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are listed at the end of the text.

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

HALL, STUTTGART, April 5, 1880.

We hereby authorize the Rev. Dr. G. A. Zimmermann to translate into English
the book entitled

_Die Darwin'schen Theorien und ihre Stellung zur Philosophie, Religion und
Moral von Rudolf Schmid_.

We declare that we know of no other translation of the said book and that
Dr. Zimmermann's translation will be the only one authorized by us for the
United States as well as for the British Empire and its Dominions.

  (_The Author_) RUDOLF SCHMID.

  (_The Publisher_) PAUL MOSER.

       *       *       *       *       *


THE

THEORIES OF DARWIN

AND THEIR RELATION TO

PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION AND MORALITY.

By RUDOLF SCHMID, President of the Theological Seminary at Schönthal,
Würtemberg.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY G. A. ZIMMERMANN, PH.D.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL

CHICAGO:
JANSEN McCLURG. & COMPANY
1883.

       *       *       *       *       *

COPYRIGHT
BY JANSEN, MCCLURG & CO.
A.D. 1882.

R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS, PRINTERS.

       *       *       *       *       * {1}


AUTHOR'S PREFACE

       *       *       *       *       *

The movement which received its impulse as well as its name from Darwin,
seems to have recently passed its distinctest phase; but the more prominent
points of opposition, religious, ethical, and scientific, which have been
revealed through it, remain as sharply contrasted as before. The author of
this book desires, in the first place, to be of service to such readers as
feel the need of setting themselves right upon these questions, which touch
the highest interests of mankind, but who lack time and opportunity to
investigate independently a realm in which so many and so heterogeneous
sciences come into mutual contact. The illogical and confused manner in
which some noisy leaders confound these sciences and their problems and
consequences, renders it still more difficult to arrive at a satisfactory
result; and thus perhaps many readers will look with interest upon an
investigation designed to simplify the different problems and the different
attempts at their solution, and to treat them not only in their relations
to each other, but also separately. But with this primary object, the
author combines another: to render a service to some among the many who
perceive the harmony between their scientific conviction and their
religious need threatened or shaken by the results of science, and who are
unwilling to lose this harmony, or, having lost it, desire to regain it.
Those voices are indeed becoming louder, and more generally and willingly
heard, which proclaim an irreconcilability between faith and {2} knowledge,
between the religious and the scientific views of the world; which declare
that peace between the two can only be had at the price either of
permitting the religious impulses of the heart to be stifled in favor of
science, of satisfying the religious need of the mind with a nourishment
which in the light of science proves to be an illusion, or, as sceptics in
theory and eclectics in practice, of renouncing with resignation a logical
connection and foundation to their former view of the world. The most
striking proof of the extent to which these voices are heard, is the fact
that it has been possible for a one-sided pessimism to become the
fashionable system of philosophy in a Christian nation. The most effective
means for opposing such discordant voices, and for making amends for the
disagreements which they have occasioned, undoubtedly consists in the
actual proof of the contrary of their theories, in the clear presentation
of a standpoint from which not only the most unrestricted freedom of
investigation and the most unreserved acknowledgment of its results shall
be in perfect harmony with the undiminished care of our entire religious
possession, but in which this peace is preserved and forever established by
the very fact that one function of the mind directly requires the other,
one possession directly guarantees the other. This is the standpoint of the
author, and from it he has endeavored to treat all the questions which are
to be taken into consideration. Should he, by his exposition of this
standpoint, succeed in helping even a few readers in reaching the
conviction of the actual harmony between the scientific, religious, and
ethical acquisitions of mankind, or in confirming them anew in such
conviction, he would find himself amply rewarded for this first extended
venture before the public.

R. S.

{3}

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION.

Six years have elapsed since I wrote the book which is now going forth in
English dress. The great leader of the theories in question has passed
away; the waves of thought he set in motion are assuming smoother shape;
and I can only add to what I have already written, that not only have I had
no occasion to retract any of the statements or views laid down in the
book, but I perceive the religious as well as the scientific world growing
more and more into accord with the views I have maintained, and which were
at first so vehemently opposed.

I owe so much to the literary men of the English tongue on both sides of
the Atlantic, that I shall be glad if, through the devoted labors of the
translator, I am enabled to pay them a tribute of gratitude by aiding them
in clearing the way for thought in these much disputed fields, or in
reconciling in their minds the conflict between faith and science.

R. S.

SCHÖNTHAL, WÜRTEMBERG, _September_, 1882.

       *       *       *       *       *


{5}

INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN EDITION,

BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is well known that Mr. Darwin's theory on the Origin of Species has been
accepted in Germany more widely, with more absolute faith, and with more
vehement enthusiasm, than in the country of its birth. In Germany, more
conspicuously than elsewhere, it has itself become the subject of
developments as strange and as aberrant as any which it assumes in the
history of Organic Life. The most extravagant conclusions have been drawn
from it--invading every branch of human thought, in Science, in Philosophy,
and in Religion. These conclusions have been preached, too, with a
dogmatism as angry and as intolerant as any of the old theologies. It is
the fate of every idea which is new and fruitful, that it is ridden to the
death by excited novices. We can not be surprised if this fate has
overtaken the idea that all existing animal forms have had their ancestry
in other forms which exist no longer, and have been derived from these by
ordinary generation through countless stages of descent. Although this is
an idea which, whether true or not, is entirely subordinate to the larger
idea of creation, it usurps in many minds the character of a substitute.
This is natural enough. The theory, or at least the language, of
Evolutionists, puts forward a visible order of phenomena as a complete and
all-sufficient account of its own origin and cause. However unsatisfactory
this may be to the higher faculties of the mind, it is eminently {6}
satisfactory to those other faculties which are lower in the scale. It
dismisses as needless, or it postpones indefinitely, all thought of the
agencies which are ultimate and unseen. Just as in the physical world, some
trivial object which is very near us may shut out the whole of a wide
horizon, so in the intellectual world, some coarse mechanical conception
may shut out all the kingdom of Nature and the glory of it.

Two great subjects of investigation lie before us. The first is to
ascertain how far the Theory of Evolution represents an universal fact, or
only one very partial and fragmentary aspect of a great variety of facts
connected with the origin and development of Organic Life. The second and
by far the most important inquiry, is to estimate aright, or as nearly as
we can, the relative place and importance of these facts in the Philosophy
of Nature.

Subjects of investigation so rich and manifold as these may well attract
all the most varied gifts of the human mind. This they have already done,
and there is every indication that they will continue to do so for
generations yet to be. Already an immense literature is devoted to them;
and every fresh effort of observation and of reasoning seems to open out
new and fruitful avenues of thought. The work which is here introduced to
the English reader contains an excellent review of this literature, so far
as it is represented in the English and German languages. Knowing the
author personally, as I have done for many years, I recognize with pleasure
in his work all the carefulness of inquiry, and all the conscientiousness
of reasoning, which belong to a singularly candid and patient mind.

ARGYLL.

  INVERARY CASTLE, SCOTLAND,
      _September, 1882._

       *       *       *       *       *


{7}

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

The consideration which this work has received from the leaders of
religious and philosophic thought in Germany, and, indeed, wherever it has
been read in its original form, has led the translator to believe that an
English version of it would be acceptable. Especially in America, where
religious problems and religious thought are so intimately connected with
the processes of scientific and philosophic investigation, and where the
agitation of these problems is so peculiarly active and violent, it has
seemed that a work marked by so much scholarship, profundity, and
comprehensiveness and originality of treatment, must serve an important
purpose to the cause of religious no less than of scientific truth. It may
be explained here, that the author resided for some years in the family of
the Duke of Argyll, and there breathed, to a certain extent, the scientific
air of Darwinism in its very origin; and thus his familiarity with all the
results of modern scientific research, added to his theological and
philosophical acquirements, enable him, with a most admirable blending of
the spirit of fairness and toleration with logical severity of treatment,
to bring these different domains into their proper relation with each other
and to establish between them that essential harmony in which consists the
solution of these most profound and vital problems of man's welfare.

Of the translation it may properly be said that, while the aim has been to
give the work the clearest possible form consistent with that strict
fidelity to the original which is {8} especially demanded by the character
of its material, the translator has not hoped to make the work altogether
"easy" reading. Peculiarities of the author's style have been, it is
believed, largely preserved; and occasional difficulties of apprehension
are no doubt to be expected, both from the method of treatment and from the
profound and abstruse character of the topics treated. The translator will
be well satisfied if it shall be found that he has succeeded in performing
his task without adding unduly to the seeming obscurities of certain
passages--obscurities which, however, will no doubt vanish before that
degree of mental application without which such works may not be read at
all intelligibly.

Acknowledgments are properly due and are gladly rendered to George C.
Dawson, Esq., of Chicago, and to Mr. Francis F. Browne, editor of _The
Dial_, for valuable assistance in revising and perfecting this version.

G. A. Z.

CHICAGO, _October_, 1882.

       *       *       *       *       *


{9}

CONTENTS.

  INTRODUCTION ... 17

_PART FIRST:_
_THE DARWINIAN THEORIES_.

BOOK I.
THE PURELY SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.

  The Scientific Problem, ... 23

CHAPTER I.

RISE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

  §1. Direct Predecessors, ... 30
  §2. Indirect Preparations, ... 33

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

  §1. Darwin, ... 38
  §2. The Followers of Darwin.--Ernst Häckel, ... 45
  §3. Modifications of the Theory.--Moriz Wagner. Wigand, ... 52

CHAPTER III.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

  §1. The Theory of Descent, ... 61
  §2. The Theory of Evolution.--Archæology, Ethnography, Philology, ... 77
  §3. The Theory of Selection, ... 100

{10}

BOOK II.
THE PHILOSOPHIC COMPLETIONS AND CONSEQUENCES
OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

  The Philosophic Problems, ... 108

CHAPTER I.

THE NATURO-PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

  §1. The Origin of Self-Consciousness and of Free Moral
      Self-Determination, ... 115
  §2. The Origin of Sensation and of Consciousness, ... 127
  §3. The Origin of Life, ... 132
  §4. The Elements of the World; the Theory of Atoms, and the Mechanical
      View of the World, ... 140

CHAPTER II.

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

  §1. Elimination of the Idea of Design in the World.--Monism, ... 158

{11}

_PART SECOND:_
_THE POSITION OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES
IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION AND MORALITY._

BOOK I.
HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.

  Plan of Treatment, ... 185

_A. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND RELIGION._

CHAPTER I.

MORE OR LESS NEGATIVE POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION.

  §1. Extreme Negation: L. Büchner and Consistent Materialism, ... 188
  §2. Replacement of Religion Through a Religious Worship of the
      Universe.--Strauss. Oskar Schmidt. Häckel, ... 190
  §3. Pious Renunciation of the Knowability of God. Wilhelm Bleek. Albert
      Lange. Herbert Spencer, ... 193
  §4. Spinoza and Hegel in the Garb of Darwin.--Carneri, Ed. von Hartmann,
      ... 203
  §5. Reëcho of Negation on the Side of the Christian View of the World,
      ... 206

CHAPTER II.

REFORM OF RELIGION, OR AT LEAST OF THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION, THROUGH
DARWINISM.

  §1. Heinrich Lang. Friedrich Vischer. Gustav Jäger, ... 210

CHAPTER III.

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM.

  §1. Darwin. Wallace. Owen. Asa Gray. Mivart. McCosh. Anderson. K. E. von
      Baer. Alexander Braun. Braubach, and others, ... 217

{12}

_B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND MORALITY_.

  Preliminary View, ... 228

CHAPTER IV.

ANTAGONISM BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY.

  §1. Objections to Darwinism from an Ethical Standpoint, ... 230

CHAPTER V.

REFORM OF MORALITY THROUGH DARWINISM.

  §1. The Materialists and Monists. Darwin and the English Utilitarians.
      Gustav Jäger, ... 233

CHAPTER VI.

NEUTRALITY AND PEACE BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY.

  §1. Mivart. Alexander Braun, and others, ... 245

BOOK II.
ANALYTICAL.

  Preliminary View, ... 249

_A. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND RELIGION_.

CHAPTER I.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THE THEISTIC VIEW OF THE WORLD.

_a. The Position of Purely Scientific Darwinism in Reference to Theism_.

  §1. Scientific Investigation and Theism.--The Idea of Creation, ... 252
  {13}
  §2. The Descent Theory and Theism, ... 259
  §3. The Evolution Theory and Theism, ... 263
  §4. The Selection Theory and Theism, ... 270

_b. The Darwinistic Philosophies in their Position Regarding Theism_.

  §5. The Naturo-Philosophic Supplements of Darwinism and Theism, ... 273
  §6. Elimination of the Idea of Design, or its Acknowledgment and Theism,
      ... 284

CHAPTER II.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

  §1. The Creation of the World, ... 290
  §2. The Creation of Man, ... 314
  §3. The Primitive Condition of Man.--Paradise, the Fall of Man, and
      Primitive History, ... 321
  §4. Providence, Hearing of Prayer, and Miracles, ... 345
  §5. The Redeemer and the Redemption, the Kingdom of God, and the
      Receiving of Salvation, ... 373
  §6. Eschatology, ... 375

_B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND MORALITY_.

CHAPTER III.

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES.

  §1. Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Principles, ... 379
  §2. Scientific Darwinism and Moral Principles, ... 386

CHAPTER IV.

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE.

  §1. Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Life, ... 391
  §2. Scientific Naturalism and Moral Life, ... 396

  CONCLUSION, ... 399

       *       *       *       *       *


{14}

AUTHORS CITED.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Agassiz, Louis, 35, 37, 50, 320.
  Anderson, 225.
  Anonymus, "the Unconscious," etc., 128, 129, 131, 134, 159.
  Anonymus, "Vestiges," etc., 33.
  Argyll, Duke of, 50, 91, 92, 135, 172, 202, 288.
  Ausland, 159, 240, 281.

  Baer, Karl Ernst von, 36, 54, 56, 71, 74, 81, 83, 106, 132, 149, 160,
      177, 226, 259, 281, 288, 320.
  Barrande, 54.
  Baumgärtner, Heinrich, 57, 176.
  Blanchard, Emil, 54, 106.
  Bleek, Wilhelm, 17, 96, 97, 194, 197, 234, 236.
  Boerhave, 36.
  Braubach, 226.
  Braun, Alexander, 55, 176, 226, 246, 397.
  Braun, Julius, 17.
  Buch, Leopold von, 52.
  Buckle, 17.
  Büchner, Ludwig, 42, 118, 141, 158, 188, 205, 219, 233, 396.
  Buffon, 31.

  Carneri, 203, 238.
  Carns, 36.
  Christy, 90.
  Condillac, 96.
  Cotta, Bernhard von, 51.
  Curtius, 96.
  Cuvier, 31, 32, 34, 37, 320.

  Darwin, 17, 18, 25, 27, 38, 118, 171, 177, 217, 240, 320, 389.
  Descartes, 127.
  Dillman, 295, 301.
  Dohrn, 84.
  DuBois-Reymond, Emil, 124, 125, 127, 130, 134, 149.

  Ebrard, 159, 209.
  Ecker, 56.
  Escher, von der Linth, 54.

  Farrar, 96.
  Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 135, 146.
  Fichte, Immanuel Hermann, 142, 175.
  Fraas, Oskar, 55, 90.
  Frohschammer, 175.

  Gegenbaur, 56.
  Geiger, Lazar, 17, 96.
  Geoffrey St. Hilaire, Etienne, 32, 34.
  Gerhard, 197.
  Giebel, 54.
  Göppert, 54.
  Göthe, 33, 34, 35, 320.
  Gray, Asa, 222.
  Grusebach, 55.
  Grimm, Jacob, 17, 95.

  Häckel, 35, 42, 43, 45, 75, 78, 106, 123, 130, 133, 149, 159, 160, 166,
      170, 204, 219, 234, 237, 281, 395.
  Hartmann, Eduard von, 56, 60, 106, 131, 142, 168, 176, 191, 205, 334,
      376.
  Heer, Oswald, 56, 176.
  Hegel, 126, 136, 204.
  Helmholtz, 136, 159.
  Heyse, 96.
  Hilgendorf, 82.
  His, Wilhelm, 56, 81, 106.
  Huber, 175.
  Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 17, 95.
  Huxley, Thomas, 42, 50, 177, 198, 222, 279.

  Jäger, Gustav, 51, 124, 214, 243.
  Jellinghaus, 94.

  {15}
  Kant, 195, 282.
  Keim, 18, 337.
  Kölliker, 56, 81, 176.
  Köstlin, Julius, 175, 187.
  Köstlin, Otto. 149.
  Kowalewsky, A., 42.
  Kowalewsky, W., 83.
  Kurz, Johann Heinrich, 306.

  Lamarck, 27, 30, 31, 33, 320.
  Lang, Heinrich, 197, 210.
  Lange, Friedrich Albert, 112, 168, 173, 176, 194, 196.
  Lartet, 96.
  Leibnitz, 127, 217.
  Leidy, 83.
  Lessing, 405, 407.
  Linnaeus, 30.
  Livingstone, 93.
  Lotze, 142, 145, 149.
  Lubbock, Sir John, 18, 91, 93, 242.
  Lyell, Sir Charles, 18, 36, 55, 89, 90, 222.

  Mädler, 177, 252.
  Malthus, 39.
  Marsh, 83.
  Martensen, 187.
  Mayer, Robert von, 37, 129, 149, 155.
  McCosh, 224.
  Mill, John Stuart, 242.
  Mivart, 55, 106, 223, 245.
  Moleschott, 42.
  Müller, Fritz, 79.
  Müller, Max, 18, 96, 98.
  Murchison, Sir Roderick, 54.

  Nägeli, 56.
  Nitzsch, Karl Immanuel, 361.
  Noiré, Ludwig, 281.

  Oken, 34, 320.
  Owen, Richard, 35, 56, 164, 176, 221, 223, 320.

  Peschel, Oskar, 279.
  Pfaff, 54.
  Pfleiderer, Otto, 187.
  Planck, Carl Ch., 105, 110.
  Preyer, 136, 146, 153.

  Rathke, Heinrich, 81.
  Reichenbach, 42.
  Renan, 18.
  Réville, Albert, 334.
  Ritschl, 364.
  Rütimeyer, 56, 83.

  Sandberger, 55, 82.
  Schaaffhausen, 56, 85, 177.
  Schelling, 109.
  Schiller, 180.
  Schleicher, 17, 96.
  Schleiden, 42, 51.
  Schleiermacher, 190.
  Schmidt, Oskar, 33, 35, 51, 75, 124, 159, 164, 191, 234.
  Schopenhauer, 128, 190.
  Schrader, Eberhard, 345.
  Seidlitz, 51, 159, 238.
  Semper, Karl, 84, 131.
  Snell, Karl, 42, 262.
  Spencer, Herbert, 128, 139, 194, 242, 279.
  Spinoza, 204.
  Stael, Madame de, 234.
  Steffens, 109.
  Steinthal, 17, 96.
  Strauss, David Friedrich, 18, 112, 125, 128, 159, 163, 174, 175, 190,
      213, 234, 337, 376, 394.
  Swammerdam, 36.

  Tait, 138.
  Thomson, Sir William, 138.
  Trümpelmann, 209.
  Tübingen School, 18.
  Tylor, 91.

  Ulrici, 142, 144, 149, 175, 235.

  Virchow, 56, 85.
  Vischer, Friedrich, 175, 176, 213, 264.
  Vogt, Karl, 42, 56.
  Volkmann, A. W., 56, 105, 177.

  Wagner, Moriz, 52, 56.
  Wallace, Alfred Russell, 37, 101, 177, 221, 262.
  Wedgewood, 96.
  Weismann, 56.
  Wigand, Albert, 26, 52, 56, 57, 106, 135, 149, 170, 226.
  Wundt, 142.
  Würtemberger, 82.

  Zittel, 56.
  Zöllner, 128, 129, 131, 138, 139.

       *       *       *       *       *


{17}

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN,

AND THEIR RELATION TO

PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, AND MORALITY.

       *       *       *       *       *

INTRODUCTION.

With the appearance of Darwin's "Origin of Species," on the 24th of
November, 1859, a new impulse began in the intellectual movement of our
generation. It is true, the whole theory advocated and inaugurated by
Darwin is, in the first place, only one of the many links in the long chain
of phenomena in the realm of the intellectual development of our century,
all of which have the same character, and give their stamp to the entire
mental work of the last decades. This stamp consists in the tendency of
science, which has nearly become universal, not only to consider all
phenomena, both of the physical and the mental life, in connection with
their preceding conditions in space and time, but to trace them back more
or less exclusively to these conditions, and to explain them exclusively by
means of the same. What a Wilhelm von Humboldt, and, still more, a Jacob
Grimm, prepared the way for in the realm of philology, a Lazar Geiger and a
Steinthal, and (under direct influence of Darwin) a Schleicher and a
Wilhelm Bleek further developed; what Julius Braun did in the realm of the
history of art; what a Buckle and a Sir {18} John Lubbock tried to do in
the realm of the history of civilization; what a Max Müller did in the
realm of the history of religion; what the Tübingen School began and its
disciples carried out in the realm of the exegesis of the Bible; what a
Strauss and a Renan, and in a certain sense also a Keim, did in the realm
of christology; what, finally--without being so closely connected with
individual names--was also done in the realm of the world's history: this,
Darwin did in the realm of the history of the organic kingdoms, seconded by
the geological principles of Sir Charles Lyell and by the investigations in
biology and comparative anatomy of a number of scientists. From this point
of view, the movement which was inaugurated by Darwin seems to us but the
reflex of the universal spirit of the present time upon a particular realm;
namely, that of natural science. But since, soon after the appearance of
the before-mentioned work and long before the publication of Darwin's
"Descent of Man," man also was included in the consequences of the
evolution theory, and his existence was explained as a wholly natural
development out of lower animal forms; since Darwin himself unreservedly
adopted this theory of the descent of man from the animal world as an
entirely natural consequence of his doctrine of the origin of species, the
evolution question has gone far beyond the proportionately narrow and
limited bounds of natural philosophy and of merely theoretical scientific
interest--has surpassed in interest all the before-mentioned
investigations, however lively this interest was and is to-day, and has
stirred up the minds of all most thoroughly, not only in their scientific
but also in their religious and ethical depths, some in {19} acknowledgment
and admiration, others in aversion and repugnance, and only a few in sober
and unprejudiced judgment. While some see in Darwinism the flambeau which
now lights mankind to entirely new paths of truth, and also to spiritual
and moral perfection, others see in it only an unproved hypothesis,
threatening to become the torch which might change the noblest and greatest
acquirements of the culture of past centuries into a heap of ashes; while
some date from it a new period of culture, others see in it a deep descent
of the present from the scientific, religious, and moral height which
mankind has ascended.

Under these circumstances, it has become an impossibility for religion and
the moral interest as guardians of the highest and most sacred acquisitions
of mankind, and still more for theology and ethics as the scientific
representations of religion and morality, to remain idle spectators. It
would certainly be more agreeable to them, and more profitable, if they
could delay their judgment until the question became better cleared up. For
the whole question presented by Darwin has not yet passed beyond the stage
of problems and attempts at solution; and there is always something
unsatisfactory in being compelled to deal with theories which in their
fundamentals are still hypotheses. But since all tendencies of the present
which are hostile to Christianity and to the theistic view of the world,
from the most extreme materialism up to the most sublime monism (as
pantheism and materialism of to-day have begun to call themselves),
seemingly with the confidence of complete victory, take possession of
Darwinism as the solid ground from which they hope to destroy all and every
belief {20} connected with faith in a living creator and master of the
world, it has also become impossible for those to whom the religious and
ethical acquisitions of mankind are a sacred sanctuary to take any longer a
reserved and expectant position. Silence now would be looked upon only as
an inglorious retreat; and thus nothing remains but openly to face the
question: What position must religion and morality take in reference to the
Darwinian theories?

In order to treat of the question with that objectivity which it requires,
we have to begin with a synopsis of the theories themselves. In this
representation we have to discriminate strictly between the merely
scientific theories and the naturo-philosophical and metaphysical
supplements and conclusions which have been brought into connection with
them. For precisely in the mixing of the most different problems which are
to be considered here, lies the main cause of the confused and superficial
judgment which is so often heard upon these questions.

       *       *       *       *       * {21}


PART I.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE THEORIES OF DARWIN.

       *       *       *       *       *


{23}

BOOK I.

THE PURELY SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM.

The interesting problem which underlies Mr. Darwin's theories is the answer
to the question: _How did the different species of organic beings on the
earth originate?_ We find ourselves in the midst of an endless variety of
organic beings, animals and plants; we see ourselves, so far as regards the
entire physical part of our being, in relationship with this organic
world--especially with the organization and physical functions of the
animal body. The organic individuals come and go. They originate by being
begotten by and born of individuals of the same kind, or they spring up
through the formation of germs and buds; and they produce in the same way
new individuals, that resemble them in all essential characteristics. Like
always begets like, so far as our observations go. But not only the
individuals, but even the species to which they belong, must have
originated at some definite period of time--and, indeed, as geology tells
us, not all at once, but in a long series, which stretched through
immeasurable epochs of the earth's history. Thus we come face to face with
the question, already put, which we can now formulate more {24} precisely:
_How did the first individuals of each organic species come into
existence?_

No human being ever has observed, nor ever could observe, the origination
of a new species, because man, as it seems, did not appear on the earth
until all the other organisms were in existence. For this reason, the
scientists for a long time thought it unprofitable to occupy themselves
with this question; and even in our time a great many of them declare the
question to be absolutely insolvable, and every attempt at answering it to
be an unjustifiable use of hypotheses. But the impulse toward investigation
admits of no limitation so long as there is any probability of extending
its field of action. Especially in the province of nature, so many things
which could not be discovered by mere observation have been traced
indirectly, and so many important and established facts have been added to
our stores of knowledge, by first starting from hypothetical premises, that
man has again and again endeavored to approximate an answer to the question
of the origin of species by taking the indirect course of hypothesis and
induction, whenever the direct way of observation did not lead to any
result. Religion of course gives a solution to the problem by stating that
the species have been originated by the creative act of God. It is wrong to
say that this solution is opposed to the above-mentioned impulse toward
investigation; for this solution suffices for religion, whether a natural
progress in the origination of species be established or not. For, to the
believer in religion, the whole universe, with all its objective phenomena
and growth, is the work of God as well as the individuals of the already
existing species; and a {25} closer acquaintance with the manner of their
origin is not only no disturbance to his ground of belief, but, on the
contrary, an addition to his knowledge of the method of God's action. In
every man of sound mind, the religious faith is not antagonistic or even
indifferent to the scientific impulse toward investigation, but stands upon
a most intimate footing with it. Hence the human intellect again and again
makes the attempt to find an answer to the problem of the origin of species
in a scientific way, and each endeavor of this kind necessarily ends with
the dilemma that either the first individuals of a species, no matter
whether it be the highest or the lowest, have been evolved out of inorganic
matter, or they originated by descent from the most closely related species
of their predecessors. The denial of the first part of our dilemma, and the
affirmation of the second, is the "Theory of Descent."

But this theory of descent leads us at once into another dilemma. If the
species originated by descent from the most closely related lower species,
and under certain circumstances also from species of the same rank, and
even by degeneration from the next higher, it must have occurred in one of
two ways: either by leaps--called by naturalists "metamorphosis of germs"
or "heterogenetic conception"--or by a succession of imperceptibly small
alterations of the individuals from generation to generation. Each of these
changes would have been no greater than the differences we observe to-day
between the individuals of the very same species, but became in the course
of time so massed and strengthened in one direction that new species have
been evolved. This hypothesis is called the "Theory of Development," {26}
or "Evolution." We retain this name, although well aware of the fact that
the authors do not agree in their use of the term "evolution." Professor
Wigand, who adopts only the theory of a descent from one primordial cell to
another, and who positively rejects the idea of a progress from one fully
developed species to another, claims among other things that one value of
his own theory is that he secures for the idea of evolution its full
meaning. The expression still has a meaning for those who reject the real
descent of the species or their primordial germs one from another, and
acknowledge only the ideal bond of a common plan in their successive
manifestations. But as soon as we examine more closely the literal and
logical meaning of the word, we shall find it of most weight when we
understand by it the before-mentioned gradual evolution in opposition to
the theory of progress by leaps or new creations. Moreover, it is well
known that long before this no other term than evolution was used to
designate the growth of a single organic individual from the primordial
cell and egg to its fully developed form and vital function. Besides, we
find ourselves also in harmony with most of the authors, so far as they
have distinct conceptions of the different scientific problems, if we use
the term "theory of evolution" for the gradual development of one species
from another, in opposition to the hypothesis of a metamorphosis of germs,
or even of a genealogy of primordial cells.

But each evolution theory leads again to new theories, as soon as it has to
be proved in a scientific way. For it can claim a scientific worth only
when sustained by earnest attempts to find and prove the {27} productive
power, agencies and laws of such an evolution of species. Those attempts
can be made in various ways. As a philosophical question, many attempts at
solution have been made, both in ancient and modern times; but being mainly
in the realm of metaphysics, they do not come within the limits of our
scientific essay. As a question for investigators of natural phenomena,
only two attempts of sufficient importance to be mentioned have been made.
The first one was made by Lamarck, who, taking the really different ideas
of descent and evolution as one, made use of the hypothesis of
transmutation; thus becoming the pioneer of Darwinism. The other attempt
was made by Darwin in his theory of natural selection, or struggle, for
existence, and is called the "Theory of Selection."

In defining our problem, therefore, we find ourselves under the influence
of a scientific law of development. The simple problem which we started
from has developed into a trinity of problems and attempts at solution. The
simple question of the origin of species led us into the dilemma of a
_generatio æquivoca_, or a descent; the hypothesis of a descent led to the
dilemma of a heterogenetic conception, or an evolution; and the hypothesis
of an evolution rendered necessary the attempt at explaining this
evolution, and showed Darwin's method of explaining it by his selection
theory. It will be well for the reader to keep distinctly in mind the
difference between these problems and theories, in following our
investigations, even if we cannot arrange our historical sketch according
to the natural principle of division arising from these differences.

For it lies in the nature of the question itself, that {28} these theories,
in their historical progress, did not appear singly, but together. Those
who inclined to the theory of a descent of species could claim for it the
attention of scientific investigators only after having also made the
attempt at conceiving this descent in a concrete way, and according to
certain analogies of observation. The only analogy of the kind appeared in
the sphere of individual development and individual differences on the one
hand, and in that of closely related characters of allied species on the
other; and thus led of itself to the evolution theory. As soon as the
naturalists thought they had found the causes of such an evolution of the
species, they naturally placed these causes in the foreground of their
demonstrations, and erected upon them the structure of their entire theory;
thus treating descent, evolution and selection as one single and
indissolubly connected theory. But this manner of treating the question had
also its dangers, which have already caused a great deal of confusion and
misunderstanding, as well as much unprofitable controversy. Often friends
and enemies of the theories placed that which was in favor of the theory of
descent to the credit of the evolution or selection theory; and, on the
other hand, that which seemed opposed to the selection theory was often
held to be a weakening of the evolution and descent theory; and this was
done, not only by amateurs, but often enough by the highest authorities
also. In reality, however, it is quite conceivable that the idea of a
descent may prove correct, and possibly the idea of an evolution of the
species will have to be replaced by that of a heterogenetic generation, or
by the theory that certain groups in the organic system are originated {29}
by heterogenetic generation, and others by evolution; and so the evolution
theory must share with the theory of heterogenetic generation, or of a
metamorphosis of germs. On the other hand, it is conceivable that even
where the evolution theory is confirmed, the evolution can be accounted for
wholly or partly by other reasons than those derived from the selection
theory. And even this result of present investigations is not
inconceivable: that the reasons for and against the different theories will
be found to balance one another to such a degree that they will sooner or
later lead science, in answering the question of the origin of species, to
the old confession of Socrates--"_Ignoramus_."

We shall, therefore, have to arrange our historical sketch according to the
historical order of the appearance of the theories, and treat the problems
more or less as an undivided whole. But we shall keep in mind, during our
historical sketch, not only the logical separation of the problems in
question, in order not to lose clearness of judgment, but we shall also at
the end of our review, if we consider the present condition of the
problems, have to examine the same once more in detail, so far as regards
the above mentioned separation.

       *       *       *       *       *


{30}

CHAPTER I.

RISE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. _Direct Predecessors.--Lamarck._

The first man who gave direct expression to the idea of a successive
generation of the species through transmutation, and who attempted to
follow it up in a scientific way, was the French naturalist and
philosopher, Jean Lamarck, born 1744. In the year 1801, and subsequently,
he published his views, first in smaller essays and afterward more in
detail in his "_Philosophie Zoologique_," which appeared in 1809, and in
the first volume of his "_Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres_,"
published in 1815. In these works Lamarck upholds fully the descent and
evolution theory, and maintains that the simplest organisms are generated
through a _generatio spontanea_, which is still taking place; but that all
the more developed organisms, including man, are descended through a
gradual change from other species. With this theory, he put himself in
direct and conscious opposition to the old doctrine of the immutability of
species and their characteristics, which had been ably maintained by
Linnæus, and also made some attempts at explanation which approach very
nearly the selection theory. A change in the physical conditions of life,
especially the force of habit in the use or disuse of the organs, the
inheritance of physical and psychical {31} qualities thus attained, and the
extension of the process of transmutation into extraordinarily long periods
of time with very slight changes, are also, in his view, the probable
causes of the variation and development of the species. He only lacks the
idea of a natural selection in the struggle for existence, and the
comparison of the processes in nature with the methodical selection of man
in the breeding of domestic animals and plants, to identify his views with
those of Darwin.

At first, Lamarck met only with violent opposition; but after a little
while his views ceased to attract attention. The time had not yet come to
make such an attempt at observing nature from the standpoint of evolution.
The sciences which favor such a mode of observation, and even demand
it--such as comparative anatomy and physiology and the history of the
development of the different plants and animals--were only in their
infancy, or were--like palæontology and the comparative geography of plants
and animals--not yet in existence. The influence of Linnæus, whose views
diametrically opposed those of Lamarck, predominated over all the
investigations of natural science; Buffon, who favored the ideas of
Lamarck, and loved to trace a unity in natural phenomena, was too instable
in his investigations and views to arrive at a comprehensive principle; and
even the eminent naturalist, Cuvier, of Montpellier, showed in his
observation of nature a predilection for analysis rather than synthesis,
and although his comprehensive mind inclined to generalize and explain, he
placed himself in decided opposition to a theory which was founded only on
a few decisive facts.

This last mentioned deficiency seems to have been {32} the main cause of
Lamarck's views soon being lost sight of. They nowhere found a support in
facts; the force of habit played in them an exaggerated and unnatural
_rôle_; the different illustrations of them--such as the long neck of the
giraffe explained by the permanent and inherited habit of browsing on the
branches of high trees, or the web on the toes of frogs, swimming-birds,
etc., explained by the habit of swimming--were talked about and laughed at
more as curiosities than as worthy of serious consideration.

Only twice after this did the question put by Lamarck attract wider
attention from the learned world. The first time was when, in 1830, the
bitter contest arose at the Academy of Paris, between Cuvier and Etienne
Geoffrey St. Hilaire, the father of Isidor G. St. Hilaire. Geoffrey St.
Hilaire had views similar to Lamarck's, but reached them from quite a
different standpoint--from the observation of the analogy and homology of
the organs; and accounted for the variation of species, not by the use or
disuse of the organs, but on the one hand by the common original type of
the organs, and on the other by the varied influence of the
surroundings--the _monde ambiant_. Lamarck himself seems not to have been
mentioned in this contest. The controversy turned much more on the question
whether in observing nature we can proceed by synthesis and find in the
analogies of the organisms the principles for explaining the real
connection between the different organic forms, or whether the analytical
process is the only correct one, and the synthetical should be discarded.
The solution of it will probably be, that the one process must be
supplemented by the {33} other, as Goethe has already shown in his account
of this controversy; but at that time it was decided in favor of the
analytical principle, and the question was for the time dropped. It came up
for a second time, but created little excitement, in 1844, when an
anonymous work, "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," directed the
attention and the interest of scientists again to Lamarck and his doctrine.
But this interest also soon came to an end, until through Darwin's first
publication the half-forgotten man again suddenly attained great honor.

Those who wish to form a closer acquaintance with the different advocates
of the evolution theory before Darwin's appearance, will find them
carefully arranged in the historical sketch which Darwin gives in the
introduction to his work on "The Origin of Species"; and the most important
extracts of Lamarck's "_Philosophie Zoologique_" are to be found in Oscar
Schmidt's "Descent and Darwinism."[1]

§ 2. _Indirect Preparations._

While thus the ideas of Lamarck gradually fell into partial oblivion, yet
contemporaneous with and following them arose several other series of
thoughts, views, and investigations, which, although they only indirectly
prepared for the revival of the evolution theory, yet exercised a deeper
and more lasting influence on the minds of scientists. We refer to the
ideas in regard to natural phenomena held during the first decades of our
century; further, to the principles of comparative anatomy which, up to the
present time, partly dependent {34} and partly independent of natural
philosophy, have been expressed, valued, and admired as leading thoughts;
and, lastly, to the empiric results of comparative anatomical and
biological investigations in palæontology and geology, as attained by the
help of those very principles. And even physics and astronomy had to
coöperate in preparing the way for the idea of evolution.

The philosophical ideas referred to, together with the points of view and
results of comparative anatomy, led more and more decisively to the idea of
an _original form_, or _type_, which retains its identity in all the
modifications of form in plants and animals; and of a _ground-plan_, which
is realized in the systems of the plant and animal world in higher and
higher differentiations and in more and more developed modifications,
diverging farther and farther from the prototype until it reaches its
highest form, still reducible to the prototypes, in the most highly
organized dicotyledons in plants, and in the animal world in the mammalia,
and lastly in man.

Men like Cuvier and Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who otherwise stand diametrically
opposed to each other, unite in these and kindred ideas. The naturalist
Oken attains the same result, tinged with the views of Schelling; the poet
Goethe, from an intuitive knowledge of nature, arrived at the same
conclusion. The former, during a journey in the Hartz Mountains, at the
sight of a bleached deer's skull, and the latter, upon picking up a sheep's
skull in the Jewish cemetery at Venice, were struck by the same thought:
the skull is only a modified vertebra. Oken founded upon this idea and
kindred analogies his profound philosophy of the system of animals and
plants which comes very near to the evolution {35} theory, and in his
cosmogony traces all organisms to a protoplasm in such a way as to bring
him in this respect also very near to Darwinism. Goethe, in his
metamorphosis of plants, develops ideas in which, in all seriousness, he
makes a concrete application of his thought of a prototype to the leaf of a
plant; and proved for zoölogy the fruitfulness of his idea of a type by his
well known discovery of the mid-jaw bone in man. Although Oscar Schmidt
seems to be decidedly right in supposing, in opposition to Ernst Häckel,
that Goethe did not intend to have his idea of unity and development taken
in a real but in an ideal sense, and hence could not be called a direct
representative of the evolution theory, still he is all the more decidedly
a predecessor of that theory in directing attention to the unity in plan
and metamorphosis of plants and animals. Louis Agassiz, who, on the other
hand, continued up to his death in opposition to the entire doctrine of
descent, made the idea of _types_ the principle of his whole
classification, and said: "Man is the purpose toward which the whole animal
creation tends from the first appearance of the first paleozoic fish."
Richard Owen, who rejected the selection theory and favored that of
descent, published, long before Darwin's appearance, some most interesting
results of his anatomical and palæontological investigations from the point
of view of the prototype and its modifications. "Man, from the beginning of
organisms, was ideally present upon the earth," is a sentence which we
quote from Owen's works.

In short, this ideal momentum in the observation of the organic kingdoms is
not only the most beautiful blossom and the ripest fruit of the union
between {36} laborious and comprehensive detailed investigations and a
generalizing philosophic penetration, but it was also a very efficient
preparation of the mind for the evolution problem, so far as the summing up
of the organisms under a type and plan is only the ideal reverse of its
realistic reduction to a common pedigree.

We have yet to add the investigations in regard to the history of evolution
of the single organisms, as well as those in comparative anatomy, which in
former centuries were begun by scientists like Swammerdam and Boerhave and
carried more nearly to completion by K. E. von Baer, Carus, and others. In
reducing all the tissues of plants and animals to one cell, and tracing
back also their individual developments to the first differentiation of the
simplest cell, they followed out the unity of the plan of the organic
kingdoms--which hitherto had been maintained only ideally and proclaimed as
a philosophic postulate--farther and deeper into the sphere of empiric
reality. We must mention, moreover, the great palæontological discoveries
which, from the first foraminifera of the Cambrian formations up to the
historical period of man, showed a great progressive scale in the
appearance of the organisms and a very wide relationship between this scale
and the natural systems of botany and zoölogy; and, finally, the principles
of geology, which, under the leadership of Sir Charles Lyell, starting from
the idea of an identity of the powers which were active in former times
with those of the present, attempted to explain the most violent of the
changes in the earth's crust in former times by causes active to-day. This
often explains prodigious effects--such as the elevation and settling of
entire mountains {37} and continents--by the constant and related action of
the slightest causes and most gradual steps; it opens the perspective into
vast epochs of long and numerous geological periods; and sometimes, where
scientists like Cuvier and Agassiz have supposed the most complete
cataclysms and the most universal revolutions of the globe, there prove to
have been only gradual changes with revolutions very partially and locally
limited.

Finally, if we take into consideration the grand discoveries which
strikingly illustrate the connection in extent and quality between the
universe and all its agencies and powers--such as Robert von Mayer's
discovery of the conservation of force and of the mechanical equivalent of
heat, or the spectrum analysis and the information which it gives us by
ever-increasing evidences of the identity of the cosmic and telluric
substances--we may venture to say that the scientific and intellectual
ground was well prepared for a theory which takes the origin of organisms
into this common relationship of the essential unity and development of the
universe.

Only one thing more remained to complete the hypothesis offered by Lamarck,
of the _fact_ of a development of species by a new and more satisfactory
answer to the question as to the _manner_ of their development. The task of
answering in a more comprehensive and scientific way the question as to the
manner of development has been undertaken by Darwin in his selection
theory. Alfred Russell Wallace, who arrived at the same results
contemporaneously with and independently of Darwin, has, with praiseworthy
modesty, renounced his claim to priority of the discovery, as Darwin had
been longer engaged in working out his theories and had begun to collect
materials for proof.

       *       *       *       *       * {38}


CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. _Darwin._

In order to explain the development of higher species from lower ones in a
natural way, Darwin starts from two facts. The first fact is, that all
individuals of the same species show, besides their specific similarity,
individual differences: a fact which we call the _law of individual
variability_. The other fact is, that each individual inclines to transmit
to his offspring all his qualities--not only the characteristics of the
species, but also those of the individual: a fact which we call the _law of
heredity_.

To show how the whole basis of explanation of the evolution of one species
from another is given in these two facts, Darwin calls attention to the
rules according to which the often extraordinarily great varieties of
domestic animals and cultivated plants are obtained and preserved; namely,
the rules of _artificial breeding_. The breeder simply selects from a
species those individuals having such individual qualities as he wishes to
preserve and to increase, and refrains from breeding those individuals
which do not possess the characteristics he wants or which possess them
only in a small degree. He continues the same process with the next
generation; and by the constant and effectual agency of the two {39}
before-mentioned laws, he will, after the lapse of a few generations, have
breeded a variety in which the characteristics originally belonging only to
a single individual have become common and permanent.

It is now important to consider whether nature, in _natural selection_
(whence the name "Selection Theory") does not act unconsciously according
to the same rules, and attain the same results, as man with his artificial
and intentional selection; and, furthermore, whether she does not reach
results which, according to that principle of natural selection, finally
explain the origin of all, even of the highest and most complicated
organisms, from one single original form or a few original and simplest
forms. Darwin finds these questions answered in the affirmative; and
arrives at this answer through the following conclusions.

The English political economist Malthus (1766-1834), in his "Essay on the
Principles of Population," established a law in regard to the growth of the
human race, which may be applied just as well to all the species of the
entire organic world: that population tends to increase in a geometrical
ratio, although the conditions of life for the individual remain the same
or at most increase in an arithmetical ratio. The consequence is that if
the species is to be preserved and the individuals of future generations
are to continue to find sufficient food and other means for sustaining
life, a great many individuals of each generation must perish very early,
and even as germ and seed, and only a minority will be preserved and
reproduced. This exuberant prodigality of life-germs, of which
proportionately only a few are preserved and reproduced, takes place in the
plant and {40} animal world in a very marked degree. There a continual
_struggle for existence_ prevails; each individual has to get access to his
conditions of life by wresting them from a whole series of other
individuals of his own or other species; and now the question arises: which
individuals will survive in this struggle? which will more probably be
preserved and procreate offspring? Evidently, the answer is, those
individuals which possess individual characteristics more favorable to the
preservation of the individual than those possessed by other individuals.
These individual characteristics are transmitted to the next generation. In
this there will be again individuals that have in a still higher degree the
characteristics thus transmitted and favorable for the preservation of the
individual, or that add to these favorable characteristics new
characteristics favorable in another direction to the survival of the
individual in the struggle for existence. While these individuals, with
more probability than the others, are thus preserved and reproduced, they
transmit to their offspring not only the old favorable characteristics
increased, but also those newly added. Among the favorable individual
qualities, Darwin reckons the divergence of character, the perfection of
organization, and the law of correlation; the latter, however, can not be
explained by natural selection, since according to this law a variation in
an organ brings about a corresponding variation in entirely different
organs (_e.g._, cats with white fur and blue eyes are also deaf).

This is _natural selection by means of the survival of the fittest in the
struggle for existence_. Changes in the conditions and surroundings of
life, and more or less {41} perfect adaptation of the organisms to the new
conditions of form, color, food and habit, are the main causes of those
individual variations, the accumulation of which through many generations
produces so great effects. If we only have behind us periods long enough to
permit us to imagine each step in the development as an extremely small and
hardly appreciable one, natural selection offers us not the exclusive but
the main means of explaining the evolution of the whole animal and plant
world out of one or a few simple organized original forms.

This is the outline of the selection theory, as given by Darwin in 1859,
and still retained in all its essentials. It is true, in his work on the
origin of man he added as supplemental the _sexual_ to the common natural
selection, and made it of special importance for the presentation of the
_beautiful_ in nature--for the production of beautiful forms, colors, and
tones, and for the development of power and intelligence. And in the same
work he said that there are many circumstances of structure which seem to
be neither beneficial nor detrimental to the individual, and that to have
overlooked this fact was one of his greatest mistakes in his former
publications. But for the rest, he maintains the selection theory
unchanged, with the single modification that it explains, if not the whole
development of the species through descent, at least that which is of most
importance in it.

That it was only one step in the course of reasoning to extend the
selection theory to the descent of man, was seen by many as soon as
Darwin's work on the origin of species was published and began to attract
{42} attention; although not a syllable upon this question was presented in
this work. Various persons manifested their presentiment or perception
according to their point of view--partly by the most violent opposition to
the new doctrine, partly by scientific development or modification of their
anthropogonic views, partly also by revelling in imagination in the
consequences hostile to religious faith which they thought could be drawn
from this doctrine. We remind the reader of the itinerant lectures of Karl
Vogt about the ape-pedigree of man, and of the echo they found by assent or
dissent in press and public; also of Huxley in England, Karl Snell,
Schleiden, Reichenbach, and others; of the materialists, L. Büchuer and
Moleschott, and of the publications of Ernst Häckel. Finally, Darwin
himself made us fully certain of the importance which from the beginning he
had attributed to his theory, by publishing his work on the "Descent of
Man," in the year 1870.

In this work he explained the descent of man fully from the before-named
principles of the descent, evolution, and selection theories, of which we
have given all the essentials in the foregoing presentation. He carefully
enumerates everything in the structure of the human body that reminds us of
our relationship with the animals--especially those embryonic phenomena and
rudimentary organs in man which are still to be found in use and in a more
developed state in different animal species, and which led him to imagine
our ancestors now with a tail, then with sharp ears, now living in the
water, then being hermaphrodites. He reviews the spiritual qualities of
man, and finds for them all analogous qualities in the animal world. He
finds in his work on {43} "Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,"
published in 1872, new confirmation of the genealogical relationship of
both. He looks over the whole course of the zoölogical system and of
palæontological discoveries, and searches for the points where the branches
and twigs of the animal pedigree of man must have diverged. To begin with
the lowest branches, he thinks the most important divergence took place
where the series of vertebrates may have been developed out of the
invertebrates. Here he adopts the investigations of A. Kowalewsky, and the
deductions of Häckel founded upon them, concerning the larva of the
ascidiæ, a genus of marine mollusca of the order tunicata, and sees in a
cord, to be found in this larva, most decided relationship to the spine of
the lancelet fish or amphioxus, the lowest of all the vertebrates, it being
yet doubtful whether it belongs at all to the vertebrates. In the
transition that once took place from one species of ascidian larva to a
form similar to the lancelet fish, he sees the new branch diverging in the
series of vertebrates. Out of the fish he concludes that the amphibia were
developed, and out of those the reptilia, out of one of them the
marsupialia, and from them the lemurs or half-apes, the representatives of
which yet live in Madagascar and the southern part of Asia. From these
there branched off on the one side the platyrrhini, or apes with a flat
nose, on the new continent; on the other, the catarrhini, or apes with a
narrow nose, on the old. Among the ancestor of the last, he searches for
the common progenitors, from which again two branches started--on the one
hand the ignoble branches of the catarrhine species of apes, always
remaining lower in {44} development, to which also belong the
anthropomorphous apes, like the orang outang and gibbon in Asia, the
gorilla and chimpanzee in Africa; on the other hand, that branch which
represents the ascent of animals to man.

The refining agencies which finally raise the animal up to the man are
essentially the same that on the lowest scales of the pedigree have caused
the development of the lower organisms into the higher, namely: favorable
individual variations, inheritance, acclimatization, survival of the
fittest in the struggle for existence, natural, and especially, sexual
selection. These are, if not the exclusive, still the main agencies which
finally led the primate of the earthly creation upon the stage and
furnished him with his superior faculties. But it is particularly by means
of his social life, and of the forces which determine, transmit, increase
and ennoble the various impulses and instincts promoting it, that man has
become what he is. Through the need and faculty of reciprocal help, through
sexual selection--which of course is a very essential factor of social
life--there originated language, and reflection, and all the intellectual
qualities; and through these again originated the moral qualities, which
are most important in constituting the specific worth of man, and which
were finally developed into self-consciousness and free moral
responsibility.

But with the description of this attempt to explain more in detail these
specific characteristics of man, we leave the ground of pure natural
science and enter the region of philosophy, in which we have to take up the
{45} question again (in Book II, Ch. I) at the same point where we here
leave it.

§ 2. _The Followers of Darwin.--Ernst Häckel._

Darwin's theory soon found an enthusiastic corps of followers--on the
continent, and especially in Germany, almost more than in his own country.
The outlook into an entirely new explanation of the origin of man, and the
probable use of this theory for attacks upon faith in a Creator and Master
of the world, called wide-spread attention to it; and the theory opened to
natural science itself entirely new impulses and paths, and promised the
solution of many problems before which it had hitherto been compelled to
stand in silence. To be sure, it threatened likewise to allure the mind
from the slow but sure ways of solid study to the entertaining but insecure
and aimless paths of imagination and hypothesis.

Among all the German followers of Darwin who adopted not only the idea of
an origin of species through descent and evolution, but also the
explanation of evolution by natural selection, and extended it so as to
make the principle of selection of exclusive value, Ernst Häckel occupies
the most prominent rank.

In his "General Morphology," published in 1866, and in his "Natural History
of the Creation," the first edition of which appeared in 1868, and finally
in his "Anthropogeny"[2] (why he does not say Anthropogony, we are nowhere
informed), 1874, this scientist brought the new theory, which had been
presented by Darwin in an almost bewildering flood of details, into
connection and order, and, analyzing the powers active in natural
selection, combined them into an entire system of laws. He {46} at once
drew the origin of man also into the course of reasoning on the new theory,
and sustained the theory by the discovery of the _monera_ and other low
organisms of one cell, as well as by special investigations of the
calcareous sponges. For these labors, he was rewarded by the warm and
unreserved acknowledgment which Darwin made to him in his work upon the
origin of man, which was published subsequently to the "Natural History of
the Creation." There Darwin says: "If this work had appeared before my
essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost
all the conclusions at which I have arrived, I find confirmed by this
naturalist, whose knowledge on many points is much fuller than mine."
Häckel's labors rendered still greater service to the Darwinian theory by
dividing the organic world into three kingdoms: the protista kingdom, the
vegetable kingdom, and the animal kingdom,--a division which solves in a
most simple way the difficulty that was felt more and more of securing for
the lowest organisms a place among the animals or plants. He further aided
the theory by leaving the choice open to adopt either a uniform or
multiform pedigree of the organisms and their kingdoms and classes, and by
treating each class under both points of view; and finally, by fascinating
experiments to bring before us in detail the hypothetical pedigrees of all
classes of organisms from the protista kingdom up to man.

We will try to reproduce briefly the pedigree which is of most
interest--the hypothetical _pedigree of man_. Häckel divides it into
twenty-two stages, eight of them belonging to the series of the
invertebrates, and fourteen to that of the vertebrates. On this ladder of
{47} twenty-two rounds, he leads us from the lowest form of the living
being, in slight and mostly plausible transitions, continually higher and
higher, up to man; and makes our steps easy by mentioning at each stage, on
the one hand the corresponding state in the embryonic development, on the
other the still living creature through which, in his opinion, the former
organisms of the corresponding round of the ladder are still represented,
and which accordingly has been a creature that remained on its round, while
other members of its family have been developed up to man and to many other
genera and species.

He begins with the monera, the organisms of the lowest form, discovered by
himself, which have not so much as the organic rank of a cell, but are only
corpuscules of mucus, without kernel or external covering, called by him
cytod, and arising from an organic carbon formation. The lowest and most
formless moneron is the bathybius, discovered by Thomas Huxley, a network
of recticular mucus, which in the greatest depths of the sea, as far down
as 7,000 metres, covers stone fragments and other objects, but are also
found in less depths, in the Mediterranean Sea, for instance. From the
moneron he proceeds to the amoeba--a simple cell, with a kernel, which
still corresponds to the egg of man in its first state. The third stage is
formed by the communities of amoebæ (synamoebæ), corresponding to the
mulberry-yolk in the first development of the fecundated egg, and to some
still living heaps of amoebæ. To the fourth stage he assigns the planæa,
corresponding to the embryonic development of an albumen and the planula or
ciliated {48} larva. When these ciliated larvæ are developed, they contract
themselves so as to form a cavity; and this fifth stage--especially
important for his theory--he calls gastræa. In this form, he says, the
progaster is already developed, and its wall is differentiated for the
first time into an animal or dermal layer (ectoblast), and into a
vegetative or intestinal layer (hypoblast). At the sixth stage, there
branched off the prothelmis, or worms, with the first formations of a
nervous system, the simplest organs of sense, the simplest organs for
secretion (kidneys) and generation (sexual organs), represented to-day by
the gliding worms or turbellaria; as the seventh stage, the soft worms, as
he called them at first--the blood worms, or coelomati, as he describes
them in his "Anthropogeny"--a purely hypothetical stage, on which a true
body-cavity and blood were formed; the eighth stage are the chorda-animals
with the beginning of a spinal rod, corresponding to the larva of the
ascidiæ. At the ninth stage, called the skull-less animals (acrania), and
corresponding to the still living lancelet, we enter the series of the
vertebrates. The importance of the eighth and ninth stages for the theory,
we have already pointed out in our remarks upon Darwin, p. 43. The tenth
stage is formed by those low fishes in which the spinal rod is
differentiated into the skull--and the vertebral-column, called the
single-nostriled animals (monorrhini), and represented by the cyclostoma of
today (hag and lampreys). The eleventh stage is formed by the primæval fish
or selachii (sharks); the twelfth by the mud fish, of which there still
live the protopterus in Africa, the lepidosiren in the tributaries of the
Amazon, and the ceratodus in the swamps of Southern {49} Australia. On the
thirteenth stage, there are the gilled amphibians (sozobranchia), proteus
and axolotl; on the fourteenth, the tailed amphibians (sozura), newt and
salamander; on the fifteenth, the purely hypothetical primæval amniota or
protamnia (amnion is the name given to the chorion which surrounds the
germ-water and embryo of the three higher classes of vertebrates) on the
sixteenth, the primary mammals (promammalia), to which the present
monotremes (ornithorhynchus and echidna) stand nearest; on the seventeenth,
the pouched animals or marsupialia; on the eighteenth, the semi-apes or
prosimiæ (loris and maki); on the nineteenth, the tailed apes, or menocerca
(nose-apes and slender-apes, or semnopithecus); on the twentieth, the
man-like apes (anthropoides) or tail-less catarrhini (gorilla, chimpanzee,
orang outang and gibbon). And now we come to twenty-one--ape-like men or
speechless primæval men (alali)--of whom we are reminded to-day by the
deaf, and dumb, the cretins and the microcephali; and number twenty-two is
_homo sapiens_, the man. The Australians and the Papuans are supposed to be
the only remaining representatives of his first stage-development. In like
manner, Häckel also gives us the stem-branches of all the types, classes
and orders of the organisms, and forms from them a very acceptable
hypothetical pedigree; or--if we prefer to suppose a polyphyletic rather
than a monophyletic origin of species--hypothetical pedigrees of the whole
organic world.

The perspicuity and clearness of Häckel's deductions, the extent of his
knowledge, and the singleness of his aim, to which he makes them all
subservient, lend {50} to his works a great charm. But on the other hand we
dare not conceal that, even on the ground of explanations belonging purely
to natural history, the character of hypothesis is often lost in that of
arbitrariness and of the undemonstrable. Even the unlearned in natural
science often enough get this impression when reading his works, and will
find it confirmed by scientists who not only contradict his assertions in
many cases, but disclose plain errors in his drawings--errors, indeed,
exclusively in favor of the unity-hypothesis; and in other cases they show
that drawings which are given as pictures of the real, represent merely
hypothetical opinions. There is especially evident in his works an
extremely strong tendency to impress on his hypotheses the character of an
established and proved fact, by giving them the alluring name of laws.
Entire systems of laws of the selection theory are produced, and all
imaginable assertions are also immediately called laws. For example,
Huxley, in his anatomical investigations of apes and men, arrives at the
conclusion that the differences between the highest and the lowest apes are
greater than the differences between the highest apes and man. This purely
anatomical comparison, Häckel calls repeatedly "Huxley's Law." We are well
aware that the idea of law is capable of great extension in meaning, and in
that respect we can refer to nothing more instructive than the
well-meditated inquiry upon this idea in the "Reign of Law" of the Duke of
Argyll (London, Strahan & Co.). But if we may venture to call purely
anatomical comparisons of this nature _laws_, such a use of language
destroys all logical reasoning; and this mistake appears again in Häckel's
philosophic {51} discussions, of which we shall have to speak hereafter. We
shall have to refer also hereafter to an additional embellishment, which
Häckel thinks himself obliged to give to his works--namely, that he makes
on every occasion the strongest attacks upon faith in a personal God, a
Creator and Lord of the world; that he traces all the motives of human
action to self-interest; that he denies the liberty of man and the moral
system of the world; that he makes consent to his view of things the
criterion of the intellectual development of a man; and that he thinks to
render a service to civilization by such a view of the world and of ethics.

In the consequent carrying out of the selection principle as the
satisfactory key in explaining the origin of all species and also of man,
Häckel is indeed, in spite of the approval of his works by the British
master, more Darwinian than Darwin himself, who expressly refuses to give
exclusive value to this theory of explanation. Hence there are among
scientists only a few who go with him to this extent. In Germany, aside
from the materialists, we only know of Seidlitz and Oskar Schmidt--who in
the thirteenth volume of the "International Scientific Series" treats of
"The Theory of Descent and Darwinism," and advocates not only the autocracy
of the selection theory, but also all the monistic and atheistic
consequences which are deduced from it. Perhaps Gustav Jäger, Schleiden,
Bernhard Cotta--at least judging from their earlier publications--should be
mentioned as followers of the pure selection theory; although they do not
all draw from it the before-mentioned philosophic consequences. On the
other hand, the number of those is very great who, although inspired {52}
by Darwin to adopt the idea of an origin of species through descent and
evolution, yet have more or less modified, laid aside, or entirely refused
the very doctrine which is especially new in Darwin's theory--the selection
theory. In the following section we shall briefly give an account of them.

§ 3. _Modifications of the Theory--Moriz Wagner. Wigand._

One of the most prominent objections to the selection theory, which strikes
us at once from the standpoint of natural history, is the following: The
varieties of a domesticated species, obtained by artificial breeding, are
lost, and return to the original wild form of the species as soon as they
are crossed long enough with other varieties or are left to themselves and
to the crossing with individuals of the original form of their species; and
hence we can not see how individual characteristics, even if favorable to
the individual, will not be lost again by the crossing which is inevitable
in a state of nature, with such individuals as do not possess those
characteristics. Besides, it is an established fact, confirmed by all our
observations stretching over thousands of years, that the characteristics
of species are preserved in spite of all individual modifications, and that
this preservation of the characteristics of species has its cause
essentially in the free crossing of individuals.

This objection induced Moriz Wagner to take up again an idea already
expressed by Leopold von Buch, and to complete the principle of a selection
through natural breeding by another, and partly, indeed, to supplant it by
the principle of _isolation by migration_. Isolated individuals, who, from
any reason naturally to {53} be accounted for, leave the mass of their
fellows, can from the very consequence of this isolation transmit to their
offspring common individual characteristics which are not destroyed again
by the crossing with other individuals. They will especially fix and
transmit these individual characteristics, when they are favorable to them
for the conditions of existence in their new place of living, and these
individual characteristics will so much the more be increased and developed
in a direction favorable to the subsistence of the individuals in their new
place of living, as there are more closely connected with this isolation
variations in the conditions of existence, in climate, geographical
surroundings, food, and so on. He very attractively applies this theory
also to the explanation of the origin of man. According to his opinion,
even the nearest animal progenitors of man were isolated, and the isolating
power was the rise of the great mountains of the Old World, which took
place previous to the glacial period. One pair, or perhaps a few pairs, of
those progenitors were driven away from the luxurious climate of the torrid
zone to the northern half of the globe, and found their return cut off by
glaciers and high mountains; in place of a comfortable life on the trees,
necessity urged them to gain support from conditions less favorable to
existence, and necessity, this mother of so many virtues and achievements,
finally made man what he is. In following out these ideas, Moriz Wagner has
gradually and more and more decidedly given up the selection theory, and
opposed it by sharp criticisms.

