Again, on the larger scale, may not cohesion, as well as chemical affinity, be a sort of affection; in this case a kind of wide social friendship—the “adhesive love” of Whitman, which is to supersede “amative love”—as against the fierce and narrow loves of the elements? A. C. Benson in Joyous Gard (p. 128) quotes a geologist who says:
It is not by any means certain that stones do not have a certain obscure life of their own; I have sometimes thought that their marvellous cohesion may be a sign of life, and that if life were withdrawn, a mountain might in a moment become a heap of sliding sand.
Yes, and even in sand-grains there is cohesion of particles, and in the smallest particles huge numbers of molecules, and again—still smaller—atoms and electrons. Something elusive yet tremendously potent is still there, in the sand. It would be rash to call it dead and mindless. There seems more sense in admitting that there is something akin to what we know as life and mind in ourselves, permeating the material universe.
And if—to come back to our own planet—if the earth is a living organism, there will naturally be distribution of function, as there is in our own bodies. It would be absurd for the eye to deny life and perception to ear or skin just because their mode of activity is different. It is wiser to concede life and mind where-ever there is action. In the present state of affairs, not only do we get into difficulties by our rash assumption that there is no mind without protoplasm (ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke, as the old materialist too boldly said), but we find it impossible to draw the line between living and non-living. Drops of oil exhibit amœboid movements, and at the lower end of life the slime-mass becomes so undifferentiated as to be very much in a borderland between the two states. Probably non-living substances gradate into living ones by imperceptible differentiæ, as man would be found to gradate back into an anthropoid ape or something of the kind if we could see all the stages. Nature does not make jumps. Where she seems to do so, it is only because we cannot see how she gets from one place to another distant one. But when we scrutinise the interspace, we see that there is a path. Nature does not jump. She glides.
It is on this line of thought that the disagreement between the schools represented by Sir Edward Schäfer and Dr Hans Driesch respectively may, perhaps, be happily resolved. No doubt each may have to make concessions. The mechanist must not claim that mind is only an affair of nitrogenous colloids, for this would be a large assumption built on a very small foundation; no biologist, however much he knows about nitrogenous colloids, can in any conceivable sense explain his joy in a sunset or a symphony by reference to those substances. Physical causes have physical effects; to say that they cause anything non-physical (i.e. mental) is really talking nonsense. And, on the other hand, the vitalist must not deny consciousness to non-protoplasmic Nature. Negations are dangerous. It is extremely risky to say that a Matterhorn has less spiritual significance—in itself and for the whole, and not only for us—than a cretin who wanders useless and unbeautiful about its lower slopes. The activities of the two are different, that is all we are justified in saying. True, the Matterhorn’s are more calculable and predictable, but that does not prove unconsciousness. Human action also is predictable to some extent. And the more wise and unified a man is—the nearer he approximates to ideal perfection—the more accurately we can predict his response to a given stimulus. We might almost argue, on these lines, that inorganic matter has a certain superiority; for it is not capricious. It knows what it wants to do, and does it; or at least—if this is going too far—it does things, and does them as if it knew very well what it wanted to do. To the same conditions and stimuli it always responds in the same way, like reflex action in living beings, and like association in ordinary consciousness. Water always boils punctually at 100°C., and freezes at 0°C., if the pressure is 760mm. of mercury. “Canal” always makes me think of Panama and Mars—though to other people it might suggest Suez, their different experience having given them other association-couplings. But any one knowing me well, or knowing any one well, could say almost certainly what associations “canal” would have—what thought it will evoke. And the same thing is true, to a less extent, of our actions. If a man hits Jack Johnson, the latter will probably hit back. Still more certain is it that no one will hit him unless drunk or insane or in some sort of very exceptional circumstances. If, on the other hand, somebody hits me, the outcome is less certain. It will depend to a greater extent on the result of reflection and judgment—perhaps partly on my estimate of the other fellow’s weight, age, training and science! Yet anyone knowing me well, and perceiving the main conditions, could predict with fair approach to accuracy what I should do. Yet I am undoubtedly a conscious being. Some actions of conscious beings, then, are predictable, if we know the conditions. Indeed, in the mass, human action is calculable with precision—witness the various kinds of insurance. Why then deny consciousness to the Matterhorn, because all its actions are calculable and predictable? The difference is one of degree, not kind. And indeed are all its actions predictable? The fact is, they are only hypothetically so. We say that they would be if we knew enough. But we might say the same of the actions of a man. The truth is, that if we say it of either we are arguing dangerously, from our ignorance and not from our knowledge. It is indeed as risky to say that we could predict the Matterhorn’s actions in toto, as to say that we cannot predict the man’s; for we are continually finding that matter does things which we did not formerly suspect—e.g. radio-activity. Clearly, we cannot predict all the activities of the Matterhorn: many may depend on undiscovered properties. So it seems that even if some human actions, such as Newton’s discovery of the law of gravitation and Milton’s Paradise Lost and Spencer’s Synthetic Philosophy and Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, are strictly unpredictable, it still does not sufficiently differentiate us from the Matterhorn, which on its part also has its unpredictabilities.
