Chapter XXXIII: Part 33

“The cry which a child scarcely born utters, has not the tone
of misery, but of irritation, and violent rage; not the result
of pain, but of vexation about something; probably for the
reason that it wishes to move itself and feels its incapacity,
like a captive when freedom is taken from him. What purpose
can nature have in providing that a child shall come with a
loud cry into the world, which for it and the mother is, in the
_rude natural state_, full of danger? Since a wolf, a pig even,
would in the absence of the mother, or through her feebleness
owing to her delivery, be thus attracted to devour it. But
no animal except man as he now is announces with noise its
new-born existence; which in the wisdom of nature appears to
be arranged _in order that the species shall be preserved_. We
must also assume that in what was an early epoch of nature for
this class of animals (namely in the period of barbarism) this
outcry of the child at its birth did not exist; consequently
only later on a second epoch appeared, after both parents had
arrived at that degree of civilisation which was required for
home-life; yet without knowing how and by what interweaving
causes nature arranges such a development. This remark leads us
far; for example, to the thought whether after the same epoch,
still a third did not follow accompanied by great natural
revolutions, during which an orang-outang or a chimpanzee
perfected the organs which serve for walking, for feeling
objects, and for speech, and thus evolved the limb-structure of
man; in which animals was contained an organ for the exercise
of the function of reason, which by social cultivation was
gradually perfected and developed.”

Kant’s view concerning the origin of the biped man from quadruped animal ancestors is most unequivocally stated.

In a review of Dr. Moscati’s Lecture upon the difference of structure in animals and in men, Kant says:

“Dr. Moscati proves that the upright walk of man is constrained
and unnatural; that he is indeed so constructed that he may
be able to maintain and move in this position, but that,
although by needful and constant habit he formed himself thus,
inconvenience and disease arise therefrom, which sufficiently
prove, that he was misled by reason and imitation to deviate
from the first animal arrangement. Man is not constructed
internally different from other animals that go on all fours.
When now he raises himself his intestines, particularly
the embryo of pregnant individuals, come into a pendulous
situation and a half reversed condition, which, if it often
alternates with the lying position or that on all-fours, cannot
precisely produce specially evil consequences, but, by constant
continuance, causes deformities and numerous diseases. Thus,
for example, the heart, because it is compelled to hang free,
elongates the blood vessels to which it is attached, assumes
an oblique position since it is supported by the diaphragm and
slides with its end against the left side—a position wherein
man, especially at full growth, differs from all other animals,
and thereby receives an inevitable inclination to aneurism,
palpitation, asthma, chest-dropsy, etc., etc. With the upright
position of man the mesentery, pulled down by the weight of the
intestines, sinks perpendicularly thereunder, is elongated and
weakened, and prepared for numerous ruptures. In the mesenteric
vein which has no valves, the blood moves slowly and with
greater difficulty (it having to ascend against the course of
gravity) than would happen with the horizontal position of the
trunk....”

“We could add considerably to the reasons just adduced to
show that our animal nature is really quadrupedal. Among all
four-footed animals there is not a single one that could not
swim if it accidentally fell into the water. Man alone drowns,
except in cases where he has learned to swim. The reason is
because he has laid aside the habit of going on all-fours; for
it is by this motion that he would keep himself up in the water
without the exercise of any art, and by which all four-footed
creatures, who otherwise shun the water, swim....”

“It will be seen, accordingly, that the first care of nature
was that man should be preserved as animal for _himself and
his species_, and for that end the position best adapted to
his internal structure, to the lay of the fœtus, and to his
preservation in danger, was the quadrupedal position; we see,
moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in him, whereby,
after the development of the same, he is destined for _social
intercourse_, and by the aid of which he assumes the position
which is in every case the most fitted for this, namely, the
bipedal position,—thus gaining upon the one hand infinite
advantages over animals, but also being obliged to put up with
many inconveniences that result from his holding his head so
proudly above his old companions.”

[[106] In the double-leaded quotation on pages 43 and 44 Kant speaks about the explanation of organised life from man down to the polyp “according to mechanical laws like those which work in the production of crystals,” and he adds, in organised beings the whole technic of nature is so incomprehensible to us “that we imagine another principle is necessitated for their explanation.”

This “other principle” would be the principle of design, or the teleological explanation of phenomena. In his old age Kant inclined more to teleology than in his younger years, and it is for this reason that Professor Ernst Haeckel accuses Kant of inconsistency.

