{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26321/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26321","id":"gutenberg_26321","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26321","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science - Biology","Haeckel, Ernst, 1834-1919. Weltr\u00e4thsel","Life -- Origin","Monism","Philosophy and religion"],"text":"=Life and Matter=\n\n\n\n\n    =Recent Works by Sir Oliver Lodge=\n\n\nSCHOOL TEACHING AND SCHOOL REFORM. A Course of Four Lectures on School\nCurricula and Methods delivered to Secondary Teachers and Teachers in\nTraining at Birmingham during February 1905. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.\n\nWILLIAMS & NORGATE, London.\n\n\nEASY MATHEMATICS: Chiefly Arithmetic. Being a Collection of Hints to\nTeachers, Parents, self-taught Students, and Adults, and containing a\nSummary or Indication of most things in Elementary Mathematics useful to\nbe known. By Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., D.Sc., Principal of the\nUniversity of Birmingham. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d.\n\nMACMILLAN & CO., Limited, London.\n\n\n\n\n    Life and Matter\n\n    A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's\n    \"Riddle of the Universe\"\n\n    By\n    Sir Oliver Lodge\n\n    The expansion of a Presidential Address\n    to the Birmingham and Midland Institute\n\n    _SECOND EDITION _\n\n    London\n    Williams & Norgate\n    14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden\n\n    1905\n\n\n        TO\n    JOHN HENRY MUIRHEAD\n        AND\n    MARY TALBOT MUIRHEAD\n    THE FRIENDS OF MANY NEEDING HELP\n    NOT IN PHILOSOPHY ALONE\n    THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED\n    IN MEMORY OF CHANDOLIN AND ST LUC 1904\n\n\n    \"Materialistic monism is nowadays the working hypothesis of\n    every scientific explorer in every department, whatever other\n    beliefs or denials he may, more or less explicitly and more or\n    less consistently, superadd. Materialistic monism only becomes\n    false when put forward as a complete philosophy of the\n    universe, because it leaves out of sight the conditions of\n    human knowledge, which the special sciences may conveniently\n    disregard, but which a candid philosophy cannot ignore.\"\n\n    \"The legitimate materialism of the sciences simply means\n    temporary and convenient abstraction from the cognitive\n    conditions under which there are 'facts' or 'objects' for us at\n    all; it is 'dogmatic materialism' which is metaphysics of the\n    bad sort.\"\n        D. G. Ritchie.\n\n    \"Our metaphysics is really like many other sciences\u2014only on the\n    threshold of genuine knowledge: God knows if it will ever get\n    further. It is not hard to see its weakness in much that it\n    undertakes. Prejudice is often found to be the mainstay of its\n    proofs. For this nothing is to blame but the ruling passion of\n    those who would fain extend human knowledge. They are anxious\n    to have a grand philosophy: but the desirable thing is, that it\n    should also be a sound one.\"\n        Kant.\n\n\n\n\n    Preface\n\n\nThis small volume is in form controversial, but in substance it has a\nmore ambitious aim: it is intended to formulate, or perhaps rather to\nreformulate, a certain doctrine concerning the nature of man and the\ninteraction between mind and matter. Incidentally it attempts to\nconfute two errors which are rather prevalent:\u2014\n\n1.  The notion that because material energy is constant in quantity,\n    therefore its transformations and transferences\u2014which admittedly\n    constitute terrestrial activity\u2014are not susceptible\n    of guidance or directive control.\n\n2.  The idea that the specific guiding power which we call \"life\" is\n    one of the forms of material energy, so that directly it\n    relinquishes its connection with matter other equivalent forms\n    of energy must arise to replace it.\n\nThe book is specially intended to act as an antidote to the speculative\nand destructive portions of Professor Haeckel's interesting and\nwidely-read work, but in other respects it may be regarded less as a\nhostile attack than as a supplement\u2014an extension of the more scientific\nportions of that work into higher and more fruitful regions of inquiry.\n\n        OLIVER LODGE.\n\nUniversity of Birmingham,\n_October 1905_.\n\n\n\n\n    Contents\n\n\nCHAP.                                                            PAGE\n\n   I   MONISM                                                       1\n\n  II   \"THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE\"                                      14\n\n III   THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE                                     41\n\n  IV   MEMORANDA FOR WOULD-BE MATERIALISTS                         60\n\n   V   RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY                                     71\n\n  VI   MIND AND MATTER                                            100\n\n VII   PROFESSOR HAECKEL'S CONJECTURAL PHILOSOPHY                 125\n\nVIII   HYPOTHESIS AND ANALOGIES CONCERNING LIFE                   136\n\n  IX   WILL AND GUIDANCE                                          152\n\n   X   FURTHER SPECULATION AS TO THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE    179\n\n\n\n\n    LIFE AND MATTER\n\n\n\n\n    CHAPTER I\n\n    MONISM\n\n\nIn his recent Presidential Address before the British Association, at\nCambridge, Mr Balfour rather emphasised the existence and even the\ndesirability of a barrier between Science and Philosophy which recent\nadvances have tended to minimise though never to obliterate. He\nappeared to hint that it is best for scientific men not to attempt to\nphilosophise, but to restrict themselves to their own domain; though,\non the other hand, he did not appear to wish similarly to limit\nphilosophers, by recommending that they should keep themselves\nunacquainted with scientific facts, and ignorant of the theories which\nweld those facts together. Indeed, in his own person he is an example\nof the opposite procedure, for he himself frequently takes pleasure in\noverlooking the boundary and making a wide survey of the position on\nits physical side\u2014a thing which it is surely very desirable for a\nphilosopher to do.\n\nBut if that process be regarded as satisfactory, it is surely equally\npermissible for a man of science occasionally to look over into the\nphilosophic region, and survey the territory on that side also, so far\nas his means permit. And if philosophers object to this procedure, it\nmust be because they have found by experience that men of science who\nhave once transcended or transgressed the boundary are apt to lose all\nsense of reasonable constraint, and to disport themselves as if they had\nat length escaped into a region free from scientific trammels\u2014a region\nwhere confident assertions might be freely made, where speculative\nhypothesis might rank as theory, and where verification was both\nunnecessary and impossible.\n\nThe most striking instance of a scientific man who on entering\nphilosophic territory has exhibited signs of exhilaration and\nemancipation, is furnished by the case of Professor Haeckel of Jena. In\nan eloquent and popular work, entitled _das Welt-R\u00e4thsel_, the\nWorld Problem, or \"The Riddle of the Universe,\" this eminent\nbiologist has surveyed the whole range of existence, from the\nfoundations of physics to the comparison of religions, from the\nfacts of anatomy to the freedom of the will, from the vitality of\ncells to the attributes of God; treating these subjects with wide\nthough by no means superhuman knowledge, and with considerable\ncritical and literary ability. This work, through the medium of a\nreally excellent translation by Mr M'Cabe, and under the auspices of\nthe Rationalist Press Association, has obtained a wide circulation\nin this country, being purchasable for six-pence at any bookstall;\nwhere one often finds it accompanied by another still more popular\nand similarly-priced treatise by the same author, a digest or\nsummary of the religious aspect of his scientific philosophy, under\nthe title _The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_.\n\nProfessor Haeckel's credentials, as a learned biologist who introduced\nDarwinism into Germany, doubtless stand high; and it is a great tribute\nto his literary ability that a fairly abstruse work on so comprehensive\na subject should have obtained a wide notoriety, and have been welcomed\nby masses of thinking readers, especially by many among the skilled\nartisans, in this country.\n\nFrom several points of view this diffusion of interest is most\nsatisfactory, since the spread of thought on serious topics is greatly\nto be welcomed. Moreover, there is a vast mass of information in these\nwritings which must be new to the bulk of the inhabitants of these\nislands. There is also a great deal of criticism which should arouse\nprofessors of dogmatic theology, and exponents of practical religion, to\na keener sense of their opportunities and responsibility. A view of\ntheir position from outside, by an able and unsparing critic, cannot but\nbe illuminating and helpful, however unpleasant.\n\nMoreover, the comprehensive survey of existence which can be taken by a\nmodern man of science is almost sure to be interesting and instructive,\nwhen properly interpreted with the necessary restrictions and\nexpansions; and if it be found that the helpful portions are unhappily\naccompanied by over-confident negations and supercilious denials of\nfacts at present outside the range of orthodox science, these natural\nblemishes must be discounted and estimated at their proper worth; for it\nwould be foolish to imagine that even a diligent student of Nature has\nspecial access to the kind of truths which have been hidden from the\nnominally \"wise and prudent\" of all time.\n\nSo far as Professor Haeckel's writings are read by the thoroughly\neducated and well-informed, they can do nothing but good. They may not,\nindeed, convey anything particularly new, but they furnish an\ninteresting study in scientific history and mental development. So far,\nhowever, as they are read by unbalanced and uncultured persons, with no\nsense of proportion and but little critical faculty, they may do harm,\nunless accompanied by a suitable qualification or antidote, especially\nan antidote against the bigotry of their somewhat hasty and scornful\ndestructive portions.\n\nTo the intelligent artisan or other hard-headed reader who considers\nthat Christian faith is undermined, and the whole religious edifice\nupset, by the scientific philosophy advocated by Professor Haeckel under\nthe name \"Monism,\" I would say, paraphrasing a sentence of Mr Ruskin's\nin a preface to _Sesame and Lilies_:\u2014Do not think it likely that\nyou hold in your hands a treatise in which the ultimate and final\nverity of the universe is at length beautifully proclaimed, and in\nwhich pure truth has been sifted from the errors of all preceding\nages. Do not think it, friend: it is not so.\n\nFor what is this same \"Monism?\"\n\nProfessor Haeckel writes almost as if it were a recent invention, but in\ntruth there have been many versions of it, and in one form or another\nthe idea is quite old, older than Plato, as old as Parmenides.\n\nThe name \"Monism\" should apply to any philosophic system which assumes\nand attempts to formulate the essential simplicity and _oneness_ of\nall the apparent diversity of sensual impression and consciousness,\nany system which seeks to exhibit all the complexities of existence,\nboth material and mental\u2014the whole of phenomena, both objective and\nsubjective\u2014as modes of manifestation of one fundamental reality.\n\nAccording to the assumed nature of that reality, different brands of\nmonistic theory exist:\u2014\n\n1. There is the hypothesis that everything is an aspect of some unknown\nabsolute Reality, which itself, in its real nature, is far beyond our\napprehension or conception. And within the broad area thus suggested may\nbe grouped such utterly different universe-conceptions as that of\nHerbert Spencer and that of Spinoza.\n\n2. According to another system the fundamental reality is psychical, is\nconsciousness, let us say, or mind; and the material world has only the\nreality appropriate to a consistent set of ideas. Here we find again\nseveral varieties, ranging from Bishop Berkeley and presumably Hegel, on\nthe one hand, to William James\u2014who, in so far as he is a monist at all,\nmay I suppose be called an empirical idealist\u2014and solipsists such as\nMach and Karl Pearson, on the other.\n\n3. A third system, or group of systems, has been in vogue among some\nphysicists of an earlier day, and among some biologists now; viz., that\nmind, thought, consciousness are all by-products, phantasmagoria,\nepiphenomena, developments and decorations, as it were, of the one\nfundamental all-embracing reality, which some may call \"matter,\" some\n\"energy,\" and some \"substance.\" In this category we find Tyndall\u2014at any\nrate the Tyndall of \"the Belfast address\"\u2014and here consistently do we\nfind Haeckel, together with several other biologists.\n\nThis last system of Monism, though not now in favour with philosophers,\nis the most militant variety of all; and accordingly it has in some\nquarters managed to obtain, and it certainly seems anxious to obtain, a\nmonopoly of the name.\n\nBut the monopoly should not be granted. The name Materialism is quite\nconvenient for it, just as Idealism is for the opposing system; and if\neither of these titles is objected to by the upholders of either system,\nas apparently too thorough-going and exclusive, whereas only a tendency\nin one or other direction is to be indicated, then the longer but more\ndescriptive titles of Idealistic-monism and Materialistic-monism\nrespectively should be employed. But neither of these compromises seems\nnecessary to connote the position of Professor Haeckel.\n\nThe truth is that all philosophy aims at being monistic; it is bound to\naim at unification, however difficult of attainment; and a philosopher\nwho abandoned the quest, and contented himself with a permanent\nantinomy\u2014a universe compounded of two or more irreconcilable and\nentirely disparate and disconnected agencies\u2014would be held to be\nthrowing up his brief as a philosopher and taking refuge in a kind of\npermanent Manich\u00e6ism, which experience has shown to be an untenable and\nultimately unthinkable position.\n\nAn attempt at Monism is therefore common to all philosophers, whether\nprofessional or amateur; and the only question at issue is what sort of\nMonism are you aiming at, what sort of solution of the universe have you\nto offer, what can you hold out to us as a simple satisfactory\ncomprehensive scheme of existence?\n\nIn order to estimate the value of Professor Haeckel's scheme of the\nuniverse, it is not necessary to appeal to philosophers: it is\nsufficient to meet him on scientific ground, and to show that in his\neffort to simplify and unify he has under-estimated some classes of fact\nand has stretched scientific theory into regions of guess-work and\nhypothesis, where it loses touch with real science altogether. The facts\nwhich he chooses gratuitously to deny, and the facts which he chooses\nvigorously to emphasise, are arbitrarily selected by him according as\nthey will or will not fit into his philosophic scheme. The scheme itself\nis no new one, and almost certainly contains elements of truth. Some day\nfar hence, when it is possible properly to formulate it, a system of\nMonism may be devised which shall contain the whole truth. At present\nthe scheme formulated by Professor Haeckel must to philosophers appear\nrudimentary and antiquated, while to men of science it appears\ngratuitous, hypothetical, in some places erroneous, and altogether\nunconvincing.\n\nBefore everything a philosopher should aim at being all-inclusive,\nbefore everything a man of science should aim at being definite, clear,\nand accurate. An attempt at combination is an ambitious attempt, which\nmay legitimately be made, but which it appears is hardly as yet given to\nman to make successfully. Attempts at an all-embracing scheme, which\nshall be both truly philosophic and truly scientific, must for the\npresent be mistrusted, and the mistrust should extend especially to\ntheir negative side. Positive contributions, either to fact or to\nsystem, may be real and should be welcome; but negative or destructive\ncriticism, the eschewing and throwing away of any part of human\nexperience, because it is inconsistent with a premature and\nill-considered monistic or any other system, should be regarded with\ndeep suspicion; and the promulgation of any such negative and\ndestructive scheme, especially in association with free and easy\ndogmatism, should automatically excite mistrust and repulsion.\n\nThere are things which cannot yet be fitted in as part of a coherent\nscheme of scientific knowledge\u2014at present they appear like fragments of\nanother order of things; and if they are to be forced into the\nscientific framework, like portions of a \"puzzle-map,\" before their true\nplace has been discovered, a quantity of substantial fact must be\ndisarranged, dislocated, and thrown away. A premature and cheap Monism\nis therefore worse than none at all.\n\n\n\n\n    CHAPTER II\n\n    \"THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE\"\n\n\nI shall now endeavour to exhibit the way in which Professor Haeckel\nproceeds to expound his views, and for that purpose shall extract\ncertain sentences from his work, _The Riddle of the Universe_;\ngiving references to the sixpenny translation, now so widely\ncirculated in England, in order that they may be referred to in\ntheir context with ease. To scientific men the exaggeration of\nstatement will in many cases be immediately obvious; but in the\npresent state of general education it will often be necessary to\nappend a few comments, indicating, as briefly as possible, wherein\nthe statement is in excess of ascertained fact, however interesting\nas a guess or speculation; wherefore it must be considered\nillegitimate as a weapon wherewith to attack other systems, so far\nas they too are equally entitled to be considered reasonable guesses\nat truth.\n\nThe central scientific doctrines upon which Professor Haeckel's\nphilosophy is founded appear to be two\u2014one physical, the other\nbiological. The physical doctrine is what he calls \"the Law of\nSubstance\"\u2014a kind of combination of the conservation of matter and the\nconservation of energy: a law to which he attaches extraordinary\nimportance, and from which he draws momentous conclusions. Ultimately he\nseems to regard this law as almost axiomatic, in the sense that a\nphilosopher who has properly grasped it is unable to conceive the\nnegative. A few extracts will suffice to show the remarkable importance\nwhich he attaches to this law:\u2014\n\n    \"All the particular advances of physics and chemistry yield in\n    theoretical importance to the discovery of the great law which\n    brings them to one common focus, the 'law of substance.' As\n    this fundamental cosmic law establishes the eternal persistence\n    of matter and force, their unvarying constancy throughout the\n    entire universe, it has become the pole-star that guides our\n    monistic philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution\n    of the world-problem\" (p. 2).\n\n    \"The uneducated member of a civilised community is surrounded\n    with countless enigmas at every step, just as truly as the\n    savage. Their number, however, decreases with every stride of\n    civilisation and of science; and the monistic philosophy is\n    ultimately confronted with but one simple and comprehensive\n    enigma\u2014the 'problem of substance'\" (p. 6).\n\n    \"The supreme and all-pervading law of nature, the true and only\n    cosmological law, is, in my opinion, _the law of substance_;\n    its discovery and establishment is the greatest intellectual\n    triumph of the nineteenth century, in the sense that all other\n    known laws of nature are subordinate to it. Under the name of\n    'law of substance' we embrace two supreme laws of different\n    origin and age\u2014the older is the chemical law of the\n    'conservation of matter,' and the younger is the physical law of\n    the 'conservation of energy.' It will be self-evident to many\n    readers, and it is acknowledged by most of the scientific men of\n    the day, that these two great laws are essentially inseparable\"\n    (p. 75).\n\n    \"The conviction that these two great cosmic theorems, the\n    chemical law of the persistence of matter and the physical law\n    of the persistence of force, are fundamentally one, is of the\n    utmost importance in our monistic system. The two theories are\n    just as intimately united as their objects\u2014matter and force or\n    energy. Indeed, this fundamental unity of the two laws is\n    self-evident to many monistic scientists and philosophers,\n    since they merely relate to two different aspects of one and\n    the same object, the _cosmos_\" (p. 76).\n\n    \"I proposed some time ago to call it the 'law of substance,' or\n    the 'fundamental cosmic law'; it might also be called the\n    'universal law,' or the 'law of constancy,' or the 'axiom of\n    the constancy of the universe.' In the ultimate analysis it is\n    found to be a necessary consequence of the principle of\n    causality\" (p. 76).\n\nI criticise these utterances below, and I also quote extracts bearing on\nthe subject from Professor Huxley in Chapter IV.; but meanwhile\nProfessor Haeckel is as positive as any Positivist, and runs no risk of\nbeing accused of Solipsism:\u2014\n\n    \"Our only real and valuable knowledge is a knowledge of nature\n    itself, and consists of presentations which correspond to\n    external things.\"... \"These presentations we call _true_, and\n    we are convinced that their content corresponds to the knowable\n    aspect of things. We _know_ that these facts are not imaginary,\n    but real\" (p. 104).\n\nHe also tends to become sentimental about the ultimate reality as he\nperceives it, and tries to construct from it a kind of religion:\u2014\n\n    \"The astonishment with which we gaze upon the starry heavens and\n    the microscopic life in a drop of water, the awe with which we\n    trace the marvellous working of energy in the motion of matter,\n    the reverence with which we grasp the universal dominance of the\n    law of substance throughout the universe\u2014all these are part of\n    our emotional life, falling under the heading of 'natural\n    religion'\" (p. 122).\n\n    \"Pantheism teaches that God and the world are one. The idea of\n    God is identical with that of nature or substance.... In\n    pantheism, God, as an _intra-mundane_ being, is everywhere\n    identical with nature itself, and is operative _within_ the\n    world as 'force' or 'energy.' The latter view alone is\n    compatible with our supreme law\u2014the law of substance. It\n    follows necessarily that pantheism is _the world-system of the\n    modern scientist_\" (p. 102).\n\n    \"This 'godless world-system' substantially agrees with the\n    monism or pantheism of the modern scientist; it is only another\n    expression for it, emphasising its negative aspect, the\n    non-existence of any supernatural deity. In this sense\n    Schopenhauer justly remarks:\n\n    \"'Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism. The truth of\n    pantheism lies in its destruction of the dualist antithesis of\n    God and the world, in its recognition that the world exists in\n    virtue of its own inherent forces. The maxim of the pantheist,\n    'God and the world are one,' is merely a polite way of giving\n    the Lord God his _cong\u00e9_'\" (p. 103).\n\nThus we are led on, from what may be supposed to be a bare statement of\ntwo recent generalisations of science,\u2014first of all to regard them as\nalmost axiomatic or self-evident; next, to consider that they solve the\nmain problem of the universe; and, lastly, that they suffice to replace\nthe Deity Himself.\n\nTo curb these extravagant pretensions it is only necessary to consider\nsoberly what these physical laws really assert.\n\n\n    _Conservation of Energy._\n\nTake first the conservation of energy. This generalisation asserts that\nin every complete material system, subject to any kind of internal\nactivity, the total energy of the system does not change, but is subject\nmerely to transference and transformation, and can only be increased or\ndiminished by passing fresh energy in or out through the walls of the\nsystem. So far from this being self-evident, it required very careful\nmeasurement and experimental proof to demonstrate the fact, for in\ncommon experience the energy of a system left to itself continually to\nall appearance diminishes; yet it has been skilfully proved that when\nthe heat and every other kind of product is collected and measured, the\nresult can be so expressed as to show a total constancy, appertaining to\na certain specially devised function called \"energy,\" provided we know\nand are able to account for every form into which the said energy can be\ntransformed by the activity going on. A very important generalisation\ntruly, and one which has so seized hold of the mind of the physicist\nthat if in any actual example a disappearance or a generation of energy\nwere found, he would at once conclude either that he had overlooked some\nknown form and thereby committed an error, or that some unknown form was\npresent which he had not allowed for: thereby getting a clue which, if\nfollowed up, he would hope might result in a discovery.\n\nBut the term \"energy\" itself, as used in definite sense by the\nphysicist, rather involves a modern idea and is itself a generalisation.\nThings as distinct from each other as light, heat, sound, rotation,\nvibration, elastic strain, gravitative separation, electric currents,\nand chemical affinity, have all to be generalised under the same\nheading, in order to make the law true. Until \"heat\" was included in the\nlist of energies, the statement could not be made; and, a short time\nago, it was sometimes discussed whether \"life\" should or should not be\nincluded in the category of energy. I should give the answer decidedly\nNo, but some might be inclined to say Yes; and this is sufficient as an\nexample to show that the categories of energy are not necessarily\nexhausted; that new forms may be discovered; and that if new forms\nexist, until they are discovered, the law of conservation of energy as\nnow stated may in some cases be strictly untrue; just as it would be\nuntrue, though partially and usefully true, in the theory of machines,\nif heat were unknown or ignored. To jump, therefore, from a\ngeneralisation such as this, and to say, as Professor Haeckel does on\npage 5, that the following cosmological theorems have already been\n\"amply demonstrated,\" is to leap across a considerable chasm:\u2014\n\n    \"1. The universe, or the cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and\n    illimitable.