GIFT OF 
 MICHAEL REESE 
 
N ATU RAL LAW 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SPIRITUAL WORLD. 
 
NATURAL LAW 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SPIRITUAL WORLD 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY DRUMMOND, F.R.S.E. ; F.G.S. 
 
 ir-tljirb' (Sbtticm, Cantpletwcj <icjbtt|-see:ottb 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. ' 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVIIT. 
 (^// Rights Reserved. } 
 
BUTLER & TANKER, 
 
 THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, 
 
 FROME, AND LONDON. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 No class of works is received with more suspicion, 
 I had almost said derision, than that which deals 
 with Science and Religion. Science is tired of 
 reconciliations between two things which never 
 should have been ^bntra.sted ; Religion is offended 
 by the patronage of an ally which it professes not 
 to need ; and the critics have rightly discovered 
 that, in most cases where Science is either pitted 
 against Religion or fused with it, there is some 
 fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope 
 and province of either. But although no initial 
 protest, probably, will save this work from the 
 unhappy reputation of its class, the thoughtful 
 mind will perceive that the fact of its subject- 
 matter being Law a property peculiar neither to 
 Science nor to Religion at once places it on a 
 somewhat different footing. 
 
 The real problem I have set myself may be stated 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 in a sentence. Is there not reason to believe that 
 many of the Laws of the Spiritual World, hitherto 
 regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, 
 are simply the Laws of the Natural World ? Can 
 we identify the Natural Laws, or any one of them, 
 in the Spiritual sphere ? That vague lines every- 
 where run through the Spiritual World is already 
 beginning to be recognised. Is it possible to link 
 them with those great lines running through the 
 visible universe which we call the Natural Laws, or 
 are they fundamentally distinct? In a word, Is the 
 Supernatural natural or unnatural ? 
 
 I may, perhaps, be allowed to answer these 
 questions in the form in which they have answered 
 themselves to myself. And I must apologise at the 
 outset for personal references which, but for the 
 clearness they may lend to the statement, I would 
 surely avoid. 
 
 It has been my privilege for some years to ad- 
 dress regularly two very different audiences on two 
 very different themes. On week days I have 
 lectured to a class of students on the Natural 
 Sciences, and on Sundays to an audience consisting, 
 for the most part of working men on subjects of a 
 moral and religious character. I cannot say that 
 this collocation ever appeared as a difficulty to my- 
 lelf, but to certain of my friends it was more than 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 a problem. It was solved to me, however, at first, 
 by what then seemed the necessities of the case 
 I must keep the two departments entirely by them- 
 selves. They lay at opposite poles of thought ; and 
 for a time I succeeded in keeping the Science and 
 the Religion shut off from one another in two 
 separate compartments of my mind. But gradually 
 the wall of partition showed symptoms of giving 
 way. The two fountains of knowledge also slowly 
 began to overflow, and finally their waters met and 
 mingled. The great change was in the compartment 
 which held the Religion. It was not that the well 
 there was dried; still less that the fermenting 
 waters were washed away by the flood of Science. 
 The actual contents remained the same. But the 
 crystals of former doctrine were dissolved ; and 
 as they precipitated themselves once more in 
 definite forms, I observed that the Crystalline 
 System was changed. New channels also for 
 outward expression opened, and some of the old 
 closed up ; and I found the truth running out 
 to my audience on the Sundays by the week- 
 day outlets. In other words, the subject-matter 
 Religion had taken on the method of expression 
 of Science, and I discovered myself enunciating 
 Spiritual Law in the exact terms of Biology and 
 Physics. 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 Now this was not simply a scientific colouring 
 given to Religion, the mere freshening of the theo- 
 logical air with natural facts and illustrations. It 
 was an entire re-casting of truth. And when I came 
 seriously to consider what it involved, I saw, or 
 seemed to see, that it meant essentially the intro- 
 duction of Natural Law into the Spiritual World. 
 It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies 
 of Phenomena rose into view although material for 
 Parable. lies unnoticed and unused on the field of 
 recent Science in inexhaustible profusion. But 
 Law has a still grander function to discharge towards 
 Religion than Parable. There is a deeper unity 
 between the two Kingdoms than the analogy of 
 their Phenomena a unity which the poet's vision, 
 more quick than 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 a!one t 
 The great below clenched by the great above." 
 
 1 Aurora Leigh. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 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. r~5fatural Law, on the other hand, could it 
 be traced in the Spiritual World, would have an 
 important scientific value it would offer Religion 
 a new credential. The effect of the introduction of 
 Law among the scattered Phenomena of Nature has 
 simply been to make Science, to transform knowledge 
 into eternal truth. The same crystallising touch* is 
 needed in Religion. Can it be said that the Pheno-/ 
 mena of the Spiritual World are other than scat- 
 tered ? Can we shut our eyes to the fact that the 
 religious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux ? 
 And when we regard the uncertainty of current 
 beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc of inevitable as 
 well as of idle doubt, the reluctant abandonment of 
 early faith by those who would cherish it longer if 
 they could, is it not plain that the one thing thinking 
 men are waiting for is the introduction of Law 
 among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World ? 
 When that comes we shall offer to such men a truly 
 scientific theology. And the Reign of Law will 
 transform the whole Spiritual World as it has already 
 transformed the Natural World. 
 
 I confess that even when in the first dim vision, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the organizing hand of Law moved among the un- 
 ordered truths of my Spiritual World, poor and 
 scantily-furnished as it was, there seemed to come 
 over it the beauty of a transfiguration. The change 
 was as great as from the old chaotic world of 
 Pythagoras to the symmetrical and harmonious 
 universe of Newton. My Spiritual World before 
 was a chaos of facts ; my Theology, a Pythagorean 
 system 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 I 
 say that I saw it to be in many essential respects 
 centuries behind every department of Science I 
 knew. It was the one region still unpossessed by 
 Law. I saw then why men of Science distrust 
 Theology ; why those who have learned to look 
 upon Law as Authority grow cold to it -it was the 
 Great Exception. 
 
 I have alluded to the genesis of the idea in my 
 own mind partly for another reason to show its 
 naturalness. Certainly I never premeditated any- 
 thing to myself so objectionable and so unwarrant- 
 able in itself, as either to read Theology into 
 Science or Science into Theology. Nothing could 
 be more artificial than to attempt this on the 
 speculative side ; and it has been a substantial re- 
 lief to me throughout that the idea rose up thus 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 in the course of practical work and shaped itself 
 day by day unconsciously. It might be charged, 
 nevertheless, that I was all the time, whether 
 consciously or unconsciously, simply reading my 
 Theology into my Science. And as this would 
 hopelessly vitiate the conclusions arrived at, I must 
 acquit myself at least of the intention. Of nothing 
 have I been more fearful throughout than of making 
 Nature parallel with my own or with any creed. 
 The only legitimate questions one dare put to 
 Nature are those which concern universal human 
 good and the Divine interpretation of things. These 
 I conceive may be there actually studied at first- 
 hand, and before their purity is soiled by human 
 touch. We have Truth in Nature as it came from 
 God. And it has to be read with the same un- 
 biassed mind, the same open eye, the same faith, 
 and the same reverence as all other Revelation, 
 All that is found there, whatever its place in Theo- 
 logy, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, what- 
 ever its narrowness or its breadth, we are bound to 
 accept as Doctrine from which on the lines of 
 Science there is no escape. 
 
 When this presented itself to me as a method, I 
 felt it to be due to it were it only to secure, so far 
 as that was possible, that no former bias should inter- 
 fere with the integrity of the results to begin again 
 
 b 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 at the beginning and reconstruct my Spiritual World 
 step by step. The result of that inquiry, so far as its 
 expression in systematic form is concerned, I have 
 not given in this book. To reconstruct a Spiritual 
 Religion, or a department of Spiritual Religion for 
 this is all the method can pretend to on the lines of 
 Nature would be an attempt from which one better 
 equipped in both directions might well be pardoned 
 if he shrank. My object at present is the humbler 
 one of venturing a simple contribution to practical 
 Religion along the lines indicated. What Bacon pre- 
 dicates of the Natural World, Natura enim non nisi 
 parendo vincitur, is also true, as Christ had already 
 told us, of the Spiritual World. And I present a few 
 samples of the religious teaching referred to formerly 
 as having been prepared under the influence of scien- 
 tific ideas in the hope that they may be useful first of 
 all in this direction. 
 
 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 Religion than attempts to adjust the 
 two spheres by making out ingenious points of con- 
 tact in detail. The solution of this great question of 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 conciliation, if one may still refer to a problem so 
 gratuitous, must be general rather than particular. 
 The basis in a common principle the Continuity of 
 Law can alone save specific applications from rank- 
 ing as mere coincidences, or exempt them from the 
 reproach of being a hybrid between two things which 
 must be related by the deepest affinities or remain 
 for ever separate. 
 
 To the objection that even a basis in Law is no 
 warrant for so great a trespass as the intrusion into 
 another field of thought of the principles of Natural 
 Science, I would reply that in this I find I am 
 following a lead which in other departments has not 
 only been allowed but has achieved results as rich as 
 they were unexpected. What is the Physical Politic 
 of Mr. Walter Bagehot but the extension of Natural 
 Law to the Political World ? What is the Biological 
 Sociology of Mr. Herbert Spencer but the applica- 
 tion of Natural Law to the Social World ? Will it 
 be charged that the splendid achievements of such 
 thinkers are hybrids between things which Nature 
 has meant to remain apart ? Nature usually solves 
 such problems for herself. Inappropriate hybridism 
 is checked by the Law of Sterility. Judged by this 
 great Law these modern developments of our know- 
 ledge stand uncondemned. Within their own sphere 
 the results of Mr. Herbert Spencer are far from 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 sterile the application of Biology to Political Eco- 
 nomy is already revolutionizing the Science. If the 
 introduction of Natural Law into the Social sphere 
 is no violent contradiction but a genuine and perma- 
 nent contribution, shall its further extension to the 
 Spiritual sphere be counted an extravagance ? Does 
 not the Principle of Continuity demand its applica- 
 tion in every direction ? To carry it as a working 
 principle into so lofty a region may appear imprac- 
 ticable. Difficulties lie on the threshold which may 
 seem, at first sight, insurmountable. But obstacles to 
 a true method only test its validity. And he who 
 honestly faces the task may find relief in feeling that 
 whatever else of crudeness and imperfection mar it, 
 the attempt is at least in harmony with the thought 
 and movement of his time. 
 
 That these papers were not designed to appear in 
 a collective form, or indeed to court the more public 
 light at all, needs no disclosure. They are published 
 out of regard to the wish of known and unknown 
 friends by whom, when in a fugitive form, they were 
 received with so curious an interest as to make one 
 feel already that there are minds which such forms of 
 truth may touch. In making the present selection, 
 partly from manuscript, and partly from articles 
 already published, I have been guided less by the 
 wish to constitute the papers a connected series than 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 co exhibit Hie application of the principle in various 
 directions. They will be found, therefore, of unequal 
 interest and value, according to the standpoint from 
 which they are regarded. Thus some are designed 
 with a directly practical and popular bearing, others 
 being more expository, and slightly apologetic in 
 tone. The risk of combining two objects so very 
 different is somewhat serious. But, for the reason 
 named, having taken this responsibility, the only 
 compensation I can offer is to indicate which of the 
 papers incline to the one side or to the other. " De- 
 generation," " Growth," " Mortification," " Conformity 
 to Type," " Semi-Parasitism," and " Parasitism " be- 
 long 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 the former uncongenial. It will not 
 disguise itself, however, that, owing to the circum- 
 stances in which they were prepared, all the papers 
 are more or less practical in their aim ; so that to 
 the merely philosophical reader there is little to be 
 offered except and that only with the greatest 
 diffidence the Introductory chapter. 
 
 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 
 
svi PREFACE. 
 
 Laws themselves, so far as known to me, is new ; and 
 I cannot hope to have escaped the mistakes and 
 misadventures of a first exploration in an unsurveyed 
 land. So general has been the survey that I have 
 not even paused to define specifically to what de- 
 partments of the Spiritual World exclusively the 
 principle is to be applied. The danger of making 
 a new principle apply too widely inculcates here the 
 utmost caution. One thing is certain, and I state it 
 pointedly, the application of Natural Law to the 
 Spiritual World has decided and necessary limits. 
 And if elsewhere with undue enthusiasm I seem to 
 magnify the principle at stake, the exaggeration 
 like the extreme amplification of the moon's disc 
 when near the horizon must be charged to that 
 almost necessary aberration of light which distorts 
 every new idea while it is yet slowly climbing to its 
 zenith. 
 
 In what follows the Introduction, except in the 
 setting, there is nothing new. I trust there is nothing 
 new. When I began to follow out these lines, I had 
 no idea where they would lead me. I was prepared, 
 nevertheless, at least for the time, to be loyal to the 
 method throughout, and share with Nature whatever 
 consequences might ensue. But in almost every 
 case, after stating what appeared to be the truth in 
 words gathered directly from the lips of Nature, I 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 was sooner or later startled by a certain similarity 
 in the general idea to something I had heard before, 
 and this often developed in a moment, and when 
 I was least expecting it, into recognition of some 
 familiar article of faith. I was not watching for this- 
 result. I did not begin by tabulating the doctrines, 
 as I did the Laws of Nature, and then proceed with 
 the attempt to pair them. The majority of them 
 seemed at first too far removed from the natural 
 world even to suggest this. Still less did I begin 
 with doctrines and work downwards to find their 
 relations in the natural sphere. It was the opposite 
 process entirely. I ran up the Natural Law as far 
 as it would go, and the appropriate doctrine seldom 
 even loomed in sight till I had reached the top. 
 Then it burst into view in a single moment. 
 
 I can scarcely now say whether in those moments 
 I was more overcome with thankfulness that Nature 
 was so like Revelation, or more filled with wonder 
 that Revelation was so like Nature. Nature, it is 
 true, is a part of Revelation a much greater part 
 doubtless than is yet believed and one could have 
 anticipated nothing but harmony here. But that a 
 derived Theology, in spite of the venerable verbiage 
 which has gathered round it, should be at bottom 
 and in all cardinal respects so faithful a transcript 
 of " the truth as- it is in Nature " came as a surprise 
 
xvi-i PREFACE. 
 
 and to me at least as a rebuke. How, under the 
 rigid necessity of incorporating in its system much 
 that seemed nearly unintelligible, and much that was 
 barely credible, Theology has succeeded so perfectly 
 in adhering through good 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 that the modern world 
 calls for a further proof. Nor will the best Theology 
 resent this demand ; it also demands it. Theology 
 is searching on every hand for another echo of the 
 Voice of which Revelation also is the echo, that out 
 of the mouths of two witnesses its truths should be 
 established. That other echo can only come from 
 Nature. Hitherto its voice has been muffled. But 
 now that Science has made the world around articu- 
 late, it speaks to Religion with a twofold purpose. 
 In the first place it offers to corroborate Theology, 
 in the second to purify it. 
 
 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 result of the old method and the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 warrant for its revision they mark the impossibility 
 F)f progress without the guiding and restraining hand 
 of Law. The felt exhaustion of the former method, 
 the want of corroboration for the old evidence, the 
 protest of reason against the monstrous overgrowths 
 which conceal the real lines of truth, these summon 
 us to the search for a surer and more scientific 
 system. With truths of the theological order, with 
 dogmas which often depend for their existence on a 
 particular exegesis, with propositions which rest for 
 their evidence upon a balance of probabilities, or 
 upon the weight of authority ; with doctrines which 
 every age and nation may make or unmake, which 
 each sect may tamper with, and which even the 
 individual may modify for himself, a second court 
 of appeal has become an imperative necessity. 
 
 Science, therefore, may yet have to be called upon 
 to arbitrate at some points between conflicting 
 creeds. And while there are some departments of 
 Theology where its jurisdiction cannot be sought, 
 there are others in which Nature may yet have 
 to define the contents as well as the limits of 
 belief. 
 
 What I would desire especially is a thoughtful 
 consideration of the method. The applications 
 ventured upon here may be successful or unsuc- 
 cessful. But they would more than satisfy me if 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 they suggested a method to others whose less clumsy 
 hands might work it out more profitably. For I am 
 convinced of the fertility of such a method at the 
 present time. It is recognised by all that the 
 younger and- abler minds of this age find the most 
 serious difficulty^ in accepting or retaining the 
 ordinary forms of belief. Especially is this true of 
 those whose culture is scientific. And the reason 
 is palpable. No man can study modern Science 
 without a change coming over his view of truth 
 What impresses him about Nature is its solidity. 
 He is there standing upon actual things, among fixed 
 laws. And the integrity of the scientific method so 
 seizes him that all other forms of truth begin to 
 appear comparatively unstable. He did not know 
 before that any form of truth could so hold him ; 
 and the immediate effect is to lessen his interest in 
 all that stands on other bases. This he feels in spite 
 of himself; he struggles against it in vain; and .he 
 finds perhaps to his alarm that he is drifting fast into 
 what looks at first like pure Positivism. This is an 
 inevitable result of the scientific training. It is quite 
 erroneous to suppose that science ever overthrows 
 Faith, if by that is implied that any natural truth 
 can oppose successfully any single spiritual truth. 
 Science cannot overthrow Faith ; but it shakes it. 
 Its own doctrines, grounded in Nature, are so certain, 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 that the truths of Religion, resting to most men on 
 Authority, are felt to be strangely insecure. The 
 difficulty, therefore, which men of Science feel about 
 Religion is real and inevitable, and in so far as 
 Doubt is a conscientious tribute to the inviolability 
 of Nature it is entitled to respect. 
 
 None but those who have passed through it can 
 appreciate the radical nature of the change wrought 
 by Science in the whole mental attitude of its dis- 
 ciples. What they really cry out for in Religion is a 
 new standpoint a 'Standpoint like their own. The 
 one hope, therefore, for Science is more Science. 
 Again, to quote Bacon we shall hear enough from 
 the moderns by-and-by "This I dare affirm in 
 knowledge of Nature, that a little natural philosophy, 
 and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion 
 to atheism ; but, on the other side, much natural 
 philosophy, and wading deep into it, will bring about 
 men's minds to religion." l 
 
 The application of similia simtlibus 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 
 
 1 " Meditationes Sacrae," x . 
 
xxii PREFACE. 
 
 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 convince them that 
 there is no controversy between Religion and Science 
 is insufficient. A mere flag of truce, in the nature 
 of the case, is here impossible ; at least, it is only 
 possible so long as neither party is sincere. No man 
 who knows the splendour of scientific achievement or 
 cares for it, no man who feels the solidity of its 
 method or works with it, can remain neutral with 
 regard to Religion. He must either extend his 
 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, or feels the universal 
 need of a Religion, can stand idly by while the in- 
 tellect of his age is slowly divorcing itself from it. 
 What is required, therefore, to draw Science and Re- 
 ligion together again for they began the centuries 
 hand in hand is the disclosure of the naturalness of 
 the supernatural. Then, and not till then, will men 
 see how true it is, that to be loyal to all of Nature, 
 they must be loyal to the part defined as Spiritual. 
 No science contributes to another without receiving a 
 reciprocal benefit. And even as the contribution of 
 Science to Religion is the vindication of the natural- 
 ness of the Supernatural, so the gift of Religion to 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Science is the demonstration of the supernaturalness 
 of the Natural. Thus, as the Supernatural becomes 
 slowly Natural, will also the Natural become slowly 
 Supernatural, until in the impersonal authority of 
 Law men everywhere recognise the Authority of 
 God. 
 
 To those who already find themselves fully nour- 
 ished on the older forms of truth, I do not commend 
 these pages. They will find them superfluous. Nor 
 is there any reason why they should mingle with 
 light which is already clear the distorting rays of a 
 foreign expression. 
 
 But to those who are feeling their way to a Chris- 
 tian life, haunted now by a sense of instability in the 
 foundations of their faith, now brought to bay by 
 specific doubt at one point raising, as all doubt does, 
 the question for the whole, I would hold up a light 
 which has often been kind to me. There is a sense 
 of solidity about a Law of Nature which belongs to 
 nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that 
 is shifting, is one thing sure ; one thing outside our- 
 selves, unbiassed, unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like 
 or dislike, by doubt or fear ; one thing that holds on 
 its way to me eternally, incorruptible, and undefiled. 
 This, more than anything else, makes one eager to 
 see the Reign of Law traced in the Spiritual Sphere. 
 And should this seem to some to offer only a surer, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 but not a higher Faith ; should the better ordering of 
 the Spiritual World appear to satisfy the intellect at 
 the sacrifice of reverence, simplicity, or love ; espe- 
 cially should it seem to substitute a Reign of Law 
 and a Lawgiver for a Kingdom of Grace and a Per- 
 sonal 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." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE . . . t v 
 
 INTRODUCTION i 
 
 BIOGENESIS eg 
 
 DEGENERATION , , , 95 
 
 GROWTH , 121 
 
 / DEATH , ... 141 
 
 MORTIFICATION. . . , 175 
 
 ^ETERNAL LIFE 201 
 
 ENVIRONMENT . . 251 
 
 - CONFORMITY TO TYPE . . . 285 
 SEMI-PARASITISM . . . ; . .- , .315 
 
 PARASITISM .......;. 339 
 
 CLASSIFICATION ... ... 367 
 
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 LAV/ IN THE SPIRITUAL SPHERE. 
 
 1. The growth of the Idea of Law. 
 
 2. Its gradual extension throughout every department of Know- 
 
 ledge. 
 
 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 illustra- 
 tions. Analogies of Law would also have a Scientific 
 value. 
 
 5. Wherein that value would consist, (i) The Scientific de- 
 
 mand of the age would be met ; (2) Greater clearness 
 would be introduced into Religion practically , (3) Theo- 
 logy, 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 (i) improbable, (2) unnecessary, (3) un- 
 known. Qualification. 
 
 6. The Spiritual not the projection upwards of the Natural : but 
 
 the Natural the projection downwards of the Spiritual. 
 
" This method tiirns aside from hypotheses not to be tested by 
 any known logical canon familiar to science, whether the hypo* 
 thesis claims sitpport 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 analyse. When yoit confront us with hypotheses, however 
 sublime and however affecting, if they cannot be stated in terms 
 of the rest of oitr knowledge, if they are disparate to that world 
 of sequence and sensation which to us is the iiltimate base of 
 all our real knowledge, then we shake our heads and turn 
 aside." 
 
 FREDERICK HARRISON. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "Ethical science is already for ever 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. 
 
 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 studied alone. The world then was 
 a chaos, a collection of single, isolated, and inde- 
 pendent facts. Deeper thinkers saw, indeed, that 
 relations must subsist between these facts, but the 
 Reign of Law was never more to the ancients than 
 a far-off vision. Their philosophies, conspicuously 
 those of the Stoics and Pythagoreans, heroically 
 sought to marshal the discrete materials of the 
 universe into thinkable form, but from these artificial 
 and fantastic systems nothing remains to us now but 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 an ancient testimony to the grandeur of that har- 
 mony which they failed to reach. 
 
 With Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler the first 
 regular lines of the universe began to be discerned. 
 When Nature yielded to Newton her great secret, 
 Gravitation was felt to be not greater as a fact in 
 itself than as a. revelation that Law was fact. And 
 thenceforth the search for individual Phenomena 
 gave way before the larger study of their relations. 
 The pursuit of Law became the passion of science. 
 
 What that discovery of Law has done for Nature, 
 it is impossible to estimate. As a mere spectacle the 
 universe to-day discloses a beauty so transcendent 
 that he who disciplines himself by scientific work 
 finds it an overwhelming reward simply to behold it. 
 In these Laws one stands face to face with truth, 
 solid and unchangeable. Each single Law is an 
 instrument of scientific research, simple in its ad- 
 justments, universal in its application, infallible in its 
 results. And despite the limitations 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 on definitions of Natural Law. The 
 Duke of Argyll 1 indicates five senses in which tKc 
 
 1 " Reign of Law," chap. ii. 
 
INTR OD UCTSO.V. 
 
 word is used, but we may content ourselves here by 
 taking it in its most simple and obvious significance. 
 The fundamental conception of Law is an ascertained 
 working sequence or constant order among the 
 Phenomena of Nature. This impression of Law as 
 order it is important to receive in its simplicity, for 
 the idea is often corrupted by having attached to it 
 erroneous views of cause and effect. In its true 
 sense Natural Law predicates nothing of causes. 
 The Laws of Nature are simply statements of the 
 orderly condition of things in Nature, what is found 
 in Nature by a sufficient number of competent ob- 
 servers. What these Laws are in themselves is not 
 agreed. That they have any absolute existence even 
 is far from certain. They are relative to man in his 
 many limitations, and represent for him the constant 
 expression of what he may always expect to find in 
 the world around him. But that they have any 
 causal connection with the things around him is not 
 to be conceived. The Natural Laws originate nothing, 
 sustain nothing; they are merely responsible for 
 uniformity in sustaining what has been originated 
 and what is being sustained. They are modes of 
 operation, therefore, not operators ; processes, not 
 powers. The Law of Gravitation, for instance, speaks 
 to science only of process. It has no light to offer as 
 to itself. Newton did not discover Gravity that is 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not discovered yet. He discovered its Law, which is 
 Gravitation, but that tells us nothing of its origin, of 
 its nature, or of its cause. 
 
 The Natural Laws then are great lines running 
 not only through the world, but, as we now know, 
 through the universe, reducing it like parallels of 
 latitude to intelligent order. In themselves, be it 
 once more repeated, they may have no more absolute 
 existence than parallels of latitude. But they exist 
 for us. They are drawn for us to understand the 
 part by some Hand that drew the whole ; so drawn, 
 perhaps, that, understanding the part, we too in time 
 may learn to understand the whole, Now the inquiry 
 we propose to ourselves resolves itself into the simple 
 question, Do these lines stop with what we call the 
 Natural sphere? Is it not possible that they may 
 lead further ? Is it probable that the Hand which 
 ruled them gave up the work where most of all they 
 were required ? Did that Hand divide the world into 
 two, a cosmos and a chaos, the higher being the 
 chaos ? With Nature as the symbol of all of har- 
 mony and beauty that is known to man, must we still 
 talk of the super-natural, not as a convenient word, 
 but as a different order of world, an unintelligible 
 world, where the Reign of Mystery supersedes the 
 Reign of Law? 
 
 This question, let it be carefully observed, applies 
 
tNTROD UCTION. 
 
 to Laws not to Phenomena. That the Phenomena 
 of the Spiritual World are in analogy with the Phe- 
 nomena of the Natural World requires no restate- 
 ment. Since Plato enunciated his doctrine of the 
 Cave or of the twice-divided line ; since Christ spake 
 in parables,; since Plotinus wrote of the world as 
 an imaged image ; since the mysticism of Sweden- 
 borg ; since Bacon and Pascal ; since " Sartor Re- 
 sartus" and "In Memoriam," it has been all but a 
 commonplace with thinkers that " the invisible things 
 of God from the creation of the world 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 represen- 
 tations and correspondences," says Swedenborg, " we 
 shall treat of both these symbolical and typical 
 resemblances, and of the astonishing things that 
 occur, I will not say in the living body only, but 
 throughout Nature, and which correspond so entirely 
 to supreme and spiritual things, that one would 
 swear that the physical world was purely sym- 
 bolical of the spiritual world. 1 " And Carlyle ; 
 
 1 '* Animal Kingdom." 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "All visible things are emblems. What thou 
 seest is not there on its own account ; strictly 
 speaking is not there at all. Matter exists only 
 spiritually, and to represent some idea and body 
 it forth." i 
 
 But the analogies of Law are a totally different 
 thing from the analogies of Phenomena and have a 
 very different value. To say generally, with Pascal, 
 that "La nature est une image de la grace," is 
 merely to be poetical. The function of Hervey's 
 " Meditations in a Flower Garden/' or, Flavel's 
 " Husbandry Spiritualized," is mainly homiletical. 
 That such works have an interest is not to be denied. 
 The place of parable in teaching, and especially 
 after the sanction of the greatest of Teachers, must 
 always be recognised. The very necessities of 
 language indeed demand this method of presenting 
 truth. The temporal is the husk and framework of 
 the eternal, and thoughts can be uttered only through 
 things. 2 
 
 1 "Sartor Resartus," 1858 ed., p. 43. 
 
 2 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 nature or man, is not merely 
 illustrative, but also in some sort proof. It is not merely that 
 these analogies assist to make the truth intelligible or, if in- 
 telligible before, present it more vividly to the mind, which is 
 all that some will allow them. Their power lies deeper than 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But analogies between Phenomena bear the same 
 relation to analogies of Law that Phenomena them- 
 selves bear to Law. The light of Law on truth, as 
 we have seen, is an immense advance upon the 
 light of Phenomena. The discovery of Law is sim- 
 ply the discovery of Science. And if the analogies 
 of Natural Law can be extended to the Spiritual 
 World, that whole region at once falls within the 
 domain of science and secures a basis as well as an 
 illumination in the constitution and course of Nature. 
 All, therefore, that has been claimed for parable 
 can be predicated a fortiori of this with the ad- 
 dition that a proof on the basis of Law would 
 want no criterion possessed by the most advanced 
 science. 
 
 That the validity of analogy generally has been 
 seriously questioned one must frankly own. Doubt- 
 less there is much difficulty and even liability to 
 gross error in attempting to establish analogy in 
 specific cases. The value of the likeness appears 
 
 this, in the harmony unconsciously felt by all men, and which all 
 deeper minds have delighted to trace, between the natural and 
 spiritual worlds, so that analogies from the first are felt to be 
 something more than illustrations happily but yet arbitrarily 
 chosen. They are arguments, and may be alleged as witnesses ; 
 the world of nature being throughout a witness for the world of 
 spirit, proceeding from the same hand, growing out of 'he same 
 root, and being constituted for that very end." (Archbishop 
 Trench: " Parables," pp. 12, 13.) 
 
to INTRODUCTION. 
 
 differently to different minds, and in discussing an 
 individual instance questions of relevancy will in- 
 variably crop up. Of course, in the language of 
 John Stuart Mill, " when the analogy can be proved, 
 the argument founded upon it cannot be resisted/' 1 
 But so great is the difficulty of proof that many are 
 compelled to attach the most inferior weight to 
 analogy as a method of reasoning. "Analogical 
 evidence is generally more successful in silencing 
 objections than in evincing truth. Though it rarely 
 refutes it frequently repels refutation ; like those 
 weapons which though they cannot kill the enemy, 
 will ward his blows. ... It must be allowed 
 that analogical evidence is at least but a feeble 
 support, and is hardly ever honoured with the name 
 of proof." 2 Other authorities on the other hand, such 
 as Sir William Hamilton, admit analogy to a primary 
 place in logic and regard it as the very basis of 
 induction. 
 
 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 pos- 
 sibly the most fruitful proof. The best proof of a 
 
 1 Mill's " Logic," vol. ii. p. 96. 
 
 2 Campbell's " Rhetoric," vol. i. p. 1 14. 
 
INTRODUCTION. II 
 
 thing is that we see it ; if we do not see it, perhaps 
 proof will not convince us of it. It is the want 
 of the discerning faculty, the clairvoyant power 
 of seeing the eternal in the temporal, rather than 
 the failure of the reason, that begets the sceptic. 
 But secondly, and more particularly, a significant 
 circumstance has to be taken into account, which, 
 though it will appear more clearly afterwards, may 
 be stated here at once, dlie position we have been 
 led to take up is not 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 the Spiritual in the same sense 
 as autumn is emblematical of Decay, or the falling 
 leaf of Death. The Natural Laws, as the Law of 
 Continuity might well warn us, do not stop with 
 the visible and then give place to a new set of 
 Laws bearing a strong similitude to them. The 
 Laws of the invisible are the same Laws, projections 
 of the natural not supernatural. Analogous Phe- 
 nomena are not the fruit of parallel Laws, but of 
 the same Laws Laws which at one end, as it 
 were, may be dealing with Matter, at the other 
 end with Spirit. As there will be some incon- 
 venience, however, in dispensing with the word 
 analogy, we shall continue occasionally to employ it 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Those who apprehend the real relation will mentally 
 substitute the larger term. 
 
 Let us now look for a moment at the present 
 state of the question. Can it be said that the Laws 
 of the Spiritual World are in any sense considered 
 even to have analogies with the Natural World ? 
 Here and there certainly one finds an attempt, and 
 a successful attempt, to exhibit on a rational basis 
 one or two of the great Moral Principles of the 
 Spiritual World. But the Physical World has not 
 been appealed to. Its magnificent system of Laws 
 remains outside, and its contribution meanwhile is 
 either silently ignored or purposely set aside. The 
 Physical, it is said, is too remote from the Spiritual, 
 The Moral World may afford a basis for religious 
 truth, but even this is often the baldest con- 
 cession ; while the appeal to the Physical universe 
 is everywhere dismissed as, on the face of it, 
 irrelevant and unfruitful. From the scientific 
 side, again, nothing has been done to court a 
 closer fellowship. Science has taken theology at its 
 own estimate. It is a thing apart. The Spiritual 
 World is not only a different world, but a different 
 kind of world, a world arranged on a totally 
 different principle, under a different governmental 
 scheme. 
 
 The Reign of Law has gradually crept into every 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 department of Nature, transforming knowledge 
 everywhere into Science. The process goes on, and 
 Nature slowly appears to us as one great unity, 
 until the borders of the Spiritual World are reached. 
 There the Law of Continuity ceases, and the har- 
 mony breaks down. And men who have learned 
 their elementary lessons truly from the alphabet of 
 the lower Laws, going on to seek a higher know- 
 ledge, are suddenly confronted with the Great Ex- 
 ception. 
 
 Even those who have examined most carefully 
 the relations of the Natural and the Spiritual, seem 
 to have committed themselves deliberately to a 
 final separation in matters of Law. It is a surprise 
 to find such a writer as Horace Bushnell, for 
 instance, describing the Spiritual World as " another 
 system of nature incommunicably separate from 
 ours," and further defining it thus : " God has, in 
 fact, erected another and higher system, that of 
 spiritual being and government for which nature 
 exists ; a system not under the law of cause and 
 effect, but ruled and marshalled under other kinds 
 of laws." 1 Few men have shown more insight 
 than Bushnell in illustrating Spiritual truth from the 
 Natural World ; but he has not only failed to per- 
 
 1 u Nature and the Supernatural/' p. 19. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ceive the analogy with regard to Law, but em- 
 phatically denies it. 
 
 In the recent literature of this whole region there 
 nowhere seems any advance upon the position of 
 "Nature and the Supernatural.'* All are agreed in 
 speaking of Nature and the Supernatural. Nature 
 in the Supernatural, so far as Laws are concerned, 
 is still an unknown truth. 
 
 " 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-revelation of God." 1 
 On the whole, Mr. Murphy seems to be more 
 philosophical and more profound in his view of the 
 relation of science and religion than any writer of 
 modern times. His conception of religion is broad 
 and lofty, his acquaintance with science adequate. 
 He makes constant, admirable, and often original 
 use of analogy ; and yet, in spite of the promise 
 of this quotation, he has failed to find any analogy 
 in that department of Law where surely, of all 
 others, it might most reasonably be looked for. 
 
 1 "The Scientific Basis of Faith." By J. J. Murphy, p. 466. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In the broad subject even of the analogies of what 
 he defines as " evangelical religion " with Nature, 
 Mr. Murphy discovers nothing. Nor can this be 
 traced either to short-sight or over-sight. The sub- 
 ject occurs to him more than once, and he deliber- 
 ately dismisses it dismisses it not merely as un- 
 fruitful, but with a distinct denial of its relevancy. 
 The memorable paragraph from Origen which 
 forms the text of Butler's "Analogy/' he calls 
 "this shallow and false saying." 1 He says: "The 
 designation of Butler's scheme of religious philo- 
 sophy ought then to be the analogy of religion, 
 legal and evangelical, to the constitution of nature. 
 But does this give altogether a true meaning ? 
 Does this double analogy really exist ? If justice 
 is natural law among beings having a moral 
 nature, there is the closest analogy between the 
 constitution of nature and merely legal religion. 
 Legal religion is only the extension of natural 
 justice into a future life. , . . But is this true 
 of evangelical religion ? Have the doctrines of 
 Divine grace any similar support in the analogies of 
 nature? I trow, not." 3 And with reference to a 
 specific question, speaking of immortality, he asserts 
 that " the analogies of mere nature are opposed to 
 the doctrine of immortality." 3 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 333. 2 Ibid., p. 333. 3 Ibid., p. 331. 
 
i6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 With regard to Butler's great work in this de- 
 partment, it is needless at this time of day to point 
 out that his aims did not lie exactly in this direc- 
 tion. He did not seek to indicate analogies 
 between religion and the constitution and course of 
 Nature. His theme was, " The Analogy of Religion 
 to the constitution and course of Nature." And 
 although he pointed out direct analogies of Phe- 
 nomena, such as those between the metamorphoses 
 of insects and the doctrine of a future state ; and 
 although he showed that " the natural and moral 
 constitution and government of the world are so 
 connected as to make up together but one scheme," l 
 his real intention was not so much to construct 
 arguments as to repel objections. His emphasis 
 accordingly was laid upon the difficulties of the two 
 schemes rather than on their positive lines ; and 
 so thoroughly has he made out his point, that as 
 is well known, the effect upon many has been, not 
 to lead them to accept the Spiritual World on the 
 ground of the Natural, but to make them despair 
 of both. Butler lived at a time when defence was 
 more necessary than construction, when the materials 
 for construction were scarce and insecure, and when, 
 besides, some of the things to be defended were 
 
 1 "Analogy," chap, vil 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 quite incapable of defence. Notwithstanding this, 
 his influence over the whole field since has been 
 unparalleled. , 
 
 After all, then, the Spiritual World, as it appears 
 at this moment, is outside Natural Law. Theology 
 continues to be considered, as it has always been, 
 a thing apart. It remains still a stupendous and 
 splendid construction, but on lines altogether its 
 own. Nor is Theology to be blamed for this. Nature 
 has been long in speaking ; even yet its voice is 
 low, sometimes inaudible. Science is the true de- 
 faulter, for Theology had to wait patiently for its 
 development. As the highest of the sciences, 
 Theology in the order of evolution should be the 
 last to fall into rank. It is reserved for it to perfect 
 the final harmony. Still, if it continues longer to 
 remain a thing apart, with increasing reason will be 
 such protests as this of the " Unseen Universe," when, 
 in speaking of a view of miracles held by an older 
 Theology, it declares : " If he submits to be guided 
 by such interpreters, each intelligent being will for 
 ever continue to be baffled in any attempt to explain 
 these phenomena, because they are said to have no 
 physical relation to anything that went before or that 
 followed after ; in fine, they are made to form a 
 universe within a universe, a portion cut off by an 
 
18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 insurmountable barrier from the domain of scientific 
 inquiry." l 
 
 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 insurmount- 
 able barrier from the domain of scientific inquiry," 
 it dare not recognise. Nature has taught it this 
 lesson, and Nature is right. It is the province of 
 Science to vindicate Nature here at any hazard. 
 But in blaming Theology for its intolerance, it has 
 been betrayed into an intolerance less excusable. It 
 has pronounced upon it too soon. What if Religion 
 be yet brought within the sphere of Law ? Law is 
 the revelation of time. One by one slowly through 
 the centuries the Sciences have crystallized into geo- 
 metrical form, each form not only perfect in itself, 
 but perfect in its relation to all other forms. Many 
 forms had to be perfected before the form of the 
 Spiritual. The Inorganic has to be worked out before 
 the Organic, the Natural before the Spiritual. Theology 
 at present has merely an ancient and provisional phi- 
 losophic form. By-and-by it will be seen whether it 
 be not susceptible of another. For Theology must 
 pass through the necessary stages of progress, like 
 
 1 " Unseen Universe/ 7 6th ed., pp. 89, 90. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 any other science. The method of science-making 
 is now fully established. In almost all cases the 
 natural history and development are the same. 
 Take, for example, the case of Geology, A century 
 ago there was none. Science went out to look for it, 
 and brought back a Geology which, if Nature were a 
 harmony, had falsehood written almost on its face. 
 It was the Geology of Catastrophism, a Geology so out 
 of line with Nature as revealed by the other sciences, 
 that on a priori grounds a thoughtful mind might 
 have been justified in dismissing it as a final form of 
 any science. And its fallacy was soon and tho- 
 roughly exposed. The advent of modified unifor- 
 mitarian principles all but banished the word catas- 
 trophe from science, and marked the birth of Geo- 
 logy as we know it now. Geology, that is to say, had 
 fallen at last into the great scheme of Law. Reli- 
 gious doctrines, many of them at least, have been up 
 to this time all but as catastrophic as the old Geology. 
 They are not on the lines of Nature as we have 
 learned to decipher her. If any one feel, as Science 
 complains that it feels, that the lie of things in the 
 Spiritual World as arranged by Theology is not in 
 harmony with the world around, is not, in shortj 
 scientific, he is entitled to raise the question whether 
 this be really the final form of those departments o 1 
 Theology to which his complaint refers. He is justi 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fied, moreover, in demanding a new investigation 
 with all modern methods and resources ; and Science 
 is bound by its principles not less than by the lessons 
 of its own past, to suspend judgment till the last 
 attempt is made. The success of such an attempt 
 will be looked forward to with hopefulness or fearful- 
 ness just in proportion to one's confidence in Nature 
 in proportion to one's belief in the divinity of man 
 and in the divinity of things. If there is any truth 
 in the unity of Nature, in that supreme principle of 
 Continuity which is growing in splendour with every 
 discovery of science, the conclusion is foregone. If 
 there is any foundation for Theology, if the pheno- 
 mena of the Spiritual World are real, in the nature 
 of things they ought to come into the sphere of 
 Law. Such is at once the demand of Science upon 
 Religion and the prophecy that it can and shall be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 The Botany of Linnaeus, a purely artificial system, 
 was a splendid contribution to human knowledge, 
 and did more in its day to enlarge the view of the 
 vegetable kingdom than all that had gone before. 
 But all artificial systems must pass away. None knew 
 better than the great Swedish naturalist himself that 
 his system, being artificial, was but provisional. 
 Nature must be read in its own light. And as the 
 botanical field became more luminous, the system of 
 
INTRODUCTION, 21 
 
 Jussieu and De Candolle slowly emerged as a native 
 growth, unfolded itself as naturally as the petals of 
 one of its own flowers, and forcing itself upon men's 
 intelligence as the very voice of Nature, banished 
 the Linnsean system for ever. It were unjust to say 
 that the present Theology is as artificial as the sys- 
 tem of Linnaeus ; in many particulars it wants but a 
 fresh expression to make it in the most modern sense 
 scientific. But if it has a basis in the constitution 
 and course of Nature, that basis has never been ade- 
 quately shown. It has depended on Authority rather 
 than on Law ; and a new basis must be sought and 
 found if it is to be presented to those with whom 
 Law alone is Authority. 
 
 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 levelling in any department. Within 
 the unity of the whole there must always be room 
 for the characteristic differences of the parts, and 
 those tendencies of thought at the present time 
 which ignore such distinctions, in their zeal for 
 simplicity really create confusion. As has been 
 well said by Mr. Hutton : " Any attempt to merge 
 the distinctive characteristic of a higher science in a 
 lower of chemical changes in mechanical of phy- 
 siological in chemical above all, of mental changes 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in physiological is a neglect of the radical assump- 
 tion of all science, because it is an attempt to deduce 
 representations or rather misrepresentations of one 
 kind of phenomenon from a conception of another 
 kind which does not contain it, and must have it 
 implicitly and illicitly smuggled in before it can be 
 extracted out of it. Hence, instead of increasing 
 our means of representing the universe to ourselves 
 without the detailed examination of particulars, such 
 a procedure leads to misconstructions of fact on the 
 basis of an imported theory, and generally ends in 
 forcibly perverting the least-known science to the 
 type of the better known." 1 
 
 What is wanted is simply a unity of conception, 
 but not such a unity of conception 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 of phe- 
 nomena, infinite complexity of relation, but great 
 simplicity of Law. Science will be complete when all 
 known phenomena can be arranged in one vast circle 
 in which a few well known Laws shall form the radii . 
 these radii at once separating and uniting, separating 
 into particular groups, yet uniting all to a common 
 centre. To show that the radii for some of the most 
 1 " Essays," vol. i. p. 40. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 characteristic phenomena of the Spiritual World are 
 already drawn within that circle by science is the 
 main object of the papers which follow. There will 
 be found an attempt to re-state a few of the more 
 elementary facts of the Spiritual Life in terms of 
 Biology. Any argument for Natural Law in the 
 Spiritual World may be best tested in the d posteriori 
 form. And although the succeeding pages are not 
 designed in the first instance to prove a principle, 
 they may yet be entered here as evidence. The 
 practical test is a severe one, but on that account all 
 the more satisfactory. 
 
 And what will be gained if the point be made out ? 
 Not a few things. For one, as partly indicated 
 already, the scientific demand of the age will be 
 satisfied. That dmand is that all that concerns 
 life and conduct shall be placed on a scientific basis. 
 The only great attempt to meet that at present is 
 Positivism. 
 
 But what again is a scientific basis ? What exactly 
 is this demand of the age ? " By Science I under- 
 stand," says Huxley, "all knowledge which rests 
 upon evidence and reasoning of a like character, to 
 that which claims our assent to ordinary scientific 
 propositions ; and if any one is able to make good 
 the assertion that his theology rests upon valid 
 evidence and sound reasoning, then it appears to 
 
24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 me that such theology must take its place as a part 
 of science." That the assertion has been already 
 made good is claimed by many who deserve to be 
 heard on questions of scientific evidence. But if more 
 is wanted by some minds, more not perhaps of a higher 
 kind but of a different kind, at least the attempt can 
 be made to gratify them. Mr. Frederic Harrison, 1 
 in name of the Positive method of thought, "turns 
 aside from ideal standards which avow themselves to 
 be lawless [the italics are Mr. Harrison's], which pro- 
 fess 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 analyse. When you confront us with hypotheses, 
 however sublime and however affecting, if they can- 
 not 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." This is a most reasonable demand, and we 
 humbly accept the challenge. We think religious 
 truth, or at all events certain of the largest facts of 
 
 1 "A Modern Symposium." Nineteenth Century ', vol. i. 
 p. 625. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 the Spiritual Life, can be stated " in terms of the rest 
 of our knowledge. 5 ' 
 
 We do not say, as already hinted, that the pro- 
 posal 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 hundreds. But were one asked to 
 prove that the Spiritual World can be discerned by 
 the appropriate faculties, one would do it precisely as 
 Dne would attempt to prove the Natural World to 
 be an object of recognition to the senses and with 
 as much or as little success. In either instance 
 probably the fact would be found incapable of 
 demonstration, but not more in the one case than in 
 the other. Were one asked to prove the existence 
 of Spiritual Life, one would also do it exactly as one 
 would seek to prove Natural Life. And this perhaps 
 might be attempted with more hope. But this is 
 not on the immediate programme. Science deals 
 with known facts ; and accepting certain known 
 facts in the Spiritual World we proceed to arrange 
 them, to discover their Laws, to inquire if they can 
 be stated " in terms of the rest of our knowledge." 
 
 At the same time, although attempting no philo- 
 sophical proof of the existence of a Spiritual Life 
 
26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and a Spiritual World, we are not without hope 
 that the general line of thought here may be useful 
 to some who are honestly inquiring in these direc- 
 tions. The stumbling-block to most minds is per- 
 haps less the mere existence of the unseen than the 
 want of definition, the apparently hopeless vague- 
 ness, and not least, the delight in this vagueness as 
 mere vagueness by some who look upon this as 
 the mark of quality in Spiritual things. It will 
 be at least something to tell earnest seekers that 
 the Spiritual World is not a castle in the air, of an 
 architecture unknown to earth or heaven, but a fair 
 ordered realm furnished with many familiar things 
 and ruled by well-remembered Laws. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to emphasise under a 
 second head the gain in clearness. The Spiritual 
 World as it stands is full of perplexity. One can 
 escape doubt only by escaping thought. With re- 
 gard to many important articles of religion pen 
 haps the best and the worst course at present open 
 to a doubter is simple credulity. Who is to answer 
 for this state of things ? It comes as a necessary 
 tax for improvement on the age in which 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 truth before ; they only 
 needed to believe it. Truth, therefore, had not 
 
INTRODUCTION'. 2) 
 
 been put 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 in despair. We shall not say what they see. 
 But we shall say what they might see. If the 
 Natural Laws were run through the Spiritual World, 
 they might see the great lines of religious truth 
 as clearly and simply as the broad lines of science. 
 As they gazed into that Natural-Spiritual World 
 they would say to themselves, "We have seen 
 something like this before. This order is known 
 to us. It is not arbitrary. This Law here is that 
 old Law there, and this Phenomenon here, what can 
 it be but that which stood in precisely the same 
 relation to that Law yonder?" And so gradually 
 from the new form everything assumes new meaning. 
 So the Spiritual World becomes slowly Natural ; and, 
 what is of all but equal moment, the Natural World 
 becomes slowly Spiritual. Nature is not a mere 
 image or emblem of the Spiritual. It is a working 
 model of the Spiritual. In the Spiritual World the 
 same wheels revolve but without the iron. The 
 same figures flit across the stage, the same processes 
 of growth go on, the same functions are discharged, 
 the same biological laws prevail only with a dif- 
 ferent quality of /3/09. Plato's prisoner, if not out 
 of the Cave, has at least his face to the light. 
 
28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 M 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 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 unscientific and irreligious 
 A Science without mystery is unknown ; a Religion 
 without mystery is absurd. This is no attempt to 
 reduce Religion to a question of mathematics, or 
 demonstrate God in biological formulae. The elimi- 
 nation of mystery from the universe is the elimina- 
 tion 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* faith to knowledge. To 
 me, the way of truth is to come through the know- 
 ledge of my ignorance to the submissiveness of 
 faith, and then, making that my starting place, to 
 raise my knowledge into faith." l 
 
 Lest this proclamation of mystery should seem 
 alarming, let us add that this mystery also is scien- 
 
 1 Beck : " Bib. Psychol.," Clark's Tr., Pref., 2nd Ed. p. xiii. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 tific. The one subject on which all scientific men 
 are agreed, the one theme on which all alike become 
 eloquent, the one strain of pathos in all their writing 
 and speaking and thinking, concerns that final un- 
 certainty, that utter blackness of darkness bounding 
 their work on every side. If the light of Nature is 
 to illuminate for us the Spiritual Sphere, there may 
 well be a black Unknown, corresponding, at least 
 at some points, to this zone of darkness round the 
 Natural World. 
 
 But the final gain would appear in the department 
 of Theology. The establishment of the Spiritual 
 Laws on " the solid ground of Nature," to which the 
 mind trusts "which builds for aye," would offer 
 a new basis for certainty in Religion. It has been 
 indicated that the authority of Authority is waning. 
 This is a plain fact. And it was inevitable. 
 Authority man's Authority, that is is for children. 
 And there necessarily comes a time when they add 
 to the question, What shall I do? or, What shall 
 I believe? the adult's interrogation Why? Now 
 this question is sacred, and must be answered. 
 
 "How truly its central position is impregnable," 
 Herbert Spencer has well discerned, "religion has 
 never adequately realized. In the devoutest faith, 
 as we habitually see it, there lies hidden an inner- 
 most core of scepticism ; and it is this scepticism 
 
30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which causes that dread of inquiry displayed by 
 religion when face to face with science/ 1 1 True 
 indeed ; Religion has never realized how impregnable 
 are many of its positions. It has not yet been placed 
 on that basis which would make them impregnable. 
 And in a transition period like the present, holding 
 Authority with one hand, the other feeling all 
 around in the darkness for some strong new support, 
 Theology is surely to be pitied. Whence this dread 
 when brought face to face with Science ? It cannot 
 be dread of scientific fact. No single fact in Science 
 has ever discredited a fact in Religion. The 
 theologian knows that, and admits that he has no 
 fear of facts. What then has Science done to make 
 Theology tremble ? It is its method. It is its 
 system. It is its Reign of Law. It is its harmony 
 and continuity. The attack is not specific. No one 
 point is assailed. It is the whole system which 
 when compared with the other and weighed in its 
 balance is found wanting. An eye which has looked 
 at the first cannot look upon this. To do that, and 
 rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury 
 itself. 
 
 Herbert Spencer points out further, with how 
 much truth need not now be discussed, that the 
 
 1 "First Principles/' p. 161. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 purification of Religion has always come from 
 Science. It is very apparent at all events that an 
 immense debt must soon be contracted The shift- 
 ing of the furnishings will be a work of time. But 
 it must be accomplished. And not the least result 
 of the process will be the effect upon Science itself. 
 No department of knowledge ever contributes to 
 another without receiving its own again with usury 
 witness the reciprocal favours of Biology and 
 Sociology. From the time that Comte defined the 
 analogy between the phenomena exhibited by 
 aggregations of associated men and those of animal 
 colonies, the Science of Life and the Science of 
 Society have been so contributing to one another 
 that their progress since has been all but hand-in- 
 hand. A conception borrowed by the one has been 
 observed in time finding its way back, and always in 
 an enlarged form, to further illuminate and enrich 
 the field it left. So must it be with Science and 
 Religion, If the purification of Religion comes from 
 Science, the purification of Science, in a deeper 
 sense, shall come from Religion. The true ministry 
 of Nature must at last be honoured, and Science 
 take its place as the great expositor. To Men of 
 Science, not less than to Theologians, 
 
 " Science then 
 Shall be a precious visitant ; and then, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 exciirsive power." * 
 
 But the gift of Science to Theology shall be not 
 less rich. With the inspiration of Nature to illu- 
 minate what the inspiration of Revelation has left 
 obscure, heresy in certain whole departments shall 
 become impossible. With the demonstration of the 
 naturalness of the supernatural, scepticism even may 
 come to be regarded as unscientific. And those 
 who have wrestled long for a few bare truths to 
 ennoble life and rest their souls in thinking of the 
 future will not be left in doubt. 
 
 It is impossible to believe that the amazing suc- 
 cession of revelations in the domain of Nature during 
 the last few centuries, at which the world has all but 
 grown tired wondering, are to yield nothing for 
 the higher life. If the development of doctrine is 
 to have any meaning for the future, Theology must 
 
 1 Wordsworth's Excursion, Book iv. 
 
/$ 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 draw upon the further revelation of the seen for the 
 further revelation of the unseen. It need, and can, 
 add nothing to fact ; but as the vision of Newton 
 rested on a clearer and richer world than that of 
 Plato, so, though seeing the same things in the Spi- 
 ritual World as our fathers, we may see them clearer 
 and richer. With the 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 given sooner, it had been unintelligible. Re- 
 velation never volunteers anything that man could 
 discover for himself on the principle, probably, that 
 it is only when he is capable of discovering it that 
 he is capable of appreciating it. Besides, children 
 do not need Laws, except Laws in the sense of com- 
 mandments. They repose with simplicity on author- 
 ity, and ask no questions. But there comes a time, 
 as the world reaches its manhood, when they will ask 
 questions, and stake, moreover, everything on the 
 answers. That time is now. Hence we must ex- 
 hibit our doctrines, not lying athwart the lines of the 
 world's thinking, in a place reserved, and therefore 
 shunned, for the Great Exception^ but in their kin- 
 ship to all truth and in their Law-relation to the whole 
 of Nature. This is, indeed, simply following out the 
 system of teaching begun by Christ Himself. And 
 what is . the search for spiritual truth in the Laws of 
 
 D 
 
34 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Nature but an attempt to utter the parables which 
 have been hid so long in the world around without a 
 preacher, and to tell men once more that the King- 
 dom of Heaven is like unto this and to that? 
 