As to what parts of matter have separate spirits—where the Snowdon-spirit ends and the Moel Siabod spirit begins, and so on—we need not trouble much about that. This individualising of parts is a reasonable supposition, but it is not necessary to press it. Mr Maurice Hewlett has seen the genius loci of a sunny woodland landscape translated into human idiom as an opulent Titianesque beauty (Lore of Proserpine), and Manfred sees or feels a spirit of the Alps; but these are details. The only thing that matters is the ensoulment of the earth as a whole. No doubt its spirit-part is divided up somehow, correspondent to its material conformation, as our spirits are divided from each other. The division, however, is not a hermetic sealing off. The universe is continuous. Indeed its parts are inter-penetrative, for every particle influences every other particle—and a thing cannot act where it is not. Similarly, human beings are found to have modes of communication other than those hitherto recognised by orthodox science, and are somehow able to influence others without regard to distance. We seem to be connected with each other in the unseen, subliminal, spiritual region. Our separateness is illusory. So with individualisations of earth-features. They have individual aspects, both on the physical and spiritual side; but they are part of the one earth and its one spirit, as we ourselves are. And that earth-spirit is part of the universe-spirit or God, as the human spirit is part of the earth-spirit.
It is perhaps difficult, at first, to think of the earth as having a life and consciousness of its own, for we are located at little points, and do not see it whole, nor do we see from the inside. We are like an eye which looks at the body of which it forms a part, and finds it difficult to believe in auditory, tactile, olfactory experience; more difficult still to conceive of pure thought, emotion, will. If the earth seems a dead lump, however, think of the human brain. It is a mere lump of whitish filaments, seen from outside. But its inner experience is the rich and infinitely detailed life of a human being. So also may the inner experience of the earth be incomparably richer than its outer appearance indicates to our external senses. Objectively, our brains are part of the earth: subjectively, we see in ourselves a part of what the earth sees in itself.
In thinking of the earth as an organised being, we must guard against the error of the ancients who called it an animal. It is not an animal. It is a Being of a higher character than any animal, for it includes all animals and all human beings, comprising in its spirit all their spiritual activities, and having its own activities as well. We are to it, as our blood-corpuscles are to us; and to think of the earth-spirit as being like our spirits would be equivalent to a blood-corpuscle thinking of its containing body as another corpuscle, only bigger. Whereas the truth is that a man has feelings and cognitions and purposes, and performs acts, which the corpuscles cannot in the least comprehend. (Somewhat similarly, a drop cannot have waves, or a small celestial body an atmosphere; the lower cannot have what the higher has, nor can it understand it.) The corpuscle may know or believe that its conscience or intuition is a sort of leakage down to it, of the mind or will of its greater self (the voice of its God), and that in so far as it does its duty according to its lights it is assisting the purposes of that higher Being of which it forms a part; and this faith is its highest wisdom. So with us. Human duty, done sincerely according to our lights, is furthering the purposes of the higher Being in whom we live and move. This faith is our highest wisdom concerning our relation to the earth-spirit. We see, then, that there is a good deal of sense in faith and intuition. They are rationally justified. By them we are dimly in touch with the over-soul on our inner side: not really dimly, for the connection is close and real, but dimly to our normal consciousness. The connection via intellect is an external, round-about affair, necessary and useful, but different. We need to cultivate both. This is the essence of the philosophy of Bergson. There is more than one way of receiving truth. Science is apt to overlook the intuitional way.
On this conscience-side or moral aspect, the Fechnerian idea is particularly fruitful and illuminating. The analogy of our own mind is once more the key—the mirror wherewith to view the greater landscape, the village wherefrom to draw inferences about nations. In childhood, the world is, as James said, a big, blooming, buzzing confusion: sensations pour in quite unconnected; the baby sees the moon, and stretches out an arm to grab it, thus learning that it is not grabable. It is only gradually that the child learns to associate sounds with sights; to know what sounds indicate its mother’s presence or proximity, and what sounds its father’s. Gradually, individual experiences get linked up and harmonised. Then other disjointednesses arise. Foolish impulses war against better judgment and parents’ advice, and the youth’s mind is “torn”, as we say, very aptly describing the feeling. Growing older and wiser, his mind becomes more unified and consequently more calm. His powers are marshalled and directed consciously at a goal or goals. Wayward impulses are reined in. We feel that poise and strength and wisdom are attained: never perfectly and ideally, but at least to a considerable degree, as compared with the earlier state.
So with the earth-spirit. Being far greater than the human subsidiary spirits, it is longer in coming to maturity. Its elements are still largely at loggerheads with each other. The nations war against each other, and universal peace seems a long time in coming. But steadily, steadily works the earth-spirit, and the nations almost unconsciously—like somnambulists—carry out its will. They are working, consciously or unconsciously, towards universal at-one-ment. A League of Nations has arisen, and the Federation of the World is in sight. Union is the political watch-word. Labour is combining throughout the world. East is learning from West, and West from East. China sends her students to Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Harvard, and welcomes Western methods. India repays our civilising with the poems of Tagore. In trade, thousands of small businesses are unified in a few great combines, preparing for some sort of Socialism. Finance spreads its world-wide network. Science is becoming international. The frontiers are melting; coalescence, unity, harmony are being achieved. The earth-spirit is reconciling its warring elements. When it succeeds in the complete reconciliation; when the era of universal peace and brotherhood shall dawn; when it reaches its huge equivalent of the ripe, calm, contented wisdom of human age—ah, then will come a state of things which we can but dimly prefigure. But it will come. The age of gold is in the future, not the past. It is our duty and our privilege to hasten the coming of this millennium. And even this is not the end. We cannot conceive the things that shall be. Eye hath not seen, or ear heard. Enough for us to know the tendency, and to trust ourselves to it, actively co-operating.