APPENDIX.
I add here a brief statement published by me in the Times, May 17th, 1903, which touches on the question of the origin of life, and certain theories of creation.
“It seems to me that, were the discussion excited by Lord Kelvin’s statements to the Christian Association at University College allowed to close in its present phase, the public would be misled and injustice done both to Lord Kelvin and his critics. I therefore beg you to allow me to point out what appear to me to be the significant features of the matter under discussion.
“Lord Kelvin, whose eminence as a physicist gives a special interest to his opinion upon any subject, made at University College, or in his subsequent letter to you, the following statements:—
“1. That ‘fortuitous concourse of atoms’ is not an inappropriate description of the formation of a crystal.
“2. That ‘fortuitous concourse of atoms’ is utterly absurd in respect to the coming into existence, or the growth, or the continuation of the molecular combinations presented in the bodies of living things.
“3. That, though inorganic phenomena do not do so, yet the phenomena of such living things as a sprig of moss, a microbe, a living animal—looked at and considered as matters of scientific investigation—compel us to conclude that there is scientific reason for believing in the existence of a creative and directive power.
“4. That modern biologists are coming once more to a firm acceptance of something, and that is—a vital principle.
“In your article on the discussion which has followed these statements you declare that this (the opinions I have quoted above) is ‘a momentous conclusion,’ and that it is a vital point in the relation of science to religion.
“I do not agree with that view of the matter, although I find Lord Kelvin’s statements full of interest. So far as I have been able to ascertain, after many years in which these matters have engaged my attention, there is no relation, in the sense of a connection or influence, between science and religion. There is, it is true, often an antagonistic relation between exponents of science and exponents of religion when the latter illegitimately misrepresent or deny the conclusions of scientific research or try to prevent its being carried on, or, again, when the former presume, by magnifying the extremely limited conclusions of science, to deal in a destructive spirit with the very existence of those beliefs and hopes which are called ‘religion.’ Setting aside such excusable and purely personal collisions between rival claimants for authority and power, it appears to me that science proceeds on its path without any contact with religion, and that religion has not, in its essential qualities, anything to hope for, or to fear from, science.
“The whole order of nature, including living and lifeless matter—from man to gas—is a network of mechanism the main features and many details of which have been made more or less obvious to the wondering intelligence of mankind by the labour and ingenuity of scientific investigators. But no sane man has ever pretended, since science became a definite body of doctrine, that we know or ever can hope to know or conceive of the possibility of knowing, whence this mechanism has come, why it is there, whither it is going, and what there may or may not be beyond and beside it which our senses are incapable of appreciating. These things are not ‘explained’ by science, and never can be.
“Lord Kelvin speaks of a ‘fortuitous concourse of atoms,’ but I must confess that I am quite unable to apprehend what he means by that phrase in the connection in which he uses it. It seems to me impossible that by ‘fortuitous’ he can mean something which is not determined by natural cause and therefore is not part of the order of nature. When an ordinary man speaks of a concourse having arisen ‘by chance’ or ‘fortuitously,’ he means merely that the determining conditions which have led by natural causation to its occurrence were not known to him beforehand; he does not mean to assert that it has arisen without the operation of such determining conditions; and I am quite unable to understand how it can be maintained that ‘the concourse of atoms’ forming a crystal, or even a lump of mud, is in any philosophic sense more correctly described as ‘fortuitous’ than is the concourse of atoms which has given rise to a sprig of moss or an animal. It would be a matter of real interest to many of your readers if Lord Kelvin would explain more precisely what he means by the distinction which he has, somewhat dogmatically, laid down between the formation of a crystal as ‘fortuitous’ and the formation of an organism as due to ‘creative and directive purpose.’
