The subjects already discussed should have prepared us to regard
nature as not a merely fortuitous congeries of matter and forces, but
as embodying plan, design, and contrivance; and we may now inquire as
to the character of these, considered as possible manifestations of
mind in nature. The idea that nature is a manifestation of mind, is
ancient, and probably universal. It proceeds naturally from the
analogy between the operations of nature and those which originate in
our own will and contrivance. When men begin to think more accurately,
this idea acquires a deeper foundation in the conclusion that nature,
in all its varied manifestations, is one vast machine too great and
complex for us to comprehend, and implying a primary energy infinitely
beyond that of man; and thus the unity of nature points to one
Creative Mind.
Even to savage peoples, in whose minds the idea of unity has not
germinated, or from whose traditions it has been lost, a spiritual
essence appears to underlie all natural phenomena, though they may
regard this as consisting of a separate spirit or manitou for every
material thing. In all the more cultivated races the ideas of natural
religion have taken more definite forms in their theology and
philosophy. Dugald Stewart has well expressed the more scientific form
of this idea in two short statements:
"1. Every effect implies a cause.
"2. Every combination of means to an end implies intelligence."
The theistic aspect of the doctrine had, as we have seen in a previous
lecture, been already admirably expressed by Paul in his Epistle to
the Romans. Writing of what every heathen must know of mind in nature,
he says: "The invisible things of him since the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made,
even his eternal power and divinity." The two things which, according
to him, every intelligent man must perceive in nature are, first,
power above and beyond that of man, and, secondly, superhuman
intelligence. Even Agnostic Evolution cannot wholly divest itself of
the idea of mind in nature. Its advocates continually use terms
implying contrivance and plan when speaking of nature; and Spencer
appears explicitly to admit that we cannot divest ourselves of the
notion of a First Cause. Even those writers who seek to shelter
themselves under such vague and unmeaning statements as that human
intelligence must be potentially present in atoms or in the solar
energy, are merely attributing superhuman power and divinity to atoms
and forces.
Nor can they escape by the magisterial denunciation of such ideas as
"anthropomorphic" fancies. All science must in this sense be
anthropomorphic, for it consists of what nature appears to us to be
when viewed through the medium of our senses, and of what we think of
nature as so presented to us. The only difference is this--that if
Agnostic Evolution is true, Science itself only represents a certain
stage of the development, and can have no actual or permanent truth;
while, if the theistic view is correct, then the fact that man himself
belongs to the unity of nature and is in harmony with its other parts
gives us some guarantee for the absolute truth of scientific facts and
principles.
We may now consider more in detail some of the aspects under which
mind presents itself in nature.
1. It may be maintained that nature is an exhibition of regulated and
determined power. The first impression of nature presented to a mind
uninitiated in its mysteries is that it is a mere conflict of opposing
forces; but so soon as we study any natural phenomena in detail, we
see that this is an error, and that everything is balanced in the
nicest way by the most subtle interactions of matter and force. We
find also that, while forces are mutually convertible and atoms
susceptible of vast varieties of arrangement, all this is determined
by fixed law and carried out with invariable regularity and constancy.
The vapor of water, for example, diffused in the atmosphere, is
condensed by extreme cold and falls to the ground in snowflakes. In
these, particles of water previously kept asunder by heat are united
by cohesive force; and the heat has gone on other missions. But these
particles do not merely unite: they geometrize. Like well-drilled
soldiers arranging themselves in ranks, they form themselves,
according to regular axes of attraction, in lines diverging at an
angle of sixty degrees; and thus the snowflakes are hexagonal plates
and six-rayed stars, the latter often growing into very complex
shapes, but all based on the law of attraction under angles of sixty
degrees (see Fig. 12). The frost on the window-panes observes the same
law, and so does every crystallization of water where it has scope to
arrange itself in accordance with its own geometry. But this law of
crystallization gives to snow and ice their mechanical properties, and
is connected with a multitude of adjustments of water in the solid
state to its place in nature. The same law, varied in a vast number of
ways in every distinct substance, builds up crystals of all kinds and
crystalline rocks, and is connected with countless adaptations of
different kinds of matter to mechanical and chemical uses in the arts.