This _migration_ or _isolation theory_ also found a degree of favor, but
subordinate in its nature. For it {54} can not and will not pretend to
solve the main problems. It only tries to explain how the individual
variations, already in existence, might have been preserved and perhaps
increased, and how new conditions of existence could have roused latent
powers; but not how these variations and these powers originated. Just as
little is the selection theory able to explain this; but it pretends to do
it, and hence we can easily comprehend how during the last few years a
constantly increasing number of voices, and more important ones, have been
raised against the selection theory. This opposition came not only from
those who--like Agassiz, Barrande, Emil Blanchard, Escher von der Linth,
Göppert, Giebel, Sir Roderick Murchison, Pfaff, and others--directly reject
each and every idea of descent on account of the difficulty in defending
the selection theory; or who--like Karl Ernst von Baer,[3] (the {55}
pioneer in the region of the history of individual development), like Oskar
Fraas, Griesebach, Sandberger, and others--generally take a more reserved
and neutral position, because of the uncertainty of the facts and the
inaccessibility of the problems; but it comes especially from those
scientists who are inclined to adopt an origin of species through descent
and even through development, yet refuse to explain it by the selection
principle, and look for the essential cause of the development in the
organisms themselves, without claiming to have themselves found these
causes. Among the most prominent advocates of this view, we may name the
late Sir Charles Lyell, Mivart, and {56} Richard Owen, in England; and in
Germany, Alexander Braun, Ecker, Gegenbaur, Oswald Heer, W. His, Nägeli,
Rütimeyer, Schaaffhausen, Virchow, Karl Vogt, A. W. Volkmann, Weismann,
Zittel, and here also Moriz Wagner, and among the philosophers, Eduard von
Hartmann. Many of these men are but little aware of the difference between
the two questions: whether, on the one hand, the adoption of the origin of
species through descent does not of itself involve the idea of a gradual
development of one species from another, almost unobservable in its single
steps; or, on the other hand, whether a descent of species through
heterogenetic generation in leaps and through a metamorphosis of the germs,
could be imagined. They consider descent and evolution as identical; and
this identification is explainable so long as we are not in a condition to
come nearer to the eventual causes of the supposed variation of species.
But men are not wanting who put these questions clearly and plainly, and
separate them distinctly from one another. Among them we may mention K. E.
von Baer, Ed. von Hartmann and Wigand; of the latter we will have occasion
to speak more in detail hereafter. Among them we find also scientists who
answer the question in the sense of a new-modeling of the species, of a
heterogenetic generation, and of a metamorphosis of germs. To this class
belong especially Oswald Heer--"Urwelt der Schweitz" ("Antediluvian World
in Switzerland"), Zürich, 1865, p. 590-604; Kölliker--"Ueber die
Darwin'sche Schöpfungstheorie," ("Darwin's Theory of Creation"), Leipzig,
1864; "Morphologie und Entwicklungeschichte des Pennatulidenstammes nebst
allgemeinen Betrachtungen zur Descendenzlehre," {57} ("Morphology and
History of the Development of the Stem of the Pennatulidæ, together with
General Remarks on the Descent Theory"), Frankfurt, 1872; and Heinrich
Baumgärtner--"Natur und Gott" ("Nature and God"), Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1870.
Heer has introduced into scientific language the term "new-modeling of the
species," Kölliker that of a "heterogenetic generation," and Baumgärtner
that of a "transmutation of the types through a metamorphosis of germs."
Baer also is not averse to adopting the latter.

The botanist, Albert Wigand, of Marburg, takes a peculiar position. On one
hand, the observation of the relationship of organic beings with one
another leads him to adopt a common genealogy, a descent; on the other, the
objections to adopting a descent of the species one from another appear to
him insurmountable. In the first place, he sees all the species everywhere
strictly limited--although in the second volume of his work, which appeared
after the preceding lines were written, he again warns against a one-sided
emphasizing of the invariability of species. In the second place, he sees
so clearly, through the whole organic world, the differences, nay, the
contrasts, of the species, in their building plan, in the numbers and
conditions and positions of their parts, and in their mode of development,
that it appears to him impossible to assume in the perfected organism a
production of germs which in a course of generations, by a process even as
gradual as possible, would grow into such an entirely new phenomenon as a
new, even closely related, species would be. But if we adopt the theory of
a heterogenetic generation, we explain by it the variety but not the
similarity of species; {58} for a heterogenetic generation would in the new
species make everything different from the old one--a conclusion, the
necessity of which it would be difficult to show. For these reasons, he
refers the descent of the organic beings, not to the series of the species,
with their individuals already specified and defined, but to the series of
_primordial cells_ living free in the water. The earliest primordial cells
represented only the common character of the _whole organic world_, and out
of them the primordial cells of the _animal_ and those of the _vegetable
kingdom_ were produced by dividing the cells; so that the first ones
embraced only the general and primitive characteristics of the whole
animal, the last ones those of the whole vegetable kingdom. Out of these
primordial cells of the two kingdoms, those of the _main types_
proceeded--(for instance, the primordial cells of the radiated animals, the
vertebrates, etc., the gymnosperms, the angiosperms, etc.); out of them
those of the _classes_--(for instance, the mammalia, the dicotyledons); out
of them those of the _orders_--(for instance, the beasts of prey,
rosifloræ); out of them those of the _families_ (canina, rosaceæ); out of
them those of the _genus_ (canis, rosa); and out of them those of the
_species_ (canis lupus, rosa canina). Only when the primordial cells of the
species had been produced, were they developed into finished
representatives of the species; and when once these primordial cells of the
species had been developed into finished and full-grown individuals of the
species, their transmission took place in the manner well known to us.
Wigand published his criticism of the Darwinian Theories in his larger
work, "Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers,"
("Darwinism {59} and the Natural Science of Newton and Cuvier"),
Braunschweig, Vieweg, Vol. I, 1874, Vol. II, 1876, and his own attempt at
explanation in a smaller book, published at the same place in 1872: "Die
Genealogie der Urzellen als Lösung des Descendenzproblems oder die
Entstehung der Arten ohne natürliche Zuchtwahl" ("Genealogy of the
Primordial Cells as a Solution of the Problem of Descent; or the Origin of
Species without Natural Selection").

Whether this _genealogy of the primordial cells_ found any followers, we do
not know. None of the hypotheses thus far mentioned are so very far from
having analogies in experience. The idea of a first development of the
higher organisms out of their specific primordial cell, through all kinds
of conditions of larvæ up to the finished form, demands of us the
acceptance of monstrous improbabilities--(think, for example, of the first
men, who, originating from a human primordial cell, grow in different
metamorphoses of larvæ, first in the water and then on the land, until they
appear as finished men). Moreover, the hypothesis, in claiming that a
heterogenetic generation of one species from another must necessarily
nullify all similarity between the organism of the child and that of the
mother, is so little convincing, and shows--in the necessity of conceiving
the universal type of organisms, the type of kingdoms, of main types, of
classes, of orders, of families, of genera, and of species, as but
individual existences which, in the form of cells and before the existence
of the developed species, partly through many thousands of years, lead a
real empiric and concrete life--such an abstract synthetical construction
of nature, that {60} we are not astonished that the theory of the genealogy
of primordial cells stands almost alone. On the other hand, Wigand's larger
critical work rendered great service in clearing up the problems. It is
true, his judgment appears in many single cases not at all convincing,
since he often enough fights his adversaries with sophisms and deduces from
the views of Darwin and Häckel conclusions to which they certainly do not
lead. But in the majority of cases, his work is full of real convincing
power, and with the breadth of its philosophical view and with the
sharpness of its definitions, as well as with its abundance of philosophic
and especially botanical teachings and their ingenious application, it is
directly destructive to the use of the selection theory as the principal
key to the solution of the problems. Eduard von Hartmann describes the work
in his publication, "Wahrheit und Irrthum im Darwinismus," ("Truth and
Error in Darwinism"), as a mile-stone which marks the limits where
Darwinism as such passed the summit of its influence in Germany.

       *       *       *       *       * {61}


CHAPTER III.

PRESENT STATE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. _The Theory of Descent._

The historical retrospect of the Darwinian theories, from their purely
scientific side, leads us of itself to a critical review of their present
state. We can briefly indicate in advance the result to which it will lead
us, viz.: that the descent theory has gained, the selection theory has lost
ground, the theory of development oscillates between both; but that all
three theories have not yet passed beyond the rank of hypotheses, although
they have very unequal hypothetical value. We can best arrange our review
by beginning with that theory which is the most common, and which perhaps
may still have value when both the others find their value diminished or
lost: _the theory of descent_. From that we proceed to the _theory of
evolution_, and from this to that of _selection_.

The theory of descent is indeed at first sight exceedingly plausible, and
will probably always be the _directive_ for all future investigations as to
the origin of species. The organic species show, besides the great variety
of their characteristics and the unchangeable nature of these
characteristics, many other qualities which are common to them; and these
common characteristics are precisely those which are most essential. {62}
Moreover the higher the structure of the organisms which are
differentiated, the more numerous and more valuable will become the
evidences of similarity, and the greater also will be their distance from
the inorganic and from the lowest organisms of their class, their type, or
their kingdom. For instance, rose and apple-tree, elder and ash, wolf and
dog, goat and sheep, ape and man, are not only a great deal farther removed
from the mode of existence of inorganic bodies than the algæ, the monera,
and other low organisms, but they have also, in spite of the great interval
which separates them from one another and especially which separates man
from every animal, much more numerous and important points of contact than,
for instance, two families or genera of algæ or of mosses, of polyps or of
infusoria, have among one another. Now our imagination refuses to accept
the theory that the Creator, or nature, or whatever we wish to call the
principle generating the species, in producing the new species, laid aside
all those points of contact which are continually becoming more numerous
and more important, and produced instead, by ever widening leaps, the new
and higher species from the inorganic, which lies farther and farther from
them. On the other hand, the theory appears to us all the more plausible,
that every new species came into existence on that stage which is the most
nearly related to it, and which was already in existence. If we add
further, that the two old maxims of the natural scientists, _omne vivum ex
ovo_ and _omne ovum ex ovario_, have not been invalidated, in spite of all
the searching for a _generatio æquivoca_, and that, even if the origination
of the lowest organisms out of the inorganic could in future be {63}
proved, yet the truth of these maxims for all the higher organized
individuals is established as a fact without exception. Moreover, if we
take into consideration the fact that we can not at all imagine either the
origin or the first development of a higher animal or a human organism
without the protecting integument and the nourishing help of a mother's
womb, we may venture to say that each and every attempt to render the
origin of the first individuals of the higher species conceivable, leads of
necessity to the descent theory. We have either to reject, once for all,
such an attempt, as an unscientific playing with impossibilities, or to
accept the idea of descent. It is certainly the lasting merit of Darwin,
even if his whole structure of proofs should in the course of time show
itself weak, that he not only had the courage (as others had before him),
but also inspired scientists with the courage to trace the idea of a
descent of species in a scientific way.

To be sure, so long as we have no other proof of the descent theory than
the circumstance that we can imagine it, it will continue to be nothing
more than an ingenious hypothesis. We have, therefore, to look to the realm
of nature for more direct proofs; and we are there furnished with them.
They are presented to us by geology in connection with the botanical and
zoölogical systems, by geology in connection with vegetable and animal
geography, by comparative anatomy, and by the history of the embryonic
development of animals.

_Geology_ finds in the strata of the crust of the globe a large number of
extinct plants and animals of extraordinary variety; but all of them,
however much they {64} may differ from the organisms of to-day, are
completely in harmony with the _botanical_ and _zoölogical systems_ in
which we divide the still living organisms. Not only have by far the most
of the now extinct genera and species their family and stem-companions, and
many even their genera and species companions, in the living world, but
also those genera whose nearer relations are now extinct--as, for instance,
the club-moss-trees, the trilobites, the ammonites, the belemnites, the
sauria, the nummulites,--show still a very perceptible relationship with
living genera, and can be quite accurately included in the botanical and
zoölogical systems; nay, they even fill up gaps in it. The anatomical,
morphological, and, so far as we can judge, the physiological and
biological relationship of the fossil with living organisms, is so great
and comprehensive that in the present state of science a systematic botany
or zoölogy, that should only treat of the fossils or of living organisms
alone, would be imperfect. But the relationship of the fossil organisms
with the natural systems of botany and zoölogy is apparent not only in this
respect, but also in the fact that the single species during the long
periods of time which are shown by geology to have elapsed, came into
existence in a series, which again pretty closely corresponds to the
natural system of the organic kingdoms; and that the fossil representatives
of all classes and families, the nearer they come to the present world,
appear the more nearly related to the living organisms, so that the fauna
and flora of the ante-human time are lost in those of the human period by
transitions gliding from the one to the other. For instance, in the Miocene
formation of the tertiary epoch {65} we find thirty per cent. of species
still living to-day; in the Pliocene, even sixty to eighty per cent., and
toward its end even about ninety-six per cent. of species which are
identical with those now living.

A brief glance may still more closely illustrate this analogy between the
geological series and the organic systems. Plants and animals seem to have
appeared nearly at the same time, and at first in the form of the very
lowest organisms. The earliest plants found by geology belong also to the
lowest stage of the vegetable kingdom; they are the algæ. They are followed
again by higher cryptogamous plants, especially ferns and club-mosses. Only
at a later period flowering plants appear, among them being first the
plants with naked seeds standing lower in the systems, as the cycad-trees
and pine-forests; later, those with enclosed seeds, among them being again
first the monocotyledons, last the dicotyledons,--all of them precisely
corresponding to the botanical system. The same thing is true in the animal
kingdom. If the eozoon Canadense, found in the laurentian slate of the
Cambrian formation in North America, is really an organism and not an
inorganic form, the earliest vestiges of animal life we can find are the
rhizopodes or foraminifera; and these organisms belong to the lowest stage
of life--to that stage which forms a kind of undeveloped intermediate
member between the vegetable and animal kingdom, Häckel's kingdom of the
protista. The next oldest animal organisms found in the Cambrian formation
are the zoöphytes, and immediately above them the mollusca and the
crustacea. In the following Silurian period we find corals, radiata, worms,
mollusca, and crustacea, in {66} great number, also all the main-types of
the invertebrates; and in the highest Silurian strata there are also to be
found representatives of the lowest class of vertebrates, of fish, but
still of very low organization and little differentiated. That the five
main-types of the invertebrates seem to have appeared quite
contemporaneously, yet that the zoöphytes really appeared first, does not
contradict the before-mentioned law of a progress in the appearance of the
organisms from the lower to the higher. For in the zoölogical system also
these main-types of the invertebrates do not stand one above the other, but
by the side of each other: at most, the radiata, the worms, the mollusca,
and the articulata, take their places above the zoöphytes. Only within the
main-types, in the classes, orders, etc., do differences in rank take
effect; and even here, not without exception. What difference in rank, for
instance, is there between an oyster and a cuttle-fish? between a cochineal
and a bee or ant? and yet the first two belong to one and the same
type--the type of mollusca; and the last three to one and the same
class--the class of insects. The vertebrates rank decidedly above the
invertebrates; and in a manner wholly corresponding to this, the
vertebrates also appear after the invertebrates. Just as decidedly as to
their rank, the main classes of the vertebrates do not stand beside, but
above one another: above the fish stand the amphibia, above them the
reptiles, next the birds, and above them the mammalia. To this series of
succession also the geological facts seem to correspond pretty closely;
only long after the fish do the first amphibia and reptilia
appear--although it can not yet be decided which of these {67} two classes
has left its earliest traces. If the interpretation of the gigantic
foot-steps in the colored sandstone of North America, as belonging to the
cursorial birds, is correct, the first appearance of birds falls in the
time between the reptilia and mammalia; otherwise the first mammalia would
have appeared before the first birds. For if we find the first real bones
of birds only in the Jura and in the Chalk-formation, they are birds with
tail-spines and with teeth in the beak--hence still related to the reptilia
or the sauria. The first traces of mammalia to be found in the Upper Keuper
formation, and in the Jura, belong to the order of opossums or marsupialia;
_i.e._, to that order which (excepting the echidna and the ornithorhynchus
that, as so-called monotremeta, stand the very lowest in the class of the
mammalia, but are very scarce) occupies the lowest stage among the
multitude of mammalia. Only after them do the higher orders of mammalia
appear; and last of all organisms, man.

If we follow more in detail the appearance of the single organisms, some
remarkable modifications show themselves in the course of their appearance
and growth. We have heretofore mentioned the possibility of the appearance
of the mammalia before the bird. Another fact which deserves attention is,
that frequently the lowest representatives of a class or an order do not at
first appear where the highest representatives of the next lower class or
order are in existence, but with lower representatives of a preceding class
or order, viz.: such representatives of the same as are still less
differentiated and unite in themselves comparatively still more generic and
less specific characteristics--as for instance, the lowest and {68}
earliest amphibia, which do not appear at the same time and place with the
most highly organized fishes, but with fishes of still lower organization.
Moreover many groups of organisms show in earlier geological periods a
richness of development from which they have now fallen far away. For
instance, among the mammalia the pachydermata, among the reptilia the
salamander and newt, among the articulata the cephalopoda, are at present
remarkably reduced;--compare with the legions of ammonites and belemnites
of the secondary period the small number of nautilus and cuttle-fish of the
seas at the present day. A similar fortune was experienced by the ferns and
club-mosses which formed whole forests in the carboniferous period. Other
groups which once played a great _rôle_, are now wholly extinct; for
instance, the trilobites of the primary, the sauria of the secondary, the
nummulites of the tertiary periods. Now, all these modifications of
geological progress would entirely correspond to the idea of a pedigree to
which the descent theory traces back the whole abundance of forms of
organisms. As soon as we seriously accept the idea of a pedigree, each of
the two organic kingdoms would throughout form for its classes and species
not only one single straight line of descent, but a tree, the branches of
which are again ramified in a manifold way; a tree on which single
branches--as perhaps that of the class of birds--may leave the main-stem or
a main-branch, possibly being a branch destined to a higher development,
and on that account held back in the process of development; a tree,
finally, on which also branches and twigs can wholly or partly die off, as
those of the extinct or reduced groups of organisms. {69}

From the point where the geological formations approach the present time,
_plant_ and _animal geography_ also assists _geology_ in increasing the
weight of the reasons for an origin of organisms through descent. With the
tertiary period, the fauna and flora of the globe, which in former periods
had a nearly uniform character all over the earth and showed no climatic
differences, begin to separate according to climate, zones, and greater
continents. This separation becomes distinctly evident in the middle
tertiary formations, the Miocene, and much more distinctly in the higher
tertiary formations, the Pliocene. The animals, especially the higher
vertebrates, of the Pliocene formation on each continent or each larger
group of islands, correspond very closely to the now living animals of the
same geographical limit, with the exception of being generally of a much
larger size. The Pliocene animal world of mammalia of the three old
continents, for instance, corresponds exactly, through all its orders, to
the present fauna of Europe, Asia and Africa; and that on an average it was
built up more stupendously than that of to-day, we can see from the
cave-bear and the mammoth. South America is the home of a peculiar order of
mammalia--of the edentata, to which belong the sloth, the armadillo, and
the like. All its predecessors are to be found also in the Pliocene strata
of South America, and only there; and mostly in gigantic, but otherwise
completely related, forms. New Zealand has no indigenous mammalia, but in
their place great cursorial birds with but rudimentary wings. Exactly the
same thing is found by geology in its tertiary and post-tertiary strata:
nowhere a mammal, but gigantic birds with rudimentary {70} wings, down to
the dinornis, which probably died out in man's time. New Holland has merely
marsupial and some monotrematous, but no placental, mammalia; even its
tertiary strata give no placental mammalia, but marsupialia, in analogy
with all living genera, herbivorous, and carnivorous. Indeed, the analogy
goes so far that the same line which through the Indian Archipelago
separates the present Australian animal and plant world from the Asiatic,
forms also the separating line for the geological zones of the Pliocene
epoch. All these are facts which render quite inevitable the idea of an
origin of the higher organic species of to-day through descent.

But still, from another side, animal geography, though it does not yet
speak for a common pedigree of the whole animal world, as the facts just
mentioned also do not, still at least speaks for a descent of related,
though at present separated, genera and species from common forefathers.
The continents of the Old and New World are so constructed that toward the
North Pole they approach one another very closely, and toward the South
Pole they withdraw from one another. Without doubt there existed in the
North, through long periods of time, a land-connection of America with Asia
and with Europe. Now, both continents have their more or less
characteristic animal world, and these characteristics are distributed over
the two halves of the globe in the following extremely remarkable way: The
fauna of the Old and the New World, in those groups of animal genera which
live only in the warmer or tropic zones or only south of the equator, and
have no associates of genera or families in the higher North, is in each
hemisphere entirely characteristic, and differs in a {71} marked way from
the fauna of the other half of the globe. For instance, the rhinoceros, the
hippopotamus, the giraffe, the antelope with undivided horns, the hedgehog,
the mole proper, are only inhabitants of the Old World, whence also the
horse originally came, the striped ones in Africa and the non-striped in
Asia; on the other hand, the lemur, the ant-eater, the armadillo, and
others, are limited to South America. The apes of the Old World have five
molar teeth on each side of the jaw, narrow noses, tails usually short and
never prehensile, and fleshy protuberances for sitting; the apes of the New
World have six molar teeth, flat noses, and long prehensile tails. And on
the contrary, where closely related species are found on both parts of the
globe, they belong only to genera of which single species live or have
lived in the far North; as, for instance, the rein-deer, still common to
the Old and the New World in this very North which once formed a bridge
between the two halves of the earth. The same is true in regard to cattle,
the deer, the cat, the dog, the hare. Similar facts can also be shown of
other animal classes. The farther the different species of these genera
withdraw from the North Pole, the greater become the differences between
the species on the one half of the globe and the analogous species of the
other. Compare on this point K. E. von Baer's "Studien aus dem Gebiete der
Naturwissenchaften, über Darwin's Lehre," ("Studies from the Realm of
Natural Science upon Darwin's Teachings"), p. 356 f. If we add, further,
the before mentioned fact, that those genera which are exclusively peculiar
to one or the other continent, have their related predecessors in the
tertiary strata of these continents, {72} the hypothesis of a separate
origin for each single species, without genealogical connection with the
anatomically and physiologically related species, becomes neither more nor
less than a scientific impossibility.

Moreover, there are several facts of _comparative anatomy_ which have long
been the joy of all zoölogists and have rewarded the toilsome labors of
detailed investigations by a delightful view over the whole realm of the
organic world, but which find a scientific explanation only in the descent
theory. They are the _homology of the organs_, and to a certain degree also
the so-called _rudimentary organs_. By homology of organs we mean the fact
that within one and the same class-group of organisms all the organs, and
especially the organs in their most solid constituents, in the skeleton,
are built after one and the same fundamental plan, and therefore are even
in their most widely separated modifications varied after this one and the
same plan. This is especially true of the vertebræ and the limbs. This
homology goes so far within one class, particularly within the class of
mammalia, that, for instance, the hands and feet of man, the hands of the
ape, the paws of the beast of prey, the hoof of the horse and of the ox,
the paws of the mole, the fins of the seal and of the whale, the
wing-membranes of the flying-squirrel, correspond to one another in their
smallest parts and ossicles, and can all be registered with the same
numbers and letters; _i.e._, they are homologous to one another even to the
minutest detail. The _ideal_ plan and connection in the organisms,
disclosed by these facts, and long ago acknowledged and admired, receives
at the same time its simple _material_ basis through the acceptance of a
common descent. {73}

A similar relation is observed in _rudimentary organs_.

Many of them, as the nipples of males, point, if not to a common descent
from a lower form, at least to a common plan of the sexes. But when the
embryo of the whale still has its teeth in the jaw, the grown up whale its
hip-bones, when the eye of man still has its winking membrane, the ear and
many portions of the skin their rudimentary muscles of motion, the end of
the vertebral column its rudimentary tail, the intestinal canal its blind
intestine; when sightless animals, living in the dark, still have their
rudimentary eyes, blind worms their shoulder-blades; when in like manner
the plants, especially in their parts of fecundation, show in great number
such rudimentary organs as are entirely useless for the functions of life,
but which are never misleading in determining their relationship with other
plants:--how simply are all these facts explained by the descent theory,
how not at all without it!

Finally, if we now mention the _history of the development of animals_, we
shall have to postpone to the next section the consideration of the most
essential facts furnished by this science; for the individual development
of animals is a process which could speak not only for a descent of the
species, but also for a descent of them through gradual development. But
where, as in the present section, we treat the descent theory apart from
the evolution theory, we have also to think of the possibility that the
species or groups of species are not originated through gradual
development, but nevertheless do originate through descent--namely, in
leaps through metamorphosis of germs or a heterogenetic generation; and for
such an idea we find confirmation in the {74} observation of the history of
development of animals, which we call _change of generation_ or
_metagenesis_.[4] By this is meant the following phenomenon: Certain
animals, as the salpa and doliolum of the order of the tunicata, as well as
certain mites and many tape-worms, produce offspring which are wholly
dissimilar to the mother stock. These offspring have the capacity of
reproducing themselves--if not by sexual means, as at the first generation,
still by the formation of sprouts; and it is only the animals originated by
the second generation (with many species, even those by the third) which
return again to the form of the first generation. The plant-lice transmit
themselves through six, seven, even ten generations by means of sprouts,
until a generation appears which lays eggs. Now it is indeed true that the
change of generation forms a circle in which the form of the last
generation always returns to that of the first, and therefore leaves the
species, as species, wholly unchanged. But it is nevertheless a process
which shows that the natural law of an identity between generator and
product, observed in other relations, is not without exception; and if we
once have reason to suppose that the generation of new species took place
in past periods of the globe, but has ceased in the present, such processes
in the single period open to our direct observation--namely, the present
(in which, however, according to our knowledge, the species remain
constant)--are {75} nevertheless hints worthy of notice. For they refer us
to ways in which in those former times, when certainly new species did
originate, this formation of species might possibly have taken place.

This consideration leads us to treat of the main objection raised to every
descent theory: namely, that never yet has the origin of one species from
another been observed, but that, on the contrary, _all species_--so far as
our experience goes, stretching over thousands of years--_remain constant_.
We will give no weight to the fact that the constancy of species seems by
no means to be absolutely without exception; for on the whole, they
certainly remain constant. The only example which goes to prove such an
evolution of species as taking place to-day--viz: the natural history of
sponges--seems not to have this bearing. The transitions of form, proven by
O. Schmidt in the siliceous sponges and by Häckel in the chalk-sponges,
seem to show, not the genetic coming forth of a new species out of another,
and especially not the evolution of a higher species out of a lower, but
rather the uncertainty of the idea of species in general and the
worthlessness of the skeleton-forms, for this idea, in such low
organizations as the sponges. But that objection already loses its chief
force from the consideration that we have not only never observed the
origin of one species from another, but never even the origin of a species
itself; and that nevertheless all species have successively originated in
time. If we, therefore, are not able to observe directly their origination,
we have a right to make all possible attempts at approaching the knowledge
of it in an indirect way. But we see this objection invalidated by still
another {76} fact. From all observations, it seems to be evident that those
agencies which originated the species in general have ceased since man
appeared. Now this fact is inconvenient for all those who, on metaphysical
grounds, reject aim and purpose in the world and accept an aimless motion
in the universe, a circle in which only identical powers are ever active to
all eternity. From this standpoint, the scientists cannot, except by very
artificial hypotheses, escape the conclusion that, if new species once
originated through descent, new species ought still to originate through
descent. In like manner, it is true, they are also obliged to accept the
other conclusion: that if new species once originated through primitive
generation, new species ought still to originate through primitive
generation. On the other hand, those scientists who recognize aims in the
world for which the world and each part of it is destined, and which are
attained in the world through the processes of coming into existence, have
to expect in advance that the organic kingdoms are also planned with
reference to those aims. They naturally see the aim of the origin of
species attained, where in the organic world beings appear who combine with
the highest physical organization a self-conscious and responsible
spiritual life, and who are capable of conceiving the ideal, even the idea
of God. For, with the appearance of these beings, there enter upon the
theatre of the world beings who go beyond the value of a purely physical
organism and of a purely somato-psychical life, and in like manner
represent again a higher order of beings; just as the first appearance of
organic life on earth once introduced a new and higher stage of {77}
existence in contrast to the inorganic world. Scientists who take this
standpoint can readily adopt the fact that we do not now observe the
origination of new species; for it is in full harmony with their
metaphysical doctrines, without the same being on that account essentially
dependent upon the confirmation or rejection of the hypothesis of the
present constancy of species. With this very fact, the maxim that if new
species once originated through descent, new species must still originate
through descent, has lost for them its truth, and therefore its power of
demonstration. So we see even here, while in the midst of the discussion of
a purely scientific problem, in what close correlation metaphysics and
natural science stand, and moreover--since the metaphysical view is most
closely connected with the religious--in what close relationship religion
and natural science stand. At the same time we also see how little the
metaphysical interest, and much more how little the religious interest, has
reason to avoid the investigation of facts in nature.

§ 4. _The Theory of Evolution--Archæology, Ethnography, Philology._

The evolution theory teaches that the species have developed themselves one
from another in gradual transitions, each of which was as small as the
individual differences still observed to-day among the individuals of the
same species. It is not without support, especially in the _history of the
development of plants and animals_.

Each organic being becomes what it is by means of organic development. Each
plant, even the highest organized, begins in its seed-germ with a simple
cell, {78} and is differentiated in constant development up to the fully
perfected individual. Each animal, even the most highly organized (man
included), begins the course of its existence as an egg; and each egg has
no greater value of form than that of a single cell. This egg-cell is
differentiated, after fecundation, in gradual and imperceptible
transitions, farther and farther, higher and higher, until the individual
has reached its perfect organization. No organ, no function of the body, no
power or function of the soul or of the mind, appears suddenly, but all in
gradual development. Since we see all individuals thus originating by means
of gradual development, the possibility lies very near that the different
organic formations of all the organic kingdoms could also have been
originated by the same means.

In still another direction does the history of the development of single
plants and animals make this possibility plausible to us. In the animal
world, and partly also in the plant world, the single individuals of higher
species in their embryonic development pass through states of development,
in the former stages of which not only the individuals of the most
different species look confusingly similar to one another, but also the
embryos in their organization remind us of the perfected state of much
lower classes of beings. In order to give a clear idea of the first
mentioned facts, Häckel, for instance, in his "Natural History of Creation"
and in his "Anthropogeny," represents by engravings the embryos of
different vertebrates and also of man; representations which--although,
according to the judgment of competent scientists, unfortunately not exact,
but modified, after the manner of stencil plates, in favor of {79} greater
similarity--yet make it quite clear that the similarity of the different
embryos must be very great. We see, for instance, on one table the embryos
of a fish, a salamander, a turtle, a fowl; on a second, those of a pig, an
ox, a rabbit, a man; on a third, those of a turtle, a fowl, a man; and we
find the similarity really great. Examples of the second fact--that
individuals of higher classes or orders in former states of their embryonic
development represent an organization which corresponds to the full-grown
individuals of the lower classes--are: the tail of the human embryo, the
gill-arches of the embryos of reptilia, of birds, of mammalia, and of man.
Now Häckel here takes up again an idea first suggested by Fritz Müller, and
derives from these observations the "biogenetic maxim," as he calls it:
"The history of the germ is an epitome of the history of the descent; or,
in other words, ontogeny (the history of the germs or the individuals) is a
recapitulation of phylogeny (the history of the tribe); or, somewhat more
explicitly: that the series of forms through which the individual organism
passes during its progress from the egg-cell to its fully developed state,
is a brief, compressed reproduction of the long series of forms through
which the animal ancestors of that organism (or the ancestral forms of its
species) have passed from the earliest periods of so-called organic
creation down to the present time." In his latest publication, "Ziele und
Wege der heutigen Entwicklungsgeschichte," ("Aims and Methods of the
Present History of Evolution"), he admits into the formulation of his
biogenetic maxim also the consideration of those phenomena in the
ontogenetic development which are no recapitulation of the history {80} of
the stem, but originated by adapting the embryo to its surroundings. In the
description and explanation of this theory, he uses a term which throws
upon nature a peculiar reproach, never before made, namely: cenogeny, or
history of falsifications, in contrast to palingeny, or history of
abridgments. This amended formula now reads: The development of germs is an
abridgment of the development of stems, and is the more complete according
as the development of the abridgment is continued by inheritance, the less
complete according as the development of the false is introduced by
adaptation.

Now, we ask: Is this biogenetic maxim correct? and moreover, from the fact
of the organic individuals originating through development, are we entitled
to draw the conclusion that even the species must have originated through
development? To this question we can no longer get an answer from the
life-processes of living organisms; for we have already mentioned the fact
that, according to the present state of our knowledge, we can no longer
observe the origination of a new species. Moreover, the embryonic states of
development show also, in all their similarity, even in the very first
stages, and with especial distinctness in these first stages, many
differences between the single species; and this is true especially of
those species which, according to the followers of this so-called
biogenetic maxim, should lie in the same stem-line,--so that the direct
scientific value of the embryological results to the palæontological
investigation, or of the latter to the former, is so far very slight. Such
a problem, however, as the one contained in that biogenetic maxim, which
only gives to investigators the _direction_ in which possibly an {81}
interesting and profitable path can be opened, does not at all deserve the
name of a "_law_." K. E. von Baer, the founder of the whole present science
of the history of development, has certainly a most competent judgment of
the correctness of this so-called biogenetic maxim; and he convincingly
shows, in his essay on "Darwin's Doctrine," that the embryos never
represent a former animalic form, but that their development follows the
principle of representing first the common characteristics of the class,
then those of the order, etc., until finally the individual characteristics
appear in the formation. Those who wish more information about embryology
can find it in Heinrich Rathke's "Entwicklungsgeschichte der Wirbelthiere"
("History of the Development of Vertebrates"), edited by A. Kölliker,
Leipzig, Engelmann, 1861; and those who wish to inform themselves as to the
influence of the ontogenetic results of the solution of the phylogenetic
problems, will find, besides the before-mentioned work of Wigand, rich and
clearly elaborated material in the publication of Wilhelm His--"Unsere
Körperform und das physiologische Problem ihrer Entstehung, Briefe an einen
befreundeten Naturforscher" ("The Form of our Body and the Physiological
Problem of its Origin; Letters to an Associate Scientist"), Leipzig, Vogel,
1875. The latter writer, although he advocates the descent theory, rejects
the hasty assertions of Häckel with direct and convincing arguments.

Thus embryology, having from the simple fact of an origin of single plants
and animals through descent at least confirmed the idea of the
_possibility_ of an origin also of species through development, forsakes us
in the {82} inquiry as to the _reality_ of such a genealogy of development,
and refers us to other sciences.

Such a science, from which we certainly are entitled to expect a decided
answer, is _geology_. For if the evolution theory is right, those periods
of the history of our globe in which new species originated--namely, the
periods of geology--_must_ show us also the _forms of transition_ between
the different species. And, indeed, geology gives us an answer; but it
reads contradictorily: It says yes, and it says no.

Geology does show us forms of transition, and, indeed, most frequently in
the lower classes of animals. Who that has once studied petrifactions, does
not know the mass of forms of the terebratulæ, the belemnites, and the
ammonites, in the Jura formation? Würtemberger has brought light into the
perplexing division of species of the ammonites by simply showing their
temporary and systematic transitions into one another. In the fresh water
chalk formation of Steinheim, near Heidenheim, in Würtemberg, scientists
have found, on the same place, in an uninterrupted series of strata, the
snail valvata or paludina multiformis in all imaginable transitions--from
the flat winding, showing the form of a chess-board, up to the sharp form
of a tower. And it was not, as Hilgendorf thought, in a series which can be
traced in the strata according to time, but, as Sandberger says, in quite a
varied mixture, yet in all imaginable modifications. But even among the
higher and the highest classes of animals, we can trace the transitions.
The flying sauria, if not in their organs of flying, which remind us more
of the bat, at least in head, neck, and toes, are closely connected with
the {83} birds--the oldest birds of the Jura and chalk formations, with
their tail-spines similar to the reptilia and their teeth in the beak to
the sauria. The tertiary formations especially show the primitive history
of many vertebrates in very instructive forms of transitions--which, for
instance, Rütimeyer, a scientist who is very cautious in his conclusions,
very distinctly traced to the horse, to the ruminating animals, and lately
also to the turtles. Still more in detail, W. Kowalewsky has lately shown
us the primitive history of the horse, and Leidy and Marsh have further
completed it by the addition of American forms, the former having at the
same time described the forms which have led to the tapir.

But to such facts there are, on the other hand, experiences directly
contradictory. Many lower and higher forms of animals and plants appear in
the geological strata, so far as they have been explored, in a wholly
independent way. We have mentioned, in the foregoing section, that the main
types of the invertebrates appear somewhat contemporaneously and without
any traceable intermediate form. The trilobites, a quite highly organized
order of crustacea, appear in the strata of the silurian epoch almost
suddenly, in very many and very distinctly marked species. The uncertainty
of our knowledge shows itself most clearly when we ask for the geneologic
relationship of the vertebrates. In Chap. II, § 1 and § 2 we have already
referred to the value which Darwin, and more especially Häckel, lays on the
relationship of the larva of the ascidia to the lancelet fish. Now the
important testimony of K. E. von Baer, in his "Mémoires de l'Académie de
St. Pétersbourg," Ser. vii, Vol. 19, No. 2, tells us that the
nerve-ganglion {84} of the ascidia lies on the side of the stomach, and on
that account can not be homologous with the spine of the vertebrates, but
that the cord in the larva of the ascidia is nothing more than a support
for the tail in swimming, which afterwards disappears, as with many other
larvæ. As to the course of reasoning in reaching these genealogical
conclusions, he says: "The hypothesis is indeed flexible. According to
common reasoning, that which shows itself early in the development is an
inheritance of the first progenitors. Therefore the ascidæ ought to descend
from the vertebrates, and not the reverse. But it was necessary to show the
descent of the vertebrates from the lower forms. In order to respond to
such a necessity, men sometimes reverse their conclusions. Although
favorably disposed to the doctrine of the transmutation of the animalic
forms, I want a complete proof before I can believe in a transformation of
the vertebrate type into that of the mollusca." Moreover, the zoölogists
Semper and Dohrn find in the embryonic development of the sharks, the
scates, and other cartilaginous fishes, organs which would bring them
rather into a nearer relationship with the ringed worms than with the
crustacea. When, on the other hand, we look around in palæontology, the
oldest fossil fishes remind us neither of the crustacea nor of the ringed
worms, but of the crabs: a class of animals which lies entirely outside of
Häckel's stem-line of vertebrates. Also the first appearance of mammalia
does not show transitions. Thus far we have not found in the geological
strata any vestiges of the half-apes, which, according to the hypothesis of
the evolutionists, as a common stem-line for the lines of ape and man
development, once played such an {85} important _rôle_, and which have
quite numerous representatives.

But the answer which geology gives to our questions as to the probable
confirmation of the evolution theory, naturally becomes most interesting
where the _origin of man_ is treated of. Our attention is, therefore,
especially directed to the most recent formations of the globe which show
us the oldest remains of man. The most instructive are those parts of the
skeleton which allow us to draw the most convincing conclusions as to the
degree of mental development of an individual, namely: the parts of the
skull. Although human bones seem to have been less easily preserved than
those of animals, and are, comparatively speaking, very scarce, especially
more so than prehistoric implements, still there are not wanting such
remains, which go back far beyond historical time. The oldest known skull
is the celebrated one of the Neander cave near Düsseldorf, with its large
vault of the forehead, and its low height. Although Virchow finds on it
evidences of rachitis in youth and of gout in old age, as well as of
injuries, it nevertheless can not have been changed in its _fundamental
form_ by any sickness, even according to Virchow. This very skull now
indisputably shows a still lower formation, which, although quite
essentially different from the type of the ape, stands nearer to it than is
the case with the skulls of men in later times. Of a later date, and of a
correspondingly higher form, are the skull of Engis, of Cannstatt, the
skulls of the Belgian caves (especially Chauvaux), of France, and of
Gibraltar. According to the weighty authority of Schaaffhausen (note his
opening address at the Wiesbaden Congress of the {86} Anthropological
Society, 1873), the skulls and the remaining parts of the skeleton show
more indications of a lower formation the older they are. He especially
calls attention to a certain bone of the roof of the skull--the _Os
interparietale_ or the so-called _Os Incæ_--which has only recently been
recognized as a characteristic of a lower formation of skulls, standing
nearer to that of animals. As late as the summer of 1873, two human
skeletons were found at Coblenz in a volcanic sand, of which Schaaffhausen
says: "No less than eight anatomic marks of a lower formation, which
probably have not heretofore been found together, indicate the great age of
these remains." With all these traces of a difference between the former
and the present state of the physical condition of man, the differences
between the type of man and that of the animal are still great enough to
leave wide open the possibility of the origin of man through some other
means than that of gradual development. On the other hand, it is more or
less in favor of the evolution idea, that so far such old remains of man
have been found in places which certainly can not have been the cradle of
mankind, and that those parts of the earth which we would naturally suppose
to be the first dwelling place of the earliest human genera have been
little or not at all investigated. And also the hypothesis of Häckel, that
the cradle of mankind was a land between Africa and Asia, now sunk in the
sea, and called Lemuria, can be neither proved nor denied. Such vague
possibilities have indeed not the least scientific value.

In considering these contradictory results of geological investigation, we
dare not overlook three points: First, our knowledge of the crust of the
globe is still {87} very fragmentary, and does not yet extend over the
whole globe. Further, it lies in the nature of the case that the strata in
mountain formations can only give a very incomplete picture of the whole
variety of the real organic life which may have populated the earth and the
sea. What a poor picture of the present plant and animal life would be
offered, for instance, by the soil of our continents, the slime, sand, and
pebbles of our coasts and of the bottoms of our lakes and seas, if we had
to construct from them alone the fauna and flora of the present! A third,
but purely hypothetical, consideration is rendered of importance
particularly by Darwin and Häckel; namely, that the forms of transition
without doubt existed for a shorter period than those forms whose
organization has established itself in fully developed species.

Thus far we have directed our attention to inquiring how the organic
individuals were originated--and have throughout observed a successive
development; next, we have questioned geology--and here also have observed
a progress in the appearance of the species, but have received at the same
time contradictory answers to the question whether this progress presents
itself as a gradual development of one species from another or as a sudden
appearance. So the reasons for and against the evolution theory almost
balance one another; and it is not improbable that the hypothesis of an
origin of species through development will have to share its authority with
the hypothesis of a descent of species through heterogenetic generation, as
well as with the hypothesis of a primitive generation of lower organisms,
still repeating itself at a later time. Thus for the origination of {88}
groups lying nearer together, we have the evolution theory; for the other
groups, and especially for the origination of types where no transitions to
other types can be traced, the theory of the heterogenetic or primitive
generation recommends itself; and both theories thus far are of a purely
hypothetical nature.

But there is still a third realm, which is just as open to our observation
as the history of the development of organisms and as geology, and of which
we can also ask, whether it does not open for us an indirect way to the
knowledge of the origin of species, and especially of man--a knowledge
which we can no longer approach in the direct way of observation. This
realm is _natural history_ and the _history of the development of the human
race_. For mankind also is engaged in a process of development, and its
present members do not stand on the same height. Now the question is, to
what beginning can we trace backward the development of mankind, and to
what succeeding stages of development from this present condition? And do
we find in these earliest periods, and on these lowest stages, points that
are connected with still earlier conditions and organizations, and
especially points which could genealogically join together mankind and the
animal kingdom? Three sciences, still young, favorite children of the
present generation, participate in investigating this realm, namely,
_archæology_, _comparative ethnology_, and _comparative philology_.

_Archæology_ leads us back to far-off times. It is a fact that,
chronologically speaking, man lived in the glacial period--according to
French scientists, even before it; and that, palæontologically speaking,
man and {89} mammoth lived at the same time, and, according to a discovery
made some thirty years ago at Denise in Middle France, probably even man
and another older and defunct form of pachydermata, the elephas
meridionalis, in North America man and the mastodon. The reader may compare
the discoveries regarding the age of mankind, as they are described most
recently by Sir Charles Lyell in his work upon this subject, in the
publications of the Anthropological Congress at Brussels in the year 1873,
and in those of the fourth General Assembly of the German Society for
Anthropology, Ethnology and Primitive History, at Wiesbaden, in the year
1873.

Now, to be sure, from the oldest human _tools_ and _utensils_ that are
found, we can expect still less than from the oldest human bones that they
will throw direct light upon the answer to the question of the _origin_ of
man. For where man not only uses tools, but _manufactures_ the same for
use, a wide breach already exists between man and animal. Manufactured
articles, therefore, can only throw some light on the history of the
development of the already existing human race. And even this light is less
clear than we perhaps expected in view of the first interesting
prehistorical discoveries. It is true, all these discoveries show us an
ascent from the simplest and roughest forms to the more perfect; from the
split but unpolished stone to the polished, and from stone to bronze and
iron. But a progress of the human races in manufacturing and using
articles, from the simple and rough form to the more artificial, lies so
much in the nature of the case, and is so taken for granted with every
conception of the origin of man, even with that contradictory to Darwinism,
that from this simplicity of {90} the earliest tools we can not at all
conclude that there was a condition of mankind lying near that of animals;
and especially we can draw only general and uncertain conclusions as to
that which makes man _man_, as to the spiritual and moral qualities of
those prehistoric men. Moreover, in discoveries belonging to the very
oldest, we come upon drawings and engravings from which we recognize the
man of those primitive times as a creature whose life was not entirely
taken up in the animalic struggle for existence, but was already adorned
with those ideal pursuits and enjoyments which we are accustomed to ascribe
to the height of civilization. Examine, for instance, the drawing of a
mammoth on a mammoth tooth of Dordogne, which the French scientists Lartet
and Christy have reprinted in their Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ (1868), and which
Sir Charles Lyell has copied in his "Age of the Human Race." How much
spirit and life in this primitive work of art! Or read what Fraas, in the
"Journal of the German Society for Anthropology," March, 1874, reports
about the picture of a grazing reindeer, engraved on a knife handle made of
the horns of a reindeer, which was lately found in the cave of Thayngen
near Schaffhausen, and which surpasses in beauty all rough drawings thus
far found. The whole bearing of the animal--the muscles of the legs and the
head, the form of the many-branched antlers, with the wide-spread eyes, the
representation of the hair upon the body and under-jaw--all disclose a real
artist among those savages.

This is also to be taken into consideration: that those men, whose traces
we find, could possibly have been the descendants of more noble
predecessors, driven {91} off and degenerated, just as well as they could
have been representatives of the whole former condition of culture of
mankind. In England, where the questions of the first condition of culture
of mankind are very warmly discussed, the Duke of Argyll particularly, in
his "Primeval Man," advocates these views, and very forcibly calls
attention to the fact that thus far the places of the discovery of the
earliest traces of man undoubtedly lie very far from the original home of
the human race; while Sir John Lubbock, in his "Origin of Civilization" and
in his "Prehistoric Times," and also Tylor in his "Beginning of Culture"
and in his "Early History of Mankind," take the opposite view of a progress
of mankind from the most uncultivated beginnings.

Archæology, as a whole, seems to do no more than admit that its results can
be incorporated into the theory of an origin of the human race through
gradual development, _if_ this theory can be shown to be correct in some
other way, and that its results can just as well be brought into harmony
with a contradictory theory.

_Comparative ethnology_ gives us quite a similar result. It is true, there
are races of mankind in the lowest grades of human existence. It is well
known how Darwin, in his voyage on board the "Beagle," got one of his first
vivid impressions of the possibility of an evolution of man from the animal
world, by seeing the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego; and it is remarkable
that the arms, tools, and furniture, used by the lowest savages, are very
similar to the earliest remains of civilized races found on earth. The
conclusion lies extremely near, that the savages simply remained in earlier
stages of human culture; and an ethnographic picture of mankind {92} at
present would in a similar way give an approximately correct view of its
former development, as the natural zoölogical and botanical system of the
present fauna and flora must give us at the same time the key to their
pedigree; supposing the Darwinian theory to be correct.

If it were so, ethnology would be an altogether inestimable help for the
exploration of the descent and development of the human race. For the
extremely few and rare fossil remains of man--which, moreover, do not give
us any answer to the most important questions in regard to the mental and
moral quality of the primitive man--would be rendered complete by living
examples of the kind, which remained at the old stages of development.

But much is still wanting, before the followers of an evolution theory dare
to use ethnology directly as a primitive history of the development of
mankind, prepared and preserved for them. Especially the before-mentioned
objection of the Duke of Argyll--that the lowest savages of our time can
just as well be depraved as be men who remained stationary in the process
of development--has here increased weight. Moreover, even with the savages
of to-day, a rude state of their tools and a low condition of their mental
and moral life are not so nearly parallel as to allow unrestricted
conclusions to be drawn. Finally, we still know too little about the state
of culture of the savages; and the deeper and higher the intellectual and
ethical possessions of mankind are, the presence of which among the savages
is in question, the more uncertain is our knowledge.

This is especially true of the most important question in this
connection--the question as to the existence {93} or absence of an idea of
God, and the different stages of development of religious ideas. While some
assume as an established fact, that there are savage tribes without any
idea of God or any religion, and even give the names of these tribes,
especially of some from the interior of South America; while Sir John
Lubbock systematically enumerates seven stages of religious development,
from atheism to the connection of religious with moral conceptions, and
lets each single race run through these stages in an identical series until
it either remains on one of the seven stages or arrives at the highest:
yet, on the contrary, other equally trustworthy scientists assert that
there is not a single human race without some idea of religion and of a
God--indeed, not a single race without a monotheistic presentiment--and
that all heathenism, down to its most degenerate stages, consists not so
much in a non-recognition of a God as in ignoring him. They call especial
attention to the difficulty of getting acquainted with the ideas of a
savage tribe without living with it through many years and being intimate
with its language and customs, and especially without enjoying the
unrestricted confidence of the tribe. Mutual misunderstandings, a
suspicious reserve, evasive and untrue answers to questions, are entirely
unavoidable without those conditions. At any rate, the fact deserves
attention, that those who have been longest and most active among savages,
and who enjoyed their confidence to the fullest extent, all reached this
result: they found them not only not without religion, but also not without
a presentiment of the monotheistic idea of God. Livingstone, for instance,
expressed this idea decidedly of all the African tribes {94} with which he
became acquainted; and Jellinghaus gives the same evidence in regard to the
Kols in South Asia.

The _anatomic_ results of ethnology are more favorable to the descent
theory, although they too lead no farther than to the conclusion that the
skull-forms of the lowest tribes represent a lower stage of formation than
those of the higher, and that these lower skull-forms are relatively nearer
to the ape-form than the higher, but that they are still separated from it
by a wide interval.

It appears, then, that even ethnology does not lead us essentially nearer
the solution of the question than archæology and geological anthropology.

The relatively strongest support to the evolution theory is given by
_comparative philology_; and since language is the most important and most
decisive of all the distinctive characteristics which separate man and
animal[5], this science deserves especial consideration.

In the realm of the natural sciences, the enormous progress of palæontology
on the one hand and of systematic zoölogy and botany on the other took
place step by step together, and thus prepared the way for Darwin's
idea--which, from the rich material of analytical investigations, only
tries to draw the simple synthesis, and to show at the same time in the
zoölogical and botanical _system_ a representation of the zoölogical and
botanical _history of development_. In quite an analogous way, a process
took place in the linguistic realm which in independent investigations
prepared the way for Darwinism, and now, since Darwin's theory has sought
{95} acknowledgment in the realm of natural history, brings again Darwin's
ideas to the support of philology.

Linguistic and ethnographic investigations, especially the linguistic works
of the missionaries, long ago resulted in gathering rich material from the
storehouse of the language of races now living, and the latest works in the
realm of historical, etymological, and comparative philology had traced the
branches and twigs of the better known languages to stems and roots lying
far back. The result of the comparison soon became the same as in the realm
of the organic world: what presented itself in the system of the living
languages as a lower form, seemed to represent itself as the older and more
original form also in the history of languages. Therefore, all the
prominent linguistic investigators found themselves more and more urged to
accept a theory which declares language, this entirely specific
characteristic of man, to be subject to the same laws of development from
the simpler and most simple forms as the world of the organic. Long ago so
celebrated a man as Jacob Grimm,--"Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache" ("The
Origin of Language"), Berlin, Dümmler--following the footsteps of Wilhelm
von Humboldt, had established a theory, according to which language is "not
created, but produced by the liberty of the human will;" and judging from
many of his Darwinistic utterances concerning the origin and development of
language, he had traced its development in such a way as to arrive at the
conclusion that artless simplicity in the unfolding of the senses is the
first period of its appearance.

The scientists divide all the languages of the earth into three great
groups: first, the monosyllabic, {96} isolating, radical, or asynthetic
languages; second, the agglutinant, terminational, or polysynthetic
languages; third, the inflectional languages. They are of the opinion that
even the languages of highest rank--the inflectional--very probably took a
starting-point from the asynthetic languages, and a course of development
through the agglutinants, and that in like manner the agglutinants have
behind them an asynthetic period. Thus they trace all the languages back to
certain _roots_, which are more or less common to the different groups of
languages.

To the question that now arises--_How did these roots originate?_--the
linguists give us three different answers. The onomatopoetic theory, called
by Max Müller the Wow-Wow Theory, traces them to imitations of the sound
(W. Bleek, G. Curtius, Schleicher, Wedgewood, Farrar); the interjectional
theory, called by Max Müller the Pooh-Pooh, or Pah-Pah Theory, traces them
to expressions of the senses (Condillac); a third theory declares the roots
to be phonetic types (Max Müller, Lazar Geiger, Heyse, Steinthal); while it
is still an open question, whether the attempts at explanation of these
types must here come to a stand-still for the present, as Max Müller
thinks, or whether, according to Lazar Geiger, we can trace the first
root-expressions especially to impressions of light and color.

The reasons from which Max Müller, in his "Lectures on the Science of
Languages" (Vol. I, Lect. IX), rejects the first two theories and proves
the third, are quite convincing. Even if, in a purely hypothetical way, a
language could be thought of _in abstracto_, the roots of which only
consist in imitations of sounds or interjections, still in the _really
existing_ languages, {97} so far as we can trace back and uncover their
roots, the roots imitating sounds and the interjectional roots form only a
small and entirely isolated minority, which neither shares in, nor is
capable of development; they stand like "dead sticks in a live hedge." By
far the greater number of roots, and all which are capable of development,
express abstractions from visible objects, conditions and activities, and
therefore presume a human intelligence, reflecting with self-consciousness,
which formed and used the roots.

Now Max Müller sees, back of this period, still open to science, in which
the root-elements of the human languages were fixed, a long period of
exuberant and unhindered growth of the elements of language, in which the
roots were separated from the multitude of nascent tones by elimination or
natural selection in the struggle for existence. In this realm, which is no
longer open to investigation, the naturalistic and the linguistic friends
of the evolution theory are now in entire accord. Wilhelm Bleek, in his
small, but very noteworthy essay, "Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache" ("Origin
of Language"), Weimar, Böhlau, 1868, p. 11, uses this ingenious figure:
what the animal world possesses analogous to language, takes about the same
position as, in the art of printing, the block-print does in relation to
printing with movable types. On page 12, he sees in the communication of
the emotions among animals the sources from which under favorable
conditions (in consequence of which the separation of language into
articulated parts became possible) human language might have originated.
This idea, which is closely joined to the interjectional theory, Darwin
meets {98} with a related idea, depending upon the onomatopoetical theory,
when he says, in his "Descent of Man": "Since monkeys certainly understand
much that is said to them by man, and when wild, utter signal-cries of
danger to their fellows, may not some unusually wise ape-like animal have
imitated the growl of a beast of prey, and thus told his fellow-monkeys the
nature of the expected danger? This would have been a first step in the
formation of language."

But philology, from the point where it goes farther back in search of the
roots of language, leaves the safe ground of knowledge and commits itself
to the fluctuating ocean of conjectures; and since also the scientific
evolution theory has only a hypothetical value, the support of a hypothesis
in the one science by a hypothesis in the other naturally adds no weight to
its probability, either for the one or the other. Besides, we must not
overlook the fact that the very point in the history of the development of
languages on which the investigation, as it looks backwards, must at
present pause--namely, the existence of linguistic roots--presumes a
faculty of abstraction which can not be thought of without
self-consciousness.

Therefore archæology, comparative ethnography, and comparative philology,
show us quite clearly a _development_, but not an _origin_ of mankind
through development. Yet they do show an already existing development of
mankind; for all three sciences lead back to starting-points, where mankind
already existed with all the essential attributes of mankind, and leave us
without answer to our questions as to the conditions lying still farther
back. Their results we can {99} without difficulty harmonize with a theory
which supposes mankind to have originated by evolution, provided such a
theory could be confirmed from another side; but they agree just as well
with a contrary theory, which excludes the origin of mankind by gradual
development.

Taking, thus, everything into consideration, we come to the conclusion that
the evolution theory, like the descent theory, is so far only a
hypothesis--and, indeed, a hypothesis which as such has a much more
problematical character than the descent theory. For while in regard to the
latter we had to say that we have either this explanation or none of the
origin of the higher species, with the evolution theory there is not even
room for this alternative. For even in case of its failure, a descent of
one species from another through heterogenetic generation is certainly very
possible. Besides, it is not only possible, but even probable, that both
theories--that of heterogenetic generation and that of gradual
development--may have to share with one another in the explanation of the
origin of species; and even that, especially for the lowest species and for
the beginnings of the main types, primitive generation also has its share
in the establishment of the paternity.

The evolution theory could only pass beyond the rank of a hypothesis, if we
should succeed in showing the impelling forces of such an origin of species
through development. Such an attempt can be made in two ways--the
metaphysical and the scientific-empirical. The first, the metaphysical,
although it may be justified in its general principles, will always, from
the point at which it attempts to approach the concrete questions as {100}
to the origin of single species, expose itself to the fate of being _a
priori_ rejected by science as unjustified, and of being _a posteriori_
confuted by facts--a fate which it has richly and clearly experienced in
the first half of our century. But the discussion of the metaphysical way
does not belong to the present purely scientific part of our investigation;
it will, however, be shortly taken up again in Book II. The other way, the
scientific-empirical, will have to be looked upon as correct when it can
show the impelling forces of development in such powers and laws as are
either still active to-day or at least have their points of connection in
powers and laws active to-day. Such an attempt is the selection theory. We
have already in Chap. II, § 1 and 2, given an outline of this theory, and
have only yet to discuss its present state of tenability.

§ 3. _The Theory of Selection._

The selection theory also is not entirely without support in the realm of
observed facts. How simply it explains the fixedness of the differences of
closely related species arising from their geographical and climatical
home! how simply the similarity of the color of many animals from the color
of their abode, through which they have protection against persecution! how
simply the so-called _mimicry_--_i.e._, the similarity of certain species
in form and color with form and color of entirely different species in the
midst of which they live, a similarity which often gives them protection
against persecution! The best known examples of this, in our regions, are
the spinning caterpillars, which in a state of rest look strikingly like a
twig of a tree or a shrub on which {101} they live. In other regions there
is a multitude of the most striking freaks of nature of this kind--for
instance, butterflies and other insects, which at rest look like the leaves
of plants under which they live; butterflies living among other butterflies
which, by an offensive odor, are protected against persecution, and
although they are themselves a favorite food for birds, carrying the form
and color of that badly-smelling family of butterflies. We can also add the
orchideæ, and their resemblance to bees, flies, butterflies, spiders, etc.
A. R. Wallace and Darwin themselves recur often to these striking
appearances.

But herewith we have mentioned nearly every support which the selection
theory has on the ground of observed facts. More numerous and more weighty
are the objections to it. First of all, we have to state that the selection
theory no longer enjoys that protection which the descent and evolution
theories can justly claim, against the main objection, mentioned in Chap.
III, § 1, to all the ideas of descent, development and selection. That main
objection is the permanence of species, observed through thousands of
years; and the defense with which the descent and evolution theories
successfully weaken it, is the statement of the fact that, since man
appeared, no new species has originated, and that therefore the principle
of the generation of species seems to have come to a stand-still. Now this
fact is no longer in favor of the selection theory, but directly repugnant
to it. For the selection theory expressly declares the origin of species
through agencies that are all active still, and, therefore, if they really
suffice to explain the origin of species, would not only have to generate
new species, {102} but also to develop _all_ the existing species. All
those circumstances which, according to the selection theory, have led to
change of species, are just as active to-day as they are supposed to have
been from the beginning of organic life; and the effect which we observe is
not change but permanence of species. The individuals still have individual
qualities; they still have the tendency to inherit, in addition to the
qualities of the species, those of the individual; the individuals still
change their abode, and therewith also their conditions of life; a natural
selection still takes place in the struggle for existence; and what is the
result? From an observation stretching over thousands of years, we find
nowhere an effect of natural selection going farther than alterations in
growth and color and purely external changes in form. All the dispositions
of organisms and their reciprocal action aim not at increasing the
individual differences, but at reducing them to the average character of
the species. When the species change their abode or their conditions of
life, they either perish or remain constant; at least, with the exception
of the slight modifications before mentioned. Even those alterations which
artificial breeding produces, have a tendency to return to the original
species: as soon as cultivated plants and domestic animals are left to
themselves, they run wild, _i.e._, they reassume their original qualities.
Even the bastard-formations either cease to be fertile, or, remaining
fertile, finally return to one or the other stem-form of the originally
crossed species. Nor can we oppose to these facts the consideration that
the period of time during which mankind has observed the organisms is too
short. For the permanence of very many {103} species can be traced through
thousands of years, and the shortness of the period of our observations is
amply counterbalanced on the one hand by the multitude of species from all
parts of the organic systems which come under our notice, on the other by
the immense alterations in the conditions of existence to which man submits
plants and animals. How great, for instance, are the alterations in the
conditions of existence which tropical plants undergo in our hot-houses and
gardens! And the only alteration they show is that they are stunted and
only bear blossoms with difficulty and fruits with still greater
difficulty.[6] Now, if the ever-active selection principle does not produce
in thousands of years even minimum alterations which can be observed,
science certainly is justified in doubting for the present the asserted
effect of that principle.

Thus not only are the _facts_ directly opposed to the autocracy of the
selection principle; but _logic_ is also none the less so. For, under the
most favorable circumstances, selection would only explain the
_preservation_ and perhaps also the _increase_ of useful qualities and
organs, _if_ the same are already in existence and have shown themselves
useful to the individual; but would not explain their _origination_. This
would rather most emphatically be left to _chance_. According to the strict
selection theory, it would be _pure chance_ that among the thousands and
thousands of individual qualities of the individuals of a species, such
qualities are always existing as offer advantages to the individual in his
struggle for existence. And it would be a second series of chances, which
from generation to generation would {104} have to coincide with the first,
that among the individual qualities advantageous to the individual and
making it victorious in the struggle for existence, there should be found
always just those qualities which develop the species and raise it to a
higher rank and order in the zoölogical and botanical systems. But the
total of improbabilities which would have to be overcome continually in
this theatre of chance, would in the course of generations necessarily
amount to infinity. Thus, in the very beginning, insuperable doubts arise
as to how we can explain from two causes the world of organisms which is so
richly, beautifully, and systematically arranged. The first of these causes
is the inclination to individual alteration, inherited indeed in the
organisms, but in itself absolutely indifferent, for the systematical idea
in the framework of the organic systems and for the progressive element in
the development. The other is the struggle for existence and natural
selection, which approaches the organisms purely from without like
individual variability, must as a whole appear a necessity, but in each
single case in the concrete mixture of coinciding circumstances, would seem
a work of chance for the individual which is to be changed.

