Naturalism and Religion

by Rudolf Otto

We must dispute even the main justification of the theory, which is sought for in the old maxim of parsimony in the use of principles of explanation (entia, and also principia, præter necessitatem non esse multiplicanda), and in Kant's “regulative principle,” that science must proceed as if everything could ultimately be explained in terms of mechanism. For surely our task is to try to explain things, not at any cost with the fewest possible principles, but rather with the aid of those principles which appear most correct. If nature is not fundamentally simple, then it is not scientific but unscientific to simplify it theoretically. And the proposition bracketed above has its obvious converse side, that while entities and principles must not be multiplied except when it is necessary, on the other hand their number must not be arbitrarily lessened. To proceed according to the fundamental maxims of the mechanistic view can only be wholesome for a time and, so to speak, for pædagogical reasons. To apply them seriously and permanently would be highly injurious, for, by prejudging what is discoverable in nature, it would tend to prevent the calm, objective study of things which asks for nothing more than to see them as they are. It would thus destroy the fineness of our appreciation of what there really is in nature. This is true alike of forcible attempts to reduce the processes of life to mechanical processes, and of the Darwinian doctrine of the universal dominance of utility. Both bear unmistakably the stamp of foregone conclusions, and betray [pg 229] a desire for the simplest, rather than for the most correct principles of interpretation.

There is one point which presses itself on the notice even of outsiders, and is probably realised even more keenly by specialists. The confidence of the supporters of the mechanical theories of earlier days, from Descartes onward, that animals and the bodies of men were machines, mechanical automata, down to the mechanical theories of Lamettrie and Holbach, of l'homme machine, and of the système de la nature, was at least as great as, probably greater than, that of the supporters of the modern theories. Yet how naïve and presumptuous seem the crude and wooden theories upon which the mechanical system was formerly built up, and how falsely interpreted seem the physiological and other facts which lent them support, when seen in the light of our modern physiological knowledge. Vaucanson's or Drozsch's duck-automaton or clockwork-man, with which the mechanical theorists of bygone days amused themselves, would not go far to encourage the physiologist of to-day to pursue his mechanical studies, but would rather throw a vivid light on the impossibility of comparing the living “machine” with machines in the usual sense. For things emphatically do not happen within the living organism in the same way as in the automatic duck, and the more exact the resemblance to the functions of a “real” duck became, the more did the system of means by which the end was attained become unlike vital processes. It is difficult to resist the [pg 230] impression that in another hundred years,—perhaps again from the standpoint of new and definitely accepted mechanical explanations,—people will regard our developmental mechanics, cellular mechanics, and other vital mechanics much in the same way as we now look on Vaucanson's duck.

Associated or even identical with this is the fact that in proportion as mechanical interpretation advances, the difficulties it has to surmount continually crop up anew. Processes which seem of the simplest kind and the most likely to be capable of purely mechanical explanation, processes such as those of assimilation, digestion, respiration, for which it was believed that exact parallels existed in the purely mechanical domain, as, for instance, in the osmotic processes of porous membranes, are seen when closely scrutinised as they occur in the living body to be extremely complex; in fact they have to be transferred “provisionally” from the mechanical to the vital rubric. To this category belong the whole modern development of the cell-theory, which replaces the previously single mechanism in the living body by millions of them, every one of which raises as many problems as the one had done in the days of cruder interpretation. Every individual cell, as it appears to our understanding to-day, is at least as complicated a riddle as the whole organism formerly appeared.

But further: the modern development of biology has emphasised a special problem, which was first formulated [pg 231] by Leibnitz (though it is in antithesis to his fundamental Monad-theory), and which appears incapable of solution on mechanical lines. Leibnitz declared living beings to be “machines,” but machines of a peculiar kind. Even the most complicated machine, in the ordinary sense, consists of a combination of smaller “machines,” that is to say, of wheels, systems of levers, &c., of a simpler kind. And these sub-machines may in their turn consist of still simpler ones, and so on. But ultimately a stage is reached when the component parts are homogeneous, and cannot be analysed into simpler machines. It is otherwise with the organism. According to Leibnitz it consists of machines made up of other machines, and so on, into the infinitely little. However far we can proceed in our analysis of the parts, we shall still find that they are syntheses, made up of most ingeniously complex component parts, and this as far as our powers of seeing and distinguishing will carry us. That is to say: organisation is continued on into the infinitely little.

