THEORETICAL MATERIALISM IN ITS RELATION TO ETHICAL MA- TERIALISM AND TO RELIGION, Character of the usual attacks upon Religion, 292-293. Predominance of the rational principle, 294-295. Plans for a new religion: Comte's new hierarchy, 295-297. Scientific knowledge cannot be handled ecclesiastically but only secularly, 297-298. It is not moral teaching that makes religion but the tragical stirring of the soul, 299. Our cultus of humanity does not require religious forms, 300. Materialism would be most consistent in rejecting Religion alto- gether, 301. Examination of the connexion between Ethical and Theoretical Materialism, 302-305. Development of Materialism with Ueberweg, 305. His earlier standpoint, 306. Materialistic basis of his Psychology, 306-309. His Teleology, 310. Conscious. ness of its weakness, 311. The existence of God, 312. Transition to Materialism: vouchers for it from his letters to Czolbe and to the Author, 313-316. Doubt as to Ueberweg's asserted Atheism, 316. Ethical consequences of his philosophy: relation to Christianity, 316-323. David Friedrich Strauss: his last and definitive philosophy Materialistic, 323-325. His Materialism correct and thought out, 325-327. Superficial treatment of social and political questions; Conservative tendency, 327-328. Rejection of the specific features of Christian ethics; Optimism; condemnation of the worship of the Free Congregations, 328-330. Neglect of the people and its needs, 331. Leaning of the propertied classes to Materialism; the Socialists Materialism as the philosophy of reality; nature of reality, 335-337. The functions of Synthesis in speculation and in religion; origin of Optimism and Pessimism, 337-338. Value and import of reality, 339-340. Its limits: the step to the Ideal. Pessimism of reflexion and optimism of the Ideal, 341-342. Reality needs to be supplemented by an ideal world; Schiller's philosophical poems; the future of religion and its inner essence, 342-348. The philosophy of religion, especially Fichte; grouping of men by the form of their inner life, 349-352.. Fortunes of religion in critical times; possi- bility of new forms of religion; conditions of its existence, 353-356. Conditions of peace between opposed standpoints, 356-359. The Materialistic controversy as a serious sign of the time; the social question and the impending conflicts; possibility of their mitiga- SECOND SECTION Continued. THE NATURAL SCIENCES. CHAPTER III. THE SCIENTIFIC COSMOGONY. ONE of the most important questions in ancient Materialism was the question of the natural cosmogony. The muchridiculed doctrine of the endless parallel motion of the atoms through infinite space, of the gradual entwinings and combinations of the atoms into solid and fluid, living and lifeless bodies, for all its singularity, had still a great work to accomplish. And beyond doubt these ideas have had a mighty influence upon modern times, though the connexion of our natural cosmogony with that of Epikuros is not so clear as the history of Atomism. It is rather the very point which subjects the ancient ideas to the first decisive modification, from which that idea of the origin of the universe was developed, which, despite its hypothetical character, even yet has the utmost importance. Let us hear Helmholtz on this point. "It was Kant who, feeling great interest in the physical description of the earth and the planetary system, had undertaken the laborious study of the works of Newton; and, as an evidence of the depth to which he had penetrated into the fundamental ideas of Newton, seized the masterly idea that the same attractive force of all ponderable matter which now supports the motion of the planets must also aforetime have been able to form the planetary system from matter loosely scattered in space. Afterwards, and independently of Kant, Laplace, the great author of the 'Mécanique Céleste,' laid hold of the same thought, and introduced it among astronomers." 42 The theory of gradual condensation possesses the advantage that it admits a calculation, which through the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat has reached a high degree of theoretical perfection. It has been calculated that in the transition from an infinitely slight density to that of the present heavenly bodies as much heat must be produced from the mechanical force of attraction of the particles of matter, as if the whole mass of the planetary system were expressed 3500 times in pure coal and this mass were then burned. It has been inferred that the greatest part of this heat must have lost itself in space before the present form of our planetary system could arise. It has been found that of that enormous store of mechanical force of the original attraction only about the 454th part is maintained as mechanical force in the motions of the heavenly bodies. It has been calculated that a shock which should suddenly stay our earth in its course would produce as much heat as the combustion of fourteen earths of pure coal, and that in this heat the mass of the earth would be completely fused, and at least the greatest part of it would evaporate. Helmholtz observes that in these assumptions nothing is hypothetical but the presupposition that the masses of our system were in the beginning distributed in space as vapour. This is so far right, that from such a distribution, in co-operation with gravitation, the total sum of heat and mechanical motion may be approximately reckoned. But 42 Helmholtz, On the Interaction p. 174. The following remarks on the of Natural Forces, Königsberg, 1854, relation of heat and mechanical force S. 27; reprinted in his Popular Lec- in the universe are from the same tures, Braunschw. 1871, E.T. 1873, lecture. |