2. Again, I have used the term vital principle. I must justify it. I know full well that it is the fashion to ridicule the term as a remnant of an old superstition which regards vital force as a sort of supernatural entity unrelated to other forces of Nature. No one has striven more earnestly than myself to establish the correlation of vital with physical and chemical forces;[45] and yet, if the view above presented be true, there is a kind of justification even for the term vital principle—much more, vital force. There is a kind of reason and true insight in the personification of the forces of Nature, and especially of vital force. All forces, by progressive dynamic individuation, are on the way toward entity or personality, but fully attain that condition only in man.
3. Again, to perceive relations and properties abstracted from material things, to form abstract or general ideas, to form not only percepts but also concepts, is admitted to be a characteristic of man—a characteristic on which all our science and philosophy rest. From time immemorial the vexed question has been debated, “Have such abstract or general ideas any real existence, or are they mere names of figments of the mind?” This is the famous question of realism and nominalism. Now, if our view be correct, then there is one most fundamental abstraction, viz., self, which is indeed a reality. Self-consciousness is the direct recognition of the one reality, spirit, of which all others are the sign and shadow—the true reality which underlies and gives potency to all abstractions or ideas. Do we not find in this view, then, the foundation of a true realism, or rather a complete reconciliation of realism and nominalism?
4. Thus, then, Nature, through the whole geological history of the earth, was gestative mother of spirit, which, after its long embryonic development, came to birth and independent life and immortality in man. Is there any conceivable meaning in Nature without this consummation? All evolution has its beginning, its course, its end. Without spirit-immortality this beautiful cosmos, which has been developing into increasing beauty for so many millions of years, when its evolution has run its course and all is over, would be precisely as if it had never been—an idle dream, an idiot tale signifying nothing. I repeat: Without spirit-immortality the cosmos has no meaning. Now mark: It is equally evident that, without this gestative method of creation of spirit, the whole geological history of the earth previous to man would have no meaning. If man’s spirit were made at once out of hand, why all this elaborate preparation by evolution of the organic kingdom? The whole evolution of the cosmos through infinite time is a gestative process for the birth of spirit—a divine method of the creation of spirits.
Thus, again, man is born of Nature into a higher nature. He therefore alone is possessed of two natures—a lower, in common with animals, and a higher, peculiar to himself. The whole mission and life-work of man is the progressive and finally the complete dominance, both in the individual and in the race, of the higher over the lower. The whole meaning of sin is the humiliating bondage of the higher to the lower. As the material evolution of Nature found its goal, its completion, and its significance in man, so must man enter immediately upon a higher spiritual evolution to find its goal and completion and its significance in the ideal man—the Divine man. As spirit, unconscious in the womb of Nature, continued to develop by necessary law until it came to birth and independent life in man, so the new-born spirit of man, both in the individual and in the race, must ever strive by freer law to attain, through a newer birth, unto a higher life.
CHAPTER V.
THE RELATION OF GOD TO MAN.
In the two preceding chapters we have discussed the relation of God to Nature and of man to Nature. There is still another relation, if possible, of still more vital importance to us, viz., the relation of God to man. This, of course, introduces the question of revelation—a subject which I approach with some reluctance. I feel I am treading on holy ground, and must do so with shoes removed. If it be asked, How is evolution concerned with the subject of revelation? I answer Evolution emphasizes and enforces the reign of law taught by all science, and makes it at last universal. Many conclude, therefore, that, if evolution be true, a belief in the possibility of any form of revelation is irrational. I do not think this follows, and I will give my reasons. I do so, however, very briefly, because we are not yet ready to formulate our views except in the most general way.
If man be indeed something more than a higher species of animal; if man’s spirit be indeed a spark of Divine energy individuated to the point of self-consciousness and recognition of his relation to God; if spirit embryo, developing in the womb of Nature through all geological time, came to birth and independent spirit-life in man, and thus man alone is a child of God as well as a product of Nature—if all this be true, then it is evident that this wholly new relation requires also a wholly different mode of Divine operation. If God operates on Nature only by regular processes, which we call natural laws, then he must operate on spirit in a different and a more direct way, and this we call revelation. If to the student of Nature it is inconceivable that He should operate on Nature except by natural laws (for this is the name we give to His chosen mode of operation there), then to the student of theology it is equally inconceivable, if our view of man be true, that He should not operate on spirit in some more direct and higher way, i. e., by revelation.
But some will ask, Is not this a palpable violation of law? I think not. All divine operations are, must be, according to reason, i. e., according to law. The operation of the divine on the human spirit, i. e., revelation, must therefore be according to law, but a higher law than that which governs Nature, and, therefore, from the point of view of Nature, supernatural. There is nothing wholly unique in this. Life is a higher form of force than the physical and chemical. Life-phenomena are therefore super-physical, and if we confined the term Nature to dead Nature they would be supernatural. So the free, self-determined acts of spirit on spirit, even of the spirit of man on the spirit of man, much more of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man, may be according to law, and yet from the natural point of view be supernatural. It is true that, in the complex of phenomena, material and spiritual inextricably woven together, which go to make up human life, Science must ever strive to reduce as much as possible to material laws, for this is her domain, and she is bound to extend it; but, if our view of man be true, there will always remain a large residuum of phenomena—a whole world of phenomena—which will never yield, because clearly beyond her domain. Standing on the lower material plane, these phenomena are wholly super-material, and therefore incomprehensible from the material point of view. We must rise and stand on the higher plane before these also are reduced to law, but a higher law than that operating on the lower plane. If, therefore, science insists on banishing the supernatural from the realm of Nature, theology may reasonably insist on its necessity, in this sense, in the realm of morals and religion.