PART 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 attempting to establish of the most 
 convincing kind of such a kind, indeed, as to seem 
 to our mind final. Briefly indicated, the ground 
 taken up is this, that if Nature be a harmony, Man 
 in all his relations physical, mental, moral, and 
 spiritual falls to be included within its circle. It is 
 altogether unlikely that man spiritual should be vio- 
 lently separated in all the conditions of growth, de- 
 velopment, and life, from man physical. It is indeed 
 difficult to conceive that one set of principles should 
 guide the natural life, and these at a certain period 
 the very point where they are needed suddenly give 
 place to another set of principles altogether new and 
 
36 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 unrelated. Nature has never taught us to expect 
 such a catastrophe. She has nowhere prepared us 
 for it. And Man cannot in the nature 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 
 different department of science from the natural 
 man. But the harmony established by science is 
 not a harmony within specific departments. It is 
 the universe that is the harmony, the universe of 
 which these are but parts. And the harmonies of 
 the parts depend for all their weight and interest on 
 the harmony of the whole. While, therefore, there 
 are many harmonies, there is but one harmony. The 
 breaking up of the phenomena of the universe into 
 carefully guarded groups, and the allocation of cer- 
 tain prominent Laws to each, it must never be for- 
 gotten, and however much Nature lends herself to it, 
 are artificial. We find an evolution in Botany, another 
 in Geology, and another in Astronomy, and the effect 
 is to lead one insensibly to look upon these as three 
 distinct evolutions. But these sciences, of course, 
 are mere departments created by ourselves to facili- 
 tate knowledge reductions of Nature to the scale 
 of our own intelligence. And we must beware of 
 breaking up Nature except for this purpose. Science 
 has so dissected everything, that it becomes a 
 
INTRODUCTION. 37 
 
 mental difficulty to put the puzzle together again ; 
 and we must keep ourselves in practice by constantly 
 thinking of Nature as a whole, if science is not to 
 be spoiled by its own refinements. Evolution being 
 found in so many different sciences, the likelihood is 
 that it is a universal principle. And there is no pre- 
 sumption whatever against this Law and many others 
 being excluded from the domain of the spiritual life. 
 On the other hand, there are very convincing reasons 
 why the Natural Laws should be continuous through 
 the Spiritual Sphere not changed in any way to 
 meet the new circumstances, but continuous as they 
 stand. 
 
 But to the exposition. One of the most striking 
 generalisations of recent science is that even Laws 
 have their Law. Phenomena first, in the progress 
 of knowledge, were grouped together, and Nature 
 shortly presented the spectacle of a cosmos, the lines 
 of beauty being the great Natural Laws. So long, 
 however, as these Laws were merely great lines run- 
 ning through Nature, so long as they remained isolated 
 from one another, the system of Nature was still 
 incomplete. The principle which sought Law among 
 phenomena had to go further and seek a Law among 
 the Laws. Laws themselves accordingly came to be 
 treated as they treated phenomena, and found them- 
 selves finally grouped in a still narrower circle. That 
 
38 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 inmost circle is governed by one great Law, the Law 
 of Continuity. It is the Law for Laws. 
 
 It is perhaps significant that few exact definitions 
 of Continuity are to be found. Even in Sir W. R. 
 Grove's famous paper, 1 the fountain-head of the 
 modern form of this far from modern truth, there is 
 no 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 men have pre- 
 ferred to exhibit rather than to define it. Its true 
 greatness consists in the final impression it leaves on 
 the mind with regard to the uniformity of Nature. 
 For it was reserved for the Law of Continuity to 
 put the finishing touch to the harmony of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Probably the most satisfactory way to secure for 
 oneself a just appreciation of the Principle of Con- 
 tinuity is to try to conceive the universe without it. 
 The opposite of a continuous universe would be a 
 discontinuous universe, an incoherent and irrelevant 
 universe as irrelevant in all its ways of doing things 
 as an irrelevant person. In effect, to withdraw Con- 
 tinuity from the universe would be the same as to 
 withdraw reason from an individual. The universe 
 would run deranged ; the world would be a mad 
 world 
 
 1 " The Correlation of Physical Forces," 6th ed., p. 181 et seq. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 39 
 
 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, and those heads 
 might not be on their shoulders there might be no 
 shoulders but arranged about the limbs. If one 
 jumped up in the air it was impossible to predict 
 whether he would ever come down again. That he 
 came down yesterday was no guarantee that he 
 would do it next time. For every day antecedent 
 and consequent varied, and gravitation and every- 
 thing else changed from hour to hour. To-day a 
 child's body might be so light that it was impossible 
 for it to descend from its chair to the floor ; but to- 
 morrow, in attempting the experiment again, the 
 impetus might drive it through a three-storey house 
 and dash it to pieces somewhere near the centre of 
 the earth. In this chance world cause and effect 
 were abolished. Law was annihilated. And the 
 result to the inhabitants of such a world could only 
 be that reason would be impossible. It would be a 
 lunatic world with a population of lunatics. 
 
 Now this is no more than a real picture of what 
 the world would be without Law, or the universe 
 
40 INTRODUCTION 
 
 without Continuity. And hence we come in sight of 
 the necessity of some principle or Law according to 
 which Laws shall be, and be " continuous " throughout 
 the system. Man as a rational and moral being 
 demands a pledge that if he depends on Nature for 
 any given result on the ground that Nature has 
 previously led him to expect such a result, his 
 intellect shall not be insulted, nor his confidence in 
 her abused. If he is to trust Nature, in short, it must 
 be guaranteed to him that in doing so he will 
 "never be put to confusion." The authors of the 
 Unseen Universe conclude their examination of this 
 principle by saying that " assuming the existence of 
 a supreme Governor of the universe, the Principle 
 of Continuity may be said to be the definite expres- 
 sion in words of our trust that He will not put us 
 to permanent intellectual confusion, and we can 
 easily conceive similar expressions of trust with 
 reference to the other faculties of man." 1 Or, as 
 it has been well put elsewhere, Continuity is the 
 expression of " the Divine Veracity in Nature." 2 The 
 most striking examples of the continuousness of 
 Law are perhaps those furnished by Astronomy, 
 especially in connection with the more recent appli- 
 
 1 " Unseen Universe," 6th ed., p. 88. 
 
 2 " Old Faiths in New Light," by Newman Smyth. Unwinds 
 English edition, p. 2^2. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 41 
 
 cations of spectrum analysis. But even in the case 
 of the simpler Laws the demonstration is complete. 
 There is no reason apart from Continuity to expect 
 that gravitation for instance should prevail outside 
 our world. But wherever matter has been detected 
 throughout the entire universe, whether in the form 
 of star or planet, comet or meteorite, it is found to 
 obey that Law. " If there were no other indication 
 of unity than this, it would be almost enough. For 
 the unity which is implied in the mechanism of the 
 heavens is indeed a unity which is all-embracing and 
 complete. The structure of our own bodies, with all 
 that depends upon it, is a structure governed by, 
 and therefore adapted to, the same force of gravita- 
 tion which has determined the form and the move- 
 ments of myriads of worlds. Every part of the 
 human organism is fitted to conditions which would 
 all be destroyed in a moment if the forces of gravita- 
 tion were to change or fail." l 
 
 But it is unnecessary to multiply illustrations. 
 Having defined the principle we may proceed at 
 once to apply it. And the argument may be 
 summed up in a sentence. As the Natural Laws are 
 continuous through the universe of matter and of 
 
 1 The Duke of Argyll : Contemporary Review, Sept., 1880, 
 P 353. 
 
4* INTRODUCTION, 
 
 space, so will they be continuous through the 
 universe of spirit. 
 
 If this be denied, what then ? Those who deny it 
 must furnish the disproof. The argument is founded 
 on a principle which is now acknowledged to be 
 universal ; and the onus of disproof must lie with 
 those who may be bold enough to take up the position 
 that a region exists where at last the Principle of 
 Continuity fails. To do this one would first have 
 to overturn Nature, then science, and last, the human 
 mind. 
 
 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 hold there. If the spirit be in any sense 
 material it certainly must hold. In the second place, 
 gravitation may hold for the Spiritual Sphere al- 
 though it cannot be directly proved. The spirit 
 may be armed with powers which enable it to rise 
 superior to gravity. During the action of these 
 powers gravity need be no more suspended than in 
 the case of a plant which rises in the air during the 
 process of growth. It does this in virtue of a higher 
 Law and in apparent defiance of the lower. Thirdly, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 43 
 
 if the spiritual be not material it still cannot be said 
 that gravitation ceases at that point to be continuous. 
 It is not gravitation that ceases it is matter. 
 
 This point, however, will require development for 
 another reason. In the case of the plant just referred 
 to, there is a principle of growth or vitality at work 
 superseding the attraction of gravity. Why is there 
 no trace of that Law in the Inorganic world ? Is not 
 this another instance of the discontinuousness of 
 Law ? If the Law of vitality has so little connection 
 with the Inorganic kingdom less even than gravi- 
 tation with the Spiritual, what becomes of Con- 
 tinuity ? Is it not evident that each kingdom of 
 Nature has its own set of Laws which continue 
 possibly untouched for the specific kingdom but 
 never extend beyond it ? 
 
 It is quite true that when we pass from the In- 
 organic to the Organic, we come upon a new set of 
 Laws. But the reason why the lower set do not seem 
 to act in the higher sphere is not that they are anni- 
 hilated, but that they are overruled. And the reason 
 why the higher Laws are not found operating in the 
 lower is not because they are not continuous down- 
 wards, but because there is nothing for them there to 
 act upon. It is not Law that fails, but opportunity. 
 The biological Laws are continuous for life. Wher- 
 ever there is life, that is to say, they will be found 
 
44 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 acting, just as gravitation acts wherever there is 
 matter. 
 
 We have purposely, in the last paragraph, indulged 
 in a fallacy. We have said that the biological Laws 
 would certainly be continuous in the lower or mineral 
 sphere were there anything there for them to act 
 upon. Now Laws do not act upon anything. It has 
 been stated already, although apparently it cannot 
 be too abundantly emphasized, that Laws are only 
 modes of operation, not themselves operators. The 
 accurate statement, therefore, would be that the 
 biological Laws would be continuous in the lower 
 sphere were there anything there for them, not to act 
 upon, but to keep in order. If there is no acting 
 going on, if there is nothing being kept in order, the 
 responsibility does not lie with Continuity. The Law 
 will always be at its post, not only when its services 
 are required, but wherever they are possible. 
 
 Attention is drawn to this, for it is a correction 
 one will find oneself compelled often to make in his 
 thinking. It is so difficult to keep out of mind the 
 idea of substance in connection with the Natural 
 Laws, the idea that they are the movers, the essences, 
 the energies, that one is constantly on the verge 
 of falling into false conclusions. Thus a hasty 
 glance at the present argument on the part of any 
 one ill-furnished enough to confound Law with sub- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 45 
 
 stance or with cause would probably lead to its 
 immediate rejection. 
 
 For, to continue the same line of illustration, it 
 might next be urged that such a Law as Biogenesis, 
 which, as we hope to show afterwards, is the funda- 
 mental Law of life for both the natural and spiritual 
 worlds, can have no application whatsoever in the 
 latter sphere. The life with which it deals in the 
 Natural World does not enter at all into the Spiritual 
 World, and therefore, it might be argued, the Law of 
 Biogenesis cannot be capable of extension into it. 
 The Law of Continuity seems to be snapped at the 
 point where the natural passes into the spiritual. 
 The vital principle of the body is a different thing 
 from the vital principle of the spiritual life. Bio- 
 genesis deals with /3/09, with the natural life, with 
 cells and germs, and as there are no exactly similar 
 cells and germs in the Spiritual World, the Law can- 
 not therefore apply. All which is as true as if one 
 were to say that the fifth proposition of tne First 
 Book of Euclid applies when the figures are drawn 
 with chalk upon a blackboard, 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 be predicated 
 likewise for the Law of life. Wherever there is life we 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 may expect to find it arranged, ordered, governed 
 according to the same Law. At the beginning of the 
 natural life we find the Law that natural life can only 
 come from pre-existing natural life ; and at the be- 
 ginning of the spiritual life we find that the spiritual 
 life can only come from pre-existing spiritual life. 
 But there are not two Laws ; there is one Bio- 
 genesis. At one end the Law is dealing with matter, 
 at the other with spirit. The qualitative terms 
 natural and spiritual make no difference. Biogenesis 
 is the Law for all life and for all kinds of life, and 
 the particular substance with which it is associated 
 is as indifferent to Biogenesis as it is to Gravitation. 
 Gravitation will act whether the substance be suns 
 and stars, or grains of sand, or raindrops. Bio- 
 genesis, in like manner, will act wherever there is 
 life. 
 
 The conclusion finally is, that from the nature of 
 Law in general, and from the scope of the Principle 
 of Continuity in particular, the Laws of the natural 
 life must be those of the spiritual life. This does not 
 exclude, observe, the possibility of there being new 
 Laws in addition within the Spiritual Sphere; nor 
 does it even include the supposition that the old Laws 
 will be the conspicuous Laws of the Spiritual World, 
 both which points will be dealt with presently. It 
 simply asserts that whatever else may be found, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 47 
 
 these must be found there ; that they must be there 
 though they may not be seen there ; and that they 
 must project beyond there if there be anything 
 beyond there. If the Law of Continuity is true, the 
 only way to escape the conclusion that the Laws of 
 the natural 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 give up the phenomena 
 than to give up the Law. 
 
 Two questions now remain for further considera- 
 tion one bearing on the possibility of new Law in 
 the spiritual ; the other, on the assumed invisibility 
 or inconspicuousness of the old Laws on account of 
 their subordination to the new. 
 
 Let us begin by conceding that there may be new 
 Laws. The argument might then be advanced that 
 since, in Nature generally, we come upon new Laws 
 as we pass from lower to higher kingdoms, the old 
 still remaining in force, the newer Laws which one 
 would expect to meet in the Spiritual World would 
 so transcend and overwhelm the older as to make the 
 analogy or identity, even if traced, of no practical 
 use. The new Laws would represent operations and 
 energies so different, and so much more elevated, 
 that they would afford the true keys to the Spiritual 
 World. As Gravitation is practically lost sight of 
 when we pass into the domain of life, so Biogenesis 
 
48 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 would be lost sight of as we enter the Spiritual 
 Sphere. 
 
 We must first separate in this statement the old 
 confusion of Law and energy. Gravitation is not lost 
 sight of in the organic world. Gravity may be, to a 
 certain extent, but not Gravitation ; and gravity only 
 where a higher power counteracts its action. At 
 the same time it is not to be denied that the con- 
 spicuous thing in Organic Nature is not the great 
 Inorganic Law. 
 
 But the objection turns upon the statement that 
 reasoning from analogy we should expect, in turn, to 
 lose sight of Biogenesis as we enter the Spiritual 
 Sphere. One answer to which is that, as a matter of 
 fact, we do not lose sight of it. So far from being in- 
 visible, it lies across the very threshold of the Spiritual 
 World, and, as we shall see, pervades it everywhere. 
 What we lose sight of, to a certain extent, is the 
 natural /5to?. In the Spiritual World that is not the 
 conspicuous thing, and it is obscure there just as 
 gravity becomes obscure in the Organic, because 
 something higher, more potent, more characteristic oi 
 the higher plane, comes in. That there are higher 
 energies, so to speak, in the Spiritual World is, of 
 course, to be affirmed alike on the ground of analogy 
 and of experience ; but it does not follow that these 
 necessitate other Laws. A Law has nothing to do 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 with potency. We may lose sight of a substance, 
 or of an energy, but it is an abuse of language to 
 talk of losing sight of Laws. 
 
 Are there, then, no other Lav/s 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 least be answered that the 
 margin left for them is small. But if the objection 
 is pressed that it is contrary to the analogy, and 
 unreasonable in itself, that there should not be ne\v 
 Laws for this higher sphere, the reply is obvious. Let 
 these Laws be produced. If the spiritual nature, in 
 inception, growth, and development, does not follow 
 natural principles, let the true principles be 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 material handed over from 
 the natural to the spiritual, continuous, apparently, 
 from the natural to the spiritual, is so great that till 
 that is worked out it \vill be impossible to say what 
 space is still left unembraced by Laws that are known. 
 At present it is impossible even approximately to 
 estimate the size of that supposed terra incognita. 
 From one point of view it ought to be vast, from 
 
 E 
 
50 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 another extremely small. But however large the 
 region governed by the suspected new Laws may be 
 that cannot diminish by a hair's-breadth the size of 
 the territory where the old Laws still prevail. That 
 territory itself, relatively to us though perhaps not 
 absolutely, must be of great extent. The size of the 
 key which is to open it, that is, the size of all the 
 Natural Laws which can be found to apply, is a guar- 
 antee that the region of the knowable in the Spiritual 
 World is at least as wide as these regions of the 
 Natural World which by the help of these Laws have 
 been explored. No doubt also there yet remain 
 some Natural Laws to be discovered, and these in 
 time may have a further light to shed on the spiritual 
 field. Then we may know 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 sceptre of that invisible empire 
 must be granted a right of freedom that freedom 
 which by putting it into our wills He surely teaches 
 us to honour in His. In much of His dealing with 
 us also, in what may be called the paternal relation, 
 there may seem no special Law no Law except the 
 highest of all, that Law of which all other Laws are 
 parts, that Law which neither Nature can wholly reflect 
 nor the mind begin to fathom the Law of Love. He 
 adds nothing to that, however, who loses sight of all 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 other Laws in that, nor does he take from it who finds 
 specific 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, and have no 
 analogies lower down there is this to be said, that 
 there is one strong reason against exaggerating either 
 their number or importance their importance at least 
 for our immediate needs. The connection between 
 language and the Law of Continuity has been referred 
 to incidentally already. It is clear that we can only 
 express the Spiritual Laws in language borrowed from 
 the visible universe. Being dependent for our vocab- 
 ulary on images, if an altogether new and foreign set 
 of Laws existed in the Spiritual World, they could 
 never take shape as definite ideas from mere want 
 of words. The hypothetical new Laws which may 
 remain to be discovered in the domain of Natural or 
 Mental Science may afford some index of these hypo- 
 thetical higher Laws, but this would of course mean 
 that the latter were no longer foreign but in analogy, 
 or, likelier still, identical. If, on the other hand, the 
 Natural 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 to 
 frame them ? If their disclosure could be of any 
 practical use to us, we may be sure the clue to them, 
 
52 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the revelation of them, in some way would have been 
 put into Nature. If, on the contrary, they are not to be 
 of immediate use to man, it is better they should not 
 embarrass him. After all, then, our knowledge of 
 higher Law must be limited by our knowledge of the 
 lower. The Natural Laws as at present known, what- 
 ever additions may yet be made to them, give a fair 
 rendering of the facts of Nature. And their ana- 
 logies or their projections in the Spiritual sphere may 
 also be said to offer a fair account of that sphere, or 
 of one or two conspicuous departments of it. The 
 time has come for that account to be given. The 
 greatest among the theological Laws are the Laws 
 of Nature in disguise. It will be the splendid task 
 of the theology of the future to take off the mask 
 and disclose to a waning scepticism the naturalness 
 of the supernatural. 
 
 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 d priori grounds, it is in- 
 volved in the whole structure of Parable. When 
 any two Phenomena in the two spheres are seen to 
 be analogous, the parallelism must depend upon the 
 fact that the Laws governing them are not analogous 
 but identical. And yet this basis for Parable seems 
 to have been overlooked, Thus Principal Shairp : * 
 
INTRODUC1ION. 53 
 
 
 11 This seeing of Spiritual truths mirrored in the face 
 of Nature rests not on any fancied, but in a real 
 analogy between the natural and the spiritual worlds. 
 They are in some sense which science lias not ascer- 
 tained, but which the vital and religious imagination 
 can perceive, counterparts one of the other." * But 
 is not this the explanation, that parallel Phenomena 
 depend upon identical Laws? It is a question in- 
 deed whether one can speak of Laws at all as being 
 analogous. Phenomena are parallel, Laws which 
 make them so are themselves one. 
 
 In discussing the relations of the Natural and Spiri- 
 tual kingdom, it has been all but implied hitherto 
 that the Spiritual Laws were framed originally on 
 the plan of the Natural ; and the impression one 
 might receive in studying the two worlds for the first 
 time from the side of analogy would naturally be 
 that the lower world was formed first, as a kind of 
 scaffolding on which the higher and Spiritual should 
 be afterwards raised. Now the exact opposite has 
 been the case. The first in the field was the Spiritual 
 World. / 
 
 It is not necessary to reproduce here in detail the 
 argument which has been stated recently with so 
 much force in the " Unseen Universe." The conclu- 
 
 1 " Poetic Interpretation of Nature," p. 115. 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 i' ' ' ... i.i i . . . ,i,i. >~>m 
 
 sion of that work remains still unassailed, that the 
 visible universe has been developed from the unseen. 
 Apart from the general proof from the Law of Con- 
 tinuity, the more special grounds of such a conclusion 
 are, first, the fact insisted upon by Herschel and 
 Clerk-Maxwell that the atoms of which the visible 
 universe is built up bear distinct marks of being 
 manufactured articles ; and, secondly, the origin in 
 time of the visible universe is implied from known 
 facts with regard to the dissipation of energy. With 
 the gradual aggregation of mass the energy of the 
 universe has been slowly disappearing, and this loss 
 of energy must go on until none remains. There is, 
 therefore, a point in time when the energy of the 
 universe must come to an end ; and that which has 
 its end in time cannot be infinite, it must also have 
 had a beginning in time. Hence the unseen existed 
 before the seen. I 
 
 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 ground- 
 lings ; not only, as the " Unseen Universe " points 
 out in another connection, " because they are at the 
 bottom of the list are in fact the simplest and 
 lowest that they are capable of being most readily 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 grasped by the finite intelligences of the universe." l 
 But their true significance lies in the fact that they 
 are on the list at all, and especially in that the list is 
 the same list. Their dignity is not as Natural Laws, 
 but as Spiritual Laws, Laws which, as already said, 
 at one end are dealing with Matter, and at the other 
 with Spirit. " The physical properties of matter form 
 the alphabet which is put into our hands by God, the 
 study of which, if properly conducted, will enable 
 us more perfectly to read that great book which we 
 call the ' Universe/ " 2 But, over and above this, the 
 Natural Laws will enable us to read that great dupli- 
 cate which we call the "Unseen Universe," 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 the visible is the Invisible in the 
 visible. And to speak of Laws as Natural is to 
 define them in their application to a part of the 
 universe, the sense-part, whereas a wider survey 
 would lead us to regard all Law as essentially 
 Spiritual. To magnify the Laws of Nature, as Laws 
 of this small world of ours, is to take a provincial 
 view of the universe. Law is great not because the 
 phenomenal world is great, but because these vanish- 
 ing lines are the avenues into the eternal Order. 
 
 1 6th edition, p. 235. 2 Ibid., p, 286. 
 
56 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Is it less reverent to regard the universe as an 
 illimitable avenue which leads up to God, than to 
 look upon it as a limited area bounded by an im- 
 penetrable wall, which, if we could only pierce it 
 would admit us at once into the presence of the 
 Eternal ? " 1 Indeed the authors of the " Unseen Uni- 
 verse " demur even to the expression material uni- 
 verse, since, as they tell us " Matter is (though it may 
 seem paradoxical to say so) the less important half 
 of the material of the physical universe." 2 And 
 even Mr. Huxley, though in a different sense, assures 
 us, with Descartes, "that we know more of mind 
 -. than we do of body; that the immaterial world is 
 a firmer reality than the material." 3 
 
 How the priority of the Spiritual improves the 
 strength and meaning of the whole argument will be 
 seen at once. The lines of the Spiritual existed first, 
 and it was natural to expect that when the " Intelli- 
 gence resident in the ' Unseen ' " proceeded to frame 
 the material universe He should go upon the lines 
 already laid down. He would, in short, simply pro- 
 ject the higher Laws downward, so that the Natural 
 World would become an incarnation, a visible repre- 
 sentation, a working model of the spiritual. The 
 whole function of the material world lies here. The 
 
 1 " Unseen Universe," p. 96. 3 Ibid., p 100. 
 
 3 4t Science and Culture," p. 259. 
 
INTRODUCTION. $7 
 
 world is not' a thing that is ; it is not. It is a 
 thing that teaches, yet not even a thing a show that 
 shows, a teaching shadow, However useless the 
 demonstration otherwise, philosophy does well in 
 proving that matter is a non-entity. We work with 
 it as the mathematician with an x. The reality is 
 alone the Spiritual. 7 "It is very well for physicists 
 to speak of ' matter/ but for men generally to call 
 this 'a material world* is an absurdity. Should we 
 call it an ;<;-world it would mean as much, viz., that 
 we do not know what it is." 1 When shall we learn 
 the true mysticism of one who was yet far from 
 being a mystic " We look not at the things wh 
 are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; 
 for the things which are seen are temporal, but the 
 things which are not seen are eternal ? " 2 The visible 
 is the ladder up to the invisible ; the temporal is but 
 the scaffolding of the eternal. And when the last 
 immaterial souls have climbed through this material 
 to God, the scaffolding shall be taken down, and the 
 earth dissolved with fervent heat not because it was 
 base, but because its work is done. 
 
 1 Hinton's " Philosophy and Religion," p. 40. 
 
 2 2 Cor. iv. 1 8 
 
BIOGENESIS. 
 
 59 
 
" 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 shewn 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. 
 
BIOGENESIS. 
 
 1 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 with discussions upon the Origin of Life. Two 
 great schools have defended exactly opposite views 
 one that matter can. spontaneously generate life, 
 the other that life can only come from pre-existing 
 life. The doctrine of Spontaneous Generation, as 
 the first is called, has been revived within recent 
 years by Dr. Bastian, after a series of elaborate ex- 
 periments on the Beginnings of Life. Stated in his 
 own words, his conclusion is this : " Both observation 
 and experiment unmistakeably testify to the fact 
 that living matter is constantly being formed de novo, 
 in obedience to the same laws and tendencies which 
 determine all the more simple chemical combina- 
 tions." 1 Life, that is to say, is not the Gift of Life. 
 
 1 " Beginnings of Life." By H. C. Bastian, M.A., M.D f 
 F,R,S. Macmillan, vol. ii. p. 633. 
 
 61 
 
62 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 It is capable of springing into being of itself. It 
 can be Spontaneously Generated. 
 
 This announcement called into the field a phalanx 
 of observers, and the highest authorities in bio^ 
 logical science engaged themselves afresh upon the 
 problem. The experiments necessary to test the 
 matter can be followed or repeated by any one pos- 
 sessing the slightest manipulative skill. Glass vessels 
 are three-parts filled with infusions of hay or any 
 organic matter. They are boiled to kill all germs 
 of life, and hermetically sealed to exclude the outer 
 air. The air inside, having been exposed to the 
 boiling temperature for many hours, is supposed to 
 be likewise dead ; so that any life which may sub- 
 sequently appear in the closed flasks must have 
 sprung into being of itself. In Bastian's experiments, 
 after every expedient to secure sterility, life did 
 appear inside in myriad quantity. Therefore, he 
 argued, it was spontaneously generated. 
 
 But the phalanx of observers found two errors 
 in this calculation. Professor Tyndall repeated the 
 same experiment, only with a precaution to ensure 
 absolute sterility suggested by the most recent 
 science a discovery of his own. After every care, 
 he conceived there might still be undestroyed germs 
 in the air inside the flasks. If the air were abso- 
 lutely germless and pure, would the myriad-life 
 
BIOGENESIS. 63 
 
 appear? He manipulated his experimental vessels 
 in an atmosphere which under the high test of 
 optical purity the most delicate known test was 
 absolutely germless. Here not a vestige of life ap- 
 peared. He varied the experiment in every direc- 
 tion, but matter in the germless air never yielded 
 life. 
 
 The other error was detected by Mr. Dallinger. 
 He found among the lower forms of life the most 
 surprising and indestructible vitality. Many animals 
 could survive much higher temperatures than Dr. 
 Bastian had applied to annihilate them. Some 
 germs almost refused to be annihilated they were 
 all but fire-proof. 
 
 These experiments have practically closed the 
 question. A decided and authoritative conclusion 
 has now taken its place in science. So far as science 
 can settle anything, this question is settled. The 
 attempt to get the living out of the dead has failed. 
 Spontaneous Generation has had to be given up. 
 And it is now recognised on every hand that Life 
 can only come from the touch of Life. Huxley cat- 
 egorically announces that the doctrine of Biogenesis, 
 or life only from life, is " victorious along the whole 
 line at the present day." l And even whilst confess- 
 
 1 " Critiques and Addresses/' T. H. Huxley, F.R,S., p. 239, 
 
64 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 ing that he wishes the evidence were the other way, 
 Tyndall is compelled to say, " I affirm that no shred 
 of trustworthy experimental testimony exists to 
 prove that life in our day has ever appeared indepen- 
 dently of antecedent life." 1 
 
 For much more than two hundred years a similar 
 discussion has dragged its length through the reli- 
 gious world. Two great schools here also have de- 
 fended exactly opposite views one that the Spiritual 
 Life in man can only come from pre-existing Life, 
 the other that It can Spontaneously Generate itself. 
 Taking its stand upon the initial statement of the 
 Author of the Spiritual Life, one small school, in 
 the face of derision and opposition, has persistently 
 maintained the doctrine of Biogenesis. Another, 
 larger and with greater pretension to philosophic 
 form, has defended Spontaneous Generation. The 
 weakness of the former school consists though this 
 has been much exaggerated in its more or less 
 .-general adherence to the extreme view that religion 
 * had nothing to do with the natural life ; the weakness 
 of the latter lay in yielding to the more fatal ex- 
 treme that it had nothing to do with anything else. 
 That man, being a worshipping animal by nature, 
 ought to maintain certain relations to the Supreme 
 
 1 Nineteenth Century ^ i3;8, p. 507. 
 
BIOGENESIS. 65 
 
 Being, was indeed to some extent conceded by the 
 naturalistic school, but religion itself was looked 
 upon as a thing to be spontaneously generated by 
 the evolution of character in the laboratory of com- 
 mon life. 
 
 The difference between the two positions is radical. 
 Translating from the language of Science into that 
 of Religion, the theory of Spontaneous Generation 
 is simply that a man may become gradually better 
 and better until in course of the process he reaches 
 that quality of religious nature known as Spiritual 
 Life. This Life is not something added ab extra to 
 the natural man ; it is the normal and appropriate 
 development of the natural man. Biogenesis op- 
 poses to this the whole doctrine of Regeneration. 
 The Spiritual Life is the gift of the Living Spirit. The 
 spiritual man is no mere development of the natural 
 man. He is a New Creation born from Above. As 
 well expect a hay infusion to become gradually more 
 and more living until in course of the process it 
 reached Vitality, as expect a man by becoming better 
 and better to attain the Eternal Life. 
 
 The advocates of Biogenesis in Religion have 
 founded their argument hitherto all but exclusively 
 OR Scripture. The relation of the doctrine to the 
 constitution and course of Nature was not disclosed. 
 Its importance, therefore, was solely as a dogma; 
 
 F 
 
66 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 and being directly concerned with the Supernatural, 
 it was valid for those alone who chose to accept the 
 Supernatural. 
 
 Yet it has been keenly felt by those who attempt 
 to defend this doctrine of the origin of the Spiritual 
 Life, that they have nothing more to oppose to the 
 rationalistic view than the ipse dixit of Revelation. 
 The argument from experience, in the nature of the 
 case, is seldom easy to apply, and Christianity has 
 always found at this point a genuine difficulty in 
 meeting the challenge of Natural Religions. The 
 direct authority of Nature, using Nature in its limi- 
 ted sense, was not here to be sought for. On such 
 a question its voice was necessarily silent ; and all 
 that the apologist could look for lower down was a 
 distant echo or analogy. All that is really possible, 
 indeed, is such an analogy ; and if that can now be 
 found in Biogenesis, Christianity in its most central 
 position 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 in question. 
 But now the case is altered. With the elevation of 
 Biogenesis to the rank of a scientific fact, all pro- 
 blems concerning the Origin of Life are placed on 
 a, different footing, And it remains to be seen 
 
BIOGENESIS. 67 
 
 whether Religion cannot at once re-affirm and re- 
 shape its argument in the light of this modern 
 truth, 
 
 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 misunderstood than from those who 
 have opposed it. Of the multitudes who confess 
 Christianity at this hour how many have clear in 
 their minds the cardinal distinction established by 
 its Founder between " born of the flesh " and " born 
 of the Spirit"? By how many teachers of Chris- 
 tianity even is not this fundamental postulate per- 
 sistently ignored ? A thousand modern pulpits every 
 seventh day are preaching the doctrine of Spon- 
 taneous Generation, The finest and best of recent 
 poetry is coloured with this same error. Spontaneous 
 Generation is the leading theology of the modern 
 religious or irreligious novel ; and much of the 
 most serious and cultured writing of the day devotes 
 itself to earnest preaching of this impossible gospel. 
 The current conception of the Christian religion in 
 short the conception which is held not only popu- 
 larly but by men of culture is founded upon a view 
 
68 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 of its origin which, if it were true, would render the 
 whole scheme abortive. 
 
 Let us first place vividly in our imagination the 
 picture of the two great Kingdoms of Nature, the 
 inorganic and organic, as these now stand in the 
 light of the Law of Biogenesis. What essentially 
 is involved in saying that there is no Spontaneous 
 Generation of Life ? It is meant that the passage 
 from the mineral world to the plant or animal world 
 is hermetically sealed on the mineral side. This in- 
 organic world is staked off from the living world by 
 barriers which have never yet been crossed from 
 within. No change of substance, no modification of 
 environment, no chemistry, no electricity, nor any 
 form of energy, nor any evolution can endow 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 can these dead 
 atoms be gifted with the properties of vitality, with- 
 out this preliminary contact with Life they remain 
 fixed in the inorganic sphere for ever. It is a very 
 mysterious Law which guards in this way the portals 
 of the living world. And if there is one thing in 
 Nature more worth pondering for its strangeness it 
 is the spectacle of this vast helpless world of the 
 dead cut off from the living by the Law of Bio- 
 genesis and denied for ever the possibility of resur- 
 
BIOGENESIS. 60 
 
 rection within itself. So very strange a thing, in- 
 deed, is this broad line in Nature, that Science has 
 long and urgently sought to obliterate it. Bio- 
 genesis stands in the way of some forms of Evolution 
 with such stern persistency that the assaults upon 
 this Law for number and thoroughness have been 
 unparalleled. But, as we have seen, it has stood the 
 test. Nature, to the modern eye, stands broken in 
 two. The physical Laws may explain the inorganic 
 world ; the biological Laws may account for the de- 
 velopment of the organic. But of the point where 
 they meet, of that strange borderland between the 
 dead and the living, Science is silent. It is as if 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, to seize and impress the mind, will 
 largely depend on the vividness with which one 
 realizes the gulf which Nature places between the 
 living and the dead. 1 But those who, in contemplat- 
 
 1 This being the crucial point it may not be inappropriate to 
 supplement the quotations already given in the text with the 
 following : 
 
 " We are in the presence of the one incommunicable gulf 
 the gulf of all gulfs that gulf which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm 
 is as powerless to efface as any other material expedient that has 
 
70 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 ing Nature, have found their attention arrested by 
 this extraordinary dividing-line severing the visible 
 universe eternally into two ; those who in watching 
 the progress of science have seen barrier after barrier 
 disappear barrier between plant and plant, between 
 animal and animal, and even between animal and 
 plant but this gulf yawn more hopelessly wide with 
 every advance of knowledge, will be prepared to 
 attach a significance to the Law of Biogenesis and 
 its analogies more profound perhaps than to any 
 other fact 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 
 
 ever been suggested since the eyes of men first looked into it 
 the mighty gulf between death and life." " As Regards Proto- 
 plasm." By J. Hutchinson Stirling, LL.D., p. 42. 
 
 " The present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link be- 
 tween the living and the not-living." Huxley, "Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica" (new Ed.). Art. " Biology." 
 
 " Whoever recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all the 
 attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for 
 the generatio cequivoca in the lower forms of transition from the 
 inorganic to the organic world, will feel it doubly serious to de- 
 mand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in any 
 way accepted as the basis of all our views of life." Virchow : 
 " The Freedom of Science in the Modern State." 
 
 "All really scientific experience tells us that life can be pro- 
 duced from a living antecedent only." "The Unseen Universe." 
 6th Ed. p. 229. 
 
BIOGENESIS. 71 
 
 and startling of all natural phenomena, a meaning 
 of peculiar moment 
 
 Where now in the Spiritual spheres shall we meet 
 a companion phenomenon to this ? What in the 
 Unseen shall be likened to this deep dividing-line, 
 or where in human experience is another barrier 
 which never can be crossed ? 
 
 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 hermeti- 
 cally sealed on the natural side. The door from 
 the inorganic to the organic is shut, no mineral 
 can open it ; so the door from the natural to the 
 spiritual is shut, and no man can open it. This 
 world of natural men is staked off from the Spiritual 
 World by barriers which have never yet been crossed 
 from within. No organic change, no modification 
 of environment, no mental energy, no moral effort, 
 no evolution of character, no progress of civilization 
 can endow any single human soul with the attribute 
 of Spiritual Life. The Spiritual World is guarded 
 from the world next in order beneath it by a law 
 of Biogenesis except a man be born again . . . 
 except a man be born of water and. of the Spirit, Ju 
 cannot enter the Kingdom of God. 
 
72 BIOGENESJS. 
 
 It is not said, in this enunciation of the law, that 
 if the condition be not fulfilled the natural man 
 will not enter the Kingdom of God. The word is 
 cannot. For the exclusion of the spiritually inor- 
 ganic from the Kingdom of the spiritually organic 
 is not arbitrary. Nor is the natural man refused 
 admission on unexplained grounds. His admission 
 is a scientific impossibility. Except a mineral be 
 born "from above" from the 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 enter the Kingdom just above 
 him. There being no passage from one Kingdom to 
 another, whether from inorganic to organic, or from 
 organic to spiritual, the intervention of Life is a 
 scientific necessity if a stone or a plant or an animal 
 or a man is to pass from a lower to a higher sphere. 
 The plant stretches down to the dead world beneath 
 it, touches its minerals and gases with its mystery 
 of Life, and brings them up ennobled and trans- 
 formed to the living sphere. The breath of God, 
 blowing where it listeth, touches with its mystery 
 of Life the dead souls of men, bears them across 
 the bridgeless gulf between the natural and the 
 spiritual, between the spiritually inorganic and the 
 spiritually organic, endows them with its own high 
 qualities, and develops within them these new and 
 
BIOGENESIS. 73 
 
 secret faculties, by which those who are born again 
 are said to see the Kingdom of God. 
 
 What is the evidence for this great gulf fixed at 
 the portals of the Spiritual World ? Does Science 
 close this gate, or Reason, or Experience, or Reve- 
 lation ? We reply, all four. The initial statement, 
 it is not to be denied, reaches us from Revelation. 
 But is not this evidence here in court ? Or shall it 
 be said that any argument deduced from this is a 
 transparent circle that after all we simply come 
 back to the unsubstantiality of the ipse dixit ? Not 
 altogether, for the analogy lends an altogether new 
 authority to the ipse dixit. How substantial that 
 argument really is, is seldom realized. We yield 
 the point here much too easily. The right of the 
 Spiritual World to speak of its own phenomena 
 is as secure as the right of the Natural World to 
 speak of itself. What is Science but what the 
 Natural World has said to natural men ? What is 
 Revelation but what the Spiritual World has said 
 to Spiritual men ? Let us at least ask what Reve- 
 lation has announced with reference to this Spiritual 
 Law of Biogenesis ; afterwards we shall inquire 
 whether Science, while endorsing the verdict, may 
 not also have some further vindication of its title 
 to be heard. 
 
 The words of Scripture which preface this inquiry 
 
74 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 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 cannot develop out of anything 
 that is not Life. There is no Spontaneous 
 Generation in religion any more than in Nature. 
 Christ is the source of Life in the Spiritual World ; 
 and he that hath the Son hath Life, and he that 
 hath not the Son, whatever else he may have, hath 
 not Life. Here, in short, is the categorical denial 
 of Abiogenesis and the establishment in this high 
 field of the classical formula Omne vivtim ex vivo 
 no Life without antecedent Life. In this mystical 
 theory of the Origin of Life the whole of the New 
 Testament writers are agreed. And, as we have 
 already seen, Christ Himself founds Christianity 
 upon Biogenesis stated in its most literal form. 
 "Except a. man be born of water and of the Spirit 
 he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That 
 which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which 
 is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that 
 I said unto you, ye must be born again." 1 Why 
 did He add Marvel not? Did He seek to allay 
 
 1 John iil 
 
BIOGENES7S. 75 
 
 the fear in the bewildered ruler's mind that there 
 was more in this novel doctrine 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 only 
 in 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 an organism. The 
 natural world is to the Spiritual as the inorganic 
 to the organic. " To be carnally minded is Death? l 
 " Thou hast a name to live, but art Dead? 2 " She 
 that liveth in pleasure is Dead while she liveth." 3 
 " To you hath He given Life which were Dead in 
 trespasses and sins." 4 
 
 It is clear that a remarkable harmony exists 
 here between the Organic World as arranged by 
 Science and the Spiritual World as arranged by 
 Scripture. We find one great Law guarding the 
 thresholds of both worlds, securing that entrance 
 from a lower sphere shall only take place by a 
 direct regenerating act, and that emanating from 
 the world next in order above. There are not two 
 laws of Biogenesis, one for the natural, the other 
 for the Spiritual ; one law is for both. Wherever 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 6. 2 Rev. iii. I. 3 i Tim. v. 6. 4 Eph. ii. i, 5. 
 
76 BIOGENESIS, 
 
 there is Life, Life of any kind, this same law holds. 
 The analogy, therefore, is only among the phe- 
 nomena ; between laws there is no analogy there 
 is Continuity. In either case, the first step in 
 peopling these worlds with the appropriate living 
 forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one case is there 
 less of mystery in the act than in the other. The 
 second birth is scarcely less perplexing to the theo- 
 logian than the first to the embryologist. 
 
 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 proclama- 
 tion 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 materialised before his eyes in Nature. 
 If Nature cannot discuss this with him, there is 
 nothing to discuss. But Nature can discuss this 
 with him only she cannot open the discussion or 
 supply all the material to begin with. If Science 
 averred that she could do this, the theologian this 
 time must part company with such Science. For 
 any Science which makes such a demand is false to 
 the doctrines of Biogenesis. What is this but the 
 demand that a lower world, hermetically sealed 
 against all communication with a world above it, 
 should have a mature and intelligent acquaintance 
 
BIOGENESIS. 77 
 
 with its phenomena and laws ? Can the mineral 
 discourse to me of animal Life ? Can it tell me 
 what lies beyond the narrow boundary of its inert 
 being ? Knowing nothing of other than the chemical 
 and physical laws,' what is its criticism worth of the 
 principles of Biology ? And even when some visitor 
 from the upper world, for example some root from 
 a living tree, penetrating its dark recess, honours 
 it with a touch, will it presume to define the form 
 and purpose of its patron, or until the bioplasm has 
 done its gracious work can it even know that it is 
 being touched ? The barrier which separates King- 
 doms from one another restricts mind not less than 
 matter. Any information of the Kingdoms above 
 it that could come to the mineral world could only 
 come by a communication from above. An analogy 
 from the lower world might make such communi- 
 cation intelligible as well as credible, but the infor- 
 mation in the first instance must be vouchsafed as 
 a revelation. Similarly if those in the Organic 
 Kingdom are to know anything of the Spiritual 
 World, that knowledge must at least begin as Reve- 
 lation. Men who reject this source of information, 
 by the Law of Biogenesis, can have no other. It 
 is no spell of ignorance arbitrarily laid upon certain 
 members of the Organic Kingdom that prevents 
 them reading the secrets of the Spiritual World. 
 
78 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 It is a scientific necessity. No exposition of the 
 case could be more truly scientific than this : " The 
 natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
 of God ; for they are foolishness unto him : neither 
 can he knozv them, because they are spiritually dis- 
 cerned." 1 The verb here, it will be again observed, 
 is potential. This is not a dogma of theology, 
 but a necessity of Science. And Science, for the 
 most part, has consistently accepted the situation. 
 It has always proclaimed its ignorance of the 
 Spiritual World. When Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 affirms, " Regarding Science as a gradually increas- 
 ing sphere we may say that every addition to its 
 surface does but bring it into wider contact with 
 surrounding nescience," 2 from his standpoint he 
 is quite correct. The endeavours of well-meaning 
 persons to show that the Agnostic's position, when 
 he asserts his ignorance of the Spiritual World, is 
 only a pretence ; the attempts to prove that he 
 really knows a great deal about it if he would only 
 admit it, are quite misplaced. He really does not 
 know. The verdict that the natural man receiveth 
 not the things of the Spirit of God, that they are 
 foolishness unto him, that neither can he know them, 
 is final as a statement of scientific truth a statement 
 
 1 i Cor. ii. 14. 
 
 8 " First Principles," 2nd Ed., p. 17, 
 
BIOGENESIS. 79 
 
 on which the entire Agnostic literature is simply 
 one long commentary. 
 
 We are now in a better position to follow out the 
 more practical bearings of Biogenesis. There is an 
 immense region surrounding "-Regeneration, a dark 
 and perplexing region where men would be thank- 
 ful for any light. It may well be that Biogenesis 
 in its many ramifications may yet reach down to 
 some of the deeper mysteries of the Spiritual Life. 
 But meantime there is much to define even on the 
 surface. And for the present we shall content 
 ourselves by turning its light upon one or two 
 points of current interest. 
 
 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 afford to enlarge upon 
 it, therefore, even at the risk of repetition. When 
 men are offering us a Christianity without a living 
 Spirit, and a personal religion without conversion^ no 
 emphasis or reiteration can be extreme. Besides, 
 the clearness as well as the definiteness of the 
 Testimony of Nature to any Spiritual truth is of 
 immense importance. Regeneration has not merely 
 
80 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 been an outstanding difficulty, but an overwhelming 
 obscurity. Even to earnest minds the difficulty of 
 grasping the truth at all has always proved extreme. 
 Philosophically one scarcely sees either the necessity 
 or the possibility of being born again. Why a vir- 
 tuous man should not simply grow better and better 
 until in his own right he enter the Kingdom of God 
 is what thousands honestly and seriously fail to 
 understand. Now Philosophy cannot help us here. 
 Her arguments are, if anythjng, against us. But 
 Science answers to the appeal at once. If it be 
 simply pointed out that this is the same absurdity 
 as to ask why a stone should not grow more and 
 more living till it enters, the Organic World, the point 
 is clear in an instant. LI < V;V . 
 
 What now, let us ask specifically, distinguishes 
 a Christian man from a non-Christian man? Is it 
 that he has certain mental characteristics not pos- 
 sessed by the other ? Is it that certain faculties 
 have been trained in him, that morality assumes 
 special and higher manifestations, and character 
 a nobler form ? Is the Christian merely an ordinary 
 man who happens from birth to have been sur- 
 rounded with a peculiar set of ideas ? Is his religion 
 merely that peculiar quality of the moral life defined 
 by Mr. Matthew Arnold as " morality touched by 
 emotion " ? And does the possession of a high ideal, 
 
BIOGENESIS. 81 
 
 benevolent sympathies, a reverent spirit, and a 
 favourable environment account for what men call 
 his Spiritual Life ? 
 
 The distinction between them is the same as that 
 between the Organic and the Inorganic, the living 
 and the dead. What is the difference between 
 a crystal 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 
 of matter. Both are subject to the Physical Laws. 
 Both may be very beautiful. But besides possessing 
 all that the crystal has, the plant possesses something 
 more a mysterious something called Life. This 
 Life is not something which existed in the crystal 
 only in a less developed form. There is nothing 
 at all like it in the crystal. There" is nothing like 
 the first beginning of it in the crystal, not a trace 
 or symptom of it. This plant is tenanted by some- 
 thing new, an original and unique possession added 
 over and above all the properties common to both. 
 When from vegetable Life we rise to animal Life, 
 here again we find something original and unique 
 unique at least as compared with the mineral. 
 From animal Life we ascend again to Spiritual Life. 
 And here also is something new, something still 
 more unique. He who lives the Spiritual Life has 
 a distinct kind of Life add( ? d to all the other phases 
 
 G 
 
83 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 of Life which he manifests a kind of Life infinitely 
 more distinct than is the active Life of a plant 
 from the inertia of a stone. The Spiritual man is 
 more distinct in point of fact than is the plant from 
 the stone. This is the one possible comparison in 
 Nature, for it is the widest distinction in Nature ; 
 but compared with the difference between the 
 Natural and the Spiritual the gulf which divides 
 the organic from the inorganic is a hair's-breadth. 
 The natural man belongs essentially to this present 
 order of things. He is endowed simply with a higfe 
 quality of the natural animal Life. But it is Life 
 of so poor a quality that it is not Life at all. He 
 that hath not the Son hath not Life ; but he that 
 hath the Son hath Life a new and distinct and 
 supernatural endowment. He is not of this world. 
 He is of the timeless state, of Eternity. It doth not 
 vet appear what he shall be. 
 
 The difference then 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 con- 
 struct a scientific classification, Science would compel 
 us to arrange all natural men, moral or immoral, 
 educated or vulgar, as one family. One might be 
 
BIOGENESIS 83 
 
 high in the family group another low; yet, practi- 
 cally, they are marked by the same set of character- 
 istics they eat, sleep, work, think, live, die. But 
 the Spiritual man is removed from this family so 
 utterly by the possession of an additional character- 
 istic that a biologist, fully informed of the whole 
 circumstances, would not hesitate a moment to 
 .classify him elsewhere. And if he really entered 
 into these circumstances it would not be in another 
 family but in another Kingdom. It is an old- 
 fashioned theology which divides the world in this 
 way which speaks of men as Living and Dead, 
 Lost and Saved a stern theology all but fallen into 
 disuse. This difference between the Living and the 
 Dead in souls is so unproved by casual 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 scientific distinction. " He 
 that hath not the Son hath not Life." 
 
 Now it is this great Law which finally distinguishes 
 Christianity from all other religions. It places the 
 religion of Christ upon a footing altogether unique. 
 There is no analogy between the Christian religion 
 and, say, Buddhism or the Mohammedan religion. 
 There is no true sense in which a man can say, He 
 that hath Buddha hath Life. Buddha has nothing 
 
84 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 to do with Life. He may have something to do 
 with morality. He may stimulate, impress, teach, 
 guide, but there is no distinct new thing added to 
 the souls of those who profess Buddhism. These 
 religions may be developments of the natural, mental, 
 or moral man. But Christianity professes to be 
 more. It is the mental or moral man ////.$ something 
 else or some One else. It is the infusion into the 
 Spiritual man of a New Life, of a quality unlike 
 anything else in Nature. This constitutes the sepa- 
 rate Kingdom of Christ, and gives to Christianity 
 alone of all the religions of mankind the strange 
 mark of Divinity. 
 
 Shall we next inquire more precisely what is this 
 something extra which constitutes Spiritual Life? 
 What is this strange and new endowment in its 
 nature and vital essence ? And the answer is brief 
 it is Christ. He that hath tJie Son hath Life. 
 
 Are we forsaking the lines of Science in saying 
 so? Yes and No. Science has drawn for us the 
 distinction. It has no voice as to the nature of the 
 distinction except this that the new endowment is 
 a something different from anything else with which 
 it deals. It is not ordinary Vitality, it is not intel- 
 lectual, it is not moral, but something beyond. And 
 Revelation steps in and names what it is it is Christ 
 Out of the multitude of sentences where this an- 
 
BIOGENESIS. 85 
 
 nouncement is made, these few may be selected : 
 " Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ 
 is in you?"^ "Your bodies are the members of 
 Christ." 2 "At that day ye shall know that I am in 
 the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." 3 " We 
 will come unto him and make our abode with him." 4 
 "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." 5 "I am 
 crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I 
 but Christ liveth in me." 6 
 
 Three things are clear from these statements : 
 First, They are not mere figures of rhetoric. They 
 are explicit declarations. If language means any- 
 thing these words announce a literal fact. In some 
 of Christ's own statements the literalism is if possible 
 still more impressive. For instance, " Except ye eat 
 the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye 
 have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh and 
 drinketh My blood hath eternal life ; and I will raise 
 him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, 
 and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My 
 flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me and I in 
 him." 
 
 In the second place, Spiritual Life is not some- 
 thing outside ourselves. The idea is not that Christ 
 is in heaven and that we can stretch out some 
 
 1 2 Cor. xiii. 5. 2 I Cor. vi. 15. 3 John xiv. 20. 
 
 4 John xiv. 21-23. 5 John xv. 5. 6 Gal. ii. 20. 
 
86 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 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. Vegetable Life is not contained 
 in a reservoir somewhere in the skies, and measured 
 out spasmodically at certain seasons. The Life is in 
 every plant and tree, inside its own substance and 
 tissue, and continues there until it dies. This locali- 
 sation of Life in the individual is precisely the point 
 where Vitality differs from the other forces of nature, 
 such as magnetism and electricity. Vitality has 
 much in common with such forces as magnetism 
 and electricity, but there is one inviolable distinction 
 between them that Life is permanently fixed and 
 rooted in the organism. The doctrines of conserva- 
 tion and transformation of energy, that is to say, do 
 not hold for Vitality. The electrician can demag- 
 netise a bar of iron, that is, he can transform its 
 energy of magnetism into something else heat, or 
 motion, or light and then re-form these back into 
 magnetism. For magnetism has no root, no indi- 
 viduality, no fixed indwelling. But the biologist 
 cannot devitalise a plant or an animal and revivify 
 it again. 1 Life is not one of the homeless forces 
 
 1 One must not be misled by popular statements in this 
 connection, such as this of Professor Owen's : " There are 
 organisms which we can devitalise and revitalise devive and 
 
BIOGENESIS. 87 
 
 which promiscuously inhabit space, or which can be 
 gathered like electricity from the clouds and dissi- 
 pated back again into space. Life is definite and 
 resident ; and Spiritual Life is not a visit from a 
 force, but a resident tenant in the soul. 
 
 This is, however, to formulate the statement of the 
 third point, that spiritual Life is not an ordinary 
 form of energy or force. The analogy from Nature 
 endorses this, but here Nature stops. It cannot say 
 what Spiritual Life is. Indeed what natural Life is 
 remains unknown, and the word Life still wanders 
 through Science without a definition. Nature is 
 silent, therefore, and must be as to Spiritual Life. 
 But in the absence of natural light we fall back upon 
 that complementary revelation which always shines 
 when truth is necessary and where Nature fails. We 
 ask with Paul when this Life first visited him on the 
 Damascus road, What is this? "Who art Thou 
 Lord ? " And we hear, " I am Jesus." * 
 - 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 that this 
 Spiritual Life is a force. But let it be remembered 
 
 revive many times." (Monthly Microscopical Journal, May, 
 1869, p. 294.) The reference is of course to the extraordinary 
 capacity for resuscitation possessed by many of the Protozoa 
 and other low forms of life. 
 1 Acts ix. 5. 
 
83 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 what this means in Science, it means the heresy of 
 confounding Force with Vitality. We must also 
 expect to be told that this Spiritual Life is simply a 
 development of ordinary Life just as Dr. Bastian 
 tells us that natural Life is formed according to the 
 same laws which determine the more simple chemical 
 combinations. But remember what this means in 
 Science. It is the heresy of Spontaneous Generation, 
 a heresy so thoroughly discredited now that scarcely 
 an authority in Europe will lend his name to it 
 Who art Thou, Lord ? Unless we are to be allowed 
 to hold Spontaneous Generation there is no alterna- 
 tive : Life can only come from Life : " I am Jesus." 
 
 A hundred other questions now rush into the mind 
 about this Life : How does it come ? Why does it 
 come ? How is it manifested ? What faculty does 
 it employ ? Where does it reside ? Is it communi- 
 cable ? What are its conditions ? One or two of 
 these questions may be vaguely answered, the rest 
 bring us face to face with mystery. Let it not be 
 thought that the scientific treatment of a Spiritual 
 subject has reduced religion to a problem of physics, 
 or demonstrated God by the laws of biology. A 
 religion without mystery is an absurdity. Even 
 Science has its mysteries, none more inscrutable than 
 around this Science of Life. It taught us sooner or 
 later to expect mystery, and now we enter its domain. 
 
BIOGENESIS. 89 
 
 Let it be carefully marked, however, that the cloud 
 does not fall and cover us till we have ascertained 
 the most momentous truth of Religion that Christ 
 is in the Christian. 
 
 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 Church from Paul to Augustine, from 
 Calvin to Newman. Yet, when the Spiritual man 
 is cross-examined upon this confession it is astonish- 
 ing to find what uncertain hold it has upon his mind. 
 Doctrinally he states it adequately and holds it 
 unhesitatingly. But when pressed with the literal 
 question he shrinks from the answer. We do not 
 really believe that the Living Christ has touched us, 
 that He makes His abode in us. Spiritual Life is 
 not as real to us as natural Life. And we cover our 
 retreat into unbelieving vagueness with a plea of 
 reverence, justified, as we think, by the "Thus far 
 and no farther " of ancient Scriptures. There is 
 often a great deal of intellectual sin concealed under 
 this old aphorism. \ When men do not really wish to 
 go farther they find it an honourable convenience 
 sometimes to sit down on the outermost edge of the 
 
90 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 Holy Ground on the pretext of taking off their shoes. 
 Yet we must be certain that, making a virtue of 
 reverence, we are not merely excusing ignorance ; 
 or, under the plea of mystery, evading a truth which 
 has been stated in the New Testament a hundred 
 times, in the most literal form, and with all but 
 monotonous repetition. The greatest truths are 
 always the most loosely held. And not the least of 
 the advantages of taking up this question from the 
 present standpoint is that we may see how a con- 
 fused doctrine can really bear the luminous definition 
 of Science and force itself upon us with all the 
 weight of Natural Law. 
 
