Why does the naturalist think hardly of the parasites? Why does he speak

of them as degraded, and despise them as the most ignoble creatures in

Nature? What more can an animal do than eat, drink, and die to-morrow?

If under the fostering care and protection of a higher organism it can

eat better, drink more easily, live more merrily, and die, perhaps, not

till the day after, why should it not do so? Is parasitism, after all,

not a somewhat clever _ruse_? Is it not an ingenious way of securing the

benefits of life while evading its responsibilities? And although this

mode of livelihood is selfish, and possibly undignified, can it be said

that it is immoral?

The naturalist's reply to this is brief. Parasitism, he will say, is one

of the gravest crimes in Nature. It is a breach of the law of Evolution.

Thou shalt evolve, thou shalt develop all thy faculties to the full,

thou shalt attain to the highest conceivable perfection of thy race--and

so perfect thy race--this is the first and greatest commandment of

nature. But the parasite has no thought for its race, or for perfection

in any shape or form. It wants two things--food and shelter. How it gets

them is of no moment. Each member lives exclusively on its own account,

an isolated, indolent, selfish, and backsliding life.

The remarkable thing is that Nature permits the community to be taxed in

this way apparently without protest. For the parasite is a consumer pure

and simple. And the "Perfect Economy of Nature" is surely for once at

fault when it encourages species numbered by thousands which produce

nothing for their own or for the general good, but live, and live

luxuriously, at the expense of others?

Now when we look into the matter, we very soon perceive that instead of

secretly countenancing this ingenious device by which parasitic animals

and plants evade the great law of the Struggle for Life, Nature sets her

face most sternly against it. And, instead of allowing the transgressors

to slip through her fingers, as one might at first suppose, she visits

upon them the most severe and terrible penalties. The parasite, she

argues, not only injures itself, but wrongs others. It disobeys the

fundamental law of its own being, and taxes the innocent to contribute

to its disgrace. So that if Nature is just, if Nature has an avenging

hand, if she holds one vial of wrath more full and bitter than another,

it shall surely be poured out upon those who are guilty of this double

sin. Let us see what form this punishment takes.

Observant visitors to the sea-side, or let us say to an aquarium, are

familiar with those curious little creatures known as Hermit-crabs. The

peculiarity of the Hermits is that they take up their abode in the

cast-off shell of some other animal, not unusually the whelk; and here,

like Diogenes in his tub, the creature lives a solitary, but by no means

an inactive life.

The _Pagurus_, however, is not a parasite. And yet although in no sense

of the word a parasite, this way of inhabiting throughout life a house

built by another animal approaches so closely the parasitic habit, that

we shall find it instructive as a preliminary illustration, to consider

the effect of this free-house policy on the occupant. There is no

doubt, to begin with, that, as has been already indicated, the habit is

an acquired one. In its general anatomy the Hermit is essentially a

crab. Now the crab is an animal which, from the nature of its

environment, has to lead a somewhat rough and perilous life. Its days

are spent among jagged rocks and boulders. Dashed about by every wave,

attacked on every side by monsters of the deep, the crustacean has to

protect itself by developing a strong and serviceable coat of mail.

How best to protect themselves has been the problem to which the whole

crab family have addressed themselves; and, in considering the matter,

the ancestors of the Hermit-crab hit on the happy device of re-utilizing

the habitations of the molluscs which lay around them in plenty,

well-built, and ready for immediate occupation. For generations and

generations accordingly, the Hermit-crab has ceased to exercise itself

upon questions of safety, and dwells in its little shell as proudly and

securely as if its second-hand house were a fortress erected especially

for its private use.

Wherein, then, has the Hermit suffered for this cheap, but real solution

of a practical difficulty? Whether its laziness costs it any moral

qualms, or whether its cleverness becomes to it a source of

congratulation, we do not know; but judged from the appearance the

animal makes under the searching gaze of the zoologist, its expedient is

certainly not one to be commended. To the eye of Science its sin is

written in the plainest characters on its very organization. It has

suffered in its own anatomical structure just by as much as it has

borrowed from an external source. Instead of being a perfect crustacean

it has allowed certain important parts of its body to deteriorate. And

several vital organs are partially or wholly atrophied.

Its sphere of life also is now seriously limited; and by a cheap

expedient to secure safety, it has fatally lost its independence. It is

plain from its anatomy that the Hermit-crab was not always a

Hermit-crab. It was meant for higher things. Its ancestors doubtless

were more or less perfect crustaceans, though what exact stage of

development was reached before the hermit habit became fixed in the

species we cannot tell. But from the moment the creature took to relying

on an external source, it began to fall. It slowly lost in its own

person all that it now draws from external aid.

As an important item in the day's work, namely, the securing of safety

and shelter, was now guaranteed to it, one of the chief inducements to a

life of high and vigilant effort was at the same time withdrawn. A

number of functions, in fact, struck work. The whole of the parts,

therefore, of the complex organism which ministered to these functions,

from lack of exercise, or total disuse, became gradually feeble; and

ultimately, by the stern law that an unused organ must suffer a slow but

inevitable atrophy, the creature not only lost all power of motion in

these parts, but lost the parts themselves, and otherwise sank into a

relatively degenerate condition.

Every normal crustacean, on the other hand, has the abdominal region of

the body covered by a thick chitinous shell. In the Hermits this is

represented only by a thin and delicate membrane--of which the sorry

figure the creature cuts when drawn from its foreign hiding-place is

sufficient evidence. Any one who now examines further this half-naked

and woe-begone object, will perceive also that the fourth and fifth pair

of limbs are either so small and wasted as to be quite useless or

altogether rudimentary; and, although certainly the additional

development of the extremity of the tail into an organ for holding on to

its extemporized retreat may be regarded as a slight compensation, it is

clear from the whole structure of the animal that it has allowed itself

to undergo severe Degeneration.

