if the point be made out?
Not a few things. For one, as partly indicated already, the scientific demand
of the age will be satisfied. That demand is that all that concerns life and
conduct shall be placed on a scientific basis. The only great attempt to meet
that at present is Positivism.
But what again is a scientific basis? What
exactly is this demand of the age? " By Science I understand," says Huxley,
"all knowledge which rests upon evidence and reasoning of a like character to
that which claims our assent to ordinary scientific propositions; and if any
one is able to make good the assertion that his theology rests upon valid
evidence and sound reasoning, then it appears to me that such theology must
take its place as a part of science." That the assertion has been already made
good is claimed by many who deserve to be heard on questions of scientific
evidence. But if more is wanted by some minds, more not perhaps of a higher
kind but of a different kind, at least the attempt can be made to gratify them.
Mr. Frederic Harrison,[17] in name of the
Positive method of thought, "turns aside from ideal standards which avow
themselves to be lawless [the italics are Mr. Harrison's], which profess
to transcend the field of law. We say, life and conduct shall stand for us
wholly on a basis of law, and must rest entirely in that region of science (not
physical, but moral and social science) where we are free to use our
intelligence, in the methods known to us as intelligible logic, methods which
the intellect can analyse. When you confront us with hypotheses, however
sublime and however affecting, if they cannot be stated in terms of the rest of
our knowledge, if they are disparate to that world of sequence and sensation
which to us is the ultimate base of all our real knowledge, then we shake our
heads and turn aside." This is a most reasonable demand, and we humbly accept
the challenge. We think religious truth, or at all events certain of the
largest facts of the Spiritual Life, can be stated "in terms of the rest of our
knowledge."
We do not say, as already hinted, that the
proposal includes an attempt to prove the existence of the Spiritual World.
Does that need proof? And if so, what sort of evidence would be considered in
court? The facts of the Spiritual World are as real to thousands as the facts
of the Natural World-- and more real to hundreds. But were one asked to prove
that the Spiritual World can be discerned by the appropriate faculties, one
would do it precisely as one would attempt to prove the Natural World to be an
object of recognition to the senses--and with as much or as little success. In
either instance probably the fact would be found incapable of demonstration,
but not more in the one case than in the other. Were one asked to prove the
existence of Spiritual Life, one would also do it exactly as one would seek to
prove Natural Life. And this perhaps might be attempted with more hope. But
this is not on the immediate programme. Science deals with known facts; and
accepting certain known facts in the Spiritual World we proceed to arrange
them, to discover their Laws, to inquire if they can be stated "in terms of the
rest of our knowledge."
At the same time, although attempting no
philosophical proof of the existence of a Spiritual Life and a Spiritual World,
we are not without hope that the general line of thought here may be useful to
some who are honestly inquiring in these directions. The stumbling-block to
most minds is perhaps less the mere existence of the unseen than the want of
definition, the apparently hopeless vagueness, and not least, the delight in
this vagueness as mere vagueness by some who look upon this as the mark of
quality in Spiritual things. It will be at least something to tell earnest
seekers that the Spiritual World is not a castle in the air, of an architecture
unknown to earth or heaven, but a fair ordered realm furnished with many
familiar things and ruled by well-remembered Laws.
It is scarcely necessary to emphasise under a
second head the gain in clearness. The Spiritual World as it stands is full of
perplexity. One can escape doubt only by escaping thought. With regard to many
important articles of religion perhaps the best and the worst course at present
open to a doubter is simple credulity. Who is to answer for this state of
things? It comes as a necessary tax for improvement on the age in which we
live. The old ground of faith, Authority, is given up; the new, Science, has
not yet taken its place. Men did not require to see truth before; they only
needed to believe it. Truth, therefore, had not been put by Theology in a
seeing form--which, however, was its original form. But now they ask to see it.
