u-- 



THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



ideas. This is the more necessary as one of the ablest 

 of the many attacks on the Riddle, the Kant against 

 Haeckel of Erich Adick, of Kiel, belongs to this school. 



In the Creed of Pure Reason, which I published as an 

 appendix to the popular edition of the Riddle in 1903, 

 I pointed out, in view of this and similar Kantist criti- 

 cisms, the clear inconsistency of the great evolutionary 

 principles of Kant, the natural philosopher, with the 

 mystic teaching which he afterwards made the founda- 

 tion of his theory of knowledge, and that is still greatly 

 esteemed. Kant I. explained the constitution and the 

 mechanical origin of the universe on Newtonian prin- 

 ciples, and declared that mechanicism alone afforded a 

 real explanation of phenomena; Kant II. subordinated 

 the mechanical principle to the teleological, explaining 

 everything as a natural design. Kant I. convincingly 

 proved that the three central dogmas of metaphysics 

 — God, freedom, and immortality — are inaccep table to 

 pure reason. Kant II. claimed that they are necessary 

 postulates of practical reason. This profound opposi- 

 tion of principles runs through Kant's whole philosophic 

 work from beginning to end, and has never been recon- 

 ciled. I had already shown in the History of Creation 

 that this inconsistency has a good deal to do with Kant's 

 position in regard to evolution. However, this radical 

 contradiction of Kant's views has been recognized by all 

 impartial critics. It has lately been urged with great 

 force by Paul Ree in his Philosophy (1903). We need 

 not, therefore, linger in proving the fact, but may go 

 on to consider the causes of it. 



A subtle and comprehensive thinker like Kant was 

 naturally perfectly conscious of the existence of this 

 inconsistency of his dualistic principles. He endeavored 

 to meet it by his theory of antinomies, declaring that 

 pure reason is bound to land in contradictions when it 

 attempts to conceive the whole scheme of things as a 



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