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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9199-8.txt b/9199-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed740ac --- /dev/null +++ b/9199-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2039 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Monism as Connecting Religion and Science, by +Ernst Haeckel + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Monism as Connecting Religion and Science + +Author: Ernst Haeckel + + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9199 +This file was first posted on September 15, 2003 +Last Updated: May 8, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONISM *** + + + + +Produced by Lee Dawei, Thomas Berger and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +MONISM AS CONNECTING RELIGION AND SCIENCE + +_A MAN OF SCIENCE_ + + +By Ernst Haeckel + + +Translated From The German By J. Gilchrist, M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D. + + + + +PREFACE + +The following lecture on Monism is an informal address delivered +extemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth +anniversary of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes." The +immediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor +Schlesinger of Vienna on "Scientific Articles of Faith." This +philosophical discourse contained, with reference to the weightiest and +most important problems of scientific investigation, much that was +indisputable; but it also contained some assertions that challenged +immediate rejoinder and a statement of the opposite view. As I had for +thirty years been very closely occupied with these problems of the +philosophy of nature, and had set forth my convictions with respect to +them in a number of writings, a wish was expressed by several members of +the Congress that on this occasion I should give a summary account of +these. It was in compliance with this wish that the following "Scientific +Confession of Faith" was uttered. The substance of it, as written from +recollection on the day after its delivery, first appeared in the +_Altenburger Zeitung of_ 19th October 1892. This was reproduced, with one +or two philosophical additions, in the November number _of_ the _Freie +Bühne für den Entwickelungskampf der Zeit_ (Berlin). In its present form +the Altenburg address is considerably enlarged, and some parts have been +more fully worked out. In the notes (p. 9 I) several burning questions of +the present day _have_ been dealt with from the monistic point of view. + +The purpose of this candid confession of monistic faith is twofold. +First, it is my desire to give expression to that rational view of the +world which is being forced upon us with such logical rigour by the +modern advancements in our knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in +reality held by almost all unprejudiced and thinking men of science, +although but few have the courage (or the need) to declare it openly. +Secondly, I would fain establish thereby a bond between religion and +science, and thus contribute to the adjustment of the antithesis so +needlessly maintained between these, the two highest spheres in which the +mind of man can exercise itself; in monism the ethical demands of the +soul are satisfied, as well as the logical necessities of the +understanding. + +The rising flood of pamphlets and books published on this subject, +demonstrates that such a natural union of faith and knowledge, such a +reasonable reconciliation of the feelings and the reason, are daily +becoming a more pressing necessity for the educated classes. In North +America (in Chicago), there has been published for several years a weekly +journal devoted to this purpose: _The Open Court: A Weekly Journal +devoted to the Work of Conciliating Religion and Science_. Its worthy +editor, Dr. Paul Carus (author of _The Soul of Man_, 1891), devotes also +to the same task a quarterly journal under the title _The Monist_. It is +in the highest degree desirable that so worthy endeavours to draw +together the empirical and speculative views of nature, realism and +idealism, should have more attention and encouragement than they have +hitherto received, for it is only through a natural union of the two that +we can approach a realisation of the highest aim of mental activity-the +blending of religion and science in monism. + +ERNST HAECKEL. JENA, _October_ 31, 1892 + + + + +MONISM + +A society for investigating nature and ascertaining truth cannot +celebrate its commemoration day more fittingly than by a discussion of +its highest general problems. It must be regarded, therefore, with +satisfaction that the speaker on such an august occasion as this--the +seventy-fifth anniversary of your Society--has selected as the subject of +his address a theme of the highest general importance. Unfortunately, it +is becoming more and more the custom on such occasions, and even at the +general meetings of the great "Association of German Naturalists and +Physicians," to take the subject of address from a narrow and specialised +territory of restricted interest. If this growing custom is to be excused +on the grounds of increasing division of labour and of diverging +specialisation in all departments of work, it becomes all the more +necessary that, on such anniversaries as the present, the attention of +the audience should be invited to larger matters of common interest. + +Such a topic, supreme in its importance, is that concerning "Scientific +Articles of Faith," upon which Professor Schlesinger has already +expounded his views.[1] I am glad to be able to agree with him in many +important points, but as to others I should like to express some +hesitation, and to ask consideration for some views which do not coincide +with his. At the outset, I am entirely at one with him as to that +unifying conception of nature as a whole which we designate in a single +word as Monism. By this we unambiguously express our conviction that +there lives "one spirit in all things," and that the whole cognisable +world is constituted, and has been developed, in accordance with one +common fundamental law. We emphasise by it, in particular, the essential +unity of inorganic and organic nature, the latter having been evolved +from the former only at a relatively late period.[2] We cannot draw a +sharp line of distinction between these two great divisions of nature, +any more than we can recognise an absolute distinction between the animal +and the vegetable kingdom, or between the lower animals and man. +Similarly, we regard the whole of human knowledge as a structural unity; +in this sphere we refuse to accept the distinction usually drawn between +the natural and the spiritual. The latter is only a part of the former +(or _vice versa_); both are one. Our monistic view of the world belongs, +therefore, to that group of philosophical systems which from other points +of view have been designated also as mechanical or as pantheistic. +However differently expressed in the philosophical systems of an +Empedocles or a Lucretius, a Spinoza or a Giordano Bruno, a Lamarck or a +David Strauss, the fundamental thought common to them all is ever that of +the oneness of the cosmos, of the indissoluble connection between energy +and matter, between mind and embodiment--or, as we may also say, between +God and the world--to which Goethe, Germany's greatest poet and thinker, +has given poetical expression in his _Faust_ and in the wonderful series +of poems entitled _Gott und Welt_. + +That we may rightly appreciate what this Monism is, let us now, from a +philosophico-historical point of view cast a comprehensive glance over +the development in time of man's knowledge of nature. A long series of +varied conceptions and stages of human culture here passes before our +mental vision. At the lowest stage, the rude--we may say animal--phase of +prehistoric primitive man, is the "ape-man," who, in the course of the +tertiary period, has only to a limited degree raised himself above his +immediate pithecoid ancestors, the anthropoid apes. Next come successive +stages of the lowest and simplest kind of culture, such as only the +rudest of still existing primitive peoples enable us in some measure to +conceive. These "savages" are succeeded by peoples of a low civilisation, +and from these again, by a long series of intermediate steps, we rise +little by little to the more highly civilised nations. To these alone--of +the twelve races of mankind only to the Mediterranean and Mongolian--are +we indebted for what is usually called "universal history." This last, +extending over somewhat less than six thousand years, represents a period +of infinitesimal duration in the long millions of years of the organic +world's development. + +Neither of the primitive men we have spoken of, nor of those who +immediately succeeded them, can we rightly predicate any knowledge of +nature. The rude primitive child of nature at this lowest stage of +development is as yet far from being the restless _Ursachenthier_ +(cause-seeking animal) of Lichtenberg; his demand for causes has not yet +risen above that of apes and dogs; his curiosity has not yet mounted to +pure desire of knowledge. If we must speak of "reason" in connection with +pithecoid primitive man, it can only be in the same sense as that in +which we use the expression with reference to those other most highly +developed Mammals, and the same remark holds true of the first beginnings +of religion.[3] + +It is indeed still not infrequently the custom to deny absolutely to the +lower animals reason and religion. An unprejudiced comparison, however, +convinces us that this is wrong. The slow and gradual process towards +completeness which, in the course of thousands of years, civilised life +has been working in the soul of man, has not passed away without leaving +some trace on the soul of our highest domestic animals also (above all, +of dogs and horses). Constant association with man, and the steady +influence of his training, have gradually, and by heredity, developed in +their brain higher associations of ideas and a more perfect judgment. +Drill has become instinct, an undeniable example of "the transmission of +acquired characters."[4] + +Comparative psychology teaches us to recognise a very long series of +successive steps in the development of soul in the animal kingdom. But it +is only in the most highly developed vertebrates-birds and mammals--that +we discern the first beginnings of reason, the first traces of religious +and ethical conduct. In them we find not only the social virtues common +to all the higher socially-living animals,--neighbourly love, friendship, +fidelity, self-sacrifice, etc.,--but also consciousness, sense of duty, +and conscience; in relation to man their lord, the same obedience, the +same submissiveness, and the same craving for protection, which primitive +man in his turn shows towards his "gods." But in him, as in them, there +is yet wanting that higher degree of consciousness and of reason, which +strives after a _knowledge_ of the surrounding world, and which marks the +first beginning of philosophy or "wisdom." This last is the much later +attainment of civilised races; slowly and gradually has it been built up +from lower religious conceptions. + +At all stages of primitive religion and early philosophy, man is as yet +far removed from monistic ideas. In searching out the causes of +phenomena, and exercising his understanding thereon, he is in the first +instance prone in every case to regard personal beings--in fact, +anthropomorphic deities--as the agents at work. In thunder and lightning, +in storm and earthquake, in the circling of sun and moon, in every +striking meteorological and geological occurrence, he sees the direct +activity of a personal god or spirit, who is usually thought of in a more +or less anthropomorphic way. Gods are distinguished as good and bad, +friendly and hostile, preserving and destroying, angels and devils. + +This becomes true in a yet higher degree when the advancing pursuit of +knowledge begins to take into consideration the more complicated +phenomena of organic life also, the appearance and disappearance of +plants and animals, the life and death of man. The constitution of +organised life, so suggestive as it is of art and purpose, leads one at +once to compare it with the deliberately designed works of man, and thus +the vague conception of a personal god becomes transformed into that of a +creator working according to plan. As we know, this conception of organic +creation as the artistic work of an anthropomorphic god--of a divine +mechanic--generally maintained its ground almost everywhere, down even to +the middle of our own century, in spite of the fact that eminent thinkers +had demonstrated its untenability more than two thousand years ago. The +last noteworthy scientist to defend and apply this idea was Louis Agassiz +(died 1873). His notable _Essay on Classification_, 1857, developed that +theosophy with logical vigour, and thereby reduced it to an absurdity.[5] + +All these older religious and teleological conceptions, as well as the +philosophical systems (such as those of Plato and of the Church fathers) +which sprang from them, are antimonistic; they stand in direct antithesis +to our monistic philosophy of nature. Most of them are dualistic, +regarding God and the world, creator and creature, spirit and matter, as +two completely separated substances. We find this express dualism also in +most of the purer church-religions, especially in the three most +important forms of monotheism which the three most renowned prophets of +the eastern Mediterranean--Moses, Christ, and Mohammed--founded. But +soon, in a number of impure varieties of these three religions, and yet +more in the lower forms of paganism, the place of this dualism is taken +by a philosophical pluralism, and over against the good and +world-sustaining deity (Osiris, Ormuzd, Vishnu), there is placed a wicked +and destroying god (Typhon, Ahriman, Siva). Numerous demi-gods or saints, +good and bad, sons and daughters of the gods, are associated with these +two chief deities, and take part with them in the administration and +government of the cosmos. + +In all these dualistic and pluralistic systems the fundamental idea is +that of anthropomorphism, or the humanising of God; man himself, as +godlike (or directly descended from God), occupies a special position in +the world, and is separated by a great gulf from the rest of nature. +Conjoined with this, for the most part, is the anthropocentric idea, the +conviction that man is the central point of the universe, the last and +highest final cause of creation, and that the rest of nature was created +merely for the purpose of serving man. In the Middle Ages there was +associated at the same time with this last conception the geocentric +idea, according to which the earth as the abode of man was taken for the +fixed middle point of the universe, round which sun, moon, and stars +revolve. As Copernicus (1543) gave the death-blow to the geocentric +dogma, so did Darwin (1859) to the anthropocentric one closely associated +with it.[6] A broad historical and critical comparison of religious and +philosophical systems, as a whole, leads as a main result to the +conclusion that every great advance in the direction of profounder +knowledge has meant a breaking away from the traditional dualism (or +pluralism) and an approach to monism. Ever more clearly are we compelled +by reflection to recognise that God is not to be placed over against the +material world as an external being, but must be placed as a "divine +power" or "moving spirit" within the cosmos itself. Ever clearer does it +become that all the wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as +well as inorganic, are only various products of one and the same original +force, various combinations of one and the same primitive matter. Ever +more irresistibly is it borne in upon us that even the human soul is but +an insignificant part of the all-embracing "world-soul"; just as the +human body is only a small individual fraction of the great organised +physical world. + +The great general principles of theoretical physics and chemistry are now +in a position to afford to this unifying conception of nature an exact, +to a certain extent, indeed, a mathematical confirmation. In establishing +the law of the "conservation of energy," Robert Mayer and Helmholtz +showed that the energy of the universe is a constant unchangeable +magnitude; if any energy whatever seems to vanish or to come anew into +play, this is only due to the transformation of one form of energy into +another. In the same way Lavoisier's law of the "conservation of matter" +shows us that the material of the cosmos is a constant unchangeable +magnitude; if any body seems to vanish (as, for example, by burning), or +to come anew into being (as, for example, by crystallisation), this also +is simply due to change of form or of combination. Both these great +laws--in physics, the fundamental law of the conservation of energy, and +in chemistry, of the conservation of matter--may be brought under one +philosophical conception as the law of the conservation of substance; +for, according to our monistic conception, energy and matter are +inseparable, being only different inalienable manifestations of one +single universal being-substance.[7] In a certain sense we can regard the +conception of "animated atoms" as essentially partaking of the nature of +this pure monism--a very ancient idea which more than two thousand years +ago Empedocles enunciated in his doctrine of "hate and love of the +elements." Modern physics and chemistry have indeed in the main accepted +the atomic hypothesis first enunciated by Democritus, in so far as they +regard all bodies as built up of atoms, and reduce all changes to +movements of these minutest-discrete particles. All these changes, +however, in organic as well as in inorganic nature, become truly +intelligible to us only if we conceive these atoms not as dead masses, +but as living elementary particles endowed with the power of attraction +and repulsion. "Pleasure" and "pain," and "love" and "hate," as +predicates of atoms are only other expressions for this power of +attraction and repulsion. + +Although, however, monism is on the one hand for us an indispensable and +fundamental conception in science, and although, on the other hand, it +strives to carry back all phenomena, without exception, to the mechanism +of the atom, we must nevertheless still admit that as yet we are by no +means in a position to form any satisfactory conception of the exact +nature of these atoms, and their relation to the general space-filling, +universal ether. Chemistry long ago succeeded in reducing all the various +natural substances to combinations of a relatively small number of +elements; and the most recent advances of that science have now made it +in the highest degree probable that these elements or the (as yet) +irreducible primitive materials are themselves in turn only different +combinations of a varying number of atoms of one single original element. +But in all this we have not as yet obtained any further light as to the +real nature of these original atoms or their primal energies. + +A number of the acutest thinkers have, so far in vain, endeavoured to +grapple more closely with this fundamental problem of the philosophy of +nature, and to determine more exactly the nature of atoms as well as +their relation to the space-filling ether. And the idea steadily gains +ground that no such thing as empty space exists, and that everywhere the +primitive atoms of ponderable matter or heavy "mass" are separated from +each other by the homogeneous ether which extends throughout all space. +This extremely light and attenuated (if not imponderable) ether causes, +by its vibrations, all the phenomena of light and heat, electricity and +magnetism. We can imagine it either as a continuous substance occupying +the space between the mass-atoms, or as composed of separate particles; +in the latter case we might perhaps attribute to these ether-atoms an +inherent power of repulsion in contrast to the immanent attracting power +of the heavy mass-atoms, and the whole mechanism of cosmic life would +then be reducible to the attraction of the latter and the repulsion of +the former. We might also place the "vibrations of the cosmic ether" +alongside of the "operation of space in general," in the sense in which +these words are used by Professor Schlesinger. + +At any rate, theoretical physics has in recent years made an advance of +fundamental importance and widest reach in our knowledge of nature, in +that it has come nearer to a knowledge of this cosmic ether, and has +forced the question of its essence, its structure, and its motion into +the foreground of monistic nature-philosophy. Only a few years ago the +cosmic ether was to the majority of scientists an imponderable something, +of which, strictly speaking, absolutely nothing was known, and which +could be admitted provisionally only as a precarious working hypothesis. +All this was changed when Heinrich Hertz (1888) demonstrated the nature +of electrical energy, by his beautiful experiments establishing the +conjecture of Faraday that light and heat, electricity and magnetism, are +closely related phenomena of one single set of forces, and depend on +transverse vibrations of the ether. Light itself--whatever else it be--is +always and everywhere an electrical phenomenon. The ether itself is no +longer hypothetical; its existence can at any moment be demonstrated by +electrical and optical experiment. We know the length of the light wave +and the electric wave. Indeed, some physicists believe that they can even +determine approximately the density of ether. If by means of the airpump +we remove from a bell-jar the atmospheric air (except an insignificant +residue), the quantity of light within it remains unchanged; it is the +vibrating ether we see.[9] These advances in our knowledge of the ether +mean an immense gain for monistic philosophy. For they do away with the +erroneous ideas of empty space and _actio in distans_; the whole of +infinite space, in so far as it is not occupied by mass-atoms +("ponderable matter"), is filled by the ether. Our ideas of space and +time are quite other than those taught by Kant a hundred years ago; the +"critical" system of the great Koenigsberg philosopher exhibits in this +respect, as well as in his teleological view of the organic world and in +his metaphysics, dogmatic weaknesses of the most pronounced kind.[8] And +religion itself, in its reasonable forms, can take over the ether theory +as an article of faith, bringing into contradistinction the mobile cosmic +ether as creating divinity, and the inert heavy mass as material of +creation.[11] From this successfully scaled height of monistic knowledge +there open up before our joyously quickened spirit of research and +discovery new and surprising prospects, which promise to bring us still +nearer to the solution of the one great riddle of the world. What is the +relation of this light mobile cosmic ether to the heavy inert "mass," to +the ponderable matter which we chemically investigate, and which we can +only think of as constituted of atoms? Our modern analytical chemistry +remains for the present at a standstill, in presence of some seventy +irreducible elements, or so-called primary substances. But the reciprocal +relation of these elements, the affinity of their combinations, their +spectroscopic behaviour, and so forth, make it in the highest degree +probable that they are all merely historical products of an evolutionary +process, having their origin in various dispositions and combinations of +a varying number of original atoms. + +To these original or mass-atoms--the ultimate discrete particles of inert +"ponderable matter"--we can with more or less probability ascribe a +number of eternal and inalienable fundamental attributes; they are +probably everywhere in space, of like magnitude and constitution. +Although possessing a definite finite magnitude, they are, by virtue of +their very nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical; +they are inert (in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and +impenetrable by the ether. Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most +important characteristic of these ultimate atoms is their chemical +affinity--their tendency to apply themselves to one another and combine +into small groups in an orderly fashion. These fixed groups (fixed, that +is to say, under the present physical conditions of existence of the +earth) of primitive atoms are the atoms of the elements--the well-known +"indivisible" atoms of chemistry. The qualitative, and, so far as our +present empirical knowledge goes, unchangeable distinctions of our +chemical elements are therefore solely conditioned by the varying number +and disposition of the similar primitive atoms of which they are +composed. Thus, for example, the atom of carbon (the real "maker" of the +organic world) is in all probability a tetrahedron made up of four +primitive atoms. + +After Mendelejeff and Lothar Meyer had discovered (1869) the "periodic +law" of the chemical elements, and founded on it a "natural system" of +these elements, this important advance in theoretical chemistry was +subsequently put to profitable use by Gustav Wendt from an evolutionary +point of view. He endeavoured to show that the various elements are +products of evolution or of historically originating combinations of +seven primary elements, and that these last again are historical products +of one single primitive element This hypothetical original matter had +been already designated by Crookes, in his _Genesis of the Elements_, as +primary material or protyl.[10] The empirical proof of the existence of +this original matter lying at the foundation of all ponderable material +is perhaps only a question of time. Its discovery would probably realise +the alchemists' hope of being able to produce gold and silver +artificially out of other elements. But then arises the other great +question: "How is this primary mass related to the cosmic ether? Do these +two original substances stand in fundamental and eternal antithesis to +one another? Or was it the mobile ether itself, perhaps, that originally +engendered the heavy mass?"[11] + +In answer to this great and fundamental question, various physical +hypotheses have been put forward. But, like the various atomic theories +of chemistry, they have not as yet been clearly established, and the same +appears to me to be the case also with the ingenious hypothesis which the +lecturer has unfolded to us with reference to the Influence of Space. As +he himself rightly says, in all these endeavours after a philosophy of +nature we are still, for the present, dealing with "scientific articles +of faith," concerning the validity of which different persons, according +to their subjective judgment and stage of culture, may have widely +divergent views. I believe that the solution of these fundamental +questions still lies as yet beyond the limits of our knowledge of nature, +and that we shall be obliged, for a long time yet to come, to content +ourselves with an "Ignoramus"--if not even with an "Ignorabimus." + +The case is very different, however, if we turn from these atomistic +element hypotheses and direct our attention to the historical conditions +of the evolution of the world, as these have been revealed to us by the +magnificent advances in our knowledge of nature which have been made +within the last thirty years. An immense new territory has here been +opened up to us in the realms of knowledge--a territory in which a series +of most important problems, formerly held to be insoluble, has been +answered in the most surprising manner.[12] + +Among the triumphs of the human mind the modern doctrine of evolution +takes a foremost place. Guessed at by Goethe a hundred years ago, but not +expressed in definite form until formulated by Lamarck in the beginning +of the present century, it was at last, thirty years ago, decisively +established by Charles Darwin, his theory of selection filling up the gap +which Lamarck in his doctrine of the reciprocal influence of heredity and +adaptation had left open. We now definitely know that the organic world +on our earth has been as continuously developed, "in accordance with +eternal iron laws," as Lyell had in 1830 shown to be the case for the +inorganic frame of the earth itself; we know that the innumerable +varieties of animals and plants which during the course of millions of +years have peopled our planet are all simply branches of one single +genealogical tree; we know that the human race itself forms only one of +the newest, highest, and most perfect offshoots from the race of the +Vertebrates. + +An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course of +evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting human spirit +through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the present "order of the +cosmos." At the outset there is nothing in infinite space but mobile +elastic ether, and innumerable similar separate particles--the primitive +atoms--scattered throughout it in the form of dust; perhaps these are +themselves originally "points of condensation" of the vibrating +"substance," the remainder of which constitutes the ether. The atoms of +our elements arise from the grouping together in definite numbers of the +primitive atoms or atoms of mass. As the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis +has it, the rotating heavenly bodies separate themselves out from that +vibrating primeval cloud. A single unit among many thousands of celestial +bodies is our sun, with its planets, which originated by being +centrifugally thrown off from it. Our insignificant earth is a single +planet of our solar system; its entire individual life is a product of +the sunlight. After the glowing sphere of the earth has cooled down to a +certain degree, drops of fluid water precipitate themselves on the +hardened crust of its surface--the first preliminary condition of organic +life. Carbon atoms begin their organism-engendering activity, and unite +with the other elements into plasma-combinations capable of growing. One +small plasma-group oversteps the limits of cohesion and individual +growth; it falls asunder into two similar halves. With this first moneron +begins organic life and its most distinctive function, heredity. In the +homogeneous plasma of the monera, a firmer central nucleus is separated +from a softer outer mass; through this differentiation of nucleus and +protoplasm arises the first organic cell. For a long time our planet was +inhabited solely by such Protista or single-celled primitive creatures. +From coenobia or social unions of these afterwards arose the lowest +histones, multicellular plants and animals. + +By the sure help of the three great empirical "records of creation," +palaeontology, comparative anatomy, and ontogeny, the history of descent +now leads us on step by step from the oldest Metazoa, the simplest +pluricellular animals, up to man.[13] At the lowest root of the common +genealogy of the Metazoa stand the Gastraeadae and Spongidae; their whole +body consists, in the simplest case, solely of a round digestive sac, the +thin wall of which is formed by two layers of cells--the two primitive +germinal layers. A corresponding germinal condition, the two-layered +gastrula, occurs transitorily in the embryological history of all the +other Metazoa, from the lowest Cnidaria and Vermes up to man. From the +common stock of the Helminthes, or simple worms, there develop as +independent main branches the four separate stems of the Molluscs, +Star-fishes, Arthropods, and Vertebrates. It is only these last whose +bodily structure and development in all essential respects coincide with +those of man. A long series of lower aquatic Vertebrates (lancelets, +lampreys, fishes) precedes the lungbreathing Amphibians, which appear for +the first time in the Carboniferous period. The Amphibians are followed +in the Permian period by the first Amniota, the oldest reptiles; from +these develop later, in the Triassic period, the Birds on the one hand, +and the Mammals on the other. That man in his whole bodily frame is a +true mammal, becomes obvious as soon as the natural unity of this highest +class of animals is recognised. The simplest comparison must have +convinced the unprejudiced observer of the close constitutional +relationship between man and the ape, which of all the Mammals comes +nearest him. Comparative anatomy, with its deeper vision, showed that all +differences in bodily structure between man and the Anthropoidea +(gorilla, chimpanzee, orang) are less important than the corresponding +differences in bodily structure between these anthropoid apes and the +lower apes. The phylogenetic significance of this fact, first emphasised +by Huxley, is quite clear. The great question of the origin of the human +race, or of "man's place in Nature," the "question of all questions," was +then scientifically answered: "Man is descended from a series of ape-like +Mammals." The descent of man (anthropogeny) discloses the long series of +vertebrate ancestors, which preceded the late origin of this, its most +highly developed offshoot.[13] + +The incalculable importance of the light cast over the whole field of +human knowledge of nature by these results is patent to everyone. They +are destined every year increasingly to manifest their transforming +influence in all departments of knowledge, the more the conviction of +their irrefragable truth forces its way. And it is only the ignorant or +narrow-minded who can now doubt their truth. If, indeed, here and there, +one of the older naturalists still disputes, the foundation on which they +rest, or demands proofs which are wanting (as happened a few weeks ago on +the part of a famous German pathologist at the Anthropological Congress +in Moscow), he only shows by this that he has remained a stranger to the +stupendous advances of recent biology, and above all of anthropogeny. The +whole literature of modern biology, the whole of our present zoology and +botany, morphology and physiology, anthropology and psychology, are +pervaded and fertilised by the theory of descent.[14] + +Just as the natural doctrine of development on a monistic basis has +cleared up and elucidated the whole field of natural phenomena in their +physical aspect, it has also modified that of the phenomena of mind, +which is inseparably connected with the other. Our human body has been +built up slowly and by degrees from a long series of vertebrate +ancestors, and this is also true of our soul; as a function of our brain +it has gradually been developed in reciprocal action and re-action with +this its bodily organ. What we briefly designate as the "human soul," is +only the sum of our feeling, willing, and thinking--the sum of those +physiological functions whose elementary organs are constituted by the +microscopic ganglion-cells of our brain. Comparative anatomy and ontogeny +show us how the wonderful structure of this last, the organ of our human +soul, has in the course of millions of years been gradually built up from +the brains of higher and lower vertebrates. Comparative psychology +teaches us how, hand in hand therewith, the soul itself, as function of +the brain, has been developed. The last-named science teaches us also +that a primitive form of soul-activity is already present even in the +lowest animals, the single-celled primitive animals, Infusoria and +Rhizopoda. Every scientific man who has long observed the life-activity +of these single-celled Protista, is positively convinced that they also +possess a soul; that this "cell-soul" also consists of a sum of +sensations, perceptions, and volitions; the feeling, thinking, and +willing of our human soul differ from these only in degree. In like +manner there is present in the egg-cell (as potential energy) a +hereditary cell-soul, out of which man, like every other animal, is +developed.[15] + +The first task of a truly scientific psychology will therefore be, not, +as hitherto, idle speculation about an independent immaterial +soul-existence and its puzzling temporary connection with the animal +body, but rather the comparative investigation of the organs of the soul +and the experimental examination of their psychical functions. For +scientific psychology is a part of physiology, the doctrine of the +functions and the life-activities of organisms. The psychology and +psychiatry of the future, like the physiology and pathology of to-day, +must take the form of a cellular study, and in the first instance +investigate the soul-functions of the cells. Max Verworn, in his fine +_Psycho-physiological Protistastudies_, has lately shown us what +important disclosures such a cellular psychology can make, even in +dealing with the lowest grades of organic life, in the single-celled +Protista (especially Rhizopoda and Infusoria). + +These same main divisions of soul-activity, which are to be met with in +the single-celled organism,--the phenomena of irritability, sensation, +and motion,--can be shown to exist in all multicellular organisms as +functions of the cells of which their bodies are composed. In the lowest +Metazoa, the invertebrate sponges and polyps, there are, just as in +plants, no special soul-organs developed, and all the cells of the body +participate more or less in the "soul-life." It is only in the higher +animals that the soul-life is found to be localised and connected with +special organs. As a consequence of division of labour, there have here +been developed various sense-organs as organs of specific sensibility, +muscles as organs of motion and volition, nerve-centres or ganglia as +central co-ordinating and regulating organs. In the most highly developed +families of the animal kingdom, these last come more and more into the +foreground as independent soul-organs. In correspondence with the +extraordinarily complicated structure of their central nervous system +(the brain with its wonderful complex of ganglion-cells and +nerve-fibres), the many-sided activity of such animals attains a +wonderful degree of development. + +It is only in these most highly-developed groups of the animal kingdom +that we can with certainty establish the existence of those most perfect +operations of the central nervous system, which we designate as +consciousness. As we know, it is precisely this highest brain-function +that still continues to be looked upon as a completely enigmatical +phenomenon, and as the best proof for the immaterial existence of an +immortal soul. It is usual at the same time to appeal to Du +Bois-Reymond's well-known "Ignorabimus address on the Boundaries of +Natural Knowledge" (1872). It was by a peculiar irony of fate that the +famous lecturer of the Berlin Academy of Science, in this much-discussed +address of twenty years ago, should be representing consciousness as an +incomprehensible marvel, and as presenting an insuperable barrier to +further advances of knowledge, at the very moment that David Friedrich +Strauss, the greatest theologian of our century, was showing it to be the +opposite. The clear-sighted author of _The Old Faith and the New_ had +already clearly perceived that the soul-activities of man, and therefore +also his consciousness, as functions of the central nervous system, all +spring from a common source, and, from a monistic point of view, come +under the same category. The "exact" Berlin physiologist shut this +knowledge out from his mind, and, with a short-sightedness almost +inconceivable, placed this special neurological question alongside of the +one great "world-riddle," the fundamental question of substance, the +general question of the connection between matter and energy.