Force-Correlation, Differentiation and Other Life Theories.
Among the more startling, if not decidedly brilliant, vital theories which
have been advanced within the last few years, is that which makes life an
"undiscovered correlative of force." Those who have the reputation of
being the profoundest thinkers and delvers in the newly-discovered realm
of Force-correlation in Europe, and who have more or less modestly
contributed to that reputation themselves, have evidently thought to
eclipse, if not to entirely throw into the shade, the great exploit of
Leverrier, in pointing out the exact place in their empirical heavens
where the superior optics of some future observer shall behold, in all its
glory, this "undiscovered correlative of force," which they have indicated
as lying within the higher possibilities and potentialities of matter.
Precisely what they mean by this undiscovered correlate, is what puzzles
us quite as much to determine as it does the materialists to explain. Were
they to define life as an "undiscovered force" simply, their definition
would manifestly lack in brilliancy what it would conclusively make up in
precision and accuracy of definitional statement. But such a poor
metaphrastic and half-circular exposition of vital force would never
answer the necessities of that profounder profundity required for the
success of modern scientific treatises. Hence the interpolation of this
"correlative" of theirs. Let us ascertain, if we can, what it means, since
they are so chary of informing us themselves.
A "correlate" of a thing--any thing--simply implies the reciprocal
relation it bears to some other thing. As a cognate term it expresses
nothing, can express nothing, but reciprocity of relationship, such as
father to son, brother to sister, uncle to aunt, nephews to nieces, etc.
As applied to vital force, it means nothing more nor less than that this
particular force stands in some sort of relationship to the other forces
of nature, or, as they would have us believe, the _material_ forces of
nature. And the simple strength or potentiality of this relationship is
what makes all the difference between the severally related forces of the
universe, since it would be as impossible to differentiate a fixed
relationship as to change the nature of vital units. But whether vital
force, as a distinct correlate, is paternal or filial, brotherly or
sisterly, avuncular or amital in its relationship, is not stated. The
scientific formula, however, may be stated thus: As A (chemical force) is
to B (molecular force) so is C (a third known force) to _x_ (the vital or
unknown force); so that, by multiplying the antecedents and consequents
together, and eliminating the value of _x_, we may mathematically obtain
the value of vital force.
But to eliminate the value of _x_ is what troubles them. Herbert Spencer
has tried his hand at it, but failed to express life under any higher
correlation than "molecular force;" nor can he definitely inform us
whether either force is third or fourth cousin to the other. But he
manifestly regards their relationship as constituting either a very
attractive or highly repulsive force. In his vexation at not finding the
value of _x_, he is driven from mathematical to mechanical biology, and
gives us this new definitional value of life--that singularly
contumacious quantity which so persistently refuses to be eliminated in
scientific equations: "Life is molecular machinery worked by molecular
force." But as Professor Beale has utterly demoralized, if not
demolished, this machinery, in his recent treatise on "The Mystery of
Life," we will spare it any further blows, and proceed to the
consideration of "molecular force."
Before we proceed however, to the consideration of this force, let us
definitely understand the meaning of the terms we shall be called upon
to use. We can have no difficulty in understanding the meaning of
"molecular attraction," or that force acting immediately on the
integrant molecules or particles of a body, as distinguished from the
attraction of gravitation which acts at unlimited distances. But when it
comes to ascribing other and higher manifestations of power to
molecules, such as have not been scientifically shown to exist, we must
feel our way with caution, and demand of these pretentious molecules, or
rather of their materialistic backers, a reason for the faith, or rather
force, that is in them.