In dealing with the Hermit-crab, in short, we are dealing with a case of

physiological backsliding. That the creature has lost anything by this

process from a practical point of view is not now argued. It might

fairly be shown, as already indicated, that its freedom is impaired by

its cumbrous exoskeleton, and that, in contrast with other crabs, who

lead a free and roving life, its independence generally is greatly

limited. But from the physiological standpoint, there is no question

that the Hermit tribe have neither discharged their responsibilities to

Nature nor to themselves. If the end of life is merely to escape death,

and serve themselves, possibly they have done well; but if it is to

attain an ever increasing perfection, then are they backsliders indeed.

A zoologist's verdict would be that by this act they have forfeited to

some extent their place in the animal scale. An animal is classed as a

low or high according as it is adapted to less or more complex

conditions of life. This is the true standpoint from which to judge all

living organisms. Were perfection merely a matter of continual eating

and drinking, the Am[oe]ba--the lowest known organism--might take rank

with the highest, Man, for the one nourishes itself and saves its skin

almost as completely as the other. But judged by the higher standard of

Complexity, that is, by greater or lesser adaption to more or less

complex conditions, the gulf between them is infinite.

We have now received a preliminary idea, although not from the study of

a true parasite, of the essential principles involved in parasitism. And

we may proceed to point out the correlative in the moral and spiritual

spheres. We confine ourselves for the present to one point. The

difference between the Hermit-crab and a true parasite is, that the

former has acquired a semi-parasitic habit only with reference to

_safety_. It may be that the Hermit devours as a preliminary the

accommodating mollusc whose tenement it covets; but it would become a

real parasite only on the supposition that the whelk was of such size as

to keep providing for it throughout life, and that the external and

internal organs of the crab should disappear, while it lived henceforth,

by simple imbibition, upon the elaborated juices of its host. All the

mollusc provides, however, for the crustacean in this instance is

safety, and, accordingly in the meantime we limit our application to

this. The true parasite presents us with an organism so much more

degraded in all its parts, that its lessons may well be reserved until

we have paved the way to understand the deeper bearings of the subject.

The spiritual principle to be illustrated in the meantime stands thus:

_Any principle which secures the safety of the individual without

personal effort or the vital exercise of faculty is disastrous to moral

character._ We do not begin by attempting to define words. Were we to

define truly what is meant by safety or salvation, we should be spared

further elaboration, and the law would stand out as a sententious

common-place. But we have to deal with the ideas of safety as these are

popularly held, and the chief purpose at this stage is to expose what

may be called the Parasitic Doctrine of Salvation. The phases of

religious experience about to be described may be unknown to many. It

remains for those who are familiar with the religious conceptions of the

masses to determine whether or not we are wasting words.

What is meant by the Parasitic Doctrine of Salvation one may, perhaps,

best explain by sketching two of its leading types. The first is the

doctrine of the Church of Rome; the second, that represented by the

narrower Evangelical Religion. We take these religions, however, not in

their ideal form, with which possibly we should have little quarrel, but

in their practical working, or in the form in which they are held

especially by the rank and file of those who belong respectively to

these communions. For the strength or weakness of any religious system

is best judged from the form in which it presents itself to, and

influences the common mind.

No more perfect or more sad example of semi-parasitism exists than in

the case of those illiterate thousands who, scattered everywhere

throughout the habitable globe, swell the lower ranks of the Church of

Rome. Had an organization been specially designed, indeed, to induce the

parasitic habit in the souls of men, nothing better fitted to its

disastrous end could be established than the system of Roman

Catholicism. Roman Catholicism offers to the masses a molluscan shell.

They have simply to shelter themselves within its pale, and they are

"safe." But what is this "safe?" It is an external safety--the safety of

an institution. It is a salvation recommended to men by all that appeals

to the motives in most common use with the vulgar and the superstitious,

but which has as little vital connection with the individual soul as the

dead whelk's shell with the living Hermit. Salvation is a relation at

once vital, personal, and spiritual. This is mechanical and purely

external. And this is of course the final secret of its marvelous

success and world-wide power. A cheap religion is the desideratum of the

human heart; and an assurance of salvation at the smallest possible cost

forms the tempting bait held out to a conscience-stricken world by the

Romish Church. Thousands, therefore, who have never been taught to use

their faculties in "working out their own salvation," thousands who will

not exercise themselves religiously, and who yet cannot be without the

exercise of religion, intrust themselves in idle faith to that venerable

house of refuge which for centuries has stood between God and man. A

Church which has harbored generations of the elect, whose archives

enshrine the names of saints whose foundations are consecrated with

martyrs' blood--shall it not afford a sure asylum still for any soul

which would make its peace with God? So, as the Hermit into the

molluscan shell, creeps the poor soul within the pale of Rome, seeking,

like Adam in the garden, to hide its nakedness from God.

Why does the true lover of men restrain not his lips in warning his

fellows against this and all other priestly religions? It is not because

he fails to see the prodigious energy of the Papal See, or to appreciate

the many noble types of Christian manhood nurtured within its pale. Nor

is it because its teachers are often corrupt and its system of doctrine

inadequate as a representation of the Truth--charges which have to be

made more or less against all religions. But it is because it ministers

falsely to the deepest need of man, reduces the end of religion to

selfishness, and offers safety without spirituality. That these,

theoretically, are its pretensions, we do not affirm; but that its

practical working is to induce in man, and in its worst forms, the

parasitic habit, is testified by results. No one who has studied the

religion of the Continent upon the spot, has failed to be impressed with

the appalling spectacle of tens of thousands of unregenerated men

sheltering themselves, as they conceive it for Eternity, behind the

Sacraments of Rome.

There is no stronger evidence of the inborn parasitic tendency in man in

things religious than the absolute complacency with which even cultured

men will hand over their eternal interests to the care of a Church. We

can never dismiss from memory the sadness with which we once listened to

the confession of a certain foreign professor: "I used to be concerned

about religion," he said in substance, "but religion is a great subject.

