=Life and Matter=
=Recent Works by Sir Oliver Lodge=
SCHOOL TEACHING AND SCHOOL REFORM. A Course of Four Lectures on School
Curricula and Methods delivered to Secondary Teachers and Teachers in
Training at Birmingham during February 1905. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.
WILLIAMS & NORGATE, London.
EASY MATHEMATICS: Chiefly Arithmetic. Being a Collection of Hints to
Teachers, Parents, self-taught Students, and Adults, and containing a
Summary or Indication of most things in Elementary Mathematics useful to
be known. By Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., D.Sc., Principal of the
University of Birmingham. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d.
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited, London.
Life and Matter
A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's
"Riddle of the Universe"
By
Sir Oliver Lodge
The expansion of a Presidential Address
to the Birmingham and Midland Institute
_SECOND EDITION _
London
Williams & Norgate
14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden
1905
TO
JOHN HENRY MUIRHEAD
AND
MARY TALBOT MUIRHEAD
THE FRIENDS OF MANY NEEDING HELP
NOT IN PHILOSOPHY ALONE
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED
IN MEMORY OF CHANDOLIN AND ST LUC 1904
"Materialistic monism is nowadays the working hypothesis of
every scientific explorer in every department, whatever other
beliefs or denials he may, more or less explicitly and more or
less consistently, superadd. Materialistic monism only becomes
false when put forward as a complete philosophy of the
universe, because it leaves out of sight the conditions of
human knowledge, which the special sciences may conveniently
disregard, but which a candid philosophy cannot ignore."
"The legitimate materialism of the sciences simply means
temporary and convenient abstraction from the cognitive
conditions under which there are 'facts' or 'objects' for us at
all; it is 'dogmatic materialism' which is metaphysics of the
bad sort."
D. G. Ritchie.
"Our metaphysics is really like many other sciences—only on the
threshold of genuine knowledge: God knows if it will ever get
further. It is not hard to see its weakness in much that it
undertakes. Prejudice is often found to be the mainstay of its
proofs. For this nothing is to blame but the ruling passion of
those who would fain extend human knowledge. They are anxious
to have a grand philosophy: but the desirable thing is, that it
should also be a sound one."
Kant.
Preface
This small volume is in form controversial, but in substance it has a
more ambitious aim: it is intended to formulate, or perhaps rather to
reformulate, a certain doctrine concerning the nature of man and the
interaction between mind and matter. Incidentally it attempts to
confute two errors which are rather prevalent:—
1. The notion that because material energy is constant in quantity,
therefore its transformations and transferences—which admittedly
constitute terrestrial activity—are not susceptible
of guidance or directive control.
2. The idea that the specific guiding power which we call "life" is
one of the forms of material energy, so that directly it
relinquishes its connection with matter other equivalent forms
of energy must arise to replace it.
The book is specially intended to act as an antidote to the speculative
and destructive portions of Professor Haeckel's interesting and
widely-read work, but in other respects it may be regarded less as a
hostile attack than as a supplement—an extension of the more scientific
portions of that work into higher and more fruitful regions of inquiry.
OLIVER LODGE.
University of Birmingham,
_October 1905_.
Contents
CHAP. PAGE
I MONISM 1
II "THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE" 14
III THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE 41
IV MEMORANDA FOR WOULD-BE MATERIALISTS 60
V RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 71
VI MIND AND MATTER 100
VII PROFESSOR HAECKEL'S CONJECTURAL PHILOSOPHY 125
VIII HYPOTHESIS AND ANALOGIES CONCERNING LIFE 136
IX WILL AND GUIDANCE 152
X FURTHER SPECULATION AS TO THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 179
LIFE AND MATTER
CHAPTER I
MONISM
In his recent Presidential Address before the British Association, at
Cambridge, Mr Balfour rather emphasised the existence and even the
desirability of a barrier between Science and Philosophy which recent
advances have tended to minimise though never to obliterate. He
appeared to hint that it is best for scientific men not to attempt to
philosophise, but to restrict themselves to their own domain; though,
on the other hand, he did not appear to wish similarly to limit
philosophers, by recommending that they should keep themselves
unacquainted with scientific facts, and ignorant of the theories which
weld those facts together. Indeed, in his own person he is an example
of the opposite procedure, for he himself frequently takes pleasure in
overlooking the boundary and making a wide survey of the position on
its physical side—a thing which it is surely very desirable for a
philosopher to do.