 What is mystery to many men, what feeds their 
 worship, and at the same time spoils it, is that area 
 round all great truth which is really capable of illu- 
 mination, and into which every earnest mind is 
 permitted and commanded to go with a light. We 
 cry mystery long before the region of mystery comes. 
 True mystery casts no shadows around. It is a 
 sudden and awful gulf yawning across the field of 
 knowledge ; its form is irregular, but its lips are 
 clean cut and sharp, and the mind can go to the very 
 verge and look down the precipice into the dim 
 abyss, 
 
 M Where writhing clouds unroll, 
 Striving to utter themselves in shapes." 
 
BIOGENESIS. 91 
 
 We have gone with a light to the very verge of this 
 truth. We have seen that the Spiritual Life is 
 an endowment from the Spiritual World, and that 
 the Living Spirit of Christ dwells in the Christian. 
 But now the gulf yawns black before us. What 
 more does Science know of Life ? Nothing. It 
 knows nothing further about its origin in detail. 
 ft knows nothing about its ultimate nature. It 
 cannot even define it There is a helplessness in 
 scientific books here, and a continual confession of 
 it which to thoughtful minds is almost touching. 
 Science, therefore, has not eliminated the true mys- 
 teries from our faith, but only the false. And it has i 
 done more. It has made true mystery scientific. 
 Religion in having mystery is in analogy with all 
 around it. Where there is exceptional mystery in 
 the Spiritual world it will generally be found that 
 there is a corresponding mystery in the natural 
 world. And, as Origen centuries ago insisted, the 
 difficulties of Religion are simply the difficulties of 
 Nature. 
 
 One question more we may look at for a moment. 
 What can be gathered on the surface as to the 
 process of Regeneration in the individual soul ? 
 From the analogies of Biology we should expect 
 three things : First, that the New Life should dawn 
 suddenly ; Second, that it should come " without ob- 
 
92 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 servation " ; Third, that it should develop gradually. 
 On two of these points there can be little controversy 
 The gradualness of growth is a characteristic which 
 strikes the simplest observer. Long before the word 
 Evolution was coined Christ applied it in this very 
 connection " First the blade, then the ear, then the 
 full corn in the ear." It is well known also to those 
 who study the parables of Nature that there is an 
 ascending scale of slowness as we rise in the scale 
 of Life. Growth is most gradual in the highest 
 forms. Man attains his maturity after a score of 
 years ; the monad completes its humble cycle in a 
 day. What wonder if development be tardy in the 
 Creature of Eternity ? A Christian's sun has some- 
 times set, and a critical world has seen as yet no 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 
 the plant lives whence hab' the Life come ? When 
 it dies whither has it gone ? Thou canst not tell 
 . . so is every one that is born of the Spirit. For 
 tJie kingdom of God cometh without observation. 
 
BIOGENESIS. 93 
 
 Yet once more, and this is a point of strange and 
 frivolous dispute, this Life comes suddenly. This is 
 the only way in which Life can come. Life cannot 
 come gradually health can, structure can, but not 
 Life. A new theology has laughed at the Doctrine 
 of Conversion. Sudden Conversion especially has 
 been ridiculed as untrue to philosophy and impossible 
 to human nature. We may not be concerned in 
 buttressing any theology because it is old. But we 
 find that this old theology is scientific. There may 
 be cases they are probably in the majority where 
 the moment of contact with the Living Spirit though 
 sudden has been obscure. But the real moment 
 and the conscious moment are two different things. 
 Science pronounces nothing as to the conscious 
 moment. If it did it would probably say that 
 that was seldom the real moment just as in the 
 natural Life the conscious moment is not the real 
 moment. The moment of birth in the natural world 
 is not a conscious moment we do not know we are 
 born till long afterward. Yet there are men to whom 
 the Origin of the 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 
 moment and second of which could have been 
 known. And this is certainly, in theory at least, the 
 normal Origin of Life, according to the principles 
 
94 BIOGENESIS. 
 
 of Biology. The line between the living and the 
 dead is a sharp line. When the dead atoms of 
 Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, are seized 
 upon by Life, the organism at first is very lowly. 
 It possesses few functions. It has little beauty. 
 Growth is the work of time. But Life is not. That 
 comes in a moment. At one moment it was dead ; 
 the next it lived. This is conversion, the " passing/ 1 
 as the Bible calls it, "from Death unto Life." Those 
 who have stood by another's side at the solemn hour 
 of this dread possession have been conscious some- 
 times of an experience which words are not allowed 
 to utter a something like the sudden snapping of a 
 chain, the waking from a dream. 
 

 DEGENERATION 
 
" / went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard oj 
 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 con- 
 sidered it well ; I looked upon it and received instruction? 
 SOLOMON. 
 

 DEGENERATION. 
 
 "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" 
 Hebrews. 
 
 11 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 may be illustrated in some such 
 way as this: Suppose a bird fancier collects a flock 
 of tame pigeons distinguished by all the infinite 
 ornamentations of their race. They are of all kinds, 
 of every shade of colour, and adorned with every 
 variety of marking. He takes them to an unin- 
 habited island and allows them to fly off wild into 
 the woods. They found a colony there, and after 
 2he lapse of many years the owner returns to the 
 spot. He will find that a remarkable change has 
 taken place in the interval. The birds, or their 
 descendants rather, have all become changed into 
 the same colour. The black, the white and the 
 dun, the striped, the spotted, and the ringed, are all 
 metamorphosed into one a dark slaty blue. Two 
 
 87 H 
 
98 DEGENERATION. 
 
 plain black bands monotonously repeat themselves 
 upon the wings of each, and the loins beneath are 
 white ; but all the variety, all the beautiful colours, 
 all the old graces of form it may be, have disap* 
 peared. These improvements were the result of cars 
 and nurture, of domestication, of civilization ; and 
 now that these influences are removed, the birds 
 themselves undo the past and lose what they had 
 gained. The attempt to elevate the race has been 
 mysteriously thwarted. It is as if the original biro, 
 the far remote ancestor of all doves, had been blue, 
 and these had been compelled by some strange law 
 to discard the badges of their civilization and con- 
 form to the ruder image of the first The natural 
 law by which such a change occurs is called The 
 Principle of Reversion to Type. 
 
 It is a proof of the universality of this law that 
 the same thing will happen with a plant. A garden 
 is planted, let us say, with strawberries and roses, 
 and for a number of years is left alone. In process 
 of time it will run to waste. But this does not mean 
 that the plants will really waste away, but that they 
 will change into something else, and, as it invariably 
 appears, into something worse ; in the one case, 
 namely, into the small, wild strawberry of the woods, 
 and in the other into the primitive dog-rose of the 
 hedges. 
 
DEGENERATION. 99 
 
 If we neglect a garden plant, then, a natural 
 principle of deterioration comes 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 uglier bird. Or if we neglect almost any 
 of the domestic animals, they will rapidly revert 
 to wild and worthless forms again. 
 
 Now the same thing exactly would happen in the 
 case of you or me. Why should Man be an excep- 
 tion to any of the laws of Nature ? Nature knows 
 him simply as an animal Sub-kingdom Vertebrata, 
 Class Mammalia, Order Bimana. And the law of 
 Reversion to Type runs through all creation. If a 
 man neglect himself for a few years he will change 
 into a worse man and a lower man. If it is his 
 body that he neglects, he will deteriorate into a wild 
 and bestial savage like the de-humanized men who 
 are discovered sometimes upon desert islands. If 
 it is his mind, it will degenerate into imbecility and 
 madness solitary confinement has the power to 
 unmake men's minds and leave them idiots. If he 
 neglect his conscience, it will run off into lawlessness 
 and vice. Or, lastly, if it is his soul, it must in- 
 evitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay. 
 
 We have here, then, a thoroughly natural basfs for 
 the question before us. If we neglect, with this 
 universal principle staring us in the face, how shall 
 
DEGENERATION. 
 
 we escape ? If we neglect the ordinary means of 
 keeping a garden in order, how shall it escape run- 
 ning to weeds and waste? Or, if we neglect the 
 opportunities for cultivating the mind, how shall it 
 escape ignorance and feebleness ? So, if we neglect 
 the soul, how shall it escape the natural retrograde 
 movement, the inevitable relapse into barrenness 
 and death ? 
 
 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 the precarious persistence of a life along 
 what looks like a level path, a character which seems 
 to hold its own alike against the attacks of evil and 
 the appeals of good. It implies a set of circumstances 
 so balanced by choice or fortune that they neither 
 influence for better nor for worse. But except in 
 theory this state of equilibrium, normal in the in- 
 organic kingdom, is really foreign to the world of 
 life ; and what seems inertia may be a true Evolution 
 unnoticed from its slowness, or likelier still a move- 
 ment of Degeneration subtly obliterating as it falls 
 the very traces of its former height. From this state 
 of apparent Balance, Evolution is the escape in the 
 
DEGENERATION. 101 
 
 upward direction, Degeneration in the lower. But 
 Degeneration, rather than Balance or Elaboration, is 
 the possibility of life embraced by the majority of 
 mankind. And the choice is determined by man's own 
 nature. The life of Balance is difficult. It lies on the 
 verge of continual temptation, its perpetual adjust- 
 ments become fatiguing, its measured virtue is mono- 
 tonous and uninspiring. More difficult still, appar- 
 ently, is the life of ever upward growth. Most men 
 attempt it for a time, but growth is slow ; and despair 
 overtakes them while the goal is far away. Yet 
 none of these reasons fully explains the fact that the 
 alternative which remains is adopted by the majority 
 of men. * That Degeneration is easy only half 
 accounts for it. Why is it easy ? Why but tha* 
 already in each man's very nature this principle is 
 supreme ? He feels within his soul a silent drifting 
 motion impelling him downward with irresistible 
 force. Instead of aspiring to Conversion to a higher 
 Type he submits by a law of his nature to Reversion 
 to a lower. This is Degeneration that principle by 
 which the organism, failing to develop itself, failing 
 even to keep what it has got, deteriorates, and 
 becomes 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 
 
DEGENERATION. 
 
 their nature. Theologically it is described as a 
 gravitation, a bias toward evil. The Bible view is 
 that man is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. 
 And experience tells him that he will shape himself 
 into further sin and ever deepening iniquity without 
 the smallest effort, without in the least intending it, 
 and in the most natural way in the world if he 
 simply let his life run. It is on this principle that, 
 completing the conception, the wicked are said 
 further in the Bible to be lost. They are not really 
 lost as yet, but they are on the sure way to it. The 
 bias of their lives is in full action. There is no drag 
 on anywhere. The natural tendencies are having 
 it all their own way ; and although the victims may 
 be quite unconscious that all this is going on, it is 
 patent to every one who considers even the natural 
 bearings of the case that " the end of these things 
 is Death." When we see a man fall from the top 
 of a five-storey house, we say the man is lost. We 
 say that before he has fallen a foot; for the same 
 principle that made him fall the one foot will un- 
 doubtedly make him complete the descent by falling 
 other eighty or ninety feet. So that he is a dead 
 man, or a lost man from the very first. The gravi- 
 tation of sin in a human soul acts precisely in the 
 same way. Gradually, with gathering momentum 
 it sinks a man further and further from God and 
 
DEGENERATION. 103 
 
 righteousness, and lands him, by the sheer action of 
 a natural law, in the hell of a neglected life. 
 
 But the lesson is not less clear from analogy. 
 Apart even from the law of Degeneration, apart 
 from Reversion to Type, there is in every living 
 organism a law of Death. We are wont to imagine 
 that Nature is full of Life. In reality it is full of 
 Death. One cannot say it is natural for a plant to 
 live. Examine its nature fully, and you have to 
 admit that its natural tendency is to die. It is 
 kept from dying by a mere temporary endowment, 
 which gives it an ephemeral dominion over the 
 elements gives it power to utilize for a brief span 
 the rain, the sunshine, and the air. Withdraw this 
 temporary endowment for a moment and its true 
 nature is revealed. Instead of overcoming Nature it 
 is overcome. The very things which appeared to 
 minister to its growth and beauty now turn against 
 it and make it decay and die. The sun which 
 warmed it, withers it; the air and rain which 
 nourished it, rot it. It is the very forces which 
 we associate with life which, when their true nature 
 appears, are discovered to be really the ministers 
 of death. 
 
 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 
 
io 4 DEGENERATION. 
 
 the only way to keep out corruption, when life has 
 ebbed, is to keep out air. Life is merely a tempo- 
 rary suspension of these destructive powers ; and 
 this is truly one of the most accurate definitions 
 of life we have yet received " the sum total of the 
 functions which resist death." 
 
 Spiritual life, in like manner, is the sum total of 
 the functions which resist sin. The soul's atmosphere 
 is the daily trial, circumstance, and temptation of 
 the world. And as it is life alone which gives the 
 plant power to utilize the elements, and as, without 
 it, they utilize it, so it is the spiritual life alone 
 which gives the soul power to utilize temptation and 
 trial ; and without it they destroy the soul. How 
 shall we escape if we refuse to exercise these func- 
 tions in other words, if we neglect ? 
 
 This destroying process, observe, goes on quite 
 independently of God's judgment on sin. God's 
 judgment on sin is another and a more awful fact 
 of which this may be a part. But it is a distinct 
 fact by itself, which we can hold and examine 
 separately, that on purely natural principles the 
 soul that is left to itself unwatched, uncultivated, 
 unredeemed, must fall away into death by its own 
 nature. The soul that sinneth "it shall die." It 
 shall die, not necessarily because God passes sen- 
 tence of death upon it, but because it cannot help 
 
DEGENERATION. 105 
 
 dying. It has neglected " the functions which resist 
 death/' and has always been dying. The punish- 
 ment is in its very nature, and the sentence is being 
 gradually carried out all along the path of life by 
 ordinary processes which enforce the verdict with 
 the appalling faithfulness of law. 
 
 There is an affectation that religious truths lie 
 beyond the sphere of the comprehension which 
 serves men in ordinary things. This question at 
 least must be an exception. It lies as near the 
 natural as the spiritual. If it makes no impression 
 on a man to know that God will visit his iniquities 
 upon him, he cannot blind himself to the fact that 
 Nature will. Do we not all know what it is to be 
 punished by Nature for disobeying her ? We have 
 looked round the wards of a hospital, a prison, or 
 a madhouse, and seen there Nature at work squaring 
 her accounts with sin. And we knew as we looked 
 that if no Judge sat on the throne of heaven at 
 all there was a Judgment there, where an inexorable 
 Nature was crying aloud for justice, and carrying 
 out her heavy sentences for violated laws. 
 
 When God gave Nature the law into her own 
 Hands in this way, He seems to have given her 
 two rules upon which her sentences were to be based. 
 The one is formally enunciated in this sentence, 
 " WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH THAT SHALL HE 
 
io6 DEGENERA TION. 
 
 ALSO REAP." The other is informally expressed in 
 this, "IF WE NEGLECT HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE?" 
 
 The first is the positive law, and deals with sins 
 of commission. The other, which we are now dis- 
 cussing, is the negative, and deals with sins of 
 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 be so unwise, so regardless of ourselves, 
 of public opinion, as to sow corruption. It does 
 not say, if we sow tares we shall reap tares. We 
 might 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, we shall take nothing 
 out. If we neglect to cultivate in summer, how 
 shall we escape starving in winter ? 
 
 Now the Bible raises this question, but does not 
 answer it because it is too obvious to need answer- 
 ing. How shall we escape if we neglect ? The 
 answer is, we cannot. In the nature of things we 
 cannot. We cannot escape any more than a man 
 can escape drowning who falls into the sea and 
 has neglected to learn to swim. In the nature of 
 things he cannot escape nor can he escape who has 
 neglected the great salvation. 
 
 Now why should such fatal consequences follow 
 
DEGENERATION. 107 
 
 a simple process like neglect ? The popular im- 
 pression is that a man, to be what is called lost, must 
 be an open and notorious sinner. He must be one 
 tvho has abandoned all that is good and pure in life, 
 and sown to the flesh with all his might and main. 
 But this principle goes further. It says simply, 
 "If we neglect." Any one may see the reason 
 why a notoriously wicked person should not escape ; 
 but why should not all the rest of us escape ? What 
 is to hinder people who are not notoriously wicked 
 escaping people who never sowed anything in par- 
 ticular? Why is it such a sin to sow nothing in 
 particular ? 
 
 There must be some hidden and vital relation 
 between these three words, Salvation, Neglect, and 
 Escape some reasonable, essential, and indissoluble 
 connection. Why are these words so linked together 
 as to weight this clause with all the authority and 
 solemnity of a sentence of death ? 
 
 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 to have had this. It is the broader word, 
 therefore, and includes not only forgiveness of sin 
 
io8 DEGENERATION. 
 
 but salvation or deliverance from the downward bias 
 of the soul. It takes in that whole process of rescue 
 from the power of sin and selfishness that should 
 be going on from day to day in every human life 
 We have seen that 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, paralysing will. This is the 
 active destroying principle, or Sin. Now to counter- 
 act this, God has discovered to us another principle 
 which will stop this drifting process in the soul, 
 steer it round, and make it drift the other way. 
 This is the active saving principle, or Salvation. If 
 a man find the first of these powers furiously at 
 work within him, dragging his whole life downward 
 to destruction, there is only one way to escape his 
 fate to take resolute hold of the upward power, 
 and be borne by it to the opposite goal. And as 
 this second power is the only one in the universe 
 which has the slightest real effect upon the first, 
 how shall a man escape if he neglect it ? To neglect 
 it is to cut off the only possible chance of escape. 
 In declining this he is simply abandoning himself 
 with his eyes open to that other and terrible energy 
 which is already there, and which, in the natural 
 course of things, is bearing him every moment 
 further and further from escape, 
 
DEGENERATION. 109 
 
 From the very nature of Salvation, therefore, it is 
 plain that the only thing necessary to make it of no 
 effect is neglect. Hence the Bible could not fail to 
 lay strong emphasis on a word so vital. It was not 
 necessary for it to say, how shall we escape if we 
 trample upon the great salvation, or doubt, or de- 
 spise, or reject it. A man who has been poisoned 
 only need neglect the antidote and he will die. It 
 makes no difference whether he dashes it on the 
 ground, or pours it out of the window, or sets it down 
 by his bedside, and stares at it all the time he is 
 dying. He will die just the same, whether he de- 
 stroys it in a passion, or coolly refuses to have any- 
 thing to do with it. And as a matter of fact probably 
 most deaths, spiritually, are gradual dissolutions of 
 the last class rather than rash suicides of the first. 
 
 This, then, is the effect of neglecting salvation 
 from the side of salvation itself; and the conclusion 
 is that from the very nature of salvation escape is out 
 of the question. Salvation is a definite process. If 
 a man refuse to submit himself to that process, 
 clearly he cannot have the benefits of it. As many 
 as received Him to them gave He power to become tJie 
 sens of God. He does not avail himself of this 
 power. It may be mere carelessness or apathy. 
 Nevertheless the neglect is fatal. He cannot escape 
 because he will not 
 
no DEGENERATION. 
 
 Turn now to another aspect of the case to the 
 effect upon the soul itself. Neglect does more for 
 the soul than make it miss salvation. It despoils 
 it of its capacity for salvation. Degeneration in 
 the spiritual sphere involves primarily the impairing 
 of the faculties of salvation and ultimately the loss 
 of them. It really means that the very soul itself 
 becomes piecemeal destroyed until the very capacity 
 for God and righteousness is gone. 
 
 The soul, in its highest sense, is a vast capacity for 
 God. It is like a curious chamber added on to being, 
 and somehow involving being, a chamber with elastic 
 and contractile walls, which can be expanded, with 
 God as its guest, illimitably, but which without God 
 shrinks and shrivels until every vestige of the Divine 
 is gone, and God's image is left without God's Spirit. 
 One cannot call what is left a soul ; it is a shrunken, 
 useless organ, a capacity sentenced to death by dis- 
 use, which droops as a withered hand by the side, 
 and cumbers nature like a rotted branch. Nature 
 has her revenge upon neglect as well as upon extra- 
 vagance. Misuse, with her, is as mortal a sin as abuse. 
 
 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 
 
DEGENERATION. in 
 
 
 live in darkness, she argues, eyes are obviously a 
 superfluous function. By neglecting them these 
 animals made it clear they do not want them. 
 And as one of Nature's fixed principles is that 
 nothing shall exist in vain, the eyes are presently 
 taken away, or reduced to a rudimentary state. 
 There are fishes also which have had to pay the 
 same terrible forfeit for having made their abode in 
 dark caverns where eyes can never be required. And 
 in exactly the same way the spiritual eye must die 
 and lose its power by purely natural law if the soul 
 choose to walk in darkness rather than in light. 
 
 This is the meaning of the favourite paradox of 
 Christ, "From him that hath not shall be taken 
 away even that which he hath ; " " take therefore the 
 talent from him." The religious faculty is a talent, 
 the most splendid and sacred talent we possess. Yet 
 it is subject to the natural conditions 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 not allow him to have it. Al- 
 though it is lying there rolled up in the darkness, not 
 conspicuously affecting any one, still God will not 
 allow him to keep it. He will not allow him to keep 
 it any more than Nature would allow the fish to 
 keep their eyes. Therefore, He says, "take the 
 talent from him." And Nature does it. 
 
1 1 2 DE GENERA TION. 
 
 This man's crime was simply neglect "thou 
 wicked and slothful servant." It was a wasted life 
 a life which failed in the holy stewardship of itself. 
 Such a life is a peril to all who cross its path. De- 
 generation compasses Degeneration. It is only a 
 character which is itself developing that can aid the 
 Evolution of the world and so fulfil the end of life. 
 For this high usury each of our lives, however small 
 may seem our capital, was given us by God. And it 
 is just the men whose capital seems small who need 
 to choose the best investments. It is significant that 
 it was the man who had only one talent who was 
 guilty of neglecting it. Men with ten talents, men of 
 large gifts and burning energies, either direct their 
 powers nobly and usefully, or misdirect them irre- 
 trievably. It is those who belong to the rank and 
 file of life who need this warning most. Others have 
 an abundant store and sow to the spirit 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 to sow at all. The interest on our 
 talent would be so small that we excuse ourselves 
 with the reflection that it is not worth while. 
 
 It is no objection to all this to say that we are 
 unconscious of this neglect or misdirection of our 
 powers. That is the darkest feature in the case. If 
 there were uneasiness there might be hope, If there 
 
DEGENERA TION. 113 
 
 were, somewhere about our soul, a something which 
 was not gone to sleep like all the rest ; if there were 
 a contending force anywhere ; if we would let even 
 that work instead of neglecting it, it would gain 
 strength from hour to hour, and waken up one at a 
 time each torpid and dishonoured faculty till our 
 whole nature became alive with strivings against self, 
 and every avenue was open wide for God. But the 
 apathy, the numbness of the soul, what can be said of 
 such a symptom but that it means the creeping on 
 of death ? There are accidents in which the victims 
 feel no pain. They are well and strong they think. 
 But they are dying. And if you ask the surgeon by 
 their side what makes him give this verdict, he will 
 say it is this numbness over the frame which tells how 
 some of the parts have lost already the very capacity 
 for life. 
 
 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, without anomaly, may kiss his 
 Lord. This invisible consumption, like its fell ana- 
 logue in the natural world, may even keep its victim 
 beautiful while slowly slaying it. When one ex- 
 
 I 
 
1 14 DEGENERA TION. 
 
 amines the little Crustacea which have inhabited for 
 centuries the lakes of the Mammoth Cave of Ken- 
 tucky, one is at first astonished 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 colour on the 
 whole blanched body ; and these, even to the casual 
 observer, certainly represent well-defined organs of 
 vision. But what do they with eyes in these Sty- 
 gian waters? There reigns an everlasting night, 
 Is the law for once at fault ? A swift incision with 
 the scalpel, a glance with a lens, and their secret is 
 betrayed. The eyes are a mockery. Externally 
 they are organs of vision the front of the eye is 
 perfect ; behind, there is nothing but a mass of ruins. 
 The optic nerve is a shrunken, atrophied and insen- 
 sate thread. These animals have organs of vision, 
 and yet they have no vision. They have eyes, but 
 they see not. 
 
 Exactly what Christ said of men : They had eyes ; 
 but no vision. And the reason is the same. It is 
 the simplest problem of natural history. The Crus- 
 tacea of the Mammoth Cave have chosen to abide in 
 darkness. Therefore they have become fitted for it. 
 By refusing to see they have waived the right to see, 
 And Nature has grimly humoured them. Nature had 
 to do it by her very constitution. It is her defence 
 
DEGENERATION. 115 
 
 against waste that decay of faculty should imme- 
 diately follow disuse of function. He that hath 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 must be. There are some men to 
 whom it is true that there is no God. They cannot 
 see God because they have no eye. They have only 
 an abortive organ, atrophied by neglect. 
 
 All this, it is commonplace again to insist, is not 
 the effect of neglect when we die, but while we live. 
 The process is in full career and operation now. It 
 is useless projecting consequences into the future 
 when the effects may be measured now. We are 
 always practising these little deceptions upon our- 
 selves, postponing the consequences of our misdeeds 
 as if they were to culminate some other day about 
 the time of death. It makes us sin with a lighter 
 hand to run an account with retribution, as it were, 
 and delay the reckoning time with God. But every 
 day is a reckoning day. Every soul is a Book of 
 Judgment, and Nature, as a recording angel, marks 
 there every sin. As all will be judged by the great 
 Judge some day, all are judged by Nature now. The 
 sin of yesterday, as part of its penalty, has the sin of 
 to-day. All follow us in silent retribution on out 
 past, and go with us to the grave. We cannot cheat 
 
1 1 6 DEC EN ERA TION. 
 
 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 somewhere to 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. 
 And the powers of sin, to the exact strength that we 
 have developed them, nearing their dreadful culmina- 
 tion with every breath we draw, are here, within us, 
 now. The souls of some men are already honey- 
 combed through and through with the eternal con- 
 sequences of neglect, so that taking the natural and 
 rational view of their case just now, it is simply 
 inconceivable that there is any escape just now. 
 What a fearful thing it 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 Laws of Nature." 
 
 Whatever hopes of a " heaven " a neglected soul 
 may have, can be shown to be an ignorant and 
 delusive dream. How is the soul to escape to 
 heaven if it has neglected for a lifetime the means 
 of escape from the world and self? And where is 
 the capacity for heaven to come from if it be not 
 
DEC EN ERA TION. 1 1 7 
 
 developed on earth ? Where, indeed, is even the 
 smallest spiritual appreciation of God and heaven to 
 come from when so little of spirituality has ever been 
 known or manifested here ? If every Godward 
 aspiration of the soul has been allowed to become 
 extinct, and every inlet that was open to heaven to 
 be choked, and every talent for religious love and 
 trust to have been persistently neglected and ignored, 
 where are the faculties to come from that would even 
 find the faintest relish in such things as God and 
 heaven give ? 
 
 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 emer- 
 gence of the higher being from the lower, and 
 nothing less, It means the gradual putting off of 
 all that cannot enter the higher state, or heaven, and 
 simultaneously the putting on of Christ. It involves 
 the slow completing of the soul and the development 
 of the capacity for God. 
 
 Should any one object that from this scientific 
 standpoint the opposite of salvation is annihilation, 
 the answer is at hand. From this standpoint 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 
 
1 18 DEGENERA TION. 
 
 for anything startling or mysterious. It is a definite 
 opening along certain lines which are definitely 
 marked by God, which begin at the Cross of Christ 
 and lead direct to Him. Each man in the silence of 
 his own soul must work out this salvation for himself 
 with fear and trembling with fear, realizing the 
 momentous issues of his task ; with trembling, lest 
 before the tardy work be done the voice of Death 
 should summon him to stop. 
 
 What these lines are may, in closing, be indicated 
 in a word. The true problem of the spiritual life 
 may be said to be, do the opposite of Neglect. 
 Whatever this is, do it, and you shall escape. It will 
 just mean that you are so to cultivate the soul that 
 all its powers will open out to God, and in beholding 
 God be drawn away from sin. The idea really is to 
 develop among the ruins of the old a new " creature " 
 a new creature which, while the old is suffering 
 Degeneration from Neglect, is gradually to unfold, to 
 escape away and develop on spiritual lines to spiri- 
 tual beauty and strength. And as our conception of 
 spiritual being must be taken simply from natural 
 being, our ideas of the lines along which the new 
 religious nature is to run must be borrowed from the 
 known lines of the old. 
 
 There is, for example, a Sense of Sight in the 
 religious nature. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, 
 
DEGENERA TION. 1 19 
 
 and you never miss it. You simply see nothing. 
 But develop it and you see God. And the line 
 along which to develop it is known to us. Become 
 pure in heart. The pure in heart shall see God. 
 Here, then, is one opening for soul-culture the 
 avenue through purity of heart to the spiritual seeing 
 of God. 
 
 Then there is a Sense of Sound. Neglect this, 
 leave it undeveloped, and you never miss it. You 
 simply hear nothing. Develop it, and you hear God. 
 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 calleth them by 
 name." Here, then, is another opportunity for the 
 culture of the soul a gateway through the Shep- 
 herd's fold to hear the Shepherd's voice. 
 
 And there is a Sense of Touch to be acquired 
 such a sense as the woman had who touched the 
 hem of Christ's garment, that wonderful electric 
 touch called faith, which moves the very heart of 
 God. 
 
 And there is a Sense of Taste a spiritual hunger 
 after God ; a something within which tastes and sees 
 that He is good. And there is the Talent for Inspira- 
 tion. Neglect that, and all the scenery of the spiri- 
 tual world is flat and frozen. But cultivate it, and 
 it penetrates the whole soul with sacred fire, and 
 
DEGENERATION. 
 
 illuminates creation with God. And last of all there 
 is the great capacity for Love, even for the love of 
 God the expanding capacity for feeling more and 
 more its height and depth, its length and breadth. 
 Till that is felt no man can really understand that 
 word, "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 ? 1 
 
 1 For the scientific basis of this spiritual law the following 
 works may be consulted ; 
 
 ''The Origin of Specie<j." 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 Func- 
 tions-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." Karl Semper London : C. Kegan Paul Co. 1881. 
 
GROWTH. 
 
" Is not the evidence #f Ease on the very front of all tht 
 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 ' f It is not the weariness of mortality but 
 the strength of divinity ', which we have to recognise in all 
 mighty things; and that is just what we now never recognise, 
 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. 
 

 GROWTH. 
 
 "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 of Jesus is, that He not only made 
 the illustration, but made the lilies. It is like an 
 inventor describing his own machine. He made the 
 lilies and He made me both on the same broad 
 principle. Both together, man and flower, He 
 planted deep in the Providence of God ; but as men 
 are dull at studying themselves He points to this 
 companion-phenomenon to teach us how to live a 
 free and natural life, a life which God will unfold 
 for us, without our anxiety, as He unfolds the 
 flower. For Christ's words are not a general appeal 
 to consider nature. Men are not to consider the 
 lilies simply to admire their beauty, to dream over 
 the delicate strength and grace of stem and leaf. 
 The point they were to consider was how they grew 
 how without anxiety or care the flower woke 
 
124 GROWTH. 
 
 into loveliness, how without weaving these leaves 
 were woven, how without toiling these complex 
 tissues spun themselves, and how without any effort 
 or friction the whole slowly came ready-made from 
 the loom of God in its more than Solomon-like 
 glory. * So/ He says, making the application 
 beyond dispute, i you care-worn, anxious men 
 must grow. You, too, need take no thought for 
 your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink 
 or what ye shall put on. For if God so clothe the 
 grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow 
 is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe 
 you, O ye of little faith ? ' 
 
 This nature-lesson was a great novelty in its day ; 
 but all men now who have even a " little faith " have 
 learned this Christian secret of a composed life. 
 Apart even from the parable of the lily, the failures 
 of the past have taught most of us the folly of dis- 
 quieting ourselves in vain, and we have given up 
 the idea that by taking thought we can add a cubit 
 to our stature. 
 
 But no sooner has our life settled down to this 
 calm trust in God than a new and graver anxiety 
 begins. This time it is not for the body we are 
 in travail, but for the soul. For the temporal life 
 we have considered the lilies, but how is the 
 spiritual life to grow? How are we to become 
 
GROWTH. 125 
 
 better men ? How are we to grow in grace ? By 
 what thought shall we add the cubits to the spiritual 
 stature and reach the fulness of the Perfect Man ? 
 And because we know ill how to do this, the old 
 anxiety comes back again and our inner life is once 
 more an agony of conflict and remorse. After all, 
 we have but transferred our anxious thoughts from 
 the body to the soul. Our efforts after Christian 
 growth seem only a succession of failures, and in- 
 stead of rising into the beauty of holiness our life 
 is a daily heartbreak and humiliation. 
 
 Now the reason of this is very plain. We have 
 forgotten the parable of the lily. Violent efforts 
 to grow are right in earnestness, but wholly wrong 
 in principle. There is but one principle of growth 
 both for the natural and spiritual, for animal and 
 plant, for body and soul. For all growth is an 
 organic thing. And the principle of growing in 
 grace is once more this, " Consider the lilies how 
 they grow? 
 
 In seeking to extend the analogy from the body to 
 the soul there are two things about the lilies' growth, 
 two characteristics of all growth, on which one must 
 fix attention. These are, 
 
 First, Spontaneousness. 
 
 Second, Mysteriousness. 
 
 I. Spontaneousness. There are three lines along 
 
126 GROWTH. 
 
 which one may seek for evidence of the spontaneous- 
 ness 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, automatically, spontaneously, 
 without trying, without fretting, without thinking. 
 Applied^ in any direction, to plant, to animal, to 
 the body or to the squl^ this law holds^ A boy 
 grows, for example, without trying. One or two 
 simple conditions are fulfilled, and the growth goes 
 on. He thinks probably as little about the con- 
 dition as about the result ; he fulfils the conditions 
 by habit, the result follows by nature. Both pro- 
 cesses go steadily on from year to year apart from 
 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 can tell me how 
 growth may be stunted or impaired, but the process 
 itself is recognised as beyond control one of the 
 few, and therefore very significant, things which 
 Nature keeps in her own hands. No physician of 
 souls, in like manner, has any prescription for 
 spiritual growth. It is the question he is most 
 often asked and most often answers wrongly. HP 
 may prescribe more earnestness, more prayer, more 
 self-denial, or more Christian work. These are pre- 
 
GROWTH. 127 
 
 scriptions for something, but npt^ for growth. Not 
 that they may not encourage growth ; but the soul 
 grows as the lily grows, without trying,) without 
 fretting, without ever_tjhinking. Manuals of devotion, 
 with complicated rules for getting on in the 
 Christian life, would do well sometimes to return 
 to the sirnplicity: of nature ; and earnest souls who 
 are attempting sanctification by struggle instead of 
 sanctification by faith might be spared much humili- 
 ation by learning the botany of the Sermon on thej 
 -Mount There can indeed be no other 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 the sun rise. ^ -- 
 
 Another argument for the spontaneousness of 
 growth is universal experience. A boy not only 
 grows without trying, but he cannot grow if he 
 tries. No man by taking thought has ever added 
 a cubit to his stature; nor has any man by mere 
 working at his soul ever approached nearer to the 
 stature of the Lord Jesus. The stature . of the 
 Lord Jesus was not itself reached by work, and 
 he who thinks to approach its mystical height by 
 anxious effort is really receding from it Christ's 
 life unfolded itself from a divine germ, planted 
 centrally in His nature, which grew as naturally as 
 a flower from a bud. This flower may be imitated ; 
 
128 GROWTH. 
 
 but one can always tell an artificial flower. The 
 human form may be copied in wax, yet somehow 
 one never fails to detect the difference. And this 
 precisely is the difference between a native growth 
 of Christian principle and the moral copy of it; 
 The one is natural, the other mechanical. The 
 one is a growth, the other an accretion. Now this, 
 according to modern biology, is the fundamental 
 distinction between the living and the not living, 
 between an organism and a crystal. The living 
 organism grows,_the dead crystal increases. The 
 first grows vitally from within, the last adds new 
 particles from the outside. The whole difference be- 
 tween the Christian and the moralist lies here. The 
 Christian works from the centre, the moralist from 
 the circumference. The one is an organism, in the 
 centre of which is planted by the living God a 
 living germ. The other is a crystal, very beautiful 
 it may be ; but only a crystal it wants the vital 
 principle of growth. 
 
 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 Christlike mind, character 
 
GROWTH. 129 
 
 
 and life. Morality is on the way to this perfection ; 
 it may go a considerable distance towards it, but 
 it can never reach it. Only Life can do that. It 
 requires something with enormous power of move- 
 ment, of growth, of overcoming obstacles, to attain 
 the perfect. Therefore the man who has within 
 himself this great formative agent, Life, is nearer 
 the end than the man who has morality alone. 
 The latter can never reach perfection ; the former 
 must. For the Life must develop out according to 
 its type ; and being a germ of the Christ-life, it 
 must unfold into a Christ. Morality, at the utmost, 
 only develops the character in one or two direc- 
 tions. It may perfect a single virtue here and 
 there, but it cannot perfect all. And especially it 
 fails always to give that rounded harmony of parts, 
 that perfect tune to the whole orchestra, which is 
 the marked characteristic of life. Perfect life is 
 not merely the possessing of perfect functions, but 
 of perfect functions perfectly adjusted to each other 
 and all conspiring to a single result, the perfect 
 working of the whole organism. It is not said 
 that the character will develop in all its fulness in 
 this life. That were a time too short for an Evolu- 
 tion so magnificent. In this world only the corn- 
 less ear is seen ; sometimes only the small yet still 
 prophetic blade. The sneer at the godly man for 
 
 K 
 
130 GROWTH. 
 
 his imperfections is ill-judged. A blade is a small 
 thing. At first it grows very near the earth. It is 
 often soiled and crushed and downtrodden. But it 
 is a living thing. That great dead stone beside it 
 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 automatic process, it is all but super- 
 fluous to seek a third line of argument from Scrip- 
 ture. Growth there is always described in the 
 language of physiology. The regenerate soul is a 
 new creature. The Christian is a new man in 
 Christ Jesus. He adds the cubits to his stature 
 just as the old man does. He is rooted and built 
 up in Christ ; he abides in the vine, and so abiding, 
 not toiling or spinning, brings forth fruit. The 
 Christian in short, like the poet, is born not made ; 
 and the fruits of his character are not manufactured 
 things but living things, things which have grown 
 from the secret germ, the fruits of the living Spirit. 
 They are not the produce of this climate, but 
 exotics from a sunnier land. 
 
 II. But, secondly, besides this Spontaneousness 
 there is this other great characteristic of Growth 
 Mysteriousness. Upon this quality depends the fact, 
 probably, that so few men ever fathom its real 
 
GROWTH. 131 
 
 character. We are most unspiritual always in deal- 
 ing with the simplest spiritual things. A lily grows 
 mysteriously, pushing up its solid weight of stem 
 and leaf in the teeth of gravity. Shaped into 
 beauty by secret and invisible fingers, the flower 
 develops we know not how. But we do not wonder 
 at it Every day the thing is done ; it is Nature, it 
 is God. We are spiritual enough at least to under- 
 stand that. But when the soul rises slowly above 
 the world, pushing up its delicate virtues in the teeth 
 of sin, shaping itself mysteriously into the image 
 of Christ, we deny 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, but none 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 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 ; the peculiarity of it is that 
 you cannot account for it. Mysteriousness, as 
 
3 2 GROWTH. 
 
 Mozley has well observed, is "the test of spiritual 
 birth." And this was Christ's test. " The wind 
 bloweth where it listeth. Thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or 
 whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the 
 Spirit." The test of spirituality is that you cannot 
 tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. If you 
 can tell, if you can account for it on philosophical 
 principles, on the doctrine of influence, on strength 
 of will, on a favourable environment, it is not growth. 
 It may be so far a success, it may be a perfectly 
 honest, even remarkable, and praiseworthy imitation, 
 but it is not the real thing. The fruits are wax, the 
 flowers artificial you can tell whence it cometh and 
 whither it goeth. 
 
 The conclusion is, then, that the Christian is a unique 
 phenomenon. You cannot 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 an ordinary man of the world what he 
 thinks and what he does, his whole standard of duty 
 is taken from the society in which he lives. It is a 
 borrowed standard : he is as good as other people 
 are ; he does, in the way of duty, what is generally 
 considered proper and becoming among those with 
 whom his lot is thrown. He reflects established 
 opinion on such points. He follows its lead. His 
 
GROWTH. 133 
 
 aims and objects in life again are taken from tiie 
 world around him, and from its dictation. What it 
 considers honourable, worth having, advantageous 
 and good, he thinks so too and pursues it. His 
 motives all come from a visible quarter. It would be 
 absurd to say that there is any mystery in such a 
 character as this, because it is formed from a known 
 external influence the influence of social opinion 
 and the voice of the world. * Whence such a char- 
 acter cometh ' we see ; we venture to say that the 
 source and origin of it is open and palpable, and we 
 know it just as we know the physical causes of many 
 common facts." 
 
 Then there is the other. "There is a certain 
 character and disposition of mind of which it is true 
 to say that ' thou canst not tell whence it cometh or 
 whither it goeth.' . . . There are those who stand 
 out from among the crowd, which reflects merely the 
 atmosphere of feeling and standard of society around 
 it, with an impress upon them which bespeaks a 
 heavenly birth. . . . Now, when we see one of 
 those characters, it is a question which we ask our- 
 selves, How has the person become possessed of it ? 
 Has he caught it from society around him ? That 
 cannot be, because it is wholly different from that 
 of the world around him. Has he caught it from 
 the inoculation of crowds and masses, as the mere 
 
134 GROWTH. 
 
 religious zealot catches his character ? That cannot 
 be either, for the type is altogether different from 
 that which masses of men, under enthusiastic impulses, 
 exhibit. There is nothing gregarious in this char- 
 acter ; it is the individual's own ; it is not borrowed, 
 it is not a reflection of any fashion or tone of the 
 world outside ; it rises up from some fount within, 
 and it is a creation of which the text says, We know 
 not whence it cometh." 1 
 
 Now we have all met these two characters the 
 one eminently respectable, upright, virtuous, a trifle 
 cold perhaps, and generally, when critically examined, 
 revealing somehow the mark of the tool ; the other 
 with God's breath still upon it, an inspiration ; not 
 more virtuous, but differently virtuous ; not more 
 humble, but different, wearing the meek and quiet 
 spirit artlessly as to the manner born. The other- 
 worldliness of such a character is the thing that strikes 
 you ; you are not prepared for what it will do or say 
 or become next, for it moves from a far-off centre, and 
 in spite of its transparency and sweetness, that pre- 
 sence fills you always with awe. A man never feels 
 the discord of his own life, never hears the jar of the 
 machinery by which he tries to manufacture his own 
 good points, till he has stood in the stillness of such 
 
 1 University Sermons, pp. 234-241. 
 
GROWTH. 
 
 a presence. Then he discerns the difference between 
 growth and work. He has considered the lilies, how 
 they grow. 
 
 We have now seen that spiritual growth is a 
 process maintained and secured by a spontaneous 
 and mysterious inward principle. It is a spontan- 
 eous 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 destina- 
 tion, for we cannot tell whence it goeth. The whole 
 process therefore transcends us ; we do not work, we 
 are taken in hand " it is God which worketh in us, 
 both to will and to do of His good pleasure." We 
 do not plan we are "created in Christ Jesus unto 
 good works, which God hath before ordained that 
 we should walk in them." 
 
 There may be an obvious objection to all this. It 
 takes away all conflict from the Christian life? It 
 makes man, does it not, mere clay in the hands of 
 the potter? It crushes the old character to make 
 a new one, and destroys man's responsibility for his 
 own soul ? 
 
 Now we are not concerned here in once more 
 striking the time-honoured "balance between faith 
 and works." We are considering how lilies grow, 
 and in a specific connection, namely, to discover the 
 attitude of mind which the Christian should preserve 
 
136 GROWTH. 
 
 regarding his spiritual growth. That attitude, pri- 
 marily, is to be free from care. We are not lodging 
 a plea for inactivity of the spiritual energies, but for 
 the tranquillity of the spiritual mind. Christ's protest 
 is not against work, but against anxious thought; 
 and rather, therefore, than complement the lesson 
 by showing the other side, we take the risk of still 
 further extending the plea in the original direction 
 
 What is the relation, to recur again to analogy, 
 between growth and work in a boy ? Consciously, 
 there is no relation at all. The boy never thinks of 
 connecting his work with his growth. Work in fact 
 is one thing and growth another, and it is so in the 
 spiritual life. If it be asked therefore, Is the Chris- 
 tian wrong in these ceaseless and agonizing efforts 
 after growth ? the answer is, Yes, he is quite wrong, 
 or at least, he is quite mistaken. When a boy takes 
 a meal or denies himself indigestible things, he does 
 not say, "All this will minister to my growth"; or 
 when he runs a race he does not say, "This will 
 help the next cubit of my stature." It may or it 
 may not be true that these things will help his 
 stature, but, if he thinks of this, his idea of growth 
 is morbid. And this is the point we are dealing 
 with. His anxiety here is altogether irrelevant and 
 superfluous. Nature is far more bountiful than we 
 think. When she gives us energy she asks none 
 
GROWTH. 137 
 
 of it back to expend on our own growth. She will 
 attend to that. " Give your work," she says, " and 
 your anxiety to others ; trust me to add the cubits 
 to your stature." If God is adding to our spiritual 
 stature, unfolding the new nature within us, it is 
 a mistake to keep twitching at the petals with our 
 coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative 
 Hand alone. " It is God which giveth the increase.' 1 
 Vet we never know how little we have learned of the 
 fundamental principle of Christianity till we discover 
 how much we are all bent on supplementing God's 
 free grace. If God is spending work upon a Chris- 
 tian, let him be still and know that it is God. And 
 if he wants work, he will find it there in the being 
 still. 
 
 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 many more cubits to show 
 for our stature. It is with these conditions that the 
 personal work of the Christian is chiefly concerned. 
 Observe for a moment what they are, and their 
 exact relation. For its growth the plant needs heat, 
 light, air, and moisture. A man, therefore, must go 
 
138 GROWTH. 
 
 in search of these, or their spiritual equivalents, and 
 this is his work ? By no means. The Christian's 
 work is not yet. Does the plant go in search of its 
 conditions ? Nay, the conditions come to the plant. 
 It no more manufactures the heat, light, air, and 
 moisture, than it manufactures its own stem. It 
 finds them all around it in Nature. It simply stands 
 still with its leaves spread out in unconscious prayer, 
 and Nature lavishes upon it these and all other 
 bounties, bathing it in sunshine, pouring the nourish- 
 ing air over and over it, reviving it graciously with 
 its nightly dew. Grace, too, is as free as the air. 
 The Lord God is a Sun. He is as the Dew to Israel. 
 A man has no more to manufacture these than 
 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 and has 
 his being in them. How then shall he go in search 
 of them ? Do not they rather go in search of him ? 
 Does he not feel how they press themselves upon 
 him? Does he not know how unweariedly they appeal 
 to him ? 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 being both supplied by Nature, 
 Che thing man has to do, the little junction left for 
 
GROWTH. 139 
 
 him to complete, is to apply the one to the other. 
 He manufactures nothing ; he earns nothing ; he 
 need be anxious for nothing ; his one duty is to be 
 in these conditions, to abide in them, to allow grace 
 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 a man forgets this. He struggles 
 to grow himself instead of struggling to get back 
 again into position. He makes the church into a 
 workshop when God meant it to be a beautiful 
 garden. And even in his closet, where only should 
 reign silence a silence as of the mountains whereon 
 the lilies grow is heard the roar and tumult of ma- 
 chinery. True, a man will often have to wrestle with 
 his God but not for growth. The Christian life is 
 a composed life. The Gospel is Peace. Yet the 
 most anxious people, in the world are Christians 
 Christians who misunderstand the nature of growth. 
 Life is a perpetual self-condemning because they are 
 not growing. And the effect is not only the loss of 
 tranquillity to the individual. The energies which 
 are meant to be spent on the work of Christ are 
 consumed in the soul's own fever. So long as the 
 Church's activities 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 armour, in 
 
140 GROWTH. 
 
 finding food and raiment, in seeking shelter. His 
 king provides these things that he may be the more 
 at liberty to fight his battles. So, for the soldier of 
 the Cross all is provided. His Government has 
 planned to leave him free for the Kingdom's work. 
 The problem of the Christian life finally is sim- 
 plified to this man has but to preserve the right 
 attitude. To abide in Christ, to be in position, that 
 is all. Much work is done on board a ship crossing 
 the Atlantic. Yet none of it is spent on making the 
 ship go. The sailor but harnesses his vessel to the 
 wind. He puts his sail and rudder in position, and 
 lo, the miracle is wrought. So everywhere God 
 creates, man utilizes. All the work of the world is 
 merely a taking advantage of energies already there. 1 
 God gives the wind, and the water, and the heat; 
 man but puts himself in the way of the wind, fixes 
 his water-wheel in the way of the river, puts his 
 piston in the way of the steam ; and so holding him- 
 self in position before God's Spirit, all the energies of 
 Omnipotence course within his soul. He is like a 
 tree planted by a river whose -leaf is green and whose 
 fruits fail not. Such is the deeper lesson to be 
 learned from considering the lily. It is the voice of 
 Nature echoing the whole evangel of Jesus, " Come 
 unto Me, and I will give you rest." 
 
 1 See BushnelFs "New Life." 
 
DEATH. 
 
" What co^ild be easier than to Jorm a catena of the most 
 philosophical defenders of Christianity^ who have exhausted 
 language in declaring the impotence of the unassisted intel- 
 lect ? 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 yoii will become 
 Atheists or Agnostics. We take you at your word j we 
 become Agnostics? 
 
 LESLIE STEPHEN. 
 
DEATH. 
 
 " To be carnally minded is Death." Paul. 
 
 " I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder often 
 at what they lose." Ruskin. 
 
 11 DEATH," wrote Faber, " is an unsurveyed land, an 
 unarranged Science." Poetry draws near Death 
 only to hover over it for a moment and withdraw 
 in terror. History knows it simply as a universal 
 fact. Philosophy finds it among the mysteries of 
 being, the one great mystery of being not. All 
 contributions to this dread 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 into this silent land, and at last 
 the world is confronted with a scientific treatment 
 of Death. Not that much is added to the old 
 conception, or much taken from it. What it is, this 
 certain Death with its uncertain issues, we know 
 as little as before. But we can define more clearly 
 and attach a narrower meaning to the momentous 
 symbol. 
 
144 DEATH. 
 
 The interest of the investigation here lies in 
 the fact that Death is one of the outstanding things 
 in Nature which has an acknowledged spiritual 
 equivalent. The prominence of the word in the 
 vocabulary of Revelation cannot be exaggerated. 
 Next to Life the most pregnant symbol in religion 
 is its antithesis, Death. And from the time that 
 " If thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die " was 
 heard in Paradise, this solemn word has been linked 
 with human interests of eternal moment. 
 
 Notwithstanding the unparalleled emphasis upon 
 this term in the Christian system, there is none 
 more feebly expressive to the ordinary mind. That 
 mystery which surrounds the word in the natural 
 world shrouds only too completely its spiritual im- 
 port. The reluctance which prevents men from 
 investigating the secrets of the King of Terrors is 
 for a certain length entitled to respect. But it has 
 left theology with only the vaguest materials to 
 construct a doctrine which, intelligently enforced, 
 ought to appeal to all men with convincing power 
 and lend the most effective argument to Christianity. 
 Whatever may have been its influence in the past, 
 its threat is gone for the modern world. The word 
 has grown weak. \ Ignorance has robbed the Grave 
 of all its terror, and platitude despoilt Ddath of 
 its sting. Death itself is ethically dead. Which 
 
DEA TH. 145 
 
 of us, for example, eaters fuiiy into the meaning 
 of words like these : " She that liveth in pleasure 
 is dead while she liveth " ? Who allows adequate 
 weight to the metaphor in the Pauline phrase, 
 " To be carnally minded is Death ; " or in this, 
 " The wages of sin is Death " ? Or what theology 
 has translated into the language of human life the 
 terrific practical import of " Dead in trespasses and 
 sins " ? To seek to make these phrases once more 
 real and burning ; to clothe time-worn formulae with 
 living truth ; to put the deepest ethical meaning into 
 the gravest symbol of Nature, and fill up with its 
 full consequence the darkest threat of Revelation 
 these are the objects before us now. 
 
 What, then, is Death? Is it possible to define 
 it and embody its essential meaning in an intelli- 
 gible proposition ? 
 
 The most recent and the most scientific attempt 
 to investigate Death we owe to the biological studies 
 of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In his search for the 
 meaning of Life the word Death crosses his path, 
 arid he turns aside for a moment to define it. Of 
 course what Death is depends upon what Life is. 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of Life, it is well 
 known, has been subjected to serious criticism. 
 While it has shed much light on many of the 
 phenomena of Life, it cannot be affirmed that it 
 
 L 
 
T46 DEATH. 
 
 has taken its place in science as the final solution 
 of the fundamental problem of biology. No defi- 
 nition of Life, indeed, that has yet appeared can 
 be said to be even approximately correct Its 
 mysterious quality evades us ; and we have to be 
 content with outward characteristics and accom- 
 paniments, leaving the thing itself an unsolved 
 riddle. At the same time Mr. Herbert Spencer's 
 masterly elucidation of the chief phenomena of 
 Life has placed philosophy and science under many 
 obligations, and in the paragraphs which follow we 
 shall have to incur a further debt on behalf of 
 religion. 
 
 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 number Assimilation, Waste, 
 Reproduction, and Growth. Nothing could be a 
 more interesting task than to point out the co- 
 relatives of these in the spiritual sphere, to show 
 in what ways the discharge of these functions 
 represent the true manifestations of spiritual life, 
 and how the failure to perform them constitutes 
 spiritual Death. But it will bring us more directly 
 
DEA 777. 147 
 
 to the specific subject before us if we follow rather 
 the newer biological lines of Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
 According to his definition, Life is " The definite 
 combination of heterogeneous changes, both simul- 
 taneous and successive, in correspondence with ex- 
 ternal co-existences and sequences," l or more shortly 
 "The continuous adjustment of internal relations 
 to external relations." 2 An example or two will 
 render these important statements at once intelli- 
 gible. 
 
 The essential characteristic of a living organism, 
 according to these definitions, is that it is in vital 
 connection with its general surroundings. A human 
 being, for instance, is in direct contact with the earth 
 and air, with all surrounding things, with the warmth 
 of the sun, with the music of birds, with the count- 
 less influences and activities of nature and of his 
 fellow-men. In biological language he is said thus 
 to be "in correspondence with his environment." He 
 is, that is to say, in active and vital connection with 
 them, influencing them possibly, but especially being 
 influenced by them. Now it is in virtue of this 
 correspondence that he is entitled to be called alive. 
 So long as he is in correspondence with any given 
 point of his environment, he lives. To keep up 
 
 * " Principles of Biology," vol. i. p. 74- 2 Ibid. 
 
148 DEATH 
 
 this correspondence is to keep up life. If his en- 
 vironment changes he must instantly adjust himself 
 to the change. And he continues living only as long 
 as he succeeds in adjusting himself to the "simulta- 
 neous and successive changes in his environment " as 
 these occur. What is meant by a change in his 
 environment may be understood from an example, 
 which will at the same time define more clearly 
 the intimacy of the relation between environment 
 and organism. Let us take the case of a civil-ser- 
 vant whose environment is a district in India. It 
 is a region subject to occasional and prolonged 
 droughts resulting in periodical famines. When such 
 a period of scarcity arises, he proceeds immediately 
 to adjust himself to this external change. Having 
 the power of locomotion, he may remove himself to 
 a more fertile district, or, possessing the means of 
 purchase, he may add to his old environment by 
 importation the " external relations " necessary to 
 continued life. But if from any cause he fails to 
 adjust himself to the altered circumstances, his body 
 is thrown out of correspondence with his environ- 
 ment, his "internal relations " are no longer adjusted 
 to his "external relations," and his life must, cease. 
 In ordinary circumstances, and in health, the hu- 
 inan organism is in thorough correspondence with its 
 surroundings ; but when any part of the organism by 
 
DEATH. 149 
 
 disease or accident is thrown out of correspondence, 
 it is in that relation dead. 
 
