The individual; a study of life and death

Preface

Modeen science lias done much to change the conceptions of men as to their place in the universe. The ancient view that the earth and all its living tenants were suddenly created is passing away, and in its stead there is coming, in a swift and inevitable way, the conviction that all we see or know is but a part of a vast orderly procession of which we can discern neither the beginning nor the end.

It needs but a slight acquaintance with the history of man to make it clear that the best part of his nature, his moral and social qualities, has to a considerable extent been founded on his beliefs concerning his origin and the ways in which he has been controlled by the powers above him. It is evidently a most important question as to how far this change of view is likely to alter human conduct. Is it likely to overthrow or even to shake the institutions of morality, or will it serve to make them firmer than before?

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It is evidently too soon to determine in any observational way what the answer to this question is to be; for, while almost all educated men have some knowledge of the new learning concerning man's place in Nature, very few so possess it and are possessed by it that their states of mind afford any index as to what the result will be when it is fully shared by all and is the actual basis of thought and action. We can, however, obtain some idea as to the effect which this knowledge is likely to have upon the generations to come by examining into such of the revelations of science as directly relate to the place of man, to see whether they are likely to lessen his sense of duty to himself or his fellows. It is one of the objects of this book to make such an inquiry. The main purpose, however, is to present to the reader a sufficient account of what his individual life means in the great order.

The meaning of our several individual lives in relation to those of our fellow-beings and of the great realm is the most important of all quests. To attain to some understanding, however limited, of these matters, it is necessary first of all to obtain a sufficient idea of the steps by which it has come about that we are here as individuals with a measure of personal independence, serving our fellow-men and questioning the universe concerning our origin and

PREFACE vii

destiny. Above all, we need to seek knowledge as to the reason for the brevity of life which, seen nakedly, makes existence seem but a mockery.

Because the problem of death is beyond all others momentous, it has the largest share of consideration in the following pages. As will be seen, the effort is to show that the brevity of life in the organic individual necessarily arises from the educable quality of all the individualities of that group; that in proportion to the advance in station of any group of animals and plants the duration of its members has to be more and more accurately fixed, until in man and other of the higher forms the term is as firmly established as are the features of the body. It is in the considerations relating to the nature and history of individuality that we may hope to find whatever of moral help that natural science can give us. The facts when clearly seen certainly lead us to a better understanding of what death means in the great order.

As the purpose of this book is to set forth a naturalist's judgment of life and death, no deliberate consideration is given to matters of religion; so, too, many interesting questions of a purely philosophical kind as to the nature of individuality have not been touched upon. This metaphysical aspect of the problem has been amply discussed in Dr. Josiah viii THE INDIVIDUAL

Koyce's work on the subject. It should thus be evident that while the following pages are devoted to what seems to the writer a very important branch of the inquiry, that which concerns the tangible facts and the conclusions to be drawn therefrom, there is much else to be taken into account.

It is evident that the modern views as to the nature and origin of life are in ever-increasing measure to direct the attention of men to what their presence in this world means. It is also clear that the naturalist's contribution, even though the value of it be questioned, has the right to be heard first in the debate. All explanations must take account of the facts with which he deals and the conclusions

to which he is led.

K S. S.

Cambridge, July, 1900.

Introduction

The matter of death, has been the subject of endless consideration. From the time men began to think at all, the question of their passing has been uppermost in their thought. The certainty of it has affected every life; has shaped our societies and religions; indeed has made life what it is. So far, however, this matter of death has received little deliberate attention. The phenomena connected with it have been well described. The problems of natural selection and of evolution have called attention to the results which come from the temporary quality of the individual, but they have not led to any extended interest in the relation of the ephemeral nature of the individual to the other individualities of the universe and to the method of its organization.

In the following chapters I propose to approach the question of death from the point of view of its natural history, noting, in the first place, how the higher organic individuals are related to those of the

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lower inorganic realm of the universe. Then, taking up the organic series, I shall trace the progressive steps in the perfection of death by a determination as to the length of the individual life and its division into its several stages from the time when the individual is separated from the general body of the ancestral life to that when it returns to the common store of the earth. Upon the basis of the knowledge we may thus obtain, I shall endeavour to see what qualifications of the accepted view of the great accident we may make — how, in a word, we may hope to work toward a reconciliation of our death with the order in which we find ourselves placed.

