Chapter 18

After we have got the spark of life kindled, how are we going to get all the myriad forms of life that swarm upon the earth? How are we going to get man with physics and chemistry alone? How are we going to get this tremendous drama of evolution out of mere protoplasm from the bottom of the old geologic seas? Of course, only by making protoplasm creative, only by conceiving as potential in it all that we behold coming out of it. We imagine it equal to the task we set before it; the task is accomplished; therefore protoplasm was all-sufficient. I am not postulating any extra-mundane power or influence; I am only stating the difficulties which the idealist experiences when he tries to see life in its nature and origin as the scientific mind sees it. Animal life and vegetable life have a common physical basis in protoplasm, and all their different forms are mere aggregations of cells which are constituted alike and behave alike in each, and yet in the one case they give rise to trees, and in the other they give rise to man. Science is powerless to penetrate this mystery, and philosophy can only give its own elastic interpretation. Why consciousness should be born of cell structure in one form of life and not in another, who shall tell us? Why matter in the brain should think, and in the cabbage only grow, is a question.

The naturalist has not the slightest doubt that the mind of man was evolved from some order of animals below him that had less mind, and that the mind of this order was evolved from that of a still lower order, and so on down the scale till we reach a point where the animal and vegetable meet and blend, and the vegetable mind, if we may call it such, passed into the animal, and still downward till the vegetable is evolved from the mineral. If to believe this is to be a monist, then science is monistic; it accepts the transformation or metamorphosis of the lower into the higher from the bottom of creation to the top, and without any break of the causal sequence. There has been no miracle, except in the sense that all life is a miracle. Of how the organic rose out of the inorganic, we can form no mental image; the intellect cannot bridge the chasm; but that such is the fact, there can be no doubt. There is no solution except that life is latent or potential in matter, but these again are only words that cover a mystery.

I do not see why there may not be some force latent in matter that we may call the vital force, physical force transformed and heightened, as justifiably as we can postulate a chemical force latent in matter. The chemical force underlies and is the basis of the vital force. There is no life without chemism, but there is chemism without life.

We have to have a name for the action and reaction of the primary elements upon one another and we call it chemical affinity; we have to have a name for their behavior in building up organic bodies, and we call it vitality or vitalism.

The rigidly scientific man sees no need of the conception of a new form or kind of force; the physico-chemical forces as we see them in action all about us are adequate to do the work, so that it seems like a dispute about names. But my mind has to form a new conception of these forces to bridge the chasm between the organic and the inorganic; not a quantitative but a qualitative change is demanded, like the change in the animal mind to make it the human mind, an unfolding into a higher plane.

Whether the evolution of the human mind from the animal was by insensible gradations, or by a few sudden leaps, who knows? The animal brain began to increase in size in Tertiary times, and seems to have done so suddenly, but the geologic ages were so long that a change in one hundred thousand years would seem sudden. "The brains of some species increase one hundred per cent." The mammal brain greatly outstripped the reptile brain. Was Nature getting ready for man?

The air begins at once to act chemically upon the blood in the lungs of the newly born, and the gastric juices to act chemically upon the food as soon as there is any in the stomach of the newly born, and breathing and swallowing are both mechanical acts; but what is it that breathes and swallows, and profits by it? a machine?

Maybe the development of life, and its upward tendency toward higher and higher forms, is in some way the result of the ripening of the earth, its long steeping in the sea of sidereal influences. The earth is not alone, it is not like a single apple on a tree; there are many apples on the tree, and there are many trees in the orchard.

THE END

INDEX

Adaptation, 184, 215, 216.

Alpha rays, 60, 199.

Aquosity, 127, 128, 141-143.

Aristotle, 240.

Asphalt lake, 123.

Atoms, different groupings of, 56-60; weighed and counted, 60, 61; indivisibility, 61; the hydrogen atom, 65; chemical affinity, 193-195; photography of, 199, 200; form, 203; atomic energy, 204; qualities and properties of bodies in their keeping, 204; unchanging character, 205, 206; rarity of free atoms, 209; mystery of combination, 210.

Autolysis, 169.

Balfour, Arthur James, on Bergson's "Evolution Créatrice," 15.

Bees, the spirit of the hive, 82.

Benton, Joel, quoted, 70.

Bergson, Henri, 129, 173, 263; on light and the eye, 5; his view of life, 14-16, 27-29, 221, 237, 238; on the need of philosophy, 85, 86; on life on other planets, 87; his method, 109, 110; the key to his "Creative Evolution," 132; on life as a psychic principle, 162; his book as literature, 238.

Beta rays, 61, 199, 201.

Biogenesis, 25. _See also_ Life.

Biophores, 217.

