370 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



dismiss all arguments based on design and final 

 causes as utterly worthless. And, of those who are 

 not in sympathy with Christianity, we find not a few 

 who are unable to conceal their exultation over what 

 they regard as the inglorious and complete discom- 

 fiture of the theologians. Thus Haeckel, in his 

 "History of Creation," writes: "I maintain with 

 regard to the much-talked-of ' purpose in nature,' 

 that it really has no existence but for those persons 

 who observe phenomena in animals and plants in 

 the most superficial manner." ' Biichner boasts that 

 " modern investigation and natural philosophy have 

 shaken themselves tolerably free from these empty 

 and superficial conceptions of design, and leave such 

 childish views to those who are incapable of liberat- 

 ing themselves from such anthropomorphic ideas, 

 which unfortunately still obtain in school and church 

 to the detriment of truth and science." * 



It were easy to multiply similar quotations, but 

 the two just given are quite sufficient for our present 

 purpose. Judging from their public utterances, as 

 well as from their well-known private opinions, there 

 is no mistaking the animus of these soi-disant expo- 

 nents of modern thought. If we are to take them 

 at their own words, they seem to be as eager, if not 

 more eager, for the extirpation of Dogma and all 

 forms of religious belief, as they are for the advance- 

 ment of what they denominate " science." 



1 Vol. I, p. 19, Eng. trans. In his " Generelle Morpholo- 

 gic," vol. I, p. 160, he asserts: " Wir erblicken darin (in the 

 Darwinian theory) den definitiven Tod aller teleologischen und 

 vitalistischen Beurtheilung der Organismen." 



3 "Force and Matter," p. 218. 



