The World And God
The world and nature are marvellous in their being, but they are not
"divine"! The formula "natura sive deus" is a monstrous misuse of the
word "deus," if we are to use the words in the sense which history has
given to them. God is the Absolute Being, perfect, wholly independent,
resting in Himself, and necessary; nature is entirely contingent and
dependent, and at every point of it we are impelled to ask "Why?" God is
manifoldness of her productions, but she is nevertheless limited, and her
possibilities are restricted within narrow limits. God is the
unrestrained, and everlasting omnipotence itself, and the perfect wisdom;
nature is indeed mighty enough in the attainment of her ends, but how
often is she obstructed, how often does she fail to reach them, and how
seldom does she do so perfectly and without mistakes? She shows wisdom,
indeed, cunning in her products, subtlety and daintiness, taste and
beauty, all these often in an overwhelming degree, yet just as often she
brings forth what is meaningless, contradictory and mutually hurtful,
traverses her own lines, and bewilders us by the brutality, the
thoughtlessness, and purposelessness, the crookedness, incompleteness, and
distortedness of her operations. And what is true of the world of external
nature is true in a far greater degree of the world of history. Nature is
not a god, but a demigod, says Aristotle. And on this, Pantheism with its
creed, "natura sive deus," makes shipwreck. The words of this credo
are either a mere tautology, and "deus" is misused as a new name for
nature; or they are false. It is not possible to transfer to nature and
the world all the great ideas and feelings which the religious mind
cherishes under the name of "God."
On the other hand, nature is really, as Aristotle said, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, that is,
strange, mysterious, and marvellous, indicating God, and pointing, all
naturalism and superficial consideration notwithstanding, as we have seen,
to something outside of and beyond itself. Religion demands no more than
this. It does not insist upon finding a solution for all the riddles of
theoretical world-lore. It is not distressed because the course of nature
often seems to our eyes confused, and to our judgment contradictory and
unintelligible at a hundred places and in a hundred respects. On the
contrary, that this is the case is to religion in another aspect a strong
stimulus and corroboration. "The world is an odd fellow; may God soon make
an end of it," said Luther, and thus gave a crude but truly religious
parallel to the words of Aristotle, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~},
(Aristot. "De Divin. in Somn.," c. ii.). It is part of the very essence of
religion, as we have seen, to read in the pages of nature, insufficiency,
illusion, and perplexities, and to be made thereby impatient and desirous
of penetrating to the true nature of things. Religion does not claim to be
directly deducible out of a consideration of nature; it demands only the
right and freedom to interpret the world in its own way. And for this it
is sufficient that this world affords those hints and suggestions for its
convictions that we have seen it does afford. To form clear ideas in
regard to the actual relations of the infinite to the finite, and of God
to the world, and of what religion calls creation, preservation, and
eternal providence, self-revelation in the world and in history, is hardly
the task of religion at all, but rather pertains to our general
speculative instinct, which can only satisfy itself with the help of
imagination. Attempts of this kind have often been made. They are by no
means valueless, for even if no real knowledge can be gained by this
method, we may perhaps get an analogue of it which will help us to
understand existence and phenomena, and to define our position, as well as
to give at least provisional answers to many pressing questions (such, for
instance, as the problem of theodicy).
If we study the world unprejudiced by the naturalistic interpretation, or
having shaken ourselves free from it, we are most powerfully impressed by
one fundamental phenomenon in all existence: it is the fact of evolution.
