Natural Law in the Spiritual World

Henry Drummond

Description

“Natural Law in the Spiritual World” is a 1883 work by Scottish writer and evangelist Henry Drummond. Within it, Drummond explores the connections between the world of religion and spirituality, and the physical world. He maintains that the ostensible dichotomy between the spiritual and the physical is in fact illusory, and that faith is actually aligned with science. Published only a few decades subsequent to Darwin’s landmark “On the Origin of Species”, Drummond’s attempt to reconcile evolution and God constitutes one of the most significant books related to Christian faith and scientific progress. Contents include: “Religion”, “Analysis of Introduction”, “Biogenesis”, “Degeneration”, “Growth”, “Death”, “Mortification”, “Eternal Life”, “Environment”, “Conformity to Type”, “Semi-parasitism”, “Parasitism”, “Classification”, etc. Rev Prof Henry Drummond (1851–1897) was a Scottish biologist, evangelist, lecturer, and writer. He had a considerable religious influence on his own generation, and his sermon "The Greatest Thing in the World" is still popular within Christian circles. Other notable works by this author include: “Natural Law in the Spiritual World” (1883), “Tropical Africa” (1888), and “The Greatest Thing in the World: an Address” (1890). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with an essay on religion by James Young Simpson.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Bien-être émotionnel
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Personal Growth
• Self-help
• Happiness
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 11 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528788007
• Langue: English

Extrait

NATURAL LAW in the SPIRITUAL WORLD
With an Essay on Religion By James Young Simpson
By
HENRY DRUMMOND

First published in 1883


This edition published by Read Books Ltd. Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library


Contents
RELIGION
PREFACE.
ANALYSISOF I NTRODUCTION.
I NTRODUCTION.
BIOGENESIS.
D EGENERATION.
GROWTH.
DEATH.
MO RTIFICATION.
E TERNAL LIFE.
ENVIRONMENT.
CONFORM ITY TO TYPE.
SEMI -PARASITISM.
PARASITISM.
CLA SSIFICATION.


RELIGION
An Excerpt from Henry Drummond By James Young Simpson
In this chapter it is not proposed to discuss the Christmas addresses with which Drummond's name is so widely associated, which would be presumptuous, nor yet to add in any measure further details about his work among students, which would be superfluous. It is a common- place of apologetic that the final argument for Christianity is a Christian, and the present writer is of those who believe that Drummond's greatest contribution to religion was himself. As a matter of fact, all else that he did was subsidiary to the one great altruistic aim of his life, so that in considering the purely religious side of his work, it is not amiss to attempt some estimate of the man himself and his rare influence. Still, though so engaging, no one was more elusive, and consequently more difficult to portray; those who knew him best realised most the force of Dante' s apostrophe
"O Speech! How feeble and how faint art thou, to give Conception birth."
Of course there was the physical attractiveness of the man. The erect, military figure, the frank, handsome face, eagle-eyed, but with certain winsome sympathetic lines about the mouth, the dignity of his bearing, would all have compelled you to ask anywhere who he was. To the outward eye there was no flaw ; on the contrary, you were conscious of an air of personal distinction that made it impossible to confound him with another. This atmosphere of distinction enveloped the man and all he did, and yet it is not as if he consciously tried to be unlike his fellows, for he was the most natural of men. In it those magnetic forces that differently appealed to different individuals found a wide field. A whole series of them came into play around the central hidden power of his personality. His style in dress and speech was faultless, and yet it was not that. His voice, soft as a summer evening, sweet as fine music, seemed to persuade you, and yet you knew that it could not be his voice. His limpid thought, fresh and inviting, sometimes went perilously near producing mental intoxica- tion, but even when most you had assimilated it, you were quite certain that it was not his thought. Back of every- thing was the inexpressible sense of a man who had power with God and ha d prevailed.
Upon closer acquaintance every feature seemed to tone down in the utter detachment of the man. You were held by the deep-set, thoughtful, tender eyes ; the strange dignity was lost in an exceeding courtesy ; you were aware of an exquisite sympathy or grave, delicious laughter. He was so deeply interested in you that you never learnt anything about himself. He showed no trace of the past, although it was impossible to believe that he had escaped the mental tribulation that is the lot of every t hinking man.
Drummond's peculiar power resulted in his being constituted the confessor and confidant of vast numbers of his fellow-creatures. Possibly no man of his genera- tion had such an intense acquaintance with humanity, both on the vertical and horizontal planes, and yet he did not become a cynic. It has already been suggested that he answered to his conception of Andrew, but only so far as it describes a fact and not an attitude. In his dealings with a fellow-man, no one had a more delicate realisation of his confidant's personality ; he never put himself forward in any way that would make the othe r draw back.
He had supremely mastered the art of living, and on nothing did he more insist than on the contribution of Christianity to the mere joy of life. He ever welcomed new experiences in any and every department of activity.






