CHAPTER II.
METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.
§ 1. Elimination of the Idea of Design in the World.—Monism.
From this mechanical view of the world, quite a peculiar conclusion has been recently drawn—not by Darwin, who does not give any opinion at all about the mechanical view of the world, as such, or about its extension and influence, nor, indeed, by Darwinians, not even by all followers of a mechanical view of the world, but only by a part of them; namely, by those who have in a high degree attracted to themselves the attention of reading people. This conclusion is nothing less than the elimination of the idea of design in nature. This phenomenon demands our attention. Heretofore, the proof of plan, design, and end in nature, at large and in detail, was looked upon as the most beautiful blossom and fruit of a thoughtful contemplation of nature; it was the great and beautiful common property, in the enjoyment of which the direct, the scientific, and the religious contemplation of nature peacefully participated. Now this view is to be given up forever, in consequence of nothing else than Darwin's selection theory. With an energy—we may say with a passionateness and confidence of victory—such as we were accustomed to see only in the most advanced advocates of materialism, Ludwig
Büchner, D. F. Strauss, Häckel, Oskar Schmidt, Helmholtz, the editor of the "Ausland" and some of his associates, and our often-mentioned "Anonymus,"—in a common attack, assail every idea of a conformity to an end in nature, every idea of a goal toward which the development at large and individually strives; in a word, the whole category of teleology.[[9]]
In order to be just in our judgment, we shall have to let the advocates of this view speak for themselves;—the advocates of Dysteleology, as Häckel, who is so extremely productive in forming new exotic words, calls it; or of Aposkopiology, as Ebrard, in his "Apologetik" ("Apologetics"), correcting the etymology,
somewhat pedantically calls it; or of Teleophoby, as it is called by K. E. von Baer, in humorous irony.
The anonymous author of the book called "The Unconscious from the Standpoint of Physiology and Descent Theory", asserts that, while the descent theory but puts the teleological principle in question by withdrawing the ground for a positive proof—an assertion which we certainly have to reject most decidedly (compare Part II, Book II, Chap. I, [§ 2]-[§ 6])—the selection theory directly rejects it. Natural selection, he says, solves the seemingly unsolvable problem of explaining the conformity to the end in view, as result, without taking it as an aiding principle. And Helmholtz says: "Darwin's theory shows how conformity to the end in the formation of organisms can also originate without any intermingling of an intelligence by the blind administration of a law of nature."
Häckel really revels in these ideas. He says (Nat. Hist. of Creat., Vol. I, p. 19): "These optimistic views [of the much-talked-of purposiveness of nature or of the much-talked-of beneficence of the Creator] have, unfortunately, as little real foundation as the favorite phrase, 'the moral order of the universe,' which is illustrated in an ironical way by the history of all nations.... If we contemplate the common life and the mutual relations between plants and animals (man included), we shall find everywhere, and at all times, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful social life which the goodness of the Creator ought to have prepared for his creatures—we shall rather find everywhere a pitiless, most embittered Struggle of All against All. Nowhere in nature, no matter where we turn our eyes, does that
idyllic peace, celebrated by the poets, exist; we find everywhere a struggle and a striving to annihilate neighbors and competitors. Passion and selfishness—conscious or unconscious—is everywhere the motive force of life.... Man in this respect certainly forms no exception to the rest of the animal world." And on page 33: "In the usual dualistic or teleological (vital) conception of the universe, organic nature is regarded as the purposely executed production of a Creator working according to a definite plan. Its adherents see in every individual species of animal and plant an 'embodied creative thought,' the material expression of a definite first cause (causa finalis), acting for a set purpose. They must necessarily assume supernatural (not mechanical) processes of the origin of organisms.... On the other hand, the theory of development carried out by Darwin, must, if carried out logically, lead to the monistic or mechanical (causal) conception of the universe. In opposition to the dualistic or teleological conception of nature, our theory considers organic as well as inorganic bodies to be the necessary products of natural forces. It does not see in every individual species of animal and plant the embodied thought of a personal Creator, but the expression for the time being of a mechanical process of development of matter, the expression of a necessarily active cause, that is, of a mechanical cause (causa efficiens). Where teleological Dualism seeks the arbitrary thoughts of a capricious Creator in miracles of creation, causal Monism finds in the process of development the necessary effects of eternal immutable laws of nature." Häckel's "Anthropogeny" also is replete with attacks upon a teleological
