The success of Mr. Spencer's definition of "life" encouraged Professor Bastian to try his hand at it, with this definitional result: "Life," he says, "is an unstable collocation of Matter (with a big M), capable of growing by selection and interstitial appropriation of new matter (what new matter?) which then assumes similar qualities, of continually varying in composition in response to variations of its Medium (another big M), and which is capable of self-multiplication by the separation of portions of its own substance."
It shall not be our fault if the reader fails to understand this definition--to untwist this formidable formula of life. And we can best aid him by grammatically analyzing its structure. And,
1. "Life is capable of growing." We are glad to know this. As a vitalist it enables us to take a step towards the front--gets us off the "back seat" to which we were summarily ordered at the outset of this inquiry. We let its "unstable collocation" pass for what it is worth, and stick to our grammatical analysis.
2. "Life grows--is capable of doing something." This assurance positively encourages us.
3. "It grows by selection and interstitial appropriation." This is still more encouraging. It emboldens us to take a second step forward. Life, we feel, is increasing in potentiality.
4. "By appropriation it enablesnew matter to assume similar qualities to old matter." This makes us more confident than ever; we take another step forward--are half disposed to take two of them. Life is getting to be almost a "potentiated potentiality," to adopt the style of materialistic phrases.
5. "It causes matterto continually vary in composition." Bravo! we unhesitatingly take two steps forward on the strength of this most comforting assurance. Life is assuredly getting the upperhand of Matter (with a big M.) It is no longer a mere "undiscovered correlate of motion"--a hypothetical slave to matter only. It wrestles with it--throws it into the shade. We involuntarily take several more steps forward.
6. "Life is capable of self-multiplication"--has almost a creative faculty. Here we interject a perfect bravura of "bravoes," and, stepping boldly up to the front, demand of Professor Bastian to "throw up the sponge," take a back seat, and there--formulate us a new definition of "life."
But our London University materialist is not entirely satisfied with his own definition, or at least with the moral effect of it. He thinks that all these attempts to define life as a non-entity only, tend to keep up the demoralizing idea that it is an actual entity. We entirely agree with him in this conclusion. The infelicity and entire inconclusiveness of the definition he has vouchsafed us can hardly have any other effect. He sees this himself, and hence this foot-note to his great work on Ephemeromorphs: "Inasmuch as no life can exist without an organism, of which it is the phenomenal manifestation, so it seems comparatively useless to attempt to define this phenomenal manifestation alone--and, what is worse, such attempts tend to keep up the idea that life is an independent entity."
It may be objected that our grammatical analysis of the professor's definition of life is unfair, since he manifestly intended that it should cover a "living thing," and not "life" as an abstract, term. Our reply to this is, that he makes no distinction between the two. Life, with him, is simply a phenomenal manifestation. The two are correlative terms; so that his definition of the one must necessarily be the definition of the other, either as an identical or partial judgment. But let us take his definition entirely out of its abstract sense, and run it into the concrete. The able pathological anatomist of the London University college is a "living thing." He is, therefore, presumably a phenomenal manifestation. He is capable of growing, by "selection and interstitial appropriation," in reputation at least, if not in the direction of "an independent entity." His work of twelve hundred pages, covering his laborious delvings into the ephemeromorphic world, is conclusive on this point. As a phenomenal manifestation alone, any attempt to define either him or his professional labors, may be worse than useless, since it would tend to keep up the idea that he is an actual London entity. We are very confident that he is not a London non-entity, but are willing to agree that he is either the one or the other. The flaw that we are after lies in his interstitial logic, not in the hallucination in which he indulges respecting nonentities. His assumption that life cannot exist without an organism, of which it is the phenomenal manifestation, is what we propose to deal with.
Now, directly the reverse of this proposition is what is true. An organism cannot exist without life or an independent vital principle in nature, any more than celestial bodies can be held in their place independently of gravitation. The vital principle that organizes must precede the thing organized or the living organism, as the great formative principle of the universe (call it the will of God, gravitation or what you may) must have existed before the first world-aggregation. In logic, we must either advance or fall back--insist upon precedence being given to cause over effect, or deny their relative connection altogether. The organism is the phenomenal manifestation, not the vital principle which organizes it. To say that there can be nomanifestationof life without an organism is true; but to assume that the vital principle which organizes is dependent on its own organism for its manifestation is absurd. It would be the lesser fallacy to deny the phenomenal fact altogether, and insist that cause and effect are mere intellectual aberrations, or such absurd mental processes as find no correlative expression in nature, as that embodying the idea of either an antecedent or a consequent.
"Plato lived." He ate, he drank, he talked divinely. He was the occupant of an admirably constructed life-mansion; one that St. Paul would have looked upon as "the temple of God," and all the world would have recognized as a god-like temple. His head was a study for the Greek chisel; none was ever more perfectly modeled, or artistically executed. All agreed in this. And yet it was not thehabitatbut thehabitantthat attracted the admiration of the Greek mind; enkindled its highest enthusiasm; drew all the schools of philosophy, about him at once. It was the lordly occupant of the temple, the indwellingArcheus, presiding over all the organic phenomena and directing all the dynamic powers therein, which was so profoundly present in the living Plato. Even Professor Haeckel, of the famous University of Jena, would not deny this, with all that his new terms "ontogeny" and "phylogeny" may imply. When potential life passed over into actual life in the individual Plato, it was not the pabulum that assimilated the man, but the man the pabulum. If this were not so, then the mere potentiality of growing, as in the case of plants and animals, would be all there is to distinguish the phenomenal manifestation of a Plato from that of a mole or a cabbage-stalk. In other words, if the animating principle of life--or, as the Bible has it, the "animating soul of life"--is not what manifests itself in material embodiment, but the reverse, what can Professor Haeckel mean by his new term "phylogeny," which ought to cover the lines of descent in all organic beings?
If it be a question of mere pabulum, it is altogethermal posé. Pabulum is nothing without a preëxisting "something" to dispose of it. It is not so much as a jelly-mass breakfast for one of Professor Haeckel's "protamoebæ;" for if it were served up in advance, there would be none of his little non-nucleated jelly-eaters to partake of it, much less any of his "protogenes." As the famous Mrs. Glass would say, in her "hand-book of cookery," if you want a delightful "curry," first catch your hare. But our ingenious professor of Jena dispenses with both the hare and the curry, in serving up his pabulum to the "protamoebæ." The improvident pabulum "evolves" its own eaters, and then, spider-like, is eviscerated by them, as was Actaeon by his own hounds. As Life, therefore, begins in the tragedy of Mount Cithæron, it is to be hoped it will end in the delights of Artemis and her bathing nymphs.
