We have not said that inorganic raw material is unable to produce organic substance spontaneously, which substance later upbuilds the organism, but for the present this remains an open question to which as yet the materialists have not given an answer. But before we enter the discussion of this extremely important question, we will in this connection mention another discovery of natural science which seems exactly to support the materialistic trend of thought, a fact, therefore, that crowns, so to speak, their whole philosophy.
Up to the year 1828 it was thought that organic substance could be created only by the force of life. But Wöhler unexpectedly succeeded in producing organic compositions from inorganic substances, a discovery which was followed by a series of others in the same direction. It is with evident satisfaction that Büchner calls our attention to these facts.
In order to show the necessity for assuming a life-force, he says, people have reminded the chemists that they are unable to produce organic compositions, that is, the peculiar grouping of the elements into those ternary and quaternary compounds which owe their existence to an organic being, endowed with life and life-force, and they have added the amusing remark that the chemists must produce living beings in their retorts—make men—if there be no life-force and if life be only the result of chemical processes. The chemists have not been at a loss for an answer. They have made dextrose, several organic acids and bases, and recently they have also succeeded in producing hydrates of carbon. Evolution has proceeded rapidly in this direction, and today alcohol and precious perfumes are made from coal, candles from slate, Berlin blue, taurin and innumerable other bodies—formerly believed to be exclusively of animal or plant origin—from the simple material that inorganic nature offers us.
The materialists have a custom of not considering themselves under obligation to do more than point to some scientific facts, without investigating whether these facts support their speculations or not. Faithful to this custom, Büchner stops just where his own researches should have commenced. Büchner has not written a textbook on physics or chemistry. He has undertaken the extremely serious task of investigating whether modern natural science has produced results which show that nothing but matter and its forces, and consequently no soul, no eternal life, etc., exist. Our first demand of such an analysis would be, to put it moderately, that the facts cited really prove what they are put forward to prove. But to this demand neither Büchner nor his followers pay any attention. Büchner might, for instance, in regard to the facts last mentioned, have taken the following questions as the starting point for his investigations:
It is true that the chemists have produced artificially certain organic compounds of inorganic elements, and they will probably go much further in this direction. But is this really something to be wondered at, when all organic substance is composed of inorganic elements which, wherever they exist, possess the same qualities? The question is how this organic substance is formed. Does it appear spontaneously in the chemist’s laboratory while he himself stands idle, observing the phenomenon, or must he interfere, guide and plan the activity of the chemical forces in order to obtain these artificial compounds? Why should not something similar take place in the laboratory of inorganic nature? There is, as far as our experience goes, no organic substance to be found due to the spontaneous action of known natural laws. What is the reason of this? How is organic matter formed in nature? And, further, is there no difference between the organic matter produced by the chemists and that present in living nature? And if this difference proves to be that the former is not organized while the latter always is, why cannot the chemists produce organized matter?
If Büchner had proposed these or similar questions and taken time to think them over, he would have obtained a different result, but instead he breaks off his argumentation just where it should have commenced.
Consequently the fault in the materialists’ process of thinking does not lie in the facts used as foundation for their argument. The premises and the beginning are correct. Just because organic matter consists of the same elements as inorganic, just for this reason natural science can decide whether the physical laws are able spontaneously to produce such matter and such machines. The materialists have stopped after providing the introduction; the continuation and the end are lacking. They have overlooked the whole series of scientific facts that stand in necessary correlation to the starting point. We have therefore only to resume the interrupted demonstration and will then endeavor to make the latter part as simple and comprehensible as Büchner made the former.