Part 6 (1/2)

1 _Cor._ xii. 3.

It is now the proper time to review the argument of these Lectures, and to endeavour to trace, if possible, the source of the estrangement which just at present separates Religion and Science.

The postulate of Science is admitted on all hands to be the uniformity of nature, and the proof of this postulate has been found to consist in an induction from the facts which nature presents and our senses observe. Uniformity is quickly noticed, and after it has been noticed for some time it is instinctively used as a working hypothesis. So used it acc.u.mulates perpetually increasing evidence of its truth, and if we except two great cla.s.ses of facts, we never find any instance of its failure. The two cla.s.ses of facts which are thus excepted are the acts of the human will and the miraculous element in Revelation, both of them instances of one thing, namely, the interference of the moral with the physical. To complete the induction and to deprive the denial of universal uniformity of all evidence to rest on, all that is necessary is to get rid of these two exceptions. If Science could get rid of these exceptions, though it could not be said that the fundamental postulate was demonstrated, it could be said that all the evidence was in its favour and absolutely no evidence against it. And although scientific belief would then still rank below mathematical belief, it would nevertheless have a cogency quite irresistible. Science would not thereby gain in power of progress, in practical acceptance, or in utility to man. But men are so const.i.tuted that completeness gives a special kind of satisfaction not to be got in any other way. If Science could but be complete it would seem to gain in dignity, if it gained in nothing else. And it is easy to foster a kind of pa.s.sion for this completeness until every attempt to question it is resented. I have seen a boy first learning mechanics show a dislike to consider the effect of friction as marring the symmetry and beauty of mechanical problems; too vague, too uncertain, too irregular to be allowed any entrance into a system which is so rounded and so precise without it.

And something of the same temper can sometimes be seen in students of Science at the very thought of there being anything in the world not under the dominion of the great scientific postulate. The world which thus contains something which Science cannot deal with is p.r.o.nounced forthwith to be not the world that we know, not the world with which we are concerned; a conceivable world if we choose to indulge our imagination in such dreams, but not a real world either now or at any time before or after. And yet the freedom of the human will and the sense which cannot be eradicated of the responsibility attaching to all human conduct, perpetually retorts that this world in which we live contains an element which cannot be subdued to obedience to the scientific law, but will have a course of its own. The sense of responsibility is a rock which no demand for completeness in Science can crush. All attempts at reconciling the mechanical firmness of an unbroken law of uniformity with the voice within that cannot be silenced telling us that we must answer for our action, have failed, and we know that they will for ever fail.

If indeed it could be said that the progress of Science was really barred by this inability to make the induction complete, and to a.s.sert the unbroken uniformity of all nature; if it could be said that any uncertainty was thus cast over scientific conclusions, or any false or misleading lights thus held up to draw inquirers from the true path, it would undoubtedly become a duty to examine, and to examine anxiously, whether indeed it could be true that our faculties were thus hopelessly at variance with each other, the scientific faculty, imposing on us one belief, and the spiritual faculty another, and the two practically irreconcileable. But there is no reason whatever for thinking this.

Newton's investigations were unquestionably pursued, as all true scientific investigations must ever be pursued, in reliance on the truth of the uniformity of nature, and yet he never felt it the slightest hindrance to his progress that he always tacitly and often expressly acknowledged that G.o.d had reserved to Himself the power of setting this uniformity aside, and indeed believed that He had used this power. The believer who a.s.serts the universality of a law except when G.o.d works a miracle to set it aside is certainly at no real disadvantage in comparison with an unbeliever who makes the same a.s.sertion with no qualification at all. It is granted on all hands that miracles are, and ever have been, exceedingly rare, and for that reason need not be taken into account in the investigation of nature. It is granted that the freedom of the human will works within narrow limits, and very slowly and slightly affects the great ma.s.s of human conduct and what depends on human conduct. And Science has often to deal with approximations when nothing but approximations can be obtained. We perpetually meet in nature with quant.i.ties and relations that cannot be accurately expressed nor accurately ascertained, and we have to be content with approximations, and we know how to use them in Science. Many chemical properties can only be so expressed; many primary facts, such as the distances, the volumes, the weights of heavenly bodies; and yet the approximations serve our purpose. And so too, if there be a reserve still uncovered by the scientific postulate, that will not in any degree affect our investigation of what is so covered.

