THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM. 13 



man ; it ends in the apotheosis of the human organism. 

 A further result is the belief in the personal immor- 

 tality of the soul, and the dualistic dogma of the 

 twofold nature of man, whose "immortal soul" is 

 conceived as but the temporary inhabitant of the 

 mortal frame. Thus these three anthropistic dogmas, 

 variously adapted to the respective professions of the 

 different religions, came at length to be vested with 

 an extraordinary importance, and proved the source 

 of the most dangerous errors. The anthropistic view 

 of the world which springs from them is in irrecon- 

 cilable opposition to our monistic system ; indeed, it 

 is at once disproved by our new cosmological per- 

 spective. 



Not only the three anthropistic dogmas, but many 

 other notions of the dualistic philosophy and orthodox 

 religion, are found to be untenable as soon as we 

 regard them critically from the cosmological perspec- 

 tive of our monistic system. We understand by that 

 the comprehensive view of the universe which we 

 obtain from the highest point of our monistic inter- 

 pretation of nature. From that standpoint we see 

 the truth of the following " cosmological theorems," 

 most of which, in our opinion, have already been 

 amply demonstrated : — 



(1) The universe, or the cosmos, is eternal, infinite, 

 and illimitable. (2) Its substance, with its two attri- 

 butes (matter and energy), fills infinite space, and is 

 in eternal motion. (3) This motion runs on through 

 infinite time as an unbroken development, with a peri- 

 odic change from life to death, from evolution to devolu- 

 tion. (4) The innumerable bodies which are scattered 

 about the space-filling ether all obey the same "law 

 of substance "; while the rotating masses slowly move 