Body, the, elements of, 38, 39; the chemist in, 152, 153; intelligence of, 153, 154; a community of cells, 157, 158; viewed as a machine, 212-214, 224.

Brain, evolution of, 288.

Breathing, mechanics and chemistry of, 50-54, 213.

Brooks, William Keith, quoted, 128, 236.

Brown, Robert, 191; the Brunonian movement, 167, 172, 191.

Brunonian movement, 167, 172, 191.

Butler, Bishop, imaginary debate with Lucretius, 219, 220.

Carbon, 38, 56, 59; importance, 208.

Carbonic-acid gas, 52, 53.

Carrel, Dr. Alexis, 98, 148.

Catalysers, 135, 136.

Cell, the, 83-85, 90, 96, 97, 180; Wilson on, 95; living after the death of the body, 98; Prof. Benjamin Moore on, 107; nature of, 113; aimless multiplication, 148, 233; the unit of life, 156; communistic activity, 157, 158, 184; a world in little, 170; mystery of, 175; different degrees of irritability, 216, 217.

Changes in matter, 131, 133.

Chemist, in the body, 152, 153.

Chemistry, the silent world of, 49-54; wonders worked by varying arrangement of atoms, 56-60; leads up to life, 188; a new world for the imagination, 189-192; chemical affinity, 193-195; various combinations of elements, 205-208; organic compounds, 209; mystery of chemical combinations, 210; chemical changes, 210, 211; powerless to trace relationships between different forms of life, 231, 232; cannot account for differences in organisms, 233, 234.

Chlorophyll, 77, 113, 168, 169, 177, 235.

Colloids, 76, 108, 135, 136.

Conn, H. W., on mechanism, 91-94.

Consciousness, Huxley on, 95, 181, 262.

Corpuscles, speed in the ether, 65.

Creative energy, immanent in matter, 9, 21; its methods, 263.

Crystallization, 276, 277.

Czapek, Frederick, on vital forces, 133, 152; on life, 164, 166, 169; on enzymes in living bodies, 167.

Darwin, Charles, quoted, 9; on force of growing radicles, 19; a contradiction in his philosophy, 254, 255.

Electricity, in the constitution of matter, 46-49; a state of the ether, 63; power from, 67, 68; the most mysterious thing in inorganic nature, 223.

Electrons, knots in the ether, 63; size and weight, 196; speed, 197; matter dematerialized, 197; bombardment from, 201, 202; revolving in the atom, 203; surface, 203; compared with atoms, 203; properties of matter supplied by, 204.

Elements, of living bodies, 38, 39, 77, 78; analogy with the alphabet, 57-59, 206; undergoing spontaneous change, 67; various combinations, 205-208; eagerness to combine, 209. _See also_ Atoms.

Eliot, George, on the development theory, 103.

Elliot, Hugh S. R., on mechanism, 16.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 250; on physics and chemistry, 188; quoted, 280.

Energy, relation of life to, 177-183; atomic, 204. _See also_ Creative energy _and_ Force.

Energy, biotic, 106-111, 145, 146.

England, 250.

Entities, 99, 100.

Environment, 86-88.

Enzymes, 167.

Ether, the, omnipresent and all-powerful, 61, 62; its nature, 62, 63; its finite character, 65, 66; paradoxes of, 66.

Ethics, and the mechanistic conception, 12.

Evolution, creative impulse in, 6, 111; progression in, 13, 14; and the arrival of the fit, 244-253; creative, 251-253; evolution of life bound up with the evolution of the world, 281-283; creative protoplasm in, 286; a cosmic view of, 289.

Explosives, 43.

Fire, chemistry of, 54.

Fiske, John, on the soul and immortality, 4; on the physical and the psychical, 75, 183.

Fittest, arrival and survival of the, 244-253.

Force, physical and mental, 3-5; and life, 17-23; dissymmetric force, 22; the origin of matter, 43, 44. _See also_ Energy.

Galls, 147, 154-156.

Ganong, William Francis, on life, 181.

Germany, in the War of 1914, 249-251.

Glaser, Otto C., quoted, 98.

Goethe, quoted, 111, 221, 260, 280; as a scientific man, 221.

Gotch, Prof., quoted, 270.

Grafting, 40, 41.

Grand Cañon of the Colorado, 225, 228, 229.

Grape sugar, 208.

Growth, of a germ, 217, 218.

Haeckel, Ernst, 3, 285; on physical activity in the atom, 25, 26; his "living inorganics," 91; on the origin of life, 161; on inheritance and adaptation, 184; his "plastidules," 217; a contradiction in his philosophy, 256.

Hartog, Marcus, 129.

Heat, changes wrought by, 55, 56; detection of, at a distance, 60.

