CHAPTER I.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THE THEISTIC VIEW OF THE WORLD.

A. THE POSITION OF PURELY SCIENTIFIC DARWINISM IN REFERENCE TO THEISM.

§ 1. _Scientific Investigation and Theism. The Idea of Creation._

At the very beginning of our investigation, we have to state that the absolute freedom of scientific investigation lies not only in the interest of natural science, but just as clearly in the direct interest of religion; and that every attempt at limiting the freedom of scientific investigation in a pretended religious interest, can only have its cause in the fullest misapprehension of that which the religious interest requires. For the religious view of the world consists in this: that it sees in the universe, with all its inhabitants and processes, the work of an almighty Creator and Ruler of the world; and therefore it cannot be unimportant to it, whether we also have a knowledge of this work, to a certain extent, whether we make use of the means which lead to the knowledge of the world, {253} and whether we make progress in the knowledge, or not. The religious view of the world sees in every correction and enrichment of our scientific knowledge only a correction and enrichment of our knowledge of the way and manner of the divine creation and action; and every such correction and enrichment acts directly as an incitement to religiousness--although, fortunately for the universal destination of religion, the degree of our religiousness is not dependent upon the degree of our knowledge of nature. Therefore, the religious view of the world does not throw any barriers in the way of scientific investigation; it does not prescribe the route by which the latter is to reach its aim, and it does not forbid it any scientific auxiliary means, nor, indeed, any scientific auxiliary hypothesis, nor does it, so far as the communication of scientific knowledge is concerned, inquire after the religious or the irreligious standpoint of those who offer it such knowledge. In all these directions, it knows of but one requirement: that of exact and correct presentation; in a word, of but one requirement of _truth_. Real, well-founded, and certain results of natural science can never come into antagonism with religion; for precisely the same thing which in the language of natural science is called natural causal connection, is in that of religion called the way and manner of divine action and government. Where man has adopted any view, the proving of which, according to its nature, belongs to natural science, and natural science should show an error in such a view, he must simply give it up and surrender the erroneous opinion, that such a view is to form a constituent part of our religious perception. Just as decidedly, on the other hand, religion can ask of {254} natural science that it should not use speculative views of religious character, the proving of which belongs to the science of religion, for the purpose of scientific generalizations, in case the science of religion should prove that such views are antagonistic to the nature and the principles of religion.

Those who, on religious grounds, look with suspicion upon scientific investigation, are frequently influenced by two erroneous notions, closely related to one another, without regard to the well-grounded aversion to the atheistic beauty with which so many scientific works are adorned. One of these errors is the notion that any object is remote from divine causality in the degree in which it has the cause of its origin in the natural connection, and that it would be easier for us to trace the origin of an object to the authorship of God, if we could not find any natural cause of its origin, than if we had knowledge of such a natural cause. The other error is the notion that the idea of "creation" excludes the idea of the action of secondary causes.

If the first mentioned opinion were correct, those certainly would be right who identify the progress of sciences with the progress of atheism; and ignorance would then be the most effective protection of piety. But this opinion is in direct conflict with all sound religious and scientific reasoning. It is in conflict with sound religious reasoning: for the religious view of the world sees in nature itself, with its whole association of causes and effects, a work of God; and as certainly as, according to the religious view of nature, a thousand years in the sight of God are but as yesterday when it is past, just so certainly is an object a work of {255} God, whether its origin is due to milliards of _well-known_ secondary causes, which all together are works of God--as well with reference to the laws which they obey as to the materials and forces in which these laws are active--or whether, when treating the question as to the immediate cause of its existence, we see ourselves led to an agency _unknown_ to us. And that opinion is also in conflict with all sound scientific reasoning: for the fact that we do not have any knowledge of the immediate cause of a phenomenon, is by no means a proof that this immediate cause is the direct action of God who does not use any secondary causes; the phenomena may just as well have still more material or immaterial secondary causes, unknown to us. We will illustrate the error, referred to, by an example which will also reveal its relationship to the other error of which we shall have to speak immediately. It is certainly no evidence of an especially intensive piety, if we build the conviction that God is the Creator of man, among other things, on the obscurity in which for us the origin of mankind is wrapped. For from this obscurity no other conclusion can be drawn than increased proofs of the limitation of our knowledge; that piety which traces those phenomena whose natural causes we know, just as decidedly to the causality of God, is much more--we shall not say, intensive, but correctly guided--than that piety which traces back those whose natural causes are hidden to us. And, on the other hand, it is also no evidence of especial religious coolness or indifference, when we pursue with interest and the desire of success the attempts at bringing light into the history of the origin of mankind. He who does the latter can, according to his religious or {256} irreligious standpoint, just as easily connect his interest with the hope of an enrichment of his knowledge of the ways and works of God, as with the hope of a confirmation in his atheistic view of the world. The reverence with which we stand before the action of God in those works whose existence is in a higher degree a mystery to us than the existence of others (for in reality everything is a mystery to us), is perhaps a little differently modified from the reverence with which we stand before the action of God in those of his works in the mode of whose origin we are permitted to get a deeper glance; but each is reverence, and we can get from both nutriment for our religious nature.

