THE PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF EXISTENCE
The tremendous strides made in the sciences of biology, histology,
physiology, and psychology in the latter part of the last century, in
connection with the development of the science of organic chemistry,
have done much to unravel the life-mystery from a physical point of
view. One by one the determining characteristics of the mentality
of the _genus homo_ have dwindled down until to-day even reason in
its broadest sense is granted by the most conservative to some of
the vegetable forms of life, and any unbiased mind will have hard
work to determine the difference between the so-called "Brownian"
movement of particles of gamboge when macerated in a little water,
or even of bits of camphor when dropped upon the surface of water,
and the movements of the particles of a protoplasmic mass; although
one is caused by temperature changes, and the other by chemism. The
selectative growth of a vertex of a crystal in a saturated solution,
and the claw of a crab, both of which have previously suffered the
loss of their respective parts, are perhaps not so different as
the words "organic" or "inorganic" would lead us to believe when
applied as a classification to their principals. We know that in the
life-process, as everywhere else, the law of substance and the law of
the conservation of energy are held inviolate, and the theory which
treats of life as a characteristic entity apart from the condition
which makes it possible, is certainly false. The matter which
composes the living body is chemically the same as that which we find
everywhere. The fact that some living bodies have the power to form
protoplasm out of its chemical elements or simple combinations of
them, or only assimilate such protoplasm after it has been formed from
inorganic matter, constitutes, in the broadest sense, the difference
between the vegetable and the animal life, as we now know it. But,
whether living or dead, the protoplasm has about the same composition,
and, therefore, it must be that life _per se_ is in reality only the
manifestation of a form of motion. Science, by deduction, teaches us
to look upon the living body very much as a theoretically perfect
motor-generator set, the line terminals of the dynamo being the feed
wires of the motor. Such a machine, standing still, would be "dead" in
all senses of the word, although, potentially, its integrity would be
the same as when in operation. But, once put in motion, this machine
would directly come up to speed, and maintain itself at its normal rate
of rotation until something interfered with it, or set up resistance
within its circuit. From this time on, its rate of rotation would
diminish until it stopped. If its integrity were suddenly violated,
this stop would come at once.
Fifty years ago, heat, light, and electricity were all talked of, and
believed to be forces whose existence was in no way dependent upon
matter. Since the investigations of Thomson and Helmholtz, there is no
unbiased scientist who can for a minute think that the manifestation
of any of these could possibly exist without material of some sort,
such as in a general way we call matter. Even chemism, the most
obscure of all physical forces, we know to be very closely allied to
gravitative attraction, and to be so powerful since it operates through
such short distances. In fact, if we adopt the only known feasible
hypothesis to account for the formation of matter, we must, in the
end, admit that motion, and not matter, is the most potent of all the
primal causes which we can imagine to-day. If we could eliminate motion
entirely from the universe, we do not know of a single characteristic
which would be left, by which we could identify existence as we know
it, certainly not even matter itself. Every investigation or experiment
which has been made in the domain of the natural sciences has only
amassed additional evidence to the tremendous amount already gathered;
all going certainly to prove that at least the former two of the old
three universally accepted postulates were false, _viz._: the free
moral agency of man, the immortality of the soul, and the existence
of a personal God, or a power outside of and superior to nature.
The latter will in no wise interest us, inasmuch as experience has
taught us that, in general as well as in particular, the universe is
governed by law; all honor to Humboldt and Descartes for so clearly
demonstrating this.
