Читать книгу The Incarnate Purpose - G. H. Percival - Страница 4

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The difficulty felt in reconciling the idea of man's possession of an immortal soul with his supposed evolutionary physical descent is in many cases responsible for the exclusion of the scientific interpretation of life from the religious outlook. It is very naturally asked at what point in his development man obtained the spiritual faculty designated by the name of Soul, possession of which constitutes his chief claim to immortality. If he be indeed the product of an evolutionary process entailing the precursion and sacrifice of millions of generations of beings inferior to his present organisation; if his progenitors existed at some remote and unrecorded period of the history of the world, when distinction between man and beast was unknown, when did his separation as a spiritual creature occur? If some process of psychical evolution endowed him with a soul, may not other creatures than man, as yet insufficiently developed, obtain eventually similar spiritual attributes? How then, can the destiny of man be said to be superior to that of the beasts? Is there really such a thing as the soul? What are its distinctive qualities, and how is its presence in personality to be recognised? In short, is a belief in the immortal soul of man compatible with the evolutionary theory of his physical descent? If acceptance of the scientific explanation of his ancestry destroys the justification of his hope for immortality, is not life thereby robbed of its spiritual significance?

The history of mankind is a history of religion, wherein we may observe man's idea of the nature of God and of his own relation towards God, keeping pace with his development as an intellectual and spiritual creature. When we review this evolutionary process, involving millions of generations of progenitors and covering immeasurable æons of time, we see emerging the creature destined to be known as man. With the slow dawn and growth of his intelligence, accompanied by a reaching out into an ever-widening environment, comes a dim perception of life and power outside himself—an acting force that is greater than his own. In apprehending the existence of God, man is evolved as a spiritual creature and stands in a kingdom of his own, destined to realise his essential unity with God as the Spirit of Life, in whose likeness he is made. His apprehension of the existence of a spiritual God has given him a soul. He sets about fulfilling his destiny. His attitude towards other organisms is that of Providence—of that Over-Lord who before his own spiritual birth was his own Providence, i.e. an active power outside himself and greater than his own. From this time forth his dominion is felt in the world as a governing force. His ability and authority increase with intellectual growth, until, as in the present day, the generation, development and extinction of species in the animal and vegetable kingdoms are to a certain extent modified by him according to his will and for his own ends.

Throughout his wonderful career we find his Deity representative of his own growing powers, and of his own attitude towards the governing forces of Nature. His conception of God is, in fact, the chronicle in serial form of his evolution as an intellectual and spiritual creature, a chronicle which faithfully records his progress and reflects his changing conditions of life.

A study of the religions of men of past ages is thus a study of the index of their lives, their thought, their social and moral status, enabling us to estimate their positions in the evolutionary scale of humanity. As we review this register of the life-stories of mankind, we find the idea of the nature of God keeping pace with intellectual advance. But although the distinguishing characteristic of man, even in his crudest stage, is always his idea of and his worship of a Deity, mankind as a whole has never worshipped at any one time the same idea of God. In the past as well as in the present, the many religions existing and obtaining credence and support all over the inhabited world give a fair idea of the intellectual and moral status of the people they represent. The ethical value of any religion is not gauged by an estimate of the number of its devotees as compared with those of any other religion. Its existence merely represents the mental state of those who are its adherents. As a rule, a religious creed is built upon a supposed special revelation of God; but to the scientist religions appear also as revelations of mankind. To him their value is retrospective and deductive, inasmuch as they offer evidence of intellectual growth, which he perceives to be the natural precursor of those spiritual conceptions of the nature of God which may become in course of time consolidated into dogmatic formulæ.