It is agreed by all physicists, as well as chemists, that a "molecule" is
the smallest conceivable quantity of a simple or compound substance, as an
"atom" is the smallest conceivable quantity of an element which enters
into combination with other elements to form material substance. For
instance, the smallest conceivable quantity of water is a molecule, while
the smallest conceivable quantity of either of the two elements of which
water is composed, is an atom. In every molecule of water, therefore,
there are three elementary atoms, two of hydrogen and one of oxygen. And
since a molecule, as a general rule, contains two or more atoms, and may
contain many of them, why not predicate dynamic force of the atoms, which
lie one step nearer the elementary forces of nature? For the mightiest
forces of nature lie in these elements, when forced into unnatural
alliances, or chained up in durance vile. It is in the elements of matter,
and not in its molecules, that this tremendous dynamic force resides. Man,
knowing this, harnesses them into his service, first by forcing them into
unnatural alliances, as in the case of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre,
and then successfully pitting them in conflict against the rocks and the
general inertia of matter. To charge all the destructive work they do on
the innocent and harmless molecules, which are two steps removed from the
actual force expended, is drawing conclusions from the sheerest
hypothetical data. It is the office of "molecular force," if there is any
meaning to the term beyond what is expressed by "molecular attraction," to
conserve matter--bind rocks together, not rend them in sunder.
If the dynamic forces of nature lie pent up in the molecules, then man
must array molecular force against molecular force in order to rend rocks
and tear mountains in sunder. This theory of molecular force, as extended
to vital physics in the force-doctrine of life, is irreconcilably at war
with the principal phenomena of life, and should be classed with the other
undiscovered correlates of force, which Professor Beale speaks of as "the
fictions of a mechanical imagination." The truth is that these much abused
and much slandered molecules are the most innocent and harmless things in
nature. They never become destructive unless some other force than that
inhering in themselves drags them into its service and hurls them along a
devastating path. Of themselves, they are the very quintessence of
quiessence in the universe, and, when formed in nature's laboratory, at
once seek quiet and loving companionship with kindred molecules, and
retain it forever afterwards. The idea that they should break away from
their loving molecular embrace, and, by any process of differentiation or
constructive agency of their own, seek an alliance with some living
dog-germ in order to be built up into living dog-tissue, presents about as
perverse and wayward an impulse on the part of matter as can well be
imagined by the scientific mind. That the dog-germ should seek to get hold
of, and differentiate them, we can well understand. The Circean witchery
and enticement is all on the part of the dog-germ, not in the inclination
of the molecules.
If there is any truth in this molecular-force-theory of life, it is about
time for us to discard some of the old categories respecting matter,
motion, and life, and substitute new ones in their place. In the
multiplicity of new scientific terms constantly springing up for
recognition in these days, there ought to be no difficulty in expressing
the true categories, and assigning to them their proper definitional
value. To include physical force, chemical force, molecular force, and
vital force all under one and the same category, and then interpret their
several modes of action on any theory of force-correlation, is not
emancipating language from the gross thraldom into which their "molecular
machinery" has driven it. Besides, there is moral force, mental force, the
force of will, the force of reason, the force of honesty, the force of
fraud, etc., and any number of other forces, all possessing more or less
impetus or momentum, and capable of binding or coercing persons and
things, in all their diversified relations, correlations, incidences,
coincidences, affinities, antagonisms, and so on through an interminable
chapter of interchangeable predications. All these different expressions
of force are to be tethered together--definitionally bound hand and
foot--under the one explanatory head of "force-correlation." We protest
against the labor of thus unifying all the natural forces of the universe,
even if it were practicable under scientific methods.
But Professor Tyndall denies that "molecular groupings" and "molecular
motions" explain anything--account for anything--in the way of explicating
life-manifestations, or determining what life is.[31] And it would be
difficult to cite a stronger and more determined materialist as authority
on the point we are considering. He says: "If love were known to be
associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of the
brain, and hate with the left-handed, we should remain as ignorant as
before, as to the cause of motion." But there is no proof that the
molecules of the brain manifest any other motions than those necessary for
keeping up the normal condition of health and vital activity in the brain
itself. No one can be certain that he has seen these molecules in a state
of mental activity; for where portions of the human brain have been
exposed to microscopic examination, even in perfect states of
consciousness on the part of those whose brains have been laid bare, there
can be no certainty that the molecular action, if any, is referable to one
set of movements more than another. And even in the case of animalcules,
as seen in the object glass of the microscope, there is no absolute
certainty that their quick, darting or jerking movements are due to any
life-manifestation, as heretofore assumed. Some quite as well defined
forms are entirely motionless, and if all were so, it would be idle to
predicate vitality of them.[32] These infinitessimal and constantly
varying forms, many of them not the one hundred-thousandth part of an inch
in length, to say nothing of their other dimensions, may owe their
oscillations, wave movements, darting and other manifestations, and even
their molecular arrangements and rearrangements, to other causes than
those strictly "vital." And it should be borne in mind that their actual
movements are just as much exaggerated under the microscope as their real
dimensions. But as they make their appearance in organic infusions only,
they are presumably vital organisms rather than fomentative or mere
filamentous yeast-manifestations.
