Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

66

More than twenty years ago I was abroad. Cholera had broken out in the country, and I was suddenly taken very ill-apparently with that dread disease. I remember-oh! how well I remember it!—everyone seemed to shrink from me as from the plague itself. You've got it," said one of the men. I thought what "it" meant -going off to a hospital, etc.—and, pulling myself together, I said, emphatically, "No, I have not got it." From that moment I got better, the distressing symptoms passed off, and within an hour I felt myself again. I may be mistaken, but it has always seemed to me that had I succumbed to the sensations I should have had "it," but my will conquered and saved me in some wonderful way from a dreadful malady.

Lieut.-Col. G. MACKINLAY said: How little we know on this subject, which contains so many undefined influences (p. 146), and yet we have been surrounded by them for thousands of years! It is very satisfactory to find that nothing contrary to the teaching of Scripture has been brought forward; on the other hand, it is noteworthy that the present modern treatment of kindness to the mentally afflicted originated with the Quakers acting on Scriptural principles, and not with mental specialists.

It may be that we are on the eve of real advance, and we may expect progress in faith (p. 160). With all our modern methods of Suggestion, Auto-Suggestion, Drill, and Discipline, it is doubtful if we have advanced beyond the treatment accorded to Nebuchadnezzar when he was turned into the fields to lead the simple life.

The present age has witnessed wonderful progress in science in many fields, but the treatment of the brain and of its diseases has lagged terribly. It may be that we are on the eve of great discoveries in this direction. May investigators like our gifted lecturer be abundantly encouraged; there is plenty of room for a scientific worker to immensely benefit humanity!

Mr. H. O. WELLER writes: I much regret my absence from the reading of this paper, as it forms a basis for what must have been an interesting discussion. The author has given a useful account of the whole subject; may I be allowed to join in the congratulations he has doubtless received. But I am disappointed that he has not dealt more closely with Psycho-Analysis; and I am yet more disappointed with his summing-up and conclusion.

.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

He appears to lump together all kinds of spiritual experiencepagan, Christian, and neo-pagan (spiritist)-referring sympathetically to "a vast reservoir of psychic (spiritual) power" from which we draw spiritual sustenance by the assumption of a definite willattitude," and so on. This theory, he thinks," provides a reasonable explanation of . the results of religious faith among other things. Now, I cannot claim much space, so I will come straight to the point and assert that psycho-analysis is a dangerous practice, especially when it is successful in giving apparent relief, because it does so by application of what St. Paul calls "the law of sin (Rom. vii, 23 and 25). The truth appears to be that there are two laws the law of God and the law of sin-and that there is bodily and mental health in obeying either. It is the clash of the two in his soul that makes a man wretched: Paul says, "Unhappy man that I am psycho-analysts talk of an anxiety neurosis. So far there is agreement. But Paul points out how deliverance may be obtained: "Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord"; while the psycho-analyst delivers by surrender to sin. That is where the difference begins. It begins there it ends with a separation as far as Heaven is from Hell.

[ocr errors]

,

[ocr errors]

What we need," says one, and not the worst by any means, is to be freed from the oppressive burden of religious, ethical, and social inhibitions"; and, if we have studied the subject, and kept our eyes open, we must agree that physical and mental happiness will be found in such freedom. Paul, however, calls that sort of freedom being led "captive to the law which is everywhere at work in my body-the law of sin. He also says that “abandonment to earthly things is a state of enmity to God." In short, the freedom given by psycho-analysts is not true liberty at all, but obedience to the rule of "nature red in tooth and claw."

Nevertheless, there is truth in psycho-analytic teaching: the man in mental conflict-anxiety neurosis, a guilty conscience, or whatever you call his state-can find no rest half-way. He must either, by psycho-analysis, be freed downwards into his lower nature, or upwards into the liberty which is in Christ Jesus.

Dr. SCHOFIELD writes: It is with great regret that I find myself unable to be in London on the 6th; but I have greatly enjoyed

Dr. Ash's very able paper, and I should like, on behalf of the Victoria Institute, to contribute my share in thanking the doctor for bringing his difficult subject so clearly before us.

As a fellow-student, I will venture a few remarks. On page 147 the observations on infant consciousness are not only profoundly true, but seem to me quite original. I think the reason why Auto-Suggestion is both difficult and unpopular, and often futile, is because patients are generally asked to learn to use it when their own minds are not normal. Page 150, "The Sub-Conscious Mind.” Why“sub”? There is a sub-conscious or sub-liminal mind immediately below consciousness that can by effort be brought into consciousness by forced introspection, but it is very limited in extent, and corresponds to the tideway in an island. Here the island (really a mountain top) represents what is seen and known, or consciousness; the vast part always beneath the ocean, the Unconscious Mind; and the tideway between, sometimes visible and sometimes hidden, the Sub-Conscious or Sub-Liminal.

