CLASSIFICATION.
"I judge of the order of the world,
although I know not its end, because to judge of this order I only need
mutually to compare the parts, to study their functions, their relations and to
remark their concert. I know not why the universe exists but I do not desist
from seeing how it is modified; I do not cease to see the intimate
agreement by which the beings that compose it render a mutual help. I am like a
man who should see for the first time an open watch, who should not
cease to admire the workmanship of it, although he knows not the use of the
machine, and had never seen dials. I do not know, he would say, what all
this is for, but I see that each piece is made for the others; I admire the
worker in the detail of his work, and I am very sure that all these wheelworks
only go thus in concert for a common end which I cannot
perceive."
COUSSEAU.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."--Christ.
" In early attempts to arrange organic
beings in some systematic manner, we see at first a guidance by conspicuous and
simple characters, and a tendency towards arrangement in linear order. In
successively later attempts, we see more regard paid to combinations of
character which are essential but often inconspicuous; and a gradual
abandonment of a linear arrangement."--Herbert Spencer.
ON one of the shelves in a certain museum
lie two small boxes filled with earth. A low mountain in Arran has furnished
the first; the contents of the second came from the Island of Barbadoes. When
examined with a pocket lens, the Arran earth is found to be full of small
objects, clear as crystal, fashioned by some mysterious geometry into forms of
exquisite symmetry. The substance is silica, a natural glass; and the
prevailing shape is a six-sided prism capped at either end by little pyramids
modelled with consummate grace.
When the second specimen is examined, the
revelation is, if possible, more surprising. Here, also, is a vast assemblage
of small glassy or porcellanous objects built up into curious forms. The
material, chemically, remains the same, but the angles of pyramid and prism
have given place to curved lines, so that the contour is entirely different.
The appearance is that of a vast collection of
microscopic urns, goblets, and vases, each richly ornamented with small
sculptured discs or perforations which are disposed over the pure white surface
in regular belts and rows. Each tiny urn is chiselled into the most faultless
proportion, and the whole presents a vision of magic beauty.
Judged by the standard of their loveliness there
is little to choose between these two sets of objects. Yet there is one
cardinal difference between them. They belong to different worlds. The last
belong to the living world, the former to the dead. The first are crystals, the
last are shells.
No power on earth can make these little urns of
the Polycystinae except Life. We can melt them down in the laboratory,
but no ingenuity of chemistry can reproduce their sculptured forms. We are sure
that Life has formed them, however, for tiny creatures allied to those which
made the Barbadoes' earth are living still, fashioning their fairy palaces of
flint in the same mysterious way. On the other hand, chemistry has no
difficulty in making these crystals. We can melt down this Arran earth and
reproduce the pyramids and prisms in endless numbers Nay, if we do melt it
down, we cannot help reproducing the pyramid and the prism. There is a
six-sidedness, as it were, in the very nature of this substance which will
infallibly manifest itself if the crystallizing substance only be allowed fair
play. This six-sided tendency is its Law of Crystallization --a law of its
nature which it cannot resist. But in the crystal there is nothing at all
corresponding to Life. There is simply an inherent force which can be called
into action at any moment, and which cannot be separated from the particles in
which it resides. The crystal may be ground to pieces, but this force remains
intact. And even after being reduced to powder, and running the gauntlet of
every process in the chemical laboratory, the moment the substance is left to
itself under possible conditions it will proceed to recrystallize anew. But if
the Polycystine urn be broken, no inorganic agency can build it up again. So
far as any inherent urn-building power, analogous to the crystalline force, is
concerned, it might lie there in a shapeless mass for ever. That which modelled
it at first is gone from it. It was Vital; while the force which built the
crystal was only Molecular.
From an artistic point of view this distinction
is of small importance. Aesthetically, the Law of Crystallization is
probably as useful in ministering to natural beauty as Vitality. What are more
beautiful than the crystals of a snowflake? Or what frond of fern or feather of
bird can vie with the tracery of the frost upon a window-pane? Can it be said
that the lichen is more lovely than the striated crystals of the granite on
which it grows, or the moss on the mountain side more satisfying than the
hidden amethyst and cairngorm in the rock beneath? Or is the botanist more
astonished when his microscope reveals the architecture of spiral tissue in the
stem of a plant, or the mineralogist who beholds for the first time the chaos
of beauty in the sliced specimen of some common stone? So far as beauty goes
the organic world and the inorganic are one.
To the man of science, however, this identity of
beauty signifies nothing. His concern, in the first instance, is not with the
forms but with the natures of things. It is no valid answer to him, when he
asks the difference between the moss and the cairngorm, the frost-work and the
fern, to be assured that both are beautiful. For no fundamental distinction in
Science depends upon beauty. He wants an answer in terms of chemistry, are they
organic or inorganic? or in terms of biology, are they living or dead? But when
he is told that the one is living and the other dead, he is in possession of a
characteristic and fundamental scientific distinction. From this point of view,
however much they may possess in common of material substance and beauty, they
are separated from one another by a wide and unbridged gulf. The classification
of these forms, therefore, depends upon the standpoint, and we should pronounce
them like or unlike, related or unrelated, according as we judged them from the
point of view of Art or of Science.
The drift of these introductory paragraphs must
already be apparent. We propose to inquire whether among men, clothed
apparently with a common beauty of character, there may not yet be distinctions
as radical as between the crystal and the shell; and further, whether the
current classification of men, based upon Moral Beauty, is wholly satisfactory
either from the standpoint of Science or of Christianity. Here, for example,
are two characters, pure and elevated, adorned with conspicuous virtues,
stirred by lofty impulses, and commanding a spontaneous admiration from all who
look on them--may not this similarity of outward form be accompanied by a total
dissimilarity of inward nature? Is the external appearance the truest criterion
of the ultimate nature? Or, as in the crystal and the shell, may there not
exist distinctions more profound and basal? The distinctions drawn
between men, in short, are commonly based on the outward appearance of goodness
or badness, on the ground of moral beauty or moral deformity--is this
classification scientific? Or is there a deeper distinction between the
Christian and the not-a-Christian as fundamental as that between the organic
and the inorganic?
