The Creator, and What We May Know of the Method of Creation

The above is the title of a lecture, forming the seventeenth of what are known as the “Fernley Lectures,” delivered annually, by the leading minds in the Ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Society. This specific lecture is the latest of the series, and was delivered in Manchester, August 1st in present year, by the Rev. W. H. Dallinger, LL.D., F.R.S., Pres. R.M.S., etc., Governor of Wesley College, Sheffield.

The lecture occupies an unique position amongst its fellows, and will bear a most favourable comparison with any that have been delivered by the various Presidents of the Royal Society on the sciences of the day. For clearness of argument and lucidity of thought—as far as it goes—it is unsurpassed, and, as a specimen of the power of English language, it is a treat to all who can estimate its value. It is all this, and more, and here its significance and suggestiveness comes in, and I can do no less than characterise its delivery under the circumstances, to an auditory that represents (in the eyes of the sect itself, at all events) the purest form of Evangelical religion, as a startling phenomenon, and as such I consider a notice of it in no way out of place in a theosophical journal. That such a lecture should be allowed to be delivered and favourably received, not only by the audience, but by the Wesleyan body at large, is a “sign of the times” that the intelligent observer cannot fail to discern. It is, undoubtedly, an index finger that marks a large advance in the progress of human emancipation from the increasingly intolerable yoke of Churchianic or Ecclesiastical tyranny; and all “friends of progress” will cheerfully render to the worthy and eloquent lecturer the thanks that are due for his manly and outspoken views upon the profoundest question of the age. The strangest part is the spectacle of a “Minister of the Gospel,” himself a scientist of no mean order, proclaiming from a Methodist platform his adherence to, and acceptance of, the doctrines of Charles Darwin, as true exponents of the “Method of Creation,” which means that “Natural Selection,” and survival of the “Fittest,” accounts for the origin of species and the indefinite variety of extinct and extant animal forms of life. Why not include vegetable forms asas well? Methinks the fabulous “missing link” between the vegetable and animal kingdoms may, without much difficulty, be actually spotted. Nature, as delineated by the great “Naturalist,” must have been very peevish and unkind to her worshippers, when she mocks them by destroying every vestige, even to the veriest fragmentary fossil, of this anxiously looked for and expectant missing link, between the animal (brute) and man! To my view, the continuous chain of sequential life forms, as presented in the Darwinian theory, evinces a vast number of “missing links,” and, unless these can be supplied, it will not bear the strain when tested by the unclouded intellect of man. The philosopher of Materialism may accept the Darwinian theories (for as yet they are nothing less or more) as gospel, but the spiritual philosopher will not, nor can he accept them as truth, simply because he recognises a factor, which is an abomination in the eyes of the materialistic “wise ones.” It is this factor that the eloquent and learned lecturer pleads for, without suspecting what it really is. I have reason to know that our reverend scientist regards this “Spiritual” factor with the utmost contempt. But I leave this, and pass on to notice some of the really valuable thoughts and facts that ennoble the lecture, which is addressed to “thoughtful and earnest minds, not concerned specially with questions of philosophy, metaphysics, and science, but alive to the advanced knowledge and thought of our times, and anxious to know how the great foundation of religious belief, the existence of Deity, is affected by the splendid advance of our knowledge of nature.”

This expression “existence of Deity” is conveniently elastic enough to cover the ground of argument by a scientific theologian, inasmuch as it may be taken to mean a personal God, according to sound Evangelical belief, and thus assume a plausible defence of Theism versus Atheism; or, it may admit of a much wider application to an “Unknown God”; for when the lecturer does venture to delineate the characteristic of Deity as the Creator, it is such terms as “Inscrutable Power or Creator,” “Eternal Mind,” “Infinite Intelligence,” &c., which is tantamount to saying that the Primal Cause of all that is, is unknowable; and if this is what Dr. Dallinger really means, he is at one with the Spiritual Philosopher; but this will be a curious weapon in the hands of an ecclesiastical theologian—as dangerous as it is curious. By the use of these terms the reverend author shields himself from the charge of materialistic heresy, albeit to the clear-sighted one there are several, if not many, weak and vulnerable points in the defensive armour; but if the adherents and votaries of the “faith once delivered to the saints” might be a little chary in their acceptance of him as a “sound” exponent of religious truth, yet all progressive minds will hail him as a fearless champion for the truth as delivered by the Book of Nature and interpreted by the splendid achievements of modern science.

