MORTIFICATION
"If by tying its main artery, we stop most of the blood going to a
limb, then, for as long as the limb performs its function, those parts
which are called into play must be wasted faster than they are repaired:
whence eventual disablement. The relation between due receipt of nutritive
matters through its arteries, and due discharge of its duties by the limb,
is a part of the physical order. If instead of cutting off the supply to a
particular limb, we bleed the patient largely, so drafting away the
materials needed for repairing not one limb but all limbs, and not limbs
only but viscera, there results both a muscular debility and an
enfeeblement of the vital functions. Here, again, cause and effect are
necessarily related. . . . Pass now to those actions more commonly thought
of as the occasions for rules of conduct."
HERBERT SPENCER.
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon earth"— Paul.
"O Star-eyed Science ! hast thou wandered there
To waft us home the message of despair?"—Campbell.
THE definition of Death which science has given us is this: A falling
out of correspondence with environment. When, for example, a man loses the
sight of his eyes, his correspondence with the environing world is
curtailed. His life is limited in an important direction; he is less
living than he was before. If, in addition, he lose the senses of touch
and hearing, his correspondences are still further limited; he is
therefore still further dead. And when all possible correspondences have
ceased, when the nerves decline to respond to any stimulus, when the lungs
close their gates against the air, when the heart refuses to correspond
with the blood by so much as another beat, the insensate corpse is wholly
and for ever dead. The soul, in like manner, which has no correspondence
with the spiritual environment is spiritually dead. It may be that it
never possessed the spiritual eye or the spiritual ear, or a heart which
throbbed in response to the love of God. If so, having never lived, it
cannot be said to have died. But not to have these correspondences is to
be in the state of Death. To the spiritual world, to the Divine
Environment, it is dead—as a stone which has never lived is dead to the
environment of the organic world.
Having already abundantly illustrated this use of the symbol Death, we
may proceed to deal with another class of expressions where the same term
is employed in an exactly opposite connection. It is a proof of the
radical nature of religion that a word so extreme should have to be used
again and again in Christian teaching, to define in different directions
the true spiritual relations of mankind. Hitherto we have concerned
ourselves with the condition of the natural man with regard to the
spiritual world. We have now to speak of the relations of the spiritual
man with regard to the natural world. Carrying with us the same essential
principle—want of correspondence—underlying the meaning of Death, we shall
find that the relation of the spiritual man to the natural world, or at
least to part of it, is to be that of Death.
When the natural man becomes the spiritual man the great change is
described by Christ as a passing from Death unto Life. Before the
transition occurred, the practical difficulty was this, how to get into
correspondence with the new Environment? But no sooner is this
correspondence established than the problem is reversed. The question now
is, how to get out of correspondence with the old environment? The moment
the new life is begun there comes a genuine anxiety to break with the old.
For the former environment has now become embarrassing. It refuses its
dismissal from consciousness. It competes doggedly with the new
Environment for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundred ways the
former traditions, the memories and passions of the past, the fixed
associations and habits of the earlier life, now complicate the new
relation. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself in
correspondence with two environments, each with urgent but yet
incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a double world, a world
whose inhabitants are deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetual civil-war.
The position of things is perplexing. It is clear that no man can
attempt to live both lives. To walk both in the flesh and in the spirit is
morally impossible. "No man," as Christ so often emphasized, "can serve
two masters." And yet, as matter of fact, here is the new-born being in
communication with both environments? With sin and purity, light and
darkness, time and Eternity, God and Devil, the confused and undecided
soul is now in correspondence. What is to be done in such an emergency?
How can the New Life deliver itself from the still-persistent past?
A ready solution of the difficulty would be to die. Were one to die
organically, to die and "go to heaven," all correspondence with the lower
environment would be arrested at a stroke. For Physical Death of course
simply means the final stoppage of all natural correspondences with this
sinful world. But this alternative, fortunately or unfortunately, is not
open. The detention here of body and spirit for a given period is
determined for us, and we are morally bound to accept the situation. We
must look then for a further alternative.
Actual Death being denied us, we must ask ourselves if there is nothing
else resembling it—no artificial relation, no imitation or semblance of
Death which would serve our purpose. If we cannot yet die absolutely,
surely the next best thing will be to find a temporary substitute. If we
cannot die altogether, in short, the most we can do is to die as much as
we can. And we now know this is open to us, and how. To die to any
environment is to withdraw correspondence with it, to cut ourselves off,
so far as possible, from all communication with it. So that the solution
of the problem will simply be this, for the spiritual life to reverse
continuously the processes of the natural life. The spiritual man having
passed from Death unto Life, the natural man must next proceed to pass
from Life unto Death. Having opened the new set of correspondences, he
must deliberately close up the old. Regeneration in short must be
accompanied by Degeneration.
Now it is no surprise to find that this is the process everywhere
described and recommended by the founders of the Christian system. Their
proposal to the natural man, or rather to the natural part of the
spiritual man, with regard to a whole series of inimical relations, is
precisely this. If he cannot really die, he must make an adequate approach
to it by "reckoning himself dead." Seeing that, until the cycle of his
organic life is complete he cannot die physically, he must meantime die
morally, reckoning himself morally dead to that environment which, by
competing for his correspondences, has now become an obstacle to his
spiritual life.
The variety of ways in which the New Testament writers insist upon this
somewhat extraordinary method is sufficiently remarkable And although the
idea involved is essentially the same throughout, it will clearly
illustrate the nature of the act if we examine separately three different
modes of expression employed in the later Scriptures in this connection.
The methods by which the spiritual man is to withdraw himself from the old
environment—or from that part of it which will directly hinder the
spiritual life—are three in number:—
It will be found in practice that these different methods are adapted,
respectively, to meet three different forms of temptation; so that we
possess a sufficient warrant for giving a brief separate treatment to
each.
First, Suicide. Stated in undisguised phraseology, the advice of Paul
to the Christian, with regard to a part of his nature, is to commit
suicide. If the Christian is to "live unto God," he must "die unto sin."
If he does not kill sin, sin will inevitably kill him. Recognising this,
he must set himself to reduce the number of his correspondences—retaining
and developing those which lead to a fuller life, unconditionally
withdrawing those which in any way tend in an opposite direction. This
stoppage of correspondences is a voluntary act, a crucifixion of the
flesh, a suicide.
Now the least experience of life will make it evident that a large
class of sins can only be met, as it were, by Suicide. The peculiar
feature of Death by Suicide is, that it is not only self-inflicted but
sudden. And there are many sins which must either be dealt with suddenly
or not at all. Under this category, for instance, are to be included
generally all sins of the appetites and passions. Other sins, from their
peculiar nature, can only be treated by methods less abrupt, but the
sudden operation of the knife is the only successful means of dealing with
fleshly sins. For example, the correspondence of the drunkard with his
wine is a thing which can be broken off by degrees only in the rarest
cases. To attempt it gradually may in an isolated case succeed, but even
then the slightly prolonged gratification is no compensation for the slow
torture of a gradually diminishing indulgence. "If thine appetite offend
thee cut it off," may seem at first but a harsh remedy; but when we
contemplate on the one hand the lingering pain of the gradual process, on
the other its constant peril, we are compelled to admit that the principle
is as kind as it is wise. The expression "total abstinence" in such a case
is a strictly biological formula. It implies the sudden destruction of a
definite portion of environment by the total withdrawal of all the
connecting links. Obviously of course total abstinence ought thus to be
allowed a much wider application than to cases of "intemperance." It is
the only decisive method of dealing with any sin of the flesh. The very
nature of the relations makes it absolutely imperative that every victim
of unlawful appetite, in whatever direction, shall totally abstain. Hence
Christ's apparently extreme and peremptory language defines the only
possible, as well as the only charitable, expedient: "If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. And if thy right hand
offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee."
The humanity of what is called "sudden conversion" has never been
insisted on as it deserves. In discussing "Biogenesis"[65]
it has been already pointed out that while growth is a slow and gradual
process, the change from Death to Life alike in the natural and spiritual
spheres is the work of a moment. Whatever the conscious hour of the second
birth may be—in the case of an adult it is probably defined by the first
real victory over sin—it is certain that on biological principles the real
turning-point is literally a moment. But on moral and humane grounds this
misunderstood, perverted, and therefore despised doctrine is equally
capable of defence. Were any reformer, with an adequate knowledge of human
life, to sit down and plan a scheme for the salvation of sinful men, he
would probably come to the conclusion that the best way after all, perhaps
indeed the only way, to turn a sinner from the error of his ways would be
to do it suddenly.
