NATURAL LAW

 IN THE

 SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

 BY

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

 NEW YORK: HURST & CO. , PUBLISHERS, 122 NASSAU ST. 

 ARGYLE PRESS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING, 24 & 26 WOOSTER ST. , N. Y. 

Transcriber's Note:

 Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek text appears as originally printed, except for two significant errors as noted at the end of the text. 

CONTENTS. 

 PAGE PREFACE, 5 INTRODUCTION, 21 BIOGENESIS, 59 DEGENERATION, 83 GROWTH, 99 DEATH, 111 MORTIFICATION, 133 ETERNAL LIFE, 149 ENVIRONMENT, 181 CONFORMITY TO TYPE, 203 SEMI-PARASITISM, 223 PARASITISM, 237 CLASSIFICATION, 255

PREFACE. 

No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost saidderision, than those which deal with Science and Religion. Science istired of reconciliations between two things which never should have beencontrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which itprofesses not to need; and the critics have rightly discovered that, inmost cases where Science is either pitted against Religion or fused withit, there is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope andprovince of either. But although no initial protest, probably, will savethis work from the unhappy reputation of its class, the thoughtful mindwill perceive that the fact of its subject-matter being Law--a propertypeculiar neither to Science nor to Religion--at once places it on asomewhat different footing. 

The real problem I have set myself may be stated in a sentence. Is therenot reason to believe that many of the Laws of the Spiritual World, hitherto regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, are simplythe Laws of the Natural World? Can we identify the Natural Laws, or anyone of them, in the Spiritual sphere? That vague lines everywhere runthrough the Spiritual World is already beginning to be recognized. Is itpossible to link them with those great lines running through the visibleuniverse which we call the Natural Laws, or are they fundamentallydistinct? In a word, Is the Supernatural natural or unnatural?

I may, perhaps, be allowed to answer these questions in the form inwhich they have answered themselves to myself. And I must apologize atthe outset for personal references which, but for the clearness they maylend to the statement, I would surely avoid. 

It has been my privilege for some years to address regularly two verydifferent audiences on two very different themes. On week days I havelectured to a class of students on the Natural Sciences, and on Sundaysto an audience consisting for the most part of working men on subjectsof a moral and religious character. I cannot say that this collocationever appeared as a difficulty to myself, but to certain of my friends itwas more than a problem. It was solved to me, however, at first, by whatthen seemed the necessities of the case--I must keep the two departmentsentirely by themselves. They lay at opposite poles of thought; and for atime I succeeded in keeping the Science and the Religion shut off fromone another in two separate compartments of my mind. But gradually thewall of partition showed symptoms of giving way. The two fountains ofknowledge also slowly began to overflow, and finally their waters metand mingled. The great change was in the compartment which held theReligion. It was not that the well there was dried; still less that thefermenting waters were washed away by the flood of Science. The actualcontents remained the same. But the crystals of former doctrine weredissolved; and as they precipitated themselves once more in definiteforms, I observed that the Crystalline System was changed. New channelsalso for outward expression opened, and some of the old closed up; and Ifound the truth running out to my audience on the Sundays by theweek-day outlets. In other words, the subject-matter Religion had takenon the method of expression of Science, and I discovered myselfenunciating Spiritual Law in the exact terms of Biology and Physics. 

Now this was not simply a scientific coloring given to Religion, themere freshening of the theological air with natural facts andillustrations. It was an entire re-casting of truth. And when I cameseriously to consider what it involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that itmeant essentially the introduction of Natural Law into the SpiritualWorld. It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies of_Phenomena_ rose into view--although material for Parable lies unnoticedand unused on the field of recent Science in inexhaustible profusion. But Law has a still grander function to discharge toward Religion thanParable. There is a deeper unity between the two Kingdoms than theanalogy of their Phenomena--a unity which the poet's vision, more quickthan the theologian's, has already dimly seen:--

 "And verily many thinkers of this age, Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, Are wrong in just my sense, who understood Our natural world too insularly, as if No spiritual counterpart completed it, Consummating its meaning, rounding all To justice and perfection, _line by line, Form by form, nothing single nor alone_, The great below clenched by the great above. "[1]

The function of Parable in religion is to exhibit "form by form. " Lawundertakes the profounder task of comparing "line by line. " Thus NaturalPhenomena serve mainly an illustrative function in Religion. NaturalLaw, on the other hand, could it be traced in the Spiritual World, wouldhave an important scientific value--it would offer Religion a newcredential. The effect of the introduction of Law among the scatteredPhenomena of Nature has simply been to make Science, to transformknowledge into eternal truth. The same crystallizing touch is needed inReligion. Can it be said that the Phenomena of the Spiritual World areother than scattered? Can we shut our eyes to the fact that thereligious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux? And when we regardthe uncertainty of current beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc ofinevitable as well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandonment of earlyfaith by those who would cherish it longer if they could, is it notplain that the one thing thinking men are waiting for is theintroduction of Law among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World? Whenthat comes we shall offer to such men a truly scientific theology. Andthe Reign of Law will transform the whole Spiritual World as it hasalready transformed the Natural World. 

I confess that even when in the first dim vision, the organizing hand ofLaw moved among the unordered truths of my Spiritual World, poor andscantily-furnished as it was, there seemed to come over it the beauty ofa transfiguration. The change was as great as from the old chaotic worldof Pythagoras to the symmetrical and harmonious universe of Newton. MySpiritual World before was a chaos of facts; my Theology, a Pythagoreansystem trying to make the best of Phenomena apart from the idea of Law. I make no charge against Theology in general. I speak of my own. And Isay that I saw it to be in many essential respects centuries behindevery department of Science I knew. It was the one region stillunpossessed by Law. I saw then why men of Science distrust Theology; whythose who have learned to look upon Law as Authority grow cold to it--itwas the Great Exception. 

I have alluded to the genesis of the idea in my own mind partly foranother reason--to show its naturalness. Certainly I never premeditatedanything to myself so objectionable and so unwarrantable in itself, aseither to read Theology into Science or Science into Theology. Nothingcould be more artificial than to attempt this on the speculative side;and it has been a substantial relief to me throughout that the idea roseup thus in the course of practical work and shaped itself day by dayunconsciously. It might be charged, nevertheless, that I was all thetime, whether consciously or unconsciously, simply reading my Theologyinto my Science. And as this would hopelessly vitiate the conclusionsarrived at, I must acquit myself at least of the intention. Of nothinghave I been more fearful throughout than of making Nature parallel withmy own or with any creed. The only legitimate questions one dare put toNature are those which concern universal human good and the Divineinterpretation of things. These I conceive may be there actually studiedat first-hand, and before their purity is soiled by human touch. We haveTruth in Nature as it came from God. And it has to be read with the sameunbiased mind, the same open eye, the same faith, and the same reverenceas all other Revelation. All that is found there, whatever its place inTheology, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whatever its narrownessor its breadth, we are bound to accept as Doctrine from which on thelines of Science there is no escape. 

When this presented itself to me as a method, I felt it to be due toit--were it only to secure, so far as that was possible, that no formerbias should interfere with the integrity of the results--to begin againat the beginning and reconstruct my Spiritual World step by step. Theresult of that inquiry, so far as its expression in systematic form isconcerned, I have not given in this book. To reconstruct a SpiritualReligion, or a department of Spiritual Religion--for this is all themethod can pretend to--on the lines of Nature would be an attempt fromwhich one better equipped in both directions might well be pardoned ifhe shrank. My object at present is the humbler one of venturing a simplecontribution to practical Religion along the lines indicated. What Baconpredicates of the Natural World, _Natura enim non nisi parendovincitur_, is also true, as Christ had already told us, of the SpiritualWorld. And I present a few samples of the religious teaching referred toformerly as having been prepared under the influence of scientific ideasin the hope that they may be useful first of all in this direction. 

I would, however, carefully point out that though their unsystematicarrangement here may create the impression that these papers are merelyisolated readings in Religion pointed by casual scientific truths, theyare organically connected by a single principle. Nothing could be morefalse both to Science and to Religion than attempts to adjust the twospheres by making out ingenious points of contact in detail. Thesolution of this great question of conciliation, if one may still referto a problem so gratuitous, must be general rather than particular. Thebasis in a common principle--the Continuity of Law--can alone savespecific applications from ranking as mere coincidences, or exempt themfrom the reproach of being a hybrid between two things which must berelated by the deepest affinities or remain forever separate. 

To the objection that even a basis in Law is no warrant for so great atrespass as the intrusion into another field of thought of theprinciples of Natural Science, I would reply that in this I find I amfollowing a lead which in other departments has not only been allowedbut has achieved results as rich as they were unexpected. What is thePhysical Politic of Mr. Walter Bagehot but the extension of Natural Lawto the Political World? What is the Biological Sociology of Mr. HerbertSpencer but the application of Natural Law to the Social World? Will itbe charged that the splendid achievements of such thinkers are hybridsbetween things which Nature has meant to remain apart? Nature usuallysolves such problems for herself. Inappropriate hybridism is checked bythe Law of Sterility. Judged by this great Law these modern developmentsof our knowledge stand uncondemned. Within their own sphere the resultsof Mr. Herbert Spencer are far from sterile--the application of Biologyto Political Economy is already revolutionizing the Science. If theintroduction of Natural Law into the Social sphere is no violentcontradiction but a genuine and permanent contribution, shall itsfurther extension to the Spiritual sphere be counted an extravagance?Does not the Principle of Continuity demand its application in everydirection? To carry it as a working principle into so lofty a region mayappear impracticable. Difficulties lie on the threshold which may seem, at first sight, insurmountable. But obstacles to a true method only testits validity. And he who honestly faces the task may find relief infeeling that whatever else of crudeness and imperfection mar it, theattempt is at least in harmony with the thought and movement of histime. 

That these papers were not designed to appear in a collective form, orindeed to court the more public light at all, needs no disclosure. Theyare published out of regard to the wish of known and unknown friends bywhom, when in a fugitive form, they were received with so curious aninterest as to make one feel already that there are minds which suchforms of truth may touch. In making the present selection, partly frommanuscript, and partly from articles already published, I have beenguided less by the wish to constitute the papers a connected series thanto exhibit the application of the principle in various directions. Theywill be found, therefore, of unequal interest and value, according tothe standpoint from which they are regarded. Thus some are designed witha directly practical and popular bearing, others being more expository, and slightly apologetic in tone. The risk of combining two objects sovery different is somewhat serious. But, for the reason named, havingtaken this responsibility, the only compensation I can offer is toindicate which of the papers incline to the one side or to the other. "Degeneration, " "Growth, " "Mortification, " "Conformity to Type, ""Semi-Parasitism, " and "Parasitism" belong to the more practical order;and while one or two are intermediate, "Biogenesis, " "Death, " and"Eternal Life" may be offered to those who find the atmosphere of theformer uncongenial. It will not disguise itself, however, that, owing tothe circumstances in which they were prepared, all the papers are moreor less practical in their aim; so that to the merely philosophicalreader there is little to be offered except--and that only with thegreatest diffidence--the Introductory chapter. 

In the Introduction, which the general reader may do well to ignore, Ihave briefly stated the case for Natural Law in the Spiritual World. Theextension of Analogy to Laws, or rather the extension of the Lawsthemselves so far as known to me, is new; and I cannot hope to haveescaped the mistakes and misadventures of a first exploration in anunsurveyed land. So general has been the survey that I have not evenpaused to define specially to what departments of the Spiritual Worldexclusively the principle is to be applied. The danger of making a newprinciple apply too widely inculcates here the utmost caution. One thingis certain, and I state it pointedly, the application of Natural Law tothe Spiritual World has decided and necessary limits. And if elsewherewith undue enthusiasm I seem to magnify the principle at stake, theexaggeration--like the extreme amplification of the moon's disc whennear the horizon--must be charged to that almost necessary aberration oflight which distorts every new idea while it is yet slowly climbing toits zenith. 

In what follows the Introduction, except in the setting there is nothingnew. I trust there is nothing new. When I began to follow out theselines, I had no idea where they would lead me. I was prepared, nevertheless, at least for the time, to be loyal to the methodthroughout, and share with nature whatever consequences might ensue. Butin almost every case, after stating what appeared to be the truth inwords gathered directly from the lips of Nature, I was sooner or laterstartled by a certain similarity in the general idea to something I hadheard before, and this often developed in a moment, and when I was leastexpecting it, into recognition of some familiar article of faith. I wasnot watching for this result. I did not begin by tabulating thedoctrines, as I did the Laws of Nature, and then proceed with theattempt to pair them. The majority of them seemed at first too farremoved from the natural world even to suggest this. Still less did Ibegin with doctrines and work downward to find their relations in thenatural sphere. It was the opposite process entirely. I ran up theNatural Law as far as it would go, and the appropriate doctrine seldomeven loomed in sight till I had reached the top. Then it burst into viewin a single moment. 

I can scarcely now say whether in those moments I was more overcome withthankfulness that Nature was so like Revelation, or more filled withwonder that Revelation was so like Nature. Nature, it is true, is a partof Revelation--a much greater part doubtless than is yet believed--andone could have anticipated nothing but harmony here. But that a derivedTheology, in spite of the venerable verbiage which has gathered roundit, should be at bottom and in all cardinal respects so faithful atranscript of "the truth as it is in Nature" came as a surprise and tome at least as a rebuke. How, under the rigid necessity of incorporatingin its system much that seemed nearly unintelligible, and much that wasbarely credible, Theology has succeeded so perfectly in adhering throughgood report and ill to what in the main are truly the lines of Nature, awakens a new admiration for those who constructed and kept this faith. But however nobly it has held its ground, Theology must feel to-day thatthe modern world calls for a further proof. Nor will the best Theologyresent this demand; it also demands it. Theology is searching on everyhand for another echo of the Voice of which Revelation also is the echo, that out of the mouths of two witnesses its truths should beestablished. That other echo can only come from Nature. Hitherto itsvoice has been muffled. But now that Science has made the world aroundarticulate, it speaks to Religion with a twofold purpose. In the firstplace it offers to corroborate Theology, in the second to purify it. 

If the removal of suspicion from Theology is of urgent moment, not lessimportant is the removal of its adulterations. These suspicions, many ofthem at least, are new; in a sense they mark progress. But theadulterations are the artificial accumulations of centuries ofuncontrolled speculation. They are the necessary result of the oldmethod and the warrant for its revision--they mark the impossibility ofprogress without the guiding and restraining hand of Law. The feltexhaustion of the former method, the want of corroboration for the oldevidence, the protest of reason against the monstrous overgrowths whichconceal the real lines of truth, these summon us to the search for asurer and more scientific system. With truths of the theological order, with dogmas which often depend for their existence on a particularexegesis, with propositions which rest for their evidence upon a balanceof probabilities, or upon the weight of authority; with doctrines whichevery age and nation may make or unmake, which each sect may tamperwith, and which even the individual may modify for himself, a secondcourt of appeal has become an imperative necessity. 

Science, therefore, may yet have to be called upon to arbitrate at somepoints between conflicting creeds. And while there are some departmentsof Theology where its jurisdiction cannot be sought, there are others inwhich Nature may yet have to define the contents as well as the limitsof belief. 

What I would desire especially is a thoughtful consideration of themethod. The applications ventured upon here may be successful orunsuccessful. But they would more than satisfy me if they suggested amethod to others whose less clumsy hands might work it out moreprofitably. For I am convinced of the fertility of such a method at thepresent time. It is recognized by all that the younger and abler mindsof this age find the most serious difficulty in accepting or retainingthe ordinary forms or belief. Especially is this true of those whoseculture is scientific. And the reason is palpable. No man can studymodern Science without a change coming over his view of truth. Whatimpresses him about Nature is its solidity. He is there standing uponactual things, among fixed laws. And the integrity of the scientificmethod so seizes him that all other forms of truth begins to appearcomparatively unstable. He did not know before that any form of truthcould so hold him; and the immediate effect is to lessen his interest inall that stands on other bases. This he feels in spite of himself; hestruggles against it in vain; and he finds perhaps to his alarm that heis drifting fast into what looks at first like pure Positivism. This isan inevitable result of the scientific training. It is quite erroneousto suppose that science ever overthrows Faith, if by that is impliedthat any natural truth can oppose successfully any single spiritualtruth. Science cannot overthrow Faith; but it shakes it. Its owndoctrines, grounded in Nature, are so certain, that the truths ofReligion, resting to most men on Authority, are felt to be strangelyinsecure. The difficulty, therefore, which men of Science feel aboutReligion is real and inevitable, and in so far as Doubt is aconscientious tribute to the inviolability of Nature it is entitled torespect. 

None but those who have passed through it can appreciate the radicalnature of the change wrought by Science in the whole mental attitude ofits disciples. What they really cry out for in Religion is a newstandpoint--a standpoint like their own. The one hope, therefore, forScience is more Science. Again, to quote Bacon--we shall hear enoughfrom the moderns by-and-by--"This I dare affirm in knowledge of Nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, dothdispose the opinion to atheism; but, on the other side, much naturalphilosophy, and wading deep into it, will bring about men's minds toreligion. "[2]

The application of _similia similibus curantur_ was never more in point. If this is a disease, it is the disease of Nature, and the cure is moreNature. For what is this disquiet in the breasts of men but the loyalfear that Nature is being violated? Men must oppose with every energythey possess what seems to them to oppose the eternal course of things. And the first step in their deliverance must be not to "reconcile"Nature and Religion, but to exhibit Nature in Religion. Even to convincethem that there is no controversy between Religion and Science isinsufficient. A mere flag of truce, in the nature of the case, is hereimpossible; at least, it is only possible so long as neither party issincere. No man who knows the splendor of scientific achievement orcares for it, no man who feels the solidity of its method or works withit, can remain neutral with regard to Religion. He must either extendhis method into it, or, if that is impossible, oppose it to the knife. On the other hand, no one who knows the content of Christianity, orfeels the universal need of a Religion, can stand idly by while theintellect of his age is slowly divorcing itself from it. What isrequired, therefore, to draw Science and Religion together again--forthey began the centuries hand in hand--is the disclosure of thenaturalness of the supernatural. Then, and not till then, will men seehow true it is, that to be loyal to all of Nature, they must be loyal tothe part defined as Spiritual. No science contributes to another withoutreceiving a reciprocal benefit. And even as the contribution of Scienceto Religion is the vindication of the naturalness of the Supernatural, so the gift of Religion to Science is the demonstration of thesupernaturalness of the Natural. Thus, as the Supernatural becomesslowly Natural, will also the Natural become slowly Supernatural, untilin the impersonal authority of Law men everywhere recognize theAuthority of God. 

To those who already find themselves fully nourished on the older formsof truth, I do not commend these pages. They will find them superfluous. Nor is there any reason why they should mingle with light which isalready clear the distorting rays of a foreign expression. 

But to those who are feeling their way to a Christian life, haunted nowby a sense of instability in the foundation of their faith, now broughtto bay by specific doubt at one point raising, as all doubt does, thequestion for the whole, I would hold up a light which has often beenkind to me. There is a sense of solidity about a Law of Nature whichbelongs to nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that isshifting, is one thing sure; one thing outside ourselves, unbiased, unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like or dislike, by doubt or fear; onething that holds on its way to me eternally, incorruptible, andundefiled. This more than anything else, makes one eager to see theReign of Law traced in the Spiritual Sphere. And should this seem tosome to offer only a surer, but not a higher Faith; should the betterordering of the Spiritual World appear to satisfy the intellect at thesacrifice of reverence, simplicity, or love; especially should it seemto substitute a Reign of Law and a Lawgiver for a Kingdom of Grace and aPersonal God, I will say, with Browning, --

 "I spoke as I saw. I report, as a man may of God's work--_all's love, yet all's Law_. Now I lay down the judgeship He lent me. Each faculty tasked, To perceive Him, has gained an abyss where a dewdrop was asked. "

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Aurora Leigh. 

[2] "Meditationes Sacræ, " x. 

ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTION. 

 [For the sake of the general reader who may desire to pass at once to the practical applications, the following outline of the Introduction--devoted rather to general principles--is here presented. ]

PART I. 

NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL SPHERE. 

 1. The growth of the Idea of Law. 

 2. Its gradual extension throughout every department of Knowledge. 

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

 4. Previous attempts to trace analogies between the Natural and Spiritual spheres. These have been limited to analogies between _Phenomena_; and are useful mainly as illustrations. Analogies of _Law_ would also have a Scientific value. 

 5. Wherein that value would consist. (1) The Scientific demand of the age would be met; (2) Greater clearness would be introduced into Religion practically; (3) Theology, instead of resting on Authority, would rest equally on Nature. 

PART II. 

THE LAW OF CONTINUITY. 

_A priori_ argument for Natural Law in the spiritual world. 

 1. The Law Discovered. 

 2. " Defined. 

 3. " Applied. 

 4. The objection answered that the _material_ of the Natural and Spiritual worlds being different they must be under different Laws. 

 5. The existence of Laws in the Spiritual world other than the Natural Laws (1) improbable, (2) unnecessary, (3) unknown. Qualification. 

 6. The Spiritual not the projection upward of the Natural; but the Natural the projection downward of the Spiritual. 

INTRODUCTION. 

 "This method turns aside from hypotheses not to be tested by any known logical canon familiar to science, whether the hypothesis claims support from intuition, aspiration or general plausibility. And, again, this method turns aside from ideal standards which avow themselves to be lawless, which profess to transcend the field of law. We say, life and conduct shall stand for us wholly on a basis of law, and must rest entirely in that region of science (not physical, but moral and social science), where we are free to use our intelligence in the methods known to us as intelligible logic, methods which the intellect can analyze. When you confront us with hypotheses, however sublime and however affecting, if they cannot be stated in terms of the rest of our knowledge, if they are disparate to that world of sequence and sensation which to us is the ultimate base of all our real knowledge, then we shake our heads and turn aside. "--_Frederick Harrison. _

 "Ethical science is already forever completed, so far as her general outline and main principles are concerned, and has been, as it were, waiting for physical science to come up with her. "--_Paradoxical Philosophy. _

PART I. 

Natural Law is a new word. It is the last and the most magnificentdiscovery of science. No more telling proof is open to the modern worldof the greatness of the idea than the greatness of the attempts whichhave always been made to justify it. In the earlier centuries, beforethe birth of science, Phenomena were studied alone. The world then was achaos, a collection of single, isolated, and independent facts. Deeperthinkers saw, indeed, that relations must subsist between these facts, but the Reign of Law was never more to the ancients than a far-offvision. Their philosophies, conspicuously those of the Stoics andPythagoreans, heroically sought to marshal the discrete materials of theuniverse into thinkable form, but from these artificial and fantasticsystems nothing remains to us now but an ancient testimony to thegrandeur of that harmony which they failed to reach. 

With Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler the first regular lines of theuniverse began to be discerned. When Nature yielded to Newton her greatsecret, Gravitation was felt to be not greater as a fact in itself thanas a revelation that Law was fact. And thenceforth the search forindividual Phenomena gave way before the larger study of theirrelations. The pursuit of Law became the passion of science. 

What that discovery of Law has done for Nature, it is impossible toestimate. As a mere spectacle the universe to-day discloses a beauty sotranscendent that he who disciplines himself by scientific work finds itan overwhelming reward simply to behold it. In these Laws one standsface to face with truth, solid and unchangeable. Each single Law is aninstrument of scientific research, simple in its adjustments, universalin its application, infallible in its results. And despite thelimitations of its sphere on every side Law is still the largest, richest, and surest source of human knowledge. 

It is not necessary for the present to more than lightly touch ondefinitions of Natural Law. The Duke of Argyll[3] indicates five sensesin which the word is used, but we may content ourselves here by takingit in its most simple and obvious significance. The fundamentalconception of Law is an ascertained working sequence or constant orderamong the Phenomena of Nature. This impression of Law as order it isimportant to receive in its simplicity, for the idea is often corruptedby having attached to it erroneous views of cause and effect. In itstrue sense Natural Law predicates nothing of causes. The Laws of Natureare simply statements of the orderly condition of things in Nature, whatis found in Nature by a sufficient number of competent observers. Whatthese Laws are in themselves is not agreed. That they have any absoluteexistence even is far from certain. They are relative to man in his manylimitations, and represent for him the constant expression of what hemay always expect to find in the world around him. But that they haveany causal connection with the things around him is not to be conceived. The Natural Laws originate nothing, sustain nothing; they are merelyresponsible for uniformity in sustaining what has been originated andwhat is being sustained. They are modes of operation, therefore, notoperators; processes, not powers. The Law of Gravitation, for instance, speaks to science only of process. It has no light to offer as toitself. Newton did not discover Gravity--that is not discovered yet. Hediscovered its Law, which is Gravitation, but tells us nothing of itsorigin, of its nature or of its cause. 

The Natural Laws then are great lines running not only through theworld, but, as we now know, through the universe, reducing it likeparallels of latitude to intelligent order. In themselves, be it oncemore repeated, they may have no more absolute existence than parallelsof latitude. But they exist for us. They are drawn for us to understandthe part by some Hand that drew the whole; so drawn, perhaps, that, understanding the part, we too in time may learn to understand thewhole. Now the inquiry we propose to ourselves resolves itself into thesimple question, Do these lines stop with what we call the Naturalsphere? Is it not possible that they may lead further? Is it probablethat the Hand which ruled them gave up the work where most of all theywere required? Did that Hand divide the world into two, a cosmos and achaos, the higher being the chaos? With Nature as the symbol of all ofharmony and beauty that is known to man, must we still talk of thesuper-natural, not as a convenient word, but as a different order ofworld, an unintelligible world, where the Reign of Mystery supersedesthe Reign of Law?

This question, let it be carefully observed, applies to Laws not toPhenomena. That the Phenomena of the Spiritual World are in analogy withthe Phenomena of the Natural World requires no restatement. Since Platoenunciated his doctrine of the Cave or of the twice-divided line; sinceChrist spake in parables; since Plotinus wrote of the world as an image;since the mysticism of Swedenborg; since Bacon and Pascal; since "SartorResartus" and "In Memoriam, " it has been all but a commonplace withthinkers that "the invisible things of God from the creation of theworld are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. "Milton's question--

 "What if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like more than on earth is thought?"

is now superfluous. "In our doctrine of representations andcorrespondences, " says Swedenborg, "we shall treat of both thesesymbolical and typical resemblances, and of the astonishing things thatoccur, I will not say in the living body only, but throughout Nature, and which correspond so entirely to supreme and spiritual things, thatone would swear that the physical world was purely symbolical of thespiritual world. "[4] And Carlyle: "All visible things are emblems. Whatthou seest is not there on its own account; strictly speaking is notthere at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some ideaand body it forth. "[5]

But the analogies of Law are a totally different thing from theanalogies of Phenomena and have a very different value. To saygenerally, with Pascal, that--"La nature est une image de la grace, " ismerely to be poetical. The function of Hervey's "Meditations in a FlowerGarden, " or, Flavel's "Husbandry Spiritualized, " is mainly homiletical. That such works have an interest is not to be denied. The place ofparable in teaching, and especially after the sanction of the greatestof Teachers, must always be recognized. The very necessities of languageindeed demand this method of presenting truth. The temporal is the huskand framework of the eternal, and thoughts can be uttered only throughthings. [6]

But analogies between Phenomena bear the same relation to analogies ofLaw that Phenomena themselves bear to Law. The light of Law on truth, aswe have seen, is an immense advance upon the light of Phenomena. Thediscovery of Law is simply the discovery of Science. And if theanalogies of Natural Law can be extended to the Spiritual World, thatwhole region at once falls within the domain of science and secures abasis as well as an illumination in the constitution and course ofNature. All, therefore, that has been claimed for parable can bepredicated _a fortiori_ of this--with the addition that a proof on thebasis of Law would want no criterion possessed by the most advancedscience. 

That the validity of analogy generally has been seriously questioned onemust frankly own. Doubtless there is much difficulty and even liabilityto gross error in attempting to establish analogy in specific cases. Thevalue of the likeness appears differently to different minds, and indiscussing an individual instance questions of relevancy will invariablycrop up. Of course, in the language of John Stuart Mill, "when theanalogy can be proved, the argument founded upon it cannot beresisted. "[7] But so great is the difficulty of proof that many arecompelled to attach the most inferior weight to analogy as a method ofreasoning. "Analogical evidence is generally more successful insilencing objections than in evincing truth. Though it rarely refutes itfrequently repels refutation; like those weapons which though theycannot kill the enemy, will ward his blows. . . . It must be allowed thatanalogical evidence is at least but a feeble support, and is hardly everhonored with the name of proof. "[8] Other authorities on the other hand, such as Sir William Hamilton, admit analogy to a primary place in logicand regard it as the very basis of induction. 

But, fortunately, we are spared all discussion on this worn subject, fortwo cogent reasons. For one thing, we do not demand of Nature directlyto prove Religion. That was never its function. Its function is tointerpret. And this, after all, is possibly the most fruitful proof. Thebest proof of a thing is that we _see_ it; if we do not see it, perhapsproof will not convince us of it. It is the want of the discerningfaculty, the clairvoyant power of seeing the eternal in the temporal, rather than the failure of the reason, that begets the sceptic. Butsecondly, and more particularly, a significant circumstance has to betaken into account, which, though it will appear more clearly afterward, may be stated here at once. The position we have been led to take up isnot that the Spiritual Laws are analogous to the Natural Laws, but that_they are the same Laws_. It is not a question of analogy but of_Identity_. The Natural Laws are not the shadows or images of theSpiritual in the same sense as autumn is emblematical of Decay, or thefalling leaf of Death. The Natural Laws, as the Law of Continuity mightwell warn us, do not stop with the visible and then give place to a newset of Laws bearing a strong similitude to them. The Laws of theinvisible are the same Laws, projections of the natural notsupernatural. Analogous Phenomena are not the fruit of parallel Laws, but of the same Laws--Laws which at one end, as it were, may be dealingwith Matter, at the other end with Spirit. As there will be someinconvenience, however, in dispensing with the word analogy, we shallcontinue occasionally to employ it. Those who apprehend the realrelation will mentally substitute the larger term. 

Let us now look for a moment at the present state of the question. Canit be said that the Laws of the Spiritual World are in any senseconsidered even to have analogies with the Natural World? Here and therecertainly one finds an attempt, and a successful attempt, to exhibit ona rational basis one or two of the great Moral Principles of theSpiritual World. But the Physical World has not been appealed to. Itsmagnificent system of Laws remains outside, and its contributionmeanwhile is either silently ignored or purposely set aside. ThePhysical, it is said, is too remote from the Spiritual. The Moral Worldmay afford a basis for religious truth, but even this is often thebaldest concession; while the appeal to the Physical universe iseverywhere dismissed as, on the face of it, irrelevant and unfruitful. From the scientific side, again, nothing has been done to court a closerfellowship. Science has taken theology at its own estimate. It is athing apart. The Spiritual World is not only a different world, but adifferent kind of world, a world arranged on a totally differentprinciple, under a different governmental scheme. 

The Reign of Law has gradually crept into every department of Nature, transforming knowledge everywhere into Science. The process goes on, andNature slowly appears to us as one great unity, until the borders of theSpiritual World are reached. There the Law of Continuity ceases, and theharmony breaks down. And men who have learned their elementary lessonstruly from the alphabet of the lower Laws, going on to seek a higherknowledge, are suddenly confronted with the Great Exception. 

Even those who have examined most carefully the relations of the Naturaland the Spiritual, seem to have committed themselves deliberately to afinal separation in matters of Law. It is a surprise to find such awriter as Horace Bushnell, for instance, describing the Spiritual Worldas "another system of nature incommunicably separate from ours, " andfurther defining it thus: "God has, in fact, erected another and highersystem, that of spiritual being and government for which nature exists;a system not under the law of cause and effect, but ruled and marshaledunder other kinds of laws. "[9] Few men have shown more insight thanBushnell in illustrating Spiritual truth from the Natural World; but hehas not only failed to perceive the analogy with regard to Law, butemphatically denies it. 

In the recent literature of this whole region there nowhere seems anyadvance upon the position of "Nature and the Supernatural. " All areagreed in speaking of Nature _and_ the Supernatural. Nature _in_ theSupernatural, so far as Laws are concerned, is still an unknown truth. 

"The Scientific Basis of Faith" is a suggestive title. The accomplishedauthor announces that the object of his investigation is to show that"the world of nature and mind, as made known by science, constitute abasis and a preparation for that highest moral and spiritual life ofman, which is evoked by the self-revelation of God. "[10] On the whole, Mr. Murphy seems to be more philosophical and more profound in his viewof the relation of science and religion than any writer of modern times. His conception of religion is broad and lofty, his acquaintance withscience adequate. 

He makes constant, admirable, and often original use of analogy; andyet, in spite of the promise of this quotation, he has failed to findany analogy in that department of Law where surely, of all others, itmight most reasonably be looked for. In the broad subject even of theanalogies of what he defines as "evangelical religion" with Nature, Mr. Murphy discovers nothing. Nor can this be traced either to short-sightor over-sight. The subject occurs to him more than once, and hedeliberately dismisses it--dismisses it not merely as unfruitful, butwith a distinct denial of its relevancy. The memorable paragraph fromOrigen which forms the text of Butler's "Analogy, " he calls "thisshallow and false saying. "[11] He says: "The designation of Butler'sscheme of religious philosophy ought then to be _the analogy ofreligion, legal and evangelical, to the constitution of nature_. Butdoes this give altogether a true meaning? Does this double analogyreally exist? If justice is natural law among beings having a moralnature, there is the closest analogy between the constitution of natureand merely legal religion. Legal religion is only the extension ofnatural justice into a future life. . . . But is this true of evangelicalreligion? Have the doctrines of Divine grace any similar support in theanalogies of nature? I trow not. "[12] And with reference to a specificquestion, speaking of immortality, he asserts that "the analogies ofmere nature are opposed to the doctrine of immortality. "[13]

With regard to Butler's great work in this department, it is needless atthis time of day to point out that his aims did not lie exactly in thisdirection. He did not seek to indicate analogies _between_ religion andthe constitution and course of Nature. His theme was, "The Analogy _of_Religion _to_ the constitution and course of Nature. " And although hepointed out direct analogies of Phenomena, such as those between themetamorphoses of insects and the doctrine of a future state; andalthough he showed that "the natural and moral constitution andgovernment of the world are so connected as to make up together but onescheme, "[14] his real intention was not so much to construct argumentsas to repel objections. His emphasis accordingly was laid upon thedifficulties of the two schemes rather than on their positive lines; andso thoroughly has he made out this point that as is well known, theeffect upon many has been, not to lead them to accept the SpiritualWorld on the ground of the Natural, but to make them despair of both. Butler lived at a time when defence was more necessary thanconstruction, when the materials for construction were scarce andinsecure, and when, besides, some of the things to be defended werequite incapable of defence. Notwithstanding this, his influence over thewhole field since has been unparalleled. 

After all, then, the Spiritual World, as it appears at this moment, isoutside Natural Law. Theology continues to be considered, as it hasalways been, a thing apart. It remains still a stupendous and splendidconstruction, but on lines altogether its own. Nor is Theology to beblamed for this. Nature has been long in speaking; even yet its voice islow, sometimes inaudible. Science is the true defaulter, for Theologyhad to wait patiently for its development. As the highest of thesciences, Theology in the order of evolution should be the last to fallinto rank. It is reserved for it to perfect the final harmony. Still, ifit continues longer to remain a thing apart, with increasing reason willbe such protests as this of the "Unseen Universe, " when, in speaking ofa view of miracles held by an older Theology, it declares:--"If hesubmits to be guided by such interpreters, each intelligent being willforever continue to be baffled in any attempt to explain thesephenomena, because they are said to have no physical relation toanything that went before or that followed after; in fine, they are madeto form a universe within a universe, a portion cut off by aninsurmountable barrier from the domain of scientific inquiry. "[15]

This is the secret of the present decadence of Religion in the world ofScience. For Science can hear nothing of a Great Exception. Constructions on unique lines, "portions cut off by an insurmountablebarrier from the domain of scientific inquiry, " it dare not recognize. Nature has taught it this lesson, and Nature is right. It is theprovince of Science to vindicate Nature here at any hazard. But inblaming Theology for its intolerance, it has been betrayed into anintolerance less excusable. It has pronounced upon it too soon. What ifReligion be yet brought within the sphere of Law? Law is the revelationof time. One by one slowly through the centuries the Sciences havecrystallized into geometrical form, each form not only perfect initself, but perfect in its relation to all other forms. Many forms hadto be perfected before the form of the Spiritual. The Inorganic has tobe worked out before the Organic, the Natural before the Spiritual. Theology at present has merely an ancient and provisional philosophicform. By-and-by it will be seen whether it be not susceptible ofanother. For Theology must pass through the necessary stages ofprogress, like any other science. The method of science-making is nowfully established. In almost all cases the natural history anddevelopment are the same. Take, for example, the case of Geology. Acentury ago there was none. Science went out to look for it, and broughtback a Geology which, if Nature were a harmony, had falsehood writtenalmost on its face. It was the Geology of Catastrophism, a Geology soout of line with Nature as revealed by the other sciences, that on _apriori_ grounds a thoughtful mind might have been justified indismissing it as a final form of any science. And its fallacy was soonand thoroughly exposed. The advent of modified uniformitarian principlesall but banished the word catastrophe from science, and marked the birthof Geology as we know it now. Geology, that is to say, had fallen atlast into the great scheme of Law. Religious doctrines, many of them atleast, have been up to this time all but as _catastrophic_ as the oldGeology. They are not on the lines of Nature as we have learned todecipher her. If any one feel, as Science complains that it feels, thatthe lie of things in the Spiritual World as arranged by Theology is notin harmony with the world around, is not, in short, scientific, he isentitled to raise the question whether this be really the final form ofthose departments of Theology to which his complaint refers. He isjustified, moreover, in demanding a new investigation with all modernmethods and resources; and Science is bound by its principles not lessthan by the lessons of its own past, to suspend judgment till the lastattempt is made. The success of such an attempt will be looked forwardto with hopefulness or fearfulness just in proportion to one'sconfidence in Nature--in proportion to one's belief in the divinity ofman and in the divinity of things. If there is any truth in the unity ofNature, in that supreme principle of Continuity which is growing insplendor with every discovery of science, the conclusion is foregone. Ifthere is any foundation for Theology, if the phenomena of the SpiritualWorld are real, in the nature of things they ought to come into thesphere of Law. Such is at once the demand of Science upon Religion andthe prophecy that it can and shall be fulfilled. 

The Botany of Linnæus, a purely artificial system, was a splendidcontribution to human knowledge, and did more in its day to enlarge theview of the vegetable kingdom than all that had gone before. But allartificial systems must pass away. None knew better than the greatSwedish naturalist himself that his system, being artificial, was butprovisional. Nature must be read in its own light. And as the botanicalfield became more luminous, the system of Jussieu and De Candolle slowlyemerged as a native growth, unfolded itself as naturally as the petalsof one of its own flowers, and forcing itself upon men's intelligence asthe very voice of Nature, banished the Linnæan system forever. It wereunjust to say that the present Theology is as artificial as the systemof Linnæus; in many particulars it wants but a fresh expression to makeit in the most modern sense scientific. But if it has a basis in theconstitution and course of Nature, that basis has never been adequatelyshown. It has depended on Authority rather than on Law; and a new basismust be sought and found if it is to be presented to those with whom Lawalone is Authority. 

It is not of course to be inferred that the scientific method will everabolish the radical distinctions of the Spiritual World. True scienceproposes to itself no such general leveling in any department. Withinthe unity of the whole there must always be room for the characteristicdifferences of the parts, and those tendencies of thought at the presenttime which ignore such distinctions, in their zeal for simplicity reallycreate confusion. As has been well said by Mr. Hutton: "Any attempt tomerge the distinctive characteristic of a higher science in a lower--ofchemical changes in mechanical--of physiological in chemical--above all, of mental changes in physiological--is a neglect of the radicalassumption of all science, because it is an attempt to deducerepresentations--or rather misrepresentations--of one kind of phenomenafrom a conception of another kind which does not contain it, and musthave it implicitly and illicitly smuggled in before it can be extractedout of it. Hence, instead of increasing our means of representing theuniverse to ourselves without the detailed examination of particulars, such a procedure leads to misconstructions of fact on the basis of animported theory, and generally ends in forcibly perverting theleast-known science to the type of the better known. "[16]

What is wanted is simply a unity of conception, but not such a unity ofconception as should be founded on an absolute identity of phenomena. This latter might indeed be a unity, but it would be a very tame one. The perfection of unity is attained where there is infinite variety ofphenomena, infinite complexity of relation, but great simplicity ofLaw. Science will be complete when all known phenomena can be arrangedin one vast circle in which a few well known Laws shall form theradii--these radii at once separating and uniting, separating intoparticular groups, yet uniting all to a common center. To show that theradii for some of the most characteristic phenomena of the SpiritualWorld are already drawn within that circle by science is the main objectof the papers which follow. There will be found an attempt to restate afew of the more elementary facts of the Spiritual Life in terms ofBiology. Any argument for Natural Law in the Spiritual World may be besttested in the _a posteriori_ form. And although the succeeding pages arenot designed in the first instance to prove a principle, they may yet beentered here as evidence. The practical test is a severe one, but onthat account all the more satisfactory. 

And what will be gained if the point be made out? Not a few things. Forone, as partly indicated already, the scientific demand of the age willbe satisfied. That demand is that all that concerns life and conductshall be placed on a scientific basis. The only great attempt to meetthat at present is Positivism. 

But what again is a scientific basis? What exactly is this demand of theage? "By Science I understand, " says Huxley, "all knowledge which restsupon evidence and reasoning of a like character to that which claims ourassent to ordinary scientific propositions; and if any one is able tomake good the assertion that his theology rests upon valid evidence andsound reasoning, then it appears to me that such theology must take itsplace as a part of science. " That the assertion has been already madegood is claimed by many who deserve to be heard on questions ofscientific evidence. But if more is wanted by some minds, more notperhaps of a higher kind but of a different kind, at least the attemptcan be made to gratify them. Mr. Frederick Harrison, [17] in name of thePositive method of thought, "turns aside from ideal standards which avowthemselves to be _lawless_ [the italics are Mr. Harrison's], whichprofess to transcend the field of law. We say, life and conduct shallstand for us wholly on a basis of law, and must rest entirely in thatregion of science (not physical, but moral and social science) where weare free to use our intelligence, in the methods known to us asintelligible logic, methods which the intellect can analyze. When youconfront us with hypotheses, however sublime and however affecting, ifthey cannot be stated in terms of the rest of our knowledge, if they aredisparate to that world of sequence and sensation which to us is theultimate base of all our real knowledge, then we shake our heads andturn aside. " This is a most reasonable demand, and we humbly accept thechallenge. We think religious truth, or at all events certain of thelargest facts of the Spiritual Life, can be stated "in terms of the restof our knowledge. "

We do not say, as already hinted, that the proposal includes an attemptto prove the existence of the Spiritual World. Does that need proof? Andif so, what sort of evidence would be considered in court? The facts ofthe Spiritual World are as real to thousands as the facts of the NaturalWorld--and more real to hundreds. But were one asked to prove that theSpiritual World can be discerned by the appropriate faculties, one woulddo it precisely as one would attempt to prove the Natural World to be anobject of recognition to the senses--and with as much or as littlesuccess. In either instance probably the fact would be found incapableof demonstration, but not more in the one case than in the other. Wereone asked to prove the existence of Spiritual Life, one would also do itexactly as one would seek to prove Natural Life. And this perhaps mightbe attempted with more hope. But this is not on the immediateprogramme. Science deals with known facts; and accepting certain knownfacts in the Spiritual World we proceed to arrange them, to discovertheir Laws, to inquire if they can be stated "in terms of the rest ofour knowledge. "

At the same time, although attempting no philosophical proof of theexistence of a Spiritual Life and a Spiritual World, we are not withouthope that the general line of thought here may be useful to some who arehonestly inquiring in these directions. The stumbling-block to mostminds is perhaps less the mere existence of the unseen than the want ofdefinition, the apparently hopeless vagueness, and not least, thedelight in this vagueness as mere vagueness by some who look upon thisas the mark of quality in Spiritual things. It will be at leastsomething to tell earnest seekers that the Spiritual World is not acastle in the air, of an architecture unknown to earth or heaven, but afair ordered realm furnished with many familiar things and ruled bywell-remembered Laws. 

It is scarcely necessary to emphasize under a second head the gain inclearness. The Spiritual World as it stands is full of perplexity. Onecan escape doubt only by escaping thought. With regard to many importantarticles of religion perhaps the best and the worst course at presentopen to a doubter is simple credulity. Who is to answer for this stateof things? It comes as a necessary tax for improvement on the age inwhich we live. The old ground of faith, Authority, is given up; the new, Science, has not yet taken its place. Men did not require to _see_ truthbefore; they only needed to believe it. Truth, therefore, had not beenput by Theology in a seeing form--which, however, was its original form. But now they ask to see it. And when it is shown them they start back indespair. We shall not say what they see. But we shall say what theymight see. If the Natural Laws were run through the Spiritual World, they might see the great lines of religious truth as clearly and simplyas the broad lines of science. As they gazed into that Natural-SpiritualWorld they would say to themselves, "We have seen something like thisbefore. This order is known to us. It is not arbitrary. This Law here isthat old Law there, and this Phenomenon here, what can it be but thatwhich stood in precisely the same relation to that Law yonder?" And sogradually from the new form everything assumes new meaning. So theSpiritual World becomes slowly Natural; and, what is of all but equalmoment, the Natural World becomes slowly Spiritual. Nature is not a mereimage or emblem of the Spiritual. It is a working model of theSpiritual. In the Spiritual World the same wheels revolve--but withoutthe iron. The same figures flit across the stage, the same processes ofgrowth go on, the same functions are discharged, the same biologicallaws prevail--only with a different quality of βιος. Plato's prisoner, if not out of the Cave, has at least his face to the light. 

 "The earth is cram'd with heaven, And every common bush afire with God. "

How much of the Spiritual World is covered by Natural law we do notpropose at present to inquire. It is certain, at least, that the wholeis not covered. And nothing more lends confidence to the method thanthis. For one thing, room is still left for mystery. Had no placeremained for mystery it had proved itself both unscientific andirreligious. A Science without mystery is unknown; a Religion withoutmystery is absurd. This is no attempt to reduce Religion to a questionof mathematics, or demonstrate God in biological formulæ. Theelimination of mystery from the universe is the elimination of Religion. However far the scientific method may penetrate the Spiritual World, there will always remain a region to be explored by a scientific faith. "I shall never rise to the point of view which wishes to 'raise' faithto knowledge. To me, the way of truth is to come through the knowledgeof my ignorance to the submissiveness of faith, and then, making thatmy starting place, to raise my knowledge into faith. "[18]

Lest this proclamation of mystery should seem alarming, let us add thatthis mystery also is scientific. The one subject on which all scientificmen are agreed, the one theme on which all alike become eloquent, theone strain of pathos in all their writing and speaking and thinking, concerns that final uncertainty, that utter blackness of darknessbounding their work on every side. If the light of Nature is toilluminate for us the Spiritual Sphere, there may well be a blackUnknown, corresponding, at least at some points, to this zone ofdarkness round the Natural World. 

But the final gain would appear in the department of Theology. Theestablishment of the Spiritual Laws on "the solid ground of Nature, " towhich the mind trusts "which builds for aye, " would offer a new basisfor certainty in Religion. It has been indicated that the authority ofAuthority is waning. This is a plain fact. And it was inevitable. Authority--man's Authority, that is--is for children. And therenecessarily comes a time when they add to the question, What shall I do?or, What shall I believe? the adult's interrogation--Why? Now thisquestion is sacred, and must be answered. 

"How truly its central position is impregnable, " Herbert Spencer haswell discerned, "religion has never adequately realized. In thedevoutest faith, as we habitually see it, there lies hidden an innermostcore of scepticism; and it is this scepticism which causes that dread ofinquiry displayed by religion when face to face with science. "[19]

True indeed; Religion has never realized how impregnable are many of itspositions. It has not yet been placed on that basis which would makethem impregnable. And in a transition period like the present, holdingAuthority with one hand, the other feeling all around in the darknessfor some strong new support, Theology is surely to be pitied. Whencethis dread when brought face to face with Science? It cannot be dread ofscientific fact. No single fact in Science has ever discredited a factin Religion. The theologian knows that, and admits that he has no fearof facts. What then has Science done to make Theology tremble? It is itsmethod. It is its system. It is its Reign of Law. It is its harmony andcontinuity. The attack is not specific. No one point is assailed. It isthe whole system which when compared with the other and weighed in itsbalance is found wanting. An eye which has looked at the first cannotlook upon this. To do that, and rest in the contemplation, it has firstto uncentury itself. 

Herbert Spencer points out further, with how much truth need not now bediscussed, that the purification of Religion has always come fromScience. It is very apparent at all events that an immense debt mustsoon be contracted. The shifting of the furnishings will be a work oftime. But it must be accomplished. And not the least result of theprocess will be the effect upon Science itself. No department ofknowledge ever contributes to another without receiving its own againwith usury--witness the reciprocal favors of Biology and Sociology. Fromthe time that Comte defined the analogy between the phenomena exhibitedby aggregations of associated men and those of animal colonies, theScience of Life and the Science of Society have been so contributing toone another that their progress since has been all but hand-in-hand. Aconception borrowed by the one has been observed in time finding its wayback, and always in an enlarged form, to further illuminate and enrichthe field it left. So must it be with Science and Religion. If thepurification of Religion comes from Science, the purification ofScience, in a deeper sense, shall come from Religion. The true ministryof Nature must at last be honored, and Science take its place as thegreat expositor. To Men of Science, not less than to Theologians, "Science then Shall be a precious visitant; and then, And only then, be worthy of her name; For then her heart shall kindle, her dull eye, Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang Chained to its object in brute slavery; But taught with patient interest to watch The process of things, and serve the cause Of order and distinctness, not for this Shall it forget that its most noble use, Its most illustrious province, must be found In furnishing clear guidance, a support, Not treacherous, to the mind's _excursive_ power. "[20]

But the gift of Science to Theology shall be not less rich. With theinspiration of Nature to illuminate what the inspiration of Revelationhas left obscure, heresy in certain whole departments shall becomeimpossible. With the demonstration of the naturalness of thesupernatural, scepticism even may come to be regarded as unscientific. And those who have wrestled long for a few bare truths to ennoble lifeand rest their souls in thinking of the future will not be left indoubt. 