It is easy to see that all this might have been otherwise--nay, that
it must have been otherwise--but for the institution of many and
complex laws.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.
Snowflakes copied from nature under the microscope, and
serving to illustrate the geometrical arrangement of molecules
of water in crystallizing. _a_, _b_, simple stars; _c_, _d_,
hexagonal plates; _e_, _f_, rays of large and complex
star-shaped flakes. The law of arrangement of the molecules is
that of attraction in the lines of three axes at angles of
sixty degrees, and the varieties are produced by differences
in temperature and rate of supply of material.]
A lump of coal at first suggests little to excite interest or
imagination; but the student of its composition and microscopic
structure finds that it is an accumulation of vegetable matter
representing the action of the solar light on the leaves of trees of
the Palæozoic Age. It thus calls up images of these perished forests
and of the causes concerned in their production and growth, and in the
accumulation and preservation of their buried remains. It further
suggests the many ways in which this solar energy, so long sealed up,
can be recalled to activity in heat, gaslight, steam, and electric
light, and how remarkably these things have been related to the wealth
and the civilization of modern nations. An able writer of the agnostic
school, in a popular lecture on coal, has his imagination so
stimulated by these thoughts that he apostrophizes "Nature" as the
cunning contriver who stored up this buried sunlight by her strange
and mysterious alchemy, kept it quietly to herself through all the
long geological periods when reptiles and brute mammals were lords of
creation, and through those centuries of barbarism when savage men
roamed over the productive coal-districts in ignorance of their
treasures, and then revealed her long-hidden stores of wealth and
comfort to the admiring study of science and civilization, and for the
benefit of the millions belonging to densely-peopled and progressive
nations; It is plain that "Nature" in such a connection represents
either a poetical fiction, a superstitious fancy, or an intelligent
Creative Mind. It is further evident that such Creative Mind must be
in harmony with that of man, though vastly greater in its scope and
grasp in time and space.
Even the numerical relations observed in nature teach the same lesson.
The leaves of plants are not arranged at random, but in a series of
curiously-related spirals, differing in different plants, but always
the same in the same species and regulated by definite laws. Similar
definiteness regulates the ramification of plants, which depends
primarily on the arrangement of the leaves. The angle of ramification
of the veins of the leaf is settled for each species of plant; so are
the numbers of parts in the flower and the angular arrangement of
these parts. It is the same in the animal kingdom, such numbers as 5,
6, 8, 10 being selected to determine the parts in particular animals
and portions of animals. Once settled, these numbers are wonderfully
permanent in geological time. The first known land reptiles appear in
the Carboniferous period, and they have normally five toes; these
appear in the earliest known species in the lowest beds of the
Carboniferous. Their predecessors, the fishes, had numerous fin-rays;
but when limbs for locomotion on land were contrived, the number five
was adopted as the typical one. It still persists in the five toes and
fingers of man himself. From these, as is well known, our decimal
notation is derived. It did not originate in any special fitness of
the number ten, but in the fact that men began to reckon by counting
their ten fingers. Thus the decimal system of arithmetic, with all
that follows from it, was settled millions of years ago, in the
Carboniferous period, either by certain low-browed and unintelligent
batrachians or by their Maker.
2. Nature presents to us very remarkable revelations of dissimilar and
widely-separated matters and forces. I have referred to the numerical
arrangement of the leaves of plants; but the leaf itself, in its
structure and functions, is one of the most remarkable things in
nature. Composed of layers of loosely-placed living cells with
air-spaces between them; enclosed above and below with a transparent
epidermis, the spaces between the cells communicating with the
atmosphere without by means of microscopic pores guarded by
cunningly-contrived valves opening or closing according to the
hygrometric state of the air; connected with the stem of the plant by
a system of tubes strengthened with spiral fibres within,--the
structure of the leaf is, mechanically considered, of extreme beauty
and complexity. But its living functions are still more wonderful.
