SOLUTION OF THE WORLD-PROBLEMS
A Glance at the Progress of the Nineteenth Century in Solving
Cosmic Problems--I. Progress of Astronomy and Cosmology--Physical
and Chemical Unity of the Universe--Cosmic Metamorphoses--Evolution
of the Planetary System--Analogy of the Phylogenetic Processes
on the Earth and on Other Planets--Organic Inhabitants of
Other Heavenly Bodies--Periodic Variation in the Making of
Worlds--II. Progress of Geology and Palæontology--Neptunism and
Vulcanism--Theory of Continuity--III. Progress of Physics and
Chemistry--IV. Progress of Biology--Cellular Theory and Theory of
Descent--V. Anthropology--Origin of Man--General Conclusion
At the close of our philosophic study of the riddles of the universe
we turn with confidence to the answer to the momentous question, How
nearly have we approached to a solution of them? What is the value of
the immense progress which the passing nineteenth century has made in
the knowledge of nature? And what prospect does it open out to us for
the future, for the further development of our system in the twentieth
century, at the threshold of which we pause? Every unprejudiced thinker
who impartially considers the solid progress of our empirical science,
and the unity and clearness of our philosophic interpretation of it,
will share our view: the nineteenth century has made greater progress
in knowledge of the world and in grasp of its nature than all its
predecessors; it has solved many great problems that seemed insoluble a
hundred years ago; it has opened out to us new provinces of learning,
the very existence of which was unsuspected at the beginning of the
century. Above all, it has put clearly before our eyes the lofty aim of
monistic cosmology, and has pointed out the path which alone will lead
us towards it--the way of the exact empirical investigation of facts,
and of the critical genetic study of their causes. The great abstract
law of mechanical causality, of which our cosmological law--the law
of substance--is but another and a concrete expression, now rules
the entire universe, as it does the mind of man; it is the steady,
immovable pole-star, whose clear light falls on our path through the
dark labyrinth of the countless separate phenomena. To see the truth
of this more clearly, let us cast a brief glance at the astonishing
progress which the chief branches of science have made in this
remarkable period.
I.--PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY
The study of the heavens is the oldest, the study of man the youngest,
of the sciences. With regard to himself and the character of his being
man only obtained a clear knowledge in the second half of the present
century; with regard to the starry heavens, the motions of the planets,
and so on, he had acquired astonishing information forty-five hundred
years ago. The ancient Chinese, Hindoos, Egyptians, and Chaldæans in
the distant East knew more of the science of the spheres than the
majority of educated Christians did in the West four thousand years
after them. An eclipse of the sun was astronomically observed in China
in the year 2697 B.C., and the plane of the ecliptic was determined
by means of a gnome eleven hundred years B.C., while Christ himself
had no knowledge whatever of astronomy--indeed, he looked out upon
heaven and earth, nature and man, from the very narrowest geocentric
and anthropocentric point of view. The greatest advance of astronomy
is generally, and rightly, said to be the founding of the heliocentric
system of Copernicus, whose famous work, _De Revolutionibus Orbium
Celestium_, of itself caused a profound revolution in the minds of
thoughtful men. In overthrowing the Ptolemaic system, he destroyed the
foundation of the Christian theory, which regarded the earth as the
centre of the universe and man as the godlike ruler of the earth. It
was natural, therefore, that the Christian clergy, with the pope at its
head, should enter upon a fierce struggle with the invaluable discovery
of Copernicus. Yet it soon cleared a path for itself, when Kepler and
Galileo grounded on it their true "mechanics of the heavens," and
Newton gave it a solid foundation by his theory of gravitation (1686).
A further great advance, comprehending the entire universe, was the
application of the idea of evolution to astronomy. It was done by
the youthful Kant in 1755; in his famous general natural history and
theory of the heavens he undertook the discussion, not only of the
"constitution," but also of the "mechanical origin" of the whole
world-structure on Newtonian principles. The splendid _Système du
Monde_ of Laplace, who had independently come to the same conclusions
as Kant on the world-problem, gave so firm a basis to this new
_Mécanique Céleste_ in 1796 that it looked as if nothing entirely
new of equal importance was left to be discovered in the nineteenth
century. Yet here again it had the honor of opening out entirely
new paths and infinitely enlarging our outlook on the universe. The
invention of photography and photometry, and especially of spectral
analysis (in 1860 by Bunsen and Kirchoff), introduced physics and
chemistry into astronomy and led to cosmological conclusions of the
utmost importance. It was now made perfectly clear that matter is
the same throughout the universe, and that its physical and chemical
properties in the most distant stars do not differ from those of the
earth under our feet.
The monistic conviction, which we thus arrived at, of the physical
and chemical unity of the entire cosmos is certainly one of the most
valuable general truths which we owe to astrophysics, the new branch
of astronomy which is honorably associated with the name of Friedrich
Zöllner. Not less important is the clear knowledge we have obtained
that the same laws of mechanical development that we have on the
earth rule throughout the infinite universe. A vast, all-embracing
metamorphosis goes on continuously in all parts of the universe,
just as it is found in the geological history of the earth; it can
be traced in the evolution of its living inhabitants as surely as in
the history of peoples or in the life of each human individual. In
one part of space we perceive, with the aid of our best telescopes,
vast nebulæ of glowing, infinitely attenuated gas; we see in them the
embryos of heavenly bodies, billions of miles away, in the first stage
of their development. In some of these "stellar embryos" the chemical
elements do not seem to be differentiated yet, but still buried in the
homogeneous primitive matter (_prothyl_) at an enormous temperature
(calculated to run into millions of degrees); it is possible that the
original basic "substance" (_vide_ p. 229) is not yet divided into
ponderable and imponderable matter. In other parts of space we find
stars that have cooled down into glowing fluid, and yet others that
are cold and rigid; we can tell their stage of evolution approximately
by their color. We find stars that are surrounded with rings and moons
like Saturn; and we recognize in the luminous ring of the nebula the
embryo of a new moon, which has detached itself from the mother-planet,
just as the planet was released from the sun.
