From the previous chapter we now draw the extremely important conclusion that all organic matter is a product of art, that is, a product which the forces of nature cannot produce. Spontaneously these forces only create natural products. Products of art belong to an entirely different category; they owe their existence to a foreign interference in the natural order of the world and have a cause that does not fall within the limits of a mere mechanical causality. But before we discuss this subject, let us first thoroughly understand what we mean by saying that organic matter is a product of art. Materialists have shown that the organism closely resembles a steam engine, but they have neglected to point[108] out that the similarity extends also to the mode in which they are produced. Everybody is probably convinced that the forces of nature have never made and never will make a steam engine. If the same might be said in regard to the machines which we call organisms, then materialism would be disproved. But why, to begin with, cannot the forces of nature build steam engines? We must be able to present the reasons for this statement.
If we first consider the building material, we find this in the factories in the form of plates, bars and ingots of iron, copper, lead, tin, etc. Where do these metals come from? Nowhere in nature is such material found.[2]
Humanity had inhabited the earth thousands of years without having an[109] idea of the existence of such substances as iron, copper, lead, etc. The metals are chemical ingredients in our minerals and from these minerals they are extracted by complicated, artificial processes. The ore is often lifted out of the depths of the mountains; it goes through a series of treatments which the forces of nature cannot spontaneously undertake. We will here give only a moment’s attention to the process of reduction, or the separation of the metal from its natural compounds. This, as we know, is done in our blast furnaces, where the iron is reduced through the presence of coal and other suitable substances in certain proportions. If we now remember that the heat in our furnaces often reaches about 2000° Centigrade we see at once that the sun may shine on our mountains throughout eternity without ever producing the temperature necessary for the reduction.
But the engine is not yet completed. The plates must be first rolled and[110] shaped, the ingots must be melted and cast into frames, shafts, bearings, etc.; in short, the raw material must be formed into all those numerous parts of which the machine is composed. The engine is from beginning to end a product of art.
There is especially one circumstance pertaining to all these transformations that merits a closer attention. If we remember that all the material used in a product of art is taken from nature, and besides that, all the processes in making and shaping the raw material are carried out through the employment of natural laws, we might still ask the question, why physical forces should not enter spontaneously into the necessary artificial combinations for producing this result. Until we have pointed out the quality in matter which prevents this, we have not completely demonstrated the inability of natural forces to build an engine spontaneously.
This quality has been named vis[111] inertiae, the inertia of matter, one of the most important natural laws that exist. What does this law teach us? It says that matter cannot itself change its condition. If a body is in motion it can never come to rest unless another force at least equal to the primary opposes the motion. If it be at rest, it cannot impart motion unto itself; energy, applied from without, is necessary. Inertia keeps the earth moving around the sun; a stone thrown into the air would proceed everlastingly with its initial velocity if the attraction of the earth did not interfere.
Because of this quality, then, matter remains in its natural equilibrium. An engine would never be built because the ore would stay in the mountains and the metals forever remain in their compounds. Every product of art requires a foreign interference in the material world; matter, in consequence of its inertia, presents a determined and often very energetic resistance to such an intervention.
[112]
Exactly the same reasons that prevent natural forces from building a steam engine, cause also their inability to produce an organism, and this in a much higher degree because the organism is in a still fuller sense a product of art. The organic building material, instead of being plates and ingots of iron, copper, lead, etc., consists of carbon, hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorin, potassium, sodium, magnesia, etc., or both metals and metalloids of which the former, on account of their negative, and the latter because of their positive qualities cannot exist in a free state. From the minerals found in nature these substances must be extracted for organic purposes. The elements are different, but otherwise we may verbally repeat in regard to organic substance what has been previously said about the steam engine.
It is the creation of organic matter by art that the materialists have neglected to take into account. Therefore they look upon the organism just as a[113] new race, suddenly succeeding humanity, would view our steam engines. These machines would certainly appear very mysterious to the earth’s new inhabitants. But a growing civilization would undoubtedly discover that all the material used in the engine is taken from ores to be found in nature. If now somebody would draw the conclusion that these ores themselves had made the engine he would reason as do the materialists today in regard to the organism. The parallel does not halt in any respect, but it is sufficient in this connection to call attention only to one or two of the more important components of the organism.
Organic matter, or combustible substance, consists of carbon and hydrogen which in an organism are comparable to the iron in a steam engine. But nowhere in nature is free hydrogen or free inorganic carbon to be found. The carbon was burned to carbonic acid in earth’s first combustion, and similarly the hydrogen was burned to[114] water long before the conditions for organic life existed on the earth.
From these original products of combustion, burnable organic matter is formed by decomposition of carbonic acid and water into their elements, carbon and hydrogen, and by their subsequent combination through feebler chemical forces into sugar, starch, etc., which substances through a new combustion are again turned into carbonic acid and water. The natural forces cannot spontaneously undertake these transformations that only take place because of artificial arrangements. The processes of nature go in the entirely opposite direction, as we have seen.
As a matter of fact, the reduction of carbonic acid and water is done through the direct assistance of living beings. From the sun they take their power. But how ineffective the sun would be, left to itself, is seen already by the fact that carbonic acid is disintegrated at a temperature of 1300° C. and water only at 1500°.[115] Products of art must be resorted to, and we know that by lenses, burning mirrors, photographic cameras and the like the sun may be forced to accomplish results that otherwise would be impossible. Such artificial apparatus, then, must be the chlorophyll granules in the ............