Chapter 12

Once one has got to this stage, it is _ex hypothesi_ easy to ascend through the vegetable and animal worlds and to formulate the various laws which appear to have shaped the evolution of life and of species. We are then "within the system," but to arrive at anything worthy of the name of an explanation we have first to _get_ within the system. Even then there remains over the task of explaining how the system comes to be there to get inside of. The writer talks of his example as "the simplest form." Yet, in his own words, it is a "_powerful little chemical laboratory_," well stocked with catalysers and other potent means for carrying on its work. "Simple"! Well, no doubt comparatively simple, but in reality complex almost beyond the power of words to describe. "A chemical laboratory"! Yes; and one which performs most delicate operations. "Well stocked with catalysers"! And what are they? Most wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing any; discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but little. "Simple" seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation to other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence? In what way did it learn to do its work? How did catalysers come to be? Was all this mere chance-medley? It is Paley's example of the watch found on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk about "energy" and "complexes" of energy and "the creative force of energy"? To us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these operations of _Nitrosomonas_ are determined or they are not; either they are the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance; in either case the energy which is involved must act according to the conditions ordered or not ordered. In other words: if it is the dominant factor, as the writer would lead us to suppose; if there is "direction," then the action of energy must be directive; and, if it is directive, in what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old _entelechy_ or _vital principle_, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy save us from complete surrender to that theory?

From all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being exhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object, that does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy originally came to be, nor how it came to work under the laws which seem to govern it. It is one more added to the long list of "explanations," which hopelessly break down because those who have put them forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of grasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate cause.

Let us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this distinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of actions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of physics, and notably to those relating to energy and its transformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one another and not less to those around it; that is to say, it must be more or less in harmony with its environment. There are the problems of germ-plasm, and its transmission; the effect on it, if any, of the body, and the reaction of the body to its environment. There are also the catalysers of which we have spoken, with many problems associated with them, and throwing a possible and unexpected light on the vexed question of Vitalism and the Conservation of Energy. There are all these things, manifestations of energy; there is the watch, and it is going. But, as we remarked elsewhere, the fact that we have learned that the resiliency of the spring in the watch makes it "go" does not exhaust the explanation of the watch any more than the fact that we know something of the actions and reactions of energy in the organism exhausts its explanation. The watch is "going"; so is the organism. Each of them, in a sense, is a "wonderful little laboratory" in which manifestations of energy are constantly taking place. The watchmaker constructed the watch for that purpose; who or what constructed the organism? Darwin and the Darwinians would have said--Natural Selection. In fact, Darwin rather lamented that "the old argument from design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails now that the law of Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of Natural Selection, than in the course which the wind blows." There again Darwin fell into a mistake, because he confused an intermediate with a final cause. Even if Natural Selection were all that the most ultra-Darwinian could claim it to be, it could not, as Driesch and others have shown, exhaust the explanation of the organism.

As a matter of fact the world of science is very far from thinking of Natural Selection as anything more than a factor, perhaps even a minor factor, in evolution. The author of the work with which we are dealing tells us that "Darwin's law of selection as a natural explanation of the origin of _all_ fitness in form and function has lost its prestige at the present time, and all of Darwinism which now meets with universal acceptance is the _law of the survival of the fittest_, a limited application of Darwin's great idea as expressed by Herbert Spencer." But let that pass. In another place the author makes it clear that the explanations of to-day, including his own, do _not_ exhaust the subject, for he says "it is incumbent on us to discover the _cause_ of the orderly origin of every character. The nature of such a law we cannot even dream of at present, for the causes of the majority of vertebrate adaptations remain wholly unknown." In any case we must account for Natural Selection; for if it is a Law--as some doubt--it must have had a Lawgiver. The watch must have been an Idea in some one's mind before it became an accomplished fact, and Natural Selection or any other "Law of Nature" must--unless all reason is nonsense and all nonsense reason--also have been an Idea before it became a factor. Whose Idea? Our author does not help us to answer this question. On the contrary--he tries to set an unclimbable fence in the way of any answer by telling us, though without any convincing argument to support his statement, that we may "exclude the possibility that it" [the internal moving principle] "acts either through supernatural or teleological interposition through an externally creative power." But though he refuses to allow us to look in this direction for a solution of our difficulties, it must be confessed that he does not help us with any other answer satisfying the question of the origin and evolution of Life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 36: _The Origin and Evolution of Life; or, the Theory of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy._ By F. H. Osborn. (G. Bell & Sons.)]

