The world shows to every investigating eye a development, whether we have to take this development as descent or as successive new creation; and therefore we shall take, in the following discussion, the idea of development in this broad sense which comprises all conceivable attempts at explanation. All nature--its most comprehensive cosmic realms as well as the realms of its smallest organisms--together with the corporeal, psychical, and spiritual nature of man, shows a _harmony_, a _conformity to the end in view_, and a _striving toward an end_ of its development, the denial of which will certainly not add to the laurels which transmit the scientific fame of our present generation to posterity. Now, what is this end? The answer which we receive from those who reject Christian eschatology, may be given by two scientific antipodes: by Strauss and Eduard von Hartmann. Strauss takes sides with those who reject all striving toward an end in nature; and his answer to the question (which still asserts itself in his system of the world), is: eternal circular motion of the universe, death of all individuals and of all complexes of individuals, even of {377} mankind. Eduard von Hartmann, on the other hand, is filled by the knowledge of the teleological, but he rejects the hope of Christians and the end which offers itself to him in the place of the rejected end of Christian hope, is destruction--destruction of all individuals and destruction of the world. In view of such ends, is not the Christian's hope _the_ answer which not only satisfies the deepest ethical and religious need, but also all heights and depths of the most faithful, most devoted, and most enlightened investigation of nature?