The methods by which the advocates of a purely physical origin of life seek to establish the correctness of their conclusions, are unfortunately not always attended by uniform results in experimentation. They subject their solutions of organic matter to a very high temperature by means of super-heated flasks, the tubes to which are so packed in red-hot materials that whatever air may enter them shall encounter a much greater degree of heat than that indicated by boiling water. At this temperature (100° C--212° F) they assume that all living organisms perish, especially when the solutions containing them have been kept, for the space of fifteen or twenty minutes, at this standard point of heat. But, in the light of all the experiments which have been made in this direction, there is some doubt as to the entire correctness of their assumption. That many, if not most living organisms, perish at a temperature of 100° C, there is little or no doubt; but that there are some which are much more tenacious of life, that is, possess greater vital resistance to heat, is equally unquestionable.
M. Pasteur, for instance, mentions the spores of certain fungi which are capable of germinating after an exposure of some minutes to a temperature of 120° to 125° C. (248-257° F), while the same spores entirely lose their germinating power after an exposure for half an hour or more to a slightly higher temperature. Dr. Grace-Calvert, in a paper on "The Action of Heat on Protoplasmic Life," recently published in the proceedings of the Royal Society, asserts that certain "black vibrios" are capable of resisting the action of fluids at a temperature as high as 300° F, although exposed therein for half an hour or more. But none of these crucial tests, however diverse in experimental results, really touch the all-important question in controversy. They all relate either to living organisms, or to the seeds and spores of vegetation, not to living indestructible "germs"--invisible vital units--declared to be in the earth itself.
We use the term "vital unit" in the same restricted sense in which the materialists speak of "chemical units," "morphological units," etc., which they admit are invisible in the microscopic field, and hence they can have no positive information as to their destructibility or indestructibility by heat. That this vital unit lies, in its true functional tendencies, between the chemical and morphological units--manifesting itself in the conditions of the one and resulting in the structural development of the other--is no new or startling theory, but one that has been more or less obscurely hinted at by Leibnitz, and even acknowledged as possible by Herbert Spencer. It is this vital unit that assimilates or aggregates protoplasmic matter into the morphological cell, or the initial organism in a vital structure, or an approach towards structural form. Morphological cells are not therefore "units," considered as the least of any given whole, nor are they mere structureless matter, or any more homogeneous in character than in substance. Different chemical solutions give rise to different morphological cells, as differently constituted soils produce different vegetal growths. Change the chemical conditions in any solution or infusion, and you change the entire morphological character of the infusoria appearing therein.[28] The cells are living organisms springing from vital units, and can no more manifest themselves independently of these units than life can manifest itself independently of an actual organism. And they make their appearance in the proper environing conditions, just as the oak comes from its primordial germ or vital unit in the chemically changed conditions of the soil. Everywhere the vital germ or unit precedes the vital growth as the plant or tree precedes the natural seeds it bears.
This is not only the logical order, but the exact scientific method of vital manifestation and growth. In this truth lies the whole mystery of vegetal and animal life as hitherto manifested on our globe, with the single exception of man whose crowning distinction it was to receive "a living soul." This may be rejected as a scientific statement, but its verification will appear in the very act of its rejection. Pry as deeply as we may into thearcanaof nature in search of exact scientific truth, and we shall ultimately land in one or the other of these propositions,--either that nature was originally endowed with some occult and unknown power "to bring forth," which power is either continuously inherent or continuously imparted, or else "specific creation" was the predetermined plan and purpose, with no higher or more specialized animal or vegetal forms than were specifically created in the beginning. Otherwise, we are inevitably forced back, by our mental processes, which we cannot resist, upon an effect without a cause--a physical law of the universe without any conceivable law-giver--an all-pervading, all-energizing principle of matter which must have existed as a cause infinitely anterior to its first effect. And this is forcing language into such crazy and paralytic conclusions as to utterly destroy its efficiency as a vehicle of thought.
To conceive of the existence of the universe, or of any possible law that may be operative therein, without an adequate antecedent cause, is as metaphysically impossible as to conceive of substance without form, space without extension, or a God who has been superceded in the universe by the operation of his own laws. For if the world-ordaining and world-arranging intelligence of the universe has ceased to ordain and arrange,--if all things therein have been left to the operation of fixed and eternally unchangeable laws--then no further supervisional direction is required on the part of either an infinite or a finite intelligence, and our idea of a God must disappear in the paramount induction of a universe which has successfully risen up in insurrection against its own maker and lawgiver, if it has not remorselessly consigned him to some inconceivable limbo outside of the universe itself. But this Titanic, and worse than satanic, insurrection on the part of a universe of matter and motion, is only the conjectural coinage of the human brain--the wild supposition hazarded by the materialistic mind--and fortunately has no conceivable counterpart outside of it.
But the palpable blunder, in materialistic science, consists in its overlooking the necessary outgrowth of theological ideas in the human mind--as conclusively a phenomenal fact of nature as the invariable uniformity of astronomical movements, the ebb and flow of the tides, or the electro-magnetic waves of the earth itself. And nature furnishes no greater clue to the one set of phenomena than the other. For when we say that bodies act one upon another by the force of gravity, we are no nearer an explication of the force itself, than we should be were we to allege any corresponding manifestation on the part of the human mind. Kant says; "We cannot conceive of the existence of matter without the forces of attraction and repulsion--the conflict of two elementary forces in the universe;" much less can we have any conception of the elementary forces themselves. Science can, therefore, assign no more conclusive reason for overlooking psychical manifestations than physical phenomena. Nor is the one set of phenomena any more marvellous in its manifestations than the other. They may both furnish food for speculative thought and inquiry, and yet the nearer we get to the ultimate implications of either, the more completely are we lost in Professor Tyndall's "primordial haze," from which he assumes that the universe, and all the phenomenal manifestations therein, originally came.
But however rapidly these materialistic theories may disappear in the scientific waste-basket of the future, there is one sublime verity that will stand the test of all time, and that is, that the moral universe of God is no less complete, in the Divine Intendment, than the physical universe, while the latter is so inter-correlated and inter-tissued with the former, in all its conceivable relations, that it can no more exist independently of its correlative, than matter can exist independently of space, or time independently of eternity. [29]
According to this view of Leibnitz, all living organisms have their own essence, or essential qualities and characteristics. They have been from all eternity in the "Divine Intendment," and can undergo no changes or modifications which shall make them essentially different from what they were in the beginning, or are now. This is not only true of the "germs" that are "in themselves upon the earth," but of every living thing, whether lying within or beyond the telescopic or microscopic limits. As a law of causation, as well as of consecutive thought, there must be in the order of life (all life) a continuous chain of ideas linking the past to the present, the present to the future, and the future to eternity. But that this continuous chain is dependent on mere physical changes or manifestations, is a logical induction utterly incapable of being exhibited in scientific formulæ. The higher and more satisfactory induction is that which places cause before effect, the Maker before the made, the Creator before the creature, and so on, in the analogical order, till the smallest conceivable "vital unit" is reached in the universe of organic matter. To begin, therefore, with microscopic observation, at a point in the ephemeromorphic world where that optical instrument fails to give back any intelligible answer, and synthetically follow this chain of causation upward and outward to Dr. Tyndall's "fiery cloud of mist," in which it is assumed that all the diversified possibilities and potentialities of the universe once lay latent, may answer the logical necessities of the "Evolution" theory, but will never satisfy the inductive processes of a Plato, a Leibnitz, or a Newton.
