PROFESSOR HAECKEL'S CONJECTURAL PHILOSOPHY
_A reply to Mr M'Cabe._
Part of the preceding, so far as it is a criticism of Haeckel, was
given by me in the first instance as a Presidential Address to the
Members of the Birmingham and Midland Institute; and the greater
portion of this Address was printed in the _Hibbert Journal_ for
January 1905. Mr M'Cabe, the translator of Haeckel, thereupon took
up the cudgels on behalf of his Chief, and wrote an article in the
following July issue; to the pages of which references will be
given when quoting. A few observations of mine in reply to this
article emphasise one or two points which perhaps previously were
not quite clear; and so this reply, from the October number of the
_Hibbert Journal_, may be conveniently here reproduced.
I have no fault to find with the tone of Mr M'Cabe's criticism of my
criticism of Haeckel, and it is satisfactory that one who has proved
himself an enthusiastic disciple, as well as a most industrious and
competent translator, should stand up for the honour and credit of a
foreign Master when he is attacked.
But in admitting the appropriateness and the conciliatory tone of his
article, I must not be supposed to agree with its contentions; for
although he seeks to show that after all there is but little difference
between myself and Haeckel—and although in a sense that is true as
regards the fundamental facts of science, distinguishing the facts
themselves from any hypothetical and interpretative gloss—yet with
Haeckel's interpretations and speculative deductions from the facts,
especially with the mode of presentation, and the crude and unbalanced
attacks on other fields of human activity, my feeling of divergence
occasionally becomes intense.
And it is just these superficial, and as Mr M'Cabe now admits
hypothetical, and as they seem to me rather rash, excursions into side
issues, which have attracted the attention of the average man, and have
succeeded in misleading the ignorant.
If it could be universally recognised that
"it is expressly as a hypothesis that Haeckel formulates his
conjecture as to manner of the origin of life" (p. 744),
and if it could be further generally admitted that his authority
outside biology is so weak that
"it is mere pettiness to carp at incidental statements on matters
on which Haeckel is known to have or to exercise no peculiar
authority, or to labour in determining the precise degree of
evidence for the monism of the inorganic or the organic world" (p.
748),
I should be quite content, and hope that I may never find it necessary
to carp at these things again. Also I entirely agree with Mr M'Cabe,
though I have some doubt whether Professor Haeckel would equally agree
with him, that
"there remain the great questions whether this mechanical evolution
of the universe needed intelligent control, and whether the mind of
man stands out as imperishable amidst the wreck of worlds. These
constitute the serious controversy of our time in the region of
cosmic philosophy or science. These are the rocks that will divide
the stream of higher scientific thought for long years to come. To
many of us it seems that a concentration on these issues is as much
to be desired as sympathy and mutual appreciation" (p. 748).
This is excellent; but then it is surely true that Professor Haeckel
has taken great pains to state forcibly and clearly that these great
questions cannot by him be regarded as open; in fact Mr M'Cabe himself
says—
"Haeckel's position, if expressed at times with some harshness, and
not always with perfect consistency, is well enough known. He
rejects the idea of intelligent and benevolent guidance, chiefly on
the ground of the facts of dysteleology, and he fails to see any
evidence for exempting the human mind from the general law of
dissolution" (p. 748).
Ultimately, however, he appears to have been driven to a singularly
unphilosophic view, of which Mr M'Cabe says—
"It is interesting to note that in his latest work Haeckel regards
sensation (or unconscious sentience) as an ultimate and irreducible
attribute of substance, like matter (or extension) and force (or
spirit)" (p. 752).
I call this unphilosophical because—omitting any reference here to the
singular parenthetical explanations or paraphrases, for which I suppose
Haeckel is not to be held responsible—this is simply abandoning all
attempt at explanation; it even closes the door to inquiry, and is
equivalent to an attitude proper to any man in the street, for it
virtually says: "Here the thing is anyhow, I cannot explain it."
However legitimate and necessary such an attitude may be as an
expression of our ignorance, we ought not to use the phrase "ultimate
and irreducible," as if no one could ever explain it.
Moreover, if it be true that—
"Haeckel does not teach—never did teach—that the spiritual
universe is an aspect of the material universe, as his critic makes
him say, it is his fundamental and most distinctive idea that both
are attributes or aspects of a deeper reality" (p. 745)—
in that case there is, indeed, but little difference between us. But
no reader of Haeckel's _Riddle_ would have anticipated that such a
contention could be made by any devout disciple; and I wonder whether
Mr M'Cabe can adduce any passage adequate to support so estimable a
position. Surely it is difficult to sustain in face of quotations such
as these:—
"The peculiar phenomenon of consciousness is ... a physiological
problem, and as such must be reduced to the phenomena of physics
and chemistry" (p. 65).
