It is true, all these expressions about religion are very general; but since in his works we do not find any utterance contrary to them and hostile to religion, we have a right to rank the celebrated originator of the whole agitation among those naturalists who are conscious of the limits of the realms of the natural and the religious, and are convinced of the possibility of a harmony between the two. For his casual utterances against a "creation" of single species always combine with the word creation the idea of that direct creation out of nothing, without intervening agencies, which is entirely correct for the idea of the first, origin of the universe, but which for the origin of the single formations within the universe is neither asked for by the religious view of the world, nor established by the Holy {219} Scriptures, nor by a cautiously reasoning theology, although it very often controls the conceptions of naturalists as well as of theologians. Now, while Darwin rejects the idea of a sudden appearance of a new species out of nothing—or, as he once expressed himself in his "Origin of Species," the idea "that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues,"—and he is no doubt right in rejecting it,—still at the same time he does not deny the dependence of the successive origin of a new species on a divine author. But in calling that process creation and this one not, he gives the appearance of an opposition to the religious idea of creation—an appearance of which the greater part of the guilt is borne by those theologians who define the idea of the creation, even of a single form, in a manner which is only proper for the idea of the first origin of the universe.

It is true, we could rank Darwin still more readily among the scientists who are at peace with all the claims of religion, did he not in his "Descent of Man," when enumerating the "excellent naturalists and philosophers" who with him reduce the pedigree of man to lower forms, mention names of men who in their works firmly unite Darwinism and monistic naturalism or even materialism, and expressly protest against a separation of their naturo-historical results and their philosophic points of view. We mean Buechner and Haeckel. The latter's "Natural History of Creation," he especially praises: "If this work had appeared before my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost all the conclusions at which I have {220} arrived I find confirmed by this naturalist," etc. The entire silence in regard to the anti-Christian results which these two authors derive from their naturo-historical premises, makes Darwin's own position in reference to religion again very uncertain. It seems that Darwin in his theology is not only inclined to theism, but, following the traditions of his countrymen of the last century, to a quite cool and superficial deism, and that he permits himself to be too much impressed by the anti-teleological deductions of many of his followers, and to be induced to separate in his later publications the Creator and his work more widely than he has done in the beginning. For while in his "Origin of the Species," and in his "Descent of Man" he nowhere contests a teleological view of nature, and rejects the idea of single creations only under the erroneous supposition that the idea of the creation of the single also excludes the action of intervening agencies, we find, on the other hand, in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" a passage which, though in a reserved way, seems to give just as much support to the adversaries of teleology as to its advocates, if, indeed, not more. He says (page 338): "The belief that blushing was specially designed by the Creator is opposed to the general theory of evolution, which is now so largely accepted; but it forms no part of my duty here to argue on the general question. Those who believe in design will find it difficult to account for shyness being the most frequent and efficient of all the causes of blushing," etc. This inconsistency in his utterances has its origin in the fact that the strength of this naturalist does not seem to lie in logical philosophic thought. {221}

A. R. Wallace, the independent and contemporaneous co-originator of the Darwinian theory, still more evidently and more decidedly expresses himself favorably as to the position of this theory in reference to religion. In his "Natural Selection," he says on page 368: "It does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force may be will-force; and thus, that the whole universe is not merely dependent on, but actually is, the WILL of higher intelligences or of one Supreme Intelligence."

He pronounces the belief that God created the new species in "continual interference" with the regular process of things, a lower conception, "a limitation of the Creator's power" (page 280), hence something which he makes objection to directly in the interest of religion. Moreover, he sees, especially in those stages which caused the physical development of man, and which became the material basis of his spiritual productions, moments of development which cannot be explained by natural selection or by a coincidence of material circumstances, but only by the preformation of the body after a certain design and for a certain purpose.

Richard Owen, the celebrated anatomist, and palaeontologist of England, who, after having for a long time resisted the Darwinian theories, lately accepted the idea of development and rejected that of selection, takes a similar position. In the last part of his "Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates," which was issued separately in 1863 under the title "Derivative Hypothesis of Life and Species," he sees in the causes which produced the new species only the servants of a predestinating {222} intelligent will—for instance, the horse predestinated and prepared for man; and on page 90 of vol. V. of "Transactions of the Zooelogical Society," he says, "that natural evolution, through secondary causes, by means of slow physical and organic operations through long ages, is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of all-adaptive Mind, because we have abandoned the old error of supposing it the result of a primary, direct and sudden act of creational construction.... The succession of species by continuously operating law is not necessarily a 'blind operation.' Such law, however designed in the properties and successions of natural objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress. Organisms may be evolved in orderly succession, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmistakable impress of Divine volition."