For obvious reasons the subject will not be treated in what is commonly termed the religious way — in the manner that goes behind the facts, or, perhaps we should say, above them; but in the matter-of-fact way — that which looks alone to the phenomenal for the explanation sought. The reader should understand that this limitation is by no means to be considered as a denial of the importance of the other method of approach, but that it is taken in order to avoid the mixture of religious and scientific methods which have been so generally profitless. No man should endeavour to journey on two paths at the same time, or on the same way in two vehicles. Should he do so he is sure to fail of his end.

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In the chapter on the effect of religion on the attitude of men toward death, it should be understood that the statements which are there made are directed not against faith in the higher sense, not in the least against Christianity in its native form, but against the curious remnants of primitive religions which have crept into this most magnanimous of beliefs, turning its blessings into curses and its light into darkness, thereby laying a burden upon human life and hope in ways even more grievous than those of pagan times.

In effect this book is a plea for an education as regards the place of the individual life in the whole of Nature which sha 1 ! be consistent with what we know of the universe. It is a plea for an understanding of the relations of the person with the realm which is, in the fullest sense, his own; with his fellow-beings of all degrees which are his kinsmen; with the past and the future of which he is an integral part. It is a protest against the idea, bred of many natural misconceptions, that a human being is something apart from its fellows: that it is born into the world and dies out of it into the loneliness of a supernatural realm. It is this sense of isolation which, more than all else, is the curse of life and the sting of death.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface v

Introduction ix

Chapter I The Place Op The Individual In" The Untvekse

It is an essential feature of man that he is an individual — a being separated from other units in a certain spacious way. We shall hereafter turn again to the question as to what this individuality means in the moral sense, and how it comes to be established by physical processes. Our purpose now is to see how far, if at all, this quality is peculiar to man, to his kindred, the sentient things or to the material realm. It is manifestly important to do this, for in that way alone can we take the first step toward measuring the value of this apparently peculiar isolation of the human being. To do this work we need to look abroad to see what we may as to the individualizing process in the several provinces of Nature.

In beholding the universe man finds himself hindered by the fact that he looks upon it along what may be termed a certain plane of sight which, while it opens to him much of the higher, denies him any vision of its lower units; he sees practically unlimited suns, but he can not see their elements; he knows nothing that is perfectly sure of the ultimate constitution of matter, and by inference alone is enabled to divine some of its fundamental qualities. The leading fact which he may ascertain is that all things commonly termed material probably consist of atoms, indivisible, all with eminent individuality acting and reacting upon one another, each after the manner of its kind. It is commonly held that each of these atoms is a permanent unit, one that is not divided by any of the powers which are applied to •it, nor is it subject to any abiding changes. This evidence of the permanence of atoms rests upon a very limited body of experience. It has no other foundation than the tests of our laboratories and the evidence which the spectroscope affords, that in our sun and other like bodies in the visible universe the elements are arranged into the same groups as in our earth. As to the essence of an atom we know only the properties of each species in relation to those of others, and that each is the centre of actions which may extend very far beyond itself. Every one of the millions contained in the smallest object visible in the microscope is ever acting on the fartliest body in the universe. We know, also, that each is the centre f roni which various sorts of control proceed by means of vibrations, passing now to the atom and again forth from it. There are also processes of control which can not as yet be clearly conceived as due to energy, as, for instance, those which give rise to the native qualities of these units.