Professor Tyndall, in speaking of his "fiery-cloud" theory, says: "Many who hold the hypothesis of natural evolution would probably assent to the position (his position) that at the present moment all our philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, all our art,--Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and a Da Vinci--are potential in the fires of the sun." But, to be consistent in their inductions, they should proclaim themselves sun-worshippers at once, and ascribe to that transcendent luminary all the potentialities of a universe
"Fresh-teeming from the hand of God."
But what possible advantage, we would ask, can this physical hypothesis of life have over that which ascribes to God the issues of all life in the universe, from the highest to the lowest living organism? We can positively conceive of none but that of placing the cosmological cart before the horse, and so harnessing "cause and effect"in tandem, that the latter shall uniformly precede the former in the chain of logical induction. As a dialectical feat, in exhibiting the higher possibilities of logic, it may have its advantages in subordinating the facts of science to the higher illuminations of fancy, and thus resting the basis of reality on the ever-changing and ever-shifting assumptions of the human mind. For the materialistic theories of to-day are not those of yesterday, nor is there any certainty that they will be those of to-morrow. They are almost as fantastic and variable as the forms of the kaleidoscope, although, as a general rule, they lack the symmetrical arrangements and proportions of that scientific toy.
Professor Bastian, in considering the heterogenetic phenomena of "living matter," is obliged to fall back, near the end of his great work, on "the countless myriads of living units which have been evolved (?) in the different ages of the world's history." But by what process a "vital unit" can beevolved, he does not condescend to tell us. He has no "primordial formless fog" to fall back upon as has Professor Tyndall, nor can he imagine anything beyond the least of possible conceptions in a chemical, morphological, or vital unit. A "unit" can neither be evolved nor involved; it admits of no square, no multiple, no differentiation; it is simply the ever-potent unit of "organic polarity," by which it multiplies effects, but can never be multiplied itself. The chief fault that we have to find with the London University professor is that he confounds a morphological cell with a morphological unit, and insists upon drawing unwarrantable conclusions therefrom. His "countless myriads of living units" are all well enough in their way. That they exist in the earth, and are constantly developed into innumerable multitudes of living organisms, of almost inconceivable variety, in both the animal and vegetal world, is true, as he half-reluctantly admits in almost the identical language we here use.
And he also admits that morphological cells, when once formed, continue to grow by their own individual power or inherent tendency. But before they can manifest any such inherent tendency, they must be developed from the vital units that lie back of them, and on which their manifestation unquestionably depends. The only doubt that can possibly exist on this point is, that the process of development cannot be determined by microscopic examination. But we may as well assume the presence of vital units in the case of dynamical aggregates, as for Professor Bastian to insist upon crystalline units in the case of statical aggregates or crystals. Both processes, in their initial stages of development, lie beyond the reach of human scrutiny, and all that we know, or possibly can know, is, that certain inorganic conditions are favorable for the development of crystals, as certain organic conditions are favorable for the development of morphological cells. Beyond this Professor Bastian knows nothing--we know nothing.
Professor Beale, in his recent work on "the Mystery of Life"--one that is now justly attracting very wide attention--says: "Between the two sets of phenomena, physical and vital, not the faintest analogy can be shown to exist. The idea of a particle of muscular or nerve tissue being formed by a process akin to crystallization, appears ridiculous to any one who has studied the two classes of phenomena, or is acquainted with the structure of these tissues." And he quietly, yet effectively, ridicules the idea that the ultimate molecules of matter--substantially the same matter, in fact--have the power to arrange themselves, independently of vital tendency, alternately into a dog-cell or a man-cell, according to the specific direction they may take, or the incidence of conditions they may undergo, in their primary movement. And for the benefit of Professor Beale, behind whose "bioplasts," we place the "vital unit"--not a variable but a constant unit--we would have him bear in mind (what he so well knows) that the finest fibres that go to make up these tissues lie quite beyond the microscopic limit in their interlaced and spirally-coiled reticulations, so that nothing can be predicated of their ultimate contexture, any more than of the ultimate distribution of matter itself. He has himself traced these wonderfully minute nerve-ramifications under glasses of the highest magnifying power, and knows that their ultimate distribution cannot be reached. Let him come out then, as the ablest vitalist now living, and boldly assert the presence of the man-unitand the dog-unit,instead of falling back on his bioplastic spinners and weavers of tissue, which are only the servants and willing workers of the one integral unit, or life-directing force, within. It is far more rational, and, at the same time, more accordant with strict scientific methods, to attribute these muscular and nerve reticulations to a single direct cause, than to a multitude of secondary causes.
There is a world-wide difference between the dog-egoand the man-ego;but the physical differences are not by any means the greatest. The bioplastic spinners and weavers work as obediently for the one master-egoas the other. They never stop to inquire how far they shall differentiate this vital tissue or that, or in what direction even they shall work. Not a thread is spun nor a shuttle thrown that is not directed by the one head-webster of vital tissue. These obedient bioplasts determine nothing, direct nothing. Each works in his own cell as obediently as a galley-slave. All specific modifications, all determinate movements, all molecular arrangements, all multiplications of bioplastic force, are the work of the one vital webster, or principle of life, within--that which shapes all, directs all, determines all. And this is true from the first or embryological inception of the dog-unit or "germ," until the real occupant of the dog-tenement dismisses his bioplastic weavers, and lies down to die. And so of all vital units. Each determines its own structural form, and unchangeably retains it to the end, even to the slightest impression of a scar inflicted years and years before. The occupant of this dog-mansion has dismissed one set of bioplastic weavers after another; has thrown aside this spun tissue and that warp and woof of woven texture, time and time again, so that the dog of to-day is not the samephysicaldog of a year ago; and yet he has the same affection for his master, carries with him the same scar received twenty years before in the chase, gives the same glad bark of welcome as his owner nears home, exhibits the same characteristic wag in his tail, and, lying down to sleep, dreams of the once happy chase in which he is no longer able to engage. This continuous presence of the same dog, through all these twenty years of physical change--the old dog reappearing in the new, a dozen times over--is what we mean by the constantly differentiating yet undifferentiated "dog-unit."
