Publication Details

Abstract

The author argues that Hegel had to accept, consistently with geology findings of that time, that not only the Earth as a whole but also in it preserved extinct plants and animals had their history in sequence. There is, however, a contraversy as Hegel recognizes the transformation of the Earth surface and, naturally, also of life conditions, but on the other hand he did not see the transformation of organisms with changing environment that caused the change of species. The author discusses the reason of Hegel’s negative viewing of the problem of species evolution in conjunction with Cuvier's theory of Earth revolutions. It is generally known that Hegel’s nature level system is not a process of natural physical development of some natural phenomena from the other, not a process of nature evolution as such, but it is an image of present spirit, an extraneous expression of idea. According to Hegel all the nature evolution levels that are not dependent and related with each other exist simultaneously and beside each other in space. In the area of living nature the more developed organisms are not evolved from the less developed ones. It indicates that the nature of Hegel’s natural philosophy „is doomed to eternal repetition of the same processes“ what contradicts his dialectics. Hegel writes „only a concept as such undergoes metamorphosis as only its transformations mean evolution“. Although Hegel does not accept evolution of nature in general, he admits, however, the evolution of individual parts, the evolution of one mineral from the other. Hence a question rises whether Hegel took over the evolution elements from nature scientist works, geologists, or it is his own contribution. The author of this paper tends to accept the first alternative i. e. that Hegel took over the evolution elements from the works of natural scientists, geologists.