view of nature, which leave nothing wanting in distinctness and coarseness. On page 111, Vol. I, we read: "The rudimentary organs clearly prove that the mechanical, or monistic conception of the nature of organisms is alone correct, and that the prevailing teleological, or dualistic method of accounting for them is entirely false. The very ancient fable of the all-wise plan according to which 'the Creator's hand has ordained all things with wisdom and understanding,' the empty phrase about the purposive 'plan of structure' of organisms is in this way completely disproved. Stronger arguments can hardly be furnished against the customary teleology, or Doctrine of Design, than the fact that all more highly developed organisms possess such rudimentary organs." (Compare also Vol. II, p. 439: "The rudimentary organs are among the most overwhelming proofs against the prevailing teleological ideas of creation.") According to his opinion (Vol. I. p. 245), comparative anatomy may no longer look for a "pre-arranged plan of construction by the Creator." Besides, he calls it an anthropocentric error to look upon man as a preconceived aim of creation and a true final purpose of terrestrial life; and on page 17, of Vol. II, he supports this judgment by comparing the relative shortness of the existence of mankind with the length of the preceding geological periods: "Since the awakening of the human consciousness, human vanity and human arrogance have delighted in regarding Man as the real main-purpose and end of all earthly life, and as the centre of terrestrial Nature, for whose use and service all the activities of the rest of creation were from the first defined or predestined by a 'wise providence.' How utterly baseless these
presumptuous anthropocentric conceptions are, nothing could evince more strikingly than a comparison of the duration of the Anthropozoic or Quaternary Epoch with that of the preceding Epochs." And on page 234, Vol. II: "Hence it is that, in accordance with the received teleological view, it has been customary to admire the so-called 'wisdom of the Creator' and the 'purposive contrivances of His Creation' especially in this matter. But on more mature consideration it will be observed that the Creator, according to this conception, does after all but play the part of an ingenious mechanic or of a skillful watchmaker; just, indeed, as all these cherished teleological conceptions of the Creator and His Creation are based on childish anthropomorphism.... But it is exactly on this point that the history of evolution proves most clearly that this received conception is radically false. The history of evolution convinces us that the highly purposive and admirably constituted sense organs, like all other organs, have developed without premeditated aim."
Strauss, in his "The Old Faith and the New," gives to this idea its philosophic and universalistic finish. In § 67-§ 70, he eliminates not only the idea of design in individual cases, but also the idea of a design in the world as a whole; allows us to speak of design in the world only in a subjective sense, so far as we understand it to be what we think we perceive as the common final aim of the concert of the powers, active in the world; and finds, when in such a sense it is spoken of as design in the world, that the universe reaches its end in every instance. Only the parts develop themselves, driven by the mechanical laws of causality, and after having lived
their period of life, sink back again into the universe, in order to make place for new developments and to prepare them in their turn.
For the view of the world which the antagonists of teleology construct out of this "mechanical" and "causal" view, they, as we have repeatedly seen, have invented the name "monism." In contrast to all dualism in reasoning about the relation of body and soul, God and universe, time and eternity, and especially in contrast to the dualism with which the theistic view of the world is said to be loaded, monism claims that what was formerly divided into God and universe, force and matter, matter and spirit, body and soul, is but one; and it thus exhibits a reconciliation, a higher unity, of materialism and idealism, of pantheism and atheism, which unity in the scientific and the practical ethic realm has no antagonist to fight more energetically, and none which it is better able to fight successfully, than dualism, which the monistic view of the world, by a queer mistake as to the theistic position of God in nature, especially considers the whole theistic view of the world.
