This whole method is consequently unsatisfactory. With Harvey’s law proved in the empirical way, the only way hitherto tried, we are still unable to decide how the first organism came into existence, and this is probably after all the most important question. Because, as Büchner rightly points out: “If life has a supernatural beginning, it has also a supernatural subsequent existence.” Even if we were observing with our own eyes the creation of the first organism we would not be able to say whether it were the result of natural or supernatural forces. The moment our study commenced, the mystic act of creation would already have taken place, an act which lies beyond[68] the boundaries of research, and which we never shall be able to penetrate, however minute or comprehensive our observations. An entirely different method is here necessary. Our endeavor must be to find the innermost cause of the whole series of generations evolving throughout the ages. In other words, we must derive Harvey’s law from the inner nature of matter itself, show that this matter has such qualities that it cannot, never could, and never will, be able to produce a single living being. Only then shall we have demonstrated that Harvey’s formula is a universal, natural law, and then it will be not only our right but our duty to draw its logical consequences. Is it possible to show that matter possesses such qualities? In regard to the matter of which our earth is composed we are at least able to closely investigate its qualities. But our earth is only an insignificant point in the universe and we must search the entire[69] cosmos. Is not this impossible? We answer that in many ways, especially through the spectral analysis, we already know that nature’s elements everywhere are the same and that they everywhere have the same qualities. If Harvey’s law can be deduced from the matter we are able to investigate, we have at the same time shown its validity for the whole of the universe without limitations as to time and space; because then we may apply in regard to organic substance Büchner’s true remark as to the products of nature in times past. “The natural forces,” he says, “that governed the universe formerly are the same as those whose results we now witness every day and moment. Earth’s past time is to our thought nothing but an unrolling of its present. The geologists, guided by their knowledge of nature and its present laws, have been able with increasing accuracy to trace back evolution to the most distant ages. Meanwhile it has been established that[70] everywhere and during all time only those elements and forces have been active which surround us today. Nowhere has a point been found where research had to be thrown overboard and an interference of unknown forces substituted; and nowhere and never will this happen. Everywhere the same laws were in force and the same matter was found. Historical research has demonstrated that past and present are subject to the same evolution, rest on the same basis.” And different it could not be, reasons Büchner, since life knows no exceptions, does not shirk any inorganic forces, but is itself only the result of the activity of these forces.
To obtain a definite understanding of the origin of life it is therefore sufficient to examine the origin of organic matter in our days, and for such an analysis there is at least no lack of material. Wherever a tree or a grass blade grows or a seed sprouts there dead substance is transformed into living; wherever an animal or a plant is[71] decaying, there organic matter is again turned into inorganic.
The result obtained through such investigations already made, stood in direct opposition to the immediate observations. Although Harvey’s formula finally was accepted, it was nevertheless taught that no specific life-force exists.
This contradiction was never fully understood or emphasized during the last century, and the reason was that the materialistic tendency was so predominant that nobody noticed that the question of life-force is the innermost main point, around which not only generatio spontanea and omne vivum ex vivo, but also their consequences, materialism and idealism, are centered.
But in order to deny life-force as an independent principle, some scientific facts to build upon were necessary and these were not lacking.
Before we state these facts we will in a few words describe the historical situation.
[72]
According to the previously prevailing vitalistic doctrine a specific life-force existed, present and active in all organic processes. The conceptions in regard to these processes were, however, very dim, and the reason was that the problem of combustion had not yet been solved.
This problem may be said to be the very key to the chemical explanation of an organism. The ancient mystery of fire was first solved by Lavoisier after Scheele and Priestly had discovered oxygen. The solution of this complicated question not only became the starting point for a new and rapid evolution of chemistry, it also almost immediately threw a clear light on the innermost recesses of the organism.
The elementary constituents of the organism and their origin were known before, and it now became also possible to explain the great store of energy that the living being possesses. To assume a specific life-force seemed superfluous. Life-force, from having been the[73] indispensable explanation of organic phenomena, commenced more and more to be regarded as a “back-way for ignorance,” one “of those many side doors that dull heads employ when they find it too laborious to think about something that they do not understand.”
