What Is Life? Its Various Theories.
The question, "What is life?" does not lie within the province of human
reason, the science of logic, or the intuitions of consciousness, to
determine. It furnishes no objective _datum_ on which to predicate
attributes that are either congruent or diverse. It can only be defined as
the coordination of the _vis vitae_ in nature, which is an undisguised
form of reasoning in a circle. We can ascribe to it only such attributes
as are utterly inconceivable in any other concept or object of thought. It
admits of but one attribution, and that embracing an identical
proposition. To say of life that it is "a coördination of action," might
be true as a partial judgment, but not as a comprehensive one; otherwise,
crystallization would fall under its category, which is manifestly an
illicit induction. It allows, therefore, of no possible explication,
analysis, or separate logical predicament. It stands absolutely alone and
apart by itself--a positive, self-subsistent vital principle, or process
of action, which all physiologists agree, for the sake of convenience and
uniformity of expression, in designating as a _power, property, force_,
etc., in nature. Whenever questioned as to its origin the subtlest and
profoundest intellects, in all ages of the world, have returned but one
answer: "I know no possible origin but God"--the great primal source of
all life in the universe.
Among the ancients we find an almost equivalent induction in the phrases,
borrowed by them from the highest antiquity, "_Jupiter est genitor_,"
"_Jupiter est quodcunque vivit_," etc., which, although uninspired
utterances, strike their roots deeply into the _terra incognita_ of
consciousness, wherein we ascribe to God the "issues of life" as a
paramount theological conception. When the ingenious and learned Frenchman
defined life as "the sum of all the functions by which death is resisted,"
he was as conclusively indulging in the _argumentum in circulo_ as if he
had said, "Life is the antithesis of what is not life." This would be as
luminous a definition as that which should make Theism the opposite of
Anti-theism, or the Algebraic statement _x-y_ the antithesis of _x+y_--one
of no definitional value so long as there is no known quantity expressed
in the formula.
To begin with begging the question, and then adroitly whipping the
argument about a pivotal point, as a boy would whip a top, may be amusing
enough to the childish mind, but is manifestly making no more progress in
logic than to substitute an ingenious paraphrase of a term for its real
definition. It is a mere verbal feat at best, without the possibility of
reaching any determinate judgment. It is like some of the half-circular
phrases we are likely to meet with in the categories of modern
materialistic science, such as the "correlated correlates of motion," the
"potentiated potentialities of sky-mist," the "undifferentiated
differentialities of life-stuff," called, by special condescension on the
part of the materialists, "life." All of which is an easy logic, but a
whimsical enough way of putting it.
According to Leibnitz, everything that exists is replete with life, full
of vital activity, if not an actual mass of living individualities. But
this daring hypothesis has ceased to attract the attention it once
received. There are states and conditions of matter in respect to which it
is idle to predicate the _vis vitae_. For the great bulk of our globe is
made up of the highly crystallized and non-fossiliferous rocks, which
neither contain any elementary principle of life, nor exhibit the
slightest trace of vital organism, even to the minutest living speck or
plastid. During all those vast periods of uncomputed time, covering the
world's primeval history, there was an utter absence of life until the
chief upheavals of the outer strata of our globe, now constituting the
principal mountain chains of its well-defined continents, occurred. In
whatever atomic or molecular theories, therefore, we may indulge, in
respect to the original formation of the earth, the utmost stretch of
empirical science can go no further, in the solution of vital problems,
than to touch the threshold of inorganic matter, where, in our backward
survey of nature, vegetable life begins and animal life ends. All beyond
this point must be given up to other "correlates of motion" than those to
which the materialists specifically assign the beginnings of life.
The theory of "panspermism," originating with the Abbé Spallanzani in
modern times, and still stoutly advocated by M. Pasteur and some few
others, is manifestly defective in this,--that it goes beyond the
inorganic limit in assigning vital units to all matter, even to its
elemental principles. It is true that they speak of "pre-existing
germs"--"primordial forms of life"--that are "many million times smaller
than the smallest visible insect." But their assumptions go far beyond
the construction we give to the Bible genesis, which merely asserts that
the germinal principle of life--that of every living thing--is in the
earth, or in "the waters and the earth," which were alone commanded "to
bring forth."