Professor Huxley, while conceding that molecular changes may take place
under environing life-conditions, or in protoplasmic matter, denies that
the "primordial cells" possesses in any degree the characteristics of a
"machine," nor can they undergo any differentiating process by which the
character of their manifestations can be changed. And he even denies to
them the poor right to originate or in any way modify their own plasma. He
says: "They are no more the producers of vital phenomena, than the shells
scattered in orderly line along the sea-beach are the instruments by which
the gravitative force of the moon acts upon the ocean. Like these, the
cells mark only where the vital tides have been, and how they have acted."
This is undoubtedly true of all cells in which the vital or functional
office has ceased, as in the case of Professor Beale's "formed matter."
The cells are the result of the vital principle that lies behind them, and
simply indicate where life exists, or has manifestly ceased to exist.
Where the vital currents have ceased to flow, the wreck of primordial
cells is quite as wide and disastrous as where millions of sea-shells have
been strewn along a desolated and storm-swept sea-beach. They all come,
both the cells and shells, from the preëxisting vital units, or
determinate germs, that fall into their own incidences of movement,
without any concurrence of physical conditions beyond their own inherent
tendency to development. For "conditions" do not determine life; they only
favor its manifestation.
But some of the materialists claim that what we call "vital units," or
invisible, indestructible germs,[33] are at best only "physical
relations;" that they have nothing more than a hypothetical existence,
without any independent recognizable quality justifying our conclusions
respecting them. But may not this identical language be retortively
suggested in the case of their "correlates of force?" What more than a
hypothetical existence have they? Certainly their enthusiasm to get rid of
all vital conditions or manifestations, is quite as marked a feature in
their speculations respecting life as any enthusiasm we have shown in the
verification of vital phenomena, on the established law of cause and
effect. They insist upon this law in the case of statical aggregates, and
even assign absolute identity of attributes; but when it comes to
dynamical aggregates, they fall back on partial identity only, and deny
the presence of the law altogether.
Nor are they any more felicitous in their treatment of other points in
controversy. In speaking of his "plastide particles," Professor Bastian,
the most defiant challenger of vitalistic propositions now living, says:
"Certain of these particles, through default of _necessary conditions,_
never actually develop into higher modes of being." Here he makes the
absence of "necessary conditions" the cause of non-development, while he
stoutly denies that the presence of such "conditions" give rise to the
development of a pre-existing vital unit. And yet, strange to say, he
speaks of the elemental origin of "living matter" as "having probably
taken place on the surface of our globe since the far-remote period when
such matter was first engendered." But how his "sum-total of external
conditions," acting upon _dead_ matter, can "engender" _living_ matter, is
one of those "related heterogenetic phenomena" which he does not
condescend to explain. It is by this sort of scientific verbiage that he
gets rid of the pre-existing vital principle, or germinal principle of
life, which the biblical genesis declares to be in the earth itself.
To be entirely consistent with himself, he should deny the existence of
this germinal principle in the seeds of plants themselves, and insist upon
the sum-total of external conditions as the cause of all
life-manifestations, in the vegetal as in the animal world. There can be
no inherent tendency, he should insist, in the seed itself towards
structural development, but only external conditions acting upon "dead
matter," in heterogentic directions. The shooting down of the radicle or
undeveloped root, and the springing up of the plumule or undeveloped
stalk, is accordingly due to no vital principle in the seed, but to the
complexity or entanglement of the molecules wrapped up in their
integumentary environment. And this, or some similar fortuitous
entanglement of molecules, should account for all life-manifestations, as
well as all life-tendencies, in nature. These molecular entanglements
should, therefore, be infinite in number, as well as in fortuitous
complexity, to account for all the myriad forms of life "engendered from
dead matter" in the material universe.
