Science and the modern world · Alfred North Whitehead
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Finally, to sum up this train of thought, the underlying activity, as conceived apart from the fact of realisation, has three types of envisagement. These are: first, the envisagement of eternal objects; secondly, the envisagement of possibilities of value in respect to the synthesis of eternal objects; and lastly, the envisagement of the actual matter of fact which must enter into the total situation which is achievable by the addition of the future. But in abstraction from actuality, the eternal activity is divorced from value. For the actuality is the value. The individual perception arising from enduring objects will vary in its individual depth and width according to the way in which the pattern dominates its own route. It may represent the faintest ripple differentiating the general substrate energy; or, in the other extreme, it may rise to conscious thought, which includes poising before self-conscious judgment the abstract possibilities of value inherent in various situations of ideal togetherness. The intermediate cases will group round the individual perception as envisaging (without self-consciousness) that one immediate possibility of attainment which represents the closest analogy to its own immediate past, having regard to the actual aspects which are there for prehension. The laws of physics represent the harmonised adjustment of development which results from this unique principle of determination. Thus dynamics is dominated by a principle of least action, whose detailed character has to be learnt from observation.
The atomic material entities which are considered in physical science are merely these individual enduring entities, conceived in abstraction from everything except what concerns their mutual interplay in determining each other’s historical routes of life-history. Such entities are partially formed by the inheritance of aspects from their own past. But they are also partially formed by the aspects of other events forming their environments. The laws of physics are the laws declaring how the entities mutually react among themselves. For physics these laws are arbitrary, because that science has abstracted from what the entities are in themselves. We have seen that this fact of what the entities are in themselves is liable to modification by their environments. Accordingly, the assumption that no modification of these laws is to be looked for in environments, which have any striking difference from the environments for which the laws have been observed to hold, is very unsafe. The physical entities may be modified in very essential ways, so far as these laws are concerned. It is even possible that they may be developed into individualities of more fundamental types, with wider embodiment of envisagement. Such envisagement might reach to the attainment of the poising of alternative values with exercise of choice lying outside the physical laws, and expressible only in terms of purpose. Apart from such remote possibilities, it remains an immediate deduction that an individual entity, whose own life-history is a part within the life-history of some larger, deeper, more complete pattern, is liable to have aspects of that larger pattern dominating its own being, and to experience modifications of that larger pattern reflected in itself as modifications of its own being. This is the theory of organic mechanism.
According to this theory the evolution of laws of nature is concurrent with the evolution of enduring pattern. For the general state of the universe, as it now is, partly determines the very essences of the entities whose modes of functioning these laws express. The general principle is that in a new environment there is an evolution of the old entities into new forms. This rapid outline of a thoroughgoing organic theory of nature enables us to understand the chief requisites of the doctrine of evolution. The main work, proceeding during this pause at the end of the nineteenth century, was the absorption of this doctrine as guiding the methodology of all branches of science. By a blindness which is almost judicial as being a penalty affixed to hasty, superficial thinking, many religious thinkers opposed the new doctrine; although, in truth, a thoroughgoing evolutionary philosophy is inconsistent with materialism. The aboriginal stuff, or material, from which a materialistic philosophy starts is incapable of evolution. This material is in itself the ultimate substance. Evolution, on the materialistic theory, is reduced to the rôle of being another word for the description of the changes of the external relations between portions of matter. There is nothing to evolve, because one set of external relations is as good as any other set of external relations. There can merely be change, purposeless and unprogressive. But the whole point of the modern doctrine is the evolution of the complex organisms from antecedent states of less complex organisms. The doctrine thus cries aloud for a conception of organism as fundamental for nature. It also requires an underlying activity—a substantial activity—expressing itself in individual embodiments, and evolving in achievements of organism. The organism is a unit of emergent value, a real fusion of the characters of eternal objects, emerging for its own sake.
