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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Price, 75 Cents. 
 
 Monism and Meliorism, 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY 
 
 CAUSALITY AND ETHICS. 
 
 PAUL CARUS, 
 
 PH. D. (TUBINGEN). 
 
 TAri7.ovrt 6e to. ;^;a/)i(T//ara rd Kpeirova' 
 Kal £Ti lids' i'7Z£p[3o2,^v bSov vfj.lv SeiKvv/uai. 
 I Corinlh. xii. 31. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 F. W. CHRISTERN, 37 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET.
 
 Monism and Meliorism, 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY 
 
 CAUSALITY AND ETHICS. 
 
 PAUL CARUS 
 
 PH. D. (TUBINGEN). 
 
 Kal ETi Kad' v-irepfiolijv 66bv v/ulv deinvvfiai. 
 I Corinth, xii. 31. 
 
 NEW YORK;: 
 F. W. CHRISTERN, 37 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 
 
 1885.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by Paul Carus, at the office 
 of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 
 
 The Cherouny Printing & Publishing Co., 
 17-23 Vandewater St., New York.
 
 ^ Jc^>s^. 7 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGES. 
 
 Preface 5-7 
 
 a: SECTION I. 
 
 Kant's Philosophy . - - 9-28 
 
 SECTION II. 
 Causality 29-44 
 
 CO 
 
 '' SECTION III. 
 
 00 
 
 — First Cause and Final Cause 45-55 
 
 5 SECTION IV. 
 
 The Trinity of Monism 5^-63 
 
 X SECTION V. 
 
 -J 
 
 J^ Ethics 64-77 
 
 It. 
 (t 
 
 Definitions and Explanations 78-83 
 
 4 li«7<f?r- -;3 ,3
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I DELIVER to the American public a philosophical system, 
 comprised under the name of Monism atid Meliorism,'^ two 
 words which have been used by different philosophers, and which, 
 for some time, have indicated, as it were, the direction of the 
 development of philosophic thought. 
 
 Monism is the ideal which no one hitherto has been able to 
 realize satisfactorily, though many have tried to do so. It has 
 become, therefore, the watch-word of diverse parties, who lacked the 
 solid basis, on which to erect the building of such a conception of 
 the worid, as might be well founded in its cornerstone and harmo- 
 nious in its structure. 
 
 The cornerstone to be chosen is causality and the only criterion 
 by which any philosophical theory can be tested and verified, is 
 given in its doctrine of ethics. But on both subjects the greatest 
 confusion prevails, both of them being problems, which still wait for 
 a definite solution. And after so many attempts, a new solution, in 
 consonance with modern science, by which the old controversies 
 may be reconciled, is extremely desirable. 
 
 The novelty of the solution here proposed does not consist in 
 bringing forward new and startling views ; quite the contrarj' ! The 
 
 * We define Monism as a conception of the world which traces all things 
 back to one source, thus explaining all problems from one principle; and 
 Meliorism as a contemplation of life, which refusing optimism as well as 
 pessimism, finds the purpose of living in the aspiration of a constant progress 
 to some higher state of existence ; in one word, in perpetual labor for ame- 
 lioration.
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 true philosopher must endeavor to avoid originaUty as much as 
 possible, and cling with full concentration of mind to impartial 
 investigation. Original ideas often allure and dazzle with a fine 
 brilliancy, but they are treacherous owing to the verj- subjectivit)' 
 which renders them so attractive. Objectivity in philosophical re- 
 search does not create a sensation, as it does not take men's fancy ; 
 yet, its results, if true, will stand forever. And this disinterested, 
 impartial objectivity will shed a new light on questions, which, dif- 
 ficult in themselves, have been confounded and entangled by the 
 hatred and struggle of obtruding and intervening interests. 
 
 The latest step taken by the progressive party in philosophy, is 
 the theor}- of the Positive School, founded by INI. Auguste Comte, 
 supported by Mr, John Stuart Mill and in closest relation to the 
 system of Mr. Herbert Spencer. These gentlemen say that posi- 
 tivism has taken its stand on positive facts. But Comte forgot the 
 main point. He did not give any touchstone, which would enable 
 us to distinguish, whether we have to deal with positive facts or 
 with illusions. Kant did not overlook this difficulty, and it was 
 through no mere child's play that he took such a seemingly round- 
 about way. If he did not succeed, it was merely because he lost 
 himself in the intricate paths and windings of his strange idealism 
 and abandoned the problem of causality, from which alone the 
 solution of philosophical questions can be expected. 
 
 Convinced of the importance of this topic, I venture an attempt 
 at unravelling its Gordian knot. Cutting the knot will not do in 
 philosophy, as it certainly would in politics ; and so we have to dis- 
 entangle its intricacies carefully and patiently, in hope that after all 
 they may be simpler than they seem to be. 
 
 The present essay contains the chief points of my argument and 
 I sincerily trust that I have succeeded so far as to have realized what 
 David Hume and Immanuel Kant planned, and to have brought to
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 a certain consummation what they intended to do. I hold that this 
 philosophy of Monis?}i and 3felionsm w'xW prove the natural outcome 
 of former systems and will clear away many difficulties seemingly 
 insurmountable. 
 
 The plan of this little essay contains five articles, the first of which 
 is on Kant being merely an introduction, and, so to say, the pedestal 
 of the others, in which the new theories are propounded. Causality 
 is the beginning, ethics the aim and end of this philosophy. These 
 two points being fixed, the whole system is sketched in its outlines. 
 All other questions are of minor importance and may find their 
 answers by simply drawing inferences from what has been stated on 
 causality and ethics. 
 
 It is superfluous to crave indulgence, where I may possibly have 
 been mistaken. The task is difficult and greater men than I have 
 erred regarding the same topics which I treat in this little pamphlet. 
 
 If Kant compared his work to that of Copernicus, I may fairly 
 liken mine to that of Kepler who filled out the Copernican system 
 and reduced the law of motion of planets to simple mathematical 
 formulae. The future will show whether my confidence is justified 
 or not. Should it prove excessive, I hope, at least, that this essay 
 will do something to further and give impulse to the solution of the 
 deepest, the most important and the most difficult problem of life, 
 so that my work shall not have been entirely in vain, nor my labor 
 altogether wasted. 
 
 New York, 1885. 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY.* 
 
 § I. KANT'S REVOLUTION IN THE EMPIRE OF 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 KANT'S greatness need not be praised ; it is known 
 and acknowledged wherever philosophy is studied, 
 and its enormous influence on the development of Germany 
 directly and of humanity indirectly may be perceived in 
 literature as well as in the policy of Church and State. 
 Kant's Critique of Pure Reason marks the beginning 
 of a new era and, at the same time, the conclusion of 
 a period longer than a thousand years. What Luther 
 did for religion, and Copernicus for science, Kant has 
 done for philosophic thought. He is the representative 
 of the revolutionary spirit of the eighteenth century, 
 which produced new humanitarian ideals and a new ar- 
 rangement of society. In France the old throne of the 
 Bourbons was overturned, and in America, for the first 
 time, a republic was founded on the basis of individual 
 freedom and human rights. A deep, wide ocean lies be- 
 tween the quiet town of Konigsberg, where the German 
 philosopher dwelt, and the shores of New England. But 
 in spite of the distance, in spite of the physical gap, 
 the movements on both sides were the result of the 
 same cause ; and, occurring in the same century, were, at 
 the same time, psychically connected with each other. 
 However, while the revolution in France was social, and 
 that of America political, the revolution inaugurated by 
 Kant was philosophic. 
 
 * This Lecture is not intended to explain the system and argu- 
 mentation, but merely the drift and tendency of Kantian philosophy.
 
 lO MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 The earthquake of the French revolution was on the 
 surface ; that of Germany lay deeper, though its results 
 were not perceived so quickly as those experienced un- 
 der the terrorism in the noisy capital on the banks of 
 the Seine. Kant reversed the basis, on which human 
 knowledge and the ideas of '^ Soul, World and God" 
 rested. He reversed it, and, pari passu, gave the de- 
 velopment of human thought a new direction. There- 
 fore he was more than a mere revolutionist. Robes- 
 pierre and his gang destroyed, but were unable to build 
 anew. 
 
 Kant cleared the place where the rotten edifice of 
 metaphysics had stood so long, and at the same time 
 contrived a plan for constructing another and a better 
 building, which, as expressed by himself, would not prove 
 so lofty a structure, as the dome of ontologic thought 
 had been, the bold spire of which was raised to the 
 clouds. The edifice he proposed to build could be likened 
 to a mansion, neither high nor grand, without steeples 
 or battlements, but simple and plain, just fit to live in. 
 The systems of philosophy before Kant, though divine 
 and magnificent, like the Gothic cathedral of the Middle 
 ages, were castles in the air, enchantingly splendid, but 
 unsubstantial and transient like the Fata Morgana. 
 Kant's philosophy is neither showy nor pretentious, but 
 as a compensation it has the great merit of solidity. 
 
 Before I enter into details, let me mention that such a 
 subject as Kantian philosophy can scarcely be exhausted. 
 If I venture on so broad a field, devoting no more space to 
 it than one article allows, I shall have to limit myself, or 
 we shall be lost in the innumerable windings of a labyrinth. 
 I shall confine myself, therefore, to one of the principal 
 points, which, though openly laid down in Kant's works, 
 has been hitherto rather too much neglected. I mean 
 his dtialisvi ; it, I maintain, has been overlooked, under-
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. II 
 
 rated and misinterpreted by many of his disciples and 
 followers, and has usually been regarded as his blind 
 side. This dualism of Kant's will, I trust, prove to be 
 the key to his philosophy and give us admittance to the 
 work-shop of his strange ideas. 
 
 Speaking of Kant, I run the risk of being attacked by 
 at least half of his adherents, for, as the Bible is inter- 
 preted differently by different confessions and sects, so 
 Kant's philosophy has been explained by different men 
 in different ways, which are often contrary, and even 
 sometimes contradictory, to each other. Such a lack of 
 harmony, however, proves how little hitherto the Ko- 
 nigsberg philosopher has been understood, and how far 
 our time is from having outgrown or encompassed the 
 gigantic expanse of his thought. 
 
 § 2. KANT'S CRITICISM IS A COMBINATION OF HUME'S 
 SCEPTICISM AND WOLF'S DOGMATISM. 
 
 Everywhere we perceive in this world antagonistic 
 principles at war with each other. For instance, in the 
 formation of the earth two forces are active, the centri- 
 petal and the centrifugal. And so similar principles, op- 
 posed to each other, govern the growth of social and 
 political life ; everywhere there are Whigs and Tories, 
 Republicans and Democrats, under diverse names. The 
 same fact we perceive in the empire of philosophic 
 thought, and its development seems to swing to and 
 fro like a pendulum between the two extremes, giving 
 ascendency now to this and now to that one. And from 
 this very antagonism of hostile principles there starts 
 order and arrangement. Both principles, seemingly in- 
 compatible and irreconcilable, tend to the same end and 
 each is indispensable in the system produced by their 
 struggle.
 
 12 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 The antagonistic principles in philosophy were in their 
 extremes Spiritiialisiit, as propounded by Berkeley, and 
 Materialism, as defended by Condillac, Holbach, and 
 their French friends. In a similar way, though more 
 moderately, it is shown to-day in the Realism of modern 
 science and the Idealism of transcendental philosophy. 
 
 One of these antagonistic principles, the material- 
 ism of the French School, was developed in the more 
 cautious English mind of Locke as Sensualism, based on 
 the doctrine: Nihil est in intellectii, quod no7i anteafu- 
 erit in sensu. And this denial of any subjective basis of 
 knowledge in the human mind, or as they used to ex- 
 press it, of innate ideas, led as a natural consequence to 
 Hume's scepticism. Simultaneously Leibnitz's idealism in 
 Germany became crystalised into the systematic struc- 
 ture of Wolf's dogmatism. And this opposition between 
 the British scepticism and the German dogmatism gave 
 rise to Kant's criticism. Being born of a union of these 
 bitter enemies, his philosophy shows traces of both ; 
 and as they are propounded independently of and even 
 in a clearly exhibited opposition to each other, we may 
 call Kant's system fairly diialistic. 
 
 It was perhaps the most difficult task for Kant's in- 
 terpreters to harmonize the antagonistic principles and 
 make the very contradictory views which he stated agree. 
 Some tried to deny the dualism, some eliminated the con- 
 tradictions in one way or another, but only a few, if any 
 at all, openly accepted and acknowledged it. Even Kuno 
 Fischer, who is perhaps his most impartial interpreter, is 
 cautious about depicting Kant so fundamentally/dualistic 
 as he is, and treats his antinomies as a kind of subordi- 
 nate part in his system. 
 
 Many-sided as he was, Kant suggested more than he 
 taught. His ideas are rather innuendoes than decisions. 
 Thus he incorporated the antagonistic principles of his
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 3 
 
 time in his philosophy, but left the working out of the 
 solution to posterity. However there was no one to 
 undertake this task, especially as in Germany a power- 
 ful reaction ensued through Hegel ; and so every one 
 took from Kant what he pleased and left all other things 
 of his alone. Thus Kant gave on one hand a solid basis 
 to build upon, yet no dogmatic system ; and on the 
 other hand, just by his want of dogmatism, his critical 
 method invited and induced men of different turns of 
 mind and even of opposite directions to make use of his 
 materials. Every one found or could at least find some- 
 thing that suited him. There were on the one side the 
 philosophers of creed and faith, die GlaubenspJiilosophen, 
 for instance Heinrich Jacobi ; on the other extreme, 
 atheists traced their very atheism back to Kant. 
 
 In the same way all schools after Socrates took their 
 start from him, and this fact alone is sufficient to show 
 that both Socrates in Grecian times and Kant in our 
 modern days commenced a new epoch. Although the 
 period after Socrates can boast of many glorious names, 
 as Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Epicurus; and others, 
 yet I do not believe that it was a time of advancement 
 and actual progress. It went into decay at length, los- 
 ing itself in the nonsence of the mysticism of Neo-Pla- 
 tonism. And why .'^ Because of the one-sidedness of the 
 Grecian philosophers. After Socrates there rose no one 
 who aspired to combine all the antagonistic principles 
 and give each of them its due. There was no one bold 
 enough to lead the inaiotic {fxaiGoriKoz) method of Socra- 
 tes to a monism in which the controversies of the past 
 could acquiesce. 
 
 Let us learn from old Greece, What we need in our 
 days is neither Radicalism nor the philosophy of creed 
 and faith, but both united. The mere radicalism which 
 leaves the heart empty, will breed superstition as a
 
 14 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 substitute for the loss of religion ; and the philosophy of 
 creed and faith, demanding (as Prof. Stahl really did) 
 that science should return to belief, leads to bigotry. And 
 does not the spiritualism of our days remind us very much 
 of the Neo-Platonism of ancient history } So one-sided- 
 ness tends to the same end. At length it will make 
 philosophy a scientificated superstition. So the need of 
 our time is not to declare in favor of either of the opposed 
 principles and, at the same time, to flatly deny the 
 right of the contrary. No ! We must investigate both 
 carefully, in hope that from a higher view they may be 
 reconcilable and conformable. 
 
 Granted that Kant failed, as I think he did, in com- 
 bining both standpoints into a higher unity, yet he 
 showed in what direction the philosophic development 
 tended. Therefore it is not the results of his philosophy 
 that make him great and give importance to his ideas, but 
 his method. Philosophers, however, like Auguste Comte, 
 John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer, who imagined that 
 they could easily dispense with Kant, are entirely mis- 
 taken. Though Comte and his adherents condemn 
 Kant simply as a metaphysical philosopher, and propose 
 what they call Positivism, a philosophy of utmost radical- 
 ism, as they thought, it is clear that they lack critique 
 and method. They overlooked the difficulty, as they did 
 not fathom the depth of Kant ; and, where Kant inquired 
 carefully, weighing the pros and cons, they jumped at their 
 conclusion. They endeavored to outdo each other in 
 radicalism and had no idea, that their own radicalism 
 was child's play compared with the radical thoroughness 
 of Kantian Critique, in spite of all the conservatism which 
 Kant exhibited at the same time. 
 