For if there is any one thing that the materialists insist upon more
resolutely than another, it is the fortuitousness of nature--the
happening by chance of whatever she does. Formerly it used to be the
"fortuitous concourse of atoms;" now it is the "fortuitous aggregate of
molecules." By what accidental or fortuitous happening the atoms have
dropped out of their scientific categories, and the molecules have been
advanced to their commanding place in _absolute accidentalness_, is one
of those unassignable causes in which they apparently so much delight. We
can only account for it on the supposition that they have all become
worshippers of that blind and accidental Greek goddess, who bore the horn
of Amalthea and plentifully endowed her followers with a wealth of
language and other much-coveted gifts, but not with the most desirable
knack at disposing of them.
The true cause of vital phenomena manifestly depends on these two
conditions--the presence of the specific vital unit, and the necessary
environing plasma, or nutrient matter, for its primary development.
Without the presence of both of these conditions, or conditioning
incidences, there can be no life-manifestation anywhere. And we do not see
that anything is gained, even in the matter of scientific nomenclature, by
merely substituting "molecular force" for "vital force," in the
explication of vital phenomena. Even granting that molecular changes do
take place during the development of the vital units in their necessary
plasmic environment; it by no means follows that these changes are not
dependent on the vital principle _as it acts_, rather than on the
molecules _as they act_,[34] The higher force should always subordinate
the lower in all metamorphic, as well as other processes, of nature. It is
the vital principle that differentiates matter--the aggregate of
molecules--not matter differentiating the vital principle. No "molécules
organiques" can ever differentiate an ape-unit into a man-unit, any more
than Professor Tyndall can fetch a Plato out of mere sky-mist. Once an
ape-unit, always an ape-unit; once a man-unit, eternally a man-unit.
Let the vitalists stick to this proposition--this eternally fixed _unit_
as "_une idée dans l'entendement de Dieu," _ (to use a better French
expression than English)--and they can fight the materialists off their
own ground anywhere. The one sublime verity of the universe is that
"life exists," and that it has existed from all eternity _as possible_
in the Divine mind, and in the Divine mind alone. If materialistic
science is disposed to butt its head against this impregnable
proposition, it can do so. The proposition will stand, whatever may
happen to the inconsiderate head.
For science may press her devotees into as many different pursuits as
there are starting-points to an azimuth circle, and command them to search
and find out the ultimate causes of things in the universe, but the
forever narrowing circle in one direction, and the forever widening one in
the other, would utterly baffle all their attempted research. Whether they
descended into the microscopic world, with its myriad-thronged conditions
of life, or passed upward and outward, in _Sirius-_distances, to the
irresolvable nebulæ, where other and perhaps brighter stars might burst
upon their view--gleaming coldly and silently down the still enormous
fissures and chasms in the heavens--the result would be the same. Wider
and wider fields of observation might open upon their view, as the stellar
swarms thickened and the power of human vision failed, but the
uranological expedition would return no wiser than when it started, and
Science would still be confronted with the same illimitability of space,
the same infinitude of matter, and the same incomprehensibility of the
world-arranging intelligence that lies beyond. For He who hath garnished
the heavens by his spirit--who divideth the sea with his power, and
hangeth the earth upon nothing--"_holdeth back the face of his throne and
spreadeth his cloud upon it_."
What if, in one direction, we should find those inconceivably small
specks, or mere bioplastic points, which we call "living matter," or, in
the other direction, those inconceivably vast world-forming masses which
we call "dead matter," who shall say that "the secret places of the Most
High" are not hidden from us, or that when the spirit of God first moved
through these vast fissures and chasms in the heavens upon the face of all
matter, there was not imparted to it that "animating principle of life" of
which the biblical genesis speaks, and which we everywhere see manifesting
itself in nature? Surely this inquiry is not one to be superciliously set
aside by the materialists, after the failure of their uranological
expedition, on the ground that it does not furnish food enough for
scientific contemplation, without such physiological fancies as their
specialists have been giving us in the shape of force-correlations and
molecular theories of life.
