Counter-Currents
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Contact
  • Webzine
  • About
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Podcast feed
    • Videos feed
    • Comments feed
  • Advertise

LEVEL2

Donate Now Mailing list
  • Webzine
  • About
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Podcast feed
    • Videos feed
    • Comments feed
  • Advertise
  • Recent posts

    • Around the World in 80 Days: The Tale of a Chinese Spy Balloon

      Mark Gullick

      1

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 8 Religion & Virtue

      James Dunphy

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 523 Greg Johnson Interviews Pox Populi

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Religion & Eugenics

      Paul Popenoe

      1

    • Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      Morris van de Camp

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 522 Current Things Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson, Gaddius Maximus, & Pox Populi

      Counter-Currents Radio

      7

    • The No College Club, Chapter 7

      Spencer J. Quinn

      1

    • Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      Margot Metroland

      3

    • The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      Jim Goad

      41

    • Strength Through Joy: An Interview with Béla Incze of Légió Hungária

      Ondrej Mann

    • Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      19

    • Correspondence between Gaston-Armand Amaudruz & Julius Evola

      Gaston-Armand Amaudruz & Julius Evola

      1

    • Limited Edition Clearance Sale

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      Anthony Bavaria

      29

    • Spencer J. Quinn Interviewed About The No College Club

      Spencer J. Quinn

      1

    • David Duke & Louisiana’s 1991 Gubernatorial Election

      Morris van de Camp

      4

    • Jobbik a stručná historie jeho politického obratu o 180°

      The Visegrád Post

    • Black Invention Myths

      Black Invention Myths

      5

    • Race War in the Outback

      Jim Goad

      62

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 7 More of the Most Common Jobs for Psychopaths

      James Dunphy

      1

    • Black History Month Resources

      Greg Johnson

      9

    • 40% Off Selected Titles

      Cyan Quinn

      5

    • The Union Jackal, January 2023

      Mark Gullick

      3

    • Spencer J. Quinn’s The No College Club: A Review

      Anthony Bavaria

      7

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 521 Daily Zoomer & Spencer J. Quinn Discuss The No College Club

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • Everything Whites Do Is Bad . . . According to the Mainstream Media

      Beau Albrecht

      15

    • Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

      Margot Metroland

      9

    • American Krogan on Louis C. K. Advocating for Open Borders

      American Krogan

      11

    • Traditional French Songs from Le Poème Harmonique

      Alex Graham

      1

    • The Worst Week Yet: January 22-28, 2023

      Jim Goad

      25

    • Sports Cars & Small Penises

      Richard Houck

      29

    • Opiates for America’s Heartland

      Morris van de Camp

      13

    • The Whale

      Steven Clark

      3

    • Are Qur’an-Burnings Helpful?

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      15

    • Bullet Train to Babylon

      Trevor Lynch

      7

    • The Wave: Fascism Reenacted in a High School

      Beau Albrecht

      6

    • Edred Thorsson a jeho kniha Historie Runové gildy

      Collin Cleary

    • Silicon Valley’s Anti-White Racial Dysgenics Program

      Jason Kessler

      33

    • The Silent Plague of Elderly Asian Mass Shooters in California

      Jim Goad

      36

    • What Went Wrong with America’s Universities?

      Stephen Paul Foster

      3

    • Greg Johnson Speaks to Horus the Avenger About Charles Krafft

      Greg Johnson

      7

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 6 The Most Common Jobs for Psychopaths

      James Dunphy

      13

    • Davos, or the Technocrats’ Ball

      Mark Gullick

      5

    • A Political Prisoner on the Meaning of January 6

      Morris van de Camp

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 520 Inside Serbia with Marko of Zentropa

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The $50 Million Conservative Inc. Internet Spat

      Spencer J. Quinn

      16

    • Yet Another Woke Remake of a Classic

      Beau Albrecht

      25

    • Spencer J. Quinn & Pox Populi Discuss The No College Club

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 11, Part 4: “Multitudes” Against the People

      Alain de Benoist

    • The Worst Week Yet: January 15-21, 2023

      Jim Goad

      35

  • Classics Corner

    • Remembering A. R. D. “Rex” Fairburn (February 2, 1904–March 25, 1957)

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Denis Kearney & the Struggle for a White America

      Theodore J. O'Keefe

      1

    • Posthuman Prospects:
      Artificial Intelligence, Fifth Generation Warfare, & Archeofuturism

