The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality Part 12

We have by no means the wish to avoid _difficulties_ which meet us, when trying to bring miracles, and especially the specific and pregnant miracles of the history of salvation, into harmony with our scientific knowledge of the world: only we can no longer admit that these difficulties consist in the inconceivableness or in the supernaturalism of miracles. For to the religious view of the world--which traces equally the explicable as well as the inexplicable back to G.o.d, which even derives the natural from the supernatural causality of G.o.d--neither the occasional inexplicability nor the supposed supernaturalness of an event can be that which makes the event a miracle. But an event in the history of salvation becomes a miracle from the fact that something _extraordinary_, something _new_, happens in it, which by its newness and its extraordinary character presents itself to man as the manifestation of certain divine _ends in salvation_, and can be explained _at first sight_, but only at first sight, from nothing else than from the service which it renders to the plan of redemption. Whether afterwards these extraordinary and new features can or cannot be perceived in their natural connection, or explained out of it, does not at all change anything in the miraculous character of the event, as soon as it has _once_ had the before-mentioned effect. The only task and the only difficulty which meets us in the question of miracles, is to show that such extraordinary and new things really happen, and to bring the reality and possibility of such new things into our perception of the {369} causal connection of the course of the world, conformable to law. But it ceases to be a difficulty, so soon as we acknowledge a teleology in the course of the world and a teleology in the history of mankind, and especially as soon as we acknowledge that teleology in the history of mankind which, by the way of the divine means of redemption, leads man back to G.o.d. Where there are no ends, nothing can happen which calls the attention of men to these ends; nor, indeed, can anything new happen; for nothing prevails in more absolute sovereignty to all eternity than the maxims _causa aequat effectum_ and _effectus aequat causam_. But where ends are appointed and reached, something new also happens; and every new thing refers to its end. For each step leading nearer such an end is something new, and refers, as soon as we compare it with preceding steps, to the end towards which it strives. All ends to which the course of things refers us, are to the religious view of the world ends which are appointed by G.o.d; all means which serve to reach the ends, are means which G.o.d created and chose; and every phenomenon and every event which manifests this teleological government of G.o.d to our mind, is a miracle to us. Now this whole course of the world is interwoven with such new things, in events which manifest to us, now more clearly, now more dimly, the striving of the course of the world towards an end, because the latter is really striving towards an end. Even prehistoric times show us new things which, from a scientific and historical point of view, we have to place in the line of the course of the world; and from a religious point of view, in the line of miracles. The first appearance of organic life on earth was new, and indicated new ends; the first {370} appearance of each single species of animals and plants was new; new, also, and indicating the highest end of creative life, was the first appearance of man. All these things we call _miracles_ of creation; and we especially place the creative miracle of the appearance of man on a level with the greatest miracles of which we have knowledge, and use the name miracle for all before mentioned newly appearing formations, whether or not we are able to explain those originations from the preceding connection of the course of nature and its forces. Now, in the history of mankind, where the intellectual and ethical motives of that which happens become active, where also the greatest ends which come up for consideration are spiritual and ethical ends, where man himself acts freely according to ends, and where, therefore, human and divine teleology come alternately into play, the manifestation of a striving toward an end, in which religious consciousness immediately sees also ends and means of G.o.d, is repeated in an eminent degree. Every event which brings about a progress in the history of mankind as well as of individuals, is as to this side something new, extraordinary, teleological: _i.e._, a miracle to the religious mode of contemplation; and this miracle is the greater as is more important the end under consideration, and the greater and the more decisive the step towards this end which the event accomplishes. Now, if we recognize the return of mankind into a communion with G.o.d as the highest goal of the general and individual history of mankind, and if we find in the latter facts which lead to this goal, then these facts are the great central miracles of history. As such, the facts of redemption present {371} themselves with all that for which it once prepared the way; and, now that it has come, leads to full and complete perfection--and among them all, the coming, the person, and the history of Jesus Christ, stands as central fact and central miracle in the midst of all events in the history of salvation, and forms the central point of all religious interest. We see how unjust it is when one urges, as an objection to a belief in miracles, that it a.s.signs to G.o.d arbitrary and capricious actions. We call the manifestations of divine teleology miracles. But striving towards an end and conformity to a regular plan is not arbitrariness or caprice, but the contrary; and the greater our estimate of the highest cause of all things, the greater will appear to us the conformity to a plan and to law of all which presents itself as miracles in the course of events. There is perhaps one objection which is about as equally unjust as the objection of caprice; and that is the objection that faith in miracles, in teaching a belief in supernatural things, lends to introduce into the course of events something which is against nature. But since miracles, as a sign of divine teleology, manifest ends for which nature also is prepared, and through which the fallen nature of man, fallen by sin, is again restored; and since to the religious view of the world all natural phenomena and processes expressly rank among miracles, the faith in miracles teaches the contrary of an opposition to nature. It is incontestible--and will become still clearer and more certain to us through all farther investigation of the subject--that the acknowledgment of the idea of miracles as a necessary and a justified part of religiousness {372} stands and falls with the acknowledgment of a teleological view of the world.

