Natural Law in the Spiritual World
In Chapter 15 of Anne’s House of Dreams, Anne hosts her first Christmas dinner at her own house. Among the guests are Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim who chat with Gilbert:
“…Speaking of heresy, reminds me, doctor–I’ve brought back that book you lent me–that Natural Law in the
Spiritual World–I didn’t read more’n a third of it. I can read sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor the other.”
“It IS considered rather heretical in some quarters,” admitted Gilbert, “but I told you that before you took
it, Miss Cornelia.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded its being heretical. I can stand wickedness, but I can’t stand foolishness,” said Miss Cornelia calmly, and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about Natural Law.
“Natural Law” is a book on science and religion by Henry Drummond.
Natural Law in the Spiritual World
Henry Drummond
(excerpt)
PREFACE
No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost said derision, than that which deals with Science and Religion. Science is tired of reconciliations between two things which never should have been contrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which it professes not to need; and the critics have rightly discovered that, in most cases where Science is either pitted against Religion or fused with it, there is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope and province of either. But although no initial protest, probably, will save this work from the unhappy reputation of its class, the thoughtful mind will perceive that the fact of its subject-matter being Law–a property peculiar neither to Science nor to Religion–at once places it on a somewhat different footing.
The real problem I have set myself may be stated in a sentence. Is there not reason to believe that many of the Laws of the Spiritual World, hitherto regarded as occupying, an entirely separate province, are simply the Laws of the Natural World? Can we identify the Natural Laws, or any one of them, in the Spiritual sphere? That vague lines everywhere run through the Spiritual World is already beginning to be recognised. Is it possible to link them with those great lines running through the visible universe which we call the Natural Laws, or are they fundamentally distinct? In a word, Is the Supernatural natural or unnatural?