 This Death, this want of correspondence, may be 
 either partial or complete. 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 certain number 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 still exist, but they are beyond the 
 limit of his correspondence. In relation to these 
 things therefore he is dead. In one sense it might 
 be said that it was the environment which played 
 him false ; in another, that it was his own organiza- 
 tion 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 with a part of his environ- 
 ment by some physical infirmity. Let it be that by 
 disease or accident he has been deprived of the use 
 of his ears. The deaf man, in virtue of this imper- 
 fection, is thrown out of rapport with a large and 
 well-defined part of the environment, namely, its 
 sounds. With regard to that " external relation," 
 therefore, he is no longer living. Part of him may 
 
ISO DEATH. 
 
 truly be held to be insensible or *' Dead." A man 
 who is also blind is thrown out of correspondence 
 with another large part of his environment. The 
 beauty of sea and sky, the forms of cloud and moun- 
 tain, the features and gestures of friends, are to him 
 as if they were not. They are there, solid and real, 
 but not to him ; he is still further " Dead." Next, 
 let it be conceived, the subtle finger of cerebral dis- 
 ease lays hold of him. His whole brain is affected, 
 and the sensory nerves, the medium of communica- 
 tion with the environment, cease altogether to ac- 
 quaint him with what is doing in the outside world. 
 The outside 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 less alive. " Were the 
 animal frame not the complicated machine we have 
 seen it to be, death might come as a simple and 
 gradual dissolution, the ' sans everything ' being the 
 last stage of the successive loss of fundamental 
 powers." 1 But finally some important part of the 
 mere animal framework that remains breaks down. 
 The correlation with the other parts is very intimate, 
 and the stoppage of correspondence with one means 
 an interference with the work of the rest. Some- 
 thing central has snapped, and all are thrown out of 
 
 1 Foster's " Physiology/' p. 642. 
 
DEATH. IS* 
 
 work. The lungs refuse to correspond with the air, 
 the heart with the blood. There is now no corre- 
 spondence whatever with environment the thing, for 
 it is now a thing, is Dead. 
 
 This then is Death; "part of the framework breaks 
 down," " something has snapped " these phrases by 
 which we describe the phases of death yield their 
 full meaning. They are different ways of saying that 
 ;< correspondence " has ceased. And the scientific 
 meaning of Death now becomes clearly intelligible. 
 Dying is that breakdown in an organism which 
 throws it out of correspondence with some necessary 
 part of the environment. Death is the result pro- 
 duced, the want of correspondence. We do not say 
 that this is all that is involved. But this is the root 
 idea of Death Failure to adjust internal relations 
 to external relations, failure to repair the broken 
 inward connection sufficiently to enable it to corre- 
 spond again with the old surroundings. These pre- 
 liminary statements may be fitly closed with the 
 words of Mr. Herbert Spencer : " Death by natural 
 decay occurs because in old age the relations be- 
 tween assimilation, oxidation, and genesis of force 
 going on in the organism gradually fall out of corre- 
 spondence with the relations between oxygen and 
 food and absorption of heat by the environment 
 Death from disease arises either when the organism 
 
152 DEATH. 
 
 is congenitally defective in its power to balance the 
 ordinary external actions by the ordinary internal 
 actions, or when there has taken place some un- 
 usual external action to which there was no answer- 
 ing internal action. Death by accident implies some 
 neighbouring mechanical changes of which the causes 
 are either unnoticed from inattention, or are so in- 
 tricate that their results cannot be foreseen, and con- 
 sequently certain relations in the organism are not 
 adjusted to the relations in the environment." 1 
 
 With the help of these plain biological terms we 
 may now proceed to examine the parallel phenome- 
 non of Death in the spiritual world. The factors 
 with which we have to deal are two in number as 
 before Organism and Environment. The relation 
 between them may once more be denominated by 
 " correspondence/' And the truth to be emphasised 
 resolves itself into this, that Spiritual Death is a 
 want of correspondence between the organism and 
 the spiritual environment. 
 
 What is the spiritual environment? This term 
 obviously demands some further definition. For 
 Death is a relative term. And before we can define 
 Death in the spiritual world we must first apprehend 
 the particular relation with reference to which the 
 
 1 Op. cit., pp. 88, 89. 
 
DEATH. 153 
 
 expression is to be employed. We shall best reach 
 the nature of this relation by considering for a 
 moment the subject of environment generally. By 
 the natural environment we mean the entire surround- 
 ings of the natural man, the entire external world in 
 which he lives and moves and has his being. It is 
 not involved in the idea that either with all or part 
 of this environment he is in immediate correspond- 
 ence. Whether he correspond with it or not, it is 
 there. There is in fact a conscious environment and 
 an environment of which he is not conscious ; and it 
 must be borne in mind that the conscious environ- 
 ment 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 daytime he may not see 
 them. The polar regions are parts of it, though he 
 is seldom aware of their influence. In its widest 
 sense environment simply means all else that is. 
 
 Now it will next be manifest that different organ- 
 isms correspond with this environment in varying 
 degrees of completeness or incompleteness. At the 
 bottom of the biological scale we find organisms 
 which have only the most limited correspondence 
 with their surroundings. A tree, for example, cor- 
 responds with the soil about its stem, with the sun- 
 light, and with the air in contact with its leaves. 
 
154 DEATH. 
 
 But it is shut off by its comparatively low develop- 
 ment from a whole world to which higher forms of 
 life have additional access. The want of locomotion 
 alone circumscribes most seriously its area of corre- 
 spondence, so that to a large part of surrounding 
 nature it may truly be said to be dead. So far as 
 consciousness is concerned, we should be justified 
 indeed in saying that it was not alive at all. The 
 murmur of the stream which bathes its roots affects 
 it not. The marvellous insect-life beneath its shadow 
 excites in it no wonder. The tender maternity of 
 the bird which has its nest among its leaves stirs 
 no responsive sympathy. It cannot correspond with 
 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 with a wider environment. The stream 
 is real to it, and the insect. It knows what lies 
 behind the hill ; it listens to the love-song of its 
 mate. And to much besides beyond the simple 
 world of the tree this higher organism is alive. The 
 bird we should say is more living than the tree ; it 
 has a correspondence with a larger area of environ- 
 ment. But this bird-life is not yet the highest life. 
 Even within the immediate bird-environment there 
 is much to which the bird must still be held to 
 
DEATH. 155 
 
 be dead. Introduce a higher organism, place man 
 himself within this same environment, and see how 
 much more living he is. A hundred things which 
 the bird never saw in insect, stream, and tree appeal 
 to him. Each single sense has something to cor- 
 respond with. Each faculty finds an appropriate 
 exercise Man is a mass of correspondences, and 
 because of these, because he is alive to countless 
 objects and influences to which lower organisms are 
 dead, he is the most living of all creatures. 
 
 The relativity of Death will now have become 
 sufficiently obvious. Man being left out of account, 
 all organisms are seen as it were to be partly living 
 and partly dead. The tree, in correspondence with 
 a narrow area of environment, is to that extent alive ; 
 to all beyond, to the all but infinite area beyond, it 
 is dead. A still wider portion of this vast area is 
 the possession of the insect and the bird. Their's 
 also, nevertheless, is but a little world, and to an 
 immense further area insect and bird are dead. All 
 organisms likewise are living and dead living to all 
 within the circumference of their correspondences, 
 dead to all beyond. As we rise in the scale of life, 
 however, it will be observed that the sway of Death 
 is gradually weakened. More and more of the en- 
 vironment becomes accessible as we ascend, and the 
 domain of life in this way slowly extends in ever- 
 
156 DEATH. 
 
 widening circles. But until man appears there is no 
 organism to correspond with the whole environment. 
 Till then the outermost circles have no correspond- 
 ents. To the inhabitants of the innermost spheres 
 they are as if they were not. 
 
 Now follows a momentous question. Is man in 
 correspondence with the whole environment ? When 
 we reach the highest living organism, is the final 
 blow dealt to the kingdom of Death ? Has the last 
 acre of the infinite area been taken in by his finite 
 faculties ? Is his conscious environment the whole 
 environment? Or is there, among these outermost 
 circles, one which with his multitudinous correspond- 
 ences he fails to reach ? If so, this is Death. The 
 question of Life or Death to him is the question 
 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 to reach, to correspond 
 with, to know, to be influenced by, he is, with regard 
 to that circle or segment, dead. 
 
 What then, practically, is the state of the case ? 
 Is man in correspondence with the whole environ- 
 ment or is he not ? There is but one answer. He 
 is not. Of men generally it cannot be said that they 
 are in living contact with that part of the environ- 
 ment which is called the spiritual world. In intro- 
 ducing this new term spiritual world, observe, we arc 
 
DEATH. 157 
 
 not interpolating a new factor. This is an essential 
 part of the old idea. We have been following out an 
 ever-widening environment from' point to point, and 
 now we reach the outermost zones. The spiritual 
 world is simply the outermost segment, circle, or 
 circles, of the natural world. For purposes of con- 
 venience we separate the two just as we separate the 
 animal world from the plant. But the animal world 
 and the plant world are the same world. They are 
 different parts of one environment. And the natural 
 and spiritual are likewise one. The inner circles -are 
 called the natural, the outer the spiritual. And we 
 call them spiritual simply because they are beyond 
 us or beyond a part of us. What we have corre- 
 spondence with, that we call natural ; what we have 
 little or no correspondence with, that we call spiritual. 
 But when the appropriate corresponding organism 
 appears, the organism, that is, which can freely com- 
 municate with these outer circles, the distinction 
 necessarily disappears. The spiritual to it becomes 
 the outer circle of the natural. 
 
 Now of the great mass of living organisms, of the 
 great mass of men, is it not to be affirmed that they 
 are out of correspondence with this outer circle ? 
 Suppose, to make the final issue more real, we give 
 this outermost circle of environment a name. Sup- 
 pose we call it God. Suppose also we substitute 
 
I $8 DEATH. 
 
 a word for "correspondence" to express more in- 
 timately the personal relation. Let us call it Com- 
 munion. We can now determine accurately the 
 spiritual relation of different sections of mankind. 
 Those who are in communion with God live, those 
 who are not are dead. 
 
 The extent or depth of this communion, the 
 varying degrees of correspondence in different indi- 
 viduals, and the less or more abundant life which 
 these result in, need not concern us for the present. 
 The task we have set ourselves is to investigate the 
 essential nature of Spiritual Death. And we have 
 found it to consist in a want of communion with God. 
 The unspiritual man is he who lives in the circum- 
 scribed environment of this present world. " She 
 that liveth in pleasure is Dead while she liveth." 
 " To be carnally minded is Death." To be carnally 
 minded, translated into the language of science, is 
 to be limited in one's correspondences to the environ- 
 ment of the natural man. It is no necessary part 
 of the conception that the mind should be either 
 purposely irreligious, or directly vicious. The mind 
 of the flesh, ^pov^fjua TV)? a-ap/cbs, by its very nature, 
 limited capacity, and time-ward tendency, is Bdvaros, 
 Death. This earthly mind may be of noble calibre, 
 enriched by culture, high toned, virtuous and pure, 
 But if it know not God ? What though its cor- 
 
DEAiH. 159 
 
 respondences reach to the stars of heaven or grasp 
 the magnitudes of Time and Space ? The stars of 
 heaven are not heaven. Space is not God. This 
 mind, certainly, has life, life up to its level. There 
 is no trace of Death. Possibly too, it carries its 
 deprivation lightly, and, up to its level, lives content. 
 We do not picture the possessor of this carnal mind 
 as in any sense a monster. We have said he may be 
 high-toned, virtuous, and pure. The plant is not a 
 monster because it is dead to the voice of the bird ; 
 nor is he a monster who is dead to the voice of God. 
 The contention at present simply is that he is Dead. 
 
 We do not need to go to Revelation for the proof 
 of this. That has been rendered unnecessary by the 
 testimony of the Dead themselves. Thousands have 
 uttered themselves upon their relation to the Spiritual 
 World, and from their own lips we have the proclam- 
 ation of their Death. The language of theology in 
 describing the state of the natural man is often 
 regarded as severe. The Pauline anthropology has 
 been challenged as an insult to human nature. 
 Culture has opposed the doctrine that " The natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 
 for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he 
 know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 
 And even some modern theologies have refused to 
 accept the most plain of the aphorisms of Jesus, that 
 
160 
 
 " Except a man be born again he cannot see the 
 Kingdom of God." But this stern doctrine of the 
 spiritual deadness of humanity is no mere dogma of 
 a past theology. The history of thought during the 
 present century proves that the world has come 
 round spontaneously to the position of the first. 
 One of the ablest philosophical schools of the day 
 erects a whole antichristian system on this very 
 doctrine. Seeking by means of it to sap the founda- 
 tion of spiritual religion, it stands unconsciously as 
 the most significant witness for its truth. What is 
 the creed of the Agnostic, but the confession of the 
 \ spiritual numbness of humanity ? The negative 
 doctrine which it reiterates with such sad persistency, 
 what is it but the echo of the oldest of scientific and 
 religious truths ? And what are all these gloomy 
 and rebellious infidelities, these touching, and too 
 sincere confessions of universal nescience, but a pro- 
 test against this ancient law of Death ? 
 
 The Christian apologist never further misses the 
 mark than when he refuses the testimony of the 
 Agnostic to himself. ( When the Agnostic tells me 
 he is blind and deaf, dumb, torpid and dead to the 
 spiritual world, I must believe him. Jesus tells me 
 that. Paul tells me that. Science tells me that. 
 He knows nothing of this outermost circle ; and we 
 are compelled to trust his sincerity as readily when 
 
DEATH. 161 
 
 he deplores it as if, being a man without an ear, he 
 professed to know nothing of a musical world, or 
 being without taste, of a world of art. The nescience 
 of the Agnostic philosophy is the proof from ex- 
 perience that to be carnally minded is Death. Let 
 the theological value of the concession be duly recog- 
 nised. It brings no solace to the unspiritual man 
 to be told he is mistaken. To say he is self-deceived 
 is neither to compliment him nor Christianity, He 
 builds in all sincerity who raises his altar to the' 
 Unknown God. He does not know God. With all 
 his marvellous and complex correspondences, he is; 
 still one correspondence short. 
 
 It is a point worthy of special note that the pro- 
 clamation of this truth has always come from science 
 rather than from religion. Its general acceptance 
 by thinkers is based upon the universal failure of a 
 universal experiment. The statement, therefore, that 
 the natural man discerneth not the things of the 
 
 spirit, is never to be charged against the intolerance 
 
 i 
 
 of theology. There is no point at which theology 
 has been more modest than here. It has left the 
 preaching of a great fundamental truth almost en- 
 tirely to philosophy and science. And so very 
 moderate has been its tone, so slight has been the 
 emphasis placed upon the paralysis of the natural 
 with regard to the spiritual, that it may seem to 
 
 If 
 
162 DEA TIL 
 
 some to have been intolerantly tolerant. No harm 
 certainly could come now, no offence could be given 
 to science, if religion asserted more clearly its right 
 to the spiritual world. Science has paved the way 
 for the reception of one of the most revolutionary 
 doctrines of Christianity ; and if Christianity refuses 
 to take advantage of the opening it will manifest a 
 culpable want of confidence in itself. There never 
 was a time when its fundamental doctrines could 
 more boldly be proclaimed, or when they could 
 better secure the respect and arrest the interest of 
 Science. 
 
 To all this, and apparently with force, it may, 
 however, be objected that to every man who truly 
 studies Nature there is a God. Call Him by what- 
 ever name a Creator, a Supreme Being, a Great 
 First Cause, a Power that makes for Righteousness 
 Science has a God ; and he who believes in this, in 
 spite of all protest, possesses a theology. " If we 
 will look at things, and not merely at words, we 
 shall soon see that the scientific man has a theology 
 and a God, a most impressive theology, a most awful 
 and glorious God. I say that man believes in a 
 God, who feels himself in the presence of a Power 
 which is not himself, and is immeasurably above 
 himself, a Power in the contemplation of which he 
 is absorbed, in the knowledge of which he finds 
 
DEATH 163 
 
 safety and happiness. And such now is Nature to 
 the scientific man." 1 Such now, we humbly submit, 
 is Nature to very few. Their own confession is 
 against it. That they are " absorbed " in the contem- 
 plation we can well believe. That they might " find 
 safety and 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 not 
 a God. It is the correspondence, Jihe very con- \ 
 fession of the Unknowable is itself the dull recog- 
 nition of an Environment beyond themselves, and 
 for which they feel they lack the correspondence. 
 It is this want that makes 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 have not affirmed that there 
 i-3 no Natural Religion. We are assured there is. 
 We are even assured that without a Religion of 
 Nature Religion is only half complete ; that without 
 a God of Nature the God of Revelation is only half 
 intelligible and only partially known. God is not 
 confined to the outermost circle of environment, He 
 lives and moves and has His being in the whole. 
 Those who only seek Him in the further zone can 
 only find a part. The Christian who knows not 
 
 1 " Natural Religion," p. 19. 
 
164 DEATH 
 
 God in Nature, who does not, that is to say, corre- 
 spond with the whole environment, most certainly is 
 partially dead. The author of " Ecce Homo " may be 
 partially right when he says : " I think a bystander 
 would say that though Christianity had in it some- 
 thing far higher and deeper and more ennobling, 
 yet the average scientific man worships just at 
 present a more 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 and little-minded teaching ; the Eternal and 
 the Infinite and the All-embracing has been repre- 
 sented as the head of the clerical interest, as a sort 
 of' clergyman, as a sort of schoolmaster, as a sort of 
 philanthropist. But the scientific man knows Him 
 to be eternal ; in astronomy, in geology, he becomes 
 familiar with the countless millenniums of His life- 
 time. The scientific man strains his mind actually 
 to realize God's infinity. As far off as the fixed 
 stars he traces Him, ' distance inexpressible by 
 numbers that have name.' Meanwhile, to the theo- 
 logian, infinity and eternity are very much of empty 
 words when applied to the Object of his worship. 
 He does not realize them in actual facts and definite 
 computations." 1 Let us accept this rebuke. The 
 
 1 " Natural Religion," p. 20. 
 
DEATH. 165 
 
 principle that want of correspondence is Death 
 applies 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 are insisting 
 on. He who knows God only in Nature lives not. 
 There is no "correspondence" with an Unknown 
 God, no "continuous adjustment" to a fixed First 
 Cause. There is no " assimilation " of Natural Law ; 
 no growth in the Image of " the All-embracing." To 
 correspond with the God of Science 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 our religion, we might be expected 
 possibly to take up the position that the absolute 
 contribution of Science to Revelation was very great. 
 On the contrary, it is very small. The absolute con- 
 tribution, that is, is very small. The contribution on 
 the whole is immense, vaster than we have yet any 
 idea of. But without the aid of the higher Revela- 
 tion this many-toned and far-reaching voice had been 
 for ever dumb. The light of Nature, say the most 
 for it, is dim how dim we ourselves, with the glare 
 of other Light upon the modern world, can only re- 
 alize when we seek among the pagan records of the 
 past for the gropings after truth of those whose only 
 light was this. Powerfully significant and touching- 
 
f66 DEATH 
 
 as these efforts were in their success, they are far 
 more significant and touching in their failure. For 
 they did fail. It requires no philosophy now to 
 speculate on the adequacy or inadequacy of the Re- 
 ligion of Nature. For us who could never weigh it 
 rightly in the scales of Truth it has been tried in the 
 balance of experience and found wanting. Theism 
 is the easiest of all religions to get, but the most 
 difficult to keep. Individuals have kept it, but na- 
 tions never. Socrates and Aristotle, Cicero and 
 Epictetus had a theistic religion ; Greece and Rome 
 had none. And even after getting what seems like 
 a firm place in the minds of men, its unstable equili- 
 brium sooner or later betrays itself. On the one 
 hand theism has always fallen into the wildest poly- 
 theism, or on the other into the blankest atheism. 
 " It is an indubitable historical fact that, outside of 
 the sphere of special revelation, man has never ob- 
 tained such a knowledge of God as a responsible and 
 religious being plainly requires. The wisdom of the 
 heathen world, at its very best, was utterly inade- 
 quate to the accomplishment of such a task as creat- 
 ing a due abhorrence of sin, controlling the passions, 
 purifying the heart, and ennobling the conduct." l 
 What is the inference ? That this poor rush-light 
 
 1 Prof. Flint, "Theism," p. 305 
 
DEATH. 167 
 
 by itself was never meant to lend the ray by which 
 man should read the riddle of the universe. The 
 mystery is too impenetrable and remote for its un- 
 certain flicker to more than make the darkness 
 deeper. What indeed if this were not a light at all, 
 but only part of a light the carbon point, the frag- 
 ment of calcium, the reflector in the great Lantern 
 which contains the Light of the World ? 
 
 This is one inference. But the most important is 
 that the absence of the true Light means moral 
 Death. The darkness of the natural world to the 
 intellect is not all. What history testifies to is, first 
 the partial, and then the total eclipse of virtue that 
 always follows the abandonment of belief in a per- 
 sonal God. It is not, as has been pointed out a 
 hundred times, that morality in the abstract dis- 
 appears, but the motive and sanction are gone. 
 There is nothing to raise it from the dead. Man's 
 attitude to it is left to himself. Grant that morals 
 have their own base in 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 but cannot control. 
 As was wisely expressed in one of many pregnant 
 utterances during a recent Symposium, " Though the 
 decay of religion may leave the institutes of morality 
 
168 . DEAlJn. 
 
 htact, it drains off their inward power. The devout 
 faith of men expresses and measures the intensity of 
 their moral nature, and it cannot be lost without a 
 remission of enthusiasm, and under this low pressure, 
 the successful reentrance of importunate desires and 
 clamorous passions which had been driven back. To 
 believe in an ever-living and perfect Mind, supreme 
 over the universe, is to invest moral distinctions with 
 immensity and eternity, and lift them from the 
 provincial stage of human society to the imperishable 
 theatre of all being. When planted thus in the very 
 substance of things, they justify and support the ideal 
 estimates of the conscience ; they deepen every guilty 
 shame ; they guarantee every righteous hope ; and 
 they help the will with a Divine casting-vote in every 
 balance of temptation." l That morality has a basis 
 in human society, that Nature has a Religion, surely 
 makes the Death of the soul when 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 intimate contact with Religion. The pro- 
 position that " to be carnally minded is Death " even 
 
 1 Martineau. Vide the whole Symposium on " The Influ- 
 ences upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief." Nine- 
 teenth Century,vv\ i. pp. 331, 531. 
 
DEA Tff. 169 
 
 the moralist will assent to. But when it is further 
 announced that "the carnal mind is enmity against 
 God" we find ourselves 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 profoundest ques- 
 tions of theology. What before was merely " enmity 
 against society" becomes "enmity against God;" and 
 what was " vice " is " sin." The conception of a God 
 gives an altogether new colour to worldliness and 
 vice. Worldliness it changes into heathenism, vice 
 into blasphemy. The carnal mind, the mind which 
 is turned away from God, which will not correspond 
 with God this is not moral only but spiritual Death. 
 And Sin, that which separates from God, which dis- 
 obeys God, which can not in that state correspond 
 with God this is hell. 
 
 To the estrangement of the soul from God the best 
 of theology traces the ultimate cause of sin. Sin is 
 simply apostasy from God, unbelief in God. " Sin 
 is manifest in its true character when the demand of 
 holiness in the conscience, presenting itself to the 
 man as one of loving submission to 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, there ensues a benumbing of the heart 
 resulting from the crushing of those higher impulses. 
 This is what is meant by the reprobate state of those 
 
170 DEATH. 
 
 who reject Christ and will not believe the Gospel, so 
 often spoken of in the New Testament ; this unbelief 
 is just the closing of the heart against the highest 
 love." 1 The other view of sin, probably the more 
 popular at present, that sin consists in selfishness, is 
 merely this from another aspect. Obviously if the 
 mind turns away from one part of the environment 
 it will only do so under some temptation to corre- 
 spond with another. This temptation, at bottom, can 
 only come from one source the love of self. The 
 irreligious man's correspondences are concentrated 
 upon himself. He worships himself. Self-gratifica- 
 tion rather than self-denial ; independence rather 
 than submission these are the rules of life. And 
 this is at once the poorest and the commonest form 
 of idolatry. 
 
 But whichever of these views of sin we emphasize, 
 we find both equally connected with Death. If 
 sin is estrangement from God, this very estrange- 
 ment is Death. It is a want of correspondence. If 
 sin is selfishness, it is conducted at the expense of 
 life. Its wages are Death " he that loveth his life," 
 said Christ, "shall lose it." 
 
 Yet the paralysis of the moral nature apart from 
 God does not only depend for its evidence upon 
 
 9 Miiller: "Christian Doctrine of Sin." 2nd Ed. vol. i. p. 131. 
 
DEATH. 171 
 
 theology or even upon history. From the analogies 
 of Nature one would expect this result as a necessary 
 consequence. The development of any organism in 
 any direction is dependent on its environment. A 
 living cell cut off from air will die. A seed-germ 
 apart from moisture and an appropriate temperature 
 will make the ground its grave for centuries. Human 
 nature, likewise, is subject to similar conditions. It 
 can only develop in presence of its environment No 
 matter what its possibilities may be, no matter what 
 seeds of thought or virtue, what germs of genius or 
 of art, lie latent in its breast, until the appropriate 
 environment present itself the correspondence is 
 denied, the development discouraged, the most 
 splendid possibilities of life remain unrealized, and 
 thought and virtue, genius and art, are dead. The 
 true environment of the moral life is God. Here 
 conscience wakes. Here kindles love. Duty here 
 becomes heroic ; and that righteousness begins to 
 live which alone is to live for ever. But if this Atmo- 
 sphere is not, the dwarfed soul must perish for mere 
 want of its native air. And its Death is a strictly 
 natural Death. It is not an exceptional judgment 
 upon Atheism. In the same circumstances, in the 
 same averted relation to their environment, the poet, 
 the musician, the artist, would alike perish to poetry, 
 to music, and to art. Every environment is a cause. 
 
172 DEATH. 
 
 Tts effect upon me is exactly proportionate to my 
 correspondence with it. If I correspond with part of 
 it, part of myself is influenced. If I correspond with 
 more, more of myself is influenced ; if with all, all is 
 influenced. If I correspond with the world, I become 
 worldly ; if with God, I become Divine. As without 
 correspondence of the scientific man with the natural 
 environment there could be no Science and no action 
 founded on the knowledge of Nature, so without 
 communion with the spiritual Environment there can 
 be no Religion. To refuse to cultivate the religious 
 relation is to deny to the soul its highest right the 
 right to a further evolution. 1 
 
 We have already admitted that he who knows 
 not God may not be a monster ; we cannot say he 
 will not be a dwarf. This precisely, and on perfectly 
 
 1 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 
 spiritual faculties, a duty demanded not by religion merely, but 
 by science. Upon biological principles man owes his full de- 
 velopment to himself, to nature, and to his fellow-men. Thus 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, " The performance of every func- 
 tion is, in a sense, a moral obligation. It is usually thought 
 that morality requires us only to restrain such vital activities 
 as, in our present state, are often pushed to excess, or such as 
 conflict with average welfare, special or general ; but it also 
 requires us to carry on these vital activities up to their normal 
 limits. All the animal functions, in common with all the higher 
 functions, have, as thus understood, their imperativeness." 
 * The Data of Ethics/' 2nd Ed., p. 76 
 
DEATH. 17} 
 
 natural principles, is what he must be. You can 
 dwarf a soul just as you can dwarf a plant, by de- 
 priving it of a full environment. Such a soul for a 
 time may have "a name to live." Its character may 
 betray no sign of atrophy. But its very virtue 
 somehow has the pallor of a flower that is grown in 
 darkness, or as the herb which has never seen the sun, 
 no fragrance breathes from its spirit. To morality, 
 possibly, this organism offers the example of an 
 irreproachable life ; but to science it is an instance of 
 arrested development ; and to religion it presents the 
 spectacle of a corpse a living Death. With Ruskin, 
 " I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder 
 often at what they lose.*' 
 
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 
 function, 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 
 aivay the materials needed for repairing not one limb but all 
 limbs, and not limbs only but viscera, there resitlts 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 tJu 
 occasions for rules of conduct" 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER. 
 
MORTIFICATION. 
 
 u 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 falling out of correspondence with envir- 
 onment. When, for example, a man loses the sight 
 of his eyes, his correspondence with the environing 
 world is curtailed. His life is limited in an impor- 
 tant direction ; he is less living than he was before. 
 If, in addition, he lose the senses of touch and hear- 
 ing, his correspondences are still further limited ; he 
 is therefore still further dead. And when all possible 
 'correspondences have ceased, when the nerves decline 
 to respond to any stimulus, when the lungs close 
 their gates against the air, when the heart refuses to 
 correspond with the blood by so much as another 
 beat, the insensate corpse is wholly and for ever 
 dead. The soul, in like manner, which has no corre- 
 spondence with the spiritual environment is spiritually 
 
1 78 MOR TIFICA TION. 
 
 dead. It may 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, having never 
 lived, it cannot be said to have died. But not to 
 have these correspondences is to be in the state of 
 Death. To the spiritual world, to the Divine Envir- 
 onment, it is dead as a stone which has never 
 lived is dead to the environment of the organic 
 world. 
 
 Having already abundantly illustrated this use of 
 the symbol Death, we may proceed to deal with 
 another class of expressions where the same term is 
 employed in an exactly opposite connection. It is a 
 proof of the radical nature of religion that a word 
 so extreme should have to be used again and again 
 in Christian teaching, to define in different directions 
 the true spiritual relations of mankind. Hitherto we 
 have concerned ourselves with the condition of the 
 natural man with regard to the spiritual world. We 
 have now to speak of the relations of the spiritual 
 man with regard to the natural world. Carrying 
 with us the same essential principle want of corre- 
 spondence underlying the meaning of Death, we 
 shall find that the relation of the spiritual man to the 
 natural world, or at least to part of it, is to be that of 
 Death. 
 
 When the natural man becomes the spiritual man, 
 
MOR TIFICA TIOJV. 179 
 
 the great change is described by Christ as a passing 
 from Death unto Life. Before the transition occurred, 
 the practical difficulty was this, how to get into cor- 
 respondence with the new Environment ? But no 
 sooner is this correspondence established than the 
 problem is reversed. The question now is, how to 
 get out of correspondence with the old environment ? 
 The moment the new life is begun there comes a 
 genuine anxiety to break with the old. For the 
 former environment has now become embarrassing. 
 It refuses its dismissal from consciousness. It com- 
 petes doggedly with the new Environment for a share 
 of the correspondences. And in a hundred ways the 
 former traditions, the memories and passions of the 
 past, the fixed associations and habits of the earlier 
 life, now complicate the new relation. The complex 
 and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself in correspon- 
 dence with two environments, each with urgent but 
 yet incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living 
 in a double world, a world whose inhabitants are 
 deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetual civil- 
 war. 
 
 The position of things is perplexing. It is clear 
 that no man can attempt to live both lives. To walk 
 both in the flesh and in the spirit is morally im- 
 possible. " No man/' as Christ so often emphasized, 
 u can serve two masters." And yet, as matter of 
 
MOR TIP 1C A TION. 
 
 fact, here is the new-born being in communication 
 with both environments ? With sin and purity, light 
 and darkness, time and Eternity, God and Devil, the 
 confused and undecided soul is now in correspon- 
 dence. What is to be done in such an emergency ? 
 How can the New Life deliver itself from the still- 
 persistent past ? 
 
 A ready solution of the difficulty would be to die 
 Were one to die organically, to die and "go to 
 heaven/' all correspondence with the lower environ- 
 ment would be arrested at a stroke. For Physical 
 Death of course simply means the final stoppage of 
 all natural correspondences with this sinful world 
 But this alternative, fortunately or unfortunately, is 
 not open. The detention here of body and spirit 
 for a given period is determined for us, and we are 
 morally bound to accept the situation. We must 
 look then for a further alternative. 
 
 Actual Death being denied us, we must ask our- 
 selves if there is nothing else resembling it no 
 artificial relation, no imitation or semblance of Death 
 which would serve our purpose. If we cannot yet die 
 absolutely, surely the next best thing will be to find 
 u temporary substitute. If we cannot die altogether, 
 in short, the most we can do is to die as much as we 
 can. And we now know this is open to us, and 
 how. To die to any environment is to withdraw cor- 
 
MOK TIF1CA TfON. 181 
 
 respondence with it, to cut ourselves off, so far as 
 possible, from all communication with it. So that 
 the solution of the problem will simply be this, for 
 the spiritual life to reverse continuously the processes 
 of the natural life. The spiritual man having passed 
 from Death unto Life, the natural man must next 
 proceed to pass from Life unto Death. Having 
 opened the new set of correspondences, he must de- 
 liberately close up the old. Regeneration in short 
 must be accompanied by Degeneration. 
 
 Now it is no surprise to find that this is the pro- 
 cess everywhere described and recommended by the 
 founders of the Christian system. Their proposal to 
 the natural man, or rather to the natural part of the 
 spiritual man, with regard to a whole series of inim- 
 ical relations, is precisely this. If he cannot really 
 die, he must make an adequate approach to it by 
 "reckoning himself dead." Seeing that, until the 
 cycle of his organic life is complete he cannot die 
 physically, he must meantime die morally, reckon- 
 ing himself morally dead to that environment which 
 by competing for his correspondences, has no\v 
 become an obstacle to his spiritual life. 1 
 
 The variety of ways in which the New Testament 
 writers insist upon this somewhat extraordinary 
 method is sufficiently remarkable. And although the 
 idea involved is essentially the same throughout, it 
 
182 MOR TIFICA TION. 
 
 will clearly illustrate the nature of the act if we 
 examine separately three different modes of expres- 
 sion employed in the later Scriptures in this connec- 
 tion. The methods by which the spiritual man is to 
 withdraw himself from the old environment or from 
 that part of it which will directly 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 we possess a 
 sufficient warrant for giving a brief separate treat- 
 ment to each. 
 
 First, Suicide. Stated in undisguised phraseology, 
 the advice of Paul to the Christian, with regard to a 
 part of his nature, is to commit suicide. If the Chris- 
 tian is to " live unto God," he must " die unto sin." 
 If he does not kill sin, sin will inevitably kill him. 
 Recognising this, he must set himself to reduce the 
 number of his correspondences retaining and de- 
 veloping those which lead to a fuller life, uncondition 
 ally withdrawing those which in any way tend in an 
 opposite direction. This stoppage of correspondences 
 
MORTIFICATION. 183 
 
 is a voluntary act, a crucifixion of the flesh, a 
 suicide. 
 
 Now the least experience of life will make it evi- 
 dent that a large class of sins can only be met, as 
 it were, by Suicide. The peculiar feature of Death 
 by Suicide is, that it is not only self-inflicted but 
 sudden. And there are many sins which must either 
 be dealt with suddenly or not at all Under this 
 category, for instance, are to be included generally all 
 sins of the appetites and passions. Other sins, from 
 their peculiar nature, can only be treated by methods 
 less abrupt, but the sudden operation of the knife is 
 the only successful means of dealing with fleshly sins. 
 For example, the correspondence of the drunkard 
 with his wine is a thing which can be broken off by 
 degrees only in the rarest cases. To attempt it 
 gradually may in an isolated case succeed, but even 
 then the slightly prolonged gratification is no com- 
 pensation for the slow torture of a gradually di- 
 minishing indulgence. " If thine appetite offend thee 
 cut it off," may seem at first but a harsh remedy ; 
 but when we contemplate on the one hand the 
 lingering pain of the gradual process, on the other 
 its constant peril, we are compelled to admit that 
 the principle is as kind as it is wise. The expression 
 " total abstinence " in such a case is a strictly bio- 
 logical formula. It implies the sudden destruction 
 
184 MORTIFICATION. 
 
 of a definite portion of environment by the total 
 withdrawal of all the connecting links. Obviously of 
 course total abstinence ought thus to be allowed a 
 much wider application than to cases of " intemper- 
 ance." It is the only decisive method of dealing with 
 any sin of the flesh. The very nature of the relations 
 makes it absolutely imperative that every victim of 
 unlawful appetite, in whatever direction, shall totally 
 abstain. Hence Christ's apparently extreme and per- 
 emptory language defines the only possible, as well 
 as the only charitable, expedient : " If thy right eye 
 offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.\ And 
 if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it 
 from thee." 
 
 The humanity of what is called " sudden conver- 
 sion " has never been insisted on as it deserves. In 
 discussing " Biogenesis " l it has been already pointed 
 out that while growth is a slow and gradual process, 
 the change from Death to Life alike in the natural 
 and spiritual spheres is the work of a moment. 
 Whatever the conscious hour of the second birth may 
 
 be in the case of an adult it is probably defined by 
 
 
 
 the first real victory over sin it 4s certain that on 
 biological principles the real turning-point is literally 
 a moment. But on moral and humane grounds this 
 
 ' Page 93. 
 
MORTIFICATION. 185 
 
 misunderstood, perverted, and therefore despised doc- 
 trine is equally capable of defence. Were any re- 
 former, with an adequate knowledge of human life, to 
 sit down and plan a scheme for the salvation of sinful 
 men, he would probably come to the conclusion that 
 the best way after all, perhaps indeed the only way, 
 to turn a sinner from the error of his ways would be 
 to do it suddenly. 
 
 Suppose a drunkard were advised to take off one 
 portion from his usual allowance the first week, an- 
 other the second, .and so on ! Or suppose at first 
 he only allowed himself to become intoxicated in the 
 evenings, then every second evening, then only on 
 Saturday nights, and finally only every Christmas ? 
 How would a thief be reformed if he slowly reduced 
 the number of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by 
 gradually diminishing the number of his blows ? 
 The argument ends with an ad absurdum. " Let him 
 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 any part of man's 
 sinful life can be dealt with by immediate Suicide, to 
 make 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 " sudden conversion," that 
 men object to the sudden change, the decisive 
 stand, the uncompromising rupture with the past, the 
 
[86 MORTIFICATION. 
 
 precipitate flight from sin as of one escaping for his 
 life. Men surely forget that this is an escaping for 
 one's life. Let the poor prisoner run madly and 
 blindly if he likes, for the terror of Death is upon 
 him. God knows, when the pause comes, how the 
 chains will gall him still. 
 
 It is a peculiarity of the sinful state, that as a 
 general rule men are linked to evil mainly by a 
 single correspondence. Few men break the whole 
 law. Our natures, fortunately, are not large enough 
 to make us guilty of all, and the restraints of cir- 
 cumstances are usually such as to leave a loophole 
 in the life of each individual for only a single 
 habitual sin. But it is very easy to see how this 
 reduction of our intercourse with evil to a single 
 correspondence blinds us to our true position. Our 
 correspondences, as a whole, are not with evil, and 
 in our calculations as to our spiritual condition we 
 emphasize the many negatives rather than the single 
 positive. One little weakness, we are apt to fancy, 
 all men must be allowed, and we even claim a cer- 
 tain indulgence for that apparent necessity of nature 
 which we call our besetting 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 
 at which they touch it, circumstances or natural 
 disposition making habitual contact at other places 
 
MORTIFICATION. 187 
 
 impossible. The sinful environment, in short, to 
 them means a small but well-defined area. Now if 
 contact at this point be not broken ofT, they are 
 virtually in contact still with the whole environment. 
 There may be only one avenue between the new life 
 and the old, it may be but a small and subterranean 
 passage^ but this is sufficient to keep the old life in. 
 So long as that remains the victim is not "dead 
 unto sin," and therefore he cannot " live unto God." 
 Hence the reasonableness of the words, "Whosoever 
 shall keep the whole law, and yet offend at one point, 
 he is guilty of all." In the natural world it only 
 requires a single vital correspondence of the body tc 
 be out of order to ensure Death. It is not necessary 
 to have consumption, diabetes, and an aneurism to 
 bring the body to the grave if it have heart-disease. 
 He who is fatally diseased in one organ necessarily 
 pays the penalty with his life, though all the others 
 be in perfect health. And such, likewise, are the 
 mysterious unity and correlation of functions in the 
 spiritual organism that the disease of one member 
 may involve the ruin of the whole. The reason, 
 therefore, with which Christ follows up the announce- 
 ment of His Doctrine of Mutilation, or local Suicide, 
 finds here at once its justification and interpretation : 
 ' If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
 it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of 
 
[88 MOR TIFICA TION. 
 
 thy members should perish, and not that thy whole 
 body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand 
 offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee : for it is 
 profitable for 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 is found in the well-known phrases 
 of Paul, " If ye through the Spirit do mortify the 
 deeds of the body ye shall live," and " Mortify there- 
 fore your 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 patho- 
 logy of mortification would be equally fantastic and 
 irrelevant. But without in any way straining the 
 meaning it is obvious that we have here a slight 
 addition to our conception of dying to sin. In con- 
 trast with Suicide, Mortification implies a gradual 
 rather than a sudden process. The contexts in which 
 the passages occur will make this meaning so clear, 
 and are otherwise so instructive in the general connec- 
 tion, that we may quote them, from the New Version, 
 at length : " They that are after the flesh do mind 
 the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the 
 Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the 
 flesh is death ; but the mind of the Spirit is life and 
 
MOX TIFICA TION. i 89 
 
 peace : because the mind of the flesh is enmity 
 against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, 
 neither indeed can it be : and they that are in the 
 flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the 
 flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of 
 God dwell in you. But if any man hath not the 
 Spirit of Christ, he is none 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 of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from 
 the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies 
 through His Spirit that dwelleth in you. So then, 
 brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live 
 after the flesh : for if ye live after the flesh ye must 
 die; but if by the Spirit ye mortify the doings 
 (rnarg.) of the body, ye shall live." 1 
 
 And again, " If then ye were raised together with 
 Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ 
 is seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind 
 on the things that are above, not on the things that 
 are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is 
 hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our 
 life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him 
 be manifested in glory. Mortify therefore your 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 5-13. 
 
MOR TIF1CA T20N* 
 
 members which are upon the earth ; fornication, un- 
 cleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, the 
 which is idolatry ; for which things' sake cometh 
 the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience ; 
 in the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye lived 
 in these things. But now put ye also away all 
 these ; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speak- 
 ing out of your mouth : lie not one to another ; see- 
 ing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, 
 and have put on the new man, which is being renewed 
 unto knowledge after the image of Him that created 
 him.'' 1 
 
 From the nature of the case as here stated it is 
 evident that no sudden process could entirely transfer 
 a man from the old into the new relation. To break 
 altogether, and at every point, with the old environ- 
 ment, is a simple impossibility. So long as the 
 regenerate man is kept in this world, he must find 
 the old environment at many points a severe temp- 
 tation. Power over very many of the commonest 
 temptations is only to be won by degrees, and how- 
 ever anxious one might be to apply the summary 
 method to every case, he soon finds it impossible in 
 practice. The difficulty in these cases arises from a 
 peculiar feature of the temptation. The difference 
 
 1 Col. iii. i-io. 
 
MORTIFICATION. 191 
 
 between a sin of drunkenness, and, let us say, a sin 
 of temper, is that in the former case the victim who 
 would reform has mainly to deal with the environ- 
 ment, but in the latter with the correspondence. 
 The drunkard's temptation is a known and definite 
 quantity. His safety lies in avoiding some external 
 and material substance. Of course, at bottom, he is 
 really dealing with the correspondence every time hfc 
 resists ; he is distinctly controlling appetite. Never- 
 theless it is less the appetite that absorbs his mind 
 than the environment. And so long as he can keep 
 himself clear of the " external relation," to use Mr- 
 Herbert Spencer's phraseology, he has much less dif- 
 ficulty with the "internal relation." The ill-tempered 
 person, on the other hand, can make very little of his 
 environment. However he may attempt to circum- 
 scribe it in certain directions, there will always re- 
 main a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate 
 his irascibility. His environment, in short, is an in- 
 constant quantity, and his most elaborate calcula- 
 tions and precautions must often and suddenly fail 
 him. ^ 
 
 What he has to deal with, then, mainly is the 
 correspondence, the temper itself. And that, he 
 well knows, involves a long and humiliating dis- 
 cipline. The case now is not at all a surgical but 
 a medical one, and the knife is here of no more use 
 
192 MORTIFICA T1ON. 
 
 than in a fever. A specific irritant has poisoned his 
 veins. And the acrid humours that are breaking out 
 all over the surface of his life are only to be subdued 
 by a gradual sweetening of the inward spirit. It is 
 now known that the human body acts towards certain 
 lever-germs as a sort of soil. The man whose blood 
 is pure has nothing to fear. So he whose spirit is 
 purified and sweetened 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 sin may be illustrated by another 
 analogy. The two processes depend upon two 
 different natural principles. The Mutilation of a 
 member, for instance, finds its analogue in the horti- 
 cultural operation of pruning^ where the object is to 
 divert life from a useless into a useful channel. A 
 part of a plant which previously monopolised a large 
 share of the vigour of the total organism, but with- 
 out yielding any adequate return, is suddenly cut off, 
 so that the vital processes may proceed more actively 
 in some fruitful parts. Christ's use of this figure is 
 well-known : " Every branch in Me that beareth 
 fruit He purgeth it that it may bring forth more 
 fruit." The strength of the plant being given in part 
 to the formation of mere wood, a number of useless 
 correspondences have to be abruptly closed while the 
 
MORTIFICATION, 193 
 
 useful connections are allowed to remain. The 
 Mortification of a member, again, is based on the Law 
 of Degeneration. The useless member here is not 
 cut off, but simply relieved as much as possible of all 
 exercise. This encourages the gradual decay of the 
 parts, and as it is more and more neglected it ceases 
 to be a channel for life at all. So an organism 
 " mortifies " its members. 
 
 Thirdly, Limitation. While a large number of 
 correspondences between man and his environment 
 can be stopped in these ways, there are many more 
 which neither can be reduced by a gradual Mortifi- 
 cation nor cut short by sudden Death. One reason 
 for this is that to tamper with these correspondences 
 might involve injury to closely related vital parts. 
 Or, again, there are organs which are really essential 
 to the normal life of the organism, and which there- 
 fore the organism cannot afford to lose even though 
 at times they act prejudicially. Not a few corre- 
 spondences, for instance, are not wrong in themselves 
 but only in their extremes. Up to a certain point 
 they are lawful and necessary ; beyond that point 
 they may become not only unnecessary but sinful. 
 The appropriate treatment in these and similar cases 
 consists in a process of Limitation. The perform- 
 ance of this operation, it must be confessed, requires 
 a most delicate hand. It is an art, moreover, which 
 
 O 
 
194 MORTIFICATION. 
 
 no one can teach another. And yet, if it is not 
 learned by all who are trying to lead the Christian 
 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 when carried to an extreme, is the love 
 of money. The love of money up to a certain point 
 is a necessity ; beyond that it may become one of 
 the worst of sins. Christ said: "Ye cannot serve 
 God and Mammon." The two services, at a definite 
 point, become incompatible, and hence correspond- 
 ence with one must cease. At what point, however, 
 it must cease each man has to determine for himself. 
 And in this consists at once the difficulty and the 
 dignity of Limitation. 
 
 There is another class of cases where the adjust- 
 ments are still more difficult to determine. Innumer- 
 able points exist in our surroundings with which it 
 is perfectly legitimate to enjoy, and even to cultivate, 
 correspondence, but which privilege, at the same 
 time, it were better on the whole that we did not 
 use. Circumstances are occasionally such the 
 demands of others upon us, for example, may be so 
 rlamant that we have voluntarily to reduce the 
 area of legitimate pleasure. Or, instead of it coming 
 from others, the claim may come from a still higher 
 
MOR TIFICA TfOM 19,1 
 
 direction. Man's spiritual life consists in the number 
 and fulness of his correspondences with God. In 
 order to develop these, he may be constrained to 
 insulate them, to enclose them from the other cor- 
 respondences, to shut himself in with them. In 
 many ways the limitation of the natural life is the 
 necessary condition of the full enjoyment of the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 In this principle lies the true philosophy of self- 
 denial. No man is called to a life of self-denial for 
 its own sake. It is in order to a compensation which, 
 though sometimes difficult to see, is always real and 
 always proportionate. No truth, perhaps, in practical 
 religion is more lost sight of. We cherish somehow 
 a lingering rebellion against the doctrine of self- 
 denial as if our nature, or our circumstances, or our 
 conscience, 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 more abundant life 
 more abundant just in proportion to the ampler 
 crucifixion of the narrower life? Is it not a clear 
 case of exchange an exchange however where the 
 advantage is entirely on our side? We give up 
 a correspondence in which there is a little life to 
 enjoy a correspondence in which there is an abundant 
 life. What though we\sacrifice a hundred such 
 correspondences ? We make but the more room 
 
196 MORTIFICATION. 
 
 for the great one that is left The lesson of self- 
 denial, that is to say of Limitation, is concentration. 
 Do not spoil your life, it says, at the outset with 
 unworthy and impoverishing correspondences ; and if 
 it is growing truly rich and abundant, be very jealous 
 of ever diluting its high eternal quality with anything 
 of earth. To concentrate upon a few great corre- 
 spondences, to oppose to the death the perpetual 
 petty larceny of our life by trifles these are the 
 conditions for the highest and happiest life. It is 
 only Limitation which can secure the Illimitable. 
 
 The penalty of evading self-denial also is just that 
 we get the lesser instead of the larger good. The 
 punishment of sin is inseparably bound up with 
 itself. To refuse to deny one's self is just to be left 
 with the self undenied. When the balance of life 
 is struck, the self will be found still there. The 
 discipline of life was meant to destroy this self, but 
 \ that discipline having been evaded and we all to 
 / some extent have opportunities, and too often exer- 
 cise them, of taking the narrow path by the shortest 
 cuts its purpose is baulked. But the soul is the 
 loser. In seeking to gain its life it has really lost it 
 This is what Christ meant when He said : " He that 
 loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his 
 life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." 
 Why does Christ say ; " Hate Life " ? Does He 
 
MORTIFICATION. 
 
 mean that life is a sin ? No. Life is not a sia 
 Still, He says we must hate it. But we must live. 
 Why should we hate what we must do ? For this 
 reason : Life is not a sin, but the love of life may be 
 a sin. And the best way not to love life is to hate 
 it. Is it a sin then to love life ? Not a sin exactly, 
 but a mistake. 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. Christ does not 
 say it is wrong to love life. He simply says it is 
 loss. Each man has only a certain amount of life, 
 of time, of attention a definite measurable quantity. 
 If he gives any of it to this life solely it is wasted 
 Therefore Christ says, Hate life, limit life, lest you 
 steal your love for it from something that deserves it 
 more. 
 
 Now this does not apply to all life. It is " life in 
 this world " that is to be hated. For life in this 
 world implies conformity to this world. It may not 
 mean pursuing worldly pleasures, or mixing with 
 worldly sets ; but a subtler thing than that a silent 
 deference to worldly opinion ; an almost unconscious 
 lowering of religious tone to the level of the worldly- 
 religious world around ; a subdued resistance to the 
 soul's delicate promptings to greater consecration, 
 out of deference to " breadih " or fear of ridicule. 
 iThese, and such things, are what Christ tells us we 
 
MOR Ti*i CA TtOM 
 
 must hate. For these things are of the very essence 
 of worldliness. " If any man love the world/' even 
 in this sense, " the love of the Father is not in him." 
 
 There are two ways of hating life, a true and a 
 false. Some men hate life because it hates them. 
 They have seen through it, and it has turned round 
 upon them. They have drunk it, and come to the 
 dregs ; therefore they hate it This is one of the 
 ways in which the man who loves his life literally 
 loses it He loves it till he loses it, then he hates it 
 because it has fooled him. The other way is the 
 religious. For religious reasons a man deliberately 
 braces himself to the systematic hating of his life. 
 "No man can serve two masters, for either he must 
 hate the one and love the other, or else he must hold 
 to the one and despise the other." Despising the 
 other this is hating life, limiting life. It is not 
 misanthropy, but Christianity. 
 
 This principle, as has been said, contains the true 
 philosophy of self-denial. It also holds the secret 
 by which self-denial may be most easily borne. A 
 common conception of self-denial is that there are 
 a multitude of things about life which are to be put 
 down with a high hand the moment they make their 
 appearance. They are temptations which are not to 
 be tolerated, but must be instantly crushed out of 
 V>eing with pang and effort 
 
MORTIFICATION. 199 
 
 So life comes to be a constant and sore cutting off 
 of things which we love as our right hand. But now 
 suppose one tried boldly to hate these things ? 
 Suppose we deliberately made up our minds as to 
 what things we were henceforth to allow to become 
 our life ? Suppose we selected a given area of our 
 environment and determined once for all that our 
 correspondences should go to that alone, fencing in 
 this area all round with a morally impassable wall ? 
 True, to others, we should seem to live a poorer 
 life ; they would see that our environment was cir- 
 cumscribed, and call us narrow because it was narrow 
 But, well-chosen, this limited life would be really the 
 fullest life ; it would be rich in the highest and 
 worthiest, and poor in the smallest and basest cor- 
 respondences. The well-defined spiritual life is not 
 only the highest life, but it is also the most easily 
 lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than 
 the half. It is the man who tries to make the best of 
 both worlds who makes nothing of either. And he 
 who seeks to serve two masters misses the bene- 
 diction of both. But he who has taken his stand, 
 who has drawn a boundary line, sharp and deep 
 about his religious life, who has marked off all 
 beyond as for ever forbidden ground to him,, finds 
 the yoke easy and the burden light For this for- 
 bidden environment comes to be as if it were not 
 
200 MOR TIFICA TION. 
 
 His faculties falling out of correspondence, slowly 
 lose their sensibilities. And the balm of Death 
 numbing his lower nature releases him for the scarce 
 disturbed communion of a higher life. So even here 
 to die is gain. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 
u 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 rotation, 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 favourable 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. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 " 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 effi- 
 ciency 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 definition of Eternal Life. To the reli- 
 gious mind this is a contribution of immense moment. 
 For eighteen hundred years only one definition of 
 Life Eternal was before the world. Now there are 
 two. 
 
 Through all these centuries revealed religion had 
 this doctrine to itself. Ethics had a voice, as well 
 as Christianity, on the question of the summum 
 bonum; Philosophy ventured to speculate on the 
 Being of a God. But no source outside Christianity 
 contributed anything to the doctrine of Eternal Life. 
 Apart from Revelation, this great truth was un- 
 guaranteed. It was the one thing in the Christian 
 
204 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 system that most needed verification from without, 
 yet none was forthcoming. And never has any 
 further light been thrown upon the question why in 
 its very nature the Christian Life should be Eternal. 
 Christianity itself even upon this point has been 
 obscure. Its decision upon the bare fact is authori- 
 tative and specific. But as to what there is in the 
 Spiritual Life necessarily endowing it with the 
 element of Eternity, the maturest theology is all but 
 silent. 
 
 It has been reserved for modern biology at once 
 to defend and illuminate this central truth of the 
 Christian faith. And hence in the interests of reli- 
 gion, practical and evidential, this second and scientific 
 definition of Eternal Life is to. be hailed as an 
 announcement of commanding interest. Why. it 
 should not yet have received the recognition of 
 religious thinkers for already it has lain some years 
 unnoticed is not difficult to understand. The belief 
 in Science as an aid to faith is not yet ripe enough 
 to warrant men in searching there for witnesses to 
 the highest Christian truths. The inspiration of 
 Nature, it is thought, extends to the humbler doc- 
 trines alone. And yet the reverent inquirer who 
 guides his steps in the right direction may find even 
 now in the still dim twilight of the scientific world 
 much that will illuminate and intensify his sublimest 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 205 
 
 faith. Here, at least, comes, and comes unbidden 
 the opportunity of testing the most vital point of the 
 Christian system. Hitherto the Christian philo- 
 sopher has remained content with the scientific evi- 
 dence against Annihilation. Or, with Butler, he has 
 reasoned from the Metamorphoses of Insects to a 
 future life. Or again, with the authors of " The 
 Unseen Universe," the apologist has constructed 
 elaborate, and certainly impressive, arguments upon 
 the Law of Continuity. But now we may draw nearer. 
 For the first time Science touches Christianity posi- 
 tively on the doctrine of Immortality. It confronts 
 us with an actual definition of an Eternal Life, 
 based on a full and rigidly accurate examination of 
 the necessary conditions. Science does not pretend 
 that it can fulfil these conditions. Its votaries make 
 no claim to possess the Eternal Life. It simply 
 postulates the requisite conditions without concern- 
 ing itself whether any organism should ever appear, 
 or does now exist, which might fulfil them. The 
 claim of religion, on the other hand, is that there are 
 organisms which possess Eternal Life. And the 
 problem for us to solve is this : Do those who pro- 
 fess to possess Eternal Life fulfil the conditions 
 required by Science, or are they different conditions ? 
 In a word, Is the Christian conception of Eternal 
 Life scientific ? 
 
