MO NTS M A ND E VOL UTION. 283 



the error into which so many have fallen, of con- 

 founding the methods of metaphysics with those of 

 experimental science, and of mistaking a priori rea- 

 soning for strict inductive proof. 



The name which Haeckel gives his nature-philos- 

 ophy, as he loves to call it, is, as already stated, Mon- 

 ism. The word " Monism " is often attributed to the 

 Jena professor, but erroneously, as it was coined by 

 Wolf long before. Haeckel has, however, given it a 

 new meaning, and the one which is now generally 

 understood when Monism is in question. He has, 

 as he tells us, chosen this term so as to eliminate the 

 errors attaching to Theism, Spiritualism, and Mate- 

 rialism, as well as to the Positivism of Comte, the 

 Synthetism of Spencer, the Cosmism of Fiske, and 

 other like evolutionary systems of philosophy. But 

 here I shall let Haeckel speak for himself. 



In his " Evolution of Man," ' he declares that 

 " this mechanical or monistic philosophy asserts that 

 everywhere the phenomena of human life, as well as 

 those of external nature, are under the control of 

 fixed and unalterable laws ; that there is everywhere 

 a necessary causal connection between phenomena, 

 and that, accordingly, the whole knowable universe 

 forms one undivided whole, a ' monon.' It further 

 asserts that all phenomena are produced by mechan- 

 ical causes, causes efficientes, not by prearranged, pur- 

 posive causes, causce finales. Hence, there is no such 

 thing as ' free-will ' in the usual sense. On the con- 

 trary, in the light of this monistic conception of 

 nature, even those phenomena which we have been 



1 Vol. II, p. 455- 