The scientific antagonists of teleology show such a scientific intolerance against their own associates, that one of the latest exhibitors of Darwinism, Oskar Schmidt, in his "Theory of Descent and Darwinism," bluntly classes one of the greatest and most deserving investigators in the realm of comparative anatomy and palæontology, Richard Owen, of London, with the "'Halves' who, fearing the conclusions, with one word come to terms with the scientific conscience." And why?—because Owen still sees ends in nature, and by his inclination to the acceptance of a descent, does not allow himself to
be prevented from giving adhesion to a teleological view of the world. And this invention of monism is proclaimed to the world in such a full consciousness of its great importance in the history of culture, that Häckel closes his "Nat. Hist. of Creat." with the following words: "Future centuries will celebrate our age, which was occupied with laying the foundations of the Doctrine of Descent, as the new era in which began a period of human development, rich in blessings,—a period which was characterized by the victory of free inquiry over the despotism of authority, and by the powerful ennobling influence of the Monistic Philosophy." At the end of the lecture, next to the last, in the same Vol. II, page 332, he pays the following compliment to the antagonists of monism: "The recognition of the theory of development and the Monistic Philosophy based upon it, forms the best criterion for the degree of man's mental development." In his "Generic Morphology," and in the first edition of his "Nat. Hist. of Creat.," he, in a geological scala, which closes with the human period, even divides the whole past, present, and future history of mankind into two halves: first part, dualistic period of culture; second part, monistic period of culture. Still, we will not omit to mention, with credit, that this anticipatory historiography has discreetly disappeared from the geological scala of the following editions of his "Natural History of Creation."
As to the further scientific consequences to which this anti-teleological monism leads, the advocates of it are in tolerable accord; although they are subject to the most incomprehensible illusions regarding the practical consequences of it, as we have seen in the above-quoted
concluding words of Häckel's "Natural History of Creation." As to the scientific consequences, they express themselves plainly enough: the belief in a living Creator and Lord of the world no longer find any place; everything, even all the rich treasures of human life and history, become a result of blindly acting forces; the history of the world, ethics, and all spiritual sciences, are in the progress of perception dissolved into physiology, and physiology into chemistry, physics and mechanism. In his "Natural History of Creation," Vol. I, page 170, Häckel frankly calls the whole history of the world a physico-chemical process.
Whoever refers to a view of another person, is in duty bound to enter into that view, if possible objectively, even if he does not agree with it. The author of this book tries to comply with this obligation in all his representations, but must confess that in regard to the just described view of the world, he does not succeed in making it conceivable to himself in a manner to be justified even from a relatively scientific standpoint; a want for which, it is true, we have beforehand the explanatory cause in the quotation from Häckel's "Natural History of Creation," Vol. II, p. 332, given above.
Perhaps it appears relatively conceivable, when it is asserted that the observation of an order, a connection, a development, a plan, in the world, leads to the perception of such a quality of the laws, primitive elements, and forces of the world, that something like it had to result from them; but that it does not lead to the acknowledgment of a personal author of the world. We call such a view relatively conceivable, not because we agree with it—for we find a logic which, in
contemplating the universe, starts from an intelligent author of the world, infinitely less surrounded by difficulties than one contrary to it—but because the acknowledgment or denial of a living God is in the last instance not the result of any scientific investigation or logical chain of reasoning, but the moral act of the morally and religiously inclined individual, and because, if the individual has once refused the strongest factor of faith in God,—namely, his self-testimony in the conscience,—it is no longer impossible for the individual to ignore his other testimonies as such, or to declare them deficient. Now we certainly can say that we see order and many results in the world, which are conformable to the object in view, and in consequence of this observation must admit that no imaginable quality of primitive beginnings, elements, and forces of the world had caused this result, but that this result must have already been in the plan. But there certainly are imaginable, in abstracto, infinitely many possibilities of other elements and primitive beginnings of the world,—perhaps of some whose result would have been but an eternal chaos, or of others whose result would have been but an eternal rigidness, or of still others whose result would also have been a certain order and variety of phenomena and processes, but less beautiful than that of the really existing world. Thus, then, this world now exists as a special chance of infinitely many chances; and who knows whether, in the course of thousands of millions of terrestrial years in the struggle for existence, it did not obtain its existence among infinitely many possibilities of worlds through a natural world-selection, and thus, by the result of its existence, fully legitimate its conformity to
the end in view? With this deduction, we do not make, as it may seem, an awkward attempt at rendering the whole standpoint ridiculous by a wild phantasy; but we quote it from a celebrated and otherwise very meritorious book, namely the "Geschichte des Materialismus" ("History of Materialism"), by the too early deceased Friedrich Albert Lange. The reader will find it, in the second part, page 275, simply a little shorter and, as it seems to us, less clear, but as the only "correct teleology" which Lange professes. This whole view, like all world-theories and cosmogonies of pantheism, naturalism, or atheism, and even like the latest of Eduard von Hartmann, is to us but a proof that the rejection of the reality of a living Creator and Lord of the world requires of its advocates mysteries and mysticisms of atheism compared to which the greatest difficulties of the Christian view of the world are but the merest trifles.