It is impossible to believe that the amazing succession of revelationsin the domain of Nature during the last few centuries, at which theworld has all but grown tired wondering, are to yield nothing for thehigher life. If the development of doctrine is to have any meaning forthe future, Theology must draw upon the further revelation of the seenfor the further revelation of the unseen. It need, and can, add nothingto fact; but as the vision of Newton rested on a clearer and richerworld than that of Plato, so, though seeing the same things in theSpiritual World as our fathers, we may see them clearer and richer. Withthe work of the centuries upon it, the mental eye is a finer instrument, and demands a more ordered world. Had the revelation of Law been givensooner, it had been unintelligible. Revelation never volunteers anythingthat man could discover for himself--on the principle, probably, that itis only when he is capable of discovering it that he is capable ofappreciating it. Besides, children do not need Laws, except Laws in thesense of commandments. They repose with simplicity on authority, and askno questions. But there comes a time, as the world reaches its manhood, when they will ask questions, and stake, moreover, everything on theanswers. That time is now. Hence we must exhibit our doctrines, notlying athwart the lines of the world's thinking, in a place reserved, and therefore shunned, for the Great Exception; but in their kinship toall truth and in their Law-relation to the whole of Nature. This is, indeed, simply following out the system of teaching begun by ChristHimself. And what is the search for spiritual truth in the Laws ofNature but an attempt to utter the parables which have been hid so longin the world around without a preacher, and to tell men at once morethat the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto this and to that?

PART II. 

The Law of Continuity having been referred to already as a prominentfactor in this inquiry, it may not be out of place to sustain the pleafor Natural Law in the Spiritual Sphere by a brief statement andapplication of this great principle. The Law of Continuity furnishes an_a priori_ argument for the position we are attempting to establish ofthe most convincing kind--of such a kind, indeed, as to seem to our mindfinal. Briefly indicated, the ground taken up is this, that if Nature bea harmony, Man in all his relations--physical, mental, moral, andspiritual--falls to be included within its circle. It is altogetherunlikely that man spiritual should be violently separated in all theconditions of growth, development, and life, from man physical. It isindeed difficult to conceive that one set of principles should guide thenatural life, and these at a certain period--the very point where theyare needed--suddenly give place to another set of principles altogethernew and unrelated. Nature has never taught us to expect such acatastrophe. She has nowhere prepared us for it. And Man cannot in thenature of things, in the nature of thought, in the nature of language, be separated into two such incoherent halves. 

The spiritual man, it is true, is to be studied in a differentdepartment of science from the natural man. But the harmony establishedby science is not a harmony within specific departments. It is theuniverse that is the harmony, the universe of which these are but parts. And the harmonies of the parts depend for all their weight and intereston the harmony of the whole. While, therefore, there are manyharmonies, there is but one harmony. The breaking up of the phenomena ofthe universe into carefully guarded groups, and the allocation ofcertain prominent Laws to each, it must never be forgotten, and howevermuch Nature lends herself to it, are artificial. We find an evolution inBotany, another in Geology, and another in Astronomy, and the effect isto lead one insensibly to look upon these as three distinct evolutions. But these sciences, of course, are mere departments created by ourselvesto facilitate knowledge--reductions of Nature to the scale of our ownintelligence. And we must beware of breaking up Nature except for thispurpose. Science has so dissected everything, that it becomes a mentaldifficulty to put the puzzle together again; and we must keep ourselvesin practice by constantly thinking of Nature as a whole, if science isnot to be spoiled by its own refinements. Evolution being found in somany different sciences, the likelihood is that it is a universalprinciple. And there is no presumption whatever against this Law andmany others being excluded from the domain of the spiritual life. On theother hand, there are very convincing reasons why the Natural Lawsshould be continuous through the Spiritual Sphere--not changed in anyway to meet the new circumstances, but continuous as they stand. 

But to the exposition. One of the most striking generalizations ofrecent science is that even Laws have their Law. Phenomena first, in theprogress of knowledge, were grouped together, and Nature shortlypresented the spectacle of a cosmos, the lines of beauty being the greatNatural Laws. So long, however, as these Laws were merely great linesrunning through Nature, so long as they remained isolated from oneanother, the system of Nature was still incomplete. The principle whichsought Law among phenomena had to go further and seek a Law among theLaws. Laws themselves accordingly came to be treated as they treatedphenomena, and found themselves finally grouped in a still narrowercircle. That inmost circle is governed by one great Law, the Law ofContinuity. It is the Law for Laws. 

It is perhaps significant that few exact definitions of Continuity areto be found. Even in Sir W. R. Grove's famous paper, [21] thefountain-head of the modern form of this far from modern truth, there isno attempt at definition. In point of fact, its sweep is so magnificent, it appeals so much more to the imagination than to the reason, that menhave preferred to exhibit rather than to define it. Its true greatnessconsists in the final impression it leaves on the mind with regard tothe uniformity of Nature. For it was reserved for the Law of Continuityto put the finishing touch to the harmony of the universe. 

Probably the most satisfactory way to secure for one's self a justappreciation of the Principle of Continuity is to try to conceive theuniverse without it. The opposite of a continuous universe would be adiscontinuous universe, an incoherent and irrelevant universe--asirrelevant in all its ways of doing things as an irrelevant person. Ineffect, to withdraw Continuity from the universe would be the same as towithdraw reason from an individual. The universe would run deranged; theworld would be a mad world. 

There used to be a children's book which bore the fascinating title of"The Chance World. " It described a world in which everything happened bychance. The sun might rise or it might not; or it might appear at anyhour, or the moon might come up instead. When children were born theymight have one head or a dozen heads, and those heads might not be ontheir shoulders--there might be no shoulders--but arranged about thelimbs. If one jumped up in the air it was impossible to predict whetherhe would ever come down again. That he came down yesterday was noguarantee that he would do it next time. For every day antecedent andconsequent varied, and gravitation and everything else changed fromhour to hour. To-day a child's body might be so light that it wasimpossible for it to descend from its chair to the floor; but to-morrow, in attempting the experiment again, the impetus might drive it through athree-story house and dash it to pieces somewhere near the center of theearth. In this chance world cause and effect were abolished. Law wasannihilated. And the result to the inhabitants of such a world couldonly be that reason would be impossible. It would be a lunatic worldwith a population of lunatics. 

Now this is no more than a real picture of what the world would bewithout Law, or the universe without Continuity. And hence we come insight of the necessity of some principle of Law according to which Lawsshall be, and be "continuous" throughout the system. Man as a rationaland moral being demands a pledge that if he depends on Nature for anygiven result on the ground that Nature has previously led him to expectsuch a result, his intellect shall not be insulted, nor his confidencein her abused. If he is to trust Nature, in short, it must be guaranteedto him that in doing so he will "never be put to confusion. " The authorsof the _Unseen Universe_ conclude their examination of this principle bysaying that "assuming the existence of a supreme Governor of theuniverse, the Principle of Continuity may be said to be the definiteexpression in words of our trust that He will not put us to permanentintellectual confusion, and we can easily conceive similar expressionsof trust with reference to the other faculties of man. "[22] Or, as ithas been well put elsewhere, Continuity is the expression of "the DivineVeracity in Nature. "[23] The most striking examples of thecontinuousness of Law are perhaps those furnished by Astronomy, especially in connection with the more recent applications of spectrumanalysis. But even in the case of the simpler Laws the demonstration iscomplete. There is no reason apart from Continuity to expect thatgravitation for instance should prevail outside our world. But wherevermatter has been detected throughout the entire universe, whether in theform of star or planet, comet or meteorite, it is found to obey thatLaw. "If there were no other indication of unity than this, it would bealmost enough. For the unity which is implied in the mechanism of theheavens is indeed a unity which is all-embracing and complete. Thestructure of our own bodies, with all that depends upon it, is astructure governed by, and therefore adapted to, the same force ofgravitation which has determined the form and the movements of myriadsof worlds. Every part of the human organism is fitted to conditionswhich would all be destroyed in a moment if the forces of gravitationwere to change or fail. "[24]

But it is unnecessary to multiply illustrations. Having defined theprinciple we may proceed at once to apply it. And the argument may besummed up in a sentence. As the Natural Laws are continuous through theuniverse of matter and of space, so will they be continuous through theuniverse of spirit. 

If this be denied, what then? Those who deny it must furnish thedisproof. The argument is founded on a principle which is nowacknowledged to be universal; and the _onus_ of disproof must lie withthose who may be bold enough to take up the position that a regionexists where at last the Principle of Continuity fails. To do this onewould first have to overturn Nature, then science, and last, the humanmind. 

It may seem an obvious objection that many of the Natural Laws have noconnection whatever with the Spiritual World, and as a matter of factare not continued through it. Gravitation for instance--what directapplication has that in the Spiritual World? The reply is threefold. First, there is no proof that it does not hold there. If the spirit bein any sense material it certainly must hold. In the second place, gravitation may hold for the Spiritual Sphere although it cannot bedirectly proved. The spirit may be armed with powers which enable it torise superior to gravity. During the action of these powers gravity needbe no more suspended than in the case of a plant which rises in the airduring the process of growth. It does this in virtue of a higher Law andin apparent defiance of the lower. Thirdly, if the spiritual be notmaterial it still cannot be said that gravitation ceases at that pointto be continuous. It is not gravitation that ceases--it is matter. 

This point, however, will require development for another reason. In thecase of the plant just referred to, there is a principle of growth orvitality at work superseding the attraction of gravity. Why is there notrace of that Law in the Inorganic world? Is not this another instanceof the discontinuousness of Law? If the Law of vitality has so littleconnection with the Inorganic kingdom--less even than gravitation withthe Spiritual, what becomes of Continuity? Is it not evident that eachkingdom of Nature has its own set of Laws which continue possiblyuntouched for the specific kingdom but never extend beyond it?

It is quite true that when we pass from the Inorganic to the Organic, wecome upon a new set of Laws. But the reason why the lower set do notseem to act in the higher sphere is not that they are annihilated, butthat they are overruled. And the reason why the higher Laws are notfound operating in the lower is not because they are not continuousdownward, but because there is nothing for them there to act upon. It isnot Law that fails, but opportunity. The biological Laws are continuousfor life. Wherever there is life, that is to say, they will be foundacting, just as gravitation acts wherever there is matter. 

We have purposely, in the last paragraph, indulged in a fallacy. Wehave said that the biological Laws would certainly be continuous in thelower or mineral sphere were there anything there for them to act upon. Now Laws do not act upon anything. It has been stated already, althoughapparently it cannot be too abundantly emphasized, that Laws are onlymodes of operation, not themselves operators. The accurate statement, therefore, would be that the biological Laws would be continuous in thelower sphere were there anything there for them, not to act upon, but tokeep in order. If there is no acting going on, if there is nothing beingkept in order, the responsibility does not lie with Continuity. The Lawwill always be at its post, not only when its services are required, butwherever they are possible. 

Attention is drawn to this, for it is a correction one will find one'sself compelled often to make in his thinking. It is so difficult to keepout of mind the idea of substance in connection with the Natural Laws, the idea that they are the movers, the essences, the energies, that oneis constantly on the verge of falling into false conclusions. Thus ahasty glance at the present argument on the part of any oneill-furnished enough to confound Law with substance or with cause wouldprobably lead to its immediate rejection. For, to continue the same lineof illustration, it might next be urged that such a Law as Biogenesis, which, as we hope to show afterward, is the fundamental Law of life forboth the natural and spiritual worlds, can have no applicationwhatsoever in the latter sphere. The _life_ with which it deals in theNatural World does not enter at all into the Spiritual World, andtherefore, it might be argued, the Law of Biogenesis cannot be capableof extension into it. The Law of Continuity seems to be snapped at thepoint where the natural passes into the spiritual. The vital principleof the body is a different thing from the vital principle of thespiritual life. Biogenesis deals with βιος, with the natural life, withcells and germs, and as there are no exactly similar cells and germs inthe Spiritual World, the Law cannot therefore apply. All which is astrue as if one were to say that the fifth proposition of the First Bookof Euclid applies when the figures are drawn with chalk upon ablackboard, but fails with regard to structures of wood or stone. 

The proposition is continuous for the whole world, and, doubtless, likewise for the sun and moon and stars. The same universality may bepredicated likewise for the Law of life. Wherever there is life we mayexpect to find it arranged, ordered, governed according to the same Law. At the beginning of the natural life we find the Law that natural lifecan only come from preëxisting natural life; and at the beginning of thespiritual life we find that the spiritual life can only come frompreëxisting spiritual life. But there are not two Laws; there isone--Biogenesis. At one end the Law is dealing with matter, at the otherwith spirit. The qualitative terms natural and spiritual make nodifference. Biogenesis is the Law for all life and for all kinds oflife, and the particular substance with which it is associated is asindifferent to Biogenesis as it is to Gravitation. Gravitation will actwhether the substance be suns and stars, or grains of sand, orraindrops. Biogenesis, in like manner, will act wherever there is life. 

The conclusion finally is, that from the nature of Law in general, andfrom the scope of the Principle of Continuity in particular, the Laws ofthe natural life must be those of the spiritual life. This does notexclude, observe, the possibility of there being new Laws in additionwithin the Spiritual Sphere; nor does it even include the suppositionthat the old Laws will be the conspicuous Laws of the Spiritual World, both which points will be dealt with presently. It simply asserts thatwhatever else may be found, these must be found there; that they must bethere though they may not be seen there; and that they must projectbeyond there if there be anything beyond there. If the Law of Continuityis true, the only way to escape the conclusion that the Laws of thenatural life are the Laws, or at least are Laws, of the spiritual life, is to say that there is no spiritual life. It is really easier to giveup the phenomena than to give up the Law. 

Two questions now remain for further consideration--one bearing on thepossibility of new Law in the spiritual; the other, on the assumedinvisibility or inconspicuousness of the old Laws on account of theirsubordination to the new. 

Let us begin by conceding that there may be new Laws. The argument mightthen be advanced that since, in Nature generally, we come upon new Lawsas we pass from lower to higher kingdoms, the old still remaining inforce, the newer Laws which one would expect to meet in the SpiritualWorld would so transcend and overwhelm the older as to make the analogyor identity, even if traced, of no practical use. The new Laws wouldrepresent operations and energies so different, and so much moreelevated, that they would afford the true keys to the Spiritual World. As Gravitation is practically lost sight of when we pass into the domainof life, so Biogenesis would be lost sight of as we enter the SpiritualSphere. 

We must first separate in this statement the old confusion of Law andenergy. Gravitation is not lost sight of in the organic world. Gravitymay be, to a certain extent, but not Gravitation; and gravity only wherea higher power counteracts its action. At the same time it is not to bedenied that the conspicuous thing in Organic Nature is not the greatInorganic Law. 

But the objection turns upon the statement that reasoning from analogywe should expect, in turn, to lose sight of Biogenesis as we enter theSpiritual Sphere. One answer to which is that, as a matter of fact, wedo not lose sight of it. So far from being invisible, it lies across thevery threshold of the Spiritual World, and, as we shall see, pervades iteverywhere. What we lose sight of, to a certain extent, is the naturalβιος. In the Spiritual World that is not the conspicuous thing, and itis obscure there just as gravity becomes obscure in the Organic, becausesomething higher, more potent, more characteristic of the higher plane, comes in. That there are higher energies, so to speak, in the SpiritualWorld is, of course, to be affirmed alike on the ground of analogy andof experience; but it does not follow that these necessitate other Laws. A Law has nothing to do with potency. We may lose sight of a substance, or of an energy, but it is an abuse of language to talk of losing sightof Laws. 

Are there, then, no other Laws in the Spiritual World except those whichare the projections or extensions of Natural Laws? From the number ofNatural Laws which are found in the higher sphere, from the largeterritory actually embraced by them, and from their special prominencethroughout the whole region, it may at least be answered that the marginleft for them is small. But if the objection is pressed that it iscontrary to the analogy, and unreasonable in itself, that there shouldnot be new Laws for this higher sphere, the reply is obvious. Let theseLaws be produced. If the spiritual nature, in inception, growth, anddevelopment, does not follow natural principles, let the true principlesbe stated and explained. We have not denied that there may be new Laws. One would almost be surprised if there were not. The mass of materialhanded over from the natural to the spiritual, continuous, apparently, from the natural to the spiritual, is so great that till that is workedout it will be impossible to say what space is still left unembraced byLaws that are known. At present it is impossible even approximately toestimate the size of that supposed _terra incognita_. From one point ofview it ought to be vast, from another extremely small. But howeverlarge the region governed by the suspected new Laws may be that cannotdiminish by a hair's-breadth the size of the territory where the oldLaws still prevail. That territory itself, relatively to us thoughperhaps not absolutely, must be of great extent. The size of the keywhich is to open it, that is, the size of all the Natural Laws which canbe found to apply, is a guarantee that the region of the knowable in theSpiritual World is at least as wide as these regions of the NaturalWorld which by the help of these Laws have been explored. No doubt alsothere yet remain some Natural Laws to be discovered, and these in timemay have a further light to shed on the spiritual field. Then we mayknow all that is? By no means. We may only know all that may be known. And that may be very little. The Sovereign Will which sways the scepterof that invisible empire must be granted a right of freedom--thatfreedom which by putting it into our wills He surely teaches us to honorin His. In much of His dealing with us also, in what may be called thepaternal relation, there may seem no special Law--no Law except thehighest of all, that Law of which all other Laws are parts, that Lawwhich neither Nature can wholly reflect nor the mind begin tofathom--the Law of Love. He adds nothing to that, however, who losessight of all other Laws in that, nor does he take from it who findsspecific Laws everywhere radiating from it. 

With regard to the supposed new Laws of the Spiritual World--those Laws, that is, which are found for the first time in the Spiritual World, andhave no analogies lower down--there is this to be said, that there isone strong reason against exaggerating either their number orimportance--their importance at least for our immediate needs. Theconnection between language and the Law of Continuity has been referredto incidentally already. It is clear that we can only express theSpiritual Laws in language borrowed from the visible universe. Beingdependent for our vocabulary on images, if an altogether new and foreignset of Laws existed in the Spiritual World, they could never take shapeas definite ideas from mere want of words. The hypothetical new Lawswhich may remain to be discovered in the domain of Natural or MentalScience may afford some index of these hypothetical higher Laws, butthis would of course mean that the latter were no longer foreign but inanalogy, or, likelier still, identical. If, on the other hand, theNatural Laws of the future have nothing to say of these higher Laws, what can be said of them? Where is the language to come from in which toframe them? If their disclosure could be of any practical use to us, wemay be sure the clue to them, the revelation of them, in some way wouldhave been put into Nature. If, on the contrary, they are not to be ofimmediate use to man, it is better they should not embarrass him. Afterall, then, our knowledge of higher Law must be limited by our knowledgeof the lower. The Natural Laws as at present known, whatever additionsmay yet be made to them, give a fair rendering of the facts of Nature. And their analogies or their projections in the Spiritual sphere mayalso be said to offer a fair account of that sphere, or of one or twoconspicuous departments of it. The time has come for that account to begiven. The greatest among the theological Laws are the Laws of Nature indisguise. It will be the splendid task of the theology of the future totake off the mask and disclose to a waning scepticism the naturalness ofthe supernatural. 

It is almost singular that the identification of the Laws of theSpiritual World with the Laws of Nature should so long have escapedrecognition. For apart from the probability on _a priori_ grounds, it isinvolved in the whole structure of Parable. When any two Phenomena inthe two spheres are seen to be analogous, the parallelism must dependupon the fact that the Laws governing them are not analogous butidentical. And yet this basis for Parable seems to have been overlooked. Thus Principal Shairp:--"This seeing of Spiritual truths mirrored in theface of Nature rests not on any fancied, but in a real analogy betweenthe natural and the spiritual worlds. They are _in some sense whichscience has not ascertained_, but which the vital and religiousimagination can perceive, counterparts one of the other. "[25] But is notthis the explanation, that parallel Phenomena depend upon identicalLaws? It is a question indeed whether one can speak of Laws at all asbeing analogous. Phenomena are parallel, Laws which make them so arethemselves one. 

In discussing the relations of the Natural and Spiritual kingdom, it hasbeen all but implied hitherto that the Spiritual Laws were framedoriginally on the plan of the Natural; and the impression one mightreceive in studying the two worlds for the first time from the side ofanalogy would naturally be that the lower world was formed first, as akind of scaffolding on which the higher and Spiritual should beafterward raised. Now the exact opposite has been the case. The first inthe field was the Spiritual World. 

It is not necessary to reproduce here in detail the argument which hasbeen stated recently with so much force in the "Unseen Universe. " Theconclusion of that work remains still unassailed, that the visibleuniverse has been developed from the unseen. Apart from the generalproof from the Law of Continuity, the more special grounds of such aconclusion are, first, the fact insisted upon by Herschel andClerk-Maxwell that the atoms of which the visible universe is built upbear distinct marks of being manufactured articles; and, secondly, theorigin in time of the visible universe is implied from known facts withregard to the dissipation of energy. With the gradual aggregation ofmass the energy of the universe has been slowly disappearing, and thisloss of energy must go on until none remains. There is, therefore, apoint in time when the energy of the universe must come to an end; andthat which has its end in time cannot be infinite, it must also have hada beginning in time. Hence the unseen existed before the seen. 

There is nothing so especially exalted therefore in the Natural Laws inthemselves as to make one anxious to find them blood relations of theSpiritual. It is not only because these Laws are on the ground, moreaccessible therefore to us who are but groundlings; not only, as the"Unseen Universe" points out in another connection, "because they are atthe bottom of the list--are in fact the simplest and lowest--that theyare capable of being most readily grasped by the finite intelligences ofthe universe. "[26] But their true significance lies in the fact thatthey are on the list at all, and especially in that the list is the samelist. Their dignity is not as Natural Laws, but as Spiritual Laws, Lawswhich, as already said, at one end are dealing with Matter, and at theother with Spirit. "The physical properties of matter form the alphabetwhich is put into our hands by God, the study of which, if properlyconducted, will enable us more perfectly to read that great book whichwe call the 'Universe. '"[27] But, over and above this, the Natural Lawswill enable us to read that great duplicate which we call the "UnseenUniverse, " and to think and live in fuller harmony with it. After all, the true greatness of Law lies in its vision of the Unseen. Law in thevisible is the Invisible in the visible. And to speak of Laws as Naturalis to define them in their application to a part of the universe, thesense-part, whereas a wider survey would lead us to regard all Law asessentially Spiritual. To magnify the Laws of Nature, as Laws of thissmall world of ours, is to take a provincial view of the universe. Lawis great not because the phenomenal world is great, but because thesevanishing lines are the avenues into the eternal Order. "It is lessreverent to regard the universe as an illimitable avenue which leads upto God, than to look upon it as a limited area bounded by animpenetrable wall, which, if we could only pierce it would admit us atonce into the presence of the Eternal?"[28] Indeed the authors of the"Unseen Universe" demur even to the expression _material universe_, since, as they tell us "Matter is (though it may seem paradoxical to sayso) the less important half of the material of the physicaluniverse. "[29] And even Mr. Huxley, though in a different sense, assuresus, with Descartes, "that we know more of mind than we do of body; thatthe immaterial world is a firmer reality than the material. "[30]

How the priority of the Spiritual improves the strength and meaning ofthe whole argument will be seen at once. The lines of the Spiritualexisted first, and it was natural to expect that when the "Intelligenceresident in the 'Unseen'" proceeded to frame the material universe Heshould go upon the lines already laid down. He would, in short, simplyproject the higher Laws downward, so that the Natural World would becomean incarnation, a visible representation, a working model of thespiritual. The whole function of the material world lies here. The worldis only a thing that is; it is not. It is a thing that teaches, yet noteven a thing--a show that shows, a teaching shadow. However useless thedemonstration otherwise, philosophy does well in proving that matter isa non-entity. We work with it as the mathematician with an _x_. Thereality is alone the Spiritual. "It is very well for physicists to speakof 'matter, ' but for men generally to call this 'a material world' is anabsurdity. Should we call it an _x_-world it would mean as much, viz. , that we do not know what it is. "[31] When shall we learn the truemysticism of one who was yet far from being a mystic--"We look not atthe things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for thethings which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seenare eternal?"[32] The visible is the ladder up to the invisible; thetemporal is but the scaffolding of the eternal. And when the lastimmaterial souls have climbed through this material to God, thescaffolding shall be taken down, and the earth dissolved with ferventheat--not because it was base, but because its work is done. 

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "Reign of Law, " chap. Ii. 

[4] "Animal Kingdom. "

[5] "Sartor Resartus, " 1858 Ed. , p. 43. 

[6] Even parable, however, has always been considered to have attachedto it a measure of evidential as well as of illustrative value. Thus:"The parable or other analogy to spiritual truth appropriated from theworld of nature or man, is not merely illustrative, but also in somesort proof. It is not merely that these analogies assist to make thetruth intelligible or, if intelligible before, present it more vividlyto the mind, which is all that some will allow them. Their power liesdeeper than this, in the harmony unconsciously felt by all men, andwhich all deeper minds have delighted to trace, between the natural andspiritual worlds, so that analogies from the first are felt to besomething more than illustrations happily but yet arbitrarily chosen. They are arguments, and may be alleged as witnesses; the world of naturebeing throughout a witness for the world of spirit, proceeding from thesame hand, growing out of the same root, and being constituted for thatvery end. "--(Archbishop Trench: "Parables, " pp. 12, 13. )

[7] Mill's "Logic, " vol. Ii. P. 96. 

[8] Campbell's "Rhetoric, " vol. I. P. 114. 

[9] "Nature and the Supernatural, " p. 19. 

[10] "The Scientific Basis of Faith. " By J. J. Murphy, p. 466. 

[11] Op. Cit. , p. 333. 

[12] _Ibid. _, p. 333. 

[13] _Ibid. _, p. 331. 

[14] "Analogy, " chap. Vii. 

[15] "Unseen Universe, " 6th Ed. , pp. 89, 90. 

[16] "Essays, " vol. I. P. 40. 

[17] "A Modern Symposium. "--_Nineteenth Century_, vol. I. P. 625. 

[18] Beck: "Bib. Psychol. , " Clark's Tr. , Pref. , 2d Ed. , p. Xiii. 

[19] "First Principles, " p. 161. 

[20] Wordsworth's _Excursion_, Book iv. 

[21] "The Correlation of Physical Forces, " 6th Ed. , p. 181 _et seq. _

[22] "Unseen Universe, " 6th Ed. , p. 88. 

[23] "Old Faiths in New Light, " by Newman Smith. Unwin's Englishedition, p. 252. 

[24] The Duke of Argyll: _Contemporary Review_, Sept. , 1880, p. 358. 

[25] "Poetic Interpretation of Nature, " p. 115. 

[26] 6th edition, p. 235. 

[27] _Ibid. _, p. 286. 

[28] "Unseen Universe, " p. 96. 

[29] "Unseen Universe, " p. 100. 

[30] "Science and Culture, " p. 259. 

[31] Hinton's "Philosophy and Religion, " p. 40. 

[32] 2 Cor. Iv. 18. 

BIOGENESIS. 

 "What we require is no new Revelation, but simply an adequate conception of the true essence of Christianity. And I believe that, as time goes on, the work of the Holy Spirit will be continuously shown in the gradual insight which the human race will attain into the true essence of the Christian religion. I am thus of opinion that a standing miracle exists, and that it has ever existed--a direct and continued influence exerted by the supernatural on the natural. "--_Paradoxical Philosophy. _

 "He that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not Life. "--_John. _

 "Omne vivum ex vivo. "--_Harvey. _

For two hundred years the scientific world has been rent withdiscussions upon the Origin of Life. Two great schools have defendedexactly opposite views--one that matter can spontaneously generate life, the other that life can only come from preëxisting life. The doctrine ofSpontaneous Generation, as the first is called, has been revived withinrecent years by Dr. Bastian, after a series of elaborate experiments onthe Beginnings of Life. Stated in his own words, his conclusion is this:"Both observation and experiment unmistakably testify to the fact thatliving matter is constantly being formed _de novo_, in obedience to thesame laws and tendencies which determined all the more simple chemicalcombinations. "[33] Life, that is to say, is not the Gift of Life. It iscapable of springing into being of itself. It can be SpontaneouslyGenerated. 

This announcement called into the field a phalanx of observers, and thehighest authorities in biological science engaged themselves afreshupon the problem. The experiments necessary to test the matter can befollowed or repeated by any one possessing the slightest manipulativeskill. Glass vessels are three-parts filled with infusions of hay or anyorganic matter. They are boiled to kill all germs of life, andhermetically sealed to exclude the outer air. The air inside, havingbeen exposed to the boiling temperature for many hours, is supposed tobe likewise dead; so that any life which may subsequently appear in theclosed flasks must have sprung into being of itself. In Bastian'sexperiments, after every expedient to secure sterility, life did appearinside in myriad quantity. Therefore, he argued, it was spontaneouslygenerated. 

But the phalanx of observers found two errors in this calculation. Professor Tyndall repeated the same experiment, only with a precautionto insure absolute sterility suggested by the most recent science--adiscovery of his own. After every care, he conceived there might stillbe undestroyed germs in the air inside the flasks. If the air wereabsolutely germless and pure, would the myriad-life appear? Hemanipulated his experimental vessels in an atmosphere which under thehigh test of optical purity--the most delicate known test--wasabsolutely germless. Here not a vestige of life appeared. He varied theexperiment in every direction, but matter in the germless air neveryielded life. 

The other error was detected by Mr. Dallinger. He found among the lowerforms of life the most surprising and indestructible vitality. Manyanimals could survive much higher temperatures than Dr. Bastian hadapplied to annihilate them. Some germs almost refused to beannihilated--they were all but fire-proof. 

These experiments have practically closed the question. A decided andauthoritative conclusion has now taken its place in science. So far asscience can settle anything, this question is settled. The attempt toget the living out of the dead has failed. Spontaneous Generation hashad to be given up. And it is now recognized on every hand that Life canonly come from the touch of Life. Huxley categorically announces thatthe doctrine of Biogenesis, or life only from life, is "victorious alongthe whole line at the present day. "[34] And even while confessing thathe wishes the evidence were the other way, Tyndall is compelled to say, "I affirm that no shred of trustworthy experimental testimony exists toprove that life in our day has ever appeared independently of antecedentlife. "[35]

For much more than two hundred years a similar discussion has draggedits length through the religious world. Two great schools here also havedefended exactly opposite views--one that the Spiritual Life in man canonly come from preëxisting Life, the other that it can SpontaneouslyGenerate itself. Taking its stand upon the initial statement of theAuthor of the Spiritual Life, one small school, in the face of derisionand opposition, has persistently maintained the doctrine of Biogenesis. Another, larger and with greater pretension to philosophic form, hasdefended Spontaneous Generation. The weakness of the former schoolconsists--though this has been much exaggerated--in its more or lessgeneral adherence to the extreme view that religion had nothing to dowith the natural life; the weakness of the latter lay in yielding to themore fatal extreme that it had nothing to do with anything else. Thatman, being a worshiping animal by nature, ought to maintain certainrelations to the Supreme Being, was indeed to some extent conceded bythe naturalistic school, but religion itself we looked upon as a thingto be spontaneously generated by the evolution of character in thelaboratory of common life. 

The difference between the two positions is radical. Translating fromthe language of Science into that of Religion, the theory ofSpontaneous Generation is simply that a man may become gradually betterand better until in course of the process he reaches that quantity ofreligious nature known as Spiritual Life. This Life is not somethingadded _ab extra_ to the natural man; it is the normal and appropriatedevelopment of the natural man. Biogenesis opposes to this the wholedoctrine of Regeneration. The Spiritual Life is the gift of the LivingSpirit. The spiritual man is no mere development of the natural man. Heis a New Creation born from Above. As well expect a hay infusion tobecome gradually more and more living until in course of the process itreached Vitality, as expect a man by becoming better and better toattain the Eternal Life. 

The advocates of Biogenesis in Religion have founded their argumenthitherto all but exclusively on Scripture. The relation of the doctrineto the constitution and course of Nature was not disclosed. Itsimportance, therefore, was solely as a dogma; and being directlyconcerned with the Supernatural, it was valid for those alone who choseto accept the Supernatural. 

Yet it has been keenly felt by those who attempt to defend this doctrineof the origin of the Spiritual Life, that they have nothing more tooppose to the rationalistic view than the _ipse dixit_ of Revelation. The argument from experience, in the nature of the case, is seldom easyto apply, and Christianity has always found at this point a genuinedifficulty in meeting the challenge of Natural Religions. The directauthority of Nature, using Nature in its limited sense, was not here tobe sought for. On such a question its voice was necessarily silent; andall that the apologist could look for lower down was a distant echo oranalogy. All that is really possible, indeed, is such an analogy; and ifthat can now be found in Biogenesis, Christianity in its most centralposition secures at length a support and basis in the Laws of Nature. 

Up to the present time the analogy required has not been forthcoming. There was no known parallel in Nature for the spiritual phenomena inquestion. But now the case is altered. With the elevation of Biogenesisto the rank of a scientific fact, all problems concerning the Origin ofLife are placed on a different footing. And it remains to be seenwhether Religion cannot at once reaffirm and re-shape its argument inthe light of this modern truth. 

If the doctrine of the Spontaneous Generation of Spiritual Life can bemet on scientific grounds, it will mean the removal of the most seriousenemy Christianity has to deal with, and especially within its ownborders, at the present day. The religion of Jesus has probably alwayssuffered more from those who have misunderstood than from those who haveopposed it. Of the multitudes who confess Christianity at this hour howmany have clear in their minds the cardinal distinction established byits Founder between "born of the flesh" and "born of the Spirit?" By howmany teachers of Christianity even is not this fundamental postulatepersistently ignored? A thousand modern pulpits every seventh day arepreaching the doctrine of Spontaneous Generation. The finest and best ofrecent poetry is colored with this same error. Spontaneous Generation isthe leading theology of the modern religious or irreligious novel; andmuch of the most serious and cultured writing of the day devotes itselfto earnest preaching of this impossible gospel. The current conceptionof the Christian religion in short--the conception which is held notonly popularly but by men of culture--is founded upon a view of itsorigin which, if it were true, would render the whole scheme abortive. 

Let us first place vividly in our imagination the picture of the twogreat Kingdoms of Nature, the inorganic and organic, as these now standin the light of the Law of Biogenesis. What essentially is involved insaying that there is no Spontaneous Generation of Life? It is meant thatthe passage from the mineral world to the plant or animal world ishermetically sealed on the mineral side. This inorganic world is stakedoff from the living world by barriers which have never yet been crossedfrom within. No change of substance, no modification of environment, nochemistry, no electricity, nor any form of energy, nor any evolution canendow any single atom of the mineral world with the attribute of Life. Only by the bending down into this dead world of some living form canthese dead atoms be gifted with the properties of vitality, without thispreliminary contact with Life they remain fixed in the inorganic sphereforever. It is a very mysterious Law which guards in this way theportals of the living world. And if there is one thing in Nature moreworth pondering for its strangeness it is the spectacle of this vasthelpless world of the dead cut off from the living by the Law ofBiogenesis and denied forever the possibility of resurrection withinitself. So very strange a thing, indeed, is this broad line in Nature, that Science has long and urgently sought to obliterate it. Biogenesisstands in the way of some forms of Evolution with such stern persistencythat the assaults upon this Law for number and thoroughness have beenunparalleled. But, as we have seen, it has stood the test. Nature, tothe modern eye, stands broken in two. The physical Laws may explain theinorganic world; the biological Laws may account for the development ofthe organic. But of the point where they meet, of that strangeborderland between the dead and the living, Science is silent. It is asif God had placed everything in earth and heaven in the hands of Nature, but reserved a point at the genesis of Life for His direct appearing. 

The power of the analogy, for which we are laying the foundations, toseize and impress the mind, will largely depend on the vividness withwhich one realizes the gulf which Nature places between the living andthe dead. [36] But those who, in contemplating Nature, have found theirattention arrested by this extraordinary dividing-line severing thevisible universe eternally into two; those who in watching the progressof science have seen barrier after barrier disappear--barrier betweenplant and plant, between animal and animal, and even between animal andplant--but this gulf yawn more hopelessly wide with every advance ofknowledge, will be prepared to attach a significance to the Law ofBiogenesis and its analogies more profound perhaps than to any otherfact or law in Nature. If, as Pascal says, Nature is an image of grace;if the things that are seen are in any sense the images of the unseen, there must lie in this great gulf fixed, this most unique and startlingof all natural phenomena, a meaning of peculiar moment. 

Where now in the Spiritual spheres shall we meet a companion phenomenato this? What in the Unseen shall be likened to this deep dividing-line, or where in human experience is another barrier which never can becrossed?

There is such a barrier. In the dim but not inadequate vision of theSpiritual World presented in the Word of God, the first thing thatstrikes the eye is a great gulf fixed. The passage from the NaturalWorld to the Spiritual World is hermetically sealed on the natural side. The door from the inorganic to the organic is shut, no mineral can openit; so the door from the natural to the spiritual is shut, and no mancan open it. This world of natural men is staked off from the SpiritualWorld by barriers which have never yet been crossed from within. Noorganic change, no modification of environment, no mental energy, nomoral effort, no evolution of character, no progress of civilization canendow any single human soul with the attribute of Spiritual Life. TheSpiritual World is guarded from the world next in order beneath it by alaw of Biogenesis--_except a man be born again . . . Except a man be bornof water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God_. 

It is not said, in this enunciation of the law, that if the condition benot fulfilled the natural man _will not_ enter the Kingdom of God. Theword is _cannot_. For the exclusion of the spiritually inorganic fromthe Kingdom of the spiritually organic is not arbitrary. Nor is thenatural man refused admission on unexplained grounds. His admission is ascientific impossibility. Except a mineral be born "from above"--fromthe Kingdom just _above_ it--it cannot enter the Kingdom just above it. And except a man be born "from above, " by the same law, he cannot enterthe Kingdom just above him. There being no passage from one Kingdom toanother, whether from inorganic to organic, or from organic tospiritual, the intervention of Life is a scientific necessity if a stoneor a plant or an animal or a man is to pass from a lower to a highersphere. The plant stretches down to the dead world beneath it, touchesits minerals and gases with its mystery of Life, and brings them upennobled and transformed to the living sphere. The breath of God, blowing where it listeth, touches with its mystery of Life the deadsouls of men, bears them across the bridgeless gulf between the naturaland the spiritual, between the spiritually inorganic and the spirituallyorganic, endows them with its own high qualities, and develops withinthem these new and secret faculties, by which those who are born againare said to _see the Kingdom of God_. 

What is the evidence for this great gulf fixed at the portals of theSpiritual World? Does Science close this gate, or Reason, or Experience, or Revelation? We reply, all four. The initial statement, it is not tobe denied, reaches us from Revelation. But is not this evidence here incourt? Or shall it be said that any argument deduced from this is atransparent circle--that after all we simply come back to theunsubstantiality of the _ipse dixit_? Not altogether, for the analogylends an altogether new authority to the _ipse dixit_. How substantialthat argument really is, is seldom realized. We yield the point heremuch too easily. The right of the Spiritual World to speak of its ownphenomena is as secure as the right of the Natural World to speak ofitself. What is Science but what the Natural World has said to naturalmen? What is Revelation but what the Spiritual World has said toSpiritual men? Let us at least ask what Revelation has announced withreference to this Spiritual Law of Biogenesis; afterward we shallinquire whether Science, while indorsing the verdict, may not also havesome further vindication of its title to be heard. 

The words of Scripture which preface this inquiry contain an explicitand original statement of the Law of Biogenesis for the Spiritual Life. "He that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the Son of Godhath not Life. " Life, that is to say, depends upon contact with Life. Itcannot spring up of itself. It cannot develop out of anything that isnot Life. There is no Spontaneous Generation in religion any more thanin Nature. Christ is the source of Life in the Spiritual World; and hethat hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the Son, whatever elsehe may have, hath not Life. Here, in short, is the categorical denial ofAbiogenesis and the establishment in this high field of the classicalformula _Omne vivum ex vivo_--no Life without antecedent Life. In thismystical theory of the Origin of Life the whole of the New Testamentwriters are agreed. And, as we have already seen, Christ Himself foundsChristianity upon Biogenesis stated in its most literal form. "Except aman be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdomof God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is bornof the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto you, ye must beborn again. "[37] Why did He add _Marvel not_? Did He seek to allay thefear in the bewildered ruler's mind that there was more in this noveldoctrine than a simple analogy from the first to the second birth?

The attitude of the natural man, again, with reference to the Spiritual, is a subject on which the New Testament is equally pronounced. Not onlyin his relation to the spiritual man, but to the whole Spiritual World, the natural man is regarded as _dead_. He is as a crystal to anorganism. The natural world is to the Spiritual as the inorganic to theorganic. "To be carnally minded is _Death_. "[38] "Thou hast a name tolive, but art _Dead_. "[39] "She that liveth in pleasure is _Dead_ whileshe liveth. "[40] "To you he Hath given Life which were _Dead_ intrespasses and sins. "[41]

It is clear that a remarkable harmony exists here between the OrganicWorld as arranged by Science and the Spiritual World as arranged byScripture. We find one great Law guarding the thresholds of both worlds, securing that entrance from a lower sphere shall only take place by adirect regenerating act, and that emanating from the world next in orderabove. There are not two laws of Biogenesis, one for the natural, theother for the Spiritual; one law is for both. Wherever there is Life, Life of any kind, this same law holds. The analogy, therefore, is onlyamong the phenomena; between laws there is no analogy--there isContinuity. In either case, the first step in peopling these worldswith the appropriate living forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one caseis there less of mystery in the act than in the other. The second birthis scarcely less perplexing to the theologian than the first to theembryologist. 

A moment's reflection ought now to make it clear why in the SpiritualWorld there had to be added to this mystery the further mystery of itsproclamation through the medium of Revelation. This is the point atwhich the scientific man is apt to part company with the theologian. Heinsists on having all things materialized before his eyes in Nature. IfNature cannot discuss this with him, there is nothing to discuss. ButNature can discuss this with him--only she cannot open the discussion orsupply all the material to begin with. If Science averred that she coulddo this, the theologian this time must part company with such Science. For any Science which makes such a demand is false to the doctrines ofBiogenesis. What is this but the demand that a lower world, hermeticallysealed against all communication with a world above it, should have amature and intelligent acquaintance with its phenomena and laws? Can themineral discourse to me of animal Life? Can it tell me what lies beyondthe narrow boundary of its inert being? Knowing nothing of other thanthe chemical and physical laws, what is its criticism worth of theprinciples of Biology? And even when some visitor from the upper world, for example some root from a living tree, penetrating its dark recess, honors it with a touch, will it presume to define the form and purposeof its patron, or until the bioplasm has done its gracious work can iteven know that it is being touched? The barrier which separates Kingdomsfrom one another restricts mind not less than matter. Any information ofthe Kingdoms above it that could come to the mineral world could onlycome by a communication from above. An analogy from the lower worldmight make such communication intelligible as well as credible, but theinformation in the first instance must be vouchsafed as a _revelation_. Similarly if those in the organic Kingdom are to know anything of theSpiritual World, that knowledge must at least begin as Revelation. Menwho reject this source of information, by the Law of Biogenesis, canhave no other. It is no spell of ignorance arbitrarily laid upon certainmembers of the Organic Kingdom that prevents them reading the secrets ofthe Spiritual World. It is a scientific necessity. No exposition of thecase could be more truly scientific than this: "The natural manreceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishnessunto him: _neither can he know them_, because they are spirituallydiscerned. "[42] The verb here, it will be again observed, is potential. This is not a dogma of theology, but a necessity of Science. AndScience, for the most part, has consistently accepted the situation. Ithas always proclaimed its ignorance of the Spiritual World. When Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, "Regarding Science as a gradually increasingsphere we may say that every addition to its surface does but bring itinto wider contact with surrounding nescience, "[43] from his standpointhe is quite correct. The endeavors of well-meaning persons to show thatthe Agnostic's position, when he asserts his ignorance of the SpiritualWorld, is only a pretence; the attempts to prove that he really knows agreat deal about it if he would only admit it, are quite misplaced. Hereally does not know. The verdict that the natural man receiveth not thethings of the Spirit of God, that they are foolishness unto him, that_neither can he_ know them, is final as a statement of scientifictruth--a statement on which the entire Agnostic literature is simply onelong commentary. 

We are now in a better position to follow out the more practicalbearings of Biogenesis. There is an immense region surroundingRegeneration, a dark and perplexing region where men would be thankfulfor any light. It may well be that Biogenesis in its many ramificationsmay yet reach down to some of the deeper mysteries of the SpiritualLife. But meantime there is much to define even on the surface. And forthe present we shall content ourselves by turning its light upon one ortwo points of current interest. 

It must long ago have appeared how decisive is the answer of Science tothe practical question with which we set out as to the possibility of aSpontaneous Development of Spiritual Life in the individual soul. Theinquiry into the Origin of Life is the fundamental question alike ofBiology and Christianity. We can afford to enlarge upon it, therefore, even at the risk of repetition. When men are offering us a Christianitywithout a living Spirit, and a personal religion without _conversion_, no emphasis or reiteration can be extreme. Besides, the clearness aswell as the definiteness of the Testimony of Nature to any Spiritualtruth is of immense importance. Regeneration has not merely been anoutstanding difficulty, but an overwhelming obscurity. Even to earnestminds the difficulty of grasping the truth at all has always provedextreme. Philosophically one scarcely sees either the necessity or thepossibility of being born again. Why a virtuous man should not simplygrow better and better until in his own right he enter the Kingdom ofGod is what thousands honestly and seriously fail to understand. NowPhilosophy cannot help us here. Her arguments are, if anything, againstus. But Science answers to the appeal at once. If it be simply pointedout that this is the same absurdity as to ask why a stone should notgrow more and more living till it enters the Organic World, the point isclear in an instant. 

What now, let us ask specifically, distinguishes a Christian man from anon-Christian man? Is it that he has certain mental characteristics notpossessed by the other? Is it that certain faculties have been trainedin him, that morality assumes special and higher manifestations, andcharacter a nobler form? Is the Christian merely an ordinary man whohappens from birth to have been surrounded with a peculiar set of ideas?Is his religion merely that peculiar quality of the moral life definedby Mr. Matthew Arnold as "morality touched by emotion?" And does thepossession of a high ideal, benevolent sympathies, a reverent spirit, and a favorable environment account for what men call his SpiritualLife?

The distinction between them is the same as that between the Organic andthe Inorganic, the living and the dead. What is the difference between acrystal and an organism, a stone and a plant? They have much in common. Both are made of the same atoms. Both display the same properties ofmatter. Both are subject to the Physical Laws. Both may be verybeautiful. But besides possessing all that the crystal has, the plantpossesses something more--a mysterious something called Life. This Lifeis not something which existed in the crystal only in a less developedform. There is nothing at all like it in the crystal. There is nothinglike the first beginning of it in the crystal, not a trace or symptom ofit. This plant is tenanted by something new, an original and uniquepossession added over and above all the properties common to both. Whenfrom vegetable Life we rise to animal Life, here again we find somethingoriginal and unique--unique at least as compared with the mineral. Fromanimal Life we ascend again to Spiritual Life. And here also issomething new, something still more unique. He who lives the SpiritualLife has a distinct kind of Life added to all the other phases of Lifewhich he manifests--a kind of Life infinitely more distinct than is theactive Life of a plant from the inertia of a stone. The Spiritual man ismore distinct in point of fact than is the plant from the stone. This isthe one possible comparison in Nature, for it is the widest distinctionin Nature; but compared with the difference between the Natural and theSpiritual the gulf which divides the organic from the inorganic is ahair's-breadth. The natural man belongs essentially to this presentorder of things. He is endowed simply with a high quality of the naturalanimal Life. But it is Life of so poor a quality that it is not Life atall. He that hath not the Son _hath not Life_; but he that hath the Sonhath Life--a new and distinct and supernatural endowment. He is not ofthis world. He is of the timeless state, of Eternity. _It doth not yetappear what he shall be. _

The difference between the Spiritual man and the Natural man is not adifference of development, but of generation. It is a distinction ofquality not of quantity. A man cannot rise by any natural developmentfrom "morality touched by emotion, " to "morality touched by Life. " Werewe to construct a scientific classification, Science would compel us toarrange all natural men, moral or immoral, educated or vulgar, as onefamily. One might be high in the family group, another low; yet, practically, they are marked by the same set of characteristics--theyeat, sleep, work, think, live, die. But the Spiritual man is removedfrom this family so utterly by the possession of an additionalcharacteristic that a biologist, fully informed of the wholecircumstances, would not hesitate a moment to classify him elsewhere. And if he really entered into these circumstances it would not be inanother family but in another Kingdom. It is an old-fashioned theologywhich divides the world in this way--which speaks of men as Living andDead, Lost and Saved--a stern theology all but fallen into disuse. Thisdifference between the Living and the Dead in souls is so unproved bycasual observation, so impalpable in itself, so startling as a doctrine, that schools of culture have ridiculed or denied the grim distinction. Nevertheless the grim distinction must be retained. It is a scientificdistinction. "He that hath not the Son hath not Life. "

Now it is this great Law which finally distinguishes Christianity fromall other religions. It places the religion of Christ upon a footingaltogether unique. There is no analogy between the Christian religionand, say, Buddhism or the Mohammedan religion. There is no true sense inwhich a man can say, He that hath Buddha hath Life. Buddha has nothingto do with Life. He may have something to do with morality. He maystimulate, impress, teach, guide, but there is no distinct new thingadded to the souls of those who profess Buddhism. These religions _may_be developments of the natural, mental, or moral man. But Christianityprofesses to be more. It is the mental or moral man _plus_ somethingelse or some One else. It is the infusion into the Spiritual man of aNew Life, of a quality unlike anything else in Nature. This constitutesthe separate Kingdom of Christ, and gives to Christianity alone of allthe religions of mankind the strange mark of Divinity. 

Shall we next inquire more precisely what is this something extra whichconstitutes Spiritual Life? What is this strange and new endowment inits nature and vital essence? And the answer is brief--it is Christ. Hethat hath _the Son_ hath Life. 

