NOTES
NOTES
1 (return)
[ Scientific Articles of Faith.
In Professor Schlesinger's address (delivered on 9th October at Altenburg)
on this subject he rightly called attention to the limits of knowledge of
nature (in Kant's sense of the terms) imposed upon us by the imperfection
of our perceptive organs. The gaps which the empirical investigation of
nature must thus leave in science, can, however, be filled up by
hypotheses, by conjectures of more or less probability. These we cannot
indeed for the time establish on a secure basis; and yet we may make use
of them in the way of explaining phenomena, in so far as they are not
inconsistent with a rational knowledge of nature. Such rational hypotheses
are scientific articles of faith, and therefore very different from
ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, which are either
pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or simply irrational
(contradicting the law of causality). As instances of rational hypotheses
of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief in the oneness of
matter (the building up of the elements from primary atoms), our belief in
equivocal generation, our belief in the essential unity of all natural
phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare my General
Morphology, vol. i. pp. 105, 164, etc., also my Natural
History of Creation, 8th ed., 1889, pp. 21, 360, 795). As the simpler
occurrences of inorganic nature and the more complicated phenomena of
organic life are alike reducible to the same natural forces, and as,
further, these in their turn have their common foundation in a simple
primal principle pervading infinite space, we can regard this last (the
cosmic ether) as all-comprehending divinity, and upon this found the
thesis: "Belief in God is reconcilable with science." In this pantheistic
view, and also in his criticism of a one-sided materialism, I entirely
agree with Professor Schlesinger, though unable to concur with him in some
of his biological, and especially of his anthropological, conclusions (cf.
his article on "Facts and Deductions derived from the Action of Universal
Space" Mittheilungen aus dem Osterlande, Bd. v., Altenburg, 1892).]
2 (return)
[ Unity of Nature. I
consider the fundamental unity of inorganic and organic nature, as well as
their genetic relation, to be an essential axiom of monism. I particularly
emphasise this "article of faith" here, as there are still scientists of
repute who contest it. Not only is the old mystical "vital power" brought
back upon the stage again from time to time, but even the "miraculous"
origin of organic life out of "dead" inorganic nature is often brought up
still against the doctrines of evolution, as an insoluble riddle—as
one of Du Bois-Reymond's "seven riddles of the world" (see his Discourse
on Leibnitz, 1880). The solution of this "transcendent" riddle of the
world, and of the allied question of archigony (equivocal generation, in a
strictly defined meaning of the term), can only be reached by a critical
analysis and unprejudiced comparison of matter, form, and energy in
inorganic and organic nature. This I have already done (1866) in the
second book of my General Morphology (vol. i. pp. 109-238):
"General Researches as to the Nature and First Beginning of Organisms,
their Relation to things Inorganic, and their Division into Plants and
Animals."]
A short résumé of this is contained in Lecture XV. of my Natural History of Creation (8th ed., pp. 340-370). The most serious difficulties which formerly beset the monistic view there given may now be held to have been taken out of the way by recent discoveries concerning the nature of protoplasm, the discovery of the Monera, the more accurate study of the closely-related single-celled Protista, their comparison with the ancestral cell (or fertilised egg-cell), and also by the chemical carbon-theory. (See my "Studies on Monera and other Protista," in the Jenaische Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft, vols. iv. and v., 1868-1870; also Carl Naegeli, Mechanisch-physiologische Begründung der Abstammungslehre, 1884.)]
3 (return)
[ Religion in the Lower
Animals. We cannot fail to recognise in the more highly developed of
our domestic animals (especially in dogs, horses, and elephants) some
first beginnings of those higher brain-functions which we designate as
reason and consciousness, religion and morality; they differ only in
degree, not in kind, from the corresponding mental activities of the
lowest human races. If, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the
anthropoids, had been for thousands of years domesticated and brought up
in close relation with civilised man, the similarity of their mental
activities to those of man would undoubtedly have been much more striking
than it is. The apparently deep gulf which separates man from these most
highly-developed mammals "is mainly founded on the fact that in man
several conspicuous attributes are united, which in the other animals
occur only separately, viz. (1) The higher degree of differentiation of
the larynx (speech), (2) brain (mind), and (3) extremities; and (4) the
upright posture. It is merely the happy combination of these important
animal organs and functions at a higher stage of evolution that raises the
majority of mankind so far above all lower animals" (General Morphology,
1866, vol. ii. p. 430).]