The extinction or survival of a religious creed as an active force points to the extinction or survival of that type of mind of which the creed was the reflection. Progress forbids uniformity of type and equality of structure on the spiritual as well as on the physical plane of life. Change and variety of religious feeling are necessary to the evolution of the soul, and should be welcomed as evidence of its growth. But not until, from the several types of man now inhabiting the earth, one were proved fit to survive in the struggle for existence and capable of maintaining its supremacy, could mankind worship the same idea of God. If this should ever occur, the change in the spiritual consciousness of man might be as stupendous and of consequences as far-reaching as that crisis in his physical evolution when the brute, becoming apprehensive of a God, was born into spiritual life and became possessed of a soul.

But the inequality of species cannot be adopted as the calculative basis of comparative virtue in the evolutionary scale, since the relative positions of organisms can only be determined by an examination of the degree of consciousness possessed by each in comparison with the others. For instance, although we say that a horse is a more highly organised creature than a rabbit, meaning thereby that according to our estimation he presents a more complicated mechanism, yet such a comparison of physical susceptibility is necessarily imperfect, because limited by the degree of our own discrimination. For since the correctness of our judicial opinions rests upon our ability properly to appreciate the true relation between intelligences and their environments different from our own, it follows that our criticism of their comparative complexity can be no criterion of intrinsic individual merit. The same inadequacy of human judgment applies to any attempt to estimate the degree of spiritual consciousness possessed by various organisms. Such endeavour may be successful in establishing a comparative standard for a rational criticism of religious creeds in their relation to physical evolution; but it is powerless to affix a stationary standard of morality to differently constructed intelligences.

The possession by creatures of faculties differing from those of others does not necessarily make for superiority or inferiority. That is to say, differentiation of type does not determine merit. A man is not superior to a horse because his structure and powers are unlike those of the horse; nor is a rabbit or a bird inferior either to a horse or to a man, since the organisation of all these creatures is adapted to different usage. Thus, the possession of a highly specialised brain does not in itself make of man a superior order of creation. The use or abuse of faculties, and the obedience or disobedience to the laws of being, offer the only standard by which the comparative superiority, inferiority, or equality of creatures of different organisation can be fairly estimated. And only by a similar comparison of the response to spiritual environment displayed by the followers of religious creeds can an approximate idea of their value be formed.

It is unreasonable to dissociate the evolution of any one organism from the evolution of the whole of life. All creatures have a common origin in the Spirit of Life, and if we believe that all things work together for good in the manifestation through love of this vital energy, all organisms are seen to be of mutual help in the development of spiritual consciousness as well as in the perfecting of physical form. There exists, therefore, no warrant for assuming that the physical and spiritual evolution of man is achieved more for his own separate good than for the common benefit of all forms of life; or that organisms other than man have not, or will never have, those spiritual conceptions of the nature of God which signify the development of what we designate as Soul.

Because all creatures are the works of God's hand—images of the Divine Will—evolutionary growth must surely bring them increasing consciousness of union with the essential Spirit of Life, which is at once the source and end of their beings. We are justified in assuming that the Creator does indeed draw from all His creatures recognition of an order dependent upon the manner and purpose of their kind. But though it be granted that perception of the presence of spiritual attributes in organisms may be resolved into an appreciation of the ability of creatures to conceive ideas of the nature of God, verification of any such supposed ability depends upon the standard of Truth upon which investigation is based.

Now, although evidence is rightly regarded as a proper test of all truth possible of comprehension, there may be apprehended the existence of infinite truths not demonstrable in their entirety, because their adequate expression necessitates faculties not possessed by the finite intelligence of man. When essential truth is in some measure perceived, it is always evidence that brings about comprehension; but when only dimly apprehended and shrouded in mystery, the intellect reaches forward into realms too hazy and undefined to allow of a deduction of evidential testimony in support of something not yet within the demonstrable scope of reason.

The ability to adduce evidential testimony in support of a declaration of supposed facts is essentially an artistic faculty, and a necessary part of the equipment of every teacher, whether he draw his accredited inspiration from religious, scientific, or artistic sources, if he desire to perform effectually his educational function. The work of an artist is the evidence of his art, by means of which he may promulgate his convictions and secure converts to his creed.

