A Theory Of Life

( Originally Published 1919 )

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-illustrated, 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 assured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its mechanism save that it came about by the command of God. 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 participants.

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 pass 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 assertion 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 homo 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 substitute 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 passed 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 assume any position we choose for the purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that assumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of the assumption 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 pass 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 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 assertion and its corresponding elimination ?

Let us continue the quotation : " Since certain forms of adaptation which were formerly mysterious can now be explained without the assumption 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 pronouncements 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 notliving 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 classic 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 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.

We need not develop this matter further ; but one point must be alluded to, namely, the gradual exhaustion of the available energy in the changes from one manifestation to another. In all physical processes heat is evolved, which heat is distributed by conduction and radiation and tends to become universally diffused throughout space. When complete uniformity has been attained, all physical phenomena will come to an end; in other words, our solar system must come to an end, and it must have had a beginning. It is a well-known argument. Is there anything to rewind the clock which is running down before our very eyes ? It was once urged that stellar collisions, and such-like things, might permit us to postulate a cyclical arrangement (and thus rearrangement) of universal phenomena ; but that hypothesis does not seem to find any supporters today.

In his interesting book, already mentioned, Dr. Johnstone called attention to the power possessed by living matter of reversing the process ; but no reversal of this kind and extent can make up for the constant degradation of energy which is taking place all round us. We mention this because it shows that " energy " cannot, in any case, afford an eternal solution, but only a temporal and therefore a limited one.

No one doubts that there is energy in the living thing, nor that there are what the author calls "complexes of energies." No one, again, will quarrel with the statement that energy is first seen in the sun, in the earth, in the air, and in the water ; that " with life something new appears in the universe, namely, a union of the internal and external adjustment of energy which we appropriately call an Organism." That " the germ is an energy complex " is no doubt an unproved hypothesis, as he admits, but is quite likely. With all these assertions we may agree, though we cannot with that which follows, namely, that energy is creative, for that such is impossible in any true sense of that word we have already tried to show.

We have now to ask ourselves in what way this energy conception of life differs from, or goes beyond, the two theories of life—mechanistic and vitalistic, which have hitherto been supposed to have exhausted the possibilities of explanation.

In order to do this we must analyse the author's idea of energy and its relationship to biological processes a little more closely. He begins his study of life and its evolution by considering how nutrition and the derivation of energy can have taken place before chlorophyl had come into existence ; and he very pertinently points to the prototrophic bacteria as probably representing " the survival of a primordial stage of life chemistry." Thus a " primitive feeder," the bacterium Nitrosomonas, " for combustion . . . takes in oxygen directly through the intermediate action of iron, phosphorus or manganese, each of the single cells being a powerful little chemical laboratory which contains oxidising catalysers, the activity of which is accelerated by the presence of iron and manganese. Still, in the primordial stage, Nitrosomonas lives on ammonium sulphate, taking its energy (food) from the nitrogen of ammonium and forming nitrates. Living symbiotically with it is Nitrobacter, which takes its energy (food) from the nitrates formed by Nitrosomonas, oxidising them into nitrates. Thus these two species illustrate in its simplest form our law of the interaction of an organism (Nitrobacter) with its life environment (Nitrosomonas)" (p. 82,author's italics).

Once one has got to this stage, it is ex hypothesi easy to ascend through the vegetable and animal worlds and to formulate the various laws which appear to have shaped the evolution of life and of species. We are then " within the system," but to arrive at anything worthy of the name of an explanation we have first to get within the system. Even then there remains over the task of explaining how the system comes to be there to get inside of. The writer talks of his example as " the simplest form." Yet, in his own words, it is a " powerful little chemical laboratory," well stocked with catalysers and other potent means for carrying on its work. " Simple " ! Well, no doubt comparatively simple, but in reality complex almost beyond the power of words to describe. " A chemical laboratory " ! Yes ; and one which performs most delicate operations.

" Well stocked with catalysers " ! And what are they ? Most wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing any discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but little. " Simple " seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation to other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence ? In what way did it learn to do its work ? How did catalysers come to be ?

Was all this mere chance-medley ? It is Paley's example of the watch found on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk abou "energy " and " complexes " of energy and " the creative force of energy " ? To us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these operations of Nitrosomonas are determined or they are not ; either they are the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance ; in either case the energy which is involved must act according to the conditions ordered or not ordered. In other words : if it is the dominant factor, as the writer would lead us to suppose ; if there is " direction," then the action of energy must be directive ; and, if it is directive, in what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old entelechy or vital principle, or whatever else one may choose to call it ? On the other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy save us from complete surrender to that theory ?

From all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being exhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object, that does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy originally came to be, nor how it came to work under the laws which seem to govern it.

It is one more added to the long list of " explanations," which hopelessly break down because those who have put them forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of grasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate cause.

Let us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this distinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of actions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of physics, and notably to those relating to energy and its transformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one another and not less to those around it ; that is to say, it must be more or less in harmony with its environment. There are the problems of germ-plasm, and its transmission ; the effect on it, if any, of the body, and the reaction of the body to its environment. There are also the catalysers of which we have spoken, with many problems associated with them, and throwing a possible and unexpected light on the vexed question of Vitalism and the Conservation of Energy. There are all these things, manifestations of energy ; there is the watch, and it is going. But, as we remarked elsewhere, the fact that we have learned that the resiliency of the spring in the watch makes it " go " does not exhaust the explanation of the watch any more than the fact that we know something of the actions and reactions of energy in the organism exhausts its explanation. The watch is " going " ; so is the organism. Each of them, in a sense, is a " wonderful little laboratory " in which manifestations of energy are constantly taking place. The watchmaker constructed the watch for that purpose ; who or what constructed the organism ? Darwin and the Darwinians would have said—Natural Selection. In fact, Darwin rather lamented that " the old argument from design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails now that the law of Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of Natural Selection, than in the course which the wind blows."

There again Darwin fell into a mistake, because he confused an intermediate with a final cause.

Even if Natural Selection were all that the most ultra-Darwinian could claim it to be, it could not, as Driesch and others have shown, exhaust the explanation of the organism.