The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-29 00:00:00

THE ORIGINATION OF LIFE.

'The origination of life is a point lightly touched upon, if
at all, by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Spencer. Diminishing gradually
thetnumber of progenitors, Mr. Darwin comes at length to
.° primordial form ; " but he does not say, as far as I re-
member, I.ow he supposes this form to have heeli introduced,
espiotes with satisfaction the words of a celebrated author
and divine who hail gradually learnt to see hat it is just aa
noble a conception of the Deity to believe lie created a few
original I mil, capable of self-development into other and
needf 01 forms, aa to believe that He required afresh act of
creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His
laws." What Mr Darwin thinks of this view of the intro-
duction of life Ido not know. Whether he does or does
not introduce his "primordial form" by a creative act, I do
not know. But the question will inevitably be asked, "flow
came the form them i" With regard to the diminution of
the number of created forms, one does not see that much
advantage is gained by it. The anthropomorphism, which
it seemed the object of Mr. Darwin to set aside, is as firmly
associated with the creation of a few forms as with the
creation of a multitude. We nmd clearness and thoroughness
here. Two courses and two only are possible. Either
let us open our doors freely to the conception of creative
acts or, abandoning them, let us radically change our
notions of matter. If we look at matter as pictured by
Democritus and as defined for generations in our scientific
text-books, the absolute impossibility of any torn, of life
coming out of it would be sufficient to render any other
hypothesis preferable ; but the definitions of matter given
in our text-books were intended to cover its purely physical
and mechanical properties. And taught as we have been to
regard these deftnitions as complete, we naturally and
rightly reject the monstrous notion that out of such matter
any form of life could possibly arise. But are the defini-
tions complete? Everything depends on the answer to
be given to this question. Trace the line of life back-
wards, and see it approaching more and more to what we
call the purely physical condition. We reach at length
those organisms which I have compared to drops of oil
suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water. We reach
the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we have "a type
distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its
finely granular character." Can we pause hero? We
break a magnet and find too poles in each of its fragments.
We continue the process of breaking, but however small
the parts each carries with it, though enfeebled, the po-
larity of the whole. And when we can break no longer,
we prolong the intellectual visiou to the polar molecules.
Are we not urged to do something similar in the cane of life?
Is there not a temptation to close to some extent with
Lucretius, when he affirms that "nature is seen to do all
things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the
gods?" or with Bruno, when he declares that matter is not
"that mere empty capacity which philosophers have
pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings
, forth all things as the fruit of her own womb?" The ques-
tions here raised are inevitable. They are approach-
ing us with accelerated speed, and it is not a matter
I of indifference whether they are introduced with rever-
ence or with irreverence Abandoning all disguise,
the confession that I feel bound to make before you
I, that I prolong the vision backward across the bound-
ary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that
Matter, which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding
our professed reverence for ite Creator, have hitherto
covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every
form and quality of life. The ' materialism' here enunciated
may be different from what you suppose, and I therefore
crave your gracious patience to the end. 'The question of
an external world,' says Mr. J. S. Mill. 'is the great battle
ground of metaphysics ' Mr. Mill himself reduces external
phenomena to possibilities of sensation. Kant, as we have
seen, made time and space 'fonus' of our own institutions.
Fichte, having first Icy the inexorable logic of his under-
standing proved himself to be a mere link in that chain of
eternal causation which holds so rigidly in nature, violently
broke the chain by making nature and all that it inherits an
apparition of his own mind. And it is by no means easy to
combat such notions. For .when I ani I see you, and that
I have not the least doubt about it, tHe reply is, that what
I am really conscious of is an affection of my own retina.
And Iff urge that I can check my sight of you by touching
you, the retort would be that I am equally transgressing
the limits of fact for what I am really conscious of is, not
that you are there, but that the nerves of my hand have
undergone a change. All we hear, and see, and touch, and
taste, and smell are, it would be urged, mere variations of
our own condition, be} ond which, even to the extent of a
hair's breadth, we cannot go. That any thing answering to
our Impressions exists outside of ourselves Is not a fact but
an inference, to which all validity would be denied by an
idealist like Berkeley, or by a sceptic like Hume. Mr.
Spencer takes another line. With him, as with the un-
educated man, there is no doubt or question as to the exist-
ence of an external world. But he differs from the uneduca-
ted, who thinks that the world really is what consciousness
represents it to be. Our states of consciousness are mere
symbols of an outside entity which produces them and de-
termines the order of their succession, but the real nature
of which we can never know. In fact, the whole process
of evolution is the manifestation of a power absolutely
inscrutable to the Intellect of man. As little in our day
as in the days of Job can man by searching find this power
out.