We are quite sure to-day that, roughly estimated, each pound of human
flesh represents an amount of potential energy equal to about sixteen
million foot-pounds, and that all of the life-processes are, in the
last analysis, purely physical, and that they follow physical laws. Any
exertion, either muscular or nervous, which we make, over and above
that supplied by the energy in our assimilated food, will have to be
taken from the stock as represented in the tissue,--consequently,
continued work means hunger; if continued longer without food, it means
exhaustion, and if continued longer without food and rest intervening,
it means the deterioration of the tissues. The recent investigations of
Matthews upon the manner of nerve action, and the fact that the same
is due to substances known as reversible gelatines, as well as to the
cause of the negative variation of nerves exposed to exciting stimuli,
all show that these most complex of life's processes are as purely
physical, in the largest sense, as the most simple ones. The artificial
fertilization of sterile eggs by the use of dilute solutions, whose
actions might almost be called catalytic, still further emphasizes
the fact that life's processes, even in the embryo, are essentially
physical. Take, for instance, the sterile egg of the sea-urchin; the
two per cent. solution of potassium cyanide; the continued constant
temperature for a definite time, and all of the other conditions which
enter into the development of this crude protoplasmic mass, are all
physical factors, regardless of the fact that the result is a living
organism, where we would, according to our old ideas, certainly expect
an undeveloped sterile egg, or a potentially dead body. As with this
ovum, so with the vegetable protoplasmic mass in the germinal radical
of a seed: if its development is once started, it must continue its
natural course without interference, upon pain of speedy degeneration
upon interruption, and, in this light, both the egg and the grain of
seed are places where life can be started (or motion on a larger scale
begun) rather than living things before their development began, or
while they were lying in their dormant state.
The death-knell to the theory of the personal immortality of the
human soul, as ordinarily enunciated, was rung in 1875 by the German
biologist, Hertzig, when he succeeded in bringing the living ovum into
the presence of the ciliated sperm-cells under the microscope, while in
the field of a lens of sufficient power to enable him to see clearly
what took place. It is sufficient for our purpose to state that the
minute the spermatozoon had pierced the cell wall of the egg-cell,
the new individual of that species came into existence, and had,
potentially, all of the life-possibilities, or was, in fact, as much
alive as it would have been if this had happened under conditions which
would have been favorable to its further development. The fact that
the fertilized egg-cell immediately forms a mucous sheath the moment
that its nucleus coalesces with that of the spermatozoon to prevent
the further entrance of other spermatozoa, has done much to give rise
and impetus to the theory that each cell has a soul, and that when
these two nuclei completely fuse together, the resulting cytula, or
fertilized ovum or stem-cell, has a soul peculiarly its own; which is
made up in much the same way as two corresponding magnetic fields which
are blended when two magnets are brought within the territory of each
other's influence and unite to form a resultant field. That each of the
sexual una-cells is distinguished by a form of sensation and motion of
its own, and that this is true throughout the whole animal world, has
given peculiar significance to these empirical facts of conception; as
these will at once offer an explanation of the mysterious influence
of heredity, such as was never possible heretofore. That each human
individual has a beginning of existence with the coalescing of the
nuclei of the parent cells, just as he has an end of existence with the
violation of the integrity of his physical body, whether after the
lapsing of one second or one century, must, to anyone who has observed
biological phenomena like the above, be perfectly clear.
With the recent development of the science of embryology, there is no
longer any ground upon which man can lay claim, in the largest sense,
to free moral agency. Conditioned as he is, even before birth, by the
influence of heredity, which science has now localized to the inner
nucleus of the cytula, not only are his natural tastes and temperament
quite largely determined for him, but often, in at least as large a
sense, his mental and physical possibilities. It was our genial Dr.
Holmes, who, some years ago, said, "If you would make a man, you must
begin at least four generations before he is born," and, as embryology
has since proven, he spoke more truth than he thought. Any person
possessing a normally trained observation cannot help but note in
their aptitude, or in their manner of doing certain things, their debt
to their ancestors. How seldom (we might say, never) do we find in
our friends what we had pictured and hoped for, owing, perhaps more
than anything else, to the baneful influence of heredity. Degenerate
features, scrofula, epilepsy, melancholia, etc., are all practically
in every case the gift of some progenitor. Tendencies to insanity and
crime are clearly recognized to-day by the administrators of the law,
in every civilized country, as possible a legacy as coin, real estate,
or chattels were a few centuries ago.