Receiving the water from the soil with such materials as it brings
thence in solution, and absorbing carbonic dioxide and ammonia from
the air, the living protoplasm of the leaf-cells has the power of
chemically changing all these substances, and of producing from them
those complicated and otherwise inimitable organic compounds of which
the tissues of the plant are built up. The force by which this is done
is that of the solar heat and light, both admitted freely into the
interior of the leaf through the transparent epidermis, and therein
imprisoned, so as to constitute a powerful storehouse of evaporation
and chemical energy. In this way all the materials available for the
maintenance of life, whether vegetable or animal, are produced, and no
other structure than the living vegetable cell, as it exists in the
leaf, has the power to effect these miracles of transmutation. Here,
let it be observed, we have the vegetable cell placed in relation with
the system of the plant, with the soil, with the atmosphere and its
waters, with the distant sun itself and the properties of its emitted
energies. Let it further be observed that, on the one hand, the
chemistry involved in this is of a character altogether different from
that which applies to inorganic matter, and, on the other, the
products derived from a very few elements embrace all that vast
variety of compounds which we observe in plants and animals, and which
constitute the material of one of the most complex of sciences--that
of organic chemistry. Finally, these complicated structures were
produced and all their relations set up at a very early geological
period. In so far as we can judge from their remains and the results
effected, the leaves of the Palæozoic period were functionally as
perfect as their modern successors (see Figs. 13, 14). Of course, the
agnostic evolutionist may, if he pleases, attribute all this to
fortuitous interactions of the sun, the atmosphere, and the earth, and
may provide for what these fail to explain by the assumption of
potentialities equivalent to the things produced. But the
probability of such an hypothesis becomes infinitely small when we
consider the variety and the diversity of things and forces which must
have conspired to produce the results observed, and to maintain them
so constantly, and yet with so much difference in circumstances and
details. It is a relief to turn from such bewildering and gratuitous
suppositions to the theory which supposes a designing Creative Mind.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.
Section of the leaf of a Cycad, being one of the most ancient
styles of leaf of which the structure is known. _a_, upper
epidermis; _b_, upper layer of cells, with grains of
chlorophyll; _c_, lower layer of cells, with chlorophyll; _d_,
lower epidermis; _e_, stomata, or breathing-pores, with
contractile cells for opening and closing.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.
Foliage from the coal-formation, showing some of the forms of
leaves instrumental in accumulating the carbon of our
coal-beds, by their action on the atmosphere under the
influence of sunlight.]
From the boundless variety of illustrations which the animal kingdom
presents I may select one--the contrivances by means of which marine
animals are enabled to float or balance themselves in the waters. The
_Pearly Nautilus_ (see Fig. 15) is one of the most familiar, and also
one of the most curious. Its coiled shell is divided by partitions
into air-chambers so proportioned that the buoyancy of the air is
sufficient to counterpoise in sea-water the weight of the animal.
There are also contrivances by which the density of the contained air
and of the body of the animal can be so modified as slightly to
disturb this equilibrium, and to enable the creature to rise or sink
in the waters. It would be tedious to describe, without adequate
illustrations, all the machinery connected with these adjustments.
It is sufficient for our purpose to know that they are provided in
such a manner that the animal is practically exempted from the
operation of the force of gravity. In the modern seas these provisions
are enjoyed by only a few species of the genera _Nautilus_ and
_Spirula_; but in former geological ages, more numerous, as well as
larger and more complex, forms existed. Further, this contrivance is
very old. We find in the _Orthoceratites_ and their allies of the
earliest Silurian formations these arrangements in their full
perfection, and in some forms[12] even more complex than in later
types.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.
Section of the Pearly Nautilus and its shell, showing that the
animal occupies only the outer chamber, the others being
filled with air and acting as a float whose buoyancy can be
modified by the action of the tube, or siphuncle, passing
through the chambers.]
