A Modern Zoroastrian

by S. Laing

And further, ‘that as a matter not of proof but of probability, if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time, to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through chemical and physical conditions which it can never see again, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasms from non-living matter.’ Such is the cautious candour with which scientific men approach problems upon which theologians dogmatise with the unerring intrepidity of ignorance.

In the meantime what may be said as to Huxley’s reservations is this: A considerable step has been made in the direction indicated, by the success of recent chemistry in forming artificially what are called organic compounds, that is, substances which were previously known only as products of animal or vegetable secretions. Urea, for instance, the base of uric acid, with which so many are unfortunately familiar in the form of gout; indigotine, the principle of the blue colouring matter of the indigo plant; and alizarine, that of madder; are all now produced artificially, and have even become important articles of commerce. If chemists can make the indigotine, which the growing plant elaborates at the same time as it elaborates protoplasm, may we not hope some day to make the latter as well as the former product? Now organic compounds of this class are being formed artificially every day, and it is said that chemists have already succeeded in producing several hundreds. But even if this expectation is never fulfilled, we may fall back on Huxley’s second reservation of the enormous difference of chemical and physical conditions in the early stages of the earth’s life from anything now known. It has been calculated that the earth’s temperature when it first started on its career as an independent planet was something like 3,000,000° Fahrenheit. At this heat probably all atoms would be dissociated; but as the temperature diminished they would come closer together, but still with a great deal of motion, and making wide excursions, which might bring many different atoms together in complex though unstable combinations. Moreover, carbon, which is the basis of all such combinations of the class of protoplasm, was far more abundant in those early days in the form of carbonic dioxide gas, before the enormous amount of vegetable matter in the form of coal and otherwise, had been subtracted from it. In any case the first protoplasm must be extremely ancient, for the remains of sea-weeds are found in the oldest strata, and vegetation of any sort implies the manufacture of protoplasm from inorganic matter.

The passage from the organic into the inorganic world is best traced by following the line of Pasteur’s researches on ferments. How does the world escape being choked up by the accumulation of dead organic matter throughout innumerable ages? By what are called ferments, inducing processes of fermentation and putrefaction, by which the course of life is reversed, and the organic elements are taken to pieces and restored to the inorganic world. Pasteur proved, in opposition to the theories of Liebig and other older chemists, that this was not done directly by the oxygen of the air, but through the intermediate agency of living microbes, whose spores, floating in the air, took up their abode and multiplied wherever they found an appropriate habitation. Given an air purified from germs, or a temperature low enough to prevent them from germinating, and putrescible substances would keep sweet for ever. The practical realisation of this is seen in the enormous commerce in canned meats and fruits, and in the imports of frozen beef and mutton, causing a fall of rents and much lamentation among British landlords and farmers.

But then the question was asked, How are your microscopic organisms disposed of? What are the ferments of your ferments? For even microscopic bacteria and vibrios would, in time, choke up the world by their residue if not got rid of. Pasteur answered that the ferments are destroyed by a new series of organisms—aerobes—living in the air, and these by other aerobes in succession until the ultimate products are oxidised. ‘Thus, in the destruction of what has lived, all is reduced to the simultaneous action of the three great natural phenomena—fermentation, putrefaction, and slow combustion. A living being, animal or vegetable, or the débris of either, having just died, is exposed to the air. The life that has abandoned it is succeeded by life under other forms. In the superficial parts, accessible to the air, the germs of the infinitely little aerobes flourish and multiply. The carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen of the organic matter are transformed by the oxygen of the air, and under the vital activity of the aerobes, into carbonic acid, the vapour of water, and ammonia. The combustion continues as long as organic matter and air are present together. At the same time the superficial combustion is going on, fermentation and putrefaction are performing their work in the midst of the mass by means of the developed germs of the original microbes, which, note, do not need oxygen to live, but which oxygen causes to perish. Gradually the phenomena of destruction are at last accomplished through the work of latent fermentation and slow combustion.’

This seems a complete demonstration of the passage of the organic into the inorganic world in the way of analysis, or taking the puzzle to pieces. In the opposite way of synthesis, or putting it together, the nearest approach yet made has been in the manufacture of those organic compounds already referred to, such as urea, alizarine, indigotine and other products which had hitherto only been known as products of animal or vegetable life. Of these a vast number have been already formed from inorganic elements by chemical processes, and almost every day announces some fresh discovery.

Under these circumstances it is unsafe to affirm either, on the one hand, that the problem has been solved and that life has ever been made in a laboratory; or, on the other hand, that there is any such great gulf fixed between the organic and the inorganic, that we can assume a break requiring secondary supernatural interference to surmount it, and ignore the good old maxim that ‘Natura nihil facit per saltum.’ Positive proof is wanting, but the probabilities point here, as they do everywhere else throughout the universe, to the truth of the theory of ‘original impress’ as opposed to that of ‘secondary interference.’

It remains to show how the fundamental law of polarity affects the more complex relations of life and of its various combinations. And here it is important to bear in mind that as the factors of the problem become more intricate and complex, so also do the laws which regulate their existence and action. Polarity is no longer a simple question of attraction and repulsion at the two ends of a magnet or at the opposite poles of an atom. It appears rather as a general law under which as the simple and absolute becomes differentiated by evolution into the complex and manifold, it does so under the condition of developing contrasts. For every plus there is a minus, for every like an unlike; one cannot exist without the other; and, although apparently antagonistic, harmonious order is only possible by their co-existence and mutual balance.

This is so important that it may be well to make the idea clearer by an illustration. The earth revolves round the sun in its annual orbit under the influence of two forces: the centripetal, or force of gravity tending to draw it towards the sun; and the centrifugal, tending to make it dart away into infinite space. During half the orbit the centripetal seems to be gaining ground on the centrifugal, and the earth is approaching nearer to the sun. If this continued it would revolve ever nearer and soon fall into it; but the centrifugal force is gradually recruiting its strength from the increased velocity of the earth, until it first equals the centripetal, and finally outstrips it, and for the remaining half of the orbit it is constantly gaining ground. If this went on, the earth would fly off into the chilly regions of outer space; but the centripetal force in its turn regains the ascendency; and thus by the balance of the two forces our planet describes the beautiful ellipse, its harmonious orbit as a habitable globe; while comets in which one or the other force unduly preponderates for long periods are alternately drawn into fiery proximity to the sun, and sent careering through regions void of heat.

Compare this passage from Herbert Spencer: ‘As from antagonist physical forces, as from antagonist emotions in each man, so from the antagonist social tendencies man’s emotions create, there always results not a medium state, but a rhythm between opposite states. The one force or tendency is not continuously counterbalanced by the other force or tendency; but now the one greatly preponderates, and presently by reaction there comes a preponderance of the other.’

And again: ‘There is nowhere a balanced judgment and a balanced action, but always a cancelling of one another by opposite errors. Men pair off in insane parties, as Emerson puts it.’