Some of the panspermists have gone so far as to assert that everything
which exists is referable to the _vis vitæ_--to non-corporeal, yet
extended vital units, mere metaphysical points--like Professor Beale's
bioplasts in the finer nerve-reticulations--or living things endowed with
a greater or less degree of perceptive power. This was the assumption of
the great German philosopher, Leibnitz, who carried the panspermic theory
so far as to accept the more fanciful one of "monads"--those invisible,
ideal, and purely speculative units of Plato, which go to make up the
entire universe, extending even to the ultimate elements, or elements of
elements. Leibnitz says: "As it is with the human soul, which sympathizes
with all the varying states of nature--which mirrors the universe--so it
is with the monads universally. Each--and they are infinitely
numerous--is also a mirror, a centre of the universe, a microcosm:
everything that is, or happens, is reflected in each, but by its own
spontaneous power, through which it holds ideally in itself, as in a
germ, the totality of things."
But the specific germ theory advanced in the Bible genesis, is capable of
being taken out of the purely speculative region in which "panspermism"
landed the great German philosopher. It is a simple averment that the
animating principle of life is in the earth; that the germs of all living
things, vegetal and animal alike, are implanted therein, and that they
make their appearance, in obedience to the divine command, whenever and
wherever the necessary environing conditions occur. The fact that nature
still obeys this command is proof that she has the power to do so--that
this indestructible vital principle still animates her breast. Innumerable
experiments, as well as phenomenal facts, attest the truth of this genesis
of life, while the researches of Professor Bastian and other eminent
materialists, made in infusorial and cryptogamic directions, confirm
rather than discredit it. The fact that it appears for the first time in
this ancient Hebrew text can detract nothing from its value as a
scientific statement. Granting that panspermism may rest upon a purely
fanciful and unsubstantial basis, it is but fair to concede that its great
advocates have honestly attempted to explain by it all the vital phenomena
occurring in nature, as M. Pasteur is conclusively attempting to do now.
It is certain that the materialists, who are resolutely antagonizing the
panspermic, as well as all other "vital" theories, have not yet gone so
deeply into elementary substance as to shut off all further investigation
in these directions.[22] Neither the lowest primordial cell, nor the least
conceivable molecule, has yet been reached by the aid of the microscope,
any more than the outermost circle of the heavens has been penetrated by
the aid of the telescope. We must stop somewhere, and when we find a
scientifically formulated statement which embraces all vital phenomena,
and satisfactorily accounts for them all, whether it originally came from
Aristotle, from Plato, or from Moses, is a matter of comparatively slight
moment, so far as the scientific world is concerned. At least, it would
seem so to us. But to talk of the _de novo_ origin of "living matter" as
the result of the dynamic force of molecules--themselves concessively
"dead matter"--is to indulge in quite as fanciful a speculation as the
advocates of the panspermic hypothesis have ever ventured to suggest.
Professor Bastian is forced to go back of his infusorial forms and
fungus-germs to a microscopical "pellicle," from which he admits they are
"evolved." But why evolved? Does not the principle of vitality lie back of
the pellicle, as well as the fungus-germ? How absolutely certain is he
that the extremest verge of microscopic investigation has been attained,
in what he is pleased to designate "primary organic forms?" "Evolution" is
a very potential word, and no one may yet know what boundless stores of
absurd theory and metaphysical nonsense are locked up in it![23] He admits
that "evolution," as embracing the idea of "natural selection," can have
nothing to do with the vast assemblage of infusorial and cryptogamic
organisms, until they assume definitely recurring forms, that is, rise
into species and breed true to nature. Then, he agrees with Mr. Darwin,
that the law of vital polarity or "heredity," as he calls it, may come in
and play its part towards effecting evolution, or variability, in both
animal and vegetal organisms, but not before. Why then should he lug in,
or attempt to lug in, the diverse potentialities of this word "evolution,"
for the purpose of demonstrating the dynamic law governing the
developmental stages of his microscopic pellicle? This, he will agree,
lies far below the point, in primary organism, where specific identity, or
the law of heredity, asserts its full recognition. All below this
developmental point is inconstancy of specific forms, with no line of
ancestry to be traced anywhere.
This, Professor Bastian readily concedes, notwithstanding it cuts the
Darwinian _plexus_ squarely in the middle. He says: "Both Gruithuisen and
Tréviranus agree that the infusoria met with have never presented similar
characters when they have been encountered in different infusions; nor
have they been uniform in the same infusion, when different portions of it
have been _exposed to the incidence of different conditions_. The
slightest variations in the quality or quantity of the materials employed,
are invariably accompanied by the appearance of different organisms--these
being oftentimes strange and peculiar, and unaccompanied by any of the
familiar forms." Other writers of equal eminence in this field of
investigation have not only observed the same characteristics, but
encountered the same difficulties in classification, from the very great
diversity obtaining even in the nearest allied forms. So great is this
diversity, and so multitudinous the different forms, that little certainty
or value can be attached to the classifications already made. Even
Professor O.F. Müller, after he had convinced himself that he had
discovered not less than twelve different species belonging to a single
genus, was subjected to the mortification of seeing Ehrenberg cut them all
down to mere modifications of one and the same species.
