[Illustration: FOSSIL MAN OF MENTONE. (From Popular Science Monthly,
October, 1874.)]
WAS MAN CREATED?
BY
HENRY A. MOTT, JR., E.M., PH.D., ETC.,
_Member of the American Chemical Society, Member of the Berlin Chemical
Society, Member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Member of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Member of the
American Pharmaceutical Association, Fellow of the Geographical Society,
Etc., Etc._
AUTHOR OF THE "CHEMISTS' MANUAL," "ADULTERATION OF MILK," "ARTIFICIAL
BUTTER," "TESTING THE VALUE OF RIFLES BY FIRING UNDER WATER," ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK:
GRISWOLD & COMPANY,
150 NASSAU STREET.
1880.
COPYRIGHT BY
HENRY A. MOTT, JR.,
1880.
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
_205-213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
Electrotyped by SMITH & MCDOUGAL, 82 Beekman Street, N. Y.
PREFACE.
This work was originally written to be delivered as a lecture; but as
its pages continued to multiply, it was suggested to the author by
numerous friends that it ought to be published in book-form; this, at
last, the author concluded to do. This work, therefore, does not claim
to be an exhaustive discussion of the various departments of which it
treats; but rather it has been the aim of the author to present the more
interesting observations in each department in as concise a form as
possible. The author has endeavored to give credit in every instance
where he has taken advantage of the labors of others. This work is not
intended for that class of people who are so absolutely certain of the
truth of their religion and of the immortality that it teaches, that
they have become unqualified to entertain or even perceive of any
scientific objection; for such people may be likened unto those who,
"_Seeing, they see, but will not perceive; and hearing, they hear, but
will not understand._"
This work is written for the man of culture who is seeking for
truth--believing, as does the author, that all truth is God's truth, and
therefore it becomes the duty of every scientific man to accept it;
knowing, however, that it will surely modify the popular creeds and
methods of interpretation, its final result can only be to the glory of
God and to the establishment of a more exalted and purer religion. All
facts are truths; it consequently follows that all scientific facts are
truths--there is no half-way house--a statement is either a truth or it
is not a truth, according to the _law of non-contradiction_. If,
therefore, we find tabulated amongst scientific facts (or truths) a
statement which is not a fact, it is not science; but all statements
which are facts it naturally follows are truths, and as such must be
accepted, no matter how repulsive they may at first seem to some of our
poetical imaginings and pet theories. We cannot help but sympathize with
the feelings which prompted President Barnard to write the following
lines, still we will see he was too hasty: "Much as I love truth in the
abstract," he says, "I love my hope of immortality more." * * * He
maintained that it is better to close one's eyes to the evidences than
to be convinced of the _truth_ of certain doctrines which _he regards_
as subversive of the fundamentals of Christian faith. "If this (is all)
is the best that science can give me, then I pray no more science. Let
me live on in my simple ignorance, as my fathers lived before me; and
when I shall at length be summoned to my final repose, let me still be
able to fold the drapery of my couch about me, and lie down to pleasant,
even though they be deceitful, dreams."[1] The limitations to the
acceptance of truth that President Barnard makes is wrong; for, as
Professor Winchell has said, "we think it is a higher aspiration to wish
to know 'the truth and the whole truth.' At the same time, we have not
the slightest apprehension that the whole truth can ever dissipate our
faith in a future life."[2] Let us "Prove all things and hold fast unto
that which is good," recognizing the fact that "the truth-seeker is the
only God-seeker."
AUTHOR
JANUARY 25, 1880.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE v, vi
CHART OF MAN'S DEVELOPMENT 10-13
PROTOPLASM 18
CELLS 20
LIFE 22
VITAL FORCE 24
ANALYSIS OF MAN 26
UNITY OF ORGANIC AND INORGANIC NATURE 28
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 30
THE COMING INTO EXISTENCE OF MAN 33
EVOLUTION 58
THEORIES OF THE WORLD'S FORMATION 64
THE BIBLE 70
KANT'S COSMOGONY 76, 86
NATURE A PERPETUAL CREATION 82
LAWS OF EVOLUTION 90
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 92
RUDIMENTARY ORGANS 94
REPRODUCTION BY MEANS OF EGGS 99
DOUBLE-SEXED INDIVIDUALS 99
INHERITANCE 100
ARTIFICIAL MONSTERS 106
ACQUIRED QUALITIES 106
GEOLOGICAL RECORD 108
ONTOGENY 110
THE ATTRIBUTES OF MAN 115
MUSCULAR FORCE 116
THOUGHT FORCE 118
THE ATTRIBUTES OF ANIMALS 122
THE ATTRIBUTES OF A SAVAGE 126
LANGUAGE 128
FAITH 130
TRUE CONSCIENCE 132
BELIEF IN GOD 136
PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 138
UNITY OF ALL NATURE 140
SOUL 143
THE FINITE SENSES OF MAN 144
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE 148
MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD 150
HOPE OF IMMORTALITY 142-151
WAS MAN CREATED?
HAECKEL'S CHART OF MAN'S DEVELOPMENT, Arranged by HENRY A. MOTT, Jr.,
Ph. D.
=9. Americans.= (_Indians._)
|
| Esquimaux.
| |
| HYPERBOREANS. Magyars.
| |
| =8. Arctic Men.= |
| | Fins.
