PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Natural Law in the Spiritual World
Drummond, Henry, 1851-1897 · 92,866 words · 144 reading sections
Part 1
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17 wordsSECTION 2ARGYLE PRESS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING, 24 & 26 WOOSTER ST., N. Y.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}. The oe ligature has been transcribed as [oe].…
28 wordsSECTION 3CONTENTS.
PAGE PREFACE, 5 INTRODUCTION, 21 BIOGENESIS, 59 DEGENERATION, 83 GROWTH, 99 DEATH, 111 MORTIFICATION, 133 ETERNAL LIFE, …
30 wordsSECTION 4PREFACE.
No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost said derision, than those which deal with Science and Religion. Science is tired of reconciliations between two things which never should have been contrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which it professes not to need; and the critics…
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The function of Parable in religion is to exhibit "form by form." Law undertakes the profounder task of comparing "line by line." Thus Natural Phenomena serve mainly an illustrative function in Religion. Natural Law, on the other hand, could it be traced in the Spiritual World, would have an important scientific value-…
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I would, however, carefully point out that though their unsystematic arrangement here may create the impression that these papers are merely isolated readings in Religion pointed by casual scientific truths, they are organically connected by a single principle. Nothing could be more false both to Science and to Religio…
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In the Introduction, which the general reader may do well to ignore, I have briefly stated the case for Natural Law in the Spiritual World. The extension of Analogy to Laws, or rather the extension of the Laws themselves so far as known to me, is new; and I cannot hope to have escaped the mistakes and misadventures of …
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If the removal of suspicion from Theology is of urgent moment, not less important is the removal of its adulterations. These suspicions, many of them at least, are new; in a sense they mark progress. But the adulterations are the artificial accumulations of centuries of uncontrolled speculation. They are the necessary …
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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 more Nature. For what is this disquiet in the breasts of men but the loyal fear that Nature is being violated? Men must oppose with every energy they possess what seems to them to …
633 wordsSECTION 10FOOTNOTES:
[1] Aurora Leigh. [2] "Meditationes Sacrae," x.…
7 wordsSECTION 11ANALYSIS 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.]…
30 wordsSECTION 12NATURAL 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 usefu…
99 wordsSECTION 13THE 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 …
79 wordsSECTION 14INTRODUCTION.
"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…
199 wordsSECTION 15PART I.
Natural Law is a new word. It is the last and the most magnificent discovery of science. No more telling proof is open to the modern world of the greatness of the idea than the greatness of the attempts which have always been made to justify it. In the earlier centuries, before the birth of science, Phenomena were stud…
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This question, let it be carefully observed, applies to Laws not to Phenomena. That the Phenomena of the Spiritual World are in analogy with the Phenomena of the Natural World requires no restatement. Since Plato enunciated his doctrine of the Cave or of the twice-divided line; since Christ spake in parables; since Plo…
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But, fortunately, we are spared all discussion on this worn subject, for two cogent reasons. For one thing, we do not demand of Nature directly to prove Religion. That was never its function. Its function is to interpret. And this, after all, is possibly the most fruitful proof. The best proof of a thing is that we _se…
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"The Scientific Basis of Faith" is a suggestive title. The accomplished author announces that the object of his investigation is to show that "the world of nature and mind, as made known by science, constitute a basis and a preparation for that highest moral and spiritual life of man, which is evoked by the self-revela…
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This is the secret of the present decadence of Religion in the world of Science. For Science can hear nothing of a Great Exception. Constructions on unique lines, "portions cut off by an insurmountable barrier from the domain of scientific inquiry," it dare not recognize. Nature has taught it this lesson, and Nature is…
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It is not of course to be inferred that the scientific method will ever abolish the radical distinctions of the Spiritual World. True science proposes to itself no such general leveling in any department. Within the unity of the whole there must always be room for the characteristic differences of the parts, and those …
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We do not say, as already hinted, that the proposal includes an attempt to prove the existence of the Spiritual World. Does that need proof? And if so, what sort of evidence would be considered in court? The facts of the Spiritual World are as real to thousands as the facts of the Natural World--and more real to hundre…
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How much of the Spiritual World is covered by Natural law we do not propose at present to inquire. It is certain, at least, that the whole is not covered. And nothing more lends confidence to the method than this. For one thing, room is still left for mystery. Had no place remained for mystery it had proved itself both…
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"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 dist…
509 wordsSECTION 24PART II.