Those who attempt to bisect this vital unit, divide it up into one fractional part after another, until it shall represent a million bioplastic workers in as many different cells, are committing the same sort of folly--in principle at least, if not in practice--as that which led the simple-minded daughters of Pelias to cut up their father, in the expectation of boiling the old bioplasts into new, and then, by the cunning aid of Medea, who directed the operation, reuniting them into the one Peliastic-unit they so much delighted to honor. But this first and only recorded attempt at differentiating a vital unit disastrously failed, as the reader of ancient myths well knows, although the experiment was conducted by the most careful and loving hands. The necessary chemical re-agents to reproduce life, as well as the necessary processes of producing itde novohave not yet been ascertained, nor is it likely they ever will be. And herein lies the most marked distinction between crystallizable matter and living substance.
And yet there is no evidence that the vital principle perishes in the destruction of its temporary organism. It is not the material seed that germinates, but the vital principle it contains, bursting forth from its environment into newness of life. All that can be alleged of either boiled or calcined seeds is, that the material substances of which they were composed are so changed in their chemical constituents, or molecular adjustment, that they are no longer capable of developing, or being developed, into a living organism. "Principles never die," and this is as true of the vital principles in nature, as those obtaining in ethics and morals. Were it possible to restore the exact chemical conditions and constituent particles of the boiled or calcined seed, there is no more doubt that nature would respond to the environing conditions, and give forth the proper expression of plant-life, than there is that crystals of spar would make their appearance in an overcharged bath chemically prepared for that purpose. It is not the albuminous substance enclosed in the seed, but the vital principle therein--that continuously imparted to nature from the great vital fountain of the universe--which burgeons forth into life whenever and wherever the required conditions obtain.
In proof of this statement, we might instance any number of cases where recently abandoned brick-yards and other clayey excavations, were situated at considerable distances from any natural water-courses, or fish-stocked ponds, from which spawn could have been derived, and yet these excavations have no sooner been filled with permanently standing rain water, than certain small fishes of theCyprinidaeand other families, have made their appearance therein.[30] Nobody has thought of stocking these standing pools of water with the fish in question, nor has there been any surface overflow to account for their presence, nor any other apparent means of transportation, if we except the fish-catching birds, and they generally swallow their food in the water or on the nearest tree to the point of capture. Any theory accounting for the presence of spawn is, therefore, out of the question. This spawn must have traversed hard clay deposits for the distance of half a mile or more to make their appearance in these waters. The only possible explanation of this class of phenomena, and they are by no means infrequent, is to be found in "favoring conditions" and the "presence of vital units." They are primordial manifestations of life, and such as would have made their appearance in any corresponding latitude of the southern hemisphere, under the same favoring conditions.
And this is true of all living organisms from the lowest morphological cell, in the ichthyologic world, to the highest and lordliest conifer that grows. Their spawn and seeds are perishable by heat, but the vital principle that organizes them is as imperishable in one element as another. No seven-times heated furnace, much less the experimental flasks of the physicist, will affect a vital principle of nature any more than a May-morning puff of the east wind would shake Olympus. And all the countless myriads of vital units in nature are now manifesting themselves in animal and vegetal forms, under favoring conditions, the same as in those far-distant epochs of the world's history when a more exuberant vegetation prevailed, if not a more abounding animal life. The same persistent, ever-acting law of vital development and growth has been present, in all conditions and circumstances of matter, ever since the detritus of the silicious rocks felt the first influence of the rains, the dews, and the sunlight. Then the earth commenced "to bring forth the grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-trees yielding fruit, after his kind;" and in their growth was laid the foundation of animal life. Whether there was any audible or inaudible command of God uttered at the time, is not the question. It is thefactof vital growth that we are after, and not the command. The geologic records attest the fact, as well as the ever-acting vital law; and it is enough for us to know, with sturdy old Richard Hooker, that all law--and especially allvitallaw--"has her seat in the bosom of God, and her voice is the harmony of the world."
Professor Beale, while resolutely combating the physical hypothesis of life, is not a little unfortunate in his use of scientific terms. He is constantly using those of "living matter" and "dead matter," as if they contained no fatal concession to the materialists, with which to completely overthrow his own ultimate conclusions as to life. For he gains nothing by merely substituting "bioplasm" and "bioplasts" for "protoplasm" and "plastide particles." The essential plasma in both cases is the same, and behind each lies the vital unit or principle therein manifested--the invisible, indestructible germ or ZRA of the Bible genesis. Living organisms come, of course, from this essential plasma, but without an elementary principle or vital unit therein, there would be no "bioplasts," in the sense in which Professor Beale uses this term. These bioplasts are living organisms which take up nutrient matter and convert it by assimilation into tissues, nerves, fibres, bones, etc.--into the higher and more complex organs that go to make up living structure. This mysterious transmutation of one thing into another, as organic matter into living organisms, is due to a vitally implanted principle, not to these little bioplasts, or mere epithelial and other tools with which the vital principle works. To apply the term "living matter" to the tools with which a living structure is built up, is to lose sight of the master-mechanic using them for an apparently intelligent purpose. The microscope may demonstrate that these little bioplasts throb--have life; but there is no intelligent purpose manifested by them except as they are moved by an unseen hand that conclusively directs the whole structural work--builds up the one complete symmetrical structure, not its thousand independent parts having no relation to a general plan. The future lord and occupant of the mansion is presumably present, and if he uses tools that "throb and have life," it is because everything he touches is quickened into life that it may be the more obedient to his will. If this structure be the soul-endowed one of man, the vital principle imparted is that which fashions the epithelial tools, and uses them, as well in laying the embryological foundation, as in crowning its work with that many-colored "dome of thought flashing the white radiance of eternity."
Mr. Joseph Cook, who enthusiastically follows Professor Beale in his theory of life, in one of his "Boston Monday Lectures," says; "It is beyond contradiction that we know that these little points ('bioplasts') of structureless matter spin the threads, and weave the warp and woof, of organisms." With all due respect to this distinguished lecturer, we must except to not less than three points in as many lines of his over-confident statement. In the first place, we know nothing respecting the "beginnings of life," which may not be contradicted with some show of reason. Take his own definition of "bioplasts," as copied from Professor Beale, coupled with what they both term "nutrient matter" and "germinal matter," or bioplasm, and this confident assertion of his will land him at once where the highest powers of the microscope fail to give back any intelligible answer, or where neither assertion nor contradiction avails anything. A bioplast, they tell us, is a germinal point in germinal matter or bioplasm. It is also assumed that the central portion of every cell in an organic tissue is a bioplast. Here this wonderful little weaver of tissue sits spinning his threads and weaving them into the warp and woof of "formed matter"--that which, according to Professor Beale, becomes "dead matter" as soon as it is woven! But it is admitted that the nerve fibres constitute an uninterrupted network which admits of no endings--that is, whose ultimate reticulations lie beyond the microscopic limit. But there is a cell in every hundredth part of an inch of these ultimate reticulations, in each of which one of these bioplastic weavers sits plying his threads into the warp and woof of nerve tissue, if not of nerve force. What is known of these little weavers, either by Mr. Joseph Cook or Professor Lionel S. Beale? Manifestly nothing, unless they have been specially favored with microscopes of over 2,800 diameters--the highest yet made,--and have fathomed the ultimate implications of nerve force; an assumption on the part of the Boston lecturer to which we are bound to except.