Moreover, it is a demonstrable impossibility to explain the origin of just
those organs and members in the structure of organisms which are
systematically the most significant and functionally the most important, by
means of natural selection. It is true that many of these organs and
members, in their perfected state, offer to the organism an immense
advantage over lower organisms; but if they had been originated through
gradual development, they would have been in their first {105} beginnings
and earlier stages of development at least quite indifferent, often
directly obstructive to the individual in its struggle for existence, and
therefore would have been called into existence and developed by agencies
which had an effect directly counteracting natural selection. How high, for
instance, stand the vertebrates above the invertebrates! Yet how could the
first deviation from the ganglionic system of the nerves of the
invertebrates to the cerebro-spinal system of the vertebrates have
occurred?--and, especially, how could the first deposit of the vertebral
column have procured any benefit to the individual in the struggle for
existence? We quote this objection from Karl Planck's "Wahrheit und
Flachheit des Darwinismus," ("Truth and Platitude of Darwinism"),
Nördlingen, Beck, 1872.

Still more striking is the insufficiency of the selection theory for the
explanation of the origin of the organs of motion in the higher classes of
vertebrates. A. W. Volkman says of it, in his instructive lecture, "Zur
Entwickelung der Organismen," ("Development of the Organisms") Halle,
Schmidt, 1875, p. 3 ff.: "Without doubt, animals with extremities will come
from animals which lacked extremities. Now if the metamorphosis originated
in the course of one generation, the animals with extremities would have an
advantage over the rest, which ought to show itself in the natural
selection; but if the development of an extremity needs 10,000 generations,
the individual in which the process of the development begins produces
1/10000 of the extremity and the advantage, resulting therefrom is reduced
to zero. For an organ can only be of advantage when it performs its
functions; and on {106} the first of the 10,000 stages of development the
extremity can not perform its functions. Just think of the cetacea! Of the
hind extremity, only its carrier, the pelvis, has been developed; and even
this is only represented by the two hip-bones, hanging in the flesh. As to
the python, the hind extremities are more complete, but they lie hidden
under the skin, and therefore are of no use for local movement. Such
examples show that in the history of the development of an organ thousands
of years may pass, and numerous generations may arise and disappear, until
it reaches that grade of perfection where it is of use to its owner. How
therefore, can we look upon such an organ, when finally it is perfect, as a
product of selection in the sense of Darwin?"

We find the scientific objections to the selection theory collected in
detail in the before-mentioned works of Wigand, Blanchard, His, von Baer,
and especially in Mivart's "Genesis of Species," (London, MacMillan, 1871);
and it is a praiseworthy testimony of Darwin's love of truth, that lately
he himself, the originator of the selection theory, willingly admits these
weak points in his theory,[7] while Häckel and many of his followers {107}
in Germany still stoutly reject every doubt of the autocracy of the
selection principle.

In summing up all we have said thus far about the theories of descent, of
evolution, and of selection, we still find all three solutions of the
scientific problems to be hypotheses, but hypotheses of very different
value. The idea of descent has the most scientific ground; it will, as a
permanent presupposition, govern all scientific investigations as to the
origin of species, even if it does not exclude the idea of an
often-repeated primitive generation of organisms--especially of those that
stand still lower in development. More uncertain and less comprehensive is
the position of the evolution theory; in all likelihood, the idea of an
origin through development will have to share the sovereignty with the idea
of origin by leaps through metamorphosis of germs. Still more unfavorable
is the state of the selection theory. It possesses the merit of having
started the whole question as to the origin of species; it may explain
subordinary developments; natural selection may have coöperated as a
regulator in the whole progress and the whole preservation of organic life.
Ed. von Hartmann, in his essay, "Truth and Error of Darwinism," (Berlin,
Duncker, 1875), on page 111, compares its functions with those of the bolt
and coupling in a machine; but that the driving principle which called new
species into existence lay or originated _in_ the organisms, and did not
approach them from without, seems to be confirmed more and more decidedly
with every new step of exact investigation as well as of reflection.

       *       *       *       *       * {108}


BOOK II.

THE PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE PHILOSOPHIC PROBLEMS.

Although, in accordance with the requirements of the task before us, we
have to restrict ourselves to giving the results of natural science only in
their general outlines, still we believe that we have not overlooked any
essential result which is of importance to the question of the origin of
species and of man. We have now finished our scientific review; and the
conclusion to which we see ourselves brought is that natural science, in
its investigation of the origin of species, has arrived at nothing but
problems which it is not able to solve. There is a very great probability
of an origin of species, at least of the higher organized species, through
descent; but whether through descent by means of gradual development or of
metamorphosis of germs, or whether with one group of organisms it is in
this way, with another in that, is not yet decided. The attempt to explain
their entire origin exclusively by the selection theory, must be regarded
as a failure; all indications rather show that, supposing the descent
principle correct, the deciding agencies which formed new species did not
approach the old species out of which the new ones originated from {109}
without, but that they originated or were already in existence within them.
But what these agencies were, natural science is at present unable to
state; and not only those scientists who reject every idea of a descent,
but also those who are favorable to the ideas of descent and of evolution,
rejecting only the selection theory, are at one in silent or open
acknowledgment of this limit of our knowledge, be it permanent or
temporary.

But now the question arises: does the search after these agencies
henceforth remain the exclusive task of natural science, and have we
therefore simply to wait and see whether it will succeed in finding them?
or have we to look for the answer to these questions, which natural science
can no longer give, in another science--namely, philosophy? The first
question we will have to answer in the affirmative, the second in the
negative. It is certainly understood that _metaphysical_ principles must
underlie all _physical_ appearances; and the right to define these
principles, so far as they can be known, is willingly conceded to
philosophy by the scientists, with the exception of those of materialistic
and naturalistic tendencies. This mutual re-approaching of philosophy and
natural science is one of the most gratifying, and, to both, most fruitful
evidences of the intellectual work of the present generation. But these
metaphysical principles themselves become cognizable only when the physical
effects, whose cause they are, become accessible to our knowledge; and
every attempt to find them _a priori_, or only to extend them _a priori_,
will always fail through the opposition of empirical facts; or even if this
attempt accommodates itself to the existing state of knowledge at a given
time, it will always be overcome by the {110} progress of the empirical
sciences. In the most favorable case, it can claim the value of a
hypothesis which has to be put to the proof, whether it can be empirically
confirmed and whether we can successfully operate with it in knowing the
world of realities. But herewith it leaves the realm of pure philosophy,
and makes the question of its right to exist dependent upon the decision of
natural science.

Since the decline of the doctrines of nature held by Schelling, Steffens,
and Hegel, there has come to our knowledge, from the domain of philosophy,
but one earnest attempt to explain the origin and development of organisms
down to the concrete differences between single types, classes, and even
orders and families, from one single metaphysical principle; and this
attempt has been made by an antagonist of the descent doctrine. K. Ch.
Planck, in "Seele und Geist, oder Ursprung, Wesen und Thätigkeitsform der
physischen und geistigen Organisation von den naturwissenschaftlichen
Grundlagen aus allgemein fasslich entwickelt" ("Soul and Spirit, or Origin,
Nature, and Form of Activity of Physical and Intellectual Organization,
Clearly Developed from a Scientific Basis"), Leipzig, Fues, 1871, and in
"Wahrheit und Flachheit des Darwinismus" ("Truth and Platitude of
Darwinism"), Nördlingen, Beck, 1872, makes the "inner concentration" the
moving principle of the whole development of the world. He thinks that what
belongs to the organism and to the soul has originated and developed up to
man and his spiritual nature thus: that the creating centrum of the earth
produces individual centra on its periphery, which tend more and more to
bring into view the principle of {111} centralization, in its contrast to
the purely peripheral form of existence, until it reaches its goal in man,
with his centralizing spirit. We have no reason to reject the idea of a
principle of concentration in the world and its parts; it is confirmed by
observation, and shows itself fruitful in many respects. But in spite of
the many ingenious and often suggestive ideas in the works of Planck, we
have some doubt about a system which tries to explain the whole concrete
abundance of the richness of formations and life-forms in the world, rising
higher and higher up to spiritual existence and moral action, from the
single idea of concentration, and makes this principle the mystical and
mysteriously acting cause of a whole world and its contents. We doubt at
the outset the success of this argument. We have especially the strongest
objections to a philosophical system which submits all the contending
physical theories of the present to the measure of that concentration
principle, and from these purely metaphysical reasons takes side
exclusively with the one or the other of the theories, or establishes new
theories--from the theories of atoms and ether, of light and heat, down to
geological questions as to whether universal revolutions of the world or a
continual development took place. The solution of all these questions, in
their full extent, we do not attribute to philosophy, but to natural
science; although to a natural science which permits philosophy to define
the ideas with which it operates and the general principles to which it
comes. For this renunciation--which philosophy, however, can not at all
escape--it will be the more richly rewarded in this, that it obtains the
more certainly for its own work sure and sifted material. But all attempts
which can not {112} submit to this renunciation, give only an apparent
right to that view which Albert Lange, in his "History of Materialism,"
defends, when he banishes speculative philosophy to the realm of
imagination.

But in rejecting philosophy in the question of the causes of the
development and organization of the organic kingdoms, we did not reach the
end of the philosophic problems with which we are confronted. This whole
question is itself only a segment of the problems before which we stand,
and leads of necessity to other questions.

Already within the series of development of the organic world, so far as it
is investigated by natural science, we have found and named a point (at the
end of § 1, Chap. II, Book I), where the competency of pure natural science
comes to an end, and the question arises whether another source of
knowledge--_i.e._, even philosophy--can not take up the investigation where
natural science completes its task. This point was the _origin of
self-consciousness_ and of _free moral self-determination_; consequently,
the origin of that which makes man _man_. Going still farther back on the
temporal and ideal scale of organic beings, we arrive at another point,
which natural science no longer can explain, and that is the _origin of
sensation_ and of _consciousness_. With the appearance of sensation and
consciousness, the _animal world_ came into existence. Moreover, the whole
scientific question as to the origin and development of species, so far as
we have hitherto treated it, started from initial points where the organic
and life already existed; it, therefore, leads of necessity to the further
question as to _the origin of the organic and of life itself_. D. F.
Strauss, {113} in his "Postscript as Preface," thus clearly and simply
characterizes these still unfilled blanks in the evolution theory: "There
are, as is well known, three points in the rising development of nature, to
which the appearance of incomprehensibility especially adheres (to speak
more categorically: which have not been explained thus far by anybody). The
three questions are: How has the living sprung from that which is without
life? the sentient (and conscious) being from that which is without
sensation? that which possesses reason (self-consciousness and free will)
from that which is without reason?--questions equally embarrassing to
thought." But even the question as to the origin of the organic and of life
can not be discussed without an investigation, leading us farther back to
the question as to _the elements of the world_ in general. The _doctrine of
atoms_, and the _mechanical view of the world_, are the scientific
evidences of the efforts in this direction.

So far as the attempts to solve these four questions start from the results
of natural science and, from this starting-point of the known, try to solve
the unknown, we will have to assign them in the encyclopædic classification
of the sciences, to that department of philosophy which treats the
doctrines of nature; and since our whole investigation starts from the
Darwinian theories, and only tries to treat of what is properly connected
with them, the attempts to solve these four questions offer themselves as
the _naturo-philosophic supplements of the Darwinian-theories_.

After concluding our treatment of them, we shall have to speak of still
another view, which presupposes all these attempts at solution to be wholly
or nearly {114} successful, and draws an inference from them which no
longer belongs to the realm of natural science, but is a purely
_metaphysical_ hypothesis; it is the _abolition of the idea of design in
nature_. In connection with this, finally, we shall have to discuss the
name which this view has lately assumed, viz: "_Monism_."

Whatever further questions may arise, belong either to the special
subdivisions of natural science and philosophy, or to theological and
ethical problems.

       *       *       *       *       * {115}


CHAPTER I.

THE NATURO-PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. _The Origin of Self-Consciousness and of Free Moral
Self-Determination._

If sensation, and its most developed form, consciousness, is a reflex of
the material in something immaterial, which feels itself a unit in contrast
to the material, and, where sensation rises into consciousness, is opposed
as a unit to the material--self-consciousness again is the reflex of this
sentient and conscious subject in a new and still higher immaterial unity;
and this again makes this sentient and conscious subject, together with the
sum of its feelings and ideas, its object, changing it from a sentient and
conscious subject into a felt and presented object. Therefore it is clear,
and will be the result of all thought upon these concepts, that as with
sensation and consciousness, so also with self-consciousness, something new
always comes into existence--a higher category of being, different from the
merely material. The first is the form of being of the animal world; the
latter that of mankind.

It is exactly the same with the first appearance of voluntary movement, and
again with that of free moral self-determination. The reaction of the
sentient subject upon his sensations is something qualitatively different
from the purely mechanical and physical action and {116} reaction of pure
matter; although, in order to understand the possibility of a sensation as
well as of a voluntary movement, we must admit that the physical qualities
of matter must be such as to afford a basis and condition for sentient and
reacting beings. That reaction is the reaction of something immaterial upon
the material, even if it is entirely caused by the material and bound to
the material. Now, with free moral self-determination a new subject comes
into existence and activity in the individual, which makes that subject,
reacting upon mere sensations and ideas, its object, and, as a new
immaterial subjective unity, acts determiningly upon that subject which has
just become object. This new subject, considered from the side of its
receptivity, we call _self-consciousness_; from the side of its
spontaneity, _free moral self-determination_. Whether we consider this
freedom predetermined or not, does not at all alter the described fact and
the qualitative difference between the form of human moral agency and that
of purely animal spontaneity. For even those advocating determination must
admit that the morally acting subject distinguishes itself from its object,
and does not take its motives to action from the material and from the
instinctive life which is bound to the sensual and dependent on it.

Now it is true that all these circumstances in organized individuals which
serve self-consciousness and free moral self-determination as their
condition, presupposition, and basis, all the dispositions of the soul and
the manifestations of life found in the animal world, will be worthy of the
closest attention even on this account: because they form the basis, the
condition, and (if self-consciousness and freedom are once present) an
essential {117} part of the contents and object of self-consciousness and
moral self-determination. But where the origin of man is discussed, the
central point of the investigation is no longer the enumeration of those
activities of the soul of man whose analogies we also find in the animal
world, but rather in the answer to the question as to how that entirely new
manifestation, self-consciousness and moral self-determination, came into
existence or could have originated. This question is the more decidedly the
central point of the investigation, since this new form, when once in
existence, has for its object not only what already appears in the life of
the soul of animals, but also receives a new object, which can only be an
object of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination, and not of
mere consciousness and instinctive life. These new objects are the ideas
leading up to the conception of God and moral ideals.

Now this very question as to the origin of self-consciousness and of free
moral self-determination is wholly misjudged as to its importance, and
given remarkably little attention by those evolutionists who are well
versed in the realm of natural science. The question as to the origin of
self-consciousness is either entirely ignored--as if self-consciousness
must originate wholly by itself, if only those first steps of an
intellectual and social life which the animal world also shows, are once
present and properly developed--or the solution is put aside with the most
superficial analogies. The question regarding free moral
self-determination, on the other hand, is either likewise ignored, and for
the same reasons, or it is supposed that it must fail of itself, if {118}
only this self-determination is explained in a deterministic way.

It is true, Darwin devotes several chapters of his work, "Descent of Man,"
to a comparison of the intellectual powers of man with those of animals,
and these chapters are full of the most interesting facts and comparisons;
but although his work comprises two volumes, he devotes to the origin of
self-consciousness, individuality, abstraction, general ideas, etc., only a
single page, and justifies his brief treatment with the assertion that the
attempt at discussing these higher faculties is useless, because hardly two
authors agree in their definitions of these terms. What he says about
self-consciousness is really contained in two sentences, namely: "But how
can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and some power of
imagination, as shown by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures
or pains in the chase? This would be a form of self-consciousness." On the
other hand, as Büchner has remarked in his "Lectures about Darwin's
Theory": "How little can the hard-working wife of a degraded Australian
savage, who hardly ever uses abstract words, and can not count above four,
how little can such a woman exert her self-consciousness, or reflect on the
nature of her own existence!" And in Darwin's _resumé_ of his chapters on
the intellectual powers of man and animals, he says, on page 126: "If it
could be proved that certain high mental powers, such as the formation of
general concepts, self-consciousness, etc., were absolutely peculiar to
man, which seems extremely doubtful, it is not improbable that these
qualities are merely the incidental results of other highly-advanced
intellectual faculties: {119} and these again mainly the result of the
continued use of a perfect language."

If Darwin is thus not able to show us in the animal world a single real
analogy which at all approaches self-consciousness, and, in order to supply
this want, must have recourse to the purely hypothetical _possibility_ that
it is not certain whether an old hunting-dog does not reflect upon the past
joys of the chase; if by the uncertainty of the expression that
self-consciousness might be an "_accompanying_" result of other faculties,
he nevertheless gives us to understand that he can not find the
_sufficient_ cause of the origin of self-consciousness in those other
faculties; and, finally, if he closes the last mentioned quotation with a
sentence which has for its premise the wholly illogical thought that
language might have been able to reach "a high state of development" before
the origin of self-consciousness and without its assistance: then, indeed,
the result of all this certainly is that he has given no adequate
consideration to the specific nature of self-consciousness. It is only
under this supposition that it is possible for him to say: "Nevertheless,
the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it
certainly is, is one of degree and not of quality." The authors may
possibly not agree in the definitions of the idea of self-consciousness--we
ourselves perhaps are only an additional example in confirmation of this
fact--; but whatever the definition may be, the fact itself remains, that
self-consciousness does not stand as one of the intellectual faculties
beside the others and coördinate with them, but, as an entirely new form of
being, introduces a qualitatively new and valuable factor into the subject.
That which precedes the {120} origin of self-consciousness--the purely
conscious and not yet self-conscious life of the soul, as it shows itself
with higher animals, especially with mammals--_may_ have been the necessary
condition and requirement for the origin of self-consciousness. It
certainly _has_ been so; and from this point of view, all these
psychological studies of animals and psycho-physical investigations which
are a favorite object of modern science, have a high value; but what has
been called into existence by _means_ of conditions is not on that account
the _product_ of those conditions. This very fact is one of the greatest
mistakes of most of the modern evolution theories: that very often--and
especially where they wish to draw metaphysical conclusions from their
scientific results or hypotheses--they confound condition and basis with
cause.

Now it appears to us that, in quite an analogous way, Darwin overlooks or
contests the fact that with _free moral self-determination_ something
specifically new comes into existence. He certainly discusses the origin of
the moral qualities of man more in detail than he does the origin of his
intellectual qualities. He derives them, in their first beginnings, from
the fixity, transmission and increase of the _social_ impulses and
instincts. These, being the basis of the whole moral development, and
leading in their more mature form to love and to sympathy, originated by
natural selection; and the other moral qualities, such as moral sense and
conscience, progressed more by the effect of custom, by the power of
reflection, instruction, and religion, than by natural selection. Higher
and lower, common and special, permanent and transitory instincts come into
collision {121} with one another. The dissatisfaction of man when any of
the lower, special, and transitory instincts have overcome the higher,
common and permanent, and the resolution to act differently for the future,
is _conscience_. Darwin considers that one a _moral being_ who is capable
of comparing with one another his past and future actions and motives, of
approving some of them and of disapproving others; and the fact that man is
the only creature who can with certainty be ranked as a moral being is,
according to Darwin, the greatest of all differences between man and
animals.

Here, again, the whole central point of the investigation as to the origin
of man does not lie in the question of the origin of the instincts between
which the moral subject, acting in moral self-determination, has to choose.
For it is clear that the beginnings of these instincts are also present in
the animal world. But the main question is, how did this faculty and
necessity of choosing, this conscience and responsibility, this "moral
sense," as Darwin calls it, originate? Now to this question we have a plain
answer in the before-mentioned utterances of Darwin: It originated not as a
_product_ of the social instincts--it only has these instincts for its
preceding condition, object and instrument; but it originated as a product
of other agencies, which act upon these impulses and instincts, operate
with them, choose between them; and as these other agencies Darwin mentions
the high development of the intellectual powers. That this is his opinion,
we can clearly see from an expression with which he introduces his essay on
the origin of "moral sense": "The following proposition seems to me in a
high degree probable--namely, that {122} any animal whatever, endowed with
well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or
conscience, _as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or
nearly as well developed, as in man_." These intellectual powers which
moral feeling and conscience require at their birth, are certainly,
according to Darwin the power to distinguish oneself as subject from one's
impulses and instincts, and to choose between them; _i.e._,
self-consciousness. We shall have to admit fully this intimate connection
between moral self-determination and self-consciousness; but we must admit,
at the same time, that moral self-determination--this new form of activity
in which moral activity distinguishes itself from all _merely_ instinctive
activity--finds its sufficient explanation in the previous stage of the
animal world as little as self-consciousness; and that moral
self-determination has the condition and presupposition, but not the cause,
of its existence in that which is also found in the previous stage of the
animal world. The proof that the origin of moral self-determination finds
its sufficient explanation in that which the previous stage of the animal
world also has, would appear to have been given by Darwin only when he had
succeeded in explaining the origin of self-consciousness from animal
intelligence; but that he did not succeed in it, we think we have clearly
shown. On the other hand, we willingly admit that the study of the social
and all other instincts and impulses which are common to man and animals,
and which in man form the object and instrument of his moral activity, has
for us the highest interest, inasmuch as the only problem is to explain the
conditions and prerequisites of moral self-determination--or, historically
speaking, the conditions {123} and prerequisites of the origin of morally
acting beings. Furthermore we have to say here also that condition and
prerequisite are not identical with cause, and it is precisely the _cause_
of moral responsibility and of the origin of such morally responsible
beings, which has not yet been discovered by the Darwinian theory.

The followers of Darwin enter still less into the discussion of the
question as to the origin of self-consciousness and of moral
self-determination. Häckel--who, in his "Natural History of Creation" and
in his "Anthropogeny," expounds his whole evolution theory in all its
antecedent conditions and consequences--has, indeed, much to say of the
different faculties of the soul of man and animals. He traces these
faculties in the case of man down to the lowest state of the most degraded
races, and in the case of animals from the kermes up to the bee, from the
lancelet-fish to the dog, ape, elephant and horse; and he also treats of
the so-called _a priori_ knowledge which "arose only by long-enduring
transmission, by inheritance of acquired adaptations of the brain, out of
originally empiric or experiential knowledge _a posteriori_," (Vol. II,
345). But we look in vain in his works for a treatment of the question as
to the origin of the Ego--of self-consciousness. Nowhere does he enter into
the analysis of the psychological ideas; he only compares the psychical
utterances of different creatures, and thinks the whole problem solved when
he says: "The mental differences between the most stupid placental animals
(for instance, sloths and armadillos) and the most intelligent animals of
the same group (for instance dogs and apes) are, at any rate, much more
considerable than the differences in the {124} intellectual life of dogs,
apes, and men." Or: "If these brutish parasites are compared with the
mentally active and sensitive ants, it will certainly be admitted that the
psychical differences between the two are much greater than those between
the highest and lowest mammals--between beaked animals, pouched animals and
armadillos, on the one hand, and dogs, apes, men, on the other." The fact
that in the human individual consciousness and self-consciousness are
gradually developed, is to him a proof that in the organic kingdom also
consciousness and self-consciousness came into existence gradually, and,
indeed, hand-in-hand with the development of the nervous system; and with
this result he thinks that he has relieved himself from the task of showing
the "how" of the origin of self-consciousness. This becomes clearly evident
from a remark about the origin of consciousness, in his "Anthropogeny,"
where he says that, if DuBois-Reymond had thought that consciousness is
developed, he would no longer have held its origin to be a thing beyond the
limits of human capacity. Häckel likewise seems to regard the question of
the origin of moral self-determination as solved or rejected, if only
freedom is denied--which, indeed, is repeatedly done by him.

A similar defect in the treatment of this question by evolutionists we find
in the works of Oscar Schmidt, Gustav Jäger, and others. Even Emil
DuBois-Reymond, who, in his celebrated and eloquent lecture on "The Limits
of the Knowledge of Nature," given before the assembly of scientists at
Leipzig, 1872, asserts so energetically that the origin of sensation and
consciousness is inexplicable (see next section), seems to {125} take the
origin of self-consciousness for granted, and as needing no further
explanation, if only consciousness is once present.

Since, then, the scientists leave us without a sufficient answer to the
question respecting the origin of self-consciousness and of moral
self-determination, we shall have to turn to the philosophers. Here,
indeed, we find rich definitions and genetic analyses, but none that lead
us any farther than to the information that consciousness is the necessary
condition of self-consciousness; that animal instinct is the necessary
antecedent condition of moral self-determination. Yet in the works of these
very philosophers who are inclined to a mechanical and "monistic" view of
the world, we find that they directly avoid the question as to the origin
of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination. As soon as they are
led near it, in the course of reasoning in their works, they suddenly turn
aside again to the quite different questions of the connection between
brain and soul, between physical and psychical, external and internal
processes, etc. Evidently they feel that with this question they have
arrived at the weak point of their system. That here is a weak point, we
clearly see in the case of D. F. Strauss, a leading advocate of modern
naturalism, and the greatest philosophic scholar of that school. It is
true, in his "Postscript as Preface," as we saw before, he mentions the
origin of self-consciousness as one of the points which need special
explanation; but he seems to have made this acknowledgment more with the
purpose of showing that DuBois-Reymond, in admitting the origin of
self-consciousness to be explainable, has no longer any reason to contest
the explicability of the {126} origin of sensation and consciousness; for
in his work on "The Old Faith and the New," he did not enter into that
question at all. On the other hand, he makes in his last-mentioned work a
remarkable confession. In answering the question--how do we determine our
rule of life?--he comes to speak of the position of man in nature, traces a
law of progress in nature, and says: "In this cumulative progression of
life, man is also comprised, and, moreover, in such wise that the organic
plasticity of our planet (provisionally, say some naturalists, but that we
may fairly leave an open question) culminates in him. _As nature can not go
higher, she would go inwards._ 'To be reflected within itself,' was a very
good expression of Hegel's. Nature felt herself already in the animal, but
she wished to know herself also." But still stronger is the following
expression: "_In man, nature endeavored not merely to exalt, but to
transcend herself._" In § 1, Chap. II, we shall have to speak of this
important acknowledgment of teleology in nature, which such an antagonist
of teleology as Strauss makes in the above-quoted remarks about a progress
in nature and a will of nature; but here we are more interested in the
equally remarkable acknowledgment of the fact that man can not be explained
from nature alone--that he is something which transcends nature. For that
(according to Strauss) nature, in originating man, not only _intended_ to
transcend herself, but really did transcend herself and, that she succeeded
in her intention, we can infer from the moral precept which Strauss gives:
"Do not forget for a moment, that thou art human; not merely a natural
production."

The result of our investigation, therefore, is that {127} with
self-consciousness and free moral self-determination something specifically
new came into existence which had its antecedent condition in a previous
state of existence, but has not yet found its sufficient explanation in
this antecedent state.

§ 2. _The Origin of Sensation and of Consciousness._

The limits of our knowledge show themselves still more clearly in the
attempts to explain the origin of consciousness and its lowest
form--sensation. Self-consciousness is without doubt ideally nearer to
consciousness in this, that both are an immaterial activity; and yet we
found no demonstrable bridge which leads from consciousness to
self-consciousness. Still broader is the gulf between the material and the
immaterial, between the unconscious and the conscious,--or, to describe the
two realms with names which bring them nearest together, between that which
is without sensation and that which has sensation: a gulf to bridge which
philosophy also has vainly exerted its utmost efforts, as has been well
known since the "supernatural assistance" of Descartes and the
"preëstablished harmony" of Leibnitz. Wherein lies the real necessity that
there should be sensation? How does the material become something that is
felt? What is the demonstrable cause (not the condition, but the cause) of
a sentient subject? To these questions, every science up to the present day
lacks an answer. As is well known, DuBois-Reymond, in his
previously-mentioned lecture upon "The Limits of our Knowledge of Nature,"
declares the origin of sensation and of consciousness to be one of two
limits, beyond {128} which we have not only to say "_ignoramus_," but
"_ignorabimus_."

_In abstracto_, we might think of two attempts at bridging over this gulf:
the first one is that we try to transform sensation itself into something
material, and the other is that we attribute sensation also to that which,
according to our observation, seems to be without sensation; namely, to
matter and its elements, the atoms. Both of these attempts have been
made--the former by D. F. Strauss in his "The Old Faith and the New," and
by the English philosopher, Herbert Spencer, in his "First Principles of
Philosophy;" the latter, first pointed out by Schopenhauer, was taken up
and farther developed by Zöllner in his work, "Ueber die Natur der Kometen"
("Nature of the Comets"), Leipzig, Engelmann, 1872, and with special
acuteness by an "Anonymus" in the work: "Das Unbewusste von Standpunkt der
Physiologie und Descendenztheorie" ("The Unconscious from the Standpoint of
Physiology and Descent Theory"), Berlin, Duncker, 1872.

Strauss says, in the previously-mentioned work: "If, under certain
conditions, motion is transformed into heat, why may it not, under other
conditions, be transformed into sensation?" And Herbert Spencer says, in
his "First Principles of Philosophy," (page 217): "Various classes of facts
thus unite to prove that the law of metamorphosis, which holds among the
physical forces, holds equally between them and the mental forces. Those
modes of the unknowable which we call motion, heat, light, chemical
affinity, etc., are alike transformable into each other, and into those
modes of the unknowable which we distinguish as sensation, {129} emotion,
thought: these, in their turns, being directly or indirectly
retransformable into the original shapes."

But motion--even the finest material motion, that of ether, (which, in
consequence of the very important discovery of the conservation of force
and of the mechanical equivalent of heat, made by Robert von Mayer, at
present is taken to be heat)--is so decidedly a material process, the
sensation of motion is so decidedly a reflex of the material in something
immaterial, that the assertion of a transformation of motion into sensation
seems to us only to change the point of view, and not to explain the
difference, but to efface it. And we think that the appeal of Strauss from
his contemporaries, who do not understand him, to posterity, who would
understand him better and esteem him, has but little prospect of being
operative.

If that which has sensation and that which has it not, are to be brought
genetically near one another, and hence the difference between the two at
the point where the lowest sentient being has found its first existence, is
to be made void or at least bridged over, then it is much more reasonable,
and also in the line of Strauss's solution, to deny the difference between
that which has sensation and that which has it not, and to do this in the
sense in which we also declare that to be sentient which we have hitherto
been accustomed to regard as without sensation; and we should likewise
attribute sensation to the original elements of the world, be they called
atoms or whatever one may wish. This is done by Zöllner and by the before
mentioned "Anonymus." This conclusion is logical; it is even the only
possible conclusion, if we once start from the axiom that the new, which
comes {130} into existence, must necessarily be explainable from agencies
previously active, and known to or imagined by us through abstractions and
hypotheses. Zöllner is certainly right when, in his work which appeared
before the lecture of DuBois-Reymond, he puts the alternative, "either to
renounce forever the conceivableness of the phenomena of sensation, or
hypothetically to add to the common qualities of matter one more, which
places the simplest and most elementary transactions of nature under a
process of sensation, legitimately connected with it;" as also when he says
(page 327): "We may regard the intensity of these sensations (of matter) as
little and unimportant as we wish; but the hypothesis of their existence
is, according to my conviction, a necessary condition, in order to
comprehend the really existing phenomena of sensation in nature." Only we
shall do well to choose the first alternative for the present, and, with
DuBois-Reymond, answer the question as to the explanation of the origin of
sensation with an "_ignoramus_"; indeed, we shall take a surer road with
his "_ignorabimus_" than by a plunge into that bottomless ocean of
hypotheses--in spite of the protest of Häckel, who (Anthrop., page XXI)
sees that scientist who has the courage to admit the limits of our
knowledge, on account of this "_ignorabimus_", walking in the army of the
"black International", and "marshalled under the black flag of the
hierarchy," together with "spiritual servitude and falsehood, want of
reason and barbarism, superstition and retrogression", and fighting,
"spiritual freedom and truth, reason and culture, evolution and progress."
For a solution of the question which simply denies all sharply-marked
differences in the world, and explains {131} the new, which comes into
existence with sensation, by the assertion that this new element is not
new, but was already present, and that it exists everywhere, only we do not
see it everywhere,--such a solution seems to us not to be the true way to
interpret the problem of the sphinx. Even Ed. von Hartmann seems to
infringe the impartiality of the true observer, when, in his "Philosophy of
the Unconscious," he attributes sensation to plants. But when Zöllner says
(p. 326): "_All the labors of natural beings_ [and, as the connection
indicates, of all, even of inorganic natural beings] are determined by like
and dislike;" and when "Anonymus" attributes sensation to all atoms and to
all complexities composed of them, even to stone, then all reasonable
conception of natural things and processes certainly vanishes into thin
air.

It will be remembered, however, that in treating the question of the origin
of self-consciousness, although we were not able to solve the problem,
nevertheless we had to ascribe high value to the investigation of all
psychical processes on the low stage of sensation and consciousness, since
they show us not the cause, but the condition and basis, of
self-consciousness. Likewise, in the question as to the origin of sensation
and of consciousness, although we are not able to solve it, we will
willingly admit that we observe, even in that which has no sensation,
qualities and processes which furnish the absolutely necessary condition
and basis for sensation. For the same reason, we will also admit the
manifold analogies of sensation which we observe in that which is without
sensation. The whole system of symbols in nature which fills our treasury
of words and penetrates, in a {132} thousandfold way, our scientific and
popular, our poetical and prosaic speech, our thoughts and feelings, bears
witness to the fact that that which is without sensation is also a
preparatory step to sensation, and feeling both active and passive springs
from it. However, a preparatory step, as such, is not necessarily the
cause; and the fact and the acknowledgment of a correlation is not on that
account an explanation.

§ 3. _The Origin of Life._

The third problem to be solved is the origin of life. As is well known,
Darwin himself makes no attempt at explaining this problem, but is
satisfied with the idea that life was infused into one or a few forms by
the Creator ("Origin of Species," 6 ed., p. 429). His investigations and
theories only begin where organic life, in its first and lowest forms, is
already in existence.

But lately there have been made, in the realm of the organic, discoveries
of beings which take the lowest conceivable round on the ladder of
organisms, and which in their form and structure are so simple that from
them to the inorganic there seems to be but a short step. We can no longer
mention as belonging to the bridges which are said to lead from the organic
world to the inorganic, the often-named _bathybius_, discovered by Huxley,
and so strongly relied upon for the mechanical explanation of life--a slimy
net-like growth, which covers the rocks in the great depths of the ocean.
For after scientists like K. E. von Baer and others had already declared it
probable that this bathybius is only a precipitate of organic relics, no
less a person than the discoverer of the bathybius, in the "Annals of
Natural History," 1875, {133} and in the "Quarterly Journal of
Microscopical Science," 1875, has suggested that the whole discovery is but
gypsum, which was precipitated in a gelatinous condition. Likewise the
utterances concerning the simplicity and lack of structure of the lowest
organisms, are to be accepted only with great reservation; for most of
these organisms show very differently and very distinctly stamped
structures; of this fact, anyone may easily convince himself, who has had
the opportunity of observing with the microscope low and lowest organisms,
and to admire their striking and manifold forms. Nevertheless, there are
monera whose structure seems to be nothing but a living clod without kernel
and cover, and which in that respect represent the lowest conceivable form
of organic being and life.

Now, relying on these discoveries, as well as upon the successful
demonstration, by inorganic means, of organic acids in chemistry, and
starting from the supposition that the first appearance of life must
necessarily be explained by those agencies which are already active in the
inorganic nature, many scientists have attempted the so-called _mechanical
explanation of life_. This attempt has been made most logically and
systematically by Häckel. He says that organic _matter_, organic _form_,
and organic _motion_, in the lowest stages of the organic, which are almost
the only ones to be taken into consideration when the problem of the origin
of life is discussed, contain nothing at all which does not also pertain to
the inorganic. In his opinion, organic _matter_ is an albuminous carbon
combination, of which we have to presuppose that, like all chemical
combinations, under certain physical and chemical conditions it can also
arise in the realm {134} of the inorganic in a purely chemical and
mechanical way. Organic _form_ which, in its lowest stages, is so simple,
like the moneron and the bathybius, and which stands still lower than a
cell, is, moreover, something which there is no difficulty in explaining
from inorganic matter. Finally, organic _motion_ which alone is the last
and lowest characteristic of the organic in its lowest stage--in which the
process of life properly consists, and in which, therefore, we have to
recognize the _punctum saliens_ of the whole question--is only an increase
and complication of the merely mechanical motion of the inorganic, likewise
explainable by mechanical causes. This view Häckel expounds in the
thirteenth and partly also in the first chapter of his "Natural History of
Creation," and explains the origin of the first and most simple organic
individuals either through what he calls _autogony_ in an inorganic fluid,
or through _plasmogony_ in an organic fluid--a plasma or protoplasma. In
fact, according to him, the only correct idea is that all matter is
provided with a soul, that inorganic and organic nature is one, that all
natural bodies known to us are equally animated, and that the contrast
commonly drawn between the living and the dead world does not exist. This
is but a repetition, in a more rhetorical way, of the same idea which
"Anonymus" expressed in discussing the question as to the origin of
sensation.

DuBois-Reymond--who, in his lecture at Leipzig, pronounced the origin of
_sensation_ and of _consciousness_ a problem of natural science, never to
be solved--is also of the opinion that the explanation of _life_ from mere
mechanism of atoms is very probable, and only a question of time. It is
well known that the experimental {135} attempts at originating the organic
through chemistry are at present pursued with an eagerness that can have
its stimulus only in the hope of success.

It is clear that the main point of the question does not lie in organic
matter or in organic form, but in organic _motion_, for even the specific
of the organic _form_ originates only first through _organic motion of
life_. If, therefore, life is to be explained from mechanical causes, it
must also be shown that the merely mechanical motion of inorganic matter
produces that motion which we know as organic motion, and _how_ it produces
it. The idea of "increase and complication of the inorganic, merely
mechanical motion," with which Häckel throws a bridge from the living to
the lifeless or from the organic to the inorganic, does not yet give us
that proof; it seems rather to be one of those pompous phrases with which
people hide their ignorance and make the uncritical multitude believe that
the explanation is found: a manipulation against which, among others,
Wigand, in his great work, repeatedly protests, as also does the Duke of
Argyll in his lecture on "Anthropomorphism in Theology," having especially
in his mind the deductions of Spencer. For we may review the whole known
series of mechanical motions and their mechanical causes, and imagine their
mechanical increase and their mechanical complication the largest possible;
and still the life-motion of the organic will never result therefrom. If
such a keen psychical and physiological investigator and thinker, and such
an authority in the realm of the motions of atoms and molecules, as Gustav
Theodor Fechner--"Einige Ideen zur Schöpfungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte
der Organismen" ("Some Ideas about the History of the {136} Creation and
Development of Organisms"), Leipzig, 1873, p. 1, f.--can find the whole
lasting and effectual difference between the organic and inorganic in
nothing else than in the way and manner of _motion_--namely, that the
motion of the _organic_ molecules is different from that of the _inorganic_
molecules--and when he traces this difference with mathematical exactness,
then an assertion which simply denies that difference, without attempting
to show the identity of the two motions, to say nothing of proving this
identity, is nothing more than a clear evidence that the mechanical theory
has not yet succeeded in explaining the origin of life, and that those
scientists who so haughtily look down upon the abuse of "_vital power_," to
the efficacy of which their antagonists began to resort when their
knowledge came to an end, make exactly the same abuse with their
"_mechanism_." That organic motion, even the organic motion of molecules,
_once present_, comes into dependence on the well known laws of mechanism,
we naturally will not deny; any more than that the human body, when serving
the will of the mind, follows in its motions the laws of physiology and
mechanism.

Preyer seems to make a mistake similar to that of those who efface
sensation and motion, when, in an essay on the hypothesis of the origin of
life, in the "Deutsche Rundschau," Vol. I, 7, he even effaces the
difference between life and sensation, and simply identifies life and
motion. "Self-motion, called life, and inorganic movement of bodies by
agencies outside of themselves, are but quantitatively, intensively, or
gradually different forms of motion; not in their innermost being
different.... Our will changes many kinds of motion into heat, makes {137}
cold metal to be red-hot simply by hammering.... Likewise inversely, as the
law of the conservation of force must require, a part of the eternal heat
of the metal can be now and forever transposed into the living motion of
our soul." This whole manner of investigation and proof is one of those
numerous unconscious logical fallacies which, introduced by Hegel, have
gradually attained a certain title by possession. From the observation of a
process, they abstract a characteristic, as general as possible,--as, for
instance, from the observation of life the characteristic of motion; then
they find that the process has the characteristic in common with still
other processes--as, for instance, the self-motion of the living has the
general characteristic of motion in common with the objective motion of the
lifeless; and then they persuade themselves that the process which they try
to explain is really explained by having found a quality of this process as
comprehensive as possible. And in order to hide the falsity of the
conclusion, they also give to the general idea, which they have found to be
a characteristic of that process, the same name which the special process
has,--as, for instance, they call motion life, no matter whether it is a
motion of itself or a being moved, no matter whether it is performed from
within or in consequence of an impulse from without; and then they say:
"Behold, life is explained; life is nothing but motion." But it can be
readily seen that life is also motion, and has therefore this
characteristic in common with everything which is moved; but that the
specific of that motion called life--namely, self-motion in consequence of
an impulse renewing itself from within, and, as Fechner shows, {138}
self-motion in a rotatory direction of the molecules, precisely the same
thing which in distinction from other motions we call life,--is not
explained, but simply ignored.

There is still another bold hypothesis which we have to mention--namely,
_that the organic germs were once thrown from other spheres upon the earth
by ærolites_. Years ago this idea was declared by Helmholtz to be
scientifically conceivable; then it was formally asserted and brought into
general notice by Sir William Thompson, in his opening address before the
annual assembly of the British Association at Edinburgh, in 1871, but
rejected as formally and materially unscientific by Zöllner, in the preface
to his work, "Nature of Comets," and again defended by Helmholtz in his
preface to the second volume of a translation of Thompson and Tait's
Theoretical Physics. However, this hypothesis also only defers the solution
of the question, and, supposing its scientific possibility, leads either to
the remoter question, how life did originate in those other spheres, or to
the metaphysical assertion of the eternity of life and of the eternal
continuity of the living in the world, and shows therewith very clearly the
impossibility of its explanation.

This inexplicability would still exist, if what is quite improbable should
happen, namely, that the experimental attempts at _artificially producing
organic life_ should be successful, and if thus the question as to the
_generatio æquivoca_, which during the past decades so much alarmed the
minds of scientists and theologians, should be experimentally solved and
answered in the affirmative. For in view of the hopes of a possible
explanation of life, which is expected to be the reward for the success of
{139} these attempts, Zöllner is fully right in saying: "That the
scientists to-day set such an extremely high value on the inductive proof
of the _generatio æquivoca_, is the most significant symptom of how little
they have made themselves acquainted with the first principles of the
theory of knowledge. For, suppose they should really succeed in observing
the origin of organic germs under conditions entirely free from objection
to any imaginable communication with the atmosphere, what could they answer
to the assertion that the organic germs, in reference to their extension,
are of the order of ether-atoms, and, with these, press through the
intervals of the material molecules which form the sides of our apparatus?"

How little life is explained, at least according to the present state of
our knowledge, also follows from the _insufficiency of all attempts_ at
_defining it_. The latest and most thorough attempt at such a definition of
life, with which we are familiar, is that made by Herbert Spencer in his
"First Principles", § 25, and in his "Principles of Biology," Vol. I, Part
I, Chap. 4 and 5. Having made thorough investigations, he arrives at the
general formula: "Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations
to external relations." To this definition we will not make the objection
that it is nothing but a logical abstraction from the common quality of all
processes and phenomena of life; for it certainly lies in the nature of a
definition that it can be nothing else but that. Nevertheless, we will
state that such a definition of life not only does not lead us any nearer
to the comprehension of its processes, and especially of the richness and
the organization of its forms and functions, but that it {140} clearly
shows us how little the origin of life is explained. For this very
definition necessarily and obviously leads us to the questions: Whence do
those internal relations originate, whence their adjustment to external
relations, and whence the continuity of this adjustment? The answer to
these questions this definition still owes us.

Therefore, not only self-consciousness and freedom, not only sensation and
consciousness, but also life and the organic, remain a phenomenon which--at
least, according to the present state of our knowledge and
reasoning--enters into the realm of the world of phenomena as _something
new_ that can not be explained from the foregoing, although it presupposes
the foregoing as the _condition_, not the cause, of its appearance; and no
matter whether we have to think of the modality of its origin as a sudden
or as a gradual one.

§ 4. _The Elements of the World, the Theory of Atoms, and the Mechanical
View of the World._

The investigating and thinking mind, when it attempts to explain the
appearances and forms of that which exists, finds itself led further and
further back, until it finally arrives at the last elements of the world
and of matter. Whether we take the problem of life as solved or unsolved,
the living has matter and its subordination to the efficiency of all its
chemical and mechanical powers in common with the lifeless; and the
organic, in its first beginnings, stands extraordinarily near to, and is
grown on the ground of, the inorganic,--if not according to the category of
cause and effect, still according to that of condition and consequence, of
basis and structure. Therefore we stand at last before the {141} question
of the final elements of matter, which, indeed, constitutes organic as well
as inorganic bodies.

The answer to this question is attempted by the theory of atoms: the
doctrine which teaches that the whole material world is composed of simple
particles which are no farther divisible, and from whose juxtaposition the
chemical elements--and, in respect to their other forms of existence and
combination, the whole world of bodies, with all their forms, states, and
changes,--are composed.

This theory has not only the practical value that the physical (and
especially the chemical) sciences can make and use their formulas most
easily under the supposition of such simple primitive elements; but it also
has the great theoretical merit that it has broken down the old barriers
between _matter_ and _force_, and has thus promoted considerably our method
of regarding the world of material substances. Toward this result,
scientists and philosophers--and, among the latter, the thinkers and
investigators of both views of the world, the theistic and the pantheistic,
the ideal and the materialistic,--have worked with equal merit, and have
equally enjoyed its fruits, with perhaps the single exception of so pure a
materialist as Ludwig Büchner, who, it seems, does not like to give up his
old doctrine of force _and_ matter as the two inseparable, equivalent, and
equally eternal elements of the universe. That matter itself, even when
looked upon from a purely physical standpoint, has an incorporeal
principle; that the whole world of bodies, as such, has but a phenomenal
character; that not force _and_ matter are the two empirico-physical
principles of the world, but that matter itself must be a product of
elementary {142} force active in the atoms; these doctrines have now be
pretty nearly common property of natural science and philosophy.
Investigators who like Wilhelm Wundt, rise from natural science to
philosophy, or such as take their starting-point from philosophy--whether
they be theists, like Lotze, I. H. Fichte, Ulrici, or occupy the ground of
a pessimistic pantheism, as does Eduard von Hartmann,--all share this view
and its fruits.

But in spite of all these preferences for the theory of atoms, we should
not forget that it still has but hypothetical value--that it is but an idea
of limits, which indicates, where the scientifically perceptible ceases,
and that every attempt at moving this limit still farther on must either
fail and lead into unsolvable contradictions, or, if successful, only leads
to new difficulties and unsolved problems.

Already within that realm in which the theory of atoms is a supplemental
hypothesis directly indispensable at present--_i.e._, within their
application in physical sciences--we meet suppositions which raise great
doubts and difficulties. Such a scientific difficulty occurs when the
atomism of the natural philosophers supposes a double complexity of atoms,
material atoms and atoms of ether: complexities which both penetrate one
another, and are supposed to follow partly totally different, partly the
same, elementary laws of force. Material atoms are subordinate to the law
of gravitation, while atoms of ether are not; and yet both act legitimately
upon one another,--as, for instance, when heat passes into motion and
motion into heat, which certainly presupposes a law of power acting in
common for both. Another difficulty lies in the atomism of the chemists;
and still another {143} in the divergency of the aims at which the physical
theory of atoms on the one hand and the chemical theory of atoms on the
other seem to point. Chemistry is inclined to explain the difference of its
numerous elements from the original difference of the atoms; and yet it is
not at all certain that the elements of chemistry themselves are not
composed of still more simple and less numerous primary elements. Many
indications seem to point to such primary elements which are more simple in
number and quality, and investigators even mention an element--hydrogen--in
the direction of which we have to look for the way that will lead us to
those primitive elements of matter. The divergency of aims, finally,
consists in the fact that physical atomism prevailingly points to a
conformity of the atoms of bodies; chemical atomism, on the contrary,--at
least, according to its present state,--points to a dissimilarity among
these.

The hypothetical and problematical nature of the theory of atoms strikes us
still more clearly when we try to analyze it philosophically. First, we
meet that antinomy which we always find where we try to pass beyond the
limits of our empirical knowledge by means of conception. For, if the atoms
still occupy space, we can not understand why they should not be further
divisible, and if they do not occupy space, we can not understand how any
sum of that which does not occupy space, can finally succeed in filling
space. It is true, this very antinomy has led to the overcoming of that
dualism of force and matter which so long enchained science, and the
overcoming of which we greet as a progress of our theoretical knowledge of
nature. We no {144} longer look upon the atoms as material elements, but as
centres of force. The antinomy has the further merit that, in the realm of
the knowledge of nature, it brings to our consciousness the great advantage
of a concrete perception and reasoning over purely logical abstractions.
For Ulrici, in his "God and Nature," is right in calling our attention to
the fact that we must think about the atoms, not in an _abstractly_ logical
and an _abstractly_ mathematical way, but concretely; that we have to
consider them, not as mere quantities, but as qualities; and that we can
then easily arrive at the perception of something which occupies space, and
which therefore, according to abstract conclusions of logic and
mathematics, could still be thought of as divisible _in abstracto_, but
which, even as a consequence of its _quality_, of its concrete natural
form, is no longer divisible in reality. Nevertheless, in spite of all
these remarkable attempts at overcoming the difficulties of the theory of
atoms, that antinomy returns as often as we undertake to make that clearly
perceptible which we have at last gained a partial conception of; and thus
shows us, from this side also, that even with the theory of atoms we have
arrived at the limit where not only our observation, but also the
preciseness and certainty of our conceptions, ceases.

By the atomic theory, we do not gain anything for the ultimate explanation
of the world and its contents, not even if its present hypothetical value
should be changed into a complete demonstration. For the whole theory but
removes the question as to the origin of things from their sensible
appearance to the elements of that appearance, and leaves us standing just
as helpless before the elements as before the appearances. For {145} whence
does the whole richness of the appearances in the world come? If the atoms
are all alike, and their laws of force the simplest we can imagine, then
their grouping into all the developments and formations of which we observe
such an infinite and regularly arranged abundance, is not less unexplained
than if we had not gone back to the theory of atoms at all. But if the
atoms and their laws of force are different, the difficulty is not
simplified, but doubled. For, first, the theory then owes us an answer to
the questions wherein the difference of the atoms consists and whence it
comes; and, second, the question we have to consider in supposing a
uniformity of the atoms, is not disposed of or answered--the question,
namely, as to the causes which bring these different atoms together to form
precisely those complexities of atoms which we observe as the world of
phenomena.

This insufficiency of the theory of atoms in explaining the world and its
contents, is another proof to us that, however great the practical value of
this theory may be for the operations of physics and chemistry, its
theoretical value consists essentially in the fact that it formulates more
accurately the perception of the limits of our exact knowledge. Even the
idea of Lotze, that the atoms (in themselves different) are not really the
final elements of matter, but consist of still more simple but likewise
different elements, seems to us more a decoration than an extension of the
limits at which our perception has arrived; we stand before a double door,
but find both doors locked. We agree with DuBois-Reymond, when he declares,
in his before-mentioned lecture, the impossibility of perceiving the last
elements of the {146} world, matter and force, to be the other limit of our
knowledge of nature which, together with the impossibility of the
explanation of the origin of sensation and consciousness, remains forever
fixed.

Likewise, the peculiar modification which G. Th. Fechner gives to the
theory of the last elements of the world, cannot escape the charge of
leaving the problem of the world scientifically just as unsolved as before.
Fechner not only finds, as we have already mentioned, the difference
between the organic and the inorganic in the difference of the mutual
motions, but he also finds that the character of organic motions is exactly
the same as that which the bodies of the universe have among themselves in
their motions. Thus he distinguishes the _cosmorganic_ motion, which is
performed in the whole of the universe, and the _molecular-organic_ motion,
which we observe in the single organisms of the earth; he makes God the
personal, self-conscious soul of this cosmical organism; and, in using the
law of the tendency to stability, with which he completes the Darwinian
selection theory, asserts that the organic in the whole of the universe, as
well as in the narrow sphere of single bodies on the earth, is the first
thing from which the inorganic was separated and became gradually fixed.
Thus, in his opinion, the problem which up to the present has occupied
investigators,--namely, how did the organic originate from the
inorganic?--would have to be reversed to, how did the inorganic originate
from the organic?

Preyer would also reach a similar result with his above-mentioned theory of
the identity of life and motion. For according to this theory, the living
would {147} be as old and common as motion, and the organic but the dregs
of life.

We may, therefore, say that, without regard to the fact that neither
pantheism nor theism will ever harmonize with Fechner's solution of this
contrast which gives to God exactly the same position in the world as the
soul has in the body, natural science will certainly treat with great
reserve a cosmo-metaphysical system which so fully upsets all results of
exact investigations into the history of origin and development, and has no
other proof for itself than the identity, or at least the similarity, of
the abstract formula according to which the molecular motions of organisms
and the cosmical motions are performed. Although we thus have to deny to
the proof of this identity or similarity the weight which Fechner gives to
it, nevertheless it has still no small merit, since it throws new and
clearer light upon the old thought, always attractive and yet so difficult
to present,--of a macrocosmus and a microcosmus, which has been often
enough treated with so much natural mysticism.

Thus, in our inquiry into the development of things, we have successively
arrived at four points, each of which urged us to make the confession that
here something new came into existence, which can not be explained from the
preceding conditions of its being; these four points were: the origin of
self-consciousness, the origin of sensation and consciousness, the origin
of life, and finally the elements of the universe. Arrived at the last
problem, we see the confession of our ignorance increased to the still more
comprehensive confession that we are really not able _fully_ to explain
anything in the world. We are able to perceive a uniformity of law in the
states and {148} changes of things, and to abstract therefrom common laws
of nature; we can observe single objects, and perceive their states and
changes in their connection with one another and in their dependence on
those laws. But we are not able to explain scientifically either the origin
of these laws or the last physical causes of the qualities of things, which
follow these laws.

We should reach the same result if we had not started from the objective
world of the existing, as we were induced to do by our subject, but from
theoretical investigations. Here also we should immediately find ourselves
in a world of relations between subject and object, of a regularly arranged
abundance of subjective and objective qualities, states and processes, of
which the objective only come to our knowledge through the medium of the
subjective, and of regularly arranged laws to which both the subjective and
the objective are commonly subordinate. But why just these and no other
qualities of the subject and of objects exist, why just these and no other
laws reign, why just this and no other relation takes place between the
perceiving subject and the perceived object, would remain unanswered as
before.

Amidst a generation which is so fond of reveling in the thought of an
extension of all the limits of our knowledge, and is inclined to proclaim
as true that which it wishes and hopes, investigators are not wholly
wanting who very decidedly express their consciousness of these limits of
our knowledge, and at the same time combine it with the most logical
scientific reasoning and investigation. Even when in detail they reach
these limits from the most varying points of view, and draw {149} them in
different directions, they all agree in confirming the principle that it is
one of the first and most indispensable conditions of successful
investigation always to be conscious of the limits of its perception.
Voices which remind mankind of these limits, are perhaps less popular, for
man prefers to be reminded of the advances rather than of the limitations
of his knowledge; but they are on that account the more worthy of our
gratitude, for they keep us on the solid ground of the attainable from
which alone sure progress in knowledge is possible. Among such philosophers
we name Ulrici, and especially Lotze; among scientists, in the first place,
two pioneers in their departments--namely, in the department of the
mechanism of heat, Robert von Mayer--compare his "Bemerkungen über das
mechanische Aequivalent der Wärme" ("Remarks on the Mechanical Equivalent
of Heat"), and "Ueber nothwendige Consequenzen und Inconsequenzen der
Wärmemechanik" ("Necessary Consequences and Inconsequences of the Mechanism
of Heat"), Stuttgart, Cotta;--and in the realm of the development of
organisms, K. E. von Baer--compare his "Reden und kleinere Aufsätze"
("Addresses and Essays"), 2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1864 and 1876. In this
connection we have already mentioned the name of DuBois-Reymond. Otto
Köstlin published two remarkable dissertations in this direction--"Ueber
die Grenzen der Naturwissenschaft" ("Limits of Natural Science"), Tübingen,
Fues, 2d ed., 1874, and "Ueber natürliche Entwicklung" ("Natural
Development"), ib., 1875. In the latter he especially cautions against
hastily confounding the laws of development of planets, development of the
organic kingdom, and development {150} of the individual organisms.
Recently, Wigand, in the second volume of his work already frequently
mentioned, attempts, with an extreme energy which does too little justice
to the representation and investigation of the still unsolved problems, to
formulate the limits of the knowable.

A contrary extreme, and of its kind a still more one-sided corrective of
this too great stability, we have in those investigators who, by reason of
the great progress which has been made in the realm of the theoretical
knowledge of nature, allow themselves to be drawn on to the hope of still
explaining all states and processes in the world--the spiritual and the
ethic processes as well as the physical--from the pure mechanism of atoms;
and who see in that which thus far has been mechanically explained, the
only and the infallible way of explaining all that is still obscure. They
call this view the _mechanical view of the world_; and, as "monism," put it
in opposition to the "vitalistic, teleological, and dualistic view of the
world." In order to obtain a correct view of this standpoint, we quote from
Häckel's "Natural History of Creation", Vol. I, page 23, the following
passage: "By the theory of descent we are for the first time enabled to
conceive of the unity of nature in such a manner that a mechanico-causal
explanation of even the most intricate organic phenomena, for example, the
origin and structure of the organs of sense, is no more difficult (in a
general way) than is the mechanical explanation of any physical process;
as, for example, earthquakes, the courses of the wind, or the currents of
the ocean. We thus arrive at the extremely important conviction that _all
natural bodies_ which are known to us are _equally {151} animated_, that
the distinction which has been made between animate and inanimate bodies
does _not_ exist. When a stone is thrown into the air, and falls to earth
according to definite laws, or when in a solution of salt a crystal is
formed, the phenomenon is neither more nor less a mechanical manifestation
of life than the growth and flowering of plants, than the propagation of
animals or the activity of their senses, than the perception or the
formation of thought in man." Here crystallization, organic life,
sensation, and formation of thought, are expressly put in one line of
mechanism with the falling of a stone.

In the following section we will have occasion to discuss this view as a
_view of the world_; but we believe that the presentation of this idea, and
the exclusive vindication of it as a complete view of the world, needs just
here, where we still stand on the ground of the philosophy of natural
perception, some critical sifting.

In the realm of material nature, _mechanical_ explanation and general
explanation is directly identical; _i.e._, a process of nature remains
obscure so long and so far as its mechanism is not yet perceived, and in
the same degree as its mechanism is perceived, the process also is
explained. The uniformity of law in the occurrence of events according to
the causal principle in the realm of material nature, can be approached by
us in no other form than in that of mechanism, provided we understand by
mechanism an activity according to law and which can be mathematically
estimated as to size and number. So far, therefore, every scientific
investigator in the knowledge of material nature takes his place on the
standpoint of a mechanical view of the world. {152}

But here we have gone to the full extent to which we are justified in
taking a mechanical view of the world, and have fixed its limits in its own
proper realm--the realm of the scientific perception of the material world;
even if we do not join with Wigand in resigning scientific inquiry in that
direction, and express the expectation that these limits are not fixed and
not to be designated in advance, but will be moved farther and farther, and
that not only in regard to the knowledge of the quantity of phenomena
(which even Wigand, as a scientific investigator, naturally admits), but
also in regard to their quality. In our researches hitherto we have often
met such limits. We have found that in the realm of the material world such
important phenomena and processes as life are at present not yet fully
explained. By the mechanical view of the world, we have been led back to
the last elements and to the most elementary forces of matter, but have
been convinced that we are no longer able to find them with scientific
certainty, and that consequently not a single quality of material existence
is really explained and traced back to its last material causes, to say
nothing of the transcendental causes which are entirely inaccessible to our
exact scientific knowledge.

Now there is another realm of existence, just as large as and, according to
its value, still larger than, that of the material world, which, not on
account of its scientific inaccessibility, but in conformity with its own
peculiar nature, entirely withdraws itself from the mechanical view. It is
the realm of _psychical life_; and, still more decidedly and more
evidently, the _realm of mind_. As far as our observations go, the law of
{153} causality reigns here also, and here also nothing takes place without
a cause. But as here the _realm_ in which the causal law reigns is no
longer material nature, so even the _form_ in which it is active is no
longer that of mechanism. For we certainly cannot understand mechanical
effect to be anything else than an effect of something material upon
something material, whose uniformity of law can be exactly estimated
mathematically as to size and number. Now if the application of mechanism
to the psychical and spiritual realm does not express anything except the
certainly quite insidious idea that here also causality reigns, it is
nothing else but the substitution of another idea for the word
mechanism--an idea which it never had in the entire use of language up to
this time, and by the substitution of which the proof for a mechanism of
the mind is not given, but surreptitiously obtained in a manner similar to
the before-mentioned attempt of Preyer, surreptitiously to obtain the proof
for the origin of life.

But if the mechanical explanation of the functions of the mind really means
that they also consist in an effect of the material upon something
material, and that this effect can be mathematically estimated as to size
and number, it is an assertion which has first to be proven, but which
cannot be proven and cannot be allowed even as an hypothesis, as a problem
for investigation, because it contradicts our whole experience. And it
contradicts not only the conclusions drawn from most natural appearances,
which, as is well known, are deceitful and even tell us that the sun goes
around the earth, but it contradicts the philosophical analysis just as
much and even still more directly and decidedly than {154} the direct
impression--as became clear to us at the lowest point of contact between
the material and the psychical, viz., at sensation, when we showed the
impossibility of scientifically explaining the origin of sensation.

