world-riddles

Updated: May 1, 2025

As I long ago pointed out, these two great questions are not two separate "world-riddles." The neurological problem of consciousness is only a special case of the all comprehending cosmological problem, the question of substance. "If we understood the nature of matter and energy, we should also understand how the substance underlying them can under certain conditions feel, desire, and think."

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel - Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: A Man of Science

I must mention one other modern explanation of the world, that of Haeckel, the zoologist, professor at Jena, who may be called the prophet of evolution. His Creation of Man covered the same ground as Darwin’s Descent, had an enormous circulation, and was translated, I believe, into fourteen languages. His World-riddles enjoys the same popularity.

J. B. (John Bagnell) Bury - A History of Freedom of Thought