PART I.

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Stephen Blundell and the

Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

NATURAL LAW

IN THE

SPIRITUAL WORLD.

BY

HENRY DRUMMOND. F.R.S.E.: F.G.S.

NEW YORK:

HURST & CO., PUBLISHERS,

122 NASSAU ST.

ARGYLE PRESS

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING,

24 & 26 WOOSTER ST., N. Y.

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek

text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}. The oe

ligature has been transcribed as [oe].

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE, 5

INTRODUCTION, 21

BIOGENESIS, 59

DEGENERATION, 83

GROWTH, 99

DEATH, 111

MORTIFICATION, 133

ETERNAL LIFE, 149

ENVIRONMENT, 181

CONFORMITY TO TYPE, 203

SEMI-PARASITISM, 223

PARASITISM, 237

CLASSIFICATION, 255

PREFACE.

No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost said

derision, than those which deal with Science and Religion. Science is

tired of reconciliations between two things which never should have been

contrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which it

professes not to need; and the critics have rightly discovered that, in

most cases where Science is either pitted against Religion or fused with

it, there is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope and

province of either. But although no initial protest, probably, will save

this work from the unhappy reputation of its class, the thoughtful mind

will perceive that the fact of its subject-matter being Law--a property

peculiar neither to Science nor to Religion--at once places it on a

somewhat different footing.

The real problem I have set myself may be stated in a sentence. Is there

not reason to believe that many of the Laws of the Spiritual World,

hitherto regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, are simply

the Laws of the Natural World? Can we identify the Natural Laws, or any

one of them, in the Spiritual sphere? That vague lines everywhere run

through the Spiritual World is already beginning to be recognized. Is it

possible to link them with those great lines running through the visible

universe which we call the Natural Laws, or are they fundamentally

distinct? In a word, Is the Supernatural natural or unnatural?

I may, perhaps, be allowed to answer these questions in the form in

which they have answered themselves to myself. And I must apologize at

the outset for personal references which, but for the clearness they may

lend to the statement, I would surely avoid.

It has been my privilege for some years to address regularly two very

different audiences on two very different themes. On week days I have

lectured to a class of students on the Natural Sciences, and on Sundays

to an audience consisting for the most part of working men on subjects

of a moral and religious character. I cannot say that this collocation

ever appeared as a difficulty to myself, but to certain of my friends it

was more than a problem. It was solved to me, however, at first, by what

then seemed the necessities of the case--I must keep the two departments

entirely by themselves. They lay at opposite poles of thought; and for a

time I succeeded in keeping the Science and the Religion shut off from

one another in two separate compartments of my mind. But gradually the

wall of partition showed symptoms of giving way. The two fountains of

knowledge also slowly began to overflow, and finally their waters met

and mingled. The great change was in the compartment which held the

Religion. It was not that the well there was dried; still less that the

fermenting waters were washed away by the flood of Science. The actual

contents remained the same. But the crystals of former doctrine were

dissolved; and as they precipitated themselves once more in definite

forms, I observed that the Crystalline System was changed. New channels

also for outward expression opened, and some of the old closed up; and I

found the truth running out to my audience on the Sundays by the

week-day outlets. In other words, the subject-matter Religion had taken

on the method of expression of Science, and I discovered myself

enunciating Spiritual Law in the exact terms of Biology and Physics.

Now this was not simply a scientific coloring given to Religion, the

mere freshening of the theological air with natural facts and

illustrations. It was an entire re-casting of truth. And when I came

seriously to consider what it involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that it

meant essentially the introduction of Natural Law into the Spiritual

World. It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies of

_Phenomena_ rose into view--although material for Parable lies unnoticed

and unused on the field of recent Science in inexhaustible profusion.