There can be little doubt, to begin with, that
with the great majority of people religion is regarded as essentially one with
morality. Whole schools of philosophy have treated the Christian Religion as a
question of beauty, and discussed its place among other systems of ethic. Even
those systems of theology which profess to draw a deeper distinction have
rarely succeeded in establishing it upon any valid basis, or seem even to have
made that distinction perceptible to others. So little, indeed has the science
of religion been understood that there is still no more unsatisfactory province
in theology than where morality and religion are contrasted, and the adjustment
attempted between moral philosophy and what are known as the doctrines of
grace.
Examples of this confusion are so numerous that
if one were to proceed to proof he would have to cite almost the entire
European philosophy of the last three hundred years. From Spinoza downward
through the whole naturalistic school, Moral Beauty is persistently regarded as
synonymous with religion and the spiritual life. The most earnest thinking of
the present day is steeped in the same confusion. We have even the remarkable
spectacle presented to us just now of a sublime Morality-Religion divorced from
Christianity altogether, and wedded to the baldest form of materialism. It is
claimed, moreover, that the moral scheme of this high atheism is loftier and
more perfect than that of Christianity, and men are asked to take their choice
as if the morality were everything, the Christianity or the atheism which
nourished it being neither here nor there. Others, again, studying this moral
beauty carefully, have detected a something in its Christian forms which has
compelled them to declare that a distinction certainly exists. But in scarcely
a single instance is the gravity of the distinction more than dimly
apprehended. Few conceive of it as other than a difference of degree, or could
give a more definite account of it than Mr. Matthew Arnold's "Religion is
morality touched by Emotion"--an utterance significant mainly as the testimony
of an acute mind that a distinction of some kind does exist. In a recent
Symposium, where the question as to "The influence upon Morality of a decline
in Religious Belief," was discussed at length by writers of whom this century
is justly proud, there appears scarcely so much as a recognition of the
fathomless chasm separating the leading terms of debate.
If beauty is the criterion of religion, this view
of the relation of religion to morality is justified. But what if there be the
same difference in the beauty of two separate characters that there is between
the mineral and the shell? What if there be a moral beauty and a spiritual
beauty? What answer shall we get if we demand a more scientific distinction
between characters than that based on mere outward form? It is not enough from
the standpoint of biological religion to say of two characters that both are
beautiful. For, again, no fundamental distinction in Science depends upon
beauty. We ask an answer in terms of biology, are they flesh or spirit; are
they living or dead?
If this is really a scientific question, if it is
a question not of moral philosophy only, but of biology, we are compelled to
repudiate beauty as the criterion of spirituality. It is not, of course, meant
by this that spirituality is not morally beautiful. Spirituality must be
morally very beautiful--so much so that popularly one is justified in judging
of religion by its beauty. Nor is it meant that morality is not a criterion.
All that is contended for is that, from the scientific standpoint, it is not
the criterion. We can judge of the crystal and the shell from many other
standpoints besides those named, each classification having an importance in
its own sphere. Thus we might class them according to their size and weight,
their percentage of silica, their use in the arts, or their commercial value.
Each science or art is entitled to regard them from its own point of view; and
when the biologist announces his classification he does not interfere with
those based on other grounds. Only, having chosen his standpoint, he is bound
to frame his classification in terms of it.
It may be well to state emphatically, that in
proposing a new classification--or rather, in reviving the primitive one--in
the spiritual sphere we leave untouched, as of supreme value in its own
province, the test of morality. Morality is certainly a test of religion--for
most practical purposes the very best test. And so far from tending to
depreciate morality, the bringing into prominence of the true basis is entirely
in its interests--in the interests of a moral beauty, indeed, infinitely
surpassing the highest attainable perfection on merely natural lines.
The warrant for seeking a further classification
is twofold. It is a principle in science that classification should rest on the
most basal characteristics. To determine what these are may not always be easy,
but it is at least evident that a classification framed on the ultimate nature
of organisms must be more distinctive than one based on external characters.
Before the principles of classification were understood, organisms were
invariably arranged according to some merely external resemblance. Thus plants
were classed according to size as Herbs, Shrubs, and Trees; and animals
according to their appearance as Birds, Beasts, and Fishes. The Bat upon this
principle was a bird, the Whale a fish; and so thoroughly artificial were these
early systems that animals were often tabulated among the plants, and plants
among the animals. "In early attempts," says Herbert Spencer, "to arrange
organic beings in some systematic manner, we see at first a guidance by
conspicuous and simple characters, and a tendency towards arrangement in linear
order. In successively later attempts, we see more regard paid to combinations
of characters which are essential but often inconspicuous; and a gradual
abandonment of a linear arrangement for an arrangement in divergent groups and
re-divergent sub-groups."[96] Almost all the
natural sciences have already passed through these stages; and one or two which
rested entirely on external characters have all but ceased to
exist--Conchology, for example, which has yielded its place to Malacology.
Following in the wake of the other sciences, the classifications of Theology
may have to be remodelled in the same way. The popular classification, whatever
its merits from a practical point of view, is essentially a classification
based on Morphology. The whole tendency of science now is to include along with
morphological considerations the profounder generalisations of Physiology and
Embryology. And the contribution of the latter science especially has been
found so important that biology henceforth must look for its classification
largely to Embryological characters.
But apart from the demand of modern scientific
culture it is palpably foreign to Christianity, not merely as a Philosophy but
as a Biology, to classify men only in terms of the former. And it is somewhat
remarkable that the writers of both the Old and New Testaments seem to have
recognised the deeper basis. The favourite classification of the Old Testament
was into "the nations which knew God" and "the nations which knew not God"--a
distinction which we have formerly seen to be, at bottom, biological. In the
New Testament again the ethical characters are more prominent, but the cardinal
distinctions based on regeneration, if not always actually referred to, are
throughout kept in view, both in the sayings of Christ and in the Epistles.
