THE UNITY OF NATURE
The Monism of the Cosmos--Essential Unity of Organic
and Inorganic Nature--Carbon-Theory--The Hypothesis of
Abiogenesis--Mechanical and Purposive Causes--Mechanicism and
Teleology in Kant's Works--Design in the Organic and Inorganic
Worlds--Vitalism--Neovitalism--Dysteleology (the Moral of the
Rudimentary Organs)--Absence of Design in, and Imperfection of,
Nature--Telic Action in Organized Bodies--Its Absence in Ontogeny
and Phylogeny--The Platonist "Ideas"--No Moral Order Discoverable
in the History of the Organic World, of the Vertebrates, or of the
Human Race--Prevision--Design and Chance
One of the first things to be proved by the law of substance is the
basic fact that any natural force can be directly or indirectly
converted into any other. Mechanical and chemical energy, sound and
heat, light and electricity, are mutually convertible; they seem to be
but different modes of one and the same fundamental force or _energy_.
Thence follows the important thesis of the unity of all natural
forces, or, as it may also be expressed, the "monism of energy."
This fundamental principle is now generally recognized in the entire
province of physics and chemistry, as far as it applies to inorganic
substances.
It seems to be otherwise with the organic world and its wealth of
color and form. It is, of course, obvious that a great part of the
phenomena of life may be immediately traced to mechanical and chemical
energy, and to the effects of electricity and light. For other vital
processes, however, especially for psychic activity and consciousness,
such an interpretation is vigorously contested. Yet the modern science
of evolution has achieved the task of constructing a bridge between
these two apparently irreconcilable provinces. We are now certain that
all the phenomena of organic life are subject to the universal law of
substance no less than the phenomena of the inorganic universe.
The unity of nature which necessarily follows, and the demolition of
the earlier dualism, are certainly among the most valuable results of
modern evolution. Thirty-three years ago I made an exhaustive effort
to establish this "monism of the cosmos" and the essential unity of
organic and inorganic nature by a thorough, critical demonstration,
and a comparison of the accordance of these two great divisions of
nature with regard to matter, form, and force.[29] A short epitome of
the result is given in the fifteenth chapter of my _Natural History
of Creation_. The views I put forward are accepted by the majority
of modern scientists, but an attempt has been made in many quarters
lately to dispute them and to maintain the old antithesis of the two
divisions of nature. The ablest of these is to be found in the recent
_Welt als That_ of the botanist Reinke. It defends _pure cosmological_
dualism with admirable lucidity and consistency, and only goes to prove
how utterly untenable the teleological system is that is connected
therewith. According to the author, physical and chemical forces alone
are at work in the entire field of inorganic nature, while in the
organic world we find "intelligent forces," regulative or dominant
forces. The law of substance is supposed to apply to the one, but not
to the other. On the whole, it is a question of the old antithesis of
a mechanical and a teleological system. But before we go more fully
into it, let us glance briefly at two other theories, which seem to
me to be of great importance in the decision of that controversy--the
carbon-theory and the theory of spontaneous generation.
Physiological chemistry has, after countless analyses, established the
following five facts during the last forty years:
I. No other elements are found in organic bodies than those of the
inorganic world.
II. The combinations of elements which are peculiar to organisms,
and which are responsible for their vital phenomena, are compound
protoplasmic substances, of the group of albuminates.
III. Organic life itself is a chemico-physical process, based on the
metabolism (or interchange of material) of these albuminates.
IV. The only element which is capable of building up these compound
albuminates, in combination with other elements (oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, and sulphur), is carbon.
V. These protoplasmic compounds of carbon are distinguished from
most other chemical combinations by their very intricate molecular
structure, their instability, and their jelly-like consistency.
On the basis of these five fundamental facts the following
"carbon-theory" was erected thirty-three years ago: "The peculiar
chemico-physical properties of carbon--especially the fluidity and
the facility of decomposition of the most elaborate albuminoid
compounds of carbon--are the sole and the mechanical causes of
the specific phenomena of movement, which distinguish organic from
inorganic substances, and which are called life, in the usual sense
of the word" (see _The Natural History of Creation_). Although this
"carbon-theory" is warmly disputed in some quarters, no better monistic
theory has yet appeared to replace it. We have now a much better and
more thorough knowledge of the physiological relations of cell-life,
and of the chemistry and physics of the living protoplasm, than we had
thirty-three years ago, and so it is possible to make a more confident
and effective defence of the carbon-theory.