Suppose a drunkard were advised to take off one portion from his usual
allowance the first week, another the second, and so on! Or suppose at
first he only allowed himself to become intoxicated in the evenings, then
every second evening, then only on Saturday nights, and finally only every
Christmas? How would a thief be reformed if he slowly reduced the number
of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by gradually diminishing the number of
his blows? The argument ends with an ad absurdum. "Let him that stole
steal no more," is the only feasible, the only moral, and the only humane
way. This may not apply to every case, but when any part of man's sinful
life can be dealt with by immediate Suicide, to make him reach the end,
even were it possible, by a lingering death, would be a monstrous cruelty.
And yet it is this very thing in "sudden conversion," that men object
to—the sudden change, the decisive stand, the uncompromising rupture with
the past, the precipitate night from sin as of one escaping for his life.
Men surely forget that this is an escaping for one's life. Let the poor
prisoner run—madly and blindly if he likes, for the terror of Death is
upon him. God knows, when the pause comes, how the chains will gall him
still.
It is a peculiarity of the sinful state, that as a general rule men are
linked to evil mainly by a single correspondence. Few men break the whole
law. Our natures, fortunately, are not large enough to make us guilty of
all, and the restraints of circumstances are usually such as to leave a
loophole in the life of each individual for only a single habitual sin.
But it is very easy to see how this reduction of our intercourse with evil
to a single correspondence blinds us to our true position. Our
correspondences, as a whole, are not with evil, and in our calculations as
to our spiritual condition we emphasize the many negatives rather than the
single positive. One little weakness, we are apt to fancy, all men must be
allowed, and we even claim a certain indulgence for that apparent
necessity of nature which we call our besetting sin. Yet to break with the
lower environment at all, to many, is to break at this single point. It is
the only important point at which they touch it, circumstances or natural
disposition making habitual contact at other places impossible. The sinful
environment, in short, to them means a small but well-defined area. Now if
contact at this point be not broken off, they are virtually in contact
still with the whole environment. There may be only one avenue between the
new life and the old, it may be but a small and subterranean passage, but
this is sufficient to keep the old life in. So long as that remains the
victim is not "dead unto sin," and therefore he cannot "live unto God."
Hence the reasonableness of the words, "Whosoever shall keep the whole
law, and yet offend at one point, he is guilty of all." In the natural
world it only requires a single vital correspondence of the body to be out
of order to ensure Death. It is not necessary to have consumption,
diabetes, and an aneurism to bring the body to the grave if it have
heart-disease. He who is fatally diseased in one organ necessarily pays
the penalty with his life, though all the others be in perfect health. And
such, likewise, are the mysterious unity and correlation of functions in
the spiritual organism that the disease of one member may involve the ruin
of the whole. The reason, therefore, with which Christ follows up the
announcement of His Doctrine of Mutilation, or local Suicide, finds here
at once its justification and interpretation: "If thy right eye offend
thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should
be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast
it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
Secondly, Mortification. The warrant for the use of this expression is
found in the well-known phrases of Paul, "If ye through the Spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live," and " Mortify therefore your
members which are upon earth." The word mortify here is, literally, to
make to die. It is used, of course, in no specially technical sense; and
to attempt to draw a detailed moral from the pathology of mortification
would be equally fantastic and irrelevant. But without in any way
straining the meaning it is obvious that we have here a slight addition to
our conception of dying to sin. In contrast with Suicide, Mortification
implies a gradual rather than a sudden process. The contexts in which the
passages occur will make this meaning so clear, and are otherwise so
instructive in the general connection, that we may quote them, from the
New Version, at length: "They that are after the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and
peace: because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be: and they that are in
the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the
Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. But if any man hath
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ is in you, the
body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of
righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall
quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that
dwelleth in you. So then, brethren, we are debtors not to the
flesh, to live after the flesh: for if ye live after the flesh ye must
die; but if by the Spirit ye mortify the doings (marg.) of the body, ye
shall live."[66]
And again, "If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the
things that are above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are
upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When
Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him
be manifested in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the
earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,
the which is idolatry; for which things' sake cometh the wrath of God upon
the sons of disobedience; in the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye
lived in these things. But now put ye also away all these; anger, wrath,
malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth: lie not one to
another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have
put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image
of Him that created him."[67]
From the nature of the case as here stated it is evident that no sudden
process could entirely transfer a man from the old into the new relation.
To break altogether, and at every point, with the old environment, is a
simple impossibility. So long as the regenerate man is kept in this world,
he must find the old environment at many points a severe temptation. Power
over very many of the commonest temptations is only to be won by degrees,
and however anxious one might be to apply the summary method to every
case, he soon finds it impossible in practice. The difficulty in these
cases arises from a peculiar feature of the temptation. The difference
between a sin of drunkenness, and, let us say, a sin of temper, is that in
the former case the victim who would reform has mainly to deal with the
environment, but in the latter with the correspondence. The drunkard's
temptation is a known and definite quantity. His safety lies in avoiding
some external and material substance. Of course, at bottom, he is really
dealing with the correspondence every time he resists; he is distinctly
controlling appetite. Nevertheless it is less the appetite that absorbs
his mind than the environment. And so long as he can keep himself clear of
the "external relation," to use Mr Herbert Spencer's phraseology, he has
much less difficulty with the "internal relation." The ill-tempered
person, on the other hand, can make very little of his environment.
However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain directions, there
will always remain a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate his
irascibility. His environment, in short, is an inconstant quantity, and
his most elaborate calculations and precautions must often and suddenly
fail him.
What he has to deal with, then, mainly is the correspondence, the
temper itself. And that, he well knows, involves a long and humiliating
discipline. The case now is not at all a surgical but a medical one, and
the knife is here of no more use than in a fever. A specific irritant has
poisoned his veins. And the acrid humours that are breaking out all over
the surface of his life are only to be subdued by a gradual sweetening of
the inward spirit. It is now known that the human body acts towards
certain fever-germs as a sort of soil. The man whose blood is pure has
nothing to fear. So he whose spirit is purified and sweetened becomes
proof against these germs of sin. "Anger, wrath, malice and railing" in
such a soil can find no root.
The difference between this and the former method of dealing with sin
may be illustrated by another analogy. The two processes depend upon two
different natural principles. The Mutilation of a member, for instance,
finds its analogue in the horticultural operation of pruning, where the
object is to divert life from a useless into a useful channel. A part of a
plant which previously monopolised a large share of the vigour of the
total organism, but without yielding any adequate return, is suddenly cut
off, so that the vital processes may proceed more actively in some
fruitful parts. Christ's use of this figure is well-known: "Every branch
in Me that beareth fruit He purgeth it that it may bring forth more
fruit." The strength of the plant being given in part to the formation of
mere wood, a number of useless correspondences have to be abruptly closed
while the useful connections are allowed to remain. The Mortification of a
member, again, is based on the Law of Degeneration. The useless member
here is not cut off, but simply relieved as much as possible of all
exercise. This encourages the gradual decay of the parts, and as it is
more and more neglected it ceases to be a channel for life at all. So an
organism "mortifies" its members.
Thirdly, Limitation. While a large number of correspondences between
man and his environment can be stopped in these ways, there are many more
which neither can be reduced by a gradual Mortification nor cut short by
sudden Death. One reason for this is that to tamper with these
correspondences might involve injury to closely related vital parts. Or,
again, there are organs which are really essential to the normal life of
the organism, and which therefore the organism cannot afford to lose even
though at times they act prejudicially Not a few correspondences, for
instance, are not wrong in themselves but only in their extremes. Up to a
certain point they are lawful and necessary; beyond that point they may
become not only unnecessary but sinful. The appropriate treatment in these
and similar cases consists in a process of Limitation. The performance of
this operation, it must be confessed, requires a most delicate hand. It is
an art, moreover, which no one can teach another. And yet, if it is not
learned by all who are trying to lead the Christian life, it cannot be for
want of practice. For, as we shall see, the Christian is called upon to
exercise few things more frequently.
An easy illustration of a correspondence which is only wrong when
carried to an extreme, is the love of money. The love of money up to a
certain point is a necessity; beyond that it may become one of the worst
of sins. Christ said: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon" The two services,
at a definite point, become incompatible, and hence correspondence with
one must cease. At what point, however, it must cease each man has to
determine for himself. And in this consists at once the difficulty and the
dignity of Limitation.
There is another class of cases where the adjustments are still more
difficult to determine. Innumerable points exist in our surroundings with
which it is perfectly legitimate to enjoy, and even to cultivate,
correspondence, but which privilege, at the same time, it were better on
the whole that we did not use. Circumstances are occasionally such—the
demands of others upon us, for example, may be so clamant—that we have
voluntarily to reduce the area of legitimate pleasure. Or, instead of it
coming from others, the claim may come from a still higher direction.
Man's spiritual life consists in the number and fulness of his
correspondences with God. In order to develop these, he may be constrained
to insulate them, to enclose them from the other correspondences, to shut
himself in with them. In many ways the limitation of the natural life is
the necessary condition of the full enjoyment of the spiritual life.
