Science and Morals and Other Essays Part 6

VII. "SPECIAL CREATION"

Professor Scott, of Princeton, has recently given to the public in his Westbrook Lectures[35] an exceedingly impartial, convincing, and lucid statement of the evidence for the theory of evolution or transformism.

On one point of terminology a few observations may not be amiss, since there is a certain amount of confusion still existing in the minds of many persons which can be and ought to be cleared up. Throughout his book Professor Scott contrasts evolution with what he calls "special creation." In so doing he is evidently in no way anxious to deny the fact that there is a Creator, and that evolution may fairly be regarded as His method of creation. In one pa.s.sage he expressly states that "acceptance of the theory of evolution by no means excludes belief in a creative plan."

And again, when dealing with the palaeontological evidence in favour of evolution, he points out that Cuvier and Aga.s.siz, examining it as it was known in their day, interpreted the facts as the carrying out of a systematic creative plan, an interpretation which the author claims "is not at all invalidated by the acceptance of the evolutionary theory." He is not, we need hardly say, in any way singular in taking up this att.i.tude, since it was held by Darwin, by Wallace, by Huxley, and by other st.u.r.dy defenders of the doctrine of evolution.

Yet, just as at the time that Darwin's views were first made public, many thought that they were subversive of Christianity, so, even now, some whose acquaintance with the problem and its history is of a superficial character, are inclined when they see the word creation, even with the qualifying adjective "special" prefixed to it, used in contradistinction to evolution, to imagine that the theory of creation, and of course of a Creator, must fall to the ground if evolution should be proved to be the true explanation of living things and their diversities.

It is more than a little difficult for us, living at the present day, to understand this curious frame of mind; yet it certainly existed, and existed where it might least have been expected to exist. Nor is it quite extinct to-day, though it only lingers in the less instructed cla.s.s of persons. The misconception arose from a confusion between the fact and the method of creation. As to the former, no Catholic, no Christian, no theist has any kind of doubt; indeed there are those who could not be cla.s.sified under any of those categories who still would be prepared to admit that there must be a First Cause as the explanation of the universe. Some of them, whose reasoning is a little difficult to follow, seem to be content with an immanent, blind G.o.d, a mere mainspring to the clock, making it move, no doubt, but otherwise powerless. If we neglect--in a mathematical sense--those who adopt the agnostic att.i.tude; content themselves with the formula _ignoramus et ignorabimus_ of Du Bois Reymond, and confine their investigations to the machine as a going machine without inquiring how it came to be a machine or what set it to work, we shall, I think, find that most people who have really thought out the question admit that the only reasonable explanation of things as they are, is the postulation of a Free First Cause; in other words, an Omnipotent Creator of the universe. Such, of course, is the teaching of the Scriptures and of the Church, and it must be admitted that neither of them carries us very much further in this matter. In fact, whilst both are perfectly clear and definite about the fact of creation, neither of them has much to say about the method. Yet, as all admit, evolution concerns only the method and tells us absolutely nothing about the cause.

Being omnipotent, it is obvious that its Maker might have created the universe in any way which seemed good to Him--for example, all at once out of nothing just as it stands at this moment. Such a thing would not be impossible to Omnipotence; and, as we know, Fallopius, suddenly confronted by the problems of fossils in the sixteenth century, did suggest that they were created just as they were, and that they had never been anything else. So did Philip Gosse some two and a half centuries later.

There is nothing more sure than that the world was not created just as it is. Reason and Scripture both teach us that, and geology makes it quite clear that the appearance of living things upon the earth has been successive; that groups of living things, like the giant saurians, which were once the dominant zoological objects, had their day and have gone, as we may suppose, for ever. A few very lowly forms, like the lamp-sh.e.l.ls, have persisted almost throughout the history of life on the earth, but on the whole the picture which we see is one of appearances, culminations, and disappearances of successive races of living things.

