CHAPTER II

SOUL AND LIFE

The phrase that the dead still live does not mean the same thing as when it is said that a human body lives. In the former case the word “live” merely means “exist”; in the latter the word “lives” connotes, together with the idea of existence, a particular concrete form of living which is differentiated markedly from “living” in the abstract. This distinction is frequently overlooked, and as the oversight leads to much confusion of thought and lies at the root of much of the opposition that is here and there offered to the doctrine of “survival,” it seems well to devote a few pages to its discussion.

The “life” that is found in human bodies and throughout the organic world is impersonal. It is material, or, rather, physical, in the sense that it has not any existence apart from the organic matter of which it constitutes an affection or attribute. The case is analogous to that of gravitation. According to the accepted Newtonian philosophy every particle of matter in the universe attracts, and is attracted by, every other particle: it gravitates: it is ponderable. But there is no such thing as gravitation _per se_, though there may be an entity that causes gravitation. It is convenient, for the purposes of language and the orderly expression of thought, to speak of it separately, just as colour, temperature, illumination, form, structure and other affections are referred to; the understanding, however, being always that they are not in themselves entities and are not characterised by anything in the nature of self-existence.

Science does not at present hold that life is an attribute of all matter. Minerals and other forms of what is called inorganic matter are considered to be devoid of life, and the same destitution is asserted with respect to “dead,” “inanimate” organic matter. Life is met with only in “living,” “animate” organic matter; just as crystallisation is found only in “crystalline” and not in “amorphous” matter; and--to pursue the simile--it may be pointed out that the same matter which is crystalline under some conditions becomes amorphous under others, as in the case of carbon, which is sometimes diamond and sometimes charcoal. In like manner living matter may change into dead matter--a change which is called “death”; and dead matter may change into living matter, as, for example, when food is assimilated by animals and vegetables.

The true nature of the “life” met with in living organic matter is not yet understood. Modern science has shown, indisputably, that the doctrine of the conservation of energy applies without modification to living beings just as much as to inanimate substances. The idea of there being any specific “vital force,” “vital material” or “vital energy” has long ago been abandoned. All the particular phenomena observed by morphologists, physiologists, embryologists, palæontologists and ætiologists--_i.e._ by the whole world of biologists--can be satisfactorily explained in terms of chemistry, physical force, energy and dynamics. But biology cannot as yet give an equally clear account of the co-ordinated vitality of anything that lives. It cannot even state the how and why of the simplest unicellular organism. “We are forced,” says a leading authority, “to the conclusion that a living organism is a particular synthesis of matter and energy, the secret of whose organisation remains hidden.”

We know, however, that life displays the same kind of uniformity that characterises heat, light, motion and other imponderables. The something that appears as the temperature of boiling water is similar in all respects to the something that appears as the equal temperature of hot oil and can be interchanged therewith. Indeed, the fundamental Theory of Exchanges upon which a great part of thermodynamics is based depends for its validity on the absence of any distinction between the heats of various masses of matter. The only variation of heat is that of degree: the kind is always the same; heat never becomes individualised. This is seen by everyday observation to be equally true of life, and is frequently demonstrated by specific experiment. Grafting, for example, whether it consist in the union of a scion of one tree with the stock of another, or whether it take the form of transferring a piece of John Smith’s skin to a flayed part of Robert Green’s arm, is the migration of a vitality that remains unchanged in spite of the change of environment and that intermingles harmoniously and homogeneously with the vitality of its new abode. Neither the individualities of the two trees nor the personalities of the two men appear in, or accompany, their stocks of “life” any more than they are to be found in their stocks of heat or weight. The various stocks may be more or less abundant in quantity, but they do not differ in kind.

We know also that life is capable of indefinite increase by reproduction, provided only that the means of sustenance be available. A single pair of rabbits, for instance, if allowed to breed unchecked and not killed off, will, in a comparatively short time, become represented by two millions of similar animals. This means, of course, that the quantity of “life” corresponding to two rabbits has been augmented a million-fold. The increase has not been derived from the food consumed, the total amount of which is accounted for by the bodies and excreta of the conies. A similar phenomenon is observable throughout the whole sum of living beings, whether human, “animal” or vegetable. It distinguishes “life” very effectually from matter and energy, both of which are, by the doctrine of conservation, as incapable of increase as of decrease. The only hypothesis that appears possible by way of explanation is to hold that “life” is one of the protean modes of energy in the same way that heat is understood (by those persons who are content to accept the Baconian, and modern scientific view) to be a mode of motion. This hypothesis, however, does not rest on any secure foundation. The only energy that is known to be practically available for transmutation into life is heat (light and electricity seem to be negligible); and reproduction, which often takes place on a very large scale, has never been observed to involve the absorption and disappearance of heat.

Again, we know by observation and experiment that the function of “life” is to organise matter; that is to say, to arrange material

## particles into differentiated groups and aggregates marked by varying

complexities of composition suitable for certain specific actions. It is sometimes contended that this systematic co-ordination and apparent display of purpose is to be found also in the inanimate world. The phenomenon of crystallisation, for example, is here and there regarded as an instance of life. It is attended by growth. It exhibits both differentiation and integration, becoming on the one hand more complex and on the other more unified. Lost parts are seen to be regenerated. Some degree of adjustment to surroundings is noticeable; and reproduction may even be said to occur to some extent. But when the crystal is formed it does not differ, either in substance or in function, from the raw material out of which it has been constructed. It remains inert and destitute of any approach to vitality. It may be destroyed by crushing, fusion, solution: it never “dies.” To speak of it as being a living creature is, therefore, inept.

