THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 347 
mic structures, into properties shown by certain carbon 
compounds under certain conditions. Life is thus ina 
sense an emanation of carbon, “the true maker of life,” 
according to Haeckel, “being the tetraédral carbon 
molecule.” 
This “article of faith” implies also the unity of the 
chemical elements, each of which is a product of the 
evolution of the primal unit of matter 
and force. Force and matter are like- 
wise one, because neither appears except 
in the presence of the other. The inheritance of acquired 
characters is also made a corollary of monistic belief. 
Now all these hypotheses are possibly true, but none 
of them are as yet conclusions of science. They meet 
the conditions required by philosophy. 
They are plausible. They have the 
merit of logical continuity, and, except- 
ing to those-persons biased by early subjection to con- 
trary notions, they “satisfy the human heart.” There 
should be no natural repugnance to monism or to pan- 
theism, difficult as it is to associate the idea of truth 
and reality with either, or with the opposite of either. 
Speaking for myself, I feel no prejudice against them. 
They lend themselves to poetry; they appeal to the 
human heart. In Haeckel’s own words, referring to 
something else: “ Such hereditary articles of faith take 
root all the more firmly the further they are removed 
from a rational knowledge of Nature, and enveloped in 
the mysterious mantle of mythological poesy.” The 
present resistance to them may in time be turned into 
superstitious reverence for them; for, of all the philo- 
sophic doctrines brought down as lightning from heaven 
for the guidance of plodding man, these seem most at- 
tractive, and least likely to conflict with the conclu- 
sions of science. 
Unity of chem- 
ical elements. 
Monism not 
science, 
