Chapter XVIII: To Sum Up (1)

Reason leads to conclusions which physical science cannot reach--The recognition of a First Cause beyond the Sensible Universe an intellectual necessity--Knowledge of this cause attainable by reason--Conclusion 270-280

APPENDICES

A. Recent Scientific Verdicts concerning Darwinism and Transformism 281

B. Development of Plant life--the _Cycadofilices_ 284

C. The Course of Evolution 285

D. The pedigree of the Horse: further evidence 286

INDEX 289

FOOTNOTES

I

TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING

That the world as we know it had a beginning is a truth which there is no denying. Not only have philosophers always argued that it must be so: the researches of physical science assure us that it has been so in fact. Astronomy, says Professor Huxley,[1] "leads us to contemplate phenomena the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have had a beginning." The hypothesis that phenomena of Nature similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed, the same authority assures us,[2] "is absolutely incompatible with such evidence as we have, which is of so plain and so simple a character that it is impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces upon us." This conclusion, physicists tell us, is inevitable when we study the laws by which the operations of Nature are governed, and as Professor Balfour Stewart writes,[3] we thus become "absolutely certain" that these operations cannot have existed for ever, and that a time will come when they must cease. In like manner, a recent and competent witness to the conclusions of contemporary Science, lays down,[4] as one of the truths which her latest discoveries compel us to accept, that the world is not eternal, that the earth is cooling from a state of heat rendering life impossible, to one of physical exhaustion equally fatal to it. Accordingly "Life must have had a beginning and must come to an end,"--and our whole Solar System (he adds) must similarly have had a commencement, at a period not infinitely remote.

But, if the world had a beginning, what was there before it began? Something there must have been, and something which had the power of producing it. Had there ever been nothing, there could never have been anything, for, _Ex nihilo nihil fit_. That nothing should turn into something is an idea which the mind refuses to entertain. Nor is the case any better even if we suppose that matter had no beginning, that it has existed for ever as we know it now, and that at first there was nothing else. For if so, whence have all these things arisen which, according to all observation and experiment, matter cannot produce, as, organic life, sensitive life, consciousness, reason, moral goodness? Had matter been always what it now is, and had there been no source beyond matter whence the power of producing all these things could be derived, they could never have been produced at all, or else they would have come into being without a cause. It would be like a milestone growing into an apple-tree, or a mountain spontaneously giving birth to a mouse.

We are therefore compelled by common-sense to ask when we consider Nature, What is the force or power at the back of her, which first set her going, and whence she draws the capability of performing the operations which we find her performing every day; that force or power which must be the ultimate origin of everything that is in the world? This is the great fundamental problem which the student of Nature has to face, and beside it all others fade into insignificance. It is with this that we are now engaged. We have to ask how our reason bids us answer it, and the first question which arises naturally is, What light is thrown on the subject by modern Science, of whose achievements we are all so justly proud?

II

REASON AND SCIENCE

In studying a question such as this, we must commence by being determined, on the one hand to accept nothing as true but what our reason warrants us in believing, and on the other hand to follow the guidance of reason as far as, rightly used, it will lead us. The principle formulated[5] by Professor Huxley, as the foundation-stone of what he termed "Agnosticism," is that which must needs be adopted, and as a matter of fact has ever been adopted, by rational men.

Positively--in matters of the intellect follow your reason as far
as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And
negatively--in matters of the intellect do not pretend that
conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

But to justify the confidence which we thus repose in it we must obviously be careful to use our reason aright, and not to attribute to it any conclusions which it does not really sanction. It is this right use of reason that is specially claimed for modern "Science,"[6] which, as we are again assured by Professor Huxley, is only another name for sound reasoning--"_Science_," he declares,[7] "_is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common-sense_.[8] ... The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness, the methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use carelessly."

There can be no sort of question that so long as men of science really act thus, and confine themselves to the treatment of matters in regard of which they can claim special knowledge, common sense bids us listen to them with respect, and even with submission. But the same common sense requires that we should satisfy ourselves that they truly deserve the character assigned them, and pretend to no knowledge on the score of Science but what their scientific methods are competent to acquire. When they step beyond this their own proper domain, whatever weight may be given to their opinions upon other grounds, they cease to speak in the name of Science.

What then, we must ask, is the province of Science, and what are her methods?

"Science," always understanding by the term physical or experimental Science, deals with the universe so far as it is known to us through our senses. The universe known thus we call "Nature," and the whole stock in trade of Science is the examination and verification of natural phenomena, with such inferences therefrom as ascertained facts legitimately suggest. From careful and trustworthy observation she can learn what are called the "Laws of Nature," that is to say the manner in which the various elements and forces of the universe are found constantly to act, in given circumstances; she can, to some extent, discover the chain of causes and effects, or more properly of conditions and consequences, through which natural operations are carried on. She can even construct hypotheses as to what she cannot directly observe, namely, the nature of substances and forces; and such hypotheses are justified in proportion as they are found to tally with facts. If constantly thus justified, they are styled theories, and come to be practically assumed as established truths. But it must ever be remembered that Science can take no step in advance which is not based on fact, and that when facts are not forthcoming for its support an hypothesis or a theory has no scientific value.