Are we forsaking the lines of Science in saying so? Yes and No. Sciencehas drawn for us the distinction. It has no voice as to the nature ofthe distinction except this--that the new endowment is a somethingdifferent from anything else with which it deals. It is not ordinaryVitality, it is not intellectual, it is not moral, but something beyond. And Revelation steps in and names what it is--it is Christ. Out of themultitude of sentences where this announcement is made, these few may beselected: "Know ye not your own selves how that _Jesus Christ is inyou_?"[44] "Your bodies are the members of Christ. "[45] "At that day yeshall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. "[46] "Wewill come unto him and make our abode with him. "[47] "I am the Vine, yeare the branches. "[48] "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. "[49]

Three things are clear from these statements: First, they are not merefigures of rhetoric. They are explicit declarations. If language meansanything these words announce a literal fact. In some of Christ's ownstatements the literalism is if possible still more impressive. Forinstance, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink Hisblood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh Myblood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For Myflesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth Myflesh and drinketh My blood _dwelleth in Me and I in him_. "

In the second place, Spiritual Life is not something outside ourselves. The idea is not that Christ is in heaven and that we can stretch outsome mysterious faculty and deal with Him there. This is the vague formin which many conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ'steaching and to the analogy of nature. Vegetable Life is not containedin a reservoir somewhere in the skies, and measured out spasmodically atcertain seasons. The Life is _in_ every plant and tree, inside its ownsubstance and tissue, and continues there until it dies. Thislocalization of Life in the individual is precisely the point whereVitality differs from the other forces of nature, such as magnetism andelectricity. Vitality has much in common with such forces as magnetismand electricity, but there is one inviolable distinction betweenthem--that Life is permanently fixed and rooted in the organism. Thedoctrines of conservation and transformation of energy, that is to say, do not hold for Vitality. The electrician can demagnetize a bar of iron, that is, he can transform its energy of magnetism into somethingelse--heat, or motion, or light--and then re-form these back intomagnetism. For magnetism has no root, no individuality, no fixedindwelling. But the biologist cannot devitalize a plant or an animal andrevivify it again. [50] Life is not one of the homeless forces whichpromiscuously inhabit space, or which can be gathered like electricityfrom the clouds and dissipated back again into space. Life is definiteand resident; and Spiritual Life is not a visit from a force, but aresident tenant in the soul. 

This is, however, to formulate the statement of the third point, thatSpiritual Life is not an ordinary form of energy or force. The analogyfrom Nature indorses this, but here Nature stops. It cannot say whatSpiritual Life is. Indeed what natural Life is remains unknown, and theword Life still wanders through Science without a definition. Nature issilent, therefore, and must be as to Spiritual Life. But in the absenceof natural light we fall back upon that complementary revelation whichalways shines, when truth is necessary and where Nature fails. We askwith Paul when this Life first visited him on the Damascus road, What isthis? "Who art Thou, Lord?" And we hear, "I am Jesus. "[51]

We must expect to find this denied. Besides a proof from Revelation, this is an argument from experience. And yet we shall still be told thatthis Spiritual Life is a force. But let it be remembered what this meansin Science, it means the heresy of confounding Force with Vitality. Wemust also expect to be told that this Spiritual Life is simply adevelopment of ordinary Life--just as Dr. Bastian tells us that naturalLife is formed according to the same laws which determine the moresimple chemical combinations. But remember what this means in Science. It is the heresy of Spontaneous Generation, a heresy so thoroughlydiscredited now that scarcely an authority in Europe will lend his nameto it. Who art Thou, Lord? Unless we are to be allowed to holdSpontaneous Generation there is no alternative: Life can only come fromLife: "I am Jesus. "

A hundred other questions now rush into the mind about this Life: Howdoes it come? Why does it come? How is it manifested? What faculty doesit employ? Where does it reside? Is it communicable? What are itsconditions? One or two of these questions may be vaguely answered, therest bring us face to face with mystery. Let it not be thought that thescientific treatment of a Spiritual subject has reduced religion to aproblem of physics, or demonstrated God by the laws of biology. Areligion without mystery is an absurdity. Even Science has itsmysteries, none more inscrutable than around this Science of Life. Ittaught us sooner or later to expect mystery, and now we enter itsdomain. Let it be carefully marked, however, that the cloud does notfall and cover us till we have ascertained the most momentous truth ofReligion--that Christ is in the Christian. 

Not that there is anything new in this. The Churches have always heldthat Christ was the source of Life. No spiritual man ever claims thathis spirituality is his own. "I live, " he will tell you; "neverthelessit is not I, but Christ liveth in me. " Christ our Life has indeed beenthe only doctrine in the Christian Church from Paul to Augustine, fromCalvin to Newman. Yet, when the Spiritual man is cross-examined uponthis confession it is astonishing to find what uncertain hold it hasupon his mind. Doctrinally he states it adequately and holds itunhesitatingly. But when pressed with the literal question he shrinksfrom the answer. We do not really believe that the Living Christ hastouched us, that He makes His abode in us. Spiritual Life is not asreal to us as natural Life. And we cover our retreat into unbelievingvagueness with a plea of reverence, justified, as we think, by the "Thusfar and no farther" of ancient Scriptures. There is often a great dealof intellectual sin concealed under this old aphorism. When men do notreally wish to go farther they find it an honorable conveniencesometimes to sit down on the outermost edge of the Holy Ground on thepretext of taking off their shoes. Yet we must be certain that, making avirtue of reverence, we are not merely excusing ignorance; or, under theplea of mystery, evading a truth which has been stated in the NewTestament a hundred times, in the most literal form, and with all butmonotonous repetition. The greatest truths are always the most looselyheld. And not the least of the advantages of taking up this questionfrom the present standpoint is that we may see how a confused doctrinecan really bear the luminous definition of Science and force itself uponus with all the weight of Natural Law. 

What is mystery to many men, what feeds their worship, and at the sametime spoils it, is that area round all great truth which is reallycapable of illumination, and into which every earnest mind is permittedand commanded to go with a light. We cry mystery long before the regionof mystery comes. True mystery casts no shadows around. It is a suddenand awful gulf yawning across the field of knowledge; its form isirregular, but its lips are clean cut and sharp, and the mind can go tothe very verge and look down the precipice into the dim abyss--

 "Where writhing clouds unroll, Striving to utter themselves in shapes. "

We have gone with a light to the very verge of this truth. We have seenthat the Spiritual Life is an endowment from the Spiritual World, andthat the Living Spirit of Christ dwells in the Christian. But now thegulf yawns black before us. What more does Science know of life?Nothing. It knows nothing further about its origin in detail. It knowsnothing about its ultimate nature. It cannot even define it. There is ahelplessness in scientific books here, and a continual confession of itwhich to thoughtful minds is almost touching. Science, therefore, hasnot eliminated the true mysteries from our faith, but only the false. And it has done more. It has made true mystery scientific. Religion inhaving mystery is in analogy with all around it. Where there isexceptional mystery in the Spiritual world it will generally be foundthat there is a corresponding mystery in the natural world. And, asOrigen centuries ago insisted, the difficulties of Religion are simplythe difficulties of Nature. 

One question more we may look at for a moment. What can be gathered onthe surface as to the process of Regeneration in the individual soul?From the analogies of Biology we should expect three things: First, thatthe New Life should dawn suddenly; Second, that it should come "withoutobservation;" Third, that it should develop gradually. On two of thesepoints there can be little controversy. The gradualness of growth is acharacteristic which strikes the simplest observer. Long before the wordEvolution was coined Christ applied it in this very connection--"Firstthe blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. " It is wellknown also to those who study the parables of Nature that there is anascending scale of slowness as we rise in the scale of Life. Growth ismost gradual in the highest forms. Man attains his maturity after ascore of years; the monad completes its humble cycle in a day. Whatwonder if development be tardy in the Creature of Eternity? AChristian's sun has sometimes set, and a critical world has seen as yetno corn in the ear. As yet? "As yet, " in this long Life, has not begun. Grant him the years proportionate to his place in the scale of Life. "The time of harvest is _not yet_. "

Again, in addition to being slow, the phenomena of growth are secret. Life is invisible. When the New Life manifests itself it is a surprise. _Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. _ When theplant lives whence has the Life come? When it dies whither has it gone?_Thou canst not tell . . . So is every one that is born of the Spirit. Forthe kingdom of God cometh without observation. _

Yet once more--and this is a point of strange and frivolousdispute--this Life comes suddenly. This is the only way in which Lifecan come. Life cannot come gradually--health can, structure can, but notLife. A new theology has laughed at the Doctrine of Conversion. SuddenConversion especially has been ridiculed as untrue to philosophy andimpossible to human nature. We may not be concerned in buttressing anytheology because it is old. But we find that this old theology isscientific. There may be cases--they are probably in the majority--wherethe moment of contact with the Living Spirit though sudden has beenobscure. But the real moment and the conscious moment are two differentthings. Science pronounces nothing as to the conscious moment. If it didit would probably say that that was seldom the real moment--just as inthe natural Life the conscious moment is not the real moment. The momentof birth in the natural world is not a conscious moment--we do not knowwe are born till long afterward. Yet there are men to whom the Origin ofthe New Life in time has been no difficulty. To Paul, for instance, Christ seems to have come at a definite period of time, the exact momentand second of which could have been known. And this is certainly, intheory at least, the normal Origin of Life, according to the principlesof Biology. The line between the living and the dead is a sharp line. When the dead atoms of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, are seizedupon by Life, the organism at first is very lowly. It possesses fewfunctions. It has little beauty. Growth is the work of time. But Life isnot. That comes in a moment. At one moment it was dead; the next itlived. This is conversion, the "passing, " as the Bible calls it, "fromDeath unto Life. " Those who have stood by another's side at the solemnhour of this dread possession have been conscious sometimes of anexperience which words are not allowed to utter--a something like thesudden snapping of a chain, the waking from a dream. 

FOOTNOTES:

[33] "Beginnings of Life. " By H. C. Bastian, M. A. , M. D. , F. R. S. Macmillan, vol. Ii. P. 633. 

[34] "Critiques and Addresses. " T. H. Huxley. F. R. S. , p. 239. 

[35] _Nineteenth Century_, 1878, p. 507. 

[36] This being the crucial point it may not be inappropriate tosupplement the quotations already given in the text with thefollowing:--

"We are in the presence of the one incommunicable gulf--the gulf of allgulfs--that gulf which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm is as powerless to effaceas any other material expedient that has ever been suggested since theeyes of men first looked into it--the mighty gulf between death andlife. "--"As Regards Protoplasm. " By J. Hutchinson Stirling, LL. D. , p. 42. 

"The present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link between theliving and the not-living. "--Huxley, "Encyclopædia Britannica" (newEd. ). Art. "Biology. "

"Whoever recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all the attempts madevery recently to discover a decided support for the _generatio æquivoca_in the lower forms of transition from the inorganic to the organicworld, will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, soutterly discredited, should be in any way accepted as the basis of allour views of life. "--Virchow: "The Freedom of Science in the ModernState. "

"All really scientific experience tells us that life can be producedfrom a living antecedent only. "--"The Unseen Universe, " 6th Ed. , p. 229. 

[37] John iii. 

[38] Rom. Viii. 6. 

[39] Rev. Iii. 1. 

[40] 1 Tim. V. 6. 

[41] Eph. Ii. 1, 5. 

[42] 1 Cor. Ii. 14. 

[43] "First Principles, " 2d Ed. , p. 17. 

[44] 2 Cor. Xii. 5. 

[45] 1 Cor. Vi. 15. 

[46] John xiv. 20. 

[47] John xiv. 21-23. 

[48] John xv. 4. 

[49] Gal. Ii. 20. 

[50] One must not be misled by popular statements in this connection, such as this of Professor Owen's: "There are organisms which we candevitalize and revitalize--devive and revive--many times. " (_MonthlyMicroscopical Journal_, May, 1869, p. 294. ) The reference is of courseto the extraordinary capacity for _resuscitation_ possessed by many ofthe Protozoa and other low forms of life. 

[51] Acts ix. 5. 

DEGENERATION. 

 "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw and considered it well; I looked upon it and received instruction. "--_Solomon. _

 "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"--_Hebrews. _

 "We have as possibilities either Balance, or Elaboration, or Degeneration. "--_E. Ray Lankester. _

In one of his best known books, Mr. Darwin brings out a fact which maybe illustrated in some such way as this: Suppose a bird fancier collectsa flock of tame pigeons distinguished by all the infinite ornamentationsof their race. They are of all kinds, of every shade of color, andadorned with every variety of marking. He takes them to an uninhabitedisland and allows them to fly off wild into the woods. They found acolony there, and after the lapse of many years the owner returns to thespot. He will find that a remarkable change has taken place in theinterval. The birds, or their descendants rather, have all becomechanged into the same color. The black, the white and the dun, thestriped, the spotted, and the ringed, are all metamorphosed into one--adark slaty blue. Two plain black bands monotonously repeat themselvesupon the wings of each, and the loins beneath are white; but all thevariety, all the beautiful colors, all the old graces of form it may be, have disappeared. These improvements were the result of care and nature, of domestication, of civilization; and now that these influences areremoved, the birds themselves undo the past and lose what they hadgained. The attempt to elevate the race has been mysteriously thwarted. It is as if the original bird, the far remote ancestor of all doves, hadbeen blue, and these had been compelled by some strange law to discardthe badges of their civilization and conform to the ruder image of thefirst. The natural law by which such a change occurs is called _ThePrinciple of Reversion to Type_. 

It is a proof of the universality of this law that the same thing willhappen with a plant. A garden is planted, let us say, with strawberriesand roses, and for a number of years is left alone. In process of timeit will run to waste. But this does not mean that the plants will reallywaste away, but that they will change into something else, and, as itinvariably appears, into something worse; in the one case, namely, intothe small, wild strawberry of the woods, and in the other into theprimitive dog-rose of the hedges. 

If we neglect a garden plant, then, a natural principle of deteriorationcomes in, and changes it into a worse plant. And if we neglect a bird, by the same imperious law it will be gradually changed into an uglierbird. Or if we neglect almost any of the domestic animals, they willrapidly revert to wild and worthless forms again. 

Now the same thing exactly would happen in the case of you or me. Whyshould Man be an exception to any of the laws of Nature? Nature knowshim simply as an animal--Sub-kingdom _Vertebrata_, Class _Mammalia_, Order _Bimana_. And the law of Reversion to Type runs through allcreation. If a man neglect himself for a few years he will change into aworse man and a lower man. If it is his body that he neglects, he willdeteriorate into a wild and bestial savage--like the de-humanized menwho are discovered sometimes upon desert islands. If it is his mind, itwill degenerate into imbecility and madness--solitary confinement hasthe power to unmake men's minds and leave them idiots. If he neglect hisconscience, it will run off into lawlessness and vice. Or, lastly, ifit is his soul, it must inevitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay. 

We have here, then, a thoroughly natural basis for the question beforeus. If we neglect, with this universal principle staring us in the face, how shall we escape? If we neglect the ordinary means of keeping agarden in order, how shall it escape running to weeds and waste? Or, ifwe neglect the opportunities for cultivating the mind, how shall itescape ignorance and feebleness? So, if we neglect the soul, how shallit escape the natural retrograde movement, the inevitable relapse intobarrenness and death?

It is not necessary, surely, to pause for proof that there is such aretrograde principle in the being of every man. It is demonstrated byfacts, and by the analogy of all Nature. Three possibilities of life, according to Science, are open to all living organisms--Balance, Evolution, and Degeneration. The first denotes the precariouspersistence of a life along what looks like a level path, a characterwhich seems to hold its own alike against the attacks of evil and theappeals of good. It implies a set of circumstances so balanced by choiceor fortune that they neither influence for better nor for worse. Butexcept in theory this state of equilibrium, normal in the inorganickingdom, is really foreign to the world of life; and what seems inertiamay be a true Evolution unnoticed from its slowness, or likelier still amovement of Degeneration subtly obliterating as it falls the very tracesof its former height. From this state of apparent Balance, Evolution isthe escape in the upward direction, Degeneration in the lower. ButDegeneration, rather than Balance or Elaboration, is the possibility oflife embraced by the majority of mankind. And the choice is determinedby man's own nature. The life of Balance is difficult. It lies on theverge of continual temptation, its perpetual adjustments becomefatiguing, its measured virtue is monotonous and uninspiring. Moredifficult still, apparently, is the life of ever upward growth. Most menattempt it for a time, but growth is slow; and despair overtakes themwhile the goal is far away. Yet none of these reasons fully explains thefact that the alternative which remains is adopted by the majority ofmen. That Degeneration is easy only half accounts for it. Why is iteasy? Why but that already in each man's very nature this principle issupreme? He feels within his soul a silent drifting motion impelling himdownward with irresistible force. Instead of aspiring to Conversion to ahigher Type he submits by a law of his nature to Reversion to a lower. This is Degeneration--that principle by which the organism, failing todevelop itself, failing even to keep what it has got, deteriorates, andbecomes more and more adapted to a degraded form of life. 

All men who know themselves are conscious that this tendency, deep-rooted and active, exists within their nature. Theologically it isdescribed as a gravitation, a bias toward evil. The Bible view is thatman is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. And experience tells himthat he will shape himself into further sin and ever deepening iniquitywithout the smallest effort, without in the least intending it, and inthe most natural way in the world if he simply let his life run. It ison this principle that, completing the conception, the wicked are saidfurther in the Bible to be lost. They are not really lost as yet, butthey are on the sure way to it. The bias of their lives is in fullaction. There is no drag on anywhere. The natural tendencies are havingit all their own way; and although the victims may be quite unconsciousthat all this is going on, it is patent to every one who considers eventhe natural bearings of the case that "the end of these things isDeath. " When we see a man fall from the top of a five-story house, wesay the man is lost. We say that before he has fallen a foot; for thesame principle that made him fall the one foot will undoubtedly make himcomplete the descent by falling another eighty or ninety feet. So thathe is a dead man, or a lost man from the very first. The gravitation ofsin in a human soul acts precisely in the same way. Gradually, withgathering momentum it sinks a man further and further from God andrighteousness, and lands him, by the sheer action of a natural law, inthe hell of a neglected life. 

But the lesson is not less clear from analogy. Apart even from the lawof Degeneration, apart from Reversion to Type, there is in every livingorganism a law of Death. We are wont to imagine that Nature is full ofLife. In reality it is full of Death. One cannot say it is natural for aplant to live. Examine its nature fully, and you have to admit that itsnatural tendency is to die. It is kept from dying by a mere temporaryendowment which gives it an ephemeral dominion over the elements--givesit power to utilize for a brief span the rain, the sunshine, and theair. Withdraw this temporary endowment for a moment and its true natureis revealed. Instead of overcoming Nature it is overcome. The verythings which appeared to minister to its growth and beauty now turnagainst it and make it decay and die. The sun which warmed it, withersit; the air and rain which nourished it, rot it. It is the very forceswhich we associate with life which, when their true nature appears, arediscovered to be really the ministers of death. 

This law, which is true for the whole plant-world, is also valid for theanimal and for man. Air is not life, but corruption--so literallycorruption that the only way to keep out corruption, when life hasebbed, is to keep out air. Life is merely a temporary suspension ofthese destructive powers; and this is truly one of the most accuratedefinitions of life we have yet received--"the sum total of thefunctions which resist death. "

Spiritual life, in like manner, is the sum total of the functions whichresist sin. The soul's atmosphere is the daily trial, circumstance, andtemptation of the world. And as it is life alone which gives the plantpower to utilize the elements, and as, without it, they utilize it, soit is the spiritual life alone which gives the soul power to utilizetemptation and trial; and without it they destroy the soul. How shall weescape if we refuse to exercise these functions--in other words, if weneglect?

This destroying process, observe, goes on quite independently of God'sjudgment on sin. God's judgment on sin is another and a more awful factof which this may be a part. But it is a distinct fact by itself, whichwe can hold and examine separately, that on purely natural principlesthe soul that is left to itself unwatched, uncultivated, unredeemed, must fall away into death by its own nature. The soul that sinneth "itshall die. " It shall die, not necessarily because God passes sentence ofdeath upon it, but because it cannot help dying. It has neglected "thefunctions which resist death" and has always been dying. The punishmentis in its very nature, and the sentence is being gradually carried outall along the path of life by ordinary processes which enforce theverdict with the appalling faithfulness of law. 

There is an affectation that religious truths lie beyond the sphere ofthe comprehension which serves men in ordinary things. This question atleast must be an exception. It lies as near the natural as thespiritual. If it makes no impression on a man to know that God willvisit his iniquities upon him, he cannot blind himself to the fact thatNature will. Do we not all know what it is to be punished by Nature fordisobeying her? We have looked round the wards of a hospital, a prison, or a madhouse, and seen there Nature at work squaring her accounts withsin. And we knew as we looked that if no Judge sat on the throne ofheaven at all there was a Judgment there, where an inexorable Nature wascrying aloud for justice, and carrying out her heavy sentences forviolated laws. 

When God gave Nature the law into her own hands in this way, He seems tohave given her two rules upon which her sentences were to be based. Theone is formally enunciated in this sentence, "WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETHTHAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP. " The other is informally expressed in this, "IFWE NEGLECT HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE?"

The first is the positive law, and deals with sins of commission. Theother, which we are now discussing, is the negative, and deals with sinsof omission. It does not say anything about sowing but about not sowing. It takes up the case of souls which are lying fallow. It does not say, if we sow corruption we shall reap corruption. Perhaps we would not beso unwise, so regardless of ourselves, of public opinion, as to sowcorruption. It does not say, if we sow tares we shall reap tares. Wemight never do anything so foolish as sow tares. But if we sow nothing, it says, we shall reap nothing. If we put nothing into the field, weshall take nothing out. If we neglect to cultivate in summer, how shallwe escape starving in winter?

Now the Bible raises this question, but does not answer it--because itis too obvious to need answering. How shall we escape if we neglect? Theanswer is, we cannot. In the nature of things we cannot. We cannotescape any more than a man can escape drowning who falls into the seaand has neglected to learn to swim. In the nature of things he cannotescape--nor can he escape who has neglected the great salvation. 

Now why should such fatal consequences follow a simple process likeneglect? The popular impression is that a man, to be what is calledlost, must be an open and notorious sinner. He must be one who hasabandoned all that is good and pure in life, and sown to the flesh withall his might and main. But this principle goes further. It says simply, "If we neglect. " Any one may see the reason why a notoriously wickedperson should not escape; but why should not all the rest of us escape?What is to hinder people who are not notoriously wicked escaping--peoplewho never sowed anything in particular? Why is it such a sin to sownothing in particular?

There must be some hidden and vital relation between these three words, Salvation, Neglect, and Escape--some reasonable, essential, andindissoluble connection. Why are these words so linked together as toweight this clause with all the authority and solemnity of a sentence ofdeath?

The explanation has partly been given already. It lies still further, however, in the meaning of the word Salvation. And this, of course, isnot at all Salvation in the ordinary sense of forgiveness of sin. Thisis one great meaning of Salvation, the first and the greatest. But thisis spoken to people who are supposed to have had this. It is the broaderword, therefore, and includes not only forgiveness of sin but salvationor deliverance from the downward bias of the soul. It takes in thatwhole process of rescue from the power of sin and selfishness thatshould be going on from day to day in every human life. We have seenthat there is a natural principle in man lowering him, deadening him, pulling him down by inches to the mere animal plane, blinding reason, searing conscience, paralyzing will. This is the active destroyingprinciple, or Sin. Now to counteract this, God has discovered to usanother principle which will stop this drifting process in the soul, steer it round, and make it drift the other way. This is the activesaving principle, or Salvation. If a man find the first of these powersfuriously at work within him, dragging his whole life downward todestruction, there is only one way to escape his fate--to take resolutehold of the upward power, and be borne by it to the opposite goal. Andas this second power is the only one in the universe which has theslightest real effect upon the first, how shall a man escape if heneglect it? To neglect it is to cut off the only possible chance ofescape. In declining this he is simply abandoning himself with his eyesopen to that other and terrible energy which is already there, andwhich, in the natural course of things, is bearing him every momentfurther and further from escape. 

From the very nature of Salvation, therefore, it is plain that the onlything necessary to make it of no effect is neglect. Hence the Biblecould not fail to lay strong emphasis on a word so vital. It was notnecessary for it to say, how shall we escape if we trample upon thegreat salvation, or doubt, or despise, or reject it. A man who has beenpoisoned only need neglect the antidote and he will die. It makes nodifference whether he dashes it on the ground, or pours it out of thewindow, or sets it down by his bedside, and stares at it all the time heis dying. He will die just the same, whether he destroys it in apassion, or coolly refuses to have anything to do with it. And as amatter of fact probably most deaths, spiritually, are gradualdissolutions of the last class rather than rash suicides of the first. 

This, then, is the effect of neglecting salvation from the side ofsalvation itself; and the conclusion is that from the very nature ofsalvation escape is out of the question. Salvation is a definiteprocess. If a man refuse to submit himself to that process, clearly hecannot have the benefits of it. _As many as received Him to them gaveHe_ power _to become the sons of God. _ He does not avail himself of thispower. It may be mere carelessness or apathy. Nevertheless the neglectis fatal. He cannot escape because he will not. 

Turn now to another aspect of the case--to the effect upon the soulitself. Neglect does more for the soul than make it miss salvation. Itdespoils it of its capacity for salvation. Degeneration in the spiritualsphere involves primarily the impairing of the faculties of salvationand ultimately the loss of them. It really means that the very soulitself becomes piecemeal destroyed until the very capacity for God andrighteousness is gone. 

The soul, in its highest sense, is a vast capacity for God. It is like acurious chamber added on to being, and somehow involving being, achamber with elastic and contractile walls, which can be expanded, withGod as its guest, illimitably, but which without God shrinks andshrivels until every vestige of the Divine is gone, and God's image isleft without God's Spirit. One cannot call what is left a soul; it is ashrunken, useless organ, a capacity sentenced to death by disuse, whichdroops as a withered hand by the side, and cumbers nature like a rottedbranch. Nature has her revenge upon neglect as well as uponextravagance. Misuse, with her, is as mortal a sin as abuse. 

There are certain burrowing animals--the mole for instance--which havetaken to spending their lives beneath the surface of the ground. AndNature has taken her revenge upon them in a thoroughly natural way--shehas closed up their eyes. If they mean to live in darkness, she argues, eyes are obviously a superfluous function. By neglecting them theseanimals made it clear they do not want them. And as one of Nature'sfixed principles is that nothing shall exist in vain, the eyes arepresently taken away, or reduced to a rudimentary state. There arefishes also which have had to pay the same terrible forfeit for havingmade their abode in dark caverns where eyes can never be required. Andin exactly the same way the spiritual eye must die and lose its power bypurely natural law if the soul choose to walk in darkness rather than inlight. 

This is the meaning of the favorite paradox of Christ, "From him thathath not shall be taken away even that which he hath;" "take thereforethe talent from him. " The religious faculty is a talent, the mostsplendid and sacred talent we possess. Yet it is subject to the naturalconditions and laws. If any man take his talent and hide it in a napkin, although it is doing him neither harm nor good apparently, God will notallow him to have it. Although it is lying there rolled up in thedarkness, not conspicuously affecting any one, still God will not allowhim to keep it. He will not allow him to keep it any more than Naturewould allow the fish to keep their eyes. Therefore, He says, "take thetalent from him. " And Nature does it. 

This man's crime was simply neglect--"thou wicked and _slothful_servant. " It was a wasted life--a life which failed in the holystewardship of itself. Such a life is a peril to all who cross its path. Degeneration compasses Degeneration. It is only a character which isitself developing that can aid the Evolution of the world and so fulfillthe end of life. For this high usury each of our lives, however smallmay seem our capital, was given us by God. And it is just the men whosecapital seems small who need to choose the best investments. It issignificant that it was the man who had only one talent who was guiltyof neglecting it. Men with ten talents, men of large gifts and burningenergies, either direct their powers nobly and usefully, or misdirectthem irretrievably. It is those who belong to the rank and file of lifewho need this warning most. Others have an abundant store and sow to thespirit or the flesh with a lavish hand. But we, with our small gift, what boots our sowing? Our temptation as ordinary men is to neglect tosow at all. The interest on our talent would be so small that we excuseourselves with the reflection that it is not worth while. 

It is no objection to all this to say that we are unconscious of thisneglect or misdirection of our powers. That is the darkest feature inthe case. If there were uneasiness there might be hope. If there were, somewhere about our soul, a something which was not gone to sleep likeall the rest; if there were a contending force anywhere; if we would leteven that work instead of neglecting it, it would gain strength fromhour to hour, and waken up one at a time each torpid and dishonoredfaculty till our whole nature became alive with strivings against self, and every avenue was open wide for God. But the apathy, the numbness ofthe soul, what can be said of such a symptom but that it means thecreeping on of death? There are accidents in which the victims feel nopain. They are well and strong they think. But they are dying. And ifyou ask the surgeon by their side what makes him give this verdict, hewill say it is this numbness over the frame which tells how some of theparts have lost already the very capacity for life. 

Nor is it the least tragic accompaniment of this process that itseffects may even be concealed from others. The soul undergoingDegeneration, surely by some arrangement with Temptation planned in theuttermost hell, possesses the power of absolute secrecy. When all withinis festering decay and rottenness, a Judas, without anomaly, may kisshis Lord. This invisible consumption, like its fell analogue in thenatural world, may even keep its victim beautiful while slowly slayingit. When one examines the little _Crustacea_ which have inhabited forcenturies the lakes of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, one is at firstastonished to find these animals apparently endowed with perfect eyes. The pallor of the head is broken by two black pigment specks, conspicuous indeed as the only bits of color on the whole blanched body;and these, even to the casual observer, certainly represent well-definedorgans of vision. But what do they with eyes in these Stygian waters?There reigns an everlasting night. Is the law for once at fault? A swiftincision with the scalpel, a glance with a lens, and their secret isbetrayed. The eyes are a mockery. Externally they are organs ofvision--the front of the eye is perfect; behind, there is nothing but amass of ruins. The optic nerve is a shrunken, atrophied and insensatethread. These animals have organs of vision, and yet they have novision. They have eyes, but they see not. 

Exactly what Christ said of men: They had eyes, but no vision. And thereason is the same. It is the simplest problem of natural history. The_Crustacea_ of the Mammoth Cave have chosen to abide in darkness. Therefore they have become fitted for it. By refusing to see they havewaived the right to see. And Nature has grimly humored them. Nature hadto do it by her very constitution. It is her defence against waste thatdecay of faculty should immediately follow disuse of function. He thathath ears to hear, he whose ears have not degenerated, let him hear. 

Men tell us sometimes there is no such thing as an atheist. There mustbe. There are some men to whom it is true that there is no God. Theycannot see God because they have no eye. They have only an abortiveorgan, atrophied by neglect. 

All this, it is commonplace again to insist, is not the effect ofneglect when we die, but while we live. The process is in full careerand operation now. It is useless projecting consequences into the futurewhen the effects may be measured now. We are always practicing theselittle deceptions upon ourselves, postponing the consequences of ourmisdeeds as if they were to culminate some other day about the time ofdeath. It makes us sin with a lighter hand to run an account withretribution, as it were, and delay the reckoning time with God. Butevery day is a reckoning day. Every soul is a Book of Judgment andNature, as a recording angel, marks there every sin. As all will bejudged by the great Judge some day, all are judged by Nature now. Thesin of yesterday, as part of its penalty, has the sin of to-day. Allfollow us in silent retribution on our past, and go with us to thegrave. We cannot cheat Nature. No sleight-of-heart can rob religion of_a present_, the immortal nature of a _now_. The poet sings--

 "I looked behind to find my past, And lo, it had gone before. "

But no, not all. The unforgiven sins are not away in keeping somewhereto be let loose upon us when we die; they are here, within us, now. To-day brings the resurrection of their past, to-morrow of to-day. Andthe powers of sin, to the exact strength that we have developed them, nearing their dreadful culmination with every breath we draw, are here, within us, now. The souls of some men are already honey-combed throughand through with the eternal consequences of neglect, so that taking thenatural and rational view of their case _just now_, it is simplyinconceivable that there is any escape _just now_. What a fearful thingit is to fall into the hands of the living God! A fearful thing even if, as the philosopher tells us, "the hands of the Living God are the Lawsof Nature. "

Whatever hopes of a "heaven" a neglected soul may have, can be shown tobe an ignorant and delusive dream. How is the soul to escape to heavenif it has neglected for a lifetime the means of escape from the worldand self? And where is the capacity for heaven to come from if it be notdeveloped on earth? Where, indeed, is even the smallest spiritualappreciation of God and heaven to come from when so little ofspirituality has ever been known or manifested here? If every Godwardaspiration of the soul has been allowed to become extinct, and everyinlet that was open to heaven to be choked, and every talent forreligious love and trust to have been persistently neglected andignored, where are the faculties to come from that would ever find thefaintest relish in such things as God and heaven give?

These three words, Salvation, Escape, and Neglect, then, are notcasually, but organically and necessarily connected. Their doctrine isscientific, not arbitrary. Escape means nothing more than the gradualemergence of the higher being from the lower, and nothing less. It meansthe gradual putting off of all that cannot enter the higher state, orheaven, and simultaneously the putting on of Christ. It involves theslow completing of the soul and the development of the capacity for God. 

Should any one object that from this scientific standpoint the oppositeof salvation is annihilation, the answer is at hand. From thisstandpoint there is no such word. 

If, then, escape is to be open to us, it is not to come to us somehow, vaguely. We are not to hope for anything startling or mysterious. It isa definite opening along certain lines which are definitely marked byGod, which begin at the Cross of Christ, and lead direct to Him. Eachman in the silence of his own soul must work out this salvation forhimself with fear and trembling--with fear, realizing the momentousissues of his task; with trembling, lest before the tardy work be donethe voice of Death should summon him to stop. 

What these lines are may, in closing, be indicated in a word. The trueproblem of the spiritual life may be said to be, do the opposite ofNeglect. Whatever this is, do it, and you shall escape. It will justmean that you are so to cultivate the soul that all its powers will openout to God, and in beholding God be drawn away from sin. The idea reallyis to develop among the ruins of the old a new "creature"--a newcreature which, while the old is suffering Degeneration from Neglect, isgradually to unfold, to escape away and develop on spiritual lines tospiritual beauty and strength. And as our conception of spiritual beingmust be taken simply from natural being, our ideas of the lines alongwhich the new religious nature is to run must be borrowed from the knownlines of the old. 

There is, for example, a Sense of Sight in the religious nature. Neglectthis, leave it undeveloped and you never miss it. You simply seenothing. But develop it and you see God. And the line along which todevelop it is known to us. Become pure in heart. The pure in heart shallsee God. Here, then, is one opening for soul-culture--the avenue throughpurity of heart to the spiritual seeing of God. 

Then there is a Sense of Sound. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, andyou never miss it. You simply hear nothing. Develop it, and you hearGod. And the line along which to develop it is known to us. Obey Christ. Become one of Christ's flock. "The sheep hear His voice, and He calleththem by name. " Here, then, is another opportunity for the culture of thesoul--a gateway through the Shepherd's fold to hear the Shepherd'svoice. 

And there is a Sense of Touch to be acquired--such a sense as the womanhad who touched the hem of Christ's garment, that wonderful electrictouch called faith, which moves the very heart of God. 

And there is a Sense of Taste--a spiritual hunger after God; a somethingwithin which tastes and sees that He is good. And there is the Talentfor Inspiration. Neglect that, and all the scenery of the spiritualworld is flat and frozen. But cultivate it, and it penetrates the wholesoul with sacred fire, and illuminates creation with God. And last ofall there is the great capacity for Love, even for the love of God--theexpanding capacity for feeling more and more its height and depth, itslength and breadth. Till that is felt no man can really understand thatword, "so great salvation, " for what is its measure but that other "so"of Christ--God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son?Verily, how shall we escape if we neglect that?[52]

FOOTNOTES:

[52] For the scientific basis of this spiritual law the following worksmay be consulted:--

"The Origin of Species. " By Charles Darwin, F. R. S. London: John Murray. 1872. 

"Degeneration. " By E. Ray Lankester, F. R. S. London: Macmillan. 1880. 

"Der Ursprung der Wirbelthiere und das Princip des Functions Wechsels. "Dr. A. Dorhn. Leipzig: 1875. 

"Lessons from Nature. " By St. George Mivart, F. R. S. London: John Murray. 1876. 

"The Natural Conditions of Existence as they Affect Animal Life. " KarlSemper. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1881. 

GROWTH. 

 "Is not the evidence of Ease on the very front of all the greatest works in existence? Do they not say plainly to us, not 'there has been a great _effort_ here, ' but 'there has been a great _power_ here?' It is not the weariness of mortality but the strength of divinity, which we have to recognize in all mighty things; and that is just what we now never recognize, but think that we are to do great things by help of iron bars and perspiration; alas! we shall do nothing that way, but lose some pounds of our own weight. "--_Ruskin. _

 "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. "--_The Sermon on the Mount. _

 "Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit. "--_Juvenal. _

What gives the peculiar point to this object-lesson from the lips ofJesus is, that He not only made the illustration, but made the lilies. It is like an inventor describing his own machine. He made the liliesand He made me--both on the same broad principle. Both together, man andflower, He planted deep in the Providence of God; but as men are dull atstudying themselves He points to this companion-phenomenon to teach ushow to live a free and natural life, a life which God will unfold forus, without our anxiety, as He unfolds the flower. For Christ's wordsare not a general appeal to consider nature. Men are not to consider thelilies simply to admire their beauty, to dream over the delicatestrength and grace of stem and leaf. The point they were to consider was_how they grew_--how without anxiety or care the flower woke intoloveliness, how without weaving these leaves were woven, how withouttoiling these complex tissues spun themselves, and how without anyeffort or friction the whole slowly came ready-made from the loom of Godin its more than Solomon-like glory. "So, " He says, making theapplication beyond dispute, "you care-worn, anxious men must grow. You, too, need take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what yeshall drink or what ye shall put on. For if God so clothe the grass ofthe field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shallHe not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"

This nature-lesson was a great novelty in its day; but all men now whohave even a "little faith" have learned this Christian secret of acomposed life. Apart even from the parable of the lily, the failures ofthe past have taught most of us the folly of disquieting ourselves invain, and we have given up the idea that by taking thought we can add acubit to our stature. 

But no sooner has our life settled down to this calm trust in God than anew and graver anxiety begins. This time it is not for the body we arein travail, but for the soul. For the temporal life we have consideredthe lilies, but how is the spiritual life to grow. How are we to becomebetter men? How are we to grow in grace? By what thought shall we addthe cubits to the spiritual stature and reach the fullness of thePerfect Man? And because we know ill how to do this, the old anxietycomes back again and our inner life is once more an agony of conflictand remorse. After all, we have but transferred our anxious thoughtsfrom the body to the soul. Our efforts after Christian growth seem onlya succession of failures, and instead of rising into the beauty ofholiness our life is a daily heartbreak and humiliation. 

Now the reason of this is very plain. We have forgotten the parable ofthe lily. Violent efforts to grow are right in earnestness, but whollywrong in principle. There is but one principle of growth both for thenatural and spiritual, for animal and plant, for body and soul. For allgrowth is an organic thing. And the principle of growing in grace isonce more this, "Consider the lilies _how they grow_. "

In seeking to extend the analogy from the body to the soul there are twothings about the lilies' growth, two characteristics of all growth, onwhich one must fix attention. These are--

First, Spontaneousness. 

Second, Mysteriousness. 

I. Spontaneousness. There are three lines along which one may seek forevidence of the spontaneousness of growth. The first is Science. And theargument here could not be summed up better than in the words of Jesus. The lilies grow, He says, of themselves; they toil not, neither do theyspin. They grow, that is, automatically, spontaneously, without trying, without fretting, without thinking. Applied in any direction, to plant, to animal, to the body or to the soul this law holds. A boy grows, forexample, without trying. One or two simple conditions are fulfilled, andthe growth goes on. He thinks probably as little about the condition asabout the result; he fulfills the conditions by habit, the resultfollows by nature. Both processes go steadily on from year to year apartfrom himself and all but in spite of himself. One would never think of_telling_ a boy to grow. A doctor has no prescription for growth. He cantell me how growth may be stunted or impaired, but the process itself isrecognized as beyond control--one of the few, and therefore verysignificant, things which Nature keeps in her own hands. No physician ofsouls, in like manner, has any prescription for spiritual growth. It isthe question he is most often asked and most often answers wrongly. Hemay prescribe more earnestness, more prayer, more self-denial, or moreChristian work. These are prescriptions for something, but not forgrowth. Not that they may not encourage growth; but the soul grows asthe lily grows, without trying, without fretting, without ever thinking. Manuals of devotion, with complicated rules for getting on in theChristian life, would do well sometimes to return to the simplicity ofnature; and earnest souls who are attempting sanctification by struggleinstead of sanctification by faith might be spared much humiliation bylearning the botany of the Sermon on the Mount. There _can_ indeed be noother principle of growth than this. It is a vital act. And to try to_make_ a thing grow is as absurd as to help the tide to come in or thesun rise. 

Another argument for the spontaneousness of growth is universalexperience. A boy not only grows without trying, but he cannot grow ifhe tries. No man by taking thought has ever added a cubit to hisstature; nor has any man by mere working at his soul ever approachednearer to the stature of the Lord Jesus. The stature of the Lord Jesuswas not itself reached by work, and he who thinks to approach itsmystical height by anxious effort is really receding from it. Christ'slife unfolded itself from a divine germ, planted centrally in Hisnature, which grew as naturally as a flower from a bud. This flower maybe imitated; but one can always tell an artificial flower. The humanform may be copied in wax, yet somehow one never fails to detect thedifference. And this precisely is the difference between a native growthof Christian principle and the moral copy of it. The one is natural, theother mechanical. The one is a growth, the other an accretion. Now this, according to modern biology, is the fundamental distinction between theliving and the not living, between an organism and a crystal. The livingorganism grows, the dead crystal increases. The first grows vitally fromwithin, the last adds new particles from the outside. The wholedifference between the Christian and the moralist lies here. TheChristian works from the center, the moralist from the circumference. The one is an organism, in the center of which is planted by the livingGod a living germ. The other is a crystal, very beautiful it may be; butonly a crystal--it wants the vital principle of growth. 

And one sees here also, what is sometimes very difficult to see, whysalvation in the first instance is never connected directly withmorality. The reason is not that salvation does not demand morality, butthat it demands so much of it that the moralist can never reach up toit. The end of Salvation is perfection, the Christ-like mind, characterand life. Morality is on the way to this perfection; it may go aconsiderable distance toward it, but it can never reach it. Only Lifecan do that. It requires something with enormous power of movement, ofgrowth, of overcoming obstacles, to attain the perfect. Therefore theman who has within himself this great formative agent, Life, is nearerthe end than the man who has morality alone. The latter can never reachperfection; the former _must_. For the Life must develop out accordingto its type; and being a germ of the Christ-life, it must unfold into _aChrist_. Morality, at the utmost, only develops the character in one ortwo directions. It may perfect a single virtue here and there, but itcannot perfect all. And especially it fails always to give that roundedharmony of parts, that perfect tune to the whole orchestra, which is themarked characteristic of life. Perfect life is not merely the possessingof perfect functions, but of perfect functions perfectly adjusted toeach other and all conspiring to a single result, the perfect working ofthe whole organism. It is not said that the character will develop inall its fullness in this life. That were a time too short for anEvolution so magnificent. In this world only the cornless ear is seen;sometimes only the small yet still prophetic blade. The sneer at thegodly man for his imperfections is ill-judged. A blade is a small thing. At first it grows very near the earth. It is often soiled and crushedand downtrodden. But it is a living thing. That great dead stone besideit is more imposing; only it will never be anything else than a stone. But this small blade--_it doth not yet appear what it shall be_. 

Seeing now that Growth can only be synonymous with a living automaticprocess, it is all but superfluous to seek a third line of argument fromScripture. Growth there is always described in the language ofphysiology. The regenerate soul is a new creature. The Christian is anew man in Christ Jesus. He adds the cubits to his stature just as theold man does. He is rooted and built up in Christ; he abides in thevine, and so abiding, not toiling or spinning, brings forth fruit. TheChristian in short, like the poet, is born not made; and the fruits ofhis character are not manufactured things but living things, thingswhich have grown from the secret germ, the fruits of the living Spirit. They are not the produce of this climate, but exotics from a sunnierland. 

II. But, secondly, besides this Spontaneousness there is this othergreat characteristic of Growth--Mysteriousness. Upon this qualitydepends the fact, probably, that so few men ever fathom its realcharacter. We are most unspiritual always in dealing with the simplestspiritual things. A lily grows mysteriously, pushing up its solid weightof stem and leaf in the teeth of gravity. Shaped into beauty by secretand invisible fingers, the flower develops we know not how. But we donot wonder at it. Every day the thing is done; it is Nature, it is God. We are spiritual enough at least to understand that. But when the soulrises slowly above the world, pushing up its delicate virtues in theteeth of sin, shaping itself mysteriously into the image of Christ, wedeny that the power is not of man. A strong will, we say, a high ideal, the reward of virtue, Christian influence--these will account for it. Spiritual character is merely the product of anxious work, self-command, and self-denial. We allow, that is to say, a miracle to the lily, butnone to the man. The lily may grow; the man must fret and toil and spin. 

Now grant for a moment that by hard work and self-restraint a man mayattain to a very high character. It is not denied that this can be done. But what is denied is that this is growth, and that this process isChristianity. The fact that you can account for it proves that it is notgrowth. For growth is mysterious; the peculiarity of it is that youcannot account for it. Mysteriousness, as Mozley has well observed, is"the test of spiritual birth. " And this was Christ's test. "The windbloweth where it listeth. Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst nottell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, _so is every one that is bornof the Spirit_. " The test of spirituality is that you cannot tell whenceit cometh or whither it goeth. If you can tell, if you can account forit on philosophical principles, on the doctrine of influence, onstrength of will, on a favorable environment, it is not growth. It maybe so far a success, it may be a perfectly honest, even remarkable, andpraiseworthy imitation, but it is not the real thing. The fruits arewax, the flowers artificial--you can tell whence it cometh and whitherit goeth. 

The conclusion is, then, that the Christian is a unique phenomenon. Youcannot account for him. And if you could he would not be a Christian. Mozley has drawn the two characters for us in graphic words: "Take anordinary man of the world--what he thinks and what he does, his wholestandard of duty is taken from the society in which he lives. It is aborrowed standard: he is as good as other people are; he does, in theway of duty, what is generally considered proper and becoming amongthose with whom his lot is thrown. He reflects established opinion onsuch points. He follows its lead. His aims and objects in life again aretaken from the world around him, and from its dictation. What itconsiders honorable, worth having, advantageous and good, he thinks sotoo and pursues it. His motives all come from a visible quarter. Itwould be absurd to say that there is any mystery in such a character asthis, because it is formed from a known external influence--theinfluence of social opinion and the voice of the world. 'Whence such acharacter cometh' we see; we venture to say that the source and originof it is open and palpable, and we know it just as we know the physicalcauses of many common facts. "

Then there is the other. "There is a certain character and dispositionof mind of which it is true to say that 'thou canst not tell whence itcometh or whither it goeth. ' . . . There are those who stand out fromamong the crowd, which reflects merely the atmosphere of feeling andstandard of society around it, with an impress upon them which bespeaksa heavenly birth. . . . Now, when we see one of those characters, it is aquestion which we ask ourselves. How has the person become possessed ofit? Has he caught it from society around him? That cannot be, because itis wholly different from that of the world around him. Has he caught itfrom the inoculation of crowds and masses, as the mere religious zealotcatches his character? That cannot be either, for the type is altogetherdifferent from that which masses of men, under enthusiastic impulses, exhibit. There is nothing gregarious in this character; it is theindividual's own; it is not borrowed, it is not a reflection of anyfashion or tone of the world outside; it rises up from some fountwithin, and it is a creation of which the text says, We know not whenceit cometh. "[53]

Now we have all met these two characters--the one eminently respectable, upright, virtuous, a trifle cold perhaps, and generally, when criticallyexamined, revealing somehow the mark of the tool; the other with God'sbreath still upon it, an inspiration; not more virtuous, but differentlyvirtuous; not more humble, but different, wearing the meek and quietspirit artlessly as to the manner born. The other-worldliness of such acharacter is the thing that strikes you; you are not prepared for whatit will do or say or become next, for it moves from a far-off center, and in spite of its transparency and sweetness that presence fills youalways with awe. A man never feels the discord of his own life, neverhears the jar of the machinery by which he tries to manufacture his owngood points, till he has stood in the stillness of such a presence. Thenhe discerns the difference between growth and work. He has consideredthe lilies, how they grow. 

We have now seen that spiritual growth is a process maintained andsecured by a spontaneous and mysterious inward principle. It is aspontaneous principle even in its origin, for it bloweth where itlisteth; mysterious in its operation, for we can never tell whence itcometh; obscure in its destination, for we cannot tell whence it goeth. The whole process therefore transcends us; we do not work, we are takenin hand--"it is God which worketh in us, both to will and to do of Hisgood pleasure. " We do not plan--we are "created in Christ Jesus untogood works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. "

There may be an obvious objection to all this. It takes away allconflict from the Christian life? It makes man, does it not, mere clayin the hands of the potter? It crushes the old character to make a newone, and destroys man's responsibility for his own soul?

Now we are not concerned here in once more striking the time-honored"balance between faith and works. " We are considering how lilies grow, and in a specific connection, namely, to discover the attitude of mindwhich the Christian should preserve regarding his spiritual growth. Thatattitude, primarily, is to be free from care. We are not lodging a pleafor inactivity of the spiritual energies, but for the tranquillity ofthe spiritual mind. Christ's protest is not against work, but againstanxious thought; and rather, therefore, than complement the lesson byshowing the other side, we take the risk of still further extending theplea in the original direction. 