It is easy to see what facts made it altogether possible to produce such a
materialistic psychology and to give it at the first superficial view a
certain appearance of truth; but it will not be difficult to detect its
want of truth. According to our whole experience, the human mind is bound
to the body; its proper activity, its whole communication with the material
and immaterial world outside of it, even its whole mutual intercourse with
the minds of fellow-beings, is performed by means of bodily functions
which, as such, are subordinate to mechanism. Therefore "physiological
psychology" certainly belongs to the most interesting of the branches of
science which at present enjoy special care, and works in this realm, like
those of Wundt, are worthy of the greatest attention. Now if these points
of contact once exist between the material and the psychical and spiritual
processes, so that material functions causally influence psychical and
spiritual ones, and psychical and spiritual functions similarly influence
material ones, there must also exist between the laws of material processes
and those of psychical and spiritual functions a relation which makes
possible such a mutual effect, and we must be able to abstract from it the
existence of a common higher law of which on the one side the material
laws, and on the other the psychical and spiritual, are but partial laws.
Precisely here lie the indications which appear to favor materialism in
psychology. But it is only an appearance. For, from the acknowledgment
{155} and scientific investigation of a reciprocal action, to an
identification of the two factors which act upon one another, is still an
infinite step. If science is not even able to identify material motion and
sensation, still less can it identify material motion and the spiritual and
ethic activities. When this is done, it is done only in consequence of the
same confounding of condition and cause which we had to expose on the
occasion of the assertion of the possibility of explaining the origin of
life or of sensation, and of consciousness or of self-consciousness. But we
here also willingly admit that the realm in which causality reigns in the
form of mechanism, aims at being the support, foundation, and instrument of
another realm where causality still reigns, but mechanism ceases. How far
investigation may still proceed in the direction of those interesting
points and lines where both realms touch one another in causal reciprocal
action, we do not know. We are hardly able to indicate the direction in
which the investigation must proceed, and this direction seems to be
assigned to it by the idea of _Auslösung_.[8] The idea of _Auslösung_,
which plays such an {156} important _rôle_ in physics, seems to be still
fruitful for the knowledge of psycho-physical life: bodily functions _lösen
aus_ spiritual ones, spiritual functions bodily ones. But so much the more
clearly does this theory show the limits of mechanism: mechanism reigns in
the world of bodies from the _Auslösungen_ and to the _Auslösungen_, with
which the mind induces the body to activity, and the body the mind; beyond
these limits causality still reigns, but no longer mechanism.

Now if thus the mechanical view of the world has within its own most proper
realm--the realm of material phenomena--its limits, even if they are
capable of being moved farther; and if it is without any scientific
acceptance in the realm of soul and mind: its usurpations reach the highest
possible degree when it pretends to {157} explain the last causes of
things. For from its very nature it follows that it is only able to explain
the reciprocal action of material things among themselves, when these
things in their finalities, or the causes of their qualities and
conditions, are already present, and the laws which they follow are already
active. As to the origin of those qualities or their causes, and of these
laws, this view leaves us entirely in the dark.

       *       *       *       *       * {158}


CHAPTER II.

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

§ 1. _Elimination of the Idea of Design in the World.--Monism._

From this mechanical view of the world, quite a peculiar conclusion has
been recently drawn--not by Darwin, who does not give any opinion at all
about the mechanical view of the world, as such, or about its extension and
influence, nor, indeed, by Darwinians, not even by all followers of a
mechanical view of the world, but only by a part of them; namely, by those
who have in a high degree attracted to themselves the attention of reading
people. This conclusion is nothing less than the _elimination of the idea
of design in nature_. This phenomenon demands our attention. Heretofore,
the proof of plan, design, and end in nature, at large and in detail, was
looked upon as the most beautiful blossom and fruit of a thoughtful
contemplation of nature; it was the great and beautiful common property, in
the enjoyment of which the direct, the scientific, and the religious
contemplation of nature peacefully participated. Now this view is to be
given up forever, in consequence of nothing else than Darwin's selection
theory. With an energy--we may say with a passionateness and confidence of
victory--such as we were accustomed to see only in the most advanced
advocates of materialism, Ludwig {159} Büchner, D. F. Strauss, Häckel,
Oskar Schmidt, Helmholtz, the editor of the "Ausland" and some of his
associates, and our often-mentioned "Anonymus,"--in a common attack, assail
every idea of a _conformity to an end_ in nature, every idea of a goal
toward which the development at large and individually strives; in a word,
the whole category of _teleology_.[9]

In order to be just in our judgment, we shall have to let the advocates of
this view speak for themselves;--the advocates of _Dysteleology_, as
Häckel, who is so extremely productive in forming new exotic words, calls
it; or of _Aposkopiology_, as Ebrard, in his "Apologetik" ("Apologetics"),
correcting the etymology, {160} somewhat pedantically calls it; or of
_Teleophoby_, as it is called by K. E. von Baer, in humorous irony.

The anonymous author of the book called "The Unconscious from the
Standpoint of Physiology and Descent Theory", asserts that, while the
descent theory but puts the teleological principle in question by
withdrawing the ground for a positive proof--an assertion which we
certainly have to reject most decidedly (compare Part II, Book II, Chap. I,
§ 2-§ 6)--the selection theory directly rejects it. Natural selection, he
says, solves the seemingly unsolvable problem of explaining the conformity
to the end in view, as result, without taking it as an aiding principle.
And Helmholtz says: "Darwin's theory shows how conformity to the end in the
formation of organisms can also originate without any intermingling of an
intelligence by the blind administration of a law of nature."

Häckel really revels in these ideas. He says (Nat. Hist. of Creat., Vol. I,
p. 19): "These optimistic views [of the much-talked-of purposiveness of
nature or of the much-talked-of beneficence of the Creator] have,
unfortunately, as little real foundation as the favorite phrase, 'the moral
order of the universe,' which is illustrated in an ironical way by the
history of all nations.... If we contemplate the common life and the mutual
relations between plants and animals (man included), we shall find
everywhere, and at all times, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful
social life which the goodness of the Creator ought to have prepared for
his creatures--we shall rather find everywhere a pitiless, most embittered
_Struggle of All against All_. Nowhere in nature, no matter where we turn
our eyes, does that {161} idyllic peace, celebrated by the poets, exist; we
find everywhere a struggle and a striving to annihilate neighbors and
competitors. Passion and selfishness--conscious or unconscious--is
everywhere the motive force of life.... Man in this respect certainly forms
no exception to the rest of the animal world." And on page 33: "In the
usual dualistic or teleological (vital) conception of the universe, organic
nature is regarded as the purposely executed production of a Creator
working according to a definite plan. Its adherents see in every individual
species of animal and plant an 'embodied creative thought,' the material
expression of a _definite first cause_ (causa finalis), acting for a set
purpose. They must necessarily assume supernatural (not mechanical)
processes of the origin of organisms.... On the other hand, the theory of
development carried out by Darwin, must, if carried out logically, lead to
the monistic or mechanical (causal) conception of the universe. In
opposition to the dualistic or teleological conception of nature, our
theory considers organic as well as inorganic bodies to be the necessary
products of natural forces. It does not see in every individual species of
animal and plant the embodied thought of a personal Creator, but the
expression for the time being of a mechanical process of development of
matter, the expression of a necessarily active cause, that is, of a
mechanical cause (causa efficiens). Where teleological Dualism seeks the
arbitrary thoughts of a capricious Creator in miracles of creation, causal
Monism finds in the process of development the necessary effects of eternal
immutable laws of nature." Häckel's "Anthropogeny" also is replete with
attacks upon a teleological {162} view of nature, which leave nothing
wanting in distinctness and coarseness. On page 111, Vol. I, we read: "The
rudimentary organs clearly prove that the mechanical, or monistic
conception of the nature of organisms is alone correct, and that the
prevailing teleological, or dualistic method of accounting for them is
entirely false. The very ancient fable of the all-wise plan according to
which 'the Creator's hand has ordained all things with wisdom and
understanding,' the empty phrase about the purposive 'plan of structure' of
organisms is in this way completely disproved. Stronger arguments can
hardly be furnished against the customary teleology, or Doctrine of Design,
than the fact that all more highly developed organisms possess such
rudimentary organs." (Compare also Vol. II, p. 439: "The rudimentary organs
are among the most overwhelming proofs against the prevailing teleological
ideas of creation.") According to his opinion (Vol. I. p. 245), comparative
anatomy may no longer look for a "pre-arranged plan of construction by the
Creator." Besides, he calls it an anthropocentric error to look upon man as
a preconceived aim of creation and a true final purpose of terrestrial
life; and on page 17, of Vol. II, he supports this judgment by comparing
the relative shortness of the existence of mankind with the length of the
preceding geological periods: "Since the awakening of the human
consciousness, human vanity and human arrogance have delighted in regarding
Man as the real main-purpose and end of all earthly life, and as the centre
of terrestrial Nature, for whose use and service all the activities of the
rest of creation were from the first defined or predestined by a 'wise
providence.' How utterly baseless these {163} presumptuous anthropocentric
conceptions are, nothing could evince more strikingly than a comparison of
the duration of the Anthropozoic or Quaternary Epoch with that of the
preceding Epochs." And on page 234, Vol. II: "Hence it is that, in
accordance with the received teleological view, it has been customary to
admire the so-called 'wisdom of the Creator' and the 'purposive
contrivances of His Creation' especially in this matter. But on more mature
consideration it will be observed that the Creator, according to this
conception, does after all but play the part of an ingenious mechanic or of
a skillful watchmaker; just, indeed, as all these cherished teleological
conceptions of the Creator and His Creation are based on childish
anthropomorphism.... But it is exactly on this point that the history of
evolution proves most clearly that this received conception is radically
false. The history of evolution convinces us that the highly purposive and
admirably constituted sense organs, like all other organs, have developed
_without premeditated aim_."

Strauss, in his "The Old Faith and the New," gives to this idea its
philosophic and universalistic finish. In § 67-§ 70, he eliminates not only
the idea of design in individual cases, but also the idea of a design in
the world as a whole; allows us to speak of design in the world only in a
subjective sense, so far as we understand it to be what we think we
perceive as the common final aim of the concert of the powers, active in
the world; and finds, when in such a sense it is spoken of as design in the
world, that the universe reaches its end in every instance. Only the parts
develop themselves, driven by the mechanical laws of causality, and after
having lived {164} their period of life, sink back again into the universe,
in order to make place for new developments and to prepare them in their
turn.

For the view of the world which the antagonists of teleology construct out
of this "mechanical" and "causal" view, they, as we have repeatedly seen,
have invented the name "_monism_." In contrast to all dualism in reasoning
about the relation of body and soul, God and universe, time and eternity,
and especially in contrast to the dualism with which the theistic view of
the world is said to be loaded, monism claims that what was formerly
divided into God and universe, force and matter, matter and spirit, body
and soul, is but one; and it thus exhibits a reconciliation, a higher
unity, of materialism and idealism, of pantheism and atheism, which unity
in the scientific and the practical ethic realm has no antagonist to fight
more energetically, and none which it is better able to fight successfully,
than _dualism_, which the monistic view of the world, by a queer mistake as
to the theistic position of God in nature, especially considers the whole
theistic view of the world.

The scientific antagonists of teleology show such a scientific intolerance
against their own associates, that one of the latest exhibitors of
Darwinism, Oskar Schmidt, in his "Theory of Descent and Darwinism," bluntly
classes one of the greatest and most deserving investigators in the realm
of comparative anatomy and palæontology, Richard Owen, of London, with the
"'Halves' who, fearing the conclusions, with one word come to terms with
the scientific conscience." And why?--because Owen still sees ends in
nature, and by his inclination to the acceptance of a descent, does not
allow himself to {165} be prevented from giving adhesion to a teleological
view of the world. And this invention of monism is proclaimed to the world
in such a full consciousness of its great importance in the history of
culture, that Häckel closes his "Nat. Hist. of Creat." with the following
words: "Future centuries will celebrate our age, which was occupied with
laying the foundations of the Doctrine of Descent, as the new era in which
began a period of human development, rich in blessings,--a period which was
characterized by the victory of free inquiry over the despotism of
authority, and by the powerful ennobling influence of the Monistic
Philosophy." At the end of the lecture, next to the last, in the same Vol.
II, page 332, he pays the following compliment to the antagonists of
monism: "The recognition of the theory of development and the Monistic
Philosophy based upon it, forms the best criterion for the degree of man's
mental development." In his "Generic Morphology," and in the first edition
of his "Nat. Hist. of Creat.," he, in a geological scala, which closes with
the human period, even divides the whole past, present, and future history
of mankind into two halves: first part, dualistic period of culture; second
part, monistic period of culture. Still, we will not omit to mention, with
credit, that this anticipatory historiography has discreetly disappeared
from the geological scala of the following editions of his "Natural History
of Creation."

As to the further scientific consequences to which this anti-teleological
monism leads, the advocates of it are in tolerable accord; although they
are subject to the most incomprehensible illusions regarding the practical
consequences of it, as we have seen in the above-quoted {166} concluding
words of Häckel's "Natural History of Creation." As to the scientific
consequences, they express themselves plainly enough: the belief in a
living Creator and Lord of the world no longer find any place; everything,
even all the rich treasures of human life and history, become a result of
blindly acting forces; the history of the world, ethics, and all spiritual
sciences, are in the progress of perception dissolved into physiology, and
physiology into chemistry, physics and mechanism. In his "Natural History
of Creation," Vol. I, page 170, Häckel frankly calls the whole history of
the world a physico-chemical process.

Whoever refers to a view of another person, is in duty bound to enter into
that view, if possible objectively, even if he does not agree with it. The
author of this book tries to comply with this obligation in all his
representations, but must confess that in regard to the just described view
of the world, he does not succeed in making it conceivable to himself in a
manner to be justified even from a relatively scientific standpoint; a want
for which, it is true, we have beforehand the explanatory cause in the
quotation from Häckel's "Natural History of Creation," Vol. II, p. 332,
given above.

Perhaps it appears relatively conceivable, when it is asserted that the
observation of an order, a connection, a development, a plan, in the world,
leads to the perception of such a quality of the laws, primitive elements,
and forces of the world, that something like it _had to_ result from them;
but that it does not lead to the acknowledgment of a personal author of the
world. We call such a view relatively conceivable, not because we agree
with it--for we find a logic which, in {167} contemplating the universe,
starts from an intelligent author of the world, infinitely less surrounded
by difficulties than one contrary to it--but because the acknowledgment or
denial of a living God is in the last instance not the result of any
scientific investigation or logical chain of reasoning, but the moral act
of the morally and religiously inclined individual, and because, if the
individual has once refused the strongest factor of faith in God,--namely,
his self-testimony in the conscience,--it is no longer impossible for the
individual to ignore his other testimonies as such, or to declare them
deficient. Now we certainly can say that we see order and many results in
the world, which are conformable to the object in view, and in consequence
of this observation must admit that no imaginable quality of primitive
beginnings, elements, and forces of the world had caused this result, but
that this result must have already been in the plan. But there certainly
are imaginable, _in abstracto_, infinitely many possibilities of other
elements and primitive beginnings of the world,--perhaps of some whose
result would have been but an eternal chaos, or of others whose result
would have been but an eternal rigidness, or of still others whose result
would also have been a certain order and variety of phenomena and
processes, but less beautiful than that of the really existing world. Thus,
then, this world now exists as a _special chance_ of infinitely many
chances; and who knows whether, in the course of thousands of millions of
terrestrial years in the struggle for existence, it did not obtain its
existence among infinitely many possibilities of worlds through a natural
world-selection, and thus, by the result of its existence, fully legitimate
its conformity to {168} the end in view? With this deduction, we do not
make, as it may seem, an awkward attempt at rendering the whole standpoint
ridiculous by a wild phantasy; but we quote it from a celebrated and
otherwise very meritorious book, namely the "Geschichte des Materialismus"
("History of Materialism"), by the too early deceased Friedrich Albert
Lange. The reader will find it, in the second part, page 275, simply a
little shorter and, as it seems to us, less clear, but as the only "correct
teleology" which Lange professes. This whole view, like all world-theories
and cosmogonies of pantheism, naturalism, or atheism, and even like the
latest of Eduard von Hartmann, is to us but a proof that the rejection of
the reality of a living Creator and Lord of the world requires of its
advocates mysteries and mysticisms of atheism compared to which the
greatest difficulties of the Christian view of the world are but the merest
trifles.

Therefore, if that first and second step in the rejection of the highest
intelligence and omnipotence as the final cause of the world, are once
made, it is easy for us to comprehend still other supports which this view
of the world draws to itself. However large the number of things in the
world for whose existence we can give a reason, or of which we can show
that that, which preceded, aimed at their appearance, still the number of
those to which we can not ascribe aim and design is just as large. There
are even phenomena enough which in their main effects appear to us directly
irrational; as, for instance, those which operate destructively,--all the
tortures which animals inflict on one another, etc. Besides, we can also
find imperfections in the degree of the {169} conformity to the end in view
in all those phenomena which appear to us as properly planned; for
instance, the organic appears to us higher than the inorganic, and yet it
is in its existence not only dependent on the inorganic, but is often
destroyed prematurely by it. Of course, all these limits and barriers of
our teleological perception are abundantly used by all antagonists of a
teleological view of the world for the basis of their position.
Furthermore, the way and manner in which man fixes his ends and reaches
them, is essentially different from the way and manner in which nature
acts. Man seeks to attain his ends with less expenditure of power and
means, the more he acts conformably to the end in view; while nature, it
often enough appears to us, when we have reason to imagine an effect of its
processes also as the probable end of them, reaches this end only by an
immense squandering of means--for instance, the preservation of organic
species simply by the production of thousands of germs and eggs, most of
which perish, and but very few of which are developed, and still less are
transmitted. This is a difference to which Lange points, in order to reject
a theory which recognizes a striving toward an end (Zielstrebigkeit) in
nature, or at most to allow it a little place as the lowest form of
teleology, and to reject every attempt to regard it as analogous to human
striving toward an end, as _anthropomorphism_. Nature, he says, acts, as if
a man, in order to shoot a hare, should in a large field discharge millions
of guns in all possible directions; as if he, in order to get into a locked
room, should buy ten thousand different keys and try them all; as if, in
order to have a house, he should build up a town and {170} leave the
superfluous houses to wind and weather. Nobody should call such actions
conformable to an end in view, and still less should we suppose behind this
action any higher wisdom, hidden reasons, or superior sagacity. It is true,
Wigand is right in replying to this, that when we observe such things in
nature, we have to draw the conclusion that the very end supposed by the
observing man--in this case, the preservation of the species--is not the
only end, but that it has other ends besides; as, for instance, richness of
life, inexhaustible abundance, preservation of other organisms, etc.
Besides, this is but a single side of the comparison between the action of
man and that of nature; and from this side action of man, conformable to an
end in view, appears as a higher form of teleology, that of nature as a
lower. But there are other sides of comparison, which just as clearly
strike the eye; nature builds from within in full sovereignty of its
process over matter and form. Man approaches his materials from without;
nature works with never-erring certainty (Häckel's latest theory, that
nature _falsifies_ its laws and processes, can surely not be meant in
earnest!); man often enough with error, false calculation, awkwardness,
failure and capricious arbitrariness. In these directions, teleology of
nature is infinitely superior to that of man.

We must be very careful in using anthropomorphism as a term of reproach. It
may be used as a reproach in warning against careless reasoning and hasty
comparison, but the idea of anthropomorphism is so extensible that it can
be extended over all human reasoning and conception. Are not the reasons on
account of which the so-called anthropomorphism is to be rejected, often
{171} enough just as anthropomorphistic as the ideas which are attacked?
For instance, when the idea of the personality of God is attacked as an
anthropomorphistic one, are not the reasons with which it is assailed
exactly as anthropomorphistic as the conceptions which are to be assailed?
Do we not derive all our reasoning, logic, our views, and in fact
everything, at first from our human nature, and do we not in our most
abstract reasoning always operate simply with the laws, as they inhere in
our human nature? Is there even a single scientific description conceivable
without its being full of anthropomorphisms? Even the works of Darwin
which, according to the opinion of these opponents of anthropomorphism,
destroy anthropomorphism and teleology, are the most striking proof in
favor of it. The discovery of the general reign of the law of causality
invalidates, as they say, the reign of the category of teleology; for the
one category contradicts the other. Suppose it were so (we will, however,
immediately see that the contrary is true) whence do we know that the
category of causality has the preference over that of finality or
teleology? The one, as well as the other, is anthropomorphistic, and is an
undoubtedly necessary form of our human reasoning. We _believe_ in their
objective validity, because we cannot believe that the sum of existences
and the relations between the perceiving subject and the perceived object
aim at deceiving man; we do not want to be robbed of either the one or the
other category; but if the question is as to the preference of the one
category over the other (which we contest), who knows whether the category
of finality has not more reasons for its superiority than causality?
Compare, in reference {172} to this whole question, also the clear analyses
in the second volume of the work of Wigand, and the instructive lecture of
the Duke of Argyll upon anthropomorphism in theology.

Nevertheless, all the points against teleology thus far quoted can be
understood by us as attempts at rejecting the _necessity_ of acknowledging
a teleologically acting principle of the world--or, to express ourselves
more clearly, of a living God--after having once rejected the deepest
motive for this acknowledgment, namely: the self-testimony of God in the
human conscience and mind. But it is one thing to declare that we are not
obliged to accept a certain conclusion, and quite another to declare that
we are obliged to accept directly the opposite of such a conclusion. It is
one thing to declare that the phenomena in the world do not yet oblige us
to suppose an author with a preconceived plan, and still another to declare
that because I have found or still hope to find the causal connexion of
phenomena conformable to the end in view, no author with a preconceived
plan exists. This last assertion is one which the author of this work
confesses not to understand, and in whose conclusion he cannot agree.
Knowledge of the _origin_ of something certainly does not exclude the
question _wherefore_ it exists, and does not even take its place, and when
I have answered both questions satisfactorily, then I may and must justly
ask whether both that for which something exists and that by which
something exists, is intended or not, whether that which in the language of
causality I call cause and effect, also belongs to the category of
finality, according to which that very cause is at the same time called
means, and that very effect also design. {173} The one way of viewing
postulates the other as its necessary completion; and the teleological
point of view is so little an impediment for the causal, that we are much
more fully convinced scientifically of the correctness of the teleological
way of viewing, when first the causal chain of causes and effects lies
plain before our perception without any wanting links.

We still have to mention two monstrosities which, as it seems to us,
necessarily result from the rejection of teleology, although the opponents
of teleology contest the fact.

The one is the reduction to _chance_ of all single formations in the world.
It is true, necessity reigns in laws and their effect; but if the degree
and the sum of all qualities in the world are not based the one upon the
other, if especially the single organizations originate by the way of
natural selection, every coincidence of each single causal chain in the
world with any other causal chain is something accidental for the one as
well as for the other. Now, an explanation of that in the world which is
conformable to the end in view, by chance, is a scientifically illogical
idea. An accidental coincidence of many circumstances can in a single case
produce something which is conformable to an end in view; but the
probability that the formation conformable to the end in view is again
nullified by the next throw of the dice of chance, is so great, and with
every following throw grows so decidedly in geometrical progression, that
this probability after a few terms becomes a certainty, and we can directly
demonstrate mathematically that the world without a teleological plan would
be and remain a chaos. As we have seen, even Lange finds himself obliged to
{174} admit this plan, with the exception that he makes this plan itself
chance--special chance among infinitely many possibilities.

The other consequence of that elimination of the idea of design is that it
forbids every difference between _higher_ and _lower_, and changes
everything into an indifferent and equivalent continual stream of coming
and going. For the whole idea of higher and lower belongs to the category
of teleology. If the new which originates is _but_ a product of that which
was already in existence, and if the latter does not aim at the production
of the new, then the new is equivalent to the preceding; and it is but an
illusion of man, preconceiving an end, when in the products of nature he
discriminates between higher and lower. A beginning of the acknowledgment
of this consequence is made, when Häckel, in his Anthropogeny, so violently
attacks the idea that man is end and design of the terrestrial creation.
But generally the antagonists of teleology are guilty of the inconsequence
which, although from the principles of their system to be rejected, is
indelibly impressed on our thinking mind and especially on our moral
consciousness, that they still discriminate between higher and lower, and
particularly that they willingly assign to the moral disposition and
demand, and to the morally planned individual, the priority among
existences. This fact is pronounced in a very striking way in the
concessions of Strauss, which we have quoted on page 126, according to
which nature, where it can no longer go beyond itself, wishes to go into
itself, and in man has wished to go not only upwards but even beyond
itself.

Therefore, not only theology, but also philosophy, {175} and even natural
science, in their most prominent advocates, have in a uniform chorus
protested against this destruction of the idea of design. That it was
unanimously done on the part of _theology_, is quite natural, and needs no
further proofs. When we, nevertheless, mention expressly a single essay on
these questions, it is done on account of the fact that in its energetic
defense of the teleological point of view it is especially effective by
frankly and impartially admitting the strongest positions of the opponent's
standpoint--a thing which rarely happens on the part of theologians. It is
the essay of Julius Köstlin "Ueber die Beweise für das Dasein Gottes"
("Proofs of the Existence of God"), in the "Theologische Studien und
Kritiken," 1875, IV and 1876, I; especially 1876, I, p. 42 ff. On the part
of philosophy, we have to mention Ulrici, Fichte, Huber and Frohschammer,
who have rejected the attack against teleology with inflexible criticism.
Even Friedrich Vischer in the sixth part of his "Kritische Gänge"
("Critical Walks"), has forcibly maintained the right of teleology,
especially of its highest revelation, the moral order of the world--in
contrast to his friend D. F. Strauss, whose "The Old Faith and the New" he
criticises; but it is true, in consequence of his pantheism, he reaches the
wholly imaginary conclusion of supposing a moral order of the world without
a regulator. And, to be able to make the systematized order and beauty of
nature conceivable to himself without a Creator, to be able to make
conceivable to himself a design in nature, an ideal, according to which
nature works as an unconscious artist, he gives to philosophy the certainly
unsolvable problem of finding the idea of {176} timeless time, to which the
"afterward" can just as well be a "beforehand"; he prefers to do this
rather than to find the equally clear and deep solution of that
teleological difficulty in the simple idea of a Creator, who, as such, also
stands above time. One of the most remarkable philosophic testimonies for
the right of teleology is the philosophic system of Eduard von Hartmann
who, although he calls his absolute the unconscious, ascribes to it an
unconscious intelligence and an unconscious will, and makes the observation
and acknowledgment of designs and ends, which he sees in the whole realm of
the world of phenomena, an essential part of his entire system. All
attempts of this kind, as those of Vischer and Hartmann, fully and
correctly to understand the language of facts on the one side and to reject
on the other the necessary conclusion to which it leads--namely, the
acknowledgment of a creative intelligence _above_ the facts, and having an
end in view--only increase in like manner as the above-quoted cosmogonic
idea of Lange by the monstrosities of reasoning to which they lead, the
power of demonstration for that which they undertake to contest. Natural
scientists, finally, even Darwinians, have not only in _casual_ utterances
often spoken a weighty word in favor of teleology--as, for instance, those
who, like Oswald Heer, Kölliker, Baumgärtner, believe in a metamorphosis of
germs, but also men who are quite favorable to the idea of an origin of the
species through descent--as, for instance, Richard Owen, at the end of his
"Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates," separately published as
"Derivative Hypothesis of Life and Species"; Alexander Braun, in his
lecture "Ueber die Bedeutung der Entwicklung in der Naturgeschichte" {177}
("On the Importance of Development in Nature"), Berlin, 1872; A. W.
Volkmann "Ueber die Entwicklung der Organismen" ("On the Development of
Organisms"), Halle, 1875; Schaaffhausen, in his opening address to the
Wiesbaden Anthr. Versammlung, Braunschweig, 1874, and others; but they have
also given to teleology entire treatises. Besides a more popular treatise
of the astronomer Mädler in "Westermann's Monatshefte," October, 1872,
there belong to them the frequently mentioned work of Wigand, and
especially three essays of great importance from the pen of a man who in
questions of development and its extent has among all contemporaries the
first right to speak, namely, Karl Ernst von Baer. They are the essays on
the conformity to the end in view in general, on the conformity to the end
in view in organic bodies, and on Darwin's doctrine, published together
with two other essays in the already mentioned "Studien aus dem Gebiete der
Naturwissenschaften," (Reden und Kleinere Aufsätze, 2ter Theil),
Petersburg, 1876. Nay, even the two founders of Darwinism, Darwin himself
and A. R. Wallace, as we shall see in defining their position in reference
to religion, express themselves decidedly teleologically; this is
especially true of Wallace, and likewise of their active and able second,
Huxley. Only a single utterance of Darwin in a later publication seems to
take a sceptical position in regard to teleology; compare below Part
Second, Book I, Chapt. III, § 1.

Finally, we have to say a word concerning the _name_ which the
anti-teleological view of the world gives to itself: the name "_monism_."
The view of the world which monism gives us, seems hardly comprehensible;
and {178} just as little does the name which it gives itself, seem
justifiable.

If this name is to indicate only a maxim of _investigation_--the directive
which scientific investigation has to take, in order to reach more general
points of view--we could declare ourselves in full accord with it. All
investigation strives after a unity of principle; this impulse is a
scientific leading motive of our nature. Besides the absolute limits of our
knowledge, there are still enough relative and provisory limits to it; and
there also are enough low points of view, mistakes, and imperfections in
science, to justify us when we expressly form and establish monism as a
maxim of scientific investigation. All those theories and points of view
need such a spur and corrective, which are hastily satisfied with a
dualistic or a still farther expanded limit of our knowledge. Among them we
rank in theology the antique heathenish dualism which separates God and the
world in such a way that God is but the architect of the eternal matter,
existing independently of God; and also the modern deistic dualism which
considers only the elements, principles, and beginning of the world, as
dependent on God, but not the entire course of their developments as a
whole and in detail. In philosophy, taken in a narrower sense, we reckon
with them the one-sided atomism which can no longer find the connecting
link between the single elements of the world, or the one-sided assertion
of realism or idealism, since at this time all views of the world which win
acceptance from the present generation claim the praise of showing the
reconciliation and higher unity of realism and idealism. In anthropology,
there belongs to them {179} such a treatment of psychology and physiology,
that the one science does not trouble itself about the other, and the
investigation does not seek or keep in mind that which is common to both,
or that which is higher and superior to them; and in all natural sciences,
every mode of investigation belongs to them, where the single science
retains no sympathy with all other sciences and with the principles of all
scientific investigation. In regard to these low points of view, mistakes,
or imperfections, monism certainly is a correct and necessary maxim of
investigation; but this maxim ought not to lead us so far that we--as very
often happens from the _unity_ or the possibility of grouping several forms
of existence under general conceptions--make an _identity_, that we efface
the differences instead of explaining them, and then think the effacement
is an explanation; that we set forth the _assumed_ form of unity as if one
we had found, and in this manner falsify the method of knowing. For as
certainly and as much as man is subject to the dangers of error and
falsification, just so certainly and so little is nature subject to
falsification.

But if the name "monism" is to designate a certain _view of the world_, it
is for such a designation either too comprehensive and quite applicable to
_all_ views which have a right to the name of view of the world; or it is
misleading, and not applicable to any. For the name, as if it were properly
called henism, either expresses only the _unity_ of the principle of the
world, and designates a quality which is the characteristic of every view
of the world, and which especially belongs to theism in a clearer and more
perfect way than to any other standpoint; or the name is used to attest
that the world _alone_ {180} exists, and that monism knows of but _one_
existence,--namely, that of the world; while the contrary view of the
world--that of theism, which in a manner wholly incompetent, and
historically wholly unjustified, is called dualism--supposes _two_
existences, God and the world. But then this name does not correctly
represent either itself or theism. It does not correctly represent itself:
for the so-called monism does not, indeed, suppose that that which
_appears_ in the world is the really existing, or that the processes which
come into appearance have again their _final_ cause only in the appearance,
but it seeks the final causes of the phenomena in laws and principles which
can no longer be observed by our senses, and of those it again seeks the
common, highest, and very last principle, the perception of which it
either, with Häckel, renounces or finds it, with other theories, now in
atomism, and in attraction and repulsion, then in the law of causality.
Thus it has not only a single existence and mode of existence, but it does
exactly the same thing that theism does: it seeks the final principles of
the world. And it does not correctly represent theism: for theism also does
not know of two existences to which the idea of existing is applicable in
fully the same way--namely, the world _and_ God---but in seeking a cause
for the existence of the world, it finds it in God; the world, according to
its view, only exists by the fact that it exists in and through God. So
theism in this sense also contests with monism for the right of the name.

Therefore, when teleology allows the opponent's view of the world to
appropriate the name monism exclusively to itself, it can do this only in
the same {181} sense as that in which, in order to avoid disputes, we are
satisfied with many irrational names which have forced themselves upon us;
as, for instance, we can perhaps call the clerical party in Bavaria the
patriotic, because it calls itself so, or as we accept the title of the
ultramontane paper "Germania," at Berlin, without conceding to the bearers
of those names the care of patriotism and of the interests of the German
empire in a higher degree than to parties and papers of a different
standpoint. In fact, this linguistic arbitrariness does not particularly
tend to clearness of conception and to the avoidance of obscure phrases.

       *       *       *       *       *


{183}

PART II

THE POSITION OF THE DARWINIAN
THEORIES IN REFERENCE TO
RELIGION AND MORALITY.

       *       *       *       *       *


{185}

BOOK I.

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.

       *       *       *       *       *

PLAN OF TREATMENT.

In discussing the conclusions which have been drawn by Darwinism in
reference to religion and morality, it would seem appropriate to treat of
the two realms together. For the grouping which we have to give to the
different conclusions of Darwinian tendencies, in their position in
reference to religion, is nearly the same which they also receive in their
position in reference to ethical questions.

But, nevertheless, we prefer to separate the two questions; not only
because in fact one author has laid more stress upon the religious realm,
another more upon the ethical, but because in reality, and also in the
solution which we shall try to give to the problems presented by them, both
realms, although closely interwoven, and limited by one another, still are
theoretically to be treated apart.

In order not to exceed too much the limits of our task, we must avoid going
more into the details of the relations between religion and morality in
general, than is absolutely necessary for the solution of our main problem.
This restriction we can easily put on ourselves. For, first, every one who
reflects at all on human life and action, and on his own religious and
{186} moral conduct, generally has a very correct, instinctive, and direct
conception and perception as to the realm of the religious as well as of
the moral--as to their mutual differences, as well as to their reciprocal
relations--even if he has not yet tried to bring this conception into ideas
and formulas; and, secondly, it will not be difficult to present a short
formula as to the ideal relation between the religious and the moral,
sufficient for the wants of science as well as for the practical needs of a
more detailed investigation. The _religious_ is the relation of our
personality to God; the _moral_, the relation of it to the world,
comprehensively taken, ourselves included. We purposely call it a relation
of our personality, and not merely a relation of man, because in the
religious the ethical moment of self-determination which is included in the
idea of personality, is an essential factor; and because we gladly make it
conspicuous, partly in opposition to the one-sidedness of Schleiermacher's
feeling of absolute dependence, partly to prevent a contrary
misunderstanding of our own view, as if we found the seat of religion in
the activity of knowledge. For when, in our representation of the Darwinian
conclusions and in our own investigation, we proceed as objectively as
possible, and try to avoid all systematization which is unfruitful for our
task, in discussing the Darwinian theories in reference to religion, we
shall have to take chiefly into consideration their relation to religion in
an objective sense, and chiefly also their relation to the contents of
religion; but this would make it appear that we supposed religion in a
subjective sense, religiousness, to be in the first place an activity and a
possession of knowledge. Nothing lies farther from us {187} than this
thought; although religiousness certainly has and asks for solid,
objectively true, and really possessed salvation, and however little we
would overlook the word of the Lord: "And this is life eternal, that they
might _know_ thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent." (John xvii, 3.)

Those who wish to inform themselves in regard to the relation of religion
and morality, will find the necessary information in Martensen's "Ethik"
("Ethics"), in Otto Pfleiderer's monograph, which partly assumes a contrary
point of view, and in a thorough essay of Julius Köstlin (Theol. Studien
und Kritiken, 1870, I), which appeared before the "Ethics" of Martensen.

In undertaking now to represent the conclusions which have been drawn from
Darwinism, we treat of the religious realm as the higher, a realm demanding
a sound morality prior to the moral realm; and we begin with those
conclusions which take a hostile position in reference to religion, in
order to proceed from them to the moderate and friendly relations.

       *       *       *       *       *


{188}

_A. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND RELIGION._

CHAPTER I.

MORE OR LESS NEGATIVE POSITION IN REFERENCE TO RELIGION.

§ 1. _Extreme Negation. L. Büchner and Consistent Materialism._

The common point of beginning and attack of all those who take a negative
position against religion, is the rejection of teleology. The most advanced
of all materialists, Ludwig Büchner, in his self-criticism, which he gives
in his "Natur und Wissenschaft" ("Nature and Science"), on page 465, openly
declares, and quite correctly, that with the success or failure of the
attacks upon teleology materialism itself stands or falls.

Now while many, as we shall immediately see, although opposed to a
teleological view of the world, still are inclined to give a more or less
lasting value to certain psychical processes which may be called by the
name religion, Büchner, on the contrary, makes a direct attack upon
everything which is thus called. He does not render it difficult for us to
review his position. For, after having given it openly, but still with
certain relative modifications, in different publications (especially in
his book "Force and Matter," which appeared in 1855 in the first edition,
and in 1872 in the twelfth) he gives it in cynical nakedness in the
lectures with which he travelled through America and {189} Germany in
1872-1874, and the contents of which he has made public in his pamphlet:
"Der Gottesbegriff und dessen Bedeutung in der Gegenwart" ("The Idea of
God, and its Importance at the Present Time"), Leipzig, 1874, Theo. Thomas.
As is said in the preface, the design of the lecture is "to give a renewed
impulse to the final and definitive elimination of an idea which, according
to the opinion of the author, obstructs our whole spiritual, social, and
political development, as no other idea does." He means the idea of God;
not merely the theistic idea of a personal God, but the idea of God in
general. For even the pantheistic idea of God, which he had formerly
treated with a certain polite reserve, finds in his eyes even less favor
than the theistic. He says: "If the absurdity is already great enough in
theism, it is possibly still greater in pantheism, which moreover has
always played a great _rôle_ in philosophy;" and, "Christianity has but
injured the spiritual and material progress of mankind." In agreement with
Strauss, he sees the earliest origin of the idea of God only in ignorance
and fear. "Every creating, preserving, or reigning principle in the world
is done away with, and there remains as highest spiritual power present in
the world only human reason. Atheism or philosophic monism alone leads to
freedom, to reason, progress, acknowledgment of true humanity,--in short to
humanism."

This materialistic opposition to everything which is called religion, is
certainly independent of Darwinism, and originated before its time; but
since Büchner himself sees in Darwinism but a grand confirmation of his
view of the world, and believes that he has found in it {190} that
principle which, with urgent necessity, banishes teleology from the
contemplation of nature--teleology, with the defeat or victory of which
materialism stands or falls,--we are entitled and obliged to rank even this
view of the world among the conclusions which in reference to religion have
been drawn from the theories of Darwin. And, indeed, it is a most extreme
conclusion, and simply puts itself in the category of negation to the
contents of religion, as well as to religion in a subjective sense, to
religious and pious conduct. It can be clearly seen how firmly a view of
the world which makes war against religion and the idea of God its special
life-task, is connected with all those destructive elements which lie in
human nature, and especially in the social circumstances of the present,
and which have their only and final ethical limit in the consciousness of
God which, as a power never wholly to be effaced, lies in the depth of the
soul of even those who wander farthest from a moral and spiritual life.

§ 2. _Replacement of Religion through a Religious Worship of the Universe.
Strauss, Oskar Schmidt, Häckel._

Strauss, in that testament of his scientific life and activity, "The Old
Faith and the New," takes a somewhat different position in reference to
religion. Even for him, the whole idea of God is abolished and replaced by
the idea of the cosmos; but he makes this cosmos the object of religious
worship, and has exactly the same feeling of absolute dependence in regard
to it, which, according to Schleiermacher, constitutes the nature of
religion. When Arthur Schopenhauer or {191} Eduard von Hartmann bring forth
their pessimistic accusations against the universe, his religious sensation
reacts against it in the same manner as the organism against the prick of a
needle. This pessimism, he says, acts upon reason as an absurdity, but upon
sensation as blasphemy. "We demand the same piety for our cosmos that the
devout of old demanded for his God. If wounded, our feeling for the cosmos
simply reacts in a religious manner." While, therefore, Strauss, to the
question, "Are we still Christians?" gives an emphatic "No," he answers the
question, "Have we still a religion?" with "Yes or No, according to the
spirit of the inquiry."

Among men of science who wrote about Darwinism, Oskar Schmidt, in his
before-quoted publication, "The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," seems
to take exactly the same position in reference to religion. At least, he
unreservedly professes monism, rejects all teleological conceptions as
imperfections, speaks of the caprice of a personal God, and sees the
conception that the idea of God is immanent in human nature invalidated by
the fact "that many millions in the most cultivated nations, and among them
the most eminent and lucid thinkers, have not the consciousness of a
personal God; those millions of whom the heroic Strauss became the
spokesman."

Häckel, it is true, mentions Strauss only in the preface of the fourth
edition of his "Natural History of Creation," but here he greets "The Old
Faith and the New" as the confession which he also makes, and thus gives us
an express right to place him in this class, although he calls his worship
of the universe religion; {192} it is, however, a classification which his
whole position compelled us to give him. It is true, he speaks very warmly
of his own religion, which is founded on the clear knowledge of nature and
its inexhaustible abundance of manifestations, and which, as "simple
religion of nature," will in the future act upon the course of development
of mankind, ennobling and perfecting it in a far higher degree than the
various ecclesiastic religions of the different nations, "resting on a
blind belief in the vague secrets and mythical revelations of a sacerdotal
caste." (Nat. Hist. of Cr., Vol. II, p. 369.) He also repeatedly speaks of
"manifestations of nature," and even of a "divine Spirit which is
everywhere active in nature." In that respect he seems to take in reference
to religion, without regard to the historical form in which it appeared as
Christian religion, a still more friendly and less problematic position
than Strauss. Moreover, he demands for every individual the full right of
forming his own religion; among the more highly developed species of men,
he says, every independent and highly developed individual, every original
person, has his own religion, his own God; and it would certainly,
therefore, not be arrogant if he should also claim the right of forming his
own conception of God, his own religion. But when we try to form a more
complete idea of his position in reference to religion, we really do not
find any essential difference between it and that of Strauss. According to
repeated utterances, he can not imagine the personal Creator without
caprice and arbitrariness; again and again he advocates monism with great
warmth, and also identifies, in express words, God and the universe, God
and nature. {193} "Corresponding to our progressive perception of nature
and our immovable conviction of the truth of the evolution theory, our
religion can be only a _religion of nature_." "In rejecting the dualistic
conception of nature and the herewith connected amphitheistic conception of
God, ... we certainly lose the hypothesis of a personal Creator; but we
gain in its place the undoubtedly more worthy and more perfect conception
of a divine Spirit which penetrates and fills the universe." Furthermore,
the faith in a personal Creator is called a low dualistic conception of
God, which corresponds to a low animal stage of development of the human
organism. The more highly developed man of the present, he says, is capable
of and intended for an infinitely nobler and sublimer monistic idea of God,
to which belongs the future, and through which we attain a more sublime
conception of the unity of God and nature. According to his Anthropogeny,
the belief that the hand of a Creator has arranged all things with wisdom
and intelligence is an ancient story and an empty phrase.

§ 3. _Pious Renunciation of the Knowability of God. Wilhelm Bleek, Albert
Lange, Herbert Spencer._

A more friendly position in reference to religion is taken by those who
hold, not directly negative, but only decidedly sceptical views of the
existence of God; who reduce the relative unsearchableness of God, which
every religious standpoint admits, to an absolute unknowability; and who
find the nature of religion either in a pious acknowledgment of this
unknowability, or in a poetical substitute for the knowledge of God,
_i.e._, comprehending the unknowable in a figure. The most prominent {194}
advocates of this position are, on the side of exact investigation, Wilhelm
Bleek; and on that of philosophy, Albert Lange in Germany and Herbert
Spencer in England. Since all three use the Darwinian theories for their
systems, they also belong to the ranks of our historico-critical essay.

Wilhelm Bleek, in the preface to his "Ursprung der Sprache" ("Origin of
Language"), rejects all claims of a positively revealed religion to an
objective truth--not in such a way as to substitute the universe in place
of God, but so that he remains sceptical in reference to every attempt at
forming an idea of God, demands a pious and modest confession of this
non-understanding by man, and sees in this reverential modesty the
certainly not very significant nature of his religion. In the preface he
says that all worship originates in reverence for ancestors, and that even
the doctrine of the atonement of modern theology has its origin there. The
next step after reverence for ancestors was the worship of nature. But the
grand turning-point at which the mythological mode of view gives way--in
which mode of view he also reckons Christianity--is the giving up of the
idea of the necessity of an atonement; for this whole idea is but
anthropomorphism. It is when man has recognized the impossibility of a
being, similar to man, as the final cause of all existences, and in
reverential modesty has admitted his ignorance in reference to the nature
of the origin of things, that he learns to understand how narrow a view he
has of God when he thinks that he understands him.

On the side of philosophy, Albert Lange and Herbert Spencer reach similar
results. Albert Lange, in his {195} "History of Materialism," starting
especially from premises of Kant, reaches the conclusion that the "thing
_per se_," the "intelligible world," is absolutely hidden to us. What we
perceive is but the world of appearances; and the fact that we perceive it,
and perceive it as we do, is originally founded in the human organization.
By virtue of this organization we are bound, in all our knowledge of the
world of appearances, to the law of causality. Science does not get beyond
this causal chain of finite and relative causes and effects; to the "thing
_per se_" there is nowhere to be found a bridge, not even as Kant supposes,
in the categoric imperative, nor in ideas. Inasmuch as science does not get
beyond this chain, it is materialistic; inasmuch as it must nevertheless
perceive the existence, or at least the possibility of the existence, of a
"thing _per se_," even if it does not see any way to its perception, it is
idealistic. But man also has ideal impulses, and he has to follow them just
as much as the impulse of perception. By virtue of these ideal impulses, he
makes in imagination a picture of the "thing _per se_" in the activity of
philosophic speculation, art, and religion. Philosophic speculation is but
imaginative conceptions. It has always a value in the history of culture,
as a summing-up of the elements of culture and of the spiritual impulses
and treasures of a certain time; but it errs as soon as it claims to be
more than imaginative conceptions--namely, an adequate representation of
the final cause of all things--for it lacks the necessary basis of
experience. Art does not claim this, and therefore is not exposed to that
danger of deception. Religion satisfies a need of the heart, to have a home
of the spirit in the "thing _per se_"; but {196} since the "thing _per se_"
is not accessible for us, religion creates in mind that home, in order to
rise above the common reality to it. Lange finds the highest realization of
a perfect satisfaction of that impulse in the philosophic poems of
Schiller. He sees the quintessence of religion expressly "in the elevation
of minds above the real, and in the creation of a home of the spirit."
Religion remains untouched in its full vital power, as long as it retains
that as its quintessence; but it is exposed to all the dangers of a
destructive criticism as soon as it seeks its quintessence in something
else--for instance, in certain doctrines of God, the human soul, creation
of the world, etc.

Herbert Spencer is in full accord with Lange in regard to the theory of an
absolute indiscernibleness of the final cause of all things; but he reaches
this result in a somewhat different way, and from his premises infers a
different modification of the nature of religion. In his "First Principles"
he appears to be a true scholar of the English and Scotch schools of
philosophy, from which he takes his start in conscious and express
opposition to the German modes of speculation, and begins with an empiric
comparison of all actual contrasts existing in the world and in human life.
He follows the axiom that a particle of truth lies at the basis of every
error, and that each contrast becomes a contrast only by the fact that the
two poles of the contrast have something in common. Now, in comparing with
one another all contrasts between religion and science, and all forms of
religiousness and irreligiousness, from fetishism up to monotheism,
pantheism, and atheism, all imaginable cosmogonies, he finds, as the last
truth common to all, and therefore {197} alone absolutely certain, the
_absolute indiscernibleness of the final cause of all things_. On page 44
he says, that religions diametrically opposed in their overt dogmas, are
yet perfectly at one in the tacit conviction that there is a problem to be
solved, that the existence of the world with all it contains is a mystery
ever pressing for interpretation; and on page 45, that the omnipresence of
something which passes comprehension, is that which remains unquestionable.
And on page 46 he concludes: "If Religion and Science are to be reconciled,
the basis of reconciliation must be this deepest, widest, and most certain
of all facts--that the Power which the Universe manifests to us is utterly
inscrutable." The acknowledgment of this fact is religiousness; the
contrary of it is irreligiousness and anthropomorphistic arrogance, even if
it appears in the name of religiousness. "Volumes might be written upon the
impiety of the pious" (p. 110).

A comparison of the two philosophers is interesting.

In one direction, Lange does more justice to the religious need than
Spencer does. While he sees in religion the metaphorical realization of the
needs of the heart, of a "creation of a home of the spirit," he gives to
the heart full play to satisfy its need, and to create and arrange for
itself a spiritual home entirely according to its need. He especially
acknowledges repeatedly the need of the heart for _atonement_, and
vigorously defends this need and its satisfaction against Liberal
Theologians (Reformtheologen), like Heinrich Lang; he also stands, as we
see, in satisfactory contrast to Wilhelm Bleek. Without reserve, he admits
into the hymn-book of his religion of the future hymns like that of
Gerhard: "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" ("O Sacred Head, {198} now
wounded"). To be sure, all the concessions he makes to religion sink again
to the value of a beautiful illusion, from the fact that for him they are
but metaphorical approaches to the cause of all things, which after all
still remains inaccessible. But nevertheless, in consequence of that idea
of religion, religious life, and especially also religious service, has
infinitely more room for rich development in Lange than in Spencer. For,
according to the view of the latter, religiousness consists in nothing else
but the perception and acknowledgment of this indiscernibleness of the
final cause. All other things which may be still connected with religious
life and reasoning, are but a misty veil. The acknowledgment of the
indiscernibleness of the final cause of all things alone is the
quintessence of religion. But such a religiousness, which expressly forbids
imagining any quality or any state of the highest being, certainly would
be, as Prof. Huxley correctly says in his "Lay Sermons," for the most part
of the silent sort.

While thus Lange's conception of religion is superior to that of Spencer in
admitting a richer development of religious life, a more various
satisfaction of the religious need, in another direction Spencer is
superior. He comes considerably nearer to a correct and full _conception of
God_ than Lange. His idea of the final cause of all things does not lie
entirely in the conception that it is the absolute indiscernible; but
Spencer is fully in earnest with the idea that this indiscernible is the
real cause of the world and of all single existences in it. He accordingly
forbids giving certain attributes to the absolute--not because it would be
doubtful whether it has attributes or not, but because it stands _above_
all these {199} imaginable attributes as their real cause. Therefore he
forbids, for instance, attributing personality, intelligence, will, to the
highest being--not because it could also be impersonal, and in want of
intelligence and will, but because it stands _above_ all these attributes
as their highest real cause, and because we can think of all these
attributes only in human analogy, and therefore, when attributed to the
highest being, can think of them only in rejectable anthropomorphism. He
says, on page 109: "Those who espouse this position [personality of God],
make the erroneous assumption that the choice is between personality and
something lower than personality; whereas the choice is rather between
personality and something higher. Is it not just possible that there is a
mode of being as much transcending Intelligence and Will, as these
transcend mechanical motion? It is true that we are totally unable to
conceive any such higher mode of being. But this is not a reason for
questioning its existence; it is rather the reverse.... The Ultimate Cause
cannot in any respect be conceived by us because it is in every respect
greater than can be conceived."

Thus we find in Lange a fuller and richer conception of the subject of
religion; but this conception is in want of one thing--without which it is
in want of everything--namely, of nothing less than of the objective
reality. Spencer's religiousness has a much more meagre and less varied
character: the acknowledgment and veneration of the indiscernible; but he
nevertheless gives us with this content and object a _real_ object, even an
object of veneration, in which the abundance of all reality is hidden, with
the only conception that the indiscernible {200} does not let us look into
its cornucopia, but only lets us judge of the abundance of its contents by
the richness of that which it pours over us in the world of the relatively
perceptible.

It will not be difficult to show the points at which each of these writers
would have been able, had he so wished, to lead his conception of religion,
the one to a real, the other to a full content.

Lange finds the last principle of perception which is accessible to us, in
our _organization_. Now from our organization originate not only all modes
of the perception of the empirical world, but just as well all our ideal
impulses, especially the ethical. Which one of all those dispositions,
impulses, and activities has the precedence, mainly depends upon the value
which man places upon them. Now, when man attributes to the ideal and
ethical a higher value than to the empirical, when in reflecting about
himself he finds that even in the normal individual the empirical, sensual,
and material is subordinate and subject to the ideal and especially to the
ethical, then from the standpoint of Lange he is right, and obliged to
estimate the truth of that ideal and ethical as higher than the truth of
the empirical world, and to look at the whole empirical world only as being
in the service of that ideal world. When, at the same time, we observe an
inner harmony in our organization, this observation gives us the right and
the duty of controlling the truth of our empirical perception by the truth
of the results of our ideal and our ethical activity, and the latter again
by the former. For if we do not wish to suppose that the human organization
aims at a grand deception of mankind, we have, in spite of {201} the
superiority of the ideal and ethical activities, to establish the axiom
that the empirical and the ideal and ethical cannot remain in lasting
contradiction. Besides, if we should add to this that a religion like
Christianity offers to man that which it gives to him on the ground of
historical facts, then the reports of these facts will certainly be subject
to historical criticism just as surely as all historical reports; but if
they are confirmed, the ideal and ethical convincing power which lies in
this religion, unites for us with the whole weight of the convincing power
of the historical and empirical facts, although the reproduction and
systematization of its contents is still deficient and capable of further
development.

In Spencer's system, there are two points by which his own course of
reasoning is able to bridge over the poverty of his conception of religion.
The first point, given on pages 107-108 of his "First Principles," and also
elsewhere in his works, is the acknowledgment that the final cause of all
things is _higher_ than all that we know, and is of such a nature that it
really can be the real cause of everything, even the real cause of the
spiritual and ethical. Thus he forbids us to think of qualities of the
highest being, but he himself thinks of them; for this conception of the
highest being as an _impersonal_ is certainly something else and something
much more valuable than the mere negation of personality. The other point
which might be able to lead him out of the vacuum of his idea of God, lies
in the method of his own investigation. When he seeks the truth by
collecting what is common in all the contrasts, he also must seek and find
something common between the highest cause {202} of all things on one side
and of the world as a whole and in detail on the other; and this something
will consist of the necessity of the highest cause of all things being so
qualified that _it is able_ to bring into existence the world as a whole
and in detail. If such ideas are also rejected as anthropomorphisms, then
all reasoning and investigating is anthropomorphistic; and in that respect
we refer to what we had to say above, when treating of teleology (p. 170
ff.). The same Duke of Argyll whom we there had occasion to quote, in an
article in the "Contemporary Review" (May, 1871), upon "Variety as an Aim
in Nature," has admirably shown that it is the mind of man from which we
may draw conclusions as to the nature of the Creator, and that the picture
which we thus get of him, can at the same time be seen true and yet dim, at
the same time real and yet from a distance; for the human mind does not
feel anything so much as its own limitations, and therefore can easily
imagine each of his powers and talents as being present in the highest
being in infinite perfection. If Spencer had made this comparison, and
drawn the conclusions which follow from it for the nature of the final
cause of all things, the indiscernibleness of God would for him be reduced
to an unsearchableness, the unknowable be changed into an unsearchable, and
we could willingly acknowledge the humble modesty in regard to the infinity
of the deity, which his philosophy requires, as a factor of all true
religiousness. But we have to present to him as an expression, not only of
true religiousness, but also of true science, that passage of the Psalms:
"He that planted the ear, shall he {203} not hear? He that formed the eye,
shall he not see?" (Psalm XCIV, 9.)

§ 4. _Spinoza and Hegel in the Garb of Darwin: Carneri. Eduard von
Hartmann._

To the Austrian philosopher Carneri in his "Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus"
("Morality and Darwinism"), three books of Ethics, Vienna, Braumüller,
1871, we shall have to give a place of his own.

Inasmuch as religion and the beautiful are to him but a preliminary stage
of truth which has to dissolve itself into philosophy--a philosophy which,
inclined to monism, prefers to call itself pantheism--he takes a position
in reference to religion similar to that toward materialism, namely: a
negative position. But inasmuch as he still grants to religion in a
subjective sense, to "religion in the form of piety," a lasting position
and truth (religion, he says, has truth, but the positive God of religion
has no reality, page 114), and inasmuch as he ascribes to it not only a
transitory pedagogical value for the masses, which are not yet elevated to
the height of philosophic reasoning, but a value also for the
philosopher--namely, the value of religiousness and of piety--he rather
belongs to the second and third of the before-mentioned groups.

Carneri, in his "Three Books of Ethics," gives us a whole philosophic
encyclopedia. In thoughts sometimes rich, but without regularly arranged
and quiet reasoning, and in full command and employment of modern terms
which he uses sometimes like a genius, but often superficially and
unjustly, he develops a view of the world which, although it appears in an
independent way {204} in all its fundamentals, as regards its contents
takes its origin from Spinoza, and as regards form and dialectics from
Hegel, but sometimes, it is true, sinks into weaknesses of which these
philosophers would hardly have been guilty. So, for instance, when he
simply identifies religious faith with conjecture, he takes a superficial
view which he has in common with Häckel who, among other things, repeatedly
says that faith begins where knowledge ceases. Dialectical motion is
everything to him. In pursuing this dialectical motion, he gives us a
multitude of outlooks into all imaginable realms of knowledge and life, but
he always follows at the same time the formula of dialectical motion, and,
where the difficulties of the real world are most invincibly opposed to
this dialectics, knows, like his master, with almost chivalric ease, to
mingle and confound abstract formalistic reasoning and thoughts naturally
following from the given thought. Want of clearness in general makes the
reading of this otherwise not unimportant book very difficult. On a
Darwinian foundation in his conception of nature and its development, he
puts a Hegelian structure into his conception of human spiritual life, but
finally lets mankind, although it is the highest form of appearance in this
development, sink back into death and destruction.

The God of this view of the world is the causal law; the conception of this
causal law is the worship of the philosopher--a God, of course, so
incapable of filling and quieting a mind longing for God--a worship so
leathern that Carneri himself cannot get rid of the opinion that, with such
religious ideas of reform, he will finally lose the last reader of his
book. The aim of the {205} development, also, does not promise to the mind
any substitute for the rigidness of God, for the aim of the development is
death--the death of the individual as well as of the universe. "He who has
learned to get comfort in the deepest affliction from the absolute
impartiality of the causal law, is on so good terms with death, whose
inflexibility he comprehends, that without reluctance he gives to it the
universe into the bargain." (p. 353.)

We give these glimpses into the dreary waste of the very latest advocate of
pessimism which, as it seems, has fully and formally become the fashion, in
order to show what monstrosities are demanded from thought, what revolting
hardness from feeling, what nonentities of ethical striving, are offered as
valuable wares, if man has once begun to break the bond between himself and
his living Creator and Master. For this reason, not only the
anti-teleological monists meet the fate of Nihilism, whether they appear in
the plebeian roughness of Büchner or in the aristocratic gentility of
Strauss, but also such a brilliant advocate of teleology as Eduard von
Hartmann does not know of any other final end to offer to the world and
mankind than nothingness, because he did not wish to be driven from his
perception of ends in the world to the only conclusion to which it
leads--namely: to the perception of an absolute intelligent and ethical
personality that directs these ends. He prefers, rather, to suppose an
unconsciously seeing substance of the world, which, after having once in
the dark impulse of its unconscious will, made the mistake of creating a
world, leads the same by the instinct of unconscious teleology in sad,
melancholy, and yet relatively {206} best development, until it is ripe to
sink back into nothingness, and thereby to bring the absolute to rest.

Although we pity the individuals who came under the ban of such a
pessimism, we nevertheless can be glad of the fact that the consequences of
such a separation from God are at least exposed so clearly, and return from
wandering through such barren steppes with renewed thankfulness to our
Christian view of the world, with its divine plan and aim.

We have, next, however to review the representatives of theism and of the
Christian view of the world--which review will show us that the song of
triumph which monism began to raise before its expected victory, came very
near disturbing the composure of persons here and there.

§ 5. _Re-echo of Negation on the Side of the Christian View of the World._

In this condition of affairs, it certainly could not happen otherwise than
that, even on the part of the theistic and positive Christian view of the
world, some advocates were drawn into the contest who thought themselves
obliged to see two irreconcilable antagonists in Darwinism and
Christianity.

Science and religion had both been so much accustomed to see the origin of
species, and especially the appearance of man on the stage of earth, hidden
in impenetrable and unapproachable secrecy, that every attempt at clearing
up this darkness very naturally appeared to both as an attack upon the
creative activity of God. The mode of reasoning to which mankind, in its
scientific as well as in its religious meditations, had {207} accustomed
itself for hundreds of years, was used to exclude from the idea of creation
the conception of intervening agencies; and this was true not only in
regard to the idea of the first creation of the universe, where the idea of
intervening agencies naturally is left out, but also in regard to the idea
of the creation of single beings. Moreover, mankind was so accustomed to
see a contrast between origination and creation, that in the same degree in
which man tried or was able to perceive the modalities of the origin of
species, the divine causality, or at least the idea of creation, seemed to
disappear; and for the word of the Bible, that God created creatures _each
after its kind_, a place could no longer be found.

To this was added the fact that not only all materialism took possession of
Darwinism as the irresistible battering-ram which, as they said, forever
demolishes the whole fortress of theism and buries under its ruins all
those who take refuge in this decaying castle, but that even _naturalists_
let themselves be carried away without opposition by this anti-theistic
current, and even submitted to be heralds and prophets of this new
anti-theistic wisdom of monism. Let the reader think of Häckel's "Natural
History of Creation" and "Anthropogeny," where he will find the most
interesting reports from all realms of exact natural science, together with
a wholly unsolved entanglement of descent, selection, and mechanical view
of the world, and this mode of contemplation of the world, with eloquent
and enthusiastic proclamation of monism and with unconcealed derision of
the capricious arbitrariness of a personal Creator, all thrown together as
one great entire system, formed at one stroke. {208}

Is it, then, to be wondered at, that not only the uncritical among
believers, but also those who thoughtfully examined the movements of the
mind, believed in the loudly-proclaimed connection of Darwinism with the
whole anti-Christian view of the world, and therefore protested immediately
against everything which is called Darwinism? Can we reproach theologians
for not immediately becoming scientists themselves, in order to form an
independent judgment in the question, when even the most eminent scientists
declared that amalgamation of the most heterogenetic as an inevitable
consequence of Darwinism, and as much as possible diminished or concealed
their want of harmony with a few other investigators who, although small in
number, yet by their weight counterbalanced dozens of names of the second
and third rank?

Thus we could read, in the journals of specialists, in pamphlets, in
religious and political journals, even in local newspapers, a great many
articles which were guilty of exactly the same confounding of the
scientific and the religious, and again of the scientific and the
philosophic, as those who had caused this confounding, and who, under the
supposition of this solidarity of wholly distinct things, attacked and
contested in the interest of religion, not only the anti-religious
conclusions of Darwinian philosophers, but also Darwinism as a merely
scientific theory, and rendered the contrast as strong as possible by
adhering to that above censured, unmotived, indefensible, and one-sided
conception of creation.