It challenges attention and interpretation, and analogies quickly reveal
themselves which give something of the same trend to all such
interpretations. From stage to stage existence advances onwards, from the
world of large masses subject only to the laws of mechanics, to the
delicately complex play of the forces of development in growth and other
vital processes. The nature of the forces is revealed in ever higher
expression, and at the same time in ever more closely connected series of
stages. Even between the inorganic and the organic there is an
intermediate stage--crystal formation--which is no longer entirely of the
one, yet not of the other. And in the organic world evolution reveals
itself most clearly of all; from the crudest and simplest it presses
onwards to the most delicate and complex. In the corporeal as in the
psychical, in the whole as in each of its parts, there are ever higher
stages, sometimes far apart, sometimes close together. However we picture
to ourselves the way in which evolution accomplishes itself in time, we
can scarcely describe it without using such expressions as "nature
advances upwards step by step," "it presses and strives upwards and
unfolds itself stage by stage."
And it is with us as it was with Plato; we inform the world with a soul,
with a desire and endeavour which continually expresses itself in higher
and higher forms. And it is with us also as with Fichte; we speak of the
will which, unconscious of itself, pours itself forth in unconscious and
lifeless nature, and then on this foundation strives forward, expressing
its activity in ever higher developments, breaking forth in life,
sensation, and desire, and finally coming to itself in conscious existence
and will. The whole world seems to us a being which wills to become,
presses restlessly forward, and passes from the potential to the actual,
realising itself. And the height of its self-realisation is conscious,
willing life.
This outlook is lofty and significant, it supplies a guiding clue by which
the facts of life and nature can be arranged. The religious outlook, too,
when it wishes to indulge in speculation, can make use of this guiding
thread. It will then say: God established the world as "a will to
existence, to consciousness, to spirit." He established it, not as
complete, but as becoming. He does not build it as a house, but plants it,
like a flower, in the seed, that it may grow, that it may struggle upwards
stage by stage to fuller existence, aspiring with toil and endeavour
towards the height where, in the image of the Creator, as a free and
reasonable spirit capable of personality, it may realise the aim of its
being. Thus the world is of God, that is, its rudiments came from God,
and it is to God, in the purpose of likeness to God. And it is imbued
with the breath of Godhead which moves in it and impels it onwards, with
the logos of the everlasting Zeus of whom Cleanthes sings, with the spirit
of Jehovah whom Isaiah and the Psalmist praise, and whom the poet of the
Creation figuratively paints; the divine breath is in everything that
lives, from grass to flower, from animal to man. But it is implanted as
becoming. And in regard to this, religion can say of the whole world what
it says of man. For man, too, is not given as a finished product, either
as regards the genus or the individual, but as a rudiment, with his
destiny to work out, in historical becoming, by realising what is inherent
in him. We call this freedom. And an adumbration of such freedom, which is
the aim of self-realisation, would help us to penetrate deeply into the
nature of things. Many riddles and apparent contradictions could be fitted
in with this view of things: the unity of the world, and yet the
gradations; the relationship of all living creatures, the unity of all
psychical life, and yet the uniqueness of the rational spirit; causal
concatenation, yet guidance by means of the highest ideas and purposes;
the tentativeness, illogicalness, and ineffectiveness of nature,
unconsciously pressing forward along uncertain paths, yet the directness
and purposefulness of the main lines of evolution in general. This
God-awakened will to be lies at the roots of the mysteries of development
in all living creatures, of the unconscious purposiveness of instinctive
action, of the gradually ascending development of psychical life and its
organ. Operating in crystals and plants purely as a formative impulse and
"entelechy," it awakes in the bodies of animals more and more as "soul."
Then it awakes fully in man, and in him, in an entirely new phase of real
free development, it builds itself up to spirit. It resembles a stream
whose waves flow casually and transiently in animal consciousness, and are
soon withdrawn again, to break forth anew at another place, in the
personal spirit, where they attain to permanent indissoluble form, since
they have now at last attained to self-realisation, and fulfilled the
purpose of all cosmic existence, the reflecting of the eternal personality
in the creature. But it is only in human history that what was prepared
for in natural evolution is completed.
