CHAPTER VI.

SPECULATIONS AS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCES TN THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE.

‘The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them.’—SHAKESPEARE, _Macbeth_.

177. Our readers are now aware from what we have said in Chapter II. that the two great requisites for organised existence are, in the first place, an organ of memory, giving the individual a hold upon the past, and secondly, the possibility of varied action in the present, and that unless these two things are fulfilled life is simply inconceivable.

Again, in Chapters III., IV., and V. we have sufficiently discussed the visible universe and its potentialities. We have seen that although at present it contains the essential requisites for organised existence, yet, in the remote future, a time will necessarily arrive when, through a degradation of the Energy of this universe, or at least of one part of it, that variety of motion which is essential to life will be unattainable. Immortality is, therefore, impossible or hardly possible in such a universe; but even allowing all this to be the case, it is at least conceivable that man may be at death drafted off into some superior rank of being connected with the present universe, and thence ultimately removed into a new order of things when the present universe shall have become effete.

Let us now, therefore, very briefly discuss the question as to the possibility of intelligences superior to man existing in the present visible universe. And, in order to commence this inquiry, let us analyse with some minuteness the physical source of that peculiarity which the present universe possesses, in virtue of which it affords living beings the means of a varied existence. Whence is all this power derived? How comes it about that a living being possesses that abruptness and spontaneity of action which peculiarly characterise it? In fine, let us consider the exact position of life in the present physical universe.

178. Now, in the first place, it is well known that equilibrium may be of two kinds, stable and unstable, and if we take an egg balanced on its end at the edge of a table as an example of mechanical instability, we shall see that it ‘depends upon some external impulse so infinitesimally small as to elude our observation whether the egg shall fall upon the floor and give rise to a comparatively large transmutation of energy, or whether it shall fall upon the table and give rise to a transmutation comparatively small.’[53]

But, just as there are other forces besides gravity, so there are other varieties of instability besides that which we treat of in mechanics.

We may, for instance, have molecular instability, such as characterises water cooled below the freezing point, or a supersaturated solution of Glauber’s salt, where the advent of the smallest possible crystal of ice or of Glauber’s salt is sufficient to bring about a marked molecular change in the liquid, which immediately becomes thick with deposited crystals; or again, we may have chemical instability in which the slightest impulse of any kind may determine a chemical change, just as in mechanical instability the slightest possible impulse may determine a mechanical change. Thus fulminating silver or nitroglycerine are familiar examples of chemical instability in which the slightest blow or the smallest spark may be sufficient to bring about an instantaneous and violent generation of heated gas.

179. Again, all machines—that is to say, all material systems—must necessarily be of two kinds, one of which makes use of the stable forces of nature and the other of the unstable. The following quotation from a work on Energy, by one of the authors of this book, will sufficiently explain what is meant:[54]—

‘When we speak of a structure, or a machine, or a system, we simply mean a number of individual particles associated together in producing some definite result. Thus, the solar system, a timepiece, a rifle, are examples of inanimate machines; while an animal, a human being, an army, are examples of animated structures or machines. Now, such machines or structures are of two kinds, which differ from one another not only in the object sought, but also in the means of attaining that object.

‘In the first place, we have structures or machines in which systematic action is the object aimed at, and in which all the arrangements are of a conservative nature, the element of instability being avoided as much as possible. The solar system, a timepiece, a steam-engine at work, are examples of such machines, and the characteristic of all such is their _calculability_. Thus the skilled astronomer can tell, with the utmost precision, in what place the moon or the planet Venus will be found this time next year. Or again, the excellence of a timepiece consists in its various hands pointing accurately in a certain direction after a certain interval of time. In like manner we may safely count upon a steamship making so many knots an hour, at least while the outward conditions remain the same. In all these cases we make our calculations, and we are not deceived—the end sought is regularity of action, and the means employed is a stable arrangement of the forces of nature.

‘Now, the characteristics of the other class of machines are precisely the reverse.

‘Here the object aimed at is not a regular, but a sudden and violent, transmutation of energy, while the means employed are unstable arrangements of natural forces. A rifle at full-cock, with a delicate hair-trigger, is a very good instance of such a machine, where the slightest touch from without may bring about the explosion of the gunpowder, and the propulsion of the ball with a very great velocity. Now, such machines are eminently characterised by their _incalculability_.

