"I judge of the order of the
world, although I know not its end, because to judge of this order I only
need mutually to compare the parts, to study their functions, their relations
and to remark their concert. I know not why the universe exists but I do
not desist from seeing how it is modified; I do not cease to see
the intimate agreement by which the beings that compose it render a mutual
help. I am like a man who should see for the first time an open watch,
who should not cease to admire the workmanship of it, although he
knows not the use of the machine, and had never seen dials. I do
not know, he would say, what all this is for, but I see that each piece
is made for the others; I admire the worker in the detail of his work,
and I am very sure that all these wheelworks only go thus in concert for
a common end which I cannot perceive."
COUSSEAU.
"That which is born of the flesh is
flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."--Christ.
" In early attempts to arrange organic
beings in some systematic manner, we see at first a guidance by conspicuous
and simple characters, and a tendency towards arrangement in linear order.
In successively later attempts, we see more regard paid to combinations
of character which are essential but often inconspicuous; and a gradual
abandonment of a linear arrangement."--Herbert Spencer.
ON one of the shelves in a certain museum
lie two small boxes 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, also, is a vast assemblage
of small glassy or porcellanous 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 microscopic urns, goblets, and vases, each richly ornamented 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 Polycystinae except Life. We can melt them down in the laboratory,
but no ingenuity of chemistry 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 crystals. We can melt down this Arran
earth and reproduce the pyramids and prisms in endless numbers 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 reduced 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 of small importance. Aesthetically, 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 rock 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
of 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 cairngorm, 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 or dead? But when he is told that the one is living and
the other dead, he is in possession of a characteristic 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 further, whether the
current classification of men, based upon Moral Beauty, is wholly satisfactory
either from the standpoint of Science or of Christianity. Here, for example,
are two characters, pure and elevated, adorned with conspicuous virtues,
stirred by lofty impulses, and commanding a spontaneous admiration from
all who look on them--may not this similarity of outward form be accompanied
by a total dissimilarity of inward nature? Is the external appearance the
truest criterion of the ultimate nature? Or, as in the crystal and the
shell, may there not exist distinctions more profound and basal? The
distinctions drawn between men, in short, are commonly 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 theology 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 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 doctrines 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 last three hundred years. From Spinoza downward
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
distinction more than dimly apprehended. Few conceive 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 upon Morality of a decline in Religious Belief,"
was discussed 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 beautiful--so much so that popularly one is justified
in judging of religion by its beauty. Nor is it meant that morality is
not a criterion. All that is contended 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 importance 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
is twofold. It is a principle in science that classification 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 abandonment of a linear
arrangement for an arrangement in divergent groups and re-divergent sub-groups."
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 classification
based on Morphology. The whole tendency of science now is to include along
with morphological considerations the profounder generalisations 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
somewhat 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 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 between the Christian
and the not-a-Christian, between the spiritual beauty and the moral beauty?
It is the distinction between the Organic and the Inorganic. 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 foundation
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 inorganic world until it is seized
upon by a something 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 direction, 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, however
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
afterwards carries out the classification consistently making his entire
system depend on it, and through out arranging men, on the one hand as
pneumatiko-- spiritual, on the other
as uxiko--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 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 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 Christianity 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 Spontaneous 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 he proved that the resulting
moral or spiritual beauty is higher in the one case than in the other,
the biological distinction is useless. And if the objection 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 spiritual 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 an objection, and the whole problem
is placed on different footing.
The difference on the score or beauty between
the crystal and the shell, let us say once more, is imperceptible. But
fix attention for a moment, not upon their appearance, but upon their possibilities,
upon 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 dissolved, 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 kingdom 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,
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 naturalist'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 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 judgment to the inorganic world which are nevertheless
undoubtedly alive. And it is the same in the spiritual world. To a cursory
glance these rudimentary spiritual forms may not seem to exhibit the phenomena
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 indication of the lines along which the future development
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 problem to Physiology.
The tests for Life are of two kinds. It is
remarkable that one of them was proposed, in the spiritual sphere, by Christ.