But speaking of the higher forces as subordinating the lower, suggests
that there should be something more definitely explained regarding the
hypothesis of "differentiation," on which Mr. Herbert Spencer hangs so
much of his mathematical faith in the true explication of vital
phenomena. The term "differentiation" is not so formidable as it might
seem to the general reader at first sight. As applied to physiological
problems it should have the same determinate value, in expressing
functional differences, as in the higher operations of mathematics.
Nothing can, of course, differentiate itself, nor can any two things
differentiate each other, even when functionally allied. The actual
coëfficient sought is the difference effected, in functional value, in
one of two independent variables. For all formulæ in differentiation are
constructed on the hypothesis that only one of two variables suffers
change. The differential coëfficient has yet to be determined which shall
express the developmental changes in two variables at once. When,
therefore, we attempt to extend the formulæ of differentiation to plant
and animal life, we are confronted by a very formidable difficulty at the
outset--the impossibility of determining an invariable coëfficient for
any two variables. Besides, all attempts at differentiating an ape-unit
into anything else than an ape-unit would be as impossible as to multiply
or divide cabbages by turnips, or sparrows by sparrowhawks. Such
divisions would give us no quotients, any more than their
differentiations would give us a coëfficient. Physiological
differentiation will, therefore, never help us out of fixed species or
nearly allied types. We can bridge no specific differences by it. In the
differentiation of the horse and the ass for instance, the superior blood
will predominate in the preservation of types, and even the mule will
kick against further differentiation. Nature would so utterly abhor the
practice as resolutely to slam the door in Mr. Spencer's face, if the
obstinacy of the mule did not kick it off its hinges.
And nature would be quite as intractable in the case of
"force-correlation," another of Mr. Spencer's redoubtable phrases. This
term is quite recent in its application to animate objects, nor has it
been long applied to inanimate. It is claimed to be a recently discovered
force, and is one that the materialists have seized upon as the Herculean
club with which to smite all vital theories to the earth. Its meaning, so
far as it has any, is not difficult to get at. The simplest way to explain
it, however, is the best. The reader is to understand that when he rubs
two flat sticks together, the heat thereby engendered is not the result of
friction, as all the world has heretofore supposed, but that the amount of
force expended in rubbing the right-hand stick against the left-hand
stick, is, by some law of versability, not over-well defined, transferred
to the two sticks, and gets so entangled between their surfaces that it
can only reappear in another and altogether different kind of force. When
it leaves the hands and passes into the two sticks, it is, as the
materialists assert, vital force. But as no force can be annihilated, the
conclusive assumption is that it still exists somewhere. All of it, in the
first place, went into the two flat sticks, and, when there, _ceased to be
vital force._ Some of it disappeared, of course, in overcoming the inertia
of the sticks, but the bulk of it became entangled with the superficial
molecules of the two sticks, and reappeared as _heat_--another name for
molecular force.
This is what is meant by the "differentiation" of vital force into
molecular force, and _vice versa_. But by what process of rubbing, under
this law of versability, molecular force can be reversed, or
differentiated back into vital force, Mr. Spencer has not condescended to
inform us. The simple truth is, and the materialists will be forced to
admit it in the end, that there is no verification of this theory beyond
that of mere force-equivalence. For instance, it has been experimentally
determined that a certain amount of fuel expended in heat is equivalent to
a certain amount of mechanical force, not mechanical _work_, as M. Carnot
puts it. For force is not expended in work until it is actually generated,
and the amount generated, not that expended in work, is the real
equivalence of the heat produced from fuel.
Another problem is presented when it comes to determining the amount of
generated force necessary to run a piece of machinery which shall
accomplish a given amount of mechanical work.
