United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The entire silence in regard to the anti-Christian results which these two authors derive from their naturo-historical premises, makes Darwin's own position in reference to religion again very uncertain.
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.
For this fact there are many reasons. One may be, that on the continent in general there is a smaller number of those who, without being specialists in both realms, unite active religious interest and reasoning with a thorough study of those naturo-historical questions, while in Great Britain physico-theological studies have been for generations traditional and the object of interest for the majority of educated men.
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. Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Life.
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.
The locus of creation and the locus of providence would now, as ever, retain their value in the theological system, with the sole exception that most of that which so far belonged to the locus of creation would now belong, in a higher degree than in the hitherto naturo-historical view, to the locus of providence and of the government of the world.
It is true, we could rank Darwin still more readily among the scientists who are at peace with all the claims of religion, did he not in his "Descent of Man," when enumerating the "excellent naturalists and philosophers" who with him reduce the pedigree of man to lower forms, mention names of men who in their works firmly unite Darwinism and monistic naturalism or even materialism, and expressly protest against a separation of their naturo-historical results and their philosophic points of view.
Word Of The Day