The Law of Continuity having been referred to already as a prominent factor in this inquiry, it may not be out of place to sustain the plea for Natural Law in the Spiritual Sphere by a brief statement and application of this great principle. The Law of Continuity furnishes an _a priori_ argument for the position we are…
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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 by chance. The sun might rise or it might not; or it might appear at any hour, or the moon might come up instead. When children were born they might have one head or a dozen heads…
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It may seem an obvious objection that many of the Natural Laws have no connection whatever with the Spiritual World, and as a matter of fact are not continued through it. Gravitation for instance--what direct application has that in the Spiritual World? The reply is threefold. First, there is no proof that it does not …
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The proposition is continuous for the whole world, and, doubtless, likewise for the sun and moon and stars. The same universality may be predicated likewise for the Law of life. Wherever there is life we may expect to find it arranged, ordered, governed according to the same Law. At the beginning of the natural life we…
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Are there, then, no other Laws in the Spiritual World except those which are the projections or extensions of Natural Laws? From the number of Natural Laws which are found in the higher sphere, from the large territory actually embraced by them, and from their special prominence throughout the whole region, it may at l…
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It is almost singular that the identification of the Laws of the Spiritual World with the Laws of Nature should so long have escaped recognition. For apart from the probability on _a priori_ grounds, it is involved in the whole structure of Parable. When any two Phenomena in the two spheres are seen to be analogous, th…
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There is nothing so especially exalted therefore in the Natural Laws in themselves as to make one anxious to find them blood relations of the Spiritual. It is not only because these Laws are on the ground, more accessible therefore to us who are but groundlings; not only, as the "Unseen Universe" points out in another …
748 wordsSECTION 31FOOTNOTES:
[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 attached to it a measure of evidential as well as of illustrative value. Thus: "The parable or other analogy to spiritual truth appropriated from the world of natu…
379 wordsSECTION 32BIOGENESIS.
"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 …
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For much more than two hundred years a similar discussion has dragged its length through the religious world. Two great schools here also have defended exactly opposite views--one that the Spiritual Life in man can only come from preexisting Life, the other that it can Spontaneously Generate itself. Taking its stand up…
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If the doctrine of the Spontaneous Generation of Spiritual Life can be met on scientific grounds, it will mean the removal of the most serious enemy Christianity has to deal with, and especially within its own borders, at the present day. The religion of Jesus has probably always suffered more from those who have misun…
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There is such a barrier. In the dim but not inadequate vision of the Spiritual World presented in the Word of God, the first thing that strikes the eye is a great gulf fixed. The passage from the Natural World to the Spiritual World is hermetically sealed on the natural side. The door from the inorganic to the organic …
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The words of Scripture which preface this inquiry contain an explicit and 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 God hath not Life." Life, that is to say, depends upon contact with Life. It cannot spring up of itself. It canno…
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A moment's reflection ought now to make it clear why in the Spiritual World there had to be added to this mystery the further mystery of its proclamation through the medium of Revelation. This is the point at which the scientific man is apt to part company with the theologian. He insists on having all things materializ…
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It must long ago have appeared how decisive is the answer of Science to the practical question with which we set out as to the possibility of a Spontaneous Development of Spiritual Life in the individual soul. The inquiry into the Origin of Life is the fundamental question alike of Biology and Christianity. We can affo…
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The difference between the Spiritual man and the Natural man is not a difference of development, but of generation. It is a distinction of quality not of quantity. A man cannot rise by any natural development from "morality touched by emotion," to "morality touched by Life." Were we to construct a scientific classifica…
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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 out some mysterious faculty and deal with Him there. This is the vague form in which many conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ's teaching and to the analogy of nature. Veg…
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Not that there is anything new in this. The Churches have always held that Christ was the source of Life. No spiritual man ever claims that his spirituality is his own. "I live," he will tell you; "nevertheless it is not I, but Christ liveth in me." Christ our Life has indeed been the only doctrine in the Christian Chu…
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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 the plant lives whence has the Life come? When it dies whither has it gone? _Thou canst not tell ... so is every …
434 wordsSECTION 43FOOTNOTES:
[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 to supplement the quotations already given in the text with …
363 wordsSECTION 44DEGENERATION.