      Christopher Pankhurst

      5

    • Earnest Sevier Cox:
      Advocate for the White Ethnostate

      Morris van de Camp

      15

    • Remembering Jack London
      (January 12, 1876–November 22, 1916)

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Remembering Robinson Jeffers:
      January 10, 1887–January 20, 1962

      John Morgan

      3

    • Remembering Pierre Drieu La Rochelle:
      January 3, 1893–March 15, 1945

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865-January 18, 1936)

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Restoring White Homelands

      Greg Johnson

      34

    • Remembering Hinton Rowan Helper

      Spencer J. Quinn

      11

    • What’s Wrong with Diversity?

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Redefining the Mainstream

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Edward Alsworth Ross:
      American Metapolitical Hero

      Morris van de Camp

      8

    • The Talented Mr. Ripley & Purple Noon

      Trevor Lynch

      19

    • Christmas & the Yuletide:
      Light in the Darkness

      William de Vere

      3

    • Thanksgiving Special 
      White Men Meet Indians:
      Jamestown & the Clash of Civilizations

      Thomas Jackson

    • Colin Wilson’s The Outsider

      Sir Oswald Mosley

      4

    • Dostoyevsky on the Jews

      William Pierce

      4

    • Jefferson &/or Mussolini, Part 1

      Ezra Pound

      5

    • I Listened to Chapo Trap House So You Don’t Have To

      Doug Huntington

      98

    • The Homeric Gods

      Mark Dyal

      13

    • Toward a Baltic-Black Sea Union:
      “Intermarium” as a Viable Model for White Revival

      Émile Durand

      55

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 3

      John Morgan

      30

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 2

      John Morgan

      6

    • Columbus Day Special
      The Autochthony Argument

      Greg Johnson

      9

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 1

      John Morgan

      8

    • The Jewish Question for Normies

      Alan Smithee

      13

    • Human Biodiversity for Normies

      Alan Smithee

      10

    • Bring Back Prohibition!

      Alan Smithee

      65

    • Ethnonationalism for Normies
      (Or, “On the Sense of Coming Home”)

      Alan Smithee

      8

  • Paroled from the Paywall

    • The Bene Gesserit Books: Frank Herbert’s Heretics of Dune & Chapterhouse: Dune

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Tár: Reflections on the Artist vs. the Hive

      Steven Clark

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 517 Special Hangover Stream on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

      5

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 516 The New Year’s Special

      Counter-Currents Radio

      5

    • The French Emperor, the German Nutcracker, & the Russian Ballet Part 2

      Kathryn S.

      4

    • The French Emperor, the German Nutcracker, & the Russian Ballet Part 1

      Kathryn S.

    • Death on the Nile (1978 & 2022)

      Trevor Lynch

      13

    • Error & Pride

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      12

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 515 The Christmas Special

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 514 The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, & Yet to Come on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Race & the Bible

      Morris van de Camp

      2

    • PK van der Byl, African Statesman

      Margot Metroland

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 513 The Writers’ Bloc with Horus on the Implicit Whiteness of Liberalism

      Counter-Currents Radio

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 512 Jim Goad on Answer Me!

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Cleese on Creativity

      Greg Johnson

      6

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 1 Diagnostic Criteria, Associated Personality Disorders, & Brain Attributes

      James Dunphy

      6

    • Death of a Gadfly:
      Plato’s Apology

      Mark Gullick

      1

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 8:
      Ernesto Laclau & Left-Wing Populism

      Alain de Benoist

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 511
      Christmas Lore with Hwitgeard on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Bringing Guns to an Idea Fight:
      The Career of Robert DePugh

      Morris van de Camp

      4

    • War Is Our Father

      Gunnar Alfredsson

    • The Foremost Threat to Life on Earth

      James Dunphy

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 510
      The Writers’ Bloc with Jason Kessler on the Kanye Question

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 509
      New Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson

      Counter-Currents Radio

      6

    • The Problem of Gentile Zionism

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      1

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 7:
      Money & the Right

      Alain de Benoist

      2

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 6:
      Liberalism & Morality

      Alain de Benoist

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 507
      The Best Month Ever on The Writers’ Bloc with Anthony Bavaria

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Who Is Not Going to Save the Nation?

