sensationally misinterpreted by some as an artificial production of
life. What Jacques Loeb really did was to initiate development in an
unfertilized egg by the use of chemical and physical excitants. The
writer has repeated these experiments with the unfertilized eggs of the
common sea urchin, _Arbacia punctulata_, using very dilute butyric acid
and hypertonic sea water as stimulants. Cleavage had started within an
hour and a half after the completion of the aforesaid treatment, and
the eggs were in the gastrula stage by the following morning (9 hours
later). In three days, good specimens of the larval stage known as the
pluteus could be found swimming in the normal sea water to which the
eggs had been transferred from the hypertonic solution. Since mature
sea urchin eggs undergo reduction before insemination takes place,
the larval sea urchins arising from these artificially activated
eggs had the reduced or haploid number of chromosomes instead of the
diploid number possessed by normal larvæ arising from eggs activated
by the sperm. For, in fertilization, the sperm not only activates the
egg, but is also the means of securing biparental inheritance, by
contributing its quota of chromosomes to the zygotic complex. Hence,
it is only in the former function, _i. e._ of initiating cleavage in
the egg, that a chemical excitant can replace the sperm. In any case,
it is evident that these experiments do not constitute an exception
to the law of genetic cellular continuity. The artificially activated
egg comes from the ovaries of a living female sea urchin, and in this
there is small consolation for the exponent of abiogenesis. The terse
comment of an old Irish Jesuit sizes up the situation very aptly: “The
Blue Flame Factory,” he said, “has announced another discovery of the
secret of life. A scientist made an egg and hatched an egg. The only
unfortunate thing was that the egg he hatched was not the egg he made.”
How an experiment of this sort could be interpreted as an artificial
production of life is a mystery. The only plausible explanation is that
given by Professor Wilson, who traces it to the popular superstition
that the egg is a lifeless substrate, which is animated by the sperm.
The idea owes its origin to the spermists of the 17th century, who
defended this doctrine against the older school of preformationists
known as ovists. It is now, however, an embryological commonplace that
egg and sperm are both equally cellular, equally protoplasmic, and
equally vital.
The phenomena of the life-cycle in organisms find their explanation in
what, perhaps, is inherent in all living matter, namely, a tendency to
involution and senescence. This tendency, in the absence of a remedial
process of rejuvenation, leads inevitably to death. Living matter seems
to “run down” like a clock, and to stand in similar need of a periodic
“rewinding.” This reinvigoration of protoplasm is accomplished by means
of several different types of nuclear reorganization. Since no nuclear
reorganization occurs in somatogenic reproduction, there seem to be
limits to this type of propagation. Plants, like the potato and the
apple, cannot be propagated indefinitely by means of tubers, shoots,
stems, etc. The stock plays out in time, and, ever and anon, recourse
must be had to seedlings. Hence a process of nuclear reorganization
seems, in most cases, at least, to be essential for the restoration of
vitality and the continuance of life. Whether this need of periodic
renewal is absolutely universal, we cannot say. The banana has been
propagated for over a century by the somatogenic method, and there
are a few other instances in which there appears to be no limit to
this type of reproduction. Nevertheless, the tendency to decline is
so common among living beings that the rare exceptions serve only to
confirm (if they do not follow) the general rule.
In cytogenic reproduction three kinds of rejuvenation by means of
nuclear reorganization are known: (1) amphimixis or syngamy; (2)
automixis or autogamy; (3) endomixis. In amphimixis or syngamy, two
gametic (haploid) nuclei of different parental lineage are commingled
to form the diploid nucleus of the zygote, which is consequently of
biparental origin. In automixis or autogamy, two reduced or haploid
nuclei of the same parental lineage unite to form a diploid nucleus,
the uniting nuclei being daughter-nuclei derived from a common parent
nucleus. In endomixis, the nucleus of the exhausted cell disintegrates
and fuses with the cytoplasm, out of which it is reformed or
reconstructed as the germinal nucleus of a rejuvenated cellular series.
Endomixis occurs as a periodic phenomenon among the protists, and it
appears to be homologous with parthenogenesis among metists. In certain
ciliates, like the Paramœcium, endomixis and syngamy are facultative
methods of rejuvenation. This has been proved most conclusively
by Professor Calkins’ work on _Uroleptus mobilis_, an organism in
which both endomixis and conjugation are amenable to experimental
control. Nonsexual reproduction in this protozoan (by binary fission)
is attended with a gradual weakening of metabolic activity, which
increases with each successive generation. The initial rate of division
and metabolic energy can, however, be restored either by conjugation
(of two individuals), or by endomixis, which takes place (in a single
individual) during encystment. The race, however, inevitably dies
out, if both encystment and conjugation are prevented. Even in such
protists as do not exhibit the phenomenon of nuclear reorganization
through sexual reproduction, Kofoid points to the phenomenon of
alternating periods of rest and rapid cell-division as evidence that
some process of periodically-recurrent nuclear organization must exist
in the organisms, which do not conjugate. This process of nuclear
reorganization manifested by periodic spurts of renewed divisional
energy is, according to Kofoid, a more primitive mode of rejuvenation
than endomixis. “The phenomenon of endomixis,” he says, “appears to be
somewhat more like that of parthenogenesis than a more primitive form
of nuclear reorganization.” (_Science_, April 6, 1923, p. 403.) At all
events, it seems safe to conclude that the tendency to senescence is
pretty general among living organisms, and that this tendency, unless
counteracted by a periodic reorganization of the nuclear genes, results
inevitably in the deterioration and final extinction of the race.
In this inexhaustible power of self-renewal inherent in all forms
of organic life, the mechanist and the upholder of abiogenesis
encounter an insuperable difficulty. In inorganic nature, where the
perpetual-motion device is a chimera, and the law of entropy reigns
in unchallenged supremacy, nothing analogous to it can be found. The
activity of all non-living units of nature, from the hydrogen atom
to the protein multimolecule, is rigidly determined by the principle
of the degradation of energy. The inorganic unit cannot operate
otherwise than by externalizing and dissipating irreparably its own
energy-content. Nor is its reconstruction and replenishment with energy
ever again possible except through the wasteful expenditure of energy
borrowed from some more richly endowed inorganic unit. In order to pay
Paul a little, Peter must be robbed of much. Wheresoever atoms are
built up into complex endothermic molecules, the constructive process
is rigidly dependent upon the administration thereto of external
energy, which in the process of absorption must of necessity fall from
a higher level of intensity. And when the energy thus absorbed by the
complex molecule is again set free by combustion, it is degraded to a
still lower potential, from which, without external intervention, it
can never rise again to its former plane of intensity. The phenomena
of radioactivity tell the same tale. All the heavier atoms, at least,
are constantly disintegrating with a concomitant discharge of energy.