What then is the deeper distinction drawn by
Christianity? What is the essential difference between the Christian and the
not-a-Christian, between the spiritual beauty and the moral beauty? It is the
distinction between the Organic and the Inorganic. Moral beauty is the product
of the natural man, spiritual beauty of the spiritual man. And these two,
according to the law of Biogenesis, are separated from one another by the
deepest line known to Science. This Law is at once the foundation of Biology
and of Spiritual religion. And the whole fabric of Christianity falls into
confusion if we attempt to ignore it. The Law of Biogenesis, in fact, is to be
regarded as the equivalent in biology of the First Law of Motion in physics:
Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight
line, except in so far as it is compelled by forces to change that state.
The first Law of biology is: That which is Mineral is Mineral; that which
is Flesh is Flesh; that which is Spirit is Spirit. The mineral remains in the
inorganic world until it is seized upon by a something called Life outside the
inorganic world; the natural man remains the natural man, until a Spiritual
Life from without the natural life seizes upon him, regenerates him, changes
him into a spiritual man. The peril of the illustration from the law of motion
will not be felt at least by those who appreciate the distinction between
Physics and biology, between Energy and Life. The change of state here is not
as in physics a mere change of direction, the affections directed to a new
object, the will into a new channel. The change involves all this, but is
something deeper. It is a change of nature, a regeneration, a passing from
death into life. Hence relatively to this higher life the natural life is no
longer Life, but Death, and the natural man from the standpoint of Christianity
is dead. Whatever assent the mind may give to this proposition, however much it
has been overlooked in the past, however it compares with casual observation,
it is certain that the Founder of the Christian religion intended this to be
the keystone of Christianity. In the proposition That which is flesh is
flesh, and that which is spirit is spirit, Christ formulates the first law
of biological religion, and lays the basis for a final classification. He
divides men into two classes, the living and the not-living. And Paul
afterwards carries out the classification consistently making his entire system
depend on it, and through out arranging men, on the one hand as pneumatiko-- spiritual, on the other as
uxiko--carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction.
Suppose now it be granted for a moment that the
character of the not-a-Christian is as beautiful as that of the Christian. This
is simply to say that the crystal is as beautiful as the organism. One is quite
entitled to hold this; but what he is not entitled to hold is that both in the
same sense are living. He that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not
the Son hath not Life. And in the face of this law, no other conclusion is
possible than that that which is flesh remains flesh. No matter how great the
development of beauty, that which is flesh is withal flesh. The elaborateness
or the perfection of the moral development in any given instance can do nothing
to break down this distinction. Man is a moral animal, and can, and ought to,
arrive at great natural beauty of character. But this is simply to obey the law
of his nature--the law of his flesh; and no progress along that line can
project him into the spiritual sphere. If any one choose to claim that the
mineral beauty, the fleshly beauty, the natural moral beauty, is all he covets,
he is entitled to his claim. To be good and true, pure and benevolent in the
moral sphere, are high and, so far, legitimate objects of life. If he
deliberately stop here, he is at liberty to do so. But what he is not entitled
to do is to call himself a Christian, or to claim to discharge the functions
peculiar to the Christian life. His morality is mere crystallisation, the
crystallising forces having had fair play in his development. But these forces
have no more touched the sphere of Christianity than the frost on the
window-pane can do more than simulate the external forms of life. And if he
considers that the high development to which he has reached may pass by an
insensible transition into spirituality, or that his moral nature of itself may
flash into the flame of regenerate Life, he has to be reminded that in spite of
the apparent connection of these things from one standpoint, from another there
is none at all, or none discoverable by us. On the one hand, there being no
such thing as Spontaneous Generation, his moral nature, however it may
encourage it, cannot generate Life; while, on the other, his high organization
can never in itself result in Life, Life being always the cause of organization
and never the effect of it.
The practical question may now be asked, is this
distinction palpable? Is it a mere conceit of Science, or what human interests
attach to it? If it cannot he proved that the resulting moral or spiritual
beauty is higher in the one case than in the other, the biological distinction
is useless. And if the objection is pressed that the spiritual man has nothing
further to effect in the direction of morality, seeing that the natural man can
successfully compete with him, the questions thus raised become of serious
significance. That objection would certainly be fatal which could show that the
spiritual world was not as high in its demand for a lofty morality as the
natural; and that biology would be equally false and dangerous which should in
the least encourage the view that "without holiness" a man could "see the
Lord." These questions accordingly we must briefly consider. It is necessary to
premise, however, that the difficulty is not peculiar to the present position.
This is simply the old difficulty of distinguishing spirituality and
morality.
In seeking whatever light Science may have to
offer as to the difference between the natural and the spiritual man, we first
submit the question to Embryology. And if its actual contribution is small, we
shall at least be indebted to it for an important reason why the difficulty
should exist at all. That there is grave difficulty in deciding between two
given characters, the one natural, the other spiritual, is conceded. But if we
can find a sufficient justification for so perplexing a circumstance, the fact
loses weight as an objection, and the whole problem is placed on different
footing.
The difference on the score or beauty between the
crystal and the shell, let us say once more, is imperceptible. But fix
attention for a moment, not upon their appearance, but upon their
possibilities, upon their relation to the future, and upon their place in
evolution. The crystal has reached its ultimate stage of development. It can
never be more beautiful than it is now. Take it to pieces and give it the
opportunity to beautify itself afresh, and it will just do the same thing over
again. It will form itself into a six-sided pyramid, and go on repeating this
same form ad infinitum as often as it is dissolved, and without ever
improving by a hairsbreadth. Its law of crystallisation allows it to reach this
limit, and nothing else within its kingdom can do any more for it. In dealing
with the crystal, in short, we are dealing with the maximum beauty of the
inorganic world. But in dealing with the shell, we are not dealing with the
maximum achievement of the organic world. In itself it is one of the humblest
forms of the invertebrate sub-kingdom of the organic world; and there are other
forms within this kingdom so different from the shell in a hundred respects
that to mistake them would simply be impossible.
In dealing with a man of fine moral character,
again, we are dealing with the highest achievement of the organic kingdom. But
in dealing with a spiritual man we are dealing with the lowest form of life
in the spiritual world. To contrast the two, therefore, and marvel that the
one is apparently so little better than the other, is unscientific and unjust.
