138 WHAT IS DARWINISM! 



God, in the soul, in a future life, and become a 

 monistic materialist. 1 



It is very reasonable that scientific men, 

 in common with lawyers and physicians and 

 other professional men, should feel themselves 

 entitled to be heard with special deference on 



1 In his Naturlische ScWpfungsgeschicMe, Haeckel is still more 

 exclusive. When he comes to answer the objections to the evo- 

 lution, or, as he commonly calls it, the descendence theory, he 

 dismisses the objections derived from religion, as unworthy of 

 notice, with the remark that all Glaube ist Aberglaube ; all faith 

 is superstition. The objections from a priori, or intuitive truths, 

 are disposed of in an equally summary manner, by denying that 

 there are any such truths, and asserting that all our knowledge 

 is from the senses. The objection that so many distinguished 

 naturalists reject the theory, he considers more at length. First, 

 many have grown old in another way of thinking and cannot be 

 expected to change. Second, many are collectors of facts, 

 without studying their relations, or are destitute of the genius for 

 generalization. No amount, of material makes a building. Others, 

 again, are specialists. It is not enough that a man should be 

 versed in one department ; he must be at home in all : in Botany, 

 Zoology, Comparative Anatomy, Biology, Geology, and Palaeon- 

 tology. He must be able to survey the whole field. Fourthly, 

 and mainly, naturalists are generally lamentably deficient in 

 philosophical culture and in a philosophical spirit. " The im- 

 movable edifice of the true, monistic science, or what is the same 

 thing, natural science, can only arise through the most intimate 

 interaction and mutual interpenetration of philosophy and obser- 

 vation (Philosophic und Empirie)." pp. 638-641. It is only 

 a select few, therefore, of learned and philosophical monistic 

 materialists, who are entitled to be heard on questions of the 

 highest moment to every individual man, and to human society. 