There is no compensating process, however, enabling such an atom to
re-integrate and recharge itself at stated intervals; and, once it
has broken down into its component protons and electrons, “not all
the king’s horses nor all the king’s men can ever put Humpty-Dumpty
together again.” In a word, none of the inorganic units of the mineral
world exhibits that wonderful power of autonomous recuperation which
a unicellular ciliate manifests when it rejuvenates itself by means
of endomixis. The inorganic world knows of no constructive process
comparable to this. It is only in living beings that we find what
James Ward describes as the “tendency to disturb existing equilibria,
to reverse the dissipative processes which prevail throughout the
inanimate world, to store and build up where they are ever scattering
and pulling down, the tendency to conserve individual existence against
antagonistic forces, to grow and to progress, not inertly taking the
easier way but seemingly striving for the best, retaining every vantage
secured, and working for new ones.” (“On the Conservation of Energy,”
I, p. 285.)
Summing up, then, we have seen that the reproductive process, whereby
the metists or multicellular organism originate, resolves itself
ultimately into a process of cell-division. The same is true of the
protists or unicellular organisms. For all cells, whether they be
protists, germ cells, or somatic cells, originate in but one way, and
that is, from a preëxistent living cell by means of cell-division.
Neither experimentation nor observation has succeeded in revealing so
much as a single exception to the universal law of genetic cellular
continuity, and the hypothesis of spontogenesis is outlawed, in
consequence, by the logic of scientific induction. Even the hope that
future research may bring about an amelioration of its present status
is entirely unwarranted in view of the manifest dynamic superiority
of the living organism as compared with any of the inert units of the
inorganic world. “Whatever position we take on this question,” says
Edmund B. Wilson, in the conclusion of his work on the Cell, “the same
difficulty is encountered; namely, the origin of that coördinated
fitness, that power of active adjustment between internal and external
relations, which, as so many eminent biological thinkers have insisted,
overshadows every manifestation of life. The nature and origin of this
power is the fundamental problem of biology. When, after removing
the lens of the eye in the larval salamander, we see it restored in
perfect and typical form by regeneration from the posterior layer of
the iris, we behold an adaptive response to changed conditions of which
the organism can have no antecedent experience either ontogenetic or
phylogenetic, and one of so marvelous a character that we are made
to realize, as by a flash how far we still are from a solution of
this problem.” Then, after discussing the attempt of evolutionists to
bridge the enormous gap that separates living, from lifeless nature,
he continues: “But when all these admissions are made, and when the
conserving action (_sic_) of natural selection is in the fullest degree
recognized, we cannot close our eyes to two facts: first, that we are
utterly ignorant of the manner in which the idioplasm of the germ cell
can so respond to the influence of the environment as to call forth
an adaptive variation; and second, that the study of the cell has on
the whole seemed to widen rather than to narrow the enormous gap that
separates even the lowest forms of life from the inorganic world.”
(“The Cell,” 2nd edit., pp. 433, 434.)
§ 5. A “New” Theory of Abiogenesis
Since true science is out of sympathy with baseless conjectures and
gratuitous assumptions, one would scarcely expect to find scientists
opposing the inductive trend of the known facts by preferring mere
possibilities (if they are even such) to solid actualities. As a matter
of fact, however, there are not a few who obstinately refuse to abandon
preconceptions for which they can find no factual justification. The
bio-chemist, Benjamin Moore, while conceding the bankruptcy of the
old theory of spontaneous generation, which looked for a _de novo_
origin of living cells in sterilized cultures, has, nevertheless,
the hardihood to propose what he is pleased to term a _new_ one.
Impressed by the credulity of Charlton Bastian and the autocratic tone
of Schäfer, he sets out to defend as plausible the hypothesis that
the origination of life from inert matter may be a contemporaneous,
perhaps, daily, phenomenon, going on continually, but invisible to us,
because its initial stages take place in the submicroscopic world.
By the time life has emerged into the visible world, it has already
reached the stage at which the law of genetic continuity prevails,
but at stages of organization, which lie below the limit of the
microscope, it is not impossible, he thinks, that abiogenesis may
occur. To plausibleize this conjecture, he notes that the cell is a
natural unit composed of molecules as a molecule is a natural unit
composed of atoms. He further notes, that, in addition to the cell,
there is in nature another unit higher than the monomolecule, namely,
the _multimolecule_ occurring in both crystalloids and colloids.
The monomolecule consists of atoms held together by atomic valence,
whereas the multimolecule consists of molecules whose atomic valence
is completely saturated, and which are, consequently, held together by
what is now known as _molecular_ or _residual valence_. Moore cites
the crystal units of sodium bromide and sodium iodide as instances of
multimolecules. The crystal unit of ordinary salt, sodium chloride, is
an ordinary monomolecule, with the formula NaCl. In the case of the
former salts the crystal units consist of multimolecules of the formula
NaB·(H₂O)₂ and NaI·(H₂O)₂, the water of crystallization not being
mechanically confined in the crystals, but combined with the respective
salt in the exact ratio of two molecules of water to one of the salt.
Judged by all chemical tests, such as heat of formation, the law of
combination in fixed ratios, the manifestation of selective affinity,
etc., the multimolecule is quite as much entitled to be considered a
natural unit as is the monomolecule.
But it is not in the crystalloidal multimolecule, but in the larger
and more complex multimolecule of colloids (viscid substances like
gum arabic, gelatine, agar-agar, white of egg, etc.), that Moore
professes to see a sort of intermediate between the cell and inorganic
units. Such colloids form with a dispersing medium (like water) an
emulsion, in which the dispersed particles, known as ultramicrons or
“solution aggregates,” are larger than monomolecules. It is among
these multimolecules of colloids that Moore would have us search for
a transitional link connecting the cell with the inorganic world.
