[BNP/E3, 79A – 85]

{…} is illogical and absurd. The metaphysica, Haeckel is worth little, and is more positive and more dogmatic than any philosopher of the old school, be the name of him Thomas Aquinas.

A. Search.

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Atteistade

† vient d’Hercule sans doute

Mais il faut anuer aussi

Qu’en venant jusqu’ici

Elle a bien changé sur la mort.

[85^v]

Carbon, “the chemical basis of life.” Substance evoluting itself?!

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Article on government and on the logical basis of anarchy.

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Ou o governo deve ser natural ou não o deve ser.

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Se o deve ser, onde, na natureza, existe rei? Se o não deve ser, onde na natureza existe liberdade?

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Vacher de Lapouche.

Water, the first condition of organic life.

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Is not the idea of eternal life true in relation to those who believe it.

[85a^v]

Du Bois Reymond:

(1) Nature of matter and of motion.

(2) Origin of motion.

(3) Origin of life (Biologic problem).

(4) The (apparently preordained) orderly arrangement of nature.

(5) Origin of simple sensation and consciousness.

(6) Rational thought, and the origin of the cognate faculty speech.

(7) Question of the freedom of the will.

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He considers

1, 2, 5 transcendental and insoluble.

3, 4, 6 difficult of solution, yet susceptible of it.

7. (remains undecided).

[85a^r]

An over hasty consideration of the data of psychology – of all psychology, whether experimental or of another kind – is the basis of Haeckel’s “Riddles of the Universe”. The question of soul and of body, eternal question is not yet solved. The profound work of M. Binet “L’Ame et le Corps” gives a new theory yet and a marvellous one. But I do not consider it true. Yet M. Binet has to be thanked for giving us the true conditions for the solution of the problem.

The ”theologic” soul is of course dead. No argument, however abstract, can bring it back from the grave. But the notion of spirit is not dead; far from it.

But for a man of science to declare, categorically, that he has resolved the riddles of the universe {…}