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diff --git a/26321-0.txt b/26321-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa9bc1b --- /dev/null +++ b/26321-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4189 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life and Matter, by Oliver Lodge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no +restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it +under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the +United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you +are located before using this eBook. + +Title: Life and Matter + A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' + +Author: Oliver Lodge + +Release Date: August 15, 2008 [eBook #26321] +[Most recently updated: June 7, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 with BOM + +Produced by: David Clarke and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND MATTER *** + + + + + =Life and Matter= + + + + + =Recent Works by Sir Oliver Lodge= + + +SCHOOL TEACHING AND SCHOOL REFORM. A Course of Four Lectures on School +Curricula and Methods delivered to Secondary Teachers and Teachers in +Training at Birmingham during February 1905. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. + +WILLIAMS & NORGATE, London. + + +EASY MATHEMATICS: Chiefly Arithmetic. Being a Collection of Hints to +Teachers, Parents, self-taught Students, and Adults, and containing a +Summary or Indication of most things in Elementary Mathematics useful to +be known. By Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., D.Sc., Principal of the +University of Birmingham. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. + +MACMILLAN & CO., Limited, London. + + + + + Life and Matter + + A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's + "Riddle of the Universe" + + By + Sir Oliver Lodge + + The expansion of a Presidential Address + to the Birmingham and Midland Institute + + _SECOND EDITION _ + + London + Williams & Norgate + 14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden + + 1905 + + + TO + JOHN HENRY MUIRHEAD + AND + MARY TALBOT MUIRHEAD + THE FRIENDS OF MANY NEEDING HELP + NOT IN PHILOSOPHY ALONE + THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED + IN MEMORY OF CHANDOLIN AND ST LUC 1904 + + + "Materialistic monism is nowadays the working hypothesis of + every scientific explorer in every department, whatever other + beliefs or denials he may, more or less explicitly and more or + less consistently, superadd. Materialistic monism only becomes + false when put forward as a complete philosophy of the + universe, because it leaves out of sight the conditions of + human knowledge, which the special sciences may conveniently + disregard, but which a candid philosophy cannot ignore." + + "The legitimate materialism of the sciences simply means + temporary and convenient abstraction from the cognitive + conditions under which there are 'facts' or 'objects' for us at + all; it is 'dogmatic materialism' which is metaphysics of the + bad sort." + D. G. Ritchie. + + "Our metaphysics is really like many other sciences—only on the + threshold of genuine knowledge: God knows if it will ever get + further. It is not hard to see its weakness in much that it + undertakes. Prejudice is often found to be the mainstay of its + proofs. For this nothing is to blame but the ruling passion of + those who would fain extend human knowledge. They are anxious + to have a grand philosophy: but the desirable thing is, that it + should also be a sound one." + Kant. + + + + + Preface + + +This small volume is in form controversial, but in substance it has a +more ambitious aim: it is intended to formulate, or perhaps rather to +reformulate, a certain doctrine concerning the nature of man and the +interaction between mind and matter. Incidentally it attempts to +confute two errors which are rather prevalent:— + +1. The notion that because material energy is constant in quantity, + therefore its transformations and transferences—which admittedly + constitute terrestrial activity—are not susceptible + of guidance or directive control. + +2. The idea that the specific guiding power which we call "life" is + one of the forms of material energy, so that directly it + relinquishes its connection with matter other equivalent forms + of energy must arise to replace it. + +The book is specially intended to act as an antidote to the speculative +and destructive portions of Professor Haeckel's interesting and +widely-read work, but in other respects it may be regarded less as a +hostile attack than as a supplement—an extension of the more scientific +portions of that work into higher and more fruitful regions of inquiry. + + OLIVER LODGE. + +University of Birmingham, +_October 1905_. + + + + + Contents + + +CHAP. PAGE + + I MONISM 1 + + II "THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE" 14 + + III THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE 41 + + IV MEMORANDA FOR WOULD-BE MATERIALISTS 60 + + V RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 71 + + VI MIND AND MATTER 100 + + VII PROFESSOR HAECKEL'S CONJECTURAL PHILOSOPHY 125 + +VIII HYPOTHESIS AND ANALOGIES CONCERNING LIFE 136 + + IX WILL AND GUIDANCE 152 + + X FURTHER SPECULATION AS TO THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 179 + + + + + LIFE AND MATTER + + + + + CHAPTER I + + MONISM + + +In his recent Presidential Address before the British Association, at +Cambridge, Mr Balfour rather emphasised the existence and even the +desirability of a barrier between Science and Philosophy which recent +advances have tended to minimise though never to obliterate. He +appeared to hint that it is best for scientific men not to attempt to +philosophise, but to restrict themselves to their own domain; though, +on the other hand, he did not appear to wish similarly to limit +philosophers, by recommending that they should keep themselves +unacquainted with scientific facts, and ignorant of the theories which +weld those facts together. Indeed, in his own person he is an example +of the opposite procedure, for he himself frequently takes pleasure in +overlooking the boundary and making a wide survey of the position on +its physical side—a thing which it is surely very desirable for a +philosopher to do. + +But if that process be regarded as satisfactory, it is surely equally +permissible for a man of science occasionally to look over into the +philosophic region, and survey the territory on that side also, so far +as his means permit. And if philosophers object to this procedure, it +must be because they have found by experience that men of science who +have once transcended or transgressed the boundary are apt to lose all +sense of reasonable constraint, and to disport themselves as if they had +at length escaped into a region free from scientific trammels—a region +where confident assertions might be freely made, where speculative +hypothesis might rank as theory, and where verification was both +unnecessary and impossible. + +The most striking instance of a scientific man who on entering +philosophic territory has exhibited signs of exhilaration and +emancipation, is furnished by the case of Professor Haeckel of Jena. In +an eloquent and popular work, entitled _das Welt-Räthsel_, the +World Problem, or "The Riddle of the Universe," this eminent +biologist has surveyed the whole range of existence, from the +foundations of physics to the comparison of religions, from the +facts of anatomy to the freedom of the will, from the vitality of +cells to the attributes of God; treating these subjects with wide +though by no means superhuman knowledge, and with considerable +critical and literary ability. This work, through the medium of a +really excellent translation by Mr M'Cabe, and under the auspices of +the Rationalist Press Association, has obtained a wide circulation +in this country, being purchasable for six-pence at any bookstall; +where one often finds it accompanied by another still more popular +and similarly-priced treatise by the same author, a digest or +summary of the religious aspect of his scientific philosophy, under +the title _The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_. + +Professor Haeckel's credentials, as a learned biologist who introduced +Darwinism into Germany, doubtless stand high; and it is a great tribute +to his literary ability that a fairly abstruse work on so comprehensive +a subject should have obtained a wide notoriety, and have been welcomed +by masses of thinking readers, especially by many among the skilled +artisans, in this country. + +From several points of view this diffusion of interest is most +satisfactory, since the spread of thought on serious topics is greatly +to be welcomed. Moreover, there is a vast mass of information in these +writings which must be new to the bulk of the inhabitants of these +islands. There is also a great deal of criticism which should arouse +professors of dogmatic theology, and exponents of practical religion, to +a keener sense of their opportunities and responsibility. A view of +their position from outside, by an able and unsparing critic, cannot but +be illuminating and helpful, however unpleasant. + +Moreover, the comprehensive survey of existence which can be taken by a +modern man of science is almost sure to be interesting and instructive, +when properly interpreted with the necessary restrictions and +expansions; and if it be found that the helpful portions are unhappily +accompanied by over-confident negations and supercilious denials of +facts at present outside the range of orthodox science, these natural +blemishes must be discounted and estimated at their proper worth; for it +would be foolish to imagine that even a diligent student of Nature has +special access to the kind of truths which have been hidden from the +nominally "wise and prudent" of all time. + +So far as Professor Haeckel's writings are read by the thoroughly +educated and well-informed, they can do nothing but good. They may not, +indeed, convey anything particularly new, but they furnish an +interesting study in scientific history and mental development. So far, +however, as they are read by unbalanced and uncultured persons, with no +sense of proportion and but little critical faculty, they may do harm, +unless accompanied by a suitable qualification or antidote, especially +an antidote against the bigotry of their somewhat hasty and scornful +destructive portions. + +To the intelligent artisan or other hard-headed reader who considers +that Christian faith is undermined, and the whole religious edifice +upset, by the scientific philosophy advocated by Professor Haeckel under +the name "Monism," I would say, paraphrasing a sentence of Mr Ruskin's +in a preface to _Sesame and Lilies_:—Do not think it likely that +you hold in your hands a treatise in which the ultimate and final +verity of the universe is at length beautifully proclaimed, and in +which pure truth has been sifted from the errors of all preceding +ages. Do not think it, friend: it is not so. + +For what is this same "Monism?" + +Professor Haeckel writes almost as if it were a recent invention, but in +truth there have been many versions of it, and in one form or another +the idea is quite old, older than Plato, as old as Parmenides. + +The name "Monism" should apply to any philosophic system which assumes +and attempts to formulate the essential simplicity and _oneness_ of +all the apparent diversity of sensual impression and consciousness, +any system which seeks to exhibit all the complexities of existence, +both material and mental—the whole of phenomena, both objective and +subjective—as modes of manifestation of one fundamental reality. + +According to the assumed nature of that reality, different brands of +monistic theory exist:— + +1. There is the hypothesis that everything is an aspect of some unknown +absolute Reality, which itself, in its real nature, is far beyond our +apprehension or conception. And within the broad area thus suggested may +be grouped such utterly different universe-conceptions as that of +Herbert Spencer and that of Spinoza. + +2. According to another system the fundamental reality is psychical, is +consciousness, let us say, or mind; and the material world has only the +reality appropriate to a consistent set of ideas. Here we find again +several varieties, ranging from Bishop Berkeley and presumably Hegel, on +the one hand, to William James—who, in so far as he is a monist at all, +may I suppose be called an empirical idealist—and solipsists such as +Mach and Karl Pearson, on the other. + +3. A third system, or group of systems, has been in vogue among some +physicists of an earlier day, and among some biologists now; viz., that +mind, thought, consciousness are all by-products, phantasmagoria, +epiphenomena, developments and decorations, as it were, of the one +fundamental all-embracing reality, which some may call "matter," some +"energy," and some "substance." In this category we find Tyndall—at any +rate the Tyndall of "the Belfast address"—and here consistently do we +find Haeckel, together with several other biologists. + +This last system of Monism, though not now in favour with philosophers, +is the most militant variety of all; and accordingly it has in some +quarters managed to obtain, and it certainly seems anxious to obtain, a +monopoly of the name. + +But the monopoly should not be granted. The name Materialism is quite +convenient for it, just as Idealism is for the opposing system; and if +either of these titles is objected to by the upholders of either system, +as apparently too thorough-going and exclusive, whereas only a tendency +in one or other direction is to be indicated, then the longer but more +descriptive titles of Idealistic-monism and Materialistic-monism +respectively should be employed. But neither of these compromises seems +necessary to connote the position of Professor Haeckel. + +The truth is that all philosophy aims at being monistic; it is bound to +aim at unification, however difficult of attainment; and a philosopher +who abandoned the quest, and contented himself with a permanent +antinomy—a universe compounded of two or more irreconcilable and +entirely disparate and disconnected agencies—would be held to be +throwing up his brief as a philosopher and taking refuge in a kind of +permanent Manichæism, which experience has shown to be an untenable and +ultimately unthinkable position. + +An attempt at Monism is therefore common to all philosophers, whether +professional or amateur; and the only question at issue is what sort of +Monism are you aiming at, what sort of solution of the universe have you +to offer, what can you hold out to us as a simple satisfactory +comprehensive scheme of existence? + +In order to estimate the value of Professor Haeckel's scheme of the +universe, it is not necessary to appeal to philosophers: it is +sufficient to meet him on scientific ground, and to show that in his +effort to simplify and unify he has under-estimated some classes of fact +and has stretched scientific theory into regions of guess-work and +hypothesis, where it loses touch with real science altogether. The facts +which he chooses gratuitously to deny, and the facts which he chooses +vigorously to emphasise, are arbitrarily selected by him according as +they will or will not fit into his philosophic scheme. The scheme itself +is no new one, and almost certainly contains elements of truth. Some day +far hence, when it is possible properly to formulate it, a system of +Monism may be devised which shall contain the whole truth. At present +the scheme formulated by Professor Haeckel must to philosophers appear +rudimentary and antiquated, while to men of science it appears +gratuitous, hypothetical, in some places erroneous, and altogether +unconvincing. + +Before everything a philosopher should aim at being all-inclusive, +before everything a man of science should aim at being definite, clear, +and accurate. An attempt at combination is an ambitious attempt, which +may legitimately be made, but which it appears is hardly as yet given to +man to make successfully. Attempts at an all-embracing scheme, which +shall be both truly philosophic and truly scientific, must for the +present be mistrusted, and the mistrust should extend especially to +their negative side. Positive contributions, either to fact or to +system, may be real and should be welcome; but negative or destructive +criticism, the eschewing and throwing away of any part of human +experience, because it is inconsistent with a premature and +ill-considered monistic or any other system, should be regarded with +deep suspicion; and the promulgation of any such negative and +destructive scheme, especially in association with free and easy +dogmatism, should automatically excite mistrust and repulsion. + +There are things which cannot yet be fitted in as part of a coherent +scheme of scientific knowledge—at present they appear like fragments of +another order of things; and if they are to be forced into the +scientific framework, like portions of a "puzzle-map," before their true +place has been discovered, a quantity of substantial fact must be +disarranged, dislocated, and thrown away. A premature and cheap Monism +is therefore worse than none at all. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + "THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE" + + +I shall now endeavour to exhibit the way in which Professor Haeckel +proceeds to expound his views, and for that purpose shall extract +certain sentences from his work, _The Riddle of the Universe_; +giving references to the sixpenny translation, now so widely +circulated in England, in order that they may be referred to in +their context with ease. To scientific men the exaggeration of +statement will in many cases be immediately obvious; but in the +present state of general education it will often be necessary to +append a few comments, indicating, as briefly as possible, wherein +the statement is in excess of ascertained fact, however interesting +as a guess or speculation; wherefore it must be considered +illegitimate as a weapon wherewith to attack other systems, so far +as they too are equally entitled to be considered reasonable guesses +at truth. + +The central scientific doctrines upon which Professor Haeckel's +philosophy is founded appear to be two—one physical, the other +biological. The physical doctrine is what he calls "the Law of +Substance"—a kind of combination of the conservation of matter and the +conservation of energy: a law to which he attaches extraordinary +importance, and from which he draws momentous conclusions. Ultimately he +seems to regard this law as almost axiomatic, in the sense that a +philosopher who has properly grasped it is unable to conceive the +negative. A few extracts will suffice to show the remarkable importance +which he attaches to this law:— + + "All the particular advances of physics and chemistry yield in + theoretical importance to the discovery of the great law which + brings them to one common focus, the 'law of substance.' As + this fundamental cosmic law establishes the eternal persistence + of matter and force, their unvarying constancy throughout the + entire universe, it has become the pole-star that guides our + monistic philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution + of the world-problem" (p. 2). + + "The uneducated member of a civilised community is surrounded + with countless enigmas at every step, just as truly as the + savage. Their number, however, decreases with every stride of + civilisation and of science; and the monistic philosophy is + ultimately confronted with but one simple and comprehensive + enigma—the 'problem of substance'" (p. 6). + + "The supreme and all-pervading law of nature, the true and only + cosmological law, is, in my opinion, _the law of substance_; + its discovery and establishment is the greatest intellectual + triumph of the nineteenth century, in the sense that all other + known laws of nature are subordinate to it. Under the name of + 'law of substance' we embrace two supreme laws of different + origin and age—the older is the chemical law of the + 'conservation of matter,' and the younger is the physical law of + the 'conservation of energy.' It will be self-evident to many + readers, and it is acknowledged by most of the scientific men of + the day, that these two great laws are essentially inseparable" + (p. 75). + + "The conviction that these two great cosmic theorems, the + chemical law of the persistence of matter and the physical law + of the persistence of force, are fundamentally one, is of the + utmost importance in our monistic system. The two theories are + just as intimately united as their objects—matter and force or + energy. Indeed, this fundamental unity of the two laws is + self-evident to many monistic scientists and philosophers, + since they merely relate to two different aspects of one and + the same object, the _cosmos_" (p. 76). + + "I proposed some time ago to call it the 'law of substance,' or + the 'fundamental cosmic law'; it might also be called the + 'universal law,' or the 'law of constancy,' or the 'axiom of + the constancy of the universe.' In the ultimate analysis it is + found to be a necessary consequence of the principle of + causality" (p. 76). + +I criticise these utterances below, and I also quote extracts bearing on +the subject from Professor Huxley in Chapter IV.; but meanwhile +Professor Haeckel is as positive as any Positivist, and runs no risk of +being accused of Solipsism:— + + "Our only real and valuable knowledge is a knowledge of nature + itself, and consists of presentations which correspond to + external things."... "These presentations we call _true_, and + we are convinced that their content corresponds to the knowable + aspect of things. We _know_ that these facts are not imaginary, + but real" (p. 104). + +He also tends to become sentimental about the ultimate reality as he +perceives it, and tries to construct from it a kind of religion:— + + "The astonishment with which we gaze upon the starry heavens and + the microscopic life in a drop of water, the awe with which we + trace the marvellous working of energy in the motion of matter, + the reverence with which we grasp the universal dominance of the + law of substance throughout the universe—all these are part of + our emotional life, falling under the heading of 'natural + religion'" (p. 122). + + "Pantheism teaches that God and the world are one. The idea of + God is identical with that of nature or substance.... In + pantheism, God, as an _intra-mundane_ being, is everywhere + identical with nature itself, and is operative _within_ the + world as 'force' or 'energy.' The latter view alone is + compatible with our supreme law—the law of substance. It + follows necessarily that pantheism is _the world-system of the + modern scientist_" (p. 102). + + "This 'godless world-system' substantially agrees with the + monism or pantheism of the modern scientist; it is only another + expression for it, emphasising its negative aspect, the + non-existence of any supernatural deity. In this sense + Schopenhauer justly remarks: + + "'Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism. The truth of + pantheism lies in its destruction of the dualist antithesis of + God and the world, in its recognition that the world exists in + virtue of its own inherent forces. The maxim of the pantheist, + 'God and the world are one,' is merely a polite way of giving + the Lord God his _congé_'" (p. 103). + +Thus we are led on, from what may be supposed to be a bare statement of +two recent generalisations of science,—first of all to regard them as +almost axiomatic or self-evident; next, to consider that they solve the +main problem of the universe; and, lastly, that they suffice to replace +the Deity Himself. + +To curb these extravagant pretensions it is only necessary to consider +soberly what these physical laws really assert. + + + _Conservation of Energy._ + +Take first the conservation of energy. This generalisation asserts that +in every complete material system, subject to any kind of internal +activity, the total energy of the system does not change, but is subject +merely to transference and transformation, and can only be increased or +diminished by passing fresh energy in or out through the walls of the +system. So far from this being self-evident, it required very careful +measurement and experimental proof to demonstrate the fact, for in +common experience the energy of a system left to itself continually to +all appearance diminishes; yet it has been skilfully proved that when +the heat and every other kind of product is collected and measured, the +result can be so expressed as to show a total constancy, appertaining to +a certain specially devised function called "energy," provided we know +and are able to account for every form into which the said energy can be +transformed by the activity going on. A very important generalisation +truly, and one which has so seized hold of the mind of the physicist +that if in any actual example a disappearance or a generation of energy +were found, he would at once conclude either that he had overlooked some +known form and thereby committed an error, or that some unknown form was +present which he had not allowed for: thereby getting a clue which, if +followed up, he would hope might result in a discovery. + +But the term "energy" itself, as used in definite sense by the +physicist, rather involves a modern idea and is itself a generalisation. +Things as distinct from each other as light, heat, sound, rotation, +vibration, elastic strain, gravitative separation, electric currents, +and chemical affinity, have all to be generalised under the same +heading, in order to make the law true. Until "heat" was included in the +list of energies, the statement could not be made; and, a short time +ago, it was sometimes discussed whether "life" should or should not be +included in the category of energy. I should give the answer decidedly +No, but some might be inclined to say Yes; and this is sufficient as an +example to show that the categories of energy are not necessarily +exhausted; that new forms may be discovered; and that if new forms +exist, until they are discovered, the law of conservation of energy as +now stated may in some cases be strictly untrue; just as it would be +untrue, though partially and usefully true, in the theory of machines, +if heat were unknown or ignored. To jump, therefore, from