Chapter II: Part 2

Against this monistic ethic founded on a rational knowledge of nature, it has been objected that it is fitted to undermine existing civilisation, and especially that it encourages the subversive aims of social democracy. This reproach is wholly unjustified. The application of philosophical principles to the practical conditions of life, and in particular to social and political questions, can be made in the most various ways. Political "free-thinking," so called, has nothing whatever to do with the "freedom of thought" of our monistic natural religion. Moreover, I am convinced that the rational morality of monistic religion is in no way contrary to the good and truly valuable elements of the Christian ethic, but is destined in conjunction with these to promote the true progress of humanity in the future.

With Christian mythology and the special form of theistic belief associated with it the case is different. In so far as that belief involves the notion of a "personal God," it has been rendered quite untenable by the recent advances of monistic science. But, more than this, it was shown more than two thousand years ago, by eminent exponents of the monistic philosophy, that the conception of a personal God, creator and ruler of the world, does not give the slightest help toward a truly rational view of the world. For even if the question of "creation," in the ordinary and trivial sense of the term, be answered by referring it to the miraculous agency of a creator working according to plan apart from the world, there immediately arises upon that the new inquiry: "Whence comes this personal God? What was He doing before creation? And whence did He derive the material for it?" and such like questions. The antiquated conception of an anthropomorphic personal God is destined, before the present century is ended, to drop out of currency throughout the entire domain of truly scientific philosophy; the corresponding conception of a personal devil--even as late as last century connected with the former and very generally accepted--has already been given up once for all by all persons of education.

Let it be noted, however, in passing, that the amphitheism which believes in God and devil alike is much more compatible with a rational explanation of the world than pure monotheism. The purest form of this is perhaps the amphitheism of the Zend religion of Persia, which Zoroaster (or Zarathustra, the "Golden Star") founded two thousand years before Christ. Here Ormuzd, the god of light and goodness, stands everywhere in conflict with Ahriman, the god of darkness and evil. The continual conflict between a good and an evil principle was personified in a similar manner in the mythology of many other amphitheistic religions: in the old Egyptian, the good Osiris was at war with the evil Typhon; in the old Indian, Vishnu the sustainer with Siva the destroyer, and so forth.

If we really must retain the conception of a personal God as the key to our view of the universe, then this amphitheism can explain the sorrows and defects of this world very simply, as being the work of the evil principle or devil. Pure monotheism, on the contrary, as represented in the religions of Moses and Mohammed in their original form, has no rational explanation of these to offer. If their "one God" is really the absolutely good, perfect being they proclaim, then the world which he has created must also be perfect. An organic world so imperfect and full of sorrows as exists on this earth he could not possibly have contrived.

These considerations gain in force when we advance to the deeper knowledge of nature acquired by modern biology; here it was Darwin, especially, who thirty-three years ago opened our eyes by his doctrine of the struggle for existence, and his theory of selection founded upon it. We now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by a relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must daily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's goodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so devoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now--at least among educated people who think. It has disappeared before our deeper acquaintance with the mutual relations of organisms, the advancement of oecology and sociology, and our knowledge of parasite life and pathology.

All these sad but insuperable facts--truly the dark side of nature--are made intelligible to religious faith by amphitheism; they are the "works of the devil," who opposes and disturbs the perfect moral order in the world of the "good God." For pure monotheism which knows only one God, one perfect highest being, they remain unintelligible. If, with a monotheistic creed, any one still continues to talk of the moral order of the world, he in so doing shuts his eyes to the undeniable facts of history, both natural and civil.

In view of these considerations, it is hard to understand how the large majority of the so-called educated classes can persevere, on the one hand, in declaring belief in a personal God to be an indispensable principle of religion, and, on the other hand, in at the same time rejecting the belief in a personal devil as an exploded superstition of the Middle Ages. This inconsistency on the part of educated Christians is all the more incomprehensible and censurable, inasmuch as both dogmas in equal degree form an integral part of the Christian creed. The personal devil, as "Satan," "the Tempter," "the Destroyer," and so forth, undeniably plays a most important part in the New Testament, though not met with in the earlier portions of the Old. Our great reformer, Martin Luther himself, who "sent to the devil" so many antiquated dogmas, was unable to rid himself of the conviction of the real existence and personal enmity of Beelzebub; we have only to think of the historical ink-spot at Wartburg! Moreover, our Christian art, in many thousands of paintings and other representations, has exhibited Satan in corporeal form just as realistically as it has the three "Divine Persons," about whose "hypostatical union" human reason has for eighteen hundred years been tormenting itself in vain. The deep impression made by such concrete representations, a million times repeated, especially on childish understandings, is usually under-estimated as to its tremendous influence; to it certainly is in large measure to be attributed the fact that irrational myths of such a kind, under the mask of "doctrines of faith," continue to hold their ground in spite of all protests of reason.

