Naturalism And Religion - free ebook by Rudolf Otto

Read as playlist

Naturalism And Religion

Rudolf Otto

80 chapters

17 hour read

Read as playlist

Selected Chapters

80 chapters

Preface.

Preface.

It is a remarkable and in some respects a disquieting fact that whilst rival ecclesiastical parties are engaged in a furious and embittered debate as to the precise shade of religious instruction to be given in public elementary schools, the thinking classes in modern Europe are becoming more and more stirred by the really vital question whether there is room in the educated mind for a religious conception of the world at all. The slow silent uninterrupted advance of research of all kinds into n

34 minute read

Read Chapter

What is Distinctive in the Religious Outlook.

What is Distinctive in the Religious Outlook.

Let us take an example, and at once the highest that can be found. The religious recognition of the sway of an eternal Providence cannot possibly be directly derived from, or proved by, any consideration of nature and history. If we had not had it already, no apologetic and no evidences of the existence of God would have given it to us. The task of an apologetic which knows its limitations and its true aims can only be to inquire whether there is scope and freedom left for these religious ideas

32 minute read

Read Chapter

What is Distinctive in the Naturalistic Outlook.

What is Distinctive in the Naturalistic Outlook.

A naturalism which has arisen and grown in this manner has in itself nothing to do with concrete and exact knowledge of nature. It may comprise a large number of ideas which are sharply opposed to “science,” and which may be in themselves mythological, or poetical, or even mystical. For what “nature” itself really is fundamentally, how it moves, unfolds, or impels, how things actually happen “naturally,” this naturalism has never attempted to think out. Indeed, naturalism of this type, though it

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The True Naturalism.

The True Naturalism.

There is obviously one domain and order of processes in nature which exactly fulfils those requirements, and is really in the fullest sense “natural,” that is, quite easily understood, quite rational, quite amenable to computation and measurement, quite rigidly subordinate to laws which can be formulated. These are the processes of physics and chemistry, and in a still higher degree those of movement in general, the processes of mechanics in short. And to bring into this domain and subordinate t

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Goethe's Attitude to Naturalism.

Goethe's Attitude to Naturalism.

He further declares it in the introductory verse to his Osteology: In all this there is absolutely nothing of the characteristic mood and spirit of “exact” naturalism, with its mechanical and mathematical categories. It matters little that Goethe, when he thought of evolution, never had present to his mind the idea of Descent which is characteristic of “Darwinism,” but rather development in the lofty sense in which it is worked out in the nature-philosophy of Schelling and of Hegel. The chief po

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The two Kinds of Naturalism.

The two Kinds of Naturalism.

In the following pages we shall confine ourselves entirely to this type, and we shall not laboriously disentangle it from the bewildering medley of ideas foreign to it, or attempt to make it consistent; we shall neglect these, and have regard solely to its clear fundamental principles and aims. Thus regarded, its horizons are perfectly well-defined. It is startling in its absolute poverty of ideal content, warmth, and charm, but impressive and grand in the perseverance and tenacity with which it

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Aim and Method of Naturalism.

Aim and Method of Naturalism.

But Being and Becoming include two great realms: that of “Nature” and that of “Mind,” i.e. consciousness and the processes of consciousness. And two apparently fundamentally different branches of knowledge relate to these: the natural sciences, and the mental sciences. If a unified and “natural” explanation is really possible, the beginning and end of all this “reducing to simpler terms” must be to bridge over the gulf between these; but this, in the sense of naturalism, necessarily means that t

2 hour read

Read Chapter

How the Religious and the Naturalistic Outlooks Conflict.

How the Religious and the Naturalistic Outlooks Conflict.

But we must penetrate still deeper. Schleiermacher has directed our attention anew to the fact that the most profound element in religion is that deep-lying consciousness of all creatures, “I that am dust and ashes,” that humble feeling of the absolute dependence of every being in the world on One that is above all the world. But religion does not fully express itself even in this; there is yet another note that sounds still deeper and is the keynote of the triad. “Let a man examine himself.” Is

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Mystery : Dependence : Purpose.

Mystery : Dependence : Purpose.

1. Let us begin with the problem of the mystery of all existence, and see whether it remains unaffected, or whether it disappears in face of naturalistic interpretation, with its discovery and formulation of law and order, with its methods of measuring and computing. More primary even than faith and heartfelt trust in everlasting wisdom and purposeful Providence there is piety; there is devout sense of awe before the marvellous and mysterious, before the depth and the hidden nature of all things

9 minute read

Read Chapter

The Mystery of Existence Remains Unexplained.

The Mystery of Existence Remains Unexplained.

