The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

THERE is a twofold pathos in this book, for with it the author—whom to know is to love—draws, he says, “a line under his life-work,” and with it he once more illustrates the sad fact that a great investigator may not be convincing as a philosopher. The book begins with a reproach that philosophy is ignorant and that science lacks consistency, and we end it with a sigh for the same reasons. As a few readers may remember, Haeckel projected, almost a generation ago, the scheme of a “System of Monistic Philosophy”; but the shadow of age has fallen upon him while his early ambition was still not within sight of being realised. Therefore he has given us in this, “which has something of the character of a sketch-book,” only a hint of what might have been. For the non-fulfilment of his dream of youth, the order of things is more responsible than the author, for there are few who have worked harder and, at the same time, more brilliantly for their day and generation.

The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century.

By Ernst Haeckel, and Professor at the University of Jena. Translated by Joseph McCabe. Issued by the Rationalist Press Association, Ltd, Pp. xvi + 398. (London: Watts and Co., 1900.)