Bearing this in mind, we will proceed to enquire what Science has to tell us regarding the origin of the world, and the manner in which it has come to be what it is.

III

"EVOLUTION"

We are constantly assured that Science compels us to believe in "Evolution," and that in this doctrine is to be found the explanation of the universe whereof we are in quest. We must however in the first place make sure that we understand what "Evolution" means, and if we look into the question, it speedily appears that the term is very differently understood by those who use it.

Some who style themselves "Evolutionists" mean only that, as a matter of established fact, the organic world, the world of life, whether animal or vegetable, has been brought to its present condition by _genetic_ development of one species from another, in the natural course of descent and through the operation of natural laws; and that as we see plants and animals of the same kind propagated one from another at the present day, so in the course of long ages the lower and simpler forms of life have given birth to the higher and more complex.

Others again do not limit this process to organic creatures, and believe that from first to last, the whole world, inorganic and organic alike, has resulted from the action of forces such as those with which Science deals; and that life has thus arisen in purely natural course out of non-living matter, the universe in its original condition having been constituted as a vast machine which was bound to produce all that has since arisen.

In either of the above senses--of which the second obviously includes the first,--"Evolution" is understood as no more than a _process_ which is said to have occurred. But there is a more extreme school which takes "Evolution" for much more, namely for a power, principle, or "law," which both governs and accounts for everything, and requires no further cause beyond itself.

If this paramount "Law of Evolution" can be established, there is clearly an end of our enquiry, for here is the ultimate explanation of everything which we are seeking. But what has Science to say concerning it?

IV

"THE LAW OF EVOLUTION"

That there is a self-existing and self-sufficing "Law of Evolution" to which everything in the world must be ascribed, is the doctrine of those Evolutionists who are most active in propagating their creed and who most loudly proclaim that it alone is scientific. The great leader and prophet of this school, Professor Ernst Haeckel, assures us[9] that he gives expression,

to that rational view of the world which is being forced upon us
with such logical rigour by the modern advancements in our
knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in reality held by almost
all unprejudiced and thinking men of science, although but few have
the courage (or the need) to declare it openly.

The plain and rational conclusion thus exhibited is, he tells us,[10] the special glory of modern research.

It is true [he writes] that there were philosophers who spoke of
the evolution of things a thousand years ago; but the recognition
that such a law dominates the entire universe, and that the world
is nothing else than an eternal "evolution of substance," is a
fruit of the nineteenth century.

So far as concerns the world which we actually inhabit, its first beginning, we must, he tells us, suppose[11] to have been a vast nebula of infinitely attenuated and light material, rotating upon its own axis.[12]

Given this first beginning of the cosmogonic movement, it is easy,
on mathematical principles, to deduce and mathematically establish
the further phenomena of the foundation of the cosmic bodies, the
separation of the planets, and so forth.

Nor are we to suppose that the beginning of this particular process was in any true sense a beginning at all. Evolutionary philosophy such as Professor Haeckel's, necessarily teaches that beginnings and endings succeed one another everlastingly, one world-system arising phoenix-like from the ashes of another.

The nebular hypothesis above described has recently [we are
told][13] been strongly confirmed and enlarged by the theory that
this cosmogonic process did not simply take place once, but is
periodically repeated. While new cosmic bodies arise and develop,
out of rotating masses of nebula in some parts of the universe, in
other parts old, extinct, frigid suns come into collision, and are
once more reduced by the heat generated to the condition of nebulæ.

It appears, in fact, to be assumed that this cyclic process has been actually demonstrated, for we are told[14] that astronomy reveals, in the endless depths of space, "Millions of circling spheres, larger than our earth, and, like it, in an eternal rhythm of life and death."

Moreover, "life" is here to be understood literally, for it is a cardinal article of such evolutionary belief that equally with the foundation of cosmic bodies and the separation of planets, the production of organic life, of plants and animals, has been wrought by forces which the material universe contains within itself,[15] and accordingly,[16]

We now definitely know that the organic world on our earth has been
continuously developed "in accordance with eternal iron laws." ...
An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course
of evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting
human spirit through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the
present order of the cosmos.

Finally, at the back of all these processes, we are to recognize the one ultimate reality, the universe itself, which originates and undergoes all these evolutions. In its regard Professor Haeckel tells us[17] that,

The universe, or cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and illimitable. Its
substance, with its two attributes (matter and energy) fills
infinite space and is in eternal motion. This motion runs on
through infinite time as an unbroken development, with a periodic
change from life to death, from evolution to devolution....

And again:[18]

The two fundamental forms of substances, ponderable matter and
ether, are not dead and moved only by extrinsic force, but they are
endowed also with sensation and will (though naturally of the
lowest grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a
dislike of strain; they strive after the one and struggle against
the other.

Moreover,

Movement[19] is as innate and original a property of substances as
is sensation.