Those who favor the second error--namely, that the idea of creation excludes the idea of secondary causes--overlook the facts that the idea of the creation of the universe is essentially different from the idea of the creation of the single elements of the universe, as, for instance, of the earth, of the organisms, of man; that the idea of a creation without secondary causes can only be applied to the origin of the universe in its elements, forces, and laws, and that the first origin of the single elements in the world--as of the single planets, organisms, man--not only admits the action of secondary causes, but even requires and presupposes the action of conditions. For all single species of beings which have originated within the already existing world, have also certain elements, even the whole basis and condition of their existence, in common with that which was already before in existence; the planet has its elements in common with the elements of other planets, the organic has the same material substances as the inorganic, man has {257} the elements and the organization of his body as well as a great part of his psychical activity in common with animals. Nothing urges us to suppose--and the analogy of all that we know even forbids us to suppose--that with the appearance of a new species of beings, the same matter and the same quality of matter which the last appearance has in common with the already existing, has each time been called anew into existence out of nothing. Only that which in the new species is really new, comes into existence anew with its first appearance. But we do not even know whether the proximate cause of this new does really come into existence for the first time, or whether it was not before in existence in a real, perhaps latent, condition, and is now set free for the first time. In the one case as in the other, we shall call the new, which comes into existence, a new creation. And if man thinks that the new only deserves the name of creation, when it occurs suddenly and at once, where before only other things were present, like a _deus ex machina_, certainly such an opinion is only a childlike conception, which becomes childish as soon as we scientifically reason about the process. It cannot be doubtful that religious minds which are not accustomed to scientific reasoning, have such a conception; whether theologians also favor it, we do not know, although it is possible. Certainly those scientists who intend to attack the faith in a living Creator and Lord of the world, take it as the wholly natural, even as the only possible, conception of a Creator and his creation; and of course it is to them a great and cheap pleasure to become victorious knights in such a puppet-show view of the conception of creation. But the source whence Christians derive their {258} religious knowledge tells them precisely the contrary. The Holy Scripture, it is true, sees in the entire universe a work of God. But where it describes the creation of the single elements of the world, it describes at the same time their creation as the product of natural causes, brought about by natural conditions. The reader may see, for instance, the words: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, etc. And _the earth brought forth_ grass and herb," etc. "And God said, Let _the earth bring forth the living creature_." Even the creation of man is thus related: "And the Lord God _formed_ man of the dust of the ground." Certainly the forming presupposes a matter out of which man is formed. And, on the other hand, where the Bible speaks of single beings in the kingdoms long before created and perfected, of the individual man who is originated by generation and birth, of single plants and animals--in general, of single processes and phenomena in the world long before perfected, of wind and waves, of rain and flames, which altogether have their natural causes of origin--it speaks of them all precisely in the same way as when describing their first creation as works of God. The expressions "create, make, form, cause to appear," are applied to the single individuals of the kingdoms long before created, precisely in the same way as they are to the first origin of the first individuals of those kingdoms.

Thus, by the full freedom which religious interest gives to scientific investigation, we are well prepared to treat with entire impartiality the question as to the position of each of the Darwinian theories in reference to theism. {259}

§ 2. _The Descent Theory and Theism._

In the first part of our investigation, we found that the idea of the origin of the species, especially of the higher organized species, through descent from the next related lower ones, has a high degree of probability, although it is still not proven in a strictly scientific sense, and although especially the supposition of an often-separated primitive generation of single types is not excluded by that idea, and we can hardly suppose that the main types of the animal kingdom are developed out of one another. Now we are far from asking of _religion_ to decide for itself in favor of the one or the other mode of conception, or to place its influence in the one or the other balance-scale of scientific investigations. It leaves the answering of these questions exclusively to natural science, knowing beforehand that it will be able to come to an understanding with the one as well as with the other result of its investigations. But we confess frankly that it is incomparably _easier_ for us to bring the origin of the higher groups of organisms in accord with a theistic and teleological view of the world through descent than the origin of each single species of organisms through a primitive generation; and we reach this result especially by the attempt at teleologically perceiving the palæontological remains of organic life on earth. Theism and teleology see in the origin of things a striving towards a goal, a rising from the lower to the higher, a development--it is true a development really taken only in the ideal sense of an ideal connection, of a plan; or, as K. E. v. Baer, in 1834, in his lecture on the most common law of nature in all development, expresses {260} himself, of a progressive victory of mind over matter. Such a plan and its realization we can much more easily conceive when, in the past genera which geological formations show us, a genealogical connection takes place between the preceding species and the now living species, than when each species perished and beside or after it the newly appearing species always originated out of the inorganic through primitive generation. In the first case, we see in the preceding a _real_ preparation for the following, and also easily perceive, the apparent waste of enormous periods of time for the successive processes of creation. In the second case, the coming and going of genera in innumerable thousands of years, without any exterior connection, becomes an incomprehensible problem, and the striving towards an end according to a regular plan, which we observe in the development, of the organic kingdoms on earth, disappears completely in metaphysical darkness.

Precisely because so many advocates of a theistic view of the world have thought that for the sake of the theistic idea of creation they were obliged to suppose a primitive origin of all the organic species, and because, nevertheless, the fact is patent that in the course of the pre-historic thousands of years myriads of species came and perished, not to return again, they became liable to the reproach on the part of the adversaries of theism, that the Creator, as they supposed him, makes unsuccessful attempts, which he has to throw away, as the potter a defective vessel, until he finally succeeds in making something durable and useful; and this objection was and is still made, not only to these superficial theists and their unhappily-selected and indefensible position, but to {261} the whole view of the world of theism itself and to the faith in God and the Creator in general.

For all these reasons, we can from the religious point of view but welcome the idea of a descent of species. Philologists have, if we are correctly informed, the canon that as a rule the more difficult text is the more correct one; but we doubt whether those should adopt this canon who try to read in the book of nature, whether with the eye of science or with that of religion--unless the faculty of reasoning is given to us in order to conceal the truth.

