And so long as this excess and this deficiency continue, there must continue decrease on the one hand, and growth on the other.
Finally all excess and all deficiency must disappear, that is, all unfitness must disappear; that is, all imperfection must disappear.
Thus the ultimate development of the ideal man is logically certain—as certain as any conclusion in which we place the most implicit faith; for instance, that all men will die. For why do we infer that all men will die P Simply because, in an immense number of past experiences, death has uniformly occurred. Similarly then as the experiences of all people in all times—experiences that are embodied in maxims, proverbs, and moral precepts, and that are illustrated in biographies and histories, go to prove that organs, faculties, powers, capacities, or whatever else we call them grow by use and diminish from disuse, it is inferred that they will continue to do so. And if this inference is unquestionable, then is the one above deduced from it—that humanity must in the end become completely adapted to its conditions— unquestionable also.
Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity. Instead of civilization being artificial, it is a part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower. The modifications mankind have undergone, and are still undergoing, result from a law underlying the whole organic creation; and provided the human race continues, and the constitution of things remains the same, those modifications must end in completeness. As surely as the tree becomes bulky when it stands alone, and slender if one of a group; as surely as the same creature assumes the different forms of cart-horse and racehorse, according as its habits demand strength or speed; as surely as a blacksmith's arm grows large, and the skin of a labourer's hand thick; as surely as the eye tends to become long-sighted in the sailor, and shortsighted in the student; as surely as the blind attain a more delicate sense of touch; as surely as a clerk acquires rapidity in writing and calculation; as surely as the musician learns to detect an error of a semitone amidst what seems to others a very babel of sounds; as surely as a passion grows by indulgence and diminishes when restrained; as surely as a disregarded conscience becomes inert, and one that is obeyed active; as surely as there is any efficacy in educational culture, or any meaning in such terms as habit, custom, practice; so surely must the human faculties be moulded into complete fitness for the social state; so surely must the things we call evil and immorality disappear; so surely must man become perfect." Social Statics, stereotyped ed. 1868, p. 78 f.
stern decree of nature. The invariable action of law of itself eliminates the unfit Progress is necessary to existence; extinction is the doom of retrogression. The highest effect contemplated by the supposed Revelation is to bring man into perfect harmony with law, and this is ensured by law itself acting upon intelligence. Only in obedience to law is there life and safety. Knowledge of law is imperatively demanded by nature. Ignorance of it is a capital offence. If we ignore the law of gravitation we are dashed to pieces at the foot of a precipice, or are crushed by a falling rock; if we neglect sanatory law, we are destroyed by a pestilence; if we disregard chemical laws, we are poisoned by a vapour. There is not, in reality, a gradation of breach of law that is not followed by an equivalent gradation of punishment. Civilization is nothing but the knowledge and observance of natural laws. The savage must learn them or be extinguished; the cultivated must observe them or die. The balance of moral and physical development cannot be deranged with impunity. In the spiritual as well as the physical sense only the fittest eventually can survive in the struggle for existence. There is, in fact, an absolute upward impulse to the whole human race supplied by the invariable operation of the laws of nature acting upon the common instinct of self-preservation. As, on the one hand, the highest human conception of infinite wisdom and power is derived from the universality and invariability of law, so that universality and invariability, on the other hand, exclude the idea of interruption or occasional suspension of law for any purpose whatever, and more especially for the correction of supposed original errors of design which cannot have existed, or for the attainment of objects already provided for in the order of nature.
Upon the first groundless assumption of a Divine design of such a revelation follows the hypothetical inference that, for the purpose of making the communication from the unseen world, a miracle or visible suspension of the order or nature is no irregularity, but part of the system of the universe. This, however, is a mere assertion, and no argument An avowed assumption which is contrary to reason is followed by another which is contrary to experience. It is simply absurd to speak of a visible suspension of the order of nature being part of the system of the universe. Such a statement has no meaning whatever within the range of human conception. Moreover, it must be remembered that miracles—or "visible suspensions of the order of nature"—are ascribed indifferently to Divine and to Satanic agency. If miracles are not an anomaly or irregularity on the supposition of the Divine design of a revelation, upon what supposition do Satanic miracles cease to be irregularities? Is the order of nature, which it is asserted is under the personal control of God, at the same time at the mercy of the Devil?
Archbishop Trench has, as usual, a singular way of overcoming the difficulty. He says:—"So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and improbable, miraculous and incredible may be admitted as convertible terms. But once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once acknowledge something higher than nature, a kingdom of God, and men the intended denizens of it, and the whole argument loses its strength and the force of its conclusions. … He who already counts it likely that God will interfere for the higher welfare of men, who believes that there is a nobler world-order than that in which we live and move, and that it would be the blessing of blessings for that nobler to intrude into and to make itself felt in the region of this lower, who has found that here in this world we are bound by heavy laws of nature, of sin, of death, which no powers that we now possess can break, yet which must be broken if we are truly to live—he will not find it hard to believe the great miracle, the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, &c … And as he believes that greatest miracle, so will he believe all other miracles, &c."(1) In other words, if we already believe the premises we shall not find it difficult to adopt the conclusions—if we already believe the greatest miracle we shall not hesitate to believe the less—if we already believe the dogmas we shall not find it hard to believe the evidence by which they are supposed to be authenticated. As we necessarily do abide in the region of nature, in which Dr. Trench admits that miraculous and incredible are convertible terms, it would seem rather difficult to lift the discussion into the higher region here described without having already abandoned it altogether.
CHAPTER III. REASON IN RELATION TO THE ORDER OF NATURE
The argument of those who assert the possibility and reality of miracles generally takes the shape of an attack, more or less direct, upon our knowledge of the order of nature. To establish an exception they contest the rule. Dr. Mozley, however, is not content with the ordinary objections advanced by apologists but, boldly entering into the mazes of a delicate philosophical problem, he adopts sceptical arguments and seeks to turn the flank of the enemy upon his own ground. He conducts his attack with unusual force and ability. "Whatever difficulty there is in believing in miracles in general," he says, "arises from the circumstance that they are in contradiction to or unlike the order of nature. To estimate the force of this difficulty, then, we must first understand what kind of belief it is which we have in the order of nature; for the weight of the objection to the miraculous must depend on the nature of the belief to which the miraculous is opposed."(1) Dr. Mozley defines the meaning of the phrase, "order of nature" as the connection of that part of the order of nature of which we are ignorant with that part of it which we know, the former being expected to be such and such, because the latter is. But how do we justify this expectation of likeness? We cannot do so, and all our arguments are mere statements of the belief itself, he affirms, and not reasons to account for it. It may be said, e.g., that when a fact of nature has gone on repeating itself a certain time, such repetition shows that there is a permanent cause at work, and that a permanent cause produces permanently recurring effects. But what is there to show the existence of a permanent cause? Nothing.