Life: Its True Genesis by R. W. Wright

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With the change of a single monosyllabic predicate, this proposition is
undoubtedly true. We have never heard that plants or trees were "made."
They were ordered "to grow," or rather the earth was commanded to bring
them forth, which is an equivalent induction. And the fact that they grow
now, renders it absolutely certain that they grew at first, when "out of
the ground made the Lord God _to grow_" every plant of the field, and
every tree that is pleasant to the sight. We accept this genesis for the
want of a better. And if Dr. Cooper will add to his climatic conditions,
the hygrometric and other conditions necessary for the development and
growth of his plants and trees, we will agree with him to the fullest
extent of his novel position--that trees neither adapt themselves to the
climate, nor the climate to the trees; although it is true that trees
modify climate quite as much as they are modified by it. The true
physiological formula is undoubtedly this:--Trees make their appearance
_in_ climatic and other environing conditions, and flourish, without
material change in characteristics, so long as these conditions favor.
_Why_ they make their appearance is not a debatable question, except as we
assume a preA"xisting vital principle, and apply to its elucidation our
subtlest dialectical methods. We are told that God commanded the earth to
bring them forth, after _his_ spirit (the animating soul of life) had
moved upon the face of the depths--the chaotic and formless mass of the
earth in the beginning. Plato has uttered no profounder or more
comprehensive truth than this, with all his conceptions of Deity and the
perfect archetypal world after which he conceived our own to be modeled.
Our preference for the Bible genesis over the Platonic conception is, that
it is vastly simpler and constitutes a more objective reality to the human
soul. Besides, we find _it true in fact_, since the earth is constantly
teeming with life, as if in obedience to some great primal law impressed
upon matter by an infinitely superior intelligence to our own.--

"If this faith fail,
The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."

Chapter VII.

What Is Life? Its Various Theories.

The question, "What is life?" does not lie within the province of human
reason, the science of logic, or the intuitions of consciousness, to
determine. It furnishes no objective _datum_ on which to predicate
attributes that are either congruent or diverse. It can only be defined as
the coordination of the _vis vitae_ in nature, which is an undisguised
form of reasoning in a circle. We can ascribe to it only such attributes
as are utterly inconceivable in any other concept or object of thought. It
admits of but one attribution, and that embracing an identical
proposition. To say of life that it is "a coArdination of action," might
be true as a partial judgment, but not as a comprehensive one; otherwise,
crystallization would fall under its category, which is manifestly an
illicit induction. It allows, therefore, of no possible explication,
analysis, or separate logical predicament. It stands absolutely alone and
apart by itself--a positive, self-subsistent vital principle, or process
of action, which all physiologists agree, for the sake of convenience and
uniformity of expression, in designating as a _power, property, force_,
etc., in nature. Whenever questioned as to its origin the subtlest and
profoundest intellects, in all ages of the world, have returned but one
answer: "I know no possible origin but God"--the great primal source of
all life in the universe.

Among the ancients we find an almost equivalent induction in the phrases,
borrowed by them from the highest antiquity, "_Jupiter est genitor_,"
"_Jupiter est quodcunque vivit_," etc., which, although uninspired
utterances, strike their roots deeply into the _terra incognita_ of
consciousness, wherein we ascribe to God the "issues of life" as a
paramount theological conception. When the ingenious and learned Frenchman
defined life as "the sum of all the functions by which death is resisted,"
he was as conclusively indulging in the _argumentum in circulo_ as if he
had said, "Life is the antithesis of what is not life." This would be as
luminous a definition as that which should make Theism the opposite of
Anti-theism, or the Algebraic statement _x-y_ the antithesis of _x+y_--one
of no definitional value so long as there is no known quantity expressed
in the formula.

To begin with begging the question, and then adroitly whipping the
argument about a pivotal point, as a boy would whip a top, may be amusing
enough to the childish mind, but is manifestly making no more progress in
logic than to substitute an ingenious paraphrase of a term for its real
definition. It is a mere verbal feat at best, without the possibility of
reaching any determinate judgment. It is like some of the half-circular
phrases we are likely to meet with in the categories of modern
materialistic science, such as the "correlated correlates of motion," the
"potentiated potentialities of sky-mist," the "undifferentiated
differentialities of life-stuff," called, by special condescension on the
part of the materialists, "life." All of which is an easy logic, but a
whimsical enough way of putting it.

