[101] See Mr. Spencer’s article in _Mind_, No. LIX, p. 313.
[102] The passage in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ on Baer runs as
follows:
“In his _Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere_, p. 264, he distinctly tells
us that the law of growing individuality is ‘the fundamental thought
which goes through all forms and degrees of animal development and all
single relations. It is the same thought which collected in the cosmic
space solar systems; the same which caused the weather-beaten dust on
the surface of our metallic planet to spring forth living beings.’ Von
Baer thus prepared the way for Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of
organic evolution as the law of all evolution.”
[103] See Haeckel, _Goethe on Evolution_, No. 131 of _The Open Court_.
[104] _Præstabilismus_, that is, the theory that the phenomena of nature
are the result of pre-established law.
[105] The proposition that Kant is no easy reading found an unexpected
and strong opposition. Immediately after the publication of this article,
Sept. 4th, 1890, Mr. Charles S. Peirce made the following incidental
remark in a letter to the author dated Sept. 6th, 1890: “I have heard
too much of Kant’s being hard reading. I think he is one of the easiest
of philosophers; for he generally knows what he wants to say, which is
more than half the battle, and he says it in terms which are very clear.
Of course, it is quite absurd to try to read Kant without preliminary
studies of Leibnizian and English philosophers, as well as of the
terminology of which Kant’s is a modification or transmogrification. But
there is a way of making out what he meant, while such writers as Hume
and J. S. Mill, the more you study them the more they puzzle you.”
[106] This passage on pages 48, 49, and 50 which is enclosed in brackets
did not appear in _The Open Court_. It has been added since and is
published here for the first time.
[107] In this connection we call attention to a book, _Kant und Darwin,
ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Entwickelungslehre_, Jena, 1875, by Fritz
Schultze, formerly Privat docent in Jena, now Professor of philosophy at
the Polytechnic Institute in Dresden. This little book is a collection
of the most important passages of Kant’s views concerning evolution,
the struggle for existence, and the theory of selection, and it is
astonishing to find how much Kant had to say on the subject and how
strongly he agrees with and anticipates Darwin. If Kant had not lived
before Darwin one might be tempted to conclude that he was familiar with
his _Origin of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_.