‘It is thus apparent that, as regards energy, structures are of two kinds. In one of these, the object sought is regularity of action, and the means employed, a stable arrangement of natural forces; while in the other, the end sought is freedom of action, and a sudden transmutation of energy, the means employed being an unstable arrangement of natural forces.

‘The one set of machines are characterised by their calculability—the other by their incalculability. The one set, when at work, are not easily put wrong, while the other set are characterised by great delicacy of construction.’

180. Having thus defined the two kinds of machines, let us now see to what extent a living being may be regarded as a machine, and also to which of these two categories he belongs.

What our machines enable us to do is merely to transform energy. Our readers are well aware, by what we have already said (Art. 102), that it is just as impossible to create energy as it is to create matter.

Thus a clock has to be wound up before it will go; an engine has to be stoked with coal; a rifle or cannon has to be charged with powder; and in short, all machines, whether delicately constructed or not, whether calculable or incalculable, are merely transmuters of energy and not creators of it.

To this law the living being is no exception. The creatures of this world (and it is of such we are now speaking) are certainly not creators of energy; but in respect of the great law of the conservation of energy, such beings must be regarded in the very same light as any other machines.

But there is yet another analogy between living beings and inanimate machines. When we study the working of any machine, we find that each transformation of energy brought about has a material antecedent; the effect produced has a cause from which it springs, and this cause is one which we are probably able to recognise from our knowledge of the laws of matter. To take an example: in a steam-engine the amount of work produced depends upon the amount of heat carried from the boiler to the condenser; and this amount depends in its turn upon the amount of coal which is burned in the furnace of the engine. In like manner, the velocity of the bullet which issues from a rifle depends upon the transformation of the energy of the powder; this in its turn depends upon the explosion of the percussion cap; this again upon the fall of the trigger; and lastly this upon the finger of the man who fires the rifle.

Now, without attempting to define what life is, and leaving all speculations regarding it to our last chapter, we yet think it may safely be said that a living being is analogous to a machine in this particular also.

Let us take the man who fires the rifle. We can trace back the motion of his forefinger to the contraction of a muscle; and we can go even further back and connect this contraction with a stimulus sent along the nerves from the brain, so that a material effect is here seen to be brought about by a material antecedent, just as truly as in an inanimate machine. Indeed, we may generalise, and say that, _so far as we can physically investigate a living being_, we may take it for granted that a material effect is due to a strictly material antecedent in his case also.

181. We have thus discussed two respects in which a living being is analogous to a machine, and the next point is to determine which of the two classes of machines most resembles the living being. Is he analogous to the solar system, a steam-engine, or a clock? or is he rather analogous to some delicately constructed machine, such, for instance, as a rifle? There can, we think, be no doubt that a living being most resembles a delicately constructed machine. For what is the characteristic of such a machine? It is that in it a comparatively great transformation of energy may be brought about by a comparatively small physical antecedent. Thus a slight breath of air may determine the fall of the egg off the table, or a slight tap the explosion of a large quantity of fulminating silver. So in the human being, a very small and obscure transmutation of energy in the mysterious brain-chamber may determine some very violent motion. ‘Life is not a bully who swaggers out into the open universe, upsetting the laws of energy in all directions, but rather a consummate strategist, who, sitting in his secret chamber over his wires, directs the movements of a great army.’[55]

182. Granting then that a living being is a delicately constructed machine, the next point is to determine what process of delicacy, what peculiar arrangement of unstable forces, is employed in his construction? Now it is very easy to perceive that the delicacy in this case is brought about by an unstable arrangement of chemical forces. It is plain that the body of an animal is a chemically unstable product, and if, as one consequence of this, great freedom of action and delicacy are possessed during life, it is another consequence that the extinction of life is very speedily followed by decay.

The body then owes its delicacy to its chemically unstable nature; to a peculiar collocation of particles which certainly would not, in virtue of their own merely physical forces, have united themselves together as we find them in the body.

