The "ultimate repulsion, constituting the extension and impenetrability of the atoms of matter," says Dr. Samuel Brown, "could be conceived of in no other way than as the persistent existence of the will of God himself, in whom we live and move and have our being, and which, if but for an instant withdrawn, the whole material universe and its forces in all their vastness, glory, and beauty, would collapse and sink in a moment into their original nothingness."
The advancement of science, instead of depriving man of his God, only deprives men of their earlier and ruder conceptions of Deity, only to impart a larger and grander thought of Him. "It is true, in the educational process some few minds have lost sight of Him altogether, but these are the exceptional, and therefore notable instances; with the great body of men, the conception of God has steadily enlarged with the progress of science."[75] If science can demonstrate that Evolution is true, then it is God's truth, and as such it is man's religious duty to accept it; if he rejects it, superstitiously or unreasonably, he not only defrauds himself but insults the Author of truth.
What, then, has science demonstrated? Science has demonstrated the Unity of the Forces: Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, motion, are all correlated to one another, and are all mutually convertible one into another. Heat may be said to produce electricity—electricity to produce heat; magnetism to produce electricity—electricity, magnetism, and so on for the rest.
Unity of Matter and Force.—"For if matter were not force, and immediately known as force, it could not be known at all—could not be rationally inferred."
Unity of the Life Substance in all Organic and Animal Bodies.—"A unity of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition."
Unity of Animate and Inanimate Nature in Matter, Form, and Force.
Unity of the Laws of Development.—Hence we can proclaim the unity of all nature and of her laws of development.
In the beautiful words of Giordano Bruno: "A spirit exists in all things, and no body is so small but contains a part of the divine substance within itself, by which it is animated." Hence we arrive at the sublime idea, since we can in no other way account for the ultimate cause of anything, that it is God's spirit which pervades and sustains all nature. By this admission we are not led to say: "There is no God but force;" but rather, "There is no force but God." God is infinite, and therefore includes nature; but is nature all? It is all that our finite minds can discover, 'tis true; but can there not exist another nature or world unknown to us; and if so, since God is infinite, he will include that world also. Let us look to this and see what science can answer.
It will be necessary for us to consider before proceeding, what is meant by the term soul; and this becomes a somewhat difficult task, as the term has been variously applied to signify the principle of life in an organic body, or the first and most undeveloped stages of individualized spiritual being, or finally, all stages of spiritual individuality, incorporeal as well as corporeal.[76] The popular belief is, that the soul is not material but substantial, a divine gift to the highest alone of God's creatures; but scientific men, such as Carl Vogt, Moleschott, Büchner, Schmidt, Haeckel, consider the phenomena of the soul to be functions of the brain and nerves. Schmidt says: "The soul of the new-born infant is, in its manifestations, in no way different from that of the young animal. These are the functions of the infantine nervous system, with this they grow and are developed together with speech."
The idea of the immortality of the soul was not aboriginal with mankind, as Sir J. Lubbock has shown that the barbarous races possess no clear belief of this kind, and Rajah Brook, at a missionary meeting in Liverpool, told his hearers there that the Dyaks, a people with whom he was connected, had no knowledge of God, of a soul, or of any future state.