The world and nature are marvellous in their being, but they are not
“divine”! The formula “_natura sive deus_” is a monstrous misuse of the
word “_deus_,” if we are to use the words in the sense which history has
given to them. God is the Absolute Being, perfect, wholly independent,
resting in Himself, and necessary; nature is entirely contingent and
dependent, and at every point of it we are impelled to ask “Why?” God is
the immeasurable fulness of Being, nature is indeed diverse in the
manifoldness of her productions, but she is nevertheless limited, and her
possibilities are restricted within narrow limits. God is the
unrestrained, and everlasting omnipotence itself, and the perfect wisdom;
nature is indeed mighty enough in the attainment of her ends, but how
often is she obstructed, how often does she fail to reach them, and how
seldom does she do so perfectly and without mistakes? She shows wisdom,
indeed, cunning in her products, subtlety and daintiness, taste and
beauty, all these often in an overwhelming degree, yet just as often she
brings forth what is meaningless, contradictory and mutually hurtful,
traverses her own lines, and bewilders us by the brutality, the
thoughtlessness, and purposelessness, the crookedness, incompleteness, and
distortedness of her operations. And what is true of the world of external
nature is true in a far greater degree of the world of history. Nature is
not a god, but a demigod, says Aristotle. And on this, Pantheism with its
creed, “_natura sive deus_,” makes shipwreck. The words of this _credo_
are either a mere tautology, and “_deus_” is misused as a new name for
nature; or they are false. It is not possible to transfer to nature and
the world all the great ideas and feelings which the religious mind
cherishes under the name of “God.”
On the other hand, nature is really, as Aristotle said, δαιμονία, that is,
strange, mysterious, and marvellous, indicating God, and pointing, all
naturalism and superficial consideration notwithstanding, as we have seen,
to something outside of and beyond itself. Religion demands no more than
this. It does not insist upon finding a solution for all the riddles of
theoretical world-lore. It is not distressed because the course of nature
often seems to our eyes confused, and to our judgment contradictory and
unintelligible at a hundred places and in a hundred respects. On the
contrary, that this is the case is to religion in another aspect a strong
stimulus and corroboration. “The world is an odd fellow; may God soon make
an end of it,” said Luther, and thus gave a crude but truly religious
parallel to the words of Aristotle, ἡ γἀρ φύσις δαιμονία ἀλλ᾽ οὐ θεία,
(Aristot. “De Divin. in Somn.,” c. ii.). It is part of the very essence of
religion, as we have seen, to read in the pages of nature, insufficiency,
illusion, and perplexities, and to be made thereby impatient and desirous
of penetrating to the true nature of things. Religion does not claim to be
directly deducible out of a consideration of nature; it demands only the
right and freedom to interpret the world in its own way. And for this it
is sufficient that this world affords those hints and suggestions for its
convictions that we have seen it does afford. To form clear ideas in
regard to the actual relations of the infinite to the finite, and of God
to the world, and of what religion calls creation, preservation, and
eternal providence, self-revelation in the world and in history, is hardly
the task of religion at all, but rather pertains to our general
speculative instinct, which can only satisfy itself with the help of
imagination. Attempts of this kind have often been made. They are by no
means valueless, for even if no real knowledge can be gained by this
method, we may perhaps get an analogue of it which will help us to
understand existence and phenomena, and to define our position, as well as
to give at least provisional answers to many pressing questions (such, for
instance, as the problem of theodicy).
If we study the world unprejudiced by the naturalistic interpretation, or
having shaken ourselves free from it, we are most powerfully impressed by
one fundamental phenomenon in all existence: it is the fact of evolution.
It challenges attention and interpretation, and analogies quickly reveal
themselves which give something of the same trend to all such
interpretations. From stage to stage existence advances onwards, from the
world of large masses subject only to the laws of mechanics, to the
delicately complex play of the forces of development in growth and other
vital processes. The nature of the forces is revealed in ever higher
expression, and at the same time in ever more closely connected series of
stages. Even between the inorganic and the organic there is an
intermediate stage—crystal formation—which is no longer entirely of the
one, yet not of the other. And in the organic world evolution reveals
itself most clearly of all; from the crudest and simplest it presses
onwards to the most delicate and complex. In the corporeal as in the
psychical, in the whole as in each of its parts, there are ever higher
stages, sometimes far apart, sometimes close together. However we picture
to ourselves the way in which evolution accomplishes itself in time, we
can scarcely describe it without using such expressions as “nature
advances upwards step by step,” “it presses and strives upwards and
unfolds itself stage by stage.”
And it is with us as it was with Plato; we inform the world with a soul,
with a desire and endeavour which continually expresses itself in higher
and higher forms. And it is with us also as with Fichte; we speak of the
will which, unconscious of itself, pours itself forth in unconscious and
lifeless nature, and then on this foundation strives forward, expressing
its activity in ever higher developments, breaking forth in life,
sensation, and desire, and finally coming to itself in conscious existence
and will. The whole world seems to us a being which wills to become,
presses restlessly forward, and passes from the potential to the actual,
realising itself. And the height of its self-realisation is conscious,
willing life.