Many of the stars, the light of which has taken thousands of years to
reach us, are certainly suns like our own mother-sun, and are girt
about with planets and moons, just as in our own solar system. We
are justified in supposing that thousands of these planets are in a
similar stage of development to that of our earth--that is, they have
arrived at a period when the temperature at the surface lies between
the freezing and boiling point of water, and so permits the existence
of water in its liquid condition. That makes it possible that carbon
has entered into the same complex combinations on those planets as
it has done on our earth, and that from its nitrogenous compounds
protoplasm has been evolved--that wonderful substance which alone,
as far as our knowledge goes, is the possessor of organic life. The
monera (for instance, chromacea and bacteria), which consist only of
this primitive protoplasm, and which arise by spontaneous generation
from these inorganic nitrocarbonates, may thus have entered upon the
same course of evolution on many other planets as on our own; first of
all, living cells of the simplest character would be formed from their
homogeneous protoplasmic body by the separation of an inner nucleus
from the outer cell body (cytostoma). Further, the analogy that we
find in the life of all cells--whether plasmodomous plant-cells or
plasmophagous animal-cells--justifies the inference that the further
course of organic evolution on these other planets has been analogous
to that of our own earth--always, of course, given the same limits of
temperature which permit water in a liquid form. In the glowing liquid
bodies of the stars, where water can only exist in the form of steam,
and on the cold extinct suns, where it can only be in the shape of ice,
such organic life as we know is impossible.
The similarity of phylogeny, or the analogy of organic evolution,
which we may thus assume in many stars which are at the same stage of
biogenetic development, naturally opens out a wide field of brilliant
speculation to the constructive imagination. A favorite subject for
such speculation has long been the question whether there are men, or
living beings like ourselves, perhaps much more highly developed, in
other planets? Among the many works which have sought to answer the
question, those of Camille Flammarion, the Parisian astronomer, have
recently been extremely popular; they are equally distinguished by
exuberant imagination and brilliant style, and by a deplorable lack
of critical judgment and biological knowledge. We may condense in the
following thesis the present condition of our knowledge on the subject:
I. It is very probable that a similar biogenetic process to that of our
own earth is taking place on some of the other planets of our solar
system (Mars and Venus), and on many planets of other solar systems;
first simple monera are formed by spontaneous generation, and from
these arise unicellular protists (first plasmodomous primitive plants,
and then plasmophagous primitive animals).
II. It is very probable that from these unicellular protists arise,
in the further course of evolution, first social cell-communities
(coenobia), and subsequently tissue-forming plants and animals
(metaphyta and metazoa).
III. It is also very probable that thallophyta (algæ and fungi) were
the first to appear in the plant-kingdom, then diaphyta (mosses and
ferns), finally anthophyta (gymnosperm and angiosperm flowering plants).
IV. It is equally probable that the biogenetic process took a similar
course in the animal kingdom--that from the blastæads (catallacta)
first gastræads were formed, and from these lower animal forms
(coelenteria) higher organisms (coelomaria) were afterwards evolved.
V. On the other hand, it is very questionable whether the different
stems of these higher animals (and those of the higher plants as well)
run through the same course of development on other planets as on our
earth.
VI. In particular, it is wholly uncertain whether there are vertebrates
on other planets, and whether, in the course of their phyletic
development, taking millions of years, mammals are formed as on earth,
reaching their highest point in the formation of man; in such an event,
millions of changes would have to be just the same in both cases.
VII. It is much more probable, on the contrary, that other planets
have produced other types of the higher plants and animals, which are
unknown on our earth; perhaps from some higher animal stem, which is
superior to the vertebrate in formation, higher beings have arisen who
far transcend us earthly men in intelligence.
VIII. The possibility of our ever entering into direct communication
with such inhabitants of other planets seems to be excluded by the
immense distance of our earth from the other heavenly bodies, and the
absence of the requisite atmosphere in the intervening space, which
contains only ether.
But while many of the stars are probably in a similar stage of
biogenetic development to that of our earth (for the last one hundred
million years at least), others have advanced far beyond this stage,
and, in their planetary old age, are hastening towards their end--the
same end that inevitably awaits our own globe. The radiation of heat
into space gradually lowers the temperature until all the water is
turned into ice; that is the end of all organic life. The substance
of the rotating mass contracts more and more; the rapidity of its
motion gradually falls off. The orbits of the planets and of their
moons grow narrower. At length the moons fall upon the planets, and
the planets are drawn into the sun that gave them birth. The collision
again produces an enormous quantity of heat. The pulverized mass of the
colliding bodies is distributed freely through infinite space, and the
eternal drama of sun-birth begins afresh.
The sublime picture which modern astrophysics thus unveils before the
mind's eye shows us an eternal birth and death of countless heavenly
bodies, a periodic change from one to the other of the different
cosmogenetic conditions, which we observe side by side in the universe.