Therefore, if that first and second step in the rejection of the highest intelligence and omnipotence as the final cause of the world, are once made, it is easy for us to comprehend still other supports which this view of the world draws to itself. However large the number of things in the world for whose existence we can give a reason, or of which we can show that that, which preceded, aimed at their appearance, still the number of those to which we can not ascribe aim and design is just as large. There are even phenomena enough which in their main effects appear to us directly irrational; as, for instance, those which operate destructively,—all the tortures which animals inflict on one another, etc. Besides, we can also find imperfections in the degree of the
conformity to the end in view in all those phenomena which appear to us as properly planned; for instance, the organic appears to us higher than the inorganic, and yet it is in its existence not only dependent on the inorganic, but is often destroyed prematurely by it. Of course, all these limits and barriers of our teleological perception are abundantly used by all antagonists of a teleological view of the world for the basis of their position. Furthermore, the way and manner in which man fixes his ends and reaches them, is essentially different from the way and manner in which nature acts. Man seeks to attain his ends with less expenditure of power and means, the more he acts conformably to the end in view; while nature, it often enough appears to us, when we have reason to imagine an effect of its processes also as the probable end of them, reaches this end only by an immense squandering of means—for instance, the preservation of organic species simply by the production of thousands of germs and eggs, most of which perish, and but very few of which are developed, and still less are transmitted. This is a difference to which Lange points, in order to reject a theory which recognizes a striving toward an end (Zielstrebigkeit) in nature, or at most to allow it a little place as the lowest form of teleology, and to reject every attempt to regard it as analogous to human striving toward an end, as anthropomorphism. Nature, he says, acts, as if a man, in order to shoot a hare, should in a large field discharge millions of guns in all possible directions; as if he, in order to get into a locked room, should buy ten thousand different keys and try them all; as if, in order to have a house, he should build up a town and
leave the superfluous houses to wind and weather. Nobody should call such actions conformable to an end in view, and still less should we suppose behind this action any higher wisdom, hidden reasons, or superior sagacity. It is true, Wigand is right in replying to this, that when we observe such things in nature, we have to draw the conclusion that the very end supposed by the observing man—in this case, the preservation of the species—is not the only end, but that it has other ends besides; as, for instance, richness of life, inexhaustible abundance, preservation of other organisms, etc. Besides, this is but a single side of the comparison between the action of man and that of nature; and from this side action of man, conformable to an end in view, appears as a higher form of teleology, that of nature as a lower. But there are other sides of comparison, which just as clearly strike the eye; nature builds from within in full sovereignty of its process over matter and form. Man approaches his materials from without; nature works with never-erring certainty (Häckel's latest theory, that nature falsifies its laws and processes, can surely not be meant in earnest!); man often enough with error, false calculation, awkwardness, failure and capricious arbitrariness. In these directions, teleology of nature is infinitely superior to that of man.
We must be very careful in using anthropomorphism as a term of reproach. It may be used as a reproach in warning against careless reasoning and hasty comparison, but the idea of anthropomorphism is so extensible that it can be extended over all human reasoning and conception. Are not the reasons on account of which the so-called anthropomorphism is to be rejected, often
enough just as anthropomorphistic as the ideas which are attacked? For instance, when the idea of the personality of God is attacked as an anthropomorphistic one, are not the reasons with which it is assailed exactly as anthropomorphistic as the conceptions which are to be assailed? Do we not derive all our reasoning, logic, our views, and in fact everything, at first from our human nature, and do we not in our most abstract reasoning always operate simply with the laws, as they inhere in our human nature? Is there even a single scientific description conceivable without its being full of anthropomorphisms? Even the works of Darwin which, according to the opinion of these opponents of anthropomorphism, destroy anthropomorphism and teleology, are the most striking proof in favor of it. The discovery of the general reign of the law of causality invalidates, as they say, the reign of the category of teleology; for the one category contradicts the other. Suppose it were so (we will, however, immediately see that the contrary is true) whence do we know that the category of causality has the preference over that of finality or teleology? The one, as well as the other, is anthropomorphistic, and is an undoubtedly necessary form of our human reasoning. We believe in their objective validity, because we cannot believe that the sum of existences and the relations between the perceiving subject and the perceived object aim at deceiving man; we do not want to be robbed of either the one or the other category; but if the question is as to the preference of the one category over the other (which we contest), who knows whether the category of finality has not more reasons for its superiority than causality? Compare, in reference
to this whole question, also the clear analyses in the second volume of the work of Wigand, and the instructive lecture of the Duke of Argyll upon anthropomorphism in theology.
