Büchner. “The Roman lawyers did not look upon the fœtus as an individual being, but as a part of the mother. The destruction of the fœtus was therefore permitted to the women of Rome, and we find that Plato and Aristotle had already adopted the same view” (p. 160).
Reader. Do not calumniate Aristotle. This great philosopher and naturalist is decidedly not of your opinion. He teaches that the fœtus is animated in the womb. And, pray, are the legal fictions of the Roman lawyers of any weight against the facts averred by modern medicine? Do you again appeal to ignorance against science?
Büchner. Physicians have not yet decided the question. “Even at birth, when the child is separated from the mother, it is impossible to assume that a ready-made soul, lying in wait, should suddenly rush in and take possession of its new habitation. The soul, on the contrary, is only gradually developed in proportion to the relations which, by the awakening senses, are now established between the individual and the external world” (p. 161).
Reader. No, sir. If this last assertion were true, it would follow that every child would be lifeless at its birth; for without a soul no animal life can be conceived. What is “gradually developed” is not the substance of the soul, but the exercise of its faculties. This is a point already settled. As to your other assertion, that the question has not yet been decided by the physicians, I need only say that, although there are different opinions regarding the time of the animation of the embryo, yet no physician (unless he is a materialist) denies that the embryo is animated long before its nativity. Hence your notion of a ready-made soul lying in wait, and suddenly rushing in when the child is born, is only a dream of your fancy or an unworthy attempt at ridiculing the proceedings of nature.
What you add about the development of the child's mind by means of the senses, education, and example does not prove the subjective, but only the objective, growth of the [pg 187] mind, as you yourself seem to concede (p. 162). And as the objective growth means an accidental acquisition of knowledge without any substantial change of the soul, hence nothing that you may say in refutation of innate ideas can have the least weight or afford the least ground against the doctrine of the immortality and substantiality of the soul.
XVII. The Idea Of A God.
Reader. From the non-existence of innate ideas you infer, doctor, that “the idea of a God, or the conception of a supreme personal being, who created, who governs and preserves the world, is not innate in the human mind, and therefore is not incontrovertible” (p. 184). On the other hand, you say with Luther that “God is a blank sheet, upon which nothing is found but what you have yourself written” (ibid.) Do you mean that our notion of God is merely subjective—that is, a creation of our fancy without any objective foundation?
Büchner. Yes, sir. “We can have neither any knowledge nor any conception of the absolute—of that which transcends the surrounding sensual world. However much metaphysicians may vainly attempt to define the absolute, however much religion may endeavor to excite faith in the absolute by the assumption of a revelation, nothing can conceal the defect of the definition. All our knowledge is relative, and results from the comparison of surrounding sensible objects. We could have no notion of darkness without light, no conception of high without low, of heat without coldness, etc.; absolute ideas we have none. We are not able to form any conception of ‘everlasting’ or ‘infinite,’ as our understanding, limited by time and space, finds an impassable barrier for that conception. From being in the sensual world accustomed to find a cause for every effect, we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things, although such a cause is perfectly inaccessible to our ideas, and is contradicted by scientific experience” (p. 179).
Reader. How do you show that we have neither any knowledge nor any conception of the absolute? or that our understanding is limited by time and space? or that, from being accustomed to find a cause for every effect, we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things? or that its existence is contradicted by scientific experience? Of course you cannot expect that a rational man will swallow such paradoxes on your puny authority.
Büchner. We know neither absolute truth, nor absolute good, nor absolute beauty. This I have shown by proving that all our notions of truth, of good, and of beauty are the fruit of experience, observation, and comparison, and that such notions vary according to the character of the nations in which they are to be found. It is only after this demonstration that I concluded “that we can have neither any knowledge nor any conception of the absolute.”