But Law has a still grander function to discharge toward Religion than

Parable. There is a deeper unity between the two Kingdoms than the

analogy of their Phenomena--a unity which the poet's vision, more quick

than the theologian's, has already dimly seen:--

"And verily many thinkers of this age,

Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven,

Are wrong in just my sense, who understood

Our natural world too insularly, as if

No spiritual counterpart completed it,

Consummating its meaning, rounding all

To justice and perfection, _line by line,

Form by form, nothing single nor alone_,

The great below clenched by the great above."[1]

The function of Parable in religion is to exhibit "form by form." Law

undertakes the profounder task of comparing "line by line." Thus Natural

Phenomena serve mainly an illustrative function in Religion. Natural

Law, on the other hand, could it be traced in the Spiritual World, would

have an important scientific value--it would offer Religion a new

credential. The effect of the introduction of Law among the scattered

Phenomena of Nature has simply been to make Science, to transform

knowledge into eternal truth. The same crystallizing touch is needed in

Religion. Can it be said that the Phenomena of the Spiritual World are

other than scattered? Can we shut our eyes to the fact that the

religious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux? And when we regard

the uncertainty of current beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc of

inevitable as well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandonment of early

faith by those who would cherish it longer if they could, is it not

plain that the one thing thinking men are waiting for is the

introduction of Law among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World? When

that comes we shall offer to such men a truly scientific theology. And

the Reign of Law will transform the whole Spiritual World as it has

already transformed the Natural World.

I confess that even when in the first dim vision, the organizing hand of

Law moved among the unordered truths of my Spiritual World, poor and

scantily-furnished as it was, there seemed to come over it the beauty of

a transfiguration. The change was as great as from the old chaotic world

of Pythagoras to the symmetrical and harmonious universe of Newton. My

Spiritual World before was a chaos of facts; my Theology, a Pythagorean

system trying to make the best of Phenomena apart from the idea of Law.

I make no charge against Theology in general. I speak of my own. And I

say that I saw it to be in many essential respects centuries behind

every department of Science I knew. It was the one region still

unpossessed by Law. I saw then why men of Science distrust Theology; why

those who have learned to look upon Law as Authority grow cold to it--it

was the Great Exception.

I have alluded to the genesis of the idea in my own mind partly for

another reason--to show its naturalness. Certainly I never premeditated

anything to myself so objectionable and so unwarrantable in itself, as

either to read Theology into Science or Science into Theology. Nothing

could be more artificial than to attempt this on the speculative side;

and it has been a substantial relief to me throughout that the idea rose

up thus in the course of practical work and shaped itself day by day

unconsciously. It might be charged, nevertheless, that I was all the

time, whether consciously or unconsciously, simply reading my Theology

into my Science. And as this would hopelessly vitiate the conclusions

arrived at, I must acquit myself at least of the intention. Of nothing

have I been more fearful throughout than of making Nature parallel with

my own or with any creed. The only legitimate questions one dare put to

Nature are those which concern universal human good and the Divine

interpretation of things. These I conceive may be there actually studied

at first-hand, and before their purity is soiled by human touch. We have

Truth in Nature as it came from God. And it has to be read with the same

unbiased mind, the same open eye, the same faith, and the same reverence

as all other Revelation. All that is found there, whatever its place in

Theology, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whatever its narrowness

or its breadth, we are bound to accept as Doctrine from which on the

lines of Science there is no escape.

When this presented itself to me as a method, I felt it to be due to

it--were it only to secure, so far as that was possible, that no former

bias should interfere with the integrity of the results--to begin again

at the beginning and reconstruct my Spiritual World step by step. The

result of that inquiry, so far as its expression in systematic form is

concerned, I have not given in this book. To reconstruct a Spiritual

Religion, or a department of Spiritual Religion--for this is all the

method can pretend to--on the lines of Nature would be an attempt from

which one better equipped in both directions might well be pardoned if

he shrank. My object at present is the humbler one of venturing a simple

contribution to practical Religion along the lines indicated. What Bacon

predicates of the Natural World, _Natura enim non nisi parendo

vincitur_, is also true, as Christ had already told us, of the Spiritual

World. And I present a few samples of the religious teaching referred to

formerly as having been prepared under the influence of scientific ideas

in the hope that they may be useful first of all in this direction.

I would, however, carefully point out that though their unsystematic

arrangement here may create the impression that these papers are merely

isolated readings in Religion pointed by casual scientific truths, they

are organically connected by a single principle. Nothing could be more

false both to Science and to Religion than attempts to adjust the two

spheres by making out ingenious points of contact in detail. The

solution of this great question of conciliation, if one may still refer

to a problem so gratuitous, must be general rather than particular. The

basis in a common principle--the Continuity of Law--can alone save

specific applications from ranking as mere coincidences, or exempt them

from the reproach of being a hybrid between two things which must be

related by the deepest affinities or remain forever separate.

