*»5 hhhhI iv (■■'•vh'-vV'i .ivy. ■•'.•.'■• fflBHM H H . rv -n-o nvT/-i-ciin/-\TVT ivr t v PRINCETON, N. J. 5//^. BL 100 .'P7 1886 Piatt, W. H. 1821-1898 The philosophy of the supernatural NvU^ She gtehop 3?aMach lectures, 1886 THE / PHILOSOPHY OF THE SUPERNATURAL BY W. H. PLATT, D. D. f LL. D. RECTOR OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH ROCHESTER, N. Y. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST. 1886. Copyright W. H. PLATT 1886 THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES. In the summer of the year 1880, George A. Jarvis of Brooklyn, N. Y., moved by his sense of the great good which might thereby accrue to the cause of Christ and to the Church, of which he was an ever grateful member, gave to the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Epis- copal Church certain securities exceeding in value eleven thousand dollars for the foundation and maintenance of a Lectureship in said Seminary. Out of love to a former Pastor and enduring friend, the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Henry Paddock, D.D., Bishop of Massa- chusetts, he named his Foundation " The Bishop Paddock Lectureship." The deed of trust declares that : " The subjects of the Lectures shall be such as appertain to the defence of the religion of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Holy Bible and illustrated in the Book of Common Prayer against the varying errors of the day, whether mate- rialistic, rationalistic, or professedly religious, and also to its defence and confirmation in respect of such central truths as the Trinity, the Atonement, Justification and the Inspira- tion of the Word of God and of such centrai facts as the Church's Divine Order and Sacraments, her historical Refor- mation and her rights and powers as a pure and National Church. And other subjects may be chosen if unanimously approved by the Board of Appointment as being both timely and also within the true intent of this Lectureship." Under the appointment of the Board created by the Trust, viz., the Dean of the General Theological Seminary and the Bishops respectively of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Long Island, the Rev. W. H. Piatt, D.D., LL. D., Rector of St. Paul's Church, Rochester, N. Y., delivered the Lectures for the year 1886, contained in this volume. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. I. Handbook of Art Culture. II. The Influence of Religion in the Development of Jurisprudence. III. Legal Ethics, or, the Unity of Law. IV. God Out and Man In, ok, Replies to R. G. Ingersoll. V. After Death — What ? or, the Immortality of the Soul. NOTE. The Lecturer is unable, in publishing these lectures, to reproduce the popular form of illustrations, that were al- lowable in the freedom of their extemporaneous delivery. His further revision of them has been impossible under the pressure of unassisted daily Lenten services and lectures, both in and out of his own parish. It is his hope, at no very distant day, to be able to give his subject a more ex- tended and critical discussion; but, lest the realization of that hope should be unexpectedly delayed, immediate use has been made of such supplemental matter from his other lectures, essays and books, whether published or unpublished, as was thought to complete and strengthen his present argu- ment. With the most careful proof-reading possible under the circumstances, the author discovers errors which every scholar will readily correct for himself. W. H. P. Easter Monday, Rochester, 1886. ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. PAGE. I. Supernatural Power. Lect. I. i i. Facts imply a Factor. 2 2. Factor implies Power. 8 3. Power is supernatural. 9 4. Supernatural Power manifests. 19 (a) Causative phenomena. (b) Derivative phenomena. Eirst. — Life from life. 27 Second. — Will from will. 30 Third. — Mind from mind. 32 Fourth. — Consciousness from consciousness 33 Fifth. — Personality from personality. 36 (c) A great subsequent proves a greater antecedent. 40 (d) A small antecedent proves a smaller subsequent. 49 5. Supernatural Power is one Being. 64 II. Methods of Supernatural Power. Lect. II. 69 1. Method as related to miracles. 2. Method as related to providence. 3. Method as related to Law. 4. Method as related to creation. (a) Inorganic (b) Organic. 5. Method as related to evolution. (a) as a process, (b) as a method. 6. Method as seen in correlation. (a) Direct, (b) Inverse. 7. Method of Correlation of Force. Lect. VI. 267 (a) Unconscious, (b) Conscious. 8. Method of Persistence. Lect. VII. 306 (a) of consciousness, {b) of force, {c) of soul. 69 73 74 Lect. III. 113 Lect. IV. 167 Lect. V. 252 ERRATA Page 15 — Second line from top, read the word Inscrutable for " Inscruti- able." Page 34 — Fourteenth line from bottom, read then for " the." Page 40 — Sixth line from bottom, omit " But that is impossible." Page 47 — Fifth line from top, omit "We derive only power." Page 49 — Second line from bottom, read noumenal for " nomenal." Page 63 — Eleventh line from bottom, read Though for " As." Page 105 — Top line, read Ethics is law for " No ethics is law " Page 107 — Top line, read effects for " effect " Page 129 — Thirteenth line from top, insert which after "that." Page 169 — Top line, read for for " to." Page 176 — Put (c) in brackets for (e). Page 278 — Second line from top, read I & 2 for " 142." Page 320 — Omit equally, in seventh line from bottom. Page 321 — Transpose not before "that," in fourth line from bottom. LECTURE I. SUPERNATURAL POWER. The Philosophy of the Supernatural is the deduc- tion of supernatural principles from an induction of natural facts. We can better hope to define supernature, when we have first defined nature. Nature is all that it can prove itself to be, and Supernature is all that nature is not, and which it cannot prove itself to be. Nature is the derived ; supernature is the underived. Super- nature is that which has always been ; nature is that which has not always been. My object is to show that, i. Nature cannot be separated from Supernature, the stream from the fountain, the human from the super- human. Infinite, supernatural Power manifests finite methods. Nature, a part, makes the induction of su- pernature the whole. As a belief in supernature is intuitive to the human mind, we have not so much to prove supernature, as to disprove the arguments of those who deny it. In doing the latter, we con- firm the former. How shall we prove this? Shall we assume the supernatural, and reason, a priori, down to nature, or shall we begin at the admitted observable facts of 2 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. nature, and reason a posteriori up to supernature ? There are what we call natural facts, things done rather than things existing, which we can test by the scales, the scalpel, the retort, and the crucible. Let us, then, begin our study with the verifiable observa- tions of the facts of nature. Subject and object are related as parent and child ; one is derived from the other ; and any philosophy of the relative that ig- nores either subject or object — cause or effect — nou- raenon or phenomenon — is incomplete as a philosophy. When told that facts are related by certain laws, the demand is irrepressible, that we go further, and ac- count for the laws, and for their Law-giver. The loy- alty of the human intellect to itself will never evade, nor permit any line of thinking calling itself philoso- phy or science, to evade a complete answer to the questions it may raise. We study matter for an ob- jective base to a subjective theology. Nothing is beyond supernatural purpose and power. Nature but photographs the map in the supernatural mind. Method is a working plan of Power. And here we notice the distinction between Power and Force, and between creation and causation. That which is Power to the philosophers is Force to the scientists. All new things as the first atom of any kind and the first organisms, are creations by Power as power; all chemical or mechanical uses of these atoms are causations by Power called Force. Power as Force has a direct causative method or plan of ap- plication ; first, when it chemically cojndiues inorganic matter, and secondly, when it mechanically moves inor- ganic matter. After God, as an originating Power, Power Chemically Combines Matter. 