R PROPHETS 
 OF TODAY 
 
 

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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029787417 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
tl^6k9^C€^^O^f£/JL 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS 
 OF TO-DAY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWIN E. SLOSSON, M.S., Ph.D. 
 
 LITERARY EDITOR OF "THE INDEPENDENT" 
 ASSOCIATE IN THE COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM 
 AUTHOR OF "GREAT AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 
 IV 
 

 ^t>ii(?b 
 
 Copyright, 1914, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Published, September, 1914 
 
 Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass. , U.S.A. 
 Pressworkby S. J. Parkhill& Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
 MAY PRESTON SLOSSON 
 
 WHO WAS THE COMPANION OF MY PILGRIMAGE 
 
 TO THE OLD WORLD 
 
 IN SEARCH OF NEW PROPHETS 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Each age has its own prophets, men who bring 
 to it distinctive messages and present them in such 
 effective form as to sway the currents of contem- 
 porary thought. No age perhaps has had more 
 diverse theories of life and the meaning of things 
 presented to it than our own, and certainly none 
 has ever given such an opportunity for the original 
 thinker to reach quickly a world-wide audience 
 as he can now through the medium of cheap books 
 and free schools. 
 
 This volume originated in my own desire to find 
 out what was being said by certain persons who, 
 I had reason to believe, were worth attention. 
 But unless one is abnormally selfish, he always 
 wants to introduce others to an interesting acquaint- 
 ance. It is then simply as introductions that I 
 would wish the following chapters to be taken. 
 In one way or another such men are influencing the 
 thought of all of us, but since we mostly get their 
 philosophy at second hand — or at third, fourth, 
 or wth hand — we fail to recognize its origin and are 
 
 [vii] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 apt to misconceive its intent. Ideas that reach us 
 in fragmentary form, and often after multiple trans- 
 lation through minds sometimes alien or hostile, 
 are not very useful. It is always safer to drink at 
 the source. I have endeavored to give some idea 
 of the scope and character of each man's work, so 
 that the reader may judge for himself whether it is 
 profitable for him to follow up the acquaintance. 
 If he does, he will find at the end of the chapter 
 directions how to proceed further. 
 
 We imagine we can understand a man better if 
 we can see his face, even his photograph. This 
 may be a superstition, but, if so, it is a superstition 
 worth deferring to by one who aspires to be an in- 
 terpreter. So in the summer of 1910 I went to see 
 the six men included in this first volume in their 
 homes, not with the hope of getting any new and 
 unpublished opinions, not with the expectation of 
 gaining a personal acquaintance that would give 
 me any deeper insight into their mental processes, 
 but merely to convince myself that they are flesh 
 and blood, instead of paper and ink. If I can con- 
 vince the reader of this, my purpose will be 
 accomplished. 
 
 In the choice of names to be included in the list, 
 I was guided primarily by the idea that I should 
 
 [ viii ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 be most likely to interest others in the men who 
 have most interested me. Since the object of the 
 book is to serve as an introduction to the works of 
 the authors, not as a substitute for them, the choice 
 was limited to those who have given expression to 
 their philosophical views in a sufficiently popular 
 form to be attractive to the general reader. It 
 was necessary to select representatives of diverse 
 types of thought, and it was not possible to confine 
 the choice to the philosophical profession, for in our 
 day philosophy has escaped from its classroom and 
 often displays more activity outside than in it. So 
 I have included men of science and letters as well as 
 philosophers of the chair. 
 
 The group comprised in this volume includes : 
 Maurice Maeterlinck, dramatist and essayist, in- 
 terpreter of the animate and inanimate world ; 
 Henri Bergson, of the College de France, whose 
 intuitive philosophy has been introduced into 
 America by the late William James ; Henri Poin- 
 care, of the French Academy, mathematician and 
 astronomer; Elie Metchnikoff, director of the 
 Pasteur Institute in Paris, author of studies in op- 
 timistic philosophy; Wilhelm Ostwald, of Leipzig 
 University, recipient of the Nobel prize for chemistry 
 in 1909, founder of the Annals of Natural Philos- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ophy, and Ernst Haeckel, of Jena University, 
 
 veteran zoologist, champion of Darwinism and 
 
 Monism, author of the "Riddle of the Universe." 
 
 In large part the chapters of this volume have 
 
 appeared in the Independent during the last three 
 
 years in a series under the general title of "Twelve 
 
 Major Prophets of To-day", which includes similar 
 
 articles on Rudolf Eucken, Bernard Shaw, H. G. 
 
 Wells, G. K. Chesterton, F. C. S. Schiller, and John 
 
 Dewey, and I am indebted to that periodical for the 
 
 privilege of book publication. 
 
 EDWIN E. SLOSSON. 
 New York, 
 March I, 1914. 
 
 [xj 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 Maurice Maeterlinck 
 
 . 
 
 I 
 
 II. 
 
 Henri Bergson 
 
 . 
 
 44 
 
 III. 
 
 Henri Poincare 
 
 . 
 
 104 
 
 IV. 
 
 Elie Metchnikoff . 
 
 . 
 
 • H7 
 
 V. 
 
 Wilhelm Ostwald . 
 
 • 
 
 190 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ernst Haeckel 
 
 . . 
 
 242 
 
 XI 
 
LIST OF PORTRAITS 
 
 Maurice Maeterlinck . 
 
 . Frontispiece 
 
 Henri Bergson 
 
 Page 46 
 
 Henri Poincare . 
 
 " 114 
 
 Elie Metchnikoff 
 
 " 150 
 
 Wilhelm Ostwald 
 
 « 194 
 
 Ernst Haeckel 
 
 " 248 
 
 [xiii] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 Let us not forget that we live in pregnant and 
 decisive times. It is probable that our descendants 
 will envy us the dawn through which, without know- 
 ing it, we are passing, just as we envy those who 
 took part in the age of Pericles, in the most glorious 
 days of Roman greatness and in certain hours of 
 the Italian Renascence. The splendid dust that 
 clouds the great movements of men shines brightly 
 in the memory, but blinds those who raise it and 
 breathe it, hiding from them the direction of their 
 road and, above all, the thought, the necessity or the 
 instinct that leads them. — "The Double Garden." 
 
 It was half past seven in the morning of my last 
 possible day in Paris, when the maid brought on 
 the tray with my chocolate, a blue envelope addressed 
 in the business-like writing of Maeterlinck ; the long 
 expected and at last despaired of note confirming the 
 invitation received in America to visit him at the 
 Abbey of St. Wandrille, and setting five p.M; as the 
 time. No chocolate for me that morning. The con- 
 
 [i] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 cierge and I put our heads together over a French 
 railway guide, more baffling than Bullinger's, and we 
 made up our minds that a train started in that direc- 
 tion at nine, although where and when it made 
 connections we neither of us could make out. From 
 Rouen on, I would have to trust to luck, or to the 
 Government railway service — much the same thing. 
 The Gare St. Lazare is a long way from the Latin 
 Quarter when one has got to make a train, but the 
 cabman said he would make it, and he did. At 
 Rouen, I discovered that in the course of the day one 
 could get to Barentin, and from Barentin, a deliberate 
 and occasional train went to St. Wandrille. But 
 when I got to Barentin I found that the train was 
 not going till the following day. It was getting near 
 tea time and Maeterlinck seventeen miles away ! 
 Barentin would, under other circumstances, have 
 interested me on account of the incompatibility of 
 temper between the town and its environment, a 
 cotton-spinning, socialistic population in the midst of 
 an ultra-Catholic agricultural community. But as 
 I strolled about, I took no interest in anything until 
 I came to a little automobile repair shop. Here I 
 found a young man who knew where he could find a 
 machine and promised to get me to St. Wandrille in 
 time for tea, or burst a tire. 
 
 [2] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 It was a joy ride certainly, in one sense of the word, 
 and, I suspect, in two. The road, such a road as 
 we rarely see in this country, wound around the hills 
 overlooking the valley through which the Seine 
 twisted its way to the sea. The banks were flooded 
 with the July rains, and the poplars were up to their 
 knees in water. We gradually left behind us the 
 smart brick houses of the new cotton aristocracy, 
 and came into the older stone age. Along the rail- 
 road, as I was sorry to see, the meadows were begin- 
 ning to grow the most noxious of American weeds, 
 big advertising signs, but we soon escaped them, and 
 saw around us only the grass and fields through the 
 double row of trees that lined the road. 
 
 As we got away from town, my extemporized 
 
 chauffeur made better time, and under the stimulus 
 
 of the acceleration, I recited passages of Maeterlinck's 
 
 dithyramb to " Speed ", for he was the first to perceive 
 
 poetry in the automobile : 
 
 The pace grows faster and faster, the delirious 
 wheels cry aloud in their gladness. And at first the 
 road comes moving toward me, like a bride waving 
 palms, rhythmically keeping time to some joyous 
 melody. But soon it grows frantic, springs forward 
 and throws itself madly upon me, rushing under the 
 car like a furious torrent whose foam lashes my 
 face. . . . Now the road drops sheer into the abyss, 
 and the magical carriage rushes ahead of it. The 
 
 [31 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 trees, that for so many slow-moving years have 
 serenely dwelt on its borders, shrink back in dread 
 of disaster. They seem to be hastening one to the 
 other, to approach their green heads, and in startled 
 groups to debate how to bar the way of the strange 
 apparition. But as this rushes onward they take 
 panic, and scatter and fly, each one quickly seeking 
 its own habitual place ; and as I pass they bend 
 tumultuously forward, and their myriad leaves, 
 quick to the mad joy of the force that is chanting 
 its hymn, murmur in my ears the voluble psalm 
 of space, acclaiming and greeting the enemy that 
 hitherto has always been conquered but now at last 
 triumphs : Speed. 
 
 Afterward, when I recalled this essay to Maeter- 
 linck, he laughed heartily and said he had written 
 it when he had only a three-horse power automobile, 
 one of the first kind made and altogether unreliable. 
 Now he has a big one ; also a motor cycle with which 
 he makes fifty miles an hour, but I do not know that 
 he is writing prose poems on the motor cycle yet. 
 He is likely to be the first to do it, though, unless 
 Rostand or Kipling get ahead of him, as they have 
 in literary aviation : Rostand with a sonnet on the 
 biplane and Kipling with his "Night Mail ", wherein 
 he invents and teaches a new technical vocabulary 
 without slackening speed. No wonder Kipling got 
 the Nobel prize for idealistic literature. Maeter- 
 linck, who received the same prize in 191 1, deserved 
 
 [4] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 it on the same ground, for he, too, is entitled to 
 write after his name the degree of M. M., Master of 
 Machinery. 
 
 With the help of the machine, I got to the little 
 village of St. Wandrille even before the appointed 
 hour, so I had time to drop into the queer old church. 
 This is a favorite resort of pilgrims from all over 
 Normandy and not undeserving of its repute, if 
 one may judge from the crutches, canes, and votive 
 tablets left behind by those who have been cured or 
 blessed. Ever since 684 a.d., when Wandregisilus 
 left the French court and founded this retreat in 
 the forest by the Seine, it has been noted for its 
 relics. The ossuary department indeed makes a 
 fine display; skulls, thigh bones, vertebrae, and 
 phalanges, all laid out under glass and labeled neatly, 
 as in a museum. Thirty saints I counted, some 
 familiar like St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Clotilde, St. 
 Genevieve, and St. Wulfranc. But most of those 
 represented by relics or wooden statues were quite 
 outside the range of my hagiography — St. Firmin, 
 St. Mien, St. Vilmir, St. Wilgeforte, St. Pantoleon, 
 and St. Herbland. 
 
 The village church is too modern to interest any 
 one but an American. The old abbey, dating in 
 part from the twelfth century, and belonging now 
 
 [5] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 to Maeterlinck, is across the road. Ringing at the 
 little arched portal in the wall, I was shown into the 
 cloister ; very familiar it seemed to me, for I had a 
 photograph of it in my room at home, a photograph 
 showing three witches over a caldron, since it was 
 taken when Maeterlinck's version of "Macbeth" 
 was played here. "The cloister of St. Wandrille is 
 without doubt one of the most magnificent monu- 
 ments of the kind that has escaped the vandalism 
 of recent times", says Langlois in the large volume 
 he devoted to its architecture. 1 Until recently the 
 monastery was in the hands of the Benedictines, but 
 they were dispossessed by the French Government 
 on the separation of Church and State in 1907, and 
 the property offered for sale. It was about to be 
 sold to a chemical syndicate for a factory, when 
 Maeterlinck intervened and purchased it, possibly 
 more to please his wife than himself, for he is in- 
 different to surroundings, while she takes a keen 
 delight in an artistic stage setting, not merely for 
 the plays she enacts, but for daily life. For thus 
 saving the abbey from commercial desecration, 
 Maeterlinck received a parchment blessing from 
 the Pope, but his later use of it as a theater was 
 quite as offensive to Catholic sentiment. 
 
 1 " L'Abbaye de Fontenelle ou de Saint-Wandrille." Paris. 1827. 
 
 [6] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 Certainly no author has been housed more satis- 
 factorily to his admirers than Maeterlinck. He 
 had, in fact, pictured it in his youthful plays. It 
 is a verification of his faith that a man creates his 
 own environment. The surrounding forest, the old 
 house with its long corridors, the garden where the 
 broken pillars and arches of the buried temple ap- 
 pear here and there among the vines and flowers, 
 are the familiar scenes of all his dramas. All that 
 is lacking is the sea, which is so often in his thoughts, 
 and some dank, dark caves and dungeons under- 
 neath. But Maeterlinck does not need nowadays 
 such subterranean accessories, for he has passed 
 through his Reign of Terror, and come up into the 
 sunshine. 
 
 It is curious that a man who is so modernistic in 
 mind and who has shown so unique a power to 
 idealize the prosaic details of the life of to-day, should 
 place all his dramas in the historical or legendary 
 past. But he always views the past as a poet, not 
 as an archaeologist, giving merely some beautiful 
 names and a suggestion as to scene setting, and leav- 
 ing it to the imagination of the reader to do the stage 
 carpentering. Determinist though he is, no one, not 
 even James or Bergson, has been more bold in re- 
 pudiating the right of the past to control our actions : 
 
 [7] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 In reality, if we think of it, the past belongs to 
 us quite as much as the present, and is far more 
 malleable than the future. Like the present, and 
 to a much greater extent than the future, its existence 
 is all in our thoughts, and our hand controls it ; nor 
 is this true only of our material past, wherein there 
 are ruins that we perhaps can restore, but also of 
 those regions that are closed to our tardy desire 
 for atonement, and, above all, of our moral past, 
 and of what we consider to be most irreparable there. 
 
 "The past is past", we say, and it is not true; 
 the past is always present. "We have to bear the 
 burden of our past", we sigh; and it is not true; 
 the past bears our burden. "Nothing can wipe 
 out the past", and it is not true; the least effort of 
 will sends present and future traveling over the past, 
 to efface whatever we bid them efface. "The in- 
 destructible, irreparable, immutable past!" And 
 that is no truer than the rest. In those who speak 
 thus it is the present that is immutable and knows 
 not how to repair. "My past is wicked, it is sorrow- 
 ful, empty", we say again, "as I look back I can see 
 no moment of beauty, or happiness or love ; I see 
 nothing but wretched ruins. . . ." And that is not 
 true, for you behold precisely what you yourself 
 place there at the moment your eyes rest upon it. 1 
 
 While I was wandering in the cloister, puzzling 
 over battered saints and mossy gargoyles, any dis- 
 position I may have felt toward monastic meditation 
 was dissipated by the appearance of a woman, not 
 merely a woman, but a modern woman, one who has 
 
 1 From "The Past", by Maurice Maeterlinck. The Independent, 
 March 6, 1902. 
 
 [8] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 gained vitality and initiative without losing the 
 feminine graces, "the virile friend and equal com- 
 rade", as Maeterlinck calls her. Her costume was 
 not inharmonious with the surroundings, for it was 
 vaguely medieval in appearance — a hooded robe 
 of some heavy blue stuff, falling in long straight 
 folds to her feet. 
 
 It is not necessary to describe Madame Georgette 
 Leblanc Maeterlinck, for Maeterlinck himself has 
 done that, sketching equally her virtues and failings 
 with a loving hand. 1 Her powerful influence over 
 his thought he gratefully acknowledges in the pref- 
 aces to his essays, and shows it by the frequent ref- 
 erences in them to her opinions and personality. 
 Monna Vanna, Joyzelle, and Mary Magdalene are 
 roles written for her. We can tell when she came 
 into Maeterlinck's life by the appearance of "the 
 new woman" in his dramas; Aglavaine, who in- 
 voluntarily overshadows and displaces the frail and 
 timid Selysette, Ariane, the last wife of Blue Beard, 
 who releases his other wives from the secret chamber 
 where they were confined, not killed as earlier rumor 
 had it. The imprisoned sisterhood, who are, by the 
 way, the anaemic heroines of Maeterlinck's earlier 
 period, Selysette, Melisande, Ygraine, Bellangere, 
 • "The Portrait of a Lady", in "The Double Garden." 
 [91 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 and Alladine, refuse to follow Ariane to freedom; 
 they prefer to stay with Blue Beard, so she goes out 
 alone. But she does not slam the door like Nora 
 in "The Doll's House." It is not necessary now- 
 adays to slam the door. 
 
 Madame Maeterlinck shows me the places she 
 picked out for the scenes of "Pelleas and Melisande", 
 for she is the inventor of a new form of dramatic 
 art based on the discovery that audiences are easier 
 moved about than castles, trees, and hills. Only 
 the weather she cannot control, and the pathetic 
 drama was played appropriately though incon- 
 veniently in a rainstorm. 1 The ancient refectory 
 which she used as the banquet hall in "Macbeth" 
 was large enough to seat four hundred Benedictine 
 monks at table. It is roofed and paneled with 
 carved wood and lighted by a row of large pointed 
 windows set with bits of very old stained glass. 
 
 Here we are soon joined by M. Maeterlinck, a 
 sturdy figure in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, 
 for he is just in from a tramp in the woods with 
 his dog. No, the dog was not his friend, Pelleas. 
 Pelleas, as you should have remembered, died years 
 ago, very young. 
 
 1 See her account of the performance in Century Magazine, January, 
 1911. 
 
 [IO] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 Some say that Maeterlinck has a Flemish peasant 
 face. Some say a Flemish bourgeois face. Not 
 being familiar with the physiognomy of either the 
 peasantry or the bourgeoisie of Flanders, I cannot 
 decide this delicate question. All I can say is that 
 it is a face one could trust, the face of a man one 
 would like to have for a friend. The eyes, wide 
 open and wide apart, are clear and steady. His 
 hair is getting gray, and he has in recent years shaved 
 off his mustache, showing his straight, firm-set 
 mouth and pleasant smile. His photographs do 
 not do him justice, for none of them show him smil- 
 ing — neither do his books. Early to bed and early 
 to rise and much time spent in the open air have 
 given him an erect carriage and a vigorous step. 
 He is fond of boxing and has written an essay in 
 praise of this sport. 
 
 From the window of his study upstairs he points 
 out to me his woodland stretching far up the hill, 
 and he takes from his pocket the book that has oc- 
 cupied his afternoon, a book of trout flies. But I 
 am more interested in other things, in the big work- 
 table that occupies the center of the study, littered 
 with papers, a typewriter on the corner of it. The 
 wall opposite the window is lined with books, and 
 as I glance over them I see his own plays and essays 
 
 ["J 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 translated into half a dozen languages, Carlyle's 
 works, Vaughan's "English Mystics", and many 
 volumes of natural science, poetry, and philosophy. 
 M. Maeterlinck divines what I want most to see and 
 takes down his Emerson, an old one-volume edition, 
 in excruciatingly fine print, but manifestly well 
 read, with numerous underlinings and as much 
 annotation as the narrow margins would permit. 
 It is curious that Emerson should have strongly 
 influenced two such unlike men as Nietzsche and 
 Maeterlinck. 1 But only the latter acquired his 
 finest attribute, serenity of spirit. Maeterlinck also 
 resembles Thoreau in his love for nature, though he 
 makes no affectation of asceticism or hermitage. 
 
 He spends his summers only at the Abbaye de 
 St. Wandrille. In the winter he goes to the Riviera, 
 to live with the bees and the flowers whose language 
 he speaks. His winter residence is at Les Quatre 
 Chemins, near Grasse, in the southeastern corner 
 of the country. Here he is even more secluded 
 than at St. Wandrille. He prefers the country to 
 the city, not because he has any aversion to people 
 in mass or to the mechanism of modern life, but 
 because he dislikes lionization and publicity of all 
 
 1 For Maeterlinck on Emerson, see Poet Lore, Vol. io, p. 76, Jan- 
 uary, 1898, and Arena, Vol. 16, p. 563, March, 1896. 
 
 [12] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 sorts. He would stifle in the atmosphere of a Pari- 
 sian salon. He belongs to none of the literary coteries 
 combined for mutual admiration and the reciprocal 
 promotion of individual interests. He has never 
 been what Verlaine used to call a "Cymbalist." 
 
 As a mystic philosopher Maeterlinck finds a 
 flower in a crannied wall sufficient to give him a 
 clew to the secrets of the universe. Modern science, 
 instead of killing mysticism, as was foreboded by 
 despairing poets of the last century, has brought 
 about a revival of it. This is quite natural, for 
 mysticism is the verification of religion by the ex- 
 perimental method, as ecclesiasticism is the veri- 
 fication of religion by the historical method. The 
 doctrine of evolution has given an intellectual basis 
 and a richer content to the sense of the unity of 
 nature, which is the force of mysticism. A weak 
 poet, distrustful of his vision or of his own powers, 
 fears science and flees from it. A great and coura- 
 geous poet seizes science and turns it to his own uses. 
 Tennyson and Sully-Prudhomme were among the 
 first to perceive and to demonstrate the possibility 
 of this. Maeterlinck, being of the generation born 
 since the dawn of the scientific era, entered upon 
 the inheritance of its wealth without having to pass 
 through any storm and stress period to acquire it. 
 
 [13] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 No traces of the fretful antagonisms of the nineteenth 
 century disturb the equanimity of his essays. He 
 sees no conflict between the scientific and poetic 
 views of the world. He looks upon it with both 
 eyes open and the two visions fuse into one solid 
 reality. 
 
 Maeterlinck has been a leader in that character- 
 istic movement of the twentieth century which 
 might be called the reanimation of the universe. 
 Time was, and was not so long ago but that most 
 of us can remember it, when, terrified by the advance 
 of science, man did not dare to call his soul his own. 
 Naturally he denied a soul to the rest of the world. 
 Animals were automatons ; plants, of course, un- 
 conscious ; and planets and machines out of the 
 question. Nature was subjected to a process suc- 
 cinctly to be described as deanthropomorphization. 
 To naturalists of the inanimate school an insect was 
 not worth studying until it had a pin through it. 
 Animals were only interesting when stuffed. 
 
 Nowadays naturalists are going back to nature. 
 They are leaving the laboratory for the woods. 
 They have come to realize that studying zoology 
 in a museum is like studying sociology in a ceme- 
 tery. They have discovered that animals and 
 plants possess not merely vitality, but individuality, 
 
 [14] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 and since man's real interest in the world he looks 
 down upon has always been, though he has often 
 denied it, because he hoped to see himself there, a 
 new school of fabulists has appeared who hold the 
 mirror of nature up to us as Esop and Pilpay did of 
 old. 
 
 , Among them there is no one, unless it be Kipling, 
 who is the equal of Maeterlinck. Like Tyltyl, he 
 wears the fairy button on his cap which, when 
 touched, brings out the souls of things. And, as 
 in " The Blue Bird ", the souls he has once released 
 by the magic of his phrases from their material 
 prisons do not get back again. They remain visible 
 to us ever after ; not merely the souls of the dog and 
 the cat, but of the bee, the oak, the bread, and the 
 automobile. He shows us the cat as a diminutive 
 but undomesticated tiger to whom we are nothing 
 more than an overgrown and uneatable prey. We 
 see through his eyes the cultivated plants as our 
 dumb slaves, for "the rose and the corn, had they 
 wings, would fly at our approach like the birds." 
 
 Maeterlinck has recently been testing the think- 
 ing horses of Eberfeld, the successors of Kluge Hans, 
 and convinced himself of their ability to spell and 
 cipher, even to extract the square root of big num- 
 bers, a feat which Maeterlinck says he himself could 
 
 [I5l 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 never learn at school. He does, however, draw the 
 line at crediting the horses with telepathic powers. 1 
 
 "The Blue Bird" cannot escape comparison with 
 its contemporary rival on the stage, " Chantecler ", 
 but the similarity is superficial. They are as unlike 
 in their philosophy as in their style. Maeterlinck 
 has written a fairy story for children ; Rostand a 
 satire for grown people. Maeterlinck conceals his 
 depth of thought under a dialogue of simple and 
 artless prose. Rostand disguises his trivialities in 
 elaborate and artificial versification. "The Blue 
 Bird" is really the offspring of "The Little White 
 Bird", Mendel to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 But Maeterlinck lacks the delicious humor with 
 which Barrie had depicted his Peter Pan. 
 
 Whether one who has read "The Blue Bird" will 
 be disappointed when he sees it depends upon the 
 vividness of his imagination. He will probably 
 find that he has in reading it failed to appreciate the 
 humor of the grotesque characterization of the 
 minor characters, such as the Bread, Dog, Cat, and 
 Sugar, but on the other hand he will find that he has 
 pictured to himself such scenes as the Palace of 
 Night and the Kingdom of the Future much more 
 splendid and impressive than they appear on the 
 
 1 Metropolitan Magazine, May, 1914. 
 [16] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 stage. The play as performed at the New Theater 
 in New York was not nearly so effective as at the 
 Haymarket in London. 
 
 ' "The Blue Bird" would go best as an opera. 
 I wish somebody would set it to music. % The 
 very impressive song of the mothers welcoming 
 their children shows how much music might add to 
 it. Debussy's dreamy and formless harmonies suited 
 "Pelleas and Melisande", but the author of the 
 "Domestic Symphony" alone could do justice to 
 this kitchen drama. Only Strauss could fit Sugar 
 and Milk with suitable motives, and give the proper 
 orchestration to the quarrels of Cat and Dog, and 
 Fire and Water. 
 
 With Maeterlinck, personification is not accom- 
 plished through falsification. His "Life of the Bee" 
 is based on his own observation and wide reading, 
 and is freer from error than many of the purely 
 scientific books written on the subject. Such mis- 
 takes in fact, as he makes, are accidental and never 
 due to distortion or invention for the purpose of 
 working in a poetic fancy or of pointing a moral. 
 In fact, he does not point a moral. His nature 
 studies teach no lesson unless it is the great lesson 
 of kinship with nature. He does not, like Kipling, 
 write an animal story with the aim of amending the 
 
 [17] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 budget bill or changing diplomatic relations. "The 
 Life of the Bee" may be used as a socialistic tract. 
 It may also be used as an anti-socialistic tract. 
 "The spirit of the hive", as he interprets it, attracts 
 some people and repels others. Lord Avebury, 
 who is the leading English authority on ants and 
 bees, is the head of the society for opposing socialism. 
 Maeterlinck is not one of those who set up animals 
 on their hind legs to act as schoolmasters to men. 
 He finds nowhere outside of ourselves, neither in 
 the heavens above nor in the earth beneath, that 
 justice in which mankind instinctively and inevitably 
 believes. He is as largely pragmatic as Sumner 
 in his derivation of morality : 
 
 Between the external world and our actions 
 there exists only the simple and essentially non- 
 moral relations of cause and effect. 
 
 In the course of adapting ourselves to the laws 
 of life we have naturally been led to credit with our 
 moral ideas those principles of causality that we 
 encounter most frequently. And we have in this 
 fashion created a very plausible semblance of effec- 
 tive justice, which rewards or punishes most of our 
 actions in the degree that they approach, or deviate 
 from, certain laws that are essential for the preserva- 
 tion of the race. 
 
 Within us there is a spirit that weighs only inten- 
 tions ; without us a power that only balances deeds. 1 
 
 » "The Mystery of Justice", in "The Double Garden." 
 [18] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 This reads like a twentieth century supplement 
 to Huxley's Romanes address. 
 
 Maeterlinck's sense of justice is more outraged 
 by the calamities that result from the carelessness 
 and malevolence of man than the disasters of earth- 
 quake and tempest. We are strange lovers of an 
 ideal justice, he says ; we who condemn three fourths 
 of mankind to the misery of poverty and disease, 
 and then complain of the injustice of impersonal 
 nature. And in reading a story of the "Arabian 
 Nights", he is struck by the fact that the women of 
 the harem, creatures trained to vice and condemned 
 to slavery, give utterance to the highest moral 
 precepts : 
 
 These women, who forever are pondering the 
 loftiest, grandest problems of justice, of the morality 
 of men and of nations, never throw one questioning 
 glance on their own fate, or for one instant suspect 
 the abominable injustice whereof they are victims. 
 Nor do those suspect it either who listen to them, 
 and love and admire and understand them. And 
 we who marvel at this — we who also reflect on 
 justice and virtue, on pity and love — are we so 
 sure that they who come after us shall not some day 
 find in our present social condition a spectacle 
 equally disconcerting and amazing. 1 
 
 ! Maeterlinck stands quite aloof from politics, but 
 
 not because he is out of sympathy with the tendency 
 
 1 The Independent, January 3, 1901. 
 [19] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of the times. He has faith in democracy in spite of 
 his clear perception of its faults and dangers : 
 
 In those problems in which all life's enigmas 
 converge, the crowd which is wrong is almost always 
 justified as against the wise man who is right. It 
 refuses to believe him on his word. It feels dimly 
 that behind the most evident abstract truths there 
 are numberless living truths which no brain can 
 foresee, for they need time, reality and men's pas- 
 sions to develop their work. That is why, what- 
 ever warning we may give it, whatever prediction 
 we may make to it, the crowd insists before all that 
 the experiment shall be tried. Can we say that, in 
 cases where the crowd has obtained the experiment, 
 it was wrong to insist upon it ? 1 
 
 It would surely have been highly dangerous to 
 confide the destinies of the species to Plato or 
 Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare or Mon- 
 tesquieu. At the very worst moments of the French 
 Revolution the fate of the people was in the hands 
 of philosophers of no mean order. 2 
 
 The thoroughgoing character of his democracy 
 is emphasized by Professor Dewey in his lecture on 
 "Maeterlinck's Philosophy of Life" delivered at 
 Columbia University : 
 
 " Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Maeterlinck are 
 thus far, perhaps, the only men who have been 
 habitually, and, as it were, instinctively, aware that 
 democracy is neither a form of government nor a 
 
 1 " The Double Garden." s " The Mystery of Justice.'! 
 
 [20] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 social expediency, but a metaphysic of the relation 
 of man and his experience to nature; among these 
 Maeterlinck has at least the advantage of greater 
 illumination by the progress of natural science." 
 
 This democratic feeling seems to me to arise more 
 from his mystical sense of the continuity of life 
 than from personal disposition or political theory. 
 In his earlier and more characteristic dramas, the 
 persons are hardly more than talking symbols. 
 Their looks and costumes are not described, either 
 in the stage directions or in the dialogue. Their 
 names — if he takes the trouble to give them names 
 — are scarcely sufficient in some cases to indicate 
 the sex. Their speech is language reduced to its 
 lowest elements, excessively simplified, in fact, 
 and full of the repetitions and incoherencies com- 
 mon to stupid and uneducated people the world 
 over. Maeterlinck himself calls them "marion- 
 nettes", and says that they have the appearance of 
 half deaf somnambulists just awakening from a 
 painful dream. 
 
 But these puppet people are divested of individu- 
 ality for the purpose of reducing them to the common 
 denominator of humanity. They are devoided of 
 personal interest in order to prevent the attention 
 of the spectator from being fixed upon them. They 
 
 [21] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 are made transparent so that we may look through 
 them and perceive the external forces which control 
 them. The dramatic poet, he says in the preface 
 to his early dramas, "must show us in what way, in 
 what form, in what conditions, according to what 
 laws, and to what end our destinies are controlled 
 by the superior powers, the unintelligible influences, 
 the infinite principles of which, in so far as he is a 
 poet, he is persuaded that the universe is full." 
 
 Great poetry he regards as composed of three 
 principal elements : 
 
 First, verbal beauty, then the contemplation 
 and passionate depiction of what really exists around 
 us and in ourselves, that is to say, nature and feeling, 
 and, finally, enveloping the entire work and creating 
 its own atmosphere, the idea which the poet has of 
 the unknown in which float the beings and things he 
 evokes, of the mystery which dominates them and 
 judges them and presides over their destinies. 
 
 The critics were not altogether wrong when they 
 called the characters of his earlier plays "mere 
 shadows." But a shadow exists only when a bright 
 light is cast on a real object. Maeterlinck's pur- 
 pose is to make Plato's cave men aware of the drama 
 that is being enacted behind their backs. The real 
 action of these plays is not that seen on the stage. 
 His dramas contain their message written in secret 
 
 [22] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 ink between the lines, and it becomes visible only 
 when warmed by the sympathy of the reader. 
 
 The performance of "Macbeth" at Saint-Wan- 
 drille had a double interest. It introduced a novel 
 form of the drama, and it added another to the many 
 attempts to put Shakespeare into French. This 
 select and household entertainment might be called 
 "chamber pageantry", because it bears somewhat 
 the same relation to the outdoor processionings now 
 so popular as chamber music does to orchestral. 
 Most of the incongruities which the critics pointed 
 out ' are not inherent in the plan, but due to the fact 
 that "Macbeth" is not adapted to such a setting 
 any more than it is to the modern theater. Con- 
 ceivably something more effective could be done 
 in this line if a new play were written to fit the place 
 and the cbnditions of enactment, requirements 
 certainly not more exigeant than those of the Eliza- 
 bethan stage. In this it would even be possible to 
 keep strictly to the three unities, and play the scenes 
 appropriately indoors and out, in daylight and dark. 
 
 Madame Georgette Leblanc-Maeterlinck has been, 
 as wives are apt to be, both a help and a hindrance 
 to her husband. She has inspired some of his best 
 
 1 For a description of the performance see "A Realization of Macbeth" 
 by Alvan G. Sanborn in The Independent, September 15, 1909. 
 
 [23] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 work and also embroiled him in interminable 
 controversies with theatrical managers. "Monna 
 Vanna" was written for her, so, very naturally, 
 she wanted a monopoly of the title role, and when 
 Debussy set "Pelleas et Melisande" to music as 
 unearthly as the play, she insisted upon singing 
 Melisande. But the Parisian managers, either be- 
 cause they had protegees of their own or because 
 they did not have a sufficiently high opinion of 
 Madame Leblanc's capabilities as an actress and a 
 prima donna, declined to take her, and M. Maeter- 
 linck was not able to compel them to, or to prevent 
 the production of the play and opera with other 
 leading ladies. She did, however, finally sing the 
 part both at home and in America, though she lost 
 the distinction of creating it. 
 
 But, at any rate, we owe to her assiduity a new 
 translation of "Macbeth", which the London Times 
 says "is the most conscientious effort to preserve 
 the atmosphere of a Shakespearean play which has 
 been attempted in French since M. Marcel Schwab's 
 remarkable rendering of 'Hamlet.'" The difficulty 
 of translating poetical language, wherein the sound 
 and connotation of the words are as essential as 
 their literal meaning, is admirably stated by M. 
 Maeterlinck : 
 
 [24] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 The humble translators face to face with Shake- 
 speare are like painters seated in front of the same 
 forest, the same seas, on the same mountain. Each 
 of them will make a different picture. And a trans- 
 lation is almost as much an Hat d'dme as is a land- 
 scape. Above, below, and all round the literal aad 
 literary sense of the primitive phrase floats a secret 
 life which is all but impossible to catch, and which is, 
 nevertheless, more important than the external life 
 of the words and of the images. It is that secret 
 life which it is important to understand and to re- 
 produce as well as one can. Extreme prudence is 
 required, since the slightest false note, the smallest 
 error, may destroy the illusion and destroy the beauty 
 of the finest page. Such is the ideal of the con- 
 scientious translator. It excuses in advance every 
 effort of the kind, even this one, which comes after 
 so many others, and contributes to the common 
 work merely the very modest aid of a few phrases 
 which chance may now and then have favored. 
 
 He illustrates these variant views of the same 
 landscape by bringing together all the different 
 versions of a couplet, from Letourneur of the eight- 
 eenth century to Duval, the latest translator of 
 Shakespeare : 
 
 "Strange things I have in head that will to hand 
 Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd." 
 
 "J'ai dans la tete d'etranges choses qui aboutiront 
 a ma main ; et qu'il faut accomplir avant qu'on les 
 medite." — (Maeterlinck.) 
 
 "J'ai dans la tete d'etranges choses qui reclament 
 
 Us] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ma main et veulent etre executees avant d'etre 
 meditees." — (Francis- Victor Hugo.) 
 
 "Ma tete a des projets etranges qui reclament 
 ma main ; achevons l'acte avant d'y reflechir." — 
 (Maurice Pottecher.) 
 
 "J'ai dans la tete d'etranges choses qui passeront 
 dans mes mains, des choses qu'il faut executer avant 
 d'avoir le temps de les examiner." — (Guizot.) 
 
 "J'ai dans ma tete d'etranges choses que ma main 
 executera, et qui veulent etre accomplies sans me 
 laisser le temps de les peser." — (Montegut.) 
 
 "Ma tete a des projets qu'executera ma main; 
 je veux les accomplir de suite, sans me donner le 
 temps de les examiner de trop pres." — (Benjamin 
 Laroche.) 
 
 "J'ai d'etranges projets en tete qui veulent etre 
 executes avant d'y reflechir." — (Georges Duval.) 
 
 "J'ai dans la tete d'etranges projets, qui, de la, 
 passeront dans mes mains ; et il faut les executer 
 avant qu'on puisse les penetrer." — (Pierre Le- 
 tourneur.) 
 
 This couplet is in itself an argument for more 
 freedom of translation than is customarily allowed. 
 The choice of "scann'd" from among other words 
 that would have expressed the idea as well or 
 better was obviously dictated by the necessity 
 of rhyming with ''hand", and this in turn was 
 due to the desire to alliterate with "head." A 
 translator, if he is to make as good poetry as the 
 original author, must have an equal license. It is 
 therefore not surprising to see that M. Maeterlinck 
 
 [26] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 has been most successful in preserving the spirit 
 of the original where he has translated into rhyme 
 instead of prose, for here the exactions of the French 
 verse have forced him to a greater freedom. Here 
 are fragments of the witches' songs : 
 
 Paddock crie, "Allez, allez." 
 Le laid est beau et le beau laid 
 Allons flotter dans la brume, 
 Allons faire le tour du monde, 
 Dans la brume et l'air immonde. 
 
 Trois fois le chat miaula 
 
 Le herisson piaula. 
 
 Harpier crie, "Voila ! voila !" 
 
 Double, double, puis redouble, 
 
 Le feu chante au chaudron trouble. 
 
 In order that the reader may judge for himself 
 whether the Belgian poet has succeeded in this 
 effort to put Shakespeare into French, we quote a 
 few passages of especial difficulty. The complete 
 text is published in Illustration of August 28, 1909. 
 
 Et, enfin, ce Duncan fut si doux sur son trone, 
 si pur dans sa puissance que ses vertues parleront 
 comme d'angeliques trompettes contre le crime 
 damne de son assassinat. Et la pitie, pareille a un 
 nouveau-ne chevauchant la tempete, ou a un cheru- 
 bin celeste qui monte les coursiers invisibles de l'air, 
 soufflerait l'acte horrible dans les yeux de tout 
 homme jusqu' a noyer le vent parmi les larmes. 
 
 [27] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 "Tu ne dormiras ! Macbeth a tue le sommeil !" 
 L'innocent sommeil, le sommeil qui devide l'echeveau 
 embrouille des soucis. 
 
 Tout l'ocean du grand Neptune pourrait-il 
 laver ce sang de ma main ? Non, c'est plutot 
 cette main qui empourprera les vagues innombrables, 
 faisant de la mer verte un ocean rouge. 
 
 Maeterlinck has himself suffered many things 
 of many translators. Alfred Sutro has given us 
 admirable versions of his philosophical works, "Wis- 
 dom and Destiny", "The Treasure of the Humble", 
 and "The Life of the Bee", but his plays have not 
 been so fortunate, for their emotional effect is de- 
 pendent upon the maintenance of a peculiar atmos- 
 phere, so sensitive that a harsh breath will destroy 
 it, leaving ridiculous wooden puppets where the 
 moment before we thought we glimpsed beings of 
 supernatural beauty. So even a reader whose 
 French is feeble will prefer the plays in the original, 
 for their language is of extreme simplicity and the 
 effect may be even enhanced by the additional veil 
 that his partial incomprehension draws across the 
 stage picture. Then, too, Maeterlinck's trick of 
 triple repetition which offends our Anglo-Saxon 
 ears ceases to annoy us in French, for in that language 
 even identical rhymes are permissible. 
 
 As an example of how a prosaic literalism may 
 [28] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 spoil the illusion, let us take that exquisite passage 
 which closes "Pelleas et Melisande" : 
 
 C'etait un petit etre si tranquille, si timide et si 
 silencieux. C'etait un pauvre petit etre mysterieux, 
 comme tout le monde. Elle est la, comme si elle 
 etait la grande soeur de son enfant. 
 
 This is the way it is rendered by Laurence Alma 
 Tadema, and the libretto of the opera is still worse : 
 
 " It was a little gentle being, so quiet, so timid and 
 so silent. It was a poor little mysterious being, 
 like all the world. She lies there as if she were her 
 own child's big sister." 
 
 The wise old man, who at Melisande's death bed 
 sums up her character in the words, "C'etait un 
 pauvre petit etre mysterieux, comme tout le monde", 
 gives at the same time the key to the philosophy of 
 the play. — " She was a poor little mysterious being 
 like every one." "Like every one" ! The phrase 
 throws back a level ray of light, as though it were a 
 setting sun, and illuminates the dark road we have 
 traversed. "Like every one", and all this while 
 we had been thinking what an unnatural and absurd 
 creature this Melisande was, this princess who did 
 not know where she came from or where she was 
 going to, who was always weeping without reason, 
 who played so carelessly with her wedding ring over 
 
 [29] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the well's mouth, and whose words could never ex- 
 press what she felt. "Like every one"? perhaps 
 ... at any rate to be thought on, once it has been 
 suggested to us. And in this connection we may 
 consider a sentence in "Wisdom and Destiny" : 
 
 Genius only throws into bolder relief all that 
 
 can and actually does take place in the lives of all 
 
 men ; otherwise were it genius no longer but in- 
 coherence or madness. 
 
 What fun Francisque Sarcey did make of "Pelleas 
 and Melisande" and of its admirers at its first rep- 
 resentation in Paris in 1893. According to the 
 veteran critic of Le Temps? the play contained a 
 triple symbolism ; one part not understood by the 
 profane, one part not understood by the initiates, 
 and one part not understood by the author. Maeter- 
 linck was only a passing craze, he thought, due to 
 the reprehensible fondness of the Parisians for any- 
 thing foreign. Yet some fifteen years after that 
 he might have seen in New York blocks of people 
 standing for hours in the snow around the Man- 
 hattan Opera House to get a chance to see, with 
 the added charm of Debussy's music, this same play 
 that the critics called "Maeterlinck's Sedan." 
 
 Even Richard Hovey, who first introduced Maeter- 
 1 See his "Quarante Ans de Theatre." 
 [30] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLNICK 
 
 linck's plays to America in the days when the "Green 
 Tree Library" flourished and bore its strange fruit, 
 feared that "his devotion to the wormy side of things 
 may prevent him from ever becoming popular." 
 But he got over his devotion to the wormy side of 
 things and has grown into a more wholesome philos- 
 ophy and so into a greater popularity. The transi- 
 tion point in his style and thought is marked by the 
 preface to his dramas, 1901. He neither recants 
 nor apologizes for his earlier work, still less does he 
 ridicule it, as Ruskin did his first writing, but he 
 frankly and gracefully indicates the changed atti- 
 tude toward life which shows itself in his later essays. 
 He ceases to use the word "destiny" exclusively 
 in its evil sense, and to represent it as a power inim- 
 ical to man, watching in the shadow to pounce 
 upon us whenever we manifest a little joy. Fate 
 in his later work does not always mean fatality, 
 and events are controlled by character more than 
 by external forces. Man by wisdom can overcome 
 destiny. But Maeterlinck would have us take care 
 to keep a sane balance of altruism and egoism : 
 
 You are told you should love your neighbor as 
 yourself ; but if you love yourself meanly, childishly, 
 timidly, even so shall you love your neighbor. 
 Learn, therefore, to love yourself with a love that is 
 wise and healthy, that is large and complete. 
 
 [31] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 It is a curious transformation by which this Bel- 
 gian lawyer and esoteric poet has become one of the 
 widest known of French playwrights and moralists. 
 He was born in Ghent, August 29, 1862, of an old 
 Flemish family. The name, "measurer of grain", is 
 derived from an ancestor who was generous in a time 
 of famine. 
 
 He was educated at the University of Ghent for 
 law, in accordance with the wishes of his family, 
 though he would have preferred medicine. But his 
 dominant interest was always literature. 
 
 His experience at the bar was brief, a couple of 
 criminal cases, and then he deserted the law and 
 went to Paris for a year, where he was chiefly under 
 the influence of the French symbolist, Villiers de 
 l'lsle-Adam. Then he returned home to devote 
 himself in quiet to the cultivation of his double 
 garden of literature and science. He was especially 
 attracted by the freshness and richness of Shake- 
 speare and his contemporaries, and, as he says, drank 
 long and thirstily from the Elizabethan springs. In 
 Shelley and Browning he was also deeply interested. 1 
 
 1 His admiration for Browning appears in his reply to Prof essor William 
 Lyon Phelps, of Yale, who had called attention to the close similarity 
 between an incident in Browning's "Luria" and Maeterlinck's "Monna 
 Vanna." Maeterlinck very frankly and courteously acknowledged his 
 indebtedness to Browning, whom, he said, he regarded, like Eschylus, 
 
 [32] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 At the age of twenty-four he began to contribute 
 to La Pleiade, the organ of the "Young Belgians", 
 a group of ambitious young writers, impressionists, 
 seekers after novel effects of style, chiefly attained 
 by means of transferring descriptive adjectives 
 from one of the five senses to the other four. In 
 the third number of this short-lived periodical was 
 published Maeterlinck's first and apparently his 
 last story, "The Massacre of the Innocents", a 
 biblical incident reset in the times of the Spanish 
 wars. 1 Here appeared some of the poems republished 
 in 1889 in the little volume entitled "Serres Chaudes" 
 ("Hot-house Blooms"). 
 
 ■ The cross-fertilization of Elizabethan drama with 
 French symbolism gave rise to the "Princess Ma- 
 leine", a new species if there ever was one, Shake- 
 spearean in form and incident, most un-Shake- 
 spearean in everything else. The first edition of 
 this drama was an extremely limited one, twenty 
 copies, printed on a hand press with Maeterlinck 
 turning the crank. 
 
 Sophocles, and Shakespeare, as common sources of literary inspiration. 
 The Independent, March 5 and June II, 1903. 
 
 1 This is signed by his name in its original form, Mooris Materlinck. 
 A translation of this and other tales by Belgian writers by Edith Wingate 
 Rinder was published in 1897 in the "Green Tree Library" of Stone 
 & Kimball (now DufHeld & Co.). 
 
 [33] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 It was the "Princess Maleine" which led to his 
 "discovery" by Octave Mirbeau, who proclaimed 
 it "the greatest work of genius of the times", and 
 "superior in beauty to what is most beautiful in 
 Shakespeare." * This newspaper praise made Mae- 
 terlinck instantly famous everywhere save in his 
 own country. His neighbors in Ghent refused to 
 take it seriously, and thought it a pity that his 
 family should encourage the young man in his 
 mania by paying for puffs like that. 
 
 To trace Maeterlinck's dramatic development is 
 like watching a materialization at a seance. His 
 characters have become increasingly solid and life- 
 like, but they have lost the illusiveness and allu- 
 siveness that made their charm in his earlier plays. 
 Maeterlinck has never been able to equal Ibsen — 
 — nor has any one else — in the art of making a per- 
 fectly individualized and natural character serve 
 also as a type or symbol, thus doubling our interest 
 by combining the specific and the general. 
 