Liberal-minded Christian theologians have, it is true, often sought to eliminate the personal devil from Christian teaching, representing him as merely the personification of falsehood, the spirit of evil. But with equal right we must in that case substitute for a personal God the personified idea of truth, the Spirit of Goodness. To such a representation no objection can be made; rather do we recognise in it a bridge connecting the dim wonderland of religious poesy with the luminous realms of clear scientific knowledge.

The monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. It can never recognise in God a "personal being," or, in other words, an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. God is everywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: "There is one spirit in all things, and nobody is so small that it does not contain a part of the divine substance whereby it is animated." Every atom is thus animated, and so is the ether; we might, therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether-vibrations. It comes virtually to the same thing when (as was done here by a speaker on a former occasion) God is defined as "the supreme law of the universe," and the latter is represented as the "working of universal space." In this most important article of belief it matters not as to the name but as to the unity of the underlying idea; the unity of God and the world; of spirit and nature. On the other hand, "homotheism," the anthropomorphic representation of God, degrades this loftiest cosmic idea to that of a "gaseous vertebrate."[19]

Of the various systems of pantheism which for long have given expression more or less clearly to the monistic conception of God, the most perfect is certainly that of Spinoza. To this system, as is well known, Goethe also paid the tribute of his highest admiration and approval. Of other, eminent men who have given a similar pantheistic form to their natural religion, we shall here mention only two of the greatest poets and students of man, Shakespeare and Lessing; two of the greatest German rulers, Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen and Frederick II. of Hohenzollern; two of the greatest scientists, Laplace and Darwin. In adding our own pantheistic confession to that of these great and untrammelled spirits, let it only be noted further, that it has received an empirical confirmation, never before imagined, through the wonderful advances of natural knowledge within the last thirty years.

The charge of atheism which still continues to be levelled against our pantheism, and against the monism which lies at its root, no longer finds a response among the really educated classes of the present day. It is true that not so very long ago the German Imperial Chancellor, in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, found it in him to put forward such an alternative as this: "Either the Christian or the atheistic view of the world"; this in the defence of a most objectionable law, designed to hand over our school training, tied hand and foot, to the papal hierarchy. The vast distance which separates the last-named degenerate outgrowth of the Christian religion from pure primitive Christianity is not greater than that which separates those mediaeval alternatives from the cultured religious consciousness of the present day. To one who regards as true exercises of Christian religion the adoration of old clothes and wax dolls, or the thoughtless repetition of masses or rosaries, who believes in wonder-working relics, and purchases pardon for his sins by means of indulgence-money or Peter's pence, we willingly concede the claim to possess the "only saving religion"; but with such fetish-worshippers we will willingly submit to be ranked as "atheists."

In like case with the charge of atheism and irreligion are those so often heard against monism, that it destroys the poetry of life and fails to satisfy the spiritual wants of human nature; we are told, in particular, that aesthetics--certainly a most important department both in theoretical philosophy and in practical life--is prejudiced by a monistic philosophy. But David Friedrich Strauss, one of our subtlest exponents of aesthetics and also one of our noblest writers, has already refuted such a charge; and shown how, on the contrary, the care for poetry and the cultivation of the beautiful are in the "new faith" called upon to play a still greater part than ever. My present hearers, at once investigators and lovers of nature, do not need to be told that every new insight which we obtain into the secrets of nature at the same time also kindles our souls, affords new material for imagination to work on, and enlarges our perception of the beautiful. To convince ourselves how closely all these noblest spiritual activities of man hang together, how intimately the knowledge of truth is bound up with the love of goodness and veneration of the beautiful, it will be enough to mention a single name, Germany's greatest genius--Wolfgang Goethe.