\n\n    \"2. Its substance, with its two attributes (matter and energy),\n    fills infinite space, and is in eternal motion.\n\n    \"3. This motion runs on through infinite time as an unbroken\n    development, with a periodic change from life to death, from\n    evolution to devolution.\n\n    \"4. The innumerable bodies which are scattered about the\n    space-filling ether all obey the same 'law of substance'; while\n    the rotating masses slowly move towards their destruction and\n    dissolution in one part of space, others are springing into new\n    life and development in other quarters of the universe.\"\n\nMost of this, though in itself probable enough, must, when\nscientifically regarded, be rated as guess-work, being an overpressing\nof known fact into an exaggerated and over-comprehensive form of\nstatement. Let it be understood that I am not objecting to his\nspeculations, but only pointing out that they are speculations.\n\nThe conservation of energy is a legitimate enough generalisation: we do\nnot really doubt its conservation and constancy when we admit that we\nare not yet sure of having fully and finally exhausted the whole\ncategory of energy. What we do grant is, that it may hereafter be\npossible to discover new forms; and when new forms are discovered, then\neither the definition may have to be modified, or else the detailed\nstatement at present found sufficient will have to be overhauled. But\nafter all, this is not specially important: the _serious_ mistake\nwhich people are apt to make concerning this law of energy is to\nimagine that it denies the possibility of guidance, control, or\ndirecting agency, whereas really it has nothing to say on these\ntopics; it relates to _amount_ alone. Philosophers have been far\ntoo apt to jump to the conclusion that because energy is constant,\ntherefore no guidance is possible, so that all psychological or\nother interference is precluded. Physicists, however, know better;\nthough unfortunately Tyndall, in some papers on Miracles and Prayer,\nthoughtlessly adduced the conservation of energy as decisive. This\nquestion of \"guidance\" is one of great interest, and I emphasise the\nsubject further on, especially in Chapter IX.\n\n\n    _Conservation of Matter._\n\nTake next the \"conservation of matter\"\u2014which means that in any\noperation, mechanical, physical, or chemical, to which matter can be\nsubjected, its amount, as measured by weight, remains unchanged; so that\nthe only way to increase or diminish the weight of substance inside a\ngiven enclosure, or geometrically closed boundary, is to pass matter in\nor out through the walls.\n\nThis law has been called the sheet-anchor of chemistry, but it is very\nfar from being self-evident; and its statement involves the finding of a\nproperty of matter which experimentally shall remain unchanged, although\nnearly every other property is modified. To superficial observation\nnothing is easier than to destroy matter. When liquid\u2014when dew, for\ninstance\u2014evaporates, it seems to disappear, and when a manuscript is\nburnt it is certainly destroyed: but it turns out that there is\nsomething which may be called the vapour of water, or the \"matter\" of\nthe letter, which still persists, though it has taken rarer form and\nbecome unrecognisable. Ultimately, in order to express the persistence\nof the permanent abstraction called \"matter\" clearly, it is necessary to\nspeak of the \"ultimate atoms\" of which it is composed, and to say that\nthough these may enter into various combinations, and thereby display\nmany outward forms, yet that they themselves are immutable and\nindestructible, constant in number and quality and form, not subject to\nany law of evolution; in other words, totally unaffected by time.\n\nIf we ask for the evidence on which this generalisation is founded, we\nhave to appeal to various delicate weighings, conducted chiefly by\nchemists for practical purposes, and very few of them really directed to\nascertain whether the law is true or not. A few such direct experiments\nare now, indeed, being conducted with the hope of finding that the law\nis not completely true; in other words, with the hope of finding that\nthe weight of a body does depend slightly on its state of aggregation or\non some other physical property. The question has even been raised\nwhether the weight of a crystal is altogether independent of its\n_aspect_: the direction of its plane of cleavage with reference to\nthe earth's radius; also, whether the _temperature_ of bodies has\nany influence on their weight; but on these points it may be truly\nsaid that if any difference were discovered it would not be\nexpressed by saying that the amount of matter was different, but\nsimply that \"weight\" was not so fundamental and inalienable a\nproperty of matter as has been sometimes assumed; in which case it\nis clear that there must be a more fundamental property to which\nappeal can be made in favour of constancy or persistency or\nconservation. Now the most fundamental property of matter known is\nundoubtedly 'inertia'; and the law of conservation would therefore\ncome to mean that the _inertia_ of matter was constant, no matter\nwhat changes it underwent. But, then, inertia is not an easy\nproperty to measure,\u2014very difficult to measure with great accuracy:\nit is in practice nearly always _inferred_ from weight; and in\nterms of inertia the law of conservation of matter cannot be\nconsidered really an experimental fact; it is, strictly speaking, a\nreasonable hypothesis, an empirical law, which we have never seen\nany reason to doubt, and in support of which all scientific\nexperience may be adduced in favour.\n\nIt is possible, however, to grant to Professor Haeckel\u2014not positively,\nbut for the sake of argument, and giving him the benefit of our present\nignorance\u2014that it is unlikely that matter in its lowest denomination can\nby us be created or destroyed. For, although it is now pretty well known\nthat atoms of matter are not the indestructible and immutable things\nthey were once thought (seeing that, although we do not know how to\nbreak them up, they are liable every now and then themselves to break up\nor explode, and so resolve themselves into simpler forms), yet it can be\ngranted that these simpler forms are likewise themselves atoms, in the\nsame sense, and that if they break up they will break up likewise into\natoms: or ultimately, it may be, into those corpuscles or electrons or\nelectric charges, of which one plausible theory conjectures that the\natoms of matter are really composed.\n\nSupposing an atom thus broken up into electrons, its weight may possibly\nhave disappeared. We simply do not know whether weight is a property of\nthe grouping called an atom, or whether it belongs also to the\nindividual ingredients or corpuscles of that atom. There is at present\nno evidence. But whether weight has disappeared or not, it is quite\ncertain, for definite though rather recondite theoretical reasons, that\nthe inertia would _not_ have disappeared; and accordingly it may be\nheld, and must be held in our present state of knowledge, that the\nconstancy of fundamental material still holds good, even though the\natoms are resolved into electric charges\u2014an amount of destruction never\ncontemplated by those chemists and physicists who promulgated the\ndoctrine of the conservation of matter.\n\n\n    _Electrical Theory of Matter._\n\nBut then, on the electrical theory of matter, even _inertia_ is not\nthe thoroughly constant property we once thought it. It is a\nfunction of velocity for one thing, and when speeds become excessive\nthe inertia of matter rises perceptibly in value. The fact that it\nwould rise in value by a calculable amount, and that the rise would\nbe perceptible when the speed of motion approached in value to\nwithin, say, a tenth of the velocity of light, was predicted\nmathematically;[1] and now, strange to say, it has recently become\npossible to observe and actually measure the increase of inertia\nexperimentally, and thus to confirm the electrical theory not only\nas qualitatively or approximately true, but as completely and\nquantitatively accurate. A remarkable achievement all this! of quite\nmodern times, which has not excited the attention it deserves\u2014save\namong physicists.\n\n    [Footnote 1: By Mr Oliver Heaviside and Professor J. J. Thomson.]\n\nBut even this is not all that can be said as to the fluctuating\ncharacter of that fundamental material quality \"inertia.\" It appears\npossible, if electrons approach too near each other, so as to encroach\non each other's magnetic field as they move, that then their inertia may\nfall in value during the time they are contiguous. No experimental fact\nhas yet suggested this at present: it is improbable that even in the\ntightest combinations they ever really approach close enough to each\nother to make the effect appreciable in the slightest degree; still,\nstrictly speaking, the inertia of matter is a known mathematical\nfunction of the distance of electrons apart, compared with their size,\nas well as of their absolute speed through the ether; and hence it may\nbe found to vary from either of two distinct reasons. Nevertheless, even\nthis variation would not be expressed as a failure in the conservation\nof matter, though there is now no single material property that can be\nspecified as really and genuinely constant. So long as the electric\ncentres of strain, or whatever they are\u2014so long as the electric charges\nthemselves\u2014continue unaltered, we should prefer to say that at least the\n_basis_ of matter was fundamentally conserved.\n\nFurther than this, however, we cannot go; and to say, as Professor\nHaeckel says, that the modern physicist has grown so accustomed to the\nconservation of matter that he is unable to conceive the contrary, is\nsimply untrue. Whatever may be the case in real fact, there is no\nquestion with respect to the possibility of conception. The electrons\nthemselves must be explained somehow; and the only surmise which at\npresent holds the field is that they are knots or twists or vortices, or\nsome sort of either static or kinetic modification, of the ether of\nspace\u2014a small bit partitioned off from the rest and individualised by\nreason of this identifying peculiarity. It may be that these knots\ncannot be untied, these twists undone, these vortices broken up; it may\nbe that neither artificially nor spontaneously are they ever in the\nslightest degree changed. It may be so, but we do not know; and it is\nquite easy to conceive them broken up, the identity of the electron\nlost, its substance resolved into the original ether, without parts or\nindividual properties. If this happened, within our ken, we should have\nto confess that the properties of matter were gone, and that hence\neverything that could by any stretch of language be called \"matter\" was\ndestroyed, since no identifying property remained. The discovery of such\nan event may lie in the science of the future; it would be an\nepoch-making event in the history of science, but no physicist would be\nupset by it\u2014perhaps not even surprised; nor would any one have good\nreason to be astonished if the correlative phenomenon occurred, and\nunder certain conditions some knots or strains were some day caused in\nthe ether, which had not been previously there; and so \"matter,\" or the\nfoundation of matter, artificially produced. In other words, the\ndestruction and the creation of matter are well within the range of\nscientific conception, and may be within the realm of experimental\npossibility.\n\n\n    _Persistence of the Existent._\n\nIs there, then, no meaning in the conception which Professor Haeckel and\nothers have so enthusiastically formulated, and which certainly commends\nitself to every one as representing in some sense a genuine truth,\nwhether it be called a \"law of substance\" or whatever it be called?\nThere does seem a certain plausibility in the idea, pure guess or\nassumption though it be, that anything which really and fundamentally\nexists, in a serious and untrivial and non-accidental sense, can be\ntrusted not suddenly to go out of existence and leave no trace behind.\nIn other words, there seems some reason to suppose that anything which\nactually _exists_ must be in some way or other perpetual; that real\nexistence is not a capricious and changing attribute: arbitrary\ncollocations and accidental relations may and must be temporary, but\nthere may be in each a fundamental substratum which, if it can be\nreached, will be found to be eternal. I develop this idea further in the\nsequel. This is, at any rate, what Professor Haeckel was evidently\ngroping after, as many others have groped before him, and the nature of\nthis fundamental persistent entity or entities (for we must not assume\nwithout proof that there is only one: there may be several, and at any\nrate their ultimate unification may be a still further advanced and more\ntranscendental problem) may with some appropriateness be called 'the\nproblem of the universe,' since it is clearly the problem of existence.\nProfessor Haeckel thinks he has solved the problem, grasped the\nfundamental reality, and found it to be _matter and energy_ and\nnothing else; though why he chooses to regard matter and energy as\none thing instead of two is not perfectly plain to me, nor, I\nventure to say, is it really plain to him.\n\nMaking the assumption, then, that there is something, or that there are\nseveral things, to be discovered, which may thus have the most\nfundamental property, viz., persistent immutable existence, the\n'problem' has resolved itself into the discovery of what these things\nactually are. It will not do to jump at some object and assume that that\nis it.\n\nA multitude of things obviously perish, thereby showing themselves to be\ntrivial or accidental arrangements, according to our hypothesis. A flame\nis extinguished and dies, a mountain is ultimately ground into sand by\nthe slow influence of denudation, a planet or a sun may lose its\nidentity by encounter with other bodies. All these are temporary\ncollocations of atoms; and it appears now that an atom may break up into\nelectric charges, and these again may some day be found capable of\nresolving themselves into pristine ether. If so, then these also are\ntemporary, and in the material universe it is the ether only which\npersists\u2014the Ether with such states of motion or strain as it eternally\npossesses\u2014in which case the Ether will have proved itself the material\nsubstratum and most fundamental known entity on that side.\n\nBut are we to conclude, therefore, that nothing else exists? that the\nexistence of one thing disproves the existence of others? The contention\nwould be absurd. The category of _life_ has not been touched in anything\nwe have said so far; no relation has been established between life and\nenergy, or between life and ether. The nature of life is unknown. Is\nlife also a thing of which constancy can be asserted? When it disappears\nfrom a material environment is it knocked out of existence, or is it\nmerely transferred to some other surroundings, becoming as difficult to\nidentify and recognise as are the gases of a burnt manuscript or the\nvapour of a vanished cloud? Is it a temporary trivial collocation\nassociated with certain complex groupings of the atoms of matter, and\nresolved into nothingness when that grouping is interfered with? or is\nit something immaterial and itself fundamental, something which uses\nthese collocations of matter in order to display itself amid material\nsurroundings, but is otherwise essentially independent of them? (This\nidea is expanded in Chapters VI. to X., and see note at end of present\nchapter.)\n\nProfessor Haeckel would answer this question with a contemptuous\nnegative; and the treatment which he would thus give to life he would\nalso extend to mind and consciousness, to affection, to art, to poetry,\nto religion, and all the other facts of experience to which in the\nprocess of evolution humanity has risen: I say he would answer the\nquestion, whether these had any real existence other than as a necessary\nconcomitant of a sufficiently complex material aggregate, with a\ncontemptuous negative; but I challenge him to say by what right he gives\nthat answer. His speculation is that all these properties are nascent\nand latent in the material atoms themselves, that these have the\npotentiality of life and choice and consciousness, which we perceive in\ntheir developed combinations. As a speculation this is legitimate; but\nthe only answer that can by science legitimately be given at the present\ntime is the answer given by du Bois-Reymond, _ignoramus_, we do not\nknow.\n\nScientifically we do not; and for a man of science to pretend, or to\nassert in a popular treatise, that we do, is essentially and seriously\nto mislead. (See Chapter VII. below.) It may even be a question whether\nthe assertion of entire ignorance at the present time is completely\nappropriate, whether we have not some positive evidence _against_\nProfessor Haeckel's contention. I believe that we have; and though I may\nacquiesce in an assertion of present ignorance, I am not at all willing\nto accept the next sentence of Professor du Bois-Reymond's answer, and\nto say _ignorabimus_, we never shall know.\n\nThe matter seems to me within the legitimate lines of scientific\ninquiry, and it is unwise to attempt prediction, especially negative\nprediction, or to attempt to close the door to the future developments\nof knowledge.\n\nBut I am content to say for the present that from the point of view of\nstrict science it is not yet possible to give any positive answer to\nthese questions; that they must await the progress of discovery. It\nbecomes a question of some interest, therefore, how it is possible for\nProfessor Haeckel and for others of his school to have arrived at the\nidea not only that a scientific answer can be given, but that already it\nhas been given, and that they know distinctly what it is.\n\n\n    Note on the Word \"Life.\"\n\nUntil a term is accurately defined, and even afterwards for some\npurposes, it is permissible to use a word of large significance in more\nthan one sense. Thus the word \"light\" may be considered a psychological\nterm, denoting a certain sensation, or a physiological term, signifying\nthe stimulus of certain specialised nerve-endings, or a physical term,\nexpressing briefly an electromagnetic wave-disturbance in the ether. I\nam using the word \"life\" in a quite general sense, as is obvious, for if\nit be limited to certain metabolic processes in protoplasm\u2014which is the\nnarrowest of its legitimate meanings\u2014what I have said about its possible\nexistence apart from matter would be absurd. It may be convenient to\nemploy the word \"vitality\" for this limited sense; but so far as I know,\nthere is no general consensus of usage, and the context must suffice to\nshow a friendly reader the connotation intended.\n\n\n\n\n    CHAPTER III\n\n    THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE\n\n\nThis leads me to the second main thesis or central scientific doctrine\nof Professor Haeckel's treatise, the biological one; and it is this\nwhich I shall now proceed to illustrate by further quotations, viz., the\nconnection as he conceives it between life and matter.\n\nHis view is that life has arisen from inorganic matter without\nantecedent life. The experimental facts of biogenesis he discards in\nfavour of a hypothetical and at present undiscovered kind of spontaneous\ngeneration. He assumes that the chemico-physical properties of carbon\nconfer so peculiar a power on its albuminoid compounds that they develop\ninto living protoplasm. He says that he formulated this view\nthirty-three years ago, and that no better monistic theory has arisen to\nreplace it, while to reject some form of spontaneous generation is to\nadmit a miracle:\u2014\n\n    \"The hypothesis of spontaneous generation, and the allied\n    carbon-theory (viz., that 'carbon ... may be considered the\n    chemical basis of life,' p. 2) are of great importance in\n    deciding the long-standing conflict between the _teleological_\n    (dualistic) and the _mechanical_ (monistic) interpretation of\n    phenomena\" (p. 91).\n\nBut it can hardly be maintained that a \"hypothesis\" is able to \"decide\"\nany dispute. (See, however, Chapter VI.)\n\nAn unscientific reader could hardly imagine that the apparently detailed\naccount given in the next sentence of the automatic origin of life, as\nit may have arisen on other planes, and as it must have arisen on this,\nis of the nature of hypothesis:\u2014\n\n    \"First simple monera are formed by spontaneous generation, and\n    from these arise unicellular protists.... From these\n    unicellular protists arise, in the further course of evolution,\n    first social cell-communities, and subsequently tissue-forming\n    plants and animals\" (p. 131).\n\nIn this hypothesis of automatic origin by the agency of matter and\nenergy alone, he could probably find many biologists to agree with him\nspeculatively; but he goes further than some of them, for he does not\nlimit the automatic or material development to animal and vegetable life\nalone: he throws automatic consciousness in, too:\u2014\n\n    \"The 'cellular theory' ... has given us the first true\n    interpretation of the physical, chemical, and even the\n    psychological, processes of life\" (p. 1).\n\n    \"Consciousness, thought, and speculation are functions of the\n    ganglionic cells of the cortex of the brain\" (p. 6).\n\n    \"The peculiar phenomenon of consciousness is not, as du\n    Bois-Reymond and the dualistic school would have us believe, a\n    completely 'transcendental' problem: it is, as I showed\n    thirty-three years ago, a _physiological_ problem, and as such,\n    must be reduced to the phenomena of physics and chemistry\" (p.\n    65).\n\nHolding such a view concerning consciousness, in the teeth of the\ngeneral philosophic opinion of to-day, it is natural to find that of\northodox psychology and psychologists he is contemptuous:\u2014\n\n    \"Most of our so-called 'psychologists' have little or no\n    knowledge of these indispensable foundations of\n    anthropology\u2014anatomy, histology, ontogeny, and physiology....\n    Hence it is that most of the psychological literature of the day\n    is so much waste-paper\" (p. 34).\n\n    \"What we call the soul is, in my opinion, a natural phenomenon;\n    I therefore consider psychology to be a branch of natural\n    science\u2014a section of physiology. Consequently, I must\n    emphatically assert from the commencement that we have no\n    different methods of research for that science than for any of\n    the others\" (p. 32).\n\nIn this difficult Science of Psychology he evidently feels himself quite\nat home. He assumes easily and gratuitously that there is a material\nsubstance at the root of all mental processes whatever\u2014called by\nClifford 'mind-stuff,' (see, however, Chapter IV. below,)\u2014and he then\nproceeds to lay down the law concerning ancient difficulties as\nfollows:\u2014\n\n    \"We shall give to this material basis of all psychic activity,\n    without which it is inconceivable, the provisional name of\n    'psychoplasm.'\n\n    \"The psychic processes are subject to the supreme, all-ruling\n    law of substance; not even in this province is there a single\n    exception to this highest cosmological law.\n\n    \"The dogma of 'free-will,' another essential element of the\n    dualistic psychology, is similarly irreconcilable with the\n    universal law of substance\" (p. 32).\n\n    \"The freedom of the will is not an object for critical\n    scientific inquiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based on an\n    illusion, and has no real existence\" (p. 6).\n\nNevertheless, he realises that its apparent existence has to be\naccounted for somehow, and accordingly he adopts the view that has\nseveral times occurred to thinkers, viz., that the nucleus of all the\nfaculties enjoyed by a complete organism must be attributed in germ or\nnucleus to the cells and even to the atoms out of which the organism is\nbuilt up.\n\nHis speculation as to the formation of a conscious organism, and to the\nreal meaning of its apparent sense of right and wrong and its apparent\ncontrol over its own acts, runs as follows, the will being reduced to\nattraction and repulsion between the atoms:\u2014\n\n    \"Vogt's pyknotic theory of substance is that minute parts of\n    the universal substance, the centres of condensation, which\n    might be called _pyknatoms_, correspond in general to the\n    ultimate separate atoms of the kinetic theory; they differ,\n    however, very considerably in that they are credited with\n    sensation and inclination (or will-movement of the simplest\n    form), _with souls_, in a certain sense,\u2014in harmony with the\n    old theory of Empedocles of the 'loves and hatreds of the\n    elements.'\n\n    \"Moreover, these 'atoms with souls' do not float in empty space,\n    but in the continuous, extremely attenuated, intermediate\n    substance, which represents the uncondensed portion of the\n    primitive matter\" (p. 77).\n\n    \"'Attraction' and 'repulsion' seem to be the sources of\n    _will_\u2014that momentous element of the soul which determines the\n    character of the individual\" (p. 45).\n\n    \"The positive ponderable matter, the element with the feeling of\n    like or desire, is continually striving to complete the process of\n    condensation, and thus collecting an enormous amount of _potential_\n    energy; the negative imponderable matter, on the other hand, offers\n    a perpetual and equal resistance to the further increase of its\n    strain and of the feeling of dislike connected therewith, and thus\n    gathers the utmost amount of _actual_ energy.\n\n    \"I think that this pyknotic theory of substance will prove more\n    acceptable to every biologist who is convinced of the unity of\n    nature than the kinetic theory which prevails in physics to-day\"\n    (p. 78).\n\nIn other words, he appeals to a presumed sentiment of biologists\nagainst the knowledge of the physicist in his own sphere\u2014a strange\nattitude for a man of science. After this it is less surprising to find\nhim ignoring the elementary axiom that \"action and reaction are equal\nand opposite,\" _i.e._ that internal forces can have no motive power on\na body as a whole, and making the grotesque assertion that matter is\nmoved, not by external forces, but by internal likes and desires:\u2014\n\n    \"I must lay down the following theses, which are involved in Vogt's\n    pyknotic theory, as indispensable for a truly monistic view of\n    substance, and one that covers the whole field of organic and\n    inorganic nature:\u2014\n\n    \"1. The two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable matter and\n    ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic force, but they are\n    endowed with sensation and will (though, naturally, of the lowest\n    grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a dislike\n    of strain; they strive after the one and struggle against the\n    other\" (p. 78).