[16] + +As I long ago pointed out, these two great questions are not two separate +"world-riddles." The neurological problem of consciousness is only a +special case of the all comprehending cosmological problem, the question +of substance. "If we understood the nature of matter and energy, we +should also understand how the substance underlying them can under +certain conditions feel, desire, and think." Consciousness, like feeling +and willing, among the higher animals is a mechanical work of the +ganglion-cells, and as such must be carried back to chemical and physical +events in the plasma of these. And by the employment of the genetic and +comparative method we reach the conviction that consciousness, and +consequently reason also, is not a brain-function exclusively peculiar to +man; it occurs also in many of the higher animals, not in Vertebrates +only, but even in Articulates. Only in degree, through a higher stage of +cultivation, does the consciousness of man differ from that of the more +perfect lower animals, and the same is true of all other activities of +the human soul. + +By these and other results of comparative physiology our whole psychology +is placed on a new and firm monistic basis. The older mystical conception +of the soul, as we find it amongst primitive peoples, but also in the +systems of the dualistic philosophers of to-day, is refuted by them. +According to these systems, the soul of man (and of the higher animals) +is a separate entity, which inhabits and rules the body only during its +individual life, but leaves it at death. The widespread "piano-theory" +(_Claviertheorie_) compares the "immortal soul" to a pianist who executes +an interesting piece--the individual life--on the instrument of the +mortal body, but at death withdraws into the other world. This "immortal +soul" is usually represented as an immaterial being; but in fact it is +really thought of as quite material, only as a finer invisible being, +aerial or gaseous, or as resembling the mobile, light, and thin substance +of the ether, as conceived by modern physics. The same is true also for +most of the conceptions which rude primitive peoples and the uneducated +classes among the civilised races have, for thousands of years, cherished +as to spectral "ghosts" and "gods." Serious reflection on the matter +shows that here--as in modern spiritualism--it is not with really +immaterial beings, but with gaseous, invisible bodies, that we are +dealing. And further, we are utterly incapable of imagining a truly +immaterial being. As Goethe clearly said, "matter can never exist or act +apart from spirit, neither can spirit apart from matter." + +As regards immortality, it is well known that this important idea is +interpreted and applied in a great variety of ways. It is often made a +reproach against our Monism that it altogether denies immortality; this, +however, is erroneous. Rather do we hold it, in a strictly scientific +sense, as an indispensable fundamental conception of our monistic +philosophy of nature. Immortality in a scientific sense is conservation +of substance, therefore the same as conservation of energy as defined by +physics, or conservation of matter as defined by chemistry. The cosmos as +a whole is immortal. It is just as inconceivable that any of the atoms of +our brain or of the energies of our spirit should vanish out of the +world, as that any other particle of matter or energy could do so. At our +death there disappears only the individual form in which the +nerve-substance was fashioned, and the personal "soul" which represented +the work performed by this. The complicated chemical combinations of that +nervous mass pass over into other combinations by decomposition, and the +kinetic energy produced by them is transformed into other forms of +motion. + + "Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, + Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. + O that that earth which kept the world in awe + Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw." + +On the other hand, the conception of a personal immortality cannot be +maintained. If this idea is still widely held, the fact is to be +explained by the physical law of inertia; for the property of persistence +in a state of rest exercises its influence in the region of the +ganglion-cells of the brain, as well as in all other natural bodies. +Traditional ideas handed down through many generations are maintained +with the greatest tenacity by the human brain, especially if, in early +youth, they have been instilled into the childish understanding as +indisputable dogmas. Such hereditary articles of faith take root all the +more firmly, the further they are removed from a rational knowledge of +nature, and enveloped in the mysterious mantle of mythological poesy. In +the case of the dogma of personal immortality, there comes into play also +the interest which man fancies himself to have in his individual future +existence after death, and the vain hope that in a blessed world to come +there is treasured up for him a compensation for the disappointed hopes +and the many sorrows of his earthly life. + +It is often asserted by the numerous advocates of personal immortality +that this dogma is an innate one, common to all rational men, and that it +is taught in all the more perfect forms of religion. But this is not +correct. Neither Buddhism nor the religion of Moses originally contained +the dogma of personal immortality, and just as little did the majority of +educated people of classical antiquity believe it, at any rate during the +highest period of Greek culture. The monistic philosophy of that time, +which, five hundred years before our era, had reached speculative heights +so remarkable, knew nothing of any such dogma. It was through Plato and +Christ that it received its further elaboration, until, in the Middle +Ages, it was so universally accepted, that only now and then did some +bold thinker dare openly to gainsay it. The idea that a conviction of +personal immortality has a specially ennobling influence on the moral +nature of man, is not confirmed by the gruesome history of mediaeval +morals, and as little by the psychology of primitive peoples.[17] + +If any antiquated school of purely speculative psychology still continues +to uphold this irrational dogma, the fact can only be regarded as a +deplorable anachronism. Sixty years ago such a doctrine was excusable, +for then nothing was accurately known either of the finer structure of +the brain, or of the physiological functions of its separate parts; its +elementary organs, the microscopic ganglion-cells, were almost unknown, +as was also the cell-soul of the Protista; very imperfect ideas were held +as to ontogenetic development, and as to phylogenetic there were none at +all. + +This has all been completely changed in the course of the last +half-century. Modern physiology has already to a great extent +demonstrated the localisation of the various activities of mind, and +their connection with definite parts of the brain; psychiatry has shown +that those psychical processes are disturbed or destroyed if these parts +of the brain become diseased or degenerate. Histology has revealed to us +the extremely complicated structure and arrangement of the +ganglion-cells. But, for the settlement of this momentous question, the +discoveries of the last ten years with regard to the more minute +occurrences in the process of fertilisation are of decisive importance. +We now know that this process essentially consists simply in the +copulation or fusion of two microscopical cells, the female egg-cell and +the male sperm-cell. The fusion of the nuclei of these two sexual cells +indicates with the utmost precision the exact moment at which the new +human individual arises. The newly-formed parent-cell, or fertilised +egg-cell, contains potentially, in their rudiments, all the bodily and +mental characteristics which the child inherits from both parents. It is +clearly against reason to assume an eternal and unending life for an +individual phenomenon whose beginning in time we can determine to a +hair's breadth, by direct observation. Judging of human spiritual life +from a rational point of view, we can as little think of our individual +soul as separated from our brain, as we can conceive the voluntary motion +of our arm apart from the contraction of its muscles, or the circulation +of our blood apart from the action of the heart. + +Against this strictly physiological conception, as against our whole +monistic view of the relations of energy and matter, of soul and +substance, the reproach of "materialism" continues to be raised. I have +repeatedly before now pointed out that this is an ambiguous party word +which conveys absolutely nothing; its apparent opposite, "spiritualism," +could quite easily be substituted for it. Every critical thinker, who is +familiar with the history of philosophy, knows that, as systems change, +such words assume the most varied meanings, In addition to this, the word +"materialism" has the disadvantage of being liable to continual confusion +between its theoretical and practical meanings, which two are totally +distinct. Our conception of Monism, or the unity-philosophy, on the +contrary, is clear and unambiguous; for it an immaterial living spirit +is just as unthinkable as a dead, spiritless material; the two are +inseparably combined in every atom. The opposed conception of dualism (or +even pluralism in other anti-monistic systems) regards spirit and +material, energy and matter, as two essentially different substances; but +not a single empirical proof can be adduced to show that either of these +can exist or become perceptible to us by itself alone. + +In thus shortly indicating the far-reaching psychological consequences of +the monistic doctrine of evolution, I trench at the same time upon a most +important field, to which our lecturer in his address has more than once +alluded--that of religion and the belief in God connected therewith. I am +at one with him in the conviction that the formation of clear +philosophical conceptions upon these fundamental matters of belief is of +the highest importance, and I would therefore crave the permission of +this assembly briefly to lay before it on this occasion a frank +confession of faith. This monistic confession has the greater claim to an +unprejudiced consideration, in that it is shared, I am firmly convinced, +by at least nine-tenths of the men of science now living; indeed, I +believe, by all men of science in whom the following four conditions are +realised: (1) Sufficient acquaintance with the various departments of +natural science, and in particular with the modern doctrine of evolution; +(2) Sufficient acuteness and clearness of judgment to draw, by induction +and deduction, the necessary logical consequences that flow from such +empirical knowledge; (3) Sufficient moral courage to maintain the +monistic knowledge, so gained, against the attacks of hostile dualistic +and pluralistic systems; and (4) Sufficient strength of mind to free +himself, by sound, independent reasoning, from dominant religious +prejudices, and especially from those irrational dogmas which have been +firmly lodged in our minds from earliest youth as indisputable +revelations. + +If from this unprejudiced point of view of the thinker, we compare the +numerous religions of the various races of mankind, we shall be +compelled, in the first instance, to put aside as untenable all those +conceptions which stand in irreconcilable contradiction to those +principles of our empirical knowledge of nature which are now clearly +discerned and established by critical reasoning. We can thus at once set +aside all mythological stories, all "miracles," and so-called +"revelations," for which it is claimed that they have come to us in some +supernatural way. All such mystical teachings are irrational, inasmuch as +they are confirmed by no actual experience, but, on the contrary, are +irreconcilable with the known facts which have been confirmed to us by a +rational investigation of nature. + +This is true alike of Christian and Mosaic, of Mohammedan and Indian +legends. If now we thus lay aside the whole mass of mystical dogmas and +transcendental revelations, there is left behind, as the precious and +priceless kernel of true religion, the purified ethic that rests on +rational anthropology.[18] + +Among the numerous and varied forms of religion which, in the course of +the past ten thousand years and more, have been evolved from the crudest +prehistoric beginnings, the foremost rank undoubtedly belongs to those +two forms which still continue to be the most widely accepted among +civilised races--the older Buddhism and the younger Christianity. The two +have very many features in common, alike in their mythology and in their +ethics; indeed, a considerable part of Christianity has come directly +from Indian Buddhism, just as another part is drawn from the Mosaic and +Platonic systems. But, looked at from the point of view of our present +stage of culture, the ethic of Christianity appears to us much more +perfect and pure than that of any other religion. We must, it is true, +hasten to add that it is exactly the weightiest and noblest principles of +Christian ethic--brotherly love, fidelity to duty, love of truth, +obedience to law--that are by no means peculiar to the Christian faith as +such, but are of much older origin. Comparative psychology proves that +these ethical principles were more or less recognised and practised by +much older civilised races thousands of years before Christ. + +Love remains the supreme moral law of rational religion, the love, that +is to say, that holds the balance between egoism and altruism, between +self-love and love of others. "Do to others as you would they should do +to you." This natural and highest command had been taught and followed +thousands of years before Christ said: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as +thyself." In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as +self-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance derived from our +animal ancestors. It had already found a place among the herds of Apes +and other social Mammals; in a similar manner, but with a wider scope, it +was already present in the most primitive communities and among the +hordes of the least advanced savages. Brotherly love--mutual support, +succour, protection, and the like---had already made its appearance among +gregarious animals as a social duty; for without it the continued +existence of such societies is impossible. Although at a later period, in +the case of man, these moral foundations of society came to be much more +highly developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown, +is to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among the higher +Vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as among the higher +Articulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.) also, the development of social +relations and duties is the indispensable condition of their living +together in orderly societies. Such societies have for man also been the +most important instrument of intellectual and moral progress. + +Beyond all doubt the present degree of human culture owes in great part +its perfection to the propagation of the Christian system of morals and +its ennobling influence, although the great value of this has been +impaired, often in the most deplorable manner, by its association with +untenable myths and so-called "revelations." How little these last +contribute to the perfection of the first, can be seen from the +acknowledged historical fact that it is just orthodoxy and the +hierarchical system based on it (especially that of the Papacy) that has +least of all striven to fulfil the precepts of Christian morality; the +more loudly they preach it in theory, the less do they themselves fulfil +its commands in practice. + +It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that another and very considerable +portion of our modern culture and morality has been developed quite +independently of Christianity, mainly through continual study of the +highly-elaborated mental treasures of classical antiquity. The thorough +study of Greek and Roman classics has at least contributed much more to +it than that of the Christian Church fathers. To this we must now add, in +our own century (rightly called the "century of the natural sciences"), +the immense advance in the higher culture which we owe to a purified +knowledge of nature and to the monistic philosophy founded upon this. +That these must also exercise an advancing and ennobling influence cannot +be doubted, and has already been shown by many eminent authors (Spencer, +Carneri, and others) in the course of the last thirty years.[18] + +Against this monistic ethic founded on a rational knowledge of nature, it +has been objected that it is fitted to undermine existing civilisation, +and especially that it encourages the subversive aims of social +democracy. This reproach is wholly unjustified. The application of +philosophical principles to the practical conditions of life, and in +particular to social and political questions, can be made in the most +various ways. Political "free-thinking," so called, has nothing whatever +to do with the "freedom of thought" of our monistic natural religion. +Moreover, I am convinced that the rational morality of monistic religion +is in no way contrary to the good and truly valuable elements of the +Christian ethic, but is destined in conjunction with these to promote the +true progress of humanity in the future. + +With Christian mythology and the special form of theistic belief +associated with it the case is different. In so far as that belief +involves the notion of a "personal God," it has been rendered quite +untenable by the recent advances of monistic science. But, more than +this, it was shown more than two thousand years ago, by eminent exponents +of the monistic philosophy, that the conception of a personal God, +creator and ruler of the world, does not give the slightest help toward a +truly rational view of the world. For even if the question of "creation," +in the ordinary and trivial sense of the term, be answered by referring +it to the miraculous agency of a creator working according to plan apart +from the world, there immediately arises upon that the new inquiry: +"Whence comes this personal God? What was He doing before creation? And +whence did He derive the material for it?" and such like questions. The +antiquated conception of an anthropomorphic personal God is destined, +before the present century is ended, to drop out of currency throughout +the entire domain of truly scientific philosophy; the corresponding +conception of a personal devil--even as late as last century connected +with the former and very generally accepted--has already been given up +once for all by all persons of education. + +Let it be noted, however, in passing, that the amphitheism which believes +in God and devil alike is much more compatible with a rational +explanation of the world than pure monotheism. The purest form of this is +perhaps the amphitheism of the Zend religion of Persia, which Zoroaster +(or Zarathustra, the "Golden Star") founded two thousand years before +Christ. Here Ormuzd, the god of light and goodness, stands everywhere in +conflict with Ahriman, the god of darkness and evil. The continual +conflict between a good and an evil principle was personified in a +similar manner in the mythology of many other amphitheistic religions: in +the old Egyptian, the good Osiris was at war with the evil Typhon; in the +old Indian, Vishnu the sustainer with Siva the destroyer, and so forth. + +If we really must retain the conception of a personal God as the key to +our view of the universe, then this amphitheism can explain the sorrows +and defects of this world very simply, as being the work of the evil +principle or devil. Pure monotheism, on the contrary, as represented in +the religions of Moses and Mohammed in their original form, has no +rational explanation of these to offer. If their "one God" is really the +absolutely good, perfect being they proclaim, then the world which he has +created must also be perfect. An organic world so imperfect and full of +sorrows as exists on this earth he could not possibly have contrived. + +These considerations gain in force when we advance to the deeper +knowledge of nature acquired by modern biology; here it was Darwin, +especially, who thirty-three years ago opened our eyes by his doctrine of +the struggle for existence, and his theory of selection founded upon it. +We now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by +a relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must +daily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen +individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the +existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening +dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every +minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble +picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns +throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's +goodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so +devoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now--at least among +educated people who think. It has disappeared before our deeper +acquaintance with the mutual relations of organisms, the advancement of +oecology and sociology, and our knowledge of parasite life and pathology. + +All these sad but insuperable facts--truly the dark side of nature--are +made intelligible to religious faith by amphitheism; they are the "works +of the devil," who opposes and disturbs the perfect moral order in the +world of the "good God." For pure monotheism which knows only one God, +one perfect highest being, they remain unintelligible. If, with a +monotheistic creed, any one still continues to talk of the moral order of +the world, he in so doing shuts his eyes to the undeniable facts of +history, both natural and civil. + +In view of these considerations, it is hard to understand how the large +majority of the so-called educated classes can persevere, on the one +hand, in declaring belief in a personal God to be an indispensable +principle of religion, and, on the other hand, in at the same time +rejecting the belief in a personal devil as an exploded superstition of +the Middle Ages. This inconsistency on the part of educated Christians is +all the more incomprehensible and censurable, inasmuch as both dogmas in +equal degree form an integral part of the Christian creed. The personal +devil, as "Satan," "the Tempter," "the Destroyer," and so forth, +undeniably plays a most important part in the New Testament, though not +met with in the earlier portions of the Old. Our great reformer, Martin +Luther himself, who "sent to the devil" so many antiquated dogmas, was +unable to rid himself of the conviction of the real existence and +personal enmity of Beelzebub; we have only to think of the historical +ink-spot at Wartburg! Moreover, our Christian art, in many thousands of +paintings and other representations, has exhibited Satan in corporeal +form just as realistically as it has the three "Divine Persons," about +whose "hypostatical union" human reason has for eighteen hundred years +been tormenting itself in vain. The deep impression made by such concrete +representations, a million times repeated, especially on childish +understandings, is usually under-estimated as to its tremendous +influence; to it certainly is in large measure to be attributed the fact +that irrational myths of such a kind, under the mask of "doctrines of +faith," continue to hold their ground in spite of all protests of reason. + +Liberal-minded Christian theologians have, it is true, often sought to +eliminate the personal devil from Christian teaching, representing him as +merely the personification of falsehood, the spirit of evil. But with +equal right we must in that case substitute for a personal God the +personified idea of truth, the Spirit of Goodness. To such a +representation no objection can be made; rather do we recognise in it a +bridge connecting the dim wonderland of religious poesy with the luminous +realms of clear scientific knowledge. + +The monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present +knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. It can +never recognise in God a "personal being," or, in other words, an +individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. God is +everywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: "There is one spirit in all things, +and nobody is so small that it does not contain a part of the divine +substance whereby it is animated." Every atom is thus animated, and so is +the ether; we might, therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all +natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether-vibrations. It +comes virtually to the same thing when (as was done here by a speaker on +a former occasion) God is defined as "the supreme law of the universe," +and the latter is represented as the "working of universal space." In +this most important article of belief it matters not as to the name but +as to the unity of the underlying idea; the unity of God and the world; +of spirit and nature. On the other hand, "homotheism," the +anthropomorphic representation of God, degrades this loftiest cosmic idea +to that of a "gaseous vertebrate."[19] + +Of the various systems of pantheism which for long have given expression +more or less clearly to the monistic conception of God, the most perfect +is certainly that of Spinoza. To this system, as is well known, Goethe +also paid the tribute of his highest admiration and approval. Of other, +eminent men who have given a similar pantheistic form to their natural +religion, we shall here mention only two of the greatest poets and +students of man, Shakespeare and Lessing; two of the greatest German +rulers, Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen and Frederick II. of Hohenzollern; +two of the greatest scientists, Laplace and Darwin. In adding our own +pantheistic confession to that of these great and untrammelled spirits, +let it only be noted further, that it has received an empirical +confirmation, never before imagined, through the wonderful advances of +natural knowledge within the last thirty years. + +The charge of atheism which still continues to be levelled against our +pantheism, and against the monism which lies at its root, no longer finds +a response among the really educated classes of the present day. It is +true that not so very long ago the German Imperial Chancellor, in the +Prussian Chamber of Deputies, found it in him to put forward such an +alternative as this: "Either the Christian or the atheistic view of the +world"; this in the defence of a most objectionable law, designed to hand +over our school training, tied hand and foot, to the papal hierarchy. The +vast distance which separates the last-named degenerate outgrowth of the +Christian religion from pure primitive Christianity is not greater than +that which separates those mediaeval alternatives from the cultured +religious consciousness of the present day. To one who regards as true +exercises of Christian religion the adoration of old clothes and wax +dolls, or the thoughtless repetition of masses or rosaries, who believes +in wonder-working relics, and purchases pardon for his sins by means of +indulgence-money or Peter's pence, we willingly concede the claim to +possess the "only saving religion"; but with such fetish-worshippers we +will willingly submit to be ranked as "atheists." + +In like case with the charge of atheism and irreligion are those so often +heard against monism, that it destroys the poetry of life and fails to +satisfy the spiritual wants of human nature; we are told, in particular, +that aesthetics--certainly a most important department both in +theoretical philosophy and in practical life--is prejudiced by a monistic +philosophy. But David Friedrich Strauss, one of our subtlest exponents of +aesthetics and also one of our noblest writers, has already refuted such +a charge; and shown how, on the contrary, the care for poetry and the +cultivation of the beautiful are in the "new faith" called upon to play a +still greater part than ever. My present hearers, at once investigators +and lovers of nature, do not need to be told that every new insight which +we obtain into the secrets of nature at the same time also kindles our +souls, affords new material for imagination to work on, and enlarges our +perception of the beautiful. To convince ourselves how closely all these +noblest spiritual activities of man hang together, how intimately the +knowledge of truth is bound up with the love of goodness and veneration +of the beautiful, it will be enough to mention a single name, Germany's +greatest genius--Wolfgang Goethe. + +If the perception of the aesthetic significance of our monistic +nature-religion, as well as of its ethical value, has hitherto so little +pervaded the educated classes, this is due chiefly to the defects of our +school training. It is true that in the course of the last few decades an +infinite deal has been spoken and written about school reform and the +principles of education; but of any real progress there is as yet but +little trace. Here also reigns the physical law of inertia; here +also--and more especially in German schools--the scholasticism of the +Middle Ages exhibits a power of inertia, against which any rational +reform of education must laboriously contest every inch of ground. In +this important department also, a department on which hangs the weal or +woe of future generations, matters will not improve till the monistic +doctrine of nature is accepted as the essential and sure foundation. + +The school of the twentieth century, flourishing anew on this firm +ground, shall have to unfold to the rising youth not only the wonderful +truths of the evolution of the cosmos, but also the inexhaustible +treasures of beauty lying everywhere hidden therein. Whether we marvel at +the majesty of the lofty mountains or the magic world of the sea, whether +with the telescope we explore the infinitely great wonders of the starry +heaven, or with the microscope the yet more surprising wonders of a life +infinitely small, everywhere does Divine Nature open up to us an +inexhaustible fountain of aesthetic enjoyment. Blind and insensible have +the great majority of mankind hitherto wandered through this glorious +wonderland of a world; a sickly and unnatural theology has made it +repulsive as a "vale of tears." But now, at last, it is given to the +mightily advancing human mind to have its eyes opened; it is given to it +to show that a true knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and +inexhaustible nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but +also for its yearning spirit. + +Monistic investigation of nature as knowledge of the true, monistic ethic +as training for the good, monistic aesthetic as pursuit of the +beautiful--these are the three great departments of our monism: by the +harmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at last the +truly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully longed after +by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, these are the +three august Divine Ones before which we bow the knee in adoration; in +the unforced combination and mutual supplementing of these we gain the +pure idea of God.[20] To this "triune" Divine Ideal shall the coming +twentieth century build its altars. + +Ten years ago I was present at the celebration of the third centenary of +the university of Würzburg, which forty years ago I had entered as a +medical student. The festal address on that occasion was delivered in the +university church by the then rector, the distinguished chemist, Johannes +Wislicenus. His concluding words were: "God, the Spirit of Goodness and +of Truth, grant it." I now add, "and the Spirit of Beauty." It is in this +sense that I also, on this commemorative occasion, dedicate to you my +best wishes. May the investigation of nature's secrets flourish and +prosper in this corner of our Thüringian land also, and may the fruits of +knowledge, ripening here in Altenburg, contribute no less to the culture +of the spirit and to the advancement of true religion, than those which +three hundred and seventy years ago the great reformer, Martin Luther, +brought to the light of day in another corner of Thüringen, on the +Wartburg at Eisenach. + +Between Wartburg and Altenburg, on the northern border of Thüringen, lies +Weimar, the classical City of the Muses, and, close by it, our national +university of Jena. I regard it as a good omen that precisely at this +moment a rare celebration should have called together in Weimar the most +illustrious patrons of the university of Jena, the defenders of free +research and free teaching.[21] In the hope that the defence and +promotion of these may still be continued, I conclude my monistic +Confession of Faith with the words: "May God, the Spirit of the Good, the +Beautiful, and the True, be with us." + + + + + +NOTES] + +[Footnote 1: _Scientific Articles of Faith_. +In Professor Schlesinger's address (delivered on 9th October at +Altenburg) on this subject he rightly called attention to the limits of +knowledge of nature (in Kant's sense of the terms) imposed upon us by the +imperfection of our perceptive organs. The gaps which the empirical +investigation of nature must thus leave in science, can, however, be +filled up by hypotheses, by conjectures of more or less probability. +These we cannot indeed for the time establish on a secure basis; and yet +we may make use of them in the way of explaining phenomena, in so far as +they are not inconsistent with a rational knowledge of nature. Such +rational hypotheses are scientific articles of faith, and therefore very +different from ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, +which are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or +simply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of +rational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief +in the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary +atoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential +unity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare +my _General Morphology_, _vol_. i. pp. 105, 164, etc., also my _Natural +History of Creation_, 8th ed., 1889, pp. 21, 360, 795). As the simpler +occurrences of inorganic nature and the more complicated phenomena of +organic life are alike reducible to the same natural forces, and as, +further, these in their turn have their common foundation in a simple +primal principle pervading infinite space, we can regard this last (the +cosmic ether) as all-comprehending divinity, and upon this found the +thesis: "Belief in God is reconcilable with science." In this pantheistic +view, and also in his criticism of a one-sided materialism, I entirely +agree with Professor Schlesinger, though unable to concur with him in +some of his biological, and especially of his anthropological, +conclusions (_cf_. his article on "Facts and Deductions derived from the +Action of Universal Space" _Mittheilungen aus dem Osterlande_, Bd. v., +Altenburg, 1892).] + + +[Footnote 2: _Unity of Nature_. +I consider the fundamental unity of inorganic and organic nature, as well +as their genetic relation, to be an essential axiom of monism. I +particularly emphasise this "article of faith" here, as there are still +scientists of repute who contest it. Not only is the old mystical "vital +power" brought back upon the stage again from time to time, but even the +"miraculous" origin of organic life out of "dead" inorganic nature is +often brought up still against the doctrines of evolution, as an +insoluble riddle--as one of Du Bois-Reymond's "seven riddles of the +world" (see his _Discourse on Leibnitz_, 1880). The solution of this +"transcendent" riddle of the world, and of the allied question of +archigony (equivocal generation, in a strictly defined meaning of the +term), can only be reached by a critical analysis and unprejudiced +comparison of matter, form, and energy in inorganic and organic nature. +This I have already done (1866) in the second book of my _General +Morphology_ (vol. i. pp. 109-238): "General Researches as to the Nature +and First Beginning of Organisms, their Relation to things Inorganic, and +their Division into Plants and Animals."] + +A short résumé of this is contained in Lecture XV. of my _Natural History +of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 340-370). The most serious difficulties which +formerly beset the monistic view there given may now be held to have been +taken out of the way by recent discoveries concerning the nature of +protoplasm, the discovery of the Monera, the more accurate study of the +closely-related single-celled Protista, their comparison with the +ancestral cell (or fertilised egg-cell), and also by the chemical +carbon-theory. (See my "Studies on Monera and other Protista," in the +_Jenaische Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft_, vols. iv. and v., +1868-1870; also Carl Naegeli, _Mechanisch-physiologische Begründung der +Abstammungslehre_, 1884.)] + + +[Footnote 3: _Religion in the Lower Animals_. +We cannot fail to recognise in the more highly developed of our domestic +animals (especially in dogs, horses, and elephants) some first beginnings +of those higher brain-functions which we designate as reason and +consciousness, religion and morality; they differ only in degree, not in +kind, from the corresponding mental activities of the lowest human races. +If, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the anthropoids, had been for +thousands of years domesticated and brought up in close relation with +civilised man, the similarity of their mental activities to those of man +would undoubtedly have been much more striking than it is. The apparently +deep gulf which separates man from these most highly-developed mammals +"is mainly founded on the fact that in man several conspicuous attributes +are united, which in the other animals occur only separately, viz. (1) +The higher degree of differentiation of the larynx (speech), (2) brain +(mind), and (3) extremities; and (4) the upright posture. It is merely +the happy combination of these important animal organs and functions at a +higher stage of evolution that raises the majority of mankind so far +above all lower animals" (_General Morphology_, 1866, vol. ii. p. 430).] + + +[Footnote 4: _Inheritance of Acquired Characters_. +As the controversy on this important question is still unsettled, special +attention may here be called to the valuable data for arriving at a +decision which are afforded precisely by the development of instincts +among the higher animals, and of speech and reason in man. "The +inheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual, is +an indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution." "Those +who, with Weismann and Galton, deny this, entirely exclude thereby the +possibility of any formative influence of the outer world upon organic +form" (_Anthropogenie_, 4th ed., pp. xxiii., 836; see, further, the works +there referred to of Eimer, Weismann, Ray-Lankester, etc.; also Ludwig +Wilser's _Die Vererbung der geistigen Eigenschaften_, Heidelberg, 1892).] + + +[Footnote 5: _Theosophical System of Nature_. +Of all the modern attempts of dualistic philosophy to establish the +knowledge of nature on a theological basis (that of Christian +monotheism), the _Essay on Classification_ of Louis Agassiz is by far the +most important,--in strictness, indeed, is the only one worthy of +mention. (On this see my _Natural History of Creation_, Lect. III., also +"Aims and Methods of the Modern Embryology," 1875, _Jena Zeitschr. für +Naturw., Bd. x., Supplement_.)] + + +[Footnote 6: _Darwin and Copernicus_. +This is the title of an address delivered