The Old Riddle And The Newest Answer Part 2

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 s.p.a.ce, 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 ma.s.s, 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 dest.i.tute 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 a.s.sertion 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 s.p.a.ce, has no better t.i.tle to scientific sanction. Like the minor province which we inhabit, the whole universe, we are a.s.sured,--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 _a 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 a.s.sent.

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 a.s.sured 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 cla.s.sed as "transcendental."

It thus appears that in the judgment of a competent witness, and one no-wise bia.s.sed 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 p.r.o.nounces 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 a.s.sured, 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 ent.i.tled 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sured,[49] is self-existent and imperishable, "it has no beginning and no end; it is eternity." Together with Ether, it occupies infinite and boundless s.p.a.ce. 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 ma.s.s 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 G.o.d." 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 cla.s.ses 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.