3 manifested matter, whether manifesting himself as matter, as some Pantheists say, or creating it when there was nothing, He proceeded to construct it into to forms and functions, creating or residing in it, as chemical combinations, mechanical motion, and vital force. To find the Factor, let, us begin with the facts. To do this, let us imagine ourselves standing, for a moment, on the bank of a river. In its depths are fish. On the bank are trees. We have water without life, trees with life, fish with life and intelli- gence, and we ourselves have conscious thought. Some one power is doing several different things. Every object is covered by the method of the uni- verse, whatever the method is. In the water, we see a direct method of extrinsic power, creating atoms of oxygen and hydrogen, and as force causing them to become, with an unsuspended causation, the inor- ganic substance of water. In the organic trees, and in the fish, and in man, we see an additional, indirect method of extrinsic power, committing to the mys- tery of heredity the transmission of life. Analyze one drop of water from the river, and we see it to be a fact, that (a) Matter is chemically combined. The drop of water is the product of chemic affinity. But what is chemic affinity ? Is it blind, unintelligent, aimless, impersonal? Belonging to the inorganic de- partment of nature, one drop does not beget another ; but each for itself, underived from any other drop, must have just so many parts of oxygen, and just so many parts of hydrogen, and be the immediate causa- 4 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. tive combination of the original creative Power. No one drop by inheritance can help another. They must not only be causatively put together, but they must be causatively held together. Continued exist- ence is continued creation. The mystery of combi- nation is not in the oxygen alone, nor in the hydrogen alone, nor in both unless the proportions are exact. Fifteen parts of oxygen by weight will not combine into water with three parts of hydrogen. Creative power fixes its own conditions, if conditions it must have. The proportions must be sixteen of one and two of the other ; neither more nor less. Even then, hotv is it that these gasses become water? Why do not these conditions produce ink, or wine, or milk, instead of mere water? No substance chemically de- finable has any attribute of life. Its atoms may be called dead. Who can explain the mystery ? We know that the sun's rays, acting upon the green surface of leaves over our heads, decompose the car- bonic dioxide, fix the carbon, and set free the oxygen ; but how is this done? How did the sun's rays get their power? We answer, by some creative will. We know that chlorate of potash when heated alone, will explode like gunpowder; and yet we know that when this potash is heated in the presence of a little black oxide of manganese, it gasifies in perfect quiet- ness and safety, and the manganese remains un- changed. To call this result a catalysis of the ele- ment, names, but does not explain it. How or by what power does the manganese hold the heated pot- ash in subjection ? By some creative will. How do similar molecules of gold or salt cohere, dissimilar Matter is Mechanically Moved. molecules of granite or gunpowder only adhere? The same will is the only explanation. How is it that by slowly heating with a certain proportion of the oil of vitriol, diluted largely with water, common sawdust, paper, and old rags even, have the proper- ties of sugar? The power of the change is in this same creative will. By what power does fire burn, medicines affect disease, or any and all other chemic changes take place ? We know what occurs, but hoiv ? And still more, why — for what end — are these changes made ? Again, in this water, as in everything, from a grain of sand to worlds and systems of worlds, we see it to be a fact that, {b) Matter is mechanically moved. What is mechanic force? Is that, too, blind, aim- less, unintelligent, and impersonal ? Water goes up in the trees, and down in the river. Why does the same fluid move in these opposite directions? One force overcomes another force. We say that water rises in the trees by capillary attraction, and flows down the channel by the attraction of gravitation, and the fish swim up the stream by will-power, in spite of gravitation. Unless will is law, fish swim up the stream without law and against law. Are these names of two different forces, or of one and the same force, moving water in different directions? What is gravitation ? Is it intelligent or unintelligent ? Whatever it is, it is the all-embracing power of the universe, holding all to one centre. But what is that centre? And further, we see it to be a fact that The Philosophy of the Supernatural. (c) Matter is vitally organized. What is vital cause or force? In these trees be- neath which we pause, are atoms of carbon, hydro- gen, and nitrogen, organized by some cause called LIFE. What is life ? Let those who claim to explain the wonders of nature, explain life. How does any organism cure its wounds ? How does the seed form, and the bud open, and the flower form and paint itself, and the fruit come to its ripened use ? Again, while we are looking at the work of some one Power masked in the atoms, and in the motion of the water, and in the growth and structure of the trees, we see in our own reflections upon these won- ders, a conscious cause or force. How do we think, and how do we think about our thoughts ? We are conscious that we are conscious. Do atoms think ? If so, atoms of what ? What class of atoms are so endowed, and who endowed them ? Do they think separately, in composition, or when compounded? 2. Fact implies a factor as much as the deed a doer; the thing made the maker; as much as a first implies a second, or the second the first ; and if we deny a factor to a fact, the doer to the deed, a creator to creation, or a cause to an effect, we must remould all present thought and language. But from facts we must form some notion of the Factor — from the seen we must form a conception of the Unseen — from phenomena we must form some opinion as to the Noumenon. For illustration ; when we see a convex bullet we know that it came out of a concave mould. Fact Implies Factor. We have said that every fact must have a Factor, and the Factor must be supernatural to a natural fact. These terms, fact and factor, strongly express crea- tion and a Creator. Mr. Spencer calls the Factor of facts a Power ; but right here the question is, is the force of the Factor extrinsic or intrinsic to the fact? Sometimes Mr. Spencer writes as though he thought the Power was extrinsic. He says, " We are obliged to regard every phenomenon as the manifestation of some Power by which we are acted upon." (F. P. § 27 lb. §§ 28, 194.) Nothing but will is automatic. Everything is either pushed or pulled along. Whatever evolution there may be, it is but the reaction of involution. For in- stance, the intrinsic energy of foliation returns the extrinsic Power of the chemistry of the Sun. Power ebbs and flows. Unless this Power be idle, all must also admit that this Power unlimited in time and space, manifests facts limited in time and space. Positive philosophy may arbitrarily limit itself to a study of facts — of phenomena — of effects — in a word, of the Object ; but the intelligence of mankind will require a system of such pretension, to find a law-giver for its laws — causes for its effects — noumenon for its phenomena— a Subject for its Object. Facts must be traced back to facts, ad infinitum, to a Factor, in order to construct complete science. Science is more than a catalogue of facts. Facts are objective to subject- ive Power. And here we reach the distinction be- tween philosophy and science; philosophy studies the subjective Power, and science the objective facts as a method of all that is before the mind. 8 The Philosophy of the Supernatural 3. Factor implies Power. The Infinite Factor ap- pears in the finite fact. The known fact reveals that unknown Factor, which in both Scripture and science, is called Power. St. Paul says, " the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead." As the cause is greater than the effect — as the producer is before the produced — as that which is, came from that which was before — as the doer is greater than the deed — so the factor is greater than the fact, the Power is greater than its manifestation. Prof. Fiske says : " There exists a power, to which no limit in time or space is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as presented in consciousness, are mani- festations, but which we can know only through these manifestations. Here is a formula legitimately ob- tained by the employment of scientific methods, as the results of subjective analvsis on the one hand* and of objective analysis on the other hand. Yet this formula, which presents itself as the final outcome of a purely scientific inquiry, expresses also the funda- mental truth of theism — the truth by which religious