Such is the raw material whose metamorphoses produce, or rather constitute, all possible worlds, while paramount over every thing dominates the "Law of Substance," under which title Professor Haeckel unites the scientific principles of the indestructibility of matter, and the conservation of energy. Thus is the conclusion reached,[20]

Towering above all the achievements and discoveries of the century
we have the great comprehensive "law of substance," the fundamental
law of the constancy of matter and force. The fact that substance
is everywhere subject to eternal movement and transformation gives
it the character also of the universal law of evolution. As this
supreme law has been firmly established and all others are
subordinate to it, we arrive at a conviction of the universal unity
of nature and the eternal validity of its laws.

Accordingly we are to conclude with Goethe that all proceeds by iron law to the fulfilling of inevitable destiny; or as an ardent disciple proclaims, who undertakes to expound the new creed to the people,[21]

We rest in sure and certain hope that no force and no combination
of forces can stop the process of Evolution, which from a speck of
jelly has developed such living forms as Charles Darwin and Herbert
Spencer, and which has produced the beauty of the earth and the
heavens from formless ether.

This outline of the Evolutionary system in its widest and fullest sense will enable us to judge upon what grounds it can claim the sanction of Science. Various points here present themselves for consideration, which demand separate treatment.

V

WHAT IS A "LAW OF NATURE"?

As we have seen, the doctrine of Evolution is presented by its advocates as being based upon the existence of a "Law of Evolution," or "Law of Substance," which both brings about evolutionary processes, and certifies us of their occurrence, so that we may appeal to it as an authority for our belief in the facts of evolution themselves. Thus as Professor Milnes Marshall told the British Association,[22]

The doctrine of descent, or of evolution, teaches us that as
individual animals arise, not spontaneously, but by direct descent
from pre-existing animals, so also is it with species, with
families, and with larger groups of animals, and so also has it
been for all time.

It is not said, be it observed, that the establishment of such facts teaches us the doctrine of evolution, but that the doctrine assures us of the facts; and the utterances constantly met with, of which the above is a fair sample, have no signification if they do not mean this. In the same way Professor Haeckel declares[23] that his fundamental cosmic law "establishes" the eternal persistence of matter and force, and their unvarying constancy throughout the entire universe, becoming thus "the pole-star that guides our Philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution of the world problem," and the key to this supreme problem, he further tells us,[24] is found in one magic word--Evolution.

It would certainly appear from all this, that by "Evolution" we are to understand some sort of entity at the back of the world, with power at its disposal capable of effecting all its operations,--something in fact remarkably like the First Cause of which we are in search,--and that by its "Laws" are signified some definite forces, the practical action of which has been ascertained by us, so that we can foretell the course of events under them, as we can that of the planets or the tides under the influence of gravitation.

But is it scientific, or even intelligible, to use words thus, and to assign any such significance to such terms as "Law of Evolution," "Law of Substance," or any other "Law of Nature"? We are repeatedly warned to the contrary by so high an authority as Professor Huxley. Once, for instance, he discovered in a sermon of Canon Liddon's this "fallacious employment of the name of a scientific conception," for which it was however added, the preacher "could find only too many scientific precedents."[25] This fallacious use of terms, which nowise differs from that under consideration, Professor Huxley thus denounces:

It is the use of the word "law" as if it denoted a thing--as if a
"law of nature," as science understands it, were a being endowed
with certain powers, in virtue of which the phenomena expressed by
that law are brought about.... All I wish to remark is that such a
conception of the nature of "laws" has nothing to do with modern
science.... A law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the
product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come
under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind
than colour has. The law of gravitation is a statement of the
manner in which experience shows that bodies, which are free to
move, do, in fact, move towards one another.... The tenacity of the
wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are agents, instead of
being, as they really are, a mere record of experience, upon which
we base our interpretations of that which does happen, and our
anticipation of that which will happen, is an interesting
psychological fact: and would be unintelligible if the tendency of
the human mind towards realism were less strong.

A law, accordingly, "is not a cause but a fact,"[26] and we must learn laws from facts, not facts from laws. It is indeed evident on a moment's thought, that to speak of the Law of Evolution as causing things to be evolved, is like saying that the law of growth makes things grow. Till we know what happens, there is nothing of which Science can take account.

True scientific teaching, I cannot too often repeat [says Professor
Tait][27] requires that the facts, and their _necessary_
consequences alone, should be stated, as simply as possible.

In like manner Professor Huxley,[28] undertaking to vindicate full scientific value for his own favourite Biology, does so by pointing out that biological methods are similar to those of every other branch of Science, since they begin with the observation of facts, and from this proceed to various applications of the knowledge so acquired. And Professor Haeckel himself tells us regarding his own mode of procedure:[29]

The means and methods we have chosen for attaining the solution of
the great enigma do not differ, on the whole, from those of all
purely scientific investigation: firstly, experience; secondly,
inference.

Therefore, although the phrases we have already heard from him, are found when scrutinized to be only phrases, which explain nothing, it may be supposed that he elsewhere produces such proofs of his doctrine as will place it on a scientific basis. For these we will now seek.

VI

"THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE"

We have just been told by Professor Haeckel, that the means and methods which he has chosen for the establishment of his philosophy are, on the whole, identical with those employed in all purely scientific investigation, namely, first experience, and secondly inference.