But, we have also to look for a manner of reconciling theism with all the different possibilities under which a descent is at all reasonable and conceivable. One of these possibilities is that of an entirely successive development of species out of one another by imperceptibly small transitions; and of this we shall soon speak. Another is the possibility of a descent by leaps, through a metamorphosis of germs or a heterogenetic generation. The real causes of such a heterogenetic generation, if it took place at all, have not yet been found; therefore we have to treat only of the abstract possibilities of its conceivableness. There are two such possibilities.

The birth of a new species took place in one of two ways: Either to those materials and forces which formed the germ of the new species, were added entirely new metaphysical agencies which did not exist before, and only the basis and the frame within which the new appeared, or that which the new species has in common with the old mother-species had the cause of its existence in the preceding. Likewise even the original productions {262} of man are always composed of two factors--of the given pre-suppositions and conditions, and of the new which on their basis and within their frame comes into existence. Otherwise the causes of the new which was to originate already lay in all former stages, but were still latent and still hindered in their activity, and only at the time of the birth the new impulse came which set them free for their activity. This new impulse may very well belong to the causal connection of the universe, and be caused by something analogous to natural selection.

In the first case, which in its application to the origin of man is adopted by A. R. Wallace and Karl Snell, the reconciliation between descent and theism has not the least difficulty; for if the agency which in the new-appearing species produces that which is specifically new in it, came only into existence with the first formation of the germs of the new species in the mother-species, this new certainly cannot have its origin anywhere else than in the supermundane _prima causa_ in the Creator and Lord of the world.

In the second case also, theism is in no way threatened. For if we have to refer the cause of a new phenomenon in the world so far back as even to the beginning and the first elements of all things, we nevertheless have to arrive at last at the cause of all causes; and this is the living God, the Creator and Lord of the world. Thus the new form of existence would anyhow have the cause of its existence in God; and the value, the importance, and the substance of its existence, would only commence from where it really made its appearance, and not from where its still latent causes existed. As little as we attribute to the just fecundated {263} egg of man the value of man, although we know that under the right conditions the full man is to be developed out of it, just so little in accordance with that view would the differences of value within the created world be dissolved in a mass of atoms or potencies of a similar value. Neither should we have to fear that from such a theory cold deism would be substituted for our theism, full of life. For as certainly as theism does not exclude, but includes, all that is relative truth in deism, so certainly the supposition that the Creator had laid the latent causes of all following creatures in the first germs of the created, would also not exclude the idea of a constant and omnipotent presence of the Creator in the world. Undoubtedly it belongs to our most elementary conceptions of God, that we have to conceive his lofty position above time, not as an abstract distance from finite development, but, as an absolute domination over it; so that for God himself, who creates time and developments in time, there is no dependence on the temporal succession of created things, and it is quite the same to him whether he instantly calls a creature into existence, or whether he prepares it in a short space of time, or years, or in millions of years. In this idea we also find the only possible and simple solution of the before-mentioned problem of a timeless time which Fr. Vischer wishes to propose to philosophy.

§ 3. _The Evolution Theory and Theism._

In speaking of an evolution theory, in distinction from the descent theory, we mean, as is evident from the first part of our work, that way and mode of {264} constructing the doctrine of the descent of species which permit this descent to take place, not by the leaps of a metamorphosis of germs, but by transitions so imperceptably small that the difference of two generations which lie in the same line of descent, is never greater than those differences which always take place between parents and children of the same species--transitions so gradual that only the continuation of these individual changes in a single direction produces an increase and, finally and gradually, the new species. The treatment of the question as to what position this _evolution theory_ takes regarding theism, is even more simple than answering the question as to the position of the descent idea in reference to theism.

For now we have no longer to discuss the different possibilities of a development, as heretofore we have discussed those of a descent, but only the idea of a gradual development or of an evolution in general. Of such possibilities, it is true, we find several. In the first place, we can look for the inciting principle of the development of species either in the interior of organisms, or we can see it approaching the latter from without. The only scientific system which has made any attempt at mentioning and elaborating the inciting principle of development is that of Darwin; a system that chooses the second of the alternatives just stated and sees the essential principle that makes the transmission of individuals a progress beyond one species, approaching the individuals from without. But while we shall have to treat of this specific Darwinian theory--the selection theory--still more in detail in the following section, we shall also there have to point, out {265} everything that theism has to say in reference to a principle of development which approaches the organisms from without. Another possible explanation of the origin of species through development is to be found in the fact that we look for the inciting principle of development in the interior of organisms. This is done, so far as we know, by all those scientists who, although inclined to an evolution theory, are adversaries of the selection theory; but none of them claim to have found the inciting agencies of development. Thus, as in the preceding section, we are again referred only to the wholly abstract possibility of conceiving these inciting agencies either as coming into existence anew in the organism with each smallest individual modification which leads to a development of the species, or as being before present in the organisms, but still latent, and only coming into activity when they are set free. But the question whether theism could accept the one or the other possibility had to be treated of in the preceding section, and was there answered in the affirmative.

Thus it only remains to treat in general of the question as to the reconcilableness of the idea of the origin of species through evolution, through gradual development, _in general_ with a theistic view of the world.

