HAECKEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 4 2 3 



love of neighbor at expense of self; (2) contempt of body; (3) con- 

 tempt of nature; (4) contempt of civilization; (5) contempt of family- 

 life; (6) contempt of women. 



As to religion Haeckel has this to say. Many scientists regard relig- 

 ion as a thing of the past. They think that the clear insight into the evo- 

 lution of the world which we have obtained completely satisfies not 

 only the causal need of our reason, but all the highest emotional needs 

 of our nature. This view is in a certain sense true. For a perfectly 

 clear and consistent conception of monism, the notions of religion and 

 science become identical. Only a few decided thinkers reach, however, 

 this view, fewer still have the courage or feel the need of expressing it. 



Modern science must not only destroy the illusions of superstition, 

 but erect a new edifice for the human emotions: a place of reason in 

 which we may reverently adore the true trinity of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, the trinity of the true, the beautiful, and the good. 



Just as the ancient Greeks embodied their ideals of virtue in the 

 forms of gods, we can give our ideals of reason the forms of goddesses. 

 The Goddess of Truth dwells in the temple of nature, in the green for- 

 ests, upon the blue seas, on the snow-covered mountain-peaks. The ways 

 of approach to this goddess are loving investigation of nature and its 

 laws, the observation of the infinite world of stars by means of the tele- 

 scope, and of the infinitely small world of cells by means of the micro- 

 scope, but not senseless prayers and ceremonies. 



Our ideal of virtue largely coincides with the christian ideal, as ex- 

 pressed in the Gospels and Paul's Epistles. The best part of christian 

 morality consists in the rules of humanity, of love and forbearance, 

 of compassion and beneficence. We place as much value, however, upon 

 egoism as upon altruism; perfect virtue consists of a harmony between 

 these. 



The extension of our knowledge of nature, the discovery of count- 

 less beautiful forms of life, has awakened a new sense of the beautiful 

 in us. Every blade of grass, every bug and butterfly, reveal beauties 

 which we usually pass by. The admiration with which we regard the 

 starry heavens and the microscopic life in a drop of water, the awe with 

 which we examine the wonderful action of energy in the moved matter, 

 the reverence which we feel in the presence of the law of substance, — all 

 these are parts of our emotional life which come under the notion of 

 natural religion. 



Our monism also teaches us that we are children of the earth and 

 therefore mortal, that we can enjoy the glories of this planet for a little 

 while. 



The modern man who possesses science and art — and hence also re- 

 ligion — needs no special church, no narrow enclosed space in which to 

 worship. For everywhere in open nature, where he turns his eyes upon 