206 ETERNAL LIFE, 
 
 It may be unnecessary to notice at the outset that 
 the definition of Eternal Life drawn up by Science 
 was framed without reference to religion. It must 
 indeed have been the last thought with the thinker 
 to whom we chiefly owe it, that in unfolding the 
 conception of a Life in its very nature ilecessarily 
 eternal, he was contributing to Theology. ^ 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer for it is to him we owe it 
 would be the first to admit the impartiality of his 
 definition ; and from the connection in which it 
 occurs in his writings, it is obvious that religion was 
 not even present to his mind. He is analysing with 
 minute care the relations between Environment and 
 Life. He unfolds the principle according to which 
 Life is high or low, long or short. He shows why 
 organisms live and why they die. And finally he 
 defines a condition of things in which an organism 
 would never die in which it would enjoy a perpetual 
 and perfect Life. This to him is, of course, but a 
 speculation. Life Eternal is a biological conceit. 
 The conditions necessary to an Eternal Life do not 
 exist in the natural world. So that the definition is 
 altogether impartial and independent. A Perfect 
 Life, to Science, is simply a thing which is theoreti- 
 cally possible like a Perfect Vacuum. 
 
 Before giving, in so many words, the definition of 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer it will render it fully intelli- 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 207 
 
 gible if we gradually lead up to it by a brief re- 
 hearsal of the few and simple biological facts on 
 which it is based. In considering the subject of 
 Death, we have lormerly seen that there are 
 degrees of Life. By this is meant that some lives 
 have more and fuller correspondence with Environ- 
 ment than others. The amount of correspondence, 
 again, is determined by the greater or less complex- 
 ity of the organism. Thus a simple organism like 
 the Amoeba is possessed of very few correspondences* 
 It is a mere sac of transparent structureless jelly for 
 which organization has done almost nothing, and 
 hence it can only communicate with the smallest 
 possible area of Environment. An insect, in virtue 
 of its more complex structure, corresponds with a 
 wider area. Nature has endowed it with special 
 faculties for reaching out 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 still further 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, that the degree of Life varies with the 
 degree of correspondence, holds to the minutest 
 detail throughout the entire range of living things. 
 Life becomes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, more 
 
208 ETERNAL LIFE 
 
 and more sensitive and responsive to an ever- 
 widening Environment as we rise in the chain of 
 being. 
 
 Now it will speedily appear that a distinct rela- 
 tion exists, and must exist, between complexity 
 and longevity. Death being brought about by the 
 failure of an organism to adjust itself to some 
 change in the Environment, it follows that those 
 organisms which are able to adjust themselves most 
 readily and successfully will live the longest. They 
 will continue time after time to effect the appro- 
 priate adjustment, and their power of doing so will 
 be exactly proportionate to their complexity that 
 is, to the amount of Environment they can control 
 with their correspondences. There are, for example, 
 in the Environment of every animal certain things 
 which are directly or indirectly dangerous to Life. 
 If its equipment of correspondences is not com- 
 plete enough to enable it to avoid these dangers 
 in all possible circumstances, it must sooner or 
 /ater succumb. The organism then with the most 
 perfect set of correspondences, that is, the highest 
 and most complex organism, has an obvious advan- 
 tage over less complex forms. It can adjust itself 
 more perfectly and frequently. But this is just 
 the biological way of saying that it can live the 
 longest. And hence the relation between com- 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 209 
 
 plexity and longevity may be expressed thus the 
 most complex organisms are the longest lived. 
 
 To state and illustrate the proposition conversely 
 may make the point still further clear. The less 
 highly organized an animal is, the less will be its 
 chance of remaining in lengthened correspondence 
 with its Environment. At some time or other in 
 its career circumstances are sure to occur to which 
 the comparatively immobile organism finds itself 
 structurally unable to respond. Thus a Medusa 
 tossed ashore by a wave, finds itself so out of cor- 
 respondence with its new surroundings that its life 
 must pay the forfeit, Had it been able by internal 
 change to adapt itself to external change to cor- 
 respond sufficiently with the new environment, as 
 for example to crawl, as an eel would have done, 
 back into that environment with which it had 
 completer correspondence its life might have been 
 spared. But had this happened it would continue 
 to live henceforth only so long as it could continue 
 in correspondence with all the circumstances in 
 v/hich it might find itself. Even if, however, it 
 became complex enough to resist the ordinary and 
 direct dangers of its environment, it might still be 
 cut of correspondence with others. A naturalist 
 for instance, might take advantage of its want of 
 correspondence with particular sights and sounds to 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 capture it for his cabinet, or the sudden dropping 
 of a yacht's anchor or the turn of a screw might 
 cause its untimely death. 
 
 Again, in the case of a bird, in virtue of its 
 more complex organization, there is command over 
 a much larger area of environment. It can take 
 precautions such as the Medusa could not ; it has 
 increased facilities for securing food ; its adjust- 
 ments all round are more complex ; and therefore 
 it ought to be able to maintain its Life for a longer 
 period. There is still a large area, however, over 
 which it has no control. Its power of internal 
 change is not complete enough to afford it perfect 
 correspondence with all external changes, and its 
 tenure of Life is to that extent insecure. Its cor- 
 respondence, moreover, is limited even with regard 
 to those external conditions with which it has been 
 partially established. Thus a bird in ordinary cir- 
 cumstances has no difficulty in adapting itself to 
 changes of temperature, but if these are varied 
 beyond the point at which its capacity of adjust- 
 ment begins to fail for example, during an extreme 
 winter the organism being unable to meet the con* 
 dition must perish. The human organism, on the 
 other hand, can respond to this external condition, 
 as well as to countless other vicissitudes under 
 which lower forms would inevitably succumb. Man's 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 211 
 
 adjustments are to the largest known area of En- 
 vironment, 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 rise also in the scale of lon- 
 gevity. The lowest organisms are, as a rule, short- 
 lived, and the rate of mortality diminishes more 
 or less regularly as we ascend in the animal scale. 
 So extraordinary indeed is the mortality among 
 lowly-organized forms that in most cases a compen- 
 sation is actually provided, nature endowing them 
 with a marvellously increased fertility in order to 
 guard against absolute extinction. Almost all lower 
 forms are furnished not only with great reproduc- 
 tive powers, but with different methods of propa- 
 gation, by which, in various circumstances, and in 
 an incredibly short time, the species can be indefi- 
 nitely multiplied. Ehrenberg found that by the 
 repeated subdivisions of a single Paramecium, no 
 fewer than 268,000,000 similar organisms might be 
 produced in one month. This power steadily de- 
 creases as we rise higher in the scale, until forms 
 are reached in which one, two, or at most three, 
 come into being at a birth. It decreases, however, 
 because it is no longer needed. These forms have 
 a much longer lease of Life. And it may be taken 
 as a rule, although it has exceptions, that com- 
 
212 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 plexity in animal organisms is always associated 
 with longevity. 
 
 It may be objected that these illustrations are 
 taken merely from morbid conditions. But whether 
 the Life be cut short by accident or by disease 
 the principle is the same. All dissolution is brought 
 about practically in the same way. A certain con- 
 dition in the Environment fails to be met by a 
 corresponding condition in the organism, and this 
 is death. And conversely the more an organism in 
 virtue of its complexity can adapt itself to all the 
 parts of its Environment, the longer it will live. 
 " It is manifest a priori" says Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 "that since changes in the physical state of the 
 environment, as also those mechanical actions and 
 those variations of available food which occur in 
 it, are liable to stop the processes going on in the 
 organism ; and since the adaptive changes in the 
 organism have the effects of directly or indirectly 
 counterbalancing these changes in the environment, 
 it follows that 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 by cor- 
 responding changes in the organism. Allowing a 
 margin for perturbations, the life will continue only 
 while the correspondence continues ; the com- 
 pleteness of the life will be proportionate to the 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 213 
 
 completeness of the correspondence ; and the life 
 will be perfect only when the correspondence is 
 perfect." 1 
 
 We are now all but in sight of our scientific defi-t 
 nition of Eternal Life. The desideratum is an organ-) 
 ism with a correspondence of a very exceptional 
 kind. It must lie beyond the reach of those " me- 
 chanical actions" and those "variations of available 
 food," which are " liable to stop the processes going 
 on in the organism." Before we reach an Eternal' 
 Life we must pass beyond that point at which all 
 ordinary correspondences inevitably cease. We 
 must find an organism so high and complex, that at 
 some point in its development it shall have added a 
 correspondence which organic death is powerless to 
 arrest. We must in short pass beyond that finite) 
 region where the correspondences depend on evan- 
 escent atrel material media, and enter a further region 
 where the Environment corresponded with is itself 
 
 Eternal. Such an Environment exists. The En- 
 vironment of the Spiritual world is outside the 
 influence of these " mechanical actions," which sooner 
 or later interrupt the processes going on in all finite 
 organisms. If then we can find an organism which 
 has established a correspondence with the spiritual 
 
 : Principles of Biology," p. 82. 
 
c 
 
 214 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 } world, that correspondence will possess the elements 
 
 \of eternity provided only one other condition be 
 
 \fulfilled. 
 
 j 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 of change, there can 
 be no guarantee that the Life of its correspondents 
 will be eternal. Some change might occur in it 
 which the correspondents had no adaptive changes 
 to meet, and Life would cease. But grant a spiritual 
 organism in perfect correspondence with a perfect 
 
 j spiritual Environment, and the conditions necessary 
 
 I to Eternal Life are satisfied. 
 
 * The exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's defini- 
 
 W' 
 
 tion of Eternal Life may now be given. And it will 
 be seen that they include essentially the conditions 
 here laid down. " Perfect correspondence would be 
 perfect life. Were there no changes in the environ- 
 \ ment 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." 1 Reserving the 
 question as to the possible fulfilment of these con* 
 ditions, let us turn for a moment to the definition of 
 Eternal Life laid down by Christ. Let us place it 
 
 i "Principles of Biology," p. 88. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 215 
 
 alongside the definition of Science, and mark the) 
 points of contact. Uninterrupted correspondence 
 with a perfect Environment is Eternal Life according 
 to Science. "This is Life Eternal," said Christ^ 
 "that they may know Thee, the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." l Life Eternal 
 is to know God. To know God is to " correspond " 
 with God. To correspond with God is to correspond 
 with a Perfect Environment. And the organism 
 which attains to this, in the nature of things must 
 live for ever. Here is " eternal existence and eternal 
 knowledge." 
 
 The main point of agreement between the scientific 
 and the religious definition is that Life consists in a 
 peculiar and personal relation defined as a "corre- 
 spondence." This conception, that Life consists in 
 correspondences, has been so abundantly illustrated 
 already that it is now unnecessary to discuss it 
 further. All Life indeed consists essentially in 
 -correspondences with various Environments. The 
 artist's life is a correspondence with art ; the musi- 
 cian's with music. To cut them off from these En- 
 vironments is in that relation to cut off their Life. 
 To be cut off from all Environment is death. To 
 find a new Environment again and cultivate relation 
 
 1 John xvil 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 with it is to find a new Life. To live is to corre- 
 spond, and to correspond is to live. So much is true 
 in Science. But it is also true in Religion. And it 
 is of great importance to observe that to Religion 
 also the conception of Life is a correspondence. No 
 truth of Christianity has been more ignorantly or 
 wilfully travestied than the doctrine of Immortality. 
 The popular idea, in spite of a hundred protests, is 
 that Eternal Life is to live for ever A single glance 
 at the locus classicus, might have made this error 
 impossible. There we are told that Life Eternal is 
 not to live. This is Life Eternal to know. And yet 
 and it is a notorious instance of the fact that men 
 who are opposed to Religion will take their con- 
 ceptions of its profoundest truths from mere vulgar 
 perversions this view still represents to many cul- 
 tivated men the Scriptural doctrine of Eternal Life. 
 From time to time the taunt is thrown at Religion, 
 not unseldom from lips which Science ought to 
 have taught more caution, that the Future Life of 
 Christianity is simply a prolonged existence, an 
 eternal monotony, a blind and indefinite continuance 
 of being. The Bible never could commit itself to 
 any such empty platitude ; nor could Christianity 
 ever offer to the world a hope so colourless. Not 
 that Eternal Life has nothing to do with everlasting- 
 ness. That is part of the conception. And it is this 
 
ETERNAL Llfs. 217 
 
 aspect of the question that first arrests us in the field 
 of Science. But even Science has more in its defi 
 nition than longevity. It has a correspondence and 
 an Environment; and although it cannot fill up 
 these terms for Religion, it can indicate at least the 
 nature of the relation, the kind of thing that is meant 
 by Life. Science speaks to us indeed of much more 
 than numbers of years. It defines degrees of Life. 
 It explains a widening Environment. It unfolds 
 the relation between a widening Environment and 
 increasing complexity in organisms. And if it has no 
 absolute contribution to the content of Religion, its 
 analogies are not limited to a point. It yields to 
 Immortality, and this is the most that Science can 
 do in any case, the broad framework for a doctrine. 
 
 The further definition, moreover, of this corre- 
 spondence as knowing is in the highest degree signi- 
 ficant. Is not this the precise quality in an Eternal 
 correspondence which the analogies of Science would 
 prepare us to look for? Longevity is associated 
 with complexity. And complexity in organisms is 
 manifested by the successive addition of correspon- 
 dences, each richer and larger than those which have 
 gone before. The differentiation, therefore, of the 
 spiritual organism ought to be signalized by the 
 addition of the highest possible correspondence. It 
 is not essential to the idea that the correspondence 
 
2i8 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 should be altogether novel ; it is necessary rather 
 that it should not. An altogether new correspon- 
 dence appearing suddenly without shadow or pro- 
 phecy would be a violation of continuity. What we 
 should expect would be something new, and yet 
 something that we were already prepared for. We 
 should look for a further development in harmony 
 with current developments ; the extension of the last 
 and highest correspondence in a new and higher 
 direction. And this is exactly what we have. In 
 the world with which biology deals, Evolution cul- 
 minates in Knowledge, 
 
 At whatever point in the zoological scale this cor- 
 respondence, or set of correspondences, begins, it is 
 certain there is nothing higher. In its stunted 
 infancy merely, when we meet with its rudest be- 
 ginnings in animal intelligence, it is a thing so won- 
 derful, as to strike every thoughtful and reverent 
 observer with awe. Even among the invertebrates 
 so marvellously are these or kindred powers dis- 
 played, that naturalists do not hesitate now, on the 
 ground of intelligence at least, to classify some of the 
 humblest creatures next to man himself. 1 Nothing 
 in nature, indeed, is so unlike the rest of nature, so 
 / prophetic of what is beyond it, so supernatural.^And 
 
 1 Vide Sir John Lubbock's "Ants, Bees, and Wasps," pp. i, 
 181. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 219 
 
 as manifested in Man who crowns creation with his 
 all-embracing consciousness, there is but one word 
 to describe his knowledge : it is Divine. If then 
 from this point there is to be any further Evolution, 
 this surely must be the correspondence in which it 
 shall take place? This correspondence is great: 
 enough to demand development ; and yet it is little 
 enough to need it. The magnificence of what it has 
 achieved relatively, is the pledge of the possibility 
 of more ; the insignificance of its conquest absolute- 
 ly involves the probability of still richer triumphs. 
 If anything, in short, in humanity is to go on it 
 must be this. Other correspondences may continue 
 likewise ; others, again, we can well afford to leave 
 behind. But this cannot cease. This correspon- 
 dence or this set of correspondences, for it is very 
 complex is it not that to which men with one 
 consent would attach Eternal Life ? Is there any- 
 thing else to which they would attach it ? Is any- 
 thing better conceivable, anything worthier, fuller, 
 nobler, anything which would represent a higher form 
 of Evolution or offer a more perfect ideal for an 
 Eternal Life ? 
 
 
 
 But these are questions of quality ; and the" 
 moment we pass from quantity to quality we leave 
 Science behind. In the vocabulary of Science, 
 Eternity is only the fraction of a word. It means 
 
220 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 mere everlastingness. To Religion, on the other 
 hand, Eternity has little to do with time. To 
 correspond with the God of Science, the Eternal * 
 Unknowable, would be everlasting existence ; to i 
 correspond with " the true God and Jesus Christ/' \ 
 is Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life 
 alone makes the heaven ; mere everlastingness 
 might be no boon. Even the brief span of the 
 temporal life is too long for those who spend its 
 j years in sorrow. Time itself, let alone Eternity, 
 is all but excruciating to Doubt. And many be- 
 sides Schopenhauer have secretly regarded con- 
 sciousness as the hideous mistake and malady of 
 Nature. Therefore we must not only have quantity 
 of years, to speak in the language of the present, 
 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 be included in a general expression, Faith ; 
 or we may call it by a personal and specific term, 
 Love. For the knowing of a Whole so great in- 
 volves the co-operation of many parts. 
 
 Communion with God can it be demonstrated 
 in terms of Science that this is a correspondence 
 which will never break ? We do not appeal to 
 Science for such a testimony. We have asked for 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 221 
 
 its conception of an Eternal Life ; and we have 
 received for answer that Eternal Life would consist 
 in a correspondence which should never cease, with 
 an Environment which should never pass away. 
 And yet what would Science demand of a perfect 
 correspondence that is not met by this, the knowing 
 of God? There is no other correspondence which 
 could satisfy one at least of the conditions. Not 
 one could be named which would not bear on the 
 face of it the mark and pledge of its mortality. 
 But this, to know God, stands alone. To know 
 God, to be linked with God, to be linked witr 
 Eternity if this is not the "eternal existence" o: 
 biology, what can more nearly approach it ? Anc 
 yet we are still a great way' off to establish a 
 communication with the Eternal is not to secure 
 Eternal Life. It must be assumed that the com- 
 munication could be sustained. And to assume 
 this would be to beg the question. So that we 
 have still to prove Eternal Life. But let it be 
 again repeated, we are not here seeking proofs. 
 We are seeking light. We are merely reconnoitring 
 from the furthest promontory of Science if so be 
 that through the haze we may discern the outline 
 of a distant coast and come to some conclusion as 
 to the possibility of landing. 
 
 But, it may be replied, it is not open to any one 
 
222 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 handling the question of Immortality from the side 
 of Science to remain neutral as to the question of 
 fact It is not enough to announce that he has 
 no addition to make to the positive argument. 
 This may be permitted with reference to other 
 points of contact between Science and Religion, 
 but not with this. We are told this question is 
 settled that there is no positive side. Science 
 meets the entire conception of Immortality with a 
 direct negative. In the face of a powerful consensus 
 against even the possibility of a Future Life, to 
 content oneself with saying that Science pretended 
 to no argument in favour of it would be at once 
 impertinent and dishonest. We must therefore 
 devote ourselves for a moment to the question of 
 possibility. 
 
 The problem is, with a material body and a 
 mental organization inseparably connected with it, 
 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. Everything ceases with the 
 dissolution of the material fabric ; muscular activity 
 and mental activity perish alike. With the pro- 
 nounced positive statements on this point from 
 many departments of modern Science we are all 
 familiar. The fatal verdict is recorded by a hundred 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 223 
 
 hands and with scarcely a shadow of qualification. 
 ' Unprejudiced philosophy is compelled to reject 
 the idea of an individual immortality and of a 
 personal continuance after death. With the decay 
 and dissolution of its material substratum, through 
 which alone it has acquired a conscious existence 
 and become a person, and upon which it was 
 dependent, the spirit must cease to exist." l To the 
 same effect Vogt : " Physiology decides definitely 
 and categorically against individual immortality, as 
 against any special existence of the soul. The soul 
 does not enter the foetus like the evil spirit into 
 persons possessed, but is a product of the develop- 
 ment of the brain, just as muscular activity is a 
 product of muscular development, and secretion a 
 product of glandular development." After a careful 
 review of the position of recent Science with regard 
 to the whole doctrine, Mr. Graham sums up thus : 
 " Such is the argument of Science, seemingly 
 decisive against a future life. As we listen to her 
 array of syllogisms, our hearts die within us. The 
 hopes of men, placed in one scale to be weighed, 
 seem to fly up against the massive weight of her 
 evidence, placed in the other. It seems as if 
 our arguments were vain and unsubstantial, as it 
 
 1 Buchner : " Force and Matter," 3rd Ed., p. 232. 
 
224 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 \ our future expectations were the foolish dreams of 
 j children, as if there could not be any other possible 
 \ verdict arrived at upon the evidence brought for- 
 I ward." l 
 
 Can we go on in [the teeth of so real an obstruc- 
 tion ? Has not our own weapon turned against us, 
 Science abolishing with authoritative hand the very 
 truth we are asking it to define ? 
 
 What the philosopher has to throw into the other 
 scale can be easily indicated. Generally speaking, 
 he demurs to the dogmatism of the conclusion. 
 That mind and brain react, that the mental and 
 the physiological processes are related, and very 
 intimately related, is beyond controversy. But how 
 they are related, he submits, it still altogether un- 
 known. The correlation of mind and brain do not 
 involve their identity. And not a few authorities 
 accordingly have consistently hesitated to draw any 
 conclusion at all. Even Biichner's statement turns 
 out, on close examination, to be tentative in the 
 extreme. In prefacing his chapter on Personal 
 Continuance, after a single sentence on the de- 
 pendence of the soul and its manifestations upon 
 a material substratum, he remarks, " Though we are 
 unable to form a definite idea as to the how of this 
 
 1 "The Creed of Science," p. 169. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 225 
 
 
 connection, we are still by these facts justified in 
 asserting, that the mode of this connection renders 
 it apparently impossible that they should continue 
 to exist separately." x There is, therefore, a flaw at 
 this point in the argument for materialism. It 
 may not help the spiritualist in the least degree 
 positively. He may be as far as ever from a 
 theory of how consciousness could continue with- 
 out the material tissue. But his contention secures 
 for him the right of speculation. The path beyond 
 may lie in hopeless gloom ; but it is not barred. 
 He may bring forward his theory if he will. And 
 this is something. For a permission to go on is 
 often the most that Science can grant to Religion. 
 
 Men have taken advantage of this loophole in 
 various ways. And though it cannot be said that 
 these speculations offer us more than a proba- 
 bility, this is still enough to combine with the 
 deep-seated expectation in the bosom of mankind 
 and give fresh lustre to the hope of a future 
 life. Whether we find relief in the theory of a 
 simple dualism ; whether with Ulrici we further 
 define the soul as an invisible enswathement of the 
 body, material yet non-atomic ; whether, with the 
 " Unseen Universe," we are helped by the spectacle 
 
 i 'Force and Matter," p. 231. 
 
226 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 of known forms of matter shading off into an 
 ever-growing subtilty, mobility, and immateriality; 
 or whether, with Wundt, we regard the soul as 
 "the ordered unity of many elements/ 1 it is cer- 
 tain that shapes can be given to the conception 
 of a correspondence which shall bridge the grave 
 such as to satisfy minds too much accustomed to 
 weigh evidence to put themselves off with fancies. 
 
 But whether the possibilities of physiology or the 
 theories of philosophy do or do not substantially 
 assist us in realizing Immortality, is to Religion, to 
 Religion at least regarded from the present point of 
 view, of inferior moment. The fact of Immortality 
 rests for us on a different basis. Probably, indeed, 
 after all the Christian philosopher never engaged him- 
 self in a more superfluous task than in seeking along 
 physiological lines to find room for a soul. The 
 theory of Christianity has only to be fairly stated to 
 make manifest its thorough independence of all the 
 usual speculations on Immortality. The theory is 
 not that thought, volition, or emotion, as such are 
 to survive the grave. The difficulty of holding a 
 doctrine in this form, in spite of what has been 
 advanced to the contrary, in spite of the hopes and 
 wishes of mankind, in spite of all the scientific and 
 philosophical attempts to make it tenable, is still 
 profound. No secular theory of personal continu- 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 227 
 
 ance, as even Butler acknowledged, does not 
 equally demand the eternity of the brute. No 
 secular theory defines the point in the chain of 
 Evolution at which organisms became endowed 
 with Immortality. No secular theory explains the 
 condition of the endowment, nor indicates its goal. 
 And if we have nothing more to fan hope than 
 the unexplored mystery of the whole region, or the 
 unknown remainders among the potencies of Life, 
 then, as those who have " hope only in this world," 
 we are "of all men the most miserable." 
 
 When we turn, on the other hand, to the doc-) 
 trine as it came from the lips of Christ, we find^ 
 ourselves in an entirely different region. He makes 
 no attempt to project the material into the imma- 
 terial. The old elements, however refined and subtil 
 as to their matter, are not in themselves to inherit 
 the Kingdom of God. That which is flesh is flesh. 
 Instead of attaching Immortality to the natural 
 organisfn, He introduces a new and original factor 
 which none of the secular, and few even of the 
 theological theories, seem to take sufficiently into 
 account. To Christianity, "he that hath the Son of 
 God hath Life, and he that hath not the Son hath 
 \not Life." This, as we take it, defines the corre- 
 spondence which is to bridge the grave. This is the 
 clue to the nature of the Life that lies at the back 
 
228 ETERNAL LIPE. 
 
 I of the spiritual organism. And this is the true 
 ^solution of the mystery of Eternal Life. 
 
 There lies a something at the back of the corre- 
 spondences of the spiritual organism just as there 
 lies a something at the back of the natural corre- 
 spondences. To say that Life is a correspondence is 
 only to express the partial truth. There is some- 
 thing behind. Life manifests itself in correspon- 
 dences. But what determines them ? The organism 
 exhibits a variety of correspondences. What organ- 
 izes them? As in the natural, so in the spiritual, 
 there is a Principle of Life. We cannot get rid of 
 that term. However clumsy, however provisional, 
 however much a mere cloak for ignorance, Science 
 as yet is unable to dispense with the idea of a 
 Principle of Life. We must work with the word 
 till we get a better. Now that which determines 
 the correspondence of the spiritual organism is a 
 Principle of Spiritual Life. It is a new and Divine 
 Possession. He that hath the Son hath Life ; 
 conversely, he that hath Life hath the Son. And 
 this indicates at once the quality and the quantity 
 of the correspondence which is to bridge the grave. 
 He that hath Life hath the Son. He possesses the 
 Spirit of a Son. That spirit is, so to speak, 
 organized within him by the Son. It is the mani- 
 festation of the new nature of which more anon 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 229 
 
 The fact to note at present is that this is not aii 
 organic correspondence, but a spiritual correspon- 
 dence. It comes not from generation, but frorr 
 regeneration. i The relation between the spiritua \ 
 man and his Environment is, in theological lan- 
 guage, a filial relation. With the new Spirit, the 
 filial correspondence, he knows the Father and 
 this is Life Eternal. This is not only the real 
 relation, but the only possible relation : " Neither 
 knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he 
 to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." And 
 this on purely natural grounds. It takes the Divine 
 to know the Divine but in no more mysterious 
 sense than it takes the human to understand the 
 human. The analogy, indeed, for the whole field 
 here has been finely expressed already by Paul : 
 "What man," he asks, "knoweth the things of a 
 ( man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? 1 
 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 which is of God , 
 that we might know the things that are freely 
 given to us of God." 1 
 
 It were idle, such being the quality of the new 
 relation, to add that this also contains the guaiantee 
 
 1 i Cor. ii. IT, I2-, 
 
230 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 of its eternity. Here at last is a correspondence 
 which will never cease. Its powers in bridging the 
 grave have been tried. The correspondence of the 
 /spiritual man possesses the supernatural virtues of 
 \the Resurrection and the Life. It is known by 
 former experiment to have survived the " changes 
 in the physical state of the environment," and those 
 " mechanical actions " and " variations of available 
 food," which Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us are " liable 
 to stop the processes going on in the organism." In 
 short, this is a correspondence which at once satisfies 
 the demands of Science and Religion. In mere 
 quantity it is different from every other corre- 
 spondence known. Setting aside everything else in 
 Religion, everything adventitious, local, and pro- 
 visional ; dissecting in to the bone and marrow we 
 find this a correspondence which can never break 
 with an Environment which can never change. 
 Here is a relation established with Eternity. The 
 passing years lay no limiting hand on it. Cor- 
 ruption injures it not. It survives Death. It, and 
 it only, will stretch 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 
 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 237 
 
 brightest faith has already received its expression 
 and its rebuke : "Who shall separate us from the 
 love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or 
 persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
 sword?" Shall these " changes in the physical state 
 of the environment" which threaten death to the 
 natural man destroy the spiritual ? Shall death, or 
 life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, arrest 
 or tamper with his eternal correspondences ? " Nay, 
 in all these things we are more than conquerors 
 through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded 
 that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principali- 
 ties, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus jour Lord." l 
 
 It may seem an objection to some that the " per- 
 fect correspondence " should come to man in so 
 extraordinary a way. The earlier stages in the 
 doctrine are promising enough ; they are entirely in 
 line with Nature. And if Nature had also furnished 
 the " perfect correspondence " demanded for an 
 Eternal Life the position might be unassailable. 
 But this sudden reference to a something outside the 
 natural Environment destroys the continuity, and 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 35-39- 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 discovers a permanent weakness in the whole theory ? 
 
 To which there is a twofold reply. In the first 
 place, to go outside what we call Nature is not to 
 go outside Environment. Nature, the natural Envir- 
 onment, is only a part of Environment. There 
 is another large part which, though some profess 
 to have no correspondence with it, is not on that 
 account unreal, or even unnatural. The mental and 
 moral world is unknown to the plant. But it is real. 
 It cannot be affirmed either that it is unnatural to 
 the plant ; although it might be said that from 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. When a mineral is seized upon by the 
 living plant and elevated to the organic kingdom, 
 no trespass against Nature is committed. It merely 
 enters a larger Environment, which before was super- 
 natural to it, but which now is entirely natural 
 When the heart of a man, again, is seized upon by 
 the quickening Spirit of God, no further violence is 
 done to natural law. It is another case of the in- 
 organic, so to speak, passing into the organic. 
 
 But, in the second place, it is complained as if it 
 were an enormity in itself that the spiritual corre- 
 spondence should be furnished from the spiritual 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 233 
 
 world. And to this the answer lies in the same 
 direction. Correspondence in any case is the gift of 
 Environment. The natural Environment gives men 
 their natural faculties ; the spiritual affords them ' 
 their spiritual faculties. It is natural for the spiritual 
 Environment to supply the spiritual faculties ; it 
 would be quite unnatural for the natural Environ- 
 ment to do it. The natural law of Biogenesis forbids 
 it ; the moral fact that the finite cannot comprehend 
 the Infinite is against it ; the spiritual principle that 
 flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God 
 renders it absurd. Not, however, that the spiritual 
 faculties are, as it were, manufactured in the spiritual 
 world and supplied ready-made to the spiritual organ- 
 ism forced upon it as an external equipment. This 
 certainly is not involved in saying that the spiritual 
 faculties are furnished by the spiritual world. Or- 
 ganisms are not added to by accretion, as in the case 
 of minerals, but by growth. And the spiritual 
 faculties are organized in the spiritual protoplasm of | 
 the soul, just as other faculties are organized in the I 
 ! protoplasm of the body. The plant is made of 
 materials which have once been inorganic. An 
 organizing principle not belonging to their kingdom 
 lays hold of them and elaborates them until they 
 have correspondences with the kingdom to which the 
 organizing principle belonged. Their original organ- 
 
234 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 izing principle, if it can be called by this name, 
 was Crystallisation ; so that we have now a distinctly 
 foreign power organizing in totally new and higher 
 directions. In the spiritual world, similarly, we find 
 an organizing principle at work among the materials 
 of the organic kingdom, performing a further mir- 
 acle, but not a different kind of miracle, producing 
 organizations of a novel kind, but not by a novel 
 method. The second process, in fact, is simply what 
 an enlightened evolutionist would have expected 
 from the first It marks the natural and legitimate 
 progress of the development. And this in the line 
 of the true Evolution not the linear Evolution, 
 which would look for the development of the natural 
 man through powers already inherent, as if one were 
 to look to Crystallisation to accomplish the develop- 
 ment of the mineral into the plant, but that larger 
 form of Evolution which includes among its factors 
 the double Law of Biogenesis and the immense 
 further truth that this involves. 
 
 What is further included in this complex corre- 
 spondence we shall have opportunity to illustrate 
 afterwards. 1 Meantime let it be noted on what the 
 Christian argument for Immortality really rests. It 
 stands upon the pedestal on which the theologian 
 
 1 Vide " Conformity to Type," page 287 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 23$ 
 
 rests the whole of historical Christianity-4the Resur- 
 rection of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It ought to be placed in the forefront of all Chris- 
 tian teaching that Christ'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, is clear from the whole 
 course of His teaching and acting. To impose a 
 metaphorical meaning on the commonest word of the 
 New Testament is to violate every canon of interpre- 
 tation, and at the same time to charge the greatest 
 of teachers with persistently mystifying His hearers 
 by an unusual use of so exact a vehicle for express- 
 ing definite thought as the Greek language, and that 
 on the most momentous subject of which He ever 
 spoke to men. It is a canon of interpretation, ac- 
 cording to Alford, that " a figurative sense of words 
 is never admissible except when required by the 
 context." The context, in most cases, is not only 
 directly unfavourable to a figurative meaning, but in 
 innumerable instances in Christ's teaching Life is 
 broadly contrasted with Death. In the teaching of 
 the apostles, again, we find that, without exception 
 they accepted the term in its simple literal sense. 
 Reuss defines the apostolic belief with his usual im- 
 partiality when and the quotation is doubly perti- 
 
236 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 nent here he discovers in the apostle's conception 
 of Life, first, " the idea of ^ real existence, an exis- 
 tence such as is proper to God and to the Word ; an j 
 imperishable existence that is to say, not subject to 
 the vicissitudes and imperfections of the finite world. 
 This primary idea is repeatedly expressed, at least 
 in a negative form ; it leads to a doctrine of immor- 
 tality, or, to speak more correctly, of life, far surpass- 
 ing any that had been expressed in the formulas of 
 the current philosophy or theology, and resting upon 
 premises and conceptions altogether different. In 
 fact, it can dispense both with the philosophical 
 thesis of the immateriality or indestructibility of the 
 human soul, and with the theological thesis of a 
 miraculous corporeal reconstruction of our person ; 
 theses, the first of which is altogether foreign to the 
 religion of the Bible, and the second absolutely 
 opposed to reason." Second, " the idea of life, as it 
 is conceived in this system, implies the idea of a 
 power, an operation, a communication, since this life 
 no longer remains, so to speak, latent or passive in 
 God and in the Word, but through them reaches the 
 believer. It is not a mental somnolent thing ; it is 
 not a plant without fruit ; it is a germ which is to 
 find fullest development." l 
 
 J " History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age," vol 
 ii. p. 496. 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 237 
 
 If we are asked to define more clearly what is 
 meant by this mysterious endowment of Life, we 
 again hand over the difficulty to Science. When 
 Science can define the Natural Life and the Physical 
 Force we may hope for 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 the attempt to subject protoplasm to micro- 
 scopic examination in the hope of discovering Life. 
 We are warned, also, not to expect too much. 
 " Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it 
 goeth." This being its quality, when the Spiritual 
 Life is discovered in the laboratory it will possibly 
 be time to give it up altogether. It may say, as 
 Socrates of his soul, " You may bury me if you can 
 catch me." 
 
 Science never corroborates a spiritual truth with- 
 out illuminating it. The threshold of Eternity is a 
 place where many shadows meet. And the light of 
 Science here, where everything is so dark, is welcome 
 a thousand 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' 
 is not indifference that keeps some men from God,/ 
 but ignorance. " Good Master, what must I do to 
 inherit Eternal Life ? " is still the deepest question 
 of the age. What is Religion ? What am I to be- 
 
238 E-KERNAL LIFE. 
 
 lieve ? What seek with all my heart and soul and 
 mind? this is the imperious question sent 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. But the 
 theories are rejected one by one ; the great books are 
 returned sadly to their shelves, the years pass, and 
 the problem remains unsolved. The confusion of 
 tongues here is terrible. ! Every day a new authority 
 announces himself. Poets, philosophers, preachers 
 try their hand on us in turn. New prophets arise, 
 and beseech us for our soul's sake to give ear to 
 them at last in an hour of inspiration they have 
 discovered the final truth. Yet the doctrine of yes- 
 terday is challenged by a fresh philosophy to-day; 
 and the creed of to-day will fall in turn before the 
 criticism of to-morrow. Increase of knowledge in- 
 creaseth sorrow. And at length the conflicting truths, 
 like the beams of light in the laboratory experiment, 
 combine in the mind to make total darkness. \ 
 
 But here are two outstanding authorities agreed 
 not men, not philosophers, not creeds. Here is the 
 voice of God and the voice of Nature. I cannot be 
 wrong if I listen to them. Sometimes when uncer- 
 tain of a voice from its very loudness, we catch the 
 missing syllable in the echo. In God and Nature we 
 
ETERNAL LfFE. 239 
 
 have Voice and Echo. When I hear both, I am 
 assured. My sense of hearing does not betray me 
 twice. I recognise the Voice in the Echo, the Echo 
 makes me certain of the Voice ; I listen and I know. 
 The question of a Future Life is a biological ques- 
 tion. Nature may be silent on other problems of 
 Religion ; but here she has a right to speak. The 
 whole confusion around the doctrine of Eternal Life 
 has arisen from making it a question of Philosophy. 
 We shall do ill to refuse a hearing to any speculation 
 of Philosophy ; the ethical relations here especially 
 
 / are intimate and real. But in the first instance 
 Eternal Life, as a question of Life, is a problem for 
 
 j Biology. The soul is a living organism. And for 
 any question as to the soul's Life we must appeal to 
 Life-science. And what does the Life-science teach ? 
 
 That if I am to inherit Eternal Life, I must cultivate 
 
 } 
 a correspondence with the Eternal, j This is a simple 
 
 proposition, for Nature is always simple. I take 
 this proposition, and, leaving Nature, proceed to fill 
 it in. I search everywhere for a clue to the Eternal. 
 I ransack literature for a definition of a correspond- 
 once between man and God. Obviously that can 
 only come from one source. And the analogies of 
 Science permit us to apply to it. All knowledge lies 
 in Environment. When I want to know about min- 
 erals I go to minerals. When I want to know about 
 
240 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 flowers I go to flowers. And they tell me. In their 
 own way they speak to me, each in its own way, and 
 each for itself not the mineral for the flower, which 
 is 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. And he tells 
 me about himself, not as the plant or the mineral, for 
 he is neither, but in his own way. And if I want to 
 know about God, I go to His part of the Environ- 
 ment. And He tells me about Himself, not as a 
 Man, for He is not Man, but in His own way. And 
 just as naturally as the flower and the mineral and 
 the Man, each in their own way, tell me about them- 
 selves, He tells me about Himself. He very strangely 
 condescends indeed in making things plain to me, 
 actually assuming for a time the Form of a Man that 
 I at my poor level may better see Him. This is my 
 opportunity to know Him. This incarnation is God 
 making Himself accessible to human thought God 
 opening to man the possibility of correspondence 
 through Jesus Christ. And this correspondence and 
 this Environment are those I seek. He Himsell 
 assures me, " This is Life Eternal, that they might 
 know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom 
 Thou hast sent." Do I not now discern the deepei 
 meaning in "Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" 1 
 Do I not better understand with what vision and 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 rapture the profoundest of the disciples exclaims, 
 k< The Son of God is come, and hath given us an 
 understanding that we might know Him that is 
 True"? 1 4- 
 
 Having opened correspondence with the Eternal 
 Environment, the subsequent stages are in the line of 
 all other normal development We have but to con- 
 tinue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich the corre- 
 spondence that has been begun. And we shall soon 
 find to our surprise that this is accompanied by 
 another and parallel process. The action is not all 
 upon our side. The Environment also will be found 
 to correspond. The influence of Environment is one 
 of the greatest and most substantial of modern bio- 
 logical doctrines. Of the power of Environment to 
 form or transform organisms, of its ability to develop 
 or suppress function, of its potency in determining 
 growth, and generally of its immense influence in 
 Evolution, there is no need now to speak. But En- 
 vironment is now acknowledged to be one of the 
 most potent factors in the Evolution of Life. The 
 influence of Environment too seems to increase rather 
 than diminish as we approach the higher forms of 
 being. The highest forms are the most mobile ; their 
 capacity of change is the greatest ; they are, in short, 
 
 1 i John v. 20. 
 
242 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 most easily acted on by Environment. And not only 
 are the highest organisms the most mobile, but the 
 highest parts of the highest organisms are more 
 mobile than the lower. Environment can do little, 
 comparatively, in the direction of inducing variation 
 in the body of a child ; but how plastic is its mind ! 
 How infinitely sensitive is its soul ! How infallibly 
 can it be tuned to music or to dissonance by the 
 moral harmony or discord of its outward lot ! How 
 decisively indeed are we not all formed and moulded, 
 made or unmade, by external circumstance ! 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 the spiritual nature of him who has 
 opened correspondence with God. Reaching out his 
 eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world 
 around him, shall he not become spiritual ? In vital 
 contact with Holiness, shall he not become holy? 
 Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, 
 shall he miss becoming pure? Walking with God 
 from day to day, shall he fail to be taught of God? 
 Growth in grace is sometimes described as a 
 strange, mystical, and unintelligible process. It is 
 mystical, but neither strange nor unintelligible. It 
 proceeds according to Natural Law, and the leading 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 243 
 
 factor in sanctification is Influence of Environment. 
 The possibility of it depends upon the mobility of 
 the organism ; the result, on the extent and frequency 
 of certain correspondences. These facts insensibly 
 lead on to a further suggestion. Is it not possible 
 that these biological truths may carry with them the 
 clue to a still profounder philosophy even that of 
 Regeneration ? 
 
 Evolutionists tell us that by the influence of en- 
 
 / vironment certain aquatic animals have become 
 adapted to a terrestrial mode of life. Breathing 
 
 j normally by gills, as the result and reward of a 
 continued effort carried on from generation to gener- 
 ation to inspire the air of heaven direct, they have 
 slowly acquired the lung-function. In the young 
 organism, true to the ancestral type, the gill still 
 persists as in the tadpole of the common frog. 
 But as maturity approaches the true lung appears ; 
 the gill gradually transfers its task to the higher 
 organ. It then becomes atrophied and disappears, 
 and finally respiration in the adult is conducted by 
 lungs alone. 1 We may be far, in the meantime, from 
 saying that this is proved. It is for those who accept 
 it to deny the justice of the spiritual analogy. Is 
 
 1 Vide also the remarkable experiments of Fraulein v. Chauvin 
 on the Transformation of the Mexican Axolotl into Amblystoma. 
 WeismamVs " Studies in the Theory of Descent/' voL ii. pt. iil 
 
244 ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 religion to them unscientific in its doctrine of Re- 
 generation ? Will the evolutionist who admits the 
 regeneration of the frog under the modifying influence 
 of a continued correspondence with a new environ- 
 ment, care to question the possibility of the soul 
 acquiring such a faculty as that of Prayer, the mar- 
 vellous breathing-function of the new creature, when 
 in contact with the atmosphere of a besetting God ? 
 Is the change from the earthly to the heavenly more 
 mysterious than the change from the aquatic to 
 the terrestrial mode of life ? Is Evolution to stop 
 with the organic ? If it be objected that it has taken 
 ages to perfect the function in the batrachian, the 
 reply is, that it will take ages to perfect the function 
 in the Christian. For every thousand years the 
 natural evolution will allow for the development of 
 its organism, the Higher Biology will grant its 
 product millions. We have indeed spoken of the 
 spiritual correspondence as already perfect but it 
 is perfect only as the bud is perfect. " It doth 
 not yet appear what it shall be," any more than it 
 appeared a million years ago what the evolving 
 batrachian would be. 
 
 But to return. We have been dealing with the 
 scientific aspects of communion with God. Insen- 
 sibly, from quantity we have been led to speak of 
 quality. And enough has now been advanced to 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 245 
 
 indicate generally the nature of that correspondence 
 with which is necessarily associated Eternal Life. 
 There remain but one or two details to which we 
 must lastly, and very briefly, address ourselves. 
 
 The quality of everlastingness belongs, as we have 
 seen, to a single correspondence, or rather to a single 
 set of correspondences. But it is apparent that 
 before this correspondence can take full and final 
 effect a further process is necessary. By some means 
 it must be separated from all the other correspon- 
 dences of the organism which do not share its 
 peculiar quality. In this life it is restrained by these 
 other correspondences. They may contribute to it 
 or hinder it ; but they are essentially of a different 
 order. They belong not to Eternity but to Time, 
 and to this present world ; and, unless some provision 
 is made for dealing with them, they will detain the 
 aspiring organism in this present world till Time is 
 ended. Of course, in a sense, all that belongs to 
 Time belongs also to Eternity ; but these lower 
 correspondences are in their nature unfitted for an 
 Eternal Life. Even if they were perfect in their 
 relation to their Environment, they would still not 
 be Eternal. However opposed, apparently, to the 
 
 ( scientific definition of Eternal Life, it is yet true 
 that perfect correspondence with Environment is not 
 
 I Eternal Life. A very important word in the com- 
 
plete definition is, in this sentence, omitted. On 
 that word it has not been necessary hitherto, and 
 for obvious reasons, to place any emphasis, but when 
 we come to deal with false pretenders to Immortality 
 we must return to it. Were the definition complete 
 as it stands, it might, with the permission of the 
 psycho-physiologist, guarantee the Immortality of 
 every living thing. In the dog, for instance, the 
 material framework giving way at death might leave 
 the released canine spirit still free to inhabit the 
 old Environment. And so with every creature which 
 had ever established a conscious relation with sur- 
 rounding things. Now the difficulty in framing a 
 theory of Eternal Life has been to construct one 
 which will exclude the brute creation, drawing the 
 line rigidly at man, or at least somewhere within 
 the human race. Not that we need object to the 
 Immortality of the dog, or of the whole inferior 
 creation. Nor that we need refuse a place to any 
 intelligible speculation which would people the earth 
 to-day with the invisible forms of all things that 
 have ever lived. Only we still insist that this is 
 not Eternal Life. And why ? Because their En- 
 vironment is not Eternal. Their correspondence, 
 however firmly established, is established with that . 
 /which shall pass away. An Eternal Life demands ) 
 (an Eternal Environment 
 
The demand for a perfect Environment as well 
 as for a perfect correspondence is less clear in Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer's definition than it might be. But 
 it is an essential factor. An organism might remain 
 true to its Environment, but what if the Environ- 
 ment played it false ? If the organism possessed the 
 power to change, it could adapt itself to successive 
 changes in the Environment. And if this were 
 guaranteed we should also have the conditions for 
 Eternal Life fulfilled. But what if the Environment 
 passed away altogether ? What if the earth swept 
 suddenly into the sun ? This is a change of 
 Environment against which there could be no 
 precaution and for which there could be as little 
 provision. With a changing Environment even, 
 there must always remain the dread and possibility 
 of a falling out of correspondence. At the best, Life 
 would be uncertain. But with a changeless Environ- 
 ment such as that possessed by the spiritual 
 organism the perpetuity of the correspondence, so 
 far as the external relation is concerned, is guar- 
 anteed. This quality of permanence in the Environ- 
 ment distinguishes the religious relation from every 
 other. Why should not the musician's life be an 
 Eternal Life? Because, for one thing, the musical 
 world, the Environment with which he corresponds, 
 is not eternal. Even if his correspondence in itself 
 
248 &TE&NAL LIFE. 
 
 could last eternally, the environing material things 
 with which he corresponds must pass away. His 
 soul might last for ever but not his violin. So 
 the man of the world might last for ever but not 
 the world. His Environment is not eternal ; nor are 
 even his correspondences the world passeth away 
 and the hist thereof. 
 
 We find then that man, or the spiritual man, is 
 
 equipped with two sets of correspondences. One 
 
 ' \ 
 
 set possesses the quality of everlastingness, the other 
 is temporal. But unless these are separated by some 
 means the temporal will continue to impair and 
 hinder the eternal. The final preparation, therefore, 
 for the inheriting of Eternal Life must consist in the 
 abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These 
 must be unloosed and dissociated from the higher 
 elements. And this is effected by a closing catas- 
 trophe Death. 
 
 Death ensues because certain relations in the 
 organism are not adjusted to certain relations in the 
 Environment. There will come a time in each 
 history when the imperfect correspondences of the 
 organism will betray themselves by a failure to 
 compass some necessary adjustment. This is why 
 Death is associated with Imperfection. Death is the 
 necessary result of Imperfection, and the necessary 
 end of it. Imperfect correspondence gives imperfect 
 
ETERNAL LIFE. 249 
 
 and uncertain Life. "Perfect correspondence," on 
 the other hand, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 would be " perfect Life." To abolish Death, there- 
 fore, all that would be necessary would be to 
 abolish Imperfection. But it is the claim of Chris- 
 tianity that it can abolish Death. And it is signifi- 
 cant to notice that it does so by meeting this very 
 demand of Science it abolishes Imperfection. 
 
 The part of the organism which begins to get out 
 of correspondence with the Organic Environment is 
 the only part which is in vital correspondence with 
 it. Though a fatal disadvantage to the natural 
 man to be thrown out of correspondence with this 
 Environment, it is of inestimable importance to the 
 spiritual man. For so long as it is maintained the 
 way is barred for a further Evolution. And hence 
 the condition necessary for the further Evolution is 
 that the spiritual be released from the natural. That 
 is to say, the condition of the further Evolution is 
 Death. Mors janua Vita, therefore, becomes a 
 scientific formula. Death, being the final sifting of 
 all the correspondences, is the indispensable factor of 
 the higher Life. In the language of Science, not less 
 than of Scripture, "To die is gain.' 1 
 
 The sifting of the correspondences is done by^ 
 Nature. This is its last and greatest contribution I - 
 to mankind: Over the mouth of the grave the t 
 
perfect and the imperfect submit to their final 
 separation. Each goes to its 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 shall return unto God who gave it" 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 251 
 
IC When I talked with an irdent 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 answer ; ' Other world ! There is no other world. 
 God is one and omnipresent j here or nowhere is the whole 
 fact?" 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 41 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 Lives attention is concentrated for the first 
 few chapters upon two points. We are first intro- 
 duced to the family to which the subject of memoir 
 belonged. The grandparents, or even the more 
 remote ancestors, are briefly sketched and their chief 
 characteristics brought prominently into view. Then 
 the parents themselves are photographed in detail. 
 Their appearance and physique, their character, their 
 disposition, their mental qualities, are set before us 
 in a critical analysis. And finally we are asked to 
 observe how much the father and the mother respec- 
 tively have transmitted of their peculiar nature to 
 their offspring. How faithfully the ancestral lines 
 have met in the latest product, how mysteriously the 
 
 "53 
 
254 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 joint characteristics of body and mind have blended, 
 and how unexpected yet how entirely natural a re- 
 combination is the result these points are elaborated 
 with cumulative effect until we realize at last how 
 little we are dealing with an independent unit, how 
 much with a survival and reorganization of what 
 seemed buried in the grave. 
 
 In the second place, we are invited to consider 
 more external influences schools and schoolmasters, 
 neighbours, home, pecuniary circumstances, scenery, 
 and, by-and-by, the religious and political atmo- 
 sphere of the time. These also we are assured have 
 played their part in making the individual what he 
 is. We can estimate these early influences in any 
 particular case with but small imagination if we fail 
 to see how powerfully they also have moulded mind 
 and character, and in what subtle ways they have 
 determined the course of the future life. 
 
 This twofold relation of the individual, first, to his 
 parents, and second, to his circumstances, is not 
 peculiar to human beings. These two factors are 
 responsible for making all living organisms what they 
 are. When a naturalist attempts to unfold the life- 
 history of any animal, he proceeds precisely on these 
 same lines. Biography is really a branch of Natural 
 History ; and the biographer who discusses his hero 
 as the resultant of these two tendencies, follows the 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 25$ 
 
 scientific method as rigidly as Mr. Darwin in study- 
 ing " Animals and Plants under Domestication." 
 
 Mr. Darwin, following Weismann, long ago pointed 
 out that there are two main factors in all Evolution 
 the nature of the organism and the nature of the 
 conditions. We have chosen our illustration from 
 the highest or human species in order to define the 
 meaning of these factors in the clearest way ; but it 
 must be remembered that the development of man 
 under these directive influences is essentially the 
 same as that of any other organism in the hands of 
 Nature. We are dealing therefore with universal 
 Law. It will still further serve to complete the con- 
 ception of the general principle if we now substitute 
 for the casual phrases by which the factors have been 
 described the more accurate terminology of Science, 
 Thus what Biography describes as parental influences, 
 Biology would speak of as Heredity ; and all that is 
 involved in the second factor the action of external 
 circumstances and surroundings the naturalist would 
 include under the single term Environment. These 
 two, Heredity and Environment, are the master- 
 influences of the organic world. These have made 
 ail of us what we are. These forces are still cease- 
 lessly playing upon all our lives. And he who truly 
 understands these influences ; he who has decided 
 how much to allow to each; he who can regulate 
 
256 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 new forces as they arise, or adjust them to the old, 
 so directing them as at one moment to make them 
 co-operate, at another to counteract one another, un- 
 derstands the rationale of personal development To 
 seize continuously the opportunity of more and more 
 perfect adjustment to better and higher conditions, to 
 balance some inward evil with some purer influence 
 acting from without, in a word to make our Environ- 
 ment at the same time that it is making us, these 
 are the secrets of a well-ordered and successful life. 
 
 In the spiritual world, also, the subtle influences 
 which form and transform the soul are Heredity and 
 Environment. And here especially where all is in- 
 visible, where much that we feel to be real is yet so 
 ill-defined, it becomes of vital practical moment to 
 clarify the atmosphere as far as possible with con- 
 ceptions borrowed from the natural life. Few things 
 are less understood than the conditions of the spi- 
 ritual life. The distressing incompetence of which 
 most of us are conscious in trying to work out our 
 spiritual experience is due perhaps less to the 
 diseased will which we commonly blame for it than 
 to imperfect knowledge of the right conditions. It 
 does not occur to us how natural the spiritual is. 
 We still strive for some strange transcendent thing ; 
 we seek to promote life by methods as unnatural as 
 they prove unsuccessful ; and only the utter incom- 
 

 ENVIRONMENT. 25, 
 
 prehensibility of the whole region prevents us seeing 
 fully what we already half-suspect how completely 
 we are missing the road. Living in the spiritual 
 world, nevertheless, is just as simple as living in the 
 natural world ; and it is the same kind of simplicity. 
 It is the same kind of simplicity for it is the same 
 kind of world there are not two kinds of worlds. 
 The conditions of life in the one are the conditions of 
 life in the other. And till these conditions are sen- 
 sibly grasped, as the conditions of all life, it is impos- 
 sible that the personal effort after the highest life 
 should be other than a blind struggle carried on in 
 fruitless sorrow and humiliation. 
 