We certainly do not indulge in the foolish hope that with the deductions of this section we should be able suddenly to win over any of the decided adversaries of faith in providence and miracles. For, as we have had occasion to remind the reader, the acknowledgment or the non-acknowledgment of G.o.d and his living government in the world is not the result of this or that reflection and chain of conclusions, but rather an ethical action of the centre of human personality in which G.o.d discovers himself in his self-manifestation. Now, if this centre, in the freedom of its decision, has once denied the acknowledgment of G.o.d and his government, then the intellectual actions of the soul offer themselves to this atheistic and anti-theistic standpoint, and build up atheistic systems in which the ideas of providence and miracles naturally find no place. Thus system is opposed to system, although the one is not able to overcome the other. For the last and deepest power of conviction lies, neither for one nor the other system, in its chains of conclusions, in its superstructure, but in its foundation, its standpoint, and its principles; and the choosing of one or the other standpoint, the theistic or atheistic, is an ethical action which precedes methodical reasoning--or if it takes place at the same time or precedes it, has still deeper motives than those of more or less clear forms of mere reasoning. But we believe, and we wish and hope in our modest way to have shown by our present investigation, that the standpoint of faith also has its logical and justified science, and that it is able to appreciate the {373} world of the real more universally and candidly, and offers to logical reasoning fewer and less important difficulties, than the systems of atheism.

We have now discussed all the essential and direct points of contacts between Christianity and the theory of evolution. But a remaining part, still more closely related to the centre of the Christian view of the world, yet offers some indirect points of contact which demand treatment.

-- 5. _The Redeemer and the Redemption. The Kingdom of G.o.d and the Acceptance of Salvation._

As soon as it is once an established fact that an evolution theory of the origin of man as a merely scientific theory permits all the valuable qualities of man, when they have once come into existence, to show themselves undiminished in their entire greatness and importance, and must so permit them, then the whole Christian view of the world, of the Redeemer, his person, his course of redemption, and his work, remains entirely untouched by all these scientific theories of evolution. Yet the Biblical representation, the orthodox perception, and the actual history of the Redeemer and his work, present us with some evidences which are rather in sympathy than in antipathy with these scientific theories. First, the long preparation for his birth, which began immediately after the fall of man and stretched over at least four thousand years, perhaps over a much longer period, the special preparation of his human genealogy, the selection, separation, and guidance of the ancestor and of the people of Israel, of the tribe, the family, and finally of the mother of Jesus--all these are manifestly {374} just as favorable to the idea of evolution as they would have been to the idea of a sudden creation of man out of nothing, if Christ, the second Adam, had come into existence by a sudden creation. Moreover, the Redeemer himself was wholly subject to the ordinary laws of development of the human individual, and was, from his annunciation and conception, developed entirely like man in the long process of evolution from the egg and its still absolutely indifferent spiritual worth through all the imperceptible stages of development before and after the birth up to the full age of man. Likewise the result of his course of salvation, redemption, and entrance into the kingdom of G.o.d, underwent the same process of gradual development. It began with a few disciples, and was slowly propagated; it has to-day reached but a small part of mankind, and even where it took root, it sees infinitely many things by its side which it has not yet been able to penetrate with its leaven:--facts which have much more elective affinity with the scientific ideas of development than with those of sudden creations.

Finally, precisely the same a.n.a.logy forces itself upon us in the Christian doctrine of the way of salvation. The work of the Holy Spirit in the human individual is nothing less than a new birth; its aim is the revival of the entire man, in mind, soul, and body. In most men, this work takes place by a slow process, advancing step by step. This gradual course is even the rule in Christianized nations; although a decisive change of mind often enough, though by no means always, takes place in marked epochs of the inner history of life. And in all Christians--even in those whose conversion takes place by a sudden awakening, like that of Paul--the {375} transformation of the entire man into the similarity of Christ, and the full restoration of the image of G.o.d, is certainly a process of development, and must await its completion in the resurrection. This view is also confirmed by the Lord's parable of the seed, growing up imperceptibly.