According to Leibnitz, everything that exists is replete with life, full
of vital activity, if not an actual mass of living individualities. But
this daring hypothesis has ceased to attract the attention it once
received. There are states and conditions of matter in respect to which it
is idle to predicate the _vis vitae_. For the great bulk of our globe is
made up of the highly crystallized and non-fossiliferous rocks, which
neither contain any elementary principle of life, nor exhibit the
slightest trace of vital organism, even to the minutest living speck or
plastid. During all those vast periods of uncomputed time, covering the
world's primeval history, there was an utter absence of life until the
chief upheavals of the outer strata of our globe, now constituting the
principal mountain chains of its well-defined continents, occurred. In
whatever atomic or molecular theories, therefore, we may indulge, in
respect to the original formation of the earth, the utmost stretch of
empirical science can go no further, in the solution of vital problems,
than to touch the threshold of inorganic matter, where, in our backward
survey of nature, vegetable life begins and animal life ends. All beyond
this point must be given up to other "correlates of motion" than those to
which the materialists specifically assign the beginnings of life.

The theory of "panspermism," originating with the AbbA(C) Spallanzani in
modern times, and still stoutly advocated by M. Pasteur and some few
others, is manifestly defective in this,--that it goes beyond the
inorganic limit in assigning vital units to all matter, even to its
elemental principles. It is true that they speak of "pre-existing
germs"--"primordial forms of life"--that are "many million times smaller
than the smallest visible insect." But their assumptions go far beyond
the construction we give to the Bible genesis, which merely asserts that
the germinal principle of life--that of every living thing--is in the
earth, or in "the waters and the earth," which were alone commanded "to
bring forth."

Some of the panspermists have gone so far as to assert that everything
which exists is referable to the _vis vitA|_--to non-corporeal, yet
extended vital units, mere metaphysical points--like Professor Beale's
bioplasts in the finer nerve-reticulations--or living things endowed with
a greater or less degree of perceptive power. This was the assumption of
the great German philosopher, Leibnitz, who carried the panspermic theory
so far as to accept the more fanciful one of "monads"--those invisible,
ideal, and purely speculative units of Plato, which go to make up the
entire universe, extending even to the ultimate elements, or elements of
elements. Leibnitz says: "As it is with the human soul, which sympathizes
with all the varying states of nature--which mirrors the universe--so it
is with the monads universally. Each--and they are infinitely
numerous--is also a mirror, a centre of the universe, a microcosm:
everything that is, or happens, is reflected in each, but by its own
spontaneous power, through which it holds ideally in itself, as in a
germ, the totality of things."

