In continuing this subject, extracts will be made from Prof. Huxley’s lecture, “The New Theory of Life, or Matter the Basis of Vitality,” to show that science has demonstrated that “life” is the same everywhere; and though he disclaims materialistic philosophy, the tendency of these extracts is in that direction. While matter must be looked to for all expression of facts, it must not be overlooked that the realm of power or spirituality is the producing cause; consequently, while allowing science full scope in analyzing, demonstrating and systematizing facts, religion must not be despoiled of its basis idea which remains immovably fixed in consciousness. The Professor says: “I have translated the term Protoplasm, which is the scientific name of the substance I am about to speak of by the words ‘The Physical Basis of Life.’ * * * * To many, the idea that there is such a thing as a physical basis or matter of life may be novel. * * * Even those who are aware that matter and life are inseparably connected may not be prepared for the conclusion plainly suggested by the phrase ‘The Physical Basis of Life.’” After giving various illustrations, drawn from nearly every department of nature, grasping contrasts and dissimilarities, he adds: “I propose to demonstrate that, notwithstanding these apparent difficulties, a three-fold unity—a unity of power or faculty, a unity of form and a unity of substantial composition, does pervade the whole living world; * * that the complicated and multifarious activities of man are comprehensible under three categories—either they are immediately directed toward the maintenance and development of the body, or they are to effect transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the body; or they tend toward the continuance of the species. Even the manifestation of intellect, of feeling and of will, are not excluded from the classification.”
Prof. Huxley then illustrates the action of the protoplasm in the common nettle and in the drop of blood, showing that both plants and animals have their origin in a particle of nucleated protoplasm, and that this protoplasm “not only dies and is resolved into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and strange as the paradox may seem, could not live unless it died.” Thus we are led to the conclusion that all matter has a common basic principle by which we obtain our evidences of it. It is equally clear that analysis fails to grapple this principle, for the process dissipates the power that compelled the combination. Dead protoplasm differs from living in that something has departed from it, and though we cannot catch this to decide upon its nature, can we with consistency say it is a property of matter? If it is, what has become of it that it does not manifest itself again upon the recombination of the matter it once made use of? One fact is evident, and seems to be conclusive. This life principle never manifests itself through artificial combinations of matter. Again, is there no difference between ordinary matter and “matter of life?” What changes the former into the latter, and vice versa? If chemical analysis can tell us nothing about the composition of living matter, what can it tell us of life itself? If nucleated protoplasm is the basis of all life, and yet nothing but matter, why does one “structural unit” of it produce a plant, another an animal? While it is evident that the material composition of these units is uniform, it seems to be quite absurd to say that chemical analysis teaches everything that they comprehend.
If the manifestations of matter are the result of its properties, the law must be of general application. Water always seeks its level: is that a property of water or the result of gravitation? Water can be expanded into vapor: is this a property of water or the result of the introduction of heat? Is it a property of matter that transfers the digestible and animal food we eat into man? Does man exhibit nothing but the properties of matter? It is evident that after the strictest chemical analysis the vital life principle common to all matter remains unreached—thus indicating its great ultimate character, which is beyond the reach of both chemical and mental analysis.
What is this power by which the nucleated protoplasm of the various species always produces representatives of the one which furnished the germ? If it were simply a property of nucleated protoplasm, considered as matter, why should not a germ from the lion just as readily produce a lamb? In the various crosses between animals, the aggregated masses of protoplasm partaking of both, the inference plainly is that in each of the particles of protoplasm was contained a power which controlled their successive aggregations and modifications. Other evidence that the determining power is something more than a mere property of matter is found in the fact that if the young of several different species of animals be reared in company and fed with the same material, they will each retain the peculiarities of the species they represent, modified somewhat by the community of influence exerted on them. The same is true of the offspring of different races and nations.
The law indicated is still more generally applicable, descending as it does from the wide range of species and nations to each individual member thereof. Upon different individuals the same cause, acting under like circumstances, produces different effects, and this difference is dependent upon something more persistent than matter which is constantly changing. Is this persistent individuality a property of the matter we possess now, or of that which we shall be made up of some years hence? The consciousness of each one answers that this individuality is superior to the vicissitudes of matter—this consciousness having this peculiarity over its consciousness of the manifestations of matter, that while it constantly acquires new experiences it loses none of those previously acquired.
We know nothing of this power, except that it is a name for an unknown cause: and so far as practical utility is concerned, the distinction between power and matter might be discarded, the danger of falling thereby into the slough of materialistic philosophy being avoided, if we remember that all the knowledge we can acquire is simply relative and symbolic.
Returning for a moment to the fact of reproduction, to ascertain if possible the determining power by which one “structural unit” of nucleated protoplasm develops into a beast, and another chemically identical into a man, and realizing fully that this power is beyond common modes of proof we infer that a reasonable conclusion can only be deduced from observing the general unchanging law of the constant recurrence of similar results under similar circumstances. The first step in the inquiry is to ask what “protoplasm” is, and how and where it is obtained.
Prof. Huxley informs us that its chemical constituents are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, which form carbonic acid, water and ammonia; and that these are compounded by plants into the “matter of life” or protoplasm, which is the first compound of elements possessing inherent organic motion. This being the only way protoplasm can be produced, we must always look to the vegetable world for continuous supplies of it; and though we obtain it in large quantities from the animal world, it is only at second-hand. In the vegetable world, then, must we find the first traces of organic life. But though plants thus manufacture protoplasm, they are not wholly protoplasm, but consist of various other elements necessary in an organized form. The manufacture of protoplasm may be considered the end of the vegetable world. This substance builds up the animal world, and forms a connecting link between the kingdoms.
How long it took protoplasm to produce its ultimate animal man we cannot ascertain, but the numerous species and varieties thereof between the simplest and most complete compounds signify a labor of which we can scarcely conceive, and yet science has traced and classified it all, each succeeding link in the chain being a little more complex, until man appears. As no higher types have been produced it is fair to presume that none can be. The formula, then, that will present man will include everything below him in the order of creation, not only in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, but in the inorganic world upon which the vegetable is founded.
It remains to be observed that in the order of nature each of the various species of animals reproduces its kind, and gradually merges into the next higher, but never recedes. Each species represents in different proportions and numbers the “structural units,” from which, reproduction follows, each unit containing the life principle representative of the general life principle of the animal from which it comes. Now, it is predicated as a result of the study of nature that this life principle is the determining power that controls the process whereby protoplasm builds up such various and dissimilar material reforms. Dead protoplasm consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen; living protoplasm, of these permeated and held together by this life principle, and this differs in its controlling power according to the formations it has gone through. Thus the “structural unit” of the lion or of the horse, containing the life principle peculiar to each, develops into a lion or a horse, as the case may be, unless in this process it is furnished with living protoplasm containing a life principle of different determining powers, when the aggregate result is a modification of the two powers.