Borrowing Herbert Spencer’s dogma of the complication of homogeneity
into heterogeneity, he asserts that such colloidal multimolecules
would tend to become more and more complex, and consequently more and
more instable, so that their instability would gradually approach the
chronic instability or constant state of metabolic fluxion manifest in
living organisms. The end-result would be a living unit more simply
organized than the cell, and evolution seizing upon this submicroscopic
unit would, in due time, transform it into cellular life of every
variety and kind. _Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte!_
It should be noted that this so-called law is a mere vague formula
like the “law” of natural selection and the “law” of evolution. The
facts which it is alleged to express are not cited, and its terms
are far from being quantitative. It is certainly not a law in the
sense of Arrhénius, who says: “Quantitative formulation, that is,
the establishing of a connection, expressed by a formula, between
different quantitatively measurable magnitudes, is the peculiar feature
of a law.” (“Theories of Chemistry,” Price’s translation, p. 3.) Now,
chemistry, as an exact science, has no lack of laws of this kind, but
no branch of chemistry, whether physical, organic, or inorganic, knows
of any _law of complexity_, that can be stated in either quantitative,
or descriptive, terms. We will, however, let Moore speak for himself:
“It may then be summed up as a general law universal in its application
to all matter, ... a law which might be called the Law of Complexity,
that matter so far as its energy environment will permit tends to
assume more and more complex forms in labile equilibrium. Atoms,
molecules, colloids, and living organisms, arise as a result of the
operations of this law, and in the higher regions of complexity it
induces organic evolution and all the many thousands of living forms....
“In this manner we can conceive that the hiatus between non-living and
living things can be bridged over, and there awakens in our minds the
conception of a kind of spontaneous production of life of a different
order from the old. The territory of this spontaneous generation of
life lies not at the level of bacteria, or animalculæ, springing forth
into life from dead organic matter, but at a level of life lying deeper
than anything the microscope can reveal, and possessing a lower unit
than the living cell, as we form our concept of it from the tissues of
higher animals and plants.
“In the future, the stage at which colloids begin to be able to
deal with external energy forms, such as light, and build up in
chemical complexity, will yield a new unit of life opening a vista of
possibilities as magnificent as that which the establishment of the
cell as a unit gave, with the development of the microscope, about a
century ago.” (“Origin and Nature of Life,” pp. 188-190.)
Having heard out a rhapsody of this sort, one may be pardoned a little
impatience at such a travesty on science. Again we have the appeal from
realities to fancies, from the seen to unseen. Moore sees no reason
to doubt and is therefore quite sure that an unverified occurrence
is taking place “at a level of life lying deeper than anything the
microscope can reveal.” The unknown is a veritable paradise for
irresponsible speculation and phantasy. It is well, however, to keep
one’s feet on the _terra firma_ of ascertained facts and to make one’s
ignorance a motive for caution rather than an incentive to reckless
dogmatizing.
To begin with, it is not to a single dispersed particle or ultramicron
that protoplasm has been likened, but to an emulsion, comprising both
the dispersed particles and the dispersing medium, or, in other words,
to the colloidal system as a whole. Moreover, even there the analogy
is far from being perfect, and is confined exclusively, as Wilson has
pointed out, to a rough similarity of structure and appearance. The
colloidal system is obviously a mere _aggregate_ and not a _natural
unit_ like the cell, and its dispersed particles (ultramicrons) do
not multiply and perpetuate themselves by growth and division as do
the living components or formed bodies of the cell. As for the single
ultramicron or multimolecule of a colloidal solution, it may, indeed,
be a natural unit, but it only resembles the cell in the sense that,
like the latter, it is a complex of constituent molecules. Here,
however, all resemblance ceases; for the ultramicron does not display
the typically vital power of self-perpetuation by growth and division,
which, as we have seen, is characteristic not only of the cell as a
whole, but of its single components or organelles. Certainly, the
distinctive phenomena of colloidal systems cannot be interpreted as
processes of multiplication. There is nothing suggestive of this vital
phenomenon in the reversal of phase, which is caused by the addition
of electrolytes to oil emulsions, or in gelation, which is caused by
a change of temperature in certain hydrophilic colloids. Thus the
addition of the salt of a bivalent cation (_e.g._ CaCl₂ or BaCl₂)
to an oil-in-water emulsion (if soap is used as the emulsifier) will
cause the external or continuous phase (water) to become the internal
or discontinuous phase. Vice versa, a water-in-oil emulsion can be
reversed into an oil-in-water emulsion, under the same conditions,
by the addition of the salt of a monovalent cation (_e. g._ NaOH).
Solutions of hydrophilic colloids, like gelatine or agar-agar, can
be made to “set” from the semifluid state of a hydrosol into the
semisolid state of a hydrogel, by lowering the temperature, after
which the opposite effect can be brought about by again raising the
temperature. In white of egg, however, once gelation has taken place,
through the agency of heat, it is impossible to reconvert the “gel”
into a “sol” (solution). In such phenomena, it is, perhaps, possible
to see a certain parallelism with some processes taking place in the
cell, _e. g._ the osmotic processes of absorption and excretion, but to
construe them as evidence of propagation by growth and division would
be preposterous.
Nor is the subterfuge of relegating the question to the obscurity
of the submicroscopic world of any avail; for, as a matter of
fact, submicroscopic organisms actually do exist, and manage,
precisely by virtue of this uniquely vital power of multiplication
or reproductivity, to give indirect testimony of their invisible
existence. The microörganisms, for example, which cause the disease
known as Measles are so minute that they pass through the pores
of a porcelain filter, and are invisible to the highest powers of
the microscope. Nevertheless, they can be bred in the test tube
cultures of the bacteriologist, where they propagate themselves for
generations without losing the definite specificity, which make
them capable of producing distinctive pathological effects in the
organisms of higher animals, including man. Each of these invisible
disease germs communicates but one disease, with symptoms that are
perfectly characteristic and definite. Moreover, they are specific in
their choice of a host, and will not infect any and every organism
promiscuously. Finally, they never arise _de novo_ in a healthy
host, but must always be transmitted from a diseased to a healthy
individual. The microscopist is tantalized, to quote the words of
Wilson, “with visions of disease germs which no eye has yet seen,
so minute as to pass through a fine filter, yet beyond a doubt
self-perpetuating and of specific type.” (_Science_, March 9, 1923,
p. 283.) Submicroscopic dimensions, therefore, are no obstacle to
the manifestation of such vital properties as reproduction, genetic
continuity, and typical specificity; and we must conclude that, if
any of the ultramicrons of colloids possessed them, their minute size
would not debar them from manifesting the fact. As it is, they fail to
show any vital quality, whereas the submicroscopic disease germs give
evidence of possessing all the characteristics of visible cells.
