The riddle of the universe at the close of the nineteenth century / by Ernst Haeckel ; translated by Joseph McCabe.

  • Haeckel, Ernst, 1834-1919.
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The riddle of the universe at the close of the nineteenth century / by Ernst Haeckel ; translated by Joseph McCabe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    forty years ago, it has become possible for US to trace the splendid variety of orderly tendencies of the organic world to mechani- cal, natural causes, just as we could formerly in the organic world alone. Hence the supernatural and telic forces, to which the scientist had had recourse, have been rendered superfluous. Modern metaphysics, however, continues to regard the latter as indispensable and the former as inade- quate. No philosopher has done more than Immanuel Kant in defining the profound distinction between efficient andfinal causes, with relation to the Interpretation of the whole cosmos. ln his well-known earlier work on The General Natural Hislory and Theory of the Heavens he made a bold attempt ‘‘to treat the Constitution and the mechanical origin of the entire fabric of the universe according to Newtonian laws.” 'l'liis “cosmological nebular theory” was based entirely on the mechanical pheno- mena of gravitation. It was expanded and mathematically established later on by I.aplacc. Wlien tlie famous Frencli astro- nomer was asked by Napoleon I. where God, the crc.'itor and sustaincr of all things, came in in his System, he clearly and honcstly replied : “ Sire, I have managed without that hypothesis.” That indicated thcatheistic characterwhich this mechanical cosmogony shareswith all thcotherinorganic Sciences. This is the more noteworthy bccause the theory of Kant and Laplace is now almost universally accepted; every attempt to supersede it has failed. When atheism is dcnounced as a grave reproach, as it so often is, it is well to remember that the reproach extends to the whole of modern Science, in so faras it gives a purely mechanical Interpretation of the inorganic world. Mechanicism (in the Kantian sense) alone can give us a true explanation of natural phenomena, for it traces them to their real efficient causes, to blind and unconscious agencies, which are determined in their aclion only by the material Constitution of the bodies we are investigating. Kant himself emphatically affirms that “ there can be no Science without this mechanicism of nature,” and that the capacity of hurnan reason to give a mechanical Interpretation of phenomena is unlimited. But when he came subsequently to give an elucidation of the complex phenomena of organic nature in his critiqtie of the teleological System, he declared that these mechanical causes were inadequate ; that in this we must call final causes to our assistance. It is true, he said, that even here we must recognise the theoretical faculty of the mind to give a mechanical Interpretation, but its actual competence to do so is restricted. He grants it this capacity to some extent ; but for the majority of the vital processes (and especially for man’s psychic activity) he thinks we are bound to postulate final causes. The remarkable § 79 of the critique of judgment bears the characteristic head- ing : “ On the Necessity for the Subordina- tion of the Mechanical Principle to the Teleological in the Explanation of a Thing as a Natural End.” It seemed to Kant so impossible to explain the orderly processes in the living organism without postulating supernatural final causes (thatis, a purposive Creative force) that he said : “ It is quite certain that we cannot even satisfactorily understand, much less elucidate, the nature of an organism and its internal faculty on purely mechanical natural principles ; it is so certain, indeed, that we may confidently say, ‘ It is absurd for a man to conceive the idca even that some day a Newton will arise who can explain the origin of a single blade of grass by natural laws which are uncontrolled by design’—such a hope is entirely forbidden us.” Seventy years afterwards this impossible “Newton of the organic world” appeared in the person of Charles Darwin, and achieved the great task that Kant had deemed impracticable. Since Newton (1682) formulated the law of gravitation, and Kant (1755) established “ the Constitution and mechanical origin of the entire fabric of the world on Newtonian laws,” and Laplace (1796) provided a mathematical foundation for this law of cosmic mechanicism, the whole of the inorganic Sciences have become purely mechanical, and at the same time purely atheistic. Astronomy, cosmogony, geology, meteorology, and inorganic physics and Chemistry are now absolutely ruled by mechanical laws on a mathematical founda- tion. The idea of “ design ” has wholly disappeared from this vast province of Science. At the dose of the nineteenth Century, now that this monistic view has fought its way to general recognition, no scientist ever asks seriously of the “ pur- pose” of any single phenomenon in the whole of this great field. Is any astronorner likely to inquire seriously to-day into the purpose of planetary motion, or a miner- alogist to seek design in the structure of a crystal? Does the physicist investigate the purpose of electric force, or the chemist