The mystery of the Logos

E. L. Grant Watson (1885-1970) was an amateur naturalist who refused to accept Darwinian evolution. Apparently, his teacher at Cambridge, Professor Adam Sedgwick, was one of the few remaining anti-Darwinians. At least in secret!

Later, Grant Watson also became inspired by controversial Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (whom he met personally) and by the Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner. "The Mystery of Physical Life" was Grant Watson's last book, and summarizes his thoughts on evolution, God and spirituality. A posthumous edition carries a foreword by Owen Barfield, a personal friend of Grant Watson and (of course) an Anthroposophist. For some reason, Grant Watson himself never joined the Anthroposophical Society, however.

"The Mystery of Physical Life" is a very unusual book. Sceptics will find it too esoteric to be taken seriously, and anti-Darwinists might also find it puzzling. Grant Watson rejects Darwinian evolution, but his alternative is difficult to classify. It could be considered a version of "old earth creationism", but also has certain similarities to theistic evolution, although the Divine in Grant Watson's system is an impersonal force rather than the God of the Bible.

The author believes that a creative spiritual principle, the Logos, have descended into matter. It gradually unfolds itself by imprinting a succession of Platonic forms onto dead matter. The Logos is also identical to "the primal man" of ancient mythology. Each species is a Platonic form taking flesh, and in this sense Grant Watson is "creationist". There are no transitional forms, as the various species' appear virtually ex nihilo, complete with their instincts, symbiotic relationships, etc. Still, there is obviously *some* kind of evolution within the Logos itself, since there is a rough progression in the order of appearance of the Platonic forms. More complex organisms appear later than less complex ones, and humans appear last. The author implies that further evolution on man's part must be spiritual, and has a soft spot for Teilhard de Chardin.

Grant Watson places some emphasis on the "golden ratio", which he believes is imprinted on the natural world on many uncanny places. The golden ratio (also called Fibonacci numbers) would therefore be a mathematical, Platonic form imprinted on matter by a cosmic mind of some sort. Plants grow according to the golden ratio, so somehow life itself is an unfolding of the divine mathematic. I admit I was fascinated! Other arguments sound more "creationist", as when Grant Watson wonders how butterflies could evolve complete metamorphosis in gradual steps, or how various form of symbiosis could have emerged by blind chance. There's also a more sinister chapter, in which Grant Watson takes pantheism to its logical conclusion, stating that somehow complex life and even love is...death. Spiritual enlightenment is possible only in death, and Freud's death-wish is said to be the old man's most important theoretical contribution.

The 1992 edition also contain an appendix, written by George Adams, on "negative Euclidean space". Grant Watson believed that perhaps the living organisms are mathematical projections of negative space into our, "positive" space. Some mathematical diagram of Watson's had an uncanny resemblance to a trilobite...

E.L. Grant-Watson seems to be almost forgotten today. He is referenced by Traditonalist author Sayeed Hossein Nasr, and I presume by Anthroposophists. "The Mystery of Physical Life" could have needed better editing, and jumps from subject to subject in a sometimes bewildering fashion. The main problem with the book might be that it's difficult to classify on an Darwinist-versus-creationist axis, which may explain its limited impact.