A far better phrase to express this equivalence of force has been
suggested and used by several writers in what is called the "Transmutation
of Force." For there is no correlation, or reciprocal relation, between
heat as originally produced by the consumption of fuel and the force as
engendered in steam before it is transmuted into work. Nor is there any
real equivalence as between the two forces after its transmutation. A very
large per centage of heat is lost in its transmutation from a latent form
in fuel to an active or available form in steam, and a still greater loss
in its transmission into work by machinery. Theoretically, there may be
such an equivalence as that named, but practically it is impossible to
realize it. And a theory that is impossible of realization is of no
practical utility in itself, and of little value as the basis of further
theory. If, then, the theory of force equivalence is a failure in
practical application, it furnishes a very poor basis on which to
predicate force-correlation, or the doctrine of reciprocal forces. It is
estimated, for instance, that a pound weight falling seven hundred and
seventy-two feet, will, in striking the earth, impart to it a degree of
heat equivalent to raising one pound of water 1° F. But the heat thus
imparted can never be so utilized as to raise a pound weight seven hundred
and seventy-two feet into the air.
This shows that there is no actual reciprocity of relationship between the
force as originally engendered and finally expended in work. Nor can it be
shown that the original force is transmuted or changed into another and
different kind of force by the operation. The force generated and the
force expended are essentially one and the same, as much so as that
transmitted from the power to the weight by means of a rope and pulley.
And the quality of the force is not changed, whether the weight be lifted
by machinery or the human hand. Force, in its mechanical sense, is that
power which produces motion, or an alteration in the direction of motion,
and is incapable of being specialized, except in a highly figurative
sense, into a thousand and one correlates of motion. But these
miscellaneous and figurative forces are not what we are considering. The
doctrine of force-correlation takes no such wide and comprehensive sweep.
It embraces neither the force of wit, nor the force of folly; but
mechanical force and its equivalents. The force exercised by the human
hand in lifting a weight either with or without rope and pulley is, in
every definitional sense of the word, mechanical force. For the arm and
hand are only the implements, or mechanical contrivances of nature, by
which the will-power transmutes itself into work, or, more properly
speaking, transmits itself from the point of force-generation to that of
force-expenditure. And this is precisely the office performed by all
mechanical contrivances for the transmission--not transmutation--of force.
And the most perfect machine is that which transmits the engendered force,
with the least possible waste or abandonment, to its point of ultimate
expenditure in work.
All these hypothetical correlates of force, therefore, predicated upon the
doctrine of force-transmutation, have no foundation in fact, since the
force transmitted from the point of generation to the point of expenditure
undergoes no change but that of direction, in its passage along rope,
wire, belt, pulley, shafting, etc. A man whose limbs have been paralyzed,
may still will to remove mountains. The will-power is the same, but the
mechanical contrivances for its transmission are wanting. Of the actual
point or centre of this force-generation, in the case of the will-power,
we know nothing; but the moment the power is started on its way towards
the point of force-expenditure, whether it traverses the nerves and
tissues of the brain, or the right arm or the left, or a crowbar or
pickaxe, it is in no sense distinguishable from the force that traverses a
rope and pulley. Nor is there any evidence that it undergoes molecular
changes, or becomes modified or conditioned by any nearly or remotely
related force, as it darts along the nerves, runs through the contracted
tissues, electrifies the crowbar, or flashes into work from the point of a
pickaxe. Whatever produces, or tends to produce, motion, or an alteration
in its direction, is mechanical force, no matter from what force-centre it
may start. When we can definitely determine the centre of vital force, as
exercised in building up vital structure, _not in wielding pickaxes_, it
is to be hoped we shall be able to distinguish, by the proper correlates,
vital force from that which is mechanical. But the task is manifestly a
hopeless one with the materialists.
Professor Beale positively denies that there are any such physical
force-relations as those claimed by the materialists, and asserts that
vital force bears no relation, or correlation, to either chemical or
physical force; that the one is a distinct and separate factor from the
other, and cannot be interpreted in the same force-formulæ. He says: "The
idea of motion, or heat, or light, or electricity _forming_ or _building_
up, or _constructing_ any texture capable of fulfilling a definite
purpose, seems absurd, and opposed to all that is known, and yet is the
notion continually forced upon us, that vitality, which does construct, is
but a correlate of ordinary energy or motion."
But after devoting so much time to "force-correlation," and
"force-differentiation," the advocates of "molecular-machinery" may feel
themselves neglected if we dismiss their favorite hobby without further
notice. The precise parentage of this term is disputed, but it has any
number of _putative_ fathers. We have spoken of the size of the molecules
themselves, and the numbers of them that might be huddled together on the
point of a cambric needle without jostling. Let us now consider the size
of a molecular machine. For each molecule runs its own machine, and is
provident enough to see that they do not jostle. In fact, it is a very
nice question in physics, whether the machines do not run the molecules,
instead of the prevailing opposite opinion that the molecules run the
machines. Unfortunately, the question is one that can never be determined.