We refer to these several statements of fact for the purpose of
emphasizing the true genesis of life as supplemented by "the incidence of
different conditions," on which all vital manifestations depend. The
presence of the germinal principles of life in the earth is emphatically
averred in the Bible genesis. And we have only to connect the doctrine of
"conditional incidence" with this averment, to account for all the vital
phenomena which so profoundly puzzle these gentlemen while prying into the
mysteries of the ephemeromorphic world. Whatever may be the character of
any infusion, or to whatever incidence of conditions it may be subjected,
it will produce _some_ form of life; not because it contains this or that
morphological cell, destructible at a temperature of 100° C--that to which
it is experimentally subjected before microscopic examination,--but
because every organic infusion, whether undergoing the required heat-test
or not, contains vital units--those as indestructible by heat as by
glacial drift--which burgeon forth into life whenever the proper
conditions of environment obtain. The slightest variation, in either the
quantity or quality of the material employed in the infusion, is, as these
eminent microscopists agree, invariably accompanied by the appearance of
different forms of life, just as the slightest change in soil-conditions,
such as that produced by the presence of one species of tree with another
in natural truffle-grounds, will result in the appearance of another and
altogether different plant, as well as truffle tuber.
But the theory which the vitalists are more particularly called upon to
combat is that to which the non-vitalists most rigidly adhere; and we
refer to it, in this connection, that the reader may compare its
complexity and involution of statement and idea with the extreme
simplicity of the biblical genesis, as heretofore presented. We give it in
the exact phraseology employed by Professor Bastian: "Living matter is
formed by, or is the result of, certain combinations and rearrangements
that take place _in invisible colloidal molecules_--a process which is
essentially similar to the mode by which higher organisms are derived from
lower in the pellicle of an organic infusion." This carefully-worded
definition of life, or the origin of "living matter," presents a
hypothetical mode of reasoning which is eminently characteristic of all
materialists. In the stricter definitional sense of the word, there is no
such thing as "living matter" or "dead matter," as we have before claimed.
There are "living organisms" in multitudinous abundance--those resulting
_from_, not _in_, the _vis vitæ_, or the elementary principle of life in
nature--as there are also "dead organisms" in abundance. This
materialistic definition of life, which is not so much as a generic one
even, begins in an absurdity and ends in one. It is agreed that the
"proligerous pellicle" of M. Pouchet, the "plastide particle" of Professor
Bastian, the "monas" of O.F. Müller, the "bioplast" of Professor Beale,
etc., are essentially one and the same thing, except in name. They are
mere moving specks, or nearly spherical particles, which exhibit the first
active movements in organic solutions. They vary in size from the one
hundred-thousandth to the one twenty-thousandth of a second of an inch in
diameter, and appear at first hardly more than moving specks of
semi-translucent mucus. Indeed, Burdach calls them "primordial mucous
layers." But they move, pulsate, swarm into colonies, and act as if they
were guided, not by separate intelligence, but by some master-builder
supervising the whole work of organic structure. This master-builder is
the one "elementary unit of life," which directs the movements of all the
plastide particles, constantly adding to their working force, from the
first primordial mucous layer of the superstructure to the majestic dome
of thought (in the case of man) which crowns the temple of God on
earth.[24]
But this "pellicle" of Professor Bastian is not mere structureless matter,
any more than the "bioplast" of Professor Beale. The fact that they move,
pulsate, work in all directions, shows that they have the necessary organs
with which to work. These organs may be invisible in the field of the
microscope, but that is no proof that they do not exist. Organs are as
essential for locomotion in a plastide particle as in a mastodon or
megatherium, and if the microscope could only give back the proper
response, we should see them, if not be filled with wonder at the
marvellous perfection of their structure. But into whatever divisions or
classifications we may distinguish or generalize the properties of matter,
we can never predicate _vitality_ of it, any more than we can predicate
_intellectuality_. Indeed, "intellectual matter" presents no greater
incongruity or invalidity of conception than "vital matter." These
qualifying terms are applied to the known laws and forces of nature, not
to insensate matter. To assert that life results _from_ "certain
combinations and rearrangements of matter," and not _in_ them, is utterly
to confound cause and effect, or so incongruously mingle them together
that no logical distinction between the two can exist as an object of
perception. Without the _vis vitæ_, or some germinal principle of life,
