SPECULATIONS AS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCES TN THE
VISIBLE UNIVERSE.
‘The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.’—SHAKESPEARE, _Macbeth_.
177. Our readers are now aware from what we have said in Chapter
II. that the two great requisites for organised existence are, in
the first place, an organ of memory, giving the individual a hold
upon the past, and secondly, the possibility of varied action in
the present, and that unless these two things are fulfilled life is
simply inconceivable.
Again, in Chapters III., IV., and V. we have sufficiently discussed
the visible universe and its potentialities. We have seen that
although at present it contains the essential requisites for
organised existence, yet, in the remote future, a time will
necessarily arrive when, through a degradation of the Energy of this
universe, or at least of one part of it, that variety of motion which
is essential to life will be unattainable. Immortality is, therefore,
impossible or hardly possible in such a universe; but even allowing
all this to be the case, it is at least conceivable that man may be
at death drafted off into some superior rank of being connected with
the present universe, and thence ultimately removed into a new order
of things when the present universe shall have become effete.
Let us now, therefore, very briefly discuss the question as to the
possibility of intelligences superior to man existing in the present
visible universe. And, in order to commence this inquiry, let us
analyse with some minuteness the physical source of that peculiarity
which the present universe possesses, in virtue of which it affords
living beings the means of a varied existence. Whence is all this
power derived? How comes it about that a living being possesses that
abruptness and spontaneity of action which peculiarly characterise
it? In fine, let us consider the exact position of life in the
present physical universe.
178. Now, in the first place, it is well known that equilibrium may
be of two kinds, stable and unstable, and if we take an egg balanced
on its end at the edge of a table as an example of mechanical
instability, we shall see that it ‘depends upon some external impulse
so infinitesimally small as to elude our observation whether the egg
shall fall upon the floor and give rise to a comparatively large
transmutation of energy, or whether it shall fall upon the table and
give rise to a transmutation comparatively small.’[53]
But, just as there are other forces besides gravity, so there are
other varieties of instability besides that which we treat of in
mechanics.
We may, for instance, have molecular instability, such as
characterises water cooled below the freezing point, or a
supersaturated solution of Glauber’s salt, where the advent of the
smallest possible crystal of ice or of Glauber’s salt is sufficient
to bring about a marked molecular change in the liquid, which
immediately becomes thick with deposited crystals; or again, we may
have chemical instability in which the slightest impulse of any kind
may determine a chemical change, just as in mechanical instability
the slightest possible impulse may determine a mechanical change.
Thus fulminating silver or nitroglycerine are familiar examples of
chemical instability in which the slightest blow or the smallest
spark may be sufficient to bring about an instantaneous and violent
generation of heated gas.
179. Again, all machines—that is to say, all material systems—must
necessarily be of two kinds, one of which makes use of the stable
forces of nature and the other of the unstable. The following
quotation from a work on Energy, by one of the authors of this book,
will sufficiently explain what is meant:[54]—
‘When we speak of a structure, or a machine, or a system, we
simply mean a number of individual particles associated together
in producing some definite result. Thus, the solar system, a
timepiece, a rifle, are examples of inanimate machines; while
an animal, a human being, an army, are examples of animated
structures or machines. Now, such machines or structures are of
two kinds, which differ from one another not only in the object
sought, but also in the means of attaining that object.
‘In the first place, we have structures or machines in which
systematic action is the object aimed at, and in which all
the arrangements are of a conservative nature, the element
of instability being avoided as much as possible. The solar
system, a timepiece, a steam-engine at work, are examples of
such machines, and the characteristic of all such is their
_calculability_. Thus the skilled astronomer can tell, with the
utmost precision, in what place the moon or the planet Venus
will be found this time next year. Or again, the excellence of
a timepiece consists in its various hands pointing accurately in
a certain direction after a certain interval of time. In like
manner we may safely count upon a steamship making so many knots
an hour, at least while the outward conditions remain the same.
In all these cases we make our calculations, and we are not
deceived—the end sought is regularity of action, and the means
employed is a stable arrangement of the forces of nature.
‘Now, the characteristics of the other class of machines are
precisely the reverse.
‘Here the object aimed at is not a regular, but a sudden and
violent, transmutation of energy, while the means employed are
unstable arrangements of natural forces. A rifle at full-cock,
with a delicate hair-trigger, is a very good instance of such a
machine, where the slightest touch from without may bring about
the explosion of the gunpowder, and the propulsion of the ball
with a very great velocity. Now, such machines are eminently
characterised by their _incalculability_.