4 (return)
[ Inheritance of Acquired
Characters. As the controversy on this important question is still
unsettled, special attention may here be called to the valuable data for
arriving at a decision which are afforded precisely by the development of
instincts among the higher animals, and of speech and reason in man. "The
inheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual, is
an indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution." "Those who,
with Weismann and Galton, deny this, entirely exclude thereby the
possibility of any formative influence of the outer world upon organic
form" (Anthropogenie, 4th ed., pp. xxiii., 836; see, further, the
works there referred to of Eimer, Weismann, Ray-Lankester, etc.; also
Ludwig Wilser's Die Vererbung der geistigen Eigenschaften,
Heidelberg, 1892).]
5 (return)
[ Theosophical System of
Nature. Of all the modern attempts of dualistic philosophy to
establish the knowledge of nature on a theological basis (that of
Christian monotheism), the Essay on Classification of Louis Agassiz
is by far the most important,—in strictness, indeed, is the only one
worthy of mention. (On this see my Natural History of Creation,
Lect. III., also "Aims and Methods of the Modern Embryology," 1875, Jena
Zeitschr. für Naturw., Bd. x., Supplement.)]
6 (return)
[ Darwin and Copernicus.
This is the title of an address delivered by Du Bois-Reymond on 25th
January 1883, in the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and afterwards published
in his Collected Addresses (vol. ii. 1887). As the author
himself mentions in a note (p. 500) that this gave rise, "most
unmeritedly," to great excitement, and called down upon him the violent
attacks of the clerical press, I may be allowed to point out here that it
contained nothing new, I myself, fifteen years previously, in my lectures
on "The Origin and Genealogy of the Human Race," having carried out in
detail the comparison between Darwin and Copernicus, and the service
rendered by these two heroes in putting an end to the anthropocentric and
geocentric views of the world. (See the Third Series in Virchow and
Holtzendorff's Collection of Popular Scientific Lectures, Nos. 53
and 54, 1868, 4th ed., 1881.) When Du Bois-Reymond says, "For me, Darwin
is the Copernicus of the organic world," I am the more pleased to find
that he agrees (partly in identical words) with my way of thinking, as he
himself, quite unnecessarily, takes up an attitude of opposition towards
me. The same is the case with regard to the explanation of innate ideas by
Darwinism, which he has attempted in his address (1870) on "Leibnitzian
Ideas in Modern Science" (vol. i. of the Collected Addresses). Here
also he is most agreeably at one with me in what, four years before, I had
elaborated in my General Morphology (vol. ii. p. 446), and in my Natural
History of Creation (1868). "The laws of heredity and adaptation
explain to us how it is that à priori ideas have been developed out
of what was originally à posteriori knowledge," etc. I cannot fail
to be highly flattered in being able in these last days to greet the
renowned orator of the Berlin Academy as a friend and patron of the Natural
History of Creation, which he had previously designated a bad romance.
But his winged words are not on that account to be forgotten, that "the
genealogical trees of phylogeny are about as much worth as, in the eyes of
the historical critic, are those of the Homeric heroes" (Darwin versus
Galiani, 1876).]
7 (return)
[ The Law of the Conservation
of Substance. Strictly taken, this belongs also to "scientific
articles of faith," and could stand as the first article of our "monistic
religion." Physicists of the present day, it is true, generally (and
correctly) regard their "law of the conservation of energy" as the
immovable foundation of all their science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just
as in like manner chemists so regard their fundamental law of the
"conservation of matter" (Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could,
however, raise certain objections to either of these fundamental laws with
as much success as against their combination into the single superior law
of the "conservation of substance." As a matter of fact, dualistic
philosophy still attempts to raise such objections, often under the guise
of cautious criticism. The sceptical (in part also purely dogmatic)
objections have a semblance of justification only in so far as they relate
to the fundamental problem of substance, the primary question as to the
connection between matter and energy. While freely recognising the
presence of this real "boundary of natural knowledge," we can yet, within
this boundary, apply quite universally the "mechanical law of causality."