\n\nMy desire is to criticise politely, and hence I refrain from\ncharacterising this sentence as a physicist should.\n\n    \"Every shade of inclination, from complete indifference to the\n    fiercest passion, is exemplified in the chemical relation of the\n    various elements towards each other\" (p. 79).\n\n    \"On those phenomena we base our conviction that even the _atom_ is\n    not without a rudimentary form of sensation and will, or, as it is\n    better expressed, of feeling (_\u00e6sthesis_) and inclination\n    (_tropesis_)\u2014that is, a universal 'soul' of the simplest\n    character\" (p. 80).\n\n    \"I gave the outlines of _cellular_ psychology in 1866 in my paper\n    on 'Cell-souls and Soul-cells'\" (p. 63).\n\nThus, then, in order to explain life and mind and consciousness by\nmeans of matter, all that is done is to assume that matter possesses\nthese unexplained attributes.\n\nWhat the full meaning of that may be, and whether there be any\nphilosophic justification for any such idea, is a matter on which I\nwill not now express an opinion; but, at any rate, as it stands, it is\nnot science, and its formulation gives no sort of conception of what\nlife and will and consciousness really are.\n\nEven if it were true, it contains nothing whatever in the nature of\nexplanation: it recognises the inexplicable, and relegates it to the\natoms, where it seems to hope that further quest may cease. Instead of\ntackling the difficulty where it actually occurs; instead of\nassociating life, will, and consciousness with the organisms in which\nthey are actually in experience found, these ideas are foisted into the\natoms of matter; and then the properties which have been conferred on\nthe atoms are denied in all essential reality to the fully developed\norganisms which those atoms help to compose!\n\nI show later on (Chapters V. and X.) that there is no necessary\njustification for assuming that a phenomenon exhibited by an aggregate\nof particles must be possessed by the ingredients of which it is\ncomposed; on the contrary, wholly new properties may make their\nappearance simply by aggregation; though I admit that such a\nproposition is by no means obvious, and that it may be a legitimate\nsubject for controversy. But into that question our author does not\nenter; and even when he has conferred on the atoms these astounding\nproperties, he abstains from what would seem a natural development: for\nhis doctrine is that our power is actually less than that of the\natoms,\u2014that instead of utilising the attractions and repulsions, or\n\"likes and dislikes,\" of our constituent particles, and directing them\nby the aggregate of conscious will-power to some preconceived end, we\nourselves, on the contrary, are dominated and controlled by _them_; so\nthat freedom of the will is an illusion.\n\nFreedom being thus disposed of, Immortality presents no difficulty; a\nsoul is the operation of a group of cells, and so the existence of man\nclearly begins and ends with that of his terrestrial body:\u2014\n\n    \"The most important moment in the life of every man, as in that of\n    all other complex animals, is the moment in which he begins his\n    individual existence [coalescence of sperm cell and ovum] ... the\n    existence of the personality, the independent individual,\n    commences. This ontogenetic fact is supremely important, for the\n    most far-reaching conclusions may be drawn from it. In the first\n    place, we have a clear perception that man, like all the other\n    complex animals, inherits all his personal characteristics, bodily\n    and mental, from his parents; and further, we come to the momentous\n    conclusion that the new personality which arises thus can lay no\n    claim to 'immortality'\" (p. 22).\n\nOthers beside Haeckel have held this kind of view at one time or\nanother; but, unlike him, most of them have recanted and seen the error\nof their ways. He is, indeed, aware that several of his great German\ncontemporaries have been through this phase of thought and come out on\nthe other side, notably the physiologist-philosopher Wundt, and he\nrefers to them fairly and instructively thus:\u2014\n\n    \"What seems to me of special importance and value in Wundt's work\n    is that he 'extends the law of the persistence of force for the\n    first time to the psychic world.'\n\n    \"Thirty years afterwards, in a second edition, Wundt emancipated\n    himself from the fundamental errors of the first, and says that he\n    'learned many years ago to consider the work a sin of his youth';\n    it 'weighed on him as a kind of crime, from which he longed to free\n    himself as soon as possible.' In the first, psychology is treated\n    as a _physical_ science, on the same laws as the whole of\n    physiology, of which it is only a part; thirty years afterwards he\n    finds psychology to be a _spiritual_ science, with principles and\n    objects entirely different from those of physical science.\n\n    \"I myself,\" says Haeckel, \"naturally consider the 'youthful sin' of\n    the young physiologist Wundt to be a correct knowledge of nature,\n    and energetically defend it against the antagonistic view of the\n    old philosopher Wundt. This entire change of philosophical\n    principles, which we find in Wundt, as we found it in Kant,\n    Virchow, du Bois-Reymond, Carl Ernst Baer, and others, is very\n    interesting\" (p. 36).\n\nSo it is: very interesting!\n\nProfessor Haeckel is so imbued with biological science that he loses\nhis sense of proportion; and his enthusiasm for the work of Darwin\nleads him to attribute to it an exaggerated scope, and enables him to\neliminate the third of the Kantian trilogy:\u2014\n\n    \"Darwin's theory of the natural origin of species at once gave us\n    the solution of the mystic 'problem of creation,' the great\n    'question of all questions'\u2014the problem of the true character and\n    origin of man himself\" (p. 28) [_cf._ p. 19 above].\n\nIt is a great deal more than that patient observer and deep thinker\nCharles Darwin ever claimed, nor have his wiser disciples claimed it\nfor him. It is familiar that he explained how variations once arisen\nwould be clinched, if favourable in the struggle, by the action of\nheredity and survival; but the source or origin of the variations\nthemselves he did not explain.\n\nDo they arise by guidance or by chance? Is natural selection akin to\nthe verified and practical processes of artificial selection? or is it\nwholly alien to them and influenced by chance alone? The latter view\ncan hardly be considered a complete explanation, though it is verbally\nthe one adopted by Professor Haeckel, and it is of interest to see what\nhe means by chance:\u2014\n\n    \"Since impartial study of the evolution of the world teaches us\n    that there is no definite aim and no special purpose to be traced\n    in it, there seems to be no alternative but to leave everything to\n    'blind chance.'\n\n    \"One group of philosophers affirms, in accordance with its\n    teleological conception, that the whole cosmos is an orderly\n    system, in which every phenomenon has its aim and purpose; there is\n    no such thing as chance. The other group, holding a mechanical\n    theory, expresses itself thus: The development of the universe is a\n    monistic mechanical process, in which we discover no aim or purpose\n    whatever; what we call design in the organic world is a special\n    result of biological agencies; neither in the evolution of the\n    heavenly bodies nor in that of the crust of our earth do we find\n    any trace of a controlling purpose\u2014all is the result of chance.\n    Each party is right\u2014according to its definition of chance. The\n    general law of causality, taken in conjunction with the law of\n    substance, teaches us that every phenomenon has a mechanical cause;\n    in this sense there is no such thing as chance. Yet it is not only\n    lawful, but necessary, to retain the term for the purpose of\n    expressing the simultaneous occurrence of two phenomena, which are\n    not causally related to each other, but of which each has its own\n    mechanical cause, independent of that of the other.\n\n    \"Everybody knows that chance, in this monistic sense, plays an\n    important part in the life of man and in the universe at large.\n    That, however, does not prevent us from recognising in each\n    'chance' event, as we do in the evolution of the entire cosmos, the\n    universal sovereignty of nature's supreme law, _the law of\n    substance_\" (p. 97).\n\n\n_Illegitimate Negations._\n\nWith regard to the possibility of Revelation, or information derived\nfrom super-human sources, naturally he ridicules the idea; but in\nconnection with the mode of origin and development of life on this\nplanet he makes the following sensible and noteworthy admission:\u2014\n\n    \"It is very probable that these processes have gone on likewise on\n    other planets, and that other planets have produced other types of\n    the higher plants and animals, which are unknown on our earth;\n    perhaps from some higher animal stem, which is superior to the\n    vertebrate in formation, higher beings have arisen who far\n    transcend us earthly men in intelligence.\"\n\nExactly; it is quite probable. It is, in fact, improbable that man is\nthe highest type of existence. But if Professor Haeckel is ready to\ngrant that probability or even possibility, why does he so strenuously\nexclude the idea of revelation, _i.e._, the acquiring of imparted\ninformation from higher sources? Savages can certainly have\n\"revelation\" from civilised men. Why, then, should it be inconceivable\nthat human beings should receive information from beings in the\nuniverse higher than themselves? It may or may not be the case that\nthey do; but there is no scientific ground for dogmatism on the\nsubject, nor any reason for asserting the inconceivability of such a\nthing.\n\nProfessor Haeckel would no doubt reply to some of the above criticism\nthat he is not only a man of science, but also a philosopher, that he\nis looking ahead, beyond ascertained fact, and that it is his\nphilosophic views which are in question rather than his scientific\nstatements. To some extent it is both, as has been seen; but if even\nthe above be widely known\u2014if it be generally understood that the most\ncontroversial portions of his work are mainly speculative and\nhypothetical, it can be left to its proper purpose of doing good rather\nthan harm. It can only do harm by misleading, it can do considerable\ngood by criticising and stimulating and informing; and it is an\ninteresting fact that a man so well acquainted with biology as\nProfessor Haeckel is should have been so strongly impressed with the\ntruth of some aspect of the philosophic system known as Monism. Many\nmen of science have likewise been impressed with the probability, or\npossibility, of some such ultimate unification.\n\nThe problem to be solved\u2014and an old-world problem indeed it is\u2014is the\nrange, and especially the nature, of the connection between mind and\nmatter; or, let us say, between the material universe on the one hand,\nand the vital, the mental, the conscious and spiritual universe or\nuniverses, on the other.\n\nIt would be extremely surprising if any attempt yet made had already\nbeen thoroughly successful, though the attack on the idealistic side\nappears to many of us physicists to be by far the most hopeful line of\nadvance. An excessively wide knowledge of existence would seem to be\ndemanded for the success of any such most ambitious attempt; but,\nthough none of us may hope to achieve it, many may strive to make some\ncontribution towards the great end; and those who think they have such\na contribution to make, or such a revelation entrusted to them, are\nbound to express it to the best of their ability, and leave it to their\ncontemporaries and successors to assimilate such portions of it as are\ntrue, and to develop it further. From this point of view Professor\nHaeckel is no doubt amply justified in his writings; but,\nunfortunately, it appears to me that although he has been borne forward\non the advancing wave of monistic philosophy, he has, in its\nspecification, attempted such precision of materialistic detail, and\nsubjected it to so narrow and limited a view of the totality of\nexperience, that the progress of thought has left him, as well as his\ngreat English exemplar, Herbert Spencer, somewhat high and dry, belated\nand stranded by the tide of opinion which has now begun to flow in\nanother direction. He is, as it were, a surviving voice from the middle\nof the nineteenth century; he represents, in clear and eloquent\nfashion, opinions which then were prevalent among many leaders of\nthought\u2014opinions which they themselves in many cases, and their\nsuccessors still more, lived to outgrow; so that by this time Professor\nHaeckel's voice is as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, not as\nthe pioneer or vanguard of an advancing army, but as the despairing\nshout of a standard-bearer, still bold and unflinching, but abandoned\nby the retreating ranks of his comrades as they march to new orders in\na fresh and more idealistic direction.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nMEMORANDA FOR WOULD-BE MATERIALISTS\n\n\nThe objection which it has been found necessary to express concerning\nMaterialism as a complete system is based not on its assertions, but on\nits negations. In so far as it makes positive assertions, embodying the\nresults of scientific discovery and even of scientific speculation\nbased thereupon, there is no fault to find with it; but when, on the\nstrength of that, it sets up to be a philosophy of the universe\u2014all\ninclusive, therefore, and shutting out a number of truths otherwise\nperceived, or which appeal to other faculties, or which are equally\ntrue and are not really contradictory of legitimately materialistic\nstatements\u2014then it is that its insufficiency and narrowness have to be\ndisplayed.\n\nIt will be probably instructive, and it may be sufficient, if I show\nthat two great leaders in scientific thought (one the greatest of all\nmen of science who have yet lived), though well aware of much that\ncould be said positively on the materialistic side, and very willing to\nadmit or even to extend the province of science or exact knowledge to\nthe uttermost, yet were very far from being philosophic Materialists or\nfrom imagining that other modes of regarding the universe were thereby\nexcluded.\n\nGreat leaders of thought, in fact, are not accustomed to take a narrow\nview of existence, or to suppose that one mode of regarding it, or one\nset of formul\u00e6 expressing it, can possibly be sufficient and complete.\nEven a sheet of paper has two sides: a terrestrial globe presents\ndifferent aspects from different points of view; a crystal has a\nvariety of facets; and the totality of existence is not likely to be\nmore simple than any of these\u2014is not likely to be readily expressible\nin any form of words, or to be thoroughly conceivable by any human\nmind.\n\nIt may be well to remember that Sir Isaac Newton was a Theist of the\nmost pronounced and thorough conviction, although he had a great deal\nto do with the reduction of the major Cosmos to mechanics, _i.e._ with\nits explanation by the elaborated machinery of simple forces; and he\nconceived it possible that, in the progress of science, this process of\nreduction to mechanics would continue till it embraced nearly all\nphenomena. (See extract below.) That, indeed, has been the effort of\nscience ever since, and therein lies the legitimate basis for\nmaterialistic statements, though not for a materialistic philosophy.\n\nThe following sound remarks concerning Newton are taken from Huxley's\n_Hume_, p. 246:\u2014\n\n    \"Newton demonstrated all the host of heaven to be but the elements\n    of a vast mechanism, regulated by the same laws as those which\n    express the falling of a stone to the ground. There is a passage in\n    the preface to the first edition of the _Principia_, which shows\n    that Newton was penetrated, as completely as Descartes, with the\n    belief that all the phenomena of nature are expressible in terms of\n    matter and motion:\u2014\n\n    \"'WOULD THAT THE REST OF THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE COULD BE DEDUCED\n    BY A LIKE KIND OF REASONING FROM MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES. FOR MANY\n    CIRCUMSTANCES LEAD ME TO SUSPECT THAT ALL THESE PHENOMENA MAY\n    DEPEND UPON CERTAIN FORCES, IN VIRTUE OF WHICH THE PARTICLES OF\n    BODIES, BY CAUSES NOT YET KNOWN, ARE EITHER MUTUALLY IMPELLED\n    AGAINST ONE ANOTHER, AND COHERE INTO REGULAR FIGURES, OR REPEL AND\n    RECEDE FROM ONE ANOTHER; WHICH FORCES BEING UNKNOWN, PHILOSOPHERS\n    HAVE AS YET EXPLORED NATURE IN VAIN. BUT I HOPE THAT, EITHER BY\n    THIS METHOD OF PHILOSOPHISING, OR BY SOME OTHER AND BETTER, THE\n    PRINCIPLES HERE LAID DOWN MAY THROW SOME LIGHT UPON THE MATTER.'\"\n\nHere is a full-blown anticipation of an intelligible exposition of the\nUniverse in terms of matter and force: the substantial basis of what\nsmaller men call materialism and develop into what they consider to be\na materialistic philosophy. But there is no necessity for anything of\nthe kind; a systematic expression of facts in terms of one of their\naspects does not exclude expression in terms of other and totally\ndifferent aspects also. Denial of all sides but one, is a poor kind of\nunification. Denial of this sort is the weakness and delusion of the\npeople who call themselves 'Christian Scientists': they have hold of\none side of truth\u2014and that should be granted them,\u2014but they hold it\nin so narrow and insecure a fashion that, in self-defence, they think\nit safest strenuously to deny the existence of all other sides. In this\nfutile enterprise they are imitating the attitude of the philosophic\nMaterialists, on the other side of the controversy.\n\nAnd then, again, Professor Huxley himself, who is commonly spoken of by\nhalf-informed people as if he were a philosophic materialist, was\nreally nothing of the kind; for although, like Newton, fully imbued\nwith the mechanical doctrine, and, of course, far better informed\nconcerning the biological departments of Nature and the discoveries\nwhich have in the last century been made, and though he rightly\nregarded it as his mission to make the scientific point of view clear\nto his benighted contemporaries, and was full of enthusiasm for the\nfacts on which materialists take their stand, he saw clearly that these\nalone were insufficient for a philosophy. The following extracts from\nthe 'Hume' volume will show, first, that he entirely repudiated\nmaterialism as a satisfactory or complete scheme of things; and,\nsecondly, that he profoundly disagreed with the position which now\nappears to be occupied by Professor Haeckel. Especially is he severe on\ngratuitous denials applied to provinces beyond our scope, saying:\u2014\n\n    \"that while it is the summit of human wisdom to learn the limit of\n    our faculties, it may be wise to recollect that we have no more\n    right to make denials, than to put forth affirmatives, about what\n    lies beyond that limit. Whether either mind or matter has a\n    'substance' or not is a problem which we are incompetent to\n    discuss; and it is just as likely that the common notions upon the\n    subject should be correct as any others.... 'The same principles\n    which, at first view, lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain\n    point, bring men back to common sense'\" (p. 282).\n\nAnd on p. 286 he speaks concerning \"substance\"\u2014that substance which\nconstitutes the foundation of Haeckel's philosophy\u2014almost as if he\nwere purposely confuting that rather fly-blown production:\u2014\n\n    \"Thus, if any man think he has reason to believe that the\n    '_substance_' of matter, to the existence of which no limit can be\n    set either in time or space, is the infinite and eternal substratum\n    of all actual and possible existences, which is the doctrine of\n    philosophical materialism, as I understand it, I have no objection\n    to his holding that doctrine; and I fail to comprehend how it can\n    have the slightest influence upon any ethical or religious views he\n    may please to hold....\n\n    \"Moreover, the ultimate forms of existence which we distinguish in\n    our little speck of the universe are, possibly, only two out of\n    infinite varieties of existence, not only analogous to matter and\n    analogous to mind, but of kinds which we are not competent so much\n    as to conceive\u2014in the midst of which, indeed, we might be set\n    down, with no more notion of what was about us, than the worm in a\n    flower-pot, on a London balcony, has of the life of the great city.\n\n    \"That which I do very strongly object to is the habit, which a\n    great many non-philosophical materialists unfortunately fall into,\n    of forgetting all these very obvious considerations. They talk as\n    if the proof that the 'substance of matter' was the 'substance' of\n    all things cleared up all the mysteries of existence. In point of\n    fact, it leaves them exactly where they were.... Your religious and\n    ethical difficulties are just as great as mine. The speculative\n    game is drawn\u2014let us get to practical work\" (p. 286).\n\nAnd again on pp. 251 and 279:\u2014\n\n    \"It is worth any amount of trouble to ... know by one's own\n    knowledge the great truth ... that the honest and rigorous\n    following up of the argument which leads us to 'materialism'\n    inevitably carries us beyond it\" (p. 251).\n\n    \"To sum up. If the materialist affirms that the universe and all\n    its phenomena are resolvable into matter and motion, Berkeley\n    replies, True; but what you call matter and motion are known to us\n    only as forms of consciousness; their being is to be conceived or\n    known; and the existence of a state of consciousness, apart from a\n    thinking mind, is a contradiction in terms.\n\n    \"I conceive that this reasoning is irrefragable. And, therefore, if\n    I were obliged to choose between absolute materialism and absolute\n    idealism, I should feel compelled to accept the latter alternative\"\n    (p. 279).\n\nLet the jubilant but uninstructed and comparatively ignorant amateur\nmaterialist therefore beware, and bethink himself twice or even thrice\nbefore he conceives that he understands the universe and is competent\nto pour scorn upon the intuitions and perceptions of great men in what\nmay be to him alien regions of thought and experience.\n\nLet him explain, if he can, what he means by his own identity, or the\nidentity of any thinking or living being, which at different times\nconsists of a totally different set of material particles. Something\nthere clearly is which confers personal identity and constitutes an\nindividual: it is a property characteristic of every form of life,\neven the humblest; but it is not yet explained or understood, and it\nis no answer to assert gratuitously that there is some fundamental\n\"substance\" or material basis on which that identity depends, any more\nthan it is an explanation to say that it depends upon a \"soul.\" These\nare all forms of words. As Hume says, quoted by Huxley with approval in\nthe work already cited, p. 194:\u2014\n\n    \"It is impossible to attach any definite meaning to the word\n    'substance,' when employed for the hypothetical substratum of soul\n    and matter.... If it be said that our personal identity requires\n    the assumption of a substance which remains the same while the\n    accidents of perception shift and change, the question arises what\n    is meant by personal identity?... A plant or an animal, in the\n    course of its existence, from the condition of an egg or seed to\n    the end of life, remains the same neither in form, nor in\n    structure, nor in the matter of which it is composed: every\n    attribute it possesses is constantly changing, and yet we say that\n    it is always one and the same individual\" (p. 194).\n\nAnd in his own preface to the 'Hume' volume Huxley expresses himself\nforcibly thus,\u2014equally antagonistic as was his wont to both ostensible\nfriend and ostensible foe, as soon as they got off what he considered\nthe straight path:\u2014\n\n    \"That which it may be well for us not to forget is, that the\n    first-recorded judicial murder of a scientific thinker [Socrates]\n    was compassed and effected, not by a despot, nor by priests, but\n    was brought about by eloquent demagogues.... Clear knowledge of\n    what one does not know just as important as knowing what one does\n    know....\n\n    \"The development of exact natural knowledge in all its vast range,\n    from physics to history and criticism, is the consequence of the\n    working out, in this province, of the resolution to 'take nothing\n    for truth without clear knowledge that it is such'; to consider all\n    beliefs open to criticism; to regard the value of authority as\n    neither greater nor less, than as much as it can prove itself to be\n    worth. The modern spirit is not the spirit 'which always denies,'\n    delighting only in destruction; still less is it that which builds\n    castles in the air rather than not construct; it is that spirit\n    which works and will work 'without haste and without rest,'\n    gathering harvest after harvest of truth into its barns, and\n    devouring error with unquenchable fire\" (p. viii.).\n\nThe harvesting of truth is a safe enough enterprise, but the devouring\nof error is a more dangerous pastime, since flames are liable to spread\nbeyond our control; and though, in a world overgrown with weeds and\nrefuse, the cleansing influence of fire is a necessity, it would be\ncruel to apply the same agency again at a later stage, when a fresh\nyoung crop is springing up in the cleared ground.