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