Part 7

But science does throw some difficulties in the way of the mechanical theory; or, rather, the facts of science refuse to fit into the theory. If the stream of consciousness is nothing but a series of physiological and chemical changes, the laws of the one ought to be identical with the laws of the other, and both with the laws of mechanics, on the mechanical theory. But they are not. Those concise descriptions of mental phenomena which constitute the laws of psychology ought to coincide with those other concise descriptions of fact which constitute the laws of chemistry, if the facts described by the two sciences are the same. But the two sets of laws have, to say the least, more differences than resemblances.

This brings us to our second point. Our first point was that if the concise description of evolution, which sums it up as the process by which matter is continually redistributed in space, is to be proved to be true, it must be shown that movements in space are the only events which we know to take place. Our second point is that, unless it can be shown that mechanical laws are the only laws at work in the universe, this description of evolution does not find room for the whole working of the process of evolution.

Whether the only laws in the universe are mechanical laws is primarily a question of fact; and on the facts, as known to us at present, the answer to the question is a decided negative. The laws of psychology and of ethics are neither identical with nor have they been deduced from any physical laws. As a hypothesis designed to explain the way in which the world works, the redistribution of matter and motion neither includes nor accounts for those laws which are of most importance to man.

This appeal to the facts which are actually known is, however, often conceived to be in reality an appeal to our ignorance: mental laws have not as yet been shown to be deducible from physical laws, but they may be. So, too, the fact that no attempt to extend the gravitation formula from astronomy to any other department of science has yet succeeded, is no proof that it never will be so extended. Neither, we may remark, does it constitute any presumption that it will. Are there, then, any other grounds for presuming that mental law may yet be shown to be merely a case of some physical law? To some minds there seem to be grounds for presuming that it not only may, but must. However great our ignorance of the details of the process of evolution, there are certain broad facts which are beyond dispute. It is indisputable that there was a period in the history of the earth when there was no life upon it; that the elements which constitute living matter are themselves lifeless; that consciousness is correlated somehow with those organic compounds, the elements of which are inorganic. These facts together constitute an irresistible presumption that ultimately mind and matter must obey the same laws.

But this is not the desired conclusion. The conclusion desired is that mind must obey matter's laws. The fact that mind and matter obey the same ultimate laws is a different thing, and rather indicates that even the redistribution of matter and motion requires ultimately some other explanation than merely mechanical laws afford. To the religious mind it is quite intelligible that mind and matter should obey the same laws--God's laws.

It may be said, however, that we have not done full justice to the presumption raised by the broad facts of evolution. When there was no life upon the earth, the only laws in operation must have been physical laws, and consequently the laws of life and consciousness must have been produced by the laws of matter.

Now, this argument in effect amounts to a denial of any difference between the mechanical composition and the chemical combination of bodies. Bodies when mechanically compounded continue to follow the same laws as they obey when uncompounded, and their conjoint action can be deduced and foretold from the laws to which they are subject in their separate state: "Whatever would have happened in consequence of each cause taken by itself happens when they are together, and we have only to cast up the results." With chemical combination the case is quite different: the chemical compound exhibits properties and behaves in ways which are quite different from the properties and behaviour of its elements, and could not be foretold from any observation of them. Water, which is a combination of oxygen and hydrogen, exhibits no trace of the properties of either. "If this be true of chemical combinations, it is still more true of those far more complex combinations of elements which constitute organised bodies, and in which those extraordinary new uniformities arise, which are called the laws of life. All organised bodies are composed of parts similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substance considered as mere physical agents.... The tongue, for instance, is, like all other parts of the animal frame, composed of gelatine, fibrin, and other products of the chemistry of digestion, but from no knowledge of the properties of those substances could we ever predict that it could taste, unless gelatine or fibrin could themselves taste; for no elementary fact can be in the conclusion which was not in the premises."

What is thus true of physiology and of those chemical combinations on which it is based, is true also of sociology and the psychological facts on which it is based. "When physiological elements are combined, the combination reveals properties which were not appreciable in the separate elements. The increasingly complex combination or association of organic elements may produce an entirely special set of phenomena.... Their combination exhibits something more than the mere sum of their separate properties. Thus, no knowledge of man as an individual would enable us to forecast all the institutions which result from the association of men and which can only manifest themselves in social life."