[Footnote 37: By _entelechy_--an Aristotelian term re-introduced by Driesch--is meant an agency other than one of a purely chemico-physical character, which differentiates living from not-living substance, and is responsible for the phenomenon of life.]

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INDEX OF NAMES

Agassiz, 142

Allen, Grant, 85

Aquinas, St. Thomas, 60, 147, 153

Austen, Miss, 32

Avicenna, 153

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 116

Bassi, Laura, 155

Bateson, W., F.R.S., 4, 7, 11, 118, 150

Bax, Belfort, 37

Benson, Mgr., 84, 88, 94, 101

Bergson, 151, 166

Bernhardi, 20

Borden, Sir Robert, 122

Branco, 162

Buffon, 100

Butler, Samuel 44, 61

Chesterton, G. K., 113

Clodd, E., 86

Conklyn, 23

Cowper, 37

Crichton-Browne, 20

Cuvier, 142

Darwin, 116, 131, 150, 173

Devas, Mr. 27, 120

Dewar, Prof. Sir J., F.R.S., 113

Doyle, Sir A. C., 46, 51

Driesch, 4, 7, 24, 69, 164, 166, 173

Fallopius, 96, 144

Fielding, 31

Gosse, E., 39

Gosse, Philip, 98

Grant Allen, 85

Healy, Father--Tale of, 40

Henderson, J. J., 167

Henslow, 24

Hull, Fr. E., S.J., 103

Huxley, 74, 98, 101, 117

Johnson, Dr. 48, 161, 168

Joly, Prof., F.R.S., 110

Kelvin, Lord, 151

Lankester, 15

Lauder, Harry, 2

Leduc, 2, 62

Lodge, Sir O., 3, 85

Loeb, J,. 58, 62

Lucas, E. V., on the War, 47

Mcdougal, 164

Mahaffy, Sir John, 111

Marett, 15, 16

Masefield, 48

Mendel, 75, 135

Milton, 145

Mivart, Prof., 96

Needham, John Turberville, 154

Newman, 33, 38

Newton, The Rev. J., 38

Nietzsche, 19

Osborne, Prof., 160

Paley, 160

Pasteur, 157

Perkin, Prof. W. H., 107

Pouchet, 157

Priestley, 156

Redi, Francisco, 153

Richardson, 31

Rignano, 25, 62

Ryder, Dr., 51

Sabatier, 113

Schwann, Theodor, 157

Scott, Prof., 142

Scott, The Rev. Thomas, 38

Sedgwick, Adam, 162

Spallanzani, Lazaro, 155

Stensen, Nicolaus, 75, 97, 99

Tilden, Sir William, 64

Tyson, Edward, 77

Wasmann, 26, 150

Wells, H. G., 49

Whiffen, 20

GENERAL INDEX

Adam, 146

Adrenals, 63

"After-Christians," 120

Aggressive mimicry, 123

Albino race, An, 128

Amazonian Indians, 20

"Anatomie of a Pygmie," 77

Ancestral peculiarities, 133

Aniline dyes, 107

Arrangement, 8, 137

Bacteria, Prototrophic, 169

Badische Aniline Fabrik, 106, 109

Bathybius, 98

Bion, 167

Blind Chance, 166

Bondage of Knowledge, The, 84

Botanic Garden, 131

Breeding Committees, 119

Breeding True, 126

Bricks and Builders, 139

"Bugbear of Hell," 21, 119

Calvinism, 32

Cartesian idea of the soul, 69

Catalysts, 113, 170

Celibacy, 120

Cell-Theory, The, 157

Chance-Medley, 134

Chromatin, 130

Colloids, 62

"Continuity," 46

Conversion, 34

Cowardice, Alleged, of Catholic Scientists, 99

Creation, 163; a method of, 144

"Criticisms on the Pentateuch," 45

"Cutting up of Frogs," 115

Cytolysis, 65

"Dabney, Mr.," 47

Defence of the Realm Act, 82

Degradation of Energy, 168

Derivative Creation, 146

Discontinuity, 3

"Ducks and Drakes," 156

Duck's Egg, 125, 130

Dye-stuffs, 107

Elimination, Proof by, 163

Energy, 16

Energy, Degradation of, 169

Entelechy, 164, 171

Eskimo, 19

"Esmond," 31

"Essays and Reviews," 45

Eugenics, 117

Evangelicanism, 32, 33, 44

Exhibitions, International, of 1851 and 1862, 10

Extermination of the Less Fit, 122

Families, Restricted, 118

"Father and Son," 39

"Force and Energy, a Theory of Dynamics," 85

"Force of Truth, The," 38

Formaldehyde, 2

Fossils, Explanation of, 97

Free First Cause, 144, 151

Freethinkers and "tolerance, justice, and gentleness," 73

Germination, 65

Guide, the Church a, 92

