Majumdar, J. K.

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THE MEAXIXG OF LIFEEY PROF. J. K. MAJUMDAR, M. A., PH. D,AGREAT deal of ambiguity attaches to the question as to themeaning of the term 'Hfe". The term "Hfe" has usually beenconfined to biological phenomena ; "the initial question of Biol-ogy", we are told, "is the nature and characteristics of living mat-ter—the determination of that wherein 'livingness' consists."^ Theterm "life" has been taken to be the characteristic quality which iscommon to plants, animals and man and which distinguishes themfrom all other things in nature. "Life", Prof. J. A. Thomsonwarns us, is distinctively a biological concept and there is always arisk in transferring it to other fields.- In its widest sense, "life" maybe defined from the biological point of view as the manifestation ofaction and reaction between organism and environment. Or, asSpencer puts it: "Life is the continuous adjustment of internal re-lations to external relations." But this definition, Spencer thinks,is abstract and to employ its more concrete equivalent we shoulddo well "to consider the internal relations as 'definite combinationsof simultaneous and successive changes' ; the external relations as'co-existences and sequences' ; and the connection between them asa correspondence. "•'' Even so the definition, Spencer adds, is one-sided, inasmuch as it recognizes only the form and not the body ofour conception of life.. "That which gives the substance of ouridea of life is," he says, "a certain unspecified principle of activity.The dynamic element in life is its essential element."* And thisdynamic element or principle of activity is, he maintains, unknownand unknowable. What we are concerned with in science is alone'J. Y. Simpson, "Biology", Enc\clo{^cdia of Religion and Ethics, \'o\. II, p.622.-"Life and Death". Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, \'ol. VIII, p. 1.^Principles of Biologx, Vol I, p. 100.*Ibid., p. 114.THE MEANING OF LIFE 307the phenomena of Hfe which are accessible to our investigations,and this surface knowledge holds good within its own domain. Thus,he argues, "The statement that the continuous adjustment of internalrelations to external relations constitutes Life as cognizable by us,is not invalidated by the admission that the reality in which theserelations inhere is incognizable."^ Hence, for the purposes ofscience, the above definition will suffice for our purpose, but he in-sists that even so considered the definition should not include thevarious abnormal manifestations, which do not properly come underthe term "life", though we may safely accept it as covering thenormal manifestations.The "dynamic element", which is thus claimed by Spencer asforming the essence of our conception of life, has perhaps foundexplicit recognition in the writings of the Vitalists. They contendthat mechanical or physico-chemical concepts do not suffice for thetreatment of biological facts. Driesch, for example, postulates anon-perceptual "vital agency", or, as he calls it, "entelechy", whichis associated with the organisms as distinct from what he regards asnon-living things. This "entelechy" directs the physico-chemicalprocesses in certain cases, so that their results are dififerent fromwhat they would have been apart from its intervention. This postu-lated entelechy is "not a new elemental consequence of some con-stellation", but it is supposed to be a genuine agent "at work". InDriesch's view the "entelechy" is non-spatial in nature, autonomousand without any seat or localization. It is immaterial and notphysical energy. Its function is to suspend and to set free, in aregulatory manner, pre-existing faculties of inorganic inter-action.Dr. J. C. Bose, the great Indian scientist, is decisive in his re-jection of the theory of vitalism. A stimulus produces a certainexcitatory change in living substances and the excitation thus pro-duced may express itself in either of the two forms of mechanicalor electrical response. In mechanical response the excitation pro-duced expresses itself in a visible change of form as seen in muscle,while in electrical response it expresses itself in certain electricalchanges, and not in any visible alteration, as in nerve or retina, andwhile the mechanical mode of response is limited in its application,the electrical form is universal. Bose further contends that themechanical and electrical modes of response are practically identicalin character, and that not only can the electrical mode of response'^Ibid.. p. 123.308 THE OPEN COURTtake the place of the mechanical one, but that the former has thisadvantage that it is applicable where the latter cannot be used. Now.this irritabilitv' or responsiveness of the tissue, either in its mechani-cal or electrical form, was supposed to depend on its physiologicalactivity, seeing that under certain conditions it could be convertedfrom a responsive to an irresponsive state, either temporarily, asby anaesthetics, or