 Maeterlinck's genius shows best in his own peculiar 
 field of symbolism and suggestion, that of his early 
 dramas and of "The Blue Bird." His plays of a 
 
 1 Figaro, August 24, 1890. Octave Mirbeau later busied himself in 
 booming Marguerite Audoux, the Paris sempstress, who wrote "Marie- 
 Claire." 
 
 [34] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 more conventional type, "Monna Vanna" and 
 "Mary Magdalene", betray his deficiencies as a 
 dramatic writer, his lack of the power of plot con- 
 struction and a sense of humor. " Mary Magdalene " 
 is really as much a one-act play as "The Interior", 
 for the last act is the only one that counts. Here 
 the crowd has the star part, the crowd of the lame, 
 the halt and the blind, the sinners and the diseased, 
 whom Jesus has cured and who now desert him ; 
 and the real drama is enacted, not in the upper 
 chamber of the house of Joseph of Arimathea, but 
 in the street outside, leading to the Place of the 
 Skull. The scene of the woman taken in adultery 
 is far less dramatic than in its biblical form, because 
 in the play she is really protected by Roman swords, 
 not by the awakened consciences of the mob. 
 
 The continuous development of Maeterlinck's 
 philosophy of life is shown as well in his plays as in 
 his essays. Mary Magdalene, who would not save 
 her Savior by the sacrifice of her virtue, represents 
 a higher ethical ideal than Monna Vanna, who gives 
 herself for the city. In his earlier plays Maeter- 
 linck tries to frighten us with the traditional Terrors 
 which in "The Blue Bird" are shown to be imprisoned 
 and harmless in the Palace of Night. Old Time 
 with his scythe, who as "The Intruder" of twenty 
 
 [35] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 years ago brought death into the household, appears 
 now in "The Blue Bird" under a kinder aspect, 
 calling the Children of the Future into life. In 
 fact, "The Blue Bird" represents the highest point 
 of the philosophy of optimism, for it is based upon 
 the most daring of all the assumptions of science — 
 that the secret of existence is also the secret of happi- 
 ness. "To be wise is above all to be happy", says 
 Maeterlinck. Truly, he has got a long way from 
 Schopenhauer, the object of his boyish admiration. 
 
 Maeterlinck has, in short, acquired a faith. I do 
 not see exactly whom or what he has faith in, but 
 he has faith, and that, after all, seems to be the main 
 thing. The development of his thought has an 
 especial interest in that it shows how a spiritual in- 
 terpretation of the universe and a moral support 
 can be built up on pure agnosticism. From Christi- 
 anity he has derived little except a vague symbolism 
 and certain ethical ideals. He looks back with 
 bitterness upon his school days in the Jesuit college 
 at Ghent, but his writings show no trace of the 
 anticlerical animosity which is so conspicuous in 
 Haeckel's. It was his latest book, "Death", the 
 most religious of them all, breathing a spirit of uncon- 
 querable faith in immortality and future happiness, 
 that brought down upon Maeterlinck the con- 
 
 [36] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 demnation of Rome, and in 1914 all his books and 
 plays were put upon the Index by the Sacred 
 Congregation. 
 
 From the mystics he has derived much, especially 
 from the German Novalis and the Flemish Ruys- 
 broek, whose works he has translated into French. 
 In his preface to the latter he says : 
 
 Mystical truths have this strange superiority 
 over truths of the ordinary kind, that they know 
 neither age nor death. . . . They possess the im- 
 munity of Swedenborg's angels, who progress con- 
 tinually toward the springtime of youth, so that the 
 eldest angels always appear the youngest. 
 
 But he undoubtedly owes his ethical and philo- 
 sophical growth most of all to the study of nature, 
 not the vague contemplation of natural objects 
 which in the early Victorian era was thought proper 
 pabulum for poets, but the effort to understand 
 nature through the use of modern scientific methods. 
 We are reminded of Sir Thomas Browne, who says : 
 "Those strange and mystical transmigrations that 
 I have observed in silkworms turned my philosophy 
 into divinity." 
 
 The reason why many poets and imaginative 
 writers of high ability find themselves without in- 
 fluence in the modern world is, in my opinion, be- 
 cause they are ignorant of science or inimical to iu 
 
 [37] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 They, therefore, write for antiquity, which does not 
 buy books, or for posterity, which, it is safe to say, 
 will never come back to the position they hold. The 
 people do not enjoy science, but their manner of 
 thought is molded by it, and they are unaffected 
 or repelled by music out of tune with it. 
 
 Maeterlinck, while thoroughly appreciating science, 
 does not exaggerate its power. He does not look to 
 it for a complete explanation of the world. 
 
 Rarely does a mystery disappear; ordinarily it 
 only changes its place. But it is often very impor- 
 tant, very desirable, that it manage to change its 
 place. From a certain point of view, all the progress 
 of human thought reduces itself to two or three 
 changes of this kind — to have dislodged two or 
 three mysteries from the place where they did harm 
 in order to transport them where they become harm- 
 less, where they can do good. Sometimes it is 
 enough, without a mystery changing its place, if 
 we can succeed in giving it another name. That 
 which was called "the gods" is now called "life." 
 And if life is just as inexplicable as the gods, we have 
 at least gained this, that in the name of life no one 
 has authority to speak nor right to do harm. 
 
 Maeterlinck does not seem to me so much an 
 original thinker as an exquisitely sensitive personality 
 who is able to catch the dominant note of the times 
 in which he lives, and to give it artistic expression, 
 as a musician upon a high tower might take as his 
 
 [38] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 key the fundamental tone of the streets below, modu- 
 lating his music as the rhythm of the city changes, 
 not to obtain applause, but because his soul is in 
 sympathy with the life around him. In Maeter- 
 linck's writings, various though they be in form 
 and topic, may be continuously traced the chang- 
 ing moods of the philosophy of the last twenty years, 
 for he has always retained his sincerity of thought 
 and courage of expression. 
 
 To look fearlessly upon life ; to accept the laws 
 of nature, not with meek resignation, but as her sons, 
 who dare to search and question ; to have peace 
 and confidence within our soul — these are the be- 
 liefs that make for happiness. But to believe is 
 not enough ; all depends on how we believe. I may 
 believe that there is no God, that I am self-contained, 
 that my brief sojourn here serves no purpose ; that 
 in the economy of this world without limit my exist- 
 ence counts for as little as the evanescent hue of a 
 flower — I may believe all this, in a deeply religious 
 spirit, with the infinite throbbing within me; you 
 may believe in one all-powerful God, who cherishes 
 and protects you, yet your belief may be mean, and 
 petty, and small. I shall be happier than you, and 
 calmer, if my doubt is greater, and nobler, and more 
 earnest than is your faith; if it has probed more 
 deeply into my soul, traversed wider horizons, if 
 there are more things it has loved. And if the 
 thoughts and feelings on which my doubt reposes 
 have become vaster and purer than those that sup- 
 port your faith, then shall the God of my disbelief 
 
 [39] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 become mightier and of supremer comfort than the 
 God to whom you cling. For, indeed, belief and 
 unbelief are mere empty words ; not so the loyalty, 
 the greatness and profoundness of the reasons where- 
 fore we believe or do not believe. 1 
 
 How to Read Maeterlinck 
 
 To those familiar with Maeterlinck, the following, 
 and perhaps also the foregoing, will be of no interest. 
 But those who wish to make his closer acquaintance 
 may find some suggestions not impertinent. 
 
 Maeterlinck's essays are published in English 
 by Dodd, Mead and Company, in seven volumes : 
 "The Treasure of the Humble"; "Wisdom and 
 Destiny"; "The Buried Temple"; "The Measure 
 of the Hours" ; "The Double Garden"; "On Emer- 
 son and Other Essays " (Novalis and Ruysbroek) ; 
 and "Our Eternity." The order given is that of 
 their publication in French. Any one of them will 
 give the reader an insight into the character of his 
 thought; "Wisdom and Destiny" is the most con- 
 secutive. If one has time for but a single essay, he 
 may read "The Leaf of Olive." 
 
 For his treatment of nature, see "The Life of the 
 Bee" (Dodd, Mead and Company), essays in "The 
 Double Garden" and in "The Measure of the Hours", 
 and "The Insect's Homer" in Forum, September, 
 1 910; also "News of Spring and Other Nature 
 Studies", illustrated by E. J. Detmold (Dodd, Mead 
 and Company). 
 
 1 "Wiidom and Destiny," 5 79- 
 l4°] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 Of his dramatic work the early mystical plays are 
 most characteristic. The timid reader should avoid 
 reading them alone after dark. Yet there is nothing 
 supernatural in them — except the sense of the 
 supernatural that permeates them. Nothing hap- 
 pens that cannot be given a rationalistic explanation 
 — only the reader is not disposed at the time to 
 accept such an explanation. Select your co-readers 
 with care (all plays should, of course, be read aloud) ; 
 avoiding particularly the hysterical giggler, for the 
 effect depends upon maintaining the atmospheric 
 pressure, and Maeterlinck treads close to the line 
 that separates the sublime from the ridiculous and, 
 as he himself confesses, he occasionally steps over. 
 Read the original if you have any knowledge what- 
 ever of French, for the language is of the simplest, 
 and in these veiled dramas a slight additional hazi- 
 ness does no harm. (The French edition is pub- 
 lished by Lacomblez, Brussels, in three volumes. 
 Volume I, "La Princesse Maleine", "L'Intruse", 
 "Les Aveugles" ; Volume II, "Pelleas et Melisande", 
 "Alladine et Palomides", "Interieur", "La mort de 
 Tintagiles" ; Volume III, "Aglavaine et Selysette", 
 "Ariane et Barbe-bleue", "Soeur Beatrice." Vol- 
 umes I and II, translated by Hovey, are sold by Dodd, 
 Mead and Company in three volumes.) If you are 
 doubtful of your ability to read "the static drama", 
 or of your capacity to enjoy it, begin with "The 
 Interior (The Home)." Here the tragedy is enacted 
 inside the house, while all the talking is done outside. 
 If you find a fascination in it, pass on to "The In- 
 truder" and "The Blind." This last affords un- 
 limited scope to those who are fond of running down 
 symbols. The dead priest in the middle of the group 
 will stand for any form of ecclesiasticism you may 
 
 [41] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 have outgrown, and you can give the blind people 
 around him the names of all the philosophers you 
 know, according to the degree of their blindness and 
 their reliance upon rationalism, intuitionalism, child 
 psychology, animal psychology, etc., for a way out. 
 But don't think you have to label them at all if you 
 don't like to. 
 
 To understand "The Blue Bird," all you have to do 
 is to become a child. Then after you grow up again 
 you may find that you understand it still better. It 
 was first presented in Russia, where it was played by 
 fifty-two companies. London and New York saw 
 it before Paris, where it was put on the stage for the 
 first time five years after it appeared elsewhere, 
 with Madame Georgette Leblanc in the role of Light. 
 (English version, Dodd, Mead and Company.) 
 Maeterlinck has taken out the forest conspiracy 
 because it scared the children, and substituted a 
 new act containing one of his most original characters, 
 the Happiness of Running Barefoot in the Dew, 
 who is apparently a daughter of Doctor Kneipp. 
 Madame Maeterlinck has prepared "The Blue Bird 
 for Children " in story form for schools (Silver, Bur- 
 dett and Company). 
 
 "Mary Magdalene" is played by Olga Nethersole, 
 but may be as well read as seen. "Monna Vanna" 
 was prohibited by the Censor in England until 1914, 
 but was played in this country by Bertha Kalich, with- 
 out offense. The only play by Maeterlinck that is 
 at all "Frenchy" is one he translated from the Eng- 
 lish of John Ford. (Dodd, Mead and Company 
 publish "Joyzelle" and "Monna Vanna", "Agla- 
 vaine and Selysette", "Mary Magdalene", "Pel- 
 leas and Melisande", "Princess Maleine", "The 
 Intruder, and Other Plays", and "Sister Beatrice", 
 
 [42] 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 and "Ariane and Blue Beard." Harper publishes 
 "Monna Vanna"; Crowell published "Pelleas and 
 Melisande"; R. F. Seymour, Chicago, publishes 
 "Twelve Songs of Maeterlinck." Several of the 
 plays can be found in back numbers of Poet Lore 
 sold by R. G. Badger, Boston.) 
 
 A comprehensive bibliography will be found in 
 the life of Maeterlinck by Montrose J. Moses (Duf- 
 field). We have also in English brief biographies 
 by Gerard Harry (Allen and Sons) and J. Bithel 
 (Scribner). The sketch by William Sharp in the 
 "Warner Library of the World's Best Literature" is 
 remarkable for its insight, and the reader may also 
 be referred to Hunneker's "Iconoclasts", Thorold's 
 "Six Masters of Disillusion", and the article on 
 "Maeterlinck's Philosophy of Life", by Professor 
 John Dewey of Columbia in the Hibbert Journal, 
 July, 191 1. The lover of Maeterlinck, whose affection 
 is capable of being alienated, should beware of read- 
 ing the very clever parody on his style in Owen Sea- 
 man's "Borrowed Plumes" (Holt). 
 
 [43] 
 
CHAPTER II 
 HENRI BERGSON 
 
 The history of philosophy shows us chiefly the 
 ceaselessly renewed efforts of reflection laboring 
 to attenuate difficulties, to resolve contradictions, to 
 measure with an increasing approximation a reality 
 incommensurable with our thought. But from time 
 to time bursts forth a soul which seems to triumph 
 over these complications by force of simplicity, the 
 soul of artist or of poet, keeping close to its origin, 
 reconciling with a harmony felt by the heart terms 
 perhaps irreconcilable by the intelligence. The 
 language which it speaks, when it borrows the voice 
 of philosophy, is not similarly understood by every- 
 body. Some think it vague, and so it is in what it 
 expresses. Others feel it precise, because they experi- 
 ence all it suggests. To many ears it brings only the 
 echo of a vanished past, but others hear in it as in a 
 prophetic dream the joyous song of the future. 
 
 These words, which Bergson used in his eulogy 
 of his teacher, Ravaisson, before the French Acad- 
 emy of Moral and Political Sciences, may be applied 
 with greater appropriateness to Bergson himself. 
 For he, far more than Ravaisson, has shown him- 
 self an original force in the world of thought, and his 
 philosophy also appears to some people reactionary 
 
 [44] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 in tendency and to others far in advance of any- 
 thing hitherto formulated. But to all it appears 
 important. "Nothing like it since Descartes", 
 they say in France. "Nothing like it since Kant", 
 they say in Germany. His lecture room is the 
 largest in the College de France, but it is too small 
 to accommodate the crowd which would hear him. 
 They begin to gather at half-past three for the five 
 o'clock lecture, though they have to listen to a polit- 
 ical economist to hold their seats. A cosmopolitan 
 crowd it is that on Wednesdays awaits the lecturer, 
 talking more languages than have ordinarily been 
 heard in the same room at any time during the period 
 from the strike on the Tower of Babel to the uni- 
 versal adoption of Esperanto. French, Italian, 
 English, American, German, Yiddish, and Russian 
 are to be distinguished among them ; perhaps the 
 last predominate among the foreign tongues, for 
 young people of both sexes come from Russia in 
 swarms to put themselves under his instruction. 
 This may rouse in us some speculation, even appre- 
 hension. Bergsonianism has already assumed some 
 curious forms in the minds of his over-ardent disciples, 
 and what it will become after it has been translated 
 into the Russian language and temperament it 
 would be rash to prophesy. 
 
 [45] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 But the polyglot audience is silent as M. Bergson 
 ascends the rostrum and begins to talk, in slow, 
 smooth, clear tones, accented by nervous gestures 
 of his slender hands. His figure is slight, and his 
 face thin and pointed, almost ecclesiastical in appear- 
 ance. His hair is slightly gray, but his close-cropped 
 mustache is brown. The eyes are deep, dark, and 
 penetrating, the eyes of seer and scientist together. 
 He lays out his argument in advance in the formal 
 French style, but unlike most French lecturers 
 he does not confine himself to notes. His quick 
 turns of thought break through the conventional 
 forms of logic and find expression in striking and 
 original similes drawn from his wide range of read- 
 ing. I suppose all professors are given nicknames 
 by their students ; at least all who are either loved 
 or hated, and that includes all who amount to 
 anything. Bergson's students call him "the lark", 
 because the higher he flies the sweeter he sings. 
 His voice, indeed, seems to come down from some 
 altitudinous region of the upper atmosphere, so 
 clear and thin and high and penetrating it is. A 
 writer in the London News put it very well when he 
 said of Bergson's London lecture, "No one ever 
 spoke before a large audience with more complete 
 self-possession and less self-assertion." 
 
 [46] 
 
Copyright 1913 by Campbell Studio 
 
 i/>?a_^ 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 As an experienced teacher he appreciates the 
 importance of repetition, and in his lectures brings 
 up the same idea in many varied forms and italicizes 
 with his voice the essential points. All his life he 
 has been a teacher, climbing up the regular edu- 
 cational ladder rung by rung to the top. 
 
 Henri Bergson was born in the heart of Paris, 
 the Montmartre quarter, on October 18, 1859. 
 He is descended from a prominent Jewish family of 
 Poland and he owes his excellent command of the 
 English language to his mother, for he always spoke 
 that language with her. At the age of nine he en- 
 tered the Lycee Condorcet, only a few blocks from 
 his house on the Rue Lamartine. He was a good 
 student and worked hard, particularly on geography, 
 which was most difficult for him. Mathematics was 
 his favorite study, and he then intended to make it 
 his life work, but instead he chose a harder road, for, 
 as he told me, philosophy is much more difficult, re- 
 quires more concentrated thought than mathematics. 
 Before he left the Lycee at the age of eighteen he 
 won a prize for a solution to a mathematical problem, 
 and the Annates de Mathematiques published his 
 paper in full. 
 
 Next he entered the Ecole Normale Superieure, 
 where he came under the influence of Ravaisson, 
 
 [47] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Lachelier, and Boutroux. On graduation, in 1881, 
 he was made professor of philosophy in the Lycee 
 of Angers for two years, afterward for five years at 
 Clermont, then back to Paris, first in the College 
 Rollin and later in the Lycee Henri IV. In 1898 
 he was promoted to the Ecole Normale Superieure, 
 and two years later to the College de France. In 
 1901 he was elected to the Institute, and in 1914 
 to the Academy. 
 
 The rapid spread of his philosophy in France is 
 due not only to its intrinsic value and the eloquence 
 with which he presents it, but in part also to his 
 having been a teacher of teachers. By his twenty 
 years' work in the secondary schools or lycees of the 
 provinces and Paris, and in the Superior Normal 
 School, he has molded the thought of thousands 
 of young men who are now teaching and writing 
 and ruling in France. His present position as 
 lecturer to miscellaneous audiences in the College 
 of France, though more conspicuous, is really not 
 more influential than his earlier work. He has the 
 faculty of arousing the enthusiasm and personal 
 devotion of his students, so the soil all over the coun- 
 try was prepared in advance for the propagation 
 of his ideas, and now all he has to do is to sow them 
 broadcast. We may observe something of the kind 
 
 [48] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 in our own country, where Dewey's influence has 
 been largely exercised through personal contact 
 with teachers. If he had never published a line, 
 the colleges, normal and high schools in the western 
 half of the United States would, nevertheless, be 
 teaching anonymous Deweyism. A philosopher who 
 cares more for influence than celebrity will prefer a 
 chair where he can reach the largest number of 
 future teachers to any other position however 
 exalted. 
 
 We are. not left to speculation as to the extent 
 of Bergson's influence in French education. A 
 questionnaire on the teaching of philosophy in the 
 lycees conducted by Binet 1 showed that his ideas 
 were the dominant force of the time. One school 
 reported that "four professors here have adopted 
 them without reserve and made them the soul of 
 their teaching." It is interesting to note that not 
 one of these high school professors mentioned either 
 materialism or pantheism among their various 
 philosophic creeds. They were equally divided 
 between objective and subjective thinkers, or, say, 
 between realists and idealists. 
 
 Bergson himself was a materialist to start with, 
 and he worked his way up into his present spiritual- 
 
 1 Reported in the Bulletin de la Societe jrancaise de Philosophic, 1908. 
 
 [49] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 istic philosophy when he found the inadequacy of 
 his early conceptions. His taste was for the exact 
 sciences, and in them he excelled while at school. 
 He intended at that time to devote himself to the 
 study of mechanics, and his youthful ambition was 
 to continue and develop the philosophy of Herbert 
 Spencer, of whom he was then an enthusiastic admirer. 
 
 But as he studied the formulas of mechanics 
 with a view of discovering their philosophical 
 implications, and of utilizing them in the explanation 
 of the universe, he was struck with their inadequacy, 
 even falsity, when applied to the phenomena of 
 life and mind. In particular he was troubled by the 
 symbol t which occurs so frequently in mathematical 
 and physical formulas, and is supposed to stand for 
 " time. " It is represented geometrically by a 
 straight line just like the three dimensions of space. 
 In fact, as Bergson points out, "time" as used in 
 physical science is nothing more or less than a fourth 
 dimension of space. It is purely a spatial concep- 
 tion, an empty framework in which events may be 
 arranged in order as objects are set up in a row on 
 a shelf. There is no change or development in it, 
 for past and future are all the same to it. 
 
 Now, when Bergson compared this physical 
 conception of "time" with real time or duration 
 
 [So] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 as he felt it within himself, he found they were 
 entirely different things. For the mind the past 
 does not stretch out in a line behind. It is rolled 
 up into the present and projected toward the future. 
 Still less is there a path or several optional paths 
 definitely laid out ahead of us in the future. We 
 break our own paths as we go forward. It is like 
 the big snowballs that we boys used to roll up to 
 make forts out of; all the snow it has passed over 
 is a part of it, and in front the snow is trackless. 
 
 The mechanical formulas of science are admirably 
 adapted to the purpose for which they were designed, 
 that is, the handling of matter, but they are mislead- 
 ing as applied to living beings, and especially to 
 the human mind, which is the farthest removed from 
 the realm of material mechanics. Here is true 
 freedom and initiative. 
 
 The advocate of free will always gets beaten in 
 the argument with the determinist when he meets 
 him on his own ground, for adopting the spatial 
 conception of time and the dynamic conception of 
 motives, reduces man to a machine and, of course, 
 makes him amenable to the ordinary laws of 
 mechanics. If it is correct to represent the future 
 as two crossroads in front of the undecided indi- 
 vidual and he pulled to right and left by "motives" 
 
 [51] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 on either side, then the determinist has it all his 
 own way. The case has been conceded to him in 
 advance, and the libertarian can only flinch from 
 his logic. But Bergson holds that when the deter- 
 minist pretends to talk about the future, he really 
 is regarding it as already past, as definitely mapped 
 and virtually existent. 
 
 As Bergson's first book, "Time and Free Will", 
 was devoted to the overthrow of the metaphysical 
 argument for determinism, so his second, "Matter 
 and Memory", was devoted to the overthrow of 
 the psychological argument, which is that the mind 
 and the brain are merely different aspects of the 
 same thing (monism) or that their action is parallel 
 so that a certain state of consciousness always corre- 
 sponds to a certain molecular motion (dualism). 
 Since the activities of the brain are presumably 
 controlled by the physical and chemical laws, then 
 must be also the mental activities identical or insepa- 
 rably connected with them. But Bergson, taking 
 the position of an extreme dualist, argues that the 
 mind is distinct from matter and only in part depend- 
 ent upon it, that memories are not altogether stored 
 in the brain or anywhere in space, and that the brain 
 is essentially nothing more than an instrument of 
 action. 
 
 [5*1 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 The same is true of our senses, of our bodily or- 
 ganism in general. They are made for practical, 
 not speculative, purposes. The things nearest to 
 us are seen largest and clearest. The eye is useful 
 because its vision is limited. If it were susceptible 
 to all rays, like our skin, we should get, not vision, 
 but sunburn. Now the understanding, also having 
 a pragmatic origin, limits our knowledge just as the 
 eye limits our vision, and for the same purpose. 
 
 Let me give a few examples of this limitation of 
 our senses and of our intellect. Suppose we are 
 looking at a horse or automobile going past in the 
 street. We get an immediate sense of the movement 
 very decidedly, but the motion itself we cannot see . 
 We must first analyze the motion ; that is, take it 
 apart, break it up into something that is not motion. 
 This we can do with a kinetoscope camera which 
 takes snapshots at the rate of fifty a second. These 
 successive pictures do not give the motion, no mat- 
 ter how rapidly they are taken. Each represents 
 the object standing still, or if not quick enough for 
 that, the picture is blurred ; but show these still- 
 life photographs to us in quick succession, and we 
 no longer perceive them as separate views but as 
 continuous motion. Why can the camera so deceive 
 us ? Simply because our eyes work in the same 
 
 [S3l 
 
II 
 
 MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 way. They are cameras, and the exposure time 
 of the retina is about the same as that of the moving 
 picture films. A moving object looked at steadily 
 is merely a blurred band. But if we wink rapidly, 
 we can catch glimpses of the legs of the horse or 
 the spokes of the wheel, thus like the kinetoscope 
 transforming motion into immobility by inter- 
 mittent attention. 
 
 Look closely at a portrait in this book, and you 
 will see that it consists of pure black and white. 
 Needless to say that the face portrayed was not 
 composed of black spots of various sizes on a white 
 ground. In the original there were no black, no 
 white, and no dots. There were only even shadings, 
 lighter and darker. The picture is an absolute mis- 
 representation. Yet viewed with the naked eye 
 at sufficient distance to put the dots out of sight, it 
 imitates the shading of the original well enough to be 
 called a "half-tone plate", although there is really 
 not a half tone in it, nothing but black and white. 
 
 Now this trick of decomposing continuous mo- 
 tion into successive pictures like the kinetoscope 
 and decomposing continuous space into successive 
 spots like the printing process, is the way we do our 
 thinking. TW rpinrl ^ PR Dv jerks like the eye. 
 When we think of the course of history we break 
 
 (S4l 
 
1/ 
 
 HENRI BERGSON 
 
 it up into blocks of handy size, comparing century 
 with century, year with year. This is perfectly 
 justifiable, very useful, in fact inevitable, and quite 
 innocent, provided we realize that it is a logical 
 fiction, adapted to practical purposes merely. The 
 trouble has come from not recognizing this. People 
 generally, and especially scientists and philosophers, 
 have been inclined to regard this process of rationali- 
 zation as the way of getting at reality, instead of as 
 a mere tool for handling reality. 
 
 Long ago, when men first began to think hard, 
 they discovered the inadequacy of mere thinking. 
 Zeno of Elea propounded among other puzzles that 
 of Achilles and the tortoise, which has kept the 
 world guessing for twenty-four centuries. While 
 Achilles is making up his handicap, the tortoise 
 has gone on a bit farther, and when Achilles has 
 covered this distance, the tortoise is not there, but 
 still ahead, and since space is conceived as infinitely 
 divisible, Achilles would take an infinity of time to 
 catch up. I do not suppose the experiment was 
 ever tried. That was not the way of the Greeks. 
 They placed too much reliance upon their brains 
 and too little on anything outside of them to put a 
 theory to the test of experiment. But it has been 
 agreed everywhere, always and by all, that Achilles 
 
 [551 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 would catch the tortoise, and a considerable pro- 
 portion of each generation have tried to explain how 
 he could, often succeeding to their own satisfaction, 
 but rarely to the satisfaction of other people. For 
 the point to this puzzle is not to get the answer, 
 but to say why it puzzles us, and to this point 
 philosophers from Aristotle to Bergson have devoted 
 much study ; and doubtless the end is not yet. 
 
 I remember well the day when that ancient jest 
 was first sprung upon me in the University of Kansas, 
 by the instructor in philosophy, a bright young man 
 just on from Harvard, who had the Eleatics at his 
 finger tips. Several of the boys volunteered to 
 explain it, but I, having the longest arm and snappiest 
 fingers, got the floor. I suggested that we substitute 
 a greyhound chasing a jack rabbit for Achilles and 
 the tortoise, who must be tired of running so long. 
 Both greyhound and jack rabbit progress by jumps, 
 and I argued, with the aid of a piece of chalk, that 
 these could be measured and laid off on the prairie, 
 here represented by the blackboard, and so the 
 whole thing figured out. But the instructor denied 
 my petition for a change of venue. He stuck to 
 Greece and refused to meet me on my native soil, 
 so I retired discomfited. I thought him unaccom- 
 modating at the time, but I see now that he was 
 
 [56] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 merely wise. Wariness is often so mistaken for 
 disobligingness. The paradox is solved by science 
 and by common sense by assuming that Achilles 
 and the tortoise move by jumps instead of continu- 
 ously and then comparing these jumps, for they are 
 of finite length and number. 
 
 In short, we know what motion is by common 
 sense, by feeling, by intuition, but when we come 
 to reason about it, and especially when we come to 
 talk about it, we have to substitute for it something 
 that is not motion, but is easier to handle and near 
 enough like it, so that ordinarily it serves just as 
 well. It is as much like it as the short, straight 
 lines, substituted by the mathematician, are like 
 the segments of the curve he is trying to solve. 
 What is true of motion is true in a way of all our 
 definitions, formulations, laws, and categories ; they 
 are not the real things, but merely handy surrogates. 
 They represent some particular phase of reality 
 more or less satisfactorily. These formulas are not 
 designed to pick all the locks of Nature's treasure 
 chests. They are good for the lock they are designed 
 for and sometimes others, not all. The master key 
 to all locks either does not exist or is too cumbrous 
 to be wielded by man. 
 
 Bergson's theory of personality arises naturally 
 
 IS7l 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 out of his conception of time. Time is said to have 
 one dimension. Yes, if we symbolize it by a line; 
 otherwise not, it has no dimension. The impersonal 
 time of the philosophers and scientists is merely 
 the spatial symbol of duration. What our experi- 
 ence shows us is not this empty artificial uneventful 
 time, but duration. And not merely duration, but 
 durations, for there are as many durations of different 
 interval rhythm as there are consciousnesses. This 
 is what is real in time. Time is really the continu- 
 ous unrolling of our conscious life, of psychologic 
 states which do not become distinct except when 
 it pleases us to divide them. Personality is a conti- 
 nuity of indivisible movement. We can draw a bucket 
 of water out of the river, and then another bucketful, 
 but we can never get the stream in this way, for the 
 stream is essentially movement. The movement 
 is what is substantial about the stream. 
 
 From immobile states we can never make of life 
 what experience actually gives us, for life is change. 
 Only by seizing this change directly in an integral 
 experience can we solve the problem. To true 
 realities no concept is applicable. Reality must 
 be regarded itself, in itself, just as it is ; and in giving 
 a description of it, we can fix only the image of it 
 before our eyes. 
 
 [58] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 The guiding thread of philosophical problems 
 is that the intellect is an instrument of action which 
 has developed itself in the course of centuries in 
 order to triumph over the difficulties that matter 
 opposes to life. The intellect has constituted itself 
 for the purpose of a battle. The obstacles which 
 it would overthrow are those of brute matter. 
 The categories of the understanding are construoted 
 with a view of action upon matter. So where our 
 intellect seeks to know something else than the 
 material world, it finds itself unable to grasp it. 
 The whole history of the evolution of life combines 
 to show that intelligence is an instrumental func- 
 tion for action upon matter, to formulate and present 
 the laws which permit us to foresee, and therefore 
 to forestall. 
 
 In dealing with a reality like personality, the 
 intellect will first attempt to handle the subject with 
 the same processes that it employs for inert matter, 
 therefore it ends in a logical impasse. This is the 
 origin of the difficulties of the question. The con- 
 cepts which it would apply to personality are made 
 only for the material world. We do not know how 
 to apply them adequately to the life of the mind, 
 which overflows them. 
 
 To direct our attention upon the stream of our 
 [59] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 consciousness breaks it up and immobilizes it. But 
 it may be reached by another kind of introspection, 
 which consists in letting live, in trying to reenforce 
 vitality. In this way activity may become con- 
 sciousness without ceasing to be active. Thus the 
 ego may be seized as it really is, as a transition and 
 a continuity. 
 
 In his theory of evolution Bergson draws a sharp 
 distinction between intelligence and instinct. As 
 intelligence has reached its highest point in the 
 human race, so instinct has reached its highest 
 point in the ants, bees, and wasps. Here we see 
 instinct attaining its ends by the employment of 
 the most varied and complicated expedients. The 
 ant is lord of the subsoil as man is lord of the soil. 
 The solitary wasps, whom Maeterlinck would despise 
 as primitive individualists in comparison with the 
 socialized bees, are used by Bergson to illustrate his 
 theory of instinct. These insects provide for the 
 future needs of their larvae by storing up in their 
 underground nest spiders, beetles, or caterpillars. 
 These are to be kept alive, as we keep turtles and 
 lobsters, so they will be fresh, and in order to prevent 
 them from escaping, the wasp paralyzes them by 
 stinging them at the point or points where the 
 motor nerves meet. One species of wasp pierces 
 
 F6ol 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 the ganglia of its caterpillar by nine successive thrusts 
 of its sting and then squeezes the head in its 
 mandibles, enough to cause paralysis without death. 
 Other kinds of wasps have to use other forms of 
 surgical treatment, according to the kind of insect 
 they put into storage. How can this be explained ? 
 If we call it intelligence, we must assume that the 
 wasp or its ancestors has been endowed with a 
 knowledge of insect anatomy such as we hesitate 
 to credit to any being lower in the scale of life than 
 a professor of entomology. If we adopt a mechanis- 
 tic hypothesis, we must assume that this marvelous 
 skill in surgery has been gradually acquired in the 
 course of thousands of generations, either by the 
 survival of the descendants of those insects who 
 happened to have stuck their stings into the nine 
 right places (Darwinism), or by the inheritance of 
 the acquired habit of stinging a certain species of 
 caterpillar in that particular way (Lamarckianism). 
 But since this knowledge or skill is never of use to 
 the individual insect and is of no use to the species 
 until it has arrived at a considerable degree of per- 
 fection, we can hardly adopt either theory without 
 straining our imagination. 
 
 But the assumed difficulties vanish if we adopt 
 the Bergsonian point of view and regard the cater- 
 
 [61] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 pillar and wasp as two parts of the same process. 
 It is no wonder then that they are fitted together. 
 Slayer and slain have developed for that purpose, 
 and what is apparently antagonism is really coopera- 
 tion. The importance of this theory to those who 
 are troubled about the moral interpretation of the 
 universe is obvious, for the stinging of the cater- 
 pillar would seem something like picking a sliver 
 out of the left hand by the right, but Bergson does 
 not go into this question at all. 
 
 The formation of the eye, which is the source 
 of much perplexity to evolutionists of all schools, 
 provides Bergson with an excellent illustration of 
 his theory. The eye of mollusks is similar in form 
 and identical in function with the eye of the verte- 
 brates, yet the two are composed of different ele- 
 ments and grow in a different way. The retina of 
 the vertebrate is produced by an expansion of the 
 central nervous system of the young embryo. It 
 is, so to speak, a part of the brain coming out to see. 
 In the mollusk, on the contrary, the retina is formed 
 from the external layer of the embryo. Here 
 heredity is out of the question because of this dif- 
 ference of formation and because the man is not 
 descended from the mollusk nor the mollusk from 
 man. The structure of the eye involves the com- 
 
 [62] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 bination of such a large number of elements and 
 must satisfy so many conditions before it is good 
 for anything, that it is practically impossible to 
 explain it either as the effect of the action of light 
 or as the result of an accretion of slight accidental 
 variations. 
 
 But Bergson, coming in with his philosophic 
 faith at the point where science leaves off, calls atten- 
 tion to the fact that while the eye is a complicated 
 structure, seeing is one simple act. Why not begin 
 our explanation with the simple, instead of the 
 complex ? The analytical method of the intellect, 
 though useful in its place, does not lead us to the 
 meaning of reality. It is as if we could only see 
 a picture as broken up into a mosaic, or as if we could 
 only consider a movement of the hand in the mathe- 
 matician's way, as an infinite series of points ar- 
 ranged in a curve. 
 
 So the eye with its marvelous complexity of struc- 
 ture, may be only the simple act of vision, divided 
 for us into a mosaic of cells, whose order seems 
 marvelous to us because we have conceived the whole 
 as an assemblage. . . . 
 
 Mechanism and finalism both go too far, for they 
 attribute to Nature the most formidable of the labors 
 of Hercules in holding that she has exalted to the 
 simple act of vision an infinity of infinitely complex 
 elements, whereas Nature has had no more trouble 
 
 [63] 
 
• 
 
 MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 in making an eye than I have in lifting my hand. 
 Nature's simple act has divided itself automatically 
 into an infinity of elements which are then found 
 to be coordinated to one idea, just as the movement 
 of my hand has dropped an infinity of points which 
 are then found to satisfy one equation. — "Creative 
 Evolution", pp. 90-91. 
 
 Bergson seems born to be an exception to Amiel's 
 ; criticism of French philosophy : " The French lack 
 j.i that intuitive faculty to which the living unity of 
 things is revealed." "Their logic never goes beyond 
 the category of mechanism nor their metaphysic 
 beyond dualism." 
 
 M. Bergson's residence is the Villa Montmorency 
 in Auteuil, a quiet quarter of Paris, lying between 
 the Seine and the Bois de Boulogne. In summer 
 he goes to Switzerland for greater seclusion and the 
 stimulus of a higher altitude upon his thought. 
 Here I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon 
 with him. From Geneva, where I was staging, I 
 took the railroad that skirts the lake upon the west- 
 ern side to Nyon, an old Roman town at the foot 
 of the Dole, the highest peak of the Swiss Jura. 
 St. Cergue, my destination, was nine miles inland 
 and a half a mile up. The distance I had to go was 
 therefore the square root of the sum of the squares of 
 these distances, but I did not figure it out, because, 
 
 [64] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 according to Bergson, we live in time rather than 
 space, and duration is not a measure of length. So 
 I can only say that it was one of the longest and 
 pleasantest hypotenuses I ever traversed. For 
 there was a sense of exhilaration in rising ever 
 higher as the carriage zigzagged through the woods,, 
 and in getting a grander view each time we stopped 
 at a turn to give way to an automobile chugging 
 slowly up or coasting swiftly down. Arrived at 
 the little village of St. Cergue, I had still a climb 
 and a search among the hotels, pensions, and summer 
 homes scattered over the mountainside for Villa 
 Bois-gentil. This was found in the middle of a 
 meadow backed by a forest of firs, a square, two- 
 story house, simply furnished but with no affectation 
 of rusticity, as is common in American country 
 homes. From the inclosed porch there is a glorious 
 view of Mont Blanc, with the long blue crescent 
 of Lake Geneva curving around the ramparts of 
 its "base. But, as with many another Swiss view, 
 the effect is marred by the presence of a big box of a 
 hotel in the immediate foreground. 
 
 One would have thought from the cordiality of my 
 reception that a philosopher had nothing better 
 to do than to entertain a wandering American 
 journalist. At lunch I had an opportunity of meet- 
 
 [65] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ing also Madame and Mademoiselle Bergson, and 
 afterward a long talk with Professor Bergson, who 
 later accompanied me down the steep mountain 
 path to the village and along the winding road 
 through the woods. His conversation has the charm 
 of his books, the enthusiasm for the mission of 
 philosophy, the wealth of illustrations drawn from 
 many fields of science and art, the freshness and 
 inspiration of his novel point of view, the candidness 
 in the consideration of opposing arguments, the 
 unaffected, unpretentious manner, the absence of 
 the professional jealousy and personal arrogance 
 which has been characteristic of many original 
 thinkers. The reader will notice that in his reviews 
 and criticisms of the historic systems of philosophy, 
 he never seeks to overthrow them, but is always 
 trying to see how much of them he can save and 
 assimilate. He believes that it is possible for 
 metaphysics to have a continuous and positive devel- 
 opment like the natural sciences, each man building 
 on what has gone before, instead of setting up a new 
 school and endeavoring to secure a personal following. 1 
 I took the liberty of extending to Professor Berg- 
 
 1 For his views on the possibility of scientific metaphysics, see Le 
 Parallilisme psycho-physique et la mitaphysique positive in Bulletin de la 
 Sociiti francaise de Philosophic, June, 1901 ; and Introduction a la mita- 
 physique in Revue de Mitaphysique et de Morale, January, 1903. 
 
 [66] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 son an invitation to America, for I was able to assure 
 him of a hearty welcome on account of the deep in- 
 terest already taken here in his thought. The work 
 of James and Dewey prepared the way for Bergson 
 in this country, for his philosophy may be regarded 
 as a constructive system built upon pragmatic 
 criticism. Indeed, he has been accused by his oppo- 
 nents of stealing Yankee psychology and making 
 metaphysics out of it. The truth is, James and 
 Bergson pursued through many years lines of 
 thought of similar tendency but of independent 
 development, though each has repeatedly taken 
 occasion to express his appreciation of the work of 
 the other. It is a case of psycho-metaphysical 
 parallelism rather than of interaction. 
 
 In February, 1913, Professor Bergson came to 
 America at the invitation of Columbia University 
 and gave two series of lectures, one in French and 
 the other in English, on Spiritualite et Liberte and 
 the Method of Philosophy. One would find reason 
 to question the common assertion that nowadays 
 no interest is taken in metaphysical problems when 
 he saw the lecture rooms packed with people from 
 the city as well as students from all departments 
 of the university. A line of automobiles stood wait- 
 ing along Broadway, as the litters waited in the 
 
 [67] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 streets of Rome when Plotinus, the Neoplatonist, 
 came to lecture there seventeen hundred years 
 ago. Those who could not beg, buy, or borrow a 
 ticket of admission formed a line outside the door, 
 hoping that some who had tickets would fail to 
 appear, but that did not often happen. A lunette 
 was discovered over the door which commanded 
 the lecture room, and here gathered a compact 
 group of the excluded, finding room for one eye or 
 one ear apiece, but the fainting of a lady in the crush 
 put a stop to this privilege. In the downtown de- 
 partment stores Bergson's books were stacked up on 
 the "best sellers" counter. His American publisher 
 sold in two years half as many copies of "Creative 
 Evolution" as had been sold in France in fifteen. 
 Yet Bergson is a prophet not without honor in his 
 own country. The three weeks he spent here were 
 so crowded with engagements that he had to be 
 kept running on a schedule as close as a railroad 
 time-table. As he was leaving, I asked Professor 
 Bergson the banal question of what he thought of 
 America. He answered : "I shall always remember 
 America as the Land of Interrupted Conversations. 
 I have met so many interesting people with whom 
 I should like to talk, but then somebody else equally 
 interesting comes up." 
 
 [68] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 M. Bergson believes that it is possible to make 
 any philosophical idea clear and acceptable to the 
 multitude. In this he obviously differs from other 
 philosophers, many of whom do not think it possible 
 and some of whom do not think it desirable. But 
 to gain the wider audience, the author must take 
 great pains with his style. The fault with transla- 
 tions is that the swing, the rhythm, is apt to be 
 lost or altered, and this is essential to the impres- 
 sion as well as the right words. I spoke to him of 
 the difficulty of finding an exact English equiv- 
 alent of elan vital, which is the key word of his 
 "Evolution creatrice", and he replied that he 
 thought that "impetus", the word chosen by 
 Dr. Arthur Mitchell in his translation of the work, 
 was better than any of the others which had 
 been suggested, such as "impulse", "momentum", 
 "movement", "onrush", "push", "force", and 
 "urge." 
 
 M. Bergson's method of composition is based 
 on his theory of style. In undertaking a new book 
 he spends as many years as may be necessary to the 
 mastery of the literature of the subject and the 
 development of his ideas. Then when he starts 
 in to compose, he sets aside all his books and notes, 
 and writes at a furious rate so as to get the book 
 
 [69] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 down as nearly as possible in the form it took in 
 his mind at one time, jotting' down his thoughts 
 as rapidly as they come, often in fragmentary sen- 
 tences and words, so as not to interrupt the move- 
 ment of his mind. Then having put on paper the 
 essentials of his theme with its original impetus, 
 he devotes himself to the long process of revision, 
 verification, and correction. 
 
 To art in all its forms Bergson has given a large 
 place in his philosophy. The little book in which 
 he has touched upon it, "Le Rire" (Laughter), is 
 not so much of a digression from his fundamental 
 line of thought as may appear. He explains that 
 ridicule has developed as a method of social control, 
 to whip people into line, to punish them for willful 
 or absent-minded disregard of social usages. Laugh- 
 ter is incompatible with emotion. The comic ad- 
 dresses itself to pure intelligence. A joke cannot 
 be perceived until the heart has a momentary anaes- 
 thesia. There is nothing comic except human 
 beings. Man has been defined as "the laughing 
 animal." He is also the only laughable animal. 
 Man becomes ridiculous when we regard him from 
 an intellectualist standpoint ; that is, as a machine. 
 The attitudes, gestures, and movements of the human 
 body are laughable in the exact degree that they 
 
 [70] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 seem to us mechanical. We always laugh when 
 persons seem like things. 
 
 The bearing of this theory of the ridiculous upon 
 his philosophy is so obvious that he does not need 
 to state it. Bergson, too, might use ridicule as a 
 weapon and laugh determinism out of court. The 
 man of the mechanists would be as funny as a jack- 
 in-the-box. 
 
 In the same volume he gives his view of the func- 
 tion of art, from which a few sentences may be 
 quoted here : 
 
 What is the object of art ? If reality struck our 
 senses and our consciousness directly; if we could 
 enter into immediate communication with things 
 and with each other, I believe that art would be use- 
 less, or rather that we would all be artists, for our 
 souls would then vibrate continuously in unison 
 with nature. Our eyes, aided by our memory, 
 would cut out in space and fix in time inimitable 
 pictures. Our glance would seize in passing, sculp- 
 tured in the living marble of the human body, bits 
 of statuary as beautiful as those of antiquity. We 
 would hear singing in the depths of our souls like 
 music, sometimes gay, more often plaintive, always 
 original, the uninterrupted melody of our interior life. 
 All this is around us, all this is in us, and yet noth- 
 ing of all this is perceived by us distinctly. Between 
 nature and us — what do I say ? — between us and 
 our own consciousness, a veil interposes, a thick veil 
 for the common man, a thin veil, almost transparent, 
 
 [71] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 for the artist and the poet. What fairy has woven 
 this veil ? Was it through malice or through friendli- 
 ness ? It is necessary to live, and life requires that 
 we apprehend things relatively to our needs. Living 
 consists in acting. To live is to receive from objects 
 only the useful impression in order to respond to it by 
 the appropriate reactions ; the other impressions 
 must obliterate themselves or come to us only con- 
 fusedly. I look and I believe I see, I listen and 
 believe I hear, I study myself and I believe I read to 
 the bottom of my heart. But what I see and what 
 I hear from the external world is simply what my 
 senses extract from it in order to throw light upon 
 my conduct ; what I know of myself is what flows 
 on the surface, what takes part in action. My 
 senses and my consciousness give me only a practical 
 simplification of reality. 
 
 Thus, whether it be painting, sculpture, poetry 
 or music, art has no other object than to dissipate the 
 practically useful symbols, the generalities conven- 
 tionally and socially accepted, in short all that masks 
 reality for us, in order to bring us face to face with 
 reality itself. It is a misunderstanding on this point 
 that has given rise to the debate between realism 
 and idealism in art. Art is certainly only a more 
 direct vision of reality. But this purity of percep- 
 tion implies a rupture with useful convention, an 
 innate and specially localized disinterestedness of the 
 sense or of the consciousness, in short, a certain 
 immateriality of life which is what has always been 
 called idealism. So one might say without in the 
 least playing upon the sense of the words, that 
 realism is in the work when idealism is in the soul, 
 and that it is by force of ideality alone that one can 
 regain contact with reality. 
 
 [72] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 There are various other ways besides art whereby 
 we may recover and strengthen the faculty of 
 intuition, which has been suffered to atrophy through 
 too exclusive a reliance upon rational processes. 
 There is, for example, action, life itself, the sense of 
 living, which brings us into immediate contact with 
 reality. By the help of science, art, and philosophy, 
 we may achieve sympathy, a feeling of the kinship 
 of nature, a consciousness of interpenetration, a 
 realization of the meaning of evolution. Above 
 all, philosophy has this aim and power, to develop 
 another faculty, complementary to the intellect, 
 that will open to us a perspective on the other half 
 of reality, not capable of being confined in the rigid 
 formulas of deductive logic. 
 