But if the goal should ever be reached, if, in other words, we should ever be able to say with certainty what must result if occurrences a and b are given, or what a and b must have been when c occurs, would explanation then have taken the place of description? Or would understanding have replaced mystery? Obviously not at all. It has indeed often been supposed that this would be the case. People have imagined they have understood, when they have seen that “that is always so, and that it always

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Evolution and New Beginnings.

Evolution and New Beginnings.

Perhaps this consideration goes still deeper, throwing light upon or suggesting the proper basis for a study of the domain of mind and of history. It is immediately obvious that there, at any rate, we enter into a region of phenomena which cannot be derived from anything antecedent, or reduced to anything lower. It must be one of the chief tasks of naturalism to explain away these facts, and to maintain the sway of “evolution,” not in our sense but in its own, that is “to explain” everything new

9 minute read

Read Chapter

The Dependence of the Order of Nature.

The Dependence of the Order of Nature.

We have already noted that this is most obviously discernible in the world of the great masses, the heavenly bodies which pursue their courses from everlasting to everlasting, mutually conditioning themselves and betraying no need for or dependence upon anything outside of themselves. Everything, even the smallest movement, is here determined strictly by the dependence of each upon all and of all upon each. There is no variation, no change of position for which an entirely satisfactory cause can

12 minute read

Read Chapter

The “Contingency” of the World.

The “Contingency” of the World.

The search for causes involves showing that a thing was necessary. And this must obviously apply to the world as a whole. If it were quite obvious that the world and its existence as it is were necessary, that is, that it would be contrary to reason to think of the world, and its phenomena, and their obedience to law as non-existent, or as different from what they are, all inquiry would be at an end. This would be the ultimate necessity in which all the apparent contingency of isolated phenomena

7 minute read

Read Chapter

The Real World.

The Real World.

All this is doubtless correct, and it is very wholesome for religion. For it prompts religion no longer to seek its treasure, the true nature of things, and its everlasting home in time and space, as the mythologies and eschatologies have sought them repeatedly. It throws religion back on the fundamental insight and on the convictions which it had attained long before philosophy and criticism of knowledge had arrived at similar views: namely, that time and space, and this world of time and space

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The Antimony of Our Conception of Time.

The Antimony of Our Conception of Time.

The antinomy of the conditioned and the unconditioned leads us along similar lines. Every individual finite thing or event is dependent on its causes and conditions, which precede it or co-exist in inter-relation with it. It is conditioned, and is only possible through its conditions. But that implies that it can only occur or be granted when all its conditions are first given in complete synthesis. If any one of them failed, it would not have come about. But every one of its conditioning circum

55 minute read

Read Chapter

The Antimony of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned.

The Antimony of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned.

To bring our examples to a conclusion, we find the same sort of antinomy in regard to space, and the world as it is extended in space. Here, too, it becomes apparent that space as we imagine it, and as we carry it with us as a concept for arranging our sense-impressions, cannot correspond to the true reality. As in regard to time, so also in regard to space, we can never after any distance however enormous come to a halt and say, “Here is the end of space.” Whether we think of the diameter of th

2 minute read

Read Chapter

The Antimony of Our Conception of Space.

The Antimony of Our Conception of Space.

Without the help of religious expressions we say: Being itself is always itself and never implies any more; for if there were “always one more” it would not be Being. It can only exist “as a perfect synthesis,” which does not mean an endless number, which nevertheless somewhere comes to an end—again wooden iron—but something above all reckoning and beyond all number, as it is beyond space and time. And that which we are able to weigh and measure and number is therefore not reality itself, but on

49 minute read

Read Chapter

Intuitions of Reality.

Intuitions of Reality.

(5.) There are other evidences of this depth and hidden nature of things, towards which an examination of our knowledge points. For “in feeling and intuition appearance points beyond itself to real being.” So ran our fifth proposition. This subject indeed is delicate, and can only be treated of in the hearing of willing ears. But all apologetic counts upon willing ears; it is not conversion of doubters that is aimed at, it is religion which seeks to reassure itself. Our proposition does not spea

10 minute read

Read Chapter

The Recognition of Purpose.

The Recognition of Purpose.

Whether modern natural science is right in this or not, whether or not it has neglected an element of truth in the old theory of Entelechies which it cannot dispense with, especially in regard to living organisms, it is beyond dispute that, from the most general point of view, and in particular with reference to teleology, religion does not need to concern itself in the least about this opposition. “Purposes,” “ideas,” “guidance” in the religious sense, are quite unaffected by the manner in whic

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Teleological and Scientific Interpretations are Alike Necessary.

Teleological and Scientific Interpretations are Alike Necessary.

