On these questions I would not like to be understood as expressing a hasty opinion, either against or for the views of the author. The points at issue between us are more or less fine-drawn, and cannot be dealt with parenthetically; nor do I ever propose to deal with them in a controversial manner. The author, as a biologist of fame, is more than entitled to such expression of his own views as he has cared to give. I quote with admiration, not necessarily with agreement, a few passages from the part dealing with the relation between mind and matter, and especially with the wide and revolutionary difference between man and animal caused by either the evolution or the incoming of free and conscious Choice.
He will not allow, with Bergson and others, that the roots of consciousness, in its lower grades, go deep down into the animal, and even perhaps into the vegetable, kingdom; he has no patience with those who associate elementary consciousness and freedom and indeterminateness not merely with human life but with all life, and who detect rudiments of purpose and intelligence in the protozoa. Nor, on the other hand, does he approve the dogmatic teaching of the 'ultra-scientific' school, which, being obsessed by the idea of man's animal origin, interprets human nature solely in terms of protoplasm. He opposes the possibility of this by saying:—
"However fruitful and interesting it may be to remember that we are rooted deep in the natal mud, our possession of consciousness and the sense of freedom is a vital and overmastering distinction."
On the more interesting of the above-mentioned alternatives Dr. Chalmers Mitchell expresses himself thus:—
"The Bergsonian interpretation does nothing to make consciousness and freedom more intelligible; and by extending them from man, in whom we know them to exist, to animals, in which their presence is at best an inference, it not only robs them of definiteness and reality, but it blurs the real distinction between men and animals, and evades the most difficult problem of science and philosophy. The facts are more truly represented by such phraseology as that animals are instinctive, man is intelligent, animals are irresponsible, man is responsible, animals are automata, man is free; or if you like, that God gave animals a beautiful body, man a rational soul...."
And soon afterwards he continues:—
"Not 'envisaging itself,' not being at once actor, spectator, and critic, 'living in the flashing moment,' not seeing the past and the present and the future separately, this is the highest at which we can put the consciousness of animals, and herein lies the distinction between man and the animals which makes the overwhelming difference.
"Must we then suppose, with Russel Wallace, that somewhere on the upward path from the tropical forests to the groves of Paradise, a soul was interpolated from an outside source into the gorilla-like ancestry of man? I do not think so, although I not only admit but assert that such a view gives a more accurate statement of fact than does either of the fashionable doctrines that I have discussed. I believe with Darwin, that as the body of man has been evolved from the body of animals, so the intellectual, emotional, and moral faculties of man have been evolved from the qualities of animals. I help myself towards the comprehension of the process by reflecting on two phenomena of observation [which he proceeds to cite]. I help myself, and perchance may help others; no more; could I speak dogmatically on what is the central mystery of all science and all philosophy and all thought, my words would roll with the thunder of Sinai."
Let it not be supposed for a moment that this distinguished biologist is in agreement with me on many matters dealt with in the present book. If he were, he would, I believe, achieve a more admirable and eloquent work than is consistent with the technically 'apologetic' tone which, in the present state of the scientific atmosphere, it behoves me to take. To guard against unwelcome misrepresentation of his views, and yet at the same time to indicate their force, I will make one more quotation:—
"Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a lover of the scalpel and microscope, and of patient, empirical observation, as one who dislikes all forms of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the implications even of the phrase that thought is a secretion of the brain as bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert as a biological fact that the moral law is as real and as external to man as the starry vault. It has no secure seat in any single man or in any single nation. It is the work of the blood and tears of long generations of men. It is not, in man, inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation and sustenance are the crowning glory of man, and his consciousness of it puts him in a high place above the animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and fall, but the struggle of individual lives and of individual nations must be measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend to the debasement or perfection of man's great achievement."