a +generalisation such as this, and to say, as Professor Haeckel does on +page 5, that the following cosmological theorems have already been +"amply demonstrated," is to leap across a considerable chasm:— + + "1. The universe, or the cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and + illimitable. + + "2. Its substance, with its two attributes (matter and energy), + fills infinite space, and is in eternal motion. + + "3. This motion runs on through infinite time as an unbroken + development, with a periodic change from life to death, from + evolution to devolution. + + "4. The innumerable bodies which are scattered about the + space-filling ether all obey the same 'law of substance'; while + the rotating masses slowly move towards their destruction and + dissolution in one part of space, others are springing into new + life and development in other quarters of the universe." + +Most of this, though in itself probable enough, must, when +scientifically regarded, be rated as guess-work, being an overpressing +of known fact into an exaggerated and over-comprehensive form of +statement. Let it be understood that I am not objecting to his +speculations, but only pointing out that they are speculations. + +The conservation of energy is a legitimate enough generalisation: we do +not really doubt its conservation and constancy when we admit that we +are not yet sure of having fully and finally exhausted the whole +category of energy. What we do grant is, that it may hereafter be +possible to discover new forms; and when new forms are discovered, then +either the definition may have to be modified, or else the detailed +statement at present found sufficient will have to be overhauled. But +after all, this is not specially important: the _serious_ mistake +which people are apt to make concerning this law of energy is to +imagine that it denies the possibility of guidance, control, or +directing agency, whereas really it has nothing to say on these +topics; it relates to _amount_ alone. Philosophers have been far +too apt to jump to the conclusion that because energy is constant, +therefore no guidance is possible, so that all psychological or +other interference is precluded. Physicists, however, know better; +though unfortunately Tyndall, in some papers on Miracles and Prayer, +thoughtlessly adduced the conservation of energy as decisive. This +question of "guidance" is one of great interest, and I emphasise the +subject further on, especially in Chapter IX. + + + _Conservation of Matter._ + +Take next the "conservation of matter"—which means that in any +operation, mechanical, physical, or chemical, to which matter can be +subjected, its amount, as measured by weight, remains unchanged; so that +the only way to increase or diminish the weight of substance inside a +given enclosure, or geometrically closed boundary, is to pass matter in +or out through the walls. + +This law has been called the sheet-anchor of chemistry, but it is very +far from being self-evident; and its statement involves the finding of a +property of matter which experimentally shall remain unchanged, although +nearly every other property is modified. To superficial observation +nothing is easier than to destroy matter. When liquid—when dew, for +instance—evaporates, it seems to disappear, and when a manuscript is +burnt it is certainly destroyed: but it turns out that there is +something which may be called the vapour of water, or the "matter" of +the letter, which still persists, though it has taken rarer form and +become unrecognisable. Ultimately, in order to express the persistence +of the permanent abstraction called "matter" clearly, it is necessary to +speak of the "ultimate atoms" of which it is composed, and to say that +though these may enter into various combinations, and thereby display +many outward forms, yet that they themselves are immutable and +indestructible, constant in number and quality and form, not subject to +any law of evolution; in other words, totally unaffected by time. + +If we ask for the evidence on which this generalisation is founded, we +have to appeal to various delicate weighings, conducted chiefly by +chemists for practical purposes, and very few of them really directed to +ascertain whether the law is true or not. A few such direct experiments +are now, indeed, being conducted with the hope of finding that the law +is not completely true; in other words, with the hope of finding that +the weight of a body does depend slightly on its state of aggregation or +on some other physical property. The question has even been raised +whether the weight of a crystal is altogether independent of its +_aspect_: the direction of its plane of cleavage with reference to +the earth's radius; also, whether the _temperature_ of bodies has +any influence on their weight; but on these points it may be truly +said that if any difference were discovered it would not be +expressed by saying that the amount of matter was different, but +simply that "weight" was not so fundamental and inalienable a +property of matter as has been sometimes assumed; in which case it +is clear that there must be a more fundamental property to which +appeal can be made in favour of constancy or persistency or +conservation. Now the most fundamental property of matter known is +undoubtedly 'inertia'; and the law of conservation would therefore +come to mean that the _inertia_ of matter was constant, no matter +what changes it underwent. But, then, inertia is not an easy +property to measure,—very difficult to measure with great accuracy: +it is in practice nearly always _inferred_ from weight; and in +terms of inertia the law of conservation of matter cannot be +considered really an experimental fact; it is, strictly speaking, a +reasonable hypothesis, an empirical law, which we have never seen +any reason to doubt, and in support of which all scientific +experience may be adduced in favour. + +It is possible, however, to grant to Professor Haeckel—not positively, +but for the sake of argument, and giving him the benefit of our present +ignorance—that it is unlikely that matter in its lowest denomination can +by us be created or destroyed. For, although it is now pretty well known +that atoms of matter are not the indestructible and immutable things +they were once thought (seeing that, although we do not know how to +break them up, they are liable every now and then themselves to break up +or explode, and so resolve themselves into simpler forms), yet it can be +granted that these simpler forms are likewise themselves atoms, in the +same sense, and that if they break up they will break up likewise into +atoms: or ultimately, it may be, into those corpuscles or electrons or +electric charges, of which one plausible theory conjectures that the +atoms of matter are really composed. + +Supposing an atom thus broken up into electrons, its weight may possibly +have disappeared. We simply do not know whether weight is a property of +the grouping called an atom, or whether it belongs also to the +individual ingredients or corpuscles of that atom. There is at present +no evidence. But whether weight has disappeared or not, it is quite +certain, for definite though rather recondite theoretical reasons, that +the inertia would _not_ have disappeared; and accordingly it may be +held, and must be held in our present state of knowledge, that the +constancy of fundamental material still holds good, even though the +atoms are resolved into electric charges—an amount of destruction never +contemplated by those chemists and physicists who promulgated the +doctrine of the conservation of matter. + + + _Electrical Theory of Matter._ + +But then, on the electrical theory of matter, even _inertia_ is not +the thoroughly constant property we once thought it. It is a +function of velocity for one thing, and when speeds become excessive +the inertia of matter rises perceptibly in value. The fact that it +would rise in value by a calculable amount, and that the rise would +be perceptible when the speed of motion approached in value to +within, say, a tenth of the velocity of light, was predicted +mathematically;[1] and now, strange to say, it has recently become +possible to observe and actually measure the increase of inertia +experimentally, and thus to confirm the electrical theory not only +as qualitatively or approximately true, but as completely and +quantitatively accurate. A remarkable achievement all this! of quite +modern times, which has not excited the attention it deserves—save +among physicists. + + [Footnote 1: By Mr Oliver Heaviside and Professor J. J. Thomson.] + +But even this is not all that can be said as to the fluctuating +character of that fundamental material quality "inertia." It appears +possible, if electrons approach too near each other, so as to encroach +on each other's magnetic field as they move, that then their inertia may +fall in value during the time they are contiguous. No experimental fact +has yet suggested this at present: it is improbable that even in the +tightest combinations they ever really approach close enough to each +other to make the effect appreciable in the slightest degree; still, +strictly speaking, the inertia of matter is a known mathematical +function of the distance of electrons apart, compared with their size, +as well as of their absolute speed through the ether; and hence it may +be found to vary from either of two distinct reasons. Nevertheless, even +this variation would not be expressed as a failure in the conservation +of matter, though there is now no single material property that can be +specified as really and genuinely constant. So long as the electric +centres of strain, or whatever they are—so long as the electric charges +themselves—continue unaltered, we should prefer to say that at least the +_basis_ of matter was fundamentally conserved. + +Further than this, however, we cannot go; and to say, as Professor +Haeckel says, that the modern physicist has grown so accustomed to the +conservation of matter that he is unable to conceive the contrary, is +simply untrue. Whatever may be the case in real fact, there is no +question with respect to the possibility of conception. The electrons +themselves must be explained somehow; and the only surmise which at +present holds the field is that they are knots or twists or vortices, or +some sort of either static or kinetic modification, of the ether of +space—a small bit partitioned off from the rest and individualised by +reason of this identifying peculiarity. It may be that these knots +cannot be untied, these twists undone, these vortices broken up; it may +be that neither artificially nor spontaneously are they ever in the +slightest degree changed. It may be so, but we do not know; and it is +quite easy to conceive them broken up, the identity of the electron +lost, its substance resolved into the original ether, without parts or +individual properties. If this happened, within our ken, we should have +to confess that the properties of matter were gone, and that hence +everything that could by any stretch of language be called "matter" was +destroyed, since no identifying property remained. The discovery of such +an event may lie in the science of the future; it would be an +epoch-making event in the history of science, but no physicist would be +upset by it—perhaps not even surprised; nor would any one have good +reason to be astonished if the correlative phenomenon occurred, and +under certain conditions some knots or strains were some day caused in +the ether, which had not been previously there; and so "matter," or the +foundation of matter, artificially produced. In other words, the +destruction and the creation of matter are well within the range of +scientific conception, and may be within the realm of experimental +possibility. + + + _Persistence of the Existent._ + +Is there, then, no meaning in the conception which Professor Haeckel and +others have so enthusiastically formulated, and which certainly commends +itself to every one as representing in some sense a genuine truth, +whether it be called a "law of substance" or whatever it be called? +There does seem a certain plausibility in the idea, pure guess or +assumption though it be, that anything which really and fundamentally +exists, in a serious and untrivial and non-accidental sense, can be +trusted not suddenly to go out of existence and leave no trace behind. +In other words, there seems some reason to suppose that anything which +actually _exists_ must be in some way or other perpetual; that real +existence is not a capricious and changing attribute: arbitrary +collocations and accidental relations may and must be temporary, but +there may be in each a fundamental substratum which, if it can be +reached, will be found to be eternal. I develop this idea further in the +sequel. This is, at any rate, what Professor Haeckel was evidently +groping after, as many others have groped before him, and the nature of +this fundamental persistent entity or entities (for we must not assume +without proof that there is only one: there may be several, and at any +rate their ultimate unification may be a still further advanced and more +transcendental problem) may with some appropriateness be called 'the +problem of the universe,' since it is clearly the problem of existence. +Professor Haeckel thinks he has solved the problem, grasped the +fundamental reality, and found it to be _matter and energy_ and +nothing else; though why he chooses to regard matter and energy as +one thing instead of two is not perfectly plain to me, nor, I +venture to say, is it really plain to him. + +Making the assumption, then, that there is something, or that there are +several things, to be discovered, which may thus have the most +fundamental property, viz., persistent immutable existence, the +'problem' has resolved itself into the discovery of what these things +actually are. It will not do to jump at some object and assume that that +is it. + +A multitude of things obviously perish, thereby showing themselves to be +trivial or accidental arrangements, according to our hypothesis. A flame +is extinguished and dies, a mountain is ultimately ground into sand by +the slow influence of denudation, a planet or a sun may lose its +identity by encounter with other bodies. All these are temporary +collocations of atoms; and it appears now that an atom may break up into +electric charges, and these again may some day be found capable of +resolving themselves into pristine ether. If so, then these also are +temporary, and in the material universe it is the ether only which +persists—the Ether with such states of motion or strain as it eternally +possesses—in which case the Ether will have proved itself the material +substratum and most fundamental known entity on that side. + +But are we to conclude, therefore, that nothing else exists? that the +existence of one thing disproves the existence of others? The contention +would be absurd. The category of _life_ has not been touched in anything +we have said so far; no relation has been established between life and +energy, or between life and ether. The nature of life is unknown. Is +life also a thing of which constancy can be asserted? When it disappears +from a material environment is it knocked out of existence, or is it +merely transferred to some other surroundings, becoming as difficult to +identify and recognise as are the gases of a burnt manuscript or the +vapour of a vanished cloud? Is it a temporary trivial collocation +associated with certain complex groupings of the atoms of matter, and +resolved into nothingness when that grouping is interfered with? or is +it something immaterial and itself fundamental, something which uses +these collocations of matter in order to display itself amid material +surroundings, but is otherwise essentially independent of them? (This +idea is expanded in Chapters VI. to X., and see note at end of present +chapter.) + +Professor Haeckel would answer this question with a contemptuous +negative; and the treatment which he would thus give to life he would +also extend to mind and consciousness, to affection, to art, to poetry, +to religion, and all the other facts of experience to which in the +process of evolution humanity has risen: I say he would answer the +question, whether these had any real existence other than as a necessary +concomitant of a sufficiently complex material aggregate, with a +contemptuous negative; but I challenge him to say by what right he gives +that answer. His speculation is that all these properties are nascent +and latent in the material atoms themselves, that these have the +potentiality of life and choice and consciousness, which we perceive in +their developed combinations. As a speculation this is legitimate; but +the only answer that can by science legitimately be given at the present +time is the answer given by du Bois-Reymond, _ignoramus_, we do not +know. + +Scientifically we do not; and for a man of science to pretend, or to +assert in a popular treatise, that we do, is essentially and seriously +to mislead. (See Chapter VII. below.) It may even be a question whether +the assertion of entire ignorance at the present time is completely +appropriate, whether we have not some positive evidence _against_ +Professor Haeckel's contention. I believe that we have; and though I may +acquiesce in an assertion of present ignorance, I am not at all willing +to accept the next sentence of Professor du Bois-Reymond's answer, and +to say _ignorabimus_, we never shall know. + +The matter seems to me within the legitimate lines of scientific +inquiry, and it is unwise to attempt prediction, especially negative +prediction, or to attempt to close the door to the future developments +of knowledge. + +But I am content to say for the present that from the point of view of +strict science it is not yet possible to give any positive answer to +these questions; that they must await the progress of discovery. It +becomes a question of some interest, therefore, how it is possible for +Professor Haeckel and for others of his school to have arrived at the +idea not only that a scientific answer can be given, but that already it +has been given, and that they know distinctly what it is. + + + Note on the Word "Life." + +Until a term is accurately defined, and even afterwards for some +purposes, it is permissible to use a word of large significance in more +than one sense. Thus the word "light" may be considered a psychological +term, denoting a certain sensation, or a physiological term, signifying +the stimulus of certain specialised nerve-endings, or a physical term, +expressing briefly an electromagnetic wave-disturbance in the ether. I +am using the word "life" in a quite general sense, as is obvious, for if +it be limited to certain metabolic processes in protoplasm—which is the +narrowest of its legitimate meanings—what I have said about its possible +existence apart from matter would be absurd. It may be convenient to +employ the word "vitality" for this limited sense; but so far as I know, +there is no general consensus of usage, and the context must suffice to +show a friendly reader the connotation intended. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE + + +This leads me to the second main thesis or central scientific doctrine +of Professor Haeckel's treatise, the biological one; and it is this +which I shall now proceed to illustrate by further quotations, viz., the +connection as he conceives it between life and matter. + +His view is that life has arisen from inorganic matter without +antecedent life. The experimental facts of biogenesis he discards in +favour of a hypothetical and at present undiscovered kind of spontaneous +generation. He assumes that the chemico-physical properties of carbon +confer so peculiar a power on its albuminoid compounds that they develop +into living protoplasm. He says that he formulated this view +thirty-three years ago, and that no better monistic theory has arisen to +replace it, while to reject some form of spontaneous generation is to +admit a miracle:— + + "The hypothesis of spontaneous generation, and the allied + carbon-theory (viz., that 'carbon ... may be considered the + chemical basis of life,' p. 2) are of great importance in + deciding the long-standing conflict between the _teleological_ + (dualistic) and the _mechanical_ (monistic) interpretation of + phenomena" (p. 91). + +But it can hardly be maintained that a "hypothesis" is able to "decide" +any dispute. (See, however, Chapter VI.) + +An unscientific reader could hardly imagine that the apparently detailed +account given in the next sentence of the automatic origin of life, as +it may have arisen on other planes, and as it must have arisen on this, +is of the nature of hypothesis:— + + "First simple monera are formed by spontaneous generation, and + from these arise unicellular protists.... From these + unicellular protists arise, in the further course of evolution, + first social cell-communities, and subsequently tissue-forming + plants and animals" (p. 131). + +In this hypothesis of automatic origin by the agency of matter and +energy alone, he could probably find many biologists to agree with him +speculatively; but he goes further than some of them, for he does not +limit the automatic or material development to animal and vegetable life +alone: he throws automatic consciousness in, too:— + + "The 'cellular theory' ... has given us the first true + interpretation of the physical, chemical, and even the + psychological, processes of life" (p. 1). + + "Consciousness, thought, and speculation are functions of the + ganglionic cells of the cortex of the brain" (p. 6). + + "The peculiar phenomenon of consciousness is not, as du + Bois-Reymond and the dualistic school would have us believe, a + completely 'transcendental' problem: it is, as I showed + thirty-three years ago, a _physiological_ problem, and as such, + must be reduced to the phenomena of physics and chemistry" (p. + 65). + +Holding such a view concerning consciousness, in the teeth of the +general philosophic opinion of to-day, it is natural to find that of +orthodox psychology and psychologists he is contemptuous:— + + "Most of our so-called 'psychologists' have little or no + knowledge of these indispensable foundations of + anthropology—anatomy, histology, ontogeny, and physiology.... + Hence it is that most of the psychological literature of the day + is so much waste-paper" (p. 34). + + "What we call the soul is, in my opinion, a natural phenomenon; + I therefore consider psychology to be a branch of natural + science—a section of physiology. Consequently, I must + emphatically assert from the commencement that we have no + different methods of research for that science than for any of + the others" (p. 32). + +In this difficult Science of Psychology he evidently feels himself quite +at home. He assumes easily and gratuitously that there is a material +substance at the root of all mental processes whatever—called by +Clifford 'mind-stuff,' (see, however, Chapter IV. below,)—and he then +proceeds to lay down the law concerning ancient difficulties as +follows:— + + "We shall give to this material basis of all psychic activity, + without which it is inconceivable, the provisional name of + 'psychoplasm.' + + "The psychic processes are subject to the supreme, all-ruling + law of substance; not even in this province is there a single + exception to this highest cosmological law. + + "The dogma of 'free-will,' another essential element of the + dualistic psychology, is similarly irreconcilable with the + universal law of substance" (p. 32). + + "The freedom of the will is not an object for critical + scientific inquiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based on an + illusion, and has no real existence" (p. 6). + +Nevertheless, he realises that its apparent existence has to be +accounted for somehow, and accordingly he adopts the view that has +several times occurred to thinkers, viz., that the nucleus of all the +faculties enjoyed by a complete organism must be attributed in germ or +nucleus to the cells and even to the atoms out of which the organism is +built up. + +His speculation as to the formation of a conscious organism, and to the +real meaning of its apparent sense of right and wrong and its apparent +control over its own acts, runs as follows, the will being reduced to +attraction and repulsion between the atoms:— + + "Vogt's pyknotic theory of substance is that minute parts of + the universal substance, the centres of condensation, which + might be called _pyknatoms_, correspond in general to the + ultimate separate atoms of the kinetic theory; they differ, + however, very considerably in that they are credited with + sensation and inclination (or will-movement of the simplest + form), _with souls_, in a certain sense,—in harmony with the + old theory of Empedocles of the 'loves and hatreds of the + elements.' + + "Moreover, these 'atoms with souls' do not float in empty space, + but in the continuous, extremely attenuated, intermediate + substance, which represents the uncondensed portion of the + primitive matter" (p. 77). + + "'Attraction' and 'repulsion' seem to be the sources of + _will_—that momentous element of the soul which determines the + character of the individual" (p. 45). + + "The positive ponderable matter, the element with the feeling of + like or desire, is continually striving to complete the process of + condensation, and thus collecting an enormous amount of _potential_ + energy; the negative imponderable matter, on the other hand, offers + a perpetual and equal resistance to the further increase of its + strain and of the feeling of dislike connected therewith, and thus + gathers the utmost amount of _actual_ energy. + + "I think that this pyknotic theory of substance will prove more + acceptable to every biologist who is convinced of the unity of + nature than the kinetic theory which prevails in physics to-day" + (p. 78). + +In other words, he appeals to a presumed sentiment of biologists +against the knowledge of the physicist in his own sphere—a strange +attitude for a man of science. After this it is less surprising to find +him ignoring the elementary axiom that "action and reaction are equal +and opposite," _i.e._ that internal forces can have no motive power on +a body as a whole, and making the grotesque assertion that matter is +moved, not by external forces, but by internal likes and desires:— + + "I must lay down the following