I
All living bodies, when life leaves them, go back to the earth from
whence they came. What was it in the first instance that gathered their
elements from the earth and built them up into such wonderful
mechanisms? If we say it was nature, do we mean by nature a physical
force or an immaterial principle? Did the earth itself bring forth a
man, or did something breathe upon the inert clay till it became a
living spirit?
As life is a physical phenomenon, appearing in a concrete physical
world, it is, to that extent, within the domain of physical science, and
appeals to the scientific mind. Physical science is at home only in the
experimental, the verifiable. Its domain ends where that of philosophy
begins.
The question of how life arose in a universe of dead matter is just as
baffling a question to the ordinary mind, as how the universe itself
arose. If we assume that the germs of life drifted to us from other
spheres, propelled by the rays of the sun, or some other celestial
agency, as certain modern scientific philosophers have assumed, we have
only removed the mystery farther away from us. If we assume that it
came by spontaneous generation, as Haeckel and others assume, then we
are only cutting a knot which we cannot untie. The god of spontaneous
generation is as miraculous as any other god. We cannot break the causal
sequence without a miracle. If something came from nothing, then there
is not only the end of the problem, but also the end of our boasted
science.
Science is at home in discussing all the material manifestations of
life--the parts played by colloids and ferments, by fluids and gases,
and all the organic compounds, and by mechanical and chemical
principles; it may analyze and tabulate all life processes, and show the
living body as a most wonderful and complex piece of mechanism, but
before the question of the origin of life itself it stands dumb, and,
when speaking through such a man as Tyndall, it also stands humble and
reverent. After Tyndall had, to his own satisfaction, reduced all like
phenomena to mechanical attraction and repulsion, he stood with
uncovered head before what he called the "mystery and miracle of
vitality." The mystery and miracle lie in the fact that in the organic
world the same elements combine with results so different from those of
the inorganic world. Something seems to have inspired them with a new
purpose. In the inorganic world, the primary elements go their ceaseless
round from compound to compound, from solid to fluid or gaseous, and
back again, forming the world of inert matter as we know it, but in the
organic world the same elements form thousands of new combinations
unknown to them before, and thus give rise to the myriad forms of life
that inhabit the earth.
The much-debated life question has lately found an interesting exponent
in Professor Benjamin Moore, of the University of Liverpool. His volume
on the subject in the "Home University Library" is very readable, and,
in many respects, convincing. At least, so far as it is the word of
exact science on the subject it is convincing; so far as it is
speculative, or philosophical, it is or is not convincing, according to
the type of mind of the reader. Professor Moore is not a bald mechanist
or materialist like Professor Loeb, or Ernst Haeckel, nor is he an
idealist or spiritualist, like Henri Bergson or Sir Oliver Lodge. He may
be called a scientific vitalist. He keeps close to lines of scientific
research as these lines lead him through the maze of the primordial
elements of matter, from electron to atom, from atom to molecule, from
molecule to colloid, and so up to the border of the living world. His
analysis of the processes of molecular physics as they appear in the
organism leads him to recognize and to name a new force, or a new
manifestation of force, which he hesitates to call vital, because of the
associations of this term with a prescientific age, but which he calls
"biotic energy."
Biotic energy is peculiar to living bodies, and "there are precisely the
same criteria for its existence," says Professor Moore, "as for the
existence of any one of the inorganic energy types, viz., a set of
discrete phenomena; and its nature is as mysterious to us as the cause
of any one of these inorganic forms about which also we know so little.
It is biotic energy which guides the development of the ovum, which
regulates the exchanges of the cell, and causes such phenomena as nerve
impulse, muscular contraction, and gland secretion, and it is a form of
energy which arises in colloidal structures, just as magnetism appears
in iron, or radio-activity in uranium or radium, and in its
manifestations it undergoes exchanges with other forms of energy, in the
same manner as these do among one another."