This outlook is lofty and significant, it supplies a guiding clue by which
the facts of life and nature can be arranged. The religious outlook, too,
when it wishes to indulge in speculation, can make use of this guiding
thread. It will then say: God established the world as “a will to
existence, to consciousness, to spirit.” He established it, not as
complete, but as becoming. He does not build it as a house, but plants it,
like a flower, in the seed, that it may grow, that it may struggle upwards
stage by stage to fuller existence, aspiring with toil and endeavour
towards the height where, in the image of the Creator, as a free and
reasonable spirit capable of personality, it may realise the aim of its
being. Thus the world is _of_ God, that is, its rudiments came from God,
and it is _to_ God, in the purpose of likeness to God. And it is imbued
with the breath of Godhead which moves in it and impels it onwards, with
the logos of the everlasting Zeus of whom Cleanthes sings, with the spirit
of Jehovah whom Isaiah and the Psalmist praise, and whom the poet of the
Creation figuratively paints; the divine breath is in everything that
lives, from grass to flower, from animal to man. But it is implanted as
becoming. And in regard to this, religion can say of the whole world what
it says of man. For man, too, is not given as a finished product, either
as regards the genus or the individual, but as a rudiment, with his
destiny to work out, in historical becoming, by realising what is inherent
in him. We call this freedom. And an adumbration of such freedom, which is
the aim of self-realisation, would help us to penetrate deeply into the
nature of things. Many riddles and apparent contradictions could be fitted
in with this view of things: the unity of the world, and yet the
gradations; the relationship of all living creatures, the unity of all
psychical life, and yet the uniqueness of the rational spirit; causal
concatenation, yet guidance by means of the highest ideas and purposes;
the tentativeness, illogicalness, and ineffectiveness of nature,
unconsciously pressing forward along uncertain paths, yet the directness
and purposefulness of the main lines of evolution in general. This
God-awakened will to be lies at the roots of the mysteries of development
in all living creatures, of the unconscious purposiveness of instinctive
action, of the gradually ascending development of psychical life and its
organ. Operating in crystals and plants purely as a formative impulse and
“entelechy,” it awakes in the bodies of animals more and more as “soul.”
Then it awakes fully in man, and in him, in an entirely new phase of real
free development, it builds itself up to spirit. It resembles a stream
whose waves flow casually and transiently in animal consciousness, and are
soon withdrawn again, to break forth anew at another place, in the
personal spirit, where they attain to permanent indissoluble form, since
they have now at last attained to self-realisation, and fulfilled the
purpose of all cosmic existence, the reflecting of the eternal personality
in the creature. But it is only in human history that what was prepared
for in natural evolution is completed.
The riddle of theodicy thus becomes easier, for what surrounds us in
nature and history has not come direct from the hand of eternal wisdom,
but is in the first place the product of the developing, striving world,
which only gradually and after many mistakes and failures works out what
is inherent in it as eternal idea and aim. We see and blame its mistakes,
for instance in our own human structure. We see the deficiencies in the
historical course of things. But when we find fault we do not see that
evolution and self-realisation and freedom are more worthy of praise than
ready-made existence incapable of independent action.
This principle of development, wherever it is regarded as “world-soul” or
as “will” or as the “unconscious,” is frequently, through pantheism and
the doctrine of immanence, made equivalent with the object of religion,
with God. This is an impossible undertaking. We cannot worship what only
reaches its full development in ourselves. But that we _can_ worship, and
that it is only in the feeling of complete dependence that the full depth
of what is developing within us to conscious life reveals itself, proves
better than anything else that God is above all “World-will.” It was more
than allegory when Plato in Timæus set the “eternal father and creator of
the world” above all soul and psyche. And it was religion that broke
through when Fichte in his little book, “Anweisung zum seeligen Leben,”
set being before becoming, and God above the creatures struggling towards
self-realisation. Religion knows in advance that this is so. And calm
reflection confirms it. All that we have already learnt of the dependence,
conditionedness, and contingent nature of the world is equally true of a
world “evolving itself” out of its potentiality, of a will to existence,
and of an unconscious realising itself. No flower can grow and develop
without being first implicit in the seed. Nothing can attain to
“actuality,” to realisation, that was not potentially implied in the
beginning. But who originated the seed of the world-flower? Who enclosed
within it the “tendencies,” the “rudiments” which realise themselves in
evolution? Invariably “the actual is before the potential” and Being
before Becoming. A world could only become if it were called to become by
an everlasting Being. God planting the world-flower that it might radiate
forth in its blossoms His own image and likeness, is an allegory which may
well symbolise for religion the relation between God and the world. And
thus it is possible to draw the outline of a religious outlook on the
world, into which the results of world-lore could well be fitted. This
frame was constructed by Plato on the basis of a religious study of
things, and after Plato it was first definitely outlined in Fichte’s too
much forgotten but unforgettable books “Bestimmung des Menschen” and
“Anweisung zum seeligen Leben,” and it is thus a new creation of the great
German idealism and its mighty faith. And it is not easy to see why it
should be abandoned, why we should give it up in favour of an irreligious,
semi-naturalistic outlook on the world.
One thing, however, must be kept constantly in mind: even such an
interpretation of the world as this is poetry, not knowledge. There is a
poetry of the will to live, of the unconscious, which is struggling
towards existence, but there is no philosophy. There are only analogies
and hints of what goes on at the foundations of the world. In particular,
the unconscious creative impulse in all living organisms, this “will”
towards form, its relationship with instinct and the relationship of
instinct to conscious psyche, afford us a step-ladder of illustrations,
and an illustration of the step-ladder of the “will towards existence,”
which invite us to overstep the bounds of our knowledge, and indulge in
our imagination. We can say nothing of pre-conscious consciousness and
will, we can at best only make guesses about them. We cannot think
definitely of a general world-will, which wills and aspires in individual
beings; we cannot picture to ourselves the emergence of the individual
“souls” of animals and man from a universal psyche. Imagination plays a
larger part here than clear thinking. And for our present purpose it must
be clearly borne in mind that religion does not require any speculative
construction of theories of the world. But “you shall know that it is your
imagination which creates the world for you.”(108) And if a speculative
construction be desired, it will always be most easily attained along
these lines, and will in this way come nearest to our modern knowledge of
nature. We must remember, too, that the objections which may be urged
against this form of speculation are equally applicable against any other.