"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 sh…
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It is not necessary, surely, to pause for proof that there is such a retrograde principle in the being of every man. It is demonstrated by facts, 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…
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This law, which is true for the whole plant-world, is also valid for the animal and for man. Air is not life, but corruption--so literally corruption that the only way to keep out corruption, when life has ebbed, is to keep out air. Life is merely a temporary suspension of these destructive powers; and this is truly on…
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The explanation has partly been given already. It lies still further, however, in the meaning of the word Salvation. And this, of course, is not at all Salvation in the ordinary sense of forgiveness of sin. This is one great meaning of Salvation, the first and the greatest. But this is spoken to people who are supposed…
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There are certain burrowing animals--the mole for instance--which have taken to spending their lives beneath the surface of the ground. And Nature has taken her revenge upon them in a thoroughly natural way--she has closed up their eyes. If they mean to live in darkness, she argues, eyes are obviously a superfluous fun…
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Nor is it the least tragic accompaniment of this process that its effects may even be concealed from others. The soul undergoing Degeneration, surely by some arrangement with Temptation planned in the uttermost hell, possesses the power of absolute secrecy. When all within is festering decay and rottenness, a Judas, wi…
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These three words, Salvation, Escape, and Neglect, then, are not casually, but organically and necessarily connected. Their doctrine is scientific, not arbitrary. Escape means nothing more than the gradual emergence of the higher being from the lower, and nothing less. It means the gradual putting off of all that canno…
683 wordsSECTION 51FOOTNOTES:
[52] For the scientific basis of this spiritual law the following works may 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.…
87 wordsSECTION 52GROWTH.
"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;…
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I. Spontaneousness. There are three lines along which one may seek for evidence of the spontaneousness of growth. The first is Science. And the argument 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 they spin. They grow, that is, automa…
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And one sees here also, what is sometimes very difficult to see, why salvation in the first instance is never connected directly with morality. The reason is not that salvation does not demand morality, but that it demands so much of it that the moralist can never reach up to it. The end of Salvation is perfection, the…
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Now grant for a moment that by hard work and self-restraint a man may attain 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 is Christianity. The fact that you can account for it proves that it is not growth. For growth is mysterious; th…
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We have now seen that spiritual growth is a process maintained and secured by a spontaneous and mysterious inward principle. It is a spontaneous principle even in its origin, for it bloweth where it listeth; mysterious in its operation, for we can never tell whence it cometh; obscure in its destination, for we cannot t…
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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 himself relieved of all that is superfluous during his task. If the amount of energy lost in trying to grow were spent in fulfilling rather the conditions of growth, we should have man…
855 wordsSECTION 58FOOTNOTES:
[53] University Sermons, pp. 234-241. [54] See Bushnell's "New Life."…
10 wordsSECTION 59DEATH.
"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 w…
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The meaning of Death depending, as has been said, on the meaning of Life, we must first set ourselves to grasp the leading characteristics which distinguish living things. To a physiologist the living organism is distinguished from the not-living by the performance of certain functions. These functions are four in numb…
684 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.