Like Professor Henderson, Professor Moore concedes to the vitalists
about all they claim--namely, that there is some form of force or
manifestation of energy peculiar to living bodies, and one that cannot
be adequately described in terms of physics and chemistry. Professor
Moore says this biotic energy "arises in colloidal structures," and so
far as biochemistry can make out, arises _spontaneously_ and gives rise
to that marvelous bit of mechanism, the cell. In the cell appears "a
form of energy unknown outside life processes which leads the mazy dance
of life from point to point, each new development furnishing a starting
point for the next one." It not only leads the dance along our own line
of descent from our remote ancestors--it leads the dance along the long
road of evolution from the first unicellular form in the dim palæozoic
seas to the complex and highly specialized forms of our own day.
The secret of this life force, or biotic energy, according to Professor
Moore, is in the keeping of matter itself. The steps or stages from the
depths of matter by which life arose, lead up from that imaginary
something, the electron, to the inorganic colloids, or to the
crystallo-colloids, which are the threshold of life, each stage showing
some new transformation of energy. There must be an all-potent energy
transformation before we can get chemical energy out of physical energy,
and then biotic energy out of chemical energy. This transformation of
inorganic energy into life energy cannot be traced or repeated in the
laboratory, yet science believes the secret will sometime be in its
hands. It is here that the materialistic philosophers, such as
Professors Moore and Loeb, differ from the spiritualistic philosophers,
such as Bergson, Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor Thompson, and others.
Professor Moore has no sympathy with those narrow mechanistic views that
see in the life processes "no problems save those of chemistry and
physics." "Each link in the living chain may be physico-chemical, but
the chain as a whole, and its purpose, is something else." He draws an
analogy from the production of music in which purely physical factors
are concerned; the laws of harmonics account for all; but back of all is
something that is not mechanical and chemical--there is the mind of the
composer, and the performers, and the auditors, and something that takes
cognizance of the whole effect. A complete human philosophy cannot be
built upon physical science alone. He thinks the evolution of life from
inert matter is of the same type as the evolution of one form of matter
from another, or the evolution of one form of energy from another--a
mystery, to be sure, but little more startling in the one case than in
the other. "The fundamental mystery lies in the existence of those
entities, or things, which we call matter and energy," out of the play
and interaction of which all life phenomena have arisen. Organic
evolution is a series of energy exchanges and transformations from lower
to higher, but science is powerless to go behind the phenomena presented
and name or verify the underlying mystery. Only philosophy can do this.
And Professor Moore turns philosopher when he says there is beauty and
design in it all, "and an eternal purpose which is ever progressing."
Bergson sets forth his views of evolution in terms of literature and
philosophy. Professor Moore embodies similar views in his volume, set
forth in terms of molecular science. Both make evolution a creative and
a continuous process. Bergson lays the emphasis upon the cosmic spirit
interacting with matter. Professor Moore lays the emphasis upon the
indwelling potencies of matter itself (probably the same spirit
conceived of in different terms). Professor Moore philosophizes as truly
as does Bergson when he says "there must exist a whole world of living
creatures which the microscope has never shown us, leading up to the
bacteria and the protozoa. The brink of life lies not at the production
of protozoa and bacteria, which are highly developed inhabitants of our
world, but away down among the colloids; and the beginning of life was
not a fortuitous event occurring millions of years ago and never again
repeated, but one which in its primordial stages keeps on repeating
itself all the time in our generation. So that if all intelligent
creatures were by some holocaust destroyed, up out of the depths in
process of millions of years, intelligent beings would once more
emerge." This passage shows what a speculative leap or flight the
scientific mind is at times compelled to take when it ventures beyond
the bounds of positive methods. It is good philosophy, I hope, but we
cannot call it science. Thrilled with cosmic emotion, Walt Whitman made
a similar daring assertion:--
"There is no stoppage, and never can be stoppage,
If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces,
were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would
not avail in the long run,
We should surely bring up again where we now stand,
And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther."