CHAPTER XX.

LIFE AND MATTER—THE LATEST VIEWS ON EVOLUTION—POSITION OF SIR OLIVER LODGE.

Among modern thinkers of high repute in the English-speaking sections of the scientific world scarcely any name stands out more prominently at present than that of Sir Oliver Lodge, the distinguished president of Birmingham University in England. Standing, as this conspicuous educator does, in the very front rank of modern teachers,—who while strictly scientific have also a deep regard for the noblest elements in religion,—this truly learned man presents us with far more moderate views of the general doctrine of evolution than we need ever expect to find in the writings of materialistic evolutionists like Haeckel on the one hand and conservative theologians on the other. The present attitude taken to Charles Darwin, as evidenced during the celebration at Cambridge in 1909, shows that the foolish idolatry which was at one time lavished on that great biologist’s writings by his fervid admirers, equally with the absurd denunciation of his views poured forth by his vituperative opponents, has practically died away, and given place to a much fairer and milder estimate of the great scientist and his remarkable discoveries. There was a time when the theory of evolution was regarded with horror by the Church of England, and hailed with delight by professing atheists, who thought they found in it complete confirmation of their denial of Deity. But all such views have now been relegated to the limbo of forgetfulness, at least in scientific circles; though they still survive among the unthinking and the illiterate. Darwin himself was never dogmatic, and he repeatedly warned the public against accepting as final theories which he put forth tentatively. He was, however, very positive in his declaration of ascertained facts, and he always contended that the only reasonable method of dealing with facts was to allow them to speak for themselves, regardless of any theories which might stand in the way of their impartial investigation. Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace, who was quite independently a co-discoverer with Darwin of many important facts bearing directly on the theory of evolution is a confirmed Spiritualist, while Darwin was a confessed agnostic. This circumstance is quite sufficient to show that the theory of evolution, even when accepted in its entirety as it is by Wallace, does not by any means preclude a studious observer of natural phenomena from keeping a perfectly open mind with reference to evidences concerning other planes of existence than the physical; natural facts of a material character neither serving to confirm or deny the reality of a spiritual universe. Sir Oliver Lodge is far less agnostic than Darwin and less spiritualistic than Wallace, his position being that of an earnest student of psychic phenomena whose general attitude to all things super-physical remains to an extent indefinite, i. e., from the standpoint of those who consider nothing definite unless it be incontestably dogmatic. We may safely say that a truly scientific attitude of mind, being always open to evidence and constantly engaged in experimentation, must of necessity consider a great many questions as remaining always open; for if we are continually learning more and more of Nature's processes, we are compelled often to take and hold hypothetical positions on our way to ultimately certain conclusions; and even certainties are not finally final, for there is always something yet to be discovered which may throw fresh light upon questions we may now consider definitely settled. Though this position is very unsatisfactory to minds which long to rest in completed certainties, to the truly inquiring intellect this constant search for added knowledge constitutes life's chief delight, and it is certainly quite consistent with the ennobling thought that this world is a school in which we are being gradually educated to prepare us for higher seminaries when we have graduated from this particular college in the universe.