And although on the part of positive Christian theology there was a
gradually increasing number of voices {209} of those who in the idea of an
origin of species through _descent_ do not yet see an injury to the
theistic and Christian conception of God and creation, still as a rule this
concession was made only to the idea of descent, and not to that of
selection and to that which is properly called Darwinism. As a rule, in
most of the theological works which treat in general of the _Darwinian_
questions, Darwinism and opposition to the Christian conception of God and
creation were and are still taken as identical. For instance, Ebrard, in
the first part of his "Apologetik" ("Apologetics"), Gütersloh, Bertelsmann,
1874, enumerates among the systems which are opposed to Christianity, in
the same line with the doubtless anti-theistic and anti-Christian
_aposkopiology_ or negation of the idea of design, also the mechanistic
system, or the negation of the organic vital force, and the Darwinian
theory of descent. Besides, in reading his "Apologetics," we had earnestly
wished, in the interest of science as well as of religion, that a
theologian who writes a work which claims to be scientific and to advocate
the Christian standpoint, had abstained from that coarse and disgusting
contempt and derision of adversaries which we meet so often in his book,
and which only causes friend and foe to take a position contrary to that
which the author intended. Trümpelmann who, in an essay upon Darwinism,
monistic philosophy, and Christianity (Jahrbücher für protestantische
Theologie, 1876, I) gives a similar conception of the relation between
Darwinism and religion, but defends his whole position with much more
scientific acuteness and depth, has also not taken the tone which worthily
treats an opposite opinion and its advocates.

       *       *       *       *       * {210}


CHAPTER II.

REFORM OF RELIGION, OR AT LEAST OF THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION, THROUGH
DARWINISM.

§ 1. _Heinrich Lang, Friedrich Vischer, Gustav Jäger._

In passing on to those who in Darwinism do not see a negation but a
reformation of religion, or at least of theology, we first meet Heinrich
Lang, the late spiritual leader of the "Reformtheologie" in Switzerland. He
treats of "Die Religion im Zeitalter Darwins" ("Religion in the Age of
Darwin") in Holtzendorff's and Oncken's "Deutsche Zeit- und Streitfragen,"
Jahrg. II, Heft 31, Berlin, Lüderitz, 1873.

With a very correct estimate of the lasting value of religion as well as of
natural science, and with a warm apology for the religious realm, he
regulates the boundaries of each by asking religion not to hinder modern
knowledge of the world and nature, and by asking knowledge of nature to
leave the realm of religion untouched in its self-certainty.

But when he, evidently still dependent on the old rationalistic
supernaturalistic conception of miracle and providence, claims to find that
as the result of modern knowledge of the world and nature a special
providence is no longer conceivable, and no other hearing of prayer is
possible than a subjective psychological one; that the processes in the
world, in their entire final causal connection of causes and effects,
nowhere leave a place for {211} the freely acting hand of a divine Lord of
the world, and that even a moral order of the world can only prove itself
so far as guilt and punishment stand in a natural causal connection with
one another: then his religiousness makes concessions to the modern view of
the world which it is not at all obliged to make or justified in making,
and forces upon religion a reform against the necessity and usefulness of
which not only religious feeling and need, but also deeper and more
consequent reflection on God and the world, just as strongly strives.

What remains to him as an independent realm for religion is nevertheless
worthy of recognition. As faith of the human mind in a transcendental unity
which manifests itself in the manifold and sensible, and carries through a
moral order of the world--although one which, by the before-mentioned
limitation of the natural connection of guilt and punishment, is very much
reduced--religion gives to the mind warmth and worship; as confidence of
the heart in an infinite possession in the anguish of the finite, it
creates confidence in God, gratitude, devotion, energy, courage of life; as
reverence for a holiness which stands unimpeachable above the fluctuating
inclinations of our will, awakens the consciousness of guilt, and abolishes
the guilt, it remains the basis of all moral action. Lang also sharply and
correctly points out the insufficiency of Strauss's "The Old Faith and the
New," as well as the conflict between his metaphysical naturalism which
only leads to the struggle for existence, and his demand of self-submission
to the universe, and of the moral and spiritual self-determination of man
as of a being which goes beyond nature. Nevertheless we can not follow Lang
in his {212} ways of reform. First--his conception of God is amazingly
meagre, and of more than a Spencerian unapproachableness. God is to him,
according to his "Dogmatics," nothing but the eternal, in itself perfect
cause of all being, exempted from all changes of the world's process. When
he gives the name of father to this primeval cause, as he does in his
sermons and elsewhere, without being able to admit relation of mutual love
of person to person, he only makes it glaringly evident how little his
abstract metaphysics can satisfy religious need. Second--that which is
claimed to be gained by this modern view of the world (namely, extension of
the supremacy of religion to everything, even to the affairs of daily
life), is not at all new, but is the effect of long-existing sound
religiousness, and is the essence of all sound religious doctrine; and we
therefore can not see how a view of the world, which, for instance, denies
divine providence, and limits the hearing of prayer to its psychological
effects, shall have greater force to leaven the whole daily life
religiously, than our Christian faith in the Father without whose will no
sparrow falls to the ground, and who says to his children: "Call upon me in
the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."
Third--exactly that which Lang declares a purification of religion (namely,
the before-mentioned elimination of divine providence and of all that which
is connected therewith), appears to us not at all as a reform, but as an
immense impoverishment and desolation of religion, which is so far from
being required by natural science, that it turns out to be but a concession
to the most superficial metaphysicians who, of course, have become very
popular. {213}

Friedrich Vischer is also to be ranked in this group. In the sixth part of
his "Kritische Gänge" ("Critical Walks"), he speaks of Strauss' "The Old
Faith and the New," and takes his determined position in reference to the
religious question, quite essentially differing from Strauss. In regard to
the aversion to miracles, he stands on the same ground with Strauss and
Lang; in protesting against Strauss' elimination of the idea of design, and
especially in demanding a moral order of the world, he is still more
energetic than Lang. He particularly does not, like Lang, limit the moral
order of the world to the simple empiric causal connection between human
action and its consequences. But on the other hand, by his opposition to
the idea of a personality of God, he again deviates more than Lang from the
true meaning of Christian religiousness. On page 219 he says: "How, in
spite of the infinite crossings of human action, is inner conformity to the
end in view in general so established through that which we call chance, or
rather by means of these crossings, that we can speak of a moral order of
the world? Men, individuals as well as communities, follow their aims.
Hereby there always results something quite different from that which they
intended and wished. Sublime laws govern above us, between us, full of
mystery in the midst of life; one of them in reference to guilt, punishment
of guilt, is called nemesis. Faith in that meaning of the word, which we
regard as a low one [he means the faith which has its dogmas beyond which
the man of the most recent culture has passed, not knowing that he also
carries around with him his dogmas, his "new faith"] is in need of a person
who founds, carries out, and executes {214} these laws. But the faith of
the monists has no such need. Why not? That needs more sufficient
demonstration."

Certainly it needs more sufficient demonstration. But this demonstration
will never be possible, so long as we acknowledge the government of a moral
order of the world. For this leads of necessity to faith in a living God,
and this faith demands from our conception less pretensions than the faith
in a kind of system of spiritual machinery by which chance and the
wished-for are woven together, without this system proceeding from a highly
spiritual and ethical intelligence. It nevertheless must be acknowledged
that Vischer, from the standpoint of _ethical_ need, vindicates the
position and truth of religion, as he also beautifully and correctly
defines its position in reference to morality, in saying that morality
makes the demand, religion gives the strength to meet it.

From another side, Gustav Jäger makes a compromise between Darwinism and
religion in his five lectures on "Die Darwinsche Theorie und ihre Stellung
zu Moral und Religion" ("The Darwinian Theory and its Position in Reference
to Morality and Religion"), Stuttgart, J. Hoffmann, 1869.

He makes still more valid concessions to religion and Christianity than
Lang and Vischer; directly opposes materialistic monism; leaves to faith in
a personal God, in the divinity of Christ, in individual immortality, in
the answer to prayer beyond the psychological effect, in miracles, in
short, to the full contents of Christian religiousness, their weight and
truth; and in that respect we would have to rank him in the following
group, if he {215} did not by his manner of proving these concessions
exclude himself from it, and rank himself in that group of which we treat
in the present section.

According to his opinion, Darwinism gives to religion, if not new contents
(although these contents are entirely subject to revision according to
Darwinism), still a wholly new foundation, and, indeed, a foundation of
subjective religiousness, as well as of the objective contents of religion,
only from the standpoint of its practical usefulness in the struggle for
existence. The faith in a personal God, in immortality, in redemption by
the God-Man Jesus Christ, in the hearing of prayer, in help in danger even
to the extent of miracles, strengthens man, gives to him a superiority to
those who do not have that faith and who do not have the habit of prayer,
and therefore is so far the best weapon in the struggle for existence; and
herein lies the truth of religion, especially of the Christian religion, as
the most successful weapon in the struggle for existence which takes place
through the whole creation, from the lowest organisms up to the highest
spiritual life of mankind.

We willingly admit that Christianity has certainly proved itself by far the
strongest and most successful means of education to mankind, and that, if
we must once express this experience in the Darwinian mode of speaking, we
can express it as above. But with the attempt to make the _truth_ of
religion and the truth of its contents, even if only subjective, dependent
only and solely upon the proof of its _usefulness_, nobody, either friend
or foe, will be satisfied. The adversaries of religion and Christianity,
perhaps with the exception of Büchner, will admit that Christianity has for
some {216} time been a quite useful weapon to mankind in the struggle for
existence; but they will say that they are just about to replace it by a
still more useful weapon; and the advocates of religion and Christianity
likewise can not agree upon a mere grounding of their religion upon need
which puts upon them every day the possibility of changing it for something
still more useful. Both friend and foe will join in the conviction that
objective truth is always the best guarantee for subjective success; and
thus both will pass beyond the purely utilitarian apologetics or polemics
to the questions as to the objective reality of the contents of Christian
religiousness.

       *       *       *       *       * {217}


CHAPTER III.

PEACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND DARWINISM.

§ 1. _Darwin, Wallace, R. Owen, Asa Gray, Mivart, McCosh, Anderson, K. E.
v. Baer, Alex. Braun, Braubach, etc._

It still remains for us to take a glance at those who think religion and
Darwinism, and Christianity and Darwinism, hold toward one another
reciprocally amicable relations.

In the first place, we have to mention Darwin himself. In his earliest
work, "Origin of Species," he repeatedly gives this opinion, as on page
421: "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock
the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how
transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery
ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also
attacked by Leibnitz 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of
revealed, religion.' A celebrated author and divine has written to me that
he 'has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of
the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of
self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He
required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action
of His laws.'" On page 428, he speaks of the laws which God has impressed
on matter; and at the end of his work, on page 429, he says: "There is
grandeur in this {218} view of life, with its several powers, having been
originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one." In his
"Descent of Man," he also protests against the reproach that his views are
irreligious, and says: "The birth both of the species and of the individual
are equally parts of that grand sequence of events which our minds refuse
to accept as the result of blind chance." In treating of the question as to
the development of the moral instincts, he says: "If he [man] breaks
through the fixed habits of his life, he will assuredly feel
dissatisfaction. He must likewise avoid the reprobation of _the one_ God or
gods in whom, _according to his knowledge_ or superstition, he may
believe." And furthermore he remarks: "The question whether there exists a
Creator and Ruler of the Universe, has been answered in the affirmative by
some of the highest intellects that have ever existed."

It is true, all these expressions about religion are very general; but
since in his works we do not find any utterance contrary to them and
hostile to religion, we have a right to rank the celebrated originator of
the whole agitation among those naturalists who are conscious of the limits
of the realms of the natural and the religious, and are convinced of the
possibility of a harmony between the two. For his casual utterances against
a "creation" of single species always combine with the word creation the
idea of that direct creation out of nothing, without intervening agencies,
which is entirely correct for the idea of the first, origin of the
universe, but which for the origin of the single formations within the
universe is neither asked for by the religious view of the world, nor
established by the Holy {219} Scriptures, nor by a cautiously reasoning
theology, although it very often controls the conceptions of naturalists as
well as of theologians. Now, while Darwin rejects the idea of a sudden
appearance of a new species out of nothing--or, as he once expressed
himself in his "Origin of Species," the idea "that at innumerable periods
in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly
to flash into living tissues,"--and he is no doubt right in rejecting
it,--still at the same time he does not deny the dependence of the
successive origin of a new species on a divine author. But in calling that
process creation and this one not, he gives the appearance of an opposition
to the religious idea of creation--an appearance of which the greater part
of the guilt is borne by those theologians who define the idea of the
creation, even of a single form, in a manner which is only proper for the
idea of the first origin of the universe.

It is true, we could rank Darwin still more readily among the scientists
who are at peace with all the claims of religion, did he not in his
"Descent of Man," when enumerating the "excellent naturalists and
philosophers" who with him reduce the pedigree of man to lower forms,
mention names of men who in their works firmly unite Darwinism and monistic
naturalism or even materialism, and expressly protest against a separation
of their naturo-historical results and their philosophic points of view. We
mean Büchner and Häckel. The latter's "Natural History of Creation," he
especially praises: "If this work had appeared before my essay had been
written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost all the
conclusions at which I have {220} arrived I find confirmed by this
naturalist," etc. The entire silence in regard to the anti-Christian
results which these two authors derive from their naturo-historical
premises, makes Darwin's own position in reference to religion again very
uncertain. It seems that Darwin in his theology is not only inclined to
theism, but, following the traditions of his countrymen of the last
century, to a quite cool and superficial deism, and that he permits himself
to be too much impressed by the anti-teleological deductions of many of his
followers, and to be induced to separate in his later publications the
Creator and his work more widely than he has done in the beginning. For
while in his "Origin of the Species," and in his "Descent of Man" he
nowhere contests a teleological view of nature, and rejects the idea of
single creations only under the erroneous supposition that the idea of the
creation of the single also excludes the action of intervening agencies, we
find, on the other hand, in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals" a passage which, though in a reserved way, seems to give just as
much support to the adversaries of teleology as to its advocates, if,
indeed, not more. He says (page 338): "The belief that blushing was
_specially_ designed by the Creator is opposed to the general theory of
evolution, which is now so largely accepted; but it forms no part of my
duty here to argue on the general question. Those who believe in design
will find it difficult to account for shyness being the most frequent and
efficient of all the causes of blushing," etc. This inconsistency in his
utterances has its origin in the fact that the strength of this naturalist
does not seem to lie in logical philosophic thought. {221}

A. R. Wallace, the independent and contemporaneous co-originator of the
Darwinian theory, still more evidently and more decidedly expresses himself
favorably as to the position of this theory in reference to religion. In
his "Natural Selection," he says on page 368: "It does not seem an
improbable conclusion that all force may be will-force; and thus, that the
whole universe is not merely dependent on, but actually is, the WILL of
higher intelligences or of one Supreme Intelligence."

He pronounces the belief that God created the new species in "continual
interference" with the regular process of things, a lower conception, "a
limitation of the Creator's power" (page 280), hence something which he
makes objection to directly in the interest of religion. Moreover, he sees,
especially in those stages which caused the physical development of man,
and which became the material basis of his spiritual productions, moments
of development which cannot be explained by natural selection or by a
coincidence of material circumstances, but only by the preformation of the
body after a certain design and for a certain purpose.

Richard Owen, the celebrated anatomist, and palæontologist of England, who,
after having for a long time resisted the Darwinian theories, lately
accepted the idea of development and rejected that of selection, takes a
similar position. In the last part of his "Comparative Anatomy of
Vertebrates," which was issued separately in 1863 under the title
"Derivative Hypothesis of Life and Species," he sees in the causes which
produced the new species only the servants of a predestinating {222}
intelligent will--for instance, the horse predestinated and prepared for
man; and on page 90 of vol. V. of "Transactions of the Zoölogical Society,"
he says, "that natural evolution, through secondary causes, by means of
slow physical and organic operations through long ages, is not the less
clearly recognizable as the act of all-adaptive Mind, because we have
abandoned the old error of supposing it the result of a primary, direct and
sudden act of creational construction.... The succession of species by
continuously operating law is not necessarily a 'blind operation.' Such
law, however designed in the properties and successions of natural objects,
intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress. Organisms may be evolved
in orderly succession, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the
broad features of the course may still show the unmistakable impress of
Divine volition."

Professor Huxley, of London, the zealous and oft-mentioned advocate of the
descent of man from the ape, says--what is so energetically contested by
his warmest friends in Germany, by Büchner, Häckel, O. Schmidt, and
others--that the teleological and the mechanical mode of viewing nature by
no means exclude one another. He does this, of course, without going into
any details of the religious question.

Asa Gray, an eminent and highly esteemed American botanist, who is
particularly respected by Darwin, and is supported also by Sir Charles
Lyell in "The Antiquity of Man," says in his essay on "Natural Selection
not Incompatible with Natural Theology, a Free Examination of Darwin's
Treatise" (London, Trübner, 1861), on page 29: "Agreeing that plants and
animals {223} were produced by Omnipotent _fiat_ does not exclude the idea
of natural order and what we call secondary causes. The record of the
_fiat_--'Let the earth bring forth grass,' etc., 'the living creature,'
etc.,--seems even to imply them, and leads to the conclusion that the
different species were produced through natural agencies." And on page 38:
"Darwin's hypothesis concerns the _order_ and not the _cause_, the _how_
and not the _why_ of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design
just where it was before." And finally, in a passage which is adopted by
Sir Charles Lyell (ib. page 505): "We may imagine that events and
operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at the
first, and without any subsequent interference, or we may hold that now and
then, and only now and then, there is a direct interposition of the Deity;
or, lastly, we may suppose that all the changes are carried on by the
immediate orderly and constant, however infinitely diversified, action of
the intelligent efficient Cause."

Mivart, an English Catholic, most decidedly advocates a reconcilability of
Darwinian views, and especially of the evolution theory, as he establishes
it with the full contents of Christian orthodoxy, in his remarkable book
"On the Genesis of Species" (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 2d. ed.
1871), in which we find a great many independent naturo-historical
investigations. He assigns to the selection theory only a subordinate
position, but on the other hand accepts an _evolution_, and, in close
connection with R. Owen, explains it from inner and innate impulses of
development of the organisms, which act now more slowly and gradually, now
more by impulses; he places man as to {224} his _physical_ part entirely
among the effects of the evolution principle, although, taking into
consideration some utterances of Wallace, he thinks it possible, but not
probable, that the creation and the preceding stage of his physical nature
is also different from that of animals. But, on the other hand, in fully
adopting the old scholastic creationism, he supposes a special creation of
the _soul_, a separation of body and soul, which in this form is very
contestable, and might better have been replaced by a separation of natural
and rational or of physico-psychical and pneumatical parts of his being.
With such a view of nature, he finds the fullest harmony between the
evolution theory and religion, reconciles the plausible antagonism of
creation and development by dividing the idea of creation into a primary
creation (creation of the beginning out of nothing) and into a secondary
creation (creation through intervening agencies, although that which is
produced through them is still a creation and a work of the Creator), and
declares his conviction that what is acting according to law in nature also
stands under the causation and government of God like the first beginning
of the universe--a postulate of our primary views without which the whole
universe and our existence in it would harden into a cold mechanism without
consolation or ideality.

Finally, at the assembly of the Evangelical Alliance in New York (October,
1873), there were heard many voices of eminent advocates of a theistic and
Christian view of the world, which maintained the full consistency of an
evolution theory with religion and Christianity. McCosh, for instance, as
referee in the philosophic section as to the relation of the evolution
theory and {225} religion, said[10]: "I am not sure that religion is
entitled to insist that every species of insects has been created by a
special _fiat_ of God, with no secondary agent employed." And still more
plainly and more courageously, President Anderson, of the University of
Rochester, in his very remarkable address, speaks about the unnecessary and
unworthy fear of many Christian men, when they see the appearance of
hypotheses with which science operates. At the end of his address, he says:
"The evidence for the existence of a personal Creator cannot be affected by
any considerations drawn from the mode, relative rapidity, or the nature of
the proximate antecedents and consequences in the creative process."

From German sources, we can note fewer utterances of a friendly or at least
neutral position between Darwinism and religion. For this fact there are
many reasons. One may be, that on the continent in general there is a
smaller number of those who, without being specialists in both realms,
unite active religious interest and reasoning with a thorough study of
those naturo-historical questions, while in Great Britain
physico-theological studies have been for generations traditional and the
object of interest for the majority of educated men. A second reason,
indeed, is that some of the warmest scientific advocates of Darwinism at
once attacked also theism and Christianity; hence with all those who did
not have time and incitement enough to study the questions for themselves,
they necessarily created the opinion that Darwinism really attacks even the
fundamentals of {226} religion, and their whole tendency had but a
repelling influence even on scientists of deeper spiritual and ethical
disposition and need. Finally, in Germany as well as on the whole
continent, the number of those who do not care for religious questions in
general, and who therefore interest themselves in the scientific questions
brought up by Darwin, but do not trouble themselves farther for their
position in reference to religion and Christianity, is unfortunately larger
than in Great Britain.

Nevertheless, such friendly voices are not entirely wanting in our country.
The botanist Alex Braun says, in his beautiful and significant lecture on
the importance of development in natural history, p. 48: "Some said that
the descent theory denies creation, and it is true, the Darwinians
themselves caused this opinion by contrasting creation and development as
irreconcilable ideas. But this contrast does not actually exist, for as
soon as we look upon creation as a divine effect, not merely belonging to
the past, or appearing in single abrupt movements, but connected and
universally present in time, we can seek and find it nowhere else but in
the natural history of development itself.... Theologians themselves,
according to the Mosaic documents, acknowledge a _history_ of creation;
natural history, looked upon from its inner side, is nothing else but the
farther carrying out of the history of creation."

Even K. E. von Baer, who expressly contests the idea of selection, thinks
it only scientifically indefensible, but not anti-religious; an opinion
also held by Wigand.

A similar friendly relation between Darwinism and religion is advocated by
Braubach, in his publication, {227} "Religion, Moral und Philosophie der
Darwin'schen Artlehre nach ihrer Natur and ihrem Character als kleine
Parallele menschlich-geistiger Entwicklung" ("Religion, Morality, and
Philosophy of the Darwinian Doctrine of Species, as to its Nature and
Character; a Small Parallel of Human Intellectual Development"), Neuwied,
Hansen, 1869, a publication to which we pay special attention, since
Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," twice paid it the honor of a quotation. It
is true, the essay, through its peculiar dependence on an original and
quite arbitrarily grouped scheme, gives the impression of something very
singular, and is not very agreeably and easily read; but it shows such an
energetic union of respect for science and its work and results, with
adhesion to all the fundamentals of Christian truth, that it has to be
mentioned as one of the rare voices which, even in regard to the realm of
nature, pronounce the fullest harmony between religion and science.
Braubach finds in the animal kingdom the _elements_ of all the spiritual
life of mankind, even of _religion_ and _morality_; but everything is still
wrapped in the lowest stage of sensuality. Nevertheless, he assigns to
mankind, by its possession of the idea of _infinity_, something absolutely
new, absolutely superior to the animal world, and sees the Darwinian ideas,
even in the religious and moral possession of mankind, confirmed by the
fact that they develop themselves on the way from the sensual stage to the
rational exactly according to the principles of Darwin--namely, through
transmission with individual variability in the struggle for existence,
through selection of the fittest. With special earnestness, he pronounces
the indissoluble unity of religion and morality, {228} and says that
religion, as it presents itself upon Darwinian grounds, is a moral
religion.

We find here and there in periodicals many more voices which pronounce the
conviction that, out of the present contest of minds, peace between
religion and science will result.

       *       *       *       *       *


_B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND MORALITY._

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

We can treat much more briefly of this portion of our task than of the
position of the Darwinians in reference to the religious question, for the
reason that the contrasts in the ethical realm are far less sharply drawn
than in the religious realm, although in principle they are not less widely
apart. For while there are a great many men who think that it belongs to
good society and to the indispensable characteristics of high modern
education to show either cold indifference or direct hostility in reference
to religion and to the whole religious question; while a great many of the
much-read works of _belle lettres_ never tire of teaching the reading
public that the religious question really no longer exists for the educated
man, on the other hand, nobody, not even the extremest atheist and enemy of
religion, wishes to renounce the reputation of having moral principles.
Thus it happens that the positions taken by the Darwinians in reference to
the ethical question are less varied than those taken by them in reference
to the religious question. And we may also be brief for another reason,
{229} namely, that by reviewing the position of the Darwinians in reference
to the religious question, we have essentially prepared the way for the
principal questions which will have to be treated.

We shall group the utterances upon the relation of the Darwinian theories
to morality as we did those in regard to the relation of Darwinism to
religion; and shall first let the advocates of an irreconcilableness
between the two speak, then those advocating a reformative influence of
Darwinism upon morality, and finally those striving for neutrality and
peace between the two. We shall have no occasion, except incidentally, to
discriminate between the different fundamental principles and parts of
ethics, but shall in the last part of our work treat of the question
independently. In making subdivisions for them here, we should but cause
infinite repetitions, unnecessarily complicate our review, and render it
more difficult.

       *       *       *       *       * {230}


CHAPTER IV.

ANTAGONISM BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY.

§ 1. _Objections to Darwinism from an Ethical Standpoint._

From what we said at the beginning of the preceding preliminary view, it is
evident that we have to look for the advocates of an irreconcilableness
between morality and Darwinism, not in the camp of the followers of the
latter, but only in that of its adversaries. It is true, such advocates
were never wanting. In pamphlets and journals, it has been often enough
said that Darwinism cuts through the nerve of life, not only of religion,
but also of morality.

It was demonstrated that in making man a mere product of nature, and
degrading him to a being that is nothing else but a more highly developed
animal, Darwinism takes from human personality its value, from the realms
of morality its dignity, and from its demands their autonomy. In making the
struggle for existence the principle of all development and, by extending
it to the development and social relations of man, at the same time the
human social principle, it puts in place of self-denial and love the
principle of egoism and boorishness and the right of the stronger, gives
full course to the unchaining of all animal passions, and coquettes with
all the emotions which, flattering the animal part of man, {231} aims at
the subversion of all that exists and at the destruction of the ideal
acquisitions of mankind. In tracing everything which constitutes the higher
position and dignity of man back to his own work, and permitting it to be
worked out of physical, spiritual, and ethical brutishness, in slow
development and effort, closely related to the animal kingdom, it fosters
and nourishes haughtiness in an intolerable way. And finally, in breaking
off and denying the dependence of man upon God, and leading to mechanical
determinism, it destroys the deepest and most effective motive to moral
action--the tracing of the moral law to the authority of the divine
Law-giver, and the consciousness of an individual moral responsibility.

It cannot be denied that many of the most zealous Darwinians gave too much
cause for such a conception and representation of the ethical consequences
of their system. In view of the fact that they applied the selection
principle, with its most radical consequences, to the origin and
development of mankind, and that they elevated the same to the ethical and
social principle of mankind and did not permit the acceptance of any new
and higher agencies in mankind except those already active in the animal
and the organic world, and that they gladly treated this selection
principle also in the social and ethical realm as a struggle for existence,
it was simply an entirely logical conclusion that the advocates of the
moral nobility of mankind reproached such a reproduced Darwinism with
degrading the moral dignity of man and with replacing love by egoism.
Besides, in view of the fact that they declared materialistic monism, even
the most naked atheism, the only conclusion of {232} Darwinism, and
extended their mechanistic explanation of the world to a determinism in the
highest degree mechanistic, and, carried to its utmost limit, to a denial
of human freedom, it was not to be wondered at that those who recognize in
theism the basis of all life worthy of man, and in the freedom of man one
of the most precious pearls in the crown of his human dignity and of his
creation in the image of God, complained of Darwinism's taking from
morality its strongest motive and from moral action its responsibility.
And, finally, in view of the fact that those who thus express themselves in
their works showed but rarely, or not at all, some of the noblest fruits of
moral education, such as respectful treatment of adversaries, humbleness
and tact, they could not themselves reasonably complain that there was
ascribed to their doctrine an influence detrimental to moral education. All
this we find abundantly confirmed in the publications of Büchner and
Häckel, and in many articles of the "Ausland."

But the question is, whether those Darwinians who drew these conclusions
were by their scientific investigations obliged to draw them, or whether
they did not rather reach their religious and ethical view of the world by
quite other ways, and whether they did not in a wholly arbitrary and
irresponsible manner make extensive use of Darwinism in this anti-religious
and ethically objectional direction--a fact which we shall try to prove in
the last part of our investigation.

Of course the Darwinians who spoke thus, did not intend to injure the moral
principle, but only to purify and reform it; and therefore we shall have to
speak of them in the following section.

       *       *       *       *       * {233}


CHAPTER V.

REFORM OF MORALITY THROUGH DARWINISM.

§ 1. _The Materialists and Monists. Darwin and the English Utilitarians.
Gustav Jäger._

Among those who ascribe to Darwinism a morally reforming influence, we have
to mention in the first place the _materialists_. It is true that even
before the appearance of Darwinism they established their own moral
principle of naturalistic determinism and of the education of man only by
science and enlightenment, in opposition to a morality which rests on the
principle of the eternal value of the individual, of full moral
responsibility, of the holiness of the moral law, and of a divine author of
it; they stigmatized the ethical requirement of aiming at the eternal
welfare of the soul as a lower stage of morality in comparison with their
own, which carries in itself the reward of virtue; and they declared
Christianity and humanity, Christian morality and the morality of humanity,
two things irreconcilably opposed to one another. But in having taken
possession of Darwinism as their monopoly, they have made it the basis of
new attacks upon the present moral principle of Christendom; and therefore
we have here to mention them with their moral system.

Büchner, in his lecture on "Gottesbegriff und dessen {234} Bedeutung" ("The
Idea of God and its Importance"), replaces the moral principle (which in
his opinion is nothing innate but something acquired) by education,
learning, freedom and well-being; says that only atheism or philosophic
monism leads to freedom, reason, progress, acknowledgment of true
humanity--to humanism; that this humanism seeks the motives of its morality
not in the external relations to an extramundane God, but in itself and in
the welfare of mankind; and that infidels often, even as a rule, have
excelled by moral conduct, while Christianity has originated many more
crimes than it has hindered, and it would no longer be possible to
establish with real Christians a vital community as at present understood.
He declares the utterance of Madame de Staël, that "to comprehend
everything means to forgive everything," the truest word ever spoken; and
concludes his lecture with the remarks that the more man renounces his
faith and confides in his own power, his own reason, his own reflexion, the
happier he will be and the more successful in his struggle for existence.

Strauss in "The Old Faith and the New," a publication which certainly has
to be ranked here, for the reason that in it he founds on Darwinism his
whole knowledge of the world, on the ground of which he wishes to arrange
life, appears to be much more decent, and in the practical consequences
much more conservative, than Büchner; but essentially stands upon quite the
same ground. Häckel, Oskar Schmidt, and (as to his linguistic Darwinism) W.
Bleek, group themselves around Strauss, partly with, partly without express
reference to his deductions. {235}

Strauss arrives at a peculiar inconsequence, but one well worthy of notice,
when, in place of the struggle for existence which, according to the
conclusions of those who also reduce morality to Darwinism, is still the
_spiritus rector_ of moral development in mankind, and yet cannot of itself
possibly lead to the morally indispensable requirements and virtues of
self-sacrifice and of mere subordination under the moral idea, he suddenly
substitutes a going of man beyond mere nature, and herewith a moral
principle, which can never be deduced from Darwinism alone, and which is
directly opposed to monism and pankosmism, which is to be the basis of his
ethics. The reader may compare the manner in which he metaphysically
supports his moral principle when he says: "As nature cannot go higher, she
would go inwards. Nature felt herself already in the animal, but she
_wished to know herself also_.... In man, nature endeavored not merely to
exalt, but _to transcend herself_." Ulrici, the philosopher, in his reply
to Strauss, has pointed out in sharp terms this inconsequence, as well as
the other, that from the ground of a blind necessity which does not know
anything of a higher and a lower, the difference of higher and lower, good
and bad, rational and irrational, cannot at all be maintained; and that the
requirement of a progress cannot at all be made, and its idea not at all be
given. In this very perceptible inconsistency, Strauss calls that morality
which he requires, "_the relation of man to the idea of his kind_." To
realize the latter in himself, is the summary of his duties toward himself;
actually to recognize and promote the equality of the kind in all the
others, is the {236} summary of his duties towards others. He opposes the
internal satisfaction which originates therein, to the "rough" idea of a
reward of virtue and piety, coming from _without_, which, in order to
connect both, is in need of a God. And he again reaches that inconsequence
which from his metaphysical standpoint is entirely without motive, but as
to itself only worthy to be recognized, when in another formula of his
moral imperative he says: "Ever remember that thou art human, not _merely a
natural production_."

It is also this representation and realization of the _idea of the kind_,
which those who combine with their Darwinism a negation of theism have
mostly established before the appearance of the work of Strauss as the
highest moral principle, and to which they are also led most naturally by
Darwin's deduction of morality from the social instincts. Thus, Wilhelm
Bleek, in the preface to his "Ursprung der Sprache" ("Origin of Language"),
says (page XIII): "To aim at the inner and outer harmony of his genus in
one or the other way, and to promote the correct relations of the different
parts to one another in their reciprocal connections and in the greater
parts of the whole organism (family, community, nation), are the highest
visible designs of human existence, which must by themselves incite man to
noble actions and to virtuous deeds. In the performance of this task lies
the highest happiness which seems to be given to our species, a happiness
accessible by everyone in his own way. Neither the fruit of eternal
punishment nor the hope of an individual happiness, is really capable as a
truly saving idea to elevate man to a higher existence; even if we take no
account of the fact that {237} each of these two fundamental dogmas of the
vulgar dogmatism makes but refined egoism the lever of its ethics."

Häckel alone, in his "Natural History of Creation," with his utterances as
to Christianity, morality, and the history of the world, again sinks down
to the level of the coarseness of Büchner, and even below it. On page 19,
vol. I, he entirely contests the reality of the moral order of the world,
and continues: "If we contemplate the common life, and the mutual relations
between plants and animals (man included), we shall find _everywhere_ and
_at all times_, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful social life,
which the goodness of the Creator ought to have prepared for his
creatures--we shall rather find _everywhere_ a pitiless, most embittered
_struggle of all against all_. Nowhere in nature, no matter where we turn
our eyes, does that idyllic peace, celebrated by the poets, exist; we find
everywhere a _struggle_ and a _striving to annihilate_ neighbors and
competitors. _Passion and selfishness, conscious or unconscious, is
everywhere the motive force of life._ Man in this respect certainly forms
no exception to the rest of the animal world." On page 237, vol. I, he
professes the most extreme naturalistic determinism: "The will of the
animal, _as well as that of man_, is never free. The widely spread dogma of
the freedom of the will is, from a scientific point of view, altogether
untenable." And on page 170, vol. I, he even says: "If, as we maintain,
natural selection is the great active cause which has produced the whole
wonderful variety of organic life on the earth, all the interesting
phenomena of _human life_ must also be explicable from the same cause. For
man is after all {238} only a most highly-developed vertebrate animal, and
all aspects of human life have their parallels, or, more correctly, their
lower stages of development, in the animal kingdom. The _whole history of
nations_, or what is called _universal history, must therefore be
explicable by means of natural selection,--must be a physico-chemical
process_, depending upon the interaction of adaptation and inheritance in
the struggle for life. And this is actually the case." That in his ethical
naturalism he sees a real reform of morality, he expressly declares on the
page next to the last of his "Natural History of Creation": "Just as this
new monistic philosophy first opens up to us a true understanding of the
real universe, so its application to practical human life must open up _a
new road towards moral perfection_." (Vol. II, p. 367.)

In the low conception of morality and its principle, Häckel is perhaps
seconded only by Seidlitz who says in his "Die Darwin'she Theorie"
("Darwin's Theory"), p. 198: "Rational and moral life consist in the
satisfaction of all physical functions, in correct proportion and relation
to one another. Man is immoral through excessive satisfaction of one
function and through neglect of the others."

As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Carneri also takes a
peculiar position. In reducing all the phenomena of existence, together
with the whole spiritual life of mankind, to a close development of nature
according to the causal law, in expressly grouping also the utterances of
the will of man under this law of an absolute necessity, in fully adopting
Darwin's doctrine as the wholly satisfactory key for the comprehension of
the entire development of nature up to the history of {239} mankind, in
advocating an absolutely monistic determinism and a nearly exclusive
dependence of the efficacy of moral principles on the theoretic cultivation
of the mind, on reasoning and education, he, as before mentioned, stands on
exactly the same ground with materialists and monists among whom he
expressly ranks himself; in the inconsequence with which he makes
concessions to the power of the idea and the ideal over man--concessions
which could never be concluded from a mere immanent process of nature--he
is closely related to Strauss. But it is peculiar that, although entirely
dependent in his reasoning on that monistic view of the world, and that
Darwinian view of nature, he defines his ethical developments and his
reflections on the organizations of human life in a relative independence,
which again separates him as moralist from these before-mentioned monists
and materialists, and rather ranks him, as we have seen in Chap. I, § 4, in
the line of the disciples of Spinoza and Hegel. From this it can also be
explained, how it could happen that in criticisms and reviews of Darwinism
and its literature the standpoint which he takes could find such different
and diametrically opposed expositions. While, for instance, the "Beweis des
Glaubens," in the March number of 1873, thinks that Carneri wishes to seek
on Darwinian ground a new and better basis for morality than we had
heretofore; while Häckel in the preface to the third edition of his
"Natural History of Creation," page XXIX, mentions the publication of
Carneri with the greatest praise, earnestly recommends all theologians and
philosophers to read it, and greets it as the first successful attempt at
applying fruitfully the monistic view {240} of the world, as established by
Darwinism, to the realm of practical philosophy and at showing that the
immense progress of our knowledge of the world caused by the descent theory
has only the most beneficial effect upon the further progressing
development of mankind in practical life;--a criticism in the "Ausland" (8
April, 1872, No. 15), calls the same publication "an attempt at harmonizing
Darwin's hypothesis with the current views of ethics, and at showing that
those doctrines cannot be sustained which result as strictly logical
conclusions from Darwin's theory, and which are opposed to the present
views of morality."

In returning from this digression to Darwinism in its purest form, to
Darwin himself, we have in the first place to resume the discussion entered
upon as to the way and manner in which, according to Darwin,
self-determination is originated. Love and sympathy, moral feeling (with
this definition he seems to point at the consciousness of moral freedom of
will and of responsibility), and conscience, are to him very important
elements of morality; and in the moral disposition of man he sees the
greatest of all differences between man and animal. He also willingly
acknowledges the powerful impulse which morality has from religion, when he
says ("Descent of Man," Vol. II, page 347): "With the more civilized races,
the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing Deity has had a potent
influence on the advance of morality." From these and all his other
deductions, we see that Darwin in no way intends to modify the maxims of
moral action; and if under the expression "reform of morality," with which
we have headed the present chapter, we should understand but {241} a reform
of moral action itself, we should without hesitation have to rank Darwin
with the next group, and not with that of which we now treat; just as in
our review of the position of Darwinism in reference to the religious
question, we had to rank him with those who take a neutral and peaceful
position in reference to religion.

But if he does not touch upon morality in the maxims, he nevertheless comes
forth in the _theory_ of moral action, in the science of morality with
reformatory claims,--namely, with the fact that reduces the whole moral
life to those agencies which are already active in the preceding animalic
stage. It is true, he makes, as we have seen, a distinction in the genetic
derivation of morality. He wholly reduces love and sympathy to social
instincts which man has in common with the animal; and he lets the formal
motives of moral action, sense of duty and conscience, originate through
the high development of intelligence and other spiritual forces, and to be
increased and transmitted by custom and inheritance, if those are present.
But, on the other hand, development of intelligence is to him an exclusive
product of the preceding stage on which it was developed, and thus, in his
opinion, entire morality, notwithstanding that double derivation, certainly
has purely and exclusively the natural basis as its origin. If that is once
the standpoint to which man sees himself led, he has, in order to reason
logically, but a double choice. He must either say that a development out
of a natural basis can possibly be consistent with the appearance of a new
and higher principle, or must give up the autonomy of the moral law, and
leave the moral action of {242} man, even in his maxims, to the unsteady
flowing of development, or even of arbitrariness, and to the degree of
education and intelligence of subjectivity. Neither the one nor the other
is done by Darwin. It is true, on the one hand he shows that modesty, so
often exhibited by him, of the investigator who does not wish to express
any opinion on questions regarding which he has not yet attained a mature
judgment; but on the other hand he also manifests the same aversion to
going beyond purely naturo-historical speculations which, as we have seen
in Part I, Book II, Chapter I, § 1, hindered him from obtaining a clear
conception of the importance of the question as to the origin of
self-consciousness and of moral self-determination, and the same want of
sequence in reasoning, which, as we have found in Chap. III, prevented him
from giving an affirmative or negative decision in such an important
question, as whether a divine end is to be observed in the processes of the
world.

In this naturalization of ethical principles, he is closely related to that
peculiar moral-philosophic tendency in England, which long before Darwin's
appearance, took its origin in John Stuart Mill, but which now, in the
closest connection with Darwin's principles, has its main advocate in
Herbert Spencer, and is commonly called the _utilitarian_ tendency. We
understand by this that conception of the moral motive which allows the
moral good, however it may be ideally separated from the useful in the
developed condition of mankind at the present time, in its origin to be
developed at the outset from the same origin as the useful,--namely, from
the sensation of like and dislike; a theory of utility which Sir John
Lubbock still tried to complete and deepen by {243} the theory of an
inheritance of the sensation of authority. Activities which originally
proved to be only useful, were inherited as traditional instinct by the
offspring, and were thus freed from the sensation of the useful, and acted
as _authority_; this is the origin of _duty_, according to the history of
development. Inasmuch as this philosophic system aims at taking from ethics
the absoluteness of its demands, and at drawing down these demands into the
activities of originating and developing, it is also to be treated of in
this place.

As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Gustav Jäger also stands
nearer to a neutral relation between Darwinism and the hitherto valid
principles. He puts the moral principles the same as the religious, into
the balance of utility to man in his struggle for existence, and finds it
thus easy and to be taken for granted, that the principles of morality, as
they became the common property of mankind as influenced by Christianity,
really prove themselves also the most serviceable to mankind. Social life
is of more benefit to man than hermit life; this reflection leads him to
the moral principle of charity. And as, according to Darwinism, rising
development shows itself in an increasing differentiation and more richly
organized physical development, so the organization of society according to
the principle of the division of work is that form of social life which
proves itself the most practical to man; and this reflection leads him to
the full acknowledgment of the entire ethical organization of human life
and its tasks.

But, as we saw, in treating of the religious question, that nobody, neither
friend nor foe, could possibly be {244} satisfied with the substitution of
the category of utility for that of truth, we are compelled to say in
reference to the ethical question, that a moral principle which, on such a
foundation, has its basis and authority only in its utility, is really no
authority, and loses its value with every individual who is unwilling to
acknowledge its utility and thinks another ground of action may be more
useful than the moral.

       *       *       *       *       * {245}


CHAPTER VI.

NEUTRALITY AND PEACE BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY.

§ 1. _Mivart, Alex. Braun, and Others._

Evidently a real neutrality between the Darwinian theories of development
and the hitherto valid and absolute authority of the moral principle is
possible only, when we deny that the ethical demand is simply a natural
process--although we may perceive its origin within the limits of a natural
process--and when we fail to identify that demand with this process, and do
not deduce it from the latter as its sufficient ground of explanation; but
harmony between the two theories, in spite of all traces of Darwinism in
the scientific parts of anthropology, is possible when we acknowledge the
moral demand, if once present and valid, in its entire and, so to speak,
its metaphysical independence in its full value, far exceeding all natural
necessity.

It is shown by Mivart that such an absolute authority of the ethical
demands, and such an independence of the whole science of morality, may be
brought into accord with the scientific theories of development. In his
book on "The Genesis of Species," he devotes a whole chapter to ethical
questions. He discriminates, in the moral good, between the formal good
(good with consciousness and will of the good) and the {246} material good
(good without consciousness and design), ascribes only the latter to the
animal world in its moral features, and the former exclusively to mankind,
and thus takes ground quite analogous to that held by him on the religious
question, where he includes in the theory of development the physical part
of man, but excludes the intellectual part, with the single qualification
that in the religious question he unnecessarily renders his position more
difficult by designating this intellectual or spiritual part by the term
"soul."

German authorities, who see in Darwinism only a scientific question which
can be solved by means of natural investigation, and who therefore, think
the religious and ethical questions but little affected by it, have
expressed themselves in regard to this neutral position toward morality
still more rarely than as to its neutrality toward religion. The reason for
this is probably that the independence of moral principles and the
absoluteness of their authority entirely result from themselves, as soon as
we have once admitted theism and left room in general for a freedom
standing above natural causality--and perhaps it is due to the further fact
that the realm of the moral is more palpably urged as a reality and
necessity upon even the most indifferent mind than the realm of religion.

On the other hand, we find frequent utterances which _indirectly_ refer to
the ethical realm--for instance, expressions in reference to the ethical
importance of an animal descent of man. Alex. Braun says: "Man _assents_ to
the idea of being appointed _lord_ of the creatures, but then he may also
acknowledge that he is not placed over his subjects as a stranger, but
originated from the {247} beings whose lord he wishes to be. It is not an
unworthy idea, but rather an elevating one, that man constitutes the last
and highest member in the ancient and infinitely rich development of
organic nature on our planet, being connected by the most intimate bonds of
relationship with the other members, as the latter are connected among
themselves with one another: not a pernicious parasite on the tree of
natural life, but the true son of the blissful mother Nature." In reducing
descent, which he accepts, to a development from an _inner_ force, and in
ascribing to the Darwinian selection, with its struggle for existence, the
value only of a regulator (he adopts this term of Wallace as a very
striking one), Braun, in his concluding appeal to young students, calls
especial attention to the ethical importance of a development proceeding
from within, saying: "Life has its outer and its inner side; all its works
and ways must follow mechanical laws, but its tasks and aims belong to a
higher realm. We are permitted to take a glance into this realm through the
all-embracing history of the development of nature, which leads up into our
own inmost being, up to our highest end. Truly progressive development is
the best wish for every youth," etc.

Inasmuch as that in which Alex. Braun finds a satisfaction for the
fulfillment of the ethical tasks--namely, a deeper knowledge of man's
connection with lower nature, and the pointing to the proper tasks of the
development of mankind,--has thus far been the substance of all sound
systems of morality, we did not mention these and similar utterances, of
which we could gather many more from other writers, in the preceding part
of our {248} work--_i.e._, in describing those who ascribe to Darwinism a
reformatory influence upon morality; but we rank these utterances with
those which predict from the descent theory neither injury to morality nor
any especial enlightenment regarding it.

We have now reached the end of that part of our work which considers and
treats of the views of others. To our regret, we have been compelled to
restrict ourselves, in this review, to the countries of the English and
German tongues; the former being the home of Darwin, the latter our own. We
should have preferred to take into our review also the literature of France
and Belgium, Holland and Italy; but we feared being able to give only an
incomplete report. Besides, it is in Germany and Great Britain--and partly
also in North America, related to both in language and origin--where the
Darwinian agitation has taken deepest hold of the mind; and, in restricting
our report to these countries, we are not likely to have omitted any view
essential to the consideration of the present question. It is true that in
the other countries named the Darwinian literature is also rich, and we are
well aware of the incompleteness of our report in that respect. But we
believe that we have not omitted any essential views and evidences, even if
the names of many of their advocates have not been mentioned.

It still remains to us to investigate independently the position of the
Darwinian theories, with their philosophic supplements, in reference to
religion and morality: a task for which we hope to have essentially
prepared the way through the preceding representations and investigations.

       *       *       *       *       * {249}


BOOK II.

ANALYTICAL.

       *       *       *       *       *

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

In treating the _religious_ question, we proceed from the supposition that
religion is concerned not only in this subjective truth of religious
impulse and sensation, but also in the objective truth and reality of its
faith, although it attains these in a different way from natural science. A
religion which should have the authorization of its existence only in
psychology, and which was not allowed to ask whether the object of its
faith also has objective reality, would stand on a weak basis, and its end
would only be a question of time; for an impulse which can only be
psychologically established, and to which no real objective necessity could
correspond, must sooner or later either be proven a psychological error or
be eliminated by progressing culture. On the other hand, if we find a
reconcilableness or an irreconcilableness of Darwin's views with the
objective substance of religion, the possible question as to its
reconcilableness or irreconcilableness with subjective religiousness on the
ground of those results wholly answers itself. In no way, not even in the
most indirect, can we approve that method of book-keeping by which
something can be true in regard to religion and false in regard to science,
or vice-versa; on the contrary, we see {250} in all attempts at healing in
such a way the rupture which at present exists in the minds of so many,
only a more emphatic avowal of that rupture.

In treating of the religious question as it affects the position of
Darwinism in reference to the substance and the objective truth of the
religious faith, without going into a detailed treatment of the question of
the reconcilableness of a purely subjective religiousness with the
Darwinian views, it will be of advantage to speak first of the position of
the Darwinian theories in reference to the basis of all true and sound
religion and religiousness--the _theistic view of the world_. In doing
this, we shall discriminate the purely scientific theories of Darwin from
the philosophic supplements and conclusions which have been given to and
drawn from them, and shall have to consider each of them separately in
connection with the theistic view of the world. If thereby we shall
discover Darwinian views which can be brought into accord with a theistic
view of the world, we shall also, in order to close our investigation, have
to consider them with those parts of the theology of _positive
Christianity_ which can be affected by the Darwinian questions.

In treating the question of the relation of Darwinism to morality, our
investigation can be somewhat abridged, because many of the principal
questions which have to be considered have found their solution in what has
been previously said, and partly also because they will present themselves
in it different form.

The principal division in our discussion we shall most appropriately assign
to ethics, and thus treat first of the position of Darwinism in reference
to the moral principles, and then treat of this in reference to the
concrete {251} moral life. Where the question as to the position of
Darwinism in reference to morality occurs, we shall no longer have to treat
of it separately as to the different aspects of its problems--we should
otherwise get lost in too many repetitions; but we shall only have to
separate an ethical naturalism which supports itself upon Darwinian
grounds, from pure Darwinism, and to treat of each in turn as to its
position in reference to morality.

       *       *       *       *       * {252}


_A. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND RELIGION._

CHAPTER I.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THE THEISTIC VIEW OF THE WORLD.

A. THE POSITION OF PURELY SCIENTIFIC DARWINISM IN REFERENCE TO THEISM.

§ 1. _Scientific Investigation and Theism. The Idea of Creation._

At the very beginning of our investigation, we have to state that the
absolute freedom of scientific investigation lies not only in the interest
of natural science, but just as clearly in the direct interest of religion;
and that every attempt at limiting the freedom of scientific investigation
in a pretended religious interest, can only have its cause in the fullest
misapprehension of that which the religious interest requires. For the
religious view of the world consists in this: that it sees in the universe,
with all its inhabitants and processes, the work of an almighty Creator and
Ruler of the world; and therefore it cannot be unimportant to it, whether
we also have a knowledge of this work, to a certain extent, whether we make
use of the means which lead to the knowledge of the world, {253} and
whether we make progress in the knowledge, or not. The religious view of
the world sees in every correction and enrichment of our scientific
knowledge only a correction and enrichment of our knowledge of the way and
manner of the divine creation and action; and every such correction and
enrichment acts directly as an incitement to religiousness--although,
fortunately for the universal destination of religion, the degree of our
religiousness is not dependent upon the degree of our knowledge of nature.
Therefore, the religious view of the world does not throw any barriers in
the way of scientific investigation; it does not prescribe the route by
which the latter is to reach its aim, and it does not forbid it any
scientific auxiliary means, nor, indeed, any scientific auxiliary
hypothesis, nor does it, so far as the communication of scientific
knowledge is concerned, inquire after the religious or the irreligious
standpoint of those who offer it such knowledge. In all these directions,
it knows of but one requirement: that of exact and correct presentation; in
a word, of but one requirement of _truth_. Real, well-founded, and certain
results of natural science can never come into antagonism with religion;
for precisely the same thing which in the language of natural science is
called natural causal connection, is in that of religion called the way and
manner of divine action and government. Where man has adopted any view, the
proving of which, according to its nature, belongs to natural science, and
natural science should show an error in such a view, he must simply give it
up and surrender the erroneous opinion, that such a view is to form a
constituent part of our religious perception. Just as decidedly, on the
other hand, religion can ask of {254} natural science that it should not
use speculative views of religious character, the proving of which belongs
to the science of religion, for the purpose of scientific generalizations,
in case the science of religion should prove that such views are
antagonistic to the nature and the principles of religion.

Those who, on religious grounds, look with suspicion upon scientific
investigation, are frequently influenced by two erroneous notions, closely
related to one another, without regard to the well-grounded aversion to the
atheistic beauty with which so many scientific works are adorned. One of
these errors is the notion that any object is remote from divine causality
in the degree in which it has the cause of its origin in the natural
connection, and that it would be easier for us to trace the origin of an
object to the authorship of God, if we could not find any natural cause of
its origin, than if we had knowledge of such a natural cause. The other
error is the notion that the idea of "creation" excludes the idea of the
action of secondary causes.

If the first mentioned opinion were correct, those certainly would be right
who identify the progress of sciences with the progress of atheism; and
ignorance would then be the most effective protection of piety. But this
opinion is in direct conflict with all sound religious and scientific
reasoning. It is in conflict with sound religious reasoning: for the
religious view of the world sees in nature itself, with its whole
association of causes and effects, a work of God; and as certainly as,
according to the religious view of nature, a thousand years in the sight of
God are but as yesterday when it is past, just so certainly is an object a
work of {255} God, whether its origin is due to milliards of _well-known_
secondary causes, which all together are works of God--as well with
reference to the laws which they obey as to the materials and forces in
which these laws are active--or whether, when treating the question as to
the immediate cause of its existence, we see ourselves led to an agency
_unknown_ to us. And that opinion is also in conflict with all sound
scientific reasoning: for the fact that we do not have any knowledge of the
immediate cause of a phenomenon, is by no means a proof that this immediate
cause is the direct action of God who does not use any secondary causes;
the phenomena may just as well have still more material or immaterial
secondary causes, unknown to us. We will illustrate the error, referred to,
by an example which will also reveal its relationship to the other error of
which we shall have to speak immediately. It is certainly no evidence of an
especially intensive piety, if we build the conviction that God is the
Creator of man, among other things, on the obscurity in which for us the
origin of mankind is wrapped. For from this obscurity no other conclusion
can be drawn than increased proofs of the limitation of our knowledge; that
piety which traces those phenomena whose natural causes we know, just as
decidedly to the causality of God, is much more--we shall not say,
intensive, but correctly guided--than that piety which traces back those
whose natural causes are hidden to us. And, on the other hand, it is also
no evidence of especial religious coolness or indifference, when we pursue
with interest and the desire of success the attempts at bringing light into
the history of the origin of mankind. He who does the latter can, according
to his religious or {256} irreligious standpoint, just as easily connect
his interest with the hope of an enrichment of his knowledge of the ways
and works of God, as with the hope of a confirmation in his atheistic view
of the world. The reverence with which we stand before the action of God in
those works whose existence is in a higher degree a mystery to us than the
existence of others (for in reality everything is a mystery to us), is
perhaps a little differently modified from the reverence with which we
stand before the action of God in those of his works in the mode of whose
origin we are permitted to get a deeper glance; but each is reverence, and
we can get from both nutriment for our religious nature.

Those who favor the second error--namely, that the idea of creation
excludes the idea of secondary causes--overlook the facts that the idea of
the creation of the universe is essentially different from the idea of the
creation of the single elements of the universe, as, for instance, of the
earth, of the organisms, of man; that the idea of a creation without
secondary causes can only be applied to the origin of the universe in its
elements, forces, and laws, and that the first origin of the single
elements in the world--as of the single planets, organisms, man--not only
admits the action of secondary causes, but even requires and presupposes
the action of conditions. For all single species of beings which have
originated within the already existing world, have also certain elements,
even the whole basis and condition of their existence, in common with that
which was already before in existence; the planet has its elements in
common with the elements of other planets, the organic has the same
material substances as the inorganic, man has {257} the elements and the
organization of his body as well as a great part of his psychical activity
in common with animals. Nothing urges us to suppose--and the analogy of all
that we know even forbids us to suppose--that with the appearance of a new
species of beings, the same matter and the same quality of matter which the
last appearance has in common with the already existing, has each time been
called anew into existence out of nothing. Only that which in the new
species is really new, comes into existence anew with its first appearance.
But we do not even know whether the proximate cause of this new does really
come into existence for the first time, or whether it was not before in
existence in a real, perhaps latent, condition, and is now set free for the
first time. In the one case as in the other, we shall call the new, which
comes into existence, a new creation. And if man thinks that the new only
deserves the name of creation, when it occurs suddenly and at once, where
before only other things were present, like a _deus ex machina_, certainly
such an opinion is only a childlike conception, which becomes childish as
soon as we scientifically reason about the process. It cannot be doubtful
that religious minds which are not accustomed to scientific reasoning, have
such a conception; whether theologians also favor it, we do not know,
although it is possible. Certainly those scientists who intend to attack
the faith in a living Creator and Lord of the world, take it as the wholly
natural, even as the only possible, conception of a Creator and his
creation; and of course it is to them a great and cheap pleasure to become
victorious knights in such a puppet-show view of the conception of
creation. But the source whence Christians derive their {258} religious
knowledge tells them precisely the contrary. The Holy Scripture, it is
true, sees in the entire universe a work of God. But where it describes the
creation of the single elements of the world, it describes at the same time
their creation as the product of natural causes, brought about by natural
conditions. The reader may see, for instance, the words: "And God said, Let
the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, etc. And _the earth
brought forth_ grass and herb," etc. "And God said, Let _the earth bring
forth the living creature_." Even the creation of man is thus related: "And
the Lord God _formed_ man of the dust of the ground." Certainly the forming
presupposes a matter out of which man is formed. And, on the other hand,
where the Bible speaks of single beings in the kingdoms long before created
and perfected, of the individual man who is originated by generation and
birth, of single plants and animals--in general, of single processes and
phenomena in the world long before perfected, of wind and waves, of rain
and flames, which altogether have their natural causes of origin--it speaks
of them all precisely in the same way as when describing their first
creation as works of God. The expressions "create, make, form, cause to
appear," are applied to the single individuals of the kingdoms long before
created, precisely in the same way as they are to the first origin of the
first individuals of those kingdoms.

Thus, by the full freedom which religious interest gives to scientific
investigation, we are well prepared to treat with entire impartiality the
question as to the position of each of the Darwinian theories in reference
to theism. {259}

§ 2. _The Descent Theory and Theism._

In the first part of our investigation, we found that the idea of the
origin of the species, especially of the higher organized species, through
descent from the next related lower ones, has a high degree of probability,
although it is still not proven in a strictly scientific sense, and
although especially the supposition of an often-separated primitive
generation of single types is not excluded by that idea, and we can hardly
suppose that the main types of the animal kingdom are developed out of one
another. Now we are far from asking of _religion_ to decide for itself in
favor of the one or the other mode of conception, or to place its influence
in the one or the other balance-scale of scientific investigations. It
leaves the answering of these questions exclusively to natural science,
knowing beforehand that it will be able to come to an understanding with
the one as well as with the other result of its investigations. But we
confess frankly that it is incomparably _easier_ for us to bring the origin
of the higher groups of organisms in accord with a theistic and
teleological view of the world through descent than the origin of each
single species of organisms through a primitive generation; and we reach
this result especially by the attempt at teleologically perceiving the
palæontological remains of organic life on earth. Theism and teleology see
in the origin of things a striving towards a goal, a rising from the lower
to the higher, a development--it is true a development really taken only in
the ideal sense of an ideal connection, of a plan; or, as K. E. v. Baer, in
1834, in his lecture on the most common law of nature in all development,
expresses {260} himself, of a progressive victory of mind over matter. Such
a plan and its realization we can much more easily conceive when, in the
past genera which geological formations show us, a genealogical connection
takes place between the preceding species and the now living species, than
when each species perished and beside or after it the newly appearing
species always originated out of the inorganic through primitive
generation. In the first case, we see in the preceding a _real_ preparation
for the following, and also easily perceive, the apparent waste of enormous
periods of time for the successive processes of creation. In the second
case, the coming and going of genera in innumerable thousands of years,
without any exterior connection, becomes an incomprehensible problem, and
the striving towards an end according to a regular plan, which we observe
in the development, of the organic kingdoms on earth, disappears completely
in metaphysical darkness.

Precisely because so many advocates of a theistic view of the world have
thought that for the sake of the theistic idea of creation they were
obliged to suppose a primitive origin of all the organic species, and
because, nevertheless, the fact is patent that in the course of the
pre-historic thousands of years myriads of species came and perished, not
to return again, they became liable to the reproach on the part of the
adversaries of theism, that the Creator, as they supposed him, makes
unsuccessful attempts, which he has to throw away, as the potter a
defective vessel, until he finally succeeds in making something durable and
useful; and this objection was and is still made, not only to these
superficial theists and their unhappily-selected and indefensible position,
but to {261} the whole view of the world of theism itself and to the faith
in God and the Creator in general.

For all these reasons, we can from the religious point of view but welcome
the idea of a descent of species. Philologists have, if we are correctly
informed, the canon that as a rule the more difficult text is the more
correct one; but we doubt whether those should adopt this canon who try to
read in the book of nature, whether with the eye of science or with that of
religion--unless the faculty of reasoning is given to us in order to
conceal the truth.

But, we have also to look for a manner of reconciling theism with all the
different possibilities under which a descent is at all reasonable and
conceivable. One of these possibilities is that of an entirely successive
development of species out of one another by imperceptibly small
transitions; and of this we shall soon speak. Another is the possibility of
a descent by leaps, through a metamorphosis of germs or a heterogenetic
generation. The real causes of such a heterogenetic generation, if it took
place at all, have not yet been found; therefore we have to treat only of
the abstract possibilities of its conceivableness. There are two such
possibilities.

The birth of a new species took place in one of two ways: Either to those
materials and forces which formed the germ of the new species, were added
entirely new metaphysical agencies which did not exist before, and only the
basis and the frame within which the new appeared, or that which the new
species has in common with the old mother-species had the cause of its
existence in the preceding. Likewise even the original productions {262} of
man are always composed of two factors--of the given pre-suppositions and
conditions, and of the new which on their basis and within their frame
comes into existence. Otherwise the causes of the new which was to
originate already lay in all former stages, but were still latent and still
hindered in their activity, and only at the time of the birth the new
impulse came which set them free for their activity. This new impulse may
very well belong to the causal connection of the universe, and be caused by
something analogous to natural selection.

In the first case, which in its application to the origin of man is adopted
by A. R. Wallace and Karl Snell, the reconciliation between descent and
theism has not the least difficulty; for if the agency which in the
new-appearing species produces that which is specifically new in it, came
only into existence with the first formation of the germs of the new
species in the mother-species, this new certainly cannot have its origin
anywhere else than in the supermundane _prima causa_ in the Creator and
Lord of the world.

In the second case also, theism is in no way threatened. For if we have to
refer the cause of a new phenomenon in the world so far back as even to the
beginning and the first elements of all things, we nevertheless have to
arrive at last at the cause of all causes; and this is the living God, the
Creator and Lord of the world. Thus the new form of existence would anyhow
have the cause of its existence in God; and the value, the importance, and
the substance of its existence, would only commence from where it really
made its appearance, and not from where its still latent causes existed. As
little as we attribute to the just fecundated {263} egg of man the value of
man, although we know that under the right conditions the full man is to be
developed out of it, just so little in accordance with that view would the
differences of value within the created world be dissolved in a mass of
atoms or potencies of a similar value. Neither should we have to fear that
from such a theory cold deism would be substituted for our theism, full of
life. For as certainly as theism does not exclude, but includes, all that
is relative truth in deism, so certainly the supposition that the Creator
had laid the latent causes of all following creatures in the first germs of
the created, would also not exclude the idea of a constant and omnipotent
presence of the Creator in the world. Undoubtedly it belongs to our most
elementary conceptions of God, that we have to conceive his lofty position
above time, not as an abstract distance from finite development, but, as an
absolute domination over it; so that for God himself, who creates time and
developments in time, there is no dependence on the temporal succession of
created things, and it is quite the same to him whether he instantly calls
a creature into existence, or whether he prepares it in a short space of
time, or years, or in millions of years. In this idea we also find the only
possible and simple solution of the before-mentioned problem of a timeless
time which Fr. Vischer wishes to propose to philosophy.