Darwinism, which was originally a technical theory of the biological schools, has long since become a veritable tangle of the most diverse problems and opinions, and seems to press hardly upon the religious conception of the world from many different sides. In its theory of blind “natural selection” and the fortuitous play of the factors in the struggle for existence, it appears to surrender the whole of this wonderful world of life to the rough and ready grip of a process without method or plan

45 minute read

Read Chapter

The Development of Darwinism.

The Development of Darwinism.

Darwinism, as popularly understood, is the theory that “men are descended from monkeys,” and in general that the higher forms of life are descended from the lower, and it is regarded as Darwin's epoch-making work and his chief merit—or fault according to the point of view—that he established the Theory of Descent. This is only half correct, and it leaves out the real point of Darwinism altogether. The Theory of Descent had its way prepared by the evolutionist ideas and the speculative nature-phi

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Darwinism and Teleology.

Darwinism and Teleology.

We do not propose to expound the Darwinian theory for the hundredth time; a knowledge of it must be taken for granted. We need only briefly call to mind the characteristic features and catchwords of the theory as Darwin founded it, which have also been the starting points of subsequent modifications and controversies. All living creatures are bound together in genetic solidarity. Everything has evolved through endless deviations, gradations, and differentiations, but at the same time by a perfec

3 minute read

Read Chapter

The Characteristic Features of Darwinism.

The Characteristic Features of Darwinism.

The chief evidences of the theory of descent are to be found in homologies, in the correspondences of organs and functions, as revealed by comparative anatomy and physiology, in the recapitulation revealed by embryology, in the structure of parasites, in rudimentary organs and reversions to earlier stages, in the distribution of animals and plants, and in the possibility of still transforming, at least to a slight extent, one species into another, by experimental breeding. Transformation and dif

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Various Forms of Darwinism.

Various Forms of Darwinism.

And among the representatives of these different standpoints there are most interesting personal differences: in some, like Weismann, we find a great loyalty to, and persistence in the position once arrived at, in others the most surprising transitions and changes of opinion. Thus Fleischmann, a pupil of Selenka's, after illustrating during many years of personal research the orthodox Darwinian standpoint, finally developed into an outspoken opponent not only of the theory of selection but of th

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Theory of Descent.

The Theory of Descent.

In regard to man—so we are assured—the theory finds confirmation through the discovery of the Neanderthal, Spy, Schipka, La Naulette skulls and bones—the remains of a prehistoric human race, with “pithecoid” (ape-like) characters. And the theory reaches its climax in Dubois' discovery of the remains of “Pithecanthropus,” the upright ape-man, in Java, 1891-92, the long sought-for Missing Link between animals and man; 9 and in the still more recent proofs of “affinity of blood” between man and ape

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Haeckel's Evolutionist Position.

Haeckel's Evolutionist Position.

What is especially Haeckelian is the “fundamental biogenetic law,” “ontogeny resembles phylogeny,” that is to say, in development, especially in embryonic development, the individual recapitulates the history of the race. Through “palingenesis,” man, for instance, recapitulates his ancestral stages (protist, gastræad, vermine, piscine, and simian). This recapitulation is condensed, disarranged, or obscured in detail by “cenogenesis” or “cænogenesis.” The groups and types of organisms exhibit the

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Weismann's Evolutionist Position.

Weismann's Evolutionist Position.

In reality Weismann only adduces one strict proof, and even that is only laying special stress on what is well known in comparative embryology; namely, the possibility of “predicting” on the basis of the theory of descent, as Leverrier “predicted” Neptune. For instance, in the lower vertebrates from amphibians upwards there is an os centrale in the skeleton of wrist, but there is none in man. Now if man be descended from lower vertebrates, and if the fundamental biogenetic law be true (that ever

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Virchow's Position.

Virchow's Position.

His lecture of 1869 already indicates his subsequent attitude. “Considered logically and speculatively” the Theory of Descent seems to him “excellent,” 15 indeed a logical moral(!) hypothesis, but unproved in itself, and erroneous in many of its particular propositions. As far back as 1858, before the publication of Darwin's great work, he stated at the Naturalists' Congress in Carlsruhe, that the origin of one species out of another appeared to him a necessary scientific inference, but——And thr

20 minute read

Read Chapter

Other Instances of Dissatisfaction with the Theory of Descent.

Other Instances of Dissatisfaction with the Theory of Descent.

Kerner disposes of the chief argument in favour of the theory of descent, the homology of individual organs, by explaining that the homology is due to the similarity of function in the different organisms. A similar argument is used in regard to “ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny.” Palæontology does not disclose in the plant-world any “synthetic types,” which might have been the common primitive stock from which many now divergent branches have sprung, nor does it disclose any “transition links”

2 hour read

Read Chapter

The Problema Continui.

The Problema Continui.

