It is, perhaps, here permissible to suggest a possible point of reconciliation between the natural desire of men to obtain evidence of their spiritual survival of organic decay and that disregard of individual importance and advantage which is characteristic of a purely secular interpretation of the laws of Nature. The Christian, whose creed includes immortality as the birthright of his soul and the crown of his religious faith, resents the exclusion of all personal interest from the consideration of natural phenomena. For instance, with regard to the effect which physical death is supposed to exercise on his individuality, Science and Religion, regarding the phenomenon from different points of view, appear to be in opposition of opinion. But is this really the case? Is there not in reality fundamental unity between the secular and sacred aspects of all natural phenomena?
It has been suggested that the sliding scale of physical consciousness has its psychical counterpart in moral ideals, from which the aspirations and perceptions of men reach out towards spiritual apprehension. Can endorsement of this supposition be drawn from the realm of Natural Science? What reasonable evidence is forthcoming in support of the conjecture?
Although dogmatic distinction between the organic and inorganic kingdoms can be of no permanent value (since what is to-day classified as non-living matter may possibly to-morrow be declared to belong to the organic world), yet there is justification—drawn from observation of the simple characteristics of clearly defined organic and inorganic matter—for remarking the former to be distinguished by apparent sensory consciousness, which may therefore be called an active ingredient of manifested life; but the latter shows no such apparent consciousness, and can therefore be called a passive ingredient. Both forms of matter react upon each other, and are inextricably present in life contemplated as a whole. And both forms of matter are interdependent upon a logical sequence of action, by which the supreme Spirit of Life pervades and controls all manifested life. By this maintained interaction, perpetual manifestation of life is carried on, and the cycle of Birth and Death as a recurring demonstration of being is shown to be the transmuting accompaniment of the progressive will of the Spirit of Life. Continuance of sensation in an individual is dependent upon the maintenance of correspondence between its organisation and its environment, cessation of which is synonymous with death. In other words, matter hitherto possessing an individual consciousness, manifested by response to its environment, is resolved into particles of matter which show no united susceptibility to environment, and which are therefore not deserving of description as an individual living organism. Conversely, birth is a resolution of (in the above sense) inorganic matter into organic.
The more complicated an organism the wider its environment, and to the degree of its susceptibility the more liable to resolution into inorganic matter, unless a corresponding degree of ability to protect itself from danger continues to accompany its evolution. In the case of man, knowledge of how to maintain his bodily health must keep pace with intellectual development if the balance between physical consciousness and psychical apprehension is to be properly sustained. Psychical apprehension can be translated into physical comprehension only through the medium of sense, and appreciation of the meaning and value of spiritual life through the medium of the brain. Health of body is necessary for health of mind, and the co-operation of mind and body is necessary for the apprehension of spiritual truths.
Now consciousness, both in its physical and psychical aspects, is manifested by the response of an organism to its environment, and in the case of organisms characterised by the possession of brain, more particularly by the power to register sensation. Human consciousness is achieved largely by an ability to perceive and register contrast in the impressions conveyed to the understanding, and it is the exercising of this faculty which leads to an established recognition of Moral Law. Appreciation of the existence of shadow and darkness presupposes the existence of light, and distinction between these contrasts is summarised by the sense of sight. In like manner, the perception of truth rests upon the power to recognise falsehood, and an estimation of what constitutes honesty on a corresponding idea of dishonesty. The sensation of pleasure is obtained from the possession of a correspondingly acute capacity to feel pain, discrimination placing value on either polaric contrary proportionate to the sensory capacity involved. In short, the register of abstract qualities is more or less dependent upon an appreciation of their antitheses—the moral worth of virtue being determinable by the degree of perceptive discrimination displayed in recognition of its contrast. Just as vision is a result of light, only known to us as vision and formulated as such by reason of its contrast or absence, darkness, which spells blindness, so the idea of good is only known to us by force of its contrast, evil. Registration of the alternating sides of the swing of this polaric machinery of sense makes for an advance in moral and spiritual, as well as in physical consciousness. Evil, on the moral plane of consideration, is as entirely a result of ignorance and absence of good as blindness on the physical plane of actuality is the consequence of perpetual darkness, or insensibility to light. The negative elements of both conditions possess a potential possibility of transmutation into positive elements—the operation of psychical and physical alchemism forming the dual revelation of a God of Love, whereby those who are blind in spirit and body are made to see, to the end that the whole consciousness of man may be confirmed by his increasing knowledge of the glory of his Creator.
To be unable to suffer would entail insensibility to pleasure, and no moral meaning could in this case be evolved from and attached to the idea of feeling. But it is precisely by reason of his attainment of a high degree of consciousness, manifested by the ability to register sensation, that man can claim a comparatively high position in the evolutionary scale; and if suffering and death be indeed a result of his prehistoric interference with an originally painless scheme of Creation, it is difficult to reconcile the benefits he appears to have thereby gained with the idea of such being a punishment for his wrong-doing inflicted upon him by God. For since perception of contrast in abstract quality is absolutely necessary for the obtaining of conscience on the moral plane of thought—that is, for recognition of good and evil, and for the ability to transmute evil into good—it follows that where such perception does not exist there can be no moral responsibility attaching to individual action, no possibility of attaining a dominant spiritual consciousness, and no question of sharing the redemptive mission of Love. In the words of Christ, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth" (St John ix. 41).
It is conceivable that just as that which to the eyes of men appears as darkness is not in the same degree dark to creatures whose habits have developed visual organs differing from those of man, so on the moral plane that which appears as evil to one man may to his differently developed brother seem less evil, and to creatures less highly organised than man, even good. No quality, physical, moral or spiritual, can be restricted or finally actualised; and no one man's opinion of what is estimable can stand as a perfectly true expression of any but his own ideas.
To sum up. The existence of pain is as necessary to the appreciation of pleasure as the existence of evil is to the appreciation of good. Therefore we may regard the sliding scale of consciousness as a register of sensation, a scale adapted to actual physical life and necessary for its continuity and development; and a scale which has its exact psychical counterpart in moral ideals, from which the evolving aspirations and perceptions of men reach out towards spiritual life. The degree of all quality, physical and moral, appears to be primarily dependent upon the capacity to feel—the capacity of consciousness. And upon the perception of contrast rests the possibility of attaining to a dominant plane of spiritual consciousness, and the power to become an active and willing agent in the divinely ordered transmuting, redemptive, and progressive government of life.
It is especially with regard to the spiritual consciousness of man, and of man's participation in the divine government of life, that the doctrine of Christ controverts the idea of suffering as an evil. In His verbal teaching, and in His rite of communion established as a symbolic epitome of His spiritual convictions, there is a clear acknowledgment of the fundamental unity of Nature—a basic point of argument which is also adopted to-day by every scientist in all departments of research. Christ laid particular emphasis upon the spiritual unity of man with God, He Himself speaking as a son of God—a manifestation of the divine Spirit of Life. He urged the following of His example upon His disciples, trying to open the blind eyes and deaf ears of men who had as yet so imperfect an understanding of spiritual things. He tried to teach them to look at life from His point of view. Did He not regard the son of man as the expression of God, recognition of which spiritual truth gave Him, as it can give to all, assurance of eternal life? The Spirit of Life which is in every man cannot die, for it is part of God, who is Life without beginning and without end. Only the expression or medium of spirit, only the finite form, is mortal. Spirit is infinite and immortal.
Such sayings as the following, attributed to Christ and His disciples, are expressive of the relation of man to God, and each may be seen to form a logical corollary of the other:—