While the embryo of a new world is being formed from a nebula in
one corner of the vast stage of the universe, another has already
condensed into a rotating sphere of liquid fire in some far distant
spot; a third has already cast off rings at its equator, which round
themselves into planets; a fourth has become a vast sun whose planets
have formed a secondary retinue of moons, and so on. And between them
are floating about in space myriads of smaller bodies, meteorites,
or shooting-stars, which cross and recross the paths of the planets
apparently like lawless vagabonds, and of which a great number fall
onto the planets every day. Thus there is a continuous but slow change
in the velocities and the orbits of the revolving spheres. The frozen
moons fall onto the planets, the planets onto their suns. Two distant
suns, perhaps already stark and cold, rush together with inconceivable
force and melt away into nebulous clouds. And such prodigious heat
is generated by the collision that the nebula is once more raised to
incandescence, and the old drama begins again. Yet in this "perpetual
motion" the infinite substance of the universe, the sum total of its
matter and energy, remains eternally unchanged, and we have an eternal
repetition in infinite time of the periodic dance of the worlds, the
metamorphosis of the cosmos that ever returns to its starting-point.
Over all rules the law of substance.
II.--PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY
The earth and its origin were much later than the heavens in becoming
the object of scientific investigation. The numerous ancient and modern
cosmogonies do, indeed, profess to give us as good an insight into the
origin of the earth as into that of the heavens; but the mythological
raiment, in which all alike are clothed, betrays their origin in
poetic fancy. Among the countless legends of creation which we find in
the history of religions and of thought there is one that soon took
precedence of all the rest--the Mosaic story of creation as told in
the first book of the Hexateuch. It did not exist in its present form
until long after the death of Moses (probably not until eight hundred
years afterwards); but its sources are much older, and are to be found
for the most part in Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hindoo legends. This
Hebrew legend of creation obtained its great influence through its
adoption into the Christian faith and its consecration as the "Word of
God." Greek philosophers had already, five hundred years before Christ,
explained the natural origin of the earth in the same way as that of
other cosmic bodies. Xenophanes of Colophon had even recognized the
true character of the fossils which were afterwards to prove of such
moment; the great painter, Leonardo da Vinci, of the fifteenth century,
also explained the fossils as the petrified remains of animals which
had lived in earlier periods of the earth's history. But the authority
of the Bible, especially the myth of the deluge, prevented any further
progress in this direction, and insured the triumph of the Mosaic
legend until about the middle of the last century. It survives even at
the present day among orthodox theologians. However, in the second half
of the eighteenth century, scientific inquiry into the structure of the
crust of the earth set to work independently of the Mosaic story, and
it soon led to certain conclusions as to the origin of the earth. The
founder of geology, Werner of Freiberg, thought that all the rocks were
formed in water, while Voigt and Hutton (1788) rightly contended that
only the stratified, fossil-bearing rocks had had an aquatic origin,
and that the Vulcanic or Plutonic mountain ranges had been formed by
the cooling down of molten matter.
The heated conflict of these "Neptunian" and "Plutonic" schools was
still going on during the first three decades of the present century;
it was only settled when Karl Hoff (1822) established the principle of
"actualism," and Sir Charles Lyell applied it with signal success to
the entire natural evolution of the earth. The _Principles of Geology_
of Lyell (1830) secured the full recognition of the supremely important
theory of continuity in the formation of the earth's crust, as opposed
to the catastrophic theory of Cuvier.[34] Palæontology, which had
been founded by Cuvier's work on fossil bones (1812), was of the
greatest service to geology; by the middle of the present century it
had advanced so far that the chief periods in the history of the earth
and its inhabitants could be established. The comparatively thin crust
of the earth was now recognized with certainty to be the hard surface
formed by the cooling of an incandescent fluid planet, which still
continues its slow, unbroken course of refrigeration and condensation.
The crumpling of the stiffened crust, "the reaction of the molten fiery
contents on the cool surface," and especially the unceasing geological
action of water, are the natural causes which are daily at work in the
secular formation of the crust of the earth and its mountains.
To the brilliant progress of modern geology we owe three extremely
important results of general import. In the first place, it has
excluded from the story of the earth all questions of miracle, all
questions of supernatural agencies, in the building of the mountains
and the shaping of the continents. In the second place, our idea of
the length of the vast period of time which had been absorbed in their
formation has been considerably enlarged. We now know that the huge
mountains of the palæozoic, mesozoic, and cenozoic formations have
taken, not thousands, but millions of years in their growth. In the
third place, we now know that all the countless fossils that are found
in those formations are not "sports of nature," as was believed one
hundred and fifty years ago, but the petrified remains of organisms
that lived in earlier periods of the earth's history, and arose by
gradual transformation from a long series of ancestors.
III.--PROGRESS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
The many important discoveries which these fundamental sciences have
made during the nineteenth century are so well known, and their
practical application in every branch of modern life is so obvious,
that we need not discuss them in detail here. In particular, the
application of steam and electricity has given to our nineteenth
century its characteristic "machinist-stamp." But the colossal
progress of inorganic and organic chemistry is not less important. All
branches of modern civilization--medicine and technology, industry
and agriculture, mining and forestry, land and water transport--have
been so much improved in the course of the century, especially in the
second half, that our ancestors of the eighteenth century would find
themselves in a new world, could they return. But more valuable and
important still is the great theoretical expansion of our knowledge
of nature, which we owe to the establishment of the law of substance.
Once Lavoisier (1789) had established the law of the persistence of
matter, and Dalton (1808) had founded his new atomic theory with its
assistance, a way was open to modern chemistry along which it has
advanced with a rapidity and success beyond all anticipation. The same
must be said of physics in respect of the law of the conservation of
energy. Its discovery by Robert Mayer (1842) and Hermann Helmholtz
(1847) inaugurated for this science also a new epoch of the most
fruitful development; for it put physics in a position to grasp the
universal unity of the forces of nature and the eternal play of natural
processes, in which one force may be converted into another at any
moment.
