Materialist attempts to account for the origination of life, a



THE POTENCY OF MATTER. 89

point which, as he says, has been but e lightly touched upon, if
at all, by Mr. Darwin or Mr. Spencer.' He takes a very
striking illustration. If we break a magnet, he says, we find
in each fragment two poles. If we continue the process of
breaking, we find that each part, however small, carries with
it, though in a smaller degree, the polarity of the whole. When
we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual vision to
the polar molecules. ' Are we not urged,' he says, ' to do
something similar in the case of life ? ' The farther back we
trace the line of life, we find it approaching nearer and nearer
to what we call the purely physical condition ; that is to say,
we reach organisms of the very simplest type, like the proto-
genes of Haeckel, in which, so far as we can discern, ( the vital
action is almost wholly physical.' But after we have thus
reached the very simplest known organism, Tyndall bids us
cross the border land of sense and prolong the intellectual
vision from the more perfect organisms to the very lowest ones
in which life can be conceived to originate. Scientific men can
justify scientifically their belief in the potency of matter, under
the proper conditions to produce organisms. But they will
frankly admit that they cannot point to ' any satisfactory ex-
perimental proof that life can be developed save from demon-
strable antecedent life.' Bastian's experiments 1 show that
spontaneous generation does take place in the sense of life being
produced from dead organic matter, what he calls Archebiosis.
But no one has shown that spontaneous generation takes place
in the sense of Heterogenesis, that is, the production of life
from what we call inorganic matter. But, says Tyndall,
scientific men, as already indicated, draw the line from the
highest organisms through lower ones down to the lowest, and
it is the prolongation of the line by the intellect beyond the X
range of the senses that leads them to the conclusion which
Bruno so boldly enunciated, viz., that matter can originate

1 See ' Contemporary Review ' for September, 1874.



90 THE ATOMIC THEORY OF LUCRETIUS.

life. ' Believing, as I do, in the continuity of Nature, I can-
not stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use.
Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the
vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessity I cross the
boundary of the experimental evidence and discern in Matter
.... the promise and potency of all terrestrial life.'

[The existence of such low types of organic life as, for instance,
Amoebae, the mere speck of jelly which still digests, lives, and
reproduces itself, shows in what low forms animal life, if it really
be such, can exist. In an interesting paper on ( The Border
Territory between the Animal and the Vegetable Kingdoms,'
Professor Huxley has tried to show how near in some cases
vegetable comes to animal life. Microscopical research more
and more confirms the generalization of Schwann, that f a
fundamental unity of structure obtains in animals and plants ;'
and that the structures of the bodies of both, however diverse in
fabric, ' result from the metamorphoses of morphological units
(termed cells in a more general sense than that in which the
word ( cells ' was at first employed), which are not only similar
in animals and in plants respectively, but present a close
fundamental resemblance when those of animals and those of
plants are compared together.' Again, Huxley f knows of no
test by which the reaction of the leaves of the Sundew and of
other plants to stimuli, can be distinguished from those acts of
contraction following upon stimuli which are called " reflex " in

animals It must be allowed to be possible that farther

research may reveal the existence of something comparable to
a nervous system in plants.' Huxley illustrates his argument
by quoting the history of the fungus (Peronospora infestans)
which is the cause of the potato disease. This fungus develops
spores which sometimes germinate in the ordinary way, but
more commonly break up into six or eight zoospores or living
organisms, which at first swim about in the moisture on the
surface of the leaf, and then become quiet and germinate like



THE POTENCY OF MATTER. 91

a vegetable in the tissues of the plant. Thus, whether we start
from the animal-side or from the plant-side, s such an insensible
series of gradations leads to the monad, that it is impossible to
say at any stage of the progress here the line between the
animal and the plant must be drawn.' Thus Huxley concludes,
in certain cases the problem whether an organism is an animal
or a plant may be essentially insoluble.]