“The study of phenomena, their succession and their classification, is the essential work of science. It has no function, and is possessed of no instrument with which to look behind or below the sequence, in quest of some higher relation. The eye and mind of the experimentalist know only of antecedent and consequent. These fill the whole circle of his research; let him find these, and he has found all.”

Here the domain of “science” is defined by a master mind, which tells us that “the researches of science are physical.” The observable, finite contents of space and time are the subjects of its analysis. Existence, not the cause of existence, succession, not the reason of succession, method, not the origin of method, are the subjects of physical research. A primordial cause cannot be the subject of experiment nor the object of demonstration. It must for ever transcend the most delicate physical re-action, the profoundest analysis, and the last link in the keenest logic. Science refuses absolutely to recognise mind as the primal cause of the sequences of matter. This is just—within the strict region of its research—for phenomena, their sequences and classification, are its sole domain. But observe; science universally puts force where the reason asks for cause. The forces affecting matter are tacitly assumed to be competent to account for every activity, every sequence, every phenomenon, and all the harmonies of universal being, a nexus for the infinite diversities and harmonies, a basis for all the equilibrium of nature, is found by modern science in force. But force is as absolutely inscrutable as mind. Force can never be known in itself; it is known by its manifestations. It is not a phenomenon, it produces phenomena. We cannot know it; but we know nothing without it. The ultimate analysis of physical science is the relations of matter and force. In irreducible terms, therefore, the final analysis of science is matter as affected by motion.

We now see, from the above excerpta, the goal to which the “splendid discoveries” of modern science lead its votaries, as portrayed by an authority that claims to speak not as other men; and if it is not a veritable dismal swamp, leading to nothing or negation; a miasma suffocating the aspirations of those who are trusting to the leadership of savants to guide them in the path that conveys them to the habitat of true wisdom and knowledge of themselves; then I can only say of such, “miserable comforters are ye all.”

But the question intervenes here: is this a true definition of the end and aim of science? It may be to the majority of the Royal Society; but I may tell those who claim to be the conservators of science, and who arrogate to themselves the right to define the boundaries of even physical science, that they do not possess the all of human intelligence, and that there are, outside their societies, men who refuse to bow the knee to the modern scientific Baal, who refuse to be cajoled by the use of terms that mystify but certainly do not enlighten. For instance, who is one wit the wiser when, having reached the end of its tether, science discovers that “matter and motion” govern and regulate all things observable by the human eye, or within the range of the human mind? To the credit of the author of the last Fernley Lecture, he sees and acknowledges the dilemma into which “materialistic” science is driven; but whether “theological” science, so ably represented by himself, can altogether evade it, is a question that I do not here stay to propound. This much, however, I may say, scientific dicta notwithstanding, there is another department of scientific research which does form the nexus—the veritable missing link—between the known and their unknown, and this is the science of psychology, which commences just where the professors of science (physical) confess themselves baffled, and are unable, or rather unwilling, to advance further in this to them terra incognita. The wilful ignoring of this by Materialistic leaders of thought ends by putting them out of court in the discussion of the profound problems arising out of the discoveries of the psychological scientist. In presence of facts, the evidence for which are world wide and as demonstrable—on their own plane or ground—as geological, or astronomical facts which the psychologist adduces, of what conceivable use are the “relations of matter and force” of the physicist, as explanatory of the laws, &c., pertaining to the new world discovered by psychological Savants?

It will be new to many of your readers to find the Rev. Dr. “hob-nobbing” with Professor Huxley, who is quoted as—not a Materialist! The learned professor appears to be indignant with those who are zealous for “the fundamental article of the faith materialistic,” who “parade force and matter as the Alpha and Omega of existence,” and says, “If I were forced to choose between Materialism and Idealism, I would elect for the latter”; and the lecturer adds, “Truly, if our choice must be between them, this is the normal alternative.” It were better had the Professor given some inkling as to what he meant by this high-sounding term “Idealism.”

The author again says—“I adopt gladly the language of Professor Huxley: Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter, and needs, strong foundations. If it were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not-living matter.not-living matter.”