But the specific germ theory advanced in the Bible genesis, is capable of
being taken out of the purely speculative region in which "panspermism"
landed the great German philosopher. It is a simple averment that the
animating principle of life is in the earth; that the germs of all living
things, vegetal and animal alike, are implanted therein, and that they
make their appearance, in obedience to the divine command, whenever and
wherever the necessary environing conditions occur. The fact that nature
still obeys this command is proof that she has the power to do so--that
this indestructible vital principle still animates her breast. Innumerable
experiments, as well as phenomenal facts, attest the truth of this genesis
of life, while the researches of Professor Bastian and other eminent
materialists, made in infusorial and cryptogamic directions, confirm
rather than discredit it. The fact that it appears for the first time in
this ancient Hebrew text can detract nothing from its value as a
scientific statement. Granting that panspermism may rest upon a purely
fanciful and unsubstantial basis, it is but fair to concede that its great
advocates have honestly attempted to explain by it all the vital phenomena
occurring in nature, as M. Pasteur is conclusively attempting to do now.
It is certain that the materialists, who are resolutely antagonizing the
panspermic, as well as all other "vital" theories, have not yet gone so
deeply into elementary substance as to shut off all further investigation
in these directions.[22] Neither the lowest primordial cell, nor the least
conceivable molecule, has yet been reached by the aid of the microscope,
any more than the outermost circle of the heavens has been penetrated by
the aid of the telescope. We must stop somewhere, and when we find a
scientifically formulated statement which embraces all vital phenomena,
and satisfactorily accounts for them all, whether it originally came from
Aristotle, from Plato, or from Moses, is a matter of comparatively slight
moment, so far as the scientific world is concerned. At least, it would
seem so to us. But to talk of the _de novo_ origin of "living matter" as
the result of the dynamic force of molecules--themselves concessively
"dead matter"--is to indulge in quite as fanciful a speculation as the
advocates of the panspermic hypothesis have ever ventured to suggest.
Professor Bastian is forced to go back of his infusorial forms and
fungus-germs to a microscopical "pellicle," from which he admits they are
"evolved." But why evolved? Does not the principle of vitality lie back of
the pellicle, as well as the fungus-germ? How absolutely certain is he
that the extremest verge of microscopic investigation has been attained,
in what he is pleased to designate "primary organic forms?" "Evolution" is
a very potential word, and no one may yet know what boundless stores of
absurd theory and metaphysical nonsense are locked up in it![23] He admits
that "evolution," as embracing the idea of "natural selection," can have
nothing to do with the vast assemblage of infusorial and cryptogamic
organisms, until they assume definitely recurring forms, that is, rise
into species and breed true to nature. Then, he agrees with Mr. Darwin,
that the law of vital polarity or "heredity," as he calls it, may come in
and play its part towards effecting evolution, or variability, in both
animal and vegetal organisms, but not before. Why then should he lug in,
or attempt to lug in, the diverse potentialities of this word "evolution,"
for the purpose of demonstrating the dynamic law governing the
developmental stages of his microscopic pellicle? This, he will agree,
lies far below the point, in primary organism, where specific identity, or
the law of heredity, asserts its full recognition. All below this
developmental point is inconstancy of specific forms, with no line of
ancestry to be traced anywhere.

This, Professor Bastian readily concedes, notwithstanding it cuts the
Darwinian _plexus_ squarely in the middle. He says: "Both Gruithuisen and
TrA(C)viranus agree that the infusoria met with have never presented similar
characters when they have been encountered in different infusions; nor
have they been uniform in the same infusion, when different portions of it
have been _exposed to the incidence of different conditions_. The
slightest variations in the quality or quantity of the materials employed,
are invariably accompanied by the appearance of different organisms--these
being oftentimes strange and peculiar, and unaccompanied by any of the
familiar forms." Other writers of equal eminence in this field of
investigation have not only observed the same characteristics, but
encountered the same difficulties in classification, from the very great
diversity obtaining even in the nearest allied forms. So great is this
diversity, and so multitudinous the different forms, that little certainty
or value can be attached to the classifications already made. Even
Professor O.F. MA1/4ller, after he had convinced himself that he had
discovered not less than twelve different species belonging to a single
genus, was subjected to the mortification of seeing Ehrenberg cut them all
down to mere modifications of one and the same species.

We refer to these several statements of fact for the purpose of
emphasizing the true genesis of life as supplemented by "the incidence of
different conditions," on which all vital manifestations depend. The
presence of the germinal principles of life in the earth is emphatically
averred in the Bible genesis. And we have only to connect the doctrine of
"conditional incidence" with this averment, to account for all the vital
phenomena which so profoundly puzzle these gentlemen while prying into the
mysteries of the ephemeromorphic world. Whatever may be the character of
any infusion, or to whatever incidence of conditions it may be subjected,
it will produce _some_ form of life; not because it contains this or that
morphological cell, destructible at a temperature of 100A deg. C--that to which
it is experimentally subjected before microscopic examination,--but
because every organic infusion, whether undergoing the required heat-test
or not, contains vital units--those as indestructible by heat as by
glacial drift--which burgeon forth into life whenever the proper
conditions of environment obtain. The slightest variation, in either the
quantity or quality of the material employed in the infusion, is, as these
eminent microscopists agree, invariably accompanied by the appearance of
different forms of life, just as the slightest change in soil-conditions,
such as that produced by the presence of one species of tree with another
in natural truffle-grounds, will result in the appearance of another and
altogether different plant, as well as truffle tuber.