lying back of these "combinations and rearrangements of matter," and
determining the movements of their constituent molecules, there could be
no vital manifestation, any more than there could be a correlate of a
force without the actual existence of the force itself. [25]
The materialists give the name of "protoplasm" to that primitive
structureless mass of homogeneous matter in which the lowest living
organisms make their appearance. They claim that this generic substance is
endowed with the property or power of producing life _de novo_, or, as
Professor Bastian puts it, of "unfolding new-born specks of living matter"
which subsequently undergo certain evolutional changes; but whether they
die in their experimental flasks, or rise into higher and more potentially
endowed forms of life, it is difficult for those following their diagnoses
to determine. They further claim that the same law of vital manifestation
obtains in organic solutions as in the structureless mass they call
"protoplasm." Both are essentially endowed with the same potentiality of
originating life independently of vital units, or _de novo_, as they more
persistently phrase it. But why speak of _unfolding_ "new-born specks of
living matter?" "To unfold" means to open the folds of something--to turn
them back, get at the processes of their _infoldment_. It implies a
pre-existing something, inwrapped as a germ in its environment. If not a
germ, what is this pre-existing vital something which their language
implies? Is our scientific technology so destitute of definitional
accuracy that they cannot use half a dozen scientific terms without
committing half that number of down-right scientific blunders? "New-born
specks of living matter" is language that a vitalist might possibly use by
sheer inadvertence; but no avowed materialist, like Professor Bastian,
should trip in this definitional way.
"Living matter," _born_ of what? Certainly not of _dead_ matter. Death
quickens nothing into life, not even the autonomous moulds of the grave.
It implies the absence of all vitality--a state or condition of matter in
which all vital functions have been suspended, have utterly ceased, if,
indeed, they ever existed. It behooves the materialists to use language
with more precision and accuracy than this. "Dead matter," whatever the
phrase may imply, can bear nothing, produce nothing, quicken nothing. The
pangs of death once past, the pangs of life cease. Nor is there any birth
from unquickened matter. Animals _bear_ young, trees _bear_ fruit, but
force _produces_ results. What then quickens protoplasmic matter? Neither
vital force, nor vegetative force, if we are to credit the materialists.
They would scorn to postulate such a theory, or accept any such absurd
remnant of the old vitalistic school. It is rather "molecular force"--a
physical, not a vital unit--that gives us these "new-born specks of living
matter." [26] This is what they would all assert at once, in their
enthusiasm to enlighten us on a new terminology.
But "molecular force" fails to give us any additional enlightenment on the
subject we are investigating. It is even less satisfactory than "atomic
force," or "elementary force"--that which may be considered as inhering in
the elementary particles from which both atoms and molecules are derived.
And since both the ultimate atom and the ultimate molecule lie beyond
microscopic reach, the assumption that vital phenomena are the result of
either molecular force or atomic force, rests upon no other basis than
that of imaginary hypothesis. To postulate any such theory of life, is
going beyond the limits of experimental research and inquiry, and hence
adopting an unscientific method. At what point the smallest living
organism is launched into existence--started on its life-journey--no one
is confident enough to assert. The materialist is just as dumb on this
subject as the vitalist; and the only advantage he can have over his
antagonist is to stand on this extreme verge of attenuated matter, and
deny the existence of any force beyond it. The postulation by him of
molecular force at this point, is virtually an abandonment of the whole
controversy. He ceases to be a materialist the moment he passes the
visible boundaries of matter, in search of anything like "undifferentiated
sky-mist" beyond it.
All that we definitely know is that certain conditions of protoplasmic
matter, of organic solutions, of soil-constituents, etc., produce certain
forms of life; and, in the case of solutions, certain low forms of life:
But whether the lower rise, by any insensible gradations, into the higher,
more complex, and definitely expressed forms of life, is altogether
unknown. That any such gradations can be traced from the lowest vital
unit, in the alleged collocations of molecules, is not yet claimed. These
primordial collocations, like the lowest living organisms, lie beyond the
microscopic aids to vision, so that the ultimate genesis of life remains
as much a mystery as ever--becomes, in fact, a mere speculative
hypothesis. And when it comes to this sort of speculation, the materialist
is just as much in the dark as the vitalist, and neither can have any
advantage over the other, except as the one may adopt the analytic, and
the other the synthetic method.