The old idea of spontaneous generation is now taken in many different
senses. It is owing to this indistinctness of the idea, and its
application to so many different hypotheses, that the problem is one
of the most contentious and confused of the science of the day. I
restrict the idea of spontaneous generation--also called abiogenesis
or archigony--to the first development of living protoplasm out of
inorganic carbonates, and distinguish two phases in this "beginning
of biogenesis": (1) _autogony_, or the rise of the simplest
protoplasmic substances in a formative fluid, and (2) _plasmogony_,
the differentiation of individual primitive organisms out of these
protoplasmic compounds, in the form of _monera_. I have treated this
important, though difficult, problem so exhaustively in the fifteenth
chapter of my _Natural History of Creation_ that I may content myself
here with referring to it. There is also a very searching and severely
scientific inquiry into it in my _General Morphology_ (1866). Naegeli
has also treated the hypothesis in quite the same sense in his
mechanico-physiological theory of descent (1884), and has represented
it to be an indispensable thesis in any natural theory of evolution.
I entirely agree with his assertion that "to reject abiogenesis is to
admit a miracle."
The hypothesis of spontaneous generation and the allied carbon-theory
are of great importance in deciding the long-standing conflict between
the _teleological_ (dualistic) and the _mechanical_ (monistic)
interpretation of phenomena. Since Darwin gave us the key to the
monistic explanation of organization in his theory of selection forty
years ago, it has become possible for us to trace the splendid variety
of orderly tendencies of the organic world to mechanical, natural
causes, just as we could formerly in the inorganic world alone. Hence
the supernatural and telic forces, to which the scientist had had
recourse, have been rendered superfluous. Modern metaphysics, however,
continues to regard the latter as indispensable and the former as
inadequate.
No philosopher has done more than Immanuel Kant in defining the
profound distinction between efficient and final causes, with relation
to the interpretation of the whole cosmos. In his well-known earlier
work on _The General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens_ he
made a bold attempt "to treat the constitution and the mechanical
origin of the entire fabric of the universe according to Newtonian
laws." This "cosmological nebular theory" was based entirely on the
mechanical phenomena of gravitation. It was expanded and mathematically
established later on by Laplace. When the famous French astronomer
was asked by Napoleon I. where God, the creator and sustainer of all
things, came in in his system, he clearly and honestly replied: "Sire,
I have managed without that hypothesis." That indicated the atheistic
character which this mechanical cosmogony shares with all the other
inorganic sciences. This is the more noteworthy because the theory of
Kant and Laplace is now almost universally accepted; every attempt to
supersede it has failed. When atheism is denounced as a grave reproach,
as it so often is, it is well to remember that the reproach extends to
the whole of modern science, in so far as it gives a purely mechanical
interpretation of the inorganic world.
Mechanicism (in the Kantian sense) alone can give us a true explanation
of natural phenomena, for it traces them to their real efficient
causes, to blind and unconscious agencies, which are determined in
their action only by the material constitution of the bodies we are
investigating. Kant himself emphatically affirms that "there can be
no science without this mechanicism of nature," and that the capacity
of human reason to give a mechanical interpretation of phenomena is
unlimited. But when he came subsequently to give an elucidation of
the complex phenomena of organic nature in his _critique_ of the
teleological system, he declared that these mechanical causes were
inadequate; that in this we must call _final causes_ to our assistance.
