Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including inconsistencies in hyphenation. It seems that
the italic typeface used in this book did not have an ae ligature.
Names of genera and higher taxonomic groups are not capitalized in
the printed book: they have bee left unchanged. Some changes have
been made. They are listed at the end of the text.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
OE ligatures have been expanded.
THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE
[Illustration: ERNST HAECKEL]
THE RIDDLE
OF THE UNIVERSE
_AT THE CLOSE OF
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY_
BY
ERNST HAECKEL
(Ph.D., M.D., LL.D., Sc.D., and Professor at the
University of Jena)
AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF CREATION"
"THE EVOLUTION OF MAN" ETC.
TRANSLATED BY
JOSEPH McCABE
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1905
Copyright, 1900, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS
PAGE
AUTHOR'S PREFACE v
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xi
CHAPTER I
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 1
CHAPTER II
OUR BODILY FRAME 22
CHAPTER III
OUR LIFE 39
CHAPTER IV
OUR EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT 53
CHAPTER V
THE HISTORY OF OUR SPECIES 71
CHAPTER VI
THE NATURE OF THE SOUL 88
CHAPTER VII
PSYCHIC GRADATIONS 108
CHAPTER VIII
THE EMBRYOLOGY OF THE SOUL 132
CHAPTER IX
THE PHYLOGENY OF THE SOUL 148
CHAPTER X
CONSCIOUSNESS 170
CHAPTER XI
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 188
CHAPTER XII
THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE 211
CHAPTER XIII
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD 233
CHAPTER XIV
THE UNITY OF NATURE 254
CHAPTER XV
GOD AND THE WORLD 275
CHAPTER XVI
KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF 292
CHAPTER XVII
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY 308
CHAPTER XVIII
OUR MONISTIC RELIGION 331
CHAPTER XIX
OUR MONISTIC ETHICS 347
CHAPTER XX
SOLUTION OF THE WORLD-PROBLEMS 365
CONCLUSION 380
INDEX 385
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The present study of the monistic philosophy is intended for thoughtful
readers of every condition who are united in an honest search for the
truth. An intensification of this effort of man to attain a knowledge
of the truth is one of the most salient features of the nineteenth
century. That is easily explained, in the first place, by the immense
progress of science, especially in its most important branch, the
history of humanity; it is due, in the second place, to the open
contradiction that has developed during the century between science
and the traditional "Revelation"; and, finally, it arises from the
inevitable extension and deepening of the rational demand for an
elucidation of the innumerable facts that have been recently brought to
light, and for a fuller knowledge of their causes.
Unfortunately, this vast progress of empirical knowledge in our
"Century of Science" has not been accompanied by a corresponding
advancement of its theoretical interpretation--that higher knowledge of
the causal nexus of individual phenomena which we call philosophy. We
find, on the contrary, that the abstract and almost wholly metaphysical
science which has been taught in our universities for the last hundred
years under the name of "philosophy" is far from assimilating our
hard-earned treasures of experimental research. On the other hand, we
have to admit, with equal regret, that most of the representatives
of what is called "exact science" are content with the special care
of their own narrow branches of observation and experiment, and
deem superfluous the deeper study of the universal connection of
the phenomena they observe--that is, philosophy. While these pure
empiricists "do not see the wood for the trees," the metaphysicians, on
the other hand, are satisfied with the mere picture of the wood, and
trouble not about its individual trees. The idea of a "philosophy of
nature," to which both those methods of research, the empirical and the
speculative, naturally converge, is even yet contemptuously rejected by
large numbers of representatives of both tendencies.
This unnatural and fatal opposition between science and philosophy,
between the results of experience and of thought, is undoubtedly
becoming more and more onerous and painful to thoughtful people. That
is easily proved by the increasing spread of the immense popular
literature of "natural philosophy" which has sprung up in the course
of the last half-century. It is seen, too, in the welcome fact that,
in spite of the mutual aversion of the scientific observer and the
speculative philosopher, nevertheless eminent thinkers from both
camps league themselves in a united effort to attain the solution
of that highest object of inquiry which we briefly denominate the
"world-riddles." The studies of these "world-riddles" which I offer in
the present work cannot reasonably claim to give a perfect solution of
them; they merely offer to a wide circle of readers a critical inquiry
into the problem, and seek to answer the question as to how nearly we
have approached that solution at the present day. What stage in the
attainment of truth have we actually arrived at in this closing year of
the nineteenth century? What progress have we really made during its
course towards that immeasurably distant goal?
The answer which I give to these great questions must, naturally, be
merely subjective and only partly correct; for my knowledge of nature
and my ability to interpret its objective reality are limited, as are
those of every man. The one point that I can claim for it, and which,
indeed, I must ask of my strongest opponents, is that my Monistic
Philosophy is sincere from beginning to end--it is the complete
expression of the conviction that has come to me, after many years of
ardent research into Nature and unceasing reflection, as to the true
basis of its phenomena. For fully half a century has my mind's work
proceeded, and I now, in my sixty-sixth year, may venture to claim
that it is mature; I am fully convinced that this "ripe fruit" of the
tree of knowledge will receive no important addition and suffer no
substantial modification during the brief spell of life that remains to
me.
