Chapter 5

[Footnote 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).

Note 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."

Note XI "The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of Evolution."

Note XII "Soul in Man and Brute."

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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."]

[Footnote 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).]

[Footnote 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."]

[Footnote 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).]

[Footnote 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.]