Nor are these "bioplasts" mere structureless matter, however minute they may be as "little points." They differ only from "morphological cells," in the definitional language employed by different theorists, and lack the all-essential accuracy of distinction necessary to scientific classification. To define a bioplast as a germinal point in germinal matter, or bioplasm, is to draw no satisfactory line of distinction between the two, except that the one is a mere aggregation of the other. A germinal mass is only made up of germinal points--those considered as the least of any given whole--however infinitesimal they may be in theoretical statement. If any germinal point in germinal matter, therefore, be a bioplast, then every germinal point, to the extent of making up its entire mass, must be a bioplast; and the distinction between the two becomes merely verbal, and without generic signification. But every morphological cell is conceded to be an organism, whether it lie within or beyond the microscopic limit. And it invariably exhibits a greater or less amount of cellular activity at its centre. It grows rather than spins; it builds up tissue, rather than weaves it into warp and woof; it assimilates nutritive matter rather than plies a loom in any conceivable sense in which we may view that industrial machine. No matter what we may call this point of vital activity in a cell--whether it be a bioplast, a plastid, a physiological unit, or a granule of "elementary life-stuff"--it simply performs the one single function of life to which it is specifically assigned in the process of "building up" any one identical individual of a species, whether it be a man, an ape, a tree, or a parasitic fungus. The very admission that the bioplast spins, makes it an organism, and not mere structureless matter. For the first thread it spins is manifestly for its own covering or the ornamentation of its own cell-walls. And to speak of these as "structureless matter" is to confound all scientific sense, as well as meaning.
The third objection to Mr. Cook's statement is, that if bioplasts spin, it is as dependent, and not as independent machines or agencies. There are millions of these bioplasts--taking the word in the sense in which Professor Beale uses it--in every living organism considered as a biological whole. In the case of man, there are millions of them within a comparatively small compass; and each has its own cell to which its specific work is assigned. Now, these germinal points, or bioplasts, in each of these myriads of cells, work, not separately and independently, like so many oysters in their respective shells, but harmoniously and together, as if under the supervisional direction of one supreme architect and builder. This builder is that one elementary principle of life, appertaining to each specific individual as a species, with which nature was endowed from the beginning, and which, in the case of man, was a direct emanation from Deity. It is this vital principle manifesting itselfinall living organisms, notfromthem; directing Professor Beale's "bioplastic weavers," not directed by them; availing itself of necessary plasmic conditions, if not giving rise to them in the first instance; observing no developmental processes by which one form of life laps over upon another, and following no order but that of universal harmony in the Divine intendment. There is struggle and rivalry for existence, even among the same classes, orders, genera, and species, and the smallest and weakest must give place to the largest and strongest everywhere, andvice versa, as Time, the greatest of all rodents, gnaws away at the mystical tree of life. But in every living organism, from the lowest and simplest to the highest and most complex, all bioplastic spinners of filamentous tissue, all plastide weavers of membranous or spun matter, all epithelial bobbin-runners, and other anatomical helpers and workers, perform their respective tasks under the special supervision we have named, that is, under the higher unit of life. They all work for the advancement and well-being of the higher organism of which they form a component and necessarily subordinate part.
The fact that Professor Beale has discovered that what he calls bioplasm and germinal points or bioplasts may take on a distinct and separate color from tissue, when subjected to a solution of carmine in ammonia, is no evidence that he has penetrated the adytum of this sacred temple of Life, wherein lies the "mystery of mysteries." It is an important discovery so far as tracing tissue is concerned, but it admits him into no higher mystery within the temple built by God than another may attain to by the accidental discovery that the tissues may take on the same color in some other solution--by no means an improbable discovery. Carmine in ammonia is not the only solution that may aid science in the investigations now being carried forward by the vitalists and non-vitalists with so much bitterness and asperity of feeling between them; and now that Professor Beale has madehishappy discovery, it is by no means certain that some other equally persistent worker in this interesting field of inquiry may not hit upon quite as happy a discovery in the same or some equivalent direction--one that shall throw the bioplasmic theory as far into the shade as Mr. Cook thinks the bioplasts have already thrown the cells. But decidedly the most objectionable statement of Professor Beale, although one confidently re-affirmed by our "Boston Monday Lecturer," is that which makes bioplasm and bioplasts the only "living matter." We have already referred to the phrases "living matter" and "non-living matter" as altogether objectionable in biological statement, since they are more than half-way concessions to the materialists, who contemptuously order the vitalists to take a "back seat" in the discussions now going forward as to the true origin of life. But the objection we here make is less technical, and touches a far more vital point in the inquiry. It is true that Professor Beale speaks of "formed matter," as if it were a peculiar something--a sort oftertium quid--between living and non-living matter. But he distinctly avers that the substance which turns red in his carmine solutions is the "only living matter," and hence asserts, inferentially at least, that all other matter, in any and every living organism, is "dead matter." But we may just as confidently aver that no matter is living in any vital organism which has not been assimilated and built up into living membranous tissue capable of responding (in the case of man) to his will, as well as performing the autonomous functions of plants and the lower animals. For all these membranous tissues are innumerably thronged with bioplasts or plastide particles, not for the purposes of obedience to man's will, or of performing any autonomous function, but simply to supply the tissues with the necessary nutrient matter to make up for the constant waste that is going on in a healthy living organ. This waste is very much greater than has heretofore been supposed, so that the man or animal of to-day may be an entirely distinct and separate one, considered materially, from that of a year or more ago. And this averment would have a decided advantage over Professor Beale's, since, in meeting a friend, we might be certain that four-fifths of him at least was alive, while the other one-fifth was industriously at work to keep him alive, instead of a stalking corpse, as he would otherwise be, upon the street. Besides, it would obviate the necessity, on the part of the vitalists, of giving themselves four-fifths away to the materialists, as Professor Beale virtually does in the argument.