What is the relation, to recur again to analogy, between growth and workin a boy? Consciously, there is no relation at all. The boy never thinksof connecting his work with his growth. Work in fact is one thing andgrowth another, and it is so in the spiritual life. If it be askedtherefore, Is the Christian wrong in these ceaseless and agonizingefforts after growth? the answer is, Yes, he is quite wrong, or atleast, he is quite mistaken. When a boy takes a meal or denies himselfindigestible things, he does not say, "All this will minister to mygrowth;" or when he runs a race he does not say, "This will help thenext cubit of my stature. " It may or it may not be true that thesethings will help his stature, but, if he thinks of this, his idea ofgrowth is morbid. And this is the point we are dealing with. His anxietyhere is altogether irrelevant and superfluous. Nature is far morebountiful than we think. When she gives us energy she asks none of itback to expend on our own growth. She will attend to that. "Give yourwork, " she says, "and your anxiety to others; trust me to add the cubitsto your stature. " If God is adding to our spiritual stature, unfoldingthe new nature within us, it is a mistake to keep twitching at thepetals with our coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative Handalone. "It is God which giveth the increase. " Yet we never know howlittle we have learned of the fundamental principle of Christianity tillwe discover how much we are all bent on supplementing God's free grace. If God is spending work upon a Christian, let him be still and know thatit is God. And if he wants work, he will find it there--in the beingstill. 

Not that there is no work for him who would grow, to do. There is work, and severe work--work so great that the worker deserves to have himselfrelieved of all that is superfluous during his task. If the amount ofenergy lost in trying to grow were spent in fulfilling rather theconditions of growth, we should have many more cubits to show for ourstature. It is with these conditions that the personal work of theChristian is chiefly concerned. Observe for a moment what they are, andtheir exact relation. For its growth the plant needs heat, light, air, and moisture. A man, therefore, must go in search of these, or theirspiritual equivalents, and this is his work? By no means. TheChristian's work is not yet. Does the plant go in search of itsconditions? Nay, the conditions come to the plant. It no moremanufactures the heat, light, air, and moisture, than it manufacturesits own stem. It finds them all around it in Nature. It simply standsstill with its leaves spread out in unconscious prayer, and Naturelavishes upon it these and all other bounties, bathing it in sunshine, pouring the nourishing air over and over it, reviving it graciously withits nightly dew. Grace, too, is as free as the air. The Lord God is aSun. He is as the Dew to Israel. A man has no more to manufacture thesethan he has to manufacture his own soul. He stands surrounded by them, bathed in them, beset behind and before by them. He lives and moves andhas his being in them. How then shall he go in search of them? Do notthey rather go in search of him? Does he not feel how they pressthemselves upon him? Does he not know how unweariedly they appeal tohim? Has he not heard how they are sorrowful when he will not have them?His work, therefore, is not yet. The voice still says, "Be still. "

The conditions of growth, then, and the inward principle of growth beingboth supplied by Nature, the thing man has to do, the little junctionleft for him to complete, is to apply the one to the other. Hemanufactures nothing; he earns nothing; he need be anxious for nothing;his one duty is _to be in_ these conditions, to abide in them, to allowgrace to play over him, to be still therein and know that this is God. 

The conflict begins and prevails in all its life-long agony the moment aman forgets this. He struggles to grow himself instead of struggling toget back again into position. He makes the church into a workshop whenGod meant it to be a beautiful garden. And even in his closet, whereonly should reign silence--a silence as of the mountains whereon thelilies grow--is heard the roar and tumult of machinery. True, a manwill often have to wrestle with his God--but not for growth. TheChristian life is a composed life. The Gospel is Peace. Yet the mostanxious people in the world are Christians--Christians who misunderstandthe nature of growth. Life is a perpetual self-condemning because theyare not growing. And the effect is not only the loss of tranquillity tothe individual. The energies which are meant to be spent on the work ofChrist are consumed in the soul's own fever. So long as the Church'sactivities are spent on growing there is nothing to spare for the world. A soldier's time is not spent in earning the money to buy his armor, infinding food and raiment, in seeking shelter. His king provides thesethings that he may be the more at liberty to fight his battles. So, forthe soldier of the Cross all is provided. His Government has planned toleave him free for the Kingdom's work. 

The problem of the Christian life finally is simplified to this--man hasbut to preserve the right attitude. To abide in Christ, to be inposition, that is all. Much work is done on board a ship crossing theAtlantic. Yet none of it is spent on making the ship go. The sailor butharnesses his vessel to the wind. He puts his sail and rudder inposition, and lo, the miracle is wrought. So everywhere God creates, manutilizes. All the work of the world is merely a taking advantage ofenergies already there. [54] God gives the wind, and the water, and theheat; man but puts himself in the way of the wind, fixes his water-wheelin the way of the river, puts his piston in the way of the steam; and soholding himself in position before God's Spirit, all the energies ofOmnipotence course within his soul. He is like a tree planted by a riverwhose leaf is green and whose fruits fail not. Such is the deeper lessonto be learned from considering the lily. It is the voice of Natureechoing the whole evangel of Jesus, "Come unto Me, and I will give yourest. "

FOOTNOTES:

[53] University Sermons, pp. 234-241. 

[54] See Bushnell's "New Life. "

DEATH. 

 "What could be easier than to form a catena of the most philosophical defenders of Christianity, who have exhausted language in declaring the impotence of the unassisted intellect? Comte has not more explicitly enounced the incapacity of man to deal with the Absolute and the Infinite than the whole series of orthodox writers. Trust your reason, we have been told till we are tired of the phrase, and you will become Atheists or Agnostics. We take you at your word; we become Agnostics. "--_Leslie Stephen. _

 "To be carnally minded is Death. "--_Paul. _

 "I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder often at what they lose. "--_Ruskin. _

"Death, " wrote Faber, "is an unsurveyed land, an unarranged Science. "Poetry draws near Death only to hover over it for a moment and withdrawin terror. History knows it simply as a universal fact. Philosophy findsit among the mysteries of being, the one great mystery of being not. Allcontributions to this dead theme are marked by an essential vagueness, and every avenue of approach seems darkened by impenetrable shadow. 

But modern Biology has found it part of its work to push its way intothis silent land, and at last the world is confronted with a scientifictreatment of Death. Not that much is added to the old conception, ormuch taken from it. What it is, this certain Death with its uncertainissues, we know as little as before. But we can define more clearly andattach a narrower meaning to the momentous symbol. 

The interest of the investigation here lies in the fact that Death isone of the outstanding things in Nature which has an acknowledgedspiritual equivalent. The prominence of the word in the vocabulary ofRevelation cannot be exaggerated. Next to Life the most pregnant symbolin religion is its antithesis, Death. And from the time that "If thoueatest thereof thou shalt surely die" was heard in Paradise, this solemnword has been linked with human interests of eternal moment. 

Notwithstanding the unparalleled emphasis upon this term in theChristian system, there is none more feebly expressive to the ordinarymind. That mystery which surrounds the word in the natural world shroudsonly too completely its spiritual import. The reluctance which preventsmen from investigating the secrets of the King of Terrors is for acertain length entitled to respect. But it has left theology with onlythe vaguest materials to construct a doctrine which, intelligentlyenforced, ought to appeal to all men with convincing power and lend themost effective argument to Christianity. Whatever may have been itsinfluence in the past, its threat is gone for the modern world. The wordhas grown weak. Ignorance has robbed the Grave of all its terror, andplatitude despoiled Death of its sting. Death itself is ethically dead. Which of us, for example, enters fully into the meaning of words likethese: "She that liveth in pleasure is _dead_ while she liveth?" Whoallows adequate weight to the metaphor in the Pauline phrase, "To becarnally minded is _Death_;" or in this, "The wages of sin is _Death_?"Or what theology has translated into the language of human life theterrific practical import of "Dead in trespasses and sins?" To seek tomake these phrases once more real and burning; to clothe time-wornformulæ with living truth; to put the deepest ethical meaning into thegravest symbol of Nature, and fill up with its full consequence thedarkest threat of Revelation--these are the objects before us now. 

What, then, is Death? Is it possible to define it and embody itsessential meaning in an intelligible proposition?

The most recent and the most scientific attempt to investigate Death weowe to the biological studies of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In his search forthe meaning of Life the word Death crosses his path, and he turns asidefor a moment to define it. Of course what Death is depends upon whatLife is. Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of Life, it is well known, hasbeen subjected to serious criticism. While it has shed much light onmany of the phenomena of Life, it cannot be affirmed that it has takenits place in science as the final solution of the fundamental problem ofbiology. No definition of Life, indeed, that has yet appeared can besaid to be even approximately correct. Its mysterious quality evades us;and we have to be content with outward characteristics andaccompaniments, leaving the thing itself an unsolved riddle. At the sametime Mr. Herbert Spencer's masterly elucidation of the chief phenomenaof Life has placed philosophy and science under many obligations, and inthe paragraphs which follow we shall have to incur a further debt onbehalf of religion. 

The meaning of Death depending, as has been said, on the meaning ofLife, we must first set ourselves to grasp the leading characteristicswhich distinguish living things. To a physiologist the living organismis distinguished from the not-living by the performance of certainfunctions. These functions are four in number--Assimilation, Waste, Reproduction, and Growth. Nothing could be a more interesting task thanto point out the co-relatives of these in the spiritual sphere, to showin what ways the discharge of these functions represent the truemanifestations of spiritual life, and how the failure to perform themconstitutes spiritual Death. But it will bring us more directly to thespecific subject before us if we follow rather the newer biologicallines of Mr. Herbert Spencer. According to his definition, Life is "Thedefinite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous andsuccessive, in correspondence with external co-existences andsequences, "[55] or more shortly "The continuous adjustment of internalrelations to external relations. "[56] An example or two will renderthese important statements at once intelligible. 

The essential characteristic of a living organism, according to thesedefinitions, is that it is in vital connection with its generalsurroundings. A human being, for instance, is in direct contact with theearth and air, with all surrounding things, with the warmth of the sun, with the music of birds, with the countless influences and activities ofnature and of his fellow-men. In biological language he is said thus tobe "in correspondence with his environment. " He is, that is to say, inactive and vital connection with them, influencing them possibly, butespecially being influenced by them. Now it is in virtue of thiscorrespondence that he is entitled to be called alive. So long as he isin correspondence with any given point of his environment, he lives. Tokeep up this correspondence is to keep up life. If his environmentchanges he must instantly adjust himself to the change. And he continuesliving only as long as he succeeds in adjusting himself to the"simultaneous and successive changes in his environment" as these occur. What is meant by a change in his environment may be understood from anexample, which will at the same time define more clearly the intimacy ofthe relation between environment and organism. Let us take the case of acivil-servant whose environment is a district in India. It is a regionsubject to occasional and prolonged droughts resulting in periodicalfamines. When such a period of scarcity arises, he proceeds immediatelyto adjust himself to this external change. Having the power oflocomotion, he may remove himself to a more fertile district, or, possessing the means of purchase, he may add to his old environment byimportation the "external relations" necessary to continued life. But iffrom any cause he fails to adjust himself to the altered circumstances, his body is thrown out of correspondence with his environment, his"internal relations" are no longer adjusted to his "externalrelations, " and his life must cease. 

In ordinary circumstances, and in health, the human organism is inthorough correspondence with its surroundings; but when any part of theorganism by disease or accident is thrown out of correspondence, it isin that relation dead. 

This Death, this want of correspondence, may be either partial orcomplete. Part of the organism may be dead to a part of the environment, or the whole to the whole. Thus the victim of famine may have a certainnumber of his correspondences arrested by the change in his environment, but not all. Luxuries which he once enjoyed no longer enter the country, animals which once furnished his table are driven from it. These stillexist, but they are beyond the limit of his correspondence. In relationto these things therefore he is dead. In one sense it might be said thatit was the environment which played him false; in another, that it washis own organization--that he was unable to adjust himself, or did not. But, however caused, he pays the penalty with partial Death. 

Suppose next the case of a man who is thrown out of correspondence witha part of his environment by some physical infirmity. Let it be that bydisease or accident he has been deprived of the use of his ears. Thedeaf man, in virtue of this imperfection, is thrown out of _rapport_with a large and well-defined part of the environment, namely, itssounds. With regard to that "external relation, " therefore, he is nolonger living. Part of him may truly be held to be insensible or "Dead. "A man who is also blind is thrown out of correspondence with anotherlarge part of his environment. The beauty of sea and sky, the forms ofcloud and mountain, the features and gestures of friends, are to him asif they were not. They are there, solid and real, but not to him; he isstill further "Dead. " Next, let it be conceived, the subtle finger ofcerebral disease lays hold of him. His whole brain is affected, and thesensory nerves, the medium of communication with the environment, ceasealtogether to acquaint him with what is doing in the outside world. Theoutside world is still there, but not to him; he is still further"Dead. " And so the death of parts goes on. He becomes less and lessalive. "Were the animal frame not the complicated machine we have seenit to be, death might come as a simple and gradual dissolution, the'sans everything' being the last stage of the successive loss offundamental powers. "[57] But finally some important part of the mereanimal framework that remains breaks down. The correlation with theother parts is very intimate, and the stoppage of correspondence withone means an interference with the work of the rest. Something centralhas snapped, and all are thrown out of work. The lungs refuse tocorrespond with the air, the heart with the blood. There is now nocorrespondence whatever with environment--the thing, for it is now athing, is Dead. 

This then is Death; "part of the framework breaks down, " "something hassnapped"--these phrases by which we describe the phases of death yieldtheir full meaning. They are different ways of saying that"correspondence" has ceased. And the scientific meaning of Death nowbecomes clearly intelligible. Dying is that breakdown in an organismwhich throws it out of correspondence with some necessary part of theenvironment. Death is the result produced, the want of correspondence. We do not say that this is all that is involved. But this is the rootidea of Death--Failure to adjust internal relations to externalrelations, failure to repair the broken inward connection sufficientlyto enable it to correspond again with the old surroundings. Thesepreliminary statements may be fitly closed with the words of Mr. HerbertSpencer: "Death by natural decay occurs because in old age therelations between assimilation, oxidation, and genesis of force goingon in the organism gradually fall out of correspondence with therelations between oxygen and food and absorption of heat by theenvironment. Death from disease arises either when the organism iscongenitally defective in its power to balance the ordinary externalactions by the ordinary internal actions, or when there has taken placesome unusual external action to which there was no answering internalaction. Death by accident implies some neighboring mechanical changes ofwhich the causes are either unnoticed from inattention, or are sointricate that their results cannot be foreseen, and consequentlycertain relations in the organism are not adjusted to the relations inthe environment. "[58]

With the help of these plain biological terms we may now proceed toexamine the parallel phenomenon of Death in the spiritual world. Thefactors with which we have to deal are two in number as before--Organismand Environment. The relation between them may once more be denominatedby "correspondence. " And the truth to be emphasized resolves itself intothis, that Spiritual Death is a want of correspondence between theorganism and the spiritual environment. 

What is the spiritual environment? This term obviously demands somefurther definition. For Death is a relative term. And before we candefine Death in the spiritual world we must first apprehend theparticular relation with reference to which the expression is to beemployed. We shall best reach the nature of this relation by consideringfor a moment the subject of environment generally. By the naturalenvironment we mean the entire surroundings of the natural man, theentire external world in which he lives and moves and has his being. Itis not involved in the idea that either with all or part of theenvironment he is in immediate correspondence. Whether he correspondwith it or not, it is there. There is in fact a conscious environmentand an environment of which he is not conscious; and it must be borne inmind that the conscious environment is not all the environment that is. All that surrounds him, all that environs him, conscious or unconscious, is environment. The moon and stars are part of it, though in the daytimehe may not see them. The polar regions are parts of it, though he isseldom aware of their influence. In its widest sense environment simplymeans all else that is. 

Now it will next be manifest that different organisms correspond withthis environment in varying degrees of completeness or incompleteness. At the bottom of the biological scale we find organisms which have onlythe most limited correspondence with their surroundings. A tree, forexample, corresponds with the soil about its stem, with the sunlight, and with the air in contact with its leaves. But it is shut off by itscomparatively low development from a whole world to which higher formsof life have additional access. The want of locomotion alonecircumscribes most seriously its area of correspondence, so that to alarge part of surrounding nature it may truly be said to be dead. So faras consciousness is concerned, we should be justified indeed in sayingthat it was not alive at all. The murmur of the stream which bathes itsroots affects it not. The marvelous insect-life beneath its shadowexcites in it no wonder. The tender maternity of the bird which has itsnest among its leaves stirs no responsive sympathy. It cannot correspondwith those things. To stream and insect and bird it is insensible, torpid, dead. For this is Death, this irresponsiveness. 

The bird, again, which is higher in the scale of life, corresponds witha wider environment. The stream is real to it, and the insect. It knowswhat lies behind the hill; it listens to the love-song of its mate. Andto much besides beyond the simple world of the tree this higherorganism is alive. The bird we should say is more living than the tree;it has a correspondence with a larger area of environment. But thisbird-life is not yet the highest life. Even within the immediatebird-environment there is much to which the bird must still be held tobe dead. Introduce a higher organism, place man himself within this sameenvironment, and see how much more living he is. A hundred things whichthe bird never saw in insect, stream, and tree appeal to him. Eachsingle sense has something to correspond with. Each faculty finds anappropriate exercise. Man is a mass of correspondences, and because ofthese, because he is alive to countless objects and influences to whichlower organisms are dead, he is the most living of all creatures. 

The relativity of Death will now have become sufficiently obvious. Manbeing left out of account, all organisms are seen as it were to bepartly living and partly dead. The tree, in correspondence with a narrowarea of environment, is to that extent alive; to all beyond, to the allbut infinite area beyond, it is dead. A still wider portion of this vastarea is the possession of the insect and the bird. Their's also, nevertheless, is but a little world, and to an immense further areainsect and bird are dead. All organisms likewise are living anddead--living to all within the circumference of their correspondences, dead to all beyond. As we rise in the scale of life, however, it will beobserved that the sway of Death is gradually weakened. More and more ofthe environment becomes accessible as we ascend, and the domain of lifein this way slowly extends in ever-widening circles. But until manappears there is no organism to correspond with the whole environment. Till then the outermost circles have no correspondents. To theinhabitants of the innermost spheres they are as if they were not. 

Now follows a momentous question. Is man in correspondence with thewhole environment? When we reach the highest living organism, is thefinal blow dealt to the kingdom of Death? Has the last acre of theinfinite area been taken in by his finite faculties? Is his consciousenvironment the whole environment? Or is there, among these outermostcircles, one which with his multitudinous correspondences he fails toreach? If so, this is Death. The question of Life or Death to him is thequestion of the amount of remaining environment he is able to compass. If there be one circle or one segment of a circle which he yet fails toreach, to correspond with, to know, to be influenced by, he is, withregard to that circle or segment, dead. 

What then, practically, is the state of the case? Is man incorrespondence with the whole environment or is he not? There is but oneanswer. He is not. Of men generally it cannot be said that they are inliving contact with that part of the environment which is called thespiritual world. In introducing this new term spiritual world, observe, we are not interpolating a new factor. This is an essential part of theold idea. We have been following out an ever-widening environment frompoint to point, and now we reach the outermost zones. The spiritualworld is simply the outermost segment, circle, or circles of the naturalworld. For purposes of convenience we separate the two just as weseparate the animal world from the plant. But the animal world and theplant world are the same world. They are different parts of oneenvironment. And the natural and spiritual are likewise one. The innercircles are called the natural, the outer the spiritual. And we callthem spiritual simply because they are beyond us or beyond a part of us. What we have correspondence with, that we call natural; what we havelittle or no correspondence with, that we call spiritual. But when theappropriate corresponding organism appears, the organism, that is, whichcan freely communicate with these outer circles, the distinctionnecessarily disappears. The spiritual to it becomes the outer circle ofthe natural. 

Now of the great mass of living organisms, of the great mass of men, isit not to be affirmed that they are out of correspondence with thisouter circle? Suppose, to make the final issue more real, we give thisoutermost circle of environment a name. Suppose we call it God. Supposealso we substitute a word for "correspondence" to express moreintimately the personal relation. Let us call it Communion. We can nowdetermine accurately the spiritual relation of different sections ofmankind. Those who are in communion with God live, those who are not aredead. 

The extent or depth of this communion, the varying degrees ofcorrespondence in different individuals, and the less or more abundantlife which these result in, need not concern us for the present. Thetask we have set ourselves is to investigate the essential nature ofSpiritual Death. And we have found it to consist in a want of communionwith God. The unspiritual man is he who lives in the circumscribedenvironment of this present world. "She that liveth in pleasure is Deadwhile she liveth. " "To be carnally minded is Death. " To be carnallyminded, translated into the language of science, is to be limited inone's correspondences to the environment of the natural man. It is nonecessary part of the conception that the mind should be eitherpurposely irreligious, or directly vicious. The mind of the flesh, φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς, by its very nature, limited capacity, and time-wardtendency, is θάνατος, Death. This earthly mind may be of noble caliber, enriched by culture, high toned, virtuous and pure. But if it know notGod? What though its correspondences reach to the stars of heaven orgrasp the magnitudes of Time and Space? The stars of heaven are notheaven. Space is not God. This mind certainly, has life, life up to itslevel. There is no trace of Death. Possibly, too, it carries itsdeprivation lightly, and, up to its level, lies content. We do notpicture the possessor of this carnal mind as in any sense a monster. Wehave said he may be high-toned, virtuous, and pure. The plant is not amonster because it is dead to the voice of the bird; nor is he a monsterwho is dead to the voice of God. The contention at present simply isthat he is _Dead_. 

We do not need to go to Revelation for the proof of this. That has beenrendered unnecessary by the testimony of the Dead themselves. Thousandshave uttered themselves upon their relation to the Spiritual World, andfrom their own lips we have the proclamation of their Death. Thelanguage of theology in describing the state of the natural man is oftenregarded as severe. The Pauline anthropology has been challenged as aninsult to human nature. Culture has opposed the doctrine that "Thenatural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they arefoolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they arespiritually discerned. " And even some modern theologies have refused toaccept the most plain of the aphorisms of Jesus, that "Except a man beborn again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. " But this stern doctrine ofthe spiritual deadness of humanity is no mere dogma of a past theology. The history of thought during the present century proves that the worldhas come round spontaneously to the position of the first. One of theablest philosophical schools of the day erects a whole antichristiansystem on this very doctrine. Seeking by means of it to sap thefoundation of spiritual religion, it stands unconsciously as the mostsignificant witness for its truth. What is the creed of the Agnostic, but the confession of the spiritual numbness of humanity? The negativedoctrine which it reiterates with such sad persistency, what is it butthe echo of the oldest of scientific and religious truths? And what areall these gloomy and rebellious infidelities, these touching, and toosincere confessions of universal nescience, but a protest against thisancient law of Death?

The Christian apologist never further misses the mark than when herefuses the testimony of the Agnostic to himself. When the Agnostictells me he is blind and deaf, dumb, torpid and dead to the spiritualworld, I must believe him. Jesus tells me that. Paul tells me that. Science tells me that. He knows nothing of this outermost circle; and weare compelled to trust his sincerity as readily when he deplores it asif, being a man without an ear, he professed to know nothing of amusical world, or being without taste, of a world of art. The nescienceof the Agnostic philosophy is the proof from experience that to becarnally minded is Death. Let the theological value of the concession beduly recognized. It brings no solace to the unspiritual man to be toldhe is mistaken. To say he is self-deceived is neither to compliment himnor Christianity. He builds in all sincerity who raises his altar to the_Unknown_ God. He does not know God. With all his marvelous and complexcorrespondences, he is still one correspondence short. 

It is a point worthy of special note that the proclamation of this truthhas always come from science rather than from religion. Its generalacceptance by thinkers is based upon the universal failure of auniversal experiment. The statement, therefore, that the natural mandiscerneth not the things of the spirit, is never to be charged againstthe intolerance of theology. There is no point at which theology hasbeen more modest than here. It has left the preaching of a greatfundamental truth almost entirely to philosophy and science. And so verymoderate has been its tone, so slight has been the emphasis placed uponthe paralysis of the natural with regard to the spiritual, that it mayseem to some to have been intolerant. No harm certainly could come now, no offence could be given to science, if religion asserted more clearlyits right to the spiritual world. Science has paved the way for thereception of one of the most revolutionary doctrines of Christianity;and if Christianity refuses to take advantage of the opening it willmanifest a culpable want of confidence in itself. There never was a timewhen its fundamental doctrines could more boldly be proclaimed, or whenthey could better secure the respect and arrest the interest of Science. 

To all this, and apparently with force, it may, however, be objectedthat to every man who truly studies Nature there is a God. Call Him bywhatever name--a Creator, a Supreme Being, a Great First Cause, a Powerthat makes for Righteousness--Science has a God; and he who believes inthis, in spite of all protest, possesses a theology. "If we will look atthings, and not merely at words, we shall soon see that the scientificman has a theology and a God, a most impressive theology, a most awfuland glorious God. I say that man believes in a God who feels himself inthe presence of a Power which is not himself, and is immeasurably abovehimself, a Power in the contemplation of which he is absorbed, in theknowledge of which he finds safety and happiness. And such now is Natureto the scientific man. "[59] Such now, we humbly submit, is Nature to thevery few. Their own confession is against it. That they are "absorbed"in the contemplation we can well believe. That they might "find safetyand happiness" in the knowledge of Him is also possible--if they had it. But this is just what they tell us they have not. What they deny is nota God. It is the correspondence. The very confession of the Unknowableis itself the dull recognition of an Environment beyond themselves, andfor which they feel they lack the correspondence. It is this want thatmakes their God the Unknown God. And it is this that makes them _dead_. 

We have not said, or implied, that there is not a God of Nature. We havenot affirmed that there is no Natural Religion. We are assured there is. We are even assured that without a Religion of Nature Religion is onlyhalf complete; that without a God of Nature the God of Revelation isonly half intelligible and only partially known. God is not confined tothe outermost circle of environment, He lives and moves and has Hisbeing in the whole. Those who only seek Him in the further zone canonly find a part. The Christian who knows not God in Nature, who doesnot, that is to say, correspond with the whole environment, mostcertainly is partially dead. The author of "Ecce Homo" may be partiallyright when he says: "I think a bystander would say that thoughChristianity had in it something far higher and deeper and moreennobling, yet the average scientific man worships just at present amore awful, and, as it were, a greater Deity than the average Christian. In so many Christians the idea of God has been degraded by childish andlittle-minded teaching; the Eternal and the Infinite and theAll-embracing has been represented as the head of the clerical interest, as a sort of clergyman, as a sort of schoolmaster, as a sort ofphilanthropist. But the scientific man knows Him to be eternal; inastronomy, in geology, he becomes familiar with the countlessmillenniums of His lifetime. The scientific man strains his mindactually to realize God's infinity. As far off as the fixed stars hetraces Him, 'distance inexpressible by numbers that have name. 'Meanwhile, to the theologian, infinity and eternity are very much ofempty words when applied to the object of his worship. He does notrealize them in actual facts and definite computations. "[60] Let usaccept this rebuke. The principle that want of correspondence is Deathapplies all round. He who knows not God in Nature only partially lives. The converse of this, however, is not true; and that is the point we areinsisting on. He who knows God only in Nature lives not. There is no"correspondence" with an Unknown God, no "continuous adjustment" to afixed First Cause. There is no "assimilation" of Natural Law; no growthin the Image of "the All-embracing. " To correspond with the God ofScience assuredly is not to live. "This is Life Eternal, to know Thee, _the true God_, and _Jesus Christ_ Whom Thou hast sent. "

From the service we have tried to make natural science render to ourreligion, we might be expected possibly to take up the position that theabsolute contribution of Science to Revelation was very great. On thecontrary, it is very small. The _absolute_ contribution, that is, isvery small. The contribution on the whole is immense, vaster than wehave yet any idea of. But without the aid of the higher Revelation thismany-toned and far-reaching voice had been forever dumb. The light ofNature, say the most for it, is dim--how dim we ourselves, with theglare of other Light upon the modern world, can only realize when weseek among the pagan records of the past for the groupings after truthof those whose only light was this. Powerfully significant and touchingas these efforts were in their success, they are far more significantand touching in their failure. For they did fail. It requires nophilosophy now to speculate on the adequacy or inadequacy of theReligion of Nature. For us who could never weigh it rightly in thescales of Truth it has been tried in the balance of experience and foundwanting. Theism is the easiest of all religions to get, but the mostdifficult to keep. Individuals have kept it, but nations never. Socratesand Aristotle, Cicero and Epictetus had a theistic religion; Greece andRome had none. And even after getting what seems like a firm place inthe minds of men, its unstable equilibrium sooner or later betraysitself. On the one hand theism has always fallen into the wildestpolytheism, or on the other into the blankest atheism. "It is anindubitable historical fact that, outside of the sphere of specialrevelation, man has never obtained such a knowledge of God as aresponsible and religious being plainly requires. The wisdom of theheathen world, at its very best, was utterly inadequate to theaccomplishment of such a task as creating a due abhorrence of sin, controlling the passions, purifying the heart, and ennobling theconduct. "[61]

What is the inference? That this poor rush-light by itself was nevermeant to lend the ray by which man should read the riddle of theuniverse. The mystery is too impenetrable and remote for its uncertainflicker to more than make the darkness deeper. What indeed if this werenot a light at all, but only part of a light--the carbon point, thefragment of calcium, the reflector in the great Lantern which containsthe Light of the World?

This is one inference. But the most important is that the absence of thetrue Light means moral Death. The darkness of the natural world to theintellect is not all. What history testifies to is, first the partial, and then the total eclipse of virtue that always follows the abandonmentof belief in a personal God. It is not, as has been pointed out ahundred times, that morality in the abstract disappears, but the motiveand sanction are gone. There is nothing to raise it from the dead. Man'sattitude to it is left to himself. Grant that morals have their own basein human life; grant that Nature has a Religion whose creed is Science;there is yet nothing apart from God to save the world from moral Death. Morality has the power to dictate but none to move. Nature directs butcannot control. As was wisely expressed in one of many pregnantutterances during a recent _Symposium_, "Though the decay of religionmay leave the institutes of morality intact, it drains off their inwardpower. The devout faith of men expresses and measures the intensity oftheir moral nature, and it cannot be lost without a remission ofenthusiasm, and under this low pressure, the successful reëntrance ofimportunate desires and clamorous passions which had been driven back. To believe in an ever-living and perfect Mind, supreme over theuniverse, is to invest moral distinctions with immensity and eternity, and lift them from the provincial stage of human society to theimperishable theater of all being. When planted thus in the verysubstance of things, they justify and support the ideal estimates ofthe conscience; they deepen every guilty shame; they guarantee everyrighteous hope; and they help the will with a Divine casting-vote inevery balance of temptation. "[62] That morality has a basis in humansociety, that Nature has a Religion, surely makes the Death of the soulwhen left to itself all the more appalling. It means that, between them, Nature and morality provide all for virtue--except the Life to live it. 

It is at this point accordingly that our subject comes into intimatecontact with Religion. The proposition that "to be carnally minded isDeath" even the moralist will assent to. But when it is furtherannounced that "the carnal mind is _enmity against God_" we findourselves in a different region. And when we find it also stated that"the wages of _sin_ is Death, " we are in the heart of the profoundestquestions of theology. What before was merely "enmity against society"becomes "enmity against God;" and what was "vice" is "sin. " Theconception of a God gives an altogether new color to worldliness andvice. Worldliness it changes into heathenism, vice into blasphemy. Thecarnal mind, the mind which is turned away from God, which will notcorrespond with God--this is not moral only but spiritual Death. AndSin, that which separates from God, which disobeys God, which _can_ notin that state correspond with God--this is hell. 

To the estrangement of the soul from God the best of theology traces theultimate cause of sin. Sin is simply apostasy from God, unbelief in God. "Sin is manifest in its true character when the demand of holiness inthe conscience, presenting itself to the man as one of loving submissionto God, is put from him with aversion. Here sin appears as it really is, a turning away from God; and while the man's guilt is enhanced, thereensues a benumbing of the heart resulting from the crushing of thosehigher impulses. This is what is meant by the reprobate state of thosewho reject Christ and will not believe the Gospel, so often spoken of inthe New Testament; this unbelief is just the closing of the heartagainst the highest love. "[63] The other view of sin, probably the morepopular at present, that sin consists in selfishness, is merely thisfrom another aspect. Obviously if the mind turns away from one part ofthe environment it will only do so under some temptation to correspondwith another. This temptation, at bottom, can only come from onesource--the love of self. The irreligious man's correspondences areconcentrated upon himself. He worships himself. Self-gratificationrather than self-denial; independence rather than submission--these arethe rules of life. And this is at once the poorest and the commonestform of idolatry. 

But whichever of these views of sin we emphasize, we find both equallyconnected with Death. If sin is estrangement from God, this veryestrangement is Death. It is a want of correspondence. If sin isselfishness, it is conducted at the expense of life. Its wages areDeath--"he that loveth his life, " said Christ, "shall lose it. "

Yet the paralysis of the moral nature apart from God does not onlydepend for its evidence upon theology or even upon history. From theanalogies of Nature one would expect this result as a necessaryconsequence. The development of any organism in any direction isdependent on its environment. A living cell cut off from air will die. Aseed-germ apart from moisture and an appropriate temperature will makethe ground its grave for centuries. Human nature, likewise, is subjectto similar conditions. It can only develop in presence of itsenvironment. No matter what its possibilities may be, no matter whatseeds of thought or virtue, what germs of genius or of art, lie latentin its breast, until the appropriate environment present itself thecorrespondence is denied, the development discouraged, the most splendidpossibilities of life remain unrealized, and thought and virtue, geniusand art, are dead. The true environment of the moral life is God. Hereconscience wakes. Here kindles love. Duty here becomes heroic; and thatrighteousness begins to live which alone is to live forever. But if thisAtmosphere is not, the dwarfed soul must perish for mere want of itsnative air. And its Death is a strictly natural Death. It is not anexceptional judgment upon Atheism. In the same circumstances, in thesame averted relation to their environment, the poet, the musician, theartist, would alike perish to poetry, to music, and to art. Everyenvironment is a cause. Its effect upon me is exactly proportionate tomy correspondence with it. If I correspond with part of it, part ofmyself is influenced. If I correspond with more, more of myself isinfluenced; if with all, all is influenced. If I correspond with theworld, I become worldly; if with God, I become Divine. As withoutcorrespondence of the scientific man with the natural environment therecould be no Science and no action founded on the knowledge of Nature, sowithout communion with the spiritual Environment there can be noReligion. To refuse to cultivate the religious relation is to deny tothe soul its highest right--the right to a further evolution. [64] Wehave already admitted that he who knows not God may not be a monster; wecannot say he will not be a dwarf. This precisely, and on perfectlynatural principles, is what he must be. You can dwarf a soul just asyou can dwarf a plant, by depriving it of a full environment. Such asoul for a time may have "a name to live. " Its character may betray nosign of atrophy. But its very virtue somehow has the pallor of a flowerthat is grown in darkness, or as the herb which has never seen the sun, no fragrance breathes from its spirit. To morality, possibly, thisorganism offers the example of an irreproachable life; but to science itis an instance of arrested development; and to religion it presents thespectacle of a corpse--a living Death. With Ruskin, "I do not wonder atwhat men suffer, but I wonder often at what they lose. "

FOOTNOTES:

[55] "Principles of Biology, " vol. I, p. 74. 

[56] _Ibid. _

[57] Foster's "Physiology, " p. 642. 

[58] Op. Cit. , pp. 88, 89. 

[59] "Natural Religion, " p. 19. 

[60] "Natural Religion, " p. 20. 

[61] Prof. Flint, "Theism, " p. 805. 

[62] Martineau. _Vide_ the whole Symposium on "The Influences uponMorality of a Decline in Religious Belief. "--_Nineteenth Century_, vol. I. Pp. 331, 531. 

[63] Müller: "Christian Doctrine of Sin. " 2d Ed. , vol i. P 131. 

[64] It would not be difficult to show, were this the immediate subject, that it is not only a right but a duty to exercise the spiritualfaculties, a duty demanded not by religion merely, but by science. Uponbiological principles man owes his full development to himself, tonature, and to his fellow-men. Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, "Theperformance of every function is, in a sense, a moral obligation. It isusually thought that morality requires us only to restrain such vitalactivities as, in our present state, are often pushed to excess, or suchas conflict with average welfare, special or general: but it alsorequires us to carry on these vital activities up to their normallimits. All the animal functions, in common with all the higherfunctions, have, as thus understood, their imperativeness. "--"The Dataof Ethics, " 2d Ed. , p. 76. 

MORTIFICATION. 

 "If, by tying its main artery, we stop most of the blood going to a limb, then, for as long as the limb performs its functions, those parts which are called into play must be wasted faster than they are repaired: whence eventual disablement. The relation between due receipt of nutritive matters through its arteries, and due discharge of its duties by the limb, is a part of the physical order. If instead of cutting off the supply to a particular limb, we bleed the patient largely, so drafting away the materials needed for repairing not one limb but all limbs, and not limbs only but viscera, there results both a muscular debility and an enfeeblement of the vital functions. Here, again, cause and effect are necessarily related. . . . Pass now to those actions more commonly thought of as the occasions for rules of conduct. "--_Herbert Spencer. _

 "Mortify therefore your members which are upon earth. "--_Paul. _

 "O Star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there To waft us home the message of despair?"--_Campbell. _

The definition of Death which science has given us is this: _A fallingout of correspondence with environment. _ When, for example, a man losesthe sight of his eyes, his correspondence with the environing world iscurtailed. His life is limited in an important direction; he is lessliving than he was before. If, in addition, he loses the senses of touchand hearing, his correspondences are still further limited; he istherefore still further dead. And when all possible correspondences haveceased, when the nerves decline to respond to any stimulus, when thelungs close their gates against the air, when the heart refuses tocorrespond with the blood by so much as another beat, the insensatecorpse is wholly and forever dead. The soul, in like manner, which hasno correspondence with the spiritual environment is spiritually dead. Itmay be that it never possessed the spiritual eye or the spiritual ear, or a heart which throbbed in response to the love of God. If so, havingnever lived, it cannot be said to have died. But not to have thesecorrespondences is to be in the state of Death. To the spiritual world, to the Divine Environment, it is dead--as a stone which has never livedis dead to the environment of the organic world. 

Having already abundantly illustrated this use of the symbol Death, wemay proceed to deal with another class of expressions where the sameterm is employed in an exactly opposite connection. It is a proof of theradical nature of religion that a word so extreme should have to be usedagain and again in Christian teaching, to define in different directionsthe true spiritual relations of mankind. Hitherto we have concernedourselves with the condition of the natural man with regard to thespiritual world. We have now to speak of the relations of the spiritualman with regard to the natural world. Carrying with us the sameessential principle--want of correspondence--underlying the meaning ofDeath, we shall find that the relation of the spiritual man to thenatural world, or at least to part of it, is to be that of Death. 

When the natural man becomes the spiritual man, the great change isdescribed by Christ as a passing from Death unto Life. Before thetransition occurred, the practical difficulty was this, how to get intocorrespondence with the new Environment? But no sooner is thiscorrespondence established than the problem is reversed. The questionnow is, how to get out of correspondence with the old environment? Themoment the new life is begun there comes a genuine anxiety to break withthe old. For the former environment has now become embarrassing. Itrefuses its dismissal from consciousness. It competes doggedly with thenew Environment for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundredways the former traditions, the memories and passions of the past, thefixed associations and habits of the earlier life, now complicate thenew relation. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself incorrespondence with two environments, each with urgent but yetincompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a double world, a worldwhose inhabitants are deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetualcivil-war. 

The position of things is perplexing. It is clear that no man canattempt to live both lives. To walk both in the flesh and in the spiritis morally impossible. "No man, " as Christ so often emphasized, "canserve two masters. " And yet, as matter of fact, here is the new-bornbeing in communication with both environments? With sin and purity, light and darkness, time and Eternity, God and Devil, the confused andundecided soul is now in correspondence. What is to be done in such anemergency? How can the New Life deliver itself from the still-persistentpast?

A ready solution of the difficulty would be _to die_. Were one to dieorganically, to die and "go to heaven, " all correspondence with thelower environment would be arrested at a stroke. For Physical Death ofcourse simply means the final stoppage of all natural correspondenceswith this sinful world. 

But this alternative, fortunately or unfortunately, is not open. Thedetention here of body and spirit for a given period is determined forus, and we are morally bound to accept the situation. We must look thenfor a further alternative. 

Actual Death being denied us, we must ask ourselves if there is nothingelse resembling it--no artificial relation, no imitation or semblance ofDeath which would serve our purpose. If we cannot yet die absolutely, surely the next best thing will be to find a temporary substitute. If wecannot die altogether, in short, the most we can do is to die as much aswe can. And we now know this is open to us, and how. To die to anyenvironment is to withdraw correspondence with it, to cut ourselves off, so far as possible, from all communication with it. So that the solutionof the problem will simply be this, for the spiritual life to reversecontinuously the processes of the natural life. The spiritual man havingpassed from Death unto Life, the natural man must next proceed to passfrom Life unto Death. Having opened the new set of correspondences, hemust deliberately close up the old. Regeneration in short must beaccompanied by Degeneration. 

Now it is no surprise to find that this is the process everywheredescribed and recommended by the founders of the Christian system. Theirproposal to the natural man, or rather to the natural part of thespiritual man, with regard to a whole series of inimical relations, isprecisely this. If he cannot really die, he must make an adequateapproach to it by "reckoning himself dead. " Seeing that, until the cycleof his organic life is complete he cannot die physically, he mustmeantime die morally, reckoning himself morally dead to that environmentwhich, by competing for his correspondences, has now become an obstacleto his spiritual life. 

The variety of ways in which the New Testament writers insist upon thissomewhat extraordinary method is sufficiently remarkable. And althoughthe idea involved is essentially the same throughout, it will clearlyillustrate the nature of the act if we examine separately threedifferent modes of expression employed in the later Scriptures in thisconnection. The methods by which the spiritual man is to withdrawhimself from the old environment--or from that part of it which willdirectly hinder the spiritual life--are three in number:--

 First, Suicide. Second, Mortification. Third, Limitation. 

It will be found in practice that these different methods are adapted, respectively, to meet three different forms of temptation; so that wepossess a sufficient warrant for giving a brief separate treatment toeach. 

First, Suicide. Stated in undisguised phraseology, the advice of Paul tothe Christian, with regard to a part of his nature, is to commitsuicide. If the Christian is to "live unto God, " he must "die unto sin. "If he does not kill sin, sin will inevitably kill him. Recognizing this, he must set himself to reduce the number of his correspondences--retainingand developing those which lead to a fuller life, unconditionallywithdrawing those which in any way tend in an opposite direction. Thisstoppage of correspondences is a voluntary act, a crucifixion of theflesh, a suicide. 

Now the least experience of life will make it evident that a large classof sins can only be met, as it were, by Suicide. The peculiar feature ofDeath by Suicide is that it is not only self-inflicted but sudden. Andthere are many sins which must either be dealt with suddenly or not atall. Under this category, for instance, are to be included generally allsins of the appetites and passions. Other sins, from their peculiarnature, can only be treated by methods less abrupt, but the suddenoperation of the knife is the only successful means of dealing withfleshly sins. For example, the correspondence of the drunkard with hiswine is a thing which can be broken off by degrees only in the rarestcases. To attempt it gradually may in an isolated case succeed, but eventhen the slightly prolonged gratification is no compensation for theslow torture of a gradually diminishing indulgence. "If thine appetiteoffend thee cut it off, " may seem at first but a harsh remedy; but whenwe contemplate on the one hand the lingering pain of the gradualprocess, on the other its constant peril, we are compelled to admit thatthe principle is as kind as it is wise. The expression "totalabstinence" in such a case is a strictly biological formula. It impliesthe sudden destruction of a definite portion of environment by the totalwithdrawal of all the connecting links. Obviously of course totalabstinence ought thus to be allowed a much wider application than tocases of "intemperance. " It's the only decisive method of dealing withany sin of the flesh; The very nature of the relations makes itabsolutely imperative that every victim of unlawful appetite, inwhatever direction, shall totally abstain. Hence Christ's apparentlyextreme and peremptory language defines the only possible, as well asthe only charitable, expedient: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck itout, and cast it from thee. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut itoff, and cast it from thee. "

The humanity of what is called "sudden conversion" has never beeninsisted on as it deserves. In discussing "Biogenesis"[65] it has beenalready pointed out that while growth is a slow and gradual process, thechange from Death to Life alike in the natural and spiritual spheres isthe work of a moment. Whatever the conscious hour of the second birthmay be--in the case of an adult it is probably defined by the first realvictory over sin--it is certain that on biological principles the realturning-point is literally a moment. But on moral and humane groundsthis misunderstood, perverted, and therefore despised doctrine isequally capable of defence. Were any reformer, with an adequateknowledge of human life, to sit down and plan a scheme for the salvationof sinful men, he would probably come to the conclusion that the bestway after all, perhaps indeed the only way, to turn a sinner from theerror of his ways would be to do it suddenly. 

Suppose a drunkard were advised to take off one portion from his usualallowance the first week, another the second, and so on! Or suppose atfirst, he only allowed himself to become intoxicated in the evenings, then every second evening, then only on Saturday nights, and finallyonly every Christmas? How would a thief be reformed if he slowly reducedthe number of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by gradually diminishingthe number of his blows? The argument ends with an _ad absurdum_. "Lethim that stole _steal no more_, " is the only feasible, the only moral, and the only humane way. This may not apply to every case, but when anypart of man's sinful life can be dealt with by immediate Suicide, tomake him reach the end, even were it possible, by a lingering death, would be a monstrous cruelty. And yet it is this very thing in "suddenconversion, " that men object to--the sudden change, the decisive stand, the uncompromising rupture with the past, the precipitate flight fromsin as of one escaping for his life. Men surely forget that this is anescaping for one's life. Let the poor prisoner run--madly and blindly ifhe like, for the terror of Death is upon him. God knows, when the pausecomes, how the chains will gall him still. 

It is a peculiarity of the sinful state, that as a general rule men arelinked to evil mainly by a single correspondence. Few men break thewhole law. Our natures, fortunately, are not large enough to make usguilty of all, and the restraints of circumstances are usually such asto leave a loophole in the life of each individual for only a singlehabitual sin. But it is very easy to see how this reduction of ourintercourse with evil to a single correspondence blinds us to our trueposition. Our correspondences, as a whole, are not with evil, and in ourcalculations as to our spiritual condition we emphasize the manynegatives rather than the single positive. One little weakness, we areapt to fancy, all men must be allowed, and we even claim a certainindulgence for that apparent necessity of nature which we call ourbesetting sin. Yet to break with the lower environment at all, to many, is to break at this single point. It is the only important point atwhich they touch it, circumstances or natural disposition makinghabitual contact at other places impossible. The sinful environment, inshort, to them means a small but well-defined area. Now if contact atthis point be not broken off, they are virtually in contact still withthe whole environment. There may be only one avenue between the new lifeand the old, it may be but a small and _subterranean passage_, but thisis sufficient to keep the old life in. So long as that remains thevictim is not "dead unto sin, " and therefore he cannot "live unto God. "Hence the reasonableness of the words, "Whatsoever shall keep the wholelaw, and yet offend at one point, he is guilty of all. " In the naturalworld it only requires a single vital correspondence of the body to beout of order to insure Death. It is not necessary to have consumption, diabetes, and an aneurism to bring the body to the grave if it haveheart-disease. He who is fatally diseased in one organ necessarily paysthe penalty with his life, though all the others be in perfect health. And such, likewise, are the mysterious unity and correlation offunctions in the spiritual organism that the disease of one member mayinvolve the ruin of the whole. The reason, therefore, with which Christfollows up the announcement of His Doctrine of Mutilation, or localSuicide, finds here at once its justification and interpretation: "Ifthy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: _for_ itis profitable for thee that _one_ of thy members should perish, and notthat thy _whole body_ should be cast into hell. And if thy right handoffend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: _for_ it is profitablefor thee that _one_ of thy members should perish, and not that thy_whole body_ should be cast into hell. "

Secondly, Mortification. The warrant for the use of this expression isfound in the well-known phrases of Paul, "If ye through the Spirit domortify the deeds of the body ye shall live, " and "Mortify thereforeyour members which are upon earth. " The word mortify here is, literally, to make to die. It is used, of course, in no specially technical sense;and to attempt to draw a detailed moral from the pathology ofmortification would be equally fantastic and irrelevant. But without inany way straining the meaning it is obvious that we have here a slightaddition to our conception of dying to sin. In contrast with Suicide, Mortification implies a gradual rather than a sudden process. Thecontexts in which the passages occur will make this meaning so clear, and are otherwise so instructive in the general connection, that we mayquote them, from the New Version, at length: "They that are after theflesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after theSpirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; butthe mind of the Spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the fleshis enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neitherindeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Butye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit ofGod dwell in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he isnone of His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin;but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit ofHim that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raisedup Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodiesthrough His Spirit that dwelleth in you. So then, brethren, we aredebtors not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: for if ye live afterthe flesh ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye mortify the doings(marg. ) of the body, ye shall live. "[66]

And again, "If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the thingsthat are above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God. Setyour mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are uponthe earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. WhenChrist, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also withHim be manifested in glory. Mortify therefore your members which areupon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, andcovetousness, the which is idolatry; for which things' sake cometh thewrath of God upon the sons of disobedience; in the which ye also walkedaforetime, when ye lived in these things. But now put ye also away allthese; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of yourmouth: lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old manwith his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewedunto knowledge after the image of Him that created him. "[67]

From the nature of the case as here stated it is evident that no suddenprocess could entirely transfer a man from the old into the newrelation. To break altogether, and at every point, with the oldenvironment, is a simple impossibility. So long as the regenerate man iskept in this world, he must find the old environment at many points asevere temptation. Power over very many of the commonest temptations isonly to be won by degrees, and however anxious one might be to apply thesummary method to every case, he soon finds it impossible in practice. The difficulty in these cases arises from a peculiar feature of thetemptation. The difference between a sin of drunkenness, and, let ussay, a sin of temper, is that in the former case the victim who wouldreform has mainly to deal with the environment, but in the latter withthe correspondence. The drunkard's temptation is a known and definitequantity. His safety lies in avoiding some external and materialsubstance. Of course, at bottom, he is really dealing with thecorrespondence every time he resists; he is distinctly controllingappetite. Nevertheless it is less the appetite that absorbs his mindthan the environment. And so long as he can keep himself clear of the"external relation, " to use Mr. Herbert Spencer's phraseology, he hasmuch less difficulty with the "internal relation. " The ill-temperedperson, on the other hand, can make very little of his environment. However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain directions, therewill always remain a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate hisirascibility. His environment, in short, is an inconstant quantity, andhis most elaborate calculations and precautions must often and suddenlyfail him. 

