False Theories of Life. 313 We are told "Life and Mind are not substances, but the dynamical results of an organism's statical conditions. Mind is only one of the forms of life; and Life is not an entity, but an abstraction expressing the generalities of organic phenomena." The assertion is not true: organism and function are not the cause, but caused by life. The initial fact, without which could be no organism, is life: it is a theorem worked out by the organism. It is asserted-"We come into the world with a heritage of organised form and definite tendencies representing ancestral experiences and adaptations. In like manner, the mind is built up of assimilated experiences: perceptions and conceptions being shaped out of pre-perceptions and pre-conceptions." The statement is not adequate. Life is something more than the synthesis of ancestral experiences. It makes the synthesis, and gathers it into one person. It is more than an aggregate of past and present perceptions: it is that by which we possess and use them. Life builds up the organism, and mind inhabits it. Life and mind look through the organism at the outer world, have views of an inner world; and, strangely enough, detect relations which extend beyond life, and get at the supra-sensible analytically by analysis of analysis. We know not the exact conditions in which organic life began. Of this, however, we are sure: it is not merely sensations of colours, sounds, tastes, smells: for sensations are the product or act of life, not life itself. Those who would explain it by descending from organism to organism, quantitatively and qualitatively, from masses to atoms, forget that atoms are masses "writ small"-the mystery remains. The chemist analyses water into its constituent gases; then, by synthesis under certain conditions, reconstructs the water; not so with life, nor the substance in which life is manifested. The substance can only be made by life; and without the substance organism is not possible. Those who degrade man to the beast and would slay religion, clutch at the dagger; but, like that which hovered before Macbeth's imagination, it refuses to be grasped. The " 'gouts of blood" upon its "blade and dudgeon" no eye but their own can see; man lives, moves, has his being in God. Mr. Herbert Spencer, finding fault with various definitions of life, says "Life is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences." It would be more correct to say-Life effects definite combinations and changes, etc. Mr. G. H. Lewes states-"Life is the co-ordination of actions, both of structure and composition, which take place within an individual without destroying its identity." Here also it is needful to remember-life is that which makes the co-ordination, correspondence, co-existence, sequences. The larger formula-"Life is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences" -may be approved by some; but a watch is all that. Others choose, "Life--including intelligence as the highest known manifestation of life-is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations." To render the definition adequate, make a change, and read—Life, including intelligence, as the highest known manifestation of life, effects the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations; or, as Professor Flint states-is the cause of the direction and co-ordination of the movements or actions characteristic of bioplasmic matter. Bearing in mind that life is the cause of organism, not itself caused by organism, and raises for itself manychambered habitations of manifold structure and function, we may speak of it after the manner of Descartes in "Traite de l'homme "—"The vital spirit is like a subtle fluid, or pure and vivid flame. It is ever regenerated in the heart, and ascends to the brain. Hence it passes into the nerves, is distributed to the muscles, and causes contraction or relaxation. This spirit not only fills the cavities of the brain, it enters the pores of its substance, and is the means of all motion and emotion. As in the groves and fountains of royal gardens, water issuing from the reservoir moves various machines, makes them play instruments and even pronounce words; so the vital spirit, lodged in the machine of an animal body, enthrones itself in the brain; or takes the engineer's seat to guide the mechanism; and thence increases or slackens, changes or suspends, motion and function." The body has been called an engine, of which food is Human Life is Threefold. 315 the fuel, and blood the life-oil; but a body may have food in the stomach, blood in the veins, and nevertheless be dead. Living substances, when dead, can be converted into carbonic acid, water, ammonia: but we cannot so bring them together that the dead make the living substance. Our organism transmits impressions from without into sensation within; but life is not the organism, nor impression, nor sensation, it is the master principle or secret of all"an original, specific, self-propagating endowment.” "1 Physical energy is correlative to vital acts, but not of identical nature. Heat, electricity, light, air, are materials and agents by which vital processes are educed; but life is not an aggregation nor a resultant of these conditions, materials, powers. The living egg may be quickened by heat, and become a growing bird; but who can hatch a dead egg? Certain bodies in solution assume definite crystal forms, every form after its kind; and metals-gold, silver, copper, possess individuality, called "life." Other bodies, agglomerating into organic form and exhibiting the properties of life, have their own special life; we know not the how nor the why; nor do impressions from without, though they may determine the occurrence of sensation, reveal the