The too rude touch of a child's hand will rob the canary bird of its life--stifle its musical throat, hush its most ecstatic note, still its exquisite song, and render forever mute and silent its voice. But where are Professor Beale's bioplasts which, but a moment before, were not only weaving the nerves, tissues, muscles, bones, and even the wonderful plumage of this canary bird, but plying the invisible threads of song--throwing off its chirps, carols, trills, quavers, airs, overtures and brilliantroulades, as if the little vocalist had caught its inspiration from the very skies? Where, we repeat, are these bioplasts now? They are all quietly and industriously at work as before. The occupant of the song-mansion is gone, but not one of these bioplasts has dropped a clew, thrown down a shuttle, abandoned a loom, or fled in dismay to the core of its cell. They still pulsate, throb, throw off tissue. No chemical change has yet intervened to break down their cell-walls, or interfere with the occupations assigned them. The machinery that ran their looms is stopped--that is all. The invisible shuttles have ceased to ply--the meshes of their tangled webs are broken--the more delicate threads of song are snapped in sunder, but the bioplastic spinners and weavers are all there. Not one of them has been displaced from its seat, nor in any way disturbed or molested in its work. If they are conscious of any danger, it is that the occupant of this little song-mansion has suddenly stepped out--is no longer present to direct their tasks. The icy hand of decay and death will soon be upon them--these poor bioplastic weavers of tissue--but the vocal spark, the "bright gem instinct with music," is beyond the reach of these dusky messengers.Whereit is, not man, but the Giver of all life knows. We only know, when our faith is uplifted by inspiration, that--
"The soul of music never dies,Nor slumbers in its shell;'Tis sphere-descended from the skies,And thence returns to dwell."
"The soul of music never dies,Nor slumbers in its shell;'Tis sphere-descended from the skies,And thence returns to dwell."
Among the more startling, if not decidedly brilliant, vital theories which have been advanced within the last few years, is that which makes life an "undiscovered correlative of force." Those who have the reputation of being the profoundest thinkers and delvers in the newly-discovered realm of Force-correlation in Europe, and who have more or less modestly contributed to that reputation themselves, have evidently thought to eclipse, if not to entirely throw into the shade, the great exploit of Leverrier, in pointing out the exact place in their empirical heavens where the superior optics of some future observer shall behold, in all its glory, this "undiscovered correlative of force," which they have indicated as lying within the higher possibilities and potentialities of matter. Precisely what they mean by this undiscovered correlate, is what puzzles us quite as much to determine as it does the materialists to explain. Were they to define life as an "undiscovered force" simply, their definition would manifestly lack in brilliancy what it would conclusively make up in precision and accuracy of definitional statement. But such a poor metaphrastic and half-circular exposition of vital force would never answer the necessities of that profounder profundity required for the success of modern scientific treatises. Hence the interpolation of this "correlative" of theirs. Let us ascertain, if we can, what it means, since they are so chary of informing us themselves.
A "correlate" of a thing--any thing--simply implies the reciprocal relation it bears to some other thing. As a cognate term it expresses nothing, can express nothing, but reciprocity of relationship, such as father to son, brother to sister, uncle to aunt, nephews to nieces, etc. As applied to vital force, it means nothing more nor less than that this particular force stands in some sort of relationship to the other forces of nature, or, as they would have us believe, thematerialforces of nature. And the simple strength or potentiality of this relationship is what makes all the difference between the severally related forces of the universe, since it would be as impossible to differentiate a fixed relationship as to change the nature of vital units. But whether vital force, as a distinct correlate, is paternal or filial, brotherly or sisterly, avuncular or amital in its relationship, is not stated. The scientific formula, however, may be stated thus: As A (chemical force) is to B (molecular force) so is C (a third known force) tox(the vital or unknown force); so that, by multiplying the antecedents and consequents together, and eliminating the value ofx, we may mathematically obtain the value of vital force.
But to eliminate the value ofxis what troubles them. Herbert Spencer has tried his hand at it, but failed to express life under any higher correlation than "molecular force;" nor can he definitely inform us whether either force is third or fourth cousin to the other. But he manifestly regards their relationship as constituting either a very attractive or highly repulsive force. In his vexation at not finding the value ofx, he is driven from mathematical to mechanical biology, and gives us this new definitional value of life--that singularly contumacious quantity which so persistently refuses to be eliminated in scientific equations: "Life is molecular machinery worked by molecular force." But as Professor Beale has utterly demoralized, if not demolished, this machinery, in his recent treatise on "The Mystery of Life," we will spare it any further blows, and proceed to the consideration of "molecular force."
Before we proceed however, to the consideration of this force, let us definitely understand the meaning of the terms we shall be called upon to use. We can have no difficulty in understanding the meaning of "molecular attraction," or that force acting immediately on the integrant molecules or particles of a body, as distinguished from the attraction of gravitation which acts at unlimited distances. But when it comes to ascribing other and higher manifestations of power to molecules, such as have not been scientifically shown to exist, we must feel our way with caution, and demand of these pretentious molecules, or rather of their materialistic backers, a reason for the faith, or rather force, that is in them.
It is agreed by all physicists, as well as chemists, that a "molecule" is the smallest conceivable quantity of a simple or compound substance, as an "atom" is the smallest conceivable quantity of an element which enters into combination with other elements to form material substance. For instance, the smallest conceivable quantity of water is a molecule, while the smallest conceivable quantity of either of the two elements of which water is composed, is an atom. In every molecule of water, therefore, there are three elementary atoms, two of hydrogen and one of oxygen. And since a molecule, as a general rule, contains two or more atoms, and may contain many of them, why not predicate dynamic force of the atoms, which lie one step nearer the elementary forces of nature? For the mightiest forces of nature lie in these elements, when forced into unnatural alliances, or chained up in durance vile. It is in the elements of matter, and not in its molecules, that this tremendous dynamic force resides. Man, knowing this, harnesses them into his service, first by forcing them into unnatural alliances, as in the case of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, and then successfully pitting them in conflict against the rocks and the general inertia of matter. To charge all the destructive work they do on the innocent and harmless molecules, which are two steps removed from the actual force expended, is drawing conclusions from the sheerest hypothetical data. It is the office of "molecular force," if there is any meaning to the term beyond what is expressed by "molecular attraction," to conserve matter--bind rocks together, not rend them in sunder.
If the dynamic forces of nature lie pent up in the molecules, then man must array molecular force against molecular force in order to rend rocks and tear mountains in sunder. This theory of molecular force, as extended to vital physics in the force-doctrine of life, is irreconcilably at war with the principal phenomena of life, and should be classed with the other undiscovered correlates of force, which Professor Beale speaks of as "the fictions of a mechanical imagination." The truth is that these much abused and much slandered molecules are the most innocent and harmless things in nature. They never become destructive unless some other force than that inhering in themselves drags them into its service and hurls them along a devastating path. Of themselves, they are the very quintessence of quiessence in the universe, and, when formed in nature's laboratory, at once seek quiet and loving companionship with kindred molecules, and retain it forever afterwards. The idea that they should break away from their loving molecular embrace, and, by any process of differentiation or constructive agency of their own, seek an alliance with some living dog-germ in order to be built up into living dog-tissue, presents about as perverse and wayward an impulse on the part of matter as can well be imagined by the scientific mind. That the dog-germ should seek to get hold of, and differentiate them, we can well understand. The Circean witchery and enticement is all on the part of the dog-germ, not in the inclination of the molecules.
