Читать книгу A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution - Cora May Williams - Страница 11

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In his "Anthropogenie" (1874), Haeckel says: "The soul, or 'psyche' of man has evolved, as function of the cerebro-spinal nerve-chord simultaneously with the latter, and just as, even yet, brain and spinal column develop from the simple nerve-chord, so the human mind, or the soul-activity of the whole human race, has evolved, gradually and step by step, from the lower vertebrate soul. 'Spirit' and 'soul' are only higher and combined or differentiated powers of the same function which we designate with the general expression 'force.'"[34] In his essay on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells" (1878), Haeckel attributes to all animals the possession of soul, and adds that "we cannot wholly deny a soul to the plants also." The possession of soul he defines as the "capacity of sensibility in the organism to excitations of various sorts, and of reaction upon these excitations with certain movements." "This uniform character of protoplasm gifted with soul permits us the hypothesis that the ultimate factors of the soul-life are the plastidules, the invisible, homogeneous, elemental particles, or molecules, of protoplasm, which, in limitless multiplicity, compose the unnumbered cells." The soul connected with the higher developments of brain and spinal column is likewise a higher development, and differs from the soul connected with the uncentralized organization of lower species. In the latest edition of his "Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte" (1889), he further asserts that all matter is possessed of soul, and that "the antithesis which we have assumed between living and dead nature does not exist. When a stone, thrown into the air, falls to the earth according to fixed laws, or when a crystal is formed in a solution of salts, or when sulphur and quicksilver combine to form cinnabar, these phenomena are not more and not less mechanical phenomena of life than the growth and bloom of the plants, than the propagation and sense-activity of animals, than the perception and thought-processes of human beings."[35] And both in this work and in his "Anthropogenie" he quotes the words of Goethe, that "matter can never exist and act without soul, the soul can never exist and act without matter." This last statement is, however, rather a metaphysical one, in distinction from Haeckel's other statements on this subject, which are properly naturalistic.

In his lecture on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells," Haeckel says of instinct: "Unbiassed observation, applying its tests without prejudice, shows conclusively that the so-called 'instinct' of the animals is nothing else than a sum of psychical functions originally acquired by adaptation, fixed by habit, and descending from generation to generation by inheritance. Originally carried out with consciousness and reflection, many instinctive actions of the animals have become unconscious, as have, in like manner, the ordinary acts of intelligence in man. These too, may, with the same justice, be regarded as the expression of innate instinct, as often is the impulse to self-preservation, maternal love, and the social impulse. Instinct is not an exclusive attribute of the animal-brain, nor is reason an especial endowment of man; there is, on the contrary, for the unbiassed observer, a long, long scale of gradual improvement and evolution in psychic life, which may be traced step by step, from the higher to lower human beings, from the perfect to the imperfect animals, until we reach those simple worms, whose nerve-ganglia are the beginning of all the numberless brain-forms of the scale."

In his "Anthropogenie," Haeckel denies Free Will, maintaining that all phenomena are the result of mechanical causes—causæ efficientes, not causæ finales. In an essay on the "Relation of the Theory of Evolution in its present form to Science in General" (1877), he says of Ethics: "By far the most important and the most difficult demand which Practical Philosophy makes upon the theory of Evolution seems to be that of a new theory of Morals. Certainly in the future, as in the past, the careful development of moral character and of religious conviction must be the chief problem of education. But until now the greater number of people have clung to the conviction that this most important problem could be solved only in connection with certain ecclesiastical articles of faith. And since these dogmas, especially as connected with ancient myths of the Creation, are in direct opposition to the facts of evolution, the latter have been believed to be, in the highest degree, inimical to religion and morality.

"This fear we believe to be erroneous. It has its origin in the continual confusion of the true, reasonable, nature-religion and the dogmatic, mythological, church-religion. The Comparative History of Religions, an important branch of Anthropology, teaches us the manifold nature of outward form in which different peoples and epochs have, in accordance with their individual character, enveloped religious thought. It shows us that the dogmatic teachings of the church-religion itself are subject to a slow, continuous evolution. New churches and sects arise, old ones disappear; at the best, a particular tenet of faith lasts but a few thousand years, an inconsiderably short space of time compared with the æons of the geological periods. Finally, the History of Civilization shows us to how small an extent true morality has been associated with any particular ecclesiastical form. The greatest rudeness and barbarity of custom often goes hand in hand with the absolute dominion of an all-powerful church; in confirmation of which assertion one need only remember the Middle Ages. On the other hand, we behold the highest standard of perfection attained by men who have severed connection with every creed.

