Introduction to the Correlation and Conservation of Forces, p. xvii.
Footnote 38:
DRAPER, J. W., _loc. cit._
Footnote 39:
HENRY, JOSEPH, Agric. Rep. Patent Office, 1857, 440.
Footnote 40:
WATTERS, J. H., An Essay on Organic, or Life-force. Written for the
degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, 1851. See also St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal,
II, v, Nos. 3 and 4, 1868; Dec. 1868, and Nov. 10, 1869.
Footnote 41:
LECONTE, JOSEPH, The Correlation of Physical, Chemical and Vital
Force, and the Conservation of Force in Vital Phenomena. American
Journal of Science, II, xxviii, 305, Nov. 1859.
Footnote 42:
LOMBARD, J. S., _loc. cit._
Footnote 43:
NOYES, T. R., _loc. cit._
Footnote 44:
WOOD, L. H., _loc. cit._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFATORY NOTE.
The substance of the greater part of this paper, which has been in the
present form for some time, was delivered, as a lecture, at a
Conversazione of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, in the
Hall of the College, on the evening of Friday, the 30th of April last.
It will be found to support itself, so far as the facts are concerned,
on the most recent German physiological literature, as represented by
Rindfleisch, Kühne, and especially Stricker, with which last, for the
production of his “Handbuch,” there is associated every great
histological name in Germany.
EDINBURGH, _October, 1869_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC.
It is a pleasure to perceive Mr. Huxley open his clear little essay with
what we may hold, perhaps, to be the manly and orthodox view of the
character and products of the French writer, Auguste Comte. “In applying
the name of ‘the new philosophy’ to that estimate of the limits of
philosophical inquiry which he” (Professor Huxley), “in common with many
other men of science, holds to be just,” the Archbishop of York
confounds, it seems, this new philosophy with the Positive philosophy of
M. Comte; and thereat Mr. Huxley expresses himself as greatly
astonished. Some of us, for our parts, may be inclined at first to feel
astonished at Mr. Huxley’s astonishment; for the school to which, at
least on the philosophical side, Mr. Huxley seems to belong, is even
notorious for its prostration before Auguste Comte, whom, especially, so
far as method and systematization are concerned, it regards as the
greatest intellect since Bacon. For such, as it was the opinion of Mr.
Buckle, is understood to be the opinion also of Messrs. Grote, Bain, and
Mill. In fact, we may say that such is commonly and currently considered
the characteristic and distinctive opinion of that whole perverted or
inverted reaction which has been called the _Revulsion_. That is to say,
to give this word a moment’s explanation, that the Voltaires and Humes
and Gibbons having long enjoyed an immunity of sneer at man’s blind
pride and wretched superstition—at _his_ silly non-natural honor and
_her_ silly non-natural virtue—a reaction had set in, exulting in
poetry, in the splendor of nature, the nobleness of man, and the purity
of woman, from which reaction again we have, almost within the last
decennium, been revulsively, as it were, called back,—shall we say by
some “bolder” spirits—the Buckles, the Mills, &c.?—to the old
illumination or enlightenment of a hundred years ago, in regard to the
weakness and stupidity of man’s pretensions over the animality and
materiality that limit him. Of this revulsion, then, as said, a main
feature, especially in England, has been prostration before the vast
bulk of Comte; and so it was that Mr. Huxley’s protest in this
reference, considering the philosophy he professed, had that in it to
surprise at first. But if there was surprise, there was also pleasure;
for Mr. Huxley’s estimate of Comte is undoubtedly the right one. “So far
as I am concerned,” he says, “the most reverend prelate” (the Archbishop
of York) “might dialectically hew M. Comte in pieces as a modern Agag,
and I should not attempt to stay his hand; for, so far as my study of
what specially characterizes the Positive philosophy has led me, I find
therein little or nothing of any scientific value, and a great deal
which is as thoroughly antagonistic to the very essence of science as
anything in ultramontane Catholicism.” “It was enough,” he says again,
“to make David Hume turn in his grave, that here, almost within earshot
of his house, an instructed audience should have listened without a
murmur while his most characteristic doctrines were attributed to a
French writer of fifty years’ later date, in whose dreary and verbose
pages we miss alike the vigor of thought and the exquisite clearness of
style of the man whom I make bold to term the most acute thinker of the
eighteenth century—even though that century produced Kant.”