feeling is justified. The existence of God — the Su- preme truth asserted alike hy Christianity and by inferior historic religion — is asserted with equal em- phasis by that cosmic philosophy which seeks its data in science alone. * * * Though science may de- stroy mythology, it can never destroy religion ; and to the astronomer of the future, as well as the psalm- ist of old, the heavens will declare the glory of God." (Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 2 vol., p. 417.) Factor Implies Power. What is this Power, and what can we know of it ? Mr. Spencer says, " The consciousness of an Inscru- table Power manifested to us through all phenomena, has been growing ever clearer; and must eventually be freed from imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such a Power exists, while on the other hand its nature transcends intuition and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards which intelli- gence has from the first been progressing. To this conclusion Science inevitably arrives as it reaches its confines ; while to this conclusion Religion is irresist- ibly driven by criticism. And satisfying, as it does, the demands of the most rigorous logic, at the same time that it gives the religious sentiment the wid- est possible sphere of action, it is the conclusion we are bound to accept without reserve or qualifica- tion. (F.P.,§ 3 i.)" But this Inscrutable Power is so much a power of not-nature, that we have the authority of Mr. Spen- cer himself for saying that, 4. This power is supernatural. What is superna- ture ? This question is answered when we know what nature is. Supernature is that which nature is not, and for which nature cannot account. As the factor is greater than the fact, so if the fact is natural, the factor must be supernatural. The two conclusions of Mr. Spencer are : first, that nature and supernature are dual and not the same ; and, second, that the ultimate genesis of nature is in supernature — in other words, supernature begins all, and manifests itself in a method of natural facts. No greater inequality could be admitted, than that admit- io The PJiilosophy of the Supernatural, ted, but not denned, by Mr. Spencer. The difference, as just said, is in kind, not degree. One is what the other appoints, but cannot be what the other is. Supernature implies all possible inequality over na- ture in duration, essence, power and place. If super- nature is eternal, nature must be temporal ; if super- nature is Being, nature must be manifestation ; if supernature is omnipresent, nature must be local ; if supernature is omniscient, nature must be nescient ; if supernature is conscious, nature must be uncon- scious ; Man is supernatural so far as he is supernatur- ally conscious, as were the Prophets and the Apostles ; if supernature is power, nature must be only method. The plan of nature is supernatural to nature. Material science, as science, could not possibly ad- mit more to religion, than has been admitted by Mr. Spencer. Having traced, though to a limited extent, the methods of supernatural power, to the uttermost limits of its manifestation called nature, science must leave religion to follow on with its worship, of all that is beyond. Nature is but the method of super- nature, and this method only is subject to scientific study. Religion is for the supernatural power be- hind the method. Science may study what superna- ture does; religion bows before what supernature is. Here, then, we have the two sides of the universe, nature and supernature ; and the two studies, science and religion. Science ought not to question the be- liefs of religion in that where it has no knowledge ; and religion ought to rejoice for all knowledge of nature furnished by science, enlarging its conceptions of supernature. Power is Supernatural. 1 1 So far as the modern theory of evolution is proved, it proves all that need be proved, as to the existence and attributes of the supernatural — of God. Ac- cording to its logic of necessary progress, if God did not make nature, nature has made God. This is proved by the supernatural evolution of nature, or by the natural evolution of supernature. To begin is to create ; to continue is to evolve. Did supernature evolve nature, or nature, superna- ture? In the supernatural evolution of nature, the less is from the greater, or the part from the whole. In the natural evolution of supernature, the greater is from the less or the whole from a part. Evolution is a method of unbroken, progressive creation. Di- rect or indirect creation is every moment, every- where, in everything. Creation begins and continues the universe. Evolution, if anything, is an intelli- gent method of carrying on what intelligent power originally created. Our reasoning, whether from supernature to nature, or from nature to superna- ture, is both a priori and a posteriori. Supernature as an origin, leads us, a priori, to nature as a product; and nature as a product leads us back, a posteriori, to supernature as an origin. So, nature as a cause, leads us a priori to supernature as an effect; and nature as an effect, leads us back a posteriori to supernature as a cause. In either look, the Present is a historian of the Past, and a Prophet of the Future. If we can- not see that supernature has minimized itself to na- ture, we must admit, that in the necessity of eternal progress, nature must maximize itself to supernature. " As to the students of science, occupied as such i 2 The Philosopliy of the Supernatural. are with established truths," continues Herbert Spen- cer, " and accustomed to regard things not already known as things hereafter to be discovered, they are liable to forget that information, however extensive it may become, can never satisfy inquiry. Positive knowledge does not, and never can, fill the whole region of possible thought. At the utmost reach of discovery there arises, and must ever arise, the ques- tion — What lies beyond ? As it is impossible to think of a limit to space so as to exclude the idea of space lying outside that limit; so we cannot conceive of any explanation profound enough to exclude the question — What is the explanation of the explanation? Regarding science as a gradual increasing sphere, we may say, that every addition to its surface does but bring it into wider contact with surrounding nescience." (F. P. § 4.) If asked what is supernature, I reply by asking what is nature ? Is Power over nature natural or supernatural to nature ? If nature is an explanation of all things, supernature is that explanation of the explanation which answers Mr. Spencer's question. In the dual existence of the universe, St. Paul says, " The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead ; so that they are without excuse." (Rom. i., 20.) Thought becomes visible. Power takes meth- od. Mind is supernatural to the matter it proves to exist. To deny the supernatural assumes that the natural is both admitted and comprehended. But, if only the comprehensible is the natural, then nothing is Power is Behind All. 13 the natural. If all is supernatural which is incompre- hensible, then all is supernatural; for while we can apprehend some of the naked facts of matter, we cannot comprehend why the facts are facts — we can comprehend nothing. The supernatural is the in- comprehensible part of the comprehensible ; it is that which we do not understand in that which we think we do understand ; it is the unknown part of the known. Supernature is the invisible and intelligent Power behind the visible and unintelligent Form. As every concavity must enclose a convexity, and every convexity be enclosed in a concavity — as nothing can contain, surround, or embrace itself, so the finite must be within the circle of the infinite — nature must be contained in some supernatural container, call it supernature or what you may. As between nature and supernature, one is as incomprehensible as the other— in fact, they are different names for the same existence, considered from different sides of the uni- verse. One considers God in what He is, and the other in what he does. As from the South Pole to the North Pole it is all the way north, or as from the North Pole to the South Pole it is all the way south ; so from supernatural existence to natural phe- nomena, it is all supernatural, and from natural phe- nomena to supernatural existence it is all natural. Is the movement from supernature down to nature or from nature up to supernature? The supernatural is the subjective side of objective nature ; the natural is the objective side of subjective supernature. As the invisible fountain prolongs itself into the river, so supernature flows out into visible existence, called 