Life: Its True Genesis

by Horatius Flaccus

But however rapidly these materialistic theories may disappear in the scientific waste-basket of the future, there is one sublime verity that will stand the test of all time, and that is, that the moral universe of God is no less complete, in the Divine Intendment, than the physical universe, while the latter is so inter-correlated and inter-tissued with the former, in all its conceivable relations, that it can no more exist independently of its correlative, than matter can exist independently of space, or time independently of eternity. [[29]]

According to this view of Leibnitz, all living organisms have their own essence, or essential qualities and characteristics. They have been from all eternity in the "Divine Intendment," and can undergo no changes or modifications which shall make them essentially different from what they were in the beginning, or are now. This is not only true of the "germs" that are "in themselves upon the earth," but of every living thing, whether lying within or beyond the telescopic or microscopic limits. As a law of causation, as well as of consecutive thought, there must be in the order of life (all life) a continuous chain of ideas linking the past to the present, the present to the future, and the future to eternity. But that this continuous chain is dependent on mere physical changes or manifestations, is a logical induction utterly incapable of being exhibited in scientific formulæ. The higher and more satisfactory induction is that which places cause before effect, the Maker before the made, the Creator before the creature, and so on, in the analogical order, till the smallest conceivable "vital unit" is reached in the universe of organic matter. To begin, therefore, with microscopic observation, at a point in the ephemeromorphic world where that optical instrument fails to give back any intelligible answer, and synthetically follow this chain of causation upward and outward to Dr. Tyndall's "fiery cloud of mist," in which it is assumed that all the diversified possibilities and potentialities of the universe once lay latent, may answer the logical necessities of the "Evolution" theory, but will never satisfy the inductive processes of a Plato, a Leibnitz, or a Newton.

Professor Tyndall, in speaking of his "fiery-cloud" theory, says: "Many who hold the hypothesis of natural evolution would probably assent to the position (his position) that at the present moment all our philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, all our art,--Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and a Da Vinci--are potential in the fires of the sun." But, to be consistent in their inductions, they should proclaim themselves sun-worshippers at once, and ascribe to that transcendent luminary all the potentialities of a universe

"Fresh-teeming from the hand of God."

But what possible advantage, we would ask, can this physical hypothesis of life have over that which ascribes to God the issues of all life in the universe, from the highest to the lowest living organism? We can positively conceive of none but that of placing the cosmological cart before the horse, and so harnessing "cause and effect" in tandem, that the latter shall uniformly precede the former in the chain of logical induction. As a dialectical feat, in exhibiting the higher possibilities of logic, it may have its advantages in subordinating the facts of science to the higher illuminations of fancy, and thus resting the basis of reality on the ever-changing and ever-shifting assumptions of the human mind. For the materialistic theories of to-day are not those of yesterday, nor is there any certainty that they will be those of to-morrow. They are almost as fantastic and variable as the forms of the kaleidoscope, although, as a general rule, they lack the symmetrical arrangements and proportions of that scientific toy.

Professor Bastian, in considering the heterogenetic phenomena of "living matter," is obliged to fall back, near the end of his great work, on "the countless myriads of living units which have been evolved (?) in the different ages of the world's history." But by what process a "vital unit" can be evolved, he does not condescend to tell us. He has no "primordial formless fog" to fall back upon as has Professor Tyndall, nor can he imagine anything beyond the least of possible conceptions in a chemical, morphological, or vital unit. A "unit" can neither be evolved nor involved; it admits of no square, no multiple, no differentiation; it is simply the ever-potent unit of "organic polarity," by which it multiplies effects, but can never be multiplied itself. The chief fault that we have to find with the London University professor is that he confounds a morphological cell with a morphological unit, and insists upon drawing unwarrantable conclusions therefrom. His "countless myriads of living units" are all well enough in their way. That they exist in the earth, and are constantly developed into innumerable multitudes of living organisms, of almost inconceivable variety, in both the animal and vegetal world, is true, as he half-reluctantly admits in almost the identical language we here use.