The peculiar contrivances observed in the nautilus and its allies are
possessed by no other mollusks, but there is another group of somewhat
lower grade, that of the _Ianthinæ_, or violet snails, in which
flotation is provided for in another way (see Fig. 16). In these
animals the shell is perfectly simple, though light, and the floating
apparatus consists in a series of horny air-vesicles attached to what
is termed the "foot" of the animal, and which are increased in number
to suit its increasing weight as it grows in size. There are some
reasons to believe that this entirely different contrivance is as
old in geological time as the chambered shell of the nautiloid
animals. It was, indeed, in all probability, more common and adapted
to larger animals in the Silurian period than at present.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.
_Ianthina_, or Violet Snail, attached to a float composed of
horny hollow vesicles, to the under side of which its eggs are
attached. When hatched, each young animal develops a small
float similar to that of the parent.]
Another curious instance--not, so far as yet known, existing at all in
the modern world--is that of the remarkable stalked star-fish
described by Professor Hall under the name _Camerocrinus_, and whose
remains are found in the Upper Silurian rocks. The Crinoids, or
feather-stars, are well-known inhabitants of the seas, in both ancient
and modern times; but previous to Professor Hall's discovery they were
known only as animals attached by flexible stems to the sea-bottom or
creeping slowly by means of their radiating arms. It was not suspected
that any of them had committed themselves to the mercy of the
currents, suspended from floats. It appears, however, that this was
actually realized in the Upper Silurian period, when certain animals
of this group developed a hollow calcareous vesicle forming a
balloon-shaped float, from which they could hang suspended in the
water and float freely (see Fig. 17). So far as known, this
remarkable contrivance was temporary, and probably adapted to some
peculiarities of the habits and food of these animals occurring only
in the geological period in which they existed.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.
_Camerocrinus_, reduced in size (as restored by Hall). This is
a crinoid, or feather-star, of the Upper Silurian period,
floating by means of a hollow balloon-shaped structure divided
into chambers and formed of calcareous plates.]
Examples of this sort of adjustment are found in other types of animal
life. In the beautiful Portuguese man-of-war (_Physalia_) and its
allies flotation is provided for by membranous or cartilaginous sacs
or vesicles filled with air, and which are the common support of
numerous individuals which hang from them (see Fig. 18). In some
allied creatures the buoyancy required is secured by little vesicles
filled with oil secreted by the animals themselves.
In each of these cases we have a skilful adaptation of means to ends.
The float is so constructed as to avail itself of the properties of
gases and liquids, and the apparatus is framed on the most scientific
principles and in the most artistic manner. That this apparatus grows
and is not mechanically put together, and that in each case the
instincts and the habits of the animal have been correlated with it,
can scarcely be held by the most obtuse intellect to invalidate the
evidence of intelligent design.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.
The _Physalia_, or "Portuguese man-of-war" of the Atlantic,
being a colony of animals provided with long tentacles used as
fishing-lines, and hanging from a membranous float with a
crest, or "sail," on the top, and a pointed end which, being
turned from side to side, serves as a rudder.]
3. Structures apparently the most simple, and often heedlessly spoken
of as if they involved no complexity, prove, on examination, to be
intricate and complex almost beyond conception. In nothing, perhaps,
is this better seen than in that much-abused protoplasm which has been
made to do duty for God in the origination of life, but which is
itself a most laboriously manufactured material. Albumen, or white of
egg--which is otherwise named "protoplasm"--is a very complicated
substance both chemically and in its molecular arrangements, and when
endowed with life it presents properties altogether inscrutable. It is
easy to say that the protoplasm of an egg or of some humble animalcule
or microscopic embryo is little more than a mass of structureless
jelly; yet, in the case of the embryo, a microscopic dot of this
apparently structureless jelly must contain all the parts of the
future animal, however complex; but how we may never know, and
certainly cannot yet comprehend.
