My cup had strengthened them and injured not.
It is but a tiny handful, this, of first flowers; not even a gathering of first-fruits. But they have the fragrance of promise, and a freshness of real rarity. Whether the fruit will set and mature must depend upon the sunshine and the rain and other surroundings of the struggling life, and on the depth of soil and strength of rootage. Of these we cannot judge; but the first-flowers are sweet and pretty and worth a word of welcome.
G. M.
THE CREATOR, AND WHAT WE MAY KNOW OF THE METHOD OF CREATION.[[130]]
The above is the title of a lecture, forming the seventeenth of what are known as the “Fernley Lectures,” delivered annually, by the leading minds in the Ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Society. This specific lecture is the latest of the series, and was delivered in Manchester, August 1st in present year, by the Rev. W. H. Dallinger, LL.D., F.R.S., Pres. R.M.S., etc., Governor of Wesley College, Sheffield.
The lecture occupies an unique position amongst its fellows, and will bear a most favourable comparison with any that have been delivered by the various Presidents of the Royal Society on the sciences of the day. For clearness of argument and lucidity of thought—as far as it goes—it is unsurpassed, and, as a specimen of the power of English language, it is a treat to all who can estimate its value. It is all this, and more, and here its significance and suggestiveness comes in, and I can do no less than characterise its delivery under the circumstances, to an auditory that represents (in the eyes of the sect itself, at all events) the purest form of Evangelical religion, as a startling phenomenon, and as such I consider a notice of it in no way out of place in a theosophical journal. That such a lecture should be allowed to be delivered and favourably received, not only by the audience, but by the Wesleyan body at large, is a “sign of the times” that the intelligent observer cannot fail to discern. It is, undoubtedly, an index finger that marks a large advance in the progress of human emancipation from the increasingly intolerable yoke of Churchianic or Ecclesiastical tyranny; and all “friends of progress” will cheerfully render to the worthy and eloquent lecturer the thanks that are due for his manly and outspoken views upon the profoundest question of the age. The strangest part is the spectacle of a “Minister of the Gospel,” himself a scientist of no mean order, proclaiming from a Methodist platform his adherence to, and acceptance of, the doctrines of Charles Darwin, as true exponents of the “Method of Creation,” which means that “Natural Selection,” and survival of the “Fittest,” accounts for the origin of species and the indefinite variety of extinct and extant animal forms of life. Why not include vegetable forms as[as] well? Methinks the fabulous “missing link” between the vegetable and animal kingdoms may, without much difficulty, be actually spotted. Nature, as delineated by the great “Naturalist,” must have been very peevish and unkind to her worshippers, when she mocks them by destroying every vestige, even to the veriest fragmentary fossil, of this anxiously looked for and expectant missing link, between the animal (brute) and man! To my view, the continuous chain of sequential life forms, as presented in the Darwinian theory, evinces a vast number of “missing links,” and, unless these can be supplied, it will not bear the strain when tested by the unclouded intellect of man. The philosopher of Materialism may accept the Darwinian theories (for as yet they are nothing less or more) as gospel, but the spiritual philosopher will not, nor can he accept them as truth, simply because he recognises a factor, which is an abomination in the eyes of the materialistic “wise ones.” It is this factor that the eloquent and learned lecturer pleads for, without suspecting what it really is. I have reason to know that our reverend scientist regards this “Spiritual” factor with the utmost contempt. But I leave this, and pass on to notice some of the really valuable thoughts and facts that ennoble the lecture, which is addressed to “thoughtful and earnest minds, not concerned specially with questions of philosophy, metaphysics, and science, but alive to the advanced knowledge and thought of our times, and anxious to know how the great foundation of religious belief, the existence of Deity, is affected by the splendid advance of our knowledge of nature.”
This expression “existence of Deity” is conveniently elastic enough to cover the ground of argument by a scientific theologian, inasmuch as it may be taken to mean a personal God, according to sound Evangelical belief, and thus assume a plausible defence of Theism versus Atheism; or, it may admit of a much wider application to an “Unknown God”; for when the lecturer does venture to delineate the characteristic of Deity as the Creator, it is such terms as “Inscrutable Power or Creator,” “Eternal Mind,” “Infinite Intelligence,” &c., which is tantamount to saying that the Primal Cause of all that is, is unknowable; and if this is what Dr. Dallinger really means, he is at one with the Spiritual Philosopher; but this will be a curious weapon in the hands of an ecclesiastical theologian—as dangerous as it is curious. By the use of these terms the reverend author shields himself from the charge of materialistic heresy, albeit to the clear-sighted one there are several, if not many, weak and vulnerable points in the defensive armour; but if the adherents and votaries of the “faith once delivered to the saints” might be a little chary in their acceptance of him as a “sound” exponent of religious truth, yet all progressive minds will hail him as a fearless champion for the truth as delivered by the Book of Nature and interpreted by the splendid achievements of modern science.
“The study of phenomena, their succession and their classification, is the essential work of science. It has no function, and is possessed of no instrument with which to look behind or below the sequence, in quest of some higher relation. The eye and mind of the experimentalist know only of antecedent and consequent. These fill the whole circle of his research; let him find these, and he has found all.”
Here the domain of “science” is defined by a master mind, which tells us that “the researches of science are physical.” The observable, finite contents of space and time are the subjects of its analysis. Existence, not the cause of existence, succession, not the reason of succession, method, not the origin of method, are the subjects of physical research. A primordial cause cannot be the subject of experiment nor the object of demonstration. It must for ever transcend the most delicate physical re-action, the profoundest analysis, and the last link in the keenest logic. Science refuses absolutely to recognise mind as the primal cause of the sequences of matter. This is just—within the strict region of its research—for phenomena, their sequences and classification, are its sole domain. But observe; science universally puts force where the reason asks for cause. The forces affecting matter are tacitly assumed to be competent to account for every activity, every sequence, every phenomenon, and all the harmonies of universal being, a nexus for the infinite diversities and harmonies, a basis for all the equilibrium of nature, is found by modern science in force. But force is as absolutely inscrutable as mind. Force can never be known in itself; it is known by its manifestations. It is not a phenomenon, it produces phenomena. We cannot know it; but we know nothing without it. The ultimate analysis of physical science is the relations of matter and force. In irreducible terms, therefore, the final analysis of science is matter as affected by motion.