ABSTRACT
The transition period between the eighteenth century and the succeeding era is characterized by the violent political and social convulsions beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with the fall of Napoleon in 1815. During this period came into being the modern social system, which, based on the claim of the private citizen to be allowed both to determine his own actions and to take part in the administration of the State, is sharply contrasted with that of the preceding age, with the State possessing unlimited authority in all matters, both secular and spiritual. But even from a purely scientific point of view the beginning of the nineteenth century involved a radical revolution, which had been long preparing, like the political revolution, throughout the centuries. In the eighteenth century's conceptions of nature and life, the two tendencies described in the foregoing — the mechanical and the mystical-spiritualistic — appear in deep contrast to one another. Out of the former, which has its origin in the natural philosophy and natural-scientific research of the seventeenth century, and which, like its predecessors, seeks to explain natural phenomena on purely mechanical lines, there develops towards the close of the eighteenth century — during the so-called "Era of Enlightenment" — a general materialism of the kind that we have seen in La Mettrie: a conception of life expressing itself partly in a dogmatically formulated theory of existence as a play of exclusively material forces, and partly, in the ethical sphere, in a doctrine of a state of blessedness common to all mankind, based ultimately on the liberty to enjoy life independent of traditional rules of conduct. This doctrine, which assumed its best-known and most popular form in Holbach's work Système de la nature, is remarkable for its readiness to answer every conceivable question in accordance with the formula, laid down once and for all, that, provided the mechanical explanation of nature is maintained, the most daring constructions of thought and the weakest verbal subtleties may pass as complete scientific evidence. Intellectual superficiality and banal hedonistic morality thus became marks Charles Bonnet https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203704929/d410b27e-9bec-4300-a13c-e317203e46bd/content/fig2_13a_14.jpg"/> Linnæus https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203704929/d410b27e-9bec-4300-a13c-e317203e46bd/content/fig2_13a_15.jpg"/> 269of the enlightened philosophy and contributed in succeeding generations towards concealing its services in the political and the social sphere; the philosophers of enlightenment have striven unceasingly for humanity and tolerance in the life of the State, and in that respect their activities have left a deep impression on the social life of our own day. Parallel with the philosophy of enlightenment, however, there developed another, entirely contrasted, conception of nature, the precursors of which had been Paracelsus and van Helmont, and which, possessing in Stahl, Swedenborg, and Caspar Friedrich Wolff its scientifically most important representatives, appears throughout the eighteenth century under various forms; a view of life which sees in natural phenomena an expression for the operations of spiritual powers, whereas, according to its tenets, the mechanical explanation of nature admits of only a superficial observation of what takes place, without any insight into that inherent connexion in existence which the spiritual powers imply. This attempt to regard nature as a living entity, to look for connexions in phenomena where, when viewed superficially, none are apparent, has constituted this tendency's greatest service, besides which the freedom of mechanical principles, in many cases, admitted of greater liberty in the interpretation of special phenomena, as Wolff's embryological and Sprengel's botanical investigations proved. The weakness of this spiritualistic view of nature has lain in the frequent desire to solve by mystical formula; problems the solution of which would have required observation and deep thought, and, generally speaking, in its tendency to degenerate into meaningless phrases. As, moreover, this natural mysticism was associated with moral and religious speculations and was upheld by specially founded mystic communities, there was thereby created that extremely unsound "secret wisdom" that under various names and forms spread with incredible rapidity at the close of the eighteenth century, in spite of protests and ridicule on the part of the adherents of enlightenment.
