Monism as Connecting Religion and Science
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Ernst Haeckel >> Monism as Connecting Religion and Science
[3] _Religion in the Lower Animals_.
We cannot fail to recognise in the more highly developed of our domestic
animals (especially in dogs, horses, and elephants) some first beginnings
of those higher brain-functions which we designate as reason and
consciousness, religion and morality; they differ only in degree, not in
kind, from the corresponding mental activities of the lowest human races.
If, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the anthropoids, had been for
thousands of years domesticated and brought up in close relation with
civilised man, the similarity of their mental activities to those of man
would undoubtedly have been much more striking than it is. The apparently
deep gulf which separates man from these most highly-developed mammals
"is mainly founded on the fact that in man several conspicuous attributes
are united, which in the other animals occur only separately, viz. (1)
The higher degree of differentiation of the larynx (speech), (2) brain
(mind), and (3) extremities; and (4) the upright posture. It is merely
the happy combination of these important animal organs and functions at a
higher stage of evolution that raises the majority of mankind so far
above all lower animals" (_General Morphology_, 1866, vol. ii. p. 430).
[4] _Inheritance of Acquired Characters_.
As the controversy on this important question is still unsettled, special
attention may here be called to the valuable data for arriving at a
decision which are afforded precisely by the development of instincts
among the higher animals, and of speech and reason in man. "The
inheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual, is
an indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution." "Those
who, with Weismann and Galton, deny this, entirely exclude thereby the
possibility of any formative influence of the outer world upon organic
form" (_Anthropogenie_, 4th ed., pp. xxiii., 836; see, further, the works
there referred to of Eimer, Weismann, Ray-Lankester, etc.; also Ludwig
Wilser's _Die Vererbung der geistigen Eigenschaften_, Heidelberg, 1892).
[5] _Theosophical System of Nature_.
Of all the modern attempts of dualistic philosophy to establish the
knowledge of nature on a theological basis (that of Christian
monotheism), the _Essay on Classification_ of Louis Agassiz is by far the
most important,--in strictness, indeed, is the only one worthy of
mention. (On this see my _Natural History of Creation_, Lect. III., also
"Aims and Methods of the Modern Embryology," 1875, _Jena Zeitschr. für
Naturw., Bd. x., Supplement.)
[6] _Darwin and Copernicus_.
This is the title of an address delivered by Du Bois-Reymond on 25th
January 1883, in the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and afterwards published
in his _Collected Addresses_ (_vol_. ii. 1887). As the author himself
mentions in a note (p. 500) that this gave rise, "most unmeritedly," to
great excitement, and called down upon him the violent attacks of the
clerical press, I may be allowed to point out here that it contained
nothing new, I myself, fifteen years previously, in my lectures on "The
Origin and Genealogy of the Human Race," having carried out in detail the
comparison between Darwin and Copernicus, and the service rendered by
these two heroes in putting an end to the anthropocentric and geocentric
views of the world. (See the Third Series in Virchow and Holtzendorff's
_Collection of Popular Scientific Lectures_, Nos. 53 and 54, 1868, 4th
ed., 1881.) When Du Bois-Reymond says, "For me, Darwin is the Copernicus
of the organic world," I am the more pleased to find that he agrees
(partly in identical words) with my way of thinking, as he himself, quite
unnecessarily, takes up an attitude of opposition towards me. The same is
the case with regard to the explanation of innate ideas by Darwinism,
which he has attempted in his address (1870) on "Leibnitzian Ideas in
Modern Science" (vol. i. of the _Collected Addresses_). Here also he is
most agreeably at one with me in what, four years before, I had
elaborated in my _General Morphology_ (vol. ii. p. 446), and in my
_Natural History of Creation_ (1868). "The laws of heredity and
adaptation explain to us how it is that _à priori_ ideas have been
developed out of what was originally _à posteriori_ knowledge," etc. I
cannot fail to be highly flattered in being able in these last days to
greet the renowned orator of the Berlin Academy as a friend and patron of
the _Natural History of Creation_, which he had previously designated a
bad romance. But his winged words are not on that account to be
forgotten, that "the genealogical trees of phylogeny are about as much
worth as, in the eyes of the historical critic, are those of the Homeric
heroes" (_Darwin versus Galiani_, 1876).