 Of these two universal factors, Heredity and En- 
 vironment, it is unnecessary to balance the relative 
 importance here. The main influence, unquestion- 
 ably, 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 man can 
 select his own parents. But every man to some 
 extent can choose his own Environment. His rela- 
 tion to it, however largely determined by Heredity 
 in the first instance, is always open to alteration. 
 And so great is his control over Environment 
 and so radical its influence over him, that he can 
 so direct it as either to undo, modify, perpetuate 
 
258 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 or intensify the earlier hereditary influences within 
 certain limits. But the aspects of Environment 
 which we have now to consider do not involve us in 
 questions of such complexity. In what high and 
 mystical sense, also, Heredity applies to the spiritual 
 organism we need not just now inquire. In the sim- 
 pler relations of the more external factor we shall 
 find 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 to the power 
 of Environment to induce what is known to recent 
 science as Variation. A change in the surroundings 
 of any animal, it is now well-known, can so react 
 upon it as to cause it to change. By the attempt, 
 conscious or unconscious, to adjust itself to the new 
 conditions, a true physiological change is gradually 
 wrought within the organism. Hunter, for example, 
 in a classical experiment, so changed the Environ- 
 ment of a sea-gull by keeping it in captivity that 
 it could only secure 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 in struc- 
 ture the gizzard of an ordinary grain-feeder such as 
 the pigeon. Holmgren again reversed this experi- 
 ment by feeding pigeons for a lengthened period on a 
 meat-diet, with the result that the gizzard became 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 259 
 
 transformed into the carnivorous stomach. Mr 
 Alfred Russel Wallace mentions the case of a 
 Brazilian parrot which changes its colour from green 
 to red or yellow when fed on the fat of certain fishes. 
 Not only changes of food, however, but changes of 
 climate and of temperature, changes in surrounding 
 organisms, in the case of marine animals even 
 changes of pressure, of ocean currents, of light, and 
 of many other circumstances, are known to exert a 
 powerful modifying influence upon living organisms. 
 These relations are still being worked out in many 
 directions, but the influence of Environment as a 
 prime factor in Variation is now a recognised doctrine 
 of science. 1 
 
 Even the popular mind has been struck with the 
 curious adaptation of nearly all animals to their 
 habitat, for example In the matter of colour. The 
 sandy hue of the sole and flounder, the white of the 
 polar bear with its suggestion of Arctic snows, th^ 
 stripes of the Bengal tiger as if the actual reeds of 
 its native jungle had nature-printed themselves on its 
 hide ; these, and a hundred others which will occur 
 
 1 Vide Karl Samper's " The Natural Conditions of Existence 
 as they affect Animal Life ; " Wallace's " Tropical Nature ; " 
 Weismann's " Studies in the Theory of Descent ; " Darwin's 
 " Animals and Plants under Domestication." 
 
26o ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 to every one, are marked instances of adaptation to 
 Environment induced, by Natural Selection or other- 
 wise, for the purpose, obviously in these cases at least, 
 of protection. 
 
 To continue the investigation of the modifying 
 action of Environment into the moral and spiritual 
 spheres, would be to open a fascinating and sug- 
 gestive inquiry. One might show how the moral 
 man is acted upon and changed continuously by the 
 influences, secret and open, of his surroundings, by 
 the tone of society, by the company he keeps, by his 
 occupation, by the books he reads, by Nature, by all, 
 in short, that constitutes the habitual atmosphere of 
 his thoughts and the little world of his daily choice. 
 Or one might go deeper still and prove how the 
 spiritual life also is modified from outside sources 
 its health or disease, its growth or decay, all its 
 changes for better or for worse being determined by 
 the varying and successive circumstances in which the 
 religious habits are cultivated. But we must rather 
 transfer our attention to a second aspect of Environ- 
 ment, not perhaps so fascinating but yet more im- 
 portant. 
 
 So much of the modern discussion of Environment 
 revolves round the mere question of Variation that 
 one is apt to overlook a previous question. Environ- 
 ment as a factor in life is not exhausted when we 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 261 
 
 have realized its modifying influence. Its signifi- 
 cance is scarcely touched. The great function of 
 Environment is not to modify but to sustain. In 
 sustaining life, it is true, it modifies. But the latter 
 influence is incidental, the former essential. Our 
 Environment is that in which we live and move and 
 have our being. Without it we should neither live 
 nor move nor have any being. In the organism lies 
 the principle of life ; in the Environment are the 
 conditions of life. Without the fulfilment of these 
 conditions, which are wholly supplied by Environ- 
 ment, there can be no life. 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 my surroundings, I am not physically I am 
 not. I am, only as I am sustained. I continue only 
 as I receive. My Environment may modify me, but 
 it has first to keep me. And all the time its secret 
 transforming power is indirectly moulding body and 
 mind it is directly active in the more open task of 
 ministering to my myriad wants and from hour to 
 hour sustaining life itself. 
 
 To understand the sustaining influence of Envir- 
 onment in the animal world, one has only to recall 
 what the biologist terms the extrinsic or subsidiary 
 conditions of vitality. Every living thing normally 
 requires for its development an Environment con- 
 
262 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 taining air, light, heat, and water. In addition to 
 these, if vitality is to be prolonged for any length of 
 time, and if it is to be accompanied with growth and 
 the expenditure of energy, there must be a constant 
 supply of food. When we simply remember how 
 indispensable food is to growth and work, and when 
 we further bear in mind that the food-supply is solely 
 contributed by the Environment, we shall realize at 
 once the meaning and the truth of the proposition 
 that without Environment there can be no life. 
 Seventy per cent, at least of the human body is made 
 of pure water, the rest of gases and earths. These 
 have all come from Environment. Through the 
 secret pores of the skin two pounds of water are 
 exhaled daily from every healthy adult. The supply 
 is kept up by Environment. The Environment is 
 really an unappropriated part of ourselves. Definite 
 portions are continuously abstracted from it and 
 added to the organism. And so long as the organ- 
 ism continues to grow, act, think, speak, work, or 
 perform any other function demanding a supply of 
 energy, there is a constant, simultaneous, and pro- 
 portionate drain upon its surroundings. 
 
 This is a truth in the physical, and therefore in 
 the spiritual, world of so great importance that we 
 shall not mis-spend time if we follow it, for further 
 confirmation, into another department of nature. 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 263 
 
 Its significance 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 radiate into the room a certain quantity 
 of heat. This heat, in the popular conception, is 
 supposed to reside in the coal and to be set free 
 during the process of combustion. In reality, how- 
 ever, the heat energy is only in part contained in the 
 coal. It is contained just as truly in the coal's 
 Environment that is to say, in the oxygen of the 
 air. The atoms of carbon which compose the coal 
 have a powerful affinity for the oxygen of the air. 
 Whenever they are made to approach within a certain 
 distance of one another, by the initial application of 
 heat, they rush together with inconceivable velocity. 
 The heat which appears at this moment, comes 
 neither from the carbon alone, nor from the oxygen 
 alone. These two substances are really inconsum- 
 able, and continue to exist, after they meet in a 
 combined form, as carbonic acid gas. The heat is 
 due to the energy developed by the chemical em- 
 brace, the precipitate rushing together of the mole- 
 cules of carbon and the molecules of oxygen. It 
 comes, therefore, partly from the coal and partly 
 Trom the Environment. Coal alone never could 
 produce heat, neither alone could Environment. The 
 two are mutually dependent. And although in 
 
264 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 nearly all the arts we credit everything to the 
 substance which we can weigh and handle, it is 
 certain that in most cases the larger debt is due to 
 an invisible Environment. 
 
 This is one of those great commonplaces which 
 slip out of general reckoning by reason of their very 
 largeness and simplicity. How profound, neverthe- 
 less, are the issues which hang on this elementary 
 truth, we shall discover immediately. Nothing in 
 this age is more needed in every department of 
 knowledge than the rejuvenescence of the common- 
 place. In the spiritual world especially, he will be 
 wise who courts acquaintance with the most ordinary 
 and transparent facts of Nature ; and in laying the 
 foundations for a religious life he will make no 
 unworthy beginning who carries with him an im- 
 pressive sense of so obvious a truth as that without 
 Environment there can be no life. 
 
 For what does this amount to in the spiritual 
 world ? Is it not merely the scientific re-statement 
 of the reiterated aphorism of Christ, " Without Me \ 
 lye can do nothing " ? There is in the spiritual 
 organism a principle of life ; but that is not self- 
 existent. It requires a second factor, a something 
 in which to live and move and have its being, an 
 Environment. Without this it cannot live or move 
 or have any being. Without Environment the soul 
 

 ENVIRONMENT 265 
 
 is as the carbon without the oxygen, as the fish 
 without the water, as the animal frame without the 
 extrinsic conditions of vitality. 
 
 And what is the spiritual Environment? It is 
 God. Without this, therefore, there is no life, no 
 thought, no energy, nothing " without Me ye can 
 do nothing." 
 
 The cardinal error in the religious life is to attempt 
 to live without an Environment. Spiritual experi- 
 ence occupies itself, not too much, but too exclu- 
 sively, with one factor the soul. We delight in 
 dissecting this much tortured faculty, from time to 
 time, in search of a certain something which we call 
 our faith forgetting that faith is but an attitude, an 
 empty hand for grasping an environing Presence. 
 And when we feel the need of a power by which to 
 overcome the world, how often do we not seek to 
 generate it within ourselves by some forced process, 
 some fresh girding of the will, some strained activity 
 which only leaves the soul in further exhaustion ? 
 To examine ourselves is good ; but useless unless we 
 also examine Environment. To bewail our weakness 
 is right, but not remedial. The cause must be in- 
 vestigated as well as the result. And yet, because 
 we never see the other half of the problem, our 
 failures even fail to instruct us. After each new 
 collapse we begin our life anew, but on the old 
 
266 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 conditions; and the attempt ends as usual in the 
 repetition in the circumstances the inevitable repe- 
 tition of the old disaster. Not that at times we do 
 not obtain glimpses of the true state of the case. 
 After seasons of much discouragement, with the sore 
 sense upon us of our abject feebleness, we do confer 
 with ourselves, insisting for the thousandth time, 
 "My soul, wait thou only upon God." But, the 
 lesson is soon forgotten. The strength supplied we 
 speedily credit to our own achievement ; and even 
 the temporary success is mistaken for a symptom of 
 improved inward vitality. \ Once more we become 
 self-existent. Once more we go on living without 
 an Environment. And once more, after days of 
 wasting without repairing, of spending without re- 
 plenishing, we begin to perish with hunger, only 
 returning to God again, as a last resort, 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 life 
 for weeks at a time without an Environment ? It is 
 because we have never truly seen the necessity for an 
 Environment. We have not been working with a 
 principle. We are told to "wait only upon God," 
 but we do not know why. It has never been as clear 
 to us that without God the soul will die as that with- 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 267 
 
 out food the body will perish. In short, we have 
 never comprehended the doctrine of the Persistence 
 of Force. Instead of being 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 words of Mr. Herbert Spencer, " It 
 is a corollary from that primordial truth which, as we 
 have seen, underlies all other truths, that 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." l We are dealing here 
 with a simple question of dynamics. Whatever 
 energy the soul expends must first be " taken into 
 it from without." We are not Creators, but crea- 
 tures ; God is our refuge and strength. Communion 
 with God, therefore, is a scientific necessity; and 
 nothing will more help the defeated spirit which is 
 struggling in the wreck of its religious life than a 
 common-sense hold of this plain biological principle 
 that without Environment he can do nothing. What 
 he wants is not an occasional view, but a principle 
 a basal principle like this, broad as the universe, 
 solid as nature. In the natural world we act upon 
 this law unconsciously. We absorb heat, breathe air, 
 draw on Environment all but automatically for meat 
 
 1 " Principles of Biology/' p 57. 
 
263 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 and drink, for the nourishment of the senses, for 
 mental stimulus, for all that, penetrating us from 
 without, can prolong, eniich, and elevate life. But in 
 the spiritual world we have all this to learn. We are 
 new creatures, and even the bare living has to be 
 acquired. 
 
 Now the great point in learning to live is to live 
 naturally. As closely as possible we must follow the 
 broad, clear lines of the natural life. And there are 
 three things especially which it is necessary for us to 
 keep continually in view. The first is that the 
 organism contains within itself only one-half of what 
 is essential to life ; the second is that the other half 
 is contained in the Environment ; the third, that the 
 condition of receptivity is simple union between the 
 organism and the Environment. 
 
 Translated into the language of religion these 
 propositions yield, and place on a scientific basis, 
 truths of immense practical interest. To say, first, 
 that the organism contains within itself only one-half 
 of what is essential to life, is to repeat the evangelical 
 confession, so worn and yet so true to universal 
 experience, of the utter helplessness of man. Who 
 has not come to the conclusion that he is but a part, 
 a fraction of some larger whole ? Who does not miss 
 at every turn of his life an absent God ? That man 
 is but a part, he knows, for there is room in him 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 269 
 
 for more. That God is the other part, he feels, be- 
 cause at times He satisfies his need. Who does not 
 tremble often under that sicklier symptom of his in- 
 completeness, his want of spiritual energy, his help- 
 lessness with sin ? But now he understands both 
 the void in his life, the powerlessness of his will. He 
 understands that, . like all other energy, spiritual 
 power is contained in Environment. He finds here at 
 last the true root of all human frailty, emptiness, 
 nothingness, sin. This is why " without Me ye can 
 do nothing." Powerlessness is the normal state not 
 only of this but of every organism of every organ- 
 ism apart from its Environment. 
 
 The entire dependence of the soul upon God is not 
 an exceptional mystery, nor is man's helplessness an 
 arbitrary and unprecedented phenomenon. It is the 
 law of all Nature. The spiritual man is not taxed 
 beyond the natural. He is not purposely handi- 
 capped by singular limitations or unusual incapa- 
 cities. God has not designedly made the religious 
 life as hard as possible. The arrangements for the 
 spiritual life are the same as for the natural life 
 When in their hours of unbelief men challenge their 
 Creator for placing the obstacle of human frailty in 
 the way of their highest development, their protest is 
 I against the order of nature They object to the sun 
 for being the source of energy and not the engine, to 
 
270 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 the carbonic acid being in the air and not in the 
 plant They would equip each organism with a 
 personal atmosphere, each brain with a private store 
 of energy ; they would grow corn in the interior of 
 the body, and make bread by a special apparatus in 
 the digestive organs. They must, in short, have the 
 creature transformed into a Creator. The organism 
 must either depend on his environment, or be self- 
 sufficient But who will not rather approve the 
 arrangement by which man in his creatural life may 
 have unbroken access to an Infinite Power ? What 
 soul will seek to remain self-luminous when it knows 
 that "The Lord God is a Sun" t Who will not 
 willingly exchange his shallow vessel for Christ's 
 well of living water ? Even if the organism, launched 
 into being like a ship putting out to sea, possessed a 
 full equipment, its little store must soon come to an 
 end. But in contact with a large and bounteous 
 Environment its supply is limitless. In every direc- 
 tion its resources are infinite. 
 
 There is a modern school which protests against the 
 idoctrine of man's inability as the heartless fiction of j 
 /a past theology. While some forms of that dogma, to " 
 any one who knows man, are incapable of defence, 
 there are others which, to any one who knows Nature, 
 are incapable of denial. Those who oppose it, in 
 their jealousy for humanity, credit the organism with 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 271 
 
 the properties of Environment. All true theology, 
 on the other hand, has remained loyal to at least the 
 root-idea in this truth. The New Testament is no- 
 where more impressive than where it insists on the 
 fact of man's dependence. In its view the first 
 step in religion is for man to feel his helplessness. 
 Christ's first beatitude is to the poor in spirit. The 
 condition of entrance, into the spiritual kingdom is to 
 possess the child-spirit that state of mind com- 
 bining at once the profoundest helplessness with the 
 most artless feeling of dependence, j Substantially 
 the same idea underlies the countless passages in 
 which Christ affirms that He has not come to call 
 the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And in 
 that farewell discourse into which the Great Teacher 
 poured the most burning convictions of His life, He 
 gives to this doctrine an ever increasing emphasis. 
 No words could be more solemn or arresting than 
 the sentence in the last great allegory devoted to this 
 theme, "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself 
 except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye 
 abide in Me." The word here, it will be observed 
 again, is cannot. It is the imperative of natural law. 
 Fruit-bearing without Christ is not an improbability, 
 but an impossibility. As well expect the natural 
 fruit to flourish without air and heat, without soil and 
 sunshine. How thoroughly also Paul grasped this 
 
272 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 truth is apparent from a hundred pregnant passages 
 in which he echoes 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 
 truth we gather from his constant confession, " When 
 I am weak, then am I strong." 
 
 This leads by a natural transition to the second 
 of the three points we are seeking to illustrate. 
 We have seen that the organism contains within 
 itself only one half of what is essential to life. 
 We have next to observe, as the complement of 
 this, how the second half is contained in the En- 
 vironment. 
 
 One result of the due apprehension of our 
 personal helplessness will be that we shall no longer 
 waste our time over the impossible task of manu- 
 facturing energy for ourselves. Our science will 
 bring to an abrupt end the long series of severe 
 experiments in which we have indulged in the 
 hope of finding a perpetual motion. And having 
 decided upon this once for all, our first step in 
 seeking a more satisfactory state of things must 
 be to find a new source of energy. Following 
 Nature, only one course is open to us. We must 
 refer to Environment. The natural life owes all to 
 Environment, so must the spiritual. Now the 
 Environment of the spiritual life is God As Nature 
 

 (( UNIVERSITY 
 
 ENVIRONMENT. 273 
 
 therefore forms the complement of the natural life, 
 God is the complement of the spiritual. 
 
 The proof of this ? That Nature is not more 
 natural to my body than God is to my soul. Every 
 animal and plant has its own Environment And 
 the further one inquires into the relations of the 
 one to the other, the more one sees the marvellous 
 intricacy and beauty of the adjustments. These 
 wonderful adaptations of each organism to its sur- 
 roundings of the fish to the water, of the eagle 
 to the air, of the insect to the forest-bed ; and of 
 each part of every organism the fish's swim-bladder, 
 the eagle's eye, the insect's breathing tubes which 
 the old argument from design brought home to us 
 with such enthusiasm, inspire us still with a sense 
 of the boundless resource and skill of Nature in 
 perfecting her arrangements for each single life. 
 Down to the last detail the world is made for what 
 is in it ; and by whatever process things are as they 
 are, all organisms find in surrounding Nature the 
 ample complement of themselves. Man, too, finds 
 in his Environment provision for all capacities, scope 
 for the exercise of every faculty, room for the 
 indulgence of each appetite, a just supply for every 
 \want. So the spiritual man at the apex of the 
 jyramid of life finds in the vaster range of his 
 Environment a provision, as much higher, it is true, 
 
 T 
 
2/4 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 as he is higher, but as delicately adjusted to his 
 varying needs. And all this is supplied to him 
 just as the lower organisms are ministered to by.* 
 the lower environment, in the same simple ways, 
 in the same constant sequence, as appropriately and 
 as lavishly. We fail to praise the ceaseless ministry 
 of the great inanimate world around us only because 
 its kindness is unobtrusive. Nature is always noise- 
 less. All her greatest gffts <are givefttn secret. And 
 we forget how truly every good and perfect gift 
 comes from without, and from above, because no 
 pause in her changeless beneficence teaches us the 
 sad lessons 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 from 
 the remotest age the doctrine of all the deepest 
 thinkers in religion. How profoundly Hebrew 
 poetry is saturated with this high thought will appear 
 when we try to conceive of it with this left out- 
 True poetry is only science in another form. And 
 long before it was possible for religion to give 
 scientific expression to its greatest truths, men of 
 insight uttered themselves in psalms which could 
 not have been truer to Nature had the most modern 
 light controlled the inspiration. "As the hart 
 panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 275 
 
 after Thee, O God." What fine sense of the analogy 
 of the natural and the spiritual does not underlie 
 these words. As the hart after its Environment, so 
 man after his ; as the water-brooks are fitly designed 
 to meet the natural wants, so fitly does God imple- 
 ment the spiritual need of man. It will be noticed 
 that in the Hebrew poets the longing for God never 
 strikes one as morbid, or unnatural to the men who 
 uttered it. It is as natural to them to long for 
 God as for the swallow to seek her nest. Through- 
 out all their images no suspicion rises within us 
 that they are exaggerating. We feel how truly they 
 are reading themselves, their deepest selves. No 
 false note occurs in all their aspiration. There is 
 no weariness even in their ceaseless sighing, except 
 the lover's weariness for the absent if they would 
 fly away, it is only to be at rest. Men who have 
 no soul can only wonder at this. Men who have 
 a soul, but with little faith, can only envy it. How 
 joyous a thing it was to the Hebrews to seek their 
 God ! How artlessly they call upon Him to enter- 
 tain them in His pavilion, to cover them with His 
 feathers, to hide them in His secret place, to hold 
 them in the hollow of His hand or stretch around 
 them the everlasting arms! These men were true 
 children of Nature. As the humming-bird among 
 its own palm-trees, as the ephemera in the sunshine' 
 
276 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 of a summer evening, so they lived their joyous 
 lives. And even the full share of the sadder experi- 
 ences of life which came to all of them but drove 
 them the further into the Secret Place, and led them 
 with more consecration to make, as they expressed 
 it, " the Lord their portion." All that has been said 
 since from Marcus Aurelius to Swedenborg, from 
 Augustine to Schleiermacher of a besetting God as 
 the final complement of humanity is but a repetition 
 of the Hebrew poets' faith. And even the New 
 Testament has nothing higher to offer man than 
 this. The psalmist's " God is our refuge and 
 Strength " is only the earlier form, less defined, less 
 practicable, but not less noble, of Christ's " Come 
 unto Me, and I will give you rest." 
 
 There is a brief phrase of Paul's which defines 
 the relation with almost scientific accuracy, "Ye 
 are complete in Him." In this is summed up the 
 whole of the Bible anthropology the completeness 
 of man in God, his incompleteness apart from God. \ 
 
 If it be asked, In what is man incomplete, or, 
 In what does God complete him? the question is 
 a wide one. But it may serve to show at least the 
 direction in which the Divine Environment forms 
 the complement of human life if we ask ourselves 
 once more what it is in life that needs comple- 
 menting. And to this question we receive the 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 277 
 
 significant answer that it is in the higher depart- 
 ments alone, or mainly, that the incompleteness of 
 our life appears. The lower departments of Nature 
 are already complete enough. The world itsdf is 
 about as good a world as might be. It has been 
 long in the making, its furniture is all in, its laws 
 are in perfect working order; and although wise 
 men at various times have suggested improvements, 
 there is on the whole a tolerably unanimous vote 
 of confidence in things as they exist. The Divine 
 Environment 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 lower organic 
 life of the world is also so far complete. God, 
 through Evolution or otherwise, may still have 
 finishing touches to add here and there, but already 
 it is " all very good." It is difficult to conceive any- 
 thing better of its kind than a lily or a cedar, an 
 ant or an ant-eater. These organisms, so far as we 
 can judge, lack nothing. It might be said of them, 
 " they are complete in Nature." Of man also, of 
 man the animal, it may be affirmed that his En- 
 vironment satisfies him. He has food and drink, 
 and good food and good drink. And there is in 
 him no purely animal want which is not really 
 provided for, and that apparently in the happiest 
 possible way. 
 
278 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 But the moment we pass beyond the mere animal 
 life we begin to come upon an incompleteness. The 
 symptoms at first are slight, and betray themselves 
 only by an unexplained restlessness or a dull sense 
 of want. Then the feverishness increases, becomes 
 more defined, and passes slowly into abiding pain. 
 To some come darker moments when the unrest 
 deepens into a mental agony of which all the other 
 woes of earth are mockeries moments when the 
 forsaken soul can only cry in terror for the Living 
 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 of the terrible truth so for the 
 time let us call it wakens with the dawn of the 
 intellectual life. It is a solemn moment when the 
 slow-moving mind reaches at length the verge of 
 its mental horizon, and, looking over, sees nothing 
 more. Its straining makes the abyss but more 
 profound. Its cry comes back without an echo. 
 Where is the Environment to complete this rational 
 soul ? Men either find one, One or spend the rest 
 of their days in trying to shut their eyes. The 
 alternatives of the intellectual life are Christianity 
 or Agnosticism. The Agnostic is right when he 
 trumpets his incompleteness. He who is not com- 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 279 
 
 plete in Him must be for ever incomplete. Still 
 more grave becomes man's case when he begins 
 further to explore his moral and social nature. 
 The problems of the heart and conscience are in- 
 finitely more perplexing than those of the intellect 
 Has love no future ? Has right no triumph ? Is 
 the unfinished self to remain unfinished ? Again, 
 the alternatives are two, Christianity or Pessimism. 
 But when we ascend the further height of the 
 religious nature, the crisis comes. There, without 
 Environment, the darkness is unutterable. So mad- 
 dening now becomes the mystery that men are 
 compelled to construct an Environment for them- 
 selves. No Environment here is unthinkable. An 
 altar of some sort men must have God, or Nature, 
 or Law. But the anguish of Atheism is only a 
 negative proof of man's incompleteness. A witness 
 more overwhelming is the prayer of the Christian. 
 What a very strange thing, is it not, for man to 
 pray ? It is the symbol at once of his littleness 
 and of his greatness. Here the sense of imperfec- 
 tion, controlled and silenced in the narrower reaches 
 of his being, becomes audible. Now he must utter 
 himself. The sense of need is so real, and the sense 
 of Environment, that he calls out to it, address- 
 ing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his 
 need. Surely there is nothing more touching in 
 
280 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 Nature than this ? Man could never so expose him- 
 self, so break through all constraint, except from a 
 dire necessity. It is the suddenness and unpre- 
 fneditatedness of Prayer that gives it a unique value 
 as an apologetic. 
 
 Man has three questions to put to his Environ- 
 ment, three symbols of his incompleteness. They 
 come from three different centres of his being. The 
 first is the question of the intellect, What is Truth ? 
 The natural Environment answers, " Increase of 
 Knowledge increaseth Sorrow/ 1 and " much study 
 is a Weariness." Christ replies, " Learn of Me, and 
 ye shall find Rest/ 1 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 shall find Restlessness. Learn 
 of Me, says Christ, and ye shall find Rest. 
 Thought, which the godless man has cursed, that 
 eternally starved yet ever living spectre, finds at 
 last its imperishable glory ; Thought is complete 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's verdict, 
 " 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 cry of the spirit, 
 
ENVIRONMENT. 281 
 
 most pathetic and most deep of all, Where is he 
 whom my soul seeketh ? And the yearning is met 
 as before, " I looked on my right hand, and beheld, 
 but there was no man that would know me ; refuge 
 failed me ; no man cared for my soul. I cried unto 
 Thee, O Lord : I said, Thou art my refuge and my 
 portion in the land of the living." 1 
 
 Are these the directions in which men in these 
 days are seeking to complete their lives ? The 
 completion of Life is just now a supreme question. 
 It is important to observe how it is being answered. 
 If we ask Science or Philosophy they will refer us 
 to Evolution. The struggle for Life, they assure us, 
 is steadily eliminating imperfect forms, and as the 
 fittest continue to survive we shall have a gradual 
 perfecting of being. That is to say, that completeness 
 is to be sought for in the organism we are to be 
 complete in Nature and in ourselves. To Evolution, 
 certainly, all men will look for a further perfecting of 
 Life. But it must be an Evolution which includes 
 all the factors. Civilization, it may be said, will deal 
 with the second factor. It will improve the Envir- 
 onment step by step as it improves the organism, or 
 the organism as it improves the Environment. This 
 is well, and it will perfect Life up to a point. But 
 
 1 Ps. cxlii. 4, 5. 
 
282 ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 beyond that it cannot carry us. As the possibili- 
 ties of the natural Life become more defined, its 
 impossibilities will become the more appalling. The 
 most perfect civilization would leave the best part 
 of us still incomplete. Men will have to give 
 up the experiment of attempting to live in half an 
 Environment . Half an Environment will give but 
 half a Life. Half an Environment ? He whose cor- 
 respondences are with this world alone has only a 
 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 to believe its own 
 creed, that the material universe we see around us 
 is only a fragment of the universe we do not see? 
 The very retention of the phrase " Material Uni- 
 verse," we are told, is the confession of our unbelief 
 and ignorance; since "matter is the less important 
 half of the material of the physical universe." 1 
 
 The thing to be aimed at is not an organism self- 
 contained and self-sufficient, however high in the 
 scale of being, but an organism complete in the 
 whole Environment. It is open to any one to aim at 
 a self-sufficient Life, but he will find no encourage- 
 ment in Nature. The Life of the body may complete 
 itself in the physical world ; that is its legitimate 
 
 The "Unseen Universe," 6th Ed., p. 100. 
 

 ENVIRONMENT. 283 
 
 Environment. The Life of the senses, high and low, 
 may perfect itself in Nature. Even the Life of 
 thought may find a large complement in surrounding 
 things. But the higher thdUight, and the conscience, 
 and the religious Life, can only perfect themselves in 
 God. To make the influence of Environment stop 
 with the natural world is to doom the spiritual nature 
 to death. For the soul, like the body, can never 
 perfect itself in isolation. The law for both is to be 
 complete in the appropriate Environment. And the 
 perfection to be sought in the spiritual world is a 
 perfection of relation, a perfect adjustment of that 
 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 becom- 
 ing perfect avail itself of its perfecting Environment ? 
 And the answer is, just as in Nature. The condition 
 is simple receptivity. And yet this is perhaps the 
 least simple of all conditions. It is so simple that we 
 will not act upon it. But there is no other condition. 
 Christ has condensed the whole truth into one 
 memorable sentence, "As the branch cannot bear 
 fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can 
 ye except ye abide in Me." And on the positive 
 side, " He that abideth in Me the same bringeth 
 forth much fruit." 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
1 s So careful of the type ? ' but no, 
 
 From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
 She cries, ' A thousand types are gonej 
 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 the breath : 
 
 I know no more' And he, shall he, 
 
 A fan, her last work, who seem'd so fair, 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 Who rolVd 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 W against his creed 
 
 Who loved, who suffer* d countless ills, 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 Be blown about the desert dust 
 
 Or seaVd within the iron hills / *" 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 " 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 Archasus 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 a lichen, he will declare that 
 they are separated from one another by the broadest 
 line known to classification, Without taking into 
 account the outward differences of size and form, the 
 variety of flower and fruit, the peculiarities of leaf 
 and branch, he sees even in their general architecture 
 types of structure as distinct as Norman, Gothic and 
 Egyptian. But if the first young germs of these 
 three plants are placed before him and he is called 
 upon to define the difference, he finds it impossible. 
 He cannot even say which is which. Examined 
 
 under the highest powers of the microscope they 
 
 387 
 
2SS CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 yield no clue. Analysed by the chemist with all the 
 appliances of his laboratory they keep their secret. 
 
 The same experiment can be tried with the 
 embryos of animals. Take the ovule of the worm, 
 the eagle, the elephant, and of man himself. Let the 
 most skilled observer apply the most searching tests 
 to distinguish one from the other and he will fail. 
 But there is something more surprising still. Com- 
 pare next the two sets of germs, the vegetable and 
 the animal. And there is still no shade of difference. 
 Oak and palm, worm and man all start in life 
 together. No matter into what strangely different 
 forms they may afterwards develop, no matter 
 whether they are to live on sea or land, creep or fly, 
 swim or walk, think or vegetate, in the embryo as it 
 first meets the eye of Science they are indistinguish- 
 able. The apple which fell in Newton's Garden, 
 Newton's dog Diamond, and Newton himself, began 
 life at the same point. 1 
 
 1 " There is, indeed, a period in the development of every 
 tissue and every 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 possible to distinguish the 
 growing moving matter which was to evolve the oak from that 
 which was the germ of a vertebrate animal. Nor can any 
 difference be discerned between the bioplasm matter of the 
 lowest, simplest, epithelial scale of man's organism and that 
 from which the nerve cells of his brain are to be evolved. 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 289 
 
 If we analyse this material point at which all life 
 starts, we shall find it to consist of a clear structure- 
 less jelly-like substance resembling albumen or white 
 of egg. It is made of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen 
 and Nitrogen. Its name is protoplasm. And it is 
 not only the structural unit with which all living 
 Dodies start in life, but with which they are sub- 
 sequently built up. " Protoplasm," says Huxley, 
 " simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. 
 It is the clay of the Potter." "Beast and fowl, 
 reptile and fish, mollusk, worm and polype are all 
 composed of structural units of the same character, 
 namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus." l 
 
 What then determines the difference between 
 different animals ? What makes one little speck of 
 protoplasm grow into Newton's dog Diamond^ and 
 another, exactly the same, into Newton himself? It 
 is a mysterious something which has entered into 
 this protoplasm. No eye can see it. No science 
 can define it. There is a different something for 
 Newton's dog and a different something for New- 
 ton ; so that though both use the same matter they 
 
 Neither by studying bioplasm under the microscope nor by any 
 kind of physical or chemical investigation known, can we form 
 any notion of the nature of the substance which is to be formed 
 f jy the bioplasm, or what will be the ordinary results of the 
 living." "Bioplasm," Lionel S. Beale, F.R.S., pp. 17, 18. 
 ! Huxley " Lay S ? rmons," 6th Ed., pp. 127, 129. 
 
 LT 
 
290 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 build it up in these widely different ways. Proto- 
 plasm being the clay, this something is the Potter. 
 And as there is only one clay and yet all these 
 curious forms are developed out of it, it follows 
 necessarily that the difference lies in the potters. 
 There must in short be as many potters as there are 
 forms. There is the potter who segments the worm, 
 and the potter who builds up the form of the dog, 
 and the potter who moulds the man. To under- 
 stand unmistakably that it is really the potter who 
 does the work, let us follow for a moment a descrip- 
 tion of the process by a trained eye-witness. The 
 observer is Mr. Huxley. Through the tube of his 
 microscope he is watching the development, out of 
 a speck of protoplasm, of one of the commonest 
 animals: "Strange possibilities," he says, "lie dor- 
 mant in that semi-fluid globule. Let a moderate sup- 
 ply of warmth reach its watery cradle and the plastic 
 matter undergoes changes so rapid and yet so steady 
 and purposelike in their succession that one can only 
 compare them to those operated by a skilled model- 
 ler upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invis- 
 ible trowel the mass is divided and subdivided into 
 smaller and smaller portions, until it is reduced to an 
 aggregation of granules not too large to build withal 
 the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, 
 then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 291 
 
 be occupied by the spinal column, and moulded the 
 contour of the body ; pincnmg up the head at one 
 end, the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and 
 limb into due proportions in so artistic a way, that, 
 after watching the process hour by hour, one is 
 almost involuntarily possessed by the notion, that 
 some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic 
 would show the hidden, artist, with his plan before 
 him, striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his 
 work." 1 
 
 Besides the fact, so luminously brought out here, 
 that the artist is distinct from the "semi-fluid 
 globule " of protoplasm in which he works, there is 
 this other essential point to notice, that in all his 
 "skilful manipulation" the artist is not working at 
 random, but according to law. He has "his plan 
 before him." In the zoological laboratory of Nature 
 it is not as in a workshop where a skilled artisan can 
 turn his hand to anything 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. It is a more complete system of division of 
 labour. One artist makes all the dogs, another 
 makes all the birds, a third makes all the men, 
 Moreover, each artist confines himself exclusively 
 to working out his own plan. He appears to have 
 1 Huxley : " Lay Sermons," 6th Ed., p. 261. 
 
592 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 his own plan somehow stamped upon himself, and 
 his work is rigidly to reproduce himself. 
 
 The Scientific Law by which this takes place is the 
 Law of Conformity to Type. It is contained, to a large 
 extent, in the ordinary Law of Inheritance ; or it 
 may be considered as simply another way of stating 
 wllit Darwin calls the Law of Unity of Type. Dar- 
 win defines it thus : " By Unity of Type is meant 
 that fundamental agreement in structure which we 
 see in organic beings of the same class, and which is 
 quite independent of their habits of life." l Accord- 
 ing to this law every living thing that comes into the 
 world is compelled to stamp upon its offspring the 
 image of itself. The dog, according to its type, 
 produces a dog ; the bird a bird. 
 
 The Artist who operates upon matter in this subtle 
 way and carries out this law is Life. There are a 
 great many different kinds of Life. If one might give 
 the broader meaning to the words of the apostle : 
 " All life is not the same life. There is one kind of 
 life of men, another life of beasts, another of fishes, 
 and another of birds." There is the Life, or the Artist, 
 or the Potter who segments the worm, the potter who 
 forms the dog, the potter who moulds the man. 3 
 
 1 "Origin of Species/' p. 166. 
 
 8 There is no intention here to countenance the old doctrine 
 of the permanence of species. Whether the word species 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 293 
 
 What goes on then in the animal kingdom is this 
 tne Bird-Life seizes upon the bird-germ and builds it 
 up into a bird, the image of itself. The Reptile-Life 
 seizes upon another germinal speck, assimilates sur- 
 rounding matter, and fashions it into a reptile. The 
 Reptile-Life thus simply makes an incarnation of 
 itself. The visible bird is simply an incarnation of 
 the invisible Bird-Life. 
 
 Now we are nearing the point where the spiritual 
 analogy appears. It is a very wonderful analogy, so 
 wonderful that one almost hesitates to put it into 
 words. Yet Nature is reverent ; and it is her voice 
 to which we listen. These lower phenomena of life, 
 she says, are but an allegory. There is another kind 
 of Life of which Science as yet has taken little 
 cognisance. It obeys the same laws. It builds up 
 an organism into its own form. It is the Christ-Life. 
 As the Bird-Life builds up a bird, the image of itself, 
 so the Christ-Life builds up a Christ, the image of 
 : Himself, in the inward nature of man. When a man 
 
 represent a fixed quantity or the reverse (Joes not affect the 
 question. The facts as stated are true in contemporary zoology 
 if not in paleontology. It may also be added that the general 
 conception of a definite Vital Principle is used here simply as a 
 working hypothesis. Science may yet have to give up what the 
 Germans call the " ontogenetic directive Force." But in the 
 absence of any proof to the contrary, and especially of any 
 satisfactory alternative, we are justified in working still with the 
 old theory 
 
294 CONFORMITY TO TYPE, 
 
 becomes a Christian the natural 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 to the great Law of Con- 
 formity to Type this fashioning takes a specific form. 
 It is that of the Artist who fashions. And all 
 through Life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet 
 perfectly definite process, goes on " until Christ be 
 formed " in it 
 
 The Christian Life is not a vague effort after 
 righteousness an ill-defined pointless struggle for 
 an ill-defined pointless end. Religion is no dis- 
 hevelled mass of aspiration, prayer, and faith. There 
 is 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 laws of natural and 
 spiritual are the same, as unerring, as simple. Will 
 everything else in the natural world unfold its order, 
 and yield to Science more and more a vision of har- 
 mony, and Religion, which should complement and 
 perfect all, remain a chaos ? From the standpoint o/ 
 Revelation no truth is more obscure than Conformity 
 
 \to Type. If Science can furnish a companion pheno- 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 295 
 
 menon from an every-day process of the natural life, 
 it may at least throw this most mystical doctrine of 
 Christianity into thinkable form. Is there any fallacy 
 in speaking of the Embryology of the New Life 
 Is the analogy invalid ? Are there not vital processes 
 in the Spiritual as well as in the Natural world ? 
 The Bird being an incarnation of the Bird-Life, 
 may not the Christian be a spiritual incarnation of 
 the Christ-Life? And is there not a real justification 
 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 is sufficiently striking. It uses 
 everywhere the language of Biology. It is im- 
 possible that the New Testament writers should 
 have been familiar with these biological facts. It is 
 impossible that their views of this great truth should 
 have been as clear as Science can make them now. 
 But they had no alternative. There was no other 
 way of expressing this truth. It was a biological 
 question. So they struck out unhesitatingly into the 
 new field of words, and, with an originality which 
 commands both reverence 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. 
 
296 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 What could be more original, for instance, than the 
 Apostle's reiteration that the Christian was a new 
 creature, a new man, a babe ? l Or that this new 
 man was " begotten of God," God's workmanship ? * 
 And what could be a more accurate expression of the 
 law of Conformity to Type than this : " Put on the 
 new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the 
 image of Him that created him "? 3 Or this, "We are 
 changed into the same image from glory to glory " ? 4 
 And elsewhere we are expressly told by the same 
 writer that this Conformity is the end and goal of the 
 Christian life. To work this Type in us is the whole 
 purpose of God for man. " Whom He did foreknow 
 He also did predestinate to be conformed to the 
 image of His Son." 5 
 
 One must confess that the originality of this entire 
 New Testament conception is most startling. Even 
 for the nineteenth century it is most startling. But 
 when one remembers that such an idea took form in 
 the first, he cannot fail to be impressed with a deep- 
 ening wonder at the system which begat and cher- 
 ished it. Men seek the origin of Christianity among 
 the philosophies of that age. Scholars contrast it 
 still with these philosophies, and scheme to fit it in 
 
 1 2 Cor. v 17. 2 I John v. 18 ; i Pet. i. 3. 
 
 8 Col iii. 9, 10. 4 2 Cor. iii. 18. 
 
 5 Rom. viii. 29. 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 297 
 
 to those of later growth. Has it never occurred to 
 them how much more it is than a philosophy, that 
 it includes a science, a Biology pure and simple ? 
 As well might naturalists contrast zoology with 
 chemistry, or seek to incorporate geology with 
 botany the living with the dead as try to explain 
 the spiritual life in terms of mind alone. When 
 will it be seen that the characteristic of the Chris- 
 tian Religion is its Life, that a true 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 answers to 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 a moment that the new creature 
 was to be formed out of nothing. Ex nihilo niJdl 
 nothing can be made out of nothing. Matter is un- 
 creatable and indestructible; Nature and man can 
 only form and transform. Hence when a new animal 
 is made, no new clay is made. Life merely enters 
 
298 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 into already existing matter, assimilates more of the 
 same sort and re-builds it. The spiritual Artist 
 works in the same way. He must have a peculiar 
 kind of protoplasm, a basis of life, and that must be 
 already existing. 
 
 Now He finds this in the materials of character 
 with which the natural man is previously provided. 
 Mind and character, the will and the affections, the 
 moral nature these form the bases of spiritual life. 
 To look in this direction for the protoplasm of the 
 spiritual life is consistent with all analogy. The 
 lowest or mineral world mainly supplies the material 
 and this is true even for insectivorous species for 
 the vegetable kingdom. The vegetable supplies the 
 material for the animal. Next in turn, the animal 
 furnishes material for the mental, and lastly, the 
 mental for the spiritual. Each member of the series 
 is complete only when the steps below it are com- 
 plete ; the highest demands all. It is not necessary 
 for the immediate purpose to go so far into the psy- 
 chology either of the new creature or of the old as to 
 define more clearly what these moral bases are. It 
 is enough to discover that in this womb the new 
 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 insisted upon is that in 
 the natural man this mental and moral substance or 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 299 
 
 basis is spiritually lifeless. However active the intel- 
 lectual or moral life may be, from the point of view 
 of this other Life it is dead. That which is flesh is 
 flesh. It wants, that is to say, the kind of Life which 
 constitutes the difference between the Christian and 
 the not-a-Christian. It has not yet been " born of 
 the Spirit." 
 
 To show further that this protoplasm possesses the 
 necessary properties of a normal protoplasm it will 
 be necessary to examine in passing what these pro- 
 perties are. They are two in number, the capacity 
 for life and plasticity. Consider first the capacity 
 for life. It is not enough to find an adequate supply 
 of material. That material must be of the right 
 kind. For all kinds of matter have not the power to 
 be the vehicle of life all kinds 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 only know that life 
 Is always associated in Nature with "this particular 
 physical basis and never with any other. But we are 
 not in the same darkness with regard to the moral 
 protoplasm. When we look at this complex com- 
 bination which we have predicated as the basis of 
 spiritual life, we do find something which gives it a 
 peculiar qualification for being the protoplasm of the 
 
300 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 Christ-Life. We discover one strong reason at least, 
 not only why this kind of life should be associated 
 with this kind of protoplasm, but why it should never 
 be associated with other kinds which seem to 
 resemble it why, for instance, this spiritual life 
 should not be engrafted upon the intelligence of 
 a dog or the instincts of an ant. 
 
 The protoplasm in man has a something in ad- 
 dition to its instincts or its habits. It has a 
 capacity for God. In this capacity for God lies 
 its receptivity; it is the very protoplasm that was 
 necessary. The chamber is 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 
 to the protoplasm of the Christian's soul. In every 
 ' land and in every age there have been altars to the 
 Known or Unknown God. It is now agreed as a 
 mere question of anthropology that the universal 
 language of the human soul has always been "I 
 perish with hunger." This is what fits it for Christ. 
 There is a grandeur in this cry from the depths which 
 makes its very unhappiness sublime. 
 
 The other quality we are to look for in the soul is 
 mouldableness, plasticity. Conformity demands con- 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 formability. Now plasticity is not only a marked 
 characteristic of all forms of life, but in a special 
 sense of the highest forms. It increases steadily as 
 we rise in the scale. The inorganic world, to begin 
 with, is rigid. A crystal of silica dissolved and re- 
 dissolved a thousand times will never assume ar.y 
 other form than the hexagonal. The plant next, 
 though plastic in its elements, is comparatively insus- 
 ceptible of change. The very fixity of its sphere, 
 the imprisonment for life in a single spot of earth, is 
 the symbol of a certain degradation. The animal in 
 all its parts is mobile, sensitive, free; the highest 
 animal, man, is the most mobile, the most at leisure 
 from routine, the most impressionable, the most open 
 for change. And when we reach the mind and soul, 
 this mobility is found in its most developed form. 
 Whether we regard its susceptibility to impressions, 
 its lightning-like response even to influences the most 
 impalpable and subtle, its power of instantaneous 
 adjustment, or whether we regard the delicacy and 
 variety of its moods, or its vast powers of growth, we 
 are forced to recognise in this the most perfect 
 rapacity for change. This marvellous plasticity of 
 [ mind contains at once the possibility and prophecy of 
 its transformation. The soul, in a word, is made to 
 pe converted. 
 
302 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 Second, The Life. 
 
 The main reason for giving the Life, the agent of 
 this change, a separate treatment, is to emphasize 
 the distinction between it and the natural man on the 
 one hand, and the spiritual man on the other. The 
 natural man is its basis, the spiritual man is its 
 product, the Life itself is something different. Just 
 as in an organism we have these three things 
 formative matter, formed matter, and the forming 
 principle or life ; so in the soul we have the old 
 nature, the renewed nature, and the transforming 
 Life. 
 
 This being made evident, little remains here to 
 be added. No man has ever seen this Life. It 
 cannot be analysed, or weighed, or traced in its 
 essential nature. But this is just what we expected. 
 This invisibility is 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 the 
 adult it likewise escapes us. We shall not wonder 
 if we cannot see it in the Christian. We shall not 
 expect to see it. A fortiori we shall not expect to 
 see it, for we are further removed from the coarser 
 matter moving now among ethereal and spiritual 
 things. It is because it conforms 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 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 303 
 
 most recognisable characteristics of life is its un- 
 recognisableness, and that the very token of its 
 spiritual nature lies in its being beyond the grossness 
 of our eyes ? 
 
 We do not pretend that Science can define this 
 Life to be Christ. It has no definition to give even 
 of its own life, much less of this. But there are 
 converging lines which point, at least, in the direction 
 that it is Christ. There was One whom history 
 acknowledges to have been the Truth. One of His 
 claims was this, " I am the Life." According to the 
 doctrine of Biogenesis, life can only come from life. 
 It was His additional claim that His function in the 
 world was to give men Life. " I am come that ye 
 might have Life, and that ye might have it more 
 abundantly." This could not refer to the natural 
 life, for men had that already. He that hath the Son 
 hath another Life. " Know ye not your own selves 
 how that Jesus Christ is in you." 
 
 Again, there are men whose characters assume a 
 strange resemblance to Him who was the Life. 
 When we see the bird-character appear in an organ- 
 ism we assume that the Bird-Life has been there al 
 work. And when we behold Conformity to Type 
 in a Christian, and know moreover that the type- 
 organization can be produced by the type-life alone 
 does this not lend support to the hypothesis that the 
 
304 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 Type-Life also has been here at work ? If every 
 effect demands a cause, what other cause is there for 
 the Christian? When we have a cause, and an 
 adequate cause, and no other adequate cause ; when 
 we have the express statement of that Cause that 
 he is that cause, what more is possible ? Let not 
 Science, knowing nothing of 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 great miracle by which this protoplasm is to 
 be conformed to the Image of the Son. We enter 
 that province now only so far as this Law of Con- 
 formity compels us. Nor is it so much the nature 
 of the process we have to consider as its general 
 direction and results. We are dealing with a ques- 
 tion of morphology rather than of physiology. 
 
 It must occur to one on reaching this point, that 
 a new element here comes in which compels us, for 
 the moment, to part company with zoology. That 
 element is the conscious power of choice. The 
 animal in following the type is blind. It does not 
 only follow the type involuntarily and compulsorily, 
 but does not know that it is following it. We might 
 certainly have been made to conform to the Type 
 

 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 305 
 
 in the higher sphere with no more knowledge or 
 power of choice than animals or automata. But 
 then we should not have been men. It is a possible 
 case, but not possible to the kind of protoplasm with 
 which men are furnished. Owing to the peculiar 
 characteristics of this protoplasm an additional and 
 exceptional provision is essential. 
 
 The first demand is that being conscious and 
 having this power of choice, the mind should have 
 an adequate knowledge of what it is to choose. 
 Some revelation of the Type, that is to say, is ne- 
 cessary. And as that revelation can only come from 
 the Type, we must look there for it. 
 
 We are confronted at once with the Incarnation. 
 There we find how the Christ-Life has clothed 
 Himself with matter, taken literal flesh, and dwelt 
 among us. The Incarnation is the Life revealing the 
 Type. Men are long since agreed that this is the 
 end of the Incarnation the revealing of God. But 
 why should God be revealed ? Why, indeed, but for 
 man ? Why but that " beholding as in a glass the 
 glory of the only begotten we should be changed 
 into the same Image " ? 
 
 To meet the power of choice, however, something 
 more was necessary than the mere revelation of the 
 Type it was necessary that the Type should be the 
 highest conceivable Type. In other words, the Type 
 
 ^ X 
 
306 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 must be an Ideal. For all true human growth, 
 effort, and achievement, an ideal is acknowledged to 
 be indispensable. And all men accordingly whose 
 lives are based on principle, have set themselves an 
 ideal, more or less perfect. It is this which first 
 deflects the will from what is base, and turns the 
 wayward life to what is holy. So much is true as 
 mere philosophy. But philosophy failed to present 
 men with their ideal. It has never been suggested 
 that Christianity has failed. Believers and unbe- 
 lievers have been compelled to acknowledge that 
 Christianity holds up to the world the missing Type, 
 the Perfect Man. 
 
 The recognition of the Ideal is the first step in the 
 direction of Conformity. But let it be clearly ob- 
 served that it is but a step. There is no vital 
 connection between merely seeing the Ideal and 
 being conformed to it. Thousands admire Christ 
 who never become Christians. 
 
 But the great question still remains, How is the 
 Christian to be conformed to the Type, or as we 
 should now say, dealing with consciousness, to the 
 Ideal ? The mere knowledge of the Ideal is no more 
 than a motive. How is the process to be practically 
 accomplished ? Who is to do it ? Where, when 
 how ? This is the test question of Christianity. It 
 is here that all theories of Christianity, all attempts 
 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 307 
 
 to explain it on natural principles, all reductions of 
 it to philosophy, inevitably break down. It is here 
 that all imitations of Christianity perish. It is here, 
 also, that personal religion finds its most fatal ob- 
 stacle. Men are all quite clear about the Ideal. We 
 are all convinced of the duty of mankind regarding 
 it. But how to secure that willing men shall attain 
 it that is the problem of religion. It is the failure 
 to understand the dynamics of Christianity that has 
 
 most seriously and most pitifully hindered its growth/ 
 
 ' 
 , both in the individual and in the race. 
 
 From the standpoint of biology this practical 
 difficulty vanishes in a moment. It is probably the 
 very simplicity of the law regarding it that has 
 made men stumble. For nothing is so invisible to 
 most men as transparency. The law here is the 
 same biological law that exists in the natural world. 
 For centuries men have striven to find out ways 
 and means to conform themselves to this type. 
 Impressive motives have been pictured, the proper 
 circumstances arranged, the direction of effort de- 
 nned, and men have toiled, struggled, and agonized 
 to conform themselves to the Image of the Son. 
 Can the protoplasm conform itself to its type? 
 Can the embryo fashion itself? Is Conformity to 
 Type produced by the matter or by the life, by 
 the protoplasm or by the Type? Is organization 
 
308 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 the cause of life or the effect of it ? It is the 
 effect 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 body to discover that this is the 
 universal law of Life. What does any man con- 
 sciously do, for instance, in the matter of breathing ? 
 What part does he 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 a cubit to his stature ? What part volun- 
 tarily does man take in secretion, in digestion, in 
 ;the reflex actions ? In point of fact is he not 
 after all the veriest automaton, every organ of his 
 body given him, every function arranged for him, 
 brain and nerve, thought and sensation, will and 
 conscience, all provided for him ready made ? And 
 yet he turns upon his soul and wishes to organize 
 that himself! O preposterous and vain man, thou 
 who couldest not make a finger nail of thy body, 
 thinkest thou to fashion this wonderful, myste- 
 rious, subtle soul of thine after the ineffable Image ? 
 Wilt thou ever permit thyself to be conformed to 
 the Image 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 perfect stature of 
 Christ ? 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 309 
 
 This is a humbling conclusion. And therefore 
 men will resent it Men will still experiment " by 
 works of righteousness which they have done" to 
 earn the Ideal life. The doctrine of Human In- 
 ability, as the Church calls it, has always been 
 objectionable to men who do not know themselves. 
 The doctrine itself, perhaps, has been partly to 
 blame. While it has been often affirmed in such 
 language as rightly to humble men, it has also 
 been stated and cast in their teeth with words 
 which could only insult them. Merely to assert 
 dogmatically that man has no power to move hand 
 or foot to help himself towards Christ, carries no 
 real conviction. The weight of human authority is 
 always powerless, and ought to be, where the in- 
 telligence is denied a rationale. In the light of 
 modern science when men seek a reason for every 
 thought of God or man, this old doctrine with its 
 severe and almost inhuman aspect till rightly un- 
 derstood must presently have succumbed. But to 
 the biologist it cannot die. It stands to him on the 
 solid ground of Nature. It has a reason in the laws 
 of life which must resuscitate it and give it another 
 lease of years. Bird-Life . makes the Bird. Christ- 
 Life makes the Christian. No man by taking 
 thought can add a cubit to his stature. 
 
 So much for the scientific evidence. Here is the 
 
310 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 corresponding statement of the truth from Scripture. 
 Observe the passive voice in these sentences : " Be- 
 gotten of God ; " " The new man which is renewed 
 in knowledge after the Image of Him that created 
 him;" or this, "We are changed 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 ; " " Ex- 
 cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit he 
 cannot enter the Kingdom of God." There is one 
 outstanding verse which seems at first sight on the 
 other side : " Work out your own salvation with 
 fear and trembling ; " but as one reads on he finds, 
 as if the writer dreaded the very misconception, 
 the complement, " For it is God which worketh in 
 you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." 
 
 It will be noticed in these passages, and in others 
 which might be named, that the process of trans- 
 formation is referred indifferently to the agency of 
 each Person of the Trinity in turn. We are not 
 concerned to take up this question of detail. It 
 is sufficient that the transformation is wrought, 
 Theologians, however, distinguish thus : the indirect 
 agent is Christ, the direct influence is the Holy 
 Spirit. In other words, Christ by His Spirit renews 
 the souls of men. 
 

 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 31 1 
 
 Is man, then, out of the arena altogether? Is 
 he mere clay in the hands of the potter, a machine, 
 a tool, an automaton ? Yes and No. If he were a 
 tool he would not be a man. If he were a man 
 he would have something to do. 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 delicate problem if we make a 
 final appeal to the natural life. We find that in 
 maintaining this natural life Nature has a share and 
 man has a share. By far the larger part is done 
 for us the breathing, the secreting, the circulating 
 of the blood, the building up of the organism. And 
 although the part which man plays is a minor part, 
 yet, strange to say, it is not less essential to the 
 well-being, and even to the being, of the whole. 
 For instance, man has to take food. He has no- 
 thing to do with it after he has once taken it, for 
 the moment it passes his lips it is taken in hand 
 by reflex actions and handed on from one organ to 
 another, his control over it, in the natural course 
 of things, being completely lost. But the initial 
 act was his. And without that nothing could have 
 been done. Now whether there be an exact analogy 
 between the voluntary and involuntary functions in 
 the body, and the corresponding processes in the 
 ioul, we do not at present inquire. But this will 
 
$12 CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 indicate, at least, that man has his own part to 
 play. Let him choose Life ; let him daily nourish 
 his soul ; let him for ever starve the old life ; let 
 him abide continuously as a living branch in the 
 Vine, and the True- Vine Life will flow into his 
 soul, assimilating, renewing, conforming to Type, till 
 Christ, pledged by His own law, be formed in him. 
 