 Kant is a giant among his fellow philosophers, not 
 merely because he startled the world with a new theory 
 of space and time, not merely because his system is the
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 5 
 
 greatest puzzle to the world even to-day, and certainly 
 not because he has given ascendency to the radical phi- 
 losophy in the face of the dogmatic doctrines which were 
 very powerful in Germany in his days. Kant was not the 
 hero of one faction ; he stood above parties and showed 
 his greatness by embracing them all. His critical method 
 is actually a principle of justice. The sceptic may have 
 his say, but afterwards the dogmatist may be allowed 
 to make the best of what is left and to construct his 
 dogmas on the ruins of scepticism. In the Critique of 
 pure reason, Kant is radical ; he shows that time and / 
 space are no realities, that in consequence of that, 
 the world as it exists in time and space is a mere phe- 
 nomenon, and that soul as well as God are nothing but 
 noumena — mere concepts. We fancy that we perceive in 
 the world certain purposes proving the premeditative 
 wisdom of a creator, but such a teleology or doctrine of 
 purposes is an imagination and simply a paralogism of 
 pure reason ; for it is only according to the law of 
 causality that the affairs of the world are regulated. Be- 
 fore Kant, no one was so radical and thorough, and yet 
 this very same man propounds in his Critique of Practical 
 Reason the three postulates, God, Freedom and Immor- 
 tality, contradicting the results of his Critique of Pure 
 Reason. 
 
 So Kant's philosophy appears to consist of two souls, 
 the one sceptical and radical, the other dogmatic and 
 believing. The greatest German poet of the same period, 
 Wolfgang Goethe, in his philosophic poetry, makes Faust 
 say to Wagner, who represents the philistine pedantry, 
 and who, like all average men, has only one soul : 
 
 " One impulse art thou conscious of at best, 
 O never seek to know the other, 
 Two souls, alas ! reside within my breast. 
 And each withdraws from and repels its brother."
 
 1 6 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 Kant with his private character has not in the least 
 impeached Goethe's idea of Faust. The more noteworthy- 
 it is that in describing a philosopher, the poet could not 
 help imputing to him a dualism similar to that of Kant. 
 Goethe had the same two souls within himself; and so 
 has every great impartial man whose horizon reaches 
 farther than that of the smaller creatures around and be- 
 neath him, 
 
 § 3. WHICH IS THE REAL KANT ? 
 
 Yet concerning this dualism in the Kantian philos- 
 ophy, it is not astonishing that people were puzzled 
 and asked, which is now the real Kant. Naturally, the 
 Kantians are divided into two principal camps, the radi- 
 cals and the dogmatists. Both of them stand upon Kant. 
 But the radicals (for instance Schopenhauer) say, that 
 the real Kant is the critical philosopher, who was, as they 
 pretend, so weak that he was afraid of losing his professor- 
 ship, and, therefore, stooped to hypocrisy. The orthodox 
 party, however, to which belong the elite of Germany's 
 philosophically trained clergymen, think that the Kant of 
 the Practical Reason is the true Kant. The Critique of 
 Pure Reason is merely written, they say, to show where 
 human philosophy arrives, if left to drift in its isolation, 
 without divine illumination. Therefore, they infer, God 
 had to reveal himself, and so practical reason teaches us 
 that we have simply to accept the fundamental facts of 
 such a revelation as Christianity affords, namely, the ideas 
 of God, Freedom (which means moral responsibility) and 
 Itnmortality. 
 
 In answer to Schopenhauer and his adherents we must 
 indeed concede that, when Kant was rebuked by the 
 government, he yielded to the pressure and promised 
 obedience. But this does not explain his dualism, as it
 
 KANTS PHILOSOPHY. 1 7 
 
 was prior to these persecutions ; for he had nothing to 
 fear under the rule of the liberal Frederick the Great. 
 And when this reproof was made, Kant had already 
 written all the essential books of his philosophy, and 
 there is no reason for such a suspicion as that of Schopen- 
 hauer.* 
 
 The view taken by erudite theologians has scarcely 
 ever been recognized among philosophers, as it savored 
 too strongly of theology. Nevertheless, if it be allowed 
 to philosophers to eliminate the practical side for the sake 
 of harmony, why should not theologians be permitted to 
 reject the theoretical part for the same reason } The men 
 that do so, consider Kant as an agnostic. If nothing 
 can be said definitely against the other world and 
 another life, especially if nothing can be said in favor 
 of, nor anything against, the existence of God, is it then 
 not best, they say, simply to accept revelation as a 
 satisfactory solution of the problem of life .-* Well, they 
 may do so, and if they feel satisfied with their philosophy 
 of faith and creed, they can entirely dispense with the 
 Critique of Pure Reason. Of what use is it, if the pre- 
 destined end is no science, but belief.'* ! 
 
 Kant, to be sure, though he is not of the first named 
 type, as the radicals interpret his philosophy, does not, 
 
 * Max Miiller, in regard to the discord about the first and second 
 edition of the Critique refutes these unjust intimations and accusa- 
 tions of Schopenhauer. He says : "The active reactionary measures 
 by which Kant is supposed to have been frightened, date from a later 
 period. Zedlitz, Kant's friend and protector, was not replaced by 
 Wollner as minister till 1788. It was not till 1794 that Kant was 
 really warned and reprimanded by the cabinet ; and we must not 
 judge too harshly of the old philosopher, when at his time of life 
 and in the state of paternal despotism in Prussia, he wrote back to 
 say, that he would do even more than was demanded of him and 
 abstain in future from all public lectures concerning religion, whether 
 natural or revealed."
 
 1 8 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 on the other hand, answer to the ideal of the second fac- 
 tion. His Critique of Pure Reason, sweeping and thorough- 
 going as it is, was at least as sincere as that of the Prac- 
 tical Reason, which is constructive and conservative. 
 There is no doubt that either both of these two parties 
 are to be acknowledged as right and legitimate, or neither; 
 and I think sufficient proof can be brought from some 
 passages of Kant to convince any one that the real Kant 
 is truly dualistic. 
 
 Before we proceed to this, let me briefly mention that 
 I shall merely sketch in a popular way the views of these 
 two parties, knowing very well that there are shades, by 
 which many of the same group characterize themselves. 
 However, I do not intend, here, to distinguish but to 
 classify, and there is only time to rough-hew their opinions 
 and draw the picture in broad general outlines. 
 
 Besides these two classes, who stand either on the crit- 
 ical or the dogmatic Kant, there are some other Kant- 
 ians who may be named the elective pa?ty. The men be- 
 longing to it choose indiscriminately from Kant's ideas, 
 just as they think fit. They are either dilettanti, or, if 
 philosophers by profession, marked by a lack of consis- 
 tency. No doubt we find prominent men among them. 
 As an instance of this latter class may be named Pro- 
 fessor Felix Adler of New York, a prominent man, of 
 powerful oratory, and of sincerest aspirations, whose prin- 
 cipal merit is undeniably the number of practical and use- 
 ful institutions which he has created. His watch-word 
 Deed not creed ! is the true guiding star of his work. He 
 is devoted to Kantian philosophy and professes to preach 
 a religion of Pure Reason. He accepts from the Critique 
 of Practical Reason the idea of freedom, the Categoric 
 imperative being the basis of his ethics. In answer to 
 some address on the subject of the poetry of the future, 
 delivered before the Nineteenth Century Club in New
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. IQ 
 
 York, he defended the right of fiction and fictitious poet- 
 ical personages such as fairies, gnomes and elves, to exist 
 in the phantasy of our children, because, he said, poetry 
 is based on the wants of our heart, and our heart will 
 remain the same as it has ever been in spite of all scien- 
 tific progress. Yet the idea of God he has banished from 
 the nursery, as though God were no exigency of our heart 
 — not even so much as any sprite or genius in the tales 
 of the " Thousand and one Nights." 
 
 The first and second class of the Kantians perceived 
 the dualism and got rid of it by elimination of either 
 l^i principi/, the critical or the dogmatic. The elective 
 / Kantians, however, overlook entirely the import of 
 Kant's dualism ; and while I understand the first and 
 second classes, I am quite at a loss to account for the 
 inconsistency of the third class. 
 
 §4. KANT IS REALLY DUALISTIC. 
 
 According to my view, Kant was neither a hypocrite 
 nor a coward, as Schopenhauer, our representative of the 
 radical class, says ; nor is his Critique of Pure Reason a 
 mere sham-fight, as the philosophers of faith and creed 
 thought. I believe that Kant was sincere as well in his 
 radicalism as in his dogmatism. He was too thorough 
 not to think his critical ideas to the end, and there he 
 arrived at the abyss of atheism. However, the same 
 Kant was too profound to stop here. His atheism was 
 no blasphemy ; and he was too good a critic — that is, 
 he was too just — not to allow his opponent to have his 
 say also. Pure reason is but half the soul of man. The 
 other half, being the em^otional part, has exactly the 
 same right. And the God that lives in our hearts has not 
 been touched and can not be touched by the critique of 
 any pure reason. God, the phantom of religious fairy
 
 20 JIOAVSM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 tales, that personified ideal of the highest and best in 
 man, that glorious idol, vanished before the light of scien- 
 tific investigation like night-fog before the beams of the 
 rising sun. It vanished and it must vanish as do the fairy- 
 tales in the child's brain. 
 
 I know of a man who, when a boy, wept bitterly, as he 
 grew more and more convinced that the fairy tales and 
 the beautiful legends, myths and stories of old Greece, of 
 Hercules, Theseus, and also of the dragon-killer Siegfried, 
 were not true. So it is natural that we mourn to see the 
 most beautiful fairy tale of the world broken down. But 
 there is some comfort. Fairy tales contain in the veil of 
 fiction some ideal truth. So they are, though not real, 
 yet true. And so Deity itself does not break down : it is 
 merely our faculty, our capacity for comprehending the 
 Deity, that fails. Not Mitra is God, the personification of 
 the sun according to Persian religion, not Zeus, the 
 Olympian of the Greeks. He merely symbolizes the sky, 
 a humanized being of what was supposed to be the high- 
 est and best in nature. Moses taught Monotheism, but 
 his Jehovah was only a name of the real God he 
 preached. Allah il Allah ! cried Mohammed, but his 
 Allah was too much like himself to resemble the eternal 
 Deity of the Universe. He was the ideal of the Arabic 
 tribes, and they were unable to grasp any higher thing. 
 Christ came, and the human race learned to call God 
 their Father. Alas ! again it is only a name, an allegory. 
 It is expressive, however, and who denies the beauty and 
 inmost truth of it .■* But there are always men who are 
 not satisfied with what they possess of truth. They 
 desire to penetrate farther into its depths, and some such 
 theosophers perceived clearly that God is not a person. 
 He encompasses all that is highest and best, he is all in 
 all, he is the soul of the Universe. Such men wereTauler 
 and Jacob Bohme. Then the philosopher steps forth
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 21 
 
 and shows the weakness of this ontology, Kant proves 
 that this God is merely a noumenon, an empty concept. 
 And therewith we are at an end with the development of 
 the God idea. On the one hand, there is some truth in 
 the idolatry of the heathens, in the fire worship of Zoro- 
 aster, in the creed of the Mohammedans. But on the 
 other, there is some error also in the highest Christian 
 theosophy, and the philosopher must not imagine that 
 his carefully distilled ontology is really the quintessence 
 of Deity. We can but say what God is not like ; so 
 unsearchable is He that the veriest atheism* appears to 
 come nearest the truth. 
 
 * Kant's atheism is not at all as shallow as that of vulgar blasphe- 
 mers or common freethinkers. His is that atheism of which Max 
 Miiller speaks in his distinction of the honest and the vulgar atheism, 
 where he says : " There is an atheism which is unto death — there 
 is another atheism which is the very life-blood of all true faith. It is 
 the power of giving up what in our best, our most honest, movements 
 we know no longer to be true. It is the readiness to replace the less 
 perfect, however dear, however sacred it may have been to us, by the 
 more perfect, however much it may be detested as yet by the world. 
 It is the true self-surrender, the true self-sacrifice, the truest trust in 
 truth, the truest faith. Without that atheism, religion would long 
 ago have become a petrified hypocrisy. Without that atheism, no 
 new religion, no reform, no reformation, no resuscitation would have 
 ever been possible ; without that atheism no new life is possible for 
 any one of us. In the eyes of the Brahmins Buddha was an atheist. 
 ... In the eyes of the Athenian judges Socrates was an atheist. . . . 
 In the eyes of the Jews whosoever called himself the son of God was 
 a blasphemer, and whosoever worshipped the God of his father after 
 that new way was a heretic. The very name of the Christians among 
 Greek and Romans was atheists {a^eoi). 
 
 " Nor did the abuse of language cease altogether among the Chri- 
 stians themselves. In the eyes of Athanasius, the Arians were devils, 
 anthichrists, maniacs, Jews, polytheists, atheists. And we need not 
 wonder if Arius did not take a much more charitable view of the 
 Athanasians. Yet both Athanasius and Arius were only striving to 
 realize the highest ideal of Deity, each in his own way ; Arius fear-
 
 22 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 There is no doubt that Kant was scientifically a real 
 atheist ; but, on the other hand, he establishes simply on 
 the basis of our emotional wants the idea of God. Is it 
 the same dogmatic God ? Kant does not tell. And it 
 is even astonishing, how little trouble, — in fact, none at 
 all — he takes to justify this God before the tribunal of 
 pure reason. Kant leaves it to us to find out how the 
 radical atheism, and this practical — let us rather say 
 emotional — theism can be combined into a unity. How 
 is it possible that yes and no are consistent and com- 
 patible with each other, and how can sweet and bitter 
 come from the same mouth .'' No ! neither he who selects 
 either of these Kantian souls, nor he who takes indis- 
 criminately what he pleases, is a true successor and fol- 
 lower of Kant, but rather he who is able to reconcile the 
 
 ing that Gentile, Athanasius that Jewish errors might detract from 
 its truth and majesty. Nay, even in later times the same thoughtless- 
 ness of expression has continued in the theological warface ... In 
 the XVIth century Servetus called Calvin a trinitarian and atheist, 
 while Calvin considered Servetus worthy of the stake (1553) because 
 his view of Deity differed from his own." 
 
 Max Miiller when delivering this lecture, knew his audience, 
 mixed as it was, too well, not to see the danger to which he exposed 
 himself. So he added : " Now I know perfectly well, that what I 
 have said just now will be misunderstood, will possibly be misinter- 
 preted. I know I shall be accused of having defended and glorified 
 atheism and of having represented it as the last, the highest point, 
 which man can reach in an evolution of religious thought. Let it 
 be so ! If there are but a few here present who understand what I 
 mean by honest atheism, and who know, how it differs from vulgar 
 atheism, ay, from dishonest theism, I shall feel satified ; for I know 
 that to understand that distinction will often help us in the hour of 
 our sorest need. It will teach us, that while the old leaves 
 of the bright and happy spring are falling and all seems wintry, 
 there must be a new spring in store for every warm and honest 
 heart. It will teach us that honest doubt is the deepest spring of 
 honest faith, and that he only who has lost can find."
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 23 
 
 contradiction of his philosophy. Kant's unmistakable 
 dualism, however, is not due to a want of consistency, 
 but to the fact that he is standing on the tribunal of 
 justice and, being unable to decide, allows each party to 
 say its mind. 
 
 God may be likened to the sea in its vastness and 
 grandeur. The diver strikes down into its depth and the 
 sailor swims on its surface. The one finds precious pearls 
 and corals in its abysses ; the other encompasses a cog- 
 nizance of its extension, but declares it to be a stormy and 
 sterile water-desert, wherein no precious things are to be 
 found. The sailor is our pure reason and the diver our 
 emotion. If the philosopher is not able to combine both, 
 he will be either a shallow rationalist, keeping constantly 
 on the surface, thus gathering his cognition superficially, 
 or a thoughtless zealot, a prejudiced and one-sided bigot. 
 
 § 5. TRUTH MEANS HARMONY OF VERITY WITH 
 VERACITY. 
 