In this principle lies the true philosophy of self-denial. No man is
called to a life of self-denial for its own sake. It is in order to a
compensation which, though sometimes difficult to see, is always real and
always proportionate. No truth, perhaps, in practical religion is more
lost sight of. We cherish somehow a lingering rebellion against the
doctrine of self-denial—as if our nature, or our circumstances, or our
conscience, dealt with us severely in loading us with the daily cross. But
is it not plain after all that the life of self-denial is the more
abundant life—more abundant just in proportion to the ampler crucifixion
of the narrower life? Is it not a clear case of exchange—an exchange
however where the advantage is entirely on our side? We give up a
correspondence in which there is a little life to enjoy a correspondence
in which there is an abundant life. What though we sacrifice a hundred
such correspondences? We make but the more room for the great one that is
left. The lesson of self-denial, that is to say of Limitation, is
concentration. Do not spoil your life, it says, at the outset with
unworthy and impoverishing correspondences; and if it is growing truly
rich and abundant, be very jealous of ever diluting its high eternal
quality with anything of earth. To concentrate upon a few great
correspondences, to oppose to the death the perpetual petty larceny of our
life by trifles—these are the conditions for the highest and happiest
life. It is only Limitation which can secure the Illimitable.
The penalty of evading self-denial also is just that we get the lesser
instead of the larger good. The punishment of sin is inseparably bound up
with itself. To refuse to deny one's self is just to be left with the self
undenied. When the balance of life is struck, the self will be found still
there. The discipline of life was meant to destroy this self, but that
discipline having been evaded—and we all to some extent have
opportunities, and too often exercise them, of taking the narrow path by
the shortest cuts—its purpose is baulked. But the soul is the loser. In
seeking to gain its life it has really lost it. This is what Christ meant
when He said: "He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth
his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."
Why does Christ say: "Hate Life "? Does He mean that life is a sin? No.
Life is not a sin. Still, He says we must hate it. But we must live. Why
should we hate what we must do? For this reason: Life is not a sin, but
the love of life may be a sin. And the best way not to love life is to
hate it. Is it a sin then to love life? Not a sin exactly, but a mistake.
It is a sin to love some life, a mistake to love the rest. Because that
love is lost. All that is lavished on it is lost. Christ does not say it
is wrong to love life. He simply says it is loss. Each man has only a
certain amount of life, of time, of attention—a definite measurable
quantity. If he gives any of it to this life solely it is wasted.
Therefore Christ says, Hate life, limit life, lest you steal your love for
it from something that deserves it more.
Now this does not apply to all life. It is "life in this world" that is
to be hated. For life in this world implies conformity to this world. It
may not mean pursuing worldly pleasures, or mixing with worldly sets; but
a subtler thing than that—a silent deference to worldly opinion; an almost
unconscious lowering of religious tone to the level of the worldly
religious world around; a subdued resistance to the soul's delicate
promptings to greater consecration, out of deference to "breadth" or fear
of ridicule. These, and such things, are what Christ tells us we must
hate. For these things are of the very essence of worldliness. "If any man
love the world," even in this sense, "the love of the Father is not in
him."
There are two ways of hating life, a true and a false. Some men hate
life because it hates them. They have seen through it, and it has turned
round upon them. They have drunk it, and come to the dregs; therefore they
hate it. This is one of the ways in which the man who loves his life
literally loses it. He loves it till he loses it, then he hates it because
it has fooled him. The other way is the religious. For religious reasons a
man deliberately braces himself to the systematic hating of his life. "No
man can serve two masters, for either he must hate the one and love the
other, or else he must hold to the one and despise the other." Despising
the other—this is hating life, limiting life. It is not misanthropy, but
Christianity.
This principle, as has been said, contains the true philosophy of
self-denial. It also holds the secret by which self-denial may be most
easily borne. A common conception of self-denial is that there are a
multitude of things about life which are to be put down with a high hand
the moment they make their appearance. They are temptations which are not
to be tolerated, but must be instantly crushed out of being with pang and
effort.
So life comes to be a constant and sore cutting off of things which we
love as our right hand. But now suppose one tried boldly to hate these
things? Suppose we deliberately made up our minds as to what things we
were henceforth to allow to become our life? Suppose we selected a given
area of our environment and determined once for all that our
correspondences should go to that alone, fencing in this area all round
with a morally impassable wall? True, to others, we should seem to live a
poorer life; they would see that our environment was circumscribed, and
call us narrow because it was narrow. But, well-chosen, this limited life
would be really the fullest life; it would be rich in the highest and
worthiest, and poor in the smallest and basest correspondences. The
well-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but it is also
the most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than the
half. It is the man who tries to make the best of both worlds who makes
nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters misses the
benediction of both. But he who has taken his stand, who has drawn a
boundary line, sharp and deep about his religious life, who has marked off
all beyond as for ever forbidden ground to him, finds the yoke easy and
the burden light. For this forbidden environment comes to be as if it were
not.
His faculties falling out of correspondence, slowly lose their
sensibilities. And the balm of Death numbing his lower nature releases him
for the scarce disturbed communion of a higher life. So even here to die
is gain.
"Supposing that man, in some form, is permitted to remain on the earth
for a long series of years, we merely lengthen out the period, but we
cannot escape the final catastrophe. The earth will gradually lose its
energy of rotation, as well as that of revolution around the sun. The sun
himself will wax dim and become useless as a source of energy, until at
last the favourable conditions of the present solar system will have quite
disappeared.
"But what happens to our system will happen likewise to the whole
visible universe, which will, if finite, become a lifeless mass, if indeed
it be not doomed to utter dissolution. In fine, it will become old and
effete, no less truly than the individual. It is a glorious garment, this
visible universe, but not an immortal one. We must look elsewhere if we
are to be clothed with immortality as with a garment."
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE.
" This is Life Eternal—that they might know Thee, the True God, and
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."—Jesus Christ.
" Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes
in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet,
and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there
would be eternal existence and eternal knowledge."—Herbert Spencer.
ONE of the most startling achievements of recent science is a
definition of Eternal Life. To the religious mind this is a contribution
of immense moment. For eighteen hundred years only one definition of Life
Eternal was before the world. Now there are two.
Through all these centuries revealed religion had this doctrine to
itself. Ethics had a voice, as well as Christianity, on the question of
the summum bonum; Philosophy ventured to speculate on the Being of a God.
But no source outside Christianity contributed anything to the doctrine of
Eternal Life. Apart from Revelation, this great truth was unguaranteed. It
was the one thing in the Christian system that most needed verification
from without, yet none was forthcoming. And never has any further light
been thrown upon the question why in its very nature the Christian Life
should be Eternal. Christianity itself even upon this point has been
obscure. Its decision upon the bare fact is authoritative and specific.
But as to what there is in the Spiritual Life necessarily endowing it with
the element of Eternity, the maturest theology is all but silent.
It has been reserved for modern biology at once to defend and
illuminate this central truth of the Christian faith. And hence in the
interests of religion, practical and evidential, this second and
scientific definition of Eternal Life is to be hailed as an announcement
of commanding interest. Why it should not yet have received the
recognition of religious thinkers—for already it has lain some years
unnoticed—is not difficult to understand. The belief in Science as an aid
to faith is not yet ripe enough to warrant men in searching there for
witnesses to the highest Christian truths. The inspiration of Nature, it
is thought, extends to the humbler doctrines alone. And yet the reverent
inquirer who guides his steps in the right direction may find even now in
the still dim twilight of the scientific world much that will illuminate
and intensify his sublimest faith. Here, at least, comes, and comes
unbidden the opportunity of testing the most vital point of the Christian
system. Hitherto the Christian philosopher has remained content with the
scientific evidence against Annihilation. Or, with Butler, he has reasoned
from the Metamorphoses of Insects to a future life. Or again, with the
authors of " The Unseen Universe," the apologist has constructed
elaborate, and certainly impressive, arguments upon the Law of Continuity.
But now we may draw nearer. For the first time Science touches
Christianity positively on the doctrine of Immortality. It confronts us
with an actual definition of an Eternal Life, based on a full and rigidly
accurate examination of the necessary conditions. Science does not pretend
that it can fulfil these conditions. Its votaries make no claim to possess
the Eternal Life. It simply postulates the requisite conditions without
concerning itself whether any organism should ever appear, or does now
exist, which might fulfil them. The claim of religion, on the other hand,
is that there are organisms which possess Eternal Life. And the problem
for us to solve is this: Do those who profess to possess Eternal Life
fulfil the conditions required by Science, or are they different
conditions? In a word, Is the Christian conception of Eternal Life
scientific?
It may be unnecessary to notice at the outset that the definition of
Eternal Life drawn up by Science was framed without reference to religion.
It must indeed have been the last thought with the thinker to whom we
chiefly owe it, that in unfolding the conception of a Life in its very
nature necessarily eternal, he was contributing to Theology.
