Dr. Mozley, with a haste very unlike his previous careful procedure,
jumps at the following conclusions: "The constitution of nature, then,
disproved the incredibility of the Divine suspension of physical law;
but more than this, it creates a presumption for it."(l) The laws
of life of which we have experience, he argues, are themselves in an
ascending scale. First come the laws which regulate unorganized matter;
next the laws of vegetation; then the laws of animal life, with its
voluntary motion; and above these again, the laws of moral being. A
supposed intelligent being whose experience was limited to one or more
classes in this ascending scale of laws would be totally incapable of
conceiving the action of the higher classes. The progressive succession
of laws is perfectly conceivable backward, but an absolute mystery
forward. "Analogy," therefore, when in this ascending series we arrive
at man, leads us to expect that there is a higher sphere of law as much
above _him_ as he is above the lower natures in the scale, and "supplies
a presumption in favour of such a belief."(2) And so we arrive at the
question whether there is or is not a God, a Personal Head in nature,
whose free will penetrates the universal frame invisibly to us, and is
an omnipresent agent. If there be, Dr. Mozley concludes, then, every
miracle in Scripture is as natural an event in the universe as any
chemical experiment in the physical world.(3)
This is precisely the argument of Dr. Mansel, regarding the "Efficient
Cause," somewhat elaborated, but, however ingeniously devised, it is
equally based upon assumption and defective in analogy. The "classes of
{40}
law" to which the Bampton Lecturer refers work harmoniously side by
side, regulating the matter to which they apply. Unorganized matter,
vegetation, and animal life, may each have special conditions modifying
phenomena, but they are all equally subject to the same general laws.
Man is as much under the influence of gravitation as a stone is. The
special operation of physical laws is less a modification of law than
that law acting under different conditions. The law of gravitation
suffers no alteration, whether it cause the fall of an apple or shape
the orbit of a planet. The reproduction of the plant and of the animal
is regulated by the same fundamental principle acting through
different organisms. The harmonious action of physical laws, and their
adaptability to an infinite variety of forms, constitute the perfection
of that code which produces the order of nature.(1) The mere superiority
of man over lower forms of organic and inorganic matter does not lift
him above physical laws, and the analogy of every grade in nature
forbids the presumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt
from their control.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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