." But even the question as to the origin of the organic and of life
can not be discussed without an investigation, leading us farther back to
the question as to _the elements of the world_ in general. The _doctrine of
atoms_, and the _mechanical view of the world_, are the scientific
evidences of the efforts in this direction.

So far as the attempts to solve these four questions start from the results
of natural science and, from this starting-point of the known, try to solve
the unknown, we will have to assign them in the encyclopaedic classification
of the sciences, to that department of philosophy which treats the
doctrines of nature; and since our whole investigation starts from the
Darwinian theories, and only tries to treat of what is properly connected
with them, the attempts to solve these four questions offer themselves as
the _naturo-philosophic supplements of the Darwinian-theories_.

After concluding our treatment of them, we shall have to speak of still
another view, which presupposes all these attempts at solution to be wholly
or nearly {114} successful, and draws an inference from them which no
longer belongs to the realm of natural science, but is a purely
_metaphysical_ hypothesis; it is the _abolition of the idea of design in
nature_. In connection with this, finally, we shall have to discuss the
name which this view has lately assumed, viz: "_Monism_."

Whatever further questions may arise, belong either to the special
subdivisions of natural science and philosophy, or to theological and
ethical problems.

* * * * * {115}

CHAPTER I.

THE NATURO-PHILOSOPHIC SUPPLEMENTS OF THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

Sec. 1. _The Origin of Self-Consciousness and of Free Moral
Self-Determination._

If sensation, and its most developed form, consciousness, is a reflex of
the material in something immaterial, which feels itself a unit in contrast
to the material, and, where sensation rises into consciousness, is opposed
as a unit to the material--self-consciousness again is the reflex of this
sentient and conscious subject in a new and still higher immaterial unity;
and this again makes this sentient and conscious subject, together with the
sum of its feelings and ideas, its object, changing it from a sentient and
conscious subject into a felt and presented object. Therefore it is clear,
and will be the result of all thought upon these concepts, that as with
sensation and consciousn