[7] _The Law of the Conservation of Substance_.
Strictly taken, this belongs also to "scientific articles of faith," and
could stand as the first article of our "monistic religion." Physicists
of the present day, it is true, generally (and correctly) regard their
"law of the conservation of energy" as the immovable foundation of all
their science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just as in like manner chemists
so regard their fundamental law of the "conservation of matter"
(Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, however, raise certain
objections to either of these fundamental laws with as much success as
against their combination into the single superior law of the
"conservation of substance." As a matter of fact, dualistic philosophy
still attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise of
cautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic)
objections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they
relate to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as
to the connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the
presence of this real "boundary of natural knowledge," we can yet, within
this boundary, apply quite universally the "mechanical law of causality."
The complicated "phenomena of mind," as they are called (more especially
consciousness), fall under the "law of the conservation of substance"
just as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt
with in inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.
[8] _Kant and Monism_.
As recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and
in some cases even deified as "infallible" the great Königsberg
philosopher, it may be well here to point out once more that his system
of critical philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic
ingredients. His critical principles of the theory of knowledge will
always remain of fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to
know the essential and profoundest essence of substance, the "thing in
itself" (or "the combination of matter and energy"); that our knowledge
remains subjective in its nature; that it is conditioned by the
organisation of our brain and sensory organs, and can therefore only deal
with the phenomena which our experience of the outer world affords us.
But within these "limits of human knowledge" a positive monistic
knowledge of nature is still possible, in contrast to all dualistic and
metaphysical fantasies. One such great fact of monistic knowledge was the
mechanical cosmogony of Kant and Laplace, the "Essay on the Constitution
and Mechanical Origin of the Universe, according to the Principles of
Newton" (1755). In the whole field of our knowledge of inorganic nature,
Kant held firmly to the monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone
as the real explanation of the phenomena. In the science of organic
nature also, on the other hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet
insufficient; here he considered it necessary to call in the aid of final
as well as of efficient causes. (_Cf_. the fifth lecture of my _Natural
History of Creation_ on "The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck"; also
Albrecht Rau's _Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Prüfung der Resultate
des idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos_, vol. ii.,
1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant afterwards
arrived at his untenable metaphysical views of "God, Freedom, and
Immortality." It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors if
he had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The natural
sciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am firmly
convinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have turned out
quite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he had had at
his disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical natural
knowledge which we now possess.
[9] _The Ether_.
In a thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at
the sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in
Heidelberg in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant
discovery: "Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of
nature. It comes nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess
an electric organ, the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the
question as to unmediated _actio in distans_. Is there such a thing? Not
far off from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature
of electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous
and primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of
the medium that fills all space, its structure, its rest or motion, its
infinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this
question rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is
would reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but
also of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight
and inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether
everything that exists is not created from the ether." This question is
already being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists,
as, for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on _The Nature
of Electricity and Magnetism_, on _The Basis of the Conception of a
Single Substance_ (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of mass (the
primal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres
of concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills
all space; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms,
and universally distributed, is--the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the
basis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date
arrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on "Influences at a
Distance mediated by the Ether" (_Annalen der Physik und Chemie_, 1881,
Bd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one particular
kind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance and
radiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities
ascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other
words, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as
"the mobile."
[10] _Atoms and Elements_.
The evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our
empirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav
Wendt in his treatise, _Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer
biologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik_[I] (Berlin, 1891); compare
also Wilhelm Freyer's _Die organischen Elemente und ihre Stellung im
System_[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's _Chemische Probleme der
Gegenwart_[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's _Genesis of the
Elements_. For the different views as to the nature of the atom, see
Philip Spiller on "The Doctrines of Atoms" in _Die Urkraft des Weltalls
nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV] (Berlin, 1886),
(1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the ether; 3. The
ethical side of the science of nature). For the constitution of the
elements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Masse im Raume[V]
(Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its
relationships; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and
their combinations. Theory of crystallisation).
[I] "The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis
for Chemistry and Physics."