Professor Huxley, of London, the zealous and oft-mentioned advocate of the descent of man from the ape, says—what is so energetically contested by his warmest friends in Germany, by Buechner, Haeckel, O. Schmidt, and others—that the teleological and the mechanical mode of viewing nature by no means exclude one another. He does this, of course, without going into any details of the religious question.

Asa Gray, an eminent and highly esteemed American botanist, who is particularly respected by Darwin, and is supported also by Sir Charles Lyell in "The Antiquity of Man," says in his essay on "Natural Selection not Incompatible with Natural Theology, a Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise" (London, Truebner, 1861), on page 29: "Agreeing that plants and animals {223} were produced by Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes. The record of the fiat—'Let the earth bring forth grass,' etc., 'the living creature,' etc.,—seems even to imply them, and leads to the conclusion that the different species were produced through natural agencies." And on page 38: "Darwin's hypothesis concerns the order and not the cause, the how and not the why of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design just where it was before." And finally, in a passage which is adopted by Sir Charles Lyell (ib. page 505): "We may imagine that events and operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at the first, and without any subsequent interference, or we may hold that now and then, and only now and then, there is a direct interposition of the Deity; or, lastly, we may suppose that all the changes are carried on by the immediate orderly and constant, however infinitely diversified, action of the intelligent efficient Cause."

Mivart, an English Catholic, most decidedly advocates a reconcilability of Darwinian views, and especially of the evolution theory, as he establishes it with the full contents of Christian orthodoxy, in his remarkable book "On the Genesis of Species" (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 2d. ed. 1871), in which we find a great many independent naturo-historical investigations. He assigns to the selection theory only a subordinate position, but on the other hand accepts an evolution, and, in close connection with R. Owen, explains it from inner and innate impulses of development of the organisms, which act now more slowly and gradually, now more by impulses; he places man as to {224} his physical part entirely among the effects of the evolution principle, although, taking into consideration some utterances of Wallace, he thinks it possible, but not probable, that the creation and the preceding stage of his physical nature is also different from that of animals. But, on the other hand, in fully adopting the old scholastic creationism, he supposes a special creation of the soul, a separation of body and soul, which in this form is very contestable, and might better have been replaced by a separation of natural and rational or of physico-psychical and pneumatical parts of his being. With such a view of nature, he finds the fullest harmony between the evolution theory and religion, reconciles the plausible antagonism of creation and development by dividing the idea of creation into a primary creation (creation of the beginning out of nothing) and into a secondary creation (creation through intervening agencies, although that which is produced through them is still a creation and a work of the Creator), and declares his conviction that what is acting according to law in nature also stands under the causation and government of God like the first beginning of the universe—a postulate of our primary views without which the whole universe and our existence in it would harden into a cold mechanism without consolation or ideality.

Finally, at the assembly of the Evangelical Alliance in New York (October, 1873), there were heard many voices of eminent advocates of a theistic and Christian view of the world, which maintained the full consistency of an evolution theory with religion and Christianity. McCosh, for instance, as referee in the philosophic section as to the relation of the evolution theory and {225} religion, said[10]: "I am not sure that religion is entitled to insist that every species of insects has been created by a special fiat of God, with no secondary agent employed." And still more plainly and more courageously, President Anderson, of the University of Rochester, in his very remarkable address, speaks about the unnecessary and unworthy fear of many Christian men, when they see the appearance of hypotheses with which science operates. At the end of his address, he says: "The evidence for the existence of a personal Creator cannot be affected by any considerations drawn from the mode, relative rapidity, or the nature of the proximate antecedents and consequences in the creative process."

From German sources, we can note fewer utterances of a friendly or at least neutral position between Darwinism and religion. For this fact there are many reasons. One may be, that on the continent in general there is a smaller number of those who, without being specialists in both realms, unite active religious interest and reasoning with a thorough study of those naturo-historical questions, while in Great Britain physico-theological studies have been for generations traditional and the object of interest for the majority of educated men. A second reason, indeed, is that some of the warmest scientific advocates of Darwinism at once attacked also theism and Christianity; hence with all those who did not have time and incitement enough to study the questions for themselves, they necessarily created the opinion that Darwinism really attacks even the fundamentals of {226} religion, and their whole tendency had but a repelling influence even on scientists of deeper spiritual and ethical disposition and need. Finally, in Germany as well as on the whole continent, the number of those who do not care for religious questions in general, and who therefore interest themselves in the scientific questions brought up by Darwin, but do not trouble themselves farther for their position in reference to religion and Christianity, is unfortunately larger than in Great Britain.

Nevertheless, such friendly voices are not entirely wanting in our country. The botanist Alex Braun says, in his beautiful and significant lecture on the importance of development in natural history, p. 48: "Some said that the descent theory denies creation, and it is true, the Darwinians themselves caused this opinion by contrasting creation and development as irreconcilable ideas. But this contrast does not actually exist, for as soon as we look upon creation as a divine effect, not merely belonging to the past, or appearing in single abrupt movements, but connected and universally present in time, we can seek and find it nowhere else but in the natural history of development itself.... Theologians themselves, according to the Mosaic documents, acknowledge a history of creation; natural history, looked upon from its inner side, is nothing else but the farther carrying out of the history of creation."

