upon the causes of phenomena, a mysterious and a mighty power has been
imputed to the laws of nature. A large portion of the most enlightened men
have felt as if those laws not only explain, but possess an inherent
potency to continue, the ordinary operations of nature. Most men of this
description, however, have thought that to originate nature must have
demanded the special exercise of an infinite and all-wise Being. But a
few, in every age, have endeavored to exalt law into a Creator, as well as
Controller, of the world. The hypothesis has assumed a great variety of
forms, and until recently few have attempted to draw it out in all its
details, and apply it to all nature. Among the ancient philosophers it was
based on the eternity of matter, and made the foundation of a system of
rank atheism. Starting with the position, as an axiom, that nothing
produces nothing,--in other words, that creation out of nothing is
impossible,--Democritus maintained that all existence was the result of
two necessary and self-existent principles, viz., space, infinite in
extent, and atoms, infinite in number. The latter have been eternally in
motion, in directions varying from right lines; and their necessary
collisions have produced the various forms of organic and inorganic
nature. To produce animals and plants, it was only necessary that the
atoms should be suitably arranged. The only animating principle was the
rapid agitation of atoms.
In modern times, very few philosophers have ventured to solve the whole
problem of the universe by any self-acting, self-producing power in
nature. La Place limited himself to the mode in which the great bodies of
the universe were produced by the vertical movements of nebulous matter;
although his object, equally with that of Democritus and Epicurus, was to
dispense with an intelligent, personal Deity. Lamarck, Geoffrey St.
Hilaire, and Bory St. Vincent, assuming the existence of matter and its
laws, have endeavored to show, by the inherent vitality of some parts of
matter, how the first or lowest classes of animals and plants may have
been produced; and how, from these, by the theory of development and the
force of circumstances, all the higher families, with their instincts and
intellects, may have been evolved. A still more recent, but anonymous,
writer has had the boldness to unite these nebular hypotheses, with those
of spontaneous generation and transmutation, into a single system, and to
attempt to clothe it with the garb of philosophy; nay, to do this in
consistency, not only with Theism, but with a belief in revelation. This
theory is what I denominate the _hypothesis of creation by law_. And
judging from its wide reception, we should be led to infer that it had
strong probabilities in its favor. It should, therefore, at least receive
a careful and candid examination. For though many of its statements and
conclusions are absurd, and some of them are highly ridiculous, the
hypothesis, at least in some of its parts, falls in with certain loose
notions that have got possession of the public mind, and which nothing but
cogent reasoning can eradicate.
Before entering upon such an examination, however, it seems necessary to
go somewhat more into detail in illustration of the nature of this
hypothesis. It may conveniently be described under the heads of
_cosmogony_, which attempts to account for the origin of the world;
_zoogony_, which explains the origin of animals; and _zoonomy_, which
describes the laws of animal life.[17]
The cosmogony of this theory is embraced in what is denominated the
nebular hypothesis, propounded by the eminent mathematician La Place. He
supposes that, originally, the whole solar system constituted only one
vast mass of nebulous matter, being expanded into the thinnest vapor and
gas by heat, and more than filling the space at present occupied by the
planets. This vapor, he still further supposes, had a revolution from west
to east on an axis. As the heat diminished by radiation, the nebulous
matter must condense, and consequently the velocity of rotation must
increase, and an exterior zone of vapor might be detached; since the
central attraction might not be able to overcome the increased centrifugal
force. This ring of vapor might sometimes retain its original form, as in
the case of Saturn's ring; but the tendency would be, in general, to
divide into several masses, which, by coalescing again, would form a
single mass, having a revolution about the sun, and on its axis. This
would constitute a planet in a state of vapor; and by the detachment of
successive rings might all the planets be produced. As they went on
contracting, by the same law, satellites might be formed to each; and the
ultimate result would be solid planets and satellites, revolving around
the sun in nearly the same plane, and in the same direction, and also on
their axes.
Although this hypothesis has been regarded with favor by many
philosophers, who were Theists, and even Christians, yet the object of La
Place in proposing it was to sustain atheism. Sir Isaac Newton had
expressed the conviction that "the admirable arrangement of the solar
system cannot but be the work of an intelligent and most powerful Being."
La Place declared that, in this statement, Newton "had deviated from the
method of true philosophy," and brought forward these views to sustain his
declaration. Whether they do sustain it, will be considered in another
place. But since it is one of those modes in which men have attempted to
account for the universe without a Deity, it is a proper subject of
examination in this lecture, in which we are inquiring whether law alone
will account for the creation and sustentation of the universe.
