e be suns and stars, or grains of sand, or
raindrops. Biogenesis, in like manner, will act wherever there is life.
The conclusion finally is, that from the nature of Law in general, and
from the scope of the Principle of Continuity in particular, the Laws of
the natural life must be those of the spiritual life. This does not
exclude, observe, the possibility of there being new Laws in addition
within the Spiritual Sphere; nor does it even include the supposition
that the old Laws will be the conspicuous Laws of the Spiritual World,
both which points will be dealt with presently. It simply asserts that
whatever else may be found, these must be found there; that they must be
there though they may not be seen there; and that they must project
beyond there if there be anything beyond there. If the Law of Continuity
is true, the only way to escape the conclusion that the Laws of the
natural life are the Laws, or at least are Laws, of the spiritual life,
is to say that there is no spiritual life. It is really easier to give
up the phenomena than to give up the Law.
Two questions now remain for further consideration--one bearing on the
possibility of new Law in the spiritual; the other, on the assumed
invisibility or inconspicuousness of the old Laws on account of their
subordination to the new.
Let us begin by conceding that there may be new Laws. The argument might
then be advanced that since, in Nature generally, we come upon new Laws
as we pass from lower to higher kingdoms, the old still remaining in
force, the newer Laws which one would expect to meet in the Spiritual
World would so transcend and overwhelm the older as to make the analogy
or identity, even if traced, of no practical use. The new Laws would
represent operations and energies so different, and so much more
elevated, that they would afford the true keys to the Spiritual World.
As Gravitation is practically lost sight of when we pass into the domain
of life, so Biogenesis would be lost sight of as we enter the Spiritual
Sphere.
We must first separate in this statement the old confusion of Law and
energy. Gravitation is not lost sight of in the organic world. Gravity
may be, to a certain extent, but not Gravitation; and gravity only where
a higher power counteracts its action. At the same time it is not to be
denied that the conspicuous thing in Organic Nature is not the great
Inorganic Law.
But the objection turns upon the statement that reasoning f
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