"THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE"
I shall now endeavour to exhibit the way in which Professor Haeckel
proceeds to expound his views, and for that purpose shall extract
certain sentences from his work, _The Riddle of the Universe_;
giving references to the sixpenny translation, now so widely
circulated in England, in order that they may be referred to in
their context with ease. To scientific men the exaggeration of
statement will in many cases be immediately obvious; but in the
present state of general education it will often be necessary to
append a few comments, indicating, as briefly as possible, wherein
the statement is in excess of ascertained fact, however interesting
as a guess or speculation; wherefore it must be considered
illegitimate as a weapon wherewith to attack other systems, so far
as they too are equally entitled to be considered reasonable guesses
at truth.
The central scientific doctrines upon which Professor Haeckel's
philosophy is founded appear to be two—one physical, the other
biological. The physical doctrine is what he calls "the Law of
Substance"—a kind of combination of the conservation of matter and the
conservation of energy: a law to which he attaches extraordinary
importance, and from which he draws momentous conclusions. Ultimately he
seems to regard this law as almost axiomatic, in the sense that a
philosopher who has properly grasped it is unable to conceive the
negative. A few extracts will suffice to show the remarkable importance
which he attaches to this law:—
"All the particular advances of physics and chemistry yield in
theoretical importance to the discovery of the great law which
brings them to one common focus, the 'law of substance.' As
this fundamental cosmic law establishes the eternal persistence
of matter and force, their unvarying constancy throughout the
entire universe, it has become the pole-star that guides our
monistic philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution
of the world-problem" (p. 2).
"The uneducated member of a civilised community is surrounded
with countless enigmas at every step, just as truly as the
savage. Their number, however, decreases with every stride of
civilisation and of science; and the monistic philosophy is
ultimately confronted with but one simple and comprehensive
enigma—the 'problem of substance'" (p. 6).
"The supreme and all-pervading law of nature, the true and only
cosmological law, is, in my opinion, _the law of substance_;
its discovery and establishment is the greatest intellectual
triumph of the nineteenth century, in the sense that all other
known laws of nature are subordinate to it. Under the name of
'law of substance' we embrace two supreme laws of different
origin and age—the older is the chemical law of the
'conservation of matter,' and the younger is the physical law of
the 'conservation of energy.' It will be self-evident to many
readers, and it is acknowledged by most of the scientific men of
the day, that these two great laws are essentially inseparable"
(p. 75).
"The conviction that these two great cosmic theorems, the
chemical law of the persistence of matter and the physical law
of the persistence of force, are fundamentally one, is of the
utmost importance in our monistic system. The two theories are
just as intimately united as their objects—matter and force or
energy. Indeed, this fundamental unity of the two laws is
self-evident to many monistic scientists and philosophers,
since they merely relate to two different aspects of one and
the same object, the _cosmos_" (p. 76).
"I proposed some time ago to call it the 'law of substance,' or
the 'fundamental cosmic law'; it might also be called the
'universal law,' or the 'law of constancy,' or the 'axiom of
the constancy of the universe.' In the ultimate analysis it is
found to be a necessary consequence of the principle of
causality" (p. 76).
I criticise these utterances below, and I also quote extracts bearing on
the subject from Professor Huxley in Chapter IV.; but meanwhile
Professor Haeckel is as positive as any Positivist, and runs no risk of
being accused of Solipsism:—
"Our only real and valuable knowledge is a knowledge of nature
itself, and consists of presentations which correspond to
external things."... "These presentations we call _true_, and
we are convinced that their content corresponds to the knowable
aspect of things. We _know_ that these facts are not imaginary,
but real" (p. 104).
He also tends to become sentimental about the ultimate reality as he
perceives it, and tries to construct from it a kind of religion:—
"The astonishment with which we gaze upon the starry heavens and
the microscopic life in a drop of water, the awe with which we
trace the marvellous working of energy in the motion of matter,
the reverence with which we grasp the universal dominance of the
law of substance throughout the universe—all these are part of
our emotional life, falling under the heading of 'natural
religion'" (p. 122).
"Pantheism teaches that God and the world are one. The idea of
God is identical with that of nature or substance.... In
pantheism, God, as an _intra-mundane_ being, is everywhere
identical with nature itself, and is operative _within_ the
world as 'force' or 'energy.' The latter view alone is
compatible with our supreme law—the law of substance. It
follows necessarily that pantheism is _the world-system of the
modern scientist_" (p. 102).