-
'' And now the end is come. With more time, or greater
strength and knowledge, what has been here said might
have been oetter said, while worthy matters here omitted
might have received lit expression. But there would have
been no material deviation from the views set forth. As
regards myself, they are not the growth eta day ; and as re-
gards you. I thought you ought to know the environment
which, with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding
you, and in solution to which some adjustment on your part
may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, however, teaches us
all how the troubles of common life may be coiled; and it is
perfectly possible for you and me to purchase Intellectual
peace at the price of intellectual death. The world is riot
without refugees of tins description, aorta It wanting in per-
sons who seek their shelter and try to persuade others to do
the same. I would exhort you to refuse such shelter, and
to scorn such base repose—to accept, if the choice be
forced upon you, commotion before stagnation, the
leap of the torrent before the stillness of the swamp. In
the one there is at all events life mid, therefore, hope ; in the
other, none. I have touched on debateable questions, and
led you over dangerous ground—and this partly with the
view of telling you, and through you the world, that as
regards these questions science claims unrestricted right of
search. It is not to the point to say that the views of
, Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer may be wrong.
, I concede the possibility, deeming it indeed certain that these
1 views will undergo modification. But the point is that,
1 whether right or wrong, we claim the freedom to discuss
1 them. The ground which they cover is scientific ground ;
1 and the right claimed is one made good through tribulation
and anguish, ntlicted and endured in darker times than ours,
i but resulting n the imniortal victories which science has won
for the human race. I would net forth equally the teaser-
I , able advance of man's understanding in the path of
knowledge, and the unquenchable claims of his emotional
nature which the understanding can never satisfy. The
world embraces not only a Newton. but a Shakespeare—not
only a Boyle, but a Raphael—not only a Kant, but a Bee-
thoven—net only a Darwin, but a Carlyle Not in each of
' these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not
opposed, but supplementary—not mutually exclusive, but
reconcilable. And if, still unsatisfied, the human mind,
with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will
turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so
to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith, so long as
this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any
kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ulti-
mate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each
succeeding age roust be held free to fashion the mystery in
accordance with its ow-n needs—then, in opposition to all the
restrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field
for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the know-
. .. . .. .. . ... •

