MAN IN NATURE 



205 



become to us a supernatural intelligence. But truth for 

 bids such a conclusion. The reason of man, though far 

 beyond the intelligence of other animals, so harmonises 

 with natural laws, and acts in such uniformity with 

 these, that it is evidently a part of the great unity of 

 nature, and we cannot, without violence, dissociate man 

 from nature. If we could do so, we should have good 

 ground to distrust all the conclusions of our own 

 reason, in so far as they relate to the material uni 

 verse. In short, we should cut away the foundations 

 of science, and what remained of religion would be 

 preternatural, in the bad sense of destroying the unity 

 of nature, and with it our confidence in the unity of 

 God. 



It may be well to remark here that this considera 

 tion limits and defines our use of the much-abused 

 word supernatural/ which perhaps it would be well 

 for us to follow the example of our Christian Scrip 

 tures in avoiding altogether as a misleading term. If 

 by supernatural we mean something outside of and 

 above nature and natural law, there is really no such 

 thing in the universe. There is no doubt that which is 

 spiritual, as distinguished from that which is natural 

 in the material sense, but the spiritual has its own 

 laws, which are not in conflict with those of the 1 

 natural. Even God cannot in this sense be said to 

 be supernatural, since His will is in strict conformity 

 with natural law. Yet this absurd sense of the term 

 supernatural is constantly employed both by the- 