 There are things that intelligence alone is able to 
 seek but which, by itself, it will never find. These 
 things instinct alone can find, but it will never seek 
 them. 
 
 Intelligence and instinct are turned in opposite 
 directions, the former toward inert matter, the latter 
 toward life. Intelligence by means of science, which 
 is its work, will deliver up to us more and more com- 
 pletely the secret of physical operations ; of life it 
 brings us, and moreover only claims to bring us, a 
 translation in terms of inertia. It goes all around 
 life, taking from the outside the greatest possible 
 number of views of it, drawing it into itself instead 
 of entering into it. But it is to the very inwardness 
 
 l73l 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of life that intuition leads — by intuition I mean 
 instinct that has become disinterested, self-conscious, 
 capable of reflecting upon its object and of enlarging 
 it indefinitely. 
 
 We see that the intellect, so skillful in dealing 
 with the inert, is awkward the moment it touches 
 the living. Whether it wants to treat the life of the 
 body or the life of the mind, it proceeds with the 
 rigor, the stiffness, and the brutality of an instru- 
 ment not designed for such use. The history of 
 hygiene or of pedagogy teaches us much in this 
 matter. 
 
 In Bergson's system metaphysics occupies the 
 same place that it does in the works of Aristotle. 
 Metaphysics is simply what is beyond physics, not 
 something antagonistic to it. He has not, like 
 many modern philosophers, been contemptuous 
 toward physiological psychology. On the contrary, 
 he has mastered it and built upon it. This is the 
 reason, I think, why his ideas have met with such 
 swift acceptance. It is as absurd for a philosopher 
 nowadays to attempt to confine himself to the data 
 accessible to Plato as it would be for a mathematician 
 to attempt to solve the problems of modern physics 
 with the use of the methods of Euclid. 
 
 Bergson applied his theory of the relation of mind 
 and brain to the explanation of the mechanism of 
 dreaming, in an address before the Institut psy- 
 
 [74] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 chologique on March 28, 1901. 1 Here he showed 
 how the obscure sensations of sight, touch, and hear- 
 ing which reach us even during sleep furnish the 
 basis for our dreams, and how our memories fit 
 into this framework, so the process is similar to that 
 of ordinary perception except that the critical faculty 
 is less vigilant than in a waking state. Thus, light 
 flashing upon the closed eyes may give rise to a 
 dream of fire, and the recumbent posture and conse- 
 quent absence of pressure on the soles of the feet 
 give us the idea of floating in the air. The following 
 passage from this paper on dreams is of especial 
 interest, for in it Bergson brings forward the theory 
 which since then Freud and his school have developed 
 and in many cases carried to extravagant lengths, — 
 the theory that our memories are stored in a state 
 of tension like steam in a boiler, and may rise into 
 consciousness in various guises when the vigilance 
 of the individual is relaxed : 
 
 Our memories, at any given moment, form a solid 
 whole, a pyramid, so to speak, whose point is inserted 
 precisely into our present action. But behind the 
 memories which are concerned in our occupations 
 and are revealed by means of it, there are others, 
 thousands of others, stored below the scene illumi- 
 
 1 Published in the Revue scientifique, June 8, 1901, and in English 
 in The Independent, October 23-30, 1913, and in book form, 1914. 
 
 [75] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 nated by consciousness. Yes, I believe indeed that 
 all our past life is there, preserved even to the most 
 infinitesimal details, and that we forget nothing, and 
 that all that we have felt, perceived, thought, willed, 
 from the first awakening of our consciousness, sur- 
 vives indestructibly. But the memories which are 
 preserved in these obscure depths are there in the 
 state of invisible phantoms. They aspire, perhaps, 
 to the light, but they do not even try to rise to it ; 
 they know that it is impossible and that I, as a living 
 and acting being, have something else to do than to 
 occupy myself with them. 
 
 But suppose that, at a given moment, I become 
 disinterested in the present situation, in the present 
 action — in short, in all which previously has fixed 
 and guided my memory ; suppose, in other words, 
 that I am asleep. Then these memories, perceiving 
 that I have taken away the obstacle, have raised the 
 trapdoor which has kept them beneath the floor of 
 consciousness, arise from the depths ; they rise, they 
 move, they perform in the night of unconsciousness a 
 great dance macabre. They rush together to the 
 door which has been left ajar. They all want to get 
 through. But they cannot ; there are too many of 
 them. From the multitudes which are called, which 
 will be chosen ? It is not hard to say. Formerly, 
 when I was awake, the memories which forced their 
 way were those which could involve claims of rela- 
 tionship with the present situation, with what I saw 
 and heard around me. Now it is more vague images 
 which occupy my sight, more indecisive sounds 
 which affect my ear, more indistinct touches which 
 are distributed over the surface of my body, but there 
 are also the more numerous sensations which arise 
 from the deepest parts of the organism. So, then, 
 
 [76] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 among the phantom memories which aspire to fill 
 themselves with color, with sonority, in short with 
 materiality, the only ones that succeed are those 
 which can assimilate themselves with the color-dust 
 that we perceive, the external and internal sensations 
 that we catch, etc., and which, besides, respond to the 
 effective tone of our general sensibility. When this 
 union is effected between the memory and the sensa- 
 tion, we have a dream. 
 
 Bergson may be called a man of three books, if 
 we ignore " Laughter", which is merely a flying but- 
 tress of his system. In the first, known in English 
 as "Time and Free Will", he develops his theory of 
 vital duration as distinct from physical time, which 
 has been the guiding clew of all his later thinking. 
 This volume, completed in 1887, was the outcome 
 of a four years' study of the physical, psychological, 
 and metaphysical conceptions of time and space. 
 For the second book, dealing with the relation of 
 the mind to the brain, it was necessary to master 
 the voluminous literature of the subject, especially 
 the clinical and experimental researches on aphasia 
 and localization of function. This required nine 
 years of study, embodied in " Matter and Memory", 
 appearing in 1896. In the preparation for the third 
 book he devoted eleven years to the study of biol- 
 ogy and produced " Creative Evolution" in 1907. 
 According to this rate of increase, we might expect 
 
 [77] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 his fourth volume in 1923, but it would be obviously 
 unfair to apply to M. Bergson himself the mathe- 
 matical determinism that he repudiates. 
 
 I call attention to this preliminary study of the 
 sciences, because there is a danger that the anti- 
 intellectualist tendency of the pragmatic movement 
 should lead to a disregard of the importance of 
 scientific research. That this danger is real and 
 present, was shown in the Binet report on the teach- 
 ing of philosophy, previously referred to. Some 
 of the professors complained that their students, 
 under the influence of Bergson's ideas, had come 
 to have a disdain for the tedious and laborious meth- 
 ods of experimental science, believing that science 
 does not give us reality, and assuming that, while 
 science is good enough for mechanics and physicians, 
 it is indifferent to philosophers. ; 
 
 When this point was brought up for discussion in 
 the Societe frangaise de Philosophie, M. Bergson 
 made an indignant reply, declaring that in the 
 theories attributed to him he recognized nothing 
 that he had taught or written. He had never 
 contemned science or subordinated it to meta- 
 physics. 
 
 i Mathematics, for instance, what have I said of 
 that ? That, however great may be the part played 
 
 [78] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 in it by the creative imagination, it must not lose 
 sight of space and matter ; that matter and space are 
 realities; that matter is weighted with geometry; 
 that geometry is consequently not a mere play but a 
 true point of contact with the absolute. I attribute 
 the same absolute value to the physical sciences. It 
 is true they enunciate laws of which the form would 
 have been different if other variables, other units of 
 measure, had been chosen, and especially if the 
 problems had been propounded chronologically in a 
 different order. But all this is because we are obliged 
 to break up nature and to examine one by one the 
 problems it sets for us. Really, physics strives for 
 the absolute, and it approaches more and more as it 
 advances this ideal limit. I should like to know if 
 there exists, among modern conceptions of science, 
 a theory that puts a higher value upon positive sci- 
 ence. Most of them give us science as entirely rela- 
 tive to human intelligence. I hold, on the contrary, 
 that it is reality itself, absolute reality, which the 
 mathematical and physical sciences tend to reveal 
 to us. Science only begins to become relative, or 
 rather symbolic, when it approaches from the physico- 
 chemical side, the problems of life and consciousness. 
 But even here it is quite legitimate. It only needs 
 then to be completed by a study of another kind, 
 that is, metaphysics. In short, all my researches 
 have had no other object than to bring about a 
 rapprochement between metaphysics and science 
 and to consolidate the one with the other without 
 sacrificing anything of either, after having first 
 clearly distinguished the one from the other. 
 
 This outspoken and emphatic language ought to 
 clear the air of many current misconceptions of 
 
 [79] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Bergson's philosophy. Now that he has laid down 
 his fundamental principles, it is to be hoped that 
 he will next take up their applications to the inter- 
 pretation of history and the problems of conduct. 
 If he does not do this himself, others will do it for 
 him, and doubtless not always in accordance with 
 his intentions. In fact, they are already doing it. 
 In France, Bergsonianism is not an academic specu- 
 lation, but an active force in some of the most im- 
 portant movements of the day. We hear of a Berg- 
 sonian art and a Bergsonian literature as well as a 
 Bergsoniari Catholicism and a Bergsonian labor 
 movement. The two last mentioned are of especial 
 interest as showing the influence of his novel views 
 upon the most diverse minds. Just as there were 
 Hegelians of the Right and Hegelians of the Left, 
 so now there are two wings of Bergsonianism, the 
 conservative being the Modernists and the radical 
 being the Syndicalists. 
 
 There has rarely been seen such an outburst 
 of enthusiasm for metaphysical thought as that of 
 the French neo-Catholics. The pragmatic philos- 
 ophy, particularly James's "Varieties of Religious 
 Experience", pointed the way to a new Christian 
 apologetic based upon living experience, instead 
 of abstract reasoning. The young Catholics turned 
 
 [8ol 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 their attention to the saints rather than to the 
 theologians, and found inspiration in a fresh study 
 of the Catholic mystics. In a conception of truth 
 as a growth, as an ideal convergence of beneficial 
 beliefs, rather than as a static limit, and in a concep- 
 tion of history as a progressive process of verifica- 
 tion, they attained a point of view which enabled 
 them to retain their ecclesiastical heritage and at 
 the same time to accept the bounty of modern science. 
 But such speculations were deemed dangerous by 
 the Vatican, and the movement was crushed, so 
 far as a movement of such vigor and vitality can 
 be crushed, by the Encyclical and Syllabus issued 
 by Pius X in 1907, and the anti-modernist oath that 
 was later imposed. 1 This was followed in 1914 by 
 the placing of Bergson's works upon the Index of 
 Prohibited Books which no good Catholic may read 
 without the express permission of his spiritual ad- 
 viser. 
 
 At the opposite extreme we find the trades unions 
 or syndicates, whose power has been often demon- 
 
 1 Articles on pragmatic Catholicism may be found in almost any vol- 
 ume of the Revue Philosophique and the Revue de Metaphysique et de 
 Morale during the first twelve years of the twentieth century. See 
 especially those by Edouard Le Roy, a disciple of James and Bergson. 
 A brief account of the movement is contained in Lalande's " Philosophy 
 in France, 1907", Philosophical Review, May, 1908. 
 
 [8ll 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 strated in recent years, but whose aims and ideals 
 are yet indeterminate and vague. So far it is Will 
 and not Idea that is manifested in the revolutionary 
 labor movement, to use the Schopenhaurian terms. 
 But becoming conscious of the need of a philosoph- 
 ical justification, they have seized upon one side 
 of Bergson's doctrine and declared the flan ouvrier 
 brother to the Han vital, or a part of it. Their 
 flamboyant phraseology reminds one of 1793: 
 "The College de France collaborates with the 
 Bourse du Travail" and "The flute of personal 
 meditation harmonizes with the trumpets of the 
 social revolution." The syndicalists, like the mod- 
 ernists, have their revolt against dogma, against 
 the catchwords of republicanism as well as against 
 the rigid formulas of Marxianism, against all at- 
 tempts to confine the future in the past and to impose 
 determinism upon conduct. And when it comes 
 to the enforcement of conformity — or, rather, of 
 uniformity — of profession, there is not much 
 difference between Pope and party. 1 
 
 It is unnecessary to say that M. Bergson teaches 
 neither Catholicism nor revolution, and that he 
 
 ' Ab representative) of the pragmatic lyndlcalisti may be mentioned 
 George Sorel and Edounrd Berth. For an account of the philosophical 
 Bide of the movement, ecc Syndicalist!* tt Berponiens by C. Bougl6 in 
 Revue du Mois, April, 1909. 
 
 [82] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 cannot be held accountable for all the various 
 applications of his ideas to practical life. I mention 
 these extremes only to show the range of their 
 actual influence. Whatever may be the fate of 
 Bergson's philosophy, we may be sure it will not 
 leave the world as it found it. It is a force to be 
 reckoned with at all events in the field of action as 
 well as in the realm of pure reason. 
 
 Very few references to disputed questions in reli- 
 gion, sociology, and ethics can be found in his works, 
 and since he prefers to use a new, clean, and uncon- 
 ventional vocabulary, he cannot be pocketed in 
 any of the pigeonholes provided in advance by the 
 historians of philosophy. To the demand for a 
 brief formulation of his philosophy, an indignant 
 Bergsonian retorts : " Can you put Maeterlinck's 
 'Pelleas and Melisande' into a formula ?" 
 
 The Post Impressionists and Futurists are fond 
 of ascribing their novel ideas of art to Bergson, but 
 he is not eager to assume the responsibility. When 
 I asked him about it, he said that he had never yet 
 been able to discover his philosophy in their paint- 
 ings, and further that he was always skeptical of a 
 movement where the theory ran so far ahead of the 
 practice. 
 
 It is obvious that the adoption of the pragmatic 
 [83] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 principle, particularly in the extreme Bergsonian 
 form, would radically alter our view of the past, 
 and compel a rewriting or at least a rereading of 
 history. If history never repeats itself, what is 
 its lesson for us ? Certainly it is not competent 
 to foretell our future, still less to prescribe our ac- 
 tions. The best expression of what seems to me the 
 legitimate ethical deductions of Bergson's philosophy 
 is to be found in the brilliant essays by L. P. Jacks. 
 According to the editor of the Hibbert Journal, the 
 highest morality consists, not in following the es- 
 tablished rules, but in a voluntary rise into a higher 
 level. The true moral act is original, creative, un- 
 precedented. What would the author of "Folk- 
 ways", for whom conformity was the only morality, 
 have said to the following : 
 
 " Had men all along restricted themselves to the 
 performance of those actions for which the warrant of 
 moral science was then and there available, many 
 crimes perhaps would not have been committed, but 
 it is doubtful if the world would contain the record 
 of a single noble deed. We cannot remind ourselves 
 too often that the most complete scientific knowledge 
 of what has been done up to date will never enable 
 us to answer the question, 'What ought to be done 
 next?' 
 
 [84] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 "The subject matter of science and the subject 
 matter of morality are entirely different and in a 
 sense opposed ; the first is the deed-as-done, the 
 second is the doing of a deed-to-be. 
 
 " Conscience rightly understood is no faculty of 
 abstract judgment laying down propositions as to 
 what ought and ought not to be done ; it is not a 
 'voice', though we often name it such, bidding us do 
 this or that ; it is rather an elan vital, an impulse, an 
 active principle, nay, the good Will itself." — "Al- 
 chemy of Thought", by L. P. Jacks, pp. 260, 287. 
 
 Among the numerous followers of Bergson, none 
 is more enthusiastic or sympathetic than Edouard 
 Le Roy, a modernist Catholic — if that, since the 
 encyclical, is not a contradiction in terms — who 
 has for many years been in close touch with Bergson, 
 and has been especially interested in the religious 
 and ethical applications of his theories. His intro- 
 duction to Bergson's philosophy is therefore use- 
 ful, not merely because it gives in brief a compe- 
 tent exposition of Bergson's ideas, for the beginner 
 would probably find it quite as profitable and enjoy- 
 able to read the same number of pages of " Creative 
 Evolution", but chiefly because M. Le Roy is in a 
 way an authorized spokesman, and so we can get 
 some notion of Bergson's opinions about questions 
 
 [85] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 on which he has not yet expressed himself. For 
 example, Bergson in all his books never deals with 
 religion, although it is obvious that his philosophy 
 has the closest relation with religion in many of 
 its aspects. Le Roy, however, is not so reticent, 
 and he closes the volume with the following note- 
 worthy passage : 
 
 " In the depths of ourselves we find liberty ; in the 
 depths of universal being we find a demand for crea- 
 tion. Since evolution is creative, each of its mo- 
 ments works for the production of an indeducible and 
 transcendent future. This future must not be re- 
 garded as a simple development of the present, a 
 simple expression of germs already given. Con- 
 sequently we have no authority for saying that there 
 is forever only one order of life, only one plane of 
 action, only one rhythm of duration, only one per- 
 spective of existence. And if disconnections and 
 abrupt leaps are visible in the economy of the past 
 — from matter to life, from the animal to man — 
 we have no authority again for claiming that we can- 
 not observe to-day something analogous in the very 
 essence of human life, that the point of view of the 
 flesh, and the point of view of the spirit, the point of 
 view of reason, and the point of view of charity are a 
 homogeneous extension of it. And apart from that, 
 
 [86] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 taking life in its first tendency, and in the general 
 direction of its current, it is ascent, growth, upward 
 effort, and a work of spiritualizing and emancipating 
 creation : by that we might define Good, for Good 
 is a path rather than a thing. 
 
 " But life may fail, halt, or travel downward. . . . 
 Each species, each individual, each function tends to 
 take itself as its end ; mechanism, habit, body and 
 letter, which are, strictly speaking, pure instruments, 
 actually become principles of death. Thus it comes 
 about that life is exhausted in efforts toward self- 
 preservation, allows itself to be converted by matter 
 into captive eddies, sometimes even abandons itself 
 to the inertia of the weight which it ought to raise, 
 and surrenders to the downward current which con- 
 stitutes the essence of materiality : it is thus that 
 Evil would be defined, as the direction of travel 
 opposed to Good. Now, with man, thought, reflec- 
 tion, and clear consciousness appear. At the same 
 time also properly moral qualifications appear,; 
 good becomes duty, evil becomes sin. At this pre- 
 cise moment, a new problem begins, demanding the 
 soundings of a new intuition, yet connected at clear 
 and visible points with previous problems. 
 
 " This is the philosophy which some are pleased to 
 say is closed by nature to all problems of a certain 
 
 [8 7 ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 order, problems of reason or problems of morality. 
 There is no doctrine, on the contrary, which is more 
 open, and none which, in actual fact, lends itself 
 better to further extension." 
 
 I have quoted this entire, because Professor Berg- 
 son has given it his indorsement in the plainest 
 terms. In a letter]to M. Le Roy about the book, he 
 says : 
 
 Your study could not be more conscientious or 
 true to the original. Nowhere is this sympathy more 
 in evidence than where you point the possibilities of 
 further developments of the doctrine. In this direc- 
 tion I should myself say exactly what you have said. 
 
 The passage quoted above from M. Le Roy's 
 book has, then, almost the significance of a signed 
 statement. It was observed that in his lectures in 
 New York Professor Bergson was much more out- 
 spoken than formerly in his views upon religious 
 matters ; as, for example, when he replied affirma- 
 tively to the question whether he believed in im- 
 mortality or not. It may be anticipated that his 
 future work will be in the development of his philos- 
 ophy along the lines indicated by M. LeRoy, although 
 we may expect — judging from his former books — 
 that this will take the form, not of the formulation 
 of a new moral code, but of the discovery of a new 
 way of looking at life and appraising action. 
 
 [88] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 Until recently the triumphal march of Bergson 
 into increasing popularity and influence has met 
 with little systematic opposition. Some have found 
 him obscure. Some have called him absurd. He 
 has his devoted partisans and bitter opponents. 
 But his views have not yet been subjected to the 
 thorough criticism which they must inevitably 
 receive sooner or later. A step in this direction is 
 the study of the pragmatic movement by Rene 
 Berthelot. The first volume of his "Utilitarian 
 Romanticism" deals with the pragmatism of 
 Nietzsche and Poincare ; the second with the prag- 
 matism of Bergson. The author, after the manner 
 of historians of philosophy, is more concerned to 
 determine what is new in Bergson than what is 
 true. He acts upon the old military rule "divide 
 and conquer" and accordingly splits up Bergson- 
 ism into German romanticism and Anglo-Saxon 
 utilitarianism, and then proceeds to dispatch these 
 severally after the orthodox manner. This proce- 
 dure is in a way begging the question, for it implicitly 
 denies the Bergsonian thesis that there may be some- 
 thing new in the world. Tracing a thing back to 
 its roots is all very well, provided that you do not 
 assume that the roots are all there is of the plant 
 that has grown out of them. 
 
 [89] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 In tracing this genealogy of thought M. Berthelot 
 finds Bergson related to Nietzsche on the romantic 
 side. Both, he says, derive their romanticism 
 from Schelling; Bergson, through his revered 
 teacher, Ravaisson, and Nietzsche through Hoelder- 
 lin, Emerson, Schopenhauer, and Wagner. "Like 
 the symbolists, Nietzsche and Bergson have drunk 
 in different cups the water from the same magic 
 fountain ; an invisible Vivian has bound them both 
 in the same enchantment." 
 
 From the other side of the house — might we 
 say the masculine side ? — Bergson derived his 
 utilitarian empiricism ; M. Berthelot traces its 
 descent from Berkeley through Hume, Mill, Bain, 
 and Spencer. In the course of this discussion the 
 author introduces the following ingenious formula : 
 
 Hobbes : Berkeley : : Nietzsche : Bergson. 
 
 Those who are sufficiently expert with the appli- 
 cation of the rule of three to metaphysics may 
 work this out at their leisure. 
 
 One would suppose, on Mendelian principles, that 
 a hybrid of such diverse and distinguished intel- 
 lectual ancestry would show more originality than 
 Berthelot is willing to allow to Bergson. At the 
 end of his analysis he comes to the conclusion that 
 
 [90] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 Bergson has really made only one important contri- 
 bution to philosophy ; that is, his conception of dura- 
 tion as distinguished from time. As Berkeley in 
 analyzing the idea of space showed how psychological 
 space, that is, the notion of space derived from sensa- 
 tion, differed from mathematical or formal space, 
 so Bergson has shown how concrete duration or 
 psychological time differs from mathematical or 
 formal time. But even this theory according to 
 our author is misapplied by Bergson, for it is not 
 an opposition between space and time, but between 
 two different conceptions of both space and time. 
 This is characteristic of Berthelot's criticism, which 
 is mainly directed toward breaking down all along 
 the line the dichotomy to which Bergson is ad- 
 dicted. 
 
 Bergson's literary skill and amazing popularity 
 seem to annoy him as they do other professors of 
 philosophy in various lands. Whenever Berthelot 
 presents Bergson with a bundle of compliments, we 
 may detect a nettle hidden in the bouquet, as when 
 he alludes to Bergson as "the Debussy of contem- 
 porary philosophy", and he says that with an in- 
 creasing floridity of style the number of the berg- 
 soniennes has come to surpass that of the bergsoniens. 
 But that a philosophy should become fashionable 
 
 [91] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 seems to me rather creditable to the public than 
 discreditable to the originator. 
 
 Professor Bergson has on several occasions ex- 
 pressed an interest in the efforts of the Society of 
 Psychical Research to throw light into dark corners, 
 and he has shown his sympathy by accepting the 
 presidency of the English society, a successor in 
 that position to F. W. H. Myers, Sir Oliver Lodge, 
 Sir William Crookes, A. J. Balfour, and Andrew 
 Lang. In his presidential address delivered in 
 iEolian Hall, London, May 28, 191 3, Professor 
 Bergson made the novel suggestion that if the same 
 amount of effort had been given toward the study 
 of mental phenomena as has been given to physical, 
 we might now know as much about mind as we do 
 about matter. The concluding passage of the ad- 
 dress is worth quoting : 
 
 What would have happened if all our science, for 
 three centuries past, had been directed toward the 
 knowledge of the mind, instead of toward that of 
 matter — if, for instance, Kepler and Galileo and 
 Newton had been psychologists ? Psychology would 
 have attained developments of which one could no 
 more form an idea than people had been able, before 
 Kepler and Galileo and Newton, to form an idea of 
 our astronomy and of our physics. Probably, 
 instead of their being disdained a priori, all the 
 strange facts with which psychical research was con- 
 
 [92] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 cerned would have been sought out minutely. 
 Probably we should have had a vitalist biology quite 
 different from ours, perhaps also a different medicine, 
 or therapeutics by way of suggestion would have 
 been pushed to a point of which we can form no idea. 
 But when the human mind, having pushed thus far 
 the science of mind, had turned toward inert matter, 
 it would have been confused as to its direction, not 
 knowing how to set to work, not knowing how to 
 apply to this matter the processes with which it had 
 been successful up till then. The world of physical, 
 and not that of psychical, phenomena would then 
 have been the world of mystery. It was, however, 
 neither possible nor desirable that things should have 
 happened thus. It was not possible, because at the 
 dawn of modern times mathematical science already 
 existed, and it was necessary, consequently, that the 
 mind should pursue its researches in a direction to 
 which that science was applicable. Nor was it 
 desirable, even for the science of mind, for there 
 would always have been wanting to that science 
 something infinitely precious — the precision, the 
 anxiety for proof, the habit of distinguishing that 
 which is certain and that which is simply possible or 
 probable. The sciences concerned with matter can 
 alone give to the mind that precision, that rigor, those 
 scruples. Let us now approach the science of mind 
 with these excellent habits, renouncing the bad 
 metaphysic which embarrasses our research, and the 
 science of the mind will attain results surpassing all 
 our hopes. 
 
 But whatever might have been the result if Kepler, 
 
 Galileo, and Newton had turned their attention to 
 
 psychology instead of physics, it must be confessed 
 
 [93] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 that the Society for Psychical Research has been a 
 disappointment, notwithstanding that it has num- 
 bered among its zealous investigators such distin- 
 guished scientists as Lodge, Crookes, and Wallace. 
 When the society was organized in 1882, its first 
 president, Professor Sidgwick, called attention to 
 the numerous reports of physical phenomena in 
 the seance room and expressed the hope that such 
 evidence would be forthcoming more abundantly 
 now that competent investigators were prepared to 
 deal with them. But quite the contrary happened. 
 As Mr. Podmore puts it in his book on "The Nat- 
 uralization of the Supernatural": 
 
 " In short, just when an organized and systematic 
 investigation on a scale not inadequate to the impor- 
 tance of the subject was for the first time about to be 
 made, the phenomena to be investigated diminished 
 rapidly in frequency and importance, and the oppor- 
 tunities for investigation were further curtailed by 
 the indifference or reluctance of the mediums to 
 submit their claims to investigation." 
 
 It would seem, then, that since mankind, or some 
 small portion of it, has acquired the precision, rigor, 
 and scruples of physical science, it has become diffi- 
 cult, even impossible, to cultivate the occult. Still 
 most of us would agree with M. Bergson that, assum- 
 
 [94] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 ing that there was such an alternative opened to 
 humanity as he supposes, science has chosen the 
 better part in undertaking the conquest of the 
 physical world first. 
 
 The religious importance of Bergson's theory of 
 evolution will be apparent from the quotations 
 given. It has occurred to me in reading his later 
 work that in some passages the word "faith" could 
 be substituted for "philosophy", and "elohim" for 
 "elan vital", without materially altering the sense. 
 Then, too, his emphasis of time restores a conception 
 which has always been a vital factor in religious 
 faith, but which is not found in the scientific con- 
 ception of the world as a reversible reaction or the 
 metaphysical conception of the world as an illusion 
 of an unchangeable Absolute. The present day is 
 different from any other, and the future depends 
 upon it. We cannot console or excuse ourselves 
 by saying, "It will be all the same a hundred years 
 hence." Now is the accepted time, the day of 
 decision, the unique opportunity, and the election 
 may be irrevocable, a turning point in the his- 
 tory of the creation. The atoms have lost their 
 chance. The animals are hopelessly sidetracked. 
 Upon us depends the future, the salvation of the 
 world. 
 
 [95] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 We must no longer speak of life in general as if it 
 were an abstraction, or a mere rubric under which all 
 living beings are enrolled. At a certain time, in 
 certain points of space, a very visible current origi- 
 nated. This current of life, traversing the bodies 
 which it has successively organized, passing from 
 generation to generation, has divided itself among 
 species and dispersed itself among individuals with- 
 out losing anything of its force. — " Creative Evolu- 
 tion." 
 
 Bergson's philosophy would apparently lead to 
 a conception of God more Arminian than Calvin- 
 istic, if it is permissible to apply the old theological 
 categories ; a God perhaps conscious, personal, and 
 anthropomorphic, but not omnipotent and unchange- 
 able. In fact it has a striking similarity to the 
 conception of the Alexandrian Gnostics, a creative 
 force struggling against the intractability of inert 
 matter and triumphing by subtlety and persistence. 
 The motto of Louis XI, Divide et impera, applies 
 here in a different sense : 
 
 God, thus defined, has nothing of the already 
 made : He is unceasing life, action, freedom. Crea- 
 tion, so conceived, is not a mystery; we experience 
 it in ourselves when we act freely. . . . 
 
 It is as if a vague and formless being whom we 
 may call as we will, man or superman, had sought to 
 realize himself, and had succeeded only by abandon- 
 ing part of himself on the way. The losses are 
 represented by the rest of the animal world and even 
 
 [96] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 by the vegetable world. — "Creative Evolution", 
 pp. 248, 266. 
 
 According to this view, the world is gradually 
 coming to life, acquiring a consciousness. Matter 
 is an Undine in search of a soul. A Rodin statue 
 with human forms emerging from the unhewn stone 
 is Bergson's philosophy in marble. We see again 
 Milton's " tawny lion pawing to get free his hinder 
 parts." We hear again Faust's translation of the 
 Logos : " In the beginning was the Act." 
 
 But I must refrain from imposing such analogies 
 upon an author who has taken pains to clothe his 
 thought in fresh language in order to be free from 
 the connotations of the old. Let Bergson summarize 
 his theory of evolution in his own words : 
 
 Life as a whole, from the initial impulsion that 
 thrust it into the world, will appear as a wave that 
 rises, and which is opposed by the descending move- 
 ment of matter. On the greater part of its surface, 
 at different heights, the current is converted by matter 
 into a vortex. At one point alone it passes freely, 
 dragging with it the obstacle which will weigh on its 
 progress but will not stop it. At this point is human- 
 ity; it is our privileged situation. On the other hand, 
 this rising wave is consciousness, and, like all con- 
 sciousness, it includes potentialities without number 
 which interpenetrate and to which consequently 
 neither the category of unity nor that of multiplicity 
 is appropriate, made as they both are for inert matter. 
 
 [97] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 The matter that it bears along with it, and in the 
 interstices of which it inserts itself, alone can divide 
 it into distinct individualities. On flows the current, 
 running through human generations, subdividing 
 itself into individuals. This subdivision was vaguely 
 indicated in it, but could not have been made clear 
 without matter. Thus souls are continually being 
 created, which, nevertheless, in a certain sense pre- 
 existed. They are nothing else than the little rills 
 into which the great river of life divides itself, flow- 
 ing through the body of humanity. The movement 
 of the stream is distinct from the river bed, although 
 it must adopt its winding course. Consciousness is 
 distinct from the organism it animates, although it 
 must undergo its vicissitudes. As the possible 
 actions which a state of consciousness indicates are 
 at every instant beginning to be carried out in the 
 nervous centers, the brain underlines at every instant 
 the motor indications of the state of consciousness ; 
 but the interdependency of consciousness and brain 
 is limited to this ; the destiny of consciousness is 
 not bound up on that account with the destiny of 
 cerebral matter. Finally, consciousness is essentially 
 free ; it is freedom itself ; but it cannot pass through 
 matter without settling on it, without adapting itself 
 to it ; this adaptation is what we call intellectuality ; 
 and the intellect, turning itself back toward active, 
 that is to say, free, consciousness, naturally makes it 
 enter into the conceptual forms into which it is accus- 
 tomed to see matter fit. It will, therefore, always 
 perceive freedom in the form of necessity; it will 
 always neglect the part of novelty or of creation 
 inherent in free act; it will always substitute for 
 action itself an imitation, artificial, approximate, 
 obtained by compounding the old with the old and 
 
 [9«] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 the same with the same. Thus, to the eyes of a 
 philosophy that attempts to reabsorb intellect in 
 intuition, many difficulties vanish or become light. 
 But such a doctrine does not only facilitate specula- 
 tion, it gives us also more power to act and to live. 
 For, with it, we feel ourselves no longer isolated in 
 humanity, humanity no longer seems isolated in the 
 nature that it dominates. As the smallest grain of 
 dust is bound up with our entire solar system, drawn 
 along with it in that undivided movement of descent 
 which is materiality itself, so all organized beings, 
 from the humblest to the highest, from the first 
 origins of life to the time in which we are, and in all 
 places as in all times, do but evidence a single im- 
 pulsion, the inverse of the movement of matter, and 
 in itself indivisible. All the living hold together, 
 and all yield to the same tremendous push. The 
 animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides 
 animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and 
 in time, is one immense army galloping beside and 
 before and behind each of us in an overwhelming 
 charge able to beat down every resistance and clear 
 the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death. 
 — "Creative Evolution", p. 269. 
 
 How to Read Bergson 
 
 Read the last first. Begin with "Creative Evolu- 
 tion", for this is the most comprehensive exposition 
 of his philosophy and is written in a less technical 
 style than his earlier works. But the reader must 
 remember that a knowledge of these is presupposed, 
 and Bergson has here taken for granted what he has 
 
 [99] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 written two other large volumes to prove ; namely, 
 that time cannot be adequately represented in the 
 forms of space, and that mind is not rigidly bound to 
 matter. Bergson is unexcelled by any modern 
 philosopher except William James in brilliancy of 
 style and originality of illustration. "Creative 
 Evolution" treats of such a variety of questions, 
 biological, psychological, and metaphysical, that any 
 intelligent reader will find something in it that will 
 arouse new trains of thought. And if the intelligent 
 reader finds passages which he cannot understand, he 
 may console himself with the reflection that there 
 are others who have been likewise baffled. Count 
 Keyserling, who has the brain of a German meta- 
 physician, says of Bergson that "his philosophy is 
 perhaps the most original achievement since the days 
 of Immanuel Kant", but he adds, "Many thoughts 
 on which Bergson appears to lay great weight arouse 
 in me not the shade of an idea." But he ascribes 
 Bergson's obscurity to the fact that "he does not 
 start from abstract principles ; he begins in direct 
 consciousness, in concrete life ", so perhaps the ordi- 
 nary reader may have in this respect an advantage 
 over a Kantian student like Count Keyserling. 
 
 The student of philosophy may prefer to trace 
 the development of Bergson's thought in its logical 
 and chronological order. He will in that case begin 
 with the " Essai sur les donnees immediates de la con- 
 science" (1889), and proceed to" MatiereetMemoire" 
 (1896), and end with "Evolution creatrice" (1907). 
 These are published by Felix Alcan, Paris, in his 
 " Bibliotheque de Philosophic contemporaine." The 
 "Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness" 
 appears under the less cumbrous title of "Time and 
 Free Will" in the translation of F. L. Pogson (Mac- 
 
 [100] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 millan). "Matter and Memory" is translated by- 
 Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer (Mac- 
 millan). It may not be improper to note that the 
 British edition of the Essay costs nearly four times 
 as much as the French and is twice as heavy. "Crea- 
 tive Evolution", translated by Arthur Mitchell, is 
 printed in this country by Henry Holt & Company. 
 Bergson's lecture on Dreams, translated by E. E. 
 Slosson, is published in book form by B. W. Huebsch, 
 New York. 
 
 Those who read French but do not wish to attack 
 one of the larger works will find convenient the 
 summary of his philosophy with illustrative selec- 
 tions made by one of his former pupils, Rene Gillouin, 
 and published in "Les Grands Philosophes" by Louis 
 M-ichaud, Paris. The German reader will find in 
 A. Steenbergen's "Bergsons Intuitive Philosophic", 
 Jena, an epitome and critique. 
 
 "Time and Free Will" contains an admirable 
 bibliography, including the most important dis- 
 cussions of Bergson's philosophy that have appeared 
 in eight languages up to 191 1. The most interesting 
 introduction to Bergson is the article published by 
 Professor James in the Hibbert Journal, April, 1909, 
 and reprinted in his Pluralistic Universe. This has 
 the advantage of M. Bergson's indorsement, for 
 when Professor Pitkin of Columbia attempted to 
 show that James was wrong in claiming Bergson as 
 an ally ("James and Bergson, or Who is Against 
 Intellect ?" in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and 
 Scientific Method, April 28, 1910), Bergson replied 
 that James had not misinterpreted him but had said 
 what he meant in better words than his (same Jour- 
 nal, July 7, 1 9 10). Other brief expositions of Berg- 
 son's philosophy are the articles by H. Wildon Carr 
 
 [101] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 in Proc. Aristotelian Society, 1909 and 19 10, and 
 Hibbert Journal, July, 1910 ; by J. Solomon in Mind, 
 January, 191 1 (both these now in book form also); 
 by Arthur Balfour on "Creative Evolution and 
 Philosophic Doubt" in the decennial number of the 
 Hibbert Journal; "Bergson's Philosophy and the 
 Idea of God," by H. C. Corrance, and "Syndicalism 
 in its Relation to Bergson," by T. Rhondda Williams, 
 both in Hibbert Journal of January, 1914. Professor 
 Arthur O. Lovejoy of Johns Hopkins criticizes 
 "The Practical Tendencies of Bergsonianism" in the 
 International Journal of Ethics, April and July, 191 3. 
 Bergson's London lectures on the soul are summar- 
 ized in the Educational Review, January, 191 2. 
 Santayana's "Winds of Doctrine" (Scribner) con- 
 tains an interesting chapter on Bergson's philosophy. 
 
 Of the voluminous controversial literature in 
 France it is only possible to mention a few recent 
 titles: R. Gillouin, "La Philosophic de Bergson" 
 (Grasset) ; J. Segond, "L'Intuition Bergsonienne" 
 (Alcan) ; J. Desaymard, "La Pensee d'Henri Berg- 
 son" (Mercure de France). The most conspicuous 
 of the opponents of Bergson are : Rene Berthelot in 
 "Un Romanticisme utilitaire," tome II, "Le Pragma- 
 tisme chez Bergson" (Alcan); and Julien Benda in 
 "Le Bergsonisme ou une Philosophic de la Mobilite ", 
 and "Reponse aux Defenseurs du Bergsonisme" 
 (Mercure de France). 
 
 "Bergson for Beginners", by Darcy B. Kitchin 
 (Macmillan) gives a summary of his works and adds 
 some interesting observations on the relation of 
 Bergson to the English philosophers James Ward 
 and Herbert Spencer. Other recent expositions and 
 criticisms are "The Philosophy of Bergson", by A. D. 
 Lindsay; "A Critical Examination of Bergson's 
 
 [102] 
 
HENRI BERGSON 
 
 Philosophy", by J. McKellar Stewart; "An Exam- 
 ination of Professor Bergson's Philosophy ", by 
 David Balsillie ; "Bergson and the Modern Spirit", 
 by G. R. Dodgson (American Unitarian Assoc, 
 Boston). But the best volume to serve as an intro- 
 duction to Bergson is that previously mentioned, 
 "The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson ", by 
 Edouard Le Roy (Holt). 
 
 A list of the most important of the books and 
 articles on the subject in all languages up to 1913 
 comprising more than five hundred titles was pub- 
 lished by the Columbia University Press on the occa- 
 sion of Bergson's visit, "A Contribution to a Bibliog- 
 raphy of Henri Bergson." 
 
 [i°3l 
 
CHAPTER III 
 HENRI POINCARE 
 
 The scientist does not study nature because it is 
 useful ; he studies it because he delights in it, and he 
 delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were 
 not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if 
 nature were not worth knowing, life would not be 
 worth living. Of course I do not here speak of that 
 beauty that strikes the senses, the beauty of qualities 
 and of appearances ; not that I undervalue such 
 beauty, far from it, but it has nothing to do with 
 science ; I mean that profounder beauty which 
 comes from the harmonious order of the parts, and 
 which a pure intelligence can grasp. This it is which 
 gives body, a structure so to speak, to the iridescent 
 appearances which flatter our senses, and without 
 this support the beauty of these fugitive dreams 
 would be only imperfect, because it would be vague 
 and always fleeting. On the contrary, intellectual 
 beauty is sufficient unto itself, and it is for its sake, 
 more perhaps than for the future good of humanity, 
 that the scientist devotes himself to long and difficult 
 labors. 
 
 It is, therefore, the quest of this special beauty, the 
 sense of the harmony of the cosmos, which makes us 
 choose the facts most fitting to contribute to this 
 harmony, just as an artist chooses from among the 
 features of his model those which perfect the picture 
 and give it character and life. And we need not 
 
 [104] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 fear that this instinctive and unavowed preposses- 
 sion will turn the scientist aside from the search for 
 the true. One may dream a harmonious world, but 
 how far the real world will leave it behind ! The 
 greatest artists that ever lived, the Greeks, made their 
 heavens ; how shabby it is beside the true heavens, 
 ours ! — Poincare's "The Value of Science," p. 8. 
 
 Such language as this is extremely disconcerting 
 to those who hold the popular notion of science 
 and scientists ; regarding science as a vague im- 
 pending mass of solid fact, immutable, inexorable, 
 threatening the extinction of all such things as art, 
 sentiment, poetry, and religion, only to be diverted 
 by a determination to remain ignorant of it ; re- 
 garding men of science as mere calculating machines, 
 mechanically grinding out logical grist for utilitarian 
 purposes. Mathematical astronomy is surely one 
 of the sciences, the most rigid, remote, and recondite 
 of the sciences. Yet here is the leading mathemati- 
 cal astronomer of the age talking about it as though 
 it were one of the fine arts, a thing of beauty that 
 the artist creates for his own delight in the making 
 of it and shapes in accordance with his own ideas 
 of what is harmonious. 
 
 Now we cannot throw out of consideration M. 
 Poincare's opinion, on the ground that he did not 
 know what he was talking about. A man who has 
 
 [105] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 made as much science as he has ought to know how 
 science is made, and what for. To most of us na- 
 ture — or to avoid hurting our own feelings let us 
 rather say, opportunity — has denied the privilege 
 of knowing this by experience. Consequently M. 
 Poincare is an especially interesting man to study, 
 for he has been willing to tell us not only what a 
 man of science is, but also how it feels to be one. No 
 other contemporary of equal eminence has been so 
 frank and accommodating in the self-revelation of 
 his methods or so willing to submit himself as a sub- 
 ject of observation. We are admitted to the labora- 
 tory of a mathematician, and we can watch the 
 mechanism of scientific thought in action. 
 
 So far as he is concerned, he has repudiated the idea 
 that science is purely utilitarian in the most emphatic 
 language. August Comte said that it would be 
 idle to seek to know the composition of the sun, since 
 this knowledge would be of no use to sociology. 
 Against such a charge of uselessness Poincare elo- 
 quently defended his science by showing the practi- 
 cal value of astronomy even from Comte's point 
 of view, but in conclusion asserted his own opinion 
 very plainly : 
 
 Was I wrong in saying that it is astronomy which 
 has made us a soul capable of comprehending nature ; 
 
 [106] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 that under heavens always overcast and starless, the 
 earth itself would have been for us eternally unintelli- 
 gible ; that we should there have seen only caprice 
 and disorder ; and that, not knowing the world, we 
 should never have been able to subdue it ? What 
 science could have been more useful ? And in thus 
 speaking I put myself at the point of view of those 
 who only value practical applications. Certainly, 
 this point of view is not mine ; as for me, on the con- 
 trary, if I admire the conquests of industry, it is, 
 above all, because they free us from material cares, 
 they will one day give to all the leisure to contem- 
 plate nature. I do not say : Science is useful, be- 
 cause it teaches us to construct machines. I say : 
 Afachines are useful, because in working for us, they 
 will some day leave us more time to make science. 
 But finally it is worth remarking that between the 
 two points of view there is no antagonism, and that 
 man having pursued a disinterested aim, all else has 
 been added unto him. — "Value of Science", p. 88. 
 
 It is this insistence upon the aesthetic value of 
 science that caused him to shrink from being called 
 a "pragmatist", although those who accept that 
 name have always laid unusual stress upon the 
 aesthetic factor in thinking. But in his theory of 
 knowledge Poincare is decidedly pragmatic, and 
 no one has given a clear exposition or stronger expres- 
 sion to the practical mode of thought by which the 
 natural sciences have made their progress and 
 which is now being extended to the fields of meta- 
 physics, religion, ethics, and sociology. Poincare's 
 
 [107] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 favorite word is "convenient" (commode). Theo- 
 ries are strictly speaking not to be classed as true 
 or false. They are merely more or less convenient. 
 For example : 
 
 Masses are coefficients it is convenient to introduce 
 into calculations. We could reconstruct all mechan- 
 ics by attributing different values to all the masses. 
 This new mechanics would not be in contradiction 
 either with experience or with the general principles 
 of dynamics. Only the equations of this new me- 
 chanics would be less simple^ — " Science and Hypoth- 
 esis", p. 76. 
 
 We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor 
 of the equality of two durations. If we think we 
 have this intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it 
 by the aid of certain rules which we apply almost 
 always without taking count of them. But what is 
 the nature of these rules ? No general rule, no rigor- 
 ous rule ; a multitude of little rules applicable to 
 each particular case. These rules are not imposed 
 upon us, and we might amuse ourselves by inventing 
 others ; but they could not be cast aside without 
 greatly complicating the laws of physics, mathe- 
 matics, and astronomy. We therefore choose these 
 rules, not because they are true, but because they are 
 most convenient, and we may recapitulate them as 
 follows : " The simultaneity of two events or the 
 order of their succession, the equality of two dura- 
 tions, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the 
 natural laws may be as simple as possible ; in other 
 words, all these rules, all these definitions, are only 
 the fruit of an unconscious opportunism." — "Value 
 of Science", p. 35. 
 
 [ 108 ] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 Time should be so defined that the equations of 
 mechanics may be as simple as possible. In other 
 words, there is not one way of measuring time more 
 true than another. That which is generally adopted 
 is only more convenient. Of two watches, we have no 
 right to say that one goes true, the other wrong : we 
 can only say that it is advantageous to conform to the 
 indications of the first. — "Value of Science", p. 30. 
 
 Behold then the rule we follow and the only one 
 we can follow : when a phenomenon appears to us 
 as the cause of another, we regard it as anterior. 
 It is therefore by cause we define time. — "Value of 
 Science", p. 32. 
 
 Experience does not prove to us that space has 
 three dimensions. It only proves to us that it is 
 convenient to attribute three dimensions to it. — 
 "Value of Science", p. 69. 
 
 It has often been observed that if all the bodies in 
 the universe were dilated simultaneously and in the 
 same proportion we should have no means of per- 
 ceiving it, since all our measuring instruments would 
 grow at the same time as the objects themselves 
 which they serve to measure. The world, after this 
 dilatation, would continue on its course without 
 anything apprising us of so considerable an event. 
 — "Value of Science", p. 39. 
 
