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22 chapters
THE WONDERS OF LIFE
THE WONDERS OF LIFE
A POPULAR STUDY OF BIOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY BY ERNST HAECKEL (Ph.D., M.D., LL.D., Sc.D., and Professor at the University of Jena) AUTHOR OF "THE RIDDLE OP THE UNIVERSE" "THE HISTORY OF CREATION" "THE EVOLUTION OF MAN"ETC. TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH McCABE SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME TO "THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE" HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON 1905 Copyright, 1904, by Harper & Brothers . All rights reserved. Published January, 1905. Part I. —METHODOLOGICAL SECTION: KNOWLEDGE O
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PREFACE
PREFACE
The publication of the present work on The Wonders of Life has been occasioned by the success of The Riddle of the Universe , which I wrote five years ago. Within a few months of the issue of this study of the monistic philosophy, in the autumn of 1899, ten thousand copies were sold. Moreover, the publisher having been solicited on many sides to issue a popular edition of the work, more than a hundred thousand copies of this were sold within a year. [1] This extraordinary and—as far as I was con
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TRUTH
TRUTH
Truth and the riddle of the universe—Experience and thought—Empiricism and speculation—Natural philosophy—Science—Empirical science—Descriptive science—Observation and experiment—History and tradition—Philosophic science—Theory of knowledge—Knowledge and the brain—Æstheta and phroneta—Seat of the soul, or organ of thought: phronema—Anatomy, physiology, ontogeny, and phylogeny of the phronema—Psychological metamorphoses—Evolution of consciousness—Monistic and dualistic theories of knowledge—Diver
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LIFE
LIFE
However, in most organisms we find, when we examine their structure closely, that this consists of various parts, and that these parts are put together for the evident purpose of accomplishing the vital functions. We call them organs , and the manner in which they are combined, apparently on a definite plan, is their organization . In this respect, we compare the organism to a machine in which some one has similarly combined a number of (lifeless) parts for a definite purpose, but according to a
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MIRACLES
MIRACLES
Miracle and natural law—Belief in miracles of savages (fetichism), of semi-civilized (idolatry), of civilized (theism), and of educated people (dualism)—Religious belief in miracles—Apostles' Creed—Article relating to creation—Article relating to redemption—Article relating to immortality—Philosophic belief in miracles—Academic thinkers and Free-thinkers—Dualism of Plato and Kant—Belief in miracles in the nineteenth century, in modern metaphysics, theology, and politics. In ordinary parlance the
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THE SCIENCE OF LIFE
THE SCIENCE OF LIFE
Object of biology—Relation to the other sciences—General and special biology—Natural philosophy—Monism: hylozoism, materialism, dynamism—Naturalism—Nature and spirit—Physics—Metaphysics—Dualism—Freedom and natural law—God in biology—Realism—Idealism—Branches of biology—Morphology and physiology—Anatomy and biogeny—Ergology and perilogy. The broad realm of science has been vastly extended in the course of the nineteenth century. Many new branches have established themselves independently; many ne
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DEATH
DEATH
Life and death—Individual death—Immortality of the unicellulars—Death of the protists and tissue-organisms—Causes of physiological death—Using up of the plasma—Regeneration—Biotonus—Perigenesis of the plastidules: memory of the biogens—Regeneration of protists and tissue-organisms—Senile debility—Disease—Necrobiosis—The lot of death—Providence—Chance and fate—Eternal life—Optimism and pessimism—Suicide and self-redemption—Redemption from evil—Medicine and philosophy—Maintenance of life—Spartan s
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PLASM
PLASM
Plasm is the universal living substance—Definition of protoplasm, chemically and morphologically—Physical character—Viscous condition—Chemical analysis—Colloid character of albumin—Albuminoid molecules—Elementary structure of plasm—Work of plasm—Protoplasm and metaplasm—Structures of metaplasm—Frothy structure—Skeletal structure—Fibrous structure—Granular structure—Molecular structure—Plasma molecules—Plastidules and biogens—Micella and biophora—Caryoplasm and cytoplasm—Nuclear matter—Chromatin
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UNITIES OF LIFE
UNITIES OF LIFE
It is clear, from these few illustrations, that the question of organic individuality is by no means so simple as it seems at first sight, and that it receives different answers according as we look at the form and structure (morphologically) or the vital and psychic activity (physiologically). We must, therefore, distinguish at once between morphological ( morphonta ) and physiological ( bionta ) individuals. The tree and the siphonophoron are bionta, or individuals of the highest order, made u
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FORMS OF LIFE
FORMS OF LIFE
Morphology—Laws of symmetry—Fundamental forms of animals and plants—Fundamental forms of protists and histona—Four chief classes of fundamental forms: (1) Centrostigma: vesicles (smooth vesicle and tabular vesicle); (2) Centraxonia: typical forms with central axis—Uniaxial (monaxonia, equipolar and unequipolar)—Transverse-axial (stauraxonia, double-pyramidal and pyramidal); (3) Centroplana: fundamental forms with central plane—Bilateral symmetry—Bilateral-radial and bilateral-symmetrical fundame
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MONERA
MONERA
The simplest forms of life—Cell theory and cell dogma—Precellular organisms: monera, cytodes, and cells—Actual monera—Chromacea (cyanophyceæ)—Chromatophora—Cœnobia of chromacea: vital phenomena—Bacteria—Relations of the bacteria to the chromacea, the fungi, and the protozoa—Rhizomonera (protamœba, protogenes, protomyxa, bathybius)—Problematic monera—Phytomonera (plasmodoma) and zoomonera (plasmophaga)—Transition between the two classes. In the study and explanation of all complex phenomena the f