Every believing Christian knows these facts, and judges and acts according to them: therefore, when in the realm of nature, which G.o.d certainly submitted to the free investigation of the human mind, he meets similar views, what right has he to protest against them as being hostile to religion?

-- 6. _Eschatology._

In our discussion of the preceding questions, we have seen that an entirely neutral, not to say friendly, relations.h.i.+p is taking place between religion and the theories of development, which will continue so long as the latter keep within the limits of their proper realm, the perception of nature; and that a hostile relation takes place, and anti-religious attacks are to be guarded against, only when a disbelieving system of metaphysics, which has grown on other ground, in an uncalled-for way, tries to connect itself closely with the theory of descent. This is in an eminent degree the case with the great eschatological hopes of Christianity. The evolution theory so exclusively contents itself with the attempts at perceiving the causal circ.u.mstances of organisms in the _present_ world, that it does not at all wish to, and cannot, express itself concerning the _end_ and _goal_ of the world and the laws and circ.u.mstances which may reign in a _future aeon_, and that it gives free scope to every perception of the ultimate which might come from another source. {376}

On the other hand, Christian eschatology is alone able to do most essential service to the evolution theory, in case it should be verified, by giving an answer to questions to which the evolution theory tends more decidedly than any other scientific theory--namely, to the questions as to _the end of the world and mankind_, with such distinctions as no philosophy which treats of the doctrines of nature, is able to give, although natural science itself demands the answer to these questions the more peremptorily, the higher the points of view are to which it leads us.

The world shows to every investigating eye a development, whether we have to take this development as descent or as successive new creation; and therefore we shall take, in the following discussion, the idea of development in this broad sense which comprises all conceivable attempts at explanation. All nature--its most comprehensive cosmic realms as well as the realms of its smallest organisms--together with the corporeal, psychical, and spiritual nature of man, shows a _harmony_, a _conformity to the end in view_, and a _striving toward an end_ of its development, the denial of which will certainly not add to the laurels which transmit the scientific fame of our present generation to posterity. Now, what is this end? The answer which we receive from those who reject Christian eschatology, may be given by two scientific antipodes: by Strauss and Eduard von Hartmann. Strauss takes sides with those who reject all striving toward an end in nature; and his answer to the question (which still a.s.serts itself in his system of the world), is: eternal circular motion of the universe, death of all individuals and of all complexes of individuals, even of {377} mankind. Eduard von Hartmann, on the other hand, is filled by the knowledge of the teleological, but he rejects the hope of Christians and the end which offers itself to him in the place of the rejected end of Christian hope, is destruction--destruction of all individuals and destruction of the world. In view of such ends, is not the Christian's hope _the_ answer which not only satisfies the deepest ethical and religious need, but also all heights and depths of the most faithful, most devoted, and most enlightened investigation of nature?

Finally, we have still another eschatological conclusion to mention and reject; a conclusion which is drawn from this theory by the advocates of the evolution theory. It opens the perspective into a future development of still higher beings out of man. _In abstracto_, we can naturally make no objection to the possibility of such a development, as soon as we once accept the evolution theory; but we have to object to the supposition of such a process _in infinitum_. For such a process would certainly be interrupted by the final destruction of the globe; and in case the mechanico-naturalistic view of the world should be right, this destruction would be only the more cruel as would be more highly organized the beings which should find their destruction in this inevitable catastrophe.

Moreover, as we have repeatedly seen, a development _in infinitum_ suffers from a self-contradiction: for development involves an end, and this end must certainly have been once reached. Now, if we have reason to a.s.sume that this end has been reached in the development of the inhabitants of the globe, by the creature being in the image of G.o.d and his child, and that it is also reached in fallen man through redemption {378} and its perfection, then the idea of development, it is true, allows and postulates a relative development of mankind, so long as this takes place within the limits of the now valid laws of the universe,--a development towards the perfection of this likeness to G.o.d and filial relations.h.i.+p; but that idea of development has no longer an influence that would lead to the production of new beings which should be more than man.

With the foregoing, we believe that we have discussed all essential points of the relation between religion and Darwinism; and we now proceed to the last part of our investigation.

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_B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND MORALITY._

CHAPTER III.

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES.