 But Poincare goes farther and shows not only 
 that two such worlds of different sizes would be 
 absolutely indistinguishable, but that they would 
 be equally indistinguishable if they were distorted 
 in any manner so long as they corresponded with 
 each other point by point. This conception of 
 
 [109] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the relativity of space may be thought a little hard 
 to grasp, but M. Poincare is kind enough to sug- 
 gest a way by which any one may see it for himself 
 if he has ten cents to admit him to one of those 
 hilarious resorts where life-size concave and convex 
 mirrors are to be seen. 1 You may think yourself 
 a gentleman of proper figure, that is to say, some- 
 what portly, and you look upon the tall slim shape 
 that confronts you in the cylindrical mirror as 
 absurdly misshapen. But you would find it diffi- 
 cult to convince him of his deformity. His legs, as 
 well as yours, fulfill the requirement that Lincoln 
 laid down as their proper length ; that is, they reach 
 from the body to the ground. If you touch your 
 chin with your thumb and your brow with your 
 forefinger, so does he. It occurs to you that here is a 
 case where your knowledge of geometry would, if 
 ever, prove useful, but when you appeal to it, you 
 will find that the geometry of his queer-looking 
 world is just as good as yours ; in fact, is just the same. 
 You get a foot rule and measure yourself; 70 inches 
 high, 14 inches in diameter at the equator, ratio 
 5 : 2. But meanwhile the mirror man is also meas- 
 uring himself, and his dimensions come out exactly 
 the same as yours, 70 and 14 and 5 : 2, for when he 
 
 1 "Science et Methode," p. 101. 
 [HO] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 holds the rule perpendicular it lengthens and when 
 horizontal it shrinks. Lines that in your world 
 are straight are curved in his, but you cannot prove 
 it to him, for when he lays his straightedge against 
 these curves of his, behold it immediately bends 
 to correspond. By this time, finding it so difficult 
 to prove to the mirror man that you are right and 
 he is wrong, it occurs to you that perhaps he isn't, 
 that he may have just as much reason as you for 
 believing that his is the normal, well-proportioned 
 world, and yours the distorted image of it. Since, 
 then, you have no way of perceiving the absolute 
 length, direction, or curvature of a line, your space 
 may be as irregularly curved and twisted as it looks 
 to be in the funniest of the mirrors, and you would 
 not know it. Now the principle of the pragmatist 
 is that anything that does not make any difference 
 to anything else is not real. The reason why we 
 have not been able to discover any differences be- 
 tween the mirror space and our space, each consid- 
 ered by itself, is because there is none. Or to return 
 to the language of Poincare, " space is in reality 
 amorphous and the things that are in it alone give 
 it a form." Why do we say that space has three 
 dimensions instead of two or four or more ? Why 
 do we stick to an old fogy like Euclid when Riemann 
 
 [in] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO DAY 
 
 and Lobachevski prollVr us new unci equally sclf- 
 consistcnl systems of geometry wherein parallels 
 may meet or part f Because : 
 
 by natural selection our mind lias adapted itself to 
 the conditions of the external world. It has adopted 
 the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in 
 other words, the most convenient. (leoinctry is not 
 true, it is advantageous. 
 
 Such language may pass without notice in uni- 
 versity halls, for all scientists are more or less clearly 
 conscious of the provisional and practical nature 
 of the hypotheses and conventions they employ. 
 But to the outside world it sounds startling. To 
 some it seemed that the foundations of the universe 
 were being undermined. Others saw in it a confes- 
 sion of what Brunetiere had called "the bankruptcy 
 of science" and openly rejoiced over the discomfiture 
 of the enemy of the Church. Now Poincarc had 
 chanced to use in discussing the relativity of motion 
 the following illustration : 
 
 Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which 
 it would be necessary to refer the earth to know 
 whether it really moves, has no objective existence. 
 Hence this affirmation "the earth turns round" has 
 no meaning, since it can be verified by no experi- 
 ment ; since Mich an experiment not only could not 
 be cither realized or dreamed by the boldest Jules 
 
 [m] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 Verne but cannot be conceived of without contra- 
 diction. Or rather these two propositions: "The 
 earth turns round " and " it is more convenient to sup- 
 pose the earth turns round" have the same meaning; 
 there is nothing more in the one than in the other. 
 — "Science and Hypothesis", p. 85. 
 
 This remark was at once seized upon by the Catho- 
 lic apologists, and the Galileo case, once closed by 
 the voice of Rome, was reopened for the admission 
 of this new evidence. If the Ptolemaic and the 
 Copernican theories are equally true, and the choice 
 between them is merely a matter of expediency, 
 was not the Holy Inquisition justified in upholding 
 the established theory in the interests of religion and 
 morality ? Monsignor Bolo, an eminent and saga- 
 cious theologian, announced in Le Matin of Febru- 
 ary 20, 1908, that M. Poincare, the greatest mathe- 
 matician of the century, says that Galileo was 
 wrong in his obstinacy. To this Poincare replied 
 in the whispered words of Galileo : 
 
 "E pur si muove, Monseigneur." 
 
 In a later discussion of the point, he explains that 
 what he said about the rotation of the earth could 
 be equally well applied to any other accepted hypoth- 
 esis, even the very existence of an external world, 
 for "these two propositions, . ' the external world 
 exists' or 'it is more convenient to suppose that it 
 
 ["3] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 exists' have one and the same meaning." The 
 Copernican theory is the preferable because it has 
 a richer, more profound content, since if we assume 
 the earth is stationary we have to invent other 
 explanations for the flattening at the poles, the rota- 
 tion of Foucault's pendulum, the trade winds, etc., 
 while the hypothesis of a revolving earth brings all 
 these together as the effects of a single cause. 
 
 M. Le Roy, a Catholic pragmatist and a disciple 
 of Bergson's, goes much further than Poincare in 
 regard to the human element in science, holding 
 that science is merely a rule of action and can teach 
 us nothing of truth, for its laws are only artificial 
 conventions. This view Poincare considered to 
 be dangerously near to absolute nominalism and 
 skepticism, and in his controversy with Le Roy 1 
 he showed that the scientist does not "create facts 
 as Le Roy said, but merely the language in which 
 he enunciates them." Of the contingence upon 
 which Le Roy and Boutroux insist, Poincare would 
 admit only that scientific laws can never be more 
 than approximate and probable. Even in astron- 
 omy, where the single and simple law of gravitation 
 is involved, neither absolute certainty nor absolute 
 accuracy can be attained. Therefore we cannot 
 1 Part III of "The Value of Science." 
 ["4] 
 
-'VlZ $£?=^ ^ Wu/ 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 safely say that at a particular time Saturn will be 
 at a certain point in the heavens. We must limit 
 ourselves to the prediction that " Saturn will probably 
 be near" such a point. 
 
 In an address before the International Philo- 
 sophical Congress at Bologna in April, 1910, Professor 
 Poincare discussed again the question of whether 
 the laws of nature may not change. He admitted 
 that there is not a sole law that we can enunciate 
 with the certainty that it has always been true in 
 the past. Nevertheless, he concluded, there is 
 nothing to hinder the man of science from keeping 
 his faith in the principle of immutability, since no 
 law can descend to the level of a secondary and 
 limited law without being replaced by another law 
 more general and more comprehensive. He con- 
 sidered in particular the possibility that in the re- 
 mote past the fundamental laws of mechanics would 
 not hold, for since the energy of the world has been 
 continually dissipating in the form of heat there 
 must have been a time when bodies moved faster 
 than they do now. But according to the recent 
 theories of matter, no body can travel faster than 
 light, and with velocities approaching that of light 
 its mass is no longer constant but increases with its 
 velocity. This, of course, would play havoc with all 
 
 [US] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of Newton's laws, which then we should have to re- 
 gard as limited in their scope to such ordinary condi- 
 tions and moderate motion as we see about us now. 
 But even at present we can hardly regard them 
 with the same implicit confidence as formerly. 
 Take, for example, Newton's law that action and 
 reaction are equal and opposite. When a ball is 
 fired from a cannon, the cannon recoils at the same 
 time and with the same momentum that the ball 
 goes forward. But suppose instead of a cannon we 
 have a lamp with a reflector sending a beam of 
 light into space. It has been deduced mathemati- 
 cally and proved experimentally that light exerts 
 a minute but measurable pressure on an object 
 which it strikes. The reflector therefore recoils 
 like the cannon, but where is the ball if light is an 
 immaterial wave motion ? To be sure, if the ray 
 of light strikes some planet out in space, it would give 
 it an impulse equal and opposite to that originally 
 imparted to the reflector on our earth. But what 
 if the light goes on through vacant space and never 
 hits anything at all ? A law that may have to wait 
 several thousand years for its validation and may 
 even fail of it altogether is not what the layman 
 has in mind when he thinks of immutable and in- 
 frangible laws governing the universe. 
 
 [116] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 But it is rather important just now that the lay- 
 man gets to understand what the scientist means 
 when he talks of laws, theories, and hypotheses. 
 For we are in the midst of a stupendous revolution 
 in science. Our nicely arranged nineteenth century 
 cosmos seems to be dissolving into chaos again. 
 We have seen the elements melt with fervent heat 
 and we can no longer rely upon the uniformity of 
 atomic weights. The laws of the conservation of 
 matter and energy, which were the guiding stars 
 of research to the last generation, are becoming 
 dimmed. The old-fashioned ether, in its time a 
 useful but never entirely satisfactory contrivance, 
 for it had to be patched up repeatedly with divers 
 new properties to enable it to bear the various duties 
 thrust upon it, seems no longer competent to stand 
 the strain and may have to be sent to the scientific 
 scrap-heap at any moment. We hear physicists 
 of supposed sanity assert that all bodies contract 
 in the direction of their motion and that their weight 
 varies with their speed and the direction in which 
 they are going. We read of "atoms of light," 
 and of corpuscles of electricity which, though they 
 are but a thousandth part of the hydrogen atom, 
 are caught and counted and weighed one by one. 
 
 Now what puzzles the lay mind is the calmness 
 [H7] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 with which the scientists survey this crash of worlds 
 and shock of systems. They do not have the mien 
 of exposed impostors. They are not, like the augurs 
 of decadent Rome, unable to meet without laughing 
 in each other's faces. They do not resent the over- 
 throw of their former idols. They have no fear 
 of heretics, consequently no hatred for them. They 
 regard all this iconoclasm with a mild curiosity 
 quite in contrast to their intense and personal in- 
 terest in science generally. It is hard to get out 
 a quorum at the Association for the Advancement 
 of Science to hear a discussion of the principle of 
 relativity with all its revolutionary consequences. 
 
 Compare this apparent indifference to the fate 
 of fundamental principles in scientific circles with 
 what would happen in a Presbyterian assembly if 
 it should be proposed to eliminate predestination 
 from the Westminster Confession or in an Episcopal 
 convocation if the Virgin Birth were denied ; with 
 what would happen in a stockholders' meeting if 
 doubt were expressed as to the rights of capital, or 
 in a socialist convention if the class conflict were 
 questioned. Now the existence of the ether has 
 the same importance to scientific thought that pre- 
 destination has to theological or capitalism to eco- 
 nomic thought. Its refutation or modification would 
 
 [118] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 be quite as upsetting to faith and practice. Yet 
 scientists are men; they have red blood in their 
 veins, and it not infrequently shows in their cheeks 
 when they debate something that seems to them 
 worth while. Pure theory rarely seems to them 
 worth while because it is recognized as pure conven- 
 tionality and convenience. 
 
 The scientific man, especially the scientific in- 
 vestigator, holds his theories with a light hand, 
 but keeps a firm grip on his facts. This is just 
 the opposite of the lay attitude toward science. 
 If the layman is interested in knowing the speed 
 of light, it is because he thinks that he learns from 
 it that all space is filled with a rigid elastic solid, 
 at which he cannot but wonder. The scientist is 
 interested in the ether because it helps him in his 
 calculation of the speed of light. 
 
 A lecturer on wireless telegraphy will use in the 
 course of the hour two or three more or less con- 
 tradictory conceptions of electricity. If afterward 
 you call his attention to the inconsistency and ask 
 him which is right and which is wrong, you will 
 not get a very satisfactory answer. He does not 
 know and obviously does not care. You insist 
 upon his telling you which theory he personally 
 believes in. He really had not thought of "believ- 
 
 [119] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY' 
 
 ing" in any of them. If he uses white chalk on the 
 blackboard in preference to red, it is not because he 
 denies the existence of red chalk and its occasional 
 usefulness. So, too, the astronomer will speak of 
 the sun's rising and in the next breath of the earth's 
 turning toward the sun, quite innocent of his in- 
 consistency. The botanist alludes to a certain 
 flower as a poppy and again as Eschscholtzia. He 
 means the same thing but is using different lan- 
 guages ; in the first case English, in the second case 
 I don't know what. 
 
 It is eminently desirable that people should have 
 faith in science, but in order to do that they must 
 have the same sort of faith in it that the scientist 
 has. Otherwise they will regard it as a lot of in- 
 genious fancies which are proved false by each suc- 
 ceeding generation. Science is moulting just now 
 and looks queer. The public ought to understand 
 clearly that the process means growth and not 
 disease. There is another reason now for the 
 popularization of the scientific mode of thought. 
 It is beginning to be applied where entirely different 
 conceptions have so far prevailed — to art, ethics, 
 religion, sociology, and the like. This is already 
 arousing a great commotion and will cause more 
 before the process is complete. It will, for example, 
 
 [120] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 involve the rewriting and to a large extent the 
 reinvestigation of history. Poincare has hinted 
 at this in a passage which seems to me of very great 
 significance : 
 
 Carlyle has somewhere said something like this : 
 "Nothing but facts are of importance. John Lack- 
 land passed by here. Here is something that is 
 admirable. Here is a reality for which I would 
 give all the theories in the world." Carlyle was a 
 fellow countryman of Bacon, but Bacon would not 
 have said that. That is the language of the histo- 
 rian. The physicist would say rather : "John Lack- 
 land passed by here. That makes no difference to 
 me for he never will pass this way again." — "Science 
 and Hypothesis", p. 102. 
 
 The aim of science is prevision, and I believe 
 that this will eventually be recognized as the true 
 aim of all knowledge. The historian, or let me say 
 rather the antiquarian, for the historian may have 
 the scientific temperament, values facts for their 
 rarity. The scientist values facts for their common- 
 ness. A unique fact, if there be such, would have 
 no possible interest to him. The antiquarian goes 
 about looking for things, facts, or furniture, which 
 have been of importance in the past. The scientist 
 is looking only for things that will be of importance 
 in the future. 
 
 According to Poincare, the proper choice of facts 
 [ 121 ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 is the first duty of the scientist. He must be able 
 to pick out the significant and reject all the rest. 
 "Invention consists in avoiding the constructing 
 of useless combinations and in constructing the 
 useful combinations which are in infinite minority. 
 To invent is to discern, to choose." It is most de- 
 sirable to bring together elements far distant from 
 one another. Such unions are mostly sterile, but 
 when this is not the case, they are the most fruit- 
 ful of all. The successful scientist does not, like a 
 shopper, look over one by one all available samples 
 and pick out what he wants. Life is too short. 
 The unsuitable ideas do not even present themselves 
 to his mind. It is as if he were an examiner of 
 second resort who only concerns himself with the 
 candidates who have passed the first test. This 
 preliminary sifting and sorting process is done 
 largely by the unconscious mind, as Poincare shows 
 by telling how he came to make his first mathe- 
 matical discoveries : 
 
 For a fortnight I labored to demonstrate that there 
 could exist no function analogous to those that I have 
 since called the fuchsian functions. 1 I was then 
 
 1 M. Poincare, in relating these experiences for their psychological 
 interest, was kind enough to say that the non-mathematical reader need 
 not be frightened at these barbarous names, for it is not at all necessary 
 for him to know what they mean. 
 
 [122] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 very ignorant. Every day I seated myself at my 
 work table and spent an hour or two there, trying a 
 great many combinations, but I arrived at no result. 
 One night when, contrary to my custom, I had taken 
 black coffee and I could not sleep, ideas surged up in 
 crowds. I felt them as they struck against one 
 another until two of them stuck together, so to 
 speak, to form a stable combination. By morning I 
 had established the existence of a class of fuchsian 
 functions, those which are derived from the hyper- 
 geometric series. I had merely to put the results 
 in shape, which only took a few hours. — "Science et 
 Methode", p. 52. 
 
 After working out the deductions from this dis- 
 covery, he went on a geological excursion of the 
 School of Mines. The distractions of travel took 
 his mind from his mathematical labor. But at 
 Constance, just as he was stepping into an omnibus 
 for some excursion, the idea occurred to him, with- 
 out any connection with his previous thoughts, 
 that his fuchsian functions were identical in their 
 transformations with those of the non-Euclidian 
 geometry. He took his seat in the omnibus and 
 continued his conversation, feeling absolutely cer- 
 tain of his discovery, which he worked out at his 
 leisure on his return to his home at Caen. 
 
 He next devoted himself to the study of arith- 
 metical questions, without reaching any results of im- 
 portance and without suspecting that this subject 
 
 [123] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 could have the slightest connection with his earlier 
 researches. Disgusted at his lack of success, he 
 went to pass some days at the seashore, where he 
 was occupied with other things. One day as he was 
 walking on the cliff, the thought came to him, brief, 
 sudden, and certain as usual, that he had been em- 
 ploying the same transformations in his arithmetical 
 and geometrical work. 
 
 He thereupon went back to Caen and undertook 
 the systematic application of his theory. But he 
 was stopped by an insurmountable obstacle, and 
 while in this perplexity he was called away to his 
 military service at Mont-Valerien, where he had 
 no time for mathematics. One day while walking on 
 the street, the solution of the difficulty appeared to 
 him in a flash. He did not try to think it out at 
 the time, but after his release from the army, he 
 completed his memoir without trouble. 
 
 These fascinating glimpses into the soul of a 
 mathematician will remind the reader of many 
 other instances of such subconscious assistance on 
 record and doubtless of personal experiences as well. 
 We think of Alfred Russel Wallace at Ternate, his 
 brain inflamed with tropical fever, seized with the 
 sudden inspiration of the theory of natural selection, 
 the key to the biological problems which had per- 
 
 [ 124] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 plexed him for so many months. How fortunate 
 that his clerical opponents did not know of this 
 and so could not dismiss evolution as the dream of 
 a diseased imagination. But as James says in his 
 "Varieties of Religious Experience", we have no 
 right to discountenance unwelcome theories as 
 feverish fancies, since for all we know 102 may 
 be a more favorable temperature for truth to germ- 
 inate and sprout in than the ordinary bloodheat of 
 9 8°. 
 
 We are reminded, too, of Kekule of Bonn puzzling 
 over the constitution of benzene, trying in vain to 
 satisfy six carbon atoms with six hydrogen atoms 
 when they wanted fourteen. In the evening as he 
 sat by the fire, his wearied brain refused to rest, 
 and he seemed to see the four-handed carbon imps 
 dancing with their one-armed hydrogen partners 
 on the floor. Suddenly six of them joined hands 
 in a ring and the problem was solved. Since then 
 the benzene sextet has been dancing through hun- 
 dreds of volumes and has added millions annually 
 to the wealth of Germany. Professor Hilprecht of 
 the University of Pennsylvania has told how a 
 Chaldean priest, custodian of the "Temple Library", 
 appeared to him in a dream and showed him how to 
 put together the fragments of a cuneiform inscrip- 
 
 [125] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 tion which he had for a long time been striving in 
 vain to translate. 
 
 Then there was Stevenson in Samoa, writing for 
 dear life, but not failing to give credit to his 
 "brownies" for doing a large part of his work for 
 him. But the brownies do not work unbidden, 
 and they will not make bricks without straw. 
 Poincare insists upon the necessity of the preliminary 
 period of conscious effort without which these sub- 
 liminal inspirations never come and the subsequent 
 period of verification, development, and applica- 
 tion, without which they are fruitless. Such ideas 
 came to him most often in the evening or morning 
 when he was in bed and half awake. He did not re- 
 gard the operations of his unconscious mind as 
 merely mechanical. On the contrary, it is dis- 
 tinguished by the power of choice, selecting and 
 presenting to the conscious ego only those com- 
 binations that seem profitable and important. This 
 choice is made, in Poincare's opinion, under the 
 guidance of the artistic instinct. 
 
 The usual combinations are precisely the most 
 beautiful ; I mean those which can best charm that 
 special sensibility which all mathematicians recognize 
 but at which the profane are tempted to smile. 
 Among the numerous combinations which the sub- 
 liminal self has blindly formed, almost all are without 
 
 [126] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 interest and without utility. For that reason they 
 have no action upon the aesthetic sensibility and 
 never come into consciousness. Only those that are 
 harmonious and consequently both useful and beauti- 
 ful are capable of moving that special sensibility of 
 the geometrician of which I spoke, and which, once 
 excited, calls our attention to them and so gives them 
 the chance to become conscious. — "Science et 
 Methode", p. 58. 
 
 Poincare, if we may believe what he says on this 
 point, was a poor chess player and absolutely in- 
 capable of adding up a column of figures correctly. 
 But the reader should beware of the common fal- 
 lacy of reversing a proposition of this kind and as- 
 suming that if he, too, makes mistakes in addition 
 he has the mind of a great mathematician. Poin- 
 care's memory was, however, exceptionally good, 
 especially for figures and formulas. On returning 
 from a walk he was able to recall the numbers of the 
 carriages he had met. When he was in the Polytech- 
 nic School he followed the courses in mathematics 
 without taking a note and without looking at the 
 syllabus provided by the professor. He was a rapid 
 mental calculator, using auditive imagery rather than 
 visual. He associated colors with the sound of words. 1 
 
 1 Dr. Toulouse has devoted a volume of his series of medico-psycholog- 
 ical studies of men of genius to observations on the memory, reaction 
 time, mode of thinking, habits, and physiological constitution of Henri 
 Poincare (Paris: Flammarion). 
 
 [127] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 In this connection may be quoted an anecdote 
 told by M. Jules Sageret: 1 At a conference in the 
 Superior School of Telegraphy the director called 
 upon him to discuss a very difficult problem in 
 the propagation of the electric current. Poincare 
 complied and solved the problem without taking 
 any time in preparation. After the conference the 
 director felicitated him on the solution. "Yes," 
 said Poincare, "I found the value of x, but is it in 
 kilograms or kilometers ?" 
 
 Poincare did not find it profitable to work more 
 than two hours at a time. His custom was to stay 
 at his desk from ten o'clock to noon and from five 
 to seven in the afternoon, never working in the even- 
 ing after dinner. He drank wine at meals, but never 
 smoked. He went to bed at ten and rose at seven, 
 but did not sleep soundly. 
 
 He was a blond, five feet five inches in height and 
 weighed 154 pounds. His head was unusually 
 large, especially in breadth. His eyes were myopic 
 and unsteady. He stood stoopingly with his 
 wrinkled forehead upturned. He spoke somewhat 
 slowly and with a distraught air, as though he were 
 thinking of something else, even though he might 
 be at the time interested and keenly observant. 
 
 1 Revue des Hies, 1909, p. 488. 
 [128] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 He talked English and German readily and read 
 Latin and Italian. He was fond of music, especially 
 Wagner. 
 
 Of the absent-mindedness that had been char- 
 acteristic of him from youth, many stories are told. 
 Like most mathematicians he was fond of walking 
 while thinking, his fingers opening and closing in 
 an unconscious gesture. One day on his return from 
 a walk he was surprised to find that he was carrying 
 a wicker cage, new and happily empty. He could 
 not imagine how he had got it, but retracing 
 his steps he found upon the sidewalk the stock 
 of the basket maker whom he had innocently de- 
 spoiled. 
 
 When as an engineering student he made a trip 
 to Austria, his mother was afraid he would drop his 
 portfolio sometime without noticing it. So, real- 
 izing doubtless that his memory was auditory, 
 she sewed little bells on it. The plan was suc- 
 cessful. His mother found on his return that he 
 had brought back in his valise not only the port- 
 folio but also an Austrian bed sheet neatly folded, 
 which, some morning, he had mistaken for his night 
 clothes. 
 
 These and similar anecdotes were told by M. 
 Frederic Masson when he welcomed M. Poincare 
 
 [129] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 into the Academie Francaise, January 28, 1909, 1 
 and it must have been a trifle embarrassing to the 
 new member to listen to such a minute analysis 
 of his life and character addressed to him in the 
 second person. How deftly the director of the 
 Academy mingled eulogy and raillery may be seen 
 from a quotation : 
 
 " You did not delay revealing your vocation and 
 will be justly cited as the most precocious of infant 
 prodigies. You were nine months old when for the 
 first time as night came your eyes were directed 
 toward the sky. You saw there a star light up. 
 You persistently pointed it out to your mother, who 
 was also your nurse. Then you discovered another 
 with some astonishment, and your reason cried 
 ' Enco lo la has /' A third, a fourth, more cries of 
 joy and equal enthusiasm. You had to be put to 
 bed because you became so excited discovering stars. 
 That evening was your first contact with the infinite, 
 and you had inaugurated your courses in astronomy, 
 the youngest professor known." 
 
 Henri Poincare was born April 29, 1854, at Nancy, 
 
 1 Masson's address may be found in Le Bon's bibliography ; also in 
 Popular Science Monthly. An entertaining account of Poincare's recep- 
 tion into the Academy was written for Le Figaro by Andre Beaunier and 
 translated for the Boston Transcript. 
 
 [130] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 where his ancestors had long been established. His 
 grandfather was a pharmacist and his father a physi- 
 cian of more than usual scholarship. The name, 
 he said, was originally Pontcare, for, one can imag- 
 ine a square bridge but not a square point. But 
 the philologists who took the question up discovered 
 in the register of the university a student named 
 "Petrus Pugniquadrati" in 1403 and "Jehan Poing- 
 quarre" in 1418, so the name Poincare meant 
 "clenched-fist." His cousin, Raymond Poincare, 
 son of a distinguished engineer, has long been one 
 of the most prominent figures in the political world, 
 a member of the Academy, senator, minister, and 
 is now president of the French republic. 
 
 In the Nancy lycee he led all his classes and showed 
 a special aptitude for history and literature. At 
 the age of thirteen he composed a five-act tragedy 
 in verse, and since he was a Lorrainer, the heroine 
 was of course Jeanne d'Arc. But as soon as he 
 caught sight of a geometry, his true vocation be- 
 came apparent. His instructor ran to his home 
 and announced to his mother: "Madame, your 
 son will be a mathematician." 
 
 Passing through the Polytechnic School he en- 
 tered the National School of Mines, and for a few 
 years after graduation he served as engineer in the 
 
 [131] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Government departments of mines and railroads. 
 At the age of twenty-seven he was called to a chair 
 of mathematics in the University of Paris, where he 
 remained, also filling the positions of Professor of 
 Astronomy in the Polytechnic School and Professor 
 of Theoretical Electricity in the Professional School 
 of Posts and Telegraphs. He was received into 
 the Academy of Sciences at the early age of thirty- 
 two, and at the time of his election to the French 
 Academy he had been honored by election to mem- 
 bership by thirty-five foreign academies. He took 
 his seat in the Academie francaise very appro- 
 priately as the successor of Sully-Prudhomme, 
 who likewise was an engineer by profession and a 
 philosopher by temperament. To Poincare as 
 well as to Sully-Prudhomme, science appealed to 
 the aesthetic sense as a thing of beauty and an in- 
 spiration to the imagination. 
 
 He married at the age of twenty-seven and had 
 four children, three daughters and a son. His 
 younger sister is the wife of the philosopher, Emile 
 Boutroux, well known in this country from the 
 lectures he gave at Harvard and Princeton. 
 
 Poincare was influential in introducing improved 
 methods in teaching mathematics, promoting the 
 use of natural and dynamical methods instead of 
 
 [132] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 the abstract and static methods of Euclid and 
 Legendre. He was skeptical in regard to religion 
 and indifferent to politics. When called upon to 
 contribute to a symposium on the old question of 
 the scholar in politics, 1 he responded that savants 
 like all citizens ought to interest themselves in the 
 affairs of the country. But politics has become 
 a profession, and a savant who entered into it would 
 have to devote half his time to public business if 
 he would be useful and the other half to his con- 
 stituents if he wished to keep his seat, so he would 
 have no time for science. 
 
 When asked for his opinion on woman suffrage, 2 
 he replied as follows : 
 
 I see no theoretical reason for refusing the political 
 suffrage to women, married or not. They pay taxes 
 the same as men, and they contribute their sons, so 
 it is even heavier upon them than upon men. Per- 
 haps woman suffrage is the sole means of combating 
 alcoholism. I fear only the clerical influence over 
 women. 
 
 Of the achievements that have given M. Poin- 
 
 care his world-wide fame I am not competent to 
 
 speak. Readers who would know the significance 
 
 and value of his work on fuchsian, hyper-fuchsian, 
 
 theta-fuchsian, abelian, and elliptical functions must 
 
 1 Remit blew, June 4, 1907, p. 708. 2 La Revue, 1910. 
 
 [133] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 go further for the information. I can only quote 
 the opinions of those most competent to express 
 an opinion as to his contributions to science. In 
 1905 he received the Bolyai Prize of ten thousand 
 crowns, which is awarded by the Hungarian Academy 
 of Sciences every five years for the best work in 
 mathematics done during that period. The official 
 report by Gustave Rados begins as follows : 
 
 " Henri Poincare is incontestably the first and most 
 powerful investigator of the present time in the 
 domain of mathematics and mathematical physics. 
 His strongly marked individuality permits us to 
 recognize in him a savant endowed with intuition, 
 who knows how to draw from the exhaustless well of 
 geometrical and mechanical intuitions the elements 
 and the origins of his profound and penetrating 
 researches, yet using besides the most admirable 
 logical power in working out his conceptions. In 
 addition to his brilliant inventive genius we must 
 recognize in him an ability for the finest and most 
 fruitful generalizations of mathematical relations, 
 which has often enabled him to push back, far be- 
 yond the point where others have hitherto been 
 stopped, the limits of our knowledge in different 
 branches of pure and applied mathematics. This 
 was shown already in his first work on automorphic 
 
 [134] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 functions with which he began the series of his 
 brilliant publications which must be classed with the 
 greatest mathematical discoveries of all time." 
 
 In this country Poincare has become known 
 largely through the efforts of Professor George Bruce 
 Halsted of the State Normal School of Greeley, 
 Colorado, who has translated his philosophical 
 works and has for many years been indefatigable in 
 spreading the new gospel of the non-Euclidian 
 geometry. Professor Halsted has at my request 
 kindly contributed the following account of one of 
 Poincare's astronomical triumphs and of the visit 
 that Professor Sylvester of Johns Hopkins paid to 
 Poincare many years ago : 
 
 "The kernel of Poincare's power lies in an oracle 
 Sylvester often quoted from Hesiod : Only the genius 
 knows how much more the part is than the whole. 
 He penetrates at once the divine simplicity of the 
 perfectly general case, and thence descends, as from 
 Olympus, to the special concrete earthly particulars. 
 Thus his memoir of 1885, which Sir George Darwin 
 says came to him as a revelation, on a rotating fluid 
 mass, and his book 'Les Methodes nouvelles de la 
 Mecanique celeste,' 1892-1899, were ready with 
 prevision when the shocking special case occurred 
 of Phcebe, ninth satellite of. Saturn, discovered in 
 
 [i3Sl 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 1900, afterward found, incredible as it seemed, to 
 be revolving in the direction contrary to that of all 
 the others. It follows that Saturn himself orig- 
 inally rotated in the reverse direction. Again, 
 on February 29, 1908, was found an eighth satellite 
 of Jupiter, Jviii, revolving round Jove in the shock- 
 ing Phoebe retrograde direction. Zeus must have 
 turned over. All the planets have turned over, 
 and some are now making another somersault. 
 Moreover, Jviii does not even revolve in a closed 
 orbit; its path is an open twister of unreturning 
 turns. 
 
 "For Poincare the inexhaustible source, the 
 lamp of Aladdin, has ever been the non-Euclidian 
 geometry. In him the Bolyai-Lobachevski-Riemann 
 germ flowers fair. 
 
 "Personally Poincare is the most lovable of men. 
 At our very first meeting I realized that I had already 
 been intimately associated with him for two years 
 in the person of Sylvester. I told him the story 
 of Sylvester's discovery of him, and he showed me 
 how vividly and tenderly reconnaissant he was 
 toward the great old master. 
 
 "Midsummer, and up a stuffy Paris stairway 
 labors a giant gnome, beard on enormous chest, 
 fortunately no neck, for no neck could upbear such 
 
 [136] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 a monstrous head, bald but for the inverted halo 
 of hair collaring its juncture with the broad shoul- 
 ders; small inefficient hands holding big hat and 
 damp handkerchief; breath puffing with the heat 
 and exertion. It is Sylvester, self-driven to seek 
 out the source of new creations strangely akin to 
 his own. At the sought door, open, he pauses, 
 seized by doubt, the person within is so young, so 
 slight, so dazed. Can this be the new incarnation 
 of the eternal world-genius of geometry ? But the 
 aloof sensitiveness of the face, the broad sphericity 
 of the head reassure him. This is Henri Poincare. 
 And so the old King finds the True Prince, who in 
 turn finds himself at last truly comprehended, 
 anointed to the succession, and given high heart to 
 establish his dominion." 
 
 The sudden death of Henri Poincare, July 18, 
 1912, at the age of fifty-eight, shocked the scientific 
 world. This marvelous thinking machine was 
 stopped, this repository of the exact sciences was 
 lost to the world, by the trifling accident of a clot 
 of blood catching in one of the valves of the heart. 
 He had gone to the hospital for a minor operation 
 which was apparently successful. Ten days later 
 he was pronounced well enough to leave and was 
 dressing when he was struck down. 
 
 [137] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 The funeral service at the church of Saint-Jacques- 
 du-Haut-Pas was attended by a remarkable assem- 
 blage of men of science and letters, government 
 officials, and representatives of foreign countries. 
 At the Montparnasse cemetery orations were deliv- 
 ered by M. Guist'hau, Minister of Public Instruction, 
 Jules Claretie of the Academie francaise, M. Appell, 
 dean of the Faculty of Sciences, M. Bigourdan of 
 the Observatory, Paul Painleve of the Academy of 
 Sciences, and General Cornille, Commandant of the 
 Ecole polytechnique. M. Painleve said of him : 
 
 " The life of Henri Poincare was one intense and 
 uninterrupted meditation, that despotic and pitiless 
 meditation which bows the shoulders and bends the 
 head, which absorbs the vital influx of one's being 
 and too soon uses up the body it possesses. 
 
 " Henri Poincare was not only a great creator in 
 the positive sciences ; he was a great philosopher 
 and a great writer. Certain of his aphorisms remind 
 one of Pascal : 'Thought is only a flash between 
 two long nights, but this flash is everything.' His 
 style followed the movement of his thought; brief 
 and arresting formulas, often paradoxical when 
 isolated, joined by hasty explanations which discard 
 the easy details and say only the essential. This 
 is why superficial critics have accused him of being 
 
 [138] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 ' incoherent ' ; the truth being that without some 
 previous scientific education, such logical movement is 
 difficult to follow. Mice cannot keep step with a lion. 
 ' " It is likewise a lack of comprehension of his philos- 
 ophy as a whole that has led certain commentators 
 to think they found a transcendental skepticism in 
 his critical studies of the principles of science. Must 
 he not have had faith in science who has written 
 'The search for truth ought to be the aim of our 
 activity ; it is the sole aim worthy of it ' ? His 
 philosophy of the rational science will live as long as 
 his own discoveries. The totality of the mathemat- 
 ical sciences seemed to him like a gigantic measur- 
 ing instrument, harmoniously adjusted and well 
 adapted for the evaluation of the phenomena of the 
 universe. There remains one trait of his character 
 that I cannot pass over in silence ; that is his admi- 
 rable intellectual sincerity. He gave himself, he 
 gave to all, so far as words permit, the whole of his 
 thought and even the mechanism of his thought. 
 In his last publication, appearing only a few days 
 before his death and dealing with the problem of the 
 stability of our universe, he excused himself for 
 giving out such incomplete results : 
 
 "'It would seem under these conditions that I 
 ought to abstain from all publication until I had 
 
 1 139] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 solved the problem, but after the fruitless efforts 
 I have made for months, it appeared to me wisest to 
 let the problem ripen while I let it alone for some 
 years. That would have been very well if I had been 
 sure of taking it up again some day, but at my age I 
 could not be sure of that. Besides, the importance of 
 the subject is too great, and the results already 
 obtained are on the whole too considerable for me 
 to be content to leave them altogether useless. I 
 hope that the geometricians who will interest them- 
 selves in this problem and who will doubtless be more 
 fortunate than I will be able to get something out of 
 it and make use of it in finding the path they should 
 pursue.' 
 
 " What words can be added to this scientific testa- 
 ment, so simple and so noble, of a life altogether 
 consecrated, without faltering even to the last hour, 
 to the search for truth ? For the first time in half a 
 century this unparalleled brain has found repose." 
 
 Poincare, as we have seen, was awake to the wider 
 aspects of science. He was interested in its effects 
 upon human life and conduct, although he himself 
 was engaged in one of its most remote and abstract 
 branches. Shortly before his death he discussed a 
 question which nowadays arouses intense interest, 
 the question of what effect the advance and popu- 
 larization of science will have on ethics. Will 
 science in destroying superstitions, in changing 
 utterly the traditional way of regarding the universe 
 
 [140] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 and man, undermine the morality which forms the 
 foundation of our civilization ? This question Poin- 
 care answers in the negative. He believes that our 
 moral instincts lie too deep to be affected by such 
 a revolution in thought, but on the other hand he 
 does not think, as some do, that science will ever 
 be able of itself to provide the moral imperative. 
 A few paragraphs from this essay, published post- 
 humously in " Last Thoughts", may well serve as 
 a conclusion to this sketch of his philosophy : 
 
 There can be no scientific morality; but no more 
 can there be immoral science. And the reason is 
 simple ; it is a reason — how shall I say it ? — purely 
 grammatical. 
 
 If the premises of a syllogism are both in the 
 indicative, the conclusion likewise will be in the 
 indicative. For the conclusion to be put in the im- 
 perative, it would be necessary that at least one of 
 the premises should itself be in the imperative. 
 Now, the principles of science, the postulates of 
 geometry, are and can be only in the indicative ; still 
 in this same mood are the experimental verities, 
 and at the foundation of the sciences there is, there 
 can be, nothing else. Hence, the most subtle dialec- 
 tician may juggle with these principles as he will, 
 combine them, frame them up one upon another; 
 all he will get from them will be in the indicative. 
 He will never obtain a proposition which shall say : 
 do this, or don't do that ; that is to say, a proposition 
 which confirms or contradicts morality. . . . 
 
 Some therefore think that science will be destruc- 
 
 [141] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 tive ; they fear the ruin it will make and dread lest, 
 where it shall have passed, society can no longer 
 survive. 
 
 Is there not in these fears a sort of internal con- 
 tradiction ? If it is scientifically proved that such 
 or such a custom, regarded as indispensable to the 
 very existence of human society, had not in reality 
 the importance attributed to it and deceived us only 
 by its venerable antiquity, if that be proved, admit- 
 ting this proof to be possible, will the moral life of 
 humanity be shaken ? One of two things, either this 
 custom is useful, and then a reasonable science can- 
 not prove that it is not ; or else it is useless and we 
 should not regret it. From the moment that we 
 place at the foundation of our syllogisms one of those 
 generous emotions which engender morality, it is 
 still this emotion, and consequently it is still morality 
 which we must find at the end of our whole chain of 
 reasonings, if this has been conducted in accordance 
 with the rules of logic. What is in danger of perish- 
 ing is the non-essential, that which was merely an 
 accident in our moral life ; the sole important thing 
 cannot fail to be found in the conclusions since it is in 
 the premises. . . . 
 
 Science, right or wrong, is deterministic ; every- 
 where it penetrates it introduces determinism. So 
 long as it is only a question of physics or even of biol- 
 ogy, this is unimportant. The domain of conscience 
 remains inviolate. What will happen when mo- 
 rality in turn shall become the object of science ? 
 
 Is all despair, or if some day morality should 
 accommodate itself to determinism, could it so 
 adapt itself without dying from the effects ? So 
 profound a metaphysical revolution would doubtless 
 have much less influence upon morals than we think. 
 
 [142] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 It is of course understood that penal repression is not 
 in question. What is called crime or punishment 
 would be called sickness or prophylaxis, but society 
 would retain intact its right, which is not to punifih, 
 but simply the right of self-defense. What is more 
 serious is that the idea of merit or demerit^ould 
 have to disappear or be transformed. But v/e should 
 continue to love the good man, as we love all that is 
 beautiful; we should no longer h^ve the right to 
 hate the vicious man, who wourd then inspire only 
 disgust ; but is hate necessary ? Enough that we 
 do not cease to hattvvice. 
 
 Apart from that, Ml would go on as in the past. 
 Instinct is stronger ahan all metaphysics, and even 
 though one should \ have laid it bare, even if one 
 should understand the secret of its force, its power 
 would not thereby* be weakened. Is gravitation 
 less irresistible since Newton ? The moral forces 
 which guide us wovrid continue to guide us. 1 
 
 How to Read Poincare 
 
 A complete analytical bibliography of Poincare's 
 writings up to 1909 will be found in Ernest Lebon's 
 "Henri Poincare" (Paris: Gaultier-Villars), which 
 contains the biographical address of M. Frederic 
 Masson on his admission to the French Academy 
 and other eulogies. The list comprises 436 articles 
 and books classified as follows : Mathematical 
 analysis, 146; analytical and celestial mechanics, 
 
 1 Translated by Professor Halsted from " Science and Morals " in 
 Dernieres Pensees. 
 
 [143] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 85 ; mathematic physics, 78 ; scientific philosophy, 
 51; necrology, 17; miscellaneous, 59; an astonish- 
 ing output for thirty years' work, considering the 
 amount and difficulty of the labor involved in some 
 of the contributions. 
 
 T.V. mathematical works of Poincare are too 
 difficult .for the layman and indeed for many pro- 
 fessional lrathematicians. But there are five vol- 
 umes of genei^' .interest published by Flammarion, 
 Paris: "La Science et l'Hypothese", "La Valeur 
 de la Science", "Science et Methode", "Savants 
 et Ecrivains", and "Dernie^es Pensees." The 
 first of these has had a widfc popularity, having 
 been translated into Englisrfl German, Spanish, 
 Hungarian, and Japanese. Tn; English translation 
 of "Science and Hypothesis", by Professor George 
 Bruce Halsted (New York : Science Press), which 
 appeared in 1905, is introduced by an interest- 
 ing criticism of Poincare's philosophy by Professor 
 Josiah Royce, of Harvard. Two years later "The 
 Value of Science" was published in this country 
 (Science Press). "Science et Methode", though 
 it contains some matter of more general interest 
 than the others, particularly his account of the role 
 played by unconscious mind in mathematical in- 
 vention and his explanation of the newer conceptions 
 of physics, has not yet appeared in English. The 
 fourth volume, " Savants et Ecrivains ", is an evidence 
 of Poincare's good will rather than his literary talents, 
 as it consists of perfunctory addresses on deceased 
 Academicians, the most extensive being that on 
 Sully-Prudhomme, whose chair he holds. The fifth, 
 published after his death, contains the essay on 
 "Science and Morality" from which I have quoted, 
 as well as interesting discussions of recent science 
 
 [144] 
 
HENRI POINCARE 
 
 and philosophy. The volume entitled "Founda- 
 tions of Science" (published by the Science Press, 
 New York) contains "Science and Hypothesis", 
 "Value of Science", and "Science and Method" 
 with the introduction by Professor Royce. 
 
 From either of the two volumes, "Science and Hy- 
 pothesis" or "The Value of Science", one can get an 
 idea of Poincare's philosophy, which is of importance 
 because it is not merely the philosophy of an indi- 
 vidual but the point of view of most men of science 
 nowadays, though rarely so definitely recognized or 
 clearly expressed. Both books consist of a somewhat 
 heterogeneous collection of studies on the method 
 and logic of the mathematical and physical sciences, 
 containing much that the general reader will have to 
 skip because of its use of unfamiliar terms, but it will 
 not be safe for him to skip any whole pages with- 
 out looking them over carefully, for he is likely to 
 find brilliant and suggestive sentences embedded in 
 the most unpromising material. 
 
 Separate articles by Poincare, forming chapters 
 from the above-mentioned volumes, are accessible 
 in American periodicals. "The Future of Mathe- 
 matics" in Monist, Vol. XX, pp. 76-92; also in the 
 1909 Smithsonian Report, which is in every public 
 library. "The Choice of Facts" in Monist, Vol. 
 XIX, pp. 231-239. "The Principles of Mathemat- 
 ical Physics" in the report of the St. Louis Congress 
 of Arts and Sciences, Vol. I, pp. 604-624, and in 
 Monist, Vol. XV, pp. 1-24. "The Bolyai Prize" 
 (Report on the Work of Hilbert) in Science, May 
 19 and 26, 1911. "Mathematical Creations" in 
 Monist, Vol. XX, pp. 321-335- "The Value of 
 Science" was first published complete in the Popu- 
 lar Science Monthly, September, 1906, and later; 
 
 [I4S] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 "Relativity of Space", "The New Logics", and 
 "Chance" in the Monist, 1913. 
 
 For biographical details besides the references 
 already given in footnotes, see Nordmann's article 
 on Poincare in Smithsonian Report, 191 2 ; Darbou's 
 eulogy in Le Temps, December 15, 1913; and 
 articles in Revue du Mois, February 10, 1913 ; La 
 Revue de Paris, February 15, 191 3; The Nation, 
 September 12, 191 2. 
 
 [146] 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 Ever since the attempt has been made to discover 
 a rational basis of morality, human nature, regarded 
 essentially as good, has been taken as that basis. 
 Religions and systems of philosophy, on the other 
 hand, which have tried to find another foundation 
 for morality, have regarded human nature as vicious 
 at the roots. Science has been able to tell us that 
 man, the descendant of animals, has good and evil 
 qualities in his nature, and that his life is made un- 
 happy by the evil qualities. But the constitution 
 of man is not immutable, and perhaps it may be 
 changed for the better. 
 
 Morality should be based not on human nature 
 in its existing vitiated condition, but on human 
 nature, ideal, as it may be in the future. Before all 
 things, it is necessary to try to amend the evolution 
 of the human life, that is to say, to transform its 
 disharmonies into harmonies (Orthobiosis). This 
 task can be undertaken only by science, and to 
 science the opportunity of accomplishing it must be 
 given. — Metchnikoff's "The Nature of Man", 
 p. 288. 
 
 If Carlyle were writing now his "Heroes and 
 Hero- Worship ", he would have to add — however 
 much he would have disliked to — a chapter on " The 
 
 [147] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Hero as Scientist." For the popular ideal of great- 
 ness has been decidedly changed in the last half- 
 century, and new standards of heroism have been 
 established. Creative genius is beginning to take 
 rank above destructive, and men are coming to 
 recognize that the heroism of those who save life 
 may be quite as great and is certainly more admi- 
 rable than the heroism that is measured by a monu- 
 ment of skulls. A striking proof of this shifting 
 of public appreciation is afforded by the referendum 
 carried out by the Petit Parisien a. few years ago to 
 ascertain whom the French people regarded as the 
 greatest names their country had produced during 
 the nineteenth century. Fifteen million answers 
 were sent in, so the result may be taken as repre- 
 senting the consensus of opinion in a larger degree 
 than such newspaper plebiscites generally do. It 
 was to be expected that the name of Napoleon 
 would head such a list. It would have in almost 
 any other country except France. But France, 
 always devoted to the cult of La Gloire and hitherto 
 chiefly captivated by the bellicose form of it ; France, 
 where every man is trained in the army and educated 
 in schools established with the avowed purpose of 
 increasing the military strength of the nation ; 
 France ranks Napoleon fourth in the list of eminent 
 
 [148] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 men and puts at the head of it the name of a modest 
 chemist and physiologist, Louis Pasteur. 1 It is 
 a common observation that new ideas and social 
 tendencies are apt to become manifest in France 
 earlier than elsewhere. The French clock seems 
 to be fast, always keeping a bit ahead of mean 
 European time. If so, we may expect that before 
 long other countries may come to give due honor 
 and, what is more important, due opportunity and 
 encouragement to the scientists, inventors, and 
 authors who confer glory upon their country by 
 benefiting the whole world. 
 