Mr. Herbert Spencer—for it is to him we owe it— would be the first to
admit the impartiality of his definition; and from the connection in which
it occurs in his writings, it is obvious that religion was not even
present to his mind. He is analysing with minute care the relations
between Environment and Life. He unfolds the principle according to which
Life is high or low, long or short. He shows why organisms live and why
they die. And finally he defines a condition of things in which an
organism would never die—in which it would enjoy a perpetual and perfect
Life. This to him is, of course, but a speculation. Life Eternal is a
biological conceit. The conditions necessary to an Eternal Life do not
exist in the natural world. So that the definition is altogether impartial
and independent. A Perfect Life, to Science, is simply a thing which is
theoretically possible—like a Perfect Vacuum.
Before giving, in so many words, the definition of Mr. Herbert Spencer,
it will render it fully intelligible if we gradually lead up to it by a
brief rehearsal of the few and simple biological facts on which it is
based. In considering the subject of Death, we have formerly seen that
there are degrees of Life. By this is meant that some lives have more and
fuller correspondence with Environment than others. The amount of
correspondence, again, is determined by the greater or less complexity of
the organism. Thus a simple organism like the Amoeba is possessed of very
few correspondences. It is a mere sac of transparent structureless jelly
for which organization has done almost nothing, and hence it can only
communicate with the smallest possible area of Environment. An insect, in
virtue of its more complex structure, corresponds with a wider area.
Nature has endowed it with special faculties for reaching out to the
Environment on many sides; it has more life than the Amoeba. In other
words, it is a higher animal. Man again, whose body is still further
differentiated, or broken up into different correspondences, finds himself
en rapport with his surroundings to a further extent. And therefore he is
higher still, more living still. And this law, that the degree of Life
varies with the degree of correspondence, holds to the minutest detail
throughout the entire range of living things. Life becomes fuller and
fuller, richer and richer, more and more sensitive and responsive to an
ever-widening Environment as we rise in the chain of being.
Now it will speedily appear that a distinct relation exists, and must
exist, between complexity and longevity. Death being brought about by the
failure of an organism to adjust itself to some change in the Environment,
it follows that those organisms which are able to adjust themselves most
readily and successfully will live the longest. They will continue time
after time to effect the appropriate adjustment, and their power of doing
so will be exactly proportionate to their complexity—that is, to the
amount of Environment they can control with their correspondences. There
are, for example, in the Environment of every animal certain things which
are directly or indirectly dangerous to Life. If its equipment of
correspondences is not complete enough to enable it to avoid these dangers
in all possible circumstances, it must sooner or later succumb. The
organism then with the most perfect set of correspondences, that is, the
highest and most complex organism, has an obvious advantage over less
complex forms. It can adjust itself more perfectly and frequently. But
this is just the biological way of saying that it can live the longest.
And hence the relation between complexity and longevity may be expressed
thus—the most complex organisms are the longest lived.
To state and illustrate the proposition conversely may make the point
still further clear. The less highly organized an animal is, the less will
be its chance of remaining in lengthened correspondence with its
Environment. At some time or other in its career circumstances are sure to
occur to which the comparatively immobile organism finds itself
structurally unable to respond. Thus a Medusa tossed ashore by a wave,
finds itself so out of correspondence with its new surroundings that its
life must pay the forfeit. Had it been able by internal change to adapt
itself to external change—to correspond sufficiently with the new
environment, as for example to crawl, as an eel would have done, back into
that environment with which it had completer correspondence—its life might
have been spared. But had this happened it would continue to live
henceforth only so long as it could continue in correspondence with all
the circumstances in which it might find itself. Even if, however, it
became complex enough to resist the ordinary and direct dangers of its
environment, it might still be out of correspondence with others A
naturalist for instance, might take advantage of its want of
correspondence with particular sights and sounds to capture it for his
cabinet, or the sudden dropping of a yacht's anchor or the turn of a screw
might cause its untimely death.
Again, in the case of a bird, in virtue of its more complex
organization, there is command over a much larger area of environment. It
can take precautions such as the Medasa could not; it has increased
facilities for securing food; its adjustments all round are more complex;
and therefore it ought to be able to maintain its Life for a longer
period. There is still a large area, however, over which it has no
control. Its power of internal change is not complete enough to afford it
perfect correspondence with all external changes, and its tenure of Life
is to that extent insecure. Its correspondence, moreover, is limited even
with regard to those external conditions with which it has been partially
established. Thus a bird in ordinary circumstances has no difficulty in
adapting itself to changes of temperature, but if these are varied beyond
the point at which its capacity of adjustment begins to fail—for example,
during an extreme winter—the organism being unable to meet the condition
must perish. The human organism, on the other hand, can respond to this
external condition, as well as to countless other vicissitudes under which
lower forms would inevitably succumb. Man's adjustments are to the largest
known area of Environment, and hence he ought to be able furthest to
prolong his Life.
It becomes evident, then, that as we ascend in the scale of Life we
rise also in the scale of longevity. The lowest organisms are, as a rule,
short-lived, and the rate of mortality diminishes more or less regularly
as we ascend in the animal scale. So extraordinary indeed is the mortality
among lowly-organized forms that in most cases a compensation is actually
provided, nature endowing them with a marvellously increased fertility in
order to guard against absolute extinction. Almost all lower forms are
furnished not only with great reproductive powers, but with different
methods of propagation, by which, in various circumstances, and in an
incredibly short time, the species can be indefinitely multiplied.
Ehrenberg found that by the repeated subdivisions of a single Paramecium,
no fewer than 268,000,000 similar organisms might be produced in one
month. This power steadily decreases as we rise higher in the scale, until
forms are reached in which one, two, or at most three, Come into being at
a birth. It decreases, however, because it is no longer needed. These
forms have a much longer lease of Life. And it may be taken as a rule,
although it has exceptions, that complexity in animal organisms is always
associated with longevity.
It may be objected that these illustrations are taken merely from
morbid conditions. But whether the Life be cut short by accident or by
disease the principle is the same. All dissolution is brought about
practically in the same way. A certain condition in the Environment fails
to be met by a corresponding condition in the organism, and this is death.
And conversely the more an organism in virtue of its complexity can adapt
itself to all the parts of its Environment, the longer it will live. " It
is manifest a priori," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, " that since changes in
the physical state of the environment, as also those mechanical actions
and those variations of available food which occur in it, are liable to
stop the processes going on in the organism; and since the adaptive
changes in the organism have the effects of directly or indirectly
counterbalancing these changes in the environment, it follows that the
life of the organism will be short or long, low or high, according to the
extent to which changes in the environment are met by corresponding
changes in the organism. Allowing a margin for perturbations, the life
will continue only while the correspondence continues; the
completeness of the life will be proportionate to the
completeness of the correspondence; and the life will be perfect only when
the correspondence is perfect."[68]
We are now all but in sight of our scientific definition of Eternal
Life. The desideratum is an organism with a correspondence of a very
exceptional kind. It must lie beyond the reach of those "mechanical
actions "and those "variations of available food," which are "liable to
stop the processes going on in the organism." Before we reach an Eternal
Life we must pass beyond that point at which all ordinary correspondences
inevitably cease. We must find an organism so high and complex, that at
some point in its development it shall have added a correspondence which
organic death is powerless to arrest. We must in short pass beyond that
finite region where the correspondences depend on evanescent and material
media, and enter a further region where the Environment corresponded with
is itself Eternal. Such an Environment exists. The Environment of the
Spiritual world is outside the influence of these "mechanical actions,"
which sooner or later interrupt the processes going on in all finite
organisms. If then we can find an organism which has established a
correspondence with the spiritual world, that correspondence will possess
the elements of eternity—provided only one other condition be fulfilled.
That condition is that the Environment be perfect. If it is not
perfect, if it is not the highest, if it is endowed with the finite
quality of change, there can be no guarantee that the Life of its
correspondents will be eternal, Some change might occur in it which the
correspondents had no adaptive changes to meet, and Life would cease. But
grant a spiritual organism in perfect correspondence with a perfect
spiritual Environment, and the conditions necessary to Eternal Life are
satisfied.
The exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of Eternal Life may
now be given. And it will be seen that they include essentially the
conditions here laid down. "Perfect correspondence would be perfect life.
Were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had
adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail
in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence
and eternal knowledge."[69] Reserving the question as
to the possible fulfilment of these conditions, let us turn for a moment
to the definition of Eternal Life laid down by Christ. Let us place it
alongside the definition of Science, and mark the points of contact.
Uninterrupted correspondence with a perfect
Environment is Eternal Life according to Science. "This is Life Eternal,"
said Christ, "that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom Thou hast sent."[70] Life Eternal is to know God.
To know God is to "correspond" with God. To correspond with God is to
correspond with a Perfect Environment. And the organism which attains to
this, in the nature of things must Live for ever. Here is "eternal
existence and eternal knowledge."
