The Riddle of the Universe at the close of the nineteenth century

by Ernst Haeckel

Although the obvious contradiction of the two forms of reason in Kant’s teaching, the fundamental antagonism of pure and practical reason, was recognized and attacked at the very beginning of the century, it is still pretty widely accepted. The modern school of neo-Kantians urges a “return to Kant” so pressingly precisely on account of this agreeable dualism; the Church militant zealously supports it because it fits in admirably with its own mystic faith. But it met with an effective reverse at the hands of modern science in the second half of the nineteenth century, which entirely demolished the theses of the system of practical reason. Monistic cosmology proved, on the basis of the law of substance, that there is no personal God; comparative and genetic psychology showed that there cannot be an immortal soul; and monistic physiology proved the futility of the assumption of “free will.” Finally, the science of evolution made it clear that the same eternal iron laws that rule in the inorganic world are valid too in the organic and moral world.

But modern science gives not only a negative support to practical philosophy and ethics in demolishing the Kantian dualism, but it renders the positive service of substituting for it the new structure of ethical monism. It shows that the feeling of duty does not rest on an illusory “categorical imperative,” but on the solid ground of social instinct, as we find in the case of all social animals. It regards as the highest aim of all morality the re-establishment of a sound harmony between egoism and altruism, between self-love and the love of one’s neighbor. It is to the great English philosopher, Herbert Spencer, that we owe the founding of this monistic ethics on a basis of evolution.

Man belongs to the social vertebrates, and has, therefore, like all social animals, two sets of duties—first to himself, and secondly to the society to which he belongs. The former are the behests of self-love or egoism, the latter of love for one’s fellows or altruism. The two sets of precepts are equally just, equally natural, and equally indispensable. If a man desire to have the advantage of living in an organized community, he has to consult not only his own fortune, but also that of the society, and of the “neighbors” who form the society. He must realize that its prosperity is his own prosperity, and that it cannot suffer without his own injury. This fundamental law of society is so simple and so inevitable that one cannot understand how it can be contradicted in theory or in practice; yet that is done to-day, and has been done for thousands of years.

The equal appreciation of these two natural impulses, or the moral equivalence of self-love and love of others, is the chief and the fundamental principle of our morality. Hence the highest aim of all ethics is very simple—it is the re-establishment of “the natural equality of egoism and altruism, of the love of one’s self and the love of one’s neighbor.” The Golden Rule says: “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” From this highest precept of Christianity it follows of itself that we have just as sacred duties towards ourselves as we have towards our fellows. I have explained my conception of this principle in my Monism, and laid down three important theses. (1) Both these concurrent impulses are natural laws, of equal importance and necessity for the preservation of the family and the society; egoism secures the self-preservation of the individual, altruism that of the species which is made up of the chain of perishable individuals. (2) The social duties which are imposed by the social structure of the associated individuals, and by means of which it secures its preservation, are merely higher evolutionary stages of the social instincts, which we find in all higher social animals (as “habits which have become hereditary”). (3) In the case of civilized man all ethics, theoretical or practical, being “a science of rules,” is connected with his view of the world at large, and consequently with his religion.

From the recognition of the fundamental principle of our morality we may immediately deduce its highest precept, that noble command, which is often called the Golden Rule of morals, or, briefly, the Golden Rule. Christ repeatedly expressed it in the simple phrase: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Mark adds that “there is no greater commandment than this,” and Matthew says: “In these two commandments is the whole law and the prophets.” In this greatest and highest commandment our monistic ethics is completely at one with Christianity. We must, however, recall the historical fact that the formulation of this supreme command is not an original merit of Christ, as the majority of Christian theologians affirm and their uncritical supporters blindly accept. The Golden Rule is five hundred years older than Christ; it was laid down as the highest moral principle by many Greek and Oriental sages. Pittacus, of Mylene, one of the seven wise men of Greece, said six hundred and twenty years before Christ: “Do not that to thy neighbor that thou wouldst not suffer from him.” Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher and religious founder (who rejected the idea of a personal God and of the immortality of the soul), said five hundred years B.C.: “Do to every man as thou wouldst have him do to thee; and do not to another what thou wouldst not have him do to thee. This precept only dost thou need; it is the foundation of all other commandments.” Aristotle taught about the middle of the fourth century B.C.: “We must act towards others as we wish others to act towards us.” In the same sense, and partly in the same words, the Golden Rule was given by Thales, Isocrates, Aristippus, Sextus, the Pythagorean, and other philosophers of classic antiquity—several centuries before Christ. From this collection it is clear that the Golden Rule had a polyphyletic origin—that is, it was formulated by a number of philosophers at different times and in different places, quite independently of each other. Otherwise it must be assumed that Jesus derived it from some other Oriental source, from ancient Semitic, Indian, Chinese, or especially Buddhistic traditions, as has been proved in the case of most of the other Christian doctrines.