The riddle of theodicy thus becomes easier, for what surrounds us in
nature and history has not come direct from the hand of eternal wisdom,
but is in the first place the product of the developing, striving world,
which only gradually and after many mistakes and failures works out what
is inherent in it as eternal idea and aim. We see and blame its mistakes,
for instance in our own human structure. We see the deficiencies in the
historical course of things. But when we find fault we do not see that
evolution and self-realisation and freedom are more worthy of praise than
ready-made existence incapable of independent action.
This principle of development, wherever it is regarded as "world-soul" or
as "will" or as the "unconscious," is frequently, through pantheism and
the doctrine of immanence, made equivalent with the object of religion,
with God. This is an impossible undertaking. We cannot worship what only
reaches its full development in ourselves. But that we can worship, and
that it is only in the feeling of complete dependence that the full depth
of what is developing within us to conscious life reveals itself, proves
better than anything else that God is above all "World-will." It was more
than allegory when Plato in Timaeus set the "eternal father and creator of
the world" above all soul and psyche. And it was religion that broke
through when Fichte in his little book, "Anweisung zum seeligen Leben,"
set being before becoming, and God above the creatures struggling towards
self-realisation. Religion knows in advance that this is so. And calm
reflection confirms it. All that we have already learnt of the dependence,
conditionedness, and contingent nature of the world is equally true of a
world "evolving itself" out of its potentiality, of a will to existence,
and of an unconscious realising itself. No flower can grow and develop
without being first implicit in the seed. Nothing can attain to
"actuality," to realisation, that was not potentially implied in the
beginning. But who originated the seed of the world-flower? Who enclosed
within it the "tendencies," the "rudiments" which realise themselves in
evolution? Invariably "the actual is before the potential" and Being
before Becoming. A world could only become if it were called to become by
an everlasting Being. God planting the world-flower that it might radiate
forth in its blossoms His own image and likeness, is an allegory which may
well symbolise for religion the relation between God and the world. And
thus it is possible to draw the outline of a religious outlook on the
world, into which the results of world-lore could well be fitted. This
frame was constructed by Plato on the basis of a religious study of
things, and after Plato it was first definitely outlined in Fichte's too
much forgotten but unforgettable books "Bestimmung des Menschen" and
"Anweisung zum seeligen Leben," and it is thus a new creation of the great
German idealism and its mighty faith. And it is not easy to see why it
should be abandoned, why we should give it up in favour of an irreligious,
semi-naturalistic outlook on the world.
One thing, however, must be kept constantly in mind: even such an
interpretation of the world as this is poetry, not knowledge. There is a
poetry of the will to live, of the unconscious, which is struggling
towards existence, but there is no philosophy. There are only analogies
and hints of what goes on at the foundations of the world. In particular,
the unconscious creative impulse in all living organisms, this "will"
towards form, its relationship with instinct and the relationship of
instinct to conscious psyche, afford us a step-ladder of illustrations,
and an illustration of the step-ladder of the "will towards existence,"
which invite us to overstep the bounds of our knowledge, and indulge in
our imagination. We can say nothing of pre-conscious consciousness and
will, we can at best only make guesses about them. We cannot think
definitely of a general world-will, which wills and aspires in individual
beings; we cannot picture to ourselves the emergence of the individual
"souls" of animals and man from a universal psyche. Imagination plays a
larger part here than clear thinking. And for our present purpose it must
be clearly borne in mind that religion does not require any speculative
construction of theories of the world. But "you shall know that it is your
imagination which creates the world for you."(108) And if a speculative
construction be desired, it will always be most easily attained along
these lines, and will in this way come nearest to our modern knowledge of
nature. We must remember, too, that the objections which may be urged
against this form of speculation are equally applicable against any other.
For the origin of the individual psyche, the graduated series of its
forms, the development of one after the other, and of that of the child
from that of its parents, are riddles which cannot be solved by any
speculative thinking. Monadology, theories of the pre-existence of the
soul, creationism, or the current traducianism--which to-day, with its
partly or wholly materialistic basis, is just as naive as the older--all
reveal equal darkness. But the speculation we have hinted at, if it gives
no explanation, at least supplies a framework for many questions which
attract us, and do so even from the point of view of religion: for
instance the collective, diffuse, and almost divisible nature of
consciousness in the lower stages, its increasing and ever more strict
centralisation, the natural relationship of the psychical in man to the
psychical in general, and yet its incommensurability and superiority to
all the world.