+------+------+ |
| Tungusians. Calmucks. Tartars. | Samoides.
| | | | | |
+-----------+-------+----+-------+ +---+--+
| |
Altaians. Uralians.
| |
+-----------------+-------+
Japanese. Chinese. Siamese. |
| | Tibet. | |
| | | | Ural-Altaians.
Coreans. +-------+-------+ |
| | |
| Indo-Chinese. |
Coreo-Japanese. | |
| | |
+----+--------------+-----------------+
| Indo-Germanians.
| Semites. Basques. | Caucasians.
| | | | |
| +----------+--+--------+------------+
| |
| =12. Mediteranese.=
| |
| Singalese. | Fulatians.
| | | |
| DECCANS. | DONGOLESE.
| |
| =10. Dradidas.= | =11. Nubians.=
| | | |
| +----+--+--------+
| Polynesians. |
| | Madagascars. Euplocomi. =4. Negroes.=
| | | | |
| +-----+---+ | =3. Kaffirs.= |
| | | | |
| Sundanesians. | +---+----+
| | | |
=7. Mongols= =6. Malays= | ERIOCOMI.
| | | |
+------------+--------------+ |
Promalays. =2. Hottentots=|
| =1. Papuans.= | |
| =5. Australians.= | | |
| | +---+-------+ |
+--+--+ | |
| | |
EUTHYCOMI. LOPHOCOMI. |
| | |
| +----+----------+
| |
LISSOTRICHI (_straight-haired_) ULOTRICHI (_woolly-haired_).
| |
+------------+----------+
|
=ALALI= (_speechless men_).
=PITHECANTHROPI= (_ape-like men_).
|
V
|
PRIMEVAL MEN.
|
| Satyrus
Engeco Gorilla | (_Orang_). Hylobates
(_Chimpanzee_). (_Gorilla_). | | (_Gibbon_).
| | | | |
+---------------+ +---------+------------+
| |
African Asiatic
(_Man-like Apes_). (_Man-like Apes_).
| |
+-------------------------------------+
|
| Nasalis
ANTHROPOIDES Semnopithecus (_Nose Apes_).
(_Man-like Apes_). (_Tall Apes_). |
| | |
| +-------------+
| |
Arctopitheci Labidocera | Cercopithecus Cynocephalus
(_Silk-Apes_). (_Clutch-tails_). | (_Sea-Cat_). (_Pavian_).
| | | | |
+----------------+ +--------+---------------+
| |
Aphyocera Catarrhina Menocerca
(_Flap-tails_). (_Tailed, Narrow-nosed Apes_).
Platyrhinæ Catarrhinæ
(_Flat-nosed Apes_). (_Narrow-nosed_).
| |
+--------------------------------+
|
Simiæ
(_Apes_). Brachytarsi
| (_Lemurs_).
| |
+--------------+
Proboscidea | Pinnipedia
(_Elephants_). | (_Marine Animals
Lamnungia | | of Prey_).
(_Rock-Conies_). | | Nycterides |
| | | (_Bats_). Carnivora
+-------------+ | | (_Land Animals
| | Pterocynes of Prey_).
Chelophora | (_Flying Foxes_). |
(_Pseudo-hoofed_). | | Carnaria
| | Chiroptera (_Animals
Rodentia | (_Flying Animals_). of Prey_).
(_Gnawing Animals_). | | |
| | +------------------+
| Leptodactyla | |
| (_Fingered | Insectivora
| Animals_). | (_Insect Eaters_).
| | | |
+-----------+ | |
| | |
+----------------+------------------+
|
PROSIMIÆ
Sarcoceta (_True Whales_). PROSIMIÆ (_Brought forward_,)
| (_Semi-Apes_).
Sirenia (_Sea-Cows_).
Cetacea (_Whales_).
|
Ungulata Edentata Deciduata
(_Hoofed Animals_). (_Poor in teeth_). (_Deciduous Animals_).
| | |
+--------+----------------+ |
| |
Indeciduous |
(_Indeciduata_). |
| |
+-------------------------------------+--------+
|
PLACENTALIA
(_Placental Animals_).
|
Marsupialia | Marsupialia
Botanophaga | Zoophaga
(_Herbivorous_ | (_Carnivorous_
_Marsupials_). | _Marsupials_).
| | |
+--------------------------+-------------+
|
Ornithostoma Marsupialia
(_Beaked Animals_). (_Marsupial_).
| |
+---------------------------+-------+
|
PROMAMMALIA (_Glacal Animals_).
MAMMALIA (_Mammals_).
Aves (_Birds_). |
| |
Reptilia (_Reptiles_). |
| |
+---------------+---------+
|
Teleostei Halisauria |
(_Osseous Fish_). (_Sea-Dragons_). Amniota (_Amnion Animals_).
| Dipneusta | |
| (_Mud-Fish_). | Amphibia (_Batrachians_).
Ganoidei | | |
(_Ganoid Fish_). +----------+-------+--------------+
| |
| Amphipneumones
| (_Vertebrate Animals, breathing through lungs_).
| |
+--+------------------------------+
|
SELACHII (_Primeval Fish_).
|
PISCES
(_Fishes_).
|
|
Amphirrhina Cyclostoma
(_Double Nostrils_). (_Round-mouthed_).
| |
+----------------------------------------------+--------+
|
Monorrhina
(_Single-nostriled_).
Craniota
(_Animals with Skulls_).