 Kant's philosophy is rigidly bold, and weak souls may 
 consider it dangerous to have his doctrines taught at our 
 universities. But truth is never dangerous and the earnest 
 love of truth will never be detrimental. Truth is by no 
 means the possession of some verity, acquired in some 
 way or another, no matter how. Truth is the quality of 
 being true. So it is the harmony of our subjective aspira- 
 tion or love of truth, — of our veracity with the objective 
 verity of the matter inquired into. Truth can not be 
 stolen ; and if it be taken by stealth, it is no longer real 
 truth. It is some sad verity, which proves fatal to our 
 intellectual and emotional life. 
 
 Very instructive is Schiller's pensive ballad of the veiled 
 statue of Isis, in which the poet describes a youth who, 
 aspiring to truth, enters one of the hierarchical schools at
 
 24 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 Sais. His ambition drives him from reach to reach as he 
 presses upward from degree to degree, but he finds no 
 satisfaction, for what is truth if communicated in single 
 parts ? Or could it be possible to be in possession of a 
 fraction of truth? — While he is arguing on such subjects 
 with his instructor, the hierophant — the ardent eye of the 
 youth espies a shrouded statue standing in the temple. 
 " What does this veil conceal ? " he asks. " Truth itself," 
 is the answer, "And you have never lifted it.'"' he con- 
 tinues. "Never," the priest rejoins, "nor have lever 
 been tempted to do so ; for the veil may be light, but 
 heavy is the divine law which forbids the uncovering." 
 "And yet the oracle says : he who lifts the veil, shall see 
 truth." 
 
 After this discussion the youth went out secretly in the 
 hush of night. He entered the temple where the tall wan 
 figure stood, on which through the skylight window, the 
 moon poured down her silvery pallid light. Reluctantly 
 he touched the veil, still hesitating to lift it. Yet his 
 desire to see truth was too ardent. He could not resist 
 the temptation and lifted the veil. Well— and what did 
 he see .'' So we ask, and many asked the same question 
 of him. But he never told what he had seen. A sad 
 melancholy led him to premature death, and wherever 
 he was requested to tell his secret, he replied : "Woe to 
 them, who arrive at truth by the path of guilt. It will 
 never be a comfort to them." 
 
 A man who acquires a grave and important truth not 
 by hard study but by frivolous license will either be 
 pressed down by the burden of such forbidden knowledge, 
 — a knowledge for which he was not matured, which he 
 could not endure, like that youth in Schiller's ballad — or, 
 what is worse, he will make light of it, and become a 
 blasphemer. And the reason of this is, he really does 
 not own truth — for truth can only be owned if deservedly
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 2$ 
 
 earned. He has caught a glimpse of it, a one-sided look ; 
 and that being incomplete proves to be fatal. The other 
 side containing the antidote for the poison of the first is 
 hidden from his profane eyes. 
 
 How many of our clergymen are like the hierophant, 
 who, bowing in silent reverence, was never tempted to 
 penetrate into the depth of truth in order to unveil it .-' 
 But, on the other hand, how few philosophers toil on, 
 thinking and striving to get hold of truth from all sides, 
 like Kant, who rather acquiesced in dualism than jumped 
 at hasty conclusions } 
 
 § 6. KANT'S ANTINOMIES. 
 
 The sincerity of Kant's dualism is best proved by his 
 antinomies or contradictions of pure reason. He says : 
 (according to Max Muller's translation, p. 352) ".. . when 
 we apply reason to the objective synthesis of phenomena, 
 . . .reason tries at first with great plausibility to establish 
 its principles of unconditioned unity, but becomes soon 
 entangled in so many contradictions, that it must give up 
 its pretensions. . . For here we are met by a new phe- 
 nomenon in human reason, namely, a perfectly natural 
 antithetic, which is not produced by any artificial efforts, 
 but into which reason falls by itself and inevitably. Reason 
 is, no doubt, preserved thereby from the slumber of an 
 imaginary conviction, which is often produced by a purely 
 one-sided illusion ; but it is tempted at the same time, either 
 to abandon itself to sceptical despair, or to assume a 
 dogmatical obstinacy, taking its stand on certain as- 
 sertions, without granting a hearing, and doing justice 
 to the arguments of the opponents. In both cases a 
 death-blow is dealt to sound philosophy, although in 
 the former we might speak of the euthanasia of pure 
 reason."
 
 26 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 And further, Kant says (p. 364), " a dialectic proposition 
 of pure reason must have these characteristics to dis- 
 tinguish it from purely sophistical propositions, that it 
 does not refer to a gratuitous question, but to one which 
 human reason in its natural progress must necessarily 
 encounter," etc. 
 
 " As impartial judges, we must take no account of 
 whether it be the good or the bad cause which the two 
 champions defend." 
 
 And the antinomies are as follows : 
 
 I. Thesis. The world has a beginning in time and is 
 limited also with regard to space. 
 
 1. Antithesis. The world has no beginning and no 
 limits in space, but is infinite in respect both to time and 
 space. 
 
 (It is the problem of creation as to whether there is a 
 first cause or no.) 
 
 2. Thesis. Every compound substance in the world 
 consists of simple parts, and nothing exists anywhere but 
 the simple or what it is composed of. 
 
 2. Antithesis. No compound thing in the world con- 
 sists of simple parts, and there exists nowhere in the 
 world anything simple. 
 
 (This antinomy is quaintly expressed. To go at once 
 to the bottom of what Kant proposes, the thesis declares 
 the soul to be immortal, and the antithesis says human 
 soul is a composition and therefore not immortal.) 
 
 3. Thesis. Causality, according to the laws of nature, 
 is not the only causality from which all the phenomena of 
 the world can be deduced. In order to account for these 
 phenomena it is necessary also to admit another caus- 
 ality, that of freedom. 
 
 3. AntitJiesis. There is no freedom ; but everything in 
 the world takes place entirely according to the laws of 
 nature.
 
 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 2/ 
 
 4. Thesis. There exists an absolutely necessary Be- 
 ing belonging to the world, either as a part or as the 
 cause of it. 
 
 4. Antithesis. There nowhere exists an absolutely 
 necessary Being within or without the world as the 
 cause of it. 
 
 § 7. CONCLUSION. 
 
 As the discussion is limited strictly to Kant's dualism, 
 which has been explained and proved, at least in its out- 
 lines, let us hasten to our conclusion. Kant, in spite of 
 his atheism, felt that the idea of God contains a truth 
 which no radicalism can blot out. And although he 
 recognized that there is but one law ruling the affairs 
 of this world, viz., causality, implying necessity to every- 
 thing, without exception, yet he was conscious of that 
 freedom of zvill, which is the inmost spring of all our 
 actions. The old orthodox and dogmatic views, which 
 in some respect received their death-blow from the 
 hands of Kant, were not simply nonsensical ideas, which 
 we must get rid of as soon as possible. There is 
 wheat among the tares, and so we must be careful in 
 eliminating, lest both be destroyed, the good as well 
 as the evil. Let us rather sift the radical as well as 
 the dogmatical ideas, and put their arguments to a severe 
 test. Only in this way will the discord of that dualism 
 be dissolved into the harmony and unison of a monism, 
 which may be the basis for a further development of the 
 human mind with regard to religious as well as philo- 
 sophical ideas. 
 
 The following articles try to realize this ideal, and 
 will prove, let us hope, that there is more unity in the 
 general plan of human reason than Kant supposed. Our 
 monism results in a contemplation of the world by 
 which so many seemingly contradictory truths are recon-
 
 28 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 ciled with each other : the ideal on the one side, with 
 the real on the other, logical deduction with empirical 
 induction, religious faith with philosophic and scientific 
 inquiry, the inflexible causality with a higher teleology, 
 and the rigid law of necessity with freedom of will and 
 morality.
 
 CAUSALITY. 
 
 § I. HUME'S PROBLEM. 
 
 THE hero of the struggle concerning the question of 
 causality is David Hume. He is the hero, but not the 
 conqueror, of that problem. On the contrary, he was de- 
 feated and laid down his arms, unable to carry on the 
 strife. His merit, however, remains, for he was the first 
 to boldly attack the huge array of philosophic problems 
 in the very centre at headquarters ; and he carried the 
 brunt of the battle to that point where alone the de- 
 cision can be expected. 
 
 Causality is the keystone of all philosophic difficulty, 
 and all other problems depend upon the solution of this 
 query. God is called the first cause, creation is a pro- 
 blem of causation, the basis of science is the law of 
 cause and effect, and cognition is tracing an effect back to 
 the causes which are supposed to have produced it. 
 There is no problem in the empire of the human mind, 
 which is not more or less connected with causality. 
 
 In former centuries causality was considered an aeterna 
 Veritas, an eternal truth, which needed not to be proved. 
 David Hume was the first to enquire into this law and 
 to demand its legitimation. However, as he could not 
 find any other argument than that found in experience, 
 as there was no other test than its constant repetition in 
 nature, he considered that it was not susceptible of proof 
 and turned sceptic. 
 
 Now this acute Scotch critic, though he wrote in 
 language not at all obscure, as philosophers are too 
 often prone to do, but in plain strong English, which
 
 30 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 can be understood by almost any one, was unfortunate 
 enough to be at first neglected and afterwards to be 
 misunderstood by his contemporaries. His first and 
 most valuable essay, published in 1738, remained un- 
 noticed and unheeded, and not till he had drawn the at- 
 tention of his countrymen to himself by some essays on 
 history, political economy, etc., did he venture to lay 
 before the public anew his neglected philosophy in a 
 weakened and crippled edition. Now, at least, he suc- 
 ceeded in rousing the opposition of his contemporaries. 
 None, however, understood what Hume intended to 
 propose, and what was really the end he aimed at. Being 
 an adherent of Locke, he rejected innate ideas, and in 
 consequence he said that all ideas are produced by the 
 impressions of objects, outside of ourselves, or, in other 
 words, merely by experience. Consistently with this 
 doctrine, he considered the law of cause and effect to 
 be empirical. This would exclude its absolute currency 
 and render it of mere transitory value, just effective and 
 valid for this or that single case ; but we are not at 
 all assured that it will be binding in other cases. 
 It is a bold assumption to take it for granted and rely 
 upon it as on an eternal truth, for it can not be proved 
 by argument. 
 
 Hume says on this subject : " Yet so imperfect are the 
 ideas concerning it {inz. causality) that it is impossible to 
 give any just definition of cause, except what is drawn 
 from something extraneous and foreign to it. Similar 
 objects are always conjoined with similar. Of this we 
 have experience. Suitably to the experience, therefore, 
 we may define a cause to be an object followed by an 
 other, and where all the objects similar to the first are 
 followed by objects similar to the second. Or in other 
 words, where, if the first had not been, the second never 
 had existed." I can not dwell long here on the many
 
 CAUSALITY. 31 
 
 mistakes Hume commits, but let me hint that cause and 
 effect are 7iot objects, but two events, one following the 
 other. According to Hume, every carriage of a railroad 
 train would be the effect of the one going before, which, 
 vice versa, would be the cause of the following one ; for 
 they are indisputably similar objects, one follozued by an- 
 other. 
 
 Hume acknowledges the law of identity (a = a), but 
 cause and effect are by no means identical ; nay, he says, 
 they are entirely different and form a synthesis, i.e., com- 
 position of two things ; ergo causality, he concludes, can 
 not be proved. All connections which we observe, the 
 changes of which we call cause and effect, are so many 
 single cases, and it is perhaps quite incidental, if they are 
 equal in their repetition. There is, according to Hume, 
 no necessary connection in this world and if it really ex- 
 isted, there is no reason whatever why we should rely 
 upon it so long as we can not demonstrate it. So all 
 science, especially natural science, resting on experience, 
 lacks a solid basis, after the validity of causality is denied. 
 Exactness of investigation is impossible, because it is left 
 to chance, and the trustful inquirer into the secrets of 
 nature is baffled, since he gropes in the dark, now that 
 science has lost the condition on which it stands. 
 
 Hume's adversaries supposed that the philosopher 
 denied the existence of causality itself and endeavored 
 to demonstrate its operation to him. Their attacks do 
 not affect him, as he by no means denied causality but 
 merely doubted its foundation. With this, however, the 
 universality of the law is lost, and all the affairs of the 
 world, instead of being one uninterrupted chain of causes 
 and effects are dissolved into unaccountable and innumer- 
 able particularities.* The universe in, such a case is no 
 
 * Mr. John Stuart Mill takes the same ground. He says in his 
 System of Deductive and Inductive Logic, Book III, Chapter IV, § i:
 
 32 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 longer a unity but an agglomeration of single things, here 
 and there connected by chance, but not by necessity, 
 since the law of causality, that universal tie by which the 
 cosmos is bound together, can no longer be accepted as 
 acterna Veritas. 
 
 The same punctilious sceptic, however, who refused to 
 acknowledge the universal validity of the highest law in 
 nature, distinguished between (icvionstratk'c 3.nd so-called 
 rational truths, the latter being the axioms of arith- 
 metic and mathematics. Hume accepted them without 
 hesitation and did not in the least suspect their certainty. 
 At no time did he stop to enquire into their legitimacy 
 and origin. And to Kant belongs the merit of having 
 pointed out their relation and affinity to causality. Thus 
 
 " In the contemplation of that uniformity in the course of nature, 
 which is assumed in every inference from experience, one of the first 
 observations that present themselves is, that the uniformity in 
 question is not properly uniformity , but uniformities. The general 
 regularity results from the co-existence of partial regularities. The 
 course of nature in general is constant, because the course of each 
 of the various phenomena that compose it, is so." 
 
 In accordance with this, necessity does not exist at all, and Mill, 
 indeed, draws this conclusion. He says: "When, therefore, it is 
 affirmed, that the conclusions of geometry are necessary truths, the 
 necessity consists in reality only in this, that they correctly tollow from 
 the suppositions from which they are deduced. Those suppositions 
 are so far from being necessary, that they are not even true ; they 
 purposely depart more or less widely from the truth" {they depart 
 Jrotn experience, however, not frotn truth). " The only sense in 
 which necessity can be ascribed to the conclusions of any scientific 
 investigation, is that of legitimately following from some assumption, 
 which by the conditions of the inquiry is not to be questioned." — 
 True, logical legitimacy is what ought to be necessary, and in most 
 cases will certainly prove to be so. Yet the two terms are, by no 
 means, identical ; nor could the idea of necessity be thus eliminated. 
 In consistency with the negation of necessity, Mill ought to have de- 
 clared himself a sceptic, as Hume, in accordance with the principles 
 from which both started, really did.
 
 CAUSALITY. 33 
 
 he was able to appreciate the importance of Hume's 
 scepticism and at the same time to lead the way to a 
 solution of the problem. He generalized Hume's ques- 
 tion as to causality, and investigated the whole ground 
 of so-called rational thought and knowledge. He found 
 out that we are indeed in possession of some truths which 
 are entirely independent of experience and are even the 
 condition of experience. Such truths independent of, and 
 antecedent to, experience were called a priori, and, so far 
 as they are the conditions of experience, Kant terms 
 the same transcendental, (a word carefully to be distin- 
 guished from transcendent, the latter designating a trans- 
 mundane existence). Transcendental Kant calls the 
 rational or a priori axioms and theorems as passing over 
 to the a posteriori, and forming fundamental rules for our 
 experience. These truths, a priori, are in the first 
 instance the mathematical, arithmetical, and logical 
 theorems. 2x2^4 is an axiom which we know before 
 all experience and which, we are sure, is a universal law, 
 — a law necessary under any condition and as such 2ini- 
 versal. Necessity and universality are to Kant sure indi- 
 cations of the apriority of a truth. As both are appli- 
 cable to causality, it is undoubtedly a law a priori ; 
 and as it is the condition of all experience it is tran- 
 scendental. 
 
 § 2. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL COGNIZANCE. 
 
 In doubting causality Hume ought to have doubted all 
 other a priori truths as well. Then, any cognizance 
 would have been disputable , any observation illusory, every 
 judgment fallacious and science without value. In such a 
 case we must not be astonished if spiritists merely smile at 
 the most exact deductions and conclusions of our scientific 
 men. The apriority of our rational sciences, to be sure.
 
