TO SUM UP
Reason leads to conclusions which physical science cannot
reach--The recognition of a First Cause beyond the
Sensible Universe an intellectual necessity--Knowledge
of this cause attainable by reason--Conclusion 270-280
APPENDICES
A. Recent Scientific Verdicts concerning Darwinism and
Transformism 281
B. Development of Plant life--the _Cycadofilices_ 284
C. The Course of Evolution 285
D. The pedigree of the Horse: further evidence 286
INDEX 289
FOOTNOTES
I
TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING
That the world as we know it had a beginning is a truth which there is
no denying. Not only have philosophers always argued that it must be so:
the researches of physical science assure us that it has been so in
fact. Astronomy, says Professor Huxley,[1] "leads us to contemplate
phenomena the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have had
a beginning." The hypothesis that phenomena of Nature similar to those
exhibited by the present world have always existed, the same authority
assures us,[2] "is absolutely incompatible with such evidence as we
have, which is of so plain and so simple a character that it is
impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces
upon us." This conclusion, physicists tell us, is inevitable when we
study the laws by which the operations of Nature are governed, and as
Professor Balfour Stewart writes,[3] we thus become "absolutely certain"
that these operations cannot have existed for ever, and that a time
will come when they must cease. In like manner, a recent and competent
witness to the conclusions of contemporary Science, lays down,[4] as one
of the truths which her latest discoveries compel us to accept, that the
world is not eternal, that the earth is cooling from a state of heat
rendering life impossible, to one of physical exhaustion equally fatal
to it. Accordingly "Life must have had a beginning and must come to an
end,"--and our whole Solar System (he adds) must similarly have had a
commencement, at a period not infinitely remote.
But, if the world had a beginning, what was there before it began?
Something there must have been, and something which had the power of
producing it. Had there ever been nothing, there could never have been
anything, for, _Ex nihilo nihil fit_. That nothing should turn into
something is an idea which the mind refuses to entertain. Nor is the
case any better even if we suppose that matter had no beginning, that it
has existed for ever as we know it now, and that at first there was
nothing else. For if so, whence have all these things arisen which,
according to all observation and experiment, matter cannot produce, as,
organic life, sensitive life, consciousness, reason, moral goodness? Had
matter been always what it now is, and had there been no source beyond
matter whence the power of producing all these things could be derived,
they could never have been produced at all, or else they would have
come into being without a cause. It would be like a milestone growing
into an apple-tree, or a mountain spontaneously giving birth to a mouse.
We are therefore compelled by common-sense to ask when we consider
Nature, What is the force or power at the back of her, which first set
her going, and whence she draws the capability of performing the
operations which we find her performing every day; that force or power
which must be the ultimate origin of everything that is in the world?
This is the great fundamental problem which the student of Nature has to
face, and beside it all others fade into insignificance. It is with this
that we are now engaged. We have to ask how our reason bids us answer
it, and the first question which arises naturally is, What light is
thrown on the subject by modern Science, of whose achievements we are
all so justly proud?
II
REASON AND SCIENCE
In studying a question such as this, we must commence by being
determined, on the one hand to accept nothing as true but what our
reason warrants us in believing, and on the other hand to follow the
guidance of reason as far as, rightly used, it will lead us. The
principle formulated[5] by Professor Huxley, as the foundation-stone of
what he termed "Agnosticism," is that which must needs be adopted, and
as a matter of fact has ever been adopted, by rational men.
Positively--in matters of the intellect follow your reason as far
as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And
negatively--in matters of the intellect do not pretend that
conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.
But to justify the confidence which we thus repose in it we must
obviously be careful to use our reason aright, and not to attribute to
it any conclusions which it does not really sanction. It is this right
use of reason that is specially claimed for modern "Science,"[6] which,
as we are again assured by Professor Huxley, is only another name for
sound reasoning--"_Science_," he declares,[7] "_is, I believe, nothing
but trained and organized common-sense_.[8] ... The man of science, in
fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness, the methods which we all,
habitually and at every moment, use carelessly."
There can be no sort of question that so long as men of science really
act thus, and confine themselves to the treatment of matters in regard
of which they can claim special knowledge, common sense bids us listen
to them with respect, and even with submission. But the same common
sense requires that we should satisfy ourselves that they truly deserve
the character assigned them, and pretend to no knowledge on the score of
Science but what their scientific methods are competent to acquire. When
they step beyond this their own proper domain, whatever weight may be
given to their opinions upon other grounds, they cease to speak in the
name of Science.
What then, we must ask, is the province of Science, and what are her
methods?
"Science," always understanding by the term physical or experimental
Science, deals with the universe so far as it is known to us through our
senses. The universe known thus we call "Nature," and the whole stock in
trade of Science is the examination and verification of natural
phenomena, with such inferences therefrom as ascertained facts
legitimately suggest. From careful and trustworthy observation she can
learn what are called the "Laws of Nature," that is to say the manner in
which the various elements and forces of the universe are found
constantly to act, in given circumstances; she can, to some extent,
discover the chain of causes and effects, or more properly of
conditions and consequences, through which natural operations are
carried on. She can even construct hypotheses as to what she cannot
directly observe, namely, the nature of substances and forces; and such
hypotheses are justified in proportion as they are found to tally with
facts. If constantly thus justified, they are styled theories, and come
to be practically assumed as established truths. But it must ever be
remembered that Science can take no step in advance which is not based
on fact, and that when facts are not forthcoming for its support an
hypothesis or a theory has no scientific value.
Bearing this in mind, we will proceed to enquire what Science has to
tell us regarding the origin of the world, and the manner in which it
has come to be what it is.
III
"EVOLUTION"
We are constantly assured that Science compels us to believe in
"Evolution," and that in this doctrine is to be found the explanation of
the universe whereof we are in quest. We must however in the first place
make sure that we understand what "Evolution" means, and if we look into
the question, it speedily appears that the term is very differently
understood by those who use it.
Some who style themselves "Evolutionists" mean only that, as a matter of
established fact, the organic world, the world of life, whether animal
or vegetable, has been brought to its present condition by _genetic_
development of one species from another, in the natural course of
descent and through the operation of natural laws; and that as we see
plants and animals of the same kind propagated one from another at the
present day, so in the course of long ages the lower and simpler forms
of life have given birth to the higher and more complex.
Others again do not limit this process to organic creatures, and believe
that from first to last, the whole world, inorganic and organic alike,
has resulted from the action of forces such as those with which Science
deals; and that life has thus arisen in purely natural course out of
non-living matter, the universe in its original condition having been
constituted as a vast machine which was bound to produce all that has
since arisen.
In either of the above senses--of which the second obviously includes
the first,--"Evolution" is understood as no more than a _process_ which
is said to have occurred. But there is a more extreme school which takes
"Evolution" for much more, namely for a power, principle, or "law,"
which both governs and accounts for everything, and requires no further
cause beyond itself.
If this paramount "Law of Evolution" can be established, there is
clearly an end of our enquiry, for here is the ultimate explanation of
everything which we are seeking. But what has Science to say concerning
it?
IV
"THE LAW OF EVOLUTION"
That there is a self-existing and self-sufficing "Law of Evolution" to
which everything in the world must be ascribed, is the doctrine of those
Evolutionists who are most active in propagating their creed and who
most loudly proclaim that it alone is scientific. The great leader and
prophet of this school, Professor Ernst Haeckel, assures us[9] that he
gives expression,
to that rational view of the world which is being forced upon us
with such logical rigour by the modern advancements in our
knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in reality held by almost
all unprejudiced and thinking men of science, although but few have
the courage (or the need) to declare it openly.
The plain and rational conclusion thus exhibited is, he tells us,[10]
the special glory of modern research.
It is true [he writes] that there were philosophers who spoke of
the evolution of things a thousand years ago; but the recognition
that such a law dominates the entire universe, and that the world
is nothing else than an eternal "evolution of substance," is a
fruit of the nineteenth century.
So far as concerns the world which we actually inhabit, its first
beginning, we must, he tells us, suppose[11] to have been a vast nebula
of infinitely attenuated and light material, rotating upon its own
axis.[12]
Given this first beginning of the cosmogonic movement, it is easy,
on mathematical principles, to deduce and mathematically establish
the further phenomena of the foundation of the cosmic bodies, the
separation of the planets, and so forth.
Nor are we to suppose that the beginning of this particular process was
in any true sense a beginning at all. Evolutionary philosophy such as
Professor Haeckel's, necessarily teaches that beginnings and endings
succeed one another everlastingly, one world-system arising phoenix-like
from the ashes of another.
The nebular hypothesis above described has recently [we are
told][13] been strongly confirmed and enlarged by the theory that
this cosmogonic process did not simply take place once, but is
periodically repeated. While new cosmic bodies arise and develop,
out of rotating masses of nebula in some parts of the universe, in
other parts old, extinct, frigid suns come into collision, and are
once more reduced by the heat generated to the condition of nebulæ.
It appears, in fact, to be assumed that this cyclic process has been
actually demonstrated, for we are told[14] that astronomy reveals, in
the endless depths of space, "Millions of circling spheres, larger than
our earth, and, like it, in an eternal rhythm of life and death."
Moreover, "life" is here to be understood literally, for it is a
cardinal article of such evolutionary belief that equally with the
foundation of cosmic bodies and the separation of planets, the
production of organic life, of plants and animals, has been wrought by
forces which the material universe contains within itself,[15] and
accordingly,[16]
We now definitely know that the organic world on our earth has been
continuously developed "in accordance with eternal iron laws." ...
An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course
of evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting
human spirit through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the
present order of the cosmos.
Finally, at the back of all these processes, we are to recognize the one
ultimate reality, the universe itself, which originates and undergoes
all these evolutions. In its regard Professor Haeckel tells us[17] that,
The universe, or cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and illimitable. Its
substance, with its two attributes (matter and energy) fills
infinite space and is in eternal motion. This motion runs on
through infinite time as an unbroken development, with a periodic
change from life to death, from evolution to devolution....
And again:[18]
The two fundamental forms of substances, ponderable matter and
ether, are not dead and moved only by extrinsic force, but they are
endowed also with sensation and will (though naturally of the
lowest grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a
dislike of strain; they strive after the one and struggle against
the other.
Moreover,
Movement[19] is as innate and original a property of substances as
is sensation.
Such is the raw material whose metamorphoses produce, or rather
constitute, all possible worlds, while paramount over every thing
dominates the "Law of Substance," under which title Professor Haeckel
unites the scientific principles of the indestructibility of matter,
and the conservation of energy. Thus is the conclusion reached,[20]
Towering above all the achievements and discoveries of the century
we have the great comprehensive "law of substance," the fundamental
law of the constancy of matter and force. The fact that substance
is everywhere subject to eternal movement and transformation gives
it the character also of the universal law of evolution. As this
supreme law has been firmly established and all others are
subordinate to it, we arrive at a conviction of the universal unity
of nature and the eternal validity of its laws.
Accordingly we are to conclude with Goethe that all proceeds by iron law
to the fulfilling of inevitable destiny; or as an ardent disciple
proclaims, who undertakes to expound the new creed to the people,[21]
We rest in sure and certain hope that no force and no combination
of forces can stop the process of Evolution, which from a speck of
jelly has developed such living forms as Charles Darwin and Herbert
Spencer, and which has produced the beauty of the earth and the
heavens from formless ether.
This outline of the Evolutionary system in its widest and fullest sense
will enable us to judge upon what grounds it can claim the sanction of
Science. Various points here present themselves for consideration, which
demand separate treatment.
V
WHAT IS A "LAW OF NATURE"?
As we have seen, the doctrine of Evolution is presented by its advocates
as being based upon the existence of a "Law of Evolution," or "Law of
Substance," which both brings about evolutionary processes, and
certifies us of their occurrence, so that we may appeal to it as an
authority for our belief in the facts of evolution themselves. Thus as
Professor Milnes Marshall told the British Association,[22]
The doctrine of descent, or of evolution, teaches us that as
individual animals arise, not spontaneously, but by direct descent
from pre-existing animals, so also is it with species, with
families, and with larger groups of animals, and so also has it
been for all time.
