THE CROWNING YEARS
[By JOSEPH MCCABE]
When Professor Bölsche closed his biographical sketch in 1900 with the
three stars that “still glowed,” he had little suspicion how widely they
would yet flame out before they passed from the firmament of biography
to that of history. As it has proved, Haeckel was then only entering
upon the period of vast popular influence which forms the closing part
of his remarkable career. He had in 1900 a few thousand thoughtful
readers in several countries beside his own. To-day he is read by
hundreds of thousands in Germany, England, France, and Italy, and the
fourteen different translations of his most popular work have carried
his ideas over the whole world. To-day the thoughts of this professor of
zoology in an obscure German town are discussed eagerly by bronzed and
blackened artisans in the workshops of London, Paris, and Tokio, as well
as throughout Germany. The reader will have noticed in the earlier
chapters that the most dignified and disdainful of Haeckel’s opponents
have been the academic philosophers. In the year 1905 a Berlin professor
of philosophy, a stern critic of his system, devotes a long special
section of his _History of Philosophy since Kant_ to Haeckel and his
long-contemned speculations. Why? Because, to quote his concluding
sentences, “the far-reaching impulse that Haeckel has given will never
more die out. He has become a sower of the future. The glad echo that
his words have found in a hundred thousand breasts must stir every
representative of ruling power in Church and Science to make a closer
self-examination, a closer scrutiny of received ideas. Does not the
thought press irresistibly upon us that somehow or other we have entered
upon the wrong path in our modern development?”[9]
Footnote 9:
Dr. Otto Gramzow’s _Geschichte der Philosophie seit Kant_, p. 503.
In an earlier chapter Professor Bölsche tells the moving story of the
writing of the _General Morphology_: the young man making his masterly
appeal to the scientists of Germany, which he thinks they will read over
his grave. There is a singular parallel to this in Haeckel’s attitude at
the time when Bölsche closed his work. Haeckel had just written another
“last will and testament,” another proud and defiant utterance of what
he felt to be the truth about God and man and nature. Once more he
seemed to see the marble gates at the close of his career, and his
sombre glance fell round on a world that was, he thought, sinking into
reaction. This time he appealed to the people. The five years that have
followed have witnessed an extraordinary response on the part of the
people. With the speed of a popular romance his work has flown through
Europe. He has received a hundred proofs that, at all events, the ideas
he thinks to be fraught with salvation for humanity are being considered
and discussed in wide circles that had never before known that there was
a “riddle of the universe.” He has been urged in the heart of the Sahara
to read his own works. He has met, as he travelled on an Alpine railway,
cultured nuns who told him they had learned evolution from “Professor
Haeckel’s works.” He has looked down with mingled feeling on the wild
applause of a gathering of thousands of Socialists. He has been
immortalised—strangest and last of all apotheoses—in an academic history
of philosophy!
The present chapter will tell the story of these five stirring years. It
will aim at conveying to the English reader, by plain presentment of
facts, a full picture of the activity that has attracted or distracted
the attention of so many in the last few years. If Dr. Gramzow is right,
if through these five years of indefatigable labour the aged scientist
has become a “sower of the future,” it is well for friend and foe to
understand him.
There is only one respect in which one’s personal feeling may be allowed
to tinge such a narrative as this. For good or evil Haeckel’s great
influence on our generation is a reality. It is the biographer’s duty to
record and measure it: the reader’s to appraise it. The future historian
of the dramatic course of humanity’s ideals must be left to interpret it
in cosmic perspective. Do the stars exult, or do they grow thinner and
colder in their light, over this great stirring? The far-distant
generation, that will have reached the summit of the hill, will know. We
who, with narrow horizon, are cutting our fond paths up the slope, have
but the poor luxuries of faith and hope. Yet there is one aspect of
Haeckel’s recent life that makes us almost forget the cosmic issues.
These five years have been, in literal truth, “crowning years” of his
aims. For all the slights and insults that have been showered on the
grim worker he has had a rich recompense of honour and love. Even if his
ideas are to fade and wither like his laurel crowns, it will be
something for a future historian to record that a gentler and more
genial light fell about his closing years. As Gramzow says: “He _tried_
to give us his best.”
An event that Professor Bölsche has only briefly alluded to in his last
crowded chapter was a fitting inauguration of the last decade of
Haeckel’s career. On the 17th of February, 1894, his sixtieth birthday
was celebrated at Jena. The lover of nature and of the silent study
passes uneasily through such functions, but the student of Haeckel’s
life must dwell on it. Jena had for some years realised that world-fame
somehow attached to the straight, smiling figure that it saw passing
daily to the Zoological Institute. It had witnessed the grave procedure
of the boycott in the sixties. It had heard distinguished leaders of
Churches, like Professor Michelis, brand his works as “a fleck of shame
on the escutcheon of Germany,” “an attack on the foundations of religion
and morality,” “a symptom of senile marasmus.” It saw all these unworthy
attacks sink into confusion, and a new era begin. It heard of greater
universities competing for their professor and his refusal to leave
them. It saw Bismarck fall on his neck and kiss him repeatedly when, in
1892, he headed the deputation to invite him to Jena; and it noted how
the Prince absolutely refused to drive through their town “unless
Haeckel comes with me” in the carriage. It gave his name proudly to one
of its fine new streets.