‘It is thus apparent that, as regards energy, structures are of
two kinds. In one of these, the object sought is regularity of
action, and the means employed, a stable arrangement of natural
forces; while in the other, the end sought is freedom of action,
and a sudden transmutation of energy, the means employed being an
unstable arrangement of natural forces.
‘The one set of machines are characterised by their
calculability—the other by their incalculability. The one set,
when at work, are not easily put wrong, while the other set are
characterised by great delicacy of construction.’
180. Having thus defined the two kinds of machines, let us now see to
what extent a living being may be regarded as a machine, and also to
which of these two categories he belongs.
What our machines enable us to do is merely to transform energy. Our
readers are well aware, by what we have already said (Art. 102), that
it is just as impossible to create energy as it is to create matter.
Thus a clock has to be wound up before it will go; an engine has to
be stoked with coal; a rifle or cannon has to be charged with powder;
and in short, all machines, whether delicately constructed or not,
whether calculable or incalculable, are merely transmuters of energy
and not creators of it.
To this law the living being is no exception. The creatures of
this world (and it is of such we are now speaking) are certainly
not creators of energy; but in respect of the great law of the
conservation of energy, such beings must be regarded in the very same
light as any other machines.
But there is yet another analogy between living beings and inanimate
machines. When we study the working of any machine, we find that each
transformation of energy brought about has a material antecedent; the
effect produced has a cause from which it springs, and this cause is
one which we are probably able to recognise from our knowledge of the
laws of matter. To take an example: in a steam-engine the amount of
work produced depends upon the amount of heat carried from the boiler
to the condenser; and this amount depends in its turn upon the amount
of coal which is burned in the furnace of the engine. In like manner,
the velocity of the bullet which issues from a rifle depends upon the
transformation of the energy of the powder; this in its turn depends
upon the explosion of the percussion cap; this again upon the fall of
the trigger; and lastly this upon the finger of the man who fires the
rifle.
Now, without attempting to define what life is, and leaving all
speculations regarding it to our last chapter, we yet think it may
safely be said that a living being is analogous to a machine in this
particular also.
Let us take the man who fires the rifle. We can trace back the motion
of his forefinger to the contraction of a muscle; and we can go even
further back and connect this contraction with a stimulus sent along
the nerves from the brain, so that a material effect is here seen
to be brought about by a material antecedent, just as truly as in
an inanimate machine. Indeed, we may generalise, and say that, _so
far as we can physically investigate a living being_, we may take
it for granted that a material effect is due to a strictly material
antecedent in his case also.
181. We have thus discussed two respects in which a living being is
analogous to a machine, and the next point is to determine which of
the two classes of machines most resembles the living being. Is he
analogous to the solar system, a steam-engine, or a clock? or is
he rather analogous to some delicately constructed machine, such,
for instance, as a rifle? There can, we think, be no doubt that a
living being most resembles a delicately constructed machine. For
what is the characteristic of such a machine? It is that in it a
comparatively great transformation of energy may be brought about
by a comparatively small physical antecedent. Thus a slight breath
of air may determine the fall of the egg off the table, or a slight
tap the explosion of a large quantity of fulminating silver. So in
the human being, a very small and obscure transmutation of energy
in the mysterious brain-chamber may determine some very violent
motion. ‘Life is not a bully who swaggers out into the open universe,
upsetting the laws of energy in all directions, but rather a
consummate strategist, who, sitting in his secret chamber over his
wires, directs the movements of a great army.’[55]
182. Granting then that a living being is a delicately constructed
machine, the next point is to determine what process of delicacy,
what peculiar arrangement of unstable forces, is employed in his
construction? Now it is very easy to perceive that the delicacy in
this case is brought about by an unstable arrangement of chemical
forces. It is plain that the body of an animal is a chemically
unstable product, and if, as one consequence of this, great freedom
of action and delicacy are possessed during life, it is another
consequence that the extinction of life is very speedily followed by
decay.
The body then owes its delicacy to its chemically unstable nature;
to a peculiar collocation of particles which certainly would not, in
virtue of their own merely physical forces, have united themselves
together as we find them in the body.
183. To what, then, is due this peculiar grouping of particles in the
living body?
We reply that it is, in one sense at least, derived from the food
which is eaten. If animal food is eaten, it is of course derived
from the body of the animal which is consumed. That animal may
possibly have derived it from another animal, but more probably
it has been derived in this case direct from the vegetable world.