[II] "The Organic Elements and their Place in the System."
[III] "Chemical Problems of the Day."
[IV] "The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action."
[V] "Force and Matter in Space."
[11] _World-Substance_.
The relation of the two fundamental constituents of the cosmos, ether and
mass, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many
hypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.
World (=Substance=Cosmos).
(Nature as knowable by Man.)
Ether (="spirit") (mobile Mass (="body") (inert or
or active substance). passive substance).
Property of Vibration. Property of Inertia.
Chief Functions: Electricity, Chief Functions: Gravity,
Magnetism, Light, Heat. Inertia, Chemical Affinity.
Structure: dynamical; Structure: atomic, discontinuous,
continuous, elastic substance, inelastic substance,
not composed of atoms (?) composed of atoms (?)
Theosophical: "God the Theosophical: "Created
Creator" (always in motion). world" (passively formed).
"Influence of space." "Products of space condensation."
[12] _General doctrine of Evolution_.
The fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of evolution, and of
the monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly evidenced by the steady
increase of its copious literature. I have cited the most important
treatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition of my _Natural
History of Creation_ (1889). Compare, specially, Carus Sterne (Ernst
Krause), _Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des
Naturganzen in gemeinverständlicher Fassung_[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin, 1886);
Hugo Spitzer, _Beiträge zur Descendenztheorie und zur Methodologie der
Naturwissenschaft_ (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, _Ludwig Feuerbach's
Philosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik der
Gegenwart_ (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, _Kosmos: Die
Weltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage
der exacten Naturforschung_ (Leipsic, 1890).[IX]
[VI] "Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the
Cosmos."
[VII] "Contributions towards a Theory of Descent, and towards a
Methodology of the Sciences of Nature."
[VIII] "Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophical
Criticism of the Present Time."
[IX] "Cosmos: The Development of the Cosmos according to Monistic
Principles on the Basis of Exact Science."
[13] _History of Descent_.
The idea and the task of phylogeny, or the history of descent, I first
defined in 1866, in the sixth book of my _General Morphology_ (_vol_. ii.
pp. 301-422), and the substance of this, as well as an account of its
relation to ontogeny or history of development, is set forth in a popular
form in Part II. of my _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., Berlin,
1889). A special application of both these divisions of the history of
evolution to man, is attempted in my _Anthropogenie_ (4th ed.), revised
and enlarged, 1891: Part I. History of development. Part II. History of
descent.
[14] _Opponents of the Doctrine of Descent_.
Since the death of Louis Agassiz (1873), Rudolf Virchow is regarded as
the sole noteworthy opponent of Darwinism and the theory of descent; he
never misses an opportunity (as recently in Moscow) of opposing it as
"unproved hypothesis." See as to this my pamphlet, _Freedom in Science
and in Teaching_, a reply to Virchow's address at Munich on "Freedom of
Science in the Modern State" (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892).
[15] _Cellular Psychology_.
See on this my paper on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells," in the _Deutsche
Rundschau_ (July 1878), reprinted in Part 1, of _Collected Popular
Lectures_; also "The Cell-soul and Cellular Psychology" in my discourse
on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr., 1892, p.
46); _Natural History of Creation_ (8th ed., pp. 444, 777); and _Descent
of Man_ (4th ed., pp. 128, 147). See also, Max Verworn,
_Psycho-physiologische Protisten-Studien_ (Jena, 1889), and Paul Carus,
_The Soul of Man: An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and
Experimental Psychology_ (Chicago, 1891). Among recent attempts to reform
psychology on the basis of evolutionary doctrine in a monistic sense,
special mention must be made of Georg Heinrich Schneider's _Der
thierische Wille: Systematische Darstellung und Erklärung der thierischen
Triebe und deren Entstehung, Entwickelung und Verbreitung im Thierreiche
als Grundlage zu einer vergleichenden Willenslehre_[X] (Leipsic, 1880).
Compare also his supplementary work, entitled _Der menschliche Wille vom
Standpunkte der neuen Entwickelungstheorie_[XI] (1882); also the
_Psychology of Herbert Spencer_ and the new edition of Wilhelm Wundt's
_Menschen- und Thierseele[XII] (Leipsic, 1892).