In February, 1894, Jena witnessed a remarkable celebration—remarkable
not only to those who had lived with him in the sixties. A marble bust
of Haeckel was unveiled by Professor Hertwig, with noble speech, in the
Zoological Institute. A festive dinner, such as Germans alone can
conduct, was held in the famous Luther-Hostel. More than a thousand
letters and telegrams poured in from all parts of the world, and scores
of journals awoke the interest of Germany. I have before me the
privately-published report on the celebration, autographed to “Agnes
Haeckel.” Two lists in it catch the eye. One is a list of Haeckel’s
publications. Apart from his long and numerous articles in scientific
journals he has written forty-two works (13,000 pages, frequently
quarto) in thirty-three years. All but two are pure contributions to
science: some of them are classical monographs of original research;
most are beautifully illustrated by himself. The second list gives the
names of those who have contributed towards the marble bust by Professor
Kopf, of Rome. It is worthy of science. It includes five hundred
university professors and heads of academic institutions in all parts of
the world, from Brazil and the States to Algiers and Egypt and India. In
their name Professor Hertwig greeted Haeckel as one “who has written his
name in letters of light in the history of science.” From Italy the
Minister of Public Instruction sent the following telegram: “Italy, that
you love so much, takes cordial part in all the honours that the
civilised nations of the earth are heaping on you in commemoration of
your sixtieth birthday. In the name of the Italian Universities, which
love you so much and so much admire your undying work, I send you a
heartfelt greeting and wishes for a long and happy and active career.”
Dr. Paul von Ritter gave 75,000 marks [shillings] for the erection of a
monument to Haeckel at Jena when the hour comes. He had previously given
300,000 marks to be spent in the furtherance of Haeckel’s scientific
views.
The story so vividly unfolded by Professor Bölsche has explained how the
estrangement arose between Haeckel and so many of his scientific
colleagues in Germany. It is not a little gratifying to find the names
of some of his critics amongst the subscribers to his festival. The
personality, the aim, the self-sacrifice of the man, no less than his
distinguished special contributions to science, had won a superb
recognition.
In the years 1894-6 Haeckel published the _Systematic Phylogeny_. “We
may differ,” says Professor Arnold Lang of it, “as to the value of
special or even fundamental opinions in it, but we must stand before
this work in astonishment and admiration: astonishment at the vast range
of his knowledge—it would seem that one head could contain no more:
admiration of the intellectual labour with which the various phenomena
are connected and the gigantic mass of material is reduced to order.”
The Royal Academy of Science at Turin judged the work the best that had
been published in the last four years of the nineteenth century, and
awarded its author the Bressa prize, a sum of 10,000 lire.
[Illustration:
HAECKEL AND A GROUP OF ITALIAN PROFESSORS.
HOTEL BRISTOL, GENOA, 1904.
Pavona. Cattaneo. Ariola. Berninzo. Porro. Locchi. Andres.
Monti. Issel. Orlando. Penzig. Maggi. Haeckel. Morselli. Cattaneo.
]
In August, 1898, he made a further visit to England. The International
Congress of Zoology met at Cambridge, and Haeckel was invited to deliver
an address. He chose his ever-present theme—the evolution of man. The
long lecture, or essay, has been translated by Dr. Gadow under the
title, _The Last Link_. The title is somewhat misleading, as only a page
or two are devoted to “the last link.” Otherwise the little work offers
students a most excellent summary of “our present knowledge of the
evolution of man,” the title which Haeckel gave it.
But the last period of Haeckel’s career is associated chiefly with, and
is really inaugurated by his now famous _Riddle of the Universe_,
published in 1899. To understand that work, to avoid the extremes of
praise and censure that have been lavished on it, one must put oneself
in Haeckel’s position at the close of the last century. Mr. Wells has
given us a forecast of the coming social order in which the intellectual
few are separated by a wider and deeper gulf than ever from the workers
and the women of the world. That keen-eyed and judicious social writer
has already modified his forecast, but there were symptoms enough of the
possibility of such an issue a few years ago. In Germany the signs were
ominous to a man like Haeckel. The older Liberalism to which he belonged
by tradition and conviction seemed in danger of being ground to dust
between the upper and the nether stones of the new political mill—the
increasing strength of Social Democracy and the increasing and
consequent alliance of Conservative Kaiserism with the still powerful
Catholic Church. Haeckel distrusted the power of Demos much as Renan did
when he wrote his sombre dialogues in the seventies; and a political
alliance with the Vatican opened out to him the grim prospect of a
return to the Middle Ages. The freedom of research and teaching for
which he had fought with unsparing vigour was, he thought, imperilled by
the new alliance, no less than the very existence of culture was
endangered by the triumph of Social Democracy. His academic colleagues
remained in that isolation which he had ever bitterly resented.
In face of this situation, which seemed to grow more sombre as the last
years of the century dragged on, his zeal for truth and progress had but
one outlet. He must appeal to the people. He must take the conclusions
he had so laboriously worked out in his _Systematic Phylogeny_, and
translate them from scientific hieroglyphics into a demotic tongue. He
must nail his theses with his own hand on the cathedral door, like the
great monk whose work seemed in danger of perishing. The partial success
of his _History of Creation_ was encouraging, though that work had only
penetrated into the first circle beyond the sacred academic enclosure,
and was still unknown to the crowd. Gathering his strength for what he
believed to be his final effort, he blew a blast that would reach the
far-off shop and factory. It must be no gentle note, no timid suggestion
that the scientific work of the nineteenth century had thrown doubt on
current religious notions. He was quitting the stage. He believed these
things were true, were established. The world must listen to them, must
discuss them; and then the twentieth century would pass its informed
verdict over his grave.