It is clear, then, that the mechanical theory of evolution can only maintain itself by obliterating the distinction between mechanical juxtaposition and chemical combination. The obstacles which stand in the way of this obliteration, at the outset, are two. First, the behaviour of a chemical compound bears no resemblance to the behaviour of its constituents when separate. Next, the laws of the compound cannot be deduced or exhibited as consequences of the laws of the separate elements. To these two objections it may be replied, first, that though the compound bears no resemblance to its separate constituents, the character of every aggregate must be determined by that of its component parts; and, next, that with more knowledge we shall come to see the way in which the laws of the separate components generate the law of the whole. Perhaps, by way of illustration, we may employ an analogy. A number of bricks can be placed on one another to form a cube; a number of cannon balls will form a pyramidical pile. The aggregate of bricks resembles in shape the separate bricks; the aggregate of balls does not resemble a ball in shape. Yet the pyramidical shape of the pile of cannon balls is as certainly determined by the shape of the separate balls, as the cubical shape of the heap of bricks is determined by that of the separate bricks. Now, we do not know the geometrical structure of chemical atoms; but, on this analogy, it is reasonable to suppose that, if we did, we should see at once that the structure of a chemical compound is dependent on, though different from, that of its elements. So too in sociology, the aggregate, society, is not a human being, but the character of any given society is determined by the character of its individual members.

This last illustration, however, brings us to a fresh difficulty in the way of the mechanical theory. As is observed in the remarks quoted previously from Monsieur Bernard, the peculiar characteristic of those more intimate combinations which form the subject-matter of chemistry, physiology, and sociology is that in them the combining elements reveal properties which were not perceptible in them previous to their combination. It may be true that the character of these more intimate combinations is determined by the properties of their constituents, but it is by the properties which they reveal when in combination, not by those which are manifest in them when uncombined. Therein lies the difference between mechanical compounds and chemical combinations; and it is that difference which the mechanical theory does not account for. The more intimate, chemical, physiological, and sociological combinations take place in virtue of properties which require the combination to reveal them. In sociology it is not the juxtaposition of individual men, but their co-operation, which makes a society. In chemistry, the formation of chemical compounds implies the affinity of the elements.

It seems, then, that the mechanical theory contains half the truth, but not the whole truth. The half-truth which it insists on is that in both mechanical and chemical combinations there is juxtaposition of the constituent elements. The half of the truth which it overlooks is that when the elements are juxtaposed in one way they develop or manifest new qualities, when juxtaposed in the other way they do not. The mechanical theory asserts that the only factors in evolution are matter and the force which moves matter about: it takes into account the external factors, but leaves out the internal force or spontaneity in virtue of which things in a suitable environment develop new qualities. Doubtless the juxtaposition of the elements is a condition without which they would not manifest their new properties: the redistribution of matter and motion is a condition of evolution, but it does not constitute evolution. Rather, it is the continual revelation of these new qualities which constitutes evolution, chemical affinity and all its consequences in chemistry, spontaneous variation and all its consequences in the evolution of organic life.

From this point of view it becomes clear why the laws of a chemical compound neither are nor can be exhibited as consequences of or deductions from the laws of its separate constituents. The properties which the law of the compound describes are not the properties which the separate elements exhibit. The living matter of biology, the active atoms of chemistry, are not products of the lifeless, inert matter of mechanics; but are different and higher revelations of the same power which is manifested in different degrees in all. It is this progressive manifestation, and not the mere drifting about of bits of matter, which constitutes evolution. The redistribution of matter and motion may be a concomitant of evolution, but it is not evolution. "The continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," which Mr. Herbert Spencer offers as a definition of life, may be a condition of the maintenance of an organism; but life is and means to each one of us, and to the humblest thing that breathes, much more than that. Mr. Spencer's definition of life leaves, for instance, consciousness out, as of no account in life, and would be equally applicable to many automatic, self-adjusting machines. The definition constitutes an admission that life and consciousness cannot be exhibited as a consequence of the redistribution of matter and motion. They appear at a certain (or uncertain) point in the process of redistribution, and they have as concomitants certain further redistributions; but they are neither the consequence of nor are they identical with that redistribution; nor can their laws be reduced to mere cases of the laws of matter and motion.

The doctrine that evolution consists in nothing but movements in space, amounts to the assertion that we know nothing about things and men except that they move. In point of fact, we know a good deal more. We know that men think, and that the movement of thought is not a movement in space. We know that the vibrations of the ether are movements in space and that they are also something more: they are known to us also as sights, sounds, etc. No explanation or concise statement of the process of evolution can be satisfactory, or even scientific, which begins by denying the relevance and even the reality of the most important part of our knowledge. If the "first principles" of evolution are to be scientific, they must be inductions drawn from observation and based on some similarity in the phenomena observed, in which case, and in which case alone, they will apply to both classes of phenomena, mental and material. If any "principle" is true of one class alone, it is shown thereby not to be a "first principle": it is not universally applicable.