Even K. E. von Baer, who expressly contests the idea of selection, thinks it only scientifically indefensible, but not anti-religious; an opinion also held by Wigand.

A similar friendly relation between Darwinism and religion is advocated by Braubach, in his publication, {227} "Religion, Moral und Philosophie der Darwin'schen Artlehre nach ihrer Natur and ihrem Character als kleine Parallele menschlich-geistiger Entwicklung" ("Religion, Morality, and Philosophy of the Darwinian Doctrine of Species, as to its Nature and Character; a Small Parallel of Human Intellectual Development"), Neuwied, Hansen, 1869, a publication to which we pay special attention, since Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," twice paid it the honor of a quotation. It is true, the essay, through its peculiar dependence on an original and quite arbitrarily grouped scheme, gives the impression of something very singular, and is not very agreeably and easily read; but it shows such an energetic union of respect for science and its work and results, with adhesion to all the fundamentals of Christian truth, that it has to be mentioned as one of the rare voices which, even in regard to the realm of nature, pronounce the fullest harmony between religion and science. Braubach finds in the animal kingdom the elements of all the spiritual life of mankind, even of religion and morality; but everything is still wrapped in the lowest stage of sensuality. Nevertheless, he assigns to mankind, by its possession of the idea of infinity, something absolutely new, absolutely superior to the animal world, and sees the Darwinian ideas, even in the religious and moral possession of mankind, confirmed by the fact that they develop themselves on the way from the sensual stage to the rational exactly according to the principles of Darwin—namely, through transmission with individual variability in the struggle for existence, through selection of the fittest. With special earnestness, he pronounces the indissoluble unity of religion and morality, {228} and says that religion, as it presents itself upon Darwinian grounds, is a moral religion.

We find here and there in periodicals many more voices which pronounce the conviction that, out of the present contest of minds, peace between religion and science will result.

* * * * *

B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND MORALITY.

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

We can treat much more briefly of this portion of our task than of the position of the Darwinians in reference to the religious question, for the reason that the contrasts in the ethical realm are far less sharply drawn than in the religious realm, although in principle they are not less widely apart. For while there are a great many men who think that it belongs to good society and to the indispensable characteristics of high modern education to show either cold indifference or direct hostility in reference to religion and to the whole religious question; while a great many of the much-read works of belle lettres never tire of teaching the reading public that the religious question really no longer exists for the educated man, on the other hand, nobody, not even the extremest atheist and enemy of religion, wishes to renounce the reputation of having moral principles. Thus it happens that the positions taken by the Darwinians in reference to the ethical question are less varied than those taken by them in reference to the religious question. And we may also be brief for another reason, {229} namely, that by reviewing the position of the Darwinians in reference to the religious question, we have essentially prepared the way for the principal questions which will have to be treated.

We shall group the utterances upon the relation of the Darwinian theories to morality as we did those in regard to the relation of Darwinism to religion; and shall first let the advocates of an irreconcilableness between the two speak, then those advocating a reformative influence of Darwinism upon morality, and finally those striving for neutrality and peace between the two. We shall have no occasion, except incidentally, to discriminate between the different fundamental principles and parts of ethics, but shall in the last part of our work treat of the question independently. In making subdivisions for them here, we should but cause infinite repetitions, unnecessarily complicate our review, and render it more difficult.

* * * * * {230}

CHAPTER IV.

ANTAGONISM BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY.

Sec. 1. Objections to Darwinism from an Ethical Standpoint.

From what we said at the beginning of the preceding preliminary view, it is evident that we have to look for the advocates of an irreconcilableness between morality and Darwinism, not in the camp of the followers of the latter, but only in that of its adversaries. It is true, such advocates were never wanting. In pamphlets and journals, it has been often enough said that Darwinism cuts through the nerve of life, not only of religion, but also of morality.

It was demonstrated that in making man a mere product of nature, and degrading him to a being that is nothing else but a more highly developed animal, Darwinism takes from human personality its value, from the realms of morality its dignity, and from its demands their autonomy. In making the struggle for existence the principle of all development and, by extending it to the development and social relations of man, at the same time the human social principle, it puts in place of self-denial and love the principle of egoism and boorishness and the right of the stronger, gives full course to the unchaining of all animal passions, and coquettes with all the emotions which, flattering the animal part of man, {231} aims at the subversion of all that exists and at the destruction of the ideal acquisitions of mankind. In tracing everything which constitutes the higher position and dignity of man back to his own work, and permitting it to be worked out of physical, spiritual, and ethical brutishness, in slow development and effort, closely related to the animal kingdom, it fosters and nourishes haughtiness in an intolerable way. And finally, in breaking off and denying the dependence of man upon God, and leading to mechanical determinism, it destroys the deepest and most effective motive to moral action—the tracing of the moral law to the authority of the divine Law-giver, and the consciousness of an individual moral responsibility.