But the theory which the vitalists are more particularly called upon to
combat is that to which the non-vitalists most rigidly adhere; and we
refer to it, in this connection, that the reader may compare its
complexity and involution of statement and idea with the extreme
simplicity of the biblical genesis, as heretofore presented. We give it in
the exact phraseology employed by Professor Bastian: "Living matter is
formed by, or is the result of, certain combinations and rearrangements
that take place _in invisible colloidal molecules_--a process which is
essentially similar to the mode by which higher organisms are derived from
lower in the pellicle of an organic infusion." This carefully-worded
definition of life, or the origin of "living matter," presents a
hypothetical mode of reasoning which is eminently characteristic of all
materialists. In the stricter definitional sense of the word, there is no
such thing as "living matter" or "dead matter," as we have before claimed.
There are "living organisms" in multitudinous abundance--those resulting
_from_, not _in_, the _vis vitA|_, or the elementary principle of life in
nature--as there are also "dead organisms" in abundance. This
materialistic definition of life, which is not so much as a generic one
even, begins in an absurdity and ends in one. It is agreed that the
"proligerous pellicle" of M. Pouchet, the "plastide particle" of Professor
Bastian, the "monas" of O.F. MA1/4ller, the "bioplast" of Professor Beale,
etc., are essentially one and the same thing, except in name. They are
mere moving specks, or nearly spherical particles, which exhibit the first
active movements in organic solutions. They vary in size from the one
hundred-thousandth to the one twenty-thousandth of a second of an inch in
diameter, and appear at first hardly more than moving specks of
semi-translucent mucus. Indeed, Burdach calls them "primordial mucous
layers." But they move, pulsate, swarm into colonies, and act as if they
were guided, not by separate intelligence, but by some master-builder
supervising the whole work of organic structure. This master-builder is
the one "elementary unit of life," which directs the movements of all the
plastide particles, constantly adding to their working force, from the
first primordial mucous layer of the superstructure to the majestic dome
of thought (in the case of man) which crowns the temple of God on
earth.[24]

But this "pellicle" of Professor Bastian is not mere structureless matter,
any more than the "bioplast" of Professor Beale. The fact that they move,
pulsate, work in all directions, shows that they have the necessary organs
with which to work. These organs may be invisible in the field of the
microscope, but that is no proof that they do not exist. Organs are as
essential for locomotion in a plastide particle as in a mastodon or
megatherium, and if the microscope could only give back the proper
response, we should see them, if not be filled with wonder at the
marvellous perfection of their structure. But into whatever divisions or
classifications we may distinguish or generalize the properties of matter,
we can never predicate _vitality_ of it, any more than we can predicate
_intellectuality_. Indeed, "intellectual matter" presents no greater
incongruity or invalidity of conception than "vital matter." These
qualifying terms are applied to the known laws and forces of nature, not
to insensate matter. To assert that life results _from_ "certain
combinations and rearrangements of matter," and not _in_ them, is utterly
to confound cause and effect, or so incongruously mingle them together
that no logical distinction between the two can exist as an object of
perception. Without the _vis vitA|_, or some germinal principle of life,
lying back of these "combinations and rearrangements of matter," and
determining the movements of their constituent molecules, there could be
no vital manifestation, any more than there could be a correlate of a
force without the actual existence of the force itself. [25]

The materialists give the name of "protoplasm" to that primitive
structureless mass of homogeneous matter in which the lowest living
organisms make their appearance. They claim that this generic substance is
endowed with the property or power of producing life _de novo_, or, as
Professor Bastian puts it, of "unfolding new-born specks of living matter"
which subsequently undergo certain evolutional changes; but whether they
die in their experimental flasks, or rise into higher and more potentially
endowed forms of life, it is difficult for those following their diagnoses
to determine. They further claim that the same law of vital manifestation
obtains in organic solutions as in the structureless mass they call
"protoplasm." Both are essentially endowed with the same potentiality of
originating life independently of vital units, or _de novo_, as they more
persistently phrase it. But why speak of _unfolding_ "new-born specks of
living matter?" "To unfold" means to open the folds of something--to turn
them back, get at the processes of their _infoldment_. It implies a
pre-existing something, inwrapped as a germ in its environment. If not a
germ, what is this pre-existing vital something which their language
implies? Is our scientific technology so destitute of definitional
accuracy that they cannot use half a dozen scientific terms without
committing half that number of down-right scientific blunders? "New-born
specks of living matter" is language that a vitalist might possibly use by
sheer inadvertence; but no avowed materialist, like Professor Bastian,
should trip in this definitional way.

