port to this effort. Since the Materialistic controversy has recently been often described precisely as a battle for the soul, we shall have in the course of this section to consider all these departments.

First of all, however, we must deal with the question of the origin and age of mankind, and the relation of man to the animal world, a question which at the time of the controversy excited by Büchner and Vogt was most eagerly discussed, but which since then, through the remarkable energy of research in all those concerned, has been in some measure rescued from the caprice of subjective opinions and hazardous hypotheses. This question is generally treated in intimate connexion with Darwin's theory of the origin of organisms, almost, in fact, as its most interesting point, and, strictly speaking, as its highest result. So much now is clear, that the strictly scientific interest of the theory of descent coincides with the carrying out of the general principle for the origin of organisms. That man is part of the great chain of this origin is, from a scientific standpoint, quite obvious; but so far as the rise of human civilisation and intellectual life requires a special explanation, it is quite natural that investigations on this point are completed even in special sciences in the closest connexion with the entire sphere of anthropological questions. And so even the history of the world is treated meanwhile as no part of natural history, however clearly we may trace that the principles of the struggle for existence here too play their part.

The dualism of mind and nature may be critically resolved or speculatively "surmounted;" we may, from the standpoint of natural science, assert as an axiom that ultimately the intellectual life also must be capable of being understood as a product of the general laws of nature; but we cannot prevent a distinction being made. between nature and mind so long as we have different starting-points for the knowledge of the two spheres and different standards for the appreciation of their

phenomena. That man only raised himself from an animal pre-existence by internal development, and so first became man, was treated by Kant as obvious; but he regarded the appearance of the idea of the 'ego' as the true moment of the creation of man. So that even now the main problem will always remain that of the primitive history of the mind and of civilisation, since the proceeding of man from the animal world is scientifically obvious, while, on the contrary, his intellectual life still remains a problem, even though all the consequences of the theory of descent are conceded. At the same time, to make the true philosophical view intelligible to wider circles, it will be necessary to explain and clear the way by some preliminary discussion, especially in the sphere of geology and palæontology.

1 Comp., inter alia, the following passages:- Anthropol., § 1: "That man can conceive the Ego, raises him infinitely above all other creatures living on the earth. Through this he is a person, and by virtue of the unity of consciousness in all the changes which may affect him, one and the same person, i.e., a being entirely distinct in rank and dignity from things, such as are the irrational animals which we can dispose of as we will."

Further, the 'note' to the essay Muthmasslicher Anfang d. Menschengesch. (1786), Hart. iv. 321: "From this account of early human history, it results that man's departure from the paradise which reason represents as the first abode of his kind was nothing else but the transition from the savagery of a merely animal creature to humanity, from the go-cart of instinct to the guid. ance of reason; in a word, from the guardianship of nature into the condition of freedom." In the review of Moscati's treatise (1771), Hart. ii. 429 ff., Kant admits the grounds assigned by the Italian anatomist for the original four-footed state of man.

The concluding words are: "We see from this that the first care of nature was that man, as an animal, should be preserved for himself and his kind, and for this end the attitude which is most suitable for his internal structure, the position of the embryo, and its preservation in danger, was the four-footed; but that a germ of reason was implanted in him, by which, when it is developed, he is intended for the social state, and by means of which he adopts for good the attitude most adapted to this, viz., the twofooted, through which he gains, on the one hand, an infinite advantage over the animals, but must also put up with the inconveniences arising from his thus so proudly raising his head above his old comrades." Not quite so decided as to the four-footed gait is the passage in the Anthropol. II. E., Hart. vii. 647, where Kant discusses the "technische Anlage of man derived from the animal state, and finally raises the question again: "Whether he is by nature a social or a solitary and neighbour-shunning animal, of which the latter is the most probable alternative."

The dogmas of the terrestrial revolutions, of the successive appearance of the creatures, of the late appearance of man, were from the first opposed to Materialism and still more to Pantheism. While Buffon, De la Mettrie, and later the German Philosophers of Nature, with Goethe at their head, eagerly embraced the idea of the unity of creation, and attempted to develop throughout the higher from the lower forms, it was notably Cuvier, who, as the most profound master of details, came forward to oppose these unitary tendencies. He was afraid of Pantheism. Goethe most completely represented this very Pantheistic and unitary philosophy; still earlier he had had differences with Camper and Blumenbach as to the Wormian bones, which were supposed to distinguish the ape from man, and until his death he followed the controversies as to the unity of all organisms with the greatest attention. Thus he informs us of a malicious utterance of Cuvier's: "I know well that for certain minds behind this theory of analogies there may lurk, at least confusedly, another very old theory, which, long ago refuted, has been sought out again by some Germans in order to favour the Pantheistic theory which they call the Philosophy of Nature." 2

This pride of positive knowledge, as compared with a comprehensive survey of the whole, the zeal of the observer who distinguishes as compared with the comprehensive thinkers, made Cuvier blind to the great logical difference between the absence of proof and the proof of absence of a phenomenon. No fossil men were known, and he delivered the axiom that there cannot be any.