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NUTRITION
NUTRITION
The remarkable synthetic process of building up the plasm, to which we give the name of plasmodomism, or carbon-assimilation, usually needs as its first condition the radiant energy of sunlight. Every green plant-cell contains in its chlorophyll-granules so many tiny laboratories, their green plasm being able to form new plasm out of inorganic compounds under the influence of light. The water that is needed for this, besides nitrogenous compounds (nitric acid, ammonia), is drawn from the earth b
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REPRODUCTION
REPRODUCTION
Reproduction and generation—Sexual and asexual reproduction—Superfluous growth—Monogony—Self-cleavage—Budding—Formation of spores—Amphigony—Ovum and sperm-cell—Hermaphrodite formation and separation of the sexes—Hermaphrodism and gonochorism of the cells—Monoclinism and diclinism—Monœcism and diœcism—Alternation of sex-division—Sexual glands of the histona—Hermaphroditic glands—Sexual ducts—Generative organs—Parthenogenesis—Pædogenesis—Metagenesis—Heterogenesis—Strophogenesis—Hypogenesis—Hybridi
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MOVEMENT
MOVEMENT
Mechanics as the science of motion (kinematics and phoronomism)—Chemistry of vital movement—Active and passive movements—Undulatory movement—Mechanism of imbibition—Autonomous and reflex movements—Will and willing—Mixed movements—Movements of growth—Direction of the vital movement—Direction of the crystallizing force—Direction of cosmic motion—Movements of protists—Amœboid, myophenous, hydrostatic, secretory, vibratory movements: cilia and lashes—Movements of histona, metaphyta, and metazoa—Loco
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SENSATION
SENSATION
Impartial reflection on our personal experience during sensation and consciousness will soon convince us that these are two different physiological functions, which are by no means necessarily associated; and the same may be said of the third principal function of the soul—the will. When we learn an art—for instance, painting or playing the piano—we need months of daily practice in order to become expert at it. In this we experience every day hundreds of thousands of sensations and movements whi
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MENTAL LIFE
MENTAL LIFE
Mind and soul—Intelligence and reason—Pure reason—Kant's dualism—Anthropology—Anthropogeny—Embryology of the mind—Mind of the embryo—The canonical mind—Legal rights of the embryo—Phylogeny of the mind—Paleontology of the mind—Psyche and phronema—Mental energy—Diseases of the mind—Mental powers—Conscious and unconscious mental life—Monistic and dualistic theory—Mental life of the mammals, of savages, and of civilized and educated people. The greatest and most commanding of all the wonders of life
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THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
The miracle of the origin of life—Creation of species: Moses and Agassiz—Creation of the first cells: Wigand and Reinke—Agnostic position: resignation—Eternity hypothesis (dualistic, Helmholtz; monistic, Preyer)—Archigony hypothesis (autogony hypothesis, Haeckel, Nägeli; cyanic hypothesis, Pflüger, Verworn)—Spontaneous generation—Saprobiosis or necrobiosis—Experiments in spontaneous generation—Pasteur—Stages of archigony—Observation of archigony—Synthesis of plasma—Value of the unsuccessful expe
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THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Inorganic and organic evolution—Biogenesis and cosmogenesis—Mechanical evolution—Mechanics of phylogenesis—Theory of selection—Theory of idioplasm—Phyletic vital force—Theory of germ-plasm—Progressive heredity—Comparative morphology—Germ-plasm and hereditary matter—Theory of mutation—Zoological and botanical transformism—Neo-Lamarckism and Neo-Darwinism—Mechanics of ontogenesis—Biogenetic law—Tectogenetic ontogeny—Experimental evolution—Monism and biogeny. I fully explained in my General Morphol
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THE VALUE OF LIFE
THE VALUE OF LIFE
Changes of life—Aim of life—Progress of life—Historic aims—Historic waves—Value of life in classes and races of men—Psychology of uncivilized races—Savages—Barbarians—Civilized nations—Educated nations—Three stages of development (lower, middle, and higher) in each of the four classes—Individual and social value of civilized life in the five sections of nutrition, reproduction, movement, sensation, and mental life—Estimate of human life. The value of human life is seen by us to-day, now that evo
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MORALITY
MORALITY
Dualistic ethics—The categorical imperative—Monistic ethics—Morals and adaptation—Variation and adaptation—Habit—Chemistry of habit—Trophic stimuli—Habit in inorganic bodies—Instincts—Social instincts—Instinct and morality—Right and duty—Morals and morality—The good and the bad—Morals and fashions—Sexual selection—Fashion and the feeling of shame—Fashion and reason—Ceremonies and cults—Mysteries and sacraments—Baptism—The Lord's Supper—Transubstantiation—The miracle of redemption—Papal sacrament
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DUALISM
DUALISM
Dualistic systems of Kant I. and Kant II.—His antinomies—Cosmological dualism—The two worlds—The world of bodies and the world of spirits—Truth and fiction—Goethe and Schiller—Realism and idealism—Anti-Kant—Law of substance—Attributes of substance—Sensation and energy—Passive and active energy—Trinity of substance: matter, force, and sensation—Constancy of sensation—Psyche and physics—Reconciliation of principles. The history of philosophy shows how the mind of man has pressed along many paths d
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MONISM
MONISM
Defence of monism—Pure and applied science (theoretic and practical reason)—Pure (theoretical) sciences: physics, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, geology; biology, anthropology, psychology, philology, history—Applied (practical) sciences: medicine, psychiatry, hygiene, technology, pedagogics, ethics, sociology, politics, jurisprudence, theology—Antinomy of the sciences—Rational and dogmatic disciplines—Correlation of the sciences—Faculties—Reform of education—The ideal world—Harmony of monism
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