It cannot be denied that many of the most zealous Darwinians gave too much cause for such a conception and representation of the ethical consequences of their system. In view of the fact that they applied the selection principle, with its most radical consequences, to the origin and development of mankind, and that they elevated the same to the ethical and social principle of mankind and did not permit the acceptance of any new and higher agencies in mankind except those already active in the animal and the organic world, and that they gladly treated this selection principle also in the social and ethical realm as a struggle for existence, it was simply an entirely logical conclusion that the advocates of the moral nobility of mankind reproached such a reproduced Darwinism with degrading the moral dignity of man and with replacing love by egoism. Besides, in view of the fact that they declared materialistic monism, even the most naked atheism, the only conclusion of {232} Darwinism, and extended their mechanistic explanation of the world to a determinism in the highest degree mechanistic, and, carried to its utmost limit, to a denial of human freedom, it was not to be wondered at that those who recognize in theism the basis of all life worthy of man, and in the freedom of man one of the most precious pearls in the crown of his human dignity and of his creation in the image of God, complained of Darwinism's taking from morality its strongest motive and from moral action its responsibility. And, finally, in view of the fact that those who thus express themselves in their works showed but rarely, or not at all, some of the noblest fruits of moral education, such as respectful treatment of adversaries, humbleness and tact, they could not themselves reasonably complain that there was ascribed to their doctrine an influence detrimental to moral education. All this we find abundantly confirmed in the publications of Buechner and Haeckel, and in many articles of the "Ausland."

But the question is, whether those Darwinians who drew these conclusions were by their scientific investigations obliged to draw them, or whether they did not rather reach their religious and ethical view of the world by quite other ways, and whether they did not in a wholly arbitrary and irresponsible manner make extensive use of Darwinism in this anti-religious and ethically objectional direction—a fact which we shall try to prove in the last part of our investigation.

Of course the Darwinians who spoke thus, did not intend to injure the moral principle, but only to purify and reform it; and therefore we shall have to speak of them in the following section.

* * * * * {233}

CHAPTER V.

REFORM OF MORALITY THROUGH DARWINISM.

Sec. 1. The Materialists and Monists. Darwin and the English Utilitarians. Gustav Jaeger.

Among those who ascribe to Darwinism a morally reforming influence, we have to mention in the first place the materialists. It is true that even before the appearance of Darwinism they established their own moral principle of naturalistic determinism and of the education of man only by science and enlightenment, in opposition to a morality which rests on the principle of the eternal value of the individual, of full moral responsibility, of the holiness of the moral law, and of a divine author of it; they stigmatized the ethical requirement of aiming at the eternal welfare of the soul as a lower stage of morality in comparison with their own, which carries in itself the reward of virtue; and they declared Christianity and humanity, Christian morality and the morality of humanity, two things irreconcilably opposed to one another. But in having taken possession of Darwinism as their monopoly, they have made it the basis of new attacks upon the present moral principle of Christendom; and therefore we have here to mention them with their moral system.

Buechner, in his lecture on "Gottesbegriff und dessen {234} Bedeutung" ("The Idea of God and its Importance"), replaces the moral principle (which in his opinion is nothing innate but something acquired) by education, learning, freedom and well-being; says that only atheism or philosophic monism leads to freedom, reason, progress, acknowledgment of true humanity—to humanism; that this humanism seeks the motives of its morality not in the external relations to an extramundane God, but in itself and in the welfare of mankind; and that infidels often, even as a rule, have excelled by moral conduct, while Christianity has originated many more crimes than it has hindered, and it would no longer be possible to establish with real Christians a vital community as at present understood. He declares the utterance of Madame de Stael, that "to comprehend everything means to forgive everything," the truest word ever spoken; and concludes his lecture with the remarks that the more man renounces his faith and confides in his own power, his own reason, his own reflexion, the happier he will be and the more successful in his struggle for existence.

