Science explains, and, in explaining, dissipates the pseudo-mysteries by
which man, in his myth-making stage, when conception of the order of the
universe was yet unborn, accounted for everything. But she may borrow
the Apostle's words, "Behold! I show you a mystery," and give to them a
profounder meaning as she confesses that the origin and ultimate destiny
of matter and motion; the causes which determine the behaviour of atoms,
whether they are arranged in the lovely and varying forms which mark
their crystals, or whether they are quivering with the life which is
common to the amoeba and the man; the conversion of the inorganic into
the organic by the green plant, and the relation between nerve-changes
and consciousness; are all impenetrable mysteries.
In his speech on the commemoration of the jubilee of his Professorship
in the University of Glasgow last year, Lord Kelvin said, "I know no
more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether,
electricity, and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity than I knew
and tried to teach my students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in
my first session as professor."
This recognition of limitations will content those who seek not "after a
sign". For others, that search will continue to have encouragement not
only from the theologian, but from the pseudo-scientific who have
travelled some distance with the Pioneers of Evolution, but who refuse
to follow them further. In each of these there is present the
"theological bias" whose varied forms are skilfully analyzed by Mr.
Spencer in his chapter under that heading in the Study of Sociology.
This explains the attitude of various groups which are severally
represented by Mr. St. George Mivart, and the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter;
by Professor Sir Geo. G. Stokes, and Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace. The
first-named is a Roman Catholic; the second was a Unitarian; the third
is an orthodox Churchman, and the fourth, as already seen, is a
Spiritualist. In his Genesis of Species, Mr. Mivart contends that "man's
body was evolved from pre-existing material (symbolised by the term
'dust of the earth'), and was therefore only derivatively created,
i. e., by the operation of secondary laws," but that "his soul, on the
other hand, was created in quite a different way ... by the direct
action of the Almighty (symbolised by the term breathing)," p. 325. In
his Mental Physiology, Dr. Carpenter postulates an Ego or Will which
presides over, without sharing in, the causally determined action of the
other mental functions and their correlated bodily processes; "an entity
which does not depend for its existence on any play of physical or vital
forces, but which makes these forces subservient to its determinations"
(p. 27). Professor Mivart actually cites St. Augustine and Cardinal
Newman as authorities in support of his theory of the special creation
of the soul. He might with equal effect subpoena Dr. Joseph Parker or
General Booth as authorities. Dr.
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