“I am not misrepresenting what Lord Kelvin has said on this subject when I say that he seems to have formed the conception of a creator who, first of all, without care or foresight, has produced what we call ‘matter,’ with its necessary properties, and allowed it to aggregate and crystallise as a painter might allow his pigments to run and intermingle on his palette; and then, as a second effort, has brought some of these elements together with ‘creative and directive purpose,’ mixing them, as it were, with ‘a vital principle’ so as to form living things, just as the painter might pick out certain colours from his confused palette and paint a picture.
“This conception of the intermittent action of creative power and purpose does not, I confess, commend itself to me. That, however, is not so surprising as that it should be thought that this curious conception of the action of creative power is of value to religion. Whether the intermittent theory is a true or an erroneous conception seems to me to have nothing to do with ‘religion’ in the large sense of that word so often misused. It seems to me to be a kind of mythology, and I should have thought could be of no special assistance to teachers of Christianity. Such theories of divided creative operations are traceable historically to polytheism.
“Lastly, with reference to Lord Kelvin’s statement that ‘modern biologists are coming once more to a firm acceptance of something—and that is “a vital principle.”’ I will not venture to doubt that Lord Kelvin has such persons among his acquaintance. On the other hand, I feel some confidence in stating that a more extensive acquaintance with modern biologists would have led Lord Kelvin to perceive that those whom he cites are but a trifling percentage of the whole. I do not myself know of any one of admitted leadership among modern biologists who is showing signs of ‘coming to a belief in the existence of a vital principle.’
“Biologists were, not many years ago, so terribly hampered by these hypothetical entities—‘vitality,’ ‘vital spirits,’ ‘anima animans,’ ‘archetypes,’ ‘vis medicatrix,’ ‘providential artifice,’ and others which I cannot now enumerate—that they are very shy of setting any of them up again. Physicists, on the other hand, seem to have got on very well with their problematic entities, their ‘atoms’ and ‘ether,’ and ‘the sorting demon of Maxwell.’ Hence, perhaps, Lord Kelvin offers to us, with a light heart, the hypothesis of a ‘a vital principle’ to smooth over some of our admitted difficulties. On the other hand, we biologists, knowing the paralysing influence of such hypotheses in the past, are as unwilling to have anything to do with ‘a vital principle,’ even though Lord Kelvin erroneously thinks we are coming to it, as we are to accept other strange ‘entities’ pressed upon us by other physicists of a modern and singularly adventurous type. Modern biologists (I am glad to be able to affirm) do not accept the hypothesis of ‘telepathy’ advocated by Sir Oliver Lodge, nor that of the intrusions of disembodied spirits pressed upon them by others of the same school.
“We biologists take no stock in these mysterious entities. We think it a more helpful method to be patient and to seek by observation of, and experiment with, the phenomena of growth and development to trace the evolution of life and of living things without the facile and sterile hypothesis of ‘a vital principle.’ Similarly, we seek by the study of cerebral disease to trace the genesis of the phenomena which are supposed by some physicists who have strayed into biological fields to justify them in announcing the ‘discovery’ of ‘telepathy’ and a belief in ghosts.”
[CHAPTER II]
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE, 1881–1906
I propose to give in the following pages an outline of the advance of science in the past twenty-five years. It is necessary to distinguish two main kinds of advancement, both of which are important. Francis Bacon gave the title ‘Advancement of Learning’ to that book in which he explained not merely the methods by which the increase of knowledge was possible, but advocated the promotion of knowledge to a new and influential position in the organization of human society. His purpose, says Dean Church, was ‘to make knowledge really and intelligently the interest, not of the school or the study or the laboratory only, but of society at large.’ So that in surveying the advancement of science in the past quarter of a century we should ask not only what are the new facts discovered, the new ideas and conceptions which have come into activity, but what progress has science made in becoming really and intelligently the interest of society at large. Is there evidence that there is an increase in the influence of science on the lives of our fellow-citizens and in the great affairs of the State? Is there an increased provision for securing the progress of scientific investigation in proportion to the urgency of its need or an increased disposition to secure the employment of really competent men trained in scientific investigation for the public service?