It is true, he said, that even here we must recognize the theoretical
faculty of the mind to give a mechanical interpretation, but its actual
competence to do so is restricted. He grants it this capacity to some
extent; but for the majority of the vital processes (and especially for
man's psychic activity) he thinks we are bound to postulate _final_
causes. The remarkable §79 of the _critique_ of judgment bears the
characteristic heading: "On the Necessity for the Subordination of
the Mechanical Principle to the Teleological in the Explanation of a
Thing as a Natural End." It seemed to Kant so impossible to explain
the orderly processes in the living organism without postulating
supernatural final causes (that is, a purposive creative force) that
he said: "It is quite certain that we cannot even satisfactorily
understand, much less elucidate, the nature of an organism and its
internal faculty on purely mechanical natural principles; it is so
certain, indeed, that we may confidently say, 'It is absurd for a man
to conceive the idea even that some day a Newton will arise who can
explain the origin of a single blade of grass by natural laws which are
uncontrolled by design'--such a hope is entirely forbidden us." Seventy
years afterwards this impossible "Newton of the organic world" appeared
in the person of Charles Darwin, and achieved the great task that Kant
had deemed impracticable.
Since Newton (1682) formulated the law of gravitation, and Kant (1755)
established "the constitution and mechanical origin of the entire
fabric of the world on Newtonian laws," and Laplace (1796) provided
a mathematical foundation for this law of cosmic mechanicism, the
whole of the inorganic sciences have become purely _mechanical_, and
at the same time purely _atheistic_. Astronomy, cosmogony, geology,
meteorology, and inorganic physics and chemistry are now absolutely
ruled by mechanical laws on a mathematical foundation. The idea of
"design" has wholly disappeared from this vast province of science.
At the close of the nineteenth century, now that this monistic view
has fought its way to general recognition, no scientist ever asks
seriously of the "purpose" of any single phenomenon in the whole of
this great field. Is any astronomer likely to inquire seriously to-day
into the purpose of planetary motion, or a mineralogist to seek design
in the structure of a crystal? Does the physicist investigate the
purpose of electric force, or the chemist that of atomic weight? We
may confidently answer in the negative--certainly not, in the sense
that God, or a purposive natural force, had at some time created these
fundamental laws of the mechanism of the universe with a definite
design, and causes them to work daily in accordance with his rational
will. The anthropomorphic notion of a deliberate architect and ruler of
the world has gone forever from this field; the "eternal, iron laws of
nature" have taken his place.
But the idea of design has a very great significance and application
in the _organic_ world. We do undeniably perceive a purpose in the
structure and in the life of an organism. The plant and the animal
seem to be controlled by a definite design in the combination of their
several parts, just as clearly as we see in the machines which man
invents and constructs; as long as life continues the functions of the
several organs are directed to definite ends, just as is the operation
of the various parts of a machine. Hence it was quite natural that the
older naïve study of nature, in explaining the origin and activity
of the living being, should postulate a creator who had "arranged
all things with wisdom and understanding," and had constructed each
plant and animal according to the special purpose of its life. The
conception of this "almighty creator of heaven and earth" was usually
quite anthropomorphic; he created "everything after its kind." As long
as the creator seemed to man to be of human shape, to think with his
brain, see with his eyes, and fashion with his hands, it was possible
to form a definite picture of this "divine engineer" and his artistic
work in the great workshop of creation. This was not so easy when
the idea of God became refined, and man saw in his "invisible God" a
creator without organs--a gaseous being. Still more unintelligible
did these anthropomorphic ideas become when physiology substituted
for the conscious, divine architect an unconscious, creative "vital
force"--a mysterious, purposive, natural force, which differed from the
familiar forces of physics and chemistry, and only took these in part,
during life, into its service. This vitalism prevailed until about the
middle of the nineteenth century. Johannes Müller, the great Berlin
physiologist, was the first to menace it with a destructive dose of
facts. It is true that the distinguished biologist had himself (like
all others in the first half of the century) been educated in a belief
in this vital force, and deemed it indispensable for an elucidation of
the ultimate sources of life; nevertheless, in his classical and still
unrivalled _Manual of Physiology_ (1833) he gave a demonstrative proof
that there is really nothing to be said for this vital force. Müller
himself, in a long series of remarkable observations and experiments,
showed that most of the vital processes in the human organism (and in
the other animals) take place according to physical and chemical laws,
and that many of them are capable of mathematical determination. That
was no less true of the animal functions of the muscles and nerves,
and of both the higher and the lower sense-organs, than of the vegetal
functions of digestion, assimilation, and circulation. Only two
branches of the life of the organism, mental action and reproduction,
retained any element of mystery, and seemed inexplicable without
assuming a vital force. But immediately after Müller's death such
important discoveries and advances were made in these two branches
that the uneasy "phantom of vital force" was driven from its last
refuge. By a very remarkable coincidence Johannes Müller died in the
year 1858, which saw the publication of Darwin's first communication
concerning his famous theory. The theory of selection solved the great
problem that had mastered Müller--the question of the origin of orderly
arrangements from purely mechanical causes.
