For this reason the Horseherd was to me what all men have always been to me—an appearance of the Self, the same as I myself, not only a fellow-creature, but a fellow-man, a fellow-self. Had I met him in life, who knows whether his ego or his appearance would have attracted me as much as his letter. We all have our prejudices, and much as I honour a Silesian peasant who has spent his life faithfully and honestly in a strange land, I do not know whether I should have sat down by his iron stove and chatted with him about τὰ μέγιστα.

I also felt as I read his letter, that it was not a solitary voice in the desert, but that he spoke in the name of many who felt as he felt, without being willing or able to express it. This also has proved to be entirely true.

Judging by the numerous letters and manuscripts that reach me, the Horseherd was not alone in his opinions. There are countless others in the world of the same mind, and even if his voice is silenced, his ideas survive in all places and directions, and he will not lack followers and defenders. The striking thing in the letters that reached me was that the greater number and the most characteristic among his sympathisers did not wish their names to be known. What does this signify? Do we still live on a planet on which we dare not express what we hold to be the truth—planet Terra so huge and yet so contemptibly small? Has mankind still only freedom of thought, but not freedom of utterance? The powers may blockade Greece; can they blockade thoughts on wings of words? It has been attempted, but force is no proof, and when we have visited the prisons in which Galilei or even Giordano Bruno was immured, we learn how nothing lends greater strength to the wings of truth than the heavy chains with which men try to fetter it. It is still the general opinion that even in free England thought and speech are not free, that in the realm of thought there is even less freedom on this side of the Channel than on the other.³⁷ Oxford especially, my own university, is still considered the stronghold of obscurantists, and my Horseherd even considers the fact that I have lived so long in Oxford a circonstance atténuante of my so-called orthodoxy. Plainly what is thought, said, and published in England, and especially in Oxford, is not read. In England we can say anything we please, we must only bear in mind that the same consideration is due to others that we claim from others. It is true that from time to time in England, and even in Oxford, feeble efforts have been made, if not to curtail freedom of thought, at least to punish those who laid claim to it. Where possible the salaries of professors were curtailed; in certain elections very weak candidates were preferred because they were outwardly orthodox. I do not wish to mention any names, but I myself have received in England, even if not in Oxford, a gentle aftertaste of this antiquated physic. When at the request of my friend Stanley, the Dean of Westminster Abbey, I delivered a discourse in his venerable church, which was crowded to the doors, petitions were sent to Parliament to condemn me to six months' imprisonment. I was accosted in the streets and an ordinary tradesman said to me, “Sir, if you are sent to prison, you shall have at least two warm dinners each week from me.” I am, to be sure, the first layman that ever spoke publicly in an English church, but I had the advice of the highest authorities that the Dean was perfectly within his rights and that we were guilty of no violation of law. I therefore waited in silence; I knew that public opinion was on my side, and that in the end the petition to Parliament would simply be laid aside. Later on it was attempted again. At the time that I delivered my lectures on the Science of Religion at the university of Glasgow, by invitation of the Senate, I was accused first before the presbytery at Glasgow, and when this attempt failed, the charge was carried before the great Synod at Edinburgh. In this case, too, I went on my way, in silence, and in the end, even in Scotland, the old saying, “Much cry and little wool,” was verified. This proverb is frequently heard in England. I have often inquired into its origin. Finally I found that there is a second line, “As the deil said when he shore the sow.” Of course such an operation was accompanied with much noise on the part of the sow, but little wool, nothing but bristles. I have never, however, had to turn my bristles against the gentlemen who wished to shear me.

