A notable type of
these gentlemen may be found in Haeckel, who has succeeded in solving
the riddles of Nature!
These atheologians have seized upon the principle of the conservation of
energy, the "Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is
transformed" formula, the theological origin of which is seen in
Descartes, and have made use of it as a means whereby we are able to
dispense with God. "The world built to last," Brunhes comments,
"resisting all wear and tear, or rather automatically repairing the
rents that appear in it--what a splendid theme for oratorical
amplification! But these same amplifications which served in the
seventeenth century to prove the wisdom of the Creator have been used in
our days as arguments for those who presume to do without Him." It is
the old story: so-called scientific philosophy, the origin and
inspiration of which is fundamentally theological or religious, ending
in an atheology or irreligion, which is itself nothing else but theology
and religion. Let us call to mind the comments of Ritschl upon this
head, already quoted in this work.
To-day the last word of science, or rather of scientific philosophy,
appears to be that, by virtue of the degradation of energy, of the
predominance of irreversible phenomena, the material, sensible world is
travelling towards a condition of ultimate levelness, a kind of final
homogeneity.
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