The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, hidden as yet in his earthly
chrysalis-case, while the natural man has the breeding and evolution of ages
represented in his character. But what are the possibilities of this spiritual
organism? What is yet to emerge from this chrysalis-case? The natural character
finds its limits within the organic sphere. But who is to define the limits of
the spiritual? Even now it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo it contains
some prophecy of its future glory. But the point to mark is, that it doth
not yet appear what it shall be.
The want of organization, thus, does not
surprise us. All life begins at the Amoeboid stage. Evolution is from the
simple to the complex; and in every case it is some time before organization is
advanced enough to admit of exact classification. A naturalist's only serious
difficulty in classification is when he comes to deal with low or embryonic
forms. It is impossible, for instance, to mistake an oak for an elephant; but
at the bottom of the vegetable series, and at the bottom of the animal series,
there are organisms of so doubtful a character that it is equally impossible to
distinguish them. So formidable, indeed, has been this difficulty that Haeckel
has had to propose an intermediate regnum protisticum to contain those
forms the rudimentary character of which makes it impossible to apply the
determining tests.
We mention this merely to show the difficulty of
classification and not for analogy; for the proper analogy is not between
vegetal and animal forms, whether high or low, but between the living and the
dead. And here the difficulty is certainly not so great. By suitable tests it
is generally possible to distinguish the organic from the inorganic. The
ordinary eye may fail to detect the difference, and innumerable forms are
assigned by the popular judgment to the inorganic world which are nevertheless
undoubtedly alive. And it is the same in the spiritual world. To a cursory
glance these rudimentary spiritual forms may not seem to exhibit the phenomena
of Life, and therefore the living and the dead may be often classed as one. But
let the appropriate scientific tests be applied. In the almost amorphous
organism, the physiologist ought already to be able to detect the symptoms of a
dawning life. And further research might even bring to light some faint
indication of the lines along which the future development was to proceed. Now
it is not impossible that among the tests for Life there may be some which may
fitly be applied to the spiritual organism. We may therefore at this point hand
over the problem to Physiology.
The tests for Life are of two kinds. It is
remarkable that one of them was proposed, in the spiritual sphere, by Christ.
Foreseeing the difficulty of determining the characters and functions of
rudimentary organisms, He suggested that the point be decided by a further
evolution. Time for development was to be allowed, during which the marks of
Life, if any, would become more pronounced, while in the meantime judgment was
to be suspended. "Let both grow together," He said, "until the harvest." This
is a thoroughly scientific test. Obviously, however, it cannot assist us for
the present-- except in the way of enforcing extreme caution in attempting any
classification at all.
The second test is at least not so manifestly
impracticable. It is to apply the ordinary methods by which biology attempts to
distinguish the organic from the inorganic. The characteristics of Life,
according to Physiology, are four in number-- Assimilation, Waste,
Reproduction, and Spontaneous Action. If an organism is found to exercise these
functions, it is said to be alive. Now these tests, in a spiritual sense, might
fairly be applied to the spiritual man. The experiment would be a delicate one.
It might not be open to every one to attempt it. This is a scientific question;
and the experiment would have to be conducted under proper conditions and by
competent persons. But even on the first statement it will be plain to all who
are familiar with spiritual diagnosis that the experiment could be made, and
especially on oneself, with some hope of success. Biological considerations,
however, would warn us not to expect too much. Whatever be the inadequacy of
Morphology, Physiology can never be studied apart from it; and the
investigation of function merely as function is a task of extreme difficulty.
Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, "We have next to no power of tracing up the
genesis of a function considered purely as a function--no opportunity of
observing the progressively-increasing quantities of a given action that have
arisen in any order of organisms. In nearly all cases we are able only to
establish the greater growth of the part which we have found performs the
action, and to infer that greater action of the part has accompanied greater
growth of it."[97] Such being the case, it
would serve no purpose to indicate the details of a barely possible experiment.
We are merely showing, at the moment, that the question "How do I know that I
am alive" is not, in the spiritual sphere, incapable of solution. One might,
nevertheless, single out some distinctively spiritual function and ask himself
if he consciously discharged it. The discharging of that function is, upon
biological principles, equivalent to being alive, and therefore the subject of
the experiment could certainly come to some conclusion as to his place on a
biological scale. The real significance of his actions on the moral scale might
be less easy to determine, but he could at least tell where he stood as tested
by the standard of life--he would know whether he were living or dead.
After all, the best test for Life is just living. And living consists,
as we have formerly seen, in corresponding with Environment. Those therefore
who find within themselves, and regularly exercise, the faculties for
corresponding with the Divine Environment, may be said to live the Spiritual
Life.
That this Life also, even in the embryonic
organism, ought already to betray itself to others, is certainly what one would
expect. Every organism has its own reaction upon Nature, and the reaction of
the spiritual organism upon the community must be looked for. In the absence of
any such reaction, in the absence of any token that it lived for a higher
purpose, or that its real interests were those of the Kingdom to which it
professed to belong, we should be entitled to question its being in that
Kingdom. It is obvious that each Kingdom has its own ends and interests, its
own functions to discharge in Nature. It is also a law that every organism
lives for its Kingdom. And man's place in Nature, or his position among the
Kingdoms, is to be decided by the characteristic functions habitually
discharged by him. Now when the habits of certain individual are closely
observed, when the total effect of their life and work, with regard to the
community, is gauged--as carefully observed and gauged as the influence of
certain individuals in a colony of ants might be observed and gauged by Sir
John Lubbock--there ought to be no difficulty in deciding whether they are
living for the Organic or for the Spiritual; in plainer language, for the world
or for God. The question of Kingdoms, at least, would be settled without
mistake. The place of any given individual in his own Kingdom is a different
matter. That is a question possibly for ethics. But from the biological
standpoint, if a man is living for the world it is immaterial how well he lives
for it. He ought to live well for it. However important it is for his own
Kingdom, it does not affect his biological relation to the other Kingdom
whether his character is perfect or imperfect. He may even to some extent
assume the outward form of organisms belonging to the higher Kingdom; but so
long as his reaction upon the world is the reaction of his species, he is to be
classed with his species, so long as the bent of his life is in the direction
of the world, he remains a worldling.