I presented all the essential and distinctive elements of my monistic
and genetic philosophy thirty-three years ago, in my _General
Morphology of Organisms_, a large and laborious work, which has had but
a limited circulation. It was the first attempt to apply in detail the
newly established theory of evolution to the whole science of organic
forms. In order to secure the acceptance of at least one part of the
new thought which it contained, and to kindle a wider interest in the
greatest advancement of knowledge that our century has witnessed, I
published my _Natural History of Creation_ two years afterwards.
As this less complicated work, in spite of its great defects, ran
into nine large editions and twelve different translations, it has
contributed not a little to the spread of monistic views. The same
may be said of the less known _Anthropogeny_[1] (1874), in which I
set myself the difficult task of rendering the most important facts
of the theory of man's descent accessible and intelligible to the
general reader; the fourth, enlarged, edition of that work appeared in
1891. In the paper which I read at the fourth International Congress
of Zoology at Cambridge, in 1898, on "Our Present Knowledge of the
Descent of Man"[2] (a seventh edition of which appeared in 1899), I
treated certain significant and particularly valuable advances which
this important branch of anthropology has recently made. Other isolated
questions of our modern natural philosophy, which are peculiarly
interesting, have been dealt with in my _Collected Popular Lectures on
the Subject of Evolution_ (1878). Finally, I have briefly presented
the broad principles of my monistic philosophy and its relation to the
dominant faith in my _Confession of Faith of a Man of Science: Monism
as a Connecting Link between Religion and Science_[3] (1892, eighth
edition, 1899).
The present work on _The Riddle of the Universe_ is the continuation,
confirmation, and integration of the views which I have urged for a
generation in the aforesaid volumes. It marks the close of my studies
on the monistic conception of the universe. The earlier plan, which
I projected many years ago, of constructing a complete "System of
Monistic Philosophy" on the basis of evolution will never be carried
into effect now. My strength is no longer equal to the task, and many
warnings of approaching age urge me to desist. Indeed, I am wholly a
child of the nineteenth century, and with its close I draw the line
under my life's work.
The vast extension of human knowledge which has taken place during
the present century, owing to a happy division of labor, makes
it impossible to-day to range over all its branches with equal
thoroughness, and to show their essential unity and connection.
Even a genius of the highest type, having an equal command of every
branch of science, and largely endowed with the artistic faculty of
comprehensive presentation, would be incapable of setting forth a
complete view of the cosmos in the space of a moderate volume. My own
command of the various branches of science is uneven and defective,
so that I can attempt no more than to sketch the general plan of such
a world-picture, and point out the pervading unity of its parts,
however imperfect be the execution. Thus it is that this work on the
world-enigma has something of the character of a sketch-book, in which
studies of unequal value are associated. As the material of the book
was partly written many years ago, and partly produced for the first
time during the last few years, the composition is, unfortunately,
uneven at times; repetitions, too, have proved unavoidable. I trust
those defects will be overlooked.
In taking leave of my readers, I venture the hope that, through my
sincere and conscientious work--in spite of its faults, of which I am
not unconscious--I have contributed a little towards the solution
of the great enigma. Amid the clash of theories, I trust that I have
indicated to many a reader who is absorbed in the zealous pursuit of
purely rational knowledge that path which, it is my firm conviction,
alone leads to the truth--the path of empirical investigation and of
the Monistic Philosophy which is based upon it.
ERNST HAECKEL.
JENA, GERMANY.
PREFACE
The hour is close upon us when we shall commence our retrospect of one
of the most wonderful sections of time that was ever measured by the
sweep of the earth. Already the expert is at work, dissecting out and
studying his particular phase of that vast world of thought and action
we call the nineteenth century. Art, literature, commerce, industry,
politics, ethics--all have their high interpreters among us; but in
the chance of life it has fallen out that there is none to read aright
for us, in historic retrospect, what after ages will probably regard
as the most salient feature of the nineteenth century--the conflict
of theology with philosophy and science. The pens of our Huxleys,
and Tyndalls, and Darwins lie where they fell; there is none left in
strength among us to sum up the issues of that struggle with knowledge
and sympathy.
In these circumstances it has been thought fitting that we should
introduce to English readers the latest work of Professor Haeckel.
Germany, as the reader will quickly perceive, is witnessing the same
strange reaction of thought that we see about us here in England,
yet _Die Welträthsel_ found an immediate and very extensive circle
of readers. One of the most prominent zoologists of the century,
Professor Haeckel, has a unique claim to pronounce with authority, from
the scientific side, on what is known as "the conflict of science and
religion." In the contradictory estimates that are urged on us--for
the modern ecclesiastic is as emphatic in his assurance that the
conflict has ended favorably to theology as the rationalist is with his
counter-assertion--the last words of one of the leading combatants of
the second half of the century, still, happily, in full vigor of mind,
will be heard with respect and close attention.