This is not the place for a thoroughgoing discussion of this problema continui . We can only call to mind here that the “evolution idea” has been the doctrine of the great philosophical systems from Aristotle to Leibnitz, and of the great German idealist philosophers, in whose school the religious interpretation of the world is at home. We may briefly emphasise the most important considerations to be kept in mind in forming a judgment as to gradual development. 1. To recognise anything as in cou

30 minute read

Read Chapter

Differences of Opinion As To the Factors In Evolution.

Differences of Opinion As To the Factors In Evolution.

Further, by those of the one side variation is regarded as occurring by the smallest steps that could have selective value in the struggle for existence. To the others variation seems to have taken place by leaps and bounds, with relatively sudden transformations of the functional and structural equilibrium on a large scale. In regard to these the rôle of the struggle for existence must be merely subsidiary. This saltatory kind of evolution-process is called “halmatogenesis,” or, more neatly, “k

11 minute read

Read Chapter

Weismannism.

Weismannism.

In order to explain the mystery of heredity, Weismann long ago elaborated, in his germ-plasm theory, the doctrine that the developing individual is materially preformed, or rather predetermined in the “idants” and “ids” of the germ-cell. Thus every one of its physical characters (and, through these, its psychical characters), down to hairs, skin spots, and birth-marks, is represented in the “id” by “determinants” which control the “determinates” in development. In the course of their growth and

14 minute read

Read Chapter

Natural Selection.

Natural Selection.

Another circumstance seems to us to have been entirely overlooked, and it is one which gives the theory of selection an inevitable appearance of truth, even if it is essentially false, and thus makes it very difficult to refute. Assuming that the recognition of teleological factors is valid, that there is an inward law of development, that “Moses” or whoever one will was undoubtedly right, it is self-evident that, because of the indubitable over-production of organisms, there would even then be

37 minute read

Read Chapter

Lamarckism and Neo-Lamarckism.

Lamarckism and Neo-Lamarckism.

Darwin himself did not regard these two theories as opposed to the theory of selection, but utilised them as subsidiary interpretations. It is obvious, however, that at bottom they conceal an essentially different fundamental idea, which, if followed out to its logical consequences, reduces the “struggle for existence” to at most a wholly indifferent accessory circumstance. Weismann felt this, and hence his entirely consistent endeavours to show by great examples, such as the origin of flowers,

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Theory of Definite Variation.

Theory of Definite Variation.

The work that has probably excited most interest in this connection is De Vries' “Die Mutationstheorie: Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Entstehung von Arten im Pflanzenleben.” 46 In a short preliminary paper he had previously given some account of his leading experiments on a species of evening primrose ( Œnothera lamarckiana ), and the outlines of his theory. In the work itself he extends this, adding much concrete material, and comparing his views in detail with other theories. Darwin, he

2 minute read

Read Chapter

De Vries's Mutation-theory.

De Vries's Mutation-theory.

De Vries marshals a series of facts which present insurmountable difficulties to the Darwinian theory, but afford corroboration of the Mutation theory. In particular, he brings forward, from his years of experiment and horticultural observation, comprehensive evidence of the mutational origin of new species from old ones by leaps, and this not in long-past geological times, but in the course of a human life and before our very eyes. The main importance of the book lies in the record of these exp

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Eimer's Orthogenesis.

Eimer's Orthogenesis.

A specially energetic fellow-worker on Eimer's line is W. Haacke, a zoologist of Jena, author of “Gestaltung und Vererbung,” and “Die Schöpfung des Menschen und seiner Ideale.” 48 In the first of these works Haacke combats, energetically and with much detail, Weismann's “preformation theory,” and defends “epigenesis,” for which he endeavours to construct graphic diagrams, his aim being to make a foundation for the inheritance of acquired characters, definitely directed evolution, saltatory, symm

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Spontaneous Activity of the Organism.

The Spontaneous Activity of the Organism.

It is instructive to notice that Darwinism seems likely to be robbed of its stock illustration, namely, “protective coloration.” By its own internal power of reaction, and sometimes within one generation, and even in the lifetime of an individual, an organism may assume the colour of the substratum beneath it (soles, grasshoppers), of its surroundings (Eimer's tree frogs), the colour and spottiness of the granite rock on which it hangs, the colour of the leaves and twigs among which it lives (Po

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Contrast Between Darwinian and Post-Darwinian Views.

Contrast Between Darwinian and Post-Darwinian Views.

Korschinsky and the Moderns. (1) Everything organic is capable of variation. This capability is a fundamental, inherent character of living forms in general, and is independent of external conditions. It is usually kept latent by “heredity,” but occasionally breaks forth in sudden variations. Darwin. (2) The struggle for existence. This combines, increases, fixes useful variations, and eliminates the useless. All the characters and peculiarities of a finished species are the results of long-cont

45 minute read

Read Chapter

The Conservation of Matter and Energy.