"This 'godless world-system' substantially agrees with the
monism or pantheism of the modern scientist; it is only another
expression for it, emphasising its negative aspect, the
non-existence of any supernatural deity. In this sense
Schopenhauer justly remarks:
"'Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism. The truth of
pantheism lies in its destruction of the dualist antithesis of
God and the world, in its recognition that the world exists in
virtue of its own inherent forces. The maxim of the pantheist,
'God and the world are one,' is merely a polite way of giving
the Lord God his _congé_'" (p. 103).
Thus we are led on, from what may be supposed to be a bare statement of
two recent generalisations of science,—first of all to regard them as
almost axiomatic or self-evident; next, to consider that they solve the
main problem of the universe; and, lastly, that they suffice to replace
the Deity Himself.
To curb these extravagant pretensions it is only necessary to consider
soberly what these physical laws really assert.
_Conservation of Energy._
Take first the conservation of energy. This generalisation asserts that
in every complete material system, subject to any kind of internal
activity, the total energy of the system does not change, but is subject
merely to transference and transformation, and can only be increased or
diminished by passing fresh energy in or out through the walls of the
system. So far from this being self-evident, it required very careful
measurement and experimental proof to demonstrate the fact, for in
common experience the energy of a system left to itself continually to
all appearance diminishes; yet it has been skilfully proved that when
the heat and every other kind of product is collected and measured, the
result can be so expressed as to show a total constancy, appertaining to
a certain specially devised function called "energy," provided we know
and are able to account for every form into which the said energy can be
transformed by the activity going on. A very important generalisation
truly, and one which has so seized hold of the mind of the physicist
that if in any actual example a disappearance or a generation of energy
were found, he would at once conclude either that he had overlooked some
known form and thereby committed an error, or that some unknown form was
present which he had not allowed for: thereby getting a clue which, if
followed up, he would hope might result in a discovery.
But the term "energy" itself, as used in definite sense by the
physicist, rather involves a modern idea and is itself a generalisation.
Things as distinct from each other as light, heat, sound, rotation,
vibration, elastic strain, gravitative separation, electric currents,
and chemical affinity, have all to be generalised under the same
heading, in order to make the law true. Until "heat" was included in the
list of energies, the statement could not be made; and, a short time
ago, it was sometimes discussed whether "life" should or should not be
included in the category of energy. I should give the answer decidedly
No, but some might be inclined to say Yes; and this is sufficient as an
example to show that the categories of energy are not necessarily
exhausted; that new forms may be discovered; and that if new forms
exist, until they are discovered, the law of conservation of energy as
now stated may in some cases be strictly untrue; just as it would be
untrue, though partially and usefully true, in the theory of machines,
if heat were unknown or ignored. To jump, therefore, from a
generalisation such as this, and to say, as Professor Haeckel does on
page 5, that the following cosmological theorems have already been
"amply demonstrated," is to leap across a considerable chasm:—
"1. The universe, or the cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and
illimitable.
"2. Its substance, with its two attributes (matter and energy),
fills infinite space, and is in eternal motion.
"3. This motion runs on through infinite time as an unbroken
development, with a periodic change from life to death, from
evolution to devolution.
"4. The innumerable bodies which are scattered about the
space-filling ether all obey the same 'law of substance'; while
the rotating masses slowly move towards their destruction and
dissolution in one part of space, others are springing into new
life and development in other quarters of the universe."
Most of this, though in itself probable enough, must, when
scientifically regarded, be rated as guess-work, being an overpressing
of known fact into an exaggerated and over-comprehensive form of
statement. Let it be understood that I am not objecting to his
speculations, but only pointing out that they are speculations.
The conservation of energy is a legitimate enough generalisation: we do
not really doubt its conservation and constancy when we admit that we
are not yet sure of having fully and finally exhausted the whole
category of energy. What we do grant is, that it may hereafter be
possible to discover new forms; and when new forms are discovered, then
either the definition may have to be modified, or else the detailed
statement at present found sufficient will have to be overhauled. But
after all, this is not specially important: the _serious_ mistake
which people are apt to make concerning this law of energy is to
imagine that it denies the possibility of guidance, control, or
directing agency, whereas really it has nothing to say on these
topics; it relates to _amount_ alone. Philosophers have been far
too apt to jump to the conclusion that because energy is constant,
therefore no guidance is possible, so that all psychological or
other interference is precluded. Physicists, however, know better;
though unfortunately Tyndall, in some papers on Miracles and Prayer,
thoughtlessly adduced the conservation of energy as decisive. This
question of "guidance" is one of great interest, and I emphasise the
subject further on, especially in Chapter IX.
