The subjects already discussed should have prepared us to regard nature as not a merely fortuitous congeries of matter and forces, but as embodying plan, design, and contrivance; and we may now inquire as to the character of these, considered as possible manifestations of mind in nature. The idea that nature is a manifestation of mind, is ancient, and probably universal. It proceeds naturally from the analogy between the operations of nature and those which originate in our own will and contrivance. When men begin to think more accurately, this idea acquires a deeper foundation in the conclusion that nature, in all its varied manifestations, is one vast machine too great and complex for us to comprehend, and implying a primary energy infinitely beyond that of man; and thus the unity of nature points to one Creative Mind.
Even to savage peoples, in whose minds the idea of unity has not germinated, or from whose traditions it has been lost, a spiritual essence appears to underlie all natural phenomena, though they may regard this as consisting of a separate spirit or manitou for every material thing. In all the more cultivated races the ideas of natural religion have taken more definite forms in their theology and philosophy. Dugald Stewart has well expressed the more scientific form of this idea in two short statements:
"1. Every effect implies a cause.
"2. Every combination of means to an end implies intelligence."
The theistic aspect of the doctrine had, as we have seen in a previous lecture, been already admirably expressed by Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. Writing of what every heathen must know of mind in nature, he says: "The invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his eternal power and divinity." The two things which, according to him, every intelligent man must perceive in nature are, first, power above and beyond that of man, and, secondly, superhuman intelligence. Even Agnostic Evolution cannot wholly divest itself of the idea of mind in nature. Its advocates continually use terms implying contrivance and plan when speaking of nature; and Spencer appears explicitly to admit that we cannot divest ourselves of the notion of a First Cause. Even those writers who seek to shelter themselves under such vague and unmeaning statements as that human intelligence must be potentially present in atoms or in the solar energy, are merely attributing superhuman power and divinity to atoms and forces.
Nor can they escape by the magisterial denunciation of such ideas as "anthropomorphic" fancies. All science must in this sense be anthropomorphic, for it consists of what nature appears to us to be when viewed through the medium of our senses, and of what we think of nature as so presented to us. The only difference is this—that if Agnostic Evolution is true, Science itself only represents a certain stage of the development, and can have no actual or permanent truth; while, if the theistic view is correct, then the fact that man himself belongs to the unity of nature and is in harmony with its other parts gives us some guarantee for the absolute truth of scientific facts and principles.
We may now consider more in detail some of the aspects under which mind presents itself in nature.
1. It may be maintained that nature is an exhibition of regulated and determined power. The first impression of nature presented to a mind uninitiated in its mysteries is that it is a mere conflict of opposing forces; but so soon as we study any natural phenomena in detail, we see that this is an error, and that everything is balanced in the nicest way by the most subtle interactions of matter and force. We find also that, while forces are mutually convertible and atoms susceptible of vast varieties of arrangement, all this is determined by fixed law and carried out with invariable regularity and constancy.
The vapor of water, for example, diffused in the atmosphere, is condensed by extreme cold and falls to the ground in snowflakes. In these, particles of water previously kept asunder by heat are united by cohesive force; and the heat has gone on other missions. But these particles do not merely unite: they geometrize. Like well-drilled soldiers arranging themselves in ranks, they form themselves, according to regular axes of attraction, in lines diverging at an angle of sixty degrees; and thus the snowflakes are hexagonal plates and six-rayed stars, the latter often growing into very complex shapes, but all based on the law of attraction under angles of sixty degrees (see Fig. 12). The frost on the window-panes observes the same law, and so does every crystallization of water where it has scope to arrange itself in accordance with its own geometry. But this law of crystallization gives to snow and ice their mechanical properties, and is connected with a multitude of adjustments of water in the solid state to its place in nature. The same law, varied in a vast number of ways in every distinct substance, builds up crystals of all kinds and crystalline rocks, and is connected with countless adaptations of different kinds of matter to mechanical and chemical uses in the arts. It is easy to see that all this might have been otherwise—nay, that it must have been otherwise—but for the institution of many and complex laws.
