It is very strange that Mr. Herbert Spencer will again and again attack
the philosophy and ethics of Kant for views which Kant never held.[101]
It is possible that there are disciples of Kant who deny the theory of
evolution. Yet it is certain that Kant himself is not guilty of this
mistake. Thinkers who reject the theory of evolution are in this respect
as little entitled to call themselves disciples of Kant as, for instance,
the Sadducees were to call themselves followers of Christ. Kantian
philosophy was foremost in the recognition of the need of evolution, and
that at a time when public interest was not as yet centered upon it.
Mr. Spencer’s merits in the propagation of the theory of evolution are
undeniable, and he deserves our warmest respect and thanks for the
indefatigable zeal he has shown in the performance of this great work,
for the labors he has undergone, and the sacrifices he has made for it.
Yet recognising all that Mr. Spencer has done, we should not be blind to
the fact that Kant’s conception of evolution is even at the present day
more in conformity with the facts of natural science than Mr. Spencer’s
philosophy, although the latter commonly goes by the name of the
philosophy of evolution.
It is painful to note that in many places where Mr. Spencer refers to
Kant’s philosophy, he does it slightingly, as though Kant were one of the
most irrational of thinkers. Kant’s reasoning is denounced as “abnormal”
and “vicious.” I find such phrases as, “It is a vice of Kant’s
philosophy ...,” “If Kant had known more of Man than he did ...,” etc.
Mr. Spencer characterises Kant’s method as follows:
“Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the
negative is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of
which the affirmation is inconceivable, and proceeds to draw
conclusions therefrom.”
These attacks of Mr. Spencer on Kant are not justifiable. Kant is not
guilty of the faults for which he is arraigned by Mr. Spencer.
* * * * *
It is, however, fair to state that these misunderstandings appear
excusable if the difficulties are borne in mind with which the English
student of Kant is confronted. First, Kant cannot be understood without
taking into consideration the historical development of his philosophy,
and, secondly, most translations of the fundamental terms, he employs,
are so misleading that errors can scarcely be avoided.
Kant’s philosophy is by no means a perfected system; it rather represents
(as perhaps necessarily all philosophies do) the development of a
thinker’s mind. The “Critique of Pure Reason” especially shows traces
of the state of Kant’s mind at different periods, and thus it is that
we discover passages which closely considered will be found to be
contradictory. When reading this remarkable work we feel like travelers
walking over the petrified relics of a powerful eruption. There are
strata of ideas of the oldest formation close to the thoughts of a recent
date. There are also vestiges of intermediate phases. Here they stand
in the petrification of printed words, peacefully side by side, as
memorials of a great revolution in the development of human thought. It
is this state of things which more than anything else makes of Kant’s
writings such difficult reading. At the same time it is obvious that we
cannot simply take the results of Kant’s philosophy; we must follow him
in the paths by which he arrived at any given proposition.
There is no philosopher that has been worse misinterpreted than Kant;
and the English interpreters of Kant have succeeded in mutilating his
best thoughts so that this hero of progress appears as a stronghold of
antiquated views. Mistranslations or misconceptions of his terms are
to a great extent the cause of this singular fate. As an instance we
mention the errors that attach to Kant’s term _Anschauung_. _Anschauung_
is the present object of our senses; it is the impression a man has
from looking at a thing and might have been translated by “perception”
or perhaps “sensation.” It is usually translated by “intuition.” The
_Anschauung_ of objects comprises the data of knowledge, and they are
previous to our reflection upon them. An intuition in the sense of the
English Intuitionalists is defined as “a presentation which can be
given previously to all thought,” yet this presentation is supposed
to be a kind of revelation, a knowledge that comes to us without our
contemplation, a cognition the character of which is immediate as well as
mysterious; in short something that is supernatural.
How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if his position
with reference to time and space is mistaken! “Time and Space are our
_Anschauung_,” Kant says. But his English translators declare: “Kant
maintained that space and time are intuitions.” What a difference it
makes if intuition is interpreted in the sense applied to it by the
English Intuitionalist School instead of its being taken in the original
meaning of the word _Anschauung_.
* * * * *
Any one who knows Kant through Mr. Spencer’s representations only, must
look upon him as having the most perverse mind that could possibly
exist; and yet it is Kant from whom Spencer has indirectly derived the
most characteristic feature of his philosophy. What is Mr. Spencer’s
agnosticism but a popularisation of Kant’s view that things in themselves
are unknowable?
