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Life and Matter A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' By: Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) |
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"The positive ponderable matter, the element with the feeling of
like or desire, is continually striving to complete the process of
condensation, and thus collecting an enormous amount of potential
energy; the negative imponderable matter, on the other hand, offers
a perpetual and equal resistance to the further increase of its
strain and of the feeling of dislike connected therewith, and thus
gathers the utmost amount of actual energy. "I think that this pyknotic theory of substance will prove more
acceptable to every biologist who is convinced of the unity of
nature than the kinetic theory which prevails in physics to day"
(p. 78). In other words, he appeals to a presumed sentiment of biologists
against the knowledge of the physicist in his own sphere a strange
attitude for a man of science. After this it is less surprising to find
him ignoring the elementary axiom that "action and reaction are equal
and opposite," i.e. that internal forces can have no motive power on
a body as a whole, and making the grotesque assertion that matter is
moved, not by external forces, but by internal likes and desires: "I must lay down the following theses, which are involved in Vogt's
pyknotic theory, as indispensable for a truly monistic view of
substance, and one that covers the whole field of organic and
inorganic nature: "1. The two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable matter and
ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic force, but they are
endowed with sensation and will (though, naturally, of the lowest
grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a dislike
of strain; they strive after the one and struggle against the
other" (p. 78). My desire is to criticise politely, and hence I refrain from
characterising this sentence as a physicist should. "Every shade of inclination, from complete indifference to the
fiercest passion, is exemplified in the chemical relation of the
various elements towards each other" (p. 79). "On those phenomena we base our conviction that even the atom is
not without a rudimentary form of sensation and will, or, as it is
better expressed, of feeling ( æsthesis ) and inclination
( tropesis ) that is, a universal 'soul' of the simplest
character" (p. 80). "I gave the outlines of cellular psychology in 1866 in my paper
on 'Cell souls and Soul cells'" (p. 63). Thus, then, in order to explain life and mind and consciousness by
means of matter, all that is done is to assume that matter possesses
these unexplained attributes. What the full meaning of that may be, and whether there be any
philosophic justification for any such idea, is a matter on which I
will not now express an opinion; but, at any rate, as it stands, it is
not science, and its formulation gives no sort of conception of what
life and will and consciousness really are. Even if it were true, it contains nothing whatever in the nature of
explanation: it recognises the inexplicable, and relegates it to the
atoms, where it seems to hope that further quest may cease. Instead of
tackling the difficulty where it actually occurs; instead of
associating life, will, and consciousness with the organisms in which
they are actually in experience found, these ideas are foisted into the
atoms of matter; and then the properties which have been conferred on
the atoms are denied in all essential reality to the fully developed
organisms which those atoms help to compose! I show later on (Chapters V. and X.) that there is no necessary
justification for assuming that a phenomenon exhibited by an aggregate
of particles must be possessed by the ingredients of which it is
composed; on the contrary, wholly new properties may make their
appearance simply by aggregation; though I admit that such a
proposition is by no means obvious, and that it may be a legitimate
subject for controversy... Continue reading book >>
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