Darwin, as we have often said, had a twofold immortal merit in the
field of philosophy--firstly, the reform of Lamarck's theory of
descent, and its establishment on the mass of facts accumulated in the
course of the half-century; secondly, the conception of the theory
of selection, which first revealed to us the true causes of the
gradual formation of species. Darwin was the first to point out that
the "struggle for life" is the unconscious regulator which controls
the reciprocal action of heredity and adaptation in the gradual
transformation of species; it is the great "selective divinity" which,
by a purely "natural choice," without preconceived design, creates
new forms, just as selective man creates new types by an "artificial
choice" with a definite design. That gave us the solution of the great
philosophic problem: "How can purposive contrivances be produced by
purely mechanical processes without design?" Kant held the problem to
be insoluble, although Empedocles had pointed out the direction of the
solution two thousand years before. His principle of "teleological
mechanism" has become more and more accepted of late years, and
has furnished a mechanical explanation even of the finest and most
recondite processes of organic life by "the functional self-production
of the purposive structure." Thus have we got rid of the transcendental
"design" of the ideological philosophy of the schools, which was the
greatest obstacle to the growth of a rational and monistic conception
of nature.
Very recently, however, this ancient phantom of a mystic vital force,
which seemed to be effectually banished, has put in a fresh appearance;
a number of distinguished biologists have attempted to reintroduce it
under another name. The clearest presentation of it is to be found in
the _Welt als That_, of the Kiel botanist, J. Reinke. He takes upon
himself the defence of the notion of miracle, of theism, of the Mosaic
story of creation, and of the constancy of species; he calls "vital
forces," in opposition to physical forces, the directive or dominant
forces. Other neovitalists prefer, in the good old anthropomorphic
style, a "supreme" engineer, who has endowed organic substance with a
purposive structure, directed to the realization of a definite plan.
These curious teleological hypotheses, and the objections to Darwinism
which generally accompany them, do not call for serious scientific
refutation to-day.
Thirty-three years ago I gave the title of "dysteleology" to the
science of those extremely interesting and significant biological
facts, which, in the most striking fashion, give a direct contradiction
to the teleological idea "of the purposive arrangement of the living
organism."[30] This "science of rudimentary, abortive, arrested,
distorted, atrophied, and cataplastic individuals" is based on an
immense quantity of remarkable phenomena, which were long familiar to
zoologists and botanists, but were not properly interpreted, and their
great philosophic significance appreciated, until Darwin.
All the higher animals and plants, or, in general, all organisms which
are not entirely simple in structure, but are made up of a number of
organs in orderly co-operation, are found, on close examination, to
possess a number of useless or inoperative members, sometimes, indeed,
hurtful and dangerous. In the flowers of most plants we find, besides
the actual sex-leaves that effect reproduction, a number of other
leaf-organs which have no use or meaning (arrested or "miscarried"
pistils, fruit, corona, and calix-leaves, etc.). In the two large and
variegated classes of flying animals, birds and insects, there are,
besides the forms which make constant use of their wings, a number of
species which have undeveloped wings and cannot fly. In nearly every
class of the higher animals which have eyes there are certain types
that live in the dark; they have eyes, as a rule, but undeveloped and
useless for vision. In our own human organism we have similar useless
rudimentary structures in the muscles of the ear, in the eye-lid, in
the nipple and milk-gland of the male, and in other parts of the body;
indeed, the vermiform appendix of our cæcum is not only useless, but
extremely dangerous, and inflammation of it is responsible for a number
of deaths every year.
Neither the old mystic vitalism nor the new, equally irrational,
neovitalism can give any explanation of these and many other
purposeless contrivances in the structure of the plant and the animal;
but they are very simple in the light of the theory of descent. It
shows that these rudimentary organs are atrophied, owing to disuse.