In the first place, we wish to render evident the fact which is so often overlooked by the friends of monism and still more by theistic adversaries of the idea of evolution, that the idea of a development of species, and also of man, does not offer to theistic reasoning any new or any other difficulties than those which have been long present, and which had found their solution in the religious consciousness long before any idea of evolution disturbed the {266} mind. It is true, the question as to the origin of _mankind_ is, to speak in the language of natural history, a still unsolved _problem_; and the supposition of its gradual development out of the animal kingdom is still an _hypothesis_--one of all those attempts at solving this problem which still wait for confirmation or refutation. But there is another quite analogous question whose position has long ceased to be a mere problem, and whose solution is no longer a mere hypothesis; namely, the question as to the origin of the perfect human or any other organic _individual_. To speak again in the language of natural history, this origin is no longer a problem--that is, without regard to the obscurity in which the existence and origin of every creature, as to its last causes, is always and will always be veiled for us. We know that the human, and, in general, every organic individual, becomes that which it is through _development_. It begins the course of its being with the existence of a single cell, the egg, and goes through all stages of this development by wholly gradual and imperceptible transitions, so that the precise moment cannot exactly be fixed when any organ, any physical or psychical function, comes into existence, until perfect man is _developed_. Man has this mode of coming into existence in common with all organized beings, down to the lowest organisms which stand above the value and rank of a single cell. At this place, and with the design of our present discussion in view, we ought not to render the importance of this fact obscure by a teleological comparison of the different eggs and germs with one another. If we look upon that which is to _come out_ of the germs, and which certainly if prepared and present in the first vital functions of the {267} germ, although we are not able to observe, prove, and estimate it by means of the microscope and the retort, then of course the difference in the value of the germs must be immense; and from this point of view we certainly look upon the germ of man differently than upon the germ of an oyster. But here the question is not as to the differences of value of organisms: no scientist who remains within the limits of his realm, will ever deny them; but we treat of the question whether such valuable objects come into existence suddenly or gradually--whether it is possible, or even a fact which repeats itself before our eyes, that a form of being of higher value comes forth from a form of being of a lower value in gradual development. And here it is an undisputed fact that all qualities of man, the physical as well as the spiritual, come into existence in such a gradual development that not in a single one of them can be fixed any moment of which it may be said: on the other side of this moment it did not exist, but on this side it did exist. All differentiations of his body, from the first differentiation of the egg-cell into a complexity of cells up to the last formation of his organs, take place in the same gliding development. All his psychical and spiritual functions and forces come into existence in this form of gradual development. Where, in the development of the human individual, is the moment in which consciousness, language, self-consciousness, memory, will, the perception of God, moral responsibility, the perception of the idea and the ideal, or whatever else we may mention, came into existence? Nowhere; all this, and all the rest, is developed in a gradual process. The only marked time in this development is the time of birth: {268} it brings a great change into physical life, and is perhaps the beginning epoch of the spiritual development of man. But even the birth is not absolutely bound to a certain time; the child may be born too early, by weeks or even months, and its development nevertheless takes place; and even after birth, how slowly and gradually spiritual development begins and continues!

With this gradual process of individual development which we have long known, we have never found any difficulty in bringing two things into harmony. First, we always judged the value of the single qualities of man only in the proportion in which they were really present and came into existence, and in such a way that we entirely followed the flowing development of the individual. Therefore we looked upon the suckling, for instance, not at all as a morally responsible individual; upon the child of two years as more responsible, but to a far less degree than the child of school-age, and the latter again to a less degree than the man; and thus we have been long accustomed to reason, when looking upon all single qualities of man. Second, we did not find any difficulty in bringing into perfect harmony the idea of a gradual process of individual development and of the dependence of the latter on a complex totality of natural causes: with the idea of the absolute dependence on God, the Creator, of that which arose through development. Every religiously reasoning man has always looked upon himself as the child of his parents, gradually developed under the activity of complex natural causes, as well as the creature of God, that owes the existence of all its forces and parts of body and soul to God. Should it then, be so difficult, or is it only {269} something new, to bring into harmony, when looking upon the entire species and genus, that which we were long ago able to bring into harmony when looking upon the individual--it being presupposed that the investigation leads us to a development of the entire species and genus similar to that of the individual development? Or have we here again to ask, as in § 1: is it more religious to make no attempt at removing the veil which covers the natural process of the origin of mankind, than to make it? It is true, the not knowing anything can, under certain circumstances, create and increase the sensation of reverence for the depth of divine power and wisdom; but a perception of the ways of God is also certainly able to create the same. On that account, we need not at all fear that by such an attempt and its eventual success we might get into the shallows of superficiality, to which nothing seems any longer to be hidden, only because it has no presentiment of the depths which are to be sounded. There will always remain enough of the mysterious and the uninvestigated, and each new step forward will only lead to new views, to new secrets, to new wonders.

But does not a development, like that which we here for the moment assume hypothetically, efface and destroy the specific value of man and mankind from still another side? Would not a _beginning_ of mankind be really lost, in case that theory of evolution should gain authority? and would not there still lie between that which is decidedly called animal world and that which is decidedly called mankind an innumerable series of generations of beings which were neither animal nor man? We do not believe it. What makes man _man_, {270} we can exactly point out: it is self-consciousness and moral self-determination. Now, in case development took place in the above sense, it may have passed ever so gradually; the epochs of preparation between that which we know as highest animal development and that which constitutes the substance of man, may have stretched over ever so many generations, and, if the friends of evolution desire it, we say over ever so many thousands of generations; yet that which makes man _man_--self-consciousness and moral self-determination--must have always come into actual reality in _individuals_. Those individuals in which self-consciousness came into existence and activity, for the first time, and with it the entire possibility of the world of ideas--the consciousness of moral responsibility, and with it also the entire dignity of moral self-determination--were the first men. The individuals which preceded the latter may have been ever so interesting and promising as objects of observation, if we imagine ourselves spectators of these once supposed processes; yet, they were not men.

§ 4. _The Selection Theory and Theism._

The last scientific theory whose position in reference to theism we have to discuss, is the selection theory.

We have found but little reason for sympathizing with this theory. But since we believed that we were obliged to suspect it, not for religious but for scientific reasons, so the completeness of our investigation requires us to assume hypothetically that the selection principle really manifests itself as the only and exclusive principle of the origin of species, and to ask now what position it would in such a case take in reference to theism. {271}

The only answer we are able to give is decidedly favorable to theism.