For the origin of the individual psyche, the graduated series of its
forms, the development of one after the other, and of that of the child
from that of its parents, are riddles which cannot be solved by any
speculative thinking. Monadology, theories of the pre-existence of the
soul, creationism, or the current traducianism—which to-day, with its
partly or wholly materialistic basis, is just as naïve as the older—all
reveal equal darkness. But the speculation we have hinted at, if it gives
no explanation, at least supplies a framework for many questions which
attract us, and do so even from the point of view of religion: for
instance the collective, diffuse, and almost divisible nature of
consciousness in the lower stages, its increasing and ever more strict
centralisation, the natural relationship of the psychical in man to the
psychical in general, and yet its incommensurability and superiority to
all the world.
But let us once more turn from all the poetical and imaginative
illustrations of the relation of God to the world, which can at best be
only provisional, and only applicable at certain points, to the more
general aspect of the problem. Religion itself consists in this: believing
and experiencing that in time the Eternal, in the finite the Infinite, in
the world God is working, revealing Himself, and that in Him lies the
reason and cause of all being. For this it has names like creation,
providence, self-revelation of God in the world, and it lives by the
mysteries which are indicated under these names. The mysteries themselves
it recognises in vague or naïve forms of conception long before it
attempts any definite formulation. If dogmatics begin with the latter,
some form or other of the stiff and wooden doctrines of _concursus_, of
_influxus ordinarius_ and _extraordinarius_ usually develops with many
other subtleties, which are nothing more than attempts to formulate the
divine influence in finite terms, and to think of it as a force along with
other forces. Two series of causes are usually distinguished; the system
of causes and effects within the world, according to which everything
natural takes place, the “_causæ secundariæ_”; and in addition to these
the divine causality co-operating and influencing the others, ordering
them with gentle and delicate pressure, and guiding them towards their
true end, and which may also reveal itself as “_extraordinaria_” in
miracles and signs. This double operation is regarded as giving rise to
all phenomena, and in it consists guidance, dispensation, providence, and
natural revelation.
This kind of conception is extremely primitive, and is unfavourable to
religion itself, for in it mystery is done away with and arranged
according to rubric, and everything has become quite “simple.” Moreover,
this doctrine has a necessary tendency to turn into the dreaded “Deism.”
According to the deistic view, God made the world in the beginning, and
set the system of natural causes in motion, in such a way that no farther
assistance was given, and everything went on of itself. This theory is
incredibly profane, and strikes God out of the world, and nature, and
history at a single stroke, substituting for Him the course of a
well-arranged system of clockwork. But the former theory is a very
unsatisfactory and doubtful makeshift as compared with that of deism, for
it is impossible to see why, if God arranged these _causæ secundariæ_, He
should have made them so weak and ineffective that they need all these
ingenious _concursus_, _influxus_, _determinationes_, _gubernationes_, and
the like. Both theories are crude fabrications of the dogmatists, and they
have nothing left in them of the piety they were intended to protect, nor
do they become any better in this respect, however many attempts are made
to define them. Religion possesses, without the aid of any stilted and
artificial theories, all the things we have named above, and especially
and most directly the last of them, namely, the experience of the
revelation and communication of the Divine in the great developments and
movements of spiritual and religious history. And it finds its
corroboration and justification and freedom not by way of dogmatics but of
criticism. It is impossible to distinguish artificially two sets of
causes, and to give to the world what is alleged to be of the world, and
to God what is alleged to be of God. But it is permissible to point to the
insufficiency of our causal study in general, and to the limits of our
knowledge. Even when we have established it as a fact that all phenomena
are linked together in a chain of causes we are still far from having
discovered how things actually come to pass. Every qualitative effect and
change is entirely hidden from us as far as the cause of its coming about
and its real and inner nature are concerned. Every effect which in kind or
quantity goes beyond its cause (and we cannot make anything of the domain
of living forms, of the psychical and of history without these), shows us
that we are still only at the surface. Indeed, even mechanical action,
often alleged to be entirely intelligible, such as the transference or
transformation of energy, is, as we have seen, a complete riddle. In
addition, all causality runs its course in time, and therefore partakes of
all the defects and limitations of our views of time. And finally we are
guided by the Kantian antinomy regarding the conditions of what is
“given.” It destroys the charm of the “purely causal” point of view by
showing that this in itself cannot be made complete and is therefore
contradictory. Moreover, in the phenomena of life, and in the fact that
consciousness and will control our corporeal processes, and yet can hardly
be thought of as a cause “co-operating” with other causes, we found an
analogy, if a weak and obscure one, of the relation that a divine
teleology and governing of the world may bear to mundane phenomena. Thus
mystery remains in all its strength and is not replaced by the surrogate
of a too simple and shallow dogmatic theory. In confessing mystery and
resting content with it we are justified by reflection on the nature and
antinomy of our knowledge.
All this is true also of what religion means by creation. In the feeling
of complete humility, in its experience of absolute dependence and
conditionedness, the creature becomes conscious of itself as a creature,
and experiences with full clearness what it means to be a “creature” and
“created.” The dogmatic theory is here again only a surrogate of mystery.
And again critical self-reflection proves a better guide than any theory
of creation, which is quite in its place as a means of expression in
religious discourse and poetry, but is quite insufficient as true
knowledge. That we must but cannot think of this world either as beginning
or as not-beginning is the analogue in knowledge of what religion
experiences in mystery; and that this contingent and conditioned world is
founded in everlasting, necessary, true Being, is the analogue of what
religion possesses and knows through devout feeling, more directly and
clearly than by any thinking, of the relations of God to the world.