14 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. nature. Supernature, Natura Naturans, is always producing and is never produced ; Nature, Natura Naturata, is always produced, and is never produc- ing - . But we cannot tell where supernature ends and where nature begins ; for, in a sense, each is the other. There is subjective identity and objective difference. As said before, all is supernatural or above nature for which nature cannot account, such as its own origin and development, it is that by which nature is nature. Strictly speaking, however, to separate nature from supernature, other than verb- ally, is to separate the inseparable Creator and crea- tion. Nature can no more separate itself from super- nature than a cube can separate itself from its own outside. Nature and supernature have a common centre in a supreme, omnipresent, omnipotent Will, personal or impersonal. The doctrine that supernature produces nature is the theistic logic of the whole producing a part ; but the doctrine that nature, the part that was, pro- duces the whole that is, is logically, pantheism. The Factor that could make a part of nature could make the whole ; and the Factor that could make the whole of nature, must be supernature. If words have any meaning, the finite is not the infinite, the fact is not the Factor, nor is the Factor the fact. Therefore, a natural fact implies a supernatural Factor. The man- ifesting thought must be supernatural to the man- ifested thing. In theistic evolution, mind manifests its own matter; in atheistic evolution, matter mani- fests its own mind. In this system the doctrine is, that the universe is the manifestation of a Power that Power is Behind All, 15 transcends our knowledge. This Power is otherwise called the " Inscrutiable Cause," " Immanent Force," " The Unknowable Reality," " The Unknowable Cause, Power or Force." (F. P., § 62.) With these phrases begin and end all that agnostic evolution has to say about the origin of the universe. Indeed evo- lutionists cannot deny that facts have a Factor ; but who or what that Factor is, whether personal or im- personal, intelligent or unintelligent, evolution is silent. That Factor, to sav the least, is a Power. To say that all things are manifestations of a Power that transcends our knowledge, is to say, that what the manifesting Power is, the manifested thing is not; and therefore, as just said, if one is natural, the other must be supernatural. Nature is the com- prehensible side of the supernatural, and the super- natural is the incomprehensible side of the natural. " Though the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a necessary doc- trine of consciousness ; that so long as conscious- ness continues, we cannot for an instance rid it of this doctrine; and that thus the belief which this doctrine constitutes has a higher warrant than any other whatever." (F. P., § 27.) Does the bullet make its own mould ? Does the star evolve its own atmosphere? and prescribe its own orbit and place ? That the Supernatural is something that the natural is not, and by which the natural is natural, is admitted by Mr. Spencer when he says (F. P. § 30) " The progress of intelligence has throughout been dual. Though it has not seemed so to those 1 6 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. who made it, every step in advance has been a step towards both the natural and the supernatural. The better interpretation of each phenomena has been, on the one hand, the rejection of a cause that was rela- tively conceivable in its nature, but unknown in the order of its actions, and, on the other hand, the adop- tion of a cause that was known in the order of its ac- tion, but relatively inconceivable in its nature. The first advance out of universal fetichism, manifestly in- volved the conception of agencies less assimilable to the familiar agencies of men and animals, and therefore less understood ; while at the same time, such newly conceived agencies, in so far as they were distin- guished by their uniform effects, were better under- stood than those they replaced. All subsequent ad- vances display the same double result. Every deeper and more general power arrived at as a cause of phe- nomena, has been at once less comprehensible than the special ones it superseded, in the sense being less definitely representable in thought ; while it has been more comprehensible in the sense that its actions have been more completely predicable. The progress has thus been as much towards the establishment of a positively unknown as towards the establishment of a positive known. Though as knowledge approaches its culmination, every unaccountable and seemingly supernatural fact is brought into the category of facts that are accountable and natural ; yet, at the same time, all accountable or natural facts are proved to be, in their ultimate genesis, unaccountable and super- natural." Whether this directly results from creation, evolu- Supernatural Nature. i 7 tion or emanation, nature is not supernature, the fact is not the Factor, the subject is not the Object, evo- lution is not the evolver. The Supernatural Factor, is that incomprehensible Power in every fact which the fact itself is not, and by which the fact is a fact. We are told that nature includes all things ; but if "all things are manifestations of a Power that tran- scends our knowledge ; then Power was before that manifestation of Power we call nature ; and what the power is, the manifestation is not ; yet if the Power is Supernatural, the manifestation must be Supernat- ural. Power did or did not exhaust itself in nature. If Power did exhaust itself in nature, then nature as a whole, includes all Power; but how can Power mani- fest anything further when it is itself included in all things? The effect cannot manifest its own cause. Can the circumference manifest itself as the centre and cease to be the circumference? What becomes of the centre when the circumference is gone, and what becomes of the circumference when the centre is gone? If Supernature could have form, it would be as unlike nature as the form of the concave mould is from its reversed form in the convex bullet, and the form of the die in the form of the coin ; and in the unity of both one is the complement of the other. There can be no concavity without a convexity, nor any convexity without a concavity. Even so does God the infinite Spirit, " without body, parts, or pas- sion, reverse Himself in the form of finite matter, in the visible part of the invisible whole, and in animal passions. As it is a contradiction to say that anything is, and at the same time is not, so the impersonal forms 2 18 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. which we do know, cannot be the personal Power which we do not know but which can be proved. The infinite may create the finite, but the infinite cannot be the finite. These skeptics tell us that the Power that produces all things is unknowable ; and yet they claim to know it so far as to say, that it is not our God. If it is unknowable to them, how can they say what it is — whether it is or is not our God. Look through your window in the Spring time, and see nature develop a plan of Power. Each leaf, and bud seems to know when to come, what form to take, and when its form and function are complete does not fail or forget to repeat itself. What does all this? All admit Power. Who can doubt this superhuman intelligence when it sublimely surpasses all that hu- man intelligence has ever done ? It works to a plan incomprehensible to highest created thought. Evo- lution proper, like the Kaleidoscope, progressively changes but never repeats. If heredity in organic nature is a fact in evolution, it is a repeating fact, unlike all other evolution. In materialism, or the Matter-System, eternal matter is all ; in idealism, or the Mind-System, eternal mind is all; in evolution, or the Power-System, eternal power is all. In evolution so-called, there is both a Power, a Process and a Method. Supernature is this Power and Nature is the Method. The Supernatural Power, both abstract as Power and concrete as a Factor, is that by which everything is anything, and Nature the method, called Evolution, is the way of this Supernatural Power, by which everything is any- thing. For the present, we do not characterize this Power as Power in Creation. 19 Power as either personal or impersonal. All of Evo- lution that is not correlation, if such there can be, is simply a natural process or method of Supernatural Power. If nature is a manifestation of supernatural power, how far is nature supernatural ? From a supernatural fountain must flow a supernatural stream. As water will rise to the level of its fountain, it would seem that all manifestations called nature would be as su- pernatural as the manifesting Power. 