Monism as Connecting Religion and Science | Page 6

nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical;
they are inert (in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and

impenetrable by the ether. Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most
important characteristic of these ultimate atoms is their chemical
affinity--their tendency to apply themselves to one another and
combine into small groups in an orderly fashion. These fixed groups
(fixed, that is to say, under the present physical conditions of existence
of the earth) of primitive atoms are the atoms of the elements--the
well-known "indivisible" atoms of chemistry. The qualitative, and, so
far as our present empirical knowledge goes, unchangeable distinctions
of our chemical elements are therefore solely conditioned by the
varying number and disposition of the similar primitive atoms of which
they are composed. Thus, for example, the atom of carbon (the real
"maker" of the organic world) is in all probability a tetrahedron made
up of four primitive atoms.
After Mendelejeff and Lothar Meyer had discovered (1869) the
"periodic law" of the chemical elements, and founded on it a "natural
system" of these elements, this important advance in theoretical
chemistry was subsequently put to profitable use by Gustav Wendt
from an evolutionary point of view. He endeavoured to show that the
various elements are products of evolution or of historically originating
combinations of seven primary elements, and that these last again are
historical products of one single primitive element This hypothetical
original matter had been already designated by Crookes, in his Genesis
of the Elements, as primary material or protyl.[10] The empirical proof
of the existence of this original matter lying at the foundation of all
ponderable material is perhaps only a question of time. Its discovery
would probably realise the alchemists' hope of being able to produce
gold and silver artificially out of other elements. But then arises the
other great question: "How is this primary mass related to the cosmic
ether? Do these two original substances stand in fundamental and
eternal antithesis to one another? Or was it the mobile ether itself,
perhaps, that originally engendered the heavy mass?"[11]
In answer to this great and fundamental question, various physical
hypotheses have been put forward. But, like the various atomic theories
of chemistry, they have not as yet been clearly established, and the
same appears to me to be the case also with the ingenious hypothesis
which the lecturer has unfolded to us with reference to the Influence of
Space. As he himself rightly says, in all these endeavours after a

philosophy of nature we are still, for the present, dealing with
"scientific articles of faith," concerning the validity of which different
persons, according to their subjective judgment and stage of culture,
may have widely divergent views. I believe that the solution of these
fundamental questions still lies as yet beyond the limits of our
knowledge of nature, and that we shall be obliged, for a long time yet
to come, to content ourselves with an "Ignoramus"--if not even with an
"Ignorabimus."
The case is very different, however, if we turn from these atomistic
element hypotheses and direct our attention to the historical conditions
of the evolution of the world, as these have been revealed to us by the
magnificent advances in our knowledge of nature which have been
made within the last thirty years. An immense new territory has here
been opened up to us in the realms of knowledge--a territory in which a
series of most important problems, formerly held to be insoluble, has
been answered in the most surprising manner.[12]
Among the triumphs of the human mind the modern doctrine of
evolution takes a foremost place. Guessed at by Goethe a hundred years
ago, but not expressed in definite form until formulated by Lamarck in
the beginning of the present century, it was at last, thirty years ago,
decisively established by Charles Darwin, his theory of selection filling
up the gap which Lamarck in his doctrine of the reciprocal influence of
heredity and adaptation had left open. We now definitely know that the
organic world on our earth has been as continuously developed, "in
accordance with eternal iron laws," as Lyell had in 1830 shown to be
the case for the inorganic frame of the earth itself; we know that the
innumerable varieties of animals and plants which during the course of
millions of years have peopled our planet are all simply branches of
one single genealogical tree; we know that the human race itself forms
only one of the newest, highest, and most perfect offshoots from the
race of the Vertebrates.
An unbroken series of natural events, following an orderly course of
evolution according to fixed laws, now leads the reflecting human spirit
through long aeons from a primeval chaos to the present "order of the
cosmos." At the outset there is nothing