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nRELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nThe aphorism sometimes encountered, that \"whatever properties appertain\nto a whole must essentially belong to the parts of which it is\ncomposed,\" is a fallacy. A property can be possessed by an aggregation\nof atoms which no atom possesses in the slightest degree. Those who\nthink otherwise are unacquainted with mathematical laws other than\nsimple proportion or some continuous or additive functions; they are\nnot aware of discontinuities; they are not experienced in critical\nvalues, above which certain conditions obtain, while below them there\nis suddenly nothing. To refute them an instance must suffice:\u2014\n\nA meteoric stone may seem to differ from a planet only in size, but the\ndifference in size involves also many other differences, notably the\nfact that the larger body can attract and hold to itself an\natmosphere\u2014a circumstance of the utmost importance to the existence of\nlife on its surface. In order, however, that a planet may by\ngravitative attraction control the roving atoms of gas, and confine\ntheir excursions to within a certain range of itself, it must have a\nvery considerable mass.\n\nThe earth is big enough to do it; the moon is not. By simply piling\natoms or stones together into a mighty mass there comes a critical\npoint at which an atmosphere becomes possible; and directly an\natmosphere exists, all manner of phenomena may spring into existence,\nwhich without it were quite impossible.\n\nSo, also, it may be said that a sun differs from a dark planet only in\nsize; for it is just the fact of great size which enables its\ngravitative-shrinkage and earthquake-subsidence to generate an immense\nquantity of heat and to maintain the mass for \u00e6ons at an excessively\nhigh temperature, thereby fitting it to become the centre of light and\nlife to a number of worlds. The blaze of the sun is a property which is\nthe outcome of its great mass. A small permanent sun is an\nimpossibility.\n\nWherefore, properties can be possessed by an aggregate or assemblage of\nparticles which in the particles themselves did not in the slightest\ndegree exist.\n\nIf, however, we reverse the aphorism and say that whatever is in a part\nmust be in the whole, we are on much safer ground. I do not say that it\ncannot be pressed into illegitimate extremes, but in one and that the\nsimplest sense it is little better than a platitude. The fact that an\napple has pips legitimises the assertion that an apple-tree has pips,\nand that the peculiar property of pips represents a faculty enjoyed by\nthe vegetable kingdom as a whole; but it would be a childish\nmisunderstanding to expect to find actual pips in the trunk of a tree\nor in all vegetables.\n\nThere is a tendency to call the argument or statement that whatever\nfaculty man possesses the Deity must have also; by the name\nAnthropomorphism; but it seems to me a misnomer, and to convey quite\nwrong ideas. The argument represented by \"He that formed the eye, shall\nhe not see? he that planted the ear, shall he not hear?\" need not\nassume for a moment that God has sense organs akin to those of man, or\nthat He appreciates ethereal and aerial vibrations in the same sort of\nway. It is not an assertion of similarity between God and man, but\nmerely a realisation that what belongs to a part _must_ be contained in\nthe whole. It is not even necessarily pantheistic: it would hold\nequally well on a Theistic interpretation. Regarded pantheistically it\nis obvious and requires no stating: regarded Theistically, it is a\nperception that faculties and powers which have come into existence,\nand are actually at work in the universe, cannot have arisen without\nthe knowledge and sympathy and full understanding of the Sustainer and\nComprehender of it all. Nor can functions be expected in the creature\nwhich transcend the power of the Creator.\n\nAll our faculties, sensations, and emotions must therefore be\nunderstood, and in a sense possessed, in some transcendental and to us\nunimaginable form, by the Deity.\n\nI know that it is possible to deny His existence, just as it is\npossible to deny the existence of an external world or to maintain that\nreality is limited to our sensations. If the Deity has a sense of\nhumour, as undoubtedly He has, He must be amused at the remarkable\nphilosophising faculty recently developed by the creature which on this\nplanet has become most vigorously self-conscious and is in the early\nstages of progress towards higher things\u2014a philosophising faculty so\nacute as to lead him to mistrust and throw away information conveyed to\nhim by the very instruments which have enabled him to become what he\nis; so that having become keenly alive to the truth that all we are\ndirectly aware of is the fruit of our own sensations and consciousness,\nhe proceeds to the grotesque supposition that these sensations and\nconsciousness may be all that really exists, and that the information\nwhich for ages our senses have conveyed to us concerning external\nthings may be illusory, not only in form and detail and appearance, but\nin substantial fact.\n\nHe must be pleased, also, with the enterprise of those eager\nphilosophers who are so strenuously impressed with the truth of some\nultimate monistic unification, as to be unwilling to concede the\nmultifariousness of existence\u2014who decline to speak of mind and matter,\nor of body and spirit, or of God and the world, as in any sense\nseparate entities\u2014who stigmatise as dualistic anything which does not\nmanifestly and consciously strain after an ultimate monistic view\u2014and\nwho then, as a climax, on the strength of a few years' superficial\nexperience on a planet, by the aid of the sense organs which they\nthemselves perceive to be illusory whenever the actual reality of\nthings is in contemplation, proceed to develop the theory that the\nwhole has come into being without direct intelligence and apart from\nspiritual guidance, that it is managed so well (or so ill) that it is\nreally not managed at all, that no Deity exists, and that it is absurd\nto postulate the existence of a comprehensive and all-inclusive guiding\nMind.\n\nTo be able to perceive comprehensively and state fully not only what\nis, but also what is not, is a wonderful achievement. I do not think\nthat such a power has yet been acquired by any of the sons of men; nor\nwill the semi-educated readers of this country be wise if they pin\ntheir faith and build their hopes on the utterances of any man, however\neminent, who makes this superhuman claim.\n\nNow, in all charity, it must be admitted that in some passages\nProfessor Haeckel puts himself under the ban implied by the above\nparagraph, inasmuch as he conducts a sort of free and easy attack on\nreligion, especially on what he conceives to be the fundamental\ndoctrines of Christianity. But, after all, it can be perceived that his\nattack, so far as it is really an attack on religion, is evidently\ninspired by his mistrust and dislike, and to some extent fear, of\nEcclesiasticism, especially of the Ultramontane movement in Germany,\nagainst which he says Prince Bismarck began a struggle in 1872. It is\nthis kind of semi-political religion that he is really attacking, more\nthan the pure essence of Christianity itself. He regards it as a\nbigoted system hostile to knowledge\u2014which, if true, would amply\njustify an attack\u2014and he says on page 118:\u2014\n\n    \"The great struggle between modern science and orthodox\n    Christianity has become more threatening; it has grown more\n    dangerous for science in proportion as Christianity has found\n    support in an increasing mental and political reaction.\"\n\nThis may seem an exaggerated fear; but the following extract from a\nPastoral address by the Bishop of Newport, which accidentally I saw\nreported in _The Tablet_, shows that the danger is not wholly\nimaginary, if unwise opinions are pressed to their logical practical\nissue:\u2014\n\n    \"If the formulas of modern science contradict the science of\n    Catholic dogma, it is the former that must be altered, not the\n    latter.\"[2]\n\n      [Footnote 2: In case it is unfair to wrench a sentence like \n      this from its context, I quote the larger portion of that\n      instructive report in this note:\u2014\n\n          _Extract from \"The Tablet,\" Aug. 27th, 1904\u2014An Address\n          by the Bishop of Newport._\n\n          \"If the Abb\u00e9 Loisy has followers within the Church, as we are\n          informed he has, it cannot be doubted that the danger for\n          Catholics is by no means imaginary. For Loisy teaches that\n          the dogmatic definitions of the Church [on the Incarnation],\n          although the best that could be given at the time and under\n          the circumstances, are only a most inadequate expression of\n          the real truth, which they represent merely relatively and\n          imperfectly. These definitions, he says, should now be stated\n          afresh, because the traditional formula no longer corresponds\n          to the way in which the mystery is regarded by contemporary\n          thought. In his view, our present knowledge of the universe\n          should suggest to the Church a new examination of the dogma\n          of Creation; our knowledge of history should make her revise\n          her ideas of revelation; and our progress in psychology and\n          moral philosophy should suggest to her to re-state her\n          theology of the Incarnation. Every one can see that there is\n          a grain of truth in this kind of talk. But it is, on the\n          whole, a pestilent and dangerous heresy. If the formulas of\n          modern science contradict the science of Catholic dogma, it\n          is the former that must be altered, not the latter. If modern\n          metaphysics are incompatible with the metaphysical terms and\n          expressions adopted by councils and explained by the Catholic\n          schools, then modern metaphysics must be rejected as\n          erroneous. The Church does not change her Christian\n          philosophy to suit the world's speculations; she teaches the\n          world, by her theological definitions, what true and sound\n          philosophy is. Whilst every effort should be made by Catholic\n          apologists to smooth the way for a genuine understanding of\n          the Church's dogmatic terminology, two things must never be\n          lost sight of, first, that this terminology expresses real\n          objective truth (however inadequate the expression may be to\n          the full meaning, as God sees it, of any given mystery); and,\n          secondly, that such truth is expressed in terms of sound\n          philosophy which will not be given up, and which may be\n          called the Christian philosophy.\"]\n\nProfessor Haeckel continues his criticism of Official Christianity in\nthe following vein:\u2014\n\n    \"The so-called 'Peace between Church and State' is never more than\n    a suspension of hostilities. The modern Papacy, true to the\n    despotic principles it has followed for the last 1600 years, is\n    determined to wield sole dominion over the credulous souls of men;\n    it must demand the absolute submission of the cultured State,\n    which, as such, defends the rights of reason and science. True and\n    enduring peace there cannot be until one of the combatants lies\n    powerless on the ground. Either the Church wins, and then farewell\n    to all 'free science and free teaching'\u2014then are our universities\n    no better than gaols, and our colleges become cloistral schools; or\n    else the modern rational State proves victorious\u2014then, in the\n    twentieth century, human culture, freedom, and prosperity will\n    continue their progressive development until they far surpass even\n    the height of the nineteenth century.\n\n    \"In order to compass these high aims, it is of the first importance\n    that modern science not only shatter the false structures of\n    superstition and sweep their ruins from the path, but that it also\n    erect a new abode for human emotion on the ground it has cleared\u2014a\n    'palace of reason,' in which, under the influence of our new\n    monistic views, we do reverence to the real trinity of the\n    nineteenth century\u2014the trinity of 'the true, the good, and the\n    beautiful'\" (p. 119).\n\nThese are the bases of religion, adopted from Goethe, which in\nHaeckel's view should entirely replace what he calls the Trinity of\nKant, viz., God, Freedom, and Immortality\u2014three ideas which he regards\nas mere superstition or as so enveloped in superstition as to be\nworthless.\n\nOccasionally, however, he attacks not solely ecclesiastical\nChristianity\u2014in which enterprise he is entirely within his\nrights,\u2014but he goes further and abuses some of its more primitive\nforms, and to some extent its practical fruits also. For instance:\u2014\n\n    \"Primitive Christianity preached the worthlessness of earthly life,\n    regarding it merely as a preparation for an eternal life beyond.\n    Hence it immediately followed that all we find in the life of a man\n    here below, all that is beautiful in art and science, in public and\n    in private life, is of no real value. The true Christian must avert\n    his eyes from them; he must think only of a worthy preparation for\n    the life beyond. Contempt of nature, aversion from all its\n    inexhaustible charms, rejection of every kind of fine art, are\n    Christian duties; and they are carried out to perfection when a man\n    separates himself from his fellows, chastises his body, and spends\n    all his time in prayers in the cloister or the hermit's cell.... A\n    Christian art is a contradiction in terms\" (p. 120).\n\nI think it may without offence be said that if he means by \"Primitive\nChristianity\" the teachings of Christ, he is mistaken, and has\nsomething to learn as to what those teachings really were. If he means\nthe times of persecution under the Roman empire, he could hardly expect\nmuch concentration on artistic pursuits or much enjoyment of\nterrestrial existence when it was liable to be violently extinguished\nat any moment: sufficient that the early Church survived its struggle\nfor existence. But if he is referring to medi\u00e6val Christianity, of any\nother than a debased kind,\u2014common knowledge concerning medi\u00e6val art\nand architecture sufficiently rebuts the indictment. So much so, that\none may almost wonder if by chance he happened to be thinking of\n\"Mohammedanism\" rather than of Christianity.\n\nBut he continues, in a more practical and observant vein:\u2014\n\n    \"Christianity has no place for that well-known love of animals,\n    that sympathy with the nearly-related and friendly mammals (dogs,\n    horses, cattle, etc.) which is urged in the ethical teaching of\n    many of the older religions, especially Buddhism. (Unfortunately,\n    Descartes gave some support to the error in teaching that man only\n    has a sensitive soul, not the animal.) Whoever has spent much time\n    in the south of Europe must have often witnessed those frightful\n    sufferings of animals which fill us friends of animals with the\n    deepest sympathy and indignation. And when one expostulates with\n    these brutal 'Christians' on their cruelty, the only answer is,\n    with a laugh: 'But the beasts are not Christians'\" (p. 126).\n\nThis, if true, and I have heard it from other sources, does constitute\nrather a serious indictment against the form of practical Christianity\nunderstood by the ignorant classes among the Latin races.\n\nTo return, however, to the concluding paragraph of the extract quoted\nabove (on page 81) from his page 119:\u2014\n\nNo one can have any objection to raise against the dignity and\nworthiness of the three great attributes which excite Professor\nHaeckel's, as they excited Goethe's, worship and admiration, viz., the\nthree \"goddesses,\" as he calls them: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty; but\nthere is no necessary competition or antagonism between these and the\nother three great conceptions which aroused the veneration of Kant:\nGod, Freedom, and Immortality; nor does the upholding of the one triad\nmean the overthrow of the other: they may be all co-eternal together\nand co-equal. Nor are either of these triplets inconsistent with some\nreasonable view of what may be meant by the Christian Trinity. The\ntotal possibility of existence is so vast that no simple formula, nor\nindeed any form of words, however complex, is likely to be able to sum\nit up and express its essence to the exclusion of all other modes of\nexpression. It is a pity, therefore, that Professor Haeckel should\nthink it necessary to decry one set of ideas in order to support\nanother set. There is room for all in this large universe\u2014room for\neverything, except downright lies and falseness.\n\nConcerning Truth there is no need to speak: it cannot but be the breath\nof the nostrils of every genuine scientific man; but his ideas of truth\nshould be large enough to take into account possibilities far beyond\nanything of which he is at present sure, and he should be careful to be\nundogmatic and docile in regions of which at present he has not the\nkey.\n\nThe meaning of Goodness, the whole domain of ethics, and the higher\npossibilities of sainthood of which the human spirit has shown itself\ncapable, are at present outside his domain; and if a man of science\nseeks to dogmatise concerning the emotions and the will, and asserts\nthat he can reduce them to atomic forces and motions, because he has\nlearnt to recognise the undoubted truth that atomic forces and motions\nmust accompany them and constitute the machinery of their manifestation\nhere and now,\u2014he is exhibiting the smallness of his conceptions and\ngibbeting himself as a laughing-stock to future generations.\n\nThe atmosphere and full meaning of Beauty also he can only dimly grasp.\nIf he seeks to explain it in terms of sexual selection, or any other\nsmall conception which he has recently been able to form in connection\nwith vital procedure on this planet, he is explaining nothing: he is\nmerely showing how the perception of beauty may operate in certain\ncases; but the inner nature of beauty and the faculty by which it is\nperceived are utterly beyond him. He cannot but feel that the\nunconscious and unobtrusive beauty of field and hedgerow must have\noriginated in obedience to some primal instinct or in fulfilment of\nsome immanent desire, some lofty need quite other than anything he\nrecognises as human.\n\nAnd if a poet witnessing the colours of a sunset, for instance, or the\nprofusion of beauty with which snow mountains seem to fling themselves\nto the heavens in districts unpeopled and in epochs long before human\nconsciousness awoke upon the earth: if such a seer feels the revelation\nweigh upon his spirit with an almost sickening pressure, and is\nconstrained to ascribe this wealth and prodigality of beauty to the joy\nof the Eternal Being in His own existence, to an anticipation as it\nwere of the developments which lie before the universe in which He is\nat work, and which He is slowly tending towards an unimaginable\nperfection\u2014it behooves the man of science to put his hand upon his\nmouth, lest in his efforts to be true, in the absence of knowledge, he\nfind himself uttering, in his ignorance, words of lamentable folly or\nblasphemy.\n\n\n_Man and Nature._\n\nConsider our own position\u2014it is surely worth considering. We are\na part of this planet; on one side certainly and distinctly a part\nof this material world, a part which has become self-conscious. At\nfirst we were a part which had become alive; a tremendous step\nthat\u2014introducing a number of powers and privileges which previously\nhad been impossible, but that step introduced no responsibility; we\nwere no longer, indeed, urged by mere pressure from behind, we were\nguided by our instincts and appetites, but we still obeyed the\nstrongest external motive, almost like electro-magnetic automata. Now,\nhowever, we have become conscious, able to look before and after, to\nlearn consciously from the past, to strive strenuously towards the\nfuture; we have acquired a knowledge of good and evil, we can choose\nthe one and reject the other, and are thus burdened with a sense of\nresponsibility for our acts. We still obey the strongest motive\ndoubtless, but there is something in ourselves which makes it a motive\nand regulates its strength. We _can_ drift like other animals, and\noften do; but we can also obey our own volition.\n\nI would not deny the rudiments of self-consciousness, and some of what\nit implies, to certain domestic animals, notably the dog; but\ndomestication itself is a result of humanity, and undoubtedly the\nattributes we are discussing are chiefly and almost solely human, they\ncan hardly be detected in wild nature. No other animal can have a full\nperception of its own individuality and personality as separate from\nthe rest of existence. Such ideas do not occur in the early periods of\neven human infancy: they are a later growth. Self-consciousness must\nhave become prominent at a certain stage in the evolutionary process.\n\nHow it all arose is a legitimate problem for genetic psychology, but to\nthe plain man it is a puzzle; our ancestors invented legends to account\nfor it\u2014legends of apples and serpents and the like; but the fact is\nthere, however it be accounted for. The truth embedded in that old\nGenesis legend is deep; it is the legend of man's awakening from a\nmerely animal life to consciousness of good and evil, no longer obeying\nhis primal instincts in a state of thoughtlessness and innocency\u2014a\nstate in which deliberate vice was impossible and therefore higher and\npurposed goodness also impossible,\u2014it was the introduction of a new\nsense into the world, the sense of conscience, the power of deliberate\nchoice; the power also of conscious guidance, the management of things\nand people external to himself, for preconceived ends. Man was\nbeginning to cease to be merely a passenger on the planet, controlled\nby outside forces; it is as if the reins were then for the first time\nbeing placed in his hands, as if he was allowed to begin to steer, to\ngovern his own fate and destiny, and to take over some considerable\npart of the management of the world.\n\nThe process of handing over the reins to us is still going on. The\neducation of the human race is a long process, and we are not yet fit\nto be fully trusted with the steering gear; but the words of the old\nserpent were true enough: once open our eyes to the perception and\ndiscrimination of good and evil, once become conscious of freedom of\nchoice, and sooner or later we must inevitably acquire some of the\npower and responsibility of gods. A fall it might seem, just as a\nvicious man sometimes seems degraded below the beasts, but in promise\nand potency a rise it really was.\n\nThe oneness between ourselves and Nature is not a thing to be deplored;\nit is a thing to rejoice at, when properly conceived. It awakens a kind\nof religious enthusiasm even in Haeckel, who clearly perceives but a\nlimited aspect of it; yet the perception is vivid enough to cause him,\nthis so-called Atheist, to close his _Confession of Faith_ with words\nsuch as these:\u2014\n\n    \"Now, at last, it is given to the mightily advancing human mind to\n    have its eyes opened; it is given to it to show that a true\n    knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and inexhaustible\n    nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but also for\n    its yearning spirit.\n\n    \"Knowledge of the true, training for the good, pursuit of the\n    beautiful: these are the three great departments of our monism; by\n    the harmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at\n    last the truly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully\n    longed after by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the\n    Good, these are the three august Divine Ones before which we bow\n    the knee in adoration....\n\n    \"In the hope that free research and free teaching may always\n    continue, I conclude my monistic _Confession of Faith_ with the\n    words: 'May God, the Spirit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the\n    True, be with us.'\"\n\nThis is clearly the utterance of a man to whose type I unconsciously\nreferred in an article written two years ago (_Hibbert Journal_,\nJanuary 1903), from which I now make the following appropriate\nextract:\u2014\n\nLooking at the loom of nature, the feeling not of despair, but of what\nhas been called atheism, one ingredient of atheism, has arisen: atheism\nnever fully realised, and wrongly so called\u2014recently it has been\ncalled severe Theism, indeed; for it is joyful sometimes, interested\nand placid always, exultant at the strange splendour of the spectacle\nwhich its intellect has laid bare to contemplation, satisfied with the\nperfection of the mechanism, content to be a part of the self-generated\norganism, and endeavouring to think that the feelings of duty, of\nearnest effort, and of faithful service, which conspicuously persist in\nspite of all discouragement, are on this view intelligible as well as\ninstinctive, and sure that nothing less than unrepining unfaltering\nunswerving acquiescence is worthy of our dignity as man.\n\nThe above 'Confession of Faith,' then, is very well; for the man\nhimself very well indeed, but it is not enough for the race. Other\nparts of Haeckel's writings show that it is not enough, and that his\nconception of what he means by Godhead is narrow and limited to an\nextent at which instinct, reason, and experience alike rebel. No one\ncan be satisfied with conceptions below the highest which to him are\npossible: I doubt if it is given to man to think out a clear and\nconsistent system higher and nobler than the real truth. Our highest\nthoughts are likely to be nearest to reality: they must be stages in\nthe direction of truth, else they could not have come to us and been\nrecognised as highest. So, also, with our longings and aspirations\ntowards ultimate perfection, those desires which we recognise as our\nnoblest and best: surely they must have some correspondence with the\nfacts of existence, else had they been unattainable by us. Reality is\nnot to be surpassed, except locally and temporarily, by the ideals of\nknowledge and goodness invented by a fraction of itself; and if we\ncould grasp the entire scheme of things, so far from wishing to\n\n            \"shatter it to bits and then\n    Remould it nearer to the heart's desire,\"\n\nwe should hail it as better and more satisfying than any of our random\nimaginings. The universe is in no way limited to our conceptions: it\nhas a reality apart from them; nevertheless, they themselves constitute\na part of it, and can only take a clear and consistent character in so\nfar as they correspond with something true and real. Whatever we can\nclearly and consistently conceive, that is _ipso facto_ in a sense\nalready existent in the universe as a whole; and that, or something\nbetter, we shall find to be a dim foreshadowing of a higher reality.\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\nEXPLANATORY NOTE ON CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHT AND OPTIMISM.\n\n(_Partly reprinted from \"Mind.