Of the doctrines themselves which are alluded to here, I shall say
nothing now; but of much else that is said, there is only to be
expressed a hearty and even gratified approval. I demur, to be sure, to
the exaltation of Hume over Kant—high as I place the former. Hume, with
infinite fertility, surprised us, it may be said, perhaps, into
attention on a great variety of points which had hitherto passed
unquestioned; but, even on these points, his success was of an
interrupted, scattered and inconclusive nature. He set the world adrift,
but he set man too, reeling and miserable, adrift with it. Kant, again,
with gravity and reverence, desired to refix, but in purity and truth,
all those relations and institutions which alone give value to
existence—which alone _are_ humanity, in fact—but which Hume, with
levity and mockery, had approached to shake. Kant built up again an
entire new world for us of knowledge and duty, and, in a certain way,
even belief; whereas Hume had sought to dispossess us of every support
that man as man could hope to cling to. In a word, with _at least_ equal
fertility, Kant was, as compared with Hume, a graver, deeper, and, so to
speak, a more consecutive, more comprehensive spirit. Graces there were
indeed, or even, it may be said, subtleties, in which Hume had the
advantage perhaps. He is still in England an unsurpassed master of
expression—this, certainly, in his History, if in his Essays he somewhat
baffles his own self by a certain labored breadth of conscious fine
writing, often singularly inexact and infelicitous. Still Kant, with
reference to his products, must be allowed much the greater importance.
In the history of philosophy he will probably always command as
influential a place in the modern world as Socrates in the ancient;
while, as probably, Hume will occupy at best some such position as that
of Heraclitus or Protagoras. Hume, nevertheless, if equal to Kant, must,
in view at once of his own subjective ability and his enormous
influence, be pronounced one of the most important of writers. It would
be difficult to rate too high the value of his French predecessors and
contemporaries as regards purification of their oppressed and corrupt
country; and Hume must be allowed, though with less call, to have
subserved some such function in the land we live in. In preferring Kant,
indeed, I must be acquitted of an undue partiality; for all that
appertains to personal bias was naturally, and by reason of early and
numerous associations, on the side of my countryman.
Demurring, then, to Mr. Huxley’s opinion on this matter, and postponing
remark on the doctrines to which he alludes, I must express a hearty
concurrence with every word he utters on Comte. In him I too “find
little or nothing of any scientific value.” I too have been lost in the
mere mirage and sands of “those dreary and verbose pages;” and I
acknowledge in Mr. Huxley’s every word the ring of a genuine experience.
M. Comte was certainly a man of some mathematical and scientific
proficiency, as well as of quick but biased intelligence. A member of
the _Aufklärung_, he had seen the immense advance of physical science
since Newton, under, as is usually said, the method of Bacon; and, like
Hume, like Reid, like Kant, _who had all anticipated him in this_, he
sought to transfer that method to the domain of mind. In this he failed;
and though in a sociological aspect he is not without true glances into
the present disintegration of society and the conditions of it, anything
of importance cannot be claimed for him. There is not a sentence in his
book that, in the hollow elaboration and windy pretentiousness of its
build, is not an exact type of its own constructor. On the whole,
indeed, when we consider the little to which he attained, the empty
inflation of his claims, the monstrous and maniacal self-conceit into
which he was _exalted_, it may appear, perhaps, that charity to M. Comte
himself, to say nothing of the world, should induce us to wish that both
his name and his works were buried in oblivion. Now, truly, that Mr.