“So should I,” adds the Rev. Dr., who brings in Mr. Crooks (?), of whom the lecturer says, “I do not forget the recent and splendid service done by Mr. Crooks to the philosophical side of chemistry. It is a most subtle and exquisite means of endeavouring to deduce the method, the ‘law’ according to which what we know as the ‘chemical elements’ were built up. He obtains indications of a primitive element—a something out of which the elements were evolved. He calls it protyle or first stuff, and from its presence concludes that the elements, as we know them, have been evolved from simpler matter—or perhaps, indeed, from one sole kind of matter.” In the following sentences he tries hard to depreciate this “splendid discovery” by Mr. Crooks, the reason for which is anything but difficult to discover. Dr. Dallinger knows that Mr. Crooks published a work entitled “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism,” containing his Experimental Investigations in Psychic Force, which he, in conjunction with his friend Huxley, thinks it beneath him to notice.

But I claim the “splendid discovery” of Mr. Crooks to be of far more transcendent importance than the learned scientist will admit. It comes marvellously near to the scientific demonstration of the ethic propounded by the “philosophy of spirit,” “There is but one life, and one substance, by which life is manifested in an infinitude of forms in all universes, from the simplest to the most complex organic.”

On this subject the Lecture contains the following eloquent, and, I may add, brilliant peroration.

“Life, it is well known, has its phenomena inherent in, and strictly confined to, a highly complex compound, with fixed chemical constituents. This compound, in its living state, is known as protoplasm. It is clear, colourless, and to our finest optical resources, devoid of discoverable structure. There is not a living thing on earth but possesses its life in protoplasm, from a microscopic fungus, to Man. To depict the properties of Life in irreducible simplicity, take one of the lowliest instances within the range of science. Let it be one of the exquisitely minute, almost infinitely prolific, and universally diffused living forms that set up, and carry on, putrefaction. The lesser of them may, when considered as solid specks, vary from the fifty-thousand-millionth of a cubic inch to the twenty-billionth of a cubic inch (evidently far beneath the unaided optic power of the human eye to see). I select one that is oval in shape. Its mission as an organism, is to break up and set free the chemical elements that had been locked up in dead organic compounds. (Query—Was this tiny creature self-generated, or was it the product of the dead organism?) Its own substance wears out by this and other means; and it has the power to renovate the waste from the dead decomposition in which it lives, constructing, in the lavatory of its protoplasm, new living matter. But more; this vital and inconceivably minute speck multiplies with astounding rapidity in two ways; by the first and common process, in the course of a minute and a half, the entire body is divided into two precisely similar bodies, each one perfect; almost immediately these again divide, and so on in geometric ratio through all the populated fluid; the rapidity of this intense and wonderful vital action transcending all thought. By this process alone, a single form may, in three hours, give rise to a population of organisms as great as the human population of the globe. This is life—whether vegetable or animal none can determine—in the simplest form in which it can be known, and which distinguish it for ever and everywhere from what is not life.”

Several equally interesting examples of recent scientific discoveries are given, but space forbids me to more than mention them. Science, as represented by the Savants, evidently believes in an unbridged chasm between the forms of life and not-life. The Scientist and Philosopher of Spirit join issue on this, for they declare that “Life is present everywhere, and in all forms, organic or non-organic, and without the presence of Life no forms—not even mineral—could be phenomenal or existent.”

Your space does not permit me to deal with more than one other, and, to many, the more important subject of Biblical records coming within the domain of science. Here is a specimen of how the learned scientist and theologian deals with the biblical account of Creation.

“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind.’ That is the utterance of the human conception, which can alone represent to us the divine resolve to fill the earth with life—and the joy of living things. ‘And it was so.’ But what epochs of countless ages filled the incalculable interval?”

The boldness of this utterance from one in the position of the Reverend Lecturer can be well imagined. It contains the elements of combustion which need but the spark of investigation to deal a death blow to the established Churchianic dogma of Biblical infallibility in its literal sense. I conclude by repeating that such a deliverance by a ministerial representative of the Wesleyan denomination is a phenomenon that strikingly indicates the “Signs of the times,” and which shows that the emancipation of the human mind from the bonds of theological presumption is not far distant.

William Oxley.

Higher Broughton, Manchester, December 11th, 1887.

ABSOLUTE MONISM; OR, MIND IS MATTER AND MATTER IS MIND. By Sundaram Iyer, F.T.S. Madras, 1887.