If there is any truth in this molecular-force-theory of life, it is about time for us to discard some of the old categories respecting matter, motion, and life, and substitute new ones in their place. In the multiplicity of new scientific terms constantly springing up for recognition in these days, there ought to be no difficulty in expressing the true categories, and assigning to them their proper definitional value. To include physical force, chemical force, molecular force, and vital force all under one and the same category, and then interpret their several modes of action on any theory of force-correlation, is not emancipating language from the gross thraldom into which their "molecular machinery" has driven it. Besides, there is moral force, mental force, the force of will, the force of reason, the force of honesty, the force of fraud, etc., and any number of other forces, all possessing more or less impetus or momentum, and capable of binding or coercing persons and things, in all their diversified relations, correlations, incidences, coincidences, affinities, antagonisms, and so on through an interminable chapter of interchangeable predications. All these different expressions of force are to be tethered together--definitionally bound hand and foot--under the one explanatory head of "force-correlation." We protest against the labor of thus unifying all the natural forces of the universe, even if it were practicable under scientific methods.
But Professor Tyndall denies that "molecular groupings" and "molecular motions" explain anything--account for anything--in the way of explicating life-manifestations, or determining what life is.[31] And it would be difficult to cite a stronger and more determined materialist as authority on the point we are considering. He says: "If love were known to be associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and hate with the left-handed, we should remain as ignorant as before, as to the cause of motion." But there is no proof that the molecules of the brain manifest any other motions than those necessary for keeping up the normal condition of health and vital activity in the brain itself. No one can be certain that he has seen these molecules in a state of mental activity; for where portions of the human brain have been exposed to microscopic examination, even in perfect states of consciousness on the part of those whose brains have been laid bare, there can be no certainty that the molecular action, if any, is referable to one set of movements more than another. And even in the case of animalcules, as seen in the object glass of the microscope, there is no absolute certainty that their quick, darting or jerking movements are due to any life-manifestation, as heretofore assumed. Some quite as well defined forms are entirely motionless, and if all were so, it would be idle to predicate vitality of them.[32] These infinitessimal and constantly varying forms, many of them not the one hundred-thousandth part of an inch in length, to say nothing of their other dimensions, may owe their oscillations, wave movements, darting and other manifestations, and even their molecular arrangements and rearrangements, to other causes than those strictly "vital." And it should be borne in mind that their actual movements are just as much exaggerated under the microscope as their real dimensions. But as they make their appearance in organic infusions only, they are presumably vital organisms rather than fomentative or mere filamentous yeast-manifestations.
Professor Huxley, while conceding that molecular changes may take place under environing life-conditions, or in protoplasmic matter, denies that the "primordial cells" possesses in any degree the characteristics of a "machine," nor can they undergo any differentiating process by which the character of their manifestations can be changed. And he even denies to them the poor right to originate or in any way modify their own plasma. He says: "They are no more the producers of vital phenomena, than the shells scattered in orderly line along the sea-beach are the instruments by which the gravitative force of the moon acts upon the ocean. Like these, the cells mark only where the vital tides have been, and how they have acted." This is undoubtedly true of all cells in which the vital or functional office has ceased, as in the case of Professor Beale's "formed matter." The cells are the result of the vital principle that lies behind them, and simply indicate where life exists, or has manifestly ceased to exist. Where the vital currents have ceased to flow, the wreck of primordial cells is quite as wide and disastrous as where millions of sea-shells have been strewn along a desolated and storm-swept sea-beach. They all come, both the cells and shells, from the preëxisting vital units, or determinate germs, that fall into their own incidences of movement, without any concurrence of physical conditions beyond their own inherent tendency to development. For "conditions" do not determine life; they only favor its manifestation.
But some of the materialists claim that what we call "vital units," or invisible, indestructible germs,[33] are at best only "physical relations;" that they have nothing more than a hypothetical existence, without any independent recognizable quality justifying our conclusions respecting them. But may not this identical language be retortively suggested in the case of their "correlates of force?" What more than a hypothetical existence have they? Certainly their enthusiasm to get rid of all vital conditions or manifestations, is quite as marked a feature in their speculations respecting life as any enthusiasm we have shown in the verification of vital phenomena, on the established law of cause and effect. They insist upon this law in the case of statical aggregates, and even assign absolute identity of attributes; but when it comes to dynamical aggregates, they fall back on partial identity only, and deny the presence of the law altogether.
Nor are they any more felicitous in their treatment of other points in controversy. In speaking of his "plastide particles," Professor Bastian, the most defiant challenger of vitalistic propositions now living, says: "Certain of these particles, through default ofnecessary conditions,never actually develop into higher modes of being." Here he makes the absence of "necessary conditions" the cause of non-development, while he stoutly denies that the presence of such "conditions" give rise to the development of a pre-existing vital unit. And yet, strange to say, he speaks of the elemental origin of "living matter" as "having probably taken place on the surface of our globe since the far-remote period when such matter was first engendered." But how his "sum-total of external conditions," acting upondeadmatter, can "engender"livingmatter, is one of those "related heterogenetic phenomena" which he does not condescend to explain. It is by this sort of scientific verbiage that he gets rid of the pre-existing vital principle, or germinal principle of life, which the biblical genesis declares to be in the earth itself.
To be entirely consistent with himself, he should deny the existence of this germinal principle in the seeds of plants themselves, and insist upon the sum-total of external conditions as the cause of all life-manifestations, in the vegetal as in the animal world. There can be no inherent tendency, he should insist, in the seed itself towards structural development, but only external conditions acting upon "dead matter," in heterogentic directions. The shooting down of the radicle or undeveloped root, and the springing up of the plumule or undeveloped stalk, is accordingly due to no vital principle in the seed, but to the complexity or entanglement of the molecules wrapped up in their integumentary environment. And this, or some similar fortuitous entanglement of molecules, should account for all life-manifestations, as well as all life-tendencies, in nature. These molecular entanglements should, therefore, be infinite in number, as well as in fortuitous complexity, to account for all the myriad forms of life "engendered from dead matter" in the material universe.
For if there is any one thing that the materialists insist upon more resolutely than another, it is the fortuitousness of nature--the happening by chance of whatever she does. Formerly it used to be the "fortuitous concourse of atoms;" now it is the "fortuitous aggregate of molecules." By what accidental or fortuitous happening the atoms have dropped out of their scientific categories, and the molecules have been advanced to their commanding place inabsolute accidentalness, is one of those unassignable causes in which they apparently so much delight. We can only account for it on the supposition that they have all become worshippers of that blind and accidental Greek goddess, who bore the horn of Amalthea and plentifully endowed her followers with a wealth of language and other much-coveted gifts, but not with the most desirable knack at disposing of them.