FOOTNOTES
1 This has been urged often enough even by scientific investigators.
In such cases they have frequently been reproached for dragging
miracles into nature when they call a halt in face of the
“underivable” and the “mysterious.” This is a complete
misunderstanding. With miracles and with the supernatural in the
historical sense of these words, this mode of regarding nature has
nothing whatever to do. It would be much more reasonable to maintain
the converse: that there exists between supernatural ideas and the
belief in the absolute explicability and rationalisation of nature a
peculiar mutual relation and attraction. For, if we think out the
relation clearly, we must see that all real and consistent belief in
miracles demands as its most effective background the clearest
possible explicability of nature. It pictures to itself two natures,
so to speak: nature and supernature, and the latter of these
interpolates itself into the former in the form of sudden and
occasional interruptions; that is to say, as miracles. The purpose
of miracles is to be recognised as such, as events absolutely
different from the ordinary course of happening. And they are most
likely thus to be recognised when nature itself is translucent and
mathematical. Thus we find that supernaturalism quite readily
accepts, and even insists upon a rationalistic explanation of
nature. But this is quite incorrect. Nature is not so thoroughly
rationalised and calculable as such a point of view would have us
believe.
The really religious element in belief in miracles is that it, too,
in its own way, is seeking after mystery, dependence and providence.
It fails because it naïvely seeks for these in isolated and
exceptional acts, which have no analogy to other phenomena. It
regards these as arbitrary acts, and does so because it overlooks or
underestimates the fact that they have to be reckoned with
throughout the whole of nature.
2 Not even after the scholastic manner of regarding eternity as a
“nunc stans,” a stationary now, an everlasting present. “Present” is
a moment in our own time, and an “everlasting” present is nonsense.
3 “Reden über die Religion, an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern.”
Neu herausgegeben von R. Otto. 1906.
4 Kgl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1876.
5 Some of these subsidiary factors are difficult to harmonise with the
main principle of selection; they endanger it or it endangers them,
as we shall see when we consider the controversies within the
Darwinian camp.
6 H. Friedmann, “Die Konvergenz der Organismen,” Berlin, 1904.
7 It is somewhat confusing that even Weismann in his most recent work
professes to give “Lectures on the Theory of Descent,” and in
reality only assumes it, concerning himself with the Darwinian
theory in the strict sense. The English translation is more
correctly entitled “The Evolution Theory.”
_ 8 Cf._ Wagner, “Zur gegenwärtigen Lage des Darwinismus.” “Die
Umschau,” January, 1900.
9 Eugen Dubois (Military Surgeon of the Dutch Army), “Pithecanthropus
erectus, a man-like transition-form from Java.” Batavia. 1904.
10 H. Friedenthal. “Ueber einen experimentellen Nachweis von
Blutsverwandtschaft.” Archiv. f. Anatomie und Physiologie, 1900, p.
404.
11 Jena, 1904. Trans. “The Evolution Theory,” Arnold. London 1904.
12 A defence of this very confident Darwinian point of view, for the
benefit of non-scientific readers, will be found in the recent
“Gemeinverständlichen darwinistischen Vorträgen und Abhandlungen,”
by Plate, Simroth, Schmidt, and others. See also Ziegler’s “Ueber
den derzcitigen Stand der Descendenzlehre in der Zoologie.”
13 “Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,” Festschrift für Bastian, p. 9.
14 “Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,” Festschrift für Bastian, p. 6.
15 “Sammlung gemeinverständl. Vorträge, hrsg. v. Virchow und
Holtzendorf,” Heft 96. “Menschen und Affenschädel,” Berlin, 1870.
16 “Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,” 1882, p. 276.
17 “Verh. Berlin anthropolog. Gesellschaft iv.” (1872), p. 132. It
does, however, appear strange to the lay mind that it should have
been only the pathological subjects of prehistoric times that had
their remains preserved for our modern study.
_ 18 Cf._ “Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,” 1895, pp. 78, 735.
_ 19 Cf._ “Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit.” Festschrift für Bastian,
1895.
20 See also “Descendenz und Pathologie.” Arch. f. path. Anat. a.
Physiol., 1886; “Transformation und Abstammung.” Berliner Klin.
Wochenschrift, 1893.
21 First edition, Leipzig, 1887. A second edition and an English
translation have since been published. See especially the discussion
of the origin and history of species in the second volume.
22 See English translation of Kerner’s Plant Life.
_ 23 Cf._ a criticism of the book from the Darwinian point of view by
Plate in Biologisches Centralblatt, 1901.
24 That this points only to the fact of evolution, and not necessarily
to actual descent, will be seen later on.
25 First edition, 1899; now in a second edition.
26 “Genealogie der Urzellen als Lösung des Descendenzproblems” (1872),
and “Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers”
(1874-1877).
27 “Eine kritische Darstellung der modernen Entwicklungslehre,” Jena,
1892.
28 Compare Darwin’s derivation of fishes from Tunicata because of the
notochord which occurs in the tunicate larvæ.
29 See Hertwig’s “Biological Problem of To-day.” London 1896.
30 The justice of this prophecy has been meanwhile illustrated by the
recent work of H. Friedmann, “Die Konvergenz der Organismen,”
Berlin, 1904.
31 If we wish to, we can even read the “biogenetic law” in Dante. See
“Purgatory,” p. 26, where the embryo attains successively to the
plant, animal and human stages:
“Anima fatta la virtute attiva,
Qual d’una _pianta_....
Come fungo marino ...
Ma come _d’animal_ divenga _fante_.”
This is, of course, nothing else than Aristotle’s theory of
evolution, done into terzarima, and corrected by St. Thomas.
For the latest application of these views, even in relation to the
“biogenetic fundamental law,” see the finely finished
“Morpho-genetic Studies” of T. Garbowski (Jena, 1903): “The greater
part of what is usually referred to the so-called fundamental
biogenetic law depends on illusion, since all things undeveloped or
imperfect must bear a greater or less resemblance one to another.”
_ 32 I.e._, The occurrence of saltatory, transilient, or discontinuous
variations or mutations.