Huxley (the “call” being for the moment his) has so pronounced himself,
especially as the facts of the case are exactly and absolutely what he
indicates, perhaps we may expect this consummation not to be so very
long delayed. More than those members of the revulsion already
mentioned, one is apt to suspect, will be anxious now to beat a retreat.
Not that this, however, is so certain to be allowed them; for their
estimate of M. Comte is a valuable element in the estimate of
themselves.
Frankness on the part of Mr. Huxley is not limited to his opinion of M.
Comte; it accompanies us throughout his whole essay. He seems even to
take pride, indeed, in naming always and everywhere his object at the
plainest. That object, in a general point of view, relates, he tells us,
solely to materialism, but with a double issue. While it is his declared
purpose, in the first place, namely, to lead us into materialism, it is
equally his declared purpose, in the second place, to lead us out of
materialism. On the first issue, for example, he directly warns his
audience that to accept the conclusions which he conceives himself to
have established on Protoplasm, is to accept these also: That “all vital
action” is but “the result of the molecular forces” of the physical
basis; and that, by consequence, to use his own words to his audience,
“the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, and your thoughts
regarding them, are but the expression of molecular changes in that
matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena.” And,
so far, I think, we shall not disagree with Mr. Huxley when he says that
“most undoubtedly the terms of his propositions are distinctly
materialistic.” Still, on the second issue, Mr. Huxley asserts that he
is “individually no materialist.” “On the contrary, he believes
materialism to involve grave philosophical error;” and the “union of
materialistic terminology with the repudiation of materialistic
philosophy” he conceives himself to share “with some of the most
thoughtful men with whom he is acquainted.” In short, to unite both
issues, we have it in Mr. Huxley’s own words, that it is the single
object of his essay “to explain how such a union is not only consistent
with, but necessitated by, sound logic;” and that, accordingly, he will,
in the first place, “lead us through the territory of vital phenomena to
the materialistic slough,” while pointing out, in the second, “the sole
path by which, in his judgment, extrication is possible.” Mr. Huxley’s
essay, then, falls evidently into two parts; and of these two parts we
may say, further, that while the one—that in which he leads us into
materialism—will be predominatingly physiological, the other—or that in
which he leads us out of materialism—will be predominatingly
philosophical. Two corresponding parts would thus seem to be prescribed
to any full discussion of the essay; and of these, in the present needs
of the world, it is evidently the latter that has the more promising
theme. The truth is, however, that Mr. Huxley, after having exerted all
his strength in his first part to throw us into “the materialistic
slough,” by _clear necessity of knowledge_, only calls to us, in his
second part, to come out of this slough again, on the somewhat _obscure
necessity of ignorance_. This, then, is but a lop-sided balance, where a
scale in the air only seems to struggle vainly to raise its
well-weighted fellow on the ground. Mr. Huxley, in fact, possesses no
remedy for materialism but what lies in the expression that, while he
knows not what matter is in itself, he certainly knows that casualty is
but contingent succession; and thus, like the so-called “philosophy” of
the Revulsion, Mr. Huxley would only mock us into the intensest
dogmatism on the one side by a fallacious reference to the intensest
scepticism on the other.
The present paper, then, will regard mainly Mr. Huxley’s argument _for_
materialism, but say what is required, at the same time, on his alleged
argument—which is merely the imaginary, or imaginative, impregnation of
ignorance—_against_ it.
Following Mr. Huxley’s own steps in his essay, the course of his
positions will be found to run, in summary, thus:—
What is meant by the physical basis of life is, that there is one kind
of matter common to all living beings, and it is named protoplasm. No
doubt it may appear at first sight that, in the various kinds of living
beings, we have only _difference_ before us, as in the lichen on the
rock and the painter that paints it,—the microscopic animalcule or
fungus and the Finner whale or Indian fig,—the flower in the hair of a
girl and the blood in her veins, etc. Nevertheless, throughout these and
all other diversities, there really exists a threefold _unity_—a unity
of faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substance.