Ultimately, therefore, it is to this world that we must look as the
source of that delicately constructed substance which plays such a
wonderful and important part in the animal economy. If we go one
link further back in the chain of causation, we shall be carried from
the vegetable world to the sun as the great and ultimate physical
source of that high-class energy and delicacy of construction which
characterise vegetable products. It is, in truth, owing to the
actinic rays of our luminary that vegetable tissue is manufactured in
the leaves of plants, the carbonic acid of the air being decomposed,
and oxygen given out, while the carbon, united with other substances,
and modified thereby, is retained by the plant to form part of its
substance, or perchance to become the food of animals.
184. We have therefore now arrived at the conclusion that the
delicacy of construction which our frames require is ultimately
derived from the sun, so far at least as the visible universe is
concerned. If then we would reply to the question of this chapter,
whether or not there may be beings superior to man connected with
this present universe, let us look abroad and endeavour to ascertain
whether there be in this universe any other obvious process of
delicacy besides that which characterises the bodies of animals like
ourselves.
Now, it has been pointed out that, in the atmospheric changes of this
world, and more particularly of the sun, we have processes of great
delicacy. It is believed that the positions of the planets Mercury
and Venus affect the behaviour of sun-spots, and thus determine the
conditions of atmospheric changes on the surface of our luminary
that are absolutely overwhelming in their magnitude. We have only to
reflect that a large sun-spot might swallow up fifty planets like our
earth, and that some of the currents connected with it move at the
rate of 100 miles per second, in order to realise the enormous scale
of these solar outbreaks. Again, it is believed that the state of
the solar surface with regard to spots determines the storms of our
earth, so that hurricanes are most numerous in the Indian Ocean as
well as on the coast of America during years of maximum sun-spots.[56]
But if such results are brought about by the relative positions of
the planets of our system, it is evident that the cause is more
analogous to the pulling of the trigger of a cannon ready to go off
than to a downright blow. In fact, a vast transformation of energy
in the sun is brought about by some obscure and ill-understood but
comparatively trivial cause connected with the position of the nearer
planets of our system. We have here a case where the magnitude of the
effect is out of all proportion to that of the antecedent; now this
is, in other words, the definition of delicacy already given (Art.
179).
But, again, if delicacy of construction characterise the
meteorological changes in the various members of our system, it is
entirely absent from the orbital motions of these bodies. These want
that great characteristic of delicacy, _incalculability_; for they
are not only pre-eminently calculable, but are now calculated years
beforehand as part of the regular business of the world. On the
other hand, the meteorological changes of our earth and of the sun
come upon us with all the abruptness characteristic of delicacy, and
are eminently incalculable. The hurricane and the lightning-flash
are processes of Nature which man has in every age been prone
to associate with personal intelligences. He has instinctively
recognised the similarity between these abrupt and startling
phenomena and the actions of an angry and powerful being.
185. It may no doubt be long since there has been anything like an
extensive worship of the powers of nature amongst the civilised
nations of the earth, but there may yet be found, even at the
present day, especially amongst imaginative races, and in wild and
mountainous regions, a lingering belief that personal agents are
concerned in the more startling natural phenomena.
Such a belief was extensively prevalent during the middle ages, and
whole volumes might easily be filled with an account of mediæval
superstitions and legends relating to this subject, sometimes dark
and terrible, and at other times possessing a peculiar and pathetic
beauty which does not belong to anything else. The air, the earth,
and the water have all been peopled with spirits; some of them
friendly to man, some of them his deadly enemies. They are powerful,
and conscious of their power, but at the same time profoundly and
mournfully aware that they are without a soul. Their life depends, it
may be, upon the continuance of some natural object, and hence for
them there is no immortality. Sometimes, however, an elemental spirit
procures a soul by means of a loving union with one of the human
race, and the beautiful romance of Undine is built upon this fancy.
At other times the reverse happens, and the soul of the mortal is
lost who, leaving the haunts of men, associates with these soulless
but often amiable and affectionate beings. ‘The Forsaken Merman,’ by
Matthew Arnold, expresses this fancy in a very beautiful and touching
manner:—
‘Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call once more) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb’d its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.
She sigh’d, she look’d up through the clear green sea;
She said, “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
’Twill be Easter time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.”
I said, “Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayers and come back to the kind sea-caves.”
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?’
186. A conception, in some respects analogous to that now mentioned,
but in other respects very different from it, is that which
attributes a soul to the universe; and it has even been imagined that
the whole visible universe forms, as it were, one gigantic brain.