I am of opinion, therefore, that those who wished to espouse the cause of my Horseherd should have done so publicly and with open visor. As soon as any one feels that he has found the truth, he knows also that what is real and true can never be killed or silenced; and secondly, that truth in the world has its purpose, and this purpose must in the end be a good one. We do not complain about thunder and lightning, but accustom ourselves to them, and seek to understand them, so as to live on good terms with them; and we finally invent lightning conductors, to protect ourselves, as far as we can, against the inevitable. So it is with every new truth, if it is only maintained with courage. At first we cry and clamour that it is false, that it is dangerous. In the end we shake our wise heads and say these are old matters known long since, of which only old women were afraid. In the end, after the thunder and lightning, the air is made clearer, fresher, and more wholesome. When I first read the long letter of my Horseherd, I said to myself, “He is a man who has done the best he could in his position.” He has let himself be taught, but also irresistibly influenced, by certain popular books, and has come to think that the abandonment of views that have been instilled into him from his youth is so brave and meritorious, that all who disagree with him must be cowards. This inculcation of truth into childish minds is always a dangerous matter, and even if I do not use the strong expressions that are used by my friend,—for I always think, the stronger the expression the weaker the argument,—I must admit that he is right up to a certain point. It does not seem fair that in the decision of the most important questions of life the young mind should have no voice. A Jewish child becomes a Jew, a Christian child a Christian, and a Buddhist child a Buddhist. What does this prove? Unquestionably, that in the highest concern in life the child is not allowed a voice. My friend asks indignantly: “Is there anything in face of our knowledge, and of the realm of nature and of man's position in it, so unbearable, yes so odious, as the inoculation of such error in the tender consciousness of our school children? I shudder when I think that in thousands of our churches and schools this systematic ruin of the greatest of all gifts, the consciousness, the human brain, is daily, even hourly, going on. Max, can you, too, still cling to the God-fable?” etc.

Now I have explained clearly and concisely in what sense I cling to the God-fable, and I should like to know if I have convinced my Horseherd. I belong, above all, to those who do not consider the world an irrational chaos, and also to those who cannot concede that there can be reason without a reasoner. Reason is an activity, or, as others have it, an attribute, and there can neither be an activity without an agent, nor an attribute without a subject; at least, not in the world in which we live. When ordinary persons and even professional philosophers speak of reason as if it were a jewel that can be placed in a drawer or in a human skull, they are simply myth-makers. It is precisely in this ever recurring elevation of an adjective or a verb to a noun, of a predicate to a subject, that this disease of language, as I have called mythology, has its deepest roots. Here lies the genesis of the majority of gods, not by any means, as it is generally believed I have taught, merely in later quibbles and misunderstandings, which are interesting and popular, but have little reference to the deepest nature of the myth. We must not take these matters too lightly.

I recognise therefore a reasoner, and consequent reason in the world, or in other words, I believe in a thinker and ruler of the world, but gladly concede that this Being so infinitely transcends our faculties of comprehension, that even to wish only to give him a name borders on madness. If, in spite of all of this, we use such names as Jehovah, Allah, Deva, God, Father, Creator, this is only a result of human weakness. I cling therefore to the God-fable in the sense which is more fully set forth in my letter, and it pleased me very much to see that at least a few of those, who as they said were formerly on the side of the Horseherd, now fully agree with me, that the world is not irrational. Here is the dividing line between two systems of philosophy. Whoever thinks that an irrational world becomes rational by the survival of the fittest, etc., stands on one side; I stand on the other, and hold with the Greek thinkers, who accept the world as the expression of the Logos, or of a reasonable thought or thinker.

But here the matter became serious. To my Horseherd I thought that I could make myself intelligible in a humorous strain, for his letter was permeated with a quiet humour. But my known and unknown opponents take the matter much more seriously and thoroughly, and I am consequently obliged at least to try to answer them seriously and thoroughly. What my readers will say to this I do not know. I believe that even in short words we can be serious and profound. When Schiller says that he belongs to no religion, and why? because of religion, the statement is short and concise, and yet easily understood. I shall, however, at least attempt to follow my opponents step by step, even at the risk of becoming tedious.

And first of all a confession. It has been pointed out to me that in one place I did my Horseherd an injustice. I wrote: “You are of opinion that to love God and your neighbour is equivalent to being good, and are evidently very proud of your discovery that there is no distinction between good and evil. Well,” I then continue, “if loving God and your neighbour is equivalent to being good, then it follows that not loving God and not loving your neighbour is equivalent to not being good, or to being evil. There is, then, a very plain distinction between good and evil. And yet you say that you turned a somersault when you discovered that there was no such distinction.”