      Beau Albrecht

      4

    • J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Númenor

      Alex Graham

      3

  • Recent comments

    • Bob Roberts

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      "The Yankees didn’t bring the slaves over..." That's simply not true. Not only did Yankee...

    • Dimly-Lit Pythagoras

      A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 8 Religion & Virtue

      Would you care to offer a brief profile of a man you would characterize as a winner?

    • I me myself Odin Inside

      A Lesson from Mr. Gurdjieff: The Briefest of Introductions to “the Work”

      Hear hear ! Mr. Smith. Let us see, awaken and DO!   I liked Evola's words on Gurdjieff...

    • J Webb

      Around the World in 80 Days: The Tale of a Chinese Spy Balloon

      A Chinese Mata Hari styled spy? Stop sexualizing Asian women! Tik Tok gathering massive data on US...

    • DarkPlato

      A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 8 Religion & Virtue

      great series.  I wish you would do an article on sadism and it’s connection to crime.  I...

    • Rez

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      Glad to find another Iranian on this site. I thought I was the only one here. However, I doubt you...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Religion & Eugenics

      Interesting, that.  One might also consider the Neoreactionary concept of the God of Nature, or...

    • Josephus Cato

      Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      I'm guessing this "Eurasianist" theory let's call it explains how Russia is able to exercise a...

    • Vehmgericht

      Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      With the Turkic peoples of central and western Asia having embraced Islam (or in the case of the...

    • Shift

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetJMlt3-l4

    • Margot Metroland

      Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      I think it's just the echo chamber he lives in. My review is considerably meatier than what I've...

    • Ewigkeit

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      In many countries, including Germany, which has a larger population than all of Scandinavia combined...

    • J Webb

      The No College Club, Chapter 7

      Its good to see a model of people positively banding together in solidarity. Many have observed the...

    • Enoch Powell

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      I think the rate of miscegenation is far behind schedule." I don't know what the schedule is you...

    • DarkPlato

      Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 522 Current Things Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson, Gaddius Maximus, & Pox Populi

      Bankman-fried was cute until he got into the jelly donuts.

    • Kök Böri

      Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      The legend of the founding of Kiev is quite significant. The story goes that the local tribes were...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      I see that Ian Kershaw is up to his old tricks with this one.

    • Scott

      Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      @ Kök Böri>> The humanity has got nothing usable of those manned space flights. The satellites...

    • Antipodean

      Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      I think I might give it a miss based on your recommendation Madame Metroland. One does wonder how...

    • The Antichomsky

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      Any entity that denigrates talent and elevates mediocrity, as does the current-year US, is by its...

  • Book Authors

    • Alain de Benoist
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Beau Albrecht
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Charles Krafft
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Collin Cleary
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Fenek Solère
    • Francis Parker Yockey
    • Greg Johnson
    • Gregory Hood
    • H. L. Mencken
    • Irmin Vinson
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Jef Costello
    • Jim Goad
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Julius Evola
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Michael Polignano
    • Multiple authors
    • Savitri Devi
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Tito Perdue
    • Trevor Lynch
  • Webzine Authors

    Editor-in-Chief

    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.

    Featured Writers

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • Jim Goad
    • Mark Gullick, Ph.D.
    • Nicholas Jeelvy
    • Spencer Quinn

    Frequent Writers

    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton, Ph.D.
    • Collin Cleary, Ph.D.
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.
    • Stephen Paul Foster, Ph.D.
    • Alex Graham
    • Richard Houck
    • Margot Metroland
    • John Morgan
    • Trevor Lynch
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Kathryn S.
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Michael Walker

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Julius Evola
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Ernst Jünger
    • Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Dominique Venner
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey

    Other Authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Michael Bell
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Giles Corey
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Richardo Duchesne, Ph.D.
    • Emile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Tom Goodroch
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • G A Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Millennial Woes
    • Michael O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Quntilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Herve Ryssen
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solere
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunic
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Contact
Sponsored Links
Above Time Coffee Antelope Hill Publishing Paul Waggener IHR-Store Asatru Folk Assembly Breakey Imperium Press American Renaissance The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Print February 19, 2014

Religion for Infidels, Part 3 
Intelligence, Power, & Problem Solving in Nature

Anthony M. Ludovici

1,511 words

carnivorous-pitcher-plantPart 3 of 5

(f) The sixth conclusion to which a steady and careful study of Nature inevitably leads us is that wherever there is living matter, whether in the human brain or in a blade of grass, there also shall we find intelligence. Every particle of live matter is, we know, composed of cells which, individually and by the simple fact that they are alive, give evidence of intelligent activity. In fact, we are compelled to look on life and intelligence as so inextricably welded together as to be thought of only as coextensive.

