I. The Difference Between Man and Animal

You see today even for a recognised member of some church or other it is easy to say that Haeckelism or materialism is devil's work and must be rooted out lock, stock and barrel. This is the reverse of what is able to lead men to a sound attitude of soul. Yes, my dear friends, it is very easy to speak thus but when it stops there and no investigation is made into the conditions in question, it is impossible to arrive at any sound solution for the present time, much less for the near future. For if you take any world outlook materialist in feeling and ask yourself: where does it come from historically? If you really wish to get to the root of this, in the end you will be unable to help saying that fundamentally it comes from the way in which Christianity has been preached during these 1900 years by the various Christian churches. Those whose insight goes deeper know that Haeckel's doctrine would have been impossible without the preceding Christianity of the churches. There are people who have remained at the standpoint of the church, as it was, let us say, in the Middle Ages; they continue to uphold the ideas professed by the church in medieaval times. Others have developed these ideas. And among those who have developed them is, for instance, Ernst Haeckel. He is a true child of the conceptions fostered through the centuries by the various churches. This has not arisen outside the church; in the fullest sense it has originated entirely within the teachings of the church itself. Certainly the connections of these things will only be recognised aright if one is endowed by Spiritual Science with a little insight to give one clear vision.