A glance at the index of the work suffices to indicate its comprehensive
character. The judgment of the distinguished scientist cannot fail
to have weight on all the topics included; yet the reader will soon
discover a vein of exceptionally interesting thought in the chapters
on evolution. The evolution of the human body is no longer a matter
of serious dispute. It has passed the first two tribunals--those of
theology and of an _à priori_ philosophy--and is only challenged at the
third and last--that of empirical proof--by the decorative heads of
scientific bodies and a few isolated thinkers.
"_Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto._"
But the question of the evolution of the human mind, or soul, has been
successfully divorced from that of the body. Roman Catholic advanced
theologians, whose precise terminology demanded a clear position, admit
the latter and deny the former categorically. Other theologians, and
many philosophers, have still a vague notion that the evidence for
the one does not impair their sentimental objection to the other. Dr.
Haeckel's work summarizes the evidence for the evolution of mind in
a masterly and profoundly interesting fashion. It seems impossible to
follow his broad survey of the psychic world, from protist to man,
without bearing away a conviction of the natural origin of every power
and content of the human soul.
TRANSLATOR.
_October, 1900._
THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE
CHAPTER I
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
The Condition of Civilization and of Thought at the Close of
the Nineteenth Century--Progress of Our Knowledge of Nature,
of the Organic and Inorganic Sciences--The Law of Substance
and the Law of Evolution--Progress of Technical Science and
of Applied Chemistry--Stagnancy in other Departments of
Life: Legal and Political Administration, Education, and the
Church--Conflict of Reason and Dogma--Anthropism--Cosmological
Perspective--Cosmological Theorems--Refutation of the Delusion
of Man's Importance--Number of "World-Riddles"--Criticism of
the "Seven" Enigmas--The Way to Solve Them--Function of the
Senses and of the Brain--Induction and Deduction--Reason,
Sentiment, and Revelation--Philosophy and Science--Experience and
Speculation--Dualism and Monism
The close of the nineteenth century offers one of the most remarkable
spectacles to the thoughtful observer. All educated people are
agreed that it has in many respects immeasurably outstripped its
predecessors, and has achieved tasks that were deemed impracticable at
its commencement. An entirely new character has been given to the whole
of our modern civilization, not only by our astounding theoretical
progress in sound knowledge of nature, but also by the remarkably
fertile practical application of that knowledge in technical science,
industry, commerce, and so forth. On the other hand, however, we have
made little or no progress in moral and social life, in comparison with
earlier centuries; at times there has been serious reaction. And from
this obvious conflict there have arisen, not only an uneasy sense of
dismemberment and falseness, but even the danger of grave catastrophes
in the political and social world. It is, then, not merely the right,
but the sacred duty, of every honorable and humanitarian thinker to
devote himself conscientiously to the settlement of that conflict,
and to warding off the dangers that it brings in its train. In our
conviction this can only be done by a courageous effort to attain the
truth, and by the formation of a clear view of the world--a view that
shall be based on truth and conformity to reality.
If we recall to mind the imperfect condition of science at the
beginning of the century, and compare this with the magnificent
structure of its closing years, we are compelled to admit that
marvellous progress has been made during its course. Every single
branch of science can boast that it has, especially during the latter
half of the century, made numerous acquisitions of the utmost value.
Both in our microscopic knowledge of the little and in our telescopic
investigation of the great we have attained an invaluable insight
that seemed inconceivable a hundred years ago. Improved methods of
microscopic and biological research have not only revealed to us an
invisible world of living things in the kingdom of the protists, full
of an infinite wealth of forms, but they have taught us to recognize in
the tiny cell the all-pervading "elementary organism" of whose social
communities--the tissues--the body of every multicellular plant and
animal, even that of man, is composed. This anatomical knowledge is
of extreme importance; and it is supplemented by the embryological
discovery that each of the higher multicellular organisms is developed
out of one simple cell, the impregnated ovum. The "cellular theory,"
which has been founded on that discovery, has given us the first true
interpretation of the physical, chemical, and even the psychological
processes of life--those mysterious phenomena for whose explanation
it had been customary to postulate a supernatural "vital force" or
"immortal soul." Moreover, the true character of disease has been made
clear and intelligible to the physician for the first time by the
cognate science of Cellular Pathology.