 1 The list is instructive because it shows clearly that the names first 
 in the hearts of their countrymen are those who have become eminent in 
 science and letters or have done signal service in the cause of the republic. 
 The leading names are as follows : I, Pasteur (receiving 1,338,425 votes) ; 
 2, Victor Hugo (1,227,103); 3, Gambetta (1,155,672); 4, Napoleon 
 Bonaparte (1,118,034); 5> Thiers (1,039,453); 6, Lazare Carnot, organ- 
 izer of the republican army of the Revolution ; 7, Pierre Curie, discoverer 
 of radium; 8, Alexandre Dumas, pere; 9, Dr. Roux, inventor of the 
 diphtheritic serum; 10, Parmentier, introducer of the potato into 
 France; II, Ampere, father of dynamic electricity; 12, Brazza, who 
 secured the Kongo region for France; 13, Zola, novelist and defender of 
 Dreyfus; 14, Lamartine, republican poet; 15, Arago, astronomer and 
 physicist; 16, Sarah Bernhardt, actress ; 17, Premier Waldeck-Rousseau ; 
 18, Marshal MacMahon; 19, President Carnot; 20, Chevreul, chemist; 
 21, Chateaubriand; 22, Ferdinand de Lesseps, constructor of the Suez 
 Canal and projector of the Panama; 23, Michelet; 24, Jacquard, in- 
 ventor of the pattern loom; 25, Jules Verne; 26, President Loubet; 
 27, Deufert-Rochereau, defender of Belfort. 
 
 [149] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 The worthy successor of Pasteur as Director of 
 the Institute he founded is the subject of this sketch, 
 Elie Metchnikoff. The foremost of French medical 
 men, he was neither born a Frenchman nor trained 
 as a physician. Like Pasteur, he entered the realm 
 of medicine by crossing the frontier of another 
 science. Any man who pursues a straight line of 
 thought will find that it leads him across many of 
 those imaginary lines which have been drawn be- 
 tween the sciences, just as an aviator crossing Europe 
 in an air line pays no attention to the artificial and 
 historic boundaries which divide state from state. 
 Pasteur was a chemist, an inorganic chemist at 
 that, and he was running down the cause of asym- 
 metry in crystals when he found himself over in 
 the field of biology. He had been engaged in sepa- 
 rating the leftward skewed crystals of tartaric acid 
 from those that skewed to the right by picking them 
 out of the mixture by hand, but he discovered 
 that he could throw the burden of selection off on 
 an agency whose time was less valuable, namely, 
 the yeast plant, which has an appetite for one kind 
 of crystals, but disdains the other. This led him 
 to the germ theory of life and of disease and enabled 
 him to save millions annually to the farmer and 
 stockraiser and unnumbered human lives. 
 
 [ISO] 
 
U~** r4<juiK~*t£ a £i., 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 Metchnikoff's experience was similar. He was as 
 a zoologist less interested in man than in the inverte- 
 brates, devoting his time to the study of the minuter 
 forms of life on the barren steppes of Russia and in 
 Mediterranean waters. It was in Italy at Messina 
 in 1882 that he made the discovery which led him 
 to fame as one of the benefactors of the human race. 
 Now, if a man should deliberately set out for such 
 a goal, if he should be incited by egotism to become 
 famous, or inspired by altruism to relieve the suf- 
 fering of humanity, about the last thing he would 
 try would be to sit down in a laboratory all day 
 with his eye glued to a microscope watching the 
 blood corpuscles chase each other through the veins 
 of an infant starfish. But since Metchnikoff was 
 less influenced by the two motives mentioned than 
 he was by a desire for truth for its own sake and 
 regardless of consequences, all these things have 
 been added unto him. If the anti-vivisectionists 
 had their way about it, experimentation in animals, 
 if allowed at all, would be restricted to physicians 
 and to the specific purpose of curing disease. This, 
 however, would be one of the surest ways to check 
 medical progress, for the advancement of a science 
 ordinarily owes little to those who are professionally 
 engaged in its practice or have their eyes focused 
 
 I ISI] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 upon some practical result of their investigations. 
 At least the world may rejoice that through the 
 liberality of French law the work of these two men 
 has never been hampered — Pasteur, who discovered 
 the cause of disease, and Metchnikoff, who dis- 
 covered the cause of immunity. These are two 
 cornerstones of the foundation on which is now be- 
 ing erected the structure of a rational system of 
 hygiene the purpose of which is to prolong human 
 life by the elimination of disease rather than by its 
 cure. The change that is taking place in medicine 
 is analogous to that taking place in philanthropy. 
 The modern philanthropist appears cold-hearted 
 because, instead of dropping a coin into a beggar's 
 hat, as did the charitable in former days, he devotes 
 himself to a systematic study of the causes of poverty. 
 The modern medical man is likewise misunderstood 
 if he seems indifferent to the suffering around him 
 and is absorbed in the investigation of remote bio- 
 logical problems having no perceptible relation to 
 human needs. But the beneficial results of the 
 scientific method in both philanthropy and medicine 
 are already sufficiently apparent to enable us to 
 see that it will do much more for humanity than the 
 kind but blind benevolence of the past. 
 The fame of France in art, literature, and science 
 
 [152] 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 is in large part her reward for her hospitality in 
 giving to men of other lands the freedom and en- 
 couragement which they could not find at home. 
 One example is Maeterlinck. Another is Metchni- 
 koff. He left his native country chiefly because of 
 a difference of opinion on political questions be- 
 tween himself and the Czar. Not that he has ever 
 been a revolutionist, but as a Jew by race, an atheist 
 in religion, and a liberal in politics, he was triply 
 obnoxious to the powers that be, and after the 
 assassination of Alexander II in 1881, the students 
 were too much excited over politics to attend to their 
 studies. So he resigned his professorship in the 
 University of Odessa and went abroad to devote 
 himself to biological research. 
 
 He was born in the Province of Kharkov, Little 
 Russia, May 15, 1845. His father was an officer 
 of the Guards, afterward a general. His mother 
 was a Jewess, and it was from her that he derived 
 the love for science which early manifested itself. 
 He won a gold medal in the high school of Kharkov 
 and passed through the university of that city in 
 two years instead of the customary four. Then 
 he went to Germany and studied at Giessen, Got- 
 tingen, and Munich. Returning to his native land, 
 he taught in the University of St. Petersburg and 
 
 1 153 ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 in 1870 went to Odessa to take the chair of zoology 
 in the university there. 
 
 The years spent in private study, chiefly at 
 Messina, the earthquake city of Sicily, were most 
 fruitful, for his investigation of intercellular diges- 
 tion in minute marine invertebrates gave him the 
 clew to the protective action of the blood in the 
 higher animals and man, and in 1884 he outlined 
 his theory of inflammation, which was, in short, that 
 the congestion of blood at a wound was due to the 
 efforts of the leucocytes or white blood cells to over- 
 power the invading microbes. The value of this 
 discovery was recognized immediately by the two 
 foremost authorities in biology : Virchow, the Ger- 
 man, who had discovered the leucocytes, and Pasteur, 
 the Frenchman, who had discovered the microbes. 
 Metchnikoff had now found the missing link which 
 brought these two discoveries together and showed 
 their meaning. 
 
 In 1888 Metchnikoff was called to the Pasteur 
 Institute, and in 1895 became its director. Here 
 he found an exceptional opportunity to devote his 
 talents to the relief of suffering humanity. Such 
 institutions for the advancement of the science of 
 medicine have since been established elsewhere : 
 the Institute for Experimental Therapeutics in 
 
 [154] 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, the Cancer Research Labo- 
 ratory of London, the Rockefeller Institute in New 
 York, for example; but the French people were 
 the first to respond to the need of the man they 
 have delighted to honor by endowing, in 1886, an 
 institution which should continue his work as well 
 as perpetuate his name. The Nobel prize for the 
 most important discovery in medicine was in 1908 
 divided ^.between Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur In- 
 stitute, and Professor Paul Ehrlich, of the Frankfort 
 Institute, who has in these latter days made "606" 
 the mark of the beast, instead of 666, as prophesied 
 in Revelation. The Nobel prize man of 1912, Doc- 
 tor Alexis Carrel, although a Frenchman by birth, 
 found in the Rockefeller Institute the opportunity 
 to carry on his remarkable investigations on the 
 preservation and transplantation of living tissues. 
 
 Characteristically French is the artistic setting 
 which has been given to this home of science. The 
 visitor appropriately approaches it through the long 
 and handsome Boulevard Pasteur, then turning into 
 a side street he finds on his left the Pasteur Institute 
 and on his right the more imposing buildings of the 
 Institute for Infectious Diseases and the Laboratory 
 of Biological Chemistry, recently erected for carry- 
 ing out the treatment which the experimental work 
 
 [155] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of the other side of the street has suggested. A new 
 department has been added for the study of tropical 
 diseases such as the sleeping sickness, which has 
 depopulated a large part of the Nyanza region. 
 This extension of the work is made possible by the 
 receipt in 1909 of the bequest of eight million dollars 
 by the miserly and eccentric Jewish banker who 
 called himself Osiris. 
 
 As the visitor passes into the courtyard of the 
 Institute, his nerves already shaky with thoughts 
 of microbes and mad dogs, he is almost startled to 
 see, half hidden among the trees, a man engaged 
 in a death struggle with a wolf. This is a bronze 
 statue of Jupile, a shepherd who, bitten by a mad 
 wolf, was one of the first patients to receive the 
 Pasteur treatment for rabies. In a crypt of marble 
 and mosaic underneath the building is the tomb 
 of Pasteur, as impressive, if less imposing, than the 
 tomb of Napoleon under the dome of the Invalides 
 not far away. The reception room of the Institute 
 is adorned with large paintings showing the modern 
 miracles of healing, better authenticated than 
 those of Sainte Genevieve depicted by Puvis de 
 Chavannes on the walls of the Pantheon. 
 
 Professor Metchnikoff is ordinarily not accessible 
 to visitors, especially interviewers, but since I was 
 
 [iS6] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 armed with a letter of introduction from Professor 
 Jacques Loeb, of the Rockefeller Institute, whom he 
 regards as the foremost of American scientists, I 
 was fortunate enough to find him in. 
 
 He has rather a short figure and a large head, 
 with a bushy gray beard, but hair that is still dark. 
 His spectacles are not sufficient to impart severity 
 to his mild blue eyes. His voice is low and pleasant, 
 and he speaks, as he moves, without either hurry 
 or hesitation. He is a worker among workers, 
 inspiring with his indefatigable zeal the young men 
 who come to him from Europe, America, and Asia 
 to pursue their researches in bacteriology. 
 
 A walk through the Pasteur Institute is like a 
 visit to a zoological garden, for the study of each 
 particular human disease requires the discovery of 
 some species that is also susceptible to it. Here 
 are not only the dogs, guinea pigs, and rats common 
 to every bacteriological laboratory, but also many 
 others closely connected with Metchnikoff's special 
 interests ; parrots and geese, for example, which 
 are remarkable for their longevity; bats, which 
 eat rotten food and yet maintain an aseptic intestinal 
 tract; and chimpanzees, which, as the literal blood 
 relations of man, are capable of sharing the worst 
 of his diseases. 
 
 [157) 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Like Agassiz, Metchnikoff has "no time to get 
 rich." At his home in the suburbs of Paris he sets 
 an example of the plain living he advocates, supple- 
 menting the meager salary given him at the Institute 
 by the income of a small estate in Russia. The 
 twenty thousand dollars he received from the Nobel 
 Foundation he devoted entirely to the furtherance 
 of his researches in longevity. 
 
 M. Metchnikoff has given the best possible proof 
 that he has no personal aversion to women who enter 
 his profession, for he married in 1875 as his second 
 wife a Russian bacteriologist of distinction. He 
 dedicated to her his first volume of " Optimistic 
 Studies," and in it he cites her experiments on the 
 growth of microbe-free tadpoles. She is an artist 
 as well as a scientist, and here, too, M. Metchnikoff 
 shares her tastes, for he is fond of painting and music. 
 They have no children, but he has a godchild to 
 whom he is devoted. 
 
 His high regard for individuality leads him to 
 look with favor upon the entrance of women into 
 the universities and the professions. He has no 
 fear that it will result in the production of a class 
 of celibates corresponding to the sexless workers of 
 the beehive. On the contrary, his observation of 
 the feminist movement for more than forty years 
 
 [158] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF, 
 
 has shown him that learned ladies are by no means 
 wanting in the marital and maternal instincts com- 
 mon and proper to their sex. Of a thousand women 
 in the St. Petersburg Medical School, ten per cent 
 had been married before, and forty-four per cent 
 were married during their course of study. A con- 
 spicuous case of feminine scientific genius is that 
 of Sonya Kovalevsky, who attained the highest 
 eminence in that field which, by the common consent 
 of men, was formerly regarded as unattainable by 
 women; that is, pure mathematics. But the day 
 when she received the doubled prize of the French 
 Academy of Sciences she wrote to a friend that she 
 had never felt so unhappy, and the cause of her 
 unhappiness, as revealed in her letters and romances, 
 was that she was not beloved as other women 
 were. 
 
 Although Metchnikoff would grant to women 
 every opportunity for the exercise of their talents, 
 and thinks they had better occupy themselves with 
 science than with fashions, he believes genius of a 
 high order to be much rarer among them than 
 among men. When he was called upon by the 
 women doctors and scientists at the Naturalists' 
 Congress at St. Petersburg for his opinion of the 
 feminist movement, he created considerable con- 
 
 [159] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 sternation among them by the following frank 
 language : 
 
 Your complaint, as I understand it, is that man 
 has excluded woman from all higher intellectual 
 occupation by unnatural means, so that her mind has 
 become atrophied, her capabilities blunted, her 
 talents stagnant. You would remedy all this by 
 being made man's equal in politics. You would 
 then, you say, develop your slumbering abilities, 
 overtake, and possibly surpass, your immemorial 
 enslaver — man. 
 
 But do you really need this political equality in 
 order to attain this supremacy ? Has the down- 
 trodden among men ever needed it ? His political 
 equality has come as an effect not as the cause of his 
 intellectual development. The mind that domi- 
 nates in the artistic and scientific world ultimately 
 arrives at political supremacy. 
 
 But what art or science has man closed to you ? 
 You are here; but really, ladies, I have failed to 
 discover a Bichat, a Louis, a Jenner, or a Pasteur 
 among you. Have you personally been impeded in 
 your careers more than certain individuals among 
 men ? Now let us take the arts. Is there a man- 
 master so unnatural who ever forbade his female 
 slave to express herself in music ? But where are 
 your Beethovens, your Wagners, your Verdis, your 
 Brahms ? I beg of you, dear ladies, if you remember 
 one, tell me. 
 
 What brutal slave owner at any time forbade 
 women to beautify canvas with satisfying hues and 
 lines depicting life or nature ? As in music, man has 
 encouraged women to do these things, yet where are 
 your Raphaels, your Leonardos, your Rubenses ? 
 
 [160] 
 
elie metchnikoff, 
 
 Have women been forbidden to mold, carve, or draw ? 
 Yet where is your Phidias, your Michelangelo, your 
 Cellini ? Did you ever hear of a woman architect ? 
 
 Home and motherhood there, of course, the most 
 radical among you will not say that man has at- 
 tempted to restrain you — there you have had from 
 time immemorial, in all ages, in all places, under 
 every condition, absolute and full freedom. Still, 
 is it not man, the enslaver, who teaches you domestic 
 economy ? Is it not from man that you have learned 
 how to care for your offspring in illness, how to amuse 
 them in health ? Who discovered the laws of domes- 
 tic hygiene ? Was it a woman ? 
 
 Now, my dear ladies, has man ever excluded you 
 from the kitchen ? No, you say, you have been en- 
 slaved there. " Cook ! Feed the brute ! " is eter- 
 nally dinned in your ears. It would seem reason- 
 able that at least in this sphere woman should have 
 reached a high standard of perfection. And the 
 actual result ? Ah, dear ladies, I must confess. If 
 I want a really good dinner I must have recourse to a 
 chef. 
 
 And now, ladies, I ask your pardon, you have all 
 studied physiology and psychology, and you know 
 where such considerations would lead me. But one 
 word more : Do not lose sight of the significance of 
 your request, " Professor, what is your opinion of 
 the feministic movement ? " for that makes out your 
 case perfectly — to advocate your cause you would 
 call in the help of man. 
 
 Metchnikoff has very little liking for the political 
 methods in vogue in our republics. He thinks 
 young men too reckless, opinionated, and pessi- 
 
 [ 161 ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 mistic to be intrusted with the ballot at the age 
 of twenty-one. "It is easily intelligible," he says, 
 "that in the new conditions such modern idols as 
 universal suffrage, public opinion, and the referen- 
 dum, in which the ignorant masses are called upon 
 to decide questions which demand varied and 
 profound knowledge, will last no longer than the 
 old idols. The progress of human knowledge will 
 bring about the replacement of such institutions by 
 others in which applied morality will be controlled 
 by really competent persons." But he fails to 
 inform us how these " competent persons" are to 
 be selected and placed in power. 
 
 To give an account of the varied researches which 
 Metchnikoff has carried on or has superintended 
 at the Pasteur Institute is apart from our purpose 
 and would in any case be impossible here, because 
 it would involve the recapitulation of a great part 
 of the history of medical progress for the past quarter 
 century. During this period the science of medicine 
 has been completely revolutionized, for the use of 
 traditional and empirical remedies has been largely 
 replaced by a systematic search for the causes of 
 diseases and the experimental determination of 
 methods of avoiding or counteracting them. In 
 general, the change may be characterized as a return 
 
 [162] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 to nature. In the older medicine at its best, a dose 
 of some vegetable or mineral substance, such as 
 quinine or mercury, comparatively harmless, but 
 altogether foreign to the body, was administered 
 through the mouth and in time reaching the blood 
 through the digestive systems, killed off or paralyzed 
 the disease germ. In modern medicine at its best, 
 some substance, such as the diphtheria antitoxin, 
 that is already present in the blood in quantity suffi- 
 cient under ordinary circumstances to prevent infec- 
 tion, is reenforced in an emergency by more of the 
 same substance prepared in the blood of the horse. 
 Or if that cannot be done, the next best thing is to 
 inject some serum that by a natural reaction will 
 stimulate the body to prepare in excess its own anti- 
 toxin or excite the phagocytes to greater exertions 
 in overcoming their enemies. In any case, the 
 object is to induce an artificial immunity as nearly 
 as possible like the natural immunity of the healthy 
 body. 
 
 Phagocytes — that is, " devouring cells" — was 
 the name given by Metchnikoff to the leucocytes 
 or white cells, which he found wandering about the 
 body in search of their prey. They lead a sort of 
 semi-independent life, like the simplest one-celled 
 animal, the amceba, and they penetrate to all parts 
 
 [163] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of the body, even squeezing in between the toughened 
 tissue of the skin and bones. When a cut is made 
 in the skin they are borne to the breach by the flow 
 of blood and there pile up and coagulate, forming 
 a new skin to protect the raw flesh, somewhat as 
 a breach in a rampart is hastily filled in with sand 
 bags. Not only that, but when the enemy actually 
 gains entrance either by storming a wound or sneak- 
 ing in through some unguarded opening, then the 
 white cells rally to the attack, surrounding and de- 
 stroying the invading microbes. If these multiply 
 too rapidly, the phagocyte reserves are mobilized, 
 new recruits by the million are called out, until 
 the bodily force is victorious or exhausted. Such 
 a battle we call a local inflammation, or, if the en- 
 gagement is general and long continued, a fever. 
 Under the microscope we may watch the foes en- 
 gaged in single combat, the phagocyte devour- 
 ing the bacillus, a living, formless mass of protoplasm, 
 stretching out extemporized tentacles and engulfing 
 the rod, globe, or writhing spiral which we may 
 afterward see slowly digesting in its interior. 
 
 To be sure, the operation is not quite so simple 
 as Metchnikoff first conceived it. A condition is 
 always more complicated than the theory devised 
 to explain it. The question has been hotly debated 
 
 [164] 
 
ELIE metchnikoff 
 
 and is not yet settled whether the phagocytes best 
 defend us by their life or by their death. It appears 
 that as they undergo dissolution they give up to the 
 blood certain substances which dissolve the disease 
 germs or neutralize their poisons, and this may be 
 a more important means of defense than the en- 
 globing or engulfing process. Then, too, these 
 white cells seem at times strangely indifferent to 
 the presence of their dearest foes, or, perhaps we 
 should say, their favorite food. There is needed 
 in the blood on such occasions a substance known as 
 opsonin, which being absorbed by the microbes 
 the phagocytes attack them with avidity; this 
 opsonin serving as some biologist, doubtless an 
 Englishman, has said, like Worcestershire sauce 
 as an appetizer to the phagocytes. 
 
 But for further discussion of these questions I 
 must refer the reader to his family physician, who 
 will take pleasure in repudiating these vague and 
 fanciful interpretations of mine. He will be able 
 to tell whether phagocytosis or bacteriolysis is the 
 fashionable mode of combating disease germs and 
 he will introduce the reader to alexin, agglutinin, 
 anti-bodies, sidechains, and other interesting and 
 useful novelties that he contains within him to a 
 greater or less degree, let us hope a greater. 
 
 [165] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 But these same voracious white blood cells which 
 ordinarily serve as the defenders of the body may 
 in the period of its weakness become its worst ene- 
 mies. This reminds us of the Praetorian Guards 
 who in the later days of Rome precipitated its de- 
 cline by attacking the capital. The phagocytes 
 show an unfortunate predilection for the higher ele- 
 ments of the human organism and, according to 
 Metchnikoff, the most distressing symptom of old 
 age, the weakening of the mind, is due to their 
 devouring the nerve cells. But besides that they 
 play havoc all through the body; eating up the 
 pigment of the hair and so whitening it ; causing 
 degeneration of the liver and kidneys; robbing the 
 skeleton of its lime and depositing it in the blood 
 vessels, thus doing double damage by weakening 
 the bones and hardening the arteries. In these 
 symptoms of senility the germs of disease form an 
 important factor, both in weakening the body and 
 instigating the treacherous insurrection of the phago- 
 cytes. Hence Metchnikoff comes to the conclusion 
 that : "The senile degeneration of an organism is 
 entirely similar to the lesions induced by certain 
 maladies of a microbic origin", and thus he arrives 
 at his famous definition : "Old age is an infectious 
 chronic disease, characterized by a degeneration or 
 
 [166] 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 an enfeebling of the noble elements and by the 
 excessive activity of the phagocytes." 
 
 If old age is correctly characterized as a disease, 
 and especially if it is due in part to microbic invasion, 
 it ought to be possible to cure or postpone it. This, 
 then, is what Metchnikoff has in recent years made 
 the main aim of his researches. 
 
 In particular he suspects the large intestine of 
 harboring some of the most dangerous of the mi- 
 croscopic enemies of man, the cause of many of the 
 ills that flesh is heir to. It is in his opinion an 
 excessive and comparatively unimportant organ, 
 for it can be shortened or removed without serious 
 consequences. A comparative survey of the anat- 
 omy of the vertebrates shows that as a general 
 rule the longer the intestine the shorter the life. 
 He does not advocate its extirpation by surgery or 
 its disinfection by chemicals, but he would crowd out 
 its wild and poisonous flora by harmless cultivated 
 species. Among the friendly microbes he regards 
 the lactic acid bacilli as most useful for this purpose. 
 These act upon milk or fruit sugar, converting it 
 into lactic acid, which is destructive to most other 
 microbes, including some of the most dangerous. 
 For example, mysterious outbreaks of typhoid 
 fever have been recently traced to "typhoid car- 
 
 [167I 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 riers " ; that is, persons who, while immune to the 
 disease themselves, may yet serve for years as 
 conveyors of the infection. But a thriving colony 
 of Bulgarian bacilli will drive out the typhoid bacilli 
 and so put a stop to the spread of the disease. 
 
 The difference between harmless and injurious 
 bacteria on which the lactic acid theory depends 
 is easily understood because it is a matter of common 
 observation. Meat and milk have much the same 
 composition so far as their protein is concerned. 
 But whereas meat promptly spoils, that is, putre- 
 fies, with the formation of disgusting and poisonous 
 products of decomposition, milk sours instead and 
 will remain wholesome and to some tastes pala- 
 table for several days. Both are the results of bac- 
 terial decomposition, but the difference is due to 
 the fact that milk contains a kind of sugar which, 
 inoculated with the proper bacilli, is converted into 
 lactic acid, and thus the growth of the bacteria 
 of putrefaction is for some time prevented. But 
 under certain circumstances it happens that the 
 latter get the start of the lactic acid makers, and 
 then the milk goes the way of the meat, and we have 
 a case of "ptomain poisoning." In short, the aim 
 of swallowing cultures of lactic acid bacilli by whole- 
 sale is to keep the contents of the remote regions 
 
 [ 168 ] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 of our digestive apparatus in the condition of soured 
 milk rather than that of decayed meat. Recently 
 the same treatment has been recommended for 
 preserving the teeth, since these mild-mannered 
 and beneficent bacilli rubbed into the gums will 
 dispossess those which ordinarily grow in our mouths 
 and attack our teeth. 
 
 For aid in his fight against the bacterial poisons 
 that bring on disease and old age, Metchnikoff has 
 resorted to his native steppes. The Tartars and 
 Kalmucks of southern Russia had always had as 
 their favorite food koumiss, prepared by the fermen- 
 tation of mare's milk, and nomads of all races have 
 made use of some form of curdled milk, chiefly 
 because of the difficulty of preserving other kinds 
 of animal food under primitive conditions. The 
 keffir of the Caucasus, the leben of Egypt, the 
 matzoon of Armenia, the dadhi of India, and yahourth 
 of Bulgaria are all produced from milk by the use 
 of various species of lactic acid bacilli associated 
 with other bacteria of fermentation. Of these the 
 last, the Bulgarian yahourth, yoghourt, or yagurt, 
 contains the strongest bacilli ; that is, those that 
 are able to stand the largest percentage of the prod- 
 uct of their own activity, lactic acid, and so Metchni- 
 koff has made them the basis of his dietetics. 
 
 [169] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 A surprisingly large proportion of centenarians 
 are reported from Bulgaria, where yagurt is used, 
 and Metchnikoff cites a large number of cases of 
 men and women of extreme old age who have lived 
 largely on sour milk or on sauerkraut, which also 
 contains the lactic acid bacilli. 1 Most of these 
 are found among the poorer classes or compara- 
 tively uncivilized races. Sir Moses Montefiore 
 is one of the very few rich men who have passed the 
 century mark. Metchnikoff uses this as an argu- 
 ment for the simple life. But it is questionable- 
 whether such data, derived from the casual reports 
 of individual cases and the generalized observations 
 of travelers, are of much evidential value. Claims 
 to longevity among the unlettered are notoriously 
 unreliable. It would be very unsafe to hold that 
 the negroes were longer lived than the whites, be- 
 cause so many mammies could tell of remembering 
 Washington. When the British old age pension 
 bill passed, the number of poor people in Ireland 
 who came forward with evidence that they were 
 over sixty-five years old surprised the actuaries 
 
 1 He might add to bis notable examples of persons addicted to the use 
 of curdled milk the case of Tze-Hsi, the Dowager Empress of China, who 
 at the age of seventy-four had energy enough to change her own mind 
 and revolutionize the government of four hundred million people. 
 
 [170] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 and embarrassed the budget. Women are apt to 
 restore double-fold in old age the years they deprived 
 themselves of in the later thirties. 
 
 It is also curious to see a skeptic like Metchnikoff 
 giving serious consideration to the accounts of 
 longevity given in the Pentateuch which many 
 orthodox theologians are willing to concede as 
 legendary. He balks, indeed, at Noah's nine hun- 
 dred and fifty years and Methuselah's nine hundred 
 and sixty-nine, but accepts as probable Aaron's 
 one hundred and twenty-three years and Moses's 
 one hundred and twenty, quoting the words of 
 Jehovah: "My spirit shall not always strive with 
 man for that he also is flesh ; yet his days shall be 
 an hundred and twenty years." He accounts for 
 it by their more healthful mode of living and their 
 freedom from alcoholism and the diseases of vice, 
 nowadays the chief cause of premature old age. 
 He calls attention also to the fact that sour milk 
 was in common use among the patriarchs and was 
 esteemed by Abraham food fit to set before angels. 
 In regard to the Mosaic dietary regulations he 
 says : 
 
 Some of them, it is true, such as the prohibition 
 of uncooked or partially cooked meat, are confirmed 
 by modern knowledge. But the greater number of 
 
 [i7i] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the Mosaic rules, as, for instance, the prohibition of 
 the consumption as food of blood or the flesh of pigs 
 or hares, and so forth, are in direct opposition to a 
 modern knowledge of hygienic diet. 
 
 Metchnikoff, being a scientist, uses, of course, 
 these reports of longevity gathered from historians 
 and travelers merely as suggesting profitable lines 
 of research, not as proof of any theory. Such proof 
 can only be obtained by direct experimentation, 
 and accordingly he has for the past fifteen years 
 been experimenting upon himself. The Pasteur 
 people do not belong to that class of physicians 
 who refuse to take their own medicine. Metchni- 
 koff still has a weak heart as the result of an inten- 
 tional inoculation with recurrent fever, and some 
 of his collaborators have inoculated themselves 
 with the most loathsome of diseases for the purpose 
 of testing a remedy for it. Brown-Sequard, of the 
 College de France, tried, at the age of seventy-two, 
 to rejuvenate himself by injections of animal secre- 
 tions, but his hopes proved unfounded. 
 
 But the means advocated by Metchnikoff for 
 the prevention of senescence, even though it may 
 never fulfill his expectations, has at least the merit 
 of being harmless, for it is merely the systematic 
 employment of a food which has been in use by a 
 
 [172] 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 large part of the human race from the earliest times. 
 The object being to colonize the lactic bacilli in the 
 lower part of the digestive tract, the best way of 
 attaining this has yet to be worked out. The gen- 
 erous drinking of buttermilk or curdled milk, though 
 this may be nutritious or otherwise beneficial, does 
 not necessarily accomplish the object, for the bacilli 
 may have been mostly killed off by the acidity or 
 may be destroyed in the stomach. Taking a dose 
 of the bacilli in a dried form, as a tablet or powder, 
 may fail to serve the purpose, because they are in an 
 inactive state and may not be able to secure a foot- 
 hold for lack of suitable food, such as milk or fruit 
 sugar. So Metchnikoff has adopted the plan of 
 taking pure cultures of the Bulgarian and paralactic 
 bacilli in pasteurized milk or sweetened bouillon 
 and also in the jam and in a kind of candy prepared 
 from cooked dates soaked in the pure cultures. He 
 abstains from all alcoholic beverages and uses only 
 cooked food and boiled water. His daily diet in 
 addition to this consists of three to five ounces of 
 meat, grains, legumes, and stewed fruit. 1 
 
 1 See " Les Microbes lactiques et leur utilite pour la sante " in La Revue, 
 1901, p. 145. A full discussion of the subject of fermented milks with 
 methods for their preparation in the household may be found in a 
 volume by L. M. Douglas,' recently published under the sensational 
 title of "The Bacillus of Long Life" (Putnams). 
 
 [173] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 This goes counter to the raw food advocates, but 
 here Metchnikoff has the best of the argument. 
 He also questions the advisability of excessive 
 chewing as advocated by Mr. Fletcher, and cites 
 cases where the health has been injured by the 
 practice and the resulting disease cured by more 
 rapid eating. 1 
 
 As soon as Doctor Metchnikoff first made known 
 his theory, the public, always on the lookout for 
 a new "Elixir of Life", demanded fermented milk 
 and the supply was immediately forthcoming, not 
 always of a satisfactory character. Many of the 
 cultures sold in powder or tabloids for the purpose 
 or dispensed in drink at the soda fountains are in- 
 active and useless, or contain other and sometimes 
 undesirable forms of bacteria. I have found it 
 easy enough to prepare the fermented milk in the 
 household, where the proper cultures are to be had. 
 All that is necessary is to sterilize the milk by heating 
 it to the boiling point or near it and keeping it there 
 for ten minutes ; then cool quickly to ioo° Fahr. 
 and add the ferment in tabloids or powder or some 
 of the former batch, and keep covered at this tem- 
 perature for twelve hours. A vacuum bottle or 
 fireless cooker is convenient for keeping the tempera- 
 1 "The Prolongation of Life", p. 159. 
 [174] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 ture even. The fermented milk properly prepared 
 is somewhat thickened, slightly acid, and palatable 
 even to those who do not like ordinary buttermilk. 
 Metchnikoff's views as to the value of lactic acid 
 have met with not only the legitimate skepticism 
 and criticism of the medical profession, but also 
 with the usual ridicule from the press. "Who 
 would want to live one hundred and fifty years if 
 he had to drink sour milk three times a day ?" is asked, 
 and he is alluded to as " the modern Ponce de Leon 
 searching for the Fountain of Immortal Youth and 
 finding it in the Milky Whey." Gf course Metchni- 
 koff should not be held responsible for the exagger- 
 ated expectations founded upon his theories or for 
 the fakes foisted upon the public in his name. He 
 is indeed an original thinker and a bold experimenter, 
 but he is not a sensationalist or a seeker for popular 
 applause. He has never said that he expected to 
 live one hundred and fifty years or that any one 
 else could by following his regimen. But he does 
 regard that period as more nearly the normal length 
 of human life than the commonly accepted limit 
 of sixty-five or seventy, and as possibly attainable 
 through the advance of medical science. Though 
 he comes of a short-lived family and all his brothers 
 died at an age much younger than he has now at- 
 
 [175] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 tained, his health is unusually good for a man of 
 seventy, and he is as hard-working and enterprising 
 as ever. It is not the mere prolongation of life for 
 which he is working, but the prolongation of the 
 period of serviceable and enjoyable life. If he had 
 remained in the University of Odessa, he would 
 have been retired from his professorship on the 
 ground of old age in 1900, the year before he pub- 
 lished his second and greatest work, that on " Im- 
 munity in Infectious Diseases." 
 
 The title which was given to his most popular 
 book in its English version, "The Prolongation of 
 Life", was not of his choosing and misrepresents his 
 aim. He regards this volume as well as its predeces- 
 sor, "The Nature of Man", as "Studies in Optimistic 
 Philosophy." They are written to show that science 
 is not merely of use in facilitating and amelio- 
 rating the lot of human beings, but is also adequate 
 as a guide to conduct and capable of providing it 
 with ideals of future aspiration. In an age when, 
 as it appears to him, religion has lost its power, and 
 thinking men no longer have faith in immortality, 
 he sees them turning to mysticism on the one hand 
 and to pessimism on the other, and his purpose is 
 to find a way out that does not involve either. As 
 an exposition of the Religio Medici of the twentieth 
 
 [176] 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 century, his work has great significance, and even 
 those who look with confidence to a future life to 
 rectify the disharmonies of this one may read with 
 interest the opinions of one who does not hold their 
 faith upon what may be accomplished toward per- 
 fecting the conditions of existence and may sympa- 
 thize with and second his efforts at such amelioration. 
 
 Essentially his aim seems to me to be the same 
 as that of Epicurus : to relieve mankind of its two 
 great evils, pain and fear, the fear of the gods and 
 the fear of death, the first to be dissipated by show- 
 ing it to be imaginary and the second by welcoming 
 death at the proper time. Like Epicurus, too, but 
 unlike most Epicureans, Metchnikoff preaches plain 
 living and the avoidance of luxury and dissipation 
 of all kinds. "It would be true progress ", he says, 
 "to abandon modern cuisine and go back to the 
 simpler dishes of our ancestors ", and he objects 
 on hygienic grounds to modern dress, dwellings, 
 and social customs. 
 
 A society called "The Optimists" has been formed 
 in Paris to increase the sum and intensity of human 
 happiness and to extend the limit of active and 
 enjoyable life. The founder is Doctor E. Dagin- 
 court and the secretary is Mme. Languet de Bellevue, 
 who has given fifty thousand dollars to the move- 
 
 [177] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ment. Besides Professor Metchnikoff, the club 
 includes Jean Finot, whose " Science of Happiness" 
 and "Philosophy of Longevity" present similar 
 ideals to Metchnikoff's "Optimistic Studies"; Ca- 
 mille Flammarion, the distinguished astronomer and 
 author; Professor Charles Richet, who received 
 the Nobel prize for medical discoveries in 1913; 
 Eugene Brieux, author of "Damaged Goods" and 
 other reform dramas ; and Edmond Perrier, head of 
 the Museum of Natural History. 
 
 Optimism Metchnikoff regards as the natural 
 philosophy of old age when a proper appreciation 
 of the value of life is attained and youthful pessimism 
 outgrown. 
 
 In the normal course of life, however, the young 
 do not show an instinctive clinging to life in any 
 marked degree. They often risk their lives for tri- 
 fling reasons and commit all sorts of indiscretions 
 hurtful to life or health without a thought of the 
 consequences. They may be inspired by the highest 
 motives, but they are equally ready to fritter strength 
 away in the gratification of the lowest appetites. 
 Youth is the age of disinterested sacrifice, but also 
 of indulgence in all kinds of excesses, alcoholic, 
 sexual, and others. Youths seem to think that they 
 will always attach the same value to life, and that 
 between death at thirty years of age and death at 
 sixty there is a difference only of time. As their 
 love of life is indifferently developed, young people 
 are often extremely exacting, the pleasure they 
 
 [178] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 enjoy being but moderate, whilst the suffering pro- 
 voked in them by the slightest annoyance is intense. 
 They consequently become epicureans in the lowest 
 sense of the word, or else abandon themselves to 
 exaggerated pessimism. — "The Nature of Man", 
 p. 116. 
 
 Pessimism was the militant philosophy of the 
 nineteenth century, and its effects are increasingly 
 felt in the present world-wide tendency to suicide, 
 individual suicide due to the failure of the instinct 
 to live, and race suicide due to the failure to propa- 
 gate. But even pessimism, harmful as it is upon 
 humanity, may, according to Metchnikoff, have its 
 uses : 
 
 It is pessimism which has been the first to draw up 
 a true indictment of human nature, and if pain is to 
 be regarded as useful in its quality of danger signal 
 we should equally recognize that the pessimistic 
 view of the universe is a step onward in the evolution 
 of humanity. Without pessimism we might easily 
 sink into a kind of contented fatalism, and end in 
 quietism, in the manner of many religions. — 
 "Nature of Man", p. 194. 
 
 The difference between the philosophic pessimist 
 
 and the scientific optimist may be illustrated by 
 
 two incidents. In 1831 Schopenhauer, in spite of 
 
 his theory that life was evil and worse than nothing, 
 
 fled from Berlin to Frankfort at the first outbreak 
 
 of the cholera. But we recall that Metchnikoff, 
 
 [179] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 professed optimist and lover of life, went in 191 1 
 to Manchuria into the center of the bubonic plague 
 in its most virulent form in order to learn how to 
 relieve human suffering. The difference is one be- 
 tween whiners and helpers. 
 
 Schopenhauer wrote that " an alteration of the 
 atmosphere so slight that it cannot be detected by 
 chemistry brings about cholera or yellow fever or 
 black death." Metchnikoff's dry comment on this 
 is : " Humanity will be fortunate if the pessimistic 
 philosophers prove as wrong about their other 
 grievances as they have proved about disease and 
 medicine." And he adds that if Koch had dis- 
 covered his vibrio in 1831, philosophy would have 
 taken a different course, for Schopenhauer need not 
 have been frightened away from Berlin, and Hegel, 
 who died of the cholera, might have gone on with 
 the development of his idealism. 
 
 Another paradox appears in the fact that Metchni- 
 koff, who makes little account of altruism in his 
 system of morality, has devoted his life to arduous 
 and dangerous researches for the benefit of others, 
 and, without hope of reward in another life in either 
 the Buddhist or Christian sense, has labored assidu- 
 ously to lay the foundations of a science by which 
 posterity can profit. He regards altruism not as a 
 
 [180] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 permanent and indispensable virtue, but as some- 
 thing to be gradually got rid of, at least in its ex- 
 treme forms of heroism and self-sacrifice. As this 
 is one of the most striking and, it seems to me, most 
 original points in his philosophy, a passage must 
 be quoted : 
 
 As it is highly probable that with the advance of 
 civilization the greatest evils of humanity will become 
 lessened, and may even disappear, the sacrifices to 
 be made will also become less. Now that there is a 
 serum which protects against plague, there is no 
 room for the heroism of the doctors who used to incur 
 the greatest danger in fighting epidemics. Until 
 lately doctors used to risk their life in treating the 
 throats of diphtheritic patients. A young doctor 
 who was a friend of mine, of high ability and promise, 
 died from diphtheria contracted under these condi- 
 tions. He met his death, in isolation from his 
 friends in case of affecting them, with the utmost 
 heroism. Now that the antidiphtheritic serum has 
 been discovered, such heroism would be unnecessary. 
 The advance of science has removed the occasion of 
 such sacrifices. 
 
 It is now very long since there has been oppor- 
 tunity for the heroism which steeled the hand of 
 Abraham to sacrifice his only son to his religion. 
 Human sacrifice, based on the highest morality, has 
 become more and more rare, and will finally disap- 
 pear. Rational morality, although it may admire 
 such conduct, has no use for it. So also it may fore- 
 see a time when men will be so highly developed 
 that instead of being delighted to take advantage of 
 
 [181] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the sympathy of their fellows, they will refuse it 
 absolutely. Neither the Kantian idea of virtue, 
 doing good as a pure duty, nor that of Herbert 
 Spencer, according to which men have an instinctive 
 need to help their fellows, will be realized in the fu- 
 ture. The ideal will rather be that of men who will 
 be self-sufficient and who will no longer permit 
 others to do them good. — "Prolongation of Life", 
 P- 323- 
 
 As he objects to conditions that demand sympathy 
 and self-sacrifice from one person for another, so 
 also he opposes any state of society that involves 
 the sacrifice or subordination of the individual for 
 the benefit of the community as a whole. 
 
 It is most probable that no shade of socialism will 
 be able to solve the problem of social life with a 
 sufficient respect for the maintenance of individual 
 liberty. None the less the progress of human knowl- 
 edge will inevitably bring about a great leveling of 
 human fortunes. Intellectual culture will lead men 
 to give up many things that are superfluous or even 
 harmful, and that are still thought indispensable by 
 most people. The conceptions that the greatest 
 good fortune consists in the complete evolution of the 
 normal cycle of human life and that this goal can be 
 reached most easily by plain and sober habits will 
 convince men of the folly of much of the luxury that 
 now shortens human existence. Whilst the rich 
 will choose a simpler mode of life and the poor will 
 be able to live better, none the less, private property, 
 acquired or inherited, may be maintained. Evolu- 
 tion must be gradual, and much effort and new knowl- 
 
 [182] 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 edge is required. Sociology, a new-born science, 
 must learn of biology, her older sister. Biology 
 teaches us that in proportion that the organization 
 becomes more complex, the consciousness of individ- 
 uality develops, until a point is reached at which 
 individuality cannot be sacrificed to the community. 
 Amongst low creatures such as Myxomycetes and 
 Siphonophora, the individuals disappear wholly or 
 almost wholly in the community ; but the sacrifice 
 is small, as in these creatures the consciousness of 
 individuality has not appeared. Social insects are in 
 a stage intermediate between that of the lower animals 
 and man. It is only in man that the individual has 
 definitely acquired consciousness, and for that reason 
 a satisfactory social organization cannot sacrifice it 
 on pretext of the common good. To this conclusion 
 the study of the social evolution of living beings 
 leads me. It is plain thatthe studyof human individ- 
 uality is a necessary step in the organization of the 
 social life of human beings. — "Prolongation of 
 Life", p. 231. 
 
 One might think in reading "The Nature of 
 Man" that Metchnikoff was laying the foundations 
 of a pessimistic instead of an optimistic system of 
 philosophy. He begins, as Schopenhauer or Von 
 Hartmann might have done, by showing how ill 
 adapted to his environment is that simian abortion 
 we call man. Among the examples of marvelously 
 perfect adaptation of structure or instinct in nature 
 are cited Darwin's orchids and Fabre's wasps. M. 
 Fabre seems to be indispensable to French philos- 
 
 [ 183 ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ophers. We have seen that Maeterlinck and 
 Bergson get some of their finest illustrations from 
 this "Homer of the Insects." But man is not so 
 favored of nature as the orchids or wasps : 
 
 There can be no doubt but that the human con- 
 stitution, although in many ways perfect and sub- 
 lime, exhibits numerous and serious disharmonies 
 which are the source of all our troubles. Not being 
 so well adapted to the conditions of life as orchids are, 
 for example, in the matter of their fertilization by the 
 mediation of insects, or the burrowing wasps for the 
 protection of their young, humanity resembles rather 
 those insects the instinct of which guides them to- 
 ward the flame which burns their wings. 
 
 In the first half of the nineteenth century there 
 were published at the cost of five thousand dollars 
 apiece eight volumes known as the Bridgewater 
 Treatises on " The Power, Wisdom and Goodness 
 of God as Manifested in the Creation," using as 
 illustrations the structure of the hand, the instincts 
 of animals, the chemistry of digestion, and other 
 unworked sources of natural theology. The science 
 was not bad for its time, nor was the argument al- 
 together fallacious. But the authors overlooked 
 one thing, namely, that Bridgewater is a game two 
 can play at, and that it would be equally possible 
 to fill eight other volumes by picking out a different 
 set of facts, almost equally imposing, to prove 
 
 [184] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 something very different, either that there is no 
 God or that there is a devil, either atheism or Mani- 
 cheism. Metchnikoff's "Nature of Man" supplies 
 much of the material that a devil's advocate might 
 then have used in his Anti-Bridgewater Treatises. 
 
 But MetchnikofF, writing in the twentieth cen- 
 tury, makes quite another use of it. He has doubt- 
 less never read the Bridgewater Treatises, nor have 
 many of us. There is no reason to now. They 
 have become waste paper, not because they were 
 false, but because the whole mass of the argument 
 against them has vanished, the half recognized and 
 subconscious argument against theism derivable 
 from the undeniable existence of disharmonies and 
 imperfections in the universe. This battlefield 
 is deserted ; though the same struggle continues, 
 it is on higher ground. This change has been 
 wrought by the introduction of the idea of evolution. 
 We now realize we do not live in a static universe. 
 The theism which is founded on evolution may 
 serenely acknowledge the discords and failures 
 which would be fatal to the theism of the Bridge- 
 water era. And MetchnikofF, as an atheist, is equally 
 untroubled by the existence of misleading instincts 
 and useless, disease-producing organs, for interpret- 
 ing them in the light of evolution he escapes the 
 
 [I8 S ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 slough of nineteenth century pessimism and arrives 
 triumphantly at the goal of optimism. 
 
 At least he says he does. I cannot see that his 
 argument leads to optimism in the strict sense of 
 the word, although it certainly leads him to a very 
 sane and hopeful meliorism. The weakest point 
 in his doctrine of orthobiosis seems to me his theory 
 of euthanasia, that at the end of the " normal 
 cycle" of life — whatever that may be — the desire 
 for life is replaced by an instinct for death. The 
 evidence he adduces in support of this is very scanty 
 and questionable. It is curious to note that it was 
 the experiences of Metchnikoff's brother which 
 supplied Tolstoy with the material for the most 
 harrowing picture of the fear of death in all litera- 
 ture, "The Death of Ivan Ilyitch." 
 
 In "The Prolongation of Life" Metchnikoff de- 
 votes much space to an analysis of the first and 
 second parts of "Faust" and the life of Goethe, 
 whom he manifestly regards as an excellent example 
 of a complete and well-ordered life. The reader 
 will observe that while he condemns Goethe's drink- 
 ing habits because they undermined his constitu- 
 tion, he has, from the standpoint of a naturalist, 
 no word of blame for his promiscuous love affairs, 
 since these contributed to the development of his 
 
 [186] 
 
ELIE METCHNIKOFF 
 
 genius. This is, to say the least, a very one-sided 
 view to take of it. 
 
 But this volume is concerned with the exposition 
 rather than the criticism of the authors discussed, 
 so I will conclude the chapter with a quotation which 
 sums up his philosophy and sets forth his ideals : 
 
 In progress toward the goal, nature will have to be 
 consulted continuously. Already, in the case of the 
 ephemerids, nature has produced a complete cycle of 
 normal life ending in natural death. In the problem 
 of his own fate, man must not be content with the 
 gifts of nature ; he must direct them by his own 
 efforts. Just as he has been able to modify the 
 nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to 
 modify his own constitution, so as to readjust its 
 disharmonies. 
 