The complicated "phenomena of mind," as they are called (more especially
consciousness), fall under the "law of the conservation of substance" just
as strictly as do the simpler mechanical processes of nature dealt with in
inorganic physics and chemistry. Compare note 16.]
8 (return)
[ Kant and Monism. As
recent German philosophy has in a large measure returned to Kant, and in
some cases even deified as "infallible" the great Königsberg philosopher,
it may be well here to point out once more that his system of critical
philosophy is a mixture of monistic and dualistic ingredients. His
critical principles of the theory of knowledge will always remain of
fundamental importance: his proof that we are unable to know the essential
and profoundest essence of substance, the "thing in itself" (or "the
combination of matter and energy"); that our knowledge remains subjective
in its nature; that it is conditioned by the organisation of our brain and
sensory organs, and can therefore only deal with the phenomena which our
experience of the outer world affords us. But within these "limits of
human knowledge" a positive monistic knowledge of nature is still
possible, in contrast to all dualistic and metaphysical fantasies. One
such great fact of monistic knowledge was the mechanical cosmogony of Kant
and Laplace, the "Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Origin of the
Universe, according to the Principles of Newton" (1755). In the whole
field of our knowledge of inorganic nature, Kant held firmly to the
monistic point of view, allowing mechanism alone as the real explanation
of the phenomena. In the science of organic nature also, on the other
hand, he held monism to be valid indeed, yet insufficient; here he
considered it necessary to call in the aid of final as well as of
efficient causes. (Cf. the fifth lecture of my Natural History
of Creation on "The Evolution-Theory of Kant and Lamarck"; also
Albrecht Rau's Kant und die Naturforschung: Eine Prüfung der Resultate
des idealistischen Kritikismus durch den realistischen Kosmos, vol.
ii., 1886.) Once thus on the downgrade of dualistic teleology, Kant
afterwards arrived at his untenable metaphysical views of "God, Freedom,
and Immortality." It is probable that Kant would have escaped these errors
if he had had a thorough anatomical and physiological training. The
natural sciences were, indeed, at that time truly in their infancy. I am
firmly convinced that Kant's system of critical philosophy would have
turned out quite otherwise from what it was, and purely monistic, if he
had had at his disposal the then unsuspected treasures of empirical
natural knowledge which we now possess.]
9 (return)
[ The Ether. In a
thoughtful lecture on the relations between light and electricity at the
sixty-second Congress of German naturalists and physicians in Heidelberg
in 1889, Heinrich Hertz explains the scope of his brilliant discovery:
"Thus the domain of electricity extends over the whole of nature. It comes
nearer to ourselves; we learn that we actually possess an electric organ,
the eye. Here we are brought face to face with the question as to
unmediated actio in distans. Is there such a thing? Not far off
from this, in another direction, lies the question of the nature of
electricity. And immediately connected therewith arises the momentous and
primary question as to the nature of the ether, of the properties of the
medium that fills all space, its structure, its rest or motion, its
infinitude or finitude. It becomes every day more manifest that this
question rises above all others, that a knowledge of what the ether is
would reveal to us not only the nature of the old 'imponderables,' but
also of the old 'matter' itself and its most essential properties, weight
and inertia. Modern physics is not far from the question whether
everything that exists is not created from the ether." This question is
already being answered in the affirmative by some monistic physicists, as,
for example, by J. G. Vogt in his most suggestive work on The Nature of
Electricity and Magnetism, on The Basis of the Conception of a
Single Substance (Leipsic, 1891). He regards the atoms of mass (the
primal atoms of the kinetic theory of matter) as individualised centres of
concentration of the continuous substance that uninterruptedly fills all
space; the mobile elastic part of this substance between the atoms, and
universally distributed, is—the ether. Georg Helm in Dresden, on the
basis of mathematico-physical experiments, had already at an earlier date
arrived at the same conclusions; in his treatise on "Influences at a
Distance mediated by the Ether" (Annalen der Physik und Chemie,
1881, Bd. xiv.), he shows that it requires only the postulate of one
particular kind of matter, the ether, to explain influence at a distance
and radiation; that is, as regards these phenomena, all the qualities
ascribable to matter, except that of motion, are of no account; in other
words, that in thinking of the ether we simply require to think of it as
"the mobile."]
10 (return)
[ Atoms and Elements.
