370 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



phenomena of nature to which he attempts to apply his principles, was 

 the weakest spot in his system. As the sciences progressed, this be- 

 came more and more evident, and it would have been asking too much 

 of human nature to have required the enemy to forego this grand 

 opportunity for telling assault. No doubt, these attacks went too far, 

 as the formative influence of the 'Philosophy of Nature' upon men 

 like Oken, Oersted, K. E. von Baer, Johannes Miiller and Schonlein 

 proves overwhelmingly. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the in- 

 sights of 'Naturphilosophie' were not restored to scientific citizenship 

 till late in the century, and its unchastened speculations alone at- 

 tracted general attention in pre-Darwinian times. In this field, the 

 decisive one for science, be it remembered, the vaunted higher and 

 special knowledge of philosophy was adjudged guilty of ludicrous 

 error, of gross carelessness, of otiose imaginings. 



While the newer science thus scouted the new philosophy, was it 

 without sin? In answering this question, we come upon what I have 

 called one of the greatest paradoxes of history. Just after the nine- 

 teenth century had passed its zenith, a group of writers, penetrated by 

 the dynamical and biological tendencies of contemporary science, 

 thought that the times were ripe for an accordant theory of the 

 universe. The discoveries of Wohler, who produced an organic sub- 

 stance by the synthesis of inorganic materials; the startling advances 

 of biology, especially in the physiological line; and the speculations 

 of such thinkers as Schopenhauer and Feuerbach, appeared to furnish 

 a ground for scientific explanation of certain factors in experience 

 which had defied interpretation hitherto. Thus, despite its contempt 

 for the regnant philosophy, science, stimulated by its own problems, 

 produced a philosophical theory. Opponents of this movement, like 

 opponents in all ages, thought to get rid of an irritating novelty by 

 means of a nickname. Accordingly, we hear of the monism of Mole- 

 schott, Biichner, Carl Vogt and Haeckel. By applying this title, 

 critics intended to indicate that these thinkers suppressed the great 

 differences of experience — the difference between matter and mind or 

 between the organic and the inorganic — and saddled one term, in this 

 case, matter or the inorganic, with the entire responsibility of a solu- 

 tion. Now, it is true that this school alleged matter to be the cause 

 of mind, that they said, 'brain secretes thought as the liver secretes 

 bile,' and did many other things equally foolish or objectionable. At 

 the same time, their critics stood too near them and a clearly defined 

 focus was unobtainable. The real fact was — and here the paradox 

 emerges — that Biichner and the rest set up, not a monism, but a dog- 

 matism. Despite the circumstance that the progress of science, to 

 say nothing of Hume and Kant, had demonstrated beyond doubt the 

 insufficiency and fallacy of the dualistic, static and analytic theory of 