This is the materialistic argument covering the _de novo_ origin of living
organisms:--There is no greater microscopical evidence, they assert, that
these organisms come from pre-existing invisible germs or vital units,
than that crystals are produced in a similar manner--that is, come from
pre-existing invisible germs of crystals. But this is overlooking all
generic distinction in respect to processes or modes of action. Crystals
are inorganic matter which _form_, do not _grow_. They are mere
symmetrical arrangements, not organic growths; and are produced by some
law akin to chemical affinity, acting on the molecules of their
constituent mass. They possess no vital function. They show no beginning
or cessation of life. But, once locked up in their geometric solids, they
remain permanently enduring forms--concessively inorganic, not
functionally-endowed, matter. To speak, therefore, of the "germs of
crystals," is using language that has no appreciable significance to us.
Germs are embryonic, and imply a law of growth--a process of assimilation,
not of mere aggregation.
But, at the risk of being tedious, let us extend this argument of the
materialists a little further: The only difference, they will still
insist, between the preëxisting germs of crystals and plants--or the only
difference essentially worth noticing--is that crystalline particles of
matter are endowed with much less potentiality of undergoing diversified
forms and structural changes than the more highly favored vital particles,
such as the proligerous pellicle, the bioplast, the plastide, etc. The one
represents mere crystallizable matter, the other the more complex
colloidal or albuminoid substance, or that capable of producing a much
greater number of aggregates. The analogies, they concede, end here. But
the difference is world-wide when we come to processes--the true
experimental test in all classification. Crystallizable substances
_crystallize_--that is all. They pass into a fixed and immovable state,
and mostly into one as enduring as adamant; while colloidal or albuminoid
matter (laboratory protoplasm) takes on no fixed forms--only those that
are ephemeral, merely transitory. This is so marked a feature, in respect
to all the primordial forms of life, that Professor Bastian gives them the
more distinctive name of "ephemeromorphs," in place of _infusoria_. But
all these primordial forms grow--develop into vital activity. Not so with
a solitary crystal. Everywhere the statical unit _forms_, the dynamical
unit _grows_; the one aggregates, the other assimilates; the one
solidifies, the other opens up into living tissue; the one rests in the
embrace of eternal silence, the other breaks the adamantine doors, and
makes nature resonant with praise.
Great stress is laid by the materialists on the changeability of certain
microscopic forms, and the startling metamorphoses they apparently undergo
in different infusions, especially those forms having developmental
tendencies towards fungi and certain low forms of algæ. They attribute
their different modes of branching, articulation, segmentation of
filaments, etc., both to intrinsic tendencies and extrinsic causes, the
latter depending, no doubt, in a great measure upon the chemical changes
constantly taking place in their respective infusions. These intrinsic
tendencies, they would have us believe, depend upon the dynamic force of
molecules, rather than any vital unit, or even change in elementary
conditions. But "Dynamism" simply implies that force inheres in, or
appertains to, all material substance, without specifically designating
either the quantity or quality of the inhering force. If these
materialists, therefore, use the terms "dynamic force," in this
connection, in the sense in which we use vital force, or in the sense in
which they use "statical force" as applied to the formation of crystals,
in contradistinction from "dynamical force" as applied to living
organisms, we have no special objection to urge against this particular
formula. It presents no such formidable antagonism as the vitalists would
expect to encounter from them.
M. Dutrochet is approvingly quoted by Professor Bastian, as asserting that
he could produce different genera of mouldiness (low mycological forms)
_at will_, by simply employing different infusions. This is unquestionably
true, with certain limitations. And the chief limitation is as to _his_
(M. Dutrochet's) will. He might "will," for instance, to plant one field
with corn and another with potatoes, but if the husbandman he employed to
do the planting should happen to plant the one crop where he had willed to
plant the other, and corn should grow where potatoes were planted, and
_vice versa_, then he might be said to have produced corn _at will_. And
so of his infusions. No change in their conditions enabled him to produce
one species, much less a genus, of mouldiness in preference to another, by
any change in the infusions employed by him. The power which implants life
in the mycological world, implants it in every other world, from that
without beginning to that without end. And this implanted life is quite as
complete in one form as another,--
"As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns."
All that the materialists can claim respecting man's agency in the
production of life is, that he may take advantage of the uniform laws of
nature, so far as they are known to him, planting seeds here, changing
chemical conditions there, using different infusions in his experimental
flasks,--organic or inorganic, as he may choose--and then await the
action of these uniform laws. He will find them operative everywhere, and
if he studies them deeply enough, he will find that they are not so much
the laws of nature as they are the laws of nature's God.