183. To what, then, is due this peculiar grouping of particles in the living body?

We reply that it is, in one sense at least, derived from the food which is eaten. If animal food is eaten, it is of course derived from the body of the animal which is consumed. That animal may possibly have derived it from another animal, but more probably it has been derived in this case direct from the vegetable world. Ultimately, therefore, it is to this world that we must look as the source of that delicately constructed substance which plays such a wonderful and important part in the animal economy. If we go one link further back in the chain of causation, we shall be carried from the vegetable world to the sun as the great and ultimate physical source of that high-class energy and delicacy of construction which characterise vegetable products. It is, in truth, owing to the actinic rays of our luminary that vegetable tissue is manufactured in the leaves of plants, the carbonic acid of the air being decomposed, and oxygen given out, while the carbon, united with other substances, and modified thereby, is retained by the plant to form part of its substance, or perchance to become the food of animals.

184. We have therefore now arrived at the conclusion that the delicacy of construction which our frames require is ultimately derived from the sun, so far at least as the visible universe is concerned. If then we would reply to the question of this chapter, whether or not there may be beings superior to man connected with this present universe, let us look abroad and endeavour to ascertain whether there be in this universe any other obvious process of delicacy besides that which characterises the bodies of animals like ourselves.

Now, it has been pointed out that, in the atmospheric changes of this world, and more particularly of the sun, we have processes of great delicacy. It is believed that the positions of the planets Mercury and Venus affect the behaviour of sun-spots, and thus determine the conditions of atmospheric changes on the surface of our luminary that are absolutely overwhelming in their magnitude. We have only to reflect that a large sun-spot might swallow up fifty planets like our earth, and that some of the currents connected with it move at the rate of 100 miles per second, in order to realise the enormous scale of these solar outbreaks. Again, it is believed that the state of the solar surface with regard to spots determines the storms of our earth, so that hurricanes are most numerous in the Indian Ocean as well as on the coast of America during years of maximum sun-spots.[56]

But if such results are brought about by the relative positions of the planets of our system, it is evident that the cause is more analogous to the pulling of the trigger of a cannon ready to go off than to a downright blow. In fact, a vast transformation of energy in the sun is brought about by some obscure and ill-understood but comparatively trivial cause connected with the position of the nearer planets of our system. We have here a case where the magnitude of the effect is out of all proportion to that of the antecedent; now this is, in other words, the definition of delicacy already given (Art. 179).

But, again, if delicacy of construction characterise the meteorological changes in the various members of our system, it is entirely absent from the orbital motions of these bodies. These want that great characteristic of delicacy, _incalculability_; for they are not only pre-eminently calculable, but are now calculated years beforehand as part of the regular business of the world. On the other hand, the meteorological changes of our earth and of the sun come upon us with all the abruptness characteristic of delicacy, and are eminently incalculable. The hurricane and the lightning-flash are processes of Nature which man has in every age been prone to associate with personal intelligences. He has instinctively recognised the similarity between these abrupt and startling phenomena and the actions of an angry and powerful being.

185. It may no doubt be long since there has been anything like an extensive worship of the powers of nature amongst the civilised nations of the earth, but there may yet be found, even at the present day, especially amongst imaginative races, and in wild and mountainous regions, a lingering belief that personal agents are concerned in the more startling natural phenomena.

Such a belief was extensively prevalent during the middle ages, and whole volumes might easily be filled with an account of mediæval superstitions and legends relating to this subject, sometimes dark and terrible, and at other times possessing a peculiar and pathetic beauty which does not belong to anything else. The air, the earth, and the water have all been peopled with spirits; some of them friendly to man, some of them his deadly enemies. They are powerful, and conscious of their power, but at the same time profoundly and mournfully aware that they are without a soul. Their life depends, it may be, upon the continuance of some natural object, and hence for them there is no immortality. Sometimes, however, an elemental spirit procures a soul by means of a loving union with one of the human race, and the beautiful romance of Undine is built upon this fancy.

At other times the reverse happens, and the soul of the mortal is lost who, leaving the haunts of men, associates with these soulless but often amiable and affectionate beings. ‘The Forsaken Merman,’ by Matthew Arnold, expresses this fancy in a very beautiful and touching manner:—

‘Children dear, was it yesterday (Call once more) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She comb’d its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of the far-off bell. She sigh’d, she look’d up through the clear green sea; She said, “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little grey church on the shore to-day. ’Twill be Easter time in the world—ah me! And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.” I said, “Go up, dear heart, through the waves; Say thy prayers and come back to the kind sea-caves.” She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. Children dear, was it yesterday?’