Recent botanical and entomological researches
have made Science familiar with what is termed Mimicry. Certain
organisms in one Kingdom assume, for purposes of their own, the outward form of
organisms belonging to another. This curious hypocrisy is practised both by
plants and animals, the object being to secure some personal advantage, usually
safety, which would be denied were the organism always to play its part in
Nature in propria persona. Thus the Ceroxylus laceratus of Borneo
has assumed so perfectly the disguise of a moss-covered branch as to evade the
attack of insectivorous birds; and others of the walking-stick insects and
leaf-butterflies practise similar deceptions with great effrontery and success.
It is a startling result of the indirect influence of Christianity, or of a
spurious Christianity, that the religious world has come to be populated--how
largely one can scarce venture to think--with mimetic species. In few cases,
probably, is this a conscious deception. In many doubtless it is induced, as in
Ceroxylus, by the desire for safety. But in a majority of
instances it is the natural effect of the prestige of a great system upon those
who, coveting its benedictions, yet fail to understand its true nature, or
decline to bear its profounder responsibilities. It is here that the test of
Life becomes of supreme importance. No classification on the ground of form can
exclude mimetic species, or discover them to themselves. But if man's place
among the Kingdoms is determined by his functions, a careful estimate of his
life in itself, and in its reaction upon surrounding lives, ought at once to
betray his real position. No matter what may be the moral uprightness of his
life, the honourableness of his career, or the orthodoxy of his creed, if he
exercises the function of loving the world, that defines his world--he belongs
o the Organic Kingdom. He cannot in that case belong to the higher Kingdom. "If
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." After all, it is
by the general bent of a man's life, by his heart-impulses and secret desires,
his spontaneous actions and abiding motives, that his generation is
declared.
The exclusiveness of Christianity, separation
from the world, uncompromising allegiance to the Kingdom of God, entire
surrender of body, soul, and spirit to Christ--these are truths which rise into
prominence from time to time, become the watchwords of insignificant parties,
rouse the church to attention and the world to opposition, and die down
ultimately for want of lives to live them. The few enthusiasts who distinguish
in these requirements the essential conditions of entrance into the Kingdom of
Christ are overpowered by the weight of numbers, who see nothing more in
Christianity than a mild religiousness, and who demand nothing more in
themselves or in their fellow-Christians than the participation in a
conventional worship, the acceptance of traditional beliefs, and the living of
an honest life. Yet nothing is more certain than that the enthusiasts are
right. Any impartial survey-- such as the unique analysis in "Ecce Homo"--of
the claims of Christ and of the nature of His society, will convince any one
who cares to make the inquiry of the outstanding difference between the system
of Christianity in the original contemplation and its representations in modern
life. Christianity marks the advent of what is simply a new Kingdom. Its
distinctions from the Kingdom below it are fundamental. It demands from its
members activities and responses of an altogether novel order. It is, in the
conception of its Founder, a Kingdom for which all its adherents must
henceforth exclusively live and work, and which opens its gates alone upon
those who, having counted the cost, are prepared to follow it if need be to the
death. The surrender Christ demanded was absolute. Every aspirant for
membership must seek first the Kingdom of God. And in order to enforce
the demand of allegiance, or rather with an unconsciousness which contains the
finest evidence for its justice, He even assumed the title of King--a claim
which in other circumstances, and were these not the symbols of a higher
royalty, seems so strangely foreign to one who is meek and lowly in heart.
But this imperious claim of a Kingdom upon its
members is not peculiar to Christianity. It is the law in all departments of
Nature that every organism must live for its Kingdom. And in defining living
for the higher Kingdom as the condition of living in it, Christ
enunciates a principle which all Nature has prepared us to expect. Every
province has its peculiar exactions, every Kingdom levies upon its subjects the
tax of an exclusive obedience, and punishes disloyalty always with death. It
was the neglect of this principle--that every organism must live for its
Kingdom if it is to live in it--which first slowly depopulated the spiritual
world. The example of its founder ceased to find imitators, and the
consecration of His early followers came to be regarded as a superfluous
enthusiasm. And it is this same misconception of the fundamental principle of
all Kingdoms that has deprived modern Christianity of its vitality. The failure
to regard the exclusive claims of Christ as more than accidental, rhetorical,
or ideal; the failure to discern the essential difference between His Kingdom
and all other systems based on the lines of natural religion, and therefore
merely Organic; in a word, the general neglect of the claims of Christ as the
Founder of a new and higher Kingdom-- these have taken the very heart from the
religion of Christ and left its evangel without power to impress or bless the
world. Until even religious men see the uniqueness of Christ's society, until
they acknowledge to the full extent its claim to be nothing less than a new
Kingdom, they will continue the hopeless attempt to live for two Kingdoms at
once. And hence the value of a more explicit Classification. For probably the
most of the difficulties of trying to live the Christian life arise from
attempting to half-live it.
As a merely verbal matter, this identification of
the Spiritual World with what are known to Science as Kingdoms, necessitates an
explanation. The suggested relation of the Kingdom of Christ to the Mineral and
Animal Kingdoms does not of course, depend upon the accident that the Spiritual
World is named in the sacred writings by the same word. This certainly lends an
appearance of fancy to the generalisation: and one feels tempted at first to
dismiss it with a smile. But, in truth, it is no mere play on the word
Kingdom. Science demands the classification of every organism. And here
is an organism of a unique kind, a living energetic spirit, a new creature
which, by an act of generation, has been begotten of God. Starting from the
point that the spiritual life is to be studied biologically, we must at once
proceed, as the first step in the scientific examination of this organism, to
enter it in its appropriate class. Now two Kingdoms, at the present time, are
known to Science-- the Inorganic and the Organic. It does not belong to the
Inorganic Kingdom, because it lives. It does not belong to the Organic Kingdom,
because it is endowed with a kind of Life infinitely removed from either the
vegetal or animal. Where then shall it be classed? We are left without an
alternative. There being no Kingdom known to Science which can contain it, we
must construct one. Or rather we must include in the programme of Science a
Kingdom already constructed but the place of which in science has not yet been
recognised. That Kingdom is the Kingdom of God.
