Part 10 (2/2)
Enough has been said to indicate a few of the difficulties which stand in the way, when we approach the consideration of man's spiritual nature. A study of the various religions and spiritualistic beliefs which are current in the world to-day would be a tedious task for the average mind and would probably be of little practical use or help to any one.
The same may be said about the scientific theory of evolution. That is essentially an effort of the intellect, focusing the attention on details, processes and stages of development in living things and arriving no nearer to a solution of the unexplainable than we were in the beginning.
Suppose I happen to be impressed by the beauty and wonder of an orange tree, with its golden, luscious fruit, its delicately tinted and deliciously scented blossoms, its graceful leaves and branches, its symmetrical trunk so firmly rooted in the ground? Merely as a piece of machinery, as a little factory, designed to manufacture a certain kind of edible product, it is far more ingenious, economical and generally marvellous than anything the combined brains of mankind have been able to design throughout the centuries. It is automatic, self-lubricating, self-repairing and goes on, year after year, in fair weather or foul, turning out its brand of juicy pulp, done up charmingly in little yellow packages. How does it operate? How does it always manage to get the necessary raw materials from the earth and the air? How do the roots and the leaves and the sap ever contrive to convert these into perfume and blossoms and pulp and pigment?
Now suppose a scientific intellect comes along and, after investigating, dissecting, a.n.a.lyzing, eventually holds out before my eyes a tiny white seed which it has located in the centre of the yellow package--and says:
”This is the explanation of the whole thing. That orange tree is merely the result, by a process of natural development and evolution, of this seed. We have studied it all out, step by step. If you will give us one of these seeds to start with and some ground to put it in, there is no mystery about it at all. We can show you how the whole thing happens. Of course, it takes considerable time--but time is nothing to Nature. In this case, only four or five years are required for the seed to become transformed into a fruit-bearing orange tree.”
”But,” say I, ”your investigations and explanations only add to my amazement. The design and formation of that little seed is even more wonderful and incomprehensible than the full-grown orange tree. Within its tiny compa.s.s, it not only contains all the complicated miraculous processes which convert earth and air and water into fragrant blossoms, juicy pulp and golden oranges, but it contains in addition to that, other miraculous powers which enable it to develop and transform itself into a special kind of beautiful tree, with roots and branches and leaves. As compared to this one little seed, all the greatest inventions and achievements of man seem like the crudest bungling.”
”Tut, tut,” replies the scientific intellect, ”this is only one sort of seed. There are hundreds, thousands of others, some so small that they look like grains of dust. Each one of these is a complete manufacturing plant, perfect in every detail, each designed to turn out a special kind of product, different from all the others. One of the most remarkable points about them is that they require no special materials--each and every one of them makes use of the same common ingredients, earth, air, light, water. From those ingredients, this little machine, for instance, working automatically, can turn out a giant red-wood tree, which will last for centuries. This other little one, next to it, working in the same way, will produce thousands upon thousands of roses, of a certain beautiful shade of color and a certain delicate fragrance. And so it is with all these other little machines, which we call seeds,--however amazing the difference in the kind of product, it is due entirely to certain subtle differences in their design.”
”But,” say I, ”what sublime intelligence conceived the plan of those machines, and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fas.h.i.+on them?”
”They were made automatically by the various trees and plants.”
”But who conceived the plan of the trees and plants?”
”The trees and plants were produced automatically by other little seeds, like these.”
”But the first one of these seeds, or the first one of these trees--who conceived and executed that?”
”Oh, that,” says the scientific intellect, ”came about through a process of evolution, which extends way back thousands of centuries. We have studied it carefully and reasoned it all out to our entire satisfaction.
”These plant seeds are only one part of it. There are also all the animals and animalculae, including man. There are thousands of different kinds of living creatures and each kind has a distinct design from all the rest, which appears to have been determined by the special purpose for which it was intended.
”As a matter of fact, they are nothing more or less than the results of evolution, natural selection and the survival of the fittest. All we require for the demonstration of our theory, is a little bit of protoplasm at the beginning of things and a ma.s.s of elemental matter in an unformed state.”
”But,” say I, ”are you sure you are not trying to befuddle me and befuddle yourself by the use of obscure words? You use the word ”protoplasm”--but if you mean by that a kind of machine, like the orange pit or the red-wood seed, your evolution theory and your scientific chain of reasoning and all your big words merely bring us back to the point where we started and really explain nothing at all. The orange seed, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter will produce a certain kind of tree and countless oranges. A bit of protoplasm, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter, will not only produce an orange tree and a red-wood tree, but an elephant, a spider, a human being--all the countless species of living things to be found in the universe. It may take the protoplasm a longer time to turn all this out, but it is a bigger job and time is of small account in such a consideration.
”All I can say is that I prostrate myself in abject and bewildered admiration before that bit of protoplasm. If anything could be more wonderful than the orange seed with which we started, your protoplasm is certainly it. It is a miracle of a million miracles.
”But there is one thing you forgot to tell me--the only thing of any real interest or importance to the average mind in such a theory. What sublime intelligence conceived the plan of that bit of protoplasm--and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fas.h.i.+on it?”
”Oh that,” says the scientific intellect--”that just happens to be one point which our chain of reasoning has not yet been able to demonstrate in a logical and satisfactory way. We have left that out of our theory.”
”Well then,” say I, ”here are trees and flowers and animals and mankind, each perfectly adapted for the special function on earth for which they were apparently designed. The plan of them appears to have been determined, somewhere, somehow, by a sublime intelligence which surpa.s.ses understanding, for some sublime purpose, apparently, which I am yearning to know. All the details, complications and a.s.sumptions of your theory when boiled down to simple terms seem more or less of a quibble on words and meanings.
”Your conclusions are of much the same sort as those of the intellectual cynic whom we quoted in connection with sympathy and affection. He undertook to prove with a chain of reasoning that I obey only motives of selfishness when I shed tears of grief because my friend has lost his only son.”
Here we are living together on earth to-day, and here were our fathers and forefathers living, in the same general way with the same general instincts and feelings, as far back as we have any record of; and here presumably will our children and their descendants continue to be living, as far as our imagination can carry us. Whether the process of our creation involved a bit of protoplasm in the midst of chaos, or whether we were evolved from a thought and a breath of an Almighty G.o.d, is of very slight consequence as a human consideration.
In view of the wonderful harmony and fitness of the countless processes and things which we see everywhere about us in nature, it is not strange that mankind seems always to have taken it for granted that a supremely wise and a supremely resourceful intelligence of some sort is responsible for it all. The beginning, the end, the scheme and purpose of so many miracles, extend into the beyond, the unknown, the incomprehensible. What the Supreme Being is like--how or why He came into existence--where matter or life first came from--or even what the connection is between the creatures of this world and the countless stars and planets which may be other worlds--all this is shrouded in the mystery of mysteries.
If we get to thinking very much about it, one of the effects is to make the affairs of man and the like of man seem tiny and unimportant in comparison to the whole--one kind of little creatures on one little globe, when we know there are thousands upon thousands of bigger globes in the firmament and possibly millions and billions of larger and more exalted creatures on many of them.
But it is only man's intellect that gets tangled up and discouraged by that kind of reasoning. Another side of man's nature comes to the fore and disposes of this tangle with more inspiring sentiments. These sentiments tell us that a marvellous scheme of life is at work in our world, every detail of which from the lowest to the highest appears to have received exactly the same sort of sublime consideration--and that of this entire scheme, the spirit of man has been const.i.tuted the leader and master. On this earth at least man is a kind of divine lieutenant, the captain, the commander, the generalissimo of all living things.
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