--
" I eau imagine the Bishop thoughtful after hearing this
ere-,ument. Be was not the man to allow auger to mingle
with the consideration of a point of this kind After due
consideration, and having strengthened himself by that
honest contemplation of the facts which was habitual with
him, and which includes the desire to give even adverse
facts their due weight. I can suppose the Bishop to proceed
bites—' You will remember that in the A eaten of Religion,
of which you have so kindly spoken, 1 did not profess to
prove anything absolutely, and that I over and over again
acknowledged and insisted on the smallness of cur know-
ledge, or rather the tlepth of our ignorance, as regards the
whole system of the universe. My object was to show my
deistical friends, who set forth so eloquently the beauty and
beneficence of Nature and the Ruler thereof, while they
had nothing but scorn for the so-called absurdities of the
Christian scheme, that they were in no better condition than
we were, and that for every difficulty they found upon our
side quite as great a difficulty was to be found upon theirs.
I will now with your permission adopt a similar line of argu-
ment. You are a Lucretian, and from the combination and
separation of atoms deduce ail terrestrial thins, including
organic forms and their phenomena Let me tell you in the
first instance how for lam prepared to go with you. I The Times, Inn leader ore the dividends paid by Railways
admit that you can build crystalline forms out of this play during the current half-year, remarks
of molecular force, that the diamond, amethyst, and snow- . . A 8 long as the country continues to be pres-
ider are truly wonderful structures . which are thus produced.
go fu perous, the Railways will be prosperous too. The
I will further and acknowledge that even a tree qr flower
might in this way be organized. Nay, if you can allow me mysterious abstraction known as "the state of
on animal without sensation, twill concede to you that it trade" has a direct and immediate influence upon
also might be put together by the suitable play of molecular almost all Railway receipts. When traae is flourish-
force. Thus far our way is clear, but now comes my dim. jag, Railways will flourish with it ; when trade
gully. Your atoms are individually without sensation, much languishes, Railway receipts will safer too But
more are they without intelligence. May I ask you, then, to the ' • .e . t •
effect of this, it may be argued, is always
try your hand upon this problem? Take your dead hydrogen
atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, your dead carbon atoms, liable to be counteracted. H coal and iron are very
your dead nitrogen atoms, your dead phosphorus atoms, and dear, it will matter little how great Railway receipts
all the other atoms, dead as grains of shot, of which the brain may have become. There may, nevertheless, be a
Is formed_ Imagine them separate and sensationless :oh diminution in the net income they will produce,
nerve them running together and forming all imeginable and -t
I will always be lsy the net income that the
combinations. This, as a purely mechanical process, is
seeable by the mind. But can you see, or dream, or in any amount of the dividend will be controlled. We •
way imagine, how out of that mechanical act, and from must admit that Railway Reports for some time Dean Stanley preached at Westminster Abbey on
these Individually dead stoma, sensation, thought, and past may be adduced in confirmation of the sound-
Sunday, on the text taken from the sth chapter of the
emotion are to arise! You speak of the difficulty nese oft 2nd Corinthians, "hod reasoning. We must bear in mind, how-
hath mode us able ministers of
of mental presentation in nay case ; is it less in yours? ever, on the other hand, that few, if any, of our great
I ass not all bereft of this Vorstellungs.Kraft of the new testament ; not of the letter, but of: the spirit ; for
which you speak. I can follow a particle of musk until Railways have fixed their fares 'at the highest rate the letter killeth, but the spirit given life. '
it reaches the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of which Parliament will permit them to impose.
anund until their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, If the working expenses of our Railways are The Dean said his wish was to net before them the
And set the otoliths and Corti's fibres In motion, I can ales found to be permanently increased, there will contrast between the letter and the spirit, and he
visualise the waves of ether as they cross the eye and hit sooner or later be a corresponding increase made in pointed out that at times under fixed laws the extreme
the retina. hay more, lam able to follow up to the central the fares or rates which they will charge. It is of justice becomes the extreme of injustice, and the
organ the motion thus imparted at the periphery, and to tran •, indeed, that this has not been made al- letter of the law must be broken to preserve its spirit.
see in idea the very molecules of the brain thrown into ready. The Chairman of the London and North- In, religion it was necessary that there should be some
tremors. My insight is not baffled by these physical pro- rule in every Church, and in the Church of England .
cesses What baffles me, what I end unimaginable, tram. Western Railway gives a somewhat curious reason for
trending every faculty I possess—transcending, I humbly an emisBion which he naturally deplores. Some there were rules and nibrics ; but how thoroughly impos- '
submit. every faculty you possess-- tithe notion that out of lines, he says, are so rich already that they do not Bible did such rules become without the needful elm- ,
Chow physical tremors you can extract things ao utterly ! care to raise their charges while others are so poor ticity in their application. To apply the letter of all those
incongruoue with them as sensation. thought, and emotion.rules would be enough to kill the strongest Church; any
feu may Bey, or think that this issue of consciousness , that they so.Undue
I
from the clash of atoms is not more incongruous than the these circumstances, the pressure of competition and one wh o should attempt to enforce them all would be mad,
flash of light from the union of oxygen and hydrogen lint the mutual jealousies of Railway Companies keep and any parish where they were enforced would be
I beg to tay that it is For such incongruity as the flash things just as they are, and the public consequently torn to pieces. Clergymen, congregation, and choir
