Such is the result of the rigidly objective study of life--the only
method analytical science can pursue. The conception of vitality as a
factor in itself answers to nothing that the objective study of life can
disclose; such a study reveals a closed circle of physical forces,
chemical and mechanical, into which no immaterial force or principle can
find entrance. "The fact of being conscious," Le Dantec says with
emphasis, "does not intervene in the slightest degree in directing vital
movements." But common sense and everyday observation tell us that
states of consciousness do influence the bodily processes--influence the
circulation, the digestion, the secretions, the respiration.
An objective scientific study of a living body yields results not
unlike those which we might get from an objective study of a book
considered as something fabricated--its materials, its construction, its
typography, its binding, the number of its chapters and pages, and so
on--without giving any heed to the meaning of the book--its ideas, the
human soul and personality that it embodies, the occasion that gave rise
to it, indeed all its subjective and immaterial aspects. All these
things, the whole significance of the volume, would elude scientific
analysis. It would seem to be a manufactured article, representing only
so much mechanics and chemistry. It is the same with the living body.
Unless we permit ourselves to go behind the mere facts, the mere
mechanics and chemistry of life phenomena, and interpret them in the
light of immaterial principles, in short, unless we apply some sort of
philosophy to them, the result of our analysis will be but dust in our
eyes, and ashes in our mouths. Unless there is something like mind or
intelligence pervading nature, some creative and transforming impulse
that cannot be defined by our mechanical concepts, then, to me, the
whole organic world is meaningless. If man is not more than an "accident
in the history of the thermic evolution of the globe," or the result of
the fortuitous juxtaposition and combination of carbonic acid gas and
water and a few other elements, what shall we say? It is at least a
bewildering proposition.
Could one by analyzing a hive of bees find out the secret of its
organization--its unity as an aggregate of living insects? Behold its
wonderful economics, its division of labor, its complex social
structure,--the queen, the workers, the drones,--thousands of bees
without any head or code of laws or directing agent, all acting as one
individual, all living and working for the common good. There is no
confusion or cross-purpose in the hive. When the time of swarming comes,
they are all of one mind and the swarm comes forth. Who or what decides
who shall stay and who shall go? When the honey supply fails, or if it
fail prematurely, on account of a drought, the swarming instinct is
inhibited, and the unhatched queens are killed in their cells. Who or
what issues the regicide order? We can do no better than to call it the
Spirit of the Hive, as Maeterlinck has done. It is a community of mind.
What one bee knows and feels, they all know and feel at the same
instant. Something like that is true of a living body; the cells are
like the bees: they work together, they build up the tissues and organs,
some are for one thing and some for another, each community of cells
plays its own part, and they all pull together for the good of the
whole. We can introduce cells and even whole organs, for example a
kidney from another living body, and all goes well; and yet we cannot
find the seat of the organization. Can we do any better than to call it
the Spirit of the Body?