So he wrote a vigorous, an irritating, an awakening book. It must be
read in this context. The charge of “dogmatism” so often hurled at it is
not without humour. It is generally raised by men who in the same breath
hold their truths so dogmatically that they resent his very questions.
They forget, too, that the chief conclusions of the _Riddle_ are
references to the larger work in which, soundly or unsoundly, they are
provided with massive foundations of scientific material. In England
there is some excuse, as the larger work is untranslated and unknown;
though one may resent the critic who charges Haeckel with egoism for his
constant references to his other works and then proceeds to ridicule the
slenderness of the foundations of his theories. Further, it is too often
forgotten that Haeckel opens his work with a rare warning to the reader
that his opinions are very largely “subjective” and his command of other
subjects than biology is very “unequal.” In fine, his constant and
exaggerated allusions to the opposition he encounters from his
scientific colleagues is, for any candid reader, a sufficient corrective
of “dogmatism.”
The work lit up at once a flame of controversy that has hardly yet
diminished in Germany. Students have told me how, when some professor
dropped the well-known name in the course of his lecture, the class
would split at once into two demonstrative sections. Ten thousand copies
of the library edition of the work were sold within a few months, and it
quickly ran to eight editions. This remarkable success irritated his
opponents, and the wide range of the subjects touched in the work gave
them opportunities. Germany was deluged with pamphlets of offence and
defence. Some of Haeckel’s pupils replied to his opponents, but the
master himself smiled through the storm. His chief critics were men with
no competence in biology, and he was not minded to comply with their
stratagem of withdrawing attention from the substantial positions of the
work. Dennert, the philologist, swept together all the hard sayings
about Haeckel that the fierce struggle of the preceding twenty years had
produced—Paulsen and Adickes, the metaphysicians, poured philosophic
scorn on his pretensions to construct a theory of knowledge. Adickes, in
particular, met him with a vigorous fusillade of pure Kantism. It is a
curious commentary on this long philosophic disdain to find Haeckel
awarded a prominent place amongst “the philosophers since Kant.”
Two points in this connection are noteworthy. Haeckel’s first sin
against the ruling metaphysic of the nineteenth century was his “naïve
realism.” He had dared to think he could break beyond the charmed circle
of our states of consciousness. He had dreamed that a real material
world lay here in space before the human mind came into existence; that
a living, palpitating humanity, not a bloodless phantasm in the mind,
called for our most solemn efforts. Where the ordinary reader saw a
truism the metaphysicians recognised a deadly sin, and laughed Homeric
laughter. To-day we have, both in England and Germany, a strong claim
arising amongst the metaphysicians themselves for a return to a realist
basis. Haeckel’s second and chief sin was his claim to have thrown light
on the evolution of consciousness and his disdain of all study of mind
that was not grounded on evolution. To-day Gramzow writes: “The
criticism which he makes of Kant’s theory of knowledge from the
evolutionary point of view is the greatest advance that philosophy has
made in that branch since Kant’s time.”
The most violent critics of the _Riddle_ were the theologians. It would
be improper here to enter into the controversy, and indeed Haeckel has
paid little attention to his critics of late years. Some time ago a
German religious magazine was sent to me in which one of his leading
critics had written a shameful article with the aim of alienating him
from me. I at once wrote to him, and received a letter brimming over
with his hearty laughter at the idea that he might have taken any notice
of what they said. The eminent ecclesiastical historian, Professor
Loofs, made a ponderous attack on his incidental reference to the birth
of Christ. As Loofs himself denied the divinity and supernatural birth
of Christ, Haeckel felt little inclination to enter on a serious
argument about the human parentage. The theologian was so much hurt that
he used language, as far as was consistent with a broad view of the
theological dignity, that came within legal limits, and then quoted to
Haeckel the page and letter in the German code on which he might take
action!
But a great counterpoise to these bitter attacks—attacks that forgot, as
Gramzow says, that “there is an ethic for the critic as well as for the
man of science”—had now been provided. Men like Dr. Schmidt, Dr.
Breitenbach, Professor Bölsche, and Professor Verworn rallied to their
master, and conveyed a juster image of him and his work to the public.
The ominous silence of the great biologists was felt to mean that his
views were, in substance, no heresy to them. The man’s warm and
enthusiastic zeal for truth and humanity, his earnest efforts to pierce
the barriers that shut off the treasures of science from the mass, could
not be ignored. A cheaper edition of his work was demanded, and it was
soon in the hands of more than 150,000 readers. Country after country
imported his “gospel of Monism,” the stirring agitation spread to
France, England, America, Italy, and on until it reached Australia and
Japan. To-day fourteen translations of the _Riddle_ bear his teaching to
the ends of the world.