"Independent of every confession of faith, there lives in the breast of every human being the germ of a pure nature-religion; this is indissolubly bound up with the noblest sides of human life. Its highest commandment is love, the restraint of our natural egoism for the benefit of our fellow-men, and for the good of human society whose members we are. This natural law of morality is much older than all church-religion. It has developed out of the social instincts of the animals. We meet with its rudiments among all animals, especially among all mammals. Following the laws of association and of division of labor, many individuals of such species unite to form the higher community of the swarm, herd, or tribe. The existence of the latter is necessarily dependent upon the mutual relations of the members of the community and the sacrifices which these make to the whole society at the cost of their own egoism. The consciousness of this necessity of self-sacrifice, the sense of duty, is nothing else than a social instinct. But this instinct is always a psychical habit, which was originally acquired, but which, becoming in the course of time hereditary, appears at last as innate.

"In order to convince ourselves of the wonderful power of the sense of duty among animals, we need only to destroy an ant-hill. Immediately we see, in the midst of the destruction, thousands of zealous citizens employed, not in the rescue of their own precious lives, but in the protection of the beloved community to which they belong. Brave soldiers of the ant-state prepare to offer strong resistance to our intruding finger; instructors of youth rescue the so-called ant-eggs, the precious larvæ, on which the future of the state depends; busy workers immediately begin with undiminished courage to clear away the ruins and to prepare new dwellings. But the admirable state of civilization among these ants, among bees and other social animals, has been developed, just as has been our own, from the rudest beginnings.

"Even those finest and most beautiful forms of human emotion which we especially celebrate in poetry are to be found prefigured among the animals. Have not the tender mother-love of the lioness, the touching affection between male and female parrots, the self-sacrificing fidelity of the dog, been long proverbial? The noblest emotions of sympathy and love, which direct action, are here, as with human beings, nothing else than ennobled instinct." Beginning with this conception, the Ethics of Evolution has to seek for no new principle, but, on the contrary, to trace back the old rules of duty to their scientific basis. Long before the rise of all church-religion, these natural commandments regulated the lawful relations of human beings, as of gregarious animals. This significant fact the church-religions should utilize, instead of disputing. For the future does not belong to that Theology which declares war against the triumphant Theory of Evolution, but to that which makes it its own, acknowledges it, and turns it to advantage.

"Far, therefore, from fearing, from the influence of the Theory of Evolution, a subversion of all accepted moral law and a destructive emancipation of Egoism, we, on the contrary, look forward to a system of Ethics erected upon the indestructible foundation of unchanging natural law, since at the same time with the clear recognition of our true place in nature, the study of Anthropogeny opens to us the comprehension of the necessary character of our old rules of duty. Like theoretical science, Practical Philosophy and Pedagogy will no longer derive their most important principles from so-called revelations, but from the scientific truths of Evolution. This victory of Monism over Dualism opens to us a most hopeful prospect of an unending continuation of our moral, as of our intellectual evolution. In this sense, we welcome the Theory of Evolution in its present form newly stated by Darwin, as a challenge—the most important challenge of pure and applied science."

As touching on the idea of a nature-religion as conceived by Haeckel, may be noticed, however, a passage which occurs at the end of chapter XII. of the "Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte," as well as the passage before referred to in which it is asserted that we know only causæ efficientes, never causæ finales. The passage is as follows: "The general significance of the degenerated or rudimentary organs in the most important questions of natural philosophy cannot be over-estimated. On these may be founded a theory of Disteleology as opposed to the ancient, usual Teleology."

With especial theories of Heredity advocated by Haeckel we are not concerned, except in one respect. Even in the first edition of his "Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte," Haeckel makes a distinction between conservative and progressive inheritance, and in the edition of 1889 he still maintains this division against Weismann and others, claiming the heredity of acquired habit, under certain circumstances, and showing conclusively that even wounds and blemishes received during the life of an individual may be, in some instances, inherited by descendants.[36] The laws of progressive heredity he gives as four: (1) the law of the inheritance of adaptation; (2) the law of the surer inheritance of qualities fixed by continual operation of its causes on individual generations; (3) the law of homochronous inheritance or inheritance at a corresponding age; (4) the law of homotypous inheritance, which may be otherwise called the law of inheritance in corresponding parts of the body.[37]

Having thus glanced at the special theories by which the great original authorities paved the way for a system of Evolutional Ethics, we may direct our attention to the more purely philosophical writers who have turned these theories to advantage and elaborated them. The first on the list is