On the other hand, we find frequent utterances which indirectly refer to the ethical realm—for instance, expressions in reference to the ethical importance of an animal descent of man. Alex. Braun says: "Man assents to the idea of being appointed lord of the creatures, but then he may also acknowledge that he is not placed over his subjects as a stranger, but originated from the
beings whose lord he wishes to be. It is not an unworthy idea, but rather an elevating one, that man constitutes the last and highest member in the ancient and infinitely rich development of organic nature on our planet, being connected by the most intimate bonds of relationship with the other members, as the latter are connected among themselves with one another: not a pernicious parasite on the tree of natural life, but the true son of the blissful mother Nature." In reducing descent, which he accepts, to a development from an inner force, and in ascribing to the Darwinian selection, with its struggle for existence, the value only of a regulator (he adopts this term of Wallace as a very striking one), Braun, in his concluding appeal to young students, calls especial attention to the ethical importance of a development proceeding from within, saying: "Life has its outer and its inner side; all its works and ways must follow mechanical laws, but its tasks and aims belong to a higher realm. We are permitted to take a glance into this realm through the all-embracing history of the development of nature, which leads up into our own inmost being, up to our highest end. Truly progressive development is the best wish for every youth," etc.
Inasmuch as that in which Alex. Braun finds a satisfaction for the fulfillment of the ethical tasks—namely, a deeper knowledge of man's connection with lower nature, and the pointing to the proper tasks of the development of mankind,—has thus far been the substance of all sound systems of morality, we did not mention these and similar utterances, of which we could gather many more from other writers, in the preceding part of our
work—i.e., in describing those who ascribe to Darwinism a reformatory influence upon morality; but we rank these utterances with those which predict from the descent theory neither injury to morality nor any especial enlightenment regarding it.
We have now reached the end of that part of our work which considers and treats of the views of others. To our regret, we have been compelled to restrict ourselves, in this review, to the countries of the English and German tongues; the former being the home of Darwin, the latter our own. We should have preferred to take into our review also the literature of France and Belgium, Holland and Italy; but we feared being able to give only an incomplete report. Besides, it is in Germany and Great Britain—and partly also in North America, related to both in language and origin—where the Darwinian agitation has taken deepest hold of the mind; and, in restricting our report to these countries, we are not likely to have omitted any view essential to the consideration of the present question. It is true that in the other countries named the Darwinian literature is also rich, and we are well aware of the incompleteness of our report in that respect. But we believe that we have not omitted any essential views and evidences, even if the names of many of their advocates have not been mentioned.
It still remains to us to investigate independently the position of the Darwinian theories, with their philosophic supplements, in reference to religion and morality: a task for which we hope to have essentially prepared the way through the preceding representations and investigations.