With considerable force Tyndall next argues that the phe-
nomena of crystallization show that matter possesses a structural
power. The polarity of magnetism appeals to the senses, and
gives a basis for the f conception that atoms and molecules are
endowed with definite attractive and repellent poles, by the
play of which definite forms of crystalline architecture are
produced. Thus molecular force becomes structural. It re-
quired no great boldness of thought to extend its play into
organic nature, and to recognize in molecular force the agency
by which both plants and animals are built up.' He had
formerly used the formation of ice as a simple illustration of
this process. When solid crystals of ice are produced

' By their own constructive power, molecule builds itself on
to molecule with a precision far greater than that attainable by

the hands of man Imagine the bricks and stones of this

town of Dundee endowed with locomotive power. Imagine
them attracting and repelling each other, and arranging them-
selves in consequence of these attractions and repulsions to
form streets and houses and Kinnaird Halls, would not that
be wonderful ? Hardly less wonderful is the play of force by
which the molecules of water build themselves into the sheets
of crystals which every winter roof your ponds and lakes. . . .
Latent in every drop of water lies this marvellous structural
power, which only requires the withdrawal of opposing forces
to bring it into action.' x

In a lecture delivered more lately, 2 Tyndall has expanded the

1 * Fragments of Science.' Matter and Force, a Lecture to the Working
Men of Dundee. Pages 82 and 85.

2 On the subject of ' Crystalline and Molecular Forces.'



92 THE ATOMIC THEORY OF LUCRETIUS.

same thought. After showing- some experiments to illustrate
the forces of crystallization he said, in concluding,

' Everywhere, throughout our planet, we notice this ten-
dency of the ultimate particles of matter to run into symmetric
forms. The very molecules appear inspired with the desire for
union and growth ; and the question of questions at the present
day is and it is one which I fear will not be solved in our day,
but will continue to agitate and occupy thinking minds after
we have departed how far does this wondrous display of mole-
cular force extend ? Does it give us movement of the sap of
trees ? I would reply with confidence, c Assuredly it does.'
Does it give us the beating of our own breasts, the warmth of
our own bodies, the circulation of our own blood, and all that
thereon depends ? This is a point on which I offer no opinion
to-night.'

This is a partial outline of what Martineau x calls ( the new
book of Genesis.'

To this address Dr. Martineau replied in a pamphlet which
was indeed unsatisfactory as a criticism, for it did not in any
respect profess to be a complete one. It was but an expres-
sion of strong disagreement with the other's conclusions. In a
later article Tyndall has replied to this, and endeavours to
show that we need not go outside of Matter to find the power
v\ which produces life and consciousness. The same structural
force which produces the beautiful ice-crystals and, as he
believes, makes the sap circulate in the trees, can in a different
V mode of action make the blood circulate in a human body, and
call into being the consciousness which we feel ourselves to
possess. In this second paper Tyndall develops this thought
far more fully and uses that graphic power of illustration which
he can command so readily. His treatment of the subject
shows an admirable power of exposition ; indeed it could hardly
be more clear and vivid than it is.

Imagine Matter in the shape of vapour rising off* the

1 ' Eeligion as affected by Modern Materialism.' By James Martineau.
1874, p. 8.



THE POTENCY OF MATTER. 93

heated surface of the Caribbean Sea ; trace it from the tropics
flying northwards and eastwards across the Atlantic till it
reaches Europe and the Alps. Here a wonderful transforma-
tion takes place. The cold air condenses the vapour to water
in the form of snow-crystals, perfectly accurate in geometrical
form and exquisitely beautiful : and these crystals are Matter
in another form. What has occurred here ? he asks. Has an
' imponderable formative soul ' by this Tyndall implies any
possible outside creative Power entered into them from with-
out and built each particle into its proper place ? or, on the
other hand, has the formative power worked from within, and
was it locked up within the drops of water from the very first ?
Emphatically it was the latter. Again, taking an example
from the world of life, it is Matter, mere Matter, with no
addition, which* grows up from the acorn into the stately oak.
What a wonder, then, results when, from the interaction of the
acorn, the earth and the sunlight, each of which is nothing but
Matter, arises the massive oak, shaking its countless twigs in
the breeze. And here is verily what we call life, sprung from
the interchange of mere Matter. And Tyndall, apparently
somewhat presumptuously, says, 6 It will be seen that I am
not in the least insensible to the wonder of the tree ; nay, I
should not be surprised if, in the presence of this wonder, I feel
more perplexed and overwhelmed than Mr. Martineau him-
self.' This statement seems to need some justification, and
accordingly he uses most admirable illustrations to show how
keenly the scientific man realizes the wonderfulness of vege-
table growth. He refers first to an experiment in which the
' music of a piano is transferred from its sound-board through a
thin wooden rod, across several silent rooms in succession, and
poured out at a distance from the instrument.' All the vibra-
tions and sub-vibrations of the strings more than a hundred
occurring at the same time are crowded together and poured
through this narrow bit of wood. There is no confusion, no



