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.