Natural Law in the Spiritual World

Natural Law in the Spiritual World is a collection of essays not originally intended for publication but rather to help the writer get things clear in his own mind.

Although written from the point of view of someone in the pay of a Scottish Presbyterian Church which still clings to a belief in the absolute authority of the King James Authorised Version of the Christian Bible, Dr. Drummond's words can be read with benefit by anyone, regardless of race or religion, because they stimulate discussion about matters which remain contentious and afford the unconstrained modern scientific mystic plenty of opportunity for further clarification.

About the author:

Henry Drummond (1851 - 1897) was a Scottish evangelist, writer and lecturer, born in Stirling. He was educated at Edinburgh University, where he displayed a strong inclination for physical and mathematical science. The religious element was an even more powerful factor in his nature, and disposed him to enter the Free Church of Scotland. While preparing for the ministry, he became for a time deeply interested in the evangelizing mission of Moody and Sankey, in which he actively co-operated for two years.

In 1877 he became lecturer on natural science in the Free Church College, which enabled him to combine all the pursuits for which he felt a vocation. His studies resulted in his writing Natural Law in the Spiritual World, the argument of which is that the scientific principle of continuity extends from the physical world to the spiritual. Before the book was published in 1883, an invitation from the African Lakes Company drew Drummond away to Central Africa.

On his return in the following year he found himself famous. Large bodies of serious readers, among the religious and the scientific classes alike, discovered in Natural Law the common standing-ground which they needed; and the universality of the demand proved, if nothing more, the seasonableness of its publication. Drummond continued to be actively interested in missionary and other movements among the Free Church students.

Drummond's character was full of charm. His writings were too nicely adapted to the needs of his own day to justify the expectation that they would long survive it, but few men exercised more religious influence in their own generation, especially on young men.

The name Henry Drummond was used for the character resembling Clarence Darrow in the popular American play about the Scopes/Monkey trial, Inherit the Wind by Robert E. Lee and Jerome Lawrence.