As for the ultimate constitution of the atom, whether it be essentially simple or complex, we have no knowledge whatsoever. Granting that it is indivisible, it may still be of the order of indivisibility of a solar system: it may be made up of a complex of smaller bodies which owe their endurance to the most effective means of securing permanence in Nature, that which is won by ordered motions. So far as we can see there is no reason to suppose that the indivisibly small is attained when we come to the atomic stage of matter. There may, indeed, be system within system of individualities in indefinite extension into the infinite of the minute, quite as well as into the infinite of the great. The popular supposition of the atom as an ultimate in structure is hardly warranted by the facts we know about it; it is opposed to all we know of the constitution of the universe, of which it is a part. These statements are very speculative, but they have their use, for the reason that the notion of the atom as an essentially indivisible and simple thing sets a limit to the infinite on one side of the universe which serves to harm the true conception of its depths. Men cleave to these limitations: they afford seeming bounds to the natural, so that beyond them they may set the supernatural realm. Of old, they found a beginning and an end of the natural order. They imagined limits to space beyond which the lower control did not extend. Science has broken down these barriers to space, time, and law; but it has of itself instituted this new wall of the atom.

All we really know about the atom is that in descending in the order of magnitude of the individualities of the universe we finally come upon a very permanent kind of person, beyond whose barriers we have, as yet, found no means of breaking. The units of this estate have, like those of other estates, their qualities, perhaps their unchangeable characteristics. They differ from those of a higher order of complication, so far as we can see, only in the fact that they are unaffected by any influences we can bring to bear tending to break them into yet smaller units.

Next in order of complication come the individualities which are composed of two or more of these atoms, grouped in some order which may be that of motion or that of rest. These are the so-called molecules which are likewise quite beyond the limits of vision. When this molecular grouping of atoms occurs it is usually of those that belong to different species, with the result that a new individuality is created — one that, so far as we can see, has not the mere sum of the qualities of the elements, but is a third something which has been created from the union of the diversities.

The individualities of the molecule are so like those of the atom as to suggest that they are but a higher combination of the same order as that which makes the atomic units. This view has some support in the fact that, while the greater number of the molecular individualities are only broken up by heat or other agents of change, there are certain of them which are very firm as regards the bond, yielding only to the utmost skill the chemist can apply to bring about a parting of their lower units. When thus separated they seek quickly to fly back to their united state. The fewer the atoms in the system of the molecule, in general, the more limited the properties of the aggregate and the more stable their union. r Ks the number of atomic individualities in the society increases, the greater the delicacy of its adjustment, until, in the more complicated of them, as we approach the protoplasmic aggregate, the number of units is to be reckoned by the thousand, and the construction is so delicate that it is easily destroyed. At this plane we pass from the inorganic to the organic, from the purely physical realm to that which is affected with another set of motives. Although we are concerned mainly with this higher stage of life, we must here turn aside to consider some other features in the history of the purely physical individualities.

The next kind of unit above the molecular which we have as yet discerned are the crystals — those combinations of atoms, individually or in secondary associations, which take on definite mathematical forms, or rather approach such forms without attaining perfection in them. These are so general in their occurrence that while we have not seen the crystalline shapes proper to many atomic species, or the most of their possible combinations, and many of them may never have existed, it is probable that every atomic or molecular aggregate has its normal crystal form — the order in which the units group themselves in the state of apparent rest which we associate with solidity. As to what may be the real condition of atoms or molecules in the crystalline repose, we as yet know nothing definite. The units may be in some kind of constant motion or at rest.

From what we know of the conditions of crystallization, we conclude that if all the matter of the universe were made free to run its natural course from the original diffused state to that of a complete solid aggregation, each kind by itself, it would enter finally, as it lost heat, upon the stable condition of the crystal form, which, so far as we can see, is the most fixed of any state. We have to conceive constant activity of the atom and the molecule, but this orderly grouping of the units in the crystal suggests an enduring repose.