The main point of agreement between the scientific and the religious
definition is that Life consists in a peculiar and personal relation
defined as a "correspondence." This conception, that Life consists in
correspondences, has been so abundantly illustrated already that it is now
unnecessary to discuss it further. All Life indeed consists essentially in
correspondences with various Environments. The artist's life is a
correspondence with art; the musician's with music. To cut them off from
these Environments is in that relation to cut off their Life. To be cut
off from all Environment is death. To find a new Environment again and
cultivate relation with it is to find a new Life. To live is to
correspond, and to correspond is to live. So much is true in Science. But
it is also true in Religion. And it is of great importance to observe that
to Religion also the conception of Life is a correspondence. No truth of
Christianity has been more ignorantly or wilfully travestied than the
doctrine of Immortality. The popular idea, in spite of a hundred protests,
is that Eternal Life is to live for ever. A single glance at the locus
classicus, might have made this error impossible. There we are told that
Life Eternal is not to live. This is Life Eternal—to know. And yet —and it
is a notorious instance of the fact that men who are opposed to Religion
will take their conceptions of its profoundest truths from mere vulgar
perversions—this view still represents to many cultivated men the
Scriptural doctrine of Eternal Life. From time to time the taunt is thrown
at Religion, not unseldom from lips which Science ought to have taught
more caution, that the Future Life of Christianity is simply a prolonged
existence, an eternal monotony, a blind and indefinite continuance of
being. The Bible never could commit itself to any such empty platitude;
nor could Christianity ever offer to the world a hope so colourless. Not
that Eternal Life has nothing to do with everlastingness. That is part of
the conception. And it is this aspect of the question that first arrests
us in the field of Science. But even Science has more in its definition
than longevity. It has a correspondence and an Environment; and although
it cannot fill up these terms for Religion, it can indicate at least the
nature of the relation, the kind of thing that is meant by Life. Science
speaks to us indeed of much more than numbers of years. It defines degrees
of Life. It explains a widening Environment. It unfolds the relation
between a widening Environment and increasing complexity in organisms. And
if it has no absolute contribution to the content of Religion, its
analogies are not limited to a point. It yields to Immortality, and this
is the most that Science can do in any case, the broad framework for a
doctrine.
The further definition, moreover, of this correspondence as knowing is
in the highest degree significant. Is not this the precise quality in an
Eternal correspondence which the analogies of Science would prepare us to
look for? Longevity is associated with complexity. And complexity in
organisms is manifested by the successive addition of correspondences,
each richer and larger than those which have gone before. The
differentiation, therefore, of the spiritual organism ought to be
signalized by the addition of the highest possible correspondence. It is
not essential to the idea that the correspondence should be altogether
novel; it is necessary rather that it should not. An altogether new
correspondence appearing suddenly without shadow or prophecy would be a
violation of continuity. What we should expect would be something new, and
yet something that we were already prepared for. We should look for a
further development in harmony with current developments; the extension of
the last and highest correspondence in a new and higher direction. And
this is exactly what we have. In the world with which biology deals,
Evolution culminates in Knowledge.
At whatever point in the zoological scale this correspondence, or set
of correspondences, begins, it is certain there is nothing higher. In its
stunted infancy merely, when we meet with its rudest beginnings
in animal intelligence, it is a thing so wonderful, as to strike every
thoughtful and reverent observer with awe. Even among the invertebrates so
marvellously are these or kindred powers displayed, that naturalists do
not hesitate now, on the ground of intelligence at least, to classify some
of the humblest creatures next to man himself.[71]
Nothing in nature, indeed, is so unlike the rest of nature, so prophetic
of what is beyond it, so supernatural. And as manifested in Man who crowns
creation with his all-embracing consciousness, there is but one word to
describe his knowledge: it is Divine. If then from this point there is to
be any further Evolution, this surely must be the correspondence in which
it shall take place? This correspondence is great enough to demand
development; and yet it is little enough to need it. The magnificence of
what it has achieved relatively, is the pledge of the possibility of more;
the insignificance of its conquest absolutely involves the probability of
still richer triumphs. If anything, in short, in humanity is to go on it
must be this. Other correspondences may continue likewise; others, again,
we can well afford to leave behind. But this cannot cease. This
correspondence—or this set of correspondences, for it is very complex—is
it not that to which men with one consent would attach Eternal Life? Is
there anything else to which they would attach it? Is anything better
conceivable, anything worthier, fuller, nobler, anything which would
represent a higher form of Evolution or offer a more perfect ideal for an
Eternal Life?
But these are questions of quality; and the moment we pass from
quantity to quality we leave Science behind. In the vocabulary of Science
Eternity is only the fraction of a word. It means mere everlastingness. To
Religion, on the other hand, Eternity has little to do with time. To
correspond with the God of Science, the Eternal Unknowable, would be
everlasting existence; to correspond with "the true God and Jesus Christ,"
is Eternal Life. The quality of the Eternal Life alone makes the heaven;
mere everlastingness might be no boon. Even the brief span of the temporal
life is too long for those who spend its years in sorrow. Time itself, let
alone Eternity, is all but excruciating to Doubt. And many besides
Schopenhauer have secretly regarded consciousness as the hideous mistake
and malady of Nature. Therefore we must not only have quantity of years,
to speak in the language of the present, but quality of correspondence.
When we leave Science behind, this correspondence also receives a higher
name. It becomes communion. Other names there are for it, religious and
theological. It may be included in a general expression, Faith; or we may
call it by a personal and specific term, Love. For the knowing of a Whole
so great involves the co-operation of many parts.
Communion with God—can it be demonstrated in terms of Science that this
is a correspondence which will never break? We do not appeal to Science
for such a testimony. We have asked for its conception of an Eternal Life;
and we have received for answer that Eternal Life would consist in a
correspondence which should never cease, with an Environment which should
never pass away. And yet what would Science demand of a perfect
correspondence that is not met by this, the knowing of God? There is no
other correspondence which could satisfy one at least of the conditions.
Not one could be named which would not bear on the face of it the mark and
pledge of its mortality. But this, to know God, stands alone. To know God,
to be linked with God, to be linked with Eternity—if this is not the
"eternal existence" of zoology, what can more nearly approach it? And yet
we are still a great way off—to establish a communication with the Eternal
is not to secure Eternal Life. It must be assumed that the communication
could be sustained. And to assume this would be to beg the question. So
that we have still to prove Eternal Life. But let it be again repeated, we
are not here seeking proofs. We are seeking light. We are merely
reconnoitring from the furthest promontory of Science if so be that
through the haze we may discern the outline of a distant coast and come to
some conclusion as to the possibility of landing.
But, it may be replied, it is not open to any one handling the question
of Immortality from the side of Science to remain neutral as to the
question of fact. It is not enough to announce that he has no addition to
make to the positive argument. This may be permitted with reference to
other points of contact between Science and Religion, but not with this.
We are told this question is settled—that there is no positive side.
Science meets the entire conception of Immortality with a direct negative.
In the face of a powerful consensus against even the possibility of a
Future Life, to content oneself with saying that Science pretended to no
argument in favour of it would be at once impertinent and dishonest. We
must therefore devote ourselves for a moment to the question of
possibility.
The problem is, with a material body and a mental organization
inseparably connected with it, to bridge the grave. Emotion, volition,
thought itself, are functions of the brain. When the brain is impaired,
they are impaired. When the brain is not, they are not. Everything ceases
with the dissolution of the material fabric; muscular activity and mental
activity perish alike. With the pronounced positive statements on this
point from many departments of modern Science we are all familiar. The
fatal verdict is recorded by a hundred hands and with scarcely a shadow of
qualification. "Unprejudiced philosophy is
compelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality and of a
personal continuance after death. With the decay and dissolution of its
material substratum, through which alone it has acquired a conscious
existence and become a person, and upon which it was dependent, the spirit
must cease to exist."[72] To the same effect Vogt:
"Physiology decides definitely and categorically against individual
immortality, as against any special existence of the soul. The soul does
not enter the foetus like the evil spirit into persons possessed, but is a
product of the development of the brain, just as muscular activity is a
product of muscular development, and secretion a product of glandular
development." After a careful review of the position of recent Science
with regard to the whole doctrine, Mr. Graham sums up thus: "Such is the
argument of Science, seemingly decisive against a future life. As we
listen to her array of syllogisms, our hearts die within us. The hopes of
men, placed in one scale to be weighed, seem to fly up against the
massive weight of her evidence, placed in the
other. It seems as if all our arguments were vain and unsubstantial, as if
our future expectations were the foolish dreams of children, as if there
could not be any other possible verdict arrived at upon the evidence
brought forward."[73]
Can we go on in the teeth of so real an obstruction? Has not our own
weapon turned against us, Science abolishing with authoritative hand the
very truth we are asking it to define?
