s in his own power, his own reason, his own reflexion, the
happier he will be and the more successful in his struggle for existence.

Strauss in "The Old Faith and the New," a publication which certainly has
to be ranked here, for the reason that in it he founds on Darwinism his
whole knowledge of the world, on the ground of which he wishes to arrange
life, appears to be much more decent, and in the practical consequences
much more conservative, than Buechner; but essentially stands upon quite the
same ground. Haeckel, Oskar Schmidt, and (as to his linguistic Darwinism) W.
Bleek, group themselves around Strauss, partly with, partly without express
reference to his deductions. {235}

Strauss arrives at a peculiar inconsequence, but one well worthy of notice,
when, in place of the struggle for existence which, according to the
conclusions of those who also reduce morality to Darwinism, is still the
_spiritus rector_ of moral development in mankind, and yet cannot of itself
possibly lead to the morally indispensable requirements and virtues of
self-sacrifice and of mere subordination under the moral idea, he suddenly
substitutes a going of man beyond mere nature, and herewith a moral
principle, which can never be deduced from Darwinism alone, and which is
directly opposed to monism and pankosmism, which is to be the basis of his
ethics. The reader may compare the manner in which he metaphysically
supports his moral principle when he says: "As nature cannot go higher, she
would go inwards. Nature felt herself already in the animal, but she
_wished to know herself also_.... In man, nature endeavored not merely to
exalt, but _to transcend herself_." Ulrici, the philosopher, in his reply
to Strauss, has pointed out in sharp terms this inconsequence, as well as
the other, that from the ground of a blind necessity which does not know
anything of a higher and a lower, the difference of higher and lower, good
and bad, rational and irrational, cannot at all be maintained; and that the
requirement of a progress cannot at all be made, and its idea not at all be
given. In this very perceptible inconsistency, Strauss calls that morality
which he requires, "_the relation of man to the idea of his kind_." To
realize the latter in himself, is the summary of his duties toward himself;
actually to recognize and promote the equality of the kind in all the
others, is the {236} summary of his duties towards others. He opposes the
internal satis