There was a time when Trilobites, crustaceans whose nearest living representatives are the King-Crabs, first became features of the fauna of the earth. Then they increased to such an extent as to become the most prominent feature. Then they declined in importance, disappeared, and for uncounted ages have existed only as fossils. Thus we conclude that the creation of species was a progressive affair, just as the creation of individuals is a successive affair, for every living thing, coming as it does into existence by the power of the Creator, is His creation and in a very real sense a special creation. Now we know very well how living things come into existence to-day; can we form any idea as to how they originated in the beginning? Milton, in his crude description in _Paradise Lost_, pictured living things as gradually rising out of and extricating themselves from the soil.

"The gra.s.sy clods now calved, now half appeared The tawny lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds, And rampant shakes his brindled mane; the ounce, The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw In hillocks: the swift stag from underground Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould Behemoth, biggest born of earth, up heaved His vastness."

In this description Milton probably represented the ideas of his day--a day penetrated with literal interpretation of the Scripture, though it is well to recall to our minds the fact that not one word or idea of the above is contained in the Bible. The only suggestion is that the body of Adam was fashioned from the "slime of the earth," the precise meaning of which phrase has never been defined by the Church.

Again, we have to say that the Miltonic scheme is not impossible, any more than any other scheme is impossible, but we may further say that it is more than improbable, and with every reverence we may add that to us it does not seem to be specially consonant with the greatness and wisdom of G.o.d. There remains the derivative form of creation, compendiously styled evolution. That this also is a possible method of creation no one will deny, and it has been discussed as such by many of the greatest thinkers in the history of the Church. We can consider it, therefore, from the point of fact or of knowledge as we now possess it, and we can do so without imagining that, in so doing, we are contemplating a method which is anything else but the carrying out of a creative plan, existing perfect and complete and from all eternity in the mind of the Being Whose conception it was and by whose _fiat_ it came to pa.s.s. Moreover, each form produced is a special creation, since it was specially designed to be as it is and to appear when it did, just as the clockmaker intends his clock to strike twelve at noon, though he can hardly be said to make it strike at that moment. Hence to place special creation in antagonism to evolution is really to use an ambiguous phraseology. No doubt it is not easy to find the proper phraseology.

Some have employed the terms "immediate" and "mediate," to which also a certain amount of ambiguity is attached. Perhaps "direct" and "derivative" might convey more accurate ideas; but whatever terminology we adopt, we are still safe in saying that whether G.o.d makes things or makes them make themselves He is creating them and specially creating them.

This is not the place to enter into any elaborate discussion as to the truth of the theory of evolution. Few will be found to deny the statement that it is a theory which _does_ explain Nature as we see it and as we learn its history in the past, but that does not necessarily prove that it is true. St. Thomas Aquinas, dealing with the movements of the planets, makes a very important statement when he tells us, in so many words, that, though the hypothesis with which he is dealing would explain the appearances which he was seeking to explain, that does not prove that it is the true explanation, since the real answer to the riddle may be one then unknown to him. There are, however, one or two points it may be useful to consider before we leave the question.

That evolution may occur within a cla.s.s seems to be quite certain. The case of the Porto Santo rabbits, one of many cited by Darwin or brought to knowledge since his time, will make clear what is meant. Porto Santo is a small island, not far from Madeira, on which a Portuguese navigator, named Zarco, let loose, somewhere about the year 1420, a doe and a recently born litter of rabbits, which we may feel quite sure belonged to one of those domestic breeds which have all been derived from the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as _Lepus Cuniculus_.