Such an expression must strike us the more, as a negative proposition in natural history generally has only a subordinate value. Considering the extremely small portion of the earth's surface which had then been examined, it would have been very puzzling to explain how so

2 Goethe in his Zur Natur-Wis- Geoffroy de St. Hilaire, towards the senschaft im Allgemeinen;' Prin- end of the first section. cipes de Philosophie-Zoologique, par

general a statement could be justified, if its connexion with the favourite theory of successive creation did not afford an explanation. But successive creation was a sort of modification of the biblical doctrine of the creative days, which even now, when the facts render it quite untenable, finds many followers. Vogt, in his lively polemic, contrasts the theory of those days and the discoveries of the present so pregnantly and comprehensively, that we cannot refrain from introducing his picture, despite some superfluous pleasantries:

"It is scarcely thirty years since Cuvier said, There is no fossil ape and cannot be any; and to-day we speak of fossil apes as of old acquaintances, and bring fossil man not only amongst diluvial forms, but even into the latest tertiary formations, though some obstinate people may maintain that Cuvier's assertion is an utterance of genius and cannot be overturned. It is hardly twenty years since I learned from Agassiz: transitional strata, palæozoic formations-kingdom of fishes; there are no reptiles in this period, and cannot be any, because it would be contrary to the plan of creation; secondary formations (Trias, Jura, chalk)-kingdom of reptiles; there are no mammals, and cannot be any, for the same reason; tertiary strata -kingdom of mammals; there are no men, and cannot be any; present creation - kingdom of man. What is become of this plan of creation with its exclusivenesses ? Reptiles in the Devonian strata, reptiles in the coal, reptiles in the Dyas-farewell, kingdom of fish! Mammals in the Jura, mammals in Purbeck chalk, which some reckon as the lowest chalk formation-goodbye, kingdom of reptiles! Men in the highest tertiary strata, men in the diluvial forms-au revoir, kingdom of mammals!"

It is remarkable that in the very next year after Cuvier's and Goethe's death a discovery was made known which would have alone sufficed to upset the theory of the former, if the plague of authority and blind prejudice were 3 Vorlesungen über den Menschen: Giessen, 1863, ii. 269.

not much commoner than simple receptivity of facts. This was the discovery of Dr. Schmerling in the bonecaves of Engis and Engihoul, near Liège. Some years later Boucher de Perthes began his restless researches for human remains in the diluvial formations, which were only rewarded after long pursuit by the discoveries in the valley of the Somme. These results were only recognised at last after a long controversy, and from that time the opinion of science gradually changed. A new series of extremely interesting discoveries at Aurignac, Lherm, and in Neanderthal on the Düssel, coincided in time with the gradual victory of Lyell's view of the formation of the earth's crust, and with Darwin's new doctrine of the origin of species. With the changed views of specialists many earlier notices were brought forward and combined with the recent discoveries. The joint result was, that, in fact, human remains were extant, the structure and position of which proved that our race existed together with those earlier species of the bear, the hyena, and other mammals, which are named after the caves where their remains are generally found.

As to the age, however, to be assigned to these remains, such varying and discrepant suppositions have been made, that we can gather nothing from them but the great uncertainty of all modes of calculation yet tried. Ten years ago the general tendency was to the assumption of periods running to hundreds of thousands of years; but at present a strong reaction has set in, although not only has the material for diluvial man considerably increased, but traces have been obtained of the existence of our race in the tertiary period.*

4 Vierteljahrs-Rev. d. Fortschr. d. Naturw. hg. von d. Red. der Gäa (Dr. H. Klein), I. Bd. 1873, S. 77 f. "Even though the bones of the Elephas meridionalis, found by Desnoyers in the tertiary sand of the Somme valley, with obvious marks, can claim only a doubtful import

ance, since Lyell has shown conclusively that similar marks, due to rodent animals, are produced in the deposits of that district, yet the marks demonstrated by Delaunay on two ribs of the Halitherium, an extinct sea-cow of the later tertiary formation, cannot be referred to a