2 20 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



worthy of the gods."^ To this Haeckel would rejoin that our very reason 

 is a product of our heredity and environment.^ 



3. The Nature of Matter and the Origin of Motion 



We may now return to the order of the riddles originally given above 

 taking up together the first, as to the nature of matter, and the second, as 

 to the origin of motion. 



Under the "Law of Substance"^ Haeckel embraces the chemical law 

 of the conservation of matter and the physical law of the conservation of 

 energy. The former we have in Lucretius as his fundamental tenet: 

 "Nothing can come from nothing and nothing returns to nothing;"'* the 

 latter is, of course, purely modern. Haeckel comes, then, to two funda- 

 mental forms of substance, ponderable matter and ether, whereas Lucre- 

 tius has matter and void. As to the nature of the ultimate particles of 

 substance, Haeckel inclines to the theory put forth by J. C. Vogt, and we 

 may let him state it in his own words :5 



Vogt assumes the primitive force of the world, the universal prodynamis, to be, 

 not the vibration or oscillation of particles in empty space, but the condensation of 

 a simple primitive substance, which fills infinity of space in an unbroken continuity. 

 Its sole inherent mechanical form of activity consists in a tendency to condensation 

 or contraction, which produces infinitesimal centers of condensation; these may 

 change their degree of thickness, and, therefore, their volume, but are constant as 

 such. These minute parts of the universal substance, the centers of condensation, 

 which might be called pyknatoms, correspond in general to the ultimate separate 

 atoms of the kinetic theory; they differ, however, very considerably in that they are 

 credited with sensation and inclination (or will-movement of the simplest form), 

 with souls, in a certain sense — in harmony with the old theory of Empedocles of 

 the "love and hatred of the elements." Moreover, these "atoms with souls" do 

 not float in empty space, but in the continuous, extremely attenuated, intermediate 

 substance, which represents the uncondensed portion of the primitive matter. By 

 means of certain "constellations, centers of perturbation, or systems of deformation," 

 great masses of centers of condensation quickly unite in immense proportions, and 

 so obtain a proponderance over the surrounding masses. By that process the primi- 



' De R. N., Ill, 307-322. 



» With regard to Haeckel's statement that higher animals have as much claim to possess freedom of the 

 wiU as have human beings, it should be noted that Lucretius holds the same view, he allows a certain freedom 

 to both, Haeckel to neither. De R. N., 11, 263 seq., in connection with the context; WR., 131.. 



» WR., all seq. ^ 



< De R. iV., I, 149, 150, el passim. 



5 WR., 218-219. 