We conclude from the animosity which Mr. Spencer shows toward Kant that
he does not know how much in this respect he agrees with Kant, how much
he has unconsciously imbibed from the _Zeitgeist_ which in part was
formed under the influence of this huge error of the great philosopher.
I feel confident that any clear thinker who studies Kant and arrives
along with him at the “thing in itself” will soon free himself from this
error of Kantian thought. Kant himself suggests to us the method by which
we are to find the way out of agnosticism. As a proof I quote the views
of two independent thinkers; both influenced by Kant’s criticism but
neither a blind follower. Professor Mach says:
“I have always felt it as a special good fortune, that early
in my life, at about the age of fifteen, I happened to find
in the library of my father Kant’s ‘Prolegomena to Any
Future Metaphysic.’ The book made at that time a powerful,
ineffaceable impression upon me that I never afterwards
experienced to the same degree in any of my philosophical
reading. Some two or three years later I suddenly discovered
the superfluous rôle that ‘the thing in itself’ plays.” _The
Monist_, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 65 and 66.
And Schiller guided by similar considerations says in one of his Xenions:
“Since Metaphysics, of late, without heirs to her fathers was gathered:
Under the hammer are now ‘things in themselves’ to be sold.”
The latest attack of Mr. Spencer upon Kantism is in the article “Our
Space-Consciousness,” in _Mind_, written in reply to Professor Watson.
Mr. Spencer there repeats his misconception of Kantism, so that I feel
urged to utter a few words of protest against his gross misrepresentation
of Kant’s views. I shall confine myself mainly to quotations from Kant’s
works—and the passages quoted will speak for themselves. Should there
indeed be any disciples of Kant who are, as Mr. Spencer says, “profoundly
averse to that evolutionary view which contemplates mind as having had a
genesis conforming to laws like those conformed to by the genesis of the
body,” these quotations will suffice to prove that they have misconstrued
the views of their master. Philosophers hostile to the theory of
evolution had better select another patron for their ideas. Kant is too
radical a mind to protect those men who in the domains of thought give
the signal for retreat.
Mr. Spencer adopted the evolution theory as it was presented by Von Baer,
who explains “_Entwickelung_” as a progress from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous.
Baer’s “Developmental History of Animals” was published in 1828. Mr.
Spencer adopted the theory in 1854. But the history of the theory of
evolution is older than Von Baer’s book. Professor Baer concludes
his work with a few corollaries among which near the end we find the
following passage:
“If we survey the contents of the whole Scholia, there
follows from them a general result. We found that the effect
of generation continues to advance from a part to a whole
[Schol. 2.]; that in development, self-dependence increases
in correspondence with its environment [Schol. 2.], as well as
the determinateness of its structure [Schol. 1.]; that in the
internal development special parts shape themselves forth from
the more general, and their differentiation increases [Schol.
3.]; that the individual, as the possessor of a fixed organic
form, changes by degrees from more general forms into more
special [Schol. 5.].
“The general result of our inquiry and consideration can now
well be declared as follows:
“That the developmental history of the individual is the
history of increasing individuality in every relation; that
is, Individualisation.
“This general conclusion is, indeed, so plain, that it needs
no proof from observation, but seems evident _a priori_. But
we believe that this evidentness is merely the stamp of truth,
and therefore is its guarantee. Had the history of development
from the outset been perceived as just expressed, it could and
should have been inferred, that the individual of a determinate
animal type attains to this by changing from a general into
a special form. But experience teaches everywhere, that
deductions are always safer if their results are discovered
beforehand by observation. Mankind would have obtained a still
greater intellectual possession than it really has, had this
been otherwise.
“But if this general conclusion has truth and contents, it is
_one fundamental idea_ which runs through all forms and degrees
of animal development, and governs every single relation. It is
the same idea that collected in space the distributed particles
into spheres and united them in solar systems; which caused the
disintegrated dust on the surface of our metallic planet to
grow up into living forms; but this idea is nothing else than
life itself, and the words and syllables in which it expresses
itself, are the different forms of life.”
These corollaries were not inserted by Baer because he intended to
proclaim a new truth, but simply to excite a popular interest in a
strictly scientific work, in order to extend the circle of its readers.
Baer says in the preface:
“So much about the first part. In order to procure for the
work readers and buyers, I have added a second part in which
I make some general remarks under the title of Scholia and
Corollaries. They are intended to be sketches of the confession
of my scientific faith concerning the development of animals,
as it was formed from the observation of the chick and by other
investigations.”