After having pointed out that “Kant is one of the few philosophers that combine a well-founded knowledge of the natural sciences with extraordinary precision and depth of speculation” and further that “he was the first who taught ‘the principle of the struggle for existence’ and ‘the theory of selection.’” Haeckel says in his “Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte,” 8th edition, p. 91:

“Wir würden daher unbedingt in der Geschichte der
Entwickelungslehre unserem gewaltigen Königsberger Philosophen
den ersten Platz einräumen müssen, wenn nicht leider diese
bewundernswürdigen monistischen Ideen des jungen Kant später
durch den überwältigenden Einfluss der dualistisch christlichen
Weltanschauung ganz zurückgedrängt worden wären.”

This “influence of the dualistic Christian world-conception” is according to Haeckel, Kant’s recognition of a teleological causation in the realm of organised life. Haeckel says on the same place:

“Er behauptet, dass sich im Gebiete der anorganischen Natur
unbedingt sämmtliche Erscheinungen aus mechanischen Ursachen,
aus bewegenden Kräften der Materie selbst, erklären lassen, im
Gebiete der anorganischen Natur dagegen nicht.”

Haeckel does not stand alone in denouncing the old Kant. Schopenhauer distinguishes between the author of the first and the author of the second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” regarding the former only as the real Kant. These accusations are not without foundation, but we believe with Max Müller that they have been unduly exaggerated.

As to teleology for which Kant’s preference appears to be more strongly marked in his later than in his younger years we should say that it is a problem that should, in an historical investigation, as to whether or not Kant was a consistent evolutionist, be treated independently. No one can deny that there is an adaptation to ends in the domain of organised life. It is not so much required to deny teleology in the domain of organised nature as to purify and critically sift our views of teleology. There is a kind of teleology which does not stand in contradiction to the causation of efficient causes so called.

Mr. Spencer’s denunciations of Kant would have some foundation, if he had reference to the old Kant alone. But everyone who censures Kant for the errors of his later period is bound to qualify his statement, and indeed whenever such strictures of Kantism appear I find them expressly stated as having reference to “the old Kant.”

That Kant who is a living power even to-day is the young Kant, it is the author of the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason.” He is generally called “the young Kant,” although he was not young; he was, as we say, in his best years. The old Kant who proclaimed that he “must abolish knowledge in order to make room for faith” is a dead weight in our colleges and universities. The young Kant is positive, the old Kant is agnostic. The young Kant was an investigator and naturalist of the first degree; he gave an impetus to investigation that it had never before received from philosophy. The old Kant, I should not exactly say reverted but certainly, neglected the principles of his younger years and thus became the leader of a reactionary movement from which sprang two offshoots very unlike each other but children of the same father; the Oxford transcendentalism as represented by Green and the English agnosticism as represented by Mr. Spencer.

It is strange that Mr. Spencer has so little knowledge concerning the evolution of the views he holds. If he were more familiar with the history of the idea “that the world-problem is insolvable,” he would show more reverence toward the old Kant and his mystical inclinations; for Kant, whatever Mr. Spencer may say against it, is the father of modern agnosticism.[107]]

* * * * *

The history of Mr. Spencer’s philosophical development shows that the first idea which took possession of his mind and formed the centre of crystalisation for all his later views was M. Condorcet’s optimism. Condorcet believed in progress; he was convinced that in spite of all the tribulations and anxieties of the present, man would at last arrive at a state of perfection. He saw a millennium in his prophetic mind, which alas!—if the law of evolution be true—can never be realised. Condorcet died a martyr to his ideals. He poisoned himself in 1799 to escape death by the Guillotine.

The influence of Condorcet’s work _Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain_ is traceable not only in Mr. Spencer’s first book, “Social Statics,” published in 1850, but in all his later writings. How can a true evolutionist believe in the Utopia of a state of perfect adaptation? Does not each progress demand new adaptations? Take as an instance the change from walking on four feet to an upright gait. Did not this progress itself involve man in new difficulties, to which he had to adapt himself? Let a labor-saving machine be invented, how many laborers lose their work and how many others are in demand! The transition from one state to the other is not easy, and as soon as it is perfected new wants have arisen which inexorably drive humanity onward on the infinite path of progress which can never be limited by any state of perfection. There is a constant readjustment necessary, and if we really could reach a state of perfect adaptation human life would drop into the unconsciousness of mere reflex motions.