The discoveries of the nineteenth century in the inorganic world are no
less important. Physics has made astounding progress in every section
of its province--in optics and acoustics, in magnetism and electricity,
in mechanics and thermo-dynamics; and, what is still more important,
it has proved the unity of the forces of the entire universe. The
mechanical theory of heat has shown how intimately they are connected,
and how each can, in certain conditions, transform itself directly
into another. Spectral analysis has taught us that the same matter
which enters into the composition of all bodies on earth, including
its living inhabitants, builds up the rest of the planets, the sun,
and the most distant stars. Astro-physics has considerably enlarged
our cosmic perspective in revealing to us, in the immeasurable depths
of space, millions of circling spheres larger than our earth, and,
like it, in endless transformation, in an eternal rhythm of life and
death. Chemistry has introduced us to a multitude of new substances,
all of which arise from the combination of a few (about seventy)
elements that are incapable of further analysis; some of them play a
most important part in every branch of life. It has been shown that one
of these elements--carbon--is the remarkable substance that effects
the endless variety of organic syntheses, and thus may be considered
"the chemical basis of life." All the particular advances, however, of
physics and chemistry yield in theoretical importance to the discovery
of the great law which brings them all to one common focus, the "Law
of Substance." As this fundamental cosmic law establishes the eternal
persistence of matter and force, their unvarying constancy throughout
the entire universe, it has become the pole-star that guides our
Monistic Philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution of the
world-problem.
Since we intend to make a general survey of the actual condition of
our knowledge of nature and its progress during the present century in
the following chapters, we shall delay no longer with the review of
its particular branches. We would only mention one important advance,
which was contemporary with the discovery of the law of substance, and
which supplements it--the establishment of the theory of evolution.
It is true that there were philosophers who spoke of the evolution
of things a thousand years ago; but the recognition that such a law
dominates the entire universe, and that the world is nothing else than
an eternal "evolution of substance," is a fruit of the nineteenth
century. It was not until the second half of this century that it
attained to perfect clearness and a universal application. The immortal
merit of establishing the doctrine on an empirical basis, and pointing
out its world-wide application, belongs to the great scientist Charles
Darwin; he it was who, in 1859, supplied a solid foundation for the
theory of descent, which the able French naturalist Jean Lamarck had
already sketched in its broad outlines in 1809, and the fundamental
idea of which had been almost prophetically enunciated in 1799 by
Germany's greatest poet and thinker, Wolfgang Goethe. In that theory we
have the key to "the question of all questions," to the great enigma
of "the place of man in nature," and of his natural development. If we
are in a position to-day to recognize the sovereignty of the law of
evolution--and, indeed, of a monistic evolution--in every province of
nature, and to use it, in conjunction with the law of substance, for a
simple interpretation of all natural phenomena, we owe it chiefly to
those three distinguished naturalists; they shine as three stars of the
first magnitude amid all the great men of the century.
This marvellous progress in a theoretical knowledge of nature has
been followed by a manifold practical application in every branch
of civilized life. If we are to-day in the "age of commerce," if
international trade and communication have attained dimensions beyond
the conception of any previous age, if we have transcended the limits
of space and time by our telegraph and telephone, we owe it, in the
first place, to the technical advancement of physics, especially in
the application of steam and electricity. If, in photography, we can,
with the utmost ease, compel the sunbeam to create for us in a moment's
time a correct picture of any object we like; if we have made enormous
progress in agriculture, and in a variety of other pursuits; if, in
surgery, we have brought an infinite relief to human pain by our
chloroform and morphia, our antiseptics and serous therapeutics, we
owe it all to applied chemistry. But it is so well known how much we
have surpassed all earlier centuries through these and other scientific
discoveries that we need linger over the question no longer.
While we look back with a just pride on the immense progress of the
nineteenth century in a knowledge of nature and in its practical
application, we find, unfortunately, a very different and far from
agreeable picture when we turn to another and not less important
province of modern life. To our great regret we must endorse the words
of Alfred Wallace: "Compared with our astounding progress in physical
science and its practical application, our system of government, of
administrative justice, and of national education, and our entire
social and moral organization, remain in a state of barbarism." To
convince ourselves of the truth of this grave indictment we need only
cast an unprejudiced glance at our public life, or look into the mirror
that is daily offered to us by the press, the organ of public sentiment.
We begin our review with justice, the _fundamentum regnorum_. No one
can maintain that its condition to-day is in harmony with our advanced
knowledge of man and the world. Not a week passes in which we do not
read of judicial decisions over which every thoughtful man shakes his
head in despair; many of the decisions of our higher and lower courts
are simply unintelligible. We are not referring in the treatment of
this particular "world-problem" to the fact that many modern states, in
spite of their paper constitutions, are really governed with absolute
despotism, and that many who occupy the bench give judgment less in
accordance with their sincere conviction than with wishes expressed
in higher quarters. We readily admit that the majority of judges and
counsel decide conscientiously, and err simply from human frailty.