But here a grave difficulty at once presents itself. How, either by experience or by inference, can we learn anything about the commencements of the universe, as to which we have heard so much? How the first bodies, whether organic or inorganic, actually arose, neither philosophy nor science can definitely say, for the latter was not there to see, and the former has no facts on which to argue.[30] But if neither by observation, nor by clear inference, can the account that has been given be substantiated, that account cannot pretend to be scientific, for it rests not upon knowledge but upon speculation,--and as Professor Tait warns us,[31] "That of which there is no knowledge is not yet part of Science."

This plain consideration seems to account for a fact which is undoubtedly highly significant. Professor Huxley had certainly no prejudices against evolutionary systems, could they but be satisfactorily established. He knew all that Professor Haeckel has urged on behalf of his own theory, and showed how much he was in sympathy with it by naming after his friend the ill-starred _Bathybius Haeckelii_, the deep-sea slime which was at first supposed to bridge the gulf between the organic and the inorganic worlds, and to be living stuff in process of spontaneous manufacture. Nothing, in fact, as he himself admitted, in his controversy with Dr. Bastian, could have suited him better than a demonstration that Nature possesses all the powers necessary for her own processes, and that the explanation of all is within the scope of Science. But, at the same time, he reverenced scientific truth beyond anything else, and he was keenly sensible of the danger attending the use of hypothetical explanations, leading to conclusions which cannot be experimentally tested, which danger he carefully shunned.[32] Accordingly, not only did he never lend his countenance to what Professor Haeckel represents as the inevitable conclusions of Science, but he even plainly intimated that those who advanced such views were going much farther than Science warrants. The doctrine of Evolution, he declared,[33] is not only attacked on false grounds by its enemies, but is made by some of its friends to cover so much which is disputable, as to force him in self-defence to make his own position clear in its regard. And the first point of his explanation is to repudiate the idea that we have any such knowledge as Professor Haeckel assumes. "I have nothing to say," he writes, "to any 'Philosophy of Evolution.'"

Being thus necessarily destitute of support either directly from observation or by inference from observed facts, it would seem that only in one way can Professor Haeckel's system of cosmogony, or world-production, obtain any support from Science. If amongst the operations now in progress in the universe, is to be found evidence of an exhaustless and self-renewing energy, a mainspring capable of keeping the machine going everlastingly, then undoubtedly there will be an explanation forthcoming, which, whatever difficulties may still remain on other grounds, will at least furnish a complete mechanical account of things within the ken of Science. May we not suppose that this is what is claimed as being supplied by the "Law of Substance," which is represented as the cornerstone of the whole edifice, the supreme triumph of scientific discovery, and, in fine, "the universal law of evolution"? Let us see how far such a notion can be styled scientific.

As has been shown, a "Law" is nothing but a statement that a certain kind of fact is found to occur in certain circumstances. Professor Haeckel has told us that the "Law of Substance" is a blend of two such statements, namely, "the Law of the persistency or indestructibility of matter," which signifies that in no instance within our knowledge is any particle of matter destroyed, and "the Law of the persistence of force, or conservation of energy," which signifies that the sum of force, at work in the world, and producing all phenomena, is similarly found to be unalterable.[34]

It must here first be observed that the term "Conservation of Energy," is more correct and intelligible than "Conservation of Force"; by "Energy" being understood the power of doing "work," that is to say, of overcoming resistance.[35]

It is in this form alone that Force becomes subject to observation and can be measured by Science, and the Law of Conservation which observation reveals is thus stated: The sum of all the various energies in the universe is a constant quantity, which can be neither increased nor diminished, though it may be changed from one form to another;[36] such forms being motion, heat, chemical action, electricity, magnetism.

But another point is of far greater importance. The mode in which Professor Haeckel states this fundamental Law is altogether deceptive. He tells his readers only half the truth, and when the other half is told, not only is his whole doctrine found to receive no support from the Laws of Energy, but it is these very Laws which appear most incompatible with it.

For, along with the Law of the Conservation, there is another, of the Dissipation of Energy. It is perfectly true, as Professor Haeckel often repeats, that the sum of Energy existing in the universe remains ever the same: but it is no less certain, as he unfortunately fails to remind his readers, that the stock of Energy _available for the work of the universe_ is growing less every day. Though none is ever destroyed, much is constantly _lost_, being dissipated, or radiated into space, in the form of heat which can never be recaptured or translated into any form which can be of any practical avail. "It is lost for ever as far as we are concerned."[37]

From what we have heard concerning the Law of Substance it might naturally be supposed that it certified us of the continued existence of the power required to carry on the operations of Nature, and that, accordingly, reason bids us to suppose these operations to be everlasting. But this neglected element of the reckoning, or _Entropy_ as it is styled, leads scientific men to an entirely different estimate. Thus Professor Balfour Stewart writes:[38]

Although, therefore, in a strictly mechanical sense, there is a
conservation of energy, yet, as regards usefulness or fitness for
living beings, the energy of the universe is in process of
deterioration. Universally diffused heat forms what we may call the
great waste-heap of the universe, and this is growing larger year
by year.