Strauss in "The Old Faith and the New," a publication which certainly has to be ranked here, for the reason that in it he founds on Darwinism his whole knowledge of the world, on the ground of which he wishes to arrange life, appears to be much more decent, and in the practical consequences much more conservative, than Buechner; but essentially stands upon quite the same ground. Haeckel, Oskar Schmidt, and (as to his linguistic Darwinism) W. Bleek, group themselves around Strauss, partly with, partly without express reference to his deductions. {235}

Strauss arrives at a peculiar inconsequence, but one well worthy of notice, when, in place of the struggle for existence which, according to the conclusions of those who also reduce morality to Darwinism, is still the spiritus rector of moral development in mankind, and yet cannot of itself possibly lead to the morally indispensable requirements and virtues of self-sacrifice and of mere subordination under the moral idea, he suddenly substitutes a going of man beyond mere nature, and herewith a moral principle, which can never be deduced from Darwinism alone, and which is directly opposed to monism and pankosmism, which is to be the basis of his ethics. The reader may compare the manner in which he metaphysically supports his moral principle when he says: "As nature cannot go higher, she would go inwards. Nature felt herself already in the animal, but she wished to know herself also.... In man, nature endeavored not merely to exalt, but to transcend herself." Ulrici, the philosopher, in his reply to Strauss, has pointed out in sharp terms this inconsequence, as well as the other, that from the ground of a blind necessity which does not know anything of a higher and a lower, the difference of higher and lower, good and bad, rational and irrational, cannot at all be maintained; and that the requirement of a progress cannot at all be made, and its idea not at all be given. In this very perceptible inconsistency, Strauss calls that morality which he requires, "the relation of man to the idea of his kind." To realize the latter in himself, is the summary of his duties toward himself; actually to recognize and promote the equality of the kind in all the others, is the {236} summary of his duties towards others. He opposes the internal satisfaction which originates therein, to the "rough" idea of a reward of virtue and piety, coming from without, which, in order to connect both, is in need of a God. And he again reaches that inconsequence which from his metaphysical standpoint is entirely without motive, but as to itself only worthy to be recognized, when in another formula of his moral imperative he says: "Ever remember that thou art human, not merely a natural production."

It is also this representation and realization of the idea of the kind, which those who combine with their Darwinism a negation of theism have mostly established before the appearance of the work of Strauss as the highest moral principle, and to which they are also led most naturally by Darwin's deduction of morality from the social instincts. Thus, Wilhelm Bleek, in the preface to his "Ursprung der Sprache" ("Origin of Language"), says (page XIII): "To aim at the inner and outer harmony of his genus in one or the other way, and to promote the correct relations of the different parts to one another in their reciprocal connections and in the greater parts of the whole organism (family, community, nation), are the highest visible designs of human existence, which must by themselves incite man to noble actions and to virtuous deeds. In the performance of this task lies the highest happiness which seems to be given to our species, a happiness accessible by everyone in his own way. Neither the fruit of eternal punishment nor the hope of an individual happiness, is really capable as a truly saving idea to elevate man to a higher existence; even if we take no account of the fact that {237} each of these two fundamental dogmas of the vulgar dogmatism makes but refined egoism the lever of its ethics."

Haeckel alone, in his "Natural History of Creation," with his utterances as to Christianity, morality, and the history of the world, again sinks down to the level of the coarseness of Buechner, and even below it. On page 19, vol. I, he entirely contests the reality of the moral order of the world, and continues: "If we contemplate the common life, and the mutual relations between plants and animals (man included), we shall find everywhere and at all times, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful social life, which the goodness of the Creator ought to have prepared for his creatures—we shall rather find everywhere a pitiless, most embittered struggle of all against all. Nowhere in nature, no matter where we turn our eyes, does that idyllic peace, celebrated by the poets, exist; we find everywhere a struggle and a striving to annihilate neighbors and competitors. Passion and selfishness, conscious or unconscious, is everywhere the motive force of life. Man in this respect certainly forms no exception to the rest of the animal world." On page 237, vol. I, he professes the most extreme naturalistic determinism: "The will of the animal, as well as that of man, is never free. The widely spread dogma of the freedom of the will is, from a scientific point of view, altogether untenable." And on page 170, vol. I, he even says: "If, as we maintain, natural selection is the great active cause which has produced the whole wonderful variety of organic life on the earth, all the interesting phenomena of human life must also be explicable from the same cause. For man is after all {238} only a most highly-developed vertebrate animal, and all aspects of human life have their parallels, or, more correctly, their lower stages of development, in the animal kingdom. The whole history of nations, or what is called universal history, must therefore be explicable by means of natural selection,—must be a physico-chemical process, depending upon the interaction of adaptation and inheritance in the struggle for life. And this is actually the case." That in his ethical naturalism he sees a real reform of morality, he expressly declares on the page next to the last of his "Natural History of Creation": "Just as this new monistic philosophy first opens up to us a true understanding of the real universe, so its application to practical human life must open up a new road towards moral perfection." (Vol. II, p. 367.)

In the low conception of morality and its principle, Haeckel is perhaps seconded only by Seidlitz who says in his "Die Darwin'she Theorie" ("Darwin's Theory"), p. 198: "Rational and moral life consist in the satisfaction of all physical functions, in correct proportion and relation to one another. Man is immoral through excessive satisfaction of one function and through neglect of the others."

