The confrontation between natural chaos and the human dream of order

“ We cannot even infer them:—“In the chaos behind sensations, in the ‘beyond’ of sense-impressions, we cannot infer necessity, order or routine, for these are concepts formed by the mind of man on this side of sense-impressions”; but we must infer chaos:—“Briefly chaos is all that science can logically assert of the supersensuous.” The kinetic theory of gas is an assertion of ultimate chaos. In plain words, Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous ”

“ You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations, to try to impose some order on the chaos and make sense out of that which seems senseless. ”

“ Nature gives you in experience partial evil that you cannot in all cases perceive to be universal good. Nature also gives you in experience partial chaos that you cannot in all cases perceive to be universal order. But unwaveringly you insist that nature is orderly, that the chaos is an illusion ”

“ The preacher further contended that it was yet more difficult to realise that our earthly home would become the scene of a vast physical catastrophe. Imagination recoils from the idea that the course of nature—the phrase helps to disguise the truth—so unvarying and regular, the ordered sequence of movement and life, should suddenly cease. ”

“ The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here essayed. ”

“ First, since we hold that the origin of all imaginative creation is a need, a desire, a tendency, where then is the origin of that inexhaustible fount of fancies? In the instinct for individual preservation, orientated in the direction of the future. Man seeks to divine future events, and by various means to act on the order of things to modify it for his own advantage or to appease his evil fate. ”

“ Mozley, 'of the inductive principle, the argument from experience, the belief in the order of nature — by whatever phrase we designate the same instinct — is to operate as a practical basis for the affairs of life and the carrying on of human society.' To sum up, the belief in the order of nature is general, but it is 'an unintelligent impulse, of which we can give no rational account.' It is inserted into our constitution solely to induce us to till our fields, to raise our winter fuel, and thus to meet the future on the perfectly gratuitous supposition that it will be like the past. ”

“ Causality, it will be objected, is the one thread that leads us through the labyrinth of nature. The search for causes enables us to become at home in our world by foreseeing events. In what sense then can it be permissible to speak of the prejudice of causality, nay, of the superstition of it? With what warrant prescribe a limit to the aspirations of the human intellect to push its inquiries to the farthest111 limit, even so far as to understand the functional finalities themselves, if such there be? ”

“ The passive imagination, then, in the present case exaggerates a practical expectation of the uniformity of nature, implanted in us for practical ends, into a scientific or universal proposition; and it does this by surrendering itself to the impression produced by the constant spectacle of the regularity of visible nature. By such a course a person allows the weight and pressure of this idea to grow upon him till it reaches the point of actually restricting his sense of possibility to the mould of physical order.... ”

“ For a consistent scientific thinking that goes this way, therefore, nothing is left but to recognize chaos as the only real basis of an apparently ordered world, a chaos on whose surface the laws that seem to hold sway are only the illusory picturings of the human mind. This, then, is the principle of Indeterminacy as it has been encountered in the course of practical investigation into the electrical processes within physical matter. ”

“ And while the body is confined to one planet, along which it creeps with pain and difficulty; the thought can in an instant transport us into the most distant regions of the universe; or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature is supposed to lie in total confusion. What never was seen, or heard of, may yet be conceived; nor is any thing beyond the power of thought, except what implies an absolute contradiction. ”

“ The world is a scene of unrestrained passions impelling their puppets into collision or alliance without intelligible design; or a scene of domestic order, where an occasional catastrophe interferes as little with ordinary lives as a comet with the solar system. ”

“ The very floods which swell the rivers to overflowing, are followed by the most beneficent effects; and, rude and violent as the means are by which she accomplishes her purpose, they form, no doubt, a part of that process by which she preserves the balance of good and evil. ”

“ The surface of the earth became so parched up that minor vegetation ceased upon it. Culinary herbs were raised with difficulty, and crops failed even in the most favourable situations. Settlers drove their flocks and herds to distant tracts for pasture and water, neither remaining for them in the located districts. The interior suffered equally with the coast, and men, at length, began to despond under so alarming a visitation. ”

“ Worlds and systems of worlds are sent whirling, worlds round worlds and systems round systems, in a mazy planetary dance, wherein the slightest tripping, the least excess of momentum or inertia, of tension or traction, in any part, and chaos were come again. Every conceivable entity, ponderable and imponderable, material and immaterial, is replete with force. ”

