HAECKEL AND THE MONISTIC CREED 47 



pressions of the human will, are subject just as much to rigid 

 laws as any other natural phenomena. As a matter of fact, im- 

 partial and thorough examination of our "free" volitions shows 

 that they are never really free, but always determined by ante- 

 cedent factors that can be traced to either heredity or adapta- 

 tion. We cannot, therefore, admit the conventional distinction 

 between nature and spirit. There is spirit everywhere in 

 nature, and we know of no spirit outside of nature. Hence, 

 also, the common antithesis of natural science and mental or 

 moral science in untenable. Every science, as such, is both 

 natural and mental. That is a firm principle of Monism, 

 which on its religious side we may also denominate Pan- 

 theism. Man is not above, but in, nature. . . . The evolution 

 ef man is directed by the same "eternal, iron laws" as the 

 development of any other body. These laws always lead us 

 back to the same simple principles, the elementary principles 

 / physics and chemistry. The various phenomena of nature 

 differ in the degree of complexity only in which the different 

 forces work together.* 



That, incredible as it seems, became the doctrine 

 of our schools, academies and universities. Yet 

 Haeckel did not pause here. As a substitute for 

 the opening words of the Bible : "In the beginning 

 God created heaven and earth," he offered with 

 dogmatic certitude, though incapable of even the 

 shadow of proof, and philosophically impossible, 

 the following three opening clauses of his creed, 

 to which the learned nineteenth-century dons sub- 

 scribed with a species of blind faith never asked 

 of Christian man or woman, and for which they 

 expected an equal amount of credulity on the 

 part of their docile pupils: 



"The Evolutiom of Man." 



