Here, then, we have a second and more intimate relationship between the objective and the subjective elements in the religious emotion. They are found to be of kindred nature; or, to speak with stricter caution, it is found that we cannot think of them but as thus akin to one another. We must ever bear in mind, however, that our thoughts upon such a subject as this can be no more than partial approximations to the truth; tentative explorations in a dark region of the mind rather than accurate measurements of the ground. Thus, in the present instance, we have spoken of the Unknowable as more or less akin to the mind of man; yet we cannot think of the Unknowable as resembling the fleeting states which are all that we know by direct observation of the constitution of the mind. It is not the passing and variable modes, but the fixed and unchangeable substratum on which these modes are conceived to be impressed, which the Unknowable must be held to resemble. And this substratum itself is an absolute mystery. We can in no way picture it to ourselves without its modes, which nevertheless we cannot regard as appertaining to its ultimate being. One further consideration will establish a yet closer relationship than that of likeness. The Unknown Reality, which is the source of all phenomena whatsoever, mental and physical, must of necessity include within itself that mode of existence which is manifested in consciousness; for otherwise, we must imagine yet another power as the originator of conscious life, and we should then have two unknown entities, still requiring a higher entity behind them both, to effect that entire harmony which actually subsists between them. The Unknowable is, therefore, the hidden source from which both the great streams of being, internal and external, take their rise. Since, then, our minds themselves originate in that Universal Source, since it comprehends every form of existence within itself, we stand to it in the relation of parts to a whole, in which and by which those parts subsist. There is thus not only likeness but identity of nature between ourselves and our unknown Origin. And it is literally true that in it "we live, and move, and have our being."
From the summit to which we have at length attained, we may survey the ground we have already traversed, and comprehend, now that they lie below us, a few of the intricacies which we met with on our way. The apparent puzzle of automatism, for example, may be resolved into a more comprehensive law. It was shown, at the conclusion of the preceding chapter, that a train of physical events could in no way impinge upon, or pass over into, a train of mental events, nor a state of consciousness be converted into physical movements. But it was hinted that, while the distinction between the two great series of manifestations, those of mind and those of matter, was ultimate in the order of thought, it need not be ultimate in the order of things. Of this suggested possibility we have now found the confirmation; for we have seen that material phenomena, analyzed to their lowest terms, resolve themselves into forms of consciousness, and forms of consciousness, analyzed in their turn, prove to be the varied modes of an unknown subject; and this unknown subject has its roots in the ultimate Being in which both these great divisions of the phenomenal universe find their foundation and their origin. The distinction, therefore, between the mental and the material train belongs to these trains in their character of phenomena alone. They are distinguished in the human mind, not in the order of nature. Thus, if we recur to the illustration used in explaining automatism, we pointed out that in the circumstance of hearing a call and going to the window, two series might be thus distinguished: 1. The material series, consisting of atmospheric undulations, affections of the nerves and matter of the brain, movements of the body; 2. The mental series, consisting of the sensations of sitting still, and hearing of the thought of a person, of the sensations of motion, and seeing the person. Now, if we take the trouble to observe the terms of which the first series is composed, we shall see that they also express states of consciousness, though states of a different kind from those contained in the terms of the second series. Undulations, nervous affections, movements, and so forth, are only intelligible by us as modifications of our consciousness. To conceive in any degree the atmospheric perturbations which are the physical correlatives of sound, we must imagine them as somehow felt or perceived—for instance, as a faint breeze. To conceive the cerebral changes implied in hearing, we must imagine ourselves as dissecting and examining the interior of the brain. In other words, the external train of events to which consciousness runs over parallel can only be represented in thought by translating it into terms of consciousness; and the absolute harmony of both these trains, the fact that while states of consciousness do not originate the movements of our bodies, they yet bear so unvarying a relation to them as to be mistaken for their causes, finds its solution in the reflection that, when we look below the appearances to the reality pervading both, it is the same Universal Being which is manifested in each alike.
Hence, too, the sense of independent power to produce physical effects in accordance with mental conceptions, which forms the great obstacle to the general admission of the doctrine of human automatism. Reason as we may, we still feel that we are reservoirs of force which we give out in the shape of material movement whenever we please and as we please. And if the doctrine of the Persistence of Force appears, by showing that every physical consequent has a purely physical antecedent, to contradict this feeling, we naturally give the preference to the feeling over the doctrine. But since the Persistence of Force is itself no less firmly seated in consciousness than the sense of independent power—since all nature would be a chaos without the Persistence of Force—it is the part of true philosophy to give its due to each. And this may be done by admitting the particle of truth contained in the belief that the human will influences the external world. We are indeed reservoirs of force. But it is not our own peculiar force that is exerted through us; it is the Universal Force, which is evinced no less in the actions of men than in the movements of inanimate nature. And since those actions are in constant unison with their wishes, there is not, and cannot be, the sense of constraint which is usually opposed to voluntary performance. Thus, to take a simple illustration, the necessities of our physical constitution absolutely compel us to support ourselves by food; yet no man feels that in eating his meals he is acting under external compulsion.
