



Produced by Michael Gray




Eternal Life


    By Professor
       Henry
       Drummond


Philadelphia
Henry Altemus



Copyright 1896 by Henry Altemus.



ETERNAL LIFE.

"This is Life Eternal--that they might know Thee, the True God, and
Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent."--_Jesus Christ_.

"Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes in
the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet,
and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them,
there would be eternal existence and eternal knowledge."--_Herbert
Spencer_.

ONE of the most startling achievements of recent science is a definition
of Eternal Life. To the religious mind this is a contribution of immense
moment. For eighteen hundred years only one definition of Life Eternal
was before the world. Now there are two.

Through all these centuries revealed religion had this doctrine to
itself. Ethics had a voice, as well as Christianity, on the question of
the _summum bonum_; Philosophy ventured to speculate on the Being of a
God. But no source outside Christianity contributed anything to the
doctrine of Eternal Life. Apart from Revelation, this great truth was
unguaranteed. It was the one thing in the Christian system that most
needed verification from without, yet none was forthcoming. And never
has any further light been thrown upon the question why in its very
nature the Christian Life should be Eternal. Christianity itself even
upon this point has been obscure. Its decision upon the bare fact is
authoritative and specific. But as to what there is in the Spiritual
Life necessarily endowing it with the element of Eternity, the maturest
theology is all but silent.

It has been reserved for modern biology at once to defend and illuminate
this central truth of the Christian faith. And hence in the interests of
religion, practical and evidential, this second and scientific
definition of Eternal Life is to be hailed as an announcement of
commanding interest. Why it should not yet have received the recognition
of religious thinkers--for already it has lain some years unnoticed--is
not difficult to understand. The belief in Science as an aid to faith is
not yet ripe enough to warrant men in searching there for witnesses to
the highest Christian truths. The inspiration of Nature, it is thought,
extends to the humbler doctrines alone. And yet the reverent inquirer
who guides his steps in the right direction may find even now in the
still dim twilight of the scientific world much that will illuminate and
intensify his sublimest faith. Here, at least, comes, and comes
unbidden, the opportunity of testing the most vital point of the
Christian system. Hitherto the Christian philosopher has remained
content with the scientific evidence against Annihilation. Or, with
Butler, he has reasoned from the Metamorphoses of Insects to a future
life. Or again, with the authors of "The Unseen Universe," the apologist
has constructed elaborate, and certainly impressive, arguments upon the
Law of Continuity. But now we may draw nearer. For the first time
Science touches Christianity _positively_ on the doctrine of
Immortality. It confronts us with an actual definition of an Eternal
Life, based on a full and rigidly accurate examination of the necessary
conditions. Science does not pretend that it can fulfil these
conditions. Its votaries make no claim to possess the Eternal Life. It
simply postulates the requisite conditions without concerning itself
whether any organism should ever appear, or does now exist, which might
fulfil them. The claim of religion, on the other hand, is that there are
organisms which possess Eternal Life. And the problem for us to solve is
this: Do those who profess to possess Eternal Life fulfil the conditions
required by Science, or are they different conditions? In a word, Is the
Christian conception of Eternal Life scientific?

It may be unnecessary to notice at the outset that the definition of
Eternal Life drawn up by Science was framed without reference to
religion. It must indeed have been the last thought with the thinker to
whom we chiefly owe it, that in unfolding the conception of a Life in
its very nature necessarily eternal, he was contributing to Theology.

Mr. Herbert Spencer--for it is to him we owe it--would be the first to
admit the impartiality of his definition; and from the connection in
which it occurs in his writings, it is obvious that religion was not
even present to his mind. He is analyzing with minute care the relations
between Environment and Life. He unfolds the principle according to
which Life is high or low, long or short. He shows why organisms live
and why they die. And finally he defines a condition of things in which
an organism would never die--in which it would enjoy a perpetual and
perfect Life. This to him is, of course, but a speculation. Life Eternal
is a biological conceit. The conditions necessary to an Eternal Life do
not exist in the natural world. So that the definition is altogether
impartial and independent. A Perfect Life, to Science, is simply a thing
which is theoretically possible--like a Perfect Vacuum.

Before giving, in so many words, the definition of Mr. Herbert Spencer,
it will render it fully intelligible if we gradually lead up to it by a
brief rehearsal of the few and simple biological facts on which it is
based. In considering the subject of Death, we have formerly seen that
there are degrees of Life. By this is meant that some lives have more
and fuller correspondence with Environment than others. The amount of
correspondence, again, is determined by the greater or less complexity
of the organism. Thus a simple organism like the Amoeba is possessed of
very few correspondences. It is a mere sac of transparent structureless
jelly for which organization has done almost nothing, and hence it can
only communicate with the smallest possible area of Environment. An
insect, in virtue of its more complex structure, corresponds with a
wider area. Nature has endowed it with special faculties for reaching
out to the Environment on many sides; it has more life than the Amoeba.
In other words, it is a higher animal. Man again, whose body is still
further differentiated, or broken up into different correspondences,
finds himself _en rapport_ with his surroundings to a further extent.
And therefore he is higher still, more living still. And this law, that
the degree of Life varies with the degree of correspondence, holds to
the minutest detail throughout the entire range of living things. Life
becomes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, more and more sensitive
and responsive to an ever-widening Environment as we rise in the chain
of being.