In fine, the radical difference between inorganic units, like atoms,
molecules, and multimolecules, and living units, like protozoans and
metazoans, is so obvious that it is universally admitted. Not all,
however, are in accord when it comes to assigning the fundamental
reason for the difference in question. Benjamin Moore postulates a
unique physical energy, peculiar to living organisms and responsible
for all distinctively vital manifestations. This unique form of energy,
unlike all other forms, he calls “biotic energy,” denying at the same
time that it is a vital force. (Cf. _op. cit._, pp. 224-226.) Moore
seems to be desirous of dressing up vitalism in the verbal vesture of
mechanism. He wants the game, without the name. But, if his “biotic
energy” is unlike all other forms of energy, it ought not to parade
under the same name, but should frankly call itself a “vital force.”
Somewhat similar in nature is Osborn’s suggestion that the peculiar
properties of living protoplasm may be due to the presence of a
unique chemical element called Bion. (Cf. “The Origin and Evolution
of Life,” 1917, p. 6.) Now, a chemical element unlike other chemical
elements is not a chemical element at all. Osborn’s Bion, like Moore’s
biotic energy, ought, by all means, to make up its mind definitely on
Hamlet’s question of “to be, or not to be.” The policy of “It is, and
it is not,” is not likely to win the approval of either mechanists or
vitalists.
§ 6. Hylomorphism versus Mechanism and Neo-vitalism
Mechanism and Neo-vitalism represent two extreme solutions of this
problem of accounting for the difference between living and lifeless
matter. Strictly speaking, it is an abuse of language to refer to
mechanism as a solution at all. Its first pretense at solving the
problem is to deny that there is any problem. But facts are facts and
cannot be disposed of in this summary fashion. Forced, therefore, to
face the actual fact of the uniqueness of living matter, mechanists
concede the inadequacy of their physicochemical analogies, but
obstinately refuse to admit the legitimacy of any other kind of
explanation. Confronted with realities, which simply must have _some_
explanation, they prefer to leave them unexplained by their own theory
than have them explained by any other. They recognize the difference
between a living animal and a dead animal (small credit to them for
their perspicacity!), but deny that there is anything present in the
former which is not present in the latter.
Neo-vitalism, on the other hand, is, at least, an attempt at solving
the problem in the positive sense. It ascribes the unique activities of
living organisms to the operation of a superphysical and superchemical
energy or force resident in living matter. This unique dynamic
principle is termed _vital force_. It is not an entitive nor a static
principle, but belongs to the category of efficient or active causes,
being variously described as an agent, energy, or force. To speak
precisely, the term agent denotes an active being or substance; the
term energy denotes the proximate ground in the agent of a specific
activity; while the term force denotes the activity or free, kinetic,
or activated phase of a given energy. In practice, however, these
terms are often used interchangeably. Thus Driesch, who, like all
other Neo-vitalists, makes the vital principle a dynamic factor
rather than an entitive principle, refers to the vital principle as a
“non-material,” “non-spatial” _agent_, though the term _energy_ would
be more precise. To this active or dynamic vital principle Driesch
gives a name, which he borrowed from Aristotle, that is, _entelechy_.
In so doing, however, he perverted, as he himself confesses, the true
Aristotelian sense of the term in question: “The term,” he says,
“... is not here used in the proper Aristotelian sense.” (“History and
Theory of Vitalism,” p. 203.) His admission is quite correct. At the
critical point, Driesch, for all his praise of Aristotle, deserts
the Stagirite and goes over to the camp of Plato, Descartes, and the
Neo-vitalists!
Driesch’s definition is as follows: “Entelechy is an agent _sui
generis_, non-material and non-spatial, but acting ‘into’ space.”
(_Op. cit._, p. 204.) Aristotle’s use of the term in this connection
is quite different. He uses it, for example, in a static, rather than
a dynamic, sense: “The term ‘entelechy,’” he says, “is used in two
senses; in one it answers to knowledge, in the other to the exercise of
knowledge. Clearly in this case it is analogous to knowledge.” (“Peri
Psyches,” Bk. II, c. 1.) Knowledge, however, is only a _second_ or
static _entelechy_. Hence, in order to narrow the sense still further
Aristotle refers to the _soul_ as a _first_ entelechy, by which he
designates a purely _entitive_ principle, that is, a constituent of
being or substance (cf. _op. cit._ _ibidem_). The _first_, or entitive,
entelechy, therefore, is to be distinguished from all secondary
entelechies, whether of the _dynamic_ order corresponding to kinetic
energy or force, or of the _static_ order corresponding to potential
energy. Neither is it an _agent_, because it is only a partial
constituent of the total agent, that is, of the total active being or
substance. Hence, generally speaking, _that which acts_ (the agent)
is not entelechy, but the total composite of entelechy and matter,
_first entelechy_ being consubstantial with matter and not a separate
existent or being. In fine, according to Aristotelian philosophy,
entelechy (that is, “first” or “prime” entelechy) is not an agent nor
an energy nor a force. In other words, it is totally removed from the
category of efficient or active causes. The second difference between
Driesch and Aristotle with respect to the use of the term entelechy
lies in the fact that Driesch uses it as a synonym for the soul or
vital principle, whereas, according to Aristotle, _entelechy is common
to the non-living units of inorganic nature as well as the living
units_ (organisms) _of the organic world_. All vital principles or
souls are entelechies, but not all entelechies are vital principles.
All material beings or substances, whether living or lifeless, are
reducible, in the last analysis, to two consubstantial principles or
complementary constituents, namely, entelechy and matter. Entelechy
is the binding, type-determining principle, the source of unification
and specification, which makes of a given natural unit (such as a
molecule or a protozoan) a single and determinate whole. Matter is
the determinable and potentially-multiple element, the principle of
divisibility and quantification, which can enter indifferently into the
composition of this or that natural unit, and which owes its actual
unity and specificity to the entelechy which here and now informs
it. It is entelechy which makes a chemical element distinct from its
isobare, a chemical compound distinct from its isomer, a paramœcium
distinct from an amœba, a maple distinct from an oak, and a bear
distinct from a tiger.
The molecular entelechy finds expression in what the organic chemist
and the stereochemist understand by valence, that is, the static aspect
of valence considered as the structural principle of a molecule.
Hence it is entelechy which makes a molecule of urea [O:C:(NH₂)₂]
an entirely different substance from its isomer ammonium cyanate
[NH₄·O·C:N], although the material substrate of each of these molecular
units consists of precisely the same number and kinds of atoms.
