Prof. Ernst HaecM. 43 



arbitrary and artificial productions of man. The kinds or 

 species of prganisms are of unequal age, developed one after 

 another, and show only a relative and temporary persist- 

 ence. Species arise out of varieties. The differences in the 

 conditions of life have a modifying influence on the organi- 

 zation, the general form, and the parts of animals, and so 

 has the use or disuse of organs. In the first beginning 

 only the very simplest and lowest animals and plants came 

 into existence ; those of a more complex organization only 

 at a later period. The course of the earth's development, 

 and that of its organic inhabitants, was continuous, not inter- 

 rupted by violent revolutions. Life is purely a physical phe- 

 nomenon. All the phenomena of life depend on mechanical, 

 physical, and chemical causes, which are inherent in the 

 nature of matter itself. The simplest animals and the 

 simplest plants, which stand at the lowest point in the scale 

 of organization, have originated and still originate by spon- 

 taneous generation. All animate natural bodies or organ- 

 isms are subject to the same laws as inanimate natural 

 bodies or organs. The ideas and actions of the understand- 

 ing are the emotional phenomena of the central nerve 

 system. The will is in truth never free. Eeason is only 

 a higher degree of development and combination of judg- 

 ments." Thus was the truth spoken, but none then had 

 ears to hear. 



Next as to the sociological foundation : 



In 1857 Auguste Comte, another unappreciated French- 

 man, had done for sociology what Copernicus did for as- 

 tronomy and Lamarck had done for biology. He had 

 named and outlined and misapplied that science. He dis- 

 covered that man was not the product of Nature only, but 

 of society and its continuity and solidarity ; that there was 

 no solution of man without society : " Entre Vliomme et le 

 monde il faut Vhumanite" Between man and the world, 

 he said, there lies, and there is need of, humanity, as the 

 solution of the world and the saviour of man. Comte, if 

 he did not originate, brought into order the first positive 

 philosophy, and on it founded his " positive " religion. 

 We have from him some indispensable things lying at the 

 very base of monism, which, because of his papistic notions, 

 are fatally overlooked, but without which monism can not 

 be understood or appreciated, viz. '. 



1. A truer view of the relativity of knowledge ; that it re- 

 lates to man and not to any objective " noumenon." 