What he has to deal with, then, mainly is the correspondence, thetemper itself. And that, he well knows, involves a long and humiliatingdiscipline. The case now is not at all a surgical but a medical one, andthe knife is here of no more use than in a fever. A specific irritanthas poisoned his veins. And the acrid humors that are breaking out allover the surface of his life are only to be subdued by a gradualsweetening of the inward spirit. It is now known that the human bodyacts toward certain fever-germs as a sort of soil. The man whose bloodis pure has nothing to fear. So he whose spirit is purified andsweetened becomes proof against these germs of sin. "Anger, wrath, malice and railing" in such a soil can find no root. 

The difference between this and the former method of dealing with sinmay be illustrated by another analogy. The two processes depend upon twodifferent natural principles. The Mutilation of a member, for instance, finds its analogue in the horticultural operation of _pruning_, wherethe object is to divert life from a useless into a useful channel. Apart of a plant which previously monopolized a large share of the vigorof the total organism, but without yielding any adequate return, issuddenly cut off, so that the vital processes may proceed more activelyin some fruitful parts. Christ's use of this figure is well-known:"Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He purgeth it that it maybring forth more fruit. " The strength of the plant, that is, being givento the formation of mere wood, a number of useless correspondences haveto be abruptly closed while the useful connections are allowed toremain. The Mortification of a member, again, is based on the Law ofDegeneration. The useless member here is not cut off, but simplyrelieved as much as possible of all exercise. This encourages thegradual decay of the parts, and as it is more and more neglected itceases to be a channel for life at all. So an organism "mortifies" itsmembers. 

Thirdly, Limitation. While a large number of correspondences between manand his environment can be stopped in these ways, there are many morewhich neither can be reduced by a gradual Mortification nor cut short bysudden Death. One reason for this is that to tamper with thesecorrespondences might involve injury to closely related vital parts. Or, again, there are organs which are really essential to the normal life ofthe organism, and which therefore the organism cannot afford to loseeven though at times they act prejudicially. Not a few correspondences, for instance, are not wrong in themselves but only in their extremes. Upto a certain point they are lawful and necessary; beyond that point theymay become not only unnecessary but sinful. The appropriate treatment inthese and similar cases consists in a process of Limitation. Theperformance of this operation, it must be confessed, requires a mostdelicate hand. It is an art, moreover, which no one can teach another. And yet, if it is not learned by all who are trying to lead theChristian life, it cannot be for want of practice. For, as we shall see, the Christian is called upon to exercise few things more frequently. 

An easy illustration of a correspondence which is only wrong whencarried to an extreme, is the love of money. The love of money up to acertain point is a necessity; beyond that it may become one of the worstof sins. Christ said: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. " The twoservices, at a definite point, become incompatible, and hencecorrespondence with one must cease. At what point, however, it mustcease each man has to determine for himself. And in this consists atonce the difficulty and the dignity of Limitation. 

There is another class of cases where the adjustments are still moredifficult to determine. Innumerable points exist in our surroundingswith which it is perfectly legitimate to enjoy, and even to cultivate, correspondence, but which privilege, at the same time, it were better onthe whole that we did not use. Circumstances are occasionally such--thedemands of others upon us, for example, may be so clamant--that we havevoluntarily to reduce the area of legitimate pleasure. Or, instead ofit coming from others, the claim may come from a still higher direction. Man's spiritual life consists in the number and fullness of hiscorrespondences with God. In order to develop these he may beconstrained to insulate them, to inclose them from the othercorrespondences, to shut himself in with them. In many ways thelimitation of the natural life is the necessary condition of the fullenjoyment of the spiritual life. 

In this principle lies the true philosophy of self-denial. No man iscalled to a life of self-denial for its own sake. It is in order to acompensation which, though sometimes difficult to see, is always realand always proportionate. No truth, perhaps, in practical religion ismore lost sight of. We cherish somehow a lingering rebellion against thedoctrine of self-denial--as if our nature, or our circumstances, or ourconscience, dealt with us severely in loading us with the daily cross. But is it not plain after all that the life of self-denial is the moreabundant life--more abundant just in proportion to the amplercrucifixion of the narrower life? Is it not a clear case of exchange--anexchange however where the advantage is entirely on our side? We give upa correspondence in which there is a little life to enjoy acorrespondence in which there is an abundant life. What though wesacrifice a hundred such correspondences? We make but the more room forthe great one that is left. The lesson of self-denial, that is to say ofLimitation, is _concentration_. Do not spoil your life, it says, at theoutset with unworthy and impoverishing correspondences; and if it isgrowing truly rich and abundant, be very jealous of ever diluting itshigh eternal quality with anything of earth. To concentrate upon a fewgreat correspondences, to oppose to the death the perpetual pettylarceny of our life by trifles--these are the conditions for the highestand happiest life. It is only Limitation which can secure theIllimitable. 

The penalty of evading self-denial also is just that we get the lesserinstead of the larger good. The punishment of sin is inseparably boundup with itself. To refuse to deny one's self is just to be left withthe self undenied. When the balance of life is struck, the self will befound still there. The discipline of life was meant to destroy thisself, but that discipline having been evaded--and we all to some extenthave opportunities, and too often exercise them, of taking the narrowpath by the shortest cuts--its purpose is balked. But the soul is theloser. In seeking to gain its life it has really lost it. This is whatChrist meant when He said: "He that loveth his life shall lose it, andhe that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. "

Why does Christ say: "Hate Life?" Does He mean that life is a sin? No. Life is not a sin. Still, He says we must hate it. But we must live. Whyshould we hate what we must do? For this reason: Life is not a sin, butthe love of life may be a sin. And the best way not to love life is tohate it. Is it a sin then to love life? Not a sin exactly, but amistake. It is a sin to love some life, a mistake to love the rest. Because that love is lost. All that is lavished on it is lost. Christdoes not say it is wrong to love life. He simply says it is _loss_. Eachman has only a certain amount of life, of time, of attention--a definitemeasurable quantity. If he gives any of it to this life solely it iswasted. Therefore Christ says, Hate life, limit life, lest you stealyour love for it from something that deserves it more. 

Now this does not apply to all life. It is "life in this world" that isto be hated. For life in this world implies conformity to this world. Itmay not mean pursuing worldly pleasures, or mixing with worldly sets;but a subtler thing than that--a silent deference to worldly opinion; analmost unconscious lowering of religious tone to the level of theworldly-religious world around; a subdued resistance to the soul'sdelicate promptings to greater consecration, out of deference to"breadth" or fear of ridicule. These, and such things, are what Christtells us we must hate. For these things are of the very essence ofworldliness. "If any man love the world, " even in this sense, "the loveof the Father is not in him. "

There are two ways of hating life, a true and a false. Some men hatelife because it hates them. They have seen through it, and it has turnedround upon them. They have drunk it, and come to the dregs; thereforethey hate it. This is one of the ways in which the man who loves hislife literally loses it. He loves it till he loses it, then he hates itbecause it has fooled him. The other way is the religious. For religiousreasons a man deliberately braces himself to the systematic hating ofhis life. "No man can serve two masters, for either he must hate the oneand love the other, or else he must hold to the one and despise theother. " Despising the other--this is hating life, limiting life. It isnot misanthropy, but Christianity. 

This principle, as has been said, contains the true philosophy ofself-denial. It also holds the secret by which self-denial may be mosteasily borne. A common conception of self-denial is that there are amultitude of things about life which are to be put down with a high handthe moment they make their appearance. They are temptations which arenot to be tolerated, but must be instantly crushed out of being withpang and effort. 

So life comes to be a constant and sore cutting off of things which welove as our right hand. But now suppose one tried boldly to hate thesethings? Suppose we deliberately made up our minds as to what things wewere henceforth to allow to become our life? Suppose we selected a givenarea of our environment and determined once for all that ourcorrespondences should go to that alone, fencing in this area all roundwith a morally impassable wall? True, to others, we should seem to livea poorer life; they would see that our environment was circumscribed, and call us narrow because it was narrow. But, well-chosen, this limitedlife would be really the fullest life; it would be rich in the highestand worthiest, and poor in the smallest and basest correspondences. Thewell-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but it is alsothe most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than thehalf. It is the man who tries to make the best of both worlds who makesnothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters misses thebenediction of both. But he who has taken his stand, who has drawn aboundary line, sharp and deep about his religious life, who has markedoff all beyond as forever forbidden ground to him, finds the yoke easyand the burden light. For this forbidden environment comes to be as ifit were not. His faculties falling out of correspondence, slowly losetheir sensibilities. And the balm of Death numbing his lower naturereleases him for the scarce disturbed communion of a higher life. Soeven here to die is gain. 

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Page 80. 

[66] Rom. Viii. 5-13. 

[67] Col. Iii. 1-10. 

ETERNAL LIFE. 

 "Supposing that man, in some form, is permitted to remain on the earth for a long series of years, we merely lengthen out the period, but we cannot escape the final catastrophe. The earth will gradually lose its energy of relation, as well as that of revolution round the sun. The sun himself will wax dim and become useless as a source of energy, until at last the favorable conditions of the present solar system will have quite disappeared. 

 "But what happens to our system will happen likewise to the whole visible universe, which will, if finite, become a lifeless mass, if indeed it be not doomed to utter dissolution. In fine, it will become old and effete, no less truly than the individual. It is a glorious garment, this visible universe, but not an immortal one. We must look elsewhere if we are to be clothed with immortality as with a garment. "--_The Unseen Universe. _

 "This is Life Eternal--that they might know Thee, the True God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. "--_Jesus Christ. _

 "Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence and eternal knowledge. "--_Herbert Spencer. _

One of the most startling achievements of recent science is a definitionof Eternal Life. To the religious mind this is a contribution of immensemoment. For eighteen hundred years only one definition of Life Eternalwas before the world. Now there are two. 

Through all these centuries revealed religion had this doctrine toitself. Ethics had a voice, as well as Christianity, on the question ofthe _summum bonum_; Philosophy ventured to speculate on the Being of aGod. But no source outside Christianity contributed anything to thedoctrine of Eternal Life. Apart from Revelation, this great truth wasunguaranteed. It was the one thing in the Christian system that mostneeded verification from without, yet none was forthcoming. And neverhas any further light been thrown upon the question why in its verynature the Christian Life should be Eternal. Christianity itself evenupon this point has been obscure. Its decision upon the bare fact isauthoritative and specific. But as to what there is in the SpiritualLife necessarily endowing it with the element of Eternity, the maturesttheology is all but silent. 

It has been reserved for modern biology at once to defend and illuminatethis central truth of the Christian faith. And hence in the interests ofreligion, practical and evidential, this second and scientificdefinition of Eternal Life is to be hailed as an announcement ofcommanding interest. Why it should not yet have received the recognitionof religious thinkers--for already it has lain some years unnoticed--isnot difficult to understand. The belief in Science as an aid to faith isnot yet ripe enough to warrant men in searching there for witnesses tothe highest Christian truths. The inspiration of Nature, it is thought, extends to the humbler doctrines alone. And yet the reverent inquirerwho guides his steps in the right direction may find even now in thestill dim twilight of the scientific world much that will illuminate andintensify his sublimest faith. Here, at least, comes, and comesunbidden, the opportunity of testing the most vital point of theChristian system. Hitherto the Christian philosopher has remainedcontent with the scientific evidence against Annihilation. Or, withButler, he has reasoned from the Metamorphoses of Insects to a futurelife. Or again, with the authors of "The Unseen Universe, " the apologisthas constructed elaborate, and certainly impressive, arguments upon theLaw of Continuity. But now we may draw nearer. For the first timeScience touches Christianity _positively_ on the doctrine ofImmortality. It confronts us with an actual definition of an EternalLife, based on a full and rigidly accurate examination of the necessaryconditions. Science does not pretend that it can fulfill theseconditions. Its votaries make no claim to possess the Eternal Life. Itsimply postulates the requisite conditions without concerning itselfwhether any organism should ever appear, or does now exist, which mightfulfill them. The claim of religion, on the other hand, is that thereare organisms which possess Eternal Life. And the problem for us tosolve is this: Do those who profess to possess Eternal Life fulfill theconditions required by Science, or are they different conditions? In aword, Is the Christian conception of Eternal Life scientific?

It may be unnecessary to notice at the outset that the definition ofEternal Life drawn up by Science was framed without reference toreligion. It must indeed have been the last thought with the thinker towhom we chiefly owe it, that in unfolding the conception of a Life inits very nature necessarily eternal, he was contributing to Theology. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer--for it is to him we owe it--would be the first toadmit the impartiality of his definition; and from the connection inwhich it occurs in his writings, it is obvious that religion was noteven present to his mind. He is analyzing with minute care the relationsbetween Environment and Life. He unfolds the principle according towhich Life is high or low, long or short. He shows why organisms liveand why they die. And finally he defines a condition of things in whichan organism would never die--in which it would enjoy a perpetual andperfect Life. This to him is, of course, but a speculation. Life Eternalis a biological conceit. The conditions necessary to an Eternal Life donot exist in the natural world. So that the definition is altogetherimpartial and independent. A Perfect Life, to Science, is simply a thingwhich is theoretically possible--like a Perfect Vacuum. 

Before giving, in so many words, the definition of Mr. Herbert Spencer, it will render it fully intelligible if we gradually lead up to it by abrief rehearsal of the few and simple biological facts on which it isbased. In considering the subject of Death, we have formerly seen thatthere are degrees of Life. By this is meant that some lives have moreand fuller correspondence with Environment than others. The amount ofcorrespondence, again, is determined by the greater or less complexityof the organism. Thus a simple organism like the Amoeba is possessed ofvery few correspondences. It is a mere sac of transparent structurelessjelly for which organization has done almost nothing, and hence it canonly communicate with the smallest possible area of Environment. Aninsect, in virtue of its more complex structure, corresponds with awider area. Nature has endowed it with special faculties for reachingout to the Environment on many sides; it has more life than the Amoeba. In other words, it is a higher animal. Man again, whose body is stillfurther differentiated, or broken up into different correspondences, finds himself _en rapport_ with his surroundings to a further extent. And therefore he is higher still, more living still. And this law, thatthe degree of Life varies with the degree of correspondence, holds tothe minutest detail throughout the entire range of living things. Lifebecomes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, more and more sensitiveand responsive to an ever-widening Environment as we arise in the chainof being. 

Now it will speedily appear that a distinct relation exists, and mustexist, between complexity and longevity. Death being brought about bythe failure of an organism to adjust itself to some change in theEnvironment, it follows that those organisms which are able to adjustthemselves most readily and successfully will live the longest. Theywill continue time after time to effect the appropriate adjustment, andtheir power of doing so will be exactly proportionate to theircomplexity--that is, to the amount of Environment they can control withtheir correspondences. There are, for example, in the Environment ofevery animal certain things which are directly or indirectly dangerousto Life. If its equipment of correspondences is not complete enough toenable it to avoid these dangers in all possible circumstances, it mustsooner or later succumb. The organism then with the most perfect set ofcorrespondences, that is, the highest and most complex organism, has anobvious advantage over less complex forms. It can adjust itself moreperfectly and frequently. But this is just the biological way of sayingthat it can live the longest. And hence the relation between complexityand longevity may be expressed thus--the most complex organisms are thelongest lived. 

To state and illustrate the proposition conversely may the point stillfurther clear. The less highly organized an animal is, the less will beits chance of remaining in lengthened correspondence with itsEnvironment. At some time or other in its career circumstances are sureto occur to which the comparatively immobile organism finds itselfstructurally unable to respond. Thus a _Medusa_ tossed ashore by a wave, finds itself so out of correspondence with its new surroundings that itslife must pay the forfeit. Had it been able by internal change to adaptitself to external change--to correspond sufficiently with the newenvironment, as for example to crawl, as an eel would have done, backinto that environment with which it had completer correspondence--itslife might have been spared. But had this happened it would continue tolive henceforth only so long as it could continue in correspondence withall the circumstances in which it might find itself. Even if, however, it became complex enough to resist the ordinary and direct dangers ofits environment, it might still be out of correspondence with others. Anaturalist for instance, might take advantage of its want ofcorrespondence with particular sights and sounds to capture it for hiscabinet, or the sudden dropping of a yacht's anchor or the turn of ascrew might cause its untimely death. 

Again, in the case of a bird, in virtue of its more complexorganization, there is command over a much larger area of environment. It can take precautions such as the _Medusa_ could not; it has increasedfacilities for securing food; its adjustments all round are morecomplex; and therefore it ought to be able to maintain its Life for alonger period. There is still a large area, however, over which it hasno control. Its power of internal change is not complete enough toafford it perfect correspondence with all external changes, and itstenure of Life is to that extent insecure. Its correspondence, moreover, is limited even with regard to those external conditions with which ithas been partially established. Thus a bird in ordinary circumstanceshas no difficulty in adapting itself to changes of temperature, but ifthese are varied beyond the point at which its capacity of adjustmentbegins to fail--for example, during an extreme winter--the organismbeing unable to meet the condition must perish. The human organism, onthe other hand, can respond to this external condition, as well as tocountless other vicissitudes under which lower forms would inevitablysuccumb. Man's adjustments are to the largest known area of Environment, and hence he ought to be able furthest to prolong his Life. 

It becomes evident, then, that as we ascend in the scale of Life we risealso in the scale of longevity. The lowest organisms are, as a rule, short-lived, and the rate of mortality diminishes more or less regularlyas we ascend in the animal scale. So extraordinary indeed is themortality among lowly-organized forms that in most cases a compensationis actually provided, nature endowing them with a marvelously increasedfertility in order to guard against absolute extinction. Almost alllower forms are furnished not only with great reproductive powers, butwith different methods of propagation, by which, in variouscircumstances, and in an incredibly short time, the species can beindefinitely multiplied. Ehrenberg found that by the repeatedsubdivisions of a single _Paramecium_, no fewer than 268, 000, 000similar organisms might be produced in one month. This power steadilydecreases as we rise higher in the scale, until forms are reached inwhich one, two, or at most three, come into being at a birth. Itdecreases, however, because it is no longer needed. These forms have amuch longer lease of Life. And it may be taken as a rule, although ithas exceptions, that complexity in animal organisms is always associatedwith longevity. 

It may be objected that these illustrations are taken merely from morbidconditions. But whether the Life be cut short by accident or by diseasethe principle is the same. All dissolution is brought about practicallyin the same way. A certain condition in the Environment fails to be metby a corresponding condition in the organism, and this is death. Andconversely the more an organism in virtue of its complexity can adaptitself to all the parts of its Environment, the longer it will live. "Itis manifest _a priori_, " says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "that since changesin the physical state of the environment, as also those mechanicalactions and those variations of available food which occur in it, areliable to stop the processes going on in the organism; and since theadaptive changes in the organism have the effects of directly orindirectly counterbalancing these changes in the environment, it followsthat the life of the organism will be short or long, low or high, according to the extent to which changes in the environment are met bycorresponding changes in the organism. Allowing a margin forperturbations, the life will continue only while the correspondencecontinues; the completeness of the life will be proportionate to thecompleteness of the correspondence; and the life will be perfect onlywhen the correspondence is perfect. "[68]

We are now all but in sight of our scientific definitions of EternalLife. The desideratum is an organism with a correspondence of a veryexceptional kind. It must lie beyond the reach of those "mechanicalactions" and those "variations of available food, " which are "liable tostop the processes going on in the organism. " Before we reach an EternalLife we must pass beyond that point at which all ordinarycorrespondences inevitably cease. We must find an organism so high andcomplex, that at some point in its development it shall have added acorrespondence which organic death is powerless to arrest. We must inshort pass beyond that definite region where the correspondences dependon evanescent and material media, and enter a further region where theEnvironment corresponded with is itself Eternal. Such an Environmentexists. The Environment of the Spiritual world is outside the influenceof these "mechanical actions, " which sooner or later interrupt theprocesses going on in all finite organisms. If then we can find anorganism which has established a correspondence with the spiritualworld, that correspondence will possess the elements ofeternity--provided only one other condition be fulfilled. 

That condition is that the Environment be perfect. If it is not perfect, if it is not the highest, if it is endowed with the finite quality ofchange, there can be no guarantee that the Life of its correspondentswill be eternal. Some change might occur in it which the correspondentshad no adaptive changes to meet, and Life would cease. But grant aspiritual organism in perfect correspondence with a perfect spiritualEnvironment, and the conditions necessary to Eternal Life are satisfied. 

The exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of Eternal Life maynow be given. And it will be seen that they include essentially theconditions here laid down. "Perfect correspondence would be perfectlife. Were there no changes in the environment but such as the organismhad adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiencywith which it met them, there would be eternal existence and eternalknowledge. "[69] Reserving the question as to the possible fulfillment ofthese conditions, let us turn for a moment to the definition of EternalLife laid down by Christ. Let us place it alongside the definition ofScience, and mark the points of contact. Uninterrupted correspondencewith a perfect Environment is Eternal Life according to Science. "Thisis Life Eternal, " said Christ, "that they may know Thee, the only trueGod, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. "[70] Life Eternal is to knowGod. To know God is to "correspond" with God. To correspond with God isto correspond with a Perfect Environment. And the organism which attainsto this, in the nature of things must live forever. Here is "eternalexistence and eternal knowledge. "

The main point of agreement between the scientific and the religiousdefinition is that Life consists in a peculiar and personal relationdefined as a "correspondence. " This conception, that Life consists incorrespondences, has been so abundantly illustrated already that it isnow unnecessary to discuss it further. All Life indeed consistsessentially in correspondences with various Environments. The artist'slife is a correspondence with art; the musician's with music. To cutthem off from these Environments is in that relation to cut off theirLife. To be cut off from all Environment is death. To find a newEnvironment again and cultivate relation with it is to find a new Life. To live is to correspond, and to correspond is to live. So much is truein Science. But it is also true in Religion. And it is of greatimportance to observe that to Religion also the conception of Life is acorrespondence. No truth of Christianity has been more ignorantly orwillfully travestied than the doctrine of Immortality. The popular idea, in spite of a hundred protests, is that Eternal Life is to live forever. A single glance at the _locus classicus_ might have made this errorimpossible. There we are told that Life Eternal is not to live. This isLife Eternal--_to know_. And yet--and it is a notorious instance of thefact that men who are opposed to Religion will take their conceptions ofits profoundest truths from mere vulgar perversions--this view stillrepresents to many cultivated men the Scriptural doctrine of EternalLife. From time to time the taunt is thrown at Religion, not unseldomfrom lips which Science ought to have taught more caution, that theFuture Life of Christianity is simply a prolonged existence, an eternalmonotony, a blind and indefinite continuance of being. The Bible nevercould commit itself to any such empty platitudes; nor could Christianityever offer to the world a hope so colorless. Not that Eternal Life hasnothing to do with everlastingness. That is part of the conception. Andit is this aspect of the question that first arrests us in the field ofScience. But even Science has more in its definition than longevity. Ithas a correspondence and an Environment; and although it cannot fill upthese terms for Religion, it can indicate at least the nature of therelation, the kind of thing that is meant by Life. Science speaks to usindeed of much more than numbers of years. It defines degrees of Life. It explains a widening Environment. It unfolds the relation between awidening Environment and increasing complexity in organisms. And if ithas no absolute contribution to the content of Religion, its analogiesare not limited to a point. It yields to Immortality, and this is themost that Science can do in any case, the board framework for adoctrine. 

The further definition, moreover, of this correspondence as _knowing_ isin the highest degree significant. Is not this the precise quality in anEternal correspondence which the analogies of Science would prepare usto look for? Longevity is associated with complexity. And complexity inorganisms is manifested by the successive addition of correspondences, each richer and larger than those which have gone before. Thedifferentiation, therefore, of the spiritual organism ought to besignalized by the addition of the highest possible correspondence. It isnot essential to the idea that the correspondence should be altogethernovel; it is necessary rather that it should not. An altogether newcorrespondence appearing suddenly without shadow or prophecy would be aviolation of continuity. What we should expect would be something new, and yet something that we were already prepared for. We should look fora further development in harmony with current developments; theextension of the last and highest correspondence in a new and higherdirection. And this is exactly what we have. In the world with whichbiology deals, Evolution culminates in Knowledge. 

At whatever point in the zoological scale this correspondence, or set ofcorrespondences, begins, it is certain there is nothing higher. In itsstunted infancy merely, when we meet with its rudest beginnings inanimal intelligence, it is a thing so wonderful, as to strike everythoughtful and reverent observer with awe. Even among the invertebratesso marvelously are these or kindred powers displayed, that naturalistsdo not hesitate now, on the ground of intelligence at least, to classifysome of the humblest creatures next to man himself. [71] Nothing innature, indeed, is so unlike the rest of nature, so prophetic of what isbeyond it, so supernatural. And as manifested in Man who crowns creationwith his all-embracing consciousness, there is but one word to describehis knowledge: it is Divine. If then from this point there is to be anyfurther Evolution, this surely must be the correspondence in which itshall take place? This correspondence is great enough to demanddevelopment; and yet it is little enough to need it. The magnificence ofwhat it has achieved relatively, is the pledge of the possibility ofmore; the insignificance of its conquest absolutely involves theprobability of still richer triumphs. If anything, in short, in humanityis to go on it must be this. Other correspondences may continuelikewise; others, again, we can well afford to leave behind. But thiscannot cease. This correspondence--or this set of correspondences, forit is very complex--is it not that to which men with one consent wouldattach Eternal Life? Is there anything else to which they would attachit? Is anything better conceivable, anything worthier, fuller, nobler, anything which would represent a higher form of Evolution or offer amore perfect ideal for an Eternal Life?

But these are questions of quality; and the moment we pass from quantityto quality we leave Science behind. In the vocabulary of Science, Eternity is only the fraction of a word. It means mere everlastingness. To Religion, on the other hand, Eternity has little to do with time. Tocorrespond with the God of Science, the Eternal Unknowable, would beeverlasting existence; to correspond with "the true God and JesusChrist, " is Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life alone makesthe heaven; mere everlastingness might be no boon. Even the brief spanof the temporal life is too long for those who spend its years insorrow. Time itself, let alone Eternity, is all but excruciating toDoubt. And many besides Schopenhauer have secretly regardedconsciousness as the hideous mistake and malady of Nature. Therefore wemust not only have quantity of years, to speak in the language of thepresent, but quality of correspondence. When we leave Science behind, this correspondence also receives a higher name. It becomes communion. Other names there are for it, religious and theological. It may beincluded in a general expression, Faith; or we may call it by a personaland specific term, Love. For the knowing of a Whole so great involvesthe co-operation of many parts. 

Communion with God--can it be demonstrated in terms of Science that thisis a correspondence which will never break? We do not appeal to Sciencefor such a testimony. We have asked for its conception of an EternalLife; and we have received for answer that Eternal Life would consist ina correspondence which should never cease, with an Environment whichshould never pass away. And yet what would Science demand of a perfectcorrespondence that is not met by this, _the knowing of God_? There isno other correspondence which could satisfy one at least of theconditions. Not one could be named which would not bear on the face ofit the mark and pledge of its mortality. But this, to know God, standsalone. To know God, to be linked with God, to be linked withEternity--if this is not the "eternal existence" of biology, what canmore nearly approach it? And yet we are still a great way off--toestablish a communication with the Eternal is not to secure EternalLife. It must be assumed that the communication could be sustained. Andto assume this would be to beg the question. So that we have still toprove Eternal Life. But let it be again repeated, we are not hereseeking proofs. We are seeking light. We are merely reconnoitring fromthe furthest promontory of Science if so be that through the haze we maydiscern the outline of a distant coast and come to some conclusion as tothe possibility of landing. 

But, it may be replied, it is not open to any one handling the questionof Immortality from the side of Science to remain neutral as to thequestion of fact. It is not enough to announce that he has no additionto make to the positive argument. This may be permitted with referenceto other points of contact between Science and Religion, but not withthis. We are told this question is settled--that there is no positiveside. Science meets the entire conception of Immortality with a directnegative. In the face of a powerful consensus against even thepossibility of a Future Life, to content one's self with saying thatScience pretended to no argument in favor of it would be at onceimpertinent and dishonest. We must therefore devote ourselves for amoment to the question of possibility. 

The problem is, with a material body and a mental organizationinseparably connected with it, to bridge the grave. Emotion, volition, thought itself, are functions of the brain. When the brain is impaired, they are impaired. When the brain is not, they are not. Everythingceases with the dissolution of the material fabric; muscular activityand mental activity perish alike. With the pronounced positivestatements on this point from many departments of modern Science we areall familiar. The fatal verdict is recorded by a hundred hands and withscarcely a shadow of qualification. "Unprejudiced philosophy iscompelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality and of apersonal continuance after death. With the decay and dissolution of itsmaterial substratum, through which alone it has acquired a consciousexistence and become a person, and upon which it was dependent, thespirit must cease to exist. "[72] To the same effect Vogt: "Physiologydecides definitely and categorically against individual immortality, asagainst any special existence of the soul. The soul does not enter thefœtus like the evil spirit into persons possessed, but is a product ofthe development of the brain, just as muscular activity is a product ofmuscular development, and secretion a product of glandular development. "After a careful review of the position of recent Science with regard tothe whole doctrine, Mr. Graham sums up thus: "Such is the argument ofScience, seemingly decisive against a future life. As we listen to herarray of syllogisms, our hearts die within us. The hopes of men, placedin one scale to be weighed, seem to fly up against the massive weight ofher evidence, placed in the other. It seems as if all our arguments werevain and unsubstantial, as if our future expectations were the foolishdreams of children, as if there could not be any other possible verdictarrived at upon the evidence brought forward. "[73]

Can we go on in the teeth of so real an obstruction? Has not our ownweapon turned against us, Science abolishing with authoritative hand thevery truth we are asking it to define?

What the philosopher has to throw into the other scale can be easilyindicated. Generally speaking, he demurs to the dogmatism of theconclusion. That mind and brain react, that the mental and thephysiological processes are related, and very intimately related, isbeyond controversy. But how they are related, he submits, is stillaltogether unknown. The correlation of mind and brain do not involvetheir identity. And not a few authorities accordingly have consistentlyhesitated to draw any conclusion at all. Even Büchner's statement turnsout, on close examination, to be tentative in the extreme. In prefacinghis chapter on Personal Continuance, after a single sentence on thedependence of the soul and its manifestations upon a materialsubstratum, he remarks, "Though we are unable to form a definite idea asto the _how_ of this connection, we are still by these facts justifiedin asserting, that the mode of this connection renders it _apparently_impossible that they should continue to exist separately. "[74] There is, therefore, a flaw at this point in the argument for materialism. It maynot help the spiritualist in the least degree positively. He may be asfar as ever from a theory of how consciousness could continue withoutthe material tissue. But his contention secures for him the right ofspeculation. The path beyond may lie in hopeless gloom; but it is notbarred. He may bring forward his theory if he will. And this issomething. For a permission to go on is often the most that Science cangrant to Religion. 

Men have taken advantage of this loophole in various ways. And thoughit cannot be said that these speculations offer us more than aprobability, this is still enough to combine with the deep-seatedexpectation in the bosom of mankind and give fresh luster to the hope ofa future life. Whether we find relief in the theory of a simple dualism;whether with Ulrici we further define the soul as an invisibleenswathement of the body, material yet non-atomic; whether, with the"Unseen Universe, " we are helped by the spectacle of known forms ofmatter shading off into an ever-growing subtilty, mobility, andimmateriality; or whether, with Wundt, we regard the soul as "theordered unity of many elements, " it is certain that shapes can be givento the conception of a correspondence which shall bridge the grave suchas to satisfy minds too much accustomed to weigh evidence to putthemselves off with fancies. 

But whether the possibilities of physiology or the theories ofphilosophy do or do not substantially assist us in realizingImmortality, is to Religion, to Religion at least regarded from thepresent point of view, of inferior moment. The fact of Immortality restsfor us on a different basis. Probably, indeed, after all the Christianphilosopher never engaged himself in a more superfluous task than inseeking along physiological lines to find room for a soul. The theory ofChristianity has only to be fairly stated to make manifest its thoroughindependence of all the usual speculations on Immortality. The theory isnot that thought, volition, or emotion, as such are to survive thegrave. The difficulty of holding a doctrine in this form, in spite ofwhat has been advanced to the contrary, in spite of the hopes and wishesof mankind, in spite of all the scientific and philosophical attempts tomake it tenable, is still profound. No secular theory of personalcontinuance, as even Butler acknowledged, does not equally demand theeternity of the brute. No secular theory defines the point in the chainof Evolution at which organisms became endowed with Immortality. Nosecular theory explains the condition of the endowment, nor indicatesits goal. And if we have nothing more to fan hope than the unexploredmystery of the whole region, or the unknown remainders among thepotencies of Life, then, as those who have "hope only in this world, " weare "of all men the most miserable. "

When we turn, on the other hand, to the doctrine as it came from thelips of Christ, we find ourselves in an entirely different region. Hemakes no attempt to project the material into the immaterial. The oldelements, however refined and subtle as to their matter, are not inthemselves to inherit the Kingdom of God. That which is flesh is flesh. Instead of attaching Immortality to the natural organism, He introducesa new and original factor which none of the secular, and few even of thetheological theories, seem to take sufficiently into account. ToChristianity, "he that hath the Son of God hath Life, and he that hathnot the Son hath not Life. " This, as we take it, defines thecorrespondence which is to bridge the grave. This is the clue to thenature of the Life that lies at the back of the spiritual organism. Andthis is the true solution of the mystery of Eternal Life. 

There lies a something at the back of the correspondences of thespiritual organism--just as there lies a something at the back of thenatural correspondences. To say that Life is a correspondence is only toexpress the partial truth. There is something behind. Life manifestsitself in correspondences. But what determines them? The organismexhibits a variety of correspondences. What organizes them? As in thenatural, so in the spiritual, there is a Principle of Life. We cannotget rid of that term. However clumsy, however provisional, however mucha mere cloak for ignorance, Science as yet is unable to dispense withthe idea of a Principle of Life. We must work with the word till we geta better. Now that which determines the correspondence of the spiritualorganism is a Principle of Spiritual Life. It is a new and DivinePossession. He that hath the Son hath Life; conversely, he that hathLife hath the Son. And this indicates at once the quality and thequantity of the correspondence which is to bridge the grave. He thathath Life hath _the Son_. He possesses the Spirit of a Son. That spiritis, so to speak, organized within him by the Son. It is themanifestation of the new nature--of which more anon. The fact to note atpresent is that this is not an organic correspondence, but a spiritualcorrespondence. It comes not from generation, but from regeneration. Therelation between the spiritual man and his Environment is, intheological language, a filial relation. With the new Spirit, the filialcorrespondence, he knows the Father--and this is Life Eternal. This isnot only the real relation, but the only possible relation: "Neitherknoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Sonwill reveal Him. " And this on purely natural grounds. It takes theDivine to know the Divine--but in no more mysterious sense than it takesthe human to understand the human. The analogy, indeed, for the wholefield here has been finely expressed already by Paul: "What man, " heasks, "knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is inhim? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit whichis of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us ofGod. "[75]

It were idle, such being the quality of the new relation, to add thatthis also contains the guarantee of its eternity. Here at last is acorrespondence which will never cease. Its powers in bridging the gravehave been tried. The correspondence of the spiritual man possesses thesupernatural virtues of the Resurrection and the Life. It is known byformer experiment to have survived the "changes in the physical state ofthe environment, " and those "mechanical actions" and "variations ofavailable food, " which Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us are "liable to stopthe processes going on in the organism. " In short, this is acorrespondence which at once satisfies the demands of Science andReligion. In mere quantity it is different from every othercorrespondence known. Setting aside everything else in Religion, everything adventitious, local, and provisional; dissecting in to thebone and marrow we find this--a correspondence which can never breakwith an Environment which can never change. Here is a relationestablished with Eternity. The passing years lay no limiting hand on it. Corruption injures it not. It survives Death. It, and it only, willstretch beyond the grave and be found inviolate--

 "When the moon is old, And the stars are cold, And the books of the Judgment-day unfold. "

The misgiving which will creep sometimes over the brightest faith hasalready received its expression and its rebuke: "Who shall separate usfrom the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Shall these "changes inthe physical state of the environment" which threaten death to thenatural man destroy the spiritual? Shall death, or life, or angels, orprincipalities, or powers, arrest or tamper with his eternalcorrespondences? "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerorsthrough Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, norlife, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shallbe able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesusour Lord. "[76]

It may seem an objection to some that the "perfect correspondence"should come to man in so extraordinary a way. The earlier stages in thedoctrine are promising enough; they are entirely in line with Nature. And if Nature had also furnished the "perfect correspondence" demandedfor an Eternal Life the position might be unassailable. But this suddenreference to a something outside the natural Environment destroys thecontinuity, and discovers a permanent weakness in the whole theory?

To which there is a twofold reply. In the first place, to go outsidewhat we call Nature is not to go outside Environment. Nature, thenatural Environment, is only a part of Environment. There is anotherlarge part which, though some profess to have no correspondence with it, is not on that account unreal, or even unnatural. The mental and moralworld is unknown to the plant. But it is real. It cannot be affirmedeither that it is unnatural to the plant; although it might be said thatfrom the point of view of the Vegetable Kingdom it was _supernatural_. Things are natural or supernatural simply according to where one stands. Man is supernatural to the mineral; God is supernatural to the man. Whena mineral is seized upon by the living plant and elevated to the organickingdom, no trespass against Nature is committed. It merely enters alarger Environment, which before was supernatural to it, but which nowis entirely natural. When the heart of a man, again, is seized upon bythe quickening Spirit of God, no further violence is done to naturallaw. It is another case of the inorganic, so to speak, passing into theorganic. 

But in the second place, it is complained as if it were an enormity initself that the spiritual correspondence should be furnished from thespiritual world. And to this the answer lies in the same direction. Correspondence in any case is the gift of Environment. The naturalEnvironment gives men their natural faculties; the spiritual affordsthem their spiritual faculties. It is natural for the spiritualEnvironment to supply the spiritual faculties; it would be quiteunnatural for the natural Environment to do it. The natural law ofBiogenesis forbids it; the moral fact that the finite cannot comprehendthe Infinite is against it; the spiritual principle that flesh andblood cannot inherit the kingdom of God renders it absurd. Not, however, that the spiritual faculties are, as it were, manufactured in thespiritual world and supplied ready-made to the spiritualorganism--forced upon it as an external equipment. This certainly is notinvolved in saying that the spiritual faculties are furnished by thespiritual world. Organisms are not added to by accretion, as in the caseof minerals, but by growth. And the spiritual faculties are organized inthe spiritual protoplasm of the soul, just as other faculties areorganized in the protoplasm of the body. The plant is made of materialswhich have once been inorganic. An organizing principle not belonging totheir kingdom lays hold of them and elaborates them until they havecorrespondences with the kingdom to which the organizing principlebelonged. Their original organizing principle, if it can be called bythis name, was Crystallization; so that we have now a distinctly foreignpower organizing in totally new and higher directions. In the spiritualworld, similarly, we find an organizing principle at work among thematerials of the organic kingdom, performing a further miracle, but nota different kind of miracle, producing organizations of a novel kind, but not by a novel method. The second process, in fact, is simply whatan enlightened evolutionist would have expected from the first. It marksthe natural and legitimate progress of the development. And this in theline of the true Evolution--not the _linear_ Evolution, which would lookfor the development of the natural man through powers already inherent, as if one were to look to Crystallization to accomplish the developmentof the mineral into the plant--but that larger form of Evolution whichincludes among its factors the double Law of Biogenesis and the immensefurther truth that this involves. 

What is further included in this complex correspondence we shall haveopportunity to illustrate afterward. [77] Meantime let it be noted onwhat the Christian argument for Immortality really rests. It stands uponthe pedestal on which the theologian rests the whole of historicalChristianity--the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

It ought to be placed in the forefront of all Christian teaching thatChrist's mission on earth was to give men Life. "I am come, " He said, "that ye might have Life, and that ye might have it more abundantly. "And that He meant literal Life, literal spiritual and Eternal Life, isclear from the whole course of His teaching and acting. To impose ametaphorical meaning on the commonest word of the New Testament is toviolate every canon of interpretation, and at the same time to chargethe greatest of teachers with persistently mystifying His hearers by anunusual use of so exact a vehicle for expressing definite thought as theGreek language, and that on the most momentous subject of which He everspoke to men. It is a canon of interpretation, according to Alford, that"a figurative sense of words is never admissible except when required bythe context. " The context, in most cases, is not only directlyunfavorable to a figurative meaning, but in innumerable instances inChrist's teaching Life is broadly contrasted with Death. In the teachingof the apostles, again, we find that, without exception, they acceptedthe term in its simple literal sense. Reuss defines the apostolic beliefwith his usual impartiality when--and the quotation is doubly pertinenthere--he discovers in the apostle's conception of Life, first, "the ideaof a real existence, an existence such as is proper to God and to theWord; an imperishable existence--that is to say, not subject to thevicissitudes and imperfections of the finite world. This primary idea isrepeatedly expressed, at least in a negative form; it leads to adoctrine of immortality, or, to speak more correctly, of life, farsurpassing any that had been expressed in the formulas of the currentphilosophy or theology, and resting upon premises and conceptionsaltogether different. In fact, it can dispense both with thephilosophical thesis of the immateriality or indestructibility of thehuman soul, and with the theological thesis of a miraculous corporealreconstruction of our person; theses, the first of which is altogetherforeign to the religion of the Bible, and the second absolutely opposedto reason. " Second, "the idea of life, as it is conceived in thissystem, implies the idea of a power, an operation, a communication, since this life no longer remains, so to speak, latent or passive in Godand in the Word, but through them reaches the believer. It is not amental somnolent thing; it is not a plant without fruit; it is a germwhich is to find fullest development. "[78]

If we are asked to define more clearly what is meant by this mysteriousendowment of Life, we again hand over the difficulty to Science. WhenScience can define the Natural Life and the Physical Force we may hopefor further clearness on the nature and action of the Spiritual Powers. The effort to detect the living Spirit must be at least as idle as theattempt to subject protoplasm to microscopic examination in the hope ofdiscovering Life. We are warned, also, not to expect too much. "Thoucanst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. " This being itsquality, when the Spiritual Life is discovered in the laboratory it willpossibly be time to give it up altogether. It may say, as Socrates ofhis soul, "You may bury me--if you can catch me. "

Science never corroborates a spiritual truth without illuminating it. The threshold of Eternity is a place where many shadows meet. And thelight of Science here, where everything is so dark, is welcome athousand times. Many men would be religious if they knew where to begin;many would be more religious if they were sure where it would end. It isnot indifference that keeps some men from God, but ignorance. "GoodMaster, what must I do to inherit Eternal Life?" is still the deepestquestion of the age. What is Religion? What am I to believe? What seekwith all my heart and soul and mind?--this is the imperious questionsent up to consciousness from the depths of being in all earnest hours;sent down again, alas, with many of us, time after time, unanswered. Into all our thought and work and reading this question pursues us. Butthe theories are rejected one by one; the great books are returned sadlyto their shelves, the years pass, and the problem remains unsolved. Theconfusion of tongues here is terrible. Every day a new authorityannounces himself. Poets, philosophers, preachers try their hand on usin turn. New prophets arise, and beseech us for our soul's sake to giveear to them--at last in an hour of inspiration they have discovered thefinal truth. Yet the doctrine of yesterday is challenged by a freshphilosophy to-day: and the creed of to-day will fall in turn before thecriticism of to-morrow. Increase of knowledge increaseth sorrow. And atlength the conflicting truths, like the beams of light in the laboratoryexperiment, combine in the mind to make total darkness. 

But here are two outstanding authorities agreed--not men, notphilosophers, not creeds. Here is the voice of God and the voice ofNature. I cannot be wrong if I listen to them. Sometimes when uncertainof a voice from its very loudness, we catch the missing syllable in theecho. In God and Nature we have Voice and Echo. When I hear both, I amassured. My sense of hearing does not betray me twice. I recognize theVoice in the Echo, the Echo makes me certain of the Voice; I listen andI know. The question of a Future Life is a biological question. Naturemay be silent on other problems of Religion; but here she has a right tospeak. The whole confusion around the doctrine of Eternal Life hasarisen from making it a question of Philosophy. We shall do ill torefuse a hearing to any speculation of Philosophy; the ethical relationshere especially are intimate and real. But in the first instanceEternal Life, as a question of _Life_, is a problem for Biology. Thesoul is a living organism. And for any question as to the soul's Life wemust appeal to Life-science. And what does the Life-science teach? Thatif I am to inherit Eternal Life, I must cultivate a correspondence withthe Eternal. This is a simple proposition, for Nature is always simple. I take this proposition, and, leaving Nature, proceed to fill it in. Isearch everywhere for a clue to the Eternal. I ransack literature for adefinition of a correspondence between man and God. Obviously that canonly come from one source. And the analogies of Science permits us toapply to it. All knowledge lies in Environment. When I want to knowabout minerals I go to minerals. When I want to know about flowers I goto flowers. And they tell me. In their own way they speak to me, each inits own way, and each for itself--not the mineral for the flower, whichis impossible, nor the flower for the mineral, which is also impossible. So if I want to know about Man, I go to his part of the Environment. Andhe tells me about himself, not as the plant or the mineral, for he isneither, but in his own way. And if I want to know about God, I go toHis part of the Environment. And He tells me about Himself, not as aMan, for He is not Man, but in His own way. And just as naturally as theflower and the mineral and the Man, each in their own way, tell me aboutthemselves, He tells me about Himself. He very strangely condescendsindeed in making things plain to me, actually assuming for a time theForm of a Man that I at my poor level may better see Him. This is myopportunity to know Him. This incarnation is God making Himselfaccessible to human thought--God opening to man the possibility ofcorrespondence through Jesus Christ. And this correspondence and thisEnvironment are those I seek. He Himself assures me, "This is LifeEternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christwhom Thou hast sent. "

Do I not now discern the deeper meaning in "_Jesus Christ whom Thou hastsent_?" Do I not better understand with what vision and rapture theprofoundest of the disciples exclaims, "The Son of God is come, and hathgiven us an understanding that we might know Him that is True?"[79]

Having opened correspondence with the Eternal Environment, thesubsequent stages are in the line of all other normal development. Wehave but to continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich thecorrespondence that has been begun. And we shall soon find to oursurprise that this is accompanied by another and parallel process. Theaction is not all upon our side. The Environment also will be found tocorrespond. The influence of Environment is one of the greatest and mostsubstantial of modern biological doctrines. Of the power of Environmentto form or transform organisms, of its ability to develop or suppressfunction, of its potency in determining growth, and generally of itsimmense influence in Evolution, there is no need now to speak. ButEnvironment is now acknowledged to be one of the most potent factors inthe Evolution of Life. The influence of Environment too seems toincrease rather than diminish as we approach the higher forms of being. The highest forms are the most mobile; their capacity of change is thegreatest; they are, in short, most easily acted on by Environment. Andnot only are the highest organisms the most mobile, but the highest partof the highest organisms are more mobile than the lower. Environment cando little, comparatively, in the direction of inducing variation in thebody of a child: but how plastic is its mind! How infinitely sensitiveis its soul! How infallibly can it be turned to music or to dissonanceby the moral harmony or discord of its outward lot! How decisivelyindeed are we not all formed and moulded, made or unmade, by externalcircumstance! Might we not all confess with Ulysses--

 "I am a part of all that I have met. "

Much more, then, shall we look for the influence of Environment on thespiritual nature of him who has opened correspondence with God. Reachingout his eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world around him, shall he not become spiritual? In vital contact with Holiness, shall henot become holy? Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, shallhe miss becoming pure? Walking with God from day to day, shall he failto be taught of God?

Growth in grace is sometimes described as a strange, mystical, andunintelligible process. It is mystical, but neither strange norunintelligible. It proceeds according to Natural Law, and the leadingfactor in sanctification is Influence of Environment. The possibility ofit depends upon the mobility of the organism; the result, on the extentand frequency of certain correspondences. These facts insensibly lead onto a further suggestion. Is it not possible that these biological truthsmay carry with them the clue to still profounder philosophy--even thatof Regeneration?

Evolutionists tell us that by the influence of environment certainaquatic animals have become adapted to a terrestrial mode of life. Breathing normally by gills, as the result and reward of a continuedeffort carried on from generation to generation to inspire the air ofheaven direct, they have slowly acquired the lung-function. In the youngorganism, true to the ancestral type, the gill still persists--as in thetadpole of the common frog. But as maturity approaches the true lungappears; the gill gradually transfers its task to the higher organ. Itthen becomes atrophied and disappears, and finally respiration in theadult is conducted by lungs alone. [80] We may be far, in the meantime, from saying that this is proved. It is for those who accept it to denythe justice of the spiritual analogy. Is religion to them unscientificin its doctrine of Regeneration? Will the evolutionist who admits theregeneration of the frog under the modifying influence of a continuedcorrespondence with a new environment, care to question the possibilityof the soul acquiring such a faculty as that of Prayer, the marvelousbreathing-function of the new creature, when in contact with theatmosphere of a besetting God? Is the change from the earthly to theheavenly more mysterious than the change from the aquatic to theterrestrial mode of life? Is Evolution to stop with the organic? If itbe objected that it has taken ages to perfect the function in thebatrachian, the reply is, that it will take ages to perfect the functionin the Christian. For every thousand years the natural evolution willallow for the development of its organism, the Higher Biology will grantits product millions. We have indeed spoken of the spiritualcorrespondence as already perfect--but it is perfect only as the bud isperfect. "It doth not yet appear what it shall be, " any more than itappeared a million years ago what the evolving batrachian would be. 

But to return. We have been dealing with the scientific aspects ofcommunion with God. Insensibly, from quantity we have been led to speakof quality. And enough has now been advanced to indicate generally thenature of that correspondence with which is necessarily associatedEternal Life. There remain but one or two details to which we mustlastly, and very briefly, address ourselves. 

