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 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 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 recognized. 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
honored 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 afterward,
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 marshaled
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 this 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
forever 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 recognize.
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
splendor 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 forever. 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 leveling 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 phenomena
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 center. 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 restate 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. Frederick 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 analyze. 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 emphasize 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 first
to uncentury itself.
Herbert Spencer points out further, with how much truth need not now be
discussed, that the purification 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 favors 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 honored, 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 at once more
that the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto this and to that?