We have [he continues] regarded the universe, not as a collection
of matter, but rather as an energetic agent--in fact, as a lamp.
Now it has been well pointed out by Thomson,[39] that looked at in
this light, the universe is a system that had a beginning and must
have an end; for a process of degradation cannot be eternal. If we
could view the universe as a candle not lit, then it is perhaps
conceivable to regard it as having been always in existence; but if
we regard it rather as a candle that has been lit, we become
absolutely certain that it cannot have been burning from eternity,
and that a time will come when it will cease to burn. We are led to
look to a beginning in which the particles of matter were in a
diffuse chaotic state, but endowed with the power of gravitation,
and we are led to look to an end in which the whole universe will
be one equally heated inert mass, from which everything like life
or motion or beauty will have utterly gone away.

It is doubtless true that attempts have been made to show that this conclusion is not final, and that there may be resources whereby Nature is able to recoup herself, and to draw upon some bank unknown to us for her missing store. As we have seen, Professor Haeckel simply takes for granted that some such means of recuperation exist and operate, and he is not wholly without countenance from others. Thus, no less an authority than Sir William Crookes addressing the Chemical Society as its president, thus expressed himself:[40]

If we may hazard any conjectures ... we may I think premise that
the heat radiations propagated outwards, ... by some process of
nature unknown to us, are transformed at the confines of the
universe into the primary--the essential--motion of chemical atoms,
which the instant they are formed, gravitate inwards, and thus
restore to the universe the energy which would be lost to it
through radiant heat. Hence Sir William Thomson's startling
prediction falls to the ground.

But it need not be pointed out that if an advocate so eminent as Sir William Crookes is reduced to pleas like this on its behalf, the case for Renovation of Energy must be singularly destitute of anything resembling scientific support. Suppositions which are avowedly hazarded as conjectures, and which must appeal to processes of Nature of which we know nothing, whatever authorship they may boast, have nothing to do with Science, and possess no sort of value for our purpose.[41] It must of course be allowed that we may still be utterly in the dark as to the whole of this question, and that further discoveries may one day completely upset all our present notions. But we are concerned with the evidence which Science has now before her, and with the assertion so confidently advanced that this makes the Law of ceaseless Evolution an indisputable truth. We find, on the contrary, that this Law runs directly counter to the facts as they are at present known to us, and to the conclusions drawn from them by the most authoritative representatives of science.

Nor is it only our own globe and solar system that appear to be thus bound towards an inevitable doom. The eternal rhythm of life and death, of which we have been told as pervading the endless depths of space, has no better title to scientific sanction. Like the minor province which we inhabit, the whole universe, we are assured,--so far as we have means of calculating,--must ultimately arrive at a condition of eternal stagnation,--its component parts being drawn close together by their mutual attractions,--so that motion ceases; while the heat replacing it being equally diffused, becomes as incapable of doing work as water between two pools on the same level is of turning a mill. As the writer lately quoted sums up the matter:[42]

Slow as the process of condensation is, it is not endless. In time
all the meteoric dust will be collected into stars or planets; and
in time the law of dissipation of energy will bring all these
bodies to a uniform temperature. So at last the movements due to
the original unequal distribution of matter will cease, and the
life of the universe will come to an end. We know of no process of
rejuvenescence, by means of which dissipation of energy and the
force of gravitation might be counteracted. Several attempts have
been made to refute the theory of the dissipation of energy, but
all have failed.

This, however, is but the first of many difficulties which must be disposed of ere the account of the world's genesis which we are considering can pretend to our acceptance on the ground that reason and science proclaim its truth.

VII

"THE SEVEN ENIGMAS"

The doctrine that the universe is an automatic machine,--self-originated and self-sustained--undoubtedly rests upon a principle formally recognized by some evolutionists, as the "Law of Continuity," and taken for granted by many who do not put it into words. This principle is,--that everything must always have happened according to the same laws of Nature which operate now; that there can never have been a "miracle," understanding by this term whatever is beyond the scope of natural forces; and that, accordingly, the whole of the world's history,--one stage as much as another,--falls within the province of Science. By no one has this position been more clearly stated than by the late Professor Romanes.

All minds [he tells us][43] with any instincts of science in their
composition have grown to distrust, on merely antecedent grounds,
any explanation which embodies a miraculous element. Such minds
have grown to regard all these explanations as mere expressions of
our own ignorance of natural causation; or, in other words, they
have come to regard it as an _à priori_ truth that nature is always
uniform in respect of method or causation; that the reign of law is
universal; the principle of continuity ubiquitous.

He goes on to declare that "The fact of evolution--or, which is the same thing, the fact of continuity in natural causation--has now been undoubtedly proved in many departments of nature," and that, in particular, "throughout the range of inorganic nature" it is "a demonstrated fact."

If this be so, it must necessarily follow that the Laws of Nature, as Science finds them operating, sufficiently explain not only all that happens in our present world, but also all that must have happened while this world was being produced. According to what has already been said, by "The Law of Continuity" no more can be signified than that Continuity is a fact, that the world has actually come to be what it is through the continual operation of just the same natural forces as we find at work to-day. That things _did_ so happen we have not and cannot have, direct evidence; for no witness was there to report. We can but draw inferences from the present to the past, and argue that what Nature does to-day, she must have been capable of doing yesterday and the day before. Only thus can continuity of natural laws possibly be established. It would obviously be vain to argue that we must suppose no other forces ever to have acted than those we can observe, because, for all we know, other conditions may so have altered as to make their results altogether different from any of which we have experience.