It is not said, be it observed, that the establishment of such facts
teaches us the doctrine of evolution, but that the doctrine assures us
of the facts; and the utterances constantly met with, of which the above
is a fair sample, have no signification if they do not mean this. In
the same way Professor Haeckel declares[23] that his fundamental cosmic
law "establishes" the eternal persistence of matter and force, and their
unvarying constancy throughout the entire universe, becoming thus "the
pole-star that guides our Philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a
solution of the world problem," and the key to this supreme problem, he
further tells us,[24] is found in one magic word--Evolution.
It would certainly appear from all this, that by "Evolution" we are to
understand some sort of entity at the back of the world, with power at
its disposal capable of effecting all its operations,--something in fact
remarkably like the First Cause of which we are in search,--and that by
its "Laws" are signified some definite forces, the practical action of
which has been ascertained by us, so that we can foretell the course of
events under them, as we can that of the planets or the tides under the
influence of gravitation.
But is it scientific, or even intelligible, to use words thus, and to
assign any such significance to such terms as "Law of Evolution," "Law
of Substance," or any other "Law of Nature"? We are repeatedly warned to
the contrary by so high an authority as Professor Huxley. Once, for
instance, he discovered in a sermon of Canon Liddon's this "fallacious
employment of the name of a scientific conception," for which it was
however added, the preacher "could find only too many scientific
precedents."[25] This fallacious use of terms, which nowise differs from
that under consideration, Professor Huxley thus denounces:
It is the use of the word "law" as if it denoted a thing--as if a
"law of nature," as science understands it, were a being endowed
with certain powers, in virtue of which the phenomena expressed by
that law are brought about.... All I wish to remark is that such a
conception of the nature of "laws" has nothing to do with modern
science.... A law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the
product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come
under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind
than colour has. The law of gravitation is a statement of the
manner in which experience shows that bodies, which are free to
move, do, in fact, move towards one another.... The tenacity of the
wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are agents, instead of
being, as they really are, a mere record of experience, upon which
we base our interpretations of that which does happen, and our
anticipation of that which will happen, is an interesting
psychological fact: and would be unintelligible if the tendency of
the human mind towards realism were less strong.
A law, accordingly, "is not a cause but a fact,"[26] and we must learn
laws from facts, not facts from laws. It is indeed evident on a
moment's thought, that to speak of the Law of Evolution as causing
things to be evolved, is like saying that the law of growth makes things
grow. Till we know what happens, there is nothing of which Science can
take account.
True scientific teaching, I cannot too often repeat [says Professor
Tait][27] requires that the facts, and their _necessary_
consequences alone, should be stated, as simply as possible.
In like manner Professor Huxley,[28] undertaking to vindicate full
scientific value for his own favourite Biology, does so by pointing out
that biological methods are similar to those of every other branch of
Science, since they begin with the observation of facts, and from this
proceed to various applications of the knowledge so acquired. And
Professor Haeckel himself tells us regarding his own mode of
procedure:[29]
The means and methods we have chosen for attaining the solution of
the great enigma do not differ, on the whole, from those of all
purely scientific investigation: firstly, experience; secondly,
inference.
Therefore, although the phrases we have already heard from him, are
found when scrutinized to be only phrases, which explain nothing, it
may be supposed that he elsewhere produces such proofs of his doctrine
as will place it on a scientific basis. For these we will now seek.
VI
"THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE"
We have just been told by Professor Haeckel, that the means and methods
which he has chosen for the establishment of his philosophy are, on the
whole, identical with those employed in all purely scientific
investigation, namely, first experience, and secondly inference.
But here a grave difficulty at once presents itself. How, either by
experience or by inference, can we learn anything about the
commencements of the universe, as to which we have heard so much? How
the first bodies, whether organic or inorganic, actually arose, neither
philosophy nor science can definitely say, for the latter was not there
to see, and the former has no facts on which to argue.[30] But if
neither by observation, nor by clear inference, can the account that has
been given be substantiated, that account cannot pretend to be
scientific, for it rests not upon knowledge but upon speculation,--and
as Professor Tait warns us,[31] "That of which there is no knowledge is
not yet part of Science."
This plain consideration seems to account for a fact which is
undoubtedly highly significant. Professor Huxley had certainly no
prejudices against evolutionary systems, could they but be
satisfactorily established. He knew all that Professor Haeckel has urged
on behalf of his own theory, and showed how much he was in sympathy with
it by naming after his friend the ill-starred _Bathybius Haeckelii_, the
deep-sea slime which was at first supposed to bridge the gulf between
the organic and the inorganic worlds, and to be living stuff in process
of spontaneous manufacture. Nothing, in fact, as he himself admitted, in
his controversy with Dr. Bastian, could have suited him better than a
demonstration that Nature possesses all the powers necessary for her own
processes, and that the explanation of all is within the scope of
Science. But, at the same time, he reverenced scientific truth beyond
anything else, and he was keenly sensible of the danger attending the
use of hypothetical explanations, leading to conclusions which cannot be
experimentally tested, which danger he carefully shunned.[32]
Accordingly, not only did he never lend his countenance to what
Professor Haeckel represents as the inevitable conclusions of Science,
but he even plainly intimated that those who advanced such views were
going much farther than Science warrants. The doctrine of Evolution, he
declared,[33] is not only attacked on false grounds by its enemies, but
is made by some of its friends to cover so much which is disputable, as
to force him in self-defence to make his own position clear in its
regard. And the first point of his explanation is to repudiate the idea
that we have any such knowledge as Professor Haeckel assumes. "I have
nothing to say," he writes, "to any 'Philosophy of Evolution.'"
Being thus necessarily destitute of support either directly from
observation or by inference from observed facts, it would seem that only
in one way can Professor Haeckel's system of cosmogony, or
world-production, obtain any support from Science. If amongst the
operations now in progress in the universe, is to be found evidence of
an exhaustless and self-renewing energy, a mainspring capable of keeping
the machine going everlastingly, then undoubtedly there will be an
explanation forthcoming, which, whatever difficulties may still remain
on other grounds, will at least furnish a complete mechanical account of
things within the ken of Science. May we not suppose that this is what
is claimed as being supplied by the "Law of Substance," which is
represented as the cornerstone of the whole edifice, the supreme triumph
of scientific discovery, and, in fine, "the universal law of
evolution"? Let us see how far such a notion can be styled scientific.
As has been shown, a "Law" is nothing but a statement that a certain
kind of fact is found to occur in certain circumstances. Professor
Haeckel has told us that the "Law of Substance" is a blend of two such
statements, namely, "the Law of the persistency or indestructibility of
matter," which signifies that in no instance within our knowledge is any
particle of matter destroyed, and "the Law of the persistence of force,
or conservation of energy," which signifies that the sum of force, at
work in the world, and producing all phenomena, is similarly found to be
unalterable.[34]
It must here first be observed that the term "Conservation of Energy,"
is more correct and intelligible than "Conservation of Force"; by
"Energy" being understood the power of doing "work," that is to say, of
overcoming resistance.[35]
It is in this form alone that Force becomes subject to observation and
can be measured by Science, and the Law of Conservation which
observation reveals is thus stated: The sum of all the various energies
in the universe is a constant quantity, which can be neither increased
nor diminished, though it may be changed from one form to another;[36]
such forms being motion, heat, chemical action, electricity, magnetism.
But another point is of far greater importance. The mode in which
Professor Haeckel states this fundamental Law is altogether deceptive.
He tells his readers only half the truth, and when the other half is
told, not only is his whole doctrine found to receive no support from
the Laws of Energy, but it is these very Laws which appear most
incompatible with it.
For, along with the Law of the Conservation, there is another, of the
Dissipation of Energy. It is perfectly true, as Professor Haeckel often
repeats, that the sum of Energy existing in the universe remains ever
the same: but it is no less certain, as he unfortunately fails to remind
his readers, that the stock of Energy _available for the work of the
universe_ is growing less every day. Though none is ever destroyed, much
is constantly _lost_, being dissipated, or radiated into space, in the
form of heat which can never be recaptured or translated into any form
which can be of any practical avail. "It is lost for ever as far as we
are concerned."[37]
From what we have heard concerning the Law of Substance it might
naturally be supposed that it certified us of the continued existence of
the power required to carry on the operations of Nature, and that,
accordingly, reason bids us to suppose these operations to be
everlasting. But this neglected element of the reckoning, or _Entropy_
as it is styled, leads scientific men to an entirely different estimate.
Thus Professor Balfour Stewart writes:[38]
Although, therefore, in a strictly mechanical sense, there is a
conservation of energy, yet, as regards usefulness or fitness for
living beings, the energy of the universe is in process of
deterioration. Universally diffused heat forms what we may call the
great waste-heap of the universe, and this is growing larger year
by year.
We have [he continues] regarded the universe, not as a collection
of matter, but rather as an energetic agent--in fact, as a lamp.
Now it has been well pointed out by Thomson,[39] that looked at in
this light, the universe is a system that had a beginning and must
have an end; for a process of degradation cannot be eternal. If we
could view the universe as a candle not lit, then it is perhaps
conceivable to regard it as having been always in existence; but if
we regard it rather as a candle that has been lit, we become
absolutely certain that it cannot have been burning from eternity,
and that a time will come when it will cease to burn. We are led to
look to a beginning in which the particles of matter were in a
diffuse chaotic state, but endowed with the power of gravitation,
and we are led to look to an end in which the whole universe will
be one equally heated inert mass, from which everything like life
or motion or beauty will have utterly gone away.
It is doubtless true that attempts have been made to show that this
conclusion is not final, and that there may be resources whereby Nature
is able to recoup herself, and to draw upon some bank unknown to us for
her missing store. As we have seen, Professor Haeckel simply takes for
granted that some such means of recuperation exist and operate, and he
is not wholly without countenance from others. Thus, no less an
authority than Sir William Crookes addressing the Chemical Society as
its president, thus expressed himself:[40]
If we may hazard any conjectures ... we may I think premise that
the heat radiations propagated outwards, ... by some process of
nature unknown to us, are transformed at the confines of the
universe into the primary--the essential--motion of chemical atoms,
which the instant they are formed, gravitate inwards, and thus
restore to the universe the energy which would be lost to it
through radiant heat. Hence Sir William Thomson's startling
prediction falls to the ground.
But it need not be pointed out that if an advocate so eminent as Sir
William Crookes is reduced to pleas like this on its behalf, the case
for Renovation of Energy must be singularly destitute of anything
resembling scientific support. Suppositions which are avowedly hazarded
as conjectures, and which must appeal to processes of Nature of which we
know nothing, whatever authorship they may boast, have nothing to do
with Science, and possess no sort of value for our purpose.[41] It must
of course be allowed that we may still be utterly in the dark as to the
whole of this question, and that further discoveries may one day
completely upset all our present notions. But we are concerned with the
evidence which Science has now before her, and with the assertion so
confidently advanced that this makes the Law of ceaseless Evolution an
indisputable truth. We find, on the contrary, that this Law runs
directly counter to the facts as they are at present known to us, and to
the conclusions drawn from them by the most authoritative
representatives of science.
Nor is it only our own globe and solar system that appear to be thus
bound towards an inevitable doom. The eternal rhythm of life and death,
of which we have been told as pervading the endless depths of space,
has no better title to scientific sanction. Like the minor province
which we inhabit, the whole universe, we are assured,--so far as we have
means of calculating,--must ultimately arrive at a condition of eternal
stagnation,--its component parts being drawn close together by their
mutual attractions,--so that motion ceases; while the heat replacing it
being equally diffused, becomes as incapable of doing work as water
between two pools on the same level is of turning a mill. As the writer
lately quoted sums up the matter:[42]
Slow as the process of condensation is, it is not endless. In time
all the meteoric dust will be collected into stars or planets; and
in time the law of dissipation of energy will bring all these
bodies to a uniform temperature. So at last the movements due to
the original unequal distribution of matter will cease, and the
life of the universe will come to an end. We know of no process of
rejuvenescence, by means of which dissipation of energy and the
force of gravitation might be counteracted. Several attempts have
been made to refute the theory of the dissipation of energy, but
all have failed.
This, however, is but the first of many difficulties which must be
disposed of ere the account of the world's genesis which we are
considering can pretend to our acceptance on the ground that reason and
science proclaim its truth.