94 THE ATOMIC THEORY OF LUCRETIUS.

note is lost, but all are shaken forth into the air in a distant
chamber through a second sound-board against which the end
of the rod presses. ' Thought/ he says, ' ends in amazement
when it seeks to realize the motions of that rod as the music
flows through it.' Look next at one of those exotic ferns, the
branches of which are sometimes hardly thicker than a pin, and
quite leafless for a foot and more. But at the end of this bare
thin stem bursts out a mass of fronds almost large enough to
fill the arms. All the shocks and pulses and other vital
actions which produce that luxuriant foliage must flow through
the insignificant stems. c We stand here upon a higher level
of the wonderful. We are conscious of a music subtler than
that of the piano passing unheard through these tiny boughs/
and issuing in the splendid cluster of leaves. And realizing
this so keenly, he claims to feel the wonder and beauty of this
sight as strongly as his opponent, and indeed more so. 1

Again, in answer to Martineau's somewhat haughty criticism,
that, according to Tyndall's conception, ' Matter starts as a
beggar without a rag and turns up as a prince when great
undertakings are wanted,' he replies, 'Not so. Mysterious
and incomprehensible as it is, this wealth of power is within
it from the first. It is Matter and only Matter, with no
addition, which grows up from the seed into the oak, from the
embryo into the perfect animal or man.' And, after referring
to the organization of the human being and the marvels im-
plied in the formation of the human eye and ear, before the
infant's birth, he concludes, f Matter I define as that myste-
rious thing by which all this is accomplished.' 2

This whole article, as well as Tyndall's former one, illustrates,

1 Tyndall has told us a part of the Story of the Flower or Tree which is
wonderful indeed, yet it is hut a part. Wordsworth can tell us far more.

2 We may compare Spinoza, who says, wit h reference to body and mind,
* Yet no man has hitherto determined what hody [or Matter] can do,
Matter that is, solely hy the laws of its own nature, in so far as it is mate-



THE POTENCY OF MATTER. 95

in particular, the unwillingness of many scientific men to admit
a Power acting on Matter f from without/ a God who ' orders
the universe from a position outside it all.' Goethe before
used the same expression in that poem where he says,

Was war' ein Gott der nur von aussen stiesse ? . . .
Ihm ziemt's die Welt im Innern zu bewegen.

' What were a God who only impelled the world from without ! '
But then the question arises What does without mean, and
what does within mean ? That would be indeed hard to define.
But Goethe's line has a distinct enough force, and that is,
' How mean is that conception of God which makes him act
only at intervals, by fits and starts, not constantly both here
and everywhere ! ' The working from within, which is accord-
ing to Goethe the nobler conception, appears to imply an ever-
working, everywhere-present God. Tyndall's omnipresent
Formative Power, residing in Matter however he may have
narrowed the notion does point, if but dimly, towards the
omnipresence of the Divine Energy, as religious thought loves
to realize it. It need not be forgotten that the notion of a
Divine Mechanist, who sometimes from far away interferes
with the laws of Nature, while these at other times work in
entire self-sufficience, is fully as repugnant to the greatest
religious, thinkers Augustine, for example as it can be to
any scientific man.

Since this reply of Professor Tyndall's appeared, the battle
has been fought fully out ; this great controversy of our
day has been carried out on both sides to its utmost issues, and
a crowd of spectators have watched its progress with an
interest of more than curiosity. Some who felt old truths
almost slipping from beneath their feet, and, along with this, a
unique sensation of universal unsteadiness and falling, like that
of men in an earthquake, when the solid earth which they have

rial, and what it cannot do without direction from mind ' (* Ethica,'
Pars iii., Prop. 2).



