Life and Matter

When a scientist crosses the border into philosophy, Sir Oliver Lodge warns, he may mistake freedom from scientific restraints for permission to pronounce on everything—from living cells to God. Professor Haeckel, he argues, is the most striking case.

In this early-twentieth-century debate, Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe has reached a wide British readership with its sweeping account of existence. Lodge welcomes the search for unity behind life’s many forms, but challenges Haeckel’s claim that matter alone explains them—and disputes his right to call that view Monism itself. The stakes reach from the limits of scientific evidence to the status of consciousness: is thought merely a by-product of physical processes, or does the evidence point beyond them? Where does scientific explanation end, and speculation begin?

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