The Conservation of Matter and Energy.

Apart from the inherent general “instinct” — sit venia verbo , for no more definite word is available—which is the quiet Socius, the concealed but powerful spring of the mechanistic convictions, as of most others, this law of the conservation of energy is probably the really central argument, and it meets us again more or less disguised in what follows. 2. What is on à priori grounds demanded as a necessity, or set aside as impossible, on the strength of the axiom of the conservation of energy,

5 minute read

Read Chapter

The Organic and the Inorganic.

The Organic and the Inorganic.

But modern chemical science has succeeded in doing away with this absolute difference between the two departments of chemistry, for it has achieved, in retorts, in the laboratory, and with “natural” chemical means, what had hitherto only been accomplished by “organic” chemistry. Since Wöhler's discovery that urea could be built up by artificial combination, more and more of the carbon-compounds which were previously regarded as specialities of the vital force have been produced by artificial syn

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Irritability.

Irritability.

Thus, for instance, it is shown that the egg of the sea-urchin may be “stimulated” to development, not exclusively by the fertilising sperm, but even by a simple chemical agent, or that spermatozoids which are seeking the ovum to be fertilised may be attracted by malic acid. These are “reductions” of the higher phenomena of life to the terms of a lower and simpler process of “stimulus,” that is to say, to chemotropism in the second case and something analogous in the first. A further reduction w

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Spontaneous Generation.

Spontaneous Generation.

Constructing theories and speculations as to the possibilities of spontaneous generation is regarded by some naturalists as somewhat gratuitous ( cf. Du Bois-Reymond). In general, it is regarded as sufficient to point out that the reduction of the phenomena of life as we know them to those of a simpler order, and the unification of organic and inorganic chemistry, have made the problem of the first origin of life essentially simpler, and that the law of the constancy and identity of energy throu

4 minute read

Read Chapter

The Mechanics of Development.

The Mechanics of Development.

6. With this fifth line of thought a sixth is associated and intertwined. The problem of development is closely bound up with that of “heredity.” A developing organism follows the parental type. The acorn in its growth follows the type of the parent oak, repeating all its morphological and physiological characters down to the most intimate detail. And the animal organism adds to this also the whole psychical equipment, the instincts, the capacities of will and consciousness which distinguish its

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Heredity.

Heredity.

Modern biologists ridicule the preformation hypothesis as altogether too artificial. And undoubtedly it founders on the facts of embryology, which disclose nothing to suggest the unfolding of a pre-existent miniature model, but show us how the egg-cell divides into two, into four, and so on, with continued multiplication followed by varied arrangements and rearrangements of cells—in short, all the complex changes which constitute development. But a preformation in some sense or other there must

48 minute read

Read Chapter

The Law of the Conservation of Energy.

The Law of the Conservation of Energy.

The course of the mechanistic theory of life has been surprisingly similar to that of its complement, the theory of the general evolution of the organic world. The two great doctrines of the schools, Darwinism on the one hand, the mechanical interpretation of life on the other, are both tottering, not because of the criticism of outsiders, but of specialists within the schools themselves. And the interest which religion has in this is the same in both cases: the transcendental nature of things,

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Criticisms of the Mechanistic Theory of Life.

Criticisms of the Mechanistic Theory of Life.

Both Liebig and Johannes Müller remained vitalists, notwithstanding the discovery of the synthesis of urea and the increasing number of organic compounds which were built up artificially by purely chemical methods. It was only about the middle of the last century that the younger generation, under the leadership, in Germany, of Du Bois-Reymond in particular, went over decidedly to the mechanistic side, and carried the doctrines of the school to ever fresh victories. But opposition was not lackin

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Virchow's “Caution”.

Virchow's “Caution”.

It is impossible to make much of this position. It leaves the theory with one of the opposing parties, the practice with the other, and the problem just where it was before. Along with Virchow, we must name another of the older generation, the physiologist William Preyer, who combated “vitalism,” “dualism,” and “mechanism” with equal vehemence, and issued a manifesto, already somewhat solemn and official, against “vital force.” And yet he must undoubtedly be regarded as a vitalist by mechanists

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Preyer's Position.

Preyer's Position.

The fallacy, he says, of the mechanistic claims was due to the increasing number of physical explanations of isolated vital phenomena, and of imitations of the chemical products of organic metabolism. A wrong conclusion was drawn from these. “Any one who hopes to deduce from the chemical and physical properties of the fertilised egg the necessity that an animal, tormented by hunger and love must, after a certain time, arise therefrom, has a pathetic resemblance to the miserable manufacturers of

7 minute read

Read Chapter

The Position Of Bunge and Other Physiologists.