Little need be said here of the Haeckel controversy in this country. I
remember well the day when the German work was submitted to me with a
view to publication. It did not seem to have the stuff of a
conflagration in it. I hazarded a guess that it would sell a thousand
copies, and thought that it contained so valuable a description of the
evolution of mind that it should be published. It has sold, with rather
less than the usual advertising, with no special machinery for pressing
it such as is at the command of religious works—it has sold about
100,000 copies. The success of the work astounded us. While we were
being accused of “thrusting it down people’s throats” we could not have
arrested its circulation, had we wished, without positively refusing to
republish it. Indeed, the last library edition has long been out of
print, though still in frequent demand. It has made Haeckel’s a familiar
name in circles where even Spencer has been heard to be described as “a
great balloonist.” Clergymen have written to their journals saying how
they heard the Monistic philosophy discussed by groups of paviors. Sir
Leslie Stephen told me, on his death-bed, but with a momentary flash of
his old humour, how an Orkney clergyman had written to him for
consolation, as it was circulating amongst the fishers of that _ultima
thule_.[10]
Footnote 10:
The reader who desires a summary of the criticisms passed on the work
may consult Dr. Schmidt’s _Der Kampf um die Welträthsel_ for Germany,
and my own _Haeckel’s Critics Answered_ for England. The only
biologist of competence who has written on it in this country is Prof.
Lloyd-Morgan (_Contemporary Review_, 1903), but his reply is indirect.
Sir Oliver Lodge has recently dealt with it at length in his _Life and
Matter_, but the distinguished physicist’s conception of life is in
extreme and general disfavour with the biologists of England.
From the seething agitation he had aroused Professor Haeckel cheerfully
withdrew in the autumn of 1900 to make his long journey to Java. He now
lived under the public eye, and amusing constructions were put on his
movements. American journalism arrived, by its peculiar methods, at the
knowledge that he had gone in quest of bones of the “missing link.” A
few bones of a half-human, half-ape form had been discovered on the
south coast of Java a few years previously, and the trained American
imagination quickly constructed a theory, which as quickly crystallised
into fact. Haeckel had been heavily subsidised by an American
millionaire to discover more bones of the ape-man of Java. Not to be
outdone, other journals added a rival subsidy (from the American
Government) and a rival search. The sober truth was that Haeckel had
used his Bressa prize fund, with a subsidy from the Ritter fund at Jena,
to make a study of botany and marine life in the tropics. He was within
a hundred miles of the spot where Dubois had found his interesting
relics, but made no effort to go further. For him the evolution of man
rested on too massive a foundation for a few bones to increase its
solidity. Once more he brought home huge cases of preparations, a large
number of sketches (some of them touched up by Verestchagin, who was
returning on the boat from China), and material for the inevitable book.
_Aus Insulinde_ is a charming and finely illustrated work of travel, but
has not been translated.
Before he left Jena he had, with his characteristic urbanity and
diligence, given personal replies to about a thousand letters he had
received apropos of his _Riddle of the Universe_. The epistolary flood
rose higher than ever on his return. The struggle had spread to England
and France. He had returned to a cauldron of controversy. He quietly
resumed his teaching at the university and attacked his still formidable
literary programme. Day after day the aged scholar—he was now in his
sixty-seventh year—briskly stepped up to the podium at the Zoological
Institute and delivered his lectures, drawing his objects with a few
quick strokes on the board or exhibiting the plates prepared by Giltsch.
He noted with a quiet gleam of satisfaction that a few ladies now
ventured into the “Materialist” circle. The new century had begun.
In 1902 he issued the cheap edition of the _Riddle_, of which 180,000
copies have been sold in Germany, with a reply to its critics. “The
great struggle for truth,” he wrote to his friend, Dr. Breitenbach,
“grows fiercer and fiercer, the more my work is attacked by the clergy,
the metaphysical schoolmen, and the erudite Philistines. I am
continually receiving lively and sometimes enthusiastic letters of
congratulation from all parts of the world.” In the meantime he was
engaged upon two important works, which he published in 1903.
The earlier edition of the _Anthropogeny_, of which Professor Bölsche
has written, was undergoing a thorough revision. New evidence was
pouring in every year in support of his sketch of the genealogy of
humanity. Dubois had discovered what is now admitted to be an organism
midway between the highest ape and the earliest prehistoric man. Selenka
had published wonderful studies of the anthropoid apes. Friedenthal and
others had shown the literal blood-relationship of the higher apes and
man by a series of beautiful experiments. He must once more gather
together the enormous mass of facts, and marshal them with his old
command. For six months he worked incessantly on the new edition. A
hundred pages of matter were added to it, a hundred fresh illustrations.
Great and exacting as the task would have been for a younger man, the
work appeared in 1903 in a form that silenced criticism. I need only
quote a sentence from the notice of it that was published in the _Daily
Telegraph_ by one of our leading literary critics, when it was issued in
this country. “It is a grand conception, this of the great physiologist,
that every man, in the brief term of his prenatal development, should go
through these successive changes, by which man has, in countless ages,
been evolved from the primitive germ-cell; and it is triumphantly
vindicated in _The Evolution of Man_. It is impossible to do justice in
words to the patience, the labour, the specialised skill and industry
involved in the preparation of this monumental work.” And one has only
to compare this latest edition with the previous one to see at a glance
the complete transformation, and realise the freshness and force of mind
of the aged biologist.