Nevertheless, all the points against teleology thus far quoted can be understood by us as attempts at rejecting the necessity of acknowledging a teleologically acting principle of the world—or, to express ourselves more clearly, of a living God—after having once rejected the deepest motive for this acknowledgment, namely: the self-testimony of God in the human conscience and mind. But it is one thing to declare that we are not obliged to accept a certain conclusion, and quite another to declare that we are obliged to accept directly the opposite of such a conclusion. It is one thing to declare that the phenomena in the world do not yet oblige us to suppose an author with a preconceived plan, and still another to declare that because I have found or still hope to find the causal connexion of phenomena conformable to the end in view, no author with a preconceived plan exists. This last assertion is one which the author of this work confesses not to understand, and in whose conclusion he cannot agree. Knowledge of the origin of something certainly does not exclude the question wherefore it exists, and does not even take its place, and when I have answered both questions satisfactorily, then I may and must justly ask whether both that for which something exists and that by which something exists, is intended or not, whether that which in the language of causality I call cause and effect, also belongs to the category of finality, according to which that very cause is at the same time called means, and that very effect also design.
The one way of viewing postulates the other as its necessary completion; and the teleological point of view is so little an impediment for the causal, that we are much more fully convinced scientifically of the correctness of the teleological way of viewing, when first the causal chain of causes and effects lies plain before our perception without any wanting links.
We still have to mention two monstrosities which, as it seems to us, necessarily result from the rejection of teleology, although the opponents of teleology contest the fact.
The one is the reduction to chance of all single formations in the world. It is true, necessity reigns in laws and their effect; but if the degree and the sum of all qualities in the world are not based the one upon the other, if especially the single organizations originate by the way of natural selection, every coincidence of each single causal chain in the world with any other causal chain is something accidental for the one as well as for the other. Now, an explanation of that in the world which is conformable to the end in view, by chance, is a scientifically illogical idea. An accidental coincidence of many circumstances can in a single case produce something which is conformable to an end in view; but the probability that the formation conformable to the end in view is again nullified by the next throw of the dice of chance, is so great, and with every following throw grows so decidedly in geometrical progression, that this probability after a few terms becomes a certainty, and we can directly demonstrate mathematically that the world without a teleological plan would be and remain a chaos. As we have seen, even Lange finds himself obliged to
admit this plan, with the exception that he makes this plan itself chance—special chance among infinitely many possibilities.
The other consequence of that elimination of the idea of design is that it forbids every difference between higher and lower, and changes everything into an indifferent and equivalent continual stream of coming and going. For the whole idea of higher and lower belongs to the category of teleology. If the new which originates is but a product of that which was already in existence, and if the latter does not aim at the production of the new, then the new is equivalent to the preceding; and it is but an illusion of man, preconceiving an end, when in the products of nature he discriminates between higher and lower. A beginning of the acknowledgment of this consequence is made, when Häckel, in his Anthropogeny, so violently attacks the idea that man is end and design of the terrestrial creation. But generally the antagonists of teleology are guilty of the inconsequence which, although from the principles of their system to be rejected, is indelibly impressed on our thinking mind and especially on our moral consciousness, that they still discriminate between higher and lower, and particularly that they willingly assign to the moral disposition and demand, and to the morally planned individual, the priority among existences. This fact is pronounced in a very striking way in the concessions of Strauss, which we have quoted on page [126], according to which nature, where it can no longer go beyond itself, wishes to go into itself, and in man has wished to go not only upwards but even beyond itself.