-- 1. _Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Principles._

If we consider the ethical consequences of a view of the world which, proceeding from Darwinism, permits the universe, man included, to be taken up into a mechanism of atoms--a mechanism in which everything, even the ethical action of man, finds its sufficient explanation--we certainly cannot perceive how such a view of the world is able to arrive at firm moral principles. If man, even in his spiritual life and moral action, is a mere product of nature, originated through descent, and if his whole spiritual life is fully consumed by these merely mechanical factors, then all moral principles are also nothing else than inherited customs founded upon those instincts which in the struggle for existence have proven to be the most beneficial to man. Then their influence is subject to continual change, always corresponding to the existing state of human development. As these moral instincts have displaced the former instincts of the animal predecessors of man--say, _e.g._, of sharks, of marsupialia, of lemurides--so they must {380} also expect it any time to be displaced in turn by new and still more useful instincts. And even in the same period of the development of mankind, the moral or immoral principles which have actual authority in each nation or tribe, have their full right of existence as long as they are not displaced by still more advantageous instincts. Moral principles in which infanticide, prost.i.tution, and cannibalism have a place, are inferior to the highest form of Christian morality only so far as they do not hold their own in the struggle for existence, when nations having those low views come into collision with nations of higher moral culture; but in themselves they have full value and full right, so long as they attain the end of all instincts, and so far as we can speak of ends at all; in such naturalism, apart from human activity, the end consists only in the preservation of the individual and the species in the struggle for existence.

Under these suppositions, moral principles not only lose their objective and solid consistency in the ma.s.s of mankind, but they also become irrevocably subject to the arbitrariness of the single individual. An individual who either has not, or a.s.serts that he has not, a determined moral instinct, or who allows it to be smothered by some other instinct which in a normal individual is subordinate, but in him stronger, is fully justified in his immoral action so long as he is successful with it. Every individual is entirely his own master and his own judge. If man is morally good, it may be the consequence of an especially happy individual disposition, or of an especially clear perception, or of happy circ.u.mstances and influences; but it is not the consequence of a free subordination under the authority {381} of a moral law; for there is neither freedom nor an objective moral authority. The single man is but the product of a certain sum and mixture of powers of nature, acting of necessity, which may with him turn out fortunately or unfortunately. If, on the other hand, man is morally perverted, society may defend itself against his perversity; wisdom may try to convince him of the bad consequences of his perversity for himself and society; the effect of his perversity may make him sensible of the bad consequences of his actions: but there is no other objectively valid corrective of his perversity. If he is successful in his immoral action, and if he silences his conscience, this voice of the un.o.bserved higher instinct in favor of the preferred lower--which unfortunately, as is well known, succeeds oftenest and most easily in the case of those whose perversity has become the most habitual, and in whom another grouping of instincts would be most desirable--then the whole affair is settled, and he is absolved. Let us be understood correctly. We do not say that all advocates of mechanical or monistic ethics draw these conclusions in reality; we know very well that many a man is better than his system; but it seems to us inevitable that the logical pursuit of that naturalistic principle leads to this dissolution of all solid fundamentals of moral principles, and that it is but an inconsequence, certainly worthy of honor and of notice, if all the advocates of naturalism do not profess this dissolution of all moral principles with the same cynic frankness that is shown by many of their partisans.

We do not say too much, when we charge ethical naturalism with dissolution of _all_ moral principles. Let {382} us examine them, for a moment, according to the old but still fundamental division into duty, virtue, and highest good.

According to the principles of that ethical naturalism, there can be no _duty_ at all, no objective moral law, binding absolutely and in general.

The motives of action are either the strongest and most durable instincts, or, in case of high culture, conventional agreement of that which benefits society. In the one as well as in the other case, when the duty is neglected, the appeal is not made to something absolutely objective and binding, but either to the highest instinct (and to this every individual has the right to answer with a _Quod nego_), or to agreement and custom; and as to this, every individual has the right to make his reformatory or revolutionary attempt at change--of course only upon the condition that his attempt is successful, and that it stands proof.

Relatively it is easiest for ethical naturalism to establish a principle of _virtue_, inasmuch as we have to look upon virtue as the principle of individual perfection, and inasmuch as even naturalism, by means of the indestructible impulse of man to attain moral ideas, can postulate an ideal of human action. But on closer examination even the naturalistic idea of virtue vanishes under our hands. Virtue, as individual morality, is const.i.tuted of the factors of duty and of the highest good, which form the motives of virtuous action. Now a system of morality which, as we have seen, is entirely wanting in an objective solid principle of duty as the motive of action, and which likewise, as we shall see immediately, is wanting in an objectively established highest good as the end of action, cannot possibly {383} produce any other idea of virtue than an abstract formal one. In ethical naturalism, even this form is subject to change.

For, according to this system, not only the motive and end but also the form of moral action depend on that which in every circle of society and at every time proves to be the most successful form. It is the proof of success or failure which gives this form a certain traditional authority and a relative solidity--but only a relative one, and only until it is displaced by a still more successful form.