What the philosopher has to throw into the other scale can be easily
indicated. Generally speaking, he demurs to the dogmatism of the
conclusion. That mind and brain react, that the mental and the
physiological processes are related, and very intimately related, is
beyond controversy. But how they are related, he submits, it still
altogether unknown. The correlation of mind and brain do not involve their
identity. And not a few authorities accordingly have consistently
hesitated to draw any conclusion at all. Even Buchner's statement turns
out, on close examination, to be tentative in the extreme. In prefacing
his chapter on Personal Continuance, after a single sentence on the
dependence of the soul and its manifestations upon
a material substratum, he remarks, "Though we are unable to form a
definite idea as to the how of this connection, we are still by these
facts justified in asserting, that the mode of this connection renders it
apparently impossible that they should continue to exist separately."[74]
There is, therefore, a flaw at his point in the argument for materialism.
It may not help the spiritualist in the least degree positively. He may be
as far as ever from a theory of how consciousness could continue without
the material tissue. But his contention secures for him the right of
speculation. The path beyond may lie in hopeless gloom; but it is not
barred. He may bring forward his theory if he will. And this is something.
For a permission to go on is often the most that Science can grant to
Religion.
Men have taken advantage of this loophole in various ways. And though
it cannot be said that these speculations offer us more than a
probability, this is still enough to combine with the deep-seated
expectation in the bosom of mankind and give fresh lustre to the hope of a
future life. Whether we find relief in the theory of a simple dualism;
whether with Ulrici we further define the soul as an invisible
enswathement of the body, material yet non-atomic; whether, with the
"Unseen Universe," we are helped by the spectacle of known forms of matter
shading off into an ever-growing subtilty, mobility, and immateriality; or
whether, with Wundt, we regard the soul as "the ordered unity of many
elements," it is certain that shapes can be given to the conception of a
correspondence which shall bridge the grave such as to satisfy minds too
much accustomed to weigh evidence to put themselves off with fancies.
But whether the possibilities of physiology or the theories of
philosophy do or do not substantially assist us in realizing Immortality,
is to Religion, to Religion at least regarded from the present point of
view, of inferior moment. The fact of Immortality rests for us on a
different basis. Probably, indeed, after all the Christian philosopher
never engaged himself in a more superfluous task than in seeking along
physiological lines to find room for a soul. The theory of Christianity
has only to be fairly stated to make manifest its thorough independence of
all the usual speculations on Immortality. The theory is not that thought,
volition, or emotion, as such are to survive the grave. The difficulty of
holding a doctrine in this form, in spite of what has been advanced to the
contrary, in spite of the hopes and wishes of mankind, in spite of all the
scientific and philosophical attempts to make it tenable, is still
profound. No secular theory of personal continuance, as even Butler
acknowledged, does not equally demand the eternity of the brute. No
secular theory defines the point in the chain of Evolution at which
organisms became endowed with Immortality. No secular theory explains the
condition of the endowment, nor indicates its goal. And if we have nothing
more to fan hope than the unexplored mystery of the whole region, or the
unknown remainders among the potencies of Life, then, as those who have
"hope only in this world," we are "of all men the most miserable."
When we turn, on the other hand, to the doctrine as it came from the
lips of Christ, we find ourselves in an entirely different region. He
makes no attempt to project the material into the immaterial. The old
elements, however refined and subtil as to their matter, are not in
themselves to inherit the Kingdom of God. That which is flesh is flesh.
Instead of attaching Immortality to the natural organism, He introduces a
new and original factor which none of the secular, and few even of the
theological theories, seem to take sufficiently into account. To
Christianity, "he that hath the Son of God hath Life, and he that hath not
the Son hath not Life." This, as we take it, defines the correspondence
which is to bridge the grave. This is the clue to the nature of the Life
that lies at the back of the spiritual organism. And this is the true
solution of the mystery of Eternal Life.
There lies a something at the back of the correspondences of the
spiritual organism—just as there lies a something at the back of the
natural correspondences. To say that Life is a correspondence is only to
express the partial truth. There is something behind. Life manifests
itself in correspondences. But what determines them? The organism exhibits
a variety of correspondences. What organizes them? As in the natural, so
in the spiritual, there is a Principle of Life. We cannot get rid of that
term. However clumsy, however provisional, however much a mere cloak for
ignorance, Science as yet is unable to dispense with the idea of a
Principle of Life. We must work with the word till we get a better. Now
that which determines the correspondence of the spiritual organism is a
Principle of Spiritual Life. It is a new and Divine Possession. He that
hath the Son hath Life; conversely, he that hath Life hath the Son. And
this indicates at once the quality and the quantity of the correspondence
which is to bridge the grave. He that hath Life hath the Son. He possesses
the Spirit of a Son. That spirit is, so to speak, organized within him by
the Son. It is the manifestation of the new nature—of which more anon. The
fact to note at present is that this is not an organic correspondence, but
a spiritual correspondence. It comes not from generation, but from
regeneration. The relation between the spiritual man and his Environment
is, in theological language, a filial relation. With the new Spirit, the
filial correspondence, he knows the Father—and this is Life Eternal. This
is not only the real relation, but the only possible relation: "Neither
knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will
reveal Him." And this on purely natural grounds. It takes the Divine to
know the Divine—but in no more mysterious sense than it takes the human to
understand the human. The analogy, indeed, for the whole field here has
been finely expressed already by Paul: "What man,"
he asks, "knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in
him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now
we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of
God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."[75]
It were idle, such being the quality of the new relation, to add that
this also contains the guarantee of its eternity. Here at last is a
correspondence which will never cease. Its powers in bridging the grave
have been tried. The correspondence of the spiritual man possesses the
supernatural virtues of the Resurrection and the Life. It is known by
former experiment to have survived the "changes in the physical state of
the environment," and those "mechanical actions" and "variations of
available food," which Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us are "liable to stop
the processes going on in the organism." In short, this is a
correspondence which at once satisfies the demands of Science and
Religion. In mere quantity it is different from every other correspondence
known. Setting aside everything else in Religion, everything adventitious,
local, and provisional; dissecting in to the bone and marrow we find
this—a correspondence which can never break with an Environment which can
never change. Here is a relation established with Eternity. The passing
years lay no limiting hand on it. Corruption injures it not. It survives
Death. It, and it only, will stretch beyond the grave and be found
inviolate—
And the books of the Judgment-day unfold."
The misgiving which will creep sometimes over the brightest faith has
already received its expression and its rebuke: "Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Shall
these "changes in the physical state of the environment" which threaten
death to the natural man destroy the spiritual? Shall death, or life, or
angels, or principalities, or powers, arrest or tamper with his eternal
correspondences?" Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord."[76]
It may seem an objection to some that the "perfect correspondence"
should come to man in so extraordinary a way. The earlier stages in the
doctrine are promising enough; they are entirely in line with Nature. And
if Nature had also furnished the "perfect correspondence" demanded for an
Eternal Life the position might be unassailable. But this sudden reference
to a something outside the natural Environment destroys the continuity,
and discovers a permanent weakness in the whole theory? To which there is
a twofold reply. In the first place, to go outside what we call Nature is
not to go outside Environment. Nature, the natural Environment, is only a
part of Environment. There is another large part which, though some
profess to have no correspondence with it, is not on that account unreal,
or even unnatural. The mental and moral world is unknown to the plant. But
it is real. It cannot be affirmed either that it is unnatural to the
plant; although it might be said that from the point of view of the
Vegetable Kingdom it was supernatural. Things are natural or supernatural
simply according to where one stands. Man is supernatural to the mineral;
God is supernatural to the man. When a mineral is seized upon by the
living plant and elevated to the organic kingdom, no trespass against
Nature is committed. It merely enters a larger Environment, which before
was supernatural to it, but which now is entirely natural. When the heart
of a man, again, is seized upon by the quickening Spirit of God, no
further violence is done to natural law. It is another case of the
inorganic, so to speak, passing into the organic.
But, in the second place, it is complained as if it were an enormity in
itself that the spiritual correspondence should be furnished from the
spiritual world. And to this the answer lies in the same direction.
Correspondence in any case is the gift of Environment. The natural
Environment gives men their natural faculties; the spiritual affords them
their spiritual faculties. It is natural for the spiritual Environment to
supply the spiritual faculties; it would be quite unnatural for the
natural Environment to do it. The natural law of Biogenesis forbids it;
the moral fact that the finite cannot comprehend the Infinite is against
it; the spiritual principle that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God renders it absurd. Not, however, that the spiritual
faculties are, as it were, manufactured in the spiritual world and
supplied ready-made to the spiritual organism—forced upon it as an
external equipment. This certainly is not involved in saying that the
spiritual faculties are furnished by the spiritual world. Organisms are
not added to by accretion, as in the case of minerals, but by growth. And
the spiritual faculties are organized in the spiritual protoplasm of the
soul, just as other faculties are organized in the protoplasm of the body.
