It is quite true that when we pass from the Inorganic to the Organic, we
come upon a new set of Laws. But the reason why the lower set do not
seem to act in the higher sphere is not that they are annihilated, but
that they are overruled. And the reason why the higher Laws are not
found operating in the lower is not because they are not continuous
downward, but because there is nothing for them there to act upon. It is
not Law that fails, but opportunity. The biological Laws are continuous
for life. Wherever there is life, that is to say, they will be found
acting, just as gravitation acts wherever there is matter.
We have purposely, in the last paragraph, indulged in a fallacy. We
have said that the biological Laws would certainly be continuous in the
lower or mineral sphere were there anything there for them to act upon.
Now Laws do not act upon anything. It has been stated already, although
apparently it cannot be too abundantly emphasized, that Laws are only
modes of operation, not themselves operators. The accurate statement,
therefore, would be that the biological Laws would be continuous in the
lower sphere were there anything there for them, not to act upon, but to
keep in order. If there is no acting going on, if there is nothing being
kept in order, the responsibility does not lie with Continuity. The Law
will always be at its post, not only when its services are required, but
wherever they are possible.
Attention is drawn to this, for it is a correction one will find one's
self compelled often to make in his thinking. It is so difficult to keep
out of mind the idea of substance in connection with the Natural Laws,
the idea that they are the movers, the essences, the energies, that one
is constantly on the verge of falling into false conclusions. Thus a
hasty glance at the present argument on the part of any one
ill-furnished enough to confound Law with substance or with cause would
probably lead to its immediate rejection. For, to continue the same line
of illustration, it might next be urged that such a Law as Biogenesis,
which, as we hope to show afterward, is the fundamental Law of life for
both the natural and spiritual worlds, can have no application
whatsoever in the latter sphere. The _life_ with which it deals in the
Natural World does not enter at all into the Spiritual World, and
therefore, it might be argued, the Law of Biogenesis cannot be capable
of extension into it. The Law of Continuity seems to be snapped at the
point where the natural passes into the spiritual. The vital principle
of the body is a different thing from the vital principle of the
spiritual life. Biogenesis deals with βιος, with the natural life, with
cells and germs, and as there are no exactly similar cells and germs in
the Spiritual World, the Law cannot therefore apply. All which is as
true as if one were to say that the fifth proposition of the First Book
of Euclid applies when the figures are drawn with chalk upon a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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