POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

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transformation of the entire man into the similarity of Christ, and the full restoration of the image of God, is certainly a process of development, and must await its completion in the resurrection. This view is also confirmed by the Lord's parable of the seed, growing up imperceptibly.

Every believing Christian knows these facts, and judges and acts according to them: therefore, when in the realm of nature, which God certainly submitted to the free investigation of the human mind, he meets similar views, what right has he to protest against them as being hostile to religion?

§ 6. Eschatology.

In our discussion of the preceding questions, we have seen that an entirely neutral, not to say friendly, relationship is taking place between religion and the theories of development, which will continue so long as the latter keep within the limits of their proper realm, the perception of nature; and that a hostile relation takes place, and anti-religious attacks are to be guarded against, only when a disbelieving system of metaphysics, which has grown on other ground, in an uncalled-for way, tries to connect itself closely with the theory of descent. This is in an eminent degree the case with the great eschatological hopes of Christianity. The evolution theory so exclusively contents itself with the attempts at perceiving the causal circumstances of organisms in the present world, that it does not at all wish to, and cannot, express itself concerning the end and goal of the world and the laws and circumstances which may reign in a future œon, and that it gives free scope to every perception of the ultimate which might come from another source.

On the other hand, Christian eschatology is alone able to do most essential service to the evolution theory, in case it should be verified, by giving an answer to questions to which the evolution theory tends more decidedly than any other scientific theory-namely, to the questions as to the end of the world and mankind, with such distinctions as no philosophy which treats of the doctrines of nature, is able to give, although natural science itself demands the answer to these questions the more peremptorily, the higher the points of view are to which it leads us.

The world shows to every investigating eye a development, whether we have to take this development as descent or as successive new creation; and therefore we shall take, in the following discussion, the idea of development in this broad sense which comprises all conceivable attempts at explanation. All nature—its most comprehensive cosmic realms as well as the realms of its smallest organisms — together with the corporeal, psychical, and spiritual nature of man, shows a harmony, a conformity to the end in view, and a striving toward an end of its development, the denial of which will certainly not add to the laurels which transmit the scientific fame of our present generation to posterity. Now, what is this end? The answer which we receive from those who reject Christian eschatology, may be given by two scientific antipodes: by Strauss and Eduard von Hartmann. Strauss takes sides with those who reject all striving toward an end in nature; and his answer to the question (which still asserts itself in his system of the world), is: eternal circular motion of the universe, death of all individuals and of all complexes of individuals, even of

mankind. Eduard von Hartmann, on the other hand, is filled by the knowledge of the teleological, but he rejects the hope of Christians, and the end which offers itself to him in the place of the rejected end of Christian hope, is destruction-destruction of all individuals and destruction of the world. In view of such ends, is not the Christian's hope the answer which not only satisfies the deepest ethical and religious need, but also all heights and depths of the most faithful, most devoted, and most enlightened investigation of nature?

Finally, we have still another eschatological conclusion to mention and reject; a conclusion which is drawn from this theory by the advocates of the evolution theory. It opens the perspective into a future development of still higher beings out of man. In abstracto, we can naturally make no objection to the possibility of such a development, as soon as we once accept the evolution theory; but we have to object to the supposition of such a process in infinitum. For such a process would cer tainly be interrupted by the final destruction of the globe; and in case the mechanico-naturalistic view of the world should be right, this destruction would be only the more cruel as would be more highly organized the beings which should find their destruction in this inevitable catastrophe. Moreover, as we have repeatedly seen, a development in infinitum suffers from a self-contradiction for development involves an end, and this end must certainly have been once reached. Now, if we have reason to assume that this end has been reached in the development of the inhabitants of the globe, by the creature being in the image of God and his child, and that it is also reached in fallen man through redemption

and its perfection, then the idea of development, it is true, allows and postulates a relative development of mankind, so long as this takes place within the limits of the now valid laws of the universe,-a development towards the perfection of this likeness to God and filial relationship; but that idea of development has no longer an influence that would lead to the production of new beings which should be more than man.

With the foregoing, we believe that we have discussed all essential points of the relation between religion and Darwinism; and we now proceed to the last part of our investigation.

B. THE DARWINIAN THEORIES AND

MORALITY.

CHAPTER III.

DARWINISM AND MORAL PRINCIPLES.

§1. Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Principles. If we consider the ethical consequences of a view of the world which, proceeding from Darwinism, permits the universe, man included, to be taken up into a mechanism of atoms-a mechanism in which everything, even the ethical action of man, finds its sufficient explanation—we certainly cannot perceive how such a view of the world is able to arrive at firm moral principles. If man, even in his spiritual life and moral action, is a mere product of nature, originated through descent, and if his whole spiritual life is fully consumed by these merely mechanical factors, then all moral principles are also nothing else than inherited customs founded upon those instincts which in the struggle for existence have proven to be the most beneficial to man. Then their influence is subject to continual change, always corresponding to the existing state of human development. As these moral instincts have displaced the former instincts of the animal predecessors of man-say, e. g., of sharks, of marsupialia, of lemurides-so they must