The Position Of Bunge and Other Physiologists.

Kassowitz 83 is an instructive example of how much the force of criticism has been recognised even by those occupying a convinced mechanical point of view. He subjects all the different theories which attempt to explain the chief vital phenomena in mechanical terms to a long and exhaustive examination. The theories of the organism as a thermodynamic engine, osmotic theories, theories of ferments, interpretations in terms of electro-dynamics and molecular-physics—are all examined (chap. iv.); and

32 minute read

Read Chapter

The Views of Botanists Illustrated.

The Views of Botanists Illustrated.

Kerner von Marilaun in his “Pflanzenleben” deliberately takes up a thorough-going vitalist position, and on this point as well as on many others he opposed the current theory of the school (Darwinism). It is true, he admits, that many of the phenomena in plants can be explained in purely mechanical terms, but they are only those which may occur also in non-living structures. The specific expressions of life cannot be explained in this way. He shows this more fully in regard to the most fundament

12 minute read

Read Chapter

Constructive Criticism.

Constructive Criticism.

Among the biologists who concern themselves with deeper considerations, Oscar Hertwig, 95 the Director of the Anatomical Institute at Berlin, has expressed ideas similar to those we have been discussing, little as this may seem to be the case at first sight. He desires to oust the ordinary mechanism, so to speak, by replacing it by a mechanism of a higher order, and in making the attempt he examines and deepens the traditional ideas of causality and “force,” and defines the right and wrong of th

16 minute read

Read Chapter

The Constructive Work of Driesch.

The Constructive Work of Driesch.

In the “Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung” (1894) Driesch picks up the thread where he dropped it in the book before, and spins it farther, “traversing” his previous theoretical and experimental results. In this work the author still strives to remain within the frame of the tectonic and machine-theory, but the edges are already showing signs of giving way. Life, he says, is a mechanism based upon a given structure (it is however a machine which is constantly modifying and developi

10 minute read

Read Chapter

The Views of Albrecht and Schneider.

The Views of Albrecht and Schneider.

The idea that only one or two of these series can represent the “true nature” of the phenomenon “can only be called cheap dogma.” Each series is complete in itself, and every successive phase follows directly and without a break from the antecedent one, which alone explains it. In this lies the relative justification of the ever-recurring reactions to “vitalism.” This theory of Albrecht's has all the charms and difficulties, or impossibilities, of parallelistic interpretations in general. Its va

4 minute read

Read Chapter

How all this affects the Religious Outlook.

How all this affects the Religious Outlook.

May not this be a paradigm of the processes and development of the world at large, and even of evolution in the domain of history? Here, too, all ideas of guidance, of endeavour after an aim, &amp;c., which philosophical study of history or religious intuition seems to find, make shipwreck against the fact that every attempt to demonstrate their nature, fails. All these theories of influx, concursus, and so on, whether transcendental or immanent factors be employed, immediately become wooden

2 hour read

Read Chapter

Naturalistic Attacks on the Autonomy of the Spiritual.

Naturalistic Attacks on the Autonomy of the Spiritual.

If the independence of the spiritual is thus shown to be a vain assumption, the alleged difference between the animal and the human Psyche is much more so. Not from the days of Darwinism alone, but from the very beginning, naturalism has opposed this claim to distinctiveness. But it is due to Darwinism that the fundamental similarity of the psychical in man and animals has come to be regarded as almost self-evident. The mental organisation of man, as well as his corporeal organisation, is traced

11 minute read

Read Chapter

The Fundamental Answer.

The Fundamental Answer.

What lives in us, as far as we can perceive and trace it in its empirical expression, is not a finished and spiritual being that leaps, mature and complete, from some pre-existence or other into its embodied form, but is obviously something that only develops and becomes actual very gradually. Its becoming is conditioned by “stimuli,” influences, impressions from without, and perfects itself in the closest dependence upon the becoming of the body, is inhibited or advanced with it, and may be ent

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Individual Development.

Individual Development.

We have still to consider and amplify this in several respects, and then we may go on to still more important matters. The first of the three points we have called attention to has, so to speak, become famous through the lectures of du Bois-Reymond, which attracted much attention, on “The Limits of Natural Knowledge,” and “The Seven Riddles of the Universe.” That these thoughtful lectures made so great an impression did not mean that a great new discovery had been made, but was rather a sign of

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Underivability.

Underivability.

But we have already spent too much time over this naïve mode of looking at things, which, though it professes to place things in their true light, in reality distorts them and turns them upside down. As if this world of the external and material, all these bodies and forces, were our first and most direct data, and were not really all derived from, and only discoverable by, consciousness. We have here to do with the ancient view of all philosophy and all reflection in general, although in modern

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Pre-eminence of Consciousness.