\"_)\n\nIt may be worth while to explain how it is that, to a physicist\nunsmitten with any taint of solipsism, a well-elaborated scheme which\nis consistent with already known facts necessarily seems to correspond,\nor have close affinity, with the truth. It is the result of experience\nof a mathematical theorem concerning unique distributions. For\ninstance, it can be shown that in an electric field, however\ncomplicated, any distribution of potential which satisfies boundary\nconditions, and one or two other essential criteria, must be the actual\ndistribution; for it has been rigorously proved that there cannot be\ntwo or more distributions which satisfy those conditions, hence if one\nis arrived at theoretically, or intuitively, or by any means, it must\nbe the correct one; and no further proof is required.\n\nSo, also, in connection with analogies and working models: although\nthey must necessarily be imperfect, so long as they are only analogies,\nyet the making or imagining of models (not necessarily or usually a\nmaterial model, but a conceptual model) is a recognised way of arriving\nat an understanding of recondite and ultra-sensual processes, occurring\nsay in the ether or elsewhere. As an addition to evidence derived from\nsuch experiments as have been found possible, and as a supplement to\nthe experience out of which, as out of a nucleus, every conception must\ngrow, the mind is set to design and invent a self-coherent scheme which\nshall imitate as far as possible the results exhibited by nature. By\nthen using this as a working hypothesis, and pressing it into extremes,\nit can be gradually amended until it shows no sign of discordance or\nfailure anywhere, and even serves as a guide to new and previously\nunsuspected phenomena. When that stage is reached, it is provisionally\naccepted and tentatively held as a step in the direction of the truth;\nthough the mind is always kept ready to improve and modify and enlarge\nit, in accordance with the needs of more thorough investigation and\nfresh discovery. It was so, for instance, with Maxwell's\nelectromagnetic theory of light; and there are a multitude of other\ninstances.\n\nIn the transcendental or ultra-mundane or supersensual region there is\nthe further difficulty to be encountered, that we are not acquainted\nwith anything like all the 'boundary conditions,' so to speak; we only\nknow our little bit of the boundary, and we may err egregiously in\ninferring or attempting to infer the remainder. We may even make a\nmistake as to the form of function adapted to the case. Nevertheless\nthere is no better clue, and the human mind is impelled to do the best\nit can with the confessedly imperfect data which it finds at its\ndisposal. The result, therefore, in this region, is no system of\ndefinite and certain truth, as in Physics, but is either suspense of\njudgment altogether, or else a tentative scheme or working hypothesis,\nto be held undogmatically, in an attitude of constant receptiveness for\nfurther light, and in full readiness for modification in the direction\nof the truth.\n\nSo far concerning the ascertainment of truth alone, in intangible\nregions of inquiry. The further hypothesis that such truth when found\nwill be most satisfactory, or in other words higher and better than any\nalternative plan,\u2014the conviction that faith in the exceeding grandeur\nof reality shall not be confounded,\u2014requires further justification;\nand its grounds are not so easy to formulate. Perhaps the feeling is\nmerely human and instinctive; but it is existent and customary I\nbelieve among physicists, possibly among men of Science in general,\nthough I cannot speak for all; and it must be based upon familiarity\nwith a mass of experience in which, after long groping and guess-work,\nthe truth has ultimately been discovered, and been recognised as 'very\ngood.' It is illustrated, for instance, by the words in which Tyndall\ncloses the first edition of his book on Sound, wherein, after\nexplaining Helmholtz's brilliant theory of Corti's organ and the\nmusical mechanism of the ear,\u2014a theory which, amid the difficulties of\nactual observation, was necessarily at first saturated with hypothesis,\nand is not even yet fully verified,\u2014he says:\u2014\n\n    \"Within the ears of men, and without their knowledge or\n    contrivance, this lute of 3000 strings has existed for ages,\n    accepting the music of the outer world, and rendering it fit for\n    reception by the brain.... I do not ask you to consider these views\n    as established, but only as probable. They present the phenomena in\n    a connected and intelligible form; and should they be doomed to\n    displacement by a more correct or comprehensive theory, it will\n    assuredly be found that the wonder is not diminished by the\n    substitution of the truth.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nMIND AND MATTER\n\n\nWhat, then, is the probable essence of truth in Professor Haeckel's\nphilosophy? for it is not to be supposed that the speculations of an\neminent man are baseless, or that he has been led to his view of what\nhe conceives to be the truth by some wholly erroneous path; his\nintuitive convictions are to be respected, for they are based on a far\nwider experience and knowledge of fact than is given to the average\nman; and for the average man to consider it likely that there is no\nfoundation whatever for the life convictions of a great specialist is\nas foolish as to suppose it probable that they are certain and\ninfallible, or that they are uncritically to be accepted even in\nregions beyond those over which his jurisdiction extends.\n\nFirst as to the \"law of substance,\" by which he sets so much store; the\nfact which he is really, though indistinctly, trying to emphasise, is\nwhat I have preferred to formulate as \"the persistence of the really\nexistent,\" see page 34; and, with that modification, we can agree with\nHaeckel, or with what I take to be his inner meaning, to some extent.\nWe may all fairly agree, I think, that whatever really and fundamentally\n_exists_ must, so far as bare existence is concerned, be independent of\ntime. It may go through many changes, and thus have a history; that is\nto say, must have definite time relations, so far as its changes are\nconcerned; but it can hardly be thought of as either going out of\nexistence, or as coming into existence, at any given period, though it\nmay completely change its form and accidents; everything basal must\nhave a past and a future of some kind or other, though any special\nconcatenation or arrangement may have a date of origin and of\ndestruction.\n\nA crowd, for instance, is of this fugitive character: it assembles and\nit disperses, its existence as a crowd is over, but its constituent\nelements persist; and the same can be said of a planet or a sun. Yet\nfor some \"soul\" or underlying reality even in these temporary\naccretions there is permanence of a sort:\u2014Tyndall's \"streak of morning\ncloud,\" though it may have \"melted into infinite azure,\" has not\nthereby become non-existent, although as a visible object it has\ndisappeared from our ken and become a memory only. It is true that it\nwas a mere aggregate or accidental agglomeration\u2014it had developed no\nself-consciousness, nothing that could be called personality or\nidentity characterised it,\u2014and so no individual persistence is to be\nexpected for it; yet even it\u2014low down in the scale of being as it\nis\u2014even it has rejoined the general body of aqueous vapour whence,\nthrough the incarnating influence of night, it arose. The thing that\n_is_, both _was_ and _shall be_, and whatever does not satisfy this\ncondition must be an accidental or fugitive or essentially temporary\nconglomeration or assemblage, and not one of the fundamental entities\nof the universe. It is interesting to remember that this was one of the\nopinions strongly held by the late Professor Tait, who considered that\npersistence or conservation was the test or criterion of real\nexistence.\n\nThe question, How many fundamental entities in this sense there are,\nand what they are, is a difficult one. Many people, including such\nopposite thinkers as Tait and Haeckel, would say \"matter\" and \"energy\";\nthough Haeckel chooses, on his own account, to add that these two are\none. (Perhaps Professor Ostwald would agree with him there; though to\nme the meaning is vague.) Physical science, pushed to the last resort,\nwould probably reply that, within its sphere of knowledge at the\npresent stage, the fundamental entities are _ether_ and _motion_; and\nthat of other things at present it knows next to nothing. If physical\nscience is interrogated as to the probable persistence, _i.e._, the\nfundamental existence, of \"life\" or of \"mind,\" it ought to reply that\nit does not know; if asked about \"personality,\" or \"souls,\" or\n\"God,\"\u2014about all of which Professor Haeckel has fully-fledged\nopinions\u2014it would have to ask for a definition of the terms, and would\nspeak either not at all or with bated breath concerning them.\n\nThe possibility that \"life\" may be a real and basal form of existence,\nand therefore persistent, is a possibility to be borne in mind. It may\nat least serve as a clue to investigation, and some day may bear fruit;\nat present it is no better than a working hypothesis. It is one that on\nthe whole commends itself to me; for I conceive that though we only\nknow of it as a function of terrestrial matter, yet that it has another\naspect too, and I say this because I see it arriving and\nleaving\u2014animating matter for a time and then quitting it, just as I\nsee dew appearing and disappearing on a plate. Apart from a solid\nsurface, dew cannot exist as such; and to a savage it might seem to\nspring into and to go out of existence\u2014to be an exudation from the\nsolid, and dependent wholly upon it; but we happen to know more about\nit: we know that it has a permanent and continuous existence in an\nimperceptible, intangible, supersensual form, though its visible\nmanifestation in the form of mist or dew is temporary and evanescent.\nPerhaps it is permissible to trace in that elementary phenomenon some\nsuperficial analogy to an incarnation.\n\nThe fact concerning life which lies at the root of Professor Haeckel's\ndoctrine about its origin, is that living beings have undoubtedly made\ntheir appearance on this planet, where at one time they cannot be\nsuspected of having existed. Consequently that whatever life may be, it\nis something which can begin to interact with the atoms of terrestrial\nmatter, at some period, or state of aggregation, or other condition of\nelaboration,\u2014a condition which may perhaps be rather definite, if only\nwe were aware of what it was. But that undoubted fact is quite\nconsistent with any view as to the nature of \"life,\" and even with any\nview as to the mode of its terrestrial commencement; there is nothing\nin that to say that it is a function of matter alone, any more than the\nwind is a function of the leaves which dance under its influence; there\nis nothing even to contradict the notion that it sprang into existence\nsuddenly at a literal word of command. The improbability or absurdity\nof such a conception as this last, except in the symbolism of poetry,\nis extreme, and it is unthinkable by any educated person; but its\nimprobability depends upon other considerations than biologic ones, and\nit is as repugnant to an enlightened Theology as to any other science.\n\nThe mode in which biological speculation as to the probable development\nof living out of dead matter, and the general relation of protoplasm to\nphysics and chemistry, can be surmised or provisionally granted,\nwithout thereby concurring in any destructive criticism of other facts\nand experiences, is explained in Chapter X. on \"Life,\" further on: and\nthere I emphasise my agreement with parts of the speculative\ncontentions of Professor Haeckel on the positive side.\n\n\n_Soul and Body._\n\nLet us consider what are the facts scientifically known concerning the\ninteraction between mind and matter. Fundamentally they amount to this:\nthat a complex piece of matter, called the brain, is the organ or\ninstrument of mind and consciousness; that if it be stimulated mental\nactivity results; that if it be injured or destroyed no manifestation\nof mental activity is possible. Moreover, it is assumed, and need not\nbe doubted, that a portion of brain substance is consumed, oxidised let\nus say, in every act of mentation: using that term in the vaguest and\nmost general sense, and including in it unconscious as well as\nconscious operations.\n\nSuppose we grant all this, what then? We have granted that brain is the\nmeans whereby mind is made manifest on this material plane, it is the\ninstrument through which alone we know it, but we have not granted that\nmind is _limited_ to its material manifestation; nor can we maintain\nthat without matter the things we call mind, intelligence,\nconsciousness, have no sort of existence. Mind may be incorporate or\nincarnate in matter, but it may also transcend it; it is through the\nregion of ideas and the intervention of mind that we have become aware\nof the existence of matter. It is injudicious to discard our primary and\nfundamental _awareness_ for what is after all an instinctive inference\nor interpretation of certain sensations.\n\nThe realities underlying those sensations are only known to us by\ninference, but they have an independent existence: in their inmost\nnature they may be quite other than what they seem, and are in no way\ndependent upon our perception of them. So, also, our actual personality\nmay be something considerably unlike that conception of it which is\nbased on our present terrestrial consciousness\u2014a form of consciousness\nsuited to, and developed by, our temporary existence here, but not\nnecessarily more than a fraction of our total self.\n\nTake an analogy: the eye is the organ of vision; by it we perceive\nlight. Stimulate the retina in any way, and we are conscious of the\nsensation of light; injure or destroy the eye, and vision becomes\nimperfect or impossible. If eyes did not exist we should probably know\nnothing about light, and we might be tempted to say that light did not\nexist. In a sense, to a blind race, light would not exist\u2014that is to\nsay, there would be no sensation of light, there would be no sight; but\nthe underlying physical cause of that sensation\u2014the ripples in the\nether\u2014would be there all the time. And it is these ethereal ripples\nwhich a physicist understands by the term \"light.\" It is quite\nconceivable that a race of blind physicists would be able to devise\nexperimental means whereby they could make experiments on what to us is\nluminous radiation, just as we now make experiments on electric waves,\nfor which we have no sense organ. It would be absurd for a psychologist\nto inform them that light did not exist because sight did not. The\n_term_ might have to be reconsidered and redefined; indeed, most\nlikely a polysyllabic term would be employed, as is unfortunately usual\nwhen a thing of which the race in general has no intimate knowledge\nrequires nomenclature. But the thing would be there, though its mode of\nmanifestation would be different; a term like \"vision\" might still be\nemployed, to signify our mode of perceiving and experiencing the agency\nwhich now manifests itself to us through our eyes; and plants might\ngrow by the aid of that agency just as they do now.\n\nSo, also, brain is truly the organ of mind and consciousness, and to a\nbrainless race these terms, and all other terms, would be meaningless;\nbut no one is at liberty to assert, on the strength of that fact, that\nthe realities underlying our use of those terms have no existence apart\nfrom terrestrial brains. Nor can we say with any security that the\nstuff called \"brain\" is the only conceivable machinery which they are\nable to utilise: though it is true that we know of no other. Yet it\nwould seem that such a proposition must be held by a materialist, or by\nwhat can be implied by the term \"monist,\" used in its narrowest and\nmost unphilosophic sense\u2014a sense which would be better expressed by\nthe term materialistic-monist, with a limitation of the term matter to\nthe terrestrial chemical elements and their combinations, _i.e._, to\nthat form of substance to which the human race has grown accustomed\u2014a\nsense which tends to exclude ethereal and other generalisations and\nunknown possibilities such as would occur to a philosophic monist of\nthe widest kind.\n\nFor that it may ultimately be discovered that there is some intimate\nand necessary connection between a generalised form of matter and some\nlofty variety of mind is not to be denied; though also it cannot be\nasserted. It has been surmised, for instance, that just as the\ncorpuscles and atoms of matter, in their intricate movements and\nrelations, combine to form the brain cell of a human being; so the\ncosmic bodies, the planets and suns and other groupings of the ether,\nmay perhaps combine to form something corresponding as it were to the\nbrain cell of some transcendent Mind. The idea is to be found in\nNewton. The thing is a mere guess, it is not an impossibility, and it\ncannot be excluded from a philosophic system by any negative statement\nbased on scientific fact. In some such sense as that, matter and mind\nmay be, for all we know, eternally and necessarily connected; they\ncan be different aspects of some fundamental unity; and a lofty kind\nof monism can be true, just as a lofty kind of pantheism can be true.\nBut the miserable degraded monism and lower pantheism, which limits\nthe term \"god\" to that part of existence of which we are now\naware\u2014sometimes, indeed, to a fraction only of that\u2014which limits the\nterm \"mind\" to that of which we are ourselves conscious, and the term\n\"matter\" to the dust of the earth and the other visible bodies, is a\nsystem of thought appropriate, perhaps, to a fertile and energetic\nportion of the nineteenth century, but not likely to survive as a\nsystem of perennial truth.\n\nThe term \"organ\" itself should have given pause to anyone desirous of\npromulgating a scheme such as that.\n\n\"Organ\" is a name popularly given to an instrument of music. Without\nit, or some other instrument, no material manifestation or display of\nmusic is possible; it is an instrument for the incarnation of\nmusic\u2014the means whereby it interacts with the material world and\nthrows the air and so our ears into vibration, it is the means whereby\nwe apprehend it. Injure the organ and the music is imperfect; destroy\nit and it ceases to be possible. But is it to be asserted on the\nstrength of that fact that the term \"music\" has no significance apart\nfrom its material manifestation? Have the ideas of Sir Edward Elgar no\nreality apart from their record on paper and reproduction by an\norchestra? It is true that without suitable instruments and a suitable\nsense organ we should know nothing of music, but it cannot be supposed\nthat its underlying essence would be therefore extinct or non-existent\nand meaningless. Can there not be in the universe a multitude of things\nwhich matter as we know it is incompetent to express? Is it not the\ncomplaint of every genius that his material is intractable, that it is\ndifficult to coerce matter as he knows it into the service of mind as\nhe is conscious of it, and that his conceptions transcend his powers of\nexpression?\n\nThe connection between soul and body, or more generally between\nspiritual and material, has been illustrated by the connection between\nthe meaning of a sentence and the written or spoken word conveying that\nmeaning. The writing or the speaking may be regarded as an incarnation\nof the meaning, a mode of stating or exhibiting its essence. As\ndelivered, the sentence must have time relations; it has a beginning,\nmiddle, and end; it may be repeated, and the same general meaning may\nbe expressed in other words; but the intrinsic meaning of the sentence\nitself need have no time relations, it may be true _always_, it may\nexist as an eternal \"now,\" though it may be perceived and expressed by\nhumanity with varying clearness from time to time.\n\nThe soul of a thing is its underlying permanent reality\u2014that which\ngives it its meaning and confers upon it its attributes. The body is an\ninstrument or mechanism for the manifestation or sensible presentation\nof what else would be imperceptible. It is useless to ask whether a\nsoul is immortal\u2014a soul is always immortal \"where a soul can be\ndiscerned\": the question to ask concerning any given object is whether\nit has a soul or meaning or personal underlying reality at all.\n\nThose who think that reality is limited to its terrestrial\nmanifestation doubtless have a philosophy of their own, to which they\nare entitled and to which at any rate they are welcome; but if they set\nup to teach others that monism signifies a limitation of mind to the\npotentialities of matter as at present known; if they teach a pantheism\nwhich identifies God with nature in this narrow sense; if they hold\nthat mind and what they call matter are so intimately connected that no\n_transcendence_ is possible; that, without the cerebral hemispheres,\nconsciousness and intelligence and emotion and love, and all the higher\nattributes towards which humanity is slowly advancing, would cease to\nbe; that the term \"soul\" signifies \"a sum of plasma-movements in the\nganglion cells\"; and that the term \"God\" is limited to the operation of\na known evolutionary process, and can be represented as \"the infinite\nsum of all natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether\nvibrations,\" to quote Professor Haeckel (_Confession of Faith_, p. 78);\nthen such philosophers must be content with an audience of uneducated\npersons, or, if writing as men of science, must hold themselves liable\nto be opposed by other men of science, who are able, at any rate in\ntheir own judgment, to take a wider survey of existence, and to\nperceive possibilities to which the said narrow and over-definite\nphilosophers were blind.\n\n\n_Life and Guidance._\n\nMatter possesses energy, in the form of persistent motion, and it is\npropelled by force; but neither matter nor energy possesses the power\nof automatic guidance and control. Energy has no directing power (this\nhas been elaborated by Croll and others: see, for instance, p. 24, and\na letter in _Nature_, vol. 43, p. 434, thirteen years ago, under the\nheading \"Force and Determinism\"). Inorganic matter is impelled solely\nby pressure from behind, it is not influenced by the future, nor does\nit follow a preconceived course nor seek a predetermined end.\n\nAn organism animated by mind is in a totally different case. The\nintangible influences of hunger, of a call, of perception of something\nahead, are then the dominant feature. An intelligent animal which is\nbeing pushed is in an ignominious position and resents it; when led, or\nwhen voluntarily obeying a call, it is in its rightful attitude.\n\nThe essence of mind is design and purpose. There are some who deny that\nthere is any design or purpose in the universe at all: but how can that\nbe maintained when humanity itself possesses these attributes? (_cf._\npp. 54, 74). Is it not more reasonable to say that just as we are\nconscious of the power of guidance in ourselves, so guidance and\nintelligent control may be an element running through the universe, and\nmay be incorporated even in material things?\n\nA traveller who has lost his way in a mountain district, coming across\na path, may rejoice, saying, \"This will guide me home.\" A materialist,\nif he were consistent, should laugh such a traveller to scorn, saying,\n\"What guidance or purpose can there be in a material object? there is\nno guidance or purpose in the universe; things _are_ because they\ncannot be otherwise, not because of any intention underlying them. How\ncan a path, which is little better than the absence of grass or the\nwearing down of stones, know where you live or guide you to any desired\ndestination? Moreover, whatever knowledge or purpose the path exhibits\nmust be _in the path_, must be a property of the atoms of which it is\ncomposed. To them some fraction of will, of power, of knowledge, and\nof feeling _may_ perhaps be attributed, and from their aggregation\nsomething of the same kind may perhaps be deduced. If the traveller can\ndecipher that, he may utilise the material object to his advantage; but\nif he conceives the path to have been made with any teleological object\nor intelligent purpose, he is abandoning himself to superstition, and\nis as likely to be led by it to the edge of a precipice as to anywhere\nelse. Let him follow his superstition at his peril!\"\n\nThis is not a quotation, of course: but it is a parable.\n\nMatter is the instrument and vehicle of mind; incarnation is the mode\nby which mind interacts with the present scheme of things, and thereby\nthe element of guidance is supplied; it can, in fact, be embodied in an\nintelligent arrangement of inert inorganic matter. Even a mountain path\nexhibits the property of guidance, and has direction: it is an\nincorporation of intelligence, though itself inert.\n\nDirection is not a function of energy. The energy of sound from an\norgan is supplied by the blower of the bellows, which may be worked by\na mechanical engine; but the melody and harmony, the sequence and\nco-existence of notes, are determined by the dominating mind of the\nmusician: not necessarily of the executant alone, for the composer's\nmind may be evoked to some extent even by a pianola. The music may be\nsaid to be incarnate in the roll of paper which is ready to be passed\nthrough the instrument. So also can the conception of any artist\nreceive material embodiment in his work, and if a picture or a\nbeautiful building is destroyed it can be made to rise again from its\nashes provided the painter or the architect still lives: in other\nwords, his thought can receive a fresh incarnation; and a perception of\nthe beautiful form shall hereafter, in a kindred spirit, arouse similar\nideas.\n\nThere is thus a truth in materialism, but it is not a truth readily to\nbe apprehended and formulated. Matter may become imbued with life, and\nfull of vital association; something of the personality of a departed\nowner seems to cling sometimes about an old garment, its curves and\nfolds can suggest him vividly to our recollection. I would not too\nblatantly assert that even a doll on which much affection had been\nlavished was wholly inert and material in the inorganic sense. The\ntattered colours of a regiment are sometimes thought worthy to be hung\nin a church. They are a symbol truly, but they may be something more. I\nhave reason to believe that a trace of individuality can cling about\nterrestrial objects in a vague and almost imperceptible fashion, but to\na degree sufficient to enable those traces to be detected by persons\nwith suitable faculties.