CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE REIGN OF LAW.

“Man is born on a battle-field. Round him to rend Or resist, the dread Powers he displaces, attend By the cradle which Nature, amid the stern shocks That have shattered creation, and shapened it, rocks. He leaps with a wail into being; and lo! His own mother, fierce Nature herself, is his foe; Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath o’er his head; ’Neath his feet roll her earthquakes; her solitudes spread To daunt him; her forces dispute his command; Her snows fall to freeze him; her suns burn to brand; Her seas yawn to engulf him; her rocks rise to crush; And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush On their startled invader. * * * * * * * * Not a truth has to art or to science been given, But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven; And many have striven, and many have failed, And many died, slain by the truth they assailed.”

The original condition of the human race was not one of knowledge. When the first man and the first monkey were created and finished, the monkey knew as much as the man. Both found themselves in a world of forces, of the nature of which, beyond what was revealed to their native instincts, they knew nothing at all. The man’s superiority lay not in knowledge, but in capacity to know.

Man learned the forces and facts of Nature by experience. He learned them at the cost to himself of fear and pain and toil and death. He plucked one fruit and found it wholesome; another, and found it bitter; another, and found it deadly. The surviving son learned to avoid the mistakes of his father.

Man was not long in gaining a knowledge of his environment, enough at least, if he would not be too venturesome, to conserve in some degree his happiness and life. He learned that fire will burn, that water will drown, that storms will blow, that floods will overwhelm, that winter will come, and that his life is dependent on continual quest and avoidance. But Nature held innumerable secrets which he did not know; many, which, even to-day, he has not learned. In proportion as he should become acquainted with these, he would be master of a situation, which, at the first, so nearly mastered him. He might acquire a magnificent fortune, if he would only work for it; accordingly, we are told that his Maker admonished him to “subdue and have dominion.”

Whether man has been six thousand years, or sixty thousand, in learning the little that he now knows, no one can tell; but during these years of his primary tuition he could not through knowledge have the mastery of Nature, for knowledge was too meager. It was well, therefore, that he should, in the meanwhile, have a partial mastery through faith. Ignorant of natural forces, or without means of avoidance, is it any wonder that he should fly for refuge to the Supernatural? Accordingly, God was his “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Believing himself watched and defended by infinite power and love, he could “run through a troop or leap over a wall;” he could fancy himself “immortal till his work was done,” safe on the battle-field as in his chamber; he was not afraid of the “pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor of the destruction that wasteth at noonday;” of earthquake and storm and fire he was not afraid, for these were the ministers of Heaven’s will--if not to be avoided, then to be accepted with submission and trust.

Such faith in the presence and interposition of the Supernatural was instructive to the young world, and as necessary as its mother’s milk is to a babe. It gave comfort and repose and strength, for its subject felt that “underneath and round about him were the everlasting arms.” It made heroes of cowardly men on battle-fields; heroines of weak women in humble homes. It produced the sublimest characters of history; it vanquished death. Sustained by it, it is literally true that men “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword; out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”

The sudden loss of this faith from earth would be a calamity. It would be as though the sun and moon had been darkened, and the stars had gone out in the sky. Till men know more of Nature, they must continue to lean on the Supernatural. They may never do this less than they do it now; but they will do it more intelligently.

As the child, with growing strength, is weaned from the breast, so increasing knowledge tends to the destruction of faith. It may be stated as a law that, other things being equal, faith in the manifestation of the Supernatural--in the miraculous--is most facile to him who knows the least. Accordingly, the men of highest attainments have commonly the least of this kind of faith. They still believe in something back of Nature; some cause of Nature--in the Supernatural--but they expect nothing from it outside the lines of natural law. They know nothing of miracle or special providence. They see everywhere cause and effect; the one not present without the other; the perpetual grinding of machinery and the wretch mangled who is caught between the wheels; the wisest and best of men, pillars of state or prophets of the Lord, crushed as surely as the vilest and the meanest. All the prayers of God’s people will not make rivers flow back to their fountains, nor turn the Sahara into a sea; nor thaw the ice at the poles, nor relieve the famine, nor stop the pestilence, nor level a single mole-hill, nor make one hair white or black. The whole universe is held in the chain of cause and effect, with link joined to link forever and ever. The Supernatural may be the electric energy that thrills along the endless chain, but it never quits the conductor to find out new paths. What it does to-day, it did a thousand years ago, and will do a thousand years hence. So speaks and so believes the student of Nature. We may be extremely reluctant to admit his teaching, and yet the facts seem to be altogether with him. The evidence is overwhelming that men everywhere, good and bad alike, are dealing directly, not with the Supernatural, but, with Nature--with law; _nothing but natural law_. If any hesitate to accept this saying, we do not press them, for the time has not yet come when they could accept it with safety. The babe will cling to the mother’s breast as long as he needs it, and sometimes longer; but by and by he will abandon it of himself.

