V.

After Prof. N�geli had thus tried to curb our scientific knowledge of Nature his example was followed at the same meeting by Prof. Virchow in order to restrict still further the “freedom of science in the modern State.” His eyes are so sensitive that they cannot stand even the feeble light which N�geli had put up.

“I should like to prove to you that we have arrived at a point where we must make it our special business to moderate ourselves and to renounce to a certain extent our predilections and personal views so as to keep up the good temper which the nation still exhibits towards us.”

What a miserable “nation” this is, whose good temper the professor desires to preserve, will prove no puzzle to our comrades. We recognise the well-to-do by this mere predilection for the moderation of others, by their sensitiveness to everything which may interfere with their digestion.

“It goes without saying that we must demand for everything which we consider to be well established scientific truth complete adoption in the national store of knowledge; this the nation must absorb, – this it must consume and digest.”

Our professor is right; there are some truths which are too patent to allow of being hushed up, and there are others which can serve the revolutionary tendencies and must, therefore be “moderated,” though science unmistakably gravitates to them.

“We cannot proceed to explain to every yokel: this is true, established by fact, this is fairly known and that is only a conjecture ... We must abstain from putting into the heads of our schoolmasters what w merely conjecture ... After all, this theory ol evolution, too, when consistently carried to its logical conclusion, has some very dangerous aspects, and it will not have escaped your attention, I hope, that Social-Democracy has taken cognizance of it.”

This hardly requires any comment. One needs only listen to the man to perceive at once how it stands with the “Freedom of science in the modern State.” Knowledge must naturally be still more restricted by Virchow than it was by his colleague, N�geli.

“In thus narrowing the limits of our knowledge we must remember above all that what is commonly called natural science is like all other knowledge in the world made up of three heterogeneous elements. Usually we merely distinguish between objective and subjective knowledge. Yet we have still a third, a sort of medium element, namely, that of belief, which, as you know, also exists in science.”

This subtle distinction which the artful dodger, for the sake of his reputation, thereupon draws between scientific and religious belief, need not be taken seriously, but the ingenious way in which he scents the weak points of his predecessor deserves some acknowledgement. N�geli had said:

“Reflex action is clearly bound up in higher animals with sensitiveness. We must also grant it in the case of lower animals, and we have no reason to deny it in case of plants and inorganic bodies ... In virtue of its structure out of different parts the atom possesses various properties and powers, accordingly it also exercises various influences (attraction and repulsion) upon other atoms ... If, therefore, the molecules experience something akin to sensitiveness it must also be a pleasure to them if they can follow their sympathies and antipathies, etc. ... The molecules of chemical elements are, therefore, swayed by a number of qualitatively and quantitatively different sensations. We accordingly find in the lowest and simplest organizations of matter of which we know, essentially the same phenomena as in the highest ... The difference is merely that of degree.”

To that Virchow replied:

“This is the objection which I make to the statements of Herr N�geli ... He not only wants us to extend the domain of mind to animals and plants, but also that we finally pass with our views of the nature of mental phenomena from the organic to the inorganic world ... If mental phenomena are at all costs to be brought in connection with those of the rest of the world, then one necessarily arrives at transferring first the psychical phenomena as they are found in man and the highest organized vertebra to the lower and ever lower animals, and then to endow even plants with a soul; then it is the cell which feels and thinks, and finally there is a gradual transition even to the chemical atoms which hate and love each other, seek or avoid each other ... I do not object to atoms of carbon also having a mind, ... but I do not see anything by which it could be known. It is a mere play upon words. By declaring attraction and repulsion to be mental, psychical phenomena we simply throw the psychical overboard ... To us the sum total of psychical phenomena is undoubtedly only associated with certain animals and not with the whole of organic life, not even with all animals. This I declare without hesitation.”

We must acknowledge that Virchow is in one respect perfectly right: ideas with a distinct meaning in language should remain distinct. One must not play with words; but neither must one shut his eyes to the fact that the psychical sensation of pleasure and pain presents a certain analogy to the chemical attraction and repulsion. Let us only dot the i, and then the two will appear as equally legitimate forms of the same Nature, as the equally intelligible predicate of the same subject. Only those who utterly refuse to connect the mental phenomena with those of the rest of the world, will fail to perceive that the animal and chemical, the physical and psychical phenomena are common varieties of the great world process. And once more, gentlemen: The world is dialectical, as much one or homogeneous in essence as varied in the manner it appears; all distinction is only that of degree. The unity which N�geli defends is lost to him as soon as he lands in “the world of presentiment” and at “divine omniscience;” but that unity is already lost to Virchow when he merely arrives at the distinction between organic and inorganic; still more intolerable is to him the link between animal and man; and as for the opposition between body and soul, – this he wants to keep outside the province of debate altogether, as the bridging over of this opposition “in the head of the Socialist” was bound to cause an awful confusion and lead to the overthrow of all professorial wisdom.