But if that process be regarded as satisfactory, it is surely equally
permissible for a man of science occasionally to look over into the
philosophic region, and survey the territory on that side also, so far
as his means permit. And if philosophers object to this procedure, it
must be because they have found by experience that men of science who
have once transcended or transgressed the boundary are apt to lose all
sense of reasonable constraint, and to disport themselves as if they had
at length escaped into a region free from scientific trammels—a region
where confident assertions might be freely made, where speculative
hypothesis might rank as theory, and where verification was both
unnecessary and impossible.
The most striking instance of a scientific man who on entering
philosophic territory has exhibited signs of exhilaration and
emancipation, is furnished by the case of Professor Haeckel of Jena. In
an eloquent and popular work, entitled _das Welt-Räthsel_, the
World Problem, or "The Riddle of the Universe," this eminent
biologist has surveyed the whole range of existence, from the
foundations of physics to the comparison of religions, from the
facts of anatomy to the freedom of the will, from the vitality of
cells to the attributes of God; treating these subjects with wide
though by no means superhuman knowledge, and with considerable
critical and literary ability. This work, through the medium of a
really excellent translation by Mr M'Cabe, and under the auspices of
the Rationalist Press Association, has obtained a wide circulation
in this country, being purchasable for six-pence at any bookstall;
where one often finds it accompanied by another still more popular
and similarly-priced treatise by the same author, a digest or
summary of the religious aspect of his scientific philosophy, under
the title _The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science_.
Professor Haeckel's credentials, as a learned biologist who introduced
Darwinism into Germany, doubtless stand high; and it is a great tribute
to his literary ability that a fairly abstruse work on so comprehensive
a subject should have obtained a wide notoriety, and have been welcomed
by masses of thinking readers, especially by many among the skilled
artisans, in this country.
From several points of view this diffusion of interest is most
satisfactory, since the spread of thought on serious topics is greatly
to be welcomed. Moreover, there is a vast mass of information in these
writings which must be new to the bulk of the inhabitants of these
islands. There is also a great deal of criticism which should arouse
professors of dogmatic theology, and exponents of practical religion, to
a keener sense of their opportunities and responsibility. A view of
their position from outside, by an able and unsparing critic, cannot but
be illuminating and helpful, however unpleasant.
Moreover, the comprehensive survey of existence which can be taken by a
modern man of science is almost sure to be interesting and instructive,
when properly interpreted with the necessary restrictions and
expansions; and if it be found that the helpful portions are unhappily
accompanied by over-confident negations and supercilious denials of
facts at present outside the range of orthodox science, these natural
blemishes must be discounted and estimated at their proper worth; for it
would be foolish to imagine that even a diligent student of Nature has
special access to the kind of truths which have been hidden from the
nominally "wise and prudent" of all time.
So far as Professor Haeckel's writings are read by the thoroughly
educated and well-informed, they can do nothing but good. They may not,
indeed, convey anything particularly new, but they furnish an
interesting study in scientific history and mental development. So far,
however, as they are read by unbalanced and uncultured persons, with no
sense of proportion and but little critical faculty, they may do harm,
unless accompanied by a suitable qualification or antidote, especially
an antidote against the bigotry of their somewhat hasty and scornful
destructive portions.
To the intelligent artisan or other hard-headed reader who considers
that Christian faith is undermined, and the whole religious edifice
upset, by the scientific philosophy advocated by Professor Haeckel under
the name "Monism," I would say, paraphrasing a sentence of Mr Ruskin's
in a preface to _Sesame and Lilies_:—Do not think it likely that
you hold in your hands a treatise in which the ultimate and final
verity of the universe is at length beautifully proclaimed, and in
which pure truth has been sifted from the errors of all preceding
ages. Do not think it, friend: it is not so.
For what is this same "Monism?"
Professor Haeckel writes almost as if it were a recent invention, but in
truth there have been many versions of it, and in one form or another
the idea is quite old, older than Plato, as old as Parmenides.
The name "Monism" should apply to any philosophic system which assumes
and attempts to formulate the essential simplicity and _oneness_ of
all the apparent diversity of sensual impression and consciousness,
any system which seeks to exhibit all the complexities of existence,
both material and mental—the whole of phenomena, both objective and
subjective—as modes of manifestation of one fundamental reality.