It is likewise manifest that if we are to speak of demonstrated facts, and of conclusions placed beyond rational possibility of doubt, proofs must be forthcoming sufficient to compel scientific assent.

And here lies the difficulty. Very much must unquestionably have happened in the course of the world's making for which the Laws of Nature as we find them now acting cannot account, and which, therefore, Science cannot attempt to explain. So we are assured by eminent scientific men,--men, too, who desire nothing more than to find an explanation, but are driven, in search of one, as we have already seen Sir W. Crookes, to plead the limitation of our knowledge, and that there may be capabilities in Nature of which we are ignorant. But it remains always true, that what we do not know is not yet part of Science, and that if our scientific information, so far as it goes, is adverse to the Law of Continuity, it is quite unscientific to bring arguments for the law not from our knowledge, but from our lack of it. Still more unscientific is it to proclaim that Science has pronounced judgment in a sense contrary to that of all the evidence hitherto presented to her.

Amongst the men of Science who testify as above, we may begin with Herr Du Bois-Reymond, an avowed Evolutionist and Materialist, whom Professor Haeckel styles, "the all-powerful secretary and dictator of the Berlin Academy of Sciences."[44] He can be suspected of no prejudices which would prevent him from accepting Professor Haeckel's cosmogony, if only he found the evidence satisfactory. Far from this, however, he declares,[45] that the history of the universe confronts us with no less than seven problems, for which Science has no solution to offer, and some of which he holds to be for ever insoluble. These he styles "Enigmas," and they are:

(1) The nature of Matter and of Force.

(2) The origin of Motion.

(3) The origin of Life.

(4) The apparently designed order of Nature.

(5) The origin of sensation and consciousness.

(6) The origin of rational thought and speech.

(7) Free-will.

The first, second, and fifth of these are in the opinion of Du Bois-Reymond "transcendental," or beyond possibility of solution. The others, in his judgment, have certainly not yet been solved, but _perhaps_ may be solved some day. As to the last, he much doubts whether it should not also be classed as "transcendental."

* * * * *

It thus appears that in the judgment of a competent witness, and one no-wise biassed by preconception or prejudice, so far from it being true that Professor Haeckel's story of the universe is imperiously imposed on us by the results of Science, not one but several great gulfs in the course of that history must have been bridged over somehow, which Science confesses she cannot bridge, so far as her present knowledge goes, that is to say, so far as she is Science at all.

Professor Haeckel, it is true, loudly pronounces Du Bois-Reymond's declaration to be mere "dogmatism"[46] of a "shallow and illogical character," and he undertakes to show that with the help of his own philosophy the enigmas cease to be enigmatical.

In my opinion [he writes] the three transcendental problems (1, 2
and 5) are settled by our conception of substance; the three which
he [Du Bois-Reymond] considers difficult, though soluble[47] (3, 4
and 6) are decisively answered by our modern theory of evolution;
the seventh and last, the freedom of the will, is not an object for
critical scientific inquiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based
on an illusion, and has no real existence.

How far such a mode of rebuking dogmatism appears convincing, must of course depend on what the reader understands by an argument. Some points already considered may help us to a right estimate of proofs which are based upon "Our conception of substance," or "Our modern theory of evolution," and we shall presently inspect more closely the nature of the difficulties which we are invited so summarily to dismiss. Meanwhile, even though not final or conclusive, the testimony of such a man as Du Bois-Reymond serves at least to prove that it is possible to be thoroughly familiar with Science and her teaching, and yet to believe that as yet she knows nothing at all concerning questions which, as we have been assured, she has conclusively answered. And, as we shall presently see, if Professor Haeckel's account of things be the true one, there are many more scientific men of the first rank who are equally in the dark.

In a word, while according to Professor Haeckel there is in the universe but one Riddle, which he tells us he has solved,--in the opinion of another who is certainly no less entitled to speak in the name of Science, there yet remain seven to which no answer has yet been given, and to three, at least, of which none will ever be found.

VIII

MATTER AND MOTION

In the forefront of the problems which have been pronounced to be not only unsolved but insoluble, are the nature and origin of the ultimate factors arrived at by Science in her study of the constitution of the universe,--Matter, Force, and Motion.

With the first and last of these alone need we at present concern ourselves, for "Force," as Science knows it, is always associated with Matter, and signifies no more in her terminology than that which produces, or tends to produce Motion. On the other hand, we are told,[48] that "The contents of the material universe may be expressed in terms of Matter and Motion."

By "Matter" is understood "Sensible Substance," the stuff composing all of which our senses tell us, and which forms the object of Scientific investigation. What do we know concerning this raw material whereof worlds are made?