Under the above title the author issues an address delivered at the last convention of the delegates of the Theosophical Society at Adyar. Metaphysicians, who note with interest all criticisms of Western psychology from the Oriental standpoint, will welcome the appearance of this extremely able and instructive brochure, which constitutes the first instalment of Absolute Monism. The object of the writer is to discuss the point whether an examination of all theories, as to relations of mind and body, “does not lead us to the Unistic theory that Mind is Matter, and Matter is Mind.” He endeavours to merge the apparent dualism of subject and object into a fundamental unity:—

“Is mind a product of organized matter? No ... for organized matter is only a combination of material particles, as is unorganized matter. How is it, then, that there is the manifestation of Mind in the one case, and not in the other?... Can subjective facts ever emerge out of a group of molecules? Never; as many times never as there are molecules in the group. And why? Because Mind cannot issue from No Mind.” (p. 13.)

The line of argument adopted versus Materialism—the doctrine that mental facts are the resultant of chemical changes in the brain; force and matter being the only Ultimates of Existence—is unquestionably forcible. Mind can never be resolved into a “bye-product” of brain activity, for several valid reasons. In the first place, in its aspect of thought, it exhibits concentration on an end, intelligence and interest in the subject under consideration, all of which characteristics, according to Tyndall and Du Bois Reymond, are necessarily absent from those remarshallings of atoms and molecules which are declared to “cerebrate out” mental phenomena! In the second place, the gulf between consciousness and molecular change has never been bridged; an admission to which the leading physicists and physiologists of the day lend all the weight of their authority. The terms “consciousness” and “matter” are expressive of things so utterly contrasted, that all attempts to deduce the former from the latter have met with signal discredit. Nevertheless, materialists assume the contrary, whenever the necessities of their philosophy demand it. Hence, we find men, like Büchner, admitting in one place that “in the relation of soul and brain, phenomena occur which cannot be explained by ... matter and force,” and elsewhere resolving mind into the “activity of the tissues of the brain,” “a mode of motion”—contradictions, the flagrancy of which is enhanced by the fact that the same author invests the physical automaton Man with a power to control his actions! Lastly, the degradation of consciousness into “brain-function” by constituting philosophers, theologians, scientists, and all alike “conscious automata”—(machines whose thoughts are determined for, not by their conscious Egos)—knocks away the basis of argument. The only resource becomes universal scepticism; a denial of the possibility of attaining truth. Can impartiality, correct thinking and agreement, be expected on the part of controversialists who form part of a comedy of Automata?

If mind is not inherent in matter, it cannot be evolved by mere nervous complexity. The combination of two chemical elements cannot result in a compound in which something more than the constituent factors are present. It is sometimes urged that, since the properties of substances are often altogether changed in the course of chemical combinations—new ones arising with the temporary lapse of the old—consciousness may be explained as a “peculiar property” of matter under some of its conditions. Mr. Sundaram Iyer meets this objection ably. “Aquosity,” it is said, is a property of oxygen and hydrogen in combination, though not in isolation. To this he answers, “chemical properties are either purely subjective facts or objectivo-subjective ones” (p. 57). They exist only in the consciousness of the percipient, and represent no external and independent reality. Psychologists of the type of Huxley would do well to recall this fact, apart from the considerations springing from other data.

Our author is loud in his praises of Panpsychism, that phase of pantheism which regards all matter as saturated with a potential psyche. He speaks of the “catholicity, sublimity and beauty ... not to say the philosophy, and logic, and truthfulness of this creed of thought.” It is, however, clear that some of the authorities he cites in support of this view, more especially Clifford, Tyndall, and Ueberweg, represent a phase of thought which is too materialistic to do justice to an elevated pantheistic concept. Clifford’s conscious mind-stuff is sublimated materialism, and Ueberweg speaks of those “sensations” present in “inanimate” objects which are “concentrated” in the human brain, as if they represented so many substances to be weighed in scales. Instructive and thoughtful as is the discussion of this subject (pp. 32-63), its value would have been increased by a survey of the pantheistic schools of German speculation, so many of whose conclusions are absolutely at one with esoteric views as to the Logos and the metaphysics of consciousness.

After discussing the primary and secondary (so-called) qualities of matter, as tabulated by Mill, Hamilton and others, Mr. Sundaram Iyer passes on the question: “What is force?”