The quality of everlastingness belongs, as we have seen, to a singlecorrespondence, or rather to a single set of correspondences. But it isapparent that before this correspondence can take full and final effecta further process is necessary. By some means it must be separated fromall the other correspondences of the organism which do not share itspeculiar quality. In this life it is restrained by these othercorrespondences. They may contribute to it, or hinder it; but they areessentially of a different order. They belong not to Eternity but toTime, and to this present world; and, unless some provision is made fordealing with them, they will detain the aspiring organism in thispresent world till Time is ended. Of course, in a sense, all thatbelongs to Time belongs also to Eternity; but these lowercorrespondences are in their nature unfitted for an Eternal Life. Evenif they were perfect in their relation to their Environment, they wouldstill not be Eternal. However opposed, apparently, to the scientificdefinition of Eternal Life, it is yet true that perfect correspondencewith Environment is not Eternal Life. A very important word in thecomplete definition is, in this sentence, omitted. On that word it hasnot been necessary hitherto, and for obvious reasons, to place anyemphasis, but when we come to deal with false pretenders to Immortalitywe must return to it. Were the definition complete as it stands, itmight, with the permission of the psycho-physiologist, guarantee theImmortality of every living thing. In the dog, for instance, thematerial framework giving way at death might leave the released caninespirit still free to inhabit the old Environment. And so with everycreature which had ever established a conscious relation withsurrounding things. Now the difficulty in framing a theory of EternalLife has been to construct one which will exclude the brute creation, drawing the line rigidly at man, or at least, somewhere within the humanrace. Not that we need object to the Immortality of the dog, or of thewhole inferior creation. Nor that we need refuse a place to anyintelligible speculation which would people the earth to-day with theinvisible forms of all things that have ever lived. Only we still insistthat this is not Eternal Life. And why? Because their Environment is notEternal. Their correspondence, however firmly established, isestablished with that which shall pass away. An Eternal Life demands anEternal Environment. 

The demand for a perfect Environment as well as for a perfectcorrespondence is less clear in Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition than itmight be. But it is an essential factor. An organism might remain trueto its Environment, but what if the Environment played it false? If theorganism possessed the power to change, it could adapt itself tosuccessive changes in the Environment. And if this were guaranteed weshould also have the conditions for Eternal Life fulfilled. But what ifthe Environment passed away altogether? What if the earth swept suddenlyinto the sun? This is a change of Environment against which there couldbe no precaution and for which there could be as little provision. Witha changing Environment even, there must always remain the dread andpossibility of a falling out of correspondence. At the best, Life wouldbe uncertain. But with a changeless Environment--such as that possessedby the spiritual organism--the perpetuity of the correspondence, so faras the external relation is concerned, is guaranteed. This quality ofpermanence in the Environment distinguishes the religious relation fromevery other. Why should not the musician's life be an Eternal Life?Because, for one thing, the musical world, the Environment with which hecorresponds, is not eternal. Even if his correspondence in itself couldlast, eternally, the environing material things with which hecorresponds must pass away. His soul might last forever--but not hisviolin. So the man of the world might last forever--but not the world. His Environment is not eternal; nor are even his correspondences--theworld passeth away _and the lust thereof_. 

We find then that man, or the spiritual man, is equipped with two setsof correspondences. One set possesses the quality of everlastingness, the other is temporal. But unless these are separated by some means thetemporal will continue to impair and hinder the eternal. The finalpreparation, therefore, for the inheriting of Eternal Life must consistin the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These must be unloosedand dissociated from the higher elements. And this is effected by aclosing catastrophe--Death. 

Death ensues because certain relations in the organism are not adjustedto certain relations in the Environment. There will come a time in eachhistory when the imperfect correspondences of the organism will betraythemselves by a failure to compass some necessary adjustment. This iswhy Death is associated with Imperfection. Death is the necessary resultof Imperfection, and the necessary end of it. Imperfect correspondencegives imperfect and uncertain Life. "Perfect correspondence, " on theother hand, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, would be "perfect Life. "To abolish Death, therefore, all that would be necessary would be toabolish Imperfection. But it is the claim of Christianity that it canabolish Death. And it is significant to notice that it does so bymeeting this very demand of Science--it abolishes Imperfection. 

The part of the organism which begins to get out of correspondence withthe Organic Environment is the only part which is in vitalcorrespondence with it. Though a fatal disadvantage to the natural manto be thrown out of correspondence with this Environment, it is ofinestimable importance to the spiritual man. For so long as it ismaintained the way is barred for a further Evolution. And hence thecondition necessary for the further Evolution is that the spiritual bereleased from the natural. That is to say, the condition of the furtherEvolution is Death. _Mors janua Vitæ_, therefore, becomes a scientificformula. Death, being the final shifting of all the correspondences, isthe indispensable factor of the higher Life. In the language of Science, not less than of Scripture, "To die is gain. "

The shifting of the correspondences is done by Nature. This is its lastand greatest contribution to mankind. Over the mouth of the grave theperfect and the imperfect submit to their final separation. Each goes toits own--earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Spirit to Spirit. "The dust shall return to the earth as it was; and the Spirit shallreturn unto God who gave it. "

FOOTNOTES:

[68] "Principles of Biology, " p. 82. 

[69] "Principles of Biology, " p. 88. 

[70] John xvii. 

[71] _Vide_ Sir John Lubbock's "Ants, Bees, and Wasps, " pp. 1-181. 

[72] Büchner: "Force and Matter, " 3d Ed. , p. 232. 

[73] "The Creed of Science, " p. 169. 

[74] "Force and Matter, " p. 231. 

[75] 1 Cor. Ii. 11, 12. 

[76] Rom. Viii. 35-39. 

[77] _Vide_ "Conformity to Type, " page 287. 

[78] "History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age, " vol. Ii. P. 496. 

[79] 1 John v. 20. 

[80] _Vide_ also the remarkable experiments of Fräulein v. Chauvin onthe Transformation of the Mexican Axolotl into Amblystoma. --Weismann's"Studies in the Theory of Descent, " vol. Ii. Pt. Iii. 

ENVIRONMENT. 

 "When I talked with an ardent missionary and pointed out to him that his creed found no support in my experience, he replied: 'It is not so in your experience, but is so in the other world. ' I answered: 'Other world! There is no other world. God is one and omnipresent; here or nowhere is the whole fact. '"--_Emerson. _

 "Ye are complete in Him. "--_Paul. _

 "Whatever amount of power an organism expends in any shape is the correlate and equivalent of a power that was taken into it from without. "--_Herbert Spencer. _

Students of Biography will observe that in all well-written Livesattention is concentrated for the first few chapters upon two points. Weare first introduced to the family to which the subject of memoirbelonged. The grandparents, or even the more remote ancestors, arebriefly sketched and their chief characteristics brought prominentlyinto view. Then the parents themselves are photographed in detail. Theirappearance and physique, their character, their disposition, theirmental qualities, are set before us in a critical analysis. And finallywe are asked to observe how much the father and the mother respectivelyhave transmitted of their peculiar nature to their offspring. Howfaithfully the ancestral lines have met in the latest product, howmysteriously the joint characteristics of body and mind have blended, and how unexpected yet how entirely natural a recombination is theresult--these points are elaborated with cumulative effect until werealize at last how little we are dealing with an independent unit, howmuch with a survival and reorganization of what seemed buried in thegrave. 

In the second place, we are invited to consider more externalinfluences--schools and schoolmasters, neighbors, home, pecuniarycircumstances, scenery, and, by-and-by, the religious and politicalatmosphere of the time. These also we are assured have played their partin making the individual what he is. We can estimate these earlyinfluences in any particular case with but small imagination if we failto see how powerfully they also have moulded mind and character, and inwhat subtle ways they have determined the course of the future life. 

This twofold relation of the individual, first, to his parents, andsecond, to his circumstances, is not peculiar to human beings. These twofactors are responsible for making all living organisms what they are. When a naturalist attempts to unfold the life-history of any animal, heproceeds precisely on these same lines. Biography is really a branch ofNatural History; and the biographer who discusses his hero as theresultant of these two tendencies, follows the scientific method asrigidly as Mr. Darwin in studying "Animals and Plants underDomestication. "

Mr. Darwin, following Weismann, long ago pointed out that there are twomain factors in all Evolution--the nature of the organism and the natureof the conditions. We have chosen our illustration from the highest orhuman species in order to define the meaning of these factors in theclearest way; but it must be remembered that the development of manunder these directive influences is essentially the same as that of anyother organism in the hands of Nature. We are dealing therefore withuniversal Law. It will still further serve to complete the conception ofthe general principle if we now substitute for the casual phrases bywhich the factors have been described the more accurate terminology ofScience. Thus what Biography describes as parental influences, Biologywould speak of as Heredity; and all that is involved in the secondfactor--the action of external circumstances and surroundings--thenaturalist would include under the single term Environment. These two, Heredity and Environment, are the master-influences of the organicworld. These have made all of us what we are. These forces are stillceaselessly playing upon all our lives. And he who truly understandsthese influences; he who has decided how much to allow to each; he whocan regulate new forces as they arise, or adjust them to the old, sodirecting them as at one moment to make them coöperate, at another tocounteract one another, understands the rationale of personaldevelopment. To seize continuously the opportunity of more and moreperfect adjustment to better and higher conditions, to balance someinward evil with some purer influence acting from without, in a word tomake our Environment at the same time that it is making us--these arethe secrets of a well-ordered and successful life. 

In the spiritual world, also, the subtle influences which form andtransform the soul are Heredity and Environment. And here especiallywhere all is invisible, where much that we feel to be real is yet soill-defined, it becomes of vital practical moment to clarify theatmosphere as far as possible with conceptions borrowed from the naturallife. Few things are less understood than the conditions of thespiritual life. The distressing incompetence of which most of us areconscious in trying to work out our spiritual experience is due perhapsless to the diseased will which we commonly blame for it than toimperfect knowledge of the right conditions. It does not occur to us hownatural the spiritual is. We still strive for some strange transcendentthing; we seek to promote life by methods as unnatural as they proveunsuccessful; and only the utter incomprehensibility of the whole regionprevents us seeing fully--what we already half-suspect--how completelywe are missing the road. Living in the spiritual world, nevertheless, isjust as simple as living in the natural world; and it is the same kindof simplicity. It is the same kind of simplicity for it is the same kindof world--there are not two kinds of worlds. The conditions of life inthe one are the conditions of life in the other. And till theseconditions are sensibly grasped, as the conditions of all life, it isimpossible that the personal effort after the highest life should beother than a blind struggle carried on in fruitless sorrow andhumiliation. 

Of these two universal factors, Heredity and Environment, it isunnecessary to balance the relative importance here. The main influence, unquestionably, must be assigned to the former. In practice, however, and for an obvious reason, we are chiefly concerned with the latter. What Heredity has to do for us is determined outside ourselves. No mancan select his own parents. But every man to some extent can choose hisown Environment. His relation to it, however largely determined byHeredity in the first instance, is always open to alteration. And sogreat is his control over Environment and so radical its influence overhim, that he can so direct it as either to undo, modify, perpetuate orintensify the earlier hereditary influence within certain limits. Butthe aspects of Environment which we have now to consider do not involveus in questions of such complexity. In what high and mystical sense, also, Heredity applies to the spiritual organism we need not just nowinquire. In the simpler relations of the more external factor we shallfind a large and fruitful field for study. 

The influence of Environment may be investigated in two main aspects. First, one might discuss the modern and very interesting question as tothe power of Environment to induce what is known to recent science asVariation. A change in the surroundings of any animal, it is nowwell-known, can so react upon it as to cause it to change. By theattempt, conscious or unconscious, to adjust itself to the newconditions, a true physiological change is gradually wrought within theorganism. Hunter, for example, in a classical experiment, so changed theEnvironment of a sea-gull by keeping it in captivity that it could onlysecure a grain diet. The effect was to modify the stomach of the bird, normally adapted to a fish diet, until in time it came to resemble instructure the gizzard of an ordinary grain-feeder such as the pigeon. Holmgrén again reversed this experiment by feeding pigeons for alengthened period on a meat-diet, with the result that the gizzardbecame transformed into the carnivorous stomach. Mr. Alfred RusselWallace mentions the case of a Brazilian parrot which changes its colorfrom green to red or yellow when fed on the fat of certain fishes. Notonly changes of food, however, but changes of climate and oftemperature, changes in surrounding organisms, in the case of marineanimals even changes of pressure, of ocean currents, of light, and ofmany other circumstances, are known to exert a powerful modifyinginfluence upon living organisms. These relations are still being workedout in many directions, but the influence of Environment as a primefactor in Variation is now a recognized doctrine of science. [81]

Even the popular mind has been struck with the curious adaptation ofnearly all animals to their _habitat_, for example in the matter ofcolor. The sandy hue of the sole and flounder, the white of the polarbear with its suggestion of Arctic snows, the stripes of the Bengaltiger--as if the actual reeds of its native jungle had nature-printedthemselves on its hide;--these, and a hundred others which will occur toevery one, are marked instances of adaptation to Environment, induced byNatural Selection or otherwise, for the purpose, obviously in thesecases at least, of protection. 

To continue the investigation of the modifying action of Environmentinto the moral and spiritual spheres, would be to open a fascinating andsuggestive inquiry. One might show how the moral man is acted upon andchanged continuously by the influences, secret and open, of hissurroundings, by the tone of society, by the company he keeps, by hisoccupation, by the books he reads, by Nature, by all, in short, thatconstitutes the habitual atmosphere of his thoughts and the little worldof his daily choice. Or one might go deeper still and prove how thespiritual life also is modified from outside sources--its health ordisease, its growth or decay, all its changes for better or for worsebeing determined by the varying and successive circumstances in whichthe religious habits are cultivated. But we must rather transfer ourattention to a second aspect of Environment, not perhaps so fascinatingbut yet more important. 

So much of the modern discussion of Environment revolves round the merequestion of Variation that one is apt to overlook a previous question. Environment as a factor in life is not exhausted when we have realizedits modifying influence. Its significance is scarcely touched. The greatfunction of Environment is not to modify but to _sustain_. In sustaininglife, it is true, it modifies. But the latter influence is incidental, the former essential. Our Environment is that in which we live and moveand have our being. Without it we should neither live or move nor haveany being. In the organism lies the principle of life; in theEnvironment are the conditions of life. Without the fulfillment of theseconditions, which are wholly supplied by Environment, there can be nolife. An organism in itself is but a part; Nature is its complement. Alone, cut off from its surroundings, it is not. Alone, cut off from mysurroundings, I am not--physically I am not. I am, only as I amsustained. I continue only as I receive. My Environment may modify me, but it has first to keep me. And all the time its secret transformingpower is indirectly moulding body and mind it is directly active in themore open task of ministering to my myriad wants and from hour to hoursustaining life itself. 

To understand the sustaining influence of Environment in the animalworld, one has only to recall what the biologist terms the extrinsic orsubsidiary conditions of vitality. Every living thing normally requiresfor its development an Environment containing air, light, heat, andwater. In addition to these, if vitality is to be prolonged for anylength of time, and if it is to be accompanied with growth and theexpenditure of energy, there must be a constant supply of food. When wesimply remember how indispensable food is to growth and work, and whenwe further bear in mind that the food-supply is solely contributed bythe Environment, we shall realize at once the meaning and the truth ofthe proposition that without Environment there can be no life. Seventyper cent. At least of the human body is made of pure water, the rest ofgases and earth. These have all come from Environment. Through thesecret pores of the skin two pounds of water are exhaled daily fromevery healthy adult. The supply is kept up by Environment. TheEnvironment is really an unappropriated part of ourselves. Definiteportions are continuously abstracted from it and added to the organism. And so long as the organism continues to grow, act, think, speak, work, or perform any other function demanding a supply of energy, there is aconstant, simultaneous, and proportionate drain upon its surroundings. 

This is a truth in the physical, and therefore in the spiritual, worldof so great importance that we shall not mis-spend time if we follow it, for further confirmation, into another department of nature. Itssignificance in Biology is self-evident; let us appeal to Chemistry. 

When a piece of coal is thrown on the fire, we say that it will radiateinto the room a certain quantity of heat. This heat, in the popularconception, is supposed to reside in the coal and to be set free duringthe process of combustion. In reality, however, the heat energy is onlyin part contained in the coal. It is contained just as truly in thecoal's Environment--that is to say, in the oxygen of the air. The atomsof carbon which compose the coal have a powerful affinity for the oxygenof the air. Whenever they are made to approach within a certaindistance of one another, by the initial application of heat, they rushtogether with inconceivable velocity. The heat which appears at thismoment, comes neither from the carbon alone, nor from the oxygen alone. These two substances are really inconsumable, and continue to exist, after they meet in a combined form, as carbonic acid gas. The heat isdue to the energy developed by the chemical embrace, the precipitaterushing together of the molecules of carbon and the molecules of oxygen. It comes, therefore, partly from the coal and partly from theEnvironment. Coal alone never could produce heat, neither alone couldEnvironment. The two are mutually dependent. And although in nearly allthe arts we credit everything to the substance which we can weigh andhandle, it is certain that in the most cases the larger debt is due toan invisible Environment. 

This is one of those great commonplaces which slip out of generalreckoning by reason of their very largeness and simplicity. Howprofound, nevertheless, are the issues which hang on this elementarytruth, we shall discover immediately. Nothing in this age is more neededin every department of knowledge than the rejuvenescence of thecommonplace. In the spiritual world especially, he will be wise whocourts acquaintance with the most ordinary and transparent facts ofNature; and in laying the foundations for a religious life he will makeno unworthy beginning who carries with him an impressive sense of soobvious a truth as that without Environment there can be no life. 

For what does this amount to in the spiritual world? Is it not merelythe scientific re-statement of the reiterated aphorism of Christ, "Without Me ye can do nothing?" There is in the spiritual organism aprinciple of life; but that is not self-existent. It requires a secondfactor, a something in which to live and move and have its being, anEnvironment. Without this it cannot live or move or have any being. Without Environment the soul is as the carbon without the oxygen, asthe fish without the water, as the animal frame without the extrinsicconditions of vitality. 

And what is the spiritual Environment? It is God. Without this, therefore, there is no life, no thought, no energy, nothing--"without Meye can do nothing. "

The cardinal error in the religious life is to attempt to live withoutan Environment. Spiritual experience occupies itself, not too much, buttoo exclusively, with one factor--the soul. We delight in dissectingthis much tortured faculty, from time to time, in search of a certainsomething which we call our faith--forgetting that faith is but anattitude, an empty hand for grasping an environing Presence. And when wefeel the need of a power by which to overcome the world, how often do wenot seek to generate it within ourselves by some forced process, somefresh girding of the will, some strained activity which only leaves thesoul in further exhaustion? To examine ourselves is good; but uselessunless we also examine Environment. To bewail our weakness is right, butnot remedial. The cause must be investigated as well as the result. Andyet, because we never see the other half of the problem, our failureseven fail to instruct us. After each new collapse we begin our lifeanew, but on the old conditions; and the attempt ends as usual in therepetition--in the circumstances the inevitable repetition--of the olddisaster. Not that at times we do not obtain glimpses of the true stateof the case. After seasons of much discouragement, with the sore senseupon us of our abject feebleness, we do confer with ourselves, insistingfor the thousandth time, "My soul, wait thou only upon God. " But thelesson is soon forgotten. The strength supplied we speedily credit toour own achievement; and even the temporary success is mistaken for asymptom of improved inward vitality. Once more we become self-existent. Once more we go on living without an Environment. And once more, afterdays of wasting without repairing, of spending without replenishing, webegin to perish with hunger, only returning to God again, as a lastresort, when we have reached starvation point. 

Now why do we do this? Why do we seek to breathe without an atmosphere, to drink without a well? Why this unscientific attempt to sustain lifefor weeks at a time without an Environment? It is because we have nevertruly seen the necessity for an Environment. We have not been workingwith a principle. We are told to "wait only upon God, " but we do notknow why. It has never been as clear to us that without God the soulwill die as that without food the body will perish. In short, we havenever comprehended the doctrine of the Persistence of Force. Instead ofbeing content to transform energy we have tried to create it. 

The Law of Nature here is as clear as Science can make it. In the wordsof Mr. Herbert Spencer, "It is a corollary from that primordial truthwhich, as we have seen, underlies all other truths, that whatever amountof power an organism expends in any shape is the correlate andequivalent of a power that was taken into it from without, "[82] We aredealing here with a simple question of dynamics. Whatever energy thesoul expends must first be "taken into it from without. " We are notCreators, but creatures; God is our refuge _and strength_. Communionwith God, therefore, is a scientific necessity; and nothing will morehelp the defeated spirit which is struggling in the wreck of itsreligious life than a common-sense hold of this plain biologicalprinciple that without Environment he can do nothing. What he wants isnot an occasional view, but a principle--a basal principle like this, broad as the universe, solid as nature. In the natural world we act uponthis law unconsciously. We absorb heat, breathe air, draw on Environmentall but automatically for meat and drink, for the nourishment of thesenses, for mental stimulus, for all that, penetrating us from without, can prolong, enrich, and elevate life. But in the spiritual world wehave all this to learn. We are new creatures, and even the bare livinghas to be acquired. 

Now the great point in learning to live is to live naturally. As closelyas possible we must follow the broad, clear lines of the natural life. And there are three things especially which it is necessary for us tokeep continually in view. The first is that the organism contains withinitself only one-half of what is essential to life; the second is thatthe other half is contained in the Environment; the third, that thecondition of receptivity is simple union between the organism and theEnvironment. 

Translated into the language of religion these propositions yield, andplace on a scientific basis, truths of immense practical interest. Tosay, first, that the organism contains within itself only one-half ofwhat is essential to life, is to repeat the evangelical confession, soworn and yet so true to universal experience, of the utter helplessnessof man. Who has not come to the conclusion that he is but a part, afraction of some larger whole? Who does not miss at every turn of hislife an absent God? That man is but a part, he knows, for there is roomin him for more. That God is the other part, he feels, because at timesHe satisfies his need. Who does not tremble often under that sickliersymptom of his incompleteness, his want of spiritual energy, hishelplessness with sin? But now he understands both--the void in hislife, the powerlessness of his will. He understands that, like all otherenergy, spiritual power is contained in Environment. He finds here atlast the true root of all human frailty, emptiness, nothingness, sin. This is why "without Me ye can do nothing. " Powerlessness is the normalstate not only of this but of every organism--of every organism apartfrom its Environment. 

The entire dependence of the soul upon God is not an exceptionalmystery, nor is man's helplessness an arbitrary and unprecedentedphenomenon. It is the law of all Nature. The spiritual man is not taxedbeyond the natural. He is not purposely handicapped by singularlimitations or unusual incapacities. God has not designedly made thereligious life as hard as possible. The arrangements for the spirituallife are the same as for the natural life. When in their hours ofunbelief men challenge their Creator for placing the obstacle of humanfrailty in the way of their highest development, their protest isagainst the order of nature. They object to the sun for being the sourceof energy and not the engine, to the carbonic acid being in the air andnot in the plant. They would equip each organism with a personalatmosphere, each brain with a private store of energy; they would growcorn in the interior of the body, and make bread by a special apparatusin the digestive organs. They must, in short, have the creaturetransformed into a Creator. The organism must either depend on hisenvironment, or be self-sufficient. But who will not rather approve thearrangement by which man in his creatural life may have unbroken accessto an Infinite Power? What soul will seek to remain self-luminous whenit knows that "The Lord God is a _Sun_?" Who will not willingly exchangehis shallow vessel for Christ's well of living water? Even if theorganism, launched into being like a ship putting out to sea, possesseda full equipment, its little store must soon come to an end. But incontact with a large and bounteous Environment its supply is limitless. In every direction its resources are infinite. 

There is a modern school which protests against the doctrine of man'sinability as the heartless fiction of a past theology. While some formsof that dogma, to any one who knows man, are incapable of defence, thereare others which, to any one who knows Nature, are incapable of denial. Those who oppose it, in their jealousy for humanity, credit the organismwith the properties of Environment. All true theology, on the otherhand, has remained loyal to at least the root-idea in this truth. TheNew Testament is nowhere more impressive than where it insists on thefact of man's dependence. In its view the first step in religion is forman to feel his helplessness. Christ's first beatitude is to the poor inspirit. The condition of entrance into the spiritual kingdom is topossess the child-spirit--that state of mind combining at once theprofoundest helplessness with the most artless feeling of dependence. Substantially the same idea underlies the countless passages in whichChrist affirms that He has not come to call the righteous, but sinnersto repentance. And in that farewell discourse into which the GreatTeacher poured the most burning convictions of His life, He gives tothis doctrine an ever increasing emphasis. No words could be more solemnor arresting than the sentence in the last great allegory devoted tothis theme, "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abidein the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me. " The word here, itwill be observed again, is _cannot_. It is the imperative of naturallaw. Fruit-bearing without Christ is not an improbability, but animpossibility. As well expect the natural fruit to flourish without airand heat, without soil and sunshine. How thoroughly also Paul graspedthis truth is apparent from a hundred pregnant passages in which heechoes his Master's teaching. To him life was hid with Christ in God. And that he embraced this not as a theory but as an experimental truthwe gather from his constant confession, "When I am weak, then am Istrong. "

This leads by a natural transition to the second of the three points weare seeking to illustrate. We have seen that the organism containswithin itself only one half of what is essential to life. We have nextto observe, as the complement of this, how the second half is containedin the Environment. 

One result of the due apprehension of our personal helplessness will bethat we shall no longer waste our time over the impossible task ofmanufacturing energy for ourselves. Our science will bring to an abruptend the long series of severe experiments in which we have indulged inthe hope of finding a perpetual motion. And having decided upon thisonce for all, our first step in seeking a more satisfactory state ofthings must be to find a new source of energy. Following Nature, onlyone course is open to us. We must refer to Environment. The natural lifeowes all to Environment, so must the spiritual. Now the Environment ofthe spiritual life is God. As Nature therefore forms the complement ofthe natural life, God is the complement of the spiritual. 

The proof of this? That Nature is not more natural to my body than Godis to my soul. Every animal and plant has its own Environment. And thefurther one inquires into the relations of the one to the other, themore one sees the marvelous intricacy and beauty of the adjustments. These wonderful adaptations of each organism to its surroundings--of thefish to the water, of the eagle to the air, of the insect to the forestbed; and of each part of every organism--the fish's swim-bladder, theeagle's eye, the insect's breathing tubes--which the old argument fromdesign brought home to us with such enthusiasm, inspire us still with asense of the boundless resources and skill of Nature in perfecting herarrangements for each single life. Down to the last detail the world ismade for what is in it; and by whatever process things are as they are, all organisms find in surrounding Nature the ample complement ofthemselves. Man, too, finds in his Environment provision for allcapacities, scope for the exercise of every faculty, room for theindulgence of each appetite, a just supply for every want. So thespiritual man at the apex of the pyramid of life finds in the vasterrange of his Environment a provision, as much higher, it is true, as heis higher, but as delicately adjusted to his varying needs. And allthis is supplied to him just as the lower organisms are ministered to bythe lower environment, in the same simple ways, in the same constantsequence, as appropriately and as lavishly. We fail to praise theceaseless ministry of the great inanimate world around us only becauseits kindness is unobtrusive. Nature is always noiseless. All hergreatest gifts are given in secret. And we forget how truly every goodand perfect gift comes from without, and from above, because no pause inher changeless beneficence teaches us the sad lesson of deprivation. 

It is not a strange thing, then, for the soul to find its life in God. This is its native air. God as the Environment of the soul has been fromthe remotest age the doctrine of all the deepest thinkers in religion. How profoundly Hebrew poetry is saturated with this high thought willappear when we try to conceive of it with this left out. True poetry isonly science in another form. And long before it was possible forreligion to give scientific expression to its greatest truths, men ofinsight uttered themselves in psalms which could not have been truer toNature had the most modern light controlled the inspiration. "As thehart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, OGod. " What fine sense of the analogy of the natural and the spiritualdoes not underlie these words. As the hart after its Environment, so manafter his; as the water-brooks are fitly designed to meet the naturalwants, so fitly does God implement the spiritual need of man. It will benoticed that in the Hebrew poets the longing for God never strikes oneas morbid, or unnatural to the men who utter it. It is as natural tothem to long for God as for the swallow to seek her nest. Throughout alltheir images no suspicion rises within us that they are exaggerating. Wefeel how truly they are reading themselves, their deepest selves. Nofalse note occurs in all their aspiration. There is no weariness even intheir ceaseless sighing, except the lover's weariness for theabsent--if they would fly away, it is only to be at rest. Men who haveno soul can only wonder at this. Men who have a soul, but with littlefaith, can only envy it. How joyous a thing it was to the Hebrews toseek their God! How artlessly they call upon Him to entertain them inHis pavilion, to cover them with His feathers, to hide them in Hissecret place, to hold them in the hollow of His hand or stretch aroundthem the everlasting arms! These men were true children of Nature. Asthe humming-bird among its own palm-trees, as the ephemera in thesunshine of a summer evening, so they lived their joyous lives. And eventhe full share of the sadder experience of life which came to all ofthem but drove them the further into the Secret Place, and led them withmore consecration to make, as they expressed it, "the Lord theirportion. " All that has been said since from Marcus Aurelius toSwedenborg, from Augustine to Schleiermacher of a besetting God as thefinal complement of humanity is but a repetition of the Hebrew poets'faith. And even the New Testament has nothing higher to offer man thanthis. The psalmist's "God is our refuge and strength" is only theearlier form, less defined, less practicable, but not less noble, ofChrist's "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. "

There is a brief phrase of Paul's which defines the relation with almostscientific accuracy--"Ye are complete in Him. " In this is summed up thewhole of the Bible anthropology--the completeness of man in God, hisincompleteness apart from God. 

If it be asked, In what is man incomplete, or, In what does God completehim? the question is a wide one. But it may serve to show at least thedirection in which the Divine Environment forms the complement of humanlife if we ask ourselves once more what it is in life that needscomplementing. And to this question we receive the significant answerthat it is in the higher departments alone, or mainly, that theincompleteness of our life appears. The lower departments of Nature arealready complete enough. The world itself is about as good a world asmight be. It has been long in the making, its furniture is all in, itslaws are in perfect working order; and although wise men at varioustimes have suggested improvements, there is on the whole a tolerablyunanimous vote of confidence in things as they exist. The DivineEnvironment has little more to do for this planet so far as we can see, and so far as the existing generation is concerned. Then the lowerorganic life of the world is also so far complete. God, throughEvolution or otherwise, may still have finishing touches to add here andthere, but already it is "all very good. " It is difficult to conceiveanything better of its kind than a lily or a cedar, an ant or anant-eater. These organisms, so far as we can judge, lack nothing. Itmight be said of them, "they are complete in Nature. " Of man also, ofman the animal, it may be affirmed that his Environment satisfies him. He has food and drink, and good food and good drink. And there is in himno purely animal want which is not really provided for, and thatapparently in the happiest possible way. 

But the moment we pass beyond the mere animal life we begin to come uponan incompleteness. The symptoms at first are slight, and betraythemselves only by an unexplained restlessness or a dull sense of want. Then the feverishness increases, becomes more defined, and passes slowlyinto abiding pain. To some come darker moments when the unrest deepensinto a mental agony of which all the other woes of earth aremockeries--moments when the forsaken soul can only cry in terror for theLiving God. Up to a point the natural Environment supplies man's wants, beyond that it only derides him. How much in man lies beyond that point?Very much--almost all, all that makes man man. The first suspicion ofthe terrible truth--so for the time let us call it--wakens with thedawn of the intellectual life. It is a solemn moment when theslow-moving mind reaches at length the verge of its mental horizon, and, looking over, sees nothing more. Its straining makes the abyss but moreprofound. Its cry comes back without an echo. Where is the Environmentto complete this rational soul? Men either find one--_One_--or spend therest of their days in trying to shut their eyes. The alternatives of theintellectual life are Christianity or Agnosticism. The Agnostic is rightwhen he trumpets his incompleteness. He who is not complete in Him mustbe forever incomplete. Still more grave becomes man's case when hebegins further to explore his moral and social nature. The problems ofthe heart and conscience are infinitely more perplexing than those ofthe intellect. Has love no future? Has right no triumph? Is theunfinished self to remain unfinished? Again, the alternatives are two, Christianity or Pessimism. But when we ascend the further height of thereligious nature, the crisis comes. There, without Environment, thedarkness is unutterable. So maddening now becomes the mystery that menare compelled to construct an Environment for themselves. No Environmenthere is unthinkable. An altar of some sort men must have--God, orNature, or Law. But the anguish of Atheism is only a negative proof ofman's incompleteness. A witness more overwhelming is the prayer of theChristian. What a very strange thing, is it not, for man to pray? It isthe symbol at once of his littleness and of his greatness. Here thesense of imperfection, controlled and silenced in the narrower reachesof his being, becomes audible. Now he must utter himself. The sense ofneed is so real, and the sense of Environment, that he calls out to it, addressing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. Surelythere is nothing more touching in Nature than this? Man could never soexpose himself, so break through all constraint, except from a direnecessity. It is the suddenness and unpremeditatedness of Prayer thatgives it a unique value as an apologetic. 

Man has three questions to put to his Environment, three symbols of hisincompleteness. They come from three different centers of his being. Thefirst is the question of the intellect, What is Truth? The naturalEnvironment answers, "Increase of Knowledge increaseth Sorrow, " and"much study is a Weariness. " Christ replies, "Learn of Me, and ye shallfind Rest. " Contrast the world's word "Weariness" with Christ's word"Rest. " No other teacher since the world began has ever associated"learn" with "Rest. " Learn of me, says the philosopher, and you shallfind Restlessness. Learn of Me, says Christ, and ye shall find Rest. Thought, which the godless man has cursed, that eternally starved yetever living specter, finds at last its imperishable glory; Thought iscomplete in Him. The second question is sent up from the moral nature, Who will show us any good? And again we have a contrast: the world'sverdict, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one;" and Christ's, "There is none good but God only. " And finally, there is the lonely cryof the spirit, most pathetic and most deep of all, Where is he whom mysoul seeketh? And the yearning is met as before, "I looked on my righthand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me; refuge failedme; no man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord: I said, Thouare my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. "[83]

Are these the directions in which men in these days are seeking tocomplete their lives? The completion of Life is just now a supremequestion. It is important to observe how it is being answered. If we askScience or Philosophy they will refer us to Evolution. The struggle forLife, they assure us, is steadily eliminating imperfect forms, and asthe fittest continue to survive we shall have a gradual perfecting ofbeing. That is to say, that completeness is to be sought for in theorganism--we are to be complete in Nature and in ourselves. ToEvolution, certainly, all men will look for a further perfecting ofLife. But it must be an Evolution which includes all the factors. Civilization, it may be said, will deal with the second factor. It willimprove the Environment step by step as it improves the organism, or theorganism as it improves the Environment. This is well, and it willperfect Life up to a point. But beyond that it cannot carry us. As thepossibilities of the natural Life become more defined, itsimpossibilities will become the more appalling. The most perfectcivilization would leave the best part of us still incomplete. Men willhave to give up the experiment of attempting to live in half anEnvironment. Half an Environment will give but half a Life. Half anEnvironment? He whose correspondences are with this world alone has onlya thousandth part, a fraction, the mere rim and shade of an Environment, and only the fraction of a Life. How long will it take Science tobelieve its own creed, that the material universe we see around us isonly a fragment of the universe we do not see? The very retention of thephrase "Material Universe, " we are told, is the confession of ourunbelief and ignorance; since "matter is the less important half of thematerial of the physical universe. "[84]

The thing to be aimed at is not an organism self-contained andself-sufficient, however high in the scale of being, but an organismcomplete in the whole Environment. It is open to any one to aim at aself-sufficient Life, but he will find no encouragement in Nature. TheLife of the body may complete itself in the physical world; that is itslegitimate Environment. The Life of the senses, high and low, mayperfect itself in Nature. Even the Life of thought may find a largecomplement in surrounding things. But the higher thought, and theconscience, and the religious Life, can only perfect themselves in God. To make the influence of Environment stop with the natural world is todoom the spiritual nature to death. For the soul, like the body, cannever perfect itself in isolation. The law for both is to be complete inthe appropriate Environment. And the perfection to be sought in thespiritual world is a perfection of relation, a perfect adjustment ofthat which is becoming perfect to that which is perfect. 

The third problem, now simplified to a point, finally presents itself. Where do organism and Environment meet? How does that which is becomingperfect avail itself of its perfecting Environment? And the answer is, just as in Nature. The condition is simple receptivity. And yet this isperhaps the least simple of all conditions. It is so simple that we willnot act upon it. But there is no other condition. Christ has condensedthe whole truth into one memorable sentence, "As the branch cannot bearfruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except yeabide in Me. " And on the positive side, "He that abideth in Me the samebringeth forth much fruit. "

FOOTNOTES:

[81] _Vide_ Karl Semper's "The Natural Conditions of Existence as theyaffect Animal Life;" Wallace's "Tropical Nature;" Weismann's "Studies inthe Theory of Descent;" Darwin's "Animals and Plants underDomestication. "

[82] "Principles of Biology, " p. 57. 

[83] Ps. Cxlii. 4, 5. 

[84] The "Unseen Universe, " 6th Ed. , p. 100. 

CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 

 "'So careful of the type?' but no. From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. 

 'Thou makest thine appeal to me; I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean thy breath: I know no more. ' And he, shall he, Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law-- Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed--

 Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust Or seal'd within the iron hills?" --_In Memoriam. _

 "Until Christ be formed in you. "--_Paul. _

 "The one end to which, in all living beings, the formative impulse is tending--the one scheme which the Archæus of the old speculators strives to carry out, seems to be to mould the offspring into the likeness of the parent. It is the first great law of reproduction, that the offspring tends to resemble its parent or parents more closely than anything else. "--_Huxley. _

If a botanist be asked the difference between an oak, a palm-tree and alichen, he will declare that they are separated from one another by thebroadest line known to classification. Without taking into account theoutward differences of size and form, the variety of flower and fruit, the peculiarities of leaf and branch, he sees even in their generalarchitecture types of structure as distinct as Norman, Gothic andEgyptian. But if the first young germs of these three plants are placedbefore him and he is called upon to define the difference, he finds itimpossible. He cannot even say which is which. Examined under thehighest powers of the microscope they yield no clue. Analyzed by thechemist with all the appliances of his laboratory they keep theirsecret. 

The same experiment can be tried with the embryos of animals. Take theovule of the worm, the eagle, the elephant, and of man himself. Let themost skilled observer apply the most searching tests to distinguish onefrom the other and he will fail. But there is something more surprisingstill. Compare next the two sets of germs, the vegetable and the animal. And there is still no shade of difference. Oak and palm, worm and manall start in life together. No matter into what strangely differentforms they may afterward develop, no matter whether they are to live onsea or land, creep or fly, swim or walk, think or vegetate, in theembryo as it first meets the eye of Science they are indistinguishable. The apple which fell in Newton's garden, Newton's dog Diamond, andNewton himself, began life at the same point. [85]

If we analyze this material point at which all life starts, we shallfind it to consist of a clear structureless jelly-like substanceresembling albumen or white of egg. It is made of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Its name is protoplasm. And it is not only thestructural unit with which all living bodies start in life, but withwhich they are subsequently built up. "Protoplasm, " says Huxley, "simpleor nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is the clay of thePotter. " "Beast and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusk, worm and polype areall composed of structural units of the same character, namely, massesof protoplasm with a nucleus. "[86]

What then determines the difference between different animals? Whatmakes one little speck of protoplasm grow into Newton's dog Diamond, andanother, exactly the same, into Newton himself? It is a mysterioussomething which has entered into this protoplasm. No eye can see it. Noscience can define it. There is a different something for Newton's dogand a different something for Newton; so that though both use the samematter they build it up in these widely different ways. Protoplasm beingthe clay, this something is the Potter. And as there is only one clayand yet all these curious forms are developed out of it, it followsnecessarily that the difference lies in the potters. There must in shortbe as many potters as there are forms. There is the potter who segmentsthe worm, and the potter who builds up the form of the dog, and thepotter who moulds the man. To understand unmistakably that it is reallythe potter who does the work, let us follow for a moment a descriptionof the process by a trained eye-witness. The observer is Mr. Huxley. Through the tube of his microscope he is watching the development, outof a speck of protoplasm, of one of the commonest animals: "Strangepossibilities, " he says, "lie dormant in that semi-fluid globule. Let amoderate supply of warmth reach its watery cradle and the plastic matterundergoes changes so rapid and yet so steady and purposelike in theirsuccession that one can only compare them to those operated by a skilledmodeler upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible trowel themass is divided and subdivided into smaller and smaller portions, untilit is reduced to an aggregation of granules not too large to buildwithal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, then, it is asif a delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied by the spinalcolumn, and moulded the contour of the body; pinching up the head at oneend, the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb into dueproportions in so artistic a way, that, after watching the process hourby hour, one is almost involuntarily possessed by the notion, that somemore subtle aid to vision than an achromatic would show the hiddenartist, with his plan before him, striving with skillful manipulation toperfect his work. "[87]

Besides the fact, so luminously brought out here, that the artist isdistinct from the "semi-fluid globule" of protoplasm in which he works, there is this other essential point to notice, that in all his "skillfulmanipulation" the artist is not working at random, but according to law. He has "his plan before him. " In the zoological laboratory of Nature itis not as in a workshop where a skilled artisan can turn his hand toanything--where the same potter one day moulds a dog, the next a bird, and the next a man. In Nature one potter is set apart to make each. Itis a more complete system of division of labor. One artist makes all thedogs, another makes all the birds, a third makes all the men. Moreover, each artist confines himself exclusively to working out his own plan. Heappears to have his own plan somehow stamped upon himself, and his workis rigidly to reproduce himself. 

The Scientific Law by which this takes place is the Law of Conformity toType. It is contained, to a large extent, in the ordinary Law ofInheritance; or it may be considered as simply another way of statingwhat Darwin calls the Laws of Unity of Type. Darwin defines it thus: "ByUnity of Type is meant that fundamental agreement in structure which wesee in organic beings of the same class, and which is quite independentof their habits of life. "[88] According to this law every living thingthat comes into the world is compelled to stamp upon its offspring theimage of itself. The dog, according to its type, produces a dog; thebird a bird. 

The artist who operates upon matter in this subtle way and carries outthis law is Life. There are a great many different kinds of Life. If onemight give the broader meaning to the words of the apostle: "All life isnot the same life. There is one kind of life of men, another life ofbeasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. " There is the Life, orthe Artist, or the Potter who segments the worm, the potter who formsthe dog, the potter who moulds the man. [89]

What goes on then in the animal kingdom is this--the Bird-Life seizesupon the bird-germ and builds it up into a bird, the image of itself. The Reptile Life seizes upon another germinal speck, assimilatessurrounding matter, and fashions it into a reptile. The Reptile-Lifethus simply makes an incarnation of itself. The visible bird is simplyan incarnation of the invisible Bird-Life. 

Now we are nearing the point where the spiritual analogy appears. It isa very wonderful analogy, so wonderful that one almost hesitates to putit into words. Yet Nature is reverent; and it is her voice to which welisten. These lower phenomena of life, she says, are but an allegory. There is another kind of Life of which Science as yet has taken littlecognizance. It obeys the same laws. It builds up an organism into itsown form. It is the Christ-Life. As the Bird-Life builds up a bird, theimage of itself, so the Christ-Life builds up a Christ, the image ofHimself, in the inward nature of man. When a man becomes a Christian thenatural process is this: The Living Christ enters into his soul. Development begins. The quickening Life seizes upon the soul, assimilates surrounding elements, and begins to fashion it. According tothe great Law of Conformity to Type this fashioning takes a specificform. It is that of the Artist who fashions. And all through Life thiswonderful, mystical, glorious, yet perfectly definite process, goes on"until Christ be formed" in it. 

The Christian Life is not a vague effort after righteousness--anill-defined pointless struggle for an ill-defined pointless end. Religion is no dishevelled mass of aspiration, prayer, and faith. Thereis no more mystery in Religion as to its processes than in Biology. There is much mystery in Biology. We know all but nothing of Life yet, nothing of development. There is the same mystery in the spiritual Life. But the great lines are the same, as decided, as luminous; and the lawsof natural and spiritual are the same, as unerring, as simple. Willeverything else in the natural world unfold its order, and yield toScience more and more a vision of harmony, and Religion, which shouldcomplement and perfect all, remain a chaos? From the standpoint ofRevelation no truth is more obscure than Conformity to Type. If Sciencecan furnish a companion phenomenon from an every-day process of thenatural life, it may at least throw this most mystical doctrine ofChristianity into thinkable form. Is there any fallacy in speaking ofthe Embryology of the New Life? Is the analogy invalid? Are there notvital processes in the Spiritual as well as in the Natural world? TheBird being an incarnation of the Bird-Life, may not the Christian be aspiritual incarnation of the Christ-Life? And is here not a realjustification in the processes of the New-Birth for such a parallel?

Let us appeal to the record of these processes. 

In what terms does the New Testament describe them? The answer issufficiently striking. It uses everywhere the language of Biology. It isimpossible that the New Testament writers should have been familiar withthese biological facts. It is impossible that their views of this greattruth should have been as clear as Science can make them now. But theyhad no alternative. There was no other way of expressing this truth. Itwas a biological question. So they struck out unhesitatingly into thenew fields of words, and, with an originality which commands bothreverence and surprise, stated their truth with such light, or darkness, as they had. They did not mean to be scientific, only to be accurate, and their fearless accuracy has made them scientific. 

What could be more original, for instance, than the Apostle'sreiteration that the Christian was a new creature, a new man, ababe?[90] Or that this new man was "begotten of God, " God'sworkmanship?[91] And what could be a more accurate expression of the lawof Conformity to Type than this: "Put on the new man, which is renewedin knowledge after the image of Him that created him?"[92] Or this, "Weare changed into the same image from glory to glory?"[93] And elsewherewe are expressly told by the same writer that this Conformity is the endand goal of the Christian life. To work this Type in us is the wholepurpose of God for man. "Whom He did foreknow He also did predestinateto be conformed to the image of His Son. "[94]

One must confess that the originality of this entire New Testamentconception is most startling. Even for the nineteenth century it is themost startling. But when one remembers that such an idea took form inthe first, one cannot fail to be impressed with a deepening wonder atthe system which begat and cherished it. Men seek the origin ofChristianity among philosophies of that age. Scholars contrast it stillwith these philosophies, and scheme to fit it in to those of latergrowth. Has it never occurred to them how much more it is than aphilosophy, that it includes a science, a Biology pure and simple? Aswell might naturalists contrast zoology with chemistry, or seek toincorporate geology with botany--the living with the dead--as try toexplain the spiritual life in terms of mind alone. When will it be seenthat the characteristic of the Christian Religion is its Life, that atrue theology must begin with a Biology? Theology is the Science of God. Why will men treat God as inorganic?

If this analogy is capable of being worked out, we should expect answersto at least three questions. 

First: What corresponds to the protoplasm in the spiritual sphere?

Second: What is the Life, the Hidden Artist who fashions it?

Third: What do we know of the process and the plan?

First: The Protoplasm. 

We should be forsaking the lines of nature were we to imagine for amoment that the new creature was to be found out of nothing. _Ex nihilonihil_--nothing can be made out of nothing. Matter is uncreatable andindestructible; Nature and man can only form and transform. Hence when anew animal is made, no new clay is made. Life merely enters into alreadyexisting matter, assimilates more of the same sort and re-builds it. Thespiritual Artist works in the same way. He must have a peculiar kind ofprotoplasm, a basis of life, and that must be already existing. 

Now we find this in the materials of character with which the naturalman is previously provided. Mind and character, the will and theaffections, the moral nature--these form the bases of spiritual life. Tolook in this direction for the protoplasm of the spiritual life isconsistent with all analogy. The lowest or mineral world mainly suppliesthe material--and this is true even for insectivorous species--for thevegetable kingdom. The vegetable supplies the material for the animal. Next in turn, the animal furnishes material for the mental, and lastlythe mental for the spiritual. Each member of the series is complete onlywhen the steps below it are complete; the highest demands all. It is notnecessary for the immediate purpose to go so far into the psychologyeither of the new creature or of the old as to define more clearly whatthese moral bases are. It is enough to discover that in this womb thenew creature is to be born, fashioned out of the mental and moral parts, substance, or essence of the natural man. The only thing to be insistedupon is that in the natural man this mental and moral substance or basisis spiritually lifeless. However active the intellectual or moral lifemay be, from the point of view of this other Life it is dead. That whichis flesh is flesh. It wants, that is to say, the kind of Life whichconstitutes the difference between the Christian and thenot-a-Christian. It has not yet been "born of the Spirit. "

To show further that this protoplasm possesses the necessary propertiesof a normal protoplasm it will be necessary to examine in passing whatthese properties are. They are two in number, the capacity for life andplasticity. Consider first the capacity for life. It is not enough tofind an adequate supply of material. That must be of the right kind. Forall kinds of matter have not the power to be the vehicle of life--allkinds of matter are not even fitted to be the vehicle of electricity. What peculiarity there is in Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen, when combined in a certain way, to receive life, we cannot tell. We onlyknow that life is always associated in Nature with this particularphysical basis and never with any other. But we are not in the samedarkness with regard to the moral protoplasm. When we look at thiscomplex combination which we have predicted as the basis of spirituallife, we do find something which gives it a peculiar qualification forbeing the protoplasm of the Christ-Life. We discover one strong reasonat least, not only why this kind of life should be associated with thiskind of protoplasm, but why it should never be associated with otherkinds which seem to resemble it--why, for instance, this spiritual lifeshould not be engrafted upon the intelligence of a dog or the instinctsof an ant. 

The protoplasm in man has a something in addition to its instincts orits habits. It has a capacity for God. In this capacity for God lies itsreceptivity; it is the very protoplasm that was necessary. The chamberis not only ready to receive the new Life, but the Guest is expected, and, till He comes, is missed. Till then the soul longs and yearns, wastes and pines, waving its tentacles piteously in the empty air, feeling after God if so be that it may find Him. This is not peculiar tothe protoplasm of the Christian's soul. In every land and in every agethere have been altars to the Known or Unknown God. It is now agreed asa mere question of anthropology that the universal language of the humansoul has always been "I perish with hunger. " This is what fits it forChrist. There is a grandeur in this cry from the depths which makes itsvery unhappiness sublime. 

The other quality we are to look for in the soul is mouldableness, plasticity. Conformity demands conformability. Now plasticity is notonly a marked characteristic of all forms of life, but in a specialsense of the highest forms. It increases steadily as we rise in thescale. The inorganic world, to begin with, is rigid. A crystal of silicadissolved and redissolved a thousand times will never assume any otherform than the hexagonal. The plant next, though plastic in its elements, is comparatively insusceptible of change. The very fixity of its sphere, the imprisonment for life in a single spot of earth, is the symbol of acertain degradation. The animal in all parts is mobile, sensitive, free;the highest animal, man, is the most mobile, the most at leisure fromroutine, the most impressionable, the most open for change. And when wereach the mind and soul, this mobility is found in its most developedform. Whether we regard its susceptibility to impressions, itslightning-like response even to influences the most impalpable andsubtle, its power of instantaneous adjustment, or whether we regard thedelicacy and variety of its moods, or its vast powers of growth, we areforced to recognize in this the most perfect capacity for change. Thismarvellous plasticity of mind contains at once the possibility andprophecy of its transformation. The soul, in a word, is made to be_converted_. 