I was very busy; there was little time to settle it for myself. A

protestant, my attention was called to the Roman Catholic religion. It

suited my case. And instead of dabbling in religion for myself I put

myself in its hands. Once a year," he concluded, "I go to mass." These

were the words of one whose work will live in the history of his

country, one, too, who knew all about parasitism. Yet, though he thought

it not, this is parasitism in its worst and most degrading form. Nor, in

spite of its intellectual, not to say moral sin, is this an extreme or

exceptional case. It is a case, which is being duplicated every day in

our own country, only here the confessing is expressed with a candor

which is rare in company with actions betraying so signally the want of

it.

The form of parasitism exhibited by a certain section of the narrower

Evangelical school is altogether different from that of the Church of

Rome. The parasite in this case seeks its shelter, not in a Church, but

in a Doctrine or a Creed. Let it be observed again that we are not

dealing with the Evangelical Religion, but only with one of its

parasitic forms--a form which will at once be recognized by all who know

the popular Protestantism of this country. We confine ourselves also at

present to that form which finds its encouragement in a single doctrine,

that doctrine being the Doctrine of the Atonement--let us say, rather, a

perverted form of this central truth.

The perverted Doctrine of the Atonement, which tends to beget the

parasitic habit, may be defined in a single sentence--it is very much

because it can be defined in a single sentence that it is a perversion.

Let us state it in a concrete form. It is put to the individual in the

following syllogism: "You believe Christ died for sinners; you are a

sinner; therefore Christ died for you; _and hence you are saved_." Now

what is this but another species of molluscan shell? Could any trap for

a benighted soul be more ingeniously planned? It is not superstition

that is appealed to this time; it is reason. The agitated soul is

invited to creep into the convolutions of a syllogism, and entrench

itself behind a Doctrine more venerable even than the Church. But words

are mere chitin. Doctrines may have no more vital contact with the soul

than priest or sacrament, no further influence on life and character

than stone and lime. And yet the apostles of parasitism pick a

blackguard from the streets, pass him through this plausible formula,

and turn him out a convert in the space of as many minutes as it takes

to tell it.

The zeal of these men, assuredly, is not to be questioned: their

instincts are right, and their work is often not in vain. It is

possible, too, up to a certain point, to defend this Salvation by

Formula. Are these not the very words of Scripture? Did not Christ

Himself say, "It is finished?" And is it not written, "By grace are ye

saved through faith," "Not of works, lest any man should boast," and "He

that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life?" To which, however,

one might also answer in the words of Scripture, "The Devils also

believe," and "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of

God." But without seeming to make text refute text, let us ask rather

what the supposed convert possesses at the end of the process. That

Christ saves sinners, even blackguards from the streets, is a great

fact; and that the simple words of the street evangelist do sometimes

bring this home to man with convincing power is also a fact. But in

ordinary circumstances, when the inquirer's mind is rapidly urged

through the various stages of the above piece of logic, he is left to

face the future and blot out the past with a formula of words.

To be sure these words may already convey a germ of truth, they may yet

be filled in with a wealth of meaning and become a life-long power. But

we would state the case against Salvation by Formula with ignorant and

unwarranted clemency did we for a moment convey the idea that this is

always the actual result. The doctrine plays too well into the hands of

the parasitic tendency to make it possible that in more than a minority

of cases the result is anything but disastrous. And it is disastrous not

in that, sooner or later, after losing half their lives, those who rely

on the naked syllogism come to see their mistake, but in that thousands

never come to see it all. Are there not men who can prove to you and to

the world, by the irresistible logic of texts, that they are saved, whom

you know to be not only unworthy of the Kingdom of God--which we all

are--but absolutely incapable of entering it? The condition of

membership in the Kingdom of God is well known; who fulfill this

condition and who do not, is not well known. And yet the moral test, in

spite of the difficulty of its applications, will always, and rightly,

be preferred by the world to the theological. Nevertheless, in spite of

the world's verdict, the parasite is content. He is "safe." Years ago

his mind worked through a certain chain of phrases in which the words

"believe" and "saved" were the conspicuous terms. And from that moment,

by all Scriptures, by all logic, and by all theology, his future was

guaranteed. He took out, in short, an insurance policy, by which he was

infallibly secured eternal life at death. This is not a matter to make

light of. We wish we were caricaturing instead of representing things as

they are. But we carry with us all who intimately know the spiritual

condition of the Narrow Church in asserting that in some cases at least

its members have nothing more to show for their religion than a formula,

a syllogism, a cant phrase or an experience of some kind which happened

long ago, and which men told them at the time was called Salvation. Need

we proceed to formulate objections to the parasitism of Evangelicism?

Between it and the Religion of the Church of Rome there is an affinity

as real as it is unsuspected. For one thing these religions are

spiritually disastrous as well as theologically erroneous in propagating

a false conception of Christianity. The fundamental idea alike of the

extreme Roman Catholic and extreme Evangelical Religions is Escape.

Man's chief end is to "get off." And all factors in religion, the

highest and most sacred, are degraded to this level. God, for example,

is a Great Lawyer. Or He is the Almighty Enemy; it is from Him we have

to "get off." Jesus Christ is the One who gets us off--a theological

figure who contrives so to adjust matters federally that the way is

clear. The Church in the one instance is a kind of conveyancing office

where the transaction is duly concluded, each party accepting the

others' terms; in the other case, a species of sheep-pen where the flock

awaits impatiently and indolently the final consummation. Generally, the

means are mistaken for the end, and the opening-up of the possibility of

spiritual growth becomes the signal to stop growing.

Second, these being cheap religions, are inevitably accompanied by a

cheap life. Safety being guaranteed from the first, there remains

nothing else to be done. The mechanical way in which the transaction is

effected, leaves the soul without stimulus, and the character remains

untouched by the moral aspects of the sacrifice of Christ. He who is

unjust is unjust still; he who is unholy is unholy still. Thus the whole

scheme ministers to the Degeneration of Organs. For here, again, by just

as much as the organism borrows mechanically from an external source, by

so much exactly does it lose in its own organization. Whatever rest is

provided by Christianity for the children of God, it is certainly never

contemplated that it should supersede personal effort. And any rest

which ministers to indifference is immoral and unreal--it makes

parasites and not men. Just because God worketh in him, as the evidence

and triumph of it, the true child of God works out his own

salvation--works it out having really received it--not as a light thing,

a superfluous labor, but with fear and trembling as a reasonable and

indispensable service.

