THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



in free-will is an obstacle to the progress of sociology 

 and historical science. He attacks this profound and 

 subtle question which has baffled the greatest think- 

 ers of all the ages in a light-hearted fashion and finds 

 it an easy one to answer. Every one who has disagreed 

 with him he accuses of having been entangled by 

 "metaphysical jargon." But, when he tries to avoid 

 the doctrine of scientific fatalism he, himself, floun- 

 ders in a sea of confused words and, in fact, never 

 discusses the real philosophical problem. 



So far as I can discover, Haeckel is the only one of 

 the Evolutionists who is thorough-going in his con- 

 viction that free-will in any form is a delusion. From 

 the standpoint of this biologist: All natural bodies 

 which are known to us are equally animated, and 

 the distinction which has been made between animate 

 and inanimate bodies does not exist. ^* The thoughts 

 and actions of men are the results of atomic motions 

 and forces and no more can deviate from their pre- 

 scribed course than can the bullet depart from its 

 path when fired from a gun. On the psychological side 

 he concludes that purposiveness no more exists than 

 the much talked of beneficence of the Creator. "The 

 dominion of the 'moral' popes, and their pious inqui- 

 sition, in the mediaeval times, is not less significant 

 of this than the prevailing militarism with its 'moral' 

 apparatus of needleguns and other refined instru- 

 ments of murder, or the pauperism which is the in- 



^* History of Creation, vol. I, pp. 17-24. 



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