396 THE EVOLUTION THEOKY 



when the ' Nature-spirit ' calls to Faust, ' Du gleiehst clem Geist, den 

 Du begreifst, nieht mir ! ' For all time Man must repeat this to 

 himself, but the need for an ethical view of the world, a religion, 

 will remain, though even this must change in its expression according 

 to the advance of our knowledge of the world. 



But we must not conclude these lectures in a spirit of mere 

 resignation. Although we must content ourselves without being able 

 to penetrate the arcana of this wonderful world, we must remain 

 conscious, at the same time, that these unfathomable depths exist, 

 and that we may ' still verehren was unerforschlich ist ' (Goethe). But 

 the other half of the world, I mean the part which is accessible 

 to us, discloses to us such an inexhaustible wealth of phenomena, 

 and such a deep and unfailing enjoyment in its beauty and the 

 harmonious interaction of the innumerable wheels of its marvellous 

 mechanism, that the investigation of it is quite worthy to fill our 

 lives. And we need have no fear that there will ever be any lack 

 of new questions and new problems to solve. Even if Mankind 

 could continue for centuries quietly working on in the manifold and 

 restless manner that has, for the first time in the history of human 

 thought, characterized the century just gone, each new solution would 

 raise new questions above and below, in the immeasurable space 

 of the firmament, as in the world of microscopical or ultramicroscopical 

 minuteness, new insight would be gained, new satisfaction won, 

 and our enthusiasm over the marvel of this world-mechanism, so 

 extraordinarily complex yet so beautifully simple in its operation, 

 will never be extinguished, but will always flame up anew to warm 

 and illumine our lives. 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



