ON THE GENETIC VIEW OF NATURE. 



323 



which had been fully demonstrated to the educated and 

 reading public: There has always existed in this country 

 a class of literature which is almost entirely wanting, or 

 has died out, on the Continent. The value of this class 

 of literature has been differently gauged, but it never- 



filled the columns of the foremost 

 British periodicals, we find in 

 Germany a similar agitation origin- 

 ating through the publication of 

 several works which have since 

 been generally considered as the 

 purest expression of Materialism. 

 The controversy begins in 1852 

 with the publication of Rudolf 

 Wagner's ' Physiological Letters,' 

 Moleschott's ' Kreislauf des Le- 

 bens,' and Carl Vogt's 'Bilder aus 

 dem Thierleben ' ; it came to its 

 height after the appearance (in 

 1855) of L. Biichner's ' Kraft und 

 Stoff,' and occupied the meeting of 

 scientific and medical men which 

 was held in Gottingen in 1854. 

 The subject belongs essentially to 

 the history of philosophical thought, 

 and can be studied in the very fair 

 and exhaustive ' History of Materi- 

 alism ' written by F. A. Lange, with 

 a distinctly idealistic tendency 

 (English translation, three vols., by 

 Thomas, 1880). I mention the sub- 

 ject in this connection, because in 

 Germany and England attempts 

 were made about the same time to 

 found a general philosophy of life 

 upon the teachings of science. This 

 had been done about two generations 

 earlier in France by the "Sensu- 

 alistes " and the " Ideologues." For 

 a French public neither the English 

 uor the German controversy pre- 

 sented any essentially new feature, 

 or disclosed any novel argument. 

 The older orthodox conceptions had 

 been abandoned very largely in 

 France in the eighteenth century, 

 and at once replaced by concep- 

 tions derived from science. In 

 Germany a similar movement took 



place, likewise during the eight- 

 eenth century ; but, instead of 

 exact science, it was the prevailing 

 idealistic philosophy which was 

 appealed to for the purpose of 

 gaining new foundations, and 

 science only came in when the 

 speculative restoration was gener- 

 ally considered to have failed. In 

 England, which had really supplied 

 the beginnings both for the French 

 sensualistic philosophy through 

 Locke, and for German criticism 

 through Locke and Hume, the 

 older orthodox foundations were 

 not materially shaken before the 

 middle of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. The author of the ' Ves- 

 tiges ' distinctly appeals to science, 

 though in a religious spirit, de- 

 siring to make it helpful for a 

 general philosophical, and not 

 merely an industrial, purpose. 

 Again, the English movement, 

 which really culminated in Herbert 

 Spencer, differs from the German, 

 being more influenced by biological 

 conceptions, whereas in Germany 

 the extreme system of Buchner 

 took purely mechanical, though 

 ill-defined, ideas force and matter 

 as the shibboleth. It is signif- 

 icant, as showing the great general 

 importance of Darwinism, that 

 through it both the controversy 

 over the ' Vestiges ' in England 

 and that over ' Materialismus ' in 

 Germany were soon cast into 

 oblivion, though they had both to 

 some extent prepared the way (see 

 Lange, ' Gesch. des Mat.,' p. 570, 

 Ausg. 1867; and Haeckel, 'Schop- 

 fungsgeschichte,' vol. i. p. 98, 9 

 Aufl.) 