5. Supernatural Power is a manifesting Potver. Mr. Spencer says, " all things are manifestations of a Power that transcends our knowledge." Manifesta- tions prove manifesting Power. These manifestations are either creations, causations, or derivations. Cre- ative manifestations are manifestations of new things by Power as Power ; causative manifestations are different uses by Power as Force, of things already created ; derivative manifestations are hereditary manifestations by Power as genetic Function. In inorganic manifestations, or of things without life. Power manifests each individual as an individual, but not one from another ; in organic manifestations, or of things with life, Power manifests one thing from another, in hereditary succession. In causative man- ifestations, unlike is from unlike ; in derivative mani- festations like is from like; in both, the less is from the greater, not the greater from the less — that is, the Power is greater than its manifestation — the effect is less than the cause, the derived is less than the unde- rived. What does causative manifestations in nature prove as to the manifesting Power above nature ? 20 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. They prove that all phenomena without life, are caused by extrinsic, not derived by intrinsic power ; and that all phenomena with life are derived by in- intrinsic, not caused by extrinsic power. Any way, the Power is greater than its manifestation ; or, which is the same thing, the manifestation is less than its manifesting Power. (a) In causative manifestations, the manifested atoms are unlike the manifesting Power; the effect is unlike the cause— the thunder is unlike the lightning — the bugle is unlike the blast — the oxygen that consumes the carbon is unlike fire. What is cause? Cause is Power at work. That is the true cause or Power of the universe, which most intelligently ac- counts for the universe : a conscious cause, or Power, most intelligently accounts for the universe : there- fore, a conscious cause, or Power, is the true cause, or Power, of the universe. Some agnostics prefer the terms power and manifestation, to the old terms of cause and effect; but the meaning of both pairs of correlatives is the same. The bridge between unlim- ited consciousness of the Power, or cause, and the manifestation of the limited consciousness of persons and the absence of consciousness in limited things, is in the unity of all things. Somehow, all is one and one is all. The logic of personal pantheism is the logic of St. Paul's argument. An omnipresent God is an omnipresent life, mind, will, conscious- ness, power, and person. Like knots in a skein of thread, or ganglions in a system of nerves, there is a uniting movement in the several constituents of cause, when they come to us as one cause. This is so The Beginning of Caicsation. 2 1 in the conditions of life, but not so in life itself. Life is cause to itself, if cause there be. Creation, as dis- tinguished from causation, begins exactly when Will acts — when the absolute manifests the relative — when Power manifests force. Causation, as distinguished from creation, begins when Will changes the relations of things, or when force, as distinguished from Power, acts. Just how or why manifestation follows Power, or object follows subject, or effect follows cause, or matter follows mind, or phenomena follows noume- non, is inexorably inscrutable to human intelligence. " There is here interposed," says Prof. Tyndal ( on Virchow and Evolution, Pop. Sci., Jan., 187 ), "a fis- sure over which the ladder of physical reasoning is incompetent to carry us." But Prof. T. goes to the wrong place to get across. The ' fissure ' that is open at the top, needing a bridging ladder, is closed at the bottom, where no ladder could be used. Below visi- ble division is invisible unity. The two walls of a fissure, like a re-entrant angle, end as they meet each other. One Power takes many forms. One line may be rounded into curves, or sharpened into angles. " We must, therefore, accept," says Prof. T., " the observed association as an empiricle fact, without being able to bring it under the yoke of a priori de- duction." Between the subjective and the object- ive, he asks, " What is the causal connection?" and answers, " I do not see the connection, nor am I ac- quainted with anybody who does " (lb.). But as just said, fact is none the less a fact, because it is incom- prehensible. We may comprehend the What, but not comprehend the How or the Who. 22 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. Prof. Youmans says : " The tendency of inquiry is ever from the material toward the abstract, the ideal, the spiritual. The course of astronomical science has been on a vast scale to withdraw the attention from the material and sensible, and to fix it upon the invisible and snpersensuous. It has shown that a pure principle forms the immaterial foundation of the universe. From the baldest material, we rise at last to a truth of the spiritual world, of so exalted an order that it has been said to connect the mind of man with the spirit of God." (Youmans' Introduc- tion to Essays on the Correlation and Conservation of Force.) Boscovitch held that what we call a material bod} 7 , is nothing- else than an aggregation of ' centres of force.' John S. Mill psychologized matter down to a " permanent possibility of sensations." But we must not here enter upon the question, what con- sciousness there is veiled in apparent unconsciousness, or how much mind there may be in matter. Holding natural life to be a mode if not an emana- tion of supernatural life, we need not join issue with Prof. Tyndal when he says (Belfast Address): "that as he prolongs the vision backward across the bound- ary of experimental evidence, he discerns in that mat- ter which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our reverence for its Creator, have covered with op- probrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." If matter and material forces do not themselves see, there are omniscient eyes that see for them and in them. As we magnify nature, we glorify supernature. Psychic Matter. -o If Francis Galton's statistics be true, not more than one scientist in ten takes the non-religious ground, and says that matter is factor and mind is fact. To escape the perplexity involved in the impotency of unintelligent matter, impersonal intelligence has been attributed to it ; giving to matter and mind different names for one and the same existence. But mind does not know itself to be matter, nor does matter know itself to be mind. But if matter and mind are one and the same, shall we call that oneness matter, or shall we call it mind ? If mind exists, we cannot say that the universe is all matter : and e converse?, if matter exists, we cannot say that the universe is all mind, unless each is the other. Prof. Hceckel says : " Under whatever form we may picture to ourselves the union of soul and body, of spirit and matter, it is still clear, on the theory of evolution, that all organic matter at least in general, is, in some sense possessed of psychic properties. In the first place the progress of microscopic research has shown that the elementary anatomic parts of organs—the cells — generally possess an individual psychic life." (Munich Address in Sup. Pop. Sci., Feb., 1878.) He speaks of "cell-soul" "soul of the atom," &c. Wallace (Nat. Sel. 363) says, " none of the properties of matter can be due to the atoms themselves, but only to the forces which emanate from the points in space indicated by the atomic centres, it is logical continually to diminish their size till they vanish, leaving only localized centres of force to represent them." All atoms are equal but unlike, and one atom cannot be the cause of another 24 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. atom, nor can one atom be the effect of another atom. An atom of carbon cannot be the cause of another like atom of carbon. It has been said that Nature is an endless series of efficient cause. This may be admitted, if an endless series of efficient mean a system of persistently cre- ative pulsations, propagated and transmitted, as said before, like concentric waves, from one central, omni- scient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnific cause; but there can be no series to a succession of blind, original, different, independent, impersonal causes. There can be no universe, as the word imples, with- out a centre ; and that centre must be one to which both the inorganic and the organic look