As we have seen, Professor Haeckel and his school are ready to tell us. Matter, we are assured,[49] is self-existent and imperishable, "it has no beginning and no end; it is eternity." Together with Ether, it occupies infinite and boundless space. It is in ceaseless motion; and its interminable modifications produce everything that ever was or ever will be. Movement[50] is one of the "innate and original properties" of Matter. So are Sensation and Will,[51] but these, we are warned,[52] are "unconscious."

Obviously, however, it is not enough that these things should be said, they require likewise to be proved; and the question must immediately suggest itself, Whence is proof to come? Not, by any possibility, from observation and experiment. For who can speak, of his own knowledge, to eternity or infinity? The only conceivable supposition is that Science has so thoroughly mastered the nature and properties of Matter here and now, as to be furnished with evidence unmistakably pointing to the above conclusions. Thus alone can she be quoted on their behalf; and it must always be remembered that the philosophy which we are examining is nothing if not scientific.

But, in the first place, is it quite clear of what our philosophers are speaking? They use the term "Matter" as though it represented some one definite thing: but this is very far from being the case.

We must remember [says Lord Grimthorpe][53] that matter is not an
unit, as a creator is, and that talking of it so is merely a
rhetorical artifice when used in philosophical inquiries.... Matter
is nothing but the sum of all the ultimate particles or atoms
contained in the universe, or in any particular mass that we are
dealing with.... A very large proportion of the atoms of the
universe have never been within millions and billions of miles of
each other.

Therefore, he goes on to urge, the doctrine of the self-existence of Matter, must mean that each several atom is self-existent, or "every atom its own god." How comes it then that they all obey the same "Laws"? How have their various provinces been allotted? Above all, how are they not all the same, but--so far as we know--divided into classes widely different from one another? For, according to our present knowledge,--and we cannot too frequently remind ourselves that upon this alone can any sound conclusion be based,--there are, in round numbers, some seventy different species of atoms, whose diverse qualities are absolutely necessary for the production of the world. Had all atoms been of one kind, we could have had none even of what used to be called the Four Elements,--neither Earth, Air, Fire, nor Water.

But,--apart from this,--What is known concerning this same "Matter"? Has Science so thoroughly fathomed its constitution as to be able to declare that it possesses all the properties we have heard assigned to it,--Sensation and Will, even of the unconscious kind, whatever that may be,--locomotive power,--eternity,--and, in its collective capacity, immensity?

So far from this being the case, scientific men who were most willing, and even anxious, to assign to Matter a foremost, if not _the_ foremost, place in Nature, have done so precisely upon the ground, not of our knowledge, but of our ignorance. No better examples need be sought than Professor Huxley, and Professor Tyndall, who alike agreed, in the words of the latter,[54] "to discern in Matter the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." But Huxley took his stand on the declaration, that we know so little about Matter as to make it impossible to say of what it may not be capable, for we cannot so much as be certain of its existence, and use the term only "for the unknown and hypothetical causes of our own states of consciousness,"[55] while Tyndall described the process, whereby the promise and potency are realized, as "the manifestation of a Power absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man."

Speculations thus founded upon the absence of evidence, whatever else they may be, are certainly no part of Science; and when we turn to what, being established by scientific methods, is a possible basis of scientific argument, we find that in every instance it contradicts instead of supporting the assertions we have heard.

To begin with the question of Motion, as being both of supreme importance, and one more open than some others to observation and experiment. According to Professor Haeckel's teaching, "movement is an innate and original property of substance," that is to say of Matter, and in consequence, "Substance is everywhere and always in uninterrupted movement and transformation." It is by thus attributing to matter an inherent determination to move that he meets Du Bois-Reymond's difficulty as to the origin of motion.

But this is in direct opposition to the first of Newton's Laws, which are universally recognized as the most firmly established and unquestionable of all scientific conclusions. This law tells us that a body at rest will continue at rest for ever, unless compelled by some force to move; just as a body in motion will continue to move at the same rate and in the same direction, unless compelled by force to arrest or alter its course. Upon the universal certainty of this law the whole of our Natural Philosophy depends: but it absolutely blocks the way for the idea that Matter has an innate tendency to move itself, which is thus quite unscientific. Not self-movement but _Inertia_ is the property which Science ascribes to Matter.[56] It may further be observed that the idea of inherent motion is absurd and unintelligible; for movement cannot be in more than one direction at a time: so that a mass, or an atom, of Matter could tend to move only by having an intrinsic impulse in a straight line towards some one particular point. If it should tend to move indifferently, in all directions at once, it would remain motionless, each such tendency being neutralized by its opposite.

As to the further claim made on behalf of Matter to be endowed with Sensation and Will, of any description, it must be enough to say that no one has ever pretended to find any evidence whatever to this effect, or to detect the faintest trace of such properties;--and that on the contrary, all experience shows inorganic Matter, (that is, Matter not incorporated in living animals or plants,) to be utterly lifeless and inert. It is a mere abuse and perversion of terms to speak of Science as countenancing any conclusion but that to which such experience points. The attempt to invest Matter with these attributes Professor Tait stigmatizes as "non-science," or "pseudo-science."[57]

The Pygmalions of modern days [he writes] do not require to beseech
Aphrodité to animate the ivory for them. Like the savage with his
_Totem_, they have themselves already attributed life to it.... The
latest phase of this peculiar non-science tells us that all Matter
is _alive_; or at least that it contains "the promise and potency"
(whatever these may be) "of all terrestrial life." ... So much for
the attempts to introduce into Science an element altogether
incompatible with the fundamental conditions of its existence.