Similarly, it is the atomic entelechy which gives to the isotopes of
Strontium chemical properties different from those of the isotopes of
Rubidium, although the mass and corpuscular (electronic and protonic)
composition of their respective atoms are identical. It is the vital
entelechy or soul, which causes a fragment cut from a Stentor to
regenerate its specific protoplasmic architecture instead of the type
which would be regenerated from a similar fragment cut from another
ciliate such as Dileptus.
In all the tridimensional units of nature, both living and non-living,
the hylomorphic analysis of Aristotle recognizes an essential dualism
of matter and entelechy. Hence it is not in the presence and absence
of an entelechy (as Driesch contends) that living organisms differ
from inorganic units. The sole difference between these two classes of
units is one of autonomy and inertia. The inorganic unit is inert, not
in the sense that it is destitute of energy, but in the sense that it
is incapable of self-regulation and rigidly dependent upon external
factors for the utilization of its own energy-content. The living
unit, on the other hand, is endowed with dynamic autonomy. Though
dependent, in a general way, upon environmental factors for the energy
which it utilizes, nevertheless the determinate form and direction of
its activity is not imposed in all its specificity by the aforesaid
environmental factors. The living being possesses a certain degree of
independence with respect to these external forces. It is autonomous
with a special law of immanent finality or reflexive orientation, by
which all the elements and energies of the living unit are made to
converge upon one and the same central result, namely, the maintenance
and development of the organism both in its capacity as an individual
and in its capacity as the generative source of its racial type.
The entelechies of the inert units of inorganic nature turn the
forces of these units in an _outward direction_, so that they are
incapable of operating upon themselves, of modifying themselves, or
of regulating themselves. They are only capable of operating upon
other units outside themselves, and in so doing they irreparably
externalize their energy-contents. All physicochemical action is
_transitive_ or _communicable_ in character, whereas vital action
is of the _reflexive_ or _immanent_ type. Mechanical action, for
example, is intermolar (_i.e._ an exchange between large masses of
inorganic matter); physical action is intermolecular; chemical action
is interatomic; while in radioactive and electrical phenomena we have
intercorpuscular action. Hence all the forms of activity native to the
inorganic world are reducible to _interaction_ between discontinuous
and unequally energized masses or particles. Always it is a case of
one mass or particle operating upon another mass or particle distinct
from, and spatially external to, itself. The effect or positive change
produced by the action is received into another unit distinct from the
agent or active unit, which can never become the receptive subject of
the effect generated by its own activity. The living being, on the
contrary, is capable of operating upon itself, so that what is modified
by the action is not outside the agent but within it. The reader does
not modify the book, but modifies himself by his reading. The blade
of grass can nourish not only a horse, but its very self, whereas a
molecule of sodium nitrate is impotent to nourish itself, and can
only nourish a subject other than itself, such as the blade of grass.
Here the active source and receptive subject of the action is one and
the same unit, namely, the living organism, which can operate upon
itself in the interest of its own perfection. In chemical synthesis
two substances interact to produce a third, but in vital assimilation
one substance is incorporated into another without the production of
a third. Thus hydrogen unites with oxygen to produce water. But in
the case of assimilation the reaction may be expressed thus: Living
protoplasm plus external nutriment equals living protoplasm increased
in quantity but unchanged in specificity. Addition or subtraction
alters the nature of the inorganic unit, but does not change the nature
of the living unit. In chemical change, entelechy is the variant and
matter is the constant, but in metabolic change, matter is the variant
and entelechy the constant. “Living beings,” says Henderson, “preserve,
or tend to preserve, an ideal form, while through them flows a steady
stream of energy and matter which is ever changing, yet momentarily
molded by life; organized, in short.” (“Fitness of the Environment,”
1913, pp. 23, 24.) The living unit maintains its own specific type
amid a constant flux of matter and flow of energy. It subjugates the
alien substances of the inorganic world, eliminates their mineral
entelechies and utilizes their components and energies for its own
purposes. The soul or vital entelechy, therefore, is more powerful than
the entelechies of inorganic units which it supplants. It turns the
forces of living matter _inward_, so that the living organism becomes
capable of _self-regulation_ and of striving for the attainment of
self-perfection. It is this _reflexive orientation_ of all energies
towards self-perfection that is the unique characteristic of the living
being, and not the nature of the energies themselves. The energies by
which vital functions are executed are the ordinary physicochemical
energies, but it is the vital entelechy or soul which elevates them
to a higher plane of efficiency and renders them capable of reflexive
or vital action. There is, in short, no such thing as a special vital
force. The radical difference between living and non-living units does
not consist in the possession or non-possession of an entelechy, nor
yet in the peculiar nature of the forces displayed in the execution of
vital functions, but solely in the orientation of these forces towards
an inner finality.
§ 7. The Definition of Life
Life, then, may be defined as the capacity of reflexive or
self-perfective action. In any action, we may distinguish four things:
(1) the agent, or source of the action; (2) the activity or internal
determination differentiating the agent in the active state from the
selfsame agent in the inactive state; (3) the patient or receptive
subject; (4) the effect or change produced in the patient by the
agent. Let us suppose that a boy named Tom kicks a door. Here Tom is
the agent, the muscular contraction in his leg is the activity, the
door is the patient or recipient, while the dent produced in the door
is the effect or change of which the action is a production. In this
action, the effect is produced not in the cause or agent, but in a
patient outside of, and distinct from, the agent, and the otherness of
cause and effect is consequently complete. Such an action is termed
transitive, which is the characteristic type of physicochemical action.
In another class of actions, however, (those, namely, that are peculiar
to living beings) the otherness of cause and effect is only partial
and relative. When the agent becomes ultimately the recipient of the
effect or modification wrought by its own activity, that is, when
the positive change produced by the action remains within the agent
itself, the action is called immanent or reflexive action. Since,
however, action and passion are opposites, they can coëxist in the same
subject only upon condition that said subject is differentiated into
partial otherness, that is, organized into a plurality of distinct and
dissimilar parts or components, one of which may act upon another.
Hence only the organized unit or organism, which combines unity or
continuity of substance with multiplicity and dissimilarity of parts
is capable of immanent action. The inorganic unit is capable only of
transitive action, whose effect is produced in an exterior subject
really distinct from the agent. The living unit or organism, however,
is capable of both transitive action and immanent (reflexive) action.
In such functions as thought and sensation, the living agent modifies
itself and not an exterior patient. In the nutritive or metabolic
function the living being perfects itself by assimilating external
substances to itself. It develops, organizes, repairs, and multiplies
itself, holding its own and perpetuating its type from generation to
generation.
