methods of receiving knowledge-Emotion and Revelation”— through the imagination and moral nature.

In support of the position, that Mystery precludes belief, Haeckel says:

"Religious faith always means belief in a miracle, and, as such, is in hopeless contradiction with the natural faith of reason. In opposition to reason it postulates supernatural agencies, and therefore may be justly called superstition; . . . it assumes supernatural forces and phenomena, which are unknown and inadmissible to science, and which are the outcome of illusion and fancy; moreover, superstition contradicts the wellknown laws of nature, and is therefore irrational” (p. 107).

There are three assertions in this quotation which may be categorically denied; first, religious faith does not always mean " belief in a miracle"; secondly, supernatural forces and phenomena are not 'the outcome of illusion and fancy," but are often based on sound historical and experimental facts; thirdly, "superstition" is not identical with "religious faith," and cannot be used interchangeably with it (as Haeckel uses it in the last sentence), and, therefore, the latter does not necessarily "contradict nature," and is not "therefore irrational." The general position that because a thing cannot be explained, it is false, and ought not to be believed, is one of the flimsiest imaginable. That the inexplicable "contradicts the wellknown laws of nature," or traverses the dictates of reason, is a purely gratuitous assumption, involving two absolutely unproved conclusions (1) that human reason comprehends the entire circle of fact and truth; and (2) that there are no forces or conditions of existence "unknown to science." Hacekel himself recognises the fallacy of these assumptions when he admits that, after all his efforts and inquiries and the researches of others, "one comprehensive riddle of the universe still remains the problem of substance." "We do not know," he says, "the thing itself,' that lies behind these knowable phenomena " (p. 134).

Haeckel's position, as regards religious belief, is seriously weakened by his indiscriminate condemnation of all religions as equally false, and by his placing the leading doctrines of Christianity on a level with the silliest legends and most revolting traditions: showing how utterly disqualified he is to estimate religious facts and truths with any degree of fairness. A scientific thinker who can attribute to Christians generally belief in "table-turning and spirit-rapping," and puts the doctrines of Christianity on a par with Mohammedanism and Buddhism, even quoting Pappus's ridiculous legend of the "leap of the sacred books," reveals an ignorance of Christian belief and doctrine which is absolutely phenomenal, and a disregard of logical principles so complete that he cannot possibly be reasoned with.

In making these insinuations about Christian myths and legends Haeckel seems entirely to forget that very much the same objections

may be brought against science. In their infancy, all revelations -and though he disowns Revelation, Science is just as truly a revelation as Christianity-pass through preparatory stages, and often gather traditions and accretions which are no real part of their truth or message, and which gradually fall off, or are exchanged for higher and purer truths. This has been markedly the case with scientific discoveries. There is not one of the seven "all-important theories of the first rank," enumerated by Haeckel on page 106, which has not passed through some stage of metamorphosis, or which is held to-day in the form in which it was first expounded. Dalton's "atomic theory in chemistry," discounted years ago by Huxley, except as a "working hypothesis," is now openly disavowed by leading scientists, while Lamarck and Darwin's "theory of descent in biology" has had as many opponents as followers.

Haeckel's allusions to the Bible show the most astonishing blindness. Unable to shut his eyes entirely to its profound illumination and unique beauty, so that he twice designates it the "book of books," he yet does his best, in both instances, to cast a slur upon it (pp. 100, 128) by warning us against its "unclean stories and passages which are so numerous in the Old Testament." This latter statement we may fairly deny in toto; these passages are not "so numerous"; their proportion to the rest of the Old Testament is, in fact, numerically insignificant, and it is this episodical character which renders them morally powerless amid the lofty and sublime utterances of which the Old Testament principally consists. Once recognise the age when the Old Testament was written, and that it contains both human and divine elements, and no surprise will be felt at these few passages which revolt modern taste, any more than at many passages in Shakespeare and other early writers, the bulk of whose work is nevertheless an imperishable possession. "Why," asks Matthew Arnold, "should we study the Bible? Why will not other books do as well? Because God's power is revealed in Israel and the Bible, and not by other teachers and books! That is, there is infinitely more of this there. . . ." "It is not," says Max Müller," until we put the Bible in comparison with the other sacred books of the East that we discern its superiority and uniqueness."

Haeckel's theory of Morality is radically unsound because it practically eliminates conscience and responsibility from human nature, reducing man's sense of duty to mere animal instinct. "Modern science," he says, "shows that the feeling of duty does not rest on an illusory categorical imperative,' but on the solid ground of 'social instinct,' as we find in the case of all social animals. It regards as the highest aim of all morality the re-establishment of a sound harmony between egoism and altruism, between self-love and the love of one's neighbour" (p. 124). This view of morality is fallacious because it affords neither rule nor motive. If morality were the