“Force is matter ... it may be related to matter in ... four ways:—firstly, it may be an extraneous power to matter, acting upon it from without; secondly, it may be an inherent power in matter, influencing it from within, but yet distinct from the substance of matter; thirdly, it may be an innate power in matter, influencing it from within, and not distinct from the substance of matter; or fourthly, it may be a function of the substance of matter.” (p. 76-7.)

After an interesting criticism of current theories, he concludes that:—

“Function is simply the phenomenal effect of the latent cause, namely force, but never force itself. This potential existence, which is in matter, is a physical existence. If not it cannot, as shown before, produce any impression whatsoever upon or in the substance of matter.”

Matter is force and force is matter. It is not quite evident, however, whether this position is strictly reconcilable with the remark that “the primary qualities of matter are all simplifiable into ... extension and (its) motion (actual or possible).”possible).”

If force is a physical existence, and the real substance of matter at the same time, we get back no further into the mystery of what things-in-themselves really are. Physical existence remains the reality behind physical existence and the realization of matter and force, as aspects only of one basis, in no way simplifies the crux.

It is not clear, moreover, what is the exact meaning the author intends by the use of the word “force.” Is it motion—molar or molecular—or the unknown cause of motion? According to Professor Huxley, “force” is merely an expression used to denote the cause of motion, whatever that may be. We only know this cause in its aspect of motion, and cannot penetrate behind the veil in order to grasp the Noumenon of which motion is the phenomenal effect. The necessity, therefore, of recognising the fact that motion is all that falls within the cognizance of sense, forbids the (profane) scientist to use the term “force” as representative of anything but an abstraction. The question is complicated by the consideration that the substantiality of various so-called “forces” appears most probable, and that this substantiality becomes objectively real to sense, only on a plane beyond this—the domain of matter in its order of physical differentiations.

The materialistic doctrine that force merely = a motion of matter is contradicted by the fact that, as shown by Mill, motion can be temporarily neutralized. Lift a heavy weight on to a shelf and the mechanical energy expended in the act is latent in the potentiality of the weight to fall to the ground again. There is no immediate equivalent, as the attraction of the earth for the object remains the same (the now greater distance tending to diminish the amount though in a very minute degree.)

It may be further noted that, granting Mr. Sundaram Iyer’s definition of matter as “extension pure and simple,” to be correct (p. 112), it is difficult to understand how he predicates this barren content as endowed with motion (p. 83.) What moves?

The rest of the brochure is taken up with some excellent criticism of current conceptions of atoms, space and heterogenealism (a creed now so sorely wounded by Mr. Crooke’s “Protyle.”) Dealing with one of the late Mr. G. H. Lewe’s utterances, the author remarks with great truth: “By some mysterious law of occurrence the self-contradictions of the bulk of the erudite and enlightened are in point of gravity, palpableness, and number in direct proportion to their erudition and enlightenment.” With how many contrasted dicta from the pages of our Büchners, Spencers, Bains etc., etc., could this conclusion be supported.

One word before we close. Is the title of the work well chosen? It appears to us the least satisfactory sentence which has been traced by the writer’s pen. The definition of “mind as matter and matter as mind” not only offers no solution of the great psychological problem discussed, but does injustice to the contents of the work itself.

In the process of definition we “assemble representative examples of the phenomena,” under investigation and “our work lies in generalizing these, in detecting community in the midst of difference.” Now, there is no community whatever between mental and material facts. For as Professor Bain writes:

“Extension is but the first of a long series of properties all present in matter, all absent in mind ... our mental experience, our feelings and thoughts, have no extension, no place, no form or outline, or mechanical division of parts; and we are incapable of attending to anything mental until we shut off the view of all that.”—“Mind and Body.” pp. 125 and 135.

The phenomenal contrast of mind and matter is not only at the root of ourour present constitution but an essential of our terrestrial consciousness. Duality is illusion in the ultimate analysis; but within the limits of a Universe-cycle or Great Manwantaræ it holds true. The two bases of manifested Being—the Logos (spirit) and Mulaprakriti, (Matter, or rather its Noumenon) are unified in the absolute reality, but in the Manvantaric Maya, under space and time conditions, they are contrasted though mutually interdependent aspects of the ONE CAUSE.