SOME REMARKS ON THE LIBERTY OF SCIENCE. 



459 



development of science than are its professed 

 adversaries, who, almost without an exception, 

 can oppose to the teachings of modern science 

 only their unproved and indemonstrable church 

 dogmas. The others, on the contrary, wrap 

 themselves in the mantle of strict science, whose 

 most zealous followers they pretend to be, in 

 order under the name of science, and with the aid 

 of ostensibly scientific arguments, to check, as far 

 as they may, the propagation of the new and more 

 matured conception of the universe. For these 

 scientific " reactionists," for such they are in the 

 strictest sense of the term, Darwinism, together 

 with, or rather on account of, its consequences, 

 is simply an abomination, against which they 

 strive with might and main. And often they 

 meet with success. Thus they have contrived to 

 win over to their views the majority of the or- 

 gans of the Liberal party in Germany. Centuries 

 hence, the historian will note it as a singular 

 and hardly credible thing that, nearly two decen- 

 niums after the appearance of Darwin's famous 

 work, influential organs of established reputa- 

 tion, as for instance the Scientific Supplement of 

 the Allgcmeine Zeitwng, could sail in the current 

 of this reaction. The tactics of these reactionists 

 consists in representing the evolution theory, and 

 consequently monism, as an hypothesis the ac- 

 ceptance of which is unscientific, so long as it is 

 not demonstrated — as if an hypothesis could still 

 be an hypothesis after it had been demonstrated. 

 Every argument that can be with justice brought 

 to bear against it from the scientific point of view, 

 all new facts discovered by research that appear 

 to contradict the theory of evolution, are sedu- 

 lously brought to the knowledge of the public — 

 the Bathybius affair is an instance of this ; every 

 new publication, in so far as it opposes Darwinian 

 ideas, is fully and favorably reviewed ; while, 

 on the other hand, researches and publications 

 which favor Darwinism either are not noticed at 

 all, or but briefly, and even then, as far as pos- 

 sible, in a tone of condemnation. Men who day 

 after day are thundering against Roman Jesuitry 

 seem to be quite unconscious that they them- 

 selves practise scientific Jesuitry in permitting 

 to appear only those doctrines which are pleasing 

 to themselves. Alongside of these there are other 

 and more honorable men, who, in their no less 

 energetic opposition to Darwinism, are actuated 

 only by scientific considerations ; but they are 

 ever in danger of being regarded by the less 

 scrupulous opponents as colleagues and confed- 

 erates, those people being always glad when a 

 man of distinguished name is found fighting on 



their side. An illustration of this we have in what 

 took place at the fiftieth Congress of German 

 Naturalists and Physicians last September at Mu- 

 nich, when Prof. Virchow opposed Ernst Hae- 

 ckel's teaching in a fashion which calls for some 

 remark in this place. 



Haeckel, at the first public session of Septem- 

 ber 18th, delivered an address on "The Evolution 

 Theory in its Relation to the Philosophy of Na- 

 ture." l He there explained the idea of the His- 

 tory of Evolution, by which term we are to under- 

 stand not only embryology or ontogeny, but also 

 phylogeny or genealogy. This evolution theory 

 is an historical science, of which we can never 

 have exact or even experimental demonstration. 

 Whoever looks for such demonstration, thereby 

 simply betrays his ignorance of what constitutes 

 an historical science. Haeckel very ingeniously 

 compares phylogeny to geology, both having the 

 same method of research. In both of these 

 sciences, by minute comparison of multitudinous 

 individual facts, by critical appreciation of their 

 historical significance, and by speculative and 

 conjectural filling up of the actual gaps, we re- 

 construct the historic course of development, 

 whether of the earth or of its inhabitants. Who- 

 ever regards phylogeny or lineage-history as a 

 mythical science, must hold the same opinion as 

 to geology and paleontology, and this no reason- 

 able man is prepared to do. The influential posi- 

 tion now held by the doctrine of evolution is due 

 entirely to the application to man of the theory 

 of descent. " If the doctrine of evolution is true 

 in general," says Haeckel, " if there is, indeed, a 

 natural and historic genealogy of living beings, 

 then man, too, the lord of creation, is descended 

 from the sub-kingdon Vertebrata, the class Mam- 

 malia, the sub-class Placentalia, and the order 

 Monkeys." Haeckel then meets the objection so 

 frequently made — that in this theory only the ori- 

 gin of man's body is explained, and not that of 

 his mental faculties — by saying that on the theory 

 of evolution all organized matter at least is, in some 

 sense, possessed of psychic properties. " This 

 view rests upon the study of Infusoria, Amcebse, 

 and other one-celled organisms. . . . Further, we 

 know that in moneres and other rudimentary or- 

 ganisms, mere detached bits of protoplasm pos- 

 sess sensation and the power of movement, just 

 as does the entire .cell. From this we should con- 

 clude that the cell-soul, which is the basis of sci- 

 entific psychology, is itself only a compound, i. e., 

 the sum of the psychic properties of the proto- 

 plasmic molecules, called also plastidules. Thus 

 1 See Supplement No. X., p. 289. 



