{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48180/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48180","id":"gutenberg_48180","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48180","summary":null,"tags":["Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Haeckel, Ernst, 1834-1919","Maeterlinck, Maurice, 1862-1949","Metchnikoff, Elie, 1845-1916","Ostwald, Wilhelm, 1853-1932","Poincar\u00e9, Henri, 1854-1912"],"text":"MAJOR PROPHETS\n\nOF TO-DAY\n\nBY\n\nEDWIN E. SLOSSON, M.S., PH.D.\n\n\nLITERARY EDITOR OF \"THE INDEPENDENT\"\n\nASSOCIATE IN THE COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM\n\nAUTHOR OF \"GREAT AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES,\" ETC\n\n\nBOSTON\n\nLITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY\n\n1916\n\n\n\n                              TO MY WIFE\n                          MAY PRESTON SLOSSON\n                WHO WAS THE COMPANION OF MY PILGRIMAGE\n                           TO THE OLD WORLD\n                       IN SEARCH OF NEW PROPHETS\n                              THIS VOLUME\n                      IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Maeterlinck]\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nEach age has its own prophets, men who bring to it distinctive messages\nand present them in such effective form as to sway the currents of\ncontemporary thought. No age perhaps has had more diverse theories\nof life and the meaning of things presented to it than our own, and\ncertainly none has ever given such an opportunity for the original\nthinker to reach quickly a world-wide audience as he can now through\nthe medium of cheap books and free schools.\n\nThis volume originated in my own desire to find out what was being\nsaid by certain persons who, I had reason to believe, were worth\nattention. But unless one is abnormally selfish, he always wants to\nintroduce others to an interesting acquaintance. It is then simply as\nintroductions that I would wish the following chapters to be taken.\nIn one way or another such men are influencing the thought of all of\nus, but since we mostly get their philosophy at second hand--or at\nthird, fourth, or nth hand--we fail to recognize its origin and are apt\nto misconceive its intent. Ideas that reach us in fragmentary form,\nand often after multiple translation through minds sometimes alien\nor hostile, are not very useful. It is always safer to drink at the\nsource. I have endeavored to give some idea of the scope and character\nof each man's work, so that the reader may judge for himself whether\nit is profitable for him to follow up the acquaintance. If he does, he\nwill find at the end of the chapter directions how to proceed further.\n\nWe imagine we can understand a man better if we can see his face,\neven his photograph. This may be a superstition, but, if so, it\nis a superstition worth deferring to by one who aspires to be an\ninterpreter. So in the summer of 1910 I went to see the six men\nincluded in this first volume in their homes, not with the hope of\ngetting any new and unpublished opinions, not with the expectation of\ngaining a personal acquaintance that would give me any deeper insight\ninto their mental processes, but merely to convince myself that they\nare flesh and blood, instead of paper and ink. If I can convince the\nreader of this, my purpose will be accomplished.\n\nIn the choice of names to be included in the list, I was guided\nprimarily by the idea that I should be most likely to interest others\nin the men who have most interested me. Since the object of the book\nis to serve as an introduction to the works of the authors, not as a\nsubstitute for them, the choice was limited to those who have given\nexpression to their philosophical views in a sufficiently popular form\nto be attractive to the general reader. It was necessary to select\nrepresentatives of diverse types of thought, and it was not possible\nto confine the choice to the philosophical profession, for in our day\nphilosophy has escaped from its classroom and often displays more\nactivity outside than in it. So I have included men of science and\nletters as well as philosophers of the chair.\n\nThe group comprised in this volume includes: Maurice Maeterlinck,\ndramatist and essayist, interpreter of the animate and inanimate world;\nHenri Bergson, of the Coll\u00e8ge de France, whose intuitive philosophy\nhas been introduced into America by the late William James; Henri\nPoincar\u00e9, of the French Academy, mathematician and astronomer; \u00c9lie\nMetchnikoff, director of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, author\nof studies in optimistic philosophy; Wilhelm Ostwald, of Leipzig\nUniversity, recipient of the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1909, founder\nof the _Annals of Natural Philosophy_, and Ernst Haeckel, of Jena\nUniversity, veteran zo\u00f6logist, champion of Darwinism and Monism, author\nof the \"Riddle of the Universe.\"\n\nIn large part the chapters of this volume have appeared in the\n_Independent_ during the last three years in a series under the general\ntitle of \"Twelve Major Prophets of To-day\", which includes similar\narticles on Rudolf Eucken, Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton,\nF. C. S. Schiller, and John Dewey, and I am indebted to that periodical\nfor the privilege of book publication.\n\n                                             EDWIN E. SLOSSON.\nNEW YORK,\n   March 1, 1914.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n     I. MAURICE MAETERLINCK\n    II. HENRI BERGSON\n   III. HENRI POINCAR\u00c9\n    IV. \u00c9LIE METCHNIKOFF\n     V. WILHELM OSTWALD\n    VI. ERNST HAECKEL\n\n\nLIST OF PORTRAITS\n\n\n    MAURICE MAETERLINCK\n    HENRI BERGSON\n    HENRI POINCAR\u00c9\n    \u00c9LIE METCHNIKOFF\n    WILHELM OSTWALD\n    ERNST HAECKEL\n\n\n\n\nMAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nMAURICE MAETERLINCK\n\n\n    Let us not forget that we live in pregnant and decisive\n    times. It is probable that our descendants will envy us the\n    dawn through which, without knowing it, we are passing, just\n    as we envy those who took part in the age of Pericles, in\n    the most glorious days of Roman greatness and in certain\n    hours of the Italian Renascence. The splendid dust that\n    clouds the great movements of men shines brightly in the\n    memory, but blinds those who raise it and breathe it,\n    hiding from them the direction of their road and, above\n    all, the thought, the necessity or the instinct that leads\n    them.--\"The Double Garden.\"\n\n\nIt was half past seven in the morning of my last possible day in\nParis, when the maid brought on the tray with my chocolate, a blue\nenvelope addressed in the business-like writing of Maeterlinck; the\nlong expected and at last despaired of note confirming the invitation\nreceived in America to visit him at the Abbey of St. Wandrille, and\nsetting five P.M. as the time. No chocolate for me that morning. The\nconcierge and I put our heads together over a French railway guide,\nmore baffling than Bullinger's, and we made up our minds that a train\nstarted in that direction at nine, although where and when it made\nconnections we neither of us could make out. From Rouen on, I would\nhave to trust to luck, or to the Government railway service--much the\nsame thing.\n\nThe Gare St. Lazare is a long way from the Latin Quarter when one has\ngot to make a train, but the cabman said he would make it, and he did.\nAt Rouen, I discovered that in the course of the day one could get to\nBarentin, and from Barentin, a deliberate and occasional train went\nto St. Wandrille. But when I got to Barentin I found that the train\nwas not going till the following day. It was getting near tea time\nand Maeterlinck seventeen miles away! Barentin would, under other\ncircumstances, have interested me on account of the incompatibility\nof temper between the town and its environment, a cotton-spinning,\nsocialistic population in the midst of an ultra-Catholic agricultural\ncommunity. But as I strolled about, I took no interest in anything\nuntil I came to a little automobile repair shop. Here I found a young\nman who knew where he could find a machine and promised to get me to\nSt. Wandrille in time for tea, or burst a tire.\n\nIt was a joy ride certainly, in one sense of the word, and, I suspect,\nin two. The road, such a road as we rarely see in this country, wound\naround the hills overlooking the valley through which the Seine twisted\nits way to the sea. The banks were flooded with the July rains, and\nthe poplars were up to their knees in water. We gradually left behind\nus the smart brick houses of the new cotton aristocracy, and came into\nthe older stone age. Along the railroad, as I was sorry to see, the\nmeadows were beginning to grow the most noxious of American weeds, big\nadvertising signs, but we soon escaped them, and saw around us only the\ngrass and fields through the double row of trees that lined the road.\n\nAs we got away from town, my extemporized chauffeur made better time,\nand under the stimulus of the acceleration, I recited passages of\nMaeterlinck's dithyramb to \"Speed\", for he was the first to perceive\npoetry in the automobile:\n\n    The pace grows faster and faster, the delirious wheels cry\n    aloud in their gladness. And at first the road comes moving\n    toward me, like a bride waving palms, rhythmically keeping\n    time to some joyous melody. But soon it grows frantic,\n    springs forward and throws itself madly upon me, rushing\n    under the car like a furious torrent whose foam lashes my\n    face.... Now the road drops sheer into the abyss, and the\n    magical carriage rushes ahead of it. The trees, that for so\n    many slow-moving years have serenely dwelt on its borders,\n    shrink back in dread of disaster. They seem to be hastening\n    one to the other, to approach their green heads, and in\n    startled groups to debate how to bar the way of the strange\n    apparition. But as this rushes onward they take panic, and\n    scatter and fly, each one quickly seeking its own habitual\n    place; and as I pass they bend tumultuously forward, and\n    their myriad leaves, quick to the mad joy of the force that\n    is chanting its hymn, murmur in my ears the voluble psalm of\n    space, acclaiming and greeting the enemy that hitherto has\n    always been conquered but now at last triumphs: Speed.\n\nAfterward, when I recalled this essay to Maeterlinck, he laughed\nheartily and said he had written it when he had only a three-horse\npower automobile, one of the first kind made and altogether unreliable.\nNow he has a big one; also a motor cycle with which he makes fifty\nmiles an hour, but I do not know that he is writing prose poems on the\nmotor cycle yet. He is likely to be the first to do it, though, unless\nRostand or Kipling get ahead of him, as they have in literary aviation:\nRostand with a sonnet on the biplane and Kipling with his \"Night Mail\",\nwherein he invents and teaches a new technical vocabulary without\nslackening speed. No wonder Kipling got the Nobel prize for idealistic\nliterature. Maeterlinck, who received the same prize in 1911, deserved\nit on the same ground, for he, too, is entitled to write after his name\nthe degree of M. M., Master of Machinery.\n\nWith the help of the machine, I got to the little village of St.\nWandrille even before the appointed hour, so I had time to drop into\nthe queer old church. This is a favorite resort of pilgrims from all\nover Normandy and not undeserving of its repute, if one may judge from\nthe crutches, canes, and votive tablets left behind by those who have\nbeen cured or blessed. Ever since 684 a.d., when Wandregisilus left\nthe French court and founded this retreat in the forest by the Seine,\nit has been noted for its relics. The ossuary department indeed makes\na fine display; skulls, thigh bones, vertebr\u00e6, and phalanges, all laid\nout under glass and labeled neatly, as in a museum. Thirty saints I\ncounted, some familiar like St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Clotilde, St.\nGenevieve, and St. Wulfranc. But most of those represented by relics\nor wooden statues were quite outside the range of my hagiography--St.\nFirmin, St. Mien, St. Vilmir, St. Wilgeforte, St. Pantoleon, and St.\nHerbland.\n\nThe village church is too modern to interest any one but an American.\nThe old abbey, dating in part from the twelfth century, and belonging\nnow to Maeterlinck, is across the road. Ringing at the little arched\nportal in the wall, I was shown into the cloister; very familiar it\nseemed to me, for I had a photograph of it in my room at home, a\nphotograph showing three witches over a caldron, since it was taken\nwhen Maeterlinck's version of \"Macbeth\" was played here. \"The cloister\nof St. Wandrille is without doubt one of the most magnificent monuments\nof the kind that has escaped the vandalism of recent times\", says\nLanglois in the large volume he devoted to its architecture.[1] Until\nrecently the monastery was in the hands of the Benedictines, but they\nwere dispossessed by the French Government on the separation of Church\nand State in 1907, and the property offered for sale. It was about\nto be sold to a chemical syndicate for a factory, when Maeterlinck\nintervened and purchased it, possibly more to please his wife than\nhimself, for he is indifferent to surroundings, while she takes a keen\ndelight in an artistic stage setting, not merely for the plays she\nenacts, but for daily life. For thus saving the abbey from commercial\ndesecration, Maeterlinck received a parchment blessing from the Pope,\nbut his later use of it as a theater was quite as offensive to Catholic\nsentiment.\n\nCertainly no author has been housed more satisfactorily to his\nadmirers than Maeterlinck. He had, in fact, pictured it in his\nyouthful plays. It is a verification of his faith that a man creates\nhis own environment. The surrounding forest, the old house with its\nlong corridors, the garden where the broken pillars and arches of the\nburied temple appear here and there among the vines and flowers, are\nthe familiar scenes of all his dramas. All that is lacking is the\nsea, which is so often in his thoughts, and some dank, dark caves\nand dungeons underneath. But Maeterlinck does not need nowadays such\nsubterranean accessories, for he has passed through his Reign of\nTerror, and come up into the sunshine.\n\nIt is curious that a man who is so modernistic in mind and who has\nshown so unique a power to idealize the prosaic details of the life\nof to-day, should place all his dramas in the historical or legendary\npast. But he always views the past as a poet, not as an archaeologist,\ngiving merely some beautiful names and a suggestion as to scene\nsetting, and leaving it to the imagination of the reader to do the\nstage carpentering. Determinist though he is, no one, not even James\nor Bergson, has been more bold in repudiating the right of the past to\ncontrol our actions:\n\n    In reality, if we think of it, the past belongs to us quite\n    as much as the present, and is far more malleable than the\n    future. Like the present, and to a much greater extent than\n    the future, its existence is all in our thoughts, and our\n    hand controls it; nor is this true only of our material\n    past, wherein there are ruins that we perhaps can restore,\n    but also of those regions that are closed to our tardy\n    desire for atonement, and, above all, of our moral past, and\n    of what we consider to be most irreparable there.\n\n    \"The past is past\", we say, and it is not true; the past is\n    always present. \"We have to bear the burden of our past\",\n    we sigh; and it is not true; the past bears our burden.\n    \"Nothing can wipe out the past\", and it is not true; the\n    least effort of will sends present and future traveling\n    over the past, to efface whatever we bid them efface. \"The\n    indestructible, irreparable, immutable past!\" And that is\n    no truer than the rest. In those who speak thus it is the\n    present that is immutable and knows not how to repair. \"My\n    past is wicked, it is sorrowful, empty\", we say again, \"as\n    I look back I can see no moment of beauty, or happiness or\n    love; I see nothing but wretched ruins....\" And that is not\n    true, for you behold precisely what you yourself place'\n    there at the moment your eyes rest upon it.[2]\n\nWhile I was wandering in the cloister, puzzling over battered saints\nand mossy gargoyles, any disposition I may have felt toward monastic\nmeditation was dissipated by the appearance of a woman, not merely a\nwoman, but a modern woman, one who has gained vitality and initiative\nwithout losing the feminine graces, \"the virile friend and equal\ncomrade\", as Maeterlinck calls her. Her costume was not inharmonious\nwith the surroundings, for it was vaguely medieval in appearance--a\nhooded robe of some heavy blue stuff, falling in long straight folds to\nher feet.\n\nIt is not necessary to describe Madame Georgette Leblanc Maeterlinck,\nfor Maeterlinck himself has done that, sketching equally her virtues\nand failings with a loving hand.[3] Her powerful influence over his\nthought he gratefully acknowledges in the prefaces to his essays,\nand shows it by the frequent references in them to her opinions and\npersonality. Monna Vanna, Joyzelle, and Mary Magdalene are r\u00f4les\nwritten for her. We can tell when she came into Maeterlinck's life\nby the appearance of \"the new woman\" in his dramas; Aglavaine, who\ninvoluntarily overshadows and displaces the frail and timid S\u00e9lysette,\nAriane, the last wife of Blue Beard, who releases his other wives from\nthe secret chamber where they were confined, not killed as earlier\nrumor had it. The imprisoned sisterhood, who are, by the way, the\nan\u00e6mic heroines of Maeterlinck's earlier period, S\u00e9lysette, M\u00e9lisande,\nYgraine, Bellang\u00e8re, and Alladine, refuse to follow Ariane to freedom;\nthey prefer to stay with Blue Beard, so she goes out alone. But she\ndoes not slam the door like Nora in \"The Doll's House.\" It is not\nnecessary nowadays to slam the door.\n\nMadame Maeterlinck shows me the places she picked out for the scenes\nof \"Pell\u00e9as and M\u00e9lisande\", for she is the inventor of a new form of\ndramatic art based on the discovery that audiences are easier moved\nabout than castles, trees, and hills. Only the weather she cannot\ncontrol, and the pathetic drama was played appropriately though\ninconveniently in a rainstorm.[4] The ancient refectory which she used\nas the banquet hall in \"Macbeth\" was large enough to seat four hundred\nBenedictine monks at table. It is roofed and paneled with carved wood\nand lighted by a row of large pointed windows set with bits of very old\nstained glass.\n\nHere we are soon joined by M. Maeterlinck, a sturdy figure in Norfolk\njacket and knickerbockers, for he is just in from a tramp in the woods\nwith his dog. No, the dog was not his friend, Pell\u00e9as. Pell\u00e9as, as you\nshould have remembered, died years ago, very young.\n\nSome say that Maeterlinck has a Flemish peasant face. Some say a\nFlemish bourgeois face. Not being familiar with the physiognomy of\neither the peasantry or the bourgeoisie of Flanders, I cannot decide\nthis delicate question. All I can say is that it is a face one could\ntrust, the face of a man one would like to have for a friend. The eyes,\nwide open and wide apart, are clear and steady. His hair is getting\ngray, and he has in recent years shaved off his mustache, showing his\nstraight, firm-set mouth and pleasant smile. His photographs do not do\nhim justice, for none of them show him smiling--neither do his books.\nEarly to bed and early to rise and much time spent in the open air have\ngiven him an erect carriage and a vigorous step. He is fond of boxing\nand has written an essay in praise of this sport.\n\nFrom the window of his study upstairs he points out to me his woodland\nstretching far up the hill, and he takes from his pocket the book\nthat has occupied his afternoon, a book of trout flies. But I am more\ninterested in other things, in the big work-table that occupies the\ncenter of the study, littered with papers, a typewriter on the corner\nof it. The wall opposite the window is lined with books, and as I\nglance over them I see his own plays and essays translated into half\na dozen languages, Carlyle's works, Vaughan's \"English Mystics\", and\nmany volumes of natural science, poetry, and philosophy. M. Maeterlinck\ndivines what I want most to see and takes down his Emerson, an old\none-volume edition, in excruciatingly fine print, but manifestly well\nread, with numerous underlinings and as much annotation as the narrow\nmargins would permit. It is curious that Emerson should have strongly\ninfluenced two such unlike men as Nietzsche and Maeterlinck.[5] But\nonly the latter acquired his finest attribute, serenity of spirit.\nMaeterlinck also resembles Thoreau in his love for nature, though he\nmakes no affectation of asceticism or hermitage.\n\nHe spends his summers only at the Abbaye de St. Wandrille. In the\nwinter he goes to the Riviera, to live with the bees and the flowers\nwhose language he speaks. His winter residence is at Les Quatre\nChemins, near Grasse, in the southeastern corner of the country. Here\nhe is even more secluded than at St. Wandrille. He prefers the country\nto the city, not because he has any aversion to people in mass or to\nthe mechanism of modern life, but because he dislikes lionization and\npublicity of all sorts. He would stifle in the atmosphere of a Parisian\nsalon. He belongs to none of the literary coteries combined for mutual\nadmiration and the reciprocal promotion of individual interests. He has\nnever been what Verlaine used to call a \"Cymbalist.\"\n\nAs a mystic philosopher Maeterlinck finds a flower in a crannied wall\nsufficient to give him a clew to the secrets of the universe. Modern\nscience, instead of killing mysticism, as was foreboded by despairing\npoets of the last century, has brought about a revival of it. This\nis quite natural, for mysticism is the verification of religion by\nthe experimental method, as ecclesiasticism is the verification of\nreligion by the historical method. The doctrine of evolution has given\nan intellectual basis and a richer content to the sense of the unity\nof nature, which is the force of mysticism. A weak poet, distrustful\nof his vision or of his own powers, fears science and flees from it.\nA great and courageous poet seizes science and turns it to his own\nuses. Tennyson and Sully-Prudhomme were among the first to perceive\nand to demonstrate the possibility of this. Maeterlinck, being of the\ngeneration born since the dawn of the scientific era, entered upon the\ninheritance of its wealth without having to pass through any storm and\nstress period to acquire it. No traces of the fretful antagonisms of\nthe nineteenth century disturb the equanimity of his essays. He sees no\nconflict between the scientific and poetic views of the world. He looks\nupon it with both eyes open and the two visions fuse into one solid\nreality.\n\nMaeterlinck has been a leader in that characteristic movement of\nthe twentieth century which might be called the reanimation of the\nuniverse. Time was, and was not so long ago but that most of us can\nremember it, when, terrified by the advance of science, man did not\ndare to call his soul his own. Naturally he denied a soul to the rest\nof the world. Animals were automatons; plants, of course, unconscious;\nand planets and machines out of the question. Nature was subjected to\na process succinctly to be described as deanthropomorphization. To\nnaturalists of the inanimate school an insect was not worth studying\nuntil it had a pin through it. Animals were only interesting when\nstuffed.\n\nNowadays naturalists are going back to nature. They are leaving the\nlaboratory for the woods. They have come to realize that studying\nzo\u00f6logy in a museum is like studying sociology in a cemetery. They have\ndiscovered that animals and plants possess not merely vitality, but\nindividuality, and since man's real interest in the world he looks down\nupon has always been, though he has often denied it, because he hoped\nto see himself there, a new school of fabulists has appeared who hold\nthe mirror of nature up to us as Esop and Pilpay did of old.\n\nAmong them there is no one, unless it be Kipling, who is the equal of\nMaeterlinck. Like Tyltyl, he wears the fairy button on his cap which,\nwhen touched, brings out the souls of things. And, as in \"The Blue\nBird\", the souls he has once released by the magic of his phrases from\ntheir material prisons do not get back again. They remain visible to\nus ever after; not merely the souls of the dog and the cat, but of the\nbee, the oak, the bread, and the automobile. He shows us the cat as a\ndiminutive but undomesticated tiger to whom we are nothing more than an\novergrown and uneatable prey. We see through his eyes the cultivated\nplants as our dumb slaves, for \"the rose and the corn, had they wings,\nwould fly at our approach like the birds.\"\n\nMaeterlinck has recently been testing the thinking horses of Eberfeld,\nthe successors of Kluge Hans, and convinced himself of their ability\nto spell and cipher, even to extract the square root of big numbers, a\nfeat which Maeterlinck says he himself could never learn at school. He\ndoes, however, draw the line at crediting the horses with telepathic\npowers.[6]\n\n\"The Blue Bird\" cannot escape comparison with its contemporary rival\non the stage, \"Chantecler\", but the similarity is superficial. They\nare as unlike in their philosophy as in their style. Maeterlinck has\nwritten a fairy story for children; Rostand a satire for grown people.\nMaeterlinck conceals his depth of thought under a dialogue of simple\nand artless prose. Rostand disguises his trivialities in elaborate and\nartificial versification. \"The Blue Bird\" is really the offspring of\n\"The Little White Bird\", Mendel to the contrary notwithstanding. But\nMaeterlinck lacks the delicious humor with which Barrie had depicted\nhis Peter Pan.\n\nWhether one who has read \"The Blue Bird\" will be disappointed when he\nsees it depends upon the vividness of his imagination. He will probably\nfind that he has in reading it failed to appreciate the humor of the\ngrotesque characterization of the minor characters, such as the Bread,\nDog, Cat, and Sugar, but on the other hand he will find that he has\npictured to himself such scenes as the Palace of Night and the Kingdom\nof the Future much more splendid and impressive than they appear on the\nstage. The play as performed at the New Theater in New York was not\nnearly so effective as at the Haymarket in London.\n\n\"The Blue Bird\" would go best as an opera. I wish somebody would set\nit to music. The very impressive song of the mothers welcoming their\nchildren shows how much music might add to it. Debussy's dreamy and\nformless harmonies suited \"Pell\u00e9as and M\u00e9lisande\", but the author of\nthe \"Domestic Symphony\" alone could do justice to this kitchen drama.\nOnly Strauss could fit Sugar and Milk with suitable motives, and give\nthe proper orchestration to the quarrels of Cat and Dog, and Fire and\nWater.\n\nWith Maeterlinck, personification is not accomplished through\nfalsification. His \"Life of the Bee\" is based on his own observation\nand wide reading, and is freer from error than many of the purely\nscientific books written on the subject. Such mistakes in fact, as he\nmakes, are accidental and never due to distortion or invention for the\npurpose of working in a poetic fancy or of pointing a moral. In fact,\nhe does not point a moral. His nature studies teach no lesson unless it\nis the great lesson of kinship with nature. He does not, like Kipling,\nwrite an animal story with the aim of amending the budget bill or\nchanging diplomatic relations. \"The Life of the Bee\" may be used as a\nsocialistic tract. It may also be used as an anti-socialistic tract.\n\"The spirit of the hive\", as he interprets it, attracts some people and\nrepels others. Lord Avebury, who is the leading English authority on\nants and bees, is the head of the society for opposing socialism.\n\nMaeterlinck is not one of those who set up animals on their hind legs\nto act as schoolmasters to men. He finds nowhere outside of ourselves,\nneither in the heavens above nor in the earth beneath, that justice in\nwhich mankind instinctively and inevitably believes. He is as largely\npragmatic as Sumner in his derivation of morality:\n\n    Between the external world and our actions there exists only\n    the simple and essentially non-moral relations of cause and\n    effect.\n\n    In the course of adapting ourselves to the laws of life we\n    have naturally been led to credit with our moral ideas those\n    principles of causality that we encounter most frequently.\n    And we have in this fashion created a very plausible\n    semblance of effective justice, which rewards or punishes\n    most of our actions in the degree that they approach, or\n    deviate from, certain laws that are essential for the\n    preservation of the race.\n\n    Within us there is a spirit that weighs only intentions;\n    without us a power that only balances deeds.[7]\n\nThis reads like a twentieth century supplement to Huxley's Romanes\naddress.\n\nMaeterlinck's sense of justice is more outraged by the calamities that\nresult from the carelessness and malevolence of man than the disasters\nof earthquake and tempest. We are strange lovers of an ideal justice,\nhe says; we who condemn three fourths of mankind to the misery of\npoverty and disease, and then complain of the injustice of impersonal\nnature. And in reading a story of the \"Arabian Nights\", he is struck\nby the fact that the women of the harem, creatures trained to vice and\ncondemned to slavery, give utterance to the highest moral precepts:\n\n    These women, who forever are pondering the loftiest,\n    grandest problems of justice, of the morality of men and of\n    nations, never throw one questioning glance on their own\n    fate, or for one instant suspect the abominable injustice\n    whereof they are victims. Nor do those suspect it either who\n    listen to them, and love and admire and understand them.\n    And we who marvel at this--we who also reflect on justice\n    and virtue, on pity and love--are we so sure that they who\n    come after us shall not some day find in our present social\n    condition a spectacle equally disconcerting and amazing.[8]\n\nMaeterlinck stands quite aloof from politics, but not because he is out\nof sympathy with the tendency of the times. He has faith in democracy\nin spite of his clear perception of its faults and dangers:\n\n    In those problems in which all life's enigmas converge, the\n    crowd which is wrong is almost always justified as against\n    the wise man who is right. It refuses to believe him on his\n    word. It feels dimly that behind the most evident abstract\n    truths there are numberless living truths which no brain\n    can foresee, for they need time, reality and men's passions\n    to develop their work. That is why, whatever warning we may\n    give it, whatever prediction we may make to it, the crowd\n    insists before all that the experiment shall be tried. Can\n    we say that, in cases where the crowd has obtained the\n    experiment, it was wrong to insist upon it?[9]\n\n    It would surely have been highly dangerous to confide the\n    destinies of the species to Plato or Aristotle, Marcus\n    Aurelius, Shakespeare or Montesquieu. At the very worst\n    moments of the French Revolution the fate of the people was\n    in the hands of philosophers of no mean order.[10]\n\nThe thoroughgoing character of his democracy is emphasized by Professor\nDewey in his lecture on \"Maeterlinck's Philosophy of Life\" delivered at\nColumbia University:\n\n\"Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Maeterlinck are thus far, perhaps, the only\nmen who have been habitually, and, as it were, instinctively, aware\nthat democracy is neither a form of government nor a social expediency,\nbut a metaphysic of the relation of man and his experience to nature;\namong these Maeterlinck has at least the advantage of greater\nillumination by the progress of natural science.\"\n\nThis democratic feeling seems to me to arise more from his mystical\nsense of the continuity of life than from personal disposition or\npolitical theory. In his earlier and more characteristic dramas,\nthe persons are hardly more than talking symbols. Their looks and\ncostumes are not described, either in the stage directions or in the\ndialogue. Their names--if he takes the trouble to give them names--are\nscarcely sufficient in some cases to indicate the sex. Their speech is\nlanguage reduced to its lowest elements, excessively simplified, in\nfact, and full of the repetitions and incoherencies common to stupid\nand uneducated people the world over. Maeterlinck himself calls them\n\"marionnettes\", and says that they have the appearance of half deaf\nsomnambulists just awakening from a painful dream.\n\nBut these puppet people are divested of individuality for the purpose\nof reducing them to the common denominator of humanity. They are\ndevoided of personal interest in order to prevent the attention of the\nspectator from being fixed upon them. They are made transparent so that\nwe may look through them and perceive the external forces which control\nthem. The dramatic poet, he says in the preface to his early dramas,\n\"must show us in what way, in what form, in what conditions, according\nto what laws, and to what end our destinies are controlled by the\nsuperior powers, the unintelligible influences, the infinite principles\nof which, in so far as he is a poet, he is persuaded that the universe\nis full.\"\n\nGreat poetry he regards as composed of three principal elements:\n\n    First, verbal beauty, then the contemplation and passionate\n    depiction of what really exists around us and in ourselves,\n    that is to say, nature and feeling, and, finally, enveloping\n    the entire work and creating its own atmosphere, the idea\n    which the poet has of the unknown in which float the beings\n    and things he evokes, of the mystery which dominates them\n    and judges them and presides over their destinies.\n\nThe critics were not altogether wrong when they called the characters\nof his earlier plays \"mere shadows.\" But a shadow exists only when a\nbright light is cast on a real object. Maeterlinck's purpose is to make\nPlato's cave men aware of the drama that is being enacted behind their\nbacks. The real action of these plays is not that seen on the stage.\nHis dramas contain their message written in secret ink between the\nlines, and it becomes visible only when warmed by the sympathy of the\nreader.\n\nThe performance of \"Macbeth\" at Saint-Wandrille had a double interest.\nIt introduced a novel form of the drama, and it added another to the\nmany attempts to put Shakespeare into French. This select and household\nentertainment might be called \"chamber pageantry\", because it bears\nsomewhat the same relation to the outdoor processionings now so popular\nas chamber music does to orchestral. Most of the incongruities which\nthe critics pointed out[11] are not inherent in the plan, but due to the\nfact that \"Macbeth\" is not adapted to such a setting any more than it\nis to the modern theater. Conceivably something more effective could be\ndone in this line if a new play were written to fit the place and the\nconditions of enactment, requirements certainly not more exigeant than\nthose of the Elizabethan stage. In this it would even be possible to\nkeep strictly to the three unities, and play the scenes appropriately\nindoors and out, in daylight and dark.\n\nMadame Georgette Leblanc-Maeterlinck has been, as wives are apt to be,\nboth a help and a hindrance to her husband.\n\nShe has inspired some of his best work and also embroiled him in\ninterminable controversies with theatrical managers. \"Monna Vanna\"\nwas written for her, so, very naturally, she wanted a monopoly of the\ntitle r\u00f4le, and when Debussy set \"Pell\u00e9as et M\u00e9lisande\" to music as\nunearthly as the play, she insisted upon singing M\u00e9lisande. But the\nParisian managers, either because they had _prot\u00e9g\u00e9es_ of their own\nor because they did not have a sufficiently high opinion of Madame\nLeblanc's capabilities as an actress and a prima donna, declined to\ntake her, and M. Maeterlinck was not able to compel them to, or to\nprevent the production of the play and opera with other leading ladies.\nShe did, however, finally sing the part both at home and in America,\nthough she lost the distinction of creating it.\n\nBut, at any rate, we owe to her assiduity a new translation of\n\"Macbeth\", which the London _Times_ says \"is the most conscientious\neffort to preserve the atmosphere of a Shakespearean play which has\nbeen attempted in French since M. Marcel Schwab's remarkable rendering\nof 'Hamlet.'\" The difficulty of translating poetical language, wherein\nthe sound and connotation of the words are as essential as their\nliteral meaning, is admirably stated by M. Maeterlinck:\n\n    The humble translators face to face with Shakespeare are\n    like painters seated in front of the same forest, the\n    same seas, on the same mountain. Each of them will make a\n    different picture. And a translation is almost as much an\n    _\u00e9tat d'\u00e2me_ as is a landscape. Above, below, and all round\n    the literal and literary sense of the primitive phrase\n    floats a secret life which is all but impossible to catch,\n    and which is, nevertheless, more important than the external\n    life of the words and of the images. It is that secret life\n    which it is important to understand and to reproduce as\n    well as one can. Extreme prudence is required, since the\n    slightest false note, the smallest error, may destroy the\n    illusion and destroy the beauty of the finest page. Such is\n    the ideal of the conscientious translator. It excuses in\n    advance every effort of the kind, even this one, which comes\n    after so many others, and contributes to the common work\n    merely the very modest aid of a few phrases which chance may\n    now and then have favored.\n\nHe illustrates these variant views of the same landscape by bringing\ntogether all the different versions of a couplet, from Letourneur of\nthe eighteenth century to Duval, the latest translator of Shakespeare:\n\n    \"Strange things I have in head that will to hand\n     Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.\n\n    \"J'ai dans la t\u00eate d'\u00e9tranges choses qui aboutiront\n    \u00e0 ma main; et qu'il faut accomplir avant qu'on les\n    m\u00e9dite.\"--(Maeterlinck.)\n\n    \"J'ai dans la t\u00eate d'\u00e9tranges choses qui r\u00e9clament\n    ma main et veulent \u00eatre ex\u00e9cut\u00e9s avant d'\u00eatre\n    m\u00e9dit\u00e9es.\"--(Fran\u00e7ois-Victor Hugo.)\n\n    \"Ma t\u00eate a des projets \u00e9tranges qui r\u00e9clament ma main;\n    achevons l'acte avant d'y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir.\"--(Maurice Pottecher.)\n\n    \"J'ai dans la t\u00eate d'\u00e9tranges choses qui passeront dans mes\n    mains, des choses qu'il faut ex\u00e9cuter avant d'avoir le temps\n    de les examiner.\"--(Guizot.)\n\n    \"J'ai dans ma t\u00eate d'\u00e9tranges choses que ma main ex\u00e9cutera,\n    et qui veulent \u00eatre accomplies sans me laisser le temps de\n    les peser.\"--(Mont\u00e9gut.)\n\n    \"Ma t\u00eate a des projets qu'ex\u00e9cutera ma main; je veux les\n    accomplir de suite, sans me donner le temps de les examiner\n    de trop pr\u00e8s.\"--(Benjamin Laroche.)\n\n    \"J'ai d'\u00e9tranges projets en t\u00eate qui veulent \u00eatre ex\u00e9cut\u00e9s\n    avant d'y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir.\"--(Georges Duval.)\n\n    \"J'ai dans la t\u00eate d'\u00e9tranges projets, qui, de l\u00e0,\n    passeront dans mes mains; et il faut les ex\u00e9cuter avant\n    qu'on puisse les p\u00e9n\u00e9trer.\"--(Pierre Letourneur.)\n\nThis couplet is in itself an argument for more freedom of translation\nthan is customarily allowed. The choice of \"scann'd\" from among\nother words that would have expressed the idea as well or better was\nobviously dictated by the necessity of rhyming with \"hand\", and this in\nturn was due to the desire to alliterate with \"head.\" A translator, if\nhe is to make as good poetry as the original author, must have an equal\nlicense. It is therefore not surprising to see that M. Maeterlinck has\nbeen most successful in preserving the spirit of the original where\nhe has translated into rhyme instead of prose, for here the exactions\nof the French verse have forced him to a greater freedom. Here are\nfragments of the witches' songs:\n\n    Paddock crie, \"Allez, allez.\"\n    Le laid est beau et le beau laid\n    Allons flotter dans la brume,\n    Allons faire le tour du monde,\n    Dans la brume et l'air immonde.\n\n    Trois fois le chat miaula\n    Le h\u00e9risson piaula.\n    Harpier crie, \"Voil\u00e0! voil\u00e0!\"\n\n    Double, double, puis redouble,\n    Le feu chante au chaudron trouble.\n\nIn order that the reader may judge for himself whether the Belgian poet\nhas succeeded in this effort to put Shakespeare into French, we quote a\nfew passages of especial difficulty. The complete text is published in\n_Illustration_ of August 28, 1909.\n\n    Et, enfin, ce Duncan fut si doux sur son tr\u00f4ne, si pur dans\n    sa puissance que ses vertues parleront comme d'ang\u00e9liques\n    trompettes contre le crime damn\u00e9 de son assassinat. Et la\n    piti\u00e9, pareille \u00e0 un nouveau-n\u00e9 chevauchant la temp\u00eate, ou\n    \u00e0 un cherubin c\u00e9leste qui monte les coursiers invisibles de\n    l'air, soufflerait l'acte horrible dans les yeux de tout\n    homme jusqu'\u00e0 noyer le vent parmi les larmes.\n\n    \"Tu ne dormiras! Macbeth a tu\u00e9 le sommeil!\" L'innocent\n    sommeil, le sommeil qui d\u00e9vide l'\u00e9cheveau embrouill\u00e9 des\n    soucis.\n\n    Tout l'oc\u00e9an du grand Neptune pourrait-il laver ce sang de\n    ma main? Non, c'est plut\u00f4t cette main qui empourprera les\n    vagues innombrables, faisant de la mer verte un oc\u00e9an rouge.\n\nMaeterlinck has himself suffered many things of many translators.\nAlfred Sutro has given us admirable versions of his philosophical\nworks, \"Wisdom and Destiny\", \"The Treasure of the Humble\", and \"The\nLife of the Bee\", but his plays have not been so fortunate, for their\nemotional effect is dependent upon the maintenance of a peculiar\natmosphere, so sensitive that a harsh breath will destroy it, leaving\nridiculous wooden puppets where the moment before we thought we\nglimpsed beings of supernatural beauty. So even a reader whose French\nis feeble will prefer the plays in the original, for their language\nis of extreme simplicity and the effect may be even enhanced by the\nadditional veil that his partial incomprehension draws across the stage\npicture. Then, too, Maeterlinck's trick of triple repetition which\noffends our Anglo-Saxon ears ceases to annoy us in French, for in that\nlanguage even identical rhymes are permissible.\n\nAs an example of how a prosaic literalism may spoil the illusion, let\nus take that exquisite passage which closes \"Pell\u00e9as et M\u00e9lisande\":\n\n    C'\u00e9tait un petit \u00eatre si tranquille, si timide et si\n    silencieux. C'\u00e9tait un pauvre petit tr\u00e8s myst\u00e9rieux, comme\n    tout le monde. Elle est l\u00e0, comme si elle \u00e9tait la grande\n    soeur de son enfant.\n\nThis is the way it is rendered by Laurence Alma Tadema, and the\nlibretto of the opera is still worse: \"It was a little gentle being, so\nquiet, so timid and so silent. It was a poor little mysterious being,\nlike all the world. She lies there as if she were her own child's big\nsister.\"\n\nThe wise old man, who at M\u00e9lisande's death bed sums up her character\nin the words, \"_C'\u00e9tait un pauvre petit \u00eatre myst\u00e9rieux, comme tout\nle monde_\", gives at the same time the key to the philosophy of the\nplay.--\"She was a poor little mysterious being like every one.\" \"Like\nevery one\"! The phrase throws back a level ray of light, as though it\nwere a setting sun, and illuminates the dark road we have traversed.\n\"Like every one\", and all this while we had been thinking what an\nunnatural and absurd creature this M\u00e9lisande was, this princess who did\nnot know where she came from or where she was going to, who was always\nweeping without reason, who played so carelessly with her wedding ring\nover the well's mouth, and whose words could never express what she\nfelt. \"Like every one\"? perhaps ... at any rate to be thought on, once\nit has been suggested to us. And in this connection we may consider a\nsentence in \"Wisdom and Destiny\":\n\n    Genius only throws into bolder relief all that can and\n    actually does take place in the lives of all men; otherwise\n    were it genius no longer but incoherence or madness.\n\nWhat fun Francisque Sarcey did make of \"Pell\u00e9as and M\u00e9lisande\"\nand of its admirers at its first representation in Paris in 1893.\nAccording to the veteran critic of _Le Temps_,[12] the play contained\na triple symbolism; one part not understood by the profane, one part\nnot understood by the initiates, and one part not understood by the\nauthor. Maeterlinck was only a passing craze, he thought, due to the\nreprehensible fondness of the Parisians for anything foreign. Yet some\nfifteen years after that he might have seen in New York blocks of\npeople standing for hours in the snow around the Manhattan Opera House\nto get a chance to see, with the added charm of Debussy's music, this\nsame play that the critics called \"Maeterlinck's Sedan.\"\n\nEven Richard Hovey, who first introduced Maeterlinck's plays to\nAmerica in the days when the \"Green Tree Library\" flourished and bore\nits strange fruit, feared that \"his devotion to the wormy side of\nthings may prevent him from ever becoming popular.\" But he got over\nhis devotion to the wormy side of things and has grown into a more\nwholesome philosophy and so into a greater popularity. The transition\npoint in his style and thought is marked by the preface to his dramas,\n1901. He neither recants nor apologizes for his earlier work, still\nless does he ridicule it, as Ruskin did his first writing, but he\nfrankly and gracefully indicates the changed attitude toward life which\nshows itself in his later essays.\n\nHe ceases to use the word \"destiny\" exclusively in its evil sense, and\nto represent it as a power inimical to man, watching in the shadow to\npounce upon us whenever we manifest a little joy. Fate in his later\nwork does not always mean fatality, and events are controlled by\ncharacter more than by external forces. Man by wisdom can overcome\ndestiny. But Maeterlinck would have us take care to keep a sane balance\nof altruism and egoism:\n\n    You are told you should love your neighbor as yourself;\n    but if you love yourself meanly, childishly, timidly, even\n    so shall you love your neighbor. Learn, therefore, to love\n    yourself with a love that is wise and healthy, that is large\n    and complete.\n\nIt is a curious transformation by which this Belgian lawyer and\nesoteric poet has become one of the widest known of French playwrights\nand moralists. He was born in Ghent, August 29, 1862, of an old Flemish\nfamily. The name, \"measurer of grain\", is derived from an ancestor who\nwas generous in a time of famine.\n\nHe was educated at the University of Ghent for law, in accordance with\nthe wishes of his family, though he would have preferred medicine. But\nhis dominant interest was always literature.\n\nHis experience at the bar was brief, a couple of criminal cases, and\nthen he deserted the law and went to Paris for a year, where he was\nchiefly under the influence of the French symbolist, Villiers de\nl'Isle-Adam. Then he returned home to devote himself in quiet to the\ncultivation of his double garden of literature and science. He was\nespecially attracted by the freshness and richness of Shakespeare and\nhis contemporaries, and, as he says, drank long and thirstily from\nthe Elizabethan springs. In Shelley and Browning he was also deeply\ninterested.[13]\n\nAt the age of twenty-four he began to contribute to _La Pl\u00e9iade_, the\norgan of the \"Young Belgians\", a group of ambitious young writers,\nimpressionists, seekers after novel effects of style, chiefly attained\nby means of transferring descriptive adjectives from one of the five\nsenses to the other four. In the third number of this short-lived\nperiodical was published Maeterlinck's first and apparently his last\nstory, \"The Massacre of the Innocents\", a biblical incident reset in\nthe times of the Spanish wars.[14] Here appeared some of the poems\nrepublished in 1889 in the little volume entitled \"Serres Chaudes\"\n(\"Hot-house Blooms\").\n\nThe cross-fertilization of Elizabethan drama with French symbolism gave\nrise to the \"Princess Maleine\", a new species if there ever was one,\nShakespearean in form and incident, most un-Shakespearean in everything\nelse. The first edition of this drama was an extremely limited one,\ntwenty copies, printed on a hand press with Maeterlinck turning the\ncrank.\n\nIt was the \"Princess Maleine\" which led to his \"discovery\" by Octave\nMirbeau, who proclaimed it \"the greatest work of genius of the times\",\nand \"superior in beauty to what is most beautiful in Shakespeare.\"[15]\nThis newspaper praise made Maeterlinck instantly famous everywhere\nsave in his own country. His neighbors in Ghent refused to take it\nseriously, and thought it a pity that his family should encourage the\nyoung man in his mania by paying for puffs like that.\n\nTo trace Maeterlinck's dramatic development is like watching a\nmaterialization at a s\u00e9ance. His characters have become increasingly\nsolid and life-like, but they have lost the illusiveness and\nallusiveness that made their charm in his earlier plays. Maeterlinck\nhas never been able to equal Ibsen--nor has anyone else--in the art of\nmaking a perfectly individualized and natural character serve also as\na type or symbol, thus doubling our interest by combining the specific\nand the general.\n\nMaeterlinck's genius shows best in his own peculiar field of symbolism\nand suggestion, that of his early dramas and of \"The Blue Bird.\" His\nplays of a more conventional type, \"Monna Vanna\" and \"Mary Magdalene\",\nbetray his deficiencies as a dramatic writer, his lack of the power of\nplot construction and a sense of humor. \"Mary Magdalene\" is really as\nmuch a one-act play as \"The Interior\", for the last act is the only\none that counts. Here the crowd has the star part, the crowd of the\nlame, the halt and the blind, the sinners and the diseased, whom Jesus\nhas cured and who now desert him; and the real drama is enacted, not\nin the upper chamber of the house of Joseph of Arimathea, but in the\nstreet outside, leading to the Place of the Skull. The scene of the\nwoman taken in adultery is far less dramatic than in its biblical form,\nbecause in the play she is really protected by Roman swords, not by the\nawakened consciences of the mob.\n\nThe continuous development of Maeterlinck's philosophy of life is shown\nas well in his plays as in his essays. Mary Magdalene, who would not\nsave her Savior by the sacrifice of her virtue, represents a higher\nethical ideal than Monna Vanna, who gives herself for the city. In his\nearlier plays Maeterlinck tries to frighten us with the traditional\nTerrors which in \"The Blue Bird\" are shown to be imprisoned and\nharmless in the Palace of Night. Old Time with his scythe, who as \"The\nIntruder\" of twenty years ago brought death into the household, appears\nnow in \"The Blue Bird\" under a kinder aspect, calling the Children of\nthe Future into life. In fact, \"The Blue Bird\" represents the highest\npoint of the philosophy of optimism, for it is based upon the most\ndaring of all the assumptions of science--that the secret of existence\nis also the secret of happiness. \"To be wise is above all to be happy\",\nsays Maeterlinck. Truly, he has got a long way from Schopenhauer, the\nobject of his boyish admiration.