The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the HourMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Christianity; Church history; Logos (Christian theology); Logos (Philosophy); Religion
We ask, Why does the fittest survive? And what is the
answer? Because only the fittest survives. And when we come to Natural
Selection, who is the selector that selects? These are nothing but
phrases, which have long been known and long since been abandoned, and
still are always warmed up again. If we recognise in nature purpose or
reason, then we have a right to conclude that the source of it lies in the
eternal reason, in the eternally rational. Behind all objects lies the
thought or the idea. If there are rational ideas in nature, then there
must be a rational thinker. Behind all trees—oaks, birches, pines—lies the
thought, the idea, the form, the word, the _logos_ of tree. Who made or
thought it before ever the first tree existed? We can never see a tree; we
see only an oak, a birch, a pine, never a tree. But the thought or idea of
tree meets us, realised and diversified in all trees. This is true of all
things. No one has ever seen an animal, a man, a dog, but he sees a St.
Bernard, a greyhound, a dachshund, and strictly not even that. What, then,
is it that is permanent, always recurring in the dog, by means of which
they resemble each other, the invisible form in which they are all cast?
That is the thought, the idea, the _logos_ of dog. Can there be a thought
without a thinker? Did the ideas in nature, the millions of objects which
make up our knowledge, fall from the clouds? Did they make themselves or
did nature make them? Who, then, is nature? Is it a masculine, feminine,
or neuter? If nature can choose, then it can also think and produce. But
can it? No, nature is a word, very useful for certain purposes; but empty,
intangible, and incomprehensible. Nature is an abstraction, as much as dog
or tree, but far more inclusive. When we recognise thought, reason,
purpose in nature, still it is all in vain, we must assume a thinker in,
above, behind nature, and we must as a matter of course have a name for
him. The infinite thinker of all things, of all ideas, of all words, who
can never be seen and never comprehended, because he is infinite, but in
whose thoughts all creatures, the entire creation, have their source, and
who when rightly understood approaches us palpably or symbolically in all
things, in the sole path of sense by which he can approach us sentient
beings, why should we not call him Mind, or God, or as the Jews called
him, Jehovah, or the Mohammedans, Allah, or the Brahmins, Brahman? Either
reason operates in nature, or nature is without reason, is chaos and
confusion. Neither survival of the fittest nor natural selection could
bring order into this confusion; we might as well believe that if the type
in a printing office be thoroughly shaken and mixed, it could produce
Goethe’s _Faust_ by chance. If we insist upon adhering to the theories of
natural selection, or survival of the fittest, be it so; we only transfer
the choice to a Something which can choose, and leave the fitness or
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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