by Du Bois-Reymond on 25th +January 1883, in the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and afterwards published +in his _Collected Addresses_ (_vol_. ii. 1887). As the author himself +mentions in a note (p. 500) that this gave rise, "most unmeritedly," to +great excitement, and called down upon him the violent attacks of the +clerical press, I may be allowed to point out here that it contained +nothing new, I myself, fifteen years previously, in my lectures on "The +Origin and Genealogy of the Human Race," having carried out in detail the +comparison between Darwin and Copernicus, and the service rendered by +these two heroes in putting an end to the anthropocentric and geocentric +views of the world. (See the Third Series in Virchow and Holtzendorff's +_Collection of Popular Scientific Lectures_, Nos. 53 and 54, 1868, 4th +ed., 1881.) When Du Bois-Reymond says, "For me, Darwin is the Copernicus +of the organic world," I am the more pleased to find that he agrees +(partly in identical words) with my way of thinking, as he himself, quite +unnecessarily, takes up an attitude of opposition towards me. The same is +the case with regard to the explanation of innate ideas by Darwinism, +which he has attempted in his address (1870) on "Leibnitzian Ideas in +Modern Science" (vol. i. of the _Collected Addresses_). Here also he is +most agreeably at one with me in what, four years before, I had +elaborated in my _General Morphology_ (vol. ii. p. 446), and in my +_Natural History of Creation_ (1868). "The laws of heredity and +adaptation explain to us how it is that _à priori_ ideas have been +developed out of what was originally _à posteriori_ knowledge," etc. I +cannot fail to be highly flattered in being able in these last days to +greet the renowned orator of the Berlin Academy as a friend and patron of +the _Natural History of Creation_, which he had previously designated a +bad romance. But his winged words are not on that account to be +forgotten, that "the genealogical trees of phylogeny are about as much +worth as, in the eyes of the historical critic, are those of the Homeric +heroes" (_Darwin versus Galiani_, 1876).] + + +[Footnote 7: _The Law of the Conservation of Substance_. +Strictly taken, this belongs also to "scientific articles of faith," and +could stand as the first article of our "monistic religion." Physicists +of the present day, it is true, generally (and correctly) regard their +"law of the conservation of energy" as the immovable foundation of all +their science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just as in like manner chemists +so regard their fundamental law of the "conservation of matter" +(Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, however, raise certain +objections to either of these fundamental laws with as much success as +against their combination into the single superior law of the +"conservation of substance." As a matter of fact, dualistic philosophy +still attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise of +cautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic) +objections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they +relate to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as +to the connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the +presence of this real "boundary of natural knowledge," we can yet, within +this boundary, apply quite universally the "mechanical law of causality." +The complicated "phenomena of mind," as they are called (more especially +consciousness), fall under the "law of the conservation of substance" +just as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt +with in inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.] + + +[Footnote 8: _Kant and Monism_. +As recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and +in some cases even deified as "infallible" the great Königsberg +philosopher, it may be well here to point out once more that his system +of critical philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic +ingredients. His critical principles of the theory of knowledge will +always remain of fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to +know the essential and profoundest essence of substance, the "thing in +itself" (or "the combination of matter and energy"); that our knowledge +remains subjective in its nature; that it is conditioned by the +organisation of our brain and sensory organs, and can therefore only deal +with the phenomena which our experience of the outer world affords us. +But within these "limits of human knowledge" a positive monistic +knowledge of nature is still possible, in contrast to all dualistic and +metaphysical fantasies. One such great fact of monistic knowledge was the +mechanical cosmogony of Kant and Laplace, the "Essay on the Constitution +and Mechanical Origin of the Universe, according to the Principles of +Newton" (1755). In the whole field of our knowledge of inorganic nature, +Kant held firmly to the monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone +as the real explanation of the phenomena. In the science of organic +nature also, on the other hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet +insufficient; here he considered it necessary to call in the aid of final +as well as of efficient causes. (_Cf_. the fifth lecture of my _Natural +History of Creation_ on "The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck"; also +Albrecht Rau's _Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Prüfung der Resultate +des idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos_, vol. ii., +1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant afterwards +arrived at his untenable metaphysical views of "God, Freedom, and +Immortality." It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors if +he had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The natural +sciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am firmly +convinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have turned out +quite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he had had at +his disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical natural +knowledge which we now possess.] + + +[Footnote 9: _The Ether_. +In a thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at +the sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in +Heidelberg in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant +discovery: "Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of +nature. It comes nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess +an electric organ, the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the +question as to unmediated _actio in distans_. Is there such a thing? Not +far off from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature +of electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous +and primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of +the medium that fills all space, its structure, its rest or motion, its +infinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this +question rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is +would reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but +also of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight +and inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether +everything that exists is not created from the ether." This question is +already being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists, +as, for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on _The Nature +of Electricity and Magnetism_, on _The Basis of the Conception of a +Single Substance_ (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of mass (the +primal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres +of concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills +all space; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms, +and universally distributed, is--the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the +basis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date +arrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on "Influences at a +Distance mediated by the Ether" (_Annalen der Physik und Chemie_, 1881, +Bd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one particular +kind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance and +radiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities +ascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other +words, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as +"the mobile."] + + +[Footnote 10: _Atoms and Elements_. +The evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our +empirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav +Wendt in his treatise, _Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer +biologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik_[I] (Berlin, 1891); compare +also Wilhelm Freyer's _Die organischen Elemente und ihre Stellung im +System_[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's _Chemische Probleme der +Gegenwart_[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's _Genesis of the +Elements_. For the different views as to the nature of the atom, see +Philip Spiller on "The Doctrines of Atoms" in _Die Urkraft des Weltalls +nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV]_ (Berlin, 1886), +(1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the ether; 3. The +ethical side of the science of nature). For the constitution of the +elements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Masse im Raume[V] +(Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its +relationships; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and +their combinations. Theory of crystallisation). + +Note I "The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis + for Chemistry and Physics." + +Note II "The Organic Elements and their Place in the System." + +Note III "Chemical Problems of the Day." + +Note IV "The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action." + +Note V "Force and Matter in Space."] + + +[Footnote 11: _World-Substance_. +The relation of the two fundamental constituents of the cosmos, ether and +mass, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many +hypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.] + + World (=Substance=Cosmos).] + + (Nature as knowable by Man.)] + + Ether (="spirit") (mobile Mass (="body") (inert or + or active substance). passive substance). + Property of Vibration. Property of Inertia.] + + Chief Functions: Electricity, Chief Functions: Gravity, + Magnetism, Light, Heat. Inertia, Chemical Affinity. + Structure: dynamical; Structure: atomic, discontinuous, + continuous, elastic substance, inelastic substance, + not composed of atoms (?) composed of atoms (?)] + + Theosophical: "God the Theosophical: "Created + Creator" (always in motion). world" (passively formed).] + + "Influence of space." "Products of space condensation."] + + +[Footnote 12: _General doctrine of Evolution_. +The fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of evolution, and of +the monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly evidenced by the steady +increase of its copious literature. I have cited the most important +treatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition of my _Natural +History of Creation_ (1889). Compare, specially, Carus Sterne (Ernst +Krause), _Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des +Naturganzen in gemeinverständlicher Fassung_[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin, 1886); +Hugo Spitzer, _Beiträge zur Descendenztheorie und zur Methodologie der +Naturwissenschaft_ (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, _Ludwig Feuerbach's +Philosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik der +Gegenwart_ (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, _Kosmos: Die +Weltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage +der exacten Naturforschung_ (Leipsic, 1890).[IX] + +Note VI "Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the + Cosmos." + +Note VII "Contributions towards a Theory of Descent, and towards a + Methodology of the Sciences of Nature." + +Note VIII "Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophical + Criticism of the Present Time." + +Note IX "Cosmos: The Development of the Cosmos according to Monistic + Principles on the Basis of Exact Science."] + + +[Footnote 13: _History of Descent_. +The idea and the task of phylogeny, or the history of descent, I first +defined in 1866, in the sixth book of my _General Morphology_ (_vol_. ii. +pp. 301-422), and the substance of this, as well as an account of its +relation to ontogeny or history of development, is set forth in a popular +form in Part II. of my _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., Berlin, +1889). A special application of both these divisions of the history of +evolution to man, is attempted in my _Anthropogenie_ (4th ed.), revised +and enlarged, 1891: Part I. History of development. Part II. History of +descent.] + + +[Footnote 14: _Opponents of the Doctrine of Descent_. +Since the death of Louis Agassiz (1873), Rudolf Virchow is regarded as +the sole noteworthy opponent of Darwinism and the theory of descent; he +never misses an opportunity (as recently in Moscow) of opposing it as +"unproved hypothesis." See as to this my pamphlet, _Freedom in Science +and in Teaching_, a reply to Virchow's address at Munich on "Freedom of +Science in the Modern State" (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892).] + + +[Footnote 15: _Cellular Psychology_. +See on this my paper on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells," in the _Deutsche +Rundschau_ (July 1878), reprinted in Part 1, of _Collected Popular +Lectures_; also "The Cell-soul and Cellular Psychology" in my discourse +on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892, p. +46); _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 444, 777); and _Descent +of Man_ (4th ed., pp. 128, 147). See also, Max Verworn, +_Psycho-physiologische Protisten-Studien_ (Jena, 1889), and Paul Carus, +_The Soul of Man: An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and +Experimental Psychology_ (Chicago, 1891). Among recent attempts to reform +psychology on the basis of evolutionary doctrine in a monistic sense, +special mention must be made of Georg Heinrich Schneider's _Der +thierische Wille: Systematische Darstellung und Erklärung der thierischen +Triebe und deren Entstehung, Entwickelung und Verbreitung im Thierreiche +als Grundlage zu einer vergleichenden Willenslehre_[X] (Leipsic, 1880). +Compare also his supplementary work, entitled _Der menschliche Wille vom +Standpunkte der neuen Entwickelungstheorie_[XI] (1882); also the +_Psychology of Herbert Spencer_ and the new edition of Wilhelm Wundt's +_Menschen-und Thierseele[XII]_ (Leipsic, 1892). + +Note X "Will in the Lower Animals: a Systematic Exposition and Explanation + of Animal Instincts, and their Origin, Development, and Difference in + the Animal Kingdom, as Basis of a Comparative Doctrine of Volition." + +Note XI "The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of + Evolution." + +Note XII "Soul in Man and Brute." + + +[Footnote 16: _Consciousness_. +The antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)--that human consciousness +is an unsoluble "world-riddle," a transcendent phenomenon in essential +antithesis to all other natural phenomena--continues to be upheld in +numerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the +world founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and +that his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the +"Leipsic ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been +prized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of +the world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing +word of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and +this "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even +worse, that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any +further talk about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address +remains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful +sermon," characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising +variety of philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however, +that the majority (and especially women) judge a "beautiful sermon" not +according to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to +its excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his +audience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of +the genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part +of his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further +attempt to solve the main question he has to deal with--as to whether the +world is really "doubly incomprehensible." For my own part, on the +contrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to +our knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness +and the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but +neither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing, +than the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and +energy. Compare my discourse on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (1878), +pp. 78, 82, etc.] + + +[Footnote 17: _Immortality_. +Perhaps in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic +conception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of +personal immortality, and that of "the resurrection of the body," +associated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on +_Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine_, has well remarked: +"One of the standing accusations of the Church against science is that it +is materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the +whole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and +still is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material +body is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven." Compare also +Ludwig Buchner, _Das zunkünftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_ +(Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, "Causes of Belief in Immortality" (_The +Forum_, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, _The Soul of Man: an +Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psychology_ +(Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between the ancient +and the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect to the soul. +Just as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of a special +fiery matter (_phlogiston_), so the thinking soul was explained by the +hypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now know that the +light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the ether, and the +soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As compared with +this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of scholastic +psychology has about the same value as the materialistic conceptions of +the Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's "Nadowessian +Death-Song."] + + +[Footnote 18: _Monistic Ethic_. +All Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals, +as a "science of law" (_Normwissenschaft_), stands in immediate +connection with the view that is taken of the world (_Weltanschauung_), +and consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly +important, and have recently upheld in a paper on "Ethik und +Weltanschauung," in opposition to the "Society for Ethical Culture" +lately founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without +reference to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new +weekly journal, _Die Zukunft_, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892, +Nos. V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis +for all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject +compare especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of +B. von Carneri--_Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus_ (1871); _Entwickelung und +Glückseligkeit_ (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all, _Der +moderne Mensch_ (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, _Welt und +Menschheit_ (Leipsic, 1892); Harald Höffding, _Die Grundlage der humanen +Ethik_ (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm Wundt, _Ethik, +eine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens_ +(Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).] + + +[Footnote 19: _Homotheism_. +Under the term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the +various forms of religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely +human characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may +have shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in +common retain the unworthy conception that God (_Theos_) and man (_homo_) +are organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the +region of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate. +In the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly +objectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man +developed from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents +God as a "spirit" in human form, degrades Him to a "gaseous vertebrate" +(_General Morphology_, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression +"homotheism" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more +practical than the cumbersome word "Anthropotheism."] + + +[Footnote 20: _Monistic Religion_. +Amongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last +twenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of +advanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the +epoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled _The Old Faith and +the New: A Confession_ (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: _Collected Writings_, +1878). Compare M. J. Savage, _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian +Doctrine_; John William Draper, _History of the Conflict between Religion +and Science_; Carl Friedrich Retzer, _Die naturwissenschaftliche +Weltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das religiöse Dogma_ +(Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, _Natur und Menschengeist im Lichte der +Entwickelungslehre_ (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of religion see the +interesting work of U. Van Ende, _Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance_ +(Paris, 1887).] + + +[Footnote 21: _Freedom in Teaching_. +The jubilee of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes" was +celebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the +commencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the +Grand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are +the characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke +Carl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly +shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector +Magnificentissimus of our Thüringian university of Jena, he has always +afforded his protection to its most sacred palladium--the right of the +free investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie, the +heiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a +fitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary +period, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal +treasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of +culture will never forget the service which the princely couple have +thereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the +same time to true religion.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monism as Connecting Religion and +Science, by Ernst Haeckel + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONISM *** + +***** This file should be named 9199-8.txt or 9199-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/1/9/9199/ + +Produced by Lee Dawei, Thomas Berger and Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Monism as Connecting Religion and Science + +Author: Ernst Haeckel + + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9199 +This file was first posted on September 15, 2003 +Last Updated: May 8, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONISM *** + + + + +Text file produced by Lee Dawei, Thomas Berger and Distributed +Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + MONISM AS CONNECTING RELIGION AND SCIENCE + </h1> + <h2> + <i>A MAN OF SCIENCE</i> + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Ernst Haeckel + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + Translated From The German By J. Gilchrist, M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> MONISM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_NOTE"> NOTES </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + The following lecture on Monism is an informal address delivered + extemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth + anniversary of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes." The + immediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor + Schlesinger of Vienna on "Scientific Articles of Faith." This + philosophical discourse contained, with reference to the weightiest and + most important problems of scientific investigation, much that was + indisputable; but it also contained some assertions that challenged + immediate rejoinder and a statement of the opposite view. As I had for + thirty years been very closely occupied with these problems of the + philosophy of nature, and had set forth my convictions with respect to + them in a number of writings, a wish was expressed by several members of + the Congress that on this occasion I should give a summary account of + these. It was in compliance with this wish that the following "Scientific + Confession of Faith" was uttered. The substance of it, as written from + recollection on the day after its delivery, first appeared in the <i>Altenburger + Zeitung of</i> 19th October 1892. This was reproduced, with one or two + philosophical additions, in the November number <i>of</i> the <i>Freie + Bühne für den Entwickelungskampf der Zeit</i> (Berlin). In its present + form the Altenburg address is considerably enlarged, and some parts have + been more fully worked out. In the notes (p. 9 I) several burning + questions of the present day <i>have</i> been dealt with from the monistic + point of view. + </p> + <p> + The purpose of this candid confession of monistic faith is twofold. First, + it is my desire to give expression to that rational view of the world + which is being forced upon us with such logical rigour by the modern + advancements in our knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in reality held + by almost all unprejudiced and thinking men of science, although but few + have the courage (or the need) to declare it openly. Secondly, I would + fain establish thereby a bond between religion and science, and thus + contribute to the adjustment of the antithesis so needlessly maintained + between these, the two highest spheres in which the mind of man can + exercise itself; in monism the ethical demands of the soul are satisfied, + as well as the logical necessities of the understanding. + </p> + <p> + The rising flood of pamphlets and books published on this subject, + demonstrates that such a natural union of faith and knowledge, such a + reasonable reconciliation of the feelings and the reason, are daily + becoming a more pressing necessity for the educated classes. In North + America (in Chicago), there has been published for several years a weekly + journal devoted to this purpose: <i>The Open Court: A Weekly Journal + devoted to the Work of Conciliating Religion and Science</i>. Its worthy + editor, Dr. Paul Carus (author of <i>The Soul of Man</i>, 1891), devotes + also to the same task a quarterly journal under the title <i>The Monist</i>. + It is in the highest degree desirable that so worthy endeavours to draw + together the empirical and speculative views of nature, realism and + idealism, should have more attention and encouragement than they have + hitherto received, for it is only through a natural union of the two that + we can approach a realisation of the highest aim of mental activity-the + blending of religion and science in monism. + </p> + <p> + ERNST HAECKEL. JENA, <i>October</i> 31, 1892 + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MONISM + </h2> + <p> + A society for investigating nature and ascertaining truth cannot celebrate + its commemoration day more fittingly than by a discussion of its highest + general problems. It must be regarded, therefore, with satisfaction that + the speaker on such an august occasion as this—the seventy-fifth + anniversary of your Society—has selected as the subject of his + address a theme of the highest general importance. Unfortunately, it is + becoming more and more the custom on such occasions, and even at the + general meetings of the great "Association of German Naturalists and + Physicians," to take the subject of address from a narrow and specialised + territory of restricted interest. If this growing custom is to be excused + on the grounds of increasing division of labour and of diverging + specialisation in all departments of work, it becomes all the more + necessary that, on such anniversaries as the present, the attention of the + audience should be invited to larger matters of common interest. + </p> + <p> + Such a topic, supreme in its importance, is that concerning "Scientific + Articles of Faith," upon which Professor Schlesinger has already expounded + his views.<a href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1" id="noteref-1"><small>1</small></a> + I am glad to be able to agree with him in many important points, but as to + others I should like to express some hesitation, and to ask consideration + for some views which do not coincide with his. At the outset, I am + entirely at one with him as to that unifying conception of nature as a + whole which we designate in a single word as Monism. By this we + unambiguously express our conviction that there lives "one spirit in all + things," and that the whole cognisable world is constituted, and has been + developed, in accordance with one common fundamental law. We emphasise by + it, in particular, the essential unity of inorganic and organic nature, + the latter having been evolved from the former only at a relatively late + period.<a href="#linknote-2" name="linknoteref-2" id="noteref-2"><small>2</small></a> + We cannot draw a sharp line of distinction between these two great + divisions of nature, any more than we can recognise an absolute + distinction between the animal and the vegetable kingdom, or between the + lower animals and man. Similarly, we regard the whole of human knowledge + as a structural unity; in this sphere we refuse to accept the distinction + usually drawn between the natural and the spiritual. The latter is only a + part of the former (or <i>vice versa</i>); both are one. Our monistic view + of the world belongs, therefore, to that group of philosophical systems + which from other points of view have been designated also as mechanical or + as pantheistic. However differently expressed in the philosophical systems + of an Empedocles or a Lucretius, a Spinoza or a Giordano Bruno, a Lamarck + or a David Strauss, the fundamental thought common to them all is ever + that of the oneness of the cosmos, of the indissoluble connection between + energy and matter, between mind and embodiment—or, as we may also + say, between God and the world—to which Goethe, Germany's greatest + poet and thinker, has given poetical expression in his <i>Faust</i> and in + the wonderful series of poems entitled <i>Gott und Welt</i>. + </p> + <p> + That we may rightly appreciate what this Monism is, let us now, from a + philosophico-historical point of view cast a comprehensive glance over the + development in time of man's knowledge of nature. A long series of varied + conceptions and stages of human culture here passes before our mental + vision. At the lowest stage, the rude—we may say animal—phase + of prehistoric primitive man, is the "ape-man," who, in the course of the + tertiary period, has only to a limited degree raised himself above his + immediate pithecoid ancestors, the anthropoid apes. Next come successive + stages of the lowest and simplest kind of culture, such as only the rudest + of still existing primitive peoples enable us in some measure to conceive. + These "savages" are succeeded by peoples of a low civilisation, and from + these again, by a long series of intermediate steps, we rise little by + little to the more highly civilised nations. To these alone—of the + twelve races of mankind only to the Mediterranean and Mongolian—are + we indebted for what is usually called "universal history." This last, + extending over somewhat less than six thousand years, represents a period + of infinitesimal duration in the long millions of years of the organic + world's development. + </p> + <p> + Neither of the primitive men we have spoken of, nor of those who + immediately succeeded them, can we rightly predicate any knowledge of + nature. The rude primitive child of nature at this lowest stage of + development is as yet far from being the restless <i>Ursachenthier</i> + (cause-seeking animal) of Lichtenberg; his demand for causes has not yet + risen above that of apes and dogs; his curiosity has not yet mounted to + pure desire of knowledge. If we must speak of "reason" in connection with + pithecoid primitive man, it can only be in the same sense as that in which + we use the expression with reference to those other most highly developed + Mammals, and the same remark holds true of the first beginnings of + religion.<a href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3" id="noteref-3"><small>3</small></a> + </p> + <p> + It is indeed still not infrequently the custom to deny absolutely to the + lower animals reason and religion. An unprejudiced comparison, however, + convinces us that this is wrong. The slow and gradual process towards + completeness which, in the course of thousands of years, civilised life + has been working in the soul of man, has not passed away without leaving + some trace on the soul of our highest domestic animals also (above all, of + dogs and horses). Constant association with man, and the steady influence + of his training, have gradually, and by heredity, developed in their brain + higher associations of ideas and a more perfect judgment. Drill has become + instinct, an undeniable example of "the transmission of acquired + characters."<a href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="noteref-4"><small>4</small></a> + </p> + <p> + Comparative psychology teaches us to recognise a very long series of + successive steps in the development of soul in the animal kingdom. But it + is only in the most highly developed vertebrates-birds and mammals—that + we discern the first beginnings of reason, the first traces of religious + and ethical conduct. In them we find not only the social virtues common to + all the higher socially-living animals,—neighbourly love, + friendship, fidelity, self-sacrifice, etc.,—but also consciousness, + sense of duty, and conscience; in relation to man their lord, the same + obedience, the same submissiveness, and the same craving for protection, + which primitive man in his turn shows towards his "gods." But in him, as + in them, there is yet wanting that higher degree of consciousness and of + reason, which strives after a <i>knowledge</i> of the surrounding world, + and which marks the first beginning of philosophy or "wisdom." This last + is the much later attainment of civilised races; slowly and gradually has + it been built up from lower religious conceptions. + </p> + <p> + At all stages of primitive religion and early philosophy, man is as yet + far removed from monistic ideas. In searching out the causes of phenomena, + and exercising his understanding thereon, he is in the first instance + prone in every case to regard personal beings—in fact, + anthropomorphic deities—as the agents at work. In thunder and + lightning, in storm and earthquake, in the circling of sun and moon, in + every striking meteorological and geological occurrence, he sees the + direct activity of a personal god or spirit, who is usually thought of in + a more or less anthropomorphic way. Gods are distinguished as good and + bad, friendly and hostile, preserving and destroying, angels and devils. + </p> + <p> + This becomes true in a yet higher degree when the advancing pursuit of + knowledge begins to take into consideration the more complicated phenomena + of organic life also, the appearance and disappearance of plants and + animals, the life and death of man. The constitution of organised life, so + suggestive as it is of art and purpose, leads one at once to compare it + with the deliberately designed works of man, and thus the vague conception + of a personal god becomes transformed into that of a creator working + according to plan. As we know, this conception of organic creation as the + artistic work of an anthropomorphic god—of a divine mechanic—generally + maintained its ground almost everywhere, down even to the middle of our + own century, in spite of the fact that eminent thinkers had demonstrated + its untenability more than two thousand years ago. The last noteworthy + scientist to defend and apply this idea was Louis Agassiz (died 1873). His + notable <i>Essay on Classification</i>, 1857, developed that theosophy + with logical vigour, and thereby reduced it to an absurdity.<a + href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5" id="noteref-5"><small>5</small></a> + </p> + <p> + All these older religious and teleological conceptions, as well as the + philosophical systems (such as those of Plato and of the Church fathers) + which sprang from them, are antimonistic; they stand in direct antithesis + to our monistic philosophy of nature. Most of them are dualistic, + regarding God and the world, creator and creature, spirit and matter, as + two completely separated substances. We find this express dualism also in + most of the purer church-religions, especially in the three most important + forms of monotheism which the three most renowned prophets of the eastern + Mediterranean—Moses, Christ, and Mohammed—founded. But soon, + in a number of impure varieties of these three religions, and yet more in + the lower forms of paganism, the place of this dualism is taken by a + philosophical pluralism, and over against the good and world-sustaining + deity (Osiris, Ormuzd, Vishnu), there is placed a wicked and destroying + god (Typhon, Ahriman, Siva). Numerous demi-gods or saints, good and bad, + sons and daughters of the gods, are associated with these two chief + deities, and take part with them in the administration and government of + the cosmos. + </p> + <p> + In all these dualistic and pluralistic systems the fundamental idea is + that of anthropomorphism, or the humanising of God; man himself, as + godlike (or directly descended from God), occupies a special position in + the world, and is separated by a great gulf from the rest of nature. + Conjoined with this, for the most part, is the anthropocentric idea, the + conviction that man is the central point of the universe, the last and + highest final cause of creation, and that the rest of nature was created + merely for the purpose of serving man. In the Middle Ages there was + associated at the same time with this last conception the geocentric idea, + according to which the earth as the abode of man was taken for the fixed + middle point of the universe, round which sun, moon, and stars revolve. As + Copernicus (1543) gave the death-blow to the geocentric dogma, so did + Darwin (1859) to the anthropocentric one closely associated with it.