Again, if the phenomena presented by matter are its absolute properties, the same elements and combinations should always produce identical results when taken into the human system. Do facts coincide with this? This “matter of life” should, if it is simply matter, always produce similar effects from whatever source it is derived. It is a physiological fact, however, that habitual living upon certain kinds of food—all containing this identical “matter of life”—does produce heterogeneous effects, mental and physical, upon the system. Thus, if a person who has constantly lived upon animal food changes his diet entirely to fruit and vegetables, a corresponding change will take place in his individual capacities.
The same point is well illustrated by a case which occurred in England, where saltpetre, obtained direct from the soil, was quite inert compared with that obtained from animal substances, the cause of the difference being due to the tact that the latter, in passing through the animal kingdom, had acquired a power which it did not previously possess. This illustration is of general application. It is evident that matter, in passing through each successive and higher organic form, becomes impregnated with the life principle which determines such form, and which manifests itself in all future combinations into which such matter enters.
The question now naturally arises, Is there a life principle common to all matter, which has become variously modified as the elements of matter have become modified by having given rise to or passed through the different changes and steps between its original homogeneous state and its present heterogeneous condition? Or are we to conclude that all matter is dead, except that termed “matter of life?” That there is, consequently, no life except organic life, and that this organic life is a special creation entering into a single compound, which thereby raised to the dignity of “matter of life,” makes use of other elements as auxiliaries to its supreme rule? With all proper deference to “matter of life,” we would ask, what do we know of life except as a result of motion? and where can matter be found that does not manifest motion? and how could the compound in which the “matter of life” is first found, have been compounded without motion? If the life principle, manifested by protoplasm, is simply a property of matter, I see no logical reason why the motion existing in matter should not with equal propriety be called its property. This brings us to first principles, to the threshold of elemental combination, for if this power determines the forms compounds shall assume, why should it not determine simple elemental form also?
Protoplasm is the foundation of all organic life; and if we add to this that this substance is itself the ultimate of a previous system of formation, the formula will express the whole. Yet it must not be forgotten that the building up of organic life is the result of a constructive power common to the universe, and not indigenous to protoplasm alone. It must then be apparent that there is a power common to all matter, of which the motion or life inherent in living protoplasm is but a modification; also, that the capacity of this common power for modification is only limited by the necessary forms to represent it, and the time required to develop them.
If this view of the power that pervades the universe is correct, the real basis of life lies retrospectively far behind the motion contained in or manifested by the matter of life, and this motion, instead of being life of matter in its absolute sense, is but one of its modes of expression. This homogeneous power common to matter still exists, undisturbed in extent, though most heterogeneously distributed in the formations which make up the present external universe.
The basis of physical life, then, is this power, and this power is the same that was found to be unitary, though incomprehensible in its extent, while its manifestations are simply symbolic of that unlimited power which is alone attributable to the Unknowable, commonly designated God. If this conclusion is not in accordance with the modes of manifestation, there is no halting-place between it and the opposite extreme of the materialist that “there is no God”—that matter is all there is in the universe. If materialistic philosophy involve “grave error,” it becomes the duty of all who detect this tendency to preserve and point out the distinctions between the “matter of life” and the life of matter.
If the true province of philosophy is to discern the “soul of truth,” said to exist “in all erroneous things,” it ill becomes the ultra Spiritualist with a “soul of truth,” contained within his vast body of errors, to denounce the ultra Materialist, who, if he has not the “soul of truth,” has a vast body of it. To the superficial thinker, the Materialist may seem to be the more consistent of the two, as he can in part comprehend his truth, while the Spiritualist cannot. Whether one is more or less consistent than the other matters not, so far as their predications are concerned.
But the ultra Spiritualist would show his consistency by descending to the plane of the Materialist to find in his “body of truths” evidences of the handiwork of his God, which his ultra religious ideas fail to furnish; and the ultra Materialist would show his by ascending to the plane of the Spiritualist to find in his “soul of truth” the key that shall transform his “body of truth” into living evidence of an unlimited Power entirely beyond the pale of matter or the keenest scientific analysis.
TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
[Revised from the American Workman of October 9, 1869.]