In fine, to make us realize not merely how extremely narrow are the bounds of our knowledge, but even how much narrower they may be than we suppose, there enters upon the scene Radium, like the golden apple that came to disturb the harmony of the celestials. What lessons this turbulent and unconventional element will ultimately be found to teach, and how far it will revolutionize the laws of Nature as hitherto accepted, remains, of course, to be seen: but this at least is clear. In presence of it, scientific men find that they are sure of nothing they thought most certain, not of the indestructibility of matter itself, on which is based that Law of Substance which we have seen made responsible for so much.

It had been thought that whatever else might change or perish the atoms of which we have heard, as the ultimate constituents of Matter, were beyond the reach of any vicissitude. "No man," said Dalton, their discoverer, "can split an atom." Thus too Mr. Clodd, while acknowledging that the constitution even of atoms may some day be found to be liable to disorder and decay, clearly teaches that, as a practical certainty, we have in them got to something final. Taking one particular kind, an oxygen atom, as a text, he thus discourses:[58]

It matters not into how many myriad substances--animal, plant, or
mineral--an atom of oxygen may have entered, nor what isolation it
has undergone: bond or free, it retains its own qualities. It
matters not how many millions of years have elapsed during these
changes, age cannot wither or weaken it; amidst all the fierce play
of the mighty agencies to which it has been subjected it remains
unbroken and unworn; to it we may apply the ancient words, "the
things which are not seen are eternal."

But now, with the recognition of radio-activity, and the disintegration of atoms into their constituent "electrons" which this is held to evidence, we have changed all that. Such disintegration, it is affirmed, must imply dissolution and death, alike of the atoms themselves and of the universe which they compose. As Sir William Crookes told the physicists assembled at Berlin, June, 1903:

This fatal quality of atomic dissociation appears to be universal,
and operates whenever we brush a piece of glass with silk; it works
in the sunshine and raindrops, in lightnings and flame; it prevails
in the waterfall and the stormy sea.

Matter he consequently regards as doomed to destruction.[59] Sooner or later, it will have dissolved into the "formless mist" of "prothyle"[60] and "the hour-hand of eternity will have completed one revolution."

Consequently, we are told,[61]

The "dissipation of energy" has found its correlative in the
"dissolution of matter." We are confronted with an appalling sense
of desolation--of quasi-annihilation.

It is no doubt true, here again, that such judgments cannot be called final, and that not all scientific men will accept them as they stand. But all alike are forced to agree that our previous notions are completely upset, and that we are compelled to recognize the fact that of these fundamental questions we know far less than the little we seemed to know. What, then, is to be thought of Professor Haeckel's confident utterances, which could be justified only on the supposition that we know everything? And what becomes of the famous Law of Substance, if both its parts are found thus to contradict the conclusion he would draw from it?

The case is thus summed up by the writer of the article just cited:

The discovery of radio-activity is one of the most momentous in the
history of science. "There has been a vivid new start" (we again
borrow Sir William Crookes' expression). "Our physicists have
remodelled their views as to the constitution of matter." The
remodelling indeed has hardly commenced.... What is undeniable is
that the Daltonian atom has, within a century of its acceptance as
a fundamental reality, suffered disruption. Its proper place in
nature is not that formerly assigned to it, ... its reputation for
inviolability and indestructibility is gone for ever. Each of these
supposed "ultimates" is now known to be the scene of indescribable
activities, a complex piece of mechanism composed of thousands of
parts, a star-cluster in miniature, subject to all kinds of
dynamical vicissitudes, to perturbation, acceleration, internal
friction, total or partial disruption. And to each is appointed a
fixed term of existence. Sooner or later, the balance of
equilibrium is tilted, disturbance eventuates in overthrow; the
tiny exquisite system finally breaks up. Of atoms, as of men, it
may be said with truth, "_Quisque suos patitur manes_."

"Here," in fact, "we meet the impenetrable secret of creative agency."[62]

IX

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE

The question concerning the origin and nature of Life is of supreme and vital importance not only for those who speak of Evolution as a force or principle by which everything is guided and governed, but also for such as understand by the term no more than a process which they say has actually occurred. Evolutionists of this second class disclaim, with Huxley, any "philosophy of Evolution." They are content to take the world as a going concern, at the farthest point in the past to which, even speculatively, Science can trace it, as that vast primordial nebula of which we have heard.[63] Given this,--assuming the existence of such a nebula, constituted as they suppose,--they believe that the whole subsequent history of the world is fully explained by the uniform action of the same laws of matter which we find in operation to-day. Not only is the establishment of our Solar System, of sun and planets, to be thus accounted for, but likewise the production of life, of the organic world of plants and animals.

Hence it necessarily follows that life must originally have been evolved naturally from lifeless matter, for all are agreed that not only in the nebula, but on the earth when it first started its independent career, life did not, and could not, exist.