theses, which are involved in Vogt's + pyknotic theory, as indispensable for a truly monistic view of + substance, and one that covers the whole field of organic and + inorganic nature:— + + "1. The two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable matter and + ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic force, but they are + endowed with sensation and will (though, naturally, of the lowest + grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a dislike + of strain; they strive after the one and struggle against the + other" (p. 78). + +My desire is to criticise politely, and hence I refrain from +characterising this sentence as a physicist should. + + "Every shade of inclination, from complete indifference to the + fiercest passion, is exemplified in the chemical relation of the + various elements towards each other" (p. 79). + + "On those phenomena we base our conviction that even the _atom_ is + not without a rudimentary form of sensation and will, or, as it is + better expressed, of feeling (_æsthesis_) and inclination + (_tropesis_)—that is, a universal 'soul' of the simplest + character" (p. 80). + + "I gave the outlines of _cellular_ psychology in 1866 in my paper + on 'Cell-souls and Soul-cells'" (p. 63). + +Thus, then, in order to explain life and mind and consciousness by +means of matter, all that is done is to assume that matter possesses +these unexplained attributes. + +What the full meaning of that may be, and whether there be any +philosophic justification for any such idea, is a matter on which I +will not now express an opinion; but, at any rate, as it stands, it is +not science, and its formulation gives no sort of conception of what +life and will and consciousness really are. + +Even if it were true, it contains nothing whatever in the nature of +explanation: it recognises the inexplicable, and relegates it to the +atoms, where it seems to hope that further quest may cease. Instead of +tackling the difficulty where it actually occurs; instead of +associating life, will, and consciousness with the organisms in which +they are actually in experience found, these ideas are foisted into the +atoms of matter; and then the properties which have been conferred on +the atoms are denied in all essential reality to the fully developed +organisms which those atoms help to compose! + +I show later on (Chapters V. and X.) that there is no necessary +justification for assuming that a phenomenon exhibited by an aggregate +of particles must be possessed by the ingredients of which it is +composed; on the contrary, wholly new properties may make their +appearance simply by aggregation; though I admit that such a +proposition is by no means obvious, and that it may be a legitimate +subject for controversy. But into that question our author does not +enter; and even when he has conferred on the atoms these astounding +properties, he abstains from what would seem a natural development: for +his doctrine is that our power is actually less than that of the +atoms,—that instead of utilising the attractions and repulsions, or +"likes and dislikes," of our constituent particles, and directing them +by the aggregate of conscious will-power to some preconceived end, we +ourselves, on the contrary, are dominated and controlled by _them_; so +that freedom of the will is an illusion. + +Freedom being thus disposed of, Immortality presents no difficulty; a +soul is the operation of a group of cells, and so the existence of man +clearly begins and ends with that of his terrestrial body:— + + "The most important moment in the life of every man, as in that of + all other complex animals, is the moment in which he begins his + individual existence [coalescence of sperm cell and ovum] ... the + existence of the personality, the independent individual, + commences. This ontogenetic fact is supremely important, for the + most far-reaching conclusions may be drawn from it. In the first + place, we have a clear perception that man, like all the other + complex animals, inherits all his personal characteristics, bodily + and mental, from his parents; and further, we come to the momentous + conclusion that the new personality which arises thus can lay no + claim to 'immortality'" (p. 22). + +Others beside Haeckel have held this kind of view at one time or +another; but, unlike him, most of them have recanted and seen the error +of their ways. He is, indeed, aware that several of his great German +contemporaries have been through this phase of thought and come out on +the other side, notably the physiologist-philosopher Wundt, and he +refers to them fairly and instructively thus:— + + "What seems to me of special importance and value in Wundt's work + is that he 'extends the law of the persistence of force for the + first time to the psychic world.' + + "Thirty years afterwards, in a second edition, Wundt emancipated + himself from the fundamental errors of the first, and says that he + 'learned many years ago to consider the work a sin of his youth'; + it 'weighed on him as a kind of crime, from which he longed to free + himself as soon as possible.' In the first, psychology is treated + as a _physical_ science, on the same laws as the whole of + physiology, of which it is only a part; thirty years afterwards he + finds psychology to be a _spiritual_ science, with principles and + objects entirely different from those of physical science. + + "I myself," says Haeckel, "naturally consider the 'youthful sin' of + the young physiologist Wundt to be a correct knowledge of nature, + and energetically defend it against the antagonistic view of the + old philosopher Wundt. This entire change of philosophical + principles, which we find in Wundt, as we found it in Kant, + Virchow, du Bois-Reymond, Carl Ernst Baer, and others, is very + interesting" (p. 36). + +So it is: very interesting! + +Professor Haeckel is so imbued with biological science that he loses +his sense of proportion; and his enthusiasm for the work of Darwin +leads him to attribute to it an exaggerated scope, and enables him to +eliminate the third of the Kantian trilogy:— + + "Darwin's theory of the natural origin of species at once gave us + the solution of the mystic 'problem of creation,' the great + 'question of all questions'—the problem of the true character and + origin of man himself" (p. 28) [_cf._ p. 19 above]. + +It is a great deal more than that patient observer and deep thinker +Charles Darwin ever claimed, nor have his wiser disciples claimed it +for him. It is familiar that he explained how variations once arisen +would be clinched, if favourable in the struggle, by the action of +heredity and survival; but the source or origin of the variations +themselves he did not explain. + +Do they arise by guidance or by chance? Is natural selection akin to +the verified and practical processes of artificial selection? or is it +wholly alien to them and influenced by chance alone? The latter view +can hardly be considered a complete explanation, though it is verbally +the one adopted by Professor Haeckel, and it is of interest to see what +he means by chance:— + + "Since impartial study of the evolution of the world teaches us + that there is no definite aim and no special purpose to be traced + in it, there seems to be no alternative but to leave everything to + 'blind chance.' + + "One group of philosophers affirms, in accordance with its + teleological conception, that the whole cosmos is an orderly + system, in which every phenomenon has its aim and purpose; there is + no such thing as chance. The other group, holding a mechanical + theory, expresses itself thus: The development of the universe is a + monistic mechanical process, in which we discover no aim or purpose + whatever; what we call design in the organic world is a special + result of biological agencies; neither in the evolution of the + heavenly bodies nor in that of the crust of our earth do we find + any trace of a controlling purpose—all is the result of chance. + Each party is right—according to its definition of chance. The + general law of causality, taken in conjunction with the law of + substance, teaches us that every phenomenon has a mechanical cause; + in this sense there is no such thing as chance. Yet it is not only + lawful, but necessary, to retain the term for the purpose of + expressing the simultaneous occurrence of two phenomena, which are + not causally related to each other, but of which each has its own + mechanical cause, independent of that of the other. + + "Everybody knows that chance, in this monistic sense, plays an + important part in the life of man and in the universe at large. + That, however, does not prevent us from recognising in each + 'chance' event, as we do in the evolution of the entire cosmos, the + universal sovereignty of nature's supreme law, _the law of + substance_" (p. 97). + + +_Illegitimate Negations._ + +With regard to the possibility of Revelation, or information derived +from super-human sources, naturally he ridicules the idea; but in +connection with the mode of origin and development of life on this +planet he makes the following sensible and noteworthy admission:— + + "It is very probable that these processes have gone on likewise on + other planets, and that other planets have produced other types of + the higher plants and animals, which are unknown on our earth; + perhaps from some higher animal stem, which is superior to the + vertebrate in formation, higher beings have arisen who far + transcend us earthly men in intelligence." + +Exactly; it is quite probable. It is, in fact, improbable that man is +the highest type of existence. But if Professor Haeckel is ready to +grant that probability or even possibility, why does he so strenuously +exclude the idea of revelation, _i.e._, the acquiring of imparted +information from higher sources? Savages can certainly have +"revelation" from civilised men. Why, then, should it be inconceivable +that human beings should receive information from beings in the +universe higher than themselves? It may or may not be the case that +they do; but there is no scientific ground for dogmatism on the +subject, nor any reason for asserting the inconceivability of such a +thing. + +Professor Haeckel would no doubt reply to some of the above criticism +that he is not only a man of science, but also a philosopher, that he +is looking ahead, beyond ascertained fact, and that it is his +philosophic views which are in question rather than his scientific +statements. To some extent it is both, as has been seen; but if even +the above be widely known—if it be generally understood that the most +controversial portions of his work are mainly speculative and +hypothetical, it can be left to its proper purpose of doing good rather +than harm. It can only do harm by misleading, it can do considerable +good by criticising and stimulating and informing; and it is an +interesting fact that a man so well acquainted with biology as +Professor Haeckel is should have been so strongly impressed with the +truth of some aspect of the philosophic system known as Monism. Many +men of science have likewise been impressed with the probability, or +possibility, of some such ultimate unification. + +The problem to be solved—and an old-world problem indeed it is—is the +range, and especially the nature, of the connection between mind and +matter; or, let us say, between the material universe on the one hand, +and the vital, the mental, the conscious and spiritual universe or +universes, on the other. + +It would be extremely surprising if any attempt yet made had already +been thoroughly successful, though the attack on the idealistic side +appears to many of us physicists to be by far the most hopeful line of +advance. An excessively wide knowledge of existence would seem to be +demanded for the success of any such most ambitious attempt; but, +though none of us may hope to achieve it, many may strive to make some +contribution towards the great end; and those who think they have such +a contribution to make, or such a revelation entrusted to them, are +bound to express it to the best of their ability, and leave it to their +contemporaries and successors to assimilate such portions of it as are +true, and to develop it further. From this point of view Professor +Haeckel is no doubt amply justified in his writings; but, +unfortunately, it appears to me that although he has been borne forward +on the advancing wave of monistic philosophy, he has, in its +specification, attempted such precision of materialistic detail, and +subjected it to so narrow and limited a view of the totality of +experience, that the progress of thought has left him, as well as his +great English exemplar, Herbert Spencer, somewhat high and dry, belated +and stranded by the tide of opinion which has now begun to flow in +another direction. He is, as it were, a surviving voice from the middle +of the nineteenth century; he represents, in clear and eloquent +fashion, opinions which then were prevalent among many leaders of +thought—opinions which they themselves in many cases, and their +successors still more, lived to outgrow; so that by this time Professor +Haeckel's voice is as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, not as +the pioneer or vanguard of an advancing army, but as the despairing +shout of a standard-bearer, still bold and unflinching, but abandoned +by the retreating ranks of his comrades as they march to new orders in +a fresh and more idealistic direction. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MEMORANDA FOR WOULD-BE MATERIALISTS + + +The objection which it has been found necessary to express concerning +Materialism as a complete system is based not on its assertions, but on +its negations. In so far as it makes positive assertions, embodying the +results of scientific discovery and even of scientific speculation +based thereupon, there is no fault to find with it; but when, on the +strength of that, it sets up to be a philosophy of the universe—all +inclusive, therefore, and shutting out a number of truths otherwise +perceived, or which appeal to other faculties, or which are equally +true and are not really contradictory of legitimately materialistic +statements—then it is that its insufficiency and narrowness have to be +displayed. + +It will be probably instructive, and it may be sufficient, if I show +that two great leaders in scientific thought (one the greatest of all +men of science who have yet lived), though well aware of much that +could be said positively on the materialistic side, and very willing to +admit or even to extend the province of science or exact knowledge to +the uttermost, yet were very far from being philosophic Materialists or +from imagining that other modes of regarding the universe were thereby +excluded. + +Great leaders of thought, in fact, are not accustomed to take a narrow +view of existence, or to suppose that one mode of regarding it, or one +set of formulæ expressing it, can possibly be sufficient and complete. +Even a sheet of paper has two sides: a terrestrial globe presents +different aspects from different points of view; a crystal has a +variety of facets; and the totality of existence is not likely to be +more simple than any of these—is not likely to be readily expressible +in any form of words, or to be thoroughly conceivable by any human +mind. + +It may be well to remember that Sir Isaac Newton was a Theist of the +most pronounced and thorough conviction, although he had a great deal +to do with the reduction of the major Cosmos to mechanics, _i.e._ with +its explanation by the elaborated machinery of simple forces; and he +conceived it possible that, in the progress of science, this process of +reduction to mechanics would continue till it embraced nearly all +phenomena. (See extract below.) That, indeed, has been the effort of +science ever since, and therein lies the legitimate basis for +materialistic statements, though not for a materialistic philosophy. + +The following sound remarks concerning Newton are taken from Huxley's +_Hume_, p. 246:— + + "Newton demonstrated all the host of heaven to be but the elements + of a vast mechanism, regulated by the same laws as those which + express the falling of a stone to the ground. There is a passage in + the preface to the first edition of the _Principia_, which shows + that Newton was penetrated, as completely as Descartes, with the + belief that all the phenomena of nature are expressible in terms of + matter and motion:— + + "'WOULD THAT THE REST OF THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE COULD BE DEDUCED + BY A LIKE KIND OF REASONING FROM MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES. FOR MANY + CIRCUMSTANCES LEAD ME TO SUSPECT THAT ALL THESE PHENOMENA MAY + DEPEND UPON CERTAIN FORCES, IN VIRTUE OF WHICH THE PARTICLES OF + BODIES, BY CAUSES NOT YET KNOWN, ARE EITHER MUTUALLY IMPELLED + AGAINST ONE ANOTHER, AND COHERE INTO REGULAR FIGURES, OR REPEL AND + RECEDE FROM ONE ANOTHER; WHICH FORCES BEING UNKNOWN, PHILOSOPHERS + HAVE AS YET EXPLORED NATURE IN VAIN. BUT I HOPE THAT, EITHER BY + THIS METHOD OF PHILOSOPHISING, OR BY SOME OTHER AND BETTER, THE + PRINCIPLES HERE LAID DOWN MAY THROW SOME LIGHT UPON THE MATTER.'" + +Here is a full-blown anticipation of an intelligible exposition of the +Universe in terms of matter and force: the substantial basis of what +smaller men call materialism and develop into what they consider to be +a materialistic philosophy. But there is no necessity for anything of +the kind; a systematic expression of facts in terms of one of their +aspects does not exclude expression in terms of other and totally +different aspects also. Denial of all sides but one, is a poor kind of +unification. Denial of this sort is the weakness and delusion of the +people who call themselves 'Christian Scientists': they have hold of +one side of truth—and that should be granted them,—but they hold it +in so narrow and insecure a fashion that, in self-defence, they think +it safest strenuously to deny the existence of all other sides. In this +futile enterprise they are imitating the attitude of the philosophic +Materialists, on the other side of the controversy. + +And then, again, Professor Huxley himself, who is commonly spoken of by +half-informed people as if he were a philosophic materialist, was +really nothing of the kind; for although, like Newton, fully imbued +with the mechanical doctrine, and, of course, far better informed +concerning the biological departments of Nature and the discoveries +which have in the last century been made, and though he rightly +regarded it as his mission to make the scientific point of view clear +to his benighted contemporaries, and was full of enthusiasm for the +facts on which materialists take their stand, he saw clearly that these +alone were insufficient for a philosophy. The following extracts from +the 'Hume' volume will show, first, that he entirely repudiated +materialism as a satisfactory or complete scheme of things; and, +secondly, that he profoundly disagreed with the position which now +appears to be occupied by Professor Haeckel. Especially is he severe on +gratuitous denials applied to provinces beyond our scope, saying:— + + "that while it is the summit of human wisdom to learn the limit of + our faculties, it may be wise to recollect that we have no more + right to make denials, than to put forth affirmatives, about what + lies beyond that limit. Whether either mind or matter has a + 'substance' or not is a problem which we are incompetent to + discuss; and it is just as likely that the common notions upon the + subject should be correct as any others.... 'The same principles + which, at first view, lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain + point, bring men back to common sense'" (p. 282). + +And on p. 286 he speaks concerning "substance"—that substance which +constitutes the foundation of Haeckel's philosophy—almost as if he +were purposely confuting that rather fly-blown production:— + + "Thus, if any man think he has reason to believe that the + '_substance_' of matter, to the existence of which no limit can be + set either in time or space, is the infinite and eternal substratum + of all actual and possible existences, which is the doctrine of + philosophical materialism, as I understand it, I have no objection + to his holding that doctrine; and I fail to comprehend how it can + have the slightest influence upon any ethical or religious views he + may please to hold.... + + "Moreover, the ultimate forms of existence which we distinguish in + our little speck of the universe are, possibly, only two out of + infinite varieties of existence, not only analogous to matter and + analogous to mind, but of kinds which we are not competent so much + as to conceive—in the midst of which, indeed, we might be set + down, with no more notion of what was about us, than the worm in a + flower-pot, on a London balcony, has of the life of the great city. + + "That which I do very strongly object to is the habit, which a + great many non-philosophical materialists unfortunately fall into, + of forgetting all these very obvious considerations. They talk as + if the proof that the 'substance of matter' was the 'substance' of + all things cleared up all the mysteries of existence. In point of + fact, it leaves them exactly where they were.... Your religious and + ethical difficulties are just as great as mine. The speculative + game is drawn—let us get to practical work" (p. 286). + +And again on pp. 251 and 279:— + + "It is worth any amount of trouble to ... know by one's own + knowledge the great truth ... that the honest and rigorous + following up of the argument which leads us to 'materialism' + inevitably carries us beyond it" (p. 251). + + "To sum up. If the materialist affirms that the universe and all + its phenomena are resolvable into matter and motion, Berkeley + replies, True; but what you call matter and motion are known to us + only as forms of consciousness; their being is to be conceived or + known; and the existence of a state of consciousness, apart from a + thinking mind, is a contradiction in terms. + + "I conceive that this reasoning is irrefragable. And, therefore, if + I were obliged to choose between absolute materialism and absolute + idealism, I should feel compelled to accept the latter alternative" + (p. 279). + +Let the jubilant but uninstructed and comparatively ignorant amateur +materialist therefore beware, and bethink himself twice or even thrice +before he conceives that he understands the universe and is competent +to pour scorn upon the intuitions and perceptions of great men in what +may be to him alien regions of thought and experience. + +Let him explain, if he can, what he means by his own identity, or the +identity of any thinking or living being, which at different times +consists of a totally different set of material particles. Something +there clearly is which confers personal identity and constitutes an +individual: it is a property characteristic of every form of life, +even the humblest; but it is not yet explained or understood, and it +is no answer to assert gratuitously that there is some fundamental +"substance" or material basis on which that identity depends, any more +than it is an explanation to say that it depends upon a "soul." These +are all forms of words. As Hume says, quoted by Huxley with approval in +the work already cited, p. 194:— + + "It is impossible to attach any definite meaning to the word + 'substance,' when employed for the hypothetical substratum of soul + and matter.... If it be said that our personal identity requires + the assumption of a substance which remains the same while the + accidents of perception shift and change, the question arises what + is meant by personal identity?... A plant or an animal, in the + course of its existence, from the condition of an egg or seed to + the end of life, remains the same neither in form, nor in + structure, nor in the matter of which it is composed: every + attribute it possesses is constantly changing, and yet we say that + it is always one and the same individual" (p. 194). + +And in his own preface to the 'Hume' volume Huxley expresses himself +forcibly thus,—equally antagonistic as was his wont to both ostensible +friend and ostensible foe, as soon as they got off what he considered +the straight path:— + + "That which it may be well for us not to forget is, that the + first-recorded judicial murder of a scientific thinker [Socrates] + was compassed and effected, not by a despot, nor by priests, but + was brought about by eloquent demagogues.... Clear knowledge of + what one does not know just as important as knowing what one does + know.... + + "The development of exact natural knowledge in all its vast range, + from physics to history and criticism, is the consequence of the + working out, in this province, of the resolution to 'take nothing + for truth without clear knowledge that it is such'; to consider all + beliefs open to criticism; to regard the value of authority as + neither greater nor less, than as much as it can prove itself to be + worth. The modern spirit is not the spirit 'which always denies,' + delighting only in destruction; still less is it that which builds + castles in the air rather than not construct; it is that spirit + which works and will work 'without haste and without rest,' + gathering harvest after harvest of truth into its barns, and + devouring error with unquenchable fire" (p. viii.). + +The harvesting of truth is a safe enough enterprise, but the devouring +of error is a more dangerous pastime, since flames are liable to spread +beyond our control; and though, in a world overgrown with weeds and +refuse, the cleansing influence of fire is a necessity, it would be +cruel to apply the same agency again at a later stage, when a fresh +young crop is springing up in the cleared ground. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY + + +The aphorism sometimes encountered, that "whatever properties appertain +to a whole must essentially belong to the parts of which it is +composed," is a fallacy. A property can be possessed by an aggregation +of atoms which no atom possesses in the slightest degree. Those who +think otherwise are unacquainted with mathematical laws other than +simple proportion or some continuous or additive functions; they are +not aware of discontinuities; they are not experienced in critical +values, above which certain conditions obtain, while below them there +is suddenly nothing. To refute them an instance must suffice:— + +A meteoric stone may seem to differ from a planet only in size, but the +difference in size involves also many other differences, notably the +fact that the larger body can attract and hold to itself an +atmosphere—a circumstance of the utmost importance to the existence of +life on its surface. In order, however, that a planet may by +gravitative attraction control the roving atoms of gas, and confine +their excursions to within a certain range of itself, it must have a +very considerable mass. + +The earth is big enough to do it; the moon is not. By simply piling +atoms or stones together into a mighty mass there comes a critical +point at which an atmosphere becomes possible; and directly an +atmosphere exists, all manner of phenomena may spring into existence, +which without it were quite impossible. + +So, also, it may be said that a sun differs from a dark planet only in +size; for it is just the fact of great size which enables its +gravitative-shrinkage and earthquake-subsidence to generate an immense +quantity of heat and to maintain the mass for æons at an excessively +high temperature, thereby fitting it to become the centre of light and +life to a number of worlds. The blaze of the sun is a property which is +the outcome of its great mass. A small permanent sun is an +impossibility. + +Wherefore, properties can be possessed by an aggregate or assemblage of +particles which in the particles themselves did not in the slightest +degree exist. + +If, however, we reverse the aphorism and say that whatever is in a part +must be in the whole, we are on much safer ground. I do not say that it +cannot be pressed into illegitimate extremes, but in one and that the +simplest sense it is little better than a platitude. The fact that an +apple has pips legitimises the assertion that an apple-tree has pips, +and that the peculiar property of pips represents a faculty enjoyed by +the vegetable kingdom as a whole; but it would be a childish +misunderstanding to expect to find actual pips in the trunk of a tree +or in all vegetables. + +There is a tendency to call the argument or statement that whatever +faculty man possesses the Deity must have also; by the name +Anthropomorphism; but it seems to me a misnomer, and to convey quite +wrong ideas. The argument represented by "He that formed the eye, shall +he not see? he that planted the ear, shall he not hear?" need not +assume for a moment that God has sense organs akin to those of man, or +that He appreciates ethereal and aerial vibrations in the same sort of +way. It is not an assertion of similarity between God and man, but +merely a realisation that what belongs to a part _must_ be contained in +the whole. It is not even necessarily pantheistic: it would hold +equally well on a Theistic interpretation. Regarded pantheistically it +is obvious and requires no stating: regarded Theistically, it is a +perception that faculties and powers which have come into existence, +and are actually at work in the universe, cannot have arisen without +the knowledge and sympathy and full understanding of the Sustainer and +Comprehender of it all. Nor can functions be expected in the creature +which transcend the power of the Creator. + +All our faculties, sensations, and emotions must therefore be +understood, and in a sense possessed, in some transcendental and to us +unimaginable form, by the Deity. + +I know that it is possible to deny His existence, just as it is +possible to deny the existence of an external world or to maintain that +reality is limited to our sensations. If the Deity has a sense of +humour, as undoubtedly He has, He must be amused at the remarkable +philosophising faculty recently developed by the creature which on this +planet has become most vigorously self-conscious and is in the early +stages of progress towards higher things—a philosophising faculty so +acute as to lead him to mistrust and throw away information conveyed to +him by the very instruments which have enabled him to become what he +is; so that having become keenly alive to the truth that all we are +directly aware of is the fruit of our own sensations and consciousness, +he proceeds to the grotesque supposition that these sensations and +consciousness may be all that really exists, and that the information +which for ages our senses have conveyed to us concerning external +things may be illusory, not only in form and detail and appearance, but +in substantial fact. + +He must be pleased, also, with the enterprise of those eager +philosophers who are so strenuously impressed with the truth of some +ultimate monistic unification, as to be unwilling to concede the +multifariousness of existence—who decline to speak of mind and matter, +or of body and spirit, or of God and the world, as in any sense +separate entities—who stigmatise as dualistic anything which does not +manifestly and consciously strain after an ultimate monistic view—and +who then, as a climax, on the strength of a few years' superficial +experience on a planet, by the aid of the sense organs which they +themselves perceive to be illusory whenever the actual reality of +things is in contemplation, proceed to develop the theory that the +whole has come into being without direct intelligence and apart from +spiritual guidance, that it is managed so well (or so ill) that it is +really not managed at all, that no Deity exists, and that it is absurd +to postulate the existence of a comprehensive and all-inclusive guiding +Mind. + +To be able to perceive comprehensively and state fully not only what +is, but also what is not, is a wonderful achievement. I do not think +that such a power has yet been acquired by any of the sons of men; nor +will the semi-educated readers of this country be wise if they pin +their faith and build their hopes on the utterances of any man, however +eminent, who makes this superhuman claim. + +Now, in all charity, it must be admitted that in some passages +Professor Haeckel puts himself under the ban implied by the above +paragraph, inasmuch as he conducts a sort of free and easy attack on +religion, especially on what he conceives to be the fundamental +doctrines of Christianity. But, after all, it can be perceived that his +attack, so far as it is really an attack on religion, is evidently +inspired by his mistrust and dislike, and to some extent fear, of +Ecclesiasticism, especially of the Ultramontane movement in Germany, +against which he says Prince Bismarck began a struggle in 1872. It is +this kind of semi-political religion that he is really attacking, more +than the pure essence of Christianity itself. He regards it as a +bigoted system hostile to knowledge—which, if true, would amply +justify an attack—and he says on page 118:— + + "The great struggle between modern science and orthodox + Christianity has become more threatening; it has grown more + dangerous for science in proportion as Christianity has found + support in an increasing mental and political reaction." + +This may seem an exaggerated fear; but the following extract from a +Pastoral address by the Bishop of Newport, which accidentally I saw +reported in _The Tablet_, shows that the danger is not wholly +imaginary, if unwise opinions are pressed to their logical practical +issue:— + + "If the formulas of modern science contradict the science of + Catholic dogma, it is the former that must be altered, not the + latter."[2] + + [Footnote 2: In case it is unfair to wrench a sentence like + this from its context, I quote the larger portion of that + instructive report in this note:— + + _Extract from "The Tablet," Aug. 27th, 1904—An Address + by the Bishop of Newport._ + + "If the Abbé Loisy has followers within the Church, as we are + informed he has, it cannot be doubted that the danger for + Catholics is by no means imaginary. For Loisy teaches that + the dogmatic definitions of the Church [on the Incarnation], + although the best that could be given at the time and under + the circumstances, are only a most inadequate expression of + the real truth, which they represent merely relatively and + imperfectly. These definitions, he says, should now be stated + afresh, because the traditional formula no longer corresponds + to the way in which the mystery is regarded by contemporary + thought. In his view, our present knowledge of the universe + should suggest to the Church a new examination of the dogma + of Creation; our knowledge of history should make her revise + her ideas of revelation; and our progress in psychology and + moral philosophy should suggest to her to re-state her + theology of the Incarnation. Every one can see that there is + a grain of truth in this kind of talk. But it is, on the + whole, a pestilent and dangerous heresy. If the formulas of + modern science contradict the science of Catholic dogma, it + is the former that must be altered, not the latter. If modern + metaphysics are incompatible with the metaphysical terms and + expressions adopted by councils and explained by the Catholic + schools, then modern metaphysics must be rejected as + erroneous. The Church does not change her Christian + philosophy to suit the world's speculations; she teaches the + world, by her theological definitions, what true and sound + philosophy is. Whilst every effort should be made by Catholic + apologists to smooth the way for a genuine understanding of + the Church's dogmatic terminology, two things must never be + lost sight of, first, that this terminology expresses real + objective truth (however inadequate the expression may be to + the full meaning, as God sees it, of any given mystery); and, + secondly, that such truth is expressed in terms of sound + philosophy which will not be given up, and which may be + called the Christian philosophy."] + +Professor Haeckel continues his criticism of Official Christianity in +the following vein:— + + "The so-called 'Peace between Church and State' is never more than + a suspension of hostilities. The modern Papacy, true to the + despotic principles it has followed for the last 1600 years, is + determined to wield sole dominion over the credulous souls of men; + it must demand the absolute submission of the cultured State, + which, as such, defends the rights of reason and science. True and + enduring peace there cannot be until one of the combatants lies + powerless on the ground. Either the Church wins, and then farewell + to all 'free science and free teaching'—then are our universities + no better than gaols, and our colleges become cloistral schools; or + else the modern rational State proves victorious—then, in the + twentieth century, human culture, freedom, and prosperity will + continue their progressive development until they far surpass even + the height of the nineteenth century. + + "In order to compass these high aims, it is of the first importance + that modern science not only shatter the false structures of + superstition and sweep their ruins from the path, but that it also + erect a new abode for human emotion on the ground it has cleared—a + 'palace of reason,' in which, under the influence of our new + monistic views, we do reverence to the real trinity of the + nineteenth century—the trinity of 'the true, the good, and the + beautiful'" (p. 119). + +These are the bases of religion, adopted from Goethe, which in +Haeckel's view should entirely replace what he calls the Trinity of +Kant, viz., God, Freedom, and Immortality—three ideas which he regards +as mere superstition or as so enveloped in superstition as to be +worthless. + +Occasionally, however, he attacks not solely ecclesiastical +Christianity—in which enterprise he is entirely within his +rights,—but he goes further and abuses some of its more primitive +forms, and to some extent its practical fruits also. For instance:— + + "Primitive Christianity preached the worthlessness of earthly life, + regarding it merely as a preparation for an eternal life beyond. + Hence it immediately followed that all we find in the life of a man + here below, all that is beautiful in art and science, in public and + in private life, is of no real value. The true Christian must avert + his eyes from them; he must think only of a worthy preparation for + the life beyond. Contempt of nature, aversion from all its + inexhaustible charms, rejection of every kind of fine art, are + Christian duties; and they are carried out to perfection when a man + separates himself from his fellows, chastises his body, and spends + all his time in prayers in the cloister or the hermit's cell.... A + Christian art is a contradiction in terms" (p. 120). + +I think it may without offence be said that if he means by "Primitive +Christianity" the teachings of Christ, he is mistaken, and has +something to learn as to what those teachings really were. If he means +the times of persecution under the Roman empire, he could hardly expect +much concentration on artistic pursuits or much enjoyment of +terrestrial existence when it was liable to be violently extinguished +at any moment: sufficient that the early Church survived its struggle +for existence. But if he is referring to mediæval Christianity, of any +other than a debased kind,—common knowledge concerning mediæval art +and architecture sufficiently rebuts the indictment. So much so, that +one may almost wonder if by chance he happened to be thinking of +"Mohammedanism" rather than of Christianity. + +But he continues, in a more practical and observant vein:— + + "Christianity has no place for that well-known love of animals, + that sympathy with the nearly-related and friendly mammals (dogs, + horses, cattle, etc.) which is urged in the ethical teaching of + many of the older religions, especially Buddhism. (Unfortunately, + Descartes gave some support to the error in teaching that man only + has a sensitive soul, not the animal.) Whoever has spent much time + in the south of Europe must have often witnessed those frightful + sufferings of animals which fill us friends of animals with the + deepest sympathy and indignation. And when one expostulates with + these brutal 'Christians' on their cruelty, the only answer is, + with a laugh: 'But the beasts are not Christians'" (p. 126). + +This, if true, and I have heard it from other sources, does constitute +rather a serious indictment against the form of practical Christianity +understood by the ignorant classes among the Latin races. + +To return, however, to the concluding paragraph of the extract quoted +above (on page 81) from his page 119:— + +No one can have any objection to raise against the dignity and +worthiness of the three great attributes which excite Professor +Haeckel's, as they excited Goethe's, worship and admiration, viz., the +three "goddesses," as he calls them: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty; but +there is no necessary competition or antagonism between these and the +other three great conceptions which aroused the veneration of Kant: +God, Freedom, and Immortality; nor does the upholding of the one triad +mean the overthrow of the other: they may be all co-eternal together +and co-equal. Nor are either of these triplets inconsistent with some +reasonable view of what may be meant by the Christian Trinity. The +total possibility of existence is so vast that no simple formula, nor +indeed any form of words, however complex, is likely to be able to sum +it up and express its essence to the exclusion of all other modes of +expression. It is a pity, therefore, that Professor Haeckel should +think it necessary to decry one set of ideas in order to support +another set. There is room for all in this large universe—room for +everything, except downright lies and falseness. + +Concerning Truth there is no need to speak: it cannot but be the breath +of the nostrils of every genuine scientific man; but his ideas of truth +should be large enough to take into account possibilities far beyond +anything of which he is at present sure, and he should be careful to be +undogmatic and docile in regions of which at present he has not the +key. + +The meaning of Goodness, the whole domain of ethics, and the higher +possibilities of sainthood of which the human spirit has shown itself +capable, are at present outside his domain; and if a man of science +seeks to dogmatise concerning the emotions and the will, and asserts +that he can reduce them to atomic forces and motions, because he has +learnt to recognise the undoubted truth that atomic forces and motions +must accompany them and constitute the machinery of their manifestation +here and now,—he is exhibiting the smallness of his conceptions and +gibbeting himself as a laughing-stock to future generations. + +The atmosphere and full meaning of Beauty also he can only dimly grasp. +If he seeks to explain it in terms of sexual selection, or any other +small conception which he has recently been able to form in connection +with vital procedure on this planet, he is explaining nothing: he is +merely showing how the perception of beauty may operate in certain +cases; but the inner nature of beauty and the faculty by which it is +perceived are utterly beyond him. He cannot but feel that the +unconscious and unobtrusive beauty of field and hedgerow must have +originated in obedience to some primal instinct or in fulfilment of +some immanent desire, some lofty need quite other than anything he +recognises as human. + +And if a poet witnessing the colours of a sunset, for instance, or the +profusion of beauty with which snow mountains seem to fling themselves +to the heavens in districts unpeopled and in epochs long before human +consciousness awoke upon the earth: if such a seer feels the revelation +weigh upon his spirit with an almost sickening pressure, and is +constrained to ascribe this wealth and prodigality of beauty to the joy +of the Eternal Being in His own existence, to an anticipation as it +were of the developments which lie before the universe in which He is +at work, and which He is slowly tending towards an unimaginable +perfection—it behooves the man of science to put his hand upon his +mouth, lest in his efforts to be true, in the absence of knowledge, he +find himself uttering, in his ignorance, words of lamentable folly or +blasphemy. + + +_Man and Nature._ + +Consider our own position—it is surely worth considering. We are +a part of this planet; on one side certainly and distinctly a part +of this material world, a part which has become self-conscious. At +first we were a part which had become alive; a tremendous step +that—introducing a number of powers and privileges which previously +had been impossible, but that step introduced no responsibility; we +were no longer, indeed, urged by mere pressure from behind, we were +guided by our instincts and appetites, but we still obeyed the +strongest external motive, almost like electro-magnetic automata. Now, +however, we have become conscious, able to look before and after, to +learn consciously from the past, to strive strenuously towards the +future; we have acquired a knowledge of good and evil, we can choose +the one and reject the other, and are thus burdened with a sense of +responsibility for our acts. We still obey the strongest motive +doubtless, but there is something in ourselves which makes it a motive +and regulates its strength. We _can_ drift like other animals, and +often do; but we can also obey our own volition. + +I would not deny the rudiments of self-consciousness, and some of what +it implies, to certain domestic animals, notably the dog; but +domestication itself is a result of humanity, and undoubtedly the +attributes we are discussing are chiefly and almost solely human, they +can hardly be detected in wild nature. No other animal can have a full +perception of its own individuality and personality as separate from +the rest of existence. Such ideas do not occur in the early periods of +even human infancy: they are a later growth. Self-consciousness must +have become prominent at a certain stage in the evolutionary process. + +How it all arose is a legitimate problem for genetic psychology, but to +the plain man it is a puzzle; our ancestors invented legends to account +for it—legends of apples and serpents and the like; but the fact is +there, however it be accounted for. The truth embedded in that old +Genesis legend is deep; it is the legend of man's awakening from a +merely animal life to consciousness of good and evil, no longer obeying +his primal instincts in a state of thoughtlessness and innocency—a +state in which deliberate vice was impossible and therefore higher and +purposed goodness also impossible,—it was the introduction of a new +sense into the world, the sense of conscience, the power of deliberate +choice; the power also of conscious guidance, the management of things +and people external to himself, for preconceived ends. Man was +beginning to cease to be merely a passenger on the planet, controlled +by outside forces; it is as if the reins were then for the first time +being placed in his hands, as if he was allowed to begin to steer, to +govern his own fate and destiny, and to take over some considerable +part of the management of the world. + +The process of handing over the reins to us is still going on. The +education of the human race is a long process, and we are not yet fit +to be fully trusted with the steering gear; but the words of the old +serpent were true enough: once open our eyes to the perception and +discrimination of good and evil, once become conscious of freedom of +choice, and sooner or later we must inevitably acquire some of the +power and responsibility of gods. A fall it might seem, just as a +vicious man sometimes seems degraded below the beasts, but in promise +and potency a rise it really was. + +The oneness between ourselves and Nature is not a thing to be deplored; +it is a thing to rejoice at, when properly conceived. It awakens a kind +of religious enthusiasm even in Haeckel, who clearly perceives but a +limited aspect of it; yet the perception is vivid enough to cause him, +this so-called Atheist, to close his _Confession of Faith_ with words +such as these:— + + "Now, at last, it is given to the mightily advancing human mind to + have its eyes opened; it is given to it to show that a true + knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and inexhaustible + nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but also for + its yearning spirit. + + "Knowledge of the true, training for the good, pursuit of the + beautiful: these are the three great departments of our monism; by + the harmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at + last the truly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully + longed after by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the + Good, these are the three august Divine Ones before which we bow + the knee in adoration.... + + "In the hope that free research and free teaching may always + continue, I conclude my monistic _Confession of Faith_ with the + words: 'May God, the Spirit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the + True, be with us.'" + +This is clearly the utterance of a man to whose type I unconsciously +referred in an article written two years ago (_Hibbert Journal_, +January 1903), from which I now make the following appropriate +extract:— + +Looking at the loom of nature, the feeling not of despair, but of what +has been called atheism, one ingredient of atheism, has arisen: atheism +never fully realised, and wrongly so called—recently it has been +called severe Theism, indeed; for it is joyful sometimes, interested +and placid always, exultant at the strange splendour of the spectacle +which its intellect has laid bare to contemplation, satisfied with the +perfection of the mechanism, content to be a part of the self-generated +organism, and endeavouring to think that the feelings of duty, of +earnest effort, and of faithful service, which conspicuously persist in +spite of all discouragement, are on this view intelligible as well as +instinctive, and sure that nothing less than unrepining unfaltering +unswerving acquiescence is worthy of our dignity as man. + +The above 'Confession of Faith,' then, is very well; for the man +himself very well indeed, but it is not enough for the race. Other +parts of Haeckel's writings show that it is not enough, and that his +conception of what he means by Godhead is narrow and limited to an +extent at which instinct, reason, and experience alike rebel. No one +can be satisfied with conceptions below the highest which to him are +possible: I doubt if it is given to man to think out a clear and +consistent system higher and nobler than the real truth. Our highest +thoughts are likely to be nearest to reality: they must be stages in +the direction of truth, else they could not have come to us and been +recognised as highest. So, also, with our longings and aspirations +towards ultimate perfection, those desires which we recognise as our +noblest and best: surely they must have some correspondence with the +facts of existence, else had they been unattainable by us. Reality is +not to be surpassed, except locally and temporarily, by the ideals of +knowledge and goodness invented by a fraction of itself; and if we +could grasp the entire scheme of things, so far from wishing to + + "shatter it to bits and then + Remould it nearer to the heart's desire," + +we should hail it as better and more satisfying than any of our random +imaginings. The universe is in no way limited to our conceptions: it +has a reality apart from them; nevertheless, they themselves constitute +a part of it, and can only take a clear and consistent character in so +far as they correspond with something true and real. Whatever we can +clearly and consistently conceive, that is _ipso facto_ in a sense +already existent in the universe as a whole; and that, or something +better, we shall find to be a dim foreshadowing of a higher reality. + + * * * * * + +EXPLANATORY NOTE ON CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHT AND OPTIMISM. + +(_Partly reprinted from "Mind."