96 THE ATOMIC THEORY OF LUCRETIUS.

known all their lives, and which has ever been firm under
their step, even the earth begins to be unsteady and shake
under them these have felt warm gratitude to the practised
champion of philosophy who calmly accepted the challenge so
confidently flung down, and whose strength and courage won
a perfect victory. If some at first feared lest insensate Mattel-
should soon become lord of all, they found when they took
courage and closely grappled with the terror, that it fell limb
from limb in their grasp.

Professor Tyndall for we refer to the controversy between
him and Martineau, a controversy which will be admitted to
be on both sides a fairly representative one might indeed
have known that the antagonist with whom he wrestled put
forth but half his power. Martineau's first pamphlet was but
an expression of strong dissent. More lately, however, he has
examined Tyndall's arguments most calmly and fully, and has
discussed them one by one, meeting them in every case, so far
as we can judge, with a singular fairness. The veteran in the
domain of mind, when roused into fuller action, has met his
antagonist on every point of attack, and has cast him so
heavily that he cannot rise. Not by any means that we rejoice
to see the representative of science defeated. While we think
his conclusions entirely unphilosophical, we admit that Tyndall
has stated much that is unquestionable, much that makes the
world more wonderful to us than before. We do not wish to
dwell on his somewhat f petulant ' statements that Martineau
* rashly kicks away the only philosophic foundation on which
it is possible for him to build his religion,' or that the character
of his creed is ' entirely subjective,' or the too-confident heroics
on the f comfort of belief.' It would be easy to criticise such
words, but we have been much more anxious to follow Tyndall
to his own ground and, coming at once to the central question
on which the whole controversy turns, to state what powers he
attributes to Matter, and to show what reasons he can give,



THE POTENCY OF MATTER. 97

just from his own point of view, for assigning these. Here we
bave found that he has much to teach us, much that but for
iim we might have missed entirely.

Martineau's criticism on all the points before quoted is
idmirable. He remarks in the first place that Tyndall, while
seating of and explaining the methods of Nature, entirely
Irops out of thought the Power which works along these
nethods. This criticism seems to us thoroughly just. He
says of the series of illustrations which lead up to Tyndall's
iphorism

' " Matter I define as that mysterious thing by which all this
las been accomplished," i.e., the whole series of phenomena
Tom the evaporation of water to self-conscious life of man.
STeed I say that such a proposition is no definition and dis-
penses with all proof, being simply an oracle, tautologically
leclaring the very position in dispute, that matter carries in it
1 the promise and potency of terrestrial life." The whole of the
picturesque group of descriptive illustrations which lead up to
;his innocent dictum are only an expansion of the same petitio
irincipii; they simply say, over and over again, the force im-
nanent in matter is matter they are identical. . . . This is
lot a process of reasoning, but an act of will. Nothing can
)e less relevant than to show (and nothing else is attempted)
;hat the forces of heat, of attraction, of life, of consciousness,
ire attached to material media and organisms, which they
nove and weave and animate : this is questioned by no one.'

And again, ' The very story of saline crystals and ice-stars
ind fern-fronds and human birth, which Professor Tyndall
ells in order to exclude it [i.e., causal Will], is to me a con-
inuous report of its agency and laws. He asks, " What else is
;here here than matter ? " I answer, the movements of matter
vith their disposing and " formative power," the attracting and
epelling energies which, dealing with molecules and cells, are
lot molecules and cells.'

Thus we come to see that science deals only with sequences
md succession of phenomena not with dynamic ideas not
vith causality. So, imagining the case of a perfect observer,



98 THE ATOMIC THEORY OF LUCRETIUS.

able to follow all the changes of external bodies, ' though the
whole objective world has been laid bare before him, and he
has read and registered its order through and through, he has
not yet, it will be observed, alighted on a single dynamic idea.
. . . The whole vocabulary of causality may absent itself from
such an observer. . . . He might, as Comte and Mill and Bain
truly contend, command the whole body of science, without
ever asking for the origin (other than the phenomenal prede-
decessor) of any change.' So the scientific text-books wrongly
speak of ' Energies ' they can only explain the succession of
movements, ' accomplished, prevented, modified.' Science can-
not tell us what it is which does the work what it is which
produces these movements of matter.