The evidences, numerous and important, for the composite nature of our
empirical elements, have lately been compendiously discussed by Gustav
Wendt in his treatise, Die Entwicklung der Elemente: Entwurf zu einer
biologischen Grundlage fur Chemie und Physik[I] (Berlin, 1891);
compare also Wilhelm Freyer's Die organischen Elemente und ihre
Stellung im System[II] (Wiesbaden, 1891), Victor Meyer's Chemische
Probleme der Gegenwart[III] (Heidelberg, 1890), and W. Crookes's Genesis
of the Elements. For the different views as to the nature of the atom,
see Philip Spiller on "The Doctrines of Atoms" in Die Urkraft des
Weltalls nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken auf allen Naturgebieten[IV]
(Berlin, 1886), (1. The philosophy of nature; 2. The doctrine of the
ether; 3. The ethical side of the science of nature). For the constitution
of the elements out of atoms, see A. Turner, Die Kraft und Masse im
Raume[V] (Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1886), (1. On the nature of matter and its
relationships; 2. Atomic combinations; 3. The nature of the molecules and
their combinations. Theory of crystallisation).
Note I "The Development of the Elements: an Essay towards a Biological Basis for Chemistry and Physics."
Note II "The Organic Elements and their Place in the System."
Note III "Chemical Problems of the Day."
Note IV "The Primary Force of the Universe, its Nature and Action."
Note V "Force and Matter in Space."]
11 (return)
[ World-Substance. The
relation of the two fundamental constituents of the cosmos, ether and
mass, may perhaps be made apparent, in accordance with one out of many
hypotheses, by the following, partly provisional, scheme.]
12 (return)
[ General doctrine of
Evolution. The fundamental importance of the modern doctrine of
evolution, and of the monistic philosophy based upon it, is clearly
evidenced by the steady increase of its copious literature. I have cited
the most important treatises on this subject in the new (eighth) edition
of my Natural History of Creation (1889). Compare, specially, Carus
Sterne (Ernst Krause), Werden und Vergehen: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte
des Naturganzen in gemeinverständlicher Fassung[VI] (3rd ed., Berlin,
1886); Hugo Spitzer, Beiträge zur Descendenztheorie und zur
Methodologie der Naturwissenschaft (Graz, 1886);[VII] Albrecht Ran, Ludwig
Feuerbach's Philosophie der Naturforschung und die philosophische Kritik
der Gegenwart (Leipsic, 1882);[VIII] Hermann Wolff, Kosmos: Die
Weltentwicklung nach monitisch-psychologischen Principien auf Grundlage
der exacten Naturforschung (Leipsic, 1890).[IX]
Note VI "Growth and Decay: a Popular History of the Development of the Cosmos."
Note VII "Contributions towards a Theory of Descent, and towards a Methodology of the Sciences of Nature."
Note VIII "Ludwig Feuerbach's Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophical Criticism of the Present Time."
Note IX "Cosmos: The Development of the Cosmos according to Monistic Principles on the Basis of Exact Science."]
13 (return)
[ History of Descent.
The idea and the task of phylogeny, or the history of descent, I first
defined in 1866, in the sixth book of my General Morphology (vol.
ii. pp. 301-422), and the substance of this, as well as an account of its
relation to ontogeny or history of development, is set forth in a popular
form in Part II. of my Natural History of Creation (8th ed.,
Berlin, 1889). A special application of both these divisions of the
history of evolution to man, is attempted in my Anthropogenie (4th
ed.), revised and enlarged, 1891: Part I. History of development. Part II.
History of descent.]
14 (return)
[ Opponents of the Doctrine
of Descent. Since the death of Louis Agassiz (1873), Rudolf Virchow is
regarded as the sole noteworthy opponent of Darwinism and the theory of
descent; he never misses an opportunity (as recently in Moscow) of
opposing it as "unproved hypothesis." See as to this my pamphlet, Freedom
in Science and in Teaching, a reply to Virchow's address at Munich on
"Freedom of Science in the Modern State" (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr.,
1892).]
15 (return)
[ Cellular Psychology.