If it be asked, then, shall the parasite be saved or shall he not, the

answer is that the idea of salvation conveyed by the question makes a

reply all but hopeless. But if by salvation is meant, a trusting in

Christ _in order to likeness to Christ_, in order to that _holiness_

without which no man shall see the Lord, the reply is that the

parasite's hope is absolutely vain. So far from ministering to growth,

parasitism ministers to decay. So far from ministering to holiness, that

is to _wholeness_, parasitism ministers to exactly the opposite. One by

one the spiritual faculties droop and die, one by one from lack of

exercise the muscles of the soul grow weak and flaccid, one by one the

moral activities cease. So from him that hath not, is taken away that

which he hath, and after a few years of parasitism there is nothing left

to save.

If our meaning up to this point has been sufficiently obscure to make

the objection now possible that this protest against Parasitism is

opposed to the doctrines of Free Grace, we cannot hope in a closing

sentence to free the argument from a suspicion so ill-judged. The

adjustment between Faith and Works does not fall within our province

now. Salvation truly is the free gift of God, but he who really knows

how much this means knows--and just because it means so much--how much

of consequent action it involves. With the central doctrines of grace

the whole scientific argument is in too wonderful harmony to be found

wanting here. The natural life, not less than the eternal, is the gift

of God. But life in either case is the beginning of growth and not the

end of grace. To pause where we should begin, to retrograde where we

should advance, to seek a mechanical security that we may cover inertia

and find a wholesale salvation in which there is no personal

sanctification--this is Parasitism.

PARASITISM.

"And so I live, you see,

Go through the world, try, prove, reject,

Prefer, still struggling to effect

My warfare; happy that I can

Be crossed and thwarted as a man,

Not left in God's contempt apart,

With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart,

Tame in earth's paddock as her prize.

... ... ... ... ...

Thank God, no paradise stands barred

To entry, and I find it hard

To be a Christian, as I said."--_Browning._

"Work out your own salvation."--_Paul._

"Be no longer a chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. Produce!

Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a

Product, produce it, in God's name!"--_Carlyle._

From a study of the habits and organization of the family of

Hermit-crabs we have already gained some insight into the nature and

effects of parasitism. But the Hermit-crab, be it remembered, is in no

real sense a parasite. And before we can apply the general principle

further we must address ourselves briefly to the examination of a true

case of parasitism.

We have not far to seek. Within the body of the Hermit-crab a minute

organism may frequently be discovered resembling, when magnified, a

miniature kidney-bean. A bunch of root-like processes hangs from one

side, and the extremities of these are seen to ramify in delicate films

through the living tissues of the crab. This simple organism is known to

the naturalist as a Sacculina; and though a full-grown animal, it

consists of no more parts than those just named. Not a trace of

structure is to be detected within this rude and all but inanimate

frame; it possesses neither legs, nor eyes, nor mouth, nor throat, nor

stomach, nor any other organs, external or internal. This Sacculina is a

typical parasite. By means of its twining and theftuous roots it imbibes

automatically its nourishment ready-prepared from the body of the crab.

It boards indeed entirely at the expense of its host, who supplies it

liberally with food and shelter and everything else it wants. So far as

the result to itself is concerned this arrangement may seem at first

sight satisfactory enough; but when we inquire into the life history of

this small creature we unearth a career of degeneracy all but

unparalleled in nature.

The most certain clue to what nature meant any animal to become is to be

learned from its embryology. Let us, therefore, examine for a moment the

earliest positive stage in the development of the Sacculina. When the

embryo first makes its appearance it bears not the remotest resemblance

to the adult animal. A different name even is given to it by the

biologist, who knows it at this period as a Nauplius. This minute

organism has an oval body, supplied with six well-jointed feet by means

of which it paddles briskly through the water. For a time it leads an

active and independent life, industriously securing its own food and

escaping enemies by its own gallantry. But soon a change takes place.

The hereditary taint of parasitism is in its blood, and it proceeds to

adapt itself to the pauper habits of its race. The tiny body first

doubles in upon itself, and from the two front limbs elongated filaments

protrude. Its four hind limbs entirely disappear, and twelve

short-forked swimming organs temporarily take their place. Thus

strangely metamorphosed the Sacculina sets out in search of a suitable

host, and in an evil hour, by that fate which is always ready to

accommodate the transgressor, is thrown into the company of the

Hermit-crab. With its two filamentary processes--which afterward develop

into the root-like organs--it penetrates the body; the sac-like form is

gradually assumed; the whole of the swimming feet drop off--they will

never be needed again--and the animal settles down for the rest of its

life as a parasite.

One reason which makes a zoologist certain that the Sacculina is a

degenerate type is, that in almost all other instances of animals which

begin life in the Nauplius-form--and there are several--the Nauplius

develops through higher and higher stages, and arrives finally at the

high perfection displayed by the shrimp, lobster, crab, and other

crustaceans. But instead of rising to its opportunities, the sacculine

Nauplius having reached a certain point turned back. It shrunk from the

struggle for life, and beginning probably by seeking shelter from its

host went on to demand its food; and so falling from bad to worse,

became in time an entire dependant.

