“And so while all transformations of energy lead directly or
indirectly to transformation into heat, from that transformation
there is no complete return, and, therefore finally no return at
all. This then is the conclusion to which Mr. Spencer’s premises
lead. Two eminent physicists who accept those premises may be cited
at this point: ‘It is absolutely certain,’ they say, ‘that life,
so far as it is physical, depends essentially upon transformations
of energy; it is also absolutely certain that age after age the
possibility of such transformations is becoming less and less; and,
so far as we yet know, the final state of the present universe must
be an aggregation (into one mass) of all the matter it contains,
_i. e._ the potential energy gone, and a practically useless state
of kinetic energy, _i. e._ uniform temperature throughout that
mass.... The present visible universe began in time and will in
time come to an end’” (p. 194).
Mark now, however, that this opinion of “two eminent physicists,”
quoted to disprove my position, and tacitly assumed to have validity
in so far as it serves that end, is forthwith dismissed as having, for
other purposes, no validity. His next paragraph runs:--
“To this conclusion we are surely led from such premises. But
again I ask what warrant is there for the premises? Our experience
certainly does not embrace the totality of things, is, in fact,
ridiculously far from it. We have no evidence of definite space
or time limits; quite the contrary. Every advance of knowledge
only opens up new vistas into a remoter past and discloses further
depths of immensity teeming with worlds.”
Thus the truth urged against me is that we can not know anything
about these ultimate physical principles in their application to the
ultra-visible universe. But, unhappily for Professor Ward’s criticism,
I entered this same caveat long ago. Demurring to that doctrine of the
dissipation of energy to which he now demurs, I wrote:--
“Here, indeed, we arrive at a barrier to our reasonings; since we
can not know whether this condition is or is not fulfilled. If the
ether which fills the interspaces of our Sidereal system has a
limit somewhere beyond the outermost stars, then it is inferable
that motion is not lost by radiation beyond this limit; and if
so, the original degree of diffusion may be resumed. Or supposing
the ethereal medium to have no such limit, yet, on the hypothesis
of an unlimited space, containing, at certain intervals, Sidereal
Systems like our own, it may be that the quantity of molecular
motion radiated into the region occupied by our Sidereal System,
is equal to that which our Sidereal System radiates; in which case
the quantity of motion possessed by it, remaining undiminished, it
may continue during unlimited time its alternate concentrations and
diffusions. But if, on the other hand, throughout boundless space
filled with ether, there exist no other Sidereal Systems subject
to like changes, or if such other Sidereal Systems exist at more
than a certain average distance from one another; then it seems an
unavoidable conclusion that the quantity of motion possessed, must
diminish by radiation; and that so, on each successive resumption
of the nebulous form, the matter of our Sidereal System will
occupy a less space; until it reaches either a state in which its
concentrations and diffusions are relatively small, or a state
of complete aggregation and rest. Since, however, we have no
evidence showing the existence or non-existence of Sidereal Systems
throughout remote space; and since, even had we such evidence, a
legitimate conclusion could not be drawn from premises of which
one element (unlimited space) is inconceivable; we must be forever
without answer to this transcendent question.” (_First Principles_,
§ 182, pp. 535-6.)
See, then, how the case stands. After urging against me the argument
of “two eminent physicists” as fatal to my conclusions, he thereupon
expresses dissent from the premises of that argument; and the reasons
he gives for dissenting are like those given by me before he was out of
his teens!
* * * * *
It is not always easy to disentangle misrepresentations; especially
when they are woven into a fabric. For elucidation of this matter
there needs another section. It may fitly begin with an analogy.
An astronomer who “saw reason to think” that the swarm of November
meteors this year would be greater than usual, would be surprised if
the occurrence of a smaller number were cited in disproof of his
astronomical beliefs at large. It would be held that so undecided a
phrase as “saw reason to think,” not implying a definite deduction, did
not implicate his general conceptions nor appreciably discredit them.
Professor Ward, however, thinks a tentative opinion is equivalent to a
positive assertion. In the course of the foregoing argument (p. 191)
he represents me as saying that “there is an alternation of evolution
and dissolution in the totality of things.” He does not quote the whole
clause, which runs thus:--“For _if_, as we saw _reason to think_,
there is an alternation of evolution and dissolution in the totality
of things, &c.” Here, then, are two qualifying expressions which he
suppresses; and not only does he here suppress them, but elsewhere he
refers to this passage as not speculative, but quite positive. On p.
197 he says:--
“But of a single supreme evolution embracing them all we have no
title to speak: not even to assume that it is, much less to say
what it is; least of all to _affirm confidently_ that it can be
embraced in such a meaningless formula as the integration of matter
and the dissipation of motion.” [The italics are mine.]