VII
"THE SEVEN ENIGMAS"
The doctrine that the universe is an automatic machine,--self-originated
and self-sustained--undoubtedly rests upon a principle formally
recognized by some evolutionists, as the "Law of Continuity," and taken
for granted by many who do not put it into words. This principle
is,--that everything must always have happened according to the same
laws of Nature which operate now; that there can never have been a
"miracle," understanding by this term whatever is beyond the scope of
natural forces; and that, accordingly, the whole of the world's
history,--one stage as much as another,--falls within the province of
Science. By no one has this position been more clearly stated than by
the late Professor Romanes.
All minds [he tells us][43] with any instincts of science in their
composition have grown to distrust, on merely antecedent grounds,
any explanation which embodies a miraculous element. Such minds
have grown to regard all these explanations as mere expressions of
our own ignorance of natural causation; or, in other words, they
have come to regard it as an _à priori_ truth that nature is always
uniform in respect of method or causation; that the reign of law is
universal; the principle of continuity ubiquitous.
He goes on to declare that "The fact of evolution--or, which is the same
thing, the fact of continuity in natural causation--has now been
undoubtedly proved in many departments of nature," and that, in
particular, "throughout the range of inorganic nature" it is "a
demonstrated fact."
If this be so, it must necessarily follow that the Laws of Nature, as
Science finds them operating, sufficiently explain not only all that
happens in our present world, but also all that must have happened while
this world was being produced. According to what has already been said,
by "The Law of Continuity" no more can be signified than that Continuity
is a fact, that the world has actually come to be what it is through the
continual operation of just the same natural forces as we find at work
to-day. That things _did_ so happen we have not and cannot have, direct
evidence; for no witness was there to report. We can but draw inferences
from the present to the past, and argue that what Nature does to-day,
she must have been capable of doing yesterday and the day before. Only
thus can continuity of natural laws possibly be established. It would
obviously be vain to argue that we must suppose no other forces ever to
have acted than those we can observe, because, for all we know, other
conditions may so have altered as to make their results altogether
different from any of which we have experience.
It is likewise manifest that if we are to speak of demonstrated facts,
and of conclusions placed beyond rational possibility of doubt, proofs
must be forthcoming sufficient to compel scientific assent.
And here lies the difficulty. Very much must unquestionably have
happened in the course of the world's making for which the Laws of
Nature as we find them now acting cannot account, and which, therefore,
Science cannot attempt to explain. So we are assured by eminent
scientific men,--men, too, who desire nothing more than to find an
explanation, but are driven, in search of one, as we have already seen
Sir W. Crookes, to plead the limitation of our knowledge, and that there
may be capabilities in Nature of which we are ignorant. But it remains
always true, that what we do not know is not yet part of Science, and
that if our scientific information, so far as it goes, is adverse to the
Law of Continuity, it is quite unscientific to bring arguments for the
law not from our knowledge, but from our lack of it. Still more
unscientific is it to proclaim that Science has pronounced judgment in a
sense contrary to that of all the evidence hitherto presented to her.
Amongst the men of Science who testify as above, we may begin with Herr
Du Bois-Reymond, an avowed Evolutionist and Materialist, whom Professor
Haeckel styles, "the all-powerful secretary and dictator of the Berlin
Academy of Sciences."[44] He can be suspected of no prejudices which
would prevent him from accepting Professor Haeckel's cosmogony, if only
he found the evidence satisfactory. Far from this, however, he
declares,[45] that the history of the universe confronts us with no less
than seven problems, for which Science has no solution to offer, and
some of which he holds to be for ever insoluble. These he styles
"Enigmas," and they are:
(1) The nature of Matter and of Force.
(2) The origin of Motion.
(3) The origin of Life.
(4) The apparently designed order of Nature.
(5) The origin of sensation and consciousness.
(6) The origin of rational thought and speech.
(7) Free-will.
The first, second, and fifth of these are in the opinion of Du
Bois-Reymond "transcendental," or beyond possibility of solution. The
others, in his judgment, have certainly not yet been solved, but
_perhaps_ may be solved some day. As to the last, he much doubts whether
it should not also be classed as "transcendental."
* * * * *
It thus appears that in the judgment of a competent witness, and one
no-wise biassed by preconception or prejudice, so far from it being
true that Professor Haeckel's story of the universe is imperiously
imposed on us by the results of Science, not one but several great gulfs
in the course of that history must have been bridged over somehow, which
Science confesses she cannot bridge, so far as her present knowledge
goes, that is to say, so far as she is Science at all.
Professor Haeckel, it is true, loudly pronounces Du Bois-Reymond's
declaration to be mere "dogmatism"[46] of a "shallow and illogical
character," and he undertakes to show that with the help of his own
philosophy the enigmas cease to be enigmatical.
In my opinion [he writes] the three transcendental problems (1, 2
and 5) are settled by our conception of substance; the three which
he [Du Bois-Reymond] considers difficult, though soluble[47] (3, 4
and 6) are decisively answered by our modern theory of evolution;
the seventh and last, the freedom of the will, is not an object for
critical scientific inquiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based
on an illusion, and has no real existence.
How far such a mode of rebuking dogmatism appears convincing, must of
course depend on what the reader understands by an argument. Some points
already considered may help us to a right estimate of proofs which are
based upon "Our conception of substance," or "Our modern theory of
evolution," and we shall presently inspect more closely the nature of
the difficulties which we are invited so summarily to dismiss.
Meanwhile, even though not final or conclusive, the testimony of such a
man as Du Bois-Reymond serves at least to prove that it is possible to
be thoroughly familiar with Science and her teaching, and yet to believe
that as yet she knows nothing at all concerning questions which, as we
have been assured, she has conclusively answered. And, as we shall
presently see, if Professor Haeckel's account of things be the true one,
there are many more scientific men of the first rank who are equally in
the dark.
In a word, while according to Professor Haeckel there is in the universe
but one Riddle, which he tells us he has solved,--in the opinion of
another who is certainly no less entitled to speak in the name of
Science, there yet remain seven to which no answer has yet been given,
and to three, at least, of which none will ever be found.
VIII
MATTER AND MOTION
In the forefront of the problems which have been pronounced to be not
only unsolved but insoluble, are the nature and origin of the ultimate
factors arrived at by Science in her study of the constitution of the
universe,--Matter, Force, and Motion.
With the first and last of these alone need we at present concern
ourselves, for "Force," as Science knows it, is always associated with
Matter, and signifies no more in her terminology than that which
produces, or tends to produce Motion. On the other hand, we are
told,[48] that "The contents of the material universe may be expressed
in terms of Matter and Motion."
By "Matter" is understood "Sensible Substance," the stuff composing all
of which our senses tell us, and which forms the object of Scientific
investigation. What do we know concerning this raw material whereof
worlds are made?
As we have seen, Professor Haeckel and his school are ready to tell us.
Matter, we are assured,[49] is self-existent and imperishable, "it has
no beginning and no end; it is eternity." Together with Ether, it
occupies infinite and boundless space. It is in ceaseless motion; and
its interminable modifications produce everything that ever was or ever
will be. Movement[50] is one of the "innate and original properties" of
Matter. So are Sensation and Will,[51] but these, we are warned,[52] are
"unconscious."
Obviously, however, it is not enough that these things should be said,
they require likewise to be proved; and the question must immediately
suggest itself, Whence is proof to come? Not, by any possibility, from
observation and experiment. For who can speak, of his own knowledge, to
eternity or infinity? The only conceivable supposition is that Science
has so thoroughly mastered the nature and properties of Matter here and
now, as to be furnished with evidence unmistakably pointing to the above
conclusions. Thus alone can she be quoted on their behalf; and it must
always be remembered that the philosophy which we are examining is
nothing if not scientific.
But, in the first place, is it quite clear of what our philosophers are
speaking? They use the term "Matter" as though it represented some one
definite thing: but this is very far from being the case.
We must remember [says Lord Grimthorpe][53] that matter is not an
unit, as a creator is, and that talking of it so is merely a
rhetorical artifice when used in philosophical inquiries.... Matter
is nothing but the sum of all the ultimate particles or atoms
contained in the universe, or in any particular mass that we are
dealing with.... A very large proportion of the atoms of the
universe have never been within millions and billions of miles of
each other.
Therefore, he goes on to urge, the doctrine of the self-existence of
Matter, must mean that each several atom is self-existent, or "every
atom its own god." How comes it then that they all obey the same "Laws"?
How have their various provinces been allotted? Above all, how are they
not all the same, but--so far as we know--divided into classes widely
different from one another? For, according to our present
knowledge,--and we cannot too frequently remind ourselves that upon this
alone can any sound conclusion be based,--there are, in round numbers,
some seventy different species of atoms, whose diverse qualities are
absolutely necessary for the production of the world. Had all atoms been
of one kind, we could have had none even of what used to be called the
Four Elements,--neither Earth, Air, Fire, nor Water.
But,--apart from this,--What is known concerning this same "Matter"? Has
Science so thoroughly fathomed its constitution as to be able to
declare that it possesses all the properties we have heard assigned to
it,--Sensation and Will, even of the unconscious kind, whatever that may
be,--locomotive power,--eternity,--and, in its collective capacity,
immensity?
So far from this being the case, scientific men who were most willing,
and even anxious, to assign to Matter a foremost, if not _the_ foremost,
place in Nature, have done so precisely upon the ground, not of our
knowledge, but of our ignorance. No better examples need be sought than
Professor Huxley, and Professor Tyndall, who alike agreed, in the words
of the latter,[54] "to discern in Matter the promise and potency of
every form and quality of life." But Huxley took his stand on the
declaration, that we know so little about Matter as to make it
impossible to say of what it may not be capable, for we cannot so much
as be certain of its existence, and use the term only "for the unknown
and hypothetical causes of our own states of consciousness,"[55] while
Tyndall described the process, whereby the promise and potency are
realized, as "the manifestation of a Power absolutely inscrutable to the
intellect of man."
Speculations thus founded upon the absence of evidence, whatever else
they may be, are certainly no part of Science; and when we turn to what,
being established by scientific methods, is a possible basis of
scientific argument, we find that in every instance it contradicts
instead of supporting the assertions we have heard.
To begin with the question of Motion, as being both of supreme
importance, and one more open than some others to observation and
experiment. According to Professor Haeckel's teaching, "movement is an
innate and original property of substance," that is to say of Matter,
and in consequence, "Substance is everywhere and always in uninterrupted
movement and transformation." It is by thus attributing to matter an
inherent determination to move that he meets Du Bois-Reymond's
difficulty as to the origin of motion.
But this is in direct opposition to the first of Newton's Laws, which
are universally recognized as the most firmly established and
unquestionable of all scientific conclusions. This law tells us that a
body at rest will continue at rest for ever, unless compelled by some
force to move; just as a body in motion will continue to move at the
same rate and in the same direction, unless compelled by force to arrest
or alter its course. Upon the universal certainty of this law the whole
of our Natural Philosophy depends: but it absolutely blocks the way for
the idea that Matter has an innate tendency to move itself, which is
thus quite unscientific. Not self-movement but _Inertia_ is the property
which Science ascribes to Matter.[56] It may further be observed that
the idea of inherent motion is absurd and unintelligible; for movement
cannot be in more than one direction at a time: so that a mass, or an
atom, of Matter could tend to move only by having an intrinsic impulse
in a straight line towards some one particular point. If it should tend
to move indifferently, in all directions at once, it would remain
motionless, each such tendency being neutralized by its opposite.
As to the further claim made on behalf of Matter to be endowed with
Sensation and Will, of any description, it must be enough to say that no
one has ever pretended to find any evidence whatever to this effect, or
to detect the faintest trace of such properties;--and that on the
contrary, all experience shows inorganic Matter, (that is, Matter not
incorporated in living animals or plants,) to be utterly lifeless and
inert. It is a mere abuse and perversion of terms to speak of Science as
countenancing any conclusion but that to which such experience points.
The attempt to invest Matter with these attributes Professor Tait
stigmatizes as "non-science," or "pseudo-science."[57]
The Pygmalions of modern days [he writes] do not require to beseech
Aphrodité to animate the ivory for them. Like the savage with his
_Totem_, they have themselves already attributed life to it.... The
latest phase of this peculiar non-science tells us that all Matter
is _alive_; or at least that it contains "the promise and potency"
(whatever these may be) "of all terrestrial life." ... So much for
the attempts to introduce into Science an element altogether
incompatible with the fundamental conditions of its existence.