But let us once more turn from all the poetical and imaginative
illustrations of the relation of God to the world, which can at best be
only provisional, and only applicable at certain points, to the more
general aspect of the problem. Religion itself consists in this: believing
and experiencing that in time the Eternal, in the finite the Infinite, in
the world God is working, revealing Himself, and that in Him lies the
reason and cause of all being. For this it has names like creation,
providence, self-revelation of God in the world, and it lives by the
mysteries which are indicated under these names. The mysteries themselves
it recognises in vague or naive forms of conception long before it
attempts any definite formulation. If dogmatics begin with the latter,
some form or other of the stiff and wooden doctrines of concursus, of
influxus ordinarius and extraordinarius usually develops with many
other subtleties, which are nothing more than attempts to formulate the
divine influence in finite terms, and to think of it as a force along with
other forces. Two series of causes are usually distinguished; the system
of causes and effects within the world, according to which everything
natural takes place, the "causae secundariae"; and in addition to these
the divine causality co-operating and influencing the others, ordering
them with gentle and delicate pressure, and guiding them towards their
true end, and which may also reveal itself as "extraordinaria" in
miracles and signs. This double operation is regarded as giving rise to
all phenomena, and in it consists guidance, dispensation, providence, and
natural revelation.
This kind of conception is extremely primitive, and is unfavourable to
religion itself, for in it mystery is done away with and arranged
according to rubric, and everything has become quite "simple." Moreover,
this doctrine has a necessary tendency to turn into the dreaded "Deism."
According to the deistic view, God made the world in the beginning, and
set the system of natural causes in motion, in such a way that no farther
assistance was given, and everything went on of itself. This theory is
incredibly profane, and strikes God out of the world, and nature, and
history at a single stroke, substituting for Him the course of a
well-arranged system of clockwork. But the former theory is a very
unsatisfactory and doubtful makeshift as compared with that of deism, for
it is impossible to see why, if God arranged these causae secundariae, He
should have made them so weak and ineffective that they need all these
ingenious concursus, influxus, determinationes, gubernationes, and
the like. Both theories are crude fabrications of the dogmatists, and they
have nothing left in them of the piety they were intended to protect, nor
do they become any better in this respect, however many attempts are made
to define them. Religion possesses, without the aid of any stilted and
artificial theories, all the things we have named above, and especially
and most directly the last of them, namely, the experience of the
revelation and communication of the Divine in the great developments and
movements of spiritual and religious history. And it finds its
corroboration and justification and freedom not by way of dogmatics but of
criticism. It is impossible to distinguish artificially two sets of
causes, and to give to the world what is alleged to be of the world, and
to God what is alleged to be of God. But it is permissible to point to the
insufficiency of our causal study in general, and to the limits of our
knowledge. Even when we have established it as a fact that all phenomena
are linked together in a chain of causes we are still far from having
discovered how things actually come to pass. Every qualitative effect and
change is entirely hidden from us as far as the cause of its coming about
and its real and inner nature are concerned. Every effect which in kind or
quantity goes beyond its cause (and we cannot make anything of the domain
of living forms, of the psychical and of history without these), shows us
that we are still only at the surface. Indeed, even mechanical action,
often alleged to be entirely intelligible, such as the transference or
transformation of energy, is, as we have seen, a complete riddle. In
addition, all causality runs its course in time, and therefore partakes of
all the defects and limitations of our views of time. And finally we are
guided by the Kantian antinomy regarding the conditions of what is
"given." It destroys the charm of the "purely causal" point of view by
showing that this in itself cannot be made complete and is therefore
contradictory. Moreover, in the phenomena of life, and in the fact that
consciousness and will control our corporeal processes, and yet can hardly
be thought of as a cause "co-operating" with other causes, we found an
analogy, if a weak and obscure one, of the relation that a divine
teleology and governing of the world may bear to mundane phenomena. Thus
mystery remains in all its strength and is not replaced by the surrogate
of a too simple and shallow dogmatic theory. In confessing mystery and
resting content with it we are justified by reflection on the nature and
antinomy of our knowledge.