Whatever influence can be ascribed to heredity, as a positive
limitation to human existence, we know absolutely that in a much
larger sense is man a victim of his environment, particularly during
the period of his childhood and adolescence. Professor Loeb has shown
that at least as large proportion (possibly one-half) of the influence
of heredity may be eliminated by the artificial fertilization of the
ovum of many species, but embryology tells us that it is beyond the
possibilities of science to ever render impotent the adaptive tendency
of the individual. With human beings, the importance of environment is
much greater under a high state of civilization than in the condition
of savagery or barbarism, since the possibilities of achievement are
infinitely greater in the individual well-educated than in a condition
of illiteracy. What would the mathematical genius of Newton or Leibnitz
accomplish in developing the calculus, had they been born among the
Patagonians or the bushmen of Australia? Would Napoleon's military
talent have availed him anything if he had been placed by birth among
the cliff-dwellers of Arizona instead of the fomenting political
corruption of overpopulated France? Even in a much more restricted
sense, Austerlitz, Marengo, and Lodi could not have become noted as
the stepping-stones toward his imperialism, had he not attended the
military school at Brienne.
In the discussion of this question, of the freedom of the will, or the
free moral agency of man, it seems almost preposterous that educated
people still cling to a theory so at variance with all known facts.
That all men are created free and equal is not only relatively but
absolutely untrue in the largest sense, but that they are all entitled
to, and have equal possibilities, so far as is within their power, is
not only the meaning which the writer of the "Declaration" intended to
convey, but is what every fair-minded man must necessarily accord to
all of his fellow-men, even regardless of sex. In Jefferson's time,
the last clause could not have been inserted, but at the beginning of
the twentieth century, at least in four of the States of this country,
woman has been given her full property rights, and in one she has
full and complete citizenship on an equal basis with man. It cannot
be many years until culture and a sense of equity will have been so
disseminated that, at least under democratic forms of government, woman
will be given her full civil and political rights, and regarded, as
she justly should be, as no longer a forced parasite of man, but as
potentially his equal in every respect.
While considering this matter, it is worthy of note that no less an
authority than Havelock Ellis has conclusively shown that, not only in
the moral world, where woman is and has been the acknowledged superior
of man, is she at least his peer, but also in her intellectual power
and physical development as concerns the evolution of the race when
surrounded by equally advantageous conditions has she occupied the
very van. The chivalrous and insane worship which man has bestowed
upon her as an exchange for her condoning his moral crimes, has tended
both to make him lax in his morality, by reason of her readily granted
forgiveness, and to rob her of her rights as his equal, by keeping
her in seclusion and incapacitated for self-support. Probably no one
thing has worked more harm to the race as a whole than this, and it
is perhaps the crowning glory of the age in which we are living that
woman, in America, no longer has to accept the physical and moral
derelict which the average man is when he comes to the age at which he
has finished "sowing his wild oats," and wishes to settle down to a
domestic existence, as a candidate for reform under the tutelage of a
pure and virtuous woman; or by refusing his proffer of marriage, become
the laughing-stock of not only her suitor, but of her own sex as
well, under the name of "an old maid." As woman has become capable of
self-support, man has lost his power over her, and his accountability
for his actions has directly increased, just as woman has gone from
under his power. That woman can have an honorable destiny to fulfill
other than as a convenience or source of amusement for man is, at last,
after countless ages of darkness, beginning to dawn upon the world of
culture and intelligence.
Perhaps the greatest of all human limitations arises from the fact
that after the gratification of physical desire, of whatsoever kind,
comes satiety. The food which, to the starving man, was priceless,
and which afforded him keen delight as he ate it, but nauseates him
when temporarily his appetite is satisfied and try, as hard as he
may, he can contain no more. How many a man has failed to realize
this, and, after a youth of penury has, by the closest application,
obtained a competence, and by its use, a gratification of his desires,
but without consideration kept up his earning power, and hoarded his
wealth, only to find, to his sorrow, that it was impossible to furnish
gratifications when he no longer had the shadow of a desire! No matter
how much of a gormand a man is he can eat but a certain small quantity
of food per day, the amount of which varies directly with the manual
labor which he does, and, as a usual thing, the more he is able to
purchase, the less likely he is to do that labor which alone will make
his money of value to him from a gastronomic standpoint. Should his
desire be to pale "the lilies of the field" with his raiment, he is
still limited to a certain quantity and character of vesture, so that
in comparison with "unreasoning" vegetable life, his pride will not
be greatly gratified should he possess any sense of humor at all. If
prestige and prowess resulting as the outcome of any physical endeavor
be his ambition, he must realize that whatever pinnacle of popularity
he may attain to, it will be only a few years until he must acknowledge
a successful rival.