 34 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 is the condition of knowledge, — that is, to speak in 
 Kant's nomenclature, it is transcendental. 
 
 From a particular sensation, according to the law of 
 causality, which beforehand ox a priori \\& take for granted, 
 we conclude that it is the effect of some cause outside of 
 ourselves. And in this way causality becomes the organ 
 or instrument of cognition. Here more than any where 
 else the importance of the doctrine of apriority is shown. 
 Mere experience would be for ever condemned to crawl 
 on the soil and stick to single and particular facts. 
 Apriority, by affording necessity and universality, lends 
 us the wings of generalization and makes a universal law 
 of seemingly incidental and fortuitous cases. 
 
 It should be observed, however, as apriority has been 
 so often misinterpreted, that it does not mean at all such 
 knowledge as is antecedent in the temporal sense but 
 simply prior as the condition of empirical or a posteriori 
 cognizance. Adversaries of Kant's transcendental philo- 
 sophy fight against wind-mills if they attempt to prove 
 that mathematical truths are not innate ideas which we 
 may be conscious of from our birth, but that on the con- 
 trary, they must be acquired with the same or even greater 
 difficulty than empiric knowledge. No one doubts that, 
 neither Kant nor any transcendental philosopher. But a 
 priori and a posteriori truths are different in regard to 
 their origin, the latter being produced from experience by 
 our sensation ; the former, however, being rational, grow 
 within ourselves, and stand merely on pure reason. We 
 acquire them by meditation ; and such truths once stated 
 can not be shaken by any experience ; while contrari- 
 wise any empiric knowledge may be proved erroneous as 
 soon as a new experience demands new explanations of 
 former experiences. 2 x 2 = 4 is true not only on this 
 planet of ours, but also on the farthest star in the skies. 
 Empirical knowledge can not boast of such universality,
 
 CAUSALITY. 35 
 
 and wherever it attains it, it is done through rational 
 truths, by generahzation on ground of « priori theorems. 
 
 The distinction between these diametrically different 
 kinds of knowledge must be preserved. It must be con- 
 fessed, however, that the nomenclature, as used by Kant, 
 is not at all adequate. Instead of a priori and a posteriori, 
 we propose to use the terms internal and external. Inter- 
 nal knowledge is the rational, growing from pure reason 
 within ourselves, and the instrument of all empirical 
 knowledge, or what Kant styles a priori and transcen- 
 dental. Herbert .Spencer characterizes it as the "incon- 
 ceivability of the contrary." It is that knowledge which 
 cannot be otherwise, which we take for granted before- 
 hand, which we acquire by pure meditation without any 
 help from experience, (though experience may illustrate 
 and explain it by examples,) and which we believe even 
 though experience should seem to contradict it. Ex- 
 ternal knowledge is drawn from exterior sources by 
 means of sensation. Truths of the first kind are by 
 their very nature universal and necessary, those of the 
 other are particular, incidental and fortuitous. Sciences 
 treating of rational truths are also called formal, on 
 account of their subjects being merely formal. Natural 
 sciences inquire into substantial things ; and in regard to 
 this fact, Kant correctly states, that experience " without 
 the help of apriority is blind,'' but that the purely a priori 
 statements are empty, viz.: mere formal truths. So they 
 generalize, systematize and render clear our experience, 
 but are unable to enlarge it. 
 
 Should we meet in our experience with a case contra- 
 dictory to a priori truths or apparently annihilating the 
 universality of their axioms, especially the validity of the 
 causal law, we suppose beforehand that we are mistaken 
 in our observations, that there is at the bottom, some 
 error, illusion or even deception. We try anything before
 
 36 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 we acquiesce in such a contradiction of what we consider 
 irrefutable ; and such a case is exactly what we call the 
 impossible. 
 
 An adherent of Auguste Comte, who denied the doctrine 
 of apriority and declared that all truths are gained from 
 experience by sensation, or a posteriori, being asked if he 
 would have confidence in a careful observation, though it 
 might appear to be in contradiction to mathematical or 
 arithmetical truths, for instance, that 2x2 are equal 
 to 5, answered in involuntary haste : " That could never 
 happen !" This reply, though it slipped from his tongue 
 unawares, is a proof that he believed unconsciously in 
 the apriority of rational knowledge. For the axiom 
 2 X 2 = 4 is distinguished from the most complicated 
 theorem a priori, not essentially, but merely by its 
 simplicity. 
 
 There is a certain puzzle in which a square, consisting 
 of 8x8 smaller squares, is cut and composed anew into a 
 rectangle of 5 x 13 or 65 squares of the same size as the 64 
 had been. In the first moment the illusion is perfect. 
 Clever deception will add a sophism which covers the 
 fallacy of the argument. A thinking person, however, 
 will declare from the very beginning that there is some 
 deception, for he knows a priori that a plane cannot be 
 increased by a mere alteration of its form. 
 
 The empirical cognition of experience carries together 
 our observations one by one in such a way that all our 
 knowledge must for ever remain fragmentary piecework. 
 And it is natural that such should be external cognizance. 
 Internal cognizance contrariwise comprehends its truths 
 in their unity ; therefore the laws a priori are always 
 complete, and what is proved mathematically will ever 
 be beyond doubt.
 
 CA [/SAL/TV. 37 
 
 § 3. CAUSALITY A LAW OF MOTION. 
 
 Now causality is no doubt an internal truth, and may 
 be proved as well as any mathematical theorem. Let 
 me mention, however, that rightly considered, mathe- 
 matical truths are not proved. All arguments of this 
 science are reductions from the complicated to the 
 simpler and thence to the self-evident. The latter, how- 
 ever, is never proved, but accepted on credit under the 
 name of axiom. It may now be shown that, in spite 
 of Hume, causality, like any a priori theorem, may be 
 traced to the most simple axiom, and that i||the axiom 
 of identity. 
 
 Cause is an event in some state of things, which ne- 
 cessarily leads to a change. If you take from a heap 
 of stones one of the undermost, all those resting upon 
 it will rush after and in some way alter their position. 
 There is no other alteration than that which is caused by 
 motion. Everything, save the arrangement, remains the 
 same after as before the change. But there was an 
 occurrence which disturbed the equilibrium of the whole 
 state of things ; and to restore it, a motion of the 
 disturbed parts became necessary. The disturbance of 
 the equilibrium is the cause, its restoration the effect. 
 A spark thrown into powder results in an explosion. 
 The spark is not the cause, but its being thrown into 
 the powder, its approach to the inflammable material. 
 The effect is the change in the composition of the powder. 
 Nor, in the first instance, is the stone the cause, but its 
 removal, /. e., the act of its being taken away. Causes as ^ > • "^ 
 well as effects are always some events, occurrences, y:-r-tuv^^"^> 
 incidents, which happen. They are never things or ob- x^-^^'-^^ ^^'^^ 
 jects, which exist. And so the term means an altera- ^'*'^^^'^^■ 
 tion in some state of circumstances, a change of situa- „ .^ C^ 
 tion, position, posture, or a replacement and new ar- i^ <^'*w\) -»n 
 
 ^tJk.Afc'V.*^ \/\ to — \^WA, OkJI<-**«<\-*
 
 -flr-Awl.«<J b>>^Q,«UkAAAA) t/V» 
 
 o,'i<!,-i cs 
 
 ,t».AA-^»- 
 
 38 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 rangement of some conjuncture. In one word, causality 
 is a lazv of motion. One alteration in some state of 
 things produces another ; thus effect is a change in con- 
 sequence of another prior change. Matter, however, as 
 we know from the law of preservation of force and mat- 
 «-w -^v^ ^gj.^ remains unaltered and unchanged. After the explo- 
 Le/>A.e»^V'»'-<-**N^^^°'^ ^^^ ^^^ single atoms of the powder are still in exist- 
 ence, though in an entirely different composition. But, 
 apart from this difference of the combination of atoms, 
 matter is the same before and after the explosion. It 
 remains identical in the change, and we may call caus- 
 ality thQ ^dcjitity in change. ' <. » • ' »"■ 
 
 In every case the transformation worked by causality 
 is an alteration effected by movement. The single atoms 
 of matter remain unchanged, but they have often under- 
 gone a metastasis in their combination. For instance, if 
 water boils, it evaporates, and seems to disappear ; but 
 no ! The gaseous hydrogen, though invisible to our eyes, 
 hovers in the air. Not a drop is lost after the transfor- 
 mation into the gaseous state of aggregation. We know 
 it a priori ; and all this is confirmed and corroborated 
 by experience. But if we did not know it from internal 
 meditation, how could we state such a law so assuredly 
 and emphatically as being universal and without any 
 exception } It is merely because we comprehend the 
 truths of internal cognition in their totality and com- 
 pleteness. True, experience endorses it in single in- 
 stances. But that is merely the countersign, to sup- 
 port, to second and uphold it. The warrant is given by 
 pure reason independent of experience, which explains it 
 by examples, thus testifying to and ratifying a law, which 
 can not be otherwise and is self-evident exactly as 
 2x2=4.
 
 CA USALITY. 39 
 
 § 4. CAUSE AND EFFECT DOES NOT MERELY MEAN A 
 SUCCESSION. 
 
 The mark of difference, which distinguishes the erudite 
 from the ilHterate man, is the acknowledgment of the 
 apriority, and, so far as the lack of this influences the 
 latter, we call him superstitious. Let causality be merely 
 empirical, let it be a law, not as we have derived it like 
 a law of pure mathematics, logic, or mechanics by deduc- 
 tion, but by induction, and we could never be sure of its 
 necessity or universality, and any superstition would be 
 admissible with the same legitimacy as science. We 
 would not be entitled to refuse any pretended experience, 
 not even of the most absurd events. If, as Hume thinks, 
 and as John Stuart Mill states, cause and effect are a mere 
 following, not an ensuing, then, indeed, the theory of the 
 excellence of wine, grown in comet years, would be 
 proved as scientifically as anything could be, for experience 
 is in favor of it. But it is such an experience as proves 
 nothing, because we observe a succession, not a connec- 
 tion, and not a whit of causal concatenation. Reid is «^-)j*-* - ^^^ '^ 
 quite right in saying (though John Stuart Mill tries to ^ '>''-*^^** 
 escape the consequence in longwinded explanations) that, 
 according to the principle of the positivist school, night 
 would be the effect of day, as we observe their constant 
 succession. 
 
 If science could not penetrate deeper into the connec- 
 tion of phenomena than by stating their succession, there 
 would not properly exist any such science as that which 
 has for its object the enquiry into causal connection and 
 the establishment of laws, in conformity with which single 
 events must occur thus and not otherwise. And if we were 
 not sure of causality beforehand by merely internal insight, 
 if it were not a priori, we should not be astonished at 
 finding cases in which causality does not work, where its
 
 40 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 operation is suspended, or where there rules an other 
 arrangement: for instance, such a kind of preter- or super- 
 natural causality, as is supposed to exist in astrology and 
 alchemy. Therefore, the necromancer and thaumaturgist 
 quote and appeal to Shakespeare's dictum : 
 
 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamed of in our philosophy. 
 
 Certainly there are many things which we have not 
 explored as yet and, moreover, there are some that by 
 their very nature are unsearchable, but there are none in 
 contradiction with reason. Whenever there appears to be 
 such a contradiction, there is some delusion either arising 
 from our error or from the fraud and deceit of others. 
 
 When a person really commences to doubt whether 
 causality be not suspended in a certain case, even in in- 
 c ifferent matters, he is overcome unawares and becomes 
 possessed, as it were, with a certain demoniac uneasiness. 
 The more highly organized animals do the same ; horses 
 tremble, and dogs whine if events happen, (for instance, 
 eclipses of the sun,) which they can not account for. The 
 superstitious take them as marvels and prodigies worked 
 by some supernatural power. The erudite man alone is 
 not overawed in such cases. He thinks and ruminates, 
 nor is he satisfied until he has found the causal connec- 
 tion which in the most unaccountable facts he supposes 
 ever to exist. 
 
 So we have arrived at a fair explanation of causality ; 
 it is a law of motion. Cause is no object but some alter- 
 ation in a state of things by which another alteration is 
 effected. Nor is effect an object ; it is simply the new 
 state of things as produced by the cause. So neither can 
 the watchmaker be called a cause nor the watch an effect. 
 ^' YW?, work is rather the cause and the proper composition 
 ^^lT^^r„^»^, of wheels, dial and hands the effect.
 
 77 
 
 CA USALITY. 41 
 
 Causality changes ; it may combine or dissolve, yet it 
 never creates or destroys matter, the atoms and forces of 
 which remain the same throughout the infinite concate- 
 nation of causes and effects. 
 
 § 5. KANT'S IDEALISM. 
 
 Before we venture on the more intricate difficulties of 
 causality, we must dwell for a space on a seeming subtlety, 
 which is, however, of great consequence. For there re- 
 mains to be explained the relation of the internal truths 
 to the external world. This relation being the bridge 
 between the subject and the object, between thinking 
 and existing, between the mind and the universe, is the 
 basis, whereon our conception of the world rests. The in- 
 ternal truths are held to be valid a priori, because they are 
 necessary and universal. Now, passing the bridge from 
 the subjective a priori side of the interior of our soul to 
 the exterior environment in the world abroad, we find 
 there those same truths corroborated a posteriori ; for 
 the highest universal laws of experience are exactly the 
 same as those of pure reason. And the planets wander 
 on their ways through the heavens in such ellipses as we 
 may construct in pure mathematics. Causality in the 
 same way is valid as far as ever our experience extends 
 and never have any theorems of arithmetic and mathe- 
 matics been proved by experience to be erroneous. Thus 
 by experience we become acquainted a second time and a 
 posteriori with the rational truths, which we learned a pri- 
 ori. And while sensation introduces us into the material 
 contents of the world, these general laws afford an insight 
 into the mere form of the world, viz., time and space. 
 
 Now there arises this question : these formal laws in 
 nature around us being identical with those internal laws 
 within us, where lies their source, and on which side are
 
 -¥■ 
 
 42 MONISM ANDJIELIORISM. 
 
 they original, and on which have they been borrowed ? 
 And if they are borrowed on either, how arises this won- 
 drous harmony ? 
 
 Kant, in his Prolegomena § 36, faces this difficulty 
 and puts the question as follows : " How is nature itself 
 possible?" And he ratiocinates: "The highest laws of 
 nature {viz., in the exterior of the world outside of and 
 around us) are found independent of all experience 
 within ourselves a priori^ Astonished at this congru- 
 ency, he asks : " How arises this congruency ?" And he 
 imagines that there are only two possibilities. '* Either," 
 he says, *' we borrow the rational truths from nature, that 
 means, we receive them 'by experience, — or they are 
 transferred from us to nature." The first solution is that 
 of Locke ; after him David Hume and the positivists of 
 the present day have taken the same ground. Such a 
 solution, however, is impossible, as Kant has irrefutably 
 proved the apriority of time and space. As they are 
 independent of any experience they can not be borrowed 
 from the exterior world. Therefore Kant says : " There 
 is left but the other solution, which is the reverse of 
 Locke's : * Our reason dictates its laws to nature,' i. e., 
 our reason is instituted or organized in such a way that it 
 can not perceive the world otherwise than in the shape of 
 time and space, and connected by causality as well as by 
 the apparatus of apriority. Whether the world is so or 
 no we know not ; it appears to us so, and we can not help 
 seeing the world in the frame of time, space, and causal- 
 ity. But it is our mind that frames it thus ; the frame 
 does not belong to the picture, though we are not able to 
 take it out and handle it as it really is." 
 
 This is what Kant calls his idealism. The ratiocination, 
 however, on which it rests, contains a fallacy which led 
 him astray. He erroneously held a priori identical with 
 subjective, i.e.y belonging to and inherent in the ego;
 
 CA USALITY. 43 
 
 and all truths a priori w^x^ in this way supposed to be sub- 
 jective. Now they are so indeed, in some respects, inas- 
 much as they grow internally within the ego. And expe- 
 riencing their objectivity in the world outside of us, Kant 
 argues that there must needs be a loan, given by our ego 
 to the world. Locke's solution is certainly wrong, as the 
 apriority of time and space is undeniable. So Kant sees 
 no other way than that which constitutes his idealism, 
 according to which time and space and the whole world 
 as we perceive it are not real but ideal, our mind dictating 
 the fundamental laws. 
 