The island was a favourable spot for the rabbits, for there do not appear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor were there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a result, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in forty years as to be described as "innumerable." In four and a half centuries these rabbits had become so different from any European rabbits that Haeckel described them as a species apart, and named it _Lepus Huxlei_. This rabbit is much smaller than the European form, being described as more like a large rat than a rabbit. Its colour is very different from its European relatives; it has curious nocturnal habits; it is exceedingly wild and untamable. Most remarkable of all, and most conclusive as to specific difference, Mr. Bartlett, the highly skilled head keeper of the London Zoological Gardens, utterly failed to induce the two males which were brought over to those gardens to a.s.sociate with or to breed with the females of various other breeds of rabbits which were repeatedly placed with them. If the history of these Porto Santo rabbits had been unknown to us, instead of being a matter as to which there can be no doubt, every naturalist would at once have accepted them as a separate species. We need not hesitate, it appears, to do so and to admit that it is a new species which has been produced within historic times and under conditions with which we are fully acquainted. It may, however, be argued, and quite fairly argued, that such a process of evolution, though definitely proved, is a very different thing from such an evolution as would permit of a common ancestry for animals so far apart, for example, as a whale and a rabbit, or perhaps even nearer in relationship, as between a lion and a seal. To discuss this further would require a dissertation on the highly involved question of species and varieties, and that is not now to be attempted.

What, however, may be said is that the difficulties presented by what is called phylogeny--that is, the relationships of different cla.s.ses to one another--are so great as to have led more than one man of science to proclaim his belief that evolution has been poly--and not mono--phyletic. Such is the view which has been enunciated by Father Wasmann, S.J., whose authority on a point of this kind is paramount. It has also been upheld by Professor Bateson, a man widely separated from the Jesuit in all but attachment to science. Professor Bateson summed up his belief in the text which he placed on the t.i.tle-page of his first great work on _Variation_: the text which proclaims that there is a flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes.

Darwin remained to the end of his life undecided between the two views, for he allowed his original statement as to life having been breathed into one or more forms by the Creator, to pa.s.s from edition to edition of the _Origin of Species_. If the polyphyletic theory be adopted, it must be said that the position of the materialist is made far more difficult than it is at present. Let us see what it means. On the materialistic hypothesis, and the same may be said of the pantheistic or any other hypothesis not theistic in nature, a certain cell came by chance to acquire the attributes of life. From this descended plants and animals of all kinds in divergent series till the edifice was crowned by man. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out all that is involved in this a.s.sumption, which, it must be confessed, is a very large mouthful to swallow.

Let us now consider what the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According to this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable life; a further accident leads another cell to initiate the line of invertebrates; another that of fishes, let us say; another of mammals: the number varying according to the views of the theorist on phylogeny.

Let us not forget that the cell or cells which accidentally acquired the attributes of life, had accidentally to shape themselves from dead materials into something of a character wholly unknown in the inorganic world. If one seriously considers the matter it is--so it seems to me--utterly impossible to subscribe to the accidental theory of which the immanent G.o.d--the blind G.o.d of Bergson--is a mere variant. One must agree with the late Lord Kelvin that "science positively affirms creative power ... which (she) compels us to accept as an article of belief." But what are we to say with regard to the series of repeated accidents which the polyphyletic hypothesis would seem to demand? Is it really possible that any man could bring himself to place credence in such a marvellous series of occurrences? Monophyletic or polyphyletic evolution, whichever, if either, it may have been, presents no difficulty on the creation hypothesis.

The Divine plan might have embraced either method. It is not merely revelation but ordinary reason which shows us that the wonderful things which we know, not to speak of the far more wonderful things at which we can only guess, cannot possibly be explained on any other hypothesis than that of a Free First Cause--a Creator.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 35: _The Theory of Evolution._ By William Berryman Scott.

New York: The Macmillan Co.]

VIII. CATHOLIC WRITERS AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION

The names of great Catholic men of science, laymen like Pasteur and Muller, or ecclesiastics like Stensen and Mendel, are familiar to all educated persons. But even educated persons, or at least a great majority of them, are quite ignorant of the goodly band of workers in science who were devout children of the Church. Nothing perhaps more fully exemplifies this than the history of the controversy respecting the subject whose name is set down as the t.i.tle of this paper. For centuries a controversy raged at intervals around the question of spontaneous generation. Did living things originate, not merely in the past but every day, from non-living matter? When we consider such things as the once mysterious appearance of maggots in meat it is not wonderful that in the days before the microscope the answer was in the affirmative.

