Moreover, the division thus implied corresponded, on the whole, to that between the realms of the known (or what was thought to be known) and the unknown. The Church, whether Christian or pre-Christian, had very precise (comparatively speaking)doctrine concerning the soul's origin, duties, and destiny, backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative philosophy had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern himself with its problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious world of magical happenings, and there was nothing deserving of the name of natural science until alchemy was becoming decadent.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the alchemists--these men who wished to probe Nature's hidden mysteries--should reason from above to below; indeed, unless they had started _de novo_--as babes knowing nothing,--there was no other course open to them. And that they did adopt the obvious course is all that my former thesis amounts to. In passing, it is interesting to note that a sixteenth-century alchemist, who had exceptional opportunities and leisure to study the works of the old masters of alchemy, seems to have come to a similar conclusion as to the nature of their reasoning. He writes:
"The Sages . . . after having conceived in their minds a Divine idea of the relations of the whole universe . . . selected from among the rest a certain substance, from which they sought to elicit the elements, to separate and purify them, and then again put them together in a manner suggested by a keen and profound observation of Nature."[1c]
[1a] _op cit_., pp,. 65 and 110, _cf_. p. 154.
[1b] _Vide_ a rather frivolous review of my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_in _The Outlook_ for 14th January 1911.
[1c] EDWARD KELLY: _The Humid Path_. (See _The Alchemical Writings_of EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 59-60.)In describing the realm of spirit as _ex hypothesi_ known, that of Nature unknown, to the alchemists, I have made one important omission, and that, if I may use the name of a science to denominate a complex of crude facts, is the realm of physiology, which, falling within that of Nature, must yet be classed as _ex hypothesi_ known.
But to elucidate this point some further considerations are necessary touching the general nature of knowledge.
Now, facts may be roughly classed, according to their obviousness and frequency of occurrence, into four groups.
There are, first of all, facts which are so obvious, to put it paradoxically, that they escape notice; and these facts are the commonest and most frequent in their occurrence.
I think it is Mr CHESTERTON who has said that, looking at a forest one cannot see the trees because of the forest;and, in _The Innocence of Father Brown_, he has a good story ("The Invisible Man") illustrating the point, in which a man renders himself invisible by dressing up in a postman's uniform.
At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent it tends to escape observation; thus, continuous motion can only be appreciated with reference to a stationary body, and a noise, continually repeated, becomes at last inaudible.
The tendency of often-repeated actions to become habitual, and at last automatic, that is to say, carried out without consciousness, is a closely related phenomenon.
We can understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the existence of the atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, came late in the history of primitive man, as, also, many other curious gaps in his knowledge.
In the second group we may put those facts which are common, that is, of frequent occurrence, and are classed as obvious.
Such facts are accepted at face-value by the primitive mind, and are used as the basis of explanation of facts in the two remaining groups, namely, those facts which, though common, are apt to escape the attention owing to their inconspicuousness, and those which are of infrequent occurrence. When the mind takes the trouble to observe a fact of the third group, or is confronted by one of the fourth, it feels a sense of surprise.
Such facts wear an air of strangeness, and the mind can only rest satisfied when it has shown them to itself as in some way cases of the second group of facts, or, at least, brought them into relation therewith. That is what the mind--at least the primitive mind--means by "explanation". "It is obvious," we say, commencing an argument, thereby proclaiming our intention to bring that which is at first in the category of the not-obvious, into the category of the obvious.
It remains for a more sceptical type of mind--a later product of human evolution--to question obvious facts, to explain them, either, as in science, by establishing deeper and more far-reaching correlations between phenomena, or in philosophy, by seeking for the source and purpose of such facts, or, better still, by both methods.
Of the second class of facts--those common and obvious facts which the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis of its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need of explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than sex.
The universality of sex, and the intermittent character of its phenomena, are both responsible for this. Indeed, the attitude of mind I have referred to is not restricted to primitive man;how many people to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, never querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore?
It is by no means surprising, that when man first felt the need of satisfying himself as to the origin of the universe, he should have done so by a theory founded on what he knew of his own generation.
Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what other source of explanation was open to him? Of what other form of origin was he aware?