At this moment of history, with everyone steeped in the dualistic doctrine that views the living world as consisting of matter and mind, it is difficult to imagine and to affirm the indissoluble unity of these two aspects of life. Willy-nilly, however, unable as we may feel to separate living matter from intelligence, we nevertheless find ourselves insensibly inclining to the view that it is twofold. So long have we been inured to the false dichotomy, ‘body and soul’, that we see it mirrored everywhere, despite our knowledge of the fact that it implies a separateness of which we have not the slightest evidence . . .

To speak of the life of even the simplest protozoan, or of the lowliest cell in any animal or vegetable body, is therefore tantamount to asserting both its vitality and intelligence. For it turns out that there is no knowledge of the two ever being asunder. No matter what comfort this may incidentally afford to morons, it cannot be too emphatically stated that to assume any dualism here, as even the most distinguished scientists and philosophers are wont to do, is to commit oneself to endless confusions and to inferences for which there are no incontestable grounds. To return for the moment to the moron, it therefore seems probable that whilst perhaps his highest rational faculties may be defective, his individual body cells, of which he is alleged to possess about 60 billion, must certainly retain their intelligence, otherwise he would cease to live.

The sixteenth-century wizard, Giordano Bruno, knew this intuitively. He was so deeply convinced that intelligence was ubiquitous throughout the whole structure of the universe that in 1587 he declared it the property even of ‘stones and the most imperfect things’ . . . Nor, if we accept the evolutionary theory, is it possible to doubt what must four centuries ago have appeared the most extravagant nonsense. For if, as all evolutionists agree, at some time or other organic must have sprung from inorganic matter, and if the former is in every sense con­terminous with intelligence, a primordial and rudimentary form of in­telligence must have been latent and inherent in ‘stones and the most imperfect things’ . . .

Even if we deny these body-cells intelligence, we must at least grant them memory—the remembrance of the work which for eons they have been called upon to perform, whether for constant maintenance, repair or the construction of whole organs. It was evidently some such thought that led Dr Ewald Hering, the eminent German physiologist, to postulate ‘memory as a general function of organic matter’ . . .

(g) The seventh conclusion to which, by innumerable signs, Nature eventually directs us is that, as far as we are able to judge, the forces governing life’s processes are omnipotent and inexhaustible in their resourcefulness. From the infinite variety of their expedients and inventions we are bound to infer that nothing is impossible to them. The unfailing brilliance of their solutions of the most baffling problems partakes in our eyes of the quality of magic . . .

There is in fact no problem, however abstruse and apparently insoluble, which we do not see the forces of Nature solve with the utmost virtuosity, and in contemplating the infallibility of their methods we are driven willy-nilly to the conviction that an intelligence very much higher than any we know must be a pervasive quality of living matter.

From the smallest mammal—the English Lesser Shrew (Sorex pygmacus), hardly two inches in length and a little over an ounce in weight—to the largest of all—the Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), which may be 89 feet long, whose liver alone weighs a ton, whose heart weighs 1000 lb and whose total weight is 136 tons (i.e., the total weight of twenty-seven elephants)—we find in the animal world alone so much at which to stare in speechless wonder, and so many conun­drums brilliantly solved, that we abandon all doubt concerning the un­canny omnipotence of Nature’s life-forces . . .

venusflytrap3(h) We now come to the seventh major conclusion concerning the attributes of the life-forces deduced from a study of living beings, and, as this conclusion is the outcome of a narrow scrutiny of the factors of organic evolution, we are here probably on the trail of the most secret methods by which the life-forces achieve their ends.

The fact that all species of plants and animals, from the lowest to the highest, have in the course of ages evolved from some kind of primordial matter which must have come into existence—how, we do not know—via an assumed series of transformations, from dust, through crystals, enzymes and filterable viruses, is now admitted by all investi­gators. Also undisputed . . . is the fact that the living matter composing all plants and animals consists of myriads of cells, all of which are able to perform the functions necessary for the nourishment, growth, repair and adaptation to environment of the vegetable or animal bodies which they compose.

