CORRESPONDENCE. 



PROFESSOR MORGAN ON MR. HERBERT SPENCER. 



I have been considering Professor C. Lloyd Morgan's critique {Nat. Sci. December 

 1898) of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Biology. Therein the dynamic element in 

 life, by which is meant an underlying " principle of activity," seems to occupy 

 a considerable amount of attention. Is this principle inherent in organic 

 matter 1 Mr. Spencer thinks it is ; but how are we to realise the fact 1 That 

 is to say, how are we to account for the " origin " of what is known as vitalised 

 matter ? how can the chasm which separates living from dead matter be bridged 1 

 Mr. Spencer admits, on the one hand, that the processes which go on in living 

 things are incomprehensible as results of any physical actions known to us ; 

 and, on the other hand, he must assume that living matter originated during a 

 long stage of progressive cooling, in which occurred the formation of molecules 

 more and more heterogeneous. Mr. Spencer here makes an assumption which is 

 quite gratuitous, but it stands to his credit that he proceeds no further in the 

 business. He practically admits that the heterogeneous molecules have got 

 nothing to do with the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, etc., 

 which enter into his conception of life. He owns that in this direction our 

 explanations finally bring us face to face with the inexplicable, and there the 

 matter rests. But Professor Morgan is not quite satisfied. With true journalistic 

 instinct he fears that Mr. Spencer is false to the evolution which he has so 

 eagerly and lavishly professed, and therefore a reference to the peculiarly 

 Teutonic poetico-mystical distinction between the noumenon and the phenomenon 

 is deemed advisable and unhesitatingly called into requisition. If we only could 

 positively cognize "things in themselves," the Professor seems to imagine, then 

 we should be able to fully and clearly understand how it has come to pass that 

 the "more and more heterogeneous molecules " of dead matter suddenly jumped 

 as it were into life, and we should be able to rigidly measure and estimate the 

 resultants of the properties of the component earthy matter, etc. Evolution 

 itself comes within the same sweep. "We formulate the laws of evolution in 

 terms of antecedence and sequence ; we also refer these laws to an underlying- 

 cause, the noumenal mode of action of which is inexplicable." That is to say, 

 the cause of evolution as a process in nature is referred to the noumenon " the 

 thing in itself," which is merely a matter of supposition, a something which we 

 do not scientifically know, but can only suppose by dint of a high-strung 

 imagination. 



Who would now be rash in asserting that the erstwhile favourite pet fad of 

 our most talented poets, literates, and journalists had not suffered degradation 

 when it is compelled to fall back, so to speak, on the abstruse casuistry of 

 German metaphysics 1 There is a certain mental condition, as Wordsworth well 

 knew, which is barely able to separate and distinguish between the mind within 

 and the matter without, which is not sure whether, for instance, a post met with 

 on the roadside is inside one's head or outside of it. Now, this is just the sort 



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