See on this my paper on "Cell-souls and Soul-cells," in the Deutsche
Rundschau (July 1878), reprinted in Part 1, of Collected Popular
Lectures; also "The Cell-soul and Cellular Psychology" in my discourse
on Freedom in Science and Teaching (Stuttgart, 1878; Eng. tr.,
1892, p. 46); Natural History of Creation (8th ed., pp. 444, 777);
and Descent of Man (4th ed., pp. 128, 147). See also, Max Verworn,
Psycho-physiologische Protisten-Studien (Jena, 1889), and Paul
Carus, The Soul of Man: An Investigation of the Facts of Physiological
and Experimental Psychology (Chicago, 1891). Among recent attempts to
reform psychology on the basis of evolutionary doctrine in a monistic
sense, special mention must be made of Georg Heinrich Schneider's Der
thierische Wille: Systematische Darstellung und Erklärung der thierischen
Triebe und deren Entstehung, Entwickelung und Verbreitung im Thierreiche
als Grundlage zu einer vergleichenden Willenslehre[X] (Leipsic, 1880).
Compare also his supplementary work, entitled Der menschliche Wille vom
Standpunkte der neuen Entwickelungstheorie[XI] (1882); also the Psychology
of Herbert Spencer and the new edition of Wilhelm Wundt's Menschen-und
Thierseele[XII] (Leipsic, 1892).
Note X "Will in the Lower Animals: a Systematic Exposition and Explanation of Animal Instincts, and their Origin, Development, and Difference in the Animal Kingdom, as Basis of a Comparative Doctrine of Volition."
Note XI "The Human Will from the Standpoint of the Modern Theory of Evolution."
Note XII "Soul in Man and Brute."
16 (return)
[ Consciousness. The
antiquated view of Du Bois-Reymond (1872)—that human consciousness
is an unsoluble "world-riddle," a transcendent phenomenon in essential
antithesis to all other natural phenomena—continues to be upheld in
numerous writings. It is chiefly on this that the dualistic view of the
world founds its assertion, that man is an altogether peculiar being, and
that his personal soul is immortal; and this is the reason why the
"Leipsic ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond has for twenty years been
prized as a defence by all representatives of the mythological view of the
world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing word
of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and this
"ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even worse,
that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any further talk
about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address remains
certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful sermon,"
characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising variety of
philosophico-scientific pictures. It is well known, however, that the
majority (and especially women) judge a "beautiful sermon" not according
to the value of the thoughts embodied in it, but according to its
excellence as an aesthetical entertainment. While Du Bois treats his
audience at great length to disquisitions on the wondrous performances of
the genius of Laplace, he afterwards glides over, the most important part
of his subject in eleven short lines, and makes not the slightest further
attempt to solve the main question he has to deal with—as to whether
the world is really "doubly incomprehensible." For my own part, on the
contrary, I have already repeatedly sought to show that the two limits to
our knowledge of nature are one and the same; the fact of consciousness
and the relation of consciousness to the brain are to us not less, but
neither are they more, puzzling, than the fact of seeing and hearing, than
the fact of gravitation, than the connection between matter and energy.
Compare my discourse on Freedom in Science and Teaching (1878), pp.
78, 82, etc.]
17 (return)
[ Immortality. Perhaps
in no ecclesiastical article of faith is the gross materialistic
conception of Christian dogma so evident as in the cherished doctrine of
personal immortality, and that of "the resurrection of the body,"
associated with it. As to this, Savage, in his excellent work on Religion
in the Light of the Darwinian Doctrine, has well remarked: "One of the
standing accusations of the Church against science is that it is
materialistic. On this I would like to point out, in passing, that the
whole Church-conception concerning a future life has always been, and
still is, the purest materialism. It is represented that the material body
is to rise again, and inhabit a material heaven." Compare also Ludwig
Buchner, Das zunkünftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft
(Leipsic, 1889); Lester Ward, "Causes of Belief in Immortality" (The
Forum, vol. VIII., September 1889); and Paul Carus, The Soul of
Man: an Investigation of the Facts of Physiological and Experimental
Psychology (Chicago, 1891). Carus aptly points out the analogy between
the ancient and the modern ideas with respect to light, and with respect
to the soul. Just as formerly the luminous flame was explained by means of
a special fiery matter (phlogiston), so the thinking soul was
explained by the hypothesis of a peculiar gaseous soul-substance. We now
know that the light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the
ether, and the soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion-cells. As
compared with this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of
scholastic psychology has about the same value as the materialistic
conceptions of the Red Indian about a future life in Schiller's
"Nadowessian Death-Song."]