Just as our muscles, nerves, and organs of sense are strengthened by
exercise and frequent use, so, on the other hand, they are liable to
degenerate more or less by disuse or suspended exercise. But, although
the development of the organs is promoted by exercise and adaptation,
they by no means disappear without leaving a trace after neglect; the
force of heredity retains them for many generations, and only permits
their gradual disappearance after the lapse of a considerable time.
The blind "struggle for existence between the organs" determines their
historical disappearance, just as it effected their first origin and
development. There is no internal "purpose" whatever in the drama.
The life of the animal and the plant bears the same universal character
of incompleteness as the life of man. This is directly attributable
to the circumstance that nature--organic as well as inorganic--is
in a perennial state of evolution, change, and transformation. This
evolution seems on the whole--at least as far as we can survey the
development of organic life on our planet--to be a progressive
improvement, an historical advance from the simple to the complex,
the lower to the higher, the imperfect to the perfect. I have proved
in my _General Morphology_ that this historical progress--or gradual
perfecting (_teleosis_)--is the inevitable result of selection, and not
the outcome of a preconceived design. That is clear from the fact that
no organism is perfect; even if it does perfectly adapt itself to its
environment at a given moment, this condition would not last very long;
the conditions of existence of the environment are themselves subject
to perpetual change and they thus necessitate a continuous adaptation
on the part of the organism.
Under the title of _Design in the Living Organism_, the famous
embryologist, Karl Ernst Baer, published a work in 1876 which, together
with the article on Darwinism which accompanied it, proved very
acceptable to our opponents, and is still much quoted in opposition
to evolution. It was a revival of the old teleological system under
a new name, and we must devote a line of criticism to it. We must
premise that, though Baer was a scientist of the highest order, his
original monistic views were gradually marred by a tinge of mysticism
with the advance of age, and he eventually became a thorough dualist.
In his profound work on "the evolution of animals" (1828), which he
himself entitled _Observation and Experiment_, these two methods of
investigation are equally applied. By careful observation of the
various phenomena of the development of the animal ovum Baer succeeded
in giving the first consistent presentation of the remarkable changes
which take place in the growth of the vertebrate from a simple
egg-cell. At the same time he endeavored, by far-seeing comparison
and keen reflection, to learn the causes of the transformation, and
to reduce them to general constructive laws. He expressed the general
result of his research in the following thesis: "The evolution of
the individual is the story of the growth of individuality in every
respect." He meant that "the one great thought that controls all the
different aspects of animal evolution is the same that gathered the
scattered fragments of space into spheres and linked them into solar
systems. This thought is no other than life itself, and the words and
syllables in which it finds utterance are the varied forms of living
things."
Baer, however, did not attain to a deeper knowledge of this great
genetic truth and a clearer insight into the real efficient causes of
organic evolution, because his attention was exclusively given to
one half of evolutionary science, the science of the evolution of the
individual, embryology, or, in a wider sense, _ontogeny_. The other
half, the science of the evolution of species, _phylogeny_, was not yet
in existence, although Lamarck had already pointed out the way to it in
1809. When it was established by Darwin in 1859, the aged Baer was no
longer in a position to appreciate it; the fruitless struggle which he
led against the theory of selection clearly proved that he understood
neither its real meaning nor its philosophic importance. Teleological
and, subsequently, theological speculations had incapacitated the
ageing scientist from appreciating this greatest reform of biology. The
teleological observations which he published against it in his _Species
and Studies_ in his eighty-fourth year are mere repetitions of errors
which the teleology of the dualists has opposed to the mechanical or
monistic system for more than two thousand years. The "telic idea"
which, according to Baer, controls the entire evolution of the animal
from the ovum, is only another expression for the eternal "idea" of
Plato and the _entelecheia_ of his pupil Aristotle.
Our modern biogeny gives a purely physiological explanation of the
facts of embryology, in assigning the functions of heredity and
adaptation as their causes. The great biogenetic law, which Baer
failed to appreciate, reveals the intimate causal connection between
the _ontogenesis_ of the individual and the _phylogenesis_ of its
ancestors; the former seems to be a recapitulation of the latter.