If the perception of the aesthetic significance of our monistic nature-religion, as well as of its ethical value, has hitherto so little pervaded the educated classes, this is due chiefly to the defects of our school training. It is true that in the course of the last few decades an infinite deal has been spoken and written about school reform and the principles of education; but of any real progress there is as yet but little trace. Here also reigns the physical law of inertia; here also--and more especially in German schools--the scholasticism of the Middle Ages exhibits a power of inertia, against which any rational reform of education must laboriously contest every inch of ground. In this important department also, a department on which hangs the weal or woe of future generations, matters will not improve till the monistic doctrine of nature is accepted as the essential and sure foundation.

The school of the twentieth century, flourishing anew on this firm ground, shall have to unfold to the rising youth not only the wonderful truths of the evolution of the cosmos, but also the inexhaustible treasures of beauty lying everywhere hidden therein. Whether we marvel at the majesty of the lofty mountains or the magic world of the sea, whether with the telescope we explore the infinitely great wonders of the starry heaven, or with the microscope the yet more surprising wonders of a life infinitely small, everywhere does Divine Nature open up to us an inexhaustible fountain of aesthetic enjoyment. Blind and insensible have the great majority of mankind hitherto wandered through this glorious wonderland of a world; a sickly and unnatural theology has made it repulsive as a "vale of tears." But now, at last, it is given to the mightily advancing human mind to have its eyes opened; it is given to it to show that a true knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and inexhaustible nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but also for its yearning spirit.

Monistic investigation of nature as knowledge of the true, monistic ethic as training for the good, monistic aesthetic as pursuit of the beautiful--these are the three great departments of our monism: by the harmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at last the truly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully longed after by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, these are the three august Divine Ones before which we bow the knee in adoration; in the unforced combination and mutual supplementing of these we gain the pure idea of God.[20] To this "triune" Divine Ideal shall the coming twentieth century build its altars.

Ten years ago I was present at the celebration of the third centenary of the university of Würzburg, which forty years ago I had entered as a medical student. The festal address on that occasion was delivered in the university church by the then rector, the distinguished chemist, Johannes Wislicenus. His concluding words were: "God, the Spirit of Goodness and of Truth, grant it." I now add, "and the Spirit of Beauty." It is in this sense that I also, on this commemorative occasion, dedicate to you my best wishes. May the investigation of nature's secrets flourish and prosper in this corner of our Thüringian land also, and may the fruits of knowledge, ripening here in Altenburg, contribute no less to the culture of the spirit and to the advancement of true religion, than those which three hundred and seventy years ago the great reformer, Martin Luther, brought to the light of day in another corner of Thüringen, on the Wartburg at Eisenach.

Between Wartburg and Altenburg, on the northern border of Thüringen, lies Weimar, the classical City of the Muses, and, close by it, our national university of Jena. I regard it as a good omen that precisely at this moment a rare celebration should have called together in Weimar the most illustrious patrons of the university of Jena, the defenders of free research and free teaching.[21] In the hope that the defence and promotion of these may still be continued, I conclude my monistic Confession of Faith with the words: "May God, the Spirit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, be with us."

NOTES]

[Footnote 1: _Scientific Articles of Faith_. In Professor Schlesinger's address (delivered on 9th October at Altenburg) on this subject he rightly called attention to the limits of knowledge of nature (in Kant's sense of the terms) imposed upon us by the imperfection of our perceptive organs. The gaps which the empirical investigation of nature must thus leave in science, can, however, be filled up by hypotheses, by conjectures of more or less probability. These we cannot indeed for the time establish on a secure basis; and yet we may make use of them in the way of explaining phenomena, in so far as they are not inconsistent with a rational knowledge of nature. Such rational hypotheses are scientific articles of faith, and therefore very different from ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, which are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or simply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of rational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief in the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary atoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential unity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare my _General Morphology_, _vol_. i. pp. 105, 164, etc., also my _Natural History of Creation_, 8th ed., 1889, pp. 21, 360, 795). As the simpler occurrences of inorganic nature and the more complicated phenomena of organic life are alike reducible to the same natural forces, and as, further, these in their turn have their common foundation in a simple primal principle pervading infinite space, we can regard this last (the cosmic ether) as all-comprehending divinity, and upon this found the thesis: "Belief in God is reconcilable with science." In this pantheistic view, and also in his criticism of a one-sided materialism, I entirely agree with Professor Schlesinger, though unable to concur with him in some of his biological, and especially of his anthropological, conclusions (_cf_. his article on "Facts and Deductions derived from the Action of Universal Space" _Mittheilungen aus dem Osterlande_, Bd. v., Altenburg, 1892).]

