46 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



The discussion of evolution, within the realm of 

 scientific fact or of probable theory, was a whole- 

 some activity of the human mind. But the dog- 

 matic assertion of statements that admitted of no 

 proof, that not seldom stood in direct contradic- 

 tion to right reason itself, and that originally 

 were proposed with the avowed purpose of de- 

 stroying all belief in the existence of a Creator, 

 could not be passed over by her in silence. Such 

 were both the dogma of materialistic evolution 

 and the equally impossible creed of Monism which 

 Haeckel set out to preach, finding numberless 

 ready apostles in the Socialistic and rationalistic 

 schools who had merely waited for a leader. 

 Haeckel was the man equipped for this position 

 the Mahommed of Jena. No religious fanati- 

 cism of Parsee, Brahmin or turbaned Moor ever 

 devoted itself with a more blind zeal to the pro- 

 motion of a false creed. Monon was god and 

 Haeckel its prophet. Yet few really knew what 

 it all meant. Here, in brief, is Haeckel's own 

 definition of the new philosophy and religion : 



The Monistic or mechanical philosophy affirms that all the 

 phenomena of human life and of the rest of nature are ruled 

 by fixed and unalterable laws; that there is everywhere a neces- 

 sary causal connection of phenomena; and that, therefore, the 

 whole knowable universe is a harmonious unity, a "monon." 



It says, further, that all phenomena are due solely to me- 

 chanical or efficient causes, not to final causes. It does not 

 admit free will in the ordinary sense of the word. In th 

 light of the Monistic philosophy the phenomena that we are 

 wont to regard as the freest and most independent, the ex- 