In the face of such a work, with its towering structure of proof from
embryology, comparative anatomy, and paleontology, one must look
leniently on some of Haeckel’s references to fellow-anthropologists like
Virchow. It is not many years since the great pathologist declared
emphatically at a scientific congress that “we could just as well
conceive man to have descended from a sheep or an elephant as from an
ape.” When a leading anthropologist could say such things in 1894, a
strain is laid on our charity. Darwin’s words, written in a letter to
Haeckel, press on us once more: “Virchow’s conduct is shameful, and I
trust he will one day feel the shame of it.” Professor Rabl has lately
contended that his deceased father-in-law (Virchow) admitted the
evolution of man in private. We cannot wonder if Haeckel merely retorts:
“So much the more shame on his public utterances.” Such things must, at
least, be borne in mind when one reads Haeckel’s severe judgment on some
of his great contemporaries.
The _Evolution of Man_ not only offers the complete proof of its
thesis—a proof accepted by every prominent biologist in England and by
many prelates (such as the Bishop of London and the Dean of
Westminster)—but affords also interesting proof of Haeckel’s artistic
gifts. Some of the best plates in the work are executed by him. But in
the same year, 1903, he gave a more popular evidence of it. In detached
numbers he published the large and beautiful volume of his _Art-forms in
Nature_. In this work he depicts with remarkable success hundreds of the
most beautiful forms that his long study of marine life had brought
before him. A fine expression of the man’s dual nature, the work appeals
with equal force to the æsthete and the scientist. And during the long
hours that he was peering into his microscope and sketching the delicate
and graceful forms, the din and roar of the mighty controversy he had
aroused was breaking in with every post. By the end of the year he had
received more than 5,000 letters in connection with the _Riddle of the
Universe_. Scurrilous letters and idolatrous letters, sober letters and
fantastic letters, flowed upon the Zoological Institute, where he worked
with pen and pencil, and were duly read. He merely defended himself by
posting to each correspondent a printed form that he would soon issue a
new work in which the further questions would be answered. He had given
his life to science and humanity, and would not withdraw for the
well-earned rest. And from a thousand pulpits over Europe and America
the aged and self-sacrificing worker was being denounced and caricatured
to audiences who had not the remotest knowledge of his aims and his
work. A friend of mine heard a minister in an important Glasgow church
assure his congregation from the pulpit that “Haeckel was a man of
notoriously licentious life;” he had heard it “from a friend of
Haeckel’s.” At the very time when Haeckel was buried in his splendid
artistic work, the _Christian World Pulpit_ was issuing a sermon in
which Dr. Horton was explaining “the personal factor” in Haeckel. “He is
an atrophied soul, a being that is blind on the spiritual side,” the
popular preacher declared.
From the turmoil Haeckel withdrew once more to his beloved Italy. There
was another reason for his flight. His seventieth birthday was
approaching. He had declared at the banquet given in his honour on the
occasion of his sixtieth birthday, that if he lived for the seventieth
he would “bury himself in some dark corner of the Thuringian forest, far
away from all festivities.” Strenuous and exacting as the ten years had
been, he now found himself on the threshold of his eighth decade of
life. His wife, also, was ailing, and they both proceeded to the Italian
Riviera at the beginning of the winter. Few of his friends were informed
where he was. “I want,” he wrote to me, “to pass my seventieth birthday
in peace.” He settled at Rapallo, and at once commenced his favourite
fishing for the tiny inhabitants of the Mediterranean. The “cloistral
quietness” of the little town, the daily prospect of the blue
Mediterranean, “the solitary walks in the wild gorges of the Ligurian
Apennines, and the uplifting sight of their forest-crowned
mountain-altars” restored his freshness of spirit. Once more a vast
labour lay before him. He had promised a work that would answer all
biological questions addressed to him in the 5,000 letters of his
correspondents. He had all the queries, all the criticisms of his views,
all the latest literature of the subject, to digest into a compact
volume. The result was a new work of 557 pages, _The Wonders of Life_, a
remarkable summary of his zoological and botanical knowledge, with
excursions into psychology, suicide, lunacy, ethnography, theology, and
ethics. Its twenty solid and well-arranged chapters were written in four
months.
“Promptly at 5,” he wrote in December, “I am awakened by the bells of
the church hard by. I write continuously until 12. After a frugal lunch
and a short rest, the afternoon is devoted to a walk or to water-colour
sketches. The longer days allow me to sit and paint in the open air
until five. Our quiet evenings, from 5 to 10, are spent in reading and
in writing letters. The interruption for dinner, from 7 to 8, gives us
an opportunity to exchange jokes over our ‘cloistral life.’” Thus the
veteran naturalist, of “notoriously licentious life” (the words of the
Glasgow preacher were spoken at this very period), approached his eighth
decade of life—of work.
He remained at Rapallo until the birthday had passed, but his address
had meantime become widely known, and the miniature postal arrangements
at Rapallo were severely taxed. Letters, telegrams, flowers, and other
gifts—mostly spontaneous expressions of gratitude from “unknown readers
of the _Riddle of the Universe_“—reminded him of the larger world that
now appreciated him. A still larger number of letters and gifts reached
Jena from all parts of the world. Hundreds of German journals and
periodicals devoted long and generous articles to the distinguished
worker, and little festive commemorations were held at many of the
universities. At Zurich, Professor Conrad Keller and Professor Arnold
Lang delivered speeches which have since been published. Jena sent a
deputation consisting of a number of its professors to visit the hero in
person at Rapallo. Reflecting on these remarkable demonstrations and the
extraordinary correspondence that continually reaches Haeckel, one is
disposed to repeat of him the phrase applied to a great heretical
teacher of the Middle Ages, Peter Abélard: “Never was man so loved—and
so hated.”