The zoogony of this hypothesis undertakes to show how animals and plants
may be produced without any special exercise of creating power on the part
of the Deity. It supposes matter to be endowed with certain laws, whose
operation alone will determine life in brute matter, or, rather, whose
operation constitutes life. Some would have it that a part of matter is
essentially vital; that is, endowed with inherent life; and that this
matter, like leaven, communicates life to dead matter arranged in a
certain order. But the more modern view is, that life is produced by
electrical agency. It is found that the fundamental form of organic beings
is a globule, having another globule forming within it. It is also found
that globules may be produced in albumen by electricity; and if we could
discover how nature produces albumen, it is thought that the whole process
by which living organisms are produced would be distinctly before us. It
seems to be simply the operation of electricity, and requires no
intervention of special creating energy. If the question arises, Whence
came such marvellous laws to exist in nature? the atheist replies that
matter and its laws are eternal, having neither beginning nor end; while
the Theist, who maintains this hypothesis, asserts that, when God created
matter, he endowed it with such laws, having an inherent, self-executing
power.
Having thus ascertained, as it supposes, how life and organization in the
simplest forms may be produced, the next inquiry is, how the more perfect
and complicated forms of organic beings may be developed by laws, without
divine power. This constitutes the zoonomy of the subject. The French
zoologist, Lamarck, first drew out and formally defended this hypothesis,
aided by others, as Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Bory St. Vincent. Their
supposition was, that there is a power in nature, which they sometimes
denominated the Deity, yet did not allow it to be intelligent and
independent, but a mere blind, instrumental force. This power, they
supposed, was able to produce what they called _monads_, or rough draughts
of animals and plants. These monads were the simplest of all organic
beings, mere aggregations of matter, some of them supposed to be
inherently vital. And such monads are the only things ever produced
directly by this blind deity. But in these monads there was supposed to
reside an inherent tendency to progressive improvement. The wants of this
living mass of jelly were supposed to produce such effects as would
gradually form new organs, as the hands, the feet, and the mouth. These
changes would be aided by another principle, which they called the _force
of external circumstances_, by which they meant the influence upon its
development of its peculiar condition; as, for instance, a conatus for
flying, produced by the internal principle, would form wings in birds; a
conatus for swimming in water would form the fins and tails of fishes; and
a conatus for walking would form the feet and legs of quadrupeds. Thus the
organs were not formed to meet the wants, but by the wants, of the animal
and plant. Of course, new wants would produce new organs; and thus have
animals been growing more and more complicated and perfect from the
earliest periods of geological history. Man began his course as a monad,
but, by the force of Lamarck's two principles, has reached the most
elevated rank on the scale of animals. His last condition before his
present was that of the monkey tribe, especially that of the orang-outang.
The advocates of this hypothesis generally, however, suppose that there
are from three to fifteen species of men, and that the different races are
not mere varieties of one species. The most perfect species, the
Caucasian, after leaving the monkey state, has gradually risen through the
inferior species, and is still making progress; so that we cannot tell
where they will stop. In general, the advocates of this hypothesis are
materialists; that is, they do not suppose that there is a soul in man,
distinct from the body, but that thought is one of the functions of the
brain. They usually also regard moral qualities as mainly dependent upon
organization, agreeably to the opinions of ultra phrenologists; and hence
that they are more to be pitied than blamed for their deviations from
rectitude.
Such is the hypothesis. Let us now, in the first place, assume it to be
proved, and see what inferences follow.
_I remark, first, that the occurrence of events according to law does not
remove the necessity of a divine contriving, superintending, and
sustaining Power._
That every event in the universe takes place according to fixed laws I am
ready to admit. For what is a natural law? Nothing more nor less than the
uniform mode in which divine power acts. In the case of miracles, it may
be that the ordinary laws of nature are suspended or counteracted; at
least, they are increased or diminished in their power. Yet from what we
know of the divine perfections, we must conclude that God has certain
fixed rules by which he is regulated in the performance of miracles; and,
of course, in the same circumstances we should expect the same miracles.
So that we may reasonably admit that even miracles are regulated and
controlled by law, like common events; though, from the infrequency of the
former, men cannot understand the laws that regulate them.
Now, if the advocates of this hypothesis mean simply that every event is
regulated by law,--in other words, that with like antecedents like
consequents will be connected,--I have no controversy with them; and such
is the precise statement of a modern anonymous popular writer on the
subject.