Professor Bastian thinks he has conclusive evidence that what he calls
"new-born specks of living matter" are produced _de novo_, that is,
independently of any conceivable germ or germinal principle of life
implanted in nature. But he confounds this implanted principle of life
with the living organism it produces. His morphological cells, as well as
plastide particles, are among these living organisms, as is conclusively
shown by his own experiments. These all perish in his super-heated flasks.
But the vital principle that produced them--that which becomes germinal
under the proper conditional incidences--he can no more destroy by
experimentation than he can create a new world or annihilate the old one.
His flask experiments, therefore, prove nothing; and all this talk about
_de novo_ production is the sheerest scientific delusion. For, were it
possible to destroy every plant, tree, shrub, blade of grass, weed, seed,
underground root, nut, and tuber to-day, the earth would teem with just as
diversified a vegetation as ever to-morrow. A few trees, like the gigantic
conifers of the Pacific slope, might not make their appearance again, and
some plants might drop out of the local flora; but the _Pater omnipotens
Æther_ of Virgil, would descend into the bosom of his joyous spouse (the
earth), and, great himself, mingle with her great body, in all the
prodigality, profusion, and wealth of vegetation as before.[27]
But these defiant challengers of the vitalists, who refuse us even the
right to assume the existence of a special "vital force" in nature, are
anything but consistent in their logical deductions. For while they
resolutely deny the invasion of vital germs in their experimental flasks,
they talk as flippantly of the "germs of crystals," and their presence in
saline and other solutions, as if there were no scientific formula more
satisfactorily generalized than that establishing their existence. Even
Professor Bastian speaks of "germs," in a general sense, as if they
thronged the earth, air, water, and even the stratified rocks, in
countless and unlimited numbers. But we fail to see that any of his
accurately obtained results determine their exclusion from the
experimental media employed by him for that purpose. His unit of value is
a morphological cell, a derivative organism rather than a primary vital
unit; and all organisms are, as we have before said, destructible by heat.
Professor Agassiz is pretty good authority for doubting the existence of
such a cell. The difficulty of assigning to it any definitional value is,
that it lies too near the ultimate implications of matter--those shadowy
and inexplicable confines not yet reached--to admit of any scientific
explication necessarily resting on objective data. If they mean by "germs"
primary organic cells, then none exist in their super-heated infusions,
and they are logical enough in rejecting the idea of their invasion. But
in assuming the cell to be the ultimate unit of value, is where they trip
in attribution, and stumble upon a partial judgment only.
The only value attaching to their theory of crystalline germs is, that it
conclusively establishes the law of uniformity by which all structural
forms are determined, whether they originate in organic infusions or
inorganic solutions--in protoplasm or protoprism. The crystalline system
presents no variability in types, but a rigid adherence to specific forms
of definitely determined value. Whatever geometrical figure any particular
crystal assumed at first, it has continued to assume ever since, and will
forever assume hereafter. As a primary conception of the "Divine
Intendment" (to speak after the manner of Leibnitz) it can neither change
itself, nor become subject to any law of change, or variability, from
eternally fixed types. And this is as demonstrably true of all living
types, after reaching the point of heredity, as of the countless
crystalline forms that go to make up the principal bulk of our planet. In
this light, and as affording this conclusive induction, the crystalline
argument of the materialists has its value.
The materialists should not too mincingly chop logic over the validity of
their own reasoning. If they force upon us their conclusions respecting
statical aggregates, or crystalline forms, let them accept the inductions
that inevitably follow in the case of dynamical aggregates, or living
organisms. Beggars of conditions should not be choosers of conditions,
nor should they be al lowed to dodge equivalent judgments where the
validity of one proposition manifestly rests upon that of another. If
they insist upon the presence of a chemical unit, or, worse still, a
crystalline "germ" or unit, in the case of statical aggregations, they
are effectually estopped from denying the presence of vital units in
dynamical aggregations. And if they further force upon us the conviction
that the process of aggregation, when once determined, remains in the one
case, eternally fixed and certain, they should not be permitted to turn
round and insist that, in the other case, there is nothing fixed and
certain, but all is variability, change, uncertainty of specific forms.
If vital units have only a hypothetical existence, then chemical units,
statical units, and morphological units, should fall into the same
categories of judgment.