 We have been dealing with Christianity at its 
 most mystical point. Mark here once more its 
 absolute naturalness. The pursuit of the Type is 
 just what all Nature is engaged in. Plant and insect, 
 fish and reptile, bird and mammal these in their 
 several spheres are striving after the Type. To 
 prevent its extinction, to ennoble it, to people earth 
 and sea and sky with it ; this is the meaning of the 
 Struggle for Life. And this is our 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 follow 
 Christ is not to be " righteous overmuch." True 
 men are not rhapsodizing when they preach ; nor 
 do those waste their lives who waste themselves in 
 striving to extend the Kingdom of God on earth. 
 This is what life is for. The Christian in his life- 
 aim is in strict line with Nature. What men call 
 his supernatural is quite natural. 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 313 
 
 Mark well also the splendour of this idea of 
 salvation. It is not merely final " safety," to be for- 
 given sin, to evade the curse. It is not, vaguely, 
 "to get to heaven." It is to be conformed to the 
 Image of the Son. It is for these poor elements to 
 attain to the Supreme Beauty. The organizing Life 
 being Eternal, so must this Beauty be immortal. Its 
 progress towards the Immaculate is already guar- 
 anteed. And more than all there is here fulfilled 
 the sublimest of all prophecies ; not Beauty alone 
 but Unity is secured by the Type Unity of man 
 and man, God and man, God and Christ and man, 
 till "all shall be one." 
 
 Could Science in its most brilliant anticipations 
 for the future of its highest organism ever have fore- 
 shadowed a development like this ? Now that the 
 revelation is made to it, it surely recognises it as the 
 missing point in Evolution, the climax to which all 
 Creation tends. Hitherto Evolution had no future. 
 It was a pillar with marvellous carving, growing 
 richer and finer towards the top, but without a 
 capital; a pyramid, the vast base buried in the 
 Inorganic, towering higher and higher, tier above tier, 
 life above life, mind above mind, ever more perfect 
 in its workmanship, more noble in its symmetry, and 
 yet withal so much the more mysterious in its aspira- 
 tion. The most curious eye, following it upwards, 
 
CONFORMITY TO TYPE. 
 
 saw nothing. The cloud fell and covered it. Just 
 what men wanted to see was hid. The work of the 
 ages had no apex. But the work begun by Nature 
 is finished by the Supernatural as we are wont to 
 call the higher natural. And, as the veil is lifted by 
 Christianity it strikes men dumb with wonder. For 
 the goal of Evolution is Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Christian life is the only life that will ever be 
 completed. Apart from Christ the life of man is 
 a broken pillar, the race of men an unfinished 
 pyramid. One by one in sight of Eternity all human 
 Ideals fall 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 scarped 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 did predestinate to be con- 
 formed to the Image of His Son." And "when 
 Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also 
 appear with Him in glory/' 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
" The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never 
 yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, ham- 
 pered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here 
 or nowhere is thy Ideal ; work it out therefrom; and working, 
 believe, live, be free" 
 
 CARLYLE. 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 " 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 will not take the trouble to find 
 their own food, but borrow or steal it from the more 
 industrious. So deep-rooted is this tendency in 
 Nature, that plants may become parasitic it is an 
 acquired habit as well as animals ; and both are 
 found in every state of beggary, some doing a little 
 for themselves, while others, more abject, refuse even 
 to prepare their own food. 
 
 There are certain plants the Dodder, for instance 
 which begin life with the best intentions, strike 
 true roots into the soil, and really appear as if they 
 meant to be independent for life. But after support- 
 ing themselves for a brief period they fix curious 
 sucking disc?, into the stem and branches of adjacent 
 plants. And after a little experimenting, the 
 
 317 
 
3 i8 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 epiphyte finally ceases to do anything for its own 
 support, thenceforth drawing all its supplies ready- 
 made from the sap of its host. In this parasitic state 
 it has no need for organs of nutrition of its own, and 
 Nature therefore takes them away. Henceforth, to 
 the botanist, the adult Dodder presents the degraded 
 spectacle of a plant without a root, without a twig, 
 without a leaf, and having a stem so useless as to be 
 inadequate to bear its own weight 
 
 In the Mistletoe the parasitic habit has reached a 
 stage in some respects lower still. It has persisted in 
 the downward course for so many generations that 
 the young forms even have acquired the habit and 
 usually begin life at once as parasites. The Mistletoe 
 berries, which contain the seed of the future plant, are 
 developed specially to minister to this degeneracy, for 
 they glue themselves to the branches of some neigh- 
 bouring oak or apple, and there the young Mistletoe 
 starts as a dependent from the first. 
 
 Among animals these lazzaroni are more largely 
 represented still. Almost every animal is a living 
 poor-house, and harbours one or more species of 
 epizoa or entozoa, supplying them gratis, not only 
 with a permanent home, but with all the necessaries 
 and luxuries of life. 
 
 Why does the naturalist think hardly of the 
 parasites ? Why does he speak of them as degraded, 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 319 
 
 and despise them as the most ignoble creatures in 
 Nature ? What more can an animal do than eat, 
 drink, and die to-morrow? If under the fostering 
 care and protection of a higher organism it can eat 
 better, drink more easily, live more merrily, and die, 
 perhaps, not till the day after, why should it not do 
 so ? Is parasitism, after all, not a somewhat clever 
 ruse ? Is it not an ingenious way of securing the 
 benefits of life while evading its responsibilities ? 
 And although this mode of livelihood is selfish, and 
 possibly undignified, can it be said that it is im- 
 moral ? 
 
 The naturalist's reply to this is brief. Parasitism, 
 he will say, is one of the gravest crimes in Nature. 
 It is a breach of the law of Evolution. Thou shalt 
 evolve, thou shalt develop all thy faculties to the 
 full, thou shalt attain to the highest conceivable 
 perfection of thy race and so perfect thy race this 
 is the first and greatest commandment of Nature. 
 But the parasite has no thought for its race, or for 
 perfection in any shape or form. It wants two 
 things food and shelter. How it gets them is of 
 no moment. Each member lives exclusively on its 
 own account, an isolated, indolent, selfish, and back- 
 sliding life. 
 
 The remarkable thing is that Nature permits the 
 community to be taxed in this way apparently with- 
 
3 20 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 out protest. For the parasite is a consumer pure 
 and simple. And the " Perfect Economy of Nature " 
 is surely for once at fault when it encourages species 
 numbered by thousands which produce nothing for 
 their own or for the general good, but live, and live 
 luxuriously, at the expense of others ? 
 
 Now when we look into the matter, we very soon 
 perceive that instead of secretly countenancing this 
 ingenious device by which parasitic animals and 
 plants evade the great law of the Struggle for Life, 
 Nature sets her face most sternly against it. And, 
 instead of allowing the transgressors to slip through 
 her fingers, as one might at first suppose, she visits 
 upon them the most severe and terrible penalties. 
 The parasite, she argues, not only injures itself, but 
 wrongs others. It disobeys the fundamental law of its 
 own being, and taxes the innocent to contribute to its 
 disgrace. So that if Nature is just, if Nature has an 
 /ivenging hand, if she holds one vial of wrath more 
 full and bitter than another, it shall surely be poured 
 out upon those who are guilty of this double sin. 
 Let us see what form this punishment takes. 
 
 Observant visitors to the sea-side, or let us say to 
 an aquarium, are familiar with those curious little 
 creatures known as Hermit-crabs. The peculiarity 
 of the Hermits is that they take up their abode in 
 the cast-off shell of some other animal, not unusually 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 32; 
 
 the whelk ; and here, like Diogenes in his tub, the 
 creature lives a solitary, but by no means an inactive 
 life. 
 
 The Pagurus, however, is not a parasite. And yet 
 although in no sense of the word a parasite, this 
 way of inhabiting throughout life a house built by 
 another animal approaches so closely the parasitic 
 habit, that we shall find it instructive as a prelimi- 
 nary illustration, to consider the effect of this free- 
 house policy on the occupant. There is no doubt, to 
 begin with, that, as has been already indicated, the 
 habit is an acquired one. In its general anatomy the 
 Hermit is essentially a crab. Now the crab is an 
 animal which, from the nature of its environment, 
 has to lead a somewhat rough and perilous life. Its 
 days are spent amongst jagged rocks and boulders. 
 Dashed about by every wave, attacked on every side 
 by monsters of the deep, the crustacean has to 
 protect itself by developing a strong and serviceable 
 coat of mail. 
 
 How best to protect themselves has been the 
 problem to which the whole crab family have 
 addressed themselves ; and, in considering the matter, 
 the ancestors of the Hermit-crab hit on the happy 
 device of re-utilising the habitations of the molluscs 
 which lay around them in plenty, well-built, and 
 ready for immediate occupation. For generations 
 
322 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 and generations accordingly, the Hermit-crab has 
 ceased to exercise itself upon questions of safety, and 
 dwells in its little shell as proudly and securely as if 
 its second-hand house were a fortress erected es- 
 pecially for its private use. 
 
 Wherein, then, has the Hermit suffered for this 
 cheap, but real solution of a practical difficulty? 
 Whether its laziness costs it any moral qualms, or 
 whether its cleverness becomes to it a source of con- 
 gratulation, we do not know ; but judged from the 
 appearance the animal makes under the searching 
 gaze of the zoologist, its expedient is certainly not 
 one to be commended. To the eye of Science its sin 
 is written in the plainest characters on its very 
 organization. It has suffered in its own anatomical 
 structure just by as much as it has borrowed from 
 an external source. Instead of being a perfect 
 crustacean it has allowed certain important parts of 
 its body to deteriorate. And several vital organs are 
 partially or wholly atrophied. 
 
 Its sphere of life also is now seriously limited ; 
 and by a cheap expedient to secure safety, it has 
 fatally lost its independence. It is plain from its 
 anatomy that the Hermit-crab was not always a 
 Hermit-crab. It was meant for higher things. Its 
 ancestors doubtless were more or less perfect crus- 
 taceans, though what exact stage of development 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 323 
 
 was reached before the hermit habit became fixed in 
 the species we cannot tell. But from the moment 
 the creature took to relying on an external source, 
 it began to fall. It slowly lost in its own person all 
 that it now draws from external aid. 
 
 As an important item in the day's work, namely, 
 the securing of safety and shelter, was now guaran- 
 teed to it, one ol the chief inducements to a life of 
 high and vigilant effort was at the same time with- 
 drawn. A number of functions, in fact, struck work. 
 The whole of the parts, therefore, of the complex 
 organism which ministered to these functions, from 
 lack of exercise, or total disuse, became gradually 
 feeble ; and ultimately, by the stern law that an un- 
 used organ must suffer a slow but inevitable atrophy, 
 the creature not only lost all power of motion in 
 these parts, but lost the parts themselves, and other- 
 wise sank into a relatively degenerate condition. 
 
 Every normal crustacean, on the other hand, has 
 the abdominal region of the body covered by a thick 
 chitinous shell. In the Hermits this is represented 
 only by a thin and delicate membrane of which the 
 sorry figure the creature cuts when drawn from its 
 ioreign hiding-place is sufficient evidence. Any one 
 who now examines further this half-naked and woe- 
 begone object, will perceive also that the fourth and 
 fifth pair of limbs are either so small and wasted as 
 
324 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 to be quite useless or altogether rudimentary ; and, 
 although certainly the additional development of the 
 extremity of the tail into an organ for holding on to 
 its extemporised retreat may be regarded as a slight 
 compensation, it is clear from the whole structure of 
 the animal that it has allowed itself to undergo severe 
 Degeneration. 
 
 In dealing with the Hermit-crab, in short, we are 
 dealing with a case of physiological backsliding. 
 That the creature has lost anything by this process 
 from a practical point of view is not now argued. It 
 might fairly be shown, as already indicated, that its 
 freedom is impaired by its cumbrous eko-skeleton, 
 and that, in contrast with other crabs, who lead a 
 free and roving life, its independence generally is 
 greatly limited. But from the physiological stand- 
 point, there is no question that the Hermit tribe have 
 neither discharged their responsibilities to Nature nor 
 to themselves. If the end of life is merely to escape 
 death, and serve themselves, possibly they have done 
 well ; but if it is to attain an ever increasing perfec- 
 tion, then are they backsliders indeed. 
 
 A zoologist's verdict would be that by this act 
 they have forfeited to some extent their place in the 
 animal scale. An animal is classed as low or high 
 according as it is adapted to less or more complex 
 conditions of life. This is the true standpoint from 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 32$ 
 
 which to judge all living organisms. Were perfection 
 merely a matter of continual eating and drinking, 
 the Amoeba the lowest known organism might 
 take rank with the highest, Man, for the one nou- 
 rishes itself and saves its skin almost as completely 
 as the other. But judged by the higher standard of 
 Complexity, that is, by greater or lesser adaptation 
 to more or less complex conditions, the gulf between 
 them is infinite. 
 
 We have now received a preliminary idea, although 
 not from the study of a true parasite, of the essential 
 principles involved in parasitism. And we may pro- 
 ceed to point out the correlative in the moral and 
 spiritual spheres. We confine ourselves for the pre- 
 sent to one point. The difference between the 
 Hermit-crab and a true parasite is, that the former 
 has acquired a semi-parasitic habit only with refer- 
 ence to safety. It may be that the Hermit devours 
 as a preliminary the accommodating mollusc whose 
 tenement it covets ; but it would become a real 
 parasite only on the supposition that the whelk was 
 of such size as to keep providing for it throughout 
 life, and that the external and internal organs of the 
 crab should disappear, while it lived henceforth, by 
 simple imbibation, upon the elaborated juices of its 
 host. All the mollusc provides, however, for the 
 crustacean in this instance is safety, and, accordingly 
 
326 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 in the meantime we limit our application to this. 
 The true parasite presents us with an organism so 
 much more degraded in all its parts, that its lessons 
 may well be reserved until we have paved the way 
 to understand the deeper bearings of the subject. 
 
 The spiritual principle to be illustrated in the 
 meantime stands thus : Any principle which secures the 
 safety of the individual without personal effort or the 
 vital exercise of faculty is disastrous to moral character. 
 We do not begin by attempting to define words. 
 Were we to define truly what is meant by safety or 
 salvation, we should be spared further elaboration, 
 and the law would stand out as a sententious com- 
 mon-place. But we have to deal with the ideas of 
 safety as these are popularly held, and the chief pur- 
 pose at this stage is to expose what may be called 
 the Parasitic Doctrine of Salvation. The phases of 
 religious experience about to be described may be 
 unknown to many. It remains for those who are 
 familiar with the religious conceptions of the masses 
 to determine whether or not we are wasting words. 
 
 What is meant by the Parasitic Doctrine of Salva- 
 tion one may, perhaps, best explain by sketching two 
 of its leading types. The first is the doctrine of the 
 Church of Rome ; the second, that represented by 
 the narrower Evangelical Religion. We take these 
 religions, however, not in their ideal form, with which 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 327 
 
 possibly we should have little quarrel, but in their 
 practical working, or in the form in which they are 
 held especially by the rank and file of those who 
 belong respectively to these communions. For the 
 strength or weakness of any religious system is best 
 judged from the form in which it presents itself to, 
 and influences the common mind. 
 
 No more perfect or more sad example of semi- 
 parasitism exists than in the case of those illiterate 
 thousands who, scattered everywhere throughout 
 the habitable globe, swell the lower ranks of the 
 Church of Rome. Had an organization been spe- 
 cially designed, indeed, to induce the parasitic habit 
 in the souls of men, nothing better fitted to its dis- 
 astrous end could be established than the system of 
 Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism offers to 
 the masses a molluscan shell. They have simply to 
 shelter themselves within its pale, and they are 
 "safe." But what is this " safe " ? It is an external 
 safety the safety of an institution. It is a salvation 
 recommended to men by all that appeals to the 
 motives in most common use with the vulgar and 
 the superstitious, but which has as little vital connec- 
 tion with the individual soul as the dead whelk's 
 shell with the living Hermit. Salvation is a relation 
 at once vital, personal, and spiritual. This is me- 
 chanical and purely external. And this is of course 
 
328 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 the final secret of its marvellous success and world- 
 wide power. A cheap religion is the desideratum of 
 the human heart ; and an assurance of salvation at 
 the smallest possible cost forms the tempting bait 
 held out to a conscience-stricken world by the Romish 
 Church. Thousands, therefore, who have never been 
 taught to use their faculties in " working out their 
 own salvation/' thousands who will not exercise 
 themselves religiously, and who yet cannot be with- 
 out the exercises of religion, intrust themselves in 
 idle faith to that venerable house of refuge which 
 for centuries has stood between God and man. A 
 Church which has harboured generations of the 
 elect, whose archives enshrine the names of saints 
 whose foundations are consecrated with martyrs' 
 blood shall it not afford a sure asylum still for any 
 soul which would make its peace with God ?. So, as 
 the Hermit into the molluscan shell, creeps the poor 
 soul within the pale of Rome, seeking, like Adam in 
 the garden, to hide its nakedness from God. 
 
 Why does the true lover of men restrain not 
 his lips in warning his fellows against this and all 
 other priestly religions ? It is not because he fails to 
 see the prodigious energy of the Papal See, or to 
 appreciate the many noble types of Christian man- 
 hood nurtured within its pale. Nor is it because its 
 teachers are often corrupt and its system of doctrine 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 329 
 
 inadequate as a representation of the Truth charges 
 which have to be made more or less against all re- 
 ligions. But it is because it ministers falsely to the 
 deepest need of man, reduces the end of religion 
 to selfishness, and offers safety without spirituality. 
 That these, theoretically, are its pretensions, we do 
 not affirm ; but that its practical working is to induce 
 in man, and in its worst forms, the parasitic habit, is 
 testified by results. No one who has studied the 
 religion of the Continent upon the spot, has failed to 
 be impressed with the appalling spectacle of tens of 
 thousands of unregenerate men sheltering themselves, 
 as they conceive it for Eternity, behind the Sacra- 
 ments of Rome. 
 
 There is no stronger evidence of the inborn para- 
 sitic tendency in man in things religious than the 
 absolute complacency with which even cultured men 
 will hand over their eternal interests to the care of a 
 Church. We can never dismiss from memory the 
 sadness with which we once listened to the confession 
 of a certain foreign professor : " I used to be con- 
 cerned about religion," he said in substance, "but 
 religion is a great subject. I was very busy ; there 
 was little time to settle it for myself. A Protestant, 
 my attention was called to the Roman Catholic 
 religion. It suited my case. And instead of dab- 
 bling in religion for myself I put myself in its handa 
 
330 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 Once a year," he concluded, " I go to mass." These 
 were the words of one whose work will live in the 
 history of his country, one, too, who knew all about 
 parasitism. Yet, though he thought it not, this is 
 parasitism in its worst and most degrading form. 
 Nor, in spite of its intellectual, not to say moral sin, 
 is this an extreme or exceptional case. It is a case, 
 which is being duplicated every day in our own 
 country, only here the confession is expressed with a 
 candour which is rare in company with actions be- 
 traying so signally the want of it. 
 
 The form of parasitism exhibited by a certain sec- 
 tion of the narrower Evangelical school is altogether 
 different from that of the Church of Rome. The 
 parasite in this case seeks its shelter, not in a Church, 
 but in a Doctrine or a Creed. Let it be observed 
 again that we are not dealing with the Evangelical 
 Religion, but only with one of its parasitic forms a 
 form which will at once be recognised by all who 
 know the popular Protestantism of this country. We 
 confine ourselves also at present to that form which 
 finds its encouragement in a single doctrine, that 
 doctrine being the Doctrine of the Atonement let 
 us say, rather, a perverted form of this central truth. 
 
 The perverted Doctrine of the Atonement, which 
 tends to beget the parasitic habit, may be defined in 
 a single sentence it is very much because it can be 
 

 SEMI-PARASITISM. 331 
 
 defined in a single sentence that it is a perversion. 
 Let us state it in a concrete form. It is put to the 
 individual in the following syllogism: "You believe 
 Christ died for sinners ; you are a sinner ; therefore 
 Christ died for you ; and hence you are saved'' Now 
 what is this but another species of molluscan shell ? 
 Could any trap for a benighted soul be more ingen- 
 iously planned ? It is not superstition that is ap- 
 pealed to this time ; it is reason. The agitated soul 
 is invited to creep into the convolutions of a syllo- 
 gism, and entrench itself behind a Doctrine more 
 venerable even than the Church. But words are 
 mere chitine. Doctrines may have no more vital 
 contact with the soul than priest or sacrament, no 
 further influence on life and character than stone and 
 lime. And yet the apostles of parasitism pick a 
 blackguard from the streets, pass him through this 
 plausible formula, and turn him out a convert in the 
 space of as many minutes as it takes to tell it. 
 
 The zeal of these men, assuredly, is not to be 
 questioned : their instincts are right, and their work 
 is often not in vain. It is possible, too, up to a 
 certain point, to defend this Salvation by Formula. 
 Are these not the very words of Scripture? Did 
 not Christ Himself say, "It is finished " ? And is it 
 not written, " By grace are ye saved through faith," 
 k< Not of works, lest any man should boast," and " He 
 
33^ SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life 1 '? To 
 which, however, one might also answer in the words 
 of Scripture, " The Devils also believe," and " Except 
 a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of 
 God." But without seeming to make text refute 
 text, let us ask rather what the supposed convert 
 possesses at the end of the process. That Christ 
 saves sinners, even blackguards from the streets, is a 
 great fact ; and that the simple words of the street 
 evangelist do sometimes bring this home to man with 
 convincing power is also a fact. But in ordinary 
 circumstances, when the inquirer's mind is rapidly 
 urged through the various stages of the above piece 
 of logic, he is left to face the future and blot out the 
 past with a formula of words. 
 
 To be sure these words may already convey a 
 germ of truth, they may yet be filled in with a 
 wealth of meaning and become a lifelong power. 
 But we would state the case against Salvation by 
 Formula with ignorant and unwarranted clemency 
 did we for a moment convey the idea that this is 
 always the actual result. The doctrine plays too 
 well into the hands of the parasitic tendency to make 
 it possible that in more than a minority of cases the 
 result is anything but disastrous. And it is disas- 
 trous not in that, sooner or later, after losing half 
 their lives, those who rely on the naked syllogism 
 
^ 
 
 11 UNIVERSITY n 
 SEM r.PA R A SITIS M. Vc^JF 
 
 come to see their mistake, but in that thousands 
 never come to see it at all. Are there not men who 
 can prove to you and to the world, by the irresistible 
 logic of texts, that they are saved, whom you know 
 to be not only unworthy of the Kingdom of God 
 \vhich we all are but absolutely incapable of enter- 
 ing it? The condition of membership in the King- 
 dom of God is well known ; who fulfil this condition 
 and who do not, is not well known. And yet the 
 moral test, in spite of the difficulty of its applications, 
 will always, and rightly, be preferred by the world to 
 the theological. Nevertheless, in spite of the world's 
 verdict, the parasite is content. He is " safe." Years 
 ago his mind worked through a certain chain of 
 phrases in which the words " believe " and " saved " 
 were the conspicuous terms. And from that mo- 
 ment, by all Scriptures, by all logic, and by all 
 theology, his future was guaranteed. He took out, 
 in short, an insurance policy, by which he was in- 
 fallibly secured eternal life at death. This is not a 
 matter to make light of. We wish we were caricatur- 
 ing instead of representing things as they are. But 
 we carry with us all who intimately know the spiri- 
 tual condition of the Narrow Church in asserting 
 that in some cases at least its members have nothing 
 more to show for their religion than a formula, a 
 syllogism, a cant phrase or an experience of some 
 
334 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 kind which happened long ago, and which men told 
 them at the time was called Salvation. Need we 
 proceed to formulate objections to the parasitism of 
 Evangelicism ? Between it and the Religion of the 
 Church of Rome there is an affinity as real as it is 
 unsuspected. For one thing these religions are spiri- 
 tually disastrous as well as theologically erroneous in 
 propagating a false conception of Christianity. The 
 fundamental idea alike of the extreme Roman 
 Catholic and extreme Evangelical Religions is 
 Escape. Man's chief end is to "get off." And all 
 factors in religion, the highest and most sacred, are 
 degraded to this level God, for example, is a Great 
 Lawyer. Or He is the Almighty Enemy ; it is from 
 Him we have to " get off." Jesus Christ is the One 
 who gets us off a theological figure who contrives 
 so to adjust matters federally that the way is clear. 
 The Church in the one instance is a kind of con- 
 veyancing office where the transaction is duly con- 
 cluded, each party accepting the other's terms; in 
 the other case, a species of sheep-pen where the flock 
 awaits impatiently and indolently the final consum- 
 mation. Generally, the means are mistaken for the 
 end, and the opening-up of the possibility of spiritual 
 growth becomes the signal to stop growing. 
 
 Second, these being cheap religions, are inevitably 
 accompanied by a cheap life. Safety being guaran- 
 
SEMI-PARASITISM. 335 
 
 teed from the first, there remains nothing else to 
 be done. The mechanical way in which the trans- 
 action is effected, leaves the soul without stimulus, 
 and the character remains untouched by the moral 
 aspects of the sacrifice of Christ. He who is unjust 
 is unjust still; he who is unholy is unholy still. 
 Thus the whole scheme ministers to the Degenera- 
 tion of Organs. For here, again, by just as much as 
 the organism borrows mechanically from an external 
 source, by so much exactly does it lose in its own 
 organization. Whatever rest is provided by Chris- 
 tianity for the children of God, it is certainly never 
 contemplated that it should supersede personal effort. 
 And any rest which ministers to indifference is im- 
 moral and unreal it makes parasites and not men. 
 Just because God worketh in him, as the evidence 
 and triumph of it, the true child of God works out 
 his own salvation works it out having really re- 
 ceived it not as a light thing, a superfluous labour, 
 but with fear and trembling as a reasonable and in- 
 dispensable service. 
 
 If it be asked, then, shall the parasite be saved or 
 shall he not, the answer is that the idea of salvation 
 conveyed by the question makes a reply all but 
 hopeless. But if by salvation is meant, a trusting in 
 Christ in order to likeness to Christ, in order to that 
 Jwliness without which no man shall see the Lord, 
 
336 SEMI-PARASITISM. 
 
 the reply is that the parasite's hope is absolutely vain. 
 So far from ministering to growth, parasitism minis- 
 ters to decay. So far from ministering to holiness, 
 that is to wholeness, parasitism ministers to exactly 
 the opposite. One by one the spiritual faculties 
 droop and die, one by one from lack of exercise the 
 muscles of the soul grow weak and flaccid, one by 
 one the moral activities cease. So from him that 
 hath not, is taken away that which he hath, and after 
 a few years of parasitism there is nothing left to 
 save. 
 
 If our meaning up to this point has been suffi- 
 ciently obscure to make the objection now possible 
 that this protest against Parasitism is opposed to the 
 doctrines of Free Grace, we cannot hope in a closing 
 sentence to free the argument from a suspicion so 
 ill-judged. The adjustment between Faith and 
 Works does not fall within our province now. Sal- 
 vation truly is the free gift of God, but he who really 
 knows how much this means knows and just be- 
 cause it means so much how much of consequent 
 action it involves. With the central doctrines of 
 grace the whole scientific argument is in too wonder* 
 ful harmony to be found wanting here. The natural 
 life, not less than the eternal, is the gift of God. But 
 life in either case is the beginning of growth and not 
 the end of grace. To pause where we should begin, 
 

 SEMI-PARASITISM. 337 
 
 to retrograde where we should advance, to seek a 
 mechanical security that we may cover inertia and 
 find a wholesale salvation in which there is no per- 
 sonal sanctification this is Parasitism 
 
PARASITISM. 
 
M And so 1 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 hearty 
 Tame in earths paddock as her prise. 
 # # * * # 
 
 Thank God, no paradise stands barred 
 To entry, and I find it hard 
 To be a Christian, as I said? 
 
 BROWNING, 
 
PARASITISM. 
 
 u Work out your own salvation." Paul. 
 
 " Be no longer a chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. 
 Produce ! Produce ! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal 
 fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name ! " Carlyle. 
 
 FROM a study of the habits and organization of 
 the family of Hermit-crabs we have already gained 
 some insight into the nature and effects of para- 
 sitism. But the Hermit-crab, be it remembered, is 
 in no real sense a parasite. And before we can 
 apply the general principle further we must address 
 ourselves briefly to the examination of a true case 
 of parasitism. 
 
 We have not far to seek. Within the body of 
 the Hermit-crab a minute organism may frequently 
 be discovered resembling, when magnified, a minia- 
 ture kidney-bean. A bunch of root-like processes 
 hangs from one side, and the extremities of these 
 are seen to ramify in delicate films through the 
 living tissues of the crab. This simple organism 
 is known to the naturalist as a Sacculina ; and 
 
 341 
 
342 PARASITISM. 
 
 though a full-grown animal, it consists of no more 
 parts than those just named. Not a trace of struc- 
 ture is to be detected within this rude and all but 
 inanimate frame ; it possesses neither legs, nor 
 eyes, nor mouth, nor throat, nor stomach, nor 
 any other organs, external or internal. This Sac- 
 culina is a typical parasite. By means of its twining 
 and theftuous roots it imbibes automatically its 
 nourishment ready-prepared from the body of the 
 crab. It boards indeed entirely at the expense oi 
 its host, who supplies it liberally with food and 
 shelter and everything else it wants. So far as the 
 result to itself is concerned this arrangement may 
 seem at first sight satisfactory enough ; but when 
 we inquire into the life history of this small creature 
 we unearth a career of degeneracy all but unparal- 
 leled in nature. 
 
 The most certain clue to what nature meant any 
 animal to become is to be learned from its embry- 
 ology. Let us, therefore, examine for a moment the 
 earliest positive stage in the development of the 
 Sacculina. When the embryo first makes its ap- 
 pearance it bears not the remotest resemblance to 
 the adult animal. A different name even is given 
 to it by the biologist, who knows it at this period 
 as a Nauplius. This minute organism has an oval 
 body, supplied with six well-jointed feet by means 
 
PARASITISM. 343 
 
 of which it paddles briskly through the water. For 
 a time it leads an active and independent life, in- 
 dustriously securing its . own food and escaping 
 enemies by its own gallantry. But soon a change 
 takes place. The hereditary taint of parasitism is 
 in its blood, and it proceeds to adapt itself to the 
 pauper habits of its race. The tiny body first 
 doubles in upon itself, and from the two front limbs 
 elongated filaments protrude. Its four hind limbs 
 entirely disappear, and twelve short-forked swimming 
 organs temporarily take their place. Thus strangely 
 metamorphosed the Sacculina sets out in search of 
 a suitable host, and in an evil hour, by that fate 
 which is always ready to accommodate the trans- 
 gressor, is thrown into the company of the Hermit- 
 crab. With its two filamentary processes which 
 afterwards develop into the root-like organs it 
 penetrates the body ; the sac-like form is gradually 
 assumed ; the whole of the swimming feet drop off, 
 they will never be needed again, and the animal 
 settles down for the rest of its life as a parasite. 
 
 One reason which makes a zoologist certain that 
 the Sacculina is a degenerate type is, that in almost 
 all other instances of animals which begin life in 
 the Nauplius-form and there are several the 
 Nauplius develops through higher and higher stages, 
 and arrives finally at the high perfection displayed 
 
344 PARASITISM. 
 
 by the shrimp, lobster, crab, and other crustaceans. 
 But instead of rising to its opportunities, the sac- 
 culine Nauplius having reached a certain point 
 turned back. It shrunk from the struggle for life, 
 and beginning probably by seeking shelter from its 
 host went on to demand its food ; and so falling 
 from bad to worse, became in time an entire de- 
 pendant. 
 
 In the eyes of Nature this was a twofold crime. 
 It was first a disregard of evolution, and second, 
 which is practically the same thing, an evasion of 
 the great law of work. And the revenge of Nature 
 was therefore necessary. It could not help punishing 
 the Sacculina for violated law, and the punishment, 
 according to the strange and noteworthy way in 
 which Nature usually punishes, was meted out by 
 natural processes, carried on within its own organiza- 
 tion. Its punishment was simply that it was a 
 Sacculina that it was a Sacculina when it might 
 have been a Crustacean. Instead of being a free 
 and independent organism high in structure, original 
 in action, vital with energy, it deteriorated into a 
 torpid and all but amorphous sac confined to per- 
 petual imprisonment and doomed to a living death. 
 "Any new set of conditions," says Ray Lankester, 
 " occurring to an animal which render its food and 
 safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule 
 
PARASITISM. 345 
 
 to degeneration ; just as an active healthy man 
 sometimes degenerates when he becomes suddenly 
 possessed of a fortune ; or as Rome degenerated 
 when possessed of the riches of the ancient world 
 The habit of parasitism clearly acts upon animal 
 organization in this way. Let the parasitic life once 
 be secured, and away go legs, jaws, eyes, and ears ; 
 the active, highly-gifted crab, insect, or annelid may 
 become a mere sac, absorbing nourishment and 
 laying eggs." l 
 
 There could be no more impressive illustration 
 than this of what with entire appropriateness one 
 might call " the physiology of backsliding." We 
 fail to appreciate the meaning of spiritual degenera- 
 tion or detect the terrible nature of the consequences 
 only because they evade the eye of sense. But 
 could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, 
 or study the soul of the backslider on principles of 
 comparative anatomy, we should have a revelation 
 of the organic effects of sin, even of the mere sin 
 of carelessness as to growth and work, which must 
 revolutionize our ideas of practical religion. There 
 is no room for the doubt even that what goes on in 
 the body does not with equal certainty take place 
 in the spirit under the corresponding conditions. 
 
 1 u Degeneration," by E. Ray Lankester, p. 33. 
 
346 PARASITISM. 
 
 The penalty of backsliding is not something unreal 
 and vague, some unknown quantity which may be 
 measured out to us disproportionately, or which 
 perchance, since God is good, we may altogether 
 evade. The consequences are already marked within 
 the structure of the soul. So to speak, they are 
 physiological. The thing affected by our indifference 
 or by our indulgence is not the book of final judg- 
 ment but the present fabric of the soul. The punish- 
 ment of degeneration is simply degeneration the 
 loss of functions, the decay of organs, the atrophy oi 
 the spiritual nature. It is well known that the 
 recovery of the backslider is one of the hardest 
 problems in spiritual work. To reinvigorate an old 
 organ seems more difficult and hopeless than to 
 develop a new one ; and the backslider's terrible 
 lot is to have to retrace with enfeebled feet each step 
 of the way along which he strayed ; to make up 
 inch by inch the lee-way he has lost, carrying with 
 him a dead-weight of acquired reluctance, and scarce 
 knowing whether to be stimulated or discouraged 
 by the oppressive memory of the previous fall. 
 
 We are not, however, to discuss at present the 
 physiology of backsliding. Nor need we point out 
 at greater length that parasitism is always and 
 indissolubly accompanied by degeneration. We 
 wish rather to examine one or two leading tendencies 
 
PARASITISM. 347 
 
 of the modern religious life which directly or in- 
 directly induce the parasitic habit and bring upon 
 thousands of unsuspecting victims such secret and 
 appalling penalties as have been named. 
 
 Two main causes are known to the biologist as 
 tending to induce the parasitic habit. These are, 
 first, the temptation to secure safety without the 
 vital exercise of faculties, and, second, the dispo- 
 sition to find food without earning it. The first, 
 which we have formally considered, is probably the 
 preliminary stage in most cases. The animal, seek- 
 ing shelter, finds unexpectedly that it can also 
 thereby gain a certain measure of food. Compelled 
 in the first instance, perhaps by stress of circum- 
 stances, to rob its host of a meal or perish, it gradually 
 acquires the habit of drawing all its supplies from 
 the same source, and thus becomes in time a con- 
 firmed parasite. Whatever be its origin, however, 
 it is certain that the main evil of parasitism is con- 
 nected with the further question of food. Mere 
 safety with Nature is a secondary, though by no 
 means an insignificant, consideration. And while 
 the organism forfeits a part of its organization by 
 any method of evading enemies which demands no 
 personal effort, the most entire degeneration of the 
 whole system follows the neglect or abuse of the 
 functions of nutrition. 
 
PARASITISM. 
 
 The direction in which we have to seek the wider 
 application of the subject will now appear. We 
 have to look into those cases in the moral and 
 spiritual sphere in which the functions of nutrition 
 are either neglected or abused. To sustain life, 
 physical, mental, moral, or spiritual, some sort of 
 food is essential. To secure an adequate supply each 
 organism also is provided with special and appro- 
 priate faculties. But the final gain to the organism 
 does not depend so much on the actual amount of 
 food procured as on the exercise required to obtain 
 it In one sense the exercise is only a means to an 
 end, namely, the finding food ; but in another and 
 equally real sense, the exercise is the end, the food 
 the means to attain that. Neither is of permanent 
 use without the other, but the correlation between 
 them is so intimate that it were idle to say that one 
 is more necessary than the other. Without food 
 exercise is impossible, but without exercise food is 
 useless. 
 
 Thus exercise is in order to food, and food is in 
 order to exercise in order especially to that further 
 progress and maturity which only ceaseless activity 
 can promote. Now food too easily acquired means 
 food without that accompaniment of discipline which 
 is infinitely more valuable than the food itself. It 
 means the possibility of a life which is a mere ex- 
 
PARASITISM. 349 
 
 istence. It leaves the organism in statu quo, unde- 
 veloped, immature, low in the scale of organization, 
 and with a growing tendency to pass from the state 
 of equilibrium to that of increasing degeneration. 
 What an organism is depends upon what it does , 
 its activities make it. And if the stimulus to the 
 exercise of all the innumerable faculties concerned 
 in nutrition be withdrawn by the conditions and cir- 
 cumstances of life becoming, or being made to 
 become, too easy, there is first an arrest of develop- 
 ment, and finally a loss of the parts themselves. If, 
 in short, an organism does nothing, in that relation 
 it is nothing. 
 
 We may, therefore, formulate the general principle 
 thus : Any principle which secures food to the in- 
 dividual without the expenditure of work is injurious 
 and accompanied by the degeneration and loss of parts. 
 
 The social and political analogies of this law, 
 which have been casually referred to already, are 
 sufficiently familiar to render any further develop- 
 ment in these directions superfluous. After the 
 eloquent preaching of the Gospel of Work by Thomas 
 Carlyle, this century at least can never plead that 
 one of the most important moral bearings of the 
 subject has not been duly impressed upon it. All 
 that can be said of idleness generally might be fitly 
 urged in support of this great practical truth. All 
 
350 PARASITISM. 
 
 nations which have prematurely passed away, buried 
 in graves dug by their own effeminacy ; all those in- 
 dividuals who have secured a hasty wealth by the 
 chances of speculation ; all children of fortune ; all 
 victims of inheritance ; all social sponges ; all satel- 
 lites of the court ; all beggars of the market-place 
 all these are living and unlying witnesses to the 
 unalterable retributions of the law of parasitism. 
 But it is when we come to study the working of the 
 principle in the religious sphere that we discover the 
 full extent of the ravages which the parasitic habit 
 can make on the souls of men. We can only hope 
 to indicate here one or two of the things in modern 
 Christianity which minister most subtly and widely 
 to this as yet all but unnamed sin. 
 
 We begin in what may seem a somewhat unlooked- 
 for quarter. One of the things in the religious world 
 which tends most strongly to induce the parasitic 
 habit is Going to Church. Church-going itself every 
 Christian will rightly consider an invaluable aid to 
 the ripe development of the spiritual life. Public 
 worship has a place in the national religious life so 
 firmly established that nothing is ever likely to shake 
 its influence. So supreme indeed, is the ecclesias- 
 tical system in all Christian countries that with 
 thousands the religion of the Church and the religion 
 of the individual are one. But just because of its 
 
PARASITISM. 351 
 
 high and unique place in religious regard, does it 
 become men from time to time to inquire how far 
 the Church is really ministering to the spiritual health 
 of the immense religious community which looks to 
 it as its foster-mother. And if it falls to us here 
 reluctantly to expose some secret abuses of this 
 venerable system, let it be well understood that these 
 are abuses, and not that the sacred institution itself 
 is being violated by the attack of an impious hand. 
 
 The danger of church-going largely depends on 
 the form of worship, but it may be affirmed that 
 even the most perfect Church affords to all wor- 
 shippers a greater or less temptation to parasitism. 
 It consists essentially in the deputy-work or deputy- 
 worship inseparable from church or chapel ministra- 
 tions. One man is set apart to prepare a certain 
 amount of spiritual truth for the rest. He, if he 
 is a true man, gets all the benefits of original work. 
 He finds the truth, digests it, is nourished and en- 
 riched by it before he offers it to his flock. To a 
 large extent it will nourish and enrich in turn a 
 number of his hearers* But still they will lack some- 
 thing. The faculty of selecting truth at first hand 
 and appropriating it for one's self is a lawful posses- 
 sion to every Christian. Rightly exercised it con- 
 veys to him truth in its freshest form ; it offers him 
 the opportunity of verifying doctrines for himself; 
 
33* PARASITISM. 
 
 it makes religion personal ; it deepens and intensifies 
 the only convictions that are worth deepening, those, 
 namely, which are honest ; and it supplies the mind 
 with a basis of certainty in religion. But if all one's 
 truth is derived by imbibition from the Church, the 
 faculties for receiving truth are not only undeveloped 
 but one's whole view of truth becomes distorted. 
 He who abandons the personal search for truth, under 
 whatever pretext, abandons truth. The very word 
 truth, by becoming the limited possession of a guild, 
 ceases to have any meaning; and faith, which can 
 only be founded on truth, gives way to credulity, 
 resting on mere opinion. 
 
 In those churches especially where all parts of the 
 worship are subordinated to the sermon, this species 
 of parasitism is peculiarly encouraged. What is 
 meant to be a stimulus to thought becomes the sub- 
 stitute for it. The hearer never really learns, he only 
 listens. And while truth and knowledge seem to 
 increase, life and character are left in arrear. Such 
 truth, of course, and such knowledge, are a mere 
 seeming. Having cost nothing, they come to 
 nothing. The organism acquires a growing immo- 
 bility, and finally exists in a state of entire intellec- 
 tual helplessness and inertia. So the parasitic 
 Church-member, the literal "adherent," comes not 
 merely to live only within the circle of ideas of his 
 
PARASITISM. 353 
 
 minister, but to be content that his minister has 
 these ideas like the literary parasite who fancies he 
 knows everything because he has a good library. 
 
 Where the worship, again, is largely liturgical the 
 danger assumes an even more serious form, and it 
 acts in some such way as this. Every sincere man 
 who sets out in the Christian race begins by at- 
 tempting to exercise the spiritual faculties for him- 
 self. The young life throbs in his veins, and he 
 sets himself to the further progress with earnest 
 purpose and resolute will. For a time he bids fair 
 to attain a high and original development. But 
 the temptation to relax the always difficult effort 
 at spirituality is greater than he knows. The 
 " carnal mind " itself is " enmity against God," and 
 the antipathy, or the deadlier apathy within, is 
 unexpectedly encouraged from that very outside 
 source from which he anticipates the greatest help. 
 Connecting himself with a Church he is no less 
 interested than surprised to find how rich is the 
 provision there for every part of his spiritual nature. 
 Each service satisfies or surfeits. Twice, or even 
 three times a week, this feast is spread for him. 
 The thoughts are deeper than his own, the faith 
 keener, the worship loftier, the whole ritual more 
 reverent and splendid. What more natural than 
 that he should gradually exchange his personal 
 
 A A 
 
354 PARASITISM. 
 
 religion for that of the congregation ? What more 
 likely than that a public religion should by in- 
 sensible stages supplant his individual faith ? What 
 more simple than to content himself with the warmth 
 of another's soul? What more tempting than to 
 give up private prayer for the easier worship of the 
 liturgy or of the church ? What, in short, more 
 natural than for the independent, free-moving, grow- 
 ing Sacculina to degenerate into the listless, useless, 
 pampered parasite of the pew ? The very means 
 he takes to nurse his personal religion often come 
 in time to wean him from it. Hanging admiringly, 
 or even enthusiastically, on the lips of eloquence, 
 his senses now stirred by ceremony, now soothed 
 by music, the parasite of the pew enjoys his weekly 
 worship his character untouched, his will unbraced, 
 his crude soul unquickened and unimproved. Thus, 
 instead of ministering to the growth of individual 
 members, and very often just in proportion to th& 
 superior excellence of the provision made for them 
 by another, does this gigantic system of deputy- 
 nutrition tend to destroy development and arrest 
 the genuine culture of the soul. Our churches over- 
 flow with members who are mere consumers. Their 
 interest in religion is purely parasitic. Their only 
 spiritual exercise is the automatic one of imbibi- 
 tion, the clergyman being the faithful Hermit-crab 
 
PARASITISM. 355 
 
 who is to be depended on every Sunday for at 
 least a week's supply. 
 
 A physiologist would describe the organism re- 
 sulting from such a process as a case of " arrested 
 development." Instead of having learned to pray, 
 the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied with 
 being prayed for. His transactions with the Eternal 
 are effected by commission. His work for Christ 
 is done by a paid deputy. His whole life is a 
 prolonged indulgence in the bounties of the Church ; 
 and surely in some cases at least the crowning 
 irony he sends for the minister when he lies down 
 to die. 
 
 Other signs and consequences of this species of 
 parasitism soon become very apparent. The first 
 symptom is idleness. When a Church is off its 
 true diet it is off its true work. Hence one ex- 
 planation of the hundreds of large and influential 
 congregations ministered to from week to week by 
 men of eminent learning and earnestness, which 
 yet do little or nothing in the line of these special 
 activities for which all churches exist. An out- 
 standing man at the head of a huge, useless and 
 torpid congregation is always a puzzle. But is the 
 reason not this, that the congregation gets too good 
 food too cheap ? Providence has mercifully de- 
 livered the Church from too many great men in 
 
356 PARASITISM. 
 
 her pulpits, but there are enough in every country- 
 side to play the host disastrously to a large circle 
 of otherwise able-bodied Christian people, who, 
 thrown on their own resources, might fatten them- 
 selves and help others. There are compensations 
 to a flock for a poor minister after all. Where 
 the fare is indifferent those who are really hungry 
 will exert themselves to procure their own supply. 
 
 That the Church has indispensable functions to 
 discharge to the individual is not denied ; but taking 
 into consideration the universal tendency to para- 
 sitism in the human soul it is a grave question 
 whether in some cases it does not really effect 
 more harm than good. A dead church certainly, 
 a church having no reaction on the community, 
 a church without propagative power in the world, 
 cannot be other than a calamity to all within its 
 borders. Such a church is an institution, first for 
 making, then for screening parasites ; and instead 
 of representing to the world the Kingdom of God 
 on earth, it is despised alike by godly and by 
 godless men as the refuge for fear and formalism 
 and the nursery of superstition. 
 
 And this suggests a second and not less practical 
 evil of a parasitic piety that it presents to the world 
 a false conception of the religion of Christ. One 
 notices with a frequency which may well excite alarm 
 
PARASITISM. 
 
 that the children of church-going parents often break 
 away as they grow in intelligence, not only from 
 church-connection but from the whole system of 
 family religion. In some cases this is doubtless due 
 to natural perversity, but in others it certainly arises 
 from the hollowness of the outward forms which pass 
 current in society and at home for vital Christianity. 
 These spurious forms, fortunately or unfortunately, 
 soon betray themselves. How little there is in them 
 becomes gradually apparent. And rather than in- 
 dulge in a sham the budding sceptic, as the first step, 
 parts with the form and in nine cases out of ten 
 concerns himself no further to find a substitute. 
 Quite deliberately, quite honestly, sometimes with 
 real regret and even at personal sacrifice he takes up 
 his position, and to his parent's sorrow and his 
 church's dishonour forsakes for ever the faith and 
 religion of his fathers. Who will deny that this is a 
 true account of the natural history of much modern 
 scepticism ? A formal religion can never hold its 
 own in the nineteenth century. It is better that it 
 should not. We must either be real or cease to be. 
 We must either give up our Parasitism or our sons. 
 
 Any one who will take the trouble to investigate 
 a number of cases where whole families of outwardly 
 godly parents have gone astray, will probably find 
 that the household religion had either some palpable 
 
358 PARASITISM. 
 
 defect, or belonged essentially to the parasitic order. 
 The popular belief that the sons of clergymen turn 
 out worse than those of the laity is, of course, with- 
 out foundation ; but it may also probably be verified 
 that in the instances where clergymen's sons noto- 
 riously discredit their father's ministry, that ministry 
 in a majority of cases, will be found to be professional 
 and theological rather than human and spiritual. 
 Sequences in the moral and spiritual world follow 
 more closely than we yet discern the great law of 
 Heredity. The Parasite begets the Parasite only in 
 the second generation the offspring are sometimes 
 sufficiently wise to make the discovery, and honest 
 enough to proclaim it. 
 
 We now pass on to the consideration of another 
 form of Parasitism which, though closely related to 
 that just discussed, is of sufficient importance to 
 justify a separate reference. Appealing to a some- 
 what smaller circle, but affecting it not less dis- 
 astrously, is the Parasitism induced by certain abuses 
 of Systems of Theology. 
 
 In its own place, of course, Theology is no more 
 to be dispensed with than the Church. In every 
 perfect religious system three great departments 
 must always be represented criticism, dogmatism, 
 and evangelism. Without the first there is no 
 guarantee of truth, without the second no defence 
 
PARASITISM. 359 
 
 of truth, and without the third no propagation of 
 truth. But when these departments become mixed 
 up, when their separate functions are forgotten, when 
 one is made to do duty for another, or where either 
 is developed by the church or the individual at the 
 expense of the rest, the result is fatal. The particular 
 abuse, however, of which we have now to speak, 
 concerns the tendency in orthodox communities, 
 first to exalt orthodoxy above all other elements in 
 religion, and secondly to make the possession of 
 sound beliefs equivalent to the possession of truth. 
 
 Doctrinal preaching, fortunately, as a constant 
 practice is less in vogue than in a former age, but 
 there are still large numbers whose only contact with 
 religion is through theological forms. The method is 
 supported by a plausible defence. What is doctrine 
 but a compressed form of truth, systematised by able 
 and pious men, and sanctioned by the imprimatur of 
 the Church ? If the greatest minds of the Church's 
 past, having exercised themselves profoundly upon 
 the problems of religion, formulated as with one voice 
 a system of doctrine, why should the humble in- 
 quirer not gratefully accept it ? Why go over the 
 ground again ? Why with his dim light should he 
 betake himself afresh to Bible study and with so 
 great a body of divinity already compiled, presume 
 himself to be still a seeker after truth ? Does not 
 
360 PARASITISM. 
 
 Theology give him Bible truth in reliable, convenient, 
 and moreover, in logical propositions ? There it lies 
 extended to the last detail in the tomes of the 
 Fathers, or abridged in a hundred modern compendia, 
 ready-made to his hand, all cut and dry, guaranteed 
 sound and wholesome, why not use it ? 
 
 Just because it is all cut and dry. Just because it 
 is ready-made. Just because it lies there in reliable, 
 convenient and logical propositions. The moment 
 you appropriate truth in such a shape you appro- 
 priate a form. You cannot cut and dry truth. You 
 cannot accept truth ready-made without it ceasing to 
 nourish the soul as truth. You cannot live on theo- 
 logical forms without becoming a Parasite and ceasing 
 to be a man. 
 
 There is no worse enemy to a living Church than 
 a prepositional theology, with the latter controlling 
 the former by traditional authority. For one does 
 not then receive the truth for himself, he accepts it 
 bodily. He begins the Christian life set up by his 
 Church with a stock-in-trade which has cost him 
 nothing, and which, though it may serve him all his 
 life, is just exactly worth as much as his belief in his 
 Church. This possession of truth, moreover, thus 
 lightly won, is given to him as infallible. It is a 
 system. There is nothing to add to it. At his peril 
 let him question or take from it. To start a convert 
 
PARASITISM. 301 
 
 in life with such a principle is unspeakably degrading. 
 All through life instead of working towards truth 
 he must work from it An infallible standard is 
 a temptation to a mechanical faith. Infallibility 
 always paralyses. It gives rest ; but it is the rest 
 of stagnation. Men perform one great act of faith 
 at the beginning of their life, then have done with it 
 for ever. All moral, intellectual and spiritual effort 
 is over ; and a cheap theology ends in a cheap life. 
 
 The same thing that makes men take refuge in 
 the Church of Rome makes them take refuge in 
 a set of dogmas. Infallibility meets the deepest 
 desire of man, but meets it in the most fatal form. 
 Men deal with the hunger after truth in two ways. 
 First by Unbelief which crushes it by blind force ; 
 or, secondly, by resorting to some external source 
 credited with Infallibility which lulls it to sleep 
 by blind faith. The effect of a doctrinal theology 
 is the effect of Infallibility. And the wholesale 
 belief in such a system, however accurate it may 
 be grant even that it were infallible is not Faith 
 though it always gets that name. It is mere 
 Credulity. It is a complacent and idle rest upon 
 authority, not a hard-earned, self-obtained, personal 
 possession. The moral responsibility here, besides, 
 is reduced to nothing. Those who framed the 
 Thirty-nine Articles or the Westminster Confession 
 
362 PARASITISM. 
 
 are responsible. And anything which destroys re- 
 sponsibility, or transfers it, cannot be other than 
 injurious in its moral tendency and useless in it- 
 self. 
 
 It may be objected perhaps that this statement 
 of the paralysis spiritual and mental induced by 
 Infallibility applies also to the Bible. The answer 
 is that though the Bible is infallible, the Infallibility 
 is not in such a form as to become a temptation. 
 There is the widest possible difference between the 
 form of truth in the Bible and the form in the- 
 ology. 
 
 In theology truth is prepositional tied up in 
 neat parcels, systematized, and arranged in logical 
 order. The Trinity is an intricate doctrinal pro- 
 blem. The Supreme Being is discussed in terms of 
 philosophy. The Atonement is a formula which is 
 to be demonstrated like a proposition in Euclid. 
 And Justification is to be worked out as a question 
 of jurisprudence. There is no necessary connection 
 between these doctrines and the life of him who 
 holds them. They make him orthodox, not neces- 
 sarily righteous. They satisfy the intellect but need 
 not touch the heart. It does not, in short, take a 
 religious man to be a theologian. It simply takes 
 a man with fair reasoning powers. This man hap- 
 pens to apply these powers to theological subjects 
 
PARASITISM. 363 
 
 but in no other sense than he might apply them 
 to astronomy or physics. But truth in the Bible 
 is a fountain. It is a diffused nutriment, so diffused 
 that no one can put himself off with the form. It 
 is reached not by thinking, but by * doing. It is 
 seen, discerned, not demonstrated. It cannot be 
 bolted whole, but must be slowly absorbed into the 
 system. Its vagueness to the mere intellect, its 
 refusal to be packed into portable phrases, its satis- 
 fying unsatisfyingness, its vast atmosphere, its find- 
 ing of us, its mystical hold of us, these are the 
 tokens of its infinity. 
 
 Nature never provides for man's wants in any 
 direction, bodily, mental, or spiritual, in such a 
 form as that he can simply accept her gifts auto- 
 matically. She puts all the mechanical powers at 
 his disposal but he must make his lever. She 
 gives him corn, but he must grind it. She elabo- 
 rates coal, but he must dig for it. Corn is perfect, 
 all the products of Nature are perfect, but he has 
 everything to do to them before he can use them. 
 So with truth ; it is perfect, infallible. But he can- 
 not use it as it stands. He must work, think, 
 separate, dissolve, absorb, digest ; and most of these 
 he must do for himself and within himself. If it be 
 replied that this is exactly what theology does, we 
 answer it is exactly what it does not. It simply 
 
364 PARASITISM. 
 
 does what the greengrocer does when he arranges 
 his apples and plums in his shop window. He may 
 tell me a magnum bonum from a Victoria, or a 
 Baldwin from a Newtown Pippin. But he does not 
 help me to eat it. His information is useful, and 
 for scientific horticulture essential. Should a scepti- 
 cal pomologist deny that there was such a thing as 
 a Baldwin, or mistake it for a Newtown Pippin, we 
 should be glad to refer to him ; but if we were 
 hungry, and an orchard were handy, we should not 
 trouble him. Truth in the Bible is an orchard 
 rather than a museum. Dogmatism will be very 
 valuable to us when scientific necessity makes us 
 go to the museum. Criticism will be very useful 
 in seeing that only fruit- bearers grow in the orchard. 
 But truth in the doctrinal form is not natural, pro- 
 per, assimilable food for the soul of man. 
 
