SCIENCE, NATURE AND LITERATURE.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10483, 23 October 1899, Page 3

SCIENCE, NATURE AND LITERATURE.

[Br the Rev. R. Waddell, M.A., D.D., Ddjtedin.] I propose to attach a somewhat limited interpretation to the new scientific conception of Nature. I shall take it to mean the expression of Nature in terms of force. In its analysis of the universe science is brought to a halt before a something to which it gives the name Force. This Force is omnipresent and omnipotent. Matter as well as Life manifests it. Faraday long ago defined atoms as centres of force. Further all the forces of Nature are interchangeable —light becomes beat, and iheat motion, etc. They are (also indestructible. When you blow out a candle you do not extinguish a force; you only change the form of its manifestation. Ail the rivers of the earth are not different waters. They are all one. They have a common origin. They all come from the sea. They all return thither again. So all the forces of nature—vital, chemical, physical, etc., are not all different. They all issue out of one central foroe, and they are all sustained by it. The most patient, and, in some respects the meet able investigator of these forces—Mr Herbert Spencer—tells us as the result of ft life time's study "that amid the mysteries which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty, that we are ever in the presence of an infinite and eternal Energy from which all tilings proceed." Now what is the law by which this force carries on ite Cjperafcions? Evolution. What is evolution? Its briefest and best definition is probably that given by Prof. Lβ Conte. It is "a continuous progressive change, according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces." Evolution is not a cause. It is only the explanation of a process. It does not tell us who or what creates progress. It only tells us the method by which, progress advances. It says it is evolution. Evolution, is ever from the simple to the complex—from the one to tihe many—from the single life germ to the multitudinous variations of life that we see around us today. That does not imply, however, that progress has been always upward. Progress is not inconsistent with halts, and breaks, with arrested development and decay. "A growing tree," says the author just quoted, "branches again and again, branches in all directions, some branches go upward, some sideways, some downwards — anywhere, everywhere for light and air. Bat the whole tree grows ever better in its higher branches, larger in the circumference of Hβ outstretching anas, and more diversified in ite structure. Even so the tree of life by the law of differentiation branches and ever rebranches continually in all directions whole tree grows ever better in its higher planes, Progress—some pushing horizontally, but only going further from the generalized organ, Specialization — some going downward, Degeneration. Anywhere, everywhere for an unoccupied space in the economy of nature. But die whole tree grows ever higher in ite iugfcer parts, grander in its proportions, more clearly diversified in ite structure." That aa ,» striking illustration of the method of progress—of how the law of evolution Works. Now these two great scientific discoveries have exercised a very deep and wide spread influence on literature. Science indeed was not *he first to point the way here. Flashes and hints of it were first struck out in literature. Shelley in bis "Prometheus Unbound," Browning in "Parace&sus," and Tennyson in "In Memoiiam" had ail prophesied of them. In each of these poems there is a clear pronunciation of evolution as distinct from the then current doctrine of spasmodic or special creation. Bat science has repaid ite debt to literature a hundred fold by broadening its horizon and assuring ite faith. But you cannot have height without depth. Prosperity is peril And so these new conceptions of nature Save their dangers. Everything depends upon the qualities that you attach, to this all pervasive force. What is it, this force? Can we know anything of it beyond its manifestations? Is it intelligent? Is it a power that makes for Righteousness? Is man equally with matter a knk in a necessary chain of evolution? It is obvious that the answers to these questions carry with them the vfcott ia*» of dnmctr aod moral life.