A feature of the commemoration that peculiarly gratified him was the
special festive number of the German students’ lively periodical,
_Jugend_, published at Munich. On February 16th it appeared as a
“Haeckel number,” full of sprightly anecdote and generous appreciation,
and bearing on its cover a striking reproduction in colour of the
Lenbach portrait. His letter of thanks to the journal shows that the
repose and the beauty of Italy, and the outburst of affection his
birthday has provoked, have set him perfectly atune to life once more.
“Ah! Prithee stay, thou art so fair,” he almost says in the Goethe
phrase, as he “hails the moment fleeing.” He goes on to deprecate the
effort to make “a learned man” of him. “That, alas, I am not. We have in
Germany many professors and teachers who are more learned, and have read
far more books than your poor Jena schoolmaster. But from my earliest
youth, since I tore up flowers and admired butterflies in my fourth
year, I have yielded to the inclination of my heart and studied
incessantly one great book—Nature. This greatest of all books has taught
me to know the true God, the God of Spinoza and Goethe. Then as
physician I saw human life in all its heights and depths, and in my many
travels through half the globe I learned the inexhaustible splendour of
the earth. And I have honestly tried with all my modest powers, to
reproduce with pen and pencil a part of what I saw, and reveal it to my
fellows. I have had to fight many a hard fight, and in my hatred of lies
and hypocrisy and decaying traditions I have at times struck a sharp
note. But I trust, dear _Youth_, that thou wilt not judge all that
harshly in so old and storm-tried, a warrior, and that thou wilt go on
to stand with me, shoulder to shoulder, fighting for the spiritual
progress of humanity, fighting in the cause of the great trinity of the
true, the good, and the beautiful.”
The work he had composed in four months at Rapallo, _The Wonders of
Life_, was issued on his return. It has not had the stormy success of
its predecessor. The fact is instructive. This work contains a fuller
proof of the chief scientific positions of the _Riddle_. It is,
therefore, more technical and more difficult to read. Amongst other
matters, it contains a fine summary of those speculations on the
mathematical forms of organisms and the idea of individuality of which
Professor Bölsche has written so appreciatively. It must be recognised
that Haeckel has fulfilled a duty in thus providing the general reader
with a fuller biological proof of his theses. If that estimable person,
the general reader, betrays less eagerness for the fuller proof, we must
remember that for ages he has been taught to disregard such a thing as
“proof.” It is the general reader that makes Haeckel didactic. It is
Haeckel’s opponents who made the general reader. However, the great bulk
of _The Wonders of Life_ is true to its title. It is an intensely
interesting summary of biological facts. For the rest, if it contains
speculations that run beyond the evidence (though based on it) who is
better qualified to open up these new paths than men with the enormous
range of knowledge that Haeckel has? “I agree with you,” one of the
first biologists in England wrote to me recently, “that Haeckel is one
of the first living biologists. There are not any others who have the
same wide knowledge and experience and consequent ‘point of view.’ He
knows his zoology, botany, physiology, and pathology, also geology, and
has travelled, and has a keen interest in and knowledge of no small
degree of philology, archæology, and ethnography.”
Haeckel was in Italy once more in the autumn of 1904, and although he
did little quiet travel and no fishing for radiolaria it is probable
that no visit to the country ever afforded him such satisfaction. One
great shadow lay over the beautiful land and its genial race whenever he
visited it—a gross and almost impenetrable superstition. Turn off the
great routes of Italy, with their splendid cathedrals, and visit the
small towns and villages. See the scum of Naples tearing the clothes
from each other to kiss the “blood of St. Januarius.” Peer into the
abysses of vice and grossness that are covered effectually by this
formal and unlovely practice of religion. Haeckel had seen all that with
sad eyes for many a year.
In 1904 a little institution that called itself “The International
Congress of Freethinkers” announced that it would hold its annual
gathering at Rome. The pope—the new pope, friend of the royal
house—lodged a feeling protest with the authorities. The priests poured
inflammatory rhetoric over their people until violence seemed
inevitable. The Italian Government’s only reply was to grant the
heretics all the privileges that were ever given to the great Catholic
pilgrimages: to put at their disposal its finest institution, the
Collegio Romano, and to send its Minister of Public Instruction to open
the Congress. Veteran warriors such as Haeckel, Berthelot, Salmeron,
Sergi, Denis, and Björnsen, gladly announced their adhesion. Paris sent
a thousand delegates; Spain nearly a thousand; Italy her thousands.
Whole municipalities in Italy and France (even that of Paris) took part.
The Latin world was aflame with rebellion. We met, seven thousand
strong, in the heart of Rome, and Rome—the jade—smiled prettily as we
marched up the Via Venti Settembre, as it had smiled once on processions
of Cybele, and then on processions of Catholics.
Haeckel was greeted with a wild demonstration as he stepped on to the
platform in the great _Cortile_ of the College. Straight and proud,
white with age but pink with more than the freshness of a young man, he
adjured them in futile German, in his thin, inaudible voice, to form
themselves into a new Church, the great Association of Monists. Few
heard and less understood him, but his name was on every heart and his
reception superb.