\n\nThere is a deep truth in materialism; and it is the foundation of the\nmaterial parts of worship\u2014sacraments and the like. It is possible to\nexaggerate their efficacy, but it is also possible to ignore it too\ncompletely. The whole universe is metrical, everything is a question of\ndegree. A property like radio-activity or magnetism, discovered\nconspicuously in one form of matter, turns out to be possessed by\nmatter of every kind, though to very varying extent.\n\nSo it would appear to be with the power possessed by matter to\nincarnate and display mind.\n\nThere are grades of incarnation: the most thorough kind is that\nillustrated by our bodies; in them we are incarnate, but probably not\neven in that case is the incarnation complete. It is quite credible\nthat our whole and entire personality is never terrestrially manifest.\n\nThere are grades of incarnation. Some of the personality of an Old\nMaster is locked up in a painting: and whoever wilfully destroys a\ngreat picture is guilty of something akin to murder, namely, the\npremature and violent separation of soul and body. Some of the soul of\na musician can be occluded in a piece of manuscript, to be deciphered\nthereafter by a perceptive mind.\n\nMatter is the vehicle of mind, but it is dominated and transcended by\nit. A painting is held together by cohesive forces among the atoms of\nits pigments, and if those forces rebelled or turned repulsive the\npicture would be disintegrated and destroyed; yet those forces did not\nmake the picture. A cathedral is held together by inorganic forces, and\nit was built in obedience to them, but they do not explain it. It may\nowe its existence and design to the thought of someone who never\ntouched a stone, or even of someone who was dead before it was begun.\nIn its symbolism it represents One who was executed many centuries ago.\nDeath and Time are far from dominant.\n\nAre we so sure that when we truly attribute a sunset, or the moonlight\nrippling on a lake, to the chemical and physical action of material\nforces\u2014to the vibrations of matter and ether as we know them, that we\nhave exhausted the whole truth of things? Many a thinker, brooding over\nthe phenomena of Nature, has felt that they represent the thoughts of a\ndominating unknown Mind partially incarnate in it all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nPROFESSOR HAECKEL'S CONJECTURAL PHILOSOPHY\n\n_A reply to Mr M'Cabe._\n\n\n    Part of the preceding, so far as it is a criticism of Haeckel, was\n    given by me in the first instance as a Presidential Address to the\n    Members of the Birmingham and Midland Institute; and the greater\n    portion of this Address was printed in the _Hibbert Journal_ for\n    January 1905. Mr M'Cabe, the translator of Haeckel, thereupon took\n    up the cudgels on behalf of his Chief, and wrote an article in the\n    following July issue; to the pages of which references will be\n    given when quoting. A few observations of mine in reply to this\n    article emphasise one or two points which perhaps previously were\n    not quite clear; and so this reply, from the October number of the\n    _Hibbert Journal_, may be conveniently here reproduced.\n\nI have no fault to find with the tone of Mr M'Cabe's criticism of my\ncriticism of Haeckel, and it is satisfactory that one who has proved\nhimself an enthusiastic disciple, as well as a most industrious and\ncompetent translator, should stand up for the honour and credit of a\nforeign Master when he is attacked.\n\nBut in admitting the appropriateness and the conciliatory tone of his\narticle, I must not be supposed to agree with its contentions; for\nalthough he seeks to show that after all there is but little difference\nbetween myself and Haeckel\u2014and although in a sense that is true as\nregards the fundamental facts of science, distinguishing the facts\nthemselves from any hypothetical and interpretative gloss\u2014yet with\nHaeckel's interpretations and speculative deductions from the facts,\nespecially with the mode of presentation, and the crude and unbalanced\nattacks on other fields of human activity, my feeling of divergence\noccasionally becomes intense.\n\nAnd it is just these superficial, and as Mr M'Cabe now admits\nhypothetical, and as they seem to me rather rash, excursions into side\nissues, which have attracted the attention of the average man, and have\nsucceeded in misleading the ignorant.\n\nIf it could be universally recognised that\n\n    \"it is expressly as a hypothesis that Haeckel formulates his\n    conjecture as to manner of the origin of life\" (p. 744),\n\nand if it could be further generally admitted that his authority\noutside biology is so weak that\n\n    \"it is mere pettiness to carp at incidental statements on matters\n    on which Haeckel is known to have or to exercise no peculiar\n    authority, or to labour in determining the precise degree of\n    evidence for the monism of the inorganic or the organic world\" (p.\n    748),\n\nI should be quite content, and hope that I may never find it necessary\nto carp at these things again. Also I entirely agree with Mr M'Cabe,\nthough I have some doubt whether Professor Haeckel would equally agree\nwith him, that\n\n    \"there remain the great questions whether this mechanical evolution\n    of the universe needed intelligent control, and whether the mind of\n    man stands out as imperishable amidst the wreck of worlds. These\n    constitute the serious controversy of our time in the region of\n    cosmic philosophy or science. These are the rocks that will divide\n    the stream of higher scientific thought for long years to come. To\n    many of us it seems that a concentration on these issues is as much\n    to be desired as sympathy and mutual appreciation\" (p. 748).\n\nThis is excellent; but then it is surely true that Professor Haeckel\nhas taken great pains to state forcibly and clearly that these great\nquestions cannot by him be regarded as open; in fact Mr M'Cabe himself\nsays\u2014\n\n    \"Haeckel's position, if expressed at times with some harshness, and\n    not always with perfect consistency, is well enough known. He\n    rejects the idea of intelligent and benevolent guidance, chiefly on\n    the ground of the facts of dysteleology, and he fails to see any\n    evidence for exempting the human mind from the general law of\n    dissolution\" (p. 748).\n\nUltimately, however, he appears to have been driven to a singularly\nunphilosophic view, of which Mr M'Cabe says\u2014\n\n    \"It is interesting to note that in his latest work Haeckel regards\n    sensation (or unconscious sentience) as an ultimate and irreducible\n    attribute of substance, like matter (or extension) and force (or\n    spirit)\" (p. 752).\n\nI call this unphilosophical because\u2014omitting any reference here to the\nsingular parenthetical explanations or paraphrases, for which I suppose\nHaeckel is not to be held responsible\u2014this is simply abandoning all\nattempt at explanation; it even closes the door to inquiry, and is\nequivalent to an attitude proper to any man in the street, for it\nvirtually says: \"Here the thing is anyhow, I cannot explain it.\"\nHowever legitimate and necessary such an attitude may be as an\nexpression of our ignorance, we ought not to use the phrase \"ultimate\nand irreducible,\" as if no one could ever explain it.\n\nMoreover, if it be true that\u2014\n\n    \"Haeckel does not teach\u2014never did teach\u2014that the spiritual\n    universe is an aspect of the material universe, as his critic makes\n    him say, it is his fundamental and most distinctive idea that both\n    are attributes or aspects of a deeper reality\" (p. 745)\u2014\n\nin that case there is, indeed, but little difference between us. But\nno reader of Haeckel's _Riddle_ would have anticipated that such a\ncontention could be made by any devout disciple; and I wonder whether\nMr M'Cabe can adduce any passage adequate to support so estimable a\nposition. Surely it is difficult to sustain in face of quotations such\nas these:\u2014\n\n    \"The peculiar phenomenon of consciousness is ... a physiological\n    problem, and as such must be reduced to the phenomena of physics\n    and chemistry\" (p. 65).\n\n    \"I therefore consider Psychology a branch of natural science\u2014a\n    section of physiology.... We shall give to the material basis of\n    all psychic activity, without which it is inconceivable, the\n    provisional name of psychoplasm\" (p. 32).\n\n\n_Life and Energy._\n\nThe one and only point on which I think it worth while to express\ndecided dissidence is to be found in the paragraph where Mr M'Cabe\nmakes a statement concerning what he calls \"vital force,\"\u2014a term I do\nnot remember to have ever used in my life. He claims for Haeckel what\nis represented by the following extracts from his article (pp. 745, 6,\n7):\u2014\n\n    \"He does not say that life is 'knocked out of existence' when the\n    material organism decays. He says that the vital energy no longer\n    exists _as such_, but is resolved into the inorganic energies\n    associated with the gases and relics of the decaying body. Thus the\n    matter looks a little different when Sir Oliver comes to 'challenge\n    him to say by what right he gives that answer.' He gives it on this\n    plain right, that _science always finds these inorganic energies to\n    reappear on the dissolution of life_, and has never in a single\n    instance found the slightest reason to suspect (if we make an\n    exception for the moment of psychical research) that the vital\n    force as such has continued to exist.\"\n\nThe italics are mine. A little further on he continues:\u2014\n\n    \"There is no serious scientific demur to Haeckel's assumption of a\n    monism of the physical world, and his identification of vital force\n    with ordinary physical and chemical forces.\n\n    \"Sir Oliver seems to admit, indeed, that the vital force is not in\n    its nature distinct from physical force, but holds that it needs\n    'guidance.'\"\n\n    \"On all sides we hear the echo of Professor Le Conte's words:\n    'Vital force may now be regarded as so much force withdrawn from\n    the general fund of chemical and physical forces.'\"\n\nVery well then, here is no conflict on a matter of opinion or\nphilosophic speculation, but divergence on a downright question of\nscientific fact (let it be noted that I do not wish to hold Professor\nHaeckel responsible for these utterances of his disciple: he must\nsurely know better), and I wish to oppose the fallacy in the strongest\nterms.\n\nIf it were true that vital energy turned into or was anyhow convertible\ninto inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body had more\ninorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that \"these inorganic\nenergies\" always or ever \"reappear on the dissolution of life,\" then\nundoubtedly _cadit qu\u00e6stio_; life would immediately be proved to be a\nform of energy, and would enter into the scheme of physics. But\ninasmuch as all this is untrue\u2014the direct contrary of the truth\u2014I\nmaintain that life is _not_ a form of energy, that it is _not_ included\nin our present physical categories, that its explanation is still to\nseek. And I have further stated\u2014though there I do not dogmatise\u2014that\nit appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which\ninteracts with this material frame of things, and, while there, exerts\nguidance and control on the energy which already here exists (_cf._ p.\n24); for, though they alter the quantity of energy no whit, and though\nthey merely utilise available energy like any other machine, live\nthings are able to direct inorganic terrestrial energy along new and\nspecial paths, so as to achieve results which without such living\nagency could not have occurred\u2014_e.g._ forests, ant-hills, birds'\nnests, Forth bridge, sonatas, cathedrals.\n\nI have never taught, nor for a moment thought, that \"vital force is\nakin to physical force, but that it needs guidance\" (p. 747); the\nphrase sounds to me nonsense. I perceive, not as a theory, but as a\nfact, that life is _itself_ a guiding principle, a controlling agency,\n_i.e._ that a live animal or plant can and does guide or influence the\nelements of inorganic nature. The fact of an organism possessing life\nenables it to build up material particles into many notable forms\u2014oak,\neagle, man,\u2014which material aggregates last until they are abandoned by\nthe guiding principle, when they more or less speedily fall into decay,\nor become resolved into their elements, until utilised by a fresh\nincarnation; and hence I say that whatever life is or is not, it is\ncertainly this: it is a guiding and controlling entity which interacts\nwith our world according to laws so partially known that we have to say\nthey are practically unknown, and therefore appear in some respects\nmysterious. If it be thought that I mean by this something\nsuperstitious, and for ever inexplicable or unintelligible, I have no\nsuch meaning. I believe in the ultimate intelligibility of the\nuniverse, though our present brains may require considerable\nimprovement before we can grasp the deepest things by their aid; but\nthis matter of \"vitality\" is probably not hopelessly beyond us; and it\ndoes not follow, because we have no theory of life or death now, that\nwe shall be equally ignorant a century hence.\n\nMy chief objection to Professor Haeckel's literary work is that he is\ndogmatic on such points as these, and would have people believe, what\ndoubtless he believes himself, that he already knows the answer to a\nnumber of questions in the realms of physical nature and of philosophy.\nHe writes in so forcible and positive and determined a fashion, from\nthe vantage ground of scientific knowledge, that he exerts an undue\ninfluence on the uncultured among his readers, and causes them to fancy\nthat only benighted fools or credulous dupes can really disagree with\nthe historical criticisms, the speculative opinions, and philosophical,\nor perhaps unphilosophical, conjectures, thus powerfully set forth.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nHYPOTHESIS AND ANALOGIES CONCERNING LIFE\n\n\nThe view concerning Life which I have endeavoured to express is that it\nis neither matter nor energy, nor even a function of matter or of\nenergy, but is something belonging to a different category; that by\nsome means at present unknown it is able to interact with the material\nworld for a time, but that it can also exist in some sense\nindependently; although in that condition of existence it is by no\nmeans apprehensible by our senses. It is dependent on matter for its\nphenomenal appearance\u2014for its manifestation to us here and now, and\nfor all its terrestrial activities; but otherwise, I conceive that it\nis independent, that its essential existence is continuous and\npermanent, though its interactions with matter are discontinuous and\ntemporary; and I conjecture that it is subject to a law of\nevolution\u2014that a linear advance is open to it\u2014whether it be in its\nphenomenal or in its occult state.\n\nIt may be well to indicate what I mean by conceiving of the possibility\nthat life has an existence apart from its material manifestations as we\nknow them at present. (Remember note on p. 40.) It is easy to imagine\nthat such a view is a mere surmise, having no intelligible meaning, and\nthat it is merely an attempt to clutch at human immortality in an\nemotional and unscientific spirit. To this, however, I in no way plead\nguilty. My ideas about life may be quite wrong, but they are as\ncold-blooded and free from bias as possible; moreover, they apply not\nto human life alone, but to all life\u2014to that of all animals, and even\nof plants; and they are held by me as a working hypothesis, the only\none which enables me to fit the known facts of ordinary vitality into a\nthinkable scheme. Without it, I should be met by all the usual\npuzzles:\u2014(1) as to the stage at which existence begins, if it can be\nthought of as \"beginning\" at all;[3] (2) as to the nature of\nindividuality, in the midst of diversity of particles, and the\ndetermination of form irrespective of variety of food; (3) the\nextraordinary rapidity of development, which results in the production\nof a fully endowed individual in the course of some fraction of a\ncentury.\n\n      [Footnote 3: I doubt whether _existence_ can be \"begun\" at all,\n      save as the result of a juxtaposition of elements, or of a\n      conveyance of otion. We can put things together, and we can set\n      things in motion,\u2014statics and kinetics,\u2014can we do more? Ether\n      can be strained, matter can be moved: I doubt whether we see\n      more than this happening in the whole material universe. This\n      dictum is elaborated elsewhere.]\n\nWith it, I cannot pretend that all these things are thoroughly\nintelligible, but the lines on which an explanation may be forthcoming\nseem to be laid down:\u2014the notion being that what we see is a temporary\napparition or incarnation of a permanent entity or idea.\n\nIt is easiest to explain my meaning by aid of analogues,\u2014by the\nconstruction, as it were, of \"models,\" just as is the custom in Physics\nwhenever a recondite idea has to be grasped before it can be properly\nformulated and before a theory is complete.\n\nI will take two analogies: one from Magnetism and one from Politics.\n\n\"Parliament,\" or \"the Army,\" is a body which consists of individual\nmembers constantly changing, and its existence is not dependent on\ntheir existence: it pre-existed any particular set of them, and it can\nsurvive a dissolution. Even after a complete slaughter, the idea of the\nArmy would survive, and another would come into being, to carry on the\npermanent traditions and life.\n\nExcept as an idea in some sentient mind, it could not be said to exist\nat all. The mere individuals composing it do not make it: without the\nidea they would be only a disorganised mob. Abstractions like the\nBritish Constitution, and other such things, can hardly be said to have\nany incarnate existence. These exist _only_ as ideas.\n\nParliament exists fundamentally as an idea, and it can be called into\nexistence or re-incarnated again. Whether it is the same Parliament or\nnot after a general election is a question that may be differently\nanswered. It is not identical, it may have different characteristics,\nbut there is certainly a sort of continuity; it is still a British\nParliament, for instance, it has not changed its character to that of\nthe French Assembly or the American Congress. It is a permanent entity\neven when disembodied; it has a past and it has a future; it has a\nfundamentally continuous existence though there are breaks or\ndislocations in its conspicuous activity, and though each incarnation\nhas a separate identity or personality of its own. It is larger and\nmore comprehensive than any individual representation of it; it may be\nsaid to have a \"subliminal self,\" of which any septennial period sees\nbut a meagre epitome.\n\nSome of those epitomes are more, some less, worthy; sometimes there\nappears only a poor deformity or a feeble-minded attempt, sometimes a\nstrong and vigorous embodiment of the root idea.\n\nAs to its technical continuity of existence and actual mode of\nreproduction, I suppose it would be merely fanciful to liken the\n\"Crown\" to those germ-cells or nuclei, whose existence continues\nwithout break, which serve the purpose of collecting and composing the\nsomatic cells in due season.\n\nOther illustrations of the temporary incarnation of a permanent idea\nare readily furnished from the domain of Art; but, after all, the best\nanalogy to life that I can at present think of is to be found in the\nsubject of Magnetism.\n\nAt one time it was possible to say that magnetism could not be produced\nexcept by antecedent magnetism; that there was no known way of\ngenerating it spontaneously; yet that, since it undoubtedly occurs in\ncertain rocks of the earth, it must have come into existence somehow,\nat date unknown. It could also be said, and it can be said still, that,\ngiven an initial magnet, any number of others can be made, without loss\nto the generating magnet. By influence or induction exerted by\nproximity on other pieces of steel, the properties of one magnet can be\nexcited in any number of such pieces,\u2014the amount of magnetism thus\nproducible being infinite; that is, being strictly without limit, and\nnot dependent at all on the very finite strength of the original\nmagnet, which indeed continues unabated. It is just as if magnetism\nwere not really manufactured at all, but were a thing called out of\nsome infinite reservoir: as if something were brought into active and\nprominent existence from a previously dormant state.\n\nAnd that indeed is the fact. The process of magnetisation, as conducted\nwith a steel magnet on other pieces of previously inert steel, in no\ncase really generates new lines of magnetic force, though it appears to\ngenerate them. We now know that the lines which thus spring into\ncorporeal existence, as it were, are essentially closed curves or\nloops, which cannot be generated; they can be expanded or enlarged to\ncover a wide field, and they can be contracted or shrunk up into\ninsignificance, but they cannot be created, they must be pre-existent;\nthey were in the non-magnetised steel all the time, though they were so\nsmall and ill-arranged that they had no perceptible effect whatever;\nthey constituted a potentiality for magnetism; they existed as\nmolecular closed curves or loops, which, by the operation called\nmagnetisation, could, some of them, be opened out into loops of finite\narea and spread out into space, where they are called \"lines of force.\"\nThey then constitute the region called a magnetic field, which remains\na seat of so-called \"permanent\" magnetic activity, until by lapse of\ntime, excessive heat, or other circumstance, they close up again; and\nso the magnet, as a magnet, dies. The magnetism itself, however, has\nnot really died, it has a perpetual existence; and a fresh act of\nmagnetisation can recall it, or something indistinguishable from it,\ninto manifest activity again; so that it, or its equivalent, can once\nmore interact with the rest of material energies, and be dealt with by\nphysicists, or subserve the uses of humanity. Until that time of\nre-appearance its existence can only be inferred by the thought of the\nmathematician: it is indeed a matter of theory, not necessarily\nrecognised as true by the practical man.\n\nOur present view is that the act of magnetisation consists in a\nre-arrangement and co-ordination of previously existing magnetic\nelements, lying dormant, so to speak, in iron and other magnetic\nmaterials; only a very small fraction of the whole number being usually\nbrought into activity at any one time, and not necessarily always the\nsame actual set. Only a small and indiscriminate selection is made from\nall the molecular loops; and it can be a different group each time, or\nsome elements may be different and some the same, whenever a fresh\nindividual or magnet is brought into being.\n\nAll this can be said concerning the old process of magnetisation\u2014the\nprocess as it was doubtless familiar to the unknown discoverer of the\nlodestone, to the ancient users of the mariner's compass, and to Dr\nGilbert of Colchester, the discoverer of the magnetised condition of\nthe Earth.\n\nBut within the nineteenth century a fresh process of magnetisation has\nbeen discovered, and this new or electrical process is no longer\nobviously dependent on the existence of antecedent magnetism, but seems\nat first sight to be a property freshly or spontaneously generated, as\nit were. The process was discovered as the result of setting\nelectricity into motion. So long as electricity was studied in its\ncondition at rest on charged conductors, as in the old science of\nelectrostatics or frictional electricity, it possessed no magnetic\nproperties whatever, nor did it encroach on the magnetic domain: only\nvague similarities in the phenomena of attraction and repulsion aroused\nattention. But directly electricity was set in motion, constituting\nwhat is called an electric current, magnetic lines of force instantly\nsprang into being, without the presence of any steel or iron; and in\ntwenty years they were recognised. These electrically generated lines\nof force are similar to those previously known, but they need no matter\nto sustain them. They need matter to display them, but they themselves\nexist equally well in perfect vacuum.\n\nHow did they manage to spring into being? Can it be said that they too\nhad existed previously in some dormant condition in the ether of space?\nThat they too were closed loops opened out, and their existence thus\ndisplayed, by the electric current?\n\nThat is an assertion which might reasonably be made: it is not the only\nway of regarding the matter, however, and the mode in which a magnetic\nfield originates round the path of a moving charge\u2014being generated\nduring the acceleration-period by a pulse of radiation which travels\nwith the speed of light, being maintained during the steady-motion\nperiod by a sort of inertia as if in accordance with the first law of\nmotion, and being destroyed only by a return pulse of re-radiation\nduring a retardation-period when the moving charge is stopped or\ndiverted or reversed\u2014all this can hardly be fully explained until the\nintimate nature of an electric charge has been more fully worked out;\nand the subject now trenches too nearly on the more advanced parts of\nPhysics to be useful any longer as an analogue for general readers.\n\nIndeed it must be recollected that no analogy will bear pressing too\nfar. All that we are concerned to show is that known magnetic behaviour\nexhibits a very fair analogy to some aspects of that still more\nmysterious entity which we call \"life\"; and if anyone should assert\nthat all magnetism was pre-existent in some ethereal condition, that it\nwould never go out of essential existence, but that it could be brought\ninto relation with the world of matter by certain acts,\u2014that while\nthere it could operate in a certain way, controlling the motion of\nbodies, interacting with forms of energy, producing sundry effects for\na time, and then disappearing from our ken to the immaterial region\nwhence it came,\u2014he would be saying what no physicist would think it\nworth while to object to, what many indeed might agree with.\n\nWell, that is the kind of assertion which I want to make, as a working\nhypothesis, concerning life.\n\nAn acorn has in itself the potentiality not of one oak-tree alone, but\nof a forest of oak-trees, to the thousandth generation, and indeed of\noak-trees without end. There is no sort of law of \"conservation\" here.