[Footnote 2: _Unity of Nature_. I consider the fundamental unity of inorganic and organic nature, as well as their genetic relation, to be an essential axiom of monism. I particularly emphasise this "article of faith" here, as there are still scientists of repute who contest it. Not only is the old mystical "vital power" brought back upon the stage again from time to time, but even the "miraculous" origin of organic life out of "dead" inorganic nature is often brought up still against the doctrines of evolution, as an insoluble riddle--as one of Du Bois-Reymond's "seven riddles of the world" (see his _Discourse on Leibnitz_, 1880). The solution of this "transcendent" riddle of the world, and of the allied question of archigony (equivocal generation, in a strictly defined meaning of the term), can only be reached by a critical analysis and unprejudiced comparison of matter, form, and energy in inorganic and organic nature. This I have already done (1866) in the second book of my _General Morphology_ (vol. i. pp. 109-238): "General Researches as to the Nature and First Beginning of Organisms, their Relation to things Inorganic, and their Division into Plants and Animals."]

A short résumé of this is contained in Lecture XV. of my _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 340-370). The most serious difficulties which formerly beset the monistic view there given may now be held to have been taken out of the way by recent discoveries concerning the nature of protoplasm, the discovery of the Monera, the more accurate study of the closely-related single-celled Protista, their comparison with the ancestral cell (or fertilised egg-cell), and also by the chemical carbon-theory. (See my "Studies on Monera and other Protista," in the _Jenaische Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft_, vols. iv. and v., 1868-1870; also Carl Naegeli, _Mechanisch-physiologische Begründung der Abstammungslehre_, 1884.)]

[Footnote 3: _Religion in the Lower Animals_. We cannot fail to recognise in the more highly developed of our domestic animals (especially in dogs, horses, and elephants) some first beginnings of those higher brain-functions which we designate as reason and consciousness, religion and morality; they differ only in degree, not in kind, from the corresponding mental activities of the lowest human races. If, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the anthropoids, had been for thousands of years domesticated and brought up in close relation with civilised man, the similarity of their mental activities to those of man would undoubtedly have been much more striking than it is. The apparently deep gulf which separates man from these most highly-developed mammals "is mainly founded on the fact that in man several conspicuous attributes are united, which in the other animals occur only separately, viz. (1) The higher degree of differentiation of the larynx (speech), (2) brain (mind), and (3) extremities; and (4) the upright posture. It is merely the happy combination of these important animal organs and functions at a higher stage of evolution that raises the majority of mankind so far above all lower animals" (_General Morphology_, 1866, vol. ii. p. 430).]

[Footnote 4: _Inheritance of Acquired Characters_. As the controversy on this important question is still unsettled, special attention may here be called to the valuable data for arriving at a decision which are afforded precisely by the development of instincts among the higher animals, and of speech and reason in man. "The inheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual, is an indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution." "Those who, with Weismann and Galton, deny this, entirely exclude thereby the possibility of any formative influence of the outer world upon organic form" (_Anthropogenie_, 4th ed., pp. xxiii., 836; see, further, the works there referred to of Eimer, Weismann, Ray-Lankester, etc.; also Ludwig Wilser's _Die Vererbung der geistigen Eigenschaften_, Heidelberg, 1892).]

[Footnote 5: _Theosophical System of Nature_. Of all the modern attempts of dualistic philosophy to establish the knowledge of nature on a theological basis (that of Christian monotheism), the _Essay on Classification_ of Louis Agassiz is by far the most important,--in strictness, indeed, is the only one worthy of mention. (On this see my _Natural History of Creation_, Lect. III., also "Aims and Methods of the Modern Embryology," 1875, _Jena Zeitschr. für Naturw., Bd. x., Supplement_.)]