IV.--PROGRESS OF BIOLOGY
The great discoveries which astronomy and geology have made during the
nineteenth century, and which are of extreme importance to our whole
system, are, nevertheless, far surpassed by those of biology. Indeed,
we may say that the greater part of the many branches which this
comprehensive science of organic life has recently produced have seen
the light in the course of the present century. As we saw in the first
section, during the century all branches of anatomy and physiology,
botany and zoology, ontogeny and phylogeny, have been so marvellously
enriched by countless discoveries that the present condition of
biological science is immeasurably superior to its condition a hundred
years ago. That applies first of all _quantitatively_ to the colossal
growth of our positive information in all those provinces and their
several parts. But it applies with even greater force _qualitatively_
to the deepening of our comprehension of biological phenomena, and
our knowledge of their efficient causes. In this Charles Darwin
(1859) takes the palm of victory; by his theory of selection he has
solved the great problem of "organic creation," of the natural
origin of the countless forms of life by gradual transformation. It
is true that Lamarck had recognized fifty years earlier that the
mode of this transformation lay in the reciprocal action of heredity
and adaptation. However, Lamarck was hampered by his lack of the
principle of selection, and of that deeper insight into the true
nature of organization which was only rendered possible after the
founding of the theory of evolution and the cellular theory. When we
collated the results of these and other disciplines, and found the
key to their harmonious interpretation in the ancestral development
of living beings, we succeeded in establishing the monistic biology,
the principles of which I have endeavored to lay down securely in my
_General Morphology_.
V.--PROGRESS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
In a certain sense, the true science of man, rational anthropology,
takes precedence of every other science. The saying of the ancient
sage, "Man, know thyself," and that other famous maxim, "Man is the
measure of all things," have been accepted and applied from all time.
And yet this science--taking it in its widest sense--has languished
longer than all other sciences in the fetters of tradition and
superstition. We saw in the first section how slowly and how late
the science of the human organism was developed. One of its chief
branches--embryology--was not firmly established until 1828 (by Baer),
and another, of equal importance--the cellular theory--until 1838 (by
Schwann). And it was even later still when the answer was given to the
"question of all questions," the great riddle of the origin of man.
Although Lamarck had pointed out the only path to a correct solution
of it in 1809, and had affirmed the descent of man from the ape, it
fell to Darwin to establish the affirmation securely fifty years
afterwards, and to Huxley to collect the most important proofs of it
in 1863, in his _Place of Man in Nature_. I have myself made the first
attempt, in my _Anthropogeny_ (1874), to present in their historical
connection the entire series of ancestors through which our race has
been slowly evolved from the animal kingdom in the course of many
millions of years.
CONCLUSION
The number of world-riddles has been continually diminishing in the
course of the nineteenth century through the aforesaid progress of a
true knowledge of nature. Only one comprehensive riddle of the universe
now remains--the problem of substance. What is the real character of
this mighty world-wonder that the realistic scientist calls Nature or
the Universe, the idealist philosopher calls Substance or the Cosmos,
the pious believer calls Creator or God? Can we affirm to-day that the
marvellous progress of modern cosmology has solved this "problem of
substance," or at least that it has brought us nearer to the solution?
The answer to this final question naturally varies considerably
according to the stand-point of the philosophic inquirer and his
empirical acquaintance with the real world. We grant at once that the
innermost character of nature is just as little understood by us as it
was by Anaximander and Empedocles twenty-four hundred years ago, by
Spinoza and Newton two hundred years ago, and by Kant and Goethe one
hundred years ago. We must even grant that this essence of substance
becomes more mysterious and enigmatic the deeper we penetrate into the
knowledge of its attributes, matter and energy, and the more thoroughly
we study its countless phenomenal forms and their evolution. We do not
know the "thing in itself" that lies behind these knowable phenomena.
But why trouble about this enigmatic "thing in itself" when we have
no means of investigating it, when we do not even clearly know whether
it exists or not? Let us, then, leave the fruitless brooding over this
ideal phantom to the "pure metaphysician," and let us instead, as "real
physicists," rejoice in the immense progress which has been actually
made by our monistic philosophy of nature.
Towering above all the achievements and discoveries of the century
we have the great, comprehensive "law of substance," the fundamental
law of the constancy of matter and force. The fact that substance is
everywhere subject to eternal movement and transformation gives it the
character also of the universal law of evolution. As this supreme law
has been firmly established, and all others are subordinate to it, we
arrive at a conviction of the universal unity of nature and the eternal
validity of its laws. From the gloomy _problem_ of substance we have
evolved the clear _law_ of substance. The monism of the cosmos which we
establish thereon proclaims the absolute dominion of "the great eternal
iron laws" throughout the universe. It thus shatters, at the same time,
the three central dogmas of the dualistic philosophy--the personality
of God, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will.
Many of us certainly view with sharp regret, or even with a profound
sorrow, the death of the gods that were so much to our parents and
ancestors. We must console ourselves in the words of the poet:
"The times are changed, old systems fall,
And new life o'er their ruins dawns."
The older view of idealistic dualism is breaking up with all its mystic
and anthropistic dogmas; but upon the vast field of ruins rises,
majestic and brilliant, the new sun of our realistic monism, which
reveals to us the wonderful temple of nature in all its beauty. In the
sincere cult of "the true, the good, and the beautiful," which is the
heart of our new monistic religion, we find ample compensation for the
anthropistic ideals of "God, freedom, and immortality" which we have
lost.