And when it is shown them they start back in despair. We shall not say what
they see. But we shall say what they might see. If the Natural Laws were run
through the Spiritual World, they might see the great lines of religious truth
as clearly and simply as the broad lines of science. As they gazed into that
Natural-Spiritual World they would say to themselves, "We have seen something
like this before. This order is known to us. It is not arbitrary. This Law here
is that old Law there, and this Phenomenon here, what can it be but that which
stood in precisely the same relation to that Law yonder?" And so gradually from
the new form everything assumes new meaning. So the Spiritual World becomes
slowly Natural; and, what is of all but equal moment, the Natural World becomes
slowly Spiritual. Nature is not a mere image or emblem of the Spiritual. It is
a working model of the Spiritual. In the Spiritual World the same wheels
revolve--but without the iron. The same figures flit across the stage, the same
processes of growth go on, the same functions are discharged, the same
biological laws prevail--only with a different quality of Bios. Plato's
prisoner, if not out of the Cave, has at least his face to the light.
"The earth is
cram'd with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God."
How
much of the Spiritual World is covered by Natural law we do not propose at
present to inquire. It is certain, at least, that the whole is not covered. And
nothing more lends confidence to the method than this. For one thing, room is
still left for mystery. Had no place remained for mystery it had proved itself
both unscientific and irreligious. A Science without mystery is unknown; a
Religion without mystery is absurd. This is no attempt to reduce Religion to a
question of mathematics, or demonstrate God in biological formulae. The
elimination of mystery from the universe is the elimination of Religion.
However far the scientific method may penetrate the Spiritual World, there will
always remain a region to be explored by a scientific faith. "I shall never
rise to the point of view which wishes to `raise ` faith to knowledge. To me,
the way of truth is to come through the knowledge of my ignorance to the
submissiveness of faith, and then, making that my starting place, to raise my
knowledge into faith."[18]
Lest this proclamation of mystery should seem
alarming, let us add that this mystery also is scientific. The one subject on
which all scientific men are agreed the one theme on which all alike become
eloquent, the one strain of pathos in all their writing and speaking and
thinking, concerns that final uncertainty, that utter blackness of darkness
bounding their work on every side. If the light of Nature is to illuminate for
us the Spiritual Sphere, there may well be a black Unknown, corresponding, at
least at some points, to this zone of darkness round the Natural World.
But the final gain would appear in the department
of Theology. The establishment of the Spiritual Laws on "the solid ground of
Nature," to which the mind trusts "which builds for aye," would offer a new
basis for certainty in Religion. It has been indicated that the authority of
Authority is waning This is a plain fact. And it was inevitable.
Authority--man's Authority, that is--is for children. And there necessarily
comes a time when they add to the question, What shall I do? or, What shall I
believe? the adult's interrogation--Why? Now this question is sacred, and must
be answered.
"How truly its central position is impregnable,"
Herbert Spencer has well discerned, "religion has never adequately realized. In
the devoutest faith, as we habitually see it, there lies hidden an innermost
core of scepticism; and it is this scepticism which causes that dread of
inquiry displayed by religion when face to face with science."[19] True indeed; Religion has never realized how impregnable
are many of its positions. It has not yet been placed on that basis which would
make them impregnable. And in a transition period like the present, holding
Authority with one hand, the other feeling all around in the darkness for some
strong new support, Theology is surely to be pitied. Whence this dread when
brought face to face with Science? It cannot be dread of scientific fact. No
single fact in Science has ever discredited a fact in Religion. The theologian
knows that, and admits that he has no fear of facts. What then has Science done
to make Theology tremble? It is its method. It is its system. It is its Reign
of Law. It is its harmony and continuity. The attack is not specific. No one
point is assailed. It is the whole system which when compared with the other
and weighed in its balance is found wanting. An eye which has looked at the
first cannot look upon this. To do that, and rest in the contemplation, it has
just to uncentury itself.