But while, comparatively speaking, few men set out to preach and teach some special gospel for the purpose of urging it upon their brethren, every man offers in his own person evidence of character which may become an educational factor in the lives of his fellow-men. We know and esteem a man by his works, which are the expression of his convictions and the fruit of his being. Without the evidence of virtue in the lives of those who profess to possess it, we are not justified in believing in its reality.

The artistic power of producing and recognising evidential testimony of supposed truths is part of the divine birthright of all men. The supreme Artist of Life, God, through whose works of art men may perceive the Spirit of Life, through whose creative energy the gospel of Infinite Truth is continuously made manifest, has given to man his body as a temple of truth, whereby the light of the spirit may shine out in evidence of its being. Made in the likeness of God, the handiwork of the Divine Artist, he manifests the glory of his Creator in his own human works of art—his creative powers witnessing to the essential divinity of his being. His senses give him evidence of his physical environment, and his reason, as the summary of sense, rightly seeks for verification of all that is announced to him as fact. But his senses cannot give him adequate evidence of his psychical environment, because its mere apprehension entails a transcending of the spirit over the medium of the flesh, thereby carrying vision beyond the point where verification of what is seen is possible, and where, attempting its expression, the vision becomes a shrunken incoherent thing, utterly inadequate as a likeness of what it is supposed to represent.

The poet, the seer, the musician, the sculptor know something of this inability to reach in their work expression worthy of its conception. And if this is so with the artist, how much more so with the genius, who is compelled by a force he does not wholly understand, and yet is possessed of some executive power of demonstration!

The genius lives in advance of his time, having a flash-like insight into knowledge hidden as mystery from the understandings of his fellow-men. He suffers the loneliness of the pioneer who, treading a path where none has trod before, leaves an open way with marks of guidance and explanation for those who come after him. But such a man has compensation for the lack of human fellowship in his consciousness of achieving work capable of raising the standard of thought in the minds of those who behold it. They may not understand, but they can admire. They acknowledge the work of genius—an attitude which is conducive towards a fuller appreciation of what they admire. They behold, in fact, evidence of something they do not fully understand, but which they apprehend to be true. Thus art fulfils its divinely ordered purpose in the evolution of the human mind, its educational influence being traceable in all records of human progress.

But there are spiritual ideals, visions of beauty, symphonies of harmony, unseen by earthly eyes, unheard by earthly ears, wholly impossible of demonstration, which remain for ever unexpressed and uncomprehended by those who have apprehended them. These seers of visions and dreamers of dreams have not, perhaps, the artistic power by which an attempt could be made to transcribe the vision in a manner legible to the ordinary human understanding. Or there exists, perhaps, no adequate evidence by which even a genius is able to express what he has apprehended in ideal and abstract thought. Yet to the dreamer, the seer, the genius an ideal is none the less true because he cannot certify its truth by evidence that would convey its verity to other persons.

One of the facts that the theory of the evolutionary descent of man and the evolutionary development of his soul has made clear is that there is no limit to his future acquirements of thought and understanding. Mental growth is a continual feeling after knowledge a little in advance of comprehension—of knowledge still hidden as mystery, to be approached only by a consistent application of the intellect towards the discovery of the evidence of truth in all things submitted to consideration. Speculative thought acts as an impetus to the mind to set about the finding of evidence that shall induce a natural growth of knowledge from mystery. Were there no knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, its development could not continue, for stagnation of thought, checking mental activity, must lead subsequently to degeneration. It is the effort to get, rather than the getting, which is the zest of existence. Without the hunger of mind and body, how could the nourishment necessary for the continuity of mental and physical life be obtained?