_) + +It may be worth while to explain how it is that, to a physicist +unsmitten with any taint of solipsism, a well-elaborated scheme which +is consistent with already known facts necessarily seems to correspond, +or have close affinity, with the truth. It is the result of experience +of a mathematical theorem concerning unique distributions. For +instance, it can be shown that in an electric field, however +complicated, any distribution of potential which satisfies boundary +conditions, and one or two other essential criteria, must be the actual +distribution; for it has been rigorously proved that there cannot be +two or more distributions which satisfy those conditions, hence if one +is arrived at theoretically, or intuitively, or by any means, it must +be the correct one; and no further proof is required. + +So, also, in connection with analogies and working models: although +they must necessarily be imperfect, so long as they are only analogies, +yet the making or imagining of models (not necessarily or usually a +material model, but a conceptual model) is a recognised way of arriving +at an understanding of recondite and ultra-sensual processes, occurring +say in the ether or elsewhere. As an addition to evidence derived from +such experiments as have been found possible, and as a supplement to +the experience out of which, as out of a nucleus, every conception must +grow, the mind is set to design and invent a self-coherent scheme which +shall imitate as far as possible the results exhibited by nature. By +then using this as a working hypothesis, and pressing it into extremes, +it can be gradually amended until it shows no sign of discordance or +failure anywhere, and even serves as a guide to new and previously +unsuspected phenomena. When that stage is reached, it is provisionally +accepted and tentatively held as a step in the direction of the truth; +though the mind is always kept ready to improve and modify and enlarge +it, in accordance with the needs of more thorough investigation and +fresh discovery. It was so, for instance, with Maxwell's +electromagnetic theory of light; and there are a multitude of other +instances. + +In the transcendental or ultra-mundane or supersensual region there is +the further difficulty to be encountered, that we are not acquainted +with anything like all the 'boundary conditions,' so to speak; we only +know our little bit of the boundary, and we may err egregiously in +inferring or attempting to infer the remainder. We may even make a +mistake as to the form of function adapted to the case. Nevertheless +there is no better clue, and the human mind is impelled to do the best +it can with the confessedly imperfect data which it finds at its +disposal. The result, therefore, in this region, is no system of +definite and certain truth, as in Physics, but is either suspense of +judgment altogether, or else a tentative scheme or working hypothesis, +to be held undogmatically, in an attitude of constant receptiveness for +further light, and in full readiness for modification in the direction +of the truth. + +So far concerning the ascertainment of truth alone, in intangible +regions of inquiry. The further hypothesis that such truth when found +will be most satisfactory, or in other words higher and better than any +alternative plan,—the conviction that faith in the exceeding grandeur +of reality shall not be confounded,—requires further justification; +and its grounds are not so easy to formulate. Perhaps the feeling is +merely human and instinctive; but it is existent and customary I +believe among physicists, possibly among men of Science in general, +though I cannot speak for all; and it must be based upon familiarity +with a mass of experience in which, after long groping and guess-work, +the truth has ultimately been discovered, and been recognised as 'very +good.' It is illustrated, for instance, by the words in which Tyndall +closes the first edition of his book on Sound, wherein, after +explaining Helmholtz's brilliant theory of Corti's organ and the +musical mechanism of the ear,—a theory which, amid the difficulties of +actual observation, was necessarily at first saturated with hypothesis, +and is not even yet fully verified,—he says:— + + "Within the ears of men, and without their knowledge or + contrivance, this lute of 3000 strings has existed for ages, + accepting the music of the outer world, and rendering it fit for + reception by the brain.... I do not ask you to consider these views + as established, but only as probable. They present the phenomena in + a connected and intelligible form; and should they be doomed to + displacement by a more correct or comprehensive theory, it will + assuredly be found that the wonder is not diminished by the + substitution of the truth." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MIND AND MATTER + + +What, then, is the probable essence of truth in Professor Haeckel's +philosophy? for it is not to be supposed that the speculations of an +eminent man are baseless, or that he has been led to his view of what +he conceives to be the truth by some wholly erroneous path; his +intuitive convictions are to be respected, for they are based on a far +wider experience and knowledge of fact than is given to the average +man; and for the average man to consider it likely that there is no +foundation whatever for the life convictions of a great specialist is +as foolish as to suppose it probable that they are certain and +infallible, or that they are uncritically to be accepted even in +regions beyond those over which his jurisdiction extends. + +First as to the "law of substance," by which he sets so much store; the +fact which he is really, though indistinctly, trying to emphasise, is +what I have preferred to formulate as "the persistence of the really +existent," see page 34; and, with that modification, we can agree with +Haeckel, or with what I take to be his inner meaning, to some extent. +We may all fairly agree, I think, that whatever really and fundamentally +_exists_ must, so far as bare existence is concerned, be independent of +time. It may go through many changes, and thus have a history; that is +to say, must have definite time relations, so far as its changes are +concerned; but it can hardly be thought of as either going out of +existence, or as coming into existence, at any given period, though it +may completely change its form and accidents; everything basal must +have a past and a future of some kind or other, though any special +concatenation or arrangement may have a date of origin and of +destruction. + +A crowd, for instance, is of this fugitive character: it assembles and +it disperses, its existence as a crowd is over, but its constituent +elements persist; and the same can be said of a planet or a sun. Yet +for some "soul" or underlying reality even in these temporary +accretions there is permanence of a sort:—Tyndall's "streak of morning +cloud," though it may have "melted into infinite azure," has not +thereby become non-existent, although as a visible object it has +disappeared from our ken and become a memory only. It is true that it +was a mere aggregate or accidental agglomeration—it had developed no +self-consciousness, nothing that could be called personality or +identity characterised it,—and so no individual persistence is to be +expected for it; yet even it—low down in the scale of being as it +is—even it has rejoined the general body of aqueous vapour whence, +through the incarnating influence of night, it arose. The thing that +_is_, both _was_ and _shall be_, and whatever does not satisfy this +condition must be an accidental or fugitive or essentially temporary +conglomeration or assemblage, and not one of the fundamental entities +of the universe. It is interesting to remember that this was one of the +opinions strongly held by the late Professor Tait, who considered that +persistence or conservation was the test or criterion of real +existence. + +The question, How many fundamental entities in this sense there are, +and what they are, is a difficult one. Many people, including such +opposite thinkers as Tait and Haeckel, would say "matter" and "energy"; +though Haeckel chooses, on his own account, to add that these two are +one. (Perhaps Professor Ostwald would agree with him there; though to +me the meaning is vague.) Physical science, pushed to the last resort, +would probably reply that, within its sphere of knowledge at the +present stage, the fundamental entities are _ether_ and _motion_; and +that of other things at present it knows next to nothing. If physical +science is interrogated as to the probable persistence, _i.e._, the +fundamental existence, of "life" or of "mind," it ought to reply that +it does not know; if asked about "personality," or "souls," or +"God,"—about all of which Professor Haeckel has fully-fledged +opinions—it would have to ask for a definition of the terms, and would +speak either not at all or with bated breath concerning them. + +The possibility that "life" may be a real and basal form of existence, +and therefore persistent, is a possibility to be borne in mind. It may +at least serve as a clue to investigation, and some day may bear fruit; +at present it is no better than a working hypothesis. It is one that on +the whole commends itself to me; for I conceive that though we only +know of it as a function of terrestrial matter, yet that it has another +aspect too, and I say this because I see it arriving and +leaving—animating matter for a time and then quitting it, just as I +see dew appearing and disappearing on a plate. Apart from a solid +surface, dew cannot exist as such; and to a savage it might seem to +spring into and to go out of existence—to be an exudation from the +solid, and dependent wholly upon it; but we happen to know more about +it: we know that it has a permanent and continuous existence in an +imperceptible, intangible, supersensual form, though its visible +manifestation in the form of mist or dew is temporary and evanescent. +Perhaps it is permissible to trace in that elementary phenomenon some +superficial analogy to an incarnation. + +The fact concerning life which lies at the root of Professor Haeckel's +doctrine about its origin, is that living beings have undoubtedly made +their appearance on this planet, where at one time they cannot be +suspected of having existed. Consequently that whatever life may be, it +is something which can begin to interact with the atoms of terrestrial +matter, at some period, or state of aggregation, or other condition of +elaboration,—a condition which may perhaps be rather definite, if only +we were aware of what it was. But that undoubted fact is quite +consistent with any view as to the nature of "life," and even with any +view as to the mode of its terrestrial commencement; there is nothing +in that to say that it is a function of matter alone, any more than the +wind is a function of the leaves which dance under its influence; there +is nothing even to contradict the notion that it sprang into existence +suddenly at a literal word of command. The improbability or absurdity +of such a conception as this last, except in the symbolism of poetry, +is extreme, and it is unthinkable by any educated person; but its +improbability depends upon other considerations than biologic ones, and +it is as repugnant to an enlightened Theology as to any other science. + +The mode in which biological speculation as to the probable development +of living out of dead matter, and the general relation of protoplasm to +physics and chemistry, can be surmised or provisionally granted, +without thereby concurring in any destructive criticism of other facts +and experiences, is explained in Chapter X. on "Life," further on: and +there I emphasise my agreement with parts of the speculative +contentions of Professor Haeckel on the positive side. + + +_Soul and Body._ + +Let us consider what are the facts scientifically known concerning the +interaction between mind and matter. Fundamentally they amount to this: +that a complex piece of matter, called the brain, is the organ or +instrument of mind and consciousness; that if it be stimulated mental +activity results; that if it be injured or destroyed no manifestation +of mental activity is possible. Moreover, it is assumed, and need not +be doubted, that a portion of brain substance is consumed, oxidised let +us say, in every act of mentation: using that term in the vaguest and +most general sense, and including in it unconscious as well as +conscious operations. + +Suppose we grant all this, what then? We have granted that brain is the +means whereby mind is made manifest on this material plane, it is the +instrument through which alone we know it, but we have not granted that +mind is _limited_ to its material manifestation; nor can we maintain +that without matter the things we call mind, intelligence, +consciousness, have no sort of existence. Mind may be incorporate or +incarnate in matter, but it may also transcend it; it is through the +region of ideas and the intervention of mind that we have become aware +of the existence of matter. It is injudicious to discard our primary and +fundamental _awareness_ for what is after all an instinctive inference +or interpretation of certain sensations. + +The realities underlying those sensations are only known to us by +inference, but they have an independent existence: in their inmost +nature they may be quite other than what they seem, and are in no way +dependent upon our perception of them. So, also, our actual personality +may be something considerably unlike that conception of it which is +based on our present terrestrial consciousness—a form of consciousness +suited to, and developed by, our temporary existence here, but not +necessarily more than a fraction of our total self. + +Take an analogy: the eye is the organ of vision; by it we perceive +light. Stimulate the retina in any way, and we are conscious of the +sensation of light; injure or destroy the eye, and vision becomes +imperfect or impossible. If eyes did not exist we should probably know +nothing about light, and we might be tempted to say that light did not +exist. In a sense, to a blind race, light would not exist—that is to +say, there would be no sensation of light, there would be no sight; but +the underlying physical cause of that sensation—the ripples in the +ether—would be there all the time. And it is these ethereal ripples +which a physicist understands by the term "light." It is quite +conceivable that a race of blind physicists would be able to devise +experimental means whereby they could make experiments on what to us is +luminous radiation, just as we now make experiments on electric waves, +for which we have no sense organ. It would be absurd for a psychologist +to inform them that light did not exist because sight did not. The +_term_ might have to be reconsidered and redefined; indeed, most +likely a polysyllabic term would be employed, as is unfortunately usual +when a thing of which the race in general has no intimate knowledge +requires nomenclature. But the thing would be there, though its mode of +manifestation would be different; a term like "vision" might still be +employed, to signify our mode of perceiving and experiencing the agency +which now manifests itself to us through our eyes; and plants might +grow by the aid of that agency just as they do now. + +So, also, brain is truly the organ of mind and consciousness, and to a +brainless race these terms, and all other terms, would be meaningless; +but no one is at liberty to assert, on the strength of that fact, that +the realities underlying our use of those terms have no existence apart +from terrestrial brains. Nor can we say with any security that the +stuff called "brain" is the only conceivable machinery which they are +able to utilise: though it is true that we know of no other. Yet it +would seem that such a proposition must be held by a materialist, or by +what can be implied by the term "monist," used in its narrowest and +most unphilosophic sense—a sense which would be better expressed by +the term materialistic-monist, with a limitation of the term matter to +the terrestrial chemical elements and their combinations, _i.e._, to +that form of substance to which the human race has grown accustomed—a +sense which tends to exclude ethereal and other generalisations and +unknown possibilities such as would occur to a philosophic monist of +the widest kind. + +For that it may ultimately be discovered that there is some intimate +and necessary connection between a generalised form of matter and some +lofty variety of mind is not to be denied; though also it cannot be +asserted. It has been surmised, for instance, that just as the +corpuscles and atoms of matter, in their intricate movements and +relations, combine to form the brain cell of a human being; so the +cosmic bodies, the planets and suns and other groupings of the ether, +may perhaps combine to form something corresponding as it were to the +brain cell of some transcendent Mind. The idea is to be found in +Newton. The thing is a mere guess, it is not an impossibility, and it +cannot be excluded from a philosophic system by any negative statement +based on scientific fact. In some such sense as that, matter and mind +may be, for all we know, eternally and necessarily connected; they +can be different aspects of some fundamental unity; and a lofty kind +of monism can be true, just as a lofty kind of pantheism can be true. +But the miserable degraded monism and lower pantheism, which limits +the term "god" to that part of existence of which we are now +aware—sometimes, indeed, to a fraction only of that—which limits the +term "mind" to that of which we are ourselves conscious, and the term +"matter" to the dust of the earth and the other visible bodies, is a +system of thought appropriate, perhaps, to a fertile and energetic +portion of the nineteenth century, but not likely to survive as a +system of perennial truth. + +The term "organ" itself should have given pause to anyone desirous of +promulgating a scheme such as that. + +"Organ" is a name popularly given to an instrument of music. Without +it, or some other instrument, no material manifestation or display of +music is possible; it is an instrument for the incarnation of +music—the means whereby it interacts with the material world and +throws the air and so our ears into vibration, it is the means whereby +we apprehend it. Injure the organ and the music is imperfect; destroy +it and it ceases to be possible. But is it to be asserted on the +strength of that fact that the term "music" has no significance apart +from its material manifestation? Have the ideas of Sir Edward Elgar no +reality apart from their record on paper and reproduction by an +orchestra? It is true that without suitable instruments and a suitable +sense organ we should know nothing of music, but it cannot be supposed +that its underlying essence would be therefore extinct or non-existent +and meaningless. Can there not be in the universe a multitude of things +which matter as we know it is incompetent to express? Is it not the +complaint of every genius that his material is intractable, that it is +difficult to coerce matter as he knows it into the service of mind as +he is conscious of it, and that his conceptions transcend his powers of +expression? + +The connection between soul and body, or more generally between +spiritual and material, has been illustrated by the connection between +the meaning of a sentence and the written or spoken word conveying that +meaning. The writing or the speaking may be regarded as an incarnation +of the meaning, a mode of stating or exhibiting its essence. As +delivered, the sentence must have time relations; it has a beginning, +middle, and end; it may be repeated, and the same general meaning may +be expressed in other words; but the intrinsic meaning of the sentence +itself need have no time relations, it may be true _always_, it may +exist as an eternal "now," though it may be perceived and expressed by +humanity with varying clearness from time to time. + +The soul of a thing is its underlying permanent reality—that which +gives it its meaning and confers upon it its attributes. The body is an +instrument or mechanism for the manifestation or sensible presentation +of what else would be imperceptible. It is useless to ask whether a +soul is immortal—a soul is always immortal "where a soul can be +discerned": the question to ask concerning any given object is whether +it has a soul or meaning or personal underlying reality at all. + +Those who think that reality is limited to its terrestrial +manifestation doubtless have a philosophy of their own, to which they +are entitled and to which at any rate they are welcome; but if they set +up to teach others that monism signifies a limitation of mind to the +potentialities of matter as at present known; if they teach a pantheism +which identifies God with nature in this narrow sense; if they hold +that mind and what they call matter are so intimately connected that no +_transcendence_ is possible; that, without the cerebral hemispheres, +consciousness and intelligence and emotion and love, and all the higher +attributes towards which humanity is slowly advancing, would cease to +be; that the term "soul" signifies "a sum of plasma-movements in the +ganglion cells"; and that the term "God" is limited to the operation of +a known evolutionary process, and can be represented as "the infinite +sum of all natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether +vibrations," to quote Professor Haeckel (_Confession of Faith_, p. 78); +then such philosophers must be content with an audience of uneducated +persons, or, if writing as men of science, must hold themselves liable +to be opposed by other men of science, who are able, at any rate in +their own judgment, to take a wider survey of existence, and to +perceive possibilities to which the said narrow and over-definite +philosophers were blind. + + +_Life and Guidance._ + +Matter possesses energy, in the form of persistent motion, and it is +propelled by force; but neither matter nor energy possesses the power +of automatic guidance and control. Energy has no directing power (this +has been elaborated by Croll and others: see, for instance, p. 24, and +a letter in _Nature_, vol. 43, p. 434, thirteen years ago, under the +heading "Force and Determinism"). Inorganic matter is impelled solely +by pressure from behind, it is not influenced by the future, nor does +it follow a preconceived course nor seek a predetermined end. + +An organism animated by mind is in a totally different case. The +intangible influences of hunger, of a call, of perception of something +ahead, are then the dominant feature. An intelligent animal which is +being pushed is in an ignominious position and resents it; when led, or +when voluntarily obeying a call, it is in its rightful attitude. + +The essence of mind is design and purpose. There are some who deny that +there is any design or purpose in the universe at all: but how can that +be maintained when humanity itself possesses these attributes? (_cf._ +pp. 54, 74). Is it not more reasonable to say that just as we are +conscious of the power of guidance in ourselves, so guidance and +intelligent control may be an element running through the universe, and +may be incorporated even in material things? + +A traveller who has lost his way in a mountain district, coming across +a path, may rejoice, saying, "This will guide me home." A materialist, +if he were consistent, should laugh such a traveller to scorn, saying, +"What guidance or purpose can there be in a material object? there is +no guidance or purpose in the universe; things _are_ because they +cannot be otherwise, not because of any intention underlying them. How +can a path, which is little better than the absence of grass or the +wearing down of stones, know where you live or guide you to any desired +destination? Moreover, whatever knowledge or purpose the path exhibits +must be _in the path_, must be a property of the atoms of which it is +composed. To them some fraction of will, of power, of knowledge, and +of feeling _may_ perhaps be attributed, and from their aggregation +something of the same kind may perhaps be deduced. If the traveller can +decipher that, he may utilise the material object to his advantage; but +if he conceives the path to have been made with any teleological object +or intelligent purpose, he is abandoning himself to superstition, and +is as likely to be led by it to the edge of a precipice as to anywhere +else. Let him follow his superstition at his peril!" + +This is not a quotation, of course: but it is a parable. + +Matter is the instrument and vehicle of mind; incarnation is the mode +by which mind interacts with the present scheme of things, and thereby +the element of guidance is supplied; it can, in fact, be embodied in an +intelligent arrangement of inert inorganic matter. Even a mountain path +exhibits the property of guidance, and has direction: it is an +incorporation of intelligence, though itself inert. + +Direction is not a function of energy. The energy of sound from an +organ is supplied by the blower of the bellows, which may be worked by +a mechanical engine; but the melody and harmony, the sequence and +co-existence of notes, are determined by the dominating mind of the +musician: not necessarily of the executant alone, for the composer's +mind may be evoked to some extent even by a pianola. The music may be +said to be incarnate in the roll of paper which is ready to be passed +through the instrument. So also can the conception of any artist +receive material embodiment in his work, and if a picture or a +beautiful building is destroyed it can be made to rise again from its +ashes provided the painter or the architect still lives: in other +words, his thought can receive a fresh incarnation; and a perception of +the beautiful form shall hereafter, in a kindred spirit, arouse similar +ideas. + +There is thus a truth in materialism, but it is not a truth readily to +be apprehended and formulated. Matter may become imbued with life, and +full of vital association; something of the personality of a departed +owner seems to cling sometimes about an old garment, its curves and +folds can suggest him vividly to our recollection. I would not too +blatantly assert that even a doll on which much affection had been +lavished was wholly inert and material in the inorganic sense. The +tattered colours of a regiment are sometimes thought worthy to be hung +in a church. They are a symbol truly, but they may be something more. I +have reason to believe that a trace of individuality can cling about +terrestrial objects in a vague and almost imperceptible fashion, but to +a degree sufficient to enable those traces to be detected by persons +with suitable faculties. + +There is a deep truth in materialism; and it is the foundation of the +material parts of worship—sacraments and the like. It is possible to +exaggerate their efficacy, but it is also possible to ignore it too +completely. The whole universe is metrical, everything is a question of +degree. A property like radio-activity or magnetism, discovered +conspicuously in one form of matter, turns out to be possessed by +matter of every kind, though to very varying extent. + +So it would appear to be with the power possessed by matter to +incarnate and display mind. + +There are grades of incarnation: the most thorough kind is that +illustrated by our bodies; in them we are incarnate, but probably not +even in that case is the incarnation complete. It is quite credible +that our whole and entire personality is never terrestrially manifest. + +There are grades of incarnation. Some of the personality of an Old +Master is locked up in a painting: and whoever wilfully destroys a +great picture is guilty of something akin to murder, namely, the +premature and violent separation of soul and body. Some of the soul of +a musician can be occluded in a piece of manuscript, to be deciphered +thereafter by a perceptive mind. + +Matter is the vehicle of mind, but it is dominated and transcended by +it. A painting is held together by cohesive forces among the atoms of +its pigments, and if those forces rebelled or turned repulsive the +picture would be disintegrated and destroyed; yet those forces did not +make the picture. A cathedral is held together by inorganic forces, and +it was built in obedience to them, but they do not explain it. It may +owe its existence and design to the thought of someone who never +touched a stone, or even of someone who was dead before it was begun. +In its symbolism it represents One who was executed many centuries ago. +Death and Time are far from dominant. + +Are we so sure that when we truly attribute a sunset, or the moonlight +rippling on a lake, to the chemical and physical action of material +forces—to the vibrations of matter and ether as we know them, that we +have exhausted the whole truth of things? Many a thinker, brooding over +the phenomena of Nature, has felt that they represent the thoughts of a +dominating unknown Mind partially incarnate in it all. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +PROFESSOR HAECKEL'S CONJECTURAL PHILOSOPHY + +_A reply to Mr M'Cabe._ + + + Part of the preceding, so far as it is a criticism of Haeckel, was + given by me in the first instance as a Presidential Address to the + Members of the Birmingham and Midland Institute; and the greater + portion of this Address was printed in the _Hibbert Journal_ for + January 1905. Mr M'Cabe, the translator of Haeckel, thereupon took + up the cudgels on behalf of his Chief, and wrote an article in the + following July issue; to the pages of which references will be + given when quoting. A few observations of mine in reply to this + article emphasise one or two points which perhaps previously were + not quite clear; and so this reply, from the October number of the + _Hibbert Journal_, may be conveniently here reproduced. + +I have no fault to find with the tone of Mr M'Cabe's criticism of my +criticism of Haeckel, and it is satisfactory that one who has proved +himself an enthusiastic disciple, as well as a most industrious and +competent translator, should stand up for the honour and credit of a +foreign Master when he is attacked. + +But in admitting the appropriateness and the conciliatory tone of his +article, I must not be supposed to agree with its contentions; for +although he seeks to show that after all there is but little difference +between myself and Haeckel—and although in a sense that is true as +regards the fundamental facts of science, distinguishing the facts +themselves from any hypothetical and interpretative gloss—yet with +Haeckel's interpretations and speculative deductions from the facts, +especially with the mode of presentation, and the crude and unbalanced +attacks on other fields of human activity, my feeling of divergence +occasionally becomes intense. + +And it is just these superficial, and as Mr M'Cabe now admits +hypothetical, and as they seem to me rather rash, excursions into side +issues, which have attracted the attention of the average man, and have +succeeded in misleading the ignorant. + +If it could be universally recognised that + + "it is expressly as a hypothesis that Haeckel formulates his + conjecture as to manner of the origin of life" (p. 744), + +and if it could be further generally admitted that his authority +outside biology is so weak that + + "it is mere pettiness to carp at incidental statements on matters + on which Haeckel is known to have or to exercise no peculiar + authority, or to labour in determining the precise degree of + evidence for the monism of the inorganic or the organic world" (p. + 748), + +I should be quite content, and hope that I may never find it necessary +to carp at these things again. Also I entirely agree with Mr M'Cabe, +though I have some doubt whether Professor Haeckel would equally agree +with him, that + + "there remain the great questions whether this mechanical evolution + of the universe needed intelligent control, and whether the mind of + man stands out as imperishable amidst the wreck of worlds. These + constitute the serious controversy of our time in the region of + cosmic philosophy or science. These are the rocks that will divide + the stream of higher scientific thought for long years to come. To + many of us it seems that a concentration on these issues is as much + to be desired as sympathy and mutual appreciation" (p. 748). + +This is excellent; but then it is surely true that Professor Haeckel +has taken great pains to state forcibly and clearly that these great +questions cannot by him be regarded as open; in fact Mr M'Cabe himself +says— + + "Haeckel's position, if expressed at times with some harshness, and + not always with perfect consistency, is well enough known. He + rejects the idea of intelligent and benevolent guidance, chiefly on + the ground of the facts of dysteleology, and he fails to see any + evidence for exempting the human mind from the general law of + dissolution" (p. 748). + +Ultimately, however, he appears to have been driven to a singularly +unphilosophic view, of which Mr M'Cabe says— + + "It is interesting to note that in his latest work Haeckel regards + sensation (or unconscious sentience) as an ultimate and irreducible + attribute of substance, like matter (or extension) and force (or + spirit)" (p. 752). + +I call this unphilosophical because—omitting any reference here to the +singular parenthetical explanations or paraphrases, for which I suppose +Haeckel is not to be held responsible—this is simply abandoning all +attempt at explanation; it even closes the door to inquiry, and is +equivalent to an attitude proper to any man in the street, for it +virtually says: "Here the thing is anyhow, I cannot explain it." +However legitimate and necessary such an attitude may be as an +expression of our ignorance, we ought not to use the phrase "ultimate +and irreducible," as if no one could ever explain it. + +Moreover, if it be true that— + + "Haeckel does not teach—never did teach—that the spiritual + universe is an aspect of the material universe, as his critic makes + him say, it is his fundamental and most distinctive idea that both + are attributes or aspects of a deeper reality" (p. 745)— + +in that case there is, indeed, but little difference between us. But +no reader of Haeckel's _Riddle_ would have anticipated that such a +contention could be made by any devout disciple; and I wonder whether +Mr M'Cabe can adduce any passage adequate to support so estimable a +position. Surely it is difficult to sustain in face of quotations such +as these:— + + "The peculiar phenomenon of consciousness is ... a physiological + problem, and as such must be reduced to the phenomena of physics + and chemistry" (p. 65). + + "I therefore consider Psychology a branch of natural science—a + section of physiology.... We shall give to the material basis of + all psychic activity, without which it is inconceivable, the + provisional name of psychoplasm" (p. 32). + + +_Life and Energy._ + +The one and only point on which I think it worth while to express +decided dissidence is to be found in the paragraph where Mr M'Cabe +makes a statement concerning what he calls "vital force,"—a term I do +not remember to have ever used in my life. He claims for Haeckel what +is represented by the following extracts from his article (pp. 745, 6, +7):— + + "He does not say that life is 'knocked out of existence' when the + material organism decays. He says that the vital energy no longer + exists _as such_, but is resolved into the inorganic energies + associated with the gases and relics of the decaying body. Thus the + matter looks a little different when Sir Oliver comes to 'challenge + him to say by what right he gives that answer.' He gives it on this + plain right, that _science always finds these inorganic energies to + reappear on the dissolution of life_, and has never in a single + instance found the slightest reason to suspect (if we make an + exception for the moment of psychical research) that the vital + force as such has continued to exist." + +The italics are mine. A little further on he continues:— + + "There is no serious scientific demur to Haeckel's assumption of a + monism of the physical world, and his identification of vital force + with ordinary physical and chemical forces. + + "Sir Oliver seems to admit, indeed, that the vital force is not in + its nature distinct from physical force, but holds that it needs + 'guidance.'" + + "On all sides we hear the echo of Professor Le Conte's words: + 'Vital force may now be regarded as so much force withdrawn from + the general fund of chemical and physical forces.'" + +Very well then, here is no conflict on a matter of opinion or +philosophic speculation, but divergence on a downright question of +scientific fact (let it be noted that I do not wish to hold Professor +Haeckel responsible for these utterances of his disciple: he must +surely know better), and I wish to oppose the fallacy in the strongest +terms. + +If it were true that vital energy turned into or was anyhow convertible +into inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body had more +inorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that "these inorganic +energies" always or ever "reappear on the dissolution of life," then +undoubtedly _cadit quæstio_; life would immediately be proved to be a +form of energy, and would enter into the scheme of physics. But +inasmuch as all this is untrue—the direct contrary of the truth—I +maintain that life is _not_ a form of energy, that it is _not_ included +in our present physical categories, that its explanation is still to +seek. And I have further stated—though there I do not dogmatise—that +it appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which +interacts with this material frame of things, and, while there, exerts +guidance and control on the energy which already here exists (_cf._ p. +24); for, though they alter the quantity of energy no whit, and though +they merely utilise available energy like any other machine, live +things are able to direct inorganic terrestrial energy along new and +special paths, so as to achieve results which without such living +agency could not have occurred—_e.g._ forests, ant-hills, birds' +nests, Forth bridge, sonatas, cathedrals. + +I have never taught, nor for a moment thought, that "vital force is +akin to physical force, but that it needs guidance" (p. 747); the +phrase sounds to me nonsense. I perceive, not as a theory, but as a +fact, that life is _itself_ a guiding principle, a controlling agency, +_i.e._ that a live animal or plant can and does guide or influence the +elements of inorganic nature. The fact of an organism possessing life +enables it to build up material particles into many notable forms—oak, +eagle, man,—which material aggregates last until they are abandoned by +the guiding principle, when they more or less speedily fall into decay, +or become resolved into their elements, until utilised by a fresh +incarnation; and hence I say that whatever life is or is not, it is +certainly this: it is a guiding and controlling entity which interacts +with our world according to laws so partially known that we have to say +they are practically unknown, and therefore appear in some respects +mysterious. If it be thought that I mean by this something +superstitious, and for ever inexplicable or unintelligible, I have no +such meaning. I believe in the ultimate intelligibility of the +universe, though our present brains may require considerable +improvement before we can grasp the deepest things by their aid; but +this matter of "vitality" is probably not hopelessly beyond us; and it +does not follow, because we have no theory of life or death now, that +we shall be equally ignorant a century hence. + +My chief objection to Professor Haeckel's literary work is that he is +dogmatic on such points as these, and would have people believe, what +doubtless he believes himself, that he already knows the answer to a +number of questions in the realms of physical nature and of philosophy. +He writes in so forcible and positive and determined a fashion, from +the vantage ground of scientific knowledge, that he exerts an undue +influence on the uncultured among his readers, and causes them to fancy +that only benighted fools or credulous dupes can really disagree with +the historical criticisms, the speculative opinions, and philosophical, +or perhaps unphilosophical, conjectures, thus powerfully set forth. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HYPOTHESIS AND ANALOGIES CONCERNING LIFE + + +The view concerning Life which I have endeavoured to express is that it +is neither matter nor energy, nor even a function of matter or of +energy, but is something belonging to a different category; that by +some means at present unknown it is able to interact with the material +world for a time, but that it can also exist in some sense +independently; although in that condition of existence it is by no +means apprehensible by our senses. It is dependent on matter for its +phenomenal appearance—for its manifestation to us here and now, and +for all its terrestrial activities; but otherwise, I conceive that it +is independent, that its essential existence is continuous and +permanent, though its interactions with matter are discontinuous and +temporary; and I conjecture that it is subject to a law of +evolution—that a linear advance is open to it—whether it be in its +phenomenal or in its occult state. + +It may be well to indicate what I mean by conceiving of the possibility +that life has an existence apart from its material manifestations as we +know them at present. (Remember note on p. 40.) It is easy to imagine +that such a view is a mere surmise, having no intelligible meaning, and +that it is merely an attempt to clutch at human immortality in an +emotional and unscientific spirit. To this, however, I in no way plead +guilty. My ideas about life may be quite wrong, but they are as +cold-blooded and free from bias as possible; moreover, they apply not +to human life alone, but to all life—to that of all animals, and even +of plants; and they are held by me as a working hypothesis, the only +one which enables me to fit the known facts of ordinary vitality into a +thinkable scheme. Without it, I should be met by all the usual +puzzles:—(1) as to the stage at which existence begins, if it can be +thought of as "beginning" at all;[3] (2) as to the nature of +individuality, in the midst of diversity of particles, and the +determination of form irrespective of variety of food; (3) the +extraordinary rapidity of development, which results in the production +of a fully endowed individual in the course of some fraction of a +century. + + [Footnote 3: I doubt whether _existence_ can be "begun" at all, + save as the result of a juxtaposition of elements, or of a + conveyance of otion. We can put things together, and we can set + things in motion,—statics and kinetics,—can we do more? Ether + can be strained, matter can be moved: I doubt whether we see + more than this happening in the whole material universe. This + dictum is elaborated elsewhere.] + +With it, I cannot pretend that all these things are thoroughly +intelligible, but the lines on which an explanation may be forthcoming +seem to be laid down:—the notion being that what we see is a temporary +apparition or incarnation of a permanent entity or idea. + +It is easiest to explain my meaning by aid of analogues,—by the +construction, as it were, of "models," just as is the custom in Physics +whenever a recondite idea has to be grasped before it can be properly +formulated and before a theory is complete. + +I will take two analogies: one from Magnetism and one from Politics. + +"Parliament," or "the Army," is a body which consists of individual +members constantly changing, and its existence is not dependent on +their existence: it pre-existed any particular set of them, and it can +survive a dissolution. Even after a complete slaughter, the idea of the +Army would survive, and another would come into being, to carry on the +permanent traditions and life. + +Except as an idea in some sentient mind, it could not be said to exist +at all. The mere individuals composing it do not make it: without the +idea they would be only a disorganised mob. Abstractions like the +British Constitution, and other such things, can hardly be said to have +any incarnate existence. These exist _only_ as ideas. + +Parliament exists fundamentally as an idea, and it can be called into +existence or re-incarnated again. Whether it is the same Parliament or +not after a general election is a question that may be differently +answered. It is not identical, it may have different characteristics, +but there is certainly a sort of continuity; it is still a British +Parliament, for instance, it has not changed its character to that of +the French Assembly or the American Congress. It is a permanent entity +even when disembodied; it has a past and it has a future; it has a +fundamentally continuous existence though there are breaks or +dislocations in its conspicuous activity, and though each incarnation +has a separate identity or personality of its own. It is larger and +more comprehensive than any individual representation of it; it may be +said to have a "subliminal self," of which any septennial period sees +but a meagre epitome. + +Some of those epitomes are more, some less, worthy; sometimes there +appears only a poor deformity or a feeble-minded attempt, sometimes a +strong and vigorous embodiment of the root idea. + +As to its technical continuity of existence and actual mode of +reproduction, I suppose it would be merely fanciful to liken the +"Crown" to those germ-cells or nuclei, whose existence continues +without break, which serve the purpose of collecting and composing the +somatic cells in due season. + +Other illustrations of the temporary incarnation of a permanent idea +are readily furnished from the domain of Art; but, after all, the best +analogy to life that I can at present think of is to be found in the +subject of Magnetism. + +At one time it was possible to say that magnetism could not be produced +except by antecedent magnetism; that there was no known way of +generating it spontaneously; yet that, since it undoubtedly occurs in +certain rocks of the earth, it must have come into existence somehow, +at date unknown. It could also be said, and it can be said still, that, +given an initial magnet, any number of others can be made, without loss +to the generating magnet. By influence or induction exerted by +proximity on other pieces of steel, the properties of one magnet can be +excited in any number of such pieces,—the amount of magnetism thus +producible being infinite; that is, being strictly without limit, and +not dependent at all on the very finite strength of the original +magnet, which indeed continues unabated. It is just as if magnetism +were not really manufactured at all, but were a thing called out of +some infinite reservoir: as if something were brought into active and +prominent existence from a previously dormant state. + +And that indeed is the fact. The process of magnetisation, as conducted +with a steel magnet on other pieces of previously inert steel, in no +case really generates new lines of magnetic force, though it appears to +generate them. We now know that the lines which thus spring into +corporeal existence, as it were, are essentially closed curves or +loops, which cannot be generated; they can be expanded or enlarged to +cover a wide field, and they can be contracted or shrunk up into +insignificance, but they cannot be created, they must be pre-existent; +they were in the non-magnetised steel all the time, though they were so +small and ill-arranged that they had no perceptible effect whatever; +they constituted a potentiality for magnetism; they existed as +molecular closed curves or loops, which, by the operation called +magnetisation, could, some of them, be opened out into loops of finite +area and spread out into space, where they are called "lines of force." +They then constitute the region called a magnetic field, which remains +a seat of so-called "permanent" magnetic activity, until by lapse of +time, excessive heat, or other circumstance, they close up again; and +so the magnet, as a magnet, dies. The magnetism itself, however, has +not really died, it has a perpetual existence; and a fresh act of +magnetisation can recall it, or something indistinguishable from it, +into manifest activity again; so that it, or its equivalent, can once +more interact with the rest of material energies, and be dealt with by +physicists, or subserve the uses of humanity. Until that time of +re-appearance its existence can only be inferred by the thought of the +mathematician: it is indeed a matter of theory, not necessarily +recognised as true by the practical man. + +Our present view is that the act of magnetisation consists in a +re-arrangement and co-ordination of previously existing magnetic +elements, lying dormant, so to speak, in iron and other magnetic +materials; only a very small fraction of the whole number being usually +brought into activity at any one time, and not necessarily always the +same actual set. Only a small and indiscriminate selection is made from +all the molecular loops; and it can be a different group each time, or +some elements may be different and some the same, whenever a fresh +individual or magnet is brought into being. + +All this can be said concerning the old process of magnetisation—the +process as it was doubtless familiar to the unknown discoverer of the +lodestone, to the ancient users of the mariner's compass, and to Dr +Gilbert of Colchester, the discoverer of the magnetised condition of +the Earth. + +But within the nineteenth century a fresh process of magnetisation has +been discovered, and this new or electrical process is no longer +obviously dependent on the existence of antecedent magnetism, but seems +at first sight to be a property freshly or spontaneously generated, as +it were. The process was discovered as the result of setting +electricity into motion. So long as electricity was studied in its +condition at rest on charged conductors, as in the old science of +electrostatics or frictional electricity, it possessed no magnetic +properties whatever, nor did it encroach on the magnetic domain: only +vague similarities in the phenomena of attraction and repulsion aroused +attention. But directly electricity was set in motion, constituting +what is called an electric current, magnetic lines of force instantly +sprang into being, without the presence of any steel or iron; and in +twenty years they were recognised. These electrically generated lines +of force are similar to those previously known, but they need no matter +to sustain them. They need matter to display them, but they themselves +exist equally well in perfect vacuum. + +How did they manage to spring into being? Can it be said that they too +had existed previously in some dormant condition in the ether of space? +That they too were closed loops opened out, and their existence thus +displayed, by the electric current? + +That is an assertion which might reasonably be made: it is not the only +way of regarding the matter, however, and the mode in which a magnetic +field originates round the path of a moving charge—being generated +during the acceleration-period by a pulse of radiation which travels +with the speed of light, being maintained during the steady-motion +period by a sort of inertia as if in accordance with the first law of +motion, and being destroyed only by a return pulse of re-radiation +during a retardation-period when the moving charge is stopped or +diverted or reversed—all this can hardly be fully explained until the +intimate nature of an electric charge has been more fully worked out; +and the subject now trenches too nearly on the more advanced parts of +Physics to be useful any longer as an analogue for general readers. + +Indeed it must be recollected that no analogy will bear pressing too +far. All that we are concerned to show is that known magnetic behaviour +exhibits a very fair analogy to some aspects of that still more +mysterious entity which we call "life"; and if anyone should assert +that all magnetism was pre-existent in some ethereal condition, that it +would never go out of essential existence, but that it could be brought +into relation with the world of matter by certain acts,—that while +there it could operate in a certain way, controlling the motion of +bodies, interacting with forms of energy, producing sundry effects for +a time, and then disappearing from our ken to the immaterial region +whence it came,—he would be saying what no physicist would think it +worth while to object to, what many indeed might agree with. + +Well, that is the kind of assertion which I want to make, as a working +hypothesis, concerning life. + +An acorn has in itself the potentiality not of one oak-tree alone, but +of a forest of oak-trees, to the thousandth generation, and indeed of +oak-trees without end. There is no sort of law of "conservation" here. +It is not as if something were passed on from one thing to another. It +is not analogous to energy at all, it is analogous to the magnetism +which can be excited by any given magnet: the required energy, in both +cases, being extraneously supplied, and only transmuted into the +appropriate form by the guiding principle which controls the operation. + +We do not know how to generate life without the action of antecedent +life at present, though that may be a discovery lying ready for us in +the future; but even if we did, it would still be true (as I think) +that the life was in some sense pre-existent, that it was not really +created _de novo_, that it was brought into actual practical every-day +existence doubtless, but that it had pre-existed in some sense too: +being called out, as it were, from some great reservoir or storehouse +of vitality, to which, when its earthly career is ended, it will +return. + +Indeed, it cannot in any proper sense be said ever to have left that +storehouse, though it has been made to interact with the world for a +time; and, if we might so express it, it may be thought of as carrying +back with it, into the general reservoir, any individuality, and any +experience and training or development, which it can be thought of as +having acquired here. Such a statement as this last cannot be made of +magnetism, to which no known law of evolution and progress can be +supposed to apply; but of life, of anything subject to continuous +evolution or linear progress embodied in the race, of any condition not +cyclically determinate and returning into itself, but progressing and +advancing—acquiring fresh potentialities, fresh powers, fresh +beauties, new characteristics such as perhaps may never in the whole +universe have been displayed before—of everything which possesses such +powers as these, a statement akin to the above may certainly be made. +To all such things, when they reach a high enough stage, the ideas of +continued personality, of memory, of persistent individual existence, +not only may, but I think must, apply; notwithstanding the admitted +return of the individual after each incarnation to the central store +from which it was differentiated and individualised. + +Even so a villager, picked out as a recruit and sent to the seat of +war, may serve his country, may gain experience, acquire a soul and a +width of horizon such as he had not dreamt of; and when he returns, +after the war is over, may be merged as before in his native village. +But the village is the richer for his presence, and his individuality +or personality is not really lost; though to the eye of the world, +which has no further need for it, it has practically ceased to be. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WILL AND GUIDANCE + +(_Partially read to the Synthetic Society in February 1903._) + + +The influence of the divine on the human, and on the material world, +has been variously conceived in different ages, and various forms of +difficulty have been at different times felt and suggested; but always +some sort of analogy between human action and divine action has had +perforce to be drawn, in order to make the latter in the least +intelligible to our conception. The latest form of difficulty is +peculiarly deep-seated, and is a natural outcome of an age of physical +science. It consists in denying the possibility of any guidance or +control,—not only on the part of a Deity, but on the part of every one +of his creatures. It consists in pressing the laws of physics to what +may seem their logical and ultimate conclusion, in applying the +conservation of energy without ruth or hesitation, and so excluding, as +some have fancied, the possibility of free-will action, of guidance, of +the self-determined action of mind or living things upon matter, +altogether. The appearance of control has accordingly been considered +illusory, and has been replaced by a doctrine of pure mechanism, +enveloping living things as well as inorganic nature. + +And those who for any reason have felt disinclined or unable to +acquiesce in this exclusion of non-mechanical agencies, whether it be +by reason of faith and instinct or by reason of direct experience and +sensation to the contrary, have thought it necessary of late years to +seek to undermine the foundation of Physics, and to show that its +much-vaunted laws rest upon a hollow basis, that their exactitude is +illusory,—that the conservation of energy, for instance, has been too +rapid an induction, that there may be ways of eluding many physical +laws and of avoiding submission to their sovereign sway. + +By this sacrifice it has been thought that the eliminated guidance and +control can philosophically be reintroduced. + +This, I gather, may have been the chief motive of a critical +examination of the foundations of Physics by an American author, J. +B. Stallo, in a little book called the _Concepts of Physics_. But +the worst of that book was that Judge Stallo was not fully familiar +with the teachings of the great physicists; he appears to have +collected his information from popular writings, where the doctrines +were very imperfectly laid down; so that some of his book is +occupied in demolishing constructions of straw, unrecognisable by +professed physicists except as caricatures at which they also might +be willing to heave an occasional missile. + +The armoury pressed into the service of Professor James Ward's not +wholly dissimilar attack on Physics is of heavy calibre, and his +criticism cannot in general be ignored as based upon inadequate +acquaintance with the principles under discussion; but still his +Gifford lectures raise an antithesis or antagonism between the +fundamental laws of mechanics and the possibility of any intervention +whether human or divine. + +If this antagonism is substantial it is serious; for Natural +Philosophers will not be willing to concede fundamental inaccuracy or +uncertainty about their recognised and long-established laws of motion, +when applied to ordinary matter; nor will they be prepared to tolerate +any the least departure from the law of the conservation of energy, +when all forms of energy are taken into account. Hence, if guidance +and control can be admitted into the scheme by no means short of +undermining and refuting those laws, there may be every expectation +that the attitude of scientific men will be perennially hostile to the +idea of guidance or control, and so to the efficacy of prayer, and to +many another practical outcome of religious belief. It becomes +therefore an important question to consider whether it is true that +life or mind is incompetent to disarrange or interfere with matter at +all, except as itself an automatic part of the machine,—whether in +fact it is merely an ornamental appendage or phantasmal accessory of +the working parts. + +Now experience—the same kind of experience as gave us our scheme of +mechanics—shows us that to all appearance live animals certainly can +direct and control mechanical energies to bring about desired and +preconceived results; and that man can definitely will that those +results shall occur. The way the energy is provided is understood, and +its mode of application is fairly understood; what is not understood is +the way its activity is _determined_. Undoubtedly our body is material +and can act on other matter; and the energy of its operations is +derived from food, like any other self-propelled and fuel-fed +mechanism; but mechanism is usually controlled by an attendant. The +question is whether our will or mind or life can direct our body's +energy along certain channels to attain desired ends, or whether—as in +a motor-car with an automaton driver—the end and aim of all activity +is wholly determined by mechanical causes. And a further question +concerns the mode whereby vital control, if any, is achieved. + +Answers that might be hazarded are: + + (_a_) That life is itself a latent store of energy, and achieves + its results by imparting to matter energy that would not otherwise + be in evidence: in which case life would be a part of the machine, + and as truly mechanical as all the rest. + +Experiment lends no support to this view of the relation between life +and energy, and I hold that it is false; because the essential property +of energy is that it can transform itself into other forms, remaining +constant in quantity, whereas life does not add to the stock of any +known form of energy, nor does death affect the sum of energy in any +known way. + + (_b_) That life is something outside the scheme of mechanics—outside + the categories of matter and energy; though it can nevertheless + control or direct material forces—timing them and determining + their place of application,—subject always to the laws of energy + and all other mechanical laws; supplementing or accompanying these + laws, therefore, but contradicting or traversing them no whit. + +This second answer I hold to be true; but in order to admit its truth +we must recognise that force can be exerted and energy directed, by +suitable adjustment of existing energy, without any introduction of +energy from without; in other words, that the energy of operations +automatically going on in any active region of the universe—any region +where transformation and transference of energy are continuously +occurring whether life be present or not—can be guided along paths +that it would not automatically have taken, and can be directed so as +to produce effects that would not otherwise have occurred; and this +without any breakage or suspension of the laws of dynamics, and in full +correspondence with both the conservation of energy and the +conservation of momentum. + +That is where I part company with Professor James Ward in the second +volume of _Naturalism and Agnosticism_; with whom nevertheless on many +broad issues I find myself in fair agreement. Those who find a real +antinomy between "mechanism and morals" must either throw overboard the +possibility of interference or guidance or willed action altogether, +which is one alternative, or must assume that the laws of Physics are +only approximate and untrustworthy, which is the other alternative—the +alternative apparently favoured by Professor James Ward. I wish to +argue that neither of these alternatives is necessary, and that there +is a third or middle course of proverbial safety: all that is necessary +is to realise and admit that the laws of Physical Science are +_incomplete_, when regarded as a formulation and philosophical summary +of the universe in general. No Laplacian calculator can be supplied +with all the data. + +On a stagnant and inactive world life would admittedly be powerless: it +could only make dry bones stir in such a world if itself were a form of +energy; I do not suppose for a moment that it could be incarnated on +such a world; it is only potent where inorganic energy is mechanically +"available"—to use Lord Kelvin's term,—that is to say, is either +potentially or actually in process of transfer and transformation. In +other words, life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide +its transmutations. + +It has gradually dawned upon me that the reason why Philosophers who +are well acquainted with Physical or Dynamical Science are apt to fall +into the error of supposing that mental and vital interference with the +material world is impossible, in spite of their clamorous experience to +the contrary (or else, on the strength of that experience, to conceive +that there is something the matter with the formulation of physical and +dynamical laws), is because all such interference is naturally and +necessarily excluded from scientific methods and treatises. + +In pure Mechanics, "force" is treated as a function of configuration +and momentum: the positions, the velocities, and the accelerations of a +conservative system depend solely on each other, on initial conditions, +and on mass; or, if we choose so to express it, the co-ordinates, the +momenta, and the kinetic energies, of the parts of any dynamical system +whatever, are all functions of time and of each other, and of nothing +else. In other words, we have to deal, in this mode of regarding +things, with a definite and completely determinate world, to which +prediction may confidently be applied. + +But this determinateness is got by refusing to contemplate anything +outside a certain scheme: it is an internal truth within the assigned +boundaries, and is quite consistent with psychical interference +and indeterminateness, as soon as those boundaries are ignored; +determinateness is not part of the _essence_ of dynamical doctrine, +it is arrived at by the tacit assumption that no undynamical or +hyperdynamical agencies exist: in short, by that process of abstraction +which is invariably necessary for simplicity, and indeed for +possibility, of methodical human treatment. Everyone engaged in +scientific research is aware that if exuberant charwomen, or +intelligent but mischievous students (who for the moment may be taken +to represent life and mind respectively) are admitted into a laboratory +and given full scope for their activities, the subsequent scientific +results—though still, no doubt, in some strained sense, concordant +with law and order—are apt to be too complicated for investigation; +wherefore there is usually an endeavour to exclude these incalculable +influences, and to make a tacit assumption that they have not been let +in. + +There is a similar tacit assumption in treatises on Physics and +Chemistry; viz., that the laws of automatic nature shall be allowed +unrestricted and unaided play, that nothing shall intervene in any +operation from start to finish save mechanical sequent and +antecedent,—that it is permissible in fact to exercise abstraction, as +usual, to the exclusion of agents not necessarily connected with the +problem, and not contemplated by the equations. + +In text-books of Dynamics and in treatises of Natural Philosophy that +is a perfectly legitimate procedure;[4] but when later on we come to +philosophise, and to deal with the universe as a whole, we must forgo +the ingrained habit of abstraction, and must remember that for a +_complete_ treatment _nothing_ must permanently be ignored. So if +life and mind and will, and curiosity and mischief and folly, and greed +and fraud and malice, and a whole catalogue of attributes and things +not contemplated in Natural Philosophy—if these are known to have any +real existence in the larger world of total experience, and if there is +any reason to believe that any one of them may have had some influence +in determining an observed result, then it is foolish to exclude these +things from philosophic consideration, on the ground that they are out +of place in the realm of Natural Philosophy, that they are not allowed +for in its scheme, and therefore cannot possibly be supposed capable of +exerting any effective interference, any real guidance or control. + + [Footnote 4: It is on a similar basis that there is a science of + rigid dynamics, with elasticity and fluidity excluded; and thus + also can there be a hydrodynamics in which the consequences of + viscosity are ignored.] + +My contention then is—and in this contention I am practically speaking +for my brother physicists—that whereas life or mind can neither +generate energy nor directly exert force, yet it can cause matter to +exert force on matter, and so can exercise guidance and control: it can +so prepare any scene of activity, by arranging the position of existing +material, and timing the liberation of existing energy, as to produce +results concordant with an idea or scheme or intention: it can, in +short, "aim" and "fire." + +Guidance of _matter_ can be affected by a passive exertion of force +without doing work; as a quiescent rail can guide a train to its +destination, provided an active engine propels it. But the analogy of +the rail must not be pressed: the rail "guides" by exerting force +perpendicular to the direction of motion, it does no work but it +sustains an equal opposite reaction.[5] The guidance exercised by life +or mind is managed in an unknown but certainly different fashion: +"determination" can sustain no reaction—if it could it would be a +straightforward mechanical agent—but it can utilise the mechanical +properties both of rail and of engine; it arranged for the rail to be +placed in position so that the lateral force thereby exerted should +guide all future trains to a desired destination, and it further took +steps to design and compose locomotives of sufficient power, and to +start them at a prearranged time. It "employs" mechanical stress, as a +capitalist employs a labourer, not doing anything itself, but directing +the operations. It is impossible to explain all this fully by the laws +of mechanics alone, that is to say, no mechanical analysis can be +complete and all-embracing, though the whole procedure is fully subject +to those laws. + + [Footnote 5: It is well to bear in mind the distinction between + "force" and "energy." These terms have been so popularly confused + that it may be difficult always to discriminate them, but in + Physics they are absolutely discriminated. We have a direct sense + of "force," in our muscles, whether they be moving or at rest. A + force in motion is a "power," it "does work" and transfers energy + from one body to another, which is commonly though incorrectly + spoken of as "generating" energy. But a force at rest—a mere + statical stress, like that exerted by a pillar or a watershed—does + no work, and "generates" or transfers no energy; yet the one + sustains a roof which would otherwise fall, thereby screening a + portion of ground from vegetation; while the other deflects a + rain-drop into the Danube or the Rhine. This latter is the kind + of force which constrains a stone to revolve in a circle instead + of a straight line; a force like that of a groove or slot or + channel or "guide."] + +To every force there is an equal opposite force or reaction, and a +reaction may be against a live body, but it is never suspected of being +against the abstraction life or mind—that would indeed be enlarging +the scope of mechanics!—the reaction is always against some other +body. All stresses as a matter of fact occur in the ether; and they all +have a material terminus at each end (or in exceptional cases a +wave-front or some other recondite ethereal equivalent), that is to say +something possessing inertia; but the timed or _opportune_ existence of +a particular stress may be the result of organisation and control. +Mechanical operations can be thus dominated by intelligence and +purpose. When a stone is rolling over a cliff, it is all the same to +"energy" whether it fall on point A or point B of the beach. But at A +it shall merely dent the sand, whereas at B it shall strike a detonator +and explode a mine. Scribbling on a piece of paper results in a certain +distribution of fluid and production of a modicum of heat: so far as +energy is concerned it is the same whether we sign Andrew Carnegie or +Alexander Coppersmith, yet the one effort may land us in twelve months' +imprisonment or may build a library, according to circumstances, while +the other achieves no result at all. John Stuart Mill used to say that +our sole power over Nature was to _move_ things; but strictly speaking +we cannot do even that: we can only arrange that things shall move each +other, and can determine by suitably preconceived plans the kind and +direction of the motion that shall ensue at a given time and place. +Provided always that we include in this category of "things" our +undoubtedly material bodies, muscles and nerves. + +But here is just the puzzle: at what point does will or determination +enter into the scheme? Contemplate a brain cell, whence originates a +certain nerve-process whereby energy is liberated with some resultant +effect; what pulled the detent in that cell which started the impulse? +No doubt some chemical process: combination or dissociation, something +atomic, occurred; but what made it occur just then and in that way? + +I answer, not anything that we as yet understand, but apparently the +same sort of pre-arrangement that determined whether the stone from the +cliff should fall on point A or point B—the same sort of process that +guided the pen to make legible and effective writing instead of +illegible and ineffective scrawls—the same kind of control that +determines when and where a trigger shall be pulled so as to secure the +anticipated slaughter of a bird. So far as energy is concerned, the +explosion and the trigger-pulling are the same identical operations +whether the aim be exact or random. It is intelligence which directs; +it is physical energy which is directed and controlled and produces the +result in time and space. + +It will be said _some_ energy is needed to pull a hair-trigger, to open +the throttle-valve of an engine, to press the button which shall +shatter a rock. Granted: but the work-concomitants of that energy are +all familiar, and equally present whether it be arranged so as to +produce any predetermined effect or not. The opening of the +throttle-valve for instance demands just the same exertion, and results +in just the same imperceptible transformation of fully-accounted-for +energy, whether it be used to start a train in accordance with a +time-table and the guard's whistle, or whether it be pushed over, as if +by the wind, at random. The shouting of an order to a troop demands +vocal energy and produces its due equivalent of sound; but the +intelligibility of the order is something superadded, and its result +may be to make not sound or heat alone, but History. + +Energy must be _available_ for the performance of any physical +operation, but the energy is independent of the determination or +arrangement. Guidance and control are not forms of energy, nor need +they be themselves phantom modes of force: their superposition upon the +scheme of Physics need perturb physical and mechanical _laws_ no whit, +and yet it may profoundly affect the consequences resulting from those +same laws. The whole effort of civilisation would be futile if we could +not guide the powers of nature. The powers are there, else we should be +helpless; but life and mind are outside those powers, and, by +pre-arranging their field of action, can direct them along an organised +course. + + * * * * * + +And this same life or mind, as we know it, is accessible to petition, +to affection, to pity, to a multitude of non-physical influences; and +hence, indirectly, the little plot of physical universe which is now +our temporary home has become amenable to truly spiritual control. + +I lay stress upon a study of the nature and mode of human action of the +interfering or guiding kind, because by that study we must be led if we +are to form any intelligent conception of divine action. True, it might +be feasible to admit divine agency and yet to deny the possibility of +any human power of the same kind,—though that would be a nebulous and +at least inconclusive procedure; but if once we are constrained to +admit the existence and reality of human guidance and control, +superposed upon the physical scheme, we cannot deny the possibility of +such power and action to any higher being, nor even to any totality of +Mind of which ours is a part. + +I do not see how the function claimed can be resented, except by those +who deny "life" to be anything at all. If it exists, if it is not mere +illusion, it appears to me to be something whose full significance lies +in another scheme of things, but which touches and interacts with this +material universe in a certain way, building its particles into notable +configurations for a time—without confounding any physical laws,—and +then evaporating whence it came. This language is vague and figurative +undoubtedly, but, I contend, appropriately so, for we have not yet a +theory of life—we have not even a theory of the essential nature of +gravitation; discoveries are waiting to be made in this region, and it +is absurd to suppose that we are already in possession of all the data. +We can wait; but meanwhile we need not pretend that because we do not +understand them, therefore life and will can accomplish nothing; we +need not imagine that "life"—with its higher developments and still +latent powers—is an impotent nonentity. The philosophic attitude, +surely, is to observe and recognise its effects, both what it can and +what it cannot achieve, and to realise that our present knowledge of it +is extremely partial and incomplete. + + * * * * * + +NOTE ON FREE WILL AND FOREKNOWLEDGE. + +In the above chapter I must not be understood as pretending to settle +the thorny question of a reconciliation between freedom of choice and +pre-determination or prevision. All I there contend for is that no +mechanical or scientific determinism, subject to special conditions in +a limited region, can be used to contradict freedom of the will, under +generalised conditions, in the Universe as a whole. + +Nevertheless there are things which may perhaps be usefully said, even +on the larger and much-worn topic of the present note. If we still +endeavour to learn as much as possible from human analogies, examples +are easy:— + +An architect can draw in detail a building that is to be; the dwellers +in a valley can be warned to evacuate their homesteads because a city +has determined that a lake shall exist where none existed before. +Doubtless the city is free to change its mind, but it is not expected +to; and all predictions are understood to be made subject to the +absence of disturbing, _i.e._ unforeseen, causes. Even the prediction +of an eclipse is not free from a remote uncertainty, and in the case of +the return of meteoric showers and comets the element of contingency is +not even remote. + +But it will be said that to higher and superhuman knowledge all +possible contingencies would be known and recognised as part of the +data. That is quite possibly, though not quite certainly, true: and +there comes the real difficulty of reconciling absolute prediction of +events with real freedom of the actors in the drama. I anticipate that +a complete solution of the problem must involve a treatment of the +subject of _time_, and a recognition that "time," as it appears to us, +is really part of our human limitations. We all realise that "the past" +is in some sense not non-existent but only past; we may readily surmise +that "the future" is similarly in some sense existent, only that we +have not yet arrived at it; and our links with the future are less +understood. That a seer in a moment of clairvoyance may catch a glimpse +of futurity—some partial picture of what perhaps exists even now