Therefore, not only theology, but also philosophy,
and even natural science, in their most prominent advocates, have in a uniform chorus protested against this destruction of the idea of design. That it was unanimously done on the part of theology, is quite natural, and needs no further proofs. When we, nevertheless, mention expressly a single essay on these questions, it is done on account of the fact that in its energetic defense of the teleological point of view it is especially effective by frankly and impartially admitting the strongest positions of the opponent's standpoint—a thing which rarely happens on the part of theologians. It is the essay of Julius Köstlin "Ueber die Beweise für das Dasein Gottes" ("Proofs of the Existence of God"), in the "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1875, IV and 1876, I; especially 1876, I, p. 42 ff. On the part of philosophy, we have to mention Ulrici, Fichte, Huber and Frohschammer, who have rejected the attack against teleology with inflexible criticism. Even Friedrich Vischer in the sixth part of his "Kritische Gänge" ("Critical Walks"), has forcibly maintained the right of teleology, especially of its highest revelation, the moral order of the world—in contrast to his friend D. F. Strauss, whose "The Old Faith and the New" he criticises; but it is true, in consequence of his pantheism, he reaches the wholly imaginary conclusion of supposing a moral order of the world without a regulator. And, to be able to make the systematized order and beauty of nature conceivable to himself without a Creator, to be able to make conceivable to himself a design in nature, an ideal, according to which nature works as an unconscious artist, he gives to philosophy the certainly unsolvable problem of finding the idea of
timeless time, to which the "afterward" can just as well be a "beforehand"; he prefers to do this rather than to find the equally clear and deep solution of that teleological difficulty in the simple idea of a Creator, who, as such, also stands above time. One of the most remarkable philosophic testimonies for the right of teleology is the philosophic system of Eduard von Hartmann who, although he calls his absolute the unconscious, ascribes to it an unconscious intelligence and an unconscious will, and makes the observation and acknowledgment of designs and ends, which he sees in the whole realm of the world of phenomena, an essential part of his entire system. All attempts of this kind, as those of Vischer and Hartmann, fully and correctly to understand the language of facts on the one side and to reject on the other the necessary conclusion to which it leads—namely, the acknowledgment of a creative intelligence above the facts, and having an end in view—only increase in like manner as the above-quoted cosmogonic idea of Lange by the monstrosities of reasoning to which they lead, the power of demonstration for that which they undertake to contest. Natural scientists, finally, even Darwinians, have not only in casual utterances often spoken a weighty word in favor of teleology—as, for instance, those who, like Oswald Heer, Kölliker, Baumgärtner, believe in a metamorphosis of germs, but also men who are quite favorable to the idea of an origin of the species through descent—as, for instance, Richard Owen, at the end of his "Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates," separately published as "Derivative Hypothesis of Life and Species"; Alexander Braun, in his lecture "Ueber die Bedeutung der Entwicklung in der Naturgeschichte"
("On the Importance of Development in Nature"), Berlin, 1872; A. W. Volkmann "Ueber die Entwicklung der Organismen" ("On the Development of Organisms"), Halle, 1875; Schaaffhausen, in his opening address to the Wiesbaden Anthr. Versammlung, Braunschweig, 1874, and others; but they have also given to teleology entire treatises. Besides a more popular treatise of the astronomer Mädler in "Westermann's Monatshefte," October, 1872, there belong to them the frequently mentioned work of Wigand, and especially three essays of great importance from the pen of a man who in questions of development and its extent has among all contemporaries the first right to speak, namely, Karl Ernst von Baer. They are the essays on the conformity to the end in view in general, on the conformity to the end in view in organic bodies, and on Darwin's doctrine, published together with two other essays in the already mentioned "Studien aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften," (Reden und Kleinere Aufsätze, 2ter Theil), Petersburg, 1876. Nay, even the two founders of Darwinism, Darwin himself and A. R. Wallace, as we shall see in defining their position in reference to religion, express themselves decidedly teleologically; this is especially true of Wallace, and likewise of their active and able second, Huxley. Only a single utterance of Darwin in a later publication seems to take a sceptical position in regard to teleology; compare below Part Second, Book I, [Chapt. III, § 1].
