Chapter VI: How Is Organic Matter Produced?

The essential in matter is force. Strictly speaking, we comprehend nothing but forces. Every body manifests itself as resistance necessary to overcome if we wish to remove it from its place.

What remains of the body if we think of it as deprived of this counter force? At least nothing remains that we can touch or by which we may obtain palpable evidence of its existence. Neither does there remain anything that we can see, as seeing depends upon resistance to light, reflection of the ether-waves. If the mountain exerted no resistance we would pass through it without feeling or seeing anything whatever.

True, there is perhaps matter—for instance, the ether—which we neither see nor feel, but which still exists. This matter is then qualified by some other form of energy by which it manifests itself. Thus we comprehend ether as light, heat and colors, all forces, as well as gravity, electricity, etc.

Already from these suggestions it is evident that force is the only substantial thing in the material world. Without force, matter is nothing that may be comprehended either by the senses or by the reason. What we call matter is nothing but different kinds of energy.[1] We have space-occupying energy, chemical, electrical, mechanical forms of energy, and so forth.

How are these forms of energy related to each other? Between forms so different as tones and light, colors and mechanical work, there is at least no connection apparent to external observation.

For a long time it was also believed that no such relation existed. It was only after 1840 that several scientists made the startling discovery almost simultaneously that physical forces may be transformed one into another. It proved possible to transform a certain quantity of heat into an equal quantity of mechanical energy, which again might be turned into equivalent quantities of electricity, light, chemical energy, etc. It was further found that these processes might be undertaken in the reverse order, so that the original form of energy could be restored in unchanged quantity and with unmodified qualities. Nothing was lost and nothing was added.

Recent science is founded entirely on these facts, which later generations probably will consider as the greatest of all the discoveries of the last century.

This law of the permanence and the mutability of force is of immediate importance to materialism. As long as it was thought that the forces of nature were separate and different from each other, it was easy to imagine that the more inaccessible or mystic forms stood nearer life, yea, were life itself. The absurdity of such an idea is now obvious, since it has been shown that the physical forces may be transformed into one another and therefore are not intrinsically separate, but fundamentally the same force, acting differently under different conditions. Now, if life were a form of material energy, any form of physical force might be transformed into life and consciousness, into spiritual and moral forces. Life and consciousness might then be artificially produced, and we would rack our brains in order to find the mechanical equivalent of the intellect, try to measure it in amperes and volts, etc. But nothing of this kind is done, simply because it is impossible, as presently we shall see. _Life cannot be transformed into any form of material energy, and, vice versa, no form of material energy can be transformed into life._ Life and physical force are, as to nature and substance, essentially different principles.

Although the law just referred to about the permanence and the mutability of physical forces thus seems rather to disprove materialism, it was not for this reason chiefly that we have related it. Our purpose is to find a basis in this fact from which the fundamental contrariety between organic and inorganic matter most easily may be explained, and thereafter to enter into this differentiation just as far as is necessary to decide the main point as to whether one form of matter can spontaneously produce another.

We recollect that the materialists endeavored to make the difference between organic and inorganic compounds as slight as possible. The former consisted of exactly the same elements as the latter and these elements had exactly the same qualities in one compound as in another.

However true this may be, is not meat nevertheless something different from limestone, although limestone may easily be found that contains nearly all the elements present in the meat? In starch, sugar, fat, etc., precisely the same elements enter as in water and carbonic acid, but no materialist denies that there are important differences between these two groups of substances.

What is it, then, that essentially separates the two classes of matter (nothing but the most essential factors concerns us here)? If we ask this question of chemistry, we are answered that this quality is combustibility. Organic matter is combustible; inorganic is not.

But why should organic matter be combustible? Because fuel is as necessary to the organism as to the steam engine. To both their physical source of power is heat, and even the engine receives it through the combustion of organic substances. All the fuel that is generally used is of organic origin, although we seldom think of this fact.

But why can we not fire an engine with inorganic products? Because these cannot burn, and the reason again is, that they are already burned. If this be true, they must once have been fuel themselves, must once have been in a burning state. How do we know this? Because the inorganic world consists almost entirely of chemical compounds that are only formed by combustion, when this word is used in its widest sense.