It is true, development would in such a case approach the organisms merely from without. For the principle lying within the organisms, which would then be the indispensable condition of all development, would be first the principle in itself, wholly without plan or end, of individual variability; second, the principle of inheritance which for itself and without that first principle is indeed no principle of development, but the contrary. The causes from which the single individuals vary in such or such a way, would then be the outer conditions of life and adaptation to them: _i.e._, something coming from without. And the causes from which one individual, varying in such or such a way, is preserved in the struggle for existence, and another, varying differently, perishes, would be approaching the individuals also from without; hence they are a larger or smaller useful variation for the existence of the individual.

Now if, through these influencing causes of development, approaching the most simple organisms from without, a rising line of higher and higher organized beings comes finally into existence (a line in which sensation and consciousness, finally self-consciousness and free-will, appear) we again reach the teleological dilemma: all this has either happened by chance, or it has not. No man who claims to treat this question earnestly and in a manner worthy of respect, will assert that it happened by chance, but by necessity. But with this word the materialist only hides or avoids the necessity of supposing a plan and end in place of chance, as we have convinced ourselves in Part I, Book II, Chap. II, § 1. {272} The only exception in this case is, that the bearer and agent of this plan would not be the single organism (as is easily possible when we accept a descent theory which is more independent from the selection theory), but the collection of all forces and conditions, acting upon the organism from without. And for the question, whence this plan and its realization comes, we had again but the one answer: from a highest intelligence and omnipotence, from the personal God of theism. The _locus_ of creation and the _locus_ of providence would now, as ever, retain their value in the theological system, with the sole exception that most of that which so far belonged to the _locus_ of creation would now belong, in a higher degree than in the hitherto naturo-historical view, to the _locus_ of providence and of the government of the world. When looked upon from the theocentric point of view, the new forms which we had to suppose as called into existence only by selection, would remain products of divine creation: the "God said, and it was so," would retain its undiminished importance; but looked upon from the cosmic point of view, they would present themselves as products of the divine providence and government of the world, still more exclusively than in every principal of explanation which finds the causes of development in the organisms themselves or in an immaterial cause acting upon the organisms from within. The first as well as the second point of view is in full harmony with the religious view of things.

We do not conceal that on the ground of all other analogies we sympathize more with those who look for the determining influences of the origin of new species rather within than without nature, and who, while {273} looking at that which the higher species have in common with the lower, do not forget or neglect the new, the original, which they possess. But we are indeed neither obliged nor entitled, in the name of religion, to take beforehand in the realm of scientific investigation the side of the one or the other direction of investigation, or even of the one or the other result of investigation, before it is arrived at. Let us unreservedly allow scientists free investigation in their realm, so long as they do not meddle with ethical or religious principles, and quietly await their results. These results, when once reached, may correspond ever so closely with our present view and our speculative expectations, or in both relations be ever so surprising and new; the one case as well as the other has already happened: at any rate they will not affect our religious principles, but only enrich our perception of the way and manner of divine activity in the world, and thereby give new food and refreshment, to our religious life.

* * * * *

A. THE DARWINISTIC PHILOSOPHEMES IN THEIR POSITION REGARDING THEISM.

§ 5. _The Naturo-Philosophic Supplements of Darwinism and Theism._

We still have to discuss the position of theism in reference to the _philosophic_ problems to which a Darwinistic view of nature sees itself led, and in the first place its position in reference to the naturo-philosophic theories with which the descent idea tries to complete itself.

In the first part of our book, we have found that not {274} a single one of the naturo-philosophic problems before which the descent idea places us, is really solved: neither the origin of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination, nor the origin of consciousness and of sensation, nor the origin of life; and even the theory of atoms, although it is quite important and indispensable for the natural philosopher and chemist according to the present state of his knowledge and investigation, has not yet been able to divest itself of its hypothetical character. Religion might, therefore, refuse to define its position in reference to theories which are still of a quite problematic and hypothetical nature. But by giving such a refusal, religion would not act in its own interest. The reproach is often made that it has an open or hidden aversion to the freedom of scientific investigation--a reproach which, it is true, is often enough provoked by its own advocates; often the assertion is made by advocates of free investigation, that free science has led, or can lead at any moment, to results which shake or even destroy theism and with it the objective and scientifically established truth of a religious view of the world. The consequence of this assertion is exactly, as before-mentioned, that minds whose religious possession is to them an inviolable sanctuary, and who lack time and occasion, inclination and ability, to examine scientifically these asserted results of science, really suspect free science and contest the right of its existence. Another consequence of this state of war between religion and science is the fact that so many minds in both camps fall into a servile dependence upon battle-cries: they confound freedom of investigation with license; science with apathy or {275} hostility to faith; faith with lack of scientific perception, blind unreasoning belief, etc. Such a state of affairs does not, indeed, serve the interests of peace and truth; only a correct treatment of philosophy as well as of religion can lead to them.

Such a way of peace and truth from the side of religion and its scientific treatment is entered upon, when religion sets itself right, not only with all real, but also with all _conceivable_, _possible_ results of the other sciences, not only of the exact, but also of the philosophic sciences. If it finds, in such an investigation, that such conceivable results are reconcilable with the theistic view of the world which is the basis of religion, it has already shown its relationship to the freedom of investigation. But if it finds anywhere a possible result which is in conflict with its theistic view of the world, it is obliged to examine the mutual grounds of dissent, as to the degree of their truth and their power of demonstration; and in case its own position is the stronger, better founded, and more convincing, to prove this fact. If it does this, it again acts according to the principle of free investigation--with the single difference that in such a case it not only makes this allowance to the opponent, but also uses this principle for itself in its own realm and especially in the border land between itself and its opponent; but at the same time it shows in this case (what, indeed, so many are inclined to deny), that religion also has its science, and that theology itself is this science, and has the same rights as the sciences which are built up in the realm of material things or of abstract reasoning.