* * * * *
The “Encyclopædia Britannica” says of Baer that he “prepared the way for
Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of organic evolution as the law
of all evolution.”[102]
Baer declares that individualisation is “the one fundamental idea that
goes through _all_ the forms of cosmic and animal development.” The
generality of the law of evolution is clearer in the language employed
by Baer, in the full context of the Scholia than appears from the short
statement of the “Encyclopædia Britannica.” Nevertheless it is clear
enough in the quoted passage that Baer made a statement of universal
application. How can such a universal statement be made more general?
We must add here that Mr. Spencer and his disciples overvalue the
importance of generalisation. It is not the power of generalisation that
makes the philosopher and the scientist but the power of discrimination.
The habit of generalising whatever comes under our observation is very
common among the uneducated and uncivilised, and almost nine tenths of
human errors arise from unwarranted generalisations.
In Kant’s time the interest in the theory of evolution was confined to a
few minds. It is well known that Goethe was one of its most enthusiastic
supporters.[103] In the middle of the eighteenth century there were
three views proposed to explain the origin and the development of
organised beings: (1) Occasionalism, (2) the theory of Evolution, and
(3) the theory of Epigenesis. Occasionalism maintained that God created
on each new occasion a new animal. The word evolution was used in a
different sense from that in which it is now understood: evolutionism, as
maintained by Bonnet, Haller, and others, was the view that the sperma
contained a very small specimen of the animal that was to grow from it.
The hen’s egg was supposed to contain an excessively minute but complete
chicken. The theory of epigenesis, however, propounded in 1759 by Caspar
Friedrich Wolff in his “Theoria Generationis,” explained development
by additional growth, and it is this theory of epigenesis which later
on, after the total defeat of the old evolutionism, was called (but
improperly) the evolution theory. The word “evolution” has thus again
admitted the erroneous idea of an unfolding.
In Kant’s time the battle between the occasionalists, the evolutionists,
and the adherents of the epigenesis theory was hot indeed; and Kant
unquestionably gave preference to the epigenesis theory. The most
important passage on the subject appears in his “Critique of Judgment.”
It is as follows:
“If now the teleological principle of the generation of
organised beings be accepted, as it would be, we can account
for their internally adapted form either by _Occasionalism_
or by _Prestabilism_.[104] According to the first, the
supreme world-cause would, in agreement with its idea, on the
occasion of every coition directly give the proper organic
form to the material thereby blended; according to the second,
it would have implanted into the original products of its
designing wisdom merely the power by means of which an organic
being produces its like and the species itself is constantly
maintained and likewise the death of individuals is continually
replaced by their own nature, which is operating at the same
time for their destruction.
“If we assume occasionalism for the production of organised
beings, nature is thereby wholly discarded, and with it the use
of reasoning in determining the possibility of such kinds of
products; therefore, it cannot be supposed that this system is
accepted by any one who has had to do with philosophy.”
“As to _Prestabilism_, it can proceed in a two-fold manner,
namely, it considers every organic being produced by its like,
either as the _educt_ or as the _product_ of the first. The
system which considers generated beings as mere _educts_ is
called that of _individual preformation_, or also the _theory
of evolution_; that which makes generated beings _products_ is
named the system of _epigenesis_. The latter can also be called
a system of _generic preformation_, because the productive
power of those generating was virtually preformed to agree with
the internal adapted arrangements that fell to the lot of their
race. The opposing theory to this view should be named that
of individual preformation, or still better, the _theory of
evolution_.”
“The defenders of the theory of evolution, who exempt each
individual from the formative power of nature, in order to
derive the same directly from the hand of the Creator, would
not dare to permit this to happen in accordance with the
hypothesis of occasionalism, so that coition would be a mere
formality, a supreme national world-cause having decided to
form every particular fœtus by direct interference, and to
resign to the mother only its development and nourishment.