Leptocardia |
(_Tube-hearted_). |
| |
Thaliacea. +--------+--------+
(_Sea-Barrels_). Ascidiæ. |
| | Acrania
+--------+-------+ (_Skull-less Animals_).
|
Tunicata Vertebrata
(_Tunicate Animals_). (_Vertebrate Animals_).
| |
+-------------------+---------+
|
Vermes
(_Worms_).
|
Zoophytes |
(_Animal Trees_). |
| |
+-----+-----+
|
Protozoa
(_Primeval Animals_).
ANIMAL MONERA.
|
|
VEGETABLE MONERA. | NEUTRAL MONERA.
| | |
+---------------------+-------------------+
|
ARCHIGONIC MONERA
(_Pieces of Protoplasm which have originated by Spontaneous Generation._)
WAS MAN CREATED?
WHAT SCIENCE CAN ANSWER.
"The object of science is not to find out what we like or what we
dislike--the object of science is Truth." In the discussion of the
subject, "_Was Man Created?_" our object will be--not to study the many
ways God might have created him, but the way he actually did create him,
for all ways would be alike easy to an Omnipotent Being.
Let us look at man and ask the question: What is there about him which
would need an independent act of creation any more than about the
"mountain of granite or the atom of sand"? The answer comes back:
Besides life, man has many mental attributes. Let us direct our
attention at first to the grand phenomena of life, and then to man's
attributes.
To discover the nature of life, to find out what life really is, it
would be folly to commence by comparing man, the perfection of living
beings, with an inorganic or inanimate substance like a brick, to
discover the hidden secret; for, as Professor Orton says:[3] "That only
is essential to life which is common to all forms of life. Our brains,
stomach, livers, hands and feet are luxuries. They are necessary to make
us human, but not living beings." Instead of man, then, it will be
necessary for us to take the simplest being which possesses such a
phenomena; and such are the little homogeneous specks of protoplasm,
constituting the Group _Monera_, which are entirely destitute of
structure, and to which the name "Cytode" has been given. In the fresh
waters in the neighborhood of Jena minute lumps of protoplasm were
discovered by Haeckel, which, on being examined under the most powerful
lens of a microscope, were seen to have no constant form, their outlines
being in a state of perpetual change, caused by the protrusion from
various parts of their surface of broad lobes and thick finger-like
projections, which, after remaining visible for a time, would be
withdrawn, to make their appearance again on some other part of the
surface. To this little mass of protoplasm Haeckel has given the name
_Protanæba primitiva_. These little lumps multiply by spontaneous
division into two pieces, which, on becoming dependent, increase in size
and acquire all the characteristics of the parent. From this
illustration, it will be seen that "reproduction is a form of nutrition
and a growth of the individual to a size beyond that belonging to it as
an individual, so that a part is thus elevated into a (new) whole."
It is to this simple state of the monera the _fertilized_ egg of any
animal is transformed--the germ vesicle; the original egg kernel
disappears, and the parent kernel (cytococcus) forms itself anew; and it
is in this condition, a non-nucleated ball of protoplasm, a true cytod,
a homogeneous, structureless body, without different constituent parts,
that the human child, as well as all other living beings, take their
first steps in development. No matter how wonderful this may seem, the
fact stares us in the face that the entire human child, as well as every
animal with all their great future possibilities, are in their first
stage a small ball of this complex homogeneous substance. Whether we
consider "a mere infinitesimal ovoid particle which finds space and
duration enough to multiply into countless millions in the body of a
living fly, and then of the wealth of foliage, the luxuriance of flower
and fruit which lies between this bald sketch of a plant and the
gigantic pine of California, towering to the dimensions of a cathedral
spire, or the Indian fig which covers acres with its profound shadow,
and endures while nations and empires come and go around its vast
circumference," or we look "at the other half of the world of life,
picturing to ourselves the great finner whale, hugest of beasts that
live or have lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet of bone,
muscle, and blubber, with easy roll, among the waves in which the
stoutest ship that ever left dock-yard would founder hopelessly, and
contrast him with the invisible animalcule, mere gelatinous specks,
multitudes of which could in fact dance upon the point of a needle with
the same ease as the angels of the schoolman could in imagination;--with
these images before our minds, it would be strange if we did not ask
what community of form or structure is there between the fungus and the
fig-tree, the animalcule and the whale? and, _à fortiori_, between all
four? Notwithstanding these apparent difficulties, a threefold
unity--namely, a unity of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity
of substantial composition--does pervade the whole living world."[4] And
this unit is Protoplasm. So we see it is necessary for us to retreat to
our protoplasm as a naked formless plasma, if we would find freed from
all non-essential complications the agent to which has been assigned the
duty of building up structure and of transforming the energy of lifeless
matter into the living. Even Goethe (in 1807) almost stated this when he
said: "Plants and animals, regarded in their most imperfect condition,
are hardly distinguishable. This much, however, we may say, that from a
condition in which plant is hardly to be distinguished from animal,
creatures have appeared, gradually perfecting themselves in two
opposite directions--the plant is finally glorified into the tree,
enduring and motionless; the animal into the human being of the highest
mobility and freedom."
Let us examine for a moment this substance Protoplasm, and see in what
way it differs from inorganic matter, or in what way the animate differs
from the inanimate--the living from the dead.