A week afterwards I picked up a London journal in an Italian hotel, and
read—as hundreds of thousands had done—that a miserable Freethought
conference had been held at Rome: that its rowdy proceedings had
disgusted the scholars who had, in a misguided moment, lent their names
to it. Thus are we informed at times. I remembered Sergi’s enthusiastic
comments at the close. “E magnifico, e magnifico,” was all he could
gasp. I remembered Haeckel’s exultation as we walked home to his Albergo
Santa Chiara, and Berthelot’s deep joy. The same scholars, except
Björnsen, took part in the Congress at Paris, in 1905, when 100,000 of
us were nobly received by the Conseil Municipal. But Haeckel was too
unwell to come. Nature has laid her hand on him at length, and bade him
hang his weapons on the wall. He can but hope to remain a passive
spectator for a few years more of that vast stirring of the Latin
peoples which he has so much contributed to bring about.
His last active effort was the delivery of three lectures at Berlin in
the spring of 1905. He has always avoided public lectures as much as
possible. His poor voice and comparative nervousness make the work
unattractive. A severe attack of influenza sapped his strength in the
winter of 1905, and he has been unable to eliminate its unpleasant
consequences. But the opportunity of enforcing his gospel in the capital
of the Empire, where the Virchows and Du Bois-Reymonds had ruled so long
made him deaf to the counsels of prudence. He chose as his theme the
controversy in regard to evolution, and gave three spirited lectures.
The changed world came home to him vividly enough. A vast and
enthusiastic gathering of admirers in one of the finest halls in Berlin:
outside, at the very door, his clerical opponents distributing handbills
that offered a choice selection of the most venemous attacks on his
person and work. The lectures are now available in English under the
title of _Last Words on Evolution_.
The present state of Haeckel’s health forbids him to hope that he will
do any more active work. As I write, he lies in his villa, in “Haeckel
Street,” overlooking the handsome Zoological Institute, which he raised,
and the little university town that he has made known to the world.
Beyond the graceful hills that cradle it, he sees the dark waves tossing
that he has worked so hard to set in motion. In Germany the alliance of
the Emperor with the Catholics saddens him, but—the Jesuits are
accepting evolution, over the fresh grave of Virchow. Abroad his ideals,
even his ideas, are making triumphant progress. He thinks of the vast
changes that have taken place since he stood out, almost alone, reckless
of all but honour and truth, at the Stettin Congress in 1863. “Das Leben
ist schön,” he still repeats. What will men say of _him_ when the lines
of history draw in, and the critic will have the proper perspective? I
believe no great worker ever thought less about it. Through inexorable
labour, through constant sacrifice, through storms of painful obloquy,
he has lived his ideals, if he has made mistakes—been mortal. Those
ideals are an enduring contribution to the good. The first, the motto of
his young days, was _Impavidi progrediamur_—“Let us march on
fearlessly.” The second, the motto of his later years, was: “The good,
the true, and the beautiful, are the ideals, yea the gods, of our
Monistic philosophy.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography
The following is a list of the works by Professor Haeckel that have been
translated into English:—
“The History of Creation.” Translation (in two vols., edited by E.
Ray-Lankester) of the _Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte_. 1876. [4th
edition, 1892.]
“Freedom in Science and Teaching.” Translation (with preface by T. H.
Huxley) of the _Freie Wissenschaft und Freie Lehre_. 1879.
“Report on the Deep-sea Medusæ dredged by H.M.S. _Challenger_.” Zoology
series, vol. iv. [330 pp. and 2 plates.] 1882.
“The Pedigree of Man.” Translation (by E. B. Aveling) of the _Gesammelte
Populäre Vorträge_. 1883.
“A Visit to Ceylon.” Translation (by Clara Bell) of the _Indische
Reisebriefe_. 1883.
“Report on the Radiolaria collected by H.M.S. _Challenger_.” Zoology
series, vol. xviii. [2,000 pp. 4to and 140 plates.] 1887.
“Report on the Siphonophoræ collected by H.M.S. _Challenger_.” Zoology
series, vol. xxviii. [380 pp. 4to and 50 plates.] 1888.
“Report on the Deep-sea Keratosa collected by H.M.S. _Challenger_.”
Zoology series, vol. xxxii. [92 pp. and 8 plates.] 1889.
“Planktonic-studies.” Translation (by S. W. Field) of
_Plankton-studien_. 1891.
“The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science.” Translation (by J.
Gilchrist) of _Monismus_. 1894.
“The Last Link.” Translation (by Dr. Gadow) of the Cambridge Lecture on
Evolution. 1898.
“The Riddle of the Universe.” Translation (by J. McCabe) of _Die
Welträthsel_. 1901. [6th edition, 1905.]
“The Wonders of Life.” Translation (by J. McCabe) of _Die Lebenswunder_.
1904.
“The Evolution of Man.” Translation (by J. McCabe) of the 5th edition of
the _Anthropogenie_. [905 pp., 512 illustrations, and 30 plates.] 1905.
“Last Words on Evolution.” Translation (by J. McCabe) of _Der Kampf um
den Entwichelungs-Gedanken_. 1906.