[Footnote 6: _Darwin and Copernicus_. This is the title of an address delivered by Du Bois-Reymond on 25th January 1883, in the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and afterwards published in his _Collected Addresses_ (_vol_. ii. 1887). As the author himself mentions in a note (p. 500) that this gave rise, "most unmeritedly," to great excitement, and called down upon him the violent attacks of the clerical press, I may be allowed to point out here that it contained nothing new, I myself, fifteen years previously, in my lectures on "The Origin and Genealogy of the Human Race," having carried out in detail the comparison between Darwin and Copernicus, and the service rendered by these two heroes in putting an end to the anthropocentric and geocentric views of the world. (See the Third Series in Virchow and Holtzendorff's _Collection of Popular Scientific Lectures_, Nos. 53 and 54, 1868, 4th ed., 1881.) When Du Bois-Reymond says, "For me, Darwin is the Copernicus of the organic world," I am the more pleased to find that he agrees (partly in identical words) with my way of thinking, as he himself, quite unnecessarily, takes up an attitude of opposition towards me. The same is the case with regard to the explanation of innate ideas by Darwinism, which he has attempted in his address (1870) on "Leibnitzian Ideas in Modern Science" (vol. i. of the _Collected Addresses_). Here also he is most agreeably at one with me in what, four years before, I had elaborated in my _General Morphology_ (vol. ii. p. 446), and in my _Natural History of Creation_ (1868). "The laws of heredity and adaptation explain to us how it is that _à priori_ ideas have been developed out of what was originally _à posteriori_ knowledge," etc. I cannot fail to be highly flattered in being able in these last days to greet the renowned orator of the Berlin Academy as a friend and patron of the _Natural History of Creation_, which he had previously designated a bad romance. But his winged words are not on that account to be forgotten, that "the genealogical trees of phylogeny are about as much worth as, in the eyes of the historical critic, are those of the Homeric heroes" (_Darwin versus Galiani_, 1876).]

[Footnote 7: _The Law of the Conservation of Substance_. Strictly taken, this belongs also to "scientific articles of faith," and could stand as the first article of our "monistic religion." Physicists of the present day, it is true, generally (and correctly) regard their "law of the conservation of energy" as the immovable foundation of all their science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just as in like manner chemists so regard their fundamental law of the "conservation of matter" (Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, however, raise certain objections to either of these fundamental laws with as much success as against their combination into the single superior law of the "conservation of substance." As a matter of fact, dualistic philosophy still attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise of cautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic) objections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they relate to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as to the connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the presence of this real "boundary of natural knowledge," we can yet, within this boundary, apply quite universally the "mechanical law of causality." The complicated "phenomena of mind," as they are called (more especially consciousness), fall under the "law of the conservation of substance" just as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt with in inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.]

[Footnote 8: _Kant and Monism_. As recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and in some cases even deified as "infallible" the great Königsberg philosopher, it may be well here to point out once more that his system of critical philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic ingredients. His critical principles of the theory of knowledge will always remain of fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to know the essential and profoundest essence of substance, the "thing in itself" (or "the combination of matter and energy"); that our knowledge remains subjective in its nature; that it is conditioned by the organisation of our brain and sensory organs, and can therefore only deal with the phenomena which our experience of the outer world affords us. But within these "limits of human knowledge" a positive monistic knowledge of nature is still possible, in contrast to all dualistic and metaphysical fantasies. One such great fact of monistic knowledge was the mechanical cosmogony of Kant and Laplace, the "Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Origin of the Universe, according to the Principles of Newton" (1755). In the whole field of our knowledge of inorganic nature, Kant held firmly to the monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone as the real explanation of the phenomena. In the science of organic nature also, on the other hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet insufficient; here he considered it necessary to call in the aid of final as well as of efficient causes. (_Cf_. the fifth lecture of my _Natural History of Creation_ on "The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck"; also Albrecht Rau's _Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Prüfung der Resultate des idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos_, vol. ii., 1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant afterwards arrived at his untenable metaphysical views of "God, Freedom, and Immortality." It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors if he had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The natural sciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am firmly convinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have turned out quite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he had had at his disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical natural knowledge which we now possess.]

[Footnote 9: _The Ether_. In a thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at the sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in Heidelberg in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant discovery: "Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of nature. It comes nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess an electric organ, the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the question as to unmediated _actio in distans_. Is there such a thing? Not far off from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature of electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous and primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of the medium that fills all space, its structure, its rest or motion, its infinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this question rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is would reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but also of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight and inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether everything that exists is not created from the ether." This question is already being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists, as, for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on _The Nature of Electricity and Magnetism_, on _The Basis of the Conception of a Single Substance_ (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of mass (the primal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres of concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills all space; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms, and universally distributed, is--the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the basis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date arrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on "Influences at a Distance mediated by the Ether" (_Annalen der Physik und Chemie_, 1881, Bd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one particular kind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance and radiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities ascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other words, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as "the mobile."]

