The antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)--that human consciousness
is an unsoluble "world-riddle," a transcendent phenomenon in essential
antithesis to all other natural phenomena--continues to be upheld in
numerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the
world founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and
that his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the
"Leipsic ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been
prized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of
the world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing
word of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and
this "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even
worse, that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any
further talk about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address
remains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful
sermon," characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising
variety of philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however,
that the majority (and especially women) judge a "beautiful sermon" not
according to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to
its excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his
audience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of
the genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part
of his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further
attempt to solve the main question he has to deal with--as to whether the
world is really "doubly incomprehensible." For my own part, on the
contrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to
our knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness
and the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but
neither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing,
than the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and
energy. Compare my discourse on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (1878),
pp. 78, 82, etc.]
[Footnote 17: _Immortality_.
Perhaps in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic
conception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of
personal immortality, and that of "the resurrection of the body,"
associated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on
_Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine_, has well remarked:
"One of the standing accusations of the Church against science is that it
is materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the
whole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and
still is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material
body is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven." Compare also
Ludwig Buchner, _Das zunkünftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_
(Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, "Causes of Belief in Immortality" (_The
Forum_, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, _The Soul of Man: an
Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psychology_
(Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between the ancient
and the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect to the soul.
Just as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of a special
fiery matter (_phlogiston_), so the thinking soul was explained by the
hypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now know that the
light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the ether, and the
soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As compared with
this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of scholastic
psychology has about the same value as the materialistic conceptions of
the Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's "Nadowessian
Death-Song."]
[Footnote 18: _Monistic Ethic_.
All Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals,
as a "science of law" (_Normwissenschaft_), stands in immediate
connection with the view that is taken of the world (_Weltanschauung_),
and consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly
important, and have recently upheld in a paper on "Ethik und
Weltanschauung," in opposition to the "Society for Ethical Culture"
lately founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without
reference to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new
weekly journal, _Die Zukunft_, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892,
Nos. V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis
for all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject
compare especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of
B. von Carneri--_Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus_ (1871); _Entwickelung und
Glückseligkeit_ (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all, _Der
moderne Mensch_ (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, _Welt und
Menschheit_ (Leipsic, 1892); Harald Höffding, _Die Grundlage der humanen
Ethik_ (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm Wundt, _Ethik,
eine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens_
(Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).]
[Footnote 19: _Homotheism_.
Under the term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the
various forms of religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely
human characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may
have shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in
common retain the unworthy conception that God (_Theos_) and man (_homo_)
are organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the
region of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate.
In the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly
objectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man
developed from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents
God as a "spirit" in human form, degrades Him to a "gaseous vertebrate"
(_General Morphology_, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression
"homotheism" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more
practical than the cumbersome word "Anthropotheism."]
[Footnote 20: _Monistic Religion_.
Amongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last
twenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of
advanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the
epoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled _The Old Faith and
the New: A Confession_ (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: _Collected Writings_,
1878). Compare M. J. Savage, _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian
Doctrine_; John William Draper, _History of the Conflict between Religion
and Science_; Carl Friedrich Retzer, _Die naturwissenschaftliche
Weltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das religiöse Dogma_
(Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, _Natur und Menschengeist im Lichte der
Entwickelungslehre_ (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of religion see the
interesting work of U. Van Ende, _Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance_
(Paris, 1887).]
[Footnote 21: _Freedom in Teaching_.
The jubilee of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes" was
celebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the
commencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the
Grand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are
the characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke
Carl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly
shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector
Magnificentissimus of our Thüringian university of Jena, he has always
afforded his protection to its most sacred palladium--the right of the
free investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie, the
heiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a
fitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary
period, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal
treasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of
culture will never forget the service which the princely couple have
thereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the
same time to true religion.]