Felix Dujardin, a French zoologist (1835) pointed out that the only
living substance in the body of rhizopods and other inferior primitive
animals, is identical with protoplasm. He called it _sarcode_. Hugo von
Mohl (1846) first applied the name protoplasm to the peculiar serus and
mobile substance in the interior of vegetable cells; and he perceived
its high importance, but was very far from understanding its
significance in relation to all organisms. Not, however, until Ferdinand
Cohn (1850) and more fully Franz Unger (1855) had established the
identity of the animate and contractile protoplasm in vegetable cells
and the sarcode of the lower animals, could Max Shultz in 1856-61
elaborate the protoplasm theory of the sarcode so as to proclaim
protoplasm to be the most essential and important constituent of all
organic cells, and to show that the bag or husk of the cell, the
cellular membrane and intercellular substance, are but secondary parts
of the cell, and are frequently wanting. In a similar manner Lionel
Beale (1862) gave to protoplasm, including the cellular germ, the name
of "germinal matter," and to all the other substance entering into the
composition of tissue, being secondary, and produced the name of "formed
matter."
"Wherever there is life there is protoplasm; wherever there is
protoplasm, there, too, is life." The physical consistence of protoplasm
varies with the amount of water with which it is combined, from the
solid form in which we find it in the dormant state to the thin watery
state in which it occurs in the leaves of valisneria.
As to its composition, chemistry can as yet give but scanty information;
it can tell that it is composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
sulphur, and phosphorus, and it can also tell the percentage of each
element, but it cannot give more than a formula that will express it as
a whole, giving no information as to the nature of the numerous
albuminoid substances which compose it. Edward Cope, in his article on
Comparative Anatomy,[5] gives the formula for protoplasm (as a whole),
C{24}H{17}N{3}O{8} + S and P, in small quantities under some circumstances.
It is therefore, he says, a nitryl of cellulose: C{24}H{20}O{2} + 3NH{3}.
According to Mulder the composition of albumen, one of the class of
protein substances to which protoplasm belongs, is 10(C{40}H{31}N{5}O{12})
+ S{2}P. Protoplasm is identical in both the animal and vegetable kingdom;
it behaves the same from whatever source it may be derived towards
several re-agents, as also electricity. Is it possible, then, that the
protoplasm which produces the mould is exactly the same composition as
that which produces the human child? The answer is YES, so far as the
elements are concerned, but the proportions of carbon, hydrogen, etc.,
must enter into an infinite number of diverse stratifications and
combination in the production of the various forms of life. Professor
Frankland, speaking of protein, for instance, says it is capable of
existing under probably at least a thousand isomeric forms. Protoplasm
may be distinguished under the microscope from other members of the
class to which it belongs, on account of the faculty it possesses of
combining with certain coloring matters, as carmine and aniline; it is
colored dark-red or yellowish-brown by iodine and nitric acid, and it is
coagulated by alcohol and mineral acids as well as by heat. It possesses
the quality of absorbing water in various quantities, which renders it
sometimes extremely soft and nearly liquid, and sometimes hard and firm
like leather. Its prominent physical properties are excitability and
contractility, which Kühne and others have especially investigated. The
motion of protoplasm in plants was first made known by Bonaventure Corti
a century ago in the Charoe plants; but this important fact was
forgotten, and it had to be discovered by Treviranus in 1807. The
regular motion of the protoplasm, forming a perfect current, may be seen
in the hairs of the nettle, and weighty evidence exists that similar
currents occur in all young vegetable cells. "If such be the case," says
Huxley, "the wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after
all, due only to the dullness of our hearing, and could our ears catch
the murmur of these tiny maelstroms, as they whirl in innumerable
myriads of living cells, which constitute each tree, we should be
stunned as with a roar of a great city."
One step higher in the scale of life than the monera is the vegetable or
animal cell, which arose out of the monera by the important process of
segregation in their homogeneous viscid bodies, the differentiation of
an inner kernel from the surrounding plasma. By this means the great
progress from a simple cytod (without kernel) into a real cell (with
kernel) was accomplished. Some of these cells at an early stage encased
themselves by secreting a hardened membrane; they formed the first
vegetable cells, while others remaining naked developed into the first
aggregate of animal cells. The vegetable cell has usually two concentric
coverings--cell-wall and primordial utricle. In animal cells the former
is wanting, the membrane representing the utricle. As a general fact,
also, animal cells are smaller than vegetable cells. Their size[6]
varies greatly, but are generally invisible to the naked eye, ranging
from 1/500 to 1/10000 of an inch in diameter. About four thousand of the
smallest would be required to cover the dot put over the letter i in
writing. The shape of cells varies greatly; the normal form, though, is
spheroidal as in the cells of fat, but they often become[7]
many-sided--sometimes flattened as in the cuticle, and sometimes
elongated into a simple filament as in fibrous tissue or muscular fibre.
The cell, therefore, is extremely interesting, since all animal and
vegetable structure is but the multiplication of the cell as a unit, and
the whole life of the plant or animal is that of the cells which compose
them, and in them or by them all its vital processes are carried on. It
may sound paradoxical to speak of an animal or plant being composed of
millions of cells; but beyond the momentary shock of the paradox no harm
is done.
The cell, then, can be regarded as the basis of our physiological idea
of the elementary organism; but in the animal as well as in the plant,
neither cell-wall nor nucleus is an essential constituent of the cell,
inasmuch as bodies which are unquestionably the equivalents of
cells--true morphological units--may be mere masses of protoplasm,
devoid alike of cell-wall or nucleus. For the whole living world, then,
the primary and a mental form of life is merely an individual mass of
protoplasm in which no further structure is discernible. Well, then, has
protoplasm been called the "universal concomitant of every phenomena of
life." Life is inseparable from this substance, but is dormant unless
excited by some external stimulant, such as heat, light, electricity,
food, water, and oxygen.
