The Washington times., 1901-09-08

Is no moral order in H. and no morality
which can be perceived by man; that he
IS wholly the creature of his environ
ment and does only what he is forced
to do. Such a conception destroys in
centive to action and turns life into n
treadmill and wherever it has gotten hold
OF a people il has killed development.
With instructive perception of Its falsi-
ty, human nature shrinks from 1t; yet 1t
has its uses. 1t serves as check to the
idealism which refuses to regard or
study natural laws; and it was evolved
in reaction from the injurious infiu-
ences of this ldealism. Haeckels vehe-
ment protest against the idealistic con-
ception of nature as utterly unscientfic,
his denunciations of n false conception
of God. are absolute proofs that there is
something in Inan which refuses to rec
ognize natural law as not moral 1t is
as impossible to escape the moral law as
the physical A man cannot impress an
absolute falsehood upon his fellow men.
The old Superstitions hold their ground
so long as they seem true to their fol-
lowers. When a higher form of truth ap-
pears they die.
The other important point made by the
author is his absolute denial of the i'm
mortality of the soul. He takes the view
that the soul is created, by the joining of
the male and female elements. at the
moment of conception, and that 1t de-
velops according to natural law, pos
sessing no attribute which cannot be ac-
counted for either by heredity or environ
ment. This, like the paragraph above
quoted, is the logical result, not of the
theory of evolution, but of overemphasis
on phenomena and their laws rather than
belief in thought a force which dis
covers, If It does not create. law, and
which acts and reacts upon matter. 1t is,
in truth, inconceivable that the life
which creates and develops should be
inferior to the matter which it shapes.
The workman is greater than the tool,
though the excellence of his work depends
largely on that of the tool. Still, this is a
point at which the scientific thought of
the nineteenth century has generally
stopped. The few writers who have at
tempted to reconcile the doctrine of per-
sonal immortality with scientific law have
usually done it by twisting the Law.
There is no escape from this conclusion
in the monistic philosophy. Starting, as
Haeckel does, with the axiom that con-
sciousness is Il form of matter, one must
come TO the same conclusion that he does
earthly habitation, and withers and dies
when that disappears. Taking, on the
other hand. the view that spirit is force,
like electricity or magnetism, working
through matter, and applying the theory
of conservation of energy to this impal-
pable, imponderable essence of life, it be-
comes possible to believe that the devel-
oped individuality. manifesting itself
through one form. docs not die with the
dissolution of the material particles, but
passes into some other combination of
matter better suited to it than the decay
ing body. In short, 1t may be said that
the body is garment or habtation, not
a person. This would involve the theory
of reincarnation, which may be defined as
the development of spiritual types on
lines parallel with those of physical evo-
luton and inseparably connected with
them In order to combat Haeckers argu-
ment on the question of personal immor-
tality, one must dispute his premise.
He admits that while Kant. in earlier
years, held that the three great buttresses
of mysticism-God, freedom, and immor-
tality-were untenable In the light OF pnre
reason in lator years ne found that these
three hallucinations were postulates of
practical reason" and were, as such, in
dispensable. This he considers IAN unde-
niable and fatal contradiction" which he
explains by calling the first attitude crit
ical and the second dogmatic. He abso-
lutely refuses TO consider the latter as
tenable, and says of It:
The, great majority of philosophers
and theologians aifirm, with
Kant, that the moral world is quite
Independent of the physical, and is
subject to very different laws; hence
a mans conscience, as the basis OF
his moral life, must also be quite In
dependent of our scientific knowledge
of the world, and must be based
therefore. on religious faith. On that
theory the study of the moral world
belongs to practical reason. while that
of nature. or of the physical world, is
referred to pure or theoretical reason.
This unequivocal and conscious dual
ism of Kant's philosophy was It's
greatest defect; il has caused, and still
causes, incalcuiable mischief First of
all, the critical Kant had built up
splendid and marvellous palace of
pure reason, and convincingly proved
that the three great central dogmas
of metaphysics-a personal God, free
will, and the immortal soul-had no
place whatever in 1t. and that no
rational proof could be found of their
reality. Afterward, however, the
'dogmatic Kant superimposed on this
true crystal palace of pure reason the
glittering, ideal castle in the air of
prHCtCal reason, IN WnlCn tnree
posing church naves were designed
for the accommodation of those three
great mystic divinities. When they had
been put out at the front door by
rational knowledge they returned by
the back door under the guidance of
rational faith.
THE oupoia of his great cathedral OF
faith was crowned by Kant with his
curious idol, the famous categorical
imperative According to ii, the de-
nand of the universal moral law is
unconditional, independent of any re-
gard to actually or Potentially 1t
runs Act at all times in such wise
that the maxim Cor the subjective law
of thy Wild may hold good as prin-
ciplc Of a universal law. On that the
ory all normal men would have the
same sense of duty. Modern anthro-
polOgy has ruthlessly dissipated that
pretty dream; it has shown that con-
ceptions Of duty differ even more
among uncivilized than among civiliz-
ed nations All the actions and crimes
which we regard as sins or loathsome
crimes theft, murder. fraud. adultery,
etc. are considered by other nations
in certain circumstances to be virtues,
or even sacred duties.
Modern science gives not only
negative support to practical philoso-
ply and ethics in demolishing the
Kantian duaiism, but it renders the
positive service of substituting for it
the new structure of ethical monism.
III SHOWS lhat tne 1et!nS OF uuty uOeS
not rest on an illusory categorical i'm
perative, but on the solid ground of
social instinct. as we find in the case
of all social animals. 1t regards as
the highest aim of all morality the re-
establishment of a sound harmony be-
tween eGoism and altruism, between
self-love and the love of ones neigh
bor"
In this train of reasoning there is as
curious a contradiction as the one which
In, hn
Categorical imperative" in the last analy-
sis means about this: Act in such a way