The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer. Gerard John
at last the movements due to the original unequal distribution of matter will cease, and the life of the universe will come to an end. We know of no process of rejuvenescence, by means of which dissipation of energy and the force of gravitation might be counteracted. Several attempts have been made to refute the theory of the dissipation of energy, but all have failed.
This, however, is but the first of many difficulties which must be disposed of ere the account of the world's genesis which we are considering can pretend to our acceptance on the ground that reason and science proclaim its truth.
VII
"THE SEVEN ENIGMAS"
THE doctrine that the universe is an automatic machine, – self-originated and self-sustained – undoubtedly rests upon a principle formally recognized by some evolutionists, as the "Law of Continuity," and taken for granted by many who do not put it into words. This principle is, – that everything must always have happened according to the same laws of Nature which operate now; that there can never have been a "miracle," understanding by this term whatever is beyond the scope of natural forces; and that, accordingly, the whole of the world's history, – one stage as much as another, – falls within the province of Science. By no one has this position been more clearly stated than by the late Professor Romanes.
All minds [he tells us]43 with any instincts of science in their composition have grown to distrust, on merely antecedent grounds, any explanation which embodies a miraculous element. Such minds have grown to regard all these explanations as mere expressions of our own ignorance of natural causation; or, in other words, they have come to regard it as an à priori truth that nature is always uniform in respect of method or causation; that the reign of law is universal; the principle of continuity ubiquitous.
He goes on to declare that "The fact of evolution – or, which is the same thing, the fact of continuity in natural causation – has now been undoubtedly proved in many departments of nature," and that, in particular, "throughout the range of inorganic nature" it is "a demonstrated fact."
If this be so, it must necessarily follow that the Laws of Nature, as Science finds them operating, sufficiently explain not only all that happens in our present world, but also all that must have happened while this world was being produced. According to what has already been said, by "The Law of Continuity" no more can be signified than that Continuity is a fact, that the world has actually come to be what it is through the continual operation of just the same natural forces as we find at work to-day. That things did so happen we have not and cannot have, direct evidence; for no witness was there to report. We can but draw inferences from the present to the past, and argue that what Nature does to-day, she must have been capable of doing yesterday and the day before. Only thus can continuity of natural laws possibly be established. It would obviously be vain to argue that we must suppose no other forces ever to have acted than those we can observe, because, for all we know, other conditions may so have altered as to make their results altogether different from any of which we have experience.
It is likewise manifest that if we are to speak of demonstrated facts, and of conclusions placed beyond rational possibility of doubt, proofs must be forthcoming sufficient to compel scientific assent.
And here lies the difficulty. Very much must unquestionably have happened in the course of the world's making for which the Laws of Nature as we find them now acting cannot account, and which, therefore, Science cannot attempt to explain. So we are assured by eminent scientific men, – men, too, who desire nothing more than to find an explanation, but are driven, in search of one, as we have already seen Sir W. Crookes, to plead the limitation of our knowledge, and that there may be capabilities in Nature of which we are ignorant. But it remains always true, that what we do not know is not yet part of Science, and that if our scientific information, so far as it goes, is adverse to the Law of Continuity, it is quite unscientific to bring arguments for the law not from our knowledge, but from our lack of it. Still more unscientific is it to proclaim that Science has pronounced judgment in a sense contrary to that of all the evidence hitherto presented to her.
Amongst the men of Science who testify as above, we may begin with Herr Du Bois-Reymond, an avowed Evolutionist and Materialist, whom Professor Haeckel styles, "the all-powerful secretary and dictator of the Berlin Academy of Sciences."44 He can be suspected of no prejudices which would prevent him from accepting Professor Haeckel's cosmogony, if only he found the evidence satisfactory. Far from this, however, he declares,45 that the history of the universe confronts us with no less than seven problems, for which Science has no solution to offer, and some of which he holds to be for ever insoluble. These he styles "Enigmas," and they are:
(1) The nature of Matter and of Force.
(2) The origin of Motion.
(3) The origin of Life.
(4) The apparently designed order of Nature.
(5) The origin of sensation and consciousness.
(6) The origin of rational thought and speech.
(7) Free-will.
The first, second, and fifth of these are in the opinion of Du Bois-Reymond "transcendental," or beyond possibility of solution. The others, in his judgment, have certainly not yet been solved, but perhaps may be solved some day. As to the last, he much doubts whether it should not also be classed as "transcendental."
It thus appears that in the judgment of a competent witness, and one no-wise biassed by preconception or prejudice, so far from it being true that Professor Haeckel's story of the universe is imperiously imposed on us by the results of Science, not one but several great gulfs in the course of that history must have been bridged over somehow, which Science confesses she cannot bridge, so far as her present knowledge goes, that is to say, so far as she is Science at all.
Professor Haeckel, it is true, loudly pronounces Du Bois-Reymond's declaration to be mere "dogmatism"46 of a "shallow and illogical character," and he undertakes to show that with the help of his own philosophy the enigmas cease to be enigmatical.
In my opinion [he writes] the three transcendental problems (1, 2 and 5) are settled by our conception of substance; the three which he [Du Bois-Reymond] considers difficult, though soluble47 (3, 4 and 6) are decisively answered by our modern theory of evolution; the seventh and last, the freedom of the will, is not an object for critical scientific inquiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based on an illusion, and has no real existence.
How far such a mode of rebuking dogmatism appears convincing, must of course depend on what the reader understands by an argument. Some points already considered may help us to a right estimate of proofs which are based upon "Our conception of substance," or "Our modern theory of evolution," and we shall presently inspect more closely the nature of the difficulties which we are invited so summarily to dismiss. Meanwhile, even though not final or conclusive, the testimony of such a man as Du Bois-Reymond serves at least to prove that it is possible to be thoroughly familiar with Science and her teaching, and yet to believe that as yet she knows nothing at all concerning questions which, as we have been assured, she has conclusively answered. And, as we shall presently see, if Professor Haeckel's account of things be the true one, there are many more scientific men of the first rank who are equally in the dark.
In a word, while according to Professor Haeckel there is in the universe but one Riddle, which he tells us he has solved, – in the opinion of another who is certainly no less entitled to speak in the name of Science, there yet remain seven to which no answer has yet been given, and to three, at least, of which none will ever be found.
VIII
MATTER AND MOTION
IN the forefront of the problems which have been pronounced to be not only unsolved but insoluble, are the nature and origin of the ultimate factors arrived at by Science in her study of the constitution of the universe, – Matter, Force, and Motion.
With the first and last of these alone need we at present concern ourselves,
Du Bois-Reymond does not say that they are soluble, but only that he cannot pronounce them "transcendental."