قراءة كتاب Through Nature to God
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The attitude of mind which expressed itself in a great encyclopædic book without any pervading principle of unity, like Humboldt's "Kosmos," is now become what the Germans call ein ueberwundener Standpunkt, or something that we have passed by and left behind.
When we have once thoroughly grasped the monotheistic conception of the universe as an organic whole, animated by the omnipresent spirit of God, we have forever taken leave of that materialism to which the universe was merely an endless multitude of phenomena. We begin to catch glimpses of the meaning and dramatic purpose of things; at all events we rest assured that there really is such a meaning. Though the history of our lives, and of all life upon our planet, as written down by the unswerving finger of Nature, may exhibit all events and their final purpose in unmistakable sequence, yet to our limited vision the several fragments of the record, like the leaves of the Cumæan sibyl, caught by the fitful breezes of circumstance and whirled wantonly hither and thither, lie in such intricate confusion that no ingenuity can enable us wholly to decipher the legend. But could we attain to a knowledge commensurate with the reality—could we penetrate the hidden depths where, according to Dante (Paradiso, xxxiii. 85), the story of Nature, no longer scattered in truant leaves, is bound with divine love in a mystic volume, we should find therein no traces of hazard or incongruity. From man's origin we gather hints of his destiny, and the study of evolution leads our thoughts through Nature to God.
Cambridge, March 2, 1899.
CONTENTS
The Mystery of Evil | ||
I. | The Serpent's Promise to the Woman | 3 |
II. | The Pilgrim's Burden | 8 |
III. | Manichæism and Calvinism | 14 |
IV. | The Dramatic Unity of Nature | 22 |
V. | What Conscious Life is made of | 27 |
VI. | Without the Element of Antagonism there could be no Consciousness, and therefore no World | 34 |
VII. | A Word of Caution | 40 |
VIII. | The Hermit and the Angel | 43 |
IX. | Man's Rise from the Innocence of Brutehood | 48 |
X. | The Relativity of Evil | 54 |
The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self-Sacrifice |
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I. | The Summer Field, and what it tells us | 59 |
II. | Seeming Wastefulness of the Cosmic Process | 65 |
III. | Caliban's Philosophy | 72 |
IV. | Can it be that the Cosmic Process has no Relation to Moral Ends? | 74 |
V. | First Stages in the Genesis of Man | 80 |
VI. | The Central Fact in the Genesis of Man | 86 |
VII. | The Chief Cause of Man's lengthened Infancy | 88 |
VIII. | Some of its Effects | 96 |
IX. | Origin of Moral Ideas and Sentiments | 102 |
X. | The Cosmic Process exists purely for the Sake of Moral Ends |