\nIt is not as if something were passed on from one thing to another. It\nis not analogous to energy at all, it is analogous to the magnetism\nwhich can be excited by any given magnet: the required energy, in both\ncases, being extraneously supplied, and only transmuted into the\nappropriate form by the guiding principle which controls the operation.\n\nWe do not know how to generate life without the action of antecedent\nlife at present, though that may be a discovery lying ready for us in\nthe future; but even if we did, it would still be true (as I think)\nthat the life was in some sense pre-existent, that it was not really\ncreated _de novo_, that it was brought into actual practical every-day\nexistence doubtless, but that it had pre-existed in some sense too:\nbeing called out, as it were, from some great reservoir or storehouse\nof vitality, to which, when its earthly career is ended, it will\nreturn.\n\nIndeed, it cannot in any proper sense be said ever to have left that\nstorehouse, though it has been made to interact with the world for a\ntime; and, if we might so express it, it may be thought of as carrying\nback with it, into the general reservoir, any individuality, and any\nexperience and training or development, which it can be thought of as\nhaving acquired here. Such a statement as this last cannot be made of\nmagnetism, to which no known law of evolution and progress can be\nsupposed to apply; but of life, of anything subject to continuous\nevolution or linear progress embodied in the race, of any condition not\ncyclically determinate and returning into itself, but progressing and\nadvancing\u2014acquiring fresh potentialities, fresh powers, fresh\nbeauties, new characteristics such as perhaps may never in the whole\nuniverse have been displayed before\u2014of everything which possesses such\npowers as these, a statement akin to the above may certainly be made.\nTo all such things, when they reach a high enough stage, the ideas of\ncontinued personality, of memory, of persistent individual existence,\nnot only may, but I think must, apply; notwithstanding the admitted\nreturn of the individual after each incarnation to the central store\nfrom which it was differentiated and individualised.\n\nEven so a villager, picked out as a recruit and sent to the seat of\nwar, may serve his country, may gain experience, acquire a soul and a\nwidth of horizon such as he had not dreamt of; and when he returns,\nafter the war is over, may be merged as before in his native village.\nBut the village is the richer for his presence, and his individuality\nor personality is not really lost; though to the eye of the world,\nwhich has no further need for it, it has practically ceased to be.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nWILL AND GUIDANCE\n\n(_Partially read to the Synthetic Society in February 1903._)\n\n\nThe influence of the divine on the human, and on the material world,\nhas been variously conceived in different ages, and various forms of\ndifficulty have been at different times felt and suggested; but always\nsome sort of analogy between human action and divine action has had\nperforce to be drawn, in order to make the latter in the least\nintelligible to our conception. The latest form of difficulty is\npeculiarly deep-seated, and is a natural outcome of an age of physical\nscience. It consists in denying the possibility of any guidance or\ncontrol,\u2014not only on the part of a Deity, but on the part of every one\nof his creatures. It consists in pressing the laws of physics to what\nmay seem their logical and ultimate conclusion, in applying the\nconservation of energy without ruth or hesitation, and so excluding, as\nsome have fancied, the possibility of free-will action, of guidance, of\nthe self-determined action of mind or living things upon matter,\naltogether. The appearance of control has accordingly been considered\nillusory, and has been replaced by a doctrine of pure mechanism,\nenveloping living things as well as inorganic nature.\n\nAnd those who for any reason have felt disinclined or unable to\nacquiesce in this exclusion of non-mechanical agencies, whether it be\nby reason of faith and instinct or by reason of direct experience and\nsensation to the contrary, have thought it necessary of late years to\nseek to undermine the foundation of Physics, and to show that its\nmuch-vaunted laws rest upon a hollow basis, that their exactitude is\nillusory,\u2014that the conservation of energy, for instance, has been too\nrapid an induction, that there may be ways of eluding many physical\nlaws and of avoiding submission to their sovereign sway.\n\nBy this sacrifice it has been thought that the eliminated guidance and\ncontrol can philosophically be reintroduced.\n\nThis, I gather, may have been the chief motive of a critical\nexamination of the foundations of Physics by an American author, J.\nB. Stallo, in a little book called the _Concepts of Physics_. But\nthe worst of that book was that Judge Stallo was not fully familiar\nwith the teachings of the great physicists; he appears to have\ncollected his information from popular writings, where the doctrines\nwere very imperfectly laid down; so that some of his book is\noccupied in demolishing constructions of straw, unrecognisable by\nprofessed physicists except as caricatures at which they also might\nbe willing to heave an occasional missile.\n\nThe armoury pressed into the service of Professor James Ward's not\nwholly dissimilar attack on Physics is of heavy calibre, and his\ncriticism cannot in general be ignored as based upon inadequate\nacquaintance with the principles under discussion; but still his\nGifford lectures raise an antithesis or antagonism between the\nfundamental laws of mechanics and the possibility of any intervention\nwhether human or divine.\n\nIf this antagonism is substantial it is serious; for Natural\nPhilosophers will not be willing to concede fundamental inaccuracy or\nuncertainty about their recognised and long-established laws of motion,\nwhen applied to ordinary matter; nor will they be prepared to tolerate\nany the least departure from the law of the conservation of energy,\nwhen all forms of energy are taken into account. Hence, if guidance\nand control can be admitted into the scheme by no means short of\nundermining and refuting those laws, there may be every expectation\nthat the attitude of scientific men will be perennially hostile to the\nidea of guidance or control, and so to the efficacy of prayer, and to\nmany another practical outcome of religious belief. It becomes\ntherefore an important question to consider whether it is true that\nlife or mind is incompetent to disarrange or interfere with matter at\nall, except as itself an automatic part of the machine,\u2014whether in\nfact it is merely an ornamental appendage or phantasmal accessory of\nthe working parts.\n\nNow experience\u2014the same kind of experience as gave us our scheme of\nmechanics\u2014shows us that to all appearance live animals certainly can\ndirect and control mechanical energies to bring about desired and\npreconceived results; and that man can definitely will that those\nresults shall occur. The way the energy is provided is understood, and\nits mode of application is fairly understood; what is not understood is\nthe way its activity is _determined_. Undoubtedly our body is material\nand can act on other matter; and the energy of its operations is\nderived from food, like any other self-propelled and fuel-fed\nmechanism; but mechanism is usually controlled by an attendant. The\nquestion is whether our will or mind or life can direct our body's\nenergy along certain channels to attain desired ends, or whether\u2014as in\na motor-car with an automaton driver\u2014the end and aim of all activity\nis wholly determined by mechanical causes. And a further question\nconcerns the mode whereby vital control, if any, is achieved.\n\nAnswers that might be hazarded are:\n\n    (_a_) That life is itself a latent store of energy, and achieves\n    its results by imparting to matter energy that would not otherwise\n    be in evidence: in which case life would be a part of the machine,\n    and as truly mechanical as all the rest.\n\nExperiment lends no support to this view of the relation between life\nand energy, and I hold that it is false; because the essential property\nof energy is that it can transform itself into other forms, remaining\nconstant in quantity, whereas life does not add to the stock of any\nknown form of energy, nor does death affect the sum of energy in any\nknown way.\n\n    (_b_) That life is something outside the scheme of mechanics\u2014outside\n    the categories of matter and energy; though it can nevertheless\n    control or direct material forces\u2014timing them and determining\n    their place of application,\u2014subject always to the laws of energy\n    and all other mechanical laws; supplementing or accompanying these\n    laws, therefore, but contradicting or traversing them no whit.\n\nThis second answer I hold to be true; but in order to admit its truth\nwe must recognise that force can be exerted and energy directed, by\nsuitable adjustment of existing energy, without any introduction of\nenergy from without; in other words, that the energy of operations\nautomatically going on in any active region of the universe\u2014any region\nwhere transformation and transference of energy are continuously\noccurring whether life be present or not\u2014can be guided along paths\nthat it would not automatically have taken, and can be directed so as\nto produce effects that would not otherwise have occurred; and this\nwithout any breakage or suspension of the laws of dynamics, and in full\ncorrespondence with both the conservation of energy and the\nconservation of momentum.\n\nThat is where I part company with Professor James Ward in the second\nvolume of _Naturalism and Agnosticism_; with whom nevertheless on many\nbroad issues I find myself in fair agreement. Those who find a real\nantinomy between \"mechanism and morals\" must either throw overboard the\npossibility of interference or guidance or willed action altogether,\nwhich is one alternative, or must assume that the laws of Physics are\nonly approximate and untrustworthy, which is the other alternative\u2014the\nalternative apparently favoured by Professor James Ward. I wish to\nargue that neither of these alternatives is necessary, and that there\nis a third or middle course of proverbial safety: all that is necessary\nis to realise and admit that the laws of Physical Science are\n_incomplete_, when regarded as a formulation and philosophical summary\nof the universe in general. No Laplacian calculator can be supplied\nwith all the data.\n\nOn a stagnant and inactive world life would admittedly be powerless: it\ncould only make dry bones stir in such a world if itself were a form of\nenergy; I do not suppose for a moment that it could be incarnated on\nsuch a world; it is only potent where inorganic energy is mechanically\n\"available\"\u2014to use Lord Kelvin's term,\u2014that is to say, is either\npotentially or actually in process of transfer and transformation. In\nother words, life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide\nits transmutations.\n\nIt has gradually dawned upon me that the reason why Philosophers who\nare well acquainted with Physical or Dynamical Science are apt to fall\ninto the error of supposing that mental and vital interference with the\nmaterial world is impossible, in spite of their clamorous experience to\nthe contrary (or else, on the strength of that experience, to conceive\nthat there is something the matter with the formulation of physical and\ndynamical laws), is because all such interference is naturally and\nnecessarily excluded from scientific methods and treatises.\n\nIn pure Mechanics, \"force\" is treated as a function of configuration\nand momentum: the positions, the velocities, and the accelerations of a\nconservative system depend solely on each other, on initial conditions,\nand on mass; or, if we choose so to express it, the co-ordinates, the\nmomenta, and the kinetic energies, of the parts of any dynamical system\nwhatever, are all functions of time and of each other, and of nothing\nelse. In other words, we have to deal, in this mode of regarding\nthings, with a definite and completely determinate world, to which\nprediction may confidently be applied.\n\nBut this determinateness is got by refusing to contemplate anything\noutside a certain scheme: it is an internal truth within the assigned\nboundaries, and is quite consistent with psychical interference\nand indeterminateness, as soon as those boundaries are ignored;\ndeterminateness is not part of the _essence_ of dynamical doctrine,\nit is arrived at by the tacit assumption that no undynamical or\nhyperdynamical agencies exist: in short, by that process of abstraction\nwhich is invariably necessary for simplicity, and indeed for\npossibility, of methodical human treatment. Everyone engaged in\nscientific research is aware that if exuberant charwomen, or\nintelligent but mischievous students (who for the moment may be taken\nto represent life and mind respectively) are admitted into a laboratory\nand given full scope for their activities, the subsequent scientific\nresults\u2014though still, no doubt, in some strained sense, concordant\nwith law and order\u2014are apt to be too complicated for investigation;\nwherefore there is usually an endeavour to exclude these incalculable\ninfluences, and to make a tacit assumption that they have not been let\nin.\n\nThere is a similar tacit assumption in treatises on Physics and\nChemistry; viz., that the laws of automatic nature shall be allowed\nunrestricted and unaided play, that nothing shall intervene in any\noperation from start to finish save mechanical sequent and\nantecedent,\u2014that it is permissible in fact to exercise abstraction, as\nusual, to the exclusion of agents not necessarily connected with the\nproblem, and not contemplated by the equations.\n\nIn text-books of Dynamics and in treatises of Natural Philosophy that\nis a perfectly legitimate procedure;[4] but when later on we come to\nphilosophise, and to deal with the universe as a whole, we must forgo\nthe ingrained habit of abstraction, and must remember that for a\n_complete_ treatment _nothing_ must permanently be ignored. So if\nlife and mind and will, and curiosity and mischief and folly, and greed\nand fraud and malice, and a whole catalogue of attributes and things\nnot contemplated in Natural Philosophy\u2014if these are known to have any\nreal existence in the larger world of total experience, and if there is\nany reason to believe that any one of them may have had some influence\nin determining an observed result, then it is foolish to exclude these\nthings from philosophic consideration, on the ground that they are out\nof place in the realm of Natural Philosophy, that they are not allowed\nfor in its scheme, and therefore cannot possibly be supposed capable of\nexerting any effective interference, any real guidance or control.\n\n      [Footnote 4: It is on a similar basis that there is a science of\n      rigid dynamics, with elasticity and fluidity excluded; and thus\n      also can there be a hydrodynamics in which the consequences of\n      viscosity are ignored.]\n\nMy contention then is\u2014and in this contention I am practically speaking\nfor my brother physicists\u2014that whereas life or mind can neither\ngenerate energy nor directly exert force, yet it can cause matter to\nexert force on matter, and so can exercise guidance and control: it can\nso prepare any scene of activity, by arranging the position of existing\nmaterial, and timing the liberation of existing energy, as to produce\nresults concordant with an idea or scheme or intention: it can, in\nshort, \"aim\" and \"fire.\"\n\nGuidance of _matter_ can be affected by a passive exertion of force\nwithout doing work; as a quiescent rail can guide a train to its\ndestination, provided an active engine propels it. But the analogy of\nthe rail must not be pressed: the rail \"guides\" by exerting force\nperpendicular to the direction of motion, it does no work but it\nsustains an equal opposite reaction.[5] The guidance exercised by life\nor mind is managed in an unknown but certainly different fashion:\n\"determination\" can sustain no reaction\u2014if it could it would be a\nstraightforward mechanical agent\u2014but it can utilise the mechanical\nproperties both of rail and of engine; it arranged for the rail to be\nplaced in position so that the lateral force thereby exerted should\nguide all future trains to a desired destination, and it further took\nsteps to design and compose locomotives of sufficient power, and to\nstart them at a prearranged time. It \"employs\" mechanical stress, as a\ncapitalist employs a labourer, not doing anything itself, but directing\nthe operations. It is impossible to explain all this fully by the laws\nof mechanics alone, that is to say, no mechanical analysis can be\ncomplete and all-embracing, though the whole procedure is fully subject\nto those laws.\n\n      [Footnote 5: It is well to bear in mind the distinction between\n      \"force\" and \"energy.\" These terms have been so popularly confused\n      that it may be difficult always to discriminate them, but in\n      Physics they are absolutely discriminated. We have a direct sense\n      of \"force,\" in our muscles, whether they be moving or at rest. A\n      force in motion is a \"power,\" it \"does work\" and transfers energy\n      from one body to another, which is commonly though incorrectly\n      spoken of as \"generating\" energy. But a force at rest\u2014a mere\n      statical stress, like that exerted by a pillar or a watershed\u2014does\n      no work, and \"generates\" or transfers no energy; yet the one\n      sustains a roof which would otherwise fall, thereby screening a\n      portion of ground from vegetation; while the other deflects a\n      rain-drop into the Danube or the Rhine. This latter is the kind\n      of force which constrains a stone to revolve in a circle instead\n      of a straight line; a force like that of a groove or slot or\n      channel or \"guide.\"]\n\nTo every force there is an equal opposite force or reaction, and a\nreaction may be against a live body, but it is never suspected of being\nagainst the abstraction life or mind\u2014that would indeed be enlarging\nthe scope of mechanics!\u2014the reaction is always against some other\nbody. All stresses as a matter of fact occur in the ether; and they all\nhave a material terminus at each end (or in exceptional cases a\nwave-front or some other recondite ethereal equivalent), that is to say\nsomething possessing inertia; but the timed or _opportune_ existence of\na particular stress may be the result of organisation and control.\nMechanical operations can be thus dominated by intelligence and\npurpose. When a stone is rolling over a cliff, it is all the same to\n\"energy\" whether it fall on point A or point B of the beach. But at A\nit shall merely dent the sand, whereas at B it shall strike a detonator\nand explode a mine. Scribbling on a piece of paper results in a certain\ndistribution of fluid and production of a modicum of heat: so far as\nenergy is concerned it is the same whether we sign Andrew Carnegie or\nAlexander Coppersmith, yet the one effort may land us in twelve months'\nimprisonment or may build a library, according to circumstances, while\nthe other achieves no result at all. John Stuart Mill used to say that\nour sole power over Nature was to _move_ things; but strictly speaking\nwe cannot do even that: we can only arrange that things shall move each\nother, and can determine by suitably preconceived plans the kind and\ndirection of the motion that shall ensue at a given time and place.\nProvided always that we include in this category of \"things\" our\nundoubtedly material bodies, muscles and nerves.\n\nBut here is just the puzzle: at what point does will or determination\nenter into the scheme? Contemplate a brain cell, whence originates a\ncertain nerve-process whereby energy is liberated with some resultant\neffect; what pulled the detent in that cell which started the impulse?\nNo doubt some chemical process: combination or dissociation, something\natomic, occurred; but what made it occur just then and in that way?\n\nI answer, not anything that we as yet understand, but apparently the\nsame sort of pre-arrangement that determined whether the stone from the\ncliff should fall on point A or point B\u2014the same sort of process that\nguided the pen to make legible and effective writing instead of\nillegible and ineffective scrawls\u2014the same kind of control that\ndetermines when and where a trigger shall be pulled so as to secure the\nanticipated slaughter of a bird. So far as energy is concerned, the\nexplosion and the trigger-pulling are the same identical operations\nwhether the aim be exact or random. It is intelligence which directs;\nit is physical energy which is directed and controlled and produces the\nresult in time and space.\n\nIt will be said _some_ energy is needed to pull a hair-trigger, to open\nthe throttle-valve of an engine, to press the button which shall\nshatter a rock. Granted: but the work-concomitants of that energy are\nall familiar, and equally present whether it be arranged so as to\nproduce any predetermined effect or not. The opening of the\nthrottle-valve for instance demands just the same exertion, and results\nin just the same imperceptible transformation of fully-accounted-for\nenergy, whether it be used to start a train in accordance with a\ntime-table and the guard's whistle, or whether it be pushed over, as if\nby the wind, at random. The shouting of an order to a troop demands\nvocal energy and produces its due equivalent of sound; but the\nintelligibility of the order is something superadded, and its result\nmay be to make not sound or heat alone, but History.\n\nEnergy must be _available_ for the performance of any physical\noperation, but the energy is independent of the determination or\narrangement. Guidance and control are not forms of energy, nor need\nthey be themselves phantom modes of force: their superposition upon the\nscheme of Physics need perturb physical and mechanical _laws_ no whit,\nand yet it may profoundly affect the consequences resulting from those\nsame laws. The whole effort of civilisation would be futile if we could\nnot guide the powers of nature. The powers are there, else we should be\nhelpless; but life and mind are outside those powers, and, by\npre-arranging their field of action, can direct them along an organised\ncourse.\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\nAnd this same life or mind, as we know it, is accessible to petition,\nto affection, to pity, to a multitude of non-physical influences; and\nhence, indirectly, the little plot of physical universe which is now\nour temporary home has become amenable to truly spiritual control.\n\nI lay stress upon a study of the nature and mode of human action of the\ninterfering or guiding kind, because by that study we must be led if we\nare to form any intelligent conception of divine action. True, it might\nbe feasible to admit divine agency and yet to deny the possibility of\nany human power of the same kind,\u2014though that would be a nebulous and\nat least inconclusive procedure; but if once we are constrained to\nadmit the existence and reality of human guidance and control,\nsuperposed upon the physical scheme, we cannot deny the possibility of\nsuch power and action to any higher being, nor even to any totality of\nMind of which ours is a part.\n\nI do not see how the function claimed can be resented, except by those\nwho deny \"life\" to be anything at all. If it exists, if it is not mere\nillusion, it appears to me to be something whose full significance lies\nin another scheme of things, but which touches and interacts with this\nmaterial universe in a certain way, building its particles into notable\nconfigurations for a time\u2014without confounding any physical laws,\u2014and\nthen evaporating whence it came. This language is vague and figurative\nundoubtedly, but, I contend, appropriately so, for we have not yet a\ntheory of life\u2014we have not even a theory of the essential nature of\ngravitation; discoveries are waiting to be made in this region, and it\nis absurd to suppose that we are already in possession of all the data.\nWe can wait; but meanwhile we need not pretend that because we do not\nunderstand them, therefore life and will can accomplish nothing; we\nneed not imagine that \"life\"\u2014with its higher developments and still\nlatent powers\u2014is an impotent nonentity. The philosophic attitude,\nsurely, is to observe and recognise its effects, both what it can and\nwhat it cannot achieve, and to realise that our present knowledge of it\nis extremely partial and incomplete.\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\nNOTE ON FREE WILL AND FOREKNOWLEDGE.\n\nIn the above chapter I must not be understood as pretending to settle\nthe thorny question of a reconciliation between freedom of choice and\npre-determination or prevision. All I there contend for is that no\nmechanical or scientific determinism, subject to special conditions in\na limited region, can be used to contradict freedom of the will, under\ngeneralised conditions, in the Universe as a whole.\n\nNevertheless there are things which may perhaps be usefully said, even\non the larger and much-worn topic of the present note. If we still\nendeavour to learn as much as possible from human analogies, examples\nare easy:\u2014\n\nAn architect can draw in detail a building that is to be; the dwellers\nin a valley can be warned to evacuate their homesteads because a city\nhas determined that a lake shall exist where none existed before.\nDoubtless the city is free to change its mind, but it is not expected\nto; and all predictions are understood to be made subject to the\nabsence of disturbing, _i.e._ unforeseen, causes. Even the prediction\nof an eclipse is not free from a remote uncertainty, and in the case of\nthe return of meteoric showers and comets the element of contingency is\nnot even remote.\n\nBut it will be said that to higher and superhuman knowledge all\npossible contingencies would be known and recognised as part of the\ndata. That is quite possibly, though not quite certainly, true: and\nthere comes the real difficulty of reconciling absolute prediction of\nevents with real freedom of the actors in the drama. I anticipate that\na complete solution of the problem must involve a treatment of the\nsubject of _time_, and a recognition that \"time,\" as it appears to us,\nis really part of our human limitations. We all realise that \"the past\"\nis in some sense not non-existent but only past; we may readily surmise\nthat \"the future\" is similarly in some sense existent, only that we\nhave not yet arrived at it; and our links with the future are less\nunderstood. That a seer in a moment of clairvoyance may catch a glimpse\nof futurity\u2014some partial picture of what perhaps exists even now in\nthe forethought of some higher mind\u2014is not inconceivable. It may be\nafter all only an unconscious and inspired inference from the present,\non an enlarged and exceptional scale; and it is a matter for\nstraightforward investigation whether such prevision ever occurs.