The accompanying pages contain the unfinished Sketch of a Theory of Life
by S. T. Coleridge. Everything that fell from the pen of that
extraordinary man bore latent, as well as more obvious indications of
genius, and of its inseparable concomitant—originality. To this general
remark the present Essay is far from forming an exception. No one can
peruse it, without admiring the author’s comprehensive research and
profound meditation; but at the same time, partly from the exuberance of
his imagination, and partly from an apparent want of method (though, in
truth, he had a method of his own, by which he marshalled his thoughts in
an order perfectly intelligible to himself), a first perusal will, to many
readers, prove unsatisfactory, unless they are prepared for it by an
introduction of a more popular character. This purpose, therefore, I shall
endeavour to accomplish; it being to be understood that I by no means make
myself responsible either for Mr. Coleridge’s speculations, or for the
manner in which they are enunciated; and that, on the contrary, I shall
occasionally indicate views from which I dissent, and expressions which
perhaps the author himself, on revision, would have seen reason to
correct.
It is clear that Mr. Coleridge considers the unity of human nature to
result from two combined elements, Body and Soul; that he regards the
latter as the principle of Reason and of Conscience (both which he has
largely treated in his published works), and that the “Life,” which he
here investigates, concerns, in relation to mankind, only the Body. He is
far, however, from confining the term “Life” to its action on the human
body; on the contrary, he disclaims the division of all that surrounds us
into things with life, and things without life; and contends, that the
term Life is no less applicable to the irreducible _bases_ of chemistry,
such as sodium, potassium, &c., or to the various forms of crystals, or
the geological strata which compose the crust of our globe, than it is to
the human body itself, the acme and perfection of animal organization. I
admit that there are certain great powers, such as magnetism, electricity,
and chemistry, whose action may be traced, even by the limited means which
science at present possesses, in admirable gradation, from purely
unorganized to the most highly organized matter: and, I think, that Mr.
Coleridge has done this with great ingenuity and striking effect; but what
I object to is, that he applies to the combined operation of these powers,
in all cases, the term _Life_. If we look back to the early history of
language, we shall probably find that this word, and its synonymes in
other tongues, were first employed to denote _human_ life, that is, the
duration of a human being’s existence from birth to the grave. As this
existence was marked by actions, many of which were common to man with
other animals, those animals also were said to “live;” but the extension
of the notion of Life to the vegetable creation is comparatively a recent
usage,—and hitherto (in this country at least) no writer before Mr.
Coleridge, so far as I know, has maintained that rocks and mountains, nay,
“the great globe itself,” share with mankind the gift of Life. On the
other hand, there are well known and energetic uses of the word “Life,” to
which Mr. Coleridge’s speculations, as contained in the accompanying
pages, are wholly inapplicable. Almost all nations, even the most savage,
agree in the belief that individuals of the human race, after they have
ceased to exist in this mortal life, will exist in another state, to which
also the word Life is universally applied; but to this latter Mr.
Coleridge’s views of magnetism, electricity, &c., can hardly be thought
applicable. Still less can they apply to “Life” in its spiritual sense;
as, when Moses says to the Jews, “the words of the law are your _life_,”
(Deut. xxxii, 47,) and when our Saviour says, “the words that I speak unto
you, they are spirit, and they are _life_;” (John, vi, 63;) and again, “I
am the resurrection and the life,” (John, xi, 25.) Upon the whole,
therefore, I think it would have been advisable in Mr. Coleridge to have
adopted a different phraseology, in tracing the operation of certain
natural agencies first on unorganized, and then on organized bodies.
Another word, of which I consider an improper use to be made in this
Essay, is “Nature.” I find this imaginary being introduced on all
occasions, and invested with attributes of personality, which may be
extremely apt to make a false impression on young or thoughtless minds. At
one time, “the life of Nature” is spoken of; then we are informed that
“Nature has succeeded. _She_ has created the intermediate link between the
vegetable world and the animal.” Again, it is said that “Nature seems to
fall back, and to reexert _herself_ on the lower ground, which _she_ had
before occupied;”—and elsewhere we are told that “Nature never loses what
_she_ has once learnt; though in the acquirement of each new power _she_
intermits or performs less energetically the act immediately preceding.
_She_ often drops a faculty, but never fails to pick it up again. _She_
may seem forgetful and absent; but it is only to recollect _herself_ with
additional as well as recruited vigour in some after and higher state.”
Now the word “Nature,” in any intelligible sense, means nothing but that
method and order by which the Almighty regulates the common course of
things. Nature is not a person; it is not active; it neither creates nor
performs actions more or less energetically, nor learns, nor forgets, nor
reexerts itself, nor recruits its vigour. Perhaps it will be said that all
this is merely figurative language. Figurative language is very much
misplaced in strict philosophical investigations; and these particular
figures, which might be quite consistent with the atheistical philosophy
of Lucretius, sound ill in the mouth of a pious Christian, which Mr.
Coleridge undoubtedly was. He probably adopted them unconsciously from
Bacon; but Bacon’s use of the word Nature ought rather to have served as a
warning than an example; for it has contributed, in no small degree, to
the atheistical philosophy of recent times.
The prevalent natural philosophy of the present day is that which is
called _corpuscular_, because it assumes the existence of a first matter,
consisting of _corpuscula_ or atoms, which are supposed to be definite,
though extremely small, _quantities_, invested with the _qualities_ of
extension, impenetrability, and the like; and from certain combinations of
these qualities, Life is considered, by some persons, to be a necessary
result. This philosophy Mr. Coleridge combats. The supposed atoms, he
says, are mere abstractions of the mind; and Life is not a thing, the
result of atomic arrangement or action, but is itself an act, or process.