To-day the question may be considered almost closed. True, the negative proposition cannot be proved, hence it is impossible to say that spontaneous generation does not take place. However, the scientific world is at one in the belief that so far all attempts to prove it have failed utterly.

St. Thomas Aquinas had a celebrated and sometimes misunderstood controversy with Avicenna, a very famous Arabian philosopher. It was a philosophical, but not strictly scientific, controversy, for both persons accepted or a.s.sumed the existence of spontaneous generation.

Avicenna claimed that it took place by the powers of Nature alone, whilst St. Thomas adopted the att.i.tude which we should adopt to-day, were spontaneous generation shown to be a fact, namely, that if Nature possessed this power, it was because the Creator had willed it so.

We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668, when Francesco Redi (1626-1697) published his book on the generation of insects and showed that meat protected from flies by wire gauze or parchment did not develop maggots, whilst meat left unprotected did.

From this and from other experiments he was led to formulate the theory that in all cases of apparent production of life from dead matter the real explanation was that living germs from outside had been introduced into it. For a long time this view held the field. Redi was, as his name indicates, an Italian, an inhabitant of Aretino, a poet as well as a physician and scientific worker. He was physician to two of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and an academician of the celebrated _Accademia della Crusca_. Those works which I have been able to consult on the subject say nothing about his religion, but there can scarcely be any doubt that he was a Catholic. At any rate there is no doubt whatever as to the other persons now to be mentioned in connection with the controversy, which again became active about a century after Redi had published his book. The antagonists on this occasion were both of them Catholic priests, and both of them deserve some brief notice.

John Turberville Needham (1713-1781) was born in London and belonged on both sides to old Catholic families. He was educated at Douay and ordained priest at Cambray in 1738. After teaching in that place for some time he journeyed to England and became head-master of the once celebrated school for Catholic boys at Twyford, near Winchester. From there he went for a short time to Lisbon as professor of philosophy in the English College. Subsequently he travelled with various Peers making "the grand tour." After that he retired to Paris, where he was elected a member of the _Academie des Sciences_. He was the first director of the Imperial Academy in Brussels; a canon, first of Dendermonde and afterward of Soignies. He died in Brussels and was buried in the Abbey of Condenberg. Needham was a man of really great scientific attainments, and perhaps nothing proves the estimation in which he was held more than the fact that in 1746 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, being the first Catholic priest to become a member of that distinguished body. When one remembers the att.i.tude at that time, and much later, of Englishmen towards Catholics it is clear that Needham's claims to distinction must have been more than ordinarily great. His clear, firm signature is still to be seen in the charter-book of the society, and it is interesting to note that he signs his name "Turberville Needham."

Needham did not confine his attention to science, for he was an ardent antiquary, and in 1761 was elected a Fellow of that other ancient and exclusive body, the Society of Antiquaries of London. In this connection it may be mentioned that Needham published, in 1761, a book which caused a great sensation, for he endeavoured to show that he could translate an Egyptian inscription by means of Chinese characters; in other words, that the forms of writing were germane to one another. He was shown to be quite wrong by some of the learned Jesuits of the day, who, with the a.s.sistance of Chinese men of letters, proved that the resemblances to which Needham had called attention were merely superficial.

But our interest now is in his controversy with Spallanzani. Lazaro Spallanzani (1729-1799) was born at Scandiano in Modena and educated at the Jesuit College at Reggio di Modena. There was some question as to his entering the Society; he did not do so, however, but repaired to the University of Bologna, where his kinswoman, Laura Ba.s.si, was then professor of physics. He became a priest, but devoted his life to teaching and experimenting. He must have been something of what we in Ireland used to call a "polymath," for he professed at one time or another, in various universities, logic, metaphysics, Greek, and finally natural history. He first explained the physics of what children call "ducks and drakes" made by flat pebbles on water; laid the foundations of meteorology and vulcanology, and is perhaps best of all known in connection with what is termed "regeneration" in the earthworm and above all in the salamander. His experiments still hold the field in a region of study which has vastly extended itself in recent years, becoming of prime importance in the vitalistic controversy.