Second: The Life. 

The main reason for giving the Life, the agent of this change, aseparate treatment, is to emphasize the distinction between it and thenatural man on the one hand, and the spiritual man on the other. Thenatural man is its basis, the spiritual man is its product, the Lifeitself is something different. Just as in an organism we have thesethree things--formative matter, formed matter, and the forming principleor life; so in the soul we have the old nature, the renewed nature, andthe transforming Life. 

This being made evident, little remains here to be added. No man hasever seen this Life. It cannot be analyzed, or weighed, or traced in itsessential nature. But this is just what we expected. This invisibilityis the same property which we found to be peculiar to the natural life. We saw no life in the first embryos, in oak, in palm, or in bird. In theadult it likewise escapes us. We shall not wonder if we cannot see it inthe Christian. We shall not expect to see it. _A fortiori_ we shall notexpect to see it, for we are further removed from the coarsermatter--moving now among ethereal and spiritual things. It is because itconforms to the law of this analogy so well that men, not seeing it, have denied its being. Is it hopeless to point out that one of the mostrecognizable characteristics of life is its unrecognizableness, and thatthe very token of its spiritual nature lies in its being beyond thegrossness of our eyes?

We do not pretend that Science can define this Life to be Christ. It hasno definition to give even of its own life, much less of this. But thereare converging lines which point, at least, in the direction that it isChrist. There was One whom history acknowledges to have been the Truth. One of His claims was this, "I am the Life. " According to the doctrineof Biogenesis, life can only come from life. It was His additional claimthat His function in the world was to give men Life. "I am come that yemight have Life, and that ye might have it more abundantly. " This couldnot refer to the natural life, for men had that already. He that haththe Son hath another Life. "Know ye not your own selves how that JesusChrist is in you. "

Again, there are men whose characters assume a strange resemblance toHim who was the Life. When we see the bird-character appear in anorganism we assume that the Bird-Life has been there at work. And whenwe behold Conformity to Type in a Christian, and know moreover that thetype-organization can be produced by the type-life alone does this notlend support to the hypothesis that the Type-Life also has been here atwork? If every effect demands a cause, what other cause is there for theChristian? When we have a cause, and an adequate cause, and no otheradequate cause; when we have the express statement of that Cause that heis that cause, what more is possible? Let not Science, knowing nothingof its own life, go further than to say it knows nothing of this Life. We shall not dissent from its silence. But till it tells us what it is, we wait for evidence that it is not this. 

Third: The Process. 

It is impossible to enter at length into any details of the greatmiracle by which this protoplasm is to be conformed to the Image of theSon. We enter that province now only so far as this Law of Conformitycompels us. Nor is it so much the nature of the process we have toconsider as its general direction and results. We are dealing with aquestion of morphology rather than of physiology. 

It must occur to one on reaching this point, that a new element herecomes in which compels us, for the moment, to part company with zoology. That element is the conscious power of choice. The animal in followingthe type is blind. It does not only follow the type involuntarily andcompulsorily, but does not know that it is following it. We mightcertainly have been made to conform to the Type in the higher spherewith no more knowledge or power of choice than animals or automata. Butthen we should not have been men. It is a possible case, but notpossible to the kind of protoplasm with which men are furnished. Owingto the peculiar characteristics of this protoplasm an additional andexceptional provision is essential. 

The first demand is that being conscious and having this power ofchoice, the mind should have an adequate knowledge of what it is tochoose. Some revelation of the Type, that is to say, is necessary. Andas that revelation can only come from the Type, we must look there forit. 

We are confronted at once with the Incarnation. There we find how theChrist-Life has clothed Himself with matter, taken literal flesh, anddwelt among us. The Incarnation is the Life revealing the Type. Men arelong since agreed that this is the end of the Incarnation--the revealingof God. But why should God be revealed? Why, indeed, but for man? Whybut that "beholding as in a glass the glory of the only begotten weshould be changed into the same image?"

To meet the power of choice, however, something more was necessary thanthe mere revelation of the Type--it was necessary that the Type shouldbe the highest conceivable Type. In other words, the Type must be anIdeal. For all true human growth, effort, and achievement, an ideal isacknowledged to be indispensable. And all men accordingly whose livesare based on principle, have set themselves an ideal, more or lessperfect. It is this which first deflects the will from what is based, and turns the wayward life to what is holy. So much is true as merephilosophy. But philosophy failed to present men with their ideal. Ithas never been suggested that Christianity has failed. Believers andunbelievers have been compelled to acknowledge that Christianity holdsup to the world the missing Type, the Perfect Man. 

The recognition of the Ideal is the first step in the direction ofConformity. But let it be clearly observed that it is but a step. Thereis no vital connection between merely seeing the Ideal and beingconformed to it. Thousands admire Christ who never become Christians. 

But the great question still remains, How is the Christian to beconformed to the Type, or as we should now say, dealing withconsciousness, to the Ideal? The mere knowledge of the Ideal is no morethan a motive. How is the process to be practically accomplished? Who isto do it? Where, when, how? This is the test question of Christianity. It is here that all theories of Christianity, all attempts to explain iton natural principles, all reductions of it to philosophy, inevitablybreak down. It is here that all imitations of Christianity perish. It ishere, also, that personal religion finds its most fatal obstacle. Menare all quite clear about the Ideal. We are all convinced of the duty ofmankind regarding it. But how to secure that willing men shall attainit--that is the problem of religion. It is the failure to understand thedynamics of Christianity that has most seriously and most pitifullyhindered its growth both in the individual and in the race. 

From the standpoint of biology this practical difficulty vanishes in amoment. It is probably the very simplicity of the law regarding it thathas made men stumble. For nothing is so invisible to most men astransparency. The law here is the same biological law that exists in thenatural world. For centuries men have striven to find out ways and meansto conform themselves to this type. Impressive motives have beenpictured, the proper circumstances arranged, the direction of effortdefined, and men have toiled, struggled, and agonized to conformthemselves to the Image of the Son. Can the protoplasm _conform itself_to its type? Can the embryo _fashion itself_? Is Conformity to Typeproduced by the matter _or by the life_, by the protoplasm or by theType? Is organization the cause of life or the effect of it? It is theeffect of it. Conformity to Type, therefore, is secured by the type. Christ makes the Christian. 

Men need only reflect on the automatic processes of their natural bodyto discover that this is the universal law of Life. What does any manconsciously do, for instance, in the matter of breathing? What part doeshe take in circulating the blood, in keeping up the rhythm of his heart?What control has he over growth? What man by taking thought can add acubit to his stature? What part voluntarily does man take in secretion, in digestion, in the reflex actions? In point of fact is he not afterall the veriest automaton, every organ of his body given him, everyfunction arranged for him, brain and nerve, thought and sensation, willand conscience, all provided for him ready made? And yet he turns uponhis soul and wishes to organize that himself! O preposterous and vainman, thou who couldest not make a finger-nail of thy body, thinkest thouto fashion this wonderful, mysterious, subtle soul of thine after theineffable Image? Wilt thou ever permit thyself _to be_ conformed to theImage of the Son? Wilt thou, who canst not add a cubit to thy stature, submit _to be_ raised by the Type-Life within thee to the perfectstature of Christ?

This is a humbling conclusion. And therefore men will resent it. Menwill still experiment "by works of righteousness which they have done"to earn the Ideal life. The doctrine of Human Inability, as the Churchcalls it, has always been objectionable to men who do not knowthemselves. The doctrine itself, perhaps, has been partly to blame. While it has been often affirmed in such language as rightly to humblemen, it has also been stated and cast in their teeth with words whichcould only insult them. Merely to assert dogmatically that man has nopower to move hand or foot to help himself toward Christ, carries noreal conviction. The weight of human authority is always powerless, andought to be, where the intelligence is denied a rationale. In the lightof modern science when men seek a reason for every thought of God orman, this old doctrine with its severe and almost inhuman aspect--tillrightly understood--must presently have succumbed. But to the biologistit cannot die. It stands to him on the solid ground of Nature. It has areason in the laws of life which must resuscitate it and give it anotherlease of years. Bird-Life makes the Bird. Christ-Life makes theChristian. No man by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature. 

So much for the scientific evidence. Here is the corresponding statementof the truth from Scripture. Observe the passive voice in thesesentences: "_Begotten_ of God;" "The new man which _is renewed_ inknowledge after the Image of Him that created him;" or this, "We _arechanged_ into the same Image;" or this, "Predestinate _to be conformed_to the Image of His Son;" or again, "Until Christ _be formed_ in you;"or "Except a man _be born again_ he cannot see the Kingdom of God;""Except a man _be born_ of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter theKingdom of God. " There is one outstanding verse which seems at firstsight on the other side: "Work out your own salvation with fear andtrembling;" but as one reads on he finds, as if the writer dreaded thevery misconception, the complement, "For it is God which worketh in youboth to will and to do of His good pleasure. "

It will be noticed in these passages, and in others which might benamed, that the process of transformation is referred indifferently tothe agency of each Person of the Trinity in turn. We are not concernedto take up this question of detail. It is sufficient that thetransformation is wrought. Theologians, however, distinguish thus: theindirect agent is Christ, the direct influence is the Holy Spirit. Inother words, Christ by his Spirit renews the souls of men. 

Is man, then, out of the arena altogether? Is he mere clay in the handsof the potter, a machine, a tool, an automaton? Yes and No. If he were atool he would not be a man. If he were a man he would have something todo. One need not seek to balance what God does here, and what man does. But we shall attain to a sufficient measure of truth on a most delicateproblem if we make a final appeal to the natural life. We find that inmaintaining this natural life Nature has a share and man has a share. Byfar the larger part is done for us--the breathing, the secreting, thecirculating of the blood, the building up of the organism. And althoughthe part which man plays is a minor part, yet, strange to say, it is notless essential to the well being, and even to the being, of the whole. For instance, man has to take food. He has nothing to do with it afterhe has once taken it, for the moment it passes his lips it is taken inhand by reflex actions and handed on from one organ to another, hiscontrol over it, in the natural course of things, being completely lost. But the initial act was his. And without that nothing could have beendone. Now whether there be an exact analogy between the voluntary andinvoluntary functions in the body, and the corresponding processes inthe soul, we do not at present inquire. But this will indicate, atleast, that man has his own part to play. Let him choose Life; let himdaily nourish his soul; let him forever starve the old life; let himabide continuously as a living branch in the Vine, and the True-VineLife will flow into his soul, assimilating, renewing, conforming toType, till Christ, pledged by His own law, be formed in him. 

We have been dealing with Christianity at its most mystical point. Markhere once more its absolute naturalness. The pursuit of the Type is justwhat all Nature is engaged in. Plant and insect, fish and reptile, birdand mammal--these in their several spheres are striving after the Type. To prevent its extinction, to ennoble it, to people earth and sea andsky with it; this is the meaning of the Struggle for Life. And this isour life--to pursue the Type, to populate the world with it. 

Our religion is not all a mistake. We are not visionaries. We are not"unpractical, " as men pronounce us, when we worship. To try to followChrist is not to be "righteous overmuch. " True men are not rhapsodizingwhen they preach; nor do those waste their lives who waste themselves instriving to extend the Kingdom of God on earth. This is what life isfor. The Christian in his life-aim is in strict line with Nature. Whatmen call his supernatural is quite natural. 

Mark well also the splendor of this idea of salvation. It is not merelyfinal "safety, " to be forgiven sin, to evade the curse. It is not, vaguely, "to get to heaven. " It is to be conformed to the Image of theSon. It is for these poor elements to attain to the Supreme Beauty. Theorganizing Life being Eternal, so must this Beauty be immortal. Itsprogress toward the Immaculate is already guaranteed. And more than allthere is here fulfilled the sublimest of all prophecies; not Beautyalone but Unity is secured by the Type--Unity of man and man, God andman, God and Christ and man till "all shall be one. "

Could Science in its most brilliant anticipations for the future of itshighest organism ever have foreshadowed a development like this? Nowthat the revelation is made to it, it surely recognizes it as themissing point in Evolution, the climax to which all Creation tends. Hitherto Evolution had no future. It was a pillar with marvelouscarving, growing richer and finer toward the top, but without a capital;a pyramid, the vast base buried in the inorganic, towering higher andhigher, tier above tier, life above life, mind above mind, ever moreperfect in its workmanship, more noble in its symmetry, and yet withalso much the more mysterious in its aspiration. The most curious eye, following it upward, saw nothing. The cloud fell and covered it. Justwhat men wanted to see was hid. The work of the ages had no apex. Butthe work begun by Nature is finished by the Supernatural--as we are wontto call the higher natural. And as the veil is lifted by Christianity itstrikes men dumb with wonder. For the goal of Evolution is Jesus Christ. 

The Christian life is the only life that will ever be completed. Apartfrom Christ the life of man is a broken pillar, the race of men anunfinished pyramid. One by one in sight of Eternity all human Idealsfall short, one by one before the open grave all human hopes dissolve. The Laureate sees a moment's light in Nature's jealousy for the Type;but that too vanishes. 

 "'So careful of the type?' but no. From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. '"

All shall go? No, one Type remains. "Whom He did foreknow He also didpredestinate to be conformed to the Image of His Son. " And "when Christwho is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him inglory. "

FOOTNOTES:

[85] "There is, indeed, a period in the development of every tissue andevery living thing known to us when there are actually no _structural_peculiarities whatever--when the whole organism consists of transparent, structureless, semi-fluid living bioplasm--when it would not be possibleto distinguish the growing moving matter which was to evolve the oakfrom that which was the germ of a vertebrate animal. Nor can anydifference be discerned between the bioplasm matter of the lowest, simplest, epithelial scale of man's organism and that from which thenerve cells of his brain are to be evolved. Neither by studying bioplasmunder the microscope nor by any kind of physical or chemicalinvestigation known, can we form any notion of the nature of thesubstance which is to be formed by the bioplasm, or what will be theordinary results of the living. "--"Bioplasm, " Lionel S. Beale, F. R. S. , pp. 17, 18. 

[86] Huxley: "Lay Sermons, " 6th Ed. , pp. 127, 129. 

[87] Huxley: "Lay Sermons, " 6th Ed. , p. 261. 

[88] "Origin of Species, " p. 166. 

[89] There is no intention here to countenance the old doctrine of thepermanence of species. Whether the word species represent a fixedquantity or the reverse does not affect the question. The facts asstated are true in contemporary zoology if not in palæontology. It mayalso be added that the general conception of a definite Vital Principleis used here simply as a working hypothesis. Science may yet have togive up what the Germans call the "ontogenetic directive Force. " But inthe absence of any proof to the contrary, and especially of anysatisfactory alternative, we are justified in working still with the oldtheory. 

[90] 2 Cor. V. 17. 

[91] 1 John v. 18; 1 Pet. I. 3. 

[92] Col. Iii. 9, 10. 

[93] 2 Cor. Iii. 18. 

[94] Rom. Viii. 29. 

SEMI-PARASITISM. 

 "The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. "--_Carlyle. _

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

 "Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal which render its food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to degeneration. "--_E. Ray Lankester. _

Parasites are the paupers of Nature. They are forms of life which willnot take the trouble to find their own food, but borrow or steal it fromthe more industrious. So deep-rooted is this tendency in Nature, thatplants may become parasitic--it is an acquired habit--as well asanimals; and both are found in every state of beggary, some doing alittle for themselves, while others, more abject, refuse even to preparetheir own food. 

There are certain plants--the Dodder, for instance--which begin lifewith the best intentions, strike true roots into the soil, and reallyappear as if they meant to be independent for life. But after supportingthemselves for a brief period they fix curious sucking discs into thestem and branches of adjacent plants. And after a little experimenting, the epiphyte finally ceases to do anything for its own support, thenceforth drawing all its supplies ready-made from the sap of itshost. In this parasitic state it has no need for organs of nutrition ofits own, and Nature therefore takes them away. Henceforth, to thebotanist, the adult Dodder presents the degraded spectacle of a plantwithout a root, without a twig, without a leaf, and having a stem souseless as to be inadequate to bear its own weight. 

In the Mistletoe the parasitic habit has reached a stage in somerespects lower still. It has persisted in the downward course for somany generations that the young forms even have acquired the habit andusually begin life at once as parasites. The Mistletoe berries, whichcontain the seed of the future plant, are developed especially tominister to this degeneracy, for they glue themselves to the branches ofsome neighboring oak or apple, and there the young Mistletoe starts as adependent from the first. 

Among animals these _lazzaroni_ are more largely represented still. Almost every animal is a living poor-house, and harbors one or morespecies of _epizoa_ or _entozoa_, supplying them gratis, not only with apermanent home, but with all the necessaries and luxuries of life. 

Why does the naturalist think hardly of the parasites? Why does he speakof them as degraded, and despise them as the most ignoble creatures inNature? 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 caneat better, drink more easily, live more merrily, and die, perhaps, nottill 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 thebenefits of life while evading its responsibilities? And although thismode of livelihood is selfish, and possibly undignified, can it be saidthat it is immoral?

The naturalist's reply to this is brief. Parasitism, he will say, is oneof 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--andso perfect thy race--this is the first and greatest commandment ofnature. But the parasite has no thought for its race, or for perfectionin any shape or form. It wants two things--food and shelter. How it getsthem 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 inthis way apparently without protest. For the parasite is a consumer pureand simple. And the "Perfect Economy of Nature" is surely for once atfault when it encourages species numbered by thousands which producenothing for their own or for the general good, but live, and liveluxuriously, at the expense of others?

Now when we look into the matter, we very soon perceive that instead ofsecretly countenancing this ingenious device by which parasitic animalsand plants evade the great law of the Struggle for Life, Nature sets herface most sternly against it. And, instead of allowing the transgressorsto slip through her fingers, as one might at first suppose, she visitsupon them the most severe and terrible penalties. The parasite, sheargues, not only injures itself, but wrongs others. It disobeys thefundamental law of its own being, and taxes the innocent to contributeto its disgrace. So that if Nature is just, if Nature has an avenginghand, 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 doublesin. Let us see what form this punishment takes. 

Observant visitors to the sea-side, or let us say to an aquarium, arefamiliar with those curious little creatures known as Hermit-crabs. Thepeculiarity of the Hermits is that they take up their abode in thecast-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 meansan inactive life. 

The _Pagurus_, however, is not a parasite. And yet although in no senseof the word a parasite, this way of inhabiting throughout life a housebuilt by another animal approaches so closely the parasitic habit, thatwe shall find it instructive as a preliminary illustration, to considerthe effect of this free-house policy on the occupant. There is nodoubt, to begin with, that, as has been already indicated, the habit isan acquired one. In its general anatomy the Hermit is essentially acrab. Now the crab is an animal which, from the nature of itsenvironment, has to lead a somewhat rough and perilous life. Its daysare spent among jagged rocks and boulders. Dashed about by every wave, attacked on every side by monsters of the deep, the crustacean has toprotect itself by developing a strong and serviceable coat of mail. 

How best to protect themselves has been the problem to which the wholecrab family have addressed themselves; and, in considering the matter, the ancestors of the Hermit-crab hit on the happy device of re-utilizingthe habitations of the molluscs which lay around them in plenty, well-built, and ready for immediate occupation. For generations andgenerations accordingly, the Hermit-crab has ceased to exercise itselfupon questions of safety, and dwells in its little shell as proudly andsecurely as if its second-hand house were a fortress erected especiallyfor its private use. 

Wherein, then, has the Hermit suffered for this cheap, but real solutionof a practical difficulty? Whether its laziness costs it any moralqualms, or whether its cleverness becomes to it a source ofcongratulation, we do not know; but judged from the appearance theanimal makes under the searching gaze of the zoologist, its expedient iscertainly not one to be commended. To the eye of Science its sin iswritten in the plainest characters on its very organization. It hassuffered in its own anatomical structure just by as much as it hasborrowed from an external source. Instead of being a perfect crustaceanit has allowed certain important parts of its body to deteriorate. Andseveral vital organs are partially or wholly atrophied. 

Its sphere of life also is now seriously limited; and by a cheapexpedient to secure safety, it has fatally lost its independence. It isplain from its anatomy that the Hermit-crab was not always aHermit-crab. It was meant for higher things. Its ancestors doubtlesswere more or less perfect crustaceans, though what exact stage ofdevelopment was reached before the hermit habit became fixed in thespecies we cannot tell. But from the moment the creature took to relyingon an external source, it began to fall. It slowly lost in its ownperson all that it now draws from external aid. 

As an important item in the day's work, namely, the securing of safetyand shelter, was now guaranteed to it, one of the chief inducements to alife of high and vigilant effort was at the same time withdrawn. Anumber 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; andultimately, by the stern law that an unused organ must suffer a slow butinevitable atrophy, the creature not only lost all power of motion inthese parts, but lost the parts themselves, and otherwise sank into arelatively degenerate condition. 

Every normal crustacean, on the other hand, has the abdominal region ofthe body covered by a thick chitinous shell. In the Hermits this isrepresented only by a thin and delicate membrane--of which the sorryfigure the creature cuts when drawn from its foreign hiding-place issufficient evidence. Any one who now examines further this half-nakedand woe-begone object, will perceive also that the fourth and fifth pairof limbs are either so small and wasted as to be quite useless oraltogether rudimentary; and, although certainly the additionaldevelopment of the extremity of the tail into an organ for holding on toits extemporized retreat may be regarded as a slight compensation, it isclear from the whole structure of the animal that it has allowed itselfto undergo severe Degeneration. 

In dealing with the Hermit-crab, in short, we are dealing with a case ofphysiological backsliding. That the creature has lost anything by thisprocess from a practical point of view is not now argued. It mightfairly be shown, as already indicated, that its freedom is impaired byits cumbrous exoskeleton, and that, in contrast with other crabs, wholead a free and roving life, its independence generally is greatlylimited. But from the physiological standpoint, there is no questionthat the Hermit tribe have neither discharged their responsibilities toNature 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 toattain an ever increasing perfection, then are they backsliders indeed. 

A zoologist's verdict would be that by this act they have forfeited tosome extent their place in the animal scale. An animal is classed as alow or high according as it is adapted to less or more complexconditions of life. This is the true standpoint from which to judge allliving organisms. Were perfection merely a matter of continual eatingand drinking, the Amœba--the lowest known organism--might take rank withthe highest, Man, for the one nourishes itself and saves its skin almostas completely as the other. But judged by the higher standard ofComplexity, that is, by greater or lesser adaption to more or lesscomplex conditions, the gulf between them is infinite. 

We have now received a preliminary idea, although not from the study ofa true parasite, of the essential principles involved in parasitism. Andwe may proceed to point out the correlative in the moral and spiritualspheres. We confine ourselves for the present to one point. Thedifference between the Hermit-crab and a true parasite is, that theformer has acquired a semi-parasitic habit only with reference to_safety_. It may be that the Hermit devours as a preliminary theaccommodating mollusc whose tenement it covets; but it would become areal parasite only on the supposition that the whelk was of such size asto keep providing for it throughout life, and that the external andinternal organs of the crab should disappear, while it lived henceforth, by simple imbibition, upon the elaborated juices of its host. All themollusc provides, however, for the crustacean in this instance issafety, and, accordingly in the meantime we limit our application tothis. The true parasite presents us with an organism so much moredegraded in all its parts, that its lessons may well be reserved untilwe 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 withoutpersonal effort or the vital exercise of faculty is disastrous to moralcharacter. _ We do not begin by attempting to define words. Were we todefine truly what is meant by safety or salvation, we should be sparedfurther elaboration, and the law would stand out as a sententiouscommon-place. But we have to deal with the ideas of safety as these arepopularly held, and the chief purpose at this stage is to expose whatmay be called the Parasitic Doctrine of Salvation. The phases ofreligious experience about to be described may be unknown to many. Itremains for those who are familiar with the religious conceptions of themasses 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 thedoctrine of the Church of Rome; the second, that represented by thenarrower Evangelical Religion. We take these religions, however, not intheir ideal form, with which possibly we should have little quarrel, butin their practical working, or in the form in which they are heldespecially by the rank and file of those who belong respectively tothese communions. For the strength or weakness of any religious systemis best judged from the form in which it presents itself to, andinfluences the common mind. 

No more perfect or more sad example of semi-parasitism exists than inthe case of those illiterate thousands who, scattered everywherethroughout the habitable globe, swell the lower ranks of the Church ofRome. Had an organization been specially designed, indeed, to induce theparasitic habit in the souls of men, nothing better fitted to itsdisastrous end could be established than the system of RomanCatholicism. 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 ofan institution. It is a salvation recommended to men by all that appealsto the motives in most common use with the vulgar and the superstitious, but which has as little vital connection with the individual soul as thedead whelk's shell with the living Hermit. Salvation is a relation atonce vital, personal, and spiritual. This is mechanical and purelyexternal. And this is of course the final secret of its marveloussuccess and world-wide power. A cheap religion is the desideratum of thehuman heart; and an assurance of salvation at the smallest possible costforms the tempting bait held out to a conscience-stricken world by theRomish Church. Thousands, therefore, who have never been taught to usetheir faculties in "working out their own salvation, " thousands who willnot exercise themselves religiously, and who yet cannot be without theexercise of religion, intrust themselves in idle faith to that venerablehouse of refuge which for centuries has stood between God and man. AChurch which has harbored generations of the elect, whose archivesenshrine the names of saints whose foundations are consecrated withmartyrs' blood--shall it not afford a sure asylum still for any soulwhich would make its peace with God? So, as the Hermit into themolluscan 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 hisfellows against this and all other priestly religions? It is not becausehe fails to see the prodigious energy of the Papal See, or to appreciatethe many noble types of Christian manhood nurtured within its pale. Noris it because its teachers are often corrupt and its system of doctrineinadequate as a representation of the Truth--charges which have to bemade more or less against all religions. But it is because it ministersfalsely to the deepest need of man, reduces the end of religion toselfishness, and offers safety without spirituality. That these, theoretically, are its pretensions, we do not affirm; but that itspractical working is to induce in man, and in its worst forms, theparasitic habit, is testified by results. No one who has studied thereligion of the Continent upon the spot, has failed to be impressed withthe appalling spectacle of tens of thousands of unregenerated mensheltering themselves, as they conceive it for Eternity, behind theSacraments of Rome. 

There is no stronger evidence of the inborn parasitic tendency in man inthings religious than the absolute complacency with which even culturedmen will hand over their eternal interests to the care of a Church. Wecan never dismiss from memory the sadness with which we once listened tothe confession of a certain foreign professor: "I used to be concernedabout religion, " he said in substance, "but religion is a great subject. I was very busy; there was little time to settle it for myself. Aprotestant, my attention was called to the Roman Catholic religion. Itsuited my case. And instead of dabbling in religion for myself I putmyself in its hands. Once a year, " he concluded, "I go to mass. " Thesewere the words of one whose work will live in the history of hiscountry, one, too, who knew all about parasitism. Yet, though he thoughtit not, this is parasitism in its worst and most degrading form. Nor, inspite of its intellectual, not to say moral sin, is this an extreme orexceptional case. It is a case, which is being duplicated every day inour own country, only here the confessing is expressed with a candorwhich is rare in company with actions betraying so signally the want ofit. 

The form of parasitism exhibited by a certain section of the narrowerEvangelical school is altogether different from that of the Church ofRome. The parasite in this case seeks its shelter, not in a Church, butin a Doctrine or a Creed. Let it be observed again that we are notdealing with the Evangelical Religion, but only with one of itsparasitic forms--a form which will at once be recognized by all who knowthe popular Protestantism of this country. We confine ourselves also atpresent to that form which finds its encouragement in a single doctrine, that doctrine being the Doctrine of the Atonement--let us say, rather, aperverted form of this central truth. 

The perverted Doctrine of the Atonement, which tends to beget theparasitic habit, may be defined in a single sentence--it is very muchbecause 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 thefollowing syllogism: "You believe Christ died for sinners; you are asinner; therefore Christ died for you; _and hence you are saved_. " Nowwhat is this but another species of molluscan shell? Could any trap fora benighted soul be more ingeniously planned? It is not superstitionthat is appealed to this time; it is reason. The agitated soul isinvited to creep into the convolutions of a syllogism, and entrenchitself behind a Doctrine more venerable even than the Church. But wordsare mere chitin. Doctrines may have no more vital contact with the soulthan priest or sacrament, no further influence on life and characterthan stone and lime. And yet the apostles of parasitism pick ablackguard from the streets, pass him through this plausible formula, and turn him out a convert in the space of as many minutes as it takesto tell it. 

The zeal of these men, assuredly, is not to be questioned: theirinstincts are right, and their work is often not in vain. It ispossible, too, up to a certain point, to defend this Salvation byFormula. Are these not the very words of Scripture? Did not ChristHimself say, "It is finished?" And is it not written, "By grace are yesaved through faith, " "Not of works, lest any man should boast, " and "Hethat believeth on the Son hath everlasting life?" To which, however, one might also answer in the words of Scripture, "The Devils alsobelieve, " and "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom ofGod. " But without seeming to make text refute text, let us ask ratherwhat the supposed convert possesses at the end of the process. ThatChrist saves sinners, even blackguards from the streets, is a greatfact; and that the simple words of the street evangelist do sometimesbring this home to man with convincing power is also a fact. But inordinary circumstances, when the inquirer's mind is rapidly urgedthrough the various stages of the above piece of logic, he is left toface 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 yetbe filled in with a wealth of meaning and become a life-long power. Butwe would state the case against Salvation by Formula with ignorant andunwarranted clemency did we for a moment convey the idea that this isalways the actual result. The doctrine plays too well into the hands ofthe parasitic tendency to make it possible that in more than a minorityof cases the result is anything but disastrous. And it is disastrous notin that, sooner or later, after losing half their lives, those who relyon the naked syllogism come to see their mistake, but in that thousandsnever come to see it all. Are there not men who can prove to you and tothe world, by the irresistible logic of texts, that they are saved, whomyou know to be not only unworthy of the Kingdom of God--which we allare--but absolutely incapable of entering it? The condition ofmembership in the Kingdom of God is well known; who fulfill thiscondition and who do not, is not well known. And yet the moral test, inspite of the difficulty of its applications, will always, and rightly, be preferred by the world to the theological. Nevertheless, in spite ofthe world's verdict, the parasite is content. He is "safe. " Years agohis 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 wasguaranteed. He took out, in short, an insurance policy, by which he wasinfallibly secured eternal life at death. This is not a matter to makelight of. We wish we were caricaturing instead of representing things asthey are. But we carry with us all who intimately know the spiritualcondition of the Narrow Church in asserting that in some cases at leastits members have nothing more to show for their religion than a formula, a syllogism, a cant phrase or an experience of some kind which happenedlong ago, and which men told them at the time was called Salvation. Needwe proceed to formulate objections to the parasitism of Evangelicism?Between it and the Religion of the Church of Rome there is an affinityas real as it is unsuspected. For one thing these religions arespiritually disastrous as well as theologically erroneous in propagatinga false conception of Christianity. The fundamental idea alike of theextreme Roman Catholic and extreme Evangelical Religions is Escape. Man's chief end is to "get off. " And all factors in religion, thehighest 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 haveto "get off. " Jesus Christ is the One who gets us off--a theologicalfigure who contrives so to adjust matters federally that the way isclear. The Church in the one instance is a kind of conveyancing officewhere the transaction is duly concluded, each party accepting theothers' terms; in the other case, a species of sheep-pen where the flockawaits impatiently and indolently the final consummation. Generally, themeans are mistaken for the end, and the opening-up of the possibility ofspiritual growth becomes the signal to stop growing. 

Second, these being cheap religions, are inevitably accompanied by acheap life. Safety being guaranteed from the first, there remainsnothing else to be done. The mechanical way in which the transaction iseffected, leaves the soul without stimulus, and the character remainsuntouched by the moral aspects of the sacrifice of Christ. He who isunjust is unjust still; he who is unholy is unholy still. Thus the wholescheme ministers to the Degeneration of Organs. For here, again, by justas much as the organism borrows mechanically from an external source, byso much exactly does it lose in its own organization. Whatever rest isprovided by Christianity for the children of God, it is certainly nevercontemplated that it should supersede personal effort. And any restwhich ministers to indifference is immoral and unreal--it makesparasites and not men. Just because God worketh in him, as the evidenceand triumph of it, the true child of God works out his ownsalvation--works it out having really received it--not as a light thing, a superfluous labor, but with fear and trembling as a reasonable andindispensable service. 

If it be asked, then, shall the parasite be saved or shall he not, theanswer is that the idea of salvation conveyed by the question makes areply all but hopeless. But if by salvation is meant, a trusting inChrist _in order to likeness to Christ_, in order to that _holiness_without which no man shall see the Lord, the reply is that theparasite's hope is absolutely vain. So far from ministering to growth, parasitism ministers to decay. So far from ministering to holiness, thatis to _wholeness_, parasitism ministers to exactly the opposite. One byone the spiritual faculties droop and die, one by one from lack ofexercise the muscles of the soul grow weak and flaccid, one by one themoral activities cease. So from him that hath not, is taken away thatwhich he hath, and after a few years of parasitism there is nothing leftto save. 

If our meaning up to this point has been sufficiently obscure to makethe objection now possible that this protest against Parasitism isopposed to the doctrines of Free Grace, we cannot hope in a closingsentence to free the argument from a suspicion so ill-judged. Theadjustment between Faith and Works does not fall within our provincenow. Salvation truly is the free gift of God, but he who really knowshow much this means knows--and just because it means so much--how muchof consequent action it involves. With the central doctrines of gracethe whole scientific argument is in too wonderful harmony to be foundwanting here. The natural life, not less than the eternal, is the giftof God. But life in either case is the beginning of growth and not theend of grace. To pause where we should begin, to retrograde where weshould advance, to seek a mechanical security that we may cover inertiaand find a wholesale salvation in which there is no personalsanctification--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 ofHermit-crabs we have already gained some insight into the nature andeffects of parasitism. But the Hermit-crab, be it remembered, is in noreal sense a parasite. And before we can apply the general principlefurther we must address ourselves briefly to the examination of a truecase of parasitism. 

We have not far to seek. Within the body of the Hermit-crab a minuteorganism may frequently be discovered resembling, when magnified, aminiature kidney-bean. A bunch of root-like processes hangs from oneside, and the extremities of these are seen to ramify in delicate filmsthrough the living tissues of the crab. This simple organism is known tothe naturalist as a Sacculina; and though a full-grown animal, itconsists of no more parts than those just named. Not a trace ofstructure is to be detected within this rude and all but inanimateframe; it possesses neither legs, nor eyes, nor mouth, nor throat, norstomach, nor any other organs, external or internal. This Sacculina is atypical parasite. By means of its twining and theftuous roots it imbibesautomatically its nourishment ready-prepared from the body of the crab. It boards indeed entirely at the expense of its host, who supplies itliberally with food and shelter and everything else it wants. So far asthe result to itself is concerned this arrangement may seem at firstsight satisfactory enough; but when we inquire into the life history ofthis small creature we unearth a career of degeneracy all butunparalleled in nature. 

The most certain clue to what nature meant any animal to become is to belearned from its embryology. Let us, therefore, examine for a moment theearliest positive stage in the development of the Sacculina. When theembryo first makes its appearance it bears not the remotest resemblanceto the adult animal. A different name even is given to it by thebiologist, who knows it at this period as a Nauplius. This minuteorganism has an oval body, supplied with six well-jointed feet by meansof which it paddles briskly through the water. For a time it leads anactive and independent life, industriously securing its own food andescaping enemies by its own gallantry. But soon a change takes place. The hereditary taint of parasitism is in its blood, and it proceeds toadapt itself to the pauper habits of its race. The tiny body firstdoubles in upon itself, and from the two front limbs elongated filamentsprotrude. Its four hind limbs entirely disappear, and twelveshort-forked swimming organs temporarily take their place. Thusstrangely metamorphosed the Sacculina sets out in search of a suitablehost, and in an evil hour, by that fate which is always ready toaccommodate the transgressor, is thrown into the company of theHermit-crab. With its two filamentary processes--which afterward developinto the root-like organs--it penetrates the body; the sac-like form isgradually assumed; the whole of the swimming feet drop off--they willnever be needed again--and the animal settles down for the rest of itslife as a parasite. 

One reason which makes a zoologist certain that the Sacculina is adegenerate type is, that in almost all other instances of animals whichbegin life in the Nauplius-form--and there are several--the Naupliusdevelops through higher and higher stages, and arrives finally at thehigh perfection displayed by the shrimp, lobster, crab, and othercrustaceans. But instead of rising to its opportunities, the sacculineNauplius having reached a certain point turned back. It shrunk from thestruggle for life, and beginning probably by seeking shelter from itshost 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 disregardof evolution, and second, which is practically the same thing, anevasion of the great law of work. And the revenge of Nature wastherefore necessary. It could not help punishing the Sacculina forviolated law, and the punishment, according to the strange andnoteworthy way in which Nature usually punishes, was meted but bynatural processes, carried on within its own organization. Itspunishment was simply that it was a Sacculina--that it was a Sacculinawhen it might have been a Crustacean. Instead of being a free andindependent organism high in structure, original in action, vital withenergy, it deteriorated into a torpid and all but amorphous sac confinedto perpetual imprisonment and doomed to a living death. "Any new set ofconditions, " says Ray Lankester, "occurring to an animal which renderits food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule todegeneration; just as an active healthy man sometimes degenerates whenhe becomes suddenly possessed of a fortune; or as Rome degenerated whenpossessed of the riches of the ancient world. The habit of parasitismclearly acts upon animal organization in this way. Let the parasiticlife once be secured, and away go legs, jaws, eyes, and ears; theactive, 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 withentire appropriateness one might call "the physiology of backsliding. "We fail to appreciate the meaning of spiritual degeneration or detectthe terrible nature of the consequences only because they evade the eyeof sense. But could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, orstudy the soul of the backslider on principles of comparative anatomy, we should have a revelation of the organic effects of sin, even of themere sin of carelessness as to growth and work, which must revolutionizeour ideas of practical religion. There is no room for the doubt eventhat what goes on in the body does not with equal certainty take placein the spirit under the corresponding conditions. 

The penalty of backsliding is not something unreal and vague, someunknown quantity which may be measured out to us disproportionately, orwhich perchance, since God is good, we may altogether evade. Theconsequences are already marked within the structure of the soul. So tospeak, they are physiological. The thing affected by our indifference orby our indulgence is not the book of final judgment but the presentfabric of the soul. The punishment of degeneration is simplydegeneration--the loss of functions, the decay of organs, the atrophy ofthe spiritual nature. It is well known that the recovery of thebackslider is one of the hardest problems in spiritual work. Toreinvigorate an old organ seems more difficult and hopeless than todevelop a new one; and the backslider's terrible lot is to have toretrace 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 adead-weight of acquired reluctance, and scarce knowing whether to bestimulated or discouraged by the oppressive memory of the previous fall. 

We are not, however, to discuss at present the physiology ofbacksliding. Nor need we point out at greater length that parasitism isalways and indissolubly accompanied by degeneration. We wish rather toexamine one or two leading tendencies of the modern religious life whichdirectly or indirectly induce the parasitic habit and bring uponthousands of unsuspecting victims such secret and appalling penalties ashave been named. 

Two main causes are known to the biologist as tending to induce theparasitic habit. These are, first, the temptation to secure safetywithout the vital exercise of faculties, and, second, the disposition tofind food without earning it. The first, which we have formallyconsidered, is probably the preliminary stage in most cases. The animal, seeking shelter, finds unexpectedly that it can also thereby gain acertain measure of food. Compelled in the first instance, perhaps bystress of circumstances, to rob its host of a meal or perish, itgradually acquires the habit of drawing all its supplies from the samesource, and thus becomes in time a confirmed parasite. Whatever be itsorigin, however, it is certain that the main evil of parasitism isconnected with the further question of food. Mere safety with Nature isa secondary, though by no means an insignificant, consideration. Andwhile the organism forfeits a part of its organization by any method ofevading enemies which demands no personal effort, the most entiredegeneration of the whole system follows the neglect or abuse of thefunctions of nutrition. 

The direction in which we have to seek the wider application of thesubject will now appear. We have to look into those cases in the moraland spiritual sphere in which the functions of nutrition are eitherneglected or abused. To sustain life, physical, mental, moral, orspiritual, some sort of food is essential. To secure an adequate supplyeach organism also is provided with special and appropriate faculties. But the final gain to the organism does not depend so much on theactual 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 findingfood; but in another and equally real sense, the exercise is the end, the food the means to attain that. Neither is of permanent use withoutthe other, but the correlation between them is so intimate that it wereidle to say that one is more necessary than the other. Without foodexercise is impossible, but without exercise food is useless. 

Thus exercise is in order to food, and food is in order to exercise--inorder especially to that further progress and maturity which onlyceaseless activity can promote. Now food too easily acquired means foodwithout that accompaniment of discipline which is infinitely morevaluable than the food itself. It means the possibility of a life whichis a mere existence. It leaves the organism _in statu quo_, undeveloped, immature, low in the scale of organization and with a growing tendencyto pass from the state of equilibrium to that of increasingdegeneration. What an organism is depends upon what it does; itsactivities make it. And if the stimulus to the exercise of all theinnumerable faculties concerned in nutrition be withdrawn by theconditions and circumstances of life becoming, or being made to become, too easy, there is first an arrest of development, and finally a loss ofthe parts themselves. If, in short, an organism does nothing, in thatrelation it is nothing. 

We may, therefore, formulate the general principle thus: _Any principlewhich secures food to the individual without the expenditure of work isinjurious, and accompanied by the degeneration and loss of parts. _

The social and political analogies of this law, which have been casuallyreferred to already, are sufficiently familiar to render any furtherdevelopment in these directions superfluous. After the eloquentpreaching of the Gospel of Work by Thomas Carlyle, this century at leastcan never plead that one of the most important moral bearings of thesubject has not been duly impressed upon it. All that can be said ofidleness generally might be fitly urged in support of this greatpractical truth. All nations which have prematurely passed away, buriedin graves dug by their own effeminacy; all those individuals who havesecured a hasty wealth by the chances of speculation; all children offortune; all victims of inheritance; all social sponges; all satellitesof the court; all beggars of the market-place--all these are living andunlying witness to the unalterable retributions of the law ofparasitism. But it is when we come to study the working of the principlein the religious sphere there we discover the full extent of the ravageswhich the parasitic habit can make on the souls of men. We can only hopeto indicate here one or two of the things in modern Christianity whichminister 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 thethings in the religious world which tends most strongly to induce theparasitic habit is _Going to Church_. Church-going itself everyChristian will rightly consider an invaluable aid to the ripedevelopment of the spiritual life. Public worship has a place in thenational religious life so firmly established that nothing is everlikely to shake its influence. So supreme indeed, is the ecclesiasticalsystem in all Christian countries that with thousands the religion ofthe Church and the religion of the individual are one. But just becauseof its high and unique place in religious regard, does it become menfrom time to time to inquire how far the Church is really ministering tothe spiritual health of the immense religious community which looks toit as its foster-mother. And if it falls to us here reluctantly toexpose some secret abuses of this venerable system, let it be wellunderstood that these are abuses, and not that the sacred institutionitself is being violated by the attack of an impious hand. 

The danger of church-going largely depends on the form of worship, butit may be affirmed that even the most perfect Church affords to allworshipers a greater or less temptation to parasitism. It consistsessentially in the deputy-work or deputy-worship inseparable from thechurch or chapel ministrations. One man is set apart to prepare acertain 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 alarge extent it will nourish and enrich in turn a number of his hearers. But still they will lack something. The faculty of selecting truth atfirst hand and appropriating it for one's self is a lawful possession toevery Christian. Rightly exercised it conveys to him truth in itsfreshest form; it offers him the opportunity of verifying doctrines forhimself; it makes religion personal; it deepens and intensifies the onlyconvictions that are worth deepening, those, namely, which are honest;and it supplies the mind with a basis of certainty in religion. But ifall one's truth is derived by imbibition from the Church, the facultiesfor receiving truth are not only undeveloped but one's whole view oftruth becomes distorted. He who abandons the personal search for truth, under whatever pretext, abandons truth. The very word truth, by becomingthe limited possession of a guild, ceases to have any meaning; andfaith, 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 aresubordinated to the sermon, this species of parasitism is peculiarlyencouraged. What is meant to be a stimulus to thought becomes thesubstitute for it. The hearer never really learns, he only listens. Andwhile truth and knowledge seem to increase, life and character are leftin arrear. Such truth, of course, and such knowledge, are a mereseeming. Having cost nothing, they come to nothing. The organismacquires a growing immobility, and finally exists in a state of entireintellectual helplessness and inertia. So the parasitic Church-member, the literal "adherent, " comes not merely to live only within the circleof ideas of his minister, but to be content that his minister has theseideas--like the literary parasite who fancies he knows everythingbecause he has a good library. 

Where the worship, again, is largely liturgical the danger assumes aneven more serious form, and it acts in some such way as this. Everysincere man who sets out in the Christian race begins by attempting toexercise the spiritual faculties for himself. The young life throbs inhis veins, and he sets himself to the further progress with earnestpurpose and resolute will. For a time he bids fair to attain a high andoriginal development. But the temptation to relax the always difficulteffort at spirituality is greater than he knows. The "carnal mind"itself is "enmity against God, " and the antipathy, or the deadlierapathy within, is unexpectedly encouraged from that very outside sourcefrom which he anticipates the greatest help. Connecting himself with aChurch he is no less interested than surprised to find how rich is theprovision there for every part of his spiritual nature. Each servicesatisfies or surfeits. Twice, or even three times a week, this feast isspread for him. The thoughts are deeper than his own, the faith keener, the worship loftier, the whole ritual more reverent and splendid. Whatmore natural than that he should gradually exchange his personalreligion for that of the congregation? What more likely than that apublic religion should by insensible stages supplant his individualfaith? What more simple than to content himself with the warmth ofanother's soul. What more tempting than to give up private prayer forthe easier worship of the liturgy or of the church? What, in short, morenatural than for the independent, free-moving, growing Sacculina todegenerate into the listless, useless, pampered parasite of the pew? Thevery means he takes to nurse his personal religion often come in timeto wean him from it. Hanging admiringly, or even enthusiastically, onthe lips of eloquence, his senses now stirred by ceremony, now soothedby music, the parasite of the pew enjoys his weekly worship--hischaracter untouched, his will unbraced, his crude soul unquickened andunimproved. Thus, instead of ministering to the growth of individualmembers, and very often just in proportion to the superior excellence ofthe provision made for them by another, does this gigantic system ofdeputy-nutrition tend to destroy development and arrest the genuineculture of the soul. Our churches overflow with members who are mereconsumers. Their interest in religion is purely parasitic. Their onlyspiritual exercise is the automatic one of imbibition, the clergymanbeing the faithful Hermit-crab who is to be depended on every Sunday forat least a week's supply. 

A physiologist would describe the organism resulting from such aprogress as a case of "arrested development. " Instead of having learnedto pray, the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied with being prayedfor. His transactions with the Eternal are effected by commission. Hiswork for Christ is done by a paid deputy. His whole life is a prolongedindulgence in the bounties of the Church; and surely--in some cases atleast the crowning irony--he sends for the minister when he lies down todie. 

Other signs and consequences of this species of parasitism soon becomevery apparent. The first symptom is idleness. When a Church is off itstrue diet it is off its true work. Hence one explanation of the hundredsof large and influential congregations ministered to from week to weekby men of eminent learning and earnestness, which yet do little ornothing in the line of these special activities for which all churchesexist. An outstanding man at the head of a huge, useless and torpidcongregation is always a puzzle. But is the reason not this, that thecongregation gets too good food too cheap? Providence has mercifullydelivered the Church from too many great men in her pulpits, but thereare enough in every country-side to play the host disastrously to alarge circle of otherwise able-bodied Christian people, who, thrown ontheir own resources, might fatten themselves and help others. There arecompensations to a flock for a poor minister after all. Where the fareis indifferent those who are really hungry will exert themselves toprocure their own supply. 

That the Church has indispensable functions to discharge to theindividual is not denied; but taking into consideration the universaltendency to parasitism in the human soul it is a grave question whetherin some cases it does not really effect more harm than good. A deadchurch certainly, a church having no reaction on the community, a churchwithout propagative power in the world, cannot be other than a calamityto all within its borders. Such a church is an institution, first formaking, then for screening parasites; and instead of representing to theworld the Kingdom of God on earth, it is despised alike by godly and bygodless men as the refuge for fear and formalism and the nursery ofsuperstition. 

And this suggests a second and not less practical evil of a parasiticpiety--that it presents to the world a false conception of the religionof Christ. One notices with a frequency which may well excite alarm thatthe children of church-going parents often break away as they grow inintelligence, not only from church-connection but from the whole systemof family religion. In some cases this is doubtless due to naturalperversity, but in others it certainly arises from the hollowness of theoutward forms which pass current in society and at home for vitalChristianity. These spurious forms, fortunately or unfortunately, soonbetray themselves. How little there is in them becomes graduallyapparent. And rather than indulge in a sham the budding sceptic, as thefirst step, parts with the form and in nine cases out of ten concernshimself no further to find a substitute. Quite deliberately, quitehonestly, sometimes with real regret and even at personal sacrifice hetakes up his position, and to his parent's sorrow and his church'sdishonor forsakes forever the faith and religion of his fathers. Whowill deny that this is a true account of the natural history of muchmodern scepticism? A formal religion can never hold its own in thenineteenth century. It is better that it should not. We must either bereal 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 wherewhole families of outwardly godly parents have gone astray, willprobably find that the household religion had either some palpabledefect, or belonged essentially to the parasitic order. The popularbelief that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than those of the laityis, of course, without foundation; but it may also probably be verifiedthat in the instances where clergymen's sons notoriously discredit theirfather's ministry, that ministry in a majority of cases, will be foundto be professional and theological rather than human and spiritual. Sequences in the moral and spiritual world follow more closely than weyet discern the great law of Heredity. The Parasite begets theParasite--only in the second generation the offspring are sometimessufficiently wise to make the discovery, and honest enough to proclaimit. 