[Footnote 10: _Atoms and Elements_. The evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our empirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav Wendt in his treatise, _Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer biologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik_[I] (Berlin, 1891); compare also Wilhelm Freyer's _Die organischen Elemente und ihre Stellung im System_[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's _Chemische Probleme der Gegenwart_[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's _Genesis of the Elements_. For the different views as to the nature of the atom, see Philip Spiller on "The Doctrines of Atoms" in _Die Urkraft des Weltalls nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV]_ (Berlin, 1886), (1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the ether; 3. The ethical side of the science of nature). For the constitution of the elements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Masse im Raume[V] (Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its relationships; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and their combinations. Theory of crystallisation).

Note I "The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis
for Chemistry and Physics."

Note II "The Organic Elements and their Place in the System."

Note III "Chemical Problems of the Day."

Note IV "The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action."

Note V "Force and Matter in Space."]

[Footnote 11: _World-Substance_. The relation of the two fundamental constituents of the cosmos, ether and mass, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many hypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.]

World (=Substance=Cosmos).]

(Nature as knowable by Man.)]

Ether (="spirit") (mobile Mass (="body") (inert or
or active substance). passive substance).
Property of Vibration. Property of Inertia.]

Chief Functions: Electricity, Chief Functions: Gravity,
Magnetism, Light, Heat. Inertia, Chemical Affinity.
Structure: dynamical; Structure: atomic, discontinuous,
continuous, elastic substance, inelastic substance,
not composed of atoms (?) composed of atoms (?)]

Theosophical: "God the Theosophical: "Created
Creator" (always in motion). world" (passively formed).]

"Influence of space." "Products of space condensation."]

[Footnote 12: _General doctrine of Evolution_. The fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of evolution, and of the monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly evidenced by the steady increase of its copious literature. I have cited the most important treatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition of my _Natural History of Creation_ (1889). Compare, specially, Carus Sterne (Ernst Krause), _Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des Naturganzen in gemeinverständlicher Fassung_[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin, 1886); Hugo Spitzer, _Beiträge zur Descendenztheorie und zur Methodologie der Naturwissenschaft_ (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, _Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik der Gegenwart_ (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, _Kosmos: Die Weltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage der exacten Naturforschung_ (Leipsic, 1890).[IX]

Note VI "Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the
Cosmos."

Note VII "Contributions towards a Theory of Descent, and towards a
Methodology of the Sciences of Nature."

Note VIII "Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophical
Criticism of the Present Time."

Note IX "Cosmos: The Development of the Cosmos according to Monistic
Principles on the Basis of Exact Science."]

[Footnote 13: _History of Descent_. The idea and the task of phylogeny, or the history of descent, I first defined in 1866, in the sixth book of my _General Morphology_ (_vol_. ii. pp. 301-422), and the substance of this, as well as an account of its relation to ontogeny or history of development, is set forth in a popular form in Part II. of my _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., Berlin, 1889). A special application of both these divisions of the history of evolution to man, is attempted in my _Anthropogenie_ (4th ed.), revised and enlarged, 1891: Part I. History of development. Part II. History of descent.]

[Footnote 14: _Opponents of the Doctrine of Descent_. Since the death of Louis Agassiz (1873), Rudolf Virchow is regarded as the sole noteworthy opponent of Darwinism and the theory of descent; he never misses an opportunity (as recently in Moscow) of opposing it as "unproved hypothesis." See as to this my pamphlet, _Freedom in Science and in Teaching_, a reply to Virchow's address at Munich on "Freedom of Science in the Modern State" (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892).]

[Footnote 15: _Cellular Psychology_. See on this my paper on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells," in the _Deutsche Rundschau_ (July 1878), reprinted in Part 1, of _Collected Popular Lectures_; also "The Cell-soul and Cellular Psychology" in my discourse on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892, p. 46); _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 444, 777); and _Descent of Man_ (4th ed., pp. 128, 147). See also, Max Verworn, _Psycho-physiologische Protisten-Studien_ (Jena, 1889), and Paul Carus, _The Soul of Man: An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psychology_ (Chicago, 1891). Among recent attempts to reform psychology on the basis of evolutionary doctrine in a monistic sense, special mention must be made of Georg Heinrich Schneider's _Der thierische Wille: Systematische Darstellung und Erklärung der thierischen Triebe und deren Entstehung, Entwickelung und Verbreitung im Thierreiche als Grundlage zu einer vergleichenden Willenslehre_[X] (Leipsic, 1880). Compare also his supplementary work, entitled _Der menschliche Wille vom Standpunkte der neuen Entwickelungstheorie_[XI] (1882); also the _Psychology of Herbert Spencer_ and the new edition of Wilhelm Wundt's _Menschen-und Thierseele[XII]_ (Leipsic, 1892).

