422 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



told that force or sentient energy is the cause of motion. If we say 

 motion is original and eternal, we do not explain it, but assume it. If 

 we say it is the effect of force or energy, then we are explaining it by 

 creating a new problem. The origin of life is explained in a general 

 way as the product of inorganic nature; the living plasm originates 

 from inorganic carbon compounds. The physico-chemical properties 

 of carbon are the mechanical causes of the movements of organic bodies. 

 But what are these physical and chemical properties? If they are 

 themselves movements, then we have simply pushed the problem back 

 a station; if they are forces or the so-called sentient energy, then we 

 have avoided vitalism in the organic world by previously introducing it 

 into the inorganic world. As for the problem of the purposeful 

 arrangement of nature, we must agree with Haeckel that the theory 

 of evolution throws a great deal of light upon it, but we can not agree 

 with him that it removes all difficulties and solves all riddles, as we 

 have already pointed out. 



In conclusion let us take up Haeckel's ethics and religion. The 

 practical laws, he declares, must be in harmony with a rational Weltan- 

 schauung. Our ethical system must therefore be in harmony with the 

 unified conception of the cosmos. The universe forms a single com- 

 plete whole, the mental and moral life of man forms a part of this 

 cosmos, hence our natural order is a unitary one. We have not two 

 separate worlds, a physical-material world and a moral-immaterial 

 world, but one. 



The monistic cosmology has shown that there is no personal God; 

 comparative and genetic psychology has shown that there is no im- 

 mortal soul ; monistic physiology has shown that there is no freedom of 

 the will. The doctrine of evoluton shows that the eternal, necessary 

 laws of nature which govern the inorganic world are valid also for the 

 organic and moral world. This destroys the Kantian dualism in ethics. 

 But there is also a positive side to ethical monism. It shows that the 

 feeling of duty does not rest upon an illusory categorical imperative, 

 but upon the real ground of the social instincts which we find in all 

 higher gregarious animals. It regards as the highest aim of ethics 

 the establishment of a healthy harmony between egoism and altruism. 

 Man has duties towards himself and duties towards others. Both im- 

 pulses, egoism and altruism, are natural laws which are equally essential 

 to the existence of family and society. Egoism makes possible the self- 

 preservation of the individual, altruism that of the species. The social 

 duties are only higher developments of the social instincts. In civil- 

 ized man all ethics, theoretical and practical, is connected as a normative 

 science with his philosophy and religion. The golden rule is the funda- 

 mental law : Love your neighbor as yourself. Several christian rules of 

 morality contradict this rule: (1) Contempt of self; exaggeration of 