But from Dr. Ash's paper it is clearly not the Sub-Conscious of which he speaks, but the Unconscious; and I would suggest that this is the better name.

Page 153: That "suggestion is always beneficial" is a statement that requires most careful guarding. Only of "good" suggestion can this be said; but there are in the medical profession evil suggestions of all sorts, quite innocently broadcast, that are very harmful. From this Dr. Ash distinguishes between the mental and spiritual "A purely mental plane, without reference to spiritual influences (p. 153). "Spiritual knowing far transcending ordinary mental knowing" (p. 157). "Certain conditions. . . . on a plane higher than the mental," and so on.

Now, Dr. Ash distinctly calls the spiritual plane the higher " psychic plane" (p. 159). May I suggest that the material is the physical plane, the mental-the psychic, and the spiritual—the pneumatic, a word which, in spite of its unfamiliar sound, emphasises the impassable gulf between "psuche," the psychic or mental, and pneuma," the pneumatic or spiritual.

66

I feel quite sure Dr. Ash will take these suggestions in the appreciative spirit in which they are written.

HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL,
WESTMINSTER, S.W.1, ON MONDAY, APRIL 20TH, 1925,
AT 4.30 P.M.

SIR GEORGE KING, M.A., IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read, confirmed and signed, and the HONORARY SECRETARY announced the following elections :--As a Member, the Rev. F. W. Pitt, and as Associates, the Rev. Alexander Hodge and Mrs. F. M. Smith, B.Sc.

REVELATION AND EVOLUTION: CAN THEY BE HARMONIZED?

By GEORGE MCCREADY PRICE, M.A., Professor of Geology, Union College, Nebraska, U.S.A. ·

THE

Being the Langhorne Orchard Prize Essay for 1925.

I.

HE Evolution doctrine has its astronomical and cosmic aspects; but for our present purpose the term may be narrowed down to that portion of the general theory which deals with the origin of the plants and animals of our globe. The latter theory is more generally termed "Organic Evolution"; and such is the sense in which the term Evolution is used in the present essay. By By "Revelation we mean the Bible, the embodiment of those facts and doctrines upon which Christianity has been built. So that our subject may be more specifically stated: "Can the theory of Organic Evolution be harmonized with the teachings of the Bible?

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The Bible describes the origin of our plants and animals by what may be termed a fiat creation, that is, a creation brought about by the fiat or directly exercised will of God. The question of how long ago this creation took place is not important, neither is the question of how much time was occupied in this original creation; though on both of these points the Bible has made very interesting and important declarations. But for our present discussion, that is, with regard to the aspects of the

subject which are related to the theory of Organic Evolution, the chief feature of the Biblical account of Creation is that this Creation is very definitely stated to have been a finished work, something very different from those processes of natural law by which the present order of Nature is perpetuated or reproduced. Not only is this aspect of the case very clearly stated in the first and second chapters of Genesis, but, in addition, we have the record of the institution of the Sabbath, which was primarily designed as a memorial of a completed Creation, thus emphasizing the idea that this original Creation was something quite different from those processes now prevailing under which the organic kingdoms are perpetuated or sustained.

In

In marked contrast with this, we have as the prime idea of Organic Evolution the notion that our plants and animals have come about by a long process of development under precisely those processes of Nature which now prevail round us. other words, the Evolution theory measures all events in the past by the present; it says that the present is the real measure of the past, and the measure of all the past, including the so-called origin of life and of all organic existences. In explaining this theory, the emphasis is always placed on such present-acting processes as variation, heredity, and environment; and we are constantly impressed with the idea that these present-acting processes or laws of organic nature are quite sufficient to explain how our present complex array of plants and animals have arisen by purely natural processes from simple beginnings, and ultimately from the inorganic or the not-living.

In short, the theory of Evolution is only a special form of the general theory of Uniformity, the latter being a view of the Universe which denies that there is any real contrast between the beginnings of things and the present order of Nature under which the world around us is being sustained and perpetuated. In contrast with this idea, we have the Bible picture of a real beginning, a real Creation, distinctly different both in the degree and in the character of the Divine power then manifested, from the present exercise of God's power in sustaining and perpetuating what He then originated.

Practically all scientific writers who have dealt with this aspect of the question have emphasized the marked contrast between Evolution and Creation. It is only some very modern theologians who, by an utter confusion of thought, have tried to smooth out all difference between the two ideas.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »