Picture - Cosmic Polymath

i82 DESIGN IN NATURE
pierce—but we have not got rid of life." ..." Life can be produced from life only, and this law would seem to
give an indication that the solution of the mystery is not to be found by considering life as merely a species of
energy."
Darwin, Wallace, and others have endeavoured to account for life in all its forms as the outcome of
evolution, and as apart from separate creations. They assume the existence of a primordial germ, but in so doing
they take for granted what requires to be proved, as the primordial germ itself has to be accounted for. " Darwin
especially imagines that all the present organisms, including man, may have been derived by the process of natural
selection from a single primordial germ. When, however, the backward process has reached this germ, an insuperable
difficulty presents itself. How was this germ produced ? All really scientific experience tells us that Ufe can be
produced from a living antecedent only ; what, then, was the antecedent of this germ ? Hypotheses have no doubt
been started, but we cannot regard them in any other light than as an acknowledgment of a difficulty which cannot
be overcome. .
If, then, the matter of this present visible universe be not capable of itself, that is to say, in
virtue of the forces and qualities with which it has been endowed, of generating life, but if we must look to the
Unseen Universe for the origin of life, this would appear to show that the peculiar collocation of matter which
accompanies the operations of life is not a mere grouping of particles of the visible universe, but implies likewise
some peculiarity in the connection of these with the Unseen Universe. May it not denote, in fact, some peculiarity
of structure extending to the Unseen ?
" In fine, to go a step further, may not Ufe denote a pecuUarity of structure which is handed over not merely
from one stage to another—from the Invisible to the visible—but which rises upwards from the very lowest
structural depths of the material of the universe, this material being regarded as possessed of an iniinitely complex
structure ? "
The infinitely complex structure here referred to would, if accepted, go far to explain the extraordinary
changes which occur in spores, seeds, and eggs when impregnated, whereby each produces only its own land.
These changes are most numerous and most marked in the development of the higher animals, and while the
microscope, chemistry, and physics are whoUy inadequate to deal with them, there is no room for doubt that living
matter, as represented by the union of the male and female elements of plants and animals in reproduction and
development, varies infinitely. I directed attention to this point as far back as 1873, when I attempted to refute
the then prevailing idea that protoplasm and spores, seeds and eggs, were simple, homogeneous substances and
fundamentally identical.^
Great strides have been made in physiology and in physics since 187.3, and some have gone the length of
asserting that the universe as a whole participates in every motion which occurs in even the smallest of atoms.
" The law of gravitation assures us that any displacement which takes place in the very heart of the earth
will be felt throughout the universe, and we may even imagine that the same thing will hold true of those molecular
motions which accompany thought. For every thought we think is accompanied by a displacement and motion of
the particles of the brain, and we may imagine that somehow these motions are propagated throughout the
universe. . . .
' Mr. Babbage has pointed out ^ that if we had power to follow and detect the minutest effects of any
disturbance, each particle of existing matter must be a register of all that has happened.' .
" We must resort to the Unseen not only for the origin of the molecules of the visible universe, but also for
an explanation of the forces which animate these molecules, and not only so, but we are always carried back from
one order of the Unseen to another. Now if this be the case—if The Universe be constructed with successive
orders of this description connected with one another—it is manifest that no event whatever, whether we regard
its antecedent or its consequent, can possibly be confined to one order only, but must spread throughout The
Entire Universe."
This intimate blending of matter and force, which includes the molecular operations of the brain and thought,
implies a much more intimate union between the organic and inorganic kingdoms, and between mind and matter,
than was considered possible a few years ago. The view, however extravagant it may at first sight appear, is
corroborated in several particulars. The recent developments in wireless telegraphy conclusively prove that the
atoms with their corpuscles or electrons play a leading role in everything that pertains to the physical universe,
and that they can be made the servants of intelligent, modern man.
The advances recently made in the production and employment of electricity unequivocally point to similar
conclusions. While electricity has played and is destined to play a leading part in physics and physiology, its
nature and properties are no more understood than are those of the atoms. It is not yet laiown whether electricity
' "Oii tlii^ Relatioii uf I'laiits and Aninials to Inorganic jMatter and on the Interaction of the Vital and I'hysical Forces '
^ Nintli Bridj^ewatei' Treatise.
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{Lancet 15th