<a + href="#linknote-6" name="linknoteref-6" id="noteref-6"><small>6</small></a> A + broad historical and critical comparison of religious and philosophical + systems, as a whole, leads as a main result to the conclusion that every + great advance in the direction of profounder knowledge has meant a + breaking away from the traditional dualism (or pluralism) and an approach + to monism. Ever more clearly are we compelled by reflection to recognise + that God is not to be placed over against the material world as an + external being, but must be placed as a "divine power" or "moving spirit" + within the cosmos itself. Ever clearer does it become that all the + wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as well as inorganic, are + only various products of one and the same original force, various + combinations of one and the same primitive matter. Ever more irresistibly + is it borne in upon us that even the human soul is but an insignificant + part of the all-embracing "world-soul"; just as the human body is only a + small individual fraction of the great organised physical world. + </p> + <p> + The great general principles of theoretical physics and chemistry are now + in a position to afford to this unifying conception of nature an exact, to + a certain extent, indeed, a mathematical confirmation. In establishing the + law of the "conservation of energy," Robert Mayer and Helmholtz showed + that the energy of the universe is a constant unchangeable magnitude; if + any energy whatever seems to vanish or to come anew into play, this is + only due to the transformation of one form of energy into another. In the + same way Lavoisier's law of the "conservation of matter" shows us that the + material of the cosmos is a constant unchangeable magnitude; if any body + seems to vanish (as, for example, by burning), or to come anew into being + (as, for example, by crystallisation), this also is simply due to change + of form or of combination. Both these great laws—in physics, the + fundamental law of the conservation of energy, and in chemistry, of the + conservation of matter—may be brought under one philosophical + conception as the law of the conservation of substance; for, according to + our monistic conception, energy and matter are inseparable, being only + different inalienable manifestations of one single universal + being-substance.<a href="#linknote-7" name="linknoteref-7" id="noteref-7"><small>7</small></a> + In a certain sense we can regard the conception of "animated atoms" as + essentially partaking of the nature of this pure monism—a very + ancient idea which more than two thousand years ago Empedocles enunciated + in his doctrine of "hate and love of the elements." Modern physics and + chemistry have indeed in the main accepted the atomic hypothesis first + enunciated by Democritus, in so far as they regard all bodies as built up + of atoms, and reduce all changes to movements of these minutest-discrete + particles. All these changes, however, in organic as well as in inorganic + nature, become truly intelligible to us only if we conceive these atoms + not as dead masses, but as living elementary particles endowed with the + power of attraction and repulsion. "Pleasure" and "pain," and "love" and + "hate," as predicates of atoms are only other expressions for this power + of attraction and repulsion. + </p> + <p> + Although, however, monism is on the one hand for us an indispensable and + fundamental conception in science, and although, on the other hand, it + strives to carry back all phenomena, without exception, to the mechanism + of the atom, we must nevertheless still admit that as yet we are by no + means in a position to form any satisfactory conception of the exact + nature of these atoms, and their relation to the general space-filling, + universal ether. Chemistry long ago succeeded in reducing all the various + natural substances to combinations of a relatively small number of + elements; and the most recent advances of that science have now made it in + the highest degree probable that these elements or the (as yet) + irreducible primitive materials are themselves in turn only different + combinations of a varying number of atoms of one single original element. + But in all this we have not as yet obtained any further light as to the + real nature of these original atoms or their primal energies. + </p> + <p> + A number of the acutest thinkers have, so far in vain, endeavoured to + grapple more closely with this fundamental problem of the philosophy of + nature, and to determine more exactly the nature of atoms as well as their + relation to the space-filling ether. And the idea steadily gains ground + that no such thing as empty space exists, and that everywhere the + primitive atoms of ponderable matter or heavy "mass" are separated from + each other by the homogeneous ether which extends throughout all space. + This extremely light and attenuated (if not imponderable) ether causes, by + its vibrations, all the phenomena of light and heat, electricity and + magnetism. We can imagine it either as a continuous substance occupying + the space between the mass-atoms, or as composed of separate particles; in + the latter case we might perhaps attribute to these ether-atoms an + inherent power of repulsion in contrast to the immanent attracting power + of the heavy mass-atoms, and the whole mechanism of cosmic life would then + be reducible to the attraction of the latter and the repulsion of the + former. We might also place the "vibrations of the cosmic ether" alongside + of the "operation of space in general," in the sense in which these words + are used by Professor Schlesinger. + </p> + <p> + At any rate, theoretical physics has in recent years made an advance of + fundamental importance and widest reach in our knowledge of nature, in + that it has come nearer to a knowledge of this cosmic ether, and has + forced the question of its essence, its structure, and its motion into the + foreground of monistic nature-philosophy. Only a few years ago the cosmic + ether was to the majority of scientists an imponderable something, of + which, strictly speaking, absolutely nothing was known, and which could be + admitted provisionally only as a precarious working hypothesis. All this + was changed when Heinrich Hertz (1888) demonstrated the nature of + electrical energy, by his beautiful experiments establishing the + conjecture of Faraday that light and heat, electricity and magnetism, are + closely related phenomena of one single set of forces, and depend on + transverse vibrations of the ether. Light itself—whatever else it be—is + always and everywhere an electrical phenomenon. The ether itself is no + longer hypothetical; its existence can at any moment be demonstrated by + electrical and optical experiment. We know the length of the light wave + and the electric wave. Indeed, some physicists believe that they can even + determine approximately the density of ether. If by means of the airpump + we remove from a bell-jar the atmospheric air (except an insignificant + residue), the quantity of light within it remains unchanged; it is the + vibrating ether we see.<a href="#linknote-9" name="linknoteref-9" id="noteref-9"><small>9</small></a> + These advances in our knowledge of the ether mean an immense gain for + monistic philosophy. For they do away with the erroneous ideas of empty + space and <i>actio in distans</i>; the whole of infinite space, in so far + as it is not occupied by mass-atoms ("ponderable matter"), is filled by + the ether. Our ideas of space and time are quite other than those taught + by Kant a hundred years ago; the "critical" system of the great + Koenigsberg philosopher exhibits in this respect, as well as in his + teleological view of the organic world and in his metaphysics, dogmatic + weaknesses of the most pronounced kind.<a href="#linknote-8" name="linknoteref-8" + id="noteref-8"><small>8</small></a> And religion itself, in its reasonable + forms, can take over the ether theory as an article of faith, bringing + into contradistinction the mobile cosmic ether as creating divinity, and + the inert heavy mass as material of creation. From this successfully + scaled height of monistic knowledge there open up before our joyously + quickened spirit of research and discovery new and surprising prospects, + which promise to bring us still nearer to the solution of the one great + riddle of the world. What is the relation of this light mobile cosmic + ether to the heavy inert "mass," to the ponderable matter which we + chemically investigate, and which we can only think of as constituted of + atoms? Our modern analytical chemistry remains for the present at a + standstill, in presence of some seventy irreducible elements, or so-called + primary substances. But the reciprocal relation of these elements, the + affinity of their combinations, their spectroscopic behaviour, and so + forth, make it in the highest degree probable that they are all merely + historical products of an evolutionary process, having their origin in + various dispositions and combinations of a varying number of original + atoms. + </p> + <p> + To these original or mass-atoms—the ultimate discrete particles of + inert "ponderable matter"—we can with more or less probability + ascribe a number of eternal and inalienable fundamental attributes; they + are probably everywhere in space, of like magnitude and constitution. + Although possessing a definite finite magnitude, they are, by virtue of + their very nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical; + they are inert (in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and + impenetrable by the ether. Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most + important characteristic of these ultimate atoms is their chemical + affinity—their tendency to apply themselves to one another and + combine into small groups in an orderly fashion. These fixed groups + (fixed, that is to say, under the present physical conditions of existence + of the earth) of primitive atoms are the atoms of the elements—the + well-known "indivisible" atoms of chemistry. The qualitative, and, so far + as our present empirical knowledge goes, unchangeable distinctions of our + chemical elements are therefore solely conditioned by the varying number + and disposition of the similar primitive atoms of which they are composed. + Thus, for example, the atom of carbon (the real "maker" of the organic + world) is in all probability a tetrahedron made up of four primitive + atoms. + </p> + <p> + After Mendelejeff and Lothar Meyer had discovered (1869) the "periodic + law" of the chemical elements, and founded on it a "natural system" of + these elements, this important advance in theoretical chemistry was + subsequently put to profitable use by Gustav Wendt from an evolutionary + point of view. He endeavoured to show that the various elements are + products of evolution or of historically originating combinations of seven + primary elements, and that these last again are historical products of one + single primitive element This hypothetical original matter had been + already designated by Crookes, in his <i>Genesis of the Elements</i>, as + primary material or protyl.<a href="#linknote-10" name="linknoteref-10" + id="noteref-10"><small>10</small></a> The empirical proof of the existence + of this original matter lying at the foundation of all ponderable material + is perhaps only a question of time. Its discovery would probably realise + the alchemists' hope of being able to produce gold and silver artificially + out of other elements. But then arises the other great question: "How is + this primary mass related to the cosmic ether? Do these two original + substances stand in fundamental and eternal antithesis to one another? Or + was it the mobile ether itself, perhaps, that originally engendered the + heavy mass?"<a href="#linknote-11" name="linknoteref-11" id="noteref-11"><small>11</small></a> + </p> + <p> + In answer to this great and fundamental question, various physical + hypotheses have been put forward. But, like the various atomic theories of + chemistry, they have not as yet been clearly established, and the same + appears to me to be the case also with the ingenious hypothesis which the + lecturer has unfolded to us with reference to the Influence of Space. As + he himself rightly says, in all these endeavours after a philosophy of + nature we are still, for the present, dealing with "scientific articles of + faith," concerning the validity of which different persons, according to + their subjective judgment and stage of culture, may have widely divergent + views. I believe that the solution of these fundamental questions still + lies as yet beyond the limits of our knowledge of nature, and that we + shall be obliged, for a long time yet to come, to content ourselves with + an "Ignoramus"—if not even with an "Ignorabimus." + </p> + <p> + The case is very different, however, if we turn from these atomistic + element hypotheses and direct our attention to the historical conditions + of the evolution of the world, as these have been revealed to us by the + magnificent advances in our knowledge of nature which have been made + within the last thirty years. An immense new territory has here been + opened up to us in the realms of knowledge—a territory in which a + series of most important problems, formerly held to be insoluble, has been + answered in the most surprising manner.<a href="#linknote-12" name="linknoteref-12" + id="noteref-12"><small>12</small></a> + </p> + <p> + Among the triumphs of the human mind the modern doctrine of evolution + takes a foremost place. Guessed at by Goethe a hundred years ago, but not + expressed in definite form until formulated by Lamarck in the beginning of + the present century, it was at last, thirty years ago, decisively + established by Charles Darwin, his theory of selection filling up the gap + which Lamarck in his doctrine of the reciprocal influence of heredity and + adaptation had left open. We now definitely know that the organic world on + our earth has been as continuously developed, "in accordance with eternal + iron laws," as Lyell had in 1830 shown to be the case for the inorganic + frame of the earth itself; we know that the innumerable varieties of + animals and plants which during the course of millions of years have + peopled our planet are all simply branches of one single genealogical + tree; we know that the human race itself forms only one of the newest, + highest, and most perfect offshoots from the race of the Vertebrates. + </p> + <p> + An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course of + evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting human spirit + through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the present "order of the + cosmos." At the outset there is nothing in infinite space but mobile + elastic ether, and innumerable similar separate particles—the + primitive atoms—scattered throughout it in the form of dust; perhaps + these are themselves originally "points of condensation" of the vibrating + "substance," the remainder of which constitutes the ether. The atoms of + our elements arise from the grouping together in definite numbers of the + primitive atoms or atoms of mass. As the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis + has it, the rotating heavenly bodies separate themselves out from that + vibrating primeval cloud. A single unit among many thousands of celestial + bodies is our sun, with its planets, which originated by being + centrifugally thrown off from it. Our insignificant earth is a single + planet of our solar system; its entire individual life is a product of the + sunlight. After the glowing sphere of the earth has cooled down to a + certain degree, drops of fluid water precipitate themselves on the + hardened crust of its surface—the first preliminary condition of + organic life. Carbon atoms begin their organism-engendering activity, and + unite with the other elements into plasma-combinations capable of growing. + One small plasma-group oversteps the limits of cohesion and individual + growth; it falls asunder into two similar halves. With this first moneron + begins organic life and its most distinctive function, heredity. In the + homogeneous plasma of the monera, a firmer central nucleus is separated + from a softer outer mass; through this differentiation of nucleus and + protoplasm arises the first organic cell. For a long time our planet was + inhabited solely by such Protista or single-celled primitive creatures. + From coenobia or social unions of these afterwards arose the lowest + histones, multicellular plants and animals. + </p> + <p> + By the sure help of the three great empirical "records of creation," + palaeontology, comparative anatomy, and ontogeny, the history of descent + now leads us on step by step from the oldest Metazoa, the simplest + pluricellular animals, up to man.<a href="#linknote-13" name="linknoteref-13" + id="noteref-13"><small>13</small></a> At the lowest root of the common + genealogy of the Metazoa stand the Gastraeadae and Spongidae; their whole + body consists, in the simplest case, solely of a round digestive sac, the + thin wall of which is formed by two layers of cells—the two + primitive germinal layers. A corresponding germinal condition, the + two-layered gastrula, occurs transitorily in the embryological history of + all the other Metazoa, from the lowest Cnidaria and Vermes up to man. From + the common stock of the Helminthes, or simple worms, there develop as + independent main branches the four separate stems of the Molluscs, + Star-fishes, Arthropods, and Vertebrates. It is only these last whose + bodily structure and development in all essential respects coincide with + those of man. A long series of lower aquatic Vertebrates (lancelets, + lampreys, fishes) precedes the lungbreathing Amphibians, which appear for + the first time in the Carboniferous period. The Amphibians are followed in + the Permian period by the first Amniota, the oldest reptiles; from these + develop later, in the Triassic period, the Birds on the one hand, and the + Mammals on the other. That man in his whole bodily frame is a true mammal, + becomes obvious as soon as the natural unity of this highest class of + animals is recognised. The simplest comparison must have convinced the + unprejudiced observer of the close constitutional relationship between man + and the ape, which of all the Mammals comes nearest him. Comparative + anatomy, with its deeper vision, showed that all differences in bodily + structure between man and the Anthropoidea (gorilla, chimpanzee, orang) + are less important than the corresponding differences in bodily structure + between these anthropoid apes and the lower apes. The phylogenetic + significance of this fact, first emphasised by Huxley, is quite clear. The + great question of the origin of the human race, or of "man's place in + Nature," the "question of all questions," was then scientifically + answered: "Man is descended from a series of ape-like Mammals." The + descent of man (anthropogeny) discloses the long series of vertebrate + ancestors, which preceded the late origin of this, its most highly + developed offshoot. + </p> + <p> + The incalculable importance of the light cast over the whole field of + human knowledge of nature by these results is patent to everyone. They are + destined every year increasingly to manifest their transforming influence + in all departments of knowledge, the more the conviction of their + irrefragable truth forces its way. And it is only the ignorant or + narrow-minded who can now doubt their truth. If, indeed, here and there, + one of the older naturalists still disputes, the foundation on which they + rest, or demands proofs which are wanting (as happened a few weeks ago on + the part of a famous German pathologist at the Anthropological Congress in + Moscow), he only shows by this that he has remained a stranger to the + stupendous advances of recent biology, and above all of anthropogeny. The + whole literature of modern biology, the whole of our present zoology and + botany, morphology and physiology, anthropology and psychology, are + pervaded and fertilised by the theory of descent.<a href="#linknote-14" + name="linknoteref-14" id="noteref-14"><small>14</small></a> + </p> + <p> + Just as the natural doctrine of development on a monistic basis has + cleared up and elucidated the whole field of natural phenomena in their + physical aspect, it has also modified that of the phenomena of mind, which + is inseparably connected with the other. Our human body has been built up + slowly and by degrees from a long series of vertebrate ancestors, and this + is also true of our soul; as a function of our brain it has gradually been + developed in reciprocal action and re-action with this its bodily organ. + What we briefly designate as the "human soul," is only the sum of our + feeling, willing, and thinking—the sum of those physiological + functions whose elementary organs are constituted by the microscopic + ganglion-cells of our brain. Comparative anatomy and ontogeny show us how + the wonderful structure of this last, the organ of our human soul, has in + the course of millions of years been gradually built up from the brains of + higher and lower vertebrates. Comparative psychology teaches us how, hand + in hand therewith, the soul itself, as function of the brain, has been + developed. The last-named science teaches us also that a primitive form of + soul-activity is already present even in the lowest animals, the + single-celled primitive animals, Infusoria and Rhizopoda. Every scientific + man who has long observed the life-activity of these single-celled + Protista, is positively convinced that they also possess a soul; that this + "cell-soul" also consists of a sum of sensations, perceptions, and + volitions; the feeling, thinking, and willing of our human soul differ + from these only in degree. In like manner there is present in the egg-cell + (as potential energy) a hereditary cell-soul, out of which man, like every + other animal, is developed.<a href="#linknote-15" name="linknoteref-15" + id="noteref-15"><small>15</small></a> + </p> + <p> + The first task of a truly scientific psychology will therefore be, not, as + hitherto, idle speculation about an independent immaterial soul-existence + and its puzzling temporary connection with the animal body, but rather the + comparative investigation of the organs of the soul and the experimental + examination of their psychical functions. For scientific psychology is a + part of physiology, the doctrine of the functions and the life-activities + of organisms. The psychology and psychiatry of the future, like the + physiology and pathology of to-day, must take the form of a cellular + study, and in the first instance investigate the soul-functions of the + cells. Max Verworn, in his fine <i>Psycho-physiological Protistastudies</i>, + has lately shown us what important disclosures such a cellular psychology + can make, even in dealing with the lowest grades of organic life, in the + single-celled Protista (especially Rhizopoda and Infusoria). + </p> + <p> + These same main divisions of soul-activity, which are to be met with in + the single-celled organism,—the phenomena of irritability, + sensation, and motion,—can be shown to exist in all multicellular + organisms as functions of the cells of which their bodies are composed. In + the lowest Metazoa, the invertebrate sponges and polyps, there are, just + as in plants, no special soul-organs developed, and all the cells of the + body participate more or less in the "soul-life." It is only in the higher + animals that the soul-life is found to be localised and connected with + special organs. As a consequence of division of labour, there have here + been developed various sense-organs as organs of specific sensibility, + muscles as organs of motion and volition, nerve-centres or ganglia as + central co-ordinating and regulating organs. In the most highly developed + families of the animal kingdom, these last come more and more into the + foreground as independent soul-organs. In correspondence with the + extraordinarily complicated structure of their central nervous system (the + brain with its wonderful complex of ganglion-cells and nerve-fibres), the + many-sided activity of such animals attains a wonderful degree of + development. + </p> + <p> + It is only in these most highly-developed groups of the animal kingdom + that we can with certainty establish the existence of those most perfect + operations of the central nervous system, which we designate as + consciousness. As we know, it is precisely this highest brain-function + that still continues to be looked upon as a completely enigmatical + phenomenon, and as the best proof for the immaterial existence of an + immortal soul. It is usual at the same time to appeal to Du Bois-Reymond's + well-known "Ignorabimus address on the Boundaries of Natural Knowledge" + (1872). It was by a peculiar irony of fate that the famous lecturer of the + Berlin Academy of Science, in this much-discussed address of twenty years + ago, should be representing consciousness as an incomprehensible marvel, + and as presenting an insuperable barrier to further advances of knowledge, + at the very moment that David Friedrich Strauss, the greatest theologian + of our century, was showing it to be the opposite. The clear-sighted + author of <i>The Old Faith and the New</i> had already clearly perceived + that the soul-activities of man, and therefore also his consciousness, as + functions of the central nervous system, all spring from a common source, + and, from a monistic point of view, come under the same category. The + "exact" Berlin physiologist shut this knowledge out from his mind, and, + with a short-sightedness almost inconceivable, placed this special + neurological question alongside of the one great "world-riddle," the + fundamental question of substance, the general question of the connection + between matter and energy.<a href="#linknote-16" name="linknoteref-16" + id="noteref-16"><small>16</small></a> + </p> + <p> + As I long ago pointed out, these two great questions are not two separate + "world-riddles." The neurological problem of consciousness is only a + special case of the all comprehending cosmological problem, the question + of substance. "If we understood the nature of matter and energy, we should + also understand how the substance underlying them can under certain + conditions feel, desire, and think." Consciousness, like feeling and + willing, among the higher animals is a mechanical work of the + ganglion-cells, and as such must be carried back to chemical and physical + events in the plasma of these. And by the employment of the genetic and + comparative method we reach the conviction that consciousness, and + consequently reason also, is not a brain-function exclusively peculiar to + man; it occurs also in many of the higher animals, not in Vertebrates + only, but even in Articulates. Only in degree, through a higher stage of + cultivation, does the consciousness of man differ from that of the more + perfect lower animals, and the same is true of all other activities of the + human soul. + </p> + <p> + By these and other results of comparative physiology our whole psychology + is placed on a new and firm monistic basis. The older mystical conception + of the soul, as we find it amongst primitive peoples, but also in the + systems of the dualistic philosophers of to-day, is refuted by them. + According to these systems, the soul of man (and of the higher animals) is + a separate entity, which inhabits and rules the body only during its + individual life, but leaves it at death. The widespread "piano-theory" (<i>Claviertheorie</i>) + compares the "immortal soul" to a pianist who executes an interesting + piece—the individual life—on the instrument of the mortal + body, but at death withdraws into the other world. This "immortal soul" is + usually represented as an immaterial being; but in fact it is really + thought of as quite material, only as a finer invisible being, aerial or + gaseous, or as resembling the mobile, light, and thin substance of the + ether, as conceived by modern physics. The same is true also for most of + the conceptions which rude primitive peoples and the uneducated classes + among the civilised races have, for thousands of years, cherished as to + spectral "ghosts" and "gods." Serious reflection on the matter shows that + here—as in modern spiritualism—it is not with really + immaterial beings, but with gaseous, invisible bodies, that we are + dealing. And further, we are utterly incapable of imagining a truly + immaterial being. As Goethe clearly said, "matter can never exist or act + apart from spirit, neither can spirit apart from matter." + </p> + <p> + As regards immortality, it is well known that this important idea is + interpreted and applied in a great variety of ways. It is often made a + reproach against our Monism that it altogether denies immortality; this, + however, is erroneous. Rather do we hold it, in a strictly scientific + sense, as an indispensable fundamental conception of our monistic + philosophy of nature. Immortality in a scientific sense is conservation of + substance, therefore the same as conservation of energy as defined by + physics, or conservation of matter as defined by chemistry. The cosmos as + a whole is immortal. It is just as inconceivable that any of the atoms of + our brain or of the energies of our spirit should vanish out of the world, + as that any other particle of matter or energy could do so. At our death + there disappears only the individual form in which the nerve-substance was + fashioned, and the personal "soul" which represented the work performed by + this. The complicated chemical combinations of that nervous mass pass over + into other combinations by decomposition, and the kinetic energy produced + by them is transformed into other forms of motion. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, + Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. + O that that earth which kept the world in awe + Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw." +</pre> + <p> + On the other hand, the conception of a personal immortality cannot be + maintained. If this idea is still widely held, the fact is to be explained + by the physical law of inertia; for the property of persistence in a state + of rest exercises its influence in the region of the ganglion-cells of the + brain, as well as in all other natural bodies. Traditional ideas handed + down through many generations are maintained with the greatest tenacity by + the human brain, especially if, in early youth, they have been instilled + into the childish understanding as indisputable dogmas. Such hereditary + articles of faith take root all the more firmly, the further they are + removed from a rational knowledge of nature, and enveloped in the + mysterious mantle of mythological poesy. In the case of the dogma of + personal immortality, there comes into play also the interest which man + fancies himself to have in his individual future existence after death, + and the vain hope that in a blessed world to come there is treasured up + for him a compensation for the disappointed hopes and the many sorrows of + his earthly life. + </p> + <p> + It is often asserted by the numerous advocates of personal immortality + that this dogma is an innate one, common to all rational men, and that it + is taught in all the more perfect forms of religion. But this is not + correct. Neither Buddhism nor the religion of Moses originally contained + the dogma of personal immortality, and just as little did the majority of + educated people of classical antiquity believe it, at any rate during the + highest period of Greek culture. The monistic philosophy of that time, + which, five hundred years before our era, had reached speculative heights + so remarkable, knew nothing of any such dogma. It was through Plato and + Christ that it received its further elaboration, until, in the Middle + Ages, it was so universally accepted, that only now and then did some bold + thinker dare openly to gainsay it. The idea that a conviction of personal + immortality has a specially ennobling influence on the moral nature of + man, is not confirmed by the gruesome history of mediaeval morals, and as + little by the psychology of primitive peoples.<a href="#linknote-17" + name="linknoteref-17" id="noteref-17"><small>17</small></a> + </p> + <p> + If any antiquated school of purely speculative psychology still continues + to uphold this irrational dogma, the fact can only be regarded as a + deplorable anachronism. Sixty years ago such a doctrine was excusable, for + then nothing was accurately known either of the finer structure of the + brain, or of the physiological functions of its separate parts; its + elementary organs, the microscopic ganglion-cells, were almost unknown, as + was also the cell-soul of the Protista; very imperfect ideas were held as + to ontogenetic development, and as to phylogenetic there were none at all. + </p> + <p> + This has all been completely changed in the course of the last + half-century. Modern physiology has already to a great extent demonstrated + the localisation of the various activities of mind, and their connection + with definite parts of the brain; psychiatry has shown that those + psychical processes are disturbed or destroyed if these parts of the brain + become diseased or degenerate. Histology has revealed to us the extremely + complicated structure and arrangement of the ganglion-cells. But, for the + settlement of this momentous question, the discoveries of the last ten + years with regard to the more minute occurrences in the process of + fertilisation are of decisive importance. We now know that this process + essentially consists simply in the copulation or fusion of two + microscopical cells, the female egg-cell and the male sperm-cell. The + fusion of the nuclei of these two sexual cells indicates with the utmost + precision the exact moment at which the new human individual arises. The + newly-formed parent-cell, or fertilised egg-cell, contains potentially, in + their rudiments, all the bodily and mental characteristics which the child + inherits from both parents. It is clearly against reason to assume an + eternal and unending life for an individual phenomenon whose beginning in + time we can determine to a hair's breadth, by direct observation. Judging + of human spiritual life from a rational point of view, we can as little + think of our individual soul as separated from our brain, as we can + conceive the voluntary motion of our arm apart from the contraction of its + muscles, or the circulation of our blood apart from the action of the + heart. + </p> + <p> + Against this strictly physiological conception, as against our whole + monistic view of the relations of energy and matter, of soul and + substance, the reproach of "materialism" continues to be raised. I have + repeatedly before now pointed out that this is an ambiguous party word + which conveys absolutely nothing; its apparent opposite, "spiritualism," + could quite easily be substituted for it. Every critical thinker, who is + familiar with the history of philosophy, knows that, as systems change, + such words assume the most varied meanings, In addition to this, the word + "materialism" has the disadvantage of being liable to continual confusion + between its theoretical and practical meanings, which two are totally + distinct. Our conception of Monism, or the unity-philosophy, on the + contrary, is clear and unambiguous; for it an immaterial living spirit is + just as unthinkable as a dead, spiritless material; the two are + inseparably combined in every atom. The opposed conception of dualism (or + even pluralism in other anti-monistic systems) regards spirit and + material, energy and matter, as two essentially different substances; but + not a single empirical proof can be adduced to show that either of these + can exist or become perceptible to us by itself alone. + </p> + <p> + In thus shortly indicating the far-reaching psychological consequences of + the monistic doctrine of evolution, I trench at the same time upon a most + important field, to which our lecturer in his address has more than once + alluded—that of religion and the belief in God connected therewith. + I am at one with him in the conviction that the formation of clear + philosophical conceptions upon these fundamental matters of belief is of + the highest importance, and I would therefore crave the permission of this + assembly briefly to lay before it on this occasion a frank confession of + faith. This monistic confession has the greater claim to an unprejudiced + consideration, in that it is shared, I am firmly convinced, by at least + nine-tenths of the men of science now living; indeed, I believe, by all + men of science in whom the following four conditions are realised: (1) + Sufficient acquaintance with the various departments of natural science, + and in particular with the modern doctrine of evolution; (2) Sufficient + acuteness and clearness of judgment to draw, by induction and deduction, + the necessary logical consequences that flow from such empirical + knowledge; (3) Sufficient moral courage to maintain the monistic + knowledge, so gained, against the attacks of hostile dualistic and + pluralistic systems; and (4) Sufficient strength of mind to free himself, + by sound, independent reasoning, from dominant religious prejudices, and + especially from those irrational dogmas which have been firmly lodged in + our minds from earliest youth as indisputable revelations. + </p> + <p> + If from this unprejudiced point of view of the thinker, we compare the + numerous religions of the various races of mankind, we shall be compelled, + in the first instance, to put aside as untenable all those conceptions + which stand in irreconcilable contradiction to those principles of our + empirical knowledge of nature which are now clearly discerned and + established by critical reasoning. We can thus at once set aside all + mythological stories, all "miracles," and so-called "revelations," for + which it is claimed that they have come to us in some supernatural way. + All such mystical teachings are irrational, inasmuch as they are confirmed + by no actual experience, but, on the contrary, are irreconcilable with the + known facts which have been confirmed to us by a rational investigation of + nature. + </p> + <p> + This is true alike of Christian and Mosaic, of Mohammedan and Indian + legends. If now we thus lay aside the whole mass of mystical dogmas and + transcendental revelations, there is left behind, as the precious and + priceless kernel of true religion, the purified ethic that rests on + rational anthropology.