{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9199/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9199","id":"gutenberg_9199","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9199","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Science - Biology","Category: Science - Physics","Monism","Religion and science"],"text":"Produced by Lee Dawei, Thomas Berger and Distributed Proofreaders\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMONISM AS CONNECTING RELIGION AND SCIENCE\n\n_A MAN OF SCIENCE_\n\n\nBy Ernst Haeckel\n\n\nTranslated From The German By J. Gilchrist, M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe following lecture on Monism is an informal address delivered\nextemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth\nanniversary of the \"Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes.\" The\nimmediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor\nSchlesinger of Vienna on \"Scientific Articles of Faith.\" This\nphilosophical discourse contained, with reference to the weightiest and\nmost important problems of scientific investigation, much that was\nindisputable; but it also contained some assertions that challenged\nimmediate rejoinder and a statement of the opposite view. As I had for\nthirty years been very closely occupied with these problems of the\nphilosophy of nature, and had set forth my convictions with respect to\nthem in a number of writings, a wish was expressed by several members of\nthe Congress that on this occasion I should give a summary account of\nthese. It was in compliance with this wish that the following \"Scientific\nConfession of Faith\" was uttered. The substance of it, as written from\nrecollection on the day after its delivery, first appeared in the\n_Altenburger Zeitung of_ 19th October 1892. This was reproduced, with one\nor two philosophical additions, in the November number _of_ the _Freie\nB\u00fchne f\u00fcr den Entwickelungskampf der Zeit_ (Berlin). In its present form\nthe Altenburg address is considerably enlarged, and some parts have been\nmore fully worked out. In the notes (p. 9 I) several burning questions of\nthe present day _have_ been dealt with from the monistic point of view.\n\nThe purpose of this candid confession of monistic faith is twofold.\nFirst, it is my desire to give expression to that rational view of the\nworld which is being forced upon us with such logical rigour by the\nmodern advancements in our knowledge of nature as a unity, a view in\nreality held by almost all unprejudiced and thinking men of science,\nalthough but few have the courage (or the need) to declare it openly.\nSecondly, I would fain establish thereby a bond between religion and\nscience, and thus contribute to the adjustment of the antithesis so\nneedlessly maintained between these, the two highest spheres in which the\nmind of man can exercise itself; in monism the ethical demands of the\nsoul are satisfied, as well as the logical necessities of the\nunderstanding.\n\nThe rising flood of pamphlets and books published on this subject,\ndemonstrates that such a natural union of faith and knowledge, such a\nreasonable reconciliation of the feelings and the reason, are daily\nbecoming a more pressing necessity for the educated classes. In North\nAmerica (in Chicago), there has been published for several years a weekly\njournal devoted to this purpose: _The Open Court: A Weekly Journal\ndevoted to the Work of Conciliating Religion and Science_. Its worthy\neditor, Dr. Paul Carus (author of _The Soul of Man_, 1891), devotes also\nto the same task a quarterly journal under the title _The Monist_. It is\nin the highest degree desirable that so worthy endeavours to draw\ntogether the empirical and speculative views of nature, realism and\nidealism, should have more attention and encouragement than they have\nhitherto received, for it is only through a natural union of the two that\nwe can approach a realisation of the highest aim of mental activity-the\nblending of religion and science in monism.\n\nERNST HAECKEL. JENA, _October_ 31, 1892\n\n\n\n\nMONISM\n\nA society for investigating nature and ascertaining truth cannot\ncelebrate its commemoration day more fittingly than by a discussion of\nits highest general problems. It must be regarded, therefore, with\nsatisfaction that the speaker on such an august occasion as this--the\nseventy-fifth anniversary of your Society--has selected as the subject of\nhis address a theme of the highest general importance. Unfortunately, it\nis becoming more and more the custom on such occasions, and even at the\ngeneral meetings of the great \"Association of German Naturalists and\nPhysicians,\" to take the subject of address from a narrow and specialised\nterritory of restricted interest. If this growing custom is to be excused\non the grounds of increasing division of labour and of diverging\nspecialisation in all departments of work, it becomes all the more\nnecessary that, on such anniversaries as the present, the attention of\nthe audience should be invited to larger matters of common interest.\n\nSuch a topic, supreme in its importance, is that concerning \"Scientific\nArticles of Faith,\" upon which Professor Schlesinger has already\nexpounded his views.[1] I am glad to be able to agree with him in many\nimportant points, but as to others I should like to express some\nhesitation, and to ask consideration for some views which do not coincide\nwith his. At the outset, I am entirely at one with him as to that\nunifying conception of nature as a whole which we designate in a single\nword as Monism. By this we unambiguously express our conviction that\nthere lives \"one spirit in all things,\" and that the whole cognisable\nworld is constituted, and has been developed, in accordance with one\ncommon fundamental law. We emphasise by it, in particular, the essential\nunity of inorganic and organic nature, the latter having been evolved\nfrom the former only at a relatively late period.[2] We cannot draw a\nsharp line of distinction between these two great divisions of nature,\nany more than we can recognise an absolute distinction between the animal\nand the vegetable kingdom, or between the lower animals and man.\nSimilarly, we regard the whole of human knowledge as a structural unity;\nin this sphere we refuse to accept the distinction usually drawn between\nthe natural and the spiritual. The latter is only a part of the former\n(or _vice versa_); both are one. Our monistic view of the world belongs,\ntherefore, to that group of philosophical systems which from other points\nof view have been designated also as mechanical or as pantheistic.\nHowever differently expressed in the philosophical systems of an\nEmpedocles or a Lucretius, a Spinoza or a Giordano Bruno, a Lamarck or a\nDavid Strauss, the fundamental thought common to them all is ever that of\nthe oneness of the cosmos, of the indissoluble connection between energy\nand matter, between mind and embodiment--or, as we may also say, between\nGod and the world--to which Goethe, Germany's greatest poet and thinker,\nhas given poetical expression in his _Faust_ and in the wonderful series\nof poems entitled _Gott und Welt_.\n\nThat we may rightly appreciate what this Monism is, let us now, from a\nphilosophico-historical point of view cast a comprehensive glance over\nthe development in time of man's knowledge of nature. A long series of\nvaried conceptions and stages of human culture here passes before our\nmental vision. At the lowest stage, the rude--we may say animal--phase of\nprehistoric primitive man, is the \"ape-man,\" who, in the course of the\ntertiary period, has only to a limited degree raised himself above his\nimmediate pithecoid ancestors, the anthropoid apes. Next come successive\nstages of the lowest and simplest kind of culture, such as only the\nrudest of still existing primitive peoples enable us in some measure to\nconceive. These \"savages\" are succeeded by peoples of a low civilisation,\nand from these again, by a long series of intermediate steps, we rise\nlittle by little to the more highly civilised nations. To these alone--of\nthe twelve races of mankind only to the Mediterranean and Mongolian--are\nwe indebted for what is usually called \"universal history.\" This last,\nextending over somewhat less than six thousand years, represents a period\nof infinitesimal duration in the long millions of years of the organic\nworld's development.\n\nNeither of the primitive men we have spoken of, nor of those who\nimmediately succeeded them, can we rightly predicate any knowledge of\nnature. The rude primitive child of nature at this lowest stage of\ndevelopment is as yet far from being the restless _Ursachenthier_\n(cause-seeking animal) of Lichtenberg; his demand for causes has not yet\nrisen above that of apes and dogs; his curiosity has not yet mounted to\npure desire of knowledge. If we must speak of \"reason\" in connection with\npithecoid primitive man, it can only be in the same sense as that in\nwhich we use the expression with reference to those other most highly\ndeveloped Mammals, and the same remark holds true of the first beginnings\nof religion.[3]\n\nIt is indeed still not infrequently the custom to deny absolutely to the\nlower animals reason and religion. An unprejudiced comparison, however,\nconvinces us that this is wrong. The slow and gradual process towards\ncompleteness which, in the course of thousands of years, civilised life\nhas been working in the soul of man, has not passed away without leaving\nsome trace on the soul of our highest domestic animals also (above all,\nof dogs and horses). Constant association with man, and the steady\ninfluence of his training, have gradually, and by heredity, developed in\ntheir brain higher associations of ideas and a more perfect judgment.\nDrill has become instinct, an undeniable example of \"the transmission of\nacquired characters.\"[4]\n\nComparative psychology teaches us to recognise a very long series of\nsuccessive steps in the development of soul in the animal kingdom. But it\nis only in the most highly developed vertebrates-birds and mammals--that\nwe discern the first beginnings of reason, the first traces of religious\nand ethical conduct. In them we find not only the social virtues common\nto all the higher socially-living animals,--neighbourly love, friendship,\nfidelity, self-sacrifice, etc.,--but also consciousness, sense of duty,\nand conscience; in relation to man their lord, the same obedience, the\nsame submissiveness, and the same craving for protection, which primitive\nman in his turn shows towards his \"gods.\" But in him, as in them, there\nis yet wanting that higher degree of consciousness and of reason, which\nstrives after a _knowledge_ of the surrounding world, and which marks the\nfirst beginning of philosophy or \"wisdom.\" This last is the much later\nattainment of civilised races; slowly and gradually has it been built up\nfrom lower religious conceptions.\n\nAt all stages of primitive religion and early philosophy, man is as yet\nfar removed from monistic ideas. In searching out the causes of\nphenomena, and exercising his understanding thereon, he is in the first\ninstance prone in every case to regard personal beings--in fact,\nanthropomorphic deities--as the agents at work. In thunder and lightning,\nin storm and earthquake, in the circling of sun and moon, in every\nstriking meteorological and geological occurrence, he sees the direct\nactivity of a personal god or spirit, who is usually thought of in a more\nor less anthropomorphic way. Gods are distinguished as good and bad,\nfriendly and hostile, preserving and destroying, angels and devils.\n\nThis becomes true in a yet higher degree when the advancing pursuit of\nknowledge begins to take into consideration the more complicated\nphenomena of organic life also, the appearance and disappearance of\nplants and animals, the life and death of man. The constitution of\norganised life, so suggestive as it is of art and purpose, leads one at\nonce to compare it with the deliberately designed works of man, and thus\nthe vague conception of a personal god becomes transformed into that of a\ncreator working according to plan. As we know, this conception of organic\ncreation as the artistic work of an anthropomorphic god--of a divine\nmechanic--generally maintained its ground almost everywhere, down even to\nthe middle of our own century, in spite of the fact that eminent thinkers\nhad demonstrated its untenability more than two thousand years ago. The\nlast noteworthy scientist to defend and apply this idea was Louis Agassiz\n(died 1873). His notable _Essay on Classification_, 1857, developed that\ntheosophy with logical vigour, and thereby reduced it to an absurdity.