Leibnitz's illustration of the fish-pond is well known. He could have no better corroboration of his theory than the results of modern investigation afford. His doctrine of the continuation of organisation downwards into ever smaller expression is confirmed to a certain extent even by anatomy. By analysing structural organisation down to cells a definite point seemed to have been reached. But it now appears that at that point the problem is only beginning. One organisation is made [pg 232] up of other organisations—cells, protoplasm, nucleus, nucleolus, centrosomes, and so on, according to the power of the microscope; and these structures, instead of explaining the vital functions of growth, development, multiplication by division, and the rest, simply repeat them on a smaller scale, and are thus in their turn living units, the aggregation of which is illustrated better by the analogy of a social organism than by that of a mechanical structure.

In order to follow the mechanical explanation along the six lines we have previously indicated, we shall, as we have already said, entrust ourselves to the specialists who are on the opposite side. The difficulties and objections which the mechanical theory has to face have forced themselves insistently upon us even in the course of a short sketch such as has just been given, but they will be clearly realised if we approach them from the other side. But, first of all, a word as to the fundamental and, it is alleged, unassailable doctrine on which the theory as a whole is based, the “law of the conservation of energy.” The appeal to this, at any rate in the way in which it is usually made, is apt to be so distorted that the case must first be clearly stated before we can get further with the discussion.

The Law of the Conservation of Energy.

Helmholtz's proof established mathematically what Kant had already, by direct insight, advanced as an à priori fundamental axiom: that in any given system [pg 233] the sum of energy can neither increase (impossibility of a perpetuum mobile) nor diminish (there is no disappearance of energy, but only transformation into another form). But even the vitalist had no need to deny this proposition. The “energy” which is required for the work of directing, setting agoing, changing and rearranging the chemico-physical processes in the body, and bringing about the effective reactions to stimuli which result in “development,” “transmission,” “regeneration,” and so on—if indeed any energy is required—of course could not come “from within” as a spontaneous increase of the existing sum of energy—that would, indeed, be a magical becoming out of nothing!—but must naturally be thought of as coming “from without.” The appeal to the law of the conservation of energy is therefore in itself irrelevant; but it conceals behind it an assertion of a totally different kind, namely, that in relation to physico-chemical sequences there can be no “without,” nothing transcending them—an assertion which Helmholtz's arguments cannot and were never intended to establish. But before any definite attitude to this newly imported assertion could be taken up, it would require to be distinctly defined, and that would lead us at once into all the depths of epistemological discussion. Here, therefore, we can only say so much: If this assertion is accepted it is well to see where it carries us; namely, back to the first-described naïve standpoint, which, without critical scruples, quite seriously accepts the world as it appears to it for the [pg 234] reality, and quite seriously speaks of an infinity lying in time behind us—and therefore come to an end—and is not in the least disturbed from its “dogmatic slumber” by this or any of the other great antinomies of our conception of the universe. And it remains, too, for this standpoint to come to terms with the fact that, in voluntary actions, of which we have the most direct knowledge, we have through our will the power of intervention in the physico-chemical nexus of our bodily energies—a fact which implies the existence of a “without,” from which interpolations or influences may flow into the physico-chemical system, even if there be none in regard to the domain of “vital” phenomena. And we should require to find out through what parallelistic or abruptly idealistic system the “without” was done away with in this case. For if a transcendental basis, or reverse side, or cause of things, be admitted—even if only in the form of our materialistic popular metaphysics (the “substance” of Haeckel's “world-riddle”)—then a “without,” from which primarily the cosmic system with its constant sum of matter and energy is explained, is also admitted, and it is difficult to see why it should have exhausted itself in this single effort.