<a href="#linknote-18" name="linknoteref-18" id="noteref-18"><small>18</small></a> + </p> + <p> + Among the numerous and varied forms of religion which, in the course of + the past ten thousand years and more, have been evolved from the crudest + prehistoric beginnings, the foremost rank undoubtedly belongs to those two + forms which still continue to be the most widely accepted among civilised + races—the older Buddhism and the younger Christianity. The two have + very many features in common, alike in their mythology and in their + ethics; indeed, a considerable part of Christianity has come directly from + Indian Buddhism, just as another part is drawn from the Mosaic and + Platonic systems. But, looked at from the point of view of our present + stage of culture, the ethic of Christianity appears to us much more + perfect and pure than that of any other religion. We must, it is true, + hasten to add that it is exactly the weightiest and noblest principles of + Christian ethic—brotherly love, fidelity to duty, love of truth, + obedience to law—that are by no means peculiar to the Christian + faith as such, but are of much older origin. Comparative psychology proves + that these ethical principles were more or less recognised and practised + by much older civilised races thousands of years before Christ. + </p> + <p> + Love remains the supreme moral law of rational religion, the love, that is + to say, that holds the balance between egoism and altruism, between + self-love and love of others. "Do to others as you would they should do to + you." This natural and highest command had been taught and followed + thousands of years before Christ said: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as + thyself." In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as + self-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance derived from our + animal ancestors. It had already found a place among the herds of Apes and + other social Mammals; in a similar manner, but with a wider scope, it was + already present in the most primitive communities and among the hordes of + the least advanced savages. Brotherly love—mutual support, succour, + protection, and the like—-had already made its appearance among + gregarious animals as a social duty; for without it the continued + existence of such societies is impossible. Although at a later period, in + the case of man, these moral foundations of society came to be much more + highly developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown, is + to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among the higher + Vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as among the higher + Articulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.) also, the development of social + relations and duties is the indispensable condition of their living + together in orderly societies. Such societies have for man also been the + most important instrument of intellectual and moral progress. + </p> + <p> + Beyond all doubt the present degree of human culture owes in great part + its perfection to the propagation of the Christian system of morals and + its ennobling influence, although the great value of this has been + impaired, often in the most deplorable manner, by its association with + untenable myths and so-called "revelations." How little these last + contribute to the perfection of the first, can be seen from the + acknowledged historical fact that it is just orthodoxy and the + hierarchical system based on it (especially that of the Papacy) that has + least of all striven to fulfil the precepts of Christian morality; the + more loudly they preach it in theory, the less do they themselves fulfil + its commands in practice. + </p> + <p> + It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that another and very considerable + portion of our modern culture and morality has been developed quite + independently of Christianity, mainly through continual study of the + highly-elaborated mental treasures of classical antiquity. The thorough + study of Greek and Roman classics has at least contributed much more to it + than that of the Christian Church fathers. To this we must now add, in our + own century (rightly called the "century of the natural sciences"), the + immense advance in the higher culture which we owe to a purified knowledge + of nature and to the monistic philosophy founded upon this. That these + must also exercise an advancing and ennobling influence cannot be doubted, + and has already been shown by many eminent authors (Spencer, Carneri, and + others) in the course of the last thirty years. + </p> + <p> + Against this monistic ethic founded on a rational knowledge of nature, it + has been objected that it is fitted to undermine existing civilisation, + and especially that it encourages the subversive aims of social democracy. + This reproach is wholly unjustified. The application of philosophical + principles to the practical conditions of life, and in particular to + social and political questions, can be made in the most various ways. + Political "free-thinking," so called, has nothing whatever to do with the + "freedom of thought" of our monistic natural religion. Moreover, I am + convinced that the rational morality of monistic religion is in no way + contrary to the good and truly valuable elements of the Christian ethic, + but is destined in conjunction with these to promote the true progress of + humanity in the future. + </p> + <p> + With Christian mythology and the special form of theistic belief + associated with it the case is different. In so far as that belief + involves the notion of a "personal God," it has been rendered quite + untenable by the recent advances of monistic science. But, more than this, + it was shown more than two thousand years ago, by eminent exponents of the + monistic philosophy, that the conception of a personal God, creator and + ruler of the world, does not give the slightest help toward a truly + rational view of the world. For even if the question of "creation," in the + ordinary and trivial sense of the term, be answered by referring it to the + miraculous agency of a creator working according to plan apart from the + world, there immediately arises upon that the new inquiry: "Whence comes + this personal God? What was He doing before creation? And whence did He + derive the material for it?" and such like questions. The antiquated + conception of an anthropomorphic personal God is destined, before the + present century is ended, to drop out of currency throughout the entire + domain of truly scientific philosophy; the corresponding conception of a + personal devil—even as late as last century connected with the + former and very generally accepted—has already been given up once + for all by all persons of education. + </p> + <p> + Let it be noted, however, in passing, that the amphitheism which believes + in God and devil alike is much more compatible with a rational explanation + of the world than pure monotheism. The purest form of this is perhaps the + amphitheism of the Zend religion of Persia, which Zoroaster (or + Zarathustra, the "Golden Star") founded two thousand years before Christ. + Here Ormuzd, the god of light and goodness, stands everywhere in conflict + with Ahriman, the god of darkness and evil. The continual conflict between + a good and an evil principle was personified in a similar manner in the + mythology of many other amphitheistic religions: in the old Egyptian, the + good Osiris was at war with the evil Typhon; in the old Indian, Vishnu the + sustainer with Siva the destroyer, and so forth. + </p> + <p> + If we really must retain the conception of a personal God as the key to + our view of the universe, then this amphitheism can explain the sorrows + and defects of this world very simply, as being the work of the evil + principle or devil. Pure monotheism, on the contrary, as represented in + the religions of Moses and Mohammed in their original form, has no + rational explanation of these to offer. If their "one God" is really the + absolutely good, perfect being they proclaim, then the world which he has + created must also be perfect. An organic world so imperfect and full of + sorrows as exists on this earth he could not possibly have contrived. + </p> + <p> + These considerations gain in force when we advance to the deeper knowledge + of nature acquired by modern biology; here it was Darwin, especially, who + thirty-three years ago opened our eyes by his doctrine of the struggle for + existence, and his theory of selection founded upon it. We now know that + the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by a relentless war + of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must daily perish in + every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen individuals may + continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the existence of these + favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening dangers of every + kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every minute. The raging + war of interests in human society is only a feeble picture of the + unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns throughout the whole + of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's goodness and wisdom in + nature, to which as children we listened so devoutly fifty years ago, no + longer finds credit now—at least among educated people who think. It + has disappeared before our deeper acquaintance with the mutual relations + of organisms, the advancement of oecology and sociology, and our knowledge + of parasite life and pathology. + </p> + <p> + All these sad but insuperable facts—truly the dark side of nature—are + made intelligible to religious faith by amphitheism; they are the "works + of the devil," who opposes and disturbs the perfect moral order in the + world of the "good God." For pure monotheism which knows only one God, one + perfect highest being, they remain unintelligible. If, with a monotheistic + creed, any one still continues to talk of the moral order of the world, he + in so doing shuts his eyes to the undeniable facts of history, both + natural and civil. + </p> + <p> + In view of these considerations, it is hard to understand how the large + majority of the so-called educated classes can persevere, on the one hand, + in declaring belief in a personal God to be an indispensable principle of + religion, and, on the other hand, in at the same time rejecting the belief + in a personal devil as an exploded superstition of the Middle Ages. This + inconsistency on the part of educated Christians is all the more + incomprehensible and censurable, inasmuch as both dogmas in equal degree + form an integral part of the Christian creed. The personal devil, as + "Satan," "the Tempter," "the Destroyer," and so forth, undeniably plays a + most important part in the New Testament, though not met with in the + earlier portions of the Old. Our great reformer, Martin Luther himself, + who "sent to the devil" so many antiquated dogmas, was unable to rid + himself of the conviction of the real existence and personal enmity of + Beelzebub; we have only to think of the historical ink-spot at Wartburg! + Moreover, our Christian art, in many thousands of paintings and other + representations, has exhibited Satan in corporeal form just as + realistically as it has the three "Divine Persons," about whose + "hypostatical union" human reason has for eighteen hundred years been + tormenting itself in vain. The deep impression made by such concrete + representations, a million times repeated, especially on childish + understandings, is usually under-estimated as to its tremendous influence; + to it certainly is in large measure to be attributed the fact that + irrational myths of such a kind, under the mask of "doctrines of faith," + continue to hold their ground in spite of all protests of reason. + </p> + <p> + Liberal-minded Christian theologians have, it is true, often sought to + eliminate the personal devil from Christian teaching, representing him as + merely the personification of falsehood, the spirit of evil. But with + equal right we must in that case substitute for a personal God the + personified idea of truth, the Spirit of Goodness. To such a + representation no objection can be made; rather do we recognise in it a + bridge connecting the dim wonderland of religious poesy with the luminous + realms of clear scientific knowledge. + </p> + <p> + The monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present + knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. It can + never recognise in God a "personal being," or, in other words, an + individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. God is + everywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: "There is one spirit in all things, + and nobody is so small that it does not contain a part of the divine + substance whereby it is animated." Every atom is thus animated, and so is + the ether; we might, therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all + natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether-vibrations. It + comes virtually to the same thing when (as was done here by a speaker on a + former occasion) God is defined as "the supreme law of the universe," and + the latter is represented as the "working of universal space." In this + most important article of belief it matters not as to the name but as to + the unity of the underlying idea; the unity of God and the world; of + spirit and nature. On the other hand, "homotheism," the anthropomorphic + representation of God, degrades this loftiest cosmic idea to that of a + "gaseous vertebrate."<a href="#linknote-19" name="linknoteref-19" id="noteref-19"><small>19</small></a> + </p> + <p> + Of the various systems of pantheism which for long have given expression + more or less clearly to the monistic conception of God, the most perfect + is certainly that of Spinoza. To this system, as is well known, Goethe + also paid the tribute of his highest admiration and approval. Of other, + eminent men who have given a similar pantheistic form to their natural + religion, we shall here mention only two of the greatest poets and + students of man, Shakespeare and Lessing; two of the greatest German + rulers, Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen and Frederick II. of Hohenzollern; + two of the greatest scientists, Laplace and Darwin. In adding our own + pantheistic confession to that of these great and untrammelled spirits, + let it only be noted further, that it has received an empirical + confirmation, never before imagined, through the wonderful advances of + natural knowledge within the last thirty years. + </p> + <p> + The charge of atheism which still continues to be levelled against our + pantheism, and against the monism which lies at its root, no longer finds + a response among the really educated classes of the present day. It is + true that not so very long ago the German Imperial Chancellor, in the + Prussian Chamber of Deputies, found it in him to put forward such an + alternative as this: "Either the Christian or the atheistic view of the + world"; this in the defence of a most objectionable law, designed to hand + over our school training, tied hand and foot, to the papal hierarchy. The + vast distance which separates the last-named degenerate outgrowth of the + Christian religion from pure primitive Christianity is not greater than + that which separates those mediaeval alternatives from the cultured + religious consciousness of the present day. To one who regards as true + exercises of Christian religion the adoration of old clothes and wax + dolls, or the thoughtless repetition of masses or rosaries, who believes + in wonder-working relics, and purchases pardon for his sins by means of + indulgence-money or Peter's pence, we willingly concede the claim to + possess the "only saving religion"; but with such fetish-worshippers we + will willingly submit to be ranked as "atheists." + </p> + <p> + In like case with the charge of atheism and irreligion are those so often + heard against monism, that it destroys the poetry of life and fails to + satisfy the spiritual wants of human nature; we are told, in particular, + that aesthetics—certainly a most important department both in + theoretical philosophy and in practical life—is prejudiced by a + monistic philosophy. But David Friedrich Strauss, one of our subtlest + exponents of aesthetics and also one of our noblest writers, has already + refuted such a charge; and shown how, on the contrary, the care for poetry + and the cultivation of the beautiful are in the "new faith" called upon to + play a still greater part than ever. My present hearers, at once + investigators and lovers of nature, do not need to be told that every new + insight which we obtain into the secrets of nature at the same time also + kindles our souls, affords new material for imagination to work on, and + enlarges our perception of the beautiful. To convince ourselves how + closely all these noblest spiritual activities of man hang together, how + intimately the knowledge of truth is bound up with the love of goodness + and veneration of the beautiful, it will be enough to mention a single + name, Germany's greatest genius—Wolfgang Goethe. + </p> + <p> + If the perception of the aesthetic significance of our monistic + nature-religion, as well as of its ethical value, has hitherto so little + pervaded the educated classes, this is due chiefly to the defects of our + school training. It is true that in the course of the last few decades an + infinite deal has been spoken and written about school reform and the + principles of education; but of any real progress there is as yet but + little trace. Here also reigns the physical law of inertia; here also—and + more especially in German schools—the scholasticism of the Middle + Ages exhibits a power of inertia, against which any rational reform of + education must laboriously contest every inch of ground. In this important + department also, a department on which hangs the weal or woe of future + generations, matters will not improve till the monistic doctrine of nature + is accepted as the essential and sure foundation. + </p> + <p> + The school of the twentieth century, flourishing anew on this firm ground, + shall have to unfold to the rising youth not only the wonderful truths of + the evolution of the cosmos, but also the inexhaustible treasures of + beauty lying everywhere hidden therein. Whether we marvel at the majesty + of the lofty mountains or the magic world of the sea, whether with the + telescope we explore the infinitely great wonders of the starry heaven, or + with the microscope the yet more surprising wonders of a life infinitely + small, everywhere does Divine Nature open up to us an inexhaustible + fountain of aesthetic enjoyment. Blind and insensible have the great + majority of mankind hitherto wandered through this glorious wonderland of + a world; a sickly and unnatural theology has made it repulsive as a "vale + of tears." But now, at last, it is given to the mightily advancing human + mind to have its eyes opened; it is given to it to show that a true + knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and inexhaustible + nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but also for its + yearning spirit. + </p> + <p> + Monistic investigation of nature as knowledge of the true, monistic ethic + as training for the good, monistic aesthetic as pursuit of the beautiful—these + are the three great departments of our monism: by the harmonious and + consistent cultivation of these we effect at last the truly beatific union + of religion and science, so painfully longed after by so many to-day. The + True, the Beautiful, and the Good, these are the three august Divine Ones + before which we bow the knee in adoration; in the unforced combination and + mutual supplementing of these we gain the pure idea of God.<a + href="#linknote-20" name="linknoteref-20" id="noteref-20"><small>20</small></a> To + this "triune" Divine Ideal shall the coming twentieth century build its + altars. + </p> + <p> + Ten years ago I was present at the celebration of the third centenary of + the university of Würzburg, which forty years ago I had entered as a + medical student. The festal address on that occasion was delivered in the + university church by the then rector, the distinguished chemist, Johannes + Wislicenus. His concluding words were: "God, the Spirit of Goodness and of + Truth, grant it." I now add, "and the Spirit of Beauty." It is in this + sense that I also, on this commemorative occasion, dedicate to you my best + wishes. May the investigation of nature's secrets flourish and prosper in + this corner of our Thüringian land also, and may the fruits of knowledge, + ripening here in Altenburg, contribute no less to the culture of the + spirit and to the advancement of true religion, than those which three + hundred and seventy years ago the great reformer, Martin Luther, brought + to the light of day in another corner of Thüringen, on the Wartburg at + Eisenach. + </p> + <p> + Between Wartburg and Altenburg, on the northern border of Thüringen, lies + Weimar, the classical City of the Muses, and, close by it, our national + university of Jena. I regard it as a good omen that precisely at this + moment a rare celebration should have called together in Weimar the most + illustrious patrons of the university of Jena, the defenders of free + research and free teaching.<a href="#linknote-21" name="linknoteref-21" + id="noteref-21"><small>21</small></a> In the hope that the defence and + promotion of these may still be continued, I conclude my monistic + Confession of Faith with the words: "May God, the Spirit of the Good, the + Beautiful, and the True, be with us." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_NOTE"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NOTES + </h2> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-1" id="note-1"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Scientific Articles of Faith</i>. + In Professor Schlesinger's address (delivered on 9th October at Altenburg) + on this subject he rightly called attention to the limits of knowledge of + nature (in Kant's sense of the terms) imposed upon us by the imperfection + of our perceptive organs. The gaps which the empirical investigation of + nature must thus leave in science, can, however, be filled up by + hypotheses, by conjectures of more or less probability. These we cannot + indeed for the time establish on a secure basis; and yet we may make use + of them in the way of explaining phenomena, in so far as they are not + inconsistent with a rational knowledge of nature. Such rational hypotheses + are scientific articles of faith, and therefore very different from + ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, which are either + pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or simply irrational + (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of rational hypotheses + of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief in the oneness of + matter (the building up of the elements from primary atoms), our belief in + equivocal generation, our belief in the essential unity of all natural + phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare my <i>General + Morphology</i>, <i>vol</i>. i. pp. 105, 164, etc., also my <i>Natural + History of Creation</i>, 8th ed., 1889, pp. 21, 360, 795). As the simpler + occurrences of inorganic nature and the more complicated phenomena of + organic life are alike reducible to the same natural forces, and as, + further, these in their turn have their common foundation in a simple + primal principle pervading infinite space, we can regard this last (the + cosmic ether) as all-comprehending divinity, and upon this found the + thesis: "Belief in God is reconcilable with science." In this pantheistic + view, and also in his criticism of a one-sided materialism, I entirely + agree with Professor Schlesinger, though unable to concur with him in some + of his biological, and especially of his anthropological, conclusions (<i>cf</i>. + his article on "Facts and Deductions derived from the Action of Universal + Space" <i>Mittheilungen aus dem Osterlande</i>, Bd. v., Altenburg, 1892).] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-2" id="note-2"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 2 (<a href="#linknoteref-2">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Unity of Nature</i>. I + consider the fundamental unity of inorganic and organic nature, as well as + their genetic relation, to be an essential axiom of monism. I particularly + emphasise this "article of faith" here, as there are still scientists of + repute who contest it. Not only is the old mystical "vital power" brought + back upon the stage again from time to time, but even the "miraculous" + origin of organic life out of "dead" inorganic nature is often brought up + still against the doctrines of evolution, as an insoluble riddle—as + one of Du Bois-Reymond's "seven riddles of the world" (see his <i>Discourse + on Leibnitz</i>, 1880). The solution of this "transcendent" riddle of the + world, and of the allied question of archigony (equivocal generation, in a + strictly defined meaning of the term), can only be reached by a critical + analysis and unprejudiced comparison of matter, form, and energy in + inorganic and organic nature. This I have already done (1866) in the + second book of my <i>General Morphology</i> (vol. i. pp. 109-238): + "General Researches as to the Nature and First Beginning of Organisms, + their Relation to things Inorganic, and their Division into Plants and + Animals."] + </p> + <p class="foot"> + A short résumé of this is contained in Lecture XV. of my <i>Natural + History of Creation</i> (8th ed., pp. 340-370). The most serious + difficulties which formerly beset the monistic view there given may now be + held to have been taken out of the way by recent discoveries concerning + the nature of protoplasm, the discovery of the Monera, the more accurate + study of the closely-related single-celled Protista, their comparison with + the ancestral cell (or fertilised egg-cell), and also by the chemical + carbon-theory. (See my "Studies on Monera and other Protista," in the <i>Jenaische + Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft</i>, vols. iv. and v., 1868-1870; also + Carl Naegeli, <i>Mechanisch-physiologische Begründung der Abstammungslehre</i>, + 1884.)] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-3" id="note-3"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 3 (<a href="#linknoteref-3">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Religion in the Lower + Animals</i>. We cannot fail to recognise in the more highly developed of + our domestic animals (especially in dogs, horses, and elephants) some + first beginnings of those higher brain-functions which we designate as + reason and consciousness, religion and morality; they differ only in + degree, not in kind, from the corresponding mental activities of the + lowest human races. If, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the + anthropoids, had been for thousands of years domesticated and brought up + in close relation with civilised man, the similarity of their mental + activities to those of man would undoubtedly have been much more striking + than it is. The apparently deep gulf which separates man from these most + highly-developed mammals "is mainly founded on the fact that in man + several conspicuous attributes are united, which in the other animals + occur only separately, viz. (1) The higher degree of differentiation of + the larynx (speech), (2) brain (mind), and (3) extremities; and (4) the + upright posture. It is merely the happy combination of these important + animal organs and functions at a higher stage of evolution that raises the + majority of mankind so far above all lower animals" (<i>General Morphology</i>, + 1866, vol. ii. p. 430).] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-4" id="note-4"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 4 (<a href="#linknoteref-4">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Inheritance of Acquired + Characters</i>. As the controversy on this important question is still + unsettled, special attention may here be called to the valuable data for + arriving at a decision which are afforded precisely by the development of + instincts among the higher animals, and of speech and reason in man. "The + inheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual, is + an indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution." "Those who, + with Weismann and Galton, deny this, entirely exclude thereby the + possibility of any formative influence of the outer world upon organic + form" (<i>Anthropogenie</i>, 4th ed., pp. xxiii., 836; see, further, the + works there referred to of Eimer, Weismann, Ray-Lankester, etc.; also + Ludwig Wilser's <i>Die Vererbung der geistigen Eigenschaften</i>, + Heidelberg, 1892).] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-5" id="note-5"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 5 (<a href="#linknoteref-5">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Theosophical System of + Nature</i>. Of all the modern attempts of dualistic philosophy to + establish the knowledge of nature on a theological basis (that of + Christian monotheism), the <i>Essay on Classification</i> of Louis Agassiz + is by far the most important,—in strictness, indeed, is the only one + worthy of mention. (On this see my <i>Natural History of Creation</i>, + Lect. III., also "Aims and Methods of the Modern Embryology," 1875, <i>Jena + Zeitschr. für Naturw., Bd. x., Supplement</i>.)] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-6" id="note-6"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 6 (<a href="#linknoteref-6">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Darwin and Copernicus</i>. + This is the title of an address delivered by Du Bois-Reymond on 25th + January 1883, in the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and afterwards published + in his <i>Collected Addresses</i> (<i>vol</i>. ii. 1887). As the author + himself mentions in a note (p. 500) that this gave rise, "most + unmeritedly," to great excitement, and called down upon him the violent + attacks of the clerical press, I may be allowed to point out here that it + contained nothing new, I myself, fifteen years previously, in my lectures + on "The Origin and Genealogy of the Human Race," having carried out in + detail the comparison between Darwin and Copernicus, and the service + rendered by these two heroes in putting an end to the anthropocentric and + geocentric views of the world. (See the Third Series in Virchow and + Holtzendorff's <i>Collection of Popular Scientific Lectures</i>, Nos. 53 + and 54, 1868, 4th ed., 1881.) When Du Bois-Reymond says, "For me, Darwin + is the Copernicus of the organic world," I am the more pleased to find + that he agrees (partly in identical words) with my way of thinking, as he + himself, quite unnecessarily, takes up an attitude of opposition towards + me. The same is the case with regard to the explanation of innate ideas by + Darwinism, which he has attempted in his address (1870) on "Leibnitzian + Ideas in Modern Science" (vol. i. of the <i>Collected Addresses</i>). Here + also he is most agreeably at one with me in what, four years before, I had + elaborated in my <i>General Morphology</i> (vol. ii. p. 446), and in my <i>Natural + History of Creation</i> (1868). "The laws of heredity and adaptation + explain to us how it is that <i>à priori</i> ideas have been developed out + of what was originally <i>à posteriori</i> knowledge," etc. I cannot fail + to be highly flattered in being able in these last days to greet the + renowned orator of the Berlin Academy as a friend and patron of the <i>Natural + History of Creation</i>, which he had previously designated a bad romance. + But his winged words are not on that account to be forgotten, that "the + genealogical trees of phylogeny are about as much worth as, in the eyes of + the historical critic, are those of the Homeric heroes" (<i>Darwin versus + Galiani</i>, 1876).] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-7" id="note-7"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 7 (<a href="#linknoteref-7">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>The Law of the Conservation + of Substance</i>. Strictly taken, this belongs also to "scientific + articles of faith," and could stand as the first article of our "monistic + religion." Physicists of the present day, it is true, generally (and + correctly) regard their "law of the conservation of energy" as the + immovable foundation of all their science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just + as in like manner chemists so regard their fundamental law of the + "conservation of matter" (Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, + however, raise certain objections to either of these fundamental laws with + as much success as against their combination into the single superior law + of the "conservation of substance." As a matter of fact, dualistic + philosophy still attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise + of cautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic) + objections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they relate + to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as to the + connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the + presence of this real "boundary of natural knowledge," we can yet, within + this boundary, apply quite universally the "mechanical law of causality." + The complicated "phenomena of mind," as they are called (more especially + consciousness), fall under the "law of the conservation of substance" just + as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt with in + inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-8" id="note-8"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 8 (<a href="#linknoteref-8">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Kant and Monism</i>. As + recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and in + some cases even deified as "infallible" the great Königsberg philosopher, + it may be well here to point out once more that his system of critical + philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic ingredients. His + critical principles of the theory of knowledge will always remain of + fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to know the essential + and profoundest essence of substance, the "thing in itself" (or "the + combination of matter and energy"); that our knowledge remains subjective + in its nature; that it is conditioned by the organisation of our brain and + sensory organs, and can therefore only deal with the phenomena which our + experience of the outer world affords us. But within these "limits of + human knowledge" a positive monistic knowledge of nature is still + possible, in contrast to all dualistic and metaphysical fantasies. One + such great fact of monistic knowledge was the mechanical cosmogony of Kant + and Laplace, the "Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Origin of the + Universe, according to the Principles of Newton" (1755). In the whole + field of our knowledge of inorganic nature, Kant held firmly to the + monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone as the real explanation + of the phenomena. In the science of organic nature also, on the other + hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet insufficient; here he + considered it necessary to call in the aid of final as well as of + efficient causes. (<i>Cf</i>. the fifth lecture of my <i>Natural History + of Creation</i> on "The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck"; also + Albrecht Rau's <i>Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Prüfung der Resultate + des idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos</i>, vol. + ii., 1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant + afterwards arrived at his untenable metaphysical views of "God, Freedom, + and Immortality." It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors + if he had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The + natural sciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am + firmly convinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have + turned out quite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he + had had at his disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical + natural knowledge which we now possess.] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-9" id="note-9"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 9 (<a href="#linknoteref-9">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>The Ether</i>. In a + thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at the + sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in Heidelberg + in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant discovery: + "Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of nature. It comes + nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess an electric organ, + the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the question as to + unmediated <i>actio in distans</i>. Is there such a thing? Not far off + from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature of + electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous and + primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of the + medium that fills all space, its structure, its rest or motion, its + infinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this + question rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is + would reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but + also of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight + and inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether + everything that exists is not created from the ether." This question is + already being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists, as, + for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on <i>The Nature of + Electricity and Magnetism</i>, on <i>The Basis of the Conception of a + Single Substance</i> (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of mass (the + primal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres of + concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills all + space; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms, and + universally distributed, is—the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the + basis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date + arrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on "Influences at a + Distance mediated by the Ether" (<i>Annalen der Physik und Chemie</i>, + 1881, Bd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one + particular kind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance + and radiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities + ascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other + words, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as + "the mobile."] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-10" id="note-10"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 10 (<a href="#linknoteref-10">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Atoms and Elements</i>. + The evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our + empirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav + Wendt in his treatise, <i>Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer + biologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik</i>[I] (Berlin, 1891); + compare also Wilhelm Freyer's <i>Die organischen Elemente und ihre + Stellung im System</i>[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's <i>Chemische + Probleme der Gegenwart</i>[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's <i>Genesis + of the Elements</i>. For the different views as to the nature of the atom, + see Philip Spiller on "The Doctrines of Atoms" in <i>Die Urkraft des + Weltalls nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV]</i> + (Berlin, 1886), (1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the + ether; 3. The ethical side of the science of nature). For the constitution + of the elements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Masse im + Raume[V] (Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its + relationships; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and + their combinations. Theory of crystallisation). + </p> +<p class="foot"> +Note I "The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis + for Chemistry and Physics." +</p> + <p class="foot"> + Note II "The Organic Elements and their Place in the System." + </p> + <p class="foot"> + Note III "Chemical Problems of the Day." + </p> + <p class="foot"> + Note IV "The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action." + </p> + <p class="foot"> + Note V "Force and Matter in Space."] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-11" id="note-11"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 11 (<a href="#linknoteref-11">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>World-Substance</i>. The + relation of the two fundamental constituents of the cosmos, ether and + mass, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many + hypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.] + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + World (=Substance=Cosmos).] + + (Nature as knowable by Man.)] + + Ether (="spirit") (mobile Mass (="body") (inert or + or active substance). passive substance). + Property of Vibration. Property of Inertia.] + + Chief Functions: Electricity, Chief Functions: Gravity, + Magnetism, Light, Heat. Inertia, Chemical Affinity. + Structure: dynamical; Structure: atomic, discontinuous, + continuous, elastic substance, inelastic substance, + not composed of atoms (?) composed of atoms (?)] + + Theosophical: "God the Theosophical: "Created + Creator" (always in motion). world" (passively formed).] + + "Influence of space." "Products of space condensation."] +</pre> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-12" id="note-12"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 12 (<a href="#linknoteref-12">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>General doctrine of + Evolution</i>. The fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of + evolution, and of the monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly + evidenced by the steady increase of its copious literature. I have cited + the most important treatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition + of my <i>Natural History of Creation</i> (1889). Compare, specially, Carus + Sterne (Ernst Krause), <i>Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte + des Naturganzen in gemeinverständlicher Fassung</i>[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin, + 1886); Hugo Spitzer, <i>Beiträge zur Descendenztheorie und zur + Methodologie der Naturwissenschaft</i> (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, <i>Ludwig + Feuerbach's Philosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik + der Gegenwart</i> (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, <i>Kosmos: Die + Weltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage + der exacten Naturforschung</i> (Leipsic, 1890).[IX] + </p> +<p class="foot"> +Note VI "Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the + Cosmos." +</p> +<p class="foot"> +Note VII "Contributions towards a Theory of Descent, and towards a + Methodology of the Sciences of Nature." +</p> +<p class="foot"> +Note VIII "Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophical + Criticism of the Present Time." +</p> +<p class="foot"> +Note IX "Cosmos: The Development of the Cosmos according to Monistic + Principles on the Basis of Exact Science."] +</p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-13" id="note-13"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 13 (<a href="#linknoteref-13">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>History of Descent</i>. + The idea and the task of phylogeny, or the history of descent, I first + defined in 1866, in the sixth book of my <i>General Morphology</i> (<i>vol</i>. + ii. pp. 301-422), and the substance of this, as well as an account of its + relation to ontogeny or history of development, is set forth in a popular + form in Part II. of my <i>Natural History of Creation</i> (8th ed., + Berlin, 1889). A special application of both these divisions of the + history of evolution to man, is attempted in my <i>Anthropogenie</i> (4th + ed.), revised and enlarged, 1891: Part I. History of development. Part II. + History of descent.] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-14" id="note-14"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 14 (<a href="#linknoteref-14">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Opponents of the Doctrine + of Descent</i>. Since the death of Louis Agassiz (1873), Rudolf Virchow is + regarded as the sole noteworthy opponent of Darwinism and the theory of + descent; he never misses an opportunity (as recently in Moscow) of + opposing it as "unproved hypothesis." See as to this my pamphlet, <i>Freedom + in Science and in Teaching</i>, a reply to Virchow's address at Munich on + "Freedom of Science in the Modern State" (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., + 1892).] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-15" id="note-15"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 15 (<a href="#linknoteref-15">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Cellular Psychology</i>. + See on this my paper on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells," in the <i>Deutsche + Rundschau</i> (July 1878), reprinted in Part 1, of <i>Collected Popular + Lectures</i>; also "The Cell-soul and Cellular Psychology" in my discourse + on <i>Freedom in Science and Teaching</i> (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., + 1892, p. 46); <i>Natural History of Creation</i> (8th ed., pp. 444, 777); + and <i>Descent of Man</i> (4th ed., pp. 128, 147). See also, Max Verworn, + <i>Psycho-physiologische Protisten-Studien</i> (Jena, 1889), and Paul + Carus, <i>The Soul of Man: An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological + and Experimental Psychology</i> (Chicago, 1891). Among recent attempts to + reform psychology on the basis of evolutionary doctrine in a monistic + sense, special mention must be made of Georg Heinrich Schneider's <i>Der + thierische Wille: Systematische Darstellung und Erklärung der thierischen + Triebe und deren Entstehung, Entwickelung und Verbreitung im Thierreiche + als Grundlage zu einer vergleichenden Willenslehre</i>[X] (Leipsic, 1880). + Compare also his supplementary work, entitled <i>Der menschliche Wille vom + Standpunkte der neuen Entwickelungstheorie</i>[XI] (1882); also the <i>Psychology + of Herbert Spencer</i> and the new edition of Wilhelm Wundt's <i>Menschen-und + Thierseele[XII]</i> (Leipsic, 1892). + </p> +<p class="foot"> +Note X "Will in the Lower Animals: a Systematic Exposition and Explanation + of Animal Instincts, and their Origin, Development, and Difference in + the Animal Kingdom, as Basis of a Comparative Doctrine of Volition." +</p> +<p class="foot"> +Note XI "The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of + Evolution." +</p> + <p class="foot"> + Note XII "Soul in Man and Brute." + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-16" id="note-16"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 16 (<a href="#linknoteref-16">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Consciousness</i>. The + antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)—that human consciousness + is an unsoluble "world-riddle," a transcendent phenomenon in essential + antithesis to all other natural phenomena—continues to be upheld in + numerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the + world founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and + that his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the + "Leipsic ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been + prized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of the + world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing word + of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and this + "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even worse, + that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any further talk + about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address remains + certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful sermon," + characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising variety of + philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however, that the + majority (and especially women) judge a "beautiful sermon" not according + to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to its + excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his + audience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of + the genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part + of his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further + attempt to solve the main question he has to deal with—as to whether + the world is really "doubly incomprehensible." For my own part, on the + contrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to + our knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness + and the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but + neither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing, than + the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and energy. + Compare my discourse on <i>Freedom in Science and Teaching</i> (1878), pp. + 78, 82, etc.] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-17" id="note-17"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 17 (<a href="#linknoteref-17">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Immortality</i>. Perhaps + in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic + conception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of + personal immortality, and that of "the resurrection of the body," + associated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on <i>Religion + in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine</i>, has well remarked: "One of the + standing accusations of the Church against science is that it is + materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the + whole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and + still is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material body + is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven." Compare also Ludwig + Buchner, <i>Das zunkünftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft</i> + (Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, "Causes of Belief in Immortality" (<i>The + Forum</i>, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, <i>The Soul of + Man: an Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental + Psychology</i> (Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between + the ancient and the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect + to the soul. Just as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of + a special fiery matter (<i>phlogiston</i>), so the thinking soul was + explained by the hypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now + know that the light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the + ether, and the soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As + compared with this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of + scholastic psychology has about the same value as the materialistic + conceptions of the Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's + "Nadowessian Death-Song."] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-18" id="note-18"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 18 (<a href="#linknoteref-18">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Monistic Ethic</i>. All + Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals, as a + "science of law" (<i>Normwissenschaft</i>), stands in immediate connection + with the view that is taken of the world (<i>Weltanschauung</i>), and + consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly + important, and have recently upheld in a paper on "Ethik und + Weltanschauung," in opposition to the "Society for Ethical Culture" lately + founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without reference + to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new weekly journal, + <i>Die Zukunft</i>, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892, Nos. + V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis for + all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject compare + especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of B. von + Carneri—<i>Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus</i> (1871); <i>Entwickelung + und Glückseligkeit</i> (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all, + <i>Der moderne Mensch</i> (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, <i>Welt + und Menschheit</i> (Leipsic, 1892); Harald Höffding, <i>Die Grundlage der + humanen Ethik</i> (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm + Wundt, <i>Ethik, eine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des + sittlichen Lebens</i> (Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-19" id="note-19"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 19 (<a href="#linknoteref-19">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Homotheism</i>. Under the + term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the various forms of + religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely human + characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may have + shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in common + retain the unworthy conception that God (<i>Theos</i>) and man (<i>homo</i>) + are organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the + region of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate. + In the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly + objectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man + developed from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents + God as a "spirit" in human form, degrades Him to a "gaseous vertebrate" (<i>General + Morphology</i>, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression + "homotheism" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more + practical than the cumbersome word "Anthropotheism."] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-20" id="note-20"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 20 (<a href="#linknoteref-20">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Monistic Religion</i>. + Amongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last + twenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of + advanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the + epoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled <i>The Old Faith + and the New: A Confession</i> (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: <i>Collected Writings</i>, + 1878). Compare M. J. Savage, <i>Religion in the Light of the Darwinian + Doctrine</i>; John William Draper, <i>History of the Conflict between + Religion and Science</i>; Carl Friedrich Retzer, <i>Die + naturwissenschaftliche Weltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das + religiöse Dogma</i> (Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, <i>Natur und Menschengeist + im Lichte der Entwickelungslehre</i> (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of + religion see the interesting work of U. Van Ende, <i>Histoire Naturelle de + la Croyance</i> (Paris, 1887).] + </p> + <p> + <br /><a name="linknote-21" id="note-21"> </a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 21 (<a href="#linknoteref-21">return</a>)<br /> [ <i>Freedom in Teaching</i>. + The jubilee of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes" was + celebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the + commencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the + Grand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are + the characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke + Carl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly + shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector + Magnificentissimus of our Thüringian university of Jena, he has always + afforded his protection to its most sacred palladium—the right of + the free investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie, + the heiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a + fitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary + period, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal + treasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of + culture will never forget the service which the princely couple have + thereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the + same time to true religion.] + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monism as Connecting Religion and +Science, by Ernst Haeckel + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONISM *** + +***** This file should be named 9199-h.htm or 9199-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/1/9/9199/ + + +Text file produced by Lee Dawei, Thomas Berger and Distributed +Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Monism as Connecting Religion and Science + +Author: Ernst Haeckel + + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9199 +This file was first posted on September 15, 2003 +Last Updated: May 8, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONISM *** + + + + +Produced by Lee Dawei, Thomas Berger and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +MONISM AS CONNECTING RELIGION AND SCIENCE + +_A MAN OF SCIENCE_ + + +By Ernst Haeckel + + +Translated From The German By J. Gilchrist, M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D. + + + + +PREFACE + +The following lecture on Monism is an informal address delivered +extemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth +anniversary of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes." The +immediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor +Schlesinger of Vienna on "Scientific Articles of Faith." This +philosophical discourse contained, with reference to the weightiest and +most important problems of scientific investigation, much that was +indisputable; but it also contained some assertions that challenged +immediate rejoinder and a statement of the opposite view. As I had for +thirty years been very closely occupied with these problems of the +philosophy of nature, and had set forth my convictions with respect to +them in a number of writings, a wish was expressed by several members of +the Congress that on this occasion I should give a summary account of +these. It was in compliance with this wish that the following "Scientific +Confession of Faith" was uttered. The substance of it, as written from +recollection on the day after its delivery, first appeared in the +_Altenburger Zeitung of_ 19th October 1892. This was reproduced, with one +or two philosophical additions, in the November number _of_ the _Freie +Buehne fuer den Entwickelungskampf der Zeit_ (Berlin). In its present form +the Altenburg address is considerably enlarged, and some parts have been +more fully worked out. In the notes (p. 9 I) several burning questions of +the present day _have_ been dealt with from the monistic point of view. + +The purpose of this candid confession of monistic faith is twofold. +First, it is my desire to give expression to that rational view of the +world which is being forced upon us with such logical rigour by the +modern advancements in our knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in +reality held by almost all unprejudiced and thinking men of science, +although but few have the courage (or the need) to declare it openly. +Secondly, I would fain establish thereby a bond between religion and +science, and thus contribute to the adjustment of the antithesis so +needlessly maintained between these, the two highest spheres in which the +mind of man can exercise itself; in monism the ethical demands of the +soul are satisfied, as well as the logical necessities of the +understanding. + +The rising flood of pamphlets and books published on this subject, +demonstrates that such a natural union of faith and knowledge, such a +reasonable reconciliation of the feelings and the reason, are daily +becoming a more pressing necessity for the educated classes. In North +America (in Chicago), there has been published for several years a weekly +journal devoted to this purpose: _The Open Court: A Weekly Journal +devoted to the Work of Conciliating Religion and Science_. Its worthy +editor, Dr. Paul Carus (author of _The Soul of Man_, 1891), devotes also +to the same task a quarterly journal under the title _The Monist_. It is +in the highest degree desirable that so worthy endeavours to draw +together the empirical and speculative views of nature, realism and +idealism, should have more attention and encouragement than they have +hitherto received, for it is only through a natural union of the two that +we can approach a realisation of the highest aim of mental activity-the +blending of religion and science in monism. + +ERNST HAECKEL. JENA, _October_ 31, 1892 + + + + +MONISM + +A society for investigating nature and ascertaining truth cannot +celebrate its commemoration day more fittingly than by a discussion of +its highest general problems. It must be regarded, therefore, with +satisfaction that the speaker on such an august occasion as this--the +seventy-fifth anniversary of your Society--has selected as the subject of +his address a theme of the highest general importance. Unfortunately, it +is becoming more and more the custom on such occasions, and even at the +general meetings of the great "Association of German Naturalists and +Physicians," to take the subject of address from a narrow and specialised +territory of restricted interest. If this growing custom is to be excused +on the grounds of increasing division of labour and of diverging +specialisation in all departments of work, it becomes all the more +necessary that, on such anniversaries as the present, the attention of +the audience should be invited to larger matters of common interest. + +Such a topic, supreme in its importance, is that concerning "Scientific +Articles of Faith," upon which Professor Schlesinger has already +expounded his views.[1] I am glad to be able to agree with him in many +important points, but as to others I should like to express some +hesitation, and to ask consideration for some views which do not coincide +with his. At the outset, I am entirely at one with him as to that +unifying conception of nature as a whole which we designate in a single +word as Monism. By this we unambiguously express our conviction that +there lives "one spirit in all things," and that the whole cognisable +world is constituted, and has been developed, in accordance with one +common fundamental law. We emphasise by it, in particular, the essential +unity of inorganic and organic nature, the latter having been evolved +from the former only at a relatively late period.[2] We cannot draw a +sharp line of distinction between these two great divisions of nature, +any more than we can recognise an absolute distinction between the animal +and the vegetable kingdom, or between the lower animals and man. +Similarly, we regard the whole of human knowledge as a structural unity; +in this sphere we refuse to accept the distinction usually drawn between +the natural and the spiritual. The latter is only a part of the former +(or _vice versa_); both are one. Our monistic view of the world belongs, +therefore, to that group of philosophical systems which from other points +of view have been designated also as mechanical or as pantheistic. +However differently expressed in the philosophical systems of an +Empedocles or a Lucretius, a Spinoza or a Giordano Bruno, a Lamarck or a +David Strauss, the fundamental thought common to them all is ever that of +the oneness of the cosmos, of the indissoluble connection between energy +and matter, between mind and embodiment--or, as we may also say, between +God and the world--to which Goethe, Germany's greatest poet and thinker, +has given poetical expression in his _Faust_ and in the wonderful series +of poems entitled _Gott und Welt_. + +That we may rightly appreciate what this Monism is, let us now, from a +philosophico-historical point of view cast a comprehensive glance over +the development in time of man's knowledge of nature. A long series of +varied conceptions and stages of human culture here passes before our +mental vision. At the lowest stage, the rude--we may say animal--phase of +prehistoric primitive man, is the "ape-man," who, in the course of the +tertiary period, has only to a limited degree raised himself above his +immediate pithecoid ancestors, the anthropoid apes. Next come successive +stages of the lowest and simplest kind of culture, such as only the +rudest of still existing primitive peoples enable us in some measure to +conceive. These "savages" are succeeded by peoples of a low civilisation, +and from these again, by a long series of intermediate steps, we rise +little by little to the more highly civilised nations. To these alone--of +the twelve races of mankind only to the Mediterranean and Mongolian--are +we indebted for what is usually called "universal history." This last, +extending over somewhat less than six thousand years, represents a period +of infinitesimal duration in the long millions of years of the organic +world's development. + +Neither of the primitive men we have spoken of, nor of those who +immediately succeeded them, can we rightly predicate any knowledge of +nature. The rude primitive child of nature at this lowest stage of +development is as yet far from being the restless _Ursachenthier_ +(cause-seeking animal) of Lichtenberg; his demand for causes has not yet +risen above that of apes and dogs; his curiosity has not yet mounted to +pure desire of knowledge. If we must speak of "reason" in connection with +pithecoid primitive man, it can only be in the same sense as that in +which we use the expression with reference to those other most highly +developed Mammals, and the same remark holds true of the first beginnings +of religion.[3] + +It is indeed still not infrequently the custom to deny absolutely to the +lower animals reason and religion. An unprejudiced comparison, however, +convinces us that this is wrong. The slow and gradual process towards +completeness which, in the course of thousands of years, civilised life +has been working in the soul of man, has not passed away without leaving +some trace on the soul of our highest domestic animals also (above all, +of dogs and horses). Constant association with man, and the steady +influence of his training, have gradually, and by heredity, developed in +their brain higher associations of ideas and a more perfect judgment. +Drill has become instinct, an undeniable example of "the transmission of +acquired characters."[4] + +Comparative psychology teaches us to recognise a very long series of +successive steps in the development of soul in the animal kingdom. But it +is only in the most highly developed vertebrates-birds and mammals--that +we discern the first beginnings of reason, the first traces of religious +and ethical conduct. In them we find not only the social virtues common +to all the higher socially-living animals,--neighbourly love, friendship, +fidelity, self-sacrifice, etc.,--but also consciousness, sense of duty, +and conscience; in relation to man their lord, the same obedience, the +same submissiveness, and the same craving for protection, which primitive +man in his turn shows towards his "gods." But in him, as in them, there +is yet wanting that higher degree of consciousness and of reason, which +strives after a _knowledge_ of the surrounding world, and which marks the +first beginning of philosophy or "wisdom." This last is the much later +attainment of civilised races; slowly and gradually has it been built up +from lower religious conceptions. + +At all stages of primitive religion and early philosophy, man is as yet +far removed from monistic ideas. In searching out the causes of +phenomena, and exercising his understanding thereon, he is in the first +instance prone in every case to regard personal beings--in fact, +anthropomorphic deities--as the agents at work. In thunder and lightning, +in storm and earthquake, in the circling of sun and moon, in every +striking meteorological and geological occurrence, he sees the direct +activity of a personal god or spirit, who is usually thought of in a more +or less anthropomorphic way. Gods are distinguished as good and bad, +friendly and hostile, preserving and destroying, angels and devils. + +This becomes true in a yet higher degree when the advancing pursuit of +knowledge begins to take into consideration the more complicated +phenomena of organic life also, the appearance and disappearance of +plants and animals, the life and death of man. The constitution of +organised life, so suggestive as it is of art and purpose, leads one at +once to compare it with the deliberately designed works of man, and thus +the vague conception of a personal god becomes transformed into that of a +creator working according to plan. As we know, this conception of organic +creation as the artistic work of an anthropomorphic god--of a divine +mechanic--generally maintained its ground almost everywhere, down even to +the middle of our own century, in spite of the fact that eminent thinkers +had demonstrated its untenability more than two thousand years ago. The +last noteworthy scientist to defend and apply this idea was Louis Agassiz +(died 1873). His notable _Essay on Classification_, 1857, developed that +theosophy with logical vigour, and thereby reduced it to an absurdity.[5] + +All these older religious and teleological conceptions, as well as the +philosophical systems (such as those of Plato and of the Church fathers) +which sprang from them, are antimonistic; they stand in direct antithesis +to our monistic philosophy of nature. Most of them are dualistic, +regarding God and the world, creator and creature, spirit and matter, as +two completely separated substances. We find this express dualism also in +most of the purer church-religions, especially in the three most +important forms of monotheism which the three most renowned prophets of +the eastern Mediterranean--Moses, Christ, and Mohammed--founded. But +soon, in a number of impure varieties of these three religions, and yet +more in the lower forms of paganism, the place of this dualism is taken +by a philosophical pluralism, and over against the good and +world-sustaining deity (Osiris, Ormuzd, Vishnu), there is placed a wicked +and destroying god (Typhon, Ahriman, Siva). Numerous demi-gods or saints, +good and bad, sons and daughters of the gods, are associated with these +two chief deities, and take part with them in the administration and +government of the cosmos. + +In all these dualistic and pluralistic systems the fundamental idea is +that of anthropomorphism, or the humanising of God; man himself, as +godlike (or directly descended from God), occupies a special position in +the world, and is separated by a great gulf from the rest of nature. +Conjoined with this, for the most part, is the anthropocentric idea, the +conviction that man is the central point of the universe, the last and +highest final cause of creation, and that the rest of nature was created +merely for the purpose of serving man. In the Middle Ages there was +associated at the same time with this last conception the geocentric +idea, according to which the earth as the abode of man was taken for the +fixed middle point of the universe, round which sun, moon, and stars +revolve. As Copernicus (1543) gave the death-blow to the geocentric +dogma, so did Darwin (1859) to the anthropocentric one closely associated +with it.[6] A broad historical and critical comparison of religious and +philosophical systems, as a whole, leads as a main result to the +conclusion that every great advance in the direction of profounder +knowledge has meant a breaking away from the traditional dualism (or +pluralism) and an approach to monism. Ever more clearly are we compelled +by reflection to recognise that God is not to be placed over against the +material world as an external being, but must be placed as a "divine +power" or "moving spirit" within the cosmos itself. Ever clearer does it +become that all the wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as +well as inorganic, are only various products of one and the same original +force, various combinations of one and the same primitive matter. Ever +more irresistibly is it borne in upon us that even the human soul is but +an insignificant part of the all-embracing "world-soul"; just as the +human body is only a small individual fraction of the great organised +physical world. + +The great general principles of theoretical physics and chemistry are now +in a position to afford to this unifying conception of nature an exact, +to a certain extent, indeed, a mathematical confirmation. In establishing +the law of the "conservation of energy," Robert Mayer and Helmholtz +showed that the energy of the universe is a constant unchangeable +magnitude; if any energy whatever seems to vanish or to come anew into +play, this is only due to the transformation of one form of energy into +another. In the same way Lavoisier's law of the "conservation of matter" +shows us that the material of the cosmos is a constant unchangeable +magnitude; if any body seems to vanish (as, for example, by burning), or +to come anew into being (as, for example, by crystallisation), this also +is simply due to change of form or of combination. Both these great +laws--in physics, the fundamental law of the conservation of energy, and +in chemistry, of the conservation of matter--may be brought under one +philosophical conception as the law of the conservation of substance; +for, according to our monistic conception, energy and matter are +inseparable, being only different inalienable manifestations of one +single universal being-substance.[7] In a certain sense we can regard the +conception of "animated atoms" as essentially partaking of the nature of +this pure monism--a very ancient idea which more than two thousand years +ago Empedocles enunciated in his doctrine of "hate and love of the +elements." Modern physics and chemistry have indeed in the main accepted +the atomic hypothesis first enunciated by Democritus, in so far as they +regard all bodies as built up of atoms, and reduce all changes to +movements of these minutest-discrete particles. All these changes, +however, in organic as well as in inorganic nature, become truly +intelligible to us only if we conceive these atoms not as dead masses, +but as living elementary particles endowed with the power of attraction +and repulsion. "Pleasure" and "pain," and "love" and "hate," as +predicates of atoms are only other expressions for this power of +attraction and repulsion. + +Although, however, monism is on the one hand for us an indispensable and +fundamental conception in science, and although, on the other hand, it +strives to carry back all phenomena, without exception, to the mechanism +of the atom, we must nevertheless still admit that as yet we are by no +means in a position to form any satisfactory conception of the exact +nature of these atoms, and their relation to the general space-filling, +universal ether. Chemistry long ago succeeded in reducing all the various +natural substances to combinations of a relatively small number of +elements; and the most recent advances of that science have now made it +in the highest degree probable that these elements or the (as yet) +irreducible primitive materials are themselves in turn only different +combinations of a varying number of atoms of one single original element. +But in all this we have not as yet obtained any further light as to the +real nature of these original atoms or their primal energies. + +A number of the acutest thinkers have, so far in vain, endeavoured to +grapple more closely with this fundamental problem of the philosophy of +nature, and to determine more exactly the nature of atoms as well as +their relation to the space-filling ether. And the idea steadily gains +ground that no such thing as empty space exists, and that everywhere the +primitive atoms of ponderable matter or heavy "mass" are separated from +each other by the homogeneous ether which extends throughout all space. +This extremely light and attenuated (if not imponderable) ether causes, +by its vibrations, all the phenomena of light and heat, electricity and +magnetism. We can imagine it either as a continuous substance occupying +the space between the mass-atoms, or as composed of separate particles; +in the latter case we might perhaps attribute to these ether-atoms an +inherent power of repulsion in contrast to the immanent attracting power +of the heavy mass-atoms, and the whole mechanism of cosmic life would +then be reducible to the attraction of the latter and the repulsion of +the former. We might also place the "vibrations of the cosmic ether" +alongside of the "operation of space in general," in the sense in which +these words are used by Professor Schlesinger. + +At any rate, theoretical physics has in recent years made an advance of +fundamental importance and widest reach in our knowledge of nature, in +that it has come nearer to a knowledge of this cosmic ether, and has +forced the question of its essence, its structure, and its motion into +the foreground of monistic nature-philosophy. Only a few years ago the +cosmic ether was to the majority of scientists an imponderable something, +of which, strictly speaking, absolutely nothing was known, and which +could be admitted provisionally only as a precarious working hypothesis. +All this was changed when Heinrich Hertz (1888) demonstrated the nature +of electrical energy, by his beautiful experiments establishing the +conjecture of Faraday that light and heat, electricity and magnetism, are +closely related phenomena of one single set of forces, and depend on +transverse vibrations of the ether. Light itself--whatever else it be--is +always and everywhere an electrical phenomenon. The ether itself is no +longer hypothetical; its existence can at any moment be demonstrated by +electrical and optical experiment. We know the length of the light wave +and the electric wave. Indeed, some physicists believe that they can even +determine approximately the density of ether. If by means of the airpump +we remove from a bell-jar the atmospheric air (except an insignificant +residue), the quantity of light within it remains unchanged; it is the +vibrating ether we see.[9] These advances in our knowledge of the ether +mean an immense gain for monistic philosophy. For they do away with the +erroneous ideas of empty space and _actio in distans_; the whole of +infinite space, in so far as it is not occupied by mass-atoms +("ponderable matter"), is filled by the ether. Our ideas of space and +time are quite other than those taught by Kant a hundred years ago; the +"critical" system of the great Koenigsberg philosopher exhibits in this +respect, as well as in his teleological view of the organic world and in +his metaphysics, dogmatic weaknesses of the most pronounced kind.[8] And +religion itself, in its reasonable forms, can take over the ether theory +as an article of faith, bringing into contradistinction the mobile cosmic +ether as creating divinity, and the inert heavy mass as material of +creation.[11] From this successfully scaled height of monistic knowledge +there open up before our joyously quickened spirit of research and +discovery new and surprising prospects, which promise to bring us still +nearer to the solution of the one great riddle of the world. What is the +relation of this light mobile cosmic ether to the heavy inert "mass," to +the ponderable matter which we chemically investigate, and which we can +only think of as constituted of atoms? Our modern analytical chemistry +remains for the present at a standstill, in presence of some seventy +irreducible elements, or so-called primary substances. But the reciprocal +relation of these elements, the affinity of their combinations, their +spectroscopic behaviour, and so forth, make it in the highest degree +probable that they are all merely historical products of an evolutionary +process, having their origin in various dispositions and combinations of +a varying number of original atoms. + +To these original or mass-atoms--the ultimate discrete particles of inert +"ponderable matter"--we can with more or less probability ascribe a +number of eternal and inalienable fundamental attributes; they are +probably everywhere in space, of like magnitude and constitution. +Although possessing a definite finite magnitude, they are, by virtue of +their very nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical; +they are inert (in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and +impenetrable by the ether. Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most +important characteristic of these ultimate atoms is their chemical +affinity--their tendency to apply themselves to one another and combine +into small groups in an orderly fashion. These fixed groups (fixed, that +is to say, under the present physical conditions of existence of the +earth) of primitive atoms are the atoms of the elements--the well-known +"indivisible" atoms of chemistry. The qualitative, and, so far as our +present empirical knowledge goes, unchangeable distinctions of our +chemical elements are therefore solely conditioned by the varying number +and disposition of the similar primitive atoms of which they are +composed. Thus, for example, the atom of carbon (the real "maker" of the +organic world) is in all probability a tetrahedron made up of four +primitive atoms. + +After Mendelejeff and Lothar Meyer had discovered (1869) the "periodic +law" of the chemical elements, and founded on it a "natural system" of +these elements, this important advance in theoretical chemistry was +subsequently put to profitable use by Gustav Wendt from an evolutionary +point of view. He endeavoured to show that the various elements are +products of evolution or of historically originating combinations of +seven primary elements, and that these last again are historical products +of one single primitive element This hypothetical original matter had +been already designated by Crookes, in his _Genesis of the Elements_, as +primary material or protyl.[10] The empirical proof of the existence of +this original matter lying at the foundation of all ponderable material +is perhaps only a question of time. Its discovery would probably realise +the alchemists' hope of being able to produce gold and silver +artificially out of other elements. But then arises the other great +question: "How is this primary mass related to the cosmic ether? Do these +two original substances stand in fundamental and eternal antithesis to +one another? Or was it the mobile ether itself, perhaps, that originally +engendered the heavy mass?"[11] + +In answer to this great and fundamental question, various physical +hypotheses have been put forward. But, like the various atomic theories +of chemistry, they have not as yet been clearly established, and the same +appears to me to be the case also with the ingenious hypothesis which the +lecturer has unfolded to us with reference to the Influence of Space. As +he himself rightly says, in all these endeavours after a philosophy of +nature we are still, for the present, dealing with "scientific articles +of faith," concerning the validity of which different persons, according +to their subjective judgment and stage of culture, may have widely +divergent views. I believe that the solution of these fundamental +questions still lies as yet beyond the limits of our knowledge of nature, +and that we shall be obliged, for a long time yet to come, to content +ourselves with an "Ignoramus"--if not even with an "Ignorabimus." + +The case is very different, however, if we turn from these atomistic +element hypotheses and direct our attention to the historical conditions +of the evolution of the world, as these have been revealed to us by the +magnificent advances in our knowledge of nature which have been made +within the last thirty years. An immense new territory has here been +opened up to us in the realms of knowledge--a territory in which a series +of most important problems, formerly held to be insoluble, has been +answered in the most surprising manner.[12] + +Among the triumphs of the human mind the modern doctrine of evolution +takes a foremost place. Guessed at by Goethe a hundred years ago, but not +expressed in definite form until formulated by Lamarck in the beginning +of the present century, it was at last, thirty years ago, decisively +established by Charles Darwin, his theory of selection filling up the gap +which Lamarck in his doctrine of the reciprocal influence of heredity and +adaptation had left open. We now definitely know that the organic world +on our earth has been as continuously developed, "in accordance with +eternal iron laws," as Lyell had in 1830 shown to be the case for the +inorganic frame of the earth itself; we know that the innumerable +varieties of animals and plants which during the course of millions of +years have peopled our planet are all simply branches of one single +genealogical tree; we know that the human race itself forms only one of +the newest, highest, and most perfect offshoots from the race of the +Vertebrates. + +An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course of +evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting human spirit +through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the present "order of the +cosmos." At the outset there is nothing in infinite space but mobile +elastic ether, and innumerable similar separate particles--the primitive +atoms--scattered throughout it in the form of dust; perhaps these are +themselves originally "points of condensation" of the vibrating +"substance," the remainder of which constitutes the ether. The atoms of +our elements arise from the grouping together in definite numbers of the +primitive atoms or atoms of mass. As the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis +has it, the rotating heavenly bodies separate themselves out from that +vibrating primeval cloud. A single unit among many thousands of celestial +bodies is our sun, with its planets, which originated by being +centrifugally thrown off from it. Our insignificant earth is a single +planet of our solar system; its entire individual life is a product of +the sunlight. After the glowing sphere of the earth has cooled down to a +certain degree, drops of fluid water precipitate themselves on the +hardened crust of its surface--the first preliminary condition of organic +life. Carbon atoms begin their organism-engendering activity, and unite +with the other elements into plasma-combinations capable of growing. One +small plasma-group oversteps the limits of cohesion and individual +growth; it falls asunder into two similar halves. With this first moneron +begins organic life and its most distinctive function, heredity. In the +homogeneous plasma of the monera, a firmer central nucleus is separated +from a softer outer mass; through this differentiation of nucleus and +protoplasm arises the first organic cell. For a long time our planet was +inhabited solely by such Protista or single-celled primitive creatures. +From coenobia or social unions of these afterwards arose the lowest +histones, multicellular plants and animals. + +By the sure help of the three great empirical "records of creation," +palaeontology, comparative anatomy, and ontogeny, the history of descent +now leads us on step by step from the oldest Metazoa, the simplest +pluricellular animals, up to man.[13] At the lowest root of the common +genealogy of the Metazoa stand the Gastraeadae and Spongidae; their whole +body consists, in the simplest case, solely of a round digestive sac, the +thin wall of which is formed by two layers of cells--the two primitive +germinal layers. A corresponding germinal condition, the two-layered +gastrula, occurs transitorily in the embryological history of all the +other Metazoa, from the lowest Cnidaria and Vermes up to man. From the +common stock of the Helminthes, or simple worms, there develop as +independent main branches the four separate stems of the Molluscs, +Star-fishes, Arthropods, and Vertebrates. It is only these last whose +bodily structure and development in all essential respects coincide with +those of man. A long series of lower aquatic Vertebrates (lancelets, +lampreys, fishes) precedes the lungbreathing Amphibians, which appear for +the first time in the Carboniferous period. The Amphibians are followed +in the Permian period by the first Amniota, the oldest reptiles; from +these develop later, in the Triassic period, the Birds on the one hand, +and the Mammals on the other. That man in his whole bodily frame is a +true mammal, becomes obvious as soon as the natural unity of this highest +class of animals is recognised. The simplest comparison must have +convinced the unprejudiced observer of the close constitutional +relationship between man and the ape, which of all the Mammals comes +nearest him. Comparative anatomy, with its deeper vision, showed that all +differences in bodily structure between man and the Anthropoidea +(gorilla, chimpanzee, orang) are less important than the corresponding +differences in bodily structure between these anthropoid apes and the +lower apes. The phylogenetic significance of this fact, first emphasised +by Huxley, is quite clear. The great question of the origin of the human +race, or of "man's place in Nature," the "question of all questions," was +then scientifically answered: "Man is descended from a series of ape-like +Mammals." The descent of man (anthropogeny) discloses the long series of +vertebrate ancestors, which preceded the late origin of this, its most +highly developed offshoot.[13] + +The incalculable importance of the light cast over the whole field of +human knowledge of nature by these results is patent to everyone. They +are destined every year increasingly to manifest their transforming +influence in all departments of knowledge, the more the conviction of +their irrefragable truth forces its way. And it is only the ignorant or +narrow-minded who can now doubt their truth. If, indeed, here and there, +one of the older naturalists still disputes, the foundation on which they +rest, or demands proofs which are wanting (as happened a few weeks ago on +the part of a famous German pathologist at the Anthropological Congress +in Moscow), he only shows by this that he has remained a stranger to the +stupendous advances of recent biology, and above all of anthropogeny. The +whole literature of modern biology, the whole of our present zoology and +botany, morphology and physiology, anthropology and psychology, are +pervaded and fertilised by the theory of descent.[14] + +Just as the natural doctrine of development on a monistic basis has +cleared up and elucidated the whole field of natural phenomena in their +physical aspect, it has also modified that of the phenomena of mind, +which is inseparably connected with the other. Our human body has been +built up slowly and by degrees from a long series of vertebrate +ancestors, and this is also true of our soul; as a function of our brain +it has gradually been developed in reciprocal action and re-action with +this its bodily organ. What we briefly designate as the "human soul," is +only the sum of our feeling, willing, and thinking--the sum of those +physiological functions whose elementary organs are constituted by the +microscopic ganglion-cells of our brain. Comparative anatomy and ontogeny +show us how the wonderful structure of this last, the organ of our human +soul, has in the course of millions of years been gradually built up from +the brains of higher and lower vertebrates. Comparative psychology +teaches us how, hand in hand therewith, the soul itself, as function of +the brain, has been developed. The last-named science teaches us also +that a primitive form of soul-activity is already present even in the +lowest animals, the single-celled primitive animals, Infusoria and +Rhizopoda. Every scientific man who has long observed the life-activity +of these single-celled Protista, is positively convinced that they also +possess a soul; that this "cell-soul" also consists of a sum of +sensations, perceptions, and volitions; the feeling, thinking, and +willing of our human soul differ from these only in degree. In like +manner there is present in the egg-cell (as potential energy) a +hereditary cell-soul, out of which man, like every other animal, is +developed.[15] + +The first task of a truly scientific psychology will therefore be, not, +as hitherto, idle speculation about an independent immaterial +soul-existence and its puzzling temporary connection with the animal +body, but rather the comparative investigation of the organs of the soul +and the experimental examination of their psychical functions. For +scientific psychology is a part of physiology, the doctrine of the +functions and the life-activities of organisms. The psychology and +psychiatry of the future, like the physiology and pathology of to-day, +must take the form of a cellular study, and in the first instance +investigate the soul-functions of the cells. Max Verworn, in his fine +_Psycho-physiological Protistastudies_, has lately shown us what +important disclosures such a cellular psychology can make, even in +dealing with the lowest grades of organic life, in the single-celled +Protista (especially Rhizopoda and Infusoria). + +These same main divisions of soul-activity, which are to be met with in +the single-celled organism,--the phenomena of irritability, sensation, +and motion,--can be shown to exist in all multicellular organisms as +functions of the cells of which their bodies are composed. In the lowest +Metazoa, the invertebrate sponges and polyps, there are, just as in +plants, no special soul-organs developed, and all the cells of the body +participate more or less in the "soul-life." It is only in the higher +animals that the soul-life is found to be localised and connected with +special organs. As a consequence of division of labour, there have here +been developed various sense-organs as organs of specific sensibility, +muscles as organs of motion and volition, nerve-centres or ganglia as +central co-ordinating and regulating organs. In the most highly developed +families of the animal kingdom, these last come more and more into the +foreground as independent soul-organs. In correspondence with the +extraordinarily complicated structure of their central nervous system +(the brain with its wonderful complex of ganglion-cells and +nerve-fibres), the many-sided activity of such animals attains a +wonderful degree of development. + +It is only in these most highly-developed groups of the animal kingdom +that we can with certainty establish the existence of those most perfect +operations of the central nervous system, which we designate as +consciousness. As we know, it is precisely this highest brain-function +that still continues to be looked upon as a completely enigmatical +phenomenon, and as the best proof for the immaterial existence of an +immortal soul. It is usual at the same time to appeal to Du +Bois-Reymond's well-known "Ignorabimus address on the Boundaries of +Natural Knowledge" (1872). It was by a peculiar irony of fate that the +famous lecturer of the Berlin Academy of Science, in this much-discussed +address of twenty years ago, should be representing consciousness as an +incomprehensible marvel, and as presenting an insuperable barrier to +further advances of knowledge, at the very moment that David Friedrich +Strauss, the greatest theologian of our century, was showing it to be the +opposite. The clear-sighted author of _The Old Faith and the New_ had +already clearly perceived that the soul-activities of man, and therefore +also his consciousness, as functions of the central nervous system, all +spring from a common source, and, from a monistic point of view, come +under the same category. The "exact" Berlin physiologist shut this +knowledge out from his mind, and, with a short-sightedness almost +inconceivable, placed this special neurological question alongside of the +one great "world-riddle," the fundamental question of substance, the +general question of the connection between matter and energy.[16] + +As I long ago pointed out, these two great questions are not two separate +"world-riddles." The neurological problem of consciousness is only a +special case of the all comprehending cosmological problem, the question +of substance. "If we understood the nature of matter and energy, we +should also understand how the substance underlying them can under +certain conditions feel, desire, and think." Consciousness, like feeling +and willing, among the higher animals is a mechanical work of the +ganglion-cells, and as such must be carried back to chemical and physical +events in the plasma of these. And by the employment of the genetic and +comparative method we reach the conviction that consciousness, and +consequently reason also, is not a brain-function exclusively peculiar to +man; it occurs also in many of the higher animals, not in Vertebrates +only, but even in Articulates. Only in degree, through a higher stage of +cultivation, does the consciousness of man differ from that of the more +perfect lower animals, and the same is true of all other activities of +the human soul. + +By these and other results of comparative physiology our whole psychology +is placed on a new and firm monistic basis. The older mystical conception +of the soul, as we find it amongst primitive peoples, but also in the +systems of the dualistic philosophers of to-day, is refuted by them. +According to these systems, the soul of man (and of the higher animals) +is a separate entity, which inhabits and rules the body only during its +individual life, but leaves it at death. The widespread "piano-theory" +(_Claviertheorie_) compares the "immortal soul" to a pianist who executes +an interesting piece--the individual life--on the instrument of the +mortal body, but at death withdraws into the other world. This "immortal +soul" is usually represented as an immaterial being; but in fact it is +really thought of as quite material, only as a finer invisible being, +aerial or gaseous, or as resembling the mobile, light, and thin substance +of the ether, as conceived by modern physics. The same is true also for +most of the conceptions which rude primitive peoples and the uneducated +classes among the civilised races have, for thousands of years, cherished +as to spectral "ghosts" and "gods." Serious reflection on the matter +shows that here--as in modern spiritualism--it is not with really +immaterial beings, but with gaseous, invisible bodies, that we are +dealing. And further, we are utterly incapable of imagining a truly +immaterial being. As Goethe clearly said, "matter can never exist or act +apart from spirit, neither can spirit apart from matter." + +As regards immortality, it is well known that this important idea is +interpreted and applied in a great variety of ways. It is often made a +reproach against our Monism that it altogether denies immortality; this, +however, is erroneous. Rather do we hold it, in a strictly scientific +sense, as an indispensable fundamental conception of our monistic +philosophy of nature. Immortality in a scientific sense is conservation +of substance, therefore the same as conservation of energy as defined by +physics, or conservation of matter as defined by chemistry. The cosmos as +a whole is immortal. It is just as inconceivable that any of the atoms of +our brain or of the energies of our spirit should vanish out of the +world, as that any other particle of matter or energy could do so. At our +death there disappears only the individual form in which the +nerve-substance was fashioned, and the personal "soul" which represented +the work performed by this. The complicated chemical combinations of that +nervous mass pass over into other combinations by decomposition, and the +kinetic energy produced by them is transformed into other forms of +motion. + + "Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, + Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. + O that that earth which kept the world in awe + Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw." + +On the other hand, the conception of a personal immortality cannot be +maintained. If this idea is still widely held, the fact is to be +explained by the physical law of inertia; for the property of persistence +in a state of rest exercises its influence in the region of the +ganglion-cells of the brain, as well as in all other natural bodies. +Traditional ideas handed down through many generations are maintained +with the greatest tenacity by the human brain, especially if, in early +youth, they have been instilled into the childish understanding as +indisputable dogmas. Such hereditary articles of faith take root all the +more firmly, the further they are removed from a rational knowledge of +nature, and enveloped in the mysterious mantle of mythological poesy. In +the case of the dogma of personal immortality, there comes into play also +the interest which man fancies himself to have in his individual future +existence after death, and the vain hope that in a blessed world to come +there is treasured up for him a compensation for the disappointed hopes +and the many sorrows of his earthly life. + +It is often asserted by the numerous advocates of personal immortality +that this dogma is an innate one, common to all rational men, and that it +is taught in all the more perfect forms of religion. But this is not +correct. Neither Buddhism nor the religion of Moses originally contained +the dogma of personal immortality, and just as little did the majority of +educated people of classical antiquity believe it, at any rate during the +highest period of Greek culture. The monistic philosophy of that time, +which, five hundred years before our era, had reached speculative heights +so remarkable, knew nothing of any such dogma. It was through Plato and +Christ that it received its further elaboration, until, in the Middle +Ages, it was so universally accepted, that only now and then did some +bold thinker dare openly to gainsay it. The idea that a conviction of +personal immortality has a specially ennobling influence on the moral +nature of man, is not confirmed by the gruesome history of mediaeval +morals, and as little by the psychology of primitive peoples.[17] + +If any antiquated school of purely speculative psychology still continues +to uphold this irrational dogma, the fact can only be regarded as a +deplorable anachronism. Sixty years ago such a doctrine was excusable, +for then nothing was accurately known either of the finer structure of +the brain, or of the physiological functions of its separate parts; its +elementary organs, the microscopic ganglion-cells, were almost unknown, +as was also the cell-soul of the Protista; very imperfect ideas were held +as to ontogenetic development, and as to phylogenetic there were none at +all. + +This has all been completely changed in the course of the last +half-century. Modern physiology has already to a great extent +demonstrated the localisation of the various activities of mind, and +their connection with definite parts of the brain; psychiatry has shown +that those psychical processes are disturbed or destroyed if these parts +of the brain become diseased or degenerate. Histology has revealed to us +the extremely complicated structure and arrangement of the +ganglion-cells. But, for the settlement of this momentous question, the +discoveries of the last ten years with regard to the more minute +occurrences in the process of fertilisation are of decisive importance. +We now know that this process essentially consists simply in the +copulation or fusion of two microscopical cells, the female egg-cell and +the male sperm-cell. The fusion of the nuclei of these two sexual cells +indicates with the utmost precision the exact moment at which the new +human individual arises. The newly-formed parent-cell, or fertilised +egg-cell, contains potentially, in their rudiments, all the bodily and +mental characteristics which the child inherits from both parents. It is +clearly against reason to assume an eternal and unending life for an +individual phenomenon whose beginning in time we can determine to a +hair's breadth, by direct observation. Judging of human spiritual life +from a rational point of view, we can as little think of our individual +soul as separated from our brain, as we can conceive the voluntary motion +of our arm apart from the contraction of its muscles, or the circulation +of our blood apart from the action of the heart. + +Against this strictly physiological conception, as against our whole +monistic view of the relations of energy and matter, of soul and +substance, the reproach of "materialism" continues to be raised. I have +repeatedly before now pointed out that this is an ambiguous party word +which conveys absolutely nothing; its apparent opposite, "spiritualism," +could quite easily be substituted for it. Every critical thinker, who is +familiar with the history of philosophy, knows that, as systems change, +such words assume the most varied meanings, In addition to this, the word +"materialism" has the disadvantage of being liable to continual confusion +between its theoretical and practical meanings, which two are totally +distinct. Our conception of Monism, or the unity-philosophy, on the +contrary, is clear and unambiguous; for it an immaterial living spirit +is just as unthinkable as a dead, spiritless material; the two are +inseparably combined in every atom. The opposed conception of dualism (or +even pluralism in other anti-monistic systems) regards spirit and +material, energy and matter, as two essentially different substances; but +not a single empirical proof can be adduced to show that either of these +can exist or become perceptible to us by itself alone. + +In thus shortly indicating the far-reaching psychological consequences of +the monistic doctrine of evolution, I trench at the same time upon a most +important field, to which our lecturer in his address has more than once +alluded--that of religion and the belief in God connected therewith. I am +at one with him in the conviction that the formation of clear +philosophical conceptions upon these fundamental matters of belief is of +the highest importance, and I would therefore crave the permission of +this assembly briefly to lay before it on this occasion a frank +confession of faith. This monistic confession has the greater claim to an +unprejudiced consideration, in that it is shared, I am firmly convinced, +by at least nine-tenths of the men of science now living; indeed, I +believe, by all men of science in whom the following four conditions are +realised: (1) Sufficient acquaintance with the various departments of +natural science, and in particular with the modern doctrine of evolution; +(2) Sufficient acuteness and clearness of judgment to draw, by induction +and deduction, the necessary logical consequences that flow from such +empirical knowledge; (3) Sufficient moral courage to maintain the +monistic knowledge, so gained, against the attacks of hostile dualistic +and pluralistic systems; and (4) Sufficient strength of mind to free +himself, by sound, independent reasoning, from dominant religious +prejudices, and especially from those irrational dogmas which have been +firmly lodged in our minds from earliest youth as indisputable +revelations. + +If from this unprejudiced point of view of the thinker, we compare the +numerous religions of the various races of mankind, we shall be +compelled, in the first instance, to put aside as untenable all those +conceptions which stand in irreconcilable contradiction to those +principles of our empirical knowledge of nature which are now clearly +discerned and established by critical reasoning. We can thus at once set +aside all mythological stories, all "miracles," and so-called +"revelations," for which it is claimed that they have come to us in some +supernatural way. All such mystical teachings are irrational, inasmuch as +they are confirmed by no actual experience, but, on the contrary, are +irreconcilable with the known facts which have been confirmed to us by a +rational investigation of nature. + +This is true alike of Christian and Mosaic, of Mohammedan and Indian +legends. If now we thus lay aside the whole mass of mystical dogmas and +transcendental revelations, there is left behind, as the precious and +priceless kernel of true religion, the purified ethic that rests on +rational anthropology.[18] + +Among the numerous and varied forms of religion which, in the course of +the past ten thousand years and more, have been evolved from the crudest +prehistoric beginnings, the foremost rank undoubtedly belongs to those +two forms which still continue to be the most widely accepted among +civilised races--the older Buddhism and the younger Christianity. The two +have very many features in common, alike in their mythology and in their +ethics; indeed, a considerable part of Christianity has come directly +from Indian Buddhism, just as another part is drawn from the Mosaic and +Platonic systems. But, looked at from the point of view of our present +stage of culture, the ethic of Christianity appears to us much more +perfect and pure than that of any other religion. We must, it is true, +hasten to add that it is exactly the weightiest and noblest principles of +Christian ethic--brotherly love, fidelity to duty, love of truth, +obedience to law--that are by no means peculiar to the Christian faith as +such, but are of much older origin. Comparative psychology proves that +these ethical principles were more or less recognised and practised by +much older civilised races thousands of years before Christ. + +Love remains the supreme moral law of rational religion, the love, that +is to say, that holds the balance between egoism and altruism, between +self-love and love of others. "Do to others as you would they should do +to you." This natural and highest command had been taught and followed +thousands of years before Christ said: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as +thyself." In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as +self-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance derived from our +animal ancestors. It had already found a place among the herds of Apes +and other social Mammals; in a similar manner, but with a wider scope, it +was already present in the most primitive communities and among the +hordes of the least advanced savages. Brotherly love--mutual support, +succour, protection, and the like---had already made its appearance among +gregarious animals as a social duty; for without it the continued +existence of such societies is impossible. Although at a later period, in +the case of man, these moral foundations of society came to be much more +highly developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown, +is to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among the higher +Vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as among the higher +Articulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.) also, the development of social +relations and duties is the indispensable condition of their living +together in orderly societies. Such societies have for man also been the +most important instrument of intellectual and moral progress. + +Beyond all doubt the present degree of human culture owes in great part +its perfection to the propagation of the Christian system of morals and +its ennobling influence, although the great value of this has been +impaired, often in the most deplorable manner, by its association with +untenable myths and so-called "revelations." How little these last +contribute to the perfection of the first, can be seen from the +acknowledged historical fact that it is just orthodoxy and the +hierarchical system based on it (especially that of the Papacy) that has +least of all striven to fulfil the precepts of Christian morality; the +more loudly they preach it in theory, the less do they themselves fulfil +its commands in practice. + +It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that another and very considerable +portion of our modern culture and morality has been developed quite +independently of Christianity, mainly through continual study of the +highly-elaborated mental treasures of classical antiquity. The thorough +study of Greek and Roman classics has at least contributed much more to +it than that of the Christian Church fathers. To this we must now add, in +our own century (rightly called the "century of the natural sciences"), +the immense advance in the higher culture which we owe to a purified +knowledge of nature and to the monistic philosophy founded upon this. +That these must also exercise an advancing and ennobling influence cannot +be doubted, and has already been shown by many eminent authors (Spencer, +Carneri, and others) in the course of the last thirty years.[18] + +Against this monistic ethic founded on a rational knowledge of nature, it +has been objected that it is fitted to undermine existing civilisation, +and especially that it encourages the subversive aims of social +democracy. This reproach is wholly unjustified. The application of +philosophical principles to the practical conditions of life, and in +particular to social and political questions, can be made in the most +various ways. Political "free-thinking," so called, has nothing whatever +to do with the "freedom of thought" of our monistic natural religion. +Moreover, I am convinced that the rational morality of monistic religion +is in no way contrary to the good and truly valuable elements of the +Christian ethic, but is destined in conjunction with these to promote the +true progress of humanity in the future. + +With Christian mythology and the special form of theistic belief +associated with it the case is different. In so far as that belief +involves the notion of a "personal God," it has been rendered quite +untenable by the recent advances of monistic science. But, more than +this, it was shown more than two thousand years ago, by eminent exponents +of the monistic philosophy, that the conception of a personal God, +creator and ruler of the world, does not give the slightest help toward a +truly rational view of the world. For even if the question of "creation," +in the ordinary and trivial sense of the term, be answered by referring +it to the miraculous agency of a creator working according to plan apart +from the world, there immediately arises upon that the new inquiry: +"Whence comes this personal God? What was He doing before creation? And +whence did He derive the material for it?" and such like questions. The +antiquated conception of an anthropomorphic personal God is destined, +before the present century is ended, to drop out of currency throughout +the entire domain of truly scientific philosophy; the corresponding +conception of a personal devil--even as late as last century connected +with the former and very generally accepted--has already been given up +once for all by all persons of education. + +Let it be noted, however, in passing, that the amphitheism which believes +in God and devil alike is much more compatible with a rational +explanation of the world than pure monotheism. The purest form of this is +perhaps the amphitheism of the Zend religion of Persia, which Zoroaster +(or Zarathustra, the "Golden Star") founded two thousand years before +Christ. Here Ormuzd, the god of light and goodness, stands everywhere in +conflict with Ahriman, the god of darkness and evil. The continual +conflict between a good and an evil principle was personified in a +similar manner in the mythology of many other amphitheistic religions: in +the old Egyptian, the good Osiris was at war with the evil Typhon; in the +old Indian, Vishnu the sustainer with Siva the destroyer, and so forth. + +If we really must retain the conception of a personal God as the key to +our view of the universe, then this amphitheism can explain the sorrows +and defects of this world very simply, as being the work of the evil +principle or devil. Pure monotheism, on the contrary, as represented in +the religions of Moses and Mohammed in their original form, has no +rational explanation of these to offer. If their "one God" is really the +absolutely good, perfect being they proclaim, then the world which he has +created must also be perfect. An organic world so imperfect and full of +sorrows as exists on this earth he could not possibly have contrived. + +These considerations gain in force when we advance to the deeper +knowledge of nature acquired by modern biology; here it was Darwin, +especially, who thirty-three years ago opened our eyes by his doctrine of +the struggle for existence, and his theory of selection founded upon it. +We now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by +a relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must +daily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen +individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the +existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening +dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every +minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble +picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns +throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's +goodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so +devoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now--at least among +educated people who think. It has disappeared before our deeper +acquaintance with the mutual relations of organisms, the advancement of +oecology and sociology, and our knowledge of parasite life and pathology. + +All these sad but insuperable facts--truly the dark side of nature--are +made intelligible to religious faith by amphitheism; they are the "works +of the devil," who opposes and disturbs the perfect moral order in the +world of the "good God." For pure monotheism which knows only one God, +one perfect highest being, they remain unintelligible. If, with a +monotheistic creed, any one still continues to talk of the moral order of +the world, he in so doing shuts his eyes to the undeniable facts of +history, both natural and civil. + +In view of these considerations, it is hard to understand how the large +majority of the so-called educated classes can persevere, on the one +hand, in declaring belief in a personal God to be an indispensable +principle of religion, and, on the other hand, in at the same time +rejecting the belief in a personal devil as an exploded superstition of +the Middle Ages. This inconsistency on the part of educated Christians is +all the more incomprehensible and censurable, inasmuch as both dogmas in +equal degree form an integral part of the Christian creed. The personal +devil, as "Satan," "the Tempter," "the Destroyer," and so forth, +undeniably plays a most important part in the New Testament, though not +met with in the earlier portions of the Old. Our great reformer, Martin +Luther himself, who "sent to the devil" so many antiquated dogmas, was +unable to rid himself of the conviction of the real existence and +personal enmity of Beelzebub; we have only to think of the historical +ink-spot at Wartburg! Moreover, our Christian art, in many thousands of +paintings and other representations, has exhibited Satan in corporeal +form just as realistically as it has the three "Divine Persons," about +whose "hypostatical union" human reason has for eighteen hundred years +been tormenting itself in vain. The deep impression made by such concrete +representations, a million times repeated, especially on childish +understandings, is usually under-estimated as to its tremendous +influence; to it certainly is in large measure to be attributed the fact +that irrational myths of such a kind, under the mask of "doctrines of +faith," continue to hold their ground in spite of all protests of reason. + +Liberal-minded Christian theologians have, it is true, often sought to +eliminate the personal devil from Christian teaching, representing him as +merely the personification of falsehood, the spirit of evil. But with +equal right we must in that case substitute for a personal God the +personified idea of truth, the Spirit of Goodness. To such a +representation no objection can be made; rather do we recognise in it a +bridge connecting the dim wonderland of religious poesy with the luminous +realms of clear scientific knowledge. + +The monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present +knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. It can +never recognise in God a "personal being," or, in other words, an +individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. God is +everywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: "There is one spirit in all things, +and nobody is so small that it does not contain a part of the divine +substance whereby it is animated." Every atom is thus animated, and so is +the ether; we might, therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all +natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether-vibrations. It +comes virtually to the same thing when (as was done here by a speaker on +a former occasion) God is defined as "the supreme law of the universe," +and the latter is represented as the "working of universal space." In +this most important article of belief it matters not as to the name but +as to the unity of the underlying idea; the unity of God and the world; +of spirit and nature. On the other hand, "homotheism," the +anthropomorphic representation of God, degrades this loftiest cosmic idea +to that of a "gaseous vertebrate."