do this, the theologian this time must part company with such Science.
For any Science which makes such a demand is false to the doctrines of
Biogenesis. What is this but the demand that a lower world, hermetically
sealed against all communication with a world above it, should have a
mature and intelligent acquaintance with its phenomena and laws? Can the
mineral discourse to me of animal Life? Can it tell me what lies beyond
the narrow boundary of its inert being? Knowing nothing of other than
the chemical and physical laws, what is its criticism worth of the
principles of Biology? And even when some visitor from the upper world,
for example some root from a living tree, penetrating its dark recess,
honors it with a touch, will it presume to define the form and purpose
of its patron, or until the bioplasm has done its gracious work can it
even know that it is being touched? The barrier which separates Kingdoms
from one another restricts mind not less than matter. Any information of
the Kingdoms above it that could come to the mineral world could only
come by a communication from above. An analogy from the lower world
might make such communication intelligible as well as credible, but the
information in the first instance must be vouchsafed as a _revelation_.
Similarly if those in the organic Kingdom are to know anything of the
Spiritual World, that knowledge must at least begin as Revelation. Men
who reject this source of information, by the Law of Biogenesis, can
have no other. It is no spell of ignorance arbitrarily laid upon certain
members of the Organic Kingdom that prevents them reading the secrets of
the Spiritual World. It is a scientific necessity. No exposition of the
case could be more truly scientific than this: "The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness
unto him: _neither can he know them_, because they are spiritually
discerned."[42] The verb here, it will be again observed, is potential.
This is not a dogma of theology, but a necessity of Science. And
Science, for the most part, has consistently accepted the situation. It
has always proclaimed its ignorance of the Spiritual World. When Mr.
Herbert Spencer affirms, "Regarding Science as a gradually increasing
sphere we may say that every addition to its surface does but bring it
into wider contact with surrounding nescience,"[43] from his standpoint
he is quite correct. The endeavors of well-meaning persons to s