\n\nMaeterlinck has, in short, acquired a faith. I do not see exactly\nwhom or what he has faith in, but he has faith, and that, after all,\nseems to be the main thing. The development of his thought has an\nespecial interest in that it shows how a spiritual interpretation of\nthe universe and a moral support can be built up on pure agnosticism.\nFrom Christianity he has derived little except a vague symbolism and\ncertain ethical ideals. He looks back with bitterness upon his school\ndays in the Jesuit college at Ghent, but his writings show no trace of\nthe anticlerical animosity which is so conspicuous in Haeckel's. It was\nhis latest book, \"Death\", the most religious of them all, breathing a\nspirit of unconquerable faith in immortality and future happiness, that\nbrought down upon Maeterlinck the condemnation of Rome, and in 1914 all\nhis books and plays were put upon the Index by the Sacred Congregation.\n\nFrom the mystics he has derived much, especially from the German\nNovalis and the Flemish Ruysbroek, whose works he has translated into\nFrench. In his preface to the latter he says:\n\n    Mystical truths have this strange superiority over truths of\n    the ordinary kind, that they know neither age nor death....\n    They possess the immunity of Swedenborg's angels, who\n    progress continually toward the springtime of youth, so that\n    the eldest angels always appear the youngest.\n\nBut he undoubtedly owes his ethical and philosophical growth most of\nall to the study of nature, not the vague contemplation of natural\nobjects which in the early Victorian era was thought proper pabulum for\npoets, but the effort to understand nature through the use of modern\nscientific methods. We are reminded of Sir Thomas Browne, who says:\n\"Those strange and mystical transmigrations that I have observed in\nsilkworms turned my philosophy into divinity.\"\n\nThe reason why many poets and imaginative writers of high ability\nfind themselves without influence in the modern world is, in my\nopinion, because they are ignorant of science or inimical to it.\nThey, therefore, write for antiquity, which does not buy books, or\nfor posterity, which, it is safe to say, will never come back to the\nposition they hold. The people do not enjoy science, but their manner\nof thought is molded by it, and they are unaffected or repelled by\nmusic out of tune with it.\n\nMaeterlinck, while thoroughly appreciating science, does not exaggerate\nits power. He does not look to it for a complete explanation of the\nworld.\n\n    Rarely does a mystery disappear; ordinarily it only changes\n    its place. But it is often very important, very desirable,\n    that it manage to change its place. From a certain point of\n    view, all the progress of human thought reduces itself to\n    two or three changes of this kind--to have dislodged two or\n    three mysteries from the place where they did harm in order\n    to transport them where they become harmless, where they can\n    do good. Sometimes it is enough, without a mystery changing\n    its place, if we can succeed in giving it another name. That\n    which was called \"the gods\" is now called \"life.\" And if\n    life is just as inexplicable as the gods, we have at least\n    gained this, that in the name of life no one has authority\n    to speak nor right to do harm.\n\nMaeterlinck does not seem to me so much an original thinker as an\nexquisitely sensitive personality who is able to catch the dominant\nnote of the times in which he lives, and to give it artistic\nexpression, as a musician upon a high tower might take as his key\nthe fundamental tone of the streets below, modulating his music as\nthe rhythm of the city changes, not to obtain applause, but because\nhis soul is in sympathy with the life around him. In Maeterlinck's\nwritings, various though they be in form and topic, may be continuously\ntraced the changing moods of the philosophy of the last twenty years,\nfor he has always retained his sincerity of thought and courage of\nexpression.\n\n    To look fearlessly upon life; to accept the laws of nature,\n    not with meek resignation, but as her sons, who dare to\n    search and question; to have peace and confidence within our\n    soul--these are the beliefs that make for happiness. But\n    to believe is not enough; all depends on how we believe. I\n    may believe that there is no God, that I am self-contained,\n    that my brief sojourn here serves no purpose; that in the\n    economy of this world without limit my existence counts for\n    as little as the evanescent hue of a flower--I may believe\n    all this, in a deeply religious spirit, with the infinite\n    throbbing within me; you may believe in one all-powerful\n    God, who cherishes and protects you, yet your belief may be\n    mean, and petty, and small. I shall be happier than you, and\n    calmer, if my doubt is greater, and nobler, and more earnest\n    than is your faith; if it has probed more deeply into my\n    soul, traversed wider horizons, if there are more things\n    it has loved. And if the thoughts and feelings on which\n    my doubt reposes have become vaster and purer than those\n    that support your faith, then shall the God of my disbelief\n    become mightier and of supremer comfort than the God to whom\n    you cling. For, indeed, belief and unbelief are mere empty\n    words; not so the loyalty, the greatness and profoundness of\n    the reasons wherefore we believe or do not believe.[16]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nHOW TO READ MAETERLINCK\n\n\nTo those familiar with Maeterlinck, the following, and perhaps also\nthe foregoing, will be of no interest. But those who wish to make his\ncloser acquaintance may find some suggestions not impertinent.\n\nMaeterlinck's essays are published in English by Dodd, Mead and\nCompany, in seven volumes: \"The Treasure of the Humble\"; \"Wisdom and\nDestiny\"; \"The Buried Temple\"; \"The Measure of the Hours\"; \"The Double\nGarden\"; \"On Emerson and Other Essays\" (Novalis and Ruysbroek); and\n\"Our Eternity.\" The order given is that of their publication in French.\nAny one of them will give the reader an insight into the character of\nhis thought; \"Wisdom and Destiny\" is the most consecutive. If one has\ntime for but a single essay, he may read \"The Leaf of Olive.\"\n\nFor his treatment of nature, see \"The Life of the Bee\" (Dodd, Mead and\nCompany), essays in \"The Double Garden\" and in \"The Measure of the\nHodrs\", and \"The Insect's Homer\" in _Forum_, September, 1910; also\n\"News of Spring and Other Nature Studies\", illustrated by E. J. Detmold\n(Dodd, Mead and Company).\n\nOf his dramatic work the early mystical plays are most characteristic.\nThe timid reader should avoid reading them alone after dark. Yet\nthere is nothing supernatural in them--except the sense of the\nsupernatural that permeates them. Nothing happens that cannot be given\na rationalistic explanation--only the reader is not disposed at the\ntime to accept such an explanation. Select your co-readers with care\n(all plays should, of course, be read aloud); avoiding particularly\nthe hysterical giggler, for the effect depends upon maintaining the\natmospheric pressure, and Maeterlinck treads close to the line that\nseparates the sublime from the ridiculous and, as he himself confesses,\nhe occasionally steps over. Read the original if you have any knowledge\nwhatever of French, for the language is of the simplest, and in these\nveiled dramas a slight additional haziness does no harm. (The French\nedition is published by Lacomblez, Brussels, in three volumes. Volume\nI, \"La Princesse Maleine\", \"L'lntruse\", \"Les Aveugles\"; Volume II,\n\"Pell\u00e9as et M\u00e9lisande\", \"Alladine et Palomides\", \"Int\u00e9rieur\", \"La\nmort de Tintagiles\"; Volume III, \"Aglavaine et S\u00e9lysette\", \"Ariane\net Barbe-bleue\", \"Soeur Beatrice.\" Volumes I and II, translated by\nHovey, are sold by Dodd, Mead and Company in three volumes.) If you\nare doubtful of your ability to read \"the static drama\", or of your\ncapacity to enjoy it, begin with \"The Interior (The Home).\" Here the\ntragedy is enacted inside the house, while all the talking is done\noutside. If you find a fascination in it, pass on to \"The Intruder\" and\n\"The Blind.\" This last affords unlimited scope to those who are fond of\nrunning down symbols. The dead priest in the middle of the group will\nstand for any form of ecclesiasticism you may have outgrown, and you\ncan give the blind people around him the names of all the philosophers\nyou know, according to the degree of their blindness and their reliance\nupon rationalism, intuitionalism, child psychology, animal psychology,\netc., for a way out. But don't think you have to label them at all if\nyou don't like to.\n\nTo understand \"The Blue Bird,\" all you have to do is to become a\nchild. Then after you grow up again you may find that you understand\nit still better. It was first presented in Russia, where it was played\nby fifty-two companies. London and New York saw it before Paris,\nwhere it was put on the stage for the first time five years after it\nappeared elsewhere, with Madame Georgette Leblanc in the r\u00f4le of Light.\n(English version, Dodd, Mead and Company.) Maeterlinck has taken out\nthe forest conspiracy because it scared the children, and substituted a\nnew act containing one of his most original characters, the Happiness\nof Running Barefoot in the Dew, who is apparently a daughter of Doctor\nKneipp. Madame Maeterlinck has prepared \"The Blue Bird for Children\" in\nstory form for schools (Silver, Burdett and Company).\n\n\"Mary Magdalene\" is played by Olga Nethersole, but may be as well\nread as seen. \"Monna Vanna\" was prohibited by the Censor in England\nuntil 1914, but was played in this country by Bertha Kalich, without\noffense. The only play by Maeterlinck that is at all \"Frenchy\" is one\nhe translated from the English of John Ford. (Dodd, Mead and Company\npublish \"Joyzelle\" and \"Monna Vanna\", \"Aglavaine and S\u00e9lysette\",\n\"Mary Magdalene\", \"Pell\u00e9as and M\u00e9lisande\", \"Princess Maleine\", \"The\nIntruder, and Other Plays\", and \"Sister Beatrice\", and \"Ariane and Blue\nBeard.\" Harper publishes \"Monna Vanna\"; Crowell published \"Pell\u00e9as\nand M\u00e9lisande\"; R. F. Seymour, Chicago, publishes \"Twelve Songs of\nMaeterlinck.\" Several of the plays can be found in back numbers of\n_Poet Lore_ sold by R. G. Badger, Boston.)\n\nA comprehensive bibliography will be found in the life of Maeterlinck\nby Montrose J. Moses (Duffield). We have also in English brief\nbiographies by G\u00e9rard Harry (Allen and Sons) and J. Bithel (Scribner).\nThe sketch by William Sharp in the \"Warner Library of the World's Best\nLiterature\" is remarkable for its insight, and the reader may also\nbe referred to Hunneker's \"Iconoclasts\", Thorold's \"Six Masters of\nDisillusion\", and the article on \"Maeterlinck's Philosophy of Life\",\nby Professor John Dewey of Columbia in the _Hibbert Journal_, July,\n1911. The lover of Maeterlinck, whose affection is capable of being\nalienated, should beware of reading the very clever parody on his style\nin Owen Sea-man's \"Borrowed Plumes\" (Holt).\n\n\n[1] \"L'Abbaye de Fontenelle ou de Saint-Wandrille.\" Paris. 1827.\n\n[2] From \"The Past\", by Maurice Maeterlinck. _The Independent,_ March\n6, 1902.\n\n[3] \"The Portrait of a Lady\", in \"The Double Garden.\"\n\n[4] See her account of the performance in _Century Magazine_, January,\n1911.\n\n[5] For Maeterlinck on Emerson, see _Poet Lore_, Vol. 10, p. 76,\nJanuary, 1898, and _Arena_, Vol. 16, p. 563, March, 1896.\n\n[6] _Metropolitan Magazine_, May, 1914.\n\n[7] \"The Mystery of Justice\", in \"The Double Garden.\"\n\n[8] _The Independent_, January 3, 1901.\n\n[9] \"The Double Garden.\"\n\n[10] \"The Mystery of Justice.\"\n\n[11] For a description of the performance see \"A Realization of\nMacbeth\" by Alvan G. Sanborn in _The Independent_, September 15, 1909.\n\n[12] See his \"Quarante Ans de Th\u00e9\u00e2tre.\"\n\n[13] His admiration for Browning appears in his reply to Professor\nWilliam Lyon Phelps, of Yale, who had called attention to the close\nsimilarity between an incident in Browning's \"Luria\" and Maeterlinck's\n\"Monna Vanna.\" Maeterlinck very frankly and courteously acknowledged\nhis indebtedness to Browning, whom, he said, he regarded, like\n\u00c6schylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, as common sources of literary\ninspiration. _The Independent_, March 5 and June 11, 1903.\n\n[14] This is signed by his name in its original form, Mooris\nM\u00e4terlinck. A translation of this and other tales by Belgian writers by\nEdith Wingate Rinder was published in 1897 in the \"Green Tree Library\"\nof Stone & Kimball (now Duffield & Co.).\n\n[15] _Figaro_, August 24, 1890. Octave Mirbeau later busied himself\nin booming Marguerite Audoux, the Paris sempstress, who wrote\n\"Marie-Claire.\"\n\n[16] \"Wisdom and Destiny,\" \u00a7 79.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nHENRI BERGSON\n\n\n    The history of philosophy shows us chiefly the ceaselessly\n    renewed efforts of reflection laboring to attenuate\n    difficulties, to resolve contradictions, to measure with\n    an increasing approximation a reality incommensurable with\n    our thought. But from time to time bursts forth a soul\n    which seems to triumph over these complications by force of\n    simplicity, the soul of artist or of poet, keeping close\n    to its origin, reconciling with a harmony felt by the\n    heart terms perhaps irreconcilable by the intelligence.\n    The language which it speaks, when it borrows the voice of\n    philosophy, is not similarly understood by everybody. Some\n    think it vague, and so it is in what it expresses. Others\n    feel it precise, because they experience all it suggests. To\n    many ears it brings only the echo of a vanished past, but\n    others hear in it as in a prophetic dream the joyous song of\n    the future.\n\nThese words, which Bergson used in his eulogy of his teacher,\nRavaisson, before the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences,\nmay be applied with greater appropriateness to Bergson himself. For\nhe, far more than Ravaisson, has shown himself an original force in\nthe world of thought, and his philosophy also appears to some people\nreactionary in tendency and to others far in advance of anything\nhitherto formulated. But to all it appears important. \"Nothing like it\nsince Descartes\", they say in France. \"Nothing like it since Kant\",\nthey say in Germany. His lecture room is the largest in the Coll\u00e8ge\nde France, but it is too small to accommodate the crowd which would\nhear him. They begin to gather at half-past three for the five o'clock\nlecture, though they have to listen to a political economist to hold\ntheir seats. A cosmopolitan crowd it is that on Wednesdays awaits the\nlecturer, talking more languages than have ordinarily been heard in\nthe same room at any time during the period from the strike on the\nTower of Babel to the universal adoption of Esperanto. French, Italian,\nEnglish, American, German, Yiddish, and Russian are to be distinguished\namong them; perhaps the last predominate among the foreign tongues, for\nyoung people of both sexes come from Russia in swarms to put themselves\nunder his instruction. This may rouse in us some speculation, even\napprehension. Bergsonianism has already assumed some curious forms in\nthe minds of his over-ardent disciples, and what it will become after\nit has been translated into the Russian language and temperament it\nwould be rash to prophesy.\n\nBut the polyglot audience is silent as M. Bergson ascends the rostrum\nand begins to talk, in slow, smooth, clear tones, accented by nervous\ngestures of his slender hands. His figure is slight, and his face\nthin and pointed, almost ecclesiastical in appearance. His hair is\nslightly gray, but his close-cropped mustache is brown. The eyes are\ndeep, dark, and penetrating, the eyes of seer and scientist together.\nHe lays out his argument in advance in the formal French style, but\nunlike most French lecturers he does not confine himself to notes. His\nquick turns of thought break through the conventional forms of logic\nand find expression in striking and original similes drawn from his\nwide range of reading. I suppose all professors are given nicknames by\ntheir students; at least all who are either loved or hated, and that\nincludes all who amount to anything. Bergson's students call him \"the\nlark\", because the higher he flies the sweeter he sings. His voice,\nindeed, seems to come down from some altitudinous region of the upper\natmosphere, so clear and thin and high and penetrating it is. A writer\nin the _London News_ put it very well when he said of Bergson's London\nlecture, \"No one ever spoke before a large audience with more complete\nself-possession and less self-assertion.\"\n\n[Illustration: H. Bergson]\n\nAs an experienced teacher he appreciates the importance of repetition,\nand in his lectures brings up the same idea in many varied forms and\nitalicizes with his voice the essential points. All his life he has\nbeen a teacher, climbing up the regular educational ladder rung by rung\nto the top.\n\nHenri Bergson was born in the heart of Paris, the Montmartre quarter,\non October 18, 1859. He is descended from a prominent Jewish family of\nPoland and he owes his excellent command of the English language to his\nmother, for he always spoke that language with her. At the age of nine\nhe entered the Lyc\u00e9e Condorcet, only a few blocks from his house on\nthe Rue Lamartine. He was a good student and worked hard, particularly\non geography, which was most difficult for him. Mathematics was his\nfavorite study, and he then intended to make it his life work, but\ninstead he chose a harder road, for, as he told me, philosophy is much\nmore difficult, requires more concentrated thought than mathematics.\nBefore he left the Lyc\u00e8e at the age of eighteen he won a prize for a\nsolution to a mathematical problem, and the _Annales de Math\u00e9matiques_\npublished his paper in full.\n\nNext he entered the \u00c9cole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure, where he came under the\ninfluence of Ravaisson, Lachelier, and Boutroux. On graduation, in\n1881, he was made professor of philosophy in the Lyc\u00e8e of Angers for\ntwo years, afterward for five years at Clermont, then back to Paris,\nfirst in the Coll\u00e8ge Rollin and later in the Lyc\u00e9e Henri IV. In 1898 he\nwas promoted to the \u00c9cole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure, and two years later to\nthe Coll\u00e8ge de France. In 1901 he was elected to the Institute, and in\n1914 to the Academy.\n\nThe rapid spread of his philosophy in France is due not only to its\nintrinsic value and the eloquence with which he presents it, but in\npart also to his having been a teacher of teachers. By his twenty\nyears' work in the secondary schools or _lyc\u00e9es_ of the provinces and\nParis, and in the Superior Normal School, he has molded the thought of\nthousands of young men who are now teaching and writing and ruling in\nFrance. His present position as lecturer to miscellaneous audiences\nin the Coll\u00e8ge of France, though more conspicuous, is really not more\ninfluential than his earlier work. He has the faculty of arousing the\nenthusiasm and personal devotion of his students, so the soil all over\nthe country was prepared in advance for the propagation of his ideas,\nand now all he has to do is to sow them broadcast. We may observe\nsomething of the kind in our own country, where Dewey's influence has\nbeen largely exercised through personal contact with teachers. If he\nhad never published a line, the colleges, normal and high schools in\nthe western half of the United States would, nevertheless, be teaching\nanonymous Deweyism. A philosopher who cares more for influence than\ncelebrity will prefer a chair where he can reach the largest number of\nfuture teachers to any other position however exalted.\n\nWe are not left to speculation as to the extent of Bergson's influence\nin French education. A questionnaire on the teaching of philosophy\nin the _lyc\u00e9es_ conducted by Binet[1] showed that his ideas were the\ndominant force of the time. One school reported that \"four professors\nhere have adopted them without reserve and made them the soul of their\nteaching.\" It is interesting to note that not one of these high school\nprofessors mentioned either materialism or pantheism among their\nvarious philosophic creeds. They were equally divided between objective\nand subjective thinkers, or, say, between realists and idealists.\n\nBergson himself was a materialist to start with, and he worked his\nway up into his present spiritualistic philosophy when he found the\ninadequacy of his early conceptions. His taste was for the exact\nsciences, and in them he excelled while at school. He intended at that\ntime to devote himself to the study of mechanics, and his youthful\nambition was to continue and develop the philosophy of Herbert Spencer,\nof whom he was then an enthusiastic admirer.\n\nBut as he studied the formulas of mechanics with a view of discovering\ntheir philosophical implications, and of utilizing them in the\nexplanation of the universe, he was struck with their inadequacy,\neven falsity, when applied to the phenomena of life and mind. In\nparticular he was troubled by the symbol _t_ which occurs so frequently\nin mathematical and physical formulas, and is supposed to stand for\n\"time.\" It is represented geometrically by a straight line just like\nthe three dimensions of space. In fact, as Bergson points out, \"time\"\nas used in physical science is nothing more or less than a fourth\ndimension of space. It is purely a spatial conception, an empty\nframework in which events may be arranged in order as objects are set\nup in a row on a shelf. There is no change or development in it, for\npast and future are all the same to it.\n\nNow, when Bergson compared this physical conception of \"time\" with\nreal time or duration as he felt it within himself, he found they were\nentirely different things. For the mind the past does not stretch\nout in a line behind. It is rolled up into the present and projected\ntoward the future. Still less is there a path or several optional paths\ndefinitely laid out ahead of us in the future. We break our own paths\nas we go forward. It is like the big snowballs that we boys used to\nroll up to make forts out of; all the snow it has passed over is a part\nof it, and in front the snow is trackless.\n\nThe mechanical formulas of science are admirably adapted to the purpose\nfor which they were designed, that is, the handling of matter, but\nthey are misleading as applied to living beings, and especially to the\nhuman mind, which is the farthest removed from the realm of material\nmechanics. Here is true freedom and initiative.\n\nThe advocate of free will always gets beaten in the argument with the\ndeterminist when he meets him on his own ground, for adopting the\nspatial conception of time and the dynamic conception of motives,\nreduces man to a machine and, of course, makes him amenable to the\nordinary laws of mechanics. If it is correct to represent the future\nas two crossroads in front of the undecided individual and he pulled\nto right and left by \"motives\" on either side, then the determinist\nhas it all his own way. The case has been conceded to him in advance,\nand the libertarian can only flinch from his logic. But Bergson holds\nthat when the determinist pretends to talk about the future, he really\nis regarding it as already past, as definitely mapped and virtually\nexistent.\n\nAs Bergson's first book, \"Time and Free Will\", was devoted to the\noverthrow of the metaphysical argument for determinism, so his second,\n\"Matter and Memory\", was devoted to the overthrow of the psychological\nargument, which is that the mind and the brain are merely different\naspects of the same thing (monism) or that their action is parallel so\nthat a certain state of consciousness always corresponds to a certain\nmolecular motion (dualism). Since the activities of the brain are\npresumably controlled by the physical and chemical laws, then must be\nalso the mental activities identical or inseparably connected with\nthem. But Bergson, taking the position of an extreme dualist, argues\nthat the mind is distinct from matter and only in part dependent upon\nit, that memories are not altogether stored in the brain or anywhere\nin space, and that the brain is essentially nothing more than an\ninstrument of action.\n\nThe same is true of our senses, of our bodily organism in general. They\nare made for practical, not speculative, purposes. The things nearest\nto us are seen largest and clearest. The eye is useful because its\nvision is limited. If it were susceptible to all rays, like our skin,\nwe should get, not vision, but sunburn. Now the understanding, also\nhaving a pragmatic origin, limits our knowledge just as the eye limits\nour vision, and for the same purpose.\n\nLet me give a few examples of this limitation of our senses and of\nour intellect. Suppose we are looking at a horse or automobile going\npast in the street. We get an immediate sense of the movement very\ndecidedly, but the motion itself we cannot see. We must first analyze\nthe motion; that is, take it apart, break it up into something that\nis not motion. This we can do with a kinetoscope camera which takes\nsnapshots at the rate of fifty a second. These successive pictures\ndo not give the motion, no matter how rapidly they are taken. Each\nrepresents the object standing still, or if not quick enough for that,\nthe picture is blurred; but show these still-life photographs to us in\nquick succession, and we no longer perceive them as separate views but\nas continuous motion. Why can the camera so deceive us? Simply because\nour eyes work in the same way. They are cameras, and the exposure time\nof the retina is about the same as that of the moving picture films. A\nmoving object looked at steadily is merely a blurred band. But if we\nwink rapidly, we can catch glimpses of the legs of the horse or the\nspokes of the wheel, thus like the kinetoscope transforming motion into\nimmobility by intermittent attention.\n\nLook closely at a portrait in this book, and you will see that it\nconsists of pure black and white. Needless to say that the face\nportrayed was not composed of black spots of various sizes on a white\nground. In the original there were no black, no white, and no dots.\nThere were only even shadings, lighter and darker. The picture is an\nabsolute misrepresentation. Yet viewed with the naked eye at sufficient\ndistance to put the dots out of sight, it imitates the shading of the\noriginal well enough to be called a \"half-tone plate\", although there\nis really not a half tone in it, nothing but black and white.\n\nNow this trick of decomposing continuous motion into successive\npictures like the kinetoscope and decomposing continuous space into\nsuccessive spots like the printing process, is the way we do our\nthinking. The mind goes by jerks like the eye. When we think of the\ncourse of history we break it up into blocks of handy size, comparing\ncentury with century, year with year. This is perfectly justifiable,\nvery useful, in fact inevitable, and quite innocent, provided we\nrealize that it is a logical fiction, adapted to practical purposes\nmerely. The trouble has come from not recognizing this. People\ngenerally, and especially scientists and philosophers, have been\ninclined to regard this process of rationalization as the way of\ngetting at reality, instead of as a mere tool for handling reality.\n\nLong ago, when men first began to think hard, they discovered the\ninadequacy of mere thinking. Zeno of Elea propounded among other\npuzzles that of Achilles and the tortoise, which has kept the world\nguessing for twenty-four centuries. While Achilles is making up his\nhandicap, the tortoise has gone on a bit farther, and when Achilles\nhas covered this distance, the tortoise is not there, but still ahead,\nand since space is conceived as infinitely divisible, Achilles would\ntake an infinity of time to catch up. I do not suppose the experiment\nwas ever tried. That was not the way of the Greeks. They placed too\nmuch reliance upon their brains and too little on anything outside of\nthem to put a theory to the test of experiment. But it has been agreed\neverywhere, always and by all, that Achilles would catch the tortoise,\nand a considerable proportion of each generation have tried to explain\nhow he could, often succeeding to their own satisfaction, but rarely\nto the satisfaction of other people. For the point to this puzzle is\nnot to get the answer, but to say why it puzzles us, and to this point\nphilosophers from Aristotle to Bergson have devoted much study; and\ndoubtless the end is not yet.\n\nI remember well the day when that ancient jest was first sprung upon me\nin the University of Kansas, by the instructor in philosophy, a bright\nyoung man just on from Harvard, who had the Eleatics at his finger\ntips. Several of the boys volunteered to explain it, but I, having the\nlongest arm and snappiest fingers, got the floor. I suggested that\nwe substitute a greyhound chasing a jack rabbit for Achilles and the\ntortoise, who must be tired of running so long. Both greyhound and\njack rabbit progress by jumps, and I argued, with the aid of a piece\nof chalk, that these could be measured and laid off on the prairie,\nhere represented by the blackboard, and so the whole thing figured\nout. But the instructor denied my petition for a change of venue.\nHe stuck to Greece and refused to meet me on my native soil, so I\nretired discomfited. I thought him unaccommodating at the time, but\nI see now that he was merely wise. Wariness is often so mistaken for\ndisobligingness. The paradox is solved by science and by common sense\nby assuming that Achilles and the tortoise move by jumps instead of\ncontinuously and then comparing these jumps, for they are of finite\nlength and number.\n\nIn short, we know what motion is by common sense, by feeling, by\nintuition, but when we come to reason about it, and especially when we\ncome to talk about it, we have to substitute for it something that is\nnot motion, but is easier to handle and near enough like it, so that\nordinarily it serves just as well. It is as much like it as the short,\nstraight lines, substituted by the mathematician, are like the segments\nof the curve he is trying to solve. What is true of motion is true in\na way of all our definitions, formulations, laws, and categories; they\nare not the real things, but merely handy surrogates. They represent\nsome particular phase of reality more or less satisfactorily. These\nformulas are not designed to pick all the locks of Nature's treasure\nchests. They are good for the lock they are designed for and sometimes\nothers, not all. The master key to all locks either does not exist or\nis too cumbrous to be wielded by man.\n\nBergson's theory of personality arises naturally out of his conception\nof time. Time is said to have one dimension. Yes, if we symbolize it by\na line; otherwise not, it has no dimension. The impersonal time of the\nphilosophers and scientists is merely the spatial symbol of duration.\nWhat our experience shows us is not this empty artificial uneventful\ntime, but _duration_. And not merely duration, but _durations_, for\nthere are as many durations of different interval rhythm as there are\nconsciousnesses. This is what is real in time. Time is really the\ncontinuous unrolling of our conscious life, of psychologic states\nwhich do not become distinct except when it pleases us to divide them.\nPersonality is a continuity of _indivisible movement_. We can draw a\nbucket of water out of the river, and then another bucketful, but we\ncan never get the stream in this way, for the stream is essentially\nmovement. The movement is what is substantial about the stream.\n\nFrom immobile states we can never make of life what experience actually\ngives us, for life is change. Only by seizing this change directly in\nan integral experience can we solve the problem. To true realities no\nconcept is applicable. Reality must be regarded itself, in itself, just\nas it is; and in giving a description of it, we can fix only the image\nof it before our eyes.\n\nThe guiding thread of philosophical problems is that the intellect\nis an instrument of action which has developed itself in the course\nof centuries in order to triumph over the difficulties that matter\nopposes to life. The intellect has constituted itself for the purpose\nof a battle. The obstacles which it would overthrow are those of brute\nmatter. The categories of the understanding are constructed with a\nview of action upon matter. So where our intellect seeks to know\nsomething else than the material world, it finds itself unable to\ngrasp it. The whole history of the evolution of life combines to show\nthat intelligence is an instrumental function for action upon matter,\nto formulate and present the laws which permit us to foresee, and\ntherefore to forestall.\n\nIn dealing with a reality like personality, the intellect will first\nattempt to handle the subject with the same processes that it employs\nfor inert matter, therefore it ends in a logical _impasse_. This is\nthe origin of the difficulties of the question. The concepts which it\nwould apply to personality are made only for the material world. We do\nnot know how to apply them adequately to the life of the mind, which\noverflows them.\n\nTo direct our attention upon the stream of our consciousness breaks\nit up and immobilizes it. But it may be reached by another kind of\nintrospection, which consists in letting live, in trying to re\u00ebnforce\nvitality. In this way activity may become consciousness without\nceasing to be active. Thus the ego may be seized as it really is, as a\ntransition and a continuity.\n\nIn his theory of evolution Bergson draws a sharp distinction between\nintelligence and instinct. As intelligence has reached its highest\npoint in the human race, so instinct has reached its highest point in\nthe ants, bees, and wasps. Here we see instinct attaining its ends\nby the employment of the most varied and complicated expedients. The\nant is lord of the subsoil as man is lord of the soil. The solitary\nwasps, whom Maeterlinck would despise as primitive individualists in\ncomparison with the socialized bees, are used by Bergson to illustrate\nhis theory of instinct. These insects provide for the future needs of\ntheir larv\u00e6 by storing up in their underground nest spiders, beetles,\nor caterpillars. These are to be kept alive, as we keep turtles and\nlobsters, so they will be fresh, and in order to prevent them from\nescaping, the wasp paralyzes them by stinging them at the point or\npoints where the motor nerves meet. One species of wasp pierces the\nganglia of its caterpillar by nine successive thrusts of its sting and\nthen squeezes the head in its mandibles, enough to cause paralysis\nwithout death. Other kinds of wasps have to use other forms of surgical\ntreatment, according to the kind of insect they put into storage. How\ncan this be explained? If we call it intelligence, we must assume that\nthe wasp or its ancestors has been endowed with a knowledge of insect\nanatomy such as we hesitate to credit to any being lower in the scale\nof life than a professor of entomology. If we adopt a mechanistic\nhypothesis, we must assume that this marvelous skill in surgery has\nbeen gradually acquired in the course of thousands of generations,\neither by the survival of the descendants of those insects who happened\nto have stuck their stings into the nine right places (Darwinism), or\nby the inheritance of the acquired habit of stinging a certain species\nof caterpillar in that particular way (Lamarckianism). But since this\nknowledge or skill is never of use to the individual insect and is of\nno use to the species until it has arrived at a considerable degree of\nperfection, we can hardly adopt either theory without straining our\nimagination.\n\nBut the assumed difficulties vanish if we adopt the Bergsonian point\nof view and regard the caterpillar and wasp as two parts of the same\nprocess. It is no wonder then that they are fitted together. Slayer\nand slain have developed for that purpose, and what is apparently\nantagonism is really cooperation. The importance of this theory to\nthose who are troubled about the moral interpretation of the universe\nis obvious, for the stinging of the caterpillar would seem something\nlike picking a sliver out of the left hand by the right, but Bergson\ndoes not go into this question at all.\n\nThe formation of the eye, which is the source of much perplexity to\nevolutionists of all schools, provides Bergson with an excellent\nillustration of his theory. The eye of mollusks is similar in form and\nidentical in function with the eye of the vertebrates, yet the two\nare composed of different elements and grow in a different way. The\nretina of the vertebrate is produced by an expansion of the central\nnervous system of the young embryo. It is, so to speak, a part of the\nbrain coming out to see. In the mollusk, on the contrary, the retina is\nformed from the external layer of the embryo. Here heredity is out of\nthe question because of this difference of formation and because the\nman is not descended from the mollusk nor the mollusk from man. The\nstructure of the eye involves the combination of such a large number\nof elements and must satisfy so many conditions before it is good for\nanything, that it is practically impossible to explain it either as\nthe effect of the action of light or as the result of an accretion of\nslight accidental variations.\n\nBut Bergson, coming in with his philosophic faith at the point where\nscience leaves off, calls attention to the fact that while the eye is\na complicated structure, seeing is one simple act. Why not begin our\nexplanation with the simple, instead of the complex? The analytical\nmethod of the intellect, though useful in its place, does not lead us\nto the meaning of reality. It is as if we could only see a picture as\nbroken up into a mosaic, or as if we could only consider a movement of\nthe hand in the mathematician's way, as an infinite series of points\narranged in a curve.\n\n    So the eye with its marvelous complexity of structure, may\n    be only the simple act of vision, divided _for us_ into a\n    mosaic of cells, whose order seems marvelous to us because\n    we have conceived the whole as an assemblage....\n\n    Mechanism and finalism both go too far, for they attribute\n    to Nature the most formidable of the labors of Hercules in\n    holding that she has exalted to the simple act of vision\n    an infinity of infinitely complex elements, whereas Nature\n    has had no more trouble in making an eye than I have in\n    lifting my hand. Nature's simple act has divided itself\n    automatically into an infinity of elements which are then\n    found to be coordinated to one idea, just as the movement\n    of my hand has dropped an infinity of points which are then\n    found to satisfy one equation.--\"Creative Evolution\", pp.\n    90-91.\n\nBergson seems born to be an exception to Amiel's criticism of French\nphilosophy: \"The French lack that intuitive faculty to which the living\nunity of things is revealed.\" \"Their logic never goes beyond the\ncategory of mechanism nor their metaphysic beyond dualism.\"\n\nM. Bergson's residence is the Villa Montmorency in Auteuil, a quiet\nquarter of Paris, lying between the Seine and the Bois de Boulogne. In\nsummer he goes to Switzerland for greater seclusion and the stimulus\nof a higher altitude upon his thought. Here I had the pleasure of\nspending an afternoon with him. From Geneva, where I was staying, I\ntook the railroad that skirts the lake upon the western side to Nyon,\nan old Roman town at the foot of the Dole, the highest peak of the\nSwiss Jura. St. Cergue, my destination, was nine miles inland and a\nhalf a mile up. The distance I had to go was therefore the square root\nof the sum of the squares of these distances, but I did not figure it\nout, because, according to Bergson, we live in time rather than space,\nand duration is not a measure of length. So I can only say that it was\none of the longest and pleasantest hypotenuses I ever traversed. For\nthere was a sense of exhilaration in rising ever higher as the carriage\nzigzagged through the woods, and in getting a grander view each time we\nstopped at a turn to give way to an automobile chugging slowly up or\ncoasting swiftly down. Arrived at the little village of St. Cergue, I\nhad still a climb and a search among the hotels, pensions, and summer\nhomes scattered over the mountainside for Villa Bois-gentil. This was\nfound in the middle of a meadow backed by a forest of firs, a square,\ntwo-story house, simply furnished but with no affectation of rusticity,\nas is common in American country homes. From the inclosed porch there\nis a glorious view of Mont Blanc, with the long blue crescent of Lake\nGeneva curving around the ramparts of its base. But, as with many\nanother Swiss view, the effect is marred by the presence of a big box\nof a hotel in the immediate foreground.\n\nOne would have thought from the cordiality of my reception that a\nphilosopher had nothing better to do than to entertain a wandering\nAmerican journalist. At lunch I had an opportunity of meeting also\nMadame and Mademoiselle Bergson, and afterward a long talk with\nProfessor Bergson, who later accompanied me down the steep mountain\npath to the village and along the winding road through the woods. His\nconversation has the charm of his books, the enthusiasm for the mission\nof philosophy, the wealth of illustrations drawn from many fields of\nscience and art, the freshness and inspiration of his novel point of\nview, the candidness in the consideration of opposing arguments, the\nunaffected, unpretentious manner, the absence of the professional\njealousy and personal arrogance which has been characteristic of many\noriginal thinkers. The reader will notice that in his reviews and\ncriticisms of the historic systems of philosophy, he never seeks to\noverthrow them, but is always trying to see how much of them he can\nsave and assimilate. He believes that it is possible for metaphysics to\nhave a continuous and positive development like the natural sciences,\neach man building on what has gone before, instead of setting up a new\nschool and endeavoring to secure a personal following.[2]\n\nI took the liberty of extending to Professor Bergson an invitation to\nAmerica, for I was able to assure him of a hearty welcome on account\nof the deep interest already taken here in his thought. The work of\nJames and Dewey prepared the way for Bergson in this country, for\nhis philosophy may be regarded as a constructive system built upon\npragmatic criticism. Indeed, he has been accused by his opponents of\nstealing Yankee psychology and making metaphysics out of it. The truth\nis, James and Bergson pursued through many years lines of thought\nof similar tendency but of independent development, though each has\nrepeatedly taken occasion to express his appreciation of the work of\nthe other. It is a case of psycho-metaphysical parallelism rather than\nof interaction.\n\nIn February, 1913, Professor Bergson came to America at the invitation\nof Columbia University and gave two series of lectures, one in French\nand the other in English, on _Spiritualit\u00e9 et Libert\u00e9_ and the Method\nof Philosophy. One would find reason to question the common assertion\nthat nowadays no interest is taken in metaphysical problems when he\nsaw the lecture rooms packed with people from the city as well as\nstudents from all departments of the university. A line of automobiles\nstood waiting along Broadway, as the litters waited in the streets of\nRome when Plotinus, the Neoplatonist, came to lecture there seventeen\nhundred years ago. Those who could not beg, buy, or borrow a ticket\nof admission formed a line outside the door, hoping that some who had\ntickets would fail to appear, but that did not often happen. A lunette\nwas discovered over the door which commanded the lecture room, and here\ngathered a compact group of the excluded, finding room for one eye or\none ear apiece, but the fainting of a lady in the crush put a stop to\nthis privilege. In the downtown department stores Bergson's books were\nstacked up on the \"best sellers\" counter. His American publisher sold\nin two years half as many copies of \"Creative Evolution\" as had been\nsold in France in fifteen. Yet Bergson is a prophet not without honor\nin his own country. The three weeks he spent here were so crowded with\nengagements that he had to be kept running on a schedule as close as a\nrailroad time-table. As he was leaving, I asked Professor Bergson the\nbanal question of what he thought of America. He answered: \"I shall\nalways remember America as the Land of Interrupted Conversations. I\nhave met so many interesting people with whom I should like to talk,\nbut then somebody else equally interesting comes up.\"\n\nM. Bergson believes that it is possible to make any philosophical\nidea clear and acceptable to the multitude. In this he obviously\ndiffers from other philosophers, many of whom do not think it possible\nand some of whom do not think it desirable. But to gain the wider\naudience, the author must take great pains with his style. The fault\nwith translations is that the swing, the rhythm, is apt to be lost or\naltered, and this is essential to the impression as well as the right\nwords. I spoke to him of the difficulty of finding an exact English\nequivalent of _\u00e9lan vital_, which is the key word of his \"Evolution\ncr\u00e9atrice\", and he replied that he thought that \"impetus\", the word\nchosen by Dr. Arthur Mitchell in his translation of the work, was\nbetter than any of the others which had been suggested, such as\n\"impulse\", \"momentum\", \"movement\", \"onrush\", \"push\", \"force\", and\n\"urge.\"\n\nM. Bergson's method of composition is based on his theory of style.\nIn undertaking a new book he spends as many years as may be necessary\nto the mastery of the literature of the subject and the development\nof his ideas. Then when he starts in to compose, he sets aside all\nhis books and notes, and writes at a furious rate so as to get the\nbook down as nearly as possible in the form it took in his mind at\none time, jotting down his thoughts as rapidly as they come, often in\nfragmentary sentences and words, so as not to interrupt the movement of\nhis mind. Then having put on paper the essentials of his theme with its\noriginal impetus, he devotes himself to the long process of revision,\nverification, and correction.\n\nTo art in all its forms Bergson has given a large place in his\nphilosophy. The little book in which he has touched upon it, \"Le Rire\"\n(Laughter), is not so much of a digression from his fundamental line\nof thought as may appear. He explains that ridicule has developed as\na method of social control, to whip people into line, to punish them\nfor willful or absent-minded disregard of social usages. Laughter\nis incompatible with emotion. The comic addresses itself to pure\nintelligence. A joke cannot be perceived until the heart has a\nmomentary an\u00e6sthesia. There is nothing comic except human beings.\nMan has been defined as \"the laughing animal.\" He is also the only\nlaughable animal. Man becomes ridiculous when we regard him from an\nintellectualist standpoint; that is, as a machine. The attitudes,\ngestures, and movements of the human body are laughable in the exact\ndegree that they seem to us mechanical. We always laugh when persons\nseem like things.\n\nThe bearing of this theory of the ridiculous upon his philosophy is\nso obvious that he does not need to state it. Bergson, too, might use\nridicule as a weapon and laugh determinism out of court. The man of the\nmechanists would be as funny as a jack-in-the-box.\n\nIn the same volume he gives his view of the function of art, from which\na few sentences may be quoted here:\n\n    What is the object of art? If reality struck our senses and\n    our consciousness directly; if we could enter into immediate\n    communication with things and with each other, I believe\n    that art would be useless, or rather that we would all be\n    artists, for our souls would then vibrate continuously in\n    unison with nature. Our eyes, aided by our memory, would cut\n    out in space and fix in time inimitable pictures. Our glance\n    would seize in passing, sculptured in the living marble of\n    the human body, bits of statuary as beautiful as those of\n    antiquity. We would hear singing in the depths of our souls\n    like music, sometimes gay, more often plaintive, always\n    original, the uninterrupted melody of our interior life. All\n    this is around us, all this is in us, and yet nothing of\n    all this is perceived by us distinctly. Between nature and\n    us--what do I say?--between us and our own consciousness,\n    a veil interposes, a thick veil for the common man, a thin\n    veil, almost transparent, for the artist and the poet. What\n    fairy has woven this veil? Was it through malice or through\n    friendliness? It is necessary to live, and life requires\n    that we apprehend things relatively to our needs. Living\n    consists in acting. To live is to receive from objects only\n    the _useful_ impression in order to respond to it by the\n    appropriate reactions; the other impressions must obliterate\n    themselves or come to us only confusedly. I look and I\n    believe I see, I listen and believe I hear, I study myself\n    and I believe I read to the bottom of my heart. But what I\n    see and what I hear from the external world is simply what\n    my senses extract from it in order to throw light upon my\n    conduct; what I know of myself is what flows on the surface,\n    what takes part in action. My senses and my consciousness\n    give me only a practical simplification of reality.\n\n    Thus, whether it be painting, sculpture, poetry or music,\n    art has no other object than to dissipate the practically\n    useful symbols, the generalities conventionally and socially\n    accepted, in short all that masks reality for us, in order\n    to bring us face to face with reality itself. It is a\n    misunderstanding on this point that has given rise to the\n    debate between realism and idealism in art. Art is certainly\n    only a more direct vision of reality. But this purity\n    of perception implies a rupture with useful convention,\n    an innate and specially localized disinterestedness of\n    the sense or of the consciousness, in short, a certain\n    immateriality of life which is what has always been called\n    idealism. So one might say without in the least playing upon\n    the sense of the words, that realism is in the work when\n    idealism is in the soul, and that it is by force of ideality\n    alone that one can regain contact with reality.\n\nThere are various other ways besides art whereby we may recover and\nstrengthen the faculty of intuition, which has been suffered to atrophy\nthrough too exclusive a reliance upon rational processes. There is,\nfor example, action, life itself, the sense of living, which brings\nus into immediate contact with reality. By the help of science, art,\nand philosophy, we may achieve sympathy, a feeling of the kinship of\nnature, a consciousness of interpenetration, a realization of the\nmeaning of evolution. Above all, philosophy has this aim and power, to\ndevelop another faculty, complementary to the intellect, that will open\nto us a perspective on the other half of reality, not capable of being\nconfined in the rigid formulas of deductive logic.\n\n    There are things that intelligence alone is able to seek but\n    which, by itself, it will never find. These things instinct\n    alone can find, but it will never seek them.\n\n    Intelligence and instinct are turned in opposite directions,\n    the former toward inert matter, the latter toward life.\n    Intelligence by means of science, which is its work, will\n    deliver up to us more and more completely the secret of\n    physical operations; of life it brings us, and moreover\n    only claims to bring us, a translation in terms of inertia.