As the great ethical principle is thus twenty-five hundred years old, and as Christianity itself has put it at the head of its moral teaching as the highest and all-embracing commandment, it follows that our monistic ethics is in complete harmony on this important point, not only with the ethics of the ancient heathens, but also with that of Christianity. Unfortunately this harmony is disturbed by the fact that the gospels and the Pauline epistles contain many other points of moral teaching, which contradict our first and supreme commandment. Christian theologians have fruitlessly striven to explain away these striking and painful contradictions by their ingenious interpretations. We need not enter into that question now, but we must briefly consider those unfortunate aspects of Christian ethics which are incompatible with the better thought of the modern age, and which are distinctly injurious in their practical consequences. Of that character is the contempt which Christianity has shown for self, for the body, for nature, for civilization, for the family, and for woman.

I. The supreme mistake of Christian ethics, and one which runs directly counter to the Golden Rule, is its exaggeration of love of one’s neighbor at the expense of self-love. Christianity attacks and despises egoism on principle. Yet that natural impulse is absolutely indispensable in view of self-preservation; indeed, one may say that even altruism, its apparent opposite, is only an enlightened egoism. Nothing great or elevated has ever taken place without egoism, and without the passion that urges us to great sacrifices. It is only the excesses of the impulse that are injurious. One of the Christian precepts that were impressed upon us in our early youth as of great importance, and that are glorified in millions of sermons, is: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” It is a very ideal precept, but as useless in practice as it is unnatural. So it is with the counsel, “If any man will take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.” Translated into the terms of modern life, that means: “When some unscrupulous scoundrel has defrauded thee of half thy goods, let him have the other half also.” Or, again, in the language of modern politics: “When the pious English take from you simple Germans one after another of your new and valuable colonies in Africa, let them have all the rest of your colonies also—or, best of all, give them Germany itself.” And, while we touch on the marvellous world-politics of modern England, we may note in passing its direct contradiction of every precept of Christian charity, which is more frequently on the lips of that great nation than of any other nation in the world. However, the glaring contradiction between the theoretical, ideal, altruistic morality of the human individual and the real, purely selfish morality of the human community, and especially of the civilized Christian state, is a familiar fact. It would be interesting to determine mathematically in what proportion among organized men the altruistic ethical ideal of the individual changes into its contrary, the purely egoistic “real politics” of the state and the nation.

II. Since the Christian faith takes a wholly dualistic view of the human organism and attributes to the immortal soul only a temporary sojourn in the mortal frame, it very naturally sets a much greater value on the soul than on the body. Hence results that neglect of the care of the body, of training, and of cleanliness which contrasts the life of the Christian Middle Ages so unfavorably with that of pagan classical antiquity. Christian ethics contains none of those firm commands as to daily ablutions which are theoretically laid down and practically fulfilled in the Mohammedan, Hindoo, and other religions. In many monasteries the ideal of the pious Christian is the man who does not wash and clothe himself properly, who never changes his malodorous gown, and who, instead of regular work, fills up his useless life with mechanical prayers, senseless fasts, and so forth. As a special outgrowth of this contempt of the body we have the disgusting discipline of the flagellants and other ascetics.

III. One source of countless theoretical errors and practical blemishes, of deplorable crudity and privation, is found in the false anthropism of Christianity—that is, in the unique position which it gives to man, as the image of God, in opposition to all the rest of nature. In this way it has contributed, not only to an extremely injurious isolation from our glorious mother “nature,” but also to a regrettable contempt of all other organisms. Christianity has no place for that well-known love of animals, that sympathy with the nearly related and friendly mammals (dogs, horses, cattle, etc.), which is urged in the ethical teaching of many of the older religions, especially Buddhism. Whoever has spent much time in the south of Europe must have often witnessed those frightful sufferings of animals which fill us friends of animals with the deepest sympathy and indignation. And when one expostulates with these brutal “Christians” on their cruelty, the only answer is, with a laugh: “But the beasts are not Christians.” Unfortunately Descartes gave some support to the error in teaching that man only has a sensitive soul, not the animal.

How much more elevated is our monistic ethics than the Christian in this regard! Darwinism teaches us that we have descended immediately from the primates, and, in a secondary degree, from a long series of earlier mammals, and that, therefore, they are “our brothers”; physiology informs us that they have the same nerves and sense-organs as we, and the same feelings of pleasure and pain. No sympathetic monistic scientist would ever be guilty of that brutal treatment of animals which comes so lightly to the Christian in his anthropistic illusion—to the “child of the God of love.” Moreover, this Christian contempt of nature on principle deprives man of an abundance of the highest earthly joys, especially of the keen, ennobling enjoyment of nature.