Taking now this larger view of the content
of science, we may leave the case of the individual and pass on to outline the
scheme of Nature as a whole. The general conception will be as follows:--
First, we find at the bottom of everything the
Mineral or Inorganic Kingdom. Its characteristics are, first, that so far as
the sphere above it is concerned it is dead; second, that although dead it
furnishes the physical basis of life to the Kingdom next in order. It is thus
absolutely essential to the Kingdom above it. And the more minutely the
detailed structure and ordering of the whole fabric are investigated it becomes
increasingly apparent that the Inorganic Kingdom is the preparation for, and
the prophecy of, the Organic.
Second, we come to the world next in order, the
world containing plant, and animal, and man, the Organic Kingdom. Its
characteristics are, first, that so far as the sphere above it is concerned it
is dead; and, second, although dead it supplies in turn the basis of life to
the Kingdom next in order. And the more minutely the detailed structure and
ordering of the whole fabric are investigated, it is obvious, in turn, that the
Organic Kingdom is the preparation for, and the prophecy of, the Spiritual.
Third, and highest, we reach the Spiritual
Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Heaven. What its characteristics are, relatively to
any hypothetical higher Kingdom, necessarily remain unknown. That the
spiritual, in turn, may be the preparation for, and the prophecy of, something
still higher is not impossible. But the very conception of a Fourth Kingdom
transcends us, and if it exist, the Spiritual Organism, by the analogy, must
remain at present wholly dead to it
The warrant for adding this Third Kingdom
consists, as just stated, in the fact that there are Organisms which from their
peculiar origin, nature, and destiny cannot be fitly entered in either of the
two Kingdoms now known to science. The Second Kingdom is proclaimed by the
advent upon the stage of the First, of once-born organisms. The Third is
ushered in by the appearance, among these once-born organisms, of forms of life
which have been born again--twice-born organisms. The classification,
therefore, is based, from the scientific side on certain facts of embryology
and on the Law of Biogenesis; and from the theological side on certain facts of
experience and on the doctrine of Regeneration. To those who hold either to
Biogenesis or to Regeneration, there is no escape from a Third Kingdom.[98]
There is, in this conception of a high and
spiritual organism rising out of the highest point of the Organic Kingdom, in
the hypothesis of the Spiritual Kingdom itself, a Third Kingdom following the
Second in sequence as orderly as the Second follows the First, a Kingdom
utilising the materials of both the Kingdoms beneath it, continuing their laws,
and, above all, accounting for these lower Kingdoms in a legitimate way and
complementing them in the only known way--there is in all this a suggestion of
the greatest of modern scientific doctrines, the Evolution hypothesis, too
impressive to pass unnoticed. The strength of the doctrine of Evolution, at
least in its broader outlines, is now such that its verdict on any biological
question is a consideration of moment. And if any further defence is needed for
the idea of a Third Kingdom it may be found in the singular harmony of the
whole conception with this great modern truth. It might even be asked whether a
complete and consistent theory of Evolution does not really demand such a
conception? Why should Evolution stop with the Organic? It is surely obvious
that the complement of Evolution is Advolution, and the inquiry, Whence has all
this system of things come, is, after all, of minor importance compared with
the question, Whither does all this tend? Science, as such, may have little to
say on such a question. And it is perhaps impossible, with such faculties as we
now possess, to imagine an Evolution with a future as great as its past. So
stupendous is the development from the atom to the man that no point can be
fixed in the future as distant from what man is now as he is from the atom. But
it has been given to Christianity to disclose the lines of a further Evolution.
And if Science also professes to offer a further Evolution, not the most
sanguine evolutionist will venture to contrast it, either as regards the
dignity of its methods, the magnificence of its aims, or the certainty of its
hopes, with the prospects of the Spiritual Kingdom. That Science has a prospect
of some sort to hold out to man, is not denied. But its limits are already
marked. Mr. Herbert Spencer, after investigating its possibilities fully, tells
us, "Evolution has an impassable limit."[99]
It is the distinct claim of the Third Kingdom that this limit is not final.
Christianity opens a way to a further development --a development apart from
which the magnificent past of Nature has been in vain, and without which
Organic Evolution, in spite of the elaborateness of its processes and the
vastness of its achievements, is simply a stupendous cul de sac. Far as
Nature carries on the task, vast as is the distance between the atom and the
man, she has to lay down her tools when the work is just begun. Man, her most
rich and finished product, marvellous in his complexity, all but Divine in
sensibility, is to the Third Kingdom not even a shapeless embryo. The old chain
of processes must begin again on the higher plane if there is to be a further
Evolution. The highest organism of the Second Kingdom--simple, immobile, dead
as the inorganic crystal, towards the sphere above-- must be vitalized afresh.
Then from a mass of all but homogeneous "protoplasm" the organism must pass
through all the stages of differentiation and integration, growing in
perfectness and beauty under the unfolding of the higher Evolution, until it
reaches the Infinite Complexity, the Infinite Sensibility, God. So the
spiritual carries on the marvellous process to which all lower Nature
ministers, and perfects it when the ministry of lower Nature fails.
This conception of a further Evolution carries
with it the final answer to the charge that, as regards morality, the Spiritual
world has nothing to offer man that is not already within his reach. Will it be
contended that a perfect morality is already within the reach of the natural
man? What product of the organic creation has ever attained to the fulness of
the stature of Him who is the Founder and Type of the Spiritual Kingdom? What
do men know of the qualities enjoined in His Beatitudes, or at what value do
they even estimate them? Proved by results, it is surely already decided that
on merely natural lines moral perfection is unattainable. And even Science is
beginning to waken to the momentous truth that Man, the highest product of the
Organic Kingdom, is a disappointment. But even were it otherwise, if even in
prospect the hopes of the Organic Kingdom could be justified, its standard of
beauty is not so high, nor, in spite of the dreams of Evolution, is its
guarantee so certain. The goal of the organisms of the Spiritual World is
nothing less than this--to be "holy as He is holy, and pure as He is
pure." And by the Law of Conformity to Type, their final perfection is secured.
The inward nature must develop out according to its Type, until the
consummation of oneness with God is reached.