This raises the question whether there can be any first principles in this sense, whether mind and matter are, to some extent, subject to the same laws; or whether the resemblances which are sometimes drawn are not merely metaphors more or less expanded. Thus we speak of "weighty" objections; but will anyone maintain that ideas are subject to, or exemplify, the law of gravitation? We speak of ideas as "coherent" or "incoherent"; does anyone suppose that they stick together in the same way and from the same causes as material objects cohere?

Mr. Herbert Spencer has written a chapter under the title "Society is an Organism," in which he points out many resemblances between society and an organism. But Mr. Spencer himself "distinctly asserts" that the resemblances imply nothing more than that in both society and organisms there is "a mutual dependence of parts." That is to say, sociology does not herein "exemplify" some of the laws of biology, but sociology and biology both exemplify certain laws which hold good wherever there is a mutual dependence of parts.

Again, Mr. Spencer says that "evolution is definable as a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter"; and, having shown how and why the homogeneous and the incoherent in the domain of physics tend to become coherent and heterogeneous, he proceeds to show that there is a similar process in the evolution of knowledge, and to say "these mental changes exemplify a law of physical transformations that are wrought by physical forces." Now it doubtless is a fact that with intellectual development there goes a more accurate discrimination of differences at first unnoticed, a readier perception of resemblances at first undetected, a consequent segregation and classification of ideas, and a recognition of heterogeneity where homogeneity was at the first glance supposed to prevail. Doubtless, too, as a result of this process, there is greater coherency in our ideas. But is all this anything more than expanded metaphor? If it is something more, how can these mental changes "exemplify" a law of physics when ideas neither stick physically to each other nor gravitate to one another like the particles of the original, homogeneous, nebular mass? If mental and material phenomena can to some extent obey the same laws, and these laws are scientific inductions, there must be some resemblance between the phenomena.

That resemblance cannot be physical or spatial, because mental phenomena do not occupy space, or possess weight, or exist in three dimensions. As far as one can see, it consists in two points: both classes of phenomena (1) are objects of thought and (2) are displays of force or power. This implies that movements in space are displays of the same force as is manifested in the non-spatial movements of thought. The force which is displayed in consciousness as Will appears in space as motion. Both classes of phenomena, however, are not only displays of force, but also objects of thought. The reality of a phenomenon of either class consists in its being the manifestation of Will to or in consciousness. The reality of the two classes is co-extensive with their similarity, and is the sole foundation for any true inferences or justifiable generalisations about them.

If the law of "the instability of the homogeneous" is a first principle, and is a scientific induction based upon a real similarity between the mental and material phenomena of which it is offered as an explanation, it becomes interesting to inquire how far the similarity extends. In the case of mental evolution the essential feature of the process is that the mind gradually comes to perceive resemblances and to discriminate differences which, though they were present all the time, were not at first appreciable. In other words, the apparently homogeneous was, from the beginning, really heterogeneous. Now this fact, which is true in the sphere of mental evolution, finds its exact parallel in the evolution of the material universe, if the account given above of mechanical compounds and chemical combinations be true. What appears first in the process of evolution, and is exemplified by mechanics, is matter apparently inert. But when the particles of this apparently inert matter enter into chemical combinations with one another they reveal a fresh set of properties, quite different from those exhibited by them previous to their combination; and, when they enter into physiological relations, they display yet further additional properties. This progressive manifestation it is, and not the accompanying "dissipation of motion and integration of matter," which constitutes evolution in the material world, and finds its exact parallel in mental evolution. In both cases we have Will manifested as object of thought; and in both cases we judge most truly of that which is manifested when we judge it by its most complete manifestation. In both cases the apparent homogeneity is not the ultimate fact underlying everything, but is only the first-fruits of that which is yet to come.

FOOTNOTES:

First Principles, § 46.

MILL, Inductive Logic, bk. iii. ch. xii. p. 549.

Ibid.

First Principles, ch. iii. § 46.

SETH, Chambers's Encyclopædia, s.v. "Philosophy."

KIRCHOFF, Vorlesungen über mathematische Physik, i. p. 1.

MERTZ, History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, i. pp. 382, 3, note.

LOTZE, Microcosmus, E. T., ii. p. 718.

LOTZE, Microcosmus, E. T., ii. p. 718.