In fine, to make us realize not merely how extremely narrow are the
bounds of our knowledge, but even how much narrower they may be than we
suppose, there enters upon the scene Radium, like the golden apple that
came to disturb the harmony of the celestials. What lessons this
turbulent and unconventional element will ultimately be found to teach,
and how far it will revolutionize the laws of Nature as hitherto
accepted, remains, of course, to be seen: but this at least is clear. In
presence of it, scientific men find that they are sure of nothing they
thought most certain, not of the indestructibility of matter itself, on
which is based that Law of Substance which we have seen made responsible
for so much.
It had been thought that whatever else might change or perish the atoms
of which we have heard, as the ultimate constituents of Matter, were
beyond the reach of any vicissitude. "No man," said Dalton, their
discoverer, "can split an atom." Thus too Mr. Clodd, while acknowledging
that the constitution even of atoms may some day be found to be liable
to disorder and decay, clearly teaches that, as a practical certainty,
we have in them got to something final. Taking one particular kind, an
oxygen atom, as a text, he thus discourses:[58]
It matters not into how many myriad substances--animal, plant, or
mineral--an atom of oxygen may have entered, nor what isolation it
has undergone: bond or free, it retains its own qualities. It
matters not how many millions of years have elapsed during these
changes, age cannot wither or weaken it; amidst all the fierce play
of the mighty agencies to which it has been subjected it remains
unbroken and unworn; to it we may apply the ancient words, "the
things which are not seen are eternal."
But now, with the recognition of radio-activity, and the disintegration
of atoms into their constituent "electrons" which this is held to
evidence, we have changed all that. Such disintegration, it is affirmed,
must imply dissolution and death, alike of the atoms themselves and of
the universe which they compose. As Sir William Crookes told the
physicists assembled at Berlin, June, 1903:
This fatal quality of atomic dissociation appears to be universal,
and operates whenever we brush a piece of glass with silk; it works
in the sunshine and raindrops, in lightnings and flame; it prevails
in the waterfall and the stormy sea.
Matter he consequently regards as doomed to destruction.[59] Sooner or
later, it will have dissolved into the "formless mist" of "prothyle"[60]
and "the hour-hand of eternity will have completed one revolution."
Consequently, we are told,[61]
The "dissipation of energy" has found its correlative in the
"dissolution of matter." We are confronted with an appalling sense
of desolation--of quasi-annihilation.
It is no doubt true, here again, that such judgments cannot be called
final, and that not all scientific men will accept them as they stand.
But all alike are forced to agree that our previous notions are
completely upset, and that we are compelled to recognize the fact that
of these fundamental questions we know far less than the little we
seemed to know. What, then, is to be thought of Professor Haeckel's
confident utterances, which could be justified only on the supposition
that we know everything? And what becomes of the famous Law of
Substance, if both its parts are found thus to contradict the conclusion
he would draw from it?
The case is thus summed up by the writer of the article just cited:
The discovery of radio-activity is one of the most momentous in the
history of science. "There has been a vivid new start" (we again
borrow Sir William Crookes' expression). "Our physicists have
remodelled their views as to the constitution of matter." The
remodelling indeed has hardly commenced.... What is undeniable is
that the Daltonian atom has, within a century of its acceptance as
a fundamental reality, suffered disruption. Its proper place in
nature is not that formerly assigned to it, ... its reputation for
inviolability and indestructibility is gone for ever. Each of these
supposed "ultimates" is now known to be the scene of indescribable
activities, a complex piece of mechanism composed of thousands of
parts, a star-cluster in miniature, subject to all kinds of
dynamical vicissitudes, to perturbation, acceleration, internal
friction, total or partial disruption. And to each is appointed a
fixed term of existence. Sooner or later, the balance of
equilibrium is tilted, disturbance eventuates in overthrow; the
tiny exquisite system finally breaks up. Of atoms, as of men, it
may be said with truth, "_Quisque suos patitur manes_."
"Here," in fact, "we meet the impenetrable secret of creative
agency."[62]
IX
THE PROBLEM OF LIFE
The question concerning the origin and nature of Life is of supreme and
vital importance not only for those who speak of Evolution as a force or
principle by which everything is guided and governed, but also for such
as understand by the term no more than a process which they say has
actually occurred. Evolutionists of this second class disclaim, with
Huxley, any "philosophy of Evolution." They are content to take the
world as a going concern, at the farthest point in the past to which,
even speculatively, Science can trace it, as that vast primordial nebula
of which we have heard.[63] Given this,--assuming the existence of such
a nebula, constituted as they suppose,--they believe that the whole
subsequent history of the world is fully explained by the uniform action
of the same laws of matter which we find in operation to-day. Not only
is the establishment of our Solar System, of sun and planets, to be
thus accounted for, but likewise the production of life, of the organic
world of plants and animals.
Hence it necessarily follows that life must originally have been evolved
naturally from lifeless matter, for all are agreed that not only in the
nebula, but on the earth when it first started its independent career,
life did not, and could not, exist.
There has been [says Virchow][64] a beginning of life, since
geology points to epochs in the formation of the earth when life
was impossible, and when no vestige of it is to be found.
If the evolution hypothesis is true, [says Huxley][65] living
matter must have arisen from not-living matter; for by the
hypothesis the condition of the globe was at one time such that
living matter could not have existed in it, life being entirely
incompatible with the gaseous state.
There was a time [says Tyndall][66] when the earth was a red-hot
molten globe, on which no life could exist.
Accordingly, as Professor Huxley acknowledges, spontaneous generation is
an evolutionary necessity. Unless such generation can be shown to have
taken place, or at the very least unless it can be shown to be naturally
possible, the theory which requires it cannot be an established truth.
But it is precisely as a scientifically established truth that the
doctrine of Evolution is presented to us, so firmly established indeed
that we are warned "to doubt it is to doubt science."[67] It presents
itself, moreover, as the most precious result of modern research, the
appearance of which is as a sunrise illuminating the field of
knowledge.[68]
This being so, and it being the first principle of Science that we
should take nothing on faith and accept only what can be proved, it is
our plain duty to satisfy ourselves, as scientific methods alone can
rightly satisfy us, that a doctrine of such paramount importance is
entitled to demand our acceptance.
What methods can claim to be scientific, all are agreed. Advances in
science, Professor Tait warns us,[69]
come or not, as we remember or forget that our Science is to be
based entirely upon experiment, or mathematical deduction from
experiment.
Men of science [says Tyndall] prolong the method of nature from the
present into the past. The observed uniformity of nature is their
only guide.[70]
The man of science [says Huxley] has learned to believe in
justification, not by faith, but by verification.[71]
In this manner must we test the Evolution theory, and spontaneous
generation as an essential element thereof. We will begin with
Professor Huxley's statement of what he styles "the fundamental
proposition of Evolution."[72]
That proposition is [he writes] that the whole world, living and
not-living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to
definite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of which
the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed. If this be
true, it is no less certain that the existing world lay,
potentially, in the cosmic vapour; and that a sufficient
intelligence could, from a knowledge of that vapour, have
predicted, say the state of the Fauna of Britain in 1869[73] with
as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the breath in
a cold winter's day.
That is to say, the supposed nebula was a vast piece of mechanism, of
unimaginable complexity, the component parts of which under the
influence of such forces as gravitation, heat, chemical affinity,
electricity and magnetism, have produced everything that has since
appeared on earth, vegetable and animal life amongst the rest. How are
we to assure ourselves that such was really the case?
Professor Tyndall has told us that the only scientific method is to
prolong the method of nature from the present into the past, taking her
observed uniformity for our only guide, and in like manner we have heard
it laid down by Professor Romanes, that we must assume as a first
principle that the laws of nature are always and everywhere the same,
and that by their uniform operation everything is done. It is therefore
quite clear that as no man was present when life first made its
appearance, to observe and record whence it came, the only way in which
we can possibly proceed, without violating every scientific canon, is to
argue from what happens now, to what must have happened then,--to show
that inorganic matter can in fact generate organic life, and to conclude
that the same laws must have worked the same results in the past as they
do in the present.
But this is precisely what cannot be done, for one of the most
conclusive results of modern research has been to show that in the
present world spontaneous generation never occurs, that living things
come only from living parents, and that from organic matter alone can
the smallest particle of organic matter be derived. _Omne vivum e vivo,
omnis cellula e cellula, omnis nucleus e nucleo._ Upon this point there
is now complete agreement amongst scientific authorities, and what is
most remarkable, none are more strenuous in upholding the doctrine of
_Biogenesis_,[74] than some of those who with equal vehemence proclaim
the doctrine of Evolution for which the occurrence of spontaneous
generation is a necessity.
Never, for example, were there Evolutionists more pronounced than
Professors Huxley and Tyndall, and they both saw clearly that without
spontaneous generation there could not have been evolution such as they
maintained. Yet when the occurrence of spontaneous generation, here and
now, was asserted by Bastian and Burdon Sanderson, they, following in
the wake of Pasteur, repudiated the notion, and Tyndall in particular
conclusively disproved the experiments by which it was supported.[75] As
Huxley wrote to Charles Kingsley:[76]
I am glad you appreciate the rich absurdities of spontogenesis.
Against the doctrine of spontaneous generation in the abstract I
have nothing to say. Indeed it is a necessary corollary from
Darwin's views if legitimately carried out.
A few years later, writing to Dr. Dohrn[77] upon the same subject, he
made use of a phrase--which in his mouth expressed the uttermost limit
of disbelief: "Transubstantiation will be nothing to this if it turns
out true."
In the same year as President of the British Association he chose for
the subject of his inaugural address, "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis," and,
after a careful examination of the case for each, pronounced the former
"to be victorious all along the line."
In spite of all this, however, he assured himself as an Evolutionist
that spontaneous generation must once have been not only a possibility
but a fact. In the same Presidential address, after piling up evidence
against it--he thus continued:[78]
But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too strongly, I
must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend
to suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis has ever taken place
in the past, or ever will take place in the future. With organic
chemistry, molecular physics and physiology yet in their infancy,
and every day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the
height of presumption for any man to say that the conditions under
which matter assumes the properties we call "vital" may not, some
day, be artificially brought together. All I feel justified in
affirming is that I see no reason for affirming that the feat has
been performed yet.
And looking back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find
no record of the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of
any means of forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of
its appearance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a
serious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in
the admitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the
mode in which the existing forms of life have originated, would be
using words in a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible where
belief is not; and if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of
geologically recorded time to the still more remote period when the
earth was passing through physical and dynamical conditions, which
it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy, I
should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm
from not living matter.... That is the expectation to which
analogical reasoning leads me; but I beg you once more to recollect
that I have no right to call my opinion anything but an act of
philosophical faith.
Here we have the whole state of the case put for us in a nutshell. On
the one hand, all known facts are against the idea of spontaneous
generation, and therefore, so far as she can at present go, the verdict
of Science must condemn that supposition. But, on the other hand, the
fundamental principle of Evolution cannot be justified unless
spontaneous generation has taken place, and accordingly, although
Evolution is the very thing which we should be engaged in establishing
by the evidence of facts, it is held to be reasonable and scientific to
infer that facts which we cannot verify must exist because they are
wanted. It is admitted that the requisite evidence is lacking, and
therefore we must not go so far as to express belief in the facts: but
we may indulge in expectations,--which seem, however, to imply belief in
the thing expected,--and meanwhile we may go on believing firmly in the
Evolution theory itself, which includes belief in the missing facts.
This, we are told, is "philosophical faith." But, to say nothing of what
we have heard from others, Professor Huxley elsewhere[79] warns us
against faith as the one unpardonable sin: and as we have heard him
declare the man of science has learned to believe in justification, not
by faith, but by verification.
And as to the expectation which he avowed, there appears to be no slight
force in the response of his adversary Dr. Bastian:[80]
What reason [he asks] does Professor Huxley give in explanation of
his supposition?... The only reason distinctly implied is because
the physical and chemical conditions of the earth's surface were
different in the past from what they are now. And yet, concerning
the exact nature of their differences, or the degree in which the
different sets of conditions would respectively favour the
occurrence or arrest of an evolution of living matter, Professor
Huxley cannot possess even the vaguest knowledge. He chooses to
assume that the unknown conditions existing in the past were more
favourable to _Archebiosis_ (life-evolution) than those now in
operation. This, however, is an assumption which may be entirely
opposed to the facts.