Thus in the process of analysing the character of nature in itself, we find that the emergence of organisms depends on a selective activity which is akin to purpose. The point is that the enduring organisms are now the outcome of evolution; and that, beyond these organisms, there is nothing else that endures. On the materialistic theory, there is material—such as matter or electricity—which endures. On the organic theory, the only endurances are structures of activity, and the structures are evolved. Enduring things are thus the outcome of a temporal process; whereas eternal things are the elements required for the very being of the process. We can give a precise definition of endurance in this way: Let an event A be pervaded by an enduring structural pattern. Then A can be exhaustively subdivided into a temporal succession of events. Let B be any part of A, which is obtained by picking out any one of the events belonging to a series which thus subdivides A. Then the enduring pattern is a pattern of aspects within the complete pattern prehended into the unity of A, and it is also a pattern within the complete pattern prehended into the unity of any temporal slice of A, such as B. For example, a molecule is a pattern exhibited in an event of one minute, and of any second of that minute. It is obvious that such an enduring pattern may be of more, or of less, importance. It may express some slight fact connecting the underlying activities thus individualised; or it may express some very close connection. If the pattern which endures is merely derived from the direct aspects of the external environment, mirrored in the standpoints of the various parts, then the endurance is an extrinsic fact of slight importance.
But if the enduring pattern is wholly derived from the direct aspects of the various temporal sections of the event in question, then the endurance is an important intrinsic fact. It expresses a certain unity of character uniting the underlying individualised activities. There is then an enduring object with a certain unity for itself and for the rest of nature. Let us use the term physical endurance to express endurance of this type. Then physical endurance is the process of continuously inheriting a certain identity of character transmitted throughout a historical route of events. This character belongs to the whole route, and to every event of the route. This is the exact property of material. If it has existed for ten minutes, it has existed during every minute of the ten minutes, and during every second of every minute. Only if you take _material_ to be fundamental, this property of endurance is an arbitrary fact at the base of the order of nature; but if you take _organism_ to be fundamental, this property is the result of evolution.
It looks at first sight, as if a physical object, with its process of inheritance from itself, were independent of the environment. But such a conclusion is not justified. For let B and C be two successive slices in the life of such an object, such that C succeeds B. Then the enduring pattern in C is inherited from B, and from other analogous antecedent parts of its life. It is transmitted through B to C. But what is transmitted to C is the complete pattern of aspects derived from such events as B. These complete patterns include the influence of the environment on B, and on the other antecedent parts of the life of the object. Thus the complete aspects of the antecedent life are inherited as the partial pattern which endures throughout all the various periods of the life. Thus a favourable environment is essential to the maintenance of a physical object. Nature, as we know it, comprises enormous permanences. There are the permanences of ordinary matter. The molecules within the oldest rocks known to geologists may have existed unchanged for over a thousand million years, not only unchanged in themselves, but unchanged in their relative dispositions to each other. In that length of time the number of pulsations of a molecule vibrating with the frequency of yellow sodium light would be about 16.3 × 10^{22} = 163,000 × (10^6)³. Until recently, an atom was apparently indestructible. We know better now. But the indestructible atom has been succeeded by the apparently indestructible electron and the indestructible proton.
Another fact to be explained is the great similarity of these practically indestructible objects. All electrons are very similar to each other. We need not outrun the evidence, and say that they are identical; but our powers of observation cannot detect any differences. Analogously, all hydrogen nuclei are alike. Also we note the great numbers of these analogous objects. There are throngs of them. It seems as though a certain similarity were a favourable condition for endurance. Common sense also suggests this conclusion. If organisms are to survive, they must work together. Accordingly, the key to the mechanism of evolution is the necessity for the evolution of a favourable environment, conjointly with the evolution of any specific type of enduring organisms of great permanence. Any physical object which by its influence deteriorates its environment, commits suicide. One of the simplest ways of evolving a favourable environment concurrently with the development of the individual organism, is that the influence of each organism on the environment should be favourable to the _endurance_ of other organisms of the same type. Further, if the organism also favours the _development_ of other organisms of the same type, you have then obtained a mechanism of evolution adapted to produce the observed state of large multitudes of analogous entities, with high powers of endurance. For the environment automatically develops with the species, and the species with the environment.