A world of iron law is not our ideal world, though the evidence grows that it is the real one. We like law well enough when it defends us; we are not pleased with it when it chastises us. At such a moment we would flee to some friendlier power. We would go to God and tell Him that Nature is not treating us well, and that we desire His interposition. It is because we are afraid of Nature that we take so much interest in the Supernatural. But what reason have we to think that the Supernatural is better than Nature?

The Supernatural has had more prophets than Nature, and will doubtless continue to have them. Far be it from us to forbid them. Let them prophecy in the name of the Lord. Let them “strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees;” inspire courage in adversity, calmness in the face of death.

But we should like to remind them that if they have done much good, they have also done some evil.

They have greatly obstructed a lesson, the most important for men to know; a lesson which they must learn at last, whether they like to learn it or not; a lesson which they need to learn as soon as they can, because certain knowledge is better to shape the life than is uncertain faith; a lesson that will bring them face to face with the real conditions of their present and eternal well-being,--we mean this lesson, that _the Supernatural, the Primal Fountain of Force, goes forth only in streams of natural law_. So far as can be shown, it manifests itself in no other way. Contrary to this, the prophets of the Supernatural have often encouraged man to believe that he shall not reap as he has sown; that he may sow to the flesh, and yet reap to the spirit; that outside and alongside the machinery of law is another and more masterful machinery of Providence and Grace; that the latter is ordained a sure corrective and deliverer from the evils of the former; that so almighty is this invisible, ever-active and presiding energy, that it can, by a momentary display, transform the most inveterate sinner into a saint, and crown him with everlasting happiness, although, meanwhile, it supinely leaves the innocent child the victim of Adam’s fall, to sink into the flames of hell. Our sense of justice is shocked, virtue is dismayed, vice is emboldened, and the so-called scheme of grace, less pitiful and just than that of nature, is seen to differ from it chiefly in this, that it offers greater encouragement to sin.

Nature throughout all her regions proclaims the dominion of law. She has incessantly denounced woe to its violator. A million times has she shown us the delinquent writhing under the scourge. Never once has the transgressor escaped. His transgression,

“Like a staunch murderer steady to his purpose, Follows him through every lane of life, Nor misses once the track,”

and soon or late he is overtaken. Privation or pain is the inexorable penalty. Nature with trumpet voices shouts incessantly, “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.”

The dominion of law is shown in the punishment of _intentional disobedience_--what men call _sin_. Its natural consequences are remorse, degradation, and spiritual death. A being of loftiest make is reduced to the likeness of a vile and venomous thing, crawling on its belly through the dust. Higher enjoyments are exchanged for such as are brutish and vile,--so to speak, the life of a humming-bird, flitting through all sunny climes and scenes and feeding on nectar, is exchanged for the life of a swine, feeding on offal, and wallowing in the mire. And never once is a wound made by the lash of law healed without a scar; in other words, transgression leaves its permanent impress on the soul, and the transgressor, despite the incantations of priest or prophet, finds himself poorer forever. He has forfeited the peace of them that do well. He has peopled the past with bitter memories; the future with gloomy forebodings. Reason untrammeled, loyal to the truth and pursuing it with success, has been substituted with reason fettered with chains of prejudice and vile affection, loving and making a lie.

Habit, with every successive stroke of action, has riveted these chains more firmly, till the victim is fast bound hand and foot, and delivered over to despair. The order of downward progress is, transgression, spiritual pain, stupor, insensibility, permanent degradation, which is spiritual death. In all this, there is no immediate or special judgment of God; no working of the Supernatural apart from natural law. If there were no God at all, while the constitution of man and the universe should remain as they are, the consequences to the transgressor would, in no wise, be altered. The sinner has nothing to fear but natural law, and sooner or later he finds this terrible enough.

