My chief objection to Professor Haeckel's literary work is that he is dogmatic on such points as these, and would have people believe, what doubtless he believes himself, that he already knows the answer to a number of questions in the realms of physical nature and of philosophy. He writes in so forcible and positive and determined a fashion, from the vantage ground of scientific knowledge, that he exerts an undue influence on the uncultured among his readers, and causes them to fancy that only benighted fools or credulous dupes can really disagree with the historical criticisms, the speculative opinions, and philosophical, or perhaps unphilosophical, conjectures, thus powerfully set forth.
CHAPTER VIII
HYPOTHESIS AND ANALOGIES CONCERNING LIFE
The view concerning Life which I have endeavoured to express is that it is neither matter nor energy, nor even a function of matter or of energy, but is something belonging to a different category; that by some means at present unknown it is able to interact with the material world for a time, but that it can also exist in some sense independently; although in that condition of existence it is by no means apprehensible by our senses. It is dependent on matter for its phenomenal appearance—for its manifestation to us here and now, and for all its terrestrial activities; but otherwise, I conceive that it is independent, that its essential existence is continuous and permanent, though its interactions with matter are discontinuous and temporary; and I conjecture that it is subject to a law of evolution—that a linear advance is open to it—whether it be in its phenomenal or in its occult state.
It may be well to indicate what I mean by conceiving of the possibility that life has an existence apart from its material manifestations as we know them at present. (Remember note on p. 40.) It is easy to imagine that such a view is a mere surmise, having no intelligible meaning, and that it is merely an attempt to clutch at human immortality in an emotional and unscientific spirit. To this, however, I in no way plead guilty. My ideas about life may be quite wrong, but they are as cold-blooded and free from bias as possible; moreover, they apply not to human life alone, but to all life—to that of all animals, and even of plants; and they are held by me as a working hypothesis, the only one which enables me to fit the known facts of ordinary vitality into a thinkable scheme. Without it, I should be met by all the usual puzzles:—(1) as to the stage at which existence begins, if it can be thought of as "beginning" at all;[3 ] (2) as to the nature of individuality, in the midst of diversity of particles, and the determination of form irrespective of variety of food; (3) the extraordinary rapidity of development, which results in the production of a fully endowed individual in the course of some fraction of a century.
With it, I cannot pretend that all these things are thoroughly intelligible, but the lines on which an explanation may be forthcoming seem to be laid down:—the notion being that what we see is a temporary apparition or incarnation of a permanent entity or idea.
It is easiest to explain my meaning by aid of analogues,—by the construction, as it were, of "models," just as is the custom in Physics whenever a recondite idea has to be grasped before it can be properly formulated and before a theory is complete.
I will take two analogies: one from Magnetism and one from Politics.
"Parliament," or "the Army," is a body which consists of individual members constantly changing, and its existence is not dependent on their existence: it pre-existed any particular set of them, and it can survive a dissolution. Even after a complete slaughter, the idea of the Army would survive, and another would come into being, to carry on the permanent traditions and life.
Except as an idea in some sentient mind, it could not be said to exist at all. The mere individuals composing it do not make it: without the idea they would be only a disorganised mob. Abstractions like the British Constitution, and other such things, can hardly be said to have any incarnate existence. These exist only as ideas.
Parliament exists fundamentally as an idea, and it can be called into existence or re-incarnated again. Whether it is the same Parliament or not after a general election is a question that may be differently answered. It is not identical, it may have different characteristics, but there is certainly a sort of continuity; it is still a British Parliament, for instance, it has not changed its character to that of the French Assembly or the American Congress. It is a permanent entity even when disembodied; it has a past and it has a future; it has a fundamentally continuous existence though there are breaks or dislocations in its conspicuous activity, and though each incarnation has a separate identity or personality of its own. It is larger and more comprehensive than any individual representation of it; it may be said to have a "subliminal self," of which any septennial period sees but a meagre epitome.