That, finally, ethical naturalism is also wanting in an objective end of moral action, in the idea and meaning of the _highest good_, is indeed not denied by naturalism itself. It is true it speaks with predilection of the idea of species, which man is to represent and to realize, and in that respect we can say that the highest good of naturalistic ethologists is the species or the idea of species.[11] But the idea of species is only the empty vessel which first becomes valuable by reason of its contents. Now, if we ask ethical naturalism the properties with which that idea of species is to be endowed, it certainly mentions properties, but those which are too rich; namely, it mentions the idea of all that is good in human life and the forms of human life, _in concreto_, the whole sum of all the conditions and acquisitions of the culture of mankind, art, nature, and science: the comprehensive idea of these acquisitions, the enjoyment of them, the work at them, is the highest good. Now, since no human individual can enjoy them all and work at them all at the same time, every individual, as {384} to disposition, inclination, and circ.u.mstances, has to enjoy a part of them, to work at a part of them, and to renounce a part of them. And since each single one of these good things, however valuable to the individual, may be refused to or taken away from him, he has again to learn to be satisfied with that idea of species, however little it is able to offer him, when separated from the empiric possessions of this earthly life. Thus with naturalism the highest good is either mentioned in an abstraction which does not offer us anything, or which, if we ask the meaning of that abstraction, is instantly drawn down into the low sphere and the varied multiformity of empirical and individual life, left to the chance of individual taste, and confounded with that which is connected with the highest good only in the second line and in a derived manner--namely, with the formations and actions of life which strive at and serve the realization of the highest good. Ethical naturalism is not able to produce out of itself an objective highest good which is for each individual alike attractive, rich, and comprehensive.

Moreover, since ethical naturalism proves itself insufficient for the principles of any and all morality, it is but a natural conclusion that it is still less able to produce those principles which are characteristic of the highest representation of human morality known to mankind, namely: _Christian morality_. Ethical monism has no room for three ethical fundamental views, whose full possession morality owes to Christianity, and which gives to Christian morality its highest motive power. One of these is a deeper conception of evil as a sin, as a positive rebellion against the good; another is faith in a future {385} absolute realization of the highest good in an end sometime to be reached by mankind and the individual and by means of a moral order of the world; and the third is the acknowledgment of the full worth of personality. Evil--to which of course no objective valid moral law, but only one conventionally established, stands opposed--is to ethical naturalism nothing but the action of an instinct which in this given case is not beneficial to man in his struggle for existence; the category of good and evil is entirely replaced by the category of the useful and detrimental. With the disappearance of the idea of sin as a transgression of the divine law, the correlated idea of holiness also disappears from the system of ethical naturalism. Besides, blessedness, complete harmony of the outer and inner man with the ideal in the state of mankind as well as of every individual, complete realization of the highest good for the whole as well as for the single through the means of moral work and perfection on the part of man and of holy and loving guidance and endowment on the part of G.o.d, is an aim which naturalism is not able to acknowledge, since, according to it, mankind and individuals continue in the ever-flowing stream of earthly incompletion until both reach their destiny in annihilation. A moral order of the world is an impossibility to it, since no holy and loving Ruler and Governor of the world, but only a blind mechanism, causes the course of things.

Finally, the personality of man can be only perceived in its worth and in its full importance, when, in the first place, it is in the possession of freedom, of full moral responsibility; and when, in the second place, it lives beyond the span of its short earthly existence and may hope for a full realization of {386} all its ideals of virtue and the highest good for itself as well as for mankind. Both these points must be contested by monism and naturalism. The place of freedom is taken by absolute determinism; even man is only a natural product, the highest which naturalism knows, but still no more than a product of nature; his personality and his life, bound to the material body, cease with the death of this body, and therefore never reach the ideal of either morality or blessedness. All ideals are and must forever remain objective illusions which came forth out of the power of the corresponding n.o.ble impulse, imaginative objective conceptions of the moral impulses.

-- 2. _Scientific Darwinism and Moral Principles._

Whilst Darwinistic naturalism surely injures the moral principles, the Darwinistic theories are friendly to them, if they, as mere scientific theories, restrain themselves within the limits of natural science. But in no other point of the entire realm of contact between the natural and intellectual sciences is it more difficult to observe the boundary-line than in reflecting upon the moral self-determination of man; here natural science is always in danger of going beyond its limits.