Truth is infinite, as God is infinite, and apprehension of this divine fact does not rest upon evidential testimony. But comprehension entails the evidence of reason, and is necessary to the evolution of the human understanding. Such evidence forms a link between mystery and knowledge, and offers a means by which the maturing intellect of man may obtain a gradual conversion of mystery into knowledge. Desire must precede fulfilment. May not the longing to penetrate ever further into mysteries not as yet, by reason of our imperfections, demonstrable to our intellects, be the pioneer of the discovery of truths now unknown, but which in the fulness of time will be given as the spiritual inheritance of all those who, being pure in heart, shall see God in a light of revelation that has kept pace through all ages with the evolution of mankind?

In such a manner does it seem that the desire for proof of human immortality should be considered.

It is difficult to conceive how, on the physical plane of existence, evidence of the survival of human individuality after death could be obtained.

The results of modern psychical research would seem to show that it is possible for the spirit of a dead person to be temporarily reinvested with a physical form other than its own body, and to communicate by this means with living persons. It is suggested that a spirit can so control a living person as to direct itself through him as a medium for some purpose not necessarily known to him. It is further suggested that, presupposing the survival of individual consciousness after death to be a fact, a disembodied spirit might so possess a living person with its influence as to become virtually reincarnate. It is known in ordinary life that the will of one person can so influence the thoughts of another as practically to annihilate his individuality, which, falling more and more completely beneath this dominating mental force, becomes finally a mere passive instrument of another's will. Is it not possible that this same domination of one personality over another, so often noticed in life, may be continued after death in an even more intense degree, and thus provide proof of the survival of individuality?

Unfortunately, although such hypotheses have been supported by psychical evidence and phenomena seemingly confirmative of their truth, there has been as yet no positive assurance that this so-called proof of survival of individual consciousness is not the result of telepathy either deliberately or innocently evoked from an extreme sensitiveness of the medium to the mental suggestions of those who desire to see the particular phenomena that are subsequently produced.

The Catholic Church asserts the possession of incontrovertible proof of the reality of human immortality, teaching that, unless the resurrection from the dead of the body of Christ be accepted as an actual historical fact, the Christian religion must of necessity become a vain and purposeless thing. But the evidence adduced in support of this doctrine is, from a scientific point of view, by no means conclusive. It is not, however, from Christian dogma alone that the hope of immortality has been born in the human breast; and justification for the reasonableness of that hope does not therefore rest solely on evidential testimony of the truth of the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Although it would seem that the survival of individual consciousness after death, whether it be attested by a possible spiritual reincarnation, or whether by the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection, cannot be regarded as assured by any evidence satisfying the requirements of scientific criticism, yet we are not therefore justified in assuming that confirmation of the reality of these spiritual apprehensions of human immortality will be for ever withheld from the human understanding. Man, being capable of foreseeing death as an inevitable termination of his earthly existence, has conceived the idea of spiritual survival as a possible corollary of physical life. But for the justification of this hope there is as yet no conclusive evidence, since demonstration of its truth necessitates a transference of thought from the finite reckoning to that of Infinite Truth veiled as yet in mystery.

A creature which by reason of its organisation lacked the intellectual capacity to imagine its death, could not know the desire for immortality. Before man arrived at that stage in his evolution when he was able to foresee his death as an inevitable occurrence, we may suppose that he knew no craving for life after death. But the instinct of self-preservation, common to all forms of life, becomes in him the natural precursor of the hope of immortality—that spiritual desire which gives a special and divine character to humanity. That intellectual development which gives the capacity to foresee the inevitableness of physical dissolution is thus responsible for the apprehension of a spiritual survival of death. Recognition of the truth that the life of the world continues after the individual has suffered physical death carries with it some consciousness of the circulation of other vital force. Knowledge of death is thus preliminary to man's perception of the continuity of life, and a necessary preparation for his acquisition of such consciousness of impersonal vitality as leads to his apprehension of a Spiritual God, whence he perceives his own vitality to be derived. With recognition of God as the Divine Spirit of Life, his hope of immortality is justified of its conception. For if the life of God be in man, his spirit cannot die. Is not this self-knowledge the spiritual birthright of all men, to which Christ referred in the words, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (St John iii. 3)?