[5]\n\nAll these older religious and teleological conceptions, as well as the\nphilosophical systems (such as those of Plato and of the Church fathers)\nwhich sprang from them, are antimonistic; they stand in direct antithesis\nto our monistic philosophy of nature. Most of them are dualistic,\nregarding God and the world, creator and creature, spirit and matter, as\ntwo completely separated substances. We find this express dualism also in\nmost of the purer church-religions, especially in the three most\nimportant forms of monotheism which the three most renowned prophets of\nthe eastern Mediterranean--Moses, Christ, and Mohammed--founded. But\nsoon, in a number of impure varieties of these three religions, and yet\nmore in the lower forms of paganism, the place of this dualism is taken\nby a philosophical pluralism, and over against the good and\nworld-sustaining deity (Osiris, Ormuzd, Vishnu), there is placed a wicked\nand destroying god (Typhon, Ahriman, Siva). Numerous demi-gods or saints,\ngood and bad, sons and daughters of the gods, are associated with these\ntwo chief deities, and take part with them in the administration and\ngovernment of the cosmos.\n\nIn all these dualistic and pluralistic systems the fundamental idea is\nthat of anthropomorphism, or the humanising of God; man himself, as\ngodlike (or directly descended from God), occupies a special position in\nthe world, and is separated by a great gulf from the rest of nature.\nConjoined with this, for the most part, is the anthropocentric idea, the\nconviction that man is the central point of the universe, the last and\nhighest final cause of creation, and that the rest of nature was created\nmerely for the purpose of serving man. In the Middle Ages there was\nassociated at the same time with this last conception the geocentric\nidea, according to which the earth as the abode of man was taken for the\nfixed middle point of the universe, round which sun, moon, and stars\nrevolve. As Copernicus (1543) gave the death-blow to the geocentric\ndogma, so did Darwin (1859) to the anthropocentric one closely associated\nwith it.[6] A broad historical and critical comparison of religious and\nphilosophical systems, as a whole, leads as a main result to the\nconclusion that every great advance in the direction of profounder\nknowledge has meant a breaking away from the traditional dualism (or\npluralism) and an approach to monism. Ever more clearly are we compelled\nby reflection to recognise that God is not to be placed over against the\nmaterial world as an external being, but must be placed as a \"divine\npower\" or \"moving spirit\" within the cosmos itself. Ever clearer does it\nbecome that all the wonderful phenomena of nature around us, organic as\nwell as inorganic, are only various products of one and the same original\nforce, various combinations of one and the same primitive matter. Ever\nmore irresistibly is it borne in upon us that even the human soul is but\nan insignificant part of the all-embracing \"world-soul\"; just as the\nhuman body is only a small individual fraction of the great organised\nphysical world.\n\nThe great general principles of theoretical physics and chemistry are now\nin a position to afford to this unifying conception of nature an exact,\nto a certain extent, indeed, a mathematical confirmation. In establishing\nthe law of the \"conservation of energy,\" Robert Mayer and Helmholtz\nshowed that the energy of the universe is a constant unchangeable\nmagnitude; if any energy whatever seems to vanish or to come anew into\nplay, this is only due to the transformation of one form of energy into\nanother. In the same way Lavoisier's law of the \"conservation of matter\"\nshows us that the material of the cosmos is a constant unchangeable\nmagnitude; if any body seems to vanish (as, for example, by burning), or\nto come anew into being (as, for example, by crystallisation), this also\nis simply due to change of form or of combination. Both these great\nlaws--in physics, the fundamental law of the conservation of energy, and\nin chemistry, of the conservation of matter--may be brought under one\nphilosophical conception as the law of the conservation of substance;\nfor, according to our monistic conception, energy and matter are\ninseparable, being only different inalienable manifestations of one\nsingle universal being-substance.[7] In a certain sense we can regard the\nconception of \"animated atoms\" as essentially partaking of the nature of\nthis pure monism--a very ancient idea which more than two thousand years\nago Empedocles enunciated in his doctrine of \"hate and love of the\nelements.\" Modern physics and chemistry have indeed in the main accepted\nthe atomic hypothesis first enunciated by Democritus, in so far as they\nregard all bodies as built up of atoms, and reduce all changes to\nmovements of these minutest-discrete particles. All these changes,\nhowever, in organic as well as in inorganic nature, become truly\nintelligible to us only if we conceive these atoms not as dead masses,\nbut as living elementary particles endowed with the power of attraction\nand repulsion. \"Pleasure\" and \"pain,\" and \"love\" and \"hate,\" as\npredicates of atoms are only other expressions for this power of\nattraction and repulsion.\n\nAlthough, however, monism is on the one hand for us an indispensable and\nfundamental conception in science, and although, on the other hand, it\nstrives to carry back all phenomena, without exception, to the mechanism\nof the atom, we must nevertheless still admit that as yet we are by no\nmeans in a position to form any satisfactory conception of the exact\nnature of these atoms, and their relation to the general space-filling,\nuniversal ether. Chemistry long ago succeeded in reducing all the various\nnatural substances to combinations of a relatively small number of\nelements; and the most recent advances of that science have now made it\nin the highest degree probable that these elements or the (as yet)\nirreducible primitive materials are themselves in turn only different\ncombinations of a varying number of atoms of one single original element.\nBut in all this we have not as yet obtained any further light as to the\nreal nature of these original atoms or their primal energies.\n\nA number of the acutest thinkers have, so far in vain, endeavoured to\ngrapple more closely with this fundamental problem of the philosophy of\nnature, and to determine more exactly the nature of atoms as well as\ntheir relation to the space-filling ether. And the idea steadily gains\nground that no such thing as empty space exists, and that everywhere the\nprimitive atoms of ponderable matter or heavy \"mass\" are separated from\neach other by the homogeneous ether which extends throughout all space.\nThis extremely light and attenuated (if not imponderable) ether causes,\nby its vibrations, all the phenomena of light and heat, electricity and\nmagnetism. We can imagine it either as a continuous substance occupying\nthe space between the mass-atoms, or as composed of separate particles;\nin the latter case we might perhaps attribute to these ether-atoms an\ninherent power of repulsion in contrast to the immanent attracting power\nof the heavy mass-atoms, and the whole mechanism of cosmic life would\nthen be reducible to the attraction of the latter and the repulsion of\nthe former. We might also place the \"vibrations of the cosmic ether\"\nalongside of the \"operation of space in general,\" in the sense in which\nthese words are used by Professor Schlesinger.\n\nAt any rate, theoretical physics has in recent years made an advance of\nfundamental importance and widest reach in our knowledge of nature, in\nthat it has come nearer to a knowledge of this cosmic ether, and has\nforced the question of its essence, its structure, and its motion into\nthe foreground of monistic nature-philosophy. Only a few years ago the\ncosmic ether was to the majority of scientists an imponderable something,\nof which, strictly speaking, absolutely nothing was known, and which\ncould be admitted provisionally only as a precarious working hypothesis.\nAll this was changed when Heinrich Hertz (1888) demonstrated the nature\nof electrical energy, by his beautiful experiments establishing the\nconjecture of Faraday that light and heat, electricity and magnetism, are\nclosely related phenomena of one single set of forces, and depend on\ntransverse vibrations of the ether. Light itself--whatever else it be--is\nalways and everywhere an electrical phenomenon. The ether itself is no\nlonger hypothetical; its existence can at any moment be demonstrated by\nelectrical and optical experiment. We know the length of the light wave\nand the electric wave. Indeed, some physicists believe that they can even\ndetermine approximately the density of ether. If by means of the airpump\nwe remove from a bell-jar the atmospheric air (except an insignificant\nresidue), the quantity of light within it remains unchanged; it is the\nvibrating ether we see.[9] These advances in our knowledge of the ether\nmean an immense gain for monistic philosophy. For they do away with the\nerroneous ideas of empty space and _actio in distans_; the whole of\ninfinite space, in so far as it is not occupied by mass-atoms\n(\"ponderable matter\"), is filled by the ether. Our ideas of space and\ntime are quite other than those taught by Kant a hundred years ago; the\n\"critical\" system of the great Koenigsberg philosopher exhibits in this\nrespect, as well as in his teleological view of the organic world and in\nhis metaphysics, dogmatic weaknesses of the most pronounced kind.[8] And\nreligion itself, in its reasonable forms, can take over the ether theory\nas an article of faith, bringing into contradistinction the mobile cosmic\nether as creating divinity, and the inert heavy mass as material of\ncreation.[11] From this successfully scaled height of monistic knowledge\nthere open up before our joyously quickened spirit of research and\ndiscovery new and surprising prospects, which promise to bring us still\nnearer to the solution of the one great riddle of the world. What is the\nrelation of this light mobile cosmic ether to the heavy inert \"mass,\" to\nthe ponderable matter which we chemically investigate, and which we can\nonly think of as constituted of atoms? Our modern analytical chemistry\nremains for the present at a standstill, in presence of some seventy\nirreducible elements, or so-called primary substances. But the reciprocal\nrelation of these elements, the affinity of their combinations, their\nspectroscopic behaviour, and so forth, make it in the highest degree\nprobable that they are all merely historical products of an evolutionary\nprocess, having their origin in various dispositions and combinations of\na varying number of original atoms.\n\nTo these original or mass-atoms--the ultimate discrete particles of inert\n\"ponderable matter\"--we can with more or less probability ascribe a\nnumber of eternal and inalienable fundamental attributes; they are\nprobably everywhere in space, of like magnitude and constitution.\nAlthough possessing a definite finite magnitude, they are, by virtue of\ntheir very nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical;\nthey are inert (in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and\nimpenetrable by the ether. Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most\nimportant characteristic of these ultimate atoms is their chemical\naffinity--their tendency to apply themselves to one another and combine\ninto small groups in an orderly fashion. These fixed groups (fixed, that\nis to say, under the present physical conditions of existence of the\nearth) of primitive atoms are the atoms of the elements--the well-known\n\"indivisible\" atoms of chemistry. The qualitative, and, so far as our\npresent empirical knowledge goes, unchangeable distinctions of our\nchemical elements are therefore solely conditioned by the varying number\nand disposition of the similar primitive atoms of which they are\ncomposed. Thus, for example, the atom of carbon (the real \"maker\" of the\norganic world) is in all probability a tetrahedron made up of four\nprimitive atoms.\n\nAfter Mendelejeff and Lothar Meyer had discovered (1869) the \"periodic\nlaw\" of the chemical elements, and founded on it a \"natural system\" of\nthese elements, this important advance in theoretical chemistry was\nsubsequently put to profitable use by Gustav Wendt from an evolutionary\npoint of view. He endeavoured to show that the various elements are\nproducts of evolution or of historically originating combinations of\nseven primary elements, and that these last again are historical products\nof one single primitive element This hypothetical original matter had\nbeen already designated by Crookes, in his _Genesis of the Elements_, as\nprimary material or protyl.[10] The empirical proof of the existence of\nthis original matter lying at the foundation of all ponderable material\nis perhaps only a question of time. Its discovery would probably realise\nthe alchemists' hope of being able to produce gold and silver\nartificially out of other elements. But then arises the other great\nquestion: \"How is this primary mass related to the cosmic ether? Do these\ntwo original substances stand in fundamental and eternal antithesis to\none another? Or was it the mobile ether itself, perhaps, that originally\nengendered the heavy mass?