Most of their errors, indeed, are due to defective preparation. It is
popularly supposed that these are just the men of highest education,
and that on that very account they have the preference in nominations
to different offices. However, this famed "legal education" is for the
most part rather of a formal and technical character. They have but a
superficial acquaintance with that chief and peculiar object of their
activity, the human organism, and its most important function, the
mind. That is evident from the curious views as to the liberty of the
will, responsibility, etc., which we encounter daily. I once told an
eminent jurist that the tiny spherical ovum from which every man is
developed is as truly endowed with life as the embryo of two, or seven,
or even nine months; he laughed incredulously. Most of the students
of jurisprudence have no acquaintance with anthropology, psychology,
and the doctrine of evolution--the very first requisites for a correct
estimate of human nature. They have "no time" for it; their time is
already too largely bespoken for an exhaustive study of beer and wine
and for the noble art of fencing. The rest of their valuable study-time
is required for the purpose of learning some hundreds of paragraphs of
law books, a knowledge of which is supposed to qualify the jurist for
any position whatever in our modern civilized community.
We shall touch but lightly on the unfortunate province of politics, for
the unsatisfactory condition of the modern political world is only too
familiar. In a great measure its evils are due to the fact that most of
our officials are jurists--that is, men of high technical education,
but utterly devoid of that thorough knowledge of human nature which is
only obtained by the study of comparative anthropology and the monistic
psychology--men without an acquaintance with those social relations of
which we find the earlier types in comparative zoology and the theory
of evolution, in the cellular theory, and the study of the protists. We
can only arrive at a correct knowledge of the structure and life of the
social body, the state, through a scientific knowledge of the structure
and life of the individuals who compose it, and the cells of which they
are in turn composed. If our political rulers and our "representatives
of the people" possessed this invaluable biological and anthropological
knowledge, we should not find our journals so full of the sociological
blunders and political nonsense which at present are far from adorning
our parliamentary reports, and even many of our official documents.
Worst of all is it when the modern state flings itself into the arms
of the reactionary Church, and when the narrow-minded self-interest
of parties and the infatuation of short-sighted party-leaders lend
their support to the hierarchy. Then are witnessed such sad scenes
as the German Reichstag puts before our eyes even at the close of
the nineteenth century. We have the spectacle of the educated German
people in the power of the ultramontane Centre, under the rule of the
Roman papacy, which is its bitterest and most dangerous enemy. Then
superstition and stupidity reign instead of right and reason. Never
will our government improve until it casts off the fetters of the
Church and raises the views of the citizens on man and the world to a
higher level by a general scientific education. That does not raise
the question of any special form of constitution. Whether a monarchy
or a republic be preferable, whether the constitution should be
aristocratic or democratic, are subordinate questions in comparison
with the supreme question: Shall the modern civilized state be
spiritual or secular? Shall it be _theocratic_--ruled by the irrational
formulæ of faith and by clerical despotism--or _nomocratic_--under the
sovereignty of rational laws and civic right? The first task is to
kindle a rational interest in our youth, and to uplift our citizens
and free them from superstition. That can only be achieved by a timely
reform of our schools.
Our education of the young is no more in harmony with modern scientific
progress than our legal and political world. Physical science, which
is so much more important than all other sciences, and which, properly
understood, really embraces all the so-called moral sciences, is still
regarded as a mere accessory in our schools, if not treated as the
Cinderella of the curriculum. Most of our teachers still give the
most prominent place to that dead learning which has come down from
the cloistral schools of the Middle Ages. In the front rank we have
grammatical gymnastics and an immense waste of time over a "thorough
knowledge" of classics and of the history of foreign nations. Ethics,
the most important object of practical philosophy, is entirely
neglected, and its place is usurped by the ecclesiastical creed. Faith
must take precedence over knowledge--not that scientific faith which
leads to a monistic religion, but the irrational superstition that
lays the foundation of a perverted Christianity. The valuable teaching
of modern cosmology and anthropology, of biology and evolution, is
most inadequately imparted, if not entirely unknown, in our higher
schools; while the memory is burdened with a mass of philological and
historical facts which are utterly useless, either from the point of
view of theoretical education or for the practical purposes of life.
Moreover, the antiquated arrangements and the distribution of faculties
in the universities are just as little in harmony with the point we
have reached in monistic science as the curriculum of the primary and
secondary schools.
The climax of the opposition to modern education and its foundation,
advanced natural philosophy, is reached, of course, in the Church. We
are not speaking here of ultramontane papistry, nor of the orthodox
evangelical tendencies, which do not fall far short of it in ignorance
and in the crass superstition of their dogmas. We are imagining
ourselves for the moment to be in the church of a liberal Protestant
minister, who has a good average education, and who finds room for
"the rights of reason" by the side of his faith. There, besides
excellent moral teaching, which is in perfect harmony with our own
monistic ethics, and humanitarian discussion of which we cordially
approve, we hear ideas on the nature of God, of the world, of man, and
of life which are directly opposed to all scientific experience. It
is no wonder that physicists and chemists, doctors and philosophers,
who have made a thorough study of nature, refuse a hearing to such
preachers. Our theologians and our politicians are just as ignorant
as our philosophers and our jurists of that elementary knowledge of
nature which is based on the monistic theory of evolution, and which is
already far exceeded in the triumph of our modern learning.