He declares that his "purpose is, to show that the whole revelation of the
works of God presented to our senses and reason is a system based on what
we are compelled, for want of a better term, to call _law_; by which,
however, is not meant a system independent or exclusive of the Deity, but
one which only proposes _a certain mode of his working_."--_Sequel to the
Vestiges of Nat. Hist. of Creation_, p. 2.--But this is by no means all
that is meant by this hypothesis. Nay, the grand object of the writer
above quoted is, to show that there is no such thing as miraculous
interference in the creation or preservation of the universe. He admits
only the ordinary laws of nature, but denies all special and extraordinary
laws; and says that it does not "appear necessary that God should exercise
an immediately superintending power over the mundane economy."--_Vestiges_,
p. 273.--Nay, he denies that the original creation of the universe and of
animals and plants required any thing but the operation of natural laws;
of such laws as we see and understand. The thought does not seem to have
occurred to him, that special and miraculous acts of the Deity may be as
truly governed by law as the motions of planets. Every thing of that sort
he seems to regard as a violation of law,--a stepping aside from fixed
principles,--a sort of afterthought with Jehovah,--a remedy for some
defect in his original plans. True, the law of miracles and of special
providence is very different from the common course of nature; and,
therefore, the one may for a time supersede the others. But this does not
prove that the former is not regulated by laws; nor that it did not enter
into the original plan of the universe in the divine mind. It must have
been a part of that plan; every thing was a part of it, and there can be
with him no afterthought, no improvement, no alteration of his eternal
designs.
Admitting that every event, miraculous as well as common, is under law, it
by no means renders a present directing and energizing Deity unnecessary.
This hypothesis admits that organic life had a beginning, for its grand
object is to show how it began by law alone. Now, who gave to matter, in a
gaseous state, such wonderful laws that this fair world should be the
result of their operation? If it would require infinite wisdom as well as
power to create the present universe at once out of nothing, would it
demand less of contrivance and skill to impart such powers to brute
matter? It was not merely a power to produce organic natures, to form
their complicated organs, to give life, and instinct, and intellect; but
to adapt each particle, each organ, each animal, and each plant, most
exactly and most wonderfully to its place in the vast system, so that
every single thing should most beautifully harmonize with every other
thing.
Again. What is a natural law without the presence and energizing power of
the lawgiver? How easily are men bewildered by words! and none has led
more astray than this word _law_. We talk about its power to produce
certain effects; but who can point out any inherent power of this sort
which it possesses? Who can show how a law operates but through the
energizing influence of the lawgiver? How unphilosophical then to separate
a law of nature from the Deity, and to imagine him to have withdrawn from
his works! For to do this would be to annihilate the law. He must be
present every moment, and direct every movement of the universe, just as
really as the mind of man must be in the body to produce its movements.
Take away God from the universe, or let him cease to act mentally upon it,
and every movement would as instantly and certainly cease, as would every
movement of the human frame, were the mind to be withdrawn, or cease to
will. We realize the necessity of the divine presence and energy to
produce a miracle. But if miracles are performed according to law, as much
as common events,--and we surely cannot prove they are not,--why is a
present Deity any more necessary in the one case than in the other? The
Bible considers common and miraculous events exactly alike in this
respect. And true philosophy teaches the same.
I see not, then, why this law hypothesis does not require an infinite
Deity, just as much as the ordinary belief, which supposes that God
originally created the universe by his fiat, and sustains it constantly by
his power, and from time to time interferes with the regular sequence of
cause and effect by miracles. The only difference seems to be this: While
the common view represents God as always watching over his works, and
ready, whenever necessary, to make special interpositions, the law
hypothesis introduces him only at the very dawn of the universe, exerting
his infinite wisdom and power to devise and endow matter with exquisite
laws, capable, by their inherent self-executing power, of originating all
organic natures, and producing the infinite variety of nature, and keeping
in play her countless and unceasing agencies. It was only necessary that
he should impress attenuated matter with these laws, and then put the
machine in motion, and it would go on forever, without any need of God's
presence or agency; so that he might henceforward give himself up to
undisturbed repose.
I know, indeed, that La Place, and some other advocates of this latter
hypothesis, do not admit any necessity for a Deity even to originate
matter or its laws; and to prove this was the object of the nebular
hypothesis. But how evident that in this he signally failed! For even
though he could show how nebulous matter, placed in a certain position,
and having a revolution, might be separated into sun and planets, by
merely mechanical laws, yet where, save in an infinite Deity, lie the
power and the wisdom to originate that matter, and to bring it into such a
condition, that, by blind laws alone, it would produce such a universe--so
harmonious, so varied, so nicely adjusted in its parts and relations as
the one we inhabit? Especially, how does this hypothesis show in what
manner these worlds could be peopled by countless myriads of organic
natures, most exquisitely contrived, and fitted to their condition? The
atheist may say that matter is eternal. But if so, what but an infinite
mind could in time begin the work of organic creation? If the matter
existed for eternal ages without being brought into order, and into
organic structures, why did it not continue in the same state forever?