“ We are in everything at the mercy of a foreign causality, and how can we resist its sway? We are drifting before the breath of nature, and can the wave turn against the gale that is impelling it, and refuse to flow? Drift on, then, thou epicurean, thou child of nature, passive in thy theory and thy practice, and sheathed in what appears to be an irrefragable logic, and see where thy creed will land thee!
But perhaps man has been armed by nature with weapons wherewith to fight against the natural powers that are seeking to enslave him. ”

“ But these sentiments are irrational and absurd if man is a mere machine impelled by natural causes, and has no self-determining power. [529] Whatever disasters may overtake us in the course of nature, however we may suffer by the wild tornado or the blighting mildew, how much soever of our property may be swallowed up by the ocean tempest or the devouring flame, we impute no blame; and we experience here emotions essentially different from those which we experience when a wrong is intentionally inflicted upon us by our fellow-men. ”

“ What has been set forth above in opposition to that theory is still more pointedly expressed in the following remarkable passage:
“The natural philosopher when he imagines a physical impossibility which is not an [Pg 26] inconceiveability, merely states that his phenomenon is against all that has been hitherto known of the course of Nature. Before he can compass an impossibility, he has a huge postulate to ask of his reader or hearer, a postulate which Nature never taught: it is that the Future is always to agree with the Past. How do you know that this sequence of phenomena always will be? ”

“ At the same time, by thus loosening the bond of necessity, it gives room for the influence of another kind of causation, such as seems to be operative in the mind in the formation of associations, and enables us to understand how the uniformity of nature could have been brought about. That single events should be hard and unintelligible, logic will permit without difficulty: we do not expect to make the shock of a personally experienced earthquake appear natural and reasonable by any amount of cogitation. But logic does expect things general to be understandable. ”

“ But the more carefully nature has been studied, the more widely has order been found to prevail, while what seemed disorder has proved to be nothing but complexity; until, at present, no one is so foolish as to believe that anything happens by chance, or that there are any real accidents, in the sense of events which have no cause. And if we say that a thing happens by chance, everybody admits that all we really mean is, that we do not know its cause or the reason why that particular thing happens. ”

“ Impressions, as we well know, affect certain orders of sequence and coexistence, and the mind's habits copy the habits of the impressions, so that our images of things assume a time- and space-arrangement which resembles the time- and space-arrangements outside. To uniform outer coexistences and sequences correspond constant conjunctions of ideas, to fortuitous coexistences and sequences casual conjunctions of ideas. We are sure that fire will burn and water wet us, less sure that thunder will come after lightning, not at all sure whether a strange dog will bark at us or let us go by. ”

“ The country was indeed taking up more and more every day the features of the N.W. interior. Cypresses were observed upon the minor ridges, and the soil near the river, although still rich, and certainly more extensive than above, was occasionally mixed with sand, and scattered over with the claws of crayfish and shells, indicating its greater liability to be flooded; nor indeed could I entertain a doubt that the river had laid a great part of the levels around us under water long after it found that channel in which nature intended ultimately to confine it. ”

“ Chaos is only on the outer rim of existence; as you get nearer the heart of thing, order and rhythm, geometry and poetry, are more and more found. Chaos is only in our own chaotic minds and perceptions: train these aright, and you shall hear the music of the spheres, perceive the reign of everlasting Law. These impulses from the Oversoul, that create the great epochs, raising one race after another, have perfect rhythm and rhyme. God sits harping in the Cycle of Infinity, and human history is the far faint echo of the tune he plays. ”

“ We cannot escape from its logic, except by denying the idea of evolution—the hypothesis by means of which modern thought aims, and in the main successfully aims, at reducing the variety of existence, and the chaos of ordinary experience, into an order-ruled world and a kosmos of articulated knowledge. ”

“ In short, it would be to assume that Nature is a pure chaos, or chance combination of independent elements, in which reasoning from one fact to another would be impossible; and since, as we shall hereafter see, there is no judgment of pure observation without reasoning, it would be to suppose all human cognition illusory and no real knowledge possible. ”

“ Now in all of us, however constituted, but to a degree the greater in proportion as we are intense and sensitive and subject to diversified temptations, and to the greatest possible degree if we are decidedly psychopathic, does the normal evolution of character chiefly consist in the straightening out and unifying of the inner self. The higher and the lower feelings, the useful and the erring impulses, begin by being a comparative chaos within us—they must end by forming a stable system of functions in right subordination. ”