There are minute animalcules belonging to the group of flagellate
Infusoria, some of which, under ordinary microscopic powers, appear
merely as moving specks, and show their actual structures only under
powers of two thousand diameters, or more; yet these animals can be
seen to have an outer skin and an inner mass, to have pulsating sacs
and reproductive organs, and threadlike flagella wherewith to swim.
Their eggs are, of course, much smaller than themselves--so much so
that some of them are probably invisible under the highest powers yet
employed. Each of them, however, is potentially an animal, with all
its parts represented structurally in some way. Nor need we wonder at
this. It has been calculated that a speck scarcely visible under the
most powerful microscope may contain two million four hundred thousand
molecules of protoplasm.[13] If each of these molecules were a brick,
there would be enough of them to build a terrace of twenty-five good
dwelling-houses. But this is supposing them to be all alike; whereas
we know that the molecules of albumen are capable of being of very
various kinds. Each of these molecules really contains eight hundred
and eighty-two ultimate atoms--namely, four hundred of carbon, three
hundred and ten of hydrogen, one hundred and twenty of oxygen, fifty
of nitrogen, and two of sulphur and phosphorus. Now, we know that
these atoms may be differently arranged in different molecules,
producing considerable difference of properties. Let us try, then, to
calculate of how many differences of arrangement the atoms of one
molecule of protoplasm are susceptible, and then to calculate of how
many changes these different assemblages are capable in a microscopic
dot composed of two million four hundred thousand of them. It is
scarcely necessary to say that such a calculation, in the multitudes
of possibilities involved, transcends human powers of imagination; yet
it answers questions of mechanical and chemical grouping merely,
without any reference to the additional mystery of life. Let it be
observed that this vastly complex material is assumed as if there were
nothing remarkable in it, by many of those theorists who plausibly
explain to us the spontaneous origin of living things. But nature, in
arranging all the parts of a complicated animal beforehand in an
apparently structureless microscopic ovum, has all these vast numbers
to deal with in working out the exact result; and this not in one case
merely, but in multitudes of cases involving the most varied
combinations. We can scarcely suppose the atoms themselves to have the
power of thus unerringly marshalling themselves to work out the
structures of organisms infinitely varied, yet all alike after their
kinds. If not, then "Nature" must be a goddess gifted with superhuman
powers of calculation and marvellous deftness in arranging invisible
atoms.
4. The beauty of form, proportion, and coloring that abounds in nature
affords evidence of mind. Herculean efforts have been made by modern
evolutionists to eliminate altogether the idea of beauty from nature,
by theories of sexual selection and the like, and to persuade us that
beauty is merely utility in disguise, and even then only an accidental
coincidence between our perceptions and certain external things. But
in no part of their argument have they more signally failed in
accounting for the observed facts, and in no part have they more
seriously outraged the common sense and natural taste of men. In point
of fact, we have here one of those great correlations belonging to the
unity of nature--that indissoluble connection which has been
established between the senses and the æsthetic sentiments of man and
certain things in the external world. But there is more in beauty than
this merely anthropological relation. Certain forms, for example,
adopted in the skeletons of the lower animals are necessarily
beautiful because of their geometrical proportions. Certain styles of
coloring are necessarily beautiful because of harmonies and contrasts
which depend on the essential properties of the waves of light. Beauty
is thus in a great measure independent of the taste of the spectator.
It is also independent of mere utility, since, even if we admit that
all these combinations of forms, motions, and colors which we call
beautiful are also useful, it is easy to perceive that the end could
often be attained without the beauty.
It is a curious fact that some of the simplest animals--as, for
example, sponges and Foraminifera,--are furnished with the most
beautiful skeletons. Nothing can exceed the beauty of form and
proportions in the shells of some Foraminifera and Polycistina, or in
the skeletons of some silicious sponges (see Fig. 19), while it is
obvious that these humble creatures, without brains and external
senses, can neither contrive nor appreciate the beauty with which they
are clothed. Further, some of these structures are very old
geologically. The sponge whose skeleton his known as "Venus's
flower-basket" produces a structure of interwoven silicious threads
exquisite in its beauty and perfect in its mechanical arrangements
for strength (Figure 20). Even in the old Cambrian rocks there are
remains of sponges which seem already to have practically solved the
geometrical problems involved in the production of these wonderful
skeletons; and with a Chinese-like persistency, having attained to
perfection, they have adhered to it throughout geological time. Nor is
there anything of mere inorganic crystallization in this. The silica
of which the skeletons are made is colloidal, not crystalline, and the
forms themselves have no relations to the crystalline axes of silica.