Does the atheist say, All is the result of laws inherent in matter? But
how could those laws remain dormant through all past eternity,--that is,
through a period literally infinite,--and then at length be aroused into
intense action? Besides, to impute the present wise arrangements and
organic creations of the world to law, is to endow that law with all the
attributes with which the Theist invests the Deity. Nothing short of
intelligence, and wisdom, and benevolence, and power, infinitely above
what man possesses, will account for the present world. If there is, then,
a power inherent in matter adequate to the production of such effects,
that power must be the same as the Deity; and, therefore, it is truly the
Deity, by whatever name we call it. In short, the fact that La Place did
not see that his hypothesis utterly failed to account for the universe
without a Deity, strikingly shows us, that a man may be a giant in
mathematics, while he is only a pygmy in moral reasoning; or, to make the
statement more general, how a man, by an exclusive cultivation of one
faculty of the soul, may shrivel all the rest into a nutshell.
From these views and reasonings, it is clear, I think, that the hypothesis
of creation by law does not necessarily destroy the theory of religion.
For if we admit that every thing in the world of matter and of mind, not
excepting miracles and special providences, is regulated, if not produced,
by law, it does not take away the necessity of a contriving, sustaining,
and energizing Deity. Even though we admit that God has communicated to
nature's laws, at the beginning, a power to execute themselves, (though
the supposition is quite unphilosophical,) no event is any the less God's
work, than if all were miraculous.
In consistency with this conclusion, we find that while some advocates of
this hypothesis evidently intended it to sustain atheism, its most
plausible advocate, as we have seen, fully admits, not only the divine
existence, but the reality of revelation. It may, indeed, be doubted
whether this anonymous writer has not virtually taken away the Deity, and
even moral accountability, by his materialism and his ultra-phrenology;
yet we do not see but he may assert his law system without denying God's
existence or attributes.
It must be admitted, however, that the influence of this hypothesis upon
practical religion is disastrous. It does, apparently, so remove the Deity
from all concern in the affairs of the world, and so foists law into his
place, that practically there is no God. If his agency is acknowledged, as
having put the vast machine in motion, in some indefinitely remote period
of past duration, yet the feeling is, that since then he has given up the
reins into the hands of law, so that man has nothing to do with him, but
only with nature's laws; that he has only to submit to these, and not
expect any interposition for his relief, however earnestly he cry for it.
Now, it is obviously the intention and desire of the advocates of this
hypothesis thus to remove God away from his works, and from their
thoughts; else why should they so strenuously resist the notion of
miracles? For these may just as properly be referred to law as common
events. Yet it is one of the most striking features of the hypothesis,
that it opposes strongly the idea of any special oversight and
interposition on the part of the Deity. True, when we look at the subject
philosophically, we must acknowledge that an event is just as really the
work of God, when brought about by laws which he ordains and energizes, as
by miraculous interposition. Still the practical influence of these two
views of Providence is quite different.
Whoever the author of the Vestiges may be, he has evidently lived in a
religious community, and felt the influence of a religious atmosphere; for
he tries to conform his system as much as possible to the principles of
Protestant Christianity. In other words, he feels so much the power of
practical piety around him, that he does not suffer the influence of the
system which he advocates to exhibit itself fully, nor to drive him into
those extravagances of belief which naturally result from it. In order to
see what is its natural tendency, we need to go to such a country as
Germany, or Switzerland, where there is little to restrain the wildest
vagaries of belief. In the works of Professor Lorenz Oken, of Zurich, we
see fully developed the tendencies and results of this hypothesis of
development by law, combined with the unintelligible idealism of Kant,
Fichte, Schelling, &c. In his Physio-philosophy, translated by the Ray
Society for the edification of sober, matter-of-fact Anglo-Saxons, we find
a man, of strong mind and extensive knowledge, taking the most ridiculous
positions with the stoutest dogmatism, and the most imperturbable gravity,
yet whose blasphemy is equalled only by their absurdity. Let a few
quotations illustrate and confirm this statement.
"The highest mathematical idea, or the fundamental principle of all
mathematics, is the zero == 0.
"Zero is in itself nothing. Mathematics is based upon nothing, and
consequently arises out of nothing.
"Real and ideal are no more different from each other than ice and water:
both of these, as is well known, are essentially one and the same, and yet
are different, the diversity consisting in the form. Every real is
absolutely nothing else than a number.
"The Eternal is the nothing of nature.
"There is no other science than that which treats of nothing.
"There exists nothing but nothing--nothing but the Eternal.
"Every thing in the world is endowed with life; the world itself is alive,
and continues only, maintains itself by virtue of its life.
"Man is God wholly manifested. God has become man, zero has become + --.
Man is the whole of arithmetic, compacted, however, out of all numbers; he
can, therefore, produce numbers out of himself.
"Animals are men who never imagine. They are beings who never attain to
consciousness concerning themselves. They are single accounts; man is the
whole of mathematics.
"Arithmetic is the truly absolute or divine science. Theology is
arithmetic personified.
"For God to become real, he must appear under the form of the sphere.
There is no other form for God. God manifesting is an infinite sphere.
"God is a rotating globe; the world is God rotating.