They declared themselves in favor of preformation, _as though
it were not the same to make the required forms arise in a
supernatural manner at the beginning of the world, as during
its progress_; and as if a great multitude of supernatural
arrangements would not rather be dispensed with through
occasional creation which were necessary in order that the
embryo formed at the beginning of the world should, throughout
the long period up to its development, not suffer from the
destructive forces of nature, but endure and maintain itself
intact; moreover, an immensely greater number of such preformed
beings would be made than ever would be developed, and with
them as many creations be thus rendered unnecessary and
purposeless. They still, however, resign at least something to
nature, in order not to fall in with complete hyperphysics,
which can dispense with explanation from nature. They still
held fast indeed, to their hyperphysics; even finding in
monsters (which it must be impossible to regard as designs
of nature) cases of adaptation which call for admiration,
although the only purpose of that adaptedness might be to make
an anatomist take offence at it as a purposeless adaptedness,
and have a sense of melancholy admiration. Yet they could
not well fit the generation of hybrids into the system of
preformation, but were obliged still further to endow the sperm
of male creatures with a designedly acting power, whereas they
had otherwise accorded it nothing except mechanical force to
serve as the first means of nourishment of the embryo; yet
this designedly acting force, in the case of the products of
generation between two creatures of the same kind, they would
grant to neither of them.
“If on the contrary the great advantage was not at once
recognised which the theory of epigenesis possessed over the
former in view of the experimental foundation on which the
proof of it rested; yet reason would be especially favorably
predisposed from the outset for this mode, of explanation,
inasmuch as it regards nature—with reference to the things
which originally can be conceived as possible only in
accordance with the theory of causality and design, at least
so far as propagation is concerned—as self-producing and
not merely as developing, and thus with the least possible
employment of the supernatural, leaves all that comes
afterwards, from the very beginning on, to nature: without
concerning itself with the original beginning, with regard to
the explanation of which physics in general miscarries, try
with what chain of causes it may.”
Kant recognises neither the stability of species nor any fixed limits
between them. And this one maxim alone suffices to prove that he was
of the same opinion as the great biologist who wrote the “Origin of
Species.” Kant says (Ed. Hart. III. p. 444):
“_Non datur vacuum formarum_, that is, there are not different
original and primitive species, which were, so to say, isolated
and separated by an empty space from one another, but all the
manifold species are only divisions of a single, chief, and
general species; and from this principle results again this
immediate inference: _datur continuum formarum_, that is, all
differences of species border on each other, and allow no
transition to one another by a leap, but only through very
small degrees of difference, by which we can arrive at one
from another; in one word, there are no species or sub-species
which, according to reason, would be _next_ each other in
affinity, but intermediate species are always possible, whose
difference from the first and second is less than their
difference from one another.”
In Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” (§. 80) we find the following passage:
“The agreement of so many species of animals, with reference
to a definite, common scheme, which appears not only to be
at the foundation of their bony structure, but also of the
arrangement of their other parts, in which, by abridgment of
one and prolongation of another, by envelopment of this and
unfolding of that, a wonderful simplicity of plan has been able
to produce so great a diversity of species—this agreement casts
a ray of hope, although a weak one, in the mind, that here,
indeed, something might be accomplished with the principle of
the mechanism of nature, without which in general there can be
no physical science.
“This analogy of forms, so far as they appear, notwithstanding
all their diversity, to be produced after the model of a common
prototype, strengthens the conjecture of a real relationship
between the same by generation from a common ancestral
source, through the gradual approach of one animal species to
another, from man, in whom the principle of design appears
to be best proved, to the polyp, from this to the moss and
lichen, and finally to the lowest stage of nature perceptible
to us, to crude matter, from which and its forces, according
to mechanical laws (like those which work in the production
of crystals), the whole technic of nature (which is so
incomprehensible to us in organised beings that we imagine
another principle is necessitated for their explanation)
appears to be derived.[105]
“The Archæologist of nature is now free to make that great
family of beings (for such we must conceive it, if the
uninterrupted relationship is to have a foundation) arise out
of the extant vestiges of the oldest revolutions, following
every mechanism known to him or which he can suppose.”
Kant adds in a foot-note:
“An hypothesis of such a kind can be named a daring venture of
reason, and there may be few of the most sagacious naturalists,
through whose minds it has not sometimes passed. For it is not
absurd, as the _generatio equivoca_, by which is understood
the production of an organised being through the mechanical
action of crude unorganised matter. But it would still be
_generatio univoca_ in the common understanding of the word,
in so far only as something organic was produced out of
another organic body, although specifically distinguished
from it; for instance, if certain aquatic animals by and by
formed into amphibia, and from these after some generations
into land animals. _A priori_ this does not contradict the
judgment of pure reason. Only experience shows no example
thereof; according to it, rather, all generation which we know
is _generatio homonyma_ (not mere _univoca_ in opposition to
production out of unorganised material), that is, the bringing
forth of a product homogeneous in organisation, with the
generator; and _generatio heteronyma_, so far as our actual
experience of nature goes is nowhere met with.”