The requisite scientific data will forever be wanting.
But Professor James C. Maxwell, now, or quite recently, filling the chair
of experimental physics in the University of Cambridge, England, has
furnished us with _approximate_ calculations. On the strength of his
approximations we will proceed to consider the dimensions of these
wonderful little machines. And first, it may be axiomatically laid down
that these molecular machines, which either run the molecules or are run
by them, can never exceed the size of their respective molecules.
Conceding, then, that each one of these machines exactly fits into its own
molecule, so as to present identically the same dimensions--as well as
their largest possible dimensions--it would require two millions of them,
placed in a row, to make one millimetre, or the one three hundred and
ninety-four thousandths of an inch in length, or seven hundred and
eighty-eight billions of them to make one inch! Who will ever be staggered
at _Sirius_-distances, after this? And who will deny that an infinite
world lies below the point of our microscopic vision, if not an Infinite
kingdom and throne beyond our telescopic glance?
But, following the same high authority in experimental physics, let us
consider the aggregate weight of these molecular machines. We will not
marshal their aggregate numbers in a row, for an array of forty billions
of them would make too insignificant a figure for inspection; but simply
give their actual weight as computed under the French or metric system.
Take, then, a million million million million of these machines, throwing
in molecules and all, and they will weigh, if there is no indiscreet
kicking of the beam, just a fraction between four and five grammes, or--to
differentiate the weights--a small fraction over one-tenth of an ounce!
But why not get down to the atoms, of which the molecules are only the
theoretical congeries, and marshal the "atomic forces" into line? These
embryonic atoms are much the braver warriors, and, when summoned to do
battle, spring, lithe and light-armed, against the elemental foe. They are
no cowardly molecules, these atoms, but make war against Titans, as well
as Titanic thrones and powers. The elements recognize them as their body
guardsmen, their corps of invincible lancers, their bravest and best
soldiers in fight. And they are wholly indifferent as to the legions of
molecules arrayed against them, and would as soon hurl a mountain of them
into the sea as to sport with a zephyr or caper with the east wind. Why
not summon these countless myriads of bright and invincible spearmen, to
batter down the walls of this Cretan labyrinth of Life? An army of these
would be worth all the molecules that Professor Maxwell could array in
line, in a thousand years. No life-problem need remain unsolved with their
bright spears to drive the tenebrious mists before them. Even Professor
Tyndall's "fog-banks of primordial haze" would be ignominiously scattered
in flight before these atomic legions. Let our materialistic friends
summon them, then, to their aid. The field of controversy will never be
won by their molecular "Hessians." The ineffably bright lancers that stand
guard over the elemental hosts are the light brigade with which to rout
the vitalistic enemy. Advance them then to the front, and, beneath the
shadowy wing of pestilence or some other appalling ensign of destruction,
the abashed vital squadrons will flee in dismay.
But let us pass from scientific speculations to alleged scientific facts.
In a paper read by Dr. Hughes Bennett before the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, in 1861, its author says: "The first step, in the process of
organic formation, is the production of an organic fluid; the second, the
precipitation of organic molecules, from which, according to the molecular
law of growth, all other textures are derived either directly or
indirectly." Here again the molecules, and not the elementary atoms, are
advanced to the front, and not a little anxiety is shown, in a
definitional way, to identify vital processes of growth with crystalline
processes of formation. But Dr. Bennett entirely mistakes, as well as
misstates, the process of vital development, if he does not overlook the
law governing the formation of crystals. There can be no symmetrically
arranged solids in an inorganic fluid without the presence of some law, or
principle, definitely determining, not the "precipitation," but the
"formation," of crystals. The inorganic particles are not precipitated or
thrown downward, any more than they are sublevated or thrown upward. The
process is one of formation, not precipitation. Every crystallographer,
not hampered by materialistic views and anti-vital theories, admits the
presence of a fixed and determinate law governing each crystalline system,
whatever may be the homologous parts or the unequal axes it represents.