As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Carneri also takes a peculiar position. In reducing all the phenomena of existence, together with the whole spiritual life of mankind, to a close development of nature according to the causal law, in expressly grouping also the utterances of the will of man under this law of an absolute necessity, in fully adopting Darwin's doctrine as the wholly satisfactory key for the comprehension of the entire development of nature up to the history of {239} mankind, in advocating an absolutely monistic determinism and a nearly exclusive dependence of the efficacy of moral principles on the theoretic cultivation of the mind, on reasoning and education, he, as before mentioned, stands on exactly the same ground with materialists and monists among whom he expressly ranks himself; in the inconsequence with which he makes concessions to the power of the idea and the ideal over man—concessions which could never be concluded from a mere immanent process of nature—he is closely related to Strauss. But it is peculiar that, although entirely dependent in his reasoning on that monistic view of the world, and that Darwinian view of nature, he defines his ethical developments and his reflections on the organizations of human life in a relative independence, which again separates him as moralist from these before-mentioned monists and materialists, and rather ranks him, as we have seen in Chap. I, Sec. 4, in the line of the disciples of Spinoza and Hegel. From this it can also be explained, how it could happen that in criticisms and reviews of Darwinism and its literature the standpoint which he takes could find such different and diametrically opposed expositions. While, for instance, the "Beweis des Glaubens," in the March number of 1873, thinks that Carneri wishes to seek on Darwinian ground a new and better basis for morality than we had heretofore; while Haeckel in the preface to the third edition of his "Natural History of Creation," page XXIX, mentions the publication of Carneri with the greatest praise, earnestly recommends all theologians and philosophers to read it, and greets it as the first successful attempt at applying fruitfully the monistic view {240} of the world, as established by Darwinism, to the realm of practical philosophy and at showing that the immense progress of our knowledge of the world caused by the descent theory has only the most beneficial effect upon the further progressing development of mankind in practical life;—a criticism in the "Ausland" (8 April, 1872, No. 15), calls the same publication "an attempt at harmonizing Darwin's hypothesis with the current views of ethics, and at showing that those doctrines cannot be sustained which result as strictly logical conclusions from Darwin's theory, and which are opposed to the present views of morality."

In returning from this digression to Darwinism in its purest form, to Darwin himself, we have in the first place to resume the discussion entered upon as to the way and manner in which, according to Darwin, self-determination is originated. Love and sympathy, moral feeling (with this definition he seems to point at the consciousness of moral freedom of will and of responsibility), and conscience, are to him very important elements of morality; and in the moral disposition of man he sees the greatest of all differences between man and animal. He also willingly acknowledges the powerful impulse which morality has from religion, when he says ("Descent of Man," Vol. II, page 347): "With the more civilized races, the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing Deity has had a potent influence on the advance of morality." From these and all his other deductions, we see that Darwin in no way intends to modify the maxims of moral action; and if under the expression "reform of morality," with which we have headed the present chapter, we should understand but {241} a reform of moral action itself, we should without hesitation have to rank Darwin with the next group, and not with that of which we now treat; just as in our review of the position of Darwinism in reference to the religious question, we had to rank him with those who take a neutral and peaceful position in reference to religion.

But if he does not touch upon morality in the maxims, he nevertheless comes forth in the theory of moral action, in the science of morality with reformatory claims,—namely, with the fact that reduces the whole moral life to those agencies which are already active in the preceding animalic stage. It is true, he makes, as we have seen, a distinction in the genetic derivation of morality. He wholly reduces love and sympathy to social instincts which man has in common with the animal; and he lets the formal motives of moral action, sense of duty and conscience, originate through the high development of intelligence and other spiritual forces, and to be increased and transmitted by custom and inheritance, if those are present. But, on the other hand, development of intelligence is to him an exclusive product of the preceding stage on which it was developed, and thus, in his opinion, entire morality, notwithstanding that double derivation, certainly has purely and exclusively the natural basis as its origin. If that is once the standpoint to which man sees himself led, he has, in order to reason logically, but a double choice. He must either say that a development out of a natural basis can possibly be consistent with the appearance of a new and higher principle, or must give up the autonomy of the moral law, and leave the moral action of {242} man, even in his maxims, to the unsteady flowing of development, or even of arbitrariness, and to the degree of education and intelligence of subjectivity. Neither the one nor the other is done by Darwin. It is true, on the one hand he shows that modesty, so often exhibited by him, of the investigator who does not wish to express any opinion on questions regarding which he has not yet attained a mature judgment; but on the other hand he also manifests the same aversion to going beyond purely naturo-historical speculations which, as we have seen in Part I, Book II, Chapter I, Sec. 1, hindered him from obtaining a clear conception of the importance of the question as to the origin of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination, and the same want of sequence in reasoning, which, as we have found in Chap. III, prevented him from giving an affirmative or negative decision in such an important question, as whether a divine end is to be observed in the processes of the world.