\n    It goes all around life, taking from the outside the\n    greatest possible number of views of it, drawing it into\n    itself instead of entering into it. But it is to the very\n    inwardness of life that _intuition_ leads--by intuition I\n    mean instinct that has become disinterested, self-conscious,\n    capable of reflecting upon its object and of enlarging it\n    indefinitely.\n\n    We see that the intellect, so skillful in dealing with the\n    inert, is awkward the moment it touches the living. Whether\n    it wants to treat the life of the body or the life of the\n    mind, it proceeds with the rigor, the stiffness, and the\n    brutality of an instrument not designed for such use. The\n    history of hygiene or of pedagogy teaches us much in this\n    matter.\n\nIn Bergson's system metaphysics occupies the same place that it does\nin the works of Aristotle. Metaphysics is simply what is beyond\nphysics, not something antagonistic to it. He has not, like many modern\nphilosophers, been contemptuous toward physiological psychology. On the\ncontrary, he has mastered it and built upon it. This is the reason,\nI think, why his ideas have met with such swift acceptance. It is as\nabsurd for a philosopher nowadays to attempt to confine himself to the\ndata accessible to Plato as it would be for a mathematician to attempt\nto solve the problems of modern physics with the use of the methods of\nEuclid.\n\nBergson applied his theory of the relation of mind and brain to the\nexplanation of the mechanism of dreaming, in an address before the\n_Institut psychologique_ on March 28, 1901.[3] Here he showed how the\nobscure sensations of sight, touch, and hearing which reach us even\nduring sleep furnish the basis for our dreams, and how our memories\nfit into this framework, so the process is similar to that of ordinary\nperception except that the critical faculty is less vigilant than in\na waking state. Thus, light flashing upon the closed eyes may give\nrise to a dream of fire, and the recumbent posture and consequent\nabsence of pressure on the soles of the feet give us the idea of\nfloating in the air. The following passage from this paper on dreams\nis of especial interest, for in it Bergson brings forward the theory\nwhich since then Freud and his school have developed and in many cases\ncarried to extravagant lengths,--the theory that our memories are\nstored in a state of tension like steam in a boiler, and may rise into\nconsciousness in various guises when the vigilance of the individual is\nrelaxed:\n\n    Our memories, at any given moment, form a solid whole, a\n    pyramid, so to speak, whose point is inserted precisely\n    into our present action. But behind the memories which are\n    concerned in our occupations and are revealed by means of\n    it, there are others, thousands of others, stored below the\n    scene illuminated by consciousness. Yes, I believe indeed\n    that all our past life is there, preserved even to the most\n    infinitesimal details, and that we forget nothing, and\n    that all that we have felt, perceived, thought, willed,\n    from the first awakening of our consciousness, survives\n    indestructibly. But the memories which are preserved in\n    these obscure depths are there in the state of invisible\n    phantoms. They aspire, perhaps, to the light, but they do\n    not even try to rise to it; they know that it is impossible\n    and that I, as a living and acting being, have something\n    else to do than to occupy myself with them.\n\n    But suppose that, at a given moment, I become\n    _disinterested_ in the present situation, in the present\n    action--in short, in all which previously has fixed and\n    guided my memory; suppose, in other words, that I am\n    asleep. Then these memories, perceiving that I have taken\n    away the obstacle, have raised the trapdoor which has kept\n    them beneath the floor of consciousness, arise from the\n    depths; they rise, they move, they perform in the night of\n    unconsciousness a great dance macabre. They rush together\n    to the door which has been left ajar. They all want to get\n    through. But they cannot; there are too many of them. From\n    the multitudes which are called, which will be chosen? It is\n    not hard to say. Formerly, when I was awake, the memories\n    which forced their way were those which could involve claims\n    of relationship with the present situation, with what I\n    saw and heard around me. Now it is more vague images which\n    occupy my sight, more indecisive sounds which affect my\n    ear, more indistinct touches which are distributed over the\n    surface of my body, but there are also the more numerous\n    sensations which arise from the deepest parts of the\n    organism. So, then, among the phantom memories which aspire\n    to fill themselves with color, with sonority, in short with\n    materiality, the only ones that succeed are those which can\n    assimilate themselves with the color-dust that we perceive,\n    the external and internal sensations that we catch, etc.,\n    and which, besides, respond to the effective tone of our\n    general sensibility. When this union is effected between the\n    memory and the sensation, we have a dream.\n\nBergson may be called a man of three books, if we ignore \"Laughter\",\nwhich is merely a flying but-tress of his system. In the first, known\nin English as \"Time and Free Will\", he develops his theory of vital\nduration as distinct from physical time, which has been the guiding\nclew of all his later thinking. This volume, completed in 1887, was\nthe outcome of a four years' study of the physical, psychological,\nand metaphysical conceptions of time and space. For the second book,\ndealing with the relation of the mind to the brain, it was necessary\nto master the voluminous literature of the subject, especially the\nclinical and experimental researches on aphasia and localization of\nfunction. This required nine years of study, embodied in \"Matter and\nMemory\", appearing in 1896. In the preparation for the third book he\ndevoted eleven years to the study of biology and produced \"Creative\nEvolution\" in 1907. According to this rate of increase, we might expect\nhis fourth volume in 1923, but it would be obviously unfair to apply to\nM. Bergson himself the mathematical determinism that he repudiates.\n\nI call attention to this preliminary study of the sciences, because\nthere is a danger that the anti-intellectualist tendency of the\npragmatic movement should lead to a disregard of the importance of\nscientific research. That this danger is real and present, was shown\nin the Binet report on the teaching of philosophy, previously referred\nto. Some of the professors complained that their students, under the\ninfluence of Bergson's ideas, had come to have a disdain for the\ntedious and laborious methods of experimental science, believing that\nscience does not give us reality, and assuming that, while science\nis good enough for mechanics and physicians, it is indifferent to\nphilosophers.\n\nWhen this point was brought up for discussion in the _Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 fran\u00e7aise\nde Philosophie_, M. Bergson made an indignant reply, declaring that\nin the theories attributed to him he recognized nothing that he had\ntaught or written. He had never contemned science or subordinated it to\nmetaphysics.\n\n    Mathematics, for instance, what have I said of that? That,\n    however great may be the part played in it by the creative\n    imagination, it must not lose sight of space and matter;\n    that matter and space are realities; that matter is weighted\n    with geometry; that geometry is consequently not a mere\n    play but a true point of contact with the absolute. I\n    attribute the same absolute value to the physical sciences.\n    It is true they enunciate laws of which the form would have\n    been different if other variables, other units of measure,\n    had been chosen, and especially if the problems had been\n    propounded chronologically in a different order. But all\n    this is because we are obliged to break up nature and to\n    examine one by one the problems it sets for us. Really,\n    physics strives for the absolute, and it approaches more\n    and more as it advances this ideal limit. I should like to\n    know if there exists, among modern conceptions of science,\n    a theory that puts a higher value upon positive science.\n    Most of them give us science as entirely relative to human\n    intelligence. I hold, on the contrary, that it is reality\n    itself, absolute reality, which the mathematical and\n    physical sciences tend to reveal to us. Science only begins\n    to become relative, or rather symbolic, when it approaches\n    from the physico-chemical side, the problems of life and\n    consciousness. But even here it is quite legitimate. It only\n    needs then to be completed by a study of another kind, that\n    is, metaphysics. In short, all my researches have had no\n    other object than to bring about a _rapprochement_ between\n    metaphysics and science and to consolidate the one with the\n    other without sacrificing anything of either, after having\n    first clearly distinguished the one from the other.\n\nThis outspoken and emphatic language ought to clear the air of many\ncurrent misconceptions of Bergson's philosophy. Now that he has laid\ndown his fundamental principles, it is to be hoped that he will next\ntake up their applications to the interpretation of history and the\nproblems of conduct. If he does not do this himself, others will do it\nfor him, and doubtless not always in accordance with his intentions.\nIn fact, they are already doing it. In France, Bergsonianism is not an\nacademic speculation, but an active force in some of the most important\nmovements of the day. We hear of a Bergsonian art and a Bergsonian\nliterature as well as a Bergsonian Catholicism and a Bergsonian labor\nmovement. The two last mentioned are of especial interest as showing\nthe influence of his novel views upon the most diverse minds. Just\nas there were Hegelians of the Right and Hegelians of the Left, so\nnow there are two wings of Bergsonianism, the conservative being the\nModernists and the radical being the Syndicalists.\n\nThere has rarely been seen such an outburst of enthusiasm for\nmetaphysical thought as that of the French neo-Catholics. The\npragmatic philosophy, particularly James's \"Varieties of Religious\nExperience\", pointed the way to a new Christian apologetic based upon\nliving experience, instead of abstract reasoning. The young Catholics\nturned their attention to the saints rather than to the theologians,\nand found inspiration in a fresh study of the Catholic mystics. In a\nconception of truth as a growth, as an ideal convergence of beneficial\nbeliefs, rather than as a static limit, and in a conception of history\nas a progressive process of verification, they attained a point of\nview which enabled them to retain their ecclesiastical heritage and\nat the same time to accept the bounty of modern science. But such\nspeculations were deemed dangerous by the Vatican, and the movement\nwas crushed, so far as a movement of such vigor and vitality can be\ncrushed, by the Encyclical and Syllabus issued by Pius X in 1907, and\nthe anti-modernist oath that was later imposed.[4] This was followed\nin 1914 by the placing of Bergson's works upon the Index of Prohibited\nBooks which no good Catholic may read without the express permission of\nhis spiritual adviser.\n\nAt the opposite extreme we find the trades unions or syndicates,\nwhose power has been often demonstrated in recent years, but whose\naims and ideals are yet indeterminate and vague. So far it is Will\nand not Idea that is manifested in the revolutionary labor movement,\nto use the Schopenhauerian terms. But becoming conscious of the need\nof a philosophical justification, they have seized upon one side of\nBergson's doctrine and declared the _\u00e9lan ouvrier_ brother to the _\u00e9lan\nvital_, or a part of it. Their flamboyant phraseology reminds one of\n1793: \"The Coll\u00e8ge de France collaborates with the Bourse du Travail\"\nand \"The flute of personal meditation harmonizes with the trumpets of\nthe social revolution.\" The syndicalists, like the modernists, have\ntheir revolt against dogma, against the catchwords of republicanism\nas well as against the rigid formulas of Marxianism, against all\nattempts to confine the future in the past and to impose determinism\nupon conduct. And when it comes to the enforcement of conformity--or,\nrather, of uniformity--of profession, there is not much difference\nbetween Pope and party.[5]\n\nIt is unnecessary to say that M. Bergson teaches neither Catholicism\nnor revolution, and that he cannot be held accountable for all the\nvarious applications of his ideas to practical life. I mention these\nextremes only to show the range of their actual influence. Whatever may\nbe the fate of Bergson's philosophy, we may be sure it will not leave\nthe world as it found it. It is a force to be reckoned with at all\nevents in the field of action as well as in the realm of pure reason.\n\nVery few references to disputed questions in religion, sociology, and\nethics can be found in his works, and since he prefers to use a new,\nclean, and unconventional vocabulary, he cannot be pocketed in any of\nthe pigeonholes provided in advance by the historians of philosophy.\nTo the demand for a brief formulation of his philosophy, an indignant\nBergsonian retorts: \"Can you put Maeterlinck's 'Pell\u00e9as and M\u00e9lisande'\ninto a formula?\"\n\nThe Post Impressionists and Futurists are fond of ascribing their\nnovel ideas of art to Bergson, but he is not eager to assume the\nresponsibility. When I asked him about it, he said that he had never\nyet been able to discover his philosophy in their paintings, and\nfurther that he was always skeptical of a movement where the theory ran\nso far ahead of the practice.\n\nIt is obvious that the adoption of the pragmatic principle,\nparticularly in the extreme Bergsonian form, would radically alter\nour view of the past, and compel a rewriting or at least a rereading\nof history. If history never repeats itself, what is its lesson for\nus? Certainly it is not competent to foretell our future, still less\nto prescribe our actions. The best expression of what seems to me the\nlegitimate ethical deductions of Bergson's philosophy is to be found\nin the brilliant essays by L. P. Jacks. According to the editor of the\n_Hibbert Journal_, the highest morality consists, not in following the\nestablished rules, but in a voluntary rise into a higher level. The\ntrue moral act is original, creative, unprecedented. What would the\nauthor of \"Folk-ways\", for whom conformity was the only morality, have\nsaid to the following:\n\n\"Had men all along restricted themselves to the performance of those\nactions for which the warrant of moral science was then and there\navailable, many crimes perhaps would not have been committed, but it is\ndoubtful if the world would contain the record of a single noble deed.\nWe cannot remind ourselves too often that the most complete scientific\nknowledge of what has been done up to date will never enable us to\nanswer the question, 'What ought to be done next?'\n\n\"The subject matter of science and the subject matter of morality\nare entirely different and in a sense opposed; the first is the\ndeed-as-done, the second is the doing of a deed-to-be.\n\n\"Conscience rightly understood is no faculty of abstract judgment\nlaying down propositions as to what ought and ought not to be done; it\nis not a 'voice', though we often name it such, bidding us do this or\nthat; it is rather an _\u00e9lan vital_, an impulse, an active principle,\nnay, the good _Will_ itself.\"--\"Alchemy of Thought\", by L. P. Jacks,\npp. 260, 287.\n\nAmong the numerous followers of Bergson, none is more enthusiastic\nor sympathetic than Edouard Le Roy, a modernist Catholic--if that,\nsince the encyclical, is not a contradiction in terms--who has for\nmany years been in close touch with Bergson, and has been especially\ninterested in the religious and ethical applications of his theories.\nHis introduction to Bergson's philosophy is therefore useful, not\nmerely because it gives in brief a competent exposition of Bergson's\nideas, for the beginner would probably find it quite as profitable and\nenjoyable to read the same number of pages of \"Creative Evolution\", but\nchiefly because M. Le Roy is in a way an authorized spokesman, and so\nwe can get some notion of Bergson's opinions about questions on which\nhe has not yet expressed himself. For example, Bergson in all his books\nnever deals with religion, although it is obvious that his philosophy\nhas the closest relation with religion in many of its aspects. Le\nRoy, however, is not so reticent, and he closes the volume with the\nfollowing noteworthy passage:\n\n\"In the depths of ourselves we find liberty; in the depths of universal\nbeing we find a demand for creation. Since evolution is creative,\neach of its moments works for the production of an indeducible and\ntranscendent future. This future must not be regarded as a simple\ndevelopment of the present, a simple expression of germs already given.\nConsequently we have no authority for saying that there is forever\nonly one order of life, only one plane of action, only one rhythm of\nduration, only one perspective of existence. And if disconnections and\nabrupt leaps are visible in the economy of the past--from matter to\nlife, from the animal to man--we have no authority again for claiming\nthat we cannot observe to-day something analogous in the very essence\nof human life, that the point of view of the flesh, and the point of\nview of the spirit, the point of view of reason, and the point of\nview of charity are a homogeneous extension of it. And apart from\nthat, taking life in its first tendency, and in the general direction\nof its current, it is ascent, growth, upward effort, and a work of\nspiritualizing and emancipating creation: by that we might define Good,\nfor Good is a path rather than a thing.\n\n\"But life may fail, halt, or travel downward.... Each species, each\nindividual, each function tends to take itself as its end; mechanism,\nhabit, body and letter, which are, strictly speaking, pure instruments,\nactually become principles of death. Thus it comes about that life is\nexhausted in efforts toward self-preservation, allows itself to be\nconverted by matter into captive eddies, sometimes even abandons itself\nto the inertia of the weight which it ought to raise, and surrenders to\nthe downward current which constitutes the essence of materiality: it\nis thus that Evil would be defined, as the direction of travel opposed\nto Good. Now, with man, thought, reflection, and clear consciousness\nappear. At the same time also properly moral qualifications appear;\ngood becomes duty, evil becomes sin. At this precise moment, a new\nproblem begins, demanding the soundings of a new intuition, yet\nconnected at clear and visible points with previous problems.\n\n\"This is the philosophy which some are pleased to say is closed by\nnature to all problems of a certain order, problems of reason or\nproblems of morality. There is no doctrine, on the contrary, which\nis more open, and none which, in actual fact, lends itself better to\nfurther extension.\"\n\nI have quoted this entire, because Professor Bergson has given it his\nindorsement in the plainest terms. In a letter to M. Le Roy about the\nbook, he says:\n\n    Your study could not be more conscientious or true to the\n    original. Nowhere is this sympathy more in evidence than\n    where you point the possibilities of further developments of\n    the doctrine. In this direction I should myself say exactly\n    what you have said.\n\nThe passage quoted above from M. Le Roy's book has, then, almost\nthe significance of a signed statement. It was observed that in his\nlectures in New York Professor Bergson was much more outspoken than\nformerly in his views upon religious matters; as, for example, when\nhe replied affirmatively to the question whether he believed in\nimmortality or not. It may be anticipated that his future work will be\nin the development of his philosophy along the lines indicated by M. Le\nRoy, although we may expect--judging from his former books--that this\nwill take the form, not of the formulation of a new moral code, but of\nthe discovery of a new way of looking at life and appraising action.\n\nUntil recently the triumphal march of Bergson into increasing\npopularity and influence has met with little systematic opposition.\nSome have found him obscure. Some have called him absurd. He has his\ndevoted partisans and bitter opponents. But his views have not yet\nbeen subjected to the thorough criticism which they must inevitably\nreceive sooner or later. A step in this direction is the study of\nthe pragmatic movement by Ren\u00e9 Berthelot. The first volume of his\n\"Utilitarian Romanticism\" deals with the pragmatism of Nietzsche and\nPoincar\u00e9; the second with the pragmatism of Bergson. The author, after\nthe manner of historians of philosophy, is more concerned to determine\nwhat is new in Bergson than what is true. He acts upon the old military\nrule \"divide and conquer\" and accordingly splits up Bergsonism into\nGerman romanticism and Anglo-Saxon utilitarianism, and then proceeds to\ndispatch these severally after the orthodox manner. This procedure is\nin a way begging the question, for it implicitly denies the Bergsonian\nthesis that there may be something new in the world. Tracing a thing\nback to its roots is all very well, provided that you do not assume\nthat the roots are all there is of the plant that has grown out of them.\n\nIn tracing this genealogy of thought M. Berthelot finds Bergson\nrelated to Nietzsche on the romantic side. Both, he says, derive their\nromanticism from Schelling; Bergson, through his revered teacher,\nRavaisson, and Nietzsche through Hoelderlin, Emerson, Schopenhauer,\nand Wagner. \"Like the symbolists, Nietzsche and Bergson have drunk in\ndifferent cups the water from the same magic fountain; an invisible\nVivian has bound them both in the same enchantment.\"\n\nFrom the other side of the house--might we say the masculine\nside?--Bergson derived his utilitarian empiricism; M. Berthelot traces\nits descent from Berkeley through Hume, Mill, Bain, and Spencer. In the\ncourse of this discussion the author introduces the following ingenious\nformula:\n\nHobbes : Berkeley :: Nietzsche : Bergson.\n\nThose who are sufficiently expert with the application of the rule of\nthree to metaphysics may work this out at their leisure.\n\nOne would suppose, on Mendelian principles, that a hybrid of such\ndiverse and distinguished intellectual ancestry would show more\noriginality than Berthelot is willing to allow to Bergson. At the end\nof his analysis he comes to the conclusion that Bergson has really\nmade only one important contribution to philosophy; that is, his\nconception of duration as distinguished from time. As Berkeley in\nanalyzing the idea of space showed how psychological space, that is,\nthe notion of space derived from sensation, differed from mathematical\nor formal space, so Bergson has shown how concrete duration or\npsychological time differs from mathematical or formal time. But\neven this theory according to our author is misapplied by Bergson,\nfor it is not an opposition between space and time, but between two\ndifferent conceptions of both space and time. This is characteristic of\nBerthelot's criticism, which is mainly directed toward breaking down\nall along the line the dichotomy to which Bergson is addicted.\n\nBergson's literary skill and amazing popularity seem to annoy him as\nthey do other professors of philosophy in various lands. Whenever\nBerthelot presents Bergson with a bundle of compliments, we may detect\na nettle hidden in the bouquet, as when he alludes to Bergson as\n\"the Debussy of contemporary philosophy\", and he says that with an\nincreasing floridity of style the number of the _bergsoniennes_ has\ncome to surpass that of the _bergsoniens._ But that a philosophy should\nbecome fashionable seems to me rather creditable to the public than\ndiscreditable to the originator.\n\nProfessor Bergson has on several occasions expressed an interest in the\nefforts of the Society of Psychical Research to throw light into dark\ncorners, and he has shown his sympathy by accepting the presidency of\nthe English society, a successor in that position to F. W. H. Myers,\nSir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, A. J. Balfour, and Andrew Lang.\nIn his presidential address delivered in \u00c6olian Hall, London, May 28,\n1913, Professor Bergson made the novel suggestion that if the same\namount of effort had been given toward the study of mental phenomena as\nhas been given to physical, we might now know as much about mind as we\ndo about matter. The concluding passage of the address is worth quoting:\n\n    What would have happened if all our science, for three\n    centuries past, had been directed toward the knowledge\n    of the mind, instead of toward that of matter--if,\n    for instance, Kepler and Galileo and Newton had been\n    psychologists? Psychology would have attained developments\n    of which one could no more form an idea than people had\n    been able, before Kepler and Galileo and Newton, to form an\n    idea of our astronomy and of our physics. Probably, instead\n    of their being disdained _a priori_, all the strange facts\n    with which psychical research was concerned would have\n    been sought out minutely. Probably we should have had a\n    vitalist biology quite different from ours, perhaps also a\n    different medicine, or therapeutics by way of suggestion\n    would have been pushed to a point of which we can form no\n    idea. But when the human mind, having pushed thus far the\n    science of mind, had turned toward inert matter, it would\n    have been confused as to its direction, not knowing how to\n    set to work, not knowing how to apply to this matter the\n    processes with which it had been successful up till then.\n    The world of physical, and not that of psychical, phenomena\n    would then have been the world of mystery. It was, however,\n    neither possible nor desirable that things should have\n    happened thus. It was not possible, because at the dawn of\n    modern times mathematical science already existed, and it\n    was necessary, consequently, that the mind should pursue\n    its researches in a direction to which that science was\n    applicable. Nor was it desirable, even for the science of\n    mind, for there would always have been wanting to that\n    science something infinitely precious--the precision, the\n    anxiety for proof, the habit of distinguishing that which\n    is certain and that which is simply possible or probable.\n    The sciences concerned with matter can alone give to the\n    mind that precision, that rigor, those scruples. Let us\n    now approach the science of mind with these excellent\n    habits, renouncing the bad metaphysic which embarrasses our\n    research, and the science of the mind will attain results\n    surpassing all our hopes.\n\nBut whatever might have been the result if Kepler, Galileo, and Newton\nhad turned their attention to psychology instead of physics, it must\nbe confessed that the Society for Psychical Research has been a\ndisappointment, notwithstanding that it has numbered among its zealous\ninvestigators such distinguished scientists as Lodge, Crookes, and\nWallace. When the society was organized in 1882, its first president,\nProfessor Sidgwick, called attention to the numerous reports of\nphysical phenomena in the s\u00e9ance room and expressed the hope that\nsuch evidence would be forthcoming more abundantly now that competent\ninvestigators were prepared to deal with them. But quite the contrary\nhappened. As Mr. Podmore puts it in his book on \"The Naturalization of\nthe Supernatural\":\n\n\"In short, just when an organized and systematic investigation on a\nscale not inadequate to the importance of the subject was for the first\ntime about to be made, the phenomena to be investigated diminished\nrapidly in frequency and importance, and the opportunities for\ninvestigation were further curtailed by the indifference or reluctance\nof the mediums to submit their claims to investigation.\"\n\nIt would seem, then, that since mankind, or some small portion of it,\nhas acquired the precision, rigor, and scruples of physical science,\nit has become difficult, even impossible, to cultivate the occult.\nStill most of us would agree with M. Bergson that, assuming that there\nwas such an alternative opened to humanity as he supposes, science has\nchosen the better part in undertaking the conquest of the physical\nworld first.\n\nThe religious importance of Bergson's theory of evolution will be\napparent from the quotations given. It has occurred to me in reading\nhis later work that in some passages the word \"faith\" could be\nsubstituted for \"philosophy\", and \"_elohim_\" for \"_\u00e9lan vital_\",\nwithout materially altering the sense. Then, too, his emphasis of\ntime restores a conception which has always been a vital factor in\nreligious faith, but which is not found in the scientific conception\nof the world as a reversible reaction or the metaphysical conception\nof the world as an illusion of an unchangeable Absolute. The present\nday is different from any other, and the future depends upon it. We\ncannot console or excuse ourselves by saying, \"It will be all the same\na hundred years hence.\" Now is the accepted time, the day of decision,\nthe unique opportunity, and the election may be irrevocable, a turning\npoint in the history of the creation. The atoms have lost their chance.\nThe animals are hopelessly sidetracked. Upon us depends the future, the\nsalvation of the world.\n\n    We must no longer speak of life in general as if it were an\n    abstraction, or a mere rubric under which all living beings\n    are enrolled. At a certain time, in certain points of space,\n    a very visible current originated. This current of life,\n    traversing the bodies which it has successively organized,\n    passing from generation to generation, has divided itself\n    among species and dispersed itself among individuals without\n    losing anything of its force.--\"Creative Evolution\"?\n\nBergson's philosophy would apparently lead to a conception of God\nmore Arminian than Calvinistic, if it is permissible to apply the\nold theological categories; a God perhaps conscious, personal, and\nanthropomorphic, but not omnipotent and unchangeable. In fact it has a\nstriking similarity to the conception of the Alexandrian Gnostics, a\ncreative force struggling against the intractability of inert matter\nand triumphing by subtlety and persistence. The motto of Louis XI,\n_Divide et impera_, applies here in a different sense:\n\n    God, thus defined, has nothing of the already made: He is\n    unceasing life, action, freedom. Creation, so conceived, is\n    not a mystery; we experience it in ourselves when we act\n    freely....\n\n    It is as if a vague and formless being whom we may call as\n    we will, man or superman, had sought to realize himself, and\n    had succeeded only by abandoning part of himself on the way.\n    The losses are represented by the rest of the animal world\n    and even by the vegetable world.--\"Creative Evolution\", pp.\n    248, 266.\n\nAccording to this view, the world is gradually coming to life,\nacquiring a consciousness. Matter is an Undine in search of a soul.\nA Rodin statue with human forms emerging from the unhewn stone is\nBergson's philosophy in marble. We see again Milton's \"tawny lion\npawing to get free his hinder parts.\" We hear again Faust's translation\nof the Logos: \"In the beginning was the Act.\"\n\nBut I must refrain from imposing such analogies upon an author who has\ntaken pains to clothe his thought in fresh language in order to be free\nfrom the connotations of the old. Let Bergson summarize his theory of\nevolution in his own words:\n\n    Life as a whole, from the initial impulsion that thrust\n    it into the world, will appear as a wave that rises, and\n    which is opposed by the descending movement of matter. On\n    the greater part of its surface, at different heights, the\n    current is converted by matter into a vortex. At one point\n    alone it passes freely, dragging with it the obstacle which\n    will weigh on its progress but will not stop it. At this\n    point is humanity; it is our privileged situation. On the\n    other hand, this rising wave is consciousness, and, like all\n    consciousness, it includes potentialities without number\n    which interpenetrate and to which consequently neither the\n    category of unity nor that of multiplicity is appropriate,\n    made as they both are for inert matter. The matter that\n    it bears along with it, and in the interstices of which\n    it inserts itself, alone can divide it into distinct\n    individualities. On flows the current, running through\n    human generations, subdividing itself into individuals.\n    This subdivision was vaguely indicated in it, but could\n    not have been made clear without matter. Thus souls are\n    continually being created, which, nevertheless, in a certain\n    sense pre-existed. They are nothing else than the little\n    rills into which the great river of life divides itself,\n    flowing through the body of humanity. The movement of the\n    stream is distinct from the river bed, although it must\n    adopt its winding course. Consciousness is distinct from\n    the organism it animates, although it must undergo its\n    vicissitudes. As the possible actions which a state of\n    consciousness indicates are at every instant beginning to\n    be carried out in the nervous centers, the brain underlines\n    at every instant the motor indications of the state of\n    consciousness; but the interdependency of consciousness and\n    brain is limited to this; the destiny of consciousness is\n    not bound up on that account with the destiny of cerebral\n    matter. Finally, consciousness is essentially free; it\n    is freedom itself; but it cannot pass through matter\n    without settling on it, without adapting itself to it;\n    this adaptation is what we call intellectuality; and the\n    intellect, turning itself back toward active, that is to\n    say, free, consciousness, naturally makes it enter into the\n    conceptual forms into which it is accustomed to see matter\n    fit. It will, therefore, always perceive freedom in the form\n    of necessity; it will always neglect the part of novelty or\n    of creation inherent in free act; it will always substitute\n    for action itself an imitation, artificial, approximate,\n    obtained by compounding the old with the old and the\n    same with the same. Thus, to the eyes of a philosophy\n    that attempts to reabsorb intellect in intuition, many\n    difficulties vanish or become light. But such a doctrine\n    does not only facilitate speculation, it gives us also more\n    power to act and to live. For, with it, we feel ourselves\n    no longer isolated in humanity, humanity no longer seems\n    isolated in the nature that it dominates. As the smallest\n    grain of dust is bound up with our entire solar system,\n    drawn along with it in that undivided movement of descent\n    which, is materiality itself, so all organized beings, from\n    the humblest to the highest, from the first origins of life\n    to the time in which we are, and in all places as in all\n    times, do but evidence a single impulsion, the inverse of\n    the movement of matter, and in itself indivisible. All the\n    living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous\n    push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides\n    animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and in time,\n    is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind\n    each of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every\n    resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps\n    even death.--\"Creative Evolution\", p. 269.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHOW TO READ BERGSON\n\nRead the last first. Begin with \"Creative Evolution\", for this is the\nmost comprehensive exposition of his philosophy and is written in\na less technical style than his earlier works. But the reader must\nremember that a knowledge of these is presupposed, and Bergson has\nhere taken for granted what he has written two other large volumes to\nprove; namely, that time cannot be adequately represented in the forms\nof space, and that mind is not rigidly bound to matter. Bergson is\nunexcelled by any modern philosopher except William James in brilliancy\nof style and originality of illustration. \"Creative Evolution\" treats\nof such a variety of questions, biological, psychological, and\nmetaphysical, that any intelligent reader will find something in it\nthat will arouse new trains of thought. And if the intelligent reader\nfinds passages which he cannot understand, he may console himself with\nthe reflection that there are others who have been likewise baffled.\nCount Keyserling, who has the brain of a German metaphysician, says of\nBergson that \"his philosophy is perhaps the most original achievement\nsince the days of Immanuel Kant\", but he adds, \"Many thoughts on which\nBergson appears to lay great weight arouse in me not the shade of an\nidea.\" But he ascribes Bergson's obscurity to the fact that \"he does\nnot start from abstract principles; he begins in direct consciousness,\nin concrete life\", so perhaps the ordinary reader may have in this\nrespect an advantage over a Kantian student like Count Keyserling.\n\nThe student of philosophy may prefer to trace the development of\nBergson's thought in its logical and chronological order. He will\nin that case begin with the \"Essai sur les donn\u00e9s imm\u00e9diates de la\nconscience\" (1889), and proceed to \"Mati\u00e8re et M\u00e9moire\" (1896), and\nend with \"Evolution cr\u00e9atrice\" (1907). These are published by F\u00e9lix\nAlcan, Paris, in his \"Biblioth\u00e8que de Philosophie contemporaine.\" The\n\"Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness\" appears under the less\ncumbrous title of \"Time and Free Will\" in the translation of F. L.\nPogson (Macmillan). \"Matter and Memory\" is translated by Nancy Margaret\nPaul and W. Scott Palmer (Macmillan). It may not be improper to note\nthat the British edition of the Essay costs nearly four times as much\nas the French and is twice as heavy. \"Creative Evolution\", translated\nby Arthur Mitchell, is printed in this country by Henry Holt & Company.\nBergson's lecture on Dreams, translated by E. E. Slosson, is published\nin book form by B. W. Huebsch, New York.\n\nThose who read French but do not wish to attack one of the larger works\nwill find convenient the summary of his philosophy with illustrative\nselections made by one of his former pupils, Ren\u00e9 Gillouin, and\npublished in \"Les Grands Philosophes\" by Louis Michaud, Paris. The\nGerman reader will find in A. Steenbergen's \"Bergsons Intuitive\nPhilosophie\", Jena, an epitome and critique.\n\n\"Time and Free Will\" contains an admirable bibliography, including the\nmost important discussions of Bergson's philosophy that have appeared\nin eight languages up to 1911. The most interesting introduction to\nBergson is the article published by Professor James in the _Hibbert\nJournal_, April, 1909, and reprinted in his _Pluralistic Universe_.\nThis has the advantage of M. Bergson's indorsement, for when Professor\nPitkin of Columbia attempted to show that James was wrong in claiming\nBergson as an ally (\"James and Bergson, or Who is Against Intellect?\"\nin _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method_, April\n28, 1910), Bergson replied that James had not misinterpreted him but\nhad said what he meant in better words than his (same _Journal_, July\n7, 1910). Other brief expositions of Bergson's philosophy are the\narticles by H. Wildon Carr in _Proc. Aristotelian Society_, 1909 and\n1910, and _Hibbert Journal_, July, 1910; by J. Solomon in _Mind,_\nJanuary, 1911 (both these now in book form also); by Arthur Balfour on\n\"Creative Evolution and Philosophic Doubt\" in the decennial number of\nthe _Hibbert Journal_; \"Bergson's Philosophy and the Idea of God,\" by\nH. C. Corrance, and \"Syndicalism in its Relation to Bergson,\" by T.\nRhondda Williams, both in _Hibbert Journal_ of January, 1914. Professor\nArthur O. Lovejoy of Johns Hopkins criticizes \"The Practical Tendencies\nof Bergsonianism\" in the _International Journal of Ethics_, April and\nJuly, 1913. Bergson's London lectures on the soul are summarized in the\n_Educational Review_, January, 1912. Santayana's \"Winds of Doctrine\"\n(Scribner) contains an interesting chapter on Bergson's philosophy.\n\nOf the voluminous controversial literature in France it is only\npossible to mention a few recent titles: R. Gillouin, \"La Philosophie\nde Bergson\" (Grasset); J. Segond, \"L'Intuition Bergsonienne\" (Alcan);\nJ. Desaymard, \"La Pens\u00e9e d'Henri Bergson\" (Mercure de France). The\nmost conspicuous of the opponents of Bergson are: Ren\u00e9 Berthelot in\n\"Un Romanticisme utilitaire,\" tome II, \"Le Pragmatisme chez Bergson\"\n(Alcan); and Julien Benda in \"Le Bergsonisme ou une Philosophie de la\nMobilit\u00e9\", and \"R\u00e9ponse aux D\u00e9fenseurs du Bergsonisme\" (Mercure de\nFrance).\n\n\"Bergson for Beginners\", by Darcy B. Kitchin (Macmillan) gives a\nsummary of his works and adds some interesting observations on the\nrelation of Bergson to the English philosophers James Ward and Herbert\nSpencer. Other recent expositions and criticisms are \"The Philosophy\nof Bergson\", by A. D. Lindsay; \"A Critical Examination of Bergson's\nPhilosophy\", by J. McKellar Stewart; \"An Examination of Professor\nBergson's Philosophy\", by David Balsillie; \"Bergson and the Modern\nSpirit\", by G. R. Dodgson (American Unitarian Assoc., Boston). But the\nbest volume to serve as an introduction to Bergson is that previously\nmentioned, \"The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson\", by Edouard Le Roy\n(Holt).\n\nA list of the most important of the books and articles on the subject\nin all languages up to 1913 comprising more than five hundred titles\nwas published by the Columbia University Press on the occasion of\nBergson's visit, \"A Contribution to a Bibliography of Henri Bergson.\"\n\n\n[1] Reported in the _Bulletin de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 fran\u00e7aise de Philosophie_,\n1908.\n\n[2] For his views on the possibility of scientific metaphysics, see _Le\nParall\u00e9lisme psycho-physique et la m\u00e9taphysique positive_ in _Bulletin\nde la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 fran\u00e7aise de Philosophie_, June, 1901; and _Introduction\n\u00e0 la m\u00e9taphysique_ in _Revue de M\u00e9taphysique et de Morale_, January,\n1903.\n\n[3] Published in the _Revue scientifique_, June 8, 1901, and in English\nin _The Independent_, October 23-30, 1913, and in book form, 1914.\n\n[4] Articles on pragmatic Catholicism may be found in almost any volume\nof the _Revue Philosophique_ and the _Revue de M\u00e9taphysique et de\nMorale_ during the first twelve years of the twentieth century. See\nespecially those by Edouard Le Roy, a disciple of James and Bergson. A\nbrief account of the movement is contained in Lalande's \"Philosophy in\nFrance, 1907\", _Philosophical Review_, May, 1908.\n\n[5] As representatives of the pragmatic syndicalists may be mentioned\nGeorge Sorel and Edouard Berth. For an account of the philosophical\nside of the movement, see _Syndicalistes et Bergsoniens_ by C. Bougie\nin _Revue__du Mois_, April, 1909.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nHENRI POINCAR\u00c9\n\n\n    The scientist does not study nature because it is useful;\n    he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in\n    it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful,\n    it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth\n    knowing, life would not be worth living. Of course I do\n    not here speak of that beauty that strikes the senses,\n    the beauty of qualities and of appearances; not that I\n    undervalue such beauty, far from it, but it has nothing to\n    do with science; I mean that profounder beauty which comes\n    from the harmonious order of the parts, and which a pure\n    intelligence can grasp. This it is which gives body, a\n    structure so to speak, to the iridescent appearances which\n    flatter our senses, and without this support the beauty\n    of these fugitive dreams would be only imperfect, because\n    it would be vague and always fleeting. On the contrary,\n    intellectual beauty is sufficient unto itself, and it is for\n    its sake, more perhaps than for the future good of humanity,\n    that the scientist devotes himself to long and difficult\n    labors.\n\n    It is, therefore, the quest of this special beauty, the\n    sense of the harmony of the cosmos, which makes us choose\n    the facts most fitting to contribute to this harmony, just\n    as an artist chooses from among the features of his model\n    those which perfect the picture and give it character\n    and life. And we need not fear that this instinctive and\n    unavowed prepossession will turn the scientist aside\n    from the search for the true. One may dream a harmonious\n    world, but how far the real world will leave it behind!\n    The greatest artists that ever lived, the Greeks, made\n    their heavens; how shabby it is beside the true heavens,\n    ours!--Poincar\u00e9's \"The Value of Science,\" p. 8.\n\nSuch language as this is extremely disconcerting to those who hold the\npopular notion of science and scientists; regarding science as a vague\nimpending mass of solid fact, immutable, inexorable, threatening the\nextinction of all such things as art, sentiment, poetry, and religion,\nonly to be diverted by a determination to remain ignorant of it;\nregarding men of science as mere calculating machines, mechanically\ngrinding out logical grist for utilitarian purposes. Mathematical\nastronomy is surely one of the sciences, the most rigid, remote,\nand recondite of the sciences. Yet here is the leading mathematical\nastronomer of the age talking about it as though it were one of the\nfine arts, a thing of beauty that the artist creates for his own\ndelight in the making of it and shapes in accordance with his own ideas\nof what is harmonious.\n\nNow we cannot throw out of consideration M. Poincar\u00e9's opinion, on\nthe ground that he did not know what he was talking about. A man\nwho has made as much science as he has ought to know how science is\nmade, and what for. To most of us nature--or to avoid hurting our own\nfeelings let us rather say, opportunity--has denied the privilege of\nknowing this by experience. Consequently M. Poincar\u00e9 is an especially\ninteresting man to study, for he has been willing to tell us not only\nwhat a man of science is, but also how it feels to be one. No other\ncontemporary of equal eminence has been so frank and accommodating in\nthe self-revelation of his methods or so willing to submit himself\nas a subject of observation. We are admitted to the laboratory of a\nmathematician, and we can watch the mechanism of scientific thought in\naction.\n\nSo far as he is concerned, he has repudiated the idea that science is\npurely utilitarian in the most emphatic language. August Comte said\nthat it would be idle to seek to know the composition of the sun, since\nthis knowledge would be of no use to sociology. Against such a charge\nof uselessness Poincar\u00e9 eloquently defended his science by showing the\npractical value of astronomy even from Comte's point of view, but in\nconclusion asserted his own opinion very plainly:\n\n    Was I wrong in saying that it is astronomy which has made us\n    a soul capable of comprehending nature; that under heavens\n    always overcast and starless, the earth itself would have\n    been for us eternally unintelligible; that we should there\n    have seen only caprice and disorder; and that, not knowing\n    the world, we should never have been able to subdue it? What\n    science could have been more useful? And in thus speaking\n    I put myself at the point of view of those who only value\n    practical applications. Certainly, this point of view is not\n    mine; as for me, on the contrary, if I admire the conquests\n    of industry, it is, above all, because they free us from\n    material cares, they will one day give to all the leisure\n    to contemplate nature. I do not say: Science is useful,\n    because it teaches us to construct machines. I say: Machines\n    are useful, because in working for us, they will some day\n    leave us more time to make science. But finally it is worth\n    remarking that between the two points of view there is no\n    antagonism, and that man having pursued a disinterested aim,\n    all else has been added unto him.--\"Value of Science\", p. 88.\n\nIt is this insistence upon the \u00e6sthetic value of science that caused\nhim to shrink from being called a \"pragmatist\", although those who\naccept that name have always laid unusual stress upon the \u00e6sthetic\nfactor in thinking. But in his theory of knowledge Poincar\u00e9 is\ndecidedly pragmatic, and no one has given a clear exposition or\nstronger expression to the practical mode of thought by which the\nnatural sciences have made their progress and which is now being\nextended to the fields of metaphysics, religion, ethics, and sociology.\nPoincar\u00e9's favorite word is \"convenient\" (_commode_). Theories are\nstrictly speaking not to be classed as true or false. They are merely\nmore or less convenient. For example:\n\n    Masses are coefficients it is convenient to introduce\n    into calculations. We could reconstruct all mechanics\n    by attributing different values to all the masses. This\n    new mechanics would not be in contradiction either with\n    experience or with the general principles of dynamics.\n    Only the equations of this new mechanics would be _less\n    simple_.--\"Science and Hypothesis\", p. 76.\n\n    We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor of\n    the equality of two durations. If we think we have this\n    intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it by the aid of\n    certain rules which we apply almost always without taking\n    count of them. But what is the nature of these rules? No\n    general rule, no rigorous rule; a multitude of little\n    rules applicable to each particular case. These rules\n    are not imposed upon us, and we might amuse ourselves by\n    inventing others; but they could not be cast aside without\n    greatly complicating the laws of physics, mathematics, and\n    astronomy. We therefore choose these rules, not because\n    they are true, but because they are most convenient, and we\n    may recapitulate them as follows: \"The simultaneity of two\n    events or the order of their succession, the equality of two\n    durations, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the\n    natural laws may be as simple as possible; in other words,\n    all these rules, all these definitions, are only the fruit\n    of an unconscious opportunism.\"--\"Value of Science\", p. 35.\n\n    Time should be so defined that the equations of mechanics\n    may be as simple as possible. In other words, there is not\n    one way of measuring time more true than another. That\n    which is generally adopted is only more _convenient_. Of\n    two watches, we have no right to say that one goes true,\n    the other wrong: we can only say that it is advantageous\n    to conform to the indications of the first.--\"Value of\n    Science\", p. 30.\n\n    Behold then the rule we follow and the only one we can\n    follow: when a phenomenon appears to us as the cause of\n    another, we regard it as anterior. It is therefore by cause\n    we define time.--\"Value of Science\", p. 32.\n\n    Experience does not prove to us that space has three\n    dimensions. It only proves to us that it is convenient to\n    attribute three dimensions to it.--\"Value of Science\", p.\n    69.\n\n    It has often been observed that if all the bodies in the\n    universe were dilated simultaneously and in the same\n    proportion we should have no means of perceiving it, since\n    all our measuring instruments would grow at the same time\n    as the objects themselves which they serve to measure. The\n    world, after this dilatation, would continue on its course\n    without anything apprising us of so considerable an event.