To the objection that even a basis in Law is no warrant for so great a

trespass as the intrusion into another field of thought of the

principles of Natural Science, I would reply that in this I find I am

following a lead which in other departments has not only been allowed

but has achieved results as rich as they were unexpected. What is the

Physical Politic of Mr. Walter Bagehot but the extension of Natural Law

to the Political World? What is the Biological Sociology of Mr. Herbert

Spencer but the application of Natural Law to the Social World? Will it

be charged that the splendid achievements of such thinkers are hybrids

between things which Nature has meant to remain apart? Nature usually

solves such problems for herself. Inappropriate hybridism is checked by

the Law of Sterility. Judged by this great Law these modern developments

of our knowledge stand uncondemned. Within their own sphere the results

of Mr. Herbert Spencer are far from sterile--the application of Biology

to Political Economy is already revolutionizing the Science. If the

introduction of Natural Law into the Social sphere is no violent

contradiction but a genuine and permanent contribution, shall its

further extension to the Spiritual sphere be counted an extravagance?

Does not the Principle of Continuity demand its application in every

direction? To carry it as a working principle into so lofty a region may

appear impracticable. Difficulties lie on the threshold which may seem,

at first sight, insurmountable. But obstacles to a true method only test

its validity. And he who honestly faces the task may find relief in

feeling that whatever else of crudeness and imperfection mar it, the

attempt is at least in harmony with the thought and movement of his

time.

That these papers were not designed to appear in a collective form, or

indeed to court the more public light at all, needs no disclosure. They

are published out of regard to the wish of known and unknown friends by

whom, when in a fugitive form, they were received with so curious an

interest as to make one feel already that there are minds which such

forms of truth may touch. In making the present selection, partly from

manuscript, and partly from articles already published, I have been

guided less by the wish to constitute the papers a connected series than

to exhibit the application of the principle in various directions. They

will be found, therefore, of unequal interest and value, according to

the standpoint from which they are regarded. Thus some are designed with

a directly practical and popular bearing, others being more expository,

and slightly apologetic in tone. The risk of combining two objects so

very different is somewhat serious. But, for the reason named, having

taken this responsibility, the only compensation I can offer is to

indicate which of the papers incline to the one side or to the other.

"Degeneration," "Growth," "Mortification," "Conformity to Type,"

"Semi-Parasitism," and "Parasitism" belong to the more practical order;

and while one or two are intermediate, "Biogenesis," "Death," and

"Eternal Life" may be offered to those who find the atmosphere of the

former uncongenial. It will not disguise itself, however, that, owing to

the circumstances in which they were prepared, all the papers are more

or less practical in their aim; so that to the merely philosophical

reader there is little to be offered except--and that only with the

greatest diffidence--the Introductory chapter.

In the Introduction, which the general reader may do well to ignore, I

have briefly stated the case for Natural Law in the Spiritual World. The

extension of Analogy to Laws, or rather the extension of the Laws

themselves so far as known to me, is new; and I cannot hope to have

escaped the mistakes and misadventures of a first exploration in an

unsurveyed land. So general has been the survey that I have not even

paused to define specially to what departments of the Spiritual World

exclusively the principle is to be applied. The danger of making a new

principle apply too widely inculcates here the utmost caution. One thing

is certain, and I state it pointedly, the application of Natural Law to

the Spiritual World has decided and necessary limits. And if elsewhere

with undue enthusiasm I seem to magnify the principle at stake, the

exaggeration--like the extreme amplification of the moon's disc when

near the horizon--must be charged to that almost necessary aberration of

light which distorts every new idea while it is yet slowly climbing to

its zenith.

In what follows the Introduction, except in the setting there is nothing

new. I trust there is nothing new. When I began to follow out these

lines, I had no idea where they would lead me. I was prepared,

nevertheless, at least for the time, to be loyal to the method

throughout, and share with nature whatever consequences might ensue. But

in almost every case, after stating what appeared to be the truth in

words gathered directly from the lips of Nature, I was sooner or later

startled by a certain similarity in the general idea to something I had

heard before, and this often developed in a moment, and when I was least

expecting it, into recognition of some familiar article of faith. I was

not watching for this result. I did not begin by tabulating the

doctrines, as I did the Laws of Nature, and then proceed with the

attempt to pair them. The majority of them seemed at first too far

removed from the natural world even to suggest this. Still less did I

begin with doctrines and work downward to find their relations in the

natural sphere. It was the opposite process entirely. I ran up the

Natural Law as far as it would go, and the appropriate doctrine seldom

even loomed in sight till I had reached the top. Then it burst into view

in a single moment.

