[NatTheo] Man as the Representative of the Supernatural

1883 | Argyll

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Man as the Representative of the Supernatural
The Duke of Argyll

THE denial and exclusion of what is called "The Supernatural" in our explanations of nature, is the same doctrine in another form as the denial and exclusion of anthropopsychism. The connection may not be evident at first sight, but it arises from the fact that the human mind is really the type, and the only type, of that which men call the supernatural. It would be well if this word were altogether banished from our vocabulary. It is in the highest degree ambiguous and deceptive. It assumes that the system of "nature" in which we live and of which we form a part, is limited to purely physical agencies linked together by nothing but mechanical necessity. There might indeed be no harm in this limitation of the word nature if it could possibly be adhered to. But it is not possible to adhere to it, and that for the best of all reasons, because even inanimate nature, as we habitually see it, and are obliged to speak of it, is not a system which gives us the idea of being governed and guided by mechanical necessity. No wonder men find it difficult to believe in the supernatural, if by the supernatural they mean any agency which is nowhere present in the visible and intelligible universe, or is not implicitly represented and continually reflected there. For indeed in this sense no Christian can believe in the supernatural, in a creation from which the Creator has been banished, or has withdrawn Himself. On the other hand, if by the supernatural we mean an agency which, while ever present in the material and intelligible universe, is not confined to it, but transcends it, then indeed the difficulty is not in the believing of it, but in the disbelieving of it. No man can really hold that the material system which is visible or intelligible to us is anything more than a fragment or a part. No man can believe that its existing arrangements of matter and of force are self-caused, self-originated and self-sustained. It is not possible, therefore, so to "crib, cabin and confine" our conceptions of nature as to exclude elements which essentially belong to what is called the supernatural. And there is another reason why it is impossible to adhere to such conceptions of the natural, and that is, that it would compel us to exclude the mind of Man, and indeed the lesser minds of all living things, from our scientific definition of nature, and to establish an absolute and rigorous separation between all of these and the world in which they move and act. We have seen not only how impracticable such a separation is, but how false it is to the facts of science. The same condemnation must fall on every conception of the universe which assumes this separation as not only important but fundamental. Yet this is the very separation on which those philosophers absolutely depend who condemn what they call the supernatural in our conceptions and explanations of the world. And in the interest of their own argument they are quite right in keeping to this separation as indispensable for their purpose. In order to exclude from nature what they call the supernatural, it is absolutely necessary that they should in the first place exclude Man. If nature be nothing but matter, force, and mechanical necessity, then Man belongs to the supernatural, and is indeed the very embodiment and representation of it.

Accordingly this identification of Man with the supernatural is necessarily and almost unconsciously involved in language which is intended to be strictly philosophical, and in the most careful utterances of our most distinguished scientific men. Thus Professor Tyndall, in his Belfast Address to the British Association, uses these words : "Our earliest historic ancestors fell back also upon experience, but with this difference, that the particular experiences which furnished the fabric of their theories were drawn, not from the study of Nature, but from what lay much closer to them--the observation of men." Here Man is especially contradistinguished from nature, and accordingly we find in the next sentence that this idea is connected with a condemnation of the error of seeing ourselves--that is, the supernatural in nature. "Their theories," the Professor goes on to say, "accordingly took an anthropomorphic form." Further on, in the same Address, the same antithesis is still more distinctly expressed, thus: "If Mr. Darwin rejects the notion of creative power acting after human fashion, it certainly is not because he is unacquainted with the numberless exquisite adaptations on which the notion of a supernatural artificer is founded." Here we see that the idea of "acting after human fashion" is treated as synonymous with the idea of a "supernatural artificer"; and the same identification may be observed running throughout the language which is commonly employed to condemn what is sometimes called anthropomorphism and at other times is called the supernatural.

The two propositions, therefore, which are really involved in the thoroughgoing denial of anthropopsychism and the supernatural are the following: first, that there is nothing except Man which is above or outside of mere matter and force in nature as we see and know it; second, that in the system of nature as thus seen and known, there are no phenomena due to mind having any analogies with our own.

Surely these propositions have been refuted the moment the definition of them has been attained. We have only to observe, in the first place, the strange and anomalous position in which it places Man. As regards at least the higher faculties of his mind, he is allowed no place in nature, and no fellowship with any other thing or any other being outside of nature. He is absolutely alone out of all relation with the universe around him, and under a complete delusion when he sees in any part of it any mental homologies with his own intelligence, or with his own will, or with his own affections. Does this absolute solitariness of position as regards the higher attributes of Man--does it sound reasonable, or possible, or consistent with some of the most fundamental conceptions of science? How, for example, does it accord with that great conception whose truth and sweep become every day more apparent--the unity of nature?