In the eyes of Nature this was a twofold crime. It was first a disregard

of evolution, and second, which is practically the same thing, an

evasion of the great law of work. And the revenge of Nature was

therefore necessary. It could not help punishing the Sacculina for

violated law, and the punishment, according to the strange and

noteworthy way in which Nature usually punishes, was meted but by

natural processes, carried on within its own organization. Its

punishment was simply that it was a Sacculina--that it was a Sacculina

when it might have been a Crustacean. Instead of being a free and

independent organism high in structure, original in action, vital with

energy, it deteriorated into a torpid and all but amorphous sac confined

to perpetual imprisonment and doomed to a living death. "Any new set of

conditions," says Ray Lankester, "occurring to an animal which render

its food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to

degeneration; just as an active healthy man sometimes degenerates when

he becomes suddenly possessed of a fortune; or as Rome degenerated when

possessed of the riches of the ancient world. The habit of parasitism

clearly acts upon animal organization in this way. Let the parasitic

life once be secured, and away go legs, jaws, eyes, and ears; the

active, highly-gifted crab, insect or annelid may become a mere sac,

absorbing nourishment and laying eggs."[95]

There could be no more impressive illustration than this of what with

entire appropriateness one might call "the physiology of backsliding."

We fail to appreciate the meaning of spiritual degeneration or detect

the terrible nature of the consequences only because they evade the eye

of sense. But could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, or

study the soul of the backslider on principles of comparative anatomy,

we should have a revelation of the organic effects of sin, even of the

mere sin of carelessness as to growth and work, which must revolutionize

our ideas of practical religion. There is no room for the doubt even

that what goes on in the body does not with equal certainty take place

in the spirit under the corresponding conditions.

The penalty of backsliding is not something unreal and vague, some

unknown quantity which may be measured out to us disproportionately, or

which perchance, since God is good, we may altogether evade. The

consequences are already marked within the structure of the soul. So to

speak, they are physiological. The thing affected by our indifference or

by our indulgence is not the book of final judgment but the present

fabric of the soul. The punishment of degeneration is simply

degeneration--the loss of functions, the decay of organs, the atrophy of

the spiritual nature. It is well known that the recovery of the

backslider is one of the hardest problems in spiritual work. To

reinvigorate an old organ seems more difficult and hopeless than to

develop a new one; and the backslider's terrible lot is to have to

retrace with enfeebled feet each step of the way along which he strayed;

to make up inch by inch the lee-way he has lost, carrying with him a

dead-weight of acquired reluctance, and scarce knowing whether to be

stimulated or discouraged by the oppressive memory of the previous fall.

We are not, however, to discuss at present the physiology of

backsliding. Nor need we point out at greater length that parasitism is

always and indissolubly accompanied by degeneration. We wish rather to

examine one or two leading tendencies of the modern religious life which

directly or indirectly induce the parasitic habit and bring upon

thousands of unsuspecting victims such secret and appalling penalties as

have been named.

Two main causes are known to the biologist as tending to induce the

parasitic habit. These are, first, the temptation to secure safety

without the vital exercise of faculties, and, second, the disposition to

find food without earning it. The first, which we have formally

considered, is probably the preliminary stage in most cases. The animal,

seeking shelter, finds unexpectedly that it can also thereby gain a

certain measure of food. Compelled in the first instance, perhaps by

stress of circumstances, to rob its host of a meal or perish, it

gradually acquires the habit of drawing all its supplies from the same

source, and thus becomes in time a confirmed parasite. Whatever be its

origin, however, it is certain that the main evil of parasitism is

connected with the further question of food. Mere safety with Nature is

a secondary, though by no means an insignificant, consideration. And

while the organism forfeits a part of its organization by any method of

evading enemies which demands no personal effort, the most entire

degeneration of the whole system follows the neglect or abuse of the

functions of nutrition.

The direction in which we have to seek the wider application of the

subject will now appear. We have to look into those cases in the moral

and spiritual sphere in which the functions of nutrition are either

neglected or abused. To sustain life, physical, mental, moral, or

spiritual, some sort of food is essential. To secure an adequate supply

each organism also is provided with special and appropriate faculties.

But the final gain to the organism does not depend so much on the

actual amount of food procured as on the exercise required to obtain it.

In one sense the exercise is only a means to an end, namely, the finding

food; but in another and equally real sense, the exercise is the end,

the food the means to attain that. Neither is of permanent use without

the other, but the correlation between them is so intimate that it were

idle to say that one is more necessary than the other. Without food

exercise is impossible, but without exercise food is useless.

Thus exercise is in order to food, and food is in order to exercise--in

order especially to that further progress and maturity which only

ceaseless activity can promote. Now food too easily acquired means food

without that accompaniment of discipline which is infinitely more

valuable than the food itself. It means the possibility of a life which

is a mere existence. It leaves the organism _in statu quo_, undeveloped,

immature, low in the scale of organization and with a growing tendency

to pass from the state of equilibrium to that of increasing

degeneration. What an organism is depends upon what it does; its

activities make it. And if the stimulus to the exercise of all the

innumerable faculties concerned in nutrition be withdrawn by the

conditions and circumstances of life becoming, or being made to become,

too easy, there is first an arrest of development, and finally a loss of

the parts themselves. If, in short, an organism does nothing, in that

relation it is nothing.

We may, therefore, formulate the general principle thus: _Any principle

which secures food to the individual without the expenditure of work is

injurious, and accompanied by the degeneration and loss of parts._

The social and political analogies of this law, which have been casually

referred to already, are sufficiently familiar to render any further

development in these directions superfluous. After the eloquent

preaching of the Gospel of Work by Thomas Carlyle, this century at least

can never plead that one of the most important moral bearings of the

subject has not been duly impressed upon it. All that can be said of

idleness generally might be fitly urged in support of this great

practical truth. All nations which have prematurely passed away, buried

in graves dug by their own effeminacy; all those individuals who have

secured a hasty wealth by the chances of speculation; all children of

fortune; all victims of inheritance; all social sponges; all satellites

of the court; all beggars of the market-place--all these are living and

unlying witness to the unalterable retributions of the law of

parasitism. But it is when we come to study the working of the principle

in the religious sphere there we discover the full extent of the ravages

which the parasitic habit can make on the souls of men. We can only hope

to indicate here one or two of the things in modern Christianity which

minister most subtly and widely to this as yet all but unnamed sin.