Throughout this discussion of the riddles of the universe I have
clearly defined my consistent monistic position and its opposition
to the still prevalent dualistic theory. In this I am supported by
the agreement of nearly all modern scientists who have the courage to
accept a rounded philosophical system. I must not, however, take leave
of my readers without pointing out in a conciliatory way that this
strenuous opposition may be toned down to a certain degree on clear
and logical reflection--may, indeed, even be converted into a friendly
harmony. In a thoroughly logical mind, applying the highest principles
with equal force in the entire field of the cosmos--in both organic and
inorganic nature--the antithetical positions of theism and pantheism,
vitalism and mechanism, approach until they touch each other.
Unfortunately, consecutive thought is a rare phenomenon in nature. The
great majority of philosophers are content to grasp with the right hand
the pure knowledge that is built on experience, but they will not part
with the mystic faith based on revelation, to which they cling with the
left. The best type of this contradictory dualism is the conflict of
pure and practical reason in the critical philosophy of the most famous
of modern thinkers, Immanuel Kant.
On the other hand, the number is always small of the thinkers who
will boldly reject dualism and embrace pure monism. That is equally
true of consistent idealists and theists, and of logical realists and
pantheists. However, the reconciliation of these apparent antitheses,
and, consequently, the advance towards the solution of the fundamental
riddle of the universe, is brought nearer to us every year in the
ever-increasing growth of our knowledge of nature. We may, therefore,
express a hope that the approaching twentieth century will complete
the task of resolving the antitheses, and, by the construction of a
system of pure monism, spread far and wide the long-desired unity
of world-conception. Germany's greatest thinker and poet, whose one
hundred and fiftieth anniversary will soon be upon us--Wolfgang
Goethe--gave this "philosophy of unity" a perfect poetic expression,
at the very beginning of the century, in his immortal poems, _Faust_,
_Prometheus_, and _God and the World_:
"By eternal laws
Of iron ruled,
Must all fulfil
The cycle of
Their destiny."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] There are two English translations, _The Evolution of Man_ (1879)
and _The Pedigree of Man_ (1880).
[2] The English translation, by Dr. Hans Gadow, bears the title of _The
Last Link_.
[3] English translation, by J. Gilchrist, with the title of _Monism_.
[4] E. Haeckel, _Systematische Phylogenie_, 1895, vol. iii., pp.
646-50. (Anthropolatry means "A divine worship of human nature.")
[5] Cf. my Cambridge lecture, _The Last Link_, "Geological Time and
Evolution."
[6] As to induction and deduction, _vide_ _The Natural History of
Creation_.
[7] Rudolph Virchow, _Die Gründung der Berliner Universität und der
Uebergang aus dem Philosophischen in das naturwissenschaftliche
Zeitalter_. (Berlin; 1893.)
[8] Cf. chap. iv. of my _General Morphology_, 1866; _Kritik der
naturwissenschaftlichen Methoden_.
[9] _Systematische Phylogenie_, 1896, part iii., pp. 490, 494, and 496.
[10] Translated in the International Science Series, 1872.
[11] _Zell-Seelen und Seelen-Zellen._ Ernst Haeckel, _Gesammelte
populäre Vorträge. I. Heft._ 1878.
[12] Cf. E. Haeckel, _The Systems of Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck_.
Lecture given at Eisenach in 1882.
[13] _Vide_ the translation of Dr. Hans Gadow: _The Last Link_. (A. &
C. Black.)
[14] Cf. Max Verworn, _Psychophysiologische Protisten-Studien_, pp.
135, 140.
[15] E. Haeckel, "General Natural History of the Radiolaria"; 1887.
[16] _Vide Natural History of Creation_, E. Haeckel.
[17] Law of individual variation. _Vide_ _Natural History of Creation_.
[18] Cf. E. Haeckel, _Systematic Phylogeny_, vol. i.
[19] Cf. _Anthropogeny_ and _Natural History of Creation_.
[20] Cf. _Natural History of Creation_.
[21] See chaps. xvi. and xvii. of my _Anthropogeny_.
[22] E. Haeckel, _A Visit to Ceylon_.
[23] Cf. _Monism_, by Ernst Haeckel.
[24] Cf. _Monism_, by Ernst Haeckel.
[25] Cf. _Monism_, by Ernst Haeckel.
[26] Reinke, _Die Welt als That_ (1899).
[27] Cf. _Monism_, by Ernst Haeckel.
[28] _The Last Link_, translated by Dr. Gadow.
[29] _General Morphology_, book 2, chap. v.
[30] Cf. _General Morphology_, vol. ii., and _The Natural History of
Creation._
[31] _Vide_ _A Visit to Ceylon_, E. Haeckel, translated by C. Bell.
[32] _Collected Popular Lectures_; Bonn, 1878.
[33] As to the Greek paternity of Christ, _vide_ p. 328.
[34] Cf. _The Natural History of Creation_, chaps. iii., vi., xv., and
xvi.
INDEX
Abiogenesis, 257, 369.
Abortive organs, 264.
Accidents, 216.
Acrania, 166.
Action at a distance, 217.
Actualism, 249.
Æsthesis, 225.
Affinity, 224.
Altruism, 350.
Amphibia, 167.
Amphimixis, 141.
Ampitheism, 278.
Ananke, 272.
Anatomy, 22, etc.
comparative, 24.
Anaximander, 289, 379.
Anthropism, 11.
Anthropistic illusion, 14, etc.
world-theory, 13.
Anthropocentric dogma, 11, etc.