\"[11]\n\nIn answer to this great and fundamental question, various physical\nhypotheses have been put forward. But, like the various atomic theories\nof chemistry, they have not as yet been clearly established, and the same\nappears to me to be the case also with the ingenious hypothesis which the\nlecturer has unfolded to us with reference to the Influence of Space. As\nhe himself rightly says, in all these endeavours after a philosophy of\nnature we are still, for the present, dealing with \"scientific articles\nof faith,\" concerning the validity of which different persons, according\nto their subjective judgment and stage of culture, may have widely\ndivergent views. I believe that the solution of these fundamental\nquestions still lies as yet beyond the limits of our knowledge of nature,\nand that we shall be obliged, for a long time yet to come, to content\nourselves with an \"Ignoramus\"--if not even with an \"Ignorabimus.\"\n\nThe case is very different, however, if we turn from these atomistic\nelement hypotheses and direct our attention to the historical conditions\nof the evolution of the world, as these have been revealed to us by the\nmagnificent advances in our knowledge of nature which have been made\nwithin the last thirty years. An immense new territory has here been\nopened up to us in the realms of knowledge--a territory in which a series\nof most important problems, formerly held to be insoluble, has been\nanswered in the most surprising manner.[12]\n\nAmong the triumphs of the human mind the modern doctrine of evolution\ntakes a foremost place. Guessed at by Goethe a hundred years ago, but not\nexpressed in definite form until formulated by Lamarck in the beginning\nof the present century, it was at last, thirty years ago, decisively\nestablished by Charles Darwin, his theory of selection filling up the gap\nwhich Lamarck in his doctrine of the reciprocal influence of heredity and\nadaptation had left open. We now definitely know that the organic world\non our earth has been as continuously developed, \"in accordance with\neternal iron laws,\" as Lyell had in 1830 shown to be the case for the\ninorganic frame of the earth itself; we know that the innumerable\nvarieties of animals and plants which during the course of millions of\nyears have peopled our planet are all simply branches of one single\ngenealogical tree; we know that the human race itself forms only one of\nthe newest, highest, and most perfect offshoots from the race of the\nVertebrates.\n\nAn unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course of\nevolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting human spirit\nthrough long aeons from a primeval chaos to the present \"order of the\ncosmos.\" At the outset there is nothing in infinite space but mobile\nelastic ether, and innumerable similar separate particles--the primitive\natoms--scattered throughout it in the form of dust; perhaps these are\nthemselves originally \"points of condensation\" of the vibrating\n\"substance,\" the remainder of which constitutes the ether. The atoms of\nour elements arise from the grouping together in definite numbers of the\nprimitive atoms or atoms of mass. As the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis\nhas it, the rotating heavenly bodies separate themselves out from that\nvibrating primeval cloud. A single unit among many thousands of celestial\nbodies is our sun, with its planets, which originated by being\ncentrifugally thrown off from it. Our insignificant earth is a single\nplanet of our solar system; its entire individual life is a product of\nthe sunlight. After the glowing sphere of the earth has cooled down to a\ncertain degree, drops of fluid water precipitate themselves on the\nhardened crust of its surface--the first preliminary condition of organic\nlife. Carbon atoms begin their organism-engendering activity, and unite\nwith the other elements into plasma-combinations capable of growing. One\nsmall plasma-group oversteps the limits of cohesion and individual\ngrowth; it falls asunder into two similar halves. With this first moneron\nbegins organic life and its most distinctive function, heredity. In the\nhomogeneous plasma of the monera, a firmer central nucleus is separated\nfrom a softer outer mass; through this differentiation of nucleus and\nprotoplasm arises the first organic cell. For a long time our planet was\ninhabited solely by such Protista or single-celled primitive creatures.\nFrom coenobia or social unions of these afterwards arose the lowest\nhistones, multicellular plants and animals.\n\nBy the sure help of the three great empirical \"records of creation,\"\npalaeontology, comparative anatomy, and ontogeny, the history of descent\nnow leads us on step by step from the oldest Metazoa, the simplest\npluricellular animals, up to man.[13] At the lowest root of the common\ngenealogy of the Metazoa stand the Gastraeadae and Spongidae; their whole\nbody consists, in the simplest case, solely of a round digestive sac, the\nthin wall of which is formed by two layers of cells--the two primitive\ngerminal layers. A corresponding germinal condition, the two-layered\ngastrula, occurs transitorily in the embryological history of all the\nother Metazoa, from the lowest Cnidaria and Vermes up to man. From the\ncommon stock of the Helminthes, or simple worms, there develop as\nindependent main branches the four separate stems of the Molluscs,\nStar-fishes, Arthropods, and Vertebrates. It is only these last whose\nbodily structure and development in all essential respects coincide with\nthose of man. A long series of lower aquatic Vertebrates (lancelets,\nlampreys, fishes) precedes the lungbreathing Amphibians, which appear for\nthe first time in the Carboniferous period. The Amphibians are followed\nin the Permian period by the first Amniota, the oldest reptiles; from\nthese develop later, in the Triassic period, the Birds on the one hand,\nand the Mammals on the other. That man in his whole bodily frame is a\ntrue mammal, becomes obvious as soon as the natural unity of this highest\nclass of animals is recognised. The simplest comparison must have\nconvinced the unprejudiced observer of the close constitutional\nrelationship between man and the ape, which of all the Mammals comes\nnearest him. Comparative anatomy, with its deeper vision, showed that all\ndifferences in bodily structure between man and the Anthropoidea\n(gorilla, chimpanzee, orang) are less important than the corresponding\ndifferences in bodily structure between these anthropoid apes and the\nlower apes. The phylogenetic significance of this fact, first emphasised\nby Huxley, is quite clear. The great question of the origin of the human\nrace, or of \"man's place in Nature,\" the \"question of all questions,\" was\nthen scientifically answered: \"Man is descended from a series of ape-like\nMammals.\" The descent of man (anthropogeny) discloses the long series of\nvertebrate ancestors, which preceded the late origin of this, its most\nhighly developed offshoot.[13]\n\nThe incalculable importance of the light cast over the whole field of\nhuman knowledge of nature by these results is patent to everyone. They\nare destined every year increasingly to manifest their transforming\ninfluence in all departments of knowledge, the more the conviction of\ntheir irrefragable truth forces its way. And it is only the ignorant or\nnarrow-minded who can now doubt their truth. If, indeed, here and there,\none of the older naturalists still disputes, the foundation on which they\nrest, or demands proofs which are wanting (as happened a few weeks ago on\nthe part of a famous German pathologist at the Anthropological Congress\nin Moscow), he only shows by this that he has remained a stranger to the\nstupendous advances of recent biology, and above all of anthropogeny. The\nwhole literature of modern biology, the whole of our present zoology and\nbotany, morphology and physiology, anthropology and psychology, are\npervaded and fertilised by the theory of descent.[14]\n\nJust as the natural doctrine of development on a monistic basis has\ncleared up and elucidated the whole field of natural phenomena in their\nphysical aspect, it has also modified that of the phenomena of mind,\nwhich is inseparably connected with the other. Our human body has been\nbuilt up slowly and by degrees from a long series of vertebrate\nancestors, and this is also true of our soul; as a function of our brain\nit has gradually been developed in reciprocal action and re-action with\nthis its bodily organ. What we briefly designate as the \"human soul,\" is\nonly the sum of our feeling, willing, and thinking--the sum of those\nphysiological functions whose elementary organs are constituted by the\nmicroscopic ganglion-cells of our brain. Comparative anatomy and ontogeny\nshow us how the wonderful structure of this last, the organ of our human\nsoul, has in the course of millions of years been gradually built up from\nthe brains of higher and lower vertebrates. Comparative psychology\nteaches us how, hand in hand therewith, the soul itself, as function of\nthe brain, has been developed. The last-named science teaches us also\nthat a primitive form of soul-activity is already present even in the\nlowest animals, the single-celled primitive animals, Infusoria and\nRhizopoda. Every scientific man who has long observed the life-activity\nof these single-celled Protista, is positively convinced that they also\npossess a soul; that this \"cell-soul\" also consists of a sum of\nsensations, perceptions, and volitions; the feeling, thinking, and\nwilling of our human soul differ from these only in degree. In like\nmanner there is present in the egg-cell (as potential energy) a\nhereditary cell-soul, out of which man, like every other animal, is\ndeveloped.[15]\n\nThe first task of a truly scientific psychology will therefore be, not,\nas hitherto, idle speculation about an independent immaterial\nsoul-existence and its puzzling temporary connection with the animal\nbody, but rather the comparative investigation of the organs of the soul\nand the experimental examination of their psychical functions. For\nscientific psychology is a part of physiology, the doctrine of the\nfunctions and the life-activities of organisms. The psychology and\npsychiatry of the future, like the physiology and pathology of to-day,\nmust take the form of a cellular study, and in the first instance\ninvestigate the soul-functions of the cells. Max Verworn, in his fine\n_Psycho-physiological Protistastudies_, has lately shown us what\nimportant disclosures such a cellular psychology can make, even in\ndealing with the lowest grades of organic life, in the single-celled\nProtista (especially Rhizopoda and Infusoria).\n\nThese same main divisions of soul-activity, which are to be met with in\nthe single-celled organism,--the phenomena of irritability, sensation,\nand motion,--can be shown to exist in all multicellular organisms as\nfunctions of the cells of which their bodies are composed. In the lowest\nMetazoa, the invertebrate sponges and polyps, there are, just as in\nplants, no special soul-organs developed, and all the cells of the body\nparticipate more or less in the \"soul-life.\" It is only in the higher\nanimals that the soul-life is found to be localised and connected with\nspecial organs. As a consequence of division of labour, there have here\nbeen developed various sense-organs as organs of specific sensibility,\nmuscles as organs of motion and volition, nerve-centres or ganglia as\ncentral co-ordinating and regulating organs. In the most highly developed\nfamilies of the animal kingdom, these last come more and more into the\nforeground as independent soul-organs. In correspondence with the\nextraordinarily complicated structure of their central nervous system\n(the brain with its wonderful complex of ganglion-cells and\nnerve-fibres), the many-sided activity of such animals attains a\nwonderful degree of development.\n\nIt is only in these most highly-developed groups of the animal kingdom\nthat we can with certainty establish the existence of those most perfect\noperations of the central nervous system, which we designate as\nconsciousness. As we know, it is precisely this highest brain-function\nthat still continues to be looked upon as a completely enigmatical\nphenomenon, and as the best proof for the immaterial existence of an\nimmortal soul. It is usual at the same time to appeal to Du\nBois-Reymond's well-known \"Ignorabimus address on the Boundaries of\nNatural Knowledge\" (1872). It was by a peculiar irony of fate that the\nfamous lecturer of the Berlin Academy of Science, in this much-discussed\naddress of twenty years ago, should be representing consciousness as an\nincomprehensible marvel, and as presenting an insuperable barrier to\nfurther advances of knowledge, at the very moment that David Friedrich\nStrauss, the greatest theologian of our century, was showing it to be the\nopposite. The clear-sighted author of _The Old Faith and the New_ had\nalready clearly perceived that the soul-activities of man, and therefore\nalso his consciousness, as functions of the central nervous system, all\nspring from a common source, and, from a monistic point of view, come\nunder the same category. The \"exact\" Berlin physiologist shut this\nknowledge out from his mind, and, with a short-sightedness almost\ninconceivable, placed this special neurological question alongside of the\none great \"world-riddle,\" the fundamental question of substance, the\ngeneral question of the connection between matter and energy.