 Breeders form a conception of the ideal result when 
 they are about to attempt the production of some 
 new variety which shall be pleasing aesthetically and 
 of service to man. Next, they study the existing 
 individual variations in animals and plants on which 
 they wish to work, and from which they will select 
 with minutest care. The ideal result must have 
 some relation to the constitution of the organism 
 selected. To modify the human constitution, it will 
 be necessary, first, to frame the ideal, and thereafter 
 to set to work with all the resources of science. 
 
 If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men 
 in a kind of religion of the future, this ideal must be 
 founded on scientific principles. And if it be true, 
 as has been asserted so often, that man can live by 
 faith alone, the faith must be in the power of science. 
 — "The Nature of Man", p. 302. 
 
 [187] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 How to Read Metchnikoff 
 
 The philosophy of Metchnikoff is given in two 
 volumes published in this country by Putnams, 
 "The Nature of Man" and "The Prolongation of 
 Life." The second and later volume will perhaps 
 better serve the purpose of the general reader, but 
 either will give the main outlines of his theories. 
 Both volumes are written for the medical student 
 rather than the public, and discuss some unpleasant 
 subjects, but not in any objectionable manner. The 
 English translation, at least in the first editions, is 
 clumsy and careless. These works in the original 
 are entitled "Essais sur la nature humaine", Paris, 
 1903, and "Essais optimistes", Paris, 1907. The 
 German version, "Studien tiber die Natur des 
 Menschen", Leipsic, 1904, is prefaced by Ostwald. 
 "The New Hygiene", Three Lectures on the Pre- 
 vention of Infectious Diseases, prefaced by Lankes- 
 ter, is published by W. T. Keever & Co., Chicago. 
 
 Articles by Metchnikoff easily accessible are : 
 "Studies in Natural Death", in Harper's Mag- 
 azine, Vol. CXIV, p. 272; "The Utility of Lactic 
 Microbes", in Century, Vol. LXXIX, p. 53; "Old 
 Age", in Smithsonian Report, 1904. 
 
 A criticism of Metchnikoff's individualism from a 
 socialistic point of view is "The Optimism of Metch- 
 nikoff", by F. Carrel, in Fortnightly Review, Vol. 
 LXXXIX, p. 51. A criticism to which Metchnikoff 
 has made a reply in his second volume is "Morale et 
 Biologie", by D. Parodi, in Revue philosophique, 
 Vol. LVIII, p. 113. '^Metchnikoff, philosophe" 
 (Bibliotheque des Entretiens Idealistes, Paris, 191 1) 
 is a pamphlet by a young Catholic, Fernand Divoire, 
 in a style of frantic denunciation. 
 
 [188] 
 
elie metchnikoff 
 
 An interesting character sketch by A. McFarlane 
 is to be found in McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXV, p. 
 541. Two interviews with Metchnikoff by Herman 
 Bernstein are contained in With Master Minds (Uni- 
 versal Series Publishing Company New York). Sir 
 Ray Lankester in his "Science from an Easy Chair" 
 has a chapter on "Metchnikoff and Tolstoy." 
 
 Good articles on the theory of immunity as de- 
 veloped by Metchnikoff and others are : "The War 
 Against Disease", in Edinburgh Review, October, 
 1910; "Paul Ehrlich: The Man and His Work", 
 by Marguerite Marks, in McClure's Magazine, 191 1, 
 p. 184; "Natural Resistance to Disease", by Dr. 
 Simon Flexner, of the Rockefeller Institute, in Pop- 
 ular Science Monthly, July, 1909, and in Smithsonian 
 Report, 1909; "The Struggle for Immunity", by 
 H. S. Williams, in Harper's Magazine, December, 
 1911. Circular No. 171 of the Bureau of American 
 Industry of the United States Department of Agri- 
 culture gives a description of Fermented Milks by 
 F. A. Rogers. 
 
 [189] 
 
CHAPTER V 
 WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 Maeterlinck expresses his idea of happiness 
 through the symbol of the Blue Bird. Ostwald 
 expresses his by 
 
 G = E 2 - W 2 
 
 Poets and scientists both are necessarily sym- 
 bolists. The apparent conflict between them is 
 chiefly a difference of taste as to the choice of sym- 
 bols, for both stand together in opposition to the 
 great mass of near-sighted humanity, those who 
 live only in the concrete, too absorbed in the con- 
 sideration of particulars to discover for themselves 
 the One in the Many. The most conspicuous differ- 
 ence- between the symbolism of poetry and that of 
 science is that the former is old and the latter new. 
 The poet prefers to go to antiquity for symbols, 
 bringing down from the attic to the living-room 
 some metaphorical heirloom, enriched by the asso- 
 ciations of generations and carrying with it a pen- 
 umbra of indefinable suggestions, which makes it 
 appear to mean more than it does. So Maeterlinck 
 
 [ 190 ] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 chooses for his fairy play "The Blue Bird", which 
 had lived in folk lore for countless ages. But the 
 scientist prefers to invent a new symbol for the 
 occasion in order to get something that shall convey 
 neither more nor less meaning than what he him- 
 self puts into it at the time. Poets and artists of 
 all sorts get credit for greater perspicacity and 
 prophetic power than they deserve, by reason of 
 later generations reading into their sayings much 
 more meaning than was ever in the mind of the 
 author. This unearned increment of reputation, 
 compounded annually, is all that keeps some ancient 
 authors alive nowadays. But the man of science 
 disdains such support and is careful to define his 
 terms so that posterity may give him no more 
 credit than he thinks he has earned by his own 
 exertions. 
 
 The scientific symbolism is not only more exact 
 than the poetic, but it is also more practical. Doubt- 
 less "The Blue Bird" of Maurice Maeterlinck and 
 "The Blue Flower" of Henry Van Dyke have con- 
 tributed to happiness as well as stood for it, but 
 they are not of much service in showing which of 
 two courses in any dilemma will lead to it. The 
 unpoetical reader might suppose that to be blue 
 was to be happy. Ostwald, however, insists that 
 
 [ 191 ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 his formula is not a mere mathematical jest, but 
 applicable to practical affairs, and like a true physi- 
 cian he has tried it on himself and knows that it 
 works. He tells us that he solved one of the most 
 difficult problems of his life by its aid, as, for exam- 
 ple, when at the age of fifty-three the question arose 
 whether he should remain professor of chemistry 
 in Leipzig University or retire to his country place 
 at Gross-Bothen to take up the new profession of 
 " practical idealist." 
 
 An interpretation of Ostwald's formula for happi- 
 ness, 
 
 G - E i - W* 
 will enable the reader to try it for himself. G stands 
 for happiness (Gliick). This, according to the theory 
 of energetics, is dependent upon the amount of 
 energy expended, might in fact be measured by the 
 amount of carbon dioxid produced by conscious 
 activity if we could separate this from the uncon- 
 scious physiological processes of the body. Part 
 of this Energy is expended in agreeable ways ; let 
 that be represented by E. But there is always 
 another part of conscious activity which is unpleas- 
 ant, such as painful feelings, disagreeable thoughts* 
 unwilling duties ; that may be represented by W 
 (widerwillig) . 
 
 [192] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 The second term (E* — W 2 ) of the equation may 
 be resolved into the two factors E + W and E — 
 W, and increase of either will tend to increase the 
 amount of happiness. The way of the strenuous 
 life is to increase the first (E + W), the total ex- 
 penditure of energy ; that is, to exert one's self to 
 the utmost in desired directions, even though opposi- 
 tion and anxieties increase also; to bring up the 
 health to its highest point that the supply of chemical 
 energy may not fail ; to cut down as much as possible 
 on sleep, for that is the time when both E and W 
 sink to zero. This is what Ostwald calls Hero- 
 happiness (Heldengluck). 
 
 But men of more timid temperament prefer to 
 devote their attention to the other factor (E — W), 
 because herein lies the danger, not merely of no 
 happiness (when G = 0), but of unhappiness, for 
 G becomes a minus quantity when W is greater 
 than E. They strive rather to reduce W, the un- 
 pleasant part of life, than to increase E, the pleasant. 
 To avoid risks, to curb ambition, to limit desires, 
 to curtail expenditure, to seek contentment rather 
 than delight — this is the way of the simple life 
 and leads to Hut-happines9 (Huttengluck). This 
 may indeed attain the same result, give an equal 
 value for G, but the happiness so reached is very 
 
 [193] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 different in kind, though equivalent in degree, to 
 that for which strive men of the type of Napoleon, 
 Edison, and Roosevelt. The search for happiness 
 by limitation instead of expansion leads at its 
 extreme to stoicism, to asceticism, to nirvana, to 
 the state of mind of Diogenes, who threw away his 
 sole utensil, the cup, when he saw a man drink out 
 of his hand. 
 
 Many moralists before Ostwald have attempted 
 to put this idea into semi-mathematical form, gen- 
 erally with the object of advising the seeker after 
 happiness to take the lower and smoother road. 
 Carlyle says in "Sartor Resartus": 
 
 "The Fraction of Life can be increased in value, 
 not so much by increasing your Numerator as by less- 
 ening your Denominator. Nay, unless my Algebra 
 deceive me, Unity itself divided by Zero will give 
 Infinity. Make thy claim of wages a zero, then ; 
 thou hast the world at thy feet. Well did the Wisest 
 of our time write ' It is only with Renunciation that 
 Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.' " 
 
 James, in his "Principles of Psychology", expresses 
 it as follows : 
 
 Self-esteem = p Success " 
 Pretensions. 
 
 That is, our self-esteem is determined by the ratio 
 
 [194] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 of our actualities to our supposed potentialities. 
 And he suggests that some Bostonians "would be 
 happier men and women to-day if they could once 
 for all abandon the notion of keeping up a Musical 
 Self and without shame let people hear them call a 
 symphony a nuisance." 
 
 William Winter puts the thought in rhyme : 
 
 " I have set my heart on nothing, you see 
 And so the world goes well with me." 
 
 One is irresistibly impelled to quote Johnson's 
 remark : 
 
 " Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, 
 is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be 
 equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happi- 
 ness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable con- 
 sciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having 
 equal happiness with a philosopher." 
 
 Boswell tags this in his usual style with the obser- 
 vation that this very question was " very happily 
 illustrated" by the Reverend Mr. Robert Brown at 
 Utrecht, who said that "a small drinking glass and 
 a very large one may be equally full, but the large 
 one holds more than the small." 
 
 Ostwald applies his formula to James's "Varieties 
 of Religious Experience", and shows that the con- 
 vert leaves the mourner's bench at the moment 
 
 [1951 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 when the factor (E — W) changes its sign from 
 minus to plus. (Here W apparently stands for 
 the devil.) The equation also serves him as an 
 argument against the use of alcohol and other nar- 
 cotics, which, though they temporarily reduce W 
 by sinking all unpleasantnesses below the threshold 
 of consciousness, are likely to make happiness a 
 minus quantity. Wealth, being the most compact 
 and convenient form of energy, may serve to increase 
 E or diminish W, but not in proportion to its amount. 
 Dramatic criticism may even be made mathematical. 
 Jaques has a large W\ Rosalind has a large E; put 
 them together and you have "As You Like It." 
 
 But I should not devote so much space to what is 
 merely an extreme and, some would say, an extrava- 
 gant application of Ostwald's philosophy. 1 It is, 
 however, a characteristic example of his mode of 
 thought and may serve as well as any other to intro- 
 duce the reader to his fundamental theory of ener- 
 getics, which formed the leading principle of his 
 chemical work, and which he has now carried over 
 into the fields of philosophy and sociology. 
 
 It is not necessary to explain the modern concep- 
 tion of energy, for we all learned about it in our 
 
 1 The reader who is interested and reads German will find a full dis- 
 cussion of the formula and its significance in Die Forderung des Tages. 
 
 [I 9 6] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 school days, and here we need only have in mind 
 its two fundamental laws. The first is the law of 
 the conservation of energy, discovered by Mayer, 
 which states that the, amount of energy remains 
 unchanged whatever its transformations. To take 
 a familiar example, when we buy coal, we are really 
 buying chemical energy, not carbon. When we 
 burn it, we let the carbon go off up the chimney, 
 but the heat energy we keep as completely as possible, 
 and by means of a boiler transform it into the expan- 
 sive energy of steam, which is converted into the 
 motion energy of piston rod and wheel, and when 
 connected with a dynamo may become electrical 
 energy. The electrical energy we can conduct by 
 a wire into our homes and there convert it into the 
 light energy of an incandescent bulb, the heat energy 
 of an electric griddle, or the motion energy of a fan 
 or carpet sweeper. That is, whenever any kind 
 of energy disappears, some other kind of energy 
 crops up somewhere in exactly equivalent amount. 
 In any experiment where they can be measured, 
 the income and outgo of energy will be found to 
 balance exactly, just like a bookkeeper's ledger. 
 
 But here is another thing to consider. The fact 
 that a trial balance comes out even does not prove 
 that the concern is not losing money, and we see 
 
 [197] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the same thing in the energy business. In the series 
 of transformations we have followed above, from the 
 coal of the power house to the utensils of the house- 
 hold, there is leakage all along the line, a little lost 
 in friction and radiated heat in each of the machines, 
 and a big waste, some eighty-five per cent, in the 
 steam engine. Ostwald uses the ingenious illustra- 
 tion of a traveler who goes through Europe changing 
 his money at every frontier, and losing a little each 
 time through the changer's discount. A good money 
 changer is one who is satisfied with a moderate 
 commission. A good machine is one that gives 
 back to us almost as much as we give it. But 
 there is none perfect, no, not one. 
 
 This is the second fundamental law of thermo- 
 dynamics, 1 the law of the degradation of energy. 
 For energy has a sort of gravitation of its own. It 
 always wants to run down hill. Heat seeks its 
 level as well as water. If we lay a hot plate, say, 
 a temperature of ioo°, on or under a plate at zero, 
 the heat will spread to the cold plate until both are 
 at 50 , disregarding radiation losses. And when 
 they have come to the same temperature, it is im- 
 
 1 My unconventional definitions of the second law would be repudi- 
 ated by any self-respecting physicist. The reader is therefore warned 
 that the proper way to say it is, "the entropy of the universe tends to a 
 maximum." (Clausius.) 
 
 [198] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 possible to get out of them any further heat move- 
 ment. "You cannot run the mill with the water 
 that's gone by." You have to have a fall of tem- 
 perature to run any kind of heat engine. Every 
 machine, every chemical and physical process, every 
 living being, is leaking energy all the time, that is, 
 transforming it into unavailable forms. That is 
 the way we get our living. The sun is dissipating 
 its heat energy throughout space at a great rate. 
 Our allies, the plants, manage to catch a tiny bit 
 of it and store it in starch and oil, but we eat these 
 and send the energy on its way as heat again. The 
 whole universe, regarded as a big machine, is running 
 down like a clock and, it seems, must ultimately 
 come to a stop, unless, indeed, there is a self-wind- 
 ing attachment hidden away in it somewhere, or 
 somebody outside of it all to wind it up occasion- 
 ally. 
 
 This, however, is one of those questions which 
 Ostwald calls "pseudo-problems" and from which 
 he would free us by applying the energetic philos- 
 ophy. His test is the following: "Suppose the 
 problem solved and assume any one of all possible 
 answers to be correct, we can then investigate what 
 effect this would have on our conduct. If it pro- 
 duces no effect, the problem is thereby indicated to 
 
 [199] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 be a pseudo-problem." He takes for example the 
 following : 
 
 Did the world have a beginning in time or has it 
 existed from all eternity ? By the way of experi- 
 ment we will assume that it has existed since eternity, 
 and will ask what would change in our conduct by 
 this knowledge ? I find, at least for myself, that 
 nothing would change by this knowledge, and just 
 as little if we assume that there was a beginning in 
 time. Hence I must say that even if I positively 
 learn in some way which of the two possibilities is 
 correct, it would be a matter of perfect indifference 
 to me, and this being the case, we have here a pseudo- 
 problem. The significance of this procedure is ap- 
 parent from the answer to the question as to what 
 we call " correct" or "true." The answer was that 
 which enables us to make accurate predictions. 
 Something that does not allow us to make any pre- 
 diction whatever is essentially of no interest to us in 
 any way, and there is no need of being concerned 
 about it. — "The Modern Theory of Energetics" 
 (Monist, 1907). 
 
 This, of course, is the pragmatic method, and 
 Ostwald acknowledges the relationship by observing : 
 " Energetics coincides with that movement which 
 has originated on philosophical ground and which 
 pursues very similar ends under the name of prag- 
 matism or humanism." The pragmatic mode of 
 thinking is practically universal among scientific 
 men, but Ostwald is an extreme pragmatist. Proph- 
 
 [ 200] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 ecy is the sole aim of science, according to him, 
 and he virtually denies the possibility of applying 
 the terms truth and falsehood, in the strict sense, 
 to the statements of history. 1 
 
 To catch what we can of this stream of energy 
 and to utilize it to the best advantage, is the aim of 
 human endeavor, the measure of civilization. This 
 is the function of the will in the individual and the 
 duty of the leaders of men. Wealth in all ages 
 consists essentially of the command of energy, 
 whether counted by slave power, horse power, or 
 kilowatt hours. In order to show how Ostwald's 
 sociology grows out of his physics, let me quote 
 the concluding paragraphs of his little book on 
 " Natural Philosophy" : 
 
 The objective characteristic of progress consists in 
 improved methods for seizing and utilizing the raw 
 energies of nature for human purposes. Thus it was 
 a cultural act when a primitive man discovered that 
 he could extend the radius of his muscle energy by 
 taking a pole in his hand, and it was another cultural 
 act when a primitive man discovered that by throw- 
 ing a stone he could send his muscle energy a distance 
 of many meters to the desired point. The effect of 
 the knife, the spear, the arrow, and of all the other 
 primitive implements can be called in each case a 
 purposive transformation of energy. And at the 
 other end of the scale of civilization the most abstract 
 
 1 Was ist Wahrheit? (Monistic he Sonntagsptedigten, Nr. 5). 
 [ 20I ] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS^OF TO-DAY 
 
 scientific discovery, by reason of its generalization 
 and simplification, signifies a corresponding economy 
 of energy for all the coming generations that may 
 have anything to do with the matter. Thus, in 
 fact, the concept of progress as here defined embraces 
 the entire sweep of human endeavor for perfection, 
 or the entire field of culture, and at the same time it 
 shows the great scientific value of the concept of 
 energy. 
 
 If we consider further that, according to the second 
 fundamental principle, the free energy accessible to 
 us can only decrease, but not increase, while the 
 number of men whose existence depends directly on 
 the consumption of a due amount of free energy is 
 constantly on the increase, then we at once see the 
 objective necessity of the development of civilization 
 in that sense. His foresight puts man in a position 
 to act culturally. But if we examine our present 
 social order from this point of view, we realize with 
 horror how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder 
 and war destroy cultural values without substi- 
 tuting others in their place, not only do the countless 
 conflicts which take place between the different 
 nations and political organizations act anticulturally, 
 but so do also the conflicts between the various social 
 classes of one nation, for they destroy quantities of 
 free energy which are thus withdrawn from the total 
 of real cultural values. At present mankind is in a 
 state of development in which progress depends 
 much less upon the leadership of a few distinguished 
 individuals than upon the collective labor of all 
 workers. Proof of this is that it is coming to be 
 more and more the fact that great scientific discover- 
 ies are made simultaneously by a number of inde^- 
 pendent investigators — an indication that society 
 
 [ 202 ] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 creates in several places the individual conditions 
 requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are living at 
 a time when men are gradually approximating one 
 another very closely in their natures, and when the 
 social organization therefore demands and strives 
 for as thorough an equalization as possible in the 
 conditions of existence of all men. 
 
 From the same fundamental conception Ostwald 
 derives his system of ethics, which he sums up in 
 "the energetic imperative": 1 So act that the crude 
 energy is transformed into the higher with the least 
 possible loss. This forms the text of several of his 
 lay sermons such as the one on "Efficiency." 2 
 Efficiency, that is, the ratio of work to means, of 
 accomplishment to opportunity, can be made the 
 measure of a man as well as of a machine, since 
 Ostwald includes all thoughts and feelings as forms 
 of energy. This scientific conception and ideal 
 of efficiency, developed in the laboratory, was first 
 introduced into the shop, thence it has crept into 
 business management, and has even made its un- 
 welcome appearance in university administration. 
 It cannot be much longer kept out from the capital, 
 the church, and the home. It is, in fact, the contribu- 
 tion to our civilization by the fourth and newest 
 
 1 Der energetische 1-mperativ, Ann. d. Nat. Phil., Vol. X. 
 
 2 Printed in The Independent, October 19, 191 1. 
 
 [203] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of the learned professions, that of the engineer. He 
 it is who has started us all wondering how much of 
 what we daily do pays us in any coin, has made 
 us anxious to see some relation between effort and 
 result, has rendered us impatient of unnecessary 
 delay, friction, lost motion, wasted work, unutilized 
 material, and retarded rewards. 
 
 To distinguish low and high forms of energy, says 
 Ostwald, we should consider their relative import- 
 ance for human purposes. Thus bread must be 
 regarded as containing a higher form of chemical 
 energy than wood, although they are very similar 
 in chemical composition and produce about the 
 same number of calories of heat on consumption. 
 
 Kant's categorical imperative, "So act that your 
 conduct may be taken as a universal law ", is, in 
 Ostwald's opinion, neither so comprehensive nor so 
 definite as his energetic imperative, which includes 
 ethical conduct, but is not confined to it. We 
 call one automobile "good" and another "bad" if 
 the former will carry us twice as far as the latter 
 on the same amount of gasoline consumed. A 
 "good" friend is one who helps us in our endeavors 
 through judicious advice and without annoyance, 
 while a "poor" friend only multiplies our difficulties ; 
 here again goodness and badness are determined 
 
 [204] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 by the ratio of the total energy employed and the 
 results obtained. It is this second principle of 
 thermodynamics, the law of the degradation and 
 dissipation of energy, that prevents us from undoing 
 the past, that gives significance to such phrases 
 as "time flies" and "the world moves." The cosmic 
 process is not a reversible reaction. Nietzsche's 
 nightmare of the eternal recurrence, which drove 
 him insane, would have been dispelled by a knowl- 
 edge of elementary physics. 
 
 The second law is therefore of greater importance 
 to philosophy and sociology than the first, the law 
 of the conservation and transmutation of energy. 
 Ostwald's recognition of its significance gives to 
 his philosophy a character decidedly different from 
 the view dominant in the last century, the mecha- 
 nistic theory of the universe. It is a curious thing 
 that Haeckel, the biologist, has, by basing his phi- 
 losophy on the first law, been led to extreme mecha- 
 nistic views, while Ostwald, the physical chemist, 
 by placing greater emphasis upon the second law, 
 comes to conclusions much better suited to the ex- 
 planation of vital phenomena. 
 
 According to the old mechanistic theory, the 
 world could be reduced to two elements, matter 
 and motion. Everything was held to consist in 
 
 [205] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 reality of atoms, in those days generally assumed 
 to be indivisible and eternal. Each atom was at 
 a given instant moving in a certain direction at a 
 certain speed. It followed from this, as was sug- 
 gested in the Philosophical Magazine many years 
 ago, that if each atom should be suddenly stopped 
 and sent going back on its track with the same speed, 
 all events would be reversed and history be repeated 
 backward. If we were watching Waterloo, for 
 example, 1 we should see the dead men rise up one 
 by one, pick up their guns, point them at their 
 enemies, receive into the gunbarrels the gases 
 produced by the explosion of powder, and walk off 
 backward. Napoleon starting as a prisoner on St. 
 Helena would end as Emperor of the French. 
 
 We have all of us had this idea pictorially pre- 
 sented to us in moving picture shows when the film 
 is run through the lantern backward and we see 
 apples leaping from the ground and attaching 
 themselves to the limbs of the tree, and swimmers 
 diving up out of the water and lighting on the 
 springboard. In fact, the reversed film of the 
 cinematograph may be regarded as the reductio ad 
 absurdum of the mechanistic hypothesis. We might 
 expect that a piece of music would sound just as 
 
 1 See Flammarion's scientific fantasy, Lumen. 
 [206] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 well if we put the perforated paper roll into the 
 player piano wrong end first — but somehow it 
 doesn't. We all feel instinctively that there is 
 something ridiculous and impossible about this idea 
 of reversibility when applied to human beings. 
 Even the chemist and the physicist can effect this 
 reversibility only to a limited extent and in special 
 cases, as, for example, when energy is supplied from 
 some external source. A sled can indeed be made 
 to go up hill as well as down, but it is hard work to 
 make it. Wood will burn easily, but no chemist 
 is yet able to get the wood back out of the gases 
 of combustion. The second energy law was taught 
 to us in our infancy by the parable of Humpty- 
 Dumpty. 
 
 Bergson bases his theory of the comic 1 upon the 
 idea that the absurdest of all things is to regard a 
 human being as a machine. That the world is, like 
 man, not rightly to be regarded as a machine is the 
 fundamental theme of Bergson's "Creative Evolu- 
 tion", so there is a striking similarity in point of 
 view between Ostwald and Bergson, notwithstand- 
 ing their diversity of temperament and style. It 
 may be recalled that Bergson also entered into the 
 
 1 Laughter. An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. By Henri 
 Bergson. The Macmillan Company. 
 
 [207] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 realm of metaphysics through the door of mathe- 
 matical physics. 
 
 As early as 1895 Ostwald announced "the over- 
 throw of scientific materialism" ; 1 a startling decla- 
 ration coming from one of the greatest of chemists 
 at a time when chemistry was almost exclusively 
 absorbed in the transformations of matter and only 
 beginning to recognize the importance of the 
 concomitant transformations of energy. When the 
 chemist had put upon the blackboard the equation 
 of a reaction or the structural formula of a compound, 
 he was apt to think that he had told "the truth, 
 the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about 
 it. Against all such crude conceptions Ostwald 
 protested vigorously, preaching a new iconoclasm 
 in the words of the old : "Thou shalt not make unto 
 thee any image or any likeness of anything that is 
 in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, 
 or that is in the water under the earth ; thou shalt 
 not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." 
 He demanded "a science free from hypotheses"; 
 formulas that should merely state what is known 
 to take place, in the place of mechanical models 
 and misleading visualizations. "Matter", said this 
 
 1 Die Ueberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialismus. Liibeck 
 address before the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians. 
 
 [208] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 professor of the most materialistic of the sciences, 
 "is merely a form of thought", which is the same 
 conclusion that Kant had come to a hundred years 
 before in regard to time and space. But whereas 
 Kant had said : "Give me matter and I will build 
 a world out of it ", Ostwald would say : "Away with 
 matter, I will build a world without it." 
 
 "The Actual, that is, what acts upon us, is energy 
 alone", but in so speaking Ostwald must not be 
 understood, as he often is, to imply that energy is 
 the sole substance of which the world is composed. 
 Mass is merely one of the two factors which make 
 up the product known as energy. What the com- 
 mon man regards as the attributes of matter, its 
 hardness, heaviness, color, etc., are simply the effects 
 of various forms of energy on his sense organs. 
 
 Coal should be sold by calories, not tons. Even 
 the courts, slowest of human institutions to take 
 cognizance of new ideas, have come to the conclusion 
 that energy is an entity, for now they will convict 
 a man for stealing it from a third rail, though per- 
 haps they regard the current as a stream of corpus- 
 cles. The unifying value of the energy conception 
 appears when we consider the old riddle of the rela- 
 tion of the mind and body. Between the brain, 
 regarded merely as a collocation of moving molecules, 
 
 [209] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 and the mind, regarded merely as a succession of 
 states of consciousness, there is no conceivable 
 connection, and dualism is inevitable. But if we 
 regard both as forms of energy, the difficulty disap- 
 pears. The " preestablished harmony" of Leib- 
 nitz then becomes the established unity of Ostwald. 
 The idea of energy had its inception in human 
 action, so it is not an alien form of thought. It was 
 borrowed originally from psychology by physics, 
 and there is no impropriety in taking it back. 
 
 What we have been calling explanations in physics, 
 and even in psychology, have been for the most 
 part merely mechanical analogies. We have felt 
 that a phenomenon was "explained" when we could 
 make a working model that we could see and handle. 
 A few years ago physicists were explaining electricity 
 by cumbrous mechanisms of cogwheels and water 
 pipes. In recent textbooks this is reversed, and 
 mechanical phenomena are explained by the use of 
 conceptions developed in the study of electricity, 
 such as "potential", "field", and "capacity." 
 
 The establishment in 1901 of the Annalen der 
 Naturphilosophie, by Wilhelm Ostwald, marked the 
 change in the attitude of prominent scientists 
 toward the problems of speculative philosophy. 
 The pendulum was on its swing back from the 
 
 [210] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 extreme and intolerant empiricism which has been 
 the prevailing trait of scientific workers for so long. 
 
 In its revulsion from the imaginative metaphysics 
 of the ancients and the formal logic of the school- 
 men, modern science resolutely turned away from 
 ambitious attempts to solve the riddle of the uni- 
 verse by brilliant guessing and began the patient 
 accumulation and verification of facts and the de- 
 duction from them of their simplest and most certain 
 inferences. This task came to be considered as 
 the sole sphere of scientific thought ; and there were 
 men who were daring and foolish enough to teach 
 that this was the only method for the advancement 
 of human knowledge. Happily, however, for civili- 
 zation, scientists did not confine themselves to the 
 method prescribed for them by Bacon and other 
 literary men, and of late years it has become generally 
 recognized that the greatest achievements have 
 been made in quite the opposite way — that is, 
 by projecting the imagination into the unknown 
 and then working up to it. Almost all the best 
 scientific work has been done under the guidance of 
 hypotheses ; and purely accidental discoveries have 
 been rare and usually insignificant. In fact, in many 
 branches of science the word invention should be 
 used rather than discovery. The new compound 
 
 [211] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 or the new plant exists clearly in the mind's eye of 
 the chemist or the horticulturist before he sets out 
 to produce it. 
 
 It was not to be expected that men who had al- 
 ready accomplished more in science in a century 
 than had been done in all preceding time would 
 forever keep their trained imaginations from attack- 
 ing the deepest problems of life and destiny ; and 
 it is no wonder that we find some of our greatest 
 scientists turning their attention toward metaphysics 
 and epistemology. The transfer of Professor Mach 
 from the chair of physics to that of the theory of 
 inductive sciences was symbolic of a mental change 
 which was taking place in many minds. 
 
 The removal of the ban against speculative phi- 
 losophy has obviously its dangers, but they are less 
 than have been attached to this form of thought 
 in the past. That mankind should again go back 
 to the sports of its youth and blow soap bubbles 
 merely to watch in them the iridescent but distorted 
 views of the world would be a sad calamity ; but 
 it is not probable that the lesson of a century and 
 a half of patient work will be wholly lost. The 
 dreamer of the future will not dare to build an air 
 castle without at least an option on the site. The 
 danger is not from men of science like Ostwald, 
 
 [212 J 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 Mach, and Poincare, who are so well ballasted that 
 they can carry more sail than ordinary men, but 
 from those who are less qualified and less cautious. 
 We have never, however, been free from the fan- 
 cies of this latter class. Nature abhors a vacuum ; 
 and if any field of intellect is left empty by the wise 
 but overwary, it will speedily be filled by those who 
 have no fears where they tread. The recrudescence 
 of antiquated superstitions and the rise of freak 
 religions are the natural result of confining scientific 
 thought and criticism to the material and practical. 
 Even the plodding compilator of facts has his meta- 
 physical theories, although he would indignantly 
 deny that anything of the kind could be found about 
 his person. Metaphysics may be ignored, but not 
 dispensed with. In the so-called "common sense" 
 point of view, speculative hypotheses are not ex- 
 cluded, but are unconsciously and uncritically 
 accepted. 
 
 Science has evidently been looking on the ground 
 only to be sure of her footing, and now is ready to 
 assert her right to gaze even into the deepest dark- 
 nesses. No Baconian creed will in the future limit 
 the operations of the intellect. We have no right 
 to call any problem insoluble merely because it has 
 remained unsolved. It may be that as great tri- 
 
 [213] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 umphs will reward the scientific method here as in 
 humbler lines. 
 
 In the revolution which has within the last twenty 
 years transformed chemistry from an empirical 
 science based upon material conceptions to a mathe- 
 matical science based upon energetic conceptions, 
 Ostwald has been a leader. Qualitative and quanti- 
 tative analysis which had been hardly more sys- 
 tematic and rational than a kitchen recipe book be- 
 came in his hands a new and delightful study in 
 which even the beginner could use his mind as well 
 as his fingers. Professors of chemistry who had got 
 along happily all their lives with a knowledge of 
 arithmetic as far as and including percentage sud- 
 denly found themselves in need of calculus and other 
 things of that sort. Yale graduates who went to 
 the Leipzig laboratory in the nineties to continue 
 their chemistry were set to study the works of Wil- 
 lard Gibbs, whose name they may indeed have seen 
 in the catalogue of their alma mater, but whose ac- 
 quaintance they were not likely to have made. 
 What was worse, they had to get up their Gibbs in 
 German, 1 since the original papers in the "Transac- 
 tions of the Connecticut Academy" were not avail- 
 
 1 J. Willard Gibbs : "Thermodynamische Studien." Uebersetzt von 
 W. Ostwald. Leipzig: W. Engelmann. 1892. 
 
 [214] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 able, and even in English Gibbs is not light reading. 
 It was Ostwald who first recognized Gibbs as "the 
 greatest scientific genius that the United States 
 has so far produced ", and made his work known to 
 Europe, where it has served as the guide and inspira- 
 tion of some of the most fruitful investigations of 
 the last two decades. 
 
 This is eminently characteristic of Ostwald. His 
 own researches, great as they are, may without 
 injustice be regarded as of less importance than the 
 unique service he has rendered to his science by the 
 discovery and prompt utilization of original theories 
 and generalizations, whether found in the forgotten 
 files of the journals and transactions, in the papers 
 of his contemporaries or the work of his students. 
 This was a task requiring both genius and generosity. 
 What he did for Gibbs, the American, he did for 
 van't Hoff, the Dutchman, and Arrhenius, the 
 Swede, and many others, living and dead. He has 
 always taken a keen interest in individuals. He is 
 not content with the mere name of a great authority 
 in a footnote. He wants to know what manner of 
 man he was and in what words he first made public 
 his discovery. This led him to cultivate the neglected 
 field of chemical history and biography. Most 
 chemists knew nothing at first hand of the work of 
 
 [215] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the men they glibly referred to in their lectures, 
 Avogadro, Bunsen, Dalton, Berzelius, etc. Nor 
 could they have easily become acquainted with 
 them if they had cared to, for the original papers 
 were often inaccessible. So Ostwald started in 
 1889 his series of "The Classics of the Exact 
 Sciences ", reprinting important papers with notes. 
 
 In 1887, when few people knew that there was 
 such a thing as physical chemistry, he founded a 
 journal for it, the' Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie, 
 now in its eighty-first volume, and not room 
 enough yet in its two thousand three hundred pages 
 a year to record the progress of the science. In 
 1902, when most scientists scoffed at the idea of 
 philosophy, he started another venture equally 
 bold, the Annalen der Naturphilosophie. During 
 this period of sixteen years his literary output, not 
 counting the two periodicals and the eighteen volumes 
 of the "Classics of the Exact Sciences", already 
 mentioned, included twenty-two books of 15,850 
 pages altogether; 120 papers making original con- 
 tributions to chemical science comprising 1630 
 pages ; addresses and dissertations amounting to 
 300 pages ; and some 3886 abstracts and 920 book 
 reviews in his journals. Every chemical library 
 has upon its shelves (the plural is usually necessary) 
 
 [216] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 "the big Ostwald," the "Lehrbuch de"r allgemeinen 
 Chemie", the size of a cyclopedia, with the dates 
 of its volumes strung along through the eighties 
 and nineties, though "the little Ostwald", the 
 "Grundriss der allgemeinen Chemie", shows more 
 wear on the binding. And all that, it must be 
 remembered, represents only one side of the activity 
 of this extraordinary man, for during the period of 
 this enormous literary production he was professor of 
 chemistry at the University of Leipzig and director of 
 one of the busiest research laboratories in the world. 
 We find in our American universities nowadays 
 many men who are so absorbed in their investiga- 
 tions that they refuse to consider either the philo- 
 sophical or the practical aspects of their science, 
 and they resent as an insult any demands made 
 upon their time by the outside world. Ostwald 
 has never been so busy as that. Notwithstanding 
 the fact that he has carried on researches in pure 
 science which have obtained for him the Nobel 
 prize, he has not disdained to print letters to painters 
 on the use of pigments and to lecture to housewives 
 on the chemistry of cooking, as well as to bring his 
 knowledge of science to bear upon the educational, 
 social, and religious questions discussed in the peri- 
 odicals of the day. 
 
 [217] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 When we inquire why no American chemist has 
 yet been honored by a Nobel medal, we are apt to 
 be told that laboratory facilities in this country are 
 too inadequate. Ostwald has never been hindered 
 by this obstacle ; not in Riga, where he was his own 
 mechanic and glass blower, equipping the laboratory 
 with home-made burettes, induction coils, and 
 galvanometers ; not in Leipzig, where he worked 
 under conditions that have been described as fol- 
 lows : 1 
 
 " The Leipzig laboratory, in which he worked until 
 1897, was situated in theLandwirtschaftlichelnstitut, 
 an old pile originally devoted to agricultural chemis- 
 try, and in every way unfitted for the carrying on of 
 those delicate experiments which brought Ostwald 
 to the forefront of scientific workers. Research was 
 carried on under countless difficulties ; the light was 
 bad, the rooms unventilated, the heating effected by 
 means of stoves difficult to regulate and producing 
 dust which caused much injury to the finer instru- 
 ments ; no precautions had been taken in laying the 
 foundations to insure the deadening of vibrations ; 
 thus many experiments were ruined ; the lack of 
 space precluded the use of telescopes for reading 
 scales, and altogether it would have been difficult to 
 
 1 Nature, 64, 428 (1901). 
 [218] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 construct a laboratory worse adapted for physico- 
 chemical investigations." 
 
 In one respect, it must be said, the current of 
 scientific thought has gone quite counter to Ostwald's 
 views. The atomic theory, which he was desirous 
 of doing away with, has become substantiated and 
 extended. The kinetic theory of gases has not been 
 displaced by his concept of "volume-energy", and 
 now the motion of the molecules has been made 
 visible by the ultra-microscope, and we hear talk 
 of the "atomic theory of electricity", the "corpus- 
 cular conception of light", and the "granular nature 
 of energy." Even time and space show a tendency 
 to disintegrate and become discrete. But the tide 
 may turn at any moment, and Ostwald's concep- 
 tions once more become fashionable in scientific 
 circles. 
 
 As I say, Ostwald does not appear to be a busy 
 man. Would a busy man take the heart out of a 
 fair summer day to devote himself to the enter- 
 tainment of a wandering American journalist ? If 
 I had not known that he was an editor of two peri- 
 odicals and a leader in some of the most important 
 movements of the day, I might have supposed him 
 a mere gentleman of leisure, as he sat with me on 
 the porch of his country home, willing to talk freely 
 
 [219] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 on any topic I suggested, willing even to listen when 
 I wanted to talk, with never a longing look through 
 his study door at the heavily laden desk and silent 
 typewriter. A big man, as well as a great man, is 
 Ostwald ; genial in manner, direct of speech. His 
 bushy blond beard has mostly lost the color it had 
 when first I saw him in 1904 at the St. Louis Con- 
 gress of Arts and Sciences, and his hair is quite 
 white and now cut short, bristling an inch or two 
 all over his head. He would be recognized as a 
 German professor by his look and bearing, if he were 
 seen anywhere on the globe, yet he could not be 
 called a type specimen, for he is free from the vices 
 to which the average German professor is most 
 addicted, the love of beer, tobacco, and Latin. Also, 
 he hates dueling, although recognizing that it is 
 not so dangerous as American football. 1 
 
 But unconventional as his views may appear, it 
 must not be thought that Ostwald is a faddist. His 
 is a reasoned radicalism, originating not in mere 
 neophilism or iconoclasm, but in the application 
 of scientific principles to the problems of daily life. 
 What distinguishes Ostwald from most other philos- 
 ophers is his willingness to put his principles to the 
 test of experience by striving to live up to them. 
 
 1 " Kultur und Duell " in " Die Forderung des^Tages." 
 [ 220] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 Our conversation was in English necessarily, for 
 though I had taken my first German lessons from 
 Ostwald over twenty years before — using his 
 " Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie" as a primer, 
 instead of Grimm's "Marchen" — he had not been 
 at hand to teach me to speak it. Ostwald, however, 
 speaks English as readily as he does German — 
 or French or Ido. His biographer relates that 
 when he was learning English in the Riga Gymnasium- 
 he had great difficulty in pronouncing "the", until 
 he discovered that he could get the sound by filling 
 his mouth with Zwieback; on the same principle, 
 I suppose, as Demosthenes used pebbles. Now, 
 however, he manages his th's perfectly, and I don't 
 think he had Zwieback in his mouth when he talked 
 with me. 
 
 His language was particularly fluent and forcible 
 when he came to discuss the question of teaching 
 languages. The chief point in his indictment of 
 the German Gymnasium, or secondary school, is 
 the excessive time and excessive honor given to 
 linguistics. He regards the new scientific school 
 (Realschule) as almost as bad as the classical Gym- 
 nasium in this respect, for modern languages are 
 there taught in much the same way as the ancient. 
 The absorption of the student's attention during 
 
 [221] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the impressionable years of his youth in the idio- 
 syncrasies of German grammar, or the monstrosities 
 of English spelling, does not cultivate, but actually 
 impairs, the power of logical and original thinking. 
 Ostwald ascribes Nietzsche's perverted ideas, his 
 misconception of the struggle for existence and his 
 hatred of the common people, to his training in 
 classical philology. He brings forward as a cause 
 of the failure of Austria-Hungary to produce its 
 proportional share of great men, the linguistic 
 struggle which absorbs the energy of its people. 
 The barrier of local language is one of the causes 
 of international friction and lost motion which 
 grieves the mind of a physicist. As a means of 
 overcoming this friction — a linguistic lubricating 
 oil, as it were — he favors the formation of an in- 
 ternational auxiliary language, especially for scien- 
 tific and commercial purposes. 1 I suppose one 
 
 1 Ostwald devoted the $40,000 he got from the Nobel Fund to the 
 attempt to introduce a new language, Ido. Mistral devoted his to the 
 attempt to perpetuate an old language, Provencal. So we see that 
 dynamite money, like dynamite itself, exerts its force in opposite direc- 
 tions. 
 
 Ido is a simplified form of Esperanto, originating in the refusal of 
 Dr. Zamenhof to allow any reforms in the language he had invented. 
 It drops the accented letters and accusative form of Esperanto and 
 utilizes a larger proportion of romance roots common to all European 
 languages. The official organs are Progress (Paris : 3 Rue le Gof) and 
 
 [ 222 ] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 reason why he thinks it possible to construct an 
 artificial world language is because he has seen it 
 done. The rapid expansion of the science of or- 
 ganic chemistry within the present generation has 
 necessitated the invention, as the need for them 
 arose, of more new words than Shakespeare's vocabu- 
 lary contained. Some of these are cumbrous, it 
 is true, rather formulas than words, but remarkable 
 for their succinct significance and are largely com- 
 mon to all languages. Ostwald has recently con- 
 structed a complete new nomenclature of chemistry 
 in Ido and proposes soon to use it for all the abstracts 
 in his Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie, so that 
 the student, after a few hours spent in learning Ido, 
 will have free access to all the literature of this 
 science. Professor Ostwald assured me that he 
 had tried putting his philosophy into the new lan- 
 guage and found it of great benefit in giving clarity 
 and definiteness to his thought. The adoption of 
 
 The International Language (London: 32 Cleveland Square). Ost- 
 wald's new chemical nomenclature began in the May, 1910, number of 
 Progreso. The volume by Ostwald, Jespersen, and three other professors 
 entitled "International Language and Science" (London: Constable, 
 1910), contains an interesting test of the capabilities of the new language, 
 the translation into Ido and back again into English by another person of 
 a page of James's psychology with almost no loss in the process. A page 
 of " Pas Monistische Jahrhundert " appears each week in Ido. 
 
 [223] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 an international language he regards as an important 
 part of the peace movement in which he is now 
 actively engaged. I asked him if he expected that 
 arbitration treaties would put an end to war, and he 
 explained that they would act like a block signal 
 system on a railroad, not always preventing the 
 disaster of war, but lessening the chances of it. 
 
 In order to give effect to practical measures for 
 breaking down the barriers between nations, he has 
 established "An International Institute for the 
 Organization of Intellectual Labor" known as Die 
 Brucke, "The Bridge", or, as he would prefer to put 
 it in Ido, La Ponto. This aims to serve the purpose 
 of a world clearing house of information and a chan- 
 nel of intercourse for all forms of culture. A plan 
 for a uniform system of page sizes for books and 
 periodicals, "the hypotenuse oblong", has been 
 here brought forward and is discussed in Printing 
 Art, April and May, 191 1, July, 191 2. 
 
 So Ostwald, having won the Nobel chemistry 
 prize in 1909, is in a fair way to become in time 
 eligible for the Nobel peace prize. It is in fact 
 characteristic of the man that, having achieved suc- 
 cess in one field of human endeavor, he should turn 
 his attention to another. It is part of his theory 
 of the art of life. I was curious to know why he 
 
 [224] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 had left Leipzig and chemistry for Gross-Bothen 
 and philosophy, had abandoned one of the greatest 
 of universities and the most popular of the sciences 
 for the Saxon village and a field of thought reputed 
 as unproductive. He explained to me that in early 
 years he had a leaning toward philosophy, but in 
 those days the subject was looked upon with dis- 
 favor. Now things have changed. People realize 
 that it is necessary to take a wide as well as a close 
 view. Civilization advances by alternating periods 
 of specialization and generalization. We are now 
 entering upon the second phase. 
 
 Then, too, he had come to the conclusion from his 
 study of great scientists that the men who had ac- 
 complished most through the prolongation of their 
 productive period had done so by changing their 
 occupation two or three times in the course of their 
 lifetime; for example, Helmholtz, who devoted the 
 first half of his adult life to physiology and medicine 
 and the last to physics, being equally eminent in 
 each ; and Humboldt, who kept up his work to 
 the close of his ninety years by shifting from one 
 field of science to another. Having come to this 
 conclusion, Ostwald, as an experimental scien- 
 tist, was obliged to try it upon himself. The suc- 
 cess of the experiment indicates that rotation of 
 
 [225] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 crops is a good plan in menticulture as well as 
 agriculture. 
 
 He carries out the same principle in his daily 
 life. When tired with philosophizing, he turns to 
 painting. This he finds relieves the mind better 
 than anything else, for it sends the blood to another 
 side of the brain, while if he tries to secure rest by 
 lying down, the brain goes on working in the same 
 old lines. This absorption in artistic effort he has 
 used in his Harvard lecture on "Individuality and 
 Immortality", when he is arguing that the highest 
 happiness is found rather in the obliteration of 
 individuality than its persistence. This conclu- 
 sion is familiar to us as that of the mystics, but 
 Ostwald reaches it characteristically by another 
 way, the second law of energetics. After speaking 
 of the tendency of liquids and of heat toward diffu- 
 sion and consequent loss of identity, he applies the 
 principle to society and psychology. The passage 
 is worth quoting because it is practically a direct 
 contradiction of Spencer's fundamental theory that 
 evolution is a progress from homogeneity to hetero- 
 geneity, both for matter and for energy. The 
 difference results, I think, chiefly from the fact 
 that Spencer's attention was fixed upon the first 
 law, that of the conservation of energy, for the 
 
 [226] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 importance of the second law, that of the dissipa- 
 tion of energy, was not recognized till long after- 
 ward. 1 The reader will notice that the second law 
 is decidedly democratic in its implications. 
 