Anthropogeny, 83.
Anthropolatric dogma, 12.
Anthropomorpha, 36.
Anthropomorphic dogma, 12.
Apes, 36, 37, 167.
anthropoid, 37.
Archæus, 43.
Archigony, 257.
Aristotle, 23, 268.
Association, centres of, 183.
of ideas, 121.
of presentations, 121, 122.
Astronomy, progress of, 366.
Astro-physics, 368.
Atavism, 142.
Athanatism, 189.
Athanatistic illusions, 205.
Atheism, 290.
Atheistic science, 260.
Atom, the, 222.
Atomism, 223.
Atomistic consciousness, 187.
Attributes of ether, 227.
of substance, 216.
Augustine of Hippo, 130.
Auricular confession, 319, 359.
Autogony, 257.
Baer (Carl Ernst), 57.
Bastian (Adolf), 103.
Beginning of the world, 240, 247.
Bible, the, 282, 362.
Biogenesis, 257.
Biogenetic law, 81, 143.
Bismarck, 334.
Blastoderm, 150, 155.
Blastosphere, 153.
Blastula, 153.
Bruno (Giordano), 290, 317.
Büchner (Ludwig), 93.
Buddhism, 326, 355.
Calvin, 130.
Canonical gospels, 312.
Carbon as creator, 256.
theory, 257.
Catarrhinæ, 35.
Catastrophic theory, 74.
Categorical imperative, 350.
Causes, efficient, 258.
final, 258.
Celibacy, 358.
Cell-love, 137.
community, soul of the, 155.
soul, 151.
state, 157.
Cellular pathology, 50.
physiology, 48.
psychology, 153, 177.
theory, 26.
Cenobitic soul, 155.
Cenogenesis, 82.
of the psyche, 144.
Chance, 274.
Chemicotropism, 64, 136.
Chordula, 64.
Chorion, 68.
Christ, father of, 327.
Christian art, 339.
civilization, 356.
contempt of the body, 354.
animals, 355.
nature, 355.
self, 353.
the family, 357.
woman, 358.
ethics, 352.
Christianity, 347.
Church and school, 362.
state, 361.
Cnidaria, 161.
Conception, 64.
Concubinage of the clergy, 358.
Confession of faith, 302.
Consciousness, 170.
animal, 176.
atomistic, 178.
biological, 176.
cellular, 177.
development of, 185.
dualistic, 182.
human, 173.
monistic, 182.
neurological, 174.
ontogeny of, 186.
pathology of, 182.
physiological, 180.
transcendental, 180.
Constancy of energy, 212, 231.
matter, 212.
Constantine the Great, 316.
Constellations of substance, 218.
Conventional lies, 323.
Copernicus, 24, 320, 367.
Cosmic immortality, 191.
Cosmogonies, 234.
Cosmological dualism, 257.
creationism, 235.
law, 211.
perspective, 14.
Cosmos, the, 229.
Creation, 73, 79, 234.
cosmological, 235.
dualistic, 236.
heptameral, 237.
individual, 237.
myths of, 236.
periodic, 237.
trialistic, 237.
Cultur-kampf, 334.
Cuvier, 74.
Cyclostomata, 167.
Cynopitheci, 46.
Cytology, 26, etc.
Cytopsyche, 151.
Cytula, 64.
Darwin (Charles), 78, etc.
Decidua, 69.
Deduction, 16.
Demonism, 276.
Descartes, 99, 355.
Descent of the ape, 85, etc.
of man, 87.
theory of, 77.
Design, 264, 266.
in nature, 260.
in organisms, 266.
in selection, 261.
Destruction of heavenly bodies, 243.
Determinists, 130.
Diaphragm, 31.
Division of labor in matter, 229.
Draper, 309, 333.
Dualism, 20, etc.
Du Bois-Reymond, 15 180, 235.
Du Prel (Carl), 305.
Duty, feeling of, 350.
Dynamodes, 216.
Dysteleology, 260.
Echinodermata, 62.
Ectoderm, 160.
sense-cells in the, 293.
Egoism, 350.
Elements, chemical, 222.
system of the, 222.
Embryo, human, 64.
Embryology, 54.
Embryonic psychogeny, 144.
sleep, 146.
Empedocles, 23, 224.
Encyclica (of Pius IX.), 323.
End of the world, 247.
Energy, kinetic, 231.
potential, 231.
principle of, 230.
specific, 294.
Entelecheia, 268.
Entoderm, 160.
Entropy of the universe, 247.
Epigenesis, 56, 133.
Ergonomy of matter, 229.
Eternity of the world, 242.
Ether, 225.
Etheric souls, 199.
Ethics, fundamental law of, 350.
Evolution, theory of, 54, 239, 243.
chief element in, 267.
Experience, 16.
Extra-mundane God, 288.
Faith, confession of, 303.
of our fathers, 304.
Family, the, and Christianity, 357.
Fate, 272.
Fechner, 97, etc.
Fecundation, 63.
Fetishism, 276.
Feuerbach (Ludwig), 295.
Flechsig, 183.
Foetal membranes, 66.
Folk-psychology, 103.
Forces, conversion of, 231.
Frederick the Great, 194, 315.
Galen, 23, 40.
Gaseous souls, 199.
vertebrates, 288.
Gastræa, 160.
theory of the, 60.
Gastræads, 159.
Gastrula, 61.
Gegenbaur, 25, 30.
Generation, theory of, 55.
Genus, 73.
Geology, periods of, 270.
progress of, 373.
Germinal disk, 57.
Gills, 65.
God, 275.
the father, 277.
the son, 277, 328.