\n    --\"Value of Science\", p. 39.\n\nBut Poincar\u00e9 goes farther and shows not only that two such worlds of\ndifferent sizes would be absolutely indistinguishable, but that they\nwould be equally indistinguishable if they were distorted in any manner\nso long as they corresponded with each other point by point. This\nconception of the relativity of space may be thought a little hard to\ngrasp, but M. Poincar\u00e9 is kind enough to suggest a way by which any one\nmay see it for himself if he has ten cents to admit him to one of those\nhilarious resorts where life-size concave and convex mirrors are to be\nseen.[1] You may think yourself a gentleman of proper figure, that is\nto say, somewhat portly, and you look upon the tall slim shape that\nconfronts you in the cylindrical mirror as absurdly misshapen. But you\nwould find it difficult to convince him of his deformity. His legs, as\nwell as yours, fulfill the requirement that Lincoln laid down as their\nproper length; that is, they reach from the body to the ground. If you\ntouch your chin with your thumb and your brow with your forefinger, so\ndoes he. It occurs to you that here is a case where your knowledge of\ngeometry would, if ever, prove useful, but when you appeal to it, you\nwill find that the geometry of his queer-looking world is just as good\nas yours; in fact, is just the same. You get a foot rule and measure\nyourself; 70 inches high, 14 inches in diameter at the equator, ratio\n5:2. But meanwhile the mirror man is also measuring himself, and his\ndimensions come out exactly the same as yours, 70 and 14 and 5:2, for\nwhen he holds the rule perpendicular it lengthens and when horizontal\nit shrinks. Lines that in your world are straight are curved in his,\nbut you cannot prove it to him, for when he lays his straightedge\nagainst these curves of his, behold it immediately bends to correspond.\nBy this time, finding it so difficult to prove to the mirror man that\nyou are right and he is wrong, it occurs to you that perhaps he isn't,\nthat he may have just as much reason as you for believing that his is\nthe normal, well-proportioned world, and yours the distorted image of\nit. Since, then, you have no way of perceiving the absolute length,\ndirection, or curvature of a line, your space may be as irregularly\ncurved and twisted as it looks to be in the funniest of the mirrors,\nand you would not know it. Now the principle of the pragmatist is that\nanything that does not make any difference to anything else is not\nreal. The reason why we have not been able to discover any differences\nbetween the mirror space and our space, each considered by itself, is\nbecause there is none. Or to return to the language of Poincar\u00e9, \"space\nis in reality amorphous and the things that are in it alone give it a\nform.\" Why do we say that space has three dimensions instead of two or\nfour or more? Why do we stick to an old fogy like Euclid when Riemann\nand Lobachevski proffer us new and equally self-consistent systems of\ngeometry wherein parallels may meet or part? Because:\n\n    by natural selection our mind has _adapted_ itself to\n    the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the\n    geometry _most advantageous_ to the species or, in other\n    words, _the most convenient_. Geometry is not true, it is\n    advantageous.\n\nSuch language may pass without notice in university halls, for all\nscientists are more or less clearly conscious of the provisional and\npractical nature of the hypotheses and conventions they employ. But\nto the outside world it sounds startling. To some it seemed that the\nfoundations of the universe were being undermined. Others saw in it a\nconfession of what Bruneti\u00e8re had called \"the bankruptcy of science\"\nand openly rejoiced over the discomfiture of the enemy of the Church.\nNow Poincar\u00e9 had chanced to use in discussing the relativity of motion\nthe following illustration:\n\n    Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would\n    be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really\n    moves, has no objective existence. Hence this affirmation\n    \"the earth turns round\" has no meaning, since it can be\n    verified by no experiment; since such an experiment not only\n    could not be either realized or dreamed by the boldest Jules\n    Verne but cannot be conceived of without contradiction. Or\n    rather these two propositions: \"The earth turns round\" and\n    \"it is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round\"\n    have the same meaning; there is nothing more in the one than\n    in the other.--\"Science and Hypothesis\", p. 85.\n\nThis remark was at once seized upon by the Catholic apologists, and\nthe Galileo case, once closed by the voice of Rome, was reopened\nfor the admission of this new evidence. If the Ptolemaic and the\nCopernican theories are equally true, and the choice between them is\nmerely a matter of expediency, was not the Holy Inquisition justified\nin upholding the established theory in the interests of religion\nand morality? Monsignor Bolo, an eminent and sagacious theologian,\nannounced in _Le Matin_ of February 20, 1908, that M. Poincar\u00e9, the\ngreatest mathematician of the century, says that Galileo was wrong\nin his obstinacy. To this Poincar\u00e9 replied in the whispered words of\nGalileo:\n\n\"E pur si muove, Monseigneur\"?\n\nIn a later discussion of the point, he explains that what he said about\nthe rotation of the earth could be equally well applied to any other\naccepted hypothesis, even the very existence of an external world, for\n\"these two propositions, 'the external world exists' or 'it is more\nconvenient to suppose that it exists' have one and the same meaning.\"\nThe Copernican theory is the preferable because it has a richer, more\nprofound content, since if we assume the earth is stationary we have to\ninvent other explanations for the flattening at the poles, the rotation\nof Foucault's pendulum, the trade winds, etc., while the hypothesis of\na revolving earth brings all these together as the effects of a single\ncause.\n\nM. Le Roy, a Catholic pragmatist and a disciple of Bergson's, goes\nmuch further than Poincar\u00e9 in regard to the human element in science,\nholding that science is merely a rule of action and can teach us\nnothing of truth, for its laws are only artificial conventions. This\nview Poincar\u00e9 considered to be dangerously near to absolute nominalism\nand skepticism, and in his controversy with Le Roy[2] he showed that\nthe scientist does not \"create facts as Le Roy said, but merely the\nlanguage in which he enunciates them.\" Of the contingence upon which Le\nRoy and Boutroux insist, Poincar\u00e9 would admit only that scientific laws\ncan never be more than approximate and probable. Even in astronomy,\nwhere the single and simple law of gravitation is involved, neither\nabsolute certainty nor absolute accuracy can be attained. Therefore we\ncannot safely say that at a particular time Saturn will be at a certain\npoint in the heavens. We must limit ourselves to the prediction that\n\"Saturn will _probably_ be _near_\" such a point.\n\n[Illustration: Poincar\u00e9]\n\nIn an address before the International Philosophical Congress at\nBologna in April, 1910, Professor Poincar\u00e9 discussed again the question\nof whether the laws of nature may not change. He admitted that there\nis not a sole law that we can enunciate with the certainty that it\nhas always been true in the past. Nevertheless, he concluded, there\nis nothing to hinder the man of science from keeping his faith in\nthe principle of immutability, since no law can descend to the level\nof a secondary and limited law without being replaced by another law\nmore general and more comprehensive. He considered in particular the\npossibility that in the remote past the fundamental laws of mechanics\nwould not hold, for since the energy of the world has been continually\ndissipating in the form of heat there must have been a time when bodies\nmoved faster than they do now. But according to the recent theories\nof matter, no body can travel faster than light, and with velocities\napproaching that of light its mass is no longer constant but increases\nwith its velocity. This, of course, would play havoc with all of\nNewton's laws, which then we should have to regard as limited in their\nscope to such ordinary conditions and moderate motion as we see about\nus now.\n\nBut even at present we can hardly regard them with the same implicit\nconfidence as formerly. Take, for example, Newton's law that action and\nreaction are equal and opposite. When a ball is fired from a cannon,\nthe cannon recoils at the same time and with the same momentum that the\nball goes forward. But suppose instead of a cannon we have a lamp with\na reflector sending a beam of light into space. It has been deduced\nmathematically and proved experimentally that light exerts a minute\nbut measurable pressure on an object which it strikes. The reflector\ntherefore recoils like the cannon, but where is the ball if light is an\nimmaterial wave motion? To be sure, if the ray of light strikes some\nplanet out in space, it would give it an impulse equal and opposite to\nthat originally imparted to the reflector on our earth. But what if the\nlight goes on through vacant space and never hits anything at all? A\nlaw that may have to wait several thousand years for its validation and\nmay even fail of it altogether is not what the layman has in mind when\nhe thinks of immutable and infrangible laws governing the universe.\n\nBut it is rather important just now that the layman gets to understand\nwhat the scientist means when he talks of laws, theories, and\nhypotheses. For we are in the midst of a stupendous revolution in\nscience. Our nicely arranged nineteenth century cosmos seems to be\ndissolving into chaos again. We have seen the elements melt with\nfervent heat and we can no longer rely upon the uniformity of atomic\nweights. The laws of the conservation of matter and energy, which\nwere the guiding stars of research to the last generation, are\nbecoming dimmed. The old-fashioned ether, in its time a useful but\nnever entirely satisfactory contrivance, for it had to be patched up\nrepeatedly with divers new properties to enable it to bear the various\nduties thrust upon it, seems no longer competent to stand the strain\nand may have to be sent to the scientific scrap-heap at any moment. We\nhear physicists of supposed sanity assert that all bodies contract in\nthe direction of their motion and that their weight varies with their\nspeed and the direction in which they are going. We read of \"atoms of\nlight,\" and of corpuscles of electricity which, though they are but\na thousandth part of the hydrogen atom, are caught and counted and\nweighed one by one.\n\nNow what puzzles the lay mind is the calmness with which the scientists\nsurvey this crash of worlds and shock of systems. They do not have the\nmien of exposed impostors. They are not, like the augurs of decadent\nRome, unable to meet without laughing in each other's faces. They do\nnot resent the overthrow of their former idols. They have no fear\nof heretics, consequently no hatred for them. They regard all this\niconoclasm with a mild curiosity quite in contrast to their intense and\npersonal interest in science generally. It is hard to get out a quorum\nat the Association for the Advancement of Science to hear a discussion\nof the principle of relativity with all its revolutionary consequences.\n\nCompare this apparent indifference to the fate of fundamental\nprinciples in scientific circles with what would happen in a\nPresbyterian assembly if it should be proposed to eliminate\npredestination from the Westminster Confession or in an Episcopal\nconvocation if the Virgin Birth were denied; with what would happen\nin a stockholders' meeting if doubt were expressed as to the rights\nof capital, or in a socialist convention if the class conflict were\nquestioned. Now the existence of the ether has the same importance to\nscientific thought that predestination has to theological or capitalism\nto economic thought. Its refutation or modification would be quite as\nupsetting to faith and practice. Yet scientists are men; they have red\nblood in their veins, and it not infrequently shows in their cheeks\nwhen they debate something that seems to them worth while. Pure theory\nrarely seems to them worth while because it is recognized as pure\nconventionality and convenience.\n\nThe scientific man, especially the scientific investigator, holds his\ntheories with a light hand, but keeps a firm grip on his facts. This is\njust the opposite of the lay attitude toward science. If the layman is\ninterested in knowing the speed of light, it is because he thinks that\nhe learns from it that all space is filled with a rigid elastic solid,\nat which he cannot but wonder. The scientist is interested in the ether\nbecause it helps him in his calculation of the speed of light.\n\nA lecturer on wireless telegraphy will use in the course of the hour\ntwo or three more or less contradictory conceptions of electricity.\nIf afterward you call his attention to the inconsistency and ask him\nwhich is right and which is wrong, you will not get a very satisfactory\nanswer. He does not know and obviously does not care. You insist upon\nhis telling you which theory he personally believes in. He really\nhad not thought of \"believing\" in any of them. If he uses white\nchalk on the blackboard in preference to red, it is not because he\ndenies the existence of red chalk and its occasional usefulness. So,\ntoo, the astronomer will speak of the sun's rising and in the next\nbreath of the earth's turning toward the sun, quite innocent of his\ninconsistency. The botanist alludes to a certain flower as a poppy and\nagain as Eschscholtzia. He means the same thing but is using different\nlanguages; in the first case English, in the second case I don't know\nwhat.\n\nIt is eminently desirable that people should have faith in science, but\nin order to do that they must have the same sort of faith in it that\nthe scientist has. Otherwise they will regard it as a lot of ingenious\nfancies which are proved false by each succeeding generation. Science\nis moulting just now and looks queer. The public ought to understand\nclearly that the process means growth and not disease. There is another\nreason now for the popularization of the scientific mode of thought. It\nis beginning to be applied where entirely different conceptions have so\nfar prevailed--to art, ethics, religion, sociology, and the like. This\nis already arousing a great commotion and will cause more before the\nprocess is complete. It will, for example, involve the rewriting and to\na large extent the reinvestigation of history. Poincar\u00e9 has hinted at\nthis in a passage which seems to me of very great significance:\n\n    Carlyle has somewhere said something like this: \"Nothing but\n    facts are of importance. John Lackland passed by here. Here\n    is something that is admirable. Here is a reality for which\n    I would give all the theories in the world.\" Carlyle was a\n    fellow countryman of Bacon, but Bacon would not have said\n    that. That is the language of the historian. The physicist\n    would say rather: \"John Lackland passed by here. That\n    makes no difference to me for he never will pass this way\n    again.\"--\"Science and Hypothesis\", p. 102.\n\nThe aim of science is prevision, and I believe that this will\neventually be recognized as the true aim of all knowledge. The\nhistorian, or let me say rather the antiquarian, for the historian may\nhave the scientific temperament, values facts for their rarity. The\nscientist values facts for their commonness. A unique fact, if there\nbe such, would have no possible interest to him. The antiquarian goes\nabout looking for things, facts, or furniture, which have been of\nimportance in the past. The scientist is looking only for things that\nwill be of importance in the future.\n\nAccording to Poincar\u00e9, the proper choice of facts is the first duty of\nthe scientist. He must be able to pick out the significant and reject\nall the rest. \"Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of\nuseless combinations and in constructing the useful combinations which\nare in infinite minority. To invent is to discern, to choose.\" It is\nmost desirable to bring together elements far distant from one another.\nSuch unions are mostly sterile, but when this is not the case, they are\nthe most fruitful of all. The successful scientist does not, like a\nshopper, look over one by one all available samples and pick out what\nhe wants. Life is too short. The unsuitable ideas do not even present\nthemselves to his mind. It is as if he were an examiner of second\nresort who only concerns himself with the candidates who have passed\nthe first test. This preliminary sifting and sorting process is done\nlargely by the unconscious mind, as Poincar\u00e9 shows by telling how he\ncame to make his first mathematical discoveries:\n\n    For a fortnight I labored to demonstrate that there could\n    exist no function analogous to those that I have since\n    called the fuchsian functions.[3] I was then very ignorant.\n    Every day I seated myself at my work table and spent an\n    hour or two there, trying a great many combinations, but I\n    arrived at no result. One night when, contrary to my custom,\n    I had taken black coffee and I could not sleep, ideas\n    surged up in crowds. I felt them as they struck against one\n    another until two of them stuck together, so to speak, to\n    form a stable combination. By morning I had established the\n    existence of a class of fuchsian functions, those which are\n    derived from the hyper-geometric series. I had merely to put\n    the results in shape, which only took a few hours.--\"Science\n    et M\u00e9thode\", p. 52.\n\nAfter working out the deductions from this discovery, he went on a\ngeological excursion of the School of Mines. The distractions of travel\ntook his mind from his mathematical labor. But at Constance, just as\nhe was stepping into an omnibus for some excursion, the idea occurred\nto him, without any connection with his previous thoughts, that his\nfuchsian functions were identical in their transformations with\nthose of the non-Euclidian geometry. He took his seat in the omnibus\nand continued his conversation, feeling absolutely certain of his\ndiscovery, which he worked out at his leisure on his return to his home\nat Caen.\n\nHe next devoted himself to the study of arithmetical questions,\nwithout reaching any results of importance and without suspecting that\nthis subject could have the slightest connection with his earlier\nresearches. Disgusted at his lack of success, he went to pass some days\nat the seashore, where he was occupied with other things. One day as he\nwas walking on the cliff, the thought came to him, brief, sudden, and\ncertain as usual, that he had been employing the same transformations\nin his arithmetical and geometrical work.\n\nHe thereupon went back to Caen and undertook the systematic application\nof his theory. But he was stopped by an insurmountable obstacle, and\nwhile in this perplexity he was called away to his military service\nat Mont-Val\u00e9rien, where he had no time for mathematics. One day while\nwalking on the street, the solution of the difficulty appeared to him\nin a flash. He did not try to think it out at the time, but after his\nrelease from the army, he completed his memoir without trouble.\n\nThese fascinating glimpses into the soul of a mathematician will remind\nthe reader of many other instances of such subconscious assistance\non record and doubtless of personal experiences as well. We think of\nAlfred Russel Wallace at Ternate, his brain inflamed with tropical\nfever, seized with the sudden inspiration of the theory of natural\nselection, the key to the biological problems which had perplexed him\nfor so many months. How fortunate that his clerical opponents did not\nknow of this and so could not dismiss evolution as the dream of a\ndiseased imagination. But as James says in his \"Varieties of Religious\nExperience\", we have no right to discountenance unwelcome theories as\nfeverish fancies, since for all we know 102\u00b0 may be a more favorable\ntemperature for truth to germinate and sprout in than the ordinary\nbloodheat of 98\u00b0.\n\nWe are reminded, too, of Kekul\u00e9 of Bonn puzzling over the constitution\nof benzene, trying in vain to satisfy six carbon atoms with six\nhydrogen atoms when they wanted fourteen. In the evening as he sat\nby the fire, his wearied brain refused to rest, and he seemed to see\nthe four-handed carbon imps dancing with their one-armed hydrogen\npartners on the floor. Suddenly six of them joined hands in a ring\nand the problem was solved. Since then the benzene sextet has been\ndancing through hundreds of volumes and has added millions annually\nto the wealth of Germany. Professor Hilprecht of the University of\nPennsylvania has told how a Chaldean priest, custodian of the \"Temple\nLibrary\", appeared to him in a dream and showed him how to put together\nthe fragments of a cuneiform inscription which he had for a long time\nbeen striving in vain to translate.\n\nThen there was Stevenson in Samoa, writing for dear life, but not\nfailing to give credit to his \"brownies\" for doing a large part of his\nwork for him. But the brownies do not work unbidden, and they will not\nmake bricks without straw. Poincar\u00e9 insists upon the necessity of the\npreliminary period of conscious effort without which these subliminal\ninspirations never come and the subsequent period of verification,\ndevelopment, and application, without which they are fruitless. Such\nideas came to him most often in the evening or morning when he was in\nbed and half awake. He did not regard the operations of his unconscious\nmind as merely mechanical. On the contrary, it is distinguished by the\npower of choice, selecting and presenting to the conscious ego only\nthose combinations that seem profitable and important. This choice\nis made, in Poincar\u00e9's opinion, under the guidance of the artistic\ninstinct.\n\n    The usual combinations are precisely the most beautiful; I\n    mean those which can best charm that special sensibility\n    which all mathematicians recognize but at which the profane\n    are tempted to smile. Among the numerous combinations\n    which the subliminal self has blindly formed, almost all\n    are without interest and without utility. For that reason\n    they have no action upon the \u00e6sthetic sensibility and never\n    come into consciousness. Only those that are harmonious and\n    consequently both useful and beautiful are capable of moving\n    that special sensibility of the geometrician of which I\n    spoke, and which, once excited, calls our attention to them\n    and so gives them the chance to become conscious.--\"Science\n    et M\u00e9thode\", p. 58.\n\nPoincar\u00e9, if we may believe what he says on this point, was a poor\nchess player and absolutely incapable of adding up a column of figures\ncorrectly. But the reader should beware of the common fallacy of\nreversing a proposition of this kind and assuming that if he, too,\nmakes mistakes in addition he has the mind of a great mathematician.\nPoincar\u00e9's memory was, however, exceptionally good, especially for\nfigures and formulas. On returning from a walk he was able to recall\nthe numbers of the carriages he had met. When he was in the Polytechnic\nSchool he followed the courses in mathematics without taking a note and\nwithout looking at the syllabus provided by the professor. He was a\nrapid mental calculator, using auditive imagery rather than visual. He\nassociated colors with the sound of words.[4]\n\nIn this connection may be quoted an anecdote told by M. Jules\nSageret:[5] At a _conf\u00e9rence_ in the Superior School of Telegraphy the\ndirector called upon him to discuss a very difficult problem in the\npropagation of the electric current. Poincar\u00e9 complied and solved the\nproblem without taking any time in preparation. After the _conf\u00e9rence_\nthe director felicitated him on the solution. \"Yes,\" said Poincar\u00e9, \"I\nfound the value of _x_, but is it in kilograms or kilometers?\"\n\nPoincar\u00e9 did not find it profitable to work more than two hours at a\ntime. His custom was to stay at his desk from ten o'clock to noon and\nfrom five to seven in the afternoon, never working in the evening after\ndinner. He drank wine at meals, but never smoked. He went to bed at ten\nand rose at seven, but did not sleep soundly.\n\nHe was a blond, five feet five inches in height and weighed 154 pounds.\nHis head was unusually large, especially in breadth. His eyes were\nmyopic and unsteady. He stood stoopingly with his wrinkled forehead\nupturned. He spoke somewhat slowly and with a distraught air, as though\nhe were thinking of something else, even though he might be at the time\ninterested and keenly observant. He talked English and German readily\nand read Latin and Italian. He was fond of music, especially Wagner.\n\nOf the absent-mindedness that had been characteristic of him from\nyouth, many stories are told. Like most mathematicians he was fond\nof walking while thinking, his fingers opening and closing in an\nunconscious gesture. One day on his return from a walk he was surprised\nto find that he was carrying a wicker cage, new and happily empty. He\ncould not imagine how he had got it, but retracing his steps he found\nupon the sidewalk the stock of the basket maker whom he had innocently\ndespoiled.\n\nWhen as an engineering student he made a trip to Austria, his mother\nwas afraid he would drop his portfolio sometime without noticing it.\nSo, realizing doubtless that his memory was auditory, she sewed little\nbells on it. The plan was successful. His mother found on his return\nthat he had brought back in his valise not only the portfolio but\nalso an Austrian bed sheet neatly folded, which, some morning, he had\nmistaken for his night clothes.\n\nThese and similar anecdotes were told by M. Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric. Masson when he\nwelcomed M. Poincar\u00e9 into the Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise, January 28, 1909,[6]\nand it must have been a trifle embarrassing to the new member to listen\nto such a minute analysis of his life and character addressed to him\nin the second person. How deftly the director of the Academy mingled\neulogy and raillery may be seen from a quotation:\n\n\"You did not delay revealing your vocation and will be justly cited as\nthe most precocious of infant prodigies. You were nine months old when\nfor the first time as night came your eyes were directed toward the\nsky. You saw there a star light up. You persistently pointed it out to\nyour mother, who was also your nurse. Then you discovered another with\nsome astonishment, and your reason cried '_Enco lo la bas_!' A third,\na fourth, more cries of joy and equal enthusiasm. You had to be put\nto bed because you became so excited discovering stars. That evening\nwas your first contact with the infinite, and you had inaugurated your\ncourses in astronomy, the youngest professor known.\"\n\nHenri Poincar\u00e9 was born April 29, 1854, at Nancy, where his ancestors\nhad long been established. His grandfather was a pharmacist and his\nfather a physician of more than usual scholarship. The name, he said,\nwas originally Pontcar\u00e9, for, one can imagine a square bridge but\nnot a square point. But the philologists who took the question up\ndiscovered in the register of the university a student named \"Petrus\nPugniquadrati\" in 1403 and \"Jehan Poing-quarr\u00e9\" in 1418, so the name\nPoincar\u00e9 meant \"clenched-fist.\" His cousin, Raymond Poincar\u00e9, son of a\ndistinguished engineer, has long been one of the most prominent figures\nin the political world, a member of the Academy, senator, minister, and\nis now president of the French republic.\n\nIn the Nancy _lyc\u00e9e_ he led all his classes and showed a special\naptitude for history and literature. At the age of thirteen he\ncomposed a five-act tragedy in verse, and since he was a Lorrainer,\nthe heroine was of course Jeanne d'Arc. But as soon as he caught sight\nof a geometry, his true vocation became apparent. His instructor ran\nto his home and announced to his mother: \"Madame, your son will be a\nmathematician.\"\n\nPassing through the Polytechnic School he entered the National School\nof Mines, and for a few years after graduation he served as engineer\nin the Government departments of mines and railroads. At the age of\ntwenty-seven he was called to a chair of mathematics in the University\nof Paris, where he remained, also filling the positions of Professor\nof Astronomy in the Polytechnic School and Professor of Theoretical\nElectricity in the Professional School of Posts and Telegraphs. He was\nreceived into the Academy of Sciences at the early age of thirty-two,\nand at the time of his election to the French Academy he had been\nhonored by election to membership by thirty-five foreign academies.\nHe took his seat in the Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise very appropriately as\nthe successor of Sully-Prudhomme, who likewise was an engineer by\nprofession and a philosopher by temperament. To Poincar\u00e9 as well as to\nSully-Prudhomme, science appealed to the \u00e6sthetic sense as a thing of\nbeauty and an inspiration to the imagination.\n\nHe married at the age of twenty-seven and had four children, three\ndaughters and a son. His younger sister is the wife of the philosopher,\n\u00c9mile Boutroux, well known in this country from the lectures he gave at\nHarvard and Princeton.\n\nPoincar\u00e9 was influential in introducing improved methods in teaching\nmathematics, promoting the use of natural and dynamical methods\ninstead of the abstract and static methods of Euclid and Legendre.\nHe was skeptical in regard to religion and indifferent to politics.\nWhen called upon to contribute to a symposium on the old question\nof the scholar in politics,[7] he responded that savants like all\ncitizens ought to interest themselves in the affairs of the country.\nBut politics has become a profession, and a savant who entered into it\nwould have to devote half his time to public business if he would be\nuseful and the other half to his constituents if he wished to keep his\nseat, so he would have no time for science.\n\nWhen asked for his opinion on woman suffrage,[8] he replied as follows:\n\n    I see no theoretical reason for refusing the political\n    suffrage to women, married or not. They pay taxes the same\n    as men, and they contribute their sons, so it is even\n    heavier upon them than upon men. Perhaps woman suffrage is\n    the sole means of combating alcoholism. I fear only the\n    clerical influence over women.\n\nOf the achievements that have given M. Poincar\u00e9 his world-wide fame\nI am not competent to speak. Readers who would know the significance\nand value of his work on fuchsian, hyper-fuchsian, theta-fuchsian,\nabelian, and elliptical functions must go further for the information.\nI can only quote the opinions of those most competent to express an\nopinion as to his contributions to science. In 1905 he received the\nBolyai Prize of ten thousand crowns, which is awarded by the Hungarian\nAcademy of Sciences every five years for the best work in mathematics\ndone during that period. The official report by Gustave Rados begins as\nfollows:\n\n\"Henri Poincar\u00e9 is incontestably the first and most powerful\ninvestigator of the present time in the domain of mathematics and\nmathematical physics. His strongly marked individuality permits us to\nrecognize in him a savant endowed with intuition, who knows how to draw\nfrom the exhaustless well of geometrical and mechanical intuitions the\nelements and the origins of his profound and penetrating researches,\nyet using besides the most admirable logical power in working out\nhis conceptions. In addition to his brilliant inventive genius we\nmust recognize in him an ability for the finest and most fruitful\ngeneralizations of mathematical relations, which has often enabled him\nto push back, far beyond the point where others have hitherto been\nstopped, the limits of our knowledge in different branches of pure\nand applied mathematics. This was shown already in his first work on\nautomorphic functions with which he began the series of his brilliant\npublications which must be classed with the greatest mathematical\ndiscoveries of all time.\"\n\nIn this country Poincar\u00e9 has become known largely through the efforts\nof Professor George Bruce Halsted of the State Normal School of\nGreeley, Colorado, who has translated his philosophical works and has\nfor many years been indefatigable in spreading the new gospel of the\nnon-Euclidian geometry. Professor Halsted has at my request kindly\ncontributed the following account of one of Poincar\u00e9's astronomical\ntriumphs and of the visit that Professor Sylvester of Johns Hopkins\npaid to Poincar\u00e9 many years ago:\n\n\"The kernel of Poincar\u00e9's power lies in an oracle Sylvester often\nquoted from Hesiod: Only the genius knows how much more the part is\nthan the whole. He penetrates at once the divine simplicity of the\nperfectly general case, and thence descends, as from Olympus, to the\nspecial concrete earthly particulars. Thus his memoir of 1885, which\nSir George Darwin says came to him as a revelation, on a rotating fluid\nmass, and his book 'Les M\u00e9thodes nouvelles de la M\u00e9canique c\u00e9leste,'\n1892-1899, were ready with prevision when the shocking special case\noccurred of Phoebe, ninth satellite of Saturn, discovered in 1900,\nafterward found, incredible as it seemed, to be revolving in the\ndirection contrary to that of all the others. It follows that Saturn\nhimself originally rotated in the reverse direction. Again, on February\n29, 1908, was found an eighth satellite of Jupiter, Jviii, revolving\nround Jove in the shocking Phoebe retrograde direction. Zeus must\nhave turned over. All the planets have turned over, and some are now\nmaking another somersault. Moreover, Jviii does not even revolve in a\nclosed orbit; its path is an open twister of unreturning turns.\n\n\"For Poincar\u00e9 the inexhaustible source, the lamp of Aladdin, has ever\nbeen the non-Euclidian geometry. In him the Bolyai-Lobachevski-Riemann\ngerm flowers fair.\n\n\"Personally Poincar\u00e9 is the most lovable of men. At our very first\nmeeting I realized that I had already been intimately associated with\nhim for two years in the person of Sylvester. I told him the story of\nSylvester's discovery of him, and he showed me how vividly and tenderly\nreconnaissant he was toward the great old master.\n\n\"Midsummer, and up a stuffy Paris stairway labors a giant gnome, beard\non enormous chest, fortunately no neck, for no neck could upbear such\na monstrous head, bald but for the inverted halo of hair collaring its\njuncture with the broad shoulders; small inefficient hands holding big\nhat and damp handkerchief; breath puffing with the heat and exertion.\nIt is Sylvester, self-driven to seek out the source of new creations\nstrangely akin to his own. At the sought door, open, he pauses, seized\nby doubt, the person within is so young, so slight, so dazed. Can this\nbe the new incarnation of the eternal world-genius of geometry? But\nthe aloof sensitiveness of the face, the broad sphericity of the head\nreassure him. This is Henri Poincar\u00e9. And so the old King finds the\nTrue Prince, who in turn finds himself at last truly comprehended,\nanointed to the succession, and given high heart to establish his\ndominion.\"\n\nThe sudden death of Henri Poincar\u00e9, July 18, 1912, at the age of\nfifty-eight, shocked the scientific world. This marvelous thinking\nmachine was stopped, this repository of the exact sciences was lost\nto the world, by the trifling accident of a clot of blood catching\nin one of the valves of the heart. He had gone to the hospital for a\nminor operation which was apparently successful. Ten days later he was\npronounced well enough to leave and was dressing when he was struck\ndown.\n\nThe funeral service at the church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas was\nattended by a remarkable assemblage of men of science and letters,\ngovernment officials, and representatives of foreign countries. At\nthe Montparnasse cemetery orations were delivered by M. Guist'hau,\nMinister of Public Instruction, Jules Claretie of the Acad\u00e9mie\nfran\u00e7aise, M. Appell, dean of the Faculty of Sciences, M. Bigourdan of\nthe Observatory, Paul Painlev\u00e9 of the Academy of Sciences, and General\nCornille, Commandant of the \u00c9cole polytechnique. M. Painlev\u00e9 said of\nhim:\n\n\"The life of Henri Poincar\u00e9 was one intense and uninterrupted\nmeditation, that despotic and pitiless meditation which bows the\nshoulders and bends the head, which absorbs the vital influx of one's\nbeing and too soon uses up the body it possesses.\n\n\"Henri Poincar\u00e9 was not only a great creator in the positive sciences;\nhe was a great philosopher and a great writer. Certain of his aphorisms\nremind one of Pascal: 'Thought is only a flash between two long nights,\nbut this flash is everything.' His style followed the movement of his\nthought; brief and arresting formulas, often paradoxical when isolated,\njoined by hasty explanations which discard the easy details and say\nonly the essential. This is why superficial critics have accused him\nof being 'incoherent'; the truth being that without some previous\nscientific education, such logical movement is difficult to follow.\nMice cannot keep step with a lion.\n\n\"It is likewise a lack of comprehension of his philosophy as a whole\nthat has led certain commentators to think they found a transcendental\nskepticism in his critical studies of the principles of science. Must\nhe not have had faith in science who has written 'The search for truth\nought to be the aim of our activity; it is the sole aim worthy of it'?\nHis philosophy of the rational science will live as long as his own\ndiscoveries. The totality of the mathematical sciences seemed to him\nlike a gigantic measuring instrument, harmoniously adjusted and well\nadapted for the evaluation of the phenomena of the universe. There\nremains one trait of his character that I cannot pass over in silence;\nthat is his admirable intellectual sincerity. He gave himself, he gave\nto all, so far as words permit, the whole of his thought and even the\nmechanism of his thought. In his last publication, appearing only a few\ndays before his death and dealing with the problem of the stability of\nour universe, he excused himself for giving out such incomplete results:\n\n    'It would seem under these conditions that I ought to\n    abstain from all publication until I had solved the problem,\n    but after the fruitless efforts I have made for months, it\n    appeared to me wisest to let the problem ripen while I let\n    it alone for some years. That would have been very well if\n    I had been sure of taking it up again some day, _but at my\n    age I could not be sure of that_. Besides, the importance of\n    the subject is too great, and the results already obtained\n    are on the whole too considerable for me to be content to\n    leave them altogether useless. I hope that the geometricians\n    who will interest themselves in this problem and who will\n    doubtless be more fortunate than I will be able to get\n    something out of it and make use of it in finding the path\n    they should pursue.'\n\n\"What words can be added to this scientific testament, so simple and\nso noble, of a life altogether consecrated, without faltering even to\nthe last hour, to the search for truth? For the first time in half a\ncentury this unparalleled brain has found repose.\"\n\nPoincar\u00e9, as we have seen, was awake to the wider aspects of science.\nHe was interested in its effects upon human life and conduct, although\nhe himself was engaged in one of its most remote and abstract branches.\nShortly before his death he discussed a question which nowadays\narouses intense interest, the question of what effect the advance\nand popularization of science will have on ethics. Will science in\ndestroying superstitions, in changing utterly the traditional way of\nregarding the universe and man, undermine the morality which forms\nthe foundation of our civilization? This question Poincar\u00e9 answers in\nthe negative. He believes that our moral instincts lie too deep to\nbe affected by such a revolution in thought, but on the other hand\nhe does not think, as some do, that science will ever be able of\nitself to provide the moral imperative. A few paragraphs from this\nessay, published posthumously in \"Last Thoughts\", may well serve as a\nconclusion to this sketch of his philosophy:\n\n    There can be no scientific morality; but no more can there\n    be immoral science. And the reason is simple; it is a\n    reason--how shall I say it?--purely grammatical.\n\n    If the premises of a syllogism are both in the indicative,\n    the conclusion likewise will be in the indicative. For\n    the conclusion to be put in the imperative, it would be\n    necessary that at least one of the premises should itself\n    be in the imperative. Now, the principles of science,\n    the postulates of geometry, are and can be only in the\n    indicative; still in this same mood are the experimental\n    verities, and at the foundation of the sciences there\n    is, there can be, nothing else. Hence, the most subtle\n    dialectician may juggle with these principles as he will,\n    combine them, frame them up one upon another; all he will\n    get from them will be in the indicative. He will never\n    obtain a proposition which shall say: do this, or don't\n    do that; that is to say, a proposition which confirms or\n    contradicts morality....\n\n    Some therefore think that science will be destructive; they\n    fear the ruin it will make and dread lest, where it shall\n    have passed, society can no longer survive.\n\n    Is there not in these fears a sort of internal\n    contradiction? If it is scientifically proved that such\n    or such a custom, regarded as indispensable to the very\n    existence of human society, had not in reality the\n    importance attributed to it and deceived us only by its\n    venerable antiquity, if that be proved, admitting this proof\n    to be possible, will the moral life of humanity be shaken?\n    One of two things, either this custom is useful, and then a\n    reasonable science cannot prove that it is not; or else it\n    is useless and we should not regret it. From the moment that\n    we place at the foundation of our syllogisms one of those\n    generous emotions which engender morality, it is still this\n    emotion, and consequently it is still morality which we must\n    find at the end of our whole chain of reasonings, if this\n    has been conducted in accordance with the rules of logic.\n    What is in danger of perishing is the non-essential, that\n    which was merely an accident in our moral life; the sole\n    important thing cannot fail to be found in the conclusions\n    since it is in the premises....\n\n    Science, right or wrong, is deterministic; everywhere it\n    penetrates it introduces determinism. So long as it is\n    only a question of physics or even of biology, this is\n    unimportant. The domain of conscience remains inviolate.\n    What will happen when morality in turn shall become the\n    object of science?\n\n    Is all despair, or if some day morality should accommodate\n    itself to determinism, could it so adapt itself without\n    dying from the effects? So profound a metaphysical\n    revolution would doubtless have much less influence upon\n    morals than we think. It is of course understood that\n    penal repression is not in question. What is called crime\n    or punishment, would be called sickness or prophylaxis,\n    but society would retain intact its right, which is not to\n    punish, but simply the right of self-defense. What is more\n    serious is that the idea of merit or demerit would have to\n    disappear or be transformed. But we should continue to love\n    the good man, as we love all that is beautiful; we should\n    no longer have the right to hate the vicious man, who would\n    then inspire only disgust; but is hate necessary? Enough\n    that we do not cease to hate vice.\n\n    Apart from that, all would go on as in the past. Instinct is\n    stronger than all metaphysics, and even though one should\n    have laid it bare, even if one should understand the secret\n    of its force, its power would not thereby be weakened. Is\n    gravitation less irresistible since Newton? The moral forces\n    which guide us would continue to guide us.[9]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHOW TO READ POINCAR\u00c9\n\nA complete analytical bibliography of Poincar\u00e9's writings up to\n1909 will be found in Ernest Lebon's \"Henri Poincar\u00e9\" (Paris:\nGaultier-Villars), which contains the biographical address of M.\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Masson on his admission to the French Academy and other\neulogies. The list comprises 436 articles and books classified\nas follows: Mathematical analysis, 146; analytical and celestial\nmechanics, 85; mathematic physics, 78; scientific philosophy, 51;\nnecrology, 17; miscellaneous, 59; an astonishing output for thirty\nyears' work, considering the amount and difficulty of the labor\ninvolved in some of the contributions.\n\nThe mathematical works of Poincar\u00e9 are too difficult for the layman\nand indeed for many professional mathematicians. But there are five\nvolumes of general interest published by Flammarion, Paris: \"La Science\net l'Hypoth\u00e8se\", \"La Valeur de la Science\", \"Science et M\u00e9thode\",\n\"Savants et Ecrivains\", and \"Derni\u00e8res Pens\u00e9es.\" The first of these has\nhad a wide popularity, having been translated into English, German,\nSpanish, Hungarian, and Japanese. The English translation of \"Science\nand Hypothesis\", by Professor George Bruce Halsted (New York: Science\nPress), which appeared in 1905, is introduced by an interesting\ncriticism of Poincar\u00e9's philosophy by Professor Josiah Royce, of\nHarvard. Two years later \"The Value of Science\" was published in this\ncountry (Science Press). \"Science et M\u00e9thode\", though it contains\nsome matter of more general interest than the others, particularly\nhis account of the r\u00f4le played by unconscious mind in mathematical\ninvention and his explanation of the newer conceptions of physics,\nhas not yet appeared in English. The fourth volume, \"Savants et\nEcrivains\", is an evidence of Poincar\u00e9's good will rather than his\nliterary talents, as it consists of perfunctory addresses on deceased\nAcademicians, the most extensive being that on Sully-Prudhomme, whose\nchair he holds. The fifth, published after his death, contains the\nessay on \"Science and Morality\" from which I have quoted, as well as\ninteresting discussions of recent science and philosophy. The volume\nentitled \"Foundations of Science\" (published by the Science Press,\nNew York) contains \"Science and Hypothesis\", \"Value of Science\", and\n\"Science and Method\" with the introduction by Professor Royce.\n\nFrom either of the two volumes, \"Science and Hypothesis\" or \"The Value\nof Science\", one can get an idea of Poincar\u00e9's philosophy, which is of\nimportance because it is not merely the philosophy of an individual\nbut the point of view of most men of science nowadays, though rarely\nso definitely recognized or clearly expressed. Both books consist\nof a somewhat heterogeneous collection of studies on the method and\nlogic of the mathematical and physical sciences, containing much that\nthe general reader will have to skip because of its use of unfamiliar\nterms, but it will not be safe for him to skip any whole pages without\nlooking them over carefully, for he is likely to find brilliant and\nsuggestive sentences embedded in the most unpromising material.\n\nSeparate articles by Poincar\u00e9, forming chapters from the\nabove-mentioned volumes, are accessible in American periodicals. \"The\nFuture of Mathematics\" in _Monist_, Vol. XX, pp. 76-92; also in the\n1909 Smithsonian Report, which is in every public library. \"The Choice\nof Facts\" in _Monist_, Vol. XIX, pp. 231-239. \"The Principles of\nMathematical Physics\" in the report of the St. Louis Congress of Arts\nand Sciences, Vol. I, pp. 604-624, and in _Monist_, Vol. XV, pp. 1-24.\n\"The Bolyai Prize\" (Report on the Work of Hilbert) in _Science_, May\n19 and 26, 1911. \"Mathematical Creations\" in _Monist_, Vol. XX, pp.\n321-335. \"The Value of Science\" was first published complete in the\n_Popular Science Monthly_, September, 1906, and later; \"Relativity of\nSpace\", \"The New Logics\", and \"Chance\" in the _Monist_, 1913.\n\nFor biographical details besides the references already given in\nfootnotes, see Nordmann's article on Poincar\u00e9 in Smithsonian Report,\n1912; Darbou's eulogy in _Le Temps_, December 15, 1913; and articles in\n_Revue du Mois_, February 10, 1913; _La Revue de Paris_, February 15,\n1913; _The Nation,_ September 12, 1912.\n\n\n[1] \"Science et M\u00e9thode,\" p. 101.\n\n[2] Part III of \"The Value of Science.\"\n\n[3] M. Poincar\u00e9, in relating these experiences for their psychological\ninterest, was kind enough to say that the non-mathematical reader\nneed not be frightened at these barbarous names, for it is not at all\nnecessary for him to know what they mean.\n\n[4] Dr. Toulouse has devoted a volume of his series of\nmedico-psychological studies of men of genius to observations on the\nmemory, reaction time, mode of thinking, habits, and physiological\nconstitution of Henri Poincar\u00e9 (Paris: Flammarion).\n\n[5] _Revue des Id\u00e9es_, 1909, p. 488.\n\n[6] Masson's address may be found in Le Bon's bibliography; also in\n_Popular Science Monthly_. An entertaining account of Poincar\u00e9's\nreception into the Academy was written for _Le Figaro_ by Andr\u00e9\nBeaunier and translated for the Boston _Transcript_.\n\n[7] _Revue bleue_, June 4, 1907, p. 708.\n\n[8] _La Revue_, 1910.\n\n[9] Translated by Professor Halsted from \"Science and Morals\" in\n_Derni\u00e8res Pens\u00e9es_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\n\u00c9LIE METCHNIKOFF\n\n\n    Ever since the attempt has been made to discover a rational\n    basis of morality, human nature, regarded essentially as\n    good, has been taken as that basis. Religions and systems\n    of philosophy, on the other hand, which have tried to find\n    another foundation for morality, have regarded human nature\n    as vicious at the roots. Science has been able to tell us\n    that man, the descendant of animals, has good and evil\n    qualities in his nature, and that his life is made unhappy\n    by the evil qualities. But the constitution of man is not\n    immutable, and perhaps it may be changed for the better.\n\n    Morality should be based not on human nature in its existing\n    vitiated condition, but on human nature, ideal, as it\n    may be in the future. Before all things, it is necessary\n    to try to amend the evolution of the human life, that\n    is to say, to transform its disharmonies into harmonies\n    (Orthobiosis). This task can be undertaken only by science,\n    and to science the opportunity of accomplishing it must be\n    given.--Metchnikoff's \"The Nature of Man\", p. 288.\n\nIf Carlyle were writing now his \"Heroes and Hero-Worship\", he would\nhave to add--however much he would have disliked to--a chapter on\n\"The Hero as Scientist.\" For the popular ideal of greatness has been\ndecidedly changed in the last half-century, and new standards of\nheroism have been established. Creative genius is beginning to take\nrank above destructive, and men are coming to recognize that the\nheroism of those who save life may be quite as great and is certainly\nmore admirable than the heroism that is measured by a monument of\nskulls. A striking proof of this shifting of public appreciation is\nafforded by the referendum carried out by the _Petit Parisien_ a few\nyears ago to ascertain whom the French people regarded as the greatest\nnames their country had produced during the nineteenth century.