[16]\n\nAs I long ago pointed out, these two great questions are not two separate\n\"world-riddles.\" The neurological problem of consciousness is only a\nspecial case of the all comprehending cosmological problem, the question\nof substance. \"If we understood the nature of matter and energy, we\nshould also understand how the substance underlying them can under\ncertain conditions feel, desire, and think.\" Consciousness, like feeling\nand willing, among the higher animals is a mechanical work of the\nganglion-cells, and as such must be carried back to chemical and physical\nevents in the plasma of these. And by the employment of the genetic and\ncomparative method we reach the conviction that consciousness, and\nconsequently reason also, is not a brain-function exclusively peculiar to\nman; it occurs also in many of the higher animals, not in Vertebrates\nonly, but even in Articulates. Only in degree, through a higher stage of\ncultivation, does the consciousness of man differ from that of the more\nperfect lower animals, and the same is true of all other activities of\nthe human soul.\n\nBy these and other results of comparative physiology our whole psychology\nis placed on a new and firm monistic basis. The older mystical conception\nof the soul, as we find it amongst primitive peoples, but also in the\nsystems of the dualistic philosophers of to-day, is refuted by them.\nAccording to these systems, the soul of man (and of the higher animals)\nis a separate entity, which inhabits and rules the body only during its\nindividual life, but leaves it at death. The widespread \"piano-theory\"\n(_Claviertheorie_) compares the \"immortal soul\" to a pianist who executes\nan interesting piece--the individual life--on the instrument of the\nmortal body, but at death withdraws into the other world. This \"immortal\nsoul\" is usually represented as an immaterial being; but in fact it is\nreally thought of as quite material, only as a finer invisible being,\naerial or gaseous, or as resembling the mobile, light, and thin substance\nof the ether, as conceived by modern physics. The same is true also for\nmost of the conceptions which rude primitive peoples and the uneducated\nclasses among the civilised races have, for thousands of years, cherished\nas to spectral \"ghosts\" and \"gods.\" Serious reflection on the matter\nshows that here--as in modern spiritualism--it is not with really\nimmaterial beings, but with gaseous, invisible bodies, that we are\ndealing. And further, we are utterly incapable of imagining a truly\nimmaterial being. As Goethe clearly said, \"matter can never exist or act\napart from spirit, neither can spirit apart from matter.\"\n\nAs regards immortality, it is well known that this important idea is\ninterpreted and applied in a great variety of ways. It is often made a\nreproach against our Monism that it altogether denies immortality; this,\nhowever, is erroneous. Rather do we hold it, in a strictly scientific\nsense, as an indispensable fundamental conception of our monistic\nphilosophy of nature. Immortality in a scientific sense is conservation\nof substance, therefore the same as conservation of energy as defined by\nphysics, or conservation of matter as defined by chemistry. The cosmos as\na whole is immortal. It is just as inconceivable that any of the atoms of\nour brain or of the energies of our spirit should vanish out of the\nworld, as that any other particle of matter or energy could do so. At our\ndeath there disappears only the individual form in which the\nnerve-substance was fashioned, and the personal \"soul\" which represented\nthe work performed by this. The complicated chemical combinations of that\nnervous mass pass over into other combinations by decomposition, and the\nkinetic energy produced by them is transformed into other forms of\nmotion.\n\n   \"Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,\n   Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.\n   O that that earth which kept the world in awe\n   Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw.\"\n\nOn the other hand, the conception of a personal immortality cannot be\nmaintained. If this idea is still widely held, the fact is to be\nexplained by the physical law of inertia; for the property of persistence\nin a state of rest exercises its influence in the region of the\nganglion-cells of the brain, as well as in all other natural bodies.\nTraditional ideas handed down through many generations are maintained\nwith the greatest tenacity by the human brain, especially if, in early\nyouth, they have been instilled into the childish understanding as\nindisputable dogmas. Such hereditary articles of faith take root all the\nmore firmly, the further they are removed from a rational knowledge of\nnature, and enveloped in the mysterious mantle of mythological poesy. In\nthe case of the dogma of personal immortality, there comes into play also\nthe interest which man fancies himself to have in his individual future\nexistence after death, and the vain hope that in a blessed world to come\nthere is treasured up for him a compensation for the disappointed hopes\nand the many sorrows of his earthly life.\n\nIt is often asserted by the numerous advocates of personal immortality\nthat this dogma is an innate one, common to all rational men, and that it\nis taught in all the more perfect forms of religion. But this is not\ncorrect. Neither Buddhism nor the religion of Moses originally contained\nthe dogma of personal immortality, and just as little did the majority of\neducated people of classical antiquity believe it, at any rate during the\nhighest period of Greek culture. The monistic philosophy of that time,\nwhich, five hundred years before our era, had reached speculative heights\nso remarkable, knew nothing of any such dogma. It was through Plato and\nChrist that it received its further elaboration, until, in the Middle\nAges, it was so universally accepted, that only now and then did some\nbold thinker dare openly to gainsay it. The idea that a conviction of\npersonal immortality has a specially ennobling influence on the moral\nnature of man, is not confirmed by the gruesome history of mediaeval\nmorals, and as little by the psychology of primitive peoples.[17]\n\nIf any antiquated school of purely speculative psychology still continues\nto uphold this irrational dogma, the fact can only be regarded as a\ndeplorable anachronism. Sixty years ago such a doctrine was excusable,\nfor then nothing was accurately known either of the finer structure of\nthe brain, or of the physiological functions of its separate parts; its\nelementary organs, the microscopic ganglion-cells, were almost unknown,\nas was also the cell-soul of the Protista; very imperfect ideas were held\nas to ontogenetic development, and as to phylogenetic there were none at\nall.\n\nThis has all been completely changed in the course of the last\nhalf-century. Modern physiology has already to a great extent\ndemonstrated the localisation of the various activities of mind, and\ntheir connection with definite parts of the brain; psychiatry has shown\nthat those psychical processes are disturbed or destroyed if these parts\nof the brain become diseased or degenerate. Histology has revealed to us\nthe extremely complicated structure and arrangement of the\nganglion-cells. But, for the settlement of this momentous question, the\ndiscoveries of the last ten years with regard to the more minute\noccurrences in the process of fertilisation are of decisive importance.\nWe now know that this process essentially consists simply in the\ncopulation or fusion of two microscopical cells, the female egg-cell and\nthe male sperm-cell. The fusion of the nuclei of these two sexual cells\nindicates with the utmost precision the exact moment at which the new\nhuman individual arises. The newly-formed parent-cell, or fertilised\negg-cell, contains potentially, in their rudiments, all the bodily and\nmental characteristics which the child inherits from both parents. It is\nclearly against reason to assume an eternal and unending life for an\nindividual phenomenon whose beginning in time we can determine to a\nhair's breadth, by direct observation. Judging of human spiritual life\nfrom a rational point of view, we can as little think of our individual\nsoul as separated from our brain, as we can conceive the voluntary motion\nof our arm apart from the contraction of its muscles, or the circulation\nof our blood apart from the action of the heart.\n\nAgainst this strictly physiological conception, as against our whole\nmonistic view of the relations of energy and matter, of soul and\nsubstance, the reproach of \"materialism\" continues to be raised. I have\nrepeatedly before now pointed out that this is an ambiguous party word\nwhich conveys absolutely nothing; its apparent opposite, \"spiritualism,\"\ncould quite easily be substituted for it. Every critical thinker, who is\nfamiliar with the history of philosophy, knows that, as systems change,\nsuch words assume the most varied meanings, In addition to this, the word\n\"materialism\" has the disadvantage of being liable to continual confusion\nbetween its theoretical and practical meanings, which two are totally\ndistinct. Our conception of Monism, or the unity-philosophy, on the\ncontrary, is clear and unambiguous; for it an immaterial living spirit\nis just as unthinkable as a dead, spiritless material; the two are\ninseparably combined in every atom. The opposed conception of dualism (or\neven pluralism in other anti-monistic systems) regards spirit and\nmaterial, energy and matter, as two essentially different substances; but\nnot a single empirical proof can be adduced to show that either of these\ncan exist or become perceptible to us by itself alone.\n\nIn thus shortly indicating the far-reaching psychological consequences of\nthe monistic doctrine of evolution, I trench at the same time upon a most\nimportant field, to which our lecturer in his address has more than once\nalluded--that of religion and the belief in God connected therewith. I am\nat one with him in the conviction that the formation of clear\nphilosophical conceptions upon these fundamental matters of belief is of\nthe highest importance, and I would therefore crave the permission of\nthis assembly briefly to lay before it on this occasion a frank\nconfession of faith. This monistic confession has the greater claim to an\nunprejudiced consideration, in that it is shared, I am firmly convinced,\nby at least nine-tenths of the men of science now living; indeed, I\nbelieve, by all men of science in whom the following four conditions are\nrealised: (1) Sufficient acquaintance with the various departments of\nnatural science, and in particular with the modern doctrine of evolution;\n(2) Sufficient acuteness and clearness of judgment to draw, by induction\nand deduction, the necessary logical consequences that flow from such\nempirical knowledge; (3) Sufficient moral courage to maintain the\nmonistic knowledge, so gained, against the attacks of hostile dualistic\nand pluralistic systems; and (4) Sufficient strength of mind to free\nhimself, by sound, independent reasoning, from dominant religious\nprejudices, and especially from those irrational dogmas which have been\nfirmly lodged in our minds from earliest youth as indisputable\nrevelations.\n\nIf from this unprejudiced point of view of the thinker, we compare the\nnumerous religions of the various races of mankind, we shall be\ncompelled, in the first instance, to put aside as untenable all those\nconceptions which stand in irreconcilable contradiction to those\nprinciples of our empirical knowledge of nature which are now clearly\ndiscerned and established by critical reasoning. We can thus at once set\naside all mythological stories, all \"miracles,\" and so-called\n\"revelations,\" for which it is claimed that they have come to us in some\nsupernatural way. All such mystical teachings are irrational, inasmuch as\nthey are confirmed by no actual experience, but, on the contrary, are\nirreconcilable with the known facts which have been confirmed to us by a\nrational investigation of nature.\n\nThis is true alike of Christian and Mosaic, of Mohammedan and Indian\nlegends. If now we thus lay aside the whole mass of mystical dogmas and\ntranscendental revelations, there is left behind, as the precious and\npriceless kernel of true religion, the purified ethic that rests on\nrational anthropology.