Out of a knowledge of death, consciousness of spiritual life is evolved, from which springs the desire for immortality. "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor. xv.).

The evolving intellect of man has given him knowledge of the inevitableness of death as the termination of physical existence, and from this evolution of intellect is born the spiritual apprehension of the resurrection of the dead—of that immortality of the Divine Spirit of Life which is the veritable essence of the teaching of Christ, and which finds endorsement in the modern scientific interpretation of the laws of Nature. Does not the evolutionary theory of the descent of man, by showing his spiritual development to be in accord with the scientific explanation of his origin, endorse the words of Christ relating to his spiritual inheritance of immortality?

Hope, the outcome of the imaginative or creative faculty in man, is the pioneer of knowledge, for it is by that reaching out of the human mind into realms of speculative thought that ideas and apprehensions, if true, become gradually clothed with evidence of their truth, according as the spiritual and physical evolution of man makes him more capable of approaching the illimitable and infinite glory of God.

The self-education of a child is achieved by a continual process of verification of his speculative thought by evidence. His ideas are regulated by the evidence he can deduce capable of realising them, when they are instantly registered as experience, which forms an ever-broadening base for further speculative flights of the imagination. As the mind matures, this faculty of speculative thought becomes, under the name of initiative, the germ of all undertakings calling for personal direction and action. A man undertakes to do certain things because he has confidence in his executive powers. He has experienced the evidence of his capability and verified his powers, and he therefore dares to go boldly forward into wider fields of action. A child still crudely experimenting for evidence of the truth of his own small infantine powers of apprehension, has as yet no conception of yet vaster knowledge awaiting his more matured mind. The knowledge and power possessed by his father are a mystery to him, calling forth his respect and awe, so that he scarcely dares to think he may one day be as wise himself.

The knowledge of God and of Infinite Truth which a man has not in its completeness is a mystery to him, calling forth his respect and awe as his own powers inspire his little son with a like veneration. But nothing forbids a man from changing the mystery of God into a knowledge of God, if he have understanding capable of meeting the revelation, just as there is nothing to forbid a child from making the mystery of his father's knowledge his own possession if he have adequate power of comprehension.

Evidence is a proper test of all truths possible of comprehension, but it is no test of the existence of Infinite Truth, by which the world and the affairs of men are formed for a purpose withheld as yet in its entirety from the imperfect human understanding.

Where it has been given to man to penetrate some way into the knowledge of so-called Natural Law, a beautiful coherency in the structure and continuity of life has always been observed. The Unity of Nature, and the working together of the Whole of Life, is a fact, the evidence of which has been deduced and declared over and over again in corroborative detail as the results of scientific investigation. Could the history of the intellectual attainments of man be to-day unrolled before his wondering gaze, there would, we are told, appear no break in the perfect continuity of his ascending life, but instead a perpetual adjustment of the evidence of his speculative thought—of evidence so contrived as to keep pace with his capacity to understand. And could his future history be in a like manner revealed to him to-day; could he foresee that mysteries, now so incomprehensible, are yet destined to be comprehended by him as knowledge, we are justified in believing there would appear the same beautiful coherency in his spiritual evolution which has marked his material progress in the past.

When man is ready to receive the verification of the immortality he hopes for, but for which he has as yet no scientific evidence, we may be sure it will be given to him. Signs are not wanting that this almost universal craving of the human race is not to remain for ever unsatisfied. Meanwhile, can we not watch one hour? The day is certain when we shall all in our own persons receive confirmation of the truth of our apprehensive hope for immortal life. Can we not, then, in acquiescence with the Will of God, which all experience teaches us to be a directing Will for Good, rest content in the belief that because evidence of a truth is never withheld from those capable of understanding it, so we, when we are ready for a verification of this desire of the soul, may be given the evidence for which we hope?