But this immutability of natural law is not in the least terrifying when we come to look more closely at it. On the contrary it is within that very immutability that divine beneficence and compassion are hidden. It is only by the constancy if the changeless law that we can calculate with absolute certainty and surely attain the results at which we aim. It is because of the certainty that the doing of evil brings pain and the doing of good yields a return of happiness that we can control circumstances and determine destiny.
Why should there be such a law operating in the mental and moral realm? Because only thus can we evolve. We must not only change from ignorance to wisdom but from selfishness to compassion, from wrong doing to perfect harmlessness. How would that be possible without the law of cause and effect, without action and reaction which brings pleasure for righteousness and pain for evil deeds? Only under such a law can we learn what is the right and what is the wrong thing to do. If it is agreed that we are souls, that evolution is a fact, and that perfection is the goal of the human race, then the necessity for the law of action and reaction is as obvious as the reason for a law of gravity.
The existence and operation of this law of cause and effect are set forth repeatedly in the Christian scriptures. "With what measures ye mete it to others it shall be measured to you," is certainly explicit. In Proverbs[M] we have this definite declaration: "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein, and he that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him." Of course the language is figurative. No writer of common sense would assert that every time a workman digs a pit he shall tumble into it nor that whenever anybody rolls a stone it will roll back upon him! We dig pits in the moral world whenever we undermine the character of another with a false story, whether we originate it or merely repeat it, and into such a pit we shall ourselves fall, in the reaction of the law. We have loosened and set rolling the stones of envy and hatred and they shall return to crush us down to failure and humiliation in the reaction that follows. We have ignorantly generated evil forces under the law when we could have used it for our success and happiness.
"Judge not, that ye be not judged," is another statement of the law of action and reaction. It is not an assertion that we should not judge because we are not qualified nor because we may ignorantly wrong another with such a judgment. It is an explicit statement that the consequence of judging others is that we, in turn, shall be judged. If we criticize, we shall be criticized. If we condemn others for their faults and failures, we shall be condemned. If we are broad and tolerant and remain silent about the frailties of others we shall be tolerantly regarded by others.
All of us who have studied the subject find in our daily lives the evidence of the truth of such Biblical declarations. We know perfectly well that anger provokes anger and that conciliation wins concessions, while retaliation keeps a feud alive. We know that retort calls out retort, while silence restores the peace. In these little things it is usually within the power of either party to the trouble to have peace instead of turmoil—just a matter of self control. But in the larger events it is not always so. They are not invariably within our immediate control because they are often the results of causes generated in the past which we can no longer modify. And this brings us to a wider view of this law of cause and effect.
If we look at the life history of an individual as it stretches out from birth to death it presents a remarkable record of events that appear to have no logical relationship to each other. In childhood, there may have been either great happiness or great sorrow and suffering regardless of the qualities of character we are considering, and there is nothing in the present life of the child to explain either. The child itself may be gentle and affectionate and yet it may be the recipient of gross abuse and cruel misunderstanding. In maturity we may find still greater mysteries. Invariably there are mingled successes and failures, pleasures and pains. But when we come to analyze them we fail to find a satisfactory reason for them. We see that the successes often arrive when they are not warranted by anything that was done to win them, and for the want of any rational explanation we call it "good luck." We also observe that sometimes failure after failure comes when the man is not only doing his very best but when all of his plans will stand the test of sound business procedure. Baffled again we throw logic to the winds and call it "bad luck."
Luck is a word we use to conceal our ignorance and our inability to trace the working of the law. Suppose we were to ask a savage to explain how it is that a few minutes' time with the morning paper enables one to know what happened yesterday in London. He knows nothing of reporters and cables and presses. He cannot explain it. He cannot even comprehend it. But if he is a vain savage and does not wish to admit his ignorance he might solemnly assert that the reason we know is because we are lucky; and he would be using the word just as sensibly as we use it!
If by luck we mean chance, there is no such thing in this world. Chance means chaos and the absence of law. From the magnificent, orderly procession of a hundred million suns and their world systems that wheel majestically through space down to the very atom, with all of its electrons, the universe is a stupendous proclamation of the all-pervading presence of law. It is a mighty panorama of cause and effect. There is no such thing as chance.
What then is good luck? We know that people do receive benefits which they apparently have not earned. There simply cannot be a result without a cause. They have earned it in other lives when the conditions did not permit immediate harvesting of the results of the good forces generated and Nature is paying the debt and making the balance of her books at a later period. It may be in the case of one that some specific act is attracting its reward, or it may be in the case of another that he is nearing the point in evolution where he no longer desires things for himself, only to discover that nature fairly flings her treasures at his feet. He has put himself in harmony with evolutionary law—with the divine plan, and nature withholds nothing.
When we eliminate chance, then, we are forced to seek the cause of unexplained good or bad fortune beyond the boundaries of this life because there is nothing else we can do. We have results to explain and we know they do not come from causes that belong to this life. They must of necessity arise from causes generated in a past life.