We therefore assume hypothetically, that the origin {276} of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination is fully explained by consciousness; the origin of consciousness and sensation by that which has no sensation; the origin of the living and organic by the lifeless and inorganic; and that atomism also is scientifically established and proven: how, then, would such a theory of the world and theism stand in respect to each other? By this assumption, we think we should simply stand again at the point, the basis of which we had to discuss in Part I, Book II, Chap. II, § 1, when treating of teleology. We should always see something new, something harmoniously arranged: a process of objects of value, continually rising higher and higher, coming forth out of one another in direct causal connection; and should have a choice of one of two ways of explaining this process. We should either have to be satisfied with this final causal connection, and perceive in this process itself its highest and last cause, in doing which we should be obliged again to deny order and plan in this process, to reject the category of lower and higher and the acknowledgment of a striving towards an end in these developments, and after having climbed to that Faust-height of investigation and knowledge, to throw ourselves in spiritual suicide back into the night and barbarism of chaos, or of a rigid mechanism to which all development, all life, all spiritual and ethical tasks, are but appearance; or we should have to treat the idea of development seriously and recognize a plan and a striving towards an end in this world-process, and should then find ourselves referred to a higher intelligence and a creative will as the highest and last cause which appoints the end and conditions of this process. This would be the case still more, as we actually {277} see that at present the single beings which stand on a lower stage of existence no longer produce beings of a higher stage, although, according to that theory whose correctness we now assume hypothetically, the elements and factors for the production of those higher forms of existence are fully present in the lower ones. Inorganic matter no longer produces organisms; the lower species of plants or animals no longer develop higher ones; the animal no longer becomes man; and yet there were periods, lying widely apart, in which, according to that theory, such things took place. What else set free those active causes, at the right time and in the right place? What else closed again at the precise place and moment the valves of the proceeding development, and brought to rest again the inciting force of the rising development?--what else but the highest end-appointing intelligence and omnipotence?

Even the inherent qualities of the elements, and the products of all the higher forms of existence which in the future shall arise out of them, the whole striving toward an end of the processes in the world, would present itself to us much more vividly than now, where we are still in the dark as to all these questions. We should see in _atoms_ the _real_ inherent qualities of all things and processes which are to be developed out of them; in the inorganic the _real_ inherent qualities for the organic and living; in that which has no consciousness and sensation the _real_ inherent qualities for self-consciousness. Instead of being now obliged to recur to the ideal and metaphysical, we should see the threads of the world's plan uncovered before us in empirical reality; and far from bearing with it an impoverishment of our {278} consciousness of God, all this would bring us only an immense enrichment of its contents; for with such an enlargement of our knowledge, we should only be permitted to take glances into the way and manner of divine creation and action--glances of a depth which at present we are far from being permitted to take.

Even very concrete parts of a theistic view of the world, as they present themselves to us--_e.g._, in the Holy Scripture, from its most developed points of view--would now find only richer illustrations than heretofore. St. Paul, for instance, in Rom. viii, speaks of the earnest expectation of the creature that waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. As to the present state of our knowledge of nature, those who adopt this view are only entitled to see in the sensation of pain of the _animal world_ a sensation of this longing, unconscious of the end; but as to all soulless and lifeless beings and elements in the world, they can see in these words of a sighing and longing creation only a strong figurative expression used because of its suitableness to denote suffering of the animal world, as well as of men,--for the destination of the world to another and higher existence in which the law of perishableness and suffering no longer governs. On the other hand, if, as we assume hypothetically, all higher forms of existence in the world could be explained out of the preceding lower ones, and if the before-mentioned theorem of a sensation of atoms should form a needed and correct link in that chain of explanation, those words of sighing and longing would have to be literally taken in a still more comprehensive sense than now and in their directly literal meaning {279} would refer not only to the animal world but indeed to everything in the world.

Therefore, so long as attempts at explaining the different forms of existence in the world wholly from one another keep within their own limits, and do not of themselves undermine theism; and so long as there are men who on the one hand favor such a mode of explanation and on the other hand still adhere firmly to a faith in God, whether it be the deeper theism or the more shallow and superficial deism--so long religion has no reason for opposing those attempts at explanation. And there are such men; we need only to mention Huxley, whose position in reference to religion we have already discussed; or Oskar Peschel, who, in his "Völkerkunde" ("Ethnology"), says: "It is not quite clear how pious minds can be disturbed by this theory; for creation obtains more dignity and importance if it has in itself the power of renewal and development of the perfect." Even Herbert Spencer, with his idea of the imperceptibility of the super-personal, of the final cause of all things, is still a living proof of the fact that man can trace the mechanism of causality back to its last consequences and, as Spencer does, even derive consciousness and sensation from that which is without sensation, and yet not necessarily proceed so far as _negation_ of a living God, even if he persists in his refusal to perceive in general the ultimate cause of things.

To meet those attempts, religion would have to take only two precautionary measures on two closely related points; and in doing this it would indeed make use of that before-mentioned right to defend freedom of {280} investigation both in its own realm and in the border-territory.