Hapsburg lip, The, 127

Harmonious-Equipotential System, 69

Heredity in the Law Courts, 29

Hormones, 63

Horse, Pedigree of the, 161

Imprimatur, The, 77

In-and-in breeding, 127

Index Prohibitorius, 95

Industrial Scientific Research, Department of, 114

Inheritance: Chemical theory, 134; Mnemic theory, 5, 61, 133; Particulate theories, 61, 132

Jack, Jill, and Joan, 119

Jungle, The law of, 122

King-crabs, 145

Lamp-shells, 145

Law and Heredity, The, 129

Law and Lawgiver, 9

Law of Nature, 174

Law's "Serious Call," 31

Liberty, personal, 87

"Life and Habit," 61

Life, Origin of, 160

"Little Dorrit," 112

"Loss and Gain," 33

Maggots in meat, 153

Man's pedigree, 161

"Marriage," 49

Mauve, 107

Mediate Creation, 147

Memory, unconscious, 5

Mendelism, 6

Method of Creation, 144, 161

Micromeristic theories, 5

Mimicry, 123

Mnemic Theory of Inheritance, The, 5, 61, 133

Monastic Orders, 121

Monophyletic evolution, 151

"Multitude and Solitude," 48

"Naturalism and Agnosticism," 57

Natural Selection, 19, 122, 173

"Nature does this," 136, 162

Nature's insurgent son, 15

"New Republic, The," 56

"New Revelation, The," 46, 51

Nitrobacter, 170

Novels and Novelists, 30

"Occam's" razor, 29

Occultism, 28, 51

Ordered energy, 166

"Organism as a whole," 38

Origin of Species, 150

"Over Bemertons," 47

Oxford Movement, 33

"Pamela," 32

Pangenesis, 61, 131

Pantheism, 9

"Paradise Lost," 145

"Parson Adams," 31

Particulate Theories of Inheritance, 61, 132

Personal Liberty, 81

"Philosophy of Biology, The," 163

Phylogeny, 4, 149

Plymouth Brethren, 99

Political leaders of the day, 114

Polyphyletic hypothesis, The, 150

Porto Santo rabbits, 148

Post-Christians, 27

Prototrophic bacteria, 169

Providentissimus Deus, 103

Pugs and Greyhounds, 126

Purposefulness: a strange confession as to, 59

"Raymond," 51

Resiliency, 172

Restricted families, 118

Sabbatarianism, 36

Salaries of Scientific Teachers, 112

Saurians, 145

Science, Catholic Men of, 75-6

Science, Neglect of, at Schools, 109

Sin, Mythical Ideas of, 123

Six-fingered race, A, 128

Slavery in the State, 24

"Slime of the Earth," 146

"Social Vermin," 118

"Some Revelations as to 'Raymond,'" 53

Special Creation, 142

Spermatozoon, 65

Spiritualism and the War, 50

Spontaneous Generation, 152

Springs in the watch, The, 172

"Stinks Men," 110

Survival of the Fittest, 122

Syngamy, 65

Synthetic drugs, 107

Telepathy, 2

Teratomata, 65

Theophobia, 26

Thermos flask, The, 113

"Throws back," 128

Trilobites, 145

Trinity College, Dublin, 110

"Tyranny" of the Church, 91

Uncle Remus and the rabbit's tail, 127

Unconscious Memory, 5, 61

Universities, Mediæval, 75

Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism, 68, 165

"Way of All Flesh, The," 44

"Wisdom, Book of," 123

Wolff's Experiment, 69

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PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:

page 85

years in investigating. The man who sets out to make a research, without first acertaining[ascertaining] what others have done in that direction, proposes to

page 121 (Footnote 32)

Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men_. Princetown[Princeton] University Press, 1915.

page 136

mere personification and means either chance-medley or a Creator, according to the old dilemna.[dilemma] There is a very curious example of this inability

page 153:

We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668, when Franceso[Francesco] Redi (1626-1697) published his book on the generation of insects