_Conservation of Matter._
Take next the "conservation of matter"—which means that in any
operation, mechanical, physical, or chemical, to which matter can be
subjected, its amount, as measured by weight, remains unchanged; so that
the only way to increase or diminish the weight of substance inside a
given enclosure, or geometrically closed boundary, is to pass matter in
or out through the walls.
This law has been called the sheet-anchor of chemistry, but it is very
far from being self-evident; and its statement involves the finding of a
property of matter which experimentally shall remain unchanged, although
nearly every other property is modified. To superficial observation
nothing is easier than to destroy matter. When liquid—when dew, for
instance—evaporates, it seems to disappear, and when a manuscript is
burnt it is certainly destroyed: but it turns out that there is
something which may be called the vapour of water, or the "matter" of
the letter, which still persists, though it has taken rarer form and
become unrecognisable. Ultimately, in order to express the persistence
of the permanent abstraction called "matter" clearly, it is necessary to
speak of the "ultimate atoms" of which it is composed, and to say that
though these may enter into various combinations, and thereby display
many outward forms, yet that they themselves are immutable and
indestructible, constant in number and quality and form, not subject to
any law of evolution; in other words, totally unaffected by time.
If we ask for the evidence on which this generalisation is founded, we
have to appeal to various delicate weighings, conducted chiefly by
chemists for practical purposes, and very few of them really directed to
ascertain whether the law is true or not. A few such direct experiments
are now, indeed, being conducted with the hope of finding that the law
is not completely true; in other words, with the hope of finding that
the weight of a body does depend slightly on its state of aggregation or
on some other physical property. The question has even been raised
whether the weight of a crystal is altogether independent of its
_aspect_: the direction of its plane of cleavage with reference to
the earth's radius; also, whether the _temperature_ of bodies has
any influence on their weight; but on these points it may be truly
said that if any difference were discovered it would not be
expressed by saying that the amount of matter was different, but
simply that "weight" was not so fundamental and inalienable a
property of matter as has been sometimes assumed; in which case it
is clear that there must be a more fundamental property to which
appeal can be made in favour of constancy or persistency or
conservation. Now the most fundamental property of matter known is
undoubtedly 'inertia'; and the law of conservation would therefore
come to mean that the _inertia_ of matter was constant, no matter
what changes it underwent. But, then, inertia is not an easy
property to measure,—very difficult to measure with great accuracy:
it is in practice nearly always _inferred_ from weight; and in
terms of inertia the law of conservation of matter cannot be
considered really an experimental fact; it is, strictly speaking, a
reasonable hypothesis, an empirical law, which we have never seen
any reason to doubt, and in support of which all scientific
experience may be adduced in favour.
It is possible, however, to grant to Professor Haeckel—not positively,
but for the sake of argument, and giving him the benefit of our present
ignorance—that it is unlikely that matter in its lowest denomination can
by us be created or destroyed. For, although it is now pretty well known
that atoms of matter are not the indestructible and immutable things
they were once thought (seeing that, although we do not know how to
break them up, they are liable every now and then themselves to break up
or explode, and so resolve themselves into simpler forms), yet it can be
granted that these simpler forms are likewise themselves atoms, in the
same sense, and that if they break up they will break up likewise into
atoms: or ultimately, it may be, into those corpuscles or electrons or
electric charges, of which one plausible theory conjectures that the
atoms of matter are really composed.
Supposing an atom thus broken up into electrons, its weight may possibly
have disappeared. We simply do not know whether weight is a property of
the grouping called an atom, or whether it belongs also to the
individual ingredients or corpuscles of that atom. There is at present
no evidence. But whether weight has disappeared or not, it is quite
certain, for definite though rather recondite theoretical reasons, that
the inertia would _not_ have disappeared; and accordingly it may be
held, and must be held in our present state of knowledge, that the
constancy of fundamental material still holds good, even though the
atoms are resolved into electric charges—an amount of destruction never
contemplated by those chemists and physicists who promulgated the
doctrine of the conservation of matter.
_Electrical Theory of Matter._
But then, on the electrical theory of matter, even _inertia_ is not
the thoroughly constant property we once thought it. It is a
function of velocity for one thing, and when speeds become excessive
the inertia of matter rises perceptibly in value. The fact that it
would rise in value by a calculable amount, and that the rise would
be perceptible when the speed of motion approached in value to
within, say, a tenth of the velocity of light, was predicted
mathematically;[1] and now, strange to say, it has recently become
possible to observe and actually measure the increase of inertia
experimentally, and thus to confirm the electrical theory not only
as qualitatively or approximately true, but as completely and
quantitatively accurate. A remarkable achievement all this! of quite
modern times, which has not excited the attention it deserves—save
among physicists.
[Footnote 1: By Mr Oliver Heaviside and Professor J. J. Thomson.]
But even this is not all that can be said as to the fluctuating
character of that fundamental material quality "inertia." It appears
possible, if electrons approach too near each other, so as to encroach
on each other's magnetic field as they move, that then their inertia may
fall in value during the time they are contiguous. No experimental fact
has yet suggested this at present: it is improbable that even in the
tightest combinations they ever really approach close enough to each
other to make the effect appreciable in the slightest degree; still,
strictly speaking, the inertia of matter is a known mathematical
function of the distance of electrons apart, compared with their size,
as well as of their absolute speed through the ether; and hence it may
be found to vary from either of two distinct reasons. Nevertheless, even
this variation would not be expressed as a failure in the conservation
of matter, though there is now no single material property that can be
specified as really and genuinely constant. So long as the electric
centres of strain, or whatever they are—so long as the electric charges
themselves—continue unaltered, we should prefer to say that at least the
_basis_ of matter was fundamentally conserved.
Further than this, however, we cannot go; and to say, as Professor
Haeckel says, that the modern physicist has grown so accustomed to the
conservation of matter that he is unable to conceive the contrary, is
simply untrue. Whatever may be the case in real fact, there is no
question with respect to the possibility of conception. The electrons
themselves must be explained somehow; and the only surmise which at
present holds the field is that they are knots or twists or vortices, or
some sort of either static or kinetic modification, of the ether of
space—a small bit partitioned off from the rest and individualised by
reason of this identifying peculiarity. It may be that these knots
cannot be untied, these twists undone, these vortices broken up; it may
be that neither artificially nor spontaneously are they ever in the
slightest degree changed. It may be so, but we do not know; and it is
quite easy to conceive them broken up, the identity of the electron
lost, its substance resolved into the original ether, without parts or
individual properties. If this happened, within our ken, we should have
to confess that the properties of matter were gone, and that hence
everything that could by any stretch of language be called "matter" was
destroyed, since no identifying property remained. The discovery of such
an event may lie in the science of the future; it would be an
epoch-making event in the history of science, but no physicist would be
upset by it—perhaps not even surprised; nor would any one have good
reason to be astonished if the correlative phenomenon occurred, and
under certain conditions some knots or strains were some day caused in
the ether, which had not been previously there; and so "matter," or the
foundation of matter, artificially produced. In other words, the
destruction and the creation of matter are well within the range of
scientific conception, and may be within the realm of experimental
possibility.
_Persistence of the Existent._
Is there, then, no meaning in the conception which Professor Haeckel and
others have so enthusiastically formulated, and which certainly commends
itself to every one as representing in some sense a genuine truth,
whether it be called a "law of substance" or whatever it be called?
There does seem a certain plausibility in the idea, pure guess or
assumption though it be, that anything which really and fundamentally
exists, in a serious and untrivial and non-accidental sense, can be
trusted not suddenly to go out of existence and leave no trace behind.
In other words, there seems some reason to suppose that anything which
actually _exists_ must be in some way or other perpetual; that real
existence is not a capricious and changing attribute: arbitrary
collocations and accidental relations may and must be temporary, but
there may be in each a fundamental substratum which, if it can be
reached, will be found to be eternal. I develop this idea further in the
sequel. This is, at any rate, what Professor Haeckel was evidently
groping after, as many others have groped before him, and the nature of
this fundamental persistent entity or entities (for we must not assume
without proof that there is only one: there may be several, and at any
rate their ultimate unification may be a still further advanced and more
transcendental problem) may with some appropriateness be called 'the
problem of the universe,' since it is clearly the problem of existence.
Professor Haeckel thinks he has solved the problem, grasped the
fundamental reality, and found it to be _matter and energy_ and
nothing else; though why he chooses to regard matter and energy as
one thing instead of two is not perfectly plain to me, nor, I
venture to say, is it really plain to him.