_ 33 I.e._, The emergence of a distinctively new pattern of
organisation.
34 See H. G. Bronn’s Appendix to his translation of Darwin’s “Origin of
Species.” First German edition.
35 Finally and comprehensively in the two volumes we have already
mentioned, “Vorträge über die Deszendenztheorie,” Jena, 1902 (Eng.
trans., London, 1904). “Natural selection depends essentially upon
the cumulative augmentation of the most minute useful variations in
the direction of their utility; only the useful is developed and
increased, and great effects are brought about slowly through the
summing up of many very minute steps.... But the philosophical
significance of natural selection lies in the fact that it shows us
how to explain the origin of useful, well-adapted structures purely
by mechanical factors, and without having to fall back upon a
directive principle.”
36 If it were not white it would be observed by the seals, which would
thus avoid being devoured by it. See Weismann, I., p. 70. (English
edition, p. 65.)
37 It is almost comical when Weismann, the champion of the purely
naturalistic outlook, occasionally forgets his rôle altogether, and
puts in a word for “chance,” or attempts to soften absolute
predetermination. For if even a single wolf should destroy a stag
“by chance,” or if a single “id” should “chance” to grow in a manner
slightly different from that laid down for it by the compelling
force of preceding and accompanying circumstances, the whole
Darwinian edifice would be labour lost.
38 See Darwin, “... chance variations. Unless such occur, natural
selection can do nothing.”
39 “Die Darwinsehe Theorie. Gemeinverständliche Vorlesungen über die
Naturphilosophie der Gegenwart gehalten vor Studierenden aller
Fakultäten,” Leipzig, 1903. This book is the continuation of the
author’s “Deszendenztheorie.”
40 Fleischmann’s book compares favourably with those of other
naturalists, in that he does not contrast “Moses” and natural
science, as is customary, but has a deeper knowledge of the modern
view of Genesis I. than is usually found among naturalists, whether
of the “positive” or “negative” standpoint.
41 See also Wolff.
42 See C.C. Coe, “Nature versus Natural Selection,” London, 1895.
Perhaps the most comprehensive, many-sided, critical analysis of the
theory of natural selection. See also Herbert Spencer, “The
Inadequacy of Natural Selection,” 1893.
43 Leipzig, 1888, 1897, 1901. In part translated as “Organic
Evolution.” We are here mainly concerned with Vols. I. and III.
Later on we shall have to discuss Vol. II.
44 Wien, 1899.
45 See Wettstein, “Neolamarckism,” Jena, 1902. See also Demoor,
Massart, Vandervelde, “L’Evolution régressive en Biologie et
Sociologie,” Paris, 1897. Bibliothèque scientific internationale,
vol. lxxxv. This work is on the Lamarckian basis. It is original in
applying Lamarckian principles to a theory of society.
46 Two vols., Leipzig, 1901 and 1902.
47 It remains open to question whether Eimer’s explanation is
sufficient in all cases, even those of the exaggeratedly deceptive
copies of leaves or bark, or the colour of the environment. It is
certainly not the sorry explanation in terms of “Variation and
Selection,” but that of a spontaneous imitation of the surroundings,
that forces itself irresistibly upon us in this connection.
48 Jena, 1892 and 1895.
49 See Reinke, “Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,” 1901,
especially pp. 463 onwards on “Phylogenetisches Bildungspotential.”
von Wettstein (On direct adaptation), “Neolamarkismus,” Jena, 1902.
_Cf._ “Wissensch-Beiträge zum 15 Jahresberichte (1902) der Philos.
Gesellschaft an der Universität zu Wien: Vorträge und Besprechungen
über die Krisis der Darwinismus.” M. Kassowitz, “Allgemeine
Biologie,” I. and II., 1899. O. Hertwig, “Entwicklung der Biologie
im 19. Jahrhundert.” Wiesner, “Elemente der wissenschaftlichen
Botanik.” (_cf._ especially III. “Biologie der Pflanzen”), and on p.
288 the summary of propositions which are very similar to those
formulated later by Korschinsky. (“Auf Grund des den Organismen
innewohnenden Vervollkommnungstriebes.”)
50 See the particularly beautiful and suggestive experiments of
Haberlandt: “Experimentelle Hervorrufung eines neuen Organs.” In
“Festschrift für Schwendener,” Berlin Borntraeger, 1899.
51 See “Nature,” 1891, p. 441
52 See “Nature,” 1891, p. 441.
53 The variation-increment of the selection theory ought to be a
differential. But in many cases it is not so. As for instance in
symmetrical correlated variation, &c. In the struggle for existence
it is usually not advantages of organisation which are decisive, but
the chance advantages of situation, though these have no “selective”
influence. The case of the tapeworm is illustrative.
His work, “Die organischen Regulationen, Vorbereitungen zu einer
Theorie des Lebens,” 1901, is a systematic survey of illustrations
of the “autonomy” of vital processes. In his “Analytischen Theorie
der organischen Entwicklung,” Leipzig, 1894, his special biological
(“ontogenetic”) views are still in process of development. But even
here his sharp rejection of Darwinism is complete (see VI., Par. 3,
on “the absurd assumption of a contingent character of
morphogenesis”). It is not for nothing that the book is dedicated to
Wigand and C. F. von Baer. He says that in regard to development we
must “picture to ourselves external agents acting as stimuli and
achieving transformations which have the character, not analysable
as to its causes, of being adapted to their end, that is, capable of
life.” Incomplete, but very instructive too, are his discussions on
the causal and the teleological outlook, the necessity for both, and
the impossibility of eliminating the latter from the study of
nature. In a series of subsequent works, Driesch has defined and
strengthened this position, finally reaching the declaration:
“Darwin belongs to history, just like that other curiosity of our
century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both are variations on the theme,
‘How to lead a whole generation by the nose!’ ” (“Biolog.