On the first head, for example, or as regards faculty, power, the
action exhibited, there are but three categories of _human_
activity—contractility, alimentation, and reproduction; and there are
no fewer for the _lower_ forms of life, whether animal or vegetable.
In the nettle, for instance, we find the woody case of its sting lined
by a granulated, semi-fluid layer, that is possessed of contractility.
But in this respect—that is, in the possession of contractile
substance—other plants are as the nettle, and all animals are as
plants. Protoplasm—for the nettle-layer alluded to is protoplasm—is
common to the whole of them. The difference, in short between the
powers of the lowest plant or animal and those of the highest is one
only of degree and not of kind.
But, on the second head, it is not otherwise in form, or manifested
external appearance and structure. Not the sting only, but the whole
nettle, is made up of protoplasm; and of all the other vegetables the
nettle is but a type. Nor are animals different. The colorless
blood-corpuscles in man and the rest are identical with the protoplasm
of the nettle; and both he and they consisted at first only of an
aggregation of such. Protoplasm is the common constituent—the common
origin. At last, as at first, all that lives, and every part of all that
lives, are but nucleated or unnucleated, modified or unmodified,
protoplasm.
But, on the third head, or with reference to unity of substance, to
internal composition, chemistry establishes this also. All forms of
protoplasm, that is, consist alike of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen, and behave similarly under similar reagents.
So, now, a uniform character having in this threefold manner been proved
for protoplasm, what is its origin, and what its fate? Of these the
latter is not far to seek. The fate of protoplasm is death—death into
its chemical constituents; and this determines its origin also.
Protoplasm can originate only in that into which it dies,—the
elements—the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen—of which it was
found to consist. Hydrogen, with oxygen, forms water; carbon, with
oxygen, carbonic acid; and hydrogen, with nitrogen, ammonia. Similarly,
water, carbonic acid and ammonia form, in union, protoplasm. The
influence of pre-existing protoplasm only determines combination in
_its_ case, as that of the electric spark determines combination in the
case of water. Protoplasm, then, is but an aggregate of physical
materials, exhibiting in combination—only as was to be expected—new
properties. The properties of water are not more different from those of
hydrogen and oxygen than the properties of protoplasm are different from
those of water, carbonic acid, and ammonia. We have the same warrant to
attribute the consequences to the premises in the one case as in the
other. If, on the first stage of combination, represented by that of
water, _simples_ could unite into something so different from
themselves, why, on the second stage of combination, represented by that
of protoplasm, should not _compounds_ similarly unite into something
equally different from themselves? If the constituents are credited with
the properties _there_, why refuse to credit the constituents with the
properties _here_? To the constituents of protoplasm, in truth, any new
element, named vitality, has no more been added, than to the
constituents of water any new element, named aquosity. Nor is there any
logical halting place between this conclusion and the further and final
one: That all vital action whatever, intellectual included, is but the
result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it.
These sentences will be acknowledged, I think, fairly to represent Mr.
Huxley’s relative deliverances, and, consequently, as I may be allowed
to explain again, the only important—while much the larger—part of the
whole essay. Mr. Huxley, that is, while devoting fifty paragraphs to our
physiological immersion in the “materialistic slough,” grants but
one-and-twenty towards our philosophical escape from it; the fifty
besides being, so to speak, in reality the wind, and the one-and-twenty
only the whistle for it. What these latter say, in effect, is no more
than this, that,—matter being known not in itself but only in its
qualities, and cause and effect not in their nexus but only in their
sequence,—matter may be spirit or spirit matter, cause effect or effect
cause—in short, for aught that Mr. Huxley more than phenomenally knows,
this may be that or that this, first second, or second first, but the
conclusion shall be this, that he will lay out all our knowledge
materially, and we may lay out all our ignorance immaterially—if we
will. Which reasoning and conclusion, I may merely remark, come
precisely to this: That Mr. Huxley—who, hoping yet to see each object (a
pin, say) not in its qualities but in _itself_, still, consistently
antithetic, cannot believe in the extinction of fire by water or of life
by the rope, for any _reason_ or for any _necessity_ that lies in the
nature of the case, but simply for the habit of the thing—has not yet
put himself at home with the metaphysical categories of _substance_ and
_casualty_; thanks, perhaps, to those guides of his whom we, the amusing
Britons that we are, bravely proclaim “the foremost thinkers of the
day”!