I can scarcely now say whether in those moments I was more overcome with

thankfulness that Nature was so like Revelation, or more filled with

wonder that Revelation was so like Nature. Nature, it is true, is a part

of Revelation--a much greater part doubtless than is yet believed--and

one could have anticipated nothing but harmony here. But that a derived

Theology, in spite of the venerable verbiage which has gathered round

it, should be at bottom and in all cardinal respects so faithful a

transcript of "the truth as it is in Nature" came as a surprise and to

me at least as a rebuke. How, under the rigid necessity of incorporating

in its system much that seemed nearly unintelligible, and much that was

barely credible, Theology has succeeded so perfectly in adhering through

good report and ill to what in the main are truly the lines of Nature,

awakens a new admiration for those who constructed and kept this faith.

But however nobly it has held its ground, Theology must feel to-day that

the modern world calls for a further proof. Nor will the best Theology

resent this demand; it also demands it. Theology is searching on every

hand for another echo of the Voice of which Revelation also is the echo,

that out of the mouths of two witnesses its truths should be

established. That other echo can only come from Nature. Hitherto its

voice has been muffled. But now that Science has made the world around

articulate, it speaks to Religion with a twofold purpose. In the first

place it offers to corroborate Theology, in the second to purify it.

If the removal of suspicion from Theology is of urgent moment, not less

important is the removal of its adulterations. These suspicions, many of

them at least, are new; in a sense they mark progress. But the

adulterations are the artificial accumulations of centuries of

uncontrolled speculation. They are the necessary result of the old

method and the warrant for its revision--they mark the impossibility of

progress without the guiding and restraining hand of Law. The felt

exhaustion of the former method, the want of corroboration for the old

evidence, the protest of reason against the monstrous overgrowths which

conceal the real lines of truth, these summon us to the search for a

surer and more scientific system. With truths of the theological order,

with dogmas which often depend for their existence on a particular

exegesis, with propositions which rest for their evidence upon a balance

of probabilities, or upon the weight of authority; with doctrines which

every age and nation may make or unmake, which each sect may tamper

with, and which even the individual may modify for himself, a second

court of appeal has become an imperative necessity.

Science, therefore, may yet have to be called upon to arbitrate at some

points between conflicting creeds. And while there are some departments

of Theology where its jurisdiction cannot be sought, there are others in

which Nature may yet have to define the contents as well as the limits

of belief.

What I would desire especially is a thoughtful consideration of the

method. The applications ventured upon here may be successful or

unsuccessful. But they would more than satisfy me if they suggested a

method to others whose less clumsy hands might work it out more

profitably. For I am convinced of the fertility of such a method at the

present time. It is recognized by all that the younger and abler minds

of this age find the most serious difficulty in accepting or retaining

the ordinary forms or belief. Especially is this true of those whose

culture is scientific. And the reason is palpable. No man can study

modern Science without a change coming over his view of truth. What

impresses him about Nature is its solidity. He is there standing upon

actual things, among fixed laws. And the integrity of the scientific

method so seizes him that all other forms of truth begins to appear

comparatively unstable. He did not know before that any form of truth

could so hold him; and the immediate effect is to lessen his interest in

all that stands on other bases. This he feels in spite of himself; he

struggles against it in vain; and he finds perhaps to his alarm that he

is drifting fast into what looks at first like pure Positivism. This is

an inevitable result of the scientific training. It is quite erroneous

to suppose that science ever overthrows Faith, if by that is implied

that any natural truth can oppose successfully any single spiritual

truth. Science cannot overthrow Faith; but it shakes it. Its own

doctrines, grounded in Nature, are so certain, that the truths of

Religion, resting to most men on Authority, are felt to be strangely

insecure. The difficulty, therefore, which men of Science feel about

Religion is real and inevitable, and in so far as Doubt is a

conscientious tribute to the inviolability of Nature it is entitled to

respect.