The plant is made of materials which have once been inorganic. An
organizing principle not belonging to their kingdom lays hold of them and
elaborates them until they have correspondences with the kingdom to which
the organizing principle belonged. Their original organizing principle, if
it can be called by this name, was Crystallisation; so that we have now a
distinctly foreign power organizing in totally new and higher directions.
In the spiritual world, similarly, we find an organizing principle at work
among the materials of the organic kingdom, performing a further miracle,
but not a different kind of miracle, producing organizations of a novel
kind, but not by a novel method. The second process, in fact, is simply
what an enlightened evolutionist would have expected from the first. It
marks the natural and legitimate progress of the development. And this in
the line of the true Evolution—not the linear Evolution, which would look
for the development of the natural man through powers already inherent, as
if one were to look to Crystallisation to accomplish the development of
the mineral into the plant,—but that larger form of Evolution which
includes among its factors the double Law of Biogenesis and the immense
further truth that this involves.
What is further included in this complex correspondence we shall have
opportunity to illustrate afterwards.[77] Meantime let
it be noted on what the Christian argument for Immortality really rests.
It stands upon the pedestal on which the theologian rests the whole of
historical Christianity—the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It ought to be placed in the forefront of all Christian teaching that
Christ's mission on earth was to give men Life. "I am come," He said,
"that ye might have Life, and that ye might have it more abundantly." And
that He meant literal Life, literal spiritual and Eternal Life, is clear
from the whole course of His teaching and acting. To impose a metaphorical
meaning on the commonest word of the New Testament is to violate every
canon of interpretation, and at the same time to charge the greatest of
teachers with persistently mystifying His hearers by an unusual use of so
exact a vehicle for expressing definite thought as the Greek language, and
that on the most momentous subject of which He ever spoke to men. It is a
canon of interpretation, according to Alford, that "a figurative sense of
words is never admissible except when required by the context." The
context, in most cases, is not only directly unfavourable to a figurative
meaning, but in innumerable instances in Christ's teaching Life is broadly
contrasted with Death. In the teaching of the apostles, again, we find
that, without exception, they accepted the term in its simple literal
sense. Reuss defines the apostolic belief with his usual impartiality
when—and the quotation is doubly pertinent here—he discovers in the
apostle's conception of Life, first, "the idea of a real existence, an
existence such as is proper to God and to the Word; an imperishable
existence—that is to say, not subject to the vicissitudes and
imperfections of the finite world. This primary idea is repeatedly
expressed, at least in a negative form; it leads to a doctrine of
immortality, or, to speak more correctly, of life, far surpassing any that
had been expressed in the formulas of the current philosophy or theology,
and resting upon premises and conceptions altogether different. In fact,
it can dispense both with the philosophical thesis of the immateriality or
indestructibility of the human soul, and with the theological thesis of a
miraculous corporeal reconstruction of our person; theses, the first of
which is altogether foreign to the religion of the Bible, and the second
absolutely opposed to reason." Second, " the idea of life, as it is
conceived in this system, implies the idea of a
power, an operation, a communication, since this life no longer remains,
so to speak, latent or passive in God and in the Word, but through them
reaches the believer. It is not a mental somnolent thing; it is not a
plant without fruit; it is a germ which is to find fullest development."[78]
If we are asked to define more clearly what is meant by this mysterious
endowment of Life, we again hand over the difficulty to Science. When
Science can define the Natural Life and the Physical Force we may hope for
further clearness on the nature and action of the Spiritual Powers. The
effort to detect the living Spirit must be at least as idle as the attempt
to subject protoplasm to microscopic examination in the hope of
discovering Life. We are warned, also, not to expect too much. "Thou canst
not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth." This being its quality,
when the Spiritual Life is discovered in the laboratory it will possibly
be time to give it up altogether. It may say, as Socrates of his soul,
"You may bury me—if you can catch me."
Science never corroborates a spiritual truth without illuminating it.
The threshold of Eternity is a place where many shadows meet. And the
light of Science here, where everything is so dark, is welcome a thousand
times. Many men would be religious if they knew where to begin; many would
be more religious if they were sure where it would end. It is not
indifference that keeps some men from God, but ignorance. "Good Master,
what must I do to inherit Eternal Life?" is still the deepest question of
the age. What is Religion? What am I to believe? What seek with all my
heart and soul and mind?—this is the imperious question sent up to
consciousness from the depths of being in all earnest hours; sent down
again, alas, with many of us, time after time, unanswered. Into all our
thought and work and reading this question pursues us. But the theories
are rejected one by one; the great books are returned sadly to their
shelves, the years pass, and the problem remains unsolved. The confusion
of tongues here is terrible. Every day a new authority announces himself.
Poets, philosophers, preachers try their hand on us in turn. New prophets
arise, and beseech us for our soul's sake to give ear to them—at last in
an hour of inspiration they have discovered the final truth. Yet the
doctrine of yesterday is challenged by a fresh philosophy to-day; and the
creed of to-day will fall in turn before the criticism of tomorrow.
Increase of knowledge increaseth sorrow. And at length the conflicting
truths, like the beams of light in the laboratory experiment, combine in
the mind to make total darkness.
But here are two outstanding authorities agreed— not men, not
philosophers, not creeds. Here is the voice of God and the voice of
Nature. I cannot be wrong if I listen to them. Sometimes when uncertain of
a voice from its very loudness, we catch the missing syllable in the echo.
In God and Nature we have Voice and Echo. When I hear both, I am assured.
My sense of hearing does not betray me twice. I recognise the Voice in the
Echo, the Echo makes me certain of the Voice; I listen and I know. The
question of a Future Life is a biological question. Nature may be silent
on other problems of Religion; but here she has a right to speak. The
whole confusion around the doctrine of Eternal Life has arisen from making
it a question of Philosophy. We shall do ill to refuse a hearing to any
speculation of Philosophy; the ethical relations here especially are
intimate and real. But in the first instance Eternal Life, as a question
of Life, is a problem for Biology. The soul is a living organism. And for
any question as to the soul's Life we must appeal to Life-science. And
what does the Life-science teach? That if I am to inherit Eternal Life, I
must cultivate a correspondence with the Eternal. This is a simple
proposition, for Nature is always simple. I take this proposition, and,
leaving Nature, proceed to fill it in. I search everywhere for a clue to
the Eternal. I ransack literature for a definition of a correspondence
between man and God. Obviously that can only come from one source. And the
analogies of Science permit us to apply to it. All knowledge lies in
Environment. When I want to know about minerals I go to minerals. When I
want to know about flowers I go to flowers. And they tell me. In their own
way they speak to me, each in its own way, and each for itself—not the
mineral for the flower, which is impossible, nor the flower for the
mineral, which is also impossible. So if I want to know about Man, I go to
his part of the Environment. And he tells me about himself, not as the
plant or the mineral, for he is neither, but in his own way. And if I want
to know about God, I go to His part of the Environment. And He tells me
about Himself, not as a Man, for He is not Man, but in His own way. And
just as naturally as the flower and the mineral and the Man, each in their
own way, tell me about themselves, He tells me about Himself. He very
strangely condescends indeed in making things plain to me, actually
assuming for a time the Form of a Man that I at my poor level may better
see Him. This is my opportunity to know Him. This incarnation
is God making Himself accessible to human thought—God opening to man the
possibility of correspondence through Jesus Christ. And this
correspondence and this Environment are those I seek. He Himself assures
me, "This is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Do I not now discern the deeper
meaning in "Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent"? Do I not better understand
with what vision and rapture the profoundest of the disciples exclaims,
"The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we might
know Him that is True"?[79]
Having opened correspondence with the Eternal Environment, the
subsequent stages are in the line of all other normal development. We have
but to continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich the correspondence
that has been begun. And we shall soon find to our surprise that this is
accompanied by another and parallel process. The action is not all upon
our side. The Environment also will be found to correspond. The influence
of Environment is one of the greatest and most substantial of modern
biological doctrines. Of the power of Environment to form or transform
organisms, of its ability to develop or suppress function, of its potency
in determining growth, and generally of its immense influence in
Evolution, there is no need now to speak. But Environment is now
acknowledged to be one of the most potent factors in the Evolution of
Life. The influence of Environment too seems to increase rather than
diminish as we approach the higher forms of being. The highest forms are
the most mobile; their capacity of change is the greatest; they are, in
short, most easily acted on by Environment. And not only are the highest
organisms the most mobile, but the highest parts of the highest organisms
are more mobile than the lower. Environment can do little, comparatively,
in the direction of inducing variation in the body of a child; but how
plastic is its mind! How infinitely sensitive is its soul! How infallibly
can it be tuned to music or to dissonance by the moral harmony or discord
of its outward lot! How decisively indeed are we not all formed and
moulded, made or unmade, by external circumstance! Might we not all
confess with Ulysses,—
" I am a part of all that I have met "?