How can it be true that Man is so outside of that unity that the very notion of seeing anything like himself in it is the greatest of all philosophical heresies? Does not the very possibility of science consist in the possibility of reducing all natural phenomena to purely natural conceptions, which must be related to the intellect of Man when they are worked out and apprehended by it? And if, according to the latest theories, Man is himself a product of evolution, and is, therefore, in every atom of his body and in every function of his mind a part and a child of nature, is it not in the highest degree illogical so to separate him from it as to condemn him for seeing in it some image of himself? If he is its product and its child, is it not certain that he is right when he sees and feels the indissoluble bonds of unity which unite him to the great system of things in which he lives?

This fundamental inconsistency in the agnostic philosophy becomes all the more remarkable when we find that the very men who tell us that we are not one with anything above us, are the same who insist that we are one with everything beneath us. Whatever there is in us or about us which is purely animal we may see everywhere; but whatever there is in us purely intellectual and moral, we delude ourselves if we think we see it anywhere. There are abundant homologies between our bodies and the bodies of the beasts, but there are no homologies between our minds and any Mind which lives and manifests itself in Nature. Our livers and our lungs, our vertebrae and our nervous systems, are identical in origin and in function with those of the living creatures round us; but there is nothing in nature or above it which corresponds to our forethought, or design, or purpose--to our love of the good or our admiration of the beautiful--to our indignation with the wicked, or to our pity for the suffering and the fallen. I venture to think that no system of philosophy that has ever been taught on Earth lies under such a weight of antecedent improbability; and this improbability increases in direct proportion to the success of science in tracing the unity of nature, and in showing step by step how its laws and their results can be brought more and more into direct relation with the mind and intellect of Man.

All the analogies of human thought are in themselves analogies of nature, and in proportion as they are built up or are perceived by mind in its higher attributes and work, they are part and parcel of natural truth. Man--he whom the Greeks call anthropos, because, as it has been supposed, he is the only being whose look is upwards--Man is a part of nature, and no artificial definitions can separate him from it. And yet in another sense it is true that Man is above nature--outside of it; and in this aspect he is the very type and image of the "supernatural." The instinct which sees this image in him is a true instinct, and the consequent desire of atheistic philosophy to banish anthropopsychism from our conceptions is dictated by an obvious logical necessity. But in this necessity the system is self-condemned. Every advance of science is a new testimony to the supremacy of mind, and to the correspondence between the mind of Man and the Mind which is supreme in nature.

For in exalting mind, science is ever making plainer and plainer the inferior position of the purely physical aspects of nature--the subordinate character of what we know as matter and material force. It is only when we come to think of the coordination and adjustment of these physical forces as part of the mechanism of the heavens--it is only, in short, when we recognize the mental--that is, the anthropopsychic--element, that the Universe becomes glorious and intelligible, as indeed a cosmos; a system of order and beauty adapted to the various ends which we see actually attained, and to a thousand others which we can only guess. No philosophy can be true which allows that we see in nature the most intimate relations with our intellectual conceptions of space and time and force and numerical proportion, but denies that we can ever see any similar relation with our conceptions of purpose and design, or with those still higher conceptions which are embodied in our sense of justice and in our love of righteousness, and in our admiration of the quality of mercy. These elements in the mind of Man are not less certain than others to have some correlative in the Mind which rules in nature.


From chapter 8 of The Unity of Nature (1883) by The Duke of Argyll.
Abridged and edited by ECO.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Welcome to the Natural Theology Series. I hope you will find it interesting.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Natural Theology Series
Natural Theology, Design, Teleology, and Metaphysics

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Selections scavenged from the oblivion of old and rarely read books.
Condensed, arranged, and edited by ECO. Freepmail me if you want on
or off the Natural Theology Series ping list.

[Jim W N]

Sure, looks like it might be good. Hopefully the simplicity of intelligent design isn’t missed in all the complexity of scientific debate.

[Matchett-PI]

Thanks for the ping.

May I ask what you are attempting to convince us of with this “Natural Theology” series?

Is your underlying goal to convince us to believe that the earth is only 6000 years old and that little children played with dinosaurs, as portrayed in Ken Hamm’s museum?

[Fichori]

Before time was, existed Nothing

And Nothing breathed the breath of Methodological Inconsistency into the nostrils of Evolution and it lived and multiplied and filled the Earth with death, carnality and bad science.

Evolution 1:1-2