424 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the infinite universe or upon a part of it, everywhere he finds besides the 

 hard struggle for existence the true, the beautiful and the good every- 

 where he finds his church in glorious nature herself. Still, it will cor- 

 respond with the particular needs of many persons to have beautiful 

 temples and churches to which to retire, and these they should have. 



We have examined Haeckel's philosophy and have pointed out its 

 inconsistency and inadequateness. It violates the fundamental require- 

 ments of scientific hypothesis; it is not consistent with itself, and it 

 does not explain the facts. -It is so full of contradictions that its op- 

 ponents will have no difficulty in citing passages from the 'World 

 Kiddles' convicting the author of almost any philosophical heresy under 

 the sun, while its defenders will be equally successful in proving by 

 means of other quotations that the charges are unfounded. There is a 

 great deal of truth in what von Hartmann says with respect to Haeckel's 

 philosophy in his 'Geschichte der Metaphysik' : 



Haeckel is therefore an ontological pluralist, since he conceives nature as 

 a plurality of separate substances (atoms) ; a metaphysical dualist, since he 

 assumes two metaphysical principles (force and matter) in every single sub- 

 stance; a phenomenal dualist, since he recognizes two different fields of phe- 

 nomena (external mechanical occurrence and internal sensation and will) ; a 

 hylozoist, since he ascribes life and soul to every part of matter; a philosopher 

 of identity, since he regards one and the same kind of substances as the ground 

 of both fields of phenomena; a cosmonomic monist, since he denies the teleo- 

 logical uniformity in nature and admits only causal law; and a mechanist, 

 since he regards all causal processes as mechanical processes of material par- 

 ticles.* 



The fact is Haeckel's philosophy is no system at all, but a conglom- 

 eration of different systems; a metaphysical pot-pourri, a thing of 

 shreds and patches. Perhaps this is one of the reasons of its popularity 

 — Wer vieles bringt wird jedem etwas bringen! 



Haeckel's 'World Biddies' proves conclusively that no man can 

 neglect philosophy with impunity, and justifies the existence of a 

 discipline like philosophy. Men will philosophize, even natural scien- 

 tists — that is plain — and so long as they continue to do that, it is essen- 

 tial that they do it well. And they can not do it well without being 

 trained to the work. It is just as impossible for a man to ignore the 

 history of philosophy and to attempt to originate a system without 

 regard to the race's experiences in system-building stretching over a 

 period of 2,500 years or more, as it is for him to accomplish anything 

 in physics or biology without profiting by the intellectual labors of the 

 past and present in these fields. The man who tries to construct a sys- 

 tem of philosophy in absolute independence of the work of his pre- 

 decessors can not hope to rise very far beyond the crude theories of the 

 beginnings of civilization. Haeckel, of course, is not wholly unac- 



* Vol. II., p. 456. 