But the punishment of sin is not the most impressive proof of the dominion of law. We feel that the willful transgressor is entitled to the punishment of his deed; hence, even when his punishment is severest, he fails to command our fullest sympathy. That the organization of Nature should be such as systematically to afflict the sinner, is not more than our sense of justice would prompt us to expect.

But the punishment of _ignorance_ offers a more impressive spectacle--a more striking exhibition of the dominion of law. It seems that ignorance, especially when absolutely unavoidable, might be pleaded in bar of punishment; but nature obviously does not accept the plea. Nor does it avail us in this emergency to appeal from Nature to the Supernatural. The Supernatural refuses to entertain the appeal--positively declines to interfere--and natural law is left to take its course. The ignorant must suffer as surely as the guilty, and often his suffering is not less severe. For the slightest mistakes men forfeit happiness or life,--mistakes not of themselves alone, but mistakes of others. The sin or the error belongs to one man; the weight of the suffering often falls to another. Even our benevolence seems to be punished; for quite frequently the effort to help others brings disaster to ourselves--to our fortunes, to our families, our lives. Seeking to rescue another from fire or water, from the assassin or the robber; from the domestic tyrant or the foreign invader, we lose life, and, for lack of our help, our children are uneducated, exposed to moral evil, neglected, turned out of doors. The very tramp whom, for pity, we took in from the street, robs us, or murders us. Meanwhile the Supernatural beholds and makes no sign--gives no indication that it is at all concerned.

The suffering which comes through unavoidable ignorance, or which is visited upon the innocent through the deeds of the guilty, is, in its sum total, appalling and unspeakable. It is a dark and fathomless ocean, whose waves have been incessantly beating on the shores of this dreary world since time began. Every drop of this mighty ocean has been wrung out through the operation of natural law. An omniscient eye, every hour of the day and night, through countless ages, has gazed into these waters of anguish, and has declined to lessen their quantity by a single atom. No order from the Supernatural has gone forth to countermand any decree of Nature. Man has stood alone, grappling with his antagonist; and though he has cried incessantly, heaven has left him to his fate. Could there be a more awful demonstration of the supremacy of natural law?

Nature slays in babyhood one-third of all the children that are born into the world, just because they have not strength to resist her; meanwhile she carefully preserves such tyrants as Tiberius to finish their three score years and ten, though every added year means the murder of a thousand of the best men and women to be found in a wide empire. Why does not the Supernatural rise up from his place and smite the tyrant to the earth? Is it not plain that we are dealing with natural forces alone?

For six thousand years--God knows how long--Africa has been a hell, than which perhaps no man need ever fear a worse. If the pulpit may convince a sinner that as a result of his ways he shall be turned black, body and soul, and sent to Africa, there perpetually to renew his life as often as it is extinguished by the superstition and fiendishness of his fellows, and the said sinner do not then begin to live more wisely, it will be useless to talk to him of fire and brimstone. Upon this horrible theater of action perhaps 600,000,000 of human beings have been projected in every century, coming without their will to a heritage of nakedness and superstition and barbarity absolutely prohibitive of happiness here or hope for the hereafter; and yet there has been no interposition of the Supernatural in their behalf. The laws of birth and death preside, just as if there were no power above us that cares for either.

It is one of the ordinances of nature that life without nourishment shall not be prolonged. There is reason to believe that God would see the last man starved from off this planet, and the planet itself plunged onward into the void, tenantless forever, before he would command that stones should be made bread. Not twenty years ago, 18,000,000 in the northern provinces of China starved to death in a single year. What horrible anxiety of hollow-eyed mothers for gasping babes; what hideous deaths day by day; what acres of unburied corpses; what throngs about religious altars, wringing their hands, and screaming to the heavens, till it would seem that the agony of their prayers would have shaken the very stars from the sky; and yet there was none that heard, nor any that regarded. Not a single stone was turned into bread; not a single life was sustained without food; and if any survived, it was the heartless brother who wrested the last morsel from his weak and dying sister. A ghastly instance of the dominion of law, attested by 18,000,000 of dead witnesses. Can we look upon such a scene and ever again expect a petty interposition in behalf of an individual when it has been denied to a nation, and when the Continent of Africa has waited for it through countless ages?

