This innermost of all is absolute Spirit. It is Life as yet not
differentiated into any specific mode; it is the universal Life which
pervades all things and is at the heart of all appearances.
To come into the knowledge of this is to come into the secret of power,
and to enter into the secret place of Living Spirit. Is it illogical
first to call this the unknowable, and then to speak of coming into the
knowledge of it? Perhaps so; but no less a writer than St. Paul has set
the example; for does he not speak of the final result of all searchings
into the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the inner side
of things as being, to attain the knowledge of that Love which passeth
knowledge. If he is thus boldly illogical in phrase, though not in fact,
may we not also speak of knowing "the unknowable"? We may, for this
knowledge is the root of all other knowledge.
The presence of this undifferentiated universal life-power is the final
axiomatic fact to which all our analysis must ultimately conduct us. On
whatever plane we make our analysis it must always abut upon pure
essence, pure energy, pure being; that which knows itself and recognises
itself, but which cannot dissect itself because it is not built up of
parts, but is ultimately integral: it is pure Unity. But analysis which
does not lead to synthesis is merely destructive: it is the child
wantonly pulling the flower to pieces and throwing away the fragments;
not the botanist, also pulling the flower to pieces, but building up in
his mind from those carefully studied fragments a vast synthesis of the
constructive power of Nature, embracing the laws of the formation of all
flower-forms. The value of analysis is to lead us to the original
starting-point of that which we analyse, and so to teach us the laws by
which its final form springs from this centre.
Knowing the law of its construction, we turn our analysis into a
synthesis, and we thus gain a power of building up which must always be
beyond the reach of those who regard "the unknowable" as one with
"not-being."
_This_ idea of the unknowable is the root of all materialism; and yet no
scientific man, however materialistic his proclivities, treats the
unanalysable residuum thus when he meets it in the experiments of his
laboratory. On the contrary, he makes this final unanalysable fact the
basis of his synthesis. He finds that in the last resort it is energy of
some kind, whether as heat or as motion; but he does not throw up his
scientific pursuits because he cannot analyse it further. He adopts the
precisely opposite course, and realises that the conservation of energy,
its indestructibility, and the impossibility of adding to or detracting
from the sum-total of energy in the world, is the one solid and
unchanging fact on which alone the edifice of physical science can be
built up. He bases all his knowledge upon his knowledge of "the
unknowable." And rightly so, for if he could analyse this energy into
yet further factors, then the same problem of "the unknowable" would
meet him still. All our progress consists in continually pushing the
unknowable, in the sense of the unanalysable residuum, a step further
back; but that there should be no ultimate unanalysable residuum
anywhere is an inconceivable idea.
In thus realising the undifferentiated unity of Living Spirit as the
central fact of any system, whether the system of the entire universe or
of a single organism, we are therefore following a strictly scientific
method. We pursue our analysis until it necessarily leads us to this
final fact, and then we accept this fact as the basis of our synthesis.
The Science of Spirit is thus not one whit less scientific than the
Science of Matter; and, moreover, it starts from the same initial fact,
the fact of a living energy which defies definition or explanation,
wherever we find it; but it differs from the science of matter in that
it contemplates this energy under an aspect of responsive intelligence
which does not fall within the scope of physical science, as such. The
Science of Spirit and the Science of Matter are not opposed. They are
complementaries, and neither is fully comprehensible without some
knowledge of the other; and, being really but two portions of one whole,
they insensibly shade off into each other in a border-land where no
arbitrary line can be drawn between them. Science studied in a truly
scientific spirit, following out its own deductions unflinchingly to
their legitimate conclusions, will always reveal the twofold aspect of
things, the inner and the outer; and it is only a truncated and maimed
science that refuses to recognise both.
The study of the material world is not Materialism, if it be allowed to
progress to its legitimate issue. Materialism is that limited view of
the universe