The treatise “Presumable Origin of Humanity,” Kant sums up in the
following sentence:
“From this representation of the earliest human history it
results, that the departure of man from what, as the first
abode of his kind, his judgment represented as Paradise, was
no other than the transition of mere animal creatures out of
barbarism into man, out of the leading-strings of instinct into
the guidance of reason, in a word, out of the guardianship of
nature into the state of freedom.”
In his work “Upon the Different Races of Mankind,” Kant discusses the
origin of the species of man in a way which would do honor to a follower
of Darwin. It is written in a spirit which recognises the difference of
conditions as the causes that produce different species. We select a few
passages from this work.
In a foot-note we read:
“Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science
(_Naturbeschreibung_) and natural history in one and the
same sense. But it is evident that the knowledge of natural
phenomena, as they _now are_, always leaves to be desired
the knowledge of that which they _have been_ before now, and
through what succession of modifications they have passed in
order to have arrived, in every respect, at their present
state. _Natural History_, which at present we almost entirely
lack, would teach us the changes that have effected the form
of the earth, likewise, the changes in the creatures of the
earth (plants and animals) that they have suffered by natural
transformations and, arising therefrom, the departures from the
prototype of the original species that they have experienced.
It would probably trace a great number of apparently different
varieties back to a species of one and the same kind, and would
convert the present so intricate school-system of Natural
Science into a natural system in conformity with reason.”
We adduce another passage, no less remarkable in clearness, which proves
that Kant has a very definite idea, not only of the gradual evolution of
man, but also of the survival of the fittest:
“The cry which a child scarcely born utters, has not the tone
of misery, but of irritation, and violent rage; not the result
of pain, but of vexation about something; probably for the
reason that it wishes to move itself and feels its incapacity,
like a captive when freedom is taken from him. What purpose
can nature have in providing that a child shall come with a
loud cry into the world, which for it and the mother is, in the
_rude natural state_, full of danger? Since a wolf, a pig even,
would in the absence of the mother, or through her feebleness
owing to her delivery, be thus attracted to devour it. But
no animal except man as he now is announces with noise its
new-born existence; which in the wisdom of nature appears to
be arranged _in order that the species shall be preserved_. We
must also assume that in what was an early epoch of nature for
this class of animals (namely in the period of barbarism) this
outcry of the child at its birth did not exist; consequently
only later on a second epoch appeared, after both parents had
arrived at that degree of civilisation which was required for
home-life; yet without knowing how and by what interweaving
causes nature arranges such a development. This remark leads us
far; for example, to the thought whether after the same epoch,
still a third did not follow accompanied by great natural
revolutions, during which an orang-outang or a chimpanzee
perfected the organs which serve for walking, for feeling
objects, and for speech, and thus evolved the limb-structure of
man; in which animals was contained an organ for the exercise
of the function of reason, which by social cultivation was
gradually perfected and developed.”
Kant’s view concerning the origin of the biped man from quadruped animal
ancestors is most unequivocally stated.
In a review of Dr. Moscati’s Lecture upon the difference of structure in
animals and in men, Kant says:
“Dr. Moscati proves that the upright walk of man is constrained
and unnatural; that he is indeed so constructed that he may
be able to maintain and move in this position, but that,
although by needful and constant habit he formed himself thus,
inconvenience and disease arise therefrom, which sufficiently
prove, that he was misled by reason and imitation to deviate
from the first animal arrangement. Man is not constructed
internally different from other animals that go on all fours.
When now he raises himself his intestines, particularly
the embryo of pregnant individuals, come into a pendulous
situation and a half reversed condition, which, if it often
alternates with the lying position or that on all-fours, cannot
precisely produce specially evil consequences, but, by constant
continuance, causes deformities and numerous diseases. Thus,
for example, the heart, because it is compelled to hang free,
elongates the blood vessels to which it is attached, assumes
an oblique position since it is supported by the diaphragm and
slides with its end against the left side—a position wherein
man, especially at full growth, differs from all other animals,
and thereby receives an inevitable inclination to aneurism,
palpitation, asthma, chest-dropsy, etc., etc. With the upright
position of man the mesentery, pulled down by the weight of the
intestines, sinks perpendicularly thereunder, is elongated and
weakened, and prepared for numerous ruptures. In the mesenteric
vein which has no valves, the blood moves slowly and with
greater difficulty (it having to ascend against the course of
gravity) than would happen with the horizontal position of the
trunk....”
