242 EVOLUTION AND DOGAfA. 



which we have just been contemplating, forcibly re- 

 minds one of the words of the Mantuan bard when 

 he describes the giant Polyphemus, whose solitary 

 orb was burnt out by Hercules, 



" Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui 

 lumen ademptum.'" 



But if Haeckel is the accomplished biologist he is 

 reputed to be, if he is one of the leading representa- 

 tives of contemporary science, and even his enemies 

 will not deny that he is all this, how comes it, it 

 will be asked, that he has fallen into so many errors 

 and that he has so many enthusiastic followers? 



1 " A frightful, misshapen, huge monster deprived of 

 sight." 



In his latest work, " The Confession of Faith of a Man of 

 Science," Hreckel gives expression to absurdities which are 

 almost incredible. It would, indeed, seem impossible that any 

 sane man, much less one who pretends to be a leader in science 

 and philosophy, should be guilty of such utterances as the 

 following : 



" The Monistic idea . . . can never recognize in 

 God a 'personal being,' or, in other words, an individual of 

 limited extension in space, or even of human form. . . . 

 Every atom is ... animated, and so is the ether; we might, 

 therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all natural forces, 

 the sum of all atomic forces, and all ether vibrations. . . . 

 ' Homotheism,' the anthropomorphic representation of God, de- 

 grades this loftiest cosmic idea to that of a gaseous vertebrate." 

 Pp. 78-79. 



Again, on p. 92 of the same work, he says : " As the simpler 

 occurrences of inorganic nature, and the more complicated phe- 

 nomena of organic life, are alike reducible to the same natural 

 forces, and as, further, these in their turn have their foundation 

 in a simple primal principle pervading infinite space, we can 

 regard this last [the cosmic ether] as all-comprehending Divin- 

 ity, and upon this found the thesis : ' Belief in God is recon- 

 cilable with science.' " 



Similar unphilosophical language, to use no stronger terms, 

 is found in " The Religion of Science," by Paul Carus, the 

 chief trumpet and propagandist of Hsckelism in the United 

 States. 