One precaution would consist in the requirement of the acknowledgment that even in that purely immanent mode of explanation the _idea of value is fixed_, but that the value of the new appears only when the new itself really comes into existence; that we therefore do not call, _e.g._, the inorganic _living_, because according to that mode of explanation life develops itself out of it; and that we do not ascribe to the animal the value of man, because according to that mode of explanation it also includes the causes of the development of man. Such a discrimination of ideas is indeed a _scientific postulate_, as we have had occasion to show at many points of our investigation; and we also complied with this requirement long ago in that realm of knowledge which is related to these questions as to the origin of things, but is more accessible and open to us, namely, in the realm of the development of the individual. We have spoken of this at length in § 3. But in the interest of _religion_ also we have to request that the _differences of value_ of things be retained, even when man thinks he is able to explain their origin merely out of one another. For without this, all things would finally merge simply into existences of like value; man would stand in no other relation to God than would any other creature, irrational or lifeless; and the quintessence of religious life--the relation of mutual personal love between God and man, the certainty of being a child of God--would be illusory when there should no longer be a difference of value between man and animal, animal and plant, plant and stone. {281}

Many a reader thinks, perhaps, that with this precaution we make a restriction which is wholly a matter of course, and that nobody would think of denying these differences of value. Häckel, in his "Anthropogeny," repeatedly reproaches man with the "arrogant anthropocentric imagination" which leads him to look upon himself as the aim of earthly life and the centre of earthly nature; this, he says, is nothing but vanity and haughtiness. Several writers in the "Ausland" faithfully second him in this debasement of the value of man. Its editor ("Ausland," 1874, No. 48, p. 957), for instance, reproaches Ludwig Noiré, although he otherwise sympathizes with him, that in his book "Die Welt als Entwicklung des Geistes" ("The World as Development of Mind"), Leipzig, Veit & Co., 1874, he still takes this anthropocentric standpoint and can say: "The anthropocentric view recognizes in man's mind the highest bloom of matter, which has attained to the possession of a soul." This, Häckel says, is nothing else but the former conception, not yet overcome, that man is the crown of creation. This pleasure in debasing the value of man is also a characteristic sign of the times. K. E. von Baer is right, when, in his "Studies" (page 463), he says: "In our days, men like to ridicule as arrogant the looking upon man as the end of the history of earth. But it is certainly not man's merit that he has the most highly developed organic form. He also must not overlook the fact that with this his task of developing more and more his spiritual gifts has only begun.... Is it not more worthy of man to think highly of himself and his destination, than, fixing his attention only upon the low, to {282} acknowledge only the animalic basis in himself? I am sorry to say that the new doctrine is very much tainted in this direction of striving after the low. I should rather prefer to be haughty than base, and I well recollect the expression of Kant, 'Man cannot think highly enough of man.' By this expression the profound thinker especially meant that mankind has to set itself great tasks. But the modern views are more a palliation of all animal emotions in man."

The other precautionary measure referred to would be, that the _realm of mind_, and especially the _ethical realm_, is not dissolved into a _natural mechanism_. This precaution is also connected with the first one, the latter being its condition; for only where it is acknowledged that causes, so long as they are still latent, do not fall under the same category of value as their effects, when these are once realized, it can also be acknowledged that the realm of mind and morality, although it has grown out of the ground of the mechanism of nature, can still have brought something new and higher into the world. Besides, this precaution is also a postulate of anthropologic science. For spiritual and ethical facts have at least the same truth and reality as the material, and a still higher value, and can therefore not permit any injury to their full recognition. But religion also must require this acknowledgment. For if the specific _activity_ of mind in man is endangered, we also lose his specific _value_, and thus get into the before-mentioned dilemma; and if the moral responsibility of man is endangered, the relation of man to God loses its ethical character. Of the consequences in reference to morality, we shall have to speak hereafter. {283}

Moreover, religion does not require this acknowledgment without a rich compensation. For if that naturo-philosophic mode of explanation, whose correctness we hypothetically assume in this present section, prove to be right, and if the higher which comes anew into existence in the world, is to have the full cause of its origin in the preceding lower, such an admission, in accordance with the laws of logic, by which _causa æquat effectum_, is only possible when we either similarly, as above, invalidate all difference between higher and lower, all difference of value of creatures, and contest the possibility that that which appears anew can also follow new laws of existence and activity; or when, in the highest cause of all final causes in the world, we see the full abundance of all those possibilities present as real cause, which afterwards appear in succession in the world. This highest cause, then, lodges in material things the final causes of all which is to come, as still latent causes, waiting to be set free; and such a highest cause as the fullness of all that which is successively to be developed in the world, is offered to science by religion itself in the idea of a living God. We say expressly, that religion offers this idea to science, and not that science creates this idea; for the acknowledgment of God, as we have before had occasion to point out, is in the last instance not a result of science, but an ethical action of mind,--although from this acknowledgment the brightest light falls upon science and the whole series of its conclusions, and although science owes to precisely this idea of God the highest points of view to which it sees itself led and from which alone it is able to survey its entire realm. {284}

§ 6. _Elimination of the Idea of Design or its Acknowledgment and Theism._

In the whole preceding course of our investigation as to the position of religion and theism regarding the different scientific and naturo-philosophic theories, theism could quietly keep the position of a friendly and peaceful spectator. The degrees of our sympathy with the theories which have successively passed before our eyes, were on scientific grounds very unequal; but on religious grounds, and in the interest of a theistic view of the world, we found ourselves nowhere induced to take sides for or against a theory. But the position of religion and theism becomes quite different in reference to the assertion that the existence of ends and designs in nature is refuted by the evolution theory or by any other hypothetical or real results of science. With this assertion, the existence of a living and personal God, of a Creator and Lord of the world, is denied; and every religion which claims objective truth for its basis is eliminated. It is true, man can under this supposition still speak of a religion in the sense of subjective religiousness; but the life-nerve is also cut off from this subjective religiousness. We have repeatedly had occasion to prove this in our historical review, and also in the section in which we pointed out the plan of our own analysis.