From this opposition, which we can only briefly point out at present,
there arise grave conflicts in our modern life which urgently demand
a settlement. Our modern education, the outcome of our great advance
in knowledge, has a claim upon every department of public and private
life; it would see humanity raised, by the instrumentality of
reason, to that higher grade of culture, and, consequently, to that
better path towards happiness which has been opened out to us by the
progress of modern science. That aim, however, is vigorously opposed
by the influential parties who would detain the mind in the exploded
views of the Middle Ages with regard to the most important problems
of life; they linger in the fold of traditional dogma, and would
have reason prostrate itself before their "higher revelation." That
is the condition of things, to a very large extent, in theology and
philosophy, in sociology and jurisprudence. It is not that the motives
of the latter are to be attributed, as a rule, to pure self-interest;
they spring partly from ignorance of the facts, and partly from an
indolent acquiescence in tradition. The most dangerous of the three
great enemies of reason and knowledge is not malice; but ignorance, or,
perhaps, indolence. The gods themselves still strive in vain against
these two latter influences when they have happily vanquished the first.
One of the main supports of that reactionary system is still what
we may call "anthropism." I designate by this term "that powerful
and world-wide group of erroneous opinions which opposes the human
organism to the whole of the rest of nature, and represents it to be
the preordained end of the organic creation, an entity essentially
distinct from it, a godlike being." Closer examination of this group of
ideas shows it to be made up of three different dogmas, which we may
distinguish as the _anthropocentric_, the _anthropomorphic_, and the
_anthropolatrous_.[4]
I. The _anthropocentric_ dogma culminates in the idea that man
is the preordained centre and aim of all terrestrial life--or, in
a wider sense, of the whole universe. As this error is extremely
conducive to man's interest, and as it is intimately connected with the
creation-myth of the three great Mediterranean religions, and with the
dogmas of the Mosaic, Christian, and Mohammedan theologies, it still
dominates the greater part of the civilized world.
II. The _anthropomorphic_ dogma is likewise connected with the
creation-myth of the three aforesaid religions, and of many others. It
likens the creation and control of the world by God to the artificial
creation of a talented engineer or mechanic, and to the administration
of a wise ruler. God, as creator, sustainer, and ruler of the world,
is thus represented after a purely human fashion in his thought and
work. Hence it follows, in turn, that man is godlike. "God made man
to His own image and likeness." The older, naïve mythology is pure
"homotheism," attributing human shape, flesh, and blood to the gods.
It is more intelligible than the modern mystic theosophy that adores
a personal God as an invisible--properly speaking, gaseous--being,
yet makes him think, speak, and act in human fashion; it gives us the
paradoxical picture of a "gaseous vertebrate."
III. The _anthropolatric_ dogma naturally results from this comparison
of the activity of God and man; it ends in the apotheosis of the human
organism. A further result is the belief in the personal immortality of
the soul, and the dualistic dogma of the twofold nature of man, whose
"immortal soul" is conceived as but the temporary inhabitant of the
mortal frame. Thus these three anthropistic dogmas, variously adapted
to the respective professions of the different religions, came at
length to be vested with an extraordinary importance, and proved the
source of the most dangerous errors. The anthropistic view of the world
which springs from them is in irreconcilable opposition to our monistic
system; indeed, it is at once disproved by our new cosmological
perspective.
Not only the three anthropistic dogmas, but many other notions of the
dualistic philosophy and orthodox religion, are found to be untenable
as soon as we regard them critically from the cosmological perspective
of our monistic system. We understand by that the comprehensive view
of the universe which we have from the highest point of our monistic
interpretation of nature. From that stand-point we see the truth of the
following "cosmological theorems," most of which, in our opinion, have
already been amply demonstrated:
(1) The universe, or the cosmos, is eternal, infinite, and illimitable.
(2) Its substance, with its two attributes (matter and energy), fills
infinite space, and is in eternal motion. (3) This motion runs on
through infinite time as an unbroken development, with a periodic
change from life to death, from evolution to devolution. (4) The
innumerable bodies which are scattered about the space-filling ether
all obey the same "law of substance;" while the rotating masses slowly
move towards their destruction and dissolution in one part of space
others are springing into new life and development in other quarters
of the universe. (5) Our sun is one of these unnumbered perishable
bodies, and our earth is one of the countless transitory planets that
encircle them. (6) Our earth has gone through a long process of cooling
before water, in liquid form (the first condition of organic life),
could settle thereon. (7) The ensuing biogenetic process, the slow
development and transformation of countless organic forms, must have
taken many millions of years--considerably over a hundred.[5] (8) Among
the different kinds of animals which arose in the later stages of the
biogenetic process on earth the vertebrates have far outstripped all
other competitors in the evolutionary race. (9) The most important
branch of the vertebrates, the mammals, were developed later (during
the triassic period) from the lower amphibia and the reptilia. (10) The
most perfect and most highly developed branch of the class mammalia is
the order of primates, which first put in an appearance, by development
from the lowest prochoriata, at the beginning of the Tertiary
period--at least three million years ago. (11) The youngest and most
perfect twig of the branch primates is man, who sprang from a series of
manlike apes towards the end of the Tertiary period. (12) Consequently,
the so-called "history of the world"--that is, the brief period of a
few thousand years which measures the duration of civilization--is an
evanescently short episode in the long course of organic evolution,
just as this, in turn, is merely a small portion of the history of
our planetary system; and as our mother-earth is a mere speck in the
sunbeam in the illimitable universe, so man himself is but a tiny grain
of protoplasm in the perishable framework of organic nature.