Helmholtz, Hermann von, on life, 25, 161.

Henderson, Lawrence J., his "Fitness of the Environment," 73; his concession to the vitalists, 83, 85; on the environment, 86-88; a thorough mechanist, 88, 89.

Horse-power, 177, 178.

Hudson River, "blossoming of the water," 283.

Huxley, Thomas Henry, on the properties of protoplasm, 31, 126, 127; on consciousness, 95, 181, 262; on the vital principle, 101, 126, 127, 140; his three realities, 140; a contradiction in his philosophy, 255, 256.

Hydrogen, the atom of, 65.

Idealist, view of life, 218-222.

Inorganic world, beauty in decay in, 228, 229.

Intelligence, characteristic of living matter, 134, 139, 151-154; pervading organic nature, 223.

Irritability, degrees of, 216, 217.

James, William, 254.

Kant, Immanuel, quoted, 221.

Kelvin, Lord, 83.

King, Starr, 244.

Lankester, Sir Edwin Ray, quoted, 128, 141; his "plasmogen," 145, 146.

Le Dantec, Félix Alexandre, his "Nature and Origin of Life," 73, 79, 80; on consciousness, 80; on the artificial production of the cell, 83; on the mechanism of the body, 224.

Leduc, Stephane, his "osmotic growths," 167, 168.

Liebig, Baron Justus von, quoted, 83.

Life, may be a mode of motion, 5; evolution of, 6; its action on matter, 8, 9; its physico-chemical origin, 9; its appearance viewed as accidental, 10-14; Bergson's view, 14-17, 27-29; Sir Oliver Lodge's view, 17, 18; and energy, 17-23; theories as to its origin, 24-27; Tyndall's view, 28-30; Verworn's view, 30, 31; the vitalistic view, 32-38; matter as affected by, 39; not to be treated mathematically, 40; a slow explosion, 41, 42; an insoluble mystery, 43, 44; relations with the psychic and the inorganic, 44, 45; compared with fire, 54, 55; the final mystery of, 69, 70; vitalistic and mechanistic views, 71-114; Benjamin Moore's view, 106-113; the theory of derivation from other spheres, 104; spontaneous generation, 105; plays a small part in the cosmic scheme, 115-119; mystery of, 120; nature merciless towards, 120-124; as an entity, 124-130; evanescent character, 131, 132; Prof. Schäfer's view, 133-138; intelligence the characteristic of, 134, 139, 151-154; power of adaptation, 147-149; versatility, 155, 156; the fields of science and philosophy in dealing with, 161-166, 173-176; simulation of, 167, 168; and protoplasm, 169; and the cell, 170; variability, 171, 172; the biogenetic law, 174; relation to energy, 177-183; an _x_-entity, 181, 182; struggle with environment, 185, 186; as a chemical phenomenon, 187; inadequacy of the mechanistic view, 212-243; degrees of, 216, 217; arises, not comes, 230; a metaphysical problem, 231; as a wave, 231; its adaptability, 253; a vitalistic view, 254-289; naturalness of, 263-268; advent and disappearance, 268, 269; the unscientific view, 274, 275; analogy with the question of perpetual motion, 277, 278; no great gulf between animate and inanimate, 285; a cosmic view, 289. _See also_ Living thing, Vital force, Vitalism, Vitality.

Light, measuring its speed, 60.

Liquids, molecular behavior, 200.

Living thing, not a machine, 1-3, 212-214; viewed as a machine, 34-37, 224-228; a unit, 215; adaptation, 215, 216; contrasted and compared with a machine, 241, 242.

Lodge, Sir Oliver, 183, 197; his view of life, 17, 18, 34, 132, 161, 219, 237; his vein of mysticism, 34; on the ether, 62, 63, 66; on molecular spaces, 65; on radium, 201; on the atom, 203; on electrons, 203.

Loeb, Jacques, on mechanism, 10-13, 73; his experiments, 74, 76, 79, 147; on variations, 148.

Machines, Nature's and man's, 224-226; contrasted and compared with living bodies, 241, 242.

Maeterlinck, Maurice, on the Spirit of the Hive, 82.

Man, evolution of, 246-251; as the result of chance, 255; as a part of the natural order, 258, 259; his little day, 269.

Matter, as acted upon by life, 8, 9; creative energy immanent in, 9; change upon entry of life, 39; constitution of, 43, 44, 46-48; a state of the ether, 63; changes in, 131, 133; Emerson on, 188; discrete, 196; emanations detected by smell and taste, 198, 199; a hole in the ether, 203; origin of its properties, 204-206; a higher conception of, 259-261; common view of grossness of, 274, 275.