If, however, great importance be still attached to the occasional regenerations and reproductions observed in the case of inanimate matter, it should be borne in mind that these differ very greatly from the corresponding phenomena where life is concerned. The repairs effected by chemical affinity and other non-vital influences are limited to restoration and replacement without alteration of structure or change of adaptation; and where reproduction takes place it is limited to repetition. Very different results are met with when Life is in control. Take any “horny-handed son of toil.” The skin of his hands when he was a child and until he began to work was soft and tender. It became injured by friction, pressure and the like. It needed repair; and then Life, instead of renewing the softness, gradually developed a condition of toughness and callosity which served as a safeguard against further injury. Such facts as these--and a vast number are known to Science--conclusively establish the essential difference that exists between living matter and matter that is not invested with vitality.

Then, too, we know that Life is not characterised by consciousness. This is clearly evident in the cases of seeds and eggs which are most assuredly composed of living matter. But it is also just as obvious in fully matured human beings if careful consideration be given to all the facts involved. A man’s bones, for example, are endowed with life; but no one suggests or contends that they are characterised by consciousness. The same thing is true of his hair, his nails, his flesh, his blood. His eyes and ears and other organs of sense are mere receiving and transmitting apparatus, and are not in themselves conscious. Hence by far the greater part of the life that enters into the composition of a living human being is devoid of consciousness. And when the brain is taken into account the situation is not changed. Cerebral matter is, like the sensory mechanism, a mere piece of apparatus, a gramophone, as it were, which, in a certain sense of the words, may be said to hear and to speak, but which has not any inner consciousness of what goes on.

This view, which no man of science will contest, and which is a tenet of modern natural philosophy, is established by the everyday experience of every man. Not only does he know that his bones, hair, blood, etc., are not conscious entities, though they are full of life; he also knows that he remains as alive as ever during his sleep, which is frequently dreamless and free from all indications of consciousness. He knows that chloroform and other anæsthetics are constantly employed on thousands of occasions with resulting insensibility and unconsciousness, but with no difference in the life that animates the bodies of the persons operated upon. He knows that a man may be stunned by a severe blow on the head and may become, for the time being, bereft of consciousness while still retaining his full vitality. The truth of the matter, in fact, is so plain as not to be open to any serious discussion, even though, as is the case with every doctrine under the sun, it may in appearance be argued about in words and phrases that are ingeniously diverted from their normal meanings.

It is furthermore to be borne in mind that Life has not any conscience and is utterly non-moral From a strictly scientific point of view this is not a matter of any consequence; for Science is concerned merely with existence _quâ_ existence and disregards the whole subject of ethical good and evil. Scientific men, however, have consciences and the knowledge of right and wrong, and are able, whenever they may feel so disposed, to judge of Life from the moral point of view. They see, for example, that the vitality of a living human being is just as active, efficient and exquisitely adaptative in the development of a painful disease as in the production of enjoyable health. They see that the fatal microbe is fostered and sent on its murderous way rejoicing, just as much as the phagocytes (the “blood scavengers”) and other defensive organisms are in like manner protected and caused to multiply. The cow is made to yield milk, while the cobra is equally aided to prepare a store of deadly poison. The bee is set to the beneficent work of honey-making; and the mosquito is granted a letter-of-marque for the dissemination of malaria. Everywhere in nature the same blindness to moral considerations and the same absence of ethical purpose are met with in the activities of Life.

The question of how Life originates should also receive attention. Modern science rejects the idea of its being derived from inanimate matter or from any combination of matter with physical force or energy. The experiments of the late Dr. H. Charlton Bastian, F.R.S., and others with respect to the demonstration of “spontaneous generation” are held to be invalidated by various sources of error; and the almost unanimous verdict of the scientific world is that every occurrence of life proceeds from some antecedent, parent, life. This doctrine involves naturally the referring back of the entire amount of life now existing in the world to a long line of ancestry. And as Science teaches furthermore that a time did once exist when the world was altogether inorganic and inanimate, there emerges the problem of when and how Life made its first appearance on this mundane sphere. This problem is, as yet, insoluble; and, _faute de mieux_, certain scientists as, for example, Helmholz, Tyndall and Lord Kelvin have found themselves reduced to the necessity of suggesting that possibly the first specimen of life on the earth was introduced in the form of some organism borne hither by a meteorite. But such a suggestion does not solve the problem of Life; it merely throws back the solution by yet another stage. And in the meantime the remarks already made in the present chapter with regard to the capacity of indefinite increase displayed by Life are emphasised and confirmed in a prodigious degree. It is surely a most marvellous thing that the whole vast volume of existing life should be the product of some minute primordial quantity without there ever having been added any growth-material from the outside. This difficulty was felt by Dr. Bastian and his fellow-experimenters; and even the stoutest upholders of Harvey’s doctrine, _omne vivum ex ovo_, as, for instance, Huxley, Haeckel, Nageli, Pflüger and Ray Lankester have not hesitated to admit the possibility of protoplasm having been synthetically derived from inanimate matter at some early period of the earth’s history, when physical conditions were very different from those of the present time and when so many things were “in the making.” Some scientists, indeed, hold that heterogenesis may even now be taking place in localities or under circumstances that are shielded from observation; and others, basing their judgment upon the triumphs of modern chemistry in the synthesis of sugar, indigo, alizarine, urea and other organic substances, think it probable that men may yet succeed in putting together a combination of matter that shall exhibit vitality as one of its attributes. The bearing of all this upon the problems dealt with in the present volume consists, of course, in the support given to the essentially physical and non-psychical nature of Life.

If a comparison be now made between what has here been stated with regard to Life and what was stated in