Editorial July 13, 1907 Issue

THE NATURAL

John B. Willis

As very generally understood the natural is the customary, that which under given circumstances we are wont to expect. It is also defined as that which is produced by or in keeping with so-called physical law. Furthermore, the recognition of the physical universe as divinely ordered has led to the classification of all that is in harmony therewith as not only natural but legitimate. Thus men have been prone to palliate their offenses on the ground that their conduct was the result of appetites and proclivities with which they were originally endowed,—"their nature,"—and this self-extenuation cannot be disregarded by those who hold that God is responsible for material instincts and impulses.

Although the effort to "master nature" has resulted in what seem to be wonderful gains in the scope and privilege of human life, every thoughful person perceives that it has rendered this life far more complex, multiplied a thousand fold its temptations and distractions, while accomplishing nothing for its moral redemption or improvement. The asserted laws of nature remain no less arbitrary and unjust, their cruelty is no less unpitying, while their clash and contradictions have led a Mæterlinck to say, "The idea of nature reveals itself ... as circumspect and shiftless, niggard and prodigal, prudent and careless, fickle and stable, agitated and immovable, magnificent and squalid." Nothing has been achieved in the way of philosophic explanation or real command.

All this is fully seen when we consider the question of the world's health, past and present. Whatever may be said in its favor, no intelligent exponent of materia medica will venture to deny that it is still upon the plane of experimentation, and that the asserted natural laws of disease and of cure with which it deals give no intimation of either the wisdom or the goodness of an overruling power. On the contrary, it will be generally conceded that the so-called natural, in this realm, is a confusion and a snare. Professor Lankester has recently spoken of true progress as rebellion against natural selection, a definance of "nature's prehuman dispositions." The control (subjection) of his own nature is, he says, "man's destiny and greatest need." This supports Paul's declaration that the natural man perceiveth not the things of God, and it hints at the revolutionary and redemptive teaching of Christian Science, that the natural is not that which customarily happens in human experience, but that which ought to be, and is, in the realm of Truth. It is not the phenomena of material law, but the logical expression of the eternal activity and unfoldment of Spirit.

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