IN MODERN SCIENCE. 



55 



hensive and important character. It implies 

 the denial of all spiritual or immaterial exist- 

 ence. Man is to the monist merely a physio- 

 logical machine, and nature is only a greater 

 self-existing and spontan'^ously-moving aggre- 

 gate of forces. Monism can thus altogether 

 dispense with a Creative Will as originating 

 nature, and adopts the other alternative of self- 

 existence or causelessness for the universe and 

 all its phenomena. Again, the monistic doctrine 

 necessarily implies that man, the animal, the 

 plant, and the mineral aie only successive stages 

 of the evolution of the same primordial matter, 

 constituting thus a connected chain of being, all 

 the parts of which sprang spontaneously from 

 each other. Lastly, as the admixture of prim- 

 itive matter and force would itself be a sort of 

 dualism, Haeckel regards these as ultimately 

 one, and apparently resolves the origin of the 

 universe into the operation of a self-existing 

 energy having in itself the potency of all things. 

 After all, this may be said to be an approxima- 

 tion to the idea of a Creator, but not a living and 

 willing Creator. Monism is thus not identical 

 with pantheism, but is rather a sort of atheistic 

 monotheism, if such a thing is imaginable ; and 

 vindicates the assertion attributed to a late la- 



