IL—THE LIFE FORCE.
THE view of the Universe which I wish to present rests upon the basis of a fundamental dualism of mind and matter. 'Whether this dualism is one of sub- stance, or whether, as is more probable, both mind and matter arc different forms of the arrangement of the same fundamental substance, is a question into which I have not space to enter. It will be sufficient to say here that, for the reasons given in my last article, it does not seem to be possible to explain the facts of existence on the assumption that the Universe is or is the expression of one thing and one thing only.
What follows is an essay in constructive speculation. Admittedly it goes beyond the available evidence in many directions ; it is nevertheless contended that there is no known evidence with which it is incompatible.
I conceive, then, that in the first instance the Universe was purely material. It was chaos, deadness and blank- ness without energy or purpose and devoid of life. Into this inorganic Universe there is introduced at some stage a principle of life, and.by life I mean a something which is not expressible in terms of matter. It is blind and fumbling, a purely instinctive thrust or pulse which seeks to express itself by struggling to achieve an ever higher degree of consciousness. We may conceive the purpose of what I will call the life force to be the achievement of a complete and universal consciousness, a result which can only be secured by the elimination of matter and the permeation of the whole Universe with life and energy, so that, beginning as a world of matter, it may end as a world of mind or spirit. With this object in view, the life force works in and through matter, infusing and per- meating it with its own principle of energy and life. To a peiec of matter so infused we give the name of a living organism. A living organism is to be regarded in the light of a tool or weapon, which the life force creates to assist it in the accomplishment of its purpose. Each living organism represents, therefore, the two-fold character of the Universe. It is, in fact, a piece of matter which has been animated by life much as a length of wire may be charged with an electric current. An individual mind may, therefore, be regarded as an emanation of the life force which has been insulated temporarily, as it were, in a piece of matter.
The life force is far from being all powerful. It is limited by the matter which it seeks to overcome and by the experimental character of its methods. These vary according to the stage of evolution which, in the persons of the organisms created by it, it has succeeded in reaching.
Different types of beings best serve its purposes at different stages. Thus, the mesozoic reptiles may be pre- sumed to have passed from the evolutionary stage because they were not adapted to carry the current of life above the level which it had reached in them. The continuous manifesting of itself by the life force in species and indi- viduals is the process to which we give the name of evolution, and it is to life's endeavour to objectify itself in ever higher types of beings that we must ascribe the continuance of the evolutionary process after adaptation to environment had been secured.
Man is the latest evolutionary tool, but not, for that reason, the final one. If, as Mr. Shaw suggests, he can will to live longer, he may, like the Ancients in the last play of the " Back to Methuselah " Pentateuch, achieve a comparative emancipation from matter ; which would constitute a real advance upon his present condition. Short of such an advance, however, we may in due course expect to see him consigned to the evolutionary scrap- heap, in order that he may make way for beings better adapted for the purpose of carrying out life's next advance.
The inadequacy of man as an evolutionary tool is due not only to the limited and experimental character of the life force itself, but to the obstructive material sub- stratum of which he is composed. He is, that is to say, so far at least as his body is concerned, something which is infused with the life force, but which is not the life force. Matter, in short, although not able to resist the indignity of being used as it were against itself to further the purpose of a force which is striving to eliminate it, is enabled to exact a price for its unwilling services. And the price is that that portion of the life force, which when localized in matter constitutes an individual, is, from the very fact that it is so localized, endowed with a measure of free will.
The point may be made clear by a simile. Let us suppose that a broad, flowing river finds in its course a line of rocks which obstructs its progress. The river will be broken up and diverted into an infinite number of tiny streams and rivulets. The energy and flow of these rivulets will be derived from the main stream, but the direction in which they flow will be peculiar to them- selves, being derived from the nature and conformation of the rocks which diverted the course of the main river. Now, in order to. account for the diversity and plurality of living beings, it seems to me to be necessary, for the reasons given in the last article, to postUlate in addition to life the existence of something which can obstruct the flow of life, and, by so obstructing it, cause it to dis- perse into numberless individual channels, and I wish again to emphasize the point that without this obstruction the multiplicity of life, the fact that is to say that one indi- vidual vital unit is different from another, appears to be inexplicable. But just as the direction of the rivulets is other than that of the main stream, so I would assume that each individual possesses to some extent the power of choosing his own course, or, in other words, the capacity for independent action. Free will, in short, in so far as it exists, is due to the existence and interposition of matter, as a barrier between the life force and its individual manifestations.
Once the goal of evolution is reached and the whole world of matter is infused with the principle of life, we may suppose that individuality will be merged in a universal sea of consciousness. This result will follow, first because the life force will no longer be under the necessity of objectifying itself in matter in order, by the creation of • individuals, to overcome it ; and, secondly, because since the fact of division is due to material obstruction, the removal of the obstruction will lead to the coalescence of the units of life it divided.
On some such basis as the above it appears to be possible to reconcile our belief in the fact of our free will, with the hypothesis that we are beings created expressly to carry out the will and purposes of some force which is in a sense external to and greater than ourselves.
If space permitted it would be interesting to recount the various devices whereby the life force endeavours to insure that, in spite of our freedom to go our own way, we shall, in fact, for most of our time go its way. Of these devices the most important are the invention of the un- conscious and the occasional production of the genius. Each of these phenomena, arbitrary and inexplicable on any other basis, appear to me to become intelligible only on the assumption of a dualistic universe, modelled more or less closely on the lines I have endeavoured to sketch.
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