We now pass on to the consideration of another form of Parasitism whichthough closely related to that just discussed, is of sufficientimportance to justify a separate reference. Appealing to a somewhatsmaller circle, but affecting it not less disastrously, is theParasitism induced by certain abuses of _Systems of Theology_. 

In its own place, of course, Theology is no more to be dispensed withthan the Church. In every perfect religious system three greatdepartments must always be represented--criticism, dogmatism, andevangelism. Without the first there is no guarantee of truth, withoutthe second no defence of truth, and without the third no propagation oftruth. But when these departments become mixed up, when their separatefunctions are forgotten, when one is made to do duty for another, orwhere either is developed by the church or the individual at the expenseof the rest, the result is fatal. The particular abuse, however, ofwhich we have now to speak, concerns the tendency in orthodoxcommunities, first to exalt orthodoxy above all other elements inreligion, and secondly to make the possession of sound beliefsequivalent to the possession of truth. 

Doctrinal preaching, fortunately, as a constant practice is less invogue than in a former age, but there are still large numbers whose onlycontact with religion is through theological forms. The method issupported by a plausible defence. What is doctrine but a compressed formof truth, systematized by able and pious men, and sanctioned by theimprimatur 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 humbleinquirer not gratefully accept it? Why go over the ground again? Whywith his dim light should he betake himself afresh to Bible study andwith so great a body of divinity already compiled, presume himself to bestill a seeker after truth? Does not Theology give him Bible truth inreliable, convenient, and moreover, in logical propositions? There itlies extended to the last detail in the tomes of the Fathers, orabridged in a hundred modern compendia, ready-made to his hand, all cutand dry, guaranteed sound and wholesome, why not use it?

Just because it is all cut and dry. Just because it is ready-made. Justbecause it lies there in reliable, convenient and logical propositions. The moment you appropriate truth in such a shape you appropriate aform. You cannot cut and dry truth. You cannot accept truth ready-madewithout it ceasing to nourish the soul as the truth. You cannot live ontheological forms without becoming a Parasite and ceasing to be a man. 

There is no worse enemy to a living Church than a propositionaltheology, with the latter controlling the former by traditionalauthority. For one does not then receive the truth for himself, heaccepts it bodily. He begins the Christian life set up by his Churchwith a stock-in-trade which has cost him nothing, and which, though itmay serve him all his life, is just exactly worth as much his belief inhis Church. This possession of truth, moreover, thus lightly won, isgiven to him as infallible. It is a system. There is nothing to add toit. At his peril let him question or take from it. To start a convert inlife with such a principle is unspeakably degrading. All through lifeinstead of working toward truth he must work from it. An infalliblestandard is a temptation to a mechanical faith. Infallibility alwaysparalyzes. It gives rest; but it is the rest of stagnation. Men performone great act of faith at the beginning of their life, then have donewith 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 makesthem take refuge in a set of dogmas. Infallibility meets the deepestdesire of man, but meets it in the most fatal form. Men deal with thehunger after truth in two ways. First by Unbelief--which crushes it byblind force; or, secondly, by resorting to some external source creditedwith Infallibility--which lulls it to sleep by blind faith. The effectof a doctrinal theology is the effect of Infallibility. And thewholesale belief in such a system, however accurate it may be--granteven that it were infallible--is not Faith though it always gets thatname. It is mere Credulity. It is a complacent and idle rest uponauthority, not a hard-earned, self-obtained, personal possession. Themoral responsibility here, besides, is reduced to nothing. Those whoframed the Thirty-nine Articles or the Westminster Confession areresponsible. And anything which destroys responsibility, or transfersit, cannot be other than injurious in its moral tendency and useless initself. 

It may be objected perhaps that this statement of the paralysisspiritual and mental induced by Infallibility applies also to the Bible. The answer is that though the Bible is infallible, the Infallibility isnot in such a form as to become a temptation. There is the widestpossible difference between the form of truth in the Bible and the formin theology. 

In theology truth is propositional--tied up in neat parcels, systematized, and arranged in logical order. The Trinity is an intricatedoctrinal problem. The Supreme Being is discussed in terms ofphilosophy. The Atonement is a formula which is to be demonstrated likea proposition in Euclid. And Justification is to be worked out as aquestion of jurisprudence. There is no necessary connection betweenthese doctrines and the life of him who holds them. They make himorthodox, not necessarily righteous. They satisfy the intellect but neednot touch the heart. It does not, in short, take a religious man to be atheologian. It simply takes a man with fair reasoning powers. This manhappens to apply these powers to theological subjects--but in no othersense than he might apply them to astronomy or physics. But truth in theBible is a fountain. It is a diffused nutriment, so diffused that no onecan put himself off with the form. It is reached not by thinking, but bydoing. It is seen, discerned, not demonstrated. It cannot be boltedwhole, but must be slowly absorbed into the system. Its vagueness to themere intellect, its refusal to be packed into portable phrases, itssatisfying 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 giftsautomatically. She puts all the mechanical powers at his disposal--buthe must make his lever. She gives him corn, but he must grind it. Sheelaborates coal, but he must dig for it. Corn is perfect, all theproducts of Nature are perfect, but he has everything to do to thembefore he can use them. So with truth; it is perfect, infallible. But hecannot use it as it stands. He must work, think, separate, dissolve, absorb, digest; and most of these he must do for himself and withinhimself. If it be replied that this is exactly what theology does, weanswer it is exactly what it does not. It simply does what thegreen-grocer does when he arranges his apples and plums in his shopwindow. He may tell me a magnum bonum from a Victoria, or a Baldwin froma Newtown Pippin. But he does not help me to eat it. His information isuseful, and for scientific horticulture essential. Should a scepticalpomologist deny that there was such a thing as a Baldwin, or mistake itfor a Newtown Pippin, we should be glad to refer to him; but if we werehungry, and an orchard were handy, we should not trouble him. Truth inthe Bible is an orchard rather than a museum. Dogmatism will be veryvaluable to us when scientific necessity makes us go to the museum. Criticism will be very useful in seeing that only fruit-bearers grow inthe 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 isthe evidence of a faculty doing its own work. It is more necessary forus to be active than to be orthodox. To be orthodox is what we wish tobe, 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 idlelife, " says Goethe, "is death anticipated. " Better far be burned at thestake of Public Opinion than die the living death of Parasitism. Betteran aberrant theology than a suppressed organization. Better a littlefaith dearly won, better launched alone on the infinite bewilderment ofTruth, than perish on the splendid plenty of the richest creeds. SuchDoubt is no self-willed presumption. Nor, truly exercised, will it proveitself, as much doubt does, the synonym for sorrow. It aims at alife-long learning, prepared for any sacrifice of will yet for none ofindependence; at that high progressive education which yields rest inwork and work in rest, and the development of immortal faculties inboth; at that deeper faith which believes in the vastness and variety ofthe revelations of God, and their accessibility to all obedienthearts. 

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 filledwith earth. A low mountain in Arran has furnished the first; thecontents of the second came from the Island of Barbadoes. When examinedwith a pocket lens, the Arran earth is found to be full of smallobjects, clear as crystal, fashioned by some mysterious geometry intoforms of exquisite symmetry. The substance is silica, a natural glass;and the prevailing shape is a six-sided prism capped at either end bylittle 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 orporcelaneous objects built up into curious forms. The material, chemically, remains the same, but the angles of pyramid and prism havegiven 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 discsor perforations which are disposed over the pure white surface inregular belts and rows. Each tiny urn is chiseled into the mostfaultless proportion, and the whole presents a vision of magic beauty. 

Judged by the standard of their loveliness there is little to choosebetween these two sets of objects. Yet there is one cardinal differencebetween them. They belong to different worlds. The last belong to theliving world, the former to the dead. The first are crystals, the lastare shells. 

No power on earth can make these little urns of the _Polycystina_ exceptLife. We can melt them down in the laboratory, but no ingenuity ofchemistry can reproduce their sculptured forms. We are sure that Lifehas formed them, however, for tiny creatures allied to those which madethe Barbadoes' earth are living still, fashioning their fairy palaces offlint in the same mysterious way. On the other hand, chemistry has nodifficulty in making these crystals. We can melt down this Arran earthand reproduce the pyramids and prisms in endless numbers. Nay, if we domelt it down, we cannot help reproducing the pyramid and the prism. There is a six-sidedness, as it were, in the very nature of thissubstance which will infallibly manifest itself if the crystallizingsubstance only be allowed fair play. This six-sided tendency is its Lawof Crystallization--a law of its nature which it cannot resist. But inthe crystal there is nothing at all corresponding to Life. There issimply 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. Andeven after being reduced to powder, and running the gauntlet of everyprocess in the chemical laboratory, the moment the substance is left toitself under possible conditions it will proceed to recrystallize anew. But if the Polycystine urn be broken, no inorganic agency can build itup again. So far as any inherent urn-building power, analogous to thecrystalline force, is concerned, it might lie there in a shapeless massforever. 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. Æsthetically, the Law of Crystallization is probably as useful inministering to natural beauty as Vitality. What are more beautiful thanthe crystals of a snowflake? Or what frond of fern or feather of birdcan vie with the tracery of the frost upon a window-pane? Can it be saidthat the lichen is more lovely than the striated crystals of the graniteon which it grows, or the moss on the mountain side more satisfying thanthe hidden amethyst and cairngorm in the rock beneath? Or is thebotanist more astonished when his microscope reveals the architecture ofspiral tissue in the stem of a plant, or the mineralogist who beholdsfor the first time the chaos of beauty in the sliced specimen of somecommon stone? So far as beauty goes the organic world and the inorganicare one. 

To the man of science, however, this identity of beauty signifiesnothing. His concern, in the first instance, is not with the forms butwith the natures of things. It is no valid answer to him, when he asksthe difference between the moss and the cairngorm, the frost-work andthe fern, to be assured that both are beautiful. For no fundamentaldistinction in Science depends upon beauty. He wants an answer in termsof chemistry, are they organic or inorganic? or in terms of biology, arethey living or dead? But when he is told that the one is living and theother dead, he is in possession of a characteristic and fundamentalscientific distinction. From this point of view, however much they maypossess in common of material substance and beauty, they are separatedfrom one another by a wide and unbridged gulf. The classification ofthese forms, therefore, depends upon the standpoint, and we shouldpronounce them like or unlike, related or unrelated, according as wejudged them from the point of view of Art or of Science. 

The drift of these introductory paragraphs must already be apparent. Wepropose to inquire whether among men, clothed apparently with a commonbeauty of character, there may not yet be distinctions as radical asbetween the crystal and the shell; and, further, whether the currentclassification of men, based upon Moral Beauty, is wholly satisfactoryeither from the standpoint of Science or of Christianity. Here, forexample, are two characters, pure and elevated, adorned with conspicuousvirtues, stirred by lofty impulses, and commanding a spontaneousadmiration from all who look on them--may not this similarity of outwardform be accompanied by a total dissimilarity of inward nature? Is theexternal appearance the truest criterion of the ultimate nature? Or, asin the crystal and the shell, may there not exist distinctions moreprofound and basal? The distinctions drawn between men, in short, arecommonly based on the outward appearance of goodness or badness, on theground of moral beauty or moral deformity--is this classificationscientific? Or is there a deeper distinction between the Christian andthe not-a-Christian as fundamental as that between the organic and theinorganic?

There can be little doubt, to begin with, that with the great majorityof people religion is regarded as essentially one with morality. Wholeschools of philosophy have treated the Christian Religion as a questionof beauty, and discussed its place among other systems of ethics. Eventhose systems of theology which profess to draw a deeper distinctionhave rarely succeeded in establishing it upon any valid basis, or seemeven to have made that distinction perceptible to others. So little, indeed, has the rationale of the science of religion been understoodthat there is still no more unsatisfactory province in theology thanwhere morality and religion are contrasted, and the adjustment attemptedbetween moral philosophy and what are known as the doctrines of grace. 

Examples of this confusion are so numerous that if one were to proceedto proof he would have to cite almost the entire European philosophy ofthe last three hundred years. From Spinoza downward through the wholenaturalistic school, Moral Beauty is persistently regarded as synonymouswith religion and the spiritual life. The most earnest thinking of thepresent day is steeped in the same confusion. We have even theremarkable spectacle presented to us just now of a sublimeMorality-Religion divorced from Christianity altogether, and wedded tothe baldest form of materialism. It is claimed, moreover, that the moralscheme of this high atheism is loftier and more perfect than that ofChristianity, and men are asked to take their choice as if the moralitywere everything, the Christianity or the atheism which nourished itbeing neither here nor there. Others, again, studying this moral beautycarefully, have detected a something in its Christian forms which hascompelled them to declare that a distinction certainly exists. But inscarcely a single instance is the gravity of the distinction more thandimly apprehended. Few conceive of it as other than a difference ofdegree, or could give a more definite account of it than Mr. MatthewArnold's "Religion is morality touched by Emotion"--an utterancesignificant mainly as the testimony of an acute mind that a distinctionof some kind does exist. In a recent Symposium, where the question as to"The influence upon Morality of a decline in Religious Belief, " wasdiscussed at length by writers of whom this century is justly proud, there appears scarcely so much as a recognition of the fathomless chasmseparating the leading terms of debate. 

If beauty is the criterion of religion, this view of the relation ofreligion to morality is justified. But what if there be the samedifference in the beauty of two separate characters that there isbetween the mineral and the shell? What if there be a moral beauty and aspiritual beauty? What answer shall we get if we demand a morescientific distinction between characters than that based on mereoutward form? It is not enough from the standpoint of biologicalreligion to say of two characters that both are beautiful. For, again, no fundamental distinction in Science depends upon beauty. We ask ananswer in terms of biology, are they flesh or spirit; are they living ordead?

If this is really a scientific question, if it is a question not ofmoral philosophy only, but of biology, we are compelled to repudiatebeauty as the criterion of spirituality. It is not, of course, meant bythis that spirituality is not morally beautiful. Spirituality must bemorally very beautiful--so much so that popularly one is justified injudging of religion by its beauty. Nor is it meant that morality is not_a_ criterion. All that is contended for is that, from the scientificstandpoint, it is not _the_ criterion. We can judge of the crystal andthe shell from many other standpoints besides those named, eachclassification having an importance in its own sphere. Thus we mightclass them according to their size and weight, their percentage ofsilica, their use in the arts, or their commercial value. Each scienceor art is entitled to regard them from its own point of view; and whenthe biologist announces his classification he does not interfere withthose based on other grounds. Only, having chosen his standpoint, he isbound to frame his classification in terms of it. 

It may be well to state emphatically, that in proposing a newclassification--or rather, in reviving the primitive one--in thespiritual sphere we leave untouched, as of supreme value in its ownprovince, the test of morality. Morality is certainly a test ofreligion--for most practical purposes the very best test. And so farfrom tending to depreciate morality, the bringing into prominence of thetrue basis is entirely in its interests--in the interests of a moralbeauty, indeed, infinitely surpassing the highest attainable perfectionon merely natural lines. 

The warrant for seeking a further classification is twofold. It is aprinciple in science that classification should rest on the most basalcharacteristics. To determine what these are may not always be easy, butit is at least evident that a classification framed on the ultimatenature of organisms must be more distinctive than one based on externalcharacters. Before the principles of classification were understood, organisms were invariably arranged according to some merely externalresemblance. 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 afish; and so thoroughly artificial were these early systems that animalswere often tabulated among the plants, and plants among the animals. "Inearly attempts, " says Herbert Spencer, "to arrange organic beings insome systematic matter, we see at first a guidance by conspicuous andsimple characters, and a tendency toward arrangement in linear order. Insuccessively later attempts, we see more regard paid to combinations ofcharacters which are essential but often inconspicuous; and a gradualabandonment of a linear arrangement for an arrangement in divergentgroups and re-divergent sub-groups. "[96] Almost all the natural scienceshave already passed through these stages; and one or two which restedentirely on external characters have all but ceased to exist--Conchology, for example, which has yielded its place to Malacology. Following in thewake of the other sciences, the classifications of Theology may have tobe remodeled in the same way. The popular classification, whatever itsmerits from a practical point of view, is essentially a classificationbased on Morphology. The whole tendency of science now is to includealong with morphological considerations the profounder generalizationsof Physiology and Embryology. And the contribution of the latter scienceespecially has been found so important that biology henceforth must lookfor its classification largely to Embryological characters. 

But apart from the demand of modern scientific culture it is palpablyforeign to Christianity, not merely as a Philosophy but as a Biology, toclassify men only in terms of the former. And it is somewhat remarkablethat the writers of both the Old and New Testaments seem to haverecognized the deeper basis. The favorite classification of the OldTestament was into "the nations which knew God" and "the nations whichknew not God"--a distinction which we have formerly seen to be, atbottom, biological. In the New Testament again the ethical charactersare more prominent, but the cardinal distinctions based on regeneration, if not always actually referred to, are throughout kept in view, both inthe sayings of Christ and in the Epistles. 

What then is the deeper distinction drawn by Christianity? What is theessential difference between the Christian and the not-a-Christian, between the spiritual beauty and the moral beauty? It is the distinctionbetween the Organic and the Inorganic. Moral beauty is the product ofthe natural man, spiritual beauty of the spiritual man. And these two, according to the law of Biogenesis, are separated from one another bythe deepest line known to Science. This Law is at once the foundation ofBiology and of Spiritual religion. And the whole fabric of Christianityfalls 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 Lawof motion in physics: _Every body continues in its state of rest or ofuniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it is compelledby force to change that state. _ The first Law of biology is: That whichis Mineral is Mineral; that which is Flesh is Flesh; that which isSpirit is Spirit. The mineral remains in the inorganic world until itis seized upon by a something called Life outside the inorganic world;the natural man remains the natural man, until a Spiritual Life fromwithout the natural life seizes upon him, regenerates him, changes himinto a spiritual man. The peril of the illustration from the law ofmotion will not be felt at least by those who appreciate the distinctionbetween Physics and biology, between Energy and Life. The change ofstate here is not as in physics a mere change of direction, theaffections directed to a new object, the will into a new channel. Thechange involves all this, but is something deeper. It is a change ofnature, a regeneration, a passing from death into life. Hence relativelyto this higher life the natural life is no longer Life, but Death, andthe natural man from the standpoint of Christianity is dead. Whateverassent the mind may give to this proposition, however much it has beenoverlooked in the past, however it compares with casual observation, itis certain that the Founder of the Christian religion intended this tobe the keystone of Christianity. In the proposition _That which is fleshis flesh, and that which is spirit is spirit_, Christ formulates thefirst law of biological religion, and lays the basis for a finalclassification. He divides men into two classes, the living and thenot-living. And Paul afterward carries out the classificationconsistently, making his entire system depend on it, and throughoutarranging men, on the one hand as πνευματικός--spiritual, on the otheras ψυχικός--carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction. 

Suppose now it be granted for a moment that the character of thenot-a-Christian is as beautiful as that of the Christian. This is simplyto say that the crystal is as beautiful as the organism. One is quiteentitled to hold this; but what he is not entitled to hold is that bothin the same sense are living. _He that hath the Son hath Life, and hethat hath not the Son of God hath not Life. _ And in the face of thislaw, no other conclusion is possible than that that which is fleshremains flesh. No matter how great the development of beauty, thatwhich is flesh is withal flesh. The elaborateness or the perfection ofthe moral development in any given instance can do nothing to break downthis distinction. Man is a moral animal, and can, and ought to, arriveat great natural beauty of character. But this is simply to obey the lawof his nature--the law of his flesh; and no progress along that line canproject him into the spiritual sphere. If any one choose to claim thatthe mineral beauty, the fleshly beauty, the natural moral beauty, is allhe covets, he is entitled to his claim. To be good and true, pure andbenevolent in the moral sphere, are high and, so far, legitimate objectsof life. If he deliberately stop here, he is at liberty to do so. Butwhat he is not entitled to do is to call himself a Christian, or toclaim to discharge the functions peculiar to the Christian life. Hismorality is mere crystallization, the crystallizing forces having hadfair play in his development. But these forces have no more touched thesphere of Christianity than the frost on the window-pane can do morethan simulate the external forms of life. And if he considers that thehigh development to which he has reached may pass by an insensibletransition into spirituality, or that his moral nature of itself mayflash into the flame of regenerate Life, he has to be reminded that inspite of the apparent connection of these things from one standpoint, from another there is none at all, or none discoverable by us. On theone hand, there being no such thing as Spontaneous Generation, his moralnature, however it may encourage it, cannot generate Life; while, on theother, his high organization can never in itself result in Life, Lifebeing 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 ishigher in the one case than in the other, the biological distinction isuseless. And if the objection is pressed that the spiritual man hasnothing further to effect in the direction of morality, seeing that thenatural man can successfully compete with him, the questions thus raisedbecome of serious significance. That objection would certainly be fatalwhich could show that the spiritual world was not as high in its demandfor a lofty morality as the natural; and that biology would be equallyfalse and dangerous which should in the least encourage the view that"without holiness" a man could "see the Lord. " These questionsaccordingly 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 andmorality. 

In seeking whatever light Science may have to offer as to the differencebetween the natural and the spiritual man, we first submit the questionto Embryology. And if its actual contribution is small, we shall atleast be indebted to it for an important reason why the difficultyshould exist at all. That there is grave difficulty in deciding betweentwo given characters, the one natural, the other spiritual, is conceded. But if we can find a sufficient justification for so perplexing acircumstance, the fact loses weight as an objection, and the wholeproblem 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 theirrelation to the future, and upon their place in evolution. The crystalhas reached its ultimate stage of development. It can never be morebeautiful than it is now. Take it to pieces and give it the opportunityto beautify itself afresh, and it will just do the same thing overagain. It will form itself into a six-sided pyramid, and go on repeatingthis same form _ad infinitum_ as often as it is dissolved and withoutever improving by a hair's breadth. Its law of crystallization allows itto reach this limit, and nothing else within its kingdom can do any morefor it. In dealing with the crystal, in short, we are dealing with themaximum beauty of the inorganic world. But in dealing with the shell, weare not dealing with the maximum achievement of the organic world. Initself it is one of the humblest forms of the invertebrate sub-kingdomof the organic world; and there are other forms within this kingdom sodifferent from the shell in a hundred respects that to mistake themwould simply be impossible. 

In dealing with a man of fine moral character, again, we are dealingwith the highest achievement of the organic kingdom. But in dealing witha spiritual man we are dealing with _the lowest form of life in thespiritual world_. To contrast the two, therefore, and marvel that theone is apparently so little better than the other, is unscientific andunjust. The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, hidden as yet inhis earthly chrysalis-case, while the natural man has the breeding andevolution of ages represented in his character. But what are thepossibilities of this spiritual organism? What is yet to emerge fromthis chrysalis-case? The natural character finds its limits within theorganic sphere. But who is to define the limits of the spiritual? Evennow it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo it contains some prophecy ofits future glory. But the point to mark is, that _it doth not yet appearwhat it shall be_. 

The want of organization, thus, does not surprise us. All life begins atthe Amœboid stage. Evolution is from the simple to the complex; and inevery case it is some time before organization is advanced enough toadmit of exact classification. A naturalist's only serious difficulty inclassification is when he comes to deal with low or embryonic forms. Itis impossible, for instance, to mistake an oak for an elephant; but atthe bottom of the vegetable series, and at the bottom of the animalseries, there are organisms of so doubtful a character that it isequally impossible to distinguish them. So formidable, indeed, has beenthis difficulty that Hæckel has had to propose an intermediate _regnumprotisticum_ to contain those forms the rudimentary character of whichmakes it impossible to apply to the determining tests. 

We mention this merely to show the difficulty of classification and notfor analogy; for the proper analogy is not between vegetal and animalforms, whether high or low, but between the living and the dead. Andhere the difficulty is certainly not so great. By suitable tests it isgenerally possible to distinguish the organic from the inorganic. Theordinary eye may fail to detect the difference, and innumerable formsare assigned by the popular judgment to the inorganic world which arenevertheless undoubtedly alive. And it is the same in the spiritualworld. To a cursory glance these rudimentary spiritual forms may notseem to exhibit the phenomena of Life, and therefore the living and thedead may be often classed as one. But let the appropriate scientifictests be applied. In the almost amorphous organism, the physiologistought already to be able to detect the symptoms of a dawning life. Andfurther research might even bring to light some faint indication of thelines along which the future development was to proceed. Now it is notimpossible that among the tests for Life there may be some which mayfitly be applied to the spiritual organism. We may therefore at thispoint hand over the problem to Physiology. 

The tests for Life are of two kinds. It is remarkable that one of themwas proposed, in the spiritual sphere, by Christ. Foreseeing thedifficulty of determining the characters and functions of rudimentaryorganisms, He suggested that the point be decided by a furtherevolution. Time for development was to be allowed, during which themarks of Life, if any, would become more pronounced, while in themeantime judgment was to be suspended. "Let both grow together, " Hesaid, "until the harvest. " This is a thoroughly scientific test. Obviously, however, it cannot assist us for the present--except in theway of enforcing extreme caution in attempting any classification atall. 

The second test is at least not so manifestly impracticable. It is toapply the ordinary methods by which biology attempts to distinguish theorganic from the inorganic. The characteristics of Life, according toPhysiology, are four in number--Assimilation, Waste, Reproduction, andSpontaneous Action. If an organism is found to exercise these functions, it is said to be alive. Now these tests, in a spiritual sense, mightfairly be applied to the spiritual man. The experiment would be adelicate one. It might not be open to every one to attempt it. This is ascientific question; and the experiment would have to be conducted underproper conditions and by competent persons. But even on the firststatement it will be plain to all who are familiar with spiritualdiagnosis that the experiment could be made, and especially on one'sself, with some hope of success. Biological considerations, however, would warn us not to expect too much. Whatever be the inadequacy ofMorphology, Physiology can never be studied apart from it; and theinvestigation of function merely as function is a task of extremedifficulty. Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, "We have next to no power oftracing up the genesis of a function considered purely as a function--noopportunity of observing the progressively-increasing quantities of agiven action that have arisen in any order of organisms. In nearly allcases we are able only to establish the greater growth of the part whichwe have found performs the action, and to infer that greater action ofthe part has accompanied greater growth of it. "[97] Such being the case, it would serve no purpose to indicate the details of a barely possibleexperiment. 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 somedistinctively spiritual function and ask himself if he consciouslydischarged it. The discharging of that function is, upon biologicalprinciples, equivalent to being alive, and therefore the subject of theexperiment could certainly come to some conclusion as to his place on abiological scale. The real significance of his actions on the moralscale might be less easy to determine, but he could at least tell wherehe stood as tested by the standard of life--he would know whether hewere living or dead. After all, the best test for Life is just _living_. And living consists, as we have formerly seen, in corresponding withEnvironment. Those therefore who find within themselves, and regularlyexercise, 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 tobetray itself to others, is certainly what one would expect. Everyorganism has its own reaction upon Nature, and the reaction of thespiritual organism upon the community must be looked for. In the absenceof any such reactions in the absence of any token that it lived for ahigher purpose, or that its real interests were those of the Kingdom towhich it professed to belong, we should be entitled to question itsbeing in that Kingdom. It is obvious that each Kingdom has its own endsand interests, its own functions to discharge in Nature. It is also alaw that every organism lives for its Kingdom. And man's place inNature, or his position among the Kingdoms, is to be decided by thecharacteristic functions habitually discharged by him. Now when thehabits of certain individuals are closely observed, when the totaleffect of their life and work, with regard to the community, isgauged--as carefully observed and gauged as the influence of certainindividuals in a colony of ants might be observed and gauged by SirJohn Lubbock--there ought to be no difficulty in deciding whether theyare living for the Organic or for the Spiritual; in plainer language, for the world or for God. The question of Kingdoms, at least, would besettled without mistake. The place of any given individual in his ownKingdom is a different matter. That is a question possibly for ethics. But from the biological standpoint, if a man is living for the world itis 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 hisbiological relation to the other Kingdom whether his character isperfect or imperfect. He may even to some extent assume the outward formof organisms belonging to the higher Kingdom; but so long as hisreaction upon the world is the reaction of his species, he is to beclassed with his species, so long as the bent of his life is in thedirection of the world, he remains a worldling. 

Recent botanical and entomological researches have made Science familiarwith what is termed _Mimicry_. Certain organisms in one Kingdom assume, for purposes of their own, the outward form of organisms belonging toanother. 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 inNature _in propria persona_. Thus the _Ceroxylus laceratus_ of Borneohas assumed so perfectly the disguise of a moss-covered branch as toevade the attack of insectivorous birds; and others of the walking-stickinsects and leaf-butterflies practice similar deceptions with greateffrontery and success. It is a startling result of the indirectinfluence of Christianity or of a spurious Christianity, that thereligious world has come to be populated--how largely one can scarceventure to think--with mimetic species. In few cases, probably, is thisa conscious deception. In many doubtless it is induced, as in_Ceroxylus_, by the desire for _safety_. But in a majority of instancesit is the natural effect of the prestige of a great system upon thosewho, coveting its benedictions, yet fail to understand its true nature, or decline to bear its profounder responsibilities. It is here that thetest of Life becomes of supreme importance. No classification on theground of form can exclude mimetic species, or discover them tothemselves. But if man's place among the Kingdoms is determined by hisfunctions, a careful estimate of his life in itself and in its reactionupon surrounding lives, ought at once to betray his real position. Nomatter what may be the moral uprightness of his life, the honorablenessof his career, or the orthodoxy of his creed, if he exercises thefunction of loving the world, that defines his world--he belongs to theOrganic 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. " Afterall, it is by the general bent of a man's life, by his heart-impulsesand secret desires, his spontaneous actions and abiding motives, thathis generation is declared. 

The exclusiveness of Christianity, separation from the world, uncompromising allegiance to the Kingdom of God, entire surrender ofbody, soul, and spirit to Christ--these are truths which rise intoprominence from time to time, become the watch-words of insignificantparties, rouse the church to attention and the world to opposition, anddie down ultimately for want of lives to live them. The few enthusiastswho distinguish in these requirements the essential conditions ofentrance into the Kingdom of Christ are overpowered by the weight ofnumbers, who see nothing more in Christianity than a mild religiousness, and who demand nothing more in themselves or in their fellow-Christiansthan the participation in a conventional worship, the acceptance oftraditional beliefs, and the living of an honest life. Yet nothing ismore certain than that the enthusiasts are right. Any impartialsurvey--such as the unique analysis in "Ecce Homo"--of the claims ofChrist and of the nature of His society, will convince any one whocares to make the inquiry of the outstanding difference between thesystem of Christianity in the original contemplation and itsrepresentations in modern life. Christianity marks the advent of what issimply a new Kingdom. Its distinctions from the Kingdom below it arefundamental. It demands from its members activities and responses of analtogether novel order. It is, in the conception of its Founder, aKingdom for which all its adherents must henceforth exclusively live andwork, and which opens its gates alone upon those who, having counted thecost, are prepared to follow it if need be to the death. The surrenderChrist demanded was absolute. Every aspirant for membership must seek_first_ the Kingdom of God. And in order to enforce the demand ofallegiance, or rather with an unconsciousness which contains the finestevidence for its justice, He even assumed the title of King--a claimwhich in other circumstances, and were these not the symbols of a higherroyalty, seems so strangely foreign to one who is meek and lowly inheart. 

But this imperious claim of a Kingdom upon its members is not peculiarto Christianity. It is the law in all departments of Nature that everyorganism must live for its Kingdom. And in defining living _for_ thehigher Kingdom as the condition of living in it, Christ enunciates aprinciple which all Nature has prepared us to expect. Every province hasits peculiar exactions, every Kingdom levies upon its subjects the taxof an exclusive obedience, and punishes disloyalty always with death. Itwas the neglect of this principle--that every organism must live for itsKingdom if it is to live in it--which first slowly depopulated thespiritual world. The example of its Founder ceased to find imitators, and the consecration of His early followers came to be regarded as asuperfluous enthusiasm. And it is this same misconception of thefundamental principle of all Kingdoms that has deprived modernChristianity of its vitality. The failure to regard the exclusive claimsof Christ as more than accidental, rhetorical, or ideal; the failure todiscern the essential difference between His Kingdom and all othersystems based on the lines of natural religion, and therefore merelyOrganic; in a word, the general neglect of the claims of Christ as theFounder of a new and higher Kingdom--these have taken the very heartfrom the religion of Christ and left its evangel without power toimpress or bless the world. Until even religious men see the uniquenessof Christ's society, until they acknowledge to the full extent its claimto be nothing less than a new Kingdom, they will continue the hopelessattempt to live for two Kingdoms at once. And hence the value of a moreexplicit Classification. For probably the most of the difficulties oftrying to live the Christian life arise from attempting to half-live it. 

As a merely verbal matter, this identification of the Spiritual Worldwith what are known to Science as Kingdoms, necessitates an explanation. The suggested relation of the Kingdom of Christ to the Mineral andAnimal Kingdoms does not, of course, depend upon the accident that theSpiritual World is named in the sacred writings by the same word. Thiscertainly lends an appearance of fancy to the generalization; and onefeels tempted at first to dismiss it with a smile. But, in truth, it isno mere play on the word _Kingdom_. Science demands the classificationof every organism. And here is an organism of a unique kind, a livingenergetic spirit, a new creature which, by an act of generation, hasbeen begotten of God. Starting from the point that the spiritual life isto be studied biologically, we must at once proceed, as the first stepin the scientific examination of this organism, to enter it in itsappropriate class. Now two Kingdoms, at the present time, are known toScience--the Inorganic and the Organic. It does not belong to theInorganic Kingdom, because it lives. It does not belong to the OrganicKingdom, because it is endowed with a kind of Life infinitely removedfrom either the vegetal or animal. Where then shall it be classed? Weare left without an alternative. There being no Kingdom known toScience which can contain it, we must construct one. Or rather we mustinclude in the programme of Science a Kingdom already constructed butthe place of which in science has not yet been recognized. That Kingdomis the _Kingdom of God_. 

Taking now this larger view of the content of science, we may leave thecase of the individual and pass on to outline the scheme of nature as awhole. The general conception will be as follows:

First, we find at the bottom of everything the Mineral or InorganicKingdom. Its characteristics are, first, that so far as the sphere aboveit is concerned it is dead; second, that although dead it furnishes thephysical basis of life to the Kingdom next in order. It is thusabsolutely essential to the Kingdom above it. And the more minutely thedetailed structure and ordering of the whole fabric are investigated itbecomes increasingly apparent that the Inorganic Kingdom is thepreparation 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 theKingdom next in order. And the more minutely the detailed structure andordering of the whole fabric are investigated, it is obvious, in turn, that the Organic Kingdom is the preparation for, and the prophecy of theSpiritual. 

Third, and highest, we reach the Spiritual Kingdom, or the Kingdom ofHeaven. What its characteristics are, relatively to any hypotheticalhigher Kingdom, necessarily remain unknown. That the Spiritual, in turn, may be the preparation for, and the prophecy of, something still higheris not impossible. But the very conception of a Fourth Kingdomtranscends 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, inthe fact that there are organisms which from their peculiar origin, nature, and destiny cannot be fitly entered in either of the twoKingdoms now known to science. The Second Kingdom is proclaimed by theadvent upon the stage of the First, of _once-born_ organisms. The Thirdis ushered in by the appearance, among these once-born organisms, offorms of life which have been born again--_twice-born_ organisms. Theclassification, therefore, is based, from the scientific side on certainfacts of embryology and on the Law of Biogenesis; and from thetheological side on certain facts of experience and on the doctrine ofRegeneration. 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 outof the highest point of the Organic Kingdom, in the hypothesis of theSpiritual Kingdom itself, a Third Kingdom following the Second insequence as orderly as the Second follows the First, a Kingdom utilizingthe materials of both the Kingdoms beneath it, continuing their laws, and, above all, accounting for these lower Kingdoms in a legitimate wayand complementing them in the only known way--there is in all this asuggestion of the greatest of modern scientific doctrines, the Evolutionhypothesis, too impressive to pass unnoticed. The strength of thedoctrine of Evolution, at least in its broader outlines, is now suchthat its verdict on any biological question is a consideration ofmoment. And if any further defence is needed for the idea of a ThirdKingdom it may be found in the singular harmony of the whole conceptionwith this great modern truth. It might even be asked whether a completeand consistent theory of Evolution does not really demand such aconception? Why should Evolution stop with the Organic? It is surelyobvious that the complement of Evolution is Advolution, and the inquiry, Whence has all this system of things come, is, after all, of minorimportance compared with the question, Whither does all this tend?Science, as such, may have little to say on such a question. And it isperhaps impossible, with such faculties as we now possess, to imagine anEvolution with a future as great as its past. So stupendous is thedevelopment from the atom to the man that no point can be fixed in thefuture as distant from what man is now as he is from the atom. But ithas been given to Christianity to disclose the lines of a furtherEvolution. And if Science also professes to offer a further Evolution, not the most sanguine evolutionist will venture to contrast it, eitheras regards the dignity of its methods, the magnificence of its aims, orthe 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 notdenied. But its limits are already marked. Mr. Herbert Spencer, afterinvestigating its possibilities fully, tells us, "Evolution has animpassable limit. "[99] It is the distinct claim of the Third Kingdomthat this limit is not final. Christianity opens a way to a furtherdevelopment--a development apart from which the magnificent past ofNature has been in vain, and without which Organic Evolution, in spiteof the elaborateness of its processes and the vastness of itsachievements, is simply a stupendous _cul de sac_. Far as nature carrieson the task, vast as is the distance between the atom and the man, shehas to lay down her tools when the work is just begun. Man, her mostrich and finished product, marvelous in his complexity, all but Divinein sensibility, is to the Third Kingdom not even a shapeless embryo. Theold chain of processes must begin again on the higher plane if there isto be a further Evolution. The highest organism of the SecondKingdom--simple, immobile, dead as the inorganic crystal, toward thesphere above--must be vitalized afresh. Then from a mass of all buthomogeneous "protoplasm" the organism must pass through all the stagesof differentiation and integration, growing in perfectness and beautyunder the unfolding of the higher Evolution, until it reaches theInfinite Complexity, the Infinite Sensibility, God. So the spiritualcarries 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 answerto the charge that, as regards morality, the Spiritual world has nothingto offer man that is not already within his reach. Will it be contendedthat a perfect morality is already within the reach of the natural man?What product of the organic creation has ever attained to the fullnessof the stature of Him who is the Founder and Type of the SpiritualKingdom? What do men know of the qualities enjoined in His Beatitudes, or at what value do they estimate them? Proved by results, it is surelyalready decided that on merely natural lines moral perfection isunattainable. And even Science is beginning to awaken to the momentoustruth that Man, the highest product of the Organic Kingdom, is adisappointment. But even were it otherwise, if even in prospect thehopes of the Organic Kingdom could be justified, its standard of beautyis not so high, nor, in spite of the dreams of Evolution, is itsguarantee so certain. The goal of the organisms of the Spiritual Worldis nothing less than this--to be "holy as He is holy, and pure as He ispure. " And by the Law of Conformity to Type, their final perfection issecured. The inward nature must develop out according to its Type, untilthe consummation of oneness with God is reached. 

These proposals of the Spiritual Kingdom in the direction of Evolutionare at least entitled to be carefully considered by Science. Christianity defines the highest conceivable future for mankind. Itsatisfies the Law of Continuity. It guarantees the necessary conditionsfor carrying on the organism successfully, from stage to stage. Itprovides against the tendency to Degeneration. And finally, instead oflimiting the yearning hope of final perfection to the organisms of afuture age--an age so remote that the hope for thousands of years muststill be hopeless--instead of inflicting this cruelty on intelligencesmature 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 ofEvolution, may be met by what seems at first sight a fatal objection. Sofar from the idea of a Spiritual Kingdom being in harmony with thedoctrine of Evolution, it may be said that it is violently opposed toit. It announces a new Kingdom starting off suddenly on a differentplane 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--thebarrier between the natural and the spiritual--and insists that theevolutionary process must begin again at the beginning. At this point, in fact, Nature acts _per saltum_. This is no Evolution, but aCatastrophe--such a Catastrophe as must be fatal to any consistentdevelopment hypothesis. 

On the surface this objection seems final--but it is only on thesurface. It arises from taking a too narrow view of what Evolution is. It takes evolution in zoology for Evolution as a whole. Evolutionbegan, let us say, with some primeval nebulous mass in which laypotentially all future worlds. Under the evolutionary hand, theamorphous cloud broke up, condensed, took definite shape, and in theline of true development assumed a gradually increasing complexity. Finally there emerged the cooled and finished earth, highlydifferentiated, so to speak, complete and fully equipped. And whatfollowed? Let it be well observed--a Catastrophe. Instead of carryingthe process further, the Evolution, if this is Evolution, here alsoabruptly stops. A sudden and hopeless barrier--the barrier between theInorganic and the Organic--interposes, and the process has to beginagain at the beginning with the creation of Life. Here then is a barrierplaced by Science at the close of the Inorganic similar to the barrierplaced by Theology at the close of the Organic. Science has used everyeffort to abolish this first barrier, but there it still standschallenging the attention of the modern world, and no consistent theoryof Evolution can fail to reckon with it. Any objection, then, to theCatastrophe introduced by Christianity between the Natural and SpiritualKingdoms applies with equal force against the barrier which Scienceplaces between the Inorganic and the Organic. The reserve of Life ineither 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. Andthe doctrine gains immeasurably by such an enlargement. For now the casestands thus: Evolution, in harmony with its own law that progress isfrom the simple to the complex, begins itself to pass toward thecomplex. The materialistic Evolution, so to speak, is a straight line. Making all else complex, it alone remains simple--unscientificallysimple. But, as Evolution unfolds everything else, it is now seen to beitself slowly unfolding. The straight line is coming out gradually incurves. At a given point a new force appears deflecting it; and atanother given point a new force appears deflecting that. These pointsare not unrelated points; these forces are not unrelated forces. Thearrangement is still harmonious, and the development throughout obeysthe evolutionary law in being from the general to the special, from thelower to the higher. What we are reaching, in short, is nothing lessthan the _evolution of Evolution_. 

Now to both Science and Christianity, and especially to Science, thisenrichment of Evolution is important. And, on the part of Christianity, the contribution to the system of Nature of a second barrier is of realscientific value. At first it may seem merely to increase thedifficulty. But in reality it abolishes it. However paradoxical itseems, it is nevertheless the case that two barriers are more easy tounderstand than one--two mysteries are less mysterious than a singlemystery. For it requires two to constitute a harmony. One by itself is aCatastrophe. But, just as the recurrence of an eclipse at differentperiods makes an eclipse no breach of Continuity; just as the fact thatthe astronomical conditions necessary to cause a Glacial Period will inthe remote future again be fulfilled constitutes the Great Ice Age anormal phenomenon; so the recurrence of two periods associated withspecial phenomena of Life, the second higher, and by the law necessarilyhigher, is no violation of the principle of Evolution. Thus even in thematter of adding a second to the one barrier of Nature, the ThirdKingdom may already claim to complement the Science of the Second. Theoverthrow of Spontaneous Generation has left a break in Continuity whichcontinues to put Science to confusion. Alone, it is as abnormal andperplexing to the intellect as the first eclipse. But if the SpiritualKingdom can supply Science with a companion-phenomenon, the mostexceptional thing in the scientific sphere falls within the domain ofLaw. This, however, is no more than might be expected from a ThirdKingdom. True to its place as the highest of the Kingdoms, it ought toembrace all that lies beneath and give to the First and Second theirfinal explanation. 

How much more in the under-Kingdoms might be explained or illuminatedupon this principle, however tempting might be the inquiry, we cannotturn aside to ask. But the rank of the Third Kingdom in the order ofEvolution implies that it holds the key to much that is obscure in theworld around--much that, apart from it, must always remain obscure. Asingle obvious instance will serve to illustrate the fertility of themethod. What has this Kingdom to contribute to Science with regard tothe Problem of the origin of Life itself? Taking this as an isolatedphenomenon, neither the Second Kingdom, nor the Third apart fromrevelation, has anything to pronounce. But when we observe thecompanion-phenomenon in the higher Kingdom, the question is simplified. It will be disputed by none that the source of Life in the SpiritualWorld is God. And as the same Law of Biogenesis prevails in bothspheres, we may reason from the higher to the lower and affirm it to beat least likely that the origin of life there has been the same. 

There remains yet one other objection of a somewhat different order, andwhich is only referred to because it is certain to be raised by thosewho fail to appreciate the distinctions of Biology. Those whosesympathies are rather with Philosophy than with Science may incline todispute the allocation of so high an organism as man to the merelyvegetal and animal Kingdom. Recognizing the immense moral andintellectual distinctions between him and even the highest animal, theywould introduce a third barrier between man and animal--a barrier evengreater than that between the Inorganic and the Organic. Now, no sciencecan be blind to these distinctions. The only question is whether theyare of such a kind as to make it necessary to classify man in a separateKingdom. And to this the answer of Science is in the negative. ModernScience knows only two Kingdoms--the Inorganic and the Organic. Abarrier between man and animal there may be, but it is a differentbarrier from that which separates Inorganic from Organic. But even werethis to be denied, and in spite of all science it will be denied, itwould make no difference as regards the general question. It wouldmerely interpose another Kingdom between the Organic and the Spiritual, the other relations remaining as before. Any one, therefore, with atheory to support as to the exceptional creation of the Human Race willfind the present classification elastic enough for his purpose. Philosophy, of course, may propose another arrangement of the Kingdomsif it chooses. It is only contended that this is the order demanded byBiology. To add another Kingdom mid-way between the Organic and theSpiritual, could that be justified at any future time on scientificgrounds, 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 willinglyterminate the inquiry on the threshold of such a subject, the example ofRevelation not less than the analogies of Nature press for at least ageneral statement. 

The broad impression gathered from the utterances of the Founder of theSpiritual Kingdom is that the number of organisms to be included in itis to be comparatively small. The outstanding characteristic of the newSociety is to be its selectness. "Many are called, " said Christ, "butfew are chosen. " And when one recalls, on the one hand, the conditionsof membership, and, on the other, observes the lives and aspirations ofaverage men, the force of the verdict becomes apparent. In its bearingupon the general question, such a conclusion is not withoutsuggestiveness. Here again is another evidence of the radical nature ofChristianity. That "few are chosen" indicates a deeper view of therelation of Christ's Kingdom to the world, and stricter qualificationsof membership, than lie on the surface or are allowed for in theordinary practice of religion. 

The analogy of Nature upon this point is not less striking--it may beadded, not less solemn. It is an open secret, to be read in a hundredanalogies from the world around, that of the millions of possibleentrants for advancement in any department of Nature the numberultimately selected for preferment is small. Here also "many are calledand few are chosen. " The analogies from the waste of seed, of pollen, ofhuman lives, are too familiar to be quoted. In certain details, possibly, these comparisons are inappropriate. But there are otheranalogies, wider and more just, which strike deeper into the system ofNature. A comprehensive view of the whole field of Nature discloses thefact that the circle of the chosen slowly contracts as we rise in thescale of being. Some mineral, but not all, becomes vegetable; somevegetable, but not all, becomes animal; some animal, but not all, becomes human; some human, but not all, becomes Divine. Thus the areanarrows. At the base is the mineral, most broad and simple; thespiritual at the apex, smallest, but most highly differentiated. So formrises above form, Kingdom above Kingdom. _Quantity decreases as qualityincreases. _

The gravitation of the whole system of nature toward quality is surely aphenomenon of commanding interest. And if among the more recentrevelations of Nature there is one thing more significant for religionthan another, it is the majestic spectacle of the rise of Kingdomstoward scarcer yet nobler forms, and simpler yet diviner ends. Of theearly stage, the first development of the earth from the nebulous matrixof space, Science speaks with reserve. The second, the evolution of eachindividual from the simple protoplasmic cell to the formed adult, isproved. The still wider evolution, not of solitary individuals, but ofall the individuals within each province--in the vegetal world from theunicellular cryptogam to the highest phanerogam, in the animal worldfrom the amorphous amœba to Man--is at least suspected, the gradual riseof types being at all events a fact. But now, at last, we see theKingdoms themselves evolving. And that supreme law which has guided thedevelopment from simple to complex in matter, in individual, insub-Kingdom, and in Kingdom, until only two or three great Kingdomsremain, now begins at the beginning again, directing the evolution ofthese million-peopled worlds as if they were simple cells or organisms. Thus, what applies to the individual applies to the family, what appliesto the family applies to the Kingdom, what applies to the Kingdomapplies to the Kingdoms. And so, out of the infinite complexity thererises an infinite simplicity, the foreshadowing of a final unity, ofthat

 "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 aworking principle, this mighty process of amelioration is simply_Evolution_. To Christianity, discerning the end through the means, itis _Redemption_. These silent and patient processes, elaborating, eliminating, developing all from the first of time, conducting theevolution from millennium to millennium with unaltering purpose andunfaltering power, are the early stages in the redemptive work--theunseen approach of that Kingdom whose strange mark is that it "comethwithout observation. " And these Kingdoms rising tier above tier in everincreasing sublimity and beauty, their foundations visibly fixed in thepast, their progress, and the direction of their progress, being factsin Nature still, are the signs which, since the Magi saw His star in theEast, have never been wanting from the firmament of truth, and which inevery age with growing clearness to the wise, and with ever-gatheringmystery to the uninitiated, proclaim that "the Kingdom of God is athand. "

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 instanceGodet's "Old Testament Studies, " pp. 2-40), owing to their neglect ofthe facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy the biologist--any more thanthe above will wholly satisfy the philosopher. Both are needed. Rothe, in his "Aphorisms, " strikingly notes one point: "Es ist beachtenswerth, wie in der Schöpfung immer aus der Auflösung der nächst neideren Stufedie nächst höhere hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat zurErzeugung dieser Kraft der schöpferischen Einwirkung bildet. (Wie esdenn nicht anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der Kreatur aus sichselbst. ) Aus den zersetzten Elementen erheben sich das Mineral, aus demverwitterten Material die Pflanze, aus der verwesten Pflanze das Thier. So erhebt sich auch aus dem in die Elemente zurücksinkenden MateriellenMenschen der Geist, das geistige Geschöpf. "--"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 πυενματικός--spiritual, on the other as φυχικός--carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction. "

 The amended text replaces πυενματικός with πνευματικός, whilst φυχικός now reads as ψυχικός.