In the dispute, however, with which we are concerned Needham and Spallanzani defended opposite positions. The former, as the result of his observations, a.s.serted that, in spite of the boiling and sealing up of organic fluids, life did appear in them. His opponent claimed that Needham's experiments had not been sufficiently precise. The latter had enclosed his fluids in bottles fitted with ordinary corks, covered with mastic varnish, whilst Spallanzani, employing flasks with long necks which he could and did seal by heat when the contents were boiling, showed that in that case no life was produced. He declared, and correctly too, as we now know, that Needham's methods did permit of the introduction of something from without. The controversy went to sleep again until the discovery of oxygen by Priestley in 1774. When it had been shown that oxygen was essential to the existence of all forms of life, the question arose as to whether the boiling of the organic fluids in the earlier experiments had not expelled all the oxygen and thus prevented the existence and development of any life.

In the further experiments which this query gave rise to, we meet with another ill.u.s.trious Catholic name, that of Theodor Schwann, better known as the originator of that fundamental piece of scientific knowledge, the cell-theory. Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) was born at Neuss and educated by the Jesuits, first at Cologne, afterward at Bonn. After studying at the Universities of Wurzburg and Berlin he became professor in the Catholic University of Louvain, where his name was one of the princ.i.p.al glories of this now wrecked seat of learning. Thence he went as professor to Liege, where he died. He was, says his biography in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, "of a peculiarly gentle and amiable character and remained a devout Catholic throughout his life." Schwann's experiments tended to show that the introduction of air--of course containing oxygen--did not lead to the production of life, if the air had first been thoroughly sterilised. It was thought that this question had been finally answered, when it was reopened by Pouchet, in 1859. He was a Frenchman, the director of the Natural History Museum of Rouen, but as to his religious views I have no information. It is quite probable, however, that he was a Catholic. Pouchet and all on his side were finally--so far as there can be finality in such a matter--disposed of by Pasteur, of whose distinction as a man of science and devoutness as a Catholic nothing need be said.

It is quite unnecessary to devote any consideration here to the character of Pasteur's experiments, for they have become a matter of common knowledge to all educated persons. Let it suffice to say that they were on the lines first laid down by Redi and greatly elaborated by Spallanzani, namely the exclusion from the fluids or other substances under examination of all possible contamination by minute organisms in the air. Spallanzani knew nothing of these organisms; they were not discovered until many years after his death. But he surmised that there was something which brought corruption into the fluids; he excluded that something, with the result that the fluids remained untainted. From our point of view, however, there are several things to be learnt. In the first place quite a number of ignorant persons have thought that the discovery of spontaneous generation would upset religious dogmata. That of course is quite absurd. From what has been said above it will be seen that St. Thomas Aquinas--in common with all the men of learning of his day--fully believed in it, as did Needham, another ecclesiastic as to whose orthodoxy there is no doubt. Further, the entire controversy is a complete confutation of the false allegation that between Catholicism and science there is a great gulf set. There have been few longer and more remarkable controversies in the history of science, and scarce any other--if indeed any other--which has such important bearings upon health and industry than that which relates to bio- or abio-genesis. It is significant to find that the names of so many of the protagonists in this controversy were those of men who were also convinced adherents of the Catholic Church.

