The Evolution of Man — Volume 2 by Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August, 1834-1919

If we appreciate the full weight of these morphological and physiological facts, and put a proper phylogenetic interpretation on the observations of embryology, we see that the older idea of the personal immortality of the human soul is scientifically untenable. Death puts an end, in man as in any other vertebrate, to the physiological function of the cerebral neurona, the countless microscopic ganglionic cells, the collective activity of which is known as "the soul." I have shown this fully in the eleventh chapter of my Riddle of the Universe.

CHAPTER 2.25. EVOLUTION OF THE SENSE-ORGANS.

The sense-organs are indubitably among the most important and interesting parts of the human body; they are the organs by means of which we obtain our knowledge of objects in the surrounding world. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu. They are the first sources of the life of the soul. There is no other part of the body in which we discover such elaborate anatomical structures, co-operating with a definite purpose; and there is no other organ in which the wonderful and purposive structure seems so clearly to compel us to admit a Creator and a preconceived plan. Hence we find special efforts made by dualists to draw our attention here to the "wisdom of the Creator" and the design visible in his works. As a matter of fact, you will discover, on mature reflection, that on this theory the Creator is at bottom only playing the part of a clever mechanic or watch-maker; all these familiar teleological ideas of Creator and creation are based, in the long run, on a similar childlike anthropomorphism.

However, we must grant that at the first glance the teleological theory seems to give the simplest and most satisfactory explanation of these purposive structures. If we merely examine the structure and functions of the most advanced sense-organs, it seems impossible to explain them without postulating a creative act. Yet evolution shows us quite clearly that this popular idea is totally wrong. With its assistance we discover that the purposive and remarkable sense-organs were developed, like all other organs, without any preconceived design--developed by the same mechanical process of natural selection, the same constant correlation of adaptation and heredity, by which the other purposive structures in the animal frame were slowly and gradually brought forth in the struggle for life.

Like most other Vertebrates, man has six sensory organs, which serve for eight different classes of sensations. The skin serves for sensations of pressure and temperature. This is the oldest, lowest, and vaguest of the sense-organs; it is distributed over the surface of the body. The other sensory activities are localised. The sexual sense is bound up with the skin of the external sexual organs, the sense of taste with the mucous lining of the mouth (tongue and palate), and the sense of smell with the mucous lining of the nasal cavity. For the two most advanced and most highly differentiated sensory functions there are special and very elaborate mechanical structures--the eye for the sense of sight, and the ear for the sense of hearing and space (equilibrium).