Zentralbl.” 1896, p. 16). We are concerned with Driesch more
particularly in Chapter IX.
54 See Driesch “Kritisches und Polemisches,” Biol. Zentrabl., 1902, p.
187, Note 2.
55 “Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift,” xiv., p. 273.
56 See § 70 and subsequent sections. Take, for instance, the
sentences:—“Every production of material things and of their forms
must be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws,”
and the contrast: “Some products of material nature cannot be
interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws.”
57 To Aristotle the “Soul” (ψυχὴ ϕυτική Psyche, phytike) was in the
first place a purely biological principle. But by means of his
elastic formula of Potentiality and Actuality he was able to make
the transition to the psychological with apparent ease. The
biological is to him in “potentiality” what sensation, impulse,
imagination are in “realisation.” But the biological and the
psychological are not related to one another as stages. Growth,
form, development, &c., cannot be carried over through any
“actualisatio” into sensation, consciousness and the like.
An essentially different question is, whether the biological may not
be not indeed derivable from the psychological—that would be the
same mistake—but dependent on, and conditioned by it, just as we
regard the voluntary moving and directing of the body as dependent
on it. An imaginative interpretation of the world will always take
this course.
58 Of course all this still gives us no ground for drawing conclusions
as to the correctness of the mechanistic theory, but only affords a
reason for its power of persistence. Indeed, the very fact that, in
investigating the problem of life, instinct directs us towards
mechanical interpretations, should give added weight to the other
fact, that among the ranks of naturalists themselves there
constantly arise doubts and criticisms of the adequacy of this mode
of interpretation, and that many of them go over more or less
completely to the vitalistic point of view.
59 H. Helmholtz, “Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft, eine physikalische
Abhandlung,” Berlin, 1847.
60 Max Verworn, “Die Biogenhypothese,” Jena, 1903. _Cf._ criticisms by
Czapek in the “Botanische Zeitung,” No. 2, 1903, and by Loeb in the
“Biologisches Zentralblatt,” 1902.
61 Berlin, 1900. Edited by R. du Bois-Reymond.
62 Bütschli, “Untersuchungen über microscopische Schäume und das
Protoplasma,” Leipzig, 1892. _Cf._ Berthold, “Studien zur
Protoplasmamechanik.”
63 Rhumbler, “Zur Mechanik des Gastrulationvorganges ...” in “Archiv.
f. Entwicklungsmechanik,” Bd. 14.
64 “Bewegung der lebendigen Substanz.” Jena, 1892.
65 A short, very attractive description of these mechanical methods,
and one which appeals particularly to us laymen because of its
excellent illustrations, is Dreyer’s “Ziele und Wege biologischer
Forschung” (Jena, 1892), especially the first part, “Die
Flüssigkeitsmechanik als eine Grundlage der organischen Form- und
Gerüst-Bildung.” The astonishing and fascinating forms of
Radiolarian frameworks and “skeletons” (the artistic appreciation of
which was made possible to a wider public by Haeckel’s “Kunstformen
der Natur”) are here made the subject of mechanical explanations,
which are certainly in a high degree plausible.
_ 66 Cf._ Roux, “Archiv. fur Entwicklungsmechanik.” The name
sufficiently indicates the scope.
67 For a discussion of the difficulties and impossibilities of this
theory see page 148 above.
68 “Preformation oder Epigenesis?” Outlines of a theory of the
development of organisms. Jena, 1894. (Part I. of “Zeit- und
Streit-fragen der Biologie.”) Translated by P. Chalmers Mitchell,
“The Biological Problem of To-day.”
69 In his earlier period. Later he rejects both preformation and
epigenesis, as mechanical distortions of vital processes.
70 See also Lotze’s interesting article “Instinct” in the same work.
71 Part II. of his “Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie.”
72 Second Edition, 1902.
73 In Vol. II. p. 139. 1898.
74 “General Physiology.” Translated by Lee. London. 1899. P. 170.
75 As a remarkable instance and corroboration of this, we may refer to
the ever-recurring, instinctive antipathy of deeply religious
temperaments, from Augustine to Luther and Schleiermacher, to the
Aristotelian mood and its conception of the world, and their
sympathy with Plato’s (mostly and especially in their “Platonised”
expressions). The clear-cut, luminous, conception of the world which
expresses everything in terms of commensurable concepts is
thoroughly Aristotelian. But it would be difficult to find a place
in it for the peculiar element which lies at the root of all true
devotional feeling, and which makes faith something more than the
highest “reverence, love and trust.”
76 “Arch. für pathol. Anatomie und Physiologie,” Bd. VIII. 1855.
77 Vol. IX., 1856.
78 The same is true even of crystals, “_omne crystallum e crystallo_.”
_ 79 Cf._ “Ueber die Aufgabe der Naturwissenschaft,” Jena, 1876.
“Naturwissenschaftliche Tatsachen und Probleme.” “Physiologie und
Entwicklungslehre,” 1886, in the collection of the “Allgemeiner
Vereins für Deutsche Literatur.” Also in the same collection, “Aus
Natur- und Menschen-leben.”
80 These ideas are not fully worked out, and they are disguised in
poetic form—for instance, when even the play of flames is compared
to vital processes. But if they be stripped of their poetic garb,
they lead to the same conclusions to which one is always led when
one approaches the problem unprejudiced by naturalistic or
anthropomorphic preconceptions of the relation of the infinite to
the finite, or the divine to the natural. If we exclude the
materialistic or semi-materialistic position which regards
teleological phenomena, vital processes, and even states of
sensation and consciousness as the function of a “substance” or of
matter, we can quite well speak of them as general “cosmo-organic”
functions of universal being, meaning that they occur of necessity
wherever the proper conditions exist. According to the doctrine of
potentiality and actuality, this is to say that all possible stages
of the higher and highest phenomena are _semper et ubique_
potentially present in universal being, and that they become actual
wherever the physical processes are far enough advanced to afford
the necessary conditions.