So that a hypothetical inference (implied by “if”), drawn from avowedly
uncertain data (implied by “reason to think”), he transforms into an
unhesitating assertion. He does this in presence of my statement that
respecting transformations of the Universe as a whole, no “legitimate
conclusions” can be drawn, and that we must be forever “without answer
to this transcendent question.” Nay, he does it in presence of a still
more specific repudiation of certainty. Section 182 begins:--
“Here we come to the question raised at the close of the last
chapter--does Evolution as a whole, like Evolution in detail,
advance toward complete quiescence? Is that motionless state called
death, which ends Evolution in organic bodies, typical of the
universal death in which Evolution at large must end?...
“To so speculative an inquiry, none but a speculative answer is to
be expected. Such answer as may be ventured, must be taken less as
a positive answer than as a demurrer to the conclusion that the
proximate result must be the ultimate result” (p. 529). Instead of
being a positive answer, it is intended to _exclude_ a positive
answer.
One more instance may be given to illustrate Professor Ward’s mode of
discrediting views which he dislikes. On p. 198 of his first volume
occurs the sentence--
“At any rate such a conception is less conjectural and more
adequate than Mr. Spencer’s ridiculous comparison of the universe
to a spinning top that begins by ‘wabbling,’ passes into a state of
steady motion or _equilibrium mobile_, and finally comes to rest.”
The reader who seeks a warrant for this representation will seek in
vain. If, in the chapter of _First Principles_ on “Equilibration,”
he turns to section 171, where the celestial applications of the
general law are considered, he will find the Solar System alone
instanced as having progressed toward a moving equilibrium; and the
moving equilibrium even of this not compared as alleged. Neither in
that section nor in any subsequent section of the chapter, is any
larger celestial aggregate mentioned as progressing toward a moving
equilibrium. Contrariwise, in the succeeding chapter on “Dissolution,”
it is said that “the irregular distribution of our Sidereal System”
is “such as to render even a temporary moving equilibrium impossible”
(p. 531). On pp. 533-4 it is contended that even local aggregations
of stars, still more the whole Sidereal System, must eventually reach
a diffused state without passing through any such stage. And had not
conclusions respecting the changes of the Universe been excluded
as exceeding the bounds even of speculation (p. 536), it is clear
that still more of the Universe would no moving equilibrium have
been alleged; but, had anything been alleged, it would have been the
reverse. How, then, has it been possible, the reader will ask, for
Professor Ward to write the sentence above quoted? If instead of
vainly seeking through the sections devoted to “Equilibration” and
“Dissolution” in relation to celestial phenomena, he turns back to
some introductory pages he will find a clew. I have pointed out that
in an aggregate having compounded motions, one of the constituent
motions may be dissipated while the rest continue; and that in some
such cases there is established a moving equilibrium. In illustration
I have taken “the most familiar example”--“that of the spinning top”;
and to remind the reader of one of the movements thus dissipated while
the rest continue, I have used the word “wabbling”; there being no
other descriptive word. What then has Professor Ward done? That mode
of establishing an equilibrium which the spinning top exemplifies,
he represents as extended by me to celestial phenomena, though no
such comparison is made nor any such word used. Nay, he has done so
notwithstanding my assertion that a moving equilibrium of our sidereal
system is negatived, and regardless of the implied assertion that
still more would be negatived a moving equilibrium of the Universe,
could we with any rationality speculate about it. Actually in defiance
of all this, he says I compare the motion of the Universe to that of
a “wabbling” top. Having constructed a grotesque fancy, he labels it
“ridiculous” and then debits me with it.
I can not pursue further this examination of Professor Ward’s
criticisms: other things have to be done. Whether what has been said
will lead readers to discount the laudatory expressions I quoted at the
outset, it is not for me to say. But I think I have said enough to
warn them that before accepting Professor Ward’s versions of my views,
it will be prudent to verify them.
* * * * *
POSTSCRIPT.--I said that I did not propose to discuss Professor Ward’s
own philosophy, and I contented myself with quoting his summary of
it--“Nature is Spirit.” It occurs to me, however, that as showing the
point of view from which his criticisms are made, it may not be amiss
to give readers a rather more specific conception of his philosophy, by
reproducing a laudatory quotation he makes. Here it is:--
“If ‘rational synthesis’ of things is what we seek, it is surely
more reasonable to say with Lotze: ‘What lies beneath all is not a
quantity which is bound eternally to the same limits and compelled
through many diverse arrangements, continuously varied, to
manifest always the very same total. On the contrary, should _the
self-realization of the Idea_ [!] require it, there is nothing to
hinder the working elements of the world being at one period more
numerous and yet more intense; at another period less intense as
well as fewer’” (i., 218). [The italics are mine.]
It is worth remarking that on the opposite page some of my views are
characterized as “astounding feats of philosophical jugglery”!