36 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



the sensitiveness of the protoplasm to stimulus, of 

 its capacity for reaction under external influences, 

 they mean something identical with the interior 

 laws of evolution. Exterior influences determine 

 their direction, and they are rendered permanent 

 by transmission, and thus fresh lines of evolution 

 are constantly coming into being, which, though 

 of a more specialised kind, nevertheless rest 

 primarily on the same interior basis whence they 

 proceed. We cannot deny the existence of intrinsic 

 laws of evolution, as do many of the supporters of 

 Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, without 

 entangling ourselves in a web of contradictions. 



I have nothing to add to what has previously 

 been said, in order to justify the assumption that 

 man possesses an intellectual soul. We cannot avoid 

 this postulate, and the noblest intellects of every 

 nation, ever since the beginning of the first period 

 of intellectual culture in the world, have stoutly 

 maintained the existence of an intellectual and 

 immortal soul in man, and I believe they will con- 

 tinue to maintain it in the future. 1 



I must acknowledge frankly that, as a scientist, 

 I am by no means ashamed of being an adherent 

 of the theistic theory of life, because I regard it as 

 the only correct one. This avowal is not directed 

 against the supporters of monism, but against 

 monism itself. I believe that the arguments 



1 Cf. K. Kneller, Christianity and the Advocates of Modern Natural 

 Science, Freiburg i. Br., 1904. 



