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

A best-seller in 1900, this book puts forward an evolutionist alternative religion, combining science and philosophy.

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (Author), Joseph McCabe (Translated by)

9781108000895, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

420 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.53 kg

Originally trained as a physician, the biologist and thinker Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), was an evolutionist who remained sceptical of natural selection. This book, which first appeared in German in 1899, sold 10,000 copies in its first few months and was published in an English translation the following year. In the preface, Haeckel applauds the technological progress of the nineteenth century, but bemoans the lack of communication between empirical scientists and abstract philosophers in the search for truth. The book carefully outlines Haeckel's monistic philosophy and ethics, which he sees as the key to human progress. Its twenty chapters cover anthropology, psychology, cosmology and theology, ranging from the embryology of the soul to a debate on Christianity and science. Haeckel's philosophy attracted a sizeable following for several decades, and it remains of interest to historians working on the reception of Darwinism as well as on its appropriation into Nazi ideology.

Preface
Author's preface
1. The nature of the problem
2. Our bodily frame
3. Our life
4. Our embryonic development
5. The history of our species
6. The nature of the soul
7. Psychic gradations
8. The embryology of the soul
9. The phylogeny of the soul
10. Consciousness
11. The immortality of the soul
12. The law of substance
13. The evolution of the world
14. The unity of nature
15. God and the world
16. Knowledge and belief
17. Science and Christianity
18. Our monistic religion
19. Our monistic ethics
20. Solution of the world-problem
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]