[X] "Will in the Lower Animals: a Systematic Exposition and Explanation
of Animal Instincts, and their Origin, Development, and Difference in
the Animal Kingdom, as Basis of a Comparative Doctrine of Volition."
[XI] "The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of
Evolution."
[XII] "Soul in Man and Brute."
[16] _Consciousness_.
The antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)--that human consciousness
is an unsoluble "world-riddle," a transcendent phenomenon in essential
antithesis to all other natural phenomena--continues to be upheld in
numerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the
world founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and
that his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the
"Leipsic ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been
prized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of
the world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing
word of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and
this "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even
worse, that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any
further talk about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address
remains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful
sermon," characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising
variety of philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however,
that the majority (and especially women) judge a "beautiful sermon" not
according to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to
its excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his
audience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of
the genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part
of his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further
attempt to solve the main question he has to deal with--as to whether the
world is really "doubly incomprehensible." For my own part, on the
contrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to
our knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness
and the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but
neither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing,
than the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and
energy. Compare my discourse on _Freedom in Science and Teaching_ (1878),
pp. 78, 82, etc.
[17] _Immortality_.
Perhaps in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic
conception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of
personal immortality, and that of "the resurrection of the body,"
associated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on
_Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine_, has well remarked:
"One of the standing accusations of the Church against science is that it
is materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the
whole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and
still is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material
body is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven." Compare also
Ludwig Buchner, _Das zunkünftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_
(Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, "Causes of Belief in Immortality" (_The
Forum_, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, _The Soul of Man: an
Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental Psychology_
(Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between the ancient
and the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect to the soul.
Just as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of a special
fiery matter (_phlogiston_), so the thinking soul was explained by the
hypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now know that the
light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the ether, and the
soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As compared with
this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of scholastic
psychology has about the same value as the materialistic conceptions of
the Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's "Nadowessian
Death-Song."
[18] _Monistic Ethic_.
All Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals,
as a "science of law" (_Normwissenschaft_), stands in immediate
connection with the view that is taken of the world (_Weltanschauung_),
and consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly
important, and have recently upheld in a paper on "Ethik und
Weltanschauung," in opposition to the "Society for Ethical Culture"
lately founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without
reference to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new
weekly journal, _Die Zukunft_, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892,
Nos. V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis
for all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject
compare especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of
B. von Carneri--_Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus_ (1871); _Entwickelung und
Glückseligkeit_ (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all, _Der
moderne Mensch_ (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, _Welt und
Menschheit_ (Leipsic, 1892); Harald Höffding, _Die Grundlage der humanen
Ethik_ (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm Wundt, _Ethik,
eine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens_
(Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).
[19] _Homotheism_.
Under the term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the
various forms of religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely
human characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may
have shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in
common retain the unworthy conception that God (_Theos_) and man (_homo_)
are organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the
region of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate.
In the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly
objectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man
developed from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents
God as a "spirit" in human form, degrades Him to a "gaseous vertebrate"
(_General Morphology_, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression
"homotheism" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more
practical than the cumbersome word "Anthropotheism."
[20] _Monistic Religion_.
Amongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last
twenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of
advanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the
epoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled _The Old Faith and
the New: A Confession_ (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: _Collected Writings_,
1878). Compare M. J. Savage, _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian
Doctrine_; John William Draper, _History of the Conflict between Religion
and Science_; Carl Friedrich Retzer, _Die naturwissenschaftliche
Weltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das religiöse Dogma_
(Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, _Natur und Menschengeist im Lichte der
Entwickelungslehre_ (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of religion see the
interesting work of U. Van Ende, _Histoire Naturelle de la Croyance_
(Paris, 1887).
[21] _Freedom in Teaching_.
The jubilee of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes" was
celebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the
commencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the
Grand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are
the characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke
Carl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly
shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector
Magnificentissimus of our Thüringian university of Jena, he has always
afforded his protection to its most sacred palladium--the right of the
free investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie, the
heiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a
fitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary
period, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal
treasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of
culture will never forget the service which the princely couple have
thereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the
same time to true religion.