The first question to ask is, whether there is any direct evidence for such a mechanism for the evolution of enduring organisms. In surveying nature, we must remember that there are not only basic organisms whose ingredients are merely aspects of eternal objects. There are also organisms of organisms. Suppose for the moment and for the sake of simplicity, we assume, without any evidence, that electrons and hydrogen nuclei are such basic organisms. Then the atoms, and the molecules, are organisms of a higher type, which also represent a compact definite organic unity. But when we come to the larger aggregations of matter, the organic unity fades into the background. It appears to be but faint and elementary. It is there; but the pattern is vague and indecisive. It is a mere aggregation of effects. When we come to living beings, the definiteness of pattern is recovered, and the organic character again rises into prominence. Accordingly, the characteristic laws of inorganic matter are mainly the statistical averages resulting from confused aggregates. So far are they from throwing light on the ultimate nature of things, that they blur and obliterate the individual characters of the individual organisms. If we wish to throw light upon the facts relating to organisms, we must study either the individual molecules and electrons, or the individual living beings. In between we find comparative confusion. Now the difficulty of studying the individual molecule is that we know so little about its life history. We cannot keep an individual under continuous observation. In general, we deal with them in large aggregates. So far as individuals are concerned, sometimes with difficulty a great experimenter throws, so to speak, a flash light on one of them, and just observes one type of instantaneous effect. Accordingly, the history of the functioning of individual molecules, or electrons, is largely hidden from us.
But in the case of living beings, we can trace the history of individuals. We now find exactly the mechanism which is here demanded. In the first place, there is the propagation of the species from members of the same species. There is also the careful provision of the favourable environment for the endurance of the family, the race, or the seed in the fruit. It is evident, however, that I have explained the evolutionary mechanism in terms which are far too simple. We find associated species of living things, providing for each other a favourable environment. Thus just as the members of the same species mutually favour each other, so do members of associated species. We find the rudimentary fact of association in the existence of the two species, electrons and hydrogen nuclei. The simplicity of the dual association, and the apparent absence of competition from other antagonistic species accounts for the massive endurance which we find among them.
There are thus two sides to the machinery involved in the development of nature. On one side, there is a given environment with organisms adapting themselves to it. The scientific materialism of the epoch in question emphasised this aspect. From this point of view, there is a given amount of material, and only a limited number of organisms can take advantage of it. The givenness of the environment dominates everything. Accordingly, the last words of science appeared to be the Struggle for Existence, and Natural Selection. Darwin’s own writings are for all time a model of refusal to go beyond the direct evidence, and of careful retention of every possible hypothesis. But those virtues were not so conspicuous in his followers, and still less in his camp-followers. The imagination of European sociologists and publicists was stained by exclusive attention to this aspect of conflicting interests. The idea prevailed that there was a peculiar strong-minded realism in discarding ethical considerations in the determination of the conduct of commercial and national interests. The other side of the evolutionary machinery, the neglected side, is expressed by the word _creativeness_. The organisms can create their own environment. For this purpose, the single organism is almost helpless. The adequate forces require societies of coöperating organisms. But with such coöperation and in proportion to the effort put forward, the environment has a plasticity which alters the whole ethical aspect of evolution.
In the immediate past, and at present, a muddled state of mind is prevalent. The increased plasticity of the environment for mankind, resulting from the advances in scientific technology, is being construed in terms of habits of thought which find their justification in the theory of a fixed environment. The riddle of the universe is not so simple. There is the aspect of permanence in which a given type of attainment is endlessly repeated for its own sake; and there is the aspect of transition to other things,—it may be of higher worth, and it may be of lower worth. Also there are its aspects of struggle and of friendly help. But romantic ruthlessness is no nearer to real politics, than is romantic self-abnegation.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.