§ 3. _The Evolution Theory and Theism._

In speaking of an evolution theory, in distinction from the descent theory,
we mean, as is evident from the first part of our work, that way and mode
of {264} constructing the doctrine of the descent of species which permit
this descent to take place, not by the leaps of a metamorphosis of germs,
but by transitions so imperceptably small that the difference of two
generations which lie in the same line of descent, is never greater than
those differences which always take place between parents and children of
the same species--transitions so gradual that only the continuation of
these individual changes in a single direction produces an increase and,
finally and gradually, the new species. The treatment of the question as to
what position this _evolution theory_ takes regarding theism, is even more
simple than answering the question as to the position of the descent idea
in reference to theism.

For now we have no longer to discuss the different possibilities of a
development, as heretofore we have discussed those of a descent, but only
the idea of a gradual development or of an evolution in general. Of such
possibilities, it is true, we find several. In the first place, we can look
for the inciting principle of the development of species either in the
interior of organisms, or we can see it approaching the latter from
without. The only scientific system which has made any attempt at
mentioning and elaborating the inciting principle of development is that of
Darwin; a system that chooses the second of the alternatives just stated
and sees the essential principle that makes the transmission of individuals
a progress beyond one species, approaching the individuals from without.
But while we shall have to treat of this specific Darwinian theory--the
selection theory--still more in detail in the following section, we shall
also there have to point, out {265} everything that theism has to say in
reference to a principle of development which approaches the organisms from
without. Another possible explanation of the origin of species through
development is to be found in the fact that we look for the inciting
principle of development in the interior of organisms. This is done, so far
as we know, by all those scientists who, although inclined to an evolution
theory, are adversaries of the selection theory; but none of them claim to
have found the inciting agencies of development. Thus, as in the preceding
section, we are again referred only to the wholly abstract possibility of
conceiving these inciting agencies either as coming into existence anew in
the organism with each smallest individual modification which leads to a
development of the species, or as being before present in the organisms,
but still latent, and only coming into activity when they are set free. But
the question whether theism could accept the one or the other possibility
had to be treated of in the preceding section, and was there answered in
the affirmative.

Thus it only remains to treat in general of the question as to the
reconcilableness of the idea of the origin of species through evolution,
through gradual development, _in general_ with a theistic view of the
world.

In the first place, we wish to render evident the fact which is so often
overlooked by the friends of monism and still more by theistic adversaries
of the idea of evolution, that the idea of a development of species, and
also of man, does not offer to theistic reasoning any new or any other
difficulties than those which have been long present, and which had found
their solution in the religious consciousness long before any idea of
evolution disturbed the {266} mind. It is true, the question as to the
origin of _mankind_ is, to speak in the language of natural history, a
still unsolved _problem_; and the supposition of its gradual development
out of the animal kingdom is still an _hypothesis_--one of all those
attempts at solving this problem which still wait for confirmation or
refutation. But there is another quite analogous question whose position
has long ceased to be a mere problem, and whose solution is no longer a
mere hypothesis; namely, the question as to the origin of the perfect human
or any other organic _individual_. To speak again in the language of
natural history, this origin is no longer a problem--that is, without
regard to the obscurity in which the existence and origin of every
creature, as to its last causes, is always and will always be veiled for
us. We know that the human, and, in general, every organic individual,
becomes that which it is through _development_. It begins the course of its
being with the existence of a single cell, the egg, and goes through all
stages of this development by wholly gradual and imperceptible transitions,
so that the precise moment cannot exactly be fixed when any organ, any
physical or psychical function, comes into existence, until perfect man is
_developed_. Man has this mode of coming into existence in common with all
organized beings, down to the lowest organisms which stand above the value
and rank of a single cell. At this place, and with the design of our
present discussion in view, we ought not to render the importance of this
fact obscure by a teleological comparison of the different eggs and germs
with one another. If we look upon that which is to _come out_ of the germs,
and which certainly if prepared and present in the first vital functions of
the {267} germ, although we are not able to observe, prove, and estimate it
by means of the microscope and the retort, then of course the difference in
the value of the germs must be immense; and from this point of view we
certainly look upon the germ of man differently than upon the germ of an
oyster. But here the question is not as to the differences of value of
organisms: no scientist who remains within the limits of his realm, will
ever deny them; but we treat of the question whether such valuable objects
come into existence suddenly or gradually--whether it is possible, or even
a fact which repeats itself before our eyes, that a form of being of higher
value comes forth from a form of being of a lower value in gradual
development. And here it is an undisputed fact that all qualities of man,
the physical as well as the spiritual, come into existence in such a
gradual development that not in a single one of them can be fixed any
moment of which it may be said: on the other side of this moment it did not
exist, but on this side it did exist. All differentiations of his body,
from the first differentiation of the egg-cell into a complexity of cells
up to the last formation of his organs, take place in the same gliding
development. All his psychical and spiritual functions and forces come into
existence in this form of gradual development. Where, in the development of
the human individual, is the moment in which consciousness, language,
self-consciousness, memory, will, the perception of God, moral
responsibility, the perception of the idea and the ideal, or whatever else
we may mention, came into existence? Nowhere; all this, and all the rest,
is developed in a gradual process. The only marked time in this development
is the time of birth: {268} it brings a great change into physical life,
and is perhaps the beginning epoch of the spiritual development of man. But
even the birth is not absolutely bound to a certain time; the child may be
born too early, by weeks or even months, and its development nevertheless
takes place; and even after birth, how slowly and gradually spiritual
development begins and continues!

With this gradual process of individual development which we have long
known, we have never found any difficulty in bringing two things into
harmony. First, we always judged the value of the single qualities of man
only in the proportion in which they were really present and came into
existence, and in such a way that we entirely followed the flowing
development of the individual. Therefore we looked upon the suckling, for
instance, not at all as a morally responsible individual; upon the child of
two years as more responsible, but to a far less degree than the child of
school-age, and the latter again to a less degree than the man; and thus we
have been long accustomed to reason, when looking upon all single qualities
of man. Second, we did not find any difficulty in bringing into perfect
harmony the idea of a gradual process of individual development and of the
dependence of the latter on a complex totality of natural causes: with the
idea of the absolute dependence on God, the Creator, of that which arose
through development. Every religiously reasoning man has always looked upon
himself as the child of his parents, gradually developed under the activity
of complex natural causes, as well as the creature of God, that owes the
existence of all its forces and parts of body and soul to God. Should it
then, be so difficult, or is it only {269} something new, to bring into
harmony, when looking upon the entire species and genus, that which we were
long ago able to bring into harmony when looking upon the individual--it
being presupposed that the investigation leads us to a development of the
entire species and genus similar to that of the individual development? Or
have we here again to ask, as in § 1: is it more religious to make no
attempt at removing the veil which covers the natural process of the origin
of mankind, than to make it? It is true, the not knowing anything can,
under certain circumstances, create and increase the sensation of reverence
for the depth of divine power and wisdom; but a perception of the ways of
God is also certainly able to create the same. On that account, we need not
at all fear that by such an attempt and its eventual success we might get
into the shallows of superficiality, to which nothing seems any longer to
be hidden, only because it has no presentiment of the depths which are to
be sounded. There will always remain enough of the mysterious and the
uninvestigated, and each new step forward will only lead to new views, to
new secrets, to new wonders.

But does not a development, like that which we here for the moment assume
hypothetically, efface and destroy the specific value of man and mankind
from still another side? Would not a _beginning_ of mankind be really lost,
in case that theory of evolution should gain authority? and would not there
still lie between that which is decidedly called animal world and that
which is decidedly called mankind an innumerable series of generations of
beings which were neither animal nor man? We do not believe it. What makes
man _man_, {270} we can exactly point out: it is self-consciousness and
moral self-determination. Now, in case development took place in the above
sense, it may have passed ever so gradually; the epochs of preparation
between that which we know as highest animal development and that which
constitutes the substance of man, may have stretched over ever so many
generations, and, if the friends of evolution desire it, we say over ever
so many thousands of generations; yet that which makes man
_man_--self-consciousness and moral self-determination--must have always
come into actual reality in _individuals_. Those individuals in which
self-consciousness came into existence and activity, for the first time,
and with it the entire possibility of the world of ideas--the consciousness
of moral responsibility, and with it also the entire dignity of moral
self-determination--were the first men. The individuals which preceded the
latter may have been ever so interesting and promising as objects of
observation, if we imagine ourselves spectators of these once supposed
processes; yet, they were not men.

§ 4. _The Selection Theory and Theism._

The last scientific theory whose position in reference to theism we have to
discuss, is the selection theory.

We have found but little reason for sympathizing with this theory. But
since we believed that we were obliged to suspect it, not for religious but
for scientific reasons, so the completeness of our investigation requires
us to assume hypothetically that the selection principle really manifests
itself as the only and exclusive principle of the origin of species, and to
ask now what position it would in such a case take in reference to theism.
{271}

The only answer we are able to give is decidedly favorable to theism.

It is true, development would in such a case approach the organisms merely
from without. For the principle lying within the organisms, which would
then be the indispensable condition of all development, would be first the
principle in itself, wholly without plan or end, of individual variability;
second, the principle of inheritance which for itself and without that
first principle is indeed no principle of development, but the contrary.
The causes from which the single individuals vary in such or such a way,
would then be the outer conditions of life and adaptation to them: _i.e._,
something coming from without. And the causes from which one individual,
varying in such or such a way, is preserved in the struggle for existence,
and another, varying differently, perishes, would be approaching the
individuals also from without; hence they are a larger or smaller useful
variation for the existence of the individual.

Now if, through these influencing causes of development, approaching the
most simple organisms from without, a rising line of higher and higher
organized beings comes finally into existence (a line in which sensation
and consciousness, finally self-consciousness and free-will, appear) we
again reach the teleological dilemma: all this has either happened by
chance, or it has not. No man who claims to treat this question earnestly
and in a manner worthy of respect, will assert that it happened by chance,
but by necessity. But with this word the materialist only hides or avoids
the necessity of supposing a plan and end in place of chance, as we have
convinced ourselves in Part I, Book II, Chap. II, § 1. {272} The only
exception in this case is, that the bearer and agent of this plan would not
be the single organism (as is easily possible when we accept a descent
theory which is more independent from the selection theory), but the
collection of all forces and conditions, acting upon the organism from
without. And for the question, whence this plan and its realization comes,
we had again but the one answer: from a highest intelligence and
omnipotence, from the personal God of theism. The _locus_ of creation and
the _locus_ of providence would now, as ever, retain their value in the
theological system, with the sole exception that most of that which so far
belonged to the _locus_ of creation would now belong, in a higher degree
than in the hitherto naturo-historical view, to the _locus_ of providence
and of the government of the world. When looked upon from the theocentric
point of view, the new forms which we had to suppose as called into
existence only by selection, would remain products of divine creation: the
"God said, and it was so," would retain its undiminished importance; but
looked upon from the cosmic point of view, they would present themselves as
products of the divine providence and government of the world, still more
exclusively than in every principal of explanation which finds the causes
of development in the organisms themselves or in an immaterial cause acting
upon the organisms from within. The first as well as the second point of
view is in full harmony with the religious view of things.

We do not conceal that on the ground of all other analogies we sympathize
more with those who look for the determining influences of the origin of
new species rather within than without nature, and who, while {273} looking
at that which the higher species have in common with the lower, do not
forget or neglect the new, the original, which they possess. But we are
indeed neither obliged nor entitled, in the name of religion, to take
beforehand in the realm of scientific investigation the side of the one or
the other direction of investigation, or even of the one or the other
result of investigation, before it is arrived at. Let us unreservedly allow
scientists free investigation in their realm, so long as they do not meddle
with ethical or religious principles, and quietly await their results.
These results, when once reached, may correspond ever so closely with our
present view and our speculative expectations, or in both relations be ever
so surprising and new; the one case as well as the other has already
happened: at any rate they will not affect our religious principles, but
only enrich our perception of the way and manner of divine activity in the
world, and thereby give new food and refreshment, to our religious life.

       *       *       *       *       *


A. THE DARWINISTIC PHILOSOPHEMES IN THEIR POSITION REGARDING THEISM.

§ 5. _The Naturo-Philosophic Supplements of Darwinism and Theism._

We still have to discuss the position of theism in reference to the
_philosophic_ problems to which a Darwinistic view of nature sees itself
led, and in the first place its position in reference to the
naturo-philosophic theories with which the descent idea tries to complete
itself.

In the first part of our book, we have found that not {274} a single one of
the naturo-philosophic problems before which the descent idea places us, is
really solved: neither the origin of self-consciousness and of moral
self-determination, nor the origin of consciousness and of sensation, nor
the origin of life; and even the theory of atoms, although it is quite
important and indispensable for the natural philosopher and chemist
according to the present state of his knowledge and investigation, has not
yet been able to divest itself of its hypothetical character. Religion
might, therefore, refuse to define its position in reference to theories
which are still of a quite problematic and hypothetical nature. But by
giving such a refusal, religion would not act in its own interest. The
reproach is often made that it has an open or hidden aversion to the
freedom of scientific investigation--a reproach which, it is true, is often
enough provoked by its own advocates; often the assertion is made by
advocates of free investigation, that free science has led, or can lead at
any moment, to results which shake or even destroy theism and with it the
objective and scientifically established truth of a religious view of the
world. The consequence of this assertion is exactly, as before-mentioned,
that minds whose religious possession is to them an inviolable sanctuary,
and who lack time and occasion, inclination and ability, to examine
scientifically these asserted results of science, really suspect free
science and contest the right of its existence. Another consequence of this
state of war between religion and science is the fact that so many minds in
both camps fall into a servile dependence upon battle-cries: they confound
freedom of investigation with license; science with apathy or {275}
hostility to faith; faith with lack of scientific perception, blind
unreasoning belief, etc. Such a state of affairs does not, indeed, serve
the interests of peace and truth; only a correct treatment of philosophy as
well as of religion can lead to them.

Such a way of peace and truth from the side of religion and its scientific
treatment is entered upon, when religion sets itself right, not only with
all real, but also with all _conceivable_, _possible_ results of the other
sciences, not only of the exact, but also of the philosophic sciences. If
it finds, in such an investigation, that such conceivable results are
reconcilable with the theistic view of the world which is the basis of
religion, it has already shown its relationship to the freedom of
investigation. But if it finds anywhere a possible result which is in
conflict with its theistic view of the world, it is obliged to examine the
mutual grounds of dissent, as to the degree of their truth and their power
of demonstration; and in case its own position is the stronger, better
founded, and more convincing, to prove this fact. If it does this, it again
acts according to the principle of free investigation--with the single
difference that in such a case it not only makes this allowance to the
opponent, but also uses this principle for itself in its own realm and
especially in the border land between itself and its opponent; but at the
same time it shows in this case (what, indeed, so many are inclined to
deny), that religion also has its science, and that theology itself is this
science, and has the same rights as the sciences which are built up in the
realm of material things or of abstract reasoning.

We therefore assume hypothetically, that the origin {276} of
self-consciousness and of moral self-determination is fully explained by
consciousness; the origin of consciousness and sensation by that which has
no sensation; the origin of the living and organic by the lifeless and
inorganic; and that atomism also is scientifically established and proven:
how, then, would such a theory of the world and theism stand in respect to
each other? By this assumption, we think we should simply stand again at
the point, the basis of which we had to discuss in Part I, Book II, Chap.
II, § 1, when treating of teleology. We should always see something new,
something harmoniously arranged: a process of objects of value, continually
rising higher and higher, coming forth out of one another in direct causal
connection; and should have a choice of one of two ways of explaining this
process. We should either have to be satisfied with this final causal
connection, and perceive in this process itself its highest and last cause,
in doing which we should be obliged again to deny order and plan in this
process, to reject the category of lower and higher and the acknowledgment
of a striving towards an end in these developments, and after having
climbed to that Faust-height of investigation and knowledge, to throw
ourselves in spiritual suicide back into the night and barbarism of chaos,
or of a rigid mechanism to which all development, all life, all spiritual
and ethical tasks, are but appearance; or we should have to treat the idea
of development seriously and recognize a plan and a striving towards an end
in this world-process, and should then find ourselves referred to a higher
intelligence and a creative will as the highest and last cause which
appoints the end and conditions of this process. This would be the case
still more, as we actually {277} see that at present the single beings
which stand on a lower stage of existence no longer produce beings of a
higher stage, although, according to that theory whose correctness we now
assume hypothetically, the elements and factors for the production of those
higher forms of existence are fully present in the lower ones. Inorganic
matter no longer produces organisms; the lower species of plants or animals
no longer develop higher ones; the animal no longer becomes man; and yet
there were periods, lying widely apart, in which, according to that theory,
such things took place. What else set free those active causes, at the
right time and in the right place? What else closed again at the precise
place and moment the valves of the proceeding development, and brought to
rest again the inciting force of the rising development?--what else but the
highest end-appointing intelligence and omnipotence?

Even the inherent qualities of the elements, and the products of all the
higher forms of existence which in the future shall arise out of them, the
whole striving toward an end of the processes in the world, would present
itself to us much more vividly than now, where we are still in the dark as
to all these questions. We should see in _atoms_ the _real_ inherent
qualities of all things and processes which are to be developed out of
them; in the inorganic the _real_ inherent qualities for the organic and
living; in that which has no consciousness and sensation the _real_
inherent qualities for self-consciousness. Instead of being now obliged to
recur to the ideal and metaphysical, we should see the threads of the
world's plan uncovered before us in empirical reality; and far from bearing
with it an impoverishment of our {278} consciousness of God, all this would
bring us only an immense enrichment of its contents; for with such an
enlargement of our knowledge, we should only be permitted to take glances
into the way and manner of divine creation and action--glances of a depth
which at present we are far from being permitted to take.

Even very concrete parts of a theistic view of the world, as they present
themselves to us--_e.g._, in the Holy Scripture, from its most developed
points of view--would now find only richer illustrations than heretofore.
St. Paul, for instance, in Rom. viii, speaks of the earnest expectation of
the creature that waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. As to
the present state of our knowledge of nature, those who adopt this view are
only entitled to see in the sensation of pain of the _animal world_ a
sensation of this longing, unconscious of the end; but as to all soulless
and lifeless beings and elements in the world, they can see in these words
of a sighing and longing creation only a strong figurative expression used
because of its suitableness to denote suffering of the animal world, as
well as of men,--for the destination of the world to another and higher
existence in which the law of perishableness and suffering no longer
governs. On the other hand, if, as we assume hypothetically, all higher
forms of existence in the world could be explained out of the preceding
lower ones, and if the before-mentioned theorem of a sensation of atoms
should form a needed and correct link in that chain of explanation, those
words of sighing and longing would have to be literally taken in a still
more comprehensive sense than now and in their directly literal meaning
{279} would refer not only to the animal world but indeed to everything in
the world.

Therefore, so long as attempts at explaining the different forms of
existence in the world wholly from one another keep within their own
limits, and do not of themselves undermine theism; and so long as there are
men who on the one hand favor such a mode of explanation and on the other
hand still adhere firmly to a faith in God, whether it be the deeper theism
or the more shallow and superficial deism--so long religion has no reason
for opposing those attempts at explanation. And there are such men; we need
only to mention Huxley, whose position in reference to religion we have
already discussed; or Oskar Peschel, who, in his "Völkerkunde"
("Ethnology"), says: "It is not quite clear how pious minds can be
disturbed by this theory; for creation obtains more dignity and importance
if it has in itself the power of renewal and development of the perfect."
Even Herbert Spencer, with his idea of the imperceptibility of the
super-personal, of the final cause of all things, is still a living proof
of the fact that man can trace the mechanism of causality back to its last
consequences and, as Spencer does, even derive consciousness and sensation
from that which is without sensation, and yet not necessarily proceed so
far as _negation_ of a living God, even if he persists in his refusal to
perceive in general the ultimate cause of things.

To meet those attempts, religion would have to take only two precautionary
measures on two closely related points; and in doing this it would indeed
make use of that before-mentioned right to defend freedom of {280}
investigation both in its own realm and in the border-territory.

One precaution would consist in the requirement of the acknowledgment that
even in that purely immanent mode of explanation the _idea of value is
fixed_, but that the value of the new appears only when the new itself
really comes into existence; that we therefore do not call, _e.g._, the
inorganic _living_, because according to that mode of explanation life
develops itself out of it; and that we do not ascribe to the animal the
value of man, because according to that mode of explanation it also
includes the causes of the development of man. Such a discrimination of
ideas is indeed a _scientific postulate_, as we have had occasion to show
at many points of our investigation; and we also complied with this
requirement long ago in that realm of knowledge which is related to these
questions as to the origin of things, but is more accessible and open to
us, namely, in the realm of the development of the individual. We have
spoken of this at length in § 3. But in the interest of _religion_ also we
have to request that the _differences of value_ of things be retained, even
when man thinks he is able to explain their origin merely out of one
another. For without this, all things would finally merge simply into
existences of like value; man would stand in no other relation to God than
would any other creature, irrational or lifeless; and the quintessence of
religious life--the relation of mutual personal love between God and man,
the certainty of being a child of God--would be illusory when there should
no longer be a difference of value between man and animal, animal and
plant, plant and stone. {281}

Many a reader thinks, perhaps, that with this precaution we make a
restriction which is wholly a matter of course, and that nobody would think
of denying these differences of value. Häckel, in his "Anthropogeny,"
repeatedly reproaches man with the "arrogant anthropocentric imagination"
which leads him to look upon himself as the aim of earthly life and the
centre of earthly nature; this, he says, is nothing but vanity and
haughtiness. Several writers in the "Ausland" faithfully second him in this
debasement of the value of man. Its editor ("Ausland," 1874, No. 48, p.
957), for instance, reproaches Ludwig Noiré, although he otherwise
sympathizes with him, that in his book "Die Welt als Entwicklung des
Geistes" ("The World as Development of Mind"), Leipzig, Veit & Co., 1874,
he still takes this anthropocentric standpoint and can say: "The
anthropocentric view recognizes in man's mind the highest bloom of matter,
which has attained to the possession of a soul." This, Häckel says, is
nothing else but the former conception, not yet overcome, that man is the
crown of creation. This pleasure in debasing the value of man is also a
characteristic sign of the times. K. E. von Baer is right, when, in his
"Studies" (page 463), he says: "In our days, men like to ridicule as
arrogant the looking upon man as the end of the history of earth. But it is
certainly not man's merit that he has the most highly developed organic
form. He also must not overlook the fact that with this his task of
developing more and more his spiritual gifts has only begun.... Is it not
more worthy of man to think highly of himself and his destination, than,
fixing his attention only upon the low, to {282} acknowledge only the
animalic basis in himself? I am sorry to say that the new doctrine is very
much tainted in this direction of striving after the low. I should rather
prefer to be haughty than base, and I well recollect the expression of
Kant, 'Man cannot think highly enough of man.' By this expression the
profound thinker especially meant that mankind has to set itself great
tasks. But the modern views are more a palliation of all animal emotions in
man."

The other precautionary measure referred to would be, that the _realm of
mind_, and especially the _ethical realm_, is not dissolved into a _natural
mechanism_. This precaution is also connected with the first one, the
latter being its condition; for only where it is acknowledged that causes,
so long as they are still latent, do not fall under the same category of
value as their effects, when these are once realized, it can also be
acknowledged that the realm of mind and morality, although it has grown out
of the ground of the mechanism of nature, can still have brought something
new and higher into the world. Besides, this precaution is also a postulate
of anthropologic science. For spiritual and ethical facts have at least the
same truth and reality as the material, and a still higher value, and can
therefore not permit any injury to their full recognition. But religion
also must require this acknowledgment. For if the specific _activity_ of
mind in man is endangered, we also lose his specific _value_, and thus get
into the before-mentioned dilemma; and if the moral responsibility of man
is endangered, the relation of man to God loses its ethical character. Of
the consequences in reference to morality, we shall have to speak
hereafter. {283}

Moreover, religion does not require this acknowledgment without a rich
compensation. For if that naturo-philosophic mode of explanation, whose
correctness we hypothetically assume in this present section, prove to be
right, and if the higher which comes anew into existence in the world, is
to have the full cause of its origin in the preceding lower, such an
admission, in accordance with the laws of logic, by which _causa æquat
effectum_, is only possible when we either similarly, as above, invalidate
all difference between higher and lower, all difference of value of
creatures, and contest the possibility that that which appears anew can
also follow new laws of existence and activity; or when, in the highest
cause of all final causes in the world, we see the full abundance of all
those possibilities present as real cause, which afterwards appear in
succession in the world. This highest cause, then, lodges in material
things the final causes of all which is to come, as still latent causes,
waiting to be set free; and such a highest cause as the fullness of all
that which is successively to be developed in the world, is offered to
science by religion itself in the idea of a living God. We say expressly,
that religion offers this idea to science, and not that science creates
this idea; for the acknowledgment of God, as we have before had occasion to
point out, is in the last instance not a result of science, but an ethical
action of mind,--although from this acknowledgment the brightest light
falls upon science and the whole series of its conclusions, and although
science owes to precisely this idea of God the highest points of view to
which it sees itself led and from which alone it is able to survey its
entire realm. {284}

§ 6. _Elimination of the Idea of Design or its Acknowledgment and Theism._

In the whole preceding course of our investigation as to the position of
religion and theism regarding the different scientific and
naturo-philosophic theories, theism could quietly keep the position of a
friendly and peaceful spectator. The degrees of our sympathy with the
theories which have successively passed before our eyes, were on scientific
grounds very unequal; but on religious grounds, and in the interest of a
theistic view of the world, we found ourselves nowhere induced to take
sides for or against a theory. But the position of religion and theism
becomes quite different in reference to the assertion that the existence of
ends and designs in nature is refuted by the evolution theory or by any
other hypothetical or real results of science. With this assertion, the
existence of a living and personal God, of a Creator and Lord of the world,
is denied; and every religion which claims objective truth for its basis is
eliminated. It is true, man can under this supposition still speak of a
religion in the sense of subjective religiousness; but the life-nerve is
also cut off from this subjective religiousness. We have repeatedly had
occasion to prove this in our historical review, and also in the section in
which we pointed out the plan of our own analysis.

But still, where we have had to represent this anti-teleological view of
the world, we have happily convinced ourselves of the fact that an
existence of ends and designs in nature is not only _reconcilable_ with the
conformity to law and the causal mechanism of its processes, but is {285}
also _postulated_ by scientific contemplation of nature, as soon as the
latter observes that in these processes, acting with lawful necessity,
something in general is attained, and, moreover, when out of them comes
forth something so infinitely rich and beautifully arranged, such a rising
series of higher and higher developments, as the world. On the other hand,
combatting the striving towards an end in nature leads to such scientific
monstrosities, destroys so thoroughly the idea of God and also all ideas of
value in the world, even all spiritual and ethical acquisitions of mankind,
that we can explain the origin of such a doctrine only by the determined
purpose of getting rid, at any cost, of the dependence on a living God:
again a proof of the fact that faith, or want of faith, in its final
causes, is not the product of reflecting intelligence, but an ethical
action of that centre of human personality from which the spiritual process
of life in the individual comes forth--an ethical action of mind.

Herewith the position of theism in reference to the elimination of the idea
of design is also soon characterized: it is _the position of irreconcilable
antagonism_. In rejecting the position of its opponent, theism perceives
that it is in harmony not only with every correctly understood religious
need, but equally so with every scientific interest--with the interest of a
correct knowledge of nature, as well as with the interest of those sciences
which have to take care of and try to understand the spiritual and ethical
endowments of mankind.

If we now turn our attention to the _position of theism in reference to the
idea of design in general_, theism on its part also gives an equally firm
support to that intimate connection, proven by natural science, between
causality {286} and striving toward an end--between actiology and
teleology, as they are called in the language of the philosophical school.
While a contemplation of nature perceives in nature a mechanism governed by
laws and necessities, it finds results reached through this chain of
causality in which it must acknowledge ends toward which the preceding has
striven. Now, theism, on its part, proceeds from the highest end-appointing
cause of things and processes, and finds that the reaching of these ends
postulates a mechanism of natural conformity to law. In order to prove
this, we certainly must take a course which is prohibited by many as
anthropomorphism, _i.e._, we must try to study the connection of ends and
designs, and the possibility of such a connection where we are able to
observe in general not only the _accomplishment_ of purposes, but also the
_forming_ of purposes; and the only realm of this kind which we know of, is
the realm of human action. He who, merely through fear of anthropomorphism,
shrinks from this only possible comparison, may consider that for those who
assume a highest end-appointing cause (and we, too, proceed from this
standpoint) man also, who forms his designs and strives toward his ends, is
a product of that highest end-appointing cause; and that, therefore, in the
human striving toward an end, a certain analogue of the divine striving
toward an end must occur. We are, indeed, not obliged on this account to
identify the two, and to close our eyes against the immense differences
which exist between them, and which, wholly of themselves, intrude upon our
observation. What we mean by that analogy may thus be stated.

Man forms for himself designs and ends, and pursues {287} and reaches them
by using the objects and forces of nature as means. He can do this only
because the forces in nature act from necessity, strictly conformable to
law. Because, and so far as man knows the action of forces, conformable to
law, and the inviolable necessity of the connection between certain causes
and their effects, he can select and make use of such causes as means, by
virtue of which he reaches those effects as designs intended by him. If he
could not depend on this conformity to law, on this causal connection
taking place according to simple necessities, he could not select, make,
and use, with certainty, any tool, from the club with which he defends
himself against his enemies or cracks the shells of fruit, up to the finest
instruments of optics and chemistry, and even to the telegraph and steam
engine. The conformity to law, with which the forces of nature act, far
from being an impediment to his appointing and reaching his ends is much
more the indispensable means by which he is enabled in general to reach
them. Now, if we thus find, in the only action striving towards an end
which we are able to observe to the extent of the appointing of ends and
the selection of means--namely, man's end appointing action--such a strong
dependence of finality on causality that the reaching of ends is not
possible at all unless the means act of necessity conformably to law, then
we are certainly obliged to draw the conclusion that the highest author of
things has prepared the world so, that the reaching of ends requires the
action of means, and that the category of finality and the category of
causality are mutually prepared for each other. For, according to the
theistic and teleological view of the world, the {288} laws of nature,
acting with causality and necessity, are certainly not laws which the
Creator found in some way, and with which he had to calculate as with
factors given to him from somewhere else, in order to make use of them, so
far as he was permitted, for the accomplishment of his designs--this would
be the way and manner of _human_ teleological action, and transferring it
to _divine_ action would be an anthropomorphism which we should have to
reject. On the contrary, these laws themselves are the work of the
teleologically acting Creator--he, indeed, will have given to them such a
quality that with them he is able to reach his ends as a whole and in
detail. The inviolability of the laws of nature also results from this
idea. For means which would have to be supplemented, sometimes set aside,
occasionally replaced by others, would be less perfect than such means as
by virtue of their quality are able with certainty to serve the designs
which are to be reached by them. How theism can reconcile with this view
the indispensable idea of divine freedom, we shall have occasion to show in
Chap. II, § 4.

Among the writers who defend teleology, we can mention two who, starting
from the analogy of human teleological action, have pointed out the idea
that teleology itself requires a necessity, conformable to law, in the
activity of the forces of nature. One of the two is K. E. von Baer, in his
oft-quoted essays on striving towards end; and the other is the Duke of
Argyll. At a time when the assault against teleology had just begun, this
noble author perceived the whole importance and weight of these attacks,
and most energetically defended teleology. The expression of the
just-mentioned ideas, {289} among others, forms one of the fundamentals of
his work, "The Reign of Law" (London, Strahan & Co., first edition
published in 1866, and since then in frequently repeated editions); a work
which is well fitted to instruct us, in the most interesting manner,
regarding the present state of the related questions as they are treated of
in Great Britain.

       *       *       *       *       * {290}


CHAPTER II.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

§ 1. _The Creation of the World._

Now that we have come to a clear understanding of the position of the
Darwinian theories in reference to the basis of all religion and of all
living religiousness, to theism in general, it remains to be seen what
position those of the theories which are reconcilable with theism take in
reference to the positive Christian view of the world.

We naturally omit all those objects and parts of Christian dogmatics which
have no points of contact, or are very indirectly connected with the
Darwinian ideas, or which--as, _e.g._, their position in reference to the
idea of God in general--have found their principal illustration in our
investigation just finished. We shall nevertheless have now to take into
consideration once more, although from another side, some objects which we
have discussed in treating of the relation of the Darwinian ideas to
theism, on account of the specific part which theism has in Christianity.
This is especially the case with those Christian facts which belong to the
first article of the Apostolic Creed, and immediately also with the
doctrine of the creation of the world. {291}

At first sight it seems that the evolution theory and Christianity are in
no other place more sharply opposed to each other than in that of the
history of creation. Darwinism claims for its theory immense periods of
time; and geology seems to furnish them according to its demand. The Holy
Scripture, on the other hand, teaches a creation of the world in six days.

With the attempt to find the right way to end this conflict, we enter upon
that part of the border-land between theology and natural science, which,
among all others, is most contested, and which has offered to the most
luxuriant fancy the widest field of action and the one most profitably
taken advantage of.

We confess at the outset that we sympathize with those who try to keep the
peculiar realms of religion and natural science apart in such a way that a
collision between the two is impossible. We quietly leave the investigation
of the temporal succession in creation--especially the investigation of all
that belongs in the finite causal connection of natural processes--to
natural science; we also do not look to the source of our Christian
religion, to the Holy Scripture, for a scientific manual, least of all for
the communication of a knowledge of nature, supernaturally manifested and
claiming divine authority, the acquisition of which is especially the task
of scientific labor. But we bestow just as decidedly upon religion the
specific task of showing man the way to communion with God, especially the
way of salvation; a task in which it can as little permit itself to be
hindered by natural science, as the latter in the pursuit of its peculiar
tasks can allow an objection from any source. On the side of religion, the
bond of unity which brings {292} into harmony the two activities of the
human mind--the religious and the investigating--in the realm of nature,
and, in general, in the whole realm of exact science, consists in the fact
that in all which exact science offers to religion as the result of its
investigation, the latter perceives and shows the works and ways of God;
and on the side of the exact sciences, the bond consists in the fact that
they bring within the reach of their scientific, historical, literary,
culturo-historical, and exegetical investigations all that which in the
religious realm appears, or in the written word is fixed, as historical
fact. Religion, therefore, concedes to exact sciences the full right of
examining the biblical records as to all the relations of their historical
and literary connections; it even makes these investigations a quite
essential and, at present, very much favored branch of its own science of
theology. On the other hand, religion reserves just as decidedly to itself
the full right of drawing from them, of maintaining, and of realizing, the
whole full _religious_ basis and significance of those records.

We know very well that such a proposition is very simple in principle, but
much more difficult in practice. For the quintessence of that which
constitutes the basis of the Christian religion--namely, the leading back
of mankind to communion with God by means of salvation--is not only a
philosopheme, a theoretical or mystic doctrine, but a _fact_: it comes into
the world as a series of divine _facts_; it is interwoven by innumerable
threads into creation and the course of nature and history; and, as to this
whole aspect of its appearance in the world of phenomena, it falls under
the cognition of the exact sciences. But as soon as any given fact excites
the {293} interest of religion as well as that of exact science, collisions
are possible from both sides. Some advocates of religion, through mistaken
zeal for religious interests, may think it necessary to assert and to
represent as indispensable to religion facts whose cognition as to reality
belongs only to exact science and which are contested by exact science; as,
_e.g._, the creation of the world in six literal days, or the creation of
the single elements of the world without the action of secondary causes.
And some advocates of exact science, from reasons of a superficial analogy,
may erroneously think it necessary to dispute the reality of facts,
otherwise well attested, but wanting analogy, in which religion has a
central interest; as, _e.g._, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, or the reality of his miracles. Or they may unjustifiably try, from
our experiences in this world, to forbid glances which religion permits us
to throw beyond the present course of the world; _e.g._, the eschatological
hope of Christians is often enough contested, or as the laws of nature are
called eternal in the absolute sense of the word, although natural science
is only led to a recognition of the duration of the same, which is
congruent with the circumstances and duration of this present course of the
world.

We are perfectly aware of all these possibilities of a collision, and of
all the difficulties of their prevention and reconciliation; but we
nevertheless know of no other way for their avoidance than that simple
principle of agreement which, on account of its simplicity and clearness,
seems to us to be perfectly able to maintain the peace between the two
parties interested, or where it is disturbed, to restore it. {294}

Thus, we wholly agree that in the question of creation the investigation of
the succession and of all modalities in the appearance of the single
elements of the world, is entirely left to natural science, and that the
biblical records should on the one hand be investigated wholly, and even to
their remotest consequences, from a literary, historical, and exegetical
point of view, and on the other hand be tested with equal fullness and
completeness as to their religious contents. The literary and exegetical
examination of the Mosaic account of creation will reveal that its
conceptions of that which in the creation of the world belongs entirely to
the natural process, do not go beyond that which otherwise belongs to the
sphere of knowledge and views of antiquity, as well as of immediate
perception of nature in general; and that we cannot expect any scientific
explanation from it, because man really came last on the stage of earth,
and is therefore not able to say anything, founded upon autopsy, about the
origin of all the other creatures which preceded his appearance. Just as
little could the first men possess and deliver to their offspring a
remembrance of the first beginnings of their own existence. Moreover, the
literary and exegetical interpretation of the Bible will also refer to
other passages of the Holy Scripture which entirely differ from the
succession of creations, as they are related in Genesis I; so, _e.g._,
besides Job XXXVIII, 4-11, the second account of creation in Genesis II,
4-25: again a proof that what we read in the Biblical record of creation
about the succession in the appearance of creatures is not binding upon us.
Religion can have nothing to say against these results; it will not reject
the information of man as to the {295} succession and the modalities in the
appearance of the single elements of the world, which it receives from
natural science, and will not expect it by means of a special supernatural
manifestation; it will willingly accept it from natural science, and simply
make use of it in such a way that in nature and its processes it also
perceives a manifestation of God. Now, when it examines the different
Biblical accounts of creation as _to their religious substance_, it will
find in them such a pure and correct idea of divine nature and divine
action--such a pure conception, equally satisfying to mind and to science,
of the nature of man, of his position in nature, of the nature and
destination of the two sexes, of the ethical nature and the ethical
primitive history of man,--it will especially have to acknowledge in the
Biblical account of creation, in spite of all points of collision with the
cosmogonies of paganism, such an elevation above them, such an exemption
from all _theogony_, with which heathen cosmogonies are always mixed up,
that we are perfectly right in perceiving in these records the full and
unmistakable elements of a pure and genuine stream of manifestation, which
pours into mankind.

So far we find ourselves in full harmony with a theology which, in the
manner indicated, reconciles the religious interest with the historical and
critical interest. We find the points of view to which this perception
leads, represented with special clearness and attractiveness in Dillmann's
Revision of Knobel's "Commentar zur Genesis" ("Commentary on Genesis"),
Leipzig, Hirzel, 1875.

But it seems to us that a readiness to be just to historical criticism and
impartial exegesis has hindered {296} theologians occupying this standpoint
from being just also to _the religious element_, in its full meaning, in
reference to a very important part of the Mosaic account of creation, in
which the author of it shows quite a decided religious interest. We mean
the _six days of creation_, together with the _seventh day_, the divine
Sabbath. Theologians became too quickly satisfied with the exegetical
perception of these seven days, as creative, earthly days, of twenty-four
hours; and this hindered them from assigning to the religious meaning the
full importance which these days have in that record. That the idea and the
number of the days in that account have a high religious meaning to the
author, is clear from the following: The account in Genesis I, 1-24,
belongs to that series of parts of the Pentateuch which we call the
original, and which has the Sinaitical Law as the centre of its belief. The
division of the days into weeks, each having six working days and one day
of rest, which possibly existed before, but which received obligatory
importance to Israel first by the Sinaitical legislation, so far controls
that account of the creation of the world that, next to the sublime
perception of the dignity and position of man, it forms its very
quintessence. The account makes that divine week of creation, with its six
working days and its divine day of rest, the divine prototype and model for
the human division of time; and the Decalogue also, in the conception which
it has in Exodus XX, directly bases the commandment of the Sabbath on the
divine week of creation. Now, if we suppose that the author took these days
as earthly days of twenty-four hours, we are first of all obliged to reject
as a child-like error the idea on which from _religious_ {297} reasons--not
from reasons of a mystical idea of God, but from direct practical religious
reasons--he puts great importance; an idea with which he establishes an
institution of human life which has been preserved through many thousands
of years and is still preserved as the exceedingly blissful basis of all
social life. For that the creation of the world, from the beginning of
things up to the appearance of man, demanded more than six times
twenty-four hours, is beyond any doubt. Moreover, we should be obliged to
reject the arguments of such a central religious custom as Sabbath-rest in
a record in which we have to assign an absolute and lasting religious value
to all other religious elements of it, as to the ideas of the unity,
omnipotence, and wisdom of God, of his creation through the creative word,
of the perfection of his works, of man bearing the image of God. We should
even see that idea of God which presents itself to us out of all other
characteristics of that record in such spotless purity and sublime
magnitude, sink down to a decided insignificance through the identification
of the divine days of creation with our earthly days of twenty-four hours.
All this certainly brings near to us the question: do we make a correct
exegesis, do we correctly _read_ that record, when we think that the
author, because he speaks of days, must necessarily have understood earthly
days, such as we know now?

We readily perceive how interpreters have arrived at this view. The divine
sections of creation in the Mosaic account show themselves too decidedly as
days to make possible any other interpretation than to take them as days.
Now from experience we do not know of any other days than of earthly days
of twenty-four hours; {298} and therefore the conclusion naturally follows,
that the author also took the divine days of creation as such earthly days
of twenty-four hours. A simple reference of the same to periods, so that we
should again think of fixed periods of the earth or of the world, would
especially pervert the literal sense--would entirely remove from the
account the idea of "day" which is so essential to the author of the
record, and thereby render obscure the archetype of the divine week of
creation for the human divisions of time; and the looked-for harmony
between the Biblical days and the geological periods of the earth would by
no means be established by such an identification of the days of creation
with the periods of the world: for the geological or even the cosmic and
astronomical periods are nowhere in congruity with the Biblical days of
creation.

But the question, however, is: are there not evidences in the Biblical
account itself which show that the author did _not_ take these days as
creative earthly days of twenty-four hours? We have to answer this question
decidedly in the affirmative.

In the first place, it is an established fact that these days of the week
of creation were also, according to the meaning of the author, _days of
God_. Now that such days of God, even with the most childish and simple
worldly knowledge of that early period of mankind, so soon as such a pure
_idea of God_, as appears from the whole account, is at the bottom of the
conception, can no longer be _identical_ with the days of the creature, is
to be inferred beforehand with the greatest probability from the purity of
that idea of God, and is even expressly {299} confirmed by special
evidences in the record itself. We have to mention no less than four of
them.

The days of creation present themselves _as days of God_, which as such
_differ from the creative days of earth_ by the fact that with them the
_day_ and the _work of the day_ are absolutely identical. In the creative
days, the day and the work of the day are always different from one
another; the days come and go as temporal frames which include everything
that happens during these days, whether we know it or not. Now we may turn
our attention to and mention ever so many works of an earthly day: there
always happen innumerable other things which also belong within the frame
of that day and which are only not observed by us. It is quite another
thing with those Biblical days of creation: here the day _begins_ with the
beginning of the day's work; it _exists_ and _passes on_ single and alone
in the course of the work of the day, and it comes to an end when the day's
work is completed, and the work of the following day begins: it comes to an
end with "evening and morning."

We also lay some stress, though not very much, upon the fact that, in the
account, that which makes and regulates the _earthly_ day is created not
before the fourth day of creation, Genesis I, 14: "And God said, Let there
be lights in the firmament of the heaven _to divide the day from the
night_; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and _for days_ and
years." We admit that if we were obliged for other reasons to suppose that
the author of the account took the days of creation as common earthly days
of twenty-four hours, we must and should find it possible that the author
had been able to {300} suppose the existence and the course of such earthly
days even _before_ the creation of sun, moon, and stars; for he certainly
could not yet have the scientific perception that the sun with its light
and the rotation of the earth were the only cause of an earthly day. But it
is easier and more natural for us to bring that passage, Genesis I, 14,
into accord with the conception that the days of creation are divine days
which, as such, are different from creative days, and on one of which God
also created that which originates creative days.

Another evidence in the account is of still greater importance for our
conception of days. These days of creation in the Biblical record _have no
night_. The account closes the work of each day with the words: "_And the
evening and the morning were the first day_," "_the second day_," etc. Now,
if we have to suppose that the author took these days as common earthly
days, it would be quite impossible to understand why, after having
mentioned at the close of the day's work that it now became evening, he
omits the long night of twelve hours, and, although not having said
anything of the night, makes the morning which follows the latter, the end
of the preceding day; and why he does not say, "and it became evening" and
"it became _night_, the first day," etc. We then could not avoid the
question: what, according to the conception of the author, did God do in
these six nights of his week of creation? But if we suppose that the author
took the days as days of God, and therefore, in his conception of the days
of creation, elevated the same above the common earthly days of the
creature, and so represented them to himself as he alone, through his idea
of God, thought he might {301} venture to do, then that mode of expression,
so exceedingly strange under all other suppositions, appears very simple
and natural to us. For the author did not mention a night, because these
days simply had no night; and they had none, because as days of God they
_could_ have none--because with God there is no night; because the rest of
God, as the seventh day shows, is only a day of rest and not a night of
rest. And the author saw the morning immediately following the evening of
his divine day of creation, and recognized in this morning together with
the evening immediately preceding it, the close of the day, because the
accomplishment of the day's work (evening) already contained in itself the
preparation of the following day's work, or at least pointed to the coming
of the latter.

Finally, the fact that, according to the Biblical account, _the seventh day
still has no end_, is just as decisive for us. The end of each of the six
days is mentioned by the solemn repetition of the words: "And the evening
and the morning were the first day," etc.; but it is not mentioned in
regard to the seventh day. Now if, according to the meaning of the author,
the seventh day had also had its end like any of the six preceding days, he
would at the seventh and _last_ day have had _double reason_ for mentioning
its end; and the omission of that concluding word would indeed be
inconceivable. When Dillman says: "The formula 'and (it became) the
evening' is wanting, because the account is here at an end, and is no
longer to be carried over to another day, and because for that reason its
designation as seventh day is presupposed in v. 2," we have to reply that,
under the supposition of the days of creation having {302} been common
earthly days, a carrying over of the account to further days was certainly
to be expected, even if from nothing else than the formula: "And the
evening and the morning were the first day," etc. For then the human weeks
could have followed the week of God, in which man, following the divine
example, would have had to work six days and to rest one. The same
commentator says (p. 24): "The author could not even have dared make a
statement about the life-duration of the first men, if to him the day in
which he was created had been an indefinitely long period of time." But,
according to the conception of the Biblical author supposed by us, only the
"day of God," in which he was created, would have been an indefinitely long
period of time (although we are not willing to identify the days of God
with certain earthly periods of time); the earthly days and the earthly
years, on the other hand, would have their existence after the fourth day
of creation, and thus, according to that view, we could estimate and name
the earthly years and days of all that which happened before the fourth day
of creation, under the condition that we have, or believe we have, the
means of estimating them. When Dillmann continues: "On the contrary, the
author took these days as nothing else than days," we wholly agree with
him; but add to it: "not days of the creature, but days of God."

By this long duration of the seventh day, we are obliged to draw still
another conclusion; namely, that according to the conception of the author
the six preceding days also must have far exceeded the duration of earthly
days. This leads us to another Biblical analogy, whose direct power of
demonstration for a long {303} duration of the Biblical days of creation
is, it is true, justly contested, but which, as soon as we have to assume
for other reasons that according to the author the days of creation far
exceed the earthly days as to duration, becomes a strong support of this
view. For it is certainly not unimportant that in the 90th Psalm, the psalm
of Moses, the mediator of the Sinaitical legislation, to the circle of
ideas of which that account of the creation so entirely belongs, the
thought is expressed which is also taken up in the second letter of St.
Peter, with its developed cosmological conceptions: namely, the thought
"that one day _is_ with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day."

With that exegesis of the seventh day as one still remaining up to the
present, we are in clear accord with the more developed theology of the New
Testament, and with the interpretation which it itself gives of that divine
day of rest. Jesus himself, in St. John, V. 17, puts aside a reproach of
the Pharisees in reference to a healing on the Sabbath, with the words: "My
father worketh hitherto, and I work." This answer only has a meaning in the
sense: my father worketh hitherto, although, since the accomplishment of
the days of creation, he enjoys the Sabbath-rest; and thus I also work on
the Sabbath as on a work-day. And the Letter to the Hebrews, in its fourth
chapter, looks through the medium of the ninety-fifth Psalm back to this
Sabbath of creation which, as a day of rest of God, exists to-day, and the
entering into which is given and promised to the people of God.

By this whole conception of the Biblical week of creation, which appears to
us _exegetically_ much more {304} natural and unconstrained than any other,
we alone reach that conception which the author of that record _intends to_
reach; namely, a conception really worthy of God, of his temporal relation
to the world, and of the relation of human days to the divine days of
creation; we get a foundation for the commandment to keep the Sabbath, the
idea of which can be completed without disturbing the idea of God. The
relation of God to the whole temporal course of this present world, from
its beginning to its end, for the religious mode of contemplation of man
who, as the image of God, looks to the creative activity of God for a
prototype and an example for his own activity, can be comprised in one
single, great, divine week, whose first six days last to the completion of
the creation of man, and whose seventh day still lasts and will last to the
completion of the course of the world--till the latter itself, and mankind
with it, can enter into the divine rest.

From this religious interpretation, which we have to ascribe to that
Biblical idea of the divine week of creation, it by no means follows that
religion has to demand of natural science that it shall reach in its
cosmogonic investigations the same succession in the appearance of things
as we find in the Biblical account. This would be nothing else but an
actual carrying of a pretended religious interest over beyond the limits of
a realm in which the deciding vote belongs to natural science. However
incomplete the cosmogonic knowledge of the latter may be, it nevertheless
is at present established clearly enough to reject forever such a demand.
Astronomy convinces us that it is entirely inconceivable that all which
belongs to the work of the fourth Biblical day of creation, even {305} the
whole formation of stars and of our system of planets, _succeeded_ the work
of the third day, the formation of earthly continents and plants. And
geology in its strata, which exhibit petrifactions, shows us that the
relative Biblical days' works in reality did not succeed one another
alternately in such a way that the one began where the other ceased, but
that from the beginning of organic life the works of the third and the
fifth days from the carboniferous period, also the works of the third,
fifth, and sixth days, developed themselves perfectly by the side of each
other. It would be an excess of refinement to identify any Biblical day of
creation with any period or any complex of periods in the development of
the earth or of the world.

On the other hand, for a Christianity founded upon the Holy Scripture, it
is still not entirely without interest to compare _the results of natural
science and the extent and succession of the Biblical days' works with one
another_. For a declaration which undertakes to trace something which has
so deep a hold on human life as the Sabbath-rest, back to the prototype of
directly divine action, is certainly worthy of attention. Now if we wish to
make such a comparison, we can only do it in exact analogy with the way and
manner in which we compare the predictions of the prophetical word with
their fulfilment. For in so far as the declarations of that Biblical record
about the circumstances of creation have religious value of which we are to
take notice, they as declarations concerning events of which man certainly
cannot have historical knowledge of his own, come entirely under the point
of view of the _prophetical word_; with the exception that they do not
contain a forward-looking but a {306} _backward-looking prophecy_. This is
one of the most correct and fruitful thoughts which Johann Heinrich Kurz,
in his "Bibel und Astronomie" ("Bible and Astronomy"), Berlin, Wohlgemuth,
1st edition, 1842, has expressed, but has fantastically misused, in that
work, in general so prolific of indefensible positions; a fate which, as is
well known, the forward-looking prophecy has had also often enough to
undergo.

In the same manner as we have to explain the forward-looking prophecy from
two factors--on the one hand, from the circumstances of time, the
knowledge, the dispositions, and the characters of prophets; on the other,
from the receptivity of their mind for the mind of God and the last
purposes of his actions--we also have explained that record of creation
from two factors: on the one hand, from the view and the knowledge of its
time, and on the other from the receptivity of its author for a pure and
living idea of God and of the religious relations of human life. And we
shall also have to do likewise when interpreting it. For the interpretation
of the forward-looking prophecy, we have behind us the experience of
thousands of years, from which the following principles, of treatment and
interpretation have resulted. As long as such a prophetic word is not yet
fulfilled, so long, indeed, its meaning is and remains the object of
Christian faith and Christian hope; but it is difficult and almost
impossible to distinguish in it, what is lasting substance, and what is
transient form. Perhaps many a thing is looked upon as substance, which in
the fulfilment appears to be only an image and form; and perhaps many a
thing as form, which in the fulfilment shows itself as a more concrete
reality than we had supposed. {307} And it would even be psychologically a
violent assumption, if we should presuppose in the mind of the prophet a
still greater knowledge of the future course of things, than that which he
expresses; or if we should separate him in his worldly knowledge, and even
in the form of his prophetic utterances, from the views and limits of his
time. But by far the most fruitless effort of all would be to construct
beforehand out of his words the particulars of the historical course of the
future. Attempts of this kind have been defeated whenever they have been
made. But if the fulfilment of such a prophetic word has once taken place,
it is a joy and a strengthening of faith to all following generations, and
even after the final fulfilment of all prophecy, it will still be a joy to
the children of God in their perfection, to compare prophecy and fulfilment
and to allow the prophecy to be illumined by the light of fulfilment, the
fulfilment by that of prophecy.

All this finds its full application to the Biblical narrative of creation.
That which in the forward-looking prophecy is the historical fulfilment, is
in the backward-looking the scientific investigation. So long as the latter
was not directed at all to the prehistoric history of the earth, it was an
audacious undertaking to separate in the Biblical six days' work substance
and form from one another; it was and is still an unpsychological violence
to suppose in the human author of the narrative all possible knowledge of
psychical and scientific secrets, and to lift him above the child-like
views of his time concerning the things of this world. But it was by far
the most fruitless undertaking to construct in detail from his words a
picture of the real {308} circumstances of the creation and development of
the world. Attempts of this kind have been often made; but they have
produced nothing but dreams. And certainly the attempt to control and
correct natural investigation by means of such dreams would be like trying
to correct well-established facts of history by the prophecies of a still
earlier period, or even to prove them false. But from the time when natural
science, as it is at present, began to pay attention to the prehistoric
history of the earth and even of the universe, such a comparison has been
possible.

It tells us, it is true, that the Biblical days' works did not follow each
other in the course of earthly and cosmic developments in such a way, that
the one began where the other ceased, but that they passed on in the long
lines of their course, beside one another, and above one another. But
looking upon their _meridian altitudes_, they nevertheless, where we are
able to undertake certain geological comparisons, follow one another
exactly in the same order in which the days follow one another in that
Biblical record. The meridian altitude of the _third day_ (for here the
certainty of geological knowledge first begins for us) has to be looked for
where the continents are formed and the vegetable life preponderates on
earth: and that is the _carboniferous period_. The meridian altitude of the
_fourth day_ must have been reached where for the first time the covering
of vapor and clouds of the earthly atmosphere permanently parted, and sun,
moon, and stars became visible: and geology finds this time in the period
which lies between the carboniferous period and the trias--in the _Permian
period_, as it is called in England, in the _dyas_ of the {309}
fossiliferous and of cupriferous slate and _Zechstein_, as we call it in
Germany. The meridian altitude of the _fifth day_ has to be looked for
where ocean-life, with its sauria and innumerable animals, gave its impress
to organic life on earth, and the air was filled with inhabitants: geology
calls such a time the _secondary period_ of trias, Iura, and chalk. That
ocean-life preponderated in this period, is beyond any doubt; while in
general geology gives us more meagre information about the inhabitants of
the air than of the animals of the ocean and land. The flying sauria of
Iura are still characteristic enough to leave at least the possibility that
the winged world, which in value still stands below the mammalia, assisted
in giving to that secondary period its proper type. Finally, the meridian
altitude of the _sixth day_ cannot be anywhere else than where the animals
of the land became the most characteristic inhabitants of the globe, and
where man appeared: and that is the tertiary period of geology, in which
mammalia appeared in great numbers and variety, and at the end of which we
find the first traces of the appearance of man.

We nevertheless do not assign special weight to the establishment of such a
correspondence. The religious value of the idea of a divine week of
creation is rendered perfectly certain to us, if we only find that it is
reconcilable with a pure idea of God. That would not be the case, if we had
to look upon the week of creation as an earthly week; but it is perfectly
so, if the divine week stretches over the whole temporality of the course
of the world. Therewith we can be satisfied. For we have neither
theological nor philosophical nor {310} scientific evidences enough to draw
from these Biblical utterances any _metaphysical conclusions_ in reference
to the relations of God to the temporal development of the world. We should
not dare to contest directly such metaphysical relations: for the human
week, with its day of rest, is such an eminently fortunate and blissful
invitation, the observance of this command is accompanied by such a
striking prosperity in all life-relations of a people, its non-observance
by such an evident curse, and, moreover, the idea of man bearing the image
of God is such a fruitful idea, satisfying equally spirit and mind, that we
have to remember the possibility that the institution of the human week,
with its day of rest, is certainly founded on the real relations of the
life-process of that creature which bears the image of God to the activity
of its divine prototype upon the earth. But nevertheless, we just as little
dare to attempt or to challenge the establishment of such metaphysical
relations: for a theosophistic treatment of numbers seems to us no fruitful
field for the promotion of religion--neither for the promotion of religious
knowledge nor for that of religious life.

Still, however, the result of our comparison between Biblical and
scientific interpretation seems to us worth mentioning for a special
reason. It is true, we have found a succession of the _meridian altitudes_
of the Biblical days in the same order in which, according to the Biblical
relation, the days' works followed one another; but we have found in the
_total course_ of the Biblical days that their works in reality passed on
in long lines contemporaneously with one another. Now, since that first
part of our result--the succession of _meridian {311} altitudes_--is the
least we have to expect, if the counting of the days shall at all have an
objectively real ground in the world's process, on the other hand, the
second part of our result--the far-reaching contemporary existence of the
different Biblical days--has an exact analogy with those prophecies whose
partial or entire fulfilment permits us a more certain judgment of the
character of prophecy and a more certain comparison between prophecy and
fulfilment. Even the prophetic world knows of a divine day, which in the
prophecies occupies an eminent and central position: it is the day of the
Lord as the day of judgment and salvation. This day of the Lord also stands
before the eye of the prophet, certainly not as a common earthly day of
twenty-four hours, but as a day of God rising above earthly days and
embracing an infinite number of them, although it also has its very
distinct meaning which comes into the earthly temporality. But in the
historic fulfilment, there happen along with it a thousand things which do
not belong to it; for two-thirds of mankind that day did not dawn at all;
and as to its temporal course, it had its dawn in the beginnings of
mankind,--its sunrise took place eighteen hundred years ago, and its
meridian altitude is still impending.

Finally, that even the piety of those who composed the Biblical records,
and of all those who see in them the manifested evidences of their faith,
assigns no religious weight to the succession of the days' works, becomes
clear from the before-mentioned fact, that the second account of creation,
which makes man and his ethical primitive history its centre, relates the
creation of the inhabitants of the earth in quite a different order from
{312} the first one. We shall treat of this point again, and more in
detail, for another reason, in the following section.

We still have to treat of the question as to what position the Holy
Scripture and Biblical Christianity take regarding a _development in
general_: and here also we have only to say that they are very favorable to
such an idea. The works of the six days themselves are in their succession
nothing else but a development, a permanent differentiation of that which
was not separated before, a continuous unfolding of the more simple into
the more complex, an always progressing preparation of the globe for newer
and higher forms of existence, until finally man appeared. In the Biblical
account of creation, the idea which forms the basis of every evolution
theory, (namely, that the new which appears has its conditions and
suppositions, its creative secondary reasons, in the preceding), is
pronounced with special clearness. When it says: "Let the Earth bring forth
grass and herb,... and the earth brought forth," etc.; "And God said: Let
the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life,"
etc.; "Let the earth bring forth the living creature; and it was so;" and
"God made the beast of the earth,"--the creative causality also is
mentioned in the clearest words by the side of and under the causality of
the Creator, by means of which the latter had made creatures. The friendly
relation between the Biblical account and the evolution theory even goes so
far that the Holy Scripture, like that theory, does not permit animals to
come forth from plants, although the latter represent the lower, the former
the higher, and that, plants are a {313} necessary condition for animals,
but that even according to the Bible both kingdoms come forth from the
inorganic of the earth. When treating of the creation of plants, it says,
"Let the earth bring forth grass," etc.; and when treating of that of
animals, it says, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature." At last,
if science should once succeed in perceiving more clearly than now the
origin of the organic from the inorganic, it would have in those words the
means for a harmony with the Biblical conception.

Now, just as evidently as the Holy Scripture is favorable, in general and
as a whole, to the idea of evolution, so certainly it seems to reject it
precisely at that point where the whole interest of our question lies;
namely, in reference to the origin of the single species. For here, when
treating of the creation of plants as well us of animals, it is said in
most distinct words: "_after his kind_." But the contradiction is only
apparent. As to the way and manner in which God created every species,
whether he used secondary causes or not, nothing else is said than that God
created every species, that the creatures exist in distinctly marked
species, and that these species are not chance, but lie in the plan of
God--that they are his work. This fact, that it was God who wished to
create each species as species, and in reality created it, is just as
firmly established, if the species came forth from one another and were
developed in gradual transitions, as if they received their existence in
some other way. As, in the fifth day's work, we find simply the words: "And
God said, _Let the earth bring forth_ the living creature: and it was so;"
and "_God made_ the beast of the earth,"--in precisely the same way {314}
God could indeed _create_ single plants and animals _after their kind_, in
such a way that one should come forth from another, that they should be
developed from one another.

§ 2. _The Creation of Man._

The most important facts which we have to mention, as bearing upon the
position of the Christian doctrine of the creation of man in reference to
the evolution theory, have been treated of in Chapter I, _A_. We have
especially convinced ourselves of the fact, that the new, even if it has
its secondary causes, and comes into existence in gradual development, is
no less a creation of God, and has no less the full value of the new, than
if it were created instantaneously. Likewise man also stands before us
untouched in the full newness and dignity of his being, in the full
qualitative and not simply quantitative superiority of the highest gifts of
his mind, and especially of his personality, his ego, his liberty,--in one
word, in his full image of God,--whether we have to look upon him as
created in gradual development or as created suddenly.

