er
to include all the widely differing manifestations of life it must
confine itself to the most universal and simple. Definitions are of
little scientific worth. In order to determine what life is we must
examine all forms of its manifestation from the lowest to the highest.
For ordinary use such definitions are very convenient and in a certain
sense indispensable, and they can do no harm as long as their
inevitable deficiencies are not forgotten.

(The remainder of this section simply teases Herr Duehring.)

CHAPTER VI

MORALS AND LAW

_Eternal Truths._

We refrain from offering examples of the hodge podge of stupidity and
sham solemnity with which Herr Duehring regales his readers for fifty
full pages as fundamental knowledge on the elements of consciousness.
We merely quote the following: "He who merely conceives of thought
through the medium of speech has never understood what is signified by
abstract and true thought." Hence, animals are the most abstract and
true thinkers, for their thought is never obscured by the importunate
interference of speech. With regard to Herr Duehring's thought in
particular, it may be perceived that they are but little suited to
speech and that the German language in particular is quite inadequate
to express them.

The fourth part of his book, however, possesses some redeeming
features, for here and there it offers us some comprehensible notions
on the subject of morals and law in spite of the tedious and involved
rhetoric. Right at the beginning we are invited to take a journey to
the other heavenly bodies. Thus, the elements of morality are to be
found among superhuman beings among whom exist an understanding of
things and a regular system of the harmonious conduct of life. Our
share in such conclusions must then be small, but there always remains
a beneficent and enlarging idea in picturing that even in other
spheres individual and social life follows one purpose which cannot
be escaped or evaded by any intelligent living creature.

There is good reason for our altering the position of the statement
that Herr Duehring's truth is good for all possible worlds from the
close to the beginning of the chapter. When once the correctness of
Herr Duehring's notions of morals and law have been established so as
to apply to all world the beneficent notion may easily be extended to
all time. Here again, however, we run across another final truth of
last instance. The moral un