Pre-eminence of Consciousness.

To this insight into the underivability and pre-eminence of consciousness over the world of external reality there must be added at this stage a recognition of its peculiar creative character. We have here to recognise that consciousness itself creates its world,—that is, the world that becomes our own through actual experience, possession, and enjoyment. We are led to this position even by the conception now current in natural science of the world as it is, not as it is mirrored in consciousnes

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Creative Power of Consciousness.

Creative Power of Consciousness.

That the psychical is not derivable from the physical, that it does not arise out of it, is not secondary to it, but pre-eminent over it, is not passive but creative; so much we have already gained to set over against naturalism. But its claims are even more affected by the fact of real psychical causality. We need not here concern ourselves with the difficult question, whether the mind can of itself act upon the body, and through it upon the external world. But in the logical consistence of nat

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Activity of Consciousness.

Activity of Consciousness.

[Illustration: Square c 2 . Above it is horizontal line c , the same length as the width of the square below it. Caption: a and b really synthetised to c . Square of a + b as a true unity = c 2 .] Given that, through some association, the image of the line a calls up that of the line b , and both are associatively ranged together, we have still not made the real synthesis a + b = c . For to think of a and b side by side is not the same thing as thinking of c , as we shall readily see if we squar

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Ego.

The Ego.

1. Our consciousness is not merely a knowledge of many individual things, the possession of concrete and abstract, particular or general conceptions and ideas, the cherishing of sensations, feelings and the like. We not only know, but we know that we know, and we can ponder in thought over the very fact that we are able thus to reflect in thought. Thought can turn its attention upon itself, can establish that it takes place, and how it runs its course, can reflect upon the forms in which it expr

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Self-Consciousness.

Self-Consciousness.

2. The same holds true of the unity of consciousness, of which we are directly convinced. It is quite inexplicable if consciousness is a function of the extended and divisible physical substratum which is built up of nerve-cells and nerve-fibres. And yet this unity is the fundamental condition of our whole inner life. Even the facts of association demonstrate it. Two images could not come together, the one could not call up the other, if they were not possessed in the same consciousness, and cou

43 minute read

Read Chapter

The Unity of Consciousness.

The Unity of Consciousness.

3. This unified self-consciousness is consciousness of the ego. It is only by means of an artificial abstraction that we can leave out of account in the consideration of processes of thought the peculiar factor of personal relationship that absolutely attaches to every thought within us. There are no thoughts in general that play their part of themselves alone. “It” never “thinks” in me. On the contrary, all sensation, thought, and will has in every human being a peculiar central relationship to

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Consciousness of the Ego.

Consciousness of the Ego.

Thus in summing up we have to say, that it is through the ego that all psychical activities and experiences are centred and related, that the ego is itself the point of relation, that it is the reason of the unity of consciousness and of the possibility of self-consciousness, and that in all this it is the most certain reality, without which the simplest psychical life would be impossible. At the same time, it is difficult to state what the “ego” is in itself, apart from the effects in which it

58 minute read

Read Chapter

Feeling, Individuality, Genius, and Mysticism.

Feeling, Individuality, Genius, and Mysticism.

It is in the four attributes here emphasised that the true nature of mind in its underivability and superiority to all nature first becomes clear. All that we have so far considered under the name of mind is only preliminary and leads up to this. All reality of external things is of little account compared with that of the mind. It does not occur to any one in practice to regard anything in the whole world as more real and genuine than his own love and hate, fear and hope, his pain, from the sim

55 minute read

Read Chapter

Feeling.

Feeling.

It is especially in “feeling” that what we call individuality has its roots. The individual really means the “indivisible,” and in the strict sense of the word need mean nothing more than the ego, and the unity of consciousness of which we have already spoken. But through a change in the meaning of the word we have come to mean much more than that by it. This individuality forces itself most distinctly upon our attention in regard to prominent and distinguished persons. It is the particular dete

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Individuality.

Individuality.

And from this point of view we must safeguard what has already been said in regard to the culture and gradual development of our psychical inner nature. It is true that the “soul” does not spring up ready-made in the developing body, lying dormant in it, and only requiring to waken up gradually. It really becomes. But the becoming is a self-realisation. It is not true that it is put together and built up bit by bit by experience, so that a different being might develop if the experiences were di

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Genius.

Genius.

Even “pronounced individuality” “has an element of mysticism” in it—of the non-rational, which we feel the more distinctly the more decidedly we reject all attempts to make it rational again through crude or subtle mythologies. This is much more true of genius, artistic insight, and inspiration. But these are much too delicate to be exposed to the buffeting of controversy, much more so the dark and mysterious boundary region in the life of the human spirit which we know under the name of mystici

49 minute read

Read Chapter

Mysticism.