A great deal of needless ingenuity has been wasted, both by the vitalists
and materialists, in formulating impossible definitions of life--in
attempts to tell us what life is. But Mr. Herbert Spencer is believed, by
his many admirers, to have hit upon the precise explanatory phrases
necessary to convey its true definitional meaning. He defines it as "_the
continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations_." This
definition, when first formulated, was received by all the materialists of
Europe with the wildest enthusiasm. It was absolutely perfect. All the
phenomenal facts of life fitted into it, as one box, in a nest of them,
fitted into another. The universal world was challenged to show that any
other phenomenal fact than the one of life would fit into this prodigious
formula of Mr. Spencer. The London "Times" tried its hand on it, but only
in a playful way. It said: "All the world, or at least all living things,
are nothing but large boxes containing an infinite number of little boxes,
one within the other, and the least and tiniest box of all contains the
germ,"--the elementary principle of life. But this was hardly a legitimate
characterization. A nest of boxes presents no idea of "continuous
adjustment," nor are the internal relations of one box adjusted to the
external relations of another. The definition is really that of a piece of
working machinery--any working machinery--and was designed to cover Mr.
Spencer's theory of "molecular machinery" as run by molecular force.
But the earth presents the most perfect adjustment of internal relations
to those that are external, and it continuously presents them. Even the
upheaval of its fire-spitting mountains affords the highest demonstration
of the adjustment of its inner terrestrial forces to those that are purely
external; and much more does it show the adjustment of its internal to its
external relations. There is a continuous adaptation of means to ends, of
causes to effects, of adjustments to re-adjustments, in respect to the
characteristics of the earth's surface--its physical configuration, the
distribution of its fluids and solids, its fauna and flora, its
hygrometric and thermometric conditions, its ocean, wind, and
electro-magnetic currents, and even its meteorological manifestations--all
showing a continuous adjustment of interior to exterior conditions or
relations. The earth should, therefore, fall under the category of "life,"
according to Herbert Spencer's definitional formula. And so should an
automatic dancing-jack that is made to run by internal adjustments to
external movements or manifestations. There are any number of Professor
Bastian's "ephemoromorphs" that do not live half as long as one of these
automatic dancing-jacks will run, and so long as they run, the adjustment
of their internal to their external relations is continuous.
The success of Mr. Spencer's definition of "life" encouraged Professor
Bastian to try his hand at it, with this definitional result: "Life," he
says, "is an unstable collocation of Matter (with a big M), capable of
growing by selection and interstitial appropriation of new matter (what
new matter?) which then assumes similar qualities, of continually varying
in composition in response to variations of its Medium (another big M),
and which is capable of self-multiplication by the separation of portions
of its own substance."
It shall not be our fault if the reader fails to understand this
definition--to untwist this formidable formula of life. And we can best
aid him by grammatically analyzing its structure. And,
1. "Life is capable of growing." We are glad to know this. As a vitalist
it enables us to take a step towards the front--gets us off the "back
seat" to which we were summarily ordered at the outset of this inquiry. We
let its "unstable collocation" pass for what it is worth, and stick to our
grammatical analysis.
2. "Life grows--is capable of doing something." This assurance positively
encourages us.
3. "It grows by selection and interstitial appropriation." This is still
more encouraging. It emboldens us to take a second step forward. Life, we
feel, is increasing in potentiality.
4. "By appropriation it enables _new matter to assume similar qualities
to old matter_." This makes us more confident than ever; we take another
step forward--are half disposed to take two of them. Life is getting to
be almost a "potentiated potentiality," to adopt the style of
materialistic phrases.
5. "It causes matter _to continually vary in composition._" Bravo! we
unhesitatingly take two steps forward on the strength of this most
comforting assurance. Life is assuredly getting the upperhand of
Matter (with a big M.) It is no longer a mere "undiscovered correlate
of motion"--a hypothetical slave to matter only. It wrestles with
it--throws it into the shade. We involuntarily take several more
steps forward.
6. "Life is capable of self-multiplication"--has almost a creative
faculty. Here we interject a perfect bravura of "bravoes," and,
stepping boldly up to the front, demand of Professor Bastian to "throw
up the sponge," take a back seat, and there--formulate us a new
definition of "life."
But our London University materialist is not entirely satisfied with his
own definition, or at least with the moral effect of it. He thinks that
all these attempts to define life as a non-entity only, tend to keep up
the demoralizing idea that it is an actual entity. We entirely agree with
him in this conclusion. The infelicity and entire inconclusiveness of the
definition he has vouchsafed us can hardly have any other effect. He sees
this himself, and hence this foot-note to his great work on
Ephemeromorphs: "Inasmuch as no life can exist without an organism, of
which it is the phenomenal manifestation, so it seems comparatively
useless to attempt to define this phenomenal manifestation alone--and,
what is worse, such attempts tend to keep up the idea that life is an
independent entity."