186. A conception, in some respects analogous to that now mentioned, but in other respects very different from it, is that which attributes a soul to the universe; and it has even been imagined that the whole visible universe forms, as it were, one gigantic brain.

Others again appear inclined to believe that there may be many cosmical intelligences, each embracing the whole universe, and therefore interpenetrating one another, and at the same time taking part in its government by means of such processes of delicacy as those we have mentioned.

187. Now, before proceeding further in the discussion of these speculations, let us here state more definitely than we have yet done what is the real point in question.

It is not so much the possibility of the delicate processes of nature being directed by an intelligent agency; this is in reality a different question, and one which will be discussed in our concluding chapter. But the question now before us is, whether any such agency may be said to belong to the present visible universe?

To make our meaning clear: we know that we ourselves belong to the present visible universe. Again, there are many of us who believe that angelic intelligences are the ministers of God’s providence. Now, whether this doctrine be true or not (and we are not now concerned about its truth), it is evident that such intelligences cannot be said to belong to the present physical universe. The organisation which they possess, and without which (Art. 61) we cannot imagine a finite intelligence to exist, is most assuredly nothing that can be perceived by our bodily senses, nor can we imagine that their existence is at all dependent on the fate of the visible universe; in fine, they do not belong to it.

Our present question, therefore, is whether we can associate the delicate cosmical processes of the visible universe with the operations of intelligences residing in this universe and belonging to it, and to this question we must assuredly give a negative reply.

188. We entertain no doubt that man and beings at least analogous to man represent the highest order of living things connected with the present visible universe.

For, in the first place, although there is abundant evidence of delicacy of construction in the cosmical processes of this universe, there is no evidence of an organisation such as that which observation leads us to associate with the presence of life.

In the next place, whatever view we may entertain of the Darwinian hypothesis and the relation of man to the lower animals, there can be no doubt that they are all of a similar physical construction. What physiologists term the matter of life is very much the same in all, so that the body of any one animal may in general afford food for any other. Now, is it likely that there are two living systems, absolutely distinct and as different from one another as we can well imagine, both connected with the visible universe?

We think this view would imply such a want of unity in the plan of development as to be absolutely fatal to its reception, even as a working hypothesis. On these accounts, therefore, we do not hesitate to dismiss the conception of a superior order of beings connected with the present physical universe as one which is altogether untenable.

189. If we now turn from the verdict of science to the sacred writings of the Jews, we find that one grand idea which pervades the whole of the Old Testament is man’s absolute superiority and practical sovereignty over all created beings whom he can perceive otherwise than with the _mind’s eye_.

He is supreme, or it is part of his work on earth to become supreme, over all that can be perceived by his senses, _i.e._ all the visible and tangible world. Thus we read in Gen. i. 28: ‘And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’

Again, we read (Psalm viii. 5, 6): ‘For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.’ [It appears that the correct reading of the first part of this is, ‘Thou hast made him little less than divine,’ etc.]

190. It is worthy of note that the same idea is still more fully developed in the New Testament, where it is confessed that, in one very important respect, this superiority of man is seen to fail.

He has greatly enlarged his powers over nature, and has by these means much ameliorated the condition of his race; yet death overtakes him just as remorselessly and as ruthlessly as if he were a savage of no account. He may meet death fearlessly, conscious that he has at least done something for the good of his fellows. But what does it all amount to? Death will ultimately overtake the race just as remorselessly as the individual. Now it is this fearful enemy, this terrible exception to the domination of man, which Christ, as the Son and type of man, is commissioned to destroy. Thus we read (1 Cor. xv. 25): ‘For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet.’ And presently (verse 54) the apostle breaks forth into the following triumphant and beautiful language:—‘So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.’ Again we read (Heb. ii. 8): ‘For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him: but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.’ [Here again it appears that instead of the phrase ‘made a little lower than the angels,’ we should read, ‘made for a little time lower than the angels’—_i.e._ an idea identical in meaning with the phrase ‘made under the law,’ the Old Testament law being viewed as administered by angels. From this dispensation, in which cosmical powers come between man and God, Christ frees us, by himself for a little time entering into it, and even under it meeting death.]

191. From all this we may conclude that both science and religion tell us the same tale. They inform us that man, and beings similar to man, are at the head of the visible universe. No doubt religion informs us, in addition to this, that there are other beings above man, but these do not live in the visible universe, but in that which is unseen and eternal.