These proposals of the Spiritual Kingdom in the
direction of Evolution are at least entitled to be carefully considered by
Science. Christianity defines the highest conceivable future for mankind. It
satisfies the Law of Continuity. It guarantees the necessary conditions for
carrying on the organism successfully, from stage to stage. It provides against
the tendency to Degeneration. And finally, instead of limiting the yearning
hope of final perfection to the organisms of a future age,--an age so remote
that the hope for thousands of years must still be hopeless,--instead of
inflicting this cruelty on intelligences mature enough to know perfection and
earnest enough to wish it, Christianity puts the prize within immediate reach
of man.
This attempt to incorporate the Spiritual Kingdom
in the scheme of Evolution, may be met by what seems at first sight a fatal
objection. So far from the idea of a Spiritual Kingdom being in harmony with
the doctrine of Evolution, it may be said that it is violently opposed to it.
It announces a new Kingdom starting off suddenly on a different plane and in
direct violation of the primary principle of development. Instead of carrying
the organic evolution further on its own lines, theology at a given point
interposes a sudden and hopeless barrier--the barrier between the natural and
the spiritual--and insists that the evolutionary process must begin again at
the beginning. At this point, in fact, Nature acts per saltum. This is
no Evolution, but a Catastrophe--such a Catastrophe as must be fatal to any
consistent development hypothesis.
On the surface this objection seems final--but it
is only on the surface. It arises from taking a too narrow view of what
Evolution is. It takes evolution in zoology for Evolution as a whole. Evolution
began, let us say, with some primeval nebulous mass in which lay potentially
all future worlds. Under the evolutionary hand, the amorphous cloud broke up,
condensed, took definite shape, and in the line of true development assumed a
gradually increasing complexity. Finally there emerged the cooled and finished
earth, highly differentiated, so to speak, complete and fully equipped. And
what followed? Let it be well observed--a Catastrophe. Instead of carrying the
process further, the Evolution, if this is Evolution, here also abruptly stops.
A sudden and hopeless barrier--the barrier between the Inorganic and the
Organic--interposes, and the process has to begin again at the beginning with
the creation of Life. Here then is a barrier placed by Science at the close of
the Inorganic similar to the barrier placed by Theology at the close of the
Organic. Science has used every effort to abolish this first barrier, but there
it still stands challenging the attention of the modern world, and no
consistent theory of Evolution can fail to reckon with it. Any objection, then,
to the Catastrophe introduced by Christianity between the Natural and Spiritual
Kingdoms applies with equal force against the barrier which Science places
between the Inorganic and the Organic. The reserve of Life in either case is a
fact, and a fact of exceptional significance.
What then becomes of Evolution? Do these two
great barriers destroy it? By no means. But they make it necessary to frame a
larger doctrine. And the doctrine gains immeasurably by such an enlargement.
For now the case stands thus: Evolution, in harmony with its own law that
progress is from the simple to the complex, begins itself to pass towards the
complex. The materialistic Evolution, so to speak, is a straight line. Making
all else complex, it alone remains simple--unscientifically simple. But as
Evolution unfolds everything else, it is now seen to be itself slowly
unfolding. The straight line is coming out gradually in curves. At a given
point a new force appears deflecting it; and at another given point a new force
appears deflecting that. These points are not unrelated points; these forces
are not unrelated forces. The arrangement is still harmonious, and the
development throughout obeys the evolutionary law in being from the general to
the special, from the lower to the higher. What we are reaching, in short, is
nothing less than the evolution of Evolution.
Now to both Science and Christianity, and
especially to Science, this enrichment of Evolution is important. And, on the
part of Christianity, the contribution to the system of Nature of a second
barrier is of real scientific value. At first it may seem merely to increase
the difficulty. But in reality it abolishes it. However paradoxical it seems,
it is nevertheless the case that two barriers are more easy to understand than
one,--two mysteries are less mysterious than a single mystery. For it requires
two to constitute a harmony. One by itself is a Catastrophe. But, just as the
recurrence of an eclipse at different periods makes an eclipse no breach of
Continuity; just as the fact that the astronomical conditions necessary to
cause a Glacial Period will in the remote future again be fulfilled constitutes
the Great Ice Age a normal phenomenon; so the recurrence of two periods
associated with special phenomena of Life, the second higher, and by the law
necessarily higher, is no violation of the principle of Evolution. Thus even in
the matter of adding a second to the one barrier of Nature, the Third Kingdom
may already claim to complement the Science of the Second. The overthrow of
Spontaneous Generation has left a break in Continuity which continues to put
Science to confusion. Alone, it is as abnormal and perplexing to the intellect
as the first eclipse. But if the Spiritual Kingdom can supply Science with a
companion-phenomenon, the most exceptional thing in the scientific sphere falls
within the domain of Law. This, however, is no more than might be expected from
a Third Kingdom. True to its place as the highest of the Kingdoms, it ought to
embrace all that lies beneath and give to the First and Second their final
explanation.
How much more in the under-Kingdoms might be
explained or illuminated upon this principle, however tempting might be the
inquiry, we cannot turn aside to ask. But the rank of the Third Kingdom in the
order of Evolution implies that it holds the key to much that is obscure in the
world around-- much that, apart from it, must always remain obscure. A single
obvious instance will serve to illustrate the fertility of the method. What has
this Kingdom to contribute to Science with regard to the problem of the origin
of Life itself? Taking this as an isolated phenomenon, neither the Second
Kingdom, nor the Third, apart from revelation, has anything to pronounce. But
when we observe the companion phenomenon in the higher Kingdom, the question is
simplified. It will be disputed by none that the source of Life in the
Spiritual World is God. And as the same Law of Biogenesis prevails in both
spheres, we may reason from the higher to the lower and affirm it to be at
least likely that the origin of life there has been the same.