[18]\n\nAmong the numerous and varied forms of religion which, in the course of\nthe past ten thousand years and more, have been evolved from the crudest\nprehistoric beginnings, the foremost rank undoubtedly belongs to those\ntwo forms which still continue to be the most widely accepted among\ncivilised races--the older Buddhism and the younger Christianity. The two\nhave very many features in common, alike in their mythology and in their\nethics; indeed, a considerable part of Christianity has come directly\nfrom Indian Buddhism, just as another part is drawn from the Mosaic and\nPlatonic systems. But, looked at from the point of view of our present\nstage of culture, the ethic of Christianity appears to us much more\nperfect and pure than that of any other religion. We must, it is true,\nhasten to add that it is exactly the weightiest and noblest principles of\nChristian ethic--brotherly love, fidelity to duty, love of truth,\nobedience to law--that are by no means peculiar to the Christian faith as\nsuch, but are of much older origin. Comparative psychology proves that\nthese ethical principles were more or less recognised and practised by\nmuch older civilised races thousands of years before Christ.\n\nLove remains the supreme moral law of rational religion, the love, that\nis to say, that holds the balance between egoism and altruism, between\nself-love and love of others. \"Do to others as you would they should do\nto you.\" This natural and highest command had been taught and followed\nthousands of years before Christ said: \"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as\nthyself.\" In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as\nself-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance derived from our\nanimal ancestors. It had already found a place among the herds of Apes\nand other social Mammals; in a similar manner, but with a wider scope, it\nwas already present in the most primitive communities and among the\nhordes of the least advanced savages. Brotherly love--mutual support,\nsuccour, protection, and the like---had already made its appearance among\ngregarious animals as a social duty; for without it the continued\nexistence of such societies is impossible. Although at a later period, in\nthe case of man, these moral foundations of society came to be much more\nhighly developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown,\nis to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among the higher\nVertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as among the higher\nArticulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.) also, the development of social\nrelations and duties is the indispensable condition of their living\ntogether in orderly societies. Such societies have for man also been the\nmost important instrument of intellectual and moral progress.\n\nBeyond all doubt the present degree of human culture owes in great part\nits perfection to the propagation of the Christian system of morals and\nits ennobling influence, although the great value of this has been\nimpaired, often in the most deplorable manner, by its association with\nuntenable myths and so-called \"revelations.\" How little these last\ncontribute to the perfection of the first, can be seen from the\nacknowledged historical fact that it is just orthodoxy and the\nhierarchical system based on it (especially that of the Papacy) that has\nleast of all striven to fulfil the precepts of Christian morality; the\nmore loudly they preach it in theory, the less do they themselves fulfil\nits commands in practice.\n\nIt is, moreover, to be borne in mind that another and very considerable\nportion of our modern culture and morality has been developed quite\nindependently of Christianity, mainly through continual study of the\nhighly-elaborated mental treasures of classical antiquity. The thorough\nstudy of Greek and Roman classics has at least contributed much more to\nit than that of the Christian Church fathers. To this we must now add, in\nour own century (rightly called the \"century of the natural sciences\"),\nthe immense advance in the higher culture which we owe to a purified\nknowledge of nature and to the monistic philosophy founded upon this.\nThat these must also exercise an advancing and ennobling influence cannot\nbe doubted, and has already been shown by many eminent authors (Spencer,\nCarneri, and others) in the course of the last thirty years.[18]\n\nAgainst this monistic ethic founded on a rational knowledge of nature, it\nhas been objected that it is fitted to undermine existing civilisation,\nand especially that it encourages the subversive aims of social\ndemocracy. This reproach is wholly unjustified. The application of\nphilosophical principles to the practical conditions of life, and in\nparticular to social and political questions, can be made in the most\nvarious ways. Political \"free-thinking,\" so called, has nothing whatever\nto do with the \"freedom of thought\" of our monistic natural religion.\nMoreover, I am convinced that the rational morality of monistic religion\nis in no way contrary to the good and truly valuable elements of the\nChristian ethic, but is destined in conjunction with these to promote the\ntrue progress of humanity in the future.\n\nWith Christian mythology and the special form of theistic belief\nassociated with it the case is different. In so far as that belief\ninvolves the notion of a \"personal God,\" it has been rendered quite\nuntenable by the recent advances of monistic science. But, more than\nthis, it was shown more than two thousand years ago, by eminent exponents\nof the monistic philosophy, that the conception of a personal God,\ncreator and ruler of the world, does not give the slightest help toward a\ntruly rational view of the world. For even if the question of \"creation,\"\nin the ordinary and trivial sense of the term, be answered by referring\nit to the miraculous agency of a creator working according to plan apart\nfrom the world, there immediately arises upon that the new inquiry:\n\"Whence comes this personal God? What was He doing before creation? And\nwhence did He derive the material for it?\" and such like questions. The\nantiquated conception of an anthropomorphic personal God is destined,\nbefore the present century is ended, to drop out of currency throughout\nthe entire domain of truly scientific philosophy; the corresponding\nconception of a personal devil--even as late as last century connected\nwith the former and very generally accepted--has already been given up\nonce for all by all persons of education.\n\nLet it be noted, however, in passing, that the amphitheism which believes\nin God and devil alike is much more compatible with a rational\nexplanation of the world than pure monotheism. The purest form of this is\nperhaps the amphitheism of the Zend religion of Persia, which Zoroaster\n(or Zarathustra, the \"Golden Star\") founded two thousand years before\nChrist. Here Ormuzd, the god of light and goodness, stands everywhere in\nconflict with Ahriman, the god of darkness and evil. The continual\nconflict between a good and an evil principle was personified in a\nsimilar manner in the mythology of many other amphitheistic religions: in\nthe old Egyptian, the good Osiris was at war with the evil Typhon; in the\nold Indian, Vishnu the sustainer with Siva the destroyer, and so forth.\n\nIf we really must retain the conception of a personal God as the key to\nour view of the universe, then this amphitheism can explain the sorrows\nand defects of this world very simply, as being the work of the evil\nprinciple or devil. Pure monotheism, on the contrary, as represented in\nthe religions of Moses and Mohammed in their original form, has no\nrational explanation of these to offer. If their \"one God\" is really the\nabsolutely good, perfect being they proclaim, then the world which he has\ncreated must also be perfect. An organic world so imperfect and full of\nsorrows as exists on this earth he could not possibly have contrived.\n\nThese considerations gain in force when we advance to the deeper\nknowledge of nature acquired by modern biology; here it was Darwin,\nespecially, who thirty-three years ago opened our eyes by his doctrine of\nthe struggle for existence, and his theory of selection founded upon it.\nWe now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by\na relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must\ndaily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen\nindividuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the\nexistence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening\ndangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every\nminute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble\npicture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns\nthroughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's\ngoodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so\ndevoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now--at least among\neducated people who think. It has disappeared before our deeper\nacquaintance with the mutual relations of organisms, the advancement of\noecology and sociology, and our knowledge of parasite life and pathology.\n\nAll these sad but insuperable facts--truly the dark side of nature--are\nmade intelligible to religious faith by amphitheism; they are the \"works\nof the devil,\" who opposes and disturbs the perfect moral order in the\nworld of the \"good God.\" For pure monotheism which knows only one God,\none perfect highest being, they remain unintelligible. If, with a\nmonotheistic creed, any one still continues to talk of the moral order of\nthe world, he in so doing shuts his eyes to the undeniable facts of\nhistory, both natural and civil.\n\nIn view of these considerations, it is hard to understand how the large\nmajority of the so-called educated classes can persevere, on the one\nhand, in declaring belief in a personal God to be an indispensable\nprinciple of religion, and, on the other hand, in at the same time\nrejecting the belief in a personal devil as an exploded superstition of\nthe Middle Ages. This inconsistency on the part of educated Christians is\nall the more incomprehensible and censurable, inasmuch as both dogmas in\nequal degree form an integral part of the Christian creed. The personal\ndevil, as \"Satan,\" \"the Tempter,\" \"the Destroyer,\" and so forth,\nundeniably plays a most important part in the New Testament, though not\nmet with in the earlier portions of the Old. Our great reformer, Martin\nLuther himself, who \"sent to the devil\" so many antiquated dogmas, was\nunable to rid himself of the conviction of the real existence and\npersonal enmity of Beelzebub; we have only to think of the historical\nink-spot at Wartburg! Moreover, our Christian art, in many thousands of\npaintings and other representations, has exhibited Satan in corporeal\nform just as realistically as it has the three \"Divine Persons,\" about\nwhose \"hypostatical union\" human reason has for eighteen hundred years\nbeen tormenting itself in vain. The deep impression made by such concrete\nrepresentations, a million times repeated, especially on childish\nunderstandings, is usually under-estimated as to its tremendous\ninfluence; to it certainly is in large measure to be attributed the fact\nthat irrational myths of such a kind, under the mask of \"doctrines of\nfaith,\" continue to hold their ground in spite of all protests of reason.\n\nLiberal-minded Christian theologians have, it is true, often sought to\neliminate the personal devil from Christian teaching, representing him as\nmerely the personification of falsehood, the spirit of evil. But with\nequal right we must in that case substitute for a personal God the\npersonified idea of truth, the Spirit of Goodness. To such a\nrepresentation no objection can be made; rather do we recognise in it a\nbridge connecting the dim wonderland of religious poesy with the luminous\nrealms of clear scientific knowledge.\n\nThe monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present\nknowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. It can\nnever recognise in God a \"personal being,\" or, in other words, an\nindividual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. God is\neverywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: \"There is one spirit in all things,\nand nobody is so small that it does not contain a part of the divine\nsubstance whereby it is animated.\" Every atom is thus animated, and so is\nthe ether; we might, therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all\nnatural forces, the sum of all atomic forces and all ether-vibrations. It\ncomes virtually to the same thing when (as was done here by a speaker on\na former occasion) God is defined as \"the supreme law of the universe,\"\nand the latter is represented as the \"working of universal space.\" In\nthis most important article of belief it matters not as to the name but\nas to the unity of the underlying idea; the unity of God and the world;\nof spirit and nature. On the other hand, \"homotheism,\" the\nanthropomorphic representation of God, degrades this loftiest cosmic idea\nto that of a \"gaseous vertebrate.