Now it will speedily appear that a distinct relation exists, and must
exist, between complexity and longevity. Death being brought about by
the failure of an organism to adjust itself to some change in the
Environment, it follows that those organisms which are able to adjust
themselves most readily and successfully will live the longest. They
will continue time after time to effect the appropriate adjustment, and
their power of doing so will be exactly proportionate to their
complexity--that is, to the amount of Environment they can control with
their correspondences. There are, for example, in the Environment of
every animal certain things which are directly or indirectly dangerous
to Life. If its equipment of correspondences is not complete enough to
enable it to avoid these dangers in all possible circumstances, it must
sooner or later succumb. The organism then with the most perfect set of
correspondences, that is, the highest and most complex organism, has an
obvious advantage over less complex forms. It can adjust itself more
perfectly and frequently. But this is just the biological way of saying
that it can live the longest. And hence the relation between complexity
and longevity may be expressed thus--the most complex organisms are the
longest lived.

To state and illustrate the proposition conversely may make the point
still further clear. The less highly organized an animal is, the less
will be its chance of remaining in lengthened correspondence with its
Environment. At some time or other in its career circumstances are sure
to occur to which the comparatively immobile organism finds itself
structurally unable to respond. Thus a _Medusa_ tossed ashore by a wave,
finds itself so out of correspondence with its new surroundings that its
life must pay the forfeit. Had it been able by internal change to adapt
itself to external change--to correspond sufficiently with the new
environment, as for example to crawl, as an eel would have done, back
into that environment with which it had completer correspondence--its
life might have been spared. But had this happened it would continue to
live henceforth only so long as it could continue in correspondence with
all the circumstances in which it might find itself. Even if, however,
it became complex enough to resist the ordinary and direct dangers of
its environment, it might still be out of correspondence with others. A
naturalist for instance, might take advantage of its want of
correspondence with particular sights and sounds to capture it for his
cabinet, or the sudden dropping of a yacht's anchor or the turn of a
screw might cause its untimely death.

Again, in the case of a bird in virtue of its more complex organization,
there is command over a much larger area of environment. It can take
precautions such as the _Medusa_ could not; it has increased facilities
for securing food; its adjustments all round are more complex; and
therefore it ought to be able to maintain its Life for a longer period.
There is still a large area, however, over which it has no control. Its
power of internal change is not complete enough to afford it perfect
correspondence with all external changes, and its tenure of Life is to
that extent insecure. Its correspondence, moreover, is limited even with
regard to those external conditions with which it has been partially
established. Thus a bird in ordinary circumstances has no difficulty in
adapting itself to changes of temperature, but if these are varied
beyond the point at which its capacity of adjustment begins to fail--for
example, during an extreme winter--the organism being unable to meet the
condition must perish. The human organism, on the other hand, can
respond to this external condition, as well as to countless other
vicissitudes under which lower forms would inevitably succumb. Man's
adjustments are to the largest known area of Environment, and hence he
ought to be able furthest to prolong his Life.

It becomes evident, then, that as we ascend in the scale of Life we rise
also in the scale of longevity. The lowest organisms are, as a rule,
shortlived, and the rate of mortality diminishes more or less regularly
as we ascend in the animal scale. So extraordinary indeed is the
mortality among lowly-organized forms that in most cases a compensation
is actually provided, nature endowing them with a marvellously increased
fertility in order to guard against absolute extinction. Almost all
lower forms are furnished not only with great reproductive powers, but
with different methods of propagation, by which, in various
circumstances, and in an incredibly short time, the species can be
indefinitely multiplied. Ehrenberg found that by the repeated
subdivisions of a single _Paramecium_, no fewer than 268,000,000 similar
organisms might be produced in one month. This power steadily decreases
as we rise higher in the scale, until forms are reached in which one,
two, or at most three, come into being at a birth. It decreases, however
because it is no longer needed. These forms have a much longer lease of
Life. And it may be taken as a rule, although it has exceptions, that
complexity in animal organisms is always associated with longevity.

