In all this sphere scientific research can on the whole. pursue but one single course, and if this be called Materialistic, we must not forget the limits of the Materialistic view of things demonstrated in the previous chapters. Here it is only a single point which reminds us of these limits and of the critical standpoint of the theory of knowledge-the notion of infinity in its application not only to the co-existent worlds and worldmaterials, but also to the course of time in the problem of beginning or no beginning, and how the one hypothesis or the other is to be represented in thought. We do not intend, however, to go here into the subjective origin of these notions, and to show how they can only find an adequate explanation in a 'world as representation.' We shall find better opportunities to oppose the Idealistic to the Materialistic standpoint; it is enough to establish that genuine Idealism in the whole sphere of the explanation of nature, so far as the relations between phenomena are concerned, goes at least as entirely hand in hand with natural science as Materialism by any possibility ever can. that the particles in organic and inorganic molecules are in a different state of mobility. In the latter the particles vibrate about fixed positions of equilibrium without the displacement of a point b, with regard to a point a, ever reaching more than 180° (measured on the motion of the radius vector to b from a as centre). There then occurs no change in the initial sign of their relative position. On the other hand, Fechner supposes that the particles of organic molecules move with regard to each other in such a way that the initial sign of the relative position constantly changes, "as may happen through circular and other complicated movements of the particles with regard to each other." This state of motion is supposed to be kept up, however, by the "inner" forces of the molecule. Fechner then supposes further, that this state of matter is the original one; the inorganic state, on the contrary, a later arising one. Organic and inorganic molecules can enter into the closest union with each other, and this mixture brings it about that the distinction between organic and inorganic states is a relative one, and an absolutely fast limit between the two cannot be assigned. CHAPTER IV. DARWINISM AND TELEOLOGY. WHEN the first edition of the History of Materialism' appeared, Darwinism was still new; the parties were just taking up their positions, or, more strictly, the rapidly growing party of German Darwinians' was still in process of forming, and the reaction, which at present sees here the most threatened point in the old theory of things, was not yet properly in harness, because it had not yet properly appreciated the range of the great problem and the inward power of the new doctrine. Since then, the interest of friends and foes has been so much concentrated on this point, that not only an extensive literature has sprung up on Darwin and Darwinism, but that we may say that the Darwinian controversy is to-day what the general Materialistic controversy was formerly. Büchner is still ever finding new readers for 'Kraft und Stoff,' but we no longer hear a literary outcry of indignation when a new edition appears. Moleschott, the true author of the Materialistic movement, is almost forgotten by the great public, and even Karl Vogt is now seldom mentioned except in reference to some special question in anthropology or some isolated and immortal utterance of his drastic humour. Instead of this, every periodical takes sides for or against Darwin; there appear almost daily larger or smaller treatises on the theory of descent, natural selection, and especially, as we may expect, on the descent of man, since there are many members of this particular species who lose their wits, if any doubt is raised of the genuineness of their ancestral tree. Despite this great movement, we may still maintain unchanged nearly everything that we wrote on Darwinism eight years ago, though we can no longer leave the matter where it was then. The material has grown, even if the scientific material has not grown quite in proportion to the printed paper: the questions have been specialised. Formerly Darwin was the only influential champion, not only of the theory of descent, but we may almost say of the natural explanation of organic forms in general. At present it happens that bitter attacks are directed against Darwin and Darwinism by people who confine themselves to the theory of natural selection, as though everything else would have existed even without Darwin. The manifold adumbrations of views, which then existed only in germ, have now become definite and prominent, and have brought with them new supports and new doubts. What we then said on the subject, therefore, can only now serve, as it were, as a general introduction to a more thorough discussion; but as many of our previous utterances have been made the subjects of approving or dissenting comments, we print them here quite unchanged, and make the necessary modifications in the notes and in the subsequent additions. There is in the whole of modern science, perhaps, no such instance of so empty and at the same time so crass a superstition as that of Species, and there are probably few points in which men have gone on rocking themselves with such baseless argumentations into dogmatic slumber.54 It almost passes understanding how a scientific inquirer who has specially interested himself for 54 The absolute idea of species here attacked has its double root in the metaphysical import of the PlatonicoAristotelian eldos and in the traditions of Noah's Ark. The classification of organic forms according to species may, it is obvious, not only serve the practical purpose of mastering detail, but may even assume a certain material importance, without any dogma as to the invariableness and transcendental basis of kinds. From Darwinism itself, by the help of the principle of increasing stability, twenty years in the establishing of the notion of species, who undertakes to set up in the capacity of propagation a new criterion of species, during all this time institutes no single experiment on the matter, but confines himself as a genuine natural historian to sifting critically the casual traditional narratives. It is true that even in the sphere of scientific inquiry the division of labour between experiments and the critical comparison of experiments is perfectly safe, and that to a wider extent than is usually recognised. But when a field is still so completely unbroken as that of the formation of species, it is assuredly the first critical utterance to which sound reason and scientific method must lead, that in this sphere, as in every other, only experiment can teach us anything. Yet Andreas Wagner erred so widely from the path of scientific research as to suppose himself to be doing a great service when he demands a juristic proof for the supposed bastard forms, and regards his dogmas as established until this is produced.55 This may indeed be the most suitable course if we regard a darling prejudice as a personal possession, and answer him who would rob us of it with a title by prescription; but this whole standpoint has not the most distant similarity with scientific inquiry. A single trait may serve to characterise a method with the results of which it would be a frivolous waste of time to busy ourselves further. We are acquainted with a series of obviously bastard we may deduce that organisms within very long periods must adopt a tendency to group themselves into species and to define themselves from each other. But this is something quite different from the absolute idea of species which, during the reaction against the Materialism of Vogt and others, made its appearance in a shape which violated all the principles of natural science. 55 Andreas Wagner, Naturwissen schaft u. Bibel, im Gegensatze zu dem Köhlerglauben des Herrn Carl 66 Vogt, als des wiedererstandenen u. forms which have resulted from the trifling of fanciers or from chance, and which, more or less accredited, pass from mouth to mouth. From such materials, then, the question is decided what is the fertility of the bastards (a) with each other (b) with the parent race. We see at the first glance, if we sample the excellent material, that as to a there are no, or very few, examples, because there was only one bastard, which, therefore, could not be coupled with another of the same kind, or because the bastards of different sexes were separated and given away, as no one thought of experimenting on the production of new kinds. As to b there results the great truth that the bastard races gradually return again to the original races, because from. generation to generation they have been paired with one of the same race. From this, then, the final conclusion is drawn that bastards are either infertile, or can only reproduce themselves by pairing with the parent races, since the opposite assertions "lack legal proof." The opponent must lose the case: the inventory of prejudices is saved. Everybody knows how we ought to set to work here, if our object is not to save a prejudice but to find the truth, which can hardly be considered an unsuitable object for a man who busies himself for twenty years with the question of species. Obviously he should, with all the care exhibited by modern science in other departments, and to which it owes its great successes, first have produced a long series of hybrid forms, e.g., between canaries and linnets. A long series is necessary, not only to eliminate accident and secure a true average, but it is demanded by the very nature of a problem which turns upon a question of more or less. Let us take an equal number of pairs of the same hybrids, and, moreover, of hybrids with the father's and the mother's race respectively. Let these pairs be brought into as nearly as possible the same circumstances of relative and absolute age, of nurture and environment, or let these circumstances be varied methodically, and we shall have a result on the |