In short, the unity of all things which Science is for ever seeking will be found not in the physical world alone, but in the physical and spiritual united. That unity embraces both. And the uniformity which is the expression of that unity is not a uniformity complete in nature, taken by itself, but complete when the two worlds are taken together.

And this Science ought to recognise.

Let us turn from the physical to the spiritual.

The voice within us which demands our acceptance of religion makes no direct appeal to the evidence supplied by the senses. We are called on to believe in a supreme law of duty on pain of being lowered before our own consciences. And this law of duty goes on to a.s.sert its own supremacy over all things that exist, and that not as an accidental fact, but as inherent in its essence. And this supremacy cannot be other than an accidental fact unless it be not only actual but intended. And intention implies personality; and the law thus shows itself to be a Supreme Being, claiming our reverence, and a.s.serting Himself to be the Creator, the Ruler, and the Judge of all things that are. And this same voice within us a.s.serts that we are responsible to Him for all our conduct, and are capable of that responsibility because free to choose what that conduct shall be. We are to believe not because the truth of this voice is proved independently of itself, but simply because we are commanded. Corroborative evidence may be looked for elsewhere, but the main, the primary evidence is within the soul.

Hence the strength of this belief depends on ourselves and on our own character. To every man the voice speaks. But its authority is felt in proportion to the spirituality of each who hears. Its acceptance is bound up in some way with our own wills. How far it is a matter of choice to believe or to disbelieve it is not possible to define. The will lies hidden as it were behind the emotions, the affections, the n.o.bler impulses. The conscience shades off into the other faculties, and we cannot always isolate it from the rest. But though it be impossible to say precisely how the will is concerned in the spiritual belief, there can be no doubt that it always takes its part in such belief. It is the keen conscience, it is the will that can be moved to its depths by the conscience, that grasp most strongly the certainty of the law of duty. It is the man with the strongest and n.o.blest aspirations, the man who sees the beauty of humility, the man who feels most strongly the deep peace of self-sacrifice, _that_ is the man who finds the voice within most irresistible. It is not by any means always the man who lives the most correct life; correctness of life may be due to natural and not to spiritual causes. And the man whom we should find faultless in point of morals may yet be wanting in spiritual depth, and not have as yet, and perhaps may not have to the last, the spiritual faculty strong within him. But the man, even if he have many and grievous faults, who nevertheless is keenly susceptible of higher things, is the one to whom the voice within speaks with authority not to be gainsaid, and to him that voice is final.

It is this fact that the perception of things spiritual varies from man to man, and depends on character, and involves action of the will, that makes it always possible to represent our knowledge of the law of duty as in itself standing on a less sure foundation than our knowledge of scientific truth. Whether a man has or has not the necessary power of mind to comprehend scientific reasoning is tested with comparative ease.

And if he have that power, the reasoning is certain in course of time to be understood, and when it is understood it compels a.s.sent so long as it keeps within its own proper domain. But the perception of spiritual truth depends on a faculty whose power or weakness it is far more difficult to test; and it involves the will which may be exerted on either side. And for this reason men sometimes dismiss this truth as being no more than an imagination, needed by some men to satisfy an emotional nature, but having no substance that can be brought to an external test. The believer in G.o.d knows that the truth which he holds is as certain as the axioms of mathematics; but he cannot make others know this whose spiritual faculty is not awake; and he is liable to be asked for proof not of the spiritual but of the physical kind.