[19] + +Of the various systems of pantheism which for long have given expression +more or less clearly to the monistic conception of God, the most perfect +is certainly that of Spinoza. To this system, as is well known, Goethe +also paid the tribute of his highest admiration and approval. Of other, +eminent men who have given a similar pantheistic form to their natural +religion, we shall here mention only two of the greatest poets and +students of man, Shakespeare and Lessing; two of the greatest German +rulers, Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen and Frederick II. of Hohenzollern; +two of the greatest scientists, Laplace and Darwin. In adding our own +pantheistic confession to that of these great and untrammelled spirits, +let it only be noted further, that it has received an empirical +confirmation, never before imagined, through the wonderful advances of +natural knowledge within the last thirty years. + +The charge of atheism which still continues to be levelled against our +pantheism, and against the monism which lies at its root, no longer finds +a response among the really educated classes of the present day. It is +true that not so very long ago the German Imperial Chancellor, in the +Prussian Chamber of Deputies, found it in him to put forward such an +alternative as this: "Either the Christian or the atheistic view of the +world"; this in the defence of a most objectionable law, designed to hand +over our school training, tied hand and foot, to the papal hierarchy. The +vast distance which separates the last-named degenerate outgrowth of the +Christian religion from pure primitive Christianity is not greater than +that which separates those mediaeval alternatives from the cultured +religious consciousness of the present day. To one who regards as true +exercises of Christian religion the adoration of old clothes and wax +dolls, or the thoughtless repetition of masses or rosaries, who believes +in wonder-working relics, and purchases pardon for his sins by means of +indulgence-money or Peter's pence, we willingly concede the claim to +possess the "only saving religion"; but with such fetish-worshippers we +will willingly submit to be ranked as "atheists." + +In like case with the charge of atheism and irreligion are those so often +heard against monism, that it destroys the poetry of life and fails to +satisfy the spiritual wants of human nature; we are told, in particular, +that aesthetics--certainly a most important department both in +theoretical philosophy and in practical life--is prejudiced by a monistic +philosophy. But David Friedrich Strauss, one of our subtlest exponents of +aesthetics and also one of our noblest writers, has already refuted such +a charge; and shown how, on the contrary, the care for poetry and the +cultivation of the beautiful are in the "new faith" called upon to play a +still greater part than ever. My present hearers, at once investigators +and lovers of nature, do not need to be told that every new insight which +we obtain into the secrets of nature at the same time also kindles our +souls, affords new material for imagination to work on, and enlarges our +perception of the beautiful. To convince ourselves how closely all these +noblest spiritual activities of man hang together, how intimately the +knowledge of truth is bound up with the love of goodness and veneration +of the beautiful, it will be enough to mention a single name, Germany's +greatest genius--Wolfgang Goethe. + +If the perception of the aesthetic significance of our monistic +nature-religion, as well as of its ethical value, has hitherto so little +pervaded the educated classes, this is due chiefly to the defects of our +school training. It is true that in the course of the last few decades an +infinite deal has been spoken and written about school reform and the +principles of education; but of any real progress there is as yet but +little trace. Here also reigns the physical law of inertia; here +also--and more especially in German schools--the scholasticism of the +Middle Ages exhibits a power of inertia, against which any rational +reform of education must laboriously contest every inch of ground. In +this important department also, a department on which hangs the weal or +woe of future generations, matters will not improve till the monistic +doctrine of nature is accepted as the essential and sure foundation. + +The school of the twentieth century, flourishing anew on this firm +ground, shall have to unfold to the rising youth not only the wonderful +truths of the evolution of the cosmos, but also the inexhaustible +treasures of beauty lying everywhere hidden therein. Whether we marvel at +the majesty of the lofty mountains or the magic world of the sea, whether +with the telescope we explore the infinitely great wonders of the starry +heaven, or with the microscope the yet more surprising wonders of a life +infinitely small, everywhere does Divine Nature open up to us an +inexhaustible fountain of aesthetic enjoyment. Blind and insensible have +the great majority of mankind hitherto wandered through this glorious +wonderland of a world; a sickly and unnatural theology has made it +repulsive as a "vale of tears." But now, at last, it is given to the +mightily advancing human mind to have its eyes opened; it is given to it +to show that a true knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and +inexhaustible nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but +also for its yearning spirit. + +Monistic investigation of nature as knowledge of the true, monistic ethic +as training for the good, monistic aesthetic as pursuit of the +beautiful--these are the three great departments of our monism: by the +harmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at last the +truly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully longed after +by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, these are the +three august Divine Ones before which we bow the knee in adoration; in +the unforced combination and mutual supplementing of these we gain the +pure idea of God.[20] To this "triune" Divine Ideal shall the coming +twentieth century build its altars. + +Ten years ago I was present at the celebration of the third centenary of +the university of Wuerzburg, which forty years ago I had entered as a +medical student. The festal address on that occasion was delivered in the +university church by the then rector, the distinguished chemist, Johannes +Wislicenus. His concluding words were: "God, the Spirit of Goodness and +of Truth, grant it." I now add, "and the Spirit of Beauty." It is in this +sense that I also, on this commemorative occasion, dedicate to you my +best wishes. May the investigation of nature's secrets flourish and +prosper in this corner of our Thueringian land also, and may the fruits of +knowledge, ripening here in Altenburg, contribute no less to the culture +of the spirit and to the advancement of true religion, than those which +three hundred and seventy years ago the great reformer, Martin Luther, +brought to the light of day in another corner of Thueringen, on the +Wartburg at Eisenach. + +Between Wartburg and Altenburg, on the northern border of Thueringen, lies +Weimar, the classical City of the Muses, and, close by it, our national +university of Jena. I regard it as a good omen that precisely at this +moment a rare celebration should have called together in Weimar the most +illustrious patrons of the university of Jena, the defenders of free +research and free teaching.[21] In the hope that the defence and +promotion of these may still be continued, I conclude my monistic +Confession of Faith with the words: "May God, the Spirit of the Good, the +Beautiful, and the True, be with us." + + + + + +NOTES] + +[Footnote 1: _Scientific Articles of Faith_. +In Professor Schlesinger's address (delivered on 9th October at +Altenburg) on this subject he rightly called attention to the limits of +knowledge of nature (in Kant's sense of the terms) imposed upon us by the +imperfection of our perceptive organs. The gaps which the empirical +investigation of nature must thus leave in science, can, however, be +filled up by hypotheses, by conjectures of more or less probability. +These we cannot indeed for the time establish on a secure basis; and yet +we may make use of them in the way of explaining phenomena, in so far as +they are not inconsistent with a rational knowledge of nature. Such +rational hypotheses are scientific articles of faith, and therefore very +different from ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, +which are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or +simply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of +rational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief +in the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary +atoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential +unity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare +my _General Morphology_, _vol_. i. pp. 105, 164, etc., also my _Natural +History of Creation_, 8th ed., 1889, pp. 21, 360, 795). As the simpler +occurrences of inorganic nature and the more complicated phenomena of +organic life are alike reducible to the same natural forces, and as, +further, these in their turn have their common foundation in a simple +primal principle pervading infinite space, we can regard this last (the +cosmic ether) as all-comprehending divinity, and upon this found the +thesis: "Belief in God is reconcilable with science." In this pantheistic +view, and also in his criticism of a one-sided materialism, I entirely +agree with Professor Schlesinger, though unable to concur with him in +some of his biological, and especially of his anthropological, +conclusions (_cf_. his article on "Facts and Deductions derived from the +Action of Universal Space" _Mittheilungen aus dem Osterlande_, Bd. v., +Altenburg, 1892).] + + +[Footnote 2: _Unity of Nature_. +I consider the fundamental unity of inorganic and organic nature, as well +as their genetic relation, to be an essential axiom of monism. I +particularly emphasise this "article of faith" here, as there are still +scientists of repute who contest it. Not only is the old mystical "vital +power" brought back upon the stage again from time to time, but even the +"miraculous" origin of organic life out of "dead" inorganic nature is +often brought up still against the doctrines of evolution, as an +insoluble riddle--as one of Du Bois-Reymond's "seven riddles of the +world" (see his _Discourse on Leibnitz_, 1880). The solution of this +"transcendent" riddle of the world, and of the allied question of +archigony (equivocal generation, in a strictly defined meaning of the +term), can only be reached by a critical analysis and unprejudiced +comparison of matter, form, and energy in inorganic and organic nature. +This I have already done (1866) in the second book of my _General +Morphology_ (vol. i. pp. 109-238): "General Researches as to the Nature +and First Beginning of Organisms, their Relation to things Inorganic, and +their Division into Plants and Animals."] + +A short resume of this is contained in Lecture XV. of my _Natural History +of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 340-370). The most serious difficulties which +formerly beset the monistic view there given may now be held to have been +taken out of the way by recent discoveries concerning the nature of +protoplasm, the discovery of the Monera, the more accurate study of the +closely-related single-celled Protista, their comparison with the +ancestral cell (or fertilised egg-cell), and also by the chemical +carbon-theory. (See my "Studies on Monera and other Protista," in the +_Jenaische Zeitschrift fuer Naturwissenschaft_, vols. iv. and v., +1868-1870; also Carl Naegeli, _Mechanisch-physiologische Begruendung der +Abstammungslehre_, 1884.)] + + +[Footnote 3: _Religion in the Lower Animals_. +We cannot fail to recognise in the more highly developed of our domestic +animals (especially in dogs, horses, and elephants) some first beginnings +of those higher brain-functions which we designate as reason and +consciousness, religion and morality; they differ only in degree, not in +kind, from the corresponding mental activities of the lowest human races. +If, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the anthropoids, had been for +thousands of years domesticated and brought up in close relation with +civilised man, the similarity of their mental activities to those of man +would undoubtedly have been much more striking than it is. The apparently +deep gulf which separates man from these most highly-developed mammals +"is mainly founded on the fact that in man several conspicuous attributes +are united, which in the other animals occur only separately, viz. (1) +The higher degree of differentiation of the larynx (speech), (2) brain +(mind), and (3) extremities; and (4) the upright posture. It is merely +the happy combination of these important animal organs and functions at a +higher stage of evolution that raises the majority of mankind so far +above all lower animals" (_General Morphology_, 1866, vol. ii. p. 430).] + + +[Footnote 4: _Inheritance of Acquired Characters_. +As the controversy on this important question is still unsettled, special +attention may here be called to the valuable data for arriving at a +decision which are afforded precisely by the development of instincts +among the higher animals, and of speech and reason in man. "The +inheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual, is +an indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution." "Those +who, with Weismann and Galton, deny this, entirely exclude thereby the +possibility of any formative influence of the outer world upon organic +form" (_Anthropogenie_, 4th ed., pp. xxiii., 836; see, further, the works +there referred to of Eimer, Weismann, Ray-Lankester, etc.; also Ludwig +Wilser's _Die Vererbung der geistigen Eigenschaften_, Heidelberg, 1892).] + + +[Footnote 5: _Theosophical System of Nature_. +Of all the modern attempts of dualistic philosophy to establish the +knowledge of nature on a theological basis (that of Christian +monotheism), the _Essay on Classification_ of Louis Agassiz is by far the +most important,--in strictness, indeed, is the only one worthy of +mention. (On this see my _Natural History of Creation_, Lect. III., also +"Aims and Methods of the Modern Embryology," 1875, _Jena Zeitschr. fuer +Naturw., Bd. x., Supplement_.)] + + +[Footnote 6: _Darwin and Copernicus_. +This is the title of an address delivered by Du Bois-Reymond on 25th +January 1883, in the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and afterwards published +in his _Collected Addresses_ (_vol_. ii. 1887). As the author himself +mentions in a note (p. 500) that this gave rise, "most unmeritedly," to +great excitement, and called down upon him the violent attacks of the +clerical press, I may be allowed to point out here that it contained +nothing new, I myself, fifteen years previously, in my lectures on "The +Origin and Genealogy of the Human Race," having carried out in detail the +comparison between Darwin and Copernicus, and the service rendered by +these two heroes in putting an end to the anthropocentric and geocentric +views of the world. (See the Third Series in Virchow and Holtzendorff's +_Collection of Popular Scientific Lectures_, Nos. 53 and 54, 1868, 4th +ed., 1881.) When Du Bois-Reymond says, "For me, Darwin is the Copernicus +of the organic world," I am the more pleased to find that he agrees +(partly in identical words) with my way of thinking, as he himself, quite +unnecessarily, takes up an attitude of opposition towards me. The same is +the case with regard to the explanation of innate ideas by Darwinism, +which he has attempted in his address (1870) on "Leibnitzian Ideas in +Modern Science" (vol. i. of the _Collected Addresses_). Here also he is +most agreeably at one with me in what, four years before, I had +elaborated in my _General Morphology_ (vol. ii. p. 446), and in my +_Natural History of Creation_ (1868). "The laws of heredity and +adaptation explain to us how it is that _a priori_ ideas have been +developed out of what was originally _a posteriori_ knowledge," etc. I +cannot fail to be highly flattered in being able in these last days to +greet the renowned orator of the Berlin Academy as a friend and patron of +the _Natural History of Creation_, which he had previously designated a +bad romance. But his winged words are not on that account to be +forgotten, that "the genealogical trees of phylogeny are about as much +worth as, in the eyes of the historical critic, are those of the Homeric +heroes" (_Darwin versus Galiani_, 1876).] + + +[Footnote 7: _The Law of the Conservation of Substance_. +Strictly taken, this belongs also to "scientific articles of faith," and +could stand as the first article of our "monistic religion." Physicists +of the present day, it is true, generally (and correctly) regard their +"law of the conservation of energy" as the immovable foundation of all +their science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just as in like manner chemists +so regard their fundamental law of the "conservation of matter" +(Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, however, raise certain +objections to either of these fundamental laws with as much success as +against their combination into the single superior law of the +"conservation of substance." As a matter of fact, dualistic philosophy +still attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise of +cautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic) +objections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they +relate to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as +to the connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the +presence of this real "boundary of natural knowledge," we can yet, within +this boundary, apply quite universally the "mechanical law of causality." +The complicated "phenomena of mind," as they are called (more especially +consciousness), fall under the "law of the conservation of substance" +just as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt +with in inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.] + + +[Footnote 8: _Kant and Monism_. +As recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and +in some cases even deified as "infallible" the great Koenigsberg +philosopher, it may be well here to point out once more that his system +of critical philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic +ingredients. His critical principles of the theory of knowledge will +always remain of fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to +know the essential and profoundest essence of substance, the "thing in +itself" (or "the combination of matter and energy"); that our knowledge +remains subjective in its nature; that it is conditioned by the +organisation of our brain and sensory organs, and can therefore only deal +with the phenomena which our experience of the outer world affords us. +But within these "limits of human knowledge" a positive monistic +knowledge of nature is still possible, in contrast to all dualistic and +metaphysical fantasies. One such great fact of monistic knowledge was the +mechanical cosmogony of Kant and Laplace, the "Essay on the Constitution +and Mechanical Origin of the Universe, according to the Principles of +Newton" (1755). In the whole field of our knowledge of inorganic nature, +Kant held firmly to the monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone +as the real explanation of the phenomena. In the science of organic +nature also, on the other hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet +insufficient; here he considered it necessary to call in the aid of final +as well as of efficient causes. (_Cf_. the fifth lecture of my _Natural +History of Creation_ on "The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck"; also +Albrecht Rau's _Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Pruefung der Resultate +des idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos_, vol. ii., +1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant afterwards +arrived at his untenable metaphysical views of "God, Freedom, and +Immortality." It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors if +he had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The natural +sciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am firmly +convinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have turned out +quite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he had had at +his disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical natural +knowledge which we now possess.] + + +[Footnote 9: _The Ether_. +In a thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at +the sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in +Heidelberg in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant +discovery: "Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of +nature. It comes nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess +an electric organ, the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the +question as to unmediated _actio in distans_. Is there such a thing? Not +far off from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature +of electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous +and primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of +the medium that fills all space, its structure, its rest or motion, its +infinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this +question rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is +would reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but +also of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight +and inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether +everything that exists is not created from the ether." This question is +already being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists, +as, for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on _The Nature +of Electricity and Magnetism_, on _The Basis of the Conception of a +Single Substance_ (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of mass (the +primal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres +of concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills +all space; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms, +and universally distributed, is--the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the +basis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date +arrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on "Influences at a +Distance mediated by the Ether" (_Annalen der Physik und Chemie_, 1881, +Bd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one particular +kind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance and +radiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities +ascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other +words, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as +"the mobile."] + + +[Footnote 10: _Atoms and Elements_. +The evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our +empirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav +Wendt in his treatise, _Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer +biologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik_[I] (Berlin, 1891); compare +also Wilhelm Freyer's _Die organischen Elemente und ihre Stellung im +System_[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's _Chemische Probleme der +Gegenwart_[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's _Genesis of the +Elements_. For the different views as to the nature of the atom, see +Philip Spiller on "The Doctrines of Atoms" in _Die Urkraft des Weltalls +nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV]_ (Berlin, 1886), +(1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the ether; 3. The +ethical side of the science of nature). For the constitution of the +elements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Masse im Raume[V] +(Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its +relationships; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and +their combinations. Theory of crystallisation). + +Note I "The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis + for Chemistry and Physics." + +Note II "The Organic Elements and their Place in the System." + +Note III "Chemical Problems of the Day." + +Note IV "The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action." + +Note V "Force and Matter in Space."] + + +[Footnote 11: _World-Substance_. +The relation of the two fundamental constituents of the cosmos, ether and +mass, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many +hypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.] + + World (=Substance=Cosmos).] + + (Nature as knowable by Man.)] + + Ether (="spirit") (mobile Mass (="body") (inert or + or active substance). passive substance). + Property of Vibration. Property of Inertia.] + + Chief Functions: Electricity, Chief Functions: Gravity, + Magnetism, Light, Heat. Inertia, Chemical Affinity. + Structure: dynamical; Structure: atomic, discontinuous, + continuous, elastic substance, inelastic substance, + not composed of atoms (?) composed of atoms (?)] + + Theosophical: "God the Theosophical: "Created + Creator" (always in motion). world" (passively formed).] + + "Influence of space." "Products of space condensation."] + + +[Footnote 12: _General doctrine of Evolution_. +The fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of evolution, and of +the monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly evidenced by the steady +increase of its copious literature. I have cited the most important +treatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition of my _Natural +History of Creation_ (1889). Compare, specially, Carus Sterne (Ernst +Krause), _Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des +Naturganzen in gemeinverstaendlicher Fassung_[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin, 1886); +Hugo Spitzer, _Beitraege zur Descendenztheorie und zur Methodologie der +Naturwissenschaft_ (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, _Ludwig Feuerbach's +Philosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik der +Gegenwart_ (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, _Kosmos: Die +Weltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage +der exacten Naturforschung_ (Leipsic, 1890).[IX] + +Note VI "Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the + Cosmos." + +Note VII "Contributions towards a Theory of Descent, and towards a + Methodology of the Sciences of Nature." + +Note VIII "Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophical + Criticism of the Present Time." + +Note IX "Cosmos: The Development of the Cosmos according to Monistic + Principles on the Basis of Exact Science."] + + +[Footnote 13: _History of Descent_. +The idea and the task of phylogeny, or the history of descent, I first +defined in 1866, in the sixth book of my _General Morphology_ (_vol_. ii. +pp. 301-422), and the substance of this, as well as an account of its +relation to ontogeny or history of development, is set forth in a popular +form in Part II. of my _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., Berlin, +1889). A special application of both these divisions of the history of +evolution to man, is attempted in my _Anthropogenie_ (4th ed.), revised +and enlarged, 1891: Part I. History of development. Part II. History of +descent.] + + +[Footnote 14: _Opponents of the Doctrine of Descent_. +Since the death of Louis Agassiz (1873), Rudolf Virchow is regarded as +the sole noteworthy opponent of Darwinism and the theory of descent; he +never misses an opportunity (as recently in Moscow) of opposing it as +"unproved hypothesis." See as to this my pamphlet, _Freedom in Science +and in Teaching_, a reply to Virchow's address at Munich on "Freedom of +Science in the Modern State" (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892).] + + +[Footnote 15: _Cellular Psychology_. +See on this my paper on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells," in the _Deutsche +Rundschau_ (July 1878), reprinted in Part 1, of _Collected Popular +Lectures_; also "The Cell-soul and Cellular Psychology" in my discourse +on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892, p. +46); _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 444, 777); and _Descent +of Man_ (4th ed., pp. 128, 147). See also, Max Verworn, +_Psycho-physiologische Protisten-Studien_ (Jena, 1889), and Paul Carus, +_The Soul of Man: An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and +Experimental Psychology_ (Chicago, 1891). Among recent attempts to reform +psychology on the basis of evolutionary doctrine in a monistic sense, +special mention must be made of Georg Heinrich Schneider's _Der +thierische Wille: Systematische Darstellung und Erklaerung der thierischen +Triebe und deren Entstehung, Entwickelung und Verbreitung im Thierreiche +als Grundlage zu einer vergleichenden Willenslehre_[X] (Leipsic, 1880). +Compare also his supplementary work, entitled _Der menschliche Wille vom +Standpunkte der neuen Entwickelungstheorie_[XI] (1882); also the +_Psychology of Herbert Spencer_ and the new edition of Wilhelm Wundt's +_Menschen-und Thierseele[XII]_ (Leipsic, 1892). + +Note X "Will in the Lower Animals: a Systematic Exposition and Explanation + of Animal Instincts, and their Origin, Development, and Difference in + the Animal Kingdom, as Basis of a Comparative Doctrine of Volition." + +Note XI "The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of + Evolution." + +Note XII "Soul in Man and Brute." + + +[Footnote 16: _Consciousness_. +The antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)--that human consciousness +is an unsoluble "world-riddle," a transcendent phenomenon in essential +antithesis to all other natural phenomena--continues to be upheld in +numerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the +world founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and +that his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the +"Leipsic ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been +prized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of +the world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing +word of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and +this "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even +worse, that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any +further talk about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address +remains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful +sermon," characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising +variety of philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however, +that the majority (and especially women) judge a "beautiful sermon" not +according to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to +its excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his +audience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of +the genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part +of his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further +attempt to solve the main question he has to deal with--as to whether the +world is really "doubly incomprehensible." For my own part, on the +contrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to +our knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness +and the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but +neither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing, +than the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and +energy. Compare my discourse on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (1878), +pp. 78, 82, etc.] + + +[Footnote 17: _Immortality_. +Perhaps in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic +conception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of +personal immortality, and that of "the resurrection of the body," +associated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on +_Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine_, has well remarked: +"One of the standing accusations of the Church against science is that it +is materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the +whole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and +still is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material +body is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven." Compare also +Ludwig Buchner, _Das zunkuenftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_ +(Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, "Causes of Belief in Immortality" (_The +Forum_, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, _The Soul of Man: an +Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psychology_ +(Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between the ancient +and the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect to the soul. +Just as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of a special +fiery matter (_phlogiston_), so the thinking soul was explained by the +hypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now know that the +light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the ether, and the +soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As compared with +this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of scholastic +psychology has about the same value as the materialistic conceptions of +the Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's "Nadowessian +Death-Song."] + + +[Footnote 18: _Monistic Ethic_. +All Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals, +as a "science of law" (_Normwissenschaft_), stands in immediate +connection with the view that is taken of the world (_Weltanschauung_), +and consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly +important, and have recently upheld in a paper on "Ethik und +Weltanschauung," in opposition to the "Society for Ethical Culture" +lately founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without +reference to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new +weekly journal, _Die Zukunft_, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892, +Nos. V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis +for all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject +compare especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of +B. von Carneri--_Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus_ (1871); _Entwickelung und +Glueckseligkeit_ (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all, _Der +moderne Mensch_ (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, _Welt und +Menschheit_ (Leipsic, 1892); Harald Hoeffding, _Die Grundlage der humanen +Ethik_ (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm Wundt, _Ethik, +eine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens_ +(Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).] + + +[Footnote 19: _Homotheism_. +Under the term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the +various forms of religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely +human characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may +have shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in +common retain the unworthy conception that God (_Theos_) and man (_homo_) +are organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the +region of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate. +In the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly +objectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man +developed from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents +God as a "spirit" in human form, degrades Him to a "gaseous vertebrate" +(_General Morphology_, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression +"homotheism" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more +practical than the cumbersome word "Anthropotheism."] + + +[Footnote 20: _Monistic Religion_. +Amongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last +twenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of +advanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the +epoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled _The Old Faith and +the New: A Confession_ (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: _Collected Writings_, +1878). Compare M. J. Savage, _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian +Doctrine_; John William Draper, _History of the Conflict between Religion +and Science_; Carl Friedrich Retzer, _Die naturwissenschaftliche +Weltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das religioese Dogma_ +(Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, _Natur und Menschengeist im Lichte der +Entwickelungslehre_ (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of religion see the +interesting work of U. Van Ende, _Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance_ +(Paris, 1887).] + + +[Footnote 21: _Freedom in Teaching_. +The jubilee of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes" was +celebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the +commencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the +Grand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are +the characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke +Carl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly +shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector +Magnificentissimus of our Thueringian university of Jena, he has always +afforded his protection to its most sacred palladium--the right of the +free investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie, the +heiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a +fitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary +period, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal +treasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of +culture will never forget the service which the princely couple have +thereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the +same time to true religion.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Monism as Connecting Religion and +Science, by Ernst Haeckel + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONISM *** + +***** This file should be named 9199.txt or 9199.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/1/9/9199/ + +Produced by Lee Dawei, Thomas Berger and Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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