Less general agreement, however, prevails regarding the capacity inherent in each cell which enables it to perform these vital functions and to regulate its actions so as to execute, or work out, what has been called its ‘blueprint’ or ‘template’—that is to say, the plan of its individual being. As we have seen, the ineluctable conclusion to which this inherent capacity of the cell leads us is that it has a psychological property, recognized by a number of authorities as ‘memory’, but which in final analysis is seen to be equivalent to intelligence. For, where memory prompts purposive action, we cannot deny it intelli­gence, and we are driven to a belief in the unexceptional association of all living matter with intelligence. Indeed, the two appear to be everywhere coextensive and indissoluble, and to infer a dualism from their coexistence can lead only to confusion and incoherence . . .

Thus, only can we understand purposeful adaptation, whether in plant or animal, as a process in which memory and intelligence cooperate, and when Dr Erasmus Darwin (in Botanical Garden, ‘Vegetable animation’, 1791) declared that, ‘The individuals of the vegetable world may be considered as inferior or less perfect animals’, he hinted at this idea. 143 years later, Sir J. Arthur Thomson merely echoed the doctor-poet when he said: ‘There is something of the animal in many a plant, and something of the plant in many an animal’ . . . The Venus flytrap, which quickly closes its toothed bilobed blade when an insect touches its sensitive hairs, abundantly confirms this claim . . .

The fundamental problems of adaptation to ambient conditions, variation and natural selection—or the survival of the fittest, as these processes occur in Nature to effect the evolutionary march of life—are insoluble if we approach them without always assuming some sort of intelligence in living matter, and here it seems to me that biologists like Darwin, Haeckel and their followers, and philosophers like Spencer, unnecessarily hampered themselves and invited the justifiable attack of lay thinkers like Nietzsche and Samuel Butler. Hence the justice of Professor McDougall’s description of Darwin’s theory of evolution as ‘a theory denying by implication all other agency and influence than the mechanical’ . . .

In the 1876 edition of Origin of Species Darwin said: ‘We are profoundly ignorant of the cause of each variation or individual difference’. Again, in the 1883 edition of The Descent of Man . . . he said: ‘With respect to the causes of variability, we are in all cases very igno­rant’. This means that up to the moment of the actual appearance in any organism of features differentiating it, however slightly, from its ancestors, the Darwinian biologists know nothing concerning the history of such features. As Alfred Tylor observed: ‘The great difficulty in Mr Darwin’s works is the fact that he starts with variations ready-made, without trying as a rule to account for them, and then shows that if these varieties are beneficial the possessor has a better chance in the great struggle for existence, and the accumulation of such variations will give rise to a new species’ . . .

The earlier evolutionists did at least try to account for the origin of new features, and Lamarck . . . suggested a theory of their origin which, if true, implied the cooperation of the following important fac­tors:

(a) A constructive and organizing power in the living organism, which in response to appropriate stimulation, even of an emotional or merely imaginative kind, could initiate structural changes and concentrations of energy, with corresponding modifications in the germ-plasm.

(b) A capacity in the soma and germ-plasm to respond to such stimulation, provided always that it is given with adequate intensity and in strict accordance with the only conditions under which such stimulation can work . . .

 

Related

  • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 8 Religion & Virtue

  • Religion & Eugenics

  • The Eternal Fedora

  • The Bene Gesserit Books: Frank Herbert’s Heretics of Dune & Chapterhouse: Dune

  • Remembering Anthony M. Ludovici
    (January 8, 1882–April 3, 1971)

  • Frank Salter’s On Genetic Interests

  • Death of a Gadfly:
    Plato’s Apology

  • Sociobiological Problem-Solving

Tags

Anthony M. Ludovicibiologybook excerptsCharles DarwinevolutionintelligencephilosophyreligionReligion for Infidels

Previous

« Religion for Infidels, Part 4 
Life Finds a Way

Next

» The Last Superhero

  • Recent posts

    • Around the World in 80 Days: The Tale of a Chinese Spy Balloon

      Mark Gullick

      1

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 8 Religion & Virtue

      James Dunphy

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 523 Greg Johnson Interviews Pox Populi

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Religion & Eugenics

      Paul Popenoe

      1

    • Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      Morris van de Camp

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 522 Current Things Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson, Gaddius Maximus, & Pox Populi