Instances might be multiplied to infinity. Every horror recorded in this book is a proclamation of the supremacy of law--a warning to men that if they would shun the effect they must avoid the cause; that they must foresee the laws and attributes of nature, and provide; or they must perish. Strange that after ages of such awful teaching man is yet a fool--too lazy, too stupid to open his eyes; vigorously fighting against knowledge when every interest of his soul and body are at stake; saying supinely, “it makes no difference whether you know much or little, or what you believe, provided only you are sincere;” and in the same breath dishonestly hearkening to his prejudices or his passions; becoming a compound of ignorance, superstition and self-will, which first defies and rouses the powers of Nature, and then flies howling to the Supernatural for deliverance. When we think how little man has learned, notwithstanding the severity of his schooling, we are less disposed to accuse the harshness of Nature’s administration.

Our reflections on the course of Nature have not proved that there is no God, but rather that there is. The order, regularity and certainty of natural forces indicates a changeless, exhaustless fountain from whence those forces flow. Amid the ceaseless mutations of the universe, this primal energy seems to be the one thing in which there is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” It flows on resistless along the same channels from age to age. It overwhelms whatever lies in its path. It would sweep away all the millions of earth like a grain of sand. It would sweep the very stars from the sky. Nothing can arrest it; nothing change its course. It accommodates itself to nobody; all must be accommodated to it, or suffer disaster. It is inexorable, like “that rock, upon which if a man fall, he shall be broken, but if it fall upon him, it will grind him to powder.” It is not man who is running this puny world; it is a changeless, eternal Power. No fear that any human combinations in capitols or temples will swerve this infinite energy, or control it in the least. That which is according to its nature it will do, and it will do nothing else. It is absolute monarch, and woe to him who resists its sway. We are amazed, awed and subdued in the contemplation. We begin to feel that there is but one thing for us to do, and that is, to learn its ways and by increasing knowledge and obedience, as rapidly as possible to put ourselves in accord with its goings-forth.

Should we enter some vast factory where there are acres of floor-space, and wheels and cogs and pulleys and hands and machines of patterns innumerable, all propelled by a giant engine hidden away in the cellar; should we see all this wilderness of wheels moving in concert, and every machine turning out the work for which it was intended, we should neither doubt the existence of the power, nor the benevolence of the whole design: nor if presently we saw a workman, reaching after some fancied good, drawn between wheels and mangled, or a hundred ignorant or careless persons caught up and whirled round and round and dashed to death; would we find any occasion to reverse our judgment--to doubt either the existence of a controlling force, or its essential goodness? Rather we should be impressed with its terrible supremacy, and with the importance of seeking out the lines of its manifestation and learning to avoid a conflict.

Law is not an entity, but only the mode of an entity; not a thing existing, but the attribute of a thing; not in itself a power, but the manner of the action of a power. When a power through a given cause produces a given effect, and the same effect from the same cause, this regularity of manifestation fulfills our idea of law.

The great original energy must act with this perfect regularity--that is, it must govern by law, and that equally, whether this original energy be a thing only, or a person. In either case, we must accept it as uncreated, necessary, having a definite constitution or nature. In this power or person, natural laws are rooted, and from it they proceed, as rays of light from the sun. To arrest the rays, you must quench the luminary; to arrest the current forces of nature, you must stay their author. The goings-forth of power from this exhaustless fountain are necessary, ceaseless, changeless, resistless. If this fountain is an impersonal force, we can no more expect it, on any account, to relax its energy, than we can expect the engine in the cellar to stop because some wretch up stairs has been caught between the wheels.

If it is personal, having the attributes of wisdom and goodness--which is the popular idea of God--still, from the very attributes with which it is invested, we must expect it to have all the uniformity, precision, and inexorableness of a machine. Its mode of action must be the same in all cases that are alike, though the series be infinite, else there will be more or less than perfect wisdom or perfect goodness in some of the series. More would be impossible: less would impeach the power; hence, the action must be uniform and resistless. It must show the characteristics of law--_nothing else but law_. God can not consent to do something that is not perfectly wise and perfectly good because He has been importuned so to do by fools, or because a creature is going to be crushed. Therefore, neither with Him--an infinitely wise and good being--nor with Nature’s laws, which are but the effluence of His nature, can there be any “variableness or shadow of turning.”

The general acceptance of this truth will mark a step forward in the progress of humanity. Such knowledge will largely displace the faith of the past and the present, but there will be a net gain. We have been looking for God outside of Nature; but while some profess to have seen him, the majority have been weak in faith, or wholly unbelieving. When we learn to see God in nature, we shall see him every day. We shall then truly realize that “in him we live and move and have our being.” We shall have substituted certainty in the governing power for something very like caprice. We shall not expect the Supernatural to forbid the Natural, any more than we shall expect the sun to quarrel with his beams. Knowing definitely what not to expect of God, we shall understand precisely what to expect from ourselves. We shall comprehend more fully the Maker’s meaning when He said, “Subdue and have dominion.”

