To begin with, one must be quite clear on this point--that the whole theory of descent is nothing but a form of reading the biological facts, a theory in the strictest sense of the word. As a consequence it has value only with reference to certain ends. First, in order to group together under one main heading the enormous miscellany of facts--thus, for didactic ends. And secondly, read from below upwards instead of from above downwards, that is, apprehended as a theory of evolution instead of as a theory of descent, it suggests a life-value of such inspiring power as in this respect might also be set alongside the ideas of God and of the state--the idea of a development of mankind that progresses ever further and further. This idea, of course, is much older than Darwin, but it was only in his teaching that for the first time it assumed requisite reality. The evolution theory is far removed from Darwin’s original teaching upon natural selection and the survival of the fittest. It has only been read into it by this age of ours ever hungering after life-values. Man must have something to which to cling in the dread wastes of endlessness; he must have something that points beyond this life--something to which he can relate this life as a whole. To an age whose belief in God more and more dwindles away, the evolution theory is an invaluable substitute. Even if it yields no real nourishment, yet does it point in emblem beyond this life of the individual, and soothes like the sight of a beautiful picture. That in reality one can only speak of evolution where one has at hand a standard one can apply to it, to the progress made--in other words, where one can measure it; this men forget and willingly forget, for this single consideration perforce flings the whole idea of progressive evolution into the category of illusions. We must have an absolute point of departure if we are to speak of evolution in itself. This we no more possess than we possess an absolute space to which we can relate its motion. Where an absolute point of departure is lacking, the idea of evolution is as meaningless as the idea of absolute motion. The evolutional is “interpreted into” the facts by main force. To declare man to be more evolved than the monads, savours of a limited despotism. The directly opposite view were every whit as possible. Since the monads achieve life with an infinitely much simpler apparatus than man, they therefore stand higher in evolution; for “it is in limitation that the master is revealed.” A great many animals can do very much more than man with his organ of thought, the main purpose of which, when all is said and done, would appear to consist in putting obstacles between him and actual life, and subjecting him to the tyranny of concepts. In point of fact, however, the miracle of the cells is everywhere the same, in the monads as in the brain-cells, and one position is all as futile as the other.