Note X "Will in the Lower Animals: a Systematic Exposition and Explanation
of Animal Instincts, and their Origin, Development, and Difference in
the Animal Kingdom, as Basis of a Comparative Doctrine of Volition."

Note XI "The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of
Evolution."

Note XII "Soul in Man and Brute."

[Footnote 16: _Consciousness_. The antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)--that human consciousness is an unsoluble "world-riddle," a transcendent phenomenon in essential antithesis to all other natural phenomena--continues to be upheld in numerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the world founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and that his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the "Leipsic ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been prized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of the world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing word of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and this "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even worse, that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any further talk about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address remains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful sermon," characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising variety of philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however, that the majority (and especially women) judge a "beautiful sermon" not according to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to its excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his audience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of the genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part of his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further attempt to solve the main question he has to deal with--as to whether the world is really "doubly incomprehensible." For my own part, on the contrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to our knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness and the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but neither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing, than the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and energy. Compare my discourse on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (1878), pp. 78, 82, etc.]

[Footnote 17: _Immortality_. Perhaps in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic conception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of personal immortality, and that of "the resurrection of the body," associated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine_, has well remarked: "One of the standing accusations of the Church against science is that it is materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the whole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and still is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material body is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven." Compare also Ludwig Buchner, _Das zunkünftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_ (Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, "Causes of Belief in Immortality" (_The Forum_, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, _The Soul of Man: an Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psychology_ (Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between the ancient and the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect to the soul. Just as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of a special fiery matter (_phlogiston_), so the thinking soul was explained by the hypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now know that the light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the ether, and the soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As compared with this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of scholastic psychology has about the same value as the materialistic conceptions of the Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's "Nadowessian Death-Song."]

[Footnote 18: _Monistic Ethic_. All Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals, as a "science of law" (_Normwissenschaft_), stands in immediate connection with the view that is taken of the world (_Weltanschauung_), and consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly important, and have recently upheld in a paper on "Ethik und Weltanschauung," in opposition to the "Society for Ethical Culture" lately founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without reference to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new weekly journal, _Die Zukunft_, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892, Nos. V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis for all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject compare especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of B. von Carneri--_Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus_ (1871); _Entwickelung und Glückseligkeit_ (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all, _Der moderne Mensch_ (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, _Welt und Menschheit_ (Leipsic, 1892); Harald Höffding, _Die Grundlage der humanen Ethik_ (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm Wundt, _Ethik, eine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens_ (Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).]

[Footnote 19: _Homotheism_. Under the term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the various forms of religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely human characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may have shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in common retain the unworthy conception that God (_Theos_) and man (_homo_) are organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the region of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate. In the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly objectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man developed from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents God as a "spirit" in human form, degrades Him to a "gaseous vertebrate" (_General Morphology_, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression "homotheism" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more practical than the cumbersome word "Anthropotheism."]

[Footnote 20: _Monistic Religion_. Amongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last twenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of advanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the epoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled _The Old Faith and the New: A Confession_ (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: _Collected Writings_, 1878). Compare M. J. Savage, _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine_; John William Draper, _History of the Conflict between Religion and Science_; Carl Friedrich Retzer, _Die naturwissenschaftliche Weltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das religiöse Dogma_ (Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, _Natur und Menschengeist im Lichte der Entwickelungslehre_ (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of religion see the interesting work of U. Van Ende, _Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance_ (Paris, 1887).]

[Footnote 21: _Freedom in Teaching_. The jubilee of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes" was celebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the commencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the Grand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are the characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke Carl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector Magnificentissimus of our Thüringian university of Jena, he has always afforded his protection to its most sacred palladium--the right of the free investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie, the heiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a fitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary period, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal treasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of culture will never forget the service which the princely couple have thereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the same time to true religion.]