secret how motion is converted into sensation. Life is not all the same life: there is one life of fish, another of bird, another of beast, another of man; and man's life is threefold-corporis vita, life of the body; mentis vita, life of the mind; with one spirit pervading each for the safety of both. Speaking accurately-everything possessing consciousness, perception, voluntary motion, may possibly have an immaterial personal principle wholly distinct from animal tissues. There is in every animal not only a plant life, a system of organs used for assimilation and reproduction; but a life by which it merits to be classed apart as an intelligence using organs. The immaterial personal principle of the beast seems to be used up in the necessary expenditure of its natural life. A greater distinction exists between the natural life and personal life of the human being. Natural life is that into which we are born, it includes body, soul, spirit: "soul is the external aspect of the spirit, spirit the internal aspect of the soul." 2 Personal life is the centre or 1 "Winds of Doctrine :" Charles Elam, M.D. identity of our being in every stage and condition of growth. It is the ego, capable of introspection, to apprehend the interests of our existence in self-representation, common to all men as men, and elevating us above plants and beasts.1 We are not merely plants-with life indeed, but no soul; not merely animals-with soul indeed, but no spirit; but men-with life indeed, soul indeed, spirit indeed. Selfconscious, means possessed by self; self-possessed is pos sessing ourselves and all our faculties. We find further evidence in the fact that mechanical adjustment, or automatism, does not explain all the actions or personality of brutes; it is less able to define human conduct. an Some of our acts, which at first required attention and skill, become automatic. This reveals the fact that mental states and physical states are as two sides of life; but life cannot be weighed in a balance, nor measured by scale, nor tested in crucible, nor seen by microscope. Our sensations, volitions, consciousness, power, are not wholly from animal organs: sensations are often the product of mental states, and are modified by the physical. Everybody knows that brain is connected with the mechanical operation of thinking, and that the nerves are correlated to our sensations; but thought is not explained by the hard word “cerebration ;" nor is any new light cast on sensation by calling it " affection of sensory ganglia." We do not understand the connection between molecular processes and the phenomena of consciousness: therefore we cannot define one by the other. Wicked thoughts are worked by the same machinery that prompts and sustains the good. Brain, heart, lungs, are made of similar substances, moved by the same kind of organism, in Judas, the traitor; and in John the beloved. Different kinds of emanations, vibrations, and other powerful agencies, act in and around us; tastes are brought into alliance with thoughts; sensual things are relieved, ennobled, graced, by intermixture with ideas of beauty and order; so that our bodies are a point of contact for two worlds-mind and matter: in which volition counts for something, and has duties to perform. Embodied, our mind is educated: its peremptory and efficacious impulses to put moral and intellectual faculties into activity have new experiences by "Bible Psychology," pp. 180, 476; Prof, Delitzsch, Life acts Mechanically. 317 corporeal constitution: "first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual." Bones, muscles, nerves, come between mind and that which is outside of mind; but they are instruments only by which the molecules of the blood, or of the organism considered in the aggregate, are moulded into the peculiarity of their own type. This process of integration and reintegration, by which diffused units are arranged into special compound forms, seems akin to the polarity of crystals-a power of whose nature nothing is known. The totality of the living tissue, or zoological individual is a zoon, or person, possessing union of parts, and separateness from other objects; a centre, or axis, able to carry on that continuous adjustment of inner to outer relations which is not life itself-but the work of life. Life acts mechanically, but, in the very act, we are conscious that our mind, which moves the mechanism, proves that we are more than a material machine: for if all vital action is the result of molecular energies, and there is no substantial difference between the protoplasm of lobster and that of man, the functions of both should be identical; but the lobster is confined to intuitive motion and reproduction, while man possesses multifarious and complicated activities of intellect, emotion, will. Memory, is a book in which we write, as with magnetic fluid, to ensure the embodiment and survival of our personal consciousness; by which we know the integrity and continuance of our personality; possess our past existence; and learn, by successive states, to project ourselves into the future. Our personal life is a real thing, we have open doors in the palace of our dwelling, and run through them to see, to taste, to admire, to understand. Individuality of Human Life. The simpler forms of individuality are seen in the percipient, voluntary, reasoning principles of brutes: but there are two corporeities in man-a natural body and a spiritual body (1 Cor. xv. 44); in brutes are the animal tissue and the immaterial principle. Leibnitz saith-" Les perfections de Dieu sont celles de nos âmes, mais il les possède sans bornes: il est un océan, dont nous n'avons reçu que des gouttes.' Between the instinct of a brute, not knowing "Theodice "-the Preface. |