Although we have seen that the life of the plant as well as of the
animal is protoplasm, and that the protoplasm of the plant and that of
the animal bear the closest resemblance, yet plants can manufacture
protoplasm out of mineral compounds, whereas animals are obliged to
procure it ready made, and hence in the end depend on plants. "Without
plants," says Professor Orton, "animals would perish; without animals,
plants had no need to be." The food of a plant is a matter whose energy
is all expended--is a fallen weight. But the plant organism receives it,
exposes it to the sun's rays, and in a way mysterious to us converts the
actual energy of the sunlight into potential energy within it. It is for
this reason that life has been termed "bottled-sunshine."
The principal food of the plant consists of carbon united with oxygen to
form carbonic acid, hydrogen united with oxygen to form water, and
nitrogen united with hydrogen to form ammonia. These elements thus
united, which in themselves are perfectly lifeless, the plant is able to
convert into living protoplasm. "Plants are," says Huxley, "the
accumulators of the power which animals distribute and disperse."
Boussengault found long since that peas sown in pure sand, moistened
with distilled water and fed by the air, obtained all the carbon
necessary for their development, flowering, and fructification. Here we
see a plant which not only maintains its vigor on these few substances,
but grows until it has increased a millionfold or a million-millionfold
the quantity of protoplasm it originally possessed, and this protoplasm
exhibits the phenomena of life. This and other proof led M. Dumas to
say: "From the loftiest point of view, and in connection with the
physics of the globe, it would be imperative on us to say that in so far
as their truly organic elements are concerned, plants and animals are
the offspring of the air."
Schleiden,[8] speaking of the haymakers of Switzerland and the Tyrol,
says: "He mows his definite amount of grass every year on the Alps,
inaccessible to cattle, and gives not back the smallest quantity of
organic substance to the soil. Whence comes the hay, if not from the
atmosphere."
It has been seen, then, that plants can manufacture protoplasm, a
faculty which animals are not possessed of; they at best can only
convert dead protoplasm into living protoplasm. Thus when vegetable or
meat is cooked their protoplasm dies, but is not rendered incompetent of
resuming its old functions as a matter of life. "If I," says Huxley,
"should eat a piece of cooked mutton, which was once the living
protoplasm of a sheep, the protoplasm, rendered dead by cooking, will be
changed into living protoplasm, and thus I would transubstantiate sheep
into man; and were I to return to my own place by sea and undergo
shipwreck, the crustacean might and probably would return the
compliment, and demonstrate our common nature by turning my protoplasm
into living lobster." As has been said before, where there are life
manifestations there is protoplasm. Life is regarded by one class of
thinkers as the principle or cause of organization; and according to the
other, life is the product or effect of organization. We must, however,
agree with Professor Orton, who says: "Life is the effect of
organization, not the result of it. Animals do not live because they are
organized, but are organized because they are alive." In whatever way it
is looked at, life is but a forced condition. "The more advanced
thinkers, then, in science to-day," says Barker, "therefore look upon
the life of the living form as inseparable from its substance, and
believe that the former is purely phenomenal and only a manifestation of
the latter. During the existence of a special force as such, they retain
the term only to express the sum of the phenomena of living beings. The
word life must be regarded, then, as only a generalized expression
signifying the sum-total of the properties of matter possessing such
organization."
In what manner, then, does this matter, possessing the phenomena of
life, differ from inorganic matter, or in what manner does living matter
differ from matter not living? The forces which are at work on the one
side are at work on the other. The phenomena of life are all dependent
upon the working of the same physical and chemical forces as those
which are active in the rest of the world. It may be convenient to use
the terms "vitality" and "vital force" to denote the cause of certain
groups of natural operations, as we employ the names of "electricity"
and "electrical force" to denote others; but it ceases to do so, if such
a name implies the absurd assumption that either "electricity" or
"vitality" is an entity, playing the part of a sufficient cause of
electrical or vital phenomena. A mass of living protoplasm is simply a
machine of great complexity, the total result of the work of which, or
its vital phenomena, depend on the one hand upon its construction, and
on the other upon the energy supplied to it; and to speak of "vitality"
as anything but the names of a series of operations is as if one should
talk of the "horologity" of a clock.[9]
When hydrogen and oxygen are united by an electrical spark water is
produced; certainly there is no parity between the liquid produced and
the two gases. At 32° F., oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous
bodies, whose particles tend to fly away from one another; water at the
same temperature is a strong though brittle solid. Such changes are
called the properties of water. It is not assumed that a certain
something called "acquosity" has entered into and taken possession of
the oxide of hydrogen as soon as formed, and then guarded the particles
in the facets of the crystal or amongst the leaflets of the hoar-frost.
On the contrary, it is hoped molecular physics will in time explain the
phenomena. "What better philosophical status," says Huxley,[10] "has
vitality than acquosity. If the properties of water may be properly said
to result from the nature and disposition of its molecules, I can find
no intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties of
protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules."
"To distinguish the living from the dead body," Herbert Spencer says,
"the tree that puts out leaves when the spring brings change of
temperature, the flower which opens and closes with the rising and
setting of the sun, the plant that droops when the soil is dry and
re-erects itself when watered, are considered alive because of these
produced changes; in common with the zoophyte, which contracts on the
passing of a cloud over the sun, the worm that comes to the ground when
continually shaken, and the hedgehog which rolls itself up when
attacked."