Now this much must be acknowledged, that we cannot but expect the claim to supremacy over all things to show itself in some way in the creation which has come from Him who makes that claim. It would, no doubt, be a serious difficulty if things physical and things spiritual were cut off from one another by an absolute gulf; if we were required to believe that G.o.d had created and now ruled everything, and yet we could trace not the slightest evidence of His hand either in the creation or in the history of the world.

There are then two ways in which we are able to recognise Him even in this world of phenomena. For in the first place, the creation in its order and its beauty and its marvellous adaptation of means to ends, confirms the a.s.sertion of the spiritual faculty that it owes its origin to an intelligent and benevolent purpose, exhibited in the form in which purpose is always exhibited. It works towards ends which we should expect a holy and benevolent Creator to have in view, and it accomplishes those ends in so large a proportion that, making allowance for the limited range of our knowledge, the general aim of the whole is seen with sufficient clearness. The argument is not strong enough to compel a.s.sent from those who have no ears for the inward spiritual voice, but it is abundantly sufficient to answer those who argue that there cannot be a Creator because they cannot trace His action. And the scientific doctrine of Evolution, which at first seemed to take away the force of this argument, is found on examination to confirm it and expand it. The doctrine of Evolution shows that with whatever design the world was formed, that design was entertained at the very beginning and impressed on every particle of created matter, and that the appearances of failure are not only to be accounted for by the limitation of our knowledge, but also by the fact that we are contemplating the work before it has been completed.

And in the second place, while the creation, the more closely it is examined the more distinctly shows the marks of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, so the history of the world exhibits in the Revelation made to man clear proofs of that heavenly love which corresponds to the character of Him who has put love at the head of all the requirements of His law. The Revelation given to us has undeniably made a real mark on the world. It has upheld millions of men in a holiness of life corresponding in a very real degree to the holiness required by the law of duty. It has perpetually more and more cleared up the true teaching of that law. It is still continuing the same process, and generation after generation is better able to understand that teaching. Its fruits have been a harvest of saints and martyrs, some known and reverenced, some quite unnoticed. It has leavened all literature and all legislation. It has changed the customs of mankind and is still changing them. And if it be replied that all this is nothing but one form of the development of humanity and shows no proof of a Divine Ruler, we have a right to ask what then could be the source of such a development, and how is it that so great a power should always have worked in the name of G.o.d and should have always referred everything to His command? That fanaticism should plead G.o.d's authority without any right to do so is intelligible. But is it intelligible that all this truth and justice and purity and self-sacrificing love, all this obedience to the Supreme Law, should be the fruit of believing a lie? If there be a G.o.d, it is to be expected that He would communicate with His creatures if those creatures were capable of receiving the communication; and if He did communicate with His creatures it is to be expected that His communication would be such as we find in the Bible. The purpose of the Bible, the form of it, the gradual formation of it, the steadily-growing Revelation contained in it, these harmonise with the moral law revealed originally in the conscience. And the effect which the Revelation has produced on human history is real and great. The power which G.o.d's Revelation has exerted on the world is an undeniable fact among phenomena. It is not a demonstration of His existence; but it is a full answer to those who say, 'If G.o.d made and rules the world why do we find no signs of His hand in its course?'

And thirdly, this Revelation has not merely taken the form of a message or a series of messages, but has culminated in the appearance of a person who has always satisfied and still satisfies the conception formed by our spiritual faculty of a human representation of the divine law. Our Lord's life is that law translated into human action, and all the more because human faculties had not first framed the conception which He then came to fulfil, but He exhibited the ideal, and our conception rose as it were to correspond to it. And, as He includes in Himself all the teaching, so does He give from Himself all the power of the Revelation which He came to crown. And every true disciple of Christ can bear witness to the reality of that power in sustaining the soul.

Thus has the G.o.d, whom our spiritual faculty commands us to wors.h.i.+p and to reverence, shown Himself in the world of phenomena. And He has given proofs of His existence and His character precisely corresponding to the conception which He has enabled, and indeed commanded, us to form of Him. And it is because the proofs that He has given are of this nature that we are tempted to ask for more proofs of a different kind.