As regards the degree of difference which may exist between atoms or molecules of the same species we know nothing that is certain. There are, however, some facts which have led chemists reasonably to conjecture that molecules at least exhibit a measure of individual peculiarity. When the student of the individualizing processes becomes well acquainted with the conditions which make for the development of personal qualities in all the visible units of the universe, he will be disposed to question the idea that these of the lower order differ from one another in no other feature save that of position. To hold to this view is, in a way, to deny that these persons of the lower estate are effectively in the realm we know — a realm where each individual is the product of innumerable reciprocal, infinitely varied influences acting from without and from within, which, save by a chance, expressed by the term " infinity to one/' could not give rise to absolutely identical forms. Even if we take this view, we are held by the facts to the supposition that while the array of actions which make for variety take effect on these lower persons, their action is not commonly sufficient to disturb the balance of dominant forces which give what we term the static condition. In a word, we may conceive these lower creatures of the inorganic to be like the higher individuals of the organic realm, sensitive to external influences, yet so held by the dominating forces which shape them that they are limited in the variations they exhibit.

When in the ascending order of complexity we attain to the crystals we find at once that the personal quality of the individual is distinctly determined. It is a well-known fact that specimens from particular localities have, in many instances, characteristics which are quite easily recognised. Those who closely observe these forms are able to note differences which serve to distinguish members of the same species even when they appear at first sight to be quite alike. Moreover, recent inquiries into the minute features of crystals have shown that, for all their seeming simplicity, they are really very complicated structures. Thus in many, if not all, of their species the process of etching brings out on the cleavage planes curious microscopic pits the forms of which are in general characteristic of the species, while the details of their arrangement appear to be in a measure peculiar to the individual. However it may be with the invisible atoms and molecules, it seems clear that the lowest individualities of the inorganic realm which we can see differ one from another in the manner, if not in the measure, that we are accustomed to note in organic personalities.

Along with the chemical affinities and the related activities which are supposed to arise from the aggregations of matter, there acts another shape-giving influence, that of gravitation, which has much to do with the history of all the larger individualities of the universe. It, in fact, to a great extent controls their forms, from suns to men. As yet we know nothing concerning this mode of energy, if such we may term it, save that it appears to be proportional to the number of atoms there may be in any aggregate, and inversely proportional to the distance of one atom or mass from another. As all we know of atomic activity leads us to suppose that the qualities of these units depend on vibrations which are communicated to other atoms or to the molecular aggregates, it is very puzzling to be compelled to face another mode of action of these bodies, which behaves substantially like light, in that it can act at a distance, but is supposed to operate in some essentially different way from all other activities. I therefore venture to call attention to certain experiments by the physicist Bjerknes, which appear to indicate a possible solution of the mystery of gravitation. These are, in effect, that bodies of visible size when vibrating at the same musical pitch may attract one another. This seems to mean that a certain kind of waves may exist and be propagated through ether with the result that the bodies, thus moving at the same rate, are mutually attracted. It would be interesting to speculate on the ways in which this attraction through the instrumentality of synchronous waves could be effected. We are here concerned only with the fact that the experiments show such a mode of attraction to be possible. It is only necessary for us to suppose that every atom has, among its many modes of vibration, one absolutely general pulsation which exercises over all other bodies the effect given by likeness of musical pitch. We may indeed conceive that the gravitation impulse is due to the sum of the identical waves which exist among the vibrating units. If this view should be approved, or indeed any other which would find our conception of gravitation in the vibration of atoms,

THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE UNIVERSE H

we should be rid of the worse stumbling-block in our endeavour to found our theory of the universe on the supposition that it is throughout an expression of energy. The importance of this point in our problem will become evident in the sequel.

Eeturning to the observable work of gravitation, let us note the effect it has in shaping the larger individualities of Nature. First, let us attend to its effects on the original distribution of matter, a point which brings us at once in face of the natural history of the stellar realm. As is well known, the belief of most astronomers is that the matter contained in the visible universe was once in a state of diffusion throughout and beyond all the realm of the fixed stars — the distant suns. In the process of the ages, this matter falling together to the several centres of its consolidation, impelled thereto by gravity, has generated the hundred million or more of aggregates, the solar systems of which our own sun and its attendants is a relatively insignificant specimen. The precise manner in which this work has been accomplished is by no means so clear as it was at one time supposed to be, for the inquiries of Professor George Darwin and Mr. S. J. See have shown that the tidal phenomena of the spheres, the tides in the primitive, molten masses, as well as those in the ordinary seas, tend to drive the spheres apart. It may thus be that while gravitation works to consolidate matter in such bodies as suns, planets, and satellites, it then proceeds by a critical change in its action to send these spheres away from one another. This change in the results of the gravitation action is interesting, as it is one of many, very many, instances in which we find the apparently uniform processes of Nature, those which are indeed uniform in their steps of action, leading to sudden and complete changes of result.