possesses is that which I now force upon your attentien, would be brought to a stand if every rule were to be
!is nerved more cheaply than it ought to be. We
The flash is an affair of consciousness, the objective counter- put in force. What gave to those rules life had been
, cannot doubt, however, that if there exists a real
part of which le a vibration. It sea flash only by your inter- - the spirit of man breathing freely and acting freely
~retation. You are the cause of the apparent incoogruity, necessity for increased fares, the increase will sooner or
lee eou are the thing that pexzles we I need net remind later be effected; and that if our great Railways cannot around them— a spirit of common sense, a spirit
you 'ma, the great Leibnitz felt the difficulty which i diminish their present working expenses, they will re- of freedom, a spirit of charity. He did not know
/eel, and 1.7.."‘t to get rid of this monstrous deduction ' coup themselves by higher charges. We are sure,how- whether it was not too bold a saying that was
of life from de,th he displaced your atoms by his uttered by a prelate that charity was above rubrics,
ever, that, in their own interest, they ought not to do
monads, which were more or less perfect mirrors of the eo if 'by any means the measure can be avoided, and but it was certainly true that without charity
universe, and out of the summation and Integra- 1 . rubrics could not move at all. Whatever regu-
Pon of which Ile thine's., all the Phenomena of life— that lac fires and
.high dividends are far more closely
Wising gaze the freest play for the action of the
sentient, intellectual, and emotionni_tu mina, your digi. connected than Railway Directors commonly suppose.
eulty, then, as I see you are ready to admit, is quite as Our hope is that both may be maintained together. spirit would best secure their future endurance. Much
great as mine You cannot satiety the human understand- The time may come when Railways, like stage coaches, of the difficulty in understanding the Bible would
lag in its demand for logical continuity between molecular vanish if they remembered that the letter was inspired
have been superseded by some new method of convey-
proeeases and the phenomena of consciousness. This is a by the spirit, out the spirit slid not dwell in the letter ;
rock on which materialism must inevitably split whenever once,but in the meanwhile, and until that distant and
and if they took an enlarged view of the Bible as a
doubtful
event has happened, our English lines may
it pretends to be a complete philosophy of life What iswhole they would see that more than half the attacks
the moral, my Lucretia.? Y., and 1a 6 tlet likely to in. claim fairly to be a sound and an improving
that had been made upon it had been upon the letter
aulge in ill-temper in the discussion of these great topics, investment. We have seen, in fact, that the poem-
and not ijiton the of ',init. The letter of the Bible had
where we see so much room for honest differences et Wit), of a large increase of dividends is already awl-
opinion_ But there are people of less wit, or more bigotry led before the shareholders, and that the prize they been changed in its passage through the hand of man,
(I say it with humility) on both sides, who are ever ready to but the meaning was clear amid thousands of various
mingle auger and vituperatioe with such discussiens, There fang for is elto. ven.to be just not within their grasp.
readings and through the hundreds of translations in
are, for example, writers of note anti influence at the pre- Wi of
all
stheor in miscellaneous
which it was read. Throngh all the changes that had
A reduction in
atke.
sent day Wier are not ashamed to assume the 'deep personal expenses would give them 11 ' 1 d y con i NIS ,an
token
in, e
rphl
as. cres a
so n
to earthte
letter,
er, Bible
Mu •of a great iogbdan to be the cause of his unielief in a would be followed speedily by an announcement better
theologie dogma. And there are others who hold that we, than their Chairman can now make to them— that the but in the spirit that a.ni-
who cherish our noble Bible, ',sought salt has been into the money has been earned and spent. mated the whole.
constitution of our forefathers and by inheritance into us, -
must necessarily he hypocritical and insincere. Let us di le It was not to be expected that the late meetings
.iierow and discountenance such people, cherishing the an- would We Without some allusion to the great Rail-
swerving faith that what is good and true In both our way gnevance a the day—the tax levied on pas-
arguments aill he preserved Inr the euneut of humanity, senger traffic. This tag was, of course, pronounced
while all that is bad or false will disappear. wholly indefensible, and sem which, in the public
, Ibis worth remarking that in one respect the Bishop was intereet IVrt less than in that ssf the shareholders,
a project of his age. Lour previous to titi day tire nature of ought immediately to be abolished. We doubt,
the scud had been so favourite and general a topic of die- however, whether any sound reason has been shown
cusslon that when the students of the Univereity of Parie , tioning the deciision of the Chancellor of „,the
wished to know the leamings of a new Professor, they •
at sues requested him to lecture upon the soul. About the geTilc:sjuer that the tax ought to be maintainesh
aims of Isiallop Hatter the question was not only agitated, Ito muission would be nothing else than a gift from

lag MitiiieZi;;;'l`:"cLie'alVie"Crei.iWiaculties of man.
Ilere, however, I must quit a theme too great for me to
handle, but which will be handled by the loftiest minds :tges
after you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have
melted Into the infinite azure of the past.

The President was cordially cheered in different
passages, and especially at the conclusion of his ad.
dress, the reading of which occupied one hour and
three-quarters.

A number of pilgrims who were proceeding to Serum.
pore to celebrate a llindoo festival have been drowned by
the capsizing of a boat.

- - -
A fearful catastrophe (Oalignani says) has just oc-
curred on the Danube in flungary. A boat containing a
large number of pilgrims lent racksang, on their way to the
sanctuary of Erseuig, WDS up et and all its occupants were
drowned. A similar accident happened, as may be remem-
bered. about two years back, on the Lake of Zurich, when a
steamer carrying a number of persons on a pious excursion
ti N otre Dame des &mites sank, and many lives were lost.