237. Life, then, whatever be its nature, may be supposed to penetrate into the structural depths of the universe. Its seat is in a region inaccessible to human inquiry, and equally inaccessible, we may well suppose, to the inquiries of the higher created intelligences. Intimations of its presence are no doubt constantly emerging from this region of thick darkness into the objective universe, but when they have reached it they obey the ordinary laws of phenomena, according to which a material effect implies a material antecedent.
Notwithstanding all this, life exists just as surely as the Deity exists. For we have subjected both these mysteries to the same process, and have found it as difficult to rid ourselves of the one as of the other.
We have driven the creative operation of the Great First Cause into the durational depths of the universe,—into the eternity of the past,—but for all that we have not got rid of God. In like manner we have driven the mystery of life into the structural depths of the universe,—that region of thick darkness which no created eye is able to pierce,—but we have not got rid of life, nor are we likely to do so. Before concluding this digression upon the place of life, let us briefly review the attempts made to account for the origin of life by those who have yet fallen short of the scientific conception of an Unseen Universe.
238. Sir W. Thomson has gone further than any one else in such inquiries. We have already alluded to his attempt to explain the origin of the material universe by the vortex-ring hypothesis, and also to his other attempt to explain gravitation by the modification of the hypothesis of ultra-mundane corpuscles. If we add to these his attempt to explain the origin of life as consistently as possible with the principle of Continuity, we think it must be acknowledged that he is a true pioneer in such inquiries as those of this volume as well as in the more ordinary branches of Physical Science.
The explanation of the origin of life proposed by Sir W. Thomson had also occurred independently to Professor Helmholtz. This latter physicist, in an article on the use and abuse of the deductive method in Physical Science,[63] tells us very clearly what led himself, and no doubt Sir W. Thomson likewise, to suggest the meteoric hypothesis as a possible way of accounting for the origin of terrestrial life:—‘If failure attends all our efforts to obtain a generation of organisms from lifeless matter, it seems to me (says Professor Helmholtz) a thoroughly correct procedure to inquire whether there has ever been an origination of life, or whether it is not as old as matter, and whether its germs, borne from one world to another, have not been developed wherever they have found a favourable soil.’
239. We have already sufficiently pointed out that the man of science objects to separate creations, and that, in consequence, he tries to explain the present terrestrial life by means of a single primordial germ. But the difficulty still remains regarding the original appearance of this germ.
Now, according to the meteoric hypothesis, this germ may have been wafted to us from some other world, or its fragments, and thus one act of creation of life might possibly serve for many worlds. If therefore this hypothesis were otherwise tenable it would diminish the difficulty implied by separate creations, but would it entirely remove it? We doubt this very much.
For, in the first place, as far as we can judge ([Art. 163]) the visible universe—the universe of worlds—is not eternal, while however the invisible universe, or that which we may for illustration at least associate with the ethereal medium, is necessarily eternal. The visible universe must have had its origin in time ([Art. 116]), no doubt from a nebulous condition. But in this condition it can hardly have been fit for the reception of life. Life must therefore have been created afterwards. We have thus at least two separate creations, both taking place in time—the one of matter and the other of life. And even if it were possible, which it is not, to get over one of the difficulties attending this hypothesis, that of creation in time, by regarding the visible universe as eternal; yet even then we must regard matter and life as implying two separate creative acts if we assume the nebulous hypothesis to be true. For if x denote the date of the advent of life, and x + a that of the advent of matter, a being a constant quantity, the two operations cannot be made simultaneous by merely increasing the value of x without limit. Now this is what we mean by eternity, and therefore we cannot help thinking that this want of simultaneity implies a defect in this mode of viewing the origin of things.
240. Yet another hypothesis has been produced, which starts with the assumption that all matter is in some simple sense alive. Looking upon the atom as the essential thing in the universe, the various motions of the atom are by this school supposed to be accompanied by a species of consciousness inconceivably simple. Under certain circumstances this eternal and immortal consciousness is supposed to be consistent with that which we call the life of the individual, while under other circumstances these two lives are not consistent with one another. The individual then dies, but nevertheless the simple immortal lives of the atoms which compose his body remain attached to them as truly as before.
There is no disappearance of anything from the universe, only the mode in which the simple immortal life becomes manifested has undergone a change of expression, just as energy may be supposed to undergo a change without disappearing. It is thought by the members of this school that such a hypothesis satisfies the Principle of Continuity more fully than any other. For, looking at things from the old point of view, we see that certain atoms are concerned in the manifestation of consciousness, as for instance the particles of our brains, while certain other atoms are not so concerned, as for instance the inorganic matter we see around us.