Goethe, 20, etc.
Goethe's monism, 331.
Golden Rule, the, 351.
Gospels, 312.
Gravitation, theory of, 217.
Gut-layer, 159.
Haller, 42.
Harvey, 42.
Helmholtz (Hermann), 213, 230.
Heredity, psychic, 138.
Hertz (Heinrich), 225.
Hippocrates, 23.
Histology, 26.
Histopsyche, 156.
Hoff (Carl), 250.
Holbach (Paul), 193.
Holy Ghost, 277, 326.
Humboldt (Alexander), 343.
Hydra, 161.
Hylozoism, 289.
Hypothesis, 299.
Iatrochemicists, 45.
Iatromechanicists, 45.
Ideal of beauty, 338.
of truth, 337.
of virtue, 339.
Ignorabimus, 180.
Immaculate conception, 326.
Immaterial substance, 221.
Immortality of animals, 201.
of the human soul, 188.
of unicellular organisms, 190.
personal, 192.
Imperfection of nature, 264.
Imponderable matter, 225.
Impregnation, 64.
Indeterminists, 130.
Induction, 16.
Indulgences, 359.
Infallibility of the pope, 324.
Instinct, 105, 123.
Intellect, 125, etc.
Intramundane God, 288.
Introspective psychology, 95.
Islam, 284.
Janssen (Johannes), 316.
Jehovah, 283.
Journeys on foot, 364.
Kant, 258, etc.
Kant's metamorphosis, 92, etc.
Kinetic energy, 231.
theory of substance, 216.
Kölliker, 26, 48.
Lamarck, 76, etc.
Lamettrie, 194.
Landscape-painting, 343.
Language, 126.
study of, 363.
Last judgment, 209.
Lavoisier, 212.
Leap of the gospels, miraculous, 312.
Leydig, 27.
Life, definition of, 39.
Limits of our knowledge, 182.
Love, 357.
of animals, 355.
of neighbor, 350.
of self, 350.
Lucretius Carus, 290.
Lunarism, 281.
Luther, 320.
Lyell, 77, 250.
Madonna, cult of the, 284, 327.
Malphigi, 54.
Mammals, 30, etc.
Mammary glands, 31.
Man, ancestors of, 82.
Marsupials, 32, 86.
Mass, 222.
Materialism, 20.
Mayer (Robert), 213, 377.
Mechanical causality, 366.
explanation, 259.
theory of heat, 247.
Mechanicism, 259.
Mediterranean religions, the, 282.
Memory, cellular, 12O.
conscious, 121.
histionic, 121.
unconscious, 121.
Mephistopheles, 279.
Metabolism, 232.
Metamorphoses of the cosmos, 372.
of philosophers, 92.
Metaphyta, 156.
Metasitism, 153.
Metazoa, 60, 157.
Middle Ages, 315, 358.
Mixotheism, 286.
Mohammedanism, 284.
Mohr (Friedrich), 213.
Monera, 257, 369.
Monism, 20, and _passim_.
of energy, 254.
of Spinoza, 331.
of the cosmos, 255.
Monistic anthropogeny, 252.
art, 341.
biogeny, 251.
churches, 345.
cosmology, 368.
ethics, 347.
geogeny, 248.
Monotheism, 279.
Monotrema, 32.
Moon-worship, 281.
Moral order of the universe, 269.
Morula, 155.
Mosaism, 283.
Müller (Johannes), 25, 45, 262.
Mythology of the soul, 135.
Natural religion, 344.
Navel-cord, 69.
Neokantians, 349.
Neovitalism, 264.
Neptunian geology, 375.
Neuro-muscular cells, 114.
Neuroplasm, 91, 109.
Neuropsyche, 162.
Nomocracy, 9.
Ontogenetic psychology, 103.
Ontological creationism, 235.
methods, 249.
Orbits of the heavenly bodies, 241.
Origin of movement, 15, 241.
of feeling, 15, 241.
Ovary, 63.
Palingenesis, 82.
of the psyche, 143.
Pandera (the father of Christ), 328.
Pantheism, 288.
Papacy, 314.
Papal ethics, 359.
Papiomorpha, 37.
Paul, 313, 357.
epistles of, 312.
Paulinism, 313.
Pedicle of the allantois, 69.
Perpetual motion, 245.
Persistence of force, 212, 231.
of matter, 212.
Phroneta, 293.
Phylogeny, 71, 81.
of the apes, 51.
systematic, 81.
Physiology, 39.
Phytopsyche, 157.
Pithecanthropus, 87.
Pithecoid theory, 82, etc.
Pithecometra-thesis, 69, 85.
Placenta, 32, 68.
Placentals, 32, 86.
Plasmodoma, 153.
Plasmogony, 257.
Plasmophaga, 154.
Plato, 99, 197.
Plato's theory of ideas, 269.
Platodaria, 160.
Platodes, 160.
Platyrrhinæ, 35.
Pneuma zoticon, 40.
Polytheism, 276.
Ponderable matter, 222.
Preformation theory, 54.
Primaria, 33.
Primates, 33, 86.
Primitive Christianity, 311.
gut, 61, 161.
Prodynamis, 216.
Progaster, 161.
Proplacentals, 85.
Prosimiæ, 34.
Prostoma, 161.
Prothyl, 223.
Protoplasm, 90.
Protozoa, 60.
Provertebræ, 166.
Pseudo-Christianity, 321.
Psychade theory, 178.
Psyche, 88.
Psychogeny, 135.
phyletic, 149.
post-embryonic, 146.