We begin in what may seem a somewhat unlooked-for quarter. One of the

things in the religious world which tends most strongly to induce the

parasitic habit is _Going to Church_. Church-going itself every

Christian will rightly consider an invaluable aid to the ripe

development of the spiritual life. Public worship has a place in the

national religious life so firmly established that nothing is ever

likely to shake its influence. So supreme indeed, is the ecclesiastical

system in all Christian countries that with thousands the religion of

the Church and the religion of the individual are one. But just because

of its high and unique place in religious regard, does it become men

from time to time to inquire how far the Church is really ministering to

the spiritual health of the immense religious community which looks to

it as its foster-mother. And if it falls to us here reluctantly to

expose some secret abuses of this venerable system, let it be well

understood that these are abuses, and not that the sacred institution

itself is being violated by the attack of an impious hand.

The danger of church-going largely depends on the form of worship, but

it may be affirmed that even the most perfect Church affords to all

worshipers a greater or less temptation to parasitism. It consists

essentially in the deputy-work or deputy-worship inseparable from the

church or chapel ministrations. One man is set apart to prepare a

certain amount of spiritual truth for the rest. He, if he is a true man,

gets all the benefits of original work. He finds the truth, digests it,

is nourished and enriched by it before he offers it to his flock. To a

large extent it will nourish and enrich in turn a number of his hearers.

But still they will lack something. The faculty of selecting truth at

first hand and appropriating it for one's self is a lawful possession to

every Christian. Rightly exercised it conveys to him truth in its

freshest form; it offers him the opportunity of verifying doctrines for

himself; it makes religion personal; it deepens and intensifies the only

convictions that are worth deepening, those, namely, which are honest;

and it supplies the mind with a basis of certainty in religion. But if

all one's truth is derived by imbibition from the Church, the faculties

for receiving truth are not only undeveloped but one's whole view of

truth becomes distorted. He who abandons the personal search for truth,

under whatever pretext, abandons truth. The very word truth, by becoming

the limited possession of a guild, ceases to have any meaning; and

faith, which can only be founded on truth, gives way to credulity,

resting on mere opinion.

In those churches especially where all parts of the worship are

subordinated to the sermon, this species of parasitism is peculiarly

encouraged. What is meant to be a stimulus to thought becomes the

substitute for it. The hearer never really learns, he only listens. And

while truth and knowledge seem to increase, life and character are left

in arrear. Such truth, of course, and such knowledge, are a mere

seeming. Having cost nothing, they come to nothing. The organism

acquires a growing immobility, and finally exists in a state of entire

intellectual helplessness and inertia. So the parasitic Church-member,

the literal "adherent," comes not merely to live only within the circle

of ideas of his minister, but to be content that his minister has these

ideas--like the literary parasite who fancies he knows everything

because he has a good library.

Where the worship, again, is largely liturgical the danger assumes an

even more serious form, and it acts in some such way as this. Every

sincere man who sets out in the Christian race begins by attempting to

exercise the spiritual faculties for himself. The young life throbs in

his veins, and he sets himself to the further progress with earnest

purpose and resolute will. For a time he bids fair to attain a high and

original development. But the temptation to relax the always difficult

effort at spirituality is greater than he knows. The "carnal mind"

itself is "enmity against God," and the antipathy, or the deadlier

apathy within, is unexpectedly encouraged from that very outside source

from which he anticipates the greatest help. Connecting himself with a

Church he is no less interested than surprised to find how rich is the

provision there for every part of his spiritual nature. Each service

satisfies or surfeits. Twice, or even three times a week, this feast is

spread for him. The thoughts are deeper than his own, the faith keener,

the worship loftier, the whole ritual more reverent and splendid. What

more natural than that he should gradually exchange his personal

religion for that of the congregation? What more likely than that a

public religion should by insensible stages supplant his individual

faith? What more simple than to content himself with the warmth of

another's soul. What more tempting than to give up private prayer for

the easier worship of the liturgy or of the church? What, in short, more

natural than for the independent, free-moving, growing Sacculina to

degenerate into the listless, useless, pampered parasite of the pew? The

very means he takes to nurse his personal religion often come in time

to wean him from it. Hanging admiringly, or even enthusiastically, on

the lips of eloquence, his senses now stirred by ceremony, now soothed

by music, the parasite of the pew enjoys his weekly worship--his

character untouched, his will unbraced, his crude soul unquickened and

unimproved. Thus, instead of ministering to the growth of individual

members, and very often just in proportion to the superior excellence of

the provision made for them by another, does this gigantic system of

deputy-nutrition tend to destroy development and arrest the genuine

culture of the soul. Our churches overflow with members who are mere

consumers. Their interest in religion is purely parasitic. Their only

spiritual exercise is the automatic one of imbibition, the clergyman

being the faithful Hermit-crab who is to be depended on every Sunday for

at least a week's supply.

A physiologist would describe the organism resulting from such a

progress as a case of "arrested development." Instead of having learned

to pray, the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied with being prayed

for. His transactions with the Eternal are effected by commission. His

work for Christ is done by a paid deputy. His whole life is a prolonged

indulgence in the bounties of the Church; and surely--in some cases at

least the crowning irony--he sends for the minister when he lies down to

die.

Other signs and consequences of this species of parasitism soon become

very apparent. The first symptom is idleness. When a Church is off its

true diet it is off its true work. Hence one explanation of the hundreds

of large and influential congregations ministered to from week to week

by men of eminent learning and earnestness, which yet do little or

nothing in the line of these special activities for which all churches

exist. An outstanding man at the head of a huge, useless and torpid

congregation is always a puzzle. But is the reason not this, that the

congregation gets too good food too cheap? Providence has mercifully

delivered the Church from too many great men in her pulpits, but there

are enough in every country-side to play the host disastrously to a

large circle of otherwise able-bodied Christian people, who, thrown on

their own resources, might fatten themselves and help others. There are

compensations to a flock for a poor minister after all. Where the fare

is indifferent those who are really hungry will exert themselves to

procure their own supply.