The matter and manner of the whole essay are now fairly before us, and I
think that, with the approbation of the reader, its procedure,
generally, may be described as an attempt to establish, not by any
complete and systematic induction, but by a variety of partial and
illustrative assertions, two propositions. Of these propositions the
first is, That all animal and vegetable organisms are essentially alike
in power, in form, and in substance; and the second, That all vital and
intellectual functions are the properties of the molecular disposition
and changes of the material basis (protoplasm) of which the various
animals and vegetables consist. In both propositions, the agent of proof
is this same alleged material basis of life, or protoplasm. For the
first of them, all animal and vegetable organisms shall be identified in
protoplasm; and for the second, a simple chemical analogy shall assign
intellect and vitality to the molecular constituents of the protoplasm,
in connection with which they are at least exhibited.
In order, then, to obtain a footing on the ground offered us, the first
question we naturally put is, What is Protoplasm? And an answer to this
question can be obtained only by a reference to the historical progress
of the physiological cell theory.
That theory may be said to have wholly grown up since John Hunter wrote
his celebrated work ‘On the Nature of the Blood,’ etc. New growths, to
Hunter, depended on an exudation of the plasma of the blood, in which,
by virtue of its own _plasticity_, vessels formed, and conditioned the
further progress. The influence of these ideas seems to have still
acted, even after a conception of the cell was arrived at. For starting
element, Schleiden required an intracellular plasma, and Schwann a
structureless exudation, in which minute granules, if not indeed already
pre-existent, formed, and by aggregation grew into nuclei, round which
singly the production of a membrane at length enclosed a cell. It was
then that, in this connection, we heard of the terms blastema and
cyto-blastema. The theory of the vegetable cell was completed earlier
than that of the animal one. Completion of this latter, again, seems to
have been first effected by Schwann, after Müller had insisted on the
analogy between animal and vegetable tissue, and Valentin had
demonstrated a nucleus in the animal cell, as previously Brown in the
vegetable one. But assuming Schwann’s labor, and what surrounded it, to
have been a first stage, the wonderful ability of Virchow may be said to
have raised the theory of the cell fully to a second stage. Now, of this
second stage, it is the dissolution or resolution that has led to the
emergence of the word Protoplasm.
The body, to Virchow, constituted a free state of individual subjects,
with equal rights but unequal capacities. These were the cells, which
consisted each of an enclosing membrane, and an enclosed nucleus with
surrounding intracellular matrix or matter. These cells, further,
propagated themselves, chiefly by partition or division; and the
fundamental principle of the whole theory was expressed in the dictum,
“_Omnis cellula e cellulâ_.” That is, the nucleus, becoming gradually
elongated, at last parted in the midst; and each half, acting as center
of attraction to the surrounding intracellular matrix or contained
matter, stood forth as a new nucleus to a new cell, formed by division
at length of the original cell.
The first step taken in resolution of this theory was completed by Max
Schultze, preceded by Leydig. This was the elimination of an investing
membrane. Such membrane may, and does, ultimately form; but in the first
instance, it appears, the cell is naked. The second step in the
resolution belongs perhaps to Brücke, though preceded by Bergmann, and
though Max Schultze, Kühne, Haeckel, and others ought to be mentioned in
the same connection. This step was the elimination, or at least
subordination, of the nucleus. The nucleus, we are to understand now, is
necessary neither to the division nor to the existence of the cell.
Thus, then, stripped of its membrane, relieved of its nucleus, what now
remains for the cell? Why, nothing but what _was_ the contained matter,
the intracellular matrix, and _is_—Protoplasm.