In the question as to the relation of the evolution theories to religion, the boundary-line can everywhere be easily drawn in theory and easily observed in practice. For it is entirely natural for man to look upon the phenomena of the visible world on the one hand, with a religious mind, as works and actions of an almighty Creator and Ruler of the world, on the other, with his observing and reflecting mind, as products of natural causes. With this double view, man by no means feels {387} himself dragged hither and thither between two conflicting views; he is able in his logical contemplation of the world scientifically to establish and arrange each for itself and both in their harmony, and has the full consciousness that the one, like the other, has subjective as well as objective truth. Or, if a single individual does not have this consciousness, he must at least admit that it is not Darwinism primarily which created the difficulty of this combined view of the world, but that the latter existed for man in the past as well as in the present.

But the relation of the _Darwinian_ theories to ethical problems is quite a different thing. Here, in the first place, it is not the same process which is to be explained as well in regard to its natural conditions as to its moral cause. It is true that this double view deserves attention in so far as we can look upon every action which results from a moral determination also in reference to its natural side. If I have to raise my arm in consequence of a moral determination, then physiology and mechanism can demonstrate with it the whole theory of the motion of members. But this is not the question, when we treat of the relation between the natural and the ethical. In this example, the moralist examines the motives of my action, the scientist describes and explains the activity of the nerves and muscles of my arm, and as long as the scientist is not guilty of going beyond the boundary to which he is tempted, and which even now we are endeavoring to make clear, as long as he does not include the ethical motives in his physiological attempts at explanation, the one keeps himself neutral with reference to the other; each of them knows that he is {388} operating in a field which at first has nothing in common with that of the other. In a moral action, _as such_, the question is no longer as to a process which is to be explained as well in regard to its natural conditions as to its ethical cause, but of a process which _either_ has its ethical cause, and then in its ethical value _no_ natural cause, _or_ which even in its ethical motives belongs to the causal connection of empirical nature with its indestructible chain of natural causes and natural effects. Now at this point the scientist, as such, is always exposed to the danger of denying the first part of our dilemma and affirming the second. For, in moral action, something which is elevated above nature and its causal connection always makes its way into this causal connection of nature, and with its action and the effects of this action wholly enters into this connection: and natural science which has to deal particularly with this causal connection of nature and with it alone, is on that account nevertheless always tempted to explain everything that it sees coming into this connection, in _all_ its causes (even in those which no longer belong to this natural causal connection), out of it. It is therefore always tempted to trace even ethical action which, with its deeds, makes its way and enters into this causal connection, but which with its motives stands above it, as to its motives, back to a natural causal connection; and thus to contest the independence of ethical motives and their principles--which independence is not dependent on nature, but, on the contrary, frequently contradicts it. Ethics must adhere to the fact that the ethical determination of the will has its origin not in a natural condition, but in the ethical centre of personality; although all the conditions under which the ethical motive {389} originates and acts, belong completely to the causal connection of natural life, in which man himself stands as to the whole natural part of his being. The ethical realm stands above the natural realm, and shows its superiority partly by the category of moral demands whose imperativeness cannot have grown out of the mechanical necessity of the natural law, because it often enough contradicts the latter and carries out its demands in opposition to it, partly by the consciousness of individual responsibility which cannot be got rid of even by him who mentally establishes a system of determinism that denies responsibility, partly by the voice of the injured conscience which cannot merely be the dislike of a dissatisfied higher natural impulse, when it can speak of the same action for years, even for an entire human life, and even, where man has counterbalanced that once felt dissatisfaction of the higher impulse, by an oft-repeated satisfaction of it. In Book I, Chapter V, -- 1, we tried to show that even Darwin seems not to have entirely avoided this danger of explaining the moral from physical causes; while at the same time we acknowledge that he otherwise esteems the realm of the moral, and that he even finds the lofty position of man above the animal world still more decidedly expressed in his moral than in his intellectual qualities.

But such an intrusion of the physical into the ethical is by no means a necessary consequence of scientific Darwinism--only an ever-present temptation of it. He who once admits that even by means of development something new can originate, that even under the full influence of the evolution theory there appeared in the series of creation entirely new phenomena with the {390} appearance of life and the organic, and of sensation and consciousness, and still more with the appearance of self-consciousness and freedom, which phenomena no evolution theory is able to explain; and he who takes into consideration the weight of that other obvious fact that, in the origin and the growth of each single man, a time in which he acts with moral responsibility follows in gradual development a time in which he had but the value and the life of a cell,--such an one can explain the whole origin of mankind according to the evolution theory, and yet see something absolutely new coming forth with the appearance of moral determination. All conditions of the moral determinations of the will may be and are naturally conditioned, as, indeed, in this world the entire spiritual life of man is certainly bound to the conditions of his corporeal life; all preliminary stages of moral types which preceded the temporal appearance of moral beings, and which surround us still, those stages which appear in the animal world, may have preceded and prepared the way for the introduction of morally responsible beings into the world: the moral determination of the will itself nevertheless remains something new and independent--something which transcends nature.