“ Wherever, therefore, we observe the same union, and wherever the union operates in the same manner upon the belief and opinion, we have the idea of causes and necessity, tho' perhaps we may avoid those expressions. Motion in one body in all past instances, that have fallen under our observation, is follow'd upon impulse by motion in another. 'Tis impossible for the mind to penetrate farther. From this constant union it forms the idea of cause and effect, and by its infiuence feels the necessity. ”

“ The psychological illusion that our ideas and purposes are original facts and forces (instead of expressions in consciousness of facts and forces which are material) and the practical and optical illusion that everything wheels about us in this world—these are the primitive persuasions which the enemies of naturalism have always been concerned to protect. ”

“ We have pointed out a great number of instances where the mode in which the arrangements of nature produce their effect, suggests, as we conceive, the belief that this effect is to be considered as the end and purpose of these arrangements. The impression which thus arises, of design and intention exercised in the formation of the world, or of the reality of Final Causes, operates on men’s minds so generally, and increases so constantly on every additional examination of the phenomena of the universe, that we cannot but suppose such a belief to have a deep and stable foundation. ”

“ Nothing else ought ever to be heard of in the school, or in the closet. In vain would our limited understanding break through those boundaries, which are too narrow for our fond imagination. While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle, which is both uncertain and useless. ”

“ Our desire to make our own lives and other people's lives happier? Our efforts to subdue nature, to conquer disease, to introduce order and harmony where there appears to be discord and confusion? How is it with those finer and less directly practical impulses by which you yourself are mainly pre-occupied—the quest of knowledge or of beauty for their own sake, the mere putting of ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart from any attempt to modify it? ”

“ Let me carry the argument a step further for the benefit of any reader who is restrained by a repugnance too deep and instinctive to be readily overcome, from admitting fairly to his mind that conception of order which I am endeavoring to emphasize. He will in all probability be one who, cherishing ideals of a better and fairer system of society, looks forward to a time when an organized coöperation will be substituted for what he regards as the existing chaos. ”

“ Soon out of the chaos which is all that you and your kind can ever produce, order must be restored or life will perish; and with the restoration of order comes the restoration of the various strata necessary to organized society. Those that were yesterday at the top may in the new order of things find themselves dispossessed without any benefit to the whole. ”

“ There are tumults of the mind when like the great convulsions of nature all seems anarchy and returning chaos, yet often in those moments of vast disturbance, as in the material strife itself, some new principle of order, or some new impulse of conduct, develops itself, and controls and regulates and brings to an harmonious consequence, passions and elements which seemed only to threaten despair and subversion. ”

“ Upon these conscious factors directing and shaping the plastic forces represented [323] in the moods of our time, we shall assume, the course of history will depend.
We are no longer to be satisfied with natural progress. We have gone too far and too long, let us say, upon a rising tide of biological forces, and we have not yet realized what conscious evolution might mean. We have been too well satisfied with the physical resources and the psychic energies that seemed sufficient for the need of the day. A world in which democracy is going to prevail can no longer live in this way. ”

“ In the natural chaos and conflict of the social life of man, as presented in the multitudinous and ever-changing mass of the historic organism, he had also to search out the Principles of order and form, to vindicate the rationality of the ineradicable belief in human Causation, and to quicken anew the lively hope of a higher issue of History. ”

“ Definition of the State
7. In this Part, unless the context otherwise requires, "the State" means the Federal Government, [Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) ] [1] , a Provincial Government, a Provincial Assembly, and such local or other authorities in Pakistan as are by law empowered to impose any tax or cess. ”

“ To enjoy the protection of law and to be treated in accordance with law is the inalienable right of every citizen. Wherever he may be, and of every other person for the time being within Pakistan.
(2) In particular— (a) no action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property of any person shall be taken except in accordance with law; (b) no person shall be prevented from or be hindered in doing that which is not prohibited by law; and (c) no person shall be compelled to do that which the law does not required him to do. ”

“ No person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting evidence. Freedom of movement, etc.
15. Every citizen shall have the right to remain in, and, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the public interest, enter and move freely throughout Pakistan and to reside and settle in any part thereof.
Freedom of assembly
16. Every citizen shall have the right to assemble peacefully and without arms, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of public order. ”