If these suggestions are correct, organic matter is to inorganic as fuel to the products of combustion. In the inorganic world the latter have been transformed to fuel which in a renewed combustion reproduces the same products as those of which it once was formed.

If this be the case our problem may be thus formulated: Can inorganic products of combustion again form combustibles spontaneously? Can carbonic acid or water through the _spontaneous activity of physical forces_ be transformed into sugar, starch, fat, etc.?

In order to decide if this be possible we must first know what combustion is, and we will therefore briefly explain what this term means.

Combustion is a chemical process, it is said, and this definition may be true, although it may also be misleading. In daily speech combustion is generally identified with the phenomena of light and the generation of heat, which we immediately observe, but chemical processes can neither be seen nor felt, because they take place in the inner world of matter which hitherto has proved inaccessible to human observation. Yea, chemical processes are so foreign to the experiences of our senses that chemistry, the science of these processes, is entirely founded on the deductions of our reason. The premises that our reason uses for its conclusions belong to the physical world which is the outer side of matter that faces us. The phenomena that accompany combustion belong to this world and are, therefore, strictly speaking, not chemical but physical phenomena.

But even if these phenomena of light and heat, of which the latter especially interests us here, belong to the world comprehensible to our senses, they must nevertheless be intimately connected with the inner chemical process because heat is developed in nearly every chemical reaction. Heat is not created from nothing; there must be a cause for this force, and the cause cannot be anything but the chemical energy which in the chemical process is transformed into heat. In few words: What we generally term combustion cannot be identical with the actual chemical process. The light and the heat must, on the contrary, be considered as the external results of the chemical process, its physical effect.

By a close study of this physical effect we have also been able to explain what happens within matter itself. As it is necessary to understand this in order to comprehend how heat is developed, we will endeavor shortly to outline the present scientific conception of the chemical process called combustion.

From the qualities of matter we have concluded that the bodies we see are composed of extremely tiny particles called molecules, which, however, are so small that with our optical resources we never shall be able to observe them. Even the smallest particle of dust visible to the eye must be considered as containing an enormous number of them. With molecules, however, we have not reached the limit of the divisibility of matter. They may themselves be divided by chemical forces into smaller material units called atoms, and these latter are therefore the building stones of which matter is ultimately composed. Now neither the atoms within the molecule, nor the molecules within the visible body, are packed closely together. They are separated by comparatively great spaces. But if these building stones are separated from each other we might expect that they would behave like the grains in a sand heap.

How can material bodies then be solid, hard, tough, etc.? The reason is that the spacing in question is regulated by other forces of essentially different kind. We have attracting as well as repelling forces, such as tend to increase as well as to reduce the distances between the particles.

We shall first consider the attracting forces, and these are called cohesion and adhesion when exerted between molecules. The mutual attraction between the atoms within the molecules has been named affinity or chemical energy.

Turning again to the form of energy acting in the opposite direction, we find just the force we are in search of—heat, which is the physical source of energy of all living beings.

That heat increases the distances between molecules is already evident from the fact that all bodies increase in volume when heated, a process which may be continued by further supply of heat until the solid becomes a fluid, and the fluid a gas.

In solid bodies the attracting forces have predominance. The molecules are arranged with definite spacing and in definite positions so that the body assumes a certain external shape. If such a body is exposed to heat the molecules are removed from each other and the cohesion becomes correspondingly feebler. Finally a point is reached when the molecules are so far unfettered that they are at liberty to move with respect to each other. The solid has then become a fluid and may through continued heating enter the gaseous state. The cohesion is then entirely conquered so that the molecules move freely in all directions independent of each other.

Similarly, heat influences the atoms of which the molecules are composed. Even chemical attraction gives way to heat so that all bodies at sufficient temperature are decomposed into free atoms or elementary constituents.

We have seen that heat performs mechanical work in so far as it separates masses from each other. But heat not only performs this work but is the work itself, or is identical with the movement of these particles.

Consequently a certain quantity of mechanical work is equivalent to a certain quantity of heat and _vice versa_, and it is this transformation from one form of energy into another that takes place during a chemical reaction. The mechanical energy of the atoms is here converted into heat which may again be used for the other forms of mechanical activity. Through the chemical reaction that heat is regained which previously was utilized in separating the atoms or sustaining their movement, and this explains why heat is developed in chemical processes. If this development of heat is increased to a certain point, or, which is the same, if the reaction takes place with greater violence, the common phenomena of fire and light appear. But even without these, every chemical process may be called combustion in a wider sense, that is, if we consider the production of heat as the characteristic external effect of the chemical force.

