RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Evolution
natura naturata, as distinguished from the operative nature of God, natura naturans, which is present in all tilings as the being of all that is, the beauty of all that is fair. As in the Stoic teaching, with which Bruno's philosophy has much in common, the conception of evolution comes out clearly both for physics and metaphysics.
IV. The Theory in Modern Philosophy: Leibnitz attempted to reconcile the mechanical-physical and the teleological views, after Descartes, in his Principia philosophies, excluding all purpose, had explained nature, both lifeless and living, as mere mechanism. It is right, however, to
1. Des- p0int out tha Descartes had a metacar es, phySics above his physics, in which
w d ' the conception of God took an important place, and that thus the mechanical notion of evolution did not really include everything. In Leibnitz the principles of mechanics and physics are dependent upon the direction of a supreme intelligence, without which they would be inexplicable to us. Only by such a preliminary assumption are we able to recognize that one ordered thing follows upon another continuously. Iu is in this sense that the law of continuity is to be understood, which is of such great importance in Leibnitz. At bottom it is the same as the law of ordered development. The genera of all beings follow continuously one upon another, and between the main classes, as between animals and vegetables, there must be a continuous sequence of intermediate beings. Here again, however, evolution is not taught in its most thorough form, since the divine monad, of God, does not come into the world but transcends it.
Among the German philosophers of the eighteenth century Herder must be mentioned first of the pioneers of modern evolutionism. He lays down the doctrine of a continuous development in the unity of nature from inorganic to organic, from the stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, and from the animal to man. As nature develops according to fixed laws and natural conditions, so does history, which is only a continuation of the process of nature. Both nature and history labor to educate man in perfect humanity; but as this is seldom attained, a future life is suggested. Lessing had dwelt on the education of the human race as a development to the higher and more perfect. It is only recently that the significance of Herder, in regard to the conception and treatment of historic development, has been adequately recognized. Goethe also followed out the idea of evolution in his zoological and botanical investigations, with his theory of the metamorphosis of plants and his endeavor to discover unity in- different organisms.
Kant is also often mentioned as having been an
early teacher of the modern theory of descent.
It is true he considers the analogy of the forms
which he finds in various classes of
CV. if'11 ' organisms a ground for supposing
and Others *;nat they may have come originally
from a common source. He calls the
hypothesis that specifically different beings have
originated one from the other " a daring adventure
of the reason." But he entertains the thought that in a later epoch " an orang-outang or a chimpanzee may develop the organs which serve for walking, grasping objects, and speaking— in short, that he may evolve the structure of man, with an organ for the use of reason, which shall gradually develop itself by social culture." Here, indeed, important ideas of Darwin were anticipated; but Kant's critical system was such that development could have no predominant place in it.
The idea of evolution came out more strongly in his German idealistic successors, especially in Schelling, who regarded nature as a preliminary stage to mind, and the process of physical development as continuing in history. The unconscious productions of nature are only unsuccessful attempts to reflect itself; lifeless nature is an immature intelligence, so that in its phenomena an intelligent character appears only unconsciously. Its highest aim, that of becoming an object to itself, is only attained in the highest and last reflection — in man, or in what we call reason, through which for the first time nature returns perfectly upon itself. All stages of nature are connected by a common life, and show in their development a conclusive unity. The course of history as a whole must be conceived as offering a gradually progressive revelation of the Absolute. For this ha names three periods — that of fate, that of nature, and that of providence, of which we are now in the second. Schelling's followers carried the idea of development somewhat further than their master. This is true especially of Oken, who conceives natural science as the science of the eternal transformation of God into the world, of the dissolution of the Absolute into plurality, and of its continuous further operation in this plurality. The development is continued through the vegetable and animal kingdoms up to man, who in his art and science and polity completely establishes the will of nature. Oken, it is true, conceived man as the sole object of all animal development, so that the lower stages are only abortive attempts to produce him — a theory afterward controverted by Ernst von Baer and Cuvier, the former of whom, standing somewhat in opposition to Darwin, is of great interest to the student of the history of the theory of evolution.
Some evolutionistic ideas are found in Krause
and Schleiermacher; but Hegel, with his absolute
idealism, is a more notable representa-
3. Schleier- ^jve Qf ^nem_ jn bis system philosophy
is the science of the Absolute, of the ab-
macher and Hegel.
solute reason developing or unfolding itself. Reason develops itself first in the abstract element of thought, then expresses itself externally in nature, and finally returns from this externalization into itself in mind. As Heraclitus had taught eternal becoming, so Hegel, who avowedly accepted all the propositions of the Ephesian philosopher in his logic, taught eternal proceeding. The difference between the Greek and the German was that the former believed in the flux of matter, of fire transmuting itself by degrees into all things, and in nature as the sole existence, outside of which there was nothing; while the latter conceived the
Evolution