Others again appear inclined to believe that there may be many
cosmical intelligences, each embracing the whole universe, and
therefore interpenetrating one another, and at the same time taking
part in its government by means of such processes of delicacy as
those we have mentioned.
187. Now, before proceeding further in the discussion of these
speculations, let us here state more definitely than we have yet done
what is the real point in question.
It is not so much the possibility of the delicate processes of nature
being directed by an intelligent agency; this is in reality a
different question, and one which will be discussed in our concluding
chapter. But the question now before us is, whether any such agency
may be said to belong to the present visible universe?
To make our meaning clear: we know that we ourselves belong to the
present visible universe. Again, there are many of us who believe
that angelic intelligences are the ministers of God’s providence.
Now, whether this doctrine be true or not (and we are not now
concerned about its truth), it is evident that such intelligences
cannot be said to belong to the present physical universe. The
organisation which they possess, and without which (Art. 61) we
cannot imagine a finite intelligence to exist, is most assuredly
nothing that can be perceived by our bodily senses, nor can we
imagine that their existence is at all dependent on the fate of the
visible universe; in fine, they do not belong to it.
Our present question, therefore, is whether we can associate the
delicate cosmical processes of the visible universe with the
operations of intelligences residing in this universe and belonging
to it, and to this question we must assuredly give a negative reply.
188. We entertain no doubt that man and beings at least analogous to
man represent the highest order of living things connected with the
present visible universe.
For, in the first place, although there is abundant evidence
of delicacy of construction in the cosmical processes of this
universe, there is no evidence of an organisation such as that which
observation leads us to associate with the presence of life.
In the next place, whatever view we may entertain of the Darwinian
hypothesis and the relation of man to the lower animals, there can
be no doubt that they are all of a similar physical construction.
What physiologists term the matter of life is very much the same in
all, so that the body of any one animal may in general afford food
for any other. Now, is it likely that there are two living systems,
absolutely distinct and as different from one another as we can well
imagine, both connected with the visible universe?
We think this view would imply such a want of unity in the plan of
development as to be absolutely fatal to its reception, even as a
working hypothesis. On these accounts, therefore, we do not hesitate
to dismiss the conception of a superior order of beings connected
with the present physical universe as one which is altogether
untenable.
189. If we now turn from the verdict of science to the sacred
writings of the Jews, we find that one grand idea which pervades
the whole of the Old Testament is man’s absolute superiority and
practical sovereignty over all created beings whom he can perceive
otherwise than with the _mind’s eye_.
He is supreme, or it is part of his work on earth to become supreme,
over all that can be perceived by his senses, _i.e._ all the visible
and tangible world. Thus we read in Gen. i. 28: ‘And God blessed
them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth.’
Again, we read (Psalm viii. 5, 6): ‘For thou hast made him a little
lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou
hast put all things under his feet.’ [It appears that the correct
reading of the first part of this is, ‘Thou hast made him little less
than divine,’ etc.]
190. It is worthy of note that the same idea is still more fully
developed in the New Testament, where it is confessed that, in one
very important respect, this superiority of man is seen to fail.
He has greatly enlarged his powers over nature, and has by these
means much ameliorated the condition of his race; yet death overtakes
him just as remorselessly and as ruthlessly as if he were a savage
of no account. He may meet death fearlessly, conscious that he has
at least done something for the good of his fellows. But what does
it all amount to? Death will ultimately overtake the race just as
remorselessly as the individual. Now it is this fearful enemy, this
terrible exception to the domination of man, which Christ, as the Son
and type of man, is commissioned to destroy. Thus we read (1 Cor. xv.
25): ‘For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all
things under his feet.’ And presently (verse 54) the apostle breaks
forth into the following triumphant and beautiful language:—‘So when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.’ Again we
read (Heb. ii. 8): ‘For in that he put all in subjection under him,
he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet
all things put under him: but we see Jesus, who was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every
man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of
their salvation perfect through sufferings.’ [Here again it appears
that instead of the phrase ‘made a little lower than the angels,’ we
should read, ‘made for a little time lower than the angels’—_i.e._
an idea identical in meaning with the phrase ‘made under the law,’
the Old Testament law being viewed as administered by angels. From
this dispensation, in which cosmical powers come between man and God,
Christ frees us, by himself for a little time entering into it, and
even under it meeting death.]
191. From all this we may conclude that both science and religion
tell us the same tale. They inform us that man, and beings similar
to man, are at the head of the visible universe. No doubt religion
informs us, in addition to this, that there are other beings above
man, but these do not live in the visible universe, but in that which
is unseen and eternal.