Foreseeing the difficulty of determining the characters and functions of
rudimentary organisms, He suggested that the point be decided by a further
evolution. Time for development 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. Obviously, 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
impracticable. 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 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 opportunity 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." Such being the
case, it would serve no purpose to indicate the details of a barely possible
experiment. We are merely showing, at the moment, that the question "How
do I know that I am alive" is not, in the spiritual sphere, incapable
of solution. One might, nevertheless, single out 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 experiment 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
organism, 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, 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
individual 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 biological 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 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 assume, 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 insectivorous 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 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 importance. No classification
on the ground of form can exclude mimetic species, or discover them to
themselves. 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 orthodoxy of his creed, if he exercises the function of
loving the world, that defines his world--he belongs o 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 spontaneous actions and abiding motives, that his generation is declared.
The exclusiveness of Christianity, separation
from the world, uncompromising allegiance to the Kingdom of God, entire
surrender of body, soul, and spirit to Christ--these are truths which rise
into prominence from time to time, become the watchwords 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 Kingdom 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 acceptance 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 fundamental.
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 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 defining
living for the higher Kingdom as the condition 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 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 Kingdom 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 and 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 difficulties 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 not of course, 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 demands 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 Kingdoms, 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 Kingdom is the Kingdom of God.
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
so far as the sphere above it is concerned 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 apparent that the Inorganic Kingdom is the preparation
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 ordering 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
Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Heaven. What its characteristics 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 impossible. 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
consists, 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 classification, therefore, is based, from the scientific side on certain
facts of embryology and on the Law of Biogenesis; and from the theological
side on certain facts of experience and on the doctrine of Regeneration.
To those who hold either to Biogenesis or to Regeneration, there is no
escape from a Third Kingdom.
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 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 Advolution,
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 certainty of its hopes, with the prospects of the Spiritual
Kingdom. That Science has a prospect of some sort to hold out to man, is
not denied. But its limits are already marked. Mr. Herbert Spencer, after
investigating its possibilities fully, tells us, "Evolution has an
impassable limit." 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
cul 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 processes 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 integration, growing in perfectness
and beauty under the unfolding of the higher Evolution, until it reaches
the Infinite Complexity, the Infinite Sensibility, God. 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 momentous truth that Man,
the highest product of the Organic Kingdom, is a disappointment. But even
were it otherwise, if even in prospect the hopes of the Organic Kingdom
could be justified, its standard 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 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 hopeless,--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 evolution further on its own lines, theology
at a given 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
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 enlargement. 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 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 especially 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 astronomical
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 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 Spontaneous 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 Kingdom.
True to its place as the highest of the Kingdoms, 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, however 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 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 somewhat 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 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, therefore, with a theory to support as to the exceptional
creation of the Human Race will find the present classification elastic
enough for his purpose. Philosophy, 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
considerations 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
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 suggestiveness. Here again is another evidence of the radical
nature of Christianity. That "few are chosen" indicates a deeper
view of the relation of Christ's Kingdom 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 entrants 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 contracts as we rise in the scale of being. Some mineral,
but not all, becomes vegetable; some vegetable, 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 differentiated.
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 commanding interest. And if among
the more recent revelations of Nature there is one thing more significant
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 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
beginning 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 Kingdom 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."
This is the final triumph of Continuity,
the heart-secret of Creation, the unspoken prophecy of Christianity. To
Science, defining it as a working principle, this mighty process of amelioration
is simply Evolution. To Christianity, discerning the end through
:he means, it is Redemption. These silent and patient processes,
elaborating, eliminating, developing all from the first of time, conducting
the evolution from millennium to millennium with unaltering 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,
proclaim that "the Kingdom of God is at hand."
FINIS.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing
Works, Frome, and London.
LONDON; HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER
ROW
Philosophical classifications in this direction (see for instance Godet's
"Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing to their neglect 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 "Aphorisms" strikingly notes one point: "Es ist beachtenswerth,
wie in der Schopfung immer aus der Auflosung 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 zurucksinkenden Materiellen Menschen der Geist, das geistige Geschopf."--"Stille
Stunden," p. 64.