Psychology, 88 et seqq.
ontogenetic, 104.
phylogenetic, 104.
Psychomonism, 226.
Psychophysics, 97.
Psychoplasm, 91, 110.
Pupa, sleep of the, 146.
Pyknosis, 218.
Pyknotic theory of substance, 218.
Reason, 17, 125.
Reflex action, 112.
arches, 114.
Reformation, the, 319.
Religion a private concern, 361.
Remak, 58.
Revelation, 306.
Reversion, 142.
Romance of the Virgin Mary, 327.
Romanes, 106.
Rudimentary organs, 264.
Saints, 284.
Scale of emotion, 127.
of memory, 120.
of movement, 111.
of presentation, 118.
of reason, 122.
of reflex action, 113.
of will, 127.
Scatulation theory, 55.
Schleiden, 26, 47.
School, and Church, 361.
and State, 362.
reform of the, 363.
Schwann, 26, 47.
Selachii, 166.
Selection, theory of, 79.
Self-consciousness, 171.
Sense-knowledge, 297.
organs, 293.
Senses, philosophy of the, 295.
Sentiment, 17, etc., 331.
Siebold, 27.
Simiæ, 34.
Social duties, 351.
instincts, 350.
Solar systems, 241, 369.
Solarism, 280.
Soul, 88 _et seqq._
apparatus of the, 162.
blending of the, 141.
creation of the, 135.
division of the, 135.
etheric, 199.
gaseous, 199.
histionic, 157.
history of the, 167.
hydra, 161.
life of the, 90.
liquid, 200.
mammal, 167.
nerve, 162.
origin of the, 135.
of the plant, 157.
personal, 162.
solid, 201.
substance of the, 198.
transmigration of the, 135.
Sources of knowledge, 293.
Space and time, 244.
infinity of, 242.
reality of, 244.
Species, 73.
Spectral analysis, 241.
Spermarium, 63.
Spermatozoa, 58.
Spinal cord, 165.
Spinoza, 21, 215, 290.
Spirit world, 221.
Spirit-rapping, 305.
Spiritism, 304.
Spiritualism, 20.
Sponge, soul of the, 161.
Stem-cell, 63, 138, 151.
Stimulated movement, 113, 116.
Stimuli, conduction of, 158.
Strauss (David), 309, 313.
Struggle for life, 270.
Substance, 215.
law of, 211, etc.
structure of, 229.
Superstition, 301.
Süss (Edward), 250.
Syllabus, 323.
Synodikon (of Pappus), 312.
Table-turning, 305.
Teleological explanation, 259.
Teleology, 258.
Tetrapoda, 29.
Thanatism, 189.
primary, 192.
secondary, 192.
Theism, 276.
Theocracy, 9.
Theory, 299.
Thought, organs of, 126, 183, 293.
Time and space, 244.
reality of, 246.
Tissue, theory of, 26.
Tissue-forming animals, 157.
plants, 156.
Transformism, 76.
Trimurti, 278.
Trinity, dogma of the, 277.
monistic, 336.
Triplotheism, 277.
Tropesis, 225.
Tropismata, 128.
Tunicata, 165.
Turbellaria, 161.
Ultramontanism, 310.
Understanding, 125.
Unity of natural forces, 231.
of substance, 214.
Universum perpetuum mobile, 245.
Uterus, 34.
Vaticanism, 314.
Vertebrates, 27, _passim_.
Verworn (Max), 48, 116.
Vesalius, 24.
Vibration, theory of, 216.
Virchow, 26, 50.
Virchow's metamorphosis, 93.
Vital force, 42, 262.
Vitalism, 43, 262.
Vivisection, 41.
Vogt (Carl), 93.
Vogt (J.E.), 218.
Water-color drawing, 364.
Weismann, 190.
Will, liberty of the, 129.
scale of the, 128.
Wolff (C.F.), 56.
Woman and Christianity, 358.
World-consciousness, 171.
World-riddles, number of, 15.
Wundt (Wilhelm), 100, 171.
THE END
Transcriber's notes:
The following is a list of changes made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
(12) Consequently, the so-called history of the world"
(12) Consequently, the so-called "history of the world"
structure of the primates forces us to distingiush two
structure of the primates forces us to distinguish two
of the geneaology of our race; for man bears all the
of the genealogy of our race; for man bears all the
world of which we have direct and certain cognizanze
world of which we have direct and certain cognizance
the law of substance by Robert Mayer and Helmholz
the law of substance by Robert Mayer and Helmholtz
The more impotant of these works we owe to Romanes
The more important of these works we owe to Romanes
Formerly assistant and pupil of Helmholz, Wundt had early
Formerly assistant and pupil of Helmholtz, Wundt had early
all other viviporous animals, precisely because the complete
all other viviparous animals, precisely because the complete
recent students of the protists, afford conlcusive evidence
recent students of the protists, afford conclusive evidence
a thinker is very striking; in explaning it, it is not
a thinker is very striking; in explaining it, it is not
"have no individuals and no generations in the matazoic sense."
"have no individuals and no generations in the metazoic sense."
in his _Species and Studies_ in his eighty-fouth year
in his _Species and Studies_ in his eighty-fourth year
Chief Forms of Theism--Polytheism--Tritheism--Ampitheism
Chief Forms of Theism--Polytheism--Triplotheism--Amphitheism
faith, and that all these insiduous institutions are
faith, and that all these insidious institutions are
nor in the narnow prisons of our jail-like schools,
nor in the narrow prisons of our jail-like schools,
And it was done in many, and sometimes very romatic, ways.
And it was done in many, and sometimes very romantic, ways.