Judaism alone, of all religions, took no cognizance of a future state. If man thoroughly adjusted himself to this world’s laws, he needed not fear for the hereafter. Therein is the strongest proof of its divine origin. And along this line a thousand victories have been won--but much yet remains. The results of human folly are lessening daily as man progresses. The means of rational enjoyment have been already vastly increased, and there will be further enlargement. But men, not angels, must do the work. Moses and his people stood, the sea before, and Pharaoh and his hosts behind them. In this extremity, he lifted his hands and cried to heaven. The answer that came was hardly such as he expected, but it may be very suggestive to us: “Wherefore criest thou unto me? _Speak unto the children of Israel_, THAT THEY GO FORWARD.”

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

No so Romantic as it Looks=> Not so Romantic as it Looks {pg xiii}

harvest and and summer=> harvest and summer {pg 25}

which bring a rainy season=> which brings a rainy season {pg 34}

from 10° to to 15°=> from 10° to 15° {pg 38}

electrical discharges takes place=> electrical discharges take place {pg 44}

bricks to to the street=> bricks to the street {pg 81}

their more oppulent neighbors=> their more opulent neighbors {pg 87}

frivolty and idleness=> frivolity and idleness {pg 88}

witnesssd the horrible cremation=> witnesssed the horrible cremation {pg 92}

up to to the front door=> up to the front door {pg 98}

in some myterious way=> in some mysterious way {pg 109}

feared in this conntry=> feared in this country {pg 130}

population atttacted by=> population attracted by {pg 153}

basin of Hong Hong=> basin of Hong Kong {pg 157}

the shoal in in the winter=> the shoal in the winter {pg 168}

from the beyond the ship=> from beyond the ship {pg 189}

A portion of the tempest and of the!=> A portion of the tempest and of thee! {pg 220}

tremenduous electrical displays=> tremendous electrical displays {pg 223}

straw fused in in the same way=> straw fused in the same way {pg 224}

Quinitus Julius Eburnus became consul=> Quintus Julius Eburnus became consul {pg 229}

of the Lyse Fjord=> of the Lyse Fiord {pg 234}

observations of late years has shown=> observations of late years have shown {pg 254}

being the the only one=> being the only one {pg 261}

they liked the the work=> they liked the work {pg 299}

These uprotected tracts=> These unprotected tracts {pg 268}

where help not easily obtained=> where help is not easily obtained {pg 272}

the immediate vicinty of=> the immediate vicinity of {pg 294}

at a large scale-map=> at a large-scale map {pg 310}

the governmental committes=> the governmental committees {pg 315}

had even remotely conconceived=> had even remotely conceived {pg 332}

ten feet behing them=> ten feet behind them {pg 338}

succeeeed in escaping=> succeeded in escaping {pg 341}

magnificiently solid structure=> magnificently solid structure {pg 346}

droping shattered houses=> dropping shattered houses {pg 347}

of overwhelmning sorrow=> of overwhelming sorrow {pg 374}

Monday, the 3d, liberal contritions=> Monday, the 3d, liberal contributions {pg 382}

vast quanties of gas=> vast quantities of gas {pg 404}

character of the cave=> character of the the cave {pg 408}

twenty-four active volcanes=> twenty-four active volcanoes {pg 416}

The next unusal activity=> The next unusual activity {pg 434}

the material threwn out may reach=> the material thrown out may reach {pg 438}

the Vatna distriet in 1875=> the Vatna district in 1875 {pg 449}

the barometic oscillations=> the barometric oscillations {pg 480}

one hundrd and sixty-five=> one hundred and sixty-five {pg 491}

Portions of the country was upheaved=> Portions of the country were upheaved {pg 533}

the unitiated foreigner=> the uninitiated foreigner {pg 536}

At was felt at Charleston=> It was felt at Charleston {pg 553}

long standing fueds=> long standing feuds {pg 572}

killed killed fifteen thousand persons=> killed fifteen thousand persons {pg 585}

the unparalled horrors=> the unparalleled horrors {pg 592}

weaned from the the breast=> weaned from the breast {pg 602}