permanently, as by poisons. From these factsthat a living tissue gives response, while a tissue that has been killeddoes not. it was concluded that the phenomenon of response ischaracteristic of a living organism. And, Bose thinks, from a con-fusion of "dead" things with inanimate matter, it has been supposedthat inanimate matter must be irresponsive or incapable of beingexcited by stimulation. "In irritability", writes Dr. A^erworn, "thereexists a phenomenon which, as was believed, distinguished all organ-isms from lifeless bodies, and appeared to mock at a physico-chemi-cal explanation. The unexplained conception of irritability, there-fore, .... became the starting-point of vitalism or the doctrineof I'ifal force, which in its most complete form asserted a distinctdualism of living and lifeless nature The vitalists soon laidaside more or less completely mechanical and chemical explanationsof vital phenomena, and introduced, as an explanatory principle, anall-controlling, unknown and inscrutable force hypermechanique.While chemical and physical forces are responsible for all phe-nomena in lifeless bodies, in living organisms this special force in-duces and rules all vital actions." In opposition to the vitalists'assumption of the super-physical character of response Dr. Boseurges that the necessity for maintaining such a dualism in naturemust, on theoretical grounds, fall to the ground if it can be shownthat similar effects obtain amongst inorganic substances also, and heclaims to have shown that not only the fact of response, but all thosemodifications in response which occur under various conditions takeplace alike in metals, plants and animal tissues. As a ground of hiscontention, Dr. Bose parallelises these phenomena as exhibited inthe three classes of substances. He maintains that in a living animaltissue under stimulation the wave of molecular disturbance is ac-compam"ed by a wave of electrical disturbance. This characteristicof exhibiting electrical response under stimulation on the part ofanimal tissues is, he contends, not confined to it alone, but extendsto vegetable tissues in a like manner. In these cases Dr. Bose^General Physiolngy, p. 18.THE MEANING OF LIFE 309claims to have shown that the same electrical variations as in nerveand muscle are obtained. If we pass to inorganic substances, anduse experimental arrangements similar to those used in the caseof animal and vegetable tissues, we find the same electrical responsesevoked in metals under stimulation.'^ To establish this contentionDr. Bose tries to show experimentally the similarity, nay the essen-tial identity, between some of the phenomena and their modifications,which are connected with their responsive character, in all cases,animal, vegetable and metal. This is corroborated in the cases ofnegative variation, relation between stimulus and response, efifect ofsuperposition, uniform responses, fatigue, staircase effect, in-creased response after continuous stimulation, modified response,diphasic variation, effect of temperature, effect of chemical reagents,etc.®As a conclusion drawn from the above considerations, Dr. Boseobserves : "Living response in all its diverse manifestations is foundto be only a repetition of response seen in the inorganic. There isin it no element of mystery or caprice, such as we must admit to beapplied in the assumption of a hypermechanical vital force, acting incontradiction or defiance of those physical laws that govern theworld of matter. Nowhere in the entire range of these response-phenomena—inclusive as that is of metals, plants and animals—dowe detect any breach of continuity The study of processesapparently so complex as those of irritability .... must be faced,and their investigation patiently pursued, without the postulation ofspecial forces whose convenient property is to meet all emergenciesin virtue of their vagueness Amongst the phenomena of re-sponse there is no necessity for the assumption of vital force. Theyare, on the contrary, physico-chemical phenomena, susceptible of aphysical inquiry as definite as any other in inorganic regions.®'"Irritability" is considered by Bose to be due ultimately to"molecular responsiveness", and excitatory response to be "broughtabout by the molecular derangem.ent consequent on stimulus, withthe subsequent self-recovery,"®" and he insists that similar excitatoryresponse is given even by inorganic matter under stimulation."Irritability or molecular responsiveness, therefore," observes Dr.Tor an account of the experiments, see J. C. Rose, Response in the Livingand Non-Living, Longmans Green & Co.^Ihid.^^Ibid., pp. 189-190.