Herbert Spencer

by J. Arthur Thomson

If life be correspondence between internal and external relations, then "allowing a margin for perturbations, the life will continue only while the correspondence continues; the completeness of the life will be proportionate to the completeness of the correspondence; and the life will be perfect only when the correspondence is perfect." As organisms become more differentiated they enter into more complex relations with their environment, and as the environment becomes more complex organisms become more differentiated. The internal and external relations increase in number and intricacy pari passu, and the correspondences between them become more complex, numerous, and persistent. "The highest life is that which, like our own, shows great complexity in the correspondences, great rapidity in the succession of them, and great length in the series of them." "The highest Life is reached when there is some inner relation of actions fitted to meet every outer relation of actions by which the organism can be affected." "This continuous correspondence between inner and outer relations which constitutes Life, and the perfection of which is the perfection of Life, answers completely to that state of organic moving equilibrium which arises in the course of Evolution and tends ever to become more complete."

The Dynamic Element in Life.—But Spencer was not satisfied with his formula of Life. He recognised that there were vital phenomena which were not covered by it. The growth of a gall on a plant, due to irritant substances produced by an insect, shows no internal relations adjusted to external relations; the heart of a frog will live and beat for a long time after excision; the segmentation of an egg shows no correspondence with co-existences and sequences in its environment; when rudimentary organs are partly formed and then absorbed, no adjustment can be alleged between the inner relations which these present and any outer relations: the outer relations they refer to ceased millions of years ago; no correspondence, or part of a correspondence, by which inner actions are made to balance outer actions, can be seen in the dairymaid's laugh or the workman's whistle; the struggles of a boy in an epileptic fit show no correspondence with the co-existences and sequences around him, but they betray vitality as much as do the changing movements of a hawk pursuing a pigeon; "both exhibit that principle of activity which constitutes the essential element in our conception of life."

"When it is said that Life is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences, there arises the question—Changes of what?... Still more clearly do we see this insufficiency when we take the more abstract definition—"the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." Relations between what things? is the question to be asked. A relation of which the terms are unspecified does not connote a thought but merely the blank form of a thought. Its value is comparable to that of a cheque on which no amount is written."

This self-criticism led Spencer to the conclusion that "that which gives substance to our idea of Life is a certain unspecified principle of activity. The dynamic element in life is its essential element."

But how are we to conceive of this dynamic element? "Is this principle of activity inherent in organic matter, or is it something superadded?" Spencer at once rejected the second alternative, because the hypothesis of an independent vital principle has a bad pedigree, carrying us back to the ghost-theory of the savage, and because it is an unrepresentable 'pseud-idea,' which cannot even be imagined.

But the alternative of regarding Life as inherent in the substances of the organisms displaying it is also full of difficulties. "The processes which go on in living things are incomprehensible as results of any physical actions known to us." "We are obliged to confess that Life in its essence cannot be conceived in physico-chemical terms. The required principle of activity, which we found cannot be represented as an independent vital principle, we now find cannot be represented as a principle inherent in living matter. If, by assuming its inherence, we think the facts are accounted for, we do but cheat ourselves with pseud-ideas."

"What then are we to say—what are we to think? Simply that in this direction, as in all other directions, our explanations finally bring us face to face with the inexplicable. The Ultimate Reality behind this manifestation, as behind all other manifestations, transcends conception."

"Life as a principle of activity is unknown and unknowable—while its phenomena are accessible in thought the implied noumenon is inaccessible—only the manifestations come within the range of our intelligence, while that which is manifested lies beyond it."

But "our surface knowledge continues to be a knowledge valid of its kind, after recognising the truth that it is only surface knowledge."

The chapter on "The Dynamic Element in Life," which concludes the section of the book called The Data of Biology, was interpolated in the revised edition (1898). It indicates, as it seems to us, that Spencer's point of view had changed considerably since he stereotyped his First Principles. We must pause to consider what this change was.