\"[19]\n\nOf the various systems of pantheism which for long have given expression\nmore or less clearly to the monistic conception of God, the most perfect\nis certainly that of Spinoza. To this system, as is well known, Goethe\nalso paid the tribute of his highest admiration and approval. Of other,\neminent men who have given a similar pantheistic form to their natural\nreligion, we shall here mention only two of the greatest poets and\nstudents of man, Shakespeare and Lessing; two of the greatest German\nrulers, Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen and Frederick II. of Hohenzollern;\ntwo of the greatest scientists, Laplace and Darwin. In adding our own\npantheistic confession to that of these great and untrammelled spirits,\nlet it only be noted further, that it has received an empirical\nconfirmation, never before imagined, through the wonderful advances of\nnatural knowledge within the last thirty years.\n\nThe charge of atheism which still continues to be levelled against our\npantheism, and against the monism which lies at its root, no longer finds\na response among the really educated classes of the present day. It is\ntrue that not so very long ago the German Imperial Chancellor, in the\nPrussian Chamber of Deputies, found it in him to put forward such an\nalternative as this: \"Either the Christian or the atheistic view of the\nworld\"; this in the defence of a most objectionable law, designed to hand\nover our school training, tied hand and foot, to the papal hierarchy. The\nvast distance which separates the last-named degenerate outgrowth of the\nChristian religion from pure primitive Christianity is not greater than\nthat which separates those mediaeval alternatives from the cultured\nreligious consciousness of the present day. To one who regards as true\nexercises of Christian religion the adoration of old clothes and wax\ndolls, or the thoughtless repetition of masses or rosaries, who believes\nin wonder-working relics, and purchases pardon for his sins by means of\nindulgence-money or Peter's pence, we willingly concede the claim to\npossess the \"only saving religion\"; but with such fetish-worshippers we\nwill willingly submit to be ranked as \"atheists.\"\n\nIn like case with the charge of atheism and irreligion are those so often\nheard against monism, that it destroys the poetry of life and fails to\nsatisfy the spiritual wants of human nature; we are told, in particular,\nthat aesthetics--certainly a most important department both in\ntheoretical philosophy and in practical life--is prejudiced by a monistic\nphilosophy. But David Friedrich Strauss, one of our subtlest exponents of\naesthetics and also one of our noblest writers, has already refuted such\na charge; and shown how, on the contrary, the care for poetry and the\ncultivation of the beautiful are in the \"new faith\" called upon to play a\nstill greater part than ever. My present hearers, at once investigators\nand lovers of nature, do not need to be told that every new insight which\nwe obtain into the secrets of nature at the same time also kindles our\nsouls, affords new material for imagination to work on, and enlarges our\nperception of the beautiful. To convince ourselves how closely all these\nnoblest spiritual activities of man hang together, how intimately the\nknowledge of truth is bound up with the love of goodness and veneration\nof the beautiful, it will be enough to mention a single name, Germany's\ngreatest genius--Wolfgang Goethe.\n\nIf the perception of the aesthetic significance of our monistic\nnature-religion, as well as of its ethical value, has hitherto so little\npervaded the educated classes, this is due chiefly to the defects of our\nschool training. It is true that in the course of the last few decades an\ninfinite deal has been spoken and written about school reform and the\nprinciples of education; but of any real progress there is as yet but\nlittle trace. Here also reigns the physical law of inertia; here\nalso--and more especially in German schools--the scholasticism of the\nMiddle Ages exhibits a power of inertia, against which any rational\nreform of education must laboriously contest every inch of ground. In\nthis important department also, a department on which hangs the weal or\nwoe of future generations, matters will not improve till the monistic\ndoctrine of nature is accepted as the essential and sure foundation.\n\nThe school of the twentieth century, flourishing anew on this firm\nground, shall have to unfold to the rising youth not only the wonderful\ntruths of the evolution of the cosmos, but also the inexhaustible\ntreasures of beauty lying everywhere hidden therein. Whether we marvel at\nthe majesty of the lofty mountains or the magic world of the sea, whether\nwith the telescope we explore the infinitely great wonders of the starry\nheaven, or with the microscope the yet more surprising wonders of a life\ninfinitely small, everywhere does Divine Nature open up to us an\ninexhaustible fountain of aesthetic enjoyment. Blind and insensible have\nthe great majority of mankind hitherto wandered through this glorious\nwonderland of a world; a sickly and unnatural theology has made it\nrepulsive as a \"vale of tears.\" But now, at last, it is given to the\nmightily advancing human mind to have its eyes opened; it is given to it\nto show that a true knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and\ninexhaustible nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but\nalso for its yearning spirit.\n\nMonistic investigation of nature as knowledge of the true, monistic ethic\nas training for the good, monistic aesthetic as pursuit of the\nbeautiful--these are the three great departments of our monism: by the\nharmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at last the\ntruly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully longed after\nby so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, these are the\nthree august Divine Ones before which we bow the knee in adoration; in\nthe unforced combination and mutual supplementing of these we gain the\npure idea of God.[20] To this \"triune\" Divine Ideal shall the coming\ntwentieth century build its altars.\n\nTen years ago I was present at the celebration of the third centenary of\nthe university of W\u00fcrzburg, which forty years ago I had entered as a\nmedical student. The festal address on that occasion was delivered in the\nuniversity church by the then rector, the distinguished chemist, Johannes\nWislicenus. His concluding words were: \"God, the Spirit of Goodness and\nof Truth, grant it.\" I now add, \"and the Spirit of Beauty.\" It is in this\nsense that I also, on this commemorative occasion, dedicate to you my\nbest wishes. May the investigation of nature's secrets flourish and\nprosper in this corner of our Th\u00fcringian land also, and may the fruits of\nknowledge, ripening here in Altenburg, contribute no less to the culture\nof the spirit and to the advancement of true religion, than those which\nthree hundred and seventy years ago the great reformer, Martin Luther,\nbrought to the light of day in another corner of Th\u00fcringen, on the\nWartburg at Eisenach.\n\nBetween Wartburg and Altenburg, on the northern border of Th\u00fcringen, lies\nWeimar, the classical City of the Muses, and, close by it, our national\nuniversity of Jena. I regard it as a good omen that precisely at this\nmoment a rare celebration should have called together in Weimar the most\nillustrious patrons of the university of Jena, the defenders of free\nresearch and free teaching.[21] In the hope that the defence and\npromotion of these may still be continued, I conclude my monistic\nConfession of Faith with the words: \"May God, the Spirit of the Good, the\nBeautiful, and the True, be with us.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Scientific Articles of Faith_.\nIn Professor Schlesinger's address (delivered on 9th October at\nAltenburg) on this subject he rightly called attention to the limits of\nknowledge of nature (in Kant's sense of the terms) imposed upon us by the\nimperfection of our perceptive organs. The gaps which the empirical\ninvestigation of nature must thus leave in science, can, however, be\nfilled up by hypotheses, by conjectures of more or less probability.\nThese we cannot indeed for the time establish on a secure basis; and yet\nwe may make use of them in the way of explaining phenomena, in so far as\nthey are not inconsistent with a rational knowledge of nature. Such\nrational hypotheses are scientific articles of faith, and therefore very\ndifferent from ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas,\nwhich are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or\nsimply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of\nrational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief\nin the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary\natoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential\nunity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare\nmy _General Morphology_, _vol_. i. pp. 105, 164, etc., also my _Natural\nHistory of Creation_, 8th ed., 1889, pp. 21, 360, 795). As the simpler\noccurrences of inorganic nature and the more complicated phenomena of\norganic life are alike reducible to the same natural forces, and as,\nfurther, these in their turn have their common foundation in a simple\nprimal principle pervading infinite space, we can regard this last (the\ncosmic ether) as all-comprehending divinity, and upon this found the\nthesis: \"Belief in God is reconcilable with science.\" In this pantheistic\nview, and also in his criticism of a one-sided materialism, I entirely\nagree with Professor Schlesinger, though unable to concur with him in\nsome of his biological, and especially of his anthropological,\nconclusions (_cf_. his article on \"Facts and Deductions derived from the\nAction of Universal Space\" _Mittheilungen aus dem Osterlande_, Bd. v.,\nAltenburg, 1892).]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: _Unity of Nature_.\nI consider the fundamental unity of inorganic and organic nature, as well\nas their genetic relation, to be an essential axiom of monism. I\nparticularly emphasise this \"article of faith\" here, as there are still\nscientists of repute who contest it. Not only is the old mystical \"vital\npower\" brought back upon the stage again from time to time, but even the\n\"miraculous\" origin of organic life out of \"dead\" inorganic nature is\noften brought up still against the doctrines of evolution, as an\ninsoluble riddle--as one of Du Bois-Reymond's \"seven riddles of the\nworld\" (see his _Discourse on Leibnitz_, 1880). The solution of this\n\"transcendent\" riddle of the world, and of the allied question of\narchigony (equivocal generation, in a strictly defined meaning of the\nterm), can only be reached by a critical analysis and unprejudiced\ncomparison of matter, form, and energy in inorganic and organic nature.\nThis I have already done (1866) in the second book of my _General\nMorphology_ (vol. i. pp. 109-238): \"General Researches as to the Nature\nand First Beginning of Organisms, their Relation to things Inorganic, and\ntheir Division into Plants and Animals.\"]\n\nA short r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of this is contained in Lecture XV. of my _Natural History\nof Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 340-370). The most serious difficulties which\nformerly beset the monistic view there given may now be held to have been\ntaken out of the way by recent discoveries concerning the nature of\nprotoplasm, the discovery of the Monera, the more accurate study of the\nclosely-related single-celled Protista, their comparison with the\nancestral cell (or fertilised egg-cell), and also by the chemical\ncarbon-theory. (See my \"Studies on Monera and other Protista,\" in the\n_Jenaische Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Naturwissenschaft_, vols. iv. and v.,\n1868-1870; also Carl Naegeli, _Mechanisch-physiologische Begr\u00fcndung der\nAbstammungslehre_, 1884.)]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: _Religion in the Lower Animals_.\nWe cannot fail to recognise in the more highly developed of our domestic\nanimals (especially in dogs, horses, and elephants) some first beginnings\nof those higher brain-functions which we designate as reason and\nconsciousness, religion and morality; they differ only in degree, not in\nkind, from the corresponding mental activities of the lowest human races.\nIf, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the anthropoids, had been for\nthousands of years domesticated and brought up in close relation with\ncivilised man, the similarity of their mental activities to those of man\nwould undoubtedly have been much more striking than it is. The apparently\ndeep gulf which separates man from these most highly-developed mammals\n\"is mainly founded on the fact that in man several conspicuous attributes\nare united, which in the other animals occur only separately, viz. (1)\nThe higher degree of differentiation of the larynx (speech), (2) brain\n(mind), and (3) extremities; and (4) the upright posture. It is merely\nthe happy combination of these important animal organs and functions at a\nhigher stage of evolution that raises the majority of mankind so far\nabove all lower animals\" (_General Morphology_, 1866, vol. ii. p. 430).]