for their law of harmonious adjustment and operation — a centre of sufficient intelligence, power, and energy. The Power of the cause of things, is, in fact, in- scrutable to man. Aristotle's four causes — the mate- rial, the formal, the efficient and the final — teach us nothing. What anything is, hozv it is, whence it is, or why it is, man does not know. Herbert Spencer, as we have seen, gives the last formula and conclusion of philosophic thought, when he says, " The axiom- atic truth of physical science unavoidably postulate Absolute Being as the common basis." That was the opinion of Parmenides, 460 B. C. The word " cause,'' however, was not used in speculative discourse, until the time of Augustine, 400 A. D. Before that time the Greeks used words signifying the principle or beginning of things ; but no word like " cause'" in the sense of power, which is now associated with the word "effect" as its correlative, was then used. Causal Power is Will. 25 Causal power seems to be Will. As we trace all our own work to will, why not trace all other work to will ? As far as we can see, power is in will, will is in personality, personality is in being : Coming- down- ward, we have being, personality, power, will or law. If the one omnipresent cause be Absolute Being, then what are called secondary causes are not strictly causes at all ; but are only the systematic, persistent energy of this Being. Causation is the energy ol one, ever-expanding, inexhaustible unit of cause, not of many units. If Absolute Being be cause, then, as there cannot be more than one Absolute Being, there cannot be more than one cause. Cause is one as the sun ; effects are many as the rays. It has been objected that religionists insist that nothing can exist without a cause, except a cause, and that this uncaused cause is God. It is contended that every cause must produce an effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is not a cause, and every effect must in its turn become a cause. There- fore, it it argued, that in the nature of things, there cannot be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would necessarily produce an effect, and that effect must necessarily become a cause. The converse of these propositions must be true. Every effect must have had a cause, and every cause must have had an effect. Therefore, there could have been no first cause. A first cause is just as impossible as a last effect." But such logic is fatal ; for, if there be no first cause, there can be no first effect, and if there be no first effect, there can be no effect at all. If there be 26 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. any effect at all, there must be a first effect ; and if there be a first effect, there must be a first cause. Why is cause a cause? May we not say that what is called an efficient cause is the activity of that Power by which everything is anything? and includes orig- inating intelligence, originating power, and the orig- inating act? That cannot be the cause of a thing which has no knowledge how to cause, nor has the power to cause. Every series has a beginning. If a series of causes is what is called nature, then nature symbolizing that series, had a beginning in some su- pernatural power beyond it. But let us drop this play of correlative words about cause and effect, aud speak of God as a Power. What is spoken of as first cause, I call an intelligent, self- directing, omnipresent, personal Power, from which all other power is derived, realizing a purpose, and originating and sustaining all things. Absolute Being or existence is uncaused. This efficient Power is al- together outside and before the whole chain of what is called cause and effect; and, in this sense, we find God everywhere in the universe, manifesting himself as " an endless series of efficient causes." That power which is found behind, around, above and in all things, by whatever name we know it, is what religion adores as an omnipresent, personal Will, or God. Before leaving the subject of will-power as cause, let me notice the proposition that " every effect must in turn become a cause ; " but it does not follow that every cause must have first been an effect. If there is any mental or moral freedom in the universe, Will is a cause that never was an effect ; and this will, whether Life is from Life. 2 7 its action be ascertained by consciousness or by ob- servation and the experiments in science, or by the history of men and nations, we say is the Will of God. (b) In derivative manifestations, the first organism being created, the second is genetically derived from the first, like from like, roses from roses, fish from fish, birds from birds, men from men. The first or- ganism, like the first atom, was created, not derived ; the second organism was derived from the first, not created. The noumenon creates and causes phe- nomena, and organism derives from organism. De- rived nature inherits the power that created it, and transmits it as genetic Function. The nature of the parent is in the child, the nature of the seed is in the rose, and the nature of the rose is in the seed ; sweet waters are from sweet fountains, and bitter waters are from bitter fountains. In causation, the subsequent effect is unlike the antecedent cause, as the shadow is unlike the sun, or as pain is unlike the blow that causes it. First, in derivative manifestations of like from like, life in manifestation is derived from an antecedent life in the manifesting Power. The one unlimited Power of life limits itself in the different manifesta- tions of life in tree and bird and man. Spontaneous generation is not only not proved, but it is emphati- cally denied. As life is a fact, if it be not spontane- ously generated, it must be either eternal, or super- naturally originated. If according to Mr. Spencer, there never has been an absolute commencement of anything, then human life must be eternal in eternal superhuman life. Some materialists have searched 28 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. and experimented in vain to find a material cause of life ; but Mr. Spencer says " I do not believe in the ' spontaneous generation ' commonly alleged." * * * " That creatures having quite specific structures are evolved in the course of a few hours, without antece- dents calculated to determine their specific forms, is incredible. Not only the established truths of Biol- ogy, but the established truths of science in general, negative the supposition that organisms having struc- tures definite enough to identify as belonging to known genera and species, can be produced in the absence of germs derived from antecedent organ- isms of the same genera and species." ( i Bio. 480, Appendix.) " Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifica- tions wrought by insensible gradations on a pre-exist- ing kind of being; and this holds as fully of the sup- posed commencement of organic life, as of all subse- quent developments of organic life.'' (1 Bio., p. <82.) Prof. Tyndall, approving of Prof. Virchow's denial of spontaneous generation, says ( Sup. Pop. Sci., April, 1878, p. 511), "I share his opinion that the theory of evolution in its complete form involves the assumption, that at some period or other of the world's history, there occurred what would now be called ' spontaneous generation.' I agree with him that " the proofs of it are still wanting. Whoever recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all the attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for gene- ratio (zquivoca in the lower forms of transition from the inorganic to the organic world, will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, so utterly dis- Tyndall Denies Spo?tta?zeous Generation. 