According to the assumed nature of that reality, different brands of
monistic theory exist:—
1. There is the hypothesis that everything is an aspect of some unknown
absolute Reality, which itself, in its real nature, is far beyond our
apprehension or conception. And within the broad area thus suggested may
be grouped such utterly different universe-conceptions as that of
Herbert Spencer and that of Spinoza.
2. According to another system the fundamental reality is psychical, is
consciousness, let us say, or mind; and the material world has only the
reality appropriate to a consistent set of ideas. Here we find again
several varieties, ranging from Bishop Berkeley and presumably Hegel, on
the one hand, to William James—who, in so far as he is a monist at all,
may I suppose be called an empirical idealist—and solipsists such as
Mach and Karl Pearson, on the other.
3. A third system, or group of systems, has been in vogue among some
physicists of an earlier day, and among some biologists now; viz., that
mind, thought, consciousness are all by-products, phantasmagoria,
epiphenomena, developments and decorations, as it were, of the one
fundamental all-embracing reality, which some may call "matter," some
"energy," and some "substance." In this category we find Tyndall—at any
rate the Tyndall of "the Belfast address"—and here consistently do we
find Haeckel, together with several other biologists.
This last system of Monism, though not now in favour with philosophers,
is the most militant variety of all; and accordingly it has in some
quarters managed to obtain, and it certainly seems anxious to obtain, a
monopoly of the name.
But the monopoly should not be granted. The name Materialism is quite
convenient for it, just as Idealism is for the opposing system; and if
either of these titles is objected to by the upholders of either system,
as apparently too thorough-going and exclusive, whereas only a tendency
in one or other direction is to be indicated, then the longer but more
descriptive titles of Idealistic-monism and Materialistic-monism
respectively should be employed. But neither of these compromises seems
necessary to connote the position of Professor Haeckel.
The truth is that all philosophy aims at being monistic; it is bound to
aim at unification, however difficult of attainment; and a philosopher
who abandoned the quest, and contented himself with a permanent
antinomy—a universe compounded of two or more irreconcilable and
entirely disparate and disconnected agencies—would be held to be
throwing up his brief as a philosopher and taking refuge in a kind of
permanent Manichæism, which experience has shown to be an untenable and
ultimately unthinkable position.
An attempt at Monism is therefore common to all philosophers, whether
professional or amateur; and the only question at issue is what sort of
Monism are you aiming at, what sort of solution of the universe have you
to offer, what can you hold out to us as a simple satisfactory
comprehensive scheme of existence?
In order to estimate the value of Professor Haeckel's scheme of the
universe, it is not necessary to appeal to philosophers: it is
sufficient to meet him on scientific ground, and to show that in his
effort to simplify and unify he has under-estimated some classes of fact
and has stretched scientific theory into regions of guess-work and
hypothesis, where it loses touch with real science altogether. The facts
which he chooses gratuitously to deny, and the facts which he chooses
vigorously to emphasise, are arbitrarily selected by him according as
they will or will not fit into his philosophic scheme. The scheme itself
is no new one, and almost certainly contains elements of truth. Some day
far hence, when it is possible properly to formulate it, a system of
Monism may be devised which shall contain the whole truth. At present
the scheme formulated by Professor Haeckel must to philosophers appear
rudimentary and antiquated, while to men of science it appears
gratuitous, hypothetical, in some places erroneous, and altogether
unconvincing.
Before everything a philosopher should aim at being all-inclusive,
before everything a man of science should aim at being definite, clear,
and accurate. An attempt at combination is an ambitious attempt, which
may legitimately be made, but which it appears is hardly as yet given to
man to make successfully. Attempts at an all-embracing scheme, which
shall be both truly philosophic and truly scientific, must for the
present be mistrusted, and the mistrust should extend especially to
their negative side. Positive contributions, either to fact or to
system, may be real and should be welcome; but negative or destructive
criticism, the eschewing and throwing away of any part of human
experience, because it is inconsistent with a premature and
ill-considered monistic or any other system, should be regarded with
deep suspicion; and the promulgation of any such negative and
destructive scheme, especially in association with free and easy
dogmatism, should automatically excite mistrust and repulsion.
There are things which cannot yet be fitted in as part of a coherent
scheme of scientific knowledge—at present they appear like fragments of
another order of things; and if they are to be forced into the
scientific framework, like portions of a "puzzle-map," before their true
place has been discovered, a quantity of substantial fact must be
disarranged, dislocated, and thrown away. A premature and cheap Monism
is therefore worse than none at all.