"Seeds of wheat produced antecedent to the Pharaohs," says Bastain,[11]
"remaining in Egyptian catacombs through century after century display
of course no vital manifestations, but nevertheless retain the
potentiality of growing into perfect plants whenever they may be brought
into contact with suitable external conditions. We must presume that
either (1) during this long lapse of centuries the 'vital principle' of
the plant has been imprisoned in the most dreary and impenetrable of
dungeons, whither no sister effluence from the general 'soul of nature'
could affect it; or else (2) that the germ of the future living plant is
there only in the form of an inherited structure, whose molecular
complexities are of such a kind that, after moisture has restored
mobility to its atoms, its potential life may pass into actual life.
Some of the lowest forms of animals and plants have such a tenacity to
life that their vital manifestation may be kept in abeyance for five,
ten, fifteen, or even twenty years. Though not living any more than the
wheat, they also retain the potentiality of manifestation of life; and
for each alike, in order that this potentiality may pass into actuality,
the first requisition is water with which to restore them to that
possibility of molecular rearrangement under the influence of incident
forces, of which the absence of water had deprived them, and without
which, life in any real sense is impossible."
ANALYSIS OF A MAN.
(BY PROF. MILLER.)
A man 5 feet 8 inches high, weighing 154 pounds.
lbs. oz. grs.
Oxygen 111 0 0
Hydrogen 14 0 0
Carbon 21 0 0
Nitrogen 3 10 0
Inorganic elements in the ash:
Phosphorus 1 2 88
Calcium 2 0 0
Sulphur 0 0 219
Chlorine 0 2 47
1 ounce = 437 grains.
Sodium 0 2 116
Iron 0 0 100
Potassium 0 0 290
Magnesium 0 0 12
Silica 0 0 2
Total 154 0 0
The quantity of the substances found in a human body
weighing 154 pounds:
lbs. oz. grs.
Water 111 0 0
Gelatin 15 0 0
Albumen 4 3 0
Fibrine 4 4 0
Fat 12 0 0
Ashes 7 9 0
Total 154 0 0
(From the "CHEMISTS' MANUAL.")
Professor Owen[12] says: "There are organisms (vibrieo, rotifer,
macrobiotus, etc.) which we can devitalize and revitalize--devive and
revive--many times. As the dried animalcule manifest no phenomena
suggesting any idea contributing to form the complex one of 'life' in my
mind, I regard it to be as completely lifeless as is the drowned man,
whose breath and heat have gone, and whose blood has ceased to
circulate. * * * The change of work consequent on drying or drowning
forthwith begins to alter relations or compositions, and in time to a
degree adverse to resumption of the vital form of force, a longer period
being needed for this effect in the rotifer, a shorter one in the man,
still shorter it may be in the amoeba."
"There is," says Dumas,[13] "an eternal round in which death is
quickened and life appears, but in which matter merely changes its place
and form."
Let us now compare the inorganic world with the organic--the inanimate
with the animate--and see if there does exist an inseparable boundary
between them. The fundamental properties of every natural body are
matter, form, and force. One important point to be noticed is, that the
elements which compose all animate bodies are the very elements that
help to build up the inanimate bodies. No new elements appear in the
vegetable or animal world which are not to be found in the inorganic
world. The difference between animate and inanimate bodies, therefore,
is certainly not in the elements which form them, but in the molecular
combination of them; and it is to be hoped that molecular physics will,
at some not far distant time, enlighten us as to the peculiar state of
aggregation in which the molecules exist in living matter. As to the
form, it is impossible to find any essential difference in the external
form and inner structure between inorganic and organic bodies--for the
simple monad, which is as much a living organism as the most complex
being, is nothing but a homogeneous, structureless mass of protoplasm.
But just as the inorganic substance, according to well-defined laws,
elaborates its structure into a crystal of great beauty, so does the
protoplasm elaborate itself into the most beautiful of all
structures--the cell unit. Just as gold and copper crystallizes in a
geometrical form, a cube--bismuth and antimony in a hexagonal, iodine
and sulphur in a rhombic form--so we find among radiolaria, and among
other protista and lower forms, that they "may be traced to a
mathematical, fundamental form, and whose form in its whole, as well as
in its parts, is bounded by definite geometrically determinable planes
and angles." Now, as to the forces of the two different groups of
bodies. Surely the constructive force of a crystal is due to the
chemical composition, and to its material constitution. As the shape of
the crystal and its size are influenced by surrounding circumstances,
there is, therefore, an external constructive force at work. The only
difference between the growth of an organism and that of a crystal is,
that in the former case, in consequence of its semi-fluid state of
aggregation, the newly added particles penetrate into the interior of
the organism (inter-susception), whereas inorganic substances receive
homogeneous matter from without, only by opposition or an addition of
new particles to the surface. "If we, then, designate the growth and the
formation of organisms as a process of life, we may with equal reason
apply the same term with the developing crystal." It is for these and
other reasons, demonstrating as they do the "unity of organic and
inorganic nature," the essential agreement of inorganic and organic
bodies in matter, form, and force, which led Tyndall[14] to say:
"Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to make
before you is, that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of
experimental evidence, and discern in that matter which we in our
ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator,
have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every
form and quality of life."