 § 6. THE FOUNDATION OF MONISM. 
 
 But is there no other possible way out of the difficulty? 
 There is a third way to a solution ; it is midway between 
 Locke and Kant, overlooked by Kant, and the only 
 remaining way. Let us try it and hope that it will lead 
 to a more satisfactory result. 
 
 First let us ask, what is the subject in the objective 
 world } What are we ourselves in regard to our sur- 
 roundings .'' If we were standing outside of ourselves, 
 inquiring into what we call our subject, our ego, the 
 centre of our cognition, we should find it to be an ob- 
 ject like all other objects beside it. 
 
 How now, with regard to our problem .-' Are not the 
 internal truths inherent and a priori to all subjects 
 which swarm around us as objects ; and should we not 
 suppose, therefore, that they belong rather to our ob- 
 jective existence .-' Every ego in this world (as it must 
 needs have — or rather must be — an objective existence) 
 finds the internal truths in this objective existence, i. e., 
 within itself, in such a way as to be able to construct them 
 a priori. In consequence of this, everything existing 
 exists materially and must, of necessity, partake of the
 
 44 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 form of the world, viz., time and space. Thus the 
 
 formal laws of nature are valid in the same. As it is 
 
 extended, it partakes of space ; it moves, and a state 
 
 antecedent and consequent gives the difference of time ; 
 
 it changes according to, and is conditioned by, causality. 
 
 AAnd such being the laws of objective existence, they ad- 
 
 I here to any object permeating its entire essence so that any 
 
 , object, if developed to the state of consciousness, will find 
 
 these laws by mere reflection and meditation, as they are 
 
 part of ourselves, viz., the formal part of our existence. 
 
 This answer to the problem of apriority is very 
 simple. It also affords information concerning the origin 
 of these internal truths, a query which Kant nowhere 
 proposed, and never answered. And moreover, it justifies 
 our assumption of internal truths as granted. Their 
 universality and necessity rest de facto on the idea that 
 the form of nature (pure space) is everywhere the same ; 
 every thing that exists partakes of it, and is subject to, 
 and conditioned by, its laws. Thus we know that the 
 laws of pure space, as we recognize them within us, are 
 the same in our existence as anywhere else. For space 
 is space anywhere and everywhere; it is the mere form of 
 material existence. 
 
 This solution of Hume's problem will be recognized by- 
 and-by as the only possible and true one. It affords a 
 basis for science which Hume despaired of finding and 
 which neither Locke, Auguste Comte and John Stuart 
 Mill on the one side, nor Kant and the transcendental 
 philosophers on the other, can give. It fills the gap be- 
 tween subject and object, between spirit and matter ; it 
 reconciles idealism and realism, explains the connection of 
 the a priori with the a posteriori, thus restoring harmony 
 in the universe between the ego and the cosmos, and 
 scientifically establishes a conception of the world which 
 we comprise under the name of Monism, y
 
 
 FIRST CAUSE AND FINAL CAUSE. 
 
 § I. THE ANTINOMY OF FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 Causality is the law of cause and effect, and nothing 
 else. There is, however, such a confusion about the idea 
 of cause, that we must be particularly careful ; and in no 
 language is the misuse and inadequacy of words greater 
 than in English. Cause as well as effect is an event, or '^ 
 fact ; the cause is past, if the effect has ensued. Both 
 are temporal, as they designate merely a state of affairs. 
 So, as was stated above, cause is never a thing ; much 
 less can a person be called a cause. I may cause someji- 
 effect by some action, I may produce some result by my 
 labor, and my person may be accessory to some event, 
 even through its mere presence, but I myself am never a 
 cause. 
 
 The mistake is magnified, if God is called the ^rst cause. , "Vv^-*"*- , ^c^ 
 First causes are of mere relative existence. They are the ^ ^.x^- ^^ ^ 
 starting points of a series of some longer chain of causes C.o'-*-'-^.*' <w^4^-^ 
 and effects. According to La Place, the cause of the ro- fcU^ <-<> <*^ ^«^ 
 tation in that gaseous nebula, from which our planets have 
 been developed, was the unequal partition of matter. So 
 it was the fijst cause in the formation of the solar system, U-*-'**^ :S"^-^-^ 
 which happened so many millions of years ago. It has w^.<-«iA a-es^>*/»-( 
 passed as any cause passes that is merely some temporal Uv^ v^aoujj;.*--** 
 event. y^-**^Xu.^ 
 
 We reject and condemn, therefore, the idea of a first 
 cause in the sense of Creator, as a contradiction in itself. 
 And those who call God the first cause have either a 
 vague idea of what they mean, or they intend to say that 
 God is the Ji/ial principle of the world, the most general 
 
 .ex.
 
 46 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 law, governing the whole universe, the fundamental basis, 
 and, so to speak, the ground on which everything rests, 
 from which all existences spring and originate, and the 
 ultimate reason to which we trace the existence of the 
 cosmos. Such a principle, or whatever other name you 
 may be pleased to give it, is not a passing cause, which 
 happens once and exists no longer, but a living presence, 
 which pervades the whole world, and is the operating 
 force in all causes and the causation in causality. 
 
 After what we have stated here, thesis as well as anti- 
 thesis in Kant's fourth antinomy about an absolutely 
 necessary Being are right, though for the sake of clear- 
 ness we must express this opposition in other words. 
 The thesis declares : tJiere is an absolutely Jiecessajy final 
 principle of tJiis world ; though, according to the anti- 
 thesis, there does not exist a first caiise. 
 
 § 2. THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE. 
 
 It is this final principle which constitutes the philo- 
 sophical idea of a God to the theist, which gives to the 
 philosopher the basis of what is called metaphysics, and 
 which an atheist like Herbert Spencer calls the " un- 
 knowable." It is the enigma of the world which by its 
 very nature can not be comprehended. 
 
 It may be hinted here that, with the exception of Kant, 
 philosophers have hitherto been accustomed to speak 
 dogmatically about the metaphysical province of thought. 
 So Herbert Spencer begins his philosophy with the state- 
 ment of the unknowable, without even trying to justify 
 its supposition. The positivists simply ignore it, a method 
 easier even than that of Spencer, though one which by 
 no means relieves us of the difficulty. 
 
 Before we venture on metaphysics, let us know what 
 physics is, and before we make statements about the
 
 FIRST CAUSE AND FINAL CAUSE. 4/ 
 
 unknowable, let us define what is knowable; especially let 
 us have a clear conception as to what is the process, by 
 which that cognizance is attained. If that is understood, 
 I trust, that from the nature of cognition itself we may 
 find the limit at which our knowledge comes to a stand 
 and where the province of the unknowable commences. 
 
 § 3. THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF COGNITION. 
 
 Cognition means the tracing of causality or the search 
 for that law, according to which matter moves in space. 
 Matter, space and movement we call therefore the prin- 
 ciples of cognition, (i) Space is the source of our internal, 
 (2) matter of our external knowledge, and (3) in motion 
 we have a combination of both. By means of these three 
 principles we are able to comprehend anything in the 
 world — yes, anything, except the world itself, and so 
 really nothing. The eye may see anything except itself; 
 it sees all objects around it, but it cannot see its own 
 seeing. 
 
 These principles of cognition, simple and plain as they 
 seem at first sight, are by their very nature incompre- 
 hensible. I. Space, which we recognize intuitively and 
 grasp internally, the laws of which are self-evident and 
 a priori, which we fancy we understand so thoroughly, 
 simply by being in the interior of it, and comprising all 
 its regularity in most accurately formulated mathematical 
 theorems — this same space is entirely incomprehensible 
 in its totality. We call it infinite, a negative term, which 
 merely signifies our inability to grasp it in its unity. 
 
 2. Our cognition of matter moves in an exactly con- 
 trary direction. We know matter from its outside ; we 
 observe how it acts, but are not admitted to its interior. 
 What matter really is, we shall never know, though we 
 may analyze it and comprehend all its properties. To 
 
 er-^
 
 48 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 external knowledge it seems so intelligible, lucid and 
 natural ; its existence is simply a fact. Yet we are not 
 able to grasp its inwardness, and Faust's desire : 
 
 That I may detect the inmost force 
 Which binds the world and guides its course, 
 Its germs, productive powers, explore 
 And rummage in empty words no more — 
 
 can never be fulfilled. 
 
 3. Movement is a fact, but we cannot account for it. 
 The whole universe is in constant motion. In each in- 
 dividual case we recognize a cause, which, being itself 
 motion, produces another motion. We do our best to 
 explain each single case by establishing some natural 
 law ; and this law, together with other and kindred laws, 
 will find its reason in some higher or more general law, 
 and so on up to the highest universal reason, which should 
 comprise and account for all others. But this universal 
 law operating in all individual cases, the final causation 
 in causality, the last principle, the ground and reason of 
 movement, is withdrawn from our comprehension, for it 
 would be absurd to look for a more general reason of the 
 last and universal reason. Here we arrive at the natural 
 limit of our reasoning power. And so we are kept out- 
 side and not admitted into the Holy of Holies. The 
 sanctum sanctissimum of cognition is locked for ever. 
 
 § 4. THE TREBLE ENIGMA OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Thus all objects in the world are comprehensible by 
 the principles of cognition, viz., by space, matter, move- 
 ment ; as cognizance is nothing else than tracing how 
 matter moves in space. Yet these principles of cognition 
 themselves are incomprehensible, and so the enigma of 
 the world is threefold : The problem of space is its in- 
 finitude, that of matter its eternity, that of movement the 
 ground or last causation of movement. 
 
 ^V-'N^Vv^
 
 FIRST CAUSE AND FINAL CAUSE. 49 
 
 § 5. FINAL CAUSE AND EFFICIENT CAUSE. 
 
 The confusion which generally prevailed and still pre- 
 vails, has produced another odd idea expressed by a word 
 even more odd than first cause, viz.: causa finalis ox final 
 cause, in opposition to causa efficiens, or efficient cause, 
 the latter meaning the usual causes as they operate ac- 
 cording to the inexorable law of necessity, and the former 
 meaning some other kind of cause, arranged by some 
 conscious being for effecting some certain result, some 
 fifiis or end, which we commonly call purpose. Purpose 
 is the intended effect. 
 
 The terra final cause has been invented on the supposi- 
 tion, that there exist two kinds of causality, the one reg- 
 ulated by chance, the other by some conscious will. 
 On this field, the two parties, the dogmatists on the one 
 hand, and the radicals on the other, clash with each other 
 in fierce conflict. Here the struggle has been even more 
 intense than anywhere else, (though Kant did not receive 
 it into his antinomies,) for here the nerve of the questions 
 lies. The dogmatist says : '■^ There is some trajismundane 
 power that has at'ranged the world to accomplish some ends 
 or purposes" (the Greek word is teXo?, from which such a 
 contemplation of the world is called teleology) '' otherzvise" 
 they argue, ^^ the tiniverse would be a chaos, but no costnos." 
 The radicals, however, assert, that there is no such thing 
 as a transmimdane existence, fior an arrangemcfit like final 
 causality. 
 
 This time, however, the combatants arrange them- 
 selves somewhat differently. Kant unquestionably joins 
 the negative, and Schopenhauer is found siding with the 
 theologians ; though he does not believe in a God, his 
 transcendent Will is, according to his theory, the Creator 
 of the world, not much different from a God.
 
 50 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 § 6. THE IDEA OF A FINIS IN CAUSATION. 
 
 We must be brief and therefore state beforehand that 
 we can not accept two essentially different kinds of causal- 
 ity and that the expression fi)ial cause leads to confused 
 and erroneous views. It is, at best, a very unfortunate 
 expression. But here, as often happens, a grain of truth 
 is in the chaff, and in some degree both parties are right. 
 The word fifial cause, to be sure, must be blotted out, and I 
 propose to use in its stead s\rc\^\y faiis — answering to the 
 Greek rf'Aos, and designating what Germans call Zweck 
 and Ziel. 
 
 The idea of a fi7iis is indispensable in the explanation 
 of causality ; and, as it is of practical import, we can not 
 omit it in our investigation. Causality, as we have 
 learned, is a law of movement. If there occurs any cause, 
 some motion ensues. For instance : the storm tears a 
 tile from a roof and carries it in the direction of the blast. 
 In this case, the finis or, so to say, intended end of such 
 a cause, lies in the direction which the hurricane takes. 
 The tile, however, as soon as it has lost its place on the 
 roof, has a tendency to fall straight to the ground accord- 
 ing to the law of gravitation. Its finis or intended end 
 would be towards the centre of the earth. Neither of 
 these two fines, however, is carried into effect, for the 
 stone will take the way of some parabola or hyperbola, 
 resulting from the two directions of these different fines. 
 
 Every line of motion has its zvJieJice and its whither. 
 The whence is the cause, the whither the finis. Some- 
 times, though certainly very seldom, the point of motion 
 moves exactly in the straight line in which its finis lies. 
 In such a case the finis will be identical with the real 
 effect. There is but one uninfluenced, unchanged direc- 
 tion. The cause (C) drawn from the starting point to the 
 finis (F) meets in a straight line, the actual result or effect
 
 FIRST CAUSE AND FINAL CAUSE. 5 1 
 
 (E). But in a circular motion, C is a point on the cirum- 
 ference, F lies in the direction of the tangents, and E in 
 the curve of the circle. The motion of the earth has its 
 fiftis constantly in the tangent of its elliptic path. But 
 as it gravitates toward the sun, this tendency is never 
 carried into effect ; and the actual result is the diagonal 
 bettueen the two forces, justly called the resnltant, forming 
 in this case the curve of an ellipse. 
 
 And in the same way man's actions have a certain aim 
 and purpose, which need not necessarily be identical 
 with the result of his actions. But considering their 
 ethical appreciation, we take care to judge not according 
 to the result, but with reference to this fi7tis, purpose or 
 aim, which man tends toward or aspires to. For in 
 reality this and nothing else shows his character, as it ac- 
 counts for the motives by which he allows himself to be 
 influenced, and thus the actions of man not as they are, 
 but as they are intended to be, reveal his inmost nature. 
 
 All acti(ms^f^jTiaii»jlifferefi^t-as-they-may be, wi41 be of 
 a certain type, congenial to his character, because his 
 character is the ground from^whicli-all his motives start. 
 And this remaining to a certain extent the same through- 
 out his life, all he does, says and intends, will be in 
 unfailing harmony. His virtues and his vices will bear 
 some resemblance and correspond ; and moreover, they 
 will show their common origin. 
 
 In the same way matter under certain circumstances 
 will show certain qualities. So sulphur shines in the dark, 
 it is inflammable, it melts in a heat of so many degrees, 
 such and such is its specific weight, etc., etc.; and all these 
 properties form single characteristics of this element, 
 which in its unity Ave call sulphur. But in order to find 
 out its nature, we must put it to different tests, called 
 experiments, and by such experiments we find out how 
 it operates under different circumstances.
 
 52 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 The character of man and the properties of elements 
 are inquired into in such a way, according to the law of 
 ' causation, and whosoever would get at the truth, at what 
 the last principles of the universe may be, must look for 
 the ends and aims to which its development tends. And 
 it is only ihis finis in the arrangement of the world that 
 can give us some light upon the last principle of the 
 cosmos. 
 
 § 7. FINIS AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 There is no denying that there is such 2. fijiis in the uni- 
 verse as we have described, though it does not by any 
 means prove to be the teleology of the dogmatist. We 
 think that Dr. McCosh in his " Energy, Efficient and Final 
 Cause" is entirely mistaken where he says on page 43: " In 
 the cereals there is . . . a final cause in the food provided 
 for the nourishment of man and living creatures." The 
 finis in the growth of plants, no doubt, is to produce seed 
 of their own kind for the perpetuation and propagation of 
 their species. That such seed in most instances serves 
 the purposes of man as food, is of great consequence to 
 man, but quite accidental, and has nothing to do with the 
 finis of the growth of plants. 
 