There remains yet one other objection of a
somewhat different order, and which is only referred to because it is certain
to be raised by those who fail to appreciate the distinctions of Biology. Those
whose sympathies are rather with Philosophy than with Science may incline to
dispute the allocation of so high an organism as man to the merely vegetal and
animal Kingdom. Recognising the immense moral and intellectual distinctions
between him and even the highest animal, they would introduce a third barrier
between man and animal--a barrier even greater than that between the Inorganic
and the Organic. Now, no science can be blind to these distinctions. The only
question is whether they are of such a kind as to make it necessary to classify
man in a separate Kingdom. And to this the answer of Science is in the
negative. Modern Science knows only two Kingdoms--the Inorganic and the
Organic. A barrier between man and animal there may be, but it is a different
barrier from that which separates Inorganic from Organic. But even were this to
be denied, and in spite of all science it will be denied, it would make no
difference as regards the general question. It would merely interpose another
Kingdom between the Organic and the Spiritual, the other relations remaining as
before. Any one, therefore, with a theory to support as to the exceptional
creation of the Human Race will find the present classification elastic enough
for his purpose. Philosophy, of course, may propose another arrangement of the
Kingdoms if it chooses. It is only contended that this is the order demanded by
Biology. To add another Kingdom mid-way between the Organic and the Spiritual,
could that be justified at any future time on scientific grounds, would be a
mere question of further detail.
Studies in Classification, beginning with
considerations of quality, usually end with a reference to quantity. And though
one would willingly terminate the inquiry on the threshold of such a subject,
the example of Revelation not less than the analogies of Nature press for at
least a general statement.
The broad impression gathered from the utterances
of the Founder of the Spiritual Kingdom is that the number of organisms to be
included in it is to be comparatively small. The outstanding characteristic of
the new Society is to be its selectness. "Many are called," said Christ, "but
few are chosen." And when one recalls, on the one hand, the conditions of
membership, and, on the other, observes the lives and aspirations of average
men, the force of the verdict becomes apparent. In its bearing upon the general
question, such a conclusion is not without suggestiveness. Here again is
another evidence of the radical nature of Christianity. That "few are chosen"
indicates a deeper view of the relation of Christ's Kingdom to the world, and
stricter qualifications of membership, than lie on the surface or are allowed
for in the ordinary practice of religion.
The analogy of Nature upon this point is not less
striking--it may be added, not less solemn. It is an open secret, to be read in
a hundred analogies from the world around, that of the millions of possible
entrants for advancement in any department of Nature the number ultimately
selected for preferment is small. Here also "many are called and few are
chosen." The analogies from the waste of seed, of pollen, of human lives, are
too familiar to be quoted. In certain details, possibly, these comparisons are
inappropriate. But there are other analogies, wider and more just, which strike
deeper into the system of Nature. A comprehensive view of the whole field of
Nature discloses the fact that the circle of the chosen slowly contracts as we
rise in the scale of being. Some mineral, but not all, becomes vegetable; some
vegetable, but not all, becomes animal; some animal, but not all, becomes
human; some human, but not all, becomes Divine. Thus the area narrows. At the
base is the mineral, most broad and simple; the spiritual at the apex,
smallest, but most highly differentiated. So form rises above form, Kingdom
above Kingdom. Quantity decreases as quality increases.
The gravitation of the whole system of Nature
towards quality is surely a phenomenon of commanding interest. And if among the
more recent revelations of Nature there is one thing more significant for
Religion than another, it is the majestic spectacle of the rise of Kingdoms
towards scarcer yet nobler forms, and simpler yet diviner ends. Of the early
stage, the first development of the earth from the nebulous matrix of space,
Science speaks with reserve. The second, the evolution of each individual from
the simple protoplasmic cell to the formed adult, is proved. The still wider
evolution, not of solitary individuals, but of all the individuals within each
province--in the vegetal world from the unicellular cryptogam to the highest
phanerogam, in the animal world from the amorphous amoeba to Man--is at least
suspected, the gradual rise of types being at all events a fact. But now, at
last, we see the Kingdoms themselves evolving. And that supreme law which has
guided the development from simple to complex in matter, in individual, in
sub-Kingdom, and in Kingdom, until only two or three great Kingdoms remain, now
begins at the beginning again, directing the evolution of these million-peopled
worlds as if they were simple cells or organisms. Thus, what applies to the
individual applies to the family, what applies to the family applies to the
Kingdom, what applies to the Kingdom applies to the Kingdoms. And so, out of
the infinite complexity there rises an infinite simplicity, the foreshadowing
of a final unity, of that
"One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."[100]
This is the final triumph of Continuity, the
heart-secret of Creation, the unspoken prophecy of Christianity. To Science,
defining it as a working principle, this mighty process of amelioration is
simply Evolution. To Christianity, discerning the end through :he means,
it is Redemption. These silent and patient processes, elaborating,
eliminating, developing all from the first of time, conducting the evolution
from millennium to millennium with unaltering purpose and unfaltering power,
are the early stages in the redemptive work--the unseen approach of that
Kingdom whose strange mark is that it "cometh without observation." And these
Kingdoms rising tier above tier in ever increasing sublimity and beauty, their
foundations visibly fixed in the past, their progress, and the direction of
their progress, being facts in Nature still, are the signs which, since the
Magi saw His star in the East, have never been wanting from the firmament of
truth, and which in every age with growing clearness to the wise, and with
ever-gathering mystery to the uninitiated, proclaim that "the Kingdom of God is
at hand."
FINIS.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.
LONDON; HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27,
PATERNOSTER ROW
[96] "Principles of Biology," p. 294.
[97] "Principles of Biology," vol. ii. pp.
222, 223.
[98] Philosophical classifications in this
direction (see for instance Godet's "Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing
to their neglect of the facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy the
biologist--any more than the above will wholly satisfy the philosopher. Both
are needed. Rothe, in his "Aphorisms" strikingly notes one point: "Es ist
beachtenswerth, wie in der Schopfung immer aus der Auflosung der nachst
niederen Stufe die nachst hohere hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat
zur Erzeugung dieser Kraft der schopferischen Einwirkung bildet. (Wie es denn
nicht anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der Kreatur aus sich selbst.) Aus
den zersetzten Elementen erheben sich das Mineral, aus dem verwitterten
Material die Pflanze, aus der verwesten Pflanze das Thier. So erhebt sich auch
aus dem in die Elemente zurucksinkenden Materiellen Menschen der Geist, das
geistige Geschopf."--"Stille Stunden," p. 64.
[99] "First Principles," p. 440.
[100] "In Memoriam."