Nothing seems to me better adapted than this magnificent cosmological
perspective to give us the proper standard and the broad outlook
which we need in the solution of the vast enigmas that surround us.
It not only clearly indicates the true place of man in nature, but it
dissipates the prevalent illusion of man's supreme importance, and
the arrogance with which he sets himself apart from the illimitable
universe, and exalts himself to the position of its most valuable
element. This boundless presumption of conceited man has misled him
into making himself "the image of God," claiming an "eternal life" for
his ephemeral personality, and imagining that he possesses unlimited
"freedom of will." The ridiculous imperial folly of Caligula is but
a special form of man's arrogant assumption of divinity. Only when
we have abandoned this untenable illusion, and taken up the correct
cosmological perspective, can we hope to reach the solution of the
"riddles of the universe."
The uneducated member of a civilized community is surrounded with
countless enigmas at every step, just as truly as the savage. Their
number, however, decreases with every stride of civilization and of
science; and the monistic philosophy is ultimately confronted with but
one simple and comprehensive enigma--the "problem of substance." Still,
we may find it useful to include a certain number of problems under
that title. In the famous speech which Emil du Bois-Reymond delivered
in 1880, in the Leibnitz session of the Berlin Academy of Sciences,
he distinguished seven world-enigmas, which he enumerated as follows:
(1) The nature of matter and force. (2) The origin of motion. (3) The
origin of life. (4) The (apparently preordained) orderly arrangement
of nature. (5) The origin of simple sensation and consciousness. (6)
Rational thought, and the origin of the cognate faculty, speech. (7)
The question of the freedom of the will. Three of these seven enigmas
are considered by the orator of the Berlin Academy to be entirely
transcendental and insoluble--they are the first, second, and fifth;
three others (the third, fourth, and sixth) he considers to be capable
of solution, though extremely difficult; as to the seventh and last
"world-enigma," the freedom of the will, which is the one of the
greatest practical importance, he remains undecided.
As my monism differs materially from that of the Berlin orator, and as
his idea of the "seven great enigmas" has been very widely accepted,
it may be useful to indicate their true position at once. In my
opinion, the three transcendental problems (1, 2, and 5) are settled
by our conception of substance (_vide_ chap. xii.); the three which
he considers difficult, though soluble, (3, 4, and 6), are decisively
answered by our modern theory of evolution; the seventh and last, the
freedom of the will, is not an object for critical, scientific inquiry
at all, for it is a pure dogma, based on an illusion, and has no real
existence.
The means and methods we have chosen for attaining the solution of the
great enigma do not differ, on the whole, from those of all purely
scientific investigation--firstly, experience; secondly, inference.
Scientific experience comes to us by observation and experiment, which
involve the activity of our sense-organs in the first place, and,
secondly, of the inner sense-centres in the cortex of the brain. The
microscopic elementary organs of the former are the sense-cells; of the
latter, groups of ganglionic cells. The experiences which we derive
from the outer world by these invaluable instruments of our mental life
are then moulded into ideas by other parts of the brain, and these,
in their turn, are united in a chain of reasoning by association. The
construction of this chain may take place in two different ways, which
are, in my opinion, equally valuable and indispensable: _induction_
and _deduction_. The higher cerebral operations, the construction
of complicated chains of reasoning, abstraction, the formation of
concepts, the completion of the perceptive faculty by the plastic
faculty of the imagination--in a word, consciousness, thought, and
speculation--are functions of the ganglionic cells of the cortex of the
brain, just like the preceding simpler mental functions. We unite them
all in the supreme concept of _reason_.[6]
By reason only can we attain to a correct knowledge of the world and a
solution of its great problems. Reason is man's highest gift, the only
prerogative that essentially distinguishes him from the lower animals.
