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But the Moslem does not think the rich Sinbad will live forever; but the poor Sinbad will die on his deathbed. The Materialist does not think that Mr. Haeckel will go to heaven, while all the peasants will go to pot, like their chickens. In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men.
I. In more than one place, Professor Haeckel enlarges upon the service which the Origin of Species has done, in favouring what he terms the "causal or mechanical" view of living nature as opposed to the "teleological or vitalistic" view. And no doubt it is quite true that the doctrine of Evolution is the most formidable opponent of all the commoner and coarser forms of Teleology.
John Fiske solves the problem when he drops his physical science and takes up his philosophy, declaring that the relation of the mind to the body is that of a musician to his instrument, and this is practically the position of Sir Oliver Lodge. Inheritance and adaptation, says Haeckel, are sufficient to account for all the variety of animal and vegetable forms on the earth.
The human mind was, indeed, helpless to conceive such a First Cause in any form and lay prostrate before the Unknown, yet she herself was an enthusiastic delver into scientific hypothesis and the teachings of Darwin, Spencer, Haeckel had satisfied her intellect if they had failed to content her soul.
In September, Nineteen Hundred Four, the World's Free-Thought Convention was held in Rome, and a committee was appointed to decorate the statue of Bruno and hold at its base a memorial meeting. The principal address was by Ernst Haeckel. In the course of his remarks Haeckel said: We meet in the Eternal City in the cause of liberty and the cause of truth.
Haeckel has suggested that man followed the dog, playing as it were the jackal to him. But this sounds rather absurd. It looks as if man had already acquired enough seamanship to ferry himself across the zoological divide, and to take his faithful dog with him on board his raft or dug-out.
Prom what non-human parent did the human race directly spring? That is a question that has proved itself of lasting, vital human interest. It is a question that long was answered only with an hypothesis, but which Professor Haeckel to-day professes to be able to answer with a decisive and affirmative citation not of theories but of facts.
And in a special case are the original manuscripts, solidly bound in boards, as carefully preserved as were the "literary remains" of William Morris, guarded with the instincts of a bibliophile. Of the size of this Haeckel collection one can make a guess when it is stated that the man has written and published over fifty different books.
We respect the Church for what she is, but our manhood must now realize that it is no longer the slave and tool of entrenched force and power that abrogates to itself the name of religion." The Haeckel attitude of mind is essentially one of faith Haeckel's hope for the race is sublime. There are several things we do not know, but we may know some time, just as men know things that children do not.
Since, in accordance with the well known tendency of old men to persevere in the position they have once assumed and not easily to accept innovations, Haeckel is still an incorrigibly orthodox Darwinian, we should naturally expect him to embody in this testament some new cogent evidence of the truth of Darwinism. But nothing of that nature is to be found in the book.
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