Maxwell, James Clerk, on the ether, 63; on atoms, 198.

Mechanism, the scientific explanation of mind, 5; and ethics, 12; reaction against, 32; definition, 72; Prof. Henderson's view, 88, 89; _vs._ vitalism, 212-243. _See also_ Life.

Metaphysics, necessity of, 101.

Micellar strings, 217.

Microbalance, 60.

Mind, evolution of, 287, 288. _See also_ Intelligence.

Molecules, spaces between, 65, 196; speed, 192; unchanging character, 205, 206.

Monera, 285.

Moore, Benjamin, a scientific vitalist, 106; his "biotic energy," 106-113, 145, 146.

Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 148.

Motion, perpetual, 190, 191, 278; mass and molecular, 269, 270.

Naegeli, Karl Wilhelm von, 217.

Nitrogen, 51.

Nonentities, 99, 100.

Odors, 198, 199.

Osmotic growths, 167, 168.

Oxygen, activities of, 51, 52, 59; in the crust of the earth, 193; chemical affinities, 193-195; different forms of atoms, 200.

Parker, Theodore, on the universe, 280.

Parthenogenesis, artificial, 11, 74.

Pasteur, Louis, his "dissymmetric force," 22, 32.

Philosophy, supplements science, 94-96, 104, 109, 163, 164; deals with fundamental problems, 242, 243; contradictions in, 254-258.

Phosphorus, 59, 60.

Physics, staggering figures in, 192.

Pitch lake, 123.

Plants, force exerted by growing, 17-20.

Plasmogen, 145, 146.

Plastidules, 217.

Protobion, 135.

Protoplasm, vitality of, 169; creative, 286.

Radio-activity, 66-70, 132.

Radium, 61, 201. _See also_ Beta rays.

Rainbow, 70.

Ramsay, Sir William, 191, 192.

Rand, Herbert W., on the mechanistic view of life, 89, 90.

Russia, 250, 251.

Salt, crystallization, 276, 277.

Schäfer, Sir Edward Albert, 73; his mechanistic view of life, 133-138.

Science, delicacy of its methods and implements, 60, 61; limitations of its field, 94-100, 104; cannot deal with life except as a physical phenomenon, 161, 162; does not embrace the whole of human life, 162, 163; inadequacy, 163-166; cannot grasp the mystery of life, 173, 175, 176, 234-236; cannot deal with fundamental problems, 242, 243; concerns itself with matter only, 264; inevitably mechanistic, 265, 266; views the universe as one, 267, 268, 271-274; the redeemer of the physical world, 269-271, 276; spiritual insight gained through, 278.

Sea-urchins, Loeb's experiments, 147.

Seed, growth of, 217, 218.

Soddy, Frederick, 46, 66; on vital force, 133; on rainbows and rabbits, 174; on the relation of life to energy, 177-180; on the atom, 197, 198; on atomic energy, 204.

Spencer, Herbert, 218, 240; quoted, 15, 16; on the origin of life, 26; on vital capital, 34, 35.

Spirit, common view of, 274, 275.

Spirituality, evolution of, 284.

Sugar, grape, 208.

Sunflower, wild, force exerted by, 19.

Thomson, J. Arthur, 270.

Thomson, Sir J. J., on electrons, 197; photographing atoms, 199, 200.

Tropisms, 11.

Tyndall, John, his view of life, 28-30, 160, 162, 231; his "molecular force," 42, 133; his Belfast Address, 64, 219; and the "miracle of vitality," 105; on energy, 161; on growth from the germ, 217; an idealist, 219, 220; on Goethe, 221; on matter, 260; on crystallisation of salt, 276, 277; on incipient life in inorganic nature, 277.

Universe, the, oneness of, 267, 268; a view of, 289.

Uranium, 67.

Verworn, Max, 25, 79, 146; his view of life, 30, 31, 73; his term for vital force, 145.

Vital force, constructive, 7, 38; inventive and creative, 7; resisting repose, 40; as a postulate, 99-103; its existence denied by science, 133; convenience of the term, 144; other names, 144-146. _See also_ Life.

Vitalism, making headway, 32; reason for, 71, 72; Moore's scientific vitalism, 106-112; type of mind believing in, 218-223. _See also_ Life.

Vitality, the question of its reality, 140-143; degrees of, 241, 242. _See also_ Life.

War of 1914, 248-251.

Water-power, and electricity, 67, 68.

Weismann, August, 217.

Whitman, Walt, quoted, 14, 48, 110, 256, 260.

Wilson, Edmund Beecher, on the cell, 95.

[Transcriber's Notes:

1. The phrase 'To resolve the pyschic and the vital' was changed to 'To resolve the psychic and the vital'.]