In the constant mutation of all the conditions which surround human
existence, we find another most potent limitation to life. How few
of these vital conditions, from a physical standpoint, are under our
control? And yet how important some of the even trivial ones really
are? The extent to which we are dependent upon health, comeliness,
wealth, location, the physical aspects in the lives of our friends, and
all of those complex details which go to make up our routine of life,
can hardly be over-estimated. Starting, as the individual does, with a
complete lack of experience from which to judge, and without even the
power to exercise his reason, as this develops within him after years
of mistakes, until his fund of recollection of these errors constitutes
a basis of experimental knowledge, he is at best upon most dangerous
ground in early life. He is handicapped just in proportion as he has
not some guardian who pilots him until he is able to judge for himself
of the character of his actions. It is the most pathetic thought
which the human mind is capable of comprehending, that nature cannot
be imprecated, bribed, or frightened out of her relentless rule of
exacting full and complete consequence of our every action. Ignorance
is no plea for mercy before her court, and her penalties are exacted
without either fear or favor. Nor is her tribunal cognizant of any plan
of vicarious atonement, but in many cases partially are we visited
with the penalties of our progenitors' disobedience to her immutable
laws. In view of these truths, let us not falsely be inflated with
pride, because of any ephemeral successes. Let us in the moments of
aggrandizement remember Massillon, as he stood at the bier of "Le Grand
Monarch," and when we consider the truth in his opening statement, in
that magnificent funeral oration, "God only is Great," we must feel our
sense of importance leave us. Whoever stood erect with egotism over
the corpse of a friend, even though he be as mad as Lear, raving, "O
that a horse, a dog, a rat hath life, and thou no breath!"? Our control
over our physical condition is worthy of mention only on account of its
paucity, and we can never appreciate our true position on earth, until
at times we are filled with the sentiment, so well expressed by Bryant:
"In sadness then I ponder, how quickly fleets the hour,
Of human strength and action, man's courage and his power."
It is not for us to be crushed with the appreciation of our real lack
of importance, from a physical and moral viewpoint, but no scheme of
life can be built upon a sure foundation without an understanding of
what in the case of Schopenhauer, and some other brilliant intellects,
formed the basis of their pessimistic philosophy. That we are not
absolutely free, morally, to select our course, does not keep us from
being relatively so, and, after all, the destiny of the individual is
very largely within his power to shape. It is only through incessant
and vigorous struggle that anything worth while is accomplished, and
nature, in this and many other instances, is with us, since we become
capacitated for greater endeavor through practice, and the habit, once
formed, makes the effort for advancement become almost an instinct
within us, so that our mental activity does not have to be continually
consumed in holding our will to the course, but can be applied to
fighting our way upward along it. Just as fresh recruits are unable
to render the efficient service of veterans in actual warfare, so our
capabilities, morally and intellectually, become augmented by constant
practice. In the succeeding chapters, we shall attempt to show what is
possible to be got from life by the use of all of the advantages which
we have, and, in doing this, we shall elucidate a philosophy which is
as consistent with the facts of life as known to us as we can make it.
In the days of the decadence of the Roman Empire, when perhaps life was
as uncertain as it ever was in the history of the world, the walls of
the banquet halls of a certain clique were always adorned with skulls
and other tokens of death, and according to all accounts, the mirth
was more furious, and the licentiousness greater, as the guests were
brought to realize the shortness of the time during which they had to
live. We moderns may well get an idea from these feasts, in which
the sentiment of Solomon, as voiced a thousand years earlier--than
the instance cited, and under similar conditions, "let us eat, drink,
and be merry, for to-morrow we die," is the dominating one, and, in
considering the shortness of life, realize that every minute should be
filled with effort, as time which is passed is gone forever. Even at
the best, whatever we may elect to accomplish, should take all of our
attention, and, although we may give it this, we will still be able to
find moments in which we did not live up to our possibilities.