ART. II. ON THE POWER OF MIND OVER NATURE. Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action. By GEO. P. MARSH. New York: Charles Scribner. 1865. Nature and the Supernatural, as together constituting the One System of God. By HORACE BUSHNELL. New York: Charles Scribner. 1858. Principles of Geology. By Sir CHARLES LYELL. New York: Appleton & Co. 1857. Reign of Law. By the Duke of Argyll. London: Alexander Strahan. 1867. Essays. Philosophical and Theological. By JAMES MARTINEAU. Boston: Wm. V. Spencer. 1866. ("Nature and God.") "A GREAT work might be written on the connection between the revolutions of nature and those of mankind: how they act each upon the other; how man is affected by climate, and how climate is again altered by the labor of man; how diseases are generated; how different states of society are exposed to different disorders; how, as all earthly things are exhaustible, the increased command over nature given by increased intelligence, seems to have a tendency to shorten the period of the existing creation by calling at once into action those resources of the earth which else might have supplied the wants of centuries to come; how, in short, nature, no less than human society, contains tokens that it had a beginning, and will surely have its end." * The above passage from Dr. Arnold's "History of Rome" is one of those suggestive utterances occasionally met in the writings of great men, which are fruitful of many thoughtsone of those passages which give a mighty impulse to our own minds, and laying down the book, we start a voyage on our own account. We remember former thoughts which have flashed across our minds that were, somehow, strikingly akin to those which are now suggested. We recall numerous facts which have come under our observation, or have been observed and recorded by others, which crystallize around this one grand idea. We proceed to draw new inferences therefrom, and we catch glimpses of some higher principle, some more general law, which underlies the whole. And now, if we are ardent students, we shall reduce our facts and inductions to some methodical arrangement, and write them down. *Thos. Arnold, D. D. "History of Rome," p. 190. In some such way this passage from Arnold affected our own mind, and led us to reflect on the power of mind over material nature. We now present some of our thoughts to the readers of the Quarterly Review, in the hope they may stimulate further investigation and study in this interesting field. It is of the utmost importance in all inquiries, especially so in this, that we are precise and exact in the use of terms. If we remember rightly, it is said by Coleridge that in the Arabic language there are a thousand names for the Lion. This, to say the least of it, must be a serious inconvenience. But it would have been worse than inconvenient if the Arabic for "Lion" had also a thousand other meanings. No one can imagine the misconception and confusion which must have arisen from the use of a word which might have been understood or misunderstood a thousand ways. We are, however, in well-nigh such a predicament in regard to our English word "Nature" and its derivatives. To be sure, it has not a thousand meanings; yet there is not a more indefinite word in use among the English-speaking nations. Men talk fluently about "the laws of nature," "the order of nature," "the uniformity of nature," and sometimes of "eternal nature," without any settled and definite idea of the import of such expressions. At one time the term "nature" is used to denote the essential qualities of a thing, which constitute it what it is, as "the nature of light, heat, electricity," etc. At another time, as denoting that by which the qualities or constitution of a thing or being are determined, we say "nature has done this or that;" "nature has given this man rare endowments, or left that man strangely deficient!" In the writings of some, nature comprehends the sum of all phenomena-the universe of created beings-the earth with all its furniture, its plants and animals, and tribes of men; the sun and planets, the double stars, and remotest nebulæ. In the language of others, it means something underlying all phenomena—an impersonal power or agent which is the informing soul of the universe, and cause of all its movement and change. Sometimes it is used to designate material existence as contradistinguished from mind; at other times, as embracing both. In one book it stands for created, dependent existence; in another, it includes the creating cause. One philosopher tells us it is "the empire of mechanical necessity;" another, that it is a system of things subject to the action of free powers, and permitting fortuities and contingencies. "The laws of nature" are now spoken of as rules imposed upon nature by an intelligence above nature; and then, as rules imposed by a mysterious, unconscious power upon the universe of being. Thus, by turns, nature is ideal and real; is lawgiver and subject; is effect and cause; is creature and creator. It is surely high time we should seek to attain greater precision in the use of language. We shall never master a true philosophy until we come to use the terms "nature" and "natural" in a strict and definite sense. The German philosophers and theologians, it is generally conceded, are more exact than ourselves in the use of language, and they employ the term "nature" in a very precise and uniform sense. "In the philosophy of Germany, 'natur,' and its correlatives, whether of Greek or Latin origin, are, in general, used to express the world of matter in contrast to the world of mind." If otherwise used, it is only in a tropical or accommodated sense.