 We find a fijiis wherever we observe causation. Every- 
 where in the world therefore we meet with some develop- 
 ment ; it is found in history as well as in natural science. 
 Hegel pointed it out for the first time, and though his theory 
 was exaggerated by himself and his disciples in such a 
 way that the historians of his school rather constructed 
 history than inquired into it, yet the merit due to him 
 cannot be denied. The history of mankind is not, as 
 Schopenhauer says, a vague dream of humanity, but a 
 well-developed evolution of the human idea. The same 
 work in the more exact inquiries of natural sciences, based
 
 FIRST CAUSE AND FINAL CAUSE. 53 
 
 on experiments and observations, has been done by Dar- 
 win ; and Herbert Spencer's philosophy may justly be 
 called the philosophy of evohition. The systematic appli- 
 cation and generalization of this idea is his chief merit 
 and most worthy claim to originality of thought. 
 
 § 8. MORALITY THE ONLY MEANS BY WHICH 
 EVOLUTION IS POSSIBLE. 
 
 It is undoubtedly a fact that the development of the 
 world tends toward a higher plan and a better arrange- 
 ment. Matter itself in its elements we know from the law 
 oi conservation of force and matter r^rndLins, the same un- 
 changed ; we suppose them to be unalterable, and they 
 are to-day as they have been millions and millions of 
 years ago — yea from eternity. But the composition of 
 matter is changeable ; the arrangment in which the ele- 
 ments are combined, may be more or less favorable. And 
 this arrangement undergoes a constant alteration accord- 
 ing to the law of causality. And there is a tendency of 
 advancement observable toward one and the same point : 
 and this aim is the amelioration of the present state. 
 Such an improvement is only possible by an unceasing 
 struggle, by heroic work, not in the service of egotism, 
 but in that of a higher unity, not by indulging in the 
 happiness of the present, but by severe labor, done in and 
 with the hope of a better future, — in one word, it is 
 merely possible by sacrifice. So the single individual has 
 to sacrifice his youth's best years for the comfort of his 
 age, and in like manner humanity sacrifices the labor and 
 lives of its individuals for a better future. Thus on the 
 way of perpetual sacrifice the human race throngs onward 
 to a higher and better existence and so does the whole 
 universe. 
 
 And if similar races, as humanity on earth, live on
 
 54 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 other planets, we may be fully convinced that there is 
 also an evolution to constantly higher standpoints, for 
 that is the Jini's whither the cosmical development tends. 
 However, the way by which it advances and the means 
 through which it attains this end is the principle of 
 morality. It is a fact that single units serve as parts in a 
 higher unity ; like organs which operate in an organism, 
 they work, they suffer, they sacrifice themselves for the 
 good of the whole of which they form limbs. And the 
 act of serving this higher interest, even with neglect of 
 personal desires, is what we call morality. 
 
 § 9. THE FINIS OF EVOLUTION INFORMS AS TO THE 
 CHARACTER OF THE FINAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Only by knowing the finis, the whither of the develop- 
 ment of the world, can we find out the nature and 
 character of the final principle of the cosmos, which re- 
 presents the whence of all movement in the universe, the 
 ultimate ground and source from which all activity starts. 
 Now, if the tendency of amelioration prevails every- 
 where, we should apply this law to the final principle, 
 which pervades the macrocosm. So the aspiration to- 
 wards ever higher aims on the high road of infinitude and 
 eternity seems to be the inmost, the sublimest and grandest 
 characteristic of this final interior of nature, the ground- 
 work of the world. And if this solar system in which we 
 live falls to pieces, after its due time, there are other 
 suns with their planets which will have developed mean- 
 while, in which, no doubt, the same principle is as active 
 as it is in this world of ours. 
 
 As we have seen on earth organisms rising into exist- 
 ence, developing, striving, to make straight the path to 
 some higher state and then dying away in order to make 
 room for organisms of higher rank, may there not be a
 
 FIRST CAUSE AND FINAL CAUSE. 55 
 
 chance also for a similar evolution from less developed 
 worlds to more highly organized solar systems, in a way 
 of which we have not, and can not have, any experience ? 
 But such an idea, we must confess, belongs to the empire 
 of dreamland, and so we merely hint at it, as we are not 
 inclined here to indulge in suppositions and possibilities. 
 
 However this may be, sursiim is at any rate the watch- 
 word of all evolution and the fijiis everywhere percept- 
 ible. The means by which it is attained is morality; the 
 source from which it starts is the wonderful spring that 
 marvelously and mysteriously sets in motion the whole 
 universe. 
 
 So we have learned i\\2it first cause and final cause are 
 confusions ; yet gleaning the truth from these ideas, we 
 state that there is some finis in the world, which teaches 
 us what we may know concerning the nature and ultimate 
 principle of the universe, as the finis reveals the aim and 
 tendency in the cosmos. The way, however, by which 
 its end and, so to speak, its purpose is, and can only be j^ 
 accomplished, is that of morality, as must be stated in 
 the science of ethics. 
 

 
 THE TRINITY OF MONISM. 
 
 § I. CAUSE, REASON AND FINIS. 
 
 THREE things are to be carefully distinguished in the 
 idea of causality, i. If a man acts, the motive that 
 stirs him is the cause {o'^^v t) apxv ^V'' >iiyv(^^oo<i)', 2. the 
 law according to which he acts is his character (r/ ovaia), 
 as the decision of his will depends on the quality of him- 
 self, viz., his nature; and 3. the end pursued in his action 
 is his purpose or finis {to oi) evsna or riXoi). The man 
 himself is what Aristotle calls tf tXtj or to vyroueipisvov 
 {i. e. literally : matter or subject) ; we should say the object 
 of our observation, in which the change is noticed. And 
 in the same way every phenomenon has i. its catise and 
 2. obeys some general law, which explains the grojind or 
 reason of its occurrence, and 3. a finis, which may become 
 eventually identical with its effect. 
 
 If some one asks, why powder explodes, he does not 
 want to know the cause of a single case, for instance 
 that of a recently discharged gun, but the reason of any 
 powder explosion. The cause or occasion was some fact, 
 some motion or alteration of circumstances, say the 
 approach of a linstock to the touchhole. The reason, 
 however, of this and of any explosion, is not a single fact 
 or event, not an incident like the cause, — the reason of it 
 is a general lazv, establishing some trutJi about the pro- 
 perties of the powder. And this truth must be carefully 
 distinguished from cause. To call it a general cause, as 
 Hume does, leads to a confusion just as bad as that of 
 the ideas of first cause and final cause. This truth is not 
 a concrete fact of some certain case of real and material
 
 THE TRINITY OF MONISM. 57 
 
 existence, but it contains a concept which in its abstract- 
 ness applies to any case of its kind. It is not a phenoin- 
 enon but a laiv. 
 
 Such a reason (in Latin, called ratio, in German, Griaid) 
 explains why in any case powder explodes. In the action 
 of man, the cause applies merely to one transient act ; the 
 reason, however, explains, why the cause took effect 
 according to his character in this instance as well as in 
 any similar condition. 
 
 The vTCOHSipisvov or object of observation, is, and 
 always must be, under a certain condition, to explain 
 which is sometimes of the greatest import, as the con- 
 dition is usually accessory to the fact that the cause takes 
 effect. Condition embraces the state of the object as well 
 as the circumstances that surround it. 
 
 Every cause is the effect of some prior cause, and so ad 
 infijiitum, and every reason may be explained by some 
 higher, i. e., more general reason. Though the cause is 
 antecedent to its effect, the reason is coexistent with the 
 inference that follows from it. 
 
 The finis or zvJiither in the motion of causation an- 
 swers to the whence, i. e., the reason or general law 
 according to which some effect is produced. I observe 
 whither the vane points to know whence the wind blows; 
 and when all things fall to the ground toward the 
 centre of the earth, the finis or whitJier of their mo- 
 tion corresponds to the general law of gravitation. In 
 this way the attraction of things toward the earth is ex- 
 plained. 
 
 The fi7iis consciously aspired to is called purpose. 
 Thus purpose exists only on the condition of a rational 
 will, and a man's purposes are inferences from his char- 
 acter, which represents the reason or general law that 
 accounts for his aims. The finis or end may not be 
 directly approachable. In such a case the motion of caus-
 
 58 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 ality must pass through a medium, which in the activity 
 of man we call tJic means that serve his purpose. 
 
 In every instance we can point out i. the cause or the 
 alteration of a state of things which under certain con- 
 ditions calls forth a change, thus producing the effect; 
 2. the reason or ground, the question, why does it happen ? 
 The answer is a general law that holds good in all kindred 
 cases ; and 3. the direction of the motion, its aim and 
 end, or as we style it, its finis. The finis of a conscious 
 will is called purpose. 
 
 § 2. EXAMPLES TO SHOW THE DIFFERE^XE BETWEEN 
 CAUSE AND REASON. 
 
 Temptation allied to the hope that the crime will not 
 be discovered may perhaps cause a man to become a thief. 
 At any rate, some event or incident must happen to induce 
 a man to act in this way. And such an occurrence is the 
 cause. The reason, however, for the committal of such a 
 crime may be avarice, egotism, love for a starving family, 
 or some other quality, which is, under certain circum- 
 stances, the begetter of thievishness. 
 
 Dr. James McCosh, in his essay on Energy, Efficient 
 and Final Cause, page 4, says : " A picture-frame falls 
 from a wall and breaks a jar standing on a table below ; 
 we say that the frame, or rather the fall of the frame, was 
 the cause of the fracture of the jar. But the true cause, 
 that which forever will produce the same effect, is the 
 frame falling with a certain momentum and the brittle- 
 ness of the jar." In this instance "the fall of the frame 
 with a certain momentum " is the cause, and what Dr. 
 McCosh calls "true cause," is no cause but tht reason, 
 establishing some truth about the properties of the jar 
 and the frame, vis., the brittleness of the jar and the 
 weight of the frame, through which the effect is produced
 
 THE TRINITY OF MONISM. 59 
 
 in this and in any other case. There is no purpose in the 
 breakage, yet there is some finis in the falling of the 
 frame, and the jar happens to stand in its direction. 
 
 And further on Dr. McCosh uses another example ; he 
 says on page 7 : "I was prompted to write a letter to a 
 friend by my affection ; but the occasion was his suffering 
 a severe loss ; the two actually called forth the letter." 
 In this instance, the intelligence of my friend's severe 
 loss is the cause that prompts m.e ; but my affection 
 (Dr. McCosh calls it "a cause steadily operating") is the 
 reason why I feel prompted to write ; and this produces, 
 according to the law of friendship, the desire of comfort- 
 ing and, if possible, helping my friend in his emergency. 
 The comfort and help of my friend is the aim and finis 
 of my action, or as we usually say, it is the purpose of my 
 writing the letter. 
 
 There is an old scholastic dictum, '■^ cess ante causa 
 cessat effectiis ; if the cause ceases to exist, the effect 
 does not exist any more." This is wrong, for the cause 
 is passed whenever the effect is produced. If the murderer 
 pulls the trigger of his gun, the shot goes off and his 
 victim is struck. The first cause has passed, when the 
 effect is produced. And this again is passed, when it 
 inflicts the fatal wound. The cause passes away with its 
 effect; the reason, however, remains in and with its infer- 
 ence. The inference disappears if the reason is abolished 
 or counteracted. 
 
 The Romans kept their slaves in severe bondage. Their 
 egotism was the reason of their severity. When Christi- 
 anity conquered the world, more humane ideas spread, 
 restraining as much as possible the barbarity of pagan- 
 ism. As the reason or ground of keeping slaves was thus 
 checked, its inference ceased to exist, and in consequence 
 of this, slavery became by and by impossible ; it was 
 abolished.
 
 60 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 Emdc7i was once a flourishing Hansa-city, because its 
 situation on the banks of the Ems was exceedingly favor- 
 able. But its trade and commerce went almost to decay 
 since the river altered its course. We ask, why .^ The 
 answer is, ccssante ratione conseqiieiis cessat. 
 
 This same law holds good if one reason is counteracted 
 by another. For instance, powder is inflammable and 
 explosive. Dampness counteracts its inflammability; let 
 it be wet, and it will, in such a case, never be explosive. 
 
 § 3. UNDERSTANDING, REASON AND JUDGMENT. 
 
 The faculty of mind, by which we perceive the causality 
 of phenomena, is called understanding. It is that faculty 
 which teaches us the use of our senses. For instance, we 
 see some object : the beams of light which shine on the 
 object are reflected and enter into our eye. So the effect 
 of the presence of that object is its little picture on the 
 retina of the eye. From this effect we infer the presence 
 of the object before us, supposing it to be the cause of 
 that picture. In this way it is not so much the eye that 
 sees as the understanding, the eye being merely its 
 organ or instrument of seeing. Without the power of 
 understanding the eye is unable to see. A man may 
 open his eyes wide in a swoon, yet he does not see ; the 
 pictures appear on the retina with the same accuracy as 
 usual, but his understanding is paralyzed and does not 
 translate these miniatures into real perception. 
 
 Understanding is a faculty which man shares with 
 animals. 
 
 The faculty of mind which enables us to perceive the 
 ground or reason, why causes operate thus and not other- 
 wise, is called reason. Reason is among all creatures on 
 earth the sole property of man. Reason not only affords 
 knowledge of general and universal truths, but it is also
 
 THE TRINITY OF MONISM. 6 1 
 
 the capacity for abstraction, and so it creates concepts or 
 general ideas. In consequence of this, reason produces 
 language, and if fully developed, science, viz.: a method- 
 ically arranged system of knowledge. 
 
 The reason of some fact affords the explanation of the 
 same in the form of a law. Such a law, though explain- 
 ing all instances in which it is applicable, is simply the 
 statement of some general truth and it in turn is suscept- 
 ible of an explanation by some higher truth, by some 
 more general law. To accomplish this task is the duty 
 of science as it classifies and systematizes all laws, ex- 
 plaining the particular ones from the general and these 
 from more general, in the hope of finding at length the 
 most general or universal law, comprising and explaining 
 all others. And this universal law is what we call the 
 final principle of the world. 
 
 The chief characteristic of reason is its tendency to- 
 ward establishing a unity wherever it is possible. And 
 so it points by its very nature to a conception of a uni- 
 versal unity or to monism. 
 
 The faculty of mind which affords an insight into the 
 finis, whither the cause tends, is generally and most 
 properly called judgment. In a similar way we form a 
 judgment, when we conclude in a logical syllogism, draw 
 an inference and form an estimate ; also when we make 
 up our mind, we determine to act in a certain way on 
 account of a judgment with regard to the probable end 
 or finis of our action. 
 
 And so our intellect, in agreement with i. cause, 
 2. ground (reason), and '^. finis in causality, consists of 
 I. understanding, 2. reason, and 3. judgment.
 
 62 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 § 4. UNIVERSE, COSMOS AND WORLD. 
 
 Thus monism establishes a unique and universal prin- 
 ciple of the world permeating the whole cosmos. The 
 world is an evolution of that one final principle and the 
 single phenomena are so many single oscillations or un- 
 dulations of the general motion of that grand stream 
 rushing on from the eternity of the past to the eternity 
 of the future. 
 
 Monism means, i. a unity of source to which it traces 
 the origin and explanation of all things and phenomena 
 both spiritual and material, 2. a unity of principle animat- 
 ing the whole world, arranging the order of motion or the 
 mechanics of causality, and 3. a unity oi its finis. There 
 is everywhere the same goal, whither the development of 
 evolution tends. 
 
 Things are not single existences, but form one entire 
 whole, which in its totality we call, with reference to 
 point first, the universe ; to point second, the cosmos, and 
 to point third, tJie world. The first Latin word {universe) 
 regards the material umty of things, the second, of Greek 
 origin {cosmos), represents their unity of organization, 
 the harmony of which is the regularity oi space, and the 
 third, (our old Anglo-Saxon term zvorld, old German 
 werlde, connected with modern German werden, to grow, 
 to become) signifies the unity of growth in all objects, 
 i.e., the unity of all tendencies seemingly so different yet 
 striving for and aspiring towards the same finis. It is 
 the unity of motion. 
 
 § 5. TRINITY AS RELIGIOUS IDEA. 
 