The important fact that is learned from the study of gravitation work is that it creates in the universe vast and complex individualities, the suns and their attendant minor bodies, each of which has its life history, its mode of birth, its processes leading to maturity, its period of rest after the forces which give rise to its activities have ceased to act. These individual bodies have each their own characteristics. They in a sense live their own lives, each different from the other; yet they do this by an endless interchange of actions, so that all that goes on in any one of them is affected by what takes place in every other. At first sight nothing seems more absolutely alone than an orb in space, parted by scores of millions of miles from its neighbours; yet it is a part of a system where each unit affects the other at every turn of its affairs. Every pulse of our hearts is due to the energy sent to the earth from the sun. The shapes of our lands are in large part determined by the ceaseless call that the moon makes on the seas. Though the isolation of any one solar system from another is more complete than that which exists in a planet of any one system, the same bond of interchanged action exists among them all. The spaces which part planet from planet, or from the sun, seem insignificant, and the connection between them appears almost intimate when we come to consider the abysmal spaces that separate even the nearest suns one from the other. Still, even through these voids each draws the other to itself. The way in which each goes onward into the unknown upon the path the systems pursue is determined by every other.

The history of the celestial systems show us that the largest individualities we can discern in the visible realm come forth from the ancient and simple estate; that they have each won their personal isolation as have the lesser units of which they are composed. Yet each is absolutely bound up with the whole, is instituted in that whole without in any way parting from it. The apparent isolation is due in part to our complete ignorance as to what unites or wraps about the units or aggregates of matter. We know of this ether, or infinite space filler of the visible universe, little more than that it seems to be in a way material, as it in certain ways transmits impulses, and in a way not material in any sense of matter known to us, in that it in no measurable way resists the movement of the celestial bodies. It remains absolutely enigmatical when judged by any of the standards we apply to those parts of the universe which have the properties of matter. It has to be placed in a realm by itself into which we have as yet found no effective means of penetrating by experiment, and which is almost barred to the imagination.

We can not with satisfaction discuss the consideration of the ether as most physicists do, with mere negations, or with such suggestions as that it is " an absolutely elastic solid." We have to recognise that it is not pure space, but something actual — as actual indeed as any material thing, in that it has properties; as, for instance, the capacity of transmitting impulses, and presumably many others which we fail to perceive. From the point of view of our present inquiry, the characteristic feature of the ether is that it appears to be undifferentiated. It may possibly be the part of the cosmos which has not entered on the way toward individualization, which begins perhaps with the atom and proceeds to the great variety of units of the physical and the organic world.

Speculating as to its nature in the light of what we know of the processes of the universe, we may ask whether ether be not a mode of existence less complicated than that of the atom, one from which, by the organization of its units, the atom may have been evolved, as the spheres, from the pre-existing vapour? This, be it said, is mere speculation. The main point for us is that, in this ocean of the ethereal realm, which apparently remains as unindividualized as the infinite itself, has developed all the finite individualities, from atoms and suns to men.

Our brief summary of the physical world has shown us, in mere outline, but sufficiently for our limited purpose, how the progress of organization in that realm is not alone from the undifferentiated to the differentiated — though that, too, is discernible — but essentially to individualities, and from the simpler of them to the more complex; and, further, that each of these individualities, from atom or celestial sphere, is none the less of the whole because it is of itself; it acts ever in its surroundings and receives action therefrom to the uttermost ends of the discernible universe. It is hardly too much to say that on this individualizing process depends all the real work that is done within the universe. It is the reaction of one group of motives and capacities thus localized in the persons of the material world upon another, which is the basis of the universal life. It is only as these personalities arise that energy can find other than a mere potential existence. As they become more and more varied in their quality, the reactions attain a higher interactive form.