And he also admits that morphological cells, when once formed, continue to grow by their own individual power or inherent tendency. But before they can manifest any such inherent tendency, they must be developed from the vital units that lie back of them, and on which their manifestation unquestionably depends. The only doubt that can possibly exist on this point is, that the process of development cannot be determined by microscopic examination. But we may as well assume the presence of vital units in the case of dynamical aggregates, as for Professor Bastian to insist upon crystalline units in the case of statical aggregates or crystals. Both processes, in their initial stages of development, lie beyond the reach of human scrutiny, and all that we know, or possibly can know, is, that certain inorganic conditions are favorable for the development of crystals, as certain organic conditions are favorable for the development of morphological cells. Beyond this Professor Bastian knows nothing--we know nothing.

Professor Beale, in his recent work on "the Mystery of Life"--one that is now justly attracting very wide attention--says: "Between the two sets of phenomena, physical and vital, not the faintest analogy can be shown to exist. The idea of a particle of muscular or nerve tissue being formed by a process akin to crystallization, appears ridiculous to any one who has studied the two classes of phenomena, or is acquainted with the structure of these tissues." And he quietly, yet effectively, ridicules the idea that the ultimate molecules of matter--substantially the same matter, in fact--have the power to arrange themselves, independently of vital tendency, alternately into a dog-cell or a man-cell, according to the specific direction they may take, or the incidence of conditions they may undergo, in their primary movement. And for the benefit of Professor Beale, behind whose "bioplasts," we place the "vital unit"--not a variable but a constant unit--we would have him bear in mind (what he so well knows) that the finest fibres that go to make up these tissues lie quite beyond the microscopic limit in their interlaced and spirally-coiled reticulations, so that nothing can be predicated of their ultimate contexture, any more than of the ultimate distribution of matter itself. He has himself traced these wonderfully minute nerve-ramifications under glasses of the highest magnifying power, and knows that their ultimate distribution cannot be reached. Let him come out then, as the ablest vitalist now living, and boldly assert the presence of the man-unit and the dog-unit, instead of falling back on his bioplastic spinners and weavers of tissue, which are only the servants and willing workers of the one integral unit, or life-directing force, within. It is far more rational, and, at the same time, more accordant with strict scientific methods, to attribute these muscular and nerve reticulations to a single direct cause, than to a multitude of secondary causes.

There is a world-wide difference between the dog-ego and the man-ego; but the physical differences are not by any means the greatest. The bioplastic spinners and weavers work as obediently for the one master-ego as the other. They never stop to inquire how far they shall differentiate this vital tissue or that, or in what direction even they shall work. Not a thread is spun nor a shuttle thrown that is not directed by the one head-webster of vital tissue. These obedient bioplasts determine nothing, direct nothing. Each works in his own cell as obediently as a galley-slave. All specific modifications, all determinate movements, all molecular arrangements, all multiplications of bioplastic force, are the work of the one vital webster, or principle of life, within--that which shapes all, directs all, determines all. And this is true from the first or embryological inception of the dog-unit or "germ," until the real occupant of the dog-tenement dismisses his bioplastic weavers, and lies down to die. And so of all vital units. Each determines its own structural form, and unchangeably retains it to the end, even to the slightest impression of a scar inflicted years and years before. The occupant of this dog-mansion has dismissed one set of bioplastic weavers after another; has thrown aside this spun tissue and that warp and woof of woven texture, time and time again, so that the dog of to-day is not the same physical dog of a year ago; and yet he has the same affection for his master, carries with him the same scar received twenty years before in the chase, gives the same glad bark of welcome as his owner nears home, exhibits the same characteristic wag in his tail, and, lying down to sleep, dreams of the once happy chase in which he is no longer able to engage. This continuous presence of the same dog, through all these twenty years of physical change--the old dog reappearing in the new, a dozen times over--is what we mean by the constantly differentiating yet undifferentiated "dog-unit."

Those who attempt to bisect this vital unit, divide it up into one fractional part after another, until it shall represent a million bioplastic workers in as many different cells, are committing the same sort of folly--in principle at least, if not in practice--as that which led the simple-minded daughters of Pelias to cut up their father, in the expectation of boiling the old bioplasts into new, and then, by the cunning aid of Medea, who directed the operation, reuniting them into the one Peliastic-unit they so much delighted to honor. But this first and only recorded attempt at differentiating a vital unit disastrously failed, as the reader of ancient myths well knows, although the experiment was conducted by the most careful and loving hands. The necessary chemical re-agents to reproduce life, as well as the necessary processes of producing it de novo have not yet been ascertained, nor is it likely they ever will be. And herein lies the most marked distinction between crystallizable matter and living substance.