Well, that looked as though I had driven my friend into a corner from which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one's neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which the followers of any or every faith could accept. Thus it befell that I supposed the Horseherd in America to stand at the same point of view, and consequently to be guilty of a contradiction. Such is, however, not the case; he made no such concession of love of God and one's neighbour in his letter. If he therefore insists that there is no distinction between good and evil, I cannot at least refute him out of his own mouth. The only place where he is inconsistent is where he concedes that he could not strike a dog, but is filled with bloodthirstiness toward the Jewish idea of God. Here he clearly holds it good that he cannot be cruel to an animal, and that he looks upon bloodthirstiness as a contrast. He also concedes that a lie can never accomplish any good, and believes that the truth is beautiful and holy. If a lie can accomplish no good, only evil, then there must be a distinction between good and evil. And what is the meaning of beautiful and holy, if there is no contrast between good and evil. But I shall argue this point no farther, but simply say peccavi, and I believe that he, and those like-minded with him, will be satisfied with that. How different it would have been, however, had I been guilty of such a mistake in a personal dispute! The injured party would never have believed that my oversight was accidental, and not malicious, in spite of the fact that it would have been the most stupid malevolence to say that which every one who can read would instantly recognise as untrue. But enough of this, and enough to show that my Horseherd at least remained consistent. Even when he so far forgets himself as to say, “God be praised,” he excuses himself. Only he has unfortunately not told us what he really means when he says that good and evil are identical. Good and evil are relative ideas, just like right and left, black and white, and although he has told us that he turned somersaults with joy over the discovery that this distinction is false, he has left us in total darkness as to how we shall conceive this identity.

But let us turn back to more important things. My opponents further call me sharply to account, and ask how I can imagine that the material world can be rational, or permeated with reason. I believed that it must be clear to every person with a philosophical training, that there are things that are beyond our understanding, that man can neither sensibly apprehend nor logically conceive an actual beginning, and that to inquire for the beginning of the subjective self, or of the objective world, is like inquiring for the beginning of the beginning. All that we can do is to investigate our perceptions, to see what they presuppose. A perception plainly presupposes a self that perceives, or that resists, and on the other side, something that forces itself upon us, or, as Kant says, something that is given. This “given” element might be mere confusion, but it is not; it displays order, cause and effect, and reveals itself as rational. This revelation of a rational world may, however, be explained in two ways. That there is reason in nature, even the majority of Darwinians admit, but they think that it arises of itself, since in the struggle for life that which is most adapted to its conditions, fittest, best, necessarily survives. In this view of the world, however, if I see it aright, much is admitted surreptitiously. Whence comes all at once this idea of the best, of the good, the fit, the adapted, in the world? Do roasted pigeons fall from the sky? Is the pigeon itself an accidental combination, an evolution, that might as well have been as it is, or otherwise? It is all very fine to recognise in the ascending series of protozoa, cœlenterata, echinoderms, worms, mollusks, fishes, amphibia, reptiles, the stages of progress toward birds and finally to mammals and man. But whence comes the idea of bird or pigeon? Is it no more than an abstraction from our perceptions of thousands of birds or pigeons, or must the idea of bird, of pigeon, even of the wood pigeon, be there already, that we may detect it behind the multiplicity of our perceptions?