\nFifteen million answers were sent in, so the result may be taken as\nrepresenting the consensus of opinion in a larger degree than such\nnewspaper _plebiscites_ generally do. It was to be expected that the\nname of Napoleon would head such a list. It would have in almost any\nother country except France. But France, always devoted to the cult\nof _La Gloire_ and hitherto chiefly captivated by the bellicose form\nof it; France, where every man is trained in the army and educated in\nschools established with the avowed purpose of increasing the military\nstrength of the nation; France ranks Napoleon fourth in the list of\neminent men and puts at the head of it the name of a modest chemist\nand physiologist, Louis Pasteur.[1] It is a common observation that\nnew ideas and social tendencies are apt to become manifest in France\nearlier than elsewhere. The French clock seems to be fast, always\nkeeping a bit ahead of mean European time. If so, we may expect that\nbefore long other countries may come to give due honor and, what is\nmore important, due opportunity and encouragement to the scientists,\ninventors, and authors who confer glory upon their country by\nbenefiting the whole world.\n\nThe worthy successor of Pasteur as Director of the Institute he founded\nis the subject of this sketch, \u00c9lie Metchnikoff. The foremost of\nFrench medical men, he was neither born a Frenchman nor trained as a\nphysician. Like Pasteur, he entered the realm of medicine by crossing\nthe frontier of another science. Any man who pursues a straight line\nof thought will find that it leads him across many of those imaginary\nlines which have been drawn between the sciences, just as an aviator\ncrossing Europe in an air line pays no attention to the artificial\nand historic boundaries which divide state from state. Pasteur was a\nchemist, an inorganic chemist at that, and he was running down the\ncause of asymmetry in crystals when he found himself over in the field\nof biology. He had been engaged in separating the leftward skewed\ncrystals of tartaric acid from those that skewed to the right by\npicking them out of the mixture by hand, but he discovered that he\ncould throw the burden of selection off on an agency whose time was\nless valuable, namely, the yeast plant, which has an appetite for one\nkind of crystals, but disdains the other. This led him to the germ\ntheory of life and of disease and enabled him to save millions annually\nto the farmer and stockraiser and unnumbered human lives.\n\n[Illustration: \u00c9lie Metchnikoff]\n\nMetchnikoff's experience was similar. He was as a zo\u00f6logist less\ninterested in man than in the invertebrates, devoting his time to the\nstudy of the minuter forms of life on the barren steppes of Russia and\nin Mediterranean waters. It was in Italy at Messina in 1882 that he\nmade the discovery which led him to fame as one of the benefactors of\nthe human race. Now, if a man should deliberately set out for such a\ngoal, if he should be incited by egotism to become famous, or inspired\nby altruism to relieve the suffering of humanity, about the last thing\nhe would try would be to sit down in a laboratory all day with his eye\nglued to a microscope watching the blood corpuscles chase each other\nthrough the veins of an infant starfish. But since Metchnikoff was\nless influenced by the two motives mentioned than he was by a desire\nfor truth for its own sake and regardless of consequences, all these\nthings have been added unto him. If the anti-vivisectionists had their\nway about it, experimentation in animals, if allowed at all, would be\nrestricted to physicians and to the specific purpose of curing disease.\nThis, however, would be one of the surest ways to check medical\nprogress, for the advancement of a science ordinarily owes little to\nthose who are professionally engaged in its practice or have their eyes\nfocused upon some practical result of their investigations. At least\nthe world may rejoice that through the liberality of French law the\nwork of these two men has never been hampered--Pasteur, who discovered\nthe cause of disease, and Metchnikoff, who discovered the cause of\nimmunity. These are two cornerstones of the foundation on which is\nnow being erected the structure of a rational system of hygiene the\npurpose of which is to prolong human life by the elimination of\ndisease rather than by its cure. The change that is taking place in\nmedicine is analogous to that taking place in philanthropy. The modern\nphilanthropist appears cold-hearted because, instead of dropping a coin\ninto a beggar's hat, as did the charitable in former days, he devotes\nhimself to a systematic study of the causes of poverty. The modern\nmedical man is likewise misunderstood if he seems indifferent to the\nsuffering around him and is absorbed in the investigation of remote\nbiological problems having no perceptible relation to human needs. But\nthe beneficial results of the scientific method in both philanthropy\nand medicine are already sufficiently apparent to enable us to see that\nit will do much more for humanity than the kind but blind benevolence\nof the past.\n\nThe fame of France in art, literature, and science is in large part her\nreward for her hospitality in giving to men of other lands the freedom\nand encouragement which they could not find at home. One example is\nMaeterlinck. Another is Metchnikoff. He left his native country chiefly\nbecause of a difference of opinion on political questions between\nhimself and the Czar. Not that he has ever been a revolutionist, but as\na Jew by race, an atheist in religion, and a liberal in politics, he\nwas triply obnoxious to the powers that be, and after the assassination\nof Alexander II in 1881, the students were too much excited over\npolitics to attend to their studies. So he resigned his professorship\nin the University of Odessa and went abroad to devote himself to\nbiological research.\n\nHe was born in the Province of Kharkov, Little Russia, May 15, 1845.\nHis father was an officer of the Guards, afterward a general. His\nmother was a Jewess, and it was from her that he derived the love for\nscience which early manifested itself. He won a gold medal in the high\nschool of Kharkov and passed through the university of that city in\ntwo years instead of the customary four. Then he went to Germany and\nstudied at Giessen, G\u00f6ttingen, and Munich. Returning to his native\nland, he taught in the University of St. Petersburg and in 1870 went to\nOdessa to take the chair of zo\u00f6logy in the university there.\n\nThe years spent in private study, chiefly at Messina, the earthquake\ncity of Sicily, were most fruitful, for his investigation of\nintercellular digestion in minute marine invertebrates gave him the\nclew to the protective action of the blood in the higher animals and\nman, and in 1884 he outlined his theory of inflammation, which was, in\nshort, that the congestion of blood at a wound was due to the efforts\nof the leucocytes or white blood cells to overpower the invading\nmicrobes. The value of this discovery was recognized immediately by\nthe two foremost authorities in biology: Virchow, the German, who\nhad discovered the leucocytes, and Pasteur, the Frenchman, who had\ndiscovered the microbes. Metchnikoff had now found the missing link\nwhich brought these two discoveries together and showed their meaning.\n\nIn 1888 Metchnikoff was called to the Pasteur Institute, and in 1895\nbecame its director. Here he found an exceptional opportunity to devote\nhis talents to the relief of suffering humanity. Such institutions\nfor the advancement of the science of medicine have since been\nestablished elsewhere: the Institute for Experimental Therapeutics\nin Frankfort-on-the-Main, the Cancer Research Laboratory of London,\nthe Rockefeller Institute in New York, for example; but the French\npeople were the first to respond to the need of the man they have\ndelighted to honor by endowing, in 1886, an institution which should\ncontinue his work as well as perpetuate his name. The Nobel prize for\nthe most important discovery in medicine was in 1908 divided between\nMetchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute, and Professor Paul Ehrlich, of\nthe Frankfort Institute, who has in these latter days made \"606\" the\nmark of the beast, instead of 666, as prophesied in Revelation. The\nNobel prize man of 1912, Doctor Alexis Carrel, although a Frenchman by\nbirth, found in the Rockefeller Institute the opportunity to carry on\nhis remarkable investigations on the preservation and transplantation\nof living tissues.\n\nCharacteristically French is the artistic setting which has been\ngiven to this home of science. The visitor appropriately approaches\nit through the long and handsome Boulevard Pasteur, then turning into\na side street he finds on his left the Pasteur Institute and on his\nright the more imposing buildings of the Institute for Infectious\nDiseases and the Laboratory of Biological Chemistry, recently erected\nfor carrying out the treatment which the experimental work of the other\nside of the street has suggested. A new department has been added for\nthe study of tropical diseases such as the sleeping sickness, which has\ndepopulated a large part of the Nyanza region. This extension of the\nwork is made possible by the receipt in 1909 of the bequest of eight\nmillion dollars by the miserly and eccentric Jewish banker who called\nhimself Osiris.\n\nAs the visitor passes into the courtyard of the Institute, his nerves\nalready shaky with thoughts of microbes and mad dogs, he is almost\nstartled to see, half hidden among the trees, a man engaged in a death\nstruggle with a wolf. This is a bronze statue of Jupile, a shepherd\nwho, bitten by a mad wolf, was one of the first patients to receive\nthe Pasteur treatment for rabies. In a crypt of marble and mosaic\nunderneath the building is the tomb of Pasteur, as impressive, if less\nimposing, than the tomb of Napoleon under the dome of the Invalides not\nfar away. The reception room of the Institute is adorned with large\npaintings showing the modern miracles of healing, better authenticated\nthan those of Sainte Genevi\u00e8ve depicted by Puvis de Chavannes on the\nwalls of the Panth\u00e9on.\n\nProfessor Metchnikoff is ordinarily not accessible to visitors,\nespecially interviewers, but since I was armed with a letter of\nintroduction from Professor Jacques Loeb, of the Rockefeller Institute,\nwhom he regards as the foremost of American scientists, I was fortunate\nenough to find him in.\n\nHe has rather a short figure and a large head, with a bushy gray beard,\nbut hair that is still dark. His spectacles are not sufficient to\nimpart severity to his mild blue eyes. His voice is low and pleasant,\nand he speaks, as he moves, without either hurry or hesitation. He is a\nworker among workers, inspiring with his indefatigable zeal the young\nmen who come to him from Europe, America, and Asia to pursue their\nresearches in bacteriology.\n\nA walk through the Pasteur Institute is like a visit to a zo\u00f6logical\ngarden, for the study of each particular human disease requires the\ndiscovery of some species that is also susceptible to it. Here are not\nonly the dogs, guinea pigs, and rats common to every bacteriological\nlaboratory, but also many others closely connected with Metchnikoff's\nspecial interests; parrots and geese, for example, which are remarkable\nfor their longevity; bats, which eat rotten food and yet maintain an\naseptic intestinal tract; and chimpanzees, which, as the literal blood\nrelations of man, are capable of sharing the worst of his diseases.\n\nLike Agassiz, Metchnikoff has \"no time to get rich.\" At his home\nin the suburbs of Paris he sets an example of the plain living he\nadvocates, supplementing the meager salary given him at the Institute\nby the income of a small estate in Russia. The twenty thousand dollars\nhe received from the Nobel Foundation he devoted entirely to the\nfurtherance of his researches in longevity.\n\nM. Metchnikoff has given the best possible proof that he has no\npersonal aversion to women who enter his profession, for he married in\n1875 as his second wife a Russian bacteriologist of distinction. He\ndedicated to her his first volume of \"Optimistic Studies,\" and in it he\ncites her experiments on the growth of microbe-free tadpoles. She is an\nartist as well as a scientist, and here, too, M. Metchnikoff shares her\ntastes, for he is fond of painting and music. They have no children,\nbut he has a godchild to whom he is devoted.\n\nHis high regard for individuality leads him to look with favor upon the\nentrance of women into the universities and the professions. He has\nno fear that it will result in the production of a class of celibates\ncorresponding to the sexless workers of the beehive. On the contrary,\nhis observation of the feminist movement for more than forty years has\nshown him that learned ladies are by no means wanting in the marital\nand maternal instincts common and proper to their sex. Of a thousand\nwomen in the St. Petersburg Medical School, ten per cent had been\nmarried before, and forty-four per cent were married during their\ncourse of study. A conspicuous case of feminine scientific genius is\nthat of Sonya Kovalevsky, who attained the highest eminence in that\nfield which, by the common consent of men, was formerly regarded as\nunattainable by women; that is, pure mathematics. But the day when she\nreceived the doubled prize of the French Academy of Sciences she wrote\nto a friend that she had never felt so unhappy, and the cause of her\nunhappiness, as revealed in her letters and romances, was that she was\nnot beloved as other women were.\n\nAlthough Metchnikoff would grant to women every opportunity for the\nexercise of their talents, and thinks they had better occupy themselves\nwith science than with fashions, he believes genius of a high order\nto be much rarer among them than among men. When he was called upon\nby the women doctors and scientists at the Naturalists' Congress at\nSt. Petersburg for his opinion of the feminist movement, he created\nconsiderable consternation among them by the following frank language:\n\n    Your complaint, as I understand it, is that man has\n    excluded woman from all higher intellectual occupation by\n    unnatural means, so that her mind has become atrophied, her\n    capabilities blunted, her talents stagnant. You would remedy\n    all this by being made man's equal in politics. You would\n    then, you say, develop your slumbering abilities, overtake,\n    and possibly surpass, your immemorial enslaver--man.\n\n    But do you really need this political equality in order to\n    attain this supremacy? Has the down-trodden among men ever\n    needed it? His political equality has come as an effect not\n    as the cause of his intellectual development. The mind that\n    dominates in the artistic and scientific world ultimately\n    arrives at political supremacy.\n\n    But what art or science has man closed to you? You are\n    here; but really, ladies, I have failed to discover a\n    Bichat, a Louis, a Jenner, or a Pasteur among you. Have you\n    personally been impeded in your careers more than certain\n    individuals among men? Now let us take the arts. Is there a\n    man-master so unnatural who ever forbade his female slave\n    to express herself in music? But where are your Beethovens,\n    your Wagners, your Verdis, your Brahms? I beg of you, dear\n    ladies, if you remember one, tell me.\n\n    What brutal slave owner at any time forbade women to\n    beautify canvas with satisfying hues and lines depicting\n    life or nature? As in music, man has encouraged women to do\n    these things, yet where are your Raphaels, your Leonardos,\n    your Rubenses? Have women been forbidden to mold, carve, or\n    draw? Yet where is your Phidias, your Michelangelo, your\n    Cellini? Did you ever hear of a woman architect?\n\n    Home and motherhood there, of course, the most radical\n    among you will not say that man has attempted to restrain\n    you--there you have had from time immemorial, in all ages,\n    in all places, under every condition, absolute and full\n    freedom. Still, is it not man, the enslaver, who teaches you\n    domestic economy? Is it not from man that you have learned\n    how to care for your offspring in illness, how to amuse them\n    in health? Who discovered the laws of domestic hygiene? Was\n    it a woman?\n\n    Now, my dear ladies, has man ever excluded you from the\n    kitchen? No, you say, you have been enslaved there. \"Cook!\n    Feed the brute!\" is eternally dinned in your ears. It would\n    seem reasonable that at least in this sphere woman should\n    have reached a high standard of perfection. And the actual\n    result? Ah, dear ladies, I must confess. If I want a really\n    good dinner I must have recourse to a chef.\n\n    And now, ladies, I ask your pardon, you have all studied\n    physiology and psychology, and you know where such\n    considerations would lead me. But one word more: Do not lose\n    sight of the significance of your request, \"Professor, what\n    is your opinion of the feministic movement?\" for that makes\n    out your case perfectly--to advocate your cause you would\n    call in the help of man.\n\nMetchnikoff has very little liking for the political methods in vogue\nin our republics. He thinks young men too reckless, opinionated, and\npessimistic to be intrusted with the ballot at the age of twenty-one.\n\"It is easily intelligible,\" he says, \"that in the new conditions such\nmodern idols as universal suffrage, public opinion, and the referendum,\nin which the ignorant masses are called upon to decide questions which\ndemand varied and profound knowledge, will last no longer than the old\nidols. The progress of human knowledge will bring about the replacement\nof such institutions by others in which applied morality will be\ncontrolled by really competent persons.\" But he fails to inform us how\nthese \"competent persons\" are to be selected and placed in power.\n\nTo give an account of the varied researches which Metchnikoff has\ncarried on or has superintended at the Pasteur Institute is apart\nfrom our purpose and would in any case be impossible here, because it\nwould involve the recapitulation of a great part of the history of\nmedical progress for the past quarter century. During this period the\nscience of medicine has been completely revolutionized, for the use\nof traditional and empirical remedies has been largely replaced by\na systematic search for the causes of diseases and the experimental\ndetermination of methods of avoiding or counteracting them. In\ngeneral, the change may be characterized as a return to nature. In\nthe older medicine at its best, a dose of some vegetable or mineral\nsubstance, such as quinine or mercury, comparatively harmless, but\naltogether foreign to the body, was administered through the mouth and\nin time reaching the blood through the digestive systems, killed off\nor paralyzed the disease germ. In modern medicine at its best, some\nsubstance, such as the diphtheria antitoxin, that is already present\nin the blood in quantity sufficient under ordinary circumstances to\nprevent infection, is re\u00ebnforced in an emergency by more of the same\nsubstance prepared in the blood of the horse. Or if that cannot be\ndone, the next best thing is to inject some serum that by a natural\nreaction will stimulate the body to prepare in excess its own antitoxin\nor excite the phagocytes to greater exertions in overcoming their\nenemies. In any case, the object is to induce an artificial immunity as\nnearly as possible like the natural immunity of the healthy body.\n\nPhagocytes--that is, \"devouring cells\"--was the name given by\nMetchnikoff to the leucocytes or white cells, which he found\nwandering about the body in search of their prey. They lead a sort\nof semi-independent life, like the simplest one-celled animal, the\namoeba, and they penetrate to all parts of the body, even squeezing\nin between the toughened tissue of the skin and bones. When a cut is\nmade in the skin they are borne to the breach by the flow of blood and\nthere pile up and coagulate, forming a new skin to protect the raw\nflesh, somewhat as a breach in a rampart is hastily filled in with sand\nbags. Not only that, but when the enemy actually gains entrance either\nby storming a wound or sneaking in through some unguarded opening,\nthen the white cells rally to the attack, surrounding and destroying\nthe invading microbes. If these multiply too rapidly, the phagocyte\nreserves are mobilized, new recruits by the million are called out,\nuntil the bodily force is victorious or exhausted. Such a battle we\ncall a local inflammation, or, if the engagement is general and long\ncontinued, a fever. Under the microscope we may watch the foes engaged\nin single combat, the phagocyte devouring the bacillus, a living,\nformless mass of protoplasm stretching out extemporized tentacles and\nengulfing the rod, globe, or writhing spiral which we may afterward see\nslowly digesting in its interior.\n\nTo be sure, the operation is not quite so simple as Metchnikoff first\nconceived it. A condition is always more complicated than the theory\ndevised to explain it. The question has been hotly debated and is not\nyet settled whether the phagocytes best defend us by their life or by\ntheir death. It appears that as they undergo dissolution they give\nup to the blood certain substances which dissolve the disease germs\nor neutralize their poisons, and this may be a more important means\nof defense than the englobing or engulfing process. Then, too, these\nwhite cells seem at times strangely indifferent to the presence of\ntheir dearest foes, or, perhaps we should say, their favorite food.\nThere is needed in the blood on such occasions a substance known as\nopsonin, which being absorbed by the microbes the phagocytes attack\nthem with avidity; this opsonin serving as some biologist, doubtless an\nEnglishman, has said, like Worcestershire sauce as an appetizer to the\nphagocytes.\n\nBut for further discussion of these questions I must refer the reader\nto his family physician, who will take pleasure in repudiating these\nvague and fanciful interpretations of mine. He will be able to tell\nwhether phagocytosis or bacteriolysis is the fashionable mode of\ncombating disease germs and he will introduce the reader to alexin,\nagglutinin, anti-bodies, sidechains, and other interesting and useful\nnovelties that he contains within him to a greater or less degree, let\nus hope a greater.\n\nBut these same voracious white blood cells which ordinarily serve as\nthe defenders of the body may in the period of its weakness become\nits worst enemies. This reminds us of the Pr\u00e6torian Guards who in\nthe later days of Rome precipitated its decline by attacking the\ncapital. The phagocytes show an unfortunate predilection for the higher\nelements of the human organism and, according to Metchnikoff, the most\ndistressing symptom of old age, the weakening of the mind, is due to\ntheir devouring the nerve cells. But besides that they play havoc all\nthrough the body; eating up the pigment of the hair and so whitening\nit; causing degeneration of the liver and kidneys; robbing the skeleton\nof its lime and depositing it in the blood vessels, thus doing double\ndamage by weakening the bones and hardening the arteries. In these\nsymptoms of senility the germs of disease form an important factor,\nboth in weakening the body and instigating the treacherous insurrection\nof the phagocytes. Hence Metchnikoff comes to the conclusion that: \"The\nsenile degeneration of an organism is entirely similar to the lesions\ninduced by certain maladies of a microbic origin\", and thus he arrives\nat his famous definition: \"Old age is an infectious chronic disease,\ncharacterized by a degeneration or an enfeebling of the noble elements\nand by the excessive activity of the phagocytes.\"\n\nIf old age is correctly characterized as a disease, and especially if\nit is due in part to microbic invasion, it ought to be possible to cure\nor postpone it. This, then, is what Metchnikoff has in recent years\nmade the main aim of his researches.\n\nIn particular he suspects the large intestine of harboring some of the\nmost dangerous of the microscopic enemies of man, the cause of many of\nthe ills that flesh is heir to. It is in his opinion an excessive and\ncomparatively unimportant organ, for it can be shortened or removed\nwithout serious consequences. A comparative survey of the anatomy of\nthe vertebrates shows that as a general rule the longer the intestine\nthe shorter the life. He does not advocate its extirpation by surgery\nor its disinfection by chemicals, but he would crowd out its wild and\npoisonous flora by harmless cultivated species. Among the friendly\nmicrobes he regards the lactic acid bacilli as most useful for this\npurpose. These act upon milk or fruit sugar, converting it into lactic\nacid, which is destructive to most other microbes, including some of\nthe most dangerous. For example, mysterious outbreaks of typhoid fever\nhave been recently traced to \"typhoid carriers\"; that is, persons who,\nwhile immune to the disease themselves, may yet serve for years as\nconveyors of the infection. But a thriving colony of Bulgarian bacilli\nwill drive out the typhoid bacilli and so put a stop to the spread of\nthe disease.\n\nThe difference between harmless and injurious bacteria on which the\nlactic acid theory depends is easily understood because it is a matter\nof common observation. Meat and milk have much the same composition so\nfar as their protein is concerned. But whereas meat promptly spoils,\nthat is, putrefies, with the formation of disgusting and poisonous\nproducts of decomposition, milk sours instead and will remain wholesome\nand to some tastes palatable for several days. Both are the results\nof bacterial decomposition, but the difference is due to the fact\nthat milk contains a kind of sugar which, inoculated with the proper\nbacilli, is converted into lactic acid, and thus the growth of the\nbacteria of putrefaction is for some time prevented. But under certain\ncircumstances it happens that the latter get the start of the lactic\nacid makers, and then the milk goes the way of the meat, and we have a\ncase of \"ptomain poisoning.\" In short, the aim of swallowing cultures\nof lactic acid bacilli by whole-sale is to keep the contents of the\nremote regions of our digestive apparatus in the condition of soured\nmilk rather than that of decayed meat. Recently the same treatment has\nbeen recommended for preserving the teeth, since these mild-mannered\nand beneficent bacilli rubbed into the gums will dispossess those which\nordinarily grow in our mouths and attack our teeth.\n\nFor aid in his fight against the bacterial poisons that bring on\ndisease and old age, Metchnikoff has resorted to his native steppes.\nThe Tartars and Kalmucks of southern Russia had always had as their\nfavorite food koumiss, prepared by the fermentation of mare's milk,\nand nomads of all races have made use of some form of curdled milk,\nchiefly because of the difficulty of preserving other kinds of animal\nfood under primitive conditions. The keffir of the Caucasus, the leben\nof Egypt, the matzoon of Armenia, the dadhi of India, and yahourth of\nBulgaria are all produced from milk by the use of various species of\nlactic acid bacilli associated with other bacteria of fermentation. Of\nthese the last, the Bulgarian yahourth, yoghourt, or yagurt, contains\nthe strongest bacilli; that is, those that are able to stand the\nlargest percentage of the product of their own activity, lactic acid,\nand so Metchnikoff has made them the basis of his dietetics.\n\nA surprisingly large proportion of centenarians are reported from\nBulgaria, where yagurt is used, and Metchnikoff cites a large number\nof cases of men and women of extreme old age who have lived largely\non sour milk or on sauerkraut, which also contains the lactic acid\nbacilli.[2] Most of these are found among the poorer classes or\ncomparatively uncivilized races. Sir Moses Montefiore is one of the\nvery few rich men who have passed the century mark. Metchnikoff uses\nthis as an argument for the simple life. But it is questionable whether\nsuch data, derived from the casual reports of individual cases and the\ngeneralized observations of travelers, are of much evidential value.\nClaims to longevity among the unlettered are notoriously unreliable.\nIt would be very unsafe to hold that the negroes were longer lived\nthan the whites, because so many mammies could tell of remembering\nWashington. When the British old age pension bill passed, the number of\npoor people in Ireland who came forward with evidence that they were\nover sixty-five years old surprised the actuaries and embarrassed the\nbudget. Women are apt to restore double-fold in old age the years they\ndeprived themselves of in the later thirties.\n\nIt is also curious to see a skeptic like Metchnikoff giving serious\nconsideration to the accounts of longevity given in the Pentateuch\nwhich many orthodox theologians are willing to concede as legendary. He\nbalks, indeed, at Noah's nine hundred and fifty years and Methuselah's\nnine hundred and sixty-nine, but accepts as probable Aaron's one\nhundred and twenty-three years and Moses's one hundred and twenty,\nquoting the words of Jehovah: \"My spirit shall not always strive with\nman for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and\ntwenty years.\" He accounts for it by their more healthful mode of\nliving and their freedom from alcoholism and the diseases of vice,\nnowadays the chief cause of premature old age. He calls attention also\nto the fact that sour milk was in common use among the patriarchs and\nwas esteemed by Abraham food fit to set before angels. In regard to the\nMosaic dietary regulations he says:\n\n    Some of them, it is true, such as the prohibition of\n    uncooked or partially cooked meat, are confirmed by modern\n    knowledge. But the greater number of the Mosaic rules, as,\n    for instance, the prohibition of the consumption as food of\n    blood or the flesh of pigs or hares, and so forth, are in\n    direct opposition to a modern knowledge of hygienic diet.\n\nMetchnikoff, being a scientist, uses, of course, these reports of\nlongevity gathered from historians and travelers merely as suggesting\nprofitable lines of research, not as proof of any theory. Such proof\ncan only be obtained by direct experimentation, and accordingly he has\nfor the past fifteen years been experimenting upon himself. The Pasteur\npeople do not belong to that class of physicians who refuse to take\ntheir own medicine. Metchnikoff still has a weak heart as the result\nof an intentional inoculation with recurrent fever, and some of his\ncollaborators have inoculated themselves with the most loathsome of\ndiseases for the purpose of testing a remedy for it. Brown-S\u00e9quard, of\nthe Coll\u00e8ge de France, tried, at the age of seventy-two, to rejuvenate\nhimself by injections of animal secretions, but his hopes proved\nunfounded.\n\nBut the means advocated by Metchnikoff for the prevention of\nsenescence, even though it may never fulfill his expectations, has at\nleast the merit of being harmless, for it is merely the systematic\nemployment of a food which has been in use by a large part of the\nhuman race from the earliest times. The object being to colonize the\nlactic bacilli in the lower part of the digestive tract, the best way\nof attaining this has yet to be worked out. The generous drinking of\nbuttermilk or curdled milk, though this may be nutritious or otherwise\nbeneficial, does not necessarily accomplish the object, for the bacilli\nmay have been mostly killed off by the acidity or may be destroyed\nin the stomach. Taking a dose of the bacilli in a dried form, as a\ntablet or powder, may fail to serve the purpose, because they are in an\ninactive state and may not be able to secure a foot-hold for lack of\nsuitable food, such as milk or fruit sugar. So Metchnikoff has adopted\nthe plan of taking pure cultures of the Bulgarian and paralactic\nbacilli in pasteurized milk or sweetened bouillon and also in the jam\nand in a kind of candy prepared from cooked dates soaked in the pure\ncultures. He abstains from all alcoholic beverages and uses only cooked\nfood and boiled water. His daily diet in addition to this consists of\nthree to five ounces of meat, grains, legumes, and stewed fruit.[3]\n\nThis goes counter to the raw food advocates, but here Metchnikoff\nhas the best of the argument. He also questions the advisability of\nexcessive chewing as advocated by Mr. Fletcher, and cites cases where\nthe health has been injured by the practice and the resulting disease\ncured by more rapid eating.[4]\n\nAs soon as Doctor Metchnikoff first made known his theory, the public,\nalways on the lookout for a new \"Elixir of Life\", demanded fermented\nmilk and the supply was immediately forthcoming, not always of a\nsatisfactory character. Many of the cultures sold in powder or tabloids\nfor the purpose or dispensed in drink at the soda fountains are\ninactive and useless, or contain other and sometimes undesirable forms\nof bacteria. I have found it easy enough to prepare the fermented milk\nin the household, where the proper cultures are to be had. All that is\nnecessary is to sterilize the milk by heating it to the boiling point\nor near it and keeping it there for ten minutes; then cool quickly to\n100\u00b0 Fahr. and add the ferment in tabloids or powder or some of the\nformer batch, and keep covered at this temperature for twelve hours.\nA vacuum bottle or fireless cooker is convenient for keeping the\ntemperature even. The fermented milk properly prepared is somewhat\nthickened, slightly acid, and palatable even to those who do not like\nordinary buttermilk.\n\nMetchnikoff's views as to the value of lactic acid have met with not\nonly the legitimate skepticism and criticism of the medical profession,\nbut also with the usual ridicule from the press. \"Who would want to\nlive one hundred and fifty years if he had to drink sour milk three\ntimes a day?\" is asked, and he is alluded to as \"the modern Ponce de\nLeon searching for the Fountain of Immortal Youth and finding it in\nthe Milky Whey.\" Of course Metchnikoff should not be held responsible\nfor the exaggerated expectations founded upon his theories or for the\nfakes foisted upon the public in his name. He is indeed an original\nthinker and a bold experimenter, but he is not a sensationalist or a\nseeker for popular applause. He has never said that he expected to live\none hundred and fifty years or that any one else could by following\nhis regimen. But he does regard that period as more nearly the normal\nlength of human life than the commonly accepted limit of sixty-five\nor seventy, and as possibly attainable through the advance of medical\nscience. Though he comes of a short-lived family and all his brothers\ndied at an age much younger than he has now attained, his health is\nunusually good for a man of seventy, and he is as hard-working and\nenterprising as ever. It is not the mere prolongation of life for which\nhe is working, but the prolongation of the period of serviceable and\nenjoyable life. If he had remained in the University of Odessa, he\nwould have been retired from his professorship on the ground of old age\nin 1900, the year before he published his second and greatest work,\nthat on \"Immunity in Infectious Diseases.\"\n\nThe title which was given to his most popular book in its English\nversion, \"The Prolongation of Life\", was not of his choosing\nand misrepresents his aim. He regards this volume as well as\nits predecessor, \"The Nature of Man\", as \"Studies in Optimistic\nPhilosophy.\" They are written to show that science is not merely of\nuse in facilitating and ameliorating the lot of human beings, but is\nalso adequate as a guide to conduct and capable of providing it with\nideals of future aspiration. In an age when, as it appears to him,\nreligion has lost its power, and thinking men no longer have faith in\nimmortality, he sees them turning to mysticism on the one hand and\nto pessimism on the other, and his purpose is to find a way out that\ndoes not involve either. As an exposition of the Religio Medici of the\ntwentieth century, his work has great significance, and even those\nwho look with confidence to a future life to rectify the disharmonies\nof this one may read with interest the opinions of one who does not\nhold their faith upon what may be accomplished toward perfecting the\nconditions of existence and may sympathize with and second his efforts\nat such amelioration.\n\nEssentially his aim seems to me to be the same as that of Epicurus: to\nrelieve mankind of its two great evils, pain and fear, the fear of the\ngods and the fear of death, the first to be dissipated by showing it\nto be imaginary and the second by welcoming death at the proper time.\nLike Epicurus, too, but unlike most Epicureans, Metchnikoff preaches\nplain living and the avoidance of luxury and dissipation of all kinds.\n\"It would be true progress\", he says, \"to abandon modern cuisine and\ngo back to the simpler dishes of our ancestors\", and he objects on\nhygienic grounds to modern dress, dwellings, and social customs.\n\nA society called \"The Optimists\" has been formed in Paris to increase\nthe sum and intensity of human happiness and to extend the limit of\nactive and enjoyable life. The founder is Doctor E. Dagincourt and the\nsecretary is Mme. Languet de Bellevue, who has given fifty thousand\ndollars to the movement. Besides Professor Metchnikoff, the club\nincludes Jean Finot, whose \"Science of Happiness\" and \"Philosophy\nof Longevity\" present similar ideals to Metchnikoff's \"Optimistic\nStudies\"; Camille Flammarion, the distinguished astronomer and author;\nProfessor Charles Richet, who received the Nobel prize for medical\ndiscoveries in 1913; Eugene Brieux, author of \"Damaged Goods\" and\nother reform dramas; and Edmond Perrier, head of the Museum of Natural\nHistory.\n\nOptimism Metchnikoff regards as the natural philosophy of old age when\na proper appreciation of the value of life is attained and youthful\npessimism outgrown.\n\n    In the normal course of life, however, the young do not show\n    an instinctive clinging to life in any marked degree. They\n    often risk their lives for trifling reasons and commit all\n    sorts of indiscretions hurtful to life or health without a\n    thought of the consequences. They may be inspired by the\n    highest motives, but they are equally ready to fritter\n    strength away in the gratification of the lowest appetites.\n    Youth is the age of disinterested sacrifice, but also of\n    indulgence in all kinds of excesses, alcoholic, sexual, and\n    others. Youths seem to think that they will always attach\n    the same value to life, and that between death at thirty\n    years of age and death at sixty there is a difference only\n    of time. As their love of life is indifferently developed,\n    young people are often extremely exacting, the pleasure\n    they enjoy being but moderate, whilst the suffering\n    provoked in them by the slightest annoyance is intense.\n    They consequently become epicureans in the lowest sense\n    of the word, or else abandon themselves to exaggerated\n    pessimism.--\"The Nature of Man\", p. 116.\n\nPessimism was the militant philosophy of the nineteenth century, and\nits effects are increasingly felt in the present world-wide tendency to\nsuicide, individual suicide due to the failure of the instinct to live,\nand race suicide due to the failure to propagate. But even pessimism,\nharmful as it is upon humanity, may, according to Metchnikoff, have its\nuses:\n\n    It is pessimism which has been the first to draw up a true\n    indictment of human nature, and if pain is to be regarded\n    as useful in its quality of danger signal we should equally\n    recognize that the pessimistic view of the universe is a\n    step onward in the evolution of humanity. Without pessimism\n    we might easily sink into a kind of contented fatalism, and\n    end in quietism, in the manner of many religions.--\"Nature\n    of Man\", p. 194.\n\nThe difference between the philosophic pessimist and the scientific\noptimist may be illustrated by two incidents. In 1831 Schopenhauer, in\nspite of his theory that life was evil and worse than nothing, fled\nfrom Berlin to Frankfort at the first outbreak of the cholera. But we\nrecall that Metchnikoff, professed optimist and lover of life, went in\n1911 to Manchuria into the center of the bubonic plague in its most\nvirulent form in order to learn how to relieve human suffering. The\ndifference is one between whiners and helpers.\n\nSchopenhauer wrote that \"an alteration of the atmosphere so slight\nthat it cannot be detected by chemistry brings about cholera or yellow\nfever or black death.\" Metchnikoff's dry comment on this is: \"Humanity\nwill be fortunate if the pessimistic philosophers prove as wrong about\ntheir other grievances as they have proved about disease and medicine.\"\nAnd he adds that if Koch had discovered his vibrio in 1831, philosophy\nwould have taken a different course, for Schopenhauer need not have\nbeen frightened away from Berlin, and Hegel, who died of the cholera,\nmight have gone on with the development of his idealism.\n\nAnother paradox appears in the fact that Metchnikoff, who makes\nlittle account of altruism in his system of morality, has devoted his\nlife to arduous and dangerous researches for the benefit of others,\nand, without hope of reward in another life in either the Buddhist\nor Christian sense, has labored assiduously to lay the foundations\nof a science by which posterity can profit. He regards altruism not\nas a permanent and indispensable virtue, but as something to be\ngradually got rid of, at least in its extreme forms of heroism and\nself-sacrifice. As this is one of the most striking and, it seems to\nme, most original points in his philosophy, a passage must be quoted:\n\n    As it is highly probable that with the advance of\n    civilization the greatest evils of humanity will become\n    lessened, and may even disappear, the sacrifices to be made\n    will also become less. Now that there is a serum which\n    protects against plague, there is no room for the heroism\n    of the doctors who used to incur the greatest danger in\n    fighting epidemics. Until lately doctors used to risk their\n    life in treating the throats of diphtheritic patients. A\n    young doctor who was a friend of mine, of high ability\n    and promise, died from diphtheria contracted under these\n    conditions. He met his death, in isolation from his friends\n    in case of affecting them, with the utmost heroism. Now that\n    the antidiphtheritic serum has been discovered, such heroism\n    would be unnecessary. The advance of science has removed the\n    occasion of such sacrifices.\n\n    It is now very long since there has been opportunity for\n    the heroism which steeled the hand of Abraham to sacrifice\n    his only son to his religion. Human sacrifice, based on\n    the highest morality, has become more and more rare, and\n    will finally disappear. Rational morality, although it may\n    admire such conduct, has no use for it. So also it may\n    foresee a time when men will be so highly developed that\n    instead of being delighted to take advantage of the sympathy\n    of their fellows, they will refuse it absolutely. Neither\n    the Kantian idea of virtue, doing good as a pure duty, nor\n    that of Herbert Spencer, according to which men have an\n    instinctive need to help their fellows, will be realized in\n    the future. The ideal will rather be that of men who will be\n    self-sufficient and who will no longer permit others to do\n    them good.--\"Prolongation of Life\", p. 323.\n\nAs he objects to conditions that demand sympathy and self-sacrifice\nfrom one person for another, so also he opposes any state of society\nthat involves the sacrifice or subordination of the individual for the\nbenefit of the community as a whole.\n\n    It is most probable that no shade of socialism will be\n    able to solve the problem of social life with a sufficient\n    respect for the maintenance of individual liberty. None the\n    less the progress of human knowledge will inevitably bring\n    about a great leveling of human fortunes. Intellectual\n    culture will lead men to give up many things that are\n    superfluous or even harmful, and that are still thought\n    indispensable by most people. The conceptions that the\n    greatest good fortune consists in the complete evolution of\n    the normal cycle of human life and that this goal can be\n    reached most easily by plain and sober habits will convince\n    men of the folly of much of the luxury that now shortens\n    human existence. Whilst the rich will choose a simpler mode\n    of life and the poor will be able to live better, none\n    the less, private property, acquired or inherited, may be\n    maintained. Evolution must be gradual, and much effort and\n    new knowledge is required. Sociology, a new-born science,\n    must learn of biology, her older sister. Biology teaches\n    us that in proportion that the organization becomes more\n    complex, the consciousness of individuality develops,\n    until a point is reached at which individuality cannot be\n    sacrificed to the community. Amongst low creatures such as\n    Myxomycetes and Siphonophora, the individuals disappear\n    wholly or almost wholly in the community; but the sacrifice\n    is small, as in these creatures the consciousness of\n    individuality has not appeared. Social insects are in a\n    stage intermediate between that of the lower animals and\n    man. It is only in man that the individual has definitely\n    acquired consciousness, and for that reason a satisfactory\n    social organization cannot sacrifice it on pretext of\n    the common good. To this conclusion the study of the\n    social evolution of living beings leads me. It is plain\n    that the study of human individuality is a necessary\n    step in the organization of the social life of human\n    beings.--\"Prolongation of Life\", p. 231.\n\nOne might think in reading \"The Nature of Man\" that Metchnikoff was\nlaying the foundations of a pessimistic instead of an optimistic system\nof philosophy. He begins, as Schopenhauer or Von Hartmann might have\ndone, by showing how ill adapted to his environment is that simian\nabortion we call man. Among the examples of marvelously perfect\nadaptation of structure or instinct in nature are cited Darwin's\norchids and Fabre's wasps. M. Fabre seems to be indispensable to French\nphilosophers. We have seen that Maeterlinck and Bergson get some of\ntheir finest illustrations from this \"Homer of the Insects.\" But man is\nnot so favored of nature as the orchids or wasps:\n\n    There can be no doubt but that the human constitution,\n    although in many ways perfect and sublime, exhibits numerous\n    and serious disharmonies which are the source of all our\n    troubles. Not being so well adapted to the conditions of\n    life as orchids are, for example, in the matter of their\n    fertilization by the mediation of insects, or the burrowing\n    wasps for the protection of their young, humanity resembles\n    rather those insects the instinct of which guides them\n    toward the flame which burns their wings.\n\nIn the first half of the nineteenth century there were published at\nthe cost of five thousand dollars apiece eight volumes known as the\nBridgewater Treatises on \"The Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as\nManifested in the Creation,\" using as illustrations the structure of\nthe hand, the instincts of animals, the chemistry of digestion, and\nother unworked sources of natural theology. The science was not bad for\nits time, nor was the argument altogether fallacious. But the authors\noverlooked one thing, namely, that Bridgewater is a game two can play\nat, and that it would be equally possible to fill eight other volumes\nby picking out a different set of facts, almost equally imposing, to\nprove something very different, either that there is no God or that\nthere is a devil, either atheism or Manicheism. Metchnikoff's \"Nature\nof Man\" supplies much of the material that a devil's advocate might\nthen have used in his Anti-Bridgewater Treatises.\n\nBut Metchnikoff, writing in the twentieth century, makes quite another\nuse of it. He has doubtless never read the Bridgewater Treatises,\nnor have many of us. There is no reason to now. They have become\nwaste paper, not because they were false, but because the whole mass\nof the argument against them has vanished, the half recognized and\nsubconscious argument against theism derivable from the undeniable\nexistence of disharmonies and imperfections in the universe. This\nbattlefield is deserted; though the same struggle continues, it is on\nhigher ground. This change has been wrought by the introduction of the\nidea of evolution. We now realize we do not live in a static universe.\nThe theism which is founded on evolution may serenely acknowledge\nthe discords and failures which would be fatal to the theism of the\nBridgewater era. And Metchnikoff, as an atheist, is equally untroubled\nby the existence of misleading instincts and useless, disease-producing\norgans, for interpreting them in the light of evolution he escapes the\nslough of nineteenth century pessimism and arrives triumphantly at the\ngoal of optimism.\n\nAt least he says he does. I cannot see that his argument leads to\noptimism in the strict sense of the word, although it certainly leads\nhim to a very sane and hopeful meliorism. The weakest point in his\ndoctrine of orthobiosis seems to me his theory of euthanasia, that at\nthe end of the \"normal cycle\" of life--whatever that may be--the desire\nfor life is replaced by an instinct for death. The evidence he adduces\nin support of this is very scanty and questionable. It is curious\nto note that it was the experiences of Metchnikoff's brother which\nsupplied Tolstoy with the material for the most harrowing picture of\nthe fear of death in all literature, \"The Death of Ivan Ilyitch\"?\n\nIn \"The Prolongation of Life\" Metchnikoff devotes much space to an\nanalysis of the first and second parts of \"Faust\" and the life of\nGoethe, whom he manifestly regards as an excellent example of a\ncomplete and well-ordered life. The reader will observe that while\nhe condemns Goethe's drinking habits because they undermined his\nconstitution, he has, from the standpoint of a naturalist, no word of\nblame for his promiscuous love affairs, since these contributed to the\ndevelopment of his genius. This is, to say the least, a very one-sided\nview to take of it.\n\nBut this volume is concerned with the exposition rather than the\ncriticism of the authors discussed, so I will conclude the chapter with\na quotation which sums up his philosophy and sets forth his ideals:\n\n    In progress toward the goal, nature will have to be\n    consulted continuously. Already, in the case of the\n    ephemerids, nature has produced a complete cycle of normal\n    life ending in natural death. In the problem of his own\n    fate, man must not be content with the gifts of nature; he\n    must direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been\n    able to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must\n    attempt to modify his own constitution, so as to readjust\n    its disharmonies.\n\n    Breeders form a conception of the ideal result when they are\n    about to attempt the production of some new variety which\n    shall be pleasing \u00e6sthetically and of service to man. Next,\n    they study the existing individual variations in animals and\n    plants on which they wish to work, and from which they will\n    select with minutest care. The ideal result must have some\n    relation to the constitution of the organism selected. To\n    modify the human constitution, it will be necessary, first,\n    to frame the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all\n    the resources of science.\n\n    If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a\n    kind of religion of the future, this ideal must be founded\n    on scientific principles. And if it be true, as has been\n    asserted so often, that man can live by faith alone, the\n    faith must be in the power of science.