IX. A THEORY OF LIFE[36]

Of the making of books on the question of Vitalism there would seem to be no end; and, following upon quite a number of others comes this handsome, well-ill.u.s.trated, intensely interesting book, by one whose writings are always worth study. It purports to deal with the Origin and Evolution of Life; but, as to the first, it leaves us in no way advanced towards any real explanation of that problem on materialistic lines. As to the second, though there is a vast amount of valuable information, often illuminating and suggestive, again we confess that we fail to discover any real philosophy of that process of evolution which the author postulates. These propositions we must now proceed to justify. We can consider them from the most rigidly scientific standpoint, since, if every word or almost every word in the book were proved truth, it would not make the slightest difference to Catholic Philosophy, nor, indeed, to Theistic teachings, since in the imperishable words of Paley: "There may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind another, between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what we see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent designing Author."

The scientific writer has to remember that whilst he may explain many things, his work is a torso unless and until he has either accepted the Creator as the first Cause, which he is too often disinclined to do, or has supplied an equally satisfactory explanation, which he is permanently unable to do. On the other hand, at least some defenders of Theism in the past might well have borne in mind that, whilst we are a.s.sured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its mechanism save that it came about by the command of G.o.d. There is nothing in which clear thinking and clear writing are more necessary than in discussions of this kind; and too many of them are vitiated by an obvious lack of philosophical training on the part of the partic.i.p.ants. Even in this carefully written book there are instances of this kind of thing to which we must allude before considering its main arguments.

"We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less complete chain of beings from monad to man, that the one-toed horse had a four-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown ape-like form somewhere in the Tertiary." "We _know_"--that is exactly the opposite of the truth. We _know_ a thing when it is susceptible of proof according to the rigid rules of formal logic; when, to doubt it, would be to give rise to a suspicion as to our sanity; then we _know_ a thing, but not until then. Now, as to the sentence quoted, we may allow the first part to pa.s.s unchallenged with some possible demur at the use of the word "chain." The second so-called piece of knowledge was doubted by no less an authority than the late Adam Sedgwick. The third a.s.sertion plainly and distinctly is not the case; for Science _knows_ nothing whatsoever about the origin of man's body. In 1901 Branco, a distinguished palaeontologist, with no Theistic leanings as far as we know, told the world that man appears on our planet as "a genuine _h.o.m.o novus_," and that palaeontology "knows no ancestors of man." Nor has any discovery since that date necessitated the modification of that opinion. What the writer means by saying "_We_ know" is "_I_ am convinced"; but, with the deepest respect for his undoubted position, the two things are not quite identical. "Biology, like theology, has its dogmas. Leaders have their disciples and blind followers." Wise words! They are those of the author with whom we are dealing. To say "we know" when really we only surmise is a misuse of language, just as it is also a misuse to ask the question "Does nature make a departure from its previously ordered procedure and subst.i.tute chance for law?" since the ordinary reader is all too apt to forget that "Nature" is a mere abstraction, and that to speak of Nature doing such or such a thing helps us in no way along the road towards an explanation of things.

Or again: "So far as the _creative_ power of energy is concerned, we are on sure ground." The author has a careful note on the word creation (p.

5), "the production of something new out of nothing," under which definition it is abundantly clear that energy, whilst it may be _productive_, cannot be _creative_. In fact, nothing can be _creative_ in any definite and rigid sense, save a _Creator_ Who existed from all eternity and from Whom all things arose. One more instance of loose argumentation, and we can turn to the main purport of the book. It is a link in the author's "chain" which cannot be pa.s.sed without examination.

Everybody is familiar with the method of proof by elimination. We set down every possible explanation of a certain occurrence; we rule out one after the other until but one is left. If we really have set down all the possible explanations, and if we are quite clear as to the fact that all those which have been excluded are legitimately put out of court, then the one remaining explanation must be the true one. It is a method of proof which has frequently been applied to the vitalistic problem, and with the greatest effect, as it is admitted by some of those who would greatly like to find a materialistic explanation for that problem (cf. _The Philosophy of Biology_, Johnstone, p. 319).

