RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Evolution
7. Modifica. tions of Spencer.
The notion of gods is supposed to arise from the idea of a ghostly life after death. In his Principles of Ethics he attempts a similar compromise between intuitionism and empiricism, deducing the consciousness of duty from innumerable accumulated experiences. The compelling element in moral actions, originally arising from fear of religious, civil, or social punishment, disappears with the development of true morality. There is no permanent opposition between egoism and altruism, but the latter develops simultaneously with the former.
Spencer's ethical principles were fruitfully modified, especially by Sir Leslie Stephen and S. Alexander, though with constant adherence to the idea of development. While the doctrine of evolution in Huxley and Tyndall is associated with agnosticism, and thus freed from all connection with metaphysics, as indeed was the case with Spencer, in spite of his recognition of the Absolute as the necessary basis for religion and for thought, in another direction an attempt was made to combine evolutionism closely with a metaphysics in which the idea of God was prominent. Thus the evolution theory of Clifford and Romanes led them to a thoroughgoing monism, and that of J. M. F. Schille^to pluralism. According to the last-named a personal deity, limited in power, exists side by side with a multitude of intellectual beings, who existed before the formation of the world in a chaotic state as absolutely isolated individuals. The process of world formation begins with the decision of the divine Spirit to bring a harmony of the cosmos out of these many existences. Though Spencer's influence in philosophical development was not so great in Germany as in England, the idea of development has continued in recent years to exert no little power. Space forbids more than a mention of Lotze's teleological idealism; Von Hartmann's absolute monism, in which the goal of the teleological development of the universe is the reversion of the will into not-willing; Wundt's metaphysics of the will, according to which the world is a development, an eternal becoming, in which nature is a preliminary stage to mind; and Nietzsche's individualism, the final point of which is the development of the superman. (M. Heinze.)
V. Relation to Modern Theology: When the Darwinian hypothesis was first broached in Great Britain and America it caused nothing less than a panic in nearly all circles of religious thought. The fear was that if it was true it must result in the transformation of all religious values. Here and there it was indeed advocated by distinguished scientists and theologians in the interests of faith, but it was for the most part met by fierce and prolonged opposition. The following beliefs became the center of interest and have remained such until the present day. (1) The Biblical account of the creation: whether it had a beginning; whether God was the Creator, or the world was eternally in process of becoming; further, whether the Genesis story could be harmonized with geology, astronomy, biology, archeology, and other sciences. (2) The Biblical account of man; whether he was wholly and imme-
diately created by God, or, even if his body was organically related to the animal world, his mind was a direct creation, or finally, whether both body and mind shared in the development from lower forms of life. (3) Concerning man's personal history: whether he began in a state of " original righteousness " from which he fell only to be recovered by a miraculous intervention, or started low down, at the outset scarcely to be distinguished from the highest existing animal consciousness. (4) Involved in man's personal history was a profound modification of the origin and development of the idea of God from the lowest fetishism or animism through polytheism to ethical monotheism (see Comparative Religion, VI., 1), of the idea of the Scriptures as not inerrant and infallible, but as recording the stages through which man's consciousness has passed in its apprehension of the ethical and religious meaning of life, and of the entire range of Christian beliefs — providence, sin and evil, the person and work of Christ, the Christian life, the Church, and the future. A similar change of values has occurred in other regions of thought. (5) In psychology and ethics (q.v.) the static has given place to the genetic and historic point of view. (6) In apologetics (q.v.) for the traditional conception of prophecy as predictive and miracles as out of relation to natural law has been substituted the spiritual and dynamic doctrine of man and the world. (7) The philosophy of religion has found in comparative religion the key to its interpretation of religion as a fact of universal human experience. (8) While the uniqueness of Christianity is recognized — now more than ever before— its organic relation to pre-Christian types of experience is the subject of exhaustive inquiry and its development as a system of beliefs, institutions, and ideals becomes more clearly evident to students of its history.
Since evolution as a scientific theory is only a method according to which at any given period existing conditions have come into being, it does not primarily concern the grounds of reality. It is atheistic only when as a philosophy it reduces the world-ground to a system of mechanical necessity (see Atheism). When, however, the ultimate reality is conceived as a power realizing rational ends in the universe, evolution is affirmed as the uniform method by which this power fulfils its purposes (cf. B. P. Bowne, Theism, New York, 1902).
C. A. B.
Bibliography: From the philosophic standpoint for ancient and modern periods best for consultation are the works on the history of philosophy by E. Zeller (Die Philosophic der Griechen), Tubingen, 1844, latest ed., 1892, Eng. transl., 1897; W. Windelband, Freiburg, 1890-92, Eng. transl., New York, 1893; F. Ueberweg, 10th ed. by Heinze, Berlin, 1903-07, Eng. transl. of 4th ed., London, 1875-76; J. E. Erdmann, 2 vols., Berlin, 1895-96, Eng. transl. of earliered., 3 vols. London, 1892-98. Forthe modern period: F.Bowen, Modern Philosophy, New York, 1877; K. Fischer, Geschichte der neueren Philosophic vol. i., Heidelberg, 1897, Eng. transl. of earlier ed., New York, 1887.
For philosophy of the representatives of thought mentioned in the text consult: G. Teichmuller, Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe, pp. 1-70, 545-588, Berlin, 1844 (on Anaximander); W. Wallace, Epicureanism, London, 1880; F. Lassalle, Die Philosophic Herakleitos, Berlin, 1892; P. Tannery, La Cosmogonie d'Empedocle, in Revue philosophique, xxiv (1887), 285-300; A. Brieger,
Evolution Exclusion, Right of