18 (return)
[ Monistic Ethic. All
Ethic, the theoretical as well as the practical doctrine of morals, as a
"science of law" (Normwissenschaft), stands in immediate connection
with the view that is taken of the world (Weltanschauung), and
consequently with religion. This position I regard as exceedingly
important, and have recently upheld in a paper on "Ethik und
Weltanschauung," in opposition to the "Society for Ethical Culture" lately
founded in Berlin, which would teach and promote ethics without reference
to any view of the world or to religion. (Compare the new weekly journal,
Die Zukunft, edited by Maximilian Harden, Berlin, 1892, Nos.
V.-VII.). Just as I take the monistic to be the only rational basis for
all science, I claim the same also for ethics. On this subject compare
especially the ethical writings of Herbert Spencer and those of B. von
Carneri—Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus (1871); Entwickelung
und Glückseligkeit (1886); and more particularly, the latest of all,
Der moderne Mensch (Bonn, 1891); further, Wilhelm Streeker, Welt
und Menschheit (Leipsic, 1892); Harald Höffding, Die Grundlage der
humanen Ethik (Bonn, 1880); and the recent large work of Wilhelm
Wundt, Ethik, eine Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des
sittlichen Lebens (Stuttgart, 2nd ed., 1892).]
19 (return)
[ Homotheism. Under the
term homotheism (or anthropomorphism) we include all the various forms of
religious belief which ascribe to a personal God purely human
characteristics. However variously these anthropomorphic ideas may have
shaped themselves in dualistic and pluralistic religions, all in common
retain the unworthy conception that God (Theos) and man (homo)
are organised similarly and according to the same type (homotype). In the
region of poetry such personifications are both pleasing and legitimate.
In the region of science they are quite inadmissible; they are doubly
objectionable now that we know that only in late Tertiary times was man
developed from pithecoid mammals. Every religious dogma which represents
God as a "spirit" in human form, degrades Him to a "gaseous vertebrate" (General
Morphology, 1866; Chap, xxx., God in Nature). The expression
"homotheism" is ambiguous and etymologically objectionable, but more
practical than the cumbersome word "Anthropotheism."]
20 (return)
[ Monistic Religion.
Amongst the many attempts which have been made in the course of the last
twenty years to reform religion in a monistic direction on the basis of
advanced knowledge of nature, by far the most important is the
epoch-making work of David Friedrich Strauss, entitled The Old Faith
and the New: A Confession (11th ed., Bonn, 1881: Collected Writings,
1878). Compare M. J. Savage, Religion in the Light of the Darwinian
Doctrine; John William Draper, History of the Conflict between
Religion and Science; Carl Friedrich Retzer, Die
naturwissenschaftliche Weltanschauung und ihre Ideale, ein Ersatz fuer das
religiöse Dogma (Leipsic, 1890); E. Koch, Natur und Menschengeist
im Lichte der Entwickelungslehre (Berlin, 1891). For the phylogeny of
religion see the interesting work of U. Van Ende, Histoire Naturelle de
la Croyance (Paris, 1887).]
21 (return)
[ Freedom in Teaching.
The jubilee of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes" was
celebrated in Altenburg on October 9, 1892, contemporaneously with the
commencement of the brilliant celebration of the golden wedding of the
Grand Duke and Duchess in Weimar. As exceptional as the celebration are
the characteristics which distinguish this august couple. The Grand Duke
Carl Alexander has, during a prosperous reign of forty years, constantly
shown himself an illustrious patron of science and art; as Rector
Magnificentissimus of our Thüringian university of Jena, he has always
afforded his protection to its most sacred palladium—the right of
the free investigation and teaching of truth. The Grand Duchess Sophie,
the heiress and guardian of the Goethe archives, has in Weimar prepared a
fitting home for that precious legacy of our most brilliant literary
period, and has anew made accessible to the German nation the ideal
treasures of thought of her greatest intellectual hero. The history of
culture will never forget the service which the princely couple have
thereby rendered to the human mind in its higher development, and at the
same time to true religion.]