Much more, then, shall we look for the influence of Environment on the
spiritual nature of him who has opened correspondence with God. Reaching
out his eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world around him,
shall he not become spiritual? In vital contact with Holiness, shall he
not become holy? Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, shall he
miss becoming pure? Walking with God from day to day, shall he fail to be
taught of God?
Growth in grace is sometimes described as a strange, mystical, and
unintelligible process. It is mystical, but neither strange nor
unintelligible. It proceeds according to Natural Law, and the leading
actor in sanctification is Influence of Environment. The possibility of it
depends upon the mobility of the organism; the result, on the extent and
frequency of certain correspondences. These facts insensibly lead on to a
further suggestion. Is it not possible that these biological truths may
carry with them the clue to a still profounder philosophy—even that of
Regeneration?
Evolutionists tell us that by the influence of environment certain
aquatic animals have become adapted to a terrestrial mode of life.
Breathing normally by gills, as the result and reward of a continued
effort carried on from generation to generation to inspire the air of
heaven direct, they have slowly acquired the lung-function. In the young
organism, true to the ancestral type, the gill still persists—as in the
tadpole of the common frog. But as maturity approaches the true lung
appears; the gill gradually transfers its task to the higher organ. It
then becomes atrophied and disappears, and finally respiration in the
adult is conducted by lungs alone.[80] We may be far,
in the meantime, from saying that this is proved. It is for those who
accept it to deny the justice of the spiritual analogy. Is religion to
them unscientific in its doctrine of Regeneration? Will the evolutionist
who admits the regeneration of the frog under the modifying influence of a
continued correspondence with a new environment, care to question the
possibility of the soul acquiring such a faculty as that of Prayer, the
marvellous breathing-function of the new creature, when in contact with
the atmosphere of a besetting God? Is the change from the earthly to the
heavenly more mysterious than the change from the aquatic to the
terrestrial mode of life? Is Evolution to stop with the organic? If it be
objected that it has taken ages to perfect the function in the batrachian,
the reply is, that it will take ages to perfect the function in the
Christian. For every thousand years the natural evolution will allow for
the development of its organism, the Higher Biology will grant its product
millions. We have indeed spoken of the spiritual correspondence as already
perfect—but it is perfect only as the bud is perfect. " It doth not yet
appear what it shall be," any more than it appeared a million years ago
what the evolving batrachian would be.
But to return. We have been dealing with the scientific aspects of
communion with God. Insensibly, from quantity we have been led to speak of
quality. And enough has now been advanced to indicate generally the nature
of that correspondence with which is necessarily associated Eternal Life.
There remain but one or two details to which we must lastly, and very
briefly, address ourselves.
The quality of everlastingness belongs, as we have seen, to a single
correspondence, or rather to a single set of correspondences. But it is
apparent that before this correspondence can take full and final effect a
further process is necessary. By some means it must be separated from all
the other correspondences of the organism which do not share its peculiar
quality. In this life it is restrained by these other correspondences.
They may contribute to it or hinder it; but they are essentially of a
different order. They belong not to Eternity but to Time, and to this
present world; and, unless some provision is made for dealing with them,
they will detain the aspiring organism in this present world till Time is
ended. Of course, in a sense, all that belongs to Time belongs also to
Eternity; but these lower correspondences are in their nature unfitted for
an Eternal Life. Even if they were perfect in their relation to their
Environment, they would still not be Eternal. However opposed, apparently,
to the scientific definition of Eternal Life, it is yet true that perfect
correspondence with Environment is not Eternal Life. A very important word
in the complete definition is, in this sentence, omitted. On that word it
has not been necessary hitherto, and for obvious reasons, to place any
emphasis, but when we come to deal with false pretenders to Immortality we
must return to it. Were the definition complete as it stands, it might,
with the permission of the psycho-physiologist, guarantee the Immortality
of every living thing. In the dog, for instance, the material framework
giving way at death might leave the released canine spirit still free to
inhabit the old Environment. And so with every creature which had ever
established a conscious relation with surrounding things. Now the
difficulty in framing a theory of Eternal Life has been to construct one
which will exclude the brute creation, drawing the line rigidly at man, or
at least somewhere within the human race. Not that we need object to the
Immortality of the dog, or of the whole inferior creation. Nor that we
need refuse a place to any intelligible speculation which would people the
earth to-day with the invisible forms of all things that have ever lived.
Only we still insist that this is not Eternal Life. And why? Because their
Environment is not Eternal. Their correspondence, however firmly
established, is established with that which shall pass away. An Eternal
Life demands an Eternal Environment.
The demand for a perfect Environment as well as for a perfect
correspondence is less clear in Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition than it
might be. But it is an essential factor. An organism might remain true to
its Environment, but what if the Environment played it false? If the
organism possessed the power to change, it could adapt itself to
successive changes in the Environment. And if this were guaranteed we
should also have the conditions for Eternal Life fulfilled. But what if
the Environment passed away altogether? What if the earth swept suddenly
into the sun? This is a change of environment against which there could be
no precaution and for which there could be as little provision. With a
changing Environment even, there must always remain the dread and
possibility of a falling out of correspondence. At the best, Life would be
uncertain. But with a changeless Environment—such as that possessed by the
spiritual organism—the perpetuity of the correspondence, so far as the
external relation is concerned, is guaranteed. This quality of permanence
in the Environment distinguishes the religious relation from every other.
Why should not the musician's life be an Eternal Life? Because, for one
thing, the musical world, the Environment with which he corresponds, is
not eternal. Even if his correspondence in itself could last eternally,
the environing material things with which he corresponds must pass away.
His soul might last for ever—but not his violin. So the man of the world
might last for ever—but not the world. His Environment is not eternal; nor
are even his correspondences—the world passeth away and the lust thereof.
We find then that man, or the spiritual man, is equipped with two sets
of correspondences. One set possesses the quality of everlastingness, the
other is temporal. But unless these are separated by some means the
temporal will continue to impair and hinder the eternal. The final
preparation, therefore, for the inheriting of Eternal Life must consist in
the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. These must be unloosed and
dissociated from the higher elements. And this is effected by a closing
catastrophe—Death.
Death ensues because certain relations in the organism are not adjusted
to certain relations in the Environment. There will come a time in each
history when the imperfect correspondences of the organism will betray
themselves by a failure to compass some necessary adjustment. This is why
Death is associated with Imperfection. Death is the necessary result of
Imperfection, and the necessary end of it. Imperfect correspondence gives
imperfect and uncertain Life. "Perfect correspondence," on he other hand,
according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, would be "perfect Life." To abolish
Death, therefore, all that would be necessary would be to abolish
Imperfection. But it is the claim of Christianity that it can abolish
Death. And it is significant to notice that it does so by meeting this
very demand of Science—it abolishes Imperfection.
The part of the organism which begins to get out of correspondence with
the Organic Environment is the only part which is in vital correspondence
with it. Though a fatal disadvantage to the natural man to be thrown out
of correspondence with this Environment, it is of inestimable importance
to the spiritual man. For so long as it is maintained the way is barred
for a further Evolution. And hence the condition necessary for the further
Evolution is that the spiritual be released from the natural. That is to
say, the condition of the further Evolution is Death. Mors janua Vitae,
therefore, becomes a scientific formula. Death being the final sifting of
all the correspondences, is the indispensable factor of the higher Life.
In the language of Science, not less than of Scripture, "To die is gain."
The sifting of the correspondences is done by Nature. This is its last
and greatest contribution to mankind. Over the mouth of the grave the
perfect and the imperfect submit to their final separation. Each goes to
its own—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Spirit to Spirit.
"The dust shall return to the earth as it was; and the Spirit shall return
unto God who gave it."
Footnotes
[65] Page 93.
[66] Rom. viii. 5-13.
[67] Col. iii. 1-10
[68] " Principles of Biology," p,
82.
[69] "Principles of Blology," p.
86.
[70] John xvii.
[71] Vide Sir John Lubbock's
"Ants, Bees and Wasps," pp. 1, 181 .
[72] Buchner: "Force and Matter,"
3rd Ed., p. 232.
[73] "The Creed of Science," p.
169.
[74] "Force and Matter," p. 231.
[75] 1 Cor. ii 11,12.
[76] Rom. viii. 35-39.
[77] Vide "Conformity to Type,"
page 287.
[78] "History of Christian
Theology in the Apostolic Age," vol ii. p. 496.
[79] 1 John v. 20.
[80] Vide also the remarkable
experiments of Fraulein v. Chauvin in the Transformation of the Mexican
Axolotl into Amblystoma. —Weismann's "Studies in the Theory of Descent,"
vol. ii. pt. iii. |