It is thus hard to understand how Professor Huxley could profess to
justify his expectations by verification, for that the above account of
the matter is no-wise overstated we have his own acknowledgment:[81]
Of the causes which have led to the origination of living matter,
it may be said that we know absolutely nothing.... Science has no
means to form an opinion on the commencement of life; we can only
make conjectures without any scientific value.
Such a witness as Huxley might well suffice, but the question is so
important as to make it advisable to call some others, though only a few
amongst many who testify to the same effect.
Like his friend and ally Huxley, Professor Tyndall believed that
spontaneous generation had once occurred, and denied that it occurs now.
As to the former article of his creed he was even more pronounced in his
materialism. We have already heard him proclaim that in matter is to be
discerned the promise and potency of all terrestrial life. He likewise
inclined to believe that not only life but consciousness is immanent
everywhere, in the vegetable and mineral no less than in the animal
world,[82] and that not merely life and consciousness, but:
All our philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, and all our
art--Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael--are potential in the
fires of the sun.[83]
Beliefs such as these might be thought to imply that the genesis of life
is a simple affair, but Tyndall was no less convinced than Huxley that,
as things are, it cannot be obtained without antecedent life on which
to draw. Having described the experiments devised to test the matter, he
thus concludes:[84]
Here, as in all other cases, the evidence in favour of spontaneous
generation crumbles in the grasp of the competent enquirer.
At the same time, he was equally certain that life must have had an
inorganic origin and that Science bids us so to believe. His various
utterances are not, it is true, very easily reconciled. On the one hand
he lays it down that "Without verification a theoretic conception is a
mere figment of the intellect." On the other hand in his Belfast Address
he thus expressed himself:
Believing, as I do, in the continuity of nature, I cannot stop
abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use. Here the vision
of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By a
necessity engendered and justified by Science I cross the boundary
of the experimental evidence.... If you ask me whether there exists
the least evidence to prove that any form of life can be developed
out of matter, without demonstrable antecedent life.... [men of
science] will frankly admit their inability to point to any
satisfactory experimental proof that life can be developed, save
from demonstrable antecedent life.
Far, however, from being a mere figment, his mental vision is
represented as the most unalloyed product of reason. He writes:[85]
Were not man's origin implicated, we should accept without a murmur
the derivation of animal and vegetable life from what we call
inorganic nature. The conclusion of pure intellect points this way
and no other.
The conclusion of pure intellect, however, having nothing to show for
itself in the way of evidence, we are again referred to a condition of
things concerning which we know, and can know, nothing.
Supposing [writes the Professor][86] a planet carved from the sun,
set spinning round an axis, and revolving round the sun at a
distance from him equal to that of our earth, would one of the
consequences of its refrigeration be the development of organic
forms? I lean to the affirmative.
It is no doubt interesting to know to what opinion the Professor
inclined, but is this sort of thing Science?
In the same manner Mr. Herbert Spencer, the philosopher of evolution
_par excellence_, thus reports:[87]
Biologists in general agree that in the present state of the world
no such thing happens as the rise of a living creature out of
non-living matter. They do not deny, however, that at a remote
period in the past, when the temperature of the surface of the
earth was much higher than at present, and other physical
conditions were _unlike those we know_,[88] inorganic matter,
through successive complications, gave origin to organic
matter.[89]
Mr. Darwin himself, who is constantly supposed to have upheld, or even
to have demonstrated, the fact of spontaneous generation, is amongst the
strongest witnesses against it. He was indeed disposed to believe that
the living will some day be found to be producible from the lifeless,
the ground of his expectation being the "Law of Continuity,"[90] or the
assumption that from the beginning of nature to the end one only kind of
law uniformly operates, namely the same as we now experience. But this
is to assume the whole question at issue, for unless it can be shewn
that there has been spontaneous generation, we cannot be assured that
there is such a Law of Continuity. And despite his expectation Darwin
always denied that the origin of life has been--sometimes even that it
can be--explained. Thus he wrote on various occasions:
It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one
might as well think of the origin of matter.[91]
As for myself I cannot believe in spontaneous generation, and
though I expect that at some future time the principle of life will
be rendered intelligible, at present it seems to me beyond the
confines of Science.[92]
No evidence worth anything has as yet, in my opinion, been advanced
in favour of a living being, being developed from inorganic
matter.[93]
Here we may conveniently pause and take stock of our results. On the one
hand, we are bidden in the name of Science to learn the past from the
present, and the present from observation and experiment alone. On the
other, we are invited to believe in an occurrence which observation and
experiment negative in the present, on the ground that the circumstances
must once have been entirely different from any with which we are
acquainted. Obviously, the real motive of belief is that naïvely
expressed by Professor Haeckel, who tells us that spontaneous generation
is proved by the doctrine of Evolution;[94] which then in its turn is
proved by spontaneous generation.
Two points must however be noticed in which it is attempted to find
present evidence in favour of spontaneous generation.
First, there is Protoplasm--the "Physical Basis of Life," or Living
Matter, being that form of matter by which life is always accompanied.
In this no chemical element unknown elsewhere, is to be found; the cells
of which it consists are compounded of Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and
Carbon; and it has been argued, especially by Huxley, that it is
therefore not different in kind from other compounds; that as Oxygen and
Hydrogen form water, Oxygen and Carbon, Carbonic Acid, Hydrogen and
Nitrogen, Ammonia,--so the four combined, in proper circumstances and
proportions, make Living Matter, without the aid of any vital force or
principle. And Haeckel with his habitual audacity foretells the
artificial production of Protoplasm for purposes of commerce. But, as
Mr. Stirling observes,[95] man has always known that he is made of dust,
and that the only part of him perceptible to sense is substantially the
same as the earth beneath his feet. All that he now learns in addition
is that when such matter is wedded to life it undergoes marvellous
transformations which in part at least we are able to recognize, but are
wholly unable to comprehend. This Professor Huxley himself admits:
The properties of living matter [he writes][96] distinguish it
absolutely from all other kinds of things, and the present state of
knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living and the
not-living.
Not only that: the subject is full of complexities of which Professor
Huxley gives no hint, and which it would even seem he did not himself
perceive. In his celebrated lecture on the Physical Basis of Life[97] he
gives his hearers to understand that all Protoplasm is the same, that
its particles are as the bricks with which any sort of edifice may be
constructed, a cathedral or a gin-shop, a palace or a hovel. The
protoplasm of a mushroom, for instance, he declares to be essentially
identical with that of him who eats it, into which it is most readily
convertible. He also speaks of the effect of eating mutton being to
"transubstantiate sheep into man." But, positive as are these
statements, they are far from representing scientific truths, and we are
told by Sir William Thiselton-Dyer that he himself would not know what
to do with a candidate who should advance such views in an
examination.[98] As to the mushroom and the mutton, Sir William adds,
that except the definition of a crab, as a red fish that runs backwards,
attributed to the French Academy, he can call to mind no statement "so
compact of error."
In reality, instead of all Protoplasm being the same, the differences
are infinite. Particles from different sources may be indistinguishable
by the microscope or by any test that chemistry can apply, but this only
increases the mystery of their nature, for each has its own functions
and will perform no others. The Protoplasm of a plant will do what that
of an animal, seemingly identical, cannot do. That of a fish will
convert the same nutriment into quite a different formation from that of
a man.
It is no doubt true that a particle of fungoid differs in no
appreciable physical respect from one of human protoplasm, yet the
former will never emerge from the fate of the humble mushroom,
while the other may be instinct with the thoughts of a Prime
Minister.[99]
As Mr. Stirling sums up the matter:[100]
There is nerve-protoplasm, brain-protoplasm, bone-protoplasm,
muscle-protoplasm, and protoplasm of all the other tissues, no one
of which but produces only its own kind, and is uninterchangeable
with the rest. Lastly, we have the overwhelming fact that there is
the infinitely different protoplasm of the various infinitely
different plants and animals, in each of which its own protoplasm,
as in the case of the various tissues, but produces its own kind,
and is uninterchangeable with that of the rest.
It thus appears that the character of Protoplasm, far from making it
easier to conceive the mechanical production of living things, does but
immensely aggravate the difficulty. As Sir William Thiselton-Dyer avows:
"I do not see even the beginning of a materialistic theory of
protoplasm." And Haeckel's idea that we shall succeed in creating
organic life does not commend itself to such an authority as Sir Henry
Roscoe:
It is true [he says][101] that there are those who profess to
foresee that the day will arise when the chemist, by a succession
of constructive efforts may pass beyond albumen, and gather the
elements of lifeless matter into a living structure. Whatever may
be said of this from other standpoints, the chemist can only say
that at present no such problem lies within his province.
Protoplasm, with which the simplest manifestations of life are
associated, is not a compound, but a structure built up of
compounds. The chemist may successfully synthesize any of its
component compounds, but he has no more reason to look forward to
the synthetic production of the structure than to imagine that the
synthesis of gallic acid leads to the artificial production of
gall-nuts.
And M. de Quatrefages thus sums up the conclusions at which he arrives
from minute study of the lowest forms of life:[102]
I make bold to affirm that the deeper Science penetrates into the
secrets of organization and phenomena, the more does she
demonstrate how wide and how profound is the abyss which separates
brute matter from living things.
The other point requiring notice is crystallization. Inorganic matter,
as we know, can build up crystals, the wonderful structure of which
results from the molecular properties of the substance crystallized. Why
then, some would ask, may not matter in the same manner produce
Protoplasm?
But, in the first place, this, as we have heard, is what it is never
found to do. Crystals we can produce at pleasure, in what quantity we
will. But all efforts have not yet succeeded in obtaining the most
minute speck of living matter. Moreover, nothing can be more widely
different from organic structures than crystals. The latter are always
mathematical, the former never: the latter grow by outside accretion, of
the one kind of particles whereof they consist: the former by absorption
and assimilation of various foreign substances: the latter are wholly
independent of anything like an ancestor: for the former an ancestor is
in our experience indispensable: crystals can be dissolved and
recrystallized: living matter once destroyed can never be reconstituted.
Above all, the particles incorporated in the crystal are absolutely
quiescent, so far as any portion of matter can be said to be so, no more
able to change their position without external force than the bricks in
a wall, while those in living tissue at once become subject to "the
whirlwind of life," involving constant change the cessation of which is
death.
It is inexplicable to me [says M. de Quatrefages][103] that some
men whose merits I otherwise acknowledge, should have compared
crystals to the simplest living forms.... These forms are the
antipodes of the crystal from every point of view.
To the same effect speaks Mr. A. R. Wallace, Mr. Darwin's associate in
the discovery of the Darwinian theory. In a work expressly devoted to
the vindication of that theory, Mr. Wallace declares that far from the
way of evolution being made clear by Science from end to end--"there are
at least three stages in the development of the organic world where some
new cause or power must necessarily have come into action." And at the
head of them he places that which we are now considering, writing
thus:[104]
The first stage is the change from inorganic to organic, when the
earliest vegetable cell, or the living protoplasm out of which it
arose, first appeared.... There is in this something quite beyond
and apart from chemical changes however complex; and it has been
well said that the first vegetable cell was a new thing in the
world, possessing altogether new powers....[105]
Such testimonies are sufficient for our present purpose. In face of them
it cannot be pretended that Science _knows_ anything of spontaneous
generation or gives her verdict in its favour. On the contrary, as
Professor Tait declares:[106]
To say that even the very lowest form of life, not to speak of its
higher forms, still less of volition and consciousness, can be
fully _explained_ on physical principles alone, ... is simply
unscientific. There is absolutely nothing known in physical science
which can lend the slightest support to such an idea.... To suppose
that life, even in its lowest form, is wholly material, involves
either a denial of the truth of Newton's laws of motion, or an
erroneous use of the term "Matter." Both are alike unscientific.
Yet it is precisely in the name of Science that we have been told to
accept the spontaneous origin of life from inorganic matter, as a
clearly demonstrated truth, and no riddle at all.