There are certain sublime statements expressed in noble poetry, such as Whittier's splendid couplet: “Step by step since time began We see the steady gain of man,” which harmonize exactly with all reasonable views of evolution now entertained and promulgated by the world's leading intellects who are devoting themselves to ever-enlarging research into the mysteries of Nature. Such a title for a book as “Life and Matter,” at once challenges attention, because it distinctly separates the idea of Life from the thought of Matter, thereby carrying us back to the earliest and most satisfying view of the unchanging relationship between the two. Life is the acting power; Matter is the substance acted upon, and it is through Matter of some grade or other that life is made manifest. Such in brief is the consensus of modern scientific as well as theosophical teachings. Matter can be of many grades, or planes, therefore we are not left to restrict the use of the word to the gross matter of the physical aspects of our globe. Once let this proposition be fully established and all difficulty vanishes when we are endeavoring to consider substantial worlds beyond as well as within the limit of our ordinary physical senses. Psychical Research, in which Sir Oliver Lodge has long taken very prominent part, has thoroughly convinced him, as it has also convinced many other prominent scientists, that telepathy, mental telegraphy, clairvoyance, and much else commonly regarded as mystical may be after all quite as natural and orderly as those more generally accepted uses of mental faculty with which the public at large has already become much more familiar. We are constantly making fresh discoveries concerning our inner selves which are adding considerably to our self-knowledge. We have looked upon ourselves for so long as confined within very narrow fields of action that we are naturally surprised, and to some extent bewildered, when we come to find out that no such limits need necessarily confine us. Every fresh scientific discovery and mechanical invention compels us to set to work to readjust our views of human capacity, and by the time we have become thoroughly accustomed to the achievements of the present day, we have admitted very much that our not very remote ancestors would have considered either incredible or supernatural. The scientific world does not attempt to draw any definite line between natural and supernatural, because it humbly confesses that it has by no means reached a perfect knowledge of the natural; and until one has done this, and knows that he has done it, it is self-evidently absurd for him to talk about what lies beyond nature. The wise expression, “different planes of nature,” used frequently by Annie Besant in her highly instructive book, “The Changing World,” suffices to convey the idea that our present mental evolution is opening up before us some considerable knowledge of other grades of matter than those acknowledged by old school materialists, who in the face of all evidence in support of psychic experiences simply waived the whole question aside as one pertaining to a mixture of humbug and hallucination. Sir Oliver Lodge speaks of “would-be materialists,” and of Haeckel's “conjectural philosophy,” and he goes very far to prove that much has been accepted in Germany and elsewhere as demonstrated science which actually rests on no firm scientific foundation. In a chapter entitled “Monism” he says: “Between science and philosophy there need be no permanent barrier, nor need it be regarded as otherwise than permissible for a man of science occasionally to look over into the philosophic region and survey the territory on that side also, so far as his means permit. And if philosophers object to this procedure it must be because they have found by experience that men of science who have once transcended or transgressed the boundary are apt to lose all sense of reasonable constraint and to disport themselves as if they had at length escaped into a region free from scientific trammels—a region where confident assertions might be freely made, where speculative hypothesis might rank as theory and where verification was both unnecessary and impossible.”

Sir Oliver Lodge, after the above opening paragraphs, goes on to review Haeckel's views quite radically, and soon proceeds to prove the inconsistencies of that eminent German advocate of Scientific Monism, who now complains that many of his former colleagues have deserted him, and he in his advancing age is left as an almost solitary witness for a position which was extremely popular in the earlier days of the controversy pertaining to evolution. “The Riddle of the Universe,” considered by many readers to be Haeckel’s masterpiece, contains a vast amount of valuable as well as interesting matter, and on the question of the rights of animals this veteran takes ground almost identical with that occupied by the great bulk of professed Theosophists. It is only where he is negational that his views come sharply into collision with those of nature students, who, while fully appreciating the values and beauties of the external aspects of the universe, are at the same time keenly alive to the yet sublimer wonders and more expansive glories of regions undiscoverable by simply physical investigations. Life, according to Sir Oliver Lodge, is “a guiding and directing principle,” and he very pertinently asks us to consider “whether guidance and intelligent direction are really possible, or whether everything proceeds according to some blind necessity from which will and purpose are altogether excluded.” It is when discussing the difficult and intricate question of human free-agency that this ripe thinker contributes, in our judgment, a particularly valuable contribution to modern thought. On that vexed problem he says: “Life is something outside the scheme of mechanics—outside the categories of matter and energy; though it can nevertheless control or direct material forces—timing them and determining their place of application—subject always to the laws of energy and all other mechanical laws; supplementing or accompanying these laws, therefore, but contradicting or traversing them no whit.”

From the foregoing we can readily trace an attitude of mind very similar to that of nearly all Theosophists, whose particular contribution to philosophy is the stress laid by them on the incessant orderly activity of intelligent entities on other planes of Nature than the physical; it being asserted uncompromisingly that just as we on earth have limited and ever-increasing ability to direct exterior nature, but never except through the agency of unvarying law, so on the other side of the veil of sense, where clairvoyance may sometimes penetrate, intelligent entities more powerful, because wiser than we, are manipulating events precisely as we manipulate them, so far as necessary conformity with law is concerned, but in consequence of far greater acquaintanceship with law, manifesting ability to produce results very far transcending all we can yet accomplish.