If this fact is once admitted, then ethics also has free play to establish independently and render valid its principles. And then we have no longer any reason to treat of the relation of the different ethical principles to naturo-historical Darwinism; for this relation is that of absolute mutual peace.

* * * * * {391}

CHAPTER IV.

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE.

-- 1. _Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Life._

Precisely the same relations.h.i.+p between Darwinism and morality, which we found in treating of moral principles, presents itself when we ask about the relations.h.i.+p of Darwinistic ideas and moral life in its concrete reality. He who builds a system of monistic naturalism upon his Darwinism, if he is logical, and not better than his system, comes into inevitable collision with concrete moral life; while he who limits his Darwinism to the realm of natural science, remains in concrete life in peace with morality.

That Darwinistic ethical naturalism also comes into conflict with concrete moral life, becomes evident from the joy with which the advocates of subversion and negation greet the new principle of the "struggle for existence," and make it the principle of their own actions and social theories. This is not chance sympathy, but is founded upon the nature of ethical naturalism. Of him who learns to look upon himself only as a product of nature, though highly enn.o.bled, we cannot expect any other principle than that of following his nature: not, indeed, the ideal nature of man--for this is an abstraction which man reaches only by means of a long {392} process of reflection--but his own empirical nature, as he finds it present in himself; for this is indeed that natural product as which man has to consider himself according to that theory. Where this leads to, everybody knows who knows human nature. If these consequences are not to be found in all ethical naturalists, and if they are perhaps the least evident in the system and life of the very ones who otherwise teach naturalism the most logically (Strauss, for example), we again most cheerfully admit that many men are better than their systems, and that in making objection to a system, even an ethical system, we in the first place do not say anything at all about the advocates of this system and their moral value. Often enough some n.o.ble and fruitful truth has been advocated by men who are personally contemptible, and often enough some dangerous error is propagated by men who are personally very amiable and moral, although the damage which such an error carries with it, must become evident in their lives, on closer observation. Besides, we must not overlook the fact, that what in a perverse system is still relatively true, and the thing which gives it a relative vitality, is borrowed from truth and from the correct system; and that all those who oppose the present fundamentals of morality, and especially of Christian morality, in a thousand ways live upon and consume the possessions which they owe to the same influences against which they contend.

But to whatever relative height the moral n.o.bility of single advocates of ethical naturalism may rise, it is not able, at least not from its own principles, to produce thoroughly moral and truly cultivated characters; such are only produced where that which forms the character, {393} flows out of a spring of life whose origin is _above_ nature and its series of causes.

From this we see that for the most part a very low idea of personality, a very low derivation of the motives of human action, is found in the works of Darwinistic moralists--as, _e.g._, we have seen in the works of Hackel that to him the idea of a personality of G.o.d is inseparably connected with the idea of capricious arbitrariness, and that he derives all actions of all men from the motives of egoism.

But we also see, from still more common evidences, the fact that some of the very highest blossoms and n.o.blest fruits of human virtue, as they ripen on the ground of Christian morality, are not even acknowledged, much less required, by ethical naturalism. We think particularly of the virtues of _love_, of _self-denial_, and of _humility_. Certainly, we do not deny that men who are inclined toward naturalism can and do possess love to a certain degree, but the highest exemplification of love, the love of enemies in the fullest sense of the word--not only compa.s.sion on the battle-field, but the full, forgiving, blessing love which renders good for evil, and even intercedes for a personal enemy, although he may be the intentional and successful destroyer of our whole earthly happiness--such a love may perhaps be demanded and admired by a naturalistic moralist under the imposing influence of the presence of such a love and in unconscious dependence on the motives of Christianity which surround him; but he will never be able to show from what point of his system it is to be deduced. On the other hand, it is easy to show him more than one point of his system which, far from requiring such love, {394} stigmatizes it as simple foolishness. Such a fruit only ripens under the care of him who gave his life for us while we still were enemies, and under the influence of the remission of our sin by our Heavenly Father.