It may be objected that our grammatical analysis of the professor's
definition of life is unfair, since he manifestly intended that it should
cover a "living thing," and not "life" as an abstract, term. Our reply to
this is, that he makes no distinction between the two. Life, with him, is
simply a phenomenal manifestation. The two are correlative terms; so that
his definition of the one must necessarily be the definition of the other,
either as an identical or partial judgment. But let us take his definition
entirely out of its abstract sense, and run it into the concrete. The able
pathological anatomist of the London University college is a "living
thing." He is, therefore, presumably a phenomenal manifestation. He is
capable of growing, by "selection and interstitial appropriation," in
reputation at least, if not in the direction of "an independent entity."
His work of twelve hundred pages, covering his laborious delvings into the
ephemeromorphic world, is conclusive on this point. As a phenomenal
manifestation alone, any attempt to define either him or his professional
labors, may be worse than useless, since it would tend to keep up the idea
that he is an actual London entity. We are very confident that he is not a
London non-entity, but are willing to agree that he is either the one or
the other. The flaw that we are after lies in his interstitial logic, not
in the hallucination in which he indulges respecting nonentities. His
assumption that life cannot exist without an organism, of which it is the
phenomenal manifestation, is what we propose to deal with.
Now, directly the reverse of this proposition is what is true. An organism
cannot exist without life or an independent vital principle in nature, any
more than celestial bodies can be held in their place independently of
gravitation. The vital principle that organizes must precede the thing
organized or the living organism, as the great formative principle of the
universe (call it the will of God, gravitation or what you may) must have
existed before the first world-aggregation. In logic, we must either
advance or fall back--insist upon precedence being given to cause over
effect, or deny their relative connection altogether. The organism is the
phenomenal manifestation, not the vital principle which organizes it. To
say that there can be no _manifestation_ of life without an organism is
true; but to assume that the vital principle which organizes is dependent
on its own organism for its manifestation is absurd. It would be the
lesser fallacy to deny the phenomenal fact altogether, and insist that
cause and effect are mere intellectual aberrations, or such absurd mental
processes as find no correlative expression in nature, as that embodying
the idea of either an antecedent or a consequent.
"Plato lived." He ate, he drank, he talked divinely. He was the occupant
of an admirably constructed life-mansion; one that St. Paul would have
looked upon as "the temple of God," and all the world would have
recognized as a god-like temple. His head was a study for the Greek
chisel; none was ever more perfectly modeled, or artistically executed.
All agreed in this. And yet it was not the _habitat_ but the _habitant_
that attracted the admiration of the Greek mind; enkindled its highest
enthusiasm; drew all the schools of philosophy, about him at once. It was
the lordly occupant of the temple, the indwelling _Archeus_, presiding
over all the organic phenomena and directing all the dynamic powers
therein, which was so profoundly present in the living Plato. Even
Professor Haeckel, of the famous University of Jena, would not deny this,
with all that his new terms "ontogeny" and "phylogeny" may imply. When
potential life passed over into actual life in the individual Plato, it
was not the pabulum that assimilated the man, but the man the pabulum. If
this were not so, then the mere potentiality of growing, as in the case
of plants and animals, would be all there is to distinguish the
phenomenal manifestation of a Plato from that of a mole or a
cabbage-stalk. In other words, if the animating principle of life--or, as
the Bible has it, the "animating soul of life"--is not what manifests
itself in material embodiment, but the reverse, what can Professor
Haeckel mean by his new term "phylogeny," which ought to cover the lines
of descent in all organic beings?
If it be a question of mere pabulum, it is altogether _mal posé_. Pabulum
is nothing without a preëxisting "something" to dispose of it. It is not
so much as a jelly-mass breakfast for one of Professor Haeckel's
"protamoebæ;" for if it were served up in advance, there would be none of
his little non-nucleated jelly-eaters to partake of it, much less any of
his "protogenes." As the famous Mrs. Glass would say, in her "hand-book of
cookery," if you want a delightful "curry," first catch your hare. But our
ingenious professor of Jena dispenses with both the hare and the curry, in
serving up his pabulum to the "protamoebæ." The improvident pabulum
"evolves" its own eaters, and then, spider-like, is eviscerated by them,
as was Actaeon by his own hounds. As Life, therefore, begins in the
tragedy of Mount Cithæron, it is to be hoped it will end in the delights
of Artemis and her bathing nymphs.