--\"The Nature of Man\",\n    p. 302.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHOW TO READ METCHNIKOFF\n\nThe philosophy of Metchnikoff is given in two volumes published in\nthis country by Putnams, \"The Nature of Man\" and \"The Prolongation\nof Life.\" The second and later volume will perhaps better serve the\npurpose of the general reader, but either will give the main outlines\nof his theories. Both volumes are written for the medical student\nrather than the public, and discuss some unpleasant subjects, but\nnot in any objectionable manner. The English translation, at least\nin the first editions, is clumsy and careless. These works in the\noriginal are entitled \"Essais sur la nature humaine\", Paris, 1903, and\n\"Essais optimistes\", Paris, 1907. The German version, \"Studien \u00fcber\ndie Natur des Menschen\", Leipsic, 1904, is prefaced by Ostwald. \"The\nNew Hygiene\", Three Lectures on the Prevention of Infectious Diseases,\nprefaced by Lankester, is published by W. T. Keever & Co., Chicago.\n\nArticles by Metchnikoff easily accessible are: \"Studies in Natural\nDeath\", in _Harper's Magazine_, Vol. CXIV, p. 272; \"The Utility of\nLactic Microbes\", in _Century_, Vol. LXXIX, p. 53; \"Old Age\", in\nSmithsonian Report, 1904.\n\nA criticism of Metchnikoff's individualism from a socialistic point of\nview is \"The Optimism of Metchnikoff\", by F. Carrel, in _Fortnightly\nReview_, Vol. LXXXIX, p. 51. A criticism to which Metchnikoff has made\na reply in his second volume is \"Morale et Biologie\", by D. Parodi, in\n_Revue philosophique,_ Vol. LVIII, p. 113. \"Metchnikoff, philosophe\"\n(Biblioth\u00e8que des Entretiens Id\u00e9alistes, Paris, 1911) is a pamphlet by\na young Catholic, Fernand Divoire, in a style of frantic denunciation.\n\nAn interesting character sketch by A. McFarlane is to be found in\n_McClure's Magazine_, Vol. XXV, p. 541. Two interviews with Metchnikoff\nby Herman Bernstein are contained in _With Master Minds_ (Universal\nSeries Publishing Company New York). Sir Ray Lankester in his \"Science\nfrom an Easy Chair\" has a chapter on \"Metchnikoff and Tolstoy.\"\n\nGood articles on the theory of immunity as developed by Metchnikoff and\nothers are: \"The War Against Disease\", in _Edinburgh Review_, October,\n1910; \"Paul Ehrlich: The Man and His Work\", by Marguerite Marks, in\n_McClure's Magazine_, 1911, p. 184; \"Natural Resistance to Disease\", by\nDr. Simon Flexner, of the Rockefeller Institute, in _Popular Science\nMonthly_, July, 1909, and in Smithsonian Report, 1909; \"The Struggle\nfor Immunity\", by H. S. Williams, in _Harper's Magazine_, December,\n1911. Circular No. 171 of the Bureau of American Industry of the United\nStates Department of Agriculture gives a description of _Fermented\nMilks_ by F. A. Rogers.\n\n\n[1] The list is instructive because it shows clearly that the names\nfirst in the hearts of their countrymen are those who have become\neminent in science and letters or have done signal service in the\ncause of the republic. The leading names are as follows: 1, Pasteur\n(receiving 1,338,425 votes); 2, Victor Hugo (1,227,103); 3, Gambetta\n(1,155,672); 4, Napoleon Bonaparte (1,118,034); 5, Thiers (1,039,453);\n6, Lazare Carnot, organizer of the republican army of the Revolution;\n7, Pierre Curie, discoverer of radium; 8, Alexandre Dumas, _p\u00e8re_;\n9, Dr. Roux, inventor of the diphtheritic serum; 10, Parmentier,\nintroducer of the potato into France; 11, Amp\u00e8re, father of dynamic\nelectricity; 12, Brazza, who secured the Kongo region for France; 13,\nZola, novelist and defender of Dreyfus; 14, Lamartine, republican poet;\n15, Arago, astronomer and physicist; 16, Sarah Bernhardt, actress;\n17, Premier Waldeck-Rousseau; 18, Marshal MacMahon; 19, President\nCarnot; 20, Chevreul, chemist; 21, Chateaubriand; 22, Ferdinand de\nLesseps, constructor of the Suez Canal and projector of the Panama; 23,\nMichelet; 24, Jacquard, inventor of the pattern loom; 25, Jules Verne;\n26, President Loubet; 27, Deufert-Rochereau, defender of Belfort.\n\n[2] He might add to his notable examples of persons addicted to the use\nof curdled milk the case of Tze-Hsi, the Dowager Empress of China, who\nat the age of seventy-four had energy enough to change her own mind and\nrevolutionize the government of four hundred million people.\n\n[3] See \"Les Microbes lactiques et leur utilit\u00e9 pour la sant\u00e9\" in _La\nRevue,_ 1901, p. 145. A full discussion of the subject of fermented\nmilks with methods for their preparation in the household may be found\nin a volume by L. M. Douglas, recently published under the sensational\ntitle of \"The Bacillus of Long Life\" (Putnams).\n\n[4] \"The Prolongation of Life\", p. 159.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nWILHELM OSTWALD\n\n\nMaeterlinck expresses his idea of happiness through the symbol of the\nBlue Bird. Ostwald expresses his by\n\n     _G = E\u00b2 - W\u00b2_\n\nPoets and scientists both are necessarily symbolists. The apparent\nconflict between them is chiefly a difference of taste as to the\nchoice of symbols, for both stand together in opposition to the great\nmass of near-sighted humanity, those who live only in the concrete,\ntoo absorbed in the consideration of particulars to discover for\nthemselves the One in the Many. The most conspicuous difference between\nthe symbolism of poetry and that of science is that the former is old\nand the latter new. The poet prefers to go to antiquity for symbols,\nbringing down from the attic to the living-room some metaphorical\nheirloom, enriched by the associations of generations and carrying\nwith it a penumbra of indefinable suggestions, which makes it appear\nto mean more than it does. So Maeterlinck chooses for his fairy play\n\"The Blue Bird\", which had lived in folk lore for countless ages. But\nthe scientist prefers to invent a new symbol for the occasion in order\nto get something that shall convey neither more nor less meaning than\nwhat he himself puts into it at the time. Poets and artists of all\nsorts get credit for greater perspicacity and prophetic power than they\ndeserve, by reason of later generations reading into their sayings much\nmore meaning than was ever in the mind of the author. This unearned\nincrement of reputation, compounded annually, is all that keeps some\nancient authors alive nowadays. But the man of science disdains such\nsupport and is careful to define his terms so that posterity may give\nhim no more credit than he thinks he has earned by his own exertions.\n\nThe scientific symbolism is not only more exact than the poetic,\nbut it is also more practical. Doubtless \"The Blue Bird\" of Maurice\nMaeterlinck and \"The Blue Flower\" of Henry Van Dyke have contributed\nto happiness as well as stood for it, but they are not of much service\nin showing which of two courses in any dilemma will lead to it. The\nunpoetical reader might suppose that to be blue was to be happy.\nOstwald, however, insists that his formula is not a mere mathematical\njest, but applicable to practical affairs, and like a true physician he\nhas tried it on himself and knows that it works. He tells us that he\nsolved one of the most difficult problems of his life by its aid, as,\nfor example, when at the age of fifty-three the question arose whether\nhe should remain professor of chemistry in Leipzig University or retire\nto his country place at Gross-Bothen to take up the new profession of\n\"practical idealist\"?\n\nAn interpretation of Ostwald's formula for happiness,\n\n     _G = E\u00b2 - W\u00b2_\n\nwill enable the reader to try it for himself. _G_ stands for happiness\n(_Gl\u00fcck_). This, according to the theory of energetics, is dependent\nupon the amount of energy expended, might in fact be measured by\nthe amount of carbon dioxid produced by conscious activity if we\ncould separate this from the unconscious physiological processes of\nthe body. Part of this Energy is expended in agreeable ways; let\nthat be represented by _E_. But there is always another part of\nconscious activity which is unpleasant, such as painful feelings,\ndisagreeable thoughts, unwilling duties; that may be represented by _W_\n(_widerwillig_).\n\nThe second term (_E\u00b2--W\u00b2_) of the equation may be resolved into the\ntwo factors _E_ + _W_ and _E - W_, and increase of either will tend\nto increase the amount of happiness. The way of the strenuous life is\nto increase the first (_E_ + _W_), the total expenditure of energy;\nthat is, to exert one's self to the utmost in desired directions,\neven though opposition and anxieties increase also; to bring up the\nhealth to its highest point that the supply of chemical energy may\nnot fail; to cut down as much as possible on sleep, for that is the\ntime when both _E_ and _W_ sink to zero. This is what Ostwald calls\nHero-happiness (_Heldengl\u00fcck_).\n\nBut men of more timid temperament prefer to devote their attention\nto the other factor (_E_ - _W_), because herein lies the danger, not\nmerely of no happiness (when _G_ = 0), but of unhappiness, for _G_\nbecomes a minus quantity when _W_ is greater than _E_. They strive\nrather to reduce _W_, the unpleasant part of life, than to increase\n_E_, the pleasant. To avoid risks, to curb ambition, to limit\ndesires, to curtail expenditure, to seek contentment rather than\ndelight--this is the way of the simple life and leads to Hut-happiness\n(_H\u00fcttengl\u00fcck_). This may indeed attain the same result, give an equal\nvalue for G, but the happiness so reached is very different in kind,\nthough equivalent in degree, to that for which strive men of the\ntype of Napoleon, Edison, and Roosevelt. The search for happiness by\nlimitation instead of expansion leads at its extreme to stoicism, to\nasceticism, to nirvana, to the state of mind of Diogenes, who threw\naway his sole utensil, the cup, when he saw a man drink out of his hand.\n\nMany moralists before Ostwald have attempted to put this idea into\nsemi-mathematical form, generally with the object of advising the\nseeker after happiness to take the lower and smoother road. Carlyle\nsays in \"Sartor Resartus\":\n\n\"The Fraction of Life can be increased in value, not so much by\nincreasing your Numerator as by lessening your Denominator. Nay, unless\nmy Algebra deceive me, Unity itself divided by Zero will give Infinity.\nMake thy claim of wages a zero, then; thou hast the world at thy feet.\nWell did the Wisest of our time write 'It is only with Renunciation\nthat Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.'\" James, in\nhis \"Principles of Psychology\", expresses it as follows:\n\n               Success\nSelf-esteem = -----------\n              Pretensions.\n\nThat is, our self-esteem is determined by the ratio of our actualities\nto our supposed potentialities. And he suggests that some Bostonians\n\"would be happier men and women to-day if they could once for all\nabandon the notion of keeping up a Musical Self and without shame let\npeople hear them call a symphony a nuisance\"?\n\n[Illustration: Wilhelm Ostwald]\n\nWilliam Winter puts the thought in rhyme:\n\n    \"I have set my heart on nothing, you see\n    And so the world goes well with me.\"\n\nOne is irresistibly impelled to quote Johnson's remark:\n\n\"Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant\nand a philosopher may be equally _satisfied_, but not equally _happy_.\nHappiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A\npeasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.\"\n\nBoswell tags this in his usual style with the observation that this\nvery question was \"very happily illustrated\" by the Reverend Mr. Robert\nBrown at Utrecht, who said that \"a small drinking glass and a very\nlarge one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the\nsmall.\"\n\nOstwald applies his formula to James's \"Varieties of Religious\nExperience\", and shows that the convert leaves the mourner's bench at\nthe moment when the factor (_E_ - _W_) changes its sign from minus\nto plus. (Here _W_ apparently stands for the devil.) The equation\nalso serves him as an argument against the use of alcohol and other\nnarcotics, which, though they temporarily reduce _W_ by sinking all\nunpleasantnesses below the threshold of consciousness, are likely to\nmake happiness a minus quantity. Wealth, being the most compact and\nconvenient form of energy, may serve to increase _E_ or diminish _W_,\nbut not in proportion to its amount. Dramatic criticism may even be\nmade mathematical. Jaques has a large _W_; Rosalind has a large _E_;\nput them together and you have \"As You Like It.\"\n\nBut I should not devote so much space to what is merely an extreme and,\nsome would say, an extravagant application of Ostwald's philosophy.[1]\nIt is, however, a characteristic example of his mode of thought and may\nserve as well as any other to introduce the reader to his fundamental\ntheory of energetics, which formed the leading principle of his\nchemical work, and which he has now carried over into the fields of\nphilosophy and sociology.\n\nIt is not necessary to explain the modern conception of energy, for we\nall learned about it in our school days, and here we need only have in\nmind its two fundamental laws. The first is the law of the conservation\nof energy, discovered by Mayer, which states that the amount of energy\nremains unchanged whatever its transformations. To take a familiar\nexample, when we buy coal, we are really buying chemical energy, not\ncarbon. When we burn it, we let the carbon go off up the chimney, but\nthe heat energy we keep as completely as possible, and by means of\na boiler transform it into the expansive energy of steam, which is\nconverted into the motion energy of piston rod and wheel, and when\nconnected with a dynamo may become electrical energy. The electrical\nenergy we can conduct by a wire into our homes and there convert it\ninto the light energy of an incandescent bulb, the heat energy of an\nelectric griddle, or the motion energy of a fan or carpet sweeper. That\nis, whenever any kind of energy disappears, some other kind of energy\ncrops up somewhere in exactly equivalent amount. In any experiment\nwhere they can be measured, the income and outgo of energy will be\nfound to balance exactly, just like a bookkeeper's ledger.\n\nBut here is another thing to consider. The fact that a trial balance\ncomes out even does not prove that the concern is not losing money,\nand we see the same thing in the energy business. In the series of\ntransformations we have followed above, from the coal of the power\nhouse to the utensils of the household, there is leakage all along\nthe line, a little lost in friction and radiated heat in each of the\nmachines, and a big waste, some eighty-five per cent, in the steam\nengine. Ostwald uses the ingenious illustration of a traveler who goes\nthrough Europe changing his money at every frontier, and losing a\nlittle each time through the changer's discount. A good money changer\nis one who is satisfied with a moderate commission. A good machine is\none that gives back to us almost as much as we give it. But there is\nnone perfect, no, not one.\n\nThis is the second fundamental law of thermodynamics,[2] the law of\nthe degradation of energy. For energy has a sort of gravitation of its\nown. It always wants to run down hill. Heat seeks its level as well\nas water. If we lay a hot plate, say, a temperature of 100\u00b0, on or\nunder a plate at zero, the heat will spread to the cold plate until\nboth are at 50\u00b0, disregarding radiation losses. And when they have\ncome to the same temperature, it is impossible to get out of them any\nfurther heat movement. \"You cannot run the mill with the water that's\ngone by.\" You have to have a fall of temperature to run any kind of\nheat engine. Every machine, every chemical and physical process, every\nliving being, is leaking energy all the time, that is, transforming\nit into unavailable forms. That is the way we get our living. The sun\nis dissipating its heat energy throughout space at a great rate. Our\nallies, the plants, manage to catch a tiny bit of it and store it in\nstarch and oil, but we eat these and send the energy on its way as heat\nagain. The whole universe, regarded as a big machine, is running down\nlike a clock and, it seems, must ultimately come to a stop, unless,\nindeed, there is a self-winding attachment hidden away in it somewhere,\nor somebody outside of it all to wind it up occasionally.\n\nThis, however, is one of those questions which Ostwald calls\n\"pseudo-problems\" and from which he would free us by applying the\nenergetic philosophy. His test is the following: \"Suppose the problem\nsolved and assume any one of all possible answers to be correct, we\ncan then investigate what effect this would have on our conduct.\nIf it produces no effect, the problem is thereby indicated to be a\npseudo-problem.\" He takes for example the following:\n\n    Did the world have a beginning in time or has it existed\n    from all eternity? By the way of experiment we will assume\n    that it has existed since eternity, and will ask what would\n    change in our conduct by this knowledge? I find, at least\n    for myself, that nothing would change by this knowledge, and\n    just as little if we assume that there was a beginning in\n    time. Hence I must say that even if I positively learn in\n    some way which of the two possibilities is correct, it would\n    be a matter of perfect indifference to me, and this being\n    the case, we have here a pseudo-problem. The significance of\n    this procedure is apparent from the answer to the question\n    as to what we call \"correct\" or \"true.\" The answer was that\n    which enables us to make accurate predictions. Something\n    that does not allow us to make any prediction whatever is\n    essentially of no interest to us in any way, and there is\n    no need of being concerned about it.--\"The Modern Theory of\n    Energetics\" (_Monist_, 1907).\n\nThis, of course, is the pragmatic method, and Ostwald acknowledges the\nrelationship by observing: \"Energetics coincides with that movement\nwhich has originated on philosophical ground and which pursues very\nsimilar ends under the name of pragmatism or humanism.\" The pragmatic\nmode of thinking is practically universal among scientific men, but\nOstwald is an extreme pragmatist. Prophecy is the sole aim of science,\naccording to him, and he virtually denies the possibility of applying\nthe terms truth and falsehood, in the strict sense, to the statements\nof history.[3]\n\nTo catch what we can of this stream of energy and to utilize it to\nthe best advantage, is the aim of human endeavor, the measure of\ncivilization. This is the function of the will in the individual and\nthe duty of the leaders of men. Wealth in all ages consists essentially\nof the command of energy, whether counted by slave power, horse power,\nor kilowatt hours. In order to show how Ostwald's sociology grows out\nof his physics, let me quote the concluding paragraphs of his little\nbook on \"Natural Philosophy\":\n\n    The objective characteristic of progress consists in\n    improved methods for seizing and utilizing the raw energies\n    of nature for human purposes. Thus it was a cultural act\n    when a primitive man discovered that he could extend\n    the radius of his muscle energy by taking a pole in his\n    hand, and it was another cultural act when a primitive\n    man discovered that by throwing a stone he could send his\n    muscle energy a distance of many meters to the desired\n    point. The effect of the knife, the spear, the arrow, and\n    of all the other primitive implements can be called in.\n    each case a purposive transformation of energy. And at the\n    other end of the scale of civilization the most abstract\n    scientific discovery, by reason of its generalization and\n    simplification, signifies a corresponding economy of energy\n    for all the coming generations that may have anything to do\n    with the matter. Thus, in fact, the concept of progress as\n    here defined embraces the entire sweep of human endeavor for\n    perfection, or the entire field of culture, and at the same\n    time it shows the great scientific value of the concept of\n    energy.\n\n    If we consider further that, according to the second\n    fundamental principle, the free energy accessible to us can\n    only decrease, but not increase, while the number of men\n    whose existence depends directly on the consumption of a due\n    amount of free energy is constantly on the increase, then\n    we at once see the objective necessity of the development\n    of civilization in that sense. His foresight puts man in a\n    position to act culturally. But if we examine our present\n    social order from this point of view, we realize with horror\n    how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder and war\n    destroy cultural values without substituting others in their\n    place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place\n    between the different nations and political organizations\n    act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between\n    the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy\n    quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from\n    the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is\n    in a state of development in which progress depends much\n    less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals\n    than upon the collective labor of all workers. Proof of\n    this is that it is coming to be more and more the fact\n    that great scientific discoveries are made simultaneously\n    by a number of independent investigators--an indication\n    that society creates in several places the individual\n    conditions requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are\n    living at a time when men are gradually approximating one\n    another very closely in their natures, and when the social\n    organization therefore demands and strives for as thorough\n    an equalization as possible in the conditions of existence\n    of all men.\n\nFrom the same fundamental conception Ostwald derives his system of\nethics, which he sums up in \"the energetic imperative\":[4] _So act\nthat the crude energy is transformed into the higher with the least\npossible loss_. This forms the text of several of his lay sermons such\nas the one on \"Efficiency.\"[5] Efficiency, that is, the ratio of work\nto means, of accomplishment to opportunity, can be made the measure\nof a man as well as of a machine, since Ostwald includes all thoughts\nand feelings as forms of energy. This scientific conception and ideal\nof efficiency, developed in the laboratory, was first introduced into\nthe shop, thence it has crept into business management, and has even\nmade its unwelcome appearance in university administration. It cannot\nbe much longer kept out from the capitol, the church, and the home. It\nis, in fact, the contribution to our civilization by the fourth and\nnewest of the learned professions, that of the engineer. He it is who\nhas started us all wondering how much of what we daily do pays us in\nany coin, has made us anxious to see some relation between effort and\nresult, has rendered us impatient of unnecessary delay, friction, lost\nmotion, wasted work, unutilized material, and retarded rewards.\n\nTo distinguish low and high forms of energy, says Ostwald, we should\nconsider their relative importance for human purposes. Thus bread must\nbe regarded as containing a higher form of chemical energy than wood,\nalthough they are very similar in chemical composition and produce\nabout the same number of calories of heat on consumption.\n\nKant's categorical imperative, \"So act that your conduct may be taken\nas a universal law\", is, in Ostwald's opinion, neither so comprehensive\nnor so definite as his energetic imperative, which includes ethical\nconduct, but is not confined to it. We call one automobile \"good\" and\nanother \"bad\" if the former will carry us twice as far as the latter on\nthe same amount of gasoline consumed. A \"good\" friend is one who helps\nus in our endeavors through judicious advice and without annoyance,\nwhile a \"poor\" friend only multiplies our difficulties; here again\ngoodness and badness are determined by the ratio of the total energy\nemployed and the results obtained. It is this second principle of\nthermodynamics, the law of the degradation and dissipation of energy,\nthat prevents us from undoing the past, that gives significance to\nsuch phrases as \"time flies\" and \"the world moves.\" The cosmic process\nis not a reversible reaction. Nietzsche's nightmare of the eternal\nrecurrence, which drove him insane, would have been dispelled by a\nknowledge of elementary physics.\n\nThe second law is therefore of greater importance to philosophy and\nsociology than the first, the law of the conservation and transmutation\nof energy. Ostwald's recognition of its significance gives to his\nphilosophy a character decidedly different from the view dominant\nin the last century, the mechanistic theory of the universe. It is\na curious thing that Haeckel, the biologist, has, by basing his\nphilosophy on the first law, been led to extreme mechanistic views,\nwhile Ostwald, the physical chemist, by placing greater emphasis\nupon the second law, comes to conclusions much better suited to the\nexplanation of vital phenomena.\n\nAccording to the old mechanistic theory, the world could be reduced\nto two elements, matter and motion. Everything was held to consist in\nreality of atoms, in those days generally assumed to be indivisible and\neternal. Each atom was at a given instant moving in a certain direction\nat a certain speed. It followed from this, as was suggested in the\n_Philosophical Magazine_ many years ago, that if each atom should be\nsuddenly stopped and sent going back on its track with the same speed,\nall events would be reversed and history be repeated backward. If we\nwere watching Waterloo, for example,[6] we should see the dead men rise\nup one by one, pick up their guns, point them at their enemies, receive\ninto the gunbarrels the gases produced by the explosion of powder, and\nwalk off backward. Napoleon starting as a prisoner on St. Helena would\nend as Emperor of the French.\n\nWe have all of us had this idea pictorially presented to us in moving\npicture shows when the film is run through the lantern backward and\nwe see apples leaping from the ground and attaching themselves to the\nlimbs of the tree, and swimmers diving up out of the water and lighting\non the springboard. In fact, the reversed film of the cinematograph\nmay be regarded as the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the mechanistic\nhypothesis. We might expect that a piece of music would sound just as\nwell if we put the perforated paper roll into the player piano wrong\nend first--but somehow it doesn't. We all feel instinctively that there\nis something ridiculous and impossible about this idea of reversibility\nwhen applied to human beings. Even the chemist and the physicist can\neffect this reversibility only to a limited extent and in special\ncases, as, for example, when energy is supplied from some external\nsource. A sled can indeed be made to go up hill as well as down, but\nit is hard work to make it. Wood will burn easily, but no chemist is\nyet able to get the wood back out of the gases of combustion. The\nsecond energy law was taught to us in our infancy by the parable of\nHumpty-Dumpty.\n\nBergson bases his theory of the comic[7] upon the idea that the\nabsurdest of all things is to regard a human being as a machine. That\nthe world is, like man, not rightly to be regarded as a machine is\nthe fundamental theme of Bergson's \"Creative Evolution\", so there is\na striking similarity in point of view between Ostwald and Bergson,\nnotwithstanding their diversity of temperament and style. It may be\nrecalled that Bergson also entered into the realm of metaphysics\nthrough the door of mathematical physics.\n\nAs early as 1895 Ostwald announced \"the overthrow of scientific\nmaterialism\";[8] a startling declaration coming from one of the\ngreatest of chemists at a time when chemistry was almost exclusively\nabsorbed in the transformations of matter and only beginning to\nrecognize the importance of the concomitant transformations of energy.\nWhen the chemist had put upon the blackboard the equation of a reaction\nor the structural formula of a compound, he was apt to think that he\nhad told \"the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth\" about\nit. Against all such crude conceptions Ostwald protested vigorously,\npreaching a new iconoclasm in the words of the old: \"Thou shalt not\nmake unto thee any image or any likeness of anything that is in the\nheaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the\nwater under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor\nserve them.\" He demanded \"a science free from hypotheses\"; formulas\nthat should merely state what is known to take place, in the place of\nmechanical models and misleading visualizations. \"Matter\", said this\nprofessor of the most materialistic of the sciences, \"is merely a\nform of thought\", which is the same conclusion that Kant had come to\na hundred years before in regard to time and space. But whereas Kant\nhad said: \"Give me matter and I will build a world out of it\", Ostwald\nwould say: \"Away with matter, I will build a world without it.\"\n\n\"The Actual, that is, what acts upon us, is energy alone\", but in so\nspeaking Ostwald must not be understood, as he often is, to imply that\nenergy is the sole substance of which the world is composed. Mass\nis merely one of the two factors which make up the product known as\nenergy. What the common man regards as the attributes of matter, its\nhardness, heaviness, color, etc., are simply the effects of various\nforms of energy on his sense organs.\n\nCoal should be sold by calories, not tons. Even the courts, slowest\nof human institutions to take cognizance of new ideas, have come to\nthe conclusion that energy is an entity, for now they will convict a\nman for stealing it from a third rail, though perhaps they regard the\ncurrent as a stream of corpuscles. The unifying value of the energy\nconception appears when we consider the old riddle of the relation of\nthe mind and body. Between the brain, regarded merely as a collocation\nof moving molecules, and the mind, regarded merely as a succession\nof states of consciousness, there is no conceivable connection, and\ndualism is inevitable. But if we regard both as forms of energy, the\ndifficulty disappears. The \"pre\u00ebstablished harmony\" of Leibnitz then\nbecomes the established unity of Ostwald. The idea of energy had its\ninception in human action, so it is not an alien form of thought. It\nwas borrowed originally from psychology by physics, and there is no\nimpropriety in taking it back.\n\nWhat we have been calling explanations in physics, and even in\npsychology, have been for the most part merely mechanical analogies.\nWe have felt that a phenomenon was \"explained\" when we could make a\nworking model that we could see and handle. A few years ago physicists\nwere explaining electricity by cumbrous mechanisms of cogwheels and\nwater pipes. In recent textbooks this is reversed, and mechanical\nphenomena are explained by the use of conceptions developed in the\nstudy of electricity, such as \"potential\", \"field\", and \"capacity\".\n\nThe establishment in 1901 of the _Annalen der Naturphilosophie_,\nby Wilhelm Ostwald, marked the change in the attitude of prominent\nscientists toward the problems of speculative philosophy. The pendulum\nwas on its swing back from the extreme and intolerant empiricism which\nhas been the prevailing trait of scientific workers for so long.\n\nIn its revulsion from the imaginative metaphysics of the ancients and\nthe formal logic of the schoolmen, modern science resolutely turned\naway from ambitious attempts to solve the riddle of the universe by\nbrilliant guessing and began the patient accumulation and verification\nof facts and the deduction from them of their simplest and most certain\ninferences. This task came to be considered as the sole sphere of\nscientific thought; and there were men who were daring and foolish\nenough to teach that this was the only method for the advancement of\nhuman knowledge. Happily, however, for civilization, scientists did not\nconfine themselves to the method prescribed for them by Bacon and other\nliterary men, and of late years it has become generally recognized\nthat the greatest achievements have been made in quite the opposite\nway--that is, by projecting the imagination into the unknown and then\nworking up to it. Almost all the best scientific work has been done\nunder the guidance of hypotheses; and purely accidental discoveries\nhave been rare and usually insignificant. In fact, in many branches of\nscience the word invention should be used rather than discovery. The\nnew compound or the new plant exists clearly in the mind's eye of the\nchemist or the horticulturist before he sets out to produce it.\n\nIt was not to be expected that men who had already accomplished more\nin science in a century than had been done in all preceding time would\nforever keep their trained imaginations from attacking the deepest\nproblems of life and destiny; and it is no wonder that we find some of\nour greatest scientists turning their attention toward metaphysics and\nepistemology. The transfer of Professor Mach from the chair of physics\nto that of the theory of inductive sciences was symbolic of a mental\nchange which was taking place in many minds.\n\nThe removal of the ban against speculative philosophy has obviously\nits dangers, but they are less than have been attached to this form of\nthought in the past. That mankind should again go back to the sports of\nits youth and blow soap bubbles merely to watch in them the iridescent\nbut distorted views of the world would be a sad calamity; but it is\nnot probable that the lesson of a century and a half of patient work\nwill be wholly lost. The dreamer of the future will not dare to build\nan air castle without at least an option on the site. The danger is\nnot from men of science like Ostwald, Mach, and Poincar\u00e9, who are so\nwell ballasted that they can carry more sail than ordinary men, but\nfrom those who are less qualified and less cautious. We have never,\nhowever, been free from the fancies of this latter class. Nature abhors\na vacuum; and if any field of intellect is left empty by the wise but\noverwary, it will speedily be filled by those who have no fears where\nthey tread. The recrudescence of antiquated superstitions and the rise\nof freak religions are the natural result of confining scientific\nthought and criticism to the material and practical. Even the plodding\ncompilator of facts has his metaphysical theories, although he would\nindignantly deny that anything of the kind could be found about his\nperson. Metaphysics may be ignored, but not dispensed with. In the\nso-called \"common sense\" point of view, speculative hypotheses are not\nexcluded, but are unconsciously and uncritically accepted.\n\nScience has evidently been looking on the ground only to be sure of\nher footing, and now is ready to assert her right to gaze even into\nthe deepest darknesses. No Baconian creed will in the future limit\nthe operations of the intellect. We have no right to call any problem\ninsoluble merely because it has remained unsolved. It may be that as\ngreat triumphs will reward the scientific method here as in humbler\nlines.\n\nIn the revolution which has within the last twenty years transformed\nchemistry from an empirical science based upon material conceptions to\na mathematical science based upon energetic conceptions, Ostwald has\nbeen a leader. Qualitative and quantitative analysis which had been\nhardly more systematic and rational than a kitchen recipe book became\nin his hands a new and delightful study in which even the beginner\ncould use his mind as well as his fingers. Professors of chemistry who\nhad got along happily all their lives with a knowledge of arithmetic as\nfar as and including percentage suddenly found themselves in need of\ncalculus and other things of that sort. Yale graduates who went to the\nLeipzig laboratory in the nineties to continue their chemistry were set\nto study the works of Willard Gibbs, whose name they may indeed have\nseen in the catalogue of their alma mater, but whose acquaintance they\nwere not likely to have made. What was worse, they had to get up their\nGibbs in German,[9] since the original papers in the \"Transactions of\nthe Connecticut Academy\" were not available, and even in English Gibbs\nis not light reading. It was Ostwald who first recognized Gibbs as \"the\ngreatest scientific genius that the United States has so far produced\",\nand made his work known to Europe, where it has served as the guide and\ninspiration of some of the most fruitful investigations of the last two\ndecades.\n\nThis is eminently characteristic of Ostwald. His own researches, great\nas they are, may without injustice be regarded as of less importance\nthan the unique service he has rendered to his science by the discovery\nand prompt utilization of original theories and generalizations,\nwhether found in the forgotten files of the journals and transactions,\nin the papers of his contemporaries or the work of his students. This\nwas a task requiring both genius and generosity. What he did for Gibbs,\nthe American, he did for van't Hoff, the Dutchman, and Arrhenius, the\nSwede, and many others, living and dead. He has always taken a keen\ninterest in individuals. He is not content with the mere name of a\ngreat authority in a footnote. He wants to know what manner of man he\nwas and in what words he first made public his discovery. This led him\nto cultivate the neglected field of chemical history and biography.\nMost chemists knew nothing at first hand of the work of the men they\nglibly referred to in their lectures, Avogadro, Bunsen, Dalton,\nBerzelius, etc. Nor could they have easily become acquainted with them\nif they had cared to, for the original papers were often inaccessible.\nSo Ostwald started in 1889 his series of \"The Classics of the Exact\nSciences\", reprinting important papers with notes.\n\nIn 1887, when few people knew that there was such a thing as physical\nchemistry, he founded a journal for it, the _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr\nphysikalische Chemie_, now in its eighty-first volume, and not room\nenough yet in its two thousand three hundred pages a year to record\nthe progress of the science. In 1902, when most scientists scoffed at\nthe idea of philosophy, he started another venture equally bold, the\n_Annalen der Naturphilosophie_. During this period of sixteen years\nhis literary output, not counting the two periodicals and the eighteen\nvolumes of the \"Classics of the Exact Sciences\", already mentioned,\nincluded twenty-two books of 15,850 pages altogether; 120 papers\nmaking original contributions to chemical science comprising 1630\npages; addresses and dissertations amounting to 300 pages; and some\n3880 abstracts and 920 book reviews in his journals. Every chemical\nlibrary has upon its shelves (the plural is usually necessary) \"the\nbig Ostwald,\" the \"Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie\", the size of a\ncyclopedia, with the dates of its volumes strung along through the\neighties and nineties, though \"the little Ostwald\", the \"Grundriss der\nallgemeinen Chemie\", shows more wear on the binding. And all that, it\nmust be remembered, represents only one side of the activity of this\nextraordinary man, for during the period of this enormous literary\nproduction he was professor of chemistry at the University of Leipzig\nand director of one of the busiest research laboratories in the world.\n\nWe find in our American universities nowadays many men who are so\nabsorbed in their investigations that they refuse to consider either\nthe philosophical or the practical aspects of their science, and they\nresent as an insult any demands made upon their time by the outside\nworld. Ostwald has never been so busy as that. Notwithstanding the fact\nthat he has carried on researches in pure science which have obtained\nfor him the Nobel prize, he has not disdained to print letters to\npainters on the use of pigments and to lecture to housewives on the\nchemistry of cooking, as well as to bring his knowledge of science to\nbear upon the educational, social, and religious questions discussed in\nthe periodicals of the day.\n\nWhen we inquire why no American chemist has yet been honored by a\nNobel medal, we are apt to be told that laboratory facilities in this\ncountry are too inadequate. Ostwald has never been hindered by this\nobstacle; not in Riga, where he was his own mechanic and glass blower,\nequipping the laboratory with home-made burettes, induction coils, and\ngalvanometers; not in Leipzig, where he worked under conditions that\nhave been described as follows:[10]\n\n\"The Leipzig laboratory, in which he worked until 1897, was situated\nin the Landwirtschaftliche Institut, an old pile originally devoted to\nagricultural chemistry, and in every way unfitted for the carrying on\nof those delicate experiments which brought Ostwald to the forefront\nof scientific workers. Research was carried on under countless\ndifficulties; the light was bad, the rooms unventilated, the heating\neffected by means of stoves difficult to regulate and producing dust\nwhich caused much injury to the finer instruments; no precautions\nhad been taken in laying the foundations to insure the deadening of\nvibrations; thus many experiments were ruined; the lack of space\nprecluded the use of telescopes for reading scales, and altogether it\nwould have been difficult to construct a laboratory worse adapted for\nphysico-chemical investigations.\"\n\nIn one respect, it must be said, the current of scientific thought has\ngone quite counter to Ostwald's views. The atomic theory, which he was\ndesirous of doing away with, has become substantiated and extended.\nThe kinetic theory of gases has not been displaced by his concept of\n\"volume-energy\", and now the motion of the molecules has been made\nvisible by the ultra-microscope, and we hear talk of the \"atomic\ntheory of electricity\", the \"corpuscular conception of light\", and the\n\"granular nature of energy.\" Even time and space show a tendency to\ndisintegrate and become discrete. But the tide may turn at any moment,\nand Ostwald's conceptions once more become fashionable in scientific\ncircles.\n\nAs I say, Ostwald does not appear to be a busy man. Would a busy man\ntake the heart out of a fair summer day to devote himself to the\nentertainment of a wandering American journalist? If I had not known\nthat he was an editor of two periodicals and a leader in some of the\nmost important movements of the day, I might have supposed him a mere\ngentleman of leisure, as he sat with me on the porch of his country\nhome, willing to talk freely on any topic I suggested, willing even to\nlisten when I wanted to talk, with never a longing look through his\nstudy door at the heavily laden desk and silent typewriter. A big man,\nas well as a great man, is Ostwald; genial in manner, direct of speech.\nHis bushy blond beard has mostly lost the color it had when first I saw\nhim in 1904 at the St. Louis Congress of Arts and Sciences, and his\nhair is quite white and now cut short, bristling an inch or two all\nover his head. He would be recognized as a German professor by his look\nand bearing, if he were seen anywhere on the globe, yet he could not\nbe called a type specimen, for he is free from the vices to which the\naverage German professor is most addicted, the love of beer, tobacco,\nand Latin. Also, he hates dueling, although recognizing that it is not\nso dangerous as American football.[11]\n\nBut unconventional as his views may appear, it must not be thought that\nOstwald is a faddist. His is a reasoned radicalism, originating not in\nmere neophilism or iconoclasm, but in the application of scientific\nprinciples to the problems of daily life. What distinguishes Ostwald\nfrom most other philosophers is his willingness to put his principles\nto the test of experience by striving to live up to them.\n\nOur conversation was in English necessarily, for though I had taken\nmy first German lessons from Ostwald over twenty years before--using\nhis \"Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie\" as a primer, instead of Grimm's\n\"M\u00e4rchen\"--he had not been at hand to teach me to speak it. Ostwald,\nhowever, speaks English as readily as he does German--or French or\nIdo. His biographer relates that, when he was learning English in the\nRiga _Gymnasium_ he had great difficulty in pronouncing \"the\", until\nhe discovered that he could get the sound by filling his mouth with\n_Zwieback_; on the same principle, I suppose, as Demosthenes used\npebbles. Now, however, he manages his _th's_ perfectly, and I don't\nthink he had _Zwieback_ in his mouth when he talked with me.\n\nHis language was particularly fluent and forcible when he came to\ndiscuss the question of teaching languages. The chief point in his\nindictment of the German _Gymnasium_, or secondary school, is the\nexcessive time and excessive honor given to linguistics. He regards\nthe new scientific school (_Realschule_) as almost as bad as the\nclassical _Gymnasium_ in this respect, for modern languages are there\ntaught in much the same way as the ancient. The absorption of the\nstudent's attention during the impressionable years of his youth in\nthe idiosyncrasies of German grammar, or the monstrosities of English\nspelling, does not cultivate, but actually impairs, the power of\nlogical and original thinking. Ostwald ascribes Nietzsche's perverted\nideas, his misconception of the struggle for existence and his hatred\nof the common people, to his training in classical philology. He brings\nforward as a cause of the failure of Austria-Hungary to produce its\nproportional share of great men, the linguistic struggle which absorbs\nthe energy of its people. The barrier of local language is one of\nthe causes of international friction and lost motion which grieves\nthe mind of a physicist. As a means of overcoming this friction--a\nlinguistic lubricating oil, as it were--he favors the formation of\nan international auxiliary language, especially for scientific and\ncommercial purposes.[12] I suppose one reason why he thinks it possible\nto construct an artificial world language is because he has seen it\ndone. The rapid expansion of the science of organic chemistry within\nthe present generation has necessitated the invention, as the need for\nthem arose, of more new words than Shakespeare's vocabulary contained.\nSome of these are cumbrous, it is true, rather formulas than words,\nbut remarkable for their succinct significance and are largely common\nto all languages. Ostwald has recently constructed a complete new\nnomenclature of chemistry in Ido and proposes soon to use it for all\nthe abstracts in his _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr physikalische Chemie_, so that\nthe student, after a few hours spent in learning Ido, will have free\naccess to all the literature of this science. Professor Ostwald assured\nme that he had tried putting his philosophy into the new language\nand found it of great benefit in giving clarity and definiteness to\nhis thought. The adoption of an international language he regards as\nan important part of the peace movement in which he is now actively\nengaged. I asked him if he expected that arbitration treaties would put\nan end to war, and he explained that they would act like a block signal\nsystem on a railroad, not always preventing the disaster of war, but\nlessening the chances of it.\n\nIdo is a simplified form of Esperanto, originating in the refusal of\nDr. Zamenhof to allow any reforms in the language he had invented.\nIt drops the accented letters and accusative form of Esperanto and\nutilizes a larger proportion of romance roots common to all European\nlanguages. The official organs are _Progreso_ (Paris: 3 Rue le Gof) and\n_The International Language_ (London: 32 Cleveland Square). Ostwald's\nnew chemical nomenclature began in the May, 1910, number of _Progreso_.\nThe volume by Ostwald, Jespersen, and three other professors entitled\n\"International Language and Science\" (London: Constable, 1910),\ncontains an interesting test of the capabilities of the new language,\nthe translation into Ido and back again into English by another person\nof a page of James's psychology with almost no loss in the process. A\npage of \"Das Monistische Jahrhundert\" appears each week in Ido.\n\nIn order to give effect to practical measures for breaking down\nthe barriers between nations, he has established \"An International\nInstitute for the Organization of Intellectual Labor\" known as _Die\nBr\u00fccke_, \"The Bridge\", or, as he would prefer to put it in Ido, _La\nPonto_. This aims to serve the purpose of a world clearing house of\ninformation and a channel of intercourse for all forms of culture. A\nplan for a uniform system of page sizes for books and periodicals, \"the\nhypotenuse oblong\", has been here brought forward and is discussed in\n_Printing Art_, April and May, 1911, July, 1912.\n\nSo Ostwald, having won the Nobel chemistry prize in 1909, is in a fair\nway to become in time eligible for the Nobel peace prize. It is in\nfact characteristic of the man that, having achieved success in one\nfield of human endeavor, he should turn his attention to another. It\nis part of his theory of the art of life. I was curious to know why he\nhad left Leipzig and chemistry for Gross-Bothen and philosophy, had\nabandoned one of the greatest of universities and the most popular of\nthe sciences for the Saxon village and a field of thought reputed as\nunproductive. He explained to me that in early years he had a leaning\ntoward philosophy, but in those days the subject was looked upon with\ndisfavor. Now things have changed. People realize that it is necessary\nto take a wide as well as a close view. Civilization advances by\nalternating periods of specialization and generalization. We are now\nentering upon the second phase.\n\nThen, too, he had come to the conclusion from his study of great\nscientists that the men who had accomplished most through the\nprolongation of their productive period had done so by changing their\noccupation two or three times in the course of their lifetime; for\nexample, Helmholtz, who devoted the first half of his adult life to\nphysiology and medicine and the last to physics, being equally eminent\nin each; and Humboldt, who kept up his work to the close of his ninety\nyears by shifting from one field of science to another. Having come to\nthis conclusion, Ostwald, as an experimental scientist, was obliged\nto try it upon himself. The success of the experiment indicates that\nrotation of crops is a good plan in menticulture as well as agriculture.\n\nHe carries out the same principle in his daily life. When tired with\nphilosophizing, he turns to painting. This he finds relieves the mind\nbetter than anything else, for it sends the blood to another side of\nthe brain, while if he tries to secure rest by lying down, the brain\ngoes on working in the same old lines. This absorption in artistic\neffort he has used in his Harvard lecture on \"Individuality and\nImmortality\", when he is arguing that the highest happiness is found\nrather in the obliteration of individuality than its persistence.\nThis conclusion is familiar to us as that of the mystics, but Ostwald\nreaches it characteristically by another way, the second law of\nenergetics. After speaking of the tendency of liquids and of heat\ntoward diffusion and consequent loss of identity, he applies the\nprinciple to society and psychology. The passage is worth quoting\nbecause it is practically a direct contradiction of Spencer's\nfundamental theory that evolution is a progress from homogeneity\nto heterogeneity, both for matter and for energy. The difference\nresults, I think, chiefly from the fact that Spencer's attention was\nfixed upon the first law, that of the conservation of energy, for the\nimportance of the second law, that of the dissipation of energy, was\nnot recognized till long afterward.[13] The reader will notice that the\nsecond law is decidedly democratic in its implications.