^''See Plant Response, Longmans, Green & Co., p. 741..j ... i .S>i._iJ310 THE OPEN COURTBose, "must be regarded not as characteristic of organic substancesalone, but as the universal property of matter. In the case of whatis commonly known as the living, we have merely higher complexi-ties, with greater instabiUties, of molecular structure. Externalstimulus is here liable to induce greater derangement, and the ir-reversible molecular change known as death takes place the moreeasily, the more highly organized the complexes may be Instudving the responsive phenomena of living organisms, therefore,we must fix our attention on their molecular aspect, and try tofollow out the physico-chemical changes which are consequent onthe molecular derangement induced by stimulus."^So far as physical science goes, I think Bose has perhaps sufficientjustification in resisting the vitalists' conception of life, which seemsto be one-sided and insufficient.^" The vitalists' notion of an"entelechy" as solely thwarting or holding in abeyance the so-calledmechanical processes of the organism, as if the mechanical processeswere simply blind and entirely at the mercy of the entelechy, seemsto be contrary to ascertained fact, and from the point of view ofscience it can hardly be sustained. In an essay on "Life and MtalEnergy" which forms the introduction to Rudolph Wagner'sHandzcorterbiich dcr Physiology, Lotze long ago contended for whatis called the mechanical view to a place in the science of physiology.In criticising the theory of vitalism as a scientific principle or doc-^Ibid., p. 741.^°Recent scientific researches in biology and physiology confirm in essencethe contention that a physico-chemical explanation of vital fadts holds goodso far as science is concerned ; e. g., Dr. J. S. Haldane holds that a "mechanistictheory of life" is correct so far as it goes, and that the two great physical lawsof the conservation of matter and of energy can he justifiably extended to allliving organisms, including human beings. Or, in other words, scientificallyregarded, however complex the changes involved in organic activity may be,they are, at any rate, changes in a material system. Hence, in a sense, biologymay be regarded as the physics and chemistry of organisms, i. e., vital or or-ganic changes are physico-chemical changes. Thus among the biologists andphysiologists the prevailing opinion is growing in favour of the mechanistictheory as supplying a clear working hypothesis without the postulation of avital force. (See Mechanism, Life and Personality, Lee. I.) In the samestrain Prof. R. F. A. Hoernle, Dr. J. Johnstone, L. J. Henderson, etc., holdthat so far as science is concerned the mechanistic theory of life oiitains equallyin both the domains of the so-called "organic" and "inorganic"'. In Dr. John-stone's view, as science is concerned only with the description of "givcness",and a "givcnness" is but one, though we arbitrarily divide it into two domainsof the organic and inorganic, there can only be one way of describing it amithat way is the mechanistic one. (See f^hilflsflphy and Biolofiy, Tntro.) Simi-larly, Prof. Hoernle maintains that if we abstract from a scientific descriptionof the i)henomena of life its Ideological character, then what arc called '"organ-ism" and "machine" both alike can be analysed and their changes described inphysico-chemical terms. (Studies in Contemporary Metaphysics, Chap. VI.)THE MEANING OF LIFE 311trine, Lotze's main contention is that however peculiar, what thevitaHsts call, the principle of Life may be in itself, it can never befree from interaction with that same matter which is known to Uhto be subject to physical laws of its own, and that the conclusionwhich the facts suggest is that the phenomena of Life arise out ofa special combination of material elements, no one of which has anyclaim to be called exclusively or pre-eminently the principle of life.But in Lotze's view the mechanical view, though true, can in nosense be regarded as final." I shall, however, try to show that thetheory of vitalism has perhaps some value from the point of view ofphilosophy. No doubt, the definition of life ofifered by Spencer asthe "adjustment of internal relations to external relations" is only aformal one, i. e., it describes only the occurrences that tak^ place be-tween the organism and the environment, but that which Spencercalled the material aspect of the conception of life and which heperhaps rightly thought to form the essential feature of the con-ception, lies in the principle of activity of w^hich these occurrencesare manifestations. It is with the occurrences that science may besaid to be concerned, and philosophy with the active principle, andDr. Bose is considering the matter from the scientific point of view.His view of life as consisting in "response to stimulus" may be saidto correspond in certain respects to the formal definition of lifegiven by Spencer. According to Dr. Bose, as we have seen, the re-sponsive action, or, as he calls it, "irritability", is "ultimately due tomolecular Tesponsi^'eness and excitatory response is brought about bythe molecular derangement consequent on stimulus with the sub-sequent self recovery." Or. in Spencer's words, it may perhapsbe said that the internal relations are adjusted to external relationsin an act of response. But