All this is true also of what religion means by creation. In the feeling
of complete humility, in its experience of absolute dependence and
conditionedness, the creature becomes conscious of itself as a creature,
and experiences with full clearness what it means to be a "creature" and
"created." The dogmatic theory is here again only a surrogate of mystery.
And again critical self-reflection proves a better guide than any theory
of creation, which is quite in its place as a means of expression in
religious discourse and poetry, but is quite insufficient as true
knowledge. That we must but cannot think of this world either as beginning
or as not-beginning is the analogue in knowledge of what religion
experiences in mystery; and that this contingent and conditioned world is
founded in everlasting, necessary, true Being, is the analogue of what
religion possesses and knows through devout feeling, more directly and
clearly than by any thinking, of the relations of God to the world.
More
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Personality
In as far as man is endowed with a capacity for spiritual life and spiritual possession, he is likewise destined for personality. This includes and designates everything that expresses the peculiar dignity of human nature. Personality is a word wh... Pre-eminence Of Consciousness
But we have already spent too much time over this naive mode of looking at things, which, though it professes to place things in their true light, in reality distorts them and turns them upside down. As if this world of the external and material... Preyer's Position
Along with Virchow, we must name another of the older generation, the physiologist William Preyer, who combated "vitalism," "dualism," and "mechanism" with equal vehemence, and issued a manifesto, already somewhat solemn and official, against "vit... Religion And The Theory Of Descent
In seeking to define our position in regard to the theory of descent it is most important that we should recognise that, when it is looked into closely, the true problem at issue is not a special zoological one, but is quite general, and also that... Self-consciousness
1. Our consciousness is not merely a knowledge of many individual things, the possession of concrete and abstract, particular or general conceptions and ideas, the cherishing of sensations, feelings and the like. We not only know, but we know that... Spontaneous Generation
4. This reduction of known biological phenomena to simpler terms, the lessening of the gap between inorganic and organic chemistry, and the formulation of the doctrine of the conservation of energy, have all prepared the way for a fourth step, the... Teleological And Scientific Interpretations Are Alike Necessary
(7.) Thus religion confidently subjects the world to a teleological interpretation. And to a teleological study in this sense the strictly causal interpretations of natural science are not hostile, but indispensable. For how do things stand? Natur... The Antimony Of Our Conception Of Space
To bring our examples to a conclusion, we find the same sort of antinomy in regard to space, and the world as it is extended in space. Here, too, it becomes apparent that space as we imagine it, and as we carry it with us as a concept for arrangin... The Antimony Of Our Conception Of Time
A few examples may serve to make the point clear. The first of the antinomies is also the most impressive. It brings before us the insufficiency of our conceptions of time, and shows the impossibility of transferring, from the world as it appears ... The Antimony Of The Conditioned And The Unconditioned
The antinomy of the conditioned and the unconditioned leads us along similar lines. Every individual finite thing or event is dependent on its causes and conditions, which precede it or co-exist in inter-relation with it. It is conditioned, and is... The Characteristic Features Of Darwinism
We do not propose to expound the Darwinian theory for the hundredth time; a knowledge of it must be taken for granted. We need only briefly call to mind the characteristic features and catchwords of the theory as Darwin founded it, which have also... The Conservation Of Matter And Energy
1. The whole mechanical theory is based upon a law which is not strictly biological but belongs to science in general--the law of the conservation of matter and energy. This was first recognised by Kant as a general rational concept in his "Critiq... The Constructive Work Of Driesch
What in Reinke's case came about almost unperceived, Driesch did with full consciousness and intention, following the necessity laid upon him by his own gradual personal development and by his consistent, tenacious prosecution of the problem. The ... The Contingency Of The World
