CHAPTER V.
THE CREATION OF LIVING MATTER.
We now come to Living Matter; directing attention, first, to that elementary form of life as exhibited in simple protoplasm and in the lower forms of organism, and then to the perfect forms of bird and beast. In each case, we shall find the same evidence of Design and Intelligence, the same proof of "contrivance" and purpose, which we cannot attribute to the mere action of secondary causes.
The simplest form in which LIFE is manifested is in a viscid gelatinous substance without colour or form, called Protoplasm. Wherever there is life there is protoplasm. Protoplasm, as before remarked, lies just under the bark in trees, and is the material from which the growth of the wood and bark cells and fibres proceeds. Protoplasm, is also present in the muscles and in the blood, and wherever growth is going on.
But protoplasm also exists by itself; or, more properly speaking, there exist living creatures, both plant and animal, which are so simple in structure, so low in organization, that they consist of nothing but a speck of protoplasm. Such a creature is the microscopic amoeba. Sometimes these little specks of protoplasm are surrounded with beautifully formed "silicious shells—a skeleton of radiating spiculae or crystal-clear concentric spheres of exquisite symmetry and beauty.[[11]]" The simplest amoeba however, has no definite form; but the little mass moves about, expands and contracts, throws out projections on one side and draws them in on the other. It exhibits irritability when touched. It may be seen surrounding a tiny particle of food, extracting nutriment from it and growing in size. Ultimately the little body separates or splits up into two, each part thenceforth taking a separate existence.
Now it is claimed that such a little organism contains the potentiality of all life; that it grows and multiplies, and develops into higher and higher organisms, into all (in short) that we see in the plant and animal world around us. This, it is argued, is all done by natural causes, not by any direction or guidance or intervention of a Divine agency.
Here we must stop to ask how this protoplasm, or simplest form of organic life, came to exist? How did it get its life—its property of taking nourishment, of growing and of giving birth to other creatures like itself?
The denier of creation replies, that just in the same way as, by the laws of affinity, other inanimate substances came together to produce the earth—salts and other compounds we see in the world around us—so did certain elements combine to form protoplasm. This combination when perfected has the property of being alive, just as water has the property of assuming a solid form or has any other of the qualities which we speak of as its properties.
Now it is perfectly true that, treated as a substance, you can take the gummy protoplasm, put it into a glass and subject it to analysis like any other substance. But simple as the substance appears, composition is really very complicated. Professor Allman tells us that so difficult and wonderful is its chemistry, that in fact really very little is known about it. The best evidence we have, I believe, makes it tolerably certain that protoplasm consists of a combination of ammonia, carbonic acid, and water, and that every molecule of it is made up of 76 atoms, of which 36 are carbon, 26 hydrogen, 4 nitrogen, and 10 oxygen.[[12]]
But no chemist has ever been able either to account theoretically for such a composition, still less to produce it artificially. It is urged, however, that it may be only due to our clumsy apparatus and still very imperfect knowledge of chemistry, that we were unable artificially to make up protoplasm.
And of course there is no answer to a supposition of this sort. Nevertheless there is no sort of reason to believe that protoplasm will ever be made; nor, if we could succeed in uniting the elements into a form resembling protoplasmic jelly, is there the least reason to suppose that such a composition would exhibit the irritability, or the powers of nutrition and reproduction, which are essentially the characteristics of living protoplasm. It is not too much to say that, after the close of the controversy about spontaneous generation, it is now a universally admitted principle of science that life can only proceed from life—the old omne vivum ex ovo in a modern form.[[13]]
But here the same sort of argument that was brought forward regarding the possibility of matter and its laws being self-caused, comes in as regards life.
