The History of Creation, Vol. 1 (of 2): Or the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural CausesHaeckel, Ernst
Philosophy
The History of Creation, Vol. 1 (of 2): Or the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes
Haeckel, Ernst
Evolution; Heredity; Human beings -- Origin
We see, then, according to Agassiz’s conception, that the Creator, in
producing organic forms, goes to work exactly as a human architect, who
has taken upon himself the task of devising and producing as many
different buildings as possible, for the most manifold purposes, in the
most different styles, in various degrees of simplicity, splendour,
greatness, and perfection. This architect would perhaps at first choose
four different styles for all these buildings, say the Gothic,
Byzantine, Chinese, and Rococo styles. In each of these styles he would
build a number of churches, palaces, garrisons, prisons, and
dwelling-houses. Each of these different buildings he would execute in
ruder and more perfect, in greater and smaller, in simpler and grander
fashion, etc. However, the human architect would perhaps, in this
respect, be better off than the divine Creator, as he would have perfect
liberty in the number of graduated subordinate groups. The Creator,
however, according to Agassiz, can only move within six groups or
categories: the species, genus, family, order, class, and type. More
than these six categories do not exist for him.
When we read Agassiz’s book on classification, and see how he carries
out and establishes these strange ideas, we can scarcely understand how,
with all the appearance of scientific earnestness, he can persevere in
his idea of the divine Creator as a man-like being (anthropomorphism),
for by his explanation of details he produces a picture of the most
absurd nonsense. In the whole series of these suppositions the Creator
is nothing but an all-mighty man, who, plagued with _ennui_, amuses
himself with planning and constructing most varied toys in the shape of
organic species. After having diverted himself with these for thousands
of years, they become tiresome to him, he destroys them by a general
revolution of the earth’s surface, and thus throws the whole of the
useless toys in heaps together; then, in order to while away his time
with something new and better, he calls a new and more perfect animal
and vegetable world into existence. But in order not to have the trouble
of beginning the work of creation over again, he keeps, in the main, to
his original plan of creation, and creates merely new species, or at
most only new genera, and much more rarely new families, new orders, or
classes. He never succeeds in producing a new style or type, and always
keeps strictly within the six categories or graduated groups.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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