That the Church has indispensable functions to discharge to the

individual is not denied; but taking into consideration the universal

tendency to parasitism in the human soul it is a grave question whether

in some cases it does not really effect more harm than good. A dead

church certainly, a church having no reaction on the community, a church

without propagative power in the world, cannot be other than a calamity

to all within its borders. Such a church is an institution, first for

making, then for screening parasites; and instead of representing to the

world the Kingdom of God on earth, it is despised alike by godly and by

godless men as the refuge for fear and formalism and the nursery of

superstition.

And this suggests a second and not less practical evil of a parasitic

piety--that it presents to the world a false conception of the religion

of Christ. One notices with a frequency which may well excite alarm that

the children of church-going parents often break away as they grow in

intelligence, not only from church-connection but from the whole system

of family religion. In some cases this is doubtless due to natural

perversity, but in others it certainly arises from the hollowness of the

outward forms which pass current in society and at home for vital

Christianity. These spurious forms, fortunately or unfortunately, soon

betray themselves. How little there is in them becomes gradually

apparent. And rather than indulge in a sham the budding sceptic, as the

first step, parts with the form and in nine cases out of ten concerns

himself no further to find a substitute. Quite deliberately, quite

honestly, sometimes with real regret and even at personal sacrifice he

takes up his position, and to his parent's sorrow and his church's

dishonor forsakes forever the faith and religion of his fathers. Who

will deny that this is a true account of the natural history of much

modern scepticism? A formal religion can never hold its own in the

nineteenth century. It is better that it should not. We must either be

real or cease to be. We must either give up our Parasitism or our sons.

Any one who will take the trouble to investigate a number of cases where

whole families of outwardly godly parents have gone astray, will

probably find that the household religion had either some palpable

defect, or belonged essentially to the parasitic order. The popular

belief that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than those of the laity

is, of course, without foundation; but it may also probably be verified

that in the instances where clergymen's sons notoriously discredit their

father's ministry, that ministry in a majority of cases, will be found

to be professional and theological rather than human and spiritual.

Sequences in the moral and spiritual world follow more closely than we

yet discern the great law of Heredity. The Parasite begets the

Parasite--only in the second generation the offspring are sometimes

sufficiently wise to make the discovery, and honest enough to proclaim

it.

We now pass on to the consideration of another form of Parasitism which

though closely related to that just discussed, is of sufficient

importance to justify a separate reference. Appealing to a somewhat

smaller circle, but affecting it not less disastrously, is the

Parasitism induced by certain abuses of _Systems of Theology_.

In its own place, of course, Theology is no more to be dispensed with

than the Church. In every perfect religious system three great

departments must always be represented--criticism, dogmatism, and

evangelism. Without the first there is no guarantee of truth, without

the second no defence of truth, and without the third no propagation of

truth. But when these departments become mixed up, when their separate

functions are forgotten, when one is made to do duty for another, or

where either is developed by the church or the individual at the expense

of the rest, the result is fatal. The particular abuse, however, of

which we have now to speak, concerns the tendency in orthodox

communities, first to exalt orthodoxy above all other elements in

religion, and secondly to make the possession of sound beliefs

equivalent to the possession of truth.

Doctrinal preaching, fortunately, as a constant practice is less in

vogue than in a former age, but there are still large numbers whose only

contact with religion is through theological forms. The method is

supported by a plausible defence. What is doctrine but a compressed form

of truth, systematized by able and pious men, and sanctioned by the

imprimatur of the Church? If the greatest minds of the Church's past,

having exercised themselves profoundly upon the problems of religion,

formulated as with one voice a system of doctrine, why should the humble

inquirer not gratefully accept it? Why go over the ground again? Why

with his dim light should he betake himself afresh to Bible study and

with so great a body of divinity already compiled, presume himself to be

still a seeker after truth? Does not Theology give him Bible truth in

reliable, convenient, and moreover, in logical propositions? There it

lies extended to the last detail in the tomes of the Fathers, or

abridged in a hundred modern compendia, ready-made to his hand, all cut

and dry, guaranteed sound and wholesome, why not use it?

Just because it is all cut and dry. Just because it is ready-made. Just

because it lies there in reliable, convenient and logical propositions.

The moment you appropriate truth in such a shape you appropriate a

form. You cannot cut and dry truth. You cannot accept truth ready-made

without it ceasing to nourish the soul as the truth. You cannot live on

theological forms without becoming a Parasite and ceasing to be a man.

There is no worse enemy to a living Church than a propositional

theology, with the latter controlling the former by traditional

authority. For one does not then receive the truth for himself, he

accepts it bodily. He begins the Christian life set up by his Church

with a stock-in-trade which has cost him nothing, and which, though it

may serve him all his life, is just exactly worth as much his belief in

his Church. This possession of truth, moreover, thus lightly won, is

given to him as infallible. It is a system. There is nothing to add to

it. At his peril let him question or take from it. To start a convert in

life with such a principle is unspeakably degrading. All through life

instead of working toward truth he must work from it. An infallible

standard is a temptation to a mechanical faith. Infallibility always

paralyzes. It gives rest; but it is the rest of stagnation. Men perform

one great act of faith at the beginning of their life, then have done

with it forever. All moral, intellectual and spiritual effort is over;

and a cheap theology ends in a cheap life.

The same thing that makes men take refuge in the Church of Rome makes

them take refuge in a set of dogmas. Infallibility meets the deepest

desire of man, but meets it in the most fatal form. Men deal with the

hunger after truth in two ways. First by Unbelief--which crushes it by

blind force; or, secondly, by resorting to some external source credited

with Infallibility--which lulls it to sleep by blind faith. The effect

of a doctrinal theology is the effect of Infallibility. And the

wholesale belief in such a system, however accurate it may be--grant

even that it were infallible--is not Faith though it always gets that

name. It is mere Credulity. It is a complacent and idle rest upon

authority, not a hard-earned, self-obtained, personal possession. The

moral responsibility here, besides, is reduced to nothing. Those who

framed the Thirty-nine Articles or the Westminster Confession are

responsible. And anything which destroys responsibility, or transfers

it, cannot be other than injurious in its moral tendency and useless in

itself.