The argument in the most direct form was made use of by Professor Huxley, but it is difficult to believe that so powerful a thinker could seriously hold to a view which will not bear examination, however neatly and brilliantly it may go off when first launched into the air. The argument is that life can only be regarded as a further property of certain forms of matter. Oxygen and hydrogen, when they combine, result in a new substance, quite unlike either of them in character, and possessing new and different properties. The way in which the combination is effected is a mystery, yet we do not account for the new and peculiar properties of water (so different from those of the original gases) as arising from a principle of "aquosity," which we have to invoke from another world. The answer is that the argument is from analogy, and that there is not really the remotest analogy between the two cases. It is true that, as far as we know, electricity is necessary to force a combination of the requisite equivalents of oxygen and hydrogen into water. But though we do not know why this is, or what electricity is, we can repeat the process as often as we will. But mark the difference; the water once existing is obviously only a new form of matter, in the same category with the gases it came from: it neither increases in bulk, nor takes in fresh elements to grow, and give birth to new drops of water. But protoplasm has something quite different—for there may be dead protoplasm and living protoplasm, both identical to the eye and to every chemical test. In either condition, protoplasm, as such, has properties of the same nature (though not of the same kind) as those of water, oxygen gas, or any other matter; it is colorless, heavy, sticky, elastic, and so forth; but besides all that (without the aid of electricity or any physical force we can apply) one has the power of producing more protoplasm—gathering for itself, by virtue of its inherent power, the materials for growth and reproduction.
If directly water was called into existence it could take in nourishment, and divide and go on producing more water—and if some water could do this, while other water (which no available test could distinguish from it in any other respect) could not, then we should be perfectly justified in giving a special name to this power, and calling it "aquosity" or "vitality" or anything else, it being out of all analogy to anything else which we call a "property" of matter.
In the introduction of LIFE into the aeon of organic developmental history, we have a clear and distinct period, as we had when matter came into view, or when the change was ushered in which set the cosmic gas cooling and liquefying, and turning to solid in various form.
The fact is that every organic form, whether plant or animal, derived from the protoplasmic compounds of carbon-dixoide, ammonia and water, is, as Mr. Drummond puts it,[[14]] "made of materials which have once been inorganic. An organizing principle, not belonging to their kingdom, lays hold of them and elaborates them."
Thus by the introduction of LIFE we have a vastly enlarged horizon. Before, in the organic world, we had only the "principle" of solidifying or crystallizing, liquefying, and turning to gas or vapour, ever stopping when the state was attained. Or if a combination was in progress, still the result was only a rearrangement of the same bulk of materials (however new the form) in solid, liquid, or gas, but no increase, no nutrition, no reproduction. In the organic world we have something so different, that whether we talk of "property" or "principle," the things are entirely distinct.
The essential difference, stated as regards the mere facts of irritability or motion, nutrition and reproduction, is so grandly sufficient in itself, that one almost regrets to have to add on the other facts which further emphasize the distinction between life and any property of matter. But these further facts are highly important as regards another part of the argument. For while what has just been said almost demonstrates the necessity of a Giver of Life from a kingdom outside the organic, the further facts point irresistibly to the conclusion that we must predicate more about the Giver of Life that we can of an abstract and unknown Cause.
The original protoplasm, when dead, is undistinguishable by the eye, by chemical test, or by the microscope, from the same protoplasm when living; and living protoplasm, again, may be either animal or vegetable. Both are in every respect (externally) absolutely identical. Yet the one will only develop into a plant, the other only into an animal. Nor does it diminish the significance of the fact to say that the differentiation is now fixed by heredity. If we suppose protoplasm to be only a fortuitous combination of elements, what secondary or common natural cause will account for its acquisition of the fixed difference? It is true that some forms of plants exhibit some functions that closely approach the functions of what we call animal life; but, as we shall see presently, there is no evidence whatever that there is any bridge between the two—we have no proof that a plant ever develops into an animal. Here is one of the gaps which the theory of Evolution, true as it is to a certain extent, cannot bridge over; and we must not overlook the fact. We shall revert to it hereafter.