But as Professor Virchow, Evolutionist and Materialist as he was, well
said in regard of this very point in the Munich Congress of 1877:
If we would speak frankly, we must admit that naturalists may well
have some little sympathy for the _generatio aequivoca_
[spontaneous generation]. If it were capable of proof, it would
indeed be beautiful! But, we must acknowledge, it has not yet been
proved. The proofs of it are still wanting.... Whoever recalls to
mind the lamentable failure of all the attempts to discover a
decided support for the _generatio aequivoca_ in the lower forms of
transition from the inorganic to the organic world, will feel it
doubly serious to demand that this theory, so utterly discredited,
should be in any way accepted as the basis of all our views of
life.
X
ANIMAL AND MAN
Leaving for later consideration the fourth of Du Bois-Reymond's Unsolved
Enigmas, namely the seemingly pre-ordained order of the universe, we may
conveniently group together the three which follow it, as much
resembling that which has just occupied our attention. These problems,
it will be remembered, are (_a_) the origin of simple sensation and
consciousness, or, in other words, of the faculties possessed by
animals; (_b_) that of rational thought and speech; (_c_)
Free-will.--Here again we are bound to ask, in the name of right reason
and common-sense, what light has really been thrown on such questions by
Science, and how far she has changed their aspect,--that so we may guard
against the delusion of imagining ourselves to be in possession of more
knowledge than we actually possess.
(_a_) _Simple sensation and consciousness._ As regards the actual origin
of the higher form of life which distinguishes the animal from the
vegetable, we are obviously no better informed than we have found
ourselves to be concerning the first beginnings of life in any form,--no
evidence as to the actual facts being available, or even possible, for
our enlightenment. Once more we can only argue from the present to the
past, and enquire whether the progress of science has made it more
reasonable to suppose than it seemed in pre-scientific days that animal
life has been spontaneously evolved, either from inanimate matter or
from the vegetative life of plants. This enquiry so much resembles that
which we have just concluded as to make it unnecessary to pursue it at
any length.
We find, in fact, that men of Science who have no prepossessions
whatever against Evolution, and would willingly accept the Law of
Continuity at all points, if only evidence were forthcoming, find here
not only an unsolved problem, but one even more difficult than the
Origin of Life itself. Du Bois-Reymond for example places this amongst
his "transcendental" enigmas, to which an answer will never be found,
whereas he thinks that the origin of vegetable life, although at present
a mystery, may one day be explained. The expression of his
opinion,--that by no possibility can we ever understand how
consciousness could be evolved from matter--has, he tells us[107] been
vehemently contradicted, but, he adds, nothing in the way of argument,
or beyond mere assumptions, has been brought against him. Of these
assumptions he notices only that of Professor Haeckel, "the Prophet of
Jena," who protests against such limitations of our possibilities as
treason to the sacred cause of Evolution. The progress we have made in
intellect, says Haeckel, beyond our barbarous progenitors, is sufficient
to show that we are on the high road of development towards a stage as
far in advance of the present, as this is of the past; and when that is
attained, our knowledge will be full and will embrace all this. But,
asks Du Bois-Reymond in reply, is this mighty progress of ours so very
evident within the period concerning which we have any information? Has
the mental capacity of our race notably improved since Homer?[108] or
its faculty of thinking since Plato and Aristotle? At our present rate
of progress, long before the high-water mark prophesied by Haeckel is
reached, the earth will have become uninhabitable. And, were it
otherwise, the highest point of intellect to which conceivably man could
attain, would be that of the "sufficient intelligence" whereof we have
been told, which, from an inspection of the cosmic nebula could foretell
all that was to issue from it. And, adds Du Bois-Reymond, even could we
do this, we should still be unable to understand the origin of
consciousness, which would require intelligence of another order than
ours, however magnified.
So again Mr. Wallace tells us,[109] after speaking of the beginning of
life as we have already heard,
The next stage is still more marvellous, still more completely
beyond all possibility of explanation by matter, its laws and
forces. It is the introduction of sensation or consciousness,
constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal and
vegetable kingdoms. Here all idea of mere complication of structure
producing the result is out of the question. We feel it to be
altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of
complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of
that complexity alone, an _ego_ should start into existence, a
thing that _feels_, that is conscious of its own existence. Here we
have the certainty that something new has arisen, a being whose
nascent consciousness has gone on increasing in power and
definiteness till it has culminated in the higher animals. No
verbal explanation or attempt at explanation--such as the statement
that life is the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm,
or that the whole existing organic universe from the amoeba up to
man was latent in the fire-mist from which the solar system was
developed--can afford any mental satisfaction, or help us in any
way to a solution of the mystery.
Unquestionably, there is no lack of speakers and writers who flatly
contradict such views, and assert that animal life, equally with
vegetable, could be, and must have been, naturally evolved from
inorganic nature. The above testimonies, however, amply suffice for our
present purpose, and with them we may be satisfied; for at least they
make it plain that Science has found no evidence as to the origin of
sensation and consciousness conclusive enough to compel belief. And
where there is no scientific evidence even alleged, such as might
require the training of a specialist for its due appreciation, one man
of ordinary intelligence is as competent a judge as another, and
scientific experts are on a level with the rest of us.
(_b_) _Rational thought and speech._ What has just been said applies
with equal force to this matter likewise. Unless Science have some
positive evidence to bring, demonstrating how the gulf can be bridged
which separates the intelligence of the most degraded races of men from
the highest of the brutes, and how articulate language can spontaneously
have arisen, which is the necessary appanage of reason, we have all
equally the means of forming our conclusions on the subject.
That the gulf between man and the lower animals is here immense we have
the evidence of Mr. Darwin.
No doubt [he writes][110] the difference is in this respect
enormous, even if we compare the mind of one of the lowest savages,
who has no words to express any number higher than four, and who
uses no abstract terms for the commonest objects or affections,
with that of the most highly organized ape. The difference would,
no doubt, still remain immense, even if one of the highest apes had
been improved and civilized as much as a dog has been in comparison
with its parent form, the wolf or jackal. The Fuegians rank
amongst the lowest barbarians; but I was continually struck with
surprise how closely the three natives on board H.M.S. _Beagle_,
who had lived some years in England and could talk a little
English, resembled us in disposition and in most of our mental
faculties.
Mr. Darwin goes on to argue, however, that the difference between man
and beast is one of degree only and not of kind; that this can be
"clearly shewn"; and that there is unquestionably
a much wider interval in mental power between one of the lowest
fishes, as a lamprey or lancelet, and one of the higher apes, than
between an ape and a man; yet this immense interval is filled up by
numberless gradations,
from which he concludes that by a like series of steps, of which,
however, no trace is left, our progenitors have been able to mount from
the simian to the human level.
Clear however as Mr. Darwin pronounces the evidence to be, it is very
far from being so considered by other eminent naturalists. So convinced
an Evolutionist as Mr. Mivart, for example, declared on various
occasions that his reason abundantly sufficed to convince him that there
was a wider break in nature between man and the highest ape, than
between the highest ape and an oyster or even a mushroom.
It is evident that the evidence which permits judgments so diverse as
these cannot be said conclusively to prove the former existence of a
bridge every vestige of which has, by the acknowledgment of all parties,
entirely disappeared. We are therefore left to determine for ourselves,
whether the powers of our own mind, as each knows them in himself, are
of a totally different nature from those of dogs and horses, and
chimpanzees such as the late lamented "Consul," or whether we are
superior only in degree, as a sheep-dog is more intelligent than a
sheep, or a fox than a goose.
If in any respect such an enquiry can be made definite and therefore
profitable, it is clearly in regard of Language. This, as said above, is
an essential adjunct of reason such as ours, and on the other hand it
forms the plainest boundary between the domain of the human race and
that of the brutes. It is, says Professor Max Müller, our Rubicon on the
hither side of which men alone are found. Given reason such as ours,
whatever mode of communication might be open to them, we cannot suppose
its possessors failing to establish a medium of intercourse. In existing
conditions, man can make an alphabet out of the clicks of a needle or
the flashes of a mirror, and if his vocal organs were no better than
those of a baboon, we cannot imagine him content generation after
generation with inarticulate howls and yells. But this is just the case
of the animals. They are _never_ found to make the smallest progress in
the direction of a code of signals. Dogs indeed, as Mr. Darwin
says,[111] having developed in captivity the new art of barking, have
further learnt to vary this accomplishment according to the
circumstances that provoke it, and have distinct tones to express the
diversity of their feelings, as when hunting, or angry, or setting out
for a walk, or shut up in a kennel or out of a house. Some dogs, he
might have added, refine still further, and will betray by their style
of bark not only that they are hunting something, but what it is that
they have come upon, whether a rabbit, a cat, or a hedgehog. But, as the
Chevalier Bunsen observes,[112] and his observation includes such
manifestations as the above:
Animal sounds are the echoes of blind instincts within, or of the
phenomena of the outward world, uttered by suffering or satisfied
animal nature, and in all cases resulting from mere passiveness.
By rational language, on the other hand, is signified, to quote Mr.
Mivart:[113]
The external manifestation, whether by sound or gesture, of general
conceptions:--not emotional expressions or the manifestations of
sensible impressions, but enunciations of distinct judgments as to
"the what," "the how," and "the why."
Consequently, as Bunsen declares:
The theories about the origin of language have followed those
about the origin of thought, and have shared their fate. The
materialists have never been able to show the possibility of the
first step. They attempt to veil their inability by the easy but
fruitless assumption of an infinite space of time, destined to
explain the gradual development of animals into men; as if millions
of years could supply the want of the agent necessary for the first
movement, for the first step in the line of progress! No numbers
can effect a logical impossibility. How indeed could reason spring
out of a state which is destitute of reason? How can speech, the
expression of thought, develop itself in a year or in millions of
years, out of unarticulated sounds which express feelings of
pleasure, pain, and appetite? The common-sense of mankind will
always shrink from such theories.
Bunsen's words were echoed even more forcibly by professor Max Müller,
speaking as President of the Anthropological Section of the British
Association at Cardiff in 1889.
What [he asked] does Bunsen consider the real barrier between man
and beast? It is language, which is unattainable, or at least
unattained, by any animal except man.
You know [he continued] how for a time, and chiefly owing to
Darwin's predominating influence, every conceivable effort was made
to reduce the distance which language places between man and beast,
and to treat language as a vanishing line in the mental evolution
of animal and man. It required some courage at times to stand up
against the authority of Darwin, but at present all serious
thinkers agree, I believe, with Bunsen, that no animal has ever
developed what we mean by rational language, as distinct from mere
utterances of pleasure or pain, a subject lately treated with great
fulness by Professor Romanes. Still, if all true science is based
on facts, the fact remains that no animal has ever found what we
mean by a language; and we are fully justified, therefore, in
holding with Bunsen and Humboldt, as against Darwin and Romanes,
that there _is_ a specific difference between the human animal and
all other animals, and that that difference consists in language as
the outward manifestation of what the Greeks meant by _Logos_.
It is moreover evident that, far from speech having generated reason, as
some have preposterously maintained, it is reason which generates
speech, no less inevitably than sunlight produces the spectrum when it
passes through a prism. The seeming paradox of Wilhelm von Humboldt is
in fact a sober truth: "Man is man only through speech, but in order to
invent it he must already be man." We have plain evidence that before
means for the internal expression of it are found, the mental word
(_verbum mentale_) is awaiting them, and that without this it would be
as impossible for any sort of rational speech to be produced as for an
apple to be grown without an apple-tree.
Evidence to this effect is furnished by recorded instances of persons
who from early childhood, or even from birth, were deaf, dumb, and
blind, and appeared to be cut off from all possibility of human
converse, the "gates of Mansoul" being thus almost entirely closed. Such
are the well-known cases of Laura Bridgman, Miss Keller, and Martha
Obrecht, who had been thus afflicted since their earliest childhood, the
two first named from the age of two, and the last from that of three
years.[114] Also the more recent instance of Marie Heurtin, who was so
born, and consequently could not have even the faintest glimmer of any
knowledge these senses could convey.[115] Yet, by the exercise of
ingenious and unwearied charity, a means of communication was elaborated
through the sense of touch, and the souls which had seemingly been
buried alive, shewed themselves responsive to such advances,--often
astonishingly so,--and revealed their possession of faculties identical
with those of their rescuers. We are told, for example, of Marie Heurtin
that her intelligence proved to be quick, that she was even "unusually
clever, evidently eager for knowledge, and, as sometimes happens, her
faculties being prevented by her infirmity from wasting their powers on
external objects, were all the more fresh and vigorous." Even more
wonderful is the case of Miss Keller, who attained a degree of culture
and accomplishment far beyond the common level of those possessing the
use of all their senses.
