The wonders of life : a popular study of biological philosophy / by Ernst Haeckel; translated by Joseph McCabe.

Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The wonders of life : a popular study of biological philosophy / by Ernst Haeckel; translated by Joseph McCabe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    of the “ last judgment,” with Christ sitting on the right hand of the Father, as many famous medieval pictures represent (notably Michael Angelo’s in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican), is another outcome of a thoroughly childish and anthropomorphic attitude. It is remarkable that this second article of the creed says nothing about “redemption,” which forms its head- ing [in Germany]. Luther has dealt with it in his commentary. Christ is believed to have suffered a painful death, like many thousand other martyrs, for his conviction of the truth of his faith and teaching—which reminds one of the more than a hundred thousand men who were done to death by the Inquisition and in the religious wars of the Middle Ages ; but not one of the millions of ministers who preach on it every Sunday seems to have shown a rational causal connection of this death with the alleged redemption from sin and death. The whole of this story of redemption has sprung from the primitive, obscure, ethical ideas of uneducated races, especially the crude belief in the propitiatory power of human sacrifice. It has no practical moral value except for those who believe in personal immortality—a scientifi- cally untenable dogma. Whoever builds on this empty promise of a better life beyond may soothe himself with this hope, and reconcile himself to the thousand ills and defects of this world. But the man who studies this life as it really is will not find that the belief in redemption has brought any real improvement. Want and misery and sin are as prevalent as ever; indeed, our modern civilisation has, in many respects, increased them. The third and last article of the Apostles’ Creed runs; “ I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” In the