 Is this a plea then for doubt ? Yes, for that 
 philosophic doubt which is the evidence of a faculty 
 doing its own work. It is more necessary for us 
 to be active than to be orthodox. To be orthodox 
 is what we wish to be, but we can only truly reach 
 it by being honest, by being original, by seeing 
 with our own eyes, by believing with our own heart. 
 " An idle life," says Goethe, " is death anticipated." 
 Better far be burned at the stake of Public Opinion 
 than die the living death of Parasitism. Better an 
 
PARASITISM. 365 
 
 aberrant theology than a suppressed organization. 
 Better a little faith dearly won, better launched 
 alone on the infinite bewilderment of Truth, than 
 perish on the splendid plenty of the richest creeds. 
 Such Doubt is no self-willed presumption. Nor, 
 truly exercised, will it prove itself, as much doubt 
 does, the synonym for sorrow. It aims at a life- 
 long learning, prepared for any sacrifice of will yet 
 for none of independence ; at that high progressive 
 education ' which yields rest in work and work in 
 rest, and the development of immortal faculties in 
 both ; at that deeper faith which believes in the 
 vastness and variety of the revelations of God, and 
 their accessibility to all obedient hearts. 
 
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 corn- 
 fare 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 c 
 common end which I cannot perceive." 
 
 ROUSSEAU 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 " 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 syste- 
 matic manner, we see at first a guidance by conspicuous and 
 simple characters, and a tendency towards arrangement in 
 linear order. In successively later attempts, we see more re- 
 gard paid to combinations of character which are essential but 
 often inconspicuous ; and a gradual abandonment of a linear 
 arrangement." Herbert Spencer. 
 
 ON one of the shelves in a certain museum lie two 
 small boxes filled with earth. A low mountain in 
 Arran has furnished the first ; the contents of the 
 second came from the Island of Barbadoes. When 
 examined with a pocket lens, the Arran earth is 
 found to be full of small objects, clear as crystal, 
 fashioned by some mysterious geometry into forms 
 of exquisite symmetry. The substance is silica, a 
 natural glass ; and the prevailing shape is a six- 
 sided prism capped at either end by little pyramids 
 modelled with consummate grace. 
 
 When the second specimen is examined, the 
 revelation is, if possible, more surprising. Here, 
 
 3*9 B B 
 
370 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 also, is a vast assemblage of small glassy or por- 
 cellanous objects built up into curious forms. The 
 material, chemically, remains the same, but the 
 angles of pyramid and prism have given place to 
 curved lines, so that the contour is entirely different. 
 The appearance is that of a vast collection of mi- 
 croscopic urns, goblets, and vases, each richly orna- 
 mented with small sculptured discs or perforations 
 which are disposed over the pure white surface in 
 regular belts and rows. Each tiny urn is chiselled 
 into the most faultless proportion, and the whole 
 presents a vision of magic beauty. 
 
 Judged by the standard of their loveliness there 
 is little to choose between these two sets of objects. 
 Yet there is one cardinal difference between them. 
 They belong to different worlds. The last belong 
 to the living world, the former to the dead. The 
 first are crystals, the last are shells. 
 
 No power on earth can make these little urns of 
 the Polycystince except Life. We can melt them 
 down in the laboratory, but no ingenuity of chem- 
 istry can reproduce their sculptured forms. We are 
 sure that Life has formed them, however, for tiny 
 creatures allied to those which made the Barbadoes* 
 earth are living still, fashioning their fairy palaces 
 of flint in the same mysterious way. On the other 
 hand, chemistry has no difficulty in making these 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 371 
 
 crystals. We can melt down this Arran earth and 
 reproduce the pyramids and prisms in endless num- 
 bers. Nay, if we do melt it down, we cannot help 
 reproducing the pyramid and the prism. There is 
 a six-sidedness, as it were, in the very nature of this 
 substance which will infallibly manifest itself if the 
 crystallizing substance only be allowed fair play. 
 This six-sided tendency is its Law of Crystallization 
 a law of its nature which it cannot resist. But 
 in the crystal there is nothing at all corresponding 
 to Life. There is simply an inherent force which 
 can be called into action at any moment, and which 
 cannot be separated from the particles in which it 
 resides. The crystal may be ground to pieces, but 
 this force remains intact. And even after being re- 
 duced to powder, and running the gauntlet of every 
 process in the chemical laboratory, the moment the 
 substance is left to itself under possible conditions 
 it will proceed to recrystallize anew. But if the 
 Polycystine urn be broken, no inorganic agency can 
 build it up again. So far as any inherent urn- 
 building power, analogous to the crystalline force, is 
 concerned, it might lie there in a shapeless mass for 
 ever. That which modelled 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 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 of small importance. ^Esthetically, the Law of 
 Crystallization is probably as useful in ministering 
 to natural beauty as Vitality. What are more 
 beautiful than the crystals of a snowflake? Or 
 what frond of fern or feather of bird can vie with 
 the tracery of the frost upon a window-pane ? Can 
 it be said that the lichen is more lovely than the 
 striated crystals of the granite on which it grows, 
 or the moss on the mountain side more satisfying 
 than the hidden amethyst and cairngorm in the 
 lock beneath ? Or is the botanist more astonished 
 when his microscope reveals the architecture of spiral 
 tissue in the stem of a plant, or the mineralogist who 
 beholds for the first 'time the chaos of beauty in the 
 sliced specimen of some common stone ? So far as 
 beauty goes the organic world and the inorganic are 
 one. 
 
 To the man of science, however, this identity oi 
 beauty signifies nothing. His concern, in the first 
 instance, is not with the forms but with the natures 
 of things. It is no valid answer to him, when he 
 asks the difference between the moss and the cairn- 
 gorm, the frost-work and the fern, to be assured that 
 both are beautiful. For no fundamental distinction 
 in Science depends upon beauty. He wants an 
 answer in terms of chemistry, are they organic or 
 inorganic ? or in terms of biology, are they living 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 373 
 
 or dead ? But when he is told that the one is living 
 and the other dead, he is in possession of a cha- 
 racteristic and fundamental scientific distinction. 
 From this point of view, however much they may 
 possess in common of material substance and beauty, 
 they are separated from one another by a wide and 
 unbridged gulf. The classification of these forms, 
 therefore, depends upon the standpoint, and we 
 should pronounce , them like or unlike, related or 
 unrelated, according as we judged them from the 
 point of view of Art or of Science. 
 
 The drift of these introductory paragraphs must 
 already be apparent. We propose to inquire whether 
 among men, clothed apparently with a common 
 beauty of character, there may not yet be distinctions 
 as radical as between the crystal and the shell ; and, 
 farther, whether the current classification of men, 
 based upon Moral Beauty, is wholly satisfactory 
 either from the standpoint of Science or of Christian- 
 ity. Here, for example, are two characters, pure and 
 elevated, adorned with conspicuous virtues, stirred by 
 lofty impulses, and commanding a spontaneous ad- 
 miration from all who look on them may not this 
 similarity of outward form be accompanied by a 
 total dissimilarity of inward nature ? Is the exter- 
 nal appearance the truest criterion of the ultimate 
 nature ? Or, as in the crystal and the shell, may there 
 
374 CLASSIFICA TION. 
 
 not exist distinctions more profound and basal ? The 
 distinctions drawn between men, in short, are com- 
 monly based on the outward appearance of goodness 
 or badness, on the ground of moral beauty or moral 
 deformity is this classification scientific ? Or is 
 there a deeper distinction between the Christian and 
 the not-a-Christian as fundamental as that between 
 the organic and the inorganic ? 
 
 There can be little doubt, to begin with, that with 
 the great majority of people religion is regarded as 
 essentially one with morality. Whole schools *of 
 philosophy have treated the Christian Religion as a 
 question of beauty, and discussed its place among 
 other systems of ethic. Even those systems of theo- 
 logy which profess to draw a deeper distinction have 
 rarely succeeded in establishing it upon any valid 
 basis, or seem even to have made that distinction 
 perceptible to others. So little, indeed, has the 
 rationale of the science of religion been understood 
 that there is still no more unsatisfactory province 
 in theology than where morality and religion are 
 contrasted, and the adjustment attempted between 
 moral philosophy and what are known as the doc- 
 trines of grace. 
 
 Examples of this confusion are so numerous that 
 if one were to proceed to proof he would have to 
 cite almost the entire European philosophy of the 
 
H UNIVERSITY 
 
 \> C 4L 
 
 CLASSIFICATION. ^rrr~~- 375 
 
 last three hundred years. From Spinoza down- 
 ward through the whole naturalistic school, Moral 
 Beauty is persistently regarded as synonymous with 
 religion and the spiritual life. The most earnest 
 thinking of the present day is steeped in the same 
 confusion. We have even the remarkable spectacle 
 presented to us just now of a sublime Morality- 
 Religion divorced from Christianity altogether, and 
 wedded to the baldest form of materialism. It is 
 claimed, moreover, that the moral scheme of this 
 high atheism is loftier and more perfect than 
 that of Christianity, and men are asked to take 
 their choice as if the morality were everything, the 
 Christianity or the atheism which nourished it being 
 neither here nor there. Others, again, studying this 
 moral beauty carefully, have detected a something 
 in its Christian forms which has compelled them to 
 declare that a distinction certainly exists. But in 
 scarcely a single instance is the gravity of the dis- 
 tinction more than dimly apprehended. Few con- 
 ceive of it as other than a difference of degree, or 
 could give a more definite account of it than Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold's " Religion is morality touched by 
 Emotion'* an utterance significant mainly as the 
 testimony of an acute mind that a distinction of 
 some kind does exist. In a recent Symposium, 
 where the question as to " The influence 
 
376 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 Morality of a decline in Religious Belief," was dis- 
 cussed at length by writers of whom this century 
 is justly proud, there appears scarcely so much as 
 a recognition of the fathomless chasm separating the 
 leading terms of debate. 
 
 If beauty is the criterion of religion, this view 
 of the relation of religion to morality is justified. 
 But what if there be the same difference in the 
 beauty of two separate characters that there is 
 between the mineral and the shell ? What if there 
 be a moral beauty and a spiritual beauty ? What 
 answer shall we get if we demand a more scientific 
 distinction between characters than that based on 
 mere outward form ? It is not enough from the 
 standpoint of biological religion to say of two 
 characters that both are beautiful. For, again, no 
 fundamental distinction in Science depends upon 
 beauty. We ask an answer in terms of biology, 
 are they flesh or spirit ; are they living or dead ? 
 
 If this is really a scientific question, if it is a 
 question not of moral philosophy only, but of 
 biology, we are compelled to repudiate beauty as 
 the criterion of spirituality. It is not, of course, 
 meant by this that spirituality is not morally 
 beautiful. Spirituality must be morally very beau- 
 tiful so much so that popularly one is justified in 
 judging of religion by its beauty. Nor is it meant 
 
CLASSIFICA TION. 37 7 
 
 that morality is not a criterion. All that is con- 
 tended for is that, from the scientific standpoint, it 
 is not the criterion. We can judge of the crystal 
 and the shell from many other standpoints besides 
 those named, each classification having an import- 
 ance in its own sphere. Thus we might class them 
 according to their size and weight, their percentage 
 of silica, their use in the arts, or their commercial 
 value. Each science or art is entitled to regard 
 them from its own point of view ; and when the 
 biologist announces his classification he does not 
 interfere with those based on other grounds. Only, 
 having chosen his standpoint, he is bound to frame 
 his classification in terms of it. 
 
 It may be well to state emphatically, that in 
 proposing a new classification or rather, in reviving 
 the primitive one in the spiritual sphere we leave 
 untouched, as of supreme value in its own province, 
 the test of morality. Morality is certainly a test 
 of religion for most practical purposes the very 
 best test. And so far from tending to depreciate 
 morality, the bringing into prominence of the true 
 basis is entirely in its interests in the interests 
 of a moral beauty, indeed, infinitely surpassing the 
 highest attainable perfection on merely natural 
 lines. 
 
 The warrant for seeking a further classification 
 
378 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 is twofold. It is a principle in science that classifi- 
 cation should rest on the most basal characteristics. 
 To determine what these are may not always be 
 easy, but it is at least evident that a classification 
 framed on the ultimate nature of organisms must 
 be more distinctive than one based on external 
 characters. Before the principles of classification 
 were understood, organisms were invariably arranged 
 according to some merely external resemblance. 
 Thus plants were classed according to size as Herbs, 
 Shrubs, and Trees ; and animals according to their 
 appearance as Birds, Beasts, and Fishes. The Bat 
 upon this principle was a bird, the Whale a fish ; 
 and so thoroughly artificial were these early systems 
 that animals were often tabulated among the plants, 
 and plants among the animals. " In early attempts," 
 says Herbert Spencer, "to arrange organic beings 
 in some systematic manner, we see at first a 
 guidance by conspicuous and simple characters, and 
 a tendency towards arrangement in linear order. In 
 successively later attempts, we see more regard paid 
 to combinations of characters which are essential 
 but often inconspicuous; and a gradual abandon- 
 ment of a linear arrangement for an arrangement 
 in divergent groups and re-divergent sub-groups." J 
 
 1 " Principles of Biology," p. 294. 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 379 
 
 Almost all the natural sciences have already passed 
 through these stages ; and one or two which rested 
 entirely on external characters have all but ceased 
 to exist Conchology, for example, which has 
 yielded its place to Malacology. Following in the 
 wake of the other sciences, the classifications of 
 Theology may have to be remodelled in the same 
 way. The popular classification, whatever its merits 
 from a practical point of view, is essentially a clas- 
 sification based on Morphology, The whole ten- 
 dency of science now is to include along with 
 morphological considerations the profounder general- 
 isations of Physiology and Embryology. And the 
 contribution of the latter science especially has been 
 found so important that biology henceforth must 
 look for its classification largely to Embryological 
 characters. 
 
 But apart from the demand of modern scientific 
 culture it is palpably foreign to Christianity, not 
 merely as a Philosophy but as a Biology, to classify 
 men only in terms of the former. And it is some- 
 what remarkable that the writers of both the Old 
 and New Testaments seem to have recognised the 
 deeper basis. The favourite classification of the 
 Old Testament was into "the nations which knew 
 God " and " the nations which knew not God " a 
 distinction which we have formerly seen to be, at 
 
3So CLASSIFICATION, 
 
 bottom, biological. In the New Testament again 
 the ethical characters are more prominent, but the 
 cardinal distinctions based on regeneration, if not 
 always actually referred to, are throughout kept in 
 view, both in the sayings of Christ and in the 
 Epistles. 
 
 What then is the deeper distinction drawn by 
 Christianity? What is the essential difference be- 
 tween the Christian and the not-a-Christian, between 
 the spiritual beauty and the moral beauty ? It is 
 the distinction between the Organic and the In- 
 organic. Moral beauty is the product of the natural 
 man, spiritual beauty of the spiritual man. And 
 these two, according to the law of Biogenesis, are 
 separated from one another by the deepest line 
 known to Science. This Law is at once the founda- 
 tion of Biology and of Spiritual religion. And the 
 whole fabric of Christianity falls into confusion if 
 we attempt to ignore it. The Law of Biogenesis, 
 in fact, is to be regarded as the equivalent in 
 biology of the First Law of Motion in physics : 
 Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform 
 motion in a straight line, except in so far as it is 
 compelled by forces to change that state. The first 
 Law of biology is : That which is Mineral is 
 Mineral ; that which is Flesh is Flesh ; that which 
 is Spirit is Spirit. The mineral remains in the 
 
CL ASS I PICA TION. 38 1 
 
 inorganic world until it is seized upon by a some- 
 thing called Life outside the inorganic world; the 
 natural man remains the natural man, until a 
 Spiritual Life from without the natural life seizes 
 upon him, regenerates him, changes him into a 
 spiritual man. The peril of the illustration from 
 the law of motion will not be felt at least by those 
 who appreciate the distinction between Physics and 
 biology, between Energy and Life. The change of 
 state here is not as in physics a mere change of direc- 
 tion, the affections directed to a new object, the will 
 into a new channel. The change involves all this, 
 but is something deeper. It is a change of nature, a 
 regeneration, a passing from death into life. Hence 
 relatively to this higher life the natural life is no 
 longer Life, but Death, and the natural man from 
 the standpoint of Christianity is dead. Whatever 
 assent the mind may give to this proposition, how- 
 ever much it has been overlooked in the past, 
 however it compares with casual observation, it is 
 certain that the Founder of the Christian religion 
 intended this to be the keystone of Christianity. 
 In the proposition That which is flesh is flesh> and 
 that which is spirit is spirit, Christ formulates the 
 first law of biological religion, and lays the basis 
 for a final classification. He divides men into two 
 classes, the living and the not-living. And Paul 
 
382 CLASSIFICA TION. 
 
 afterwards carries out the classification consistently, 
 making his entire system depend on it, and through- 
 out arranging men, on the one hand as Trvev/jLarircos 
 spiritual, on the other as ^V^LKO^ carnal, in terms 
 of Christ's distinction. 
 
 Suppose now it be granted for a moment that the 
 character of the not-a-Christian is as beautiful as 
 that of the Christian. This is simply to say that the 
 crystal is as beautiful as the organism. One is quite 
 entitled to hold this ; but what he is not entitled to 
 hold is that both in the same sense are living. He 
 that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the 
 Son of God hath not Life. And in the face of this 
 law, no other conclusion is possible than that that 
 which is flesh remains flesh. No matter how great 
 the development of beauty, that which is flesh is 
 withal flesh. The elaborateness or the perfection of 
 the moral development in any given instance can do 
 nothing to break down this distinction. Man is a 
 moral animal, and can, and ought to, arrive at great 
 natural beauty of character. But this is simply to 
 obey the law of his nature the law of his flesh ; 
 and no progress along that line can project him into 
 the spiritual sphere. If any one choose to claim that 
 the mineral beauty, the fleshly beauty, the natural 
 moral beauty, is all he covets, he is entitled to his 
 claim. To be good and true, pure and benevolent in 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 383 
 
 the moral sphere, are high and, so far, legitimate 
 objects of life. If he deliberately stop here, he is at 
 liberty to do so. But what he is not entitled to do is 
 to call himself a Christian, or to claim to discharge 
 the functions peculiar to the Christian life. His 
 morality is mere crystallisation, the crystallising forces 
 having had fair play in his development. But these 
 forces have no more touched the sphere of Christian- 
 ity than the frost on the window-pane can do more 
 than simulate the external forms of life. And if he 
 considers that the high development to which he has 
 reached may pass by an insensible transition into 
 spirituality, or that his moral nature of itself may 
 flash into the flame of regenerate Life, he has to be 
 reminded that in spite of the apparent connection 
 of these things from one standpoint, from another 
 there is none at all, or none discoverable by us. On 
 the one hand, there being no such thing as Spontan- 
 eous Generation, his moral nature, however it may 
 encourage it, cannot generate Life ; while, on the 
 other, his high organization can never in itself result 
 in Life, Life being always the cause of organization 
 and never the effect of it. 
 
 The practical question may now be asked, is this 
 distinction palpable? Is it a mere conceit of Science, 
 or what human interests attach to it ? If it cannot 
 be proved that the resulting moral or spiritual 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 beauty is higher in the one case than in the other, 
 the biological distinction is useless. And if the ob- 
 jection is pressed that the spiritual man has nothing 
 further to effect in the direction of morality, seeing 
 that the natural man can successfully compete with 
 him, the questions thus raised become of serious 
 significance. That objection would certainly be fatal 
 which could show that the spiritual world was not 
 as high in its demand for a lofty morality as the 
 natural ; and that biology would be equally false and 
 dangerous which should in the least encourage the 
 view that " without holiness " a man could "see the 
 Lord." These questions accordingly we must briefly 
 consider. It is necessary to premise, however, that 
 the difficulty is not peculiar to the present position. 
 This is simply the old difficulty of distinguishing 
 spirituality and morality. 
 
 In seeking whatever light Science may have to offer 
 as to the difference between the natural and the spiri- 
 tual man, we first submit the question to Embryology. 
 And if its actual contribution is small, we shall at 
 least be indebted to it for an important reason why 
 the difficulty should exist at all. That there is grave 
 difficulty in deciding between two given characters, 
 the one natural, the other spiritual, is conceded. 
 But if we can find a sufficient justification for so 
 perplexing a circumstance, the fact loses weight as 
 
CLASSIFICA TIC. V. 385 
 
 an objection, and the whole problem is placed on a 
 different footing. 
 
 The difference on the score of beauty between the 
 crystal and the shell, let us say once more, is im- 
 perceptible. But fix attention for a moment, not 
 upon their appearance, but upon their possibilities, 
 upon their relation to the future, and upon their 
 place in evolution. The crystal has reached its 
 ultimate stage of development. It can never be 
 more beautiful than it is now. Take it to pieces and 
 give it the opportunity to beautify itself afresh, and it 
 will just do the same thing over again. It will form 
 itself into a six-sided pyramid, and go on repeating 
 this same form ad infinitum as often as it is dis- 
 solved, and without ever improving by a hairsbreadth. 
 Its law of crystallisation allows it to reach this limit, 
 and nothing else within its kingdom can do any 
 more for it. In dealing with the crystal, in short, 
 we are dealing with the maximum beauty of the 
 inorganic world. But in dealing with the shell, we 
 are not dealing with the maximum achievement of 
 the organic world. In itself it is one of the humblest 
 forms of the invertebrate sub-kingdom of the organic 
 world ; and there are other forms within this king- 
 dom so different from the shell in a hundred respects 
 that to mistake them would simply be impossible. 
 
 In dealing with a man of fine moral character, 
 
 c c 
 
386 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 again, we are dealing with the highest achievement 
 of the organic kingdom. But in dealing with a 
 spiritual man we are dealing with the lowest form of 
 life in the spiritual world. To contrast the two, 
 therefore, and marvel that the one is apparently so 
 little better than the other, is unscientific and unjust. 
 The spiritual man is a mere unformed embryo, 
 hidden as yet in his earthly chrysalis-case, while the 
 natural man has the breeding and evolution of ages 
 represented in his character. But what are the 
 possibilities of this spiritual organism? What is yet 
 to emerge from this chrysalis-case? The natural 
 character finds its limits within the organic sphere. 
 But who is to define the limits of the spiritual? 
 Even now it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo 
 it contains some prophecy of its future glory. But 
 the point to mark is, that it doth not yet appear what 
 it shall be. 
 
 The want of organization, thus, does not surprise 
 us. All life begins at the Amoeboid stage. Evolution 
 is from the simple to the complex ; and in every case 
 it is some time before organization is advanced 
 enough to admit of exact classification. A natural- 
 ist's only serious difficulty in classification is when 
 he comes to deal with low or embryonic forms. It 
 is impossible, for instance, to mistake an oak for 
 an elephant ; but at the bottom of the vegetable 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 387 
 
 series, and at the bottom of the animal series, 
 there are organisms of so doubtful a character that 
 it is equally impossible to distinguish them. So 
 formidable, indeed, has been this difficulty that 
 Haeckel has had to propose an intermediate regnum 
 protisticum to contain those forms the rudimentary 
 character of which makes it impossible to apply the 
 determining tests. 
 
 We mention this merely to show the difficulty of 
 classification and not for analogy; for the proper 
 analogy is not between vegetal and animal forms, 
 whether high or low, but between the living and the 
 dead. And here the difficulty is certainly not so 
 great. By suitable tests it is generally possible to 
 distinguish the organic from the inorganic. The 
 ordinary eye may fail to detect the difference, and 
 innumerable forms are assigned by the popular judg- 
 ment to the inorganic world which are nevertheless 
 undoubtedly alive. And it is the same in the spirit- 
 ual world. To a cursory glance these rudimentary 
 spiritual forms may not seem to exhibit the pheno- 
 mena of Life, and therefore the living and the dead 
 may be often classed as one. But let the appropriate 
 scientific tests be applied. In the almost amorphous 
 organism, the physiologist ought already to be able 
 to detect the symptoms of a dawning life. And 
 further research might even bring to light some faint 
 
CLASSIFICA TION. 
 
 indication of the lines along which the future de- 
 velopment was to proceed. Now it is not impossible 
 that among the tests for Life there may be some 
 which may fitly be applied to the spiritual organism. 
 We may therefore at this point hand over the prob- 
 lem to Physiology. 
 
 The tests for Life are of two kinds. It is remark- 
 able that one of them was proposed, in the spiritual 
 sphere, by Christ. Foreseeing the difficulty of 
 determining the characters and functions of rudi- 
 mentary organisms, He suggested that the point be 
 decided by a further evolution. Time for develop- 
 ment was to be allowed, during which the marks of 
 Life, if any, would become more pronounced, while 
 in the meantime judgment was to be suspended. 
 "Let both grow together," He said, "until the 
 harvest." This is a thoroughly scientific test. Ob- 
 viously, however, it cannot assist us for the present 
 except in the way of enforcing extreme caution in 
 attempting any classification at all. 
 
 The second test is at least not so manifestly im- 
 practicable. It is to apply the ordinary methods by 
 which biology attempts to distinguish the organic 
 from the inorganic. The characteristics of Life, 
 according to Physiology, are four in number 
 Assimilation, Waste, Reproduction, and Spontaneous 
 Action. If an organism is found to exercise these 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 3^9 
 
 functions, it is said to be alive. Now these tests, in 
 a spiritual sense, might fairly be applied to the 
 spiritual man. The experiment would be a delicate 
 one. It might not be open to every one to attempt 
 it. This is a scientific question ; and the experiment 
 would have to be conducted under proper conditions 
 and by competent persons. But even on the first 
 statement it will be plain to all who are familiar 
 with spiritual diagnosis that the experiment could 
 be made, and especially on oneself, with some hope 
 of success. Biological considerations, however, would 
 warn us not to expect too much. Whatever be the 
 inadequacy of Morphology, Physiology can never 
 be studied apart from it; and the investigation of 
 function merely as function is a task of extreme 
 difficulty. Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, " We have 
 next to no power of tracing up the genesis of a 
 function considered purely as a function no op- 
 portunity of observing the progressively-increasing 
 quantities of a given action that have arisen in any 
 order of organisms. In nearly all cases we are able 
 only to establish the greater growth of the part which 
 we have found performs the action, and to infer that 
 greater action of the part has accompanied greater 
 growth of it." 1 Such being the case, it would serve 
 
 1 " Principles of Biology/' vol. ii. pp. 222, 223. 
 
390 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 no purpose to indicate the details of a barely possible 
 experiment. We are merely showing, at the mo- 
 ment, that the question " How .do I know that I am 
 alive" is not, in the spiritual sphere, incapable of 
 solution. One might, nevertheless, single out some 
 distinctively spiritual function and ask himself if he 
 consciously discharged it. The discharging of that 
 function is, upon biological principles, equivalent to 
 being alive, and therefore the subject of the experi- 
 ment could certainly come to some conclusion as to 
 his place on a biological scale. The real significance 
 of his actions on the moral scale might be less easy 
 to determine, but he could at least tell where he 
 stood as tested by the standard of life he would 
 know whether he were living or dead. After all, the 
 best test for Life is just living. And living consists, 
 as we have formerly seen, in corresponding with 
 Environment. Those therefore who find within 
 themselves, and regularly exercise, the faculties for 
 corresponding with the Divine Environment, may be 
 said to live the Spiritual Life. 
 
 That this Life also, even in the embryonic or- 
 ganism, ought already to betray itself to others, is 
 certainly what one would expect. Every organism 
 has its own reaction upon Nature, and the reaction 
 of the spiritual organism upon the community must 
 be looked for. In the absence of any such reaction, 
 
CLASSIFICATION. . 391 
 
 in the absence of any token that it lived for a higher 
 purpose, or that its real interests were those of the 
 Kingdom to which it professed to belong, we should 
 be entitled to question its being in that Kingdom. 
 It is obvious that each Kingdom has its own ends 
 and interests, its own functions to discharge in 
 Nature. It is also a law that every organism lives 
 for its Kingdom. And man's place in Nature, or 
 his position among the Kingdoms, is to be decided 
 by the characteristic functions habitually discharged 
 by him Now when the habits of certain individuals 
 are closely observed, when the total effect of their 
 life and work, with regard to the community, is 
 gauged as carefully observed and gauged as the 
 influence of certain individuals in a colony of ants 
 might be observed and gauged by Sir John Lubbock 
 there ought to be no difficulty in deciding whether 
 they are living for the Organic or for the Spiritual ; 
 in plainer language, for the world or for God. The 
 question of Kingdoms, at least, would be settled 
 without mistake. The place of any given individual 
 in his own Kingdom is a different matter. That is 
 a question possibly for ethics. But from the bio- 
 logical standpoint, if a man is living for the world it 
 is immaterial how well he lives for it. He ought to 
 live well for it. However important it is for his own 
 Kingdom, it does not affect his biological relation to 
 
392 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 the other Kingdom whether his character is perfect 
 or imperfect. He may even to some extent assume 
 the outward form of organisms belonging to the higher 
 Kingdom ; but so long as his reaction upon the 
 world is the reaction of his species, he is to be classed 
 with his species, so long as the bent of his life is in 
 the direction of the world, he remains a worldling. 
 
 Recent botanical and entomological researches 
 have made Science familiar with what is termed 
 Mimicry. Certain organisms in one Kingdom as- 
 sume, for purposes of their own, the outward form 
 of organisms belonging to another. This curious 
 hypocrisy is practised both by plants and animals, 
 the object being to secure some personal advantage, 
 usually safety, which would be denied were the 
 organism always to play its part in Nature in propria 
 persona. Thus the Ceroxylus laceratus of Borneo 
 has assumed so perfectly the disguise of a moss- 
 covered branch as to evade the attack of insecti- 
 vorous birds ; and others of the walking-stick insects 
 and leaf-butterflies practise similar deceptions with 
 great effrontery and success. It is a startling result 
 of the indirect influence of Christianity, or of a 
 spurious Christianity, that the religious world has 
 come to be populated how largely one can scarce 
 venture to think with mimetic species. In few 
 cases, probably, is this a conscious deception. In 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 393 
 
 many doubtless it is induced, as in Ceroxylus> by 
 the desire for safety. But in a majority of instances 
 it is the natural effect of the prestige of a great 
 system upon those who, coveting its benedictions, 
 yet fail to understand its true nature, or decline 
 to bear its profounder responsibilities. It is here 
 that the test of Life becomes of supreme import- 
 ance. No classification on the ground of form can 
 exclude mimetic species, or discover them to them- 
 selves. But if man's place among the Kingdoms 
 is determined by his functions, a careful estimate of 
 his life in itself, and in its reaction upon surrounding 
 lives, ought at once to betray his real position. No 
 matter what may be the moral uprightness of his 
 life, the honourableness of his career, or the ortho- 
 doxy of his creed, if he exercises the function of 
 , loving the world, that defines his world he belongs 
 to the Organic Kingdom. He cannot in that case \ 
 belong to the higher Kingdom. " If any man love 
 the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 
 After all, it is by the general bent of a man's life, 
 by his heart-impulses and secret desires, his spon- 
 taneous actions and abiding motives, that his gene- 
 ration is declared. 
 
 The exclusiveness of Christianity, separation from 
 the world, uncompromising allegiance to the King- 
 dom of God ; entire surrender of body, soul, and 
 
394 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 spirit to Christ these are truths which rise into 
 prominence from time to time, become the watch- 
 words of insignificant parties, rouse the church to 
 attention and the world to opposition, and die down 
 ultimately for want of lives to live them. The few 
 enthusiasts who distinguish in these requirements 
 the essential conditions of entrance into the King- 
 dom of Christ are overpowered by the weight of 
 numbers, who see nothing more in Christianity than 
 a mild religiousness, and who demand nothing more 
 in themselves or in their fellow- Christians than the 
 participation in a conventional worship, the accept- 
 ance of traditional beliefs, and the living of an 
 honest life. Yet nothing is more certain than that 
 the enthusiasts are right. Any impartial survey 
 such as the unique analysis in " Ecce Homo " of the 
 claims of Christ and of the nature of His society, 
 will convince any one who cares to make the inquiry 
 of the outstanding difference between the system 
 of Christianity in the original contemplation and its 
 representations in modern life. Christianity marks 
 the advent of what is simply a new Kingdom. Its 
 distinctions from the Kingdom below it are funda- 
 mental. It demands from its members activities 
 and responses of an altogether novel order. It is, 
 in the conception of its Founder, a Kingdom for 
 which all its adherents must henceforth exclusively 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 395 
 
 live and work, and which opens its gates alone upon 
 those who, having counted the cost, are prepared 
 to follow it if need be to the death. The surrender 
 Christ demanded was absolute. Every aspirant for 
 membership must seek first the Kingdom of God. 
 And in order to enforce the demand of allegiance, 
 or rather with an unconsciousness which contains the 
 finest evidence for its justice, He even assumed the 
 title of King a claim which in other circumstances, 
 and were these not the symbols of a higher royalty, 
 seems so strangely foreign to one who is meek and 
 lowly in heart. 
 
 But this imperious claim of a Kingdom upon its 
 members is not peculiar to Christianity. It is the 
 law in all departments of Nature that every 
 organism must live for its Kingdom. And in de- 
 fining living for the higher Kingdom as the con- 
 dition of living in it, Christ enunciates a principle 
 which all Nature has prepared us to expect. Every 
 province has its peculiar exactions, every Kingdom 
 levies upon its subjects the tax of an exclusive 
 obedience, and punishes disloyalty always with 
 death. It was the neglect of this principle that 
 every organism must live for its Kingdom if it is 
 to live in it which first slowly depopulated the 
 spiritual world. The example of its Founder ceased 
 to find imitators, and the consecration of His early 
 
396 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 followers came to be regarded as a superfluous 
 enthusiasm. And it is this same misconception of 
 the fundamental principle of all Kingdoms that has 
 deprived modern Christianity of its vitality. The 
 failure to regard the exclusive claims of Christ as 
 more than accidental, rhetorical, or ideal ; the failure 
 to discern the essential difference between His King- 
 dom and all other systems based on the lines of 
 natural religion, and therefore merely Organic; in 
 a word, the general neglect of the claims of Christ 
 as the Founder of a new and higher Kingdom 
 these have taken the very heart from the religion 
 of Christ ar.d left its evangel without power to 
 impress or bless the world. Until even religious 
 men see ''the uniqueness of Christ's society, until 
 they acknowledge to the full extent its claim to be 
 nothing less than a new Kingdom, they will continue 
 the hopeless attempt to live for two Kingdoms at 
 once. And hence the value of a more explicit 
 Classification. For probably the most of the diffi- 
 culties of trying to live the Christian life arise from 
 attempting to half-live it. 
 
 As a merely verbal matter, this identification of 
 the Spiritual World with what are known to Science 
 as Kingdoms, necessitates an explanation. The 
 suggested relation of the Kingdom of Christ to the 
 Mineral and Animal Kingdoms does no of course, 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 397 
 
 depend upon the accident that the Spiritual World 
 is named in the sacred writings by the same word. 
 This certainly lends an appearance of fancy to the 
 generalisation : and one feels tempted at first to 
 dismiss it with a smile. But, in truth, it is no 
 mere play on the word Kingdom. Science de. 
 mands the classification of every organism. And 
 here is an organism of a unique kind, a living 
 energetic spirit, a new creature which, by an act 
 of generation, has been begotten of God. Starting 
 from the point that the spiritual life is to be studied 
 biologically, we must at once proceed, as the first 
 step in the scientific examination of this organism, 
 to enter it in its appropriate class. Now two King- 
 doms, at the present time, are known to Science 
 the Inorganic and the Organic. It does not belong 
 to the Inorganic Kingdom, because it lives. It does 
 not belong to the Organic Kingdom, because it is 
 endowed with a kind of Life infinitely removed from 
 either the vegetal or animal. Where then shall it 
 be classed ? We are left without an alternative. 
 There being no Kingdom known to Science which 
 can contain it, we must construct one. Or rather 
 we must include in the programme of Science a 
 Kingdom already constructed but the place of which 
 in science has not yet been recognised. That King- 
 dom is the Kingdom of God. 
 
398 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 Taking now this larger view of the content of 
 science, we may leave the case of the individual 
 and pass on to outline the scheme of Nature as a 
 whole. The general conception will be as follows : 
 
 First, we find at the bottom of everything the 
 Mineral or Inorganic Kingdom. Its characteristics 
 are, first, that sa far as the sphere above it is con- 
 cerned it is dead ; second, that although dead it 
 furnishes the physical basis of life to the Kingdom 
 next in order. It is thus absolutely essential to 
 the Kingdom above it. And the more minutely 
 the detailed structure and ordering of the whole 
 fabric are investigated it becomes increasingly ap- 
 parent that the Inorganic Kingdom is the pre- 
 paration for, and the prophecy of, the Organic. 
 
 Second, we come to the world next in order, the 
 world containing plant, and animal, and man, the 
 Organic Kingdom. Its characteristics are, first, that 
 so far as the sphere above it is concerned it is dead ; 
 and, second, although dead it supplies in turn the 
 basis of life to the Kingdom next in order. And 
 the more minutely the detailed structure and order- 
 ing of the whole fabric are investigated, it is obvious, 
 in turn, that the Organic Kingdom is the preparation 
 for, and the prophecy of, the Spiritual. 
 
 Third, and highest, we reach the Spiritual King- 
 dom, or the Kingdom of Heaven. What its charac- 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 399 
 
 teristics are, relatively to any hypothetical higher 
 Kingdom, necessarily remain unknown. That the 
 Spiritual, in turn, may be the preparation for, and 
 the prophecy of, something still higher is not im- 
 possible. But the very conception of a Fourth 
 Kingdom transcends us, and if it exist, the Spiritual 
 organism, by the analogy, must remain at present 
 wholly dead to it. 
 
 The warrant for adding this Third Kingdom con- 
 sists, as just stated, in the fact that there are 
 organisms which from their peculiar origin, nature, 
 and destiny cannot be fitly entered in either of the 
 two Kingdoms now known to science. The Second 
 Kingdom is proclaimed by the advent upon the 
 stage of the First, of once-born organisms. The 
 Third is ushered in by the appearance, among these 
 once-born organisms, of forms of life which have 
 been born again twice-born organisms. The classi- 
 fication, therefore, is based, from the scientific side 
 on certain facts of embryology and on the Law of 
 Biogenesis ; and from the theological side on cer- 
 tain facts of experience and on the doctrine of Re- 
 generation. To those who hold either to Biogenesis 
 or to Regeneration, there is no escape from a Third 
 Kingdom. 1 
 
 1 Philosophical classifications in this direction (see for instance 
 Godef s " Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing to theirneglect 
 
400 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 There is, in this conception of a high and spiritual 
 organism rising out of the highest point of the 
 Organic Kingdom, in the hypothesis of the Spiritual 
 Kingdom itself, a Third Kingdom following the 
 Second in sequence as orderly as the Second follows 
 the First, a Kingdom utilising the materials of both 
 the Kingdoms beneath it, continuing their laws, and, 
 above all, accounting for these lower Kingdoms in a 
 legitimate way and complementing them in the only 
 known way there is in all this a suggestion of the 
 greatest of modern scientific doctrines, the Evolution 
 hypothesis, too impressive to pass unnoticed. The 
 strength of the doctrine of Evolution, at least in its 
 broader outlines, is now such that its verdict on any 
 biological question is a consideration of moment. 
 And if any further defence is needed for the idea of 
 
 of the facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy the biologist any 
 more than the above will wholly satisfy the philosopher. Both 
 are needed. Rothe, in his u Aphorisms" strikingly notes one 
 point: " Es ist beachtenswerth, wie in der Schopfung immer 
 aus der Auflb'sung der nachst niederen Stufe die nachst hohere 
 hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat zur Erzeugung 
 dieser Kraft der schopferischen Einwirkung bildet. (Wie es 
 denn nicht anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der Kreatur 
 aus sich selbst.) Aus den zersetzten Elementen erheben sich 
 das Mineral, aus dem verwitterten Material die Pflanze, aus der 
 verwesten Pflanze das Thier. So erhebt sich auch aus dem in 
 die Elemente zurlicksinkenden Materiellen Menschen der Geist, 
 das geistige Geschopf." " Stille Stunden," p. 64. 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 401 
 
 a Third Kingdom it may be found in the singular 
 harmony of the whole conception with this great 
 modern truth. It might even be asked whether a 
 complete and consistent theory of Evolution does 
 not really demand such a conception ? Why should 
 Evolution stop with the Organic ? It is surely 
 obvious that the complement of Evolution is Advo- 
 lution, and the inquiry, Whence has all this system 
 of things come, is, after all, of minor importance 
 compared with the question, Whither does all this 
 tend ? Science, as such, may have little to say on 
 such a question. And it is perhaps impossible, with 
 such faculties as we now possess, to imagine an 
 Evolution with a future as great as its past. So 
 stupendous is the development from the atom to the 
 man that no point can be fixed in the future as 
 distant from what man is now as he is from the 
 atom. But it has been given to Christianity to 
 disclose the lines of a further Evolution. And if 
 Science also professes to offer a further Evolution, 
 not the most sanguine evolutionist will venture to 
 contrast it, either as regards the dignity of its 
 methods, the magnificence of its aims, or the cer- 
 tainty of its hopes, with the prospects of the Spiritual 
 Kingdom. That Science has a prospect of some sort 
 to hold out to man, is not denied. But its limits are 
 already marked. Mr. Herbert Spencer, after in- 
 
 D D 
 
CLASSIFICA T10N. 
 
 vestigating its possibilities fully, tells us, " Evolution 
 has an impassable limit." 1 It is the distinct claim 
 of the Third Kingdom that this limit is not final. 
 Christianity opens a way to a further development 
 a development apart from which the magnificent 
 past of Nature has been in vain, and without which 
 Organic Evolution, in spite of the elaborateness of 
 its processes and the vastness of its achievements, 
 is simply a stupendous cut de sac. Far as Nature 
 carries on the task, vast as is the distance between 
 the atom and the man, she has to lay down her tools 
 when the work is just begun. Man, her most rich 
 and finished product, marvellous in his complexity, 
 all but Divine in sensibility, is to the Third Kingdom 
 not even a shapeless embryo. The old chain of pro- 
 cesses must begin again on the higher plane if there 
 is to be a further Evolution. The highest organism 
 of the Second Kingdom simple, immobile, dead as 
 the inorganic crystal, towards the sphere above 
 must be vitalized afresh. Then from a mass of all 
 but homogeneous "protoplasm" the organism must 
 pass through all the stages of differentiation and in- 
 tegration, growing in perfectness and beauty under 
 the unfolding of the higher Evolution, until it reaches 
 the Infinite Complexity, the Infinite Sensibility, God 
 
 1 " First Principles/* p. 440, 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 403 
 
 So the spiritual carries on the marvellous process to 
 which all lower Nature ministers, and perfects it 
 when the ministry of lower Nature fails. 
 
 This conception of a further Evolution carries with 
 it the final answer to the charge that, as regards 
 morality, the Spiritual world has nothing to offer 
 man that is not already within his reach. Will it be 
 contended that a perfect morality is already within 
 the reach of the natural man ? What product of the 
 organic creation has ever attained to the fulness of 
 the stature of Him who is the Founder and Type 
 of the Spiritual Kingdom ? What do men know of 
 the qualities enjoined in His Beatitudes, or at what 
 value do they even estimate them ? Proved by 
 results, it is surely already decided that on merely 
 natural lines moral perfection is unattainable. And 
 \ even Science is beginning to waken to the mo- , 
 mentous truth that Man, the highest product of the ) 
 Organic Kingdom, is a disappointment. But ever 
 were it otherwise, if even in prospect the hopes c 
 the Organic Kingdom could be justified, its standarv 
 of beauty is not so high, nor, in spite of the dreams 
 of Evolution, is its guarantee so certain. The goal 
 of the organisms of the Spiritual World is nothing 
 less than this to be " holy as He is holy, and pure 
 as He is pure." And by the Law of Conformity to 
 Type, their final perfection is secured. The inward 
 
4 o 4 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 nature must develop out according to its Type, until 
 the consummation of oneness with God is reached. 
 
 These proposals of the Spiritual Kingdom in the 
 direction of Evolution are at least entitled to be 
 carefully considered by Science. Christianity defines 
 the highest conceivable future for mankind. It 
 satisfies the Law of Continuity. It guarantees the 
 necessary conditions for carrying on the organism 
 successfully, from stage to stage. It provides against 
 the tendency to Degeneration. And finally, instead 
 of limiting the yearning hope of final perfection to 
 the organisms of a future age, an age so remote that 
 the hope for thousands of years must still be hope- 
 less, instead of inflicting this cruelty on intelligences 
 mature enough to know perfection and earnest 
 enough to wish it, Christianity puts the prize within 
 immediate reach of man. 
 
 This attempt to incorporate the Spiritual Kingdom 
 in the scheme of Evolution, may be met by what 
 seems at first sight a fatal objection. So far from 
 the idea of a Spiritual Kingdom being in harmony 
 with the doctrine of Evolution, it may be said that 
 it is violently opposed to it. It announces a new 
 Kingdom starting off suddenly on a different plane 
 and in direct violation of the primary principle of 
 development. Instead of carrying the organic evo- 
 lution further on its own lines, theology at a given 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 405 
 
 point interposes a sudden and hopeless barrier the 
 barrier between the natural and the spiritual and 
 insists that the evolutionary process must begin 
 again at the beginning. At this point, in fact, 
 Nature acts per saltum. This is no Evolution, but 
 a Catastrophe such a Catastrophe as must be fatal 
 to any consistent development hypothesis. 
 
 On the surface this objection seems final but it 
 is only on the surface. It arises from taking a too 
 narrow view of what Evolution is. It takes evolution 
 in zoology for Evolution as a whole. Evolution 
 began, let us say, with some primeval nebulous mass 
 in which lay potentially all future worlds. Under 
 the evolutionary hand, the amorphous cloud broke 
 up, condensed, took definite shape, and in the line 
 of true development assumed a gradually increasing 
 complexity. Finally there emerged the cooled and 
 finished earth, highly differentiated, so to speak, 
 complete and fully equipped. And what followed ? 
 Let it be well observed a Catastrophe. Instead of 
 carrying the process further, the Evolution, if this is 
 Evolution, here also abruptly stops. A sudden and 
 hopeless barrier the barrier between the Inorganic 
 and the Organic interposes, and the process has to 
 begin again at the beginning with the creation of 
 Life. Here then is a barrier placed by Science at 
 the close of the Inorganic similar to the barrier 
 
406 CLASSIFICA TION. 
 
 placed by Theology at the close of the Organic. 
 Science has used every effort to abolish this first 
 barrier, but there it still stands challenging the 
 attention of the modern world, and no consistent 
 theory of Evolution can fail to reckon with it. Any 
 objection, then, to the Catastrophe introduced by 
 Christianity between the Natural and Spiritual 
 Kingdoms applies with equal force against the 
 barrier which Science places between the Inorganic 
 and the Organic. The reserve of Life in either case 
 is a fact, and a fact of exceptional significance. 
 
 What then becomes of Evolution ? Do these two 
 great barriers destroy it? By no means. But they 
 make it necessary to frame a larger doctrine. And 
 the doctrine gains immeasurably by such an enlarge- 
 ment. For now the case stands thus : Evolution, in 
 harmony with its own law that progress is from the 
 simple to the complex, begins itself to pass towards 
 the complex. The materialistic Evolution, so to 
 speak, is a straight line. Making all else complex, 
 it alone remains simple unscientifically simple. 
 But as Evolution unfolds everything else, it is now 
 seen to be itself slowly unfolding. The straight line 
 is coming out gradually in curves. At a given point 
 a new force appears deflecting it ; and at another 
 given point a new force appears deflecting that. 
 These points are not unrelated points ; these forces 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 407 
 
 are not unrelated forces. The arrangement is still 
 harmonious, and the development throughout obeys 
 the evolutionary law in being from the general to the 
 special, from the lower to the higher. What we are 
 reaching, in short, is nothing less than the evolution 
 of Evolution. 
 
 Now to both Science and Christianity, and espe- 
 cially to Science, this enrichment of Evolution is 
 important. And, on the part of Christianity, the 
 contribution to the system of Nature of a second 
 barrier is of real scientific value. At first it may 
 seem merely to increase the difficulty. But in reality 
 it abolishes it However paradoxical it seems, it is 
 nevertheless the case that two barriers are more easy 
 to understand than one, two mysteries are less 
 mysterious than a single mystery. For it requires 
 two to constitute a harmony. One by itself is a 
 Catastrophe. But, just as the recurrence of an 
 eclipse at different periods makes an eclipse no 
 breach of Continuity ; just as the fact that the astro- 
 nomical conditions necessary to cause a Glacial 
 Period will in the remote future again be fulfilled 
 constitutes the Great Ice Age a normal phenomenon ; 
 so the recurrence of two periods associated with 
 special phenomena of Life, the second higher, and 
 by the law necessarily higher, is no violation of the 
 principle of Evolution. Thus even in the matter of 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 adding a second to the one barrier of Nature, the 
 Third Kingdom may already claim to complement 
 the Science of the Second. The overthrow of Spon- 
 taneous Generation has left a break in Continuity 
 which continues to put Science to confusion. Alone, 
 it is as abnormal and perplexing to the intellect as 
 the first eclipse. But if the Spiritual Kingdom can 
 supply Science with a companion-phenomenon, the 
 most exceptional thing in the scientific sphere falls 
 within the domain of Law. This, however, is no 
 more than might be expected from a Third King- 
 dom. True to its place as the highest of the King- 
 doms, it ought to embrace all that lies beneath and 
 give to the First and Second their final explanation. 
 
 How much more in the under-Kingdoms might be 
 explained or illuminated upon this principle, how- 
 ever tempting might be the inquiry, we cannot turn 
 aside to ask. But the rank of the Third Kingdom 
 in the order of Evolution implies that it holds the 
 key to much that is obscure in the world around 
 much that, apart from it, must always remain obscure. 
 A single obvious instance will serve to illustrate the 
 fertility of the method. What has this Kingdom to 
 contribute to Science with regard to the problem of 
 the origin of Life itself? Taking this as an isolated 
 phenomenon, neither the Second Kingdom, nor 
 the Third, apart from revelation, has anything to 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 49 
 
 pronounce. But when we observe the companion- 
 phenomenon in the higher Kingdom, the question 
 is simplified. It will be disputed by none that the 
 source of Life in the Spiritual World is God. And 
 as the same Law of Biogenesis prevails in both 
 spheres, we may reason from the higher to the lower 
 and affirm it to be at least likely that the origin of 
 life there has been the same. 
 
 There remains yet one other objection of a some- 
 what different order, and which is only referred to 
 because it is certain to be raised by those who fail to 
 appreciate the distinctions of Biology. Those whose 
 sympathies are rather with Philosophy than with 
 Science may incline to dispute the allocation of so 
 high an organism as man to the merely vegetal and 
 animal Kingdom. Recognising the immense moral 
 and intellectual distinctions between him and even 
 the highest animal, they would introduce a third 
 barrier between man and animal a barrier even 
 greater than that between the Inorganic and the 
 Organic. Now, no science can be blind to these 
 distinctions. The only question is whether they are 
 of such a kind as to make it necessary to classify 
 man in a separate Kingdom. And to this the answer 
 of Science is in the negative. Modern Science 
 knows only two Kingdoms the Inorganic and the 
 Organic. A barrier between man and animal there 
 
410 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 may be, but it is a different barrier from that which 
 separates Inorganic from Organic. But even were 
 this to be denied, and in spite of all science it will be 
 denied, it would make no difference as regards the 
 general question. It would merely interpose another 
 Kingdom between the Organic and the Spiritual, the 
 other relations remaining as before. Any one, there- 
 fore, with a theory to support as to the exceptional 
 creation of the Human Race will find the present 
 classification elastic enough for his purpose. Philo- 
 sophy, of course, may propose another arrangement 
 of the Kingdoms if it chooses. It is only contended 
 that this is the order demanded by Biology. To add 
 another Kingdom mid-way between the Organic and 
 the Spiritual, could that be justified at any future 
 time on scientific grounds, would be a mere question 
 of further detail. 
 
 Studies in Classification, beginning with consider- 
 ations of quality, usually end with a reference to 
 quantity. And though one would willingly terminate 
 the inquiry on the threshold of such a subject, the 
 example of Revelation not less than the analogies of 
 Nature press for at least a general statement. 
 
 The broad impression gathered from the utterances 
 of the Founder of the Spiritual Kingdom is that the 
 number of organisms to be included in it is to be 
 comparatively small. The outstanding characteristic 
 
CLASSIFICATION. 411 
 
 of the new Society is to be its selectness. " Many 
 are called," said Christ, " but few are chosen/' And 
 when one recalls, on the one hand, the conditions of 
 membership, and, on the other, observes the lives and 
 aspirations of average men, the force of the verdict 
 becomes apparent. In its bearing upon the general 
 question, such a conclusion is not without suggestive- 
 ness. Here again is another evidence of the radical 
 nature of Christianity. That " few are chosen " indi- 
 cates a deeper view of the relation of Christ's King- 
 dom to the world, and stricter qualifications of 
 membership, than lie on the surface or are allowed 
 for in the ordinary practice of religion. 
 
 The analogy of Nature upon this point is not less 
 striking it may be added, not less solemn. It is an 
 open secret, to be read in a hundred analogies from 
 the world around, that of the millions of possible en- 
 trants for advancement in any department of Nature 
 the number ultimately selected for preferment is small. 
 Here also " many are called and few are chosen." 
 The analogies from the waste of seed, of pollen, of 
 human lives, are too familiar to be quoted. In certain 
 details, possibly, these comparisons are inappropriate. 
 But there are other analogies, wider and more just, 
 which strike deeper into the system of Nature. A 
 comprehensive view of the whole field of Nature 
 discloses the fact that the circle of the chosen slowly 
 
412 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 contracts as we rise in the scale of being. Some 
 mineral, but not all, becomes vegetable ; some vege- 
 table, but not all, becomes animal ; some animal, 
 but not all, becomes human ; some human, but not 
 all, becomes Divine. Thus the area narrows. At 
 the base is the mineral, most broad and simple ; the 
 spiritual at the apex, smallest, but most highly differ- 
 entiated. So form rises above form, Kingdom above 
 Kingdom. Quantity decreases as quality increases. 
 
 The gravitation of the whole system of Nature 
 towards quality is surely a phenomenon of com- 
 manding interest. And if among the more recent 
 revelations of Nature there is one thing more signifi- 
 cant for Religion than another, it is the majestic 
 spectacle of the rise of Kingdoms towards scarcer 
 yet nobler forms, and simpler yet diviner ends. Of 
 the early stage, the first development of the earth 
 from the nebulous matrix of space, Science speaks 
 with reserve. The second, the evolution of each 
 individual from the simple protoplasmic cell to the 
 formed adult, is proved. The still wider evolution, 
 not of solitary individuals, but of all the individuals 
 within each province in the vegetal world from the 
 unicellular cryptogam to the highest phanerogam, in 
 the animal world from the amorphous amoeba to 
 Man is at least suspected, the gradual rise of types 
 being at all events a fact. But now, at last, we 
 
CLASSIFICA TION. 4*3 
 
 see the Kingdoms themselves evolving. And that 
 supreme law which has guided the development from 
 simple to complex in matter, in individual, in sub- 
 Kingdom, and in Kingdom, until only two or three 
 great Kingdoms remain, now begins at the begin- 
 ning again, directing the evolution of these million- 
 peopled worlds as if they were simple cells or 
 organisms. Thus, what applies to the individual 
 applies to the family, what applies to the family 
 applies to the Kingdom, what applies to the King- 
 dom applies to the Kingdoms. And so, out of the 
 infinite complexity there rises an infinite simplicity, 
 the foreshadowing of a final unity, of that 
 
 " One God, one law, one element, 
 
 And one far-off divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves." l 
 
 This is the final triumph of Continuity, the heart- 
 secret of Creation, the unspoken prophecy of Christi- 
 anity. To Science, defining it as a working principle, 
 this mighty process of amelioration is simply Evolu- 
 tion. To Christianity, discerning the end through 
 the means, it is Redemption. These silent and 
 patient processes, elaborating, eliminating, develop- 
 ing all from the first of time, conducting the evolu- 
 tion from millennium to millennium with unaltering 
 
 1 " la Memoriam." 
 
4H CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 purpose and unfaltering power, are the early stages 
 in the redemptive work the unseen approach of that 
 Kingdom whose strange mark is that it "cometh 
 without observation." And these Kingdoms rising 
 tier above tier in ever increasing sublimity and 
 beauty, their foundations visibly fixed in the past, 
 their progress, and the direction of their progress, 
 being facts in Nature still, are the signs -which, since 
 the Magi saw His star in the East, have never been 
 wanting from the firmament of truth, and which in 
 every age with .growing clearness to the wise, and 
 with ever-gathering mystery to the uninitiated, pro- 
 claim that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." 
 
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