There are two circumstances in the Biblical account from which we see that,
although it is naturally silent as to the descent problem, it not only
knows and acknowledges the connection of man with the lower creatures of
the earth, but also expressly directs attention to it.

One of these circumstances is connecting man's creation with that of
land-animals, in a single day's work. We do not lay more stress on this
union than that of the Holy Scripture, although it emphasizes so strongly
the dignity of man in his likeness to God and in his having entire {315}
supremacy over the whole earth, and although it could have found therein
reasons enough for assigning a proper day to the creation of man, to which
the whole preceding creation pointed, and whom the whole creation on earth
should serve, yet in its account of the creation it evidently desires man
to be looked upon in his connection as a creature with the animal world.
Moreover, we should not overlook, in the Biblical account, that the
benediction which God gives to the animals of the water and the air, at the
end of the fifth day, is in the sixth day not pronounced over the
land-animals--although they certainly are as much entitled to it as fish
and birds--but over man. Of course, it is presupposed that the land-animals
naturally partake of the benediction of man, so far as it can be due to
them; the benediction, namely, of fertility and of increase. According to
these indications and to the Biblical conception, man stands in still
another and closer connection with the animal world than in that of mere
supremacy over it.

The second circumstance to which we have to call attention, is the
declaration (Genesis II, 7), that God created man out of earth; or rather,
as the literal translation says: "_And the Lord God formed man (of) dust of
the ground._" It is of no importance whether the accusative "dust of the
ground" is, as some say, a mere appositive, or, as others explain it, the
accusative of matter. When the account calls man dust of the ground, or a
being formed of dust, the difference is infinitely insignificant, whether
the earthly matter out of which God formed man who is dust of the earth,
was an animal organism or not; whether man was formed {316} directly or
indirectly out of the earth, and whether the forming demanded a longer or a
shorter time. For that it did demand time, and that it was not an
instantaneous creation, is implied in the expression "to form."

We call attention to this passage for still another reason. The second
account of creation, as it begins Genesis II, 4, and goes on to the end of
the third chapter, is strikingly different from the first account, Genesis
I-Genesis II, 4. It has its origin in that author whose book is called that
of the Jehovist, or, more lately, the judaico-prophetic book; and who,
among all those that have contributed stones to the building of the
Pentateuch, gives the deepest insight into the nature of sin and grace, and
into the divine plan of salvation. Now in this book, from the religious
point of view so extremely worthy of attention, the account of the creation
is given quite differently. Man is the centre of the account; that which
does not directly refer to him is entirely omitted. The order in which the
inhabitants of the earth were created, is not only not divided into the six
day's works of the first account, and in verse 4 is not only directly taken
as the work of a single day, in the expression [Hebrew: BAYWOM] (in the
day, in which = when), without especial stress being put upon the
expression "one day," for [Hebrew: BAYWOM] has become a particle; but this
order is entirely different from the other. In the second account, the
succession is the following: "first, man; then, the paradise into which man
is placed; next, the trees (the question at what time the rest of the
vegetable world was created is left entirely without answer); then, the
determination to create also an assistant to man; next, the creation of
animals; finally, the creation of the woman out {317} of a rib of man."
Now, although it is wholly beyond doubt that the two accounts had different
authors, the question will nevertheless arise, how it was possible that
those who inserted these two accounts in the Holy Scripture, one after the
other, could so harmlessly put side by side and read one after the other
these two accounts, so entirely contradictory, without being obliged to
think that the truth of the one would refute the other. They certainly must
have had in some way the conviction that the one account was consistent
with the other. But such an agreement between the two accounts is only
possible when we either see in them only ideal truths, or when one of the
two shall represent the actual reality of the circumstances of creation,
and the other rather their ideal character. In case we should have to make
such a distinction, it cannot be doubtful which of the two accounts has
more of the real, and which more of the ideal character. In the first
account nothing is related which does not give direct points of connection
in the real process, as we can imagine it. In the second account, we find
many points which hardly permit a direct literal conception, even on the
part of the first readers of the account and of the editors of the canon of
the Old Testament: for instance, besides the different order in which the
first account is given, the creation of the woman out of the rib of man:
this account, when ideally taken, is so inexpressibly comprehensive,
pregnant, and deep--when taken really, so perfectly improbable. It will be
likewise difficult to believe that even the old readers of the account--at
least those of them who looked deeper and were more enlightened--took with
extreme {318} literalness the expression, that God breathed into the
nostrils of man who is dust of the ground, the breath of life. The third
chapter has still other features from which we have at least to assume that
the author did not at all intend to give importance to an extremely literal
conception of it. Now, if the second account is the more ideal one, the
meaning of it is: that man, his being, his aim, his primitive history, is
made the centre of the entire description, and around him all the rest is
grouped; while in the first account he appears to be more the end of the
whole creation--as he presents himself to natural investigation in the real
process of creation, as the last member in the chain, not as the centre in
a circle or a star. Now if that is the case, if the second account of
creation, having man as its centre, is the more ideal, then we certainly
must not overlook the fact that in the ideal account man is called dust of
the ground. Then the nature of dust also belongs, from the ideal point of
view, so necessarily to the nature of man that the question, whether the
connection of this man who is dust of the ground, with this ground, is
brought about through the form of a preceding animal organism, or not, is
no longer of importance. Therefore, if we oppose the animal ancestry of man
for the general reasons that we do not wish to descend from something
lower, that lower nevertheless is present as dust of the ground. And if we
oppose such a pedigree on account of the ugliness and wickedness which
exist in the animal world, we have to point to the fact that, on the one
hand, mankind also has stains which are uglier than those which disfigure
the wildest beast of prey, and that, on the other hand, the animal world
shows features which {319} are so noble that no man need be ashamed of
them. It is certainly a right feeling to which Darwin, in his "Descent of
Man," gives expression, when he says: "For my own part, I would as soon be
descended from that heroic little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in
order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon who,
descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade
from a crowd of astonished dogs, as from a savage who delights to torture
his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without
remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by
the grossest superstitions." We have but to add:--if only the coming forth
from the creative hand of God, the creation in his own image, the communion
with Him and being a child of His, are preserved. And that all this can be
preserved, even when adopting descent and evolution, we have seen from
repeated considerations.

But we have to draw still another conclusion from the difference between
the two accounts of creation. If the succession, in which the inhabitants
of the earth appear in the first account, is so entirely different from
that in the second, as it evidently is, we have necessarily either to give
up the historical reality of the one or of the other account, or of both,
or to suppose that the creation of the inhabitants of the earth took place
in a way and manner which makes it possible to perceive a _real_ connection
of the succession in the first account, _as well as_ in that of the second,
with the real processes of creation. Now we do not at all intend to argue
with those who choose the first part of the dilemma; we ourselves join with
them, and believe that salvation does {320} not depend upon the objective
reality of that succession, nor the possession of salvation on the faith of
such reality. But we leave to the consideration of those who, in their
religious convictions, think themselves bound to the objective reality of
both accounts, the following thoughts: If not only ideal depth, but also a
connection with the empirical and historical reality of the process of
creation, is to be assigned to the succession of the first account as well
as to that of the second, it is only possible by assuming a
descent--namely, that man, _e.g._, may be called in one sense the first of
creatures, inasmuch as with the first organism that was already given which
was afterwards developed into man, and inasmuch as all which was otherwise
created and developed as aspecial species, was only present on account of
that aim; and that man in another, in the merely empirico-historical sense,
is still also the last of creatures. Thus, then, the advocates of descent
would find themselves in the unaccustomed position, equally surprising to
friend and foe, of being in a much more friendly relation to the Biblical
belief in revealed religion than their opponents. We should see the
apparent discords not only between Scripture and nature, but also between
account and account, dissolved into harmony, and above the double relation
of the two accounts we should see the morphological ideas of Oken and
Göthe, the ideas of types of Cuvier, Agassiz, and Owen, the laws of
development of K. E. von Baer, and finally the ideas of descent of Lamarck
and Darwin, reach a friendly hand to one another. And even the old joys of
a teleological view of nature, adorned indeed with queue and wig, but at
present rejected with too much disdain, even if they {321} are called
ichthyo-teleological and insecto-teleological, would attain in this
reconciliation their modest, subordinate place. Moreover, we should then
have the satisfaction of seeing again that a religiousness which in its own
realm gives absolutely free play to natural investigation, and does not
find it beneath its dignity to learn from natural science, can on that
account retain its own autonomy in its own realm much more uncontestedly;
and that, as it seems to us in the present case, it can go much farther in
the use which it makes of its autonomy and in the extension of the revealed
character of its religious records to physical processes and circumstances,
than is either necessary or safe, and that it nevertheless is rewarded for
keeping peace with natural science by more rich, more living, and more
correct glimpses into the harmony between the word of God and the work of
God, than would be the case with a religiousness which, without regard to
natural science, weaves its cosmogonies from the Holy Scripture alone.

§ 3. _The Primitive Condition of Man: Paradise, the Fall of Man, and
Primitive History._

After the Holy Scripture has narrated the creation of man in two accounts,
the second of them gives us a continuation in the well-known account of
Paradise and of the fall of man, with its consequences; and the further
development, of the Biblical doctrine, as well as of Christian theology,
has also taken the substance and quintessence of these narratives into its
representation of the Christian truths of salvation.

We shall not throw any obstacles in the way of bringing about an
understanding between the Darwinian views {322} and the Biblical primitive
history, by acknowledging the justice of the view that Christian piety
might in some way contain in itself the demand that also the form in which
the facts of truth in Genesis III are given to us, has historical reality.
He who makes this demand has only his own short-sightedness and imprudence
to blame, if he also loses the substance with the form, the figurative
nature of which can be shown to him only too certainly. We acknowledge it
as a real providence of God, which intends faithfully to guard believing
man against a senseless and slavish adherence to the letter, and against
grounding his means of salvation upon insecure foundations, that at the
grand and venerable portal of Holy Scripture two accounts stand peacefully
beside one another, which, if we penetrate through the form into their
substance, complete one another in magnificent and profound harmony, but
which, if we look upon the form as their substance, so diametrically
contradict each other that we cannot do anything else but reject the one or
the other, or, still more logically, both. We think that this hint is
strong enough to be understood, and bears, like all bowing before truth and
its power of conviction, rich fruit not only for our knowledge, but also
for the purity, certainty, and richness of our religiousness. We shall not
lose by this acknowledgment the character of revelation and the impression
of the truth of these Biblical records, but shall be able through them, and
through them alone, to gain and perceive it. It is true, the first account,
and still more the second--the account of the creation and of the primitive
history of man--has in its external form an exceedingly close relationship
to the poetical myths of the ancient nations of the Orient; but {323} its
difference does not consist essentially in the form--although this too,
being the form of a true and correct substance, shows differences enough
from these heathen myths--but consists in the substance itself. These
heathen myths certainly contain many beautiful, deep, and true factors, but
always, besides, fundamental ideas which we have to reject as half-true or
wholly erroneous: sometimes a dualistic conception of God and the world,
sometimes a materialization of the divine, the spiritual, and the ethical,
sometimes fatalistic and sometimes magic elements in great number. These
Biblical representations, on the other hand, certainly appear to us still
in a picturesque form which is analogous to that formation of myth; for it
really seems to be the only form in which the mind of man, in his first
epoch of life, was able to perceive and represent supernatural and ethical
truth, as we are to-day able to represent the highest relations of our mind
to the supernatural and the ethical only in pictures and parables; but the
Biblical representations offer us, under this plastic covering, a substance
which, in view of the most extensive criticism, of the deepest speculation,
and of the most enlightened and practically most successful piety, is still
established as the purest, the most correct, and the most fruitful
representation of the nature of God, and of the ethical nature and the
ethical history of man.

Moreover, we shall not make it difficult to bring about an understanding
between the Darwinian theories and the Biblical doctrine, by supporting the
other view taught by the Holy Scripture--that death came into the animal
world first through the fall of man, and that the fall of man first brought
the character of perishableness {324} into the condition of the earth or
even of the universe. There are essentially three Biblical passages to
which those refer who think that they find such a view in the Holy
Scripture; namely, Romans V, 12; Romans VIII, 19-23, and Genesis III; but
they are wrong. That the Apostle Paul, in Romans V, 12, by the world, into
which death came through sin, did not mean the universe or the globe, but
mankind, is plain enough from the connection, and is only demanded by the
difference of meaning which in the Greek, as well as in the German
language, the word "world" has according to its connection. And in Romans
VIII, 19-23, where he speaks of the subjection of the creature to vanity,
he does not mention a certain time in which it happened, nor an historical
occasion, as the fall of man, which should have given the impulse to this
subjection; but he only says, in general, that it was God who "hath
subjected the creature to vanity," and that he hath "subjected the same _in
hope_." He who reads this passage without prepossession, can be led to no
other idea than to this: that God has subjected the creature to the law of
vanity from the very beginning of creation--not forever, but from the very
beginning--with the intention that he shall also celebrate his
transfiguration and deliverance from the yoke of perishableness, together
with the perfection of mankind, and with the manifestation and
transfiguration of the children of God. And even the curse of the ground
(Genesis III, 17) is no cursing of the universe, or of the globe and its
creatures, but only a cursing of _the ground_; and of this not on its own
account, but only in its relation, as a means of subsistence, to man, and
in opposition to the {325} exemption from labor which his life hitherto
had, and to the agreeableness of his means of support in paradise.

After having thus rejected these two perversions of the Biblical doctrine,
there remains to us as an established substance of the latter, and as an
essential part of Christian dogmatics, so far as it may come into contact
with the _Darwinian_ views, at least the following: Man was originally
created by God, good and happy. To his goodness there also belonged the
possibility of having a sinless development, as he ought to have had; and
to his happiness there also belonged a life amid surroundings wholly
corresponding to him, and the possibility of obtaining exemption from death
and all evils by way of a self-controlling submission to God, which resists
temptation. We purposely express ourselves thus. For the Biblical primitive
history does not say that man was _created_ with exemption from the law of
death, but that the latter must have been _granted_ to him as a reward for
his submission: the tree of life stood _by the side of_ the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, and only the eating of the fruit of the tree of
life, by avoiding the eating of the forbidden fruit, should have given to
man that immortality which he forfeited by disobedience. Man became
disobedient, and, in consequence of it, subject to death; the harmony
between man and his surroundings disappeared; the earth became to him a
place of labor and of death; and now began for man his historical
development as a web of guilt, of punishment, and of education and
redeeming mercy.

Now, in the presence of this Biblical view, the question comes up first of
all: is a view according to which man should have been able and obliged to
take a sinless {326} development, and, in case he had taken it, should have
been exempt from the fate of death and of the ills preceding it, and
endowed with immortality as to body and soul--is such a view in any way
reconcilable with the Darwinian ideas of development, according to which
man came forth from the series of lower organisms, subject to death?

We could avoid answering this question by a deduction similar to that which
we drew in Chap. I, § 3, when treating of the question of the
reconcilableness of the idea of evolution with theism, but of which we
likewise made no use. We could show that in this question no other
difficulties present themselves to the religious consciousness, than such
as existed long before the appearance of the Darwinian theories and were
overcome by pious consciousness and religious reasoning. For a difficulty
entirely similar to that which here appears to us, when looking upon the
whole human _species_ and its origin, stood before us heretofore, when
looking upon the human _individual_ and his origin. From the standpoint of
Biblical Christianity, we ascribe to the human individual an immortality of
the soul and a coming resurrection of the body; but we do not to the human
embryo at the beginning of its development in the womb. Now we know that
the development of man from that embryo to perfect man is wholly gradual;
that we cannot observe and predicate of any organ, of any quality, of any
activity of body, soul, or mind, exactly the moment when it comes into
existence; and that therefore we cannot give the moment when we could
assume that something so decidedly great and new as the immortality of the
soul and the prospect of a {327} resurrection of the body, begins for the
human individual. Although we know all this, nevertheless in all
discussions of the question whether we have to hope for an immortality of
the soul and a resurrection of the body, the gradual development has hardly
ever been, so far as we know, a weight--in any case, never the decisive
weight--in the balance _against_ the supposition of an immortality. If we
can look upon the idea of an immortality of the soul and of a resurrection
of the body as reconcilable with the fact, that the human individual was
only developed gradually out of something which was still soulless and
perishable, we also have to look upon the other fact as reconcilable with
the gradual development of the whole _species_; namely, that man, if he
should have developed himself without sin, would have reached an
immortality of body and soul. But we shall not enter this path which would
lead us around the whole question. For the objection might be made, that
the scientific and philosophic impossibility of assuming an eternal
duration of an individual that originated in time, has, indeed, always been
pointed out, and only the _assertion_, not the _proof_, of the contrary has
been opposed to it; but that Darwinism puts this impossibility into new and
full light. Therefore, if we wish to reach a certain basis for our
conviction, nothing else remains to us but to enter upon that question
wholly and exclusively from Darwinian premises.

Now these premises, indeed, indicate to us a _development_ of things, but a
development of such a kind that there appears to us something new, and
always new in a rising line. The rising of this line of development
consists in the fact that the spiritual comes forth from the {328} natural
in permanent progress and in always higher development: that mind
vanquishes matter. The first new thing which meets us in the development of
the globe, is the organic and life; the second, sensation and
consciousness; the third, self-consciousness and free-will. Now let us once
suppose imaginary human spectators of every first appearance of these
phenomena. Would he who thus far had only known inorganic phenomena and
processes, have dared, before the appearance of life, to utter the
proposition: matter can also become living and live? And who would have
dared to suggest the further doctrine: matter can also feel and get a
consciousness of things? Finally, who would have dared even to say: matter
can also become a self-conscious and free personality? To every person who
would have pronounced such dreams of the future, there would have been
opposed, apparently with full right, the inviolable mechanism of the
inorganic world. But all this nevertheless took place. If something
material can be led so far that a personality lives in it, that, with the
assistance of this material basis, is able to perceive the ideas and the
eternal, that can act in accordance with aims and designs and can set
itself the highest aims, and that may even enter upon a loving and
child-like relation to the highest primitive cause of all things, then we
are no longer permitted to say that the material, of which the body of such
a personality consists, could not have been subjected to the service of
such a personality so far, that the latter could have vanquished the
elements of the destruction of life in an eternal process of spontaneous
renewal.

It is true, with such a concession alone we have not {329} gained anything
directly. For _in abstracto_ everything is finally conceivable which does
not contradict the logical laws of reasoning--even the basilisk and the
mountain of diamonds in stories and fairy tales. But such an _abstract_
conceivableness has not the least value for the knowledge of the _real_,
nor even for the knowledge of the _really possible_. For in the world of
being and becoming, everything in its last elements, forces, qualities, and
laws, as well as in the last causes of its development, is something so
absolutely _given_, that only afterward are we able to analyze that which
is present, from our observations, or to follow from the given factors that
which can be, or which under other conditions would have become different,
and that we are not able to synthetically construct the one or the other in
advance, independently from the factors of reality. If, therefore, that
concession shall attain a scientific value, and if the conditional
sentence: Man would not have been subject to death if he had not sinned, is
to become an admitted and unassailable part of Christian theology, we have
to look in the realm of phenomena, and in the course of that which took
place, for _facts_ which _prove_ that man, if he had not committed sin,
would not have died, and which thus change that merely abstract,
possibility into a real one.

Now we have such a fact in the _resurrection of the Lord_. If it really
took place, then it is the last earthly stage in the course of the Lord's
work of Redemption, and then it permits us to draw conclusions backwards as
to what would have become of man, if he had not been in need of this
redemption, if he had had a sinless development instead of one with sin.
{330}

We know very well that in mentioning this fact we meet not only the
opposition of those who contest a teleological, theistic, and especially a
Christian view of the world, but also the natural doubts of those who
defend with warm interest teleology and the ethical fundamentals and
productive forces of Christianity, but who think it more advisable to pass
over the whole question of the resurrection in cautious silence. The main
consideration which hinders them from believing in the reality of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, is not the want of historical attestation,
but rather the absolute want of any attested analogy in the other events
which have taken place on the earth. What we commonly see and witness in
the dead, is without exception precisely the opposite of that which is
related about the further fate of Jesus crucified. Now we have repeatedly
had occasion to point out that the want of analogy cannot at all be a proof
of a fact's not having taken place, supposing it otherwise well
established. Especially if a _development_ of events follows aims, it lies
in the nature of this development that in its course in all the places
where we really and actually can speak of a development, of a process,
things appear and must appear which were not present before, and which,
even if they once appeared, nevertheless need not necessarily be repeated,
except at certain times which correspond to the plan of development;
namely, when "their time has come." All these are events which are wanting
in analogy, but which cannot be doubted at all on that account. That was
the case with the first appearance of organic life, also with the first
appearance of beings having sensation and consciousness; moreover, it was
the case with the first appearance of each of the thousands {331} of
species of organic beings: all these things, at the time when they first
appeared, lacked every analogy in the past, and were perhaps repeated for
some time, in primitive generations, perhaps not; at any rate, they have
all ceased to have analogies within the memory of man. In an eminent degree
does the first appearance of man want every analogy with what we observe
elsewhere. We never see men appear on the stage of the earth, who were not
originated by men; yet this event, so contrary to all analogy, did once
take place, and stands without parallel and analogy in the midst of the
series of events, so far as our knowledge can reach.

Thus the resurrection of the Lord must also necessarily want analogy, in
case it is an event which really marks a station of progress in the
development of earthly creatures and their history, and in case also its
nature and its importance tend not to bring mankind, or at least those who
believe in him who has been raised, at once under the influence of its
physical consequences, but only so far to prepare the way for these
consequences in intellectual and moral life-forces. And precisely such an
event is the resurrection of Jesus, according to the announcement of the
Lord as to himself and his work, and according to the development of this
personal testimony in the minds of his first disciples, and also according
to what Jesus actually became for mankind, and especially for Christianity.
According to this testimony of Jesus and his apostles, and to this actual
experience, Jesus is the Redeemer, whose work is to make amends for the
destruction caused by sin, and thus to originate and establish a new
creation in mankind which, from inner, mental, and spiritual beginnings,
{332} renews mankind, and becomes the leaven which, in long periods of
labor, leads it to the goal of perfection; a perfection in which the whole
creation shall participate--with which, indeed, mankind is inseparably
connected on the whole natural side of its existence. But then it also lies
in the nature of the resurrection of Jesus to be single in its kind, and
without analogy, until that time shall have come in the development of
mankind when the last enemy, death, shall be forever removed and overcome.

We quite fail to conceive how those who acknowledge design in the world,
can avoid the acknowledgment of the resurrection of Jesus--supposing the
fact to be historically established: whereof we shall have to speak
hereafter. It is, indeed, quite impossible to speak of a goal of mankind,
if annihilation--annihilation of single personalities as well as of mankind
as a whole--is its certain destiny. Where and what is this end of mankind,
if the last generation of the globe is to perish with the destruction of
this globe, or languish and die even before that destruction, and if
nothing will be left of mankind beyond the soulless material for new
formations in their putrifying corpses and desolate homes and works of art?
Where and what is this goal, if all which once set human minds and hearts
in motion, and which stimulated the intellectual and moral work of the
human races, simply ceases to exist, no longer finds anywhere even a place
of remembrance, and nowhere has a fruit to exhibit, except perhaps in the
mind of a God who once set the cruel play in motion, and now permits it to
cease, in order to procure for himself a change in the entertainment? A
mere immortality of human {333} souls, without resurrection and without the
perfection and transfiguration of the universe, is not afforded us by this
goal, which we certainly need, if we are to think at all of a goal for
mankind. For if all departing souls should be carried into another world
whose only relation to the further course of the earthly history of mankind
was in the fact, that the dead are always gathered in it; into another
world whose only relation to the past of the earthly history of mankind
should be in the fact, that it is divided into a heaven and a hell for
those who reach it; if in this world everything should move on, without
end, in eternal coming and going; and if nothing could be said of that
other world than that everything there is different from ours--even that we
should there have no possible points of contact with this world: then we
should have nothing else but a gloomy dualism of the world for which
neither our intellectual, nor our psychical, and least of all our physical,
organization is in any way prepared, we should have in it no satisfaction
of our noblest instincts, no goal to which we would be led by any of the
guides who show us the paths which we have to follow on earth. Only a
resurrection and transfiguration of the earth and the universe, as well as
of a glorified mankind, show us such a goal. For this aim, for such a
_real_ continuation of life of the single personality, and of all mankind,
after the long work of moral and intellectual development, all noble and
worthy instincts of mankind are prepared--from the instinct of
self-preservation up to the instinct of self-sacrifice for ideal purposes
and the instinct of moral perfection and community with God. We find that
in all the rest of creation, instincts and inherent powers {334} are
present to be satisfied. The naturalistic tendencies which at present
control so many minds, are very much inclined to found their whole view of
the world upon this correlation of instinct, function, and satisfaction.
Should, then, the highest instincts of the highest creature on earth alone
make an exception? Have they originated from illusions, and do they lead to
illusions? We cannot refrain from quoting a word which Alb. Réville, of
Rotterdam, has written in the first part of the October issue of the "Revue
des Deux Mondes," 1874, on the occasion of a criticism of E. v. Hartmann's
"Philosophy of the Unconscious"; though it was written only in defence of
theism in general. We quote from a report of E. P., in the _Augsburger
Allgem. Zeitung_, Oct. 27, 1874, which is all at present at our command:
"When the young bird, fluttering its wings on the edge of its mother's
nest, launches forth for the first time, it finds the air which carries it,
while a passage is opened for it. Instinct deceived the bird just as little
as it deceives the multitude of large and small beings which only live in
following its incitations. And should man alone, whom spiritual perfection
attracts--man whose characteristic instinct it is to raise himself mentally
toward the real-ideal, the superiority of which he cannot sufficiently
describe, should man, who obeys his nature, dash his head against the wall
built of unhewn stones of unconscious, blind, and deaf force? Nature,
indeed, has too much spirit--according to Hartmann himself--to indulge in
such an absurdity; and the philosophy of the 'unconscious Unconscious' will
never permit it." It is true, there is actually present in mankind, and in
it alone, such a discord between {335} instinct and satisfaction: man has
in himself instincts which are opposed to sin and death, and nevertheless
sin and death exist. But the redemption through Christ, and especially the
knowledge of his resurrection, announces to us that this discord is
removed.

Therefore, he who in general acknowledges that mankind in its development
has had given to it goals which correspond to its gifts and instincts, has
every reason to look about and see whether, in the course of human history,
certain things have happened which point at such aims--indications which
prophetically assure mankind, that it advances toward a spiritual and moral
perfection, and toward an undiminished participation of all members of
mankind in this perfection. Such an assurance is offered us in the
resurrection of Jesus; and therefore, all who have not abandoned a
teleological view of the world, have reason for _examining it with
reference to the degree of its historical truth_. This degree is the
highest which we can in general claim of any historical event.

In order to show this with such brevity as is necessary in the present
book, and at the same time to guard ourselves against every danger of
prejudice in the investigation, we shall for this occasion assume
hypothetically that all, even the most extreme, assertions of Biblical
criticism as to the authenticity and inauthenticity of the books of the New
Testament, and as to the difference of their component parts and the time
of their composition, are correct and proven; and see what then remains
established. In the first place, it is an acknowledged fact, that Peter
first, then the eleven apostles at different times, and between these more
than five hundred "brethren" (_i.e._, nearly or fully all who had preserved
their {336} attachment to the Lord till his death), saw the appearances of
the risen one, a few days after his death; and, indeed, under the most
different circumstances, and under mental conditions in which they did not
at all expect any such second appearance. We have, in regard to this, the
most authentic written evidence of the apostle Paul, in the fifteenth
chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians: a letter whose authenticity
no criticism has dared to doubt. This letter was written in the spring of
58: and Paul himself had already been changed from a persecutor into a
believer in Christ in the year 36--_i.e._, one year after the death of
Jesus, which took place in 35; he went to Jerusalem in 39, and here
everything was related to him by Peter, as we know from his letter
(likewise not contested) to the Galatians. Thus the authentic information
of the man, who in 58 collected the historical proofs of the reality of the
resurrection of Jesus for his Corinthian Christians, goes back to four
years after the death of Jesus, and to the personal witnesses of the
appearances; as in that letter he also refers to the fact that "many of
these five hundred brethren are still living." Moreover, it is an
established fact, that the first written evidences of the evangelical
history from which our canonical gospels subsequently originated, likewise
contained accounts of the appearance of the risen one. Finally, it is an
established fact that, from the very beginning, the whole meaning of
evangelical preaching turned on the two facts of the death and of the
resurrection of Jesus, as on the two cardinal points of all preaching of
salvation; also that all the faith of those who embraced the Gospel was
founded upon these two facts, as upon the historical fundamentals of the
{337} salvation which comes from Jesus; and that thus Christianity, with
all its effects, which have unhinged the old world and diffused streams of
blessing over mankind, has its historical basis in faith in the death of
Jesus and his resurrection. This is our historical chain of proof. And that
evidence which gives certainty to its most important link, on which
everything depends--the _appearance_ of the risen one--is the entire
failure of all the attempts at explaining that appearance from a seeming
death, from an intended deception, from a self-delusion, from a vision and
an ecstasy, from a poetic myth; in short, from any other cause than, that
the Lord really appeared to his disciples as the man who was dead, but who
is risen and lives. We cannot follow Keim in all his methods of
reconstructing the life of Jesus, and we believe that he is much too timid
regarding the consequences which follow from an objective, real appearance
of Jesus after his death; but we acknowledge it as a high merit of his
christological works, that although he is willing to use criticism to the
utmost, he has so thoroughly and strikingly shown the impossibility of
explaining the appearance of Jesus after his death differently from the
real manifestations of his still living person. It is well that Strauss, in
his "The Old Faith and the New," declares the history of the resurrection
of Jesus a _historical humbug_; for it may open the eyes of many, if the
tendency, of which Strauss is leader, is no longer able to explain
Christianity--the noblest, purest, and most successful religion which has
come into existence in the whole history of mankind--otherwise than by
calling it a humbug. With him who is pleased with this manner of explaining
the most perfect blossom and fruit of {338} the tree of mankind, we
certainly can find no common ground of mutual understanding.

We have been led to all these discussions, by looking for something actual
which should be able to throw its light back upon the earliest primitive
history of mankind--a history which can no longer be historically
investigated. We have found this reality in the resurrection of Jesus; and
the light which it throws upon the primitive history of man, we have
perceived in the conclusion to which it leads us: that man, if he had taken
a sinless development, would also have been exempt from death.

The resurrection of Jesus throws its light upon still another side of the
Biblical doctrine of the primitive condition of man: namely, upon that
which is the religious quintessence of the Biblical doctrine of _Paradise_.
As now the resurrection of the Lord is the beginning and the prophecy of a
new creation on the basis of the old, and as we now hope, with St. Paul,
that this beginning shall manifest its comprehensive cosmic effects, when
the Lord shall manifest them in the resurrection of the "children of God:"
so, in case of a sinless development of man, the beginning of this new and
glorified stage of creation would certainly have been perceptible at the
beginning of the history of mankind and in the relation of man to his
earthly surroundings. But we are of course not permitted to make or to
pursue such a suggestion at present, since a sinful development of mankind,
with its consequences, actually took place.

We have no reason to enter into the discussion of another often and much
debated question, which is connected with the primitive history of man;
namely, {339} _whether mankind is descended from one or more pairs of men_.
We pass it by; because it has no connection whatever with the acceptance or
rejection of the Darwinian ideas, and since it is not yet archæologically
and scientifically solvable. There are Darwinians who think
monogenetically, and others who think polygenetically; and there is still a
third class--and they speak most correctly--who acknowledge that they know
nothing about it. Besides, we can also pass by this question, for the
reason that in spite of the important place which it occupies in the
theological system of St. Paul, we have no right to assign to it, in the
form in which we put it, the decisive dogmatic importance which it still
occupies in many conceptions of Christian theology. For we cannot question
the right of the natural sciences to enter into the discussion of this
question, and to look for a solution of it. As soon as we make this
concession, it necessarily and naturally follows from it, that we must no
longer make the substance and truth of our religious possession, even in a
subordinate manner, dependent on the results of exact investigations: for
our religious possessions have too deep a basis of truth, to permit us to
ground them on the results of investigations in a realm so dark for science
and so far removed from religious interest. As to this question, we may
hope for a future solution in the monogenetic sense: we may rejoice over
the fact that, according to the present state of knowledge, the needle of
the scale rather inclines in favor of a oneness of origin of mankind; but
we must also be prepared to accept the possibility of a contrary result,
without being afraid that in such a case we should have to abandon at once
that religious factor {340} for whose sake the advocates of a monogenetic
descent might defend their view. This religious (and, we may add, quite as
strong ethic) factor consists in the idea of the intimate unity and
brotherhood of mankind. We must absolutely adhere to this idea; for it is
in opposition to the particularism which, quite without exception, governed
the entire old world, even its most highly developed nations, and which was
only penetrated by some beams of hope and prediction in the prophecy of
Israel--one of the most beautiful and blissful gifts of Christianity to
mankind. This idea still contains, as ethical motive, one of the strongest,
most indispensable, and most promising forces in the world. If this idea
shall be a real and lastingly effective one, it certainly must also have
its real basis in the history of the origin of mankind. But, we must ask,
is the only conceivable reality of this basis a monogenetic pedigree, and
do we lose this reality if science should once find that mankind came into
existence not only in one single pair, but in several pairs, even in
different places, and at different times? Even in such a case, the idea of
the unity of mankind would only lose its real basis, if at the same time we
were permitted to think also anti-teleologically--if we were permitted to
suppose that that which came into existence, repeatedly, and in different
places, had each time entirely different causes without a common aim and a
common plan. If we think teleologically, we see the unity of mankind, also
in case of a polygenetic origin, in the unity of the metaphysical and
teleological cause which called mankind into existence; and to rational
beings, endowed with mind, as men are, the metaphysical bond is certainly
stronger than the physical. {341} Precisely the Darwinian ideas of the
origin of species through descent would show us in such a case the real
bond which unites mankind. For then we should only have to go back from the
different points on the stem-lines of the prehistoric generators of these
primitive men, at which men originated otherwise than by generation, in
order to arrive finally at a common root of all these stem-lines: the
members of mankind would even then remain consanguineous among one another,
not only in an ideal, but in a real sense.

Now that the idea of the unity of mankind was holy and important to St.
Paul, is to be inferred in advance from such a universal mind. And when in
Acts XVII, 26, he expresses this idea before the Athenians, so proud of
their autochthony, with the words that "of one blood all nations of men
dwell on all the face of the earth"; or when, in Romans V, and 1
Corinthians XV, he makes use of the idea in order to explain and to glorify
the universal power of redemption of Christ by putting Adam and Christ in
opposition to one another, as the first and the second Adam, so that he
sees sin and death coming forth from Adam, grace and justice and life from
Christ and extending over mankind; then we find this idea quite convincing
and natural, and adhere firmly to the quintessence of these truths, even if
we acknowledge neither in these passages, nor in Genesis I and II, the
intention of God to give us a supernatural manifestation of the exterior
process of the creation of man. Paul himself gives us a hint not to follow
slavishly a literal interpretation, when he says, in Romans V, "as by one
man sin entered into the world and death by sin," and calls this man Adam,
although he knows that according to the {342} Biblical relation, Eve was
the one who was first seduced, and although he expressly points out and
makes use of this priority of the sin of Eve in another connection, and for
another reason.

Finally, we may here also take into consideration the contradictions which
have come up by reason of more recent investigations, in reference to the
_prehistoric conditions of man_, and which, especially in England, have
been designated as the contradiction between the _elevation theory_ and the
_depravation theory_.

In general, this contradiction is looked upon as if a conception of the
primitive history of man, remaining conformable to the Bible, could only be
brought into harmony with a depravation theory, and not with an elevation
theory; but certainly without reason.

The Biblical and Christian conception of the primitive history of man does
not at all demand the conception of a gradual sinking down of mankind from
a supernatural height--of a gradual depravation of our species--which many
representations seem to assume. For, according to it, the fall of man had
already taken place with the first pair of mankind; they were driven from
Paradise, to long hard labor and development; and Paradise was taken from
earth. Even the paradisaical condition, with its short duration, was
deficient in all the various gifts of life which are a product of human
inventive faculty and skill, and which can leave behind vestiges and
remains. But what the Holy Scripture relates or indicates of the
after-paradisaical primitive history of man, wholly corresponds to the idea
of a gradual development out of the more simple and rough, which is
demanded by the evolution theory in its {343} application to history. That,
even according to the Biblical conception, goodness and progress in outer
culture, sin and intellectual stagnation, are not identical, we see from
the fact, that by the Holy Scripture the most successful inventions of man
are not assigned to the more pious Sethites, but to the Titan-like,
rebellious Kainites. Likewise, the evolution theory does not at all require
a constant, general, and exclusive progress of mankind in all its members.
As in the realm of irrational organisms, so in the history of mankind; it
has to assume the most various ramifications with progress, stand-still,
and retrogradation. It is true, it sees in the nations of culture progress
in an upward rising line; but besides, stand-still and retrogradations in
great variety. It also sees in mankind in general a labor of upward rising
development; but it also sees many hindrances of development, and many
shavings which the work throws to one side. But exactly the same thing was
also seen in every religious or profane contemplation of history, long
before the evolution theory was born.

Therefore, the different views of the earliest primitive history of man,
the theory of depravation and that of elevation, do not stand so opposed to
one another--the former representing the Biblical and religious, the latter
the anti-religious, view of the history--but the question as to the
primitive history is not yet solved in that respect; the depravation
theory, as well as the elevation theory, indicates rather the _directions_
in which investigation has to put its questions to the archæological
sources. Investigation, on the other hand, has free scope in both
directions; and the primitive history of man shows itself to be a realm in
which religious and scientific interest, {344} opponents and advocates of
the descent theory, can peacefully join hands for common labor. Up to the
present, the investigations reach results which seem to fall now more into
one, now more into the other, scale of the balance. On the one hand, the
older the products of human skill are, the more simple they are; on the
other hand, even the oldest remains show man in full possession of that
which distinguishes him from the animal, and attests a spiritual life. The
reader may think of the before mentioned sketches of the reindeer and
mammoth (page 90). If we finally come down to historic times, and to the
present, in order to try to draw conclusions from the comparisons of the
remotest times of which we have historic knowledge, with the present, as to
prehistoric times, we likewise find on the one side vestiges of the lowest
barbarism in the past and present; but on the other side we find that the
oldest written monuments afford a glance into a perfection of intellectual
reflection and into a nobility of moral and religious views which permits
us to draw the highest conclusions as to the intellectual worth of earliest
mankind. The very oldest records of the Holy Scripture give evidence of
this intellectual height; and even the royal programmes of Assyrian
monarchs, which the wonderful diligence and ingenuity of recent
investigators have deciphered from the cuneiform inscriptions, not only
relatively correspond to the height of culture which we find in the ruins
of Assyrian palaces, but even, when looked upon absolutely and aside from
the morality of conquest which they indulge, are inspired by a nobility of
mind, and permeated by a religiousness, which no potentate of recent times
would need to be ashamed of. They have {345} been made accessible to the
public by the work of Eberhard Schrader: "Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament" ("Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament"), Giessen, 1872.

§ 4. _Providence, Hearing of Prayer, and Miracles._

Before we enter into the special christological realm, we have yet to
glance at the realm of the more common relations between God and the
creature, as they have found, in faith in a divine providence, in hearing
of prayer, and in divine miracles, their reflection in Christian
consciousness.

It is true, we had to discuss the chief basis of an understanding in this
matter when treating of the position of the Darwinian theories in reference
to theism in general; but we have a double reason for entering again into
the consideration of the concrete form which this faith has obtained in
Christianity.

One reason is the fact, that faith in a special providence of God, in a
hearing of prayer, and in a connection of the human history of salvation
with miracles, forms a very essential part of the Christian view of the
world and of Christian religiousness. All Holy Scripture is interwoven with
assurances of a providence of God, going even into details; with the most
distinct and solemn promises of the hearing of our prayers; and with the
most emphatic reference to the miracles which it relates. The Lord himself
not only found all these doctrines, and left them untouched, but he
developed them in the most pregnant way, and brought them into the most
intimate connection with the quintessence and centre of his doctrine.
According to his teaching, {346} "a sparrow shall not fall to the ground
without the will of your heavenly Father; but the very hairs of your head
are all numbered." He encourages us to pray, with the words: "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he
will give it you;" and he proves himself to be the Redeemer, through signs
and wonders, and refers to the greatest sign which was to be manifested in
him--the sign of the resurrection.

The other reason for entering upon the discussion of these questions, lies
in the incredible thoughtlessness with which a great part of modern
educated people, even of such men as do not at all wish to abandon faith in
a living God, permit themselves to be governed by the leaders of religious
infidelity, and to be defiled and robbed of everything, which belongs to
the nature of a living God. By many, it is considered as good taste, and as
an indispensable sign of deep scientific learning and high education, and
it forms a seldom contested part of correspondence in newspapers, which
have for their public a wide circle of educated people, that in referring
to the inviolableness of the laws of nature they declare faith in a special
providence of God to be a view long ago rejected, and which is only
consistent with half-civilized individuals; that they look down with a
compassionate and self-conscious smile upon the egoistic implicit faith of
congregations who still pray for good harvest-weather, and see in the
damage done by a hailstorm a divine affliction; that they criticise it as a
sad token of ecclesiastical darkness, when even church-authorities order
such prayers in case of wide-spread calamities; that they fall into a
passion over the {347} narrowness and the dulling influence of pedagogues
who see in the histories which they relate to their pupils or put into
their hands for reading, the government of an ethical order of the world
which goes a little farther than the rule that he who deceives injures his
good name, and he who gets intoxicated injures his health; that they give a
man who still believes in the resurrection of Jesus, to understand that he
has not yet learned the first elements of the theory of putrefaction and
perishableness. That the adversaries of faith in a God thus express
themselves, and try to conquer as much ground as possible for their frosty
doctrine, is certainly quite natural; but that even advocates of theism
should permit such stuff to be presented to them, and can keep silent in
regard to it--nay, that even preachers offer it to their congregations as
ordinary Sabbath edification, and that their hearers can gratefully accept
it--is certainly a suggestive and alarming evidence of the rapidity with
which, in many men who still do not wish consciously and certainly to be
thought godless (_i.e._, to be separated from God), their connection with
the source of light and life is decreasing, and of how strongly the fear
that they may be looked upon as unscientific and imperfectly educated,
overbalances the fear of losing the living God and Father, and therewith
the support of both mind and life.

Now, that this faith in a _special providence_, in a _hearing of prayer_,
and in _divine miracles_, forms an essential part of Christian
religiousness, we do not need to show more in detail; it is an established
historical fact, and an object of direct Christian knowledge. On the other
hand, we have still to say a word concerning {348} that which, on the part
of those just described, is so strongly contested; namely, about the
scientific worth of such a faith, and also about its reconcilableness with
the Darwinism theories.

In the first place, as to the faith in a _special providence of God_, and,
in connection with it, as to the possibility of _a hearing of human
prayer_, such a faith is by itself the inevitable consequence of all
theism; nay, it is precisely identical with theism; it is that which makes
theism _theism_, and distinguishes it from mere deism--_i.e._, from an idea
of God, which merely makes God the author of the world, and lets the world,
after it was once created, go its own way. Now, the theistic idea of God,
which sees the Creator in an uninterrupted connection with his creation, is
in itself the more scientific one: for a God who, although the author of
the world, would not know how to find, nor intend to find, a way of
communication with his creation, would certainly be an idea theologically
inconceivable. We should, therefore, still have to adhere to the idea of a
special providence of God, even if in our discursive reasoning and exact
investigation of the processes in the world we should not find a single
guide referring us to the scientific possibility of such a direct and
uninterrupted dependence of the world on its author. We should then have
simply to declare a conviction of the providence of God to be a postulate
of our reasoning, which is given with the idea of God itself; and would
just as little call this conviction unscientific on account of the fact,
that we are not able to show the modalities of divine providence, as in
reference to the exact sciences we should contest the character of their
{349} scientific value on account of the fact that they are no longer able
to give us an answer exactly where our questions become most important and
interesting.

But the ways in which we are able to realize scientifically the idea of a
divine providence are, indeed, not entirely closed for us. We have several
of them; one starts from the idea of God, others from the empiric created
world.

It belongs to the _idea of God_, that we have to think of the sublimity of
God over time and space, of his eternity and omnipresence, in such a way
that God, in his being, life, and activity, does not stand _in_ time nor
within any limits or differences of space, but absolutely above time and
above all limits and differences of space; that he is _present_ in his
world everywhere and at any time. He who objects to this, can only do it
with weapons to which we have to oppose the objection which the adversaries
of the Christian idea of God so often raise against it--namely, the
objection of a rejectable _anthropomorphism_. In contesting the possibility
of the idea of an uninterrupted presence of a personal and living God in
the entire realm of the universe, the adversaries seem to permit themselves
to be daunted by the difficulty which is offered to man in controlling the
realms of his own activity. The greater such a realm, the more difficult
becomes a comprehensive survey, the more the human influence has to
restrict itself to the greater and more common and to neglect the little
and single. The more removed is the past which helps to constitute the
circumstances of the present, the greater is the human ignorance and
oblivion; the more removed is the future, the greater is the human
incapability of {350} influencing it decisively. Such measures ought to
disappear, even in their last traces, when we reflect on God and divine
activity. If once the idea is established for us of a living God, who is
always present in the world created by him, and in whose "sight a thousand
years are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night,"
the final causal chain of causes and effects may be ever so long, and
stretching over this course of the world from its beginning to its end; the
single phenomena may be woven together of ever so many thousands and
thousands of millions of different causal chains: we nevertheless see above
them all the regulating hand of God from whom they all come, and who not
only surveys and controls their texture in all its threads, but who himself
arranged, wove, and made it. Such a view is not only more satisfactory to
the religious need of man, but it also seems to us more scientific, than a
view which traces everything back to a blind and dead cause, or even to no
ultimate cause at all, and thinks it has entirely removed the last veil, if
it pronounces the great word "causal law."

Now, while our _idea of God_ thus tells us that God has in his hand all
causal chains in the world, and its million-threaded web in constant
omni-surveying presence and in all-controlling omnipotence, our reflection
on the _world_ and its substance and course also leads us from the _a
posteriori_ starting-point of analytical investigation precisely to the
same result; it even leads us to a still more concrete conception of this
idea--namely, to the result, that not only the _causal chains, in their
totality and in their web_, but also _all single links_ of these chains,
{351} have their force and existence only by virtue of a transcendental, or
what is the same, of a _metaphysical_, cause.

For if we analyze the single phenomena in the world, we certainly observe
in the activity of their qualities and forces such a conformity to law,
that, in our reflection on these phenomena, we can go from one phenomenon
to the necessity of another as its cause or its effect, and thus form those
particular causal chains and causal nets in whose arranged representation
natural science consists. But that those qualities and forces exist and act
precisely thus, and not otherwise, and why, we are no longer able to
explain. We can only say: the material and the apparent is no longer their
cause, but their effect; therefore, the cause of that which comes into
existence lies beyond the phenomenon--_i.e._, in the transcendental, in the
metaphysical.

This becomes evident in the _inorganic world_ and in those qualities which
are common to all matter. Such common qualities of the latter are, for
instance, cohesion and gravitation. That all matter has the quality of
cohesion, we can only say because we observe it; but that it must be so,
and why, we are not able to say. This becomes still more evident in
gravitation. Gravitation is so decidedly an action in space, that it
appears to us, together with cohesion, as precisely the bond which binds
the entire material world together. Each single material atom is subject to
its force; but how and why, and especially how and why matter acts upon the
matter _in space_, physics can no longer tell us, but refers us to a
metaphysical cause.

This dependence of each single being, and of all its qualities and forces,
on a transcendental and {352} metaphysical cause of its existence, becomes
most clear to us in the world of the _organic_, and especially in the
transmission and development of organisms. _That_ individuals originate new
individuals of their species; _that_ the fecundated germs, if the necessary
conditions are present, develop themselves out of the first germ and
egg-cell in continually progressive and distinct differentiations, each
after its kind, into the full-grown condition, so that individuals endowed
with a soul and intellectual life are also developed out of such
beginnings;--these are facts which are continually repeated before our
eyes, and men of science have not yet reached the end in pursuing the
actual in these processes into its finest ramifications. But how it is that
individuals _must_ transmit themselves--that the seeds and eggs _must_ have
this force of germination and development--they have not yet been able to
explain, and will never be able to do so. The word "inheritance," which is
to solve the problem, is only a _name_ for the _fact_ which we observe, and
for the regularity of its repetition; but for this fact of inheritance
itself, we seek in vain a _physical_ explanation: we are referred to a
_metaphysical_ cause. Thus, not only the _first_ origin of life on earth is
an enigma to us (as we have seen in Part I, Book II, Chapter I, § 3), but
organic life itself, in its whole existence and course, is a process which,
at every step, and in every place of its course, remains to us in its last
causes physically unexplained, and refers us to metaphysical causes.

If we finally see in all these inorganic and organic processes a striving
towards ends--and we must see it, as soon as we in general observe order,
the category of higher and lower, and the appearance of the higher on {353}
the basis of the lower--we are, with all our teleological observations,
again referred to the metaphysical, and still more decidedly to the
goal-setting metaphysical; and a metaphysical which sets and reaches goals
is nothing else than that in philosophic language which in the language of
religion we call a living _Creator_ and _Ruler of the world_ and the
activity of his _providence_.

From still another side, the knowledge of the world, even in a scientific
way, leads us to the acknowledgment of a divine providence which controls
with absolute freedom every process in every place and in every moment of
the world's course. We see continually, in the midst of nature, and in its
causal course conformable to law, something supernatural, transcendental,
and metaphysical, acting decisively upon the course of nature; and that is
the _free activity of man_. Every man carries in the freedom of the
determinations of his will something transcendental and metaphysical in
himself, which we can call natural only when we mean by nature the summary
of all that which exists, but which we have to call supernatural when we
mean by nature the summary of that which belongs to the world of phenomena
in its traceable causes as well as in its traceable effects. The scale of
life-activities, from the lowest arbitrary motions, from the impulses and
instincts of the animal up to the highest moral action of the will of man,
shows us in indistinct transitions all stages which lead from the natural
to the supernatural, until, in the ethical and religious motives of man, we
arrive at superphysical (_i.e._, supernatural) motives which daily and
hourly invade the natural, and in this invasion consciously and
unconsciously use the forces of nature {354} and their activity,
conformable to law, and in spite of their metaphysical and transcendental
origin, from the moment of their activity, join the natural causal
connection of the world's course. This observation of an invasion of the
physical by the supernatural, as it continually takes place in the free
action of man, leads us in a triple way to the acknowledgment of an action
of divine providence upon the course of the world.

In the first place, this observation shows us, in a very direct way, points
where the free disposition of God acts determinatingly upon the course of
things, and where this action becomes accessible to our observation. These
points are the human personalities, in so far and inasmuch as they permit
themselves to be influenced and determined by the will of God in the
ethical and religious motives of their action, and, when these motives
become actions, determinately act upon the course of things.

In the second place, this observation further leads, by way of two
conclusions, to the acknowledgment of a divine providence.

One conclusion is the following: If there exist in the world free and
intelligent beings which, through their free determinations, guided by
reflection, decisively act upon the course of nature, and if these beings,
on account of these very qualities of freedom and intelligence, occupy the
highest stage among the creatures which we know, the last metaphysical
cause of their existence must also have qualities which are able to produce
such free and intelligent beings--at least the qualities of freedom and
intelligence in the highest degree. And this highest metaphysical cause
which produces free and intelligent personalities in the world, can at
least be no {355} more dependent upon the entire world, whose author it is,
than those personalities are dependent upon that realm in the world in
which they have their existence. We call such a metaphysical cause, to
which we have to ascribe freedom and intelligence in the highest degree,
God; and we call its free position in reference to the world, the
government of the world, or providence.

The other conclusion leads us to the acknowledgment of a connection of
providence with conformability to law in the actions of all forces and
qualities in the world. It is the same conclusion to which we had to refer
in Chap. I, § 6, but which now, as we draw from theism the conclusion of
the acknowledgment of a special divine providence, falls with increased
weight into the scale. It is the following: On the one hand, we observe in
the processes of the world a striving towards ends; on the other, we know
in the world itself only one single creature which acts according to aims,
which sets itself its ends and reaches them with freely chosen means. This
one creature is man. Now man can, as we pointed out in Chap. I, § 6, choose
and use the means with which he wishes to reach his ends, only because he
can rely on the conformity to the end in view and the regularity in the
effect of all the qualities and forces of things. If he could not rely on
them, he certainly could set himself ends; but the reaching of them he
would have to leave to the play of chance. Now if we see, on the one side,
that the only creature known to us which sets itself ends is able to reach
these ends by virtue of inviolable conformity to law in the forces and
effects of its means, and if we see, on the other, that in the course of
the world ends are also reached, and that at the same time {356} all
secondary causes which lead to these ends act with a necessity conformable
to law, we certainly are right in drawing the conclusion that the highest
metaphysical cause of all things--we now say, the living God--has so
prepared the whole universe that his free but regular and systematic
goal-setting and end-reaching action upon the course of all things rests,
as a whole as well as in detail, directly upon the conformity to law of all
forces and their effects.

The observation of a free action of the human personality upon the course
of things, once more leads us back to a reflection on the _idea of God_.
For if we have reason to acknowledge a _freedom_ of the determinations of
human will--and the consciousness of ethical responsibility will be a proof
of this freedom which cannot be invalidated by any contrary reflection--the
question comes up: _how is this freedom of a creature reconcilable with the
idea of God?_ Far be it from us to claim to have found a solution of these
last and most important problems of the human mind. For all meditations on
them but lead to antinomies in the presence of which we dare not churn to
remove all difficulties of reflection still less to solve the difficulties
by pursuing only one chain of reasoning and ignoring the other. The way of
science leads rather to mere _compromises_, and these compromises consist
in the fact, that on every side of our observations or arguments we look
for and adhere to that which results for us in incontestable fact or
indispensable postulate, and that we adhere to all results or postulates
thus found even when we are no longer able to trace their unity and harmony
back to their last sources. Now if, on the one hand, our idea of {357} God
is established as a self-testimony of God to our ethical consciousness and
as a result of our teleological reasoning, and if, on the other, is
established the fact of the world and of its processes going on conformably
to law, and likewise the fact of human freedom and its actions upon the
course of things, and finally the fact of the admission of the human will
and action into a higher teleology which is superior to human will, and
which, in the history of mankind, of individuals, and nations, reaches its
higher ends, now by affirming, now by denying, human will; then we have
simply to account for all these facts as mere _facts_, and the scientific
attempt at pursuing them into their inner connection is nothing else but a
more or less successful compromise. We have to be satisfied with these
indications, for the further discussion of them would lead us far beyond
the task of the present publication. We shall only point out the fact, that
precisely the knowledge of the image of God in man shows us the way to the
knowledge of how it is conceivable that God can create personalities
through whose freedom of will he relatively limits the absoluteness of his
own will.

In all our discussions hitherto, the scientific basis of a faith in the
possibility of an _answer to prayer_ has been evident. All reasons for a
divine providence, also speak with the same force of persuasion for the
hearing of our prayers, as soon as the _idea of being a child of God_ has
become an integral part of our idea of God. And this idea--the idea of God
as the father, and of a relationship of love between the divine and the
human personalities--is so much a part of the Christian idea of God, that
it belongs to its very essence. Only one {358} consideration might offer
scientific difficulties to our faith in the hearing of prayer: namely, if
God hears the prayers of his children, in the course of time new motives
for his action present themselves to him; now, is it reconcilable with the
idea of God, that God makes himself in any such way dependent on that which
first appeared in time, and on the changing moods of the creature? But this
difficulty is precisely the same which we met, when acknowledging human
freedom and its reconcilableness with a divine providence; and we have
tried to indicate above the path which leads to its solution.

It is the principal idea which penetrates all our reasoning about the
relation of God and the world--namely, the idea of a _teleology in the
world_--which is to lead us to a correct conception of the _miracles_ and
their reconcilableness with a mechanism of nature and with the Darwinistic
ideas of development. In the much discussed contest about the problem of
miracles, clearer results would certainly have been attained, if one had
questioned more closely what the record of the Christian religion means by
miracles, and what position, according to it, these miracles have to take
in the order of the world and in the divine plan of salvation; and after
having satisfied himself as to this position, had further asked what
position they take in reference to our exact science and our theistic view
of the world. Instead of doing this, we have often enough seen friend and
foe of the idea of miracles, as soon as the question was even touched upon,
at once set to work with the insufficient conceptions of old rationalism
and supernaturalism, and thus raising objections and attempting solutions
which could satisfy nobody. Especially every inadequate idea {359} which
was put forth by the advocates of faith in miracles, was gladly accepted by
its adversaries; for thereby they were furnished with a caricature of the
idea of miracles, the tearing to pieces of which was an easy and agreeable
sport to them.

The very ideas of the _natural_ and the _supernatural_ are a category which
is to be treated with caution. When discussing the question of divine
providence, we have seen that, with every free act of the will of man
springing from an ethical motive, something supernatural invades the
natural, so that in every normal human life we always see supernatural and
natural by the side of and in one another.

The distinction between the _direct_ and the _indirect action or invasion
of God_ is also to be used with great caution and restriction. For where we
are no longer able to find secondary causes, who can assert that God no
longer uses any? Where the realm of visible causes ceases and that of the
invisible begins, who can exclude secondary causes? And on the other hand,
where God acts directly, who can deny the concurrence of his direct
presence and his direct action, or reduce the value of that which was
indirectly produced?

Moreover, the often-returning conceptions of a _breaking of the laws of
nature_, or the compromises which were made between a breaking and a
non-breaking of the laws of nature by assuming a "supernatural acceleration
of the process of nature," were still more misleading. In the whole world,
infinitely many higher and lower forces act according to laws and order. In
every process, a part of the forces which in the single case surround it,
become active, and thereby hinder {360} another part from its activity. But
the laws of this other part of forces are not thereby invalidated or
broken. When a man acts with moral freedom, from mere moral motives, the
highest of the conceivable forces over which we have control comes into
direct action upon the natural. But therewith those forces, with their
laws, which would have been active if another motive had determined him,
are not yet overcome, but only hindered from their activity in exactly the
same way as one part of forces can be active and another not, where mere
mechanical actions take place. Thus, in miracles, no law of nature is
overcome, but only a force which otherwise would have been active according
to the law of its activity, is for the time hindered from action by another
force becoming active. Moreover, through the conscious and unconscious
connection of the idea of irregularity and lack of plan with the idea of
miracles, not only the idea of a God who works miracles, but also that of a
personal Creator and Ruler of the world, in general, has come into
discredit. For that reason, Häckel, for instance, when he attacks the
Christian idea of creation, never fails to speak of the "capricious
arbitrariness" of the Creator; and Oskar Schmidt also speaks of the
"caprice" of the God of Christians.

With these criticisms, which we have made in reference to the treatment of
the question of miracles, we certainly have undertaken only to characterize
the superficial skirmishing which took place between the two opposing views
of the world, but not the labors of more recent theological science. But
that skirmish has made, like all superficiality, the most noise in the
world; and since the adversaries of the faith in {361} miracles endeavored
almost exclusively to reflect in this manner, and almost ignored the deeper
deductions of theological science, they succeeded in making the idea of
miracles almost the most dreaded object of antipathy to modern education,
and many of those who feel that the conceptions of traditional dogmatics
are in need of revision, and religion and science of a reconciliation,
endeavor to find that revision and reconciliation especially in the fact,
that religion gives up miracles. On the other hand, _theology as science_,
in its main advocates, long ago gave up these insufficient and misleading
categories and conceptions, and established a conception of miracles which
can easily be received into the science of the processes of nature, as well
as into our reasoning about God and the divine. The first who adopted this
mode of treatment, is one of the pioneers of more recent positive theology,
and of a theology still uninfluenced by science--Karl Immanuel Nitzsch. It
is certainly interesting to read what this man, as early as 1829, said, in
the first edition of his "System der Christlichen Lehre" ("System of
Christian Doctrine"), and also in the succeeding edition printed without
alteration. He says, on page 64: "The miracles of revelation are, in spite
of all objective supernaturalness, derived from their central origin,
_something really conformable to law_: partly in relation to the higher
order of things to which they belong and which is also a world, a nature in
its kind, and acts upon the lower in its way; partly in reference to the
similarity to common nature which they retain in any way; partly on account
of their teleological perfection; and they must not only be expected as the
homogeneous phenomenon from the inner miracle of {362} redemption, from the
standpoint of perfect Christian faith, but also by virtue of the union
between spirit and nature, be looked upon _as the natural in its kind_." In
these words we find the fruitful germs of a sound dogmatic development
which the idea of miracles has found on the part of more recent theology.

Let us, in the first place, try to keep free from all preconceived, correct
or incorrect, opinions, and ask how the miracles appear to us, when they
present themselves with a claim to acknowledgment as integral parts of a
divine revelation of salvation, namely, in the religion of redemption and
its record. In regard to their name, they appear to us in the Holy
Scriptures as amazing bright processes, as great deeds and signs; and in
regard to their nature, as signs which are destined to call the attention
of man to the government in grace and in judgment of a living God, to the
salvation of redemption which God gives to man, and to the human
instruments which he uses for that purpose. Now, in a view of the world
which, like the Biblical, so decidedly sees a revelation of God in all that
which takes place, in a view of the world to which everything natural has
also, as a work of God, its supernatural cause, and everything
supernatural, at present, or in the future, is transposed again into nature
and history, not only all those above rejected conceptions of miracles lose
their significance, but all remaining conceptions with which one otherwise
tries to distinguish the miracles from all that is not miraculous, or to
classify the different species of miracles, also diminish in importance, as
do also all those distinctions of direct and indirect actions of God--the
distinctions of relative and absolute, of subjective and objective
miracles: and there {363} remains hut a single inviolable kernel and
central point of the Biblical conception of miracles, and that is the above
mentioned _teleological character_ of miracles. Indeed, we are not willing
to reject all these logical distinctions and investigations as worthless:
they have helped to render clear our conceptions and ideas, and they still
help. But a deeper investigation of the idea of miracles and its relation
to a scientific knowledge of the world may perhaps finally lead our more
developed reflection back to the fact that we find the quintessence and the
nature of miracles only where the pious people of the Bible found it. And
this quintessence of miracles consists precisely in their _teleological
nature_, and not at all in the fact that they cannot be explained
physically: it consists in the fact that miracles are _signs_ through which
God manifests himself and his government over man, and actually shows the
latter that _he_ wishes to bring him to the pursuit of perfection by the
way of redemption. Ritschl, in an essay which appeared in the "Jahrbücher
für Deutsche Theologie," as early as 1861, pointed out this decidedly
teleological character of Biblical miracles and the indifference shown by
pious men in the Bible as to the question whether these deeds and signs can
be explained naturally or not.

The profit which we derive from this reverting to the Biblical conception
of the idea of miracles is by no means small.