PREFACE.
No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost said derision, than those which deal with Science and Religion. Science is tired of reconciliations between two things which never should have been contrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which it professes not to need; and the critics have rightly discovered that, in most cases where Science is either pitted against Religion or fused with it, there is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope and province of either. But although no initial protest, probably, will save this work from the unhappy reputation of its class, the thoughtful mind will perceive that the fact of its subject-matter being Law—a property peculiar neither to Science nor to Religion—at once places it on a somewhat differ ent footing.
The real problem I have set myself may be stated in a sentence. Is there not reason to believe that many of the Laws of the Spiritual World, hitherto regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, are simply the Laws of the Natural World? Can we identify the Natural Laws, or any one of them, in the Spiritual sphere? That vague lines everywhere run through the Spiritual World is already beginning to be recognized. Is it possible to link them with those great lines running through the visible universe which we call the Natural Laws, or are they fundamentally distinct? In a word, Is the Supernatural natural o r unnatural?
I may, perhaps, be allowed to answer these questions in the form in which they have answered themselves to myself. And I must apologize at the outset for personal references which, but for the clearness they may lend to the statement, I would s urely avoid.
It has been my privilege for some years to address regularly two very different audiences on two very different themes. On week days I have lectured to a class of students on the Natural Sciences, and on Sundays to an audience consisting for the most part of working men on subjects of a moral and religious character. I cannot say that this collocation ever appeared as a difficulty to myself, but to certain of my friends it was more than a problem. It was solved to me, however, at first, by what then seemed the necessities of the case—I must keep the two departments entirely by themselves. They lay at opposite poles of thought; and for a time I succeeded in keeping the Science and the Religion shut off from one another in two separate compartments of my mind. But gradually the wall of partition showed symptoms of giving way. The two fountains of knowledge also slowly began to overflow, and finally their waters met and mingled. The great change was in the compartment which held the Religion. It was not that the well there was dried; still less that the fermenting waters were washed away by the flood of Science. The actual contents remained the same. But the crystals of former doctrine were dissolved; and as they precipitated themselves once more in definite forms, I observed that the Crystalline System was changed. New channels also for outward expression opened, and some of the old closed up; and I found the truth running out to my audience on the Sundays by the week-day outlets. In other words, the subject-matter Religion had taken on the method of expression of Science, and I discovered myself enunciating Spiritual Law in the exact terms of Biology and Physics.
Now this was not simply a scientific coloring given to Religion, the mere freshening of the theological air with natural facts and illustrations. It was an entire re-casting of truth. And when I came seriously to consider what it involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that it meant essentially the introduction of Natural Law into the Spiritual World. It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies of Phenomena rose into view—although material for Parable lies unnoticed and unused on the field of recent Science in inexhaustible profusion. But Law has a still grander function to discharge toward Religion than Parable. There is a deeper unity between the two Kingdoms than the analogy of their Phenomena—a unity which the poet's vision, more quick than the theologian's, has already dimly seen:—
"And verily many thinkers of this age, Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, Are wrong in just my sense, who understood Our natural world too insularly, as if No spiritual counterpart completed it, Consummating its meaning, rounding all To justice and perfection, line by line, Form by form, nothing single nor alone , The great below clenched by the great above." [1]
The function of Parable in religion is to exhibit "form by form." Law undertakes the profounder task of comparing "line by line." Thus Natural Phenomena serve mainly an illustrative function in Religion. Natural Law, on the other hand, could it be traced in the Spiritual World, would have an important scientific value—it would offer Religion a new credential. The effect of the introduction of Law among the scattered Phenomena of Nature has simply been to make Science, to transform knowledge into eternal truth. The same crystallizing touch is needed in Religion. Can it be said that the Phenomena of the Spiritual World are other than scattered? Can we shut our eyes to the fact that the religious opinions of mankind are in a state of flux? And when we regard the uncertainty of current beliefs, the war of creeds, the havoc of inevitable as