so far only is there agreement. Theintimate connection, nay the essential identity, between physical andphysiological phenomena of response which Bose has attempted toprove, and in which he finds the strongest ground for attributinglife to the so-called "inorganic", would find no support from Spencerand the physiologists who adhere to the division of nature into "or-ganic" and inorganic."This, however, is but one side of the story. The other side con-i^Lotze's contention is now upheld by Dr. J. S. Haldane, Prof. R. F. A.Hoernle, Dr. J. Johnstone, L. J. Henderson, etc., who, though advocating auniversal maintenance of the mechanistic theory of life so far as scientificdescription is concerned, do not regard it as, in any way, the final, nay it is.according to them, wholly insufficient and erroneous as a final explanation ofthe phenomena of life.312 THE OPEN COURTsists in trying to discern what lies behind these processes or mani-festations, for, as Kant said, "life means the capacity to act orchange according to an internal principle." This side of our con-ception of life may be said in Spencer's words to form the materialaspect or the "body" of such a conception. The internal principle isperhaps what Spencer meant by the "dynamic element" or the"principle of activity", or in the vitalists' phraseology "entelechy",of which the processes of life may be said to be manifestations.The true justification for any such conception as this must be fur-nished, if at all, by philosophy. But for a fuller or more completeunderstanding of what we mean by life we must take into consider-ation both the sides and try to understand the one in the light of theother. The contention of Bose that the law of conservation ofenergy holds good in the action and reaction between the organismand the environment, as it obtains elsewhere, and that it introducesno mystical power such as would in any part thwart or place inabeyance the action of forces already operative, thus evinces itselfin its true light. Prof. J. A. Thomson writes: "In the domain of theinorganic there is little individuality, no apparent freedom of action,no endeavour, no purposiveness, no learning in the school of time.But its uniformity has been a probably indispensable fulcrum forthe lever of will."^- The mechanical law of the conservation ofenergy has been maintained to hold good only in the realm of whatis called inorganic nature. Dr. Bose, on the other hand, has tried toshow that this law holds good in both the domains of the so-called"organic"" and "inorganic". It should be o1)served that Bose's ex-planation is. in no sense, materialistic. Quite the contrary. Thedrift of his thought is towards spiritualism and he all along tries todispose of the conception of "dead matter". How then are we tounderstand Bose's position? I think in this way. It has been cus-tomary to describe the workings or actions of the so-called "in-organic" things in nature as simply blind and mechanical and astaking place solely in accordance with mechanical laws. But thismay be said to be rather an assumption than a statement of fact.The admission tha*" "insignia of life have not yet been discernedcither wholly or in tlicir proper perspective" perhaps corrobor-ates tin's view. The action and reaction which takes place alike be-tween the organism and its environment and a so-called "thing" andits environment, or as Bose calls it its responsive action, consists in^•Systi'in of Animate Nature, p. 75.THE MEANING OF LIFE 313molecular rearrangement, i. e. every particle plays a part in the re-sponsive action, and while Bose insists that there is no necessity ofintroducing a vital principle to explain this fact, the statement shouldbe taken with reserve. As a scientist Bose may be said to be con-cerned only with the phenomenal side of the problem of life, andfrom this point of view, what he urges may be true. Yet Prof.Ward is perhaps right in holding that "the real agents, whose ap-pearances alone constitute the physiologists' phenomena, must beregarded as monads."^^ In other words, the rearrangement of themolecules, in which the responsive phenomenon is said to consist, isnot something blind, but is a phenomenal manifestation of realagents at work. The vitalists, while pointing to the all importantprinciple of activity or the ''entelechy" even in the sphere of the so-called "living matter", leave unexplained what are called the mechani-cal processes of the organism, which play, as we have seen, an im-portant and essential part in what is called the phenomena of life.In this respect it may be said that neither the mechanistic theorynor vitalism is a sufficient explanation of the phenomena of life,and while they are but one-sided accounts and in opposition witheach other, pan-psychism or monadism claims to be able to replaceboth.'^^Realm of Ends, p. 462.

The Meaning of Life.

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The Meaning of Life.

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