Chapter 4

Apparent opposition between the laws of corporeal matter and of animal activity

1828. The laws of animal activity manifest their effects in certain so-called living bodies. Bodies which do not present phenomena produced by animal activity are presumed to be inanimate and called 'brute matter' which, when operating, also manifests certain laws. These laws, and the phenomena in which they appear, are apparently in opposition to the phenomena presented by the operation of animality; the forces with which a living body is endowed, and those of brute matter, often appear at odds with one another. Is this opposition between the laws of animal activity and those of material activity a true or only an apparent opposition? Is there really a struggle between forces of different kinds or even between the same kind? I cannot leave these extremely important questions without offering some conjectures about them.

Let us begin with the law of inertia.

1829. Note first that contingent beings, not matter alone, obey a law of inertia, but at different levels.

1830. This universal inertia is founded on potentiality, the common possession of all finite beings, none of which is pure act, the property of necessary being alone. But because finite entia are potencies, they do not possess in themselves a complete reason for their second acts. Consequently, they cannot pass from potency to act except as a result of certain stimuli, certain conditions.(14) Let us see how this apparent struggle arises in proportion to the degrees of inertia which brute force has relative to the animate body.

1831. The brute body cannot pass from rest to motion without pressure from some force foreign to it. This force, by continually pressing upon the brute body, makes it continue to move in the same direction until a contrary, foreign force, destroys the effect of the first force. But animal activity does even more relative to the motion which it produces in bodies. We can see this if we consider the two functions of this activity which I have called organising function and the function of motor sensuous spontaneity. In fact, a brute body, wherever it is moved, continues in a straight line. The organising function, on the contrary, tends to put the fundamental feeling into being at its highest possible grade of intensity by giving to the corporeal particles tendencies and intimate movements which correspond to the best state of this feeling. Such movements cannot be in a straight line because the particles would disintegrate and destroy feeling itself. Hence the apparent struggle between vital activity and the forces of inertia in brute matter because of the different directions they dictate.(15)

1832. The same has to be said about the function of sensuous spontaneity by which the sensitive principle seconds with its activity all the movements procuring some pleasing sensation for it. In this fact also the sensitive principle always needs foreign stimuli to initiate movement in fibres destined for sensation. Only in the presence of these foreign stimuli will the sensuous instinct posit its activity by seconding this movement and prolonging it beyond the prolongation imparted by the forces of brute matter alone. In all this, note once more a certain opposition and struggle between movements carried out by the body in obedience to material forces, and those which the body receives from motor sensuous spontaneity. This spontaneity tends to render pleasing sensations more lively and prolonged, increasing all the movements which co-operate in this effect and eliminating contrary movements.

1833. For me, the word 'attraction' includes both astronomic attraction and chemical cohesion and affinity.

I presuppose that the law causing attraction to increase in direct proportion to the mass, and in indirect proportion to the square of the distance, has full sway even in molecular and elementary attraction.(16) I presuppose that contrary results, which seem present relative to minimal distances, depend on imperfection in the calculation. They come about because we are dealing with bodies such as stars located at immense distances. In this case, it is possible to presuppose, without notable error, that all the particles composing these bodies, are equally attracted. On the basis of this postulate, we calculate the centre of gravity of a star, although the particles of which the star is composed are in fact more or less abstract. According to their location, some are nearer and some further from the attracting body. But as I said, the difference can be ignored in bodies at so great a distance.(17) This is not the case when we are dealing with minimal distances in which the difference, although extremely small, is sufficient to increase attraction immensely. If two particles were in contact(18) and each were, let us say, spherical with a diameter of a thousand-millionth of a line, the touching sides of the two particles should be attracted immensely more than the opposite sides of the same particles. The centres of gravity could not then be located at the centre of the spheres, but much nearer to one another.

1834. It is certain, however, that there is an apparent struggle between animal movements and movements resulting from attraction. The facts are as follows:

1835. The apparent struggle which the life instinct has to sustain is, therefore, twofold: one struggle is with the law of inertia proper to matter, the other with the law of attraction.
The law of inertia constitutes the mechanical order; the law of attraction the physical and chemical order.
In the mechanical order, the contrast and opposition between matter and vital forces lies in the fact that the particles composing the animal body, when obeying mechanical laws alone, should maintain a certain path of motion and finally come to rest granted the obstacles they encounter. Instead, under the influence of vital activity, they maintain a different path of motion, and the motion itself continues.

The contrast in the physical and chemical order can be described as follows. If the particles obeyed only physical and chemical attraction and affinity, they would be inserted in close order to one another and produce the kind of composition and dissolution which we see in cadavers. Instead, under the influence of vital activities, such composition and dissolution are impeded. In their place, the mixture of organic tissues is preserved and restored.

Notes

(14) The will, for example, can do nothing without a sufficient reason. Freedom itself must make its choice from volitions endowed with a sufficient reason. Cf. AMS, 606-611.

(15) Note that animal activity is the first act constituting a living substance. Properly speaking, therefore, it is not the seat of inertia, which I have posited in the inefficacy a power has for passing to a second act. Substances, first acts, possess their own activity, given to them by the Creator. Nevertheless, the life instinct can operate in different aggregates of corporeal particles. We can consider its operation as second act in so far as it is referred to an aggregate of particles rather than to individual particles. In this aggregating and organising operation, the life instinct already shows a certain degree of inertia and impotence, granted that the operation, if it is to take place, needs a certain proximity of particles which is only partly the effect of the organising function. In fact, foreign forces intervene to make the particles sometimes enter and sometimes abandon the sphere of the activity of this function.

(16) It is impossible to admit any action at a distance. Hence, when I speak of 'attraction', I always understand the apparent phenomenon, not the true force which causes the phenomenon. There is no doubt that such a phenomenon pre-supposes forces which produce it, but it does not necessarily follow that true, attractive forces have to be admitted as adhering to distant bodies. This would be a highly improbable, and indeed totally repugnant hypothesis. I have accepted two causes of motion: 1. the corporeal principle; 2. the sentient principle. Both are spiritual.

(17) One of the questions which constantly occurs to me, although I have never found time to look at it carefully, is this: if we keep in mind the higher degree of attraction found in stars on their visible side, could we not find the reason why they spin on their axis, without our having to seek an explanation in the supposition that the primal impulse presumed to be given them by the Creator is in an eccentric direction? It is clear that, in this case, the number of revolutions which a star makes on its axis would provide new information enabling us to determine its size, density, etc.

(18) I see no reason for denying the possibility of contact. This view is supported by the fact that contact between the surfaces does not prevent the centres of gravity of the two particles from remaining at a certain distance from one another. The surface alone of the particles does not constitute any size. It is not a substance, but the extremity of a substance. As soon as corporeal substance penetrates below the surface, it is already at a distance; it is no longer in contact. My opinion, therefore, is that even in primitive elements, at minimal distances from each other, the centre of gravity changes place. Consequently, Boscovich's simple points cannot be admitted, although as a hypothesis they are quite useful in calculations.

(19) Richerant, Nuovi Elementi di Fisiologia, etc. 239. - I am amazed that despite such obvious facts certain naturalists deny the existence of the struggle we are investigating. Magendie calls it 'one of the greatest absurdities ever conceived by the human spirit'. Prcis lmentaire de physiologie, etc. Proprits vitales. What I shall say is intended to reconcile these opposite opinions.