Is the pigeon, in whose wing each feather is counted, a mere accident, a mere survival which might have been what it is or something different, or is it something willed and thought, an organic whole? It is the old question whether the idea preceded or followed the reality, on which the whole Middle Ages broke their teeth, the question which separated and still separates philosophers into two camps,—the Realists and the Nominalists. I think that the latest investigations show us that the Greek philosophers, and especially Plato, saw more correctly when they recognised behind the multiplicity of individuals the unity of the idea, or the species, and then sought the true sequence of evolution not in this world, in a struggle for existence, but beyond the perception of the senses, in a development of the Logos or the idea. The circumstances, it appears to me, in this view remain just the same; the sequence, and the purposiveness in this sequence, remain untouched, only that the Greeks saw in the rational and purposive in nature the realisation of rational progressive thoughts, not the bloody survivals of a monstrous gladiatorial combat in nature. The Darwinians appear to me to resemble the Roman emperors, who waited till the combat was ended, and then applauded the survival of the fittest. The idealist philosophy, be it Plato's or Hegel's, recognises in what actually is, the rational, the realisation of eternal, rational ideas. This realisation, or the process of what we call creation, can never be conceived by us otherwise than figuratively. But we can make this figurative presentation clearer and clearer. That the world was made by a wood cutter, as was originally implied in the Hebrew word bara, and in the German schoepfer, schaffer, in the English shaper, or in the Vedic tvashtâ, and the Greek τέκτων, was quite comprehensible at a time in which man's highest product was that of the carpenter and the stone mason; and in which the name of timber (materies) could become the universal name for matter (ὕλη, wood). After this idea of the founder of the universe as a carpenter or builder was abandoned as inadequate, the world was divided into two parties. The one adopted the theory of material primitive elements, whether they be called atoms, or monads, or cells, which by collision or struggle with each other, and by mutual affinity, became that which we now see around us. The other saw the impossibility of the rise of something rational out of the irrational, and conceived a rational being, in which was developed the original type of everything produced, the so-called Logos of the universe. How this Logos became objectively and materially real, is as far beyond human comprehension as is the origin of the cosmos out of countless atoms, or even out of living cells. So far, then, one hypothesis would be as complete and as incomplete as the other. But the Logos hypothesis has the far-reaching advantage, that instead of a long succession of wonders,—call them if you like the wonder of the monads, or the worm, or the mollusk, or the fish, or the amphibian, or the reptile, or the bird, or, lastly, man,—it has but one wonder before it, the Logos, the idea of thought, or of the eternal thinker, who thought everything that exists in natural sequence, and in this sense made all. In this view we need not even abandon the survival of the fittest, only it proceeds in the Logos, in the mind, not in the outward phenomenal world. It would then also become conceivable that the embryological development of animated nature runs parallel with the biological or historical, or as it were recapitulates it, only the continuity of the idea is far closer and more intimate than that of the reality. Thus, for instance, in the development of the human embryo, the transition from the invertebrate to the vertebrate may be represented in the reality by the isolated amphioxus, which remains stationary where vertebrate man begins, and can make no step forward, while the human embryo advances farther and farther till it reaches its highest limit.

In order now to infer from these and similar facts that man at one time really existed in this scarcely vertebrate condition of the amphioxus,—a conclusion which, strictly understood, yields no meaning,—we can make the case much more easily conceivable if we represent the thinking, or invention of the world, as an ascending scale, in which even the least chromatic tone must have a place without a break, while the principal tones do not become clear and full until the requisite number of vibrations is attained. These gradations of tone are the really interesting thing in nature. As the full, clear tones imply certain numerical relations among the vibrations, so the successive stages or the true species in nature imply a will or thought in which the true Origin of Species has its foundation. That natural selection, as it is called, could suffice to explain the origin of species, was doubted even by Huxley,³⁸ who yet described himself as Darwin's bull-dog.