At sufficiently high temperature, then, all matter must be in an incandescent gaseous state, and _vice versa_ at a low temperature it is a solid mass.

With these short notes we have also outlined the history of our own earth. The same gaseous state in which our sun is at present belonged once to the earth according to science of today. During enormous periods of time the incandescent matter of the earth radiated light and heat into the cold universe. Finally so much heat was lost that chemical attraction could assert itself. Regarded as a sun, the earth was then dying and it entered upon the chemical era. During this state the elements combined with each other according to general chemical laws into such compounds as were the necessary outcome of their atomic weights, valence, and positive or negative qualities. In this connection it is sufficient to point out that these processes must go on incessantly until compounds have been formed in which the chemical forces have reached equilibrium and rest. In the case of our planet these products formed the solid crust of the earth, the primeval rock, the mineral world, further water and finally air, the oxygen and nitrogen of which may be considered as remains of the elements. Furthermore, according to a law known to science as that “of the least resistance,” chemical reactions proceed from compounds which have more energy to such as have less, wherefore it follows that each product was as poor in energy as the conditions at the time permitted.

If we now especially give our attention to the combustion taking place in chemical processes, this era may also be called the period of combustion or the general world-fire, names which are exact even if we use combustion in the common, limited sense of oxidation. Oxygen is considered to constitute about one-half of the solid crust of the earth, and when to this quantitative preponderance is added its extraordinarily strong affinity to other elements, these must with necessity burn into oxides just as has been the case.

It is therefore with the products of combustion, that is to say, the ashes and the remains from a general colossal world-fire, that the earth enters its planetary state, at which stage it becomes suitable for the creation and evolution of living beings. It is from burnt substances that the organisms must form the combustible matter that constitutes their material clothing. How can this be done? In the only possible way; that is, by again decomposing the products of combustion into their elements and bringing them into such combinations that a new combustion may take place. Are the products of combustion able to perform this transformation spontaneously? They have just lost the fund of energy that could have made them combustible and this lost heat must again be stored up and therefore taken from some other source, as no heat can be created from nothing.

When the chemical forces had once reached equilibrium and rest, the earth might then be compared to an immense corpse thrown into space and which must remain in the same state eternally, or until it met with a cosmic catastrophe. Not the slightest movement or variation could now take place spontaneously on its surface. If a change happened it must have had its cause in another source of power, and two such sources existed. One was the earth’s own internal heat, and the other the sun, and we must therefore consider if either of these, or both together could produce combustible organic substance.

In regard first to the earth’s internal heat we might immediately eliminate this source of energy, as it has no direct connection whatever with the origin of organic matter, an assertion so commonly agreed upon that we need not dwell further upon it.

Infinitely more important is the sun, which has been and is the cause of most of the changes taking place on the earth’s surface after its cooling off. The sun causes the circulation of the air and water and thereby the whole series of disintegration and decay, the history of which is written with indelible letters in our geological sediments and formations. These formations tell us that new oceans and continents, new minerals and rocks have successively been formed, but nowhere that organic substances were ever built up spontaneously under the sun’s influence. The processes of decay, on the contrary, proceed in the entirely opposite direction.

Through them nothing is formed but compounds poorer in energy than before. In decaying, the products of combustion absorb, if possible, more oxygen, become more burnt or oxidized, so that this whole process may be called an after-burning, a more thorough combustion of the remnants from the first general world-fire.

The spontaneous activity of nature’s forces, then, go in a direction just opposite to the one necessary for the production of organic substances. And anything else was not to be expected. The products of combustion resemble fallen weights, slack bow-strings, water below the fall, etc., whereas combustible organic matter might be compared to lifted weights, set bow-strings, water above the fall, etc. If matter has once fallen from a higher to a lower level of energy it can never spontaneously return, especially as it has just lost the necessary store of energy. As impossible as it is for the swift current to turn its course, or for the fallen weight to lift itself or for the discharged bow-string to set itself again, so impossible is it for the products of combustion spontaneously to turn into combustible substances.