It may be objected that these illustrations are taken merely from morbid
conditions. But whether the Life be cut short by accident or by disease
the principle is the same. All dissolution is brought about practically
in the same way. A certain condition in the Environment fails to be met
by a corresponding condition in the organism, and this is death. And
conversely the more an organism in virtue of its complexity can adapt
itself to all the parts of its Environment, the longer it will live. "It
is manifest _a priori_," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "that since changes
in the physical state of the environment, as also those mechanical
actions and those variations of available food which occur in it, are
liable to stop the processes going on in the organism; and since the
adaptive changes in the organism have the effects of directly or
indirectly counterbalancing these changes in the environment, it follows
that the life of the organism will be short or long, low or high,
according to the extent to which changes in the environment are met by
corresponding changes in the organism. Allowing a margin for
perturbations, the life will continue only while the correspondence
continues; the completeness of the life will be proportionate to the
completeness of the correspondence; and the life will be perfect only
when the correspondence is perfect." [1]

[1] "Principles of Biology," p. 82.

We are now all but in sight of our scientific definition of Eternal
Life. The desideratum is an organism with a correspondence of a very
exceptional kind. It must lie beyond the reach of those "mechanical
actions" and those "variations of available food," which are "liable to
stop the processes going on in the organism." Before we reach an Eternal
Life we must pass beyond that point at which all ordinary
correspondences inevitably cease. We must find an organism so high and
complex, that at some point in its development it shall have added a
correspondence which organic death is powerless to arrest. We must, in
short, pass beyond that finite region where the correspondences depend
on evanescent and material media, and enter a further region where the
Environment corresponded with is itself Eternal. Such an Environment
exists. The Environment of the Spiritual world is outside the influence
of these "mechanical actions," which sooner or later interrupt the
processes going on in all finite organisms. If then we can find an
organism which has established a correspondence with the spiritual
world, that correspondence will possess the elements of eternity--
provided only one other condition be fulfilled.

That condition is that the Environment be perfect. If it is not perfect,
if it is not the highest, if it is endowed with the finite quality of
change, there can be no guarantee that the Life of its correspondents
will be eternal. Some change might occur in it which the correspondents
had no adaptive changes to meet, and Life would cease. But grant a
spiritual organism in perfect correspondence with a perfect spiritual
Environment, and the conditions necessary to Eternal Life are satisfied.

The exact terms of Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of Eternal Life may
now be given. And it will be seen that they include essentially the
conditions here laid down. "Perfect correspondence would be perfect
life. Were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism
had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency
with which it met them, there would be eternal existence and eternal
knowledge." [1] Reserving the question as to the possible fulfilment of
these conditions, let us turn for a moment to the definition of Eternal
Life laid down by Christ. Let us place it alongside the definition of
Science, and mark the points of contact. Uninterrupted correspondence
with a perfect Environment is Eternal Life according to Science. "This
is Life Eternal," said Christ, "that they may know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent." [2] Life Eternal is to know
God. To know God is to "correspond" with God. To correspond with God is
to correspond with a Perfect Environment. And the organism which attains
to this, in the nature of things must live for ever. Here is "eternal
existence and eternal knowledge."

[1] "Principles of Biology," p. 88.
[2] John xvii.

The main point of agreement between the scientific and the religious
definition is that Life consists in a peculiar and personal relation
defined as a "correspondence." This conception, that Life consists in
correspondences, has been so abundantly illustrated already that it is
now unnecessary to discuss it further. All Life indeed consists
essentially in correspondences with various Environments. The artist's
life is a correspondence with art; the musician's with music. To cut
them off from these Environments is in that relation to cut off their
Life. To be cut off from all Environment is death. To find a new
Environment again and cultivate relation with it is to find a new Life.
To live is to correspond, and to correspond is to live. So much is true
in Science. But it is also true in Religion. And it is of great
importance to observe that to Religion also the conception of Life is a
correspondence. No truth of Christianity has been more ignorantly or
wilfully travestied than the doctrine of Immortality. The popular idea,
in spite of a hundred protests, is that Eternal Life is to live forever.
A single glance at the _locus classicus_, might have made this error
impossible. There we are told that Life Eternal is not to live. This is
Life Eternal--_to know_. And yet--and it is a notorious instance of the
fact that men who are opposed to Religion will take their conceptions of
its profoundest truths from mere vuglar perversions--this view still
represents to many cultivated men the Scriptural doctrine of Eternal
Life. From time to time the taunt is thrown at Religion, not unseldom
from lips which Science ought to have taught more caution, that the
Future Life of Christianity is simply a prolonged existence, an eternal
monotony, a blind and indefinite continuance of being. The Bible never
could commit itself to any such empty platitude; nor could Christianity
ever offer to the world a hope so colorless. Not that Eternal Life has
nothing to do with everlastingness. That is part of the conception. And
it is this aspect of the question that first arrests us in the field of
Science. But even Science has more in its definition than longevity. It
has a correspondence and an Environment; and although it cannot fill up
these terms for Religion, it can indicate at least the nature of the
relation, the kind of thing that is meant by Life. Science speaks to us
indeed of much more than numbers of years. It defines degrees of Life.
It explains a widening Environment. It unfolds the relation between a
widening Environment and increasing complexity in organisms. And if it
has no absolute contribution to the content of Religion, its analogies
are not limited to a point. It yields to Immortality, and this is the
most that Science can