The unseen universe

by Balfour Stewart; Peter Guthrie Tait

231. If we now turn once more to the Christian system, we find that it recognises such an antecedent as an agent in the universe. He is styled the Lord, and Giver of Life. The third Person of the Trinity is regarded in this system as working in the universe, and therefore in some sense as conditioned. One of His functions consists in distributing and developing this principle of life, which we are forced to regard as one of the things of the universe; just as the second Person of the Trinity is regarded as developing the objective phenomena of the universe. Thus one has entered from everlasting into the universe, in order to develop it objectively, while the other has also entered from everlasting into the universe, in order to develop its subjective elements, life and intelligence.

Thus we read (Gen. i. 2), ‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters;’ implying, we may imagine, a peculiar operation of this Spirit preceding the advent of life into the world. Again, when in the fulness of time, Christ, the developing agent, made His appearance here, and submitted to the trammels of a human nature, this appearance was preceded by an operation of the same Spirit.

232. It may here be desirable to discuss somewhat fully the position of life in the universe, as we are constrained to view it in virtue of the scientifically established principles of biogenesis.

If then the matter of this present visible universe be not capable of itself, that is to say, in virtue of the forces and qualities with which it has been endowed, of generating life; but if we must look to the unseen universe for the origin of life, this would appear to show that the peculiar collocation of matter which accompanies the operations of life is not a mere grouping of particles of the visible universe, but implies likewise some peculiarity in the connection of these with the unseen universe. May it not denote in fact some peculiarity of structure extending to the unseen?

In fine, to go a step further, may not life denote a peculiarity of structure which is handed over not merely from one stage to another—from the invisible to the visible—but which rises upwards from the very lowest structural depths of the material of the universe, this material being regarded as possessed of an infinitely complex structure such as we have pictured to our readers in a previous part of this chapter ([Art. 220]).

If we suppose any such peculiarity to accompany life we cannot fail at once to see the impossibility of its originating in the visible universe alone.

233. Again, it is well known to many of our readers that discussions have frequently arisen regarding the peculiar place and function of life in the universe. What is its relation to energy? it certainly does not create energy—what then does it do?

One way of replying to this question is indicated in the following passage, which we quote at length from an article on ‘The Atomic Theory of Lucretius,’ in the North British Review for March 1868:—

‘It is a principle of mechanics that a force acting at right angles to the direction in which a body is moving does no work, although it may continually and continuously alter the direction in which the body moves. No power, no energy, is required to deflect a bullet from its path, provided the deflecting force acts always at right angles to that path....

‘If you believe in free-will and in atoms, you have two courses open to you. The first alternative may be put as follows: Something which is not atoms must be allowed an existence, and must be supposed capable of acting on the atoms. The atoms may, as Democritus believed, build up a huge mechanical structure, each wheel of which drives its neighbour in one long inevitable sequence of causation; but you may assume that beyond this ever-grinding wheelwork there exists a power not subject to but partly master of the machine; you may believe that man possesses such a power, and if so, no better conception of the manner of its action could be devised than the idea of its deflecting the atoms in their onward path to the right or left of that line in which they would naturally move. The will, if it so acted, would add nothing sensible to nor take anything sensible from the energy of the universe. The modern believer in free-will will probably adopt this view, which is certainly consistent with observation, although not proved by it. Such a power of moulding circumstances, of turning the torrent to the right, where it shall fertilise, or to the left, where it shall overwhelm, but in nowise of arresting the torrent, adding nothing to it, taking nothing from it,—such is precisely the apparent action of man’s will; and though we must allow that possibly the deflecting action does but result from some smaller subtler stream of circumstance, yet if we may trust to our direct perception of free-will, the above theory, involving a power in man beyond that of atoms, would probably be our choice....