Finally, we have to say a word concerning the name which the anti-teleological view of the world gives to itself: the name "monism." The view of the world which monism gives us, seems hardly comprehensible; and
just as little does the name which it gives itself, seem justifiable.
If this name is to indicate only a maxim of investigation—the directive which scientific investigation has to take, in order to reach more general points of view—we could declare ourselves in full accord with it. All investigation strives after a unity of principle; this impulse is a scientific leading motive of our nature. Besides the absolute limits of our knowledge, there are still enough relative and provisory limits to it; and there also are enough low points of view, mistakes, and imperfections in science, to justify us when we expressly form and establish monism as a maxim of scientific investigation. All those theories and points of view need such a spur and corrective, which are hastily satisfied with a dualistic or a still farther expanded limit of our knowledge. Among them we rank in theology the antique heathenish dualism which separates God and the world in such a way that God is but the architect of the eternal matter, existing independently of God; and also the modern deistic dualism which considers only the elements, principles, and beginning of the world, as dependent on God, but not the entire course of their developments as a whole and in detail. In philosophy, taken in a narrower sense, we reckon with them the one-sided atomism which can no longer find the connecting link between the single elements of the world, or the one-sided assertion of realism or idealism, since at this time all views of the world which win acceptance from the present generation claim the praise of showing the reconciliation and higher unity of realism and idealism. In anthropology, there belongs to them
such a treatment of psychology and physiology, that the one science does not trouble itself about the other, and the investigation does not seek or keep in mind that which is common to both, or that which is higher and superior to them; and in all natural sciences, every mode of investigation belongs to them, where the single science retains no sympathy with all other sciences and with the principles of all scientific investigation. In regard to these low points of view, mistakes, or imperfections, monism certainly is a correct and necessary maxim of investigation; but this maxim ought not to lead us so far that we—as very often happens from the unity or the possibility of grouping several forms of existence under general conceptions—make an identity, that we efface the differences instead of explaining them, and then think the effacement is an explanation; that we set forth the assumed form of unity as if one we had found, and in this manner falsify the method of knowing. For as certainly and as much as man is subject to the dangers of error and falsification, just so certainly and so little is nature subject to falsification.
But if the name "monism" is to designate a certain view of the world, it is for such a designation either too comprehensive and quite applicable to all views which have a right to the name of view of the world; or it is misleading, and not applicable to any. For the name, as if it were properly called henism, either expresses only the unity of the principle of the world, and designates a quality which is the characteristic of every view of the world, and which especially belongs to theism in a clearer and more perfect way than to any other standpoint; or the name is used to attest that the world alone
exists, and that monism knows of but one existence,—namely, that of the world; while the contrary view of the world—that of theism, which in a manner wholly incompetent, and historically wholly unjustified, is called dualism—supposes two existences, God and the world. But then this name does not correctly represent either itself or theism. It does not correctly represent itself: for the so-called monism does not, indeed, suppose that that which appears in the world is the really existing, or that the processes which come into appearance have again their final cause only in the appearance, but it seeks the final causes of the phenomena in laws and principles which can no longer be observed by our senses, and of those it again seeks the common, highest, and very last principle, the perception of which it either, with Häckel, renounces or finds it, with other theories, now in atomism, and in attraction and repulsion, then in the law of causality. Thus it has not only a single existence and mode of existence, but it does exactly the same thing that theism does: it seeks the final principles of the world. And it does not correctly represent theism: for theism also does not know of two existences to which the idea of existing is applicable in fully the same way—namely, the world and God—-but in seeking a cause for the existence of the world, it finds it in God; the world, according to its view, only exists by the fact that it exists in and through God. So theism in this sense also contests with monism for the right of the name.
Therefore, when teleology allows the opponent's view of the world to appropriate the name monism exclusively to itself, it can do this only in the same
sense as that in which, in order to avoid disputes, we are satisfied with many irrational names which have forced themselves upon us; as, for instance, we can perhaps call the clerical party in Bavaria the patriotic, because it calls itself so, or as we accept the title of the ultramontane paper "Germania," at Berlin, without conceding to the bearers of those names the care of patriotism and of the interests of the German empire in a higher degree than to parties and papers of a different standpoint. In fact, this linguistic arbitrariness does not particularly tend to clearness of conception and to the avoidance of obscure phrases.