product of "social instinct, as in the case of animals," where would be the guarantee for conduct? Instinct constitutes no rational law, and provides no enduring impulse. Such a notion simply obliterates the distinction between right and wrong, and quenches all aspiration towards an ideal. Haeckel here contradicts himself in admitting the existence of "the feeling of duty "—which is inconsistent with his restriction of all true knowledge to the logical reason-while in tracing the sense of duty to "social instinct" he contradicts the ethical facts. It is this notion that is "illusory," not Kant's “categorical imperative," which stands on the solid ground at once of human consciousness and divine law. It is not much credit to "modern science" that, if Haeckel be a fair witness, it thus destroys the essence of all true morality-the rule of right and the sense of obligation on the ground of a vague analogy between man aud animals. Clearly "social instinct" may be either good or bad, and in animals it is often the latter-greed and ferocity, as well as the gregarious and maternal instincts. Of course the aim of morality is "the re-establishment of a sound harmony between egoism and altruism," but science will not do much to effect this unless it can present some authoritative rule of right, and offer a due motive for the fulfilment of it. Haeckel, in fact, seems to admit the utter failure of any mere theory of morality to secure its practice when he says: "This fundamental law of society [harmonising egoism and altruism] is so simple and so inevitable that one cannot understand how it can be contradicted in theory or in practice; yet that is done to-day, and has been done for thousands of years" (p. 124). Exactly; what is the value of a moral theory which has no force to ensure its practice? And this is the case with all moral theories that treat men in the gross instead of individually. Society can only reach its moral ideal through every member of it making a distinct effort to live according to the highest law he knows, and attain the loftiest character he is capable of; and this depends directly on the exercise of his own will, and only indirectly on his surroundings and heredity. These may make the moral effort more difficult, but they do not render it impossible or less obligatory.

Haeckel's fallacious theory of Morality helps to explain his deprecatory criticism of Christ's character and teaching, which turns on two points-ignorance and want of originality; that Christ was inferior in knowledge to the sages of the East, and that His moral teaching had been anticipated by them ages before. The former point is easily answered on the well-known principle of the limitation of knowledge. Every teacher and inspired man has his own proper sphere, to reach the highest in which is enough to justify his special claims. Does Homer, or Plato, or Phidias suffer in human estimation because of their ignorance of the scientific commonplaces of today? And shall the character and claims of Christ, whose pure life and sacrifice lifted mankind to the highest moral level, and has

been the greatest force in humanity ever since, be depreciated because He had no knowledge of astronomy," in comparison with some unnamed Chinese astronomer who "observed in China in the year 2697 B.C., an eclipse of the sun?"1 When we think of what Christ has been, in spiritnal purpose and moral vigour, to humanity, the irreverence of reflecting on Him as ignorant of science, "far below the level of classical culture," and "having no suspicion of the advanced stage to which Greek philosophy and science had progressed (p. 110), is only equalled by its inconsequence."2

That Christ's teaching was anticipated by Eastern sages is equally pointless. The question is not who first uttered "the Golden Rule," to take Haeckel's one example, but who so put ethical truthstaught them with supreme and convincing force that they arrested and changed human thought, and became part of man's moral heritage for ever? What effect had the teaching of Confucius, Aristotle, Thales, &c., on human life and character compared with that of Christ? And the reason of Christ's greater influence is plain. He taught moral precepts in conjunction with the loftiest religious truths-truths of which the old-world philosophers knew nothing; or, as Haeckel approvingly remarks in the case of Confucius, "rejected (p. 124)—e.g., "the idea of a personal God and the immortality of the soul."3 The verdict of history has certainly not justified this unseemly comparison. Impartial critics, like Strauss and Renan, and agnostics like J. S. Mill, Greg, Lecky, and others, all allow that Christ's lofty character and unique revelation threw around His ethical ideas a halo of spiritual force and authority which belongs to no other moral teacher. Strauss, whom Haeckel is very

fond of quoting, says:

46

Amongst the personages to whom mankind is indebted for the perfecting of its moral consciousness, Jesus occupies, at any rate, the highest place. He introduced into our ideal of goodness some features in which it was deficient before He appeared. With reference to all that bears upon the love of God and of our neighbour, upon purity of heart, and upon the individual life, nothing can be added to the moral intuition which Jesus Christ has left us." 27 4

of regarding it as wholly governed by "mechanical laws." In arguing that "the fate of nations and races is determined by the same 'eternal laws of iron' as the history of the whole organic world," he overlooks two of its most important factors-individual will and social growth. In order to obliterate all traces of “ moral principle and "moral order" in human progress, Haeckel institutes a comparison between the successive stages in the existence of animals and plants and the rise and decay of nations (p. 96). There is here, doubtless, a certain superficial analogy—just that half-truth which is the worst of falsehoods-but it entirely ignores many fundamental differences. The stages of animal and plant life here described are prehistoric; within the historic time they have, except for artificial cultivation, remained stationary; progress, in the true sense, has ceased, and never was comparable in nature with human progress or left any deposit behind it other than a material one. In each of these respects the progress of "nations and races" offers the strongest contrast to that of nature. This has occurred in historic time, has never ceased-is, in fact, manifestly perpetual-each stage leaving behind it an intellectual and moral deposit essential to subsequent progress. In this way the stages of human progress are really one and indivisible, linked together from age to age by forces which have no existence in the world of animals and plants. In the case of the latter, decay means absolute destruction to the individual, but in that of mankind, the influence of the individual will, and the tendencies of social growth, may live and work long after "nations and races" have passed away. It cannot, therefore, be true that, as Haeckel says, "It has been just the same with the history of humanity" as with "the history of the earth."

By contrasting what is possible in human progress on Haeckel's hypothesis, which excludes all spontaneous volition and moral force, with the actual facts, which include individual will and social growth, we shall plainly see the falseness of the foregoing assertion.

Individual Will.-There are certain moral facts which every normal man recognises as axioms. Two endowments, the possession of intelligence and the power of will to choose between right and wrong; and two perceptions arising out of these endowments, the difference between virtue and vice, and the sense of responsibility for following the former, both differentiate man from the inferior creation. But if "the history of humanity" were simply the result of "mechanical laws," if "the human will had no freedom than that of the higher animals" (p. 47), there would evidently be no place in history, either for these endowments or these perceptions which have plainly so largely moulded it. If Progress be a mere process of mechanical determinism, human intelligence is useless, virtue and vice non-existent, and moral responsibility impossible.

But consciousness, as well as facts, proves