Mysticism.

What is the relation between the human and the animal mind? This has always been a vital question in the conflict between naturalism and the religious outlook. And as in the whole problem of the psychical so here the interest on both sides has been mainly concentrated on the question of “mortality” or “immortality.” Man is immortal because he has a soul. Animals “have no souls.” “Animals also have souls, differing only in degree but not in substantial nature from the soul of man: as they are mor

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Mind and Spirit. The Human and the Animal Soul.

Mind and Spirit. The Human and the Animal Soul.

What occurs or does not occur within the animal mind is, as a matter of fact, wholly hidden from us. We have no way of determining this except by analogy with ourselves, and therefore our idea of it is necessarily anthropomorphic. And apologists are undoubtedly right when they maintain that this is far too much the case. To reach a more unprejudiced attitude towards the customary anthropomorphisation of animals, it is profitable to study Wundt's lectures on “The Human and the Animal Mind” (see e

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Personality.

Personality.

The independence and underivability of the psychical, the incomparability of its uniformities with those of mechanical or physico-chemical laws, has proved itself so clear and incontrovertible, notwithstanding all the distortions of naturalism, that it is now regarded as a self-evident fact, not only among philosophers and epistemologists, and technical psychologists, but for the last decade even among all thinking men, and “materialism” is now an obsolete position. It was too crude and too cont

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Parallelism.

Parallelism.

This standpoint is most impressively set forth in Paulsen's widely read “Introduction to Philosophy.” The same ideas form the central feature in the work of Fechner, which is having such a marked renaissance to-day. It seems as though all higher estimates of spirit, even the religious estimate, could quite well rest upon this basis. For full scope is here given to the idea that mind and the mental sciences have their own particular field. God, as the absolute all-consciousness and self-conscious

11 minute read

Read Chapter

No Parallelism.

No Parallelism.

Furthermore, the theory of parallelism, notwithstanding its opposition to materialism, must presuppose that localisation of psychical processes of which we have already spoken, and to which all naturalism appeals with so much emphasis. Because of the fact that particular psychical functions seem to be limited to a particular and definable area of the brain-cortex, or to a spot which could be isolated on a particular convolution, it seemed as if naturalism could prove that “soul” was obviously a

8 minute read

Read Chapter

The Supremacy of Mind.

The Supremacy of Mind.

But one has a repugnance to descending into this strange region. And religion, with its clear and lofty mood, can never have either taste for or relationship with considerations which so easily take an “occult” turn. Nor is its mysticism concerned with physiologies. But it is instructive and noteworthy that the old idealistic faith, “It is the mind that builds up the body for itself,” is becoming stronger again in all kinds of philosophies and physiologies of “the unconscious,” as a reaction fro

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“The Unconscious”.

“The Unconscious”.

Naturalism is also only apparently right in asserting that the mind ages with the body. To learn the answer which all idealism gives to this comfortless theory, it is well to read Schleiermacher's “Monologues,” and especially the chapter “Youth and Age.” The arguments put forward by naturalism, the blunting of the senses, the failing of the memory, are well known. But here again there are luminous facts on the other side which are much more true. It is no wonder that a mind ages if it has never

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Is there Ageing of the Mind?

Is there Ageing of the Mind?

It is in a faith in a Beyond, and in the immortality of our true being, that what lies finely distributed through all religion sums itself up and comes to full blossoming: the certainty that world and existence are insufficient, and the strong desire to break through into the true being, of which at the best we have here only a foretaste and intuition. The doctrine of immortality stands by itself as a matter of great solemnity and deep rapture. If it is to be talked about, both speaker and heare

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Immortality.

Immortality.

The world and nature are marvellous in their being, but they are not “divine” ! The formula “ natura sive deus ” is a monstrous misuse of the word “ deus ,” if we are to use the words in the sense which history has given to them. God is the Absolute Being, perfect, wholly independent, resting in Himself, and necessary; nature is entirely contingent and dependent, and at every point of it we are impelled to ask “Why?” God is the immeasurable fulness of Being, nature is indeed diverse in the manif

16 minute read

Read Chapter

Chapter XII. The World And God.

Chapter XII. The World And God.

On the other hand, nature is really, as Aristotle said, δαιμονία, that is, strange, mysterious, and marvellous, indicating God, and pointing, all naturalism and superficial consideration notwithstanding, as we have seen, to something outside of and beyond itself. Religion demands no more than this. It does not insist upon finding a solution for all the riddles of theoretical world-lore. It is not distressed because the course of nature often seems to our eyes confused, and to our judgment contra

15 minute read

Read Chapter