Life, accordingly, is the capacity of tending through any form of
reflexive action to an ulterior perfection of the agent itself.
This capacity of an agent to operate of, and upon, itself for the
acquisition of some perfection exceeding its natural equilibrial state
is the distinctive attribute of the living being. Left to itself, the
inorganic unit tends exclusively to conservation or to loss, never
to positive acquisition in excess of equilibrial exigencies; what
it acquires it owes exclusively to the action of external factors.
The living unit, on the contrary, strives in its vital operations to
acquire something for itself, so that what it gets it owes to itself
and not (except in a very general sense) to the action of external
factors. All the actions of the living unit, both upon itself and upon
external matter, result sooner or later in the acquisition on the part
of the agent of a positive perfection exceeding and transcending the
mere exigencies of equilibration. The inorganic agent, on the contrary,
when in the state of tension, tends only to return to the equilibrial
state by alienation or expenditure of its energy; otherwise, it
tends merely to conserve, by virtue of inertia, the state of rest or
motion impressed upon it from without. In the chemical changes of
inorganic units, the tendency to loss is even more in evidence. Such
changes disrupt the integrity of the inorganic unit and dissipate its
energy-content, and the unit cannot be reconstructed and recharged,
except at the expense of a more richly endowed inorganic unit. The
living organism, however, as we see in the case of the paramæcium
undergoing endomixis, is capable of counteracting exhaustion by
recharging itself.
The difference between transitive and reflexive action is not an
accidental difference of _degree_, but an essential difference of
_kind_. In reflexive actions, the source of the action and the
recipient of the effect or modification produced by it are one and the
same substantial unit or being. In transitive actions, the receptive
subject of the positive change is an alien unit distinct from the
unit, which puts forth the action. Hence a reflexive action is not
an action which is _less_ transitive; it is an action which is _not
at all_ transitive, but intransitive. The difference, therefore,
between the living organism, which is capable of both reflexive and
transitive action, and the inorganic unit, which is only capable
of transitive action, is _radical_ and _essential_. This being the
case, an evolutionary transition from an inert multimolecule to a
reflexively-operating cell or cytode, becomes inconceivable. Evolution
might, at the very most, bring about intensifications and combinations
of the transitive agencies of the physicochemical world, but never
the _volte face_, which would be necessary to reverse the centrifugal
orientation of forces characteristic of the inorganic unit into the
centripetal orientation of forces which makes the living unit capable
of self-perfective action, self-regulation, and self-renewal. The idea,
therefore, of a spontaneous derivation of living units from lifeless
colloidal multimolecules must be rejected, not merely because it finds
no support in the facts of experience, but also because it is excluded
by aprioristic considerations.
§ 8. An Inevitable Corollary
But, if inorganic matter is impotent to vitalize itself by means of its
native physicochemical forces, the inevitable alternative is that the
initial production of organisms from inorganic matter was due to the
action of some supermaterial agency. Certain scientists, like Henderson
of Harvard, while admitting the incredibility of abiogenesis, prefer
to avoid open conflict with mechanism and materialism by declaring
their neutrality. “But while biophysicists like Professor Schäfer,”
says Henderson, “follow Spencer in assuming a gradual evolution of the
organic from the inorganic, biochemists are more than ever unable to
perceive how such a process is possible, and without taking any final
stand prefer to let the riddle rest.” (“Fitness of the Environment,”
p. 310, footnote.) Not to take a decisive stand on this question,
however, is tantamount to making a compromise with what is illogical
and unscientific; for both logic and the inductive trend of biological
facts are arrayed against the hypothesis of spontaneous generation.
In the first place, it is manifest that organic life is neither
self-explanatory nor eternal. Hence it must have had its origin in the
action of some external agency. Life as it exists today depends upon
the precedence of numerous unbroken chains of consecutive cells that
extend backward into a remote past. It is, however, a logical necessity
to put an end to this retrogradation of the antecedents upon which the
actual existence of our present organisms depends. The infinite cannot
be spanned by finite steps; the periodic life-process could not be
relayed through an unlimited temporal distance; and a cellular series
which never started would never arrive. Moreover, we do not account for
the existence of life by extending the cellular series interminably
backward. Each cell in such a series is derived from a predecessor,
and, consequently, no cell in the series is self-explanatory. When it
comes to accounting for its own existence, each cell is a zero in the
way of explanation, and adding zeros together indefinitely will never
give us a positive total. Each cell refers us to its predecessor for
the explanation of why it exists, and none contains within itself the
sufficient explanation of its own existence. Hence increasing even to
infinity the number of these cells (which fail to explain themselves)
will give us nothing else but a zero in the way of explanation. If,
therefore, the primordial cause from which these cellular chains are
suspended is not the agency of the physicochemical forces of inorganic
nature, it follows that the first active cause of life must have been a
_supermaterial_ and _extramundane agency_, namely, the Living God and
Author of Life.
As a matter of fact, no one denies that life has had a beginning on
our globe. The physicist teaches that a beginning of our entire solar
system is implied in the law of the degradation of energy, and various
attempts have been made to determine the time of this beginning.
The older calculations were based on the rate of solar radiation;
the more recent ones, however, are based on quantitative estimates
of the disintegration products of radioactive elements. Similarly,
the geologist and the astronomer propound theories of a gradual
constitution of the cosmic environment, which organic life requires
for its support, and all such theories imply a _de novo_ origin or
beginning of life in the universe. Thus the old _nebular hypothesis_ of
Laplace postulated a hot origin of our solar system incompatible with
the coëxistence of organic life, which, as the experiments of Pasteur
and others have shown, is destroyed, in all cases, at a temperature
just above 45° Centigrade (113° Fahrenheit). Even the enzymes or
organic catalysts, which are essential for bio-chemical processes,
are destroyed at a temperature between 60° and 70° Centigrade. This
excludes the possibility of the contemporaneousness of protoplasm
and inorganic matter, and points to a beginning of life in our solar
system. Moreover, independently of this theory, the geologist sees
in the primitive crystalline rocks (granites, diorites, basalts,
etc.) and in the extant magmas of volcanoes evidences of an azoic
age, during which temperatures incompatible with the survival of even
the blue-green algæ or the most resistent bacterial spores must have
prevailed over the surface of the globe. In fact, it is generally
recognized by geologists that the igneous or pyrogenic rocks, which
contain no fossils, preceded the sedimentary or fossiliferous rocks.