in +the forethought of some higher mind—is not inconceivable. It may be +after all only an unconscious and inspired inference from the present, +on an enlarged and exceptional scale; and it is a matter for +straightforward investigation whether such prevision ever occurs. + +The following article, on the general subject of "Free Will and +Determinism," reprinted from the _Contemporary Review_ for March 1904, +may conveniently be here reproduced:— + + The conflict between Free Will and Determinism depends on a + question of boundaries. We occasionally ignore the fact that there + must be a subjective partition in the Universe separating the + region of which we have some inkling of knowledge from the region + of which we have absolutely none; we are apt to regard the portion + on our side as if it were the whole, and to debate whether it must + or must not be regarded as self-determined. As a matter of fact any + partitioned-off region is in general not completely + self-determined, since it is liable to be acted upon by influences + from the other side of the partition. If the far side of the + boundary is ignored, then an observer on the near side will + conclude that things really initiate their own motion and act + without stimulation or motive, in some cases, whereas the fact is + that no act is performed without stimulus or motive; even + irrational acts are caused by something, and so also are rational + acts. Madness and delirium are natural phenomena amenable to law. + + But in actual life we are living on one side of a boundary, and are + aware of things on one side only; the things on this side appear to + us to constitute the whole universe, since they are all of which we + have any knowledge, either through our senses or in other ways. + Hence we are subject to certain illusions, and feel certain + difficulties,—the illusion of unstimulated and unmotived freedom + of action, and the difficulty of reconciling this with the felt + necessity for general determinism and causation. + + If we speak in terms of the part of the universe that we know and + have to do with, we find free agencies rampant among organic life; + so that "freedom of action" is a definite and real experience, and + for practical convenience is so expressed. But if we could seize + the entirety of things and perceive what was occurring beyond the + range of our limited conceptions we should realise that the whole + was welded together, and that influences were coming through which + produced the effects that we observe. + + Those philosophers, if there are any, who assert that we are wholly + chained bound and controlled by the circumstances of that part of + the Universe of which we are directly aware—that we are the slaves + of our environment and must act as we are compelled by forces + emanating from things on our side of the boundary alone,—those + philosophers err. + + This kind of determinism is false; and the reaction against it has + led other philosophers to assert that we are _lawlessly_ free, and + able to initiate any action without motive or cause,—that each + individual is a capricious and chaotic entity, not part of a Cosmos + at all! + + It may be doubted whether anyone has clearly and actually + maintained either of these theses in all its crudity; but there are + many who vigorously and cheaply deny one or other of them, and in + so denying the one conceive that they are maintaining the other. + Both the above theses are false; yet Free Will and Determinism are + both true, and in a completely known universe would cease to be + contradictories. + + The reconciliation between opposing views lies in realising that + the Universe of which we have a kind of knowledge is but a portion + or an aspect of the whole. + + We are free, and we are controlled. We are free, in so far as our + sensible surroundings and immediate environment are concerned; that + is, we are free for all practical purposes, and can choose between + alternatives as they present themselves. We are controlled, as + being intrinsic parts of an entire cosmos suffused with law and + order. + + No scheme of science based on knowledge of our environment can + confidently predict our actions, nor the actions of any + sufficiently intelligent live creature. For "mind" and "will" have + their roots on the other side of the partition, and that which we + perceive of them is but a fraction of the whole. Nevertheless, the + more developed and consistent and harmonious our character becomes, + the less liable is it to random outbreaks, and the more certainly + can we be depended on. We thus, even now, can exhibit some + approximation to the highest state—that conscious unison with the + entire scheme of existence which is identical with perfect freedom. + + If we could grasp the totality of things we should realise that + everything was ordered and definite, linked up with everything else + in a chain of causation, and that nothing was capricious and + uncertain and uncontrolled. The totality of things is, however, and + must remain, beyond our grasp; hence the actual working of the + process, the nature of the links, the causes which create our + determinations, are frequently unknown. And since it is necessary + for practical purposes to treat what is utterly beyond our ken as + if it were non-existent, it becomes easily possible to fall into + the erroneous habit of conceiving the transcendental region to be + completely inoperative. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +FURTHER SPECULATION AS TO THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE[6] + +_Preliminary Remarks on Recent Views in Chemistry._ + + +It is a fact extremely familiar to chemists that the groupings possible +to atoms of carbon are exceptionally numerous and complicated, each +carbon atom having the power of linking itself with others to an +extraordinary extent, so that it is no exceptional thing to find a +substance which contains twenty or thirty atoms of carbon as well as +other elements linked together in its molecule in a perfectly definite +way, the molecule being still classifiable as that of a definite +chemical compound. But there are also some non-elementary bodies which, +although they are chemically complete and satisfied, retain a +considerable vestige of power to link their molecules together so as to +make a complex and massive compound molecule; and these are able not +only to link similar molecules into a more or less indefinite chain, +but to unite and include the saturated molecules of many other +substances also into the unwieldy aggregate. + + [Footnote 6: An article reprinted from the _North American + Review_ for May 1905.] + +Of the non-elementary bodies possessing this property, _water_ appears +to be one of the chief; for there is evidence to show that the ordinary +H-2-O molecule of water, although it may be properly spoken of as a +saturated or satisfied compound, seldom exists in the simple isolated +shape depicted by this formula, but rather that a great number of such +simple molecules attach themselves to each other by what is called +their residual or outstanding affinity, and build themselves up into a +complex aggregate. + +The doctrine of residual affinity has been long advocated by Armstrong; +and the present writer has recently shown that it is a necessary +consequence of the electrical theory of chemical affinity,[7] and that +the structure of the resulting groupings, or compound aggregates, may +be partially studied by means of floating magnets, somewhat after the +manner of Alfred Mayer.[8] + + [Footnote 7: See _Nature_, vol. 70, p. 176, June 23, 1904.] + + [Footnote 8: See an article on "Modern Views of Chemical Affinity" + by the present writer in a magazine called _Technics_, for + September 1904.] + +It may be well here to explain to students that one of the lines of +argument which lead to the conclusion that the water molecule, as it +ordinarily exists, is really complex and massive, is based upon +measurements of the Faraday dielectric constant for water; for this +constant, or "specific inductive capacity," is found to be very large, +something like 50 times that of air or free ether; whereas for glass it +is only 5 or 6 times that of free space. The dielectric constant of a +substance generally increases with the density or massiveness of its +molecule,—indeed, the value of this constant is one of the methods +whereby matter displays its interaction with and loading of the free +ether of space,—and any such density as the conventional nine times +that of hydrogen for the molecule of water would be wholly unable to +explain its immense dielectric constant. + +The influence of the massiveness of a water molecule is also displayed +in its power of tearing asunder or dissociating any salts or other +simple chemical substance introduced into it; common salt, for +instance, is found always to have a certain percentage of its molecules +knocked or torn asunder directly it is dissolved in water, so that, in +addition to a number of salt molecules in solution, there are a few +positively charged sodium atoms and a few negatively charged chlorine +atoms, existing in a state of loose attraction to the water aggregate, +and amenable to the smallest electric force; which, when applied, urges +the chlorine one way and the sodium the other way, so that they can be +removed at an electrode and their place supplied by freshly dissociated +molecules of salt, thus bringing about its permanent electro-chemical +decomposition, and enabling the water to behave as an electrolytic +conductor directly a little salt or acid is dissolved in it. + +The power of the water molecule to associate itself with molecules of +other substances is illustrated by the well-known fact that water is an +almost universal solvent. It is its residual affinity which enables it +to enter into weak chemical combination with a large number of other +substances, and thus to dissolve those substances. The dissolving power +usually increases when the temperature is raised, possibly because the +self-contained or self-sufficient groupings of the water molecules are +then to some extent broken up and the fragments enabled to cling on to +the foreign or introduced matter instead of only to each other. The +foreign substance is apt to be extruded again when the liquid cools, +and when the affinity of the water-aggregates for each other resumes +its sway. Very hot water can dissolve not only the substances +familiarly known to be soluble in water, but it can dissolve things +like glass also; so that glass vessels are unable to retain water kept +under high pressure at a very high temperature, approaching a red heat. + +Another material which also seems to have the power of combining with a +number of other bodies, under the influence of the loose mode of +chemical combination spoken of as residual affinity, is carbon; so that +a block of charcoal can absorb hundreds of times its own bulk of +certain gases. + +Indeed, Sir James Dewar has recently employed this absorbing power of +very cold carbon to produce a perfect kind of vacuum, which may, +perhaps, be the nearest approach to absolute vacuum that has yet been +attained: probably higher than can be attained by any kind of +mechanical or mercury pump. + + +_Unexpected Influence of Size._ + +Suppose now a substance contains a great number of carbon molecules and +a great number of water molecules, each of which has this residual +affinity or power of clinging together well developed, what may be +expected to be the result? Surely, the formation of a molecule +consisting of thousands or hundreds of thousands of atoms, constituting +substances more complex even than those already known to or analysable +by organic chemistry; and if these complex molecules likewise possess +the adhesive faculty, a grouping of millions or even billions of atoms +may ultimately be formed. (A billion, that is a million millions, of +atoms is truly an immense number, but the resulting aggregate is still +excessively minute. A portion of substance consisting of a billion +atoms is only barely visible with the highest power of a microscope; +and a speck or granule, in order to be visible to the naked eye, like a +grain of lycopodium-dust, must be a million times bigger still.) Such a +grouping is likely to have properties differing not only in degree but +in kind from the properties of simple substances. + +For it must not be thought that aggregation only produces quantitative +change and leaves quality unaltered. Fresh qualities altogether are +liable to be introduced or to make their appearance at certain +stages—certain critical stages—in the building up of a complex mass +(_cf._ p. 71). + +The habitability of a house, for instance, depends on its possessing a +cavity of a certain size; there is a critical size of brick-aggregate +which enables it to serve as a dwelling. Nothing much smaller than this +would do at all. The aggregate retains this property, thus conferred +upon it by size, however big it may be made after that; until it +becomes a palace or a cathedral, when it may perhaps reach an upper +limit of size at which it would be crushed by its own weight, or at +which the span of roof is too great to be supported. But the +difference, as regards habitability, between a palace and a hovel is +far less than that between a hovel and one of the air-holes in a brick +or loaf, or any other cavity too small to act as a human habitation. +The difference as regards habitability is then an infinite difference. + +To take a less trivial instance; a planet which is large enough to +retain an atmosphere by its gravitative attraction differs utterly, in +potentiality and importance, from the numerous lumps of matter +scattered throughout space, which, though they may be as large as a +haystack or a mountain or as the British Isles, or even Europe, are yet +too small to hold any trace of air to their surface, and therefore +cannot in any intelligible sense of the word be regarded as habitable. +One of the lumps of matter in space can become a habitable planet only +when it has attained a certain size, which conceivably it might do by +falling together with others into a complex aggregate under the +influence of gravitative attraction. The asteroids have not succeeded +in doing this, but the planets have; and, accordingly, one of them, at +any rate, has become a habitable world. + +But observe that the great size and the consequent retention of an +atmosphere did not generate the inhabitants; it satisfied one of the +conditions necessary for their existence. How they arose is another +matter. All that we have seen so far is that an aggregate of bodies may +possess properties and powers which the separate bodies themselves +possess in no kind or sort of way. It is not a question of degree, but +of kind. + +So also, further, if the aggregate is large enough, very much larger +than any planet, as large as a million earths aggregated together, it +acquires the property of conspicuous radio-activity, it becomes a +self-heating and self-luminous body, able to keep the ether violently +agitated in all space round it, and thus to supply the radiation +necessary for protecting the habitable worlds from the cold of space to +which they are exposed, for maintaining them at a temperature +appropriate to organic existence, and likewise for supplying and +generating the energy for their myriad activities. It has become in +fact a central sun, and source of heat, solely because of its enormous +size combined with the fact of the mutual gravitative attraction of its +own constituent particles. No body of moderate size could perform this +function, nor act as a perennial furnace to the rest. + + +_Application to Protoplasm._ + +Very well then, return now to our complex molecular aggregate, and ask +what new property, beyond the province of ordinary chemistry and +physics, is to be expected of a compound which contains millions or +billions of atoms attached to each other in no rigid, stable, frigid +manner, but by loose unstable links, enabling them constantly to +re-arrange themselves and to be the theatre of perpetual change, +aggregating and reaggregating in various ways and manifesting ceaseless +activities. Such unstable aggregates of matter may, like the water of a +pond or a heap of organic refuse, serve as the vehicle for influences +wholly novel and unexpected. + +Too much agitation—that is, too high a temperature—will split them up +and destroy the new-found potentiality of such aggregates; too little +agitation—that is, too low a temperature—will permit them to begin to +cohere and settle down into frozen rigid masses insusceptible of +manifold activities. But take them just at the right temperature, when +sufficiently complex and sufficiently mobile; take care of them, so to +speak, for the structure may easily be killed; and what shall we find? +We could not infer or guess what would be the result, but we can +observe the result as it is. + +The result is that the complexes group themselves into minute masses +visible in the microscope, each mass being called by us a "cell"; that +these cells possess the power of uniting with or assimilating other +cells, or fragments of cells, as they drift by and come into contact +with them; and that they absorb into their own substance such portions +as may be suitable, while the insufficiently elaborated portions—the +grains of inorganic or over-simple material—are presently extruded. +They thus begin the act of "feeding." + +Another remarkable property also can be observed; for a cell which thus +grows by feeding need not remain as one individual, but may split into +two, or into more than two, which may cohere for a time, but will +ultimately separate and continue existence on their own account. Thus +begins the act of "reproduction." + +But a still more remarkable property can be observed in some of the +cells, though not in all; they can not only assimilate a fragment of +matter which comes into contact with them, but they can sense it, +apparently, while not yet in contact, and can protrude portions of +their substance or move their whole bodies towards the fragment, thus +beginning the act of "hunting"; and the incipient locomotory power can +be extended till light and air and moisture and many other things can +be sought and moved towards, until locomotion becomes so free that it +sometimes seems apparently objectless—mere restlessness, change for +the sake of change, like that of human beings. + +The power of locomotion is liable, however, to introduce the cell to +new dangers, and to conditions hostile to its continued aggregate +existence. So, in addition to the sense of food and other desirable +things ahead, it seems to acquire, at any rate when still further +aggregated and more developed, a sense of shrinking from and avoidance +of the hostile and the dangerous,—a sense as it were of "pain." + +And so it enters on its long career of progress, always liable to +disintegration or "death"; it begins to differentiate portions of +itself for the feeding process, other portions for the reproductive +process, other portions again for sensory processes, but retaining the +protective sense of pain almost everywhere; until the spots sensitive +to ethereal and aerial vibrations—which, arriving as they do from a +distance, carry with them so much valuable information, and when duly +appreciated render possible perception and prediction as to what is +ahead—until these sensitive spots have become developed into the +special organs which we now know as the "eye" and the "ear." Then, +presently, the power of communication is slowly elaborated, speech and +education begin, and the knowledge of the individual is no longer +limited to his own experience, but expands till it embraces the past +history and the condensed acquisition of the race. And thus gradually +arises a developed self-consciousness, a discrimination between the +self and the external world, and a realisation of the power of choice +and freedom,—a stage beyond which we have not travelled as yet, but a +stage at which almost all things seem possible. + +The first two properties, assimilation and reproduction, overshadowed +by the possibility of _death_, are properties of life of every kind, +plant life as of all other. The power of locomotion and special senses, +overshadowed by the sense of _pain_, are the sign of a still further +development into what we call "animal life." The further development, +of mind, consciousness, and sense of freedom, overshadowed by the +possibility of wilful error or _sin_, is the conspicuous attribute +of life which is distinctively human. + +Thus, our complex molecular aggregate has shown itself capable of +extraordinary and most interesting processes, has proved capable of +constituting the material vehicle of life, the natural basis of living +organisms, and even of mind; very much as a planet of certain size +proved capable of possessing an atmosphere. + +But is it to be supposed that the complex aggregate _generated_ the +life and mind, as the planet generated its atmosphere? That is the +so-called materialistic view, but to the writer it seems an erroneous +one, and it is certainly one that is not proven. It is not even certain +that every planet generated all the gases of its own atmosphere: some +of them it may have swept up in its excursion through space. What is +certain is that it possesses the power of retaining an atmosphere; it +is by no means so certain how all the constituents of that atmosphere +arrived. + + +_Questions concerning the Origin and Nature of Life._ + +All that we have actually experienced and verified is that a complex +molecular aggregate is capable of being the vehicle or material basis +of life; but to the question _what life is_ we have as yet no answer. +Many have been the attempts to generate life _de novo_, by packing +together suitable materials and keeping them pleasantly warm for a long +time; but, if all germs of pre-existing life are rigorously excluded, +the attempt hitherto has been a failure: so far, no life has made its +appearance under observation, except from antecedent life. + +But, to exclude all trace of antecedent life, it is necessary not only +to shut out floating germs, but to kill all germs previously existing +in the material we are dealing with. This killing of previous life is +usually accomplished by heat; but it has been argued that strong heat +will destroy not only the life but the potentiality for life, will +break up the complex aggregate on which life depends, will deprive the +incubating solution not only of life but of livelihood. There is some +force in the objection, and it is an illustration of the difficulty +surrounding the subject. But Tyndall showed that antecedent life could +be destroyed, without any very high temperature, by gentle heat +periodically applied: heat insufficient to kill the germs, but +sufficient to kill the hatched or developed organisms. Periodic heating +enables the germs of successive ages to hatch, so to speak, and the +product to be slain; and, although some each time may have reproduced +germs before slaughter—eggs capable of standing the warmth—yet a +succession of such warmings would ultimately be fatal to all, and that +without necessarily breaking up the protoplasmic complex aggregates on +the existence of which the whole vital potentiality depends. + +So far, however, all effort at spontaneous generation has been a +failure; possibly because some essential ingredient or condition was +omitted, possibly because great lapse of time was necessary. But +suppose it was successful; what then? We should then be reproducing in +the laboratory a process that must at some past age have occurred on +the earth; for at one time the earth was certainly hot and molten and +inorganic, whereas now it swarms with life. + +Does that show that the earth generated the life? By no means; no more +than it need necessarily have generated all the gases of its +atmosphere, or the meteoric dust which lies upon its snows. + +Life may be something not only ultra-terrestrial, but even immaterial, +something outside our present categories of matter and energy; as real +as they are, but different, and utilising them for its own purpose. +What is certain is that life possesses the power of vitalising the +complex material aggregates which exist on this planet, and of +utilising their energies for a time to display itself amid terrestrial +surroundings; and then it seems to disappear or evaporate whence it +came. It is perpetually arriving and perpetually disappearing. While it +is here, if it is at a sufficiently high level, the animated material +body moves about and strives after many objects, some worthy, some +unworthy; it acquires thereby a certain individuality, a certain +character. It may realise _itself_, moreover, becoming conscious of +its own mental and spiritual existence; and it then begins to explore +the Mind which, like its own, it conceives must underlie the material +fabric—half displayed, half concealed, by the environment, and +intelligible only to a kindred spirit. Thus the scheme of law and +order dimly dawns upon the nascent soul, and it begins to form clear +conceptions of truth, goodness, and beauty; it may achieve something +of permanent value, as a work of art or of literature; it may enter +regions of emotion and may evolve ideas of the loftiest kind; it may +degrade itself below the beasts, or it may soar till it is almost +divine. + +Is it the material molecular aggregate that has of its own unaided +latent power generated this individuality, acquired this character, +felt these emotions, evolved these ideas? There are some who try to +think that it is. There are others who recognise in this extraordinary +development a contact between this material frame of things and a +universe higher and other than anything known to our senses; a universe +not dominated by Physics and Chemistry, but utilising the interactions +of matter for its own purposes; a universe where the human spirit is +more at home than it is among these temporary collocations of atoms; a +universe capable of infinite development, of noble contemplation, and +of lofty joy, long after this planet—nay, the whole solar system—shall +have fulfilled its present spire of destiny, and retired cold and +lifeless upon its endless way. + + * * * * * + +PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND MATTER *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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