Nevertheless, it has only reached this high position by the progress of
culture and education, by the development of knowledge. The uneducated
man and the savage are just as little (or just as much) "rational"
as our nearest relatives among the mammals (apes, dogs, elephants,
etc.). Yet the opinion still obtains in many quarters that, besides
our godlike reason, we have two further (and even surer!) methods of
receiving knowledge--emotion and revelation. We must at once dispose
of this dangerous error. Emotion has nothing whatever to do with the
attainment of truth. That which we prize under the name of "emotion"
is an elaborate activity of the brain, which consists of feelings of
like and dislike, motions of assent and dissent, impulses of desire and
aversion. It may be influenced by the most diverse activities of the
organism, by the cravings of the senses and the muscles, the stomach,
the sexual organs, etc. The interests of truth are far from promoted
by these conditions and vacillations of emotion; on the contrary, such
circumstances often disturb that reason which alone is adapted to the
pursuit of truth, and frequently mar its perceptive power. No cosmic
problem is solved, or even advanced, by the cerebral function we call
emotion. And the same must be said of the so-called "revelation," and
of the "truths of faith" which it is supposed to communicate; they are
based entirely on a deception, consciously or unconsciously, as we
shall see in the sixteenth chapter.
We must welcome as one of the most fortunate steps in the direction
of a solution of the great cosmic problems the fact that of recent
years there is a growing tendency to recognize the two paths which
alone lead thereto--_experience_ and _thought_, or _speculation_--to
be of equal value, and mutually complementary. Philosophers have come
to see that pure speculation--such, for instance, as Plato and Hegel
employed for the construction of their _idealist_ systems--does not
lead to knowledge of reality. On the other hand, scientists have been
convinced that mere experience--such as Bacon and Mill, for example,
made the basis of their _realist_ systems--is insufficient of itself
for a complete philosophy. For these two great paths of knowledge,
sense-experience and rational thought, are two distinct cerebral
functions; the one is elaborated by the sense-organs and the inner
sense-centres, the other by the thought-centres, the great "centres
of association in the cortex of the brain," which lie between the
sense-centres. (Cf. cc. vii. and x.) True knowledge is only acquired
by combining the activity of the two. Nevertheless, there are still
many philosophers who would construct the world out of their own
inner consciousness, and who reject our empirical science precisely
because they have no knowledge of the real world. On the other hand,
there are many scientists who still contend that the sole object of
science is "the knowledge of facts, the objective investigation of
isolated phenomena"; that "the age of philosophy" is past, and science
has taken its place.[7] This one-sided over-estimation of experience
is as dangerous an error as the converse exaggeration of the value of
speculation. Both channels of knowledge are mutually indispensable.
The greatest triumphs of modern science--the cellular theory, the
dynamic theory of heat, the theory of evolution, and the law of
substance--are _philosophic achievements_; not, however, the fruit of
pure speculation, but of an antecedent experience of the widest and
most searching character.
At the commencement of the nineteenth century the great idealistic
poet, Schiller, gave his counsel to both groups of combatants, the
philosophers and the scientists:
"Does strife divide your efforts--no union bless your toil?
Will truth e'er be delivered if ye your forces rend?"
Since then the situation has, happily, been profoundly modified; while
both schools, in their different paths, have pressed onward towards the
same high goal, they have recognized their common aspiration, and they
draw nearer to a knowledge of the truth in mutual covenant. At the end
of the nineteenth century we have returned to that monistic attitude
which our greatest realistic poet, Goethe, had recognized from its very
commencement to be alone correct and fruitful.[8]
All the different philosophical tendencies may, from the point of
view of modern science, be ranged in two antagonistic groups; they
represent either a _dualistic_ or a _monistic_ interpretation of
the cosmos. The former is usually bound up with teleological and
idealistic dogmas, the latter with mechanical and realistic theories.
Dualism, in the widest sense, breaks up the universe into two entirely
distinct substances--the material world and an immaterial God, who
is represented to be its creator, sustainer, and ruler. Monism, on
the contrary (likewise taken in its widest sense), recognizes one
sole substance in the universe, which is at once "God and nature";
body and spirit (or matter and energy) it holds to be inseparable.
The extramundane God of dualism leads necessarily to theism; and the
intra-mundane God of the monist leads to pantheism.
The different ideas of _monism_ and _materialism_, and likewise
the essentially distinct tendencies of theoretical and practical
materialism, are still very frequently confused. As this and other
similar cases of confusion of ideas are very prejudicial, and give rise
to innumerable errors, we shall make the following brief observations,
in order to prevent misunderstanding:
I. Pure monism is identical neither with the theoretical materialism
that denies the existence of spirit, and dissolves the world into a
heap of dead atoms, nor with the theoretical spiritualism (lately
entitled "energetic" spiritualism by Ostwald) which rejects the notion
of matter, and considers the world to be a specially arranged group of
"energies" or immaterial natural forces.
II. On the contrary, we hold, with Goethe, that "matter cannot exist
and be operative without spirit, nor spirit without matter." We
adhere firmly to the pure, unequivocal monism of Spinoza: Matter, or
infinitely extended substance, and spirit (or energy), or sensitive and
thinking substance, are the two fundamental attributes or principal
properties of the all-embracing divine essence of the world, the
universal substance. (Cf. chap. xii.)