None but those who have passed through it can appreciate the radical

nature of the change wrought by Science in the whole mental attitude of

its disciples. What they really cry out for in Religion is a new

standpoint--a standpoint like their own. The one hope, therefore, for

Science is more Science. Again, to quote Bacon--we shall hear enough

from the moderns by-and-by--"This I dare affirm in knowledge of Nature,

that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth

dispose the opinion to atheism; but, on the other side, much natural

philosophy, and wading deep into it, will bring about men's minds to

religion."[2]

The application of _similia similibus curantur_ was never more in point.

If this is a disease, it is the disease of Nature, and the cure is more

Nature. For what is this disquiet in the breasts of men but the loyal

fear that Nature is being violated? Men must oppose with every energy

they possess what seems to them to oppose the eternal course of things.

And the first step in their deliverance must be not to "reconcile"

Nature and Religion, but to exhibit Nature in Religion. Even to convince

them that there is no controversy between Religion and Science is

insufficient. A mere flag of truce, in the nature of the case, is here

impossible; at least, it is only possible so long as neither party is

sincere. No man who knows the splendor of scientific achievement or

cares for it, no man who feels the solidity of its method or works with

it, can remain neutral with regard to Religion. He must either extend

his method into it, or, if that is impossible, oppose it to the knife.

On the other hand, no one who knows the content of Christianity, or

feels the universal need of a Religion, can stand idly by while the

intellect of his age is slowly divorcing itself from it. What is

required, therefore, to draw Science and Religion together again--for

they began the centuries hand in hand--is the disclosure of the

naturalness of the supernatural. Then, and not till then, will men see

how true it is, that to be loyal to all of Nature, they must be loyal to

the part defined as Spiritual. No science contributes to another without

receiving a reciprocal benefit. And even as the contribution of Science

to Religion is the vindication of the naturalness of the Supernatural,

so the gift of Religion to Science is the demonstration of the

supernaturalness of the Natural. Thus, as the Supernatural becomes

slowly Natural, will also the Natural become slowly Supernatural, until

in the impersonal authority of Law men everywhere recognize the

Authority of God.

To those who already find themselves fully nourished on the older forms

of truth, I do not commend these pages. They will find them superfluous.

Nor is there any reason why they should mingle with light which is

already clear the distorting rays of a foreign expression.

But to those who are feeling their way to a Christian life, haunted now

by a sense of instability in the foundation of their faith, now brought

to bay by specific doubt at one point raising, as all doubt does, the

question for the whole, I would hold up a light which has often been

kind to me. There is a sense of solidity about a Law of Nature which

belongs to nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that is

shifting, is one thing sure; one thing outside ourselves, unbiased,

unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like or dislike, by doubt or fear; one

thing that holds on its way to me eternally, incorruptible, and

undefiled. This more than anything else, makes one eager to see the

Reign of Law traced in the Spiritual Sphere. And should this seem to

some to offer only a surer, but not a higher Faith; should the better

ordering of the Spiritual World appear to satisfy the intellect at the

sacrifice of reverence, simplicity, or love; especially should it seem

to substitute a Reign of Law and a Lawgiver for a Kingdom of Grace and a

Personal God, I will say, with Browning,--

"I spoke as I saw.

I report, as a man may of God's work--_all's love, yet all's Law_.

Now I lay down the judgeship He lent me. Each faculty tasked,

To perceive Him, has gained an abyss where a dewdrop was asked."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Aurora Leigh.

[2] "Meditationes Sacrae," x.

ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTION.

[For the sake of the general reader who may desire to pass at once

to the practical applications, the following outline of the

Introduction--devoted rather to general principles--is here

presented.]

PART I.

NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL SPHERE.

1. The growth of the Idea of Law.

2. Its gradual extension throughout every department of Knowledge.

3. Except one. Religion hitherto the Great Exception. Why so?

4. Previous attempts to trace analogies between the Natural and

Spiritual spheres. These have been limited to analogies between

_Phenomena_; and are useful mainly as illustrations. Analogies of

_Law_ would also have a Scientific value.

5. Wherein that value would consist. (1) The Scientific demand of the

age would be met; (2) Greater clearness would be introduced into

Religion practically; (3) Theology, instead of resting on

Authority, would rest equally on Nature.