REPLY TO THE ABOVE.
Matter and Spirit.—Our contributor, under this title, has entered upon a boundless field of speculation, in which we have no thought of following him to any considerable distance. A metaphysical discussion of this character would scarcely be appropriate to the pages of The Continental; and our readers would doubtless find the controversy uninteresting, if not altogether unprofitable. We, however, cheerfully insert the paper offered by Lieutenant Phelps, on account of the spirit of earnest piety and love of truth which seem to pervade it; and we shall confine ourselves here to the briefest possible comment which will enable us to make understood our grounds of dissent.
We demur to the suggestion that our ideas, as expressed in the July number, have necessarily any affinity to 'the dogmas of pantheism.' We then wrote thus: 'It is spirit only that animates, informs, and shapes the whole universe. Wherever law prevails (and where does it not?), there is intelligence, spirit, soul, acting to sustain it, during every moment of its operation.' Can anyone seriously question the correctness, and even the entire orthodoxy of this statement? In truth, we do not understand that our contributor himself denies it absolutely, but only in a qualified sense, as we shall presently show. Of course, it could be no other spirit than the Deity, to which our language would be applicable; and we do not see how it can in any way derogate from His attributes, to represent him as acting, by an exertion of spiritual power, to sustain and uphold his creation, during every moment of its existence.
Nor can we comprehend the pertinence of our contributor's disquisition on the great question of free will and necessity, as applicable to our ideas of the relations existing between mind and matter. 'Spirit acts independently of God,' says he. We might well question the truth of this assertion; but we may equally well admit it, so far as any inference may be drawn against the positions we have assumed. The question is not whether the soul of man is compelled to action according to the law of its creation, or is permitted by spontaneous choice to follow its own independent will. This is not point of disagreement; for we have expressed no opinion on this subject, nor upon any other which involves it. On the contrary, we took the question to be simply whether there can be, in the nature of things, any relations of reciprocal influence and mutual coöperation between mind and matter. If this be not the question at issue, both our contributor and ourselves are engaged in a fruitless attempt to enlighten each other. We are well aware that his digression from the main argument to the disputed question of free will, is made for the purpose of attempting to show that all spiritual agency must be like that which he claims for the soul of man—that is to say, it must have a free will, 'constantly departing from its normal state,' acting irregularly and according to the freaks of its own spontaneity. And because there is no such caprice and irregularity in the operation of the laws of nature, the inference is drawn that they cannot be the evidences of spiritual power, in the forces which they govern.
Upon this point there seems to be a radical difference of understanding between our contributor and ourselves. Be it pantheism, or whatever any one else may choose to call it, we entertain the very simple belief that the ultimate laws of nature, impressed upon the material world, are nothing less than the direct power of the Almighty upholding the universe, and controlling all its operations throughout all time from the origin of the creation to its end, if it shall have one. We cannot look upon the system of nature as a piece of machinery, wound up and set a-going, and destined to run its appointed course, with only an occasional glance of its Author to interfere with its regular working. We do not suppose that this constant exercise of power imposes any burden upon the Author of the creation; nor are we conscious of any diminution of his glory, or any denial of his absolute personality, when we consider him as being ever present in all his works, 'animating, informing, and shaping them,' by the perpetual exertion of his omnipotent will.
We do not, by any means, understand our contributor as denying the agency of the Almighty in the establishment of general laws; but his view of the subject is totally different from ours. If we have not misconceived his meaning entirely, he considers the laws of nature as something independent of the operations which they control—a tertium quid interposed between the creator and his work. God is the author; law is the active agent; and material changes are the results. Law is not spirit; and therefore matter is not moved and controlled by spirit. We entirely disclaim any want of respect for our contributor and his thoughts; but we must express our surprise that he should resort to this clumsy and unphilosophical theory, in order to deny the direct agency of spirit in the operations of nature. Law is not separate and distinct from the phenomena which it regulates. It is only a rule or principle, as he himself admits, 'which ceases to be with the accomplishment of its end.' This rule or principle, which implies intelligence and will, must be in the mind of the Author, who operates in accordance with it, and not in the mere matter whose changes it controls. Yet our author strangely says, 'all the objects of nature are the products, not of spirit, but of law, which is itself the product of the one great Creative Spirit whereby all things are.'
But let us admit that this extraordinary theory is sound, and that LAW is the active agent which controls all physical phenomena. Now this thing, called LAW, must be either spirit or matter, or a compound of both. If it be spirit, then it acts upon matter directly; if, on the contrary, it be itself matter, then spirit acts upon it; and, finally, if it be a compound of the two, then it affords still stronger evidence of reciprocal effects, which are decisive of the whole question in dispute. We are conscious, however, that this reasoning is almost puerile; for laws are mere abstractions, and not actual entities. They indicate the mode in which causes produce effects; in other words, they are signs of the intention and purpose with which the Great Spirit carries on all his mighty works.
It is hardly necessary, in order to sustain our position, to follow the steps of our contributor, in his attempted investigation of the mode of communication between the human soul and the outer world, through the senses. Many of his ideas might afford ground for interesting comment. But the point in dispute is too distinct and circumscribed to require many words for its elucidation. It is sufficient to say that in the process of perception through sensation, there must be some point of contact, at which the mind and the material object perceived by it are brought into the relations of mutual influence. Whenever a material object is cognized, there is a direct effect of matter upon the mind. And so, likewise, in every case of voluntary muscular exertion, the mandate of the will is communicated through the nerves, and the spirit thus acts directly upon matter. No refinement of theory will avail to get rid of these obvious facts; for, whatever intermediate agencies may be imagined by way of explanation, they leave the ultimate truth indisputable, that in some mysterious way, spirit and matter do effectually operate upon each other.
We are in no degree committed to the doctrines of modern spiritualism, and we shall not take issue with our contributor in his vehement protest against the belief that disembodied spirits ever visit 'the warm precincts of the cheerful day,' and make themselves known to living mortals. An orthodox Christian, however, might have some hesitation, in view of certain passages of Scripture, in utterly denying the possibility of such phenomena; and every reader of history and student of philosophy might well exclaim with Tennyson:
'Dare I say
No spirit ever brake the band
That stays him from the native land
Where first he walked when wrapped in clay?'