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: _Inheritance of Acquired Characters_.\nAs the controversy on this important question is still unsettled, special\nattention may here be called to the valuable data for arriving at a\ndecision which are afforded precisely by the development of instincts\namong the higher animals, and of speech and reason in man. \"The\ninheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual, is\nan indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution.\" \"Those\nwho, with Weismann and Galton, deny this, entirely exclude thereby the\npossibility of any formative influence of the outer world upon organic\nform\" (_Anthropogenie_, 4th ed., pp. xxiii., 836; see, further, the works\nthere referred to of Eimer, Weismann, Ray-Lankester, etc.; also Ludwig\nWilser's _Die Vererbung der geistigen Eigenschaften_, Heidelberg, 1892).]\n\n\n[Footnote 5: _Theosophical System of Nature_.\nOf all the modern attempts of dualistic philosophy to establish the\nknowledge of nature on a theological basis (that of Christian\nmonotheism), the _Essay on Classification_ of Louis Agassiz is by far the\nmost important,--in strictness, indeed, is the only one worthy of\nmention. (On this see my _Natural History of Creation_, Lect. III., also\n\"Aims and Methods of the Modern Embryology,\" 1875, _Jena Zeitschr. f\u00fcr\nNaturw., Bd. x., Supplement_.)]\n\n\n[Footnote 6: _Darwin and Copernicus_.\nThis is the title of an address delivered by Du Bois-Reymond on 25th\nJanuary 1883, in the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and afterwards published\nin his _Collected Addresses_ (_vol_. ii. 1887). As the author himself\nmentions in a note (p. 500) that this gave rise, \"most unmeritedly,\" to\ngreat excitement, and called down upon him the violent attacks of the\nclerical press, I may be allowed to point out here that it contained\nnothing new, I myself, fifteen years previously, in my lectures on \"The\nOrigin and Genealogy of the Human Race,\" having carried out in detail the\ncomparison between Darwin and Copernicus, and the service rendered by\nthese two heroes in putting an end to the anthropocentric and geocentric\nviews of the world. (See the Third Series in Virchow and Holtzendorff's\n_Collection of Popular Scientific Lectures_, Nos. 53 and 54, 1868, 4th\ned., 1881.) When Du Bois-Reymond says, \"For me, Darwin is the Copernicus\nof the organic world,\" I am the more pleased to find that he agrees\n(partly in identical words) with my way of thinking, as he himself, quite\nunnecessarily, takes up an attitude of opposition towards me. The same is\nthe case with regard to the explanation of innate ideas by Darwinism,\nwhich he has attempted in his address (1870) on \"Leibnitzian Ideas in\nModern Science\" (vol. i. of the _Collected Addresses_). Here also he is\nmost agreeably at one with me in what, four years before, I had\nelaborated in my _General Morphology_ (vol. ii. p. 446), and in my\n_Natural History of Creation_ (1868). \"The laws of heredity and\nadaptation explain to us how it is that _\u00e0 priori_ ideas have been\ndeveloped out of what was originally _\u00e0 posteriori_ knowledge,\" etc. I\ncannot fail to be highly flattered in being able in these last days to\ngreet the renowned orator of the Berlin Academy as a friend and patron of\nthe _Natural History of Creation_, which he had previously designated a\nbad romance. But his winged words are not on that account to be\nforgotten, that \"the genealogical trees of phylogeny are about as much\nworth as, in the eyes of the historical critic, are those of the Homeric\nheroes\" (_Darwin versus Galiani_, 1876).]\n\n\n[Footnote 7: _The Law of the Conservation of Substance_.\nStrictly taken, this belongs also to \"scientific articles of faith,\" and\ncould stand as the first article of our \"monistic religion.\" Physicists\nof the present day, it is true, generally (and correctly) regard their\n\"law of the conservation of energy\" as the immovable foundation of all\ntheir science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just as in like manner chemists\nso regard their fundamental law of the \"conservation of matter\"\n(Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, however, raise certain\nobjections to either of these fundamental laws with as much success as\nagainst their combination into the single superior law of the\n\"conservation of substance.\" As a matter of fact, dualistic philosophy\nstill attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise of\ncautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic)\nobjections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they\nrelate to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as\nto the connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the\npresence of this real \"boundary of natural knowledge,\" we can yet, within\nthis boundary, apply quite universally the \"mechanical law of causality.\"\nThe complicated \"phenomena of mind,\" as they are called (more especially\nconsciousness), fall under the \"law of the conservation of substance\"\njust as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt\nwith in inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.]\n\n\n[Footnote 8: _Kant and Monism_.\nAs recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and\nin some cases even deified as \"infallible\" the great K\u00f6nigsberg\nphilosopher, it may be well here to point out once more that his system\nof critical philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic\ningredients. His critical principles of the theory of knowledge will\nalways remain of fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to\nknow the essential and profoundest essence of substance, the \"thing in\nitself\" (or \"the combination of matter and energy\"); that our knowledge\nremains subjective in its nature; that it is conditioned by the\norganisation of our brain and sensory organs, and can therefore only deal\nwith the phenomena which our experience of the outer world affords us.\nBut within these \"limits of human knowledge\" a positive monistic\nknowledge of nature is still possible, in contrast to all dualistic and\nmetaphysical fantasies. One such great fact of monistic knowledge was the\nmechanical cosmogony of Kant and Laplace, the \"Essay on the Constitution\nand Mechanical Origin of the Universe, according to the Principles of\nNewton\" (1755). In the whole field of our knowledge of inorganic nature,\nKant held firmly to the monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone\nas the real explanation of the phenomena. In the science of organic\nnature also, on the other hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet\ninsufficient; here he considered it necessary to call in the aid of final\nas well as of efficient causes. (_Cf_. the fifth lecture of my _Natural\nHistory of Creation_ on \"The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck\"; also\nAlbrecht Rau's _Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Pr\u00fcfung der Resultate\ndes idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos_, vol. ii.,\n1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant afterwards\narrived at his untenable metaphysical views of \"God, Freedom, and\nImmortality.\" It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors if\nhe had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The natural\nsciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am firmly\nconvinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have turned out\nquite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he had had at\nhis disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical natural\nknowledge which we now possess.]\n\n\n[Footnote 9: _The Ether_.\nIn a thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at\nthe sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in\nHeidelberg in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant\ndiscovery: \"Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of\nnature. It comes nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess\nan electric organ, the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the\nquestion as to unmediated _actio in distans_. Is there such a thing? Not\nfar off from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature\nof electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous\nand primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of\nthe medium that fills all space, its structure, its rest or motion, its\ninfinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this\nquestion rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is\nwould reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but\nalso of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight\nand inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether\neverything that exists is not created from the ether.\" This question is\nalready being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists,\nas, for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on _The Nature\nof Electricity and Magnetism_, on _The Basis of the Conception of a\nSingle Substance_ (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of mass (the\nprimal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres\nof concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills\nall space; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms,\nand universally distributed, is--the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the\nbasis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date\narrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on \"Influences at a\nDistance mediated by the Ether\" (_Annalen der Physik und Chemie_, 1881,\nBd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one particular\nkind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance and\nradiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities\nascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other\nwords, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as\n\"the mobile.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 10: _Atoms and Elements_.\nThe evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our\nempirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav\nWendt in his treatise, _Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer\nbiologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik_[I] (Berlin, 1891); compare\nalso Wilhelm Freyer's _Die organischen Elemente und ihre Stellung im\nSystem_[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's _Chemische Probleme der\nGegenwart_[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's _Genesis of the\nElements_. For the different views as to the nature of the atom, see\nPhilip Spiller on \"The Doctrines of Atoms\" in _Die Urkraft des Weltalls\nnach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV]_ (Berlin, 1886),\n(1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the ether; 3. The\nethical side of the science of nature). For the constitution of the\nelements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Masse im Raume[V]\n(Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its\nrelationships; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and\ntheir combinations. Theory of crystallisation).\n\nNote I \"The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis\n    for Chemistry and Physics.\"\n\nNote II \"The Organic Elements and their Place in the System.\"\n\nNote III \"Chemical Problems of the Day.\"\n\nNote IV  \"The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action.\"\n\nNote V \"Force and Matter in Space.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 11: _World-Substance_.\nThe relation of the two fundamental constituents of the cosmos, ether and\nmass, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many\nhypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.]\n\n            World (=Substance=Cosmos).]\n\n            (Nature as knowable by Man.)]\n\n    Ether (=\"spirit\") (mobile       Mass (=\"body\") (inert or\n      or active substance).           passive substance).\n    Property of Vibration.          Property of Inertia.]\n\n    Chief Functions: Electricity,   Chief Functions: Gravity,\n      Magnetism, Light, Heat.         Inertia, Chemical Affinity.\n    Structure: dynamical;           Structure: atomic, discontinuous,\n      continuous, elastic substance,  inelastic substance,\n      not composed of atoms (?)       composed of atoms (?)]\n\n    Theosophical: \"God the          Theosophical: \"Created\n      Creator\" (always in motion).    world\" (passively formed).]\n\n    \"Influence of space.\"           \"Products of space condensation.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 12: _General doctrine of Evolution_.