And so of the equally undeviating law of vital growth. Life comes from no
mere "precipitation of organic molecules," as Dr. Bennett would have us
believe. If so, what is it that precipitates the molecules? They can
hardly be said to precipitate themselves. To precipitate, in a chemical
sense, is to be thrown down, or caused to be thrown down, as a substance
from its solution. What, then, causes the molecules to be thus
precipitously thrown down from a fluid to a solid, or a semi-solid, state?
It cannot be from any blind or inconsiderate haste on the part of the
molecules themselves. There must be some independent principle, or law of
nature--one presupposing an intelligent law-giver--to effect the
"precipitating process," if any such really exists.
But it does not exist. The first step is one of development and
growth--the manifestation of functional activity--the building up of
organic or cellular tissue. The exact process, in the case of seed-bearing
plants and trees, is well known. All those familiar with the
characteristic differences of seeds, their chemical constituents, their
tegumentary coverings, rudimentary parts, etc., thoroughly understand the
process in its outward manifestation. There is no precipitation of
molecules as in an organic fluid, unless the albumen lying between the
embryo and testa of the seeds, and constituting the nutriment on which the
plant feeds during its primary stages of growth, can be called a fluid. It
throws none of its characteristic ingredients downward any more than
upward. Indeed the greater tendency of its molecules is upward rather than
downward, in the "molecular processes" (vital ones) by which the embryonic
cell is started upon its career of plant-life. The celebrated Dr. Liebig
says of this albuminous environment: "It is the foundation, the
starting-point, of the whole series of peculiar tissues which constitute
those organs which are the seat of all vital actions." In the case of
animal life, this albumen abounds in the serum of the blood, enters
largely into the chyle and lymph, goes to build up the tissues and
muscles, and is the chief ingredient of the nerves, glands, and even the
brain itself. And in all these developmental stages, its tendency is to
coagulate rather than precipitate. In its coagulated condition, it dries
to a hard, partially translucent and friable state, and is more or less
insoluble in water, and entirely so at a temperature from 140° to 160° F.
When the seed is planted or placed in water, it first commences to swell
from the absorption of the water or moisture of the ground by the pores of
its external covering, the favorable temperature being from 60° to 80° F.
It gradually expands until its outer membranes burst, and its initial
rootlets clasp their hold upon the earth. From this point its several
stages of development are well known to the ordinary observer. Here the
first step is absorption and expansion, not precipitation. There is also a
change in chemical conditions, the water at least being decomposed. For it
would seem to be a law of vegetal growth that reproduction should begin in
decomposition and decay. The Apostle's description of the "death of the
grain," as symbolizing the death of man, in his first Epistle to the
Corinthians, points conclusively in this direction. It is in the
decomposition and decay of the grain that the implanted germ is quickened
into life--ascends into the bright light, the warm sunshine, the
refreshing presence of showers and dews. In this way it fulfils its
providential purpose of yielding to the sower the more munificent life
which he is forever seeking to attain.
Its germination is the springing up of the inner living principle of the
grain, not its outer envelope or dead husk. This disappears in decay,
except the small nutrient portion within which the germinal principle of
life would seem to reside, and which undergoes a thorough chemical change
in the process of passing from death unto life, or being assimilated and
taken up into the new living structure. The Apostle's comparison
distinctly marks these several changes as the one process of passing from
death unto life. He saw in this wonderful provision of nature, the still
more wonderful prevision of God. To his mind it was over the debris of the
dead past that the living present is constantly marching towards a higher
and more perfect life--the ultimate fruition and joy of an eternal home in
the skies! And he saw that the two grand instrumentalities and
co-accessory agencies to this end, were Life and Death, both equally
constant and active, like all the other instrumentalities and governing
agencies of the universe. Life is forever unlocking the portals of the
present to youth and vigor; Death is forever closing them to age and
decrepitude. This divine prevision thus becomes the wisest and most
beneficent provision. Without life there would be no such thing as death,
and without death no such thing as this grand succession and march of
life--this passing from out the Shadow into the Day.