78 Reviews — Haeckel — Riddle of the Universe. 



published by the Maryland Geological Survey, which contains an 

 exhaustive account of the highways, their history, relations to 

 topography, climate, geology, and various other matters, and is 

 a handsomely illustrated volume. 



H. B. W. 



II. — The Eiddle of the Universe at the Close of tee 

 Nineteenth Century. By Ernst Haeckel, Ph.D., M.D., 

 LL.D., Sc.D., Professor at the University at Jena. 2nd edition ; 

 pp. 398. Translated by J. MoOabe. (London : Watts & Co. 

 Issued by the Rationalist Press Association, Ltd., 1901.) 



IN "Die Welt-rathsel," most ably translated by Mr. J. McCabe, 

 Professor Haeckel presents the " continuation, confirmation, 

 and integration " of his views on the monistic philosophy already 

 expressed in previous volumes and in a paper read at the Fourth. 

 International Congress of Zoology at Cambridge in 1898. He 

 claims that, after working at it for half a century, his system is 

 now mature, and offers a full explanation of the phenomena of 

 nature, as well as a solution of the " conflict between Science and 

 Eeligion " — in short, that it solves the " Riddle of the Universe." 



He argues that, while our scientists have made, during the past 

 century, extraordinary progress in the unravelling of the mysteries 

 of the universe, they have been too much bound down by specialism, 

 and have not sufficiently studied the universal connection of the 

 phenomena they observe. In consequence of this, advantage has 

 not been taken of our increased knowledge, and no corresponding 

 improvement is to be observed in our systems of government, of 

 administrative justice, of national education whether in the school 

 or from the pulpit, of social and moral organization. We may 

 congratulate ourselves that here, in Britain, we are exempt from 

 at least some of the defects mentioned by Professor Haeckel under 

 these headings. 



The author's solution of the difficulty is that a change should 

 be made in the present system of education. The study of nature, 

 combined with the elements of evolutionary science, should take 

 the first place. Let the child be taught a correct view of the world 

 he lives in, and be given an insight into the natural connection 

 of all phenomena, as, indeed, Huxley advocated in his science of 

 physiography. Let him understand that reason alone, itself the 

 result of the development of knowledge, can unravel the mysteries 

 of life, and that no cosmic problem can ever be solved by emotion. 

 This development of the use of reason by education and experience 

 would, the Professor thinks, lead to the universal adoption of 

 * Monism ' as the true solvent of all cosmical and religious 

 difficulties. 



Monism, in its widest sense, recognizes one sole law in the 

 universe, the Law of Substance, which embraces conservation of 

 matter and conservation of energy. The monist holds that the 

 universe is at once "God and Nature," and, with Spinoza, that 