Any one who understands the principle of evolution and its universal applicability, will recognise that there can be no standstill in the world, no state of perfect adaptation. Our solar system has evolved, as Kant explained in his “General Cosmogony and Theory of the Heavens,” out of a nebula, and is going to dissolve again into a nebular state. So our social development consists in a constant realisation of ideals. We may think that if we but attain our next and dearest ideal, humanity will be satisfied forever. But as soon as we have realised that ideal, we quickly get accustomed to its benefits. It becomes a matter of course and another ideal higher still than that just realised appears before our mental gaze.

Herder, in his “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” not unlike Mr. Spencer, was also under the spell of the Utopian ideal, that humanity will reach at last a state of perfect happiness. Kant, in his review of Herder’s book, discusses the relativity of happiness and its insufficiency as a final aim of life. He says:

“First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a
child and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs
of human history, as well as among all classes and conditions
of the same epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in
exact conformity with the individual’s ideas and the degree
of his habituation to the conditions amid which he was
born and raised. Indeed, it is not even possible to form a
comparison of the degree of happiness nor to give precedence
to one class of men or to one generation over another....
If this shadow-picture of happiness ... were the actual aim
of Providence, every man would have the measure of his own
happiness within him.... Does the author (Herder) think perhaps
that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheiti had never been
visited by more civilised peoples and were ordained to live
in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that we
could give a satisfactory answer to the question why they
should exist at all, and whether it would not have been just
as well that this island should be occupied by happy sheep and
cattle as that it should be inhabited by men who are happy only
through pure enjoyment?”

“It involves no contradiction to say that no individual
member of all the offspring of the human race, but that
only the species, fully attains its mission (Bestimmung).
The mathematician may explain the matter in his way. The
philosopher would say: the mission of the human race as a whole
is _unceasing progress_, and the perfection (Vollendung) of
this mission is a mere idea (although in every aspect a very
useful one) of the aim towards which, in conformity with the
design of providence, we are to direct our endeavors.”

It is indubitable that Kant’s views of evolution agree better with the present state of scientific investigation, than does Mr. Spencer’s philosophy, which has never been freed from Condorcet’s ingenuous optimism. The assumption of a final state of perfection by absolute adaptation is irreconcilable with the idea of unceasing progress, which must be true, if evolution is a universal law of nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] See Mr. Spencer’s article in _Mind_, No. LIX, p. 313.

[102] The passage in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ on Baer runs as follows:

“In his _Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere_, p. 264, he distinctly tells us that the law of growing individuality is ‘the fundamental thought which goes through all forms and degrees of animal development and all single relations. It is the same thought which collected in the cosmic space solar systems; the same which caused the weather-beaten dust on the surface of our metallic planet to spring forth living beings.’ Von Baer thus prepared the way for Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of organic evolution as the law of all evolution.”

[103] See Haeckel, _Goethe on Evolution_, No. 131 of _The Open Court_.

[104] _Præstabilismus_, that is, the theory that the phenomena of nature are the result of pre-established law.

[105] The proposition that Kant is no easy reading found an unexpected and strong opposition. Immediately after the publication of this article, Sept. 4th, 1890, Mr. Charles S. Peirce made the following incidental remark in a letter to the author dated Sept. 6th, 1890: “I have heard too much of Kant’s being hard reading. I think he is one of the easiest of philosophers; for he generally knows what he wants to say, which is more than half the battle, and he says it in terms which are very clear. Of course, it is quite absurd to try to read Kant without preliminary studies of Leibnizian and English philosophers, as well as of the terminology of which Kant’s is a modification or transmogrification. But there is a way of making out what he meant, while such writers as Hume and J. S. Mill, the more you study them the more they puzzle you.”

[106] This passage on pages 48, 49, and 50 which is enclosed in brackets did not appear in _The Open Court_. It has been added since and is published here for the first time.

[107] In this connection we call attention to a book, _Kant und Darwin, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Entwickelungslehre_, Jena, 1875, by Fritz Schultze, formerly Privat docent in Jena, now Professor of philosophy at the Polytechnic Institute in Dresden. This little book is a collection of the most important passages of Kant’s views concerning evolution, the struggle for existence, and the theory of selection, and it is astonishing to find how much Kant had to say on the subject and how strongly he agrees with and anticipates Darwin. If Kant had not lived before Darwin one might be tempted to conclude that he was familiar with his _Origin of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_.