 It is a strange thing indeed that by merely being 
 associated with another thing of the same kind iden- 
 tity is lost. And still more strange is the fact that 
 every being of this kind seems driven by an irresisti- 
 ble impulse to seek every occasion for losing its 
 identity. Every known physical fact leads to the 
 conclusion that diffusion, or a homogeneous distribu- 
 tion, of energy is the general aim of all happenings. 
 No change whatever seems to have occurred, and 
 probably none ever will occur, resulting in a con- 
 centration greater than, the corresponding dissipation 
 of energy. A partial concentration may be brought 
 about in a system, but only at the expense of a greater 
 dissipation, and the sum total is always an increase in 
 dissipation. 
 
 While we are as sure as science can make us about 
 the general validity of this law as applied to the 
 physical world, its application to human develop- 
 ment may be doubted. It seems to me to hold good 
 in this case also, if it is applied with proper caution. 
 The difficulty lies in the circumstance that we have 
 no exact objective means of measuring homogeneity 
 and heterogeneity in human affairs, and we can 
 therefore not study any given system closely enough 
 to draw a quantitative conclusion. It seems pretty 
 certain that increase of culture tends to diminish the 
 
 1 Spencer laid the foundation of his philosophy in the essay on " Prog- 
 ress : Its Law and Cause " more than twenty years before the publication 
 of Clausius's " Die mechanische Warmetheorie." 
 
 [237] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 differences between men. It equalizes not only the 
 general standard of living, but attenuates also even 
 the natural differences of sex and age. From this 
 point of view I should look upon the accumulation 
 of enormous wealth in the hands of a single man as 
 indicating an imperfect state of culture. 
 
 The property which has been described as an 
 irresistible tendency toward diffusion may also be 
 observed in certain cases in man. In conscious 
 beings such natural tendencies are accompanied by 
 a certain feeling which we call will, and we are happy 
 when we are allowed to act according to these ten- 
 dencies or according to our will. Now, if we recall 
 the happiest moments of our lives, they will be found 
 in every case to be connected with a curious loss of 
 personality. In the happiness of love this fact will 
 be at once discovered. And if you are enjoying 
 intensely a work of art, a symphony of Beethoven's, 
 for example, you find yourself relieved of the burden 
 of personality and carried away by the stream of 
 music as a drop is carried by a wave. The same 
 feeling comes with the grand impressions nature 
 gives us. Even when I am sitting quietly sketching 
 in the open there comes to me in a happy moment a 
 sweet feeling of being united with the nature about 
 me, which is distinctly characterized by complete 
 forgetfulness of my poor self. We may conclude 
 from this that individuality means limitations and un- 
 happiness, or is at least closely connected with them. 
 
 Professor Ostwald showed me the studio which 
 now takes the place of the laboratory. It is still 
 part laboratory, for he is experimenting in pigments 
 and has invented new forms of crayons or pastels 
 
 [228] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 and methods of fixation. In painting, as in every- 
 thing else, he works with rapidity and effectiveness. 
 Three days at Niagara Falls gave him two dozen 
 or more pictures. He has a good eye for pictur- 
 esqueness and uses vivid and varied coloration. He 
 utilized his time at the University of California to 
 get some fine views of Berkeley and Professor Loeb's 
 seaside laboratory. His stay at Harvard as ex- 
 change professor in 1905 gave him many scenes 
 from Marblehead and Cambridge, among them a 
 striking picture of the Harvard stadium seen across 
 the river flats and looking as imposing as the Coli- 
 seum. Photography he has practiced from boy- 
 hood. It was by this and the manufacture of fire- 
 works in his mother's kitchen that he took his first 
 steps in chemistry. He has always been fond of 
 music, both as listener and performer, playing the 
 violin well, and, says his conscientious biographer, the 
 bassoon very badly. We are also told that in his 
 student days he composed a symphony, wrote much 
 poetry, and applied himself diligently to the study 
 of the laws of motion by experimenting for hours 
 on the impact of elastic ivory balls upon a plane 
 green surface. 
 
 Walking, however, has ever been his chief recrea- 
 tion, if we can call that a recreation which is the 
 
 [229] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 means of his most productive thought. After lunch 
 he showed me about his estate, a wooded upland 
 overlooking the village houses, clustered about 
 kirk and Gasthaus, and, beyond, the level, orderly 
 Saxon landscape, with its leisurely windmills. The 
 winding walks appear to be sufficiently long to enable 
 him to evolve undisturbed the most complicated 
 German sentence. The stranger can find his way 
 to Landhaus Energie by inquiring of a villager for 
 "the house with the big post box", for when Ostwald 
 took up his residence in Gross-Bothen, this provision 
 had to be made for the enormous mail coming to 
 him from all parts of the world. 
 
 One can generally tell in Germany the date of 
 erection or occupancy of a country house by whether 
 it is called a " Filla" or a " Landhaus. ," The Ger- 
 manic movement is bent upon expelling all the 
 foreigners from the language. So now we see 
 Fahrkarte in place of Billet, formerly used ; Fern- 
 sprecher in place of Telefon; Zzveikampf in place of 
 Duett; and Einheitslehre in place of Monismus. 
 The adoption of an international auxiliary language 
 would, Professor Ostwald explained to me, facilitate 
 this movement, for it would leave each local lan- 
 guage to develop in its own way, free from the 
 penalty of isolation. 
 
 [230] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 I thought, as I walked back through the smooth, 
 clean, tree-lined road to the railroad station, that 
 here at least was a man who had attained that in- 
 ternal peace and happiness, that external honor 
 and usefulness, which theoretically should reward 
 all philosophers. Few men have so wide a fame in 
 science. Still fewer have so many devoted friends 
 among their former students. That he has any 
 personal enemies it would be hard to believe, though 
 he has many opponents. He has earned his success 
 by his own exertions, working his way up to his 
 present position by sheer force of character and 
 ability. He was the second son of a master cooper 
 of Riga, an old Hansa town of Baltic Russia. He 
 was born September 2, 1853, and educated at the 
 Real-gymnasium of Riga and the University of 
 Dorpat, Russia (1872-1875). His dissertation at 
 the conclusion of his course here, on "The Mass 
 Action of Water", broke new ground in a field that 
 he was henceforth to make his own. He thought 
 himself lucky then to secure a position as assistant 
 in physics at Dorpat at two hundred and fifty dollars 
 a year, because this gave him an opportunity for 
 research, and his master's and doctor's dissertations 
 attracted attention by their bold adoption and devel- 
 opment of the new theories of solutions and affinity. 
 
 [231] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 He utilized his vacations at Riga in cultivating — 
 by-means of piano and paint brush — o the acquaint- 
 ance of Fraulein Helene von Reyher, whom he mar- 
 ried when he was twenty-seven. His comrades 
 reminded him that not long before he had declared 
 that he would never marry, for he should devote 
 all his time to science. But he answered: "I had 
 to marry, because the girl interfered with my work." 
 The measure was efficacious, for she has not inter- 
 fered with his work since, even finding time to assist 
 in his literary labors, although she has brought up 
 five children. They took their wedding journey in 
 a postwagon from Riga to Dorpat and set up house- 
 keeping with a kerosene stove and a small piano as 
 their principal furniture ; no sofa. Readers who 
 understand the importance of the sofa in a German 
 household will appreciate the deprivation. The 
 next year he was called to his native city as professor 
 of chemistry in the Riga Polytechnic, and in 1887 
 he left Russia for Germany to take the chair of 
 chemistry at Leipzig University. 
 
 In his study of men of science Ostwald has in- 
 troduced the distinction of classicist and romanticist. 
 The classicist keeps to one line of thought and devel- 
 ops it by himself logically and completely. His 
 mind works mathematically, and he is fond of sys- 
 
 [232] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 terns and formulation, often addicted to dogmatism. 
 He is accurate and thorough, but deficient in experi- 
 mental ability and regardless of practical appli- 
 cations. He is reluctant to publish and is apt to 
 be a poor teacher, exerting little personal influence 
 on his students and sometimes none on his contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 The romanticist, on the other hand, is usually a 
 good teacher and often the founder of a school of 
 thought. He has the expansive temperament and 
 genial disposition ; fond of conversation and given 
 to rapid publication. He carries on many different 
 lines of work at the same time and is eager to put 
 them into practice as soon as possible. He is an 
 adventurous theorizer, willing to risk a leap in the 
 dark, arriving at conclusions by a sort of intuition 
 and not always able to explain how he got his results. 
 He is, therefore, liable to make conspicuous mis- 
 takes and is apt to be impatient of details. The 
 romanticist gets paid in current coin, that is to say, 
 in the devotion of his disciples and in honors from 
 his colleagues, sometimes even in applause and wealth 
 from a grateful public. The classicist has to put 
 up with deferred payment, and his services to science 
 often receive no adequate recognition until after he 
 is dead and sometimes not then. 
 
 I 233 1 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Among American scientists we have almost per- 
 fect specimens of these two genera. Count Rumford 
 was a typical romanticist and Willard Gibbs a typical 
 classicist, and there was, as I have shown elsewhere, 1 
 the greatest possible contrast in their characters 
 and careers. Ostwald, it is unnecessary to say, 
 has all the characteristics of the romanticist. He 
 has become a world teacher through his books and 
 periodicals. He has trained in his laboratory 
 Arrhenius, Nernst, and many Others of almost equal 
 eminence. He has had the satisfaction of seeing 
 his abstract theories become the working basis of 
 enormous industries. 
 
 It is worthy of note that the science which in 
 Germany has been most closely connected with 
 the universities and in which the most pure research 
 has been done, has developed most rapidly and 
 proved most profitable. The annual value of the 
 products of the chemical industries of Germany is 
 over three hundred million dollars. And this is 
 only one of the sources of the new wealth which is 
 coming to Germany and making that country one 
 of the foremost of world powers. In Great Britain 
 emigration exceeds immigration, while in Germany 
 of late the reverse is true, although in Germany the 
 1 "Leading American Men of Science." (Holt & Company.) 
 {234] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 increase in population from the surplus of births over 
 deaths is nine hundred thousand, twice what it is 
 in Great Britain. At this rate, Germany will soon 
 have a population twice ,as large as that of Great 
 Britain. And the wealth of Germany is increasing 
 faster than the population, notwithstanding the 
 heavy drains of army and navy. I asked Professor 
 Ostwald the cause of Germany's amazing prosperity. 
 "We Germans believe in science," he answered 
 simply. 
 
 The ideals of system, economy, and efficiency 
 which have been developed in the laboratory have 
 been applied in Germany more than elsewhere to 
 military affairs, the promotion of commerce, and 
 methods of administration. That the scientific 
 view should prevail in dealing with all social prob- 
 lems is Ostwald's intent, and in furtherance of this 
 aim he is devoting his chief attention to the dis- 
 cussion of the ethical and political questions of the 
 day through the Monist societies. As an example 
 of his mode of thought on such topics, I quote a 
 passage from his "Individuality and Immortality": 
 
 There can be no doubt about nature being full of 
 cruelty. All through the whole realm of organic 
 beings we find in nearly every class of animals and 
 plants some species which live at the expense of their 
 
 [235] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 fellow creatures. I mean parasitic organisms of 
 every kind, whether they live in the interior of their 
 hosts, whom they kill or make miserable, or whether 
 they feed directly on other creatures. No one thinks 
 of punishing a cat who tortures a poor mouse for no 
 vital purpose whatever, and we find it perfectly 
 natural that the larvae of certain wasps should 
 develop in the interior of caterpillars, slowly devour- 
 ing their hosts from within. It is only man who tries 
 to change this general way of nature's and to dimin- 
 ish as far as possible cruelty and injustice to his 
 fellow man and his fellow creatures. And from the 
 strong desire that this black stain should be removed 
 as fully as possible from humanity, the idea developed 
 that there must be beyond our bodily life a possibility 
 of compensating for the evil which is done and for 
 that which is suffered during life without due pun- 
 ishment or reward as suggested by our sense of 
 justice. 
 
 But reward and punishment take on a wholly 
 different aspect when we regard mankind as one 
 collective being. Then the single individual is 
 comparable to a cell in a highly developed organism. 
 Destruction of his fellow cells would be a nuisance 
 and a menace to the whole organism, and therefore 
 any cell which destroyed its neighbors would be 
 either removed from the organism or else encysted 
 and kept from doing further damage. And on the 
 other hand such cells as fulfilled useful purposes 
 would be nourished and protected. 
 
 The very necessity for overcoming such dangerous 
 actions on the part of the cells means a decrease in 
 the efficiency of the organism, since the work neces- 
 sary for the purpose could be better used for the 
 immediate benefit of the organism itself. The best 
 
 [236] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 thing would then be to avoid beforehand the forma- 
 tion of such bad cells, and an organism possessed of 
 appropriate means of doing this would have a great 
 advantage. 
 
 The application of these considerations to the 
 human collective organism is obvious. Punishment 
 means in every case a loss, and the aim of increasing 
 culture is not to make punishment more effective, 
 but to make it unnecessary. The more each individ- 
 ual is filled with the consciousness that he belongs 
 to the great collective organism of humanity, the less 
 will he be able to separate his own aims and interests 
 from those of humanity. A reconciliation between 
 duty to the race and personal happiness is the result, 
 as well as an unmistakable standard by which to 
 judge our own actions and those of our fellow 
 men. 
 
 Self-sacrifice has been considered in all ages and 
 by all religions as the very highest perfection of 
 ethical development. At the same time every man 
 who has thought a little deeper has been aware that 
 the self-sacrifice must have a meaning, that it must 
 result in some effect which could not be attained by 
 other means. Otherwise the self-sacrifice would not 
 be a gain, but rather a loss, to humanity. But we 
 consider self-sacrifice for the sake of humanity as 
 justified, and this corresponds with our general feel- 
 ing. We admire a man who throws himself into a 
 fire or a torrent to save a child from death ; it should 
 mean even more to us when a physician goes into the 
 midst of a raging pestilence conscious of the peril 
 awaiting him. But we do not esteem a man the 
 more for risking his life to save his money from a 
 burning house. 
 
 [237] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 How to Read Ostwald 
 
 The only one of Ostwald's philosophical works 
 which is obtainable in English is the "Grundriss der 
 Naturphilosophie", published in Reclam's Universal- 
 Bibliothek (Leipzig) and translated by Thomas 
 Seltzer and published by Henry Holt & Company, 
 New York, under the title "Natural Philosophy." 
 This is intended as a succinct popular exposition of 
 the fundamental principles of all the sciences and is 
 mostly devoted to a systematic consideration of the 
 theory of knowledge and laws of logic. It is, there- 
 fore, not so interesting to the general reader as 
 some of his untranslated works in which he discusses 
 a variety of ethical and social questions from the 
 scientific standpoint, as for example "Die Forderung 
 des Tages" ("The Day's Demands") (Leipzig: 
 Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft). His "Grosse 
 Manner" (same publisher) contains biographical 
 sketches of Davy, Mayer, Faraday, Liebig, Gerhardt, 
 and Helmholtz as well as his general observations on 
 the character and training of scientific discoverers. 
 Ostwald's Harvard lecture on "Individuality and 
 Immortality" was published by the Houghton, 
 Mifflin Company, 1906. He is now issuing a series 
 of informal talks on scientific ideals and morals under 
 the title of "Monistische Sonntagspredigten" (Verlag 
 des Deutschen Monisten-Bundes in Berlin). A 
 second series was published by the Akademische 
 Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, and a third by the 
 Verlag Unesma, Leipzig. A few of the titles will 
 indicate their character and scope: "Love One An- 
 other", "The Jatho Case", "How Evil' Came into 
 the World", "The Freedom of the Will", "What is 
 Truth ?" "Nietzsche and the Struggle for Existence", 
 
 [238] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 "Natural Science and Paper Science", "The Philoso- 
 pher's Stone", "Efficiency." The last named was 
 published in The Independent, October 19, 191 1. 
 "The Wave Theory of History", an explanation of 
 the cause of periodic alternations in finance and 
 politics, was published in The Independent, July 10, 
 1913. An article, "Breaking Barriers", appeared 
 in The Masses, February, 191 1. It is greatly to be 
 desired that all of these "Monistic Sunday Sermons" 
 as well as "The Day's Duty" and "Great Men" be 
 translated into English, as they represent a point of 
 view of growing importance in modern thought. 
 
 Other articles by Ostwald accessible in English are : 
 "The Philosophical Meaning of Energy", in The 
 International Quarterly, Vol. VII ; "The Modern 
 Theory of Energetics", with criticism by Dr. Carus, in 
 The Monist, 1907 ; "Chemical Energy" in the Journal 
 of the American Chemical Society, August, 1893, and 
 in the Smithsonian Report for 1893 ; "A Contribu- 
 tion to the Theory of Science", his address before 
 the Section of Methodology at the St. Louis Congress, 
 in Popular Science Monthly, 1905, p. 219; "The Art 
 of Making Discoveries", in Science American Sup- 
 plement, No. 1807 ; a character sketch of Sir William 
 Ramsay in Nature, January 11, 1912. 
 
 Of Ostwald's chemical works the following have 
 been translated into English: "Conversations on 
 Chemistry" (Wiley). "Manual of Physical and 
 Chemical Measurements " (Macmillan), translated by 
 James Walker. "The Scientific Foundation of 
 Analytical Chemistry", translated by G. McGowan 
 (Macmillan). "Solutions", translated by M. Patti- 
 son Muir (Longmans). "The Principles of Inor- 
 ganic Chemistry", translated by Alex. Findlay 
 (Macmillan). "The Fundamental Principles of 
 
 [239] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Chemistry", translated by Harry W. Morse (Long- 
 mans). "Letters to a Painter on Theory and Prac- 
 tice", translated by Morse (Ginn). 
 
 The serious student of Ostwald's thought will of 
 course devote himself chiefly to his "Annalen der 
 Natur- und Kulturphilosophie" (Leipzig: Verlag 
 Unesma). The latest and most complete sum- 
 mary of his conception of the universe is given in 
 "Die Philosophic der Werte" (Alfred Kroner, 
 Leipzig, 1914). In the Liibeck lecture, "Die Ueber- 
 windung des wissenschaftlichen Materialismus" 
 (Zeitschriftfiir physikalische Chemie, Band 18, pp. 305- 
 320, and separately published by Veit, Leipzig, 
 1895), and the " Vorlesungen iiber Naturphilosophie" 
 (Veit, 1902) he laid the foundations of his theory. In 
 "Die energetische Grundlagen der Kulturwissen- 
 schaft" (Leipzig, 1909) he extended it to include the 
 science of civilization. In "Die wissenschaftliche 
 Stellung" ("Annalen der Naturphilosophie", Vol. X), 
 he defends himself against certain misconceptions, as, 
 for example, that he makes energy the sole reality in 
 the world, or a metaphysical principle like Hart- 
 mann's "Unconscious." Ostwald's educational view 
 may be found in chapters of "Die Forderung des 
 Tages", in the article on "The University of the 
 Future and the Future of the University" ("Annalen 
 der Naturphilosophie", Vol. X, p. 236), and in 
 "Wider das Schuleland, Ein Notruf" (Leipzig: 
 Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft). "Erfinder und 
 Entdecker" contains sketches of Mayer, Helmholtz, 
 and Liebig (Vol. XXIV of Die Gesellschaft, Frankfurt 
 a. M. : Riitten und Leoning). "Die Energie" is 
 a popular exposition of energetics (Vol. I of Wissen 
 und Konnen. Leipzig: Barth). Ostwald's con- 
 tributions to internationalism are mostly pub- 
 
 [240] 
 
WILHELM OSTWALD 
 
 lished by Die Brucke, Munich. His popular prop- 
 aganda of the gospel of Monism is now carried on by 
 the weekly organ of the society, which he edits, 
 Das Monistische Jahrhundert (Verlag Unesma, 
 Leipzig). 
 
 An intimate and appreciative sketch of the life and 
 work of "Wilhelm Ostwald" was written by P. 
 Walden on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his doc- 
 torate (Leipzig: Engelmann). 
 
 There is space here to give only a few references to 
 discussions and criticisms of Ostwald's theories. 
 Doctor Roberty, in "Energetique et Sociologie" 
 {Revue philosophique, January, 1910), shows the vast 
 importance of Ostwald's extension of the laws of 
 energetics to vital and social phenomena. A pains- 
 taking comparison of the contradictory theories of 
 Lombroso and Ostwald on the character of genius 
 is contributed by Georg Wendel to Zeit. fur Phi- 
 losophie, 1910. In the Vierteljahrsschrift fur wiss. 
 Philosophie und Soziologie for 1905 will be found 
 Bemerkungen iiber die Metaphysik in der Ostwald' schen 
 Energetik, by F. W. Adler, and Atomistik und Ener- 
 getik von Standpunkte okonomischer N aturbetrachtung, 
 by Hermann Wolff. F. Dennert in his volume on 
 "Die Weltanschauung des modernen Naturforschers" 
 (Stuttgart, 1907) devotes a chapter to Ostwald. 
 
 I must also mention the valuable articles contrib- 
 uted by Doctor Fielding H. Garrison to the New 
 York Medical Journal, September 11, 1909* on 
 " Physiology and the Second Law of Thermodynam- 
 ics", in which he discusses the application of the 
 theories of Gibbs and Ostwald to biology. 
 
 Ml] 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 Monistic investigation of nature as knowledge of 
 the true, monistic ethic as training for the good, 
 monistic aesthetic as pursuit of the beautiful — these 
 are the three great departments of our monism : by 
 the harmonious and consistent cultivation of these 
 we effect at last the truly beatific union of religion 
 and science so painfully longed for by so many 
 to-day. The True, the Beautiful, the Good, these 
 are the three august Divine Ones before which we 
 bow the knee in adoration ; in the unforced combina- 
 tion and mutual supplementing of these we gain the 
 pure idea of God. To this triune Divine Ideal shall 
 the twentieth century build its altars. — Haeckel's 
 "The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science." 
 
 The geographical distribution of German univer- 
 sities is such as to shock the orderly mind of our 
 General Education Board, which, like a trained 
 forester, believes in weeding out, or rather, in not 
 cultivating, institutions growing close together. But 
 in Germany the soil is so rich as to support three 
 great universities — Leipzig, Halle, and Jena — 
 planted within a circle of twenty miles radius, and 
 nevertheless all thriving. Even the overweening 
 
 [242 J 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 development of Berlin University since that city 
 has become the imperial capital has not yet over- 
 shadowed the smaller institutions. For, curious 
 as it seems to us Americans, students in Europe are 
 not influenced in the choice of a university chiefly 
 by its size, the splendor of its buildings, or even its 
 athletic record. They seem rather to consider the 
 personality of the professors as the important thing, 
 and will often travel considerable distances, at a cost 
 of one and sixteen hundredths cents per mile, third 
 class, in order to put themselves under the instruction 
 of a particular man they have taken a fancy to, 
 quite ignoring some other university which from our 
 point of view had a claim upon their allegiance, from 
 the fact that it was nearer or had been attended by 
 their fathers. Jena, the least of the three in the 
 matter of numbers, is not by reason of that willing to 
 confess inferiority to any of its rivals, not even to big 
 Berlin. On the contrary, Haeckel, in his famous 
 controversy with Virchow, apologized with satirical 
 politeness for his opponent's ignorance of zoology, on 
 the ground that he could not be expected to keep up 
 with the advance of the science when he had left the 
 little institute of Wiirzburg for the luxurious appli- 
 ances and the political and social duties of Berlin. 
 In fact, Haeckel, with his fondness for formulation, 
 
 [243] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 laid down a law on this point thirty-five years ago 
 which, he says, has yet to meet with contradiction, 
 that "the scientific work of an institution stands in 
 inverse ratio to its size." 
 
 Certainly, if seclusion and scholarly traditions 
 are conducive to intellectual achievement, Jena is 
 the place for the thinker. The university, with 
 one thousand eight hundred and seventeen students, 
 is about a third the size of the University of Wiscon- 
 sin. The population of the city is about the same as 
 that of Madison. But while Madison has other 
 interests, political especially, Jena is absorbed in. the 
 university. Its chief industry, the glassworks, is the 
 offspring of the university, for it was through the 
 fortunate collaboration of Ernst Abbe, a professor 
 who could figure out indices of refraction, with Carl 
 Zeiss, a glassmaker who was willing to put money into 
 queer formulas, that the new lenses were discovered 
 which make possible our modern photography and 
 microscopy. Generously has the debt that the 
 industry owed to science been repaid, for the Zeiss 
 company has borne a large share of the expenses of 
 maintaining the university and erecting its new 
 buildings, besides giving to the city many public 
 buildings, among them a splendid bathhouse, an 
 auditorium and a free library and reading room, 
 
 [244] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 where are on file one hundred and fifteen daily- 
 papers and three hundred and sixty periodicals 
 (American librarians, take notice). 
 
 From this it may be seen that Jena is an up-to-date 
 town. Yet at the same time it retains more of 
 medieval picturesqueness than most, mingling the 
 new and the old as none but Germans know how to. 
 "Das Hebe ndrrische Nest" as Goethe called it, is 
 hidden away among the Thuringian hills so that the 
 railroad was a long time finding it. The cobble- 
 stoned streets stroll out from the market place in a 
 casual sort of a way and change their minds about 
 where they are going without notice, twisting about 
 Gothic churches, diving under old towers, wandering 
 slowly along the banks of the Saale, or starting sud- 
 denly straight up hill. The gossipy gables of the old 
 houses lean toward each other like peaked eldritch 
 faces in fluted red caps. So close they stand some- 
 times that you can touch the walls on either side, and 
 you have to walk with one foot on the sidewalk and 
 the other on the pavement, like the absent-minded 
 German professor who thought he had gone lame. 
 When I saw Jena, I understood something which 
 had long puzzled me, that is, how the dachshund 
 originated. It is manifestly a product of evolution 
 according to the principle of the survival of the 
 
 [245] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 fittest, for only a creature constructed according to 
 the specifications "dog and a half long and half a 
 dog high" could make his way with convenience and 
 celerity through this maze of narrow streets. But all 
 sorts of vehicles and beasts of burden get around 
 somehow, too; oxen and horses, automobiles and 
 bicycles, dog carts and women carts. Most in evi- 
 dence everywhere are the students, who swagger 
 through the town with the consciousness of owning it, 
 their bright-colored corps caps at a cocky angle, and 
 their faces looking like advertisements of the dangers 
 of not using safety razors, for the Jena student has 
 three hundred and fifty years of university tradition 
 to live up to, and he realizes the responsibility of it 
 to the full. 
 
 The ancient and honorable history of Jena is 
 unescapable. It is woven into the very fabric of the 
 place, and he who runs may read it from the street 
 signs. The Volkshaus, which I have mentioned, is 
 very appropriately approached through Ernst Abbe 
 Strasse and Carl Zeiss Strasse. On the other side 
 of it is Luther Strasse, for Jena harbored the great 
 reformer for two years at a critical period in his 
 career. This leads to Goethe Strasse — Goethe 
 composed the "Erlkonig" at Jena. The next turn 
 brings us into Schiller Strasse — Schiller was pro- 
 
 [246] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 fessor of history in the University for ten years, 
 carrying an active side line of poetry the while. A 
 big stone in the old garden marks the spot where he 
 wrote "Wallenstein," 1798. At the garden gate is 
 Ernst Haeckel Platz, from which Ernst Haeckel 
 Strasse leads us to our destination, the Villa Medusa. 
 What other town could give a ten-minute walk so 
 rich in names worth remembering ? 
 
 The Villa Medusa, mind you, is not named from 
 the Greek gorgon, but from the beautiful jellyfish 
 with the long trail of waving threads, one of the living 
 comets dredged up by the Challenger which Haeckel 
 depicted and described thirty years ago. The house 
 is a square-built, white, two-story dwelling, half 
 hidden by the tall trees. The furniture is of the 
 conventional German type. The room into which I 
 was shown was not small, but it seemed so when 
 Professor Haeckel entered it, for the first impres- 
 sion one gets is largeness. He really is a large man 
 any way you take him ; tall, heavy-limbed, large- 
 featured ; his hair is now white but thick, and his 
 beard broad and bushy. He moves with some 
 stiffness now, but otherwise his fourscore years 
 have not impaired his vigor. His bearing is erect 
 and his handclasp strong. His laugh is hearty and 
 his blue eyes twinkle as he relates some amusing 
 
 [247] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 incident in the controversies of which his life has 
 been full. 
 
 For Haeckel has been a storm center of the cyclonic 
 movements that have swept over the whole earth 
 during the last century. His name has been a 
 battle-cry in the scientific, religious, and political wars 
 of more than one generation, and never more than at 
 present, when a new religion with many thousands of 
 adherents has set out to conquer the world under the 
 sign, "There is one Substance and Haeckel is its 
 prophet." I inferred from what he said to me and 
 still more from what he did not say that he was not 
 very enthusiastic over the semi-ecclesiastical form 
 which the propaganda is now taking in Germany, 
 but is more interested in the quieter and wider 
 acceptance of his ideas which he regards as virtually 
 complete in scientific circles. He disclaimed emphat- 
 ically any intention of establishing a cult or ritual, 
 like Comte. I fancy that the sentence with which 
 he ended his chapter on "Our Monistic Religion", 
 
 Just as the Catholics had to relinquish a number of 
 churches to the Reformation in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, so a still larger number will pass over to the 
 free societies of Monists in the coming years, 
 
 was, like many another paragraph in the book, put 
 in more to irritate the clergy than with any serious 
 
 [248] 
 
£Z2JPt-^%&aufaQ^ 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 intent. But it is curious to observe how rapidly 
 the Monist locals are assuming the forms of 
 the non-conformist congregations. They celebrate 
 Christmas — that is, the winter solstice — with trees, 
 candles, and gifts. They have a weekly sermon by 
 Ostwald and a Sunday-school paper, Die Sonne. 
 To see Haeckel at his best one should get him to 
 talk of his beloved Jena, which indeed is not difficult 
 to do, for he is ever ready to speak with enthusiasm 
 of its beauty, its freedom of thought, and its leader- 
 ship in many of the great intellectual movements of 
 German history. When I remarked upon the many 
 delightful roads and pathways upon the hills round 
 about the town, he explained Jena was the last of the 
 university towns to be reached by railroad. Pro- 
 fessors and students were poor, and they had to walk, 
 so they learned to walk well and to take pleasure in 
 outdoor exercise and to appreciate fine views. That 
 Haeckel himself is a great lover of landscape as well 
 as of the beautiful in all forms of life is well known to 
 readers of his travel sketches. For this he gives 
 credit to his mother, who, as he says in dedicating 
 to her his " Indian Letters ", 
 
 Aroused in me in my earliest childhood a sense for 
 the infinite beauty of nature and taught the growing 
 boy the value of time and the joy of labor. 
 
 [H9] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 His skill as a draftsman and colorist appears in his 
 zoological works, and besides this professional work 
 he has in his portfolios more than a thousand original 
 sketches in oil and water colors of scenery from Nor- 
 way to Malay ; in fact, of every quarter of the globe 
 except America. When he was twenty-five he was so 
 captivated by Sicily that he almost gave up science 
 to adopt landscape painting as a career. 
 
 The freedom of instruction which Jena has 
 enjoyed to an exceptional degree, even for Germany, 
 Haeckel ascribes in part to the fact that the univer- 
 sity is located in one of the minor States, remote 
 from the great political centers, and derives its 
 support from several sources. "We had four mas- 
 ters," said Professor Haeckel to me, "and so we 
 remained free." He closes his address of 1892 on 
 " Monism as the Bond Between Religion and 
 Science " with a grateful eulogy of the Grand Duke 
 Karl Alexander, who, he says, 
 
 has during a prosperous reign of forty years con- 
 stantly shown himself an illustrious patron of science 
 and art ; as Rector Magnificentissimus of our 
 Thuringian university of Jena, he has always af- 
 forded his protection to its most sacred palladium — 
 the right of free investigation and the teaching of truth. 
 
 We see that Haeckel has reason to be grateful for 
 
 the protection accorded him when we realize that he 
 
 [2SO] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 first championed the cause of Darwin in 1862, only 
 three years after the publication of "The Origin of 
 Species ", and that twenty years after that professors 
 were being dismissed from American universities or 
 were viewed with suspicion for believing in evolution. 
 Even to-day a man of Haeckel's views on religion and 
 his blunt way of expressing them would find it diffi- 
 cult to retain his chair in most American universities. 
 In Germany a professor may be almost anything he 
 pleases — . except a Socialist — and hold his job. 
 A song of the Jena students contains the couplet 
 
 "Wer die Wahrheit kennet und saget sie nicht, 
 Der ist fiirwahr ein erbarmlicher Wicht !" 
 
 But according to Haeckel the students of Berlin 
 University have a different version : 
 
 Wer die Wahrheit kennet und saget sie frei, 
 Der kommt in Berlin auf die Stadtvogtei ! ' 
 
 The grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, of 
 which Jena is one of the chief cities, has about the 
 same area as Rhode Island and fewer inhabitants. 
 It was the first of the German States to acquire a 
 
 1 An undergraduate friend of mine to whom I referred these verses for 
 translation into the vernacular of the campus gives me this version : 
 Who knows the truth and speaks not out 
 He is indeed a sorry lout ! 
 Who knows the truth and speaks too loose 
 In Berlin gets in the calaboose ! 
 
 [ 251 1 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 constitutional government, in 1816. The com- 
 munity is rather rigidly orthodox in the evangelical 
 Lutheran faith, which it was among the first to 
 espouse. How well the Grand Duke Karl Alex- 
 ander maintained the Jena tradition of Lehrfreiheit 
 is shown by an incident that happened when 
 Haeckel first scandalized Germany by championing 
 the cause of Darwinism. A prominent theologian 
 came to the palace of the Grand Duke at Weimar 
 and begged him to dismiss the heretic professor. 
 Karl Alexander asked: "Do you suppose that he 
 really believes the things he publishes ?" 
 
 "Most certainly he does," was the prompt reply. 
 
 "Very well," said the Grand Duke, "then the man 
 simply does the same as you do." 
 
 It was about this time, when Haeckel, perceiving 
 that the University was suffering from the attack 
 made upon him, approached Seebeck, the head of the 
 governing body, with an offer to resign his professor- 
 ship in order to relieve the tension. Seebeck, who 
 had little sympathy with his theories, replied : "My 
 dear Haeckel, you are still young and you will come 
 yet to have more mature views of life. After all, you 
 will do less harm here than elsewhere, so you had 
 better stay." 
 
 It may be well to add that while Haeckel did not 
 [252] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 change his views except to become more radical as he 
 grew older, the University did not suffer in the long 
 run by his presence. On the contrary, his fame as 
 an investigator and teacher drew students from all 
 over the world and brought to the University several 
 large endowments. 
 
 Near to Ernst Haeckel Strasse and facing the park 
 called Paradise there is a unique building, the Phy- 
 letic Museum, established by Haeckel to house collec- 
 tions illustrating the theory of evolution. On the 
 wall is painted the genealogical tree of the greatest 
 family in the world, embracing the whole animal 
 kingdom, and over the central arch is inscribed a 
 quotation from the poet whom Haeckel most ad- 
 mires, Goethe : 
 
 Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt 
 Der hat Religion ; 
 , Wer diese beiden nicht besitzt 
 
 Der habe Religion ! 
 
 Which Lange puts into English as 
 
 He who Science has and Art 
 
 He has Religion too ; 
 Let him who in these has no part 
 
 Make his religion do. 
 
 Nowadays, when evolution is generally accepted, 
 when it is preached from the pulpit as well as taught 
 in the school, it is hard for us to realize the scorn and 
 
 [253] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 incredulity that greeted the theory on its first formu- 
 lation. We who see about us laboratories of experi- 
 mental evolution where new species of plants and 
 animals are produced at will, according to speci- 
 fications drawn up in advance, can hardly put our- 
 selves in the position of those who fifty years ago 
 believed that to question the immutability of species 
 was to induce intellectual confusion and invite 
 moral chaos. So we can scarcely appreciate the 
 courage and perspicacity of the young Haeckel in 
 openly championing Darwinism at a time when that 
 theory was regarded as an absurdity, not alone by 
 theologians, as one would infer from Andrew D. 
 White's "Warfare of Science with Theology", but 
 by most of the leading authorities in all fields of 
 science. But we may picture him on that memorable 
 Sunday evening of September 19, 1863, as he rose to 
 give the opening address of the Scientific Congress at 
 Stettin ; a tall, handsome young man, blond-bearded, 
 bright-eyed, sun-browned, hard-working, athletic 
 (that same year he won a laurel crown at the Leipzig 
 festival for a record-breaking jump of twenty feet). 
 It was certainly presumptuous in a zoologist of only 
 twenty-nine years, who had just secured a position 
 in the university circle as Extraordinary Professor 
 at Jena (which means below the Ordinary in Ger- 
 
 [254] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 many) ; who had just published his first book, the 
 "Monograph on the Radiolaria", so to attack the 
 convictions of his elders and masters there assembled. 
 Haeckel was no halfway man. As soon as he 
 espoused Darwinism — which was barely a month 
 after he had laid eyes on "The Origin of Species" 
 — he drew from it conclusions that Darwin himself 
 hesitated to suggest ; on the one hand that life 
 originated in inorganic matter, on the other that the 
 human race originated from the lower animals. He 
 at once drew up a pedigree not only of the radiolaria 
 but of mankind. Here is a passage from the very 
 beginning of his Stettin speech : 
 
 As regards man himself, if we are consistent we 
 must recognize his immediate ancestors in the ape- 
 like mammals ; earlier still in kangaroo-like marsu- 
 pials ; beyond these, in the secondary period, in 
 lizard-like reptiles ; and finally, at a yet earlier stage, 
 the primary period, in lowly organized fishes. 
 
 and this, be it remembered, was eight years before 
 Darwin published his "Descent of Man." 
 
 "Without Haeckel there would have been Darwin, 
 but no Darwinism," says one of his enthusiastic 
 disciples. But this immediately suggests the ques- 
 tion of whether it was altogether an advantage to 
 have made an "ism" out of Darwin. As a mere 
 question of taxonomy his theory would have been 
 
 [255] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 regarded by the lay world as harmless and uninter- 
 esting. But heralded by Haeckel as evidential of 
 materialism, as antagonistic to the Church and as 
 destructive to Christianity, Darwinism raised up 
 foes on all sides who would not otherwise have con- 
 cerned themselves with it. This, however, is a ques- 
 tion of what-might-have-been like to that of whether 
 the slaves might not have been freed without blood- 
 shed if the abolitionists had not been so extreme and 
 if the Southerners had not been so intolerant. So 
 in this case ; Haeckel was extreme, his opponents 
 were intolerant, so the war had to be. The gentle- 
 natured Darwin more than once had to caution his 
 ardent German champion to be less violent and 
 sweeping in his attacks upon those who held the 
 older views. They were more to be pitied than 
 blamed, said Darwin, and they could not keep back 
 permanently the stream of truth. In England 
 Huxley at the same time, with quite as sharp a pen 
 as Haeckel's, was waging a similar warfare against 
 clerical antagonists. 
 
 It may be said that Haeckel spent the rest of his 
 life in filling in the outline he had sketched at the 
 Stettin Congress of 1863, for, however detailed the 
 work on which he was engaged, he never afterward 
 lost sight of the guiding clew to the labyrinth of 
 
 [256] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 life evolution. We are here not concerned with the 
 zoological studies on which his fame securely rests, 
 but only with the philosophical views to which they 
 led him. His convictions were very definitely 
 established in early manhood, and he occupies to-day 
 essentially the same point of view as fifty years ago. 
 During this time his efforts have been increasingly 
 directed toward reaching a wider audience. In 1866 
 he developed the fundamental principles of his 
 monistic philosophy in the two large volumes of his 
 "General Morphology of Organisms." This gained 
 few readers outside the circle of savants, and little 
 acceptance there. In 1868 he put his theory of 
 evolution into more popular form in "The Natural 
 History of Creation." This had an unusual sale for 
 a book of its kind, but Haeckel was dissatisfied to 
 see that the general public remained indifferent and 
 unaffected by the new conceptions of the world and 
 man arising from the discoveries of modern science. 
 Worse still, he observed with alarm a rising tide of 
 reactionary thought at the close of the century and a 
 growing dominance of the clerical power in German 
 politics. So he determined to make a final effort to 
 influence his generation, an appeal to the court of 
 last resort, the Caesar of to-day, the people. He 
 packed his science and philosophy into one volume of 
 
 [257] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 moderate size, filled in the chinks with obiter dicta, 
 and published it in 1899 under the title of "The 
 Riddle of the Universe." This time he hit the mark. 
 The success of the book was immediate and amazing. 
 An author of a detective tale or a Zenda romance 
 might have envied him. Ten thousand copies were 
 sold within a few months, one hundred thousand 
 within a year, and by this time the sale of the Ger- 
 man and English editions has doubtless passed the 
 half million mark, not to speak of the fourteen other 
 languages into which the book has been translated. 
 Since a book like this usually has several readers for 
 each copy, it is probable that those who have been 
 directly reached by Haeckel within fifteen years 
 must be numbered by the million. Besides this, of 
 course, the spread of his views has been further 
 extended by a similar volume, "The Wonders of 
 Life ", five years later, and by the widely circulated 
 pamphlets of the Deutscher Monistenbund. Haec- 
 kels einheitliche Weltanschauung, 1 then, whatever one 
 may think of it, is undeniably an important factor in 
 the thought of to-day. 
 
 I found Professor Haeckel not altogether pleased 
 that he owed his popular reputation to that one of his 
 
 1 This is not to be translated, as I once heard a student give it, 
 " Haeckel's one-sided showing-up of the universe." 
 
 [2 S 8] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 works in which he took the least pride. He seemed 
 to hold it in almost as light esteem as his opponents 
 and was frank in acknowledging its defects of style 
 and content. "But," he said in substance to me, 
 "I had set forth my philosophy with due dignity and 
 order in my ' General Morphology ' more than thirty 
 years before and nobody read it. Nobody reads it 
 now, even when they criticize my ideas. So what 
 could I do but put them forth in a way that would 
 secure attention ?" 
 
 We must observe that to secure this wider audience 
 he did not resort to any of the ordinary expedients, 
 such as palliating unpopular views, skipping dry 
 details, and avoiding technical terms. "The Riddle 
 of the Universe" is not the sort of writing that goes 
 by the name of "popular science" and that is com- 
 monly regarded as necessary to catch the attention 
 and reach the understanding of the lay reader. 
 Haeckel discusses questions of physiology, zoology, 
 botany, paleontology, and astronomy, each in its 
 own tongue, the bare facts stated without any poetic 
 disguise or flowery adornment. Far from dodging 
 long words when necessary, he invents them when 
 unnecessary. Few men have done so much word 
 coinage. In his work on the radiolaria alone he had 
 to christen more than thirty-five hundred new 
 
 [259] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 species, two names apiece. So it is no wonder that 
 when he comes to talking metaphysics and religion he 
 sticks to the habit of making up his language as he 
 goes. 
 
 In the case of other authors of this series I have 
 had to distill the essence of their philosophy from the 
 leaves of many volumes. I have had sometimes to 
 translate poetry into prose and sometimes to piece 
 together scattered suggestions and faint allusions 
 into a coherent and compact doctrine. But in the 
 case of Haeckel my task is easy, for nothing of the 
 sort is necessary. He has himself expressed his 
 views in succinct form and the plainest of language. 
 He takes as much delight in creeds and dogmatic 
 statements as any scholastic theologian, and he has 
 the same implicit faith in formulas as capable of 
 expressing all things in heaven and earth. One 
 reason why his conflicts with the clergy have been so 
 sharp and bitter is because he has much the same 
 type of mind and uses similar language. Ordinarily, 
 in the so-called warfare of religion and science, the 
 adversaries revolve hopelessly around one another, 
 like double stars, without ever coming into contact. 
 
 The most convenient formulation of Haeckel's 
 philosophy for our purpose is that which he prepared 
 as a sort of confession of faith for his lay church, the 
 
 [260] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 Monistenbund. It is here translated entire and for 
 the most part literally, though in a somewhat con- 
 densed form. 1 
 
 The Thirty Theses of Monism 
 
 I. — Theoretical Monism 
 
 i. Monistic Philosophy. The unitary conception 
 of the world is based solely upon the solid ground of 
 scientific knowledge acquired by human reason 
 through critical experience. 
 
 2. Empiricism. This empirical knowledge is at- 
 tained partly by sense observations on the external 
 world and partly by conscious reflection on our 
 mental internal world. 
 
 3. Revelation. In opposition to this monistic 
 theory of knowledge is the prevailing dualistic con- 
 ception of the world, that the most profound and 
 important truths can be gained through supernatural 
 or divine revelation. All such ideas are due either 
 to obscure and uncritical dogmas or pious frauds. 
 
 4. Apriorism. Equally untenable is the assertion 
 of Kantian metaphysics that some knowledge is 
 acquired a priori independent of any experience. 
 
 5. Cosmological Monism. The world is one great y 
 whole, a cosmos, ruled by fixed laws. 
 
 6. Cosmological Dualism. The idea that there 
 are two worlds, one material or natural and the other , 
 spiritual or supernatural, arises from ignorance, 
 cloudy thinking, and mystical tradition. 
 
 7. Biophysics. Biology is only a part of the all- 
 
 1 " Thesen zur Organization des Monism." 
 [26l] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 embracing physical science and living beings are 
 under the same laws as inorganic matter. 
 
 8. Vitalism. The so-called "vital force", which 
 is still believed by some to direct and control physical 
 and chemical processes in the organism, is just as 
 fictitious as a "cosmical intelligence." 
 
 9. Genesis. Organic beings and inorganic nature 
 alike have been developed by one great process of 
 evolution through an unbroken chain of transforma- 
 tions causally connected. Part of this universal 
 process of evolution is directly perceptible ; its 
 beginning and end are unknown to us. 
 
 10. Creation. The idea that a personal creator 
 made the world out of nothing and embodied his 
 creative thought in the form of organisms must be 
 abandoned. Such an anthropomorphic creator exists 
 as little as does a "moral world order" ordained by 
 him or a "divine providence." 
 
 11. Theory of Descent. That all existing beings 
 are the transformed descendants of a long series of 
 extinct organisms developed in the course of millions 
 of years is proved by comparative anatomy, ontog- 
 eny, and paleontology. This biogenetic transforma- 
 tion is established whether we explain it by selection, 
 mutation, or any other theory. 
 
 12. Archigony. When the earth's crust had cooled 
 sufficiently, organic life came into existence through 
 the katalysis of colloidal compounds of carbon and 
 nitrogen in the form of structureless plasma globules 
 (Monera) represented to-day by the Chromocese. 
 
 13. Plasmic Metabolism. The innumerable forms 
 of plant and animal life arose from the ceaseless 
 transformation of the living substance in which the 
 most important factors are the physiological func- 
 tions of variation and heredity. 
 
 [262] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 14. Phylogeny. All plants and animals form a 
 single genealogical tree rooted in the Monera. 
 
 15. Anthropogeny. The position of man in nature 
 is now fully understood. He has all the characteris- 
 tics of the vertebrates and mammals and developed 
 out of this class in the later tertiary period. 
 
 16. Pithecoid Theory. Man is most nearly related 
 to the tailless apes, but is not descended from any of 
 the existing forms. On the contrary, the common 
 ancestors of all the anthropoid apes and man are to 
 be looked for in the earlier extinct species of old world 
 apes (Pithecanthropus). 
 
 17. Athanism. The soul consists of the totality of 
 cerebral functions. This soul or thought organ in 
 man, a certain area of the cerebral cortex, acts in 
 accordance with the same laws of psychophysics 
 as in the other mammals. This function of course 
 ceases at death, so it is nowadays utterly absurd to 
 believe in "the personal immortality of the soul." 
 
 18. Indeterminism. The human will, like all 
 other functions of the brain (sensation, imagination, 
 ratiocination), is dependent upon the anatomy of this 
 organ and is necessarily determined by the inherited 
 and acquired characteristics of the individual brain. 
 The old doctrine of "free will" is therefore seen to be 
 untenable and must give way to the opposite doctrine 
 of determinism. 
 
 19. God. If by this ambiguous term is under- 
 stood a personal "Supreme Being", a ruler of the 
 cosmos who, after the manner of men, thinks, loves, 
 generates, rules, rewards, punishes, etc., such an 
 anthropomorphic God must be relegated to the 
 realm of the mystical fiction, no matter whether this 
 personal God be invested with a human form or 
 regarded as an invisible spirit or as a "gaseous 
 
 [263] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 vertebrate." For modern science the idea of God is 
 tenable only so far as we recognize in this "God" the 
 ultimate unknowable cause of things, the unconscious 
 hypothetical "first cause of substance." 
 