Moreover, an ethical naturalist can also accomplish much in _self-denial_: he can make many great sacrifices, if he can thereby reach a desirable end that cannot be reached without acts of self-denial; he can show great strength and patience in a resigned endurance of the inevitable; and if we take into consideration the possibility of its being logically at variance with his system, he may perform all that which the highest morality requires. But a renunciation which is more than silent resignation, and which under certain circ.u.mstances can also become a joyful renunciation of all that was beloved and dear to man on earth, does not grow out of the soil of naturalism, and is possible only there where man carries in himself a possession which would render him still more fortunate and happy than the idea of species, and where he knows the cross of Jesus, and understands the word of the Lord: "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it." Strauss is a striking proof that naturalism is not able to estimate the tasks of self-denial at their full importance. In his "The Old Faith and the New," although he speaks with great earnestness of moral demands, yet he deeply degrades that which is connected with a Christian renunciation of self and the world, when he reproaches Christianity with "a thorough cult of poverty and _mendicity_"

(!) and, regarding its demand for self-denial, he denies that it has any comprehension of the tasks of {395} industry, of the virtues of home and family life, of patriotism and civil virtue.

Finally, we may make a similar statement in regard to _humility_. There certainly are ethical naturalists also who are modest. But when the prophets of ethical naturalism again and again announce that the great aim of all the discoveries of the evolution theory is to show us how far mankind has fortunately progressed; when their spirit of devotion is nourished by Gothe's Promethean word: "Hast thou not thyself accomplished all, thou holy glowing heart?"--and even when Hackel prints as the leading motto of his "Anthropogeny" Gothe's poem "Prometheus"; when the struggle of selection is also elevated to a moral principle, and the life-task of an individual is limited to creating elbow-room for himself: then humility, indeed, is a virtue which a naturalist may acquire, not through his naturalism, but in spite of it; and the great _navete_ with which, in books of that tendency, haughtiness and pa.s.sion for glory are treated as something necessarily understood, and their own ego is glorified, is a much more logical result. "We are proud of having so immensely out-stripped our lower animal ancestors, and derive from it the consoling a.s.surance that in future also, mankind, as a whole, will follow the _glorious_ career of progressive development, and attain a still higher degree of mental perfection." (Hackel, "Hist. of Creat.") This is the theme which is repeated in many variations in all books of similar tendency. In the same book already referred to, we read: "Each free and highly developed individual, each _original_ person, has his own religion, his own G.o.d; _so it is certainly not arrogance_ when we also claim the {396} right of forming our own idea of G.o.d." Or, "The recognition of the theory of development and the monistic philosophy based upon it forms the best criterion for the degree of man's mental development." L. Buchner, in his collection of essays, "Aus Natur und Welt" ("From Nature and the World"), dedicates a long chapter to self-glorification, and finds confirmed in himself the word of the poet, "Great destinies are always preceded by spirit messengers"; and he, still living, prefaces his own biography in the latest edition of "Kraft und Stoff" ("Force and Matter"), and on the first page of the same publishes the testimonial which he received, when leaving the gymnasium: "The bearer of this testimonial excelled in the thorough study of literature, philosophy, and poetry, and as regards style in his productions showed an excellent talent." In view of these things, we certainly do no injustice to this tendency when we deny to it the conception of the idea and the practice of humility.

-- 2. _Scientific Darwinism and Moral Life._

It is evident from the peace-relation between mere scientific Darwinism and moral principles, that naturo-historical Darwinism also remains in peace with moral life. We therefore have no longer to treat of any question of competency in the realm of concrete moral life, but only to mention the points of contact in which both realms, fully acknowledging their mutual independence, yet in an inferior way exercise some beneficial influence upon each other. {397}

Moral life influences Darwinism in so far as, by its mere existence, it cautions the advocate of the scientific evolution theory against effacing the differences between the moral and the natural, and against degrading man to the level of animals on account of his connection with the animal world. The naturo-historical idea of evolution, in case it should turn out to be correct, would exercise an influence upon moral life in a three-fold direction: First, it would add to all the motives of the humane treatment of the animal world--which certainly without it already has moral demands--a new one, and establish them all more firmly. Man would then recognize in the animal world which surrounds him branches of his own natural pedigree, and exercise his right of mastery only in the sense which Alex. Braun expresses, when he says: "Man consents to the idea of being appointed master of animals; but then he must also acknowledge that he is not placed over his subjects as a stranger, but proceeded from the people itself, whose master he wishes to be." A second service which the idea of evolution would have to render to the forming of moral life, would consist in the fact that it would favor all those ethical modes of contemplation and those maxims which regard the gradual process of development and the growth of character as the relative power of influences and conditions, and that it would give them hints for the perception of moral growth, in like manner as, in the before-mentioned parable, the Lord ill.u.s.trates the imperceptible and continual growth of the kingdom of G.o.d with the growth of a plant. A third service which the evolution theory might be able {398} to render to moral life, would consist in the fact that it would give to the motive of perfection and progress, which is always and everywhere a moral lever, a new ill.u.s.tration and a new weight by pointing at the progress which development has to show in the life of nature.

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