\n\nThe following article, on the general subject of \"Free Will and\nDeterminism,\" reprinted from the _Contemporary Review_ for March 1904,\nmay conveniently be here reproduced:\u2014\n\n    The conflict between Free Will and Determinism depends on a\n    question of boundaries. We occasionally ignore the fact that there\n    must be a subjective partition in the Universe separating the\n    region of which we have some inkling of knowledge from the region\n    of which we have absolutely none; we are apt to regard the portion\n    on our side as if it were the whole, and to debate whether it must\n    or must not be regarded as self-determined. As a matter of fact any\n    partitioned-off region is in general not completely\n    self-determined, since it is liable to be acted upon by influences\n    from the other side of the partition. If the far side of the\n    boundary is ignored, then an observer on the near side will\n    conclude that things really initiate their own motion and act\n    without stimulation or motive, in some cases, whereas the fact is\n    that no act is performed without stimulus or motive; even\n    irrational acts are caused by something, and so also are rational\n    acts. Madness and delirium are natural phenomena amenable to law.\n\n    But in actual life we are living on one side of a boundary, and are\n    aware of things on one side only; the things on this side appear to\n    us to constitute the whole universe, since they are all of which we\n    have any knowledge, either through our senses or in other ways.\n    Hence we are subject to certain illusions, and feel certain\n    difficulties,\u2014the illusion of unstimulated and unmotived freedom\n    of action, and the difficulty of reconciling this with the felt\n    necessity for general determinism and causation.\n\n    If we speak in terms of the part of the universe that we know and\n    have to do with, we find free agencies rampant among organic life;\n    so that \"freedom of action\" is a definite and real experience, and\n    for practical convenience is so expressed. But if we could seize\n    the entirety of things and perceive what was occurring beyond the\n    range of our limited conceptions we should realise that the whole\n    was welded together, and that influences were coming through which\n    produced the effects that we observe.\n\n    Those philosophers, if there are any, who assert that we are wholly\n    chained bound and controlled by the circumstances of that part of\n    the Universe of which we are directly aware\u2014that we are the slaves\n    of our environment and must act as we are compelled by forces\n    emanating from things on our side of the boundary alone,\u2014those\n    philosophers err.\n\n    This kind of determinism is false; and the reaction against it has\n    led other philosophers to assert that we are _lawlessly_ free, and\n    able to initiate any action without motive or cause,\u2014that each\n    individual is a capricious and chaotic entity, not part of a Cosmos\n    at all!\n\n    It may be doubted whether anyone has clearly and actually\n    maintained either of these theses in all its crudity; but there are\n    many who vigorously and cheaply deny one or other of them, and in\n    so denying the one conceive that they are maintaining the other.\n    Both the above theses are false; yet Free Will and Determinism are\n    both true, and in a completely known universe would cease to be\n    contradictories.\n\n    The reconciliation between opposing views lies in realising that\n    the Universe of which we have a kind of knowledge is but a portion\n    or an aspect of the whole.\n\n    We are free, and we are controlled. We are free, in so far as our\n    sensible surroundings and immediate environment are concerned; that\n    is, we are free for all practical purposes, and can choose between\n    alternatives as they present themselves. We are controlled, as\n    being intrinsic parts of an entire cosmos suffused with law and\n    order.\n\n    No scheme of science based on knowledge of our environment can\n    confidently predict our actions, nor the actions of any\n    sufficiently intelligent live creature. For \"mind\" and \"will\" have\n    their roots on the other side of the partition, and that which we\n    perceive of them is but a fraction of the whole. Nevertheless, the\n    more developed and consistent and harmonious our character becomes,\n    the less liable is it to random outbreaks, and the more certainly\n    can we be depended on. We thus, even now, can exhibit some\n    approximation to the highest state\u2014that conscious unison with the\n    entire scheme of existence which is identical with perfect freedom.\n\n    If we could grasp the totality of things we should realise that\n    everything was ordered and definite, linked up with everything else\n    in a chain of causation, and that nothing was capricious and\n    uncertain and uncontrolled. The totality of things is, however, and\n    must remain, beyond our grasp; hence the actual working of the\n    process, the nature of the links, the causes which create our\n    determinations, are frequently unknown. And since it is necessary\n    for practical purposes to treat what is utterly beyond our ken as\n    if it were non-existent, it becomes easily possible to fall into\n    the erroneous habit of conceiving the transcendental region to be\n    completely inoperative.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nFURTHER SPECULATION AS TO THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE[6]\n\n_Preliminary Remarks on Recent Views in Chemistry._\n\n\nIt is a fact extremely familiar to chemists that the groupings possible\nto atoms of carbon are exceptionally numerous and complicated, each\ncarbon atom having the power of linking itself with others to an\nextraordinary extent, so that it is no exceptional thing to find a\nsubstance which contains twenty or thirty atoms of carbon as well as\nother elements linked together in its molecule in a perfectly definite\nway, the molecule being still classifiable as that of a definite\nchemical compound. But there are also some non-elementary bodies which,\nalthough they are chemically complete and satisfied, retain a\nconsiderable vestige of power to link their molecules together so as to\nmake a complex and massive compound molecule; and these are able not\nonly to link similar molecules into a more or less indefinite chain,\nbut to unite and include the saturated molecules of many other\nsubstances also into the unwieldy aggregate.\n\n      [Footnote 6: An article reprinted from the _North American\n      Review_ for May 1905.]\n\nOf the non-elementary bodies possessing this property, _water_ appears\nto be one of the chief; for there is evidence to show that the ordinary\nH-2-O molecule of water, although it may be properly spoken of as a\nsaturated or satisfied compound, seldom exists in the simple isolated\nshape depicted by this formula, but rather that a great number of such\nsimple molecules attach themselves to each other by what is called\ntheir residual or outstanding affinity, and build themselves up into a\ncomplex aggregate.\n\nThe doctrine of residual affinity has been long advocated by Armstrong;\nand the present writer has recently shown that it is a necessary\nconsequence of the electrical theory of chemical affinity,[7] and that\nthe structure of the resulting groupings, or compound aggregates, may\nbe partially studied by means of floating magnets, somewhat after the\nmanner of Alfred Mayer.[8]\n\n      [Footnote 7: See _Nature_, vol. 70, p. 176, June 23, 1904.]\n\n      [Footnote 8: See an article on \"Modern Views of Chemical Affinity\"\n      by the present writer in a magazine called _Technics_, for\n      September 1904.]\n\nIt may be well here to explain to students that one of the lines of\nargument which lead to the conclusion that the water molecule, as it\nordinarily exists, is really complex and massive, is based upon\nmeasurements of the Faraday dielectric constant for water; for this\nconstant, or \"specific inductive capacity,\" is found to be very large,\nsomething like 50 times that of air or free ether; whereas for glass it\nis only 5 or 6 times that of free space. The dielectric constant of a\nsubstance generally increases with the density or massiveness of its\nmolecule,\u2014indeed, the value of this constant is one of the methods\nwhereby matter displays its interaction with and loading of the free\nether of space,\u2014and any such density as the conventional nine times\nthat of hydrogen for the molecule of water would be wholly unable to\nexplain its immense dielectric constant.\n\nThe influence of the massiveness of a water molecule is also displayed\nin its power of tearing asunder or dissociating any salts or other\nsimple chemical substance introduced into it; common salt, for\ninstance, is found always to have a certain percentage of its molecules\nknocked or torn asunder directly it is dissolved in water, so that, in\naddition to a number of salt molecules in solution, there are a few\npositively charged sodium atoms and a few negatively charged chlorine\natoms, existing in a state of loose attraction to the water aggregate,\nand amenable to the smallest electric force; which, when applied, urges\nthe chlorine one way and the sodium the other way, so that they can be\nremoved at an electrode and their place supplied by freshly dissociated\nmolecules of salt, thus bringing about its permanent electro-chemical\ndecomposition, and enabling the water to behave as an electrolytic\nconductor directly a little salt or acid is dissolved in it.\n\nThe power of the water molecule to associate itself with molecules of\nother substances is illustrated by the well-known fact that water is an\nalmost universal solvent. It is its residual affinity which enables it\nto enter into weak chemical combination with a large number of other\nsubstances, and thus to dissolve those substances. The dissolving power\nusually increases when the temperature is raised, possibly because the\nself-contained or self-sufficient groupings of the water molecules are\nthen to some extent broken up and the fragments enabled to cling on to\nthe foreign or introduced matter instead of only to each other. The\nforeign substance is apt to be extruded again when the liquid cools,\nand when the affinity of the water-aggregates for each other resumes\nits sway. Very hot water can dissolve not only the substances\nfamiliarly known to be soluble in water, but it can dissolve things\nlike glass also; so that glass vessels are unable to retain water kept\nunder high pressure at a very high temperature, approaching a red heat.\n\nAnother material which also seems to have the power of combining with a\nnumber of other bodies, under the influence of the loose mode of\nchemical combination spoken of as residual affinity, is carbon; so that\na block of charcoal can absorb hundreds of times its own bulk of\ncertain gases.\n\nIndeed, Sir James Dewar has recently employed this absorbing power of\nvery cold carbon to produce a perfect kind of vacuum, which may,\nperhaps, be the nearest approach to absolute vacuum that has yet been\nattained: probably higher than can be attained by any kind of\nmechanical or mercury pump.\n\n\n_Unexpected Influence of Size._\n\nSuppose now a substance contains a great number of carbon molecules and\na great number of water molecules, each of which has this residual\naffinity or power of clinging together well developed, what may be\nexpected to be the result? Surely, the formation of a molecule\nconsisting of thousands or hundreds of thousands of atoms, constituting\nsubstances more complex even than those already known to or analysable\nby organic chemistry; and if these complex molecules likewise possess\nthe adhesive faculty, a grouping of millions or even billions of atoms\nmay ultimately be formed. (A billion, that is a million millions, of\natoms is truly an immense number, but the resulting aggregate is still\nexcessively minute. A portion of substance consisting of a billion\natoms is only barely visible with the highest power of a microscope;\nand a speck or granule, in order to be visible to the naked eye, like a\ngrain of lycopodium-dust, must be a million times bigger still.) Such a\ngrouping is likely to have properties differing not only in degree but\nin kind from the properties of simple substances.\n\nFor it must not be thought that aggregation only produces quantitative\nchange and leaves quality unaltered. Fresh qualities altogether are\nliable to be introduced or to make their appearance at certain\nstages\u2014certain critical stages\u2014in the building up of a complex mass\n(_cf._ p. 71).\n\nThe habitability of a house, for instance, depends on its possessing a\ncavity of a certain size; there is a critical size of brick-aggregate\nwhich enables it to serve as a dwelling. Nothing much smaller than this\nwould do at all. The aggregate retains this property, thus conferred\nupon it by size, however big it may be made after that; until it\nbecomes a palace or a cathedral, when it may perhaps reach an upper\nlimit of size at which it would be crushed by its own weight, or at\nwhich the span of roof is too great to be supported. But the\ndifference, as regards habitability, between a palace and a hovel is\nfar less than that between a hovel and one of the air-holes in a brick\nor loaf, or any other cavity too small to act as a human habitation.\nThe difference as regards habitability is then an infinite difference.\n\nTo take a less trivial instance; a planet which is large enough to\nretain an atmosphere by its gravitative attraction differs utterly, in\npotentiality and importance, from the numerous lumps of matter\nscattered throughout space, which, though they may be as large as a\nhaystack or a mountain or as the British Isles, or even Europe, are yet\ntoo small to hold any trace of air to their surface, and therefore\ncannot in any intelligible sense of the word be regarded as habitable.\nOne of the lumps of matter in space can become a habitable planet only\nwhen it has attained a certain size, which conceivably it might do by\nfalling together with others into a complex aggregate under the\ninfluence of gravitative attraction. The asteroids have not succeeded\nin doing this, but the planets have; and, accordingly, one of them, at\nany rate, has become a habitable world.\n\nBut observe that the great size and the consequent retention of an\natmosphere did not generate the inhabitants; it satisfied one of the\nconditions necessary for their existence. How they arose is another\nmatter. All that we have seen so far is that an aggregate of bodies may\npossess properties and powers which the separate bodies themselves\npossess in no kind or sort of way. It is not a question of degree, but\nof kind.\n\nSo also, further, if the aggregate is large enough, very much larger\nthan any planet, as large as a million earths aggregated together, it\nacquires the property of conspicuous radio-activity, it becomes a\nself-heating and self-luminous body, able to keep the ether violently\nagitated in all space round it, and thus to supply the radiation\nnecessary for protecting the habitable worlds from the cold of space to\nwhich they are exposed, for maintaining them at a temperature\nappropriate to organic existence, and likewise for supplying and\ngenerating the energy for their myriad activities. It has become in\nfact a central sun, and source of heat, solely because of its enormous\nsize combined with the fact of the mutual gravitative attraction of its\nown constituent particles. No body of moderate size could perform this\nfunction, nor act as a perennial furnace to the rest.\n\n\n_Application to Protoplasm._\n\nVery well then, return now to our complex molecular aggregate, and ask\nwhat new property, beyond the province of ordinary chemistry and\nphysics, is to be expected of a compound which contains millions or\nbillions of atoms attached to each other in no rigid, stable, frigid\nmanner, but by loose unstable links, enabling them constantly to\nre-arrange themselves and to be the theatre of perpetual change,\naggregating and reaggregating in various ways and manifesting ceaseless\nactivities. Such unstable aggregates of matter may, like the water of a\npond or a heap of organic refuse, serve as the vehicle for influences\nwholly novel and unexpected.\n\nToo much agitation\u2014that is, too high a temperature\u2014will split them up\nand destroy the new-found potentiality of such aggregates; too little\nagitation\u2014that is, too low a temperature\u2014will permit them to begin to\ncohere and settle down into frozen rigid masses insusceptible of\nmanifold activities. But take them just at the right temperature, when\nsufficiently complex and sufficiently mobile; take care of them, so to\nspeak, for the structure may easily be killed; and what shall we find?\nWe could not infer or guess what would be the result, but we can\nobserve the result as it is.\n\nThe result is that the complexes group themselves into minute masses\nvisible in the microscope, each mass being called by us a \"cell\"; that\nthese cells possess the power of uniting with or assimilating other\ncells, or fragments of cells, as they drift by and come into contact\nwith them; and that they absorb into their own substance such portions\nas may be suitable, while the insufficiently elaborated portions\u2014the\ngrains of inorganic or over-simple material\u2014are presently extruded.\nThey thus begin the act of \"feeding.\"\n\nAnother remarkable property also can be observed; for a cell which thus\ngrows by feeding need not remain as one individual, but may split into\ntwo, or into more than two, which may cohere for a time, but will\nultimately separate and continue existence on their own account. Thus\nbegins the act of \"reproduction.\"\n\nBut a still more remarkable property can be observed in some of the\ncells, though not in all; they can not only assimilate a fragment of\nmatter which comes into contact with them, but they can sense it,\napparently, while not yet in contact, and can protrude portions of\ntheir substance or move their whole bodies towards the fragment, thus\nbeginning the act of \"hunting\"; and the incipient locomotory power can\nbe extended till light and air and moisture and many other things can\nbe sought and moved towards, until locomotion becomes so free that it\nsometimes seems apparently objectless\u2014mere restlessness, change for\nthe sake of change, like that of human beings.\n\nThe power of locomotion is liable, however, to introduce the cell to\nnew dangers, and to conditions hostile to its continued aggregate\nexistence. So, in addition to the sense of food and other desirable\nthings ahead, it seems to acquire, at any rate when still further\naggregated and more developed, a sense of shrinking from and avoidance\nof the hostile and the dangerous,\u2014a sense as it were of \"pain.\"\n\nAnd so it enters on its long career of progress, always liable to\ndisintegration or \"death\"; it begins to differentiate portions of\nitself for the feeding process, other portions for the reproductive\nprocess, other portions again for sensory processes, but retaining the\nprotective sense of pain almost everywhere; until the spots sensitive\nto ethereal and aerial vibrations\u2014which, arriving as they do from a\ndistance, carry with them so much valuable information, and when duly\nappreciated render possible perception and prediction as to what is\nahead\u2014until these sensitive spots have become developed into the\nspecial organs which we now know as the \"eye\" and the \"ear.\" Then,\npresently, the power of communication is slowly elaborated, speech and\neducation begin, and the knowledge of the individual is no longer\nlimited to his own experience, but expands till it embraces the past\nhistory and the condensed acquisition of the race. And thus gradually\narises a developed self-consciousness, a discrimination between the\nself and the external world, and a realisation of the power of choice\nand freedom,\u2014a stage beyond which we have not travelled as yet, but a\nstage at which almost all things seem possible.\n\nThe first two properties, assimilation and reproduction, overshadowed\nby the possibility of _death_, are properties of life of every kind,\nplant life as of all other. The power of locomotion and special senses,\novershadowed by the sense of _pain_, are the sign of a still further\ndevelopment into what we call \"animal life.\" The further development,\nof mind, consciousness, and sense of freedom, overshadowed by the\npossibility of wilful error or _sin_, is the conspicuous attribute\nof life which is distinctively human.\n\nThus, our complex molecular aggregate has shown itself capable of\nextraordinary and most interesting processes, has proved capable of\nconstituting the material vehicle of life, the natural basis of living\norganisms, and even of mind; very much as a planet of certain size\nproved capable of possessing an atmosphere.\n\nBut is it to be supposed that the complex aggregate _generated_ the\nlife and mind, as the planet generated its atmosphere? That is the\nso-called materialistic view, but to the writer it seems an erroneous\none, and it is certainly one that is not proven. It is not even certain\nthat every planet generated all the gases of its own atmosphere: some\nof them it may have swept up in its excursion through space. What is\ncertain is that it possesses the power of retaining an atmosphere; it\nis by no means so certain how all the constituents of that atmosphere\narrived.\n\n\n_Questions concerning the Origin and Nature of Life._\n\nAll that we have actually experienced and verified is that a complex\nmolecular aggregate is capable of being the vehicle or material basis\nof life; but to the question _what life is_ we have as yet no answer.\nMany have been the attempts to generate life _de novo_, by packing\ntogether suitable materials and keeping them pleasantly warm for a long\ntime; but, if all germs of pre-existing life are rigorously excluded,\nthe attempt hitherto has been a failure: so far, no life has made its\nappearance under observation, except from antecedent life.\n\nBut, to exclude all trace of antecedent life, it is necessary not only\nto shut out floating germs, but to kill all germs previously existing\nin the material we are dealing with. This killing of previous life is\nusually accomplished by heat; but it has been argued that strong heat\nwill destroy not only the life but the potentiality for life, will\nbreak up the complex aggregate on which life depends, will deprive the\nincubating solution not only of life but of livelihood. There is some\nforce in the objection, and it is an illustration of the difficulty\nsurrounding the subject. But Tyndall showed that antecedent life could\nbe destroyed, without any very high temperature, by gentle heat\nperiodically applied: heat insufficient to kill the germs, but\nsufficient to kill the hatched or developed organisms. Periodic heating\nenables the germs of successive ages to hatch, so to speak, and the\nproduct to be slain; and, although some each time may have reproduced\ngerms before slaughter\u2014eggs capable of standing the warmth\u2014yet a\nsuccession of such warmings would ultimately be fatal to all, and that\nwithout necessarily breaking up the protoplasmic complex aggregates on\nthe existence of which the whole vital potentiality depends.\n\nSo far, however, all effort at spontaneous generation has been a\nfailure; possibly because some essential ingredient or condition was\nomitted, possibly because great lapse of time was necessary. But\nsuppose it was successful; what then? We should then be reproducing in\nthe laboratory a process that must at some past age have occurred on\nthe earth; for at one time the earth was certainly hot and molten and\ninorganic, whereas now it swarms with life.\n\nDoes that show that the earth generated the life? By no means; no more\nthan it need necessarily have generated all the gases of its\natmosphere, or the meteoric dust which lies upon its snows.\n\nLife may be something not only ultra-terrestrial, but even immaterial,\nsomething outside our present categories of matter and energy; as real\nas they are, but different, and utilising them for its own purpose.\nWhat is certain is that life possesses the power of vitalising the\ncomplex material aggregates which exist on this planet, and of\nutilising their energies for a time to display itself amid terrestrial\nsurroundings; and then it seems to disappear or evaporate whence it\ncame. It is perpetually arriving and perpetually disappearing. While it\nis here, if it is at a sufficiently high level, the animated material\nbody moves about and strives after many objects, some worthy, some\nunworthy; it acquires thereby a certain individuality, a certain\ncharacter. It may realise _itself_, moreover, becoming conscious of\nits own mental and spiritual existence; and it then begins to explore\nthe Mind which, like its own, it conceives must underlie the material\nfabric\u2014half displayed, half concealed, by the environment, and\nintelligible only to a kindred spirit. Thus the scheme of law and\norder dimly dawns upon the nascent soul, and it begins to form clear\nconceptions of truth, goodness, and beauty; it may achieve something\nof permanent value, as a work of art or of literature; it may enter\nregions of emotion and may evolve ideas of the loftiest kind; it may\ndegrade itself below the beasts, or it may soar till it is almost\ndivine.\n\nIs it the material molecular aggregate that has of its own unaided\nlatent power generated this individuality, acquired this character,\nfelt these emotions, evolved these ideas? There are some who try to\nthink that it is. There are others who recognise in this extraordinary\ndevelopment a contact between this material frame of things and a\nuniverse higher and other than anything known to our senses; a universe\nnot dominated by Physics and Chemistry, but utilising the interactions\nof matter for its own purposes; a universe where the human spirit is\nmore at home than it is among these temporary collocations of atoms; a\nuniverse capable of infinite development, of noble contemplation, and\nof lofty joy, long after this planet\u2014nay, the whole solar system\u2014shall\nhave fulfilled its present spire of destiny, and retired cold and\nlifeless upon its endless way.\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\nPRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.","title":"Life and Matter: A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's \"Riddle of the Universe\"","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":34776}