Preyer’s ideas have been revived of late, especially in the romantic
form, as, for instance, in Willy Pastor’s “Lebensgeschichte der
Erde” (“Leben und Wissen,” Vol. I., Leipzig, 1903). And in certain
circles, characterised by a simultaneous veneration for and
combination of modern natural science—Haeckel, Romanticism, Novalis
and other antitheses—Fechner appears to have come to life again. The
type of this group is W. Bölsche. Naturally enough, Pastor has
turned his attention also to the recent views of Schroen in regard
to crystallisation. The fact, _omne crystallum e crystallo_, like
the corresponding fact, _omne vivum e vivo_, was long a barrier
against mechanistic derivation. But Schroen draws a parallel between
crystallisation and organic processes, so that the alleged clearness
and obviousness of the inorganic can no longer be carried over—in
the old fashion—into the realm of life, but, conversely, the mystery
of life must be extended downwards, and continued into the
inorganic.
81 Worthy of note and much cited is a somewhat indefinite essay on
“Neovitalism,” by the Wurzburg pathologist, E. von Rindfleisch (in
“Deutsche Medizinische Wochensehrift,” 1895, No. 38).
82 Already given in detail in his “Lehrbuch der phys. und pathol.
Chemie” (Second Edition, 1889), in the first chapter, “Vitalism and
Mechanism.” In the meantime a fifth revised and enlarged edition of
Bunge’s book has appeared as a “Lehrbuch der Physiologie des
Menschen” (Leipzig, 1901), The relevant early essays appear here
again under the title “Idealism and Mechanism.” The arguments are
the same. It is often supposed that it is merely a question of time,
and that in the long run we must succeed in finding proofs that the
whole process of life is only a complex process of movement; but the
history of physiology shows that the contrary is the case. All the
processes which can be explained mechanically are those which are
not vital phenomena at all. It is in activity that the riddle of
life lies. The solution of this riddle is looked for, more decidedly
than before but still somewhat vaguely, in the “idealism” of
self-consciousness and its implications, “_Physiologus nemo nisi
psychologus_.” These views have been also stated in a separate
lecture: G. Bunge, “Vitalismus und Mechanismus,” (Leipzig, 1886).
83 “Allgemeine Biologie” (2 vols.), Vienna, 1899.
84 Jena, 1903.
_ 85 Cf._ especially Verworn’s example of the manufacture of sulphuric
acid. See what we have previously said on the “second line” of
mechanistic theory, along which Neumeister’s thought mainly moves.
See especially p. 198. As regards the “fifth line,” the problem of
the development of form in its present phase, there is an
instructive short essay by Fr. Merkel (Nachrichten der K.
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Göttingen. Geschäftl. Mitt. 1897,
Heft 2)—“Welche Kräfte wirken gestaltend auf den Körper der Menschen
und Tiere?” This essay avoids, obviously intentionally, the
shibboleths of controversy. The mechanical point of view and the
play with mechanical analogies and models are abruptly dismissed.
“If things, which were in themselves susceptible of mechanical
explanations, occur in the absence of the mechanical antecedent
conditions, then we must seek for other forces to enable us to
understand them.” And quite calmly a return is made to the old,
simple conception of a “regulative” and a “formative force,”
inherent as a capacity _sui generis_ within the “energids,” the
really living parts of the cell. The cell-energid carries within it
the “pattern” of the organisation, and the partial or perfect
“capacity” (“Fertigkeit”) for producing and reproducing the whole
organism. But these two forces “make use of” the physico-chemical
forces as tools to work out details. So to describe the state of the
case is not of course a solution of the problem; it is only a
figurative formulation of it. But that, at the present day, we can
and must return to doing this if we are to describe things simply
and as they actually occur, is precisely what is most instructive in
the matter.
86 “Beiträge zur Kritik der Darwinschen Lehre,” which was first
published in the “Biologisches Zentralblatt,” 1898.
87 Leipzig, 1892.
88 Before Wigand’s larger works there had appeared F. Delpino:
“Applicazione della Teoria Darwinia ai Fiori ed agli Insetti
Visitatori dei Fiori” (Bull. della Societa Entomologica Ital.,
Florence 1870). He says: “Un principio intrinsico, reagente, finchè
dura la vita, contro le influenze estrinseche ossia contro gli
agenti chimici e fisici.”
89 “Elemente der Wissenschaftlichen Botanik. Biologie der Pflanzen.”
1889.
90 “Lehrbuch der Biologie der Pflanzen.” Stuttgart, 1895.
_ 91 Cf._ Cohn, “Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen,” vii. 407, See
especially the concluding chapter, “Einiges über Functionen der
einzelnen Zellorgane.” From Zoology we may cite E. Teichmann’s
investigation, “Ueber die Beziehung zwischen Astrosphären und
Furchen.” “Experimentelle Untersuchungen am Seeigelei” (“Archiv. f.
Entw. Mech.” xvi. 2, 1903). This paper contains no references to
“psychical phenomena,” “power,” or “will,” and we cannot but approve
of this in technical research. But it is pointed out that the
mechanistic interpretation of the detailed processes of development
has definite limitations, and we are referred to “fundamental
characters of living matter which we must take for granted.”