Science says it does not know what this' force is. It is not Us business. It hands' the problem over to phi'-osophy, and philo- I sophy, represented by ilr Herbert Spencer, us that this force is an absolute mystery and mast ever remain sneh. This thought has (assed over into literature. . Many { writers seek to sa»* that this force is not ■ only inscrutab-C; but irresistible. The evoj lution of tlie world ii a necessary process. j'!'h;3;'S c-isju "v t !>o t.'tfcer than they are. i Man 13 not free. Us is only a link in this chain of evolution irticli he can neither rej sisi nor coatrw. The outcome of this is, of i coiirre. Fatalism or Pessimism. These de- ; pressing doctrines colour a great portion of I ; cur mocera literature. George Eliot i j wrestles with them bravely through all her ! I books. TII2 great problem she sets herself '' jto solve is to find a basis for duty in a J world devoid of supernatural sanctions. It iis an extremely, difficult undertaking. ! Opinions will differ as to how far this great genius has succeeded. But there can be' no difference on this point: that the effort has taken much of the light and buoyancy out of her art. She is struggling with a fate that weighs down the soul. We feel as Mathsw Arnold wrote of Obennann: "A fever in these pages burns, Beneath ih& calm they feign, A wounded human spirit here Turns on its bed of pain." Mathew Arnold himself had to wrestle with the same problem. And so had Arthur Hugh Clough who along with Arnold may be regarded as tie most characteristic singer of our time. Says Clough in one of his poems: — "Necessity and who shall dare Bring to her feet excuse or prayer? How'er we turn, and pause and tremble, How'er we shrink, decree dissemble, What'er our doubting, grief, disgust, The hand is on us, and we must, We must, -we must. 'Tia common sense and human wit, Can find no better name than it Submit, submit." The same note sounds through the verae of the most promising singer now left to us, William Watson. It appears also in a harsher and more scornful lorm in the work of one, who, in many respects, is the greatest living novelise — Thomas Hardy. To him, Nature, or the Power which rules in it or over it, is no longer a thing to be regarded with a. wistful awe, or a graceful submission. It is a thing to be despised and scorned. He regards it not simp';y as thwarting but mocking man's dearest hopes. In one of the most powerful of his books, a girt struggles for righteousness and is defeated all along the line, and as she is at hat pushed off the scaffold with the hangman's rope about her neck, Hardy's sardonic comment is "The President of the Immortals had finished lis sport with Tess." Teaching less grim, but hardly less gloomy, appears in that strong, sad book "The Story of an African Farm," the pages of Buch a master of' style and imagination as the author of "Mark Rutherford's Deliverance," and ao also in many other writers of less: note. In truth the creed or spirit of pessimism has never been co wide-spread is our literature as it is today. Much of this I attribute to what seems to mc a wholly mistaken inference from the facts of physical science. A little consideration will show this. Take evolution, for instance. It is like that blessed word Mesopotamia. Readers of Disraeli's "Tancred" will recollect this amusing incident. "You must read the revelation of chaos," said Lady Constance to Tanored; "it is all explained. But what is most interesting is the way man has developed. ' You know all is development. The principle is perpetually going on. First, there was nothing; then, there was something; I forget the next. I think there were shells, then fishes; then we came. Let mc see, did we come next? Never mind that, we J came at last And the next change there will be something very superior to us—something with winga. Ah, that's it. We were fishes, and I believe we shall be crows. But you must read it." •That is hardly an exaggeration of how evolution shapes keelf even yet in the popular mind. For many people it explains everything. But as a matter of fact it conducts at last to the deepest mystery. We say it is an unfolding—ad unfolding out of what? Nobody knows. We have to aeeume a germ, an egg —an atom somewhere. But even an atom of matter is as inexplicable as a universe. A salt crystal is as mysterious as a soul. "An atom of iron," says Professor Flint, "is probably a more complicated system than the planets and their satellites." And this matter of which the atom)* are the' constituent elements, what is it? How is it the movements of particke of the brain, i.e., atoms of matter, becomes consciousness, feeling, thought? Nobody can telL Professor Tyndall says tbie transmutation ie <a perfect mystery. ! One ot our eminent scientists has recently I been telling us "that the most wonderful thing in the universe ie that little filament of nerve we c*U an.-ant's brain. By some secret that we cannot fathom it contrives to hold ideas as subtle, and complex, as those upon which our civilisation reste. How has this gossamer thread become charged with this wealth of wisdom and resource? The wisest cannot answer. Tennyson tells us that our deepest ]ays are dumb before the mouldering of a yew. And elsewhere he says that if we could know the whole inwardness of a flower in the crannied wall we should know what God is, and man. It ia not religion only that thrust* mysteries upon us. Nor is it science that delivers us from them. The greatest living >cien-. twt, Lord Kelvin, said recently. "I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether, electricity, and poncrerablo matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew half a century ago in my first professional- year." Similar testimony aa to the impenetrable mystery even of an / atom is borne by Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer. and others. And yet the long qoeet has not been wholly in vain. We are gradually being compelled to acknowledge that we must express tie ultimate of the universe not in terms of force or matter, but. of intelligence, and thought, and will. This is the contention of the very able Gifford Lectures, by Prof. James Ward, just published. Science has hunted down tfw atoms to points a« small as the ten miUwroth. of the twenty-fifth of an