Somewhat akin to such instances is that of the savages from Tierra del
Fuego mentioned above by Mr. Darwin. In their case likewise, when they
were brought into communication with people possessed of higher culture
than their own degraded race, it was found that the corresponding
faculties within them were not dead, or as yet non-existent, but only
starved into lethargy; and, the opportunity being given, they speedily
caused surprise by unmistakable proofs how closely they resemble
ourselves.
Thus we find that in this branch of our enquiry there is one broad fact,
which all must recognize and none can deny. No race of men has ever been
known which could not speak, nor any race of animals which could, or
which had made the first beginnings of intelligent language. Facts being
the only groundwork of Science here is undoubtedly something whereon she
may build an inference, and this inference will certainly not be that
the faculties of men and animals are radically identical. And if we are
told, as we constantly are, that it is more truly scientific to admit
such identity, should there not be some other facts, still more
significant and equally well established, to exhibit on the other side?
But of what character are the arguments actually adduced? It will be
sufficient to quote a few which come with the highest authority.
We may start with the almost classical specimen contributed by Mr.
Darwin himself.
It does not [he says][116] appear altogether incredible that some
unusually wise ape-like animal should have thought of imitating the
growl of a beast of prey, so as to indicate to his fellow monkeys
the nature of the expected danger. And this would have been a first
step in the formation of a language.
Similarly Professor Whitney writes of some supposed "pithecoid"[117]
men:
There is no difficulty in supposing them to have possessed forms of
speech, more rudimentary and imperfect than ours.[118]
And so again Professor Romanes:[119]
Let us try to imagine a community considerably more intelligent
than the existing anthropoid apes, although still considerably
below the intellectual level of existing savages. It is certain
that in such a community natural signs of voice, gesture, and
grimace would be in vogue to a greater or less extent. As their
numbers increased ... such signs would require to become more and
more conventional, or acquire more and more the character of
sentence-words.
Of course, as Mr. Mivart replies,[120] there is no difficulty in
supposing anything we choose, or in seeing animals in imagination
performing feats which never yet have they been known to achieve in
fact. But no amount of such suppositions or imaginations will furnish
Science with the scantiest apology for a foothold, nor can the germs of
language attributed to pithecoid communities or the sagest of their
patriarchs, be considered as of any greater value than the speeches put
into the mouths of the animals by Æsop or "Uncle Remus."
It is also to be noticed that in these accounts of the origin of
language, the essential element of reason is always quietly smuggled in
as a matter of course. Thus Mr. Darwin's wisest of the pithecoids was
able to "think of" a device for the information of his fellows. There is
not the smallest doubt that any creature which had got so far as _that_
would find what he wanted. It is but the old case of the man who was
sure he could have written Hamlet had he had a mind to do so. Like him,
the ape might have made the invention, if he had a mind to make
it;--only he had not got the mind. So too, Professor Romanes' missing
links use tones and signs which acquire "more and more" the character of
true speech: which could not be unless they contained some measure of
that character already. But it is just the first step thus ignored which
spans the gulf between man and brute.
There is another factor upon which, in conjunction with these
suppositions, great stress is wont to be laid, namely that of time; it
being apparently taken for granted that if only time enough be given
anything whatever may come about. Thus Professor Romanes tells us[121]
that his imaginary _Homo alalus_, or speechless man, must probably have
lived for an "inconceivably long time," before getting far enough on the
road towards speech to give him such an advantage as enabled him to
crush out his less accomplished congeners; and that even after this
point was reached, another "inconceivable lapse of time" must have been
required to turn him into _Homo sapiens_, or man as he actually is.
Immense intervals, he further tells us, must have been consumed in the
passage through various grades of mental evolution; "The epoch during
which sentence-words prevailed was probably immense"; "It was not until
æons of ages had elapsed that any pronouns arose."
Meanwhile, there is no scrap of evidence that as a matter of fact any
thing of all this ever happened at all, and as Bunsen has observed no
millions of years, even were millions available at discretion, could
ever supply the want of the faculty without which nothing in the way of
language could ever be accomplished.
(_c_) _Free-will._--Here is another human faculty which Du Bois-Reymond
declares never to have been accounted for by natural causation, and he
greatly doubts whether it should not be classed among the problems that
must be for ever insoluble.
Professor Haeckel, as we have seen, gets rid of all difficulties on this
score by laying it down that "the freedom of the will is not an object
for critical scientific inquiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based
on an illusion, and has no real existence."
It is plain that for his purpose this is the only course possible. If
the will be really free, there can be no question of finding a
mechanical explanation of it. There is therefore no alternative but to
cut the Gordian knot, and to declare that the liberty which the vast
majority of men believe themselves to exercise every instant, is proved
by Science to be no better than a pure dogma, that is to say, a mere
figment.
When we seek for his indication of the line of argument whereby this
position is made good, the information supplied is less full than might
be desired. He begins[122] with a rather lengthy sketch of the history
of controversy in this regard,--which contains the remarkable statement
that "Some of the first teachers of the Christian Churches--such as St.
Augustine and Calvin--rejected the freedom of the will as decidedly as
the famous leaders of pure Materialism, Holbach in the eighteenth, and
Büchner in the nineteenth century." Then he proceeds:
The great struggle between the determinist and the indeterminist,
between the opponent and the sustainer of the freedom of the will,
has ended to-day after more than 2,000 years, completely in favour
of the determinist. The human will has no more freedom than that of
the higher animals, from which it differs only in degree, not in
kind. In the last [i.e. the eighteenth] century the doctrine of
liberty was fought with general philosophic and cosmological
arguments. The nineteenth century has given us very different
weapons for its definitive destruction--the powerful weapons which
we find in the arsenal of comparative physiology and evolution. We
now know that each act of the will is as fatally determined by the
organization of the individual, and as dependent on the momentary
condition of his environment, as every other psychic activity. The
character of the inclination was determined long ago by _heredity_
from parents and ancestors; the determination to each particular
act is an instance of _adaptation_ to the circumstances of the
moment wherein the strongest motive prevails, according to the laws
which govern the statics of emotion. Ontogeny teaches us to
understand the evolution of the will in the individual child.
Phylogeny reveals to us the historical development of the will
within the ranks of our vertebrate ancestors.[123]
That is all. It is needless to observe that jargon like this proves
nothing. Of anything approaching to evidence there is here, manifestly,
no vestige, and there is consequently nothing which can avail to win our
assent as rational men.
It is likewise obvious that we have here a question as to which every
human being has the means of judging equally with the most eminent man
of Science, and modern improvement of the methods and instruments of
research leaves us just where we always were. The final evidence on the
subject every man has within himself, in the most vital facts of his own
experience. Into the philosophy of the matter it is neither necessary
nor advisable at present to go. In dealing with profound yet elementary
questions, regarding which our means of knowledge are thus simple and
direct, men are apt to bewilder themselves when they begin to
philosophize, and to persuade themselves that they cannot be sure
precisely of those things that are most certain. George Borrow is by no
means the only one who has tormented himself with doubts as to his own
existence.[124] A still larger number have professed to believe
themselves mere machines compelled to go like clocks, and to do only
what has been predetermined for them. But such beliefs are for the
lecture-room or the study only, and in practical life every one behaves
as if both he himself and others--especially others--were responsible
for their conduct. So common-sense teaches, than which we shall not find
a safer guide. "Sir," said the eminently common-sense Dr. Johnson, "we
_know_ our will is free; and _there's_ an end on't. All theory is
against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.... But, Sir, as
to the doctrine of necessity, no man believes it. If a man should give
me arguments that I cannot answer to prove that I cannot see; because I
cannot answer his arguments, do I believe that I have no eyes?"
Thus we find once again that the doctrines which some would force upon
us in the name of Science, on whatever they are founded, have no basis
of fact, and cannot therefore rightly call themselves scientific.
XI
THE ORDER OF NATURE
That the world which we inhabit is a _Cosmos_, ruled by law and order,
no one has ever attempted to deny. Only because laws are everywhere
found awaiting discovery, is natural science a possibility. What such
laws really are, we have already considered. They are, as Mr. Lewes puts
it, the paths along which the forces of nature travel to their results;
and it is only because these forces keep invariably each to its proper
path, that we are able to follow them with our minds, either to learn
anything concerning them, or to turn our knowledge to practical account.
In something of the same manner, it is because we are assured that our
railway trains will run on their appointed lines, that we can learn from
Bradshaw how to get to Exeter or to Edinburgh;--but the forces of Nature
are never derailed. It is, in fact, as we have heard, the first
principle of Science, that "the reign of law is universal, the principle
of continuity ubiquitous,"--and upon this the validity of all her
methods and conclusions wholly depends. It is taken for granted, with
absolute confidence, that what is once found to happen will be exactly
repeated in like circumstances,--that the laws experimentally observed,
regarding motion, heat, light, sound, chemical combination, electricity,
magnetism, and the rest, will be faithfully obeyed, in every minutest
particular, as certainly as suns will rise and set, or moons wax and
wane. Were it not so, were the forces of Nature to act spasmodically and
at random, and did not their common action so result as to establish or
subserve other laws of bewildering complexity,--as in molecular
dynamics, the mechanism of the heavens, and the processes of organic
life,--we could learn no more from the study of nature than from a page
of type which had been set up by an idiot, or an anthropoid ape.
Here is another factor in our problem, and one which has from the first
attracted the attention of thinking men. No feature of nature impressed
them more than this same reign of law and order, apparent everywhere;
and on this account they called the world _Cosmos_, instead of _Chaos_.
And, since it is self-evident that everything must have a reason for its
being, that whatever is not self-existent must have a cause other than
itself, they felt compelled to enquire what manner of cause would
account for law and order. The like enquiry we have still to pursue, and
by methods radically the same as ever; for amid all her discoveries
Science has found nothing which does anything whatever to furnish an
answer. All that has been done is enormously to multiply the aspects
under which the problem presents itself.
It is now not merely in the larger and more obvious operations of Nature
that we can trace this marvellous ubiquity of law, but in her most
hidden processes and inmost constitution. At every point, we are forced
to ask why things should be as they actually are, and how they came to
be subject to conditions which they cannot be supposed to have created
for themselves. Why, for example, should the ultimate elements of
matter,--be they atoms, or electrons, or whatever else,--always and
everywhere observe the same rules of the great game in which they serve
as counters? Why, to take a concrete instance, should atoms of Hydrogen
in Sirius, or in a star of the Milky Way, obey just the same laws as do
those with which we make coal-gas or spirit of salt? These various
atoms, as Lord Grimthorpe reminds us, have never been within billions of
miles of one another. What is the mysterious influence which links them
together across the depths of space? That they are so linked is obvious;
for if we can ascertain the existence of such a substance in other
spheres, it is only because the light it emits, exactly agrees when
analyzed in the spectroscope with that of hydrogen flames in our own
laboratories. How comes it, again, that the seventy different kinds of
atoms, (to speak in round numbers)--are distributed--according to
Mendeléeff's periodic law,--among some seven groups or families, the
members of each group resembling one another in various particulars,
wherein they differ from the rest? Or, to pass from atoms to molecules,
(in which atoms of the same or of different kinds combine, to build up
simple or compound substances respectively,)--how is it that molecules
of the same kind are always constructed upon exactly the same model,
resembling one another far more closely than sovereigns struck from the
same die, or different copies of this morning's _Times_? It was in this
uniformity of type, character and behaviour, repeated always and
everywhere, in instances multiplied "beyond the power of imagination to
conceive," that Sir John Herschel[125] saw a feature stamping atoms and
molecules as "manufactured articles, and subordinate agents," which, no
less than a line of spinning-jennies, or a regiment of soldiers clad in
the same uniform, and going through the same evolutions, imply a
controlling force directing things according to a definite system.
These and innumerable other particulars of detail has Science added to
the problem: but of anything which can supply an answer, she knows no
more than did the first man who ever mooted the question within his own
soul.