Can it be believed, then, that protoplasm, as the origin of life, is self-caused, and self-developed? And this is not all. I must briefly remind my readers that the way in which animal protoplasm deals with the elements of nutrition is quite opposite to that which plant protoplasm follows. I might, indeed, have mentioned this at an earlier stage, when I mentioned Professor Huxley's comparison of the chemical action in the formation of water with what he assumed to be the case in the formation of protoplasm. When water is formed, the two gases disappear, and an exactly equal weight of water appears in their place; but if living protoplasm is enabled to imbibe liquid or other nutriment containing ammonia, water, and carbonic acid, there is no disappearance of the three elements and an equivalent weight of living protoplasm appearing in its place. Protoplasm consumes the oxygen and sets free the carbonic acid. Both kinds of protoplasm do this, until exposed to the light; and then a difference is observed; for under the influence of light, animal protoplasm alone continues to act in this way, and vegetable protoplasm begins at once to develop little green bodies or corpuscles in its cells, and afterwards acts in a totally opposite way, taking the carbon into its substance and giving off the oxygen.[[15]]
Not only then has each kind of protoplasm its own mysterious character impressed on it, and is compelled to act in a certain way; but still further, each particle of animal and vegetable protoplasm, when directed into its general course of development as plant or animal, will again only obey a certain course of development in its own line.
But we must proceed a step further; for those who would believe in the sufficiency of unaided Evolution, bid us bear in mind how very elementary the dawn of instinct or the beginning of reason is in the lowest forms which are classed as animal, and how very small is the gap[[16]] between some highly organized plants and some animal forms, and argue therefore that they may justly regard the distinction as of minor importance, and hope that the "missing link" will be yet discovered and proved. At any rate, they minimize the difference, and urge that it is of no account if at least they can establish the sufficiency of a proved development extending unbroken from the lowest to the highest animal form. And having fixed attention on this side, no doubt there is a long stretch of smooth water over which the passage is unchecked.
The Evolution theory is that all the different species of animals, birds, and other forms of life have been caused by the accumulation and perpetuation of numerous small changes which began in one or at most a few elementary forms, and went on till all the thousands of species we now know of were developed.[[17]] It is a fact that all organic forms have a certain tendency to vary. I need only allude to the many varieties of pigeons, horses, cattle, and dogs which are produced by varying the food, the circumstances of life and so forth, and by selective breeding.
The contention then is: given certain original simple forms of life, probably marine or aquatic—for it is in the water that the most likely occur—these will gradually change and vary, some in one direction, some in another; that the changes go on increasing, each creature giving birth to offspring which exhibits the stored-up results of change, till the varied and finished forms—some reptile, some bird, some animal—which we now see around us, have been produced. And at last man himself was developed in the same way. All this, observe, is by the action of just such ordinary and natural causes as we now see operating around us—changes in food and in climate, changes in one part requiring a corresponding change in others, and so on.
Nature contains no sharply drawn lines. Plants are different from animals; but there are animals so low down in the scale of life that it is difficult to distinguish them from plants. Pigeons are distinct from pheasants, but the line at which the one species ends and the other begins is difficult to draw. This fact seems to invite some theory of one form changing into other. Accordingly the evolutionist explains the working of the process which he asserts to be sufficient to produce all the various forms of life in our globe.
After stating this more in detail than we have previously done, we shall be in a better position to judge if the process (which in the main we have no desire to deny or even to question) can dispense with guidance and the fixing of certain lines and limits within which, and of certain types towards which, the development proceeds. That is our point.
It is hardly necessary to illustrate the enormous destruction of life which goes on in the world. Even among the human race, the percentage of infants that die in the first months of their life is very large. But in the lower forms of life it is truly enormous. Only consider the myriads of insects that perish from hunger or accident, and from the preying of one species on another. If it were not so, the world would be overrun by plagues of mice, of birds, of insects of all kinds, and indeed by creatures of every grade. The term "struggle for existence" is, then, not an inapt one. All forms of living creatures have to contend with enemies which seek to prey upon or to destroy them, with the difficulty of obtaining food, and with what I may call the chances of nature—cold, storms, floods, disease, and so forth.
Now, it is obvious that if some creatures of a given kind possess some accidental peculiarity or modification in their formation which gives them (in one way or another) an advantage over their fellows, these improved specimens are likely to survive, and, surviving, to have offspring.