If we have followed the supporters of my Horseherd so far, I should like here to enter a caveat, that is indeed of no great significance, but may turn one or another from a by-way, which the Horseherd himself has not avoided. He speaks of the place of man in nature; he thinks (like so many others) that man is not only an animal belonging to the mammalia, which no one has ever denied, but that he is of the same nature as the animal world. He need not therefore have accepted the whole simian theory, at least he does not say so; but that each man, and the entire human race, has descended from an unknown pair of animals, he appears to receive as indubitable. This would not, so far as I can see, make the slightest difference in the so-called dignity of mankind. If man had a prehensile tail, it would not detract from his worth. I myself have little doubt that there were men with tails in prehistoric or even in historic times. I go still farther and declare that if ever there should be an ape who can form ideas and words, he would ipso facto be a man. I have therefore no prejudices such as the advocates of the simian theory like to attribute to us. What I and those who agree with me demand of our opponents, is merely somewhat keener thought, and a certain consideration for the results of our knowledge, such as we on our side have bestowed on their researches. They have taught us that the body in which we live was at first a simple cell. The significance of this “at first” is left somewhat vague. This cell was really what the word means, the cella (room) of a dumb inhabitant, the Self. The essential thing is and remains what was in the cell. Through gemmation, differentiation, segmentation, evolution, or whatever other technical expressions we may use for division, multiplication, budding, increase, etc., each cell became a hundred, a thousand, a million. Within this cell is a bright spot into which not even the microscope can penetrate, although whole worlds may be contained therein. If it is now remembered that no one has ever succeeded in distinguishing the human cell from the cell of a horse, an elephant, or an ape, we shall see how much unnecessary indignation has been expended in recent years over the simian origin of the human race, and how much intelligent thought has been wasted about the animal origin of man, that is of the individual. My body, your body, his body, is derived (ontogenetically) from the cell, is in fact the cell which has remained persistently the same from beginning to end, without ever, in spite of all changes, losing its identity. This cell in its transformations has shown remarkable analogies with the transformations of other animal cells. While, however, the other animal cells in their transformations remain stationary here and there, either at the boundary line of worms, fishes, amphibia, reptiles, or mammals, the one cell which was destined to become man moves on to the stage of the tailed catarrhine apes, then of the tailless apes, and without staying here it irresistibly strides towards its original goal, and only stops where it is destined to stop. Speaking, however, not phylogenetically, but ontogenetically, at what point does our own cell come in contact with the cell that was intended to become an ape, and that became and remained an ape? If we accept the cell theory in its latest form, what meaning can there be in the statement of the late Henry Drummond, that “In a very distant period the progenitors of birds and the progenitors of men were one and the same”?³⁹ Would not a very small quantity of strictly logical thought have cut off a priori the bold hypothesis that directly or indirectly we descend from a menagerie? Every man, and consequently all mankind, has accomplished his uninterrupted embryological development on his own account; no man and no human cell springs from the womb of an ape or any other animal, but only from the womb of a human mother, fertilised by a human father. Or do men owe their being to a miscarriage?

As many streams may flow alongside of each other and through the same strata, and one ends in a lake while the others flow on and grow larger and larger, till finally one river attains its highest goal, the sea, so the cells develop for a time alongside of each other, then some remain stationary at their points of destination, while others move on farther; but the cell that has moved forward is as little derived from the stationary cell as the Indus from the Sarasvati. It is at the points of destination that the true species digress, and when these points are reached, the specific development ceases, and there remains only the possibility of the variety, the origin of which is conditioned by the multiplicity of individuals; but which must never be confounded with a true species. Every species represents an act of the will, a thought, and this thought cannot be shaken from its course, however close temptation may often come.

With this I believe I have cleared up and refuted one of the objections that my correspondents made, at any rate to the best of my ability. Whoever is convinced that each individual, be it fish or bird, springs from its own cell, knows ipso facto that a human cell, however undistinguishable it may be to the human eye from the cell of a catarrhine ape, could never have been the cell of an ape. And what is true ontogenetically, is of course true phylogenetically. For myself this inquiry into the simian origin of man never had any great interest; I even doubt whether the Horseherd would have laid great stress upon it. His champions, however, plainly consider it one of the principal and fundamental questions on which our whole view of the world must be erected. In my opinion so little depends on our covering of flesh, that as I have often said, I should instantly acknowledge an ape that could speak, that is, think in concepts, as a man and brother, in spite of his hide, in spite of his tail, in spite of his stunted brain. We are not that which is buried or burned. We are not even the cell, but the inhabitant of the cell. But this leads me to new questions and objections, which have been made by the representatives and successors of the Horseherd, and to which I hope to reply on some other occasion, assuming that my own somewhat dilapidated cell holds out so long against wind and rain.