Prof. Ernst Haeckel 45 



things " or it is nothing. It is this uncorrelated nothing 

 which is the nest-egg of all superstition and which breeds 

 uncertainty and terror instead of true, healthy world-wor- 

 ship, the cosmic emotion of Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Words- 

 worth, and of the modern school of natural poetry and 

 painting the proper emotional side of modern science. 



Fortunately, Prof. Haeckel* is not bothered by the "un- 

 knowable noumenon," nor was Comte or Goethe. All 

 expressions from their works that seem to imply that they 

 placed a " noumenon " outside of the world, mankind or the 

 Ego, are, in religion, as in philosophy, to be reconciled with 

 science or read as poetry. As scientists and religionists they 

 held no parley with "unknowable" energies, entities, or 

 spooks of any kind, following strictly Faust's last advice to 

 man: 



" Wenn Geister spucken, geh' er seinen Gang." 

 When ghosts spook, let him go straight on his way. 



Or, again 



1 Willst du in Unendliches schreiten f 

 Geh' nur in eudlichen nach alien Seiten ! ' 

 In the Infinite wilt thou stray f 

 Through the Finite take thy way ! 



The astonishing thing about Goethe, Comte, and Haeckel 

 is that they in religion so thoroughly emancipated them- 

 selves from theology and metaphysics ; and two of them 

 were Germans ! The result is, that they and their school 

 of general scientists and reformers are, as we enter the new 

 era, the chief sources of any true enlightenment or guidance, 

 especially in religious, social, or political affairs. Of course 

 these men are in no sense to be regarded individually as 

 models, but they had reached the scientific, historical spirit, 

 which is always integrative, saving, and yet progressive. 

 Take, for example, Comte's view of sociology and politics. 

 These, like the conception of God and every other subject, 

 according to Comte's law, evolve through the three stages 

 of theology, metaphysics, and science. The old theologic 

 phase or method in sociology and politics is that of divine 

 command or authority. " Thus saith the Lord," etc. Then 

 comes the metaphysical stage and phase, which is one of 

 defiance, rights, revolutions, " administrative nihilism," re- 

 fusal to co-operate or do anything but to agitate, fume, and 

 grumble. This spirit of anarchy, now rampant among our 

 reformers, is in many respects more destructive and unpro- 



