420 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



should band themselves together and form molecules, why the mole- 

 cules should fall into line and form larger bodies of matter, is not ex- 

 plained. 



The same difficulty meets us, of course, in the philosophy of organic 

 life. Haeckel supplies us with any number of animated pyknatoms, 

 but we are at a loss what to do with them. How are they to form 

 organisms? Of course, it is just as easy for them to form a simple 

 piece of protoplasm as it is for them to form a planetary system, but 

 there is poor consolation in that when it is a mystery how they can do 

 either. Moreover the mysteries multiply a thousandfold when we pass 

 from the very simplest form to the higher organisms. It is perhaps 

 easy enough to describe what happens, to watch the process of cell divi- 

 sion under the microscope, to trace the development through a series 

 of stages, but why should the atoms group themselves in such a way as 

 tc form now a polyp, now a man. Each cell has its soul, it is true, un- 

 conscious impulse; and combinations of cells have corporate souls in 

 turn, but they sit there helpless, unable to do anything; indeed what 

 can they do, being merely a sum of vital phenomena, a collective term 

 for the sum-total of physiological functions of the psychoplasm? The 

 theory of evolution can not help us here, and the great Darwin frankly 

 confessed that much. It can help us to see that if a certain form is 

 given, that form will tend to survive if it is adapted to its surroundings, 

 but why it should be in the first place, and why it should develop new 

 and more appropriate characteristics in the course of time, it cannot tell 

 us. As has been said by Schurman,* the theory of evolution may ex- 

 plain the survival of the fittest, but it can not explain the arrival of the 

 fittest. 



It is strange that Haeckel should have found it necessary to endow 

 his atoms with souls, and then have such a dread of attributing a prin- 

 ciple of unity to organic forms. If the atom can have a soul or energy 

 that makes it seek out some atoms and avoid others, why not endow the 

 organism with a soul or force that will do something ? I do not mean 

 to advocate the renewal of the doctrine of vitalism in biology, after the 

 fashion of Eeinkef and other modern biologists, but I do not see why a 

 man who gives atoms and cells and groups of cells souls, and who uses 

 the atom-souls as a principle of explanation, should draw the line at 

 organic forces or souls. If vitalism and teleology are acceptable in the 

 inorganic world, why should they be so utterly out of the question in 

 the organic realm ? 



The philosophy of mind is also full of difficulties. The existence of 

 psychical life is not explained, but assumed. The substance is endowed 

 from the beginning with sentient energy, energy that feels pleasure and 



* ' The Ethical Import of Darwinism.' 

 t ' Die Welt als That.' 