In this naturalization of ethical principles, he is closely related to that peculiar moral-philosophic tendency in England, which long before Darwin's appearance, took its origin in John Stuart Mill, but which now, in the closest connection with Darwin's principles, has its main advocate in Herbert Spencer, and is commonly called the utilitarian tendency. We understand by this that conception of the moral motive which allows the moral good, however it may be ideally separated from the useful in the developed condition of mankind at the present time, in its origin to be developed at the outset from the same origin as the useful,—namely, from the sensation of like and dislike; a theory of utility which Sir John Lubbock still tried to complete and deepen by {243} the theory of an inheritance of the sensation of authority. Activities which originally proved to be only useful, were inherited as traditional instinct by the offspring, and were thus freed from the sensation of the useful, and acted as authority; this is the origin of duty, according to the history of development. Inasmuch as this philosophic system aims at taking from ethics the absoluteness of its demands, and at drawing down these demands into the activities of originating and developing, it is also to be treated of in this place.

As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Gustav Jaeger also stands nearer to a neutral relation between Darwinism and the hitherto valid principles. He puts the moral principles the same as the religious, into the balance of utility to man in his struggle for existence, and finds it thus easy and to be taken for granted, that the principles of morality, as they became the common property of mankind as influenced by Christianity, really prove themselves also the most serviceable to mankind. Social life is of more benefit to man than hermit life; this reflection leads him to the moral principle of charity. And as, according to Darwinism, rising development shows itself in an increasing differentiation and more richly organized physical development, so the organization of society according to the principle of the division of work is that form of social life which proves itself the most practical to man; and this reflection leads him to the full acknowledgment of the entire ethical organization of human life and its tasks.

But, as we saw, in treating of the religious question, that nobody, neither friend nor foe, could possibly be {244} satisfied with the substitution of the category of utility for that of truth, we are compelled to say in reference to the ethical question, that a moral principle which, on such a foundation, has its basis and authority only in its utility, is really no authority, and loses its value with every individual who is unwilling to acknowledge its utility and thinks another ground of action may be more useful than the moral.

* * * * * {245}

CHAPTER VI.

NEUTRALITY AND PEACE BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY.

Sec. 1. Mivart, Alex. Braun, and Others.

Evidently a real neutrality between the Darwinian theories of development and the hitherto valid and absolute authority of the moral principle is possible only, when we deny that the ethical demand is simply a natural process—although we may perceive its origin within the limits of a natural process—and when we fail to identify that demand with this process, and do not deduce it from the latter as its sufficient ground of explanation; but harmony between the two theories, in spite of all traces of Darwinism in the scientific parts of anthropology, is possible when we acknowledge the moral demand, if once present and valid, in its entire and, so to speak, its metaphysical independence in its full value, far exceeding all natural necessity.

It is shown by Mivart that such an absolute authority of the ethical demands, and such an independence of the whole science of morality, may be brought into accord with the scientific theories of development. In his book on "The Genesis of Species," he devotes a whole chapter to ethical questions. He discriminates, in the moral good, between the formal good (good with consciousness and will of the good) and the {246} material good (good without consciousness and design), ascribes only the latter to the animal world in its moral features, and the former exclusively to mankind, and thus takes ground quite analogous to that held by him on the religious question, where he includes in the theory of development the physical part of man, but excludes the intellectual part, with the single qualification that in the religious question he unnecessarily renders his position more difficult by designating this intellectual or spiritual part by the term "soul."

German authorities, who see in Darwinism only a scientific question which can be solved by means of natural investigation, and who therefore, think the religious and ethical questions but little affected by it, have expressed themselves in regard to this neutral position toward morality still more rarely than as to its neutrality toward religion. The reason for this is probably that the independence of moral principles and the absoluteness of their authority entirely result from themselves, as soon as we have once admitted theism and left room in general for a freedom standing above natural causality—and perhaps it is due to the further fact that the realm of the moral is more palpably urged as a reality and necessity upon even the most indifferent mind than the realm of religion.

On the other hand, we find frequent utterances which indirectly refer to the ethical realm—for instance, expressions in reference to the ethical importance of an animal descent of man. Alex. Braun says: "Man assents to the idea of being appointed lord of the creatures, but then he may also acknowledge that he is not placed over his subjects as a stranger, but originated from the {247} beings whose lord he wishes to be. It is not an unworthy idea, but rather an elevating one, that man constitutes the last and highest member in the ancient and infinitely rich development of organic nature on our planet, being connected by the most intimate bonds of relationship with the other members, as the latter are connected among themselves with one another: not a pernicious parasite on the tree of natural life, but the true son of the blissful mother Nature." In reducing descent, which he accepts, to a development from an inner force, and in ascribing to the Darwinian selection, with its struggle for existence, the value only of a regulator (he adopts this term of Wallace as a very striking one), Braun, in his concluding appeal to young students, calls especial attention to the ethical importance of a development proceeding from within, saying: "Life has its outer and its inner side; all its works and ways must follow mechanical laws, but its tasks and aims belong to a higher realm. We are permitted to take a glance into this realm through the all-embracing history of the development of nature, which leads up into our own inmost being, up to our highest end. Truly progressive development is the best wish for every youth," etc.

