Natural Law in the Spiritual World

Henry Drummond was a Scottish scientist, Free Church minister, explorer and evangelist who became one of the most influential religious figures of the Victorian era. Written as a means of clarifying his own thoughts on the clash between science and religion, Natural Law and the Spiritual World was published in 1883 to great critical acclaim. Entering the debate on science and religion using the basis of law, Drummond sets himself apart by offering ‘a property peculiar neither to science nor religion’. He puts forward the argument that the laws of the natural and spiritual worlds are not completely separate, and explores the connections between them. He concludes by suggesting that the scientific principle of continuity extends from the physical world to the spiritual, offering common ground to people on both sides of the science/religion divide.