“We could add considerably to the reasons just adduced to
show that our animal nature is really quadrupedal. Among all
four-footed animals there is not a single one that could not
swim if it accidentally fell into the water. Man alone drowns,
except in cases where he has learned to swim. The reason is
because he has laid aside the habit of going on all-fours; for
it is by this motion that he would keep himself up in the water
without the exercise of any art, and by which all four-footed
creatures, who otherwise shun the water, swim....”
“It will be seen, accordingly, that the first care of nature
was that man should be preserved as animal for _himself and
his species_, and for that end the position best adapted to
his internal structure, to the lay of the fœtus, and to his
preservation in danger, was the quadrupedal position; we see,
moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in him, whereby,
after the development of the same, he is destined for _social
intercourse_, and by the aid of which he assumes the position
which is in every case the most fitted for this, namely, the
bipedal position,—thus gaining upon the one hand infinite
advantages over animals, but also being obliged to put up with
many inconveniences that result from his holding his head so
proudly above his old companions.”
[[106] In the double-leaded quotation on pages 43 and 44 Kant speaks
about the explanation of organised life from man down to the polyp
“according to mechanical laws like those which work in the production
of crystals,” and he adds, in organised beings the whole technic of
nature is so incomprehensible to us “that we imagine another principle is
necessitated for their explanation.”
This “other principle” would be the principle of design, or the
teleological explanation of phenomena. In his old age Kant inclined more
to teleology than in his younger years, and it is for this reason that
Professor Ernst Haeckel accuses Kant of inconsistency.
After having pointed out that “Kant is one of the few philosophers
that combine a well-founded knowledge of the natural sciences with
extraordinary precision and depth of speculation” and further that “he
was the first who taught ‘the principle of the struggle for existence’
and ‘the theory of selection.’” Haeckel says in his “Natürliche
Schöpfungsgeschichte,” 8th edition, p. 91:
“Wir würden daher unbedingt in der Geschichte der
Entwickelungslehre unserem gewaltigen Königsberger Philosophen
den ersten Platz einräumen müssen, wenn nicht leider diese
bewundernswürdigen monistischen Ideen des jungen Kant später
durch den überwältigenden Einfluss der dualistisch christlichen
Weltanschauung ganz zurückgedrängt worden wären.”
This “influence of the dualistic Christian world-conception” is according
to Haeckel, Kant’s recognition of a teleological causation in the realm
of organised life. Haeckel says on the same place:
“Er behauptet, dass sich im Gebiete der anorganischen Natur
unbedingt sämmtliche Erscheinungen aus mechanischen Ursachen,
aus bewegenden Kräften der Materie selbst, erklären lassen, im
Gebiete der anorganischen Natur dagegen nicht.”
Haeckel does not stand alone in denouncing the old Kant. Schopenhauer
distinguishes between the author of the first and the author of the
second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” regarding the former
only as the real Kant. These accusations are not without foundation, but
we believe with Max Müller that they have been unduly exaggerated.
As to teleology for which Kant’s preference appears to be more strongly
marked in his later than in his younger years we should say that it is
a problem that should, in an historical investigation, as to whether or
not Kant was a consistent evolutionist, be treated independently. No one
can deny that there is an adaptation to ends in the domain of organised
life. It is not so much required to deny teleology in the domain of
organised nature as to purify and critically sift our views of teleology.
There is a kind of teleology which does not stand in contradiction to the
causation of efficient causes so called.
Mr. Spencer’s denunciations of Kant would have some foundation, if he had
reference to the old Kant alone. But everyone who censures Kant for the
errors of his later period is bound to qualify his statement, and indeed
whenever such strictures of Kantism appear I find them expressly stated
as having reference to “the old Kant.”
That Kant who is a living power even to-day is the young Kant, it is
the author of the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason.” He is
generally called “the young Kant,” although he was not young; he was,
as we say, in his best years. The old Kant who proclaimed that he “must
abolish knowledge in order to make room for faith” is a dead weight
in our colleges and universities. The young Kant is positive, the old
Kant is agnostic. The young Kant was an investigator and naturalist of
the first degree; he gave an impetus to investigation that it had never
before received from philosophy. The old Kant, I should not exactly say
reverted but certainly, neglected the principles of his younger years
and thus became the leader of a reactionary movement from which sprang
two offshoots very unlike each other but children of the same father;
the Oxford transcendentalism as represented by Green and the English
agnosticism as represented by Mr. Spencer.