      Counter-Currents Radio

      7

    • The No College Club, Chapter 7

      Spencer J. Quinn

      1

    • Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      Margot Metroland

      3

    • The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      Jim Goad

      41

    • Strength Through Joy: An Interview with Béla Incze of Légió Hungária

      Ondrej Mann

    • Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      19

    • Correspondence between Gaston-Armand Amaudruz & Julius Evola

      Gaston-Armand Amaudruz & Julius Evola

      1

    • Limited Edition Clearance Sale

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      Anthony Bavaria

      29

    • Spencer J. Quinn Interviewed About The No College Club

      Spencer J. Quinn

      1

    • David Duke & Louisiana’s 1991 Gubernatorial Election

      Morris van de Camp

      4

    • Jobbik a stručná historie jeho politického obratu o 180°

      The Visegrád Post

    • Black Invention Myths

      Black Invention Myths

      5

    • Race War in the Outback

      Jim Goad

      62

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 7 More of the Most Common Jobs for Psychopaths

      James Dunphy

      1

    • Black History Month Resources

      Greg Johnson

      9

    • 40% Off Selected Titles

      Cyan Quinn

      5

    • The Union Jackal, January 2023

      Mark Gullick

      3

    • Spencer J. Quinn’s The No College Club: A Review

      Anthony Bavaria

      7

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 521 Daily Zoomer & Spencer J. Quinn Discuss The No College Club

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • Everything Whites Do Is Bad . . . According to the Mainstream Media

      Beau Albrecht

      15

    • Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

      Margot Metroland

      9

    • American Krogan on Louis C. K. Advocating for Open Borders

      American Krogan

      11

    • Traditional French Songs from Le Poème Harmonique

      Alex Graham

      1

    • The Worst Week Yet: January 22-28, 2023

      Jim Goad

      25

    • Sports Cars & Small Penises

      Richard Houck

      29

    • Opiates for America’s Heartland

      Morris van de Camp

      13

    • The Whale

      Steven Clark

      3

    • Are Qur’an-Burnings Helpful?

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      15

    • Bullet Train to Babylon

      Trevor Lynch

      7

    • The Wave: Fascism Reenacted in a High School

      Beau Albrecht

      6

    • Edred Thorsson a jeho kniha Historie Runové gildy

      Collin Cleary

    • Silicon Valley’s Anti-White Racial Dysgenics Program

      Jason Kessler

      33

    • The Silent Plague of Elderly Asian Mass Shooters in California

      Jim Goad

      36

    • What Went Wrong with America’s Universities?

      Stephen Paul Foster

      3

    • Greg Johnson Speaks to Horus the Avenger About Charles Krafft

      Greg Johnson

      7

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 6 The Most Common Jobs for Psychopaths

      James Dunphy

      13

    • Davos, or the Technocrats’ Ball

      Mark Gullick

      5

    • A Political Prisoner on the Meaning of January 6

      Morris van de Camp

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 520 Inside Serbia with Marko of Zentropa

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The $50 Million Conservative Inc. Internet Spat

      Spencer J. Quinn

      16

    • Yet Another Woke Remake of a Classic

      Beau Albrecht

      25

    • Spencer J. Quinn & Pox Populi Discuss The No College Club

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 11, Part 4: “Multitudes” Against the People

      Alain de Benoist

    • The Worst Week Yet: January 15-21, 2023

      Jim Goad

      35

  • Classics Corner

    • Remembering A. R. D. “Rex” Fairburn (February 2, 1904–March 25, 1957)

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Denis Kearney & the Struggle for a White America

      Theodore J. O'Keefe

      1

    • Posthuman Prospects:
      Artificial Intelligence, Fifth Generation Warfare, & Archeofuturism

      Christopher Pankhurst

      5

    • Earnest Sevier Cox:
      Advocate for the White Ethnostate

      Morris van de Camp

      15

    • Remembering Jack London
      (January 12, 1876–November 22, 1916)

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Remembering Robinson Jeffers:
      January 10, 1887–January 20, 1962

      John Morgan

      3

    • Remembering Pierre Drieu La Rochelle:
      January 3, 1893–March 15, 1945

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865-January 18, 1936)

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Restoring White Homelands

      Greg Johnson

      34

    • Remembering Hinton Rowan Helper

      Spencer J. Quinn

      11

    • What’s Wrong with Diversity?