\n\n    It is a strange thing indeed that by merely being associated\n    with another thing of the same kind identity is lost. And\n    still more strange is the fact that every being of this\n    kind seems driven by an irresistible impulse to seek every\n    occasion for losing its identity. Every known physical fact\n    leads to the conclusion that diffusion, or a homogeneous\n    distribution, of energy is the general aim of all\n    happenings. No change whatever seems to have occurred, and\n    probably none ever will occur, resulting in a concentration\n    greater than the corresponding dissipation of energy. A\n    partial concentration may be brought about in a system, but\n    only at the expense of a greater dissipation, and the sum\n    total is always an increase in dissipation.\n\n    While we are as sure as science can make us about the\n    general validity of this law as applied to the physical\n    world, its application to human development may be doubted.\n    It seems to me to hold good in this case also, if it is\n    applied with proper caution. The difficulty lies in the\n    circumstance that we have no exact objective means of\n    measuring homogeneity and heterogeneity in human affairs,\n    and we can therefore not study any given system closely\n    enough to draw a quantitative conclusion. It seems pretty\n    certain that increase of culture tends to diminish the\n    differences between men. It equalizes not only the general\n    standard of living, but attenuates also even the natural\n    differences of sex and age. From this point of view I should\n    look upon the accumulation of enormous wealth in the hands\n    of a single man as indicating an imperfect state of culture.\n\n    The property which has been described as an irresistible\n    tendency toward diffusion may also be observed in certain\n    cases in man. In conscious beings such natural tendencies\n    are accompanied by a certain feeling which we call will, and\n    we are happy when we are allowed to act according to these\n    tendencies or according to our will. Now, if we recall the\n    happiest moments of our lives, they will be found in every\n    case to be connected with a curious loss of personality. In\n    the happiness of love this fact will be at once discovered.\n    And if you are enjoying intensely a work of art, a symphony\n    of Beethoven's, for example, you find yourself relieved of\n    the burden of personality and carried away by the stream of\n    music as a drop is carried by a wave. The same feeling comes\n    with the grand impressions nature gives us. Even when I am\n    sitting quietly sketching in the open there comes to me in a\n    happy moment a sweet feeling of being united with the nature\n    about me, which is distinctly characterized by complete\n    forgetfulness of my poor self. We may conclude from this\n    that individuality means limitations and unhappiness, or is\n    at least closely connected with them.\n\nProfessor Ostwald showed me the studio which now takes the place of the\nlaboratory. It is still part laboratory, for he is experimenting in\npigments and has invented new forms of crayons or pastels and methods\nof fixation. In painting, as in everything else, he works with rapidity\nand effectiveness. Three days at Niagara Falls gave him two dozen or\nmore pictures. He has a good eye for picturesqueness and uses vivid and\nvaried coloration. He utilized his time at the University of California\nto get some fine views of Berkeley and Professor Loeb's seaside\nlaboratory. His stay at Harvard as exchange professor in 1905 gave\nhim many scenes from Marblehead and Cambridge, among them a striking\npicture of the Harvard stadium seen across the river flats and looking\nas imposing as the Coliseum. Photography he has practiced from boyhood.\nIt was by this and the manufacture of fireworks in his mother's kitchen\nthat he took his first steps in chemistry. He has always been fond of\nmusic, both as listener and performer, playing the violin well, and,\nsays his conscientious biographer, the bassoon very badly. We are\nalso told that in his student days he composed a symphony, wrote much\npoetry, and applied himself diligently to the study of the laws of\nmotion by experimenting for hours on the impact of elastic ivory balls\nupon a plane green surface.\n\nWalking, however, has ever been his chief recreation, if we can call\nthat a recreation which is the means of his most productive thought.\nAfter lunch he showed me about his estate, a wooded upland overlooking\nthe village houses, clustered about kirk and _Gasthaus_, and, beyond,\nthe level, orderly Saxon landscape, with its leisurely windmills. The\nwinding walks appear to be sufficiently long to enable him to evolve\nundisturbed the most complicated German sentence. The stranger can\nfind his way to Landhaus Energie by inquiring of a villager for \"the\nhouse with the big post box\", for when Ostwald took up his residence\nin Gross-Bothen, this provision had to be made for the enormous mail\ncoming to him from all parts of the world.\n\nOne can generally tell in Germany the date of erection or occupancy of\na country house by whether it is called a \"_Villa_\" or a \"_Landhaus_.\"\nThe Germanic movement is bent upon expelling all the foreigners from\nthe language. So now we see _Fahrkarte_ in place of _Billet_, formerly\nused; _Fern-sprecher_ in place of _Telefon; Zweikampf_ in place of\n_Duell_; and _Einheitslehre_ in place of _Monismus._ The adoption of an\ninternational auxiliary language would, Professor Ostwald explained to\nme, facilitate this movement, for it would leave each local language to\ndevelop in its own way, free from the penalty of isolation.\n\nI thought, as I walked back through the smooth, clean, tree-lined road\nto the railroad station, that here at least was a man who had attained\nthat internal peace and happiness, that external honor and usefulness,\nwhich theoretically should reward all philosophers. Few men have so\nwide a fame in science. Still fewer have so many devoted friends\namong their former students. That he has any personal enemies it\nwould be hard to believe, though he has many opponents. He has earned\nhis success by his own exertions, working his way up to his present\nposition by sheer force of character and ability. He was the second\nson of a master cooper of Riga, an old Hansa town of Baltic Russia. He\nwas born September 2, 1853, and educated at the _Real-gymnasium_ of\nRiga and the University of Dorpat, Russia (1872-1875). His dissertation\nat the conclusion of his course here, on \"The Mass Action of Water\",\nbroke new ground in a field that he was henceforth to make his own.\nHe thought himself lucky then to secure a position as assistant in\nphysics at Dorpat at two hundred and fifty dollars a year, because\nthis gave him an opportunity for research, and his master's and\ndoctor's dissertations attracted attention by their bold adoption and\ndevelopment of the new theories of solutions and affinity. He utilized\nhis vacations at Riga in cultivating--by means of piano and paint\nbrush--the acquaintance of Fraulein Helene von Reyher, whom he married\nwhen he was twenty-seven. His comrades reminded him that not long\nbefore he had declared that he would never marry, for he should devote\nall his time to science. But he answered: \"I had to marry, because the\ngirl interfered with my work.\" The measure was efficacious, for she has\nnot interfered with his work since, even finding time to assist in his\nliterary labors, although she has brought up five children. They took\ntheir wedding journey in a postwagon from Riga to Dorpat and set up\nhousekeeping with a kerosene stove and a small piano as their principal\nfurniture; no sofa. Readers who understand the importance of the sofa\nin a German household will appreciate the deprivation. The next year\nhe was called to his native city as professor of chemistry in the Riga\nPolytechnic, and in 1887 he left Russia for Germany to take the chair\nof chemistry at Leipzig University.\n\nIn his study of men of science Ostwald has introduced the distinction\nof classicist and romanticist. The classicist keeps to one line of\nthought and develops it by himself logically and completely. His mind\nworks mathematically, and he is fond of systems and formulation, often\naddicted to dogmatism. He is accurate and thorough, but deficient in\nexperimental ability and regardless of practical applications. He\nis reluctant to publish and is apt to be a poor teacher, exerting\nlittle personal influence on his students and sometimes none on his\ncontemporaries.\n\nThe romanticist, on the other hand, is usually a good teacher and often\nthe founder of a school of thought. He has the expansive temperament\nand genial disposition; fond of conversation and given to rapid\npublication. He carries on many different lines of work at the same\ntime and is eager to put them into practice as soon as possible. He is\nan adventurous theorizer, willing to risk a leap in the dark, arriving\nat conclusions by a sort of intuition and not always able to explain\nhow he got his results. He is, therefore, liable to make conspicuous\nmistakes and is apt to be impatient of details. The romanticist gets\npaid in current coin, that is to say, in the devotion of his disciples\nand in honors from his colleagues, sometimes even in applause and\nwealth from a grateful public. The classicist has to put up with\ndeferred payment, and his services to science often receive no adequate\nrecognition until after he is dead and sometimes not then.\n\nAmong American scientists we have almost perfect specimens of these two\ngenera. Count Rumford was a typical romanticist and Willard Gibbs a\ntypical classicist, and there was, as I have shown elsewhere,[14] the\ngreatest possible contrast in their characters and careers. Ostwald, it\nis unnecessary to say, has all the characteristics of the romanticist.\nHe has become a world teacher through his books and periodicals. He has\ntrained in his laboratory Arrhenius, Nernst, and many others of almost\nequal eminence. He has had the satisfaction of seeing his abstract\ntheories become the working basis of enormous industries.\n\nIt is worthy of note that the science which in Germany has been most\nclosely connected with the universities and in which the most pure\nresearch has been done, has developed most rapidly and proved most\nprofitable. The annual value of the products of the chemical industries\nof Germany is over three hundred million dollars. And this is only one\nof the sources of the new wealth which is coming to Germany and making\nthat country one of the foremost of world powers. In Great Britain\nemigration exceeds immigration, while in Germany of late the reverse\nis true, although in Germany the increase in population from the\nsurplus of births over deaths is nine hundred thousand, twice what it\nis in Great Britain. At this rate, Germany will soon have a population\ntwice as large as that of Great Britain. And the wealth of Germany is\nincreasing faster than the population, notwithstanding the heavy drains\nof army and navy. I asked Professor Ostwald the cause of Germany's\namazing prosperity. \"We Germans believe in science,\" he answered simply.\n\nThe ideals of system, economy, and efficiency which have been developed\nin the laboratory have been applied in Germany more than elsewhere\nto military affairs, the promotion of commerce, and methods of\nadministration. That the scientific view should prevail in dealing with\nall social problems is Ostwald's intent, and in furtherance of this aim\nhe is devoting his chief attention to the discussion of the ethical\nand political questions of the day through the Monist societies. As an\nexample of his mode of thought on such topics, I quote a passage from\nhis \"Individuality and Immortality\":\n\n    There can be no doubt about nature being full of cruelty.\n    All through the whole realm of organic beings we find in\n    nearly every class of animals and plants some species\n    which live at the expense of their fellow creatures. I\n    mean parasitic organisms of every kind, whether they live\n    in the interior of their hosts, whom they kill or make\n    miserable, or whether they feed directly on other creatures.\n    No one thinks of punishing a cat who tortures a poor mouse\n    for no vital purpose whatever, and we find it perfectly\n    natural that the larv\u00e6 of certain wasps should develop\n    in the interior of caterpillars, slowly devouring their\n    hosts from within. It is only man who tries to change this\n    general way of nature's and to diminish as far as possible\n    cruelty and injustice to his fellow man and his fellow\n    creatures. And from the strong desire that this black stain\n    should be removed as fully as possible from humanity, the\n    idea developed that there must be beyond our bodily life\n    a possibility of compensating for the evil which is done\n    and for that which is suffered during life without due\n    punishment or reward as suggested by our sense of justice.\n\n    But reward and punishment take on a wholly different aspect\n    when we regard mankind as one collective being. Then the\n    single individual is comparable to a cell in a highly\n    developed organism. Destruction of his fellow cells would be\n    a nuisance and a menace to the whole organism, and therefore\n    any cell which destroyed its neighbors would be either\n    removed from the organism or else encysted and kept from\n    doing further damage. And on the other hand such cells as\n    fulfilled useful purposes would be nourished and protected.\n\n    The very necessity for overcoming such dangerous actions on\n    the part of the cells means a decrease in the efficiency of\n    the organism, since the work necessary for the purpose could\n    be better used for the immediate benefit of the organism\n    itself. The best thing would then be to avoid beforehand the\n    formation of such bad cells, and an organism possessed of\n    appropriate means of doing this would have a great advantage.\n\n    The application of these considerations to the human\n    collective organism is obvious. Punishment means in every\n    case a loss, and the aim of increasing culture is not to\n    make punishment more effective, but to make it unnecessary.\n    The more each individual is filled with the consciousness\n    that he belongs to the great collective organism of\n    humanity, the less will he be able to separate his own aims\n    and interests from those of humanity. A reconciliation\n    between duty to the race and personal happiness is the\n    result, as well as an unmistakable standard by which to\n    judge our own actions and those of our fellow men.\n\n    Self-sacrifice has been considered in all ages and by\n    all religions as the very highest perfection of ethical\n    development. At the same time every man who has thought\n    a little deeper has been aware that the self-sacrifice\n    must have a meaning, that it must result in some effect\n    which could not be attained by other means. Otherwise the\n    self-sacrifice would not be a gain, but rather a loss, to\n    humanity. But we consider self-sacrifice for the sake of\n    humanity as justified, and this corresponds with our general\n    feeling. We admire a man who throws himself into a fire or\n    a torrent to save a child from death; it should mean even\n    more to us when a physician goes into the midst of a raging\n    pestilence conscious of the peril awaiting him. But we do\n    not esteem a man the more for risking his life to save his\n    money from a burning house.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHOW TO READ OSTWALD\n\nThe only one of Ostwald's philosophical works which is obtainable in\nEnglish is the \"Grundriss der Naturphilosophie\", published in Reclam's\n_Universal-Bibliothek_ (Leipzig) and translated by Thomas Seltzer and\npublished by Henry Holt & Company, New York, under the title \"Natural\nPhilosophy.\" This is intended as a succinct popular exposition of the\nfundamental principles of all the sciences and is mostly devoted to a\nsystematic consideration of the theory of knowledge and laws of logic.\nIt is, therefore, not so interesting to the general reader as some\nof his untranslated works in which he discusses a variety of ethical\nand social questions from the scientific standpoint, as for example\n\"Die Forderung des Tages\" (\"The Day's Demands\") (Leipzig: Akademische\nVerlagsgesellschaft). His \"Grosse M\u00e4nner\" (same publisher) contains\nbiographical sketches of Davy, Mayer, Faraday, Liebig, Gerhardt,\nand Helmholtz as well as his general observations on the character\nand training of scientific discoverers. Ostwald's Harvard lecture\non \"Individuality and Immortality\" was published by the Houghton\nMifflin Company, 1906. He is now issuing a series of informal talks\non scientific ideals and morals under the title of \"Monistische\nSonntagspredigten\" (Verlag des Deutschen Monisten-Bundes in Berlin).\nA second series was published by the Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft,\nLeipzig, and a third by the Verlag Unesma, Leipzig. A few of the titles\nwill indicate their character and scope: \"Love One Another\", \"The Jatho\nCase\", \"How Evil Came into the World\", \"The Freedom of the Will\",\n\"What is Truth?\" \"Nietzsche and the Struggle for Existence\", \"Natural\nScience and Paper Science\", \"The Philosopher's Stone\", \"Efficiency.\"\nThe last named was published in _The Independent_, October 19,\n1911. \"The Wave Theory of History\", an explanation of the cause of\nperiodic alternations in finance and politics, was published in _The\nIndependent_, July 10, 1913. An article, \"Breaking Barriers\", appeared\nin _The Masses_, February, 1911. It is greatly to be desired that all\nof these \"Monistic Sunday Sermons\" as well as \"The Day's Duty\" and\n\"Great Men\" be translated into English, as they represent a point of\nview of growing importance in modern thought.\n\nOther articles by Ostwald accessible in English are: \"The Philosophical\nMeaning of Energy\", in _The International Quarterly_, Vol. VII; \"The\nModern Theory of Energetics\", with criticism by Dr. Carus, in _The\nMonist_, 1907; \"Chemical Energy\" in the _Journal of the American\nChemical Society_, August, 1893, and in the Smithsonian Report for\n1893; \"A Contribution to the Theory of Science\", his address before the\nSection of Methodology at the St. Louis Congress, in _Popular Science\nMonthly_, 1905, p. 219; \"The Art of Making Discoveries\", in _Science\nAmerican Supplement_, No. 1807; a character sketch of Sir William\nRamsay in _Nature_, January 11, 1912.\n\nOf Ostwald's chemical works the following have been translated into\nEnglish: \"Conversations on Chemistry\" (Wiley). \"Manual of Physical\nand Chemical Measurements\" (Macmillan), translated by James Walker.\n\"The Scientific Foundation of Analytical Chemistry\", translated by\nG. McGowan (Macmillan). \"Solutions\", translated by M. Pattison Muir\n(Longmans). \"The Principles of Inorganic Chemistry\", translated by\nAlex. Findlay (Macmillan). \"The Fundamental Principles of Chemistry\",\ntranslated by Harry W. Morse (Longmans). \"Letters to a Painter on\nTheory and Practice\", translated by Morse (Ginn).\n\nThe serious student of Ostwald's thought will of course devote himself\nchiefly to his \"Annalen der Natur- und Kulturphilosophie\" (Leipzig:\nVerlag Unesma). The latest and most complete summary of his conception\nof the universe is given in \"Die Philosophie der Werte\" (Alfred\nKr\u00f6ner, Leipzig, 1914). In the L\u00fcbeck lecture, \"Die Ueberwindung des\nwissenschaftlichen Materialismus\" (_Zeitschrift f\u00fcr physikalische\nChemie, Band_ 18, pp. 305-320, and separately published by Veit,\nLeipzig, 1895), and the \"Vorlesungen \u00fcber Naturphilosophie\" (Veit,\n1902) he laid the foundations of his theory. In \"Die energetische\nGrundlagen der Kulturwissenschaft\" (Leipzig, 1909) he extended it\nto include the science of civilization. In \"Die wissenschaftliche\nStellung\" (\"Annalen der Naturphilosophie\", Vol. X), he defends himself\nagainst certain misconceptions, as, for example, that he makes energy\nthe sole reality in the world, or a metaphysical principle like\nHartmann's \"Unconscious.\" Ostwald's educational view may be found\nin chapters of \"Die Forderung des Tages\", in the article on \"The\nUniversity of the Future and the Future of the University\" (\"Annalen\nder Naturphilosophie\", Vol. X, p. 236), and in \"Wider das Schulelend,\nEin Notruf\" (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft). \"Erfinder und\nEntdecker\" contains sketches of Mayer, Helmholtz, and Liebig (Vol.\nXXIV of _Die Gesellschaft_, Frankfurt a. M.: R\u00fctten und Leoning). \"Die\nEnergie\" is a popular exposition of energetics (Vol. I of Wissen und\nK\u00f6nnen. Leipzig: Barth). Ostwald's contributions to internationalism\nare mostly published by _Die Br\u00fccke_, Munich. His popular propaganda\nof the gospel of Monism is now carried on by the weekly organ of the\nsociety, which he edits, _Das Monistische Jahrhundert_ (Verlag Unesma,\nLeipzig).\n\nAn intimate and appreciative sketch of the life and work of \"Wilhelm\nOstwald\" was written by P. Walden on the twenty-fifth anniversary of\nhis doctorate (Leipzig: Engelmann).\n\nThere is space here to give only a few references to discussions and\ncriticisms of Ostwald's theories. Doctor Roberty, in \"Energ\u00e9tique\net Sociologie\" (_Revue philosophique_, January, 1910), shows the\nvast importance of Ostwald's extension of the laws of energetics\nto vital and social phenomena. A painstaking comparison of the\ncontradictory theories of Lombroso and Ostwald on the character of\ngenius is contributed by Georg Wendel to _Zeit. f\u00fcr Philosophie_,\n1910. In the _Vierteljahrsschrift f\u00fcr wiss. Philosophie und\nSoziologie_ for 1905 will be found _Bemerkungen \u00fcber die Metaphysik\nin der Ostwald'schen Energetik_, by F. W. Adler, and _Atomistik und\nEnergetik von Standpunkte \u00f6konomischer Naturbetrachtung,_ by Hermann\nWolff. F. Dennert in his volume on \"Die Weltanschauung des modernen\nNaturforschers\" (Stuttgart, 1907) devotes a chapter to Ostwald.\n\nI must also mention the valuable articles contributed by Doctor\nFielding H. Garrison to the _New York Medical Journal_, September 11,\n1909, on \"Physiology and the Second Law of Thermodynamics\", in which\nhe discusses the application of the theories of Gibbs and Ostwald to\nbiology.\n\n\n[1] The reader who is interested and reads German will find a full\ndiscussion of the formula and its significance in _Die Forderung des\nTages_.\n\n[2] My unconventional definitions of the second law would be repudiated\nby any self-respecting physicist. The reader is therefore warned that\nthe proper way to say it is, \"the entropy of the universe tends to a\nmaximum.\" (Clausius.)\n\n[3] _Was ist Wahrheit?_ (_Monistiche Sonntagspredigten, Nr. 5._)\n\n[4] _Der energetische Imperativ, Ann. d. Nat. Phil_., Vol. X.\n\n[5] Printed in _The Independent_, October 19, 1911.\n\n[6] See Flammarion's scientific fantasy, _Lumen_.\n\n[7] Laughter. An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. By Henri Bergson.\nThe Macmillan Company.\n\n[8] Die Ueberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialismus. L\u00fcbeck\naddress before the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians.\n\n[9] J. Willard Gibbs: \"Thermodynamische Studien.\" Uebersetzt von W.\nOstwald. Leipzig: W. Engelmann. 1892.\n\n[10] _Nature_, 64, 428 (1901).\n\n[11] \"Kultur und Duell\" in \"Die Forderung des Tages.\"\n\n[12] Ostwald devoted the $40,000 he got from the Nobel Fund to the\nattempt to introduce a new language, Ido. Mistral devoted his to the\nattempt to perpetuate an old language, Proven\u00e7al. So we see that\ndynamite money, like dynamite itself, exerts its force in opposite\ndirections.\n\n[13] Spencer laid the foundation of his philosophy in the essay on\n\"Progress: Its Law and Cause\" more than twenty years before the\npublication of Clausius's \"Die mechanische Warmetheorie.\"\n\n[14] \"Leading American Men of Science.\" (Holt & Company.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nERNST HAECKEL\n\n\n    Monistic investigation of nature as knowledge of the true,\n    monistic ethic as training for the good, monistic \u00e6sthetic\n    as pursuit of the beautiful--these are the three great\n    departments of our monism: by the harmonious and consistent\n    cultivation of these we effect at last the truly beatific\n    union of religion and science so painfully longed for by\n    so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, the Good, these\n    are the three august Divine Ones before which we bow the\n    knee in adoration; in the unforced combination and mutual\n    supplementing of these we gain the pure idea of God. To\n    this triune Divine Ideal shall the twentieth century build\n    its altars.--Haeckel's \"The Confession of Faith of a Man of\n    Science.\"\n\nThe geographical distribution of German universities is such as\nto shock the orderly mind of our General Education Board, which,\nlike a trained forester, believes in weeding out, or rather, in not\ncultivating, institutions growing close together. But in Germany the\nsoil is so rich as to support three great universities--Leipzig,\nHalle, and Jena--planted within a circle of twenty miles radius, and\nnevertheless all thriving. Even the overweening development of Berlin\nUniversity since that city has become the imperial capital has not yet\novershadowed the smaller institutions. For, curious as it seems to\nus Americans, students in Europe are not influenced in the choice of\na university chiefly by its size, the splendor of its buildings, or\neven its athletic record. They seem rather to consider the personality\nof the professors as the important thing, and will often travel\nconsiderable distances, at a cost of one and sixteen hundredths cents\nper mile, third class, in order to put themselves under the instruction\nof a particular man they have taken a fancy to, quite ignoring some\nother university which from our point of view had a claim upon their\nallegiance, from the fact that it was nearer or had been attended by\ntheir fathers. Jena, the least of the three in the matter of numbers,\nis not by reason of that willing to confess inferiority to any of\nits rivals, not even to big Berlin. On the contrary, Haeckel, in his\nfamous controversy with Virchow, apologized with satirical politeness\nfor his opponent's ignorance of zo\u00f6logy, on the ground that he could\nnot be expected to keep up with the advance of the science when he had\nleft the little institute of Wurzburg for the luxurious appliances and\nthe political and social duties of Berlin. In fact, Haeckel, with his\nfondness for formulation, laid down a law on this point thirty-five\nyears ago which, he says, has yet to meet with contradiction, that \"the\nscientific work of an institution stands in inverse ratio to its size.\"\n\nCertainly, if seclusion and scholarly traditions are conducive to\nintellectual achievement, Jena is the place for the thinker. The\nuniversity, with one thousand eight hundred and seventeen students, is\nabout a third the size of the University of Wisconsin. The population\nof the city is about the same as that of Madison. But while Madison\nhas other interests, political especially, Jena is absorbed in the\nuniversity. Its chief industry, the glassworks, is the offspring of the\nuniversity, for it was through the fortunate collaboration of Ernst\nAbb\u00e9 a professor who could figure out indices of refraction, with Carl\nZeiss, a glassmaker who was willing to put money into queer formulas,\nthat the new lenses were discovered which make possible our modern\nphotography and microscopy. Generously has the debt that the industry\nowed to science been repaid, for the Zeiss company has borne a large\nshare of the expenses of maintaining the university and erecting its\nnew buildings, besides giving to the city many public buildings, among\nthem a splendid bathhouse, an auditorium and a free library and reading\nroom, where are on file one hundred and fifteen daily papers and three\nhundred and sixty periodicals (American librarians, take notice).\n\nFrom this it may be seen that Jena is an up-to-date town. Yet at the\nsame time it retains more of medieval picturesqueness than most,\nmingling the new and the old as none but Germans know how to. \"_Das\nliebe n\u00e4rrische Nest_,\" as Goethe called it, is hidden away among the\nThuringian hills so that the railroad was a long time finding it. The\ncobble-stoned streets stroll out from the market place in a casual sort\nof a way and change their minds about where they are going without\nnotice, twisting about Gothic churches, diving under old towers,\nwandering slowly along the banks of the Saale, or starting suddenly\nstraight up hill. The gossipy gables of the old houses lean toward\neach other like peaked eldritch faces in fluted red caps. So close\nthey stand sometimes that you can touch the walls on either side, and\nyou have to walk with one foot on the sidewalk and the other on the\npavement, like the absent-minded German professor who thought he had\ngone lame. When I saw Jena, I understood something which had long\npuzzled me, that is, how the dachshund originated. It is manifestly\na product of evolution according to the principle of the survival\nof the fittest, for only a creature constructed according to the\nspecifications \"dog and a half long and half a dog high\" could make his\nway with convenience and celerity through this maze of narrow streets.\nBut all sorts of vehicles and beasts of burden get around somehow, too;\noxen and horses, automobiles and bicycles, dog carts and women carts.\nMost in evidence everywhere are the students, who swagger through the\ntown with the consciousness of owning it, their bright-colored corps\ncaps at a cocky angle, and their faces looking like advertisements of\nthe dangers of not using safety razors, for the Jena student has three\nhundred and fifty years of university tradition to live up to, and he\nrealizes the responsibility of it to the full.\n\nThe ancient and honorable history of Jena is unescapable. It is woven\ninto the very fabric of the place, and he who runs may read it from\nthe street signs. The Volkshaus, which I have mentioned, is very\nappropriately approached through Ernst Abb\u00e9 Strasse and Carl Zeiss\nStrasse. On the other side of it is Luther Strasse, for Jena harbored\nthe great reformer for two years at a critical period in his career.\nThis leads to Goethe Strasse--Goethe composed the \"Erlk\u00f6nig\" at Jena.\nThe next turn brings us into Schiller Strasse--Schiller was professor\nof history in the University for ten years, carrying an active side\nline of poetry the while. A big stone in the old garden marks the spot\nwhere he wrote \"Wallenstein,\" 1798. At the garden gate is Ernst Haeckel\nPlatz, from which Ernst Haeckel Strasse leads us to our destination,\nthe Villa Medusa. What other town could give a ten-minute walk so rich\nin names worth remembering?\n\nThe Villa Medusa, mind you, is not named from the Greek gorgon, but\nfrom the beautiful jellyfish with the long trail of waving threads,\none of the living comets dredged up by the _Challenger_ which Haeckel\ndepicted and described thirty years ago. The house is a square-built,\nwhite, two-story dwelling, half hidden by the tall trees. The furniture\nis of the conventional German type. The room into which I was shown\nwas not small, but it seemed so when Professor Haeckel entered it, for\nthe first impression one gets is largeness. He really is a large man\nany way you take him; tall, heavy-limbed, large-featured; his hair is\nnow white but thick, and his beard broad and bushy. He moves with some\nstiffness now, but otherwise his fourscore years have not impaired his\nvigor. His bearing is erect and his handclasp strong. His laugh is\nhearty and his blue eyes twinkle as he relates some amusing incident in\nthe controversies of which his life has been full.\n\nFor Haeckel has been a storm center of the cyclonic movements that\nhave swept over the whole earth during the last century. His name\nhas been a battle-cry in the scientific, religious, and political\nwars of more than one generation, and never more than at present,\nwhen a new religion with many thousands of adherents has set out to\nconquer the world under the sign, \"There is one Substance and Haeckel\nis its prophet.\" I inferred from what he said to me and still more\nfrom what he did not say that he was not very enthusiastic over the\nsemi-ecclesiastical form which the propaganda is now taking in Germany,\nbut is more interested in the quieter and wider acceptance of his\nideas which he regards as virtually complete in scientific circles. He\ndisclaimed emphatically any intention of establishing a cult or ritual,\nlike Comte. I fancy that the sentence with which he ended his chapter\non \"Our Monistic Religion\",\n\n    Just as the Catholics had to relinquish a number of churches\n    to the Reformation in the sixteenth century, so a still\n    larger number will pass over to the free societies of\n    Monists in the coming years,\n\nwas, like many another paragraph in the book, put in more to irritate\nthe clergy than with any serious intent. But it is curious to\nobserve how rapidly the Monist locals are assuming the forms of the\nnon-conformist congregations. They celebrate Christmas--that is, the\nwinter solstice--with trees, candles, and gifts. They have a weekly\nsermon by Ostwald and a Sunday-school paper, _Die Sonne_.\n\n[Illustration: Ernst Haeckel]\n\nTo see Haeckel at his best one should get him to talk of his beloved\nJena, which indeed is not difficult to do, for he is ever ready to\nspeak with enthusiasm of its beauty, its freedom of thought, and its\nleadership in many of the great intellectual movements of German\nhistory. When I remarked upon the many delightful roads and pathways\nupon the hills round about the town, he explained Jena was the last\nof the university towns to be reached by railroad. Professors and\nstudents were poor, and they had to walk, so they learned to walk well\nand to take pleasure in outdoor exercise and to appreciate fine views.\nThat Haeckel himself is a great lover of landscape as well as of the\nbeautiful in all forms of life is well known to readers of his travel\nsketches. For this he gives credit to his mother, who, as he says in\ndedicating to her his \"Indian Letters\",\n\n    Aroused in me in my earliest childhood a sense for the\n    infinite beauty of nature and taught the growing boy the\n    value of time and the joy of labor.\n\nHis skill as a draftsman and colorist appears in his zo\u00f6logical works,\nand besides this professional work he has in his portfolios more than\na thousand original sketches in oil and water colors of scenery from\nNorway to Malay; in fact, of every quarter of the globe except America.\nWhen he was twenty-five he was so captivated by Sicily that he almost\ngave up science to adopt landscape painting as a career.\n\nThe freedom of instruction which Jena has enjoyed to an exceptional\ndegree, even for Germany, Haeckel ascribes in part to the fact that the\nuniversity is located in one of the minor States, remote from the great\npolitical centers, and derives its support from several sources. \"We\nhad four masters,\" said Professor Haeckel to me, \"and so we remained\nfree.\" He closes his address of 1892 on \"Monism as the Bond Between\nReligion and Science\" with a grateful eulogy of the Grand Duke Karl\nAlexander, who, he says,\n\n    has during a prosperous reign of forty years constantly\n    shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as\n    Rector Magnificentissimus of our Thuringian university of\n    Jena, he has always afforded his protection to its most\n    sacred palladium--the right of free investigation and the\n    teaching of truth.\n\nWe see that Haeckel has reason to be grateful for the protection\naccorded him when we realize that he first championed the cause of\nDarwin in 1862, only three years after the publication of \"The Origin\nof Species\", and that twenty years after that professors were being\ndismissed from American universities or were viewed with suspicion\nfor believing in evolution. Even to-day a man of Haeckel's views on\nreligion and his blunt way of expressing them would find it difficult\nto retain his chair in most American universities. In Germany a\nprofessor may be almost anything he pleases--except a Socialist--and\nhold his job.\n\nA song of the Jena students contains the couplet\n\n    \"Wer die Wahrheit kennet und saget sie nicht,\n    Der ist f\u00fcrwahr ein erb\u00e4rmlicher Wicht!\"\n\nBut according to Haeckel the students of Berlin University have a\ndifferent version:\n\n    Wer die Wahrheit kennet und saget sie frei,\n    Der kommt in Berlin auf die Stadtvogtei![1]\n\nThe grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, of which Jena is one of\nthe chief cities, has about the same area as Rhode Island and fewer\ninhabitants. It was the first of the German States to acquire a\nconstitutional government, in 1816. The community is rather rigidly\northodox in the evangelical Lutheran faith, which it was among the\nfirst to espouse. How well the Grand Duke Karl Alexander maintained the\nJena tradition of _Lehrfreiheit_ is shown by an incident that happened\nwhen Haeckel first scandalized Germany by championing the cause of\nDarwinism. A prominent theologian came to the palace of the Grand\nDuke at Weimar and begged him to dismiss the heretic professor. Karl\nAlexander asked: \"Do you suppose that he really believes the things he\npublishes?\"\n\n\"Most certainly he does,\" was the prompt reply. \"Very well,\" said the\nGrand Duke, \"then the man simply does the same as you do.\"\n\nIt was about this time, when Haeckel, perceiving that the University\nwas suffering from the attack made upon him, approached Seebeck, the\nhead of the governing body, with an offer to resign his professorship\nin order to relieve the tension. Seebeck, who had little sympathy with\nhis theories, replied: \"My dear Haeckel, you are still young and you\nwill come yet to have more mature views of life. After all, you will do\nless harm here than elsewhere, so you had better stay.\"\n\nIt may be well to add that while Haeckel did not change his views\nexcept to become more radical as he grew older, the University did not\nsuffer in the long run by his presence. On the contrary, his fame as\nan investigator and teacher drew students from all over the world and\nbrought to the University several large endowments.\n\nNear to Ernst Haeckel Strasse and facing the park called Paradise there\nis a unique building, the Phyletic Museum, established by Haeckel to\nhouse collections illustrating the theory of evolution. On the wall\nis painted the genealogical tree of the greatest family in the world,\nembracing the whole animal kingdom, and over the central arch is\ninscribed a quotation from the poet whom Haeckel most admires, Goethe:\n\n    Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt\n      Der hat Religion;\n    Wer diese beiden nicht besitzt\n      Der habe Religion!\n\nWhich Lange puts into English as\n\n    He who Science has and Art\n      He has Religion too;\n    Let him who in these has no part\n      Make his religion do.\n\nNowadays, when evolution is generally accepted, when it is preached\nfrom the pulpit as well as taught in the school, it is hard for us to\nrealize the scorn and incredulity that greeted the theory on its first\nformulation. We who see about us laboratories of experimental evolution\nwhere new species of plants and animals are produced at will, according\nto specifications drawn up in advance, can hardly put ourselves in\nthe position of those who fifty years ago believed that to question\nthe immutability of species was to induce intellectual confusion and\ninvite moral chaos. So we can scarcely appreciate the courage and\nperspicacity of the young Haeckel in openly championing Darwinism\nat a time when that theory was regarded as an absurdity, not alone\nby theologians, as one would infer from Andrew D. White's \"Warfare\nof Science with Theology\", but by most of the leading authorities\nin all fields of science. But we may picture him on that memorable\nSunday evening of September 19, 1863, as he rose to give the opening\naddress of the Scientific Congress at Stettin; a tall, handsome young\nman, blond-bearded, bright-eyed, sun-browned, hard-working, athletic\n(that same year he won a laurel crown at the Leipzig festival for a\nrecord-breaking jump of twenty feet). It was certainly presumptuous in\na zo\u00f6logist of only twenty-nine years, who had just secured a position\nin the university circle as Extraordinary Professor at Jena (which\nmeans below the Ordinary in Germany); who had just published his first\nbook, the \"Monograph on the Radiolaria\", so to attack the convictions\nof his elders and masters there assembled. Haeckel was no halfway man.\nAs soon as he espoused Darwinism--which was barely a month after he\nhad laid eyes on \"The Origin of Species\"--he drew from it conclusions\nthat Darwin himself hesitated to suggest; on the one hand that life\noriginated in inorganic matter, on the other that the human race\noriginated from the lower animals. He at once drew up a pedigree not\nonly of the radiolaria but of mankind. Here is a passage from the very\nbeginning of his Stettin speech:\n\n    As regards man himself, if we are consistent we must\n    recognize his immediate ancestors in the ape-like mammals;\n    earlier still in kangaroo-like marsupials; beyond these, in\n    the secondary period, in lizard-like reptiles; and finally,\n    at a yet earlier stage, the primary period, in lowly\n    organized fishes.\n\nand this, be it remembered, was eight years before Darwin published his\n\"Descent of Man.\"\n\n\"Without Haeckel there would have been Darwin, but no Darwinism,\" says\none of his enthusiastic disciples. But this immediately suggests the\nquestion of whether it was altogether an advantage to have made an\n\"ism\" out of Darwin. As a mere question of taxonomy his theory would\nhave been regarded by the lay world as harmless and uninteresting.\nBut heralded by Haeckel as evidential of materialism, as antagonistic\nto the Church and as destructive to Christianity, Darwinism raised up\nfoes on all sides who would not otherwise have concerned themselves\nwith it. This, however, is a question of what-might-have-been like to\nthat of whether the slaves might not have been freed without blood-shed\n_if_ the abolitionists had not been so extreme and if the Southerners\nhad not been so intolerant. So in this case; Haeckel was extreme, his\nopponents were intolerant, so the war had to be. The gentle-natured\nDarwin more than once had to caution his ardent German champion to be\nless violent and sweeping in his attacks upon those who held the older\nviews. They were more to be pitied than blamed, said Darwin, and they\ncould not keep back permanently the stream of truth. In England Huxley\nat the same time, with quite as sharp a pen as Haeckel's, was waging a\nsimilar warfare against clerical antagonists.\n\nIt may be said that Haeckel spent the rest of his life in filling in\nthe outline he had sketched at the Stettin Congress of 1863, for,\nhowever detailed the work on which he was engaged, he never afterward\nlost sight of the guiding clew to the labyrinth of life evolution. We\nare here not concerned with the zo\u00f6logical studies on which his fame\nsecurely rests, but only with the philosophical views to which they led\nhim. His convictions were very definitely established in early manhood,\nand he occupies to-day essentially the same point of view as fifty\nyears ago. During this time his efforts have been increasingly directed\ntoward reaching a wider audience. In 1866 he developed the fundamental\nprinciples of his monistic philosophy in the two large volumes of his\n\"General Morphology of Organisms.\" This gained few readers outside the\ncircle of savants, and little acceptance there. In 1868 he put his\ntheory of evolution into more popular form in \"The Natural History of\nCreation.\" This had an unusual sale for a book of its kind, but Haeckel\nwas dissatisfied to see that the general public remained indifferent\nand unaffected by the new conceptions of the world and man arising\nfrom the discoveries of modern science. Worse still, he observed with\nalarm a rising tide of reactionary thought at the close of the century\nand a growing dominance of the clerical power in German politics. So\nhe determined to make a final effort to influence his generation, an\nappeal to the court of last resort, the C\u00e6sar of to-day, the people.\nHe packed his science and philosophy into one volume of moderate size,\nfilled in the chinks with _obiter dicta,_ and published it in 1899\nunder the title of \"The Riddle of the Universe.\" This time he hit the\nmark. The success of the book was immediate and amazing. An author of a\ndetective tale or a Zenda romance might have envied him. Ten thousand\ncopies were sold within a few months, one hundred thousand within a\nyear, and by this time the sale of the German and English editions has\ndoubtless passed the half million mark, not to speak of the fourteen\nother languages into which the book has been translated. Since a book\nlike this usually has several readers for each copy, it is probable\nthat those who have been directly reached by Haeckel within fifteen\nyears must be numbered by the million. Besides this, of course, the\nspread of his views has been further extended by a similar volume,\n\"The Wonders of Life\", five years later, and by the widely circulated\npamphlets of the Deutscher Monistenbund. _Haeckels einheitliche\nWeltanschauung_,[2] then, whatever one may think of it, is undeniably\nan important factor in the thought of to-day.\n\nI found Professor Haeckel not altogether pleased that he owed his\npopular reputation to that one of his works in which he took the least\npride. He seemed to hold it in almost as light esteem as his opponents\nand was frank in acknowledging its defects of style and content.\n\"But,\" he said in substance to me, \"I had set forth my philosophy with\ndue dignity and order in my 'General Morphology' more than thirty\nyears before and nobody read it. Nobody reads it now, even when they\ncriticize my ideas. So what could I do but put them forth in a way that\nwould secure attention?\"\n\nWe must observe that to secure this wider audience he did not resort\nto any of the ordinary expedients, such as palliating unpopular views,\nskipping dry details, and avoiding technical terms. \"The Riddle of\nthe Universe\" is not the sort of writing that goes by the name of\n\"popular science\" and that is commonly regarded as necessary to catch\nthe attention and reach the understanding of the lay reader. Haeckel\ndiscusses questions of physiology, zo\u00f6logy, botany, paleontology, and\nastronomy, each in its own tongue, the bare facts stated without any\npoetic disguise or flowery adornment. Far from dodging long words when\nnecessary, he invents them when unnecessary. Few men have done so much\nword coinage. In his work on the radiolaria alone he had to christen\nmore than thirty-five hundred new species, two names apiece. So it is\nno wonder that when he comes to talking metaphysics and religion he\nsticks to the habit of making up his language as he goes.\n\nIn the case of other authors of this series I have had to distill the\nessence of their philosophy from the leaves of many volumes. I have\nhad sometimes to translate poetry into prose and sometimes to piece\ntogether scattered suggestions and faint allusions into a coherent\nand compact doctrine. But in the case of Haeckel my task is easy, for\nnothing of the sort is necessary. He has himself expressed his views in\nsuccinct form and the plainest of language. He takes as much delight in\ncreeds and dogmatic statements as any scholastic theologian, and he has\nthe same implicit faith in formulas as capable of expressing all things\nin heaven and earth. One reason why his conflicts with the clergy have\nbeen so sharp and bitter is because he has much the same type of mind\nand uses similar language. Ordinarily, in the so-called warfare of\nreligion and science, the adversaries revolve hopelessly around one\nanother, like double stars, without ever coming into contact.\n\nThe most convenient formulation of Haeckel's philosophy for our purpose\nis that which he prepared as a sort of confession of faith for his lay\nchurch, the Monistenbund. It is here translated entire and for the most\npart literally, though in a somewhat condensed form.[3]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE THIRTY THESES OF MONISM\n\nI.--_Theoretical Monism_\n\n1. Monistic Philosophy. The unitary conception of the world is based\nsolely upon the solid ground of scientific knowledge acquired by human\nreason through critical experience.\n\n2. Empiricism. This empirical knowledge is attained partly by sense\nobservations on the external world and partly by conscious reflection\non our mental internal world.\n\n3. Revelation. In opposition to this monistic theory of knowledge\nis the prevailing dualistic conception of the world, that the most\nprofound and important truths can be gained through supernatural\nor divine revelation. All such ideas are due either to obscure and\nuncritical dogmas or pious frauds.\n\n4. Apriorism. Equally untenable is the assertion of Kantian metaphysics\nthat some knowledge is acquired _a priori_ independent of any\nexperience.\n\n5. Cosmological Monism. The world is one great whole, a cosmos, ruled\nby fixed laws.\n\n6. Cosmological Dualism. The idea that there are two worlds, one\nmaterial or natural and the other spiritual or supernatural, arises\nfrom ignorance, cloudy thinking, and mystical tradition.\n\n7. Biophysics. Biology is only a part of the all-embracing physical\nscience and living beings are under the same laws as inorganic matter.\n\n8. Vitalism. The so-called \"vital force\", which is still believed by\nsome to direct and control physical and chemical processes in the\norganism, is just as fictitious as a \"cosmical intelligence.\"\n\n9. Genesis. Organic beings and inorganic nature alike have been\ndeveloped by one great process of evolution through an unbroken chain\nof transformations causally connected. Part of this universal process\nof evolution is directly perceptible; its beginning and end are unknown\nto us.\n\n10. Creation. The idea that a personal creator made the world out of\nnothing and embodied his creative thought in the form of organisms must\nbe abandoned. Such an anthropomorphic creator exists as little as does\na \"moral world order\" ordained by him or a \"divine providence.\"\n\n11. Theory of Descent. That all existing beings are the transformed\ndescendants of a long series of extinct organisms developed in the\ncourse of millions of years is proved by comparative anatomy, ontogeny,\nand paleontology. This biogenetic transformation is established whether\nwe explain it by selection, mutation, or any other theory.\n\n12. Archigony. When the earth's crust had cooled sufficiently, organic\nlife came into existence through the katalysis of colloidal compounds\nof carbon and nitrogen in the form of structureless plasma globules\n(Monera) represented to-day by the Chromoce\u00e6.\n\n13. Plasmic Metabolism. The innumerable forms of plant and animal life\narose from the ceaseless transformation of the living substance in\nwhich the most important factors are the physiological functions of\nvariation and heredity.\n\n14. Phytogeny. All plants and animals form a single genealogical tree\nrooted in the Monera.\n\n15. Anthropogeny. The position of man in nature is now fully\nunderstood. He has all the characteristics of the vertebrates and\nmammals and developed out of this class in the later tertiary period.\n\n16. Pithecoid Theory. Man is most nearly related to the tailless\napes, but is not descended from any of the existing forms. On the\ncontrary, the common ancestors of all the anthropoid apes and man are\nto be looked for in the earlier extinct species of old world apes\n(Pithecanthropus).\n\n17. Athanism. The soul consists of the totality of cerebral functions.\nThis soul or thought organ in man, a certain area of the cerebral\ncortex, acts in accordance with the same laws of psychophysics as in\nthe other mammals. This function of course ceases at death, so it is\nnowadays utterly absurd to believe in \"the personal immortality of the\nsoul.