In the first place, we help to establish the full recognition of that
direct religious consciousness and sensation which is not only
characteristic of the pious men of Scripture, but which yet characterizes
all genuine religiousness; and this consists in the fact that the religious
man sees {364} _miracles of God in all that turns his attention to God's
government_,--in the sea of stars, in rock and bush, in sunshine and storm,
in flower and worm, just as certainly as in the guidance of his own life
and in the facts and processes of the history of salvation and of the
kingdom of the Lord. In this idea of miracles, the essential thing is not
that the phenomena and processes are inconceivable to him--although
certainly in all that comes into appearance there is still an
incomprehensible and uncomprehended remainder. For a form of nature,
_e.g._, which turns his attention to a creator, is of course a miracle,
even if he is able to look upon it with none other eye than that of the
unlearned: but it even then remains a miracle,--nay, it is increased to a
still greater miracle, if he has learned to contemplate and investigate it
with all the auxiliary means of science. A hearing of his prayers remains a
miracle, whether or not he is able to perceive the natural connection of
the process in which he sees his prayers answered, or even to trace it back
to the remotest times which preceded his prayers. The events and facts of
the history of salvation remain miracles to him, whether the history of
nature and the world offers to him auxiliary means of explaining them or
not. The pious man, therefore, does not find the essential characteristic
of miracles in their relative inconceivableness, but in the fact that they
refer him to a living God who stands above this process, whether perceived
or unperceived in its relative causal connection, and unites it with the
course of things in order to reach his ends and to manifest himself to man.
Now, in our attempt at a scientific reproduction of the idea of miracles,
if we return to that Biblical conception, we see no longer in this just
{365} mentioned religious conception of miracles a pious sophistry which
avoids the difficulty of the idea, or a child-like _naïveté_ worthy of
being partly envied and partly pitied, which does not at all see the
difficulties and remains on the child-stage of Biblical conceptions; but we
only perceive in it a confirmation and fulfilment of that profound and
beneficent word of our Lord: "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not
receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."
Of course, piety as well as science makes _distinctions_ among miracles.
The former separates the _mere products and processes of nature_ which,
through what is explicable as well as what is inexplicable in their
qualities and processes, point to an almighty and all-wise Creator, and
thereby become miracles to the religious view of the world, from the
_historical events_ which, by their newness and uniqueness, and by their
pointing toward divine ends, manifest God and his teleological government
to man, and calls them miracles in a still more specific sense than science
does. And among historical events, piety as well as science assigns the
name miracle, in the most pregnant sense, to those events which belong to
the _history of salvation_, and, by their newness and uniqueness, introduce
new stages into it, render legitimate its new instruments, or bring new
features of redemption to our knowledge. Our religiousness has the greatest
and deepest interest in this history: for it is the history of the leading
back of man into communion with God by the way of redemption; and therefore
the events of this history are precisely those miracles upon which our
deepest religious interest is concentrated. But in spite of all these
distinctions in degree, that natural relationship and that {366} common
character of the miraculous between the miracles of nature, the miracles of
the history of man, and the miracles of the history of salvation, remain
established; and we render a service to religious consciousness, as well as
to the scientific conception of the idea of miracles, if by returning to
the Biblical idea of miracles, as we propose, we make a more comprehensive
definition of miracles possible.

Another advantage which we derive from returning to the Biblical idea of
miracles consists in the fact that it preserves us from the _magical_ and
necromantic in our conceptions of miracles; that it allows us a _grouping
of miracles according to value_, which corresponds with the idea of God and
of the divine government as well as with the idea of miracles itself; and
that in the presence of all single relations of miracles it summons us to
_criticise_ and _investigate the real state of the case_. For the nature of
miracles does not consist in the inconceivable--at least not in the
planless and arbitrary,--but in the fact that they call the attention of
man to God and his government; and this leads to the reverse of all that is
magical and necromantic, because the magical is unworthy of the idea of God
and contradicts all the other self-testimony of God. Now if the nature of
miracles consists in the fact that they call my attention to God and his
government, an event will become a miracle to me, and increase its value,
in the degree in which it refers me to God and his government, and
especially in the degree in which it refers me to that government of God
which is the most important to me--namely, to the action of God in me and
mankind, with which he is bringing about his ends in salvation; {367} but
in the degree in which an event loses this character, it becomes to me an
event without miraculous or religious significance. This gives a quite
definite grouping of miracles according to value, from those which belong
to the central manifestations of the divine plan of salvation and way of
redemption, to those which lie in the extreme periphery of religious
interest. It is a grouping which corresponds with the idea of God just as
much as with the idea of miracles; while all other divisions or groupings
of miracles according to value, which might take their principle of
division and their weight from the greater or smaller conceivableness of
the causal connection, from the greater or smaller difference of a
miraculous event from all other events, are indifferent in reference to the
idea of God, and change the centre of gravity in the idea of miracles.
Besides, if these miracles are to be real signs to me which refer me to
God, his government, and his ways of salvation, they must, in the first
place, in order to secure my conviction, be real events and facts and not
mere falsifications and fictions; and this point leads us to the duty and
right of criticising and investigating actual circumstances. In presence of
all Biblical and non-Biblical miracles, we have the full right and the full
duty of using criticism in reference to the confirmation of actual
circumstances, and where the latter cannot be established with certainty,
the question is in order whether the related event is really of such a
character as to legitimate itself as a sign of God and his government. In
the preceding section, we have had occasion to use this principle in
reference to the investigation of that event which, next to the coming of
the Redeemer, offers itself to us as the {368} central miracle of the
history of salvation and redemption: namely, in reference to the history of
the resurrection of the Lord.

We have by no means the wish to avoid _difficulties_ which meet us, when
trying to bring miracles, and especially the specific and pregnant miracles
of the history of salvation, into harmony with our scientific knowledge of
the world: only we can no longer admit that these difficulties consist in
the inconceivableness or in the supernaturalism of miracles. For to the
religious view of the world--which traces equally the explicable as well as
the inexplicable back to God, which even derives the natural from the
supernatural causality of God--neither the occasional inexplicability nor
the supposed supernaturalness of an event can be that which makes the event
a miracle. But an event in the history of salvation becomes a miracle from
the fact that something _extraordinary_, something _new_, happens in it,
which by its newness and its extraordinary character presents itself to man
as the manifestation of certain divine _ends in salvation_, and can be
explained _at first sight_, but only at first sight, from nothing else than
from the service which it renders to the plan of redemption. Whether
afterwards these extraordinary and new features can or cannot be perceived
in their natural connection, or explained out of it, does not at all change
anything in the miraculous character of the event, as soon as it has _once_
had the before-mentioned effect. The only task and the only difficulty
which meets us in the question of miracles, is to show that such
extraordinary and new things really happen, and to bring the reality and
possibility of such new things into our perception of the {369} causal
connection of the course of the world, conformable to law. But it ceases to
be a difficulty, so soon as we acknowledge a teleology in the course of the
world and a teleology in the history of mankind, and especially as soon as
we acknowledge that teleology in the history of mankind which, by the way
of the divine means of redemption, leads man back to God. Where there are
no ends, nothing can happen which calls the attention of men to these ends;
nor, indeed, can anything new happen; for nothing prevails in more absolute
sovereignty to all eternity than the maxims _causa æquat effectum_ and
_effectus æquat causam_. But where ends are appointed and reached,
something new also happens; and every new thing refers to its end. For each
step leading nearer such an end is something new, and refers, as soon as we
compare it with preceding steps, to the end towards which it strives. All
ends to which the course of things refers us, are to the religious view of
the world ends which are appointed by God; all means which serve to reach
the ends, are means which God created and chose; and every phenomenon and
every event which manifests this teleological government of God to our
mind, is a miracle to us. Now this whole course of the world is interwoven
with such new things, in events which manifest to us, now more clearly, now
more dimly, the striving of the course of the world towards an end, because
the latter is really striving towards an end. Even prehistoric times show
us new things which, from a scientific and historical point of view, we
have to place in the line of the course of the world; and from a religious
point of view, in the line of miracles. The first appearance of organic
life on earth was new, and indicated new ends; the first {370} appearance
of each single species of animals and plants was new; new, also, and
indicating the highest end of creative life, was the first appearance of
man. All these things we call _miracles_ of creation; and we especially
place the creative miracle of the appearance of man on a level with the
greatest miracles of which we have knowledge, and use the name miracle for
all before mentioned newly appearing formations, whether or not we are able
to explain those originations from the preceding connection of the course
of nature and its forces. Now, in the history of mankind, where the
intellectual and ethical motives of that which happens become active, where
also the greatest ends which come up for consideration are spiritual and
ethical ends, where man himself acts freely according to ends, and where,
therefore, human and divine teleology come alternately into play, the
manifestation of a striving toward an end, in which religious consciousness
immediately sees also ends and means of God, is repeated in an eminent
degree. Every event which brings about a progress in the history of mankind
as well as of individuals, is as to this side something new, extraordinary,
teleological: _i.e._, a miracle to the religious mode of contemplation; and
this miracle is the greater as is more important the end under
consideration, and the greater and the more decisive the step towards this
end which the event accomplishes. Now, if we recognize the return of
mankind into a communion with God as the highest goal of the general and
individual history of mankind, and if we find in the latter facts which
lead to this goal, then these facts are the great central miracles of
history. As such, the facts of redemption present {371} themselves with all
that for which it once prepared the way; and, now that it has come, leads
to full and complete perfection--and among them all, the coming, the
person, and the history of Jesus Christ, stands as central fact and central
miracle in the midst of all events in the history of salvation, and forms
the central point of all religious interest. We see how unjust it is when
one urges, as an objection to a belief in miracles, that it assigns to God
arbitrary and capricious actions. We call the manifestations of divine
teleology miracles. But striving towards an end and conformity to a regular
plan is not arbitrariness or caprice, but the contrary; and the greater our
estimate of the highest cause of all things, the greater will appear to us
the conformity to a plan and to law of all which presents itself as
miracles in the course of events. There is perhaps one objection which is
about as equally unjust as the objection of caprice; and that is the
objection that faith in miracles, in teaching a belief in supernatural
things, lends to introduce into the course of events something which is
against nature. But since miracles, as a sign of divine teleology, manifest
ends for which nature also is prepared, and through which the fallen nature
of man, fallen by sin, is again restored; and since to the religious view
of the world all natural phenomena and processes expressly rank among
miracles, the faith in miracles teaches the contrary of an opposition to
nature. It is incontestible--and will become still clearer and more certain
to us through all farther investigation of the subject--that the
acknowledgment of the idea of miracles as a necessary and a justified part
of religiousness {372} stands and falls with the acknowledgment of a
teleological view of the world.

We certainly do not indulge in the foolish hope that with the deductions of
this section we should be able suddenly to win over any of the decided
adversaries of faith in providence and miracles. For, as we have had
occasion to remind the reader, the acknowledgment or the non-acknowledgment
of God and his living government in the world is not the result of this or
that reflection and chain of conclusions, but rather an ethical action of
the centre of human personality in which God discovers himself in his
self-manifestation. Now, if this centre, in the freedom of its decision,
has once denied the acknowledgment of God and his government, then the
intellectual actions of the soul offer themselves to this atheistic and
anti-theistic standpoint, and build up atheistic systems in which the ideas
of providence and miracles naturally find no place. Thus system is opposed
to system, although the one is not able to overcome the other. For the last
and deepest power of conviction lies, neither for one nor the other system,
in its chains of conclusions, in its superstructure, but in its foundation,
its standpoint, and its principles; and the choosing of one or the other
standpoint, the theistic or atheistic, is an ethical action which precedes
methodical reasoning--or if it takes place at the same time or precedes it,
has still deeper motives than those of more or less clear forms of mere
reasoning. But we believe, and we wish and hope in our modest way to have
shown by our present investigation, that the standpoint of faith also has
its logical and justified science, and that it is able to appreciate the
{373} world of the real more universally and candidly, and offers to
logical reasoning fewer and less important difficulties, than the systems
of atheism.

We have now discussed all the essential and direct points of contacts
between Christianity and the theory of evolution. But a remaining part,
still more closely related to the centre of the Christian view of the
world, yet offers some indirect points of contact which demand treatment.

§ 5. _The Redeemer and the Redemption. The Kingdom of God and the
Acceptance of Salvation._

As soon as it is once an established fact that an evolution theory of the
origin of man as a merely scientific theory permits all the valuable
qualities of man, when they have once come into existence, to show
themselves undiminished in their entire greatness and importance, and must
so permit them, then the whole Christian view of the world, of the
Redeemer, his person, his course of redemption, and his work, remains
entirely untouched by all these scientific theories of evolution. Yet the
Biblical representation, the orthodox perception, and the actual history of
the Redeemer and his work, present us with some evidences which are rather
in sympathy than in antipathy with these scientific theories. First, the
long preparation for his birth, which began immediately after the fall of
man and stretched over at least four thousand years, perhaps over a much
longer period, the special preparation of his human genealogy, the
selection, separation, and guidance of the ancestor and of the people of
Israel, of the tribe, the family, and finally of the mother of Jesus--all
these are manifestly {374} just as favorable to the idea of evolution as
they would have been to the idea of a sudden creation of man out of
nothing, if Christ, the second Adam, had come into existence by a sudden
creation. Moreover, the Redeemer himself was wholly subject to the ordinary
laws of development of the human individual, and was, from his annunciation
and conception, developed entirely like man in the long process of
evolution from the egg and its still absolutely indifferent spiritual worth
through all the imperceptible stages of development before and after the
birth up to the full age of man. Likewise the result of his course of
salvation, redemption, and entrance into the kingdom of God, underwent the
same process of gradual development. It began with a few disciples, and was
slowly propagated; it has to-day reached but a small part of mankind, and
even where it took root, it sees infinitely many things by its side which
it has not yet been able to penetrate with its leaven:--facts which have
much more elective affinity with the scientific ideas of development than
with those of sudden creations.

Finally, precisely the same analogy forces itself upon us in the Christian
doctrine of the way of salvation. The work of the Holy Spirit in the human
individual is nothing less than a new birth; its aim is the revival of the
entire man, in mind, soul, and body. In most men, this work takes place by
a slow process, advancing step by step. This gradual course is even the
rule in Christianized nations; although a decisive change of mind often
enough, though by no means always, takes place in marked epochs of the
inner history of life. And in all Christians--even in those whose
conversion takes place by a sudden awakening, like that of Paul--the {375}
transformation of the entire man into the similarity of Christ, and the
full restoration of the image of God, is certainly a process of
development, and must await its completion in the resurrection. This view
is also confirmed by the Lord's parable of the seed, growing up
imperceptibly.

Every believing Christian knows these facts, and judges and acts according
to them: therefore, when in the realm of nature, which God certainly
submitted to the free investigation of the human mind, he meets similar
views, what right has he to protest against them as being hostile to
religion?

§ 6. _Eschatology._

In our discussion of the preceding questions, we have seen that an entirely
neutral, not to say friendly, relationship is taking place between religion
and the theories of development, which will continue so long as the latter
keep within the limits of their proper realm, the perception of nature; and
that a hostile relation takes place, and anti-religious attacks are to be
guarded against, only when a disbelieving system of metaphysics, which has
grown on other ground, in an uncalled-for way, tries to connect itself
closely with the theory of descent. This is in an eminent degree the case
with the great eschatological hopes of Christianity. The evolution theory
so exclusively contents itself with the attempts at perceiving the causal
circumstances of organisms in the _present_ world, that it does not at all
wish to, and cannot, express itself concerning the _end_ and _goal_ of the
world and the laws and circumstances which may reign in a _future æon_, and
that it gives free scope to every perception of the ultimate which might
come from another source. {376}

On the other hand, Christian eschatology is alone able to do most essential
service to the evolution theory, in case it should be verified, by giving
an answer to questions to which the evolution theory tends more decidedly
than any other scientific theory--namely, to the questions as to _the end
of the world and mankind_, with such distinctions as no philosophy which
treats of the doctrines of nature, is able to give, although natural
science itself demands the answer to these questions the more peremptorily,
the higher the points of view are to which it leads us.

The world shows to every investigating eye a development, whether we have
to take this development as descent or as successive new creation; and
therefore we shall take, in the following discussion, the idea of
development in this broad sense which comprises all conceivable attempts at
explanation. All nature--its most comprehensive cosmic realms as well as
the realms of its smallest organisms--together with the corporeal,
psychical, and spiritual nature of man, shows a _harmony_, a _conformity to
the end in view_, and a _striving toward an end_ of its development, the
denial of which will certainly not add to the laurels which transmit the
scientific fame of our present generation to posterity. Now, what is this
end? The answer which we receive from those who reject Christian
eschatology, may be given by two scientific antipodes: by Strauss and
Eduard von Hartmann. Strauss takes sides with those who reject all striving
toward an end in nature; and his answer to the question (which still
asserts itself in his system of the world), is: eternal circular motion of
the universe, death of all individuals and of all complexes of individuals,
even of {377} mankind. Eduard von Hartmann, on the other hand, is filled by
the knowledge of the teleological, but he rejects the hope of Christians
and the end which offers itself to him in the place of the rejected end of
Christian hope, is destruction--destruction of all individuals and
destruction of the world. In view of such ends, is not the Christian's hope
_the_ answer which not only satisfies the deepest ethical and religious
need, but also all heights and depths of the most faithful, most devoted,
and most enlightened investigation of nature?

Finally, we have still another eschatological conclusion to mention and
reject; a conclusion which is drawn from this theory by the advocates of
the evolution theory. It opens the perspective into a future development of
still higher beings out of man. _In abstracto_, we can naturally make no
objection to the possibility of such a development, as soon as we once
accept the evolution theory; but we have to object to the supposition of
such a process _in infinitum_. For such a process would certainly be
interrupted by the final destruction of the globe; and in case the
mechanico-naturalistic view of the world should be right, this destruction
would be only the more cruel as would be more highly organized the beings
which should find their destruction in this inevitable catastrophe.
Moreover, as we have repeatedly seen, a development _in infinitum_ suffers
from a self-contradiction: for development involves an end, and this end
must certainly have been once reached. Now, if we have reason to assume
that this end has been reached in the development of the inhabitants of the
globe, by the creature being in the image of God and his child, and that it
is also reached in fallen man through redemption {378} and its perfection,
then the idea of development, it is true, allows and postulates a relative
development of mankind, so long as this takes place within the limits of
the now valid laws of the universe,--a development towards the perfection
of this likeness to God and filial relationship; but that idea of
development has no longer an influence that would lead to the production of
new beings which should be more than man.

With the foregoing, we believe that we have discussed all essential points
of the relation between religion and Darwinism; and we now proceed to the
last part of our investigation.

       *       *       *       *       *


{379}

_B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND MORALITY._

CHAPTER III.

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES.

§ 1. _Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Principles._

If we consider the ethical consequences of a view of the world which,
proceeding from Darwinism, permits the universe, man included, to be taken
up into a mechanism of atoms--a mechanism in which everything, even the
ethical action of man, finds its sufficient explanation--we certainly
cannot perceive how such a view of the world is able to arrive at firm
moral principles. If man, even in his spiritual life and moral action, is a
mere product of nature, originated through descent, and if his whole
spiritual life is fully consumed by these merely mechanical factors, then
all moral principles are also nothing else than inherited customs founded
upon those instincts which in the struggle for existence have proven to be
the most beneficial to man. Then their influence is subject to continual
change, always corresponding to the existing state of human development. As
these moral instincts have displaced the former instincts of the animal
predecessors of man--say, _e.g._, of sharks, of marsupialia, of
lemurides--so they must {380} also expect it any time to be displaced in
turn by new and still more useful instincts. And even in the same period of
the development of mankind, the moral or immoral principles which have
actual authority in each nation or tribe, have their full right of
existence as long as they are not displaced by still more advantageous
instincts. Moral principles in which infanticide, prostitution, and
cannibalism have a place, are inferior to the highest form of Christian
morality only so far as they do not hold their own in the struggle for
existence, when nations having those low views come into collision with
nations of higher moral culture; but in themselves they have full value and
full right, so long as they attain the end of all instincts, and so far as
we can speak of ends at all; in such naturalism, apart from human activity,
the end consists only in the preservation of the individual and the species
in the struggle for existence.

Under these suppositions, moral principles not only lose their objective
and solid consistency in the mass of mankind, but they also become
irrevocably subject to the arbitrariness of the single individual. An
individual who either has not, or asserts that he has not, a determined
moral instinct, or who allows it to be smothered by some other instinct
which in a normal individual is subordinate, but in him stronger, is fully
justified in his immoral action so long as he is successful with it. Every
individual is entirely his own master and his own judge. If man is morally
good, it may be the consequence of an especially happy individual
disposition, or of an especially clear perception, or of happy
circumstances and influences; but it is not the consequence of a free
subordination under the authority {381} of a moral law; for there is
neither freedom nor an objective moral authority. The single man is but the
product of a certain sum and mixture of powers of nature, acting of
necessity, which may with him turn out fortunately or unfortunately. If, on
the other hand, man is morally perverted, society may defend itself against
his perversity; wisdom may try to convince him of the bad consequences of
his perversity for himself and society; the effect of his perversity may
make him sensible of the bad consequences of his actions: but there is no
other objectively valid corrective of his perversity. If he is successful
in his immoral action, and if he silences his conscience, this voice of the
unobserved higher instinct in favor of the preferred lower--which
unfortunately, as is well known, succeeds oftenest and most easily in the
case of those whose perversity has become the most habitual, and in whom
another grouping of instincts would be most desirable--then the whole
affair is settled, and he is absolved. Let us be understood correctly. We
do not say that all advocates of mechanical or monistic ethics draw these
conclusions in reality; we know very well that many a man is better than
his system; but it seems to us inevitable that the logical pursuit of that
naturalistic principle leads to this dissolution of all solid fundamentals
of moral principles, and that it is but an inconsequence, certainly worthy
of honor and of notice, if all the advocates of naturalism do not profess
this dissolution of all moral principles with the same cynic frankness that
is shown by many of their partisans.

We do not say too much, when we charge ethical naturalism with dissolution
of _all_ moral principles. Let {382} us examine them, for a moment,
according to the old but still fundamental division into duty, virtue, and
highest good.

According to the principles of that ethical naturalism, there can be no
_duty_ at all, no objective moral law, binding absolutely and in general.
The motives of action are either the strongest and most durable instincts,
or, in case of high culture, conventional agreement of that which benefits
society. In the one as well as in the other case, when the duty is
neglected, the appeal is not made to something absolutely objective and
binding, but either to the highest instinct (and to this every individual
has the right to answer with a _Quod nego_), or to agreement and custom;
and as to this, every individual has the right to make his reformatory or
revolutionary attempt at change--of course only upon the condition that his
attempt is successful, and that it stands proof.

Relatively it is easiest for ethical naturalism to establish a principle of
_virtue_, inasmuch as we have to look upon virtue as the principle of
individual perfection, and inasmuch as even naturalism, by means of the
indestructible impulse of man to attain moral ideas, can postulate an ideal
of human action. But on closer examination even the naturalistic idea of
virtue vanishes under our hands. Virtue, as individual morality, is
constituted of the factors of duty and of the highest good, which form the
motives of virtuous action. Now a system of morality which, as we have
seen, is entirely wanting in an objective solid principle of duty as the
motive of action, and which likewise, as we shall see immediately, is
wanting in an objectively established highest good as the end of action,
cannot possibly {383} produce any other idea of virtue than an abstract
formal one. In ethical naturalism, even this form is subject to change.
For, according to this system, not only the motive and end but also the
form of moral action depend on that which in every circle of society and at
every time proves to be the most successful form. It is the proof of
success or failure which gives this form a certain traditional authority
and a relative solidity--but only a relative one, and only until it is
displaced by a still more successful form.

That, finally, ethical naturalism is also wanting in an objective end of
moral action, in the idea and meaning of the _highest good_, is indeed not
denied by naturalism itself. It is true it speaks with predilection of the
idea of species, which man is to represent and to realize, and in that
respect we can say that the highest good of naturalistic ethologists is the
species or the idea of species.[11] But the idea of species is only the
empty vessel which first becomes valuable by reason of its contents. Now,
if we ask ethical naturalism the properties with which that idea of species
is to be endowed, it certainly mentions properties, but those which are too
rich; namely, it mentions the idea of all that is good in human life and
the forms of human life, _in concreto_, the whole sum of all the conditions
and acquisitions of the culture of mankind, art, nature, and science: the
comprehensive idea of these acquisitions, the enjoyment of them, the work
at them, is the highest good. Now, since no human individual can enjoy them
all and work at them all at the same time, every individual, as {384} to
disposition, inclination, and circumstances, has to enjoy a part of them,
to work at a part of them, and to renounce a part of them. And since each
single one of these good things, however valuable to the individual, may be
refused to or taken away from him, he has again to learn to be satisfied
with that idea of species, however little it is able to offer him, when
separated from the empiric possessions of this earthly life. Thus with
naturalism the highest good is either mentioned in an abstraction which
does not offer us anything, or which, if we ask the meaning of that
abstraction, is instantly drawn down into the low sphere and the varied
multiformity of empirical and individual life, left to the chance of
individual taste, and confounded with that which is connected with the
highest good only in the second line and in a derived manner--namely, with
the formations and actions of life which strive at and serve the
realization of the highest good. Ethical naturalism is not able to produce
out of itself an objective highest good which is for each individual alike
attractive, rich, and comprehensive.

Moreover, since ethical naturalism proves itself insufficient for the
principles of any and all morality, it is but a natural conclusion that it
is still less able to produce those principles which are characteristic of
the highest representation of human morality known to mankind, namely:
_Christian morality_. Ethical monism has no room for three ethical
fundamental views, whose full possession morality owes to Christianity, and
which gives to Christian morality its highest motive power. One of these is
a deeper conception of evil as a sin, as a positive rebellion against the
good; another is faith in a future {385} absolute realization of the
highest good in an end sometime to be reached by mankind and the individual
and by means of a moral order of the world; and the third is the
acknowledgment of the full worth of personality. Evil--to which of course
no objective valid moral law, but only one conventionally established,
stands opposed--is to ethical naturalism nothing but the action of an
instinct which in this given case is not beneficial to man in his struggle
for existence; the category of good and evil is entirely replaced by the
category of the useful and detrimental. With the disappearance of the idea
of sin as a transgression of the divine law, the correlated idea of
holiness also disappears from the system of ethical naturalism. Besides,
blessedness, complete harmony of the outer and inner man with the ideal in
the state of mankind as well as of every individual, complete realization
of the highest good for the whole as well as for the single through the
means of moral work and perfection on the part of man and of holy and
loving guidance and endowment on the part of God, is an aim which
naturalism is not able to acknowledge, since, according to it, mankind and
individuals continue in the ever-flowing stream of earthly incompletion
until both reach their destiny in annihilation. A moral order of the world
is an impossibility to it, since no holy and loving Ruler and Governor of
the world, but only a blind mechanism, causes the course of things.
Finally, the personality of man can be only perceived in its worth and in
its full importance, when, in the first place, it is in the possession of
freedom, of full moral responsibility; and when, in the second place, it
lives beyond the span of its short earthly existence and may hope for a
full realization of {386} all its ideals of virtue and the highest good for
itself as well as for mankind. Both these points must be contested by
monism and naturalism. The place of freedom is taken by absolute
determinism; even man is only a natural product, the highest which
naturalism knows, but still no more than a product of nature; his
personality and his life, bound to the material body, cease with the death
of this body, and therefore never reach the ideal of either morality or
blessedness. All ideals are and must forever remain objective illusions
which came forth out of the power of the corresponding noble impulse,
imaginative objective conceptions of the moral impulses.

§ 2. _Scientific Darwinism and Moral Principles._

Whilst Darwinistic naturalism surely injures the moral principles, the
Darwinistic theories are friendly to them, if they, as mere scientific
theories, restrain themselves within the limits of natural science. But in
no other point of the entire realm of contact between the natural and
intellectual sciences is it more difficult to observe the boundary-line
than in reflecting upon the moral self-determination of man; here natural
science is always in danger of going beyond its limits.

In the question as to the relation of the evolution theories to religion,
the boundary-line can everywhere be easily drawn in theory and easily
observed in practice. For it is entirely natural for man to look upon the
phenomena of the visible world on the one hand, with a religious mind, as
works and actions of an almighty Creator and Ruler of the world, on the
other, with his observing and reflecting mind, as products of natural
causes. With this double view, man by no means feels {387} himself dragged
hither and thither between two conflicting views; he is able in his logical
contemplation of the world scientifically to establish and arrange each for
itself and both in their harmony, and has the full consciousness that the
one, like the other, has subjective as well as objective truth. Or, if a
single individual does not have this consciousness, he must at least admit
that it is not Darwinism primarily which created the difficulty of this
combined view of the world, but that the latter existed for man in the past
as well as in the present.

But the relation of the _Darwinian_ theories to ethical problems is quite a
different thing. Here, in the first place, it is not the same process which
is to be explained as well in regard to its natural conditions as to its
moral cause. It is true that this double view deserves attention in so far
as we can look upon every action which results from a moral determination
also in reference to its natural side. If I have to raise my arm in
consequence of a moral determination, then physiology and mechanism can
demonstrate with it the whole theory of the motion of members. But this is
not the question, when we treat of the relation between the natural and the
ethical. In this example, the moralist examines the motives of my action,
the scientist describes and explains the activity of the nerves and muscles
of my arm, and as long as the scientist is not guilty of going beyond the
boundary to which he is tempted, and which even now we are endeavoring to
make clear, as long as he does not include the ethical motives in his
physiological attempts at explanation, the one keeps himself neutral with
reference to the other; each of them knows that he is {388} operating in a
field which at first has nothing in common with that of the other. In a
moral action, _as such_, the question is no longer as to a process which is
to be explained as well in regard to its natural conditions as to its
ethical cause, but of a process which _either_ has its ethical cause, and
then in its ethical value _no_ natural cause, _or_ which even in its
ethical motives belongs to the causal connection of empirical nature with
its indestructible chain of natural causes and natural effects. Now at this
point the scientist, as such, is always exposed to the danger of denying
the first part of our dilemma and affirming the second. For, in moral
action, something which is elevated above nature and its causal connection
always makes its way into this causal connection of nature, and with its
action and the effects of this action wholly enters into this connection:
and natural science which has to deal particularly with this causal
connection of nature and with it alone, is on that account nevertheless
always tempted to explain everything that it sees coming into this
connection, in _all_ its causes (even in those which no longer belong to
this natural causal connection), out of it. It is therefore always tempted
to trace even ethical action which, with its deeds, makes its way and
enters into this causal connection, but which with its motives stands above
it, as to its motives, back to a natural causal connection; and thus to
contest the independence of ethical motives and their principles--which
independence is not dependent on nature, but, on the contrary, frequently
contradicts it. Ethics must adhere to the fact that the ethical
determination of the will has its origin not in a natural condition, but in
the ethical centre of personality; although all the conditions under which
the ethical motive {389} originates and acts, belong completely to the
causal connection of natural life, in which man himself stands as to the
whole natural part of his being. The ethical realm stands above the natural
realm, and shows its superiority partly by the category of moral demands
whose imperativeness cannot have grown out of the mechanical necessity of
the natural law, because it often enough contradicts the latter and carries
out its demands in opposition to it, partly by the consciousness of
individual responsibility which cannot be got rid of even by him who
mentally establishes a system of determinism that denies responsibility,
partly by the voice of the injured conscience which cannot merely be the
dislike of a dissatisfied higher natural impulse, when it can speak of the
same action for years, even for an entire human life, and even, where man
has counterbalanced that once felt dissatisfaction of the higher impulse,
by an oft-repeated satisfaction of it. In Book I, Chapter V, § 1, we tried
to show that even Darwin seems not to have entirely avoided this danger of
explaining the moral from physical causes; while at the same time we
acknowledge that he otherwise esteems the realm of the moral, and that he
even finds the lofty position of man above the animal world still more
decidedly expressed in his moral than in his intellectual qualities.

But such an intrusion of the physical into the ethical is by no means a
necessary consequence of scientific Darwinism--only an ever-present
temptation of it. He who once admits that even by means of development
something new can originate, that even under the full influence of the
evolution theory there appeared in the series of creation entirely new
phenomena with the {390} appearance of life and the organic, and of
sensation and consciousness, and still more with the appearance of
self-consciousness and freedom, which phenomena no evolution theory is able
to explain; and he who takes into consideration the weight of that other
obvious fact that, in the origin and the growth of each single man, a time
in which he acts with moral responsibility follows in gradual development a
time in which he had but the value and the life of a cell,--such an one can
explain the whole origin of mankind according to the evolution theory, and
yet see something absolutely new coming forth with the appearance of moral
determination. All conditions of the moral determinations of the will may
be and are naturally conditioned, as, indeed, in this world the entire
spiritual life of man is certainly bound to the conditions of his corporeal
life; all preliminary stages of moral types which preceded the temporal
appearance of moral beings, and which surround us still, those stages which
appear in the animal world, may have preceded and prepared the way for the
introduction of morally responsible beings into the world: the moral
determination of the will itself nevertheless remains something new and
independent--something which transcends nature.

If this fact is once admitted, then ethics also has free play to establish
independently and render valid its principles. And then we have no longer
any reason to treat of the relation of the different ethical principles to
naturo-historical Darwinism; for this relation is that of absolute mutual
peace.

       *       *       *       *       * {391}


CHAPTER IV.

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE.

§ 1. _Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Life._

Precisely the same relationship between Darwinism and morality, which we
found in treating of moral principles, presents itself when we ask about
the relationship of Darwinistic ideas and moral life in its concrete
reality. He who builds a system of monistic naturalism upon his Darwinism,
if he is logical, and not better than his system, comes into inevitable
collision with concrete moral life; while he who limits his Darwinism to
the realm of natural science, remains in concrete life in peace with
morality.

That Darwinistic ethical naturalism also comes into conflict with concrete
moral life, becomes evident from the joy with which the advocates of
subversion and negation greet the new principle of the "struggle for
existence," and make it the principle of their own actions and social
theories. This is not chance sympathy, but is founded upon the nature of
ethical naturalism. Of him who learns to look upon himself only as a
product of nature, though highly ennobled, we cannot expect any other
principle than that of following his nature: not, indeed, the ideal nature
of man--for this is an abstraction which man reaches only by means of a
long {392} process of reflection--but his own empirical nature, as he finds
it present in himself; for this is indeed that natural product as which man
has to consider himself according to that theory. Where this leads to,
everybody knows who knows human nature. If these consequences are not to be
found in all ethical naturalists, and if they are perhaps the least evident
in the system and life of the very ones who otherwise teach naturalism the
most logically (Strauss, for example), we again most cheerfully admit that
many men are better than their systems, and that in making objection to a
system, even an ethical system, we in the first place do not say anything
at all about the advocates of this system and their moral value. Often
enough some noble and fruitful truth has been advocated by men who are
personally contemptible, and often enough some dangerous error is
propagated by men who are personally very amiable and moral, although the
damage which such an error carries with it, must become evident in their
lives, on closer observation. Besides, we must not overlook the fact, that
what in a perverse system is still relatively true, and the thing which
gives it a relative vitality, is borrowed from truth and from the correct
system; and that all those who oppose the present fundamentals of morality,
and especially of Christian morality, in a thousand ways live upon and
consume the possessions which they owe to the same influences against which
they contend.

But to whatever relative height the moral nobility of single advocates of
ethical naturalism may rise, it is not able, at least not from its own
principles, to produce thoroughly moral and truly cultivated characters;
such are only produced where that which forms the character, {393} flows
out of a spring of life whose origin is _above_ nature and its series of
causes.

From this we see that for the most part a very low idea of personality, a
very low derivation of the motives of human action, is found in the works
of Darwinistic moralists--as, _e.g._, we have seen in the works of Häckel
that to him the idea of a personality of God is inseparably connected with
the idea of capricious arbitrariness, and that he derives all actions of
all men from the motives of egoism.

But we also see, from still more common evidences, the fact that some of
the very highest blossoms and noblest fruits of human virtue, as they ripen
on the ground of Christian morality, are not even acknowledged, much less
required, by ethical naturalism. We think particularly of the virtues of
_love_, of _self-denial_, and of _humility_. Certainly, we do not deny that
men who are inclined toward naturalism can and do possess love to a certain
degree, but the highest exemplification of love, the love of enemies in the
fullest sense of the word--not only compassion on the battle-field, but the
full, forgiving, blessing love which renders good for evil, and even
intercedes for a personal enemy, although he may be the intentional and
successful destroyer of our whole earthly happiness--such a love may
perhaps be demanded and admired by a naturalistic moralist under the
imposing influence of the presence of such a love and in unconscious
dependence on the motives of Christianity which surround him; but he will
never be able to show from what point of his system it is to be deduced. On
the other hand, it is easy to show him more than one point of his system
which, far from requiring such love, {394} stigmatizes it as simple
foolishness. Such a fruit only ripens under the care of him who gave his
life for us while we still were enemies, and under the influence of the
remission of our sin by our Heavenly Father.

Moreover, an ethical naturalist can also accomplish much in _self-denial_:
he can make many great sacrifices, if he can thereby reach a desirable end
that cannot be reached without acts of self-denial; he can show great
strength and patience in a resigned endurance of the inevitable; and if we
take into consideration the possibility of its being logically at variance
with his system, he may perform all that which the highest morality
requires. But a renunciation which is more than silent resignation, and
which under certain circumstances can also become a joyful renunciation of
all that was beloved and dear to man on earth, does not grow out of the
soil of naturalism, and is possible only there where man carries in himself
a possession which would render him still more fortunate and happy than the
idea of species, and where he knows the cross of Jesus, and understands the
word of the Lord: "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that
loseth his life for my sake, shall find it." Strauss is a striking proof
that naturalism is not able to estimate the tasks of self-denial at their
full importance. In his "The Old Faith and the New," although he speaks
with great earnestness of moral demands, yet he deeply degrades that which
is connected with a Christian renunciation of self and the world, when he
reproaches Christianity with "a thorough cult of poverty and _mendicity_"
(!) and, regarding its demand for self-denial, he denies that it has any
comprehension of the tasks of {395} industry, of the virtues of home and
family life, of patriotism and civil virtue.

Finally, we may make a similar statement in regard to _humility_. There
certainly are ethical naturalists also who are modest. But when the
prophets of ethical naturalism again and again announce that the great aim
of all the discoveries of the evolution theory is to show us how far
mankind has fortunately progressed; when their spirit of devotion is
nourished by Göthe's Promethean word: "Hast thou not thyself accomplished
all, thou holy glowing heart?"--and even when Häckel prints as the leading
motto of his "Anthropogeny" Göthe's poem "Prometheus"; when the struggle of
selection is also elevated to a moral principle, and the life-task of an
individual is limited to creating elbow-room for himself: then humility,
indeed, is a virtue which a naturalist may acquire, not through his
naturalism, but in spite of it; and the great _naïveté_ with which, in
books of that tendency, haughtiness and passion for glory are treated as
something necessarily understood, and their own ego is glorified, is a much
more logical result. "We are proud of having so immensely out-stripped our
lower animal ancestors, and derive from it the consoling assurance that in
future also, mankind, as a whole, will follow the _glorious_ career of
progressive development, and attain a still higher degree of mental
perfection." (Häckel, "Hist. of Creat.") This is the theme which is
repeated in many variations in all books of similar tendency. In the same
book already referred to, we read: "Each free and highly developed
individual, each _original_ person, has his own religion, his own God; _so
it is certainly not arrogance_ when we also claim the {396} right of
forming our own idea of God." Or, "The recognition of the theory of
development and the monistic philosophy based upon it forms the best
criterion for the degree of man's mental development." L. Büchner, in his
collection of essays, "Aus Natur und Welt" ("From Nature and the World"),
dedicates a long chapter to self-glorification, and finds confirmed in
himself the word of the poet, "Great destinies are always preceded by
spirit messengers"; and he, still living, prefaces his own biography in the
latest edition of "Kraft und Stoff" ("Force and Matter"), and on the first
page of the same publishes the testimonial which he received, when leaving
the gymnasium: "The bearer of this testimonial excelled in the thorough
study of literature, philosophy, and poetry, and as regards style in his
productions showed an excellent talent." In view of these things, we
certainly do no injustice to this tendency when we deny to it the
conception of the idea and the practice of humility.

§ 2. _Scientific Darwinism and Moral Life._

It is evident from the peace-relation between mere scientific Darwinism and
moral principles, that naturo-historical Darwinism also remains in peace
with moral life. We therefore have no longer to treat of any question of
competency in the realm of concrete moral life, but only to mention the
points of contact in which both realms, fully acknowledging their mutual
independence, yet in an inferior way exercise some beneficial influence
upon each other. {397}

Moral life influences Darwinism in so far as, by its mere existence, it
cautions the advocate of the scientific evolution theory against effacing
the differences between the moral and the natural, and against degrading
man to the level of animals on account of his connection with the animal
world. The naturo-historical idea of evolution, in case it should turn out
to be correct, would exercise an influence upon moral life in a three-fold
direction: First, it would add to all the motives of the humane treatment
of the animal world--which certainly without it already has moral
demands--a new one, and establish them all more firmly. Man would then
recognize in the animal world which surrounds him branches of his own
natural pedigree, and exercise his right of mastery only in the sense which
Alex. Braun expresses, when he says: "Man consents to the idea of being
appointed master of animals; but then he must also acknowledge that he is
not placed over his subjects as a stranger, but proceeded from the people
itself, whose master he wishes to be." A second service which the idea of
evolution would have to render to the forming of moral life, would consist
in the fact that it would favor all those ethical modes of contemplation
and those maxims which regard the gradual process of development and the
growth of character as the relative power of influences and conditions, and
that it would give them hints for the perception of moral growth, in like
manner as, in the before-mentioned parable, the Lord illustrates the
imperceptible and continual growth of the kingdom of God with the growth of
a plant. A third service which the evolution theory might be able {398} to
render to moral life, would consist in the fact that it would give to the
motive of perfection and progress, which is always and everywhere a moral
lever, a new illustration and a new weight by pointing at the progress
which development has to show in the life of nature.

       *       *       *       *       * {399}


CONCLUSION.

If now, having reached our goal, we look back upon the way which we have
traversed, we find a justification of the regret expressed at the
beginning, that a scientific treatment of religion and morality is
compelled to take a position in regard to theories which are not yet
established. We found the most different problems--scientific,
naturo-philosophical, metaphysical, religious and ethical--inextricably
mixed, and were obliged, as one of our first tasks, to make an attempt at
finding the clew and at examining and testing each single problem, together
with attempts at its solution, separately, although keeping constantly in
mind its connection with all other problems and their attempts at solution.
We found ourselves led into the presence of a series of the most
interesting problems, but not a single solution finished. That very attempt
at solution which brought up this whole question, and which was repeatedly
announced as the infallible key to the solution of all scientific
problems--the selection theory--we found a decided failure, at least in the
direction of the extension and importance which was given to this theory.
And yet in spite of the hypothetical nature of all attempts at solution, we
see investigators in all the realms of natural science strongly attracted
by the very promising character of these problems and busily engaged in
making attempts at solution; {400} and we see even philosophy strongly
attracted by its interest in these works. Such a diligent work can
certainly not be without gain; but wherein will this gain consist? Will it,
as its antagonists prophecy, be like that which in former times alchemy
brought to science, which, indeed, enriched chemistry by an entire series
of new discoveries, but did not find what it sought, the one fundamental
element from which all the rest are derived, which only confirmed, with a
power acknowledged even to-day, the old doctrine of the elementary
difference of the elements? Will the Darwinian investigations thus also
make all possible discoveries _by the way_, but in place of that which they
look for, in place of a common pedigree or of a few pedigrees for all
organisms, finally only give additional strength to the permanence of
species and the unapproachableness of the secret of their origin? Or can we
derive from the reasons which the investigators urge in favor of the idea
of an origin of species through descent and evolution, the hope that that
mysterious darkness of prehistoric times upon which the works of our
century have shed so much light, will still be illuminated even to the
sources from which organic species came, and from which mankind also
originated? We must leave the decision of these questions to the future and
to scientists.

But we have to note _one_ gain, which is so great that on its account, we
willingly cease our regret in regard to the unfinished condition of these
theories; for we owe the full enjoyment of this gain to that very
unfinished condition. It is the gain which _religion and morality_ get from
these investigations, and which consists in the new and comprehensive
confirmation of the conviction, {401} which, indeed, was established
before, that religion and morality--Christian religion and Christian
morality--rest on foundations which can no longer be shaken by any result
of exact investigation.

The triumph with which the Darwinian theories were greeted by many as the
new sun before whose rising all that mankind had thus far called light and
sun turns pale, and the antipathy with which, on that very account, many to
whom their religious and ethical acquisitions are a sacred sanctuary, turn
away from these theories, urged us to investigate their position in
reference to religion and morality. Now, if these theories had produced a
certain undoubted result, we should unquestionably have been satisfied with
the examination of the position of religion and morality in reference to
this certain result. But since not a single result of those investigations
is really established, we have found ourselves obliged to give our
investigation a much greater extension and to discuss even all imaginable
_possibilities_. The beneficial result of this comparison was, that
religion and morality not only remain at peace with all imaginable
possibilities of _scientific_ theories, but can also, in the realm of the
_philosophy of the doctrines of nature_, be passive spectators of all
investigations and attempts, even of all possible excursions into the realm
of fancy, without being obliged to interfere. It is in the realm of _mere
metaphysics_ that we first perceive an antagonist whose victory would
indeed be fatal to the religious and ethical acquisitions of mankind: this
antagonist is called elimination from nature of the idea of design.
Fortunately, this metaphysical idea is in such striking opposition not only
to the whole world of facts but also to all logical {402} reasoning, it has
everywhere, where man perceives organization and a difference between lower
and higher, especially in the contemplation of the world, of this _cosmos_
of wonderful order and beauty, so decidedly all philosophical as well as
all exact sciences as its adversaries, it lays its hands so rudely and so
destructively not only upon the religious and ethical acquisitions but also
upon all ideal remaining acquisitions of mankind, that religion and
morality know, when fighting this adversary, they are in firm accord with
all the spiritual interests of mankind.

This, in its most essential features, is the pleasing result of our
critical examination; and such a demonstration of the immovably solid
foundation, secure from all the change of opinions and all the progress of
discoveries on which morality and religion rest, has still an entire series
of further pleasing consequences in its train.

In the first place, it is a living and actual proof of the fact that
religion and morality give to all sciences _the full freedom of
investigation_. The religious and ethical interest itself not only gives,
but even _requires_, this freedom of investigation. It requires it in
consequence of that _impulse of truth_ which religion has in common with
every impulse of knowledge, and which in itself is an ethical impulse. In
consequence of this impulse, religion must found its possession on nothing
else than subjective and objective truth, and can look upon all the paths
which lead through even the remotest realm of knowledge to the
establishment of truth, only with sympathetic interest. Precisely those who
see in religion more than a mere expression of emotion, and all those who
require that their religious life and the object of {403} their religious
faith shall possess truth, subjective and objective, cannot commit any
greater folly than treating search for truth in any other realm with
suspicion, or even ignoring it. They only injure that which they meant to
defend, by rendering the purity of their own religious interest suspected,
and by establishing more firmly the breach between religious life and faith
and the other acquisitions of culture and interests of their time, of which
neither religion nor science, but only a misguided tendency of their minds
and hearts, is guilty. How much unfriendly and unjust judgment has already
found utterance by means of the pen and voice, in reference to honest and
meritorious workers, on the part of religious zealots who fail to recognize
that close relationship of the religious with the scientific impulse of
truth! How often and how much does such a judgment gain great consideration
from a public of which but a few are able to form an independent opinion of
the men and works which are thus abused before their eyes and ears, and how
much of the aversion to the form in which the religious life of the present
offers itself, on the part of those men who are thus suspected, is in the
last instance to be attributed neither to be irreligiousness of these men
nor to the deficiency of the present form of our religious life, but to the
repelling effect of that unjust treatment!

Another gain of our discussion, correlated to that just mentioned, consists
in the proof _that religion and morality have their autonomous principle
and realm_ which is not at all obliged to borrow the proof of its truth
from the present condition and degree of our knowledge, but carries it in
itself, although it stands in {404} fruitful reciprocal action with all the
other realms of knowledge and life. Just as decidedly as we had to caution
the advocates of religion against keeping themselves indifferent,
suspicious, or even hostile, regarding the advances into the realm of
secular knowledge, so decidedly do we like to see the workers in the realm
of the knowledge of nature cautioned against confusing points of view, in
thinking that they can through their scientific knowledge purify and reform
the religious and ethical realms. They may purify and reform as much as
they please, but only in their own realm. The only thing they are able to
reform is our knowledge of nature, and in our religious and ethical life
and perception only that which belongs to this natural part; but this is
only the outer part of religious and ethical life: the source of our
religion and morality springs from quite another ground than that which
they cultivate.

A third gain from our discussion is the actual proof of _the harmony
between faith and knowledge, between the religious and the scientific views
of the world_. In our investigation we had no occasion for psychological or
theoretical investigations as to faith and knowledge and their mutual
relation; but if our discussion is not an entire failure, perhaps the
actual exposition of a standpoint on which faith and knowledge may live at
peace with one another, which is not bought by a sacrifice on either side,
and which does not consist in a compromise of the two, but which has its
reason in the deepest and most active interest of the one, in the full and
unconstrained freedom of the other, a stronger proof for the intimate
relationship of these brothers, between whom the present generation wishes
too often to sow discord, than if we {405} had undertaken long
religio-philosophical and theoretical investigations.

Finally, the results of our analysis have given us still another gain: they
have led us beyond Lessing's "Nathan" and his parable of the "Three Rings."
We call this a gain, without the least intention of discrediting by it the
motives of tolerance and the points of view for the judgment of the
character and religiousness of human individuals, which lay in that
parable, or suspecting the motives of so many of our contemporaries whose
religio-philosophical judgment is entirely expressed in that parable. We
saw ourselves compelled to make a choice either of accepting or of
rejecting ends in the world, and found that the world resolves itself into
a senseless game at dice, and that the phenomena become more unintelligible
the more important they are, if we ignore or even reject teleology. The
acknowledgment of the latter prevented us from seeing in the world and its
events merely the eternal stream of planless coming and going; it prevented
us from accepting such an endless stream of appearance and disappearance,
and therefore also an endless stream of the appearance and disappearance of
new forms of religion in that creature for whose appearance we see all
other creatures are only a preparation, and are even obliged to look upon
them as a preparation in accordance with no other theory more than that of
evolution. It also urged us to inquire as to the ends and designs of
mankind, and we found this end in the disposition of man for a communion
with God, for the state of bearing his image and of being his child. Now we
have fully to acknowledge that Christianity, like all religions which claim
truth and universal acceptance, {406} is to be analyzed with the very same
means of science as all phenomena in the world of facts, and that therefore
it is especially subject to all investigations of religio-philosophical,
religio-historical, and historical criticism, to its fullest extent. But
precisely such an analysis of Christianity leads us to a result which
elevates Christian religion high above all other forms. It also confirms by
means of science what, indeed, is established to a Christian mind as
certainty from his own direct experience, that the quintessence of that
which Christianity offers us, is truth and gives full satisfaction to soul
and mind. For that analysis establishes, in the first place, that
Christianity shows us the idea of God and the nature and destiny of man in
a purity such as no other religion does, and in such a life-creating power
that it is able to satisfy most completely all the nobler desires and
impulses of soul and mind, and to overcome most successfully all ignoble
ones. Furthermore, it shows us that these gifts of Christianity offered
themselves, and still offer themselves, not only in philosophemes and
doctrines, in parables and myths, in postulates and prophecies, but what,
indeed, is not the case in any other religion, in an arranged course of
deeds and facts which, in everything that is necessary and essential for
the acquisition of that idea of God and for the realization of that ideal
of mankind, legitimate themselves to criticism as historical facts, and
which legitimate themselves as actions of divine manifestation by the fact,
that they and their consequences also are really able to fulfill what they
promise, and to bring mankind nearer to the accomplishment of that goal
which they set up for it. Finally, it shows us, when it reviews and
compares the development of {407} culture among all mankind, that the
Christian nations have really borne the richest blossom and fruit which has
appeared hitherto on the tree of mankind, and that Christianity, for the
life of nations, has not only, like other religions, powers of
preservation, but also powers of renovation and renewal which other
religions are wanting. Even all the errors of superstition and immorality,
of intolerance and lust of power, of so many of its advocates and
confessors, at which the adversaries of the Christian view of the world so
willingly point, are but a confirmation of its value. For they show us how
divine and heavenly the gift must be, if even such errors were not able to
smother its fruits. If we do not wish to suppose that mankind has
foundations and ends which up to the present it is not yet allowed to know,
we certainly must look for these foundations and ends where we find the
best which has so far been given to mankind and which has been accomplished
by it.

This acknowledgment of Christianity as the only true and only really
universal religion leads us beyond another sentiment of Lessing, which has
found an equally strong or perhaps still stronger echo in the mind. We mean
the expression that, if he had to choose, he would prefer the continual
search for truth to the possession of truth itself. We emphatically
acknowledge the holy right and the high nobility of this impulse of
investigation and activity, but we need not buy its acknowledgment and
satisfaction at the price of being obliged to renounce a consciousness or
the hope of a consciousness which is equally indispensable to our inner
happiness as that impulse of investigation, and which first gives to this
impulse its overwhelming power--namely, the {408} consciousness and the
hope of really possessing the truth. For, in fact, we are not required to
make this choice. There is a possession of truth which does not exclude,
but requires, the search for truth: that is the possession of truth in the
answer to the questions as to the starting point and the goal of our life,
the possession of truth in the fundamentals of our religious view of the
world. It is the certainty about the starting-point and goal of our life,
which lastingly and effectively invites us also to look for and perceive
all the ways which, in theory as well as in practice, lead from a firm
starting-point to a certain end, and only the possession of truth in the
fundamentals of our religious view of the world gives value and
satisfaction to investigation in a world which, without this possession,
contains for us only transitory and fleeting, and therefore only
unsatisfactory, things, but which stands before us as the work and the
theatre of revelation of a God and Father, and therefore gives to
investigation inexhaustible joy and satisfaction when we look upon it from
those stand-points.

In like manner as, at the outset of our investigation, we perceived in
organic species creations of God, and in spite of this, or rather on
account of it, looked upon the attempts at exploring their origin with so
much deeper interest, we also see ourselves, in the still more direct
religious realm, not at all condemned to stagnation when we acknowledge
Christianity as absolute religion. This very acknowledgment alone makes a
real progress possible for us. For every progress, in order to be a real
progress, needs a firm starting-point and a certain goal; hence that which
is shown and offered to mankind in Christianity. From this {409}
starting-point and toward this end there are tasks enough for religious
progress. The ever more definite investigation of the facts and doctrines
of Christianity, the improvement and ever more complete reproduction of the
scientific image in which these facts and doctrines are reflected in the
mind of man the progressing adaptation of ecclesiastical life in divine
service, and organization to the substance and the need of Christian
religiousness, the harmonizing of our possession of faith with all other
elements of culture of each period, the working up of that which is given
to us in Christianity into the spiritual and ethical acquisition of a
single personality and its ever more complete representation and
realization in the individual and the common life, the progressing
penetration of generations by the transfiguring light of religion and
morality, and the progressive overcoming of the likewise progressingly
developing kingdom of evil--in short, all that which the language of
religion calls the growth of the kingdom of God, is work and progress
enough, but certainly work and progress on the ground of a certain basis as
the starting-point given to us by God, and work and progress toward a
certain goal set for us by God.

It is only from this basis of a possession of truth as it is offered to us
by Christian theism, and by the facts of redemption and of a reconciliation
of man with God, that the breach between faith and knowledge, between
religion and the life of culture, which at present takes place in so many a
heart and mind, can be healed; and, far from seeking to cripple or hinder
those who stand on this basis, it alone gives to their theoretical and
practical activity its joyous strength and certain end, to {410} their
sphere of knowledge its universal breadth. The Apostle Paul, at the end of
1 Corinthians, XV, when he takes a comprehensive view from the highest
points of Christian hope to which he found himself led from those
fundamentals, knows of no fitter words to conclude with and to give it a
practical application than these: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye
steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch
as ye know that your labour is not vain in the Lord."

       *       *       *       *       *


Notes

[1] "The International Scientific Series." No. XIII.

[2] "Evolution of Man."

[3] It was only when the manuscript of this work was nearly finished and
the first part of it had gone to the press, that the author received the
second part of K. E. von Baer's "_Studien aus dem Gebiete der
Naturwissenschaften_" (Studies in the Realm of Natural Sciences). It
contains another essay on teleology, "_Ueber Zielstrebigkeit in den
organischen Körpern insbesondere_," and a treatise on Darwin's doctrine,
"_Ueber Darwin's Lehre_," which Baer had promised long ago and which the
public had anxiously awaited. It is no little satisfaction to find that I,
from my modest premises, reached results regarding the naturo-philosophical
problems and their weight in the religious realm which so fully harmonize
with the views of this first authority in the realm of the history of
development. I shall still have occasion here and there to avail myself of
a study of this latest and most important publication upon the question of
Darwinism, and shall confine myself here to the remark that von Baer,
although he rejects the selection theory and the superficial treatment of
the principle of evolution on the part of materialists, is by no means
disinclined to the idea of the origin of species through descent, whether
in gradual development or in leaps; and that in this respect he could no
longer be counted among the advocates of the group above referred to, but
among those which we mention farther on, had he not repeatedly and forcibly
confessed, with a modesty worthy of acknowledgment, his total ignorance
concerning the manner in which certain forms of life, especially the higher
ones, originated. The origin of higher species without the supposition of a
descent is to him unexplainable, because the individuals of these species
are, in their first development of life, so dependent on the mother.
Furthermore, he points out the fact that in early periods of the earth the
organic forming power which ruled, must have been a higher one than it is
at the present time; in like manner as the first period in the embryonic
development of individuals is to-day the most productive. This higher power
of organization, he says, could consist in a higher power of changing
organisms into new species, as well as in a higher power of producing new
species through primitive generation; or it could consist in both. In
general, there is no reason to suppose that primitive generations which
took place at the first origination of life on earth, could not have been
repeated later and oftener. The nearer a generation was to these
individuals originated through primitive generation, the greater was
undoubtedly its flexibility and changeableness; the farther, the greater
the fixity of type.

[4] After the completion this manuscript, the author found that K. E. von
Baer, in his treatise upon Darwin's doctrine, pays especial attention to
the change of generation and also to the metamorphosis of plants and
animals in exactly the same sense and reaches the same conclusion.

[5] Compare Max Müller, "Lectures on the Science of Language," 6th ed.,
London, 1871, vol. I, p. 403.

[6] Compare v. Baer, "Studies, etc.," p. 294 ff.

[7] Darwin says, on page 146, Eng. Ed., of his "Descent of Man": "In the
earlier editions of my 'Origin of Species', I perhaps attributed too much
to the action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest.... I did
not formerly sufficiently consider the existence of structures which, as
far as we can at present judge, are neither beneficial nor injurious; and
this I believe to be one of the greatest oversights as yet detected in my
work.... An unexplained residuum of change, perhaps a large one, must be
left to the assumed uniform action of those unknown agencies, which
occasionally induce strongly-marked and abrupt deviations of structure in
our domestic productions."

[8] This word, which is of recent coinage in Germany, has been found so
incapable of being rendered by an exact English equivalent, that it has
been thought best to retain it and to give the author's own explanation of
the meaning which he desired it to express. He says, in a note to the
translator: "I was led to this idea [of _Auslosung_] in a small essay of
Robert von Mayer ("Ueber Auslösung," 1876). Afterwards Mayer personally
stated to me that he heartily approved the emphasis I had given to this
idea, and said that he had only thought of the fact that psychical
processes, like the action of the will, _losen aus_ (release) physiological
processes, like the action of the muscles, and that I had carried the idea
farther, in saying that psychical processes are _ausgelost_ (released) by
physiological processes, and that this is a very important step farther on
the way of investigation. Mayer himself thought it would be necessary to
call the attention to this, when he further developed the ideas he had
given in the before-mentioned essay; his intention to do so was prevented
by his death.

"_Auslosung_ is a word originated by modern mechanical science, and means:
(1.) Slight mechanical operations of detaching and the like, by which
another and more important action, whose forces were heretofore restrained,
can be set into activity: _e.g._, the pressure which sets in motion a
machine, previously at rest, is _Auslosung_; the pressure on the trigger of
a gun is _Auslosung_; the friction of a match which is the beginning of a
great fire is _Auslosung_. (2.) This idea may now be applied to chemical
processes: _e.g._, a glass of sugar-water will remain sweet unless some
foreign element is introduced into it, but the moment it receives a
fermenting substance either by chance, from the air, or with intention,
then the sugar water is brought into a process of chemical decomposition,
and from this there results _Auslosung;_ but the introduction of the
fermenting agent into the sugar-water is _Auslosung_. (3.) Von Mayer
applies this idea to psycho-physical relations of life, and says: when the
will acting through the agency of the motor nerves sets in motion the
muscles, this is _Auslosung_."--[TRANS.]

[9] For the use of readers who do not understand Greek, we may state that
the word _teleology_ is derived from the Greek word _telos_, Gen. _teleos_:
end, purpose, aim; and means the "doctrine of design or a conformity to the
end in view," or, as K. E. von Baer prefers and wishes to have introduced
into scientific language, "the doctrine of the striving toward an end"
(_Zielstrebigkeit_). It seems to be quite a superficial treatment of an
idea on whose reception or rejection no less a thing than an entire view of
the world with all its most important and deepest questions depends, when
Dr. G. Seidlitz, in an essay on the success of Darwinism ("Ausland," 1874,
No. 37), states incidentally that teleology is derived from the Greek
[Greek: teleos] _perfect_. It is true that the Greek adjective for perfect
is also derived from that noun, [Greek: telos], which has the same root as
the German word _Ziel_, and there is even an Ionic form for that adjective
which is [Greek: teleos], but the Attic form is [Greek: teleios]; and since
modern languages, when a choice is allowed, do not derive their Greek
foreign words from the Ionic, but from the Attic dialect, that word--were
it really derived from that adjective and did it express "doctrine of
perfection"--would have to be teleiology, or, in Latinized form, teliology.
As far as we know, the word, since it was introduced into scientific
language, has never been derived from any other root than from [Greek:
telos], Gen. [Greek: teleos], _end_, and has never been used in any other
sense than to express the doctrine of a purpose and end in the world.

[10] Compare "History, Essays, and Orations of the 6th General Conference
of the Evangelical Alliance," New York, Harper Bros., 1874, p. 264-271.

[11] Compare D. F. Strauss, the most celebrated moral philosopher of
Monism, in § 74 of his "The Old Faith and the New."

       *       *       *       *       *


Corrections made to printed original.

p. 43. "the whole course of the zoölogical system" - "zoloogical" in
original.

p. 65. "corals, radiata, worms, mollusca, and crustacea" - "radita" in
original.

p. 73. "many portions of the skin" - "the the" (across line break) in
original.

p. 86. "forsakes us in the inquiry" - "inqury" in original.

p. 112. "even philosophy can not take up the investigation" - "phi-osophy"
(across line break) in original.

p. 147. "the origin of self-consciousness" - "conciousness" in original.

p. 265. "the origin of species through development" - "developement" in
original.

p. 297. "any other interpretation than to take them" - "then" in original.

p. 343. "the Titan-like, rebellious Kainites" - "Titian" in original.

Note 3. "The nearer a generation was" - "a a" (across line break) in
original.