Such illustrations might be multiplied to any extent, and apply to all
the beauties of form, structure, and coloring which abound around us
and far excel our artificial imitations of them.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.
Magnified portion of a silicious sponge, showing the principle
of construction of the hexactinellid sponges, with six-rayed
spicules joined together and strengthened with diagonal
braces. (_After Zittel._)]
[Illustration: FIG. 20.
_Euplectella_, or "Venus's flower-basket," a silicious sponge,
showing its general form. (Reduced, from _Am. Naturalist_,
vol. iv.)]
5. The instincts of the lower animals imply a Higher Intelligence.
Instinct, in the theistic view of nature, can be nothing less than a
divine inspiration placing the animal in relation with other things
and processes, often of the most complex character, and which it could
by no means have devised for itself. Further, instinct is in its very
essence a thing unimprovable. Like the laws of nature, it operates
invariably; and if diminished or changed, it would prove useless for
its purpose. It is not, like human inventions, slowly perfected under
the influence of thought and imagination, and laboriously taught by
each generation to its successors: it is inherited by each generation
in all its perfection, and from the first goes directly to its end as
if it were a merely physical cause.
The favorite explanation of instinct from the side of Agnostic
Evolution is that it originated in the struggle for existence of some
previous generation, and was then perpetuated as an inheritance. But,
like most of the other explanations of this school, this quietly takes
for granted what should be proved. That instinct is hereditary is
evident; but the question is, How did it begin? and to say simply that
it did begin at some former period is to tell us nothing. From a
scientific point of view, the invariable operation of any natural law
affords no evidence of any gradual or sudden origination of it at any
point of past time; and when such law is connected with a complicated
organism and various other laws and processes of the external world,
the supposition of its slowly arising from nothing through many
generations of animals becomes too intricate to be credible. Instinct
must have originated in a perfect condition, and with the organism and
its environment already established. I may borrow here an apposite
illustration from recent papers on the unity of nature by the Duke of
Argyll, which deserve careful study by any one who values common-sense
views of this subject. The example which I select is that of the
action of a young merganser in its effort to elude pursuit:
"On a secluded lake in one of the Hebrides, I observed a dun-diver, or
female of the red-breasted merganser (_Mergus serrator_), with her
brood of young ducklings. On giving chase in the boat we soon found
that the young, although not above a fortnight old, had such
extraordinary powers of swimming and diving that it was almost
impossible to capture them. The distance they went under water, and
the unexpected places in which they emerged, baffled all our efforts
for a considerable time. At last one of the brood made for the shore,
with the object of hiding among the grass and heather which fringed
the margin of the lake. We pursued it as closely as we could; but when
the little bird gained the shore, our boat was still about twenty
yards off. Long drought had left a broad margin of small flat stones
and mud between the water and the usual bank. I saw the little bird
run up about a couple of yards from the water, and then suddenly
disappear. Knowing what was likely to be enacted, I kept my eye fixed
on the spot; and when the boat was run upon the beach, I proceeded to
find and pick up the chick. But, on reaching the place of
disappearance, no sign of the young merganser was to be seen. The
closest scrutiny, with the certain knowledge that it was there, failed
to enable me to detect it. Proceeding cautiously forward, I soon
became convinced that I had already overshot the mark; and, on turning
round, it was only to see the bird rise like an apparition from the
stones and, dashing past the stranded boat, regain the lake, where,
having now recovered its wind, it instantly dived and disappeared. The
tactical skill of the whole of this manoeuvre, and the success with
which it was executed, were greeted with loud cheers from the whole
party; and our admiration was not diminished when we remembered that,
some two weeks before that time, the little performer had been coiled
up inside the shell of an egg, and that about a month before it was
apparently nothing but a mass of albumen and of fatty oils."