\"\n\n18. Indeterminism. The human will, like all other functions of the\nbrain (sensation, imagination, ratiocination), is dependent upon the\nanatomy of this organ and is necessarily determined by the inherited\nand acquired characteristics of the individual brain. The old doctrine\nof \"free will\" is therefore seen to be untenable and must give way to\nthe opposite doctrine of determinism.\n\n19. God. If by this ambiguous term is understood a personal \"Supreme\nBeing\", a ruler of the cosmos who, after the manner of men,\nthinks, loves, generates, rules, rewards, punishes, etc., such an\nanthropomorphic God must be relegated to the realm of the mystical\nfiction, no matter whether this personal God be invested with a human\nform or regarded as an invisible spirit or as a \"gaseous vertebrate.\"\nFor modern science the idea of God is tenable only so far as we\nrecognize in this \"God\" the ultimate unknowable cause of things, the\nunconscious hypothetical \"first cause of substance.\"\n\n20. Law of Substance. The older chemical law of the conservation of\nmatter (Lavoisier, 1789) and the more recent physical law of the\nconservation of energy (Mayer, 1842) were later (1892) by our Monism\nunited into a single great universal law, for we recognized matter\nand energy (body and spirit) as inseparable attributes of substance\n(Spinoza).\n\nII.--_Practical Monism_\n\n21. Sociology. The culture which has raised the human race high above\nthe other animals and given it dominion over the earth depends upon the\nrational cooperation of men in society with a thoroughgoing division\nof labor and the mutual interdependence of the laboring classes. The\nbiological foundations of society are already perceptible among the\ngregarious animals (especially the primates). Their herds and groups\nare kept together by the social instinct (hereditary habits).\n\n22. Constitution and Laws. The rational arrangement of society and its\nregulation by laws can be attained by various forms of government,\nthe chief object of which is a just Nomocracy, the establishment of a\nsecular power based upon justice. The laws which limit the freedom of\nthe citizen for the good of society should be based solely upon the\nnational application of natural science, not upon venerable tradition\n(inherited habits).\n\n23. Church and Creed. On the other hand, all means should be used to\nfight the hierarchy which cloaks the secular power with a spiritual\nmantle and makes use of the credulity of the ignorant masses to further\nits selfish aims. The confessional obligation as a particular form of\nsuperstition is especially to be attacked, since it only serves to\nevoke the distinction between those of other beliefs. The desirable\nseparation of Church and State is to be accomplished in such a way that\nthe State leaves equally free all forms of belief while restricting\ntheir practical encroachments. The spiritual power (Theocracy) must\nalways be subordinate to the secular government (Nomocracy).\n\n24. Papistry. The strongest hierarchy which to-day exercises spiritual\ndomination over the greater part of the civilized world is papistry or\nultramontanism. Although this mighty political organization stands in\nsharp contradiction with the original pure form of Christianity and\nwrongfully employs its insignia to obtain power, it nevertheless finds\nstrong support even from its natural opponents, the secular princes. In\nthe inevitable Kulturkampf against papistry it is, above all, necessary\nto abrogate by law its three strongest supports, the celibacy of the\nclergy, auricular confession, and the sale of indulgences. These\nthree dangerous and immoral institutions of the neo-Catholic church\nare foreign to original Christianity. So also is the strengthening\nof superstitions dangerous to society through the cult of miracles\n(Lourdes, Marpingen) and of relics (Aix la Chapelle, Tr\u00e8ves) to be\nprevented by law.\n\n25. Monistic Religion. If we understand by religion, not a\nsuperstitious cult and irrational creed, but the elevation of the mind\nthrough the noblest gifts of art and science, then Monism forms a \"bond\nbetween religion and science\" (1892). The three ideals of this rational\nmonistic religion are truth, virtue, and beauty. In all civilized\nstates it is the duty of the representatives of the people to see that\nthe monistic religion is officially recognized and its equal rights\nwith other confessions assured.\n\n26. Monistic Ethics. The rational ethics which forms a part of this\nmonistic religion is derived, according to our modern theory of\nevolution, from the social instincts of the higher animals, not from\na dogmatic \"categorical imperative\" (Kant). Like all of the higher\ngregarious animals, man strives to attain the natural equilibrium\nbetween the two different obligations, the behest of egoism and the\nbehest of altruism. The ethical principle of the \"Golden Rule\" has\nexpressed this double obligation twenty-five hundred years ago in the\nmaxim: \"Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.\"\n\n27. Monistic Schools. In most civilized countries, and especially in\nGermany, the instruction of youth in upper and lower grades is still\nlargely bound in fetters which the scholastic tradition of the Middle\nAges has retained to the present day. Only the complete separation of\nChurch and school can loose these fetters. The prevailing confessional\nor dogmatic religious instruction is to be replaced by comparative\nreligious history and monistic ethics. The influence of the clergy of\nany confession is to be removed from the school. The inevitable school\nreform must be accomplished upon the basis of modern natural science.\nThe greater part of education should be devoted, not to the study of\nthe classical language and history, but to the various branches of\nnatural science, especially anthropology and evolution.\n\n28. Monistic Education. Since the sound development of the soul (as\na function of the cerebral cortex) is closely connected with that of\nthe rest of the organism, the monistic education of youth, free from\nthe dogmatic teachings of the Church, must strive to upbuild soul\nand body equally from earliest youth. Daily gymnastics, baths and\nexercises, walks and tours, must develop and strengthen the organism\nfrom early youth. Observation and love of nature will be thus awakened\nand intensified. Through public libraries, continuation schools, and\npopular monistic lectures will the more advanced be provided with\nmental nourishment.\n\n29. Monistic Culture. The admirable height of culture which mankind\nin the nineteenth century has attained, the astonishing progress\nof science and its practical applications in technology, industry,\nmedicine, etc., gives grounds for expecting a still greater development\nof culture in the twentieth century. This desirable progress will then\nhowever be possible only if the beaten paths of the traditional dogmas\nand of clerical superstition be abandoned and a rational monistic\nknowledge of nature attain the mastery instead.\n\n30. The Monistenbund. In order to spread the natural unitary theory\nof the universe to the widest circles and to realize practically the\nbeneficent fruits of theoretical monism, it is desirable that all\nefforts in this direction find a common point of application through\nthe founding of individual monist societies. In this universal monist\nassociation not only all free thinkers and all adherents of the\nmonistic philosophy find place, but also free congregations, ethical\nsocieties, and free religious associations, etc., which recognize pure\nreason as the only rule of their thought and action and not belief in\ntraditional dogma and pretended revelations.\n\nThere is a strong resemblance in form between this creed of the\nmonistic religion and the creeds that have been formulated by many\nother religions in the history of the world; the same juxtaposition of\ncosmogony and ethics without any apparent connection; the same mixture\nof the fundamental and trivial, the permanent and ephemeral; the same\naffirmation of idealistic aims mingled with attacks upon what is\nassumed to be the beliefs of the opposition.\n\nIt is not my purpose in this book to criticize the views I present or\nto obtrude my personal opinions, so I shall not discuss this monistic\nconfession of faith except to point out the striking contrast between\nthe theoretical and practical sections of the statement. The second is\nin no sense a deduction from the first, and they are so different in\ncharacter as to give the effect of an anticlimax. Haeckel's fundamental\nprinciples are bold and revolutionary. His practical conclusions are\ntimid and conventional. It would be a dull faculty meeting which did\nnot bring out more heretical views on education than Haeckel expresses.\nWhy is it necessary to storm the battlements of heaven and create a\nnew earth in order to make Greek optional and get the students to take\nbaths and walks?[4] Any session of the American Sociological Society\nwill bring out more suggestions for the radical reorganization of\nsociety from professors in good and regular standing than are to be\nfound in all of Haeckel's works. He seems blind to what would appear\nto us the glaring evils of his country, the burden of militarism, the\noppression of government, the conflict of classes, the monopoly of\nland, the injustice of hereditary rank, the superstition of royalty,\nand the like. If he touches on these at all, it is in mild and cautious\nterms. His gratitude to the Grand Duke who was kind enough to let him\nalone is expressed in language that sounds sycophantic to American\nears. All his fury is directed against the Church, Protestant and\nCatholic alike, yet he remained until the age of seventy-seven a member\nof the orthodox Lutheran Church. Of course, to be radical in thought\nand conventional in practice is not peculiar to Haeckel. It is common\nto most thinkers, but is especially conspicuous in his case.\n\nThe reforms he advocates in social customs are for the most part very\nmoderate. He is himself no smoker, and he thinks that the German\nstudents devote too much attention to beer and dueling. This is\nsensible but not startling. He declaims against the tyranny of fashion\nand denounces corsets as injurious to the health.[5] In this, however,\nmost men and not a few women would agree with him. He asserts that\nmarriage is not a sacrament, but a civil contract, and as such may\nbe dissolved[6]. This is a doctrine common to Hebrew and Puritan.\nOne of the chief objects of the founding of the Monistenbund was to\nforce the separation of Church and State and the secularization of the\nschools. This seems so obviously just and desirable that it is hard\nfor us to realize on what grounds it should be opposed. And as for the\ndemands expressed in Article 25 it is almost inconceivable to us that\na government could refuse a man the right to declare himself a Monist,\ninstead of a Lutheran or a Hebrew, if he wants to.\n\nIn our own free land anybody can get up a church of his own if he find\ndisciples, and if he prefers to belong to no church it is nobody's\nbusiness but his own. Not so in Germany, where a man has to give his\nreligion together with his age and occupation at every turn. Even if\nhe wants nothing more than a permit to a building or a rebate on his\nrailroad fare, he is called upon to make a confession of faith. And it\nmust be one of the few religions officially recognized by the State;\nnone of the \"fancy religions\" will pass muster. A man who declares\nhimself not a member of an established church, _konfessionslos_,\nis looked upon with suspicion as a sort of outlaw. Under these\ncircumstances, of course, a large proportion of the adherents of the\nState churches never attend the services and have no belief in the\ncreed they profess.\n\nThere is now going on in Germany what might be called an\n\"anti-Christian revival.\" Protracted meetings are being held in the\ncities at which Monist missionaries exhort the people to leave the\nChurch, and at the conclusion the converts are called upon to stand\nup and be counted. In 1913, during a whirlwind campaign in Berlin at\nChristmas time, sixteen meetings were held and attended by thirteen\nthousand persons, of whom twenty-three hundred and forty-three\nannounced their intention of formally separating themselves from the\nchurches of which they are nominally members. The Monist locals, the\nindependent congregations, and the free-thinker societies have joined\nforces under the management of a central _Komitee Konfessionslos_. Very\ncuriously the Social Democratic party, which in its early days was so\nfiercely anti-clerical, stands aloof from the movement and appears to\nview it with disfavor.\n\nThis _Kirchenaustrittsbewegung_, or church-exit-movement has for its\naim to effect the complete separation of Church and State and to secure\nfor the individual freedom of religious choice. It does not, therefore,\nindicate so great an increase of irreligion as appears on the face\nof it. It will on the contrary tend to reduce the percentage of\nhypocrisy and to allow the growth of new forms of religious association\nbetter adapted to the times than the established churches. Already it\nhas stimulated a useful reflex. The \"Go-to-church Sunday\" has been\nintroduced from America, and the State churches are showing more signs\nof life than for a long time.\n\nIt would obviously be an injustice to Haeckel to assume that, because\nthe practical reforms he advocates seem trite and timid to us, they\ndo not require both perspicacity and courage in Germany. The fact is\nthat Germany, advanced though it be intellectually, is still medieval\nin government and usages. If, for instance, a German clergyman should\nvisit this country and stay in the home of an American minister, the\nlatter would probably be distressed by the views held by the visitor on\nthe inerrancy of the Scriptures and the value of beer, while, on the\nother hand, the German would be equally shocked to hear his reverend\nfriend advocate secular schools and ridicule the divine right of kings.\n\nHaeckel practically takes over intact the fundamental principles of\nChristian ethics, making the Golden Rule the basis of his system,\nalthough characteristically refusing to give Jesus any credit for it\nby saying that it had a \"polyphyletic origin.\" He attacks, indeed,\ncertain extreme forms of it, asceticism, belittlement of family life,\nabsolute self-sacrifice, etc., but he adopts substantially the moral\nstandards which the Christian men of his time and environment profess\nand endeavor to practice. I do not say that he is wrong to borrow\nethics from Christianity. I do not suppose he could do better. But\nhe would have done the world great service if, instead of taking a\nready-made ethical system, he had worked it out from his fundamental\nprinciple of evolution, as Spencer, Drummond, and Kropotkin have tried\nto do. If, having done this, he had arrived at the same conclusions as\nthe Christian moralists, his aid would have been invaluable just now,\nwhen, almost for the first time, attacks are made not so much on the\ntheology as on the ethics of Christianity, and this, too, in the name\nof science. The air is filled with questions which arise in Haeckel's\npeculiar field. Is, for example, Nietzsche justified in preaching\nruthless egoism as the logical lesson of evolution? Or is it true,\nas many now say, that the preservation and protection of the weak in\nbody and mind necessarily lead to the degeneration of the race? In\nthe incidental references he makes to these questions,[7] he condemns\nNietzsche, but advocates euthanasia for the hopelessly diseased,\nreaching the first conclusion from his \"own personal opinion\" and the\nsecond from \"pure reason.\" As the individual views of an evolutionist,\nthese are interesting and even valuable, but they can hardly be\nregarded as established principles of the science of evolutionary\nethics.\n\nHaeckel's politics may be summed up by saying that he is anti-clerical\nand not much else. He concerns himself little about the form\nof government or economic conditions, regarding them indeed as\ncomparatively unimportant matters.\n\nThe monistic and the socialistic movements in Germany are closely\nassociated, but chiefly, it seems to me, because both are anti-clerical\nrather than because the evolutionary philosophy necessarily leads to\neither democracy or socialism. Many Social Democrats profess themselves\nMonists, and doubtless a large proportion of that party would agree\nwith Haeckel in the matter of religion. But on the other hand, they\ncan derive little if any support for their doctrines from the monistic\nliterature. Haeckel states his opinion with his usual frankness in a\ncontribution to Maximilian Harden's magazine, which concludes with the\nwords:\n\n\n    I am certainly no friend of Herr Bebel, who has attacked\n    me repeatedly, and among other things has slandered me in\n    his book on Woman. Besides, I hold the utopian aims of\n    the official social democracy to be impracticable and its\n    ideal future state to be a big workhouse. That, however,\n    cannot prevent me from recognizing the kernel of justice\n    in the great social movement. That this can be overcome by\n    the repressive acts of the Berlin council, by the power of\n    the police and of the State prosecutors can be believed\n    only by one who knows neither the history nor the natural\n    history of mankind.--_Zukunft_, 1895, No. 18. Quoted in the\n    introduction to \"Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre\", p. 9.\n\nThe immense popularity of \"The Riddle of the Universe\" is, I think,\nlargely to be accounted for by the personality of the author. The man\nbehind the gun was what gave it power. I do not mean that the reception\ngiven to the book was due to Haeckel's standing as a zo\u00f6logist. The\noutside world knows little and cares less for scientific reputation.\nIt was rather that the book revealed a man tremendously in earnest\nwho had made up his mind on questions of the most vital interest to\nall and who said what he thought in the plainest and most emphatic\nlanguage, without regard to whose feelings he hurt. \"The Riddle of the\nUniverse\" and \"The Wonders of Life\" are, it seems to me, more valuable\nas contributions to the psychology of genius than to philosophy. The\npersonal interest he aroused is evinced by the thousands of letters he\nreceived and is still receiving about these books, ranging in tone from\nthe warmly sympathetic to the furiously antagonistic. He years ago had\nto give up the task of answering them save by a printed slip.\n\nFew books have ever excited so much heated controversy. Hundreds\nof criticisms and replies have been published, and new ones appear\nfrequently yet, fifteen years after. The book was intended to draw the\nfire of the enemy, clericalism, and it did. Nor did the philosophy of\nthe chair receive it any more favorably. It will be sufficient on this\npoint to quote the sharp criticism of Professor Friedrich Paulsen, of\nBerlin University, whose idealistic monism comes into direct contact\nwith Haeckel's materialistic monism:\n\n\"I have read this book with burning shame for the state of general\nculture and the philosophical culture of our people. That such a book\nwas possible, that it could be written, printed, sold, read, admired,\nbelieved by a people which claims a Kant, a Goethe, a Schopenhauer, is\npainful.\"\n\nIt is one of the curiosities of controversy that the Church should\noften be found defending with desperation, not her own positions, but\nsome of the old, abandoned redoubts of Science. This was largely the\ncase in the evolution controversy. The real \"origin of species\" was\nin the scientific mind. It was Science that discovered that all the\nmultifarious forms of plant and animal life could be classified into\ndistinct types, which, it too hastily assumed, were absolutely separate\nand fixed. When later Science came to revise that view, it discovered\nthat the immutability of species had somehow in the meantime become a\ntheological dogma, to be zealously defended by curates who could not\ntell a species from a genus.\n\nIt was the same in regard to the theory of spontaneous generation\nor the production of living beings from non-living matter. This was\nformerly good Christian doctrine, accepted by St. Augustine and taught\nby the medieval schoolmen, and when in 1674 the Italian physician,\nFrancisco Redi, showed that the maggots that appeared in dead matter\ncame from eggs, he was persecuted for unbelief. But it was still\nmaintained that microscopic living forms could arise spontaneously\nin bouillon and infusions of hay until Pasteur proved that this was\nfalse, for in sealed and sterilized tubes no trace of life appears.\nSuch negative experiments are, of course, not competent to prove that\nat some time and under other conditions life might not be produced from\nthe non-living. Yet, strangely enough, Haeckel's theological opponents\nvoluntarily adopted this untenable position and waged war against\nhim especially on account of his belief that when the earth's crust\ncooled down, compounds of cyanic acid were transformed into globules of\nalbumin, from which developed unicellular organisms.\n\nThe only alternative hypothesis to this which has been brought forward\nis the one advocated by Arrhenius, that the germs of life might have\nbeen brought from some other planet in meteorites or floating free\nin space and propelled by radiant energy. This is apparently not\nimpossible, but it seems a very violent assumption, much harder of\nacceptance than the other, that of abiogenesis. For the wall between\nthe organic and the inorganic has been broken down completely, and that\nbetween the living and non-living is being tunneled into from both\nsides. On the one hand we have been able to construct artificially such\ncomplex organic molecules as sugar and protein. On the other hand, it\nhas been found possible to produce in siliceous and metallic solutions\nmimic cells which grow, move, put forth pseudopodia, select their food,\npropagate by fission, and assume many of the characteristic forms of\nvegetable and animal life. In more than one laboratory experiments in\nthe generation of life are still being hopefully carried on, and an\nannouncement of their success at any time would not amaze biologists in\ngeneral. But even though abiogenesis should forever remain impossible\nas a laboratory experiment, it would not be untenable as a hypothesis\nof the origin of life under the exceptional conditions of some earlier\nstage in the world's history. Such a supposition, whether true or not,\nis at least no more irreligious than is a recognition of the fact that\nnon-living matter is being continuously transformed into living within\nour own bodies.\n\nThe volume invited attack because it was not only intentionally\nprovocative, but unintentionally vulnerable. One does not have to be\nvery learned in order to discover in it occasional errors as well as\nmany extravagant and questionable statements. The fact that few people\ncould treat of such a wide range of topics without making more mistakes\nthan Haeckel did not, of course, protect him from criticism. Huxley,\nwho enjoyed crossing swords with the clergy as much as Haeckel, was\nmore careful to guard himself from counter attack. If a discussion of\ndemonology led unexpectedly to the question of the exact status of the\ndistrict of Gadara in the Roman Empire, he was prepared to meet his\nopponents on that ground as well as in biology. Not so Haeckel. He\npicks up his church history from infidel pamphleteers[8] and recklessly\ncaricatures Christian beliefs. In attacking the dogma of the Immaculate\nConception of Mary he confuses it with that of the Virgin Birth of\nChrist, and at the same time uses language needlessly offensive to\nthose who regard the Mother of Jesus with adoration.[9]\n\nA more serious charge than ignorance of ecclesiastical history was\nlater brought against Haeckel by Doctor Brass, namely, that he had\nfabricated evidence in support of his theory of evolution by falsifying\nhis drawings of embryos, that he had, among other things, taken\naway vertebr\u00e6 from the tail of a monkey embryo and had extended the\nbackbone of a human embryo in order to enhance the resemblance. Since\naccuracy is the soul of science, this is as serious as it would be, for\ninstance, to charge a minister with preaching miracles when he does not\nbelieve in them. In his reply Haeckel acknowledged\n\n    that a small part of my numerous embryo pictures (perhaps\n    six or eight per cent) are actually \"falsified\" (in the\n    sense of Doctor Brass), all those in fact in which the\n    material at hand for observation was so incomplete or\n    unsatisfactory that one was forced to fill up the gaps\n    by hypothesis and to reconstruct the missing members by\n    comparative synthesis in order to produce a connected chain\n    of evolution.\n\nHaeckel emphatically denies any deception or misrepresentation, and\ncalls attention to the fact that such diagrammatic and reconstructed\ndrawings are common to all physiological works and are necessary to\nbring out the desired points. As to whether Haeckel has transgressed\nthe permissible limits of such schematization of material I should\nnot be competent to decide. Thirty-six German men of science signed a\ncondemnation of Haeckel; forty-seven German men of science, \"though\nthey did not like the kind of schematizing which Haeckel practiced in\nsome cases\", signed a condemnation of Brass and the Keplerbund. The\nnumbers have no significance, since majorities never decide anything\nexcept the balance of opinion, but the group that stood by Haeckel\ncontained more embryologists and zo\u00f6logists than the other.\n\nSo I will dismiss the subject by quoting the opinion of a biologist and\nevolutionist who is thoroughly appreciative of Haeckel's contributions\nto science. Professor V. L. Kellogg, of Stanford University, in\nreviewing the \"Evolution of Man\" in _Science_, says:\n\n\"Biologists are likely to be of two minds concerning the advisability\nof putting Haeckel's 'Evolution of Man' into the hands of the lay\nreader as a guide and counselor on this most important of evolution\nsubjects. Haeckel is such a proselytizer, such a scoffer and fighter\nof those who differ with him, that plain, 'unadorned statement of\nfacts and description of things as they are cannot be looked for in\nhis books. Or, if looked for, cannot be found. But this very eagerness\nto convince; this hoisting of a thesis, this fight for Haeckelian\nphylogeny and Haeckelian Monism, all make for interest and life in his\nwritings.\"\n\nThis whole affair is a striking illustration of Huxley's observation\nthat a controversy always shows an unfortunate tendency to slip from\nthe question of what is right to the relatively unimportant question\nof who is right. Haeckel's critics have rarely attempted to controvert\nhis scientific work and in fact would not in most cases be competent\nto discuss it. Even if he were guilty of all the mistakes alleged, it\nwould not materially affect his scientific conclusions.\n\nIn noting Haeckel's faults, we are in danger of failing to appreciate\nthe marvelous constructive genius of the man; the creative imagination\nwhich is characteristic of the great scientist even more than of the\ngreat poet. It was this gift that enabled him to discern in a handful\nof slime dredged up by the _Challenger_ from the depths of the sea\nan orderly system of living beings wherein each microscopic skeleton\nof silica found its natural niche. It was this power which enabled\nhim to assist so largely in the transformation of zo\u00f6logy from a\npurely observative and descriptive science, as it was when he began\nhis labors, to a rational, experimental, and prophetic science, as\nit was when he closed them. As Cuvier from a few bits of bone could\nconstruct a whole animal, so Haeckel from scattered species ventured\nto construct, as early as 1865, a family tree, including all living\nforms from monera to man. Faulty it is from the standpoint of our\npresent knowledge, but yet it must command our admiration because of\nthe insight he showed in perceiving natural relationships and the skill\nwith which he bridged the gaps in his living chain by hypothetical\nforms. Just as the great Russian chemist Mendel\u00e9ef was able to describe\nin advance elements then unknown, but which were discovered later\nand found to fit into the vacant places he had assigned to them in\nhis periodic law, so Haeckel's anticipations have been in many cases\nconfirmed by later science. It was his good fortune to be able to\nhold in his hand the skullcap and femur of the \"missing link\" which\nhad for years been the jest of the anti-evolutionists. The apeman, or\nPithecanthropus, which he had in 1885 described and named, was in 1894\ndiscovered by Dubois in Java. The mind of Haeckel has such high tension\nthat it leaps over the gaps in a demonstration like a ten thousand volt\ncurrent.\n\nHis account of how he was led to doubt the dogma of the immutability of\nspecies must be quoted because it is an excellent illustration of the\nwisdom of the laboratory adage: \"Study the exceptions. They prove some\nother rule.\"\n\n    The problem of the constancy or transmutation of species\n    arrested me with a lively interest, when, twenty years ago,\n    as a boy of twelve years, I made a resolute but fruitless\n    effort to determine and distinguish the \"good and bad\n    species\" of blackberries, willows, roses, and thistles.\n    I look back now with fond satisfaction on the concern\n    and painful skepticism that stirred my youthful spirits\n    as I wavered and hesitated (in the manner of most \"good\n    classifiers\", as we called them) whether to admit only\n    \"good\" specimens into my herbarium and reject the \"bad\",\n    or to embrace the latter and form a complete chain of\n    transitional forms between the \"good species\" that would\n    make an end of all their \"goodness.\" I got out of the\n    difficulty at the time by a compromise that I can recommend\n    to all classifiers. I made two collections. One, arranged\n    on official lines, offered to the sympathetic observer all\n    the species, in \"typical\" specimens, as radically distinct\n    forms, each decked with its pretty label; the other was a\n    private collection, only shown to one trusted friend, and\n    contained only the rejected kinds that Goethe so happily\n    called \"the characterless or disorderly races, which we\n    hardly dare ascribe to a species, as they lose themselves\n    in infinite varieties\", such as rubus, salix, verbascum,\n    hieracium, rosa, cirsium, etc. In this a large number of\n    specimens, arranged in a long series, illustrated the direct\n    transition from one good species to another. They were the\n    officially forbidden fruit of knowledge, in which I took a\n    secret boyish delight in my leisure hours.--B\u00f6lsche's \"Life\n    of Haeckel\", p. 38.\n\nErnst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel, to give him for once his full\nbaptismal name, was born in Potsdam, February 16, 1834. He has a double\ninheritance of talent, for both the Haeckels and the Sethes, his\nmother's family, have contributed prominent names to German history,\nand the two families have intermarried more than once. It is a curious\nfact that Gustav Freytag, in his series of \"Pictures from the German\nPast\", should have chosen for his representative men of the nineteenth\ncentury two of Haeckel's ancestors: his mother's father, Christopher\nSethe, Privy Councilor and defender of Prussia against Napoleon, and\nhis father, Karl Haeckel, State Councilor.\n\nBut Ernst did not follow the family tradition and take to the law. He\nshowed an unmistakable bent for natural science, so, as a compromise\nprofession, his father had him trained as a physician. He took the\nmedical course, and in obedience to his father's wishes consented to\npractice the profession for a year to see if he could make a success\nof it. During the year only three patients came to him, owing perhaps\nto the fact that Haeckel in order to get time for his biological\nresearches had fixed his consultation hours from five to six in the\nmorning. His father then gave up trying to make a doctor out of him and\nallowed him to go to Messina in 1859 to study marine animals. Haeckel\nstraightway became engaged to his cousin Anna Sethe, and as soon as he\ngot his appointment at Jena married her. Their happiness was brief.\nTwo years later she died, leaving Haeckel, then thirty, so stricken\nthat he felt that he could not long survive the blow, so he plunged\nwith feverish haste into the preparation of his \"General Morphology\" in\norder to leave to the world his science and philosophy in a systematic\nform. It was written and printed, two thick volumes of more than twelve\nhundred pages, in less than a year, during which Haeckel lived like a\nhermit, working all day long and half the night, getting barely three\nor four hours sleep out of the twenty-four.\n\nHaeckel immortalized his wife by giving her a living monument instead\nof one of marble or brass. He named for her one of his beloved medus\u00e6,\na fairy-like jellyfish, whose mass of long, trailing tentacles reminded\nhim of his wife's blond hair. The Mitrocoma Ann? is described in his\n\"Monograph on the Medus\u00e6\", published in 1864, and a note states that it\nwas so named[10]\n\n    in memory of my dear, never-to-be-forgotten wife, Anna\n    Sethe. If it is given to me to do something during my\n    earthly pilgrimage for science and humanity, I owe it for\n    the most part to the blessed influence of my gifted wife,\n    who was torn from me by a premature end in 1864.\n\nThree years afterwards he married again, Agnes Huschke, daughter of a\nJena anatomist. They have three children, two daughters and a son, who\nhas inherited his father's artistic talent and has devoted himself to\nart in Munich.\n\nHaeckel's \u00e6sthetic taste is shown not merely in the thousands of\npaintings and drawings that fill his monographs, but especially in\nhis \"Art Forms of Nature\", which consists of ten portfolios of large\ncolor plates depicting strange and beautiful creatures from all realms\nof animal life but particularly in little known lower forms, fishes,\ncrustaceans, corals, radiolaria, diatoms, and desmids. Here are to\nbe seen real gargoyles, more grotesque than a sculptor's unaided\nimagination can create. Here the designer and decorator can find\nhundreds of suggestive themes for almost any purpose, so they have no\nexcuse for repeating the trite and traditional forms as they do.\n\nA large part of these \"art forms\" Haeckel discovered in the course\nof his investigations of deep-sea life on the material gathered by\nthe _Challenger,_ which was commissioned by the British Government\nin 1872-1875 to explore the ocean. The results of this expedition,\npublished in fifty large volumes, constituted the greatest contribution\nto oceanography that has ever been made. Haeckel contributed the\nvolumes on the medus\u00e6, the siphonophora, the keratosa, and the\nradiolaria. To the radiolaria Haeckel devoted ten years, 1877-1887, and\ndescribed 4318 species and 739 genera, from the curiously complicated\nsiliceous skeletons deposited on the bottom of the ocean by these\nminute one-celled creatures.\n\nAlthough Haeckel's life was largely devoted to the closest study of the\nminutest forms of life, yet he never lost sight of the broader aspects\nof his science. It seems as though he felt the need of resting his eyes\nby raising them from the microscope and looking out of the window to\nfocus on infinity. Haeckel is essentially a specialist with a fondness\nfor generalization. He welcomed the change in the current of thought\nthat set in at the close of the nineteenth century, the effort of the\nnew century to get at the inner meaning of the mass of miscellaneous\nfacts that the old century had heaped up. It was with intent to assist\nin this movement that he produced, at the age of sixty-five, his\n\"Riddle of the Universe\", intending this to be the final expression of\nhis view of the world, a fragmentary sketch instead of the complete\n\"System of Monistic Philosophy\" which he had projected many years\nago and could not now hope to complete. But five years later he\nsupplemented this with a similar popular volume, \"The Wonders of Life\",\nin which he replies to certain criticisms and explains the biological\nprinciples on which his philosophy is based. This, unlike the \"Riddle\",\nwas not composed at various intervals in the course of many years, but\nwas written uninterruptedly during four months spent at Rapallo, on the\nItalian Riviera, when he was\n\n    stimulated by the constant sight of the blue Mediterranean,\n    the countless inhabitants of which had, for fifty years,\n    afforded such ample material for my biological studies;\n    and my solitary walks in the wild gorges of the Ligurian\n    Apennines and the moving spectacle of its forest-crowned\n    altars, inspired me with a feeling of the unity of living\n    nature--a feeling that only too easily fades away in the\n    study of detail in the laboratory.\n\nProfessor Haeckel retired from active service as teacher and\ninvestigator in 1909 at the age of seventy-five. \"Indeed I am wholly\na child of the nineteenth century and with its close I draw the line\nunder my life's work,\" he said, and the publication of \"The Wonders of\nLife\" in 1904 confirms rather than contradicts this, for it shows that\nhe maintains his position altogether unshaken by the revolution that\nhas taken place in philosophic thought. Like Herbert Spencer he lived\nto see a reaction against many of the opinions for which he fought most\nearnestly.\n\nThe nineteenth century was cocksure of so many things about which the\ntwentieth century doubts. We are not so certain that, as Haeckel says,\neverything can be reduced to the motion of the atoms. The atom itself\nis crumbling, and as for motion, what is it? The ether in the reality\nof which Haeckel puts implicit faith is to us a doubtful, perhaps an\nunnecessary, hypothesis. Vitalism and teleology are coming back again\ninto biology in new forms. Pluralism, not monism, is the fashion of\nthe day, and some carry it almost to polytheism. Indeterminism finds\nmore advocates nowadays than determinism. Haeckel makes the first law\nof thermodynamics (conservation of energy) one of the corner stones of\nhis philosophy, but has little regard for the second (degradation of\nenergy). Modern thought considers the second law more important than\nthe first.[11]\n\nAnd what shall we say about the \"Law of Substance\", which is Haeckel's\ncontribution to the fundamental principles and which he apparently\nregards as of equal importance to the discoveries of Lavoisier and\nMayer?[12] Speaking for myself, the reason I cannot accept it is\nbecause it is absolutely meaningless to me. We know what the law of the\nconservation of matter means. It means, among other things, that 12\npounds of carbon when burned make 44 pounds of carbon dioxid, which we\nmay decompose and get back 12 pounds of carbon again. The law of the\nconservation of energy means, among other things, that when we burn 12\npounds of carbon we produce 135,305,600 foot pounds of energy. But what\ndoes it mean when we say that matter and energy, or body and spirit,\nare somehow the same substance? Have we said more than when we affirmed\nthe two laws separately? Even if true, does it make a bit of difference\nto anybody or anything; or to put the query into the pragmatic form,\ncan it be true if it does not make a bit of difference to anybody or\nanything? But we must bear in mind that the rigid application of this\nformula to many historic attempts to solve the \"riddle of the universe\"\nwould leave less of them intact than in the case of Haeckel.\n\nThe Christian reader is likely, in his irritation at what appears to\nhim to be willful misrepresentation of his beliefs, to be too sweeping\nin his condemnation of the ideas of Haeckel. Even in the matter of\nreligion Haeckel is not nearly so heretical as he assumes or is\npresumed to be. Many of the things he attacks are almost unrecognizable\ncaricatures of modern religious views. It should be remembered that\nthe \"Riddle\" and the \"Wonders\" were written at a time when he saw\nthe German Government coming under the domination of the Blue-Black\nBlock, and when it seemed to him that this coalition of conservatives\nand clericals threatened to suppress free speech and to check the\nadvance of science. In his earlier writings his views are expressed\nin much more conciliatory language. Indeed, his pantheism is hardly\ndistinguishable at times from theories of divine immanence such as are\nnow held very commonly in orthodox churches. Wherein lies the magic of\nthe word \"Monism\" if not in our ingrained prejudice in favor of unity,\ninherited from the fierce monotheism of the Jews? Is not Haeckel then\nborrowing the thunders of Sinai to enforce his new religion?\n\nHis \"General Morphology\" of 1866, which, as he told me, he prefers to\nhis later works as an expression of his philosophy, concludes with the\nfollowing passage:\n\n    Our philosophy knows only one God, and this Almighty God\n    dominates the whole of nature without exception. We see his\n    activity in all phenomena without exception. The whole of\n    the inorganic world is subject to him just as much as the\n    organic. If a body falls fifteen feet in the first second in\n    empty space, if three atoms of oxygen unite with one atom of\n    sulphur to form sulphuric acid, if the angle that is formed\n    by the contiguous surfaces of a column of rock-crystal is\n    always 120\u00b0, these phenomena are just as truly the direct\n    action of God as the flowering of the plant, the movement\n    of the animal, or the thought of man. We all exist \"by\n    the grace of God\", the stone as well as the water, the\n    radiolarian as well as the pine, the gorilla as well as the\n    Emperor of China. No other conception of God except this\n    that sees his spirit and force in all natural phenomena is\n    worthy of his all-enfolding greatness; only when we trace\n    all forces and all movements, all the forms and properties\n    of matter, to God, as the sustainer of all things, do we\n    reach the human idea and reverence for him that really\n    corresponds to his infinite greatness. In him we live, and\n    move, and have our being. Thus does natural philosophy\n    become a theology. The cult of nature passes into that\n    service of God of which Goethe says: \"Assuredly there is no\n    nobler reverence for God than that which springs up in our\n    heart for conversation with nature.\" God is almighty: he is\n    the sole sustainer and cause of all things. In other words,\n    God is the universal law of causality. God is absolutely\n    perfect; he cannot act in any other than a perfectly good\n    manner; he cannot therefore act arbitrarily or freely--God\n    is necessity. God is the sum of all force, and therefore\n    of all matter. Every conception of God that separates him\n    from matter, and opposes to him a sum of forces that are\n    not of a divine nature, leads to amphitheism (or ditheism)\n    and on to polytheism. In showing the unity of the whole of\n    nature, Monism points out that only one God exists, and that\n    this God reveals himself in all the phenomena of nature. In\n    grounding all the phenomena of organic or inorganic nature\n    on the universal law of causality, and exhibiting them as\n    the outcome of \"efficient causes\", Monism proves that God\n    is the necessary cause of all things and the law itself. In\n    recognizing none but divine forces in nature, in proclaiming\n    all natural laws to be divine, Monism rises to the greatest\n    and most lofty conception of which man, the most perfect of\n    all things, is capable, the conception of the unity of God\n    and nature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHOW TO READ HAECKEL\n\n\"The Riddle of the Universe\" (Harper) is the best popular presentation\nof science and philosophy from Haeckel's point of view. This may be\nsupplemented by \"The Wonders of Life\" (Harper), in which he develops\nmore fully the biological side and defends himself against certain\ncriticisms. To these should be added the very interesting life of\nHaeckel by W. B\u00f6lsche (Jacobs). Cheap editions of these three are\npublished by the Rationalist Press Association, London. They, as well\nas other works of Haeckel, are translated by Joseph McCabe.\n\n\"The Natural History of Creation\" (Appleton) and \"The Evolution of\nMan\" (Appleton or Putnam) are both intended to explain in a way\ncomprehensible to the general reader the fundamental principles of\nthe theory of evolution and the biological facts on which it is\nbased. Special addresses by Haeckel are translated under the titles\nof: \"Monism as Connecting Religion and Science\" (Macmillan) and \"Last\nWords on Evolution\" (New York). Of his \"Indische Reisebilder\" there are\ntwo versions in English; one by Mrs. S. E. Boggs entitled \"India and\nCeylon\", which is neither literal nor complete, and one by Clara Bell,\n\"A Visit to Ceylon\" (Eckler), which is better. On the personal side may\nbe read Herman Schauffauer's sketches, \"Haeckel, a Colossus of Science\"\n(_North American Review_, August, 1910), and \"A Talk with Haeckel at\nHome\", in _T. P.'s Magazine_, 1912; Elbert Hubbard's \"Little Journeys\nto the Homes of Great Scientists\", and Joseph McCabe's \"A Scientist's\nSunset Years\", in _Harper's Weekly,_ August 7, 1909. A few of the more\nnoteworthy of the books and articles on Haeckelism in English are:\n\"Life and Matter\", by Sir Oliver Lodge, a criticism from the standpoint\nof a spiritualist; the discussion between Lodge and McCabe in _Hibbert\nJournal_, Vol. Ill, pp. 315 and 741; \"The World View of a Scientist\",\nby Frank Thilly in _Popular Science Monthly,_ Vol. LXI, pp. 407-425;\n\"Ernst Haeckel, Darwinist, Monist\", by V. L. Kellogg, in _Popular\nScience Monthly_, _Vol._ LXXVI, pp. 136-142; \"Haeckel and Monism\", by\nJ. Butler Burke, in _Oxford and Cambridge Review_, 1907; \"Lucretius and\nHaeckel\", by F. B. R. Hellems, in \"University of Colorado Studies\",\nVol. Ill, 1905; \"Religion as a Credible Doctrine\", by W. H. Mallock;\n\"Haeckel's Monism False\", by Reverend F. Ballard; \"The Old Riddle and\nthe Newest Answer\", by Father Gerard; \"Haeckel's Critics Answered\", by\nJoseph McCabe (London: Rationalist Press); \"Haeckel's Answer to the\nJesuits\" (New York: _Truthseeker_); \"Haeckel and His Methods\", by R.\nL. Mangan, in the _Catholic World_, May, 1909. The monism of Doctor\nPaul Cams, of Chicago, is a different variety from Haeckel's as he has\npointed out in the Monist, Vol. II, p. 498; Vol. IV, p. 228; and Vol.\nXVI, p. 120.\n\nOf the immense body of literature in German on Haeckel it is impossible\nto give more than a few selected titles. The bibliography appended to\n\"Ernst Haeckel: Versuch einer Chronik seines Lebens und Wirkens\" by\nWalther May (Leipzig: Barth, 1909) devotes fourteen pages to the titles\nof Haeckel's writings, four pages to a list of biographical books and\nsketches, and thirteen pages to a list of criticisms and discussions of\nHaeckelism.\n\n\"Die Weltr\u00e4tsel\" and \"Die Lebenswunder\" are published by Alfred Kr\u00f6ner,\nLeipzig. The epitome of Haeckel's philosophy, which is given almost\nentire in the preceding pages, is to be found in \"Der Monistenbund\",\n_Thesen zur Organisation des Monismus_ (Neuer Frankfurter Verlag).\nOther works of Haeckel of a general and philosophical character are:\n\"Nat\u00fcrliche Sch\u00f6pfungs-Geschichte\" (Berlin: Reimer); \"Anthropogenic\noder Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschens\" (Leipzig: Engelmann);\n\"Generalle Morphologie der Organismen\" (Reimer); \"Systematische\nPhylogenie\" (Reimer); \"Der Kampf um den Entwickelungs-Gedanken\"\n(Reimer); \"Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft\"\n(Kr\u00f6ner); \"Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre\", the reply to Virchow\n(Kr\u00f6ner); \"Das Weltbild von Darwin und Lamarck\", the centenary address\non Darwin's, birthday (Kr\u00f6ner).\n\nHaeckel's travel sketches are to be found in \"Indische Reisebriefe\"\n(Berlin: Paetel) and \"Aus Insulinde\" (Kr\u00f6ner). Even one who reads no\nGerman will find enjoyment and gain an appreciation of the artistic\nside of Haeckel by looking over the color plates in \"Kunstformen der\nNatur\" (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut) or \"Wanderbilder\" (Gera:\nK\u00f6hler).\n\nA remarkable tribute of world-wide affection is the volume issued on\nhis eightieth birthday, \"Was wir Ernst Haeckel verdanken\" (Leipzig:\nVerlag Unesma), to which one hundred and twenty-five men and women\ncontributed,--savants, artists, workingmen, officials, and businessmen.\n\nThe monistic movement may be followed by the pamphlets of the society\nwhich may be obtained ordinarily from the Verlag Unesma, Leipzig.\nSome of the more interesting of these _Flugschriften_ are: \"Friedrich\nPaulsen \u00fcber Ernst Haeckel\", by Albrecht Rau; \"Reinke contra\nHaeckel\", by Heinrich Schmidt; \"Eine neue Reformation vom Christentum\nzum Monismus\", by Hannah Dorsch and Arnold Dodel; \"Monismus und\nChristentum\", by Heinrich Schmidt; \"Monismus und Klerikalismus\", by J.\nUnold; \"Das Einheit der physikochemischen Wissenschaften\", by Wilhelm\nOstwald; \"Die einheitliche Weltanschauung\", by Ernst Diesing: this last\nurges the Monists to support the peace and conservation movements.\nThe official organ is _Das monistische Jahrhundert_, a weekly edited\nby Ostwald and published by the Verlag Unesma, Leipzig. The issue for\nFebruary 14, 1914, is, in honor of his eightieth birthday, devoted to\nHaeckel. For the history of monistic philosophy in general from the\nGreeks to the present time see \"Der Monismus\", by various authors,\nunder the editorship of Arthur Drews (Jena: Diederich, 1908) or\n\"Geschichte des Monismus\", by Rudolf Eisler (Leipzig: Kr\u00f6ner).\n\nOf the expository and controversial literature, pro and con, it must\nsuffice to mention the following titles: \"Die Weltanschauung Haeckel\",\nby Max Upel (Berlin-Schoenberg; Buchverlag der Hilfe), a brief and\nfairminded critique; \"Ernst Haeckel, ein Bild seines Lebens und\nseiner Arbeit\", by Wilhelm Breitenbach (Brackwede i. W.: Verlag von\nBreitenbach & Hoerster), a tribute to the master on his seventieth\nbirthday; \"Haeckel's Weltr\u00e4thsel nach ihren starken und ihren schwachen\nSeite\", by Julius Baumann (Leipzig: Diederich, 1900); \"Anti-Haeckel\",\nby F. Loofs, Professor of Theology in Halle; \"Philosophia Militans\" by\nF. Paulsen, Professor of Philosophy in Berlin. A good account of the\nHaeckel-Paulsen controversy by Theodor Lorenz may be found in _Deutsche\nLiteraturzeitung_, March 12, 1910, and later.\n\n\n[1] An undergraduate friend of mine to whom I referred these verses for\ntranslation into the vernacular of the campus gives me this version:\n\n\n    Who knows the truth and speaks not out\n    He is indeed a sorry lout!\n    Who knows the truth and speaks too loose\n    In Berlin gets in the calaboose!\n\n\n\n[2] This is _not_ to be translated, as I once heard a student give it,\n\"Haeckel's one-sided showing-up of the universe.\"\n\n[3] \"Thesen zur Organization des Monism.\"\n\n[4] \"Riddle of the Universe\", p. 363.\n\n[5] \"Wonders of Life\", p. 430.\n\n[6] _Ibid._, p. 248.\n\n[7] \"Wonders of Life\", pp. 115 and 119.\n\n[8] President Thomas, of Middlebury College, exposed the source of his\ntheory that the father of Christ was a Roman officer named Pandera in\n_The Independent_, Vol. 64, p. 515.\n\n[9] Some of the more offensive of these passages are modified or\neliminated in the later editions of \"Die Weltr\u00e4tsel.\"\n\n[10] Another medusa also named for his wife, Demomema Annasethe,\nwill be found on one of the color plates of the New International\nEncyclopedia (Vol. XII, p. 68).\n\n[11] The significance of this change of emphasis in its bearing on\nmetaphysical, religious, and ethical ideas I endeavored to explain in\nthe preceding chapter.\n\n[12] See Number 20 of the thirty theses given above.","title":"Major Prophets of To-Day","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":68715}