This is even more decidedly the case in Tad. Garbowski’s beautiful
“Morphogenetische Studien, als Beitrag zur Methodologie zoologischer
Forschung.” These belong to the line of thought followed by Driesch
and Wolff, who are both frequently and approvingly quoted, and they
afford an excellent instance of that mood of dissatisfaction with
and protest against the “dogmas” of descent, selection and
phylogeny, which is observable in many quarters among the younger
generation of investigators. Garbowski vigorously combats Haeckel’s
theories of development, especially “the fundamental biogenetic law,
and the Gastræa theory.” He criticises “mechanistic” interpretations
of the development of the embryo, which “treat the living being
morphologically, as if the matter were one of vesicles, cylinders
and plates, and not of vital units”: and he does not look with
favour on “artificial amoebæ,” which can move, creep, and do
everything except live. The ideal of biology is of course always a
science with laws and equations, but the key to these will not be
found in mechanics. Garbowski’s studies may be highly recommended as
giving a sharp and vivid impression of the modern anti-mechanistic
tendencies observable even in technical research.
92 Trans. by Levinsohn. “Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung,” Munich,
1898, No. 166.
93 Bütschli, _op. cit._, p. 200.
94 “The Monist,” 1899, p. 179.
_ 95 Cf._ “Entwicklung der Biologie in 19. Jahrhundert” (“Naturforscher
Versammlung,” 1900), and “Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie,”
1894-7, especially Part II., “Mechanik und Zoologie.”
96 “Die Organismen und ihr Ursprung,” published in “Nord und Süd,”
xviii., p. 201 _seq._—“Die Welt als Tat,” Berlin 1899, since then in
second edition.—“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,” 1901.—And
“Der Ursprung des Lebens auf der Erde,” in the “Türmer-Jahrbuch,”
1903.
_ 97 Cf._, the discussion by A. Drews in the “Preuss. Jahrbuch,”
October, 1902, p. 101, a review of Reinke’s “Einleitung in die
theoretische Biologie.”
98 Of all the bad Greek zoology has produced, “Ontogenesis” is probably
the worst. The Becoming of the Being! The word is used in contrast
to Phylogenesis, the becoming of the race or of the species, and it
denotes the development of the individual.
_ 99 Cf._ p. 130. Excellent observations on “purpose.” If two or more
chains of causes meet, we call it “chance;” if they do so constantly
and in a typical manner, we call it “purpose.”
100 “Biolog. Centralbl.,” 1896, p. 363.
101 “Die Lokalisation (= spatial determination) morphogenetischer
Vorgänge, ein Beweis vitalistischen Geschehens,” 1899 (in “Archiv.
f. Entw.-Mechanik,” viii., 1, and separately published), and “Die
organischen Regulationen: Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des
Lebens,” Leipzig, 1901. Also “Die ‘Seele’ als elementarer
Natur-factor,” (studies on the movements of organisms), Leipzig,
1903. He gives a general review of his own evolution in the
“Süddeutsche Monatshefte,” January 1904, under the title “Die
Selbständigkeit der Biologie und ihre Probleme.”
102 In the “Biol. Zentralbl.,” June 1903, p. 427, Driesch is criticised
by Moszkowski, who rejects Driesch’s teleological standpoint. But
even this criticism shows us how far the untenability of the
mechanistic position has been recognised. It is based upon a
somewhat vague dynamism, which admits that the physico-chemical and
all other mechanical interpretations have been destructively
criticised by Driesch, and recognises entelechy (“ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸ τέλος
ἔχον”). An entelechy without τέλος!
103 “Vorfragen der Biologie,” 1899. “Die ‘Ueberwindung des Mechanismus’
in der Biologie.” “Biolog. Zentralbl.,” 1901, p. 130.
_ 104 Cf._ Tad. Garbowski, “Morphogenetische Studien,” p. 167. The
illustration here employed of the arc and the “explanation of form
by form” would be a good criticism of many of Albrecht’s statements.
105 Schneider has expounded his physiological and morphological view in
his “Comparative Histology.” In “Vitalismus” (“Elementare
Lebensfunctionen,” Vienna, 1903) he sums up his vitalistic views. It
is a comprehensive work which goes deeper than others of its class
into the detailed description and analysis of the intimate phenomena
of life. Indeed it almost amounts to an independent biology. But the
most essential vital problems, the development of form,
regeneration, and inheritance, to which Driesch gives the fullest
consideration, are all too briefly treated. In Chapters XI. and XII.
the question of vitalism expands into a far-reaching discussion of
the general outlook upon nature. We need not here concern ourselves
with his more general views. Schneider must be regarded as a
representative of the most modern tendency of “Psychism,” which,
stimulated by Mach, Avenarius, and the school of
“immanence-philosophy,” finds expression among the younger
physiologists and biologists, from Schneider to Driesch, Verworn,
Albrecht, and others. To overthrow “materialism” and “realism,” they
utilise, with impetuous delight, the ancient self-evident idea that
what is given to us is sensation. They confuse and identify such
opposites as Kant and Berkeley, and their own position with that of
“solipsism.” This outlook is still vague and vacillating, and it may
perhaps compel epistemology to return on its old path from the
sophists to Plato, from Hume to Kant. In Schneider’s case, however,
the thin stream of this new sensualism is intermingled with so many
intuitions and perceptions of the deeper nature of knowledge that
one is now curious to know how this strange mixture of
semi-materialism, idealism, solipsism, and a priorism is to make the
transition from its present extremely labile phase to a condition of
stable equilibrium. One fears lest sooner or later a reaction
against the contortions of this empiricism and psychism should lead
to a modern rehabilitation of mysticism or occultism. (_Cf._ p. 295
ff.)
In an essay on “Vitalism” in the “Preuss. Jahrbuch,” Aug. 1903, p.
276, Schneider has supplemented his previous work.
106 If the protest of natural science against these means no more than
that they should be excluded as inaccessible to scientific
understanding, from the domain of its investigation, but not from
reality, it is perhaps fully justified in its methods.
107 Though somewhat inconsequent, since at any rate the enthusiasm for
truth could not result from a naturalistic, but only from some kind
of idealistic basis.
108 Schleiermacher, “Reden über die Religion,” ii.