Let us see how our author employs it. What, he asks, is "the internal moving principle" in living substance? And he replies: "We may first exclude the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or teleological interposition through an externally creative power." Very well! Philosophers tell us that we can a.s.sume any position we choose for the purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that a.s.sumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of the a.s.sumption made by our author, but absolutely no attempt is made to give one. We must be pardoned, therefore, if we hesitate to accept such an important statement on his mere _ipse dixit_. We pa.s.s on to the next elimination: "Although its visible results are in a high degree purposeful, we may also exclude as unscientific the vitalistic theory of an _entelechy_[37] or any other form of internal perfecting agency distinct from known or unknown physio-chemical energies." Why "unscientific"? Numbers of high authorities have not thought it so; and in quite recent years such eminent writers as Driesch and McDougal have written erudite works to prove this "unscientific" hypothesis. Is there any proof brought forward for _this_ a.s.sertion and its corresponding elimination?

Let us continue the quotation: "Since certain forms of adaptation which were formerly mysterious can now be explained without the a.s.sumption of an entelechy we are encouraged to hope that all forms may be thus explained." The author does not tell us what the mysterious adaptations are, nor does he offer us the explanations which, in his opinion, explain them. We cannot, therefore, criticise his views, and can only remind his readers that, because an explanation plausibly explains an occurrence, it is by no means always therefore certain to be the true explanation; it may, indeed, be wholly false.

Further, those who have been wandering for the past half-century in the fields of science have become a little wearied of "explanations,"

vaunted, for periods of five or ten years, as the key to open all locks, and then cast into the furnace. What the author would seem to mean by his statement is this: "I am convinced myself that we can do without a 'supernatural' explanation, and I regard as 'unscientific' any explanation which cannot be put to the test of chemistry and physics; hence I must shut the door on anything like an _entelechy_, and, that being so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation." Of course, we are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were dealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that, by the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to prove, the existence of an entelechy.

With these expostulations we may turn to the writer's p.r.o.nouncements on the vitalistic question which seem to us to be worthy of serious consideration. Everybody knows that there are two very diverse opinions on this topic; the one that there is, the other that there is not something more--a _plus_--in living than there is in not-living objects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not merely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of thought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to now seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to be confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn seems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this matter. If we are to "reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient Greeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others,"

and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the cosmos as one of "limitless and _ordered_ energy"--we have emphasised the word "_ordered_" for reasons which will shortly appear--we must clearly look out for some middle way. "_Ordered_," a purely mechanistic and materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. "_Ordered_" conditions are determined by what we agree to call "Laws"; and these, as all must admit, entail a Lawgiver.

The alternative is Blind Chance; and the author, after considering the question, agrees, as again most reasonable persons will agree, that Blind Chance is no explanation of things as they are. He quotes a modern chemist who, discussing the probability of the environmental fitness of the earth for life being a mere chance process, remarks: "There is, in truth, not one chance in countless millions of millions that the many unique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of their stable compounds, water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up the atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the three elements otherwise than through the operation of a natural law which somehow connects them together. There is no greater probability that these unique properties should be without due cause uniquely favourable to the organic mechanism" (J. J. Henderson, 1913).

If neither of the cla.s.sic points of view is tenable, what then is the explanation, if, indeed, any be possible? The author casts one brief glance down that blind-alley marked "Element Way." Does some known element or some unknown element, to which the name _Bion_ might be given, exist and form the source of the energy in living things? Radium has only been known to us for a few years; can we say that there is no such thing as Bion? Of course we cannot; but this we can say, that, if there is such an element and if it is really responsible for all the protean manifestations of life, wonderful as radium and its doings are, they must sink into nothingness beside those of this new and unsuspected ent.i.ty. The author evidently does not think that this path is a profitable one to pursue, and we agree with him; so he turns his attention to the question of energy. Energy is the capacity for doing work. It is often, of course, latent, as, for example, in a cordite cartridge, which is a peaceful, harmless thing until the energy stored up in it is realised with the accompanying explosion and work is done.

It is the same with a bent spring; a clock-weight when the clock is not going, and so on.