Science and Morals and Other Essays by Sir Windle Bertram Coghill Alan (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕

It is quite unnecessary to devote any consideration here to the character of Pasteur's experiments, for they have become a matter of common knowledge to all educated persons. Let it suffice to say that they were on the lines first laid down by Redi and greatly elaborated by Spallanzani, namely the exclusion from the fluids or other substances under examination of all possible contamination by minute organisms in the air. Spallanzani knew nothing of these organisms; they were not discovered until many years after his death. But he surmised that there was something which brought corruption into the fluids; he excluded that something, with the result that the fluids remained untainted. From our point of view, however, there are several things to be learnt. In the first place quite a number of ignorant persons have thought that the discovery of spontaneous generation would upset religious dogmata. That of course is quite absurd. From what has been said above it will be seen that St. Thomas Aquinas—in common with all the men of learning of his day—fully believed in it, as did Needham, another ecclesiastic as to whose orthodoxy there is no doubt. Further, the entire controversy is a complete confutation of the false allegation that between Catholicism and science there is a great gulf set. There have been few longer and more remarkable controversies in the history of science, and scarce any other—if indeed any other—which has such important bearings upon health and industry than that which relates to bio- or abio-genesis. It is significant to find that the names of so many of the protagonists in this controversy were those of men who were also convinced adherents of the Catholic Church.

Of the making of books on the question of Vitalism there would seem to be no end; and, following upon quite a number of others comes this handsome, well-illustrated, intensely interesting book, by one whose writings are always worth study. It purports to deal with the Origin and Evolution of Life; but, as to the first, it leaves us in no way advanced towards any real explanation of that problem on materialistic lines. As to the second, though there is a vast amount of valuable information, often illuminating and suggestive, again we confess that we fail to discover any real philosophy of that process of evolution which the author postulates. These propositions we must now proceed to justify. We can consider them from the most rigidly scientific standpoint, since, if every word or almost every word in the book were proved truth, it would not make the slightest difference to Catholic Philosophy, nor, indeed, to Theistic teachings, since in the imperishable words of Paley: "There may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind another, between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what we see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent designing Author."

The scientific writer has to remember that whilst he may explain many things, his work is a torso unless and until he has either accepted the Creator as the first Cause, which he is too often disinclined to do, or has supplied an equally satisfactory explanation, which he is permanently unable to do. On the other hand, at least some defenders of Theism in the past might well have borne in mind that, whilst we are assured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its mechanism save that it came about by the command of God. There is nothing in which clear thinking and clear writing are more necessary than in discussions of this kind; and too many of them are vitiated by an obvious lack of philosophical training on the part of the participants. Even in this carefully written book there are instances of this kind of thing to which we must allude before considering its main arguments.

"We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less complete chain of beings from monad to man, that the one-toed horse had a four-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown ape-like form somewhere in the Tertiary." "We know"—that is exactly the opposite of the truth. We know a thing when it is susceptible of proof according to the rigid rules of formal logic; when, to doubt it, would be to give rise to a suspicion as to our sanity; then we know a thing, but not until then. Now, as to the sentence quoted, we may allow the first part to pass unchallenged with some possible demur at the use of the word "chain." The second so-called piece of knowledge was doubted by no less an authority than the late Adam Sedgwick. The third assertion plainly and distinctly is not the case; for Science knows nothing whatsoever about the origin of man's body. In 1901 Branco, a distinguished palæontologist, with no Theistic leanings as far as we know, told the world that man appears on our planet as "a genuine homo novus," and that palæontology "knows no ancestors of man." Nor has any discovery since that date necessitated the modification of that opinion. What the writer means by saying "We know" is "I am convinced"; but, with the deepest respect for his undoubted position, the two things are not quite identical. "Biology, like theology, has its dogmas. Leaders have their disciples and blind followers." Wise words! They are those of the author with whom we are dealing. To say "we know" when really we only surmise is a misuse of language, just as it is also a misuse to ask the question "Does nature make a departure from its previously ordered procedure and substitute chance for law?" since the ordinary reader is all too apt to forget that "Nature" is a mere abstraction, and that to speak of Nature doing such or such a thing helps us in no way along the road towards an explanation of things.

Or again: "So far as the creative power of energy is concerned, we are on sure ground." The author has a careful note on the word creation (p. 5), "the production of something new out of nothing," under which definition it is abundantly clear that energy, whilst it may be productive, cannot be creative. In fact, nothing can be creative in any definite and rigid sense, save a Creator Who existed from all eternity and from Whom all things arose. One more instance of loose argumentation, and we can turn to the main purport of the book. It is a link in the author's "chain" which cannot be passed without examination. Everybody is familiar with the method of proof by elimination. We set down every possible explanation of a certain occurrence; we rule out one after the other until but one is left. If we really have set down all the possible explanations, and if we are quite clear as to the fact that all those which have been excluded are legitimately put out of court, then the one remaining explanation must be the true one. It is a method of proof which has frequently been applied to the vitalistic problem, and with the greatest effect, as it is admitted by some of those who would greatly like to find a materialistic explanation for that problem (cf. The Philosophy of Biology, Johnstone, p. 319).

Let us see how our author employs it. What, he asks, is "the internal moving principle" in living substance? And he replies: "We may first exclude the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or teleological interposition through an externally creative power." Very well! Philosophers tell us that we can assume any position we choose for the purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that assumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of the assumption made by our author, but absolutely no attempt is made to give one. We must be pardoned, therefore, if we hesitate to accept such an important statement on his mere ipse dixit. We pass on to the next elimination: "Although its visible results are in a high degree purposeful, we may also exclude as unscientific the vitalistic theory of an entelechy[37] or any other form of internal perfecting agency distinct from known or unknown physio-chemical energies." Why "unscientific"? Numbers of high authorities have not thought it so; and in quite recent years such eminent writers as Driesch and McDougal have written erudite works to prove this "unscientific" hypothesis. Is there any proof brought forward for this assertion and its corresponding elimination?

Let us continue the quotation: "Since certain forms of adaptation which were formerly mysterious can now be explained without the assumption of an entelechy we are encouraged to hope that all forms may be thus explained." The author does not tell us what the mysterious adaptations are, nor does he offer us the explanations which, in his opinion, explain them. We cannot, therefore, criticise his views, and can only remind his readers that, because an explanation plausibly explains an occurrence, it is by no means always therefore certain to be the true explanation; it may, indeed, be wholly false.

Further, those who have been wandering for the past half-century in the fields of science have become a little wearied of "explanations," vaunted, for periods of five or ten years, as the key to open all locks, and then cast into the furnace. What the author would seem to mean by his statement is this: "I am convinced myself that we can do without a 'supernatural' explanation, and I regard as 'unscientific' any explanation which cannot be put to the test of chemistry and physics; hence I must shut the door on anything like an entelechy, and, that being so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation." Of course, we are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were dealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that, by the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to prove, the existence of an entelechy.

With these expostulations we may turn to the writer's pronouncements on the vitalistic question which seem to us to be worthy of serious consideration. Everybody knows that there are two very diverse opinions on this topic; the one that there is, the other that there is not something more—a plus—in living than there is in not-living objects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not merely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of thought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to now seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to be confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn seems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this matter. If we are to "reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient Greeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others," and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the cosmos as one of "limitless and ordered energy"—we have emphasised the word "ordered" for reasons which will shortly appear—we must clearly look out for some middle way. "Ordered," a purely mechanistic and materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. "Ordered" conditions are determined by what we agree to call "Laws"; and these, as