Inasmuch as that in which Alex. Braun finds a satisfaction for the fulfillment of the ethical tasks—namely, a deeper knowledge of man's connection with lower nature, and the pointing to the proper tasks of the development of mankind,—has thus far been the substance of all sound systems of morality, we did not mention these and similar utterances, of which we could gather many more from other writers, in the preceding part of our {248} work—i.e., in describing those who ascribe to Darwinism a reformatory influence upon morality; but we rank these utterances with those which predict from the descent theory neither injury to morality nor any especial enlightenment regarding it.

We have now reached the end of that part of our work which considers and treats of the views of others. To our regret, we have been compelled to restrict ourselves, in this review, to the countries of the English and German tongues; the former being the home of Darwin, the latter our own. We should have preferred to take into our review also the literature of France and Belgium, Holland and Italy; but we feared being able to give only an incomplete report. Besides, it is in Germany and Great Britain—and partly also in North America, related to both in language and origin—where the Darwinian agitation has taken deepest hold of the mind; and, in restricting our report to these countries, we are not likely to have omitted any view essential to the consideration of the present question. It is true that in the other countries named the Darwinian literature is also rich, and we are well aware of the incompleteness of our report in that respect. But we believe that we have not omitted any essential views and evidences, even if the names of many of their advocates have not been mentioned.

It still remains to us to investigate independently the position of the Darwinian theories, with their philosophic supplements, in reference to religion and morality: a task for which we hope to have essentially prepared the way through the preceding representations and investigations.

* * * * * {249}

BOOK II.

ANALYTICAL.

* * * * *

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

In treating the religious question, we proceed from the supposition that religion is concerned not only in this subjective truth of religious impulse and sensation, but also in the objective truth and reality of its faith, although it attains these in a different way from natural science. A religion which should have the authorization of its existence only in psychology, and which was not allowed to ask whether the object of its faith also has objective reality, would stand on a weak basis, and its end would only be a question of time; for an impulse which can only be psychologically established, and to which no real objective necessity could correspond, must sooner or later either be proven a psychological error or be eliminated by progressing culture. On the other hand, if we find a reconcilableness or an irreconcilableness of Darwin's views with the objective substance of religion, the possible question as to its reconcilableness or irreconcilableness with subjective religiousness on the ground of those results wholly answers itself. In no way, not even in the most indirect, can we approve that method of book-keeping by which something can be true in regard to religion and false in regard to science, or vice-versa; on the contrary, we see {250} in all attempts at healing in such a way the rupture which at present exists in the minds of so many, only a more emphatic avowal of that rupture.

In treating of the religious question as it affects the position of Darwinism in reference to the substance and the objective truth of the religious faith, without going into a detailed treatment of the question of the reconcilableness of a purely subjective religiousness with the Darwinian views, it will be of advantage to speak first of the position of the Darwinian theories in reference to the basis of all true and sound religion and religiousness—the theistic view of the world. In doing this, we shall discriminate the purely scientific theories of Darwin from the philosophic supplements and conclusions which have been given to and drawn from them, and shall have to consider each of them separately in connection with the theistic view of the world. If thereby we shall discover Darwinian views which can be brought into accord with a theistic view of the world, we shall also, in order to close our investigation, have to consider them with those parts of the theology of positive Christianity which can be affected by the Darwinian questions.

In treating the question of the relation of Darwinism to morality, our investigation can be somewhat abridged, because many of the principal questions which have to be considered have found their solution in what has been previously said, and partly also because they will present themselves in it different form.

The principal division in our discussion we shall most appropriately assign to ethics, and thus treat first of the position of Darwinism in reference to the moral principles, and then treat of this in reference to the concrete {251} moral life. Where the question as to the position of Darwinism in reference to morality occurs, we shall no longer have to treat of it separately as to the different aspects of its problems—we should otherwise get lost in too many repetitions; but we shall only have to separate an ethical naturalism which supports itself upon Darwinian grounds, from pure Darwinism, and to treat of each in turn as to its position in reference to morality.

* * * * * {252}

A. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND RELIGION.

CHAPTER I.

THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND THE THEISTIC VIEW OF THE WORLD.

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

Sec. 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}

Sec. 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 palaeontological 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.

Sec. 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 Sec. 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.

Sec. 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.