Nowhere, however, in the evolution of animals and plants do we find any
trace of design, but merely the inevitable outcome of the struggle for
existence, the blind controller, instead of the provident God, that
effects the changes of organic forms by a mutual action of the laws of
heredity and adaptation. And there is no more trace of "design" in the
embryology of the individual plant, animal, or man. This _ontogeny_
is but a brief epitome of _phylogeny_, an abbreviated and condensed
recapitulation of it, determined by the physiological laws of heredity.
Baer ended the preface to his classical _Evolution of Animals_ (1828)
with these words: "The palm will be awarded to the fortunate scientist
who succeeds in reducing the constructive forces of the animal body
to the general forces or life-processes of the entire world. The tree
has not yet been planted which is to make his cradle." The great
embryologist erred once more. That very year, 1828, witnessed the
arrival of Charles Darwin at Cambridge University (for the purpose of
studying theology!)--the "fortunate scientist" who richly earned the
palm thirty years afterwards by his theory of selection.
In the philosophy of history--that is, in the general reflections which
historians make on the destinies of nations and the complicated course
of political evolution--there still prevails the notion of a "moral
order of the universe." Historians seek in the vivid drama of history
a leading design, an ideal purpose, which has ordained one or other
race or state to a special triumph, and to dominion over the others.
This teleological view of history has recently become more strongly
contrasted with our monistic view in proportion as monism has proved
to be the only possible interpretation of inorganic nature. Throughout
the whole of astronomy, geology, physics, and chemistry there is no
question to-day of a "moral order," or a personal God, whose "hand hath
disposed all things in wisdom and understanding." And the same must
be said of the entire field of biology, the whole constitution and
history of organic nature, if we set aside the question of man for the
moment. Darwin has not only proved by his theory of selection that the
orderly processes in the life and structure of animals and plants have
arisen by mechanical laws without any preconceived design, but he has
shown us in the "struggle for life" the powerful natural force which
has exerted supreme control over the entire course of organic evolution
for millions of years. It may be said that the struggle for life is the
"survival of the fittest" or the "victory of the best"; that is only
correct when we regard the strongest as the best (in a moral sense).
Moreover, the whole history of the organic world goes to prove that,
besides the predominant advance towards perfection, there are at all
times cases of retrogression to lower stages. Even Baer's notion of
"design" has no moral feature whatever.
Do we find a different state of things in the history of peoples, which
man, in his anthropocentric presumption, loves to call "the history of
the world"? Do we find in every phase of it a lofty moral principle or
a wise ruler, guiding the destinies of nations? There can be but one
answer in the present advanced stage of natural and human history: No.
The fate of those branches of the human family, those nations and races
which have struggled for existence and progress for thousands of years,
is determined by the same "eternal laws of iron" as the history of the
whole organic world which has peopled the earth for millions of years.
Geologists distinguish three great epochs in the organic history of
the earth, as far as we can read it in the monuments of the science of
fossils--the primary, secondary, and tertiary epochs. According to a
recent calculation, the first occupied at least thirty-four million,
the second eleven million, and the third three million years. The
history of the family of vertebrates, from which our own race has
sprung, unfolds clearly before our eyes during this long period. Three
different stages in the evolution of the vertebrate correspond to the
three epochs; the _fishes_ characterized the primary (palæozoic) age,
the _reptiles_ the secondary (mesozoic), and the _mammals_ the tertiary
(cænozoic). Of the three groups the fishes rank lowest in organization,
the reptiles come next, and the mammals take the highest place. We
find, on nearer examination of the history of the three classes, that
their various orders and families also advanced progressively during
the three epochs towards a higher stage of perfection. May we consider
this progressive development as the outcome of a conscious design or
a moral order of the universe? Certainly not. The theory of selection
teaches us that this organic progress, like the earlier organic
differentiation, is an inevitable consequence of the struggle for
existence. Thousands of beautiful and remarkable species of animals and
plants have perished during those forty-eight million years, to give
place to stronger competitors, and the victors in this struggle for
life were not always the noblest or most perfect forms in a moral sense.
