, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful
social life which the goodness of the Creator ought to have prepared for
his creatures--we shall rather find everywhere a pitiless, most embittered
_Struggle of All against All_. Nowhere in nature, no matter where we turn
our eyes, does that {161} idyllic peace, celebrated by the poets, exist; we
find everywhere a struggle and a striving to annihilate neighbors and
competitors. Passion and selfishness--conscious or unconscious--is
everywhere the motive force of life.... Man in this respect certainly forms
no exception to the rest of the animal world." And on page 33: "In the
usual dualistic or teleological (vital) conception of the universe, organic
nature is regarded as the purposely executed production of a Creator
working according to a definite plan. Its adherents see in every individual
species of animal and plant an 'embodied creative thought,' the material
expression of a _definite first cause_ (causa finalis), acting for a set
purpose. They must necessarily assume supernatural (not mechanical)
processes of the origin of organisms.... On the other hand, the theory of
development carried out by Darwin, must, if carried out logically, lead to
the monistic or mechanical (causal) conception of the universe. In
opposition to the dualistic or teleological conception of nature, our
theory considers organic as well as inorganic bodies to be the necessary
products of natural forces. It does not see in every individual species of
animal and plant the embodied thought of a personal Creator, but the
expression for the time being of a mechanical process of development of
matter, the expression of a necessarily active cause, that is, of a
mechanical cause (causa efficiens). Where teleological Dualism seeks the
arbitrary thoughts of a capricious Creator in miracles of creation, causal
Monism finds in the process of development the necessary effects of eternal
immutable laws of nature." Haeckel's "Anthropogeny" also is replete with
attacks upon a teleological {162} view of nature, which leave nothing
wanting in distinctness and coarseness. On page 111, Vol. I, we read: "The
rudimentary organs clearly prove that the mechanical, or monistic
conception of the nature of organisms is alone correct, and that the
prevailing teleological, or dualistic method of accounting for them is
entirely false. The very ancient fable of the all-wise plan according to
which 'the Creator's hand has ordaine