inch. Sir John HerscheU says "they possess all the characteristics of manufactured articles." "The ultimate elements of matter," says another eminent scientist, "are not put together at random. They are placed in exact mathematical relations," tbe DToof of which ie the science of chemistry. Matter in ite ultimate elements is arithmetical. It carries thoudit in the relations of its minutes? -molecules. •Again, science has shown us the omnipresence and the omnipotence of force. But it cannot tell us what force is. It hands over the problem to the mental philosopher. If we read , thai wonderful book of Carlyle's, "Sartor Resartus," we shall get the true con- i oeption of force. The only real cause known to us which sets force in movement is will, and so thought and will attach themselves to this force which science finds everywhere. But thought and will are afao'attributes of life, and so we are IBS on to the conception of a living, intelligent, omnipresent will, of which this all pervasive force fci the manifestation. And here is the great achievement of science. Its premises point to the conclu- . sion that Nature -is the Garment of Divi- i nity It forces us to" conceive of tiie Creator in bis universe rather than over it That was the old view.'- It related him to His creation as a mechanic to his machine. He made H, *t it agoing, then withdrew, when it went wrong interfering to correct it, Le., miracles. The new conception to which science conducts, whieh'is. indeed, old, If we go far enough back, as old, at least, as some of the Hebrew poets —is the opposite of this. U brings God into His universe. He Uin it as our life is in our body. Where ia it there? Everywhere. It looks through our eve It throbs in our pulse. It thinks in* our' brain. It feels in cur heart. It is omnipresent. So God is in His world. Its forces are His muscles—if we may use material terms for spiritual concepts. Its movements are His energies. Its lairs the expression of His wilL Its uniformity the constancy of His actions. Its Bfc overflowing of Hie ow»

! Readers of Robert Browning will remember t the magnificent setting of this truth which iht gives in "Paracelsus." and whick, by We - way, appeared before evolution had been announced and elaborated by Darwin and Spencer. The great searcher after truth ia Browning's poem comes within sight of it just as his life is ending. This secret of the werid, he says, is, "how God tastes an infinite joy In infinite ways—one ever'.aiting bliss From whom all being emanates, all power Proceeds; in whom is life forever more, Yet whom existence in its lowest form Includes.' Then the poet goes on to spsak of the energy and power in this material universe " Earth is a viutry clod; j But spring wind, like a dancing psaltress, I Over its breast to-waken it, rare verdure I Buds tenderly upon rsugh banks, between The withered tree-roots and the crocks of frost, Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face; a lie shining dorrs are busy, beetles run Along the furrows, ants make their ado; Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, shivering for very joy; Afar the ocean sleeps, white fishing-gulls Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek Iheir loves in wood and plain—and God renews His ancient rapture. Thus He dwells in all l< rom life s minute beginnings, up at last ' To man, the consummation of this scheme Of being." Of course this truOi of the Divine Immanence has to be supplemented by that of the Divine Transcendence. Otherwise we are landed in Pantheism. But when it is, Nature becomes a new creation for life and literature. The first and supremest result is to give a new sacredness and mystery to the everyday world. The ancient mind could not conceive of a universe in which the Divine Being was equally present, and equally operative, ir every part, and at the same time. And 50 it parcelled it out among a crowd of deities. Where they dwelt was sacred. Shrines were built, and pilgrimages made. Here lived the gods. Everywhere else was profane. This new scientific conception sweeps ail that away. It sweeps it away as the ocean sweeps away the rock pool which it floods and fulfils. The one Life'in the universe makes it not less divine, but more divine. It is sacred now not in spots, but everywhere— "Earth's crammed with heaven And every common bush's afire with God." And thus science, wnieh onco threatened to empty the universe of mystery and sacredness, is really giving us back these things in wondrous and forceful form. And there is nothing needed so much, especially in these colonies. The qualities of reverence and of wonder threaten to disappear from the colonial youth. The loss is incalculable. There is an old saving attributed to our Lord, "He that wonders shall reign." He may never have said so, but it is as true as if He did. Without the sense of wonder, reverence, awe, mystery, character of any worth is impossible, and noble literature must die. And when the Universe was regarded as a sort of huge machine, without life, or soul, or will, or intelligence, no such sense was possible. But now, when it is coming to be understood that it is charged with divinity to its very minutest atoms, there is fresh hope for both life and literature. It is this which has given wings to the imagination of our greatest poets—Tennyson and Browning. It was this, also, which wrought for us in the weird and powerful genius of Carlyle. In that book, which is the greatest counterblast against, this mechanical, conception of the world sounded this century, Carlyle tells the history of his spiritual development. In a well-knpwn passage he writes: — "Nature? Ha, why do I not name thee Gour Art not thou the living government of God? Oh, heavens is it in very deed* He, then, that ever speaks through thee, that lives and loves in thee, that lives and lores in mc? Sweeter than dayspring to the shipwrecked; ah, like the mother's voice to fier little child that stray* bewildered, weeping m unknown lumuliS like soft streamings of celestial music to my too • "exasperated heart, came that Evangel: The universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel house with spectres, but godlike, and my Father's." In that interpretation of nature lies the future of the life and literature of the world.