But we need not dwell in the meantime on these and the many other difficulties and riddles presented by our cosmological hypothesis. However these may be solved, a general consideration will remain--namely, that whether the world is governed by la... The Dependence Of The Order Of Nature
(2 and 3). The "dependence" of all things is the second requirement of religion, without which it is altogether inconceivable. We avoid the words "creation" and "being created," because they involve anthropomorphic and altogether insufficient mode... The Development Of Darwinism
In studying it we should like to follow a method somewhat different from that usually observed in apologetic writings. "Darwinism," even in its technical, biological form, never was quite, and is to-day not at all a unified and consistent system. ... The Ego
It was customary in earlier psychology, as it still is in all apologetic psychology, to regard the soul as a unified, immaterial, indivisible and therefore indestructible substance, as a monad, which, as a unity without parts, superior to its own ... The Fundamental Answer
How can the religious conception of the world justify itself and maintain its freedom in face of such views of spirit and spiritual being? It is questionable whether it is worth while attempting to do so. Is not the essence of the validity and fre... The Law Of The Conservation Of Energy
Helmholtz's proof established mathematically what Kant had already, by direct insight, advanced as an a priori fundamental axiom: that in any given system the sum of energy can neither increase (impossibility of a perpetuum mobile) nor diminish (t... The Mechanics Of Development
5. The minds of the supporters of the mechanical theory had still to move along a fifth line in order to solve the riddle of the development of the living individual from the egg, or of the germ to its finished form, the riddle of morphogenesis. T... The Mystery Of Existence Remains Unexplained
1. Let us begin with the problem of the mystery of all existence, and see whether it remains unaffected, or whether it disappears in face of naturalistic interpretation, with its discovery and formulation of law and order, with its methods of meas... The Organic And The Inorganic
2. What is on a priori grounds demanded as a necessity, or set aside as impossible, on the strength of the axiom of the conservation of energy, must be proved a posteriori by investigation. It must be shown in detail that the difference between th... The Position Of Bunge And Other Physiologists
For a long time one of the most prominent figures in the controversy was Prof. G. Bunge, of Basle, who was one of the first modern physiologists to champion vitalism, and who has tried to show by analogies and illustrations what is necessarily imp... The Problema Continui
The problem of descent thus shows itself to be one which has neither isolated character nor special value. It is an accessory accompaniment of all the questions and problems which have been raised by, or are associated with, the doctrine of evolut... The Real World
(4.) What was stated separately in our first and second propositions, and has hitherto been discussed, now unites and culminates in the fourth. For if we note the vital expressions of religion wherever it occurs, we find above all one thing as its... The Recognition Of Purpose
(6.) We must now turn to the question of "teleology." Only now, not because it is a subordinate matter, for it is in reality the main one, but because it is the culminating point, not the starting point, of our argument. If the world be from God a... The Religious Interpretation Of The World
The title of this book, contrasting as it does the naturalistic and the religious interpretation of the world, indicates that the intention of the following pages is, in the first place, to define the relation, or rather the antithesis, between th... The Spontaneous Activity Of The Organism
What is particularly luminous in all the theories that express the most recent anti-Darwinian tendency is that they tend to bring into prominence the mysterious powers of living organisms, by means of which, instead of passively waiting for natura... The Supremacy Of Mind
From the standpoint we have now reached we can look back once more on those troublesome naturalistic insinuations as to the dependence of the mind upon the body, which we have already considered. It is evident to us all that our mental development... The Theory Of Descent
Again and again we hear and read, even in scientific circles and journals, that Darwinism breaks down at many points, that it is insufficient, and even that it has quite collapsed. Even the assurances of its most convinced champions are rather for... The True Naturalism