 As soon as the religious ideas of man are imbued with 
 philosophical speculations, the conception of a deity is 
 developed in natural course ; it may be in form of Mono-
 
 THE TRINITY OF MONISM. 63 
 
 theism or Pantheism. Certainly either view represents 
 a religious ideal of monism. In Judaea it was Monotheism, 
 and so it was in Arabia; in India we meet with Pantheism, 
 and in Greece it is rather doubtful, whether the divine 
 mind ivovi) of Anaxagoras and the God (S-fo;) of Plato, 
 were monotheistic or pantheistic conceptions of the deity. 
 
 However, the unity of monism is not that of number, 
 but of entirety ; and in accordance with the treble enigma 
 of the world, God is conceived as a trinity. Therefore we 
 need not be astonished that the Christian trinity bears 
 certain resemblances to Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, the tri- 
 mur/i o( the Indians, and to the trinity of the Neo-Plato- 
 nists. Also the Edda, the bible of old Iceland, teaches a 
 trinity of the Godhead, Har, EfenJiar, TJwiti (the High, 
 the equally High and the Third), though the latter 
 doctrine was probably influenced by Christianity. 
 
 The doctrine of trinity is by no means, as Mohammed 
 thought, a relapse from the Jewish Monotheism toward 
 pagan polytheism ; but it is a progress in accordance 
 with the natural evolution of religious ideas, a progress 
 which the human mind naturally made, as it is based 
 upon that other trinity exhibited in the law of universal 
 causality.
 
 ETHICS. 
 
 §1. RELIGIONISTS AND HEDONISTS. 
 
 ETHICS is the touchstone of any philosophy by which 
 one may gauge its depth, its validity and its practi- 
 cability. Of the system of Monism and Meliorism, as 
 we propose it, ethics form an essential part, necessarily 
 to be considered even in the mere outlines of the system. 
 It should be stated beforehand, however, that it is not 
 the province of philosophy to preach morals. That is 
 the work of the preacher in the pulpit. Ethics is a 
 science, and the philosopher has the more difficult task 
 to substantiate and to lay the foundation for morals. The 
 first question is : " Does it exist at all .''" and the second : 
 " What is its scientific basis.-' i.e., what is the reason 
 through which it exists .-'" 
 
 Throughout the history of the past, there have been 
 two parties of which one may be called the religionists, 
 the other Jiedonists or utilitarians. The religionists did 
 not know of any other basis for ethics than religion, 
 both being inseparable to them, and the hedonists de- 
 clared that living morally and aspiring to happiness were 
 synonymous. To the first party belong the faithful and 
 orthodox believers of almost every creed ; to the latter 
 naturally freethinkers incline, as having no other or 
 better foundation after getting rid of their dogmatic 
 belief. Both parties are wrong and lack a real foundation 
 of ethics. If ethics is nothing but the commandments 
 of a God who is going to reward the obedient and punish 
 the disobedient in another world, then religion exists — 
 but no ethics. Morals in such a case are a kind of trans-
 
 ETHICS. 65 
 
 cendent and religious utilitarianism. And on the other 
 hand, if you have to act well and to do good merely 
 because it brings some advantages, as hedonism teaches, 
 ethics does not exist either. And such ethics as Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer proposes may correctly be called worldly 
 wisdom, or prudence, or the art of living sensibly, or any- 
 thing else, but not ethics. 
 
 § 2. THE DOCTRINE OF FREE WILL. 
 
 Religionists usually adhere to the dogma of free will, 
 while the hedonists do not accept this doctrine, but pro- 
 claim it to be in contradiction to the unyielding law of 
 causality. It is the third of Kant's antinomies. The 
 religionists take the positive side of the thesis, and the 
 hedonists the negative of the antithesis. If there were no 
 freedom of will, ethics would not exist, for it is freedom 
 that implies the responsibilities for one's actions. 
 
 Now, according to the law of causality, the actions of 
 man result through the same necessity as any event or 
 phenomenon. It is a strange confusion to make of neces- 
 sity- and freedom a contradictory opposition, so that 
 either would exclude the other. If a man can do as he 
 pleases, we call him free ; but if he is prohibited from 
 following motives which stir him, if by some restraint or 
 force he is limited, he is not free. But every man, if he be 
 free or restrained under a certain condition, under ex- 
 actly these and no other circumstances must, of neces- 
 sity, will just as he does will, and not otherwise. As to 
 this, there is no doubt, if causality is truly the universal 
 law of the world. 
 
 The confusion from which so many errors arise, is due 
 to the similarity of the concepts /^/r^r and necessity. Force 
 may lay a restraint on free will. Where force rules, 
 free will is annihilated. Necessity, however, is no force.
 
 (£ MONISM AND MELIORISM, 
 
 Whoever is unable to make this distinction, will never 
 get a clear insight into the theory of free will. Necessity, 
 in such a case, is the inevitable sequence by which a cer- 
 tain result follows according to a certain reason. It is 
 the internal harmony and logical order of the world. 
 Force, however, is an external restraint, and a foreign 
 pressure exercised to check and hinder by violence. Give 
 the loadstone freedom on a pivot, and it will turn toward 
 the north, of necessity, according to the qualities or 
 properties of magnetism. But if you direct it by a pres- 
 sure of the finger to some other point, you will exercise 
 some force, which does not allow it to show its real 
 nature and quality. Were the loadstone endowed with 
 sentiment and gifted with the power of speech, it would 
 say in the first case : *' I am free, and of my free will I 
 point toward the north." In the second case, however, 
 it would feel, that it is acted upon and forced into some 
 other direction against its nature, and would declare its 
 freedom to be curtailed. 
 
 It is the same with man ; and the moral worth of 
 a man depends entirely upon what motives direct his 
 will. An ethical estimate of moral actions is not possible, 
 except under the condition that they are the expression 
 and realization of free will. The best action would 
 amount to nothing, if it were a mere chance result which 
 might have occurred otherwise. The chief value of any 
 moral deed rests on the fact that the man could not, under 
 the conditions, act otherwise than thus, that it was an 
 act o{ free will and, at the same time, of inevitable 
 necessity. 
 
 So we have succeeded in solving a problem, which to 
 Kant was an antinomy of pure reason : and as we have 
 in free will a basis for moral action, we may establish 
 upon it a theory of ethics which will prove more satisfac- 
 tory than that of the religionists or hedonists.
 
 ETHICS. 67 
 
 § 3. KANT'S ETHICS. 
 
 Kant founds his morals on the categorical imperative. 
 In his Critique of Pure Reason he teaches that through- 
 out nature there is everywhere the strict inflexible rule of 
 causality. But this thesis has its antithesis in the prac- 
 tical reason. In the domain of man, he says, liberty 
 reigns, and instead of the rigid ''imist,'' he propounds 
 the moral '^ ought" according to the categorical impera- 
 tive. Schopenhauer justly criticizes Kant, showing that 
 the establishment of an imperative is in reality an aban- 
 donment of an attempt to justify the law of morals. It 
 is not a critical but a dogmatical way of philosophizing ; 
 and in plain words it means : as we must needs have 
 morals and as I cannot giv^e them any philosophical or 
 scientific basis, I proclaim them as a guiding (or, as he 
 says, regulative) law for human kind prescribed by prac- 
 tical reason. 
 
 So the categorical imperative is exactly the same way 
 of teaching ethics as that of the religionists, who stand 
 on the ten commandments given by God. Since, accord- 
 ing to Kant, religion does not afford any longer a basis 
 for ethics, and since he can not dispense with morals, he 
 makes ethics absolute, standing on nothing, as though 
 hovering in the empty space. That imperative is cate- 
 gorical and no question is answered as to its reason, 
 justification or legitimation. 
 
 Ethics, as taught by dogmatic religion, is as though it 
 were for children. God wills it so ; therefore obey. By 
 obedience children should show their love, confidence and 
 reverence toward their parents. Obedience is the car- 
 dinal virtue required. And in the domain of religion, 
 indeed, it could not be otherwise. For we must bear in 
 mind that religion must attend to the spiritual wants and 
 must satisfy the devout cravings and longings of the civ-
 
 68 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 ilized races as well as of barbaric tribes. And Christianity 
 takes the highest possible view, as it requires an obe- 
 dience not from fear but from love. Religion is no philo- 
 sophy, but serves other purposes. While philosophy 
 explains ethics scientifically, religion simply preaches 
 morals. Hence religious commandments have some- 
 thing personal about them. So they are liable to inspire 
 enthusiasm, just as feudal allegiance made knights die for 
 their lieges. Kant deprives the religious ethics of their 
 poetic charm, leaving merely their grandeur and sublim- 
 ity. Thus it comes to pass that we feel chilly among the 
 glaciers on the Alpine hights of pure reason ; and where- 
 ever such ethics are taught, we move in spheres of an 
 abstraction which seems superhuman. Virtue is no longer 
 fervid love ; it is crystalized to ice, and frigid reflection 
 has congealed all enthusiasm into the cold idea of duty, 
 according to abstract rules ; and morals no longer well 
 up like the living waters of a spring, but operate like the 
 correctly calculated gear of a machine. 
 
 According to the ethics of pure reason, that virtue is 
 highest which is performed against our own inclination. 
 Schiller, though an admirer of Kant, ridicules the rigi- 
 dity of his ethics in one of his Xenions. The poet says : 
 
 "Willingly serve I my friends ; but t'is pity, I do it with pleasure. 
 And I am really vexed, that there's no virtue in me !" 
 
 And he answers in a second distich : 
 
 "There is no other advice than that you try to despise friends, 
 And, with disgust, you will do what such a duty demands." 
 
 § 4. OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM. 
 
 The religionist's and in the same way the transcend- 
 ental philosopher's ethics are not satisfactory. But the 
 hedonist has no right to scoff at or mock the theory, for
 
 ETHICS. 69 
 
 he gives nothing better. He is entangled in one funda- 
 mental error, and that is that he supposes man to be liv- 
 ing in this world in order to be or to become happy. Ac- 
 cording to his theory, happiness is the aim and purpose 
 of life, and all human aspiration serve this end. That is 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine, and the same is taught by 
 Mr. Lester F. Ward in his Dynamical Sociology. This 
 philosopher overlooks entirely the fact that happiness 
 can not be defined. Happiness and its essence is too re- 
 lative a thing. If it be the state of mind in which we 
 feel at ease, I think that a well-fed pig is a more prac- 
 tical philosopher than any great man or sage. The feli- 
 city of man depends much more upon his character and 
 his nature than upon any thing else ; and a development 
 of this will not necessarily evolve happiness. Quite the 
 contrary ! Very often, it will lead him into danger, 
 destruction and death. 
 
 With regard to the optimism generally exhibited by 
 the hedonists, I have to say in accordance with Schopen- 
 hauer, the great pessimist, that the world would be a 
 failure, if its chief purpose were really happiness. We do 
 not live to be happy. Our inmost nature compels us to 
 perform some tasks in the service of some thing higher 
 than our personal existence, be it in the field of science 
 or art, be it by inventions or by extending trade and 
 commerce or by the propagation and education of pos- 
 terity ; in one word, be it by any progress or improve- 
 ment, we are compelled to do some thing in the service 
 of humanity. And this task appears to us as a duty, 
 which must be done even at the sacrifice of comfort, ease 
 and happiness ; and a successful performance of this duty 
 is the highest, nay the only happiness of man. 
 
 Pessimism has been preached as religion and taught as 
 philosophy ; in either case it has vanquished optimism 
 wherever they have met. Buddhism conquered the whole
 
 70 MOXISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 of Eastern Asia, and it is still to-day the most widespread 
 religion on earth. And to Christianity the western half 
 of the world seems to be surrendered. Christianity, like 
 Buddhism, is a pessimistic religion, which preaches that 
 the world is bad in its foundation. The prince of this 
 world is the devil, who allures and entices to transient 
 sham happiness. Christ came into this life to suffer and 
 die, in order that he might show the way of salvation. 
 Man is a stranger, a pilgrim in this world, and destined 
 to suffer for the purpose of purifying his soul. The symbol 
 of Christianity is the cross, an instrument of penal torture, 
 and indeed in those times the most infamous one as cruci- 
 fixion was the capital punishment for slaves and criminals. 
 Certainly, this world does not exist for happiness, or 
 Christianity would not have subdued the most civilized 
 races on earth. And in the province of philosophy, 
 Schopenhauer has forever defeated optimism. He has 
 proved conclusively that the commonly-looked-for happi- 
 ness, which is usually sought, is an illusion, and that life 
 itself is a boon of doubtful value which in most instances 
 we would be better rid of. He characterizes himself with 
 the words of Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust : 
 
 " I am the spirit that denies, 
 And justly so, for all things from the void 
 Called forth deserve to be destroyed ; 
 'T were better then, were naught created." 
 
 § 5. MELIORISM AND THE ETHICS OF MELIORISM. 
 
 But pessimism, though it was and ever will be victor- 
 ious in the face of optimism, is not by any means what 
 we should advocate as our contemplation of the world. 
 We have not space to argue at length the pro and con of 
 this question. However, what pessimism has taught is 
 that life in itself has no value, yet that it may acquire
 
 ETHICS. 71 ^ 
 
 some by what it contains. If our days are empty of any 
 action worthy to be done, then they are indeed spent as 
 a tale that is told, although they may be four score years 
 or more ; yet is their strength labor and sorrow, i For a 
 life worthy to be lived is one that is full of active aspira- \ 
 tion, for something higher and better ; and such a con- 
 templation of the world we call meliorism. Let the world 
 be bad ! our duty is to work with steady labor for its 
 improvement. And this aspiration for enhancing and 
 progressing, which dwells in our souls as a categoric 
 imperative, is more than simply a regulative law, which 
 we accept not so much for ourselves as for the benefit of 
 the community and for the human race in general, 
 through fear that egotism and anarchy will destroy 
 society and ourselves into the bargain. 
 
 Meliorism and the ethics of meliorism have a better 
 foundation. It is no mere regulative law, prescribing 
 what ought to be, but it is a natural law ruling the deve- 
 lopment and progress of the world. Nor could it be 
 otherwise. Let us spy into the nature of man as scien- 
 tists spy into the objects of their studies, and we shall 
 find, that the very core and inmost quality of the world is 
 moral ; not as the religionists or orthodox usually sup- 
 pose, immoral ; nor does it lead, as the hedonists imagine, 
 to the happiness of egotism. 
 
 We believe that human society could not even exist, 
 nor could have risen into existence, if there were not an 
 ethical law governing the affairs of the world, especially 
 those of man. Any social body is possible only on the 
 basis of morality ; and morality, though in an ampler 
 sense of the word, is a universal law, ruling the universe 
 and arranging progress in any development.
 
 72 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 § 6. MELIORISM AND THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 Darwin, no doubt, has been mistaken in many details 
 of his system ; there is, however, one point, which may 
 be regarded as generally accepted by scientists, viz., the 
 theory of evolution. It is not at all proved, and scarcely 
 ever can be, that all animals on earth descend from the 
 same cell. It is, however, more than probable that every 
 kind of being, as it exists at present, was not fully deve- 
 loped from the beginning, but had to pass through a long 
 process of evolution. So the primordial life consisted of 
 cells, and organisms arose from different combinations of 
 the same. 
 
 Cells possess all properties of organic beings : ali- 
 mentation, growth, and propagation. A mother-cell, 
 having divided itself and thus produced new cells, is still 
 connected with these filial cells, and in their union they 
 are more fit to encounter the struggle for life. Hence- 
 forth the work to be done for their preservation is divided 
 and dispensed in such a way that some cells perform one, 
 other cells an other function for the unity thus created. 
 It is division ojj^orkj^according to a general plan ; and 
 that is whatxijnstitutes^n organism. The single organ 
 or limb of a body does^rrot exist for itself any more, but 
 serves the idea of a larger unity of which it feels itself 
 to be a part. The purpose, aim and end of its existence 
 is forthwith not in itself but in some thing higher than 
 itself. This principle pervades all organic nature. Or- 
 ganisms can not exist but under this condition ; and this 
 principle is ethical. 
 