† This fixed and definite use of the term "nature" was first imported, and rendered current in English literature by S. T. Coleridge. In his "Aids to Reflection " we have a note on page 152 to this effect: * Whatever is comprised in the chain and mechanism of cause and effect, of course necessitated, and having its necessity in some other thing, antecedent or concurrent-this is said to be natural; and the aggregate and system of all such things is nature. It is, * Hamilton's "Metaphysics," p. 40, vol. i, Eng. ed. One or two examples of this consensus and use of the German writers may not be inappropriate. Here, then, are the words of Ullman: "This one worldorder unfolds itself in different spheres, first as an order of nature in which force reigns; second, as an order of moral life, where freedom reigns. . . . In the domain of nature, every thing that takes place is accomplished by a necessity in the things themselves. . . . A law of nature is the operation of mechanical necessity." -"Sinlessness of Jesus," p. 24. Of the same import are the words of the profound Jacobi: "Nature reveals only an indissoluble chain of causes and effects. To be in the middle of an [apparently] endless series is the characteristic of a thing of nature. . . . Man by his intelligence rises above nature, and is conscious of himself as a power independent of nature."-Von den Göttlichen Dingen, Werke, III, pp. 424-426. See Sir W. Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i, pp. 40, 41, Eng. ed. ... therefore, a contradiction in terms to include in this the free-will, of which the verbal definition is-that which originates an act, or state, or being.- Works, vol. i. And again, at page 263: I have attempted, then, to fix the proper meaning of the words nature and spirit, the one being the antithesis to the other: so that the most general and negative definition of nature is, whatever is not spirit; and vice versa of spirit, that which is not comprehended in nature; or, in the language of our elder divines, that which transcends nature. But nature is the term in which we comprehend all things which are representable in the forms of time and space, and subject to the relations of cause and effect; and the cause of the existence of which, therefore, is to be sought for perpetually in something antecedent. The word itself expresses this in the strongest manner possible: natura, that which is about to be born, that which is always becoming.- Works, vol. i. The suffrages of the most exact thinkers and the best philosophers, in England and America, are in favor of this rigidly exact definition, and in this sense alone it is now used by our best writers. The chief excellence of Sir W. Hamilton, as a writer, is the accuracy with which he expresses the sharpest distinctions of idea in the most adequate and definite phraseology; and with him "the empire of nature is the empire of mechanical necessity." This is the sense in which it is used by Mansel, the editor and annotator of Hamilton's works.* And it is so employed by Bushnell,† Heurtley, Martineau,§ Guizot, and indeed the best writers of the day. Let this, then, be the sense in which we use the term "nature." Nature is the empire of mechanical necessity. It is the world of matter with its properties and laws, which laws simply express the relations of resemblance, co-existence, and succession. It is the system of things in which we have only continuity and uniformity. Now if this be nature, where shall we place mind? What shall we say of a spiritual essence or entity? What shall we say of "the spirit in man," of angelic spirits, of the Infinite Spirit? Shall we place these in nature or above nature; shall we say they are natural, or supernatural? The Pantheist + "Nature and Supernatural," p. 36. "Essays," p. 126. * "Aids to Faith," p. 35. "Replies to Essays and Reviews," p. 136. will, of course, include all these in his "idea of nature." Nature is God, and God is nature. For him, therefore, there is nothing supernatural. The majority of our readers will readily grant that the Infinite Spirit is supernatural. Angels are commonly regarded as supernatural beings. But when it is suggested that "the spirit in man" is a supernatural existence some are startled and surprised. Why startled and surprised? Surely it must be because they are imposed upon by venerable forms of speech, and misled by ancient prepossessions and prejudices. Do we not teach that the mind of man is not material, and not governed by the laws to which matter is subject? Mind is an active power, and not a passive thing. It does not stand in the chain of cause and effect.* It has spontaneity. It is self-moved. It can originate its own states and acts. It is essentially free. And if nature be the empire of mechanical necessity, we cannot say of such a free power that it is a part of nature. It is something above nature. It is capable of acting upon nature, of resisting, controlling, and conquering nature. And there is no other word which can express its relation to nature but the word supernatural. There are only two conceivable grounds upon which a supernatural character and essence can be denied to mind. The first is that of materialism, the second is that of philosophical necessity. It is beyond our present design to discuss the hypothesis of materialism. If, however, we are successful in the attempt to show that mind does control and subjugate nature, and produce results which nature, by her own unaided operations, never has produced, and never can produce, we shall establish a strong presumption that the mind of man is not material. The antagonism between the propositions above presented and the * When I speak of laws, and of their absolute necessity in relation to thought, you must not suppose that these laws are the same in the world of mind as in the world of matter. For free intelligences, a law is an ideal necessity given in the form of a precept which we ought to follow, but which we may also violate if we please; whereas, for the existences which constitute the universe of nature, a law is only another name for the causes which operate blindly and universally in producing certain inevitable results. By a law of thought or logical necessity we do not, however, mean a physical law, such as a law of gravitation, but a general precept which we are able certainly to violate, but which if we do not obey, our whole process of thinking is suicidal, or absolutely null.-Hamilton's Logic, p. 56 |