29 credited, should be in any way accepted as the basis of all our views of life." " I hold with Virchow, that the failures have been lamentable, that the doctrine is utterly discredited." Prof. Tyndall says {lb.), " No denier of the potency of matter could labor more strenuously than I have done, to demonstrate its impotence as regards spon- taneous generation. While expressing, therefore, un- shaken "belief" in that form of materialism to which I have already given utterance, I here affirm that no shred of trustworthy experimental testimony exists to prove that life, in our day, has ever appeared inde- pendently of antecedent life.'' This is derivation, and not causation. That object which is caused does not depend on an antecedent like object ; but rather on an antecedent unlike power. Prof. Tyndall distinctly places the presence of life upon a derivation from antecedent life. Matter, without life, is first created and then causatively combined, not derived. In other words, all atoms are created ; all combinations of atoms are caused. Where Power stops creating, it begins to cause. In matter with life, the matter is caused and the life is derived ; hence while matter is from power, life is from that form of power known as life. Prof. T. further says, (see " Vitality," Fragments, ed., 1878, p. 459): "In tracing these phenomena through all their modifications, the most advanced philosophers of the present day declare that they ultimately arrive at a single source of power, from which all vital energy is derived." As this derived energy is life, there must be life in the underived 30 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. Power. The dependence of this derived, natural life on antecedent, supernatural life, determines the origin of all attributes of life, such as mind, will and consciousness. Life everywhere is one and the same Power, derived or underived, manifested or unmani- fested. Second, Will in manifestation is derived from ante- cedent will in manifesting Power. We are conscious of a will-power, though we may not be able to define it. I open and close my hand, and learn that my will is power. All that we know of our personal power is in our wills; and we know that will is power. Power is manifested as conscious Will in man, and as unconscious Force in nature, both organic and inorganic. And though, as Mr. Spencer says, (F. P., § 18), "the exercise of force is altogether unintelligible," and though we may say that the exer- cise of Will is also unintelligible, yet, we know that Will acts, and we know that Force acts ; and both Will and Force are special names of a general power. Wallace says: "If, therefore, we have traced one force, however minute, to an origin in our Will, while we have no knowledge of any other primary cause of force, it does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force will be Will-Force and thus that the whole universe is not merely dependent on, but actu- ally is the Will of higher intelligencies, or of One Supreme Intelligence." (Natural Selection, p. 368, Sec. Ed.) If Will is Force, and Force is Will, we readily agree with Mr. Spencer that " the creation of Force is as inconceivable as the creation of Matter," (1 Bro. § 112.) Uncreated and unlimited Will-Power Will is from Will. 3 1 acts, and its act is Force. But this Will-Power Mr. S. emphatically denies, even in the face of the proof, by his own experience. He says, " In one case after another is abandoned that interpretation which as- cribes phenomena to a Will analogous to the human Will, working by methods analogous to human meth- ods," (1 Bio. § 1 1 1.) But, if we affirm the human will and methods, how can we deny the superhuman will and methods? Whence is the human if not from the superhuman ? It cannot be from an origin less than human, for the cause is always greater than its effect. But, if we deny unlimited superhuman Will-Power in the universe, we must, in the face of our conscious- ness, it would seem, deny limited, human Will-Power in ourselves. If human Power is human Will, why should not superhuman Power be superhuman Will? The way of Will is the way of Power, and the way ot Power, except as to miracles and special provi- dences, is method ; but that which to man is method is not method to supernatural Will itself. Will as Will is not neeessarily bound by method. While wefind uniformity of will in law, we need not be surprised to find multiformity of will in miracles and special providences. Above many forces is one Power, and that one Power is Will. Mr. Spencer declares that " each further advance of knowledge confirms the belief in the unity of Nature (1 Bio. § 117.) But if one " Power unlimited in time and space " accounts for the universe, and that Power is Will, the unity of nature is in the unity of Will. The logic of evolution must be consistent. We shall not always particularize whether we ?2 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. o speak of the omnific Power as becoming- or as creat- ing phenomena. The elastic word manifestation will be used to mean the creation by Power, or the meta- morphosis of Power. Which it is, is a secret with omniscience. What matters it to us whether Power becomes or creates impersonal thing's, so long as the personality of that Power is infinite and omnipres- ent? That is a question for God Himself. This will be discussed more fully when law is discussed. Third, Mind in manifestation is derived from ante- cedent mind in manifesting Power. That which controlls matter, as some understand matter, is not matter, as gravitation, heat, etc. Dr. Carpenter says : " The culminating point of man's intellectual inter- pretation of nature may be said to be his recognition of the unity of power, of which her phenomena are the diversified manilestations. Toward this all sci- entific inquiry now tends. For the convertibility of the physical forces, the correlation of these with the vital, and the intimacy of that nexus between mental and bodily activity, which, explain as we may, can- not be denied, all lead upward toward one and the same conclusions — the source of all power in Mind. * * * And thus, whilst the deep-seated instincts of humanity, and the profoundest researches of phil- osophy alike point to the Mind as the one and only source of power, it is the high prerogative of science to demonstrate the unity of the power which is ope- rating through the limitless extent and variety of the universe, and to trace its continuity through the vast series of ages that have been occupied in its evo- lution." (Carpenter's Mental Physiology, sec. 576.) Co?iscious Power from Conscious Power. 33 I think of a friend or an enemy, and my blood runs to or from my heart — I smile or I frown, as I love or as I hate, in spite of all will. Indeed, mind is a power of its own. Fourth, conscious mind in manifestation is a gift from an antecedent, conscious mind in the manifest- ing Power. The superhuman set off something of itself in the human. We speak of the conscious and of the unconscious, or rather, as we should say, the not-conscious. We must remember that we are con- sidering the consciousness or unconsciousness of un- limited and eternal Power, not of its manifestations; for they are not eternal. Some of the manifestations are conscious and some not-conscious. If unlimited Power was eternally not conscious, how did it mani- fest limited consciousness in man? If it were eter- nally conscious, how did it manifest the not-conscious in things? Always the unlike from unlike, is causa- tive, carrying somewhat of the pozver of the antece- dent into the subsequent ; but the manifestation of the conscious from the conscious being like from like, is derivative, carrying somewhat of the unlimited attri- butes of the antecedent into the limited subsequent. The derivation of human consciousness from what we call superhuman unconsciousness, is impossible ; for there is no unconscious Power, as such, for the conscious to be derived from. In itself, Power must be unchangeably conscious or unconscious, but it cannot he alternately one or the other. The uncon- scious is not an entity, but the absence of an entity. The positive, — consciousness, — cannot be derived from the negative, unconsciousness. From nothing, nothing is. Conscious Power knows how to manifest 3 34 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. o the unconscious ; but an unconscious Power, if such a Power could be, would not know how to manifest the conscious. The greatest Power is in the greatest knowledge. We see, as a fact, that unlimited Power manifests conscious persons and things that are not conscious. What is consciousness ? Consciousness, as just said, is not only to think, but to think about our thought ; not only to know, but to know that we know. The horse may think, but we have not dis- covered that he thinks about his thought, or that he knows that he knows. Mr. Spencer says (Pop. Sci., Jan., 1884): "The power which manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness." As human life is derived from underived superhuman life, so human consciousness is derived from underived superhuman consciousness. If Power includes its manifestations, the Power includes both conscious force and form that is not conscious ; for matter is one and mind is the other. If Power is unconscious, it manifested consciousness in personal man; if it is conscious, it could not lose its consciousness when it manifested forms that were not conscious and matter that was not personal. We must distinguish between derivation when Power is an ancestor and imparts its own likeness, and causation, when Power, like the spider spinning from itself a web unlike itself, mani- fests or constructs things that are unlike itself. The unlimited Power that manifests all things is con- scious ; because unconsciousness, being the absence of consciousness, as cold is the absence of heat, is Conscious Power from Consczotis Power. 