“ No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such arrest, nor shall he be denied the right to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice. ”

“ Every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before a magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours of such arrest, excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the nearest magistrate, and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period with out the authority of a magistrate. (3) Nothing in clauses (1) and (2) shall apply to any person who is arrested or detained under any law providing for preventive detention. ”

“ Hence the saying, “The Afghans of the frontier are never at peace except when they are at war!” For when some enemy from without threatens their independence, then, for the time being, are their feuds and jealousies thrown aside, and they [61] fight shoulder to shoulder, to resume them again when the common danger is averted. Even when they are all desirous of joining in some jihad, they remain suspicious of each other, and are apt to fail one another at critical moments; or else one tribe will wait to see how it fares with those already in it before unsheathing their own swords. ”

“ And behind that power there is nothing but chaos. For the régime of mechanical obedience, by arresting the spontaneous growth of Man's higher nature, and by making its chief appeal to his baser desires and baser fears, becomes of necessity the foster-mother of egoism; and when egoism, which makes each man a law to himself and the potential enemy of his kind, is unrestrained by authority, the door is thrown wide open to anarchy, and through anarchy to chaos. This is what is happening [208] in the West, in our self-conscious and critical age. ”

“ Woe to the planet that feels its orbit a tyrannical restraint, and leaves it to move in sovereign freedom through the universe! It will move along free, and free will it go to ruin. Woe to the speeding train that leaves its track; it will speed on free, but invariably dash itself to pieces! A nature that abandons the prescribed safeguards can only degenerate into a wild sprout. We shall see how these principles have actually become in modern intellectual life the principles of negation and intellectual degeneration. ”

“ Every citizen, not being in the service of Pakistan, shall have the right to form or be a member of a political party, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan and such law shall provide that where the Federal Government declares that any political party has been formed or is operating in a manner prejudicial to the sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan, the Federal Government shall, within fifteen days of such declaration, refer the matter to the Supreme Court whose decision on such reference shall be final. ”

“ Provided that this clause shall not apply to any person who is employed by, or works for, or acts on instructions received from, the enemy [, or who is acting or attempting to act in a manner prejudicial to the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof or who commits or attempts to commit any act which amounts to an anti-national activity as defined in a Federal law or is a member of any association which has for its objects, or which indulges in, any such anti national activity] [7] . ”

“ In the psychical world as well as the physical we must meet and overcome inertia. Our lives must be compelled by motive forces strong enough to overcome this natural inertia, and enable us besides to make headway against many obstacles. The motive power that drives us consists chiefly of our feelings and emotions. Knowledge, cognition, supplies the rudder that guides our ship, but feeling and emotion supply the power. ”

“ Before this desperate nightmare transmutes into hopeless reality, we need to pinch ourselves and come to our senses by putting our chaotic house in order. We are our own worst enemy and our likeliest saviour. ”

“ And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants. ”

“ Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible: Let us chace our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appear'd in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produc'd. ”

“ You have the most vivid perceptions, the most deeply graven impressions, of an infinite, eternal, spotless mind; in which the image of all things, past, present and to come, are most harmoniously seen, arranged in the most perfect order, and defined with the nicest accuracy; of a mind, which wills with infinite ease, but whose volitions are attended by a power omnipotent and irresistible, and which sows worlds, suns and systems through the fields of space with far more facility, than the husbandman scatters his seed upon the earth ”

“ We fill a certain circle, restoring a kind of order in the chaos; and then the circle is suddenly widened and that which was our order and mas [218] tery is loose and diffused within the larger orbit. Herein are the pangs of transition. We lose our way for the time in the vaster area, like a man who is unfamiliar with an estate just purchased. There is but one thing to do—to begin to work upon the new dimension. As we work, courage and patience steal in. Presently comes the vision of the completed circle. When this comes, our labour is pinned to a fresh ideal, and we are safe. ”

“ They partook of the ambitions which coming from the mists of time and from the chaos of space make planets revolve in their orbits and electrons whirl together: and if our insatiable curiosity makes us seek to know, however dimly, what is going on up there or down there, let us tell ourselves that we are part of all that is, that we obey the very laws which govern alike the unimaginable whole and its hugest components, and that therefore our infinitesimal experience if we can expand or contract it indefinitely may guide us as to the experiences both of the greatest and of the smallest. ”