Herbert Spencer points out further, with how much
truth need not now be discussed, that the purificatlon of Religion has always
come from Science. It is very apparent at all events that an immense debt must
soon be contracted The shifting of the furnishings will be a work of time. But
it must be accomplished. And not the least result of the process will be the
effect upon Science itself. No department of knowledge ever contributes to
another without receiving its own again with usury --witness the reciprocal
favours of Biology and Sociology. From the time that Comte defined the analogy
between the phenomena exhibited by aggregations of associated men and those of
animal colonies, the Science of Life and the Science of Society have been so
contributing to one another that their progress since has been all but
hand-in-hand. A conception borrowed by the one has been observed in time
finding its way back, and always in an enlarged form, to further illuminate and
enrich the field it left. So must it be with Science and Religion. If the
purification of Religion comes from Science, the purification of Science, in a
deeper sense, shall come from Religion. The true ministry of Nature must at
last be honoured, and Science take its place as the great expositor. To Men of
Science, not less than to Theologians,
"Science then
Shall be a precious visitant; and then,
And only then, be worthy of her name:
For then her heart shall kindle, her dull eye,
Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang
Chained to its object in brute slavery;
But taught with patient interest to watch
The process of things, and serve the cause
Of order and distinctness, not for this
Shall it forget that its most noble use,
Its most illustrious province, must be found
In furnishing clear guidance, a support,
Not treacherous, to the mind's excursive
power."[20]
But the gift of Science to Theology shall be not
less rich. With the inspiration of Nature to illuminate what the inspiration of
Revelation has left obscure, heresy in certain whole departments shall become
impossible. With the demonstration of the naturalness of the supernatural,
scepticism even may come to be regarded as unscientific. And those who have
wrestled long for a few bare truths to ennoble life and rest their souls in
thinking of the future will not be left in doubt.
It is impossible to believe that the amazing
succession of revelations in the domain of Nature during the last few
centuries, at which the world has all but grown tired wondering, are to yield
nothing for the higher life. If the development of doctrine is to have any
meaning for the future, Theology must draw upon the further revelation of the
seen for the further revelation of the unseen. It need, and can, add nothing to
fact; but as the vision of Newton rested on a clearer and richer world than
that of Plato, so, though seeing the same things in the Spiritual World as our
fathers, we may see them clearer and richer. With the work of the centuries
upon it, the mental eye is a finer instrument, and demands a more ordered
world. Had the revelation of Law been given sooner, it had been unintelligible.
Revelation never volunteers anything that man could discover for himself--on
the principle, probably, that it is only when he is capable of discovering it
that he is capable of appreciating it. Besides, children do not need Laws,
except Laws in the sense of commandments. They repose with simplicity on
authority, and ask no questions. But there comes a time, as the world reaches
its manhood, when they will ask questions, and stake, moreover, everything on
the answers. That time is now. Hence we must exhibit our doctrines, not lying
athwart the lines of the world's thinking, in a place reserved, and therefore
shunned, for the Great Exception; but in their kinship to all truth and in
their Law-relation to the whole of Nature. This is, indeed, simply following
out the system of teaching begun by Christ Himself. And what is the search for
spiritual truth in the Laws of Nature but an attempt to utter the parables
which have been hid so long in the world around without a preacher, and to tell
men once more that the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto this and to that?
[3] "Reign of Law," chap. ii
[4] " Animal Kingdom "
[5] "Sartor Resartus," 1858 ed., p. 43.
[6] Even parable, however, has always been
considered to have attached to it a measure of evidential as well as of
illustrative value. Thus: "The parable or other analogy to spiritual truth
appropriated from the world of nature or man, is not merely illustrative, but
also in some sort proof. It is not merely that these analogies assist to make
the truth intelligible or, if intelligible before, present it more vividly to
the mind, which is all that some will allow them. Their power lies deeper than
this, in the harmony unconsciously felt by all men, and which all deeper minds
have delighted to trace, between the natural and spiritual worlds, so that
analogies from the first are felt to be something more than illustrations
happily but yet arbitrarily chosen. They are arguments, and may be alleged as
witnesses; the world of nature being throughout a witness for the world of
spirit, proceeding from the same hand, growing out of the same root, and being
constituted for that very end."--(Archbishop Trench: "Parables," pp. 12, 13.)
[7] Mill's "Logic," vol. ii. p. 96.
[8] Campbell's "Rhetoric," vol.i. p. 114.
[9] "Nature and the Supernatural," p.19.
[10] "The Scientific Basis of Faith." By J. J.
Murphy, p. 466.
[11] Op. Cit., p. 333.
[12] Ibid., p.333.
[13] Ibid., p. 331.
[14] "Analogy," chap. vii.
[15] "Unseen Universe," 6th ed., pp. 89, 90.
[16] "Essays", vol. I. p. 40.
[17] "A Modern Symposium."--Nineteenth
Century, vol. i. p. 625.
[18] Beck: "Bib. Psychol.," Clark's Tr.,
Pref., 2nd Ed. p. xiii.
[19] "First Principles", p.161.
[20] Wordsworth's Excursion, Book iv.