"I therefore consider Psychology a branch of natural science—a
section of physiology.... We shall give to the material basis of
all psychic activity, without which it is inconceivable, the
provisional name of psychoplasm" (p. 32).
_Life and Energy._
The one and only point on which I think it worth while to express
decided dissidence is to be found in the paragraph where Mr M'Cabe
makes a statement concerning what he calls "vital force,"—a term I do
not remember to have ever used in my life. He claims for Haeckel what
is represented by the following extracts from his article (pp. 745, 6,
7):—
"He does not say that life is 'knocked out of existence' when the
material organism decays. He says that the vital energy no longer
exists _as such_, but is resolved into the inorganic energies
associated with the gases and relics of the decaying body. Thus the
matter looks a little different when Sir Oliver comes to 'challenge
him to say by what right he gives that answer.' He gives it on this
plain right, that _science always finds these inorganic energies to
reappear on the dissolution of life_, and has never in a single
instance found the slightest reason to suspect (if we make an
exception for the moment of psychical research) that the vital
force as such has continued to exist."
The italics are mine. A little further on he continues:—
"There is no serious scientific demur to Haeckel's assumption of a
monism of the physical world, and his identification of vital force
with ordinary physical and chemical forces.
"Sir Oliver seems to admit, indeed, that the vital force is not in
its nature distinct from physical force, but holds that it needs
'guidance.'"
"On all sides we hear the echo of Professor Le Conte's words:
'Vital force may now be regarded as so much force withdrawn from
the general fund of chemical and physical forces.'"
Very well then, here is no conflict on a matter of opinion or
philosophic speculation, but divergence on a downright question of
scientific fact (let it be noted that I do not wish to hold Professor
Haeckel responsible for these utterances of his disciple: he must
surely know better), and I wish to oppose the fallacy in the strongest
terms.
If it were true that vital energy turned into or was anyhow convertible
into inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body had more
inorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that "these inorganic
energies" always or ever "reappear on the dissolution of life," then
undoubtedly _cadit quæstio_; life would immediately be proved to be a
form of energy, and would enter into the scheme of physics. But
inasmuch as all this is untrue—the direct contrary of the truth—I
maintain that life is _not_ a form of energy, that it is _not_ included
in our present physical categories, that its explanation is still to
seek. And I have further stated—though there I do not dogmatise—that
it appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which
interacts with this material frame of things, and, while there, exerts
guidance and control on the energy which already here exists (_cf._ p.
24); for, though they alter the quantity of energy no whit, and though
they merely utilise available energy like any other machine, live
things are able to direct inorganic terrestrial energy along new and
special paths, so as to achieve results which without such living
agency could not have occurred—_e.g._ forests, ant-hills, birds'
nests, Forth bridge, sonatas, cathedrals.
I have never taught, nor for a moment thought, that "vital force is
akin to physical force, but that it needs guidance" (p. 747); the
phrase sounds to me nonsense. I perceive, not as a theory, but as a
fact, that life is _itself_ a guiding principle, a controlling agency,
_i.e._ that a live animal or plant can and does guide or influence the
elements of inorganic nature. The fact of an organism possessing life
enables it to build up material particles into many notable forms—oak,
eagle, man,—which material aggregates last until they are abandoned by
the guiding principle, when they more or less speedily fall into decay,
or become resolved into their elements, until utilised by a fresh
incarnation; and hence I say that whatever life is or is not, it is
certainly this: it is a guiding and controlling entity which interacts
with our world according to laws so partially known that we have to say
they are practically unknown, and therefore appear in some respects
mysterious. If it be thought that I mean by this something
superstitious, and for ever inexplicable or unintelligible, I have no
such meaning. I believe in the ultimate intelligibility of the
universe, though our present brains may require considerable
improvement before we can grasp the deepest things by their aid; but
this matter of "vitality" is probably not hopelessly beyond us; and it
does not follow, because we have no theory of life or death now, that
we shall be equally ignorant a century hence.
My chief objection to Professor Haeckel's literary work is that he is
dogmatic on such points as these, and would have people believe, what
doubtless he believes himself, that he already knows the answer to a
number of questions in the realms of physical nature and of philosophy.
He writes in so forcible and positive and determined a fashion, from
the vantage ground of scientific knowledge, that he exerts an undue
influence on the uncultured among his readers, and causes them to fancy
that only benighted fools or credulous dupes can really disagree with
the historical criticisms, the speculative opinions, and philosophical,
or perhaps unphilosophical, conjectures, thus powerfully set forth.