 20. Law of Substance. The older chemical law 
 of the conservation of matter (Lavoisier, 1789) and 
 the more recent physical law of the conservation of 
 energy (Mayer, 1842) were later (1892) by our 
 Monism united into a single great universal law, for 
 we recognized matter and energy (body and spirit) 
 as inseparable attributes of substance (Spinoza). 
 
 II. — Practical Monism 
 
 21. Sociology. The culture which has raised the 
 human race high above the other animals and given it 
 dominion over the earth depends upon the rational 
 cooperation of men in society with a thoroughgoing 
 division of labor and the mutual interdependence 
 of the laboring classes. The biological foundations 
 of society are already perceptible among the gregari- 
 ous animals (especially the primates). Their herds 
 and groups are' kept together by the social instinct 
 (hereditary habits). 
 
 22. Constitution and Laws. The rational ar- 
 rangement of society and its regulation by laws can 
 be attained by various forms of government, the chief 
 object of which is a just Nomocracy, the establish- 
 ment of a secular power based upon justice. The 
 laws which limit the freedom of the citizen for the 
 good of society should be based solely upon the 
 national application of natural science, not upon 
 venerable tradition (inherited habits). 
 
 23. Church and Creed. On the other hand, all 
 means should be used to fight the hierarchy which 
 
 [264] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 cloaks the secular power with a spiritual mantle and 
 makes use of the credulity of the ignorant masses to 
 further its selfish aims. The confessional obligation 
 as a particular form of superstition is especially to be 
 attacked, since it only serves to evoke the distinction 
 between those of other beliefs. The desirable separa- 
 tion of Church and State is to be accomplished in such 
 a way that the State leaves equally free all forms of 
 belief while restricting their practical encroachments. 
 The spiritual power (Theocracy) must always be 
 subordinate to the secular government (Nomocracy). 
 
 24. Papistry. The strongest hierarchy which to- 
 day exercises spiritual domination over the greater 
 part of the civilized world is papistry or ultramon- 
 tanism. Although this mighty political organiza- 
 tion stands in sharp contradiction with the original 
 pure form of Christianity and wrongfully employs 
 its insignia to obtain power, it nevertheless finds 
 strong support even from its natural opponents, the 
 secular princes. In the inevitable Kulturkampf 
 against papistry it is, above all, necessary to abrogate 
 by law its three strongest supports, the celibacy of the 
 clergy, auricular confession, and the sale of indul- 
 gences. These three dangerous and immoral institu- 
 tions of the neo-Catholic church are foreign to orig- 
 inal Christianity. So also is the strengthening of 
 superstitions dangerous to society through the cult 
 of miracles (Lourdes, Marpingen) and of relics 
 (Aix la Chapelle, Treves) to be prevented by law. 
 
 25. Monistic Religion. If we understand by 
 religion, not a superstitious cult and irrational creed, 
 but the elevation of the mind through the noblest 
 gifts of art and science, then Monism forms a "bond 
 between religion and science" (1892). The three 
 ideals of this rational monistic religion are truth, 
 
 [265] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 virtue, and beauty. In all civilized states it is the 
 duty of the representatives of the people to see that 
 the monistic religion is officially recognized and its 
 equal rights with other confessions assured. 
 
 26. Monistic Ethics. The rational ethics which 
 forms a part of this monistic religion is derived, ac- 
 cording to our modern theory of evolution, from the 
 social instincts of the higher animals, not from a 
 dogmatic "categorical imperative" (Kant). Like 
 all of the higher gregarious animals, man strives to 
 attain the natural equilibrium between the two 
 different obligations, the behest of egoism and the 
 behest of altruism. The ethical principle of the 
 "Golden Rule" has expressed this double obliga- 
 tion twenty-five hundred years ago in the maxim : 
 "Do unto others as you would that they should do 
 unto you." 
 
 27. Monistic Schools. In most civilized countries, 
 and especially in Germany, the instruction of youth 
 in upper and lower grades is still largely bound in 
 fetters which the scholastic tradition of the Middle 
 Ages has retained to the present day. Only the com- 
 plete separation of Church and school can loose these 
 fetters. The prevailing confessional or dogmatic 
 religious instruction is to be replaced by comparative 
 religious history and monistic ethics. The influence 
 of the clergy of any confession is to be removed from 
 the school. The inevitable school reform must be 
 accomplished upon the basis of modern natural 
 science. The greater part of education 'should be 
 devoted, not to the study of the classical language 
 and history, but to the various branches of natural 
 science, especially anthropology and evolution. 
 
 28. Monistic Education. Since the sound de- 
 velopment of the soy} (as a function gf the cerebral 
 
 I 266] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 cortex) is closely connected with that of the rest of 
 the organism, the monistic education of youth, free 
 from the dogmatic teachings of the Church, must 
 strive to upbuild soul and body equally from earliest 
 youth. Daily gymnastics, baths and exercises, 
 walks and tours, must develop and strengthen the 
 organism from early youth. Observation and love 
 of nature will be thus awakened and intensified. 
 Through public libraries, continuation schools, and 
 popular monistic lectures will the more advanced be 
 provided with mental nourishment. 
 
 29. Monistic Culture. The admirable height of 
 culture which mankind in the nineteenth century 
 has attained, the astonishing progress of science and 
 its practical applications in technology, industry, 
 medicine, etc., gives grounds for expecting a still 
 greater development of culture in the twentieth 
 century. This desirable progress will then however 
 be possible only if the beaten paths of the traditional 
 dogmas and of clerical superstition be abandoned and 
 a rational monistic knowledge of nature attain the 
 mastery instead. 
 
 30. The Monistenbund. In order to spread the 
 natural unitary theory of the universe to the widest 
 circles and to realize practically the beneficent fruits 
 of theoretical monism, it is desirable that all efforts in 
 this direction find a common point of application 
 through the founding of individual monist societies. 
 In this universal monist association not only all free 
 thinkers and all adherents of the monistic philosophy 
 find place, but also free congregations, ethical societies, 
 and free religious associations, etc., which recognize 
 pure reason as the only rule of their thought and 
 action and not belief in traditional dogma ai}d pre- 
 tended revelations. 
 
 I 267] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 There is a strong resemblance in form between 
 this creed of the monistic religion and the creeds that 
 have been formulated by many other religions in the 
 history of the world; the same juxtaposition of 
 cosmogony and ethics without any apparent connec- 
 tion ; the same mixture of the fundamental and 
 trivial, the permanent and ephemeral ; the same af- 
 firmation of idealistic aims mingled with attacks upon 
 what is assumed to be the beliefs of the opposition. 
 
 It is not my purpose in this book to criticize the 
 views I present or to obtrude my personal opinions, 
 so I shall not discuss this monistic confession of 
 faith except to point out the striking contrast between 
 the theoretical and practical sections of the statement. 
 The second is in no sense a deduction from the first, 
 and they are so different in character as to give the 
 effect of an anticlimax. Haeckel's fundamental 
 ! principles are bold and revolutionary. His practical 
 conclusions are timid and conventional. It would be 
 a dull faculty meeting which did not bring out more 
 heretical views on education than Haeckel expresses. 
 Why is it necessary to storm the battlements of 
 heaven and create a new earth in order to make 
 Greek optional and get the students to take baths 
 and walks ? * Any session of the American Socio- 
 
 1 "Riddle of the Universe ", p. 363. 
 
 [a68] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 logical Society will bring out more suggestions for the 
 radical reorganization of society from professors in 
 good and regular standing than are to be found in all 
 of Haeckel's works. He seems blind to what would 
 appear to us the glaring evils of his country, the 
 burden of militarism, the oppression of government, 
 the conflict of classes, the monopoly of land, the 
 injustice of hereditary rank, the superstition of 
 royalty, and the like. If he touches on these at all, 
 it is in mild and cautious terms. His gratitude to the 
 Grand Duke who was kind enough to let him alone 
 is expressed in language that sounds sycophantic 
 to American ears. All his fury is directed against 
 the Church, Protestant and Catholic alike, yet he 
 remained until the age of seventy-seven a member of 
 the orthodox Lutheran Church. Of course, to be 
 radical in thought and conventional in practice is 
 not peculiar to Haeckel. It is common to most 
 thinkers, but is especially conspicuous in his 
 case. 
 
 The reforms he advocates in social customs are 
 for the most part very moderate. He is himself no 
 smoker, and he thinks that the German students 
 devote too much attention to beer and dueling. This 
 is sensible but not startling. He declaims against 
 the tyranny of fashion and denounces corsets as 
 
 [269] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 injurious to the health. 1 In this, however, most men 
 and not a few women would agree with him. He 
 asserts that marriage is not a sacrament, but a civil 
 contract, and as such may be dissolved 2 . This is a 
 doctrine common to Hebrew and Puritan. One of 
 the chief objects of the founding of the Monistenbund 
 was to force the separation of Church and State and 
 the secularization of the schools. This seems so 
 obviously just and desirable that it is hard for us to 
 realize on what grounds it should be opposed. And 
 as for the demands expressed in Article 25 it is 
 almost inconceivable to us that a government could 
 refuse a man the right to declare himself a Monist, 
 instead of a Lutheran or a Hebrew, if he wants to. 
 In our own free land anybody can get up a church 
 of his own if he find disciples, and if he prefers to 
 belong to no church it is nobody's business but his 
 own. Not so in Germany, where a man has to give 
 his religion together with his age and occupation at 
 every turn. Even if he wants nothing more than a 
 permit to a building or a rebate on his railroad fare, 
 he is called upon to make a confession of faith. And 
 it must be one of the few religions officially recog- 
 nized by the State; none of the "fancy religions" 
 will pass muster. A man who declares himself not a 
 
 „' "Wonders of Life ", p. 430. 2 Ibid., p. 248. 
 
 [270] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 member of an established church, konfessionslos, is 
 looked upon with suspicion as a sort of outlaw. 
 Under these circumstances, of course, a large propor- 
 tion of the adherents of the State churches never 
 attend the services and have no belief in the creed 
 they profess. 
 
 There is now going on in Germany what might 
 be called an " anti-Christian revival." Protracted 
 meetings are being held in the cities at which 
 Monist missionaries exhort the people to leave 
 the Church, and at the conclusion the converts are 
 called upon to stand up and be counted. In 191 3, 
 during a whirlwind campaign in Berlin at Christmas 
 time, sixteen meetings were held and attended by 
 thirteen thousand persons, of whom twenty-three 
 hundred and forty-three announced their intention 
 of formally separating themselves from the churches 
 of which they are nominally members. The Monist 
 locals, the independent congregations, and the free- 
 thinker societies have joined forces under the man- 
 agement of a central Komitee Konfessionslos. Very 
 curiously the Social Democratic party, which in its 
 early days was so fiercely anti-clerical, stands aloof 
 from the movement and appears to view it with 
 disfavor. 
 
 This Kirchenaustrittsbezvegung, orchurch-exit-move- 
 [271] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ment has for its aim to effect the complete separation 
 of Church and State and to secure for the individual 
 freedom of religious choice. It does not, therefore, 
 indicate so great an increase of irreligion as appears 
 on the face of it. It will on the contrary tend to 
 reduce the percentage of hypocrisy and to allow the 
 growth of new forms of religious association better 
 adapted to the times than the established churches. 
 Already it has stimulated a useful reflex. The "Go- 
 to-church Sunday" has been introduced from 
 America, and the State churches are showing more 
 signs of life than for a long time. 
 
 It would obviously be an injustice to Haeckel to 
 assume that, because the practical reforms he advo- 
 cates seem trite and timid to us, they do not require 
 both perspicacity and courage in Germany. The 
 fact is that Germany, advanced though it be intel- 
 lectually, is still medieval in government and usages. 
 If, for instance, a German clergyman should visit this 
 country and stay in the home of an American minis- 
 ter, the latter would probably be distressed by the 
 views held by the visitor on the inerrancy of the 
 Scriptures and the value of beer, while, on the other 
 hand, the German would be equally shocked to hear 
 his reverend friend advocate secular schools and 
 ridicule the divine right of kings. 
 
 [272] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 Haeckel practically takes over intact the funda- 
 mental principles of Christian ethics, making the 
 Golden Rule the basis of his system, although 
 characteristically refusing to give Jesus any credit 
 for it by saying that it had a " polyphyletic origin." 
 He attacks, indeed, certain extreme forms of it, 
 asceticism, belittlement of family life, absolute self- 
 sacrifice, etc., but he adopts substantially the moral 
 standards which the Christian men of his time and 
 environment profess and endeavor to practice. I 
 do not say that he is wrong to borrow ethics from 
 Christianity. I do not suppose he could do better. 
 But he would have done the world great service if, 
 instead of taking a ready-made ethical system, he had 
 worked it out from his fundamental principle of 
 evolution, as Spencer, Drummond, and Kropotkin 
 have tried to do. If, having done this, he had 
 arrived at the same conclusions as the Christian 
 moralists, his aid would have been invaluable just 
 now, when, almost for the first time, attacks are 
 made not so much on the theology as on the ethics of 
 Christianity, and this, too, in the name of science. 
 The air is filled with questions which arise in Haeckel's 
 peculiar field. Is, for example, Nietzsche justified in 
 preaching ruthless egoism as the logical lesson of 
 evolution ? Or is it true, as many now say, that the 
 
 [273 1 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 preservation and protection of the weak in body and 
 mind necessarily lead to the degeneration of the 
 race ? In the incidental references he makes to 
 these questions, 1 he condemns Nietzsche, but advo- 
 cates euthanasia for the hopelessly diseased, reaching 
 the first conclusion from his "own personal opinion" 
 and the second from "pure reason." As the indi- 
 vidual views of an evolutionist, these are interesting 
 and even valuable, but they can hardly be regarded 
 as established principles of the science of evolution- 
 ary ethics. 
 
 Haeckel's politics may be summed up by saying 
 that he is anti-clerical and not much else. He con- 
 cerns himself little about the form of government or 
 economic conditions, regarding them indeed as com- 
 paratively unimportant matters. 
 
 The monistic and the socialistic movements in 
 Germany are closely associated, but chiefly, it seems 
 to me, because both are anti-clerical rather than 
 because the evolutionary philosophy necessarily 
 leads to either democracy or socialism. Many Social 
 Democrats profess themselves Monists, and doubt- 
 less a large proportion of that party would agree with 
 Haeckel in the matter of religion. But on the other 
 hand, they can derive little if any support for their 
 
 1 "Wonders of Life", pp. 115 and 119. 
 [274] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 doctrines from the monistic literature. Haeckel 
 states his opinion with his usual frankness in a con- 
 tribution to Maximilian Harden's magazine, which 
 concludes with the words : 
 
 I am certainly no friend of Herr Bebel, who has 
 attacked me repeatedly, and among other things has 
 slandered me in his book £on Woman. Besides, I 
 hold the Utopian aims of the official social democracy 
 to be impracticable and its ideal future state to be a 
 big workhouse. That, however, cannot prevent me 
 from recognizing the kernel of justice in the great 
 social movement. That this can be overcome by the 
 repressive acts of the Berlin council, by the power of 
 the police and of the State prosecutors can be be- 
 lieved only by one who knows neither the history nor 
 the natural history of mankind. — Zukunft, 1895, 
 No. 18. Quoted in the introduction to "Freie 
 Wissenschaft und freie Lehre", p. 9. 
 
 The immense popularity of "The Riddle of the 
 Universe" is, I think, largely to be accounted for by 
 the personality of the author. The man behind the 
 gun was what gave it power. I do not mean that 
 the reception given to the book was due to Haeckel's 
 standing as a zoologist. The outside world knows 
 little and cares less for scientific reputation. It was 
 rather that the book revealed a man tremendously in 
 earnest who had made up his mind on questions of the 
 most vital interest to all and who said what he thought 
 
 [275] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 in the plainest and most emphatic language, without 
 regard to whose feelings he hurt. "The Riddle of 
 the Universe" and "The Wonders of Life" are, it 
 seems to me, more valuable as contributions to the 
 psychology of genius than to philosophy. The 
 personal interest he aroused is evinced by the thou- 
 sands of letters he received and is still receiving about 
 these books, ranging in tone from the warmly sym- 
 pathetic to the furiously antagonistic. He years 
 ago had to give up the task of answering them save 
 by a printed slip. 
 
 Few books have ever excited so much heated con- 
 troversy. Hundreds of criticisms and replies have 
 been published, and new ones appear frequently yet, 
 fifteen years after. The book was intended to draw 
 the fire of the enemy, clericalism, and it did. Nor 
 did the philosophy of the chair receive it any more 
 favorably. It will be sufficient on this point to 
 quote the sharp criticism of Professor Friedrich 
 Paulsen, of Berlin University, whose idealistic mon- 
 ism comes into direct contact with Haeckel's mate- 
 rialistic monism : 
 
 " I have read this book with burning shame for the 
 state of general culture and the philosophical culture 
 of our people. That such a book was possible, that 
 it could be written, printed, sold, read, admired, be- 
 
 [276] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 lieved by a people which claims a Kant, a Goethe, 
 a Schopenhauer, is painful." 
 
 It is one of the curiosities of controversy that the 
 Church should often be found defending with des- 
 peration, not her own positions, but some of the old, 
 abandoned redoubts of Science. This was largely 
 the case in the evolution controversy. The real 
 "origin of species" was in the scientific mind. It was 
 Science that discovered that all the multifarious 
 forms of plant and animal life could be classified into 
 distinct types, which, it too hastily assumed, were 
 absolutely separate and fixed. When later Science 
 came to revise that view, it discovered that the im- 
 mutability of species had somehow in the meantime 
 become a theological dogma, to be zealously defended 
 by curates who could not tell a species from a genus. 
 
 It was the same in regard to the theory of spon- 
 taneous generation or the production of living beings 
 from non-living matter. This was formerly good 
 Christian doctrine, accepted by St. Augustine and 
 taught by the medieval schoolmen, and when in 
 1674 the Italian physician, Francisco Redi, showed 
 that the maggots that appeared in dead matter came 
 from eggs, he was persecuted for unbelief. But it 
 was still maintained that microscopic living forms 
 could arise spontaneously in bouillon and infusions 
 
 [277] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of hay until Pasteur proved that this was false, for 
 in sealed and sterilized tubes no trace of life appears. 
 Such negative experiments are, of course, not com- 
 petent to prove that at some time and under other 
 conditions life might not be produced from the non- 
 living. Yet, strangely enough, Haeckel's theological 
 opponents voluntarily adopted this untenable posi- 
 tion and waged war against him especially on account 
 of his belief that when the earth's crust cooled down, 
 compounds of cyanic acid were transformed into 
 globules of albumin, from which developed unicellu- 
 lar organisms. 
 
 The only alternative hypothesis to this which has 
 been brought forward is the one advocated by 
 Arrhenius, that the germs of life might have been 
 brought from some other planet in meteorites or 
 floating free in space and propelled by radiant energy. 
 This is apparently not impossible, but it seems a very 
 violent assumption, much harder of acceptance than 
 the other, that of abiogenesis. For the wall between 
 the organic and the inorganic has been broken down 
 completely, and that between the living and non- 
 living is being tunneled into from both sides. On the 
 one hand we have been able to construct artificially 
 such complex organic molecules as sugar and protein. 
 On the other hand, it has been found possible to 
 
 [278] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 produce in siliceous and metallic solutions mimic 
 cells which grow, move, put forth pseudopodia, 
 select their food, propagate by fission, and assume 
 many of the characteristic forms of vegetable and 
 animal life. In more than one laboratory experi- 
 ments in the generation of life are still being hope- 
 fully carried on, and an announcement of their 
 success at any time would not amaze biologists in 
 general. But even though abiogenesis should for- 
 ever remain impossible as a laboratory experiment, it 
 would not be untenable as a hypothesis of the origin 
 of life under the exceptional conditions of some earlier 
 stage in the world's history. Such a supposition, 
 whether true or not, is at least no more irreligious 
 than is a recognition of the fact that non-living matter 
 is being continuously transformed into living within 
 our own bodies. 
 
 The volume invited attack because it was not only 
 intentionally provocative, but unintentionally vul- 
 nerable. One does not have to be very learned in 
 order to ' discover in it occasional errors as well as 
 many extravagant and questionable statements. 
 The fact that few people could treat of such a wide 
 range of topics without making more mistakes than 
 Haeckel did not, of course, protect him from criti- 
 cism. Huxley, who enjoyed crossing swords with 
 
 [279] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the clergy as much as Haeckel, was more careful to 
 guard himself from counter attack. If a discussion of 
 demonology led unexpectedly to the question of the 
 exact status of the district of Gadara in the Roman 
 Empire, he was prepared to meet his opponents on 
 that ground as well as in biology. Not so Haeckel. 
 He picks up his church history from infidel pamphle- 
 teers 1 and recklessly caricatures Christian beliefs. 
 In attacking the dogma of the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion of Mary he confuses it with that of the Virgin 
 Birth of Christ, and at the same time uses language 
 needlessly offensive to those who regard the Mother 
 of Jesus with adoration. 2 
 
 A more serious charge than ignorance of ecclesias- 
 tical history was later brought against Haeckel by 
 Doctor Brass, namely, that he had fabricated evi- 
 dence in support of his theory of evolution by falsify- 
 ing his drawings of embryos, that he had, among other 
 things, taken away vertebrae from the tail of a monkey 
 embryo and had extended the backbone of a human 
 embryo in order to enhance the resemblance. 
 Since accuracy is the soul of science, this is as serious 
 
 1 President Thomas, of Middlebury College, exposed the source of his 
 theory that the father of Christ was a Roman officer named Pandera in 
 The Independent, Vol. 64, p. 515. 
 
 2 Some of the more offensive of these passages are modified or elimi- 
 nated in the later editions of "Die Weltratsel." 
 
 [28o] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 as it would be, for instance, to charge a minister with 
 preaching miracles when he does not believe in them. 
 In his reply Haeckel acknowledged 
 
 that a small part of my numerous embryo pictures 
 (perhaps six or eight per cent) are actually "falsified" 
 (in the sense of Doctor Brass), all those in fact in 
 which the material at hand for observation was so 
 incomplete or unsatisfactory that one was forced to 
 fill up the gaps by hypothesis and to reconstruct 
 the missing members by comparative synthesis 
 in order to produce a connected chain of evolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Haeckel emphatically denies any deception or 
 misrepresentation, and calls attention to the fact 
 that such diagrammatic and reconstructed drawings 
 are common to all physiological works and are neces- 
 sary to bring out the desired points. As to whether 
 Haeckel has transgressed the permissible limits of 
 such schematization of material I should not be com- 
 petent to decide. Thirty-six German men of science 
 signed a condemnation of Haeckel ; forty-seven 
 German men of science, "though they did not like the 
 kind of schematizing which Haeckel practiced in some 
 cases ", signed a condemnation of Brass and the 
 Keplerbund. The numbers have no significance, 
 since majorities never decide anything except the 
 balance of opinion, but the group that stood by 
 
 [281] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Haeckel contained more embryologists and zoolo- 
 gists than the other. 
 
 So I will dismiss the subject by quoting the 
 opinion of a biologist and evolutionist who is 
 thoroughly appreciative of Haeckel's contributions 
 to science. Professor V. L. Kellogg, of Stanford 
 University, in reviewing the "Evolution of Man" in 
 Science, says : 
 
 " Biologists are likely to be of two minds concerning 
 the advisability of putting Haeckel's 'Evolution of 
 Man' into the hands of the lay reader as a guide and 
 counselor on this most important of evolution sub- 
 jects. Haeckel is such a proselytizer, such a scoffer 
 and fighter of those who differ with him, that plain, 
 unadorned statement of facts and description of 
 things as they are cannot be looked for in his books. 
 Or, if looked for, cannot be found. But this very 
 eagerness to convince ; this hoisting of a thesis, this 
 fight for Haeckelian phylogeny and Haeckelian 
 Monism, all make for interest and life in his writ- 
 ings." 
 
 This whole affair is a striking illustration of 
 Huxley's observation that a controversy always 
 shows an unfortunate tendency to slip from the 
 question of what is right to the relatively unimpor- 
 tant question of who is right. Haeckel's critics have 
 
 [282] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 rarely attempted to controvert his scientific work 
 and in fact would not in most cases be competent to 
 discuss it. Even if he were guilty of all the mistakes 
 alleged, it would not materially affect his scientific 
 conclusions. 
 
 In noting Haeckel's faults, we are in danger of 
 failing to appreciate the marvelous constructive 
 genius of the man ; the creative imagination which is 
 characteristic of the great scientist even more than of 
 the great poet. It was this gift that enabled him to 
 discern in a handful of slime dredged up by the 
 Challenger from the depths of the sea an orderly 
 system of living beings wherein each microscopic 
 skeleton of silica found its natural niche. It was 
 this power which enabled him to assist so largely in 
 the transformation of zoology from a purely observa- 
 tive and descriptive science, as it was when he began 
 his labors, to a rational, experimental, and prophetic 
 science, as it was when he closed them. As Cuvier 
 from a few bits of bone could construct a whole 
 animal, so Haeckel from scattered species ventured to 
 construct, as early as 1865, a family tree, including 
 all living forms from monera to man. Faulty it is 
 from the standpoint of our present knowledge, but 
 yet it must command our admiration because of the 
 insight he showed in perceiving natural relation- 
 
 [283] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ships and the skill with which he bridged the gaps 
 in his living chain by hypothetical forms. Just as 
 the great Russian chemist Mendeleef was able to 
 describe in advance elements then unknown, but 
 which were discovered later and found to fit into the 
 vacant places he had assigned to them in his periodic 
 law, so Haeckel's anticipations have been in many 
 cases confirmed by later science. It was his good 
 fortune to be able to hold in his hand the skullcap 
 and femur of the "missing link" which had for years 
 been the jest of the anti-evolutionists. The ape- 
 man, or Pithecanthropus, which he had in 1885 
 described and named, was in 1894 discovered by 
 Dubois in Java. The mind of Haeckel has such high 
 tension that it leaps over the gaps in a demonstration 
 like a ten thousand volt current. 
 
 His account of how he was led to doubt the dogma 
 of the immutability of species must be quoted because 
 it is an excellent illustration of the wisdom of the 
 laboratory adage : " Study the exceptions. They 
 prove some other rule." 
 
 The problem of the constancy or transmutation of 
 species arrested me with a lively interest, when, 
 twenty years ago, as a boy of twelve years, I made a 
 resolute but fruitless effort to determine and distin- 
 guish the "good and bad species" of blackberries, 
 willows, roses, and thistles. I look back now with 
 
 [284] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 fond satisfaction on the concern and painful skep- 
 ticism that stirred my youthful spirits as I wavered 
 and hesitated (in the manner of most "good classi- 
 fiers", as we called them) whether to admit only 
 "good" specimens into my herbarium and reject the 
 "bad", or to embrace the latter and form a complete 
 chain of transitional forms between the "good 
 species" that would make an end of all their "good- 
 ness." I got out of the difficulty at the time by a 
 compromise that I can recommend to all classifiers. 
 I made two collections. One, arranged on official 
 lines, offered to the sympathetic observer all the 
 species, in "typical" specimens, as radically distinct 
 forms, each decked with its pretty label ; the other 
 was a private collection, only shown to one trusted 
 friend, and contained only the rejected kinds that 
 Goethe so happily called "the characterless or dis- 
 orderly races, which we hardly dare ascribe to a 
 species, as they lose themselves in infinite varieties ", 
 such as rubus, salix, verbascum, hieracium, rosa, 
 cirsium, etc. In this a large number of specimens, 
 arranged in a long series, illustrated the direct 
 transition from one good species to another. They 
 were the officially forbidden fruit of knowledge, in 
 which I took a secret boyish delight in my leisure 
 hours. — Bolsche's " Life of Haeckel ", p. 38. 
 
 Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel, to give 
 him for once his full baptismal name, was born in 
 Potsdam, February 16, 1834. He has a double 
 inheritance of talent, for both the Haeckels and the 
 Sethes, his mother's family, have contributed prom- 
 inent names to German history, and the two families 
 
 [285] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 have intermarried more than once. It is a curious 
 fact that Gustav Freytag, in his series of "Pictures 
 from the German Past ", should have chosen for his 
 representative men of the nineteenth century two of 
 Haeckel's ancestors : his mother's father, Christopher 
 Sethe, Privy Councilor and defender of Prussia 
 against Napoleon, and his father, Karl Haeckel, 
 State Councilor. 
 
 But Ernst did not follow the family tradition and 
 take to the law. He showed an unmistakable bent 
 for natural science, so, as a compromise profession, 
 his father had him trained as a physician. He took 
 the medical course, and in obedience to his father's 
 wishes consented to practice the profession for a year 
 to see if he could make a success of it. During the 
 year only three patients came to him, owing perhaps 
 to the fact that Haeckel in order to get time for his 
 biological researches had fixed his consultation hours 
 from five to six in the morning. His father then 
 gave up trying to make a doctor out of him and 
 allowed him to go to Messina in 1859 to study marine 
 animals. Haeckel straightway became engaged to 
 his cousin Anna Sethe, and as soon as he got his 
 appointment at Jena married her. Their happiness 
 was brief. Two years later she died; leaving Haeckel, 
 then thirty, so stricken that he felt that he could 
 
 [286] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 not long survive the blow, so he plunged with feverish 
 haste into the preparation of his "General Morphol- 
 ogy" in order to leave to the world his science and 
 philosophy in a systematic form. It was written and 
 printed, two thick volumes of more than twelve 
 hundred pages, in less than a year, during which 
 Haeckel lived like a hermit, working all day long and 
 half the night, getting barely three or four hours 
 sleep out of the twenty-four. 
 
 Haeckel immortalized his wife by giving her a 
 living monument instead of one of marble or brass. 
 He named for her one of his beloved medusae, a 
 fairy-like jellyfish, whose mass of long, trailing 
 tentacles reminded him of his wife's blond hair. 
 The Mitrocoma Anna? is described in his "Mono- 
 graph on the Medusae", published in 1864, and a note 
 states that it was so named 1 
 
 in memory of my dear, never-to-be-forgotten wife, 
 Anna Sethe. If it is given to me to do something 
 during my earthly pilgrimage for science and human- 
 ity, I owe it for the most part to the blessed influence 
 of my gifted wife, who was torn from me by a pre- 
 mature end in 1864. 
 
 Three years afterwards he married again, Agnes 
 
 1 Another medusa also named for his wife, Demomema Annasethe, 
 will be found on one of the color plates of the New International Ency- 
 clopedia (Vol. XII, p. 68). 
 
 [287] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Huschke, daughter of a Jena anatomist. They have 
 three children, two daughters and a son, who has 
 inherited his father's artistic talent and has devoted 
 himself to art in Munich. 
 
 Haeckel's aesthetic taste is shown not merely in the 
 thousands of paintings and drawings that fill his 
 monographs, but especially in his "Art Forms of 
 Nature", which consists of ten portfolios of large 
 color plates depicting strange and beautiful creatures 
 from all realms of animal life but particularly in little 
 known lower forms, fishes, crustaceans, corals, radio- 
 laria, diatoms, and desmids. Here are to be seen 
 real gargoyles, more grotesque than a sculptor's 
 unaided imagination can create. Here the designer 
 and decorator can find hundreds of suggestive themes 
 for almost any purpose, so they have no excuse for 
 repeating the trite and traditional forms as they do. 
 
 A large part of these "art forms" Haeckel dis- 
 covered in the course of his investigations of deep- 
 sea life on the material gathered by the Challenger, 
 which was qommissioned by the British Government 
 in 1 872-1 875 to explore the ocean. The results of 
 this expedition, published in fifty large volumes, 
 constituted the greatest contribution to ocean- 
 ography that has ever been made. Haeckel con- 
 tributed the volumes on the medusae, the siphono- 
 
 [288] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 phora, the keratosa, and the radiolaria. To the radio- 
 laria Haeckel devoted ten years, 1 877-1 887, and 
 described 4318 species and 739 genera, from the 
 curiously complicated siliceous skeletons deposited 
 on the bottom of the ocean by these minute one- 
 celled creatures. 
 
 Although Haeckel's life was largely devoted to the 
 closest study of the minutest forms of life, yet he 
 never lost sight of the broader aspects of his science. 
 It seems as though he felt the need of resting his 
 eyes by raising them from the microscope and looking 
 out of the window to focus on infinity. Haeckel is 
 essentially a specialist with a fondness for generali- 
 zation. He welcomed the change in the current of 
 thought that set in at the close of the nineteenth 
 century, the effort of the new century to get at the 
 inner meaning of the mass of miscellaneous facts that 
 the old century had heaped up. It was with intent 
 to assist in this movement that he produced, at the 
 age of sixty-five, his "Riddle of the Universe", 
 intending this to be the final expression of his view 
 of the world, a fragmentary sketch instead of the 
 complete "System of Monistic Philosophy" which 
 he had projected many years ago and could not now 
 hope to complete. But five years later he supple- 
 mented this with a similar popular volume, "The 
 
 [289] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Wonders of Life", in which he replies to certain 
 criticisms and explains the biological principles on 
 which his philosophy is based. This, unlike the 
 "Riddle", was not composed at various intervals in 
 the course of many years, but was written uninter- 
 ruptedly during four months spent at Rapallo, on 
 the Italian Riviera, when he was 
 
 stimulated by the constant sight of the blue Mediter- 
 ranean, the countless inhabitants of which had, for 
 fifty years, afforded such ample material for my bio- 
 logical studies ; and my solitary walks in the wild 
 gorges of the Ligurian Apennines and the moving 
 spectacle of its forest-crowned altars, inspired me 
 with a feeling of the unity of living nature — a 
 feeling that only too easily fades away in the study 
 of detail in the laboratory. 
 
 Professor Haeckel retired from active service as 
 teacher and investigator in 1909 at the age of seventy- 
 five. "Indeed I am wholly a child of the nineteenth 
 century and with its close I draw the line under my 
 life's work," he said, and the publication of "The 
 Wonders of Life" in 1904 confirms rather than con- 
 tradicts this, for it shows that he maintains his posi- 
 tion altogether unshaken by the revolution that has 
 taken place in philosophic thought. Like Herbert 
 Spencer he lived to see a reaction against many 
 of the opinions for which he fought most earnestly. 
 
 [290 J 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 The nineteenth century was cocksure of so many 
 things about which the twentieth century doubts. 
 We are not so certain that, as Haeckel says, every- 
 thing can be reduced to the motion of the atoms. 
 The atom itself is crumbling, and as for motion, what 
 is it ? The ether in the reality of which Haeckel puts 
 implicit faith is to us a doubtful, perhaps an unneces- 
 sary, hypothesis. Vitalism and teleology are coming 
 back again into biology in new forms. Pluralism, not 
 monism, is the fashion of the day, and some carry it 
 almost to polytheism. Indeterminism finds more 
 advocates nowadays than determinism. Haeckel 
 makes the first law of thermodynamics (conservation 
 of energy) one of the corner stones of his philosophy, 
 but has little regard for the second (degradation of 
 energy). Modern thought considers the second 
 law more important than the first. 1 
 
 And what shall we say about the "Law of Sub- 
 stance", which is Haeckel's contribution to the funda- 
 mental principles and which he apparently regards as 
 of equal importance to the discoveries of Lavoisier 
 and Mayer ? " Speaking for myself, the reason I 
 
 1 The significance of this change of emphasis in its bearing on meta- 
 physical, religious, and ethical ideas I endeavored to explain in the pre- 
 ceding chapter. 
 
 2 See Number 20 of the thirty theses given above. 
 
 [291] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 cannot accept it is because it is absolutely meaning- 
 less to me. We know what the law of the conserva- 
 tion of matter means. It means, among other things, 
 that 12 pounds of carbon when burned make 44 
 pounds of carbon dioxid, which we may decompose 
 and get back 12 pounds of carbon again. The law 
 of the conservation of energy means, among other 
 things, that when we burn 12 pounds of carbon we 
 produce 135,305,600 foot pounds of energy. But 
 what does it mean when we say that matter and 
 energy, or body and spirit, are somehow the same 
 substance ? Have we said more than when we 
 affirmed the two laws separately ? Even if true, does 
 it make a bit of difference to anybody or anything ; 
 or to put the query into the pragmatic form, can it 
 be true if it does not make a bit of difference to any- 
 body or anything ? But we must bear in mind that 
 the rigid application of this formula to many his- 
 toric attempts to solve the "riddle of the universe" 
 would leave less of them intact than in the case of 
 Haeckel. 
 
 The Christian reader is likely, in his irritation at 
 what appears to him to be willful misrepresentation 
 of his beliefs, to be too sweeping in his condemnation 
 of the ideas of Haeckel. Even in the matter of 
 religion Haeckel is not nearly so heretical as he 
 
 [292] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 assumes or is presumed to be. Many of the things 
 he attacks are almost unrecognizable caricatures of 
 modern religious views. It should be remembered 
 that the "Riddle" and the "Wonders" were written 
 at a time when he saw the German Government com- 
 ing under the domination of the Blue-Black Block, 
 and when it seemed to him that this coalition of con- 
 servatives and clericals threatened to suppress free 
 speech and to check the advance of science. In his 
 earlier writings his views are expressed in much more 
 conciliatory language. Indeed, his pantheism is 
 hardly distinguishable at times from theories of 
 divine immanence such as are now held very com- 
 monly in orthodox churches. Wherein lies the magic 
 of the word "Monism" if not in our ingrained prej- 
 udice in favor of unity, inherited from the fierce 
 monotheism of the Jews ? Is not Haeckel then 
 borrowing the thunders of Sinai to enforce his new 
 religion ? 
 
 His "General Morphology" of 1866, which, as he 
 told me, he prefers to his later works as an expression 
 of his philosophy, concludes with the following pas- 
 sage : 
 
 Our philosophy knows only one God, and this 
 Almighty God dominates the whole of nature without 
 exception. We see his activity in all phenomena 
 
 [293] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 without exception. The whole of the inorganic World 
 is subject to him just as much as the organic. If a 
 body falls fifteen feet in the first second in empty 
 space, if three atoms of oxygen unite with one atom 
 of sulphur to form sulphuric acid, if the angle that is 
 formed by the contiguous surfaces of a column of 
 rock-crystal is always 120 , these phenomena are 
 just as truly the direct action of God as the flowering 
 of the plant, the movement of the animal, or the 
 thought of man. We all exist " by the grace of God ", 
 the stone as well as the water, the radiolarian as well 
 as the pine, the gorilla as well as the Emperor of 
 China. No other conception of God except this that 
 sees his spirit and force in all natural phenomena is 
 worthy of his all-enfolding greatness ; only when we 
 trace all forces and all movements, all the forms and 
 properties of matter, to God, as the sustainer of all 
 things, do we reach the human idea and reverence for 
 him that really corresponds to his infinite greatness. 
 In him we live, and move, and have our being. Thus 
 does natural philosophy become a theology. The 
 cult of nature passes into that service of God of which 
 Goethe says : "Assuredly there is no nobler rever- 
 ence for God than that which springs up in our heart 
 for conversation with nature." God is almighty : he 
 is the sole sustainer and cause of all things. In other 
 words, God is the universal law of causality. God is 
 absolutely perfect ; he cannot act in any other than a 
 perfectly good manner ; he cannot therefore act 
 arbitrarily or freely — God is necessity. God is the 
 sum of all force, and therefore of all matter. Every 
 conception of God that separates him from matter, 
 and opposes to him a sum of forces that are not of a 
 divine nature, leads to amphitheism (or ditheism) 
 and on to polytheism. In showing the unity of the 
 
 [294] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 whole of nature, Monism points out that only one 
 God exists, and that this God reveals himself in all 
 the phenomena of nature. In grounding all the 
 phenomena of organic or inorganic nature on the 
 universal law of causality, and exhibiting them as 
 the outcome of "efficient causes", Monism proves 
 that God is the necessary cause of all things and the 
 law itself. In recognizing none but divine forces 
 in nature, in proclaiming all natural laws to be divine, 
 Monism rises to the greatest and most lofty con- 
 ception of which man, the most perfect of all things, 
 is capable, the conception of the unity of God and 
 nature. 
 
 How to Read Haeckel 
 
 "The Riddle of the Universe" (Harper) is the best 
 popular presentation of science and philosophy from 
 Haeckel's point of view. This may be supplemented 
 by "The Wonders of Life" (Harper), in which he 
 develops more fully the biological side and defends 
 himself against certain criticisms. To these should 
 be added the very interesting life of Haeckel by 
 W. Bolsche (Jacobs). Cheap editions of these three 
 are published by the Rationalist Press Association, 
 London. They, as well as other works of Haeckel, 
 are translated by Joseph McCabe. 
 
 "The Natural History of Creation" (Appleton) 
 and "The Evolution of Man" (Appleton or Putnam) 
 are both intended to explain in a way comprehensible 
 to the general reader the fundamental principles of 
 the theory of evolution and the biological facts on 
 which it is based. Special addresses by Haeckel are 
 translated under the titles of : "Monism as Connect- 
 
 [295] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ing Religion and Science" (Macmillan) and "Last 
 Words on Evolution" (New York). Of his "In- 
 dische Reisebilder" there are two versions in Eng- 
 lish ; one by Mrs. S. E. Boggs entitled " India and 
 Ceylon", which is neither literal nor complete, and 
 one by Clara Bell, "A Visit to Ceylon" (Eckler), 
 which is better. On the personal side may be read 
 Herman Schauffauer's sketches, "Haeckel, a Colossus 
 of Science" {North American Review, August, 1910), 
 and "A Talk with Haeckel at Home", in T. P.'s Mag- 
 azine, 1912; Elbert Hubbard's "Little Journeys to 
 the Homes of Great Scientists ", and Joseph McCabe's 
 "A Scientist's Sunset Years", in Harper's Weekly, 
 August 7, 1909. A few of the more noteworthy of 
 the books and articles on Haeckelism in English are : 
 "Life and Matter", by Sir Oliver Lodge, a criticism 
 from the standpoint of a spiritualist ; the discussion 
 between Lodge and McCabe in Hibbert Journal, Vol. 
 Ill, pp. 315 and 741 ; "The World View of a Scien- 
 tist", by Frank Thilly in Popular Science^ Monthly, 
 Vol. LXI, pp. 407-425 ; "Ernst Haeckel, Darwinist, 
 Monist", by V. L. Kellogg, in Popular Science 
 Monthly, Vol. LXXVI, pp. 136-142; "Haeckel 
 and Monism", by J. Butler Burke, 'in Oxford and 
 Cambridge Review, 1907; "Lucretius and Haeckel", 
 by F. B. R. Hellems, in "University of Colorado 
 Studies", Vol. Ill, 1905; "Religion as a Credible 
 Doctrine", by W. H. Mallock; "Haeckel's Monism 
 False", by Reverend F. Ballard; "The Old Riddle 
 and the Newest Answer", by Father Gerard; 
 "Haeckel's Critics Answered", by Joseph McCabe 
 (London: Rationalist Press); "Haeckel's Answer 
 to the Jesuits " (New York : Truthseeker) ; "Haeckel 
 and His Methods ", by R. L. Mangan, in the Catholic 
 World, May, 1909. The monism of Doctor Paul 
 
 [296] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 Carus, of Chicago, is a different variety from 
 Haeckel's as he has pointed out in the Monist, Vol. 
 II, p. 498; Vol. IV, p. 228; and Vol. XVI, p. 120. 
 
 Of the immense body of literature in German on 
 Haeckel it is impossible to give more than a few 
 selected titles. The bibliography appended to 
 "Ernst Haeckel: Versuch einer Chronik seines 
 Lebens und Wirkens" by Walther May (Leipzig: 
 Barth, 1909) devotes fourteen pages to the titles of 
 Haeckel's writings, four pages to a list of biographical 
 books and sketches, and thirteen pages to a list of 
 criticisms and discussions of Haeckelism. 
 
 "Die Weltratsel" and "Die Lebenswunder" are 
 published by Alfred Kroner, Leipzig. The epitome 
 of Haeckel's philosophy, which is given almost entire 
 in the preceding pages, is to be found in "Der 
 Monistenbund", Thesen zur Organisation des Mo~ 
 nismus (Neuer Frankfurter Verlag). Other works of 
 Haeckel of a general and philosophical character 
 are: "Natiirliche Schopfungs-Geschichte" (Berlin: 
 Reimer) ; "Anthropogenie oder Entwickelungs- 
 geschichte des Menschens" (Leipzig: Engelmann); 
 "Generalle Morphologie der Organismen" (Reimer); 
 " Systematische Phylogenie" (Reimer); "Der 
 . Kampf um den Entwickelungs-Gedanken " (Reimer) ; 
 "Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und 
 Wissenschaft" (Kroner); "Freie Wissenschaft und 
 freie Lehre", the reply to Virchow (Kroner) ; "Das 
 Weltbild von Darwin und Lamarck", the centenary 
 address on Darwin's birthday (Kroner). 
 
 Haeckel's travel sketches are to be found in " In- 
 isdiche Reisebriefe " (Berlin : Paetel) and " Aus In- 
 sulinde " (Kroner). Even one who reads no German 
 will find enjoyment and gain an appreciation of the 
 artistic side of Haeckel by looking over the color 
 
 [297] 
 
MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY 
 
 plates in "Kunstformen der Natur" (Leipzig: Bib- 
 liographisch.es Institut) or "Wanderbilder" (Gera : 
 K6hler). 
 
 A remarkable tribute of world-wide affection is 
 the volume issued on his eightieth birthday, '-'Was 
 wir Ernst Haeckel verdanken" (Leipzig: Verlag 
 Unesma), to which one hundred and twenty-five 
 men and women contributed, — savants, artists, 
 workingmen, officials, and businessmen. 
 
 The monistic movement may be followed by the 
 pamphlets of the society which may be obtained ordi- 
 narily from the Verlag Unesma, Leipzig. Some 
 of the more interesting of these Flugschriften are : 
 " Friedrich Paulsen iiber Ernst Haeckel ", by Al- 
 brecht Rau ; " Reinke contra Haeckel", by Heinrich 
 Schmidt ; " Eine neue Reformation vom Christen- 
 tum zum Monismus ", by Hannah Dorsch and Arnold 
 Dodel ; " Monismus und Christentum ", by Heinrich 
 Schmidt ; " Monismus und Klerikalismus ", by J. 
 Unold ; " Das Einheit der physikochemischen 
 Wissenschaften", by Wilhelm Ostwald; "Die ein- 
 heitliche Weltanschauung ", by Ernst Diesing : this 
 last urges the Monists to support the peace and 
 conservation movements. The official organ is 
 Das monistische J ahrhundert, a weekly edited by 
 Ostwald and published by the Verlag Unesma, 
 Leipzig. The issue for February 14, 1914, is, in 
 honor of his eightieth birthday, devoted to Haeckel. 
 For the history of monistic philosophy in general 
 from the Greeks to the present time see "Der Monis- 
 mus", by various authors, under the editorship of 
 Arthur Drews (Jena: Diederich, 1908) or "Ge- 
 schichte des Monismus", by Rudolf Eisler (Leipzig : 
 Kroner). 
 
 Of the expository and controversial literature, pro 
 
 [298] 
 
ERNST HAECKEL 
 
 and con, it must suffice to mention the following 
 titles: "Die Weltanschauung Haeckel", by Max 
 Upel (Berlin-Schoenberg ; Buchverlag der Hilfe), 
 a brief and fairminded critique; "Ernst Haeckel, 
 ein Bild seines Lebens und seiner Arbeit", by Wil- 
 helm Breitenbach (Brackwede i. W. : Verlag von 
 Breitenbach & Hoerster), a tribute to the master on 
 his seventieth birthday; "Haeckel's Weltrathsel 
 nach ihren starken und ihren schwachen Seite", by 
 Julius Baumann (Leipzig: Diederich, 1900) ; "Anti- 
 Haeckel", by F. Loofs, Professor of Theology in 
 Halle; "Philosophia Militans" by F. Paulsen, 
 Professor of Philosophy in Berlin. A good account 
 of the Haeckel-Paulsen controversy by Theodor 
 Lorenz may be found in Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 
 March 12, 1910, and later. 
 
 [299]