Natural Law in the Spiritual World | Page 3

Theology, whatever its orthodoxy or heterodoxy,
whatever its narrowness or its breadth, we are bound to accept as
Doctrine from which on the lines of Science there is no escape.
When this presented itself to me as a method, I felt it to be due to
it--were it only to secure, so far as that was possible, that no former
bias should interfere with the integrity of the results--to begin again at
the beginning and reconstruct my Spiritual World step by step. The
result of that inquiry, so far as its expression in systematic form is
concerned, I have not given in this book. To reconstruct a Spiritual
Religion, or a department of Spiritual Religion--for this is all the
method can pretend to--on the lines of Nature would be an attempt
from which one better equipped in both directions might well be
pardoned if he shrank. My object at present is the humbler one of
venturing a simple contribution to practical Religion along the lines
indicated. What Bacon predicates of the Natural World, Natura enim
non nisi parendo vincitur, is also true, as Christ had already told us, of
the Spiritual World. And I present a few samples of the religious
teaching referred to formerly as having been prepared under the
influence of scientific ideas in the hope that they may be useful first of
all in this direction.
I would, however, carefully point out that though their unsystematic

arrangement here may create the impression that these papers are
merely isolated readings in Religion pointed by casual scientific truths,
they are organically connected by a single principle. Nothing could be
more false both to Science and to Religion than attempts to adjust the
two spheres by making out ingenious points of contact in detail. The
solution of this great question of conciliation, if one may still refer to a
problem so gratuitous, must be general rather than particular. The basis
in a common principle--the Continuity of Law--can alone save specific
applications from ranking as mere coincidences, or exempt them from
the reproach of being a hybrid between two things which must be
related by the deepest affinities or remain forever separate.
To the objection that even a basis in Law is no warrant for so great a
trespass as the intrusion into another field of thought of the principles
of Natural Science, I would reply that in this I find I am following a
lead which in other departments has not only been allowed but has
achieved results as rich as they were unexpected. What is the Physical
Politic of Mr. Walter Bagehot but the extension of Natural Law to the
Political World? What is the Biological Sociology of Mr. Herbert
Spencer but the application of Natural Law to the Social World? Will it
be charged that the splendid achievements of such thinkers are hybrids
between things which Nature has meant to remain apart? Nature
usually solves such problems for herself. Inappropriate hybridism is
checked by the Law of Sterility. Judged by this great Law these modern
developments of our knowledge stand uncondemned. Within their own
sphere the results of Mr. Herbert Spencer are far from sterile--the
application of Biology to Political Economy is already revolutionizing
the Science. If the introduction of Natural Law into the Social sphere is
no violent contradiction but a genuine and permanent contribution,
shall its further extension to the Spiritual sphere be counted an
extravagance? Does not the Principle of Continuity demand its
application in every direction? To carry it as a working principle into so
lofty a region may appear impracticable. Difficulties lie on the
threshold which may seem, at first sight, insurmountable. But obstacles
to a true method only test its validity. And he who honestly faces the
task may find relief in feeling that whatever else of crudeness and
imperfection mar it, the attempt is at least in harmony with the thought

and movement of his time.
That these papers were not designed to appear in a collective form, or
indeed to court the more public light at all, needs no disclosure. They
are published out of regard to the wish of known and unknown friends
by whom, when in a fugitive form, they were received with so curious
an interest as to make one feel already that there are minds which such
forms of truth may touch. In making the present selection, partly from
manuscript, and partly from articles already published, I have been
guided less by the wish to constitute the papers a connected series than
to exhibit the application of the principle in various directions. They
will be found, therefore, of unequal interest and value, according to the
standpoint from which they are regarded. Thus some are designed with
a directly practical and popular bearing, others being more expository,
and slightly