Returning now to our protoplasm, let us ask the question: Where did it
come from? or, How did it come into existence? Though chemical synthesis
has built up a number of organic substances which have been deemed the
product of vitality, yet, up to the present day, the fact stands out
before us that no one has ever built up one particle of living matter,
however minute, from lifeless elements.
The protoplasm of to-day is simply a continuation of the protoplasm of
other ages, handed down to us through periods of undefinable and
indeterminable time.
The question of where protoplasm came from--how it arose--chemistry is
unable to answer; but the question is answered, probably, by spontaneous
generation. Only the merest particle of living protoplasm was necessary
to be formed from lifeless matter in the beginning; for, in the eyes of
any consistent evolutionist, any further independent formation would be
sheer waste, as the hypothesis of evolution postulates the unlimited,
though perhaps not, indefinite modifiability of such matter. As we have
seen that there exists no absolute barrier between organic and inorganic
bodies, it is not so difficult to conceive that the first particle of
protoplasm may have originated, under suitable conditions, out of
inorganic or lifeless matter. But the causes which have led to the
origination of this particle, it may be said, we know absolutely
nothing--as in the formation of the crystal and the cell--the ultimate
causes remain in both cases concealed from us.
At the time in the earth's history when water, in a liquid state, made
its appearance on the cooled crust of the earth, the carbon probably
existed as carbonic acid dispersed in the atmosphere; and from the very
best of grounds, it is reasonable to assume that the density and
electric condition of the atmosphere were quite different, as also the
chemical and physical nature of the primeval ocean was quite different.
In any case, therefore, even[15] if we do not know anything more about
it, there remains the supposition, which can at least not be disputed,
that at that time, under conditions quite different from those of
to-day, a spontaneous generation, which is now perhaps no longer
possible, may have taken place. This point is now conceded by most all
of the advanced scientists of the day, and is absolutely necessary for
the completion of the hypothesis of evolution.
The answer may come to this--Well, suppose the first protoplasm did
originate by spontaneous generation, where did the elements or force
come from which compose it?
Science has nothing to do with the coming into existence of matter or
force, for she proves both to be indestructible; when they disappear,
they do so only to reappear in some other form. The coming into
existence of matter and force, as also the ultimate cause of all
phenomena, is beyond the domain of scientific inquiry. Science has only
to do with the coming in of the form of matter, not the coming in of its
existence.
[Illustration: FIG. I.--A Moneron (Protamoeba) in act of reproduction;
_A_, the whole Moneron, which moves like ordinary Amoeba, by means of
variable processes: _B_, a contraction around its circumference parts it
into two halves; _C_, the two halves separate, and each now forms
independent individuals. (Much enlarged.)--_Haeckel._]
[Illustration: FIG. II.--_A_, is a crawling Amoeba (much
enlarged).--_Haeckel._ The whole organism has the form-value of a naked
cell and moves about by means of changeable processes, which are
extended from the protoplasmic body and again drawn in. In the inside is
the bright-colored, roundish cell-kernel or nucleus. _B_, Egg-cell of a
Chalk Sponge (Olynthus).--_Haeckel._]
[Illustration: FIG. III.--Represents the next higher stage,
Mulberry-germ or Morula (Synamoeba).--_Haeckel._]
THE COMING INTO EXISTENCE OF MAN,
BY THE SLOW PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT.
It is necessary now to take up the little mass of living matter,
admitting its coming into existence by spontaneous generation as
probable, and so probable that it almost amounts to a certainty, and
follow it through the many changes it is about to make under the
influence of the laws which govern evolution until it has culminated in
man, and these laws still acting on the brain of man, perfecting it, and
leading him on to the comprehension of a grander and nobler conception
of the Almighty and of his works.
The start, then, must be made with a homogeneous mass of protoplasm,
such as the existing _Protamoeba primitiva_ of the present day, which
is a structureless organism without organs, and which came into
existence during the Laurentian period. It is to this simplified
condition, as I have previously stated, all fertilized eggs return
before they commence to develop.
The first process of adaptation effected by the monera must have been
the condensation of an external crust, which, as a protecting covering,
shut in the softer interior from the hostile influences of the outer
world. As soon as, by condensation of the homogeneous moneron, a
cell-kernel arose in the interior, and a membrane arose on the surface,
all the fundamental parts of the unit were then furnished. Such a unit
was an organism, similar to the white corpuscle of the blood, and
called _amoebæ_. Here we have two different stages of evolution; the
protoplasma (better plasson) of the cytod undergoes differentiation, and
is split up into two kinds of albuminous substances--the inner
cell-kernel (nucleus) and the outer cell-substance (protoplasma). Edward
von Benden, in his work upon _Gregarinæ_, first clearly pointed out this
fact, that we must distinguish thoroughly between the plasson of cytods
and the protoplasm of cells.
An irrefutable proof that such single-celled primæval animals like the
amoeba really existed as the direct ancestors of man, is furnished,
according to the fundamental law of biogeny, by the fact that the human
egg is nothing more than a simple cell.
The next step taken in advance is the division of the cell in
two;--there arise from the single germinal spot two new kernel specks,
and then, in like manner, out of the germinal vesicle two new
cell-kernels. The same process of cell-division now repeats itself
several times in succession, and the products of the division form a
perfect union. This organism may be called a community of _amoebæ_
(synamoebæ).
From the community of amoeba morula, now arose ciliated larvæ. The
cells lying on the surface extended hair-like processes or fringes of
hair, which, by striking against the water, kept the whole body
rotating--the lanceolate animals or amphioxus were thus first produced.
