Genius
We cannot venture to say much about genius and the mystery of it. In it
and its creative power something of the spirit, the nature of the spirit,
seems to look up at us, as we might think of it in itself and apart from
the limits of existence in time and space. It is usually most obvious and
most accessible to us in the domain of art. But it has its place too in
the realm of science. And it is most of all genius, and therefore most
inaccessible to us ordinary mortals, in the domain of religion.
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Constructive Criticism
Those whose protests we have hitherto been considering have not added to their criticism of the mechanical theory any positive contribution of their own, or at least they give nothing more than very slight hints pointing towards a psychical theory... Contrast Between Darwinian And Post-darwinian Views
The new views that have thus arisen have been definitely summarised and clearly contrasted with Darwinism by the botanist Korschinsky. He died before completing his general work, "Heterogenesis und Evolution," but he has elsewhere(55) given an exc... Creative Power Of Consciousness
To this insight into the underivability and pre-eminence of consciousness over the world of external reality there must be added at this stage a recognition of its peculiar creative character. We have here to recognise that consciousness itself cr... Criticisms Of The Mechanistic Theory Of Life
The course of the mechanistic theory of life has been surprisingly similar to that of its complement, the theory of the general evolution of the organic world. The two great doctrines of the schools, Darwinism on the one hand, the mechanical inter... Crities Of Darwinism
Let us turn now to the other side. What is opposed to Darwinism in the biological investigations of the experts of to-day is in part simple criticism of the Darwinian position as a whole or in some of its details, and in part constructive individual... Darwinish In General
Darwinism, which was originally a technical theory of the biological schools, has long since become a veritable tangle of the most diverse problems and opinions, and seems to press hardly upon the religious conception of the world from many differen... Darwinism And Teleology
But the essential and most characteristic importance of Darwin and his work, the reason for which he was called the Newton of biology, and which makes Darwinism at once interesting and dangerous to the religious conception of the world, is somethi... Darwinism In The Strict Sense
It remains for us to consider what is essentially Darwinian in Darwinism, namely, the theory of natural selection as the determining factor in evolution. For, given the reality of evolution and descent, and that transformations from one form to an... De Vries's Mutation-theory
The work that has probably excited most interest in this connection is De Vries' "Die Mutationstheorie: Versuche und Beobachtungen ueber die Entstehung von Arten im Pflanzenleben."(46) In a short preliminary paper he had previously given some acco... Differences Of Opinion As To The Factors In Evolution
The theory of natural selection in the struggle for existence rapidly gained wide acceptance, but from the first it was called in question from many sides. Bronn, who translated Darwin's works into German, was and remained loyal to the idea of a "... Eimer's Orthogenesis
Organisation is due to internal causes. Structural characters crystallise out, as it were. "Orthogenesis," or the definitely determined tendency of evolution to advance in a few directions, is a law for the whole of the animate world. In active re... Evolution And New Beginnings
All this throws an important light upon two subjects which are relevant in this connection, but which cannot here be exhaustively dealt with,--evolution and new beginnings. Let us consider, for instance, the marvellous range and diversity of the c... Feeling
It is in the four attributes here emphasised that the true nature of mind in its underivability and superiority to all nature first becomes clear. All that we have so far considered under the name of mind is only preliminary and leads up to this. ... Feeling Individuality Genius And Mysticism
The four things here mentioned are very closely associated with one another, especially the second and third, as is easily perceived, but the second is rooted in the first. And in the second and third there is already to be discovered a factor whi... Freedom Of Spirit
The consciousness of the ego leads us naturally to the consciousness of freedom. Freedom of the mind is no simple idea; it embraces various contents which bear the relation of stages to one another, and each higher stage presupposes the one below ... Fundamental Principles Of Naturalism
The fundamental convictions of naturalism, its general tendencies, and the points of view which determine its outlook, are primarily related to that order of facts which forms the subject of the natural sciences, to "Nature." It is only secondarily ... Genius
We cannot venture to say much about genius and the mystery of it. In it and its creative power something of the spirit, the nature of the spirit, seems to look up at us, as we might think of it in itself and apart from the limits of existence in t... Goethe's Attitude To Naturalism
The most instructive example we can take is Goethe: his veneration for nature on the one hand, and on the other his pronounced opposition to the naturalism both of the materialists and of the mathematicians. Modern naturalists are fond of seeking ... Haeckel's Evolutionist Position
The average type of the Theory of Descent of the older or orthodox school, which still lingers in the background with its Darwinism unshaken, is that set forth by Haeckel, scientifically in his "Generelle Morphologie der Organismen" (1866), and "S... Heredity
6. With this fifth line of thought a sixth is associated and intertwined. The problem of development is closely bound up with that of "heredity." A developing organism follows the parental type. The acorn in its growth follows the type of the pare... How All This Affects The Religious Outlook
These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which are now continually cropping up, lead, as must be obvious, towards a deeper conception and interpretation of reality in general, and towards a religious conception in particu... How The Religious And The Naturalistic Outlooks Conflict
Religion comes into contact with naturalism and demands to be reconciled with it, not merely at its periphery, but at its very core, namely, with its characteristic ideal of a mathematical-mechanical interpretation of the whole world. This ideal s... Immortality
It is in a faith in a Beyond, and in the immortality of our true being, that what lies finely distributed through all religion sums itself up and comes to full blossoming: the certainty that world and existence are insufficient, and the strong des... Individual Development
What lives in us, as far as we can perceive and trace it in its empirical expression, is not a finished and spiritual being that leaps, mature and complete, from some pre-existence or other into its embodied form, but is obviously something that o... Individuality
It is especially in "feeling" that what we call individuality has its roots. The individual really means the "indivisible," and in the strict sense of the word need mean nothing more than the ego, and the unity of consciousness of which we have al... Intuitions Of Reality
(5.) There are other evidences of this depth and hidden nature of things, towards which an examination of our knowledge points. For "in feeling and intuition appearance points beyond itself to real being." So ran our fifth proposition. This subjec... Irritability
3. A property which seems to be quite peculiar to living matter is irritability, or the power of responding to "stimuli," that is to say, of reacting to some influence from without in such a manner that the reaction is not the mere equivalent of t... Is There Ageing Of The Mind?
Naturalism is also only apparently right in asserting that the mind ages with the body. To learn the answer which all idealism gives to this comfortless theory, it is well to read Schleiermacher's "Monologues," and especially the chapter "Youth an... Lamarckism And Neo-lamarckism
The "Lamarckian" view as opposed to the Darwinian continues to hold its own, and indeed is more ardently supported than ever. On this view, evolution has been accomplished not by a laborious selection of the best which chanced to present itself--a... Machnical Theories Criticism
In attempting to define our attitude to the mechanical theory of life, we have first of all to make sure that we have a right to take up a definite position at all. We should have less right, or perhaps none, if this theory of life were really of... Mind And Spirit The Human And The Animal Soul
What is the relation between the human and the animal mind? This has always been a vital question in the conflict between naturalism and the religious outlook. And as in the whole problem of the psychical so here the interest on both sides has bee... Mystery : Dependence : Purpose
There is then a threefold religious interest, and there are three corresponding points of contact between the religious and the naturalistic interpretations of the world, where, as it appears, they are necessarily antagonistic to one another. Arra...