On this the duke very properly remarks that any idea of training and
experience is absolutely excluded, because it "assumes the
pre-existence of the very powers for which it professes to account."
He then turns to the idea that animals are merely automata or
"machines." Here it is to be observed that the essential idea of a
machine is twofold. First, it is a merely mechanical structure put
together to do certain things; secondly, it must be related to a
contriver and constructor. If we think proper to call the young
merganser a machine, we must admit both of these characters, more
especially as the bird is in every way a more marvellous machine than
any of human construction. He concludes his notice of this case with
the following suggestive words:
"This is a method of escape which cannot be resorted to successfully
except by birds whose coloring is adapted to the purpose by a close
assimilation with the coloring of surrounding objects. The old bird
would not have been concealed on the same ground, and would never
itself resort to the same method of escape. The young, therefore,
cannot have been instructed in it by the method of example. But
the small size of the chick, together with its obscure and
curiously-mottled coloring, are specially adapted to this mode of
concealment. The young of all birds which breed upon the ground are
provided with a garment in such perfect harmony with surrounding
effects of light as to render this manoeuvre easy. It depends, however,
wholly for its success upon absolute stillness. The slightest motion at
once attracts the eye of any enemy which is searching for the young.
And this absolute stillness must be preserved amidst all the emotions
of fear and terror which the close approach of the object of alarm
must, and obviously does, inspire. Whence comes this splendid, even if
it be unconscious, faith in the sufficiency of a defence which it must
require such nerve and strength of will to practise? No movement, not
even the slightest, though the enemy should seem about to trample on
it,--such is the terrible requirement of nature, and by the child of
nature implicitly obeyed. Here, again, beyond all question, we have an
instinct as much born with the creature as the harmonious tinting of
its plumage, the external furnishing being inseparably united with the
internal furnishing of mind which enables the little creature in very
truth to 'walk by faith, and not by sight.' Is this automatism? Is this
machinery? Yes, undoubtedly, in the sense explained before--that the
instinct has been given to the bird in precisely the same sense in
which its structure has been given to it; so that anterior to all
experience, and without the aid of instruction or of example, it is
inspired to act in this manner on the appropriate occasion arising."
Lastly, the reason of man himself is an actual illustration of mind in
nature. Here we raise a question which should perhaps have been
considered earlier: Is man himself actually a part of what we call
nature? We are so accustomed to the distinction between things natural
and things artificial that we are liable to overlook this essential
question. Is nature the universe outside of us, containing the things
that we study and which constitute our environment? Are we elevated on
a pedestal, so to speak, above nature? or, on the other hand, does
nature include man himself? In that haze or fog of ideas which
environs modern evolutionism, it is not wonderful that this question
escapes notice, and that the most contradictory utterances are given
forth. Tyndall--by no means the most foggy of the agnostics--may
afford an instance. He remarks respecting the philosophers of
antiquity:[14] "The experiences which formed the weft and woof of
their theories were drawn, not from the study of nature, but from that
which lay much closer to them-the observation of man.... Their
theories accordingly took an anthropomorphic form." Here we see that
in the view of the writer man is distinct from and outside of nature,
and so much out of harmony with it that the observation of him leads
to false conclusions, stigmatized, accordingly, as "anthropomorphic."
In this case man must be supernatural, and preternatural as well. But
it is Tyndall's precise object to show us that there is nothing
supernatural either in man or elsewhere. The contradiction is an
instructive example of the delusions which sometimes pass for science.