Making the assumption, then, that there is something, or that there are
several things, to be discovered, which may thus have the most
fundamental property, viz., persistent immutable existence, the
'problem' has resolved itself into the discovery of what these things
actually are. It will not do to jump at some object and assume that that
is it.
A multitude of things obviously perish, thereby showing themselves to be
trivial or accidental arrangements, according to our hypothesis. A flame
is extinguished and dies, a mountain is ultimately ground into sand by
the slow influence of denudation, a planet or a sun may lose its
identity by encounter with other bodies. All these are temporary
collocations of atoms; and it appears now that an atom may break up into
electric charges, and these again may some day be found capable of
resolving themselves into pristine ether. If so, then these also are
temporary, and in the material universe it is the ether only which
persists—the Ether with such states of motion or strain as it eternally
possesses—in which case the Ether will have proved itself the material
substratum and most fundamental known entity on that side.
But are we to conclude, therefore, that nothing else exists? that the
existence of one thing disproves the existence of others? The contention
would be absurd. The category of _life_ has not been touched in anything
we have said so far; no relation has been established between life and
energy, or between life and ether. The nature of life is unknown. Is
life also a thing of which constancy can be asserted? When it disappears
from a material environment is it knocked out of existence, or is it
merely transferred to some other surroundings, becoming as difficult to
identify and recognise as are the gases of a burnt manuscript or the
vapour of a vanished cloud? Is it a temporary trivial collocation
associated with certain complex groupings of the atoms of matter, and
resolved into nothingness when that grouping is interfered with? or is
it something immaterial and itself fundamental, something which uses
these collocations of matter in order to display itself amid material
surroundings, but is otherwise essentially independent of them? (This
idea is expanded in Chapters VI. to X., and see note at end of present
chapter.)
Professor Haeckel would answer this question with a contemptuous
negative; and the treatment which he would thus give to life he would
also extend to mind and consciousness, to affection, to art, to poetry,
to religion, and all the other facts of experience to which in the
process of evolution humanity has risen: I say he would answer the
question, whether these had any real existence other than as a necessary
concomitant of a sufficiently complex material aggregate, with a
contemptuous negative; but I challenge him to say by what right he gives
that answer. His speculation is that all these properties are nascent
and latent in the material atoms themselves, that these have the
potentiality of life and choice and consciousness, which we perceive in
their developed combinations. As a speculation this is legitimate; but
the only answer that can by science legitimately be given at the present
time is the answer given by du Bois-Reymond, _ignoramus_, we do not
know.
Scientifically we do not; and for a man of science to pretend, or to
assert in a popular treatise, that we do, is essentially and seriously
to mislead. (See Chapter VII. below.) It may even be a question whether
the assertion of entire ignorance at the present time is completely
appropriate, whether we have not some positive evidence _against_
Professor Haeckel's contention. I believe that we have; and though I may
acquiesce in an assertion of present ignorance, I am not at all willing
to accept the next sentence of Professor du Bois-Reymond's answer, and
to say _ignorabimus_, we never shall know.
The matter seems to me within the legitimate lines of scientific
inquiry, and it is unwise to attempt prediction, especially negative
prediction, or to attempt to close the door to the future developments
of knowledge.
But I am content to say for the present that from the point of view of
strict science it is not yet possible to give any positive answer to
these questions; that they must await the progress of discovery. It
becomes a question of some interest, therefore, how it is possible for
Professor Haeckel and for others of his school to have arrived at the
idea not only that a scientific answer can be given, but that already it
has been given, and that they know distinctly what it is.
Note on the Word "Life."
Until a term is accurately defined, and even afterwards for some
purposes, it is permissible to use a word of large significance in more
than one sense. Thus the word "light" may be considered a psychological
term, denoting a certain sensation, or a physiological term, signifying
the stimulus of certain specialised nerve-endings, or a physical term,
expressing briefly an electromagnetic wave-disturbance in the ether. I
am using the word "life" in a quite general sense, as is obvious, for if
it be limited to certain metabolic processes in protoplasm—which is the
narrowest of its legitimate meanings—what I have said about its possible
existence apart from matter would be absurd. It may be convenient to
employ the word "vitality" for this limited sense; but so far as I know,
there is no general consensus of usage, and the context must suffice to
show a friendly reader the connotation intended.