It was natural that the materialists would eagerly embrace these ideas. From the few words with which Büchner introduces his chapter about life-force, we obtain a clear insight into the opinions that are held on this subject in the world of natural science. “The mystic notions,” says Büchner, “that have confused the philosophy of science were invented by a time possessing but a slight knowledge of nature. To these notions, which have been thrown overboard by a later exact scientific research, belongs first of all the so-called life-force. Scarcely has there ever existed an hypothesis more detrimental to the cause of science than this singular organic force presented in contradistinction[74] to the inorganic forces, gravity, affinity, light, electricity, magnetism, etc. If science were forced to acknowledge such an hypothesis, all we have said about the immutability of the natural laws and of the mechanical order of the universe would collapse, and we would be forced to admit that a higher hand interferes in the course of nature, dictating exceptional laws that defy all calculations. A break would be found in the natural structure of the world, science would despair, and all physical and psychical research cease. Fortunately science has not been obliged to yield to the irrational pressure of the dynamists, but, on the contrary, has won everywhere a splendid victory; it has lately gathered such a mass of self-evident facts to its support that life-force nowadays wanders an empty shadow along the boundaries of natural science. All those who have made a closer study of any of the branches of science that deal at all with the organic world, agree, almost[75] to a man, in the condemnation of life-force, and the very word is so detested by science that it is always purposely avoided.”
We may now let Büchner present the real, scientific evidence why life-force must be charged to the ignorance of a time when knowledge of nature was but slight. In this way the reader will perhaps obtain a more direct and at the same time an historic view of the materialistic mode of thinking.
Above all, says Büchner, it is the province of chemistry to show that the elements of matter are everywhere the same in the inorganic as well as in the organic world, and that life substance is unable to present one single atom not found in inorganic nature and therefore not partaking in the general flux (Stoffwechsel) of matter. Chemistry has decomposed organic bodies into their elements exactly as it did before with the inorganic.
All known inorganic forces act identically with respect to living as to dead[76] nature. We have seen that forces are nothing but qualities and motions of the smallest particles of matter, the atoms, with which these forces are invariably and inseparably conjoined. An atom therefore under all circumstances can only perform the same work, develop the same forces, produce the same effects, whether it belongs for the moment to an organic or to an inorganic composition. Respiration, digestion, the process of growing and segregation are all chemical reactions. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen are composed and decomposed within the organic body in accordance with the same laws that govern them outside.
We have also learned more perfectly how nourishment is transformed into organic tissues, and we know that through different channels it leaves the body in precisely the same quantity as it entered, partly unmodified and partly in other forms and compositions. No one atom has meanwhile been lost or[77] become another. Digestion is a purely chemical process. The stomach of an animal may well be compared to a chemical retort, where the substances there mixed are decomposed and composed exactly according to the general laws of chemical affinity.
These facts, which may be multiplied ad infinitum, enable us to understand that the difference between organic and inorganic is non-essential, and that therefore every living being may be considered a chemical laboratory, whence we arrive at the following result:
Because daily experience teaches us that all organisms consist of the same atoms as does inorganic nature, although in different compositions, therefore no specific organic force, no life-force, can exist. This latter is not a principle, but a result. When organic substance assimilates inorganic and brings it into its own characteristic condition, this is not done through a specific force, but through a kind of infection, whereby the molecular[78] conditions in the organic substance are transferred to the inorganic.
But not only does organic matter consist of the same elements that are to be found in inorganic nature, but the organism as a whole is nothing but a bodily mechanism not differing from other machines except in its more complicated construction. Water, says Büchner, which must be considered as the foremost and most important part in all organic beings, and without which all animal and plant life were impossible, water penetrates, flows and sinks according to the laws of gravity, not differing by the breadth of a hair in its action within and without the organism. The circulation of the blood is as mechanical as we could wish, and the anatomic contrivance that causes it bears a surprising likeness to mechanical apparatus made by man’s hand. The heart is provided with valves just as a steam engine; the valve movements produce audible sounds. The rise of the blood from the lower[79] parts of the body to the heart against gravity can only be made possible by a mechanical arrangement. The bowels convey their content mechanically; mechanically the muscle movements take place, and mechanical motility characterizes men and animals. The human eye obeys the same laws as a camera obscura and the ear catches the sound waves in same way as does any other vault, and so on.
Science, therefore, entertains no doubt that the living organism is a machine as well as the steam engine, i. e., a system where chemical affinity produces heat, electricity and muscular energy.
Now, are these facts, pointed out by Büchner, true and correct? Undoubtedly they are in all essential respects eternal truths, and we may add that they are just as important foundations for idealism as the materialists have claimed them to be for their opinion. But before we take up this subject let[80] us see how the materialists derive their philosophy from the facts mentioned.
There are many other objects in this world, of which we might almost verbally repeat what Büchner says about organic matter; for instance, windows, doors, locks, bricks, houses, etc. In these objects also there is not one atom to be found which was not present in the raw material of which they were made. But does the raw material itself produce these things? So Büchner reasons. He says: “Because all organic matter consists of inorganic raw material, therefore the raw material, itself, has made the organic matter. Because the organism is essentially like a steam engine, the building material itself has made the organism.”
This headlong way of reasoning and concluding is not characteristic of Büchner alone, but applies equally to the whole materialistic school during the past century.
We have not said that inorganic raw material is unable to produce organic[81] substance spontaneously, which substance later upbuilds the organism, but for the present this remains an open question to which as yet the materialists have not given an answer. But before we enter the discussion of this extremely important question, we will in this connection mention another discovery of natural science which seems exactly to support the materialistic trend of thought, a fact, therefore, that crowns, so to speak, their whole philosophy.
Up to the year 1828 it was thought that organic substance could be created only by the force of life. But W?hler unexpectedly succeeded in producing organic compositions from inorganic substances, a discovery which was followed by a series of others in the same direction. It is with evident satisfaction that Büchner calls our attention to these facts.
In order to show the necessity for assuming a life-force, he says, people have reminded the chemists that they[82] are unable to produce organic compositions, that is, the peculiar grouping of the elements into those ternary and quaternary compounds which owe their existence to an organic being, endowed with life and life-force, and they have added the amusing remark that the chemists must produce living beings in their retorts—make men—if there be no life-force and if life be only the result of chemical processes. The chemists have not been at a loss for an answer. They have made dextrose, several organic acids and bases, and recently they have also succeeded in producing hydrates of carbon. Evolution has proceeded rapidly in this direction, and today alcohol and precious perfumes are made from coal, candles from slate, Berlin blue, taurin and innumerable other bodies—formerly believed to be exclusively of animal or plant origin—from the simple material that inorganic nature offers us.
The materialists have a custom of not considering themselves under obligation[83] to do more than point to some scientific facts, without investigating whether these facts support their speculations or not. Faithful to this custom, Büchner stops just where his own researches should have commenced. Büchner has not written a textbook on physics or chemistry. He has undertaken the extremely serious task of investigating whether modern natural science has produced results which show that nothing but matter and its forces, and consequently no soul, no eternal life, etc., exist. Our first demand of such an analysis would be, to put it moderately, that the facts cited really prove what they are put forward to prove. But to this demand neither Büchner nor his followers pay any attention. Büchner might, for instance, in regard to the facts last mentioned, have taken the following questions as the starting point for his investigations:
It is true that the chemists have produced artificially certain organic compounds of inorganic elements, and they[84] will probably go much further in this direction. But is this really something to be wondered at, when all organic substance is composed of inorganic elements which, wherever they exist, possess the same qualities? The question is how this organic substance is formed. Does it appear spontaneously in the chemist’s laboratory while he himself stands idle, observing the phenomenon, or must he interfere, guide and plan the activity of the chemical forces in order to obtain these artificial compounds? Why should not something similar take place in the laboratory of inorganic nature? There is, as far as our experience goes, no organic substance to be found due to the spontaneous action of known natural laws. What is the reason of this? How is organic matter formed in nature? And, further, is there no difference between the organic matter produced by the chemists and that present in living nature? And if this difference proves to be that the former is not organized[85] while the latter always is, why cannot the chemists produce organized matter?
If Büchner had proposed these or similar questions and taken time to think them over, he would have obtained a different result, but instead he breaks off his argumentation just where it should have commenced.
Consequently the fault in the materialists’ process of thinking does not lie in the facts used as foundation for their argument. The premises and the beginning are correct. Just because organic matter consists of the same elements as inorganic, just for this reason natural science can decide whether the physical laws are able spontaneously to produce such matter and such machines. The materialists have stopped after providing the introduction; the continuation and the end are lacking. They have overlooked the whole series of scientific facts that stand in necessary correlation to the starting point. We have therefore only to resume the interrupted demonstration and will[86] then endeavor to make the latter part as simple and comprehensible as Büchner made the former.