But how can the humanities, with which we suppose the universe to be peopled,—how can they communicate with one another?
The law of attraction comprehends not only the celestial bodies, but also their intervals, the intersidereal spaces. Do these spaces present a void to the thinking beings who probably people the stars?
Everything, force and matter, testifies to an entire unity of plan or thought, and the mind which is powerful enough to rise above all the attractions and influences of the body, the mind which, by its continuous labour, alone renders life and man of any importance, the mind once detached from the animal nature which it drags behind it like a prisoner to the chariot of his conqueror, shall it be inferior to inert matter? shall it be less than a ship without its compass? Continuous here, shall that continuity be elsewhere broken up? Surely this is impossible.
But how are we to recognise this continuity of essence in a spirit which, like man's, appears unavoidably fixed, like a parasite, to the surface of a planet?
Here lies the whole difficulty of the question; a question all the more perplexing because, in the search after scientific truth, the mind walks surely and steadily, except when resting upon the senses,—which are the backbone, so to speak, of the experimental method.
Answers, indeed, are not wanting, for each religion has its own. Every creed attempts to solve the problem. But then, faith is required to accept the answer or solution, and alas! faith is not implanted in every soul. It is useless, therefore, to wish that it might be the gift of those who, to the authority of tradition and long-established dogmas, prefer the liberty of discussion and the axioms of science. Are our bigots actually aware of what they do when they seek to compel into their circle of belief those minds which tend to escape from it at a tangent? We assert that in so doing they are guilty of an act of iniquity, of a veritable blasphemy.
Some explanation is necessary here. You believe, we hope, in the majesty, power, wisdom, and mercy of God, in the revelations He has vouchsafed to man, in the immortality of the soul. These are great problems, however; the greatest problems a mortal can venture to discuss. Already I see the bigot frowning; he professes to be shocked by the word "problem," he would fain substitute for it that of "certainty" or "truth." Well, through faith we accept them as truths; but, metaphysically speaking, they may be regarded as problems which the All-wise has submitted to man's earnest consideration. In fact, the God in whom you and we believe, in whom you and we put all our trust, has surrounded them with something of uncertainty, has invested them with so much of doubtfulness as may test our faith.
Yes, in doing so, He has had a purpose to fulfil. Let us think of a geometrician—and an ancient writer said that God, by creating the world, created geometry—for the sake of exercising the minds of his pupils, his children, giving them a problem to be solved.
If at the same time, he placed before them the solution, he would assuredly fail in his object. No means would remain of distinguishing the capable from the incapable, the studious from the indifferent, the idler from the worker, if they all found the question answered beforehand!