\nThe fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of evolution, and of\nthe monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly evidenced by the steady\nincrease of its copious literature. I have cited the most important\ntreatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition of my _Natural\nHistory of Creation_ (1889). Compare, specially, Carus Sterne (Ernst\nKrause), _Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des\nNaturganzen in gemeinverst\u00e4ndlicher Fassung_[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin, 1886);\nHugo Spitzer, _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Descendenztheorie und zur Methodologie der\nNaturwissenschaft_ (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, _Ludwig Feuerbach's\nPhilosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik der\nGegenwart_ (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, _Kosmos: Die\nWeltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage\nder exacten Naturforschung_ (Leipsic, 1890).[IX]\n\nNote VI \"Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the\n    Cosmos.\"\n\nNote VII \"Contributions towards a Theory of Descent, and towards a\n    Methodology of the Sciences of Nature.\"\n\nNote VIII \"Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophical\n    Criticism of the Present Time.\"\n\nNote IX \"Cosmos: The Development of the Cosmos according to Monistic\n    Principles on the Basis of Exact Science.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 13: _History of Descent_.\nThe idea and the task of phylogeny, or the history of descent, I first\ndefined in 1866, in the sixth book of my _General Morphology_ (_vol_. ii.\npp. 301-422), and the substance of this, as well as an account of its\nrelation to ontogeny or history of development, is set forth in a popular\nform in Part II. of my _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., Berlin,\n1889). A special application of both these divisions of the history of\nevolution to man, is attempted in my _Anthropogenie_ (4th ed.), revised\nand enlarged, 1891: Part I. History of development. Part II. History of\ndescent.]\n\n\n[Footnote 14: _Opponents of the Doctrine of Descent_.\nSince the death of Louis Agassiz (1873), Rudolf Virchow is regarded as\nthe sole noteworthy opponent of Darwinism and the theory of descent; he\nnever misses an opportunity (as recently in Moscow) of opposing it as\n\"unproved hypothesis.\" See as to this my pamphlet, _Freedom in Science\nand in Teaching_, a reply to Virchow's address at Munich on \"Freedom of\nScience in the Modern State\" (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892).]\n\n\n[Footnote 15: _Cellular Psychology_.\nSee on this my paper on \"Cell-souls and Soul-cells,\" in the _Deutsche\nRundschau_ (July 1878), reprinted in Part 1, of _Collected Popular\nLectures_; also \"The Cell-soul and Cellular Psychology\" in my discourse\non _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892, p.\n46); _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 444, 777); and _Descent\nof Man_ (4th ed., pp. 128, 147). See also, Max Verworn,\n_Psycho-physiologische Protisten-Studien_ (Jena, 1889), and Paul Carus,\n_The Soul of Man: An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and\nExperimental Psychology_ (Chicago, 1891). Among recent attempts to reform\npsychology on the basis of evolutionary doctrine in a monistic sense,\nspecial mention must be made of Georg Heinrich Schneider's _Der\nthierische Wille: Systematische Darstellung und Erkl\u00e4rung der thierischen\nTriebe und deren Entstehung, Entwickelung und Verbreitung im Thierreiche\nals Grundlage zu einer vergleichenden Willenslehre_[X] (Leipsic, 1880).\nCompare also his supplementary work, entitled _Der menschliche Wille vom\nStandpunkte der neuen Entwickelungstheorie_[XI] (1882); also the\n_Psychology of Herbert Spencer_ and the new edition of Wilhelm Wundt's\n_Menschen-und Thierseele[XII]_ (Leipsic, 1892).\n\nNote X \"Will in the Lower Animals: a Systematic Exposition and Explanation\n    of Animal Instincts, and their Origin, Development, and Difference in\n    the Animal Kingdom, as Basis of a Comparative Doctrine of Volition.\"\n\nNote XI \"The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of\n    Evolution.\"\n\nNote XII \"Soul in Man and Brute.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 16: _Consciousness_.\nThe antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)--that human consciousness\nis an unsoluble \"world-riddle,\" a transcendent phenomenon in essential\nantithesis to all other natural phenomena--continues to be upheld in\nnumerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the\nworld founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and\nthat his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the\n\"Leipsic ignorabimus-speech\" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been\nprized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of\nthe world, and extolled as a refutation of \"monistic dogma.\" The closing\nword of the discourse, \"ignorabimus,\" was translated as a present, and\nthis \"ignoramus\" taken to mean that \"we know nothing at all\"; or, even\nworse, that \"we can never come to clearness about anything, and any\nfurther talk about the matter is idle.\" The famous \"ignorabimus\" address\nremains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a \"beautiful\nsermon,\" characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising\nvariety of philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however,\nthat the majority (and especially women) judge a \"beautiful sermon\" not\naccording to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to\nits excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his\naudience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of\nthe genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part\nof his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further\nattempt to solve the main question he has to deal with--as to whether the\nworld is really \"doubly incomprehensible.\" For my own part, on the\ncontrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to\nour knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness\nand the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but\nneither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing,\nthan the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and\nenergy. Compare my discourse on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (1878),\npp. 78, 82, etc.]\n\n\n[Footnote 17: _Immortality_.\nPerhaps in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic\nconception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of\npersonal immortality, and that of \"the resurrection of the body,\"\nassociated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on\n_Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine_, has well remarked:\n\"One of the standing accusations of the Church against science is that it\nis materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the\nwhole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and\nstill is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material\nbody is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven.\" Compare also\nLudwig Buchner, _Das zunk\u00fcnftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_\n(Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, \"Causes of Belief in Immortality\" (_The\nForum_, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, _The Soul of Man: an\nInvestigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psychology_\n(Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between the ancient\nand the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect to the soul.\nJust as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of a special\nfiery matter (_phlogiston_), so the thinking soul was explained by the\nhypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now know that the\nlight of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the ether, and the\nsoul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As compared with\nthis scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of scholastic\npsychology has about the same value as the materialistic conceptions of\nthe Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's \"Nadowessian\nDeath-Song.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 18: _Monistic Ethic_.\nAll Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals,\nas a \"science of law\" (_Normwissenschaft_), stands in immediate\nconnection with the view that is taken of the world (_Weltanschauung_),\nand consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly\nimportant, and have recently upheld in a paper on \"Ethik und\nWeltanschauung,\" in opposition to the \"Society for Ethical Culture\"\nlately founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without\nreference to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new\nweekly journal, _Die Zukunft_, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892,\nNos. V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis\nfor all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject\ncompare especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of\nB. von Carneri--_Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus_ (1871); _Entwickelung und\nGl\u00fcckseligkeit_ (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all, _Der\nmoderne Mensch_ (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, _Welt und\nMenschheit_ (Leipsic, 1892); Harald H\u00f6ffding, _Die Grundlage der humanen\nEthik_ (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm Wundt, _Ethik,\neine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens_\n(Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).]\n\n\n[Footnote 19: _Homotheism_.\nUnder the term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the\nvarious forms of religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely\nhuman characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may\nhave shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in\ncommon retain the unworthy conception that God (_Theos_) and man (_homo_)\nare organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the\nregion of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate.\nIn the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly\nobjectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man\ndeveloped from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents\nGod as a \"spirit\" in human form, degrades Him to a \"gaseous vertebrate\"\n(_General Morphology_, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression\n\"homotheism\" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more\npractical than the cumbersome word \"Anthropotheism.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 20: _Monistic Religion_.\nAmongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last\ntwenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of\nadvanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the\nepoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled _The Old Faith and\nthe New: A Confession_ (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: _Collected Writings_,\n1878). Compare M. J. Savage, _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian\nDoctrine_; John William Draper, _History of the Conflict between Religion\nand Science_; Carl Friedrich Retzer, _Die naturwissenschaftliche\nWeltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das religi\u00f6se Dogma_\n(Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, _Natur und Menschengeist im Lichte der\nEntwickelungslehre_ (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of religion see the\ninteresting work of U. Van Ende, _Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance_\n(Paris, 1887).]\n\n\n[Footnote 21: _Freedom in Teaching_.\nThe jubilee of the \"Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes\" was\ncelebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the\ncommencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the\nGrand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are\nthe characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke\nCarl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly\nshown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector\nMagnificentissimus of our Th\u00fcringian university of Jena, he has always\nafforded his protection to its most sacred palladium--the right of the\nfree investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie, the\nheiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a\nfitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary\nperiod, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal\ntreasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of\nculture will never forget the service which the princely couple have\nthereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the\nsame time to true religion.]","title":"Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: A Man of Science","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":16350}