If, with Tyndall, we are to place man outside of nature, then the
human mind at once becomes to us a supernatural intelligence. But
truth forbids such a conclusion. The reason of man, however beyond the
intelligence of lower animals, so harmonizes with natural laws that
it is evidently a part of the great unity of nature, and we can no
more dissociate the mind of man from nature than from his own animal
body. If we could do so, we might have ground to distrust the validity
of all our conclusions as to nature, and thus to cut away the
foundations of science; and what remained of philosophy and religion
would be preternatural, in the bad sense of destroying the unity of
nature and imperilling our confidence in the unity of the Creator
himself.
In connection with this we have cause to consider the true meaning and
use of two terms often hurled at theists as weapons of attack.
The word "anthropomorphic" is a term of reproach for our interpreting
nature in harmony with our own thoughts or our own constitution. But
if man is a part of nature, he must be a competent interpreter of it.
If he is not a part of nature, then, whether we make him godlike or a
demon, we have, in him, to deal with something supernatural. It is
true that in a certain sense he is above nature, but not in any sense
which so dissociates him from it as to prevent him from rationally
thinking of it in his own thoughts and speaking of it in his own form
of words. So true is this that no writers are more anthropomorphic in
their modes of speaking of nature than those who most strongly
denounce anthropomorphism. Even the celebrated definition of life by
Herbert Spencer cannot escape this tincture. "Life," he says, "is the
continuous adjustment of internal to external conditions." Now, the
essence of this definition lies in the word "adjustment." But to
adjust is to arrange, adapt, or fit--all purely human and intelligent
actions. Nothing, therefore, could be more anthropomorphic than such a
statement. As theists we need not complain of this, but surely as
agnostics we should decidedly object to it.
The other word whose meaning it is necessary to consider is
"supernatural," which it might be well, perhaps, to follow the example
of the New Testament in avoiding altogether as a misleading term. If
by supernatural we mean something outside of and above nature and
natural law, there is really no such thing in the universe. There may
be that which is "spiritual," as distinguished from that which is
natural in the material sense; but the spiritual has its own laws,
which are not in conflict with those of the natural. Even God cannot
in this sense be said to be supernatural, since his will is
necessarily in conformity with natural law. Yet this absurd sense of
the term "supernatural" is constantly forced upon us by so-called
advanced thinkers, and employed as an argument against theism. The
only true sense in which any being or any thing can be said to be
supernatural is that in which we use it with reference to the original
creation of matter and force and the institution of natural law. The
power which can do these things is above nature, but not outside of
it; for matter, energy, and law must be included in, and in harmony
with, the Creative Will.
To return from this digression. If man is a part of nature, we can see
how it is that he conforms to natural law, not merely in his bodily
organization and capabilities, but in his mind and habits of thought,
so that he can comprehend nature and employ it for his purposes. Even
his moral and his religious ideas must in this case be conformed to
his conditions of existence as a part of nature. We have here also the
surest guarantee of the correctness of our conclusions respecting the
laws of nature. In like manner, there is here a sense in which man is
above nature, because he is placed at the head of it. In another
sense he is inferior to the aggregate of nature, because, as Agassiz
well puts it, there is in the universe a "wealth of endowment of the
most comprehensive mental manifestations which man can never fully
comprehend."
Still further, if the universe has been created, then, just as its
laws must be in harmony with the will of the Creator, so must our
mental constitution; and man, as a reasoning and conscious being, must
be made in the image of his Maker. If we discard the idea of an
intelligent Creator, then mind and all its powers must be potentially
in the atoms of matter or in the forces which move them; but this is a
mere form of words signifying nothing, or, if it has any significance,
this is contrary to science, since it bestows on matter properties
which experiment does not show it to possess. Thus the existence of
man is not only a positive proof of the presence of mind in nature,
but affords the strongest possible proof of a higher Creative Mind,
from which that of man emanates. The power which originated and
sustains the universe must be at least as much greater and more
intelligent than man as the universe is greater than man in the power
and the contrivance which it indicates. Thus we return to the Pauline
idea--that the power and the divinity of the Creator are shown by the
things he has made. Legitimate science can say nothing more, and can
say nothing less.