"As something must have been eternal," says Prof. Wright, "it is easier to suppose it was an intelligent, designing mind which was uncreated from the beginning, and which has brought the universe into being with all its uniformity of laws and complexity of adaptation than to suppose that the eternal substance was matter out of which has come the orderly universe as we know it, with its high grades of intelligence in animals and man.
"The world, as the creation of a supreme intelligence, is partially comprehensible to finite minds. But to suppose that the thought and purpose and will of man are products of material forces is not only a mystery, but an absurdity which cannot long be entertained by any sane mind. The theory of evolution without a God can lay no claim to scientific support. A theory of evolution, designed, controlled and permeated by divine ideas, may be both scientific and in accord with the highest dictates of religious truth."
As to the life hereafter, which the religious concept has always proclaimed, it is a fact demonstrated by history that in all ages, among all people, under all religious forms, the idea of immortality remains fixed and imperishable in the human mind. Every human being in coming into this world brings with him under a form more or less vague this inward belief, desire and hope of immortality. This is God's handwriting on the human soul. And the history of man, the reasoning conscience of man, is God's Bible of life written in man's spiritual nature. And whatever is rational, true and good is of God, and whatever is contrary to the enlightened conscience of man is contrary to the divine purpose of God.
Revelation proclaims God is a spirit and man is a spirit, and after death man in his spiritual being shall live on forever. The latest modern scientific thought fully and powerfully sustains the Bible. It says in substance, in dealing with man we must deal with him as a spiritual being; we must go into a realm that brings us within the sphere of the electrical and magnetic relations of the elements, but on a different plane. First, matter in the invisible world has the same essential basis of formative power so potent in the more tangible relations. Second, the invisible atoms there obey the same essential principles that in a lower grade of activity give visible results. Third, there must be a direct connection between the two conditions of being—the visible and the spiritual—as to be axiomatic. Fourth, there must be a secondary form of the invisible elements ere they assume the visible relation, which is a chemical or electric necessity. In all life this law is absolute. Fifth, in applying this principle to the process of the evolution of man's form we have an explanation of how it must be a natural product of evolutionary life, and that man must follow the same law as the evolution of all spirit that pertains to planetary life. Spirit holds visible things in form by its connection with the magnetic life of the planet. It is the controlling power in shaping the form and organism to correspond to changed conditions. The material form can only exist by keeping itself in harmony with the laws of the elements in the planet, and as long as the planet endures the electric form in man and the electric or instinct form in animals within the radius of its magnetic aurora must exist as a secondary satellite, or miniature concrete expression of the forces in the planet. This principle may give the electric form immortality, and, by reason of the eternal nature of the elements composing it, place it beyond the possibility of dissolution as long as the planetary relation of the elements exists. But with man it goes even further, for the spirit form, having the basic principles of eternal existence in its spiritual composition and having once entered upon organic life, has in itself immortality and the power of self-sustenance from the elements in space and cannot become disintegrated, for it has all the necessary material to keep it in eternal existence as an organism, though the planet should revert to its original status and vanish as a distinct form. This explanation of the nature of spirit gives us a logical ground for the rational consideration of the phenomenon that has been the basis of all the superstitions embalmed in the sacred and curious literature of past ages. That man and probably all types of life have a spiritual or electric counterpart is not a scientific speculation or hypothesis merely, but a logical sequence of the forms that enter into physical organization.
Here in the secondary form, says the author of "Planetary Evolution," is an explanation of the nature of spirit that follows the same principles that construct the physical body and form the same material environments. And the questions of a spiritual life, apart from this principle of a secondary form, cannot be solved by any known formula of a scientific character. On the other hand, the existence of a form holding the powers of thought and action upon the plane of radiant matter gives a satisfactory explanation of the transference of the mental powers that belong to planetary life. The law of correlation and conservation of force prevent their annihilation, and they must exist somewhere. They are a spiritual entity, but should not be regarded as having a supernatural origin.
"The spirit is an evolution of planetary life and cannot be destroyed, and it is natural that its mental attachments to the planet should bring it in contact with the mental development generated there. The spirit would have the power of thought and consecutive reasoning as much after its transition from mortal life as before, but it would lack the power of expression through ordinary channels. It would, however, have the power of inductive electric transfer of thought, and, coming in contact with a spirit embodied, this power of induction would excite the elements in the spirit embodied to equilibrium of mentality, which would give rise to a similarity of thought in both." And here lies the foundation of the doctrine of inspiration which is a process of mental action whereby the mind in the body is raised to a perception and expression of ideas beyond its own range of thought as generated by the physical senses. The result is the upbuilding of the brain organ and the uplifting of the mentality to the purely spiritual plane, and man has thus, by the aid of the spiritual powers, made another stride forward in the domain of spiritual evolution. And man is a spiritualized being with brain organs adapted to the expression of ideas that respond to the spiritual state of life.
It is sometimes assumed that a man cannot be a Christian and a man of science; yet there have been many men of science, from Newton to Lord Kelvin, who were devout Christians. It is also assumed in some quarters that an educated man cannot believe in miracles, or answers to prayer, or special providences. But this is not a fair assumption even from a scientific standpoint. Science affirms the universality of energy and law; Christian theology accepts this fundamental postulate of science and says it is the result of universal spirit and will, or Infinite Mind and volition, which is back of universal energy and law. Energy is spirit and will at work; law is the mode of work. Energy and law are derivative, spirit and will is the primary and ultimate force of the universe.
But says the unbelieving scientist, "I accept energy and law as facts, but do not see that spirit and will are facts." Christianity replies: "You mean by 'see,' mental sight; for in the physical sense you can no more see energy and law than you can see spirit and will, or mind and volition.
"The fact is, science is a search for the invisible or supersensible—for that which lies beyond sense and vision. You call it energy and law, which we say is a result and not a cause, and point to spirit and will, which is the primitive, ultimate, first cause of universal energy and law.
"Would you feel it a just description of yourself if you were described as nothing but a system of energy and law. Energy is action according to law. But there is psychical energy as well as physical energy, or 'a double faced' unity—psychical on one side and physical on the other. Thought, feeling, volition are all species of energy subject to laws of their own. And, what is most wonderful, while they are invisible and intangible they control all physical energy in man and all animal organisms, just as universal spirit and will or volition control all energy and law in the physical universe. Then, is universal energy and law psychical or physical? If it is intelligent and works according to design and purpose with beneficent uniformity it must be psychical, and all physical energy and law is but a manifestation of spiritual energy and purpose."