But still, where we have had to represent this anti-teleological view of the world, we have happily convinced ourselves of the fact that an existence of ends and designs in nature is not only _reconcilable_ with the conformity to law and the causal mechanism of its processes, but is {285} also _postulated_ by scientific contemplation of nature, as soon as the latter observes that in these processes, acting with lawful necessity, something in general is attained, and, moreover, when out of them comes forth something so infinitely rich and beautifully arranged, such a rising series of higher and higher developments, as the world. On the other hand, combatting the striving towards an end in nature leads to such scientific monstrosities, destroys so thoroughly the idea of God and also all ideas of value in the world, even all spiritual and ethical acquisitions of mankind, that we can explain the origin of such a doctrine only by the determined purpose of getting rid, at any cost, of the dependence on a living God: again a proof of the fact that faith, or want of faith, in its final causes, is not the product of reflecting intelligence, but an ethical action of that centre of human personality from which the spiritual process of life in the individual comes forth--an ethical action of mind.

Herewith the position of theism in reference to the elimination of the idea of design is also soon characterized: it is _the position of irreconcilable antagonism_. In rejecting the position of its opponent, theism perceives that it is in harmony not only with every correctly understood religious need, but equally so with every scientific interest--with the interest of a correct knowledge of nature, as well as with the interest of those sciences which have to take care of and try to understand the spiritual and ethical endowments of mankind.

If we now turn our attention to the _position of theism in reference to the idea of design in general_, theism on its part also gives an equally firm support to that intimate connection, proven by natural science, between causality {286} and striving toward an end--between actiology and teleology, as they are called in the language of the philosophical school. While a contemplation of nature perceives in nature a mechanism governed by laws and necessities, it finds results reached through this chain of causality in which it must acknowledge ends toward which the preceding has striven. Now, theism, on its part, proceeds from the highest end-appointing cause of things and processes, and finds that the reaching of these ends postulates a mechanism of natural conformity to law. In order to prove this, we certainly must take a course which is prohibited by many as anthropomorphism, _i.e._, we must try to study the connection of ends and designs, and the possibility of such a connection where we are able to observe in general not only the _accomplishment_ of purposes, but also the _forming_ of purposes; and the only realm of this kind which we know of, is the realm of human action. He who, merely through fear of anthropomorphism, shrinks from this only possible comparison, may consider that for those who assume a highest end-appointing cause (and we, too, proceed from this standpoint) man also, who forms his designs and strives toward his ends, is a product of that highest end-appointing cause; and that, therefore, in the human striving toward an end, a certain analogue of the divine striving toward an end must occur. We are, indeed, not obliged on this account to identify the two, and to close our eyes against the immense differences which exist between them, and which, wholly of themselves, intrude upon our observation. What we mean by that analogy may thus be stated.

Man forms for himself designs and ends, and pursues {287} and reaches them by using the objects and forces of nature as means. He can do this only because the forces in nature act from necessity, strictly conformable to law. Because, and so far as man knows the action of forces, conformable to law, and the inviolable necessity of the connection between certain causes and their effects, he can select and make use of such causes as means, by virtue of which he reaches those effects as designs intended by him. If he could not depend on this conformity to law, on this causal connection taking place according to simple necessities, he could not select, make, and use, with certainty, any tool, from the club with which he defends himself against his enemies or cracks the shells of fruit, up to the finest instruments of optics and chemistry, and even to the telegraph and steam engine. The conformity to law, with which the forces of nature act, far from being an impediment to his appointing and reaching his ends is much more the indispensable means by which he is enabled in general to reach them. Now, if we thus find, in the only action striving towards an end which we are able to observe to the extent of the appointing of ends and the selection of means--namely, man's end appointing action--such a strong dependence of finality on causality that the reaching of ends is not possible at all unless the means act of necessity conformably to law, then we are certainly obliged to draw the conclusion that the highest author of things has prepared the world so, that the reaching of ends requires the action of means, and that the category of finality and the category of causality are mutually prepared for each other. For, according to the theistic and teleological view of the world, the {288} laws of nature, acting with causality and necessity, are certainly not laws which the Creator found in some way, and with which he had to calculate as with factors given to him from somewhere else, in order to make use of them, so far as he was permitted, for the accomplishment of his designs--this would be the way and manner of _human_ teleological action, and transferring it to _divine_ action would be an anthropomorphism which we should have to reject. On the contrary, these laws themselves are the work of the teleologically acting Creator--he, indeed, will have given to them such a quality that with them he is able to reach his ends as a whole and in detail. The inviolability of the laws of nature also results from this idea. For means which would have to be supplemented, sometimes set aside, occasionally replaced by others, would be less perfect than such means as by virtue of their quality are able with certainty to serve the designs which are to be reached by them. How theism can reconcile with this view the indispensable idea of divine freedom, we shall have occasion to show in Chap. II, § 4.

Among the writers who defend teleology, we can mention two who, starting from the analogy of human teleological action, have pointed out the idea that teleology itself requires a necessity, conformable to law, in the activity of the forces of nature. One of the two is K. E. von Baer, in his oft-quoted essays on striving towards end; and the other is the Duke of Argyll. At a time when the assault against teleology had just begun, this noble author perceived the whole importance and weight of these attacks, and most energetically defended teleology. The expression of the just-mentioned ideas, {289} among others, forms one of the fundamentals of his work, "The Reign of Law" (London, Strahan & Co., first edition published in 1866, and since then in frequently repeated editions); a work which is well fitted to instruct us, in the most interesting manner, regarding the present state of the related questions as they are treated of in Great Britain.

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