MODERN BIOLOGY 451 



the origin of man from one single pair in accordance with the Church's 

 doctrines of creation — a question which he certainly believed anthropology 

 to be incapable of proving or disproving, but which gave him an opportunity 

 of making a violent attack upon the materialistic soul-theories of the time, 

 which he inveighed against from the point of view of both science and moral- 

 ity. He himself worked out a theory of the soul as a kind of ethereal sub- 

 stance, which leaves the body at death and imparts itself to the children that 

 are born — an idea somewhat reminiscent of Swedenborg's spirit theory. His 

 antagonist on this subject was KarlVogt (1817-95), who ^^'^ been professor 

 at Giessen between the years 1847-9, but had been removed on account of his 

 having participated in the revolutionary movements of that period; he after- 

 wards became professor at Geneva, gaining a reputation especially as an 

 author of sound text-books and popular scientific works. Between him and 

 Wagner there ensued a controversy on the question of the creation and the 

 soul of man, which rapidly degenerated on both sides into sheer lampoonery, 

 involving personal insults of the basest kind. In this Vogt maintained that 

 the different human races cannot have a common origin and in support of his 

 argument adduced a number of proofs of the constancy of species and varie- 

 ties, which were not quite in the spirit of the theory of the origin of species. 

 Further, there was considerable discussion as to the fertility of hybrids, which 

 Vogt upheld and Wagner denied, and finally Vogt found an easy butt for his 

 witticism in Wagner's divisible soul-substance, and at the same time main- 

 tained the assertion that the soul was a product of the brain, which "pro- 

 duces ideas as the liver produces bile and the kidneys urine." On the whole, 

 Vogt seems to have been entirely unmoved by the earlier natural philosophy; 

 this frees him from having to solve a number of problems that his philo- 

 sophically trained contemporaries felt themselves bound to take up for dis- 

 cussion, but, on the other hand, it involved him in gross self-contradictions. 

 The most painful feature of this polemic, however, was its markedly political 

 character; on the one hand, a Christian conservative professor, holding a 

 good position and boasting of his friendship with statesmen and ministers, 

 and, on the other hand, an exiled revolutionary, embittered by the shipwreck 

 of his ideals and by his own misfortunes. It would almost appear as if the 

 whole of this scientific controversy was merely an excuse for giving two in- 

 dividuals from opposite political camps an opportunity of coming to grips. 

 In fact, the antagonism of the two ideas, materialism and idealism, retained 

 this character in Germany not only during the decade with which we are 

 dealing, but also up to a far later period; the points of view as to the soul's 

 "to be or not to be" coincide with the attitude: supporter of the Government 

 or supporter of the opposition. During the eighteen-fifties, as we have seen, 

 the representatives of radical ideas at the universities found themselves in 

 quite a difficult position as far as regards educational freedom; this state of 