The true cause of vital phenomena manifestly depends on these two conditions--the presence of the specific vital unit, and the necessary environing plasma, or nutrient matter, for its primary development. Without the presence of both of these conditions, or conditioning incidences, there can be no life-manifestation anywhere. And we do not see that anything is gained, even in the matter of scientific nomenclature, by merely substituting "molecular force" for "vital force," in the explication of vital phenomena. Even granting that molecular changes do take place during the development of the vital units in their necessary plasmic environment; it by no means follows that these changes are not dependent on the vital principleas it acts, rather than on the moleculesas they act,[34] The higher force should always subordinate the lower in all metamorphic, as well as other processes, of nature. It is the vital principle that differentiates matter--the aggregate of molecules--not matter differentiating the vital principle. No "molécules organiques" can ever differentiate an ape-unit into a man-unit, any more than Professor Tyndall can fetch a Plato out of mere sky-mist. Once an ape-unit, always an ape-unit; once a man-unit, eternally a man-unit.
Let the vitalists stick to this proposition--this eternally fixedunitas "une idée dans l'entendement de Dieu,"(to use a better French expression than English)--and they can fight the materialists off their own ground anywhere. The one sublime verity of the universe is that "life exists," and that it has existed from all eternityas possiblein the Divine mind, and in the Divine mind alone. If materialistic science is disposed to butt its head against this impregnable proposition, it can do so. The proposition will stand, whatever may happen to the inconsiderate head.
For science may press her devotees into as many different pursuits as there are starting-points to an azimuth circle, and command them to search and find out the ultimate causes of things in the universe, but the forever narrowing circle in one direction, and the forever widening one in the other, would utterly baffle all their attempted research. Whether they descended into the microscopic world, with its myriad-thronged conditions of life, or passed upward and outward, inSirius-distances, to the irresolvable nebulæ, where other and perhaps brighter stars might burst upon their view--gleaming coldly and silently down the still enormous fissures and chasms in the heavens--the result would be the same. Wider and wider fields of observation might open upon their view, as the stellar swarms thickened and the power of human vision failed, but the uranological expedition would return no wiser than when it started, and Science would still be confronted with the same illimitability of space, the same infinitude of matter, and the same incomprehensibility of the world-arranging intelligence that lies beyond. For He who hath garnished the heavens by his spirit--who divideth the sea with his power, and hangeth the earth upon nothing--"holdeth back the face of his throne and spreadeth his cloud upon it."
What if, in one direction, we should find those inconceivably small specks, or mere bioplastic points, which we call "living matter," or, in the other direction, those inconceivably vast world-forming masses which we call "dead matter," who shall say that "the secret places of the Most High" are not hidden from us, or that when the spirit of God first moved through these vast fissures and chasms in the heavens upon the face of all matter, there was not imparted to it that "animating principle of life" of which the biblical genesis speaks, and which we everywhere see manifesting itself in nature? Surely this inquiry is not one to be superciliously set aside by the materialists, after the failure of their uranological expedition, on the ground that it does not furnish food enough for scientific contemplation, without such physiological fancies as their specialists have been giving us in the shape of force-correlations and molecular theories of life.
But speaking of the higher forces as subordinating the lower, suggests that there should be something more definitely explained regarding the hypothesis of "differentiation," on which Mr. Herbert Spencer hangs so much of his mathematical faith in the true explication of vital phenomena. The term "differentiation" is not so formidable as it might seem to the general reader at first sight. As applied to physiological problems it should have the same determinate value, in expressing functional differences, as in the higher operations of mathematics. Nothing can, of course, differentiate itself, nor can any two things differentiate each other, even when functionally allied. The actual coëfficient sought is the difference effected, in functional value, in one of two independent variables. For all formulæ in differentiation are constructed on the hypothesis that only one of two variables suffers change. The differential coëfficient has yet to be determined which shall express the developmental changes in two variables at once. When, therefore, we attempt to extend the formulæ of differentiation to plant and animal life, we are confronted by a very formidable difficulty at the outset--the impossibility of determining an invariable coëfficient for any two variables. Besides, all attempts at differentiating an ape-unit into anything else than an ape-unit would be as impossible as to multiply or divide cabbages by turnips, or sparrows by sparrowhawks. Such divisions would give us no quotients, any more than their differentiations would give us a coëfficient. Physiological differentiation will, therefore, never help us out of fixed species or nearly allied types. We can bridge no specific differences by it. In the differentiation of the horse and the ass for instance, the superior blood will predominate in the preservation of types, and even the mule will kick against further differentiation. Nature would so utterly abhor the practice as resolutely to slam the door in Mr. Spencer's face, if the obstinacy of the mule did not kick it off its hinges.
And nature would be quite as intractable in the case of "force-correlation," another of Mr. Spencer's redoubtable phrases. This term is quite recent in its application to animate objects, nor has it been long applied to inanimate. It is claimed to be a recently discovered force, and is one that the materialists have seized upon as the Herculean club with which to smite all vital theories to the earth. Its meaning, so far as it has any, is not difficult to get at. The simplest way to explain it, however, is the best. The reader is to understand that when he rubs two flat sticks together, the heat thereby engendered is not the result of friction, as all the world has heretofore supposed, but that the amount of force expended in rubbing the right-hand stick against the left-hand stick, is, by some law of versability, not over-well defined, transferred to the two sticks, and gets so entangled between their surfaces that it can only reappear in another and altogether different kind of force. When it leaves the hands and passes into the two sticks, it is, as the materialists assert, vital force. But as no force can be annihilated, the conclusive assumption is that it still exists somewhere. All of it, in the first place, went into the two flat sticks, and, when there,ceased to be vital force.Some of it disappeared, of course, in overcoming the inertia of the sticks, but the bulk of it became entangled with the superficial molecules of the two sticks, and reappeared asheat--another name for molecular force.
This is what is meant by the "differentiation" of vital force into molecular force, andvice versa. But by what process of rubbing, under this law of versability, molecular force can be reversed, or differentiated back into vital force, Mr. Spencer has not condescended to inform us. The simple truth is, and the materialists will be forced to admit it in the end, that there is no verification of this theory beyond that of mere force-equivalence. For instance, it has been experimentally determined that a certain amount of fuel expended in heat is equivalent to a certain amount of mechanical force, not mechanicalwork, as M. Carnot puts it. For force is not expended in work until it is actually generated, and the amount generated, not that expended in work, is the real equivalence of the heat produced from fuel.
Another problem is presented when it comes to determining the amount of generated force necessary to run a piece of machinery which shall accomplish a given amount of mechanical work.