Natural Law in the Spiritual World

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Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









           NATURAL LAW

              IN THE

         SPIRITUAL WORLD.


                BY

 HENRY DRUMMOND. F.R.S.E.: F.G.S.



            NEW YORK:
     HURST & CO., PUBLISHERS,
          122 NASSAU ST.




 ARGYLE PRESS
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING,
 24 & 26 WOOSTER ST., N. Y.




Transcriber's Note:

    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek
    text appears as originally printed, except for two significant
    errors as noted at the end of the text.




CONTENTS.


                                     PAGE
 PREFACE,                               5
 INTRODUCTION,                         21
 BIOGENESIS,                           59
 DEGENERATION,                         83
 GROWTH,                               99
 DEATH,                               111
 MORTIFICATION,                       133
 ETERNAL LIFE,                        149
 ENVIRONMENT,                         181
 CONFORMITY TO TYPE,                  203
 SEMI-PARASITISM,                     223
 PARASITISM,                          237
 CLASSIFICATION,                      255




PREFACE.


No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost said
derision, than those which deal with Science and Religion. Science is
tired of reconciliations between two things which never should have been
contrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which it
professes not to need; and the critics 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 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 everywhere run
through the Spiritual World is already beginning to be recognized. 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 apologize 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 address 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 myself, but to certain of my friends it
was more than 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 themselves. 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.

Now this was not simply a scientific coloring given to Religion, the
mere freshening of the theological 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 introduction of Natural Law into the Spiritual
World.