And if in the inorganic world we find food for such considerations, with
immensely greater instance are they forced upon us by a study of the
organic. Here we enter a new realm of mystery, for the laws we encounter
actively energizing at every point, are altogether different from those
with which hitherto we have had to deal. The matter which enters into
the constitution of living things,--animals or plants--is precisely the
same as that of which the inorganic world is constituted. No single atom
or molecule is found in the one which has not been drawn from the
other;--nor when incorporated in a living structure do atoms or
molecules suffer any alteration, or change their nature in any respect,
for, says Clerk-Maxwell,[126] throughout all changes and catastrophes
these remain "unbroken and unworn." Nevertheless, they fall at once
under the spell of a force which introduces into their operations an
order altogether new, for it somehow strikes across all the laws of dead
matter, setting up a new code of its own, which endures just so long as
life lasts, and is never met with apart from life. And these organic
laws issue in marvellous results. Professor Haeckel himself, after
endeavouring to show that from the inorganic world no arguments can be
drawn to favour the supposition of design in Nature, thus
continues:[127]
But the idea of design has a very great significance and
application in the _organic_ world. We do undeniably perceive a
purpose in the structure and in the life of an organism. The plant
and animal seem to be controlled by a definite design in the
combination of their several parts, just as clearly as we see in
the machines which man invents and constructs; as long as life
continues, the functions of the several organs are directed to
definite ends, just as is the operation of the various parts of a
machine.
How Haeckel proceeds to argue that such appearance of purposive design
is merely fallacious, we need not here stay to enquire; our present
concern is to attempt to realize the evidence of law and order which the
world everywhere exhibits. As we have just heard, the parts of an
organism, like those of a motor-car, or a chronometer, combine their
operations for the production of definite ends; the attainment of which
depends in all instances upon the nicest correspondence of various
details of their work. Thus, that there should be eyes capable of
seeing, the laws of optics must be satisfied, reflection, refraction and
the rest, just as exactly in the making of an eye as in that of a
telescope. _De facto_ they _are_ satisfied. The eye, Mr. Darwin
styles[128] "a living optical instrument as superior to one of glass as
the works of the Creator[129] are to those of man." He speaks, moreover,
of "all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different
distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the
correction of spherical and chromatic aberration."[130] Therefore,
however we are to account for them, the laws which govern the
production of eyes successfully solve a practical problem and satisfy
laws which were in force before an animal with eyes appeared on earth.
In just the same way, the requirements of sound are met by the
structure of the ear, which Sir Henry Holland, for example,[131] judged
more wonderful than that of the eye itself.
So again as to wings. They are in the first place such marvellous pieces
of workmanship that as Mr. Pettigrew writes concerning one of their
forms.[132] "There are few things in nature more admirably constructed
than the wing of a bird, and perhaps none where design can be more
readily traced." But, moreover, wings entirely different in plan, as of
birds, bats, and all the varieties of insects, alike satisfy the laws of
aerostatics, and successfully solve in practice the problem of flight, a
problem which we are unable to solve even theoretically. "It is
evident," writes Lord Grimthorpe,[133] "that nobody yet thoroughly
understands the whole theory of flying, though we are seeing it
continually, and have unlimited opportunities of examining all sorts of
wings. The explanation that appears plausible for one kind, not only
will not do for another but seems refuted by it." Yet in a multitude of
different ways, the forces of Nature succeed in effecting what with all
our Science we cannot shew to be possible.
And concerning not merely one portion of a creature's structure, but the
whole, Professor Huxley declares:[134]
The horse is in many ways a remarkable animal; not least so in the
fact that it presents us with an example of one of the most perfect
pieces of machinery in the living world. In truth, among the works
of human ingenuity it cannot be said that there is any locomotive
so perfectly adapted to its purposes, doing so much work with so
small a quantity of fuel, as this machine of Nature's
manufacture--the horse.
These are but a few out of countless similar examples. "We are
constantly discovering," says Lord Grimthorpe, "new complications and
processes, and what to all common sense appear contrivances, in the
organs of all living things, and indeed we can find no limit to them."
In all these cases an instrument is fashioned precisely adapted to the
performance of a certain function, and it is therefore obvious on first
principles that there must exist _some_ power capable of producing such
instruments.
It will probably be answered that there are forces enough in Nature to
account for everything, and that these furnish the needful explanation.
But, as Mr. Croll rightly insists,[135] Force by itself explains
nothing. Its mere exercise has no tendency whatever to produce such
effects. There must likewise be Determination of Force in the one
definite direction required, and it is in the source of this
Determination that the true cause must be sought to which the result is
due. It is not simply because iron is hammered and filed that a
railway-engine is produced; nor is it sufficient that a block of marble
be chipped with mallet and chisel in order to obtain a statue of Apollo.
Unless some influence comes in to direct the forces in such cases to
their respective results, the results will never by any possibility be
secured. And in the processes of Nature such direction or determination
must be exercised in particulars inconceivably intricate, to which the
works of man furnish no parallel. As Mr. Croll writes:
If a tree is to be formed, the lines of least resistance must all
be determined and adjusted in relation to the objective idea of the
tree; of the root; of the branches; of the leaves; of the bud; of
the fruit; and of every part of the tree. But this is not all: the
tree is built up molecule by molecule, each of which requires a
special determination, and, beyond all this, we have the
structureless protoplasm, which must be differentiated according to
the objective idea of the whole. What produces this marvellous
adjustment of means to ends?
And as he insists in another passage:
The determinations which take place in nature occur not at random,
but according to a plan--an objective idea. Thus the question is
not simply what causes a body to take some direction, but what
causes it to take, among the infinite number of possible
directions, the proper direction in relation to the idea. In the
formation of, say, the leaf of a tree, no two molecules move in
identically the same direction or take identically the same path.
But each molecule must move in relation to the objective idea of
the leaf, or no leaf would be formed. The grand question,
therefore, is, What is it that selects from among the infinite
number of possible directions the proper one in relation to this
idea?
And this sort of thing is going on in every blossom and leaf and blade
of grass, in every hair and every feather over the surface of the earth.
Truly does our author find here "The Grand Question," for in it we touch
the very heart of our whole problem, and are forced to consider more
closely than we have hitherto done of what character must be the
ultimate Cause which alone can explain the world.
It is, as we have seen, a first principle of Science, that in enquiries
such as this, we must proceed from experience to inference, from the
known to the unknown. Arguing thus, we may legitimately gather from
observed phenomena, that something exists, which even though it be not
directly within the range of our senses, must certainly be capable of
producing such phenomena: just as the perturbations of one planet have
revealed the existence of another; and the lines in their spectra have
taught us the chemical constitution of the sun and stars.
This principle being borrowed by Science from common-sense, has
instinctively been ever adopted by those who set themselves to enquire
of what kind must be that unseen Power at the back of Nature to which
the fact of law and order may be ascribed. And as there is but one
force or power within the range of our experience capable of producing
such an effect, it is but natural that this should have been constantly
assumed to represent, at least by analogy, the nature of the power
required. That there is but one cause known to us experimentally, which
can determine the operation of force towards the attainment of a
preconditioned result, none will deny--namely the purposive action of an
intelligent will, as known to us in ourselves and in our
fellow-men;--and to Will accordingly, immensely more intelligent than
ours, has been ascribed the establishment of those laws which the
highest intellects of our race are able partially and dimly to
apprehend.
It is thus that we are led to the fundamental doctrine of Theism, to
belief in an intelligent First Cause, according to whose design the
universe has been fashioned; a cause which must have all that is found
in the universe or any part of it, including man, and more--for it has
of itself what all else derives from it--whose purposes necessarily
transcend our mental grasp--but whose modes of thought are reflected in
our own, by which they can in some measure be followed through a study
of their results.
If such a belief, so grounded, be unscientific, as is constantly
assumed, there must be good arguments to the contrary. It should be
demonstrable, either that Science has shown such a line of reasoning to
be unsound, or that she has discovered within her own domain something
which, at least conceivably, can do the work thus attributed to
Intelligence--in which case the much-quoted dictum of Lord Kelvin will
be in point,--that if a probable solution of any problem can be found
which is consistent with the ordinary course of Nature, we must not go
beyond Nature in search of one.
If, on the other hand, the above line of reasoning cannot be
invalidated, and if scientific methods can discover nothing competent to
effect what has undoubtedly been effected, it is not easy to see how it
can be unscientific to proceed by inference to what is confessedly
beyond the scope of observation and experiment.
That "Teleology," or the doctrine of Final Causality,[136] is unworthy
of serious consideration, is without doubt a common assumption, and some
writers seem to think that an argument is sufficiently discredited if it
be styled "teleological." Yet this rather formidable term represents no
more than the belief that the infinite adaptations of means to results
observed in Nature are the effect of purpose, not of chance. And if we
eliminate purpose, what is there left to furnish an explanation, beyond
the indubitable fact that such adaptations have always been found in
organic nature, and that we have learnt confidently to anticipate that
they will appear generation after generation according to the "law of
heredity"? But this obviously only tells us that they have been produced
and are likewise transmitted, and throws no light whatever on the cause
of the marvellous processes to which their production and their
transmission are due. If we have any rational grounds for expecting that
such processes will continue to occur, it cannot be merely that they
have occurred before, but we instinctively infer that the cause to which
they are ultimately due continues to operate. We are thus as far as ever
from an answer to the question, What is that cause?
It may be urged [says Newman][137] if a thing happens once it must
happen always; for what is to hinder it? Nay, on the contrary, why,
because one particle of matter has a certain property, should all
particles have the same? Why, because particles have instanced the
property a thousand times, should the thousand and first instance
it also? It is _prima facie_ unaccountable that an accident should
happen twice, not to speak of it happening always. If we expect a
thing to happen twice, it is because we think it is not an
accident, but has a cause. What has brought about a thing once, may
bring it about twice. _What_ is to hinder its happening? rather
what is to make it happen? Here we are thrown back from the
question of Order to that of Causation. A law is not a cause, but a
fact; but when we come to the question of cause, then we have no
experience of any cause but Will.
Here is the crucial point: "We have no experience of any cause but
Will;" and it follows that if, as Science bids us, we base inference on
experience alone, there can be no doubt about the conclusion to which we
shall be led.
* * * * *
No different is the verdict of Sir John Herschel:
The presence of _Mind_ [he writes][138] is what solves the whole
difficulty: so far, at least, as it brings it within the sphere of
our consciousness, and into conformity with our own experience of
what action is.
That the introduction of intelligent purpose, as a factor, sufficiently
meets the requirements of our reason cannot be denied. As Bishop Butler
insists, it is even impossible for any man in his senses to say that the
problem can be more easily solved without it. And witnesses not merely
unfriendly, but positively and even bitterly hostile, are compelled to
admit that on whatever other grounds they may reject Theism, it is not
because this doctrine is inadequate as an explanation of the world we
know.
It seems to me [says Professor Huxley][139] that "creation," in the
ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no
difficulty in imagining that, at some former period, this universe
was not in existence; and that it made its appearance ... in
consequence of the volition of some pre-existent Being. The
so-called _à priori_ arguments against Theism, and given a Deity,
against the possibility of creative acts, appear to me to be devoid
of reasonable foundation.
Similarly, that uncompromising foe of religious belief in any shape,
Professor W. K. Clifford, replying to Dr. Martineau who based his
argument on the existence of the moral law, as well as the evidence of
design in Nature, wrote thus:[140]
I fully admit that the theistic hypothesis, so grounded, and
considered apart from objections elsewhere arising, is a reasonable
hypothesis and an explanation of the facts. The idea of an external
conscious being is unavoidably suggested, as it seems to me, by the
categorical imperative of the moral sense; and moreover in a way
quite independent, by the aspect of nature, which seems to answer
to our questionings with an intelligence akin to our own.
On the other hand, where is an alternative hypothesis to be found of
which as much can be said,--which will justify itself to reason, by
accounting for the facts? That no purely materialistic or mechanical
theory will suffice is not only obvious to common-sense, but is
acknowledged by those who would gladly find such a theory sufficient.
It would be a great delusion [writes Weismann][141] if any one
were to believe that he had arrived at a comprehension of the
universe by tracing the phenomena of Nature to mechanical
principles. He would thereby forget that the assumption of eternal
matter with its eternal laws by no means satisfies our intellectual
need for causality.
Similarly, Professor Huxley admits that even his primeval cosmic nebula
with the world potential in its womb, leaves something to desire.