Here we find from the synamoebæ which crept about slowly at the bottom
of the Laurentian primeval ocean by means of movements like those of an
amoeba, that the newly-formed planæa by the vibrating movements of the
cilia, the entire multicellular body acquired a more rapid and stronger
motion, and passed over from the creeping to the swimming mode of
locomotion. The planæa consisted, then, of two kinds of cells--inner
ones like the amoebæ, and external "ciliated cells." The ancestors of
man, which possessed the form value of the ciliated larva, is, of
course, extinct at the present day.
[Illustration: FIG. I.--The Norwegian Flimmer-ball (Magosphoera
Planula), swimming by means of its vibratile fringes; seen from the
surface.--_Haeckel._]
[Illustration: FIG. II.--The same in section. The pear-shaped cells are
seen bound together in the centre of the gelatinous sphere by a
thread-like process. Each cell contains both a kernel and a contractile
vesicle. (PLANÆA SERIES.)--_Haeckel._]
[Illustration: FIGS. III AND IV.--Represents GASTRÆA SERIES. The body
consists merely of a simple primitive intestine, the wall of which is
formed of two primary germ-layers.--_Haeckel._]
[Illustration: FIGS. I and II.--Represents the next higher stage
(Tubularia). Fig. I, a simple Gliding Worm (Rhabdocoelum); _m_, mouth;
_sd_, throat-epithelium; _sm_, throat-muscles; _d_, stomach-intestine;
_nc_, kidney-ducts; _nm_, opening of the kidneys; _au_, eye; _na_,
nose-pit. Fig. II, the same Gliding Worm, showing the remaining organs;
_g_, brain; _au_, eye; _na_, nose-pit; _n_, nerves; _h_, testes;
[male symbol], male opening; [female symbol], female opening; _e_,
ovary; _f_, ciliated outer-skin.--_Haeckel._]
[Illustration: FIG. III.--Represents Soft Worms (Scolecida) and is a
young Acorn Worm (Balanoglossus), after _Agassiz_. _r_, acorn-like
proboscis; _h_, collar; _k_, gill-openings and gill-arches of the
anterior intestine, in a long row, one behind the other, on each side;
_d_, digestive posterior intestine, filling the greater part of the body
cavity; _v_, intestinal vessel, lying between two parallel folds of the
skin; _a_, anus.]
Out of the planula, then, develops an exceedingly important animal
form--the gastrula (that is, larva with a stomach or intestine), which
resembles the planula, but differs essentially in the fact that it
encloses a cavity which opens to the outside by a mouth. The wall of the
progaster (primary stomach) consists of two layers of cells: an outer
layer of smaller ciliated cells (outer skin or ectoderm), and of an
inner layer of large non-ciliated cells (inner skin or entoderm). This
exceedingly important larval form, the "gastrula," makes its appearance
in the ontogenesis of all tribes of animals. These gastræada must have
existed during the older primordial period, and they must have also
included the ancestors of man. A certain proof of this is furnished by
the amphioxus, which, in spite of its blood relationship to man, still
passes through the stage of the gastrula with a simple intestine and a
double intestinal wall.[16] By motion of the cilia or fringes of the
skin-layer, the gastræa swam freely about in the Laurentian ocean.
The development of the gastræa now deviated in two directions--one
branch of gastræads gave up free locomotion, adhered to the bottom of
the sea, and thus, by adopting an adhesive mode of life, gave rise to
the proascus, the common primary form of the animal plants (zoophyta).
The other branch was originated by the formation of a middle germ-layer
or muscular layer, and also by the further differentiation of the
internal parts into various organs; more especially, the first formation
of a nervous system, the simplest organs of sense, the simplest organs
for secretion (kidneys), and generation (sexual organs)--this branch is
the prothelmis, the common primary worms (vermes). Like the turbellaria
of the present day, the whole surface of their body was covered with
cilia, and they possessed a simple body of an oval shape, entirely
without appendages. These acoelomatous worms did not as yet possess a
true body cavity (coelom) nor blood. No member of the next higher
animals are in existence, neither are there any fossil remains, owing to
the soft nature of their body. They are therefore called soft worms, or
scoleceda. They developed out of the turbellaria of the sixth stage by
forming a true body cavity (a coelom) and blood in their interior. The
nearest still living coelomati is probably the acorn worms
(balanoglossus). The form value of this stage must, moreover, have been
represented by several different intermediate stages.
Out of the four different groups of the worm tribe, the four higher
tribes of the animal kingdom were developed--the star-fishes
(echinoderma) and insects (arthropoda) on the one hand, and the molluscs
(mollusca) and vertebrated animals (vertebrata) on the other. Out of
certain coelomati, the most ancient skull-less vertebrata were
directly developed. Among the coelomati of the present day, the
ascidians are the nearest relatives of this exceedingly remarkable worm,
which connect the widely differing classes of invertebrate and
vertebrate animals. To these animals have been given the name of
sack-worms (himatega). They originated out of the worms of the seventh
stage by the formation of a dorsal nerve marrow (medulla tube), and by
the formation of the spinal rod (chorda dorsalis) which lies below it.
It is just the position of this central spinal rod or axial skeleton,
between the dorsal marrow on the dorsal side and the intestinal canal on
the ventral side, which is most characteristic of all vertebrate
animals, including man, but also of the larvæ of the ascidia.