It is strange that Mr. Spencer has so little knowledge concerning the
evolution of the views he holds. If he were more familiar with the
history of the idea “that the world-problem is insolvable,” he would show
more reverence toward the old Kant and his mystical inclinations; for
Kant, whatever Mr. Spencer may say against it, is the father of modern
agnosticism.[107]]
* * * * *
The history of Mr. Spencer’s philosophical development shows that the
first idea which took possession of his mind and formed the centre of
crystalisation for all his later views was M. Condorcet’s optimism.
Condorcet believed in progress; he was convinced that in spite of all the
tribulations and anxieties of the present, man would at last arrive at
a state of perfection. He saw a millennium in his prophetic mind, which
alas!—if the law of evolution be true—can never be realised. Condorcet
died a martyr to his ideals. He poisoned himself in 1799 to escape death
by the Guillotine.
The influence of Condorcet’s work _Esquisse d’un tableau historique
des progrès de l’esprit humain_ is traceable not only in Mr. Spencer’s
first book, “Social Statics,” published in 1850, but in all his later
writings. How can a true evolutionist believe in the Utopia of a state
of perfect adaptation? Does not each progress demand new adaptations?
Take as an instance the change from walking on four feet to an upright
gait. Did not this progress itself involve man in new difficulties, to
which he had to adapt himself? Let a labor-saving machine be invented,
how many laborers lose their work and how many others are in demand! The
transition from one state to the other is not easy, and as soon as it is
perfected new wants have arisen which inexorably drive humanity onward on
the infinite path of progress which can never be limited by any state of
perfection. There is a constant readjustment necessary, and if we really
could reach a state of perfect adaptation human life would drop into the
unconsciousness of mere reflex motions.
Any one who understands the principle of evolution and its universal
applicability, will recognise that there can be no standstill in the
world, no state of perfect adaptation. Our solar system has evolved, as
Kant explained in his “General Cosmogony and Theory of the Heavens,” out
of a nebula, and is going to dissolve again into a nebular state. So our
social development consists in a constant realisation of ideals. We may
think that if we but attain our next and dearest ideal, humanity will be
satisfied forever. But as soon as we have realised that ideal, we quickly
get accustomed to its benefits. It becomes a matter of course and another
ideal higher still than that just realised appears before our mental gaze.
Herder, in his “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” not
unlike Mr. Spencer, was also under the spell of the Utopian ideal, that
humanity will reach at last a state of perfect happiness. Kant, in his
review of Herder’s book, discusses the relativity of happiness and its
insufficiency as a final aim of life. He says:
“First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a
child and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs
of human history, as well as among all classes and conditions
of the same epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in
exact conformity with the individual’s ideas and the degree
of his habituation to the conditions amid which he was
born and raised. Indeed, it is not even possible to form a
comparison of the degree of happiness nor to give precedence
to one class of men or to one generation over another....
If this shadow-picture of happiness ... were the actual aim
of Providence, every man would have the measure of his own
happiness within him.... Does the author (Herder) think perhaps
that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheiti had never been
visited by more civilised peoples and were ordained to live
in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that we
could give a satisfactory answer to the question why they
should exist at all, and whether it would not have been just
as well that this island should be occupied by happy sheep and
cattle as that it should be inhabited by men who are happy only
through pure enjoyment?”
“It involves no contradiction to say that no individual
member of all the offspring of the human race, but that
only the species, fully attains its mission (Bestimmung).
The mathematician may explain the matter in his way. The
philosopher would say: the mission of the human race as a whole
is _unceasing progress_, and the perfection (Vollendung) of
this mission is a mere idea (although in every aspect a very
useful one) of the aim towards which, in conformity with the
design of providence, we are to direct our endeavors.”
It is indubitable that Kant’s views of evolution agree better with the
present state of scientific investigation, than does Mr. Spencer’s
philosophy, which has never been freed from Condorcet’s ingenuous
optimism. The assumption of a final state of perfection by absolute
adaptation is irreconcilable with the idea of unceasing progress, which
must be true, if evolution is a universal law of nature.