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Redefining the Mainstream

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Edward Alsworth Ross:
      American Metapolitical Hero

      Morris van de Camp

      8

    • The Talented Mr. Ripley & Purple Noon

      Trevor Lynch

      19

    • Christmas & the Yuletide:
      Light in the Darkness

      William de Vere

      3

    • Thanksgiving Special 
      White Men Meet Indians:
      Jamestown & the Clash of Civilizations

      Thomas Jackson

    • Colin Wilson’s The Outsider

      Sir Oswald Mosley

      4

    • Dostoyevsky on the Jews

      William Pierce

      4

    • Jefferson &/or Mussolini, Part 1

      Ezra Pound

      5

    • I Listened to Chapo Trap House So You Don’t Have To

      Doug Huntington

      98

    • The Homeric Gods

      Mark Dyal

      13

    • Toward a Baltic-Black Sea Union:
      “Intermarium” as a Viable Model for White Revival

      Émile Durand

      55

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 3

      John Morgan

      30

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 2

      John Morgan

      6

    • Columbus Day Special
      The Autochthony Argument

      Greg Johnson

      9

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 1

      John Morgan

      8

    • The Jewish Question for Normies

      Alan Smithee

      13

    • Human Biodiversity for Normies

      Alan Smithee

      10

    • Bring Back Prohibition!

      Alan Smithee

      65

    • Ethnonationalism for Normies
      (Or, “On the Sense of Coming Home”)

      Alan Smithee

      8

  • Paroled from the Paywall

    • The Bene Gesserit Books: Frank Herbert’s Heretics of Dune & Chapterhouse: Dune

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Tár: Reflections on the Artist vs. the Hive

      Steven Clark

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 517 Special Hangover Stream on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

      5

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 516 The New Year’s Special

      Counter-Currents Radio

      5

    • The French Emperor, the German Nutcracker, & the Russian Ballet Part 2

      Kathryn S.

      4

    • The French Emperor, the German Nutcracker, & the Russian Ballet Part 1

      Kathryn S.

    • Death on the Nile (1978 & 2022)

      Trevor Lynch

      13

    • Error & Pride

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      12

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 515 The Christmas Special

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 514 The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, & Yet to Come on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Race & the Bible

      Morris van de Camp

      2

    • PK van der Byl, African Statesman

      Margot Metroland

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 513 The Writers’ Bloc with Horus on the Implicit Whiteness of Liberalism

      Counter-Currents Radio

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 512 Jim Goad on Answer Me!

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Cleese on Creativity

      Greg Johnson

      6

    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 1 Diagnostic Criteria, Associated Personality Disorders, & Brain Attributes

      James Dunphy

      6

    • Death of a Gadfly:
      Plato’s Apology

      Mark Gullick

      1

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 8:
      Ernesto Laclau & Left-Wing Populism

      Alain de Benoist

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 511
      Christmas Lore with Hwitgeard on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Bringing Guns to an Idea Fight:
      The Career of Robert DePugh

      Morris van de Camp

      4

    • War Is Our Father

      Gunnar Alfredsson

    • The Foremost Threat to Life on Earth

      James Dunphy

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 510
      The Writers’ Bloc with Jason Kessler on the Kanye Question

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 509
      New Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson

      Counter-Currents Radio

      6

    • The Problem of Gentile Zionism

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      1

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 7:
      Money & the Right

      Alain de Benoist

      2

    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 6:
      Liberalism & Morality

      Alain de Benoist

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 507
      The Best Month Ever on The Writers’ Bloc with Anthony Bavaria

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Who Is Not Going to Save the Nation?

      Beau Albrecht

      4

    • J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Númenor

      Alex Graham

      3

  • Recent comments

    • Bob Roberts

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      "The Yankees didn’t bring the slaves over..." That's simply not true. Not only did Yankee...

    • Dimly-Lit Pythagoras

      A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 8 Religion & Virtue

      Would you care to offer a brief profile of a man you would characterize as a winner?

    • I me myself Odin Inside

      A Lesson from Mr. Gurdjieff: The Briefest of Introductions to “the Work”

      Hear hear ! Mr. Smith. Let us see, awaken and DO!   I liked Evola's words on Gurdjieff...

    • J Webb

      Around the World in 80 Days: The Tale of a Chinese Spy Balloon

      A Chinese Mata Hari styled spy? Stop sexualizing Asian women! Tik Tok gathering massive data on US...