 The same principle which produced organisms and ani- 
 mals guides them in their further development ; and only 
 so far as any creature is animated by this ethical guid- 
 ance is it able to develop into some higher thing. It is 
 the star of Bethlehem that leads the foremost men of all
 
 ETHICS. 73 
 
 human races to the cradle where a new truth is born and 
 the germ of a new idea is thriving. So man and the 
 society of man rest on the same principle. The first 
 higher unity is the family ; families grow into tribes, and 
 tribes form nations. The love of parents has broadened 
 into patriotism, and no doubt the next higher ideal will 
 be that of humanity. The next higher stage to which 
 development ever tends is the ideal, and there will be no 
 rest in the minds of the single individuals until this ideal 
 is realized. After that, new ideals arise and lead on the 
 interminable, infinite path of progress, not as Darwin 
 says, merejy ruled by theja mous law ^of the struggle for 
 life, but en hanced by '^^_^rife for the ideal. 
 
 § 7. THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE NOT A MERE CONSTITU- 
 TIONAL BUT A NATURAL LAW. 
 
 This ethical principle is no mere constitutional law, 
 proposed by a legislature as fitted to serve the majority. 
 It is, as we have learned, a natural law pervading the 
 universe ; and a scientist must be blind to facts if he does 
 not discover it. Even in the organic world, I venture to 
 say, this law rules, though in a broader sense. Gravita- 
 tion forms out of a whirlpool of gaseous materials well- 
 arranged solar systems. It is the law of order and unity 
 which dispenses to different bodies the different parts to ^^,^^ 
 
 be performed. The law oLgrayitation seems so plain and^ \ P"^ ^ 
 simple, and is so grand in its justice, that, according to 
 the rules of pure mechanics, we perceive that it cannot 
 be otherwise. It is the ethical law of primordial matter ; 
 and if the single atoms of a nebula which are ranging 
 still in different directions, could tell us their ideal, it 
 would be that of a fully-regulated solar system. The 
 chaos will clear, according to simple mechanical rules.
 
 74 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 the ideal will be realized, and the general turmoil will 
 give way to order. 
 
 I could never understand how the theory of evolution 
 could be arraigned for undermining the ethical feeling and 
 moral aspirations of man. It will prove to be doing 
 exactly the reverse. An ethical conception of life, we 
 should say, is not possible without it. 
 
 The dogmatic theologian bases his morals on the ten 
 commandments of Moses, ultimately resting on the 
 authority of God. Now this is a sufficient foundation for 
 morals to be preached to the people, but not for ethics to 
 be scientifically justified and traced to their origin. The 
 freethinkers, as represented by Mr. Spencar and others, 
 have no ethics, though they may preach m.orals, and they 
 are standing on the wrong principle that man lives to 
 be happy. Let them rather look at the world as it is. 
 True ethical aspiration produces happiness, though not to 
 the aspiring individual. Look at the misery resulting 
 from this strife ! How many individuals sacrifice them- 
 selves for the ideal till some one of their successors strid- 
 ing over their dead bodies is at last victorious. Yet 
 though successful, not even he is happy. Personally he 
 does not reap the fruit of his trouble, and though the 
 thorny crown of martyrdom may become his glory after 
 his death, yet during his life he merely feels the pricks of 
 the spines. 
 
 § 8. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE IDEAL. 
 
 This world is not a world of happiness then, but of 
 ethical aspiration. Its essence is evolution or a constant 
 realizing of new ideals. True, it is the struggle for life ; 
 but if you look at it more exactly, is it life indeed, that 
 the progressive part of humanity is striving for .'' No, 
 they sacrifice even their lives for some higher purpose,
 
 ETHICS. 75 
 
 for the ideal. Would it not be a strange contradiction to 
 say that people are consciously sacrificing and losing 
 their lives in a struggle for life ? 
 
 So according to the doctrine of monism and meliorism, 
 to live naturally becomes identical with aspiring morally. 
 The innate qualities and talents which appear to be pre- 
 sented by nature, and which therefore are justly called 
 gifts, according to the theory of evolution are faculties 
 inherited from ancestors. The labor of former genera- 
 tions is not lost ; its fruit has been preserved and handed 
 down to the generation now living. This fact has a 
 profound ethical import ! There is nothing without 
 work in this world. That easy and apparently effortless 
 production which we admire in genius, is not possible but 
 by inherited abilities acquired by the labor o; ancestors. 
 The single man, therefore, ought to be conscious of being 
 the product of the labor of ages. And what he does, 
 be it evil or good, will live after him so far as his indivi- 
 duality impresses itself and influences his contemporaries. 
 In consideration of this fact, man may think with more 
 revej-ence of the past, and in respect to the future he will 
 form his life with more earnestJiess. 
 
 Let us now return to Kant and his categorical impera- 
 tive ; he imagined that freedom and causality formed an 
 antinomy, and so he teaches his doctrine oi^'miisf' in hi'^ 
 Critique of Pure Reason, while that of the ^' oiigJif' has its 
 place in his Critique of Practical Reason. In the system 
 of Monism the contradiction is eliminated so entirely, 
 that the must and the ought are found, to some extent, 
 identical. And just the theory of evolution widely criti- 
 cized for a lack of ethics contitutes the ougJit as the main 
 spring in the struggle for tJie ideal. Ask a man like 
 Kepler or Gallileo, or any hero in science or art, or industry, 
 or of any useful craft who during his life endured hard- 
 ships and pain — ask James Watt, who gave almost the
 
 I 
 
 y6 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 whole time of his life, his best efforts, his property, small 
 as it was, for his invention and did not reap the least part 
 of the immense emoluments which it produced to later 
 generations — ask any such man, whether he considers his 
 life worth living. It may be that he endured often 
 moments of despair, that he was tired of the many 
 troubles and misery, and that, dying, he says: "I am 
 glad that it is over! It is finished!" However, place 
 again before him a new life, conscious of similar aspira- 
 tions, give him an ideal and the hope of attaining it, 
 and he will endure the same hardships, will suffer the 
 same misery, will abstain from pleasure, resign happiness, 
 merely for the great aim before his eyes, which becomes 
 the purpose of his life. 
 
 § 9. CONCLUSION. 
 
 The ethics of meliorism, as here explained, character- 
 izes the general tendency of morality and traces moral 
 actions to their source. However, it can not teach a priori 
 what are the morals of to-day or }'esterday, what is the 
 ethical ideal of America, what is that of Germany, or 
 that of England. The standard of morality is different, 
 and the ideal of ethics is changing, according to the cir- 
 cumstances under which men live. Different conditions 
 require different duties ; and to different duties different 
 moral ideals correspond. Usually we are inclined to 
 judge the actions of men of past times, from the stand- 
 point of the moral ideas of to-day. But that is entirely 
 wrong, and many apparently barbarous deeds are jusitifi- 
 able — even right, with regard to the circumstances and 
 requirements of their era. If some hero of olden times 
 had acted according to the higher and better ideal of 
 these latter days, it would have been considered (and 
 sometimes perhaps justly) as weakness on his part. For
 
 ETHICS. yy 
 
 though the ethical tendency, aspiring toward ameliora- 
 tion, is the same throughout, yet the evolution of the 
 ethical idea shows different stages. History traces the 
 causes of these differences, and in every case must point 
 out the reason by which it is changed in this or that way. 
 
 Yet the ideal is no mere fiction, it is a power of 
 reality, perva ding the un i verse as A -laAVjof nature ; and 
 with regard to humanity it points out to man the path of 
 progress. ProgressTTf it is^guTded By the ideal, will pro- 
 duce new and better eras for humankind. And if a moral 
 tendency were not the fundamental la.w of nature, there 
 could not be any advancement, development, or evolu- 
 tion. ^ 
 
 As we judge about the character of a man from his 
 actions, or rather from the purposes which he pursues, so 
 we may learn also what the character of the final prin- 
 ciple of the world is, from the finis or aim of its evolu- 
 tion. And so meliorism completes and supplements the 
 doctrine of monism in establishing the truth that the 
 final principle of the world is ethical.
 
 Definitions and Explanations. 
 
 The following list of definitions will serve to explain 
 
 the standpoint of Monism. 
 
 Idealism is that conception of the world which takes 
 the subject as its starting-point. 
 According to Berkeley and his idealism the subject only 
 
 exists and what we call things are the concepts of the 
 
 subject. Such outre idealism is called spiritualism. 
 
 Spiritualism explains the world solely from spirit, {i.e., 
 
 the substance of which the subject is supposed to 
 
 consist), and assumes that matter does not exist. 
 
 {^Spiritualism is to be carefully distinguished 
 
 from Spiritism, the latter being the belief in spirits.] 
 
 Critical Idealism. According to Kant, the subject is 
 the datum of philosophy ; and the subject's con- 
 ceptions a priori {i. e., space, time and pure reason) 
 are transcendental. With objects we become ac- 
 quainted by means of sensation. But objects as 
 we conceive them in time and space are mere 
 phenomena of the mind, time and space being sub- 
 jective and applied to objects by and from the sub- 
 ject. So the things (or objects as they are for 
 themselves and independent of our conception) 
 can not be perceived or known. 
 
 Realism is that concption of the world, which takes the 
 object as its starting point. 
 Naturally scientists take this view, as it is sufficient 
 
 for investigations in the single departments of nature. 
 
 Philosophically, however, realism lacks a foundation, as 
 
 it is an assumption to take the reality of the world 
 
 granted beforehand.
 
 DEFLYITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS. 79 
 
 Materialism, or the outre realism, explains the world 
 solely from matter {i. e., the substance of which the 
 object is supposed to consist). Spirit is merely a 
 function of matter. 
 When realism, overshooting the mark, ventures to de- 
 clare that cognition arises merely from sensations, as did 
 Locke (and in such a case it is called sensualism) its 
 consequence is scepticism. 
 
 Scepticism (as taught by David Hume) is the conception 
 of the world according to which exact cognizance 
 is impossible. 
 Monism takes in all cases the central position between 
 the extremes. It establishes 07ie final principle, 
 producing all (i) motion in the world. The vehicle 
 or agency of its efficacy is (2) matter, which means 
 nothing more nor less than reality of existence. 
 (3) Space is the form in which it is displayed. All 
 regularity, all order, all arrangement is according 
 to the laws of space. Even logical truths are 
 demonstrated by mathematical figures. Time is 
 merely the measure of motion. And so space, in 
 its most abstract sense, means nothing more nor 
 less than order. 
 
 1. All truths depending on space are accessible 
 to internal cognizance. 
 
 2. All facts and phenomena produced by the 
 properties of matter are accessible to external cog- 
 nizance. 
 
 1. Internal cognizance is intuition, and so-called 
 pure thought (by Kant styled a priori^ 
 
 2. External cognizance is sensation, and, 
 
 3. a scientific insight into nature is only possible 
 by a combination of the two.
 
 80 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 According to Monism 
 
 Idealism is right in so far that knowledge rests en inter- 
 nal cognizance (the transcendental ideas of Kant). 
 
 Realism is right in so far that the reality of things is 
 proved by external cognizance {i. e., experience by 
 means of sensation). 
 
 Spiritualism is right in so far that the inmost principle 
 of the world is a spiritual power. 
 
 Materialism is right in so far that all realities are material 
 existences. 
 
 However, 
 
 Materialism is wrong in declaring matter to be the sole 
 principle of the world. Matter is merely its out- 
 side, not the world itself. 
 
 Spiritualism is wrong in declaring that spirit exists in- 
 dependently of matter, spirit being merely the 
 interior of the world, but not the universe. 
 
 Realism is wrong in assuming that space, time and the 
 / truths of pure reason are drawn from experience, 
 
 or in other words, in denying the a priori. 
 
 Idealism is wrong in assuming that the transcendental 
 
 ideas are subjective, or merely subjective ; in other 
 
 words, in denying the objectivity of time, space 
 
 and the a prioj'i truth generally. 
 
 The subject, though spiritual in its essence (if looked at 
 
 from the inside or from the standpoint of the subject 
 
 itself), is on the other hand a materially existing object. 
 
 And 
 
 Objects or things are no dead materials, merely fit to be 
 acted upon ; matter is animated everywhere by forces. 
 Force is the intrinsic (and in some respects a spiritual) 
 property of matter. 
 
 Force and matter are inseparable ; and objective or 
 material existences possess, according to the theory of
 
 DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS. 8 1 
 
 evolution, the ability of developing into conscious sub- 
 jectivity. Thus it is proved that subjectivity is an intrin- 
 sic, though generally a latent quality of the objects {i. <?., 
 matter.) 
 
 Optimism is that view of life which takes for granted 
 that the condition of things is good, or at least the 
 best possible. Man lives in order to be or to be- 
 come happy. Happiness is the aim and end of 
 humanity. 
 Optimism was the naive Grecian contemplation of life 
 
 and also the ancient Indian faith of the Brahmans. 
 
 Naturally all strictly theistic religions are optimistic ; so 
 
 is the Mosaic doctrine of the Old Testament and the 
 
 Islam of Mohammed. 
 
 Pessimism holds that the world is bad and that man is 
 to be redeemed or ransomed from the evil of exis- 
 tence. Meditative intuition and suffering are the 
 way of salvation. 
 Whenever man commences to reflect on the purpose of 
 life, pessimism will arise and will overwhelm the prior opti- 
 mism. The pessimistic religions are the doctrines of 
 Gautama Buddha as well as of Jesus Christ. The pessi- 
 mistic philosopher of modern date is Arthur Schopen- 
 hauer. 
 
 Meliorism has often been used in the sense that 
 humanity, though at present not in a state of happiness, 
 will nevertheless reach by and by such an existence, in 
 which the miseries of our days will be impossible. That, 
 however, is a kind of optimism. For in spite of all 
 amelioration, happiness will remain about the same. It 
 is relative, and Schopenhauer justly likens it to a frac- 
 tion, the denominator of which represents our desires 
 and the numerator their gratifications. Every progress 
 allows to increase each of the two.
 
 82 MONISM AND MELIORISM. 
 
 The source of error in pessimism is that life is supposed 
 to be the purpose of life, or what means the same thing, 
 that there is no purpose of life at all. This error is inher- 
 ited from optimism ; and from this standpoint, pessimism 
 does not consider life to be worth its own troubles. 
 
 Monism, however, teaches that the cosmos has some 
 destined end or finis which makes all lives parts of the 
 universal display of life, and so there is some purpose in 
 living beyond the range of the individual life. And so 
 Meliorism, according to our view, accepts the truth of 
 pessimism, that life for itself is without value. The 
 value of life lies in what it contains ; its worth is 
 its weight or sum of labor performed in the aspira- 
 tion after progress. 
 
 The virtues of OPTIMISM (as defined by Plato) are 
 7. continence or self-cont7'ol, 2. courage, j. wisdom, and 
 /f.. justice. It is what Schopenhauer calls Bejahung des 
 Willens zum Leben, the affirmation of the will to life {i. e., 
 the intent of living). 
 
 The morality of PESSIMISM preaches humility. Accord- 
 ing to its teaching repentance is the beginning of a new 
 life, and the trefoil of its virtues \s faith, hope dind charity. 
 It is what Schopenhauer calls Veriteinung des Willens zum 
 Lcben, denial of the will to life. 
 
 The ethical ideal of Meliorism is V^ORK. The purpose 
 of life and the duty of man is activity and labor in the 
 service of amelioration. It is what Afrcd Weber calls 
 Wille zum Guten. 
 
 Optimistic morality is positive and its essence is en- 
 nobled and elevated egotism. It represents the 
 thesis of ethics. 
 Pessimistic morality is Jiegative and its essence is 
 altruism; it is the antithesis, apparently in con- 
 tradiction to the first.
 
 DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS. 83 
 
 Melioristic morality is akin to both ; it is the third 
 stage, produced by a combination of the two. 
 It is positive like the first and yet altruistic like 
 the second. 
 Its scientific and philosophic foundation is Monism, and 
 as Monism is the theoretical solution of prior antithetics, 
 so Meliorism is, with regard to practical ends, the recon- 
 ciliation between the moral principles of optimism and 
 pessimism. As such it will undoubtedly be the ethical 
 ideal of the future.
 
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