anthropocentric imagination"
which leads him to look upon himself as the aim of earthly life and the
centre of earthly nature; this, he says, is nothing but vanity and
haughtiness. Several writers in the "Ausland" faithfully second him in this
debasement of the value of man. Its editor ("Ausland," 1874, No. 48, p.
957), for instance, reproaches Ludwig Noire, although he otherwise
sympathizes with him, that in his book "Die Welt als Entwicklung des
Geistes" ("The World as Development of Mind"), Leipzig, Veit & Co., 1874,
he still takes this anthropocentric standpoint and can say: "The
anthropocentric view recognizes in man's mind the highest bloom of matter,
which has attained to the possession of a soul." This, Haeckel says, is
nothing else but the former conception, not yet overcome, that man is the
crown of creation. This pleasure in debasing the value of man is also a
characteristic sign of the times. K. E. von Baer is right, when, in his
"Studies" (page 463), he says: "In our days, men like to ridicule as
arrogant the looking upon man as the end of the history of earth. But it is
certainly not man's merit that he has the most highly developed organic
form. He also must not overlook the fact that with this his task of
developing more and more his spiritual gifts has only begun.... Is it not
more worthy of man to think highly of himself and his destination, than,
fixing his attention only upon the low, to {282} acknowledge only the
animalic basis in himself? I am sorry to say that the new doctrine is very
much tainted in this direction of striving after the low. I should rather
prefer to be haughty than base, and I well recollect the expression of
Kant, 'Man cannot think highly enough of man.' By this expression the
profound thinker especially meant that mankind has to set itself great
tasks. But the modern views are more a palliation of all animal emotions in
man."

The other precautionary measure referred to would be, that the _realm of
mind_, and especially the _ethical realm_, is not dissolved into a _natural
mechanism_. This precaution is also connected with the first one, the
latter being its condition; for only where it is acknowledged that causes,
so long as they are still latent, do not fall under the same category of
value as their effects, when these are once realized, it can also be
acknowledged that the realm of mind and morality, although it has grown out
of the ground of the mechanism of nature, can stil