35 only a negative condition, and not power at all. As it is not power, it can be neither cause nor an effect : it cannot know anything, do anything, or be anything. As we understand the theory of agnostic evolution, all things are eternally evolved from underived, nec- essary unity, or from underived necessary plurality. But nothing could be evolved from underived plural- ity, for plurality itself is evolved from underived unity ; therefore underived unity excludes underived plurality. This underived unity was either con- sciously intelligent, or unconsciously unintelligent. If it were consciously intelligent, it knew how to manifest the unconsciously unintelligent ; but if it were unconsciously unintelligent, it did not know how to manifest the consciously intelligent. Con- sciousness, whether derived or underived, is exclus- ively an individual intuition. There is nothing in the consciousness of one that could be in the con- sciousness of another. Unconsciousness, on the con- trary, is a state common to different things, such as trees, seas, stones and stars, and there is nothing in the unconsciousness of the stars that is not in the un- consciousness of a stone. Indeed, unconsciousness is only the absence of consciousness. Exclusive at- tributes distinguish the underived absolute and eter- nal unit; consciousness is an exclusive attribute; therefore consciousness distinguished the underived absolute and eternal unit. The original, underived Unit was, therefore, exclusively conscious ; for though this underived, absolute, conscious, superhuman Unit may manifest limited human, individual conscious- ness, it can never share its own consciousness. The power to be conscious may be derived, but not the 36 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. o contents of consciousness. If the original Unit was a Unit of will, of mind and of power, it was a con- scious unit, and if conscious, it was personal, and if it were personal it was that supernature which we call God. We started with an universally admitted power. Power is derived or underived. If it is derived it is not eternal ; if it is eternal, it is underived. To apply this : we are persons ; personality is in consciousness; consciousness is either derived or underived. Hu- man consciousness cannot be underived, for, though immortal, it is not eternal ; as it is not eternal it is derived. We could not derive our power of con- sciousness from any derived power of consciousness below us ; we must, therefore, derive our power of consciousness from underived power of conscious- ness above us. If derived power of consciousness is derived personality, so underived power of conscious- ness is underived personality. The admission of a derived power of human consciousness admits an un- derived superhuman power of consciousness, from which was possible for it to be derived — that is, the derived implies the underived. Mr. Spencer speaks of "the one absolute certainty, that he (man) is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." {Pop. Sci. M., Jan., 1884.) If this Eternal Energy from which we proceed, could send us forth with a knowledge of ourselves, has this Energy no knowl- edge of its own self ? Like is from like. Fifth, that conscious power called human person- ality is the manifestation of an antecedent conscious Power we call superhuman personality. Uncon- Personality from Personality. $7 sciousness in nature is the absence of that antecedent consciousness in supernature, called impersonal. A negative is the absence of a positive. Sir John F. W. Herschell says (" Popular Lectures," XII), " In the only case in which we are admitted into personal knowledge of the origin of force, we find it connected with volition, and by inevitable conse- quence with motive and intellect, and with all those attributes of mind in which personality consists * * * It matters not that we are ignorant of the mode in which this is performed. It suffices to bring the origination of dynamical power, to however small extent, within the domain of acknowledged person- ality. In that peculiar mental sensation, clear to the apprehension of every one who has ever performed a voluntary act, which is present at the instant when the determination to do a thing is carried out with the act of doing it, we have a consciousness of immediate and personal cansatio7i which cannot be disputed or ignored." From the point of our own conscious, derived per- sonal power, unconscious, impersonal, underived Power is unthinkable. Personality, as we have said, is but a name given to the cumulative attributes of life, will, intelligence and consciousness ; just as we call the combination of oxygen and hydrogen, water, or as we call the roots, trunk, branches, top of a tree, a tree. Consciousness and personality are one and the same. Consciousness that we have considered, cov- ers the whole idea of personality that we are now considering. We but use a different word for the same idea. Consciousness is the one, highest human 38 The Philosophy of the Supernatural. attribute ; and personality implies the sum of all the attributes of life, will, intelligence, and consciousness. There can be life, will, and intelligence, as in the horse, without consciousness; but there cannot be consciousness, as in man, without life, will and intelli- gence. The admission of science, as expressed by Prof. Tyndall and by Mr. Spencer, that life depends on antecedent life, carries with it the admission that life with will, intelligence and consciousness, depends on antecedent life, will, intelligence and consciousness ; and this is all that is meant by personality ; and all that is affirmed by religion. If human, conscious power, as the culmination of human intelligence, will, and life is dependent on antecedent superhuman con- scious Power, intelligence, will and life, there need be no further proof that human personality is dependent on, and proves superhuman personality. Consciousness, as the highest entity, is called per- sonal, to distinguish it from a large class of uncon- scious things, classified as impersonal, because uncon- scious. These impersonal things are without life, as the stone ; or with life, as the tree ; or with life, will, and intelligence, as the horse. But, not thinking about his thoughts, so far as is known, or not know- ing that he knows, the horse, with life, will and intel- ligence, but wanting consciousness, is not a person, but only a thing not-personal. Man, however, has not only life, will, intelligence, or thoughts, but he thinks about his thoughts —he knows that he knows — in other words, he is conscious, and therefore is a per- son. If life depends on antecedent life, a fortiori, conscious power depends on antecedent conscious Personality from Personality. 39 Power. Human consciousness develops as human life develops. As the perfection of one, so is the per- fection of the other. So that human consciousness or personality proves superhuman consciousness or per- sonality, if we accept, as valid, Prof. Tyndall's scien- tific denial of spontaneous generation as we have seen ; and also his doctrine, that all life depends on antece- dent life. Thus, human life has its antecedent in superhuman life; and, as human life has will, its an- tecedent superhuman life has will ; and, as human life has intelligence, its antecedent superhuman life has intelligence ; and, as human life is conscious, its ante- cedent, superhuman life is conscious. As human life having these attributes of life, will, intelligence, and consciousness, is called personal, so its antecedent superhuman life, being the source of these attributes in man, must be called personal. Where there is no life, as is the case of the inor- ganic atom, there can be no derivation of like from like ; but only a causation of unlike from unlike. One lifeless atom is not derived from another lifeless atom, but is caused by adequate Power; but where there is life, there is derivation either by direct emanation or transmission from the infinite to the finite, or indi- rectly, like from like, by genetic function. Having considered consciousness and unconsciousness as to unlimited Power, let us now turn to the consideration of consciousness and unconsciousness as attributes respectively of limited persons and things. If the antecedent of conscious person is conscious Power, must the antecedent of unconscious things be an un- conscious Power? By no means; for, 4