It is this perpetuation of advantageous changes, originally induced by the circumstances of environment, that is indicated by the term "natural selection." Nature chooses out the form best suited to the circumstances which surround it, and this form lives while the others die out. And this form goes on improving by slow successive changes, which make it more and more fit for the continually changing circumstances of its life.
Subordinate also to this natural selection is the principle that bright colour and other special qualities may be developed in the males of a race, because individuals with such advantages are more attractive, and therefore more easily find mates, than dull-coloured or otherwise less attractive individuals.
Of each of these principles I may give a simple example. Supposing a species of bird with a soft slender beak to be placed on an island, where the only food they could obtain was fruit enclosed in a hard or tough shell or covering. Supposing some birds accidentally possessed of a beak that was shorter and stouter than the others', these would be able to break open the shell and get at the fruit, while the others would starve. Some of the descendants of the birds with the stout beaks would inherit the same peculiarity, and in the course of several generations there would thus arise a species with short and strong, perhaps curved, beaks just fitted to live on fruits of the kind described. In a similar way the webbed feet of birds that swim were developed by their aquatic habits. And so with the long slender toes of the waders, which are so well fitted for walking over floating aquatic plants.
Of the other principle, sexual selection, a familiar example is the bright and showy colouring of the male birds of many species: the females of their species, as they need protection while helplessly sitting on their eggs, are dull-coloured like the bark of trees or the sand, among which their nests lie hid.
Some of the Himalayan pheasants exhibit this peculiarity to a marked degree. Originally, it is said, the male bird, which was more brightly coloured than the rest, got mated more easily by the preference shown to him for his bright colour.
The question is, can we suppose all this to go on, by self-caused laws and concurrence of circumstances, without a pre-existing design for the forms to reach or an external guidance in the processes?
Professor Allman.
Nicholson ("Zoology," p. 4) gives for Albumen, which is nearly identical with protoplasm—Carbon, 144; Hydrogen, 110; Nitrogen, 18; Oxygen, 42; Sulphur, 2. These figures nearly equal those in the text, being those figures multiplied each by 4 (approximately) and without the trace of sulphur.
See "Critiques and Addresses," T.H. Huxley, F.R.S., p. 239. So much is this the case, that it is really superfluous, however interesting, to recall the experiments of Dr. Tyndall and others, which finally demonstrated that wherever primal animal forms, bacteria and other, "microbes," were produced in infusions of hay, turnip, &c., apparently boiled and sterilized and then hermetically sealed, there were really germs in the air enclosed in the vessel, or germs that in one form or another were not destroyed by the boiling or heating. Dr. Bastian's argument for spontaneous generation is thus completely overthrown. (See Drummond, "Natural Law," pp. 62-63.)
"Natural Law," p. 233.
Certain fungi seem to afford an exception to this. The above is, I believe, true as a theoretical action of plants and animals in protoplasmic form. But practically, in all higher developments of either kind, other distinctions come into play; e.g., that plants can make use of inorganic matter, gases, and water, and elaborate them into organic matter. Animals cannot do this, they require more or less solid food—always requiring "complex organic bodies which they ultimately reduce to much simpler inorganic bodies. They are thus mediately or immediately dependent on plants for their subsistence" (Nicholson, "Zoology," 6th ed. p. 17). It is perhaps with reference to this that in the Book of Genesis the Creator is represented as giving plant life to the service of man and animals—while nothing is said of the preying of Carnivora and Insectivora on animal life.
At the risk of repetition I will remind the reader that nature contains nothing like a progressive scale from plant to animal. It is never that the highest plant can be connected with the lowest animal as in one series of links. The animal kingdom and the plant kingdom are absolutely apart. Both start from similar elementary proteinaceous structures; and both preserve their development upwards—each exhibiting some of the features of the other. It is at the bottom of each scale that resemblance is to be found, not between the top of one and the lowest members of the other.
The reader may find this admirably put in Wallace, "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 302.