More recently Dr. Carpenter has discussed this very subject
of the relation of Matter to Force in an article entitled, ' The
Force behind Nature.' 1 Dr. Carpenter attempts to show
that, through what he proposes to call our Force-sense, we
have a ( direct cognition of Force ; ' that our e cognition of
Force is quite as immediate and direct as our cognition of
motion,' and that it is one of those ' universal ideas which
belong to every human mind.' One illustration of his is
apt enough for this part of our inquiry, and in other ways is
extremely suggestive. Man's position as a student of Nature
is compared by him to that of a man in a cotton-factory,
whom he supposes to enter it in order to study the working of
the machines, without knowing in the least what is their moving
power. His first result of observation is to classify the diffe-
rent kinds of machines, each according to the work it does.
Next, concentrating his attention on any one, he might not
unnaturally suppose the machine to be self-moving, and 'lie
might thus attribute to each kind of machine an inherent power
of carding, roving, drawing, spinning, or weaving, as the case
may be.' He would next observe that from time to time one
1 'The Modern Eeview,' January, 1880.



THE POTENCY OF MATTER. 99

or other machine stops, and then goes on again ; this stoppage
follows when the man working at it disconnects its axis from a
leather band, and this leather band, he notices, runs over a
great longitudinal shaft at the end of the building. This con-
nection with the shaft he sees to be essential to the working of
the machine, but as yet he does not in the least understand
why it is essential. The next fact which he observes, however,
conveys an entirely new idea to his mind. If we suppose him
to lay hold of the band, which goes between the shaft and the
axis of any one machine, he at once becomes conscious, through
his force-sense, that the band is an instrument conveying
power, and that, so far from any one machine having an in-
herent power of movement, the source of its power lies in the
shaft. Finding out that every machine in the factory derives
its power from the same source, he next inquires, Has the
shaft itself an inherent power of motion ? or does it derive that
power from any ulterior source ? While thus studying the
working of the machines, suddenly he sees all the machines
stop, and the shaft cease to revolve ; and after the interval of
an hour both shaft and machines resume their motion, and yet
he f is certain that no agency visible to him ' has had any
concern either in their stoppage or in their renewal of motion.
Thus he might feel justified in concluding that the shaft
possesses an inherent potency of motion, and that there is no
more to be learned about it. But, not wishing to leave any-
thing uninvestigated, he goes round to the other side of the
wall. There he finds that one end of the shaft comes through
it, and is set in motion by a steam-engine.

Of course, the force of the engine is derived from coal, and,
if we go far enough back, from solar radiation. If, then, we
inquire into the source of the sun's energy, in any case ' we
come at length to a wall, to the other side of which we seem at
present to have no access.'

But, continues Dr. Carpenter, Is there no other side ? Does



100 THE ATOMIC THEORY OF LUCRETIUS.

not the whole preceding inquiry show how unsatisfactory is
any inherent f potency ' of Matter as the ultimate explanation
of the existing Kosmos ? ' If we think the man foolish who
supposes the main shaft of a cotton-mill to turn of itself,
merely because he sees it apparently end in a wall, which con-
ceals from him the source of its motive power, are we not
really chargeable with the like folly if we attribute self-motion
to the ultimate molecules of Matter, merely because the Power
that moves them is hid from our sight ? '

The misconception of confusing ' Law ' and f Force,' which
Dr. Carpenter exposes, has become so widespread that we
may be excused for quoting his little parable thus fully.
Martineau next points out, Observation shows us that all
Forces are One. If you watch any one force, it may be seen
passing into another. f Now it is mechanical energy, in a
minute it will be heat ; if a tourmaline is near, it will turn up
as electricity ; and so on, for no part of the cycle is closed
against it. You look, in short, upon a row of masks, behind
which the "unknown power," slipping from one to another
with magic agility, seems to multiply itself, but is found on
closer scrutiny never to quit its unity.'

So the plurality of forces disappears. The forces are seen
to be mere disguises of some unity, and we next inquire, How