"Living matter," _born_ of what? Certainly not of _dead_ matter. Death
quickens nothing into life, not even the autonomous moulds of the grave.
It implies the absence of all vitality--a state or condition of matter in
which all vital functions have been suspended, have utterly ceased, if,
indeed, they ever existed. It behooves the materialists to use language
with more precision and accuracy than this. "Dead matter," whatever the
phrase may imply, can bear nothing, produce nothing, quicken nothing. The
pangs of death once past, the pangs of life cease. Nor is there any birth
from unquickened matter. Animals _bear_ young, trees _bear_ fruit, but
force _produces_ results. What then quickens protoplasmic matter? Neither
vital force, nor vegetative force, if we are to credit the materialists.
They would scorn to postulate such a theory, or accept any such absurd
remnant of the old vitalistic school. It is rather "molecular force"--a
physical, not a vital unit--that gives us these "new-born specks of living
matter." [26] This is what they would all assert at once, in their
enthusiasm to enlighten us on a new terminology.

But "molecular force" fails to give us any additional enlightenment on the
subject we are investigating. It is even less satisfactory than "atomic
force," or "elementary force"--that which may be considered as inhering in
the elementary particles from which both atoms and molecules are derived.
And since both the ultimate atom and the ultimate molecule lie beyond
microscopic reach, the assumption that vital phenomena are the result of
either molecular force or atomic force, rests upon no other basis than
that of imaginary hypothesis. To postulate any such theory of life, is
going beyond the limits of experimental research and inquiry, and hence
adopting an unscientific method. At what point the smallest living
organism is launched into existence--started on its life-journey--no one
is confident enough to assert. The materialist is just as dumb on this
subject as the vitalist; and the only advantage he can have over his
antagonist is to stand on this extreme verge of attenuated matter, and
deny the existence of any force beyond it. The postulation by him of
molecular force at this point, is virtually an abandonment of the whole
controversy. He ceases to be a materialist the moment he passes the
visible boundaries of matter, in search of anything like "undifferentiated
sky-mist" beyond it.

All that we definitely know is that certain conditions of protoplasmic
matter, of organic solutions, of soil-constituents, etc., produce certain
forms of life; and, in the case of solutions, certain low forms of life:
But whether the lower rise, by any insensible gradations, into the higher,
more complex, and definitely expressed forms of life, is altogether
unknown. That any such gradations can be traced from the lowest vital
unit, in the alleged collocations of molecules, is not yet claimed. These
primordial collocations, like the lowest living organisms, lie beyond the
microscopic aids to vision, so that the ultimate genesis of life remains
as much a mystery as ever--becomes, in fact, a mere speculative
hypothesis. And when it comes to this sort of speculation, the materialist
is just as much in the dark as the vitalist, and neither can have any
advantage over the other, except as the one may adopt the analytic, and
the other the synthetic method.

This is the materialistic argument covering the _de novo_ origin of living
organisms:--There is no greater microscopical evidence, they assert, that
these organisms come from pre-existing invisible germs or vital units,
than that crystals are produced in a similar manner--that is, come from
pre-existing invisible germs of crystals. But this is overlooking all
generic distinction in respect to processes or modes of action. Crystals
are inorganic matter which _form_, do not _grow_. They are mere
symmetrical arrangements, not organic growths; and are produced by some
law akin to chemical affinity, acting on the molecules of their
constituent mass. They possess no vital function. They show no beginning
or cessation of life. But, once locked up in their geometric solids, they
remain permanently enduring forms--concessively inorganic, not
functionally-endowed, matter. To speak, therefore, of the "germs of
crystals," is using language that has no appreciable significance to us.
Germs are embryonic, and imply a law of growth--a process of assimilation,
not of mere aggregation.

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