It would be a strange except ion indeed to the universal prevalence of unvarying law, if human beings were permitted to exert independent influence upon the order of events. Not in so slovenly a manner has the work of nature been performed. We are no more free to disturb the harmony and beauty of the universe than are the stars in their courses or the planets in their orbits. Our courses and orbits are no less fixed than theirs, and it is but the imperfection of our knowledge, if they have not been, and cannot yet be discovered. But it would be a lamentable blot upon a universe, where all things are fixed by a Power "in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning," were there permitted to exist a race of creatures who were a law unto themselves.
Again, the relation now established between the human mind and the ultimate Source both of mind and matter, serves to throw light upon that dark spot in the hypothesis of evolution—the origin of consciousness. For while in this hypothesis there is a continual progression, of which each step is the natural consequence of another, from the gaseous to the solid condition of our system, from inorganic to organic substances, from the humblest organization to the most complex, there is absolutely no traceable gradation from the absence to the presence of conscious life. No cunning contrivance of science can derive sensation from non-sentient materials, for the difference between the two is not a difference in degree of development, but in kind. There is a radical unlikeness between the two, and it is unphilosophic, as well as unscientific, to disguise the fact that a mere process of material evolution can never lead from the one to the other. "The moment of arising of consciousness," says Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, "is the most important break in the world of phenomena or nature taken as a whole; the phenomena above and the phenomena below it can never be reduced completely into each other; there is a certain heterogeneity between them. But this is not the only instance of such a heterogeneity" (Hodgson's "Theory of Practice," vol. i. p. 340). I venture to say that it is the only instance, and that there is nothing else in nature which can properly be compared with it. The instances of similar heterogeneity which Mr. Hodgson gives appear to me less carefully considered than might have been expected from so careful a writer. That between Time and Space, which is his first case, is involved in that between mind and matter, and is only another expression of it (see supra, p. 447); while "curves and straight lines," and "physical and vital forces," are not truly heterogeneous at all, unless under "vital forces" we include mental effort, and so again illustrate the primary unlikeness by a case included under it. But the last example is remarkable. "Until Mr. Darwin propounded his law of natural selection, it was supposed also [that there was heterogeneity] between species of living organisms in physiology." Now it is the great triumph of the evolutional system to have rid us of this unintelligible break, and to have shown that the whole of the material universe, inorganic and organic, is the result of the unchangeable operation of laws which are no less active now than they have ever been. In other words, evolution dispenses with the necessity of supposing the existence, at some point in the history of the planet, of a special law for the production of species brought into operation ad hoc.
But the general principles which apply to the origin of organic products must apply also to the origin of conscious life. This also must be figured as an evolution. This also must take place without the aid of a special law brought into operation ad hoc. Like the evolution of material products, it can only be conceived as taking place from a preëxisting fund, containing potentially the whole of the effects which are afterwards found in actual existence.
Let us test this by trying to conceive the process in other ways. Consciousness might be supposed to arise in two ways: by special creation, and by uncaused origin, from nothing. Both possibilities are in absolute contradiction to the fundamental principles of evolution. Creation by a superior power is a hypothesis standing on a level with that of the creation of man out of the dust of the earth. To realize it in thought at all we must suppose the very thing intended to be denied, namely, the material of mind already existing in the universe, as that of body existed—in the earth. Otherwise, we should be obliged to admit the unthinkable hypothesis of the origin of something from nothing. This latter difficulty presses with its full force upon the second supposition. Mind would thereby be represented as suddenly springing into being without any imaginable antecedent. For no material antecedent can produce it without an exception to the Persistence of Force, which requires a material consequent. And it cannot arise without any antecedent but by a similar exception.
Neither creation nor destruction can in fact be represented as occurring in nature. We cannot conceive a new being arising out of nothing, or passing into nothing. As the development of the physical universe takes place by the change, composition, decomposition, and re-composition of preëxisting constituents, so it must be with the development of mind. We cannot suppose the origin of sensation, its advance to more varied and complex kinds, through emotions, passions, and reasonings to the most subtle feelings and the profoundest thoughts, without believing that all of these have their source in the Ultimate Reality of nature, which comprehends not these only, but every further perfection of which we may yet be capable in ages to come.
Here, then, is the solution of the difficulty which was shown (p. 690) to beset the theory of abiogenesis; a theory which, if ultimately accepted by science, as I believe it will be, will for the first time bring perfect unity into our conceptions of the development of the world we live in. While science will thus show that there is no impassable break between inorganic and organic forms of matter, philosophy will confirm it by showing, that there is no real distinction between the universal life which is manifested in the (so-called) inanimate forces and constituents of our system and the fragmentary life which comes to light in animated creatures. There is heterogeneity nowhere. There are no breaks in nature. There are no unimaginable leaps in her unbroken course.