    • DarkPlato

      A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 8 Religion & Virtue

      great series.  I wish you would do an article on sadism and it’s connection to crime.  I...

    • Rez

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      Glad to find another Iranian on this site. I thought I was the only one here. However, I doubt you...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Religion & Eugenics

      Interesting, that.  One might also consider the Neoreactionary concept of the God of Nature, or...

    • Josephus Cato

      Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      I'm guessing this "Eurasianist" theory let's call it explains how Russia is able to exercise a...

    • Vehmgericht

      Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      With the Turkic peoples of central and western Asia having embraced Islam (or in the case of the...

    • Shift

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetJMlt3-l4

    • Margot Metroland

      Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      I think it's just the echo chamber he lives in. My review is considerably meatier than what I've...

    • Ewigkeit

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      In many countries, including Germany, which has a larger population than all of Scandinavia combined...

    • J Webb

      The No College Club, Chapter 7

      Its good to see a model of people positively banding together in solidarity. Many have observed the...

    • Enoch Powell

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      I think the rate of miscegenation is far behind schedule." I don't know what the schedule is you...

    • DarkPlato

      Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 522 Current Things Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson, Gaddius Maximus, & Pox Populi

      Bankman-fried was cute until he got into the jelly donuts.

    • Kök Böri

      Russian Eurasianism: Its History & Core Ideas

      The legend of the founding of Kiev is quite significant. The story goes that the local tribes were...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      I see that Ian Kershaw is up to his old tricks with this one.

    • Scott

      Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      @ Kök Böri>> The humanity has got nothing usable of those manned space flights. The satellites...

    • Antipodean

      Ian Kershaw’s Personality & Power

      I think I might give it a miss based on your recommendation Madame Metroland. One does wonder how...

    • The Antichomsky

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      Any entity that denigrates talent and elevates mediocrity, as does the current-year US, is by its...

  • Book Authors

    • Alain de Benoist
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Beau Albrecht
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Charles Krafft
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Collin Cleary
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Fenek Solère
    • Francis Parker Yockey
    • Greg Johnson
    • Gregory Hood
    • H. L. Mencken
    • Irmin Vinson
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Jef Costello
    • Jim Goad
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Julius Evola
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Michael Polignano
    • Multiple authors
    • Savitri Devi
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Tito Perdue
    • Trevor Lynch
  • Webzine Authors

    Editor-in-Chief

    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.

    Featured Writers

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • Jim Goad
    • Mark Gullick, Ph.D.
    • Nicholas Jeelvy
    • Spencer Quinn

    Frequent Writers

    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton, Ph.D.
    • Collin Cleary, Ph.D.
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.
    • Stephen Paul Foster, Ph.D.
    • Alex Graham
    • Richard Houck
    • Margot Metroland
    • John Morgan
    • Trevor Lynch
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Kathryn S.
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Michael Walker

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Julius Evola
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Ernst Jünger
    • Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Dominique Venner
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey

    Other Authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Michael Bell
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Giles Corey
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Richardo Duchesne, Ph.D.
    • Emile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Tom Goodroch
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • G A Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Millennial Woes
    • Michael O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Quntilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Herve Ryssen
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solere
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunic
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
Sponsored Links
Above Time Coffee Antelope Hill Publishing Paul Waggener IHR-Store Asatru Folk Assembly Breakey Imperium Press American Renaissance The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Donate Now Mailing list
Books for sale
  • El Manifiesto Nacionalista Blanco
  • An Artist of the Right
  • Ernst Jünger
  • Reuben
  • The Partisan
  • Trevor Lynch’s Classics of Right-Wing Cinema
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • Imperium
  • Reactionary Modernism
  • Manifesto del Nazionalismo Bianco
  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco
  • Vade Mecum
  • Whiteness: The Original Sin
  • Space Vixen Trek Episode 17: Tomorrow the Stars
  • The Year America Died
  • Passing the Buck
  • Mysticism After Modernism
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
  • Forever & Ever
  • Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition
  • Resistance
  • Materials for All Future Historians
  • Love Song of the Australopiths
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • End of an Era: Mad Men & the Ordeal of Civility
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • I do not belong to the Baader-Meinhof Group
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • Artists of the Right: Resisting Decadence
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
Copyright © 2023 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd.

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Edit your comment