He refutes various definitions of Life, such as, that it is the sum of all
the functions by which death is resisted; or, that it depends on the
faculty of nutrition, or of anti-putrescence. His own definition he
proposes merely as an hypothesis. Life, he says, is “the principle of
Individuation,” that is to say, it is a power which discloses itself from
within, combining many qualities into one individual thing. This
individualising principle unites, as he conceives, with the cooperating
action of magnetism, electricity, and chemistry. At least, such is the
inference to be drawn from the present state of science; though it is
easily conceivable that future discoveries may bring us acquainted with
powers more directly connected with Life. The most general law governing
the action of Life, as a tendency to individuation, is here designated
_polarity_; for instance, the power termed magnetism (not meaning that
there is necessarily an actual tangible magnet in the case) has two poles,
the negative, answering to attraction, rest, carbon, &c., and the
positive, answering to repulsion, mobility, azote, &c.; and as the
magnetic needle which points to the north necessarily indicates thereby
the south, so the power disposing to rest has necessarily a counteracting
influence disposing to mobility, between which lies the point of
indifference. Now this quality, to which Mr. Coleridge gives the name of
polarity, is in truth nothing more than an exemplification of the doctrine
of opposites, the πρός ἂλληλα ἀντικειμένω ἀντίθεσις, which the Eleatic
Philosopher, in Plato’s “Sophist,” applies to the idea of existence and
non-existence, and which accompanies every other idea as its shadow,
whether in physics, in intellect, or in morals; for the finite is opposed
to the infinite, the false to the true, the evil to the good, and so
forth; which we say, not to derogate from the value of Mr. Coleridge’s
application of the doctrine, of which he has very ably availed himself;
but merely to explain the term polarity, by referring it, as a species, to
a higher genus of intellectual conceptions.
Reverting to the three powers before mentioned, it is not to be
understood, that on Mr. Coleridge’s hypothesis of Life, they ever act
separately; but in the different modifications of Life, at one time the
power of magnetism predominates, at another that of electricity, and at
another that of chemistry. Magnetism is stated to act as a line,
electricity as a surface, and chemistry as a solid; for all which Mr.
Coleridge refers to certain physical experiments. The predominance of
magnetism is characterised by reproduction, that of electricity by
irritability; and irritability, which first appears as muscle, gradually
rises into sensibility as nerve. The limits of a mere introduction will
not permit me to examine Mr. Coleridge’s first principles more in detail;
and I can but briefly notice their application to the successive stages of
ascent, from the first rudiments of individualised Life, in the lowest
classes of the mineral, vegetable, and animal creation, to its crown and
consummation in the human body. Beginning with magnetism, by which, in its
widest sense, he means what he improperly calls the first and simplest
differential act of _Nature_ (he should rather have said the first and
simplest conception that we can form of a differential act of God, in the
work of creation), he supposes the pre-existence of chaos, not, indeed, in
the Miltonic sense—
“For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive _there_ for mast’ry, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms,—”
but rather as one vast homogeneous fluid, and even _that_ he suggests not
as a historical fact, but as the appropriate symbol of a great fundamental
truth. The first effort of magnetic power, the first step from
indifference to difference, from formless homogeneity to independent
existence, is seen in the tranquil deposition of crystals; and an
increasing tendency to difference is observable in the increasing
multitude of strata, till we come to organic life; of which the vegetable
and animal worlds may be regarded as opposite poles; carbon prevailing in
the former and azote in the latter; and vegetation being characterised by
the predominance of magnetism in its highest power, as reproduction;
whilst the animal tribes evince the power of electricity, as shown in
irritability and sensibility. Passing over the forms of vegetation, we
come to the polypi, corallines, &c., in which individuality appears in its
first dawn; for a multitude of animals form, as it were, a common animal,
and different genera pass into each other, almost indistinguishably. The
tubipora of the corals connects with the serpula of the conchylia. In the
_mollusca_ the separation of organs becomes more observable; in the higher
species there are rudiments of nerves, and an exponent, though scarcely
distinguishable, of sensibility. In the snail, and muscle, the separation
of the fluid from the solid is more marked, yet the prevalence of the
carbonic principle connects these and the preceding classes, in a certain
degree, with the vegetable creation. “But the _insect_ world, taken at
large (says Mr. Coleridge) appears as an intense _Life_, that has
struggled itself loose, and become emancipated from vegetation—_Floræ
liberti, et libertini_!” In insects we first find the distinct
commencement of a separation between the muscular system, that is, organs
of irritability, and the nervous system, that is, organs of sensibility;
the former, however, maintaining a pre-eminence throughout, and the nerves
themselves being probably subservient to the motory power. With the fishes
begins an internal system of bones, but these are the results of a
comparatively imperfect formation, being in general little more than mere
gristle. In birds we find a sort of synthesis of the powers of fish and
insects. In all three, the powers are under the predominance of
irritability; but sensibility, which is dormant in the insect, begins to
awaken in the fish, and, though still subordinate, is quite awake in the
bird, of which no better proof can be given than its power of sound, with
the rudiments of modulation, in the large class of singing birds, and in
some others a tendency to acquire and to imitate articulate speech. The
next step of ascent brings us to the _mammalia_; and in these, including
beasts and men, the complete and universal presence of a nervous system
raises sensibility to its due place and rank among the animal powers.
Finally, in Man the whole force of organic power attains an inward and
centripetal direction, and the “apex of the living pyramid”becomes a fit
receptacle for Reason and Conscience.
* * * * *
It is much to be regretted, that the estimable Author did not live to put
a finishing hand to this Essay; but the part completed involves
speculations of so interesting a nature, and presents such striking marks
of deep and original thought, that the Editor, to whose hands it was
committed, did not feel himself justified in withholding it from the
judgment of the public.