PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.
[TO THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sm,—I am neither a natural philosopher nor a theologian, but re country shopkeeper ; theological and allied questions, however, are to me very interesting.
I have read Mr. Knight's article in the Contemporary Review, and have been thinking on the matter ever since. It seems to me that the doctrine of the correlation of force reconciles the theologian and the natural philosopher.
The philosopher tells us that electric, muscular, nerve, brain, or mind force are not different forces, but one and the same force acting in iifferent ways.
The heologian tells us of the one Supreme Mind. My mind is -correlated to the Supreme. To speak, then, of the physical and the spiritual Cosmoses is incorrect. God is the one Cosmos. To me, therefore, whatever is popularly called miraculous is no stumbling- block, for strictly speaking it is not miraculous but natural. Some may say this is pantheism. Well, suppose it is, but I don't think it is that which is generally called so, for God is my primary idea. By this no doubt the most miserable and sensual rascal that I see is part—part—I cannot get a word to convey my meaning, perhaps some may catch it —of the divine. He is putting forth that which is the divine energy, but so long as we hold to our personality, this is no more staggering than the existence of moral evil alongside -the Almighty, All-Seeing, and infinitely good Being.—I am, Sir,
[We do not wish to revive this discussion, for whenever it is -revived it overwhelms us with correspondence. We, however, publish this letter as an intellectual curiosity. The writer describes himself as a Scotch shopkeeper, and has evidently no academic -culture, but he has worked out his problem for himself by hard, -sound thinking.—En. Spectator.]
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