But naturalism becomes fundamentally different when it ceases to remain at the level of naive or fancifully conceived ideas of "nature" and "natural occurrences," when, instead of poetry or religious sentiments, it incorporates something else, nam... The Two Kinds Of Naturalism
But let us return to the two kinds of naturalism we have already described. Much as they differ from one another in reality, they are very readily confused and mixed up with one another. And the chief peculiarity of what masquerades as naturalism ... The Unconscious
But one has a repugnance to descending into this strange region. And religion, with its clear and lofty mood, can never have either taste for or relationship with considerations which so easily take an "occult" turn. Nor is its mysticism concerned... The Unity Of Consciousness
2. The same holds true of the unity of consciousness, of which we are directly convinced. It is quite inexplicable if consciousness is a function of the extended and divisible physical substratum which is built up of nerve-cells and nerve-fibres. ... The Views Of Albrecht And Schneider
An outlook and interpretation which Driesch(102) maintained for a while, but afterwards abandoned, has been developed in an original and peculiar fashion by Eugen Albrecht, Prosector and Pathologist in Munich.(103) It is the theory of different wa... The Views Of Botanists Illustrated
It might have been expected that in the domain of plant-biology, if anywhere, the mechanistic standpoint would have been the prevailing one. For it is almost a matter of course to regard plants as devoid of sensation or "psychical" life, and as me... The World And God
The world and nature are marvellous in their being, but they are not "divine"! The formula "natura sive deus" is a monstrous misuse of the word "deus," if we are to use the words in the sense which history has given to them. God is the Absolute Bein... Theory Of Definite Variation
But the question now arises, whether both Darwinism and Lamarckism must not be replaced, or at least reduced to the level of accessory theories and factors, by another theory of evolution which was in the field before Darwin, and which since his t... Theory Of Life
What is life--not in the spiritual and transcendental sense, but in its physical and physiological aspects? What is this mysterious complex of processes and phenomena, common to everything animate, from the seaweed to the rose, and from the human bo... Underivability
The first of the three points we have called attention to has, so to speak, become famous through the lectures of du Bois-Reymond, which attracted much attention, on "The Limits of Natural Knowledge," and "The Seven Riddles of the Universe." That ... Various Forms Of Darwinism
The great majority of these express what may be called popular Darwinism ["Darwinismus vulgaris"], theoretically worthless, but practically possessed of great powers of attraction and propagandism. It expresses in the main a conviction, usually le... Virchow's Caution
Here, as also in regard to "Darwinism," which was advanced about the same time, the typical advocate of "caution" was Rudolf Virchow. His doubts and reservations found utterance very soon after the theory itself had been promulgated. In his "Cellu... Virchow's Position
Warnings of this kind have come occasionally from Du Bois-Reymond, but the true type of this group, and its mode of thought, is Virchow. It will repay us and suffice us to make acquaintance with it through him. His opposition to Darwinism and the ... Weismann's Evolutionist Position
The most characteristic representative, however, of the modern school of unified and purified Darwinism is not Haeckel, but the Freiburg zoologist, Weismann. Through a long series of writings he has carried on the conflict against heterodox, and e... Weismannism
In regard to almost all the points to which we have referred, the most consistent and decided champion of Darwinism in its essential principles is the zoologist of Freiburg, August Weismann.(35) In long chapters on the protective coloration of ani... What Is Distinctive In The Naturalistic Outlook
At first tentative, but becoming ever more distinctly conscious of its real motive, Naturalism has always arisen in opposition to what we may call "supernatural" propositions, whether these be the naive mythological explanations of world-phenomena... What Is Distinctive In The Religious Outlook
At the very beginning and throughout we must keep the following points clearly before us, otherwise all our endeavours will only lead us astray, and be directed towards an altogether false issue. Firstly, everything depends and must depend upon ...