It may be objected perhaps that this statement of the paralysis

spiritual and mental induced by Infallibility applies also to the Bible.

The answer is that though the Bible is infallible, the Infallibility is

not in such a form as to become a temptation. There is the widest

possible difference between the form of truth in the Bible and the form

in theology.

In theology truth is propositional--tied up in neat parcels,

systematized, and arranged in logical order. The Trinity is an intricate

doctrinal problem. The Supreme Being is discussed in terms of

philosophy. The Atonement is a formula which is to be demonstrated like

a proposition in Euclid. And Justification is to be worked out as a

question of jurisprudence. There is no necessary connection between

these doctrines and the life of him who holds them. They make him

orthodox, not necessarily righteous. They satisfy the intellect but need

not touch the heart. It does not, in short, take a religious man to be a

theologian. It simply takes a man with fair reasoning powers. This man

happens to apply these powers to theological subjects--but in no other

sense than he might apply them to astronomy or physics. But truth in the

Bible is a fountain. It is a diffused nutriment, so diffused that no one

can put himself off with the form. It is reached not by thinking, but by

doing. It is seen, discerned, not demonstrated. It cannot be bolted

whole, but must be slowly absorbed into the system. Its vagueness to the

mere intellect, its refusal to be packed into portable phrases, its

satisfying unsatisfyingness, its vast atmosphere, its finding of us,

its mystical hold of us, these are the tokens of its infinity.

Nature never provides for man's wants in any direction, bodily, mental,

or spiritual, in such a form as that he can simply accept her gifts

automatically. She puts all the mechanical powers at his disposal--but

he must make his lever. She gives him corn, but he must grind it. She

elaborates coal, but he must dig for it. Corn is perfect, all the

products of Nature are perfect, but he has everything to do to them

before he can use them. So with truth; it is perfect, infallible. But he

cannot use it as it stands. He must work, think, separate, dissolve,

absorb, digest; and most of these he must do for himself and within

himself. If it be replied that this is exactly what theology does, we

answer it is exactly what it does not. It simply does what the

green-grocer does when he arranges his apples and plums in his shop

window. He may tell me a magnum bonum from a Victoria, or a Baldwin from

a Newtown Pippin. But he does not help me to eat it. His information is

useful, and for scientific horticulture essential. Should a sceptical

pomologist deny that there was such a thing as a Baldwin, or mistake it

for a Newtown Pippin, we should be glad to refer to him; but if we were

hungry, and an orchard were handy, we should not trouble him. Truth in

the Bible is an orchard rather than a museum. Dogmatism will be very

valuable to us when scientific necessity makes us go to the museum.

Criticism will be very useful in seeing that only fruit-bearers grow in

the orchard. But truth in the doctrinal form is not natural, proper,

assimilable food for the soul of man.

Is this a plea then for doubt? Yes, for that philosophic doubt which is

the evidence of a faculty doing its own work. It is more necessary for

us to be active than to be orthodox. To be orthodox is what we wish to

be, but we can only truly reach it by being honest, by being original,

by seeing with our own eyes, by believing with our own heart. "An idle

life," says Goethe, "is death anticipated." Better far be burned at the

stake of Public Opinion than die the living death of Parasitism. Better

an aberrant theology than a suppressed organization. Better a little

faith dearly won, better launched alone on the infinite bewilderment of

Truth, than perish on the splendid plenty of the richest creeds. Such

Doubt is no self-willed presumption. Nor, truly exercised, will it prove

itself, as much doubt does, the synonym for sorrow. It aims at a

life-long learning, prepared for any sacrifice of will yet for none of

independence; at that high progressive education which yields rest in

work and work in rest, and the development of immortal faculties in

both; at that deeper faith which believes in the vastness and variety of

the revelations of God, and their accessibility to all obedient

hearts.

FOOTNOTES:

[95] "Degeneration," by E. Ray Lankester, p. 33.

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."--_Rousseau._

"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 toward 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 modeled 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

porcelaneous 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 chiseled 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 _Polycystina_ 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

forever. That which modeled 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 ethics. 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 rationale of 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 matter, we see at first a guidance by conspicuous and

simple characters, and a tendency toward 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 remodeled 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 generalizations

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

recognized the deeper basis. The favorite 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 force 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 afterward carries out the classification

consistently, making his entire system depend on it, and throughout

arranging men, on the one hand as {pneumatikos}--spiritual, on the other

as {psychikos}--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 of God 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 crystallization, the crystallizing 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 be 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 a different footing.

The difference on the score of 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 hair's breadth. Its law of crystallization 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 Am[oe]boid 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 to 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 one's

self, 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 reactions 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 individuals 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 practiced 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 practice 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 honorableness

of his career, or the orthodoxy of his creed, if he exercises the

function of loving the world, that defines his world--he belongs to 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 watch-words 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 generalization; 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 recognized. 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 exists, 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 utilizing

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, marvelous 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, toward 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 marvelous 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 fullness

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 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 awaken 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 toward 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. Recognizing 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 toward 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

toward 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 am[oe]ba 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 the 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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 Schoepfung immer aus der Aufloesung der naechst neideren Stufe

die naechst hoehere hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat zur

Erzeugung dieser Kraft der schoepferischen 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 zuruecksinkenden Materiellen

Menschen der Geist, das geistige Geschoepf."--"Stille Stunden," p. 64.

[99] "First Principles," p. 440.

[100] "In Memoriam."

Transcriber's Endnote:

Two significant typographical errors have been corrected in the

Greek text on Page 263. The sentence originally read:

"And Paul afterward carries out the classification consistently,

making his entire system depend on it, and throughout arranging

men, on the one hand as {pyenmatikos}--spiritual, on the other

as {phychikos}--carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction."

The amended text replaces {pyenmatikos} with {pneumatikos}, whilst

{phychikos} now reads as {psychikos}.