The new _planetesimal hypothesis_, it is true, is said to be compatible
with a cold origin of the universe. Nevertheless, this theory assumes
a very gradual condensation of our cosmos out of dispersed gases and
star dust, whereas life demands as the _sine qua non_ condition of its
existence a differentiated environment consisting of a lithosphere, a
hydrosphere, and an atmosphere. Hence, it is clear that life did not
originate until such an appropriate environment was an accomplished
fact. All theories of cosmogony, therefore, point to a beginning of
life subsequent to the constitution of the inorganic world.
Now, it is impossible for organic life to antecede itself. If,
therefore, it has had a beginning in the world, it must have had a
first active cause distinct from itself; and the active cause, in
question, must, consequently, have been either something intrinsic, or
something extrinsic, to inorganic matter. The hypothesis, however, of
a spontaneous origin of life through the agency of forces intrinsic
to inorganic matter is scientifically untenable. Hence it follows that
life originated through the action of an immaterial or spiritual agent,
namely, God, seeing that there is no other assignable agency capable of
bringing about the initial production of life from lifeless matter.
§ 9. Futile Evasions
Many and various are the efforts made to escape this issue. One group
of scientists, for example, attempt to rid themselves of the difficulty
by diverting our attention from the problem of a beginning of organic
life in the universe to the problem of its translation to a new
habitat. This legerdemain has resulted in the theories of _cosmozoa_
or _panspermia_, according to which life originates in a favorable
environment, not by reason of spontaneous generation, but by reason
of importation from other worlds. This view has been presented in two
forms: (1) the “meteorite” theory, which represents the older view
held by Thomson and Helmholtz; (2) the more recent theory of “cosmic
panspermia” advocated by Svante Arrhénius, with H. E. Richter and F.
J. Cohn as precursors. Sir Wm. Thompson suggested that life might have
been salvaged from the ruins of other worlds and carried to our own by
means of meteorites or fragments thrown off from life-bearing planets
that had been destroyed by a catastrophic collision. These meteorites
discharged from bursting planets might carry germs to distant planets
like the earth, causing them to become covered with vegetation. Against
this theory stands the fatal objection that the transit of a meteorite
from the nearest stellar system to our own would require an interval
of 60,000,000 years. It is incredible that life could be maintained
through such an enormous lapse of time. Even from the nearest planet
to our earth the duration of the journey would be 150 years. Besides,
meteorites are heated to incandescence while passing through the
atmosphere, and any seeds they might contain would perish by reason of
the heat thus generated, not to speak of the terrific impact, which
terminates the voyage of a meteorite.
Arrhénius suggests a method by which microörganisms might be conveyed
through intersidereal space with far greater dispatch and without any
mineral vehicle such as a meteorite. He notes that particles of cosmic
dust leave the sun as a coronal atmosphere and are propelled through
intervening space by the pressure of radiation until they reach the
higher atmosphere of the earth (viz. at a height of 100 kilometers from
the surface of the latter), where they become the electrically charged
dust particles of polar auroras (_v.g._ the aurora borealis). The motor
force, in this case, is the same as that which moves the vanes of a
Crookes’ radiometer. Lebedeff has verified Clerk-Maxwell’s conceptions
of this force and has demonstrated its reality by experiments. It is
calculated that in the immediate vicinity of a luminous surface like
that of the sun the pressure exerted by radiation upon an exposed
surface would be nearly two milligrams per square centimeter. On
a nontransparent particle having a diameter of 1.5 microns, the
pressure of radiation would just counterbalance the force of universal
gravitation, while on particles whose diameter was 0.16 of a micron,
the pressure of radiation would be ten times as great as the pull of
gravitation. Now bacterial spores having a diameter of O.3 to O.2 of a
micron are known to bacteriologists, and the ultramicroscope reveals
the presence of germs not more than O.1 of a micron in size.[11] Hence
it is conceivable that germs of such dimensions might be wafted
to limits of our atmosphere, and might then be transported by the
pressure of radiation to distant planets or stellar systems, provided,
of course, they could escape the germicidal action of oxidation,
desiccation, ultra-violet rays, etc. Arrhénius calculates that their
journey from the earth to Mars would, under such circumstances, occupy
a period of only 20 days. Within 80 days they could reach Jupiter,
and they might arrive at Neptune on the confines of our solar system
after an interval of 3 weeks. The transit to the constellation of the
Centaur, which contains the solar system nearest to our own (the one,
namely, whose central sun is the star Alpha), would require 9,000 years.
[11] Recently, by means of photography with short-length light
waves, the bacteria of “Foot-and-mouth disease,” invisible to
the highest power microscope, have been revealed as rods about
100 submicrons (_i.e._ O.1 micron, or O.0001 millimeter) in
length. (_cf._ _Science_, May 30, 1924, Supplement X.) Germs
of this dimension could be as easily transported by radiation
as the alleged electrically charged stardust in the aurora
borealis. It may be of interest, however, to note, in this
connection, that the most recent theory of the aurora borealis
discards stardust in favor of nitrogen snow. Lars Vegard, a
Norwegian professor, ascribes the peculiar greenish tint in the
Northern Lights to the action of solar radiations on nitrogen
snow, which he assumes to exist at an altitude of more than
60 miles above the earth. When he condensed crystals of solid
nitrogen on a copper plate by freezing with liquid hydrogen,
he found that these crystals, after bombardment with cathode
rays, emit a light of green color, which gives the same strong
green spectrum line as the spectrum of the aurora. As the
solid nitrogen evaporates, it begins to emit the reddish light
characteristic of nitrogen gas. This phenomenon would explain
the changes of color that occur in the aurora borealis. (_cf._
_Science_, April 18, 1924, Suppl. X.)
Arrhénius’ theory, however, that “life is an eternal rebeginning”
explains nothing and leaves us precisely where we were. In the
metaphysical as well as the scientific sense, it is an evasion and
not a solution. To the logical necessity of putting an end to the
retrogradation of the subalternate conditions, upon which the realities
of the present depend for their actual existence, we have already
adverted. Moreover, the reasons which induce the scientist to postulate
a beginning of life in our world are not based on any distinctive
peculiarity of that world, but are universally applicable, it being
established by the testimony of the spectroscope that other worlds are
not differently constituted than our own. Hence Schäfer voices the
general attitude of scientific men when he says: “But the acceptance
of such theories of the arrival of life on earth does not bring us any
nearer to a conception of its actual mode of origin; on the contrary,
it merely serves to banish the investigation of the question to
some conveniently inaccessible corner of the universe and leaves us
in the unsatisfactory condition of affirming not only that we have
no knowledge as to the mode of origin of life—which is unfortunately
true—but that we never can acquire such knowledge—which it is to be
hoped is not true. Knowing what we know, and believing what we believe,
... we are, I think (without denying the possibility of the existence
of life in other parts of the universe), justified in regarding these
cosmic theories as inherently improbable.” (Dundee Address of 1912, cf.
Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 503.)
Dismissing, therefore, all evasions of this sort, we may regard as
scientifically established the conclusion that, so far as our knowledge
goes, inorganic nature lacks the means of self-vivification, and that
no inanimate matter can become living matter without first coming
under the influence of matter previously alive. Given, therefore,
that the conditions favorable to life did not always prevail in our
cosmos, it follows that life had a beginning, for which we are obliged
to account by some postulate other than abiogenesis. This conclusion
seems inescapable for those who concede the scientific absurdity of
spontaneous generation, but, by some weird freak of logic, not only
is it escaped, but the very opposite conclusion is reached through
reasoning, which the exponents are pleased to term philosophical, as
distinguished from scientific, argumentation. The plight of these
“hard-headed worshippers of fact,” who plume themselves on their
contempt for “metaphysics,” is sad indeed. Worsted in the experimental
field, they appeal the case from the court of facts to that aprioristic
philosophy. “Physic of metaphysic begs defence, and metaphysic calls
for aid on sense!”
Life, they contend, either had no beginning or it must have begun
in our world as the product of spontaneous generation. But all the
scientific theories of cosmogony exclude the former alternative.
Consequently, not only is it not absurd to admit spontaneous
generation, but, on the contrary, it is absurd not to admit it. It
is in this frame of mind that August Weismann is induced to confide
to us “that spontaneous generation, in spite of all the vain attempts
to demonstrate it, remains for me a logical necessity.” (“Essays,” p.
34, Poulton’s Transl.) The presupposition latent in all such logic is,
of course, the assumption that nothing but matter exists; for, if the
possibility of the existence of a supermaterial agency is conceded,
then obviously we are not compelled by _logical necessity_ to ascribe
the initial production of organic life to the exclusive agency of the
physicochemical energies inherent in inorganic matter. Weismann should
demonstrate his suppressed premise that matter coincides with reality
and that spiritual is a synonym for nonexistent. Until such time as
this unverified and unverifiable affirmation is substantiated, the
philosophical proof for abiogenesis is not an argument at all, it is
dogmatism pure and simple.
But, they protest, “To deny spontaneous generation is to proclaim
a miracle” (Nägeli), and natural science cannot have recourse to
“miracles” in explaining natural phenomena. For the “scientist,”
miracles are always absurd as contradicting the uniformity of nature,
and to recur to them for the solution of a scientific problem is,
to put it mildly, distinctly out of the question. Hence Haeckel
regards spontaneous generation as more than demonstrated by the bare
consideration that no alternative remains except the unspeakable
scientific blasphemy implied in superstitious terms like “miracle,”
“creation,” and “supernatural.” For a “thinking man,” the mere mention
of these abhorrent words is, or ought to be, argument enough. “If
we do not accept the hypothesis of spontaneous generation,” Haeckel
expostulates, “we must have recourse to the miracle of a _supernatural
creation_.” (Italics his—“History of Creation,” I, p. 348, Lankester’s
Transl.) It would be a difficult matter, indeed, to cram more blunders
into one short sentence! We will not, and need not, undertake to defend
the supernatural here. Suffice it to say, that the initiation of life
in inorganic matter by the Author of Life would not be a creation, nor
a miracle, nor a phenomenon pertaining to the supernatural order.
The principle of the minimum forbids us to postulate the superfluous,
and a creative act would be superfluous in the production of the first
organisms. Inorganic nature contains all the material elements found in
living organisms, and all organisms, in fact, derive their matter from
the inorganic world. If, therefore, they are thus dependent _in their
continuance_ upon a supply of matter administered by the inorganic
world, it is to be presumed that they were likewise dependent on that
source of matter _in their first origin_. In other words, the material
substrata of the first organisms were not produced anew, but derived
from the elements of the inorganic world. Hence they were not created,
but formed out of preëxistent matter. A _creative_ act would involve
_total_ production, and exclude the preëxistence of the constituent
material under a different form. A _formative_ act, on the contrary, is
a _partial_ production, which presupposes the material _out of which_ a
given thing is to be made. Hence the Divine act, whereby organic life
was first educed from the passive potentiality of inorganic matter, was
formative and not creative. Elements preëxistent in the inorganic world
were combined and intrinsically modified by impressing upon them a new
specification, which raised them in the entitive and dynamic scale, and
integrated them into units capable of self-regulation and reflexive
action. This modification, however, was intrinsic to the matter
involved and nothing was injected into matter from without. Obviously,
therefore, the production of the first organisms was not a creation,
but a formation.
Still less was it a miracle; for a miracle is a visible interposition
in the course of nature by a power superior to the powers of nature. A
given effect, therefore, is termed miraculous with express reference
to some existing natural agency, whose efficacy it, in some way,
exceeds. If there existed in inorganic nature some natural process
of self-vivification, then any Divine interposition to produce
life independently of this natural agency, would be a miraculous
intervention. As a matter of fact, however, inorganic nature is
destitute of this power of self-vitalization, and consequently no
natural agency was superseded or overridden by the initial imparting
of life to lifeless matter. Life was not ordained to originate in any
other way. Given, therefore, this impotence of inorganic nature, it
follows that an initial vivification of matter by Divine power was
demanded by the very nature of things. The Divine action did not come
into competition, as it were, with existing natural agencies, but was
put forth in response to the exigencies of nature itself. It cannot,
therefore, be regarded as miraculous.
Nor, finally, is there any warrant for regarding such an initial
vivification of matter as supernatural. Only that is supernatural which
transcends the nature, powers, and exigencies of all things created
or creatable. But, as we have seen, if life was to exist at all, a
primal animation of inanimate matter by Divine power was demanded
by the very nature of things. Here the Divine action put forth in
response to an exigency of nature and terminated in the constitution
of living nature itself. Now, the effect of a Divine action, by which
the natures of things are initially constituted, plainly pertains to
the order of nature, and has nothing to do with the supernatural. Hence
the primordial constitution by Divine power of living nature was not a
supernatural, but a purely natural, event.