It has been just the same with the history of humanity. The splendid
civilization of classical antiquity perished because Christianity,
with its faith in a loving God and its hope of a better life beyond
the grave, gave a fresh, strong impetus to the soaring human mind. The
Papal Church quickly degenerated into a pitiful caricature of real
Christianity, and ruthlessly scattered the treasures of knowledge
which the Hellenic philosophy had gathered; it gained the dominion
of the world through the ignorance of the credulous masses. In time
the Reformation broke the chains of this mental slavery, and assisted
reason to secure its right once more. But in the new, as in the
older, period the great struggle for existence went on in its eternal
fluctuation, with no trace of a moral order.
And it is just as impossible for the impartial and critical observer
to detect a "wise providence" in the fate of individual human beings
as a moral order in the history of peoples. Both are determined with
iron necessity by a mechanical causality which connects every single
phenomenon with one or more antecedent causes. Even the ancient Greeks
recognized _ananke_, the blind _heimarmene_, the fate "that rules
gods and men," as the supreme principle of the universe. Christianity
replaced it by a conscious Providence, which is not blind, but sees,
and which governs the world in patriarchal fashion. The anthropomorphic
character of this notion, generally closely connected with belief in
a personal God, is quite obvious. Belief in a "loving Father," who
unceasingly guides the destinies of one billion five hundred million
men on our planet, and is attentive at all times to their millions of
contradictory prayers and pious wishes, is absolutely impossible; that
is at once perceived on laying aside the colored spectacles of "faith"
and reflecting rationally on the subject.
As a rule, this belief in Providence and the tutelage of a "loving
Father" is more intense in the modern civilized man--just as in the
uncultured savage--when some good fortune has fallen him: an escape
from peril of life, recovery from a severe illness, the winning of the
first prize in a lottery, the birth of a long-delayed child, and so
forth. When, on the other hand, a misfortune is met with, or an ardent
wish is not fulfilled, "Providence" is forgotten. The wise ruler of the
world slumbered--or refused his blessing.
In the extraordinary development of commerce of the nineteenth century
the number of catastrophes and accidents has necessarily increased
beyond all imagination; of that the journal is a daily witness.
Thousands are killed every year by shipwreck, railway accidents, mine
accidents, etc. Thousands slay each other every year in war, and the
preparation for this wholesale massacre absorbs much the greater part
of the revenue in the highest civilized nations, the chief professors
of "Christian charity." And among these hundreds of thousands of annual
victims of modern civilization strong, industrious, courageous workers
predominate. Yet the talk of a "moral order" goes on.
Since impartial study of the evolution of the world teaches us that
there is no definite aim and no special purpose to be traced in it,
there seems to be no alternative but to leave everything to "blind
chance." This reproach has been made to the transformism of Lamarck and
Darwin, as it had been to the previous systems of Kant and Laplace;
there are a number of dualist philosophers who lay great stress on it.
It is, therefore, worth while to make a brief remark upon it.
One group of philosophers affirms, in accordance with its teleological
conception, that the whole cosmos is an orderly system, in which every
phenomenon has its aim and purpose; there is no such thing as chance.
The other group, holding a mechanical theory, expresses itself thus:
The development of the universe is a monistic mechanical process, in
which we discover no aim or purpose whatever; what we call design in
the organic world is a special result of biological agencies; neither
in the evolution of the heavenly bodies nor in that of the crust of
our earth do we find any trace of a controlling purpose--all is the
result of chance. Each party is right--according to its definition of
chance. The general law of causality, taken in conjunction with the law
of substance, teaches us that every phenomenon has a mechanical cause;
in this sense there is no such thing as chance. Yet it is not only
lawful, but necessary, to retain the term for the purpose of expressing
the simultaneous occurrence of two phenomena, which are not causally
related to each other, but of which each has its own mechanical cause,
independent of that of the other. Everybody knows that chance, in its
monistic sense, plays an important part in the life of man and in the
universe at large. That, however, does not prevent us from recognizing
in each "chance" event, as we do in the evolution of the entire
cosmos, the universal sovereignty of nature's supreme law, _the law of
substance_.