--------------
COMPLETE LIST OF PROF. HAECKEL’S WORKS
(EXCLUSIVE OF ARTICLES IN SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS, ETC.)
“De telis quibusdam Astaci fluviatilis.” Dissertatio inauguralis
histologica. [48 pp. and 2 plates.] 1857.
“De rhizopodum finibus et ordinibus.” Diss. pro venia legendi
impetranda. 1861.
“Die Radiolarien (_Rhizopoda radiaria_).” [Vol. i., 572 pp. fol.; vol.
ii., 35 plates.] 1862.
“Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte der Hydromedusen. Die Familie der
Rüsselquallen (_Medusæ Geryonidæ_).” [204 pp. and 6 plates.] 1865.
“Generelle Morphologie der Organismen.” [Vol. i, xxxii and 574 pp. and 2
plates; vol. ii., clx and 462 pp. and 8 plates.] 1866.
“Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte.” [568 pp. and 9 plates.] 1868. [10th
edition, 1902.]
“Uber die Entstehung und den Stammbaum des Menschengeschlechts.” 1868.
“Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Siphonophoren.” Crowned by the Utrecht
Society of Art and Science. [124 pp. 4to and 14 plates.] 1869.
“Uber Arbeitstheilung in Natur und Menschenleben.” 1869.
“Das Leben in den grössten Meerestiefen.” 1870.
“Biologische Studien.” [184 pp. and 6 plates.] 1870.
“Die Kalkschwämme (_Calcispongiæ_).” [Vol. i., xvi and 484 pp.; vol.
ii., 418 pp.; vol. iii., 60 plates.] 1872.
“Anthropogenie, oder Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen.” [xviii and
732 pp., 12 plates, and 210 woodcuts.] 1874.
“Arabische Korallen.” 1875.
“Die Perigenesis der Plastidule oder die Wellenzengung der
Lebenstheilchen.” 1876.
“Studien zur Gastræatheorie.” [270 pp. and 14 plates.] 1877.
“Die heutige Entwickelungslehre im Verhältnisse zur
Gesammtwissenschaft.” 1877.
“Freie Wissenschaft und Freie Lehre.” [106 pp.] 1878.
“Das Protistenreich.” [104 pp., 58 woodcuts.] 1878.
“Gesammelte populäre Vorträge aus dem Gebiete der Entwickelungslehre.”
[181 pp., 50 woodcuts.] 1878.
“Das System der Medusen.” [xxx and 672 pp. and 40 plates.] 1879.
“Gesammelte populäre Vorträge.” Vol. ii. [164 pp. and 30 woodcuts.]
1879.
“Das System der Acraspeden.” [312 pp. and 20 plates.] 1880.
“Metagenesis und Hypogenesis von _Aurelia aurita_. [36 pp. and 2
plates.] 1881.
“Die Tiefsee-Medusen der Challenger-Reise und der Organismus der
Medusen.” [205 pp. and 32 plates.] 1881.
“Indische Reisebriefe.” [380 pp.] 1882.
“Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe, und Lamarck.” 1882.
“Grundriss einer allgemeiner Naturgeschichte der Radiolarien.” [248 pp.
4to and 64 plates.] 1887.
“Die Acantharien oder actipyleen Radiolarien.” [32 pp. and 12 plates.]
1888.
“Die Phæodarien oder cannopyleen Radiolarien.” [32 pp. and 30 plates].
1888.
“Plankton-studien.” [112 pp.] 1890.
“Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft.” 1892.
“Zur Phylogenie der Australischen Fauna.” 1893.
“Die Systematische Phylogenie.” [3 vols., 1,800 pp.] 1894.
“Die Amphorideen und Cystoideen.” 1896.
“Ueber unsere gegenwärtige Kenntniss vom Ursprung des Menschen.” 1898.
“Die Welträthsel.” [473 pp.] 1899.
“Aus Insulinde.” [260 pp., 80 illustrations.] 1901.
“Anthropogenie.” [5th edition, 991 pp., 30 plates, and 512
illustrations.] 1903.
“Kunstformen der Natur.” [100 large coloured plates and text.] 1904.
“Die Lebenswunder.” [567 pp.] 1904.
“Ernst Haeckel’s Wanderbilder.” [Series of prints of his oil-paintings
and water-colour landscapes.] 1905.
“Der Kampf um den Entwickelungs-Gedanken.” [112 pp. and 4 plates.] 1905.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index
A
Adam’s Peak, Haeckel on, 244
Adaptations, embryonic, 228
Adaptation to environment, 119
Adickes, Professor, 304
Adriatic, visit to the, 257
Æsthetic element in Haeckel, 83
Affinities of animals, 233
Agassiz, 229
〃 , on creation, 128
Alexander, Karl, Grand Duke of Weimar, 254
Algeciras, Haeckel at, 252
Algiers, Haeckel arrested in, 259
Allmers, Hermann, 85
Alpine salamander, the, 221
America, the discovery of, 20
Amphioxus, the, 274
_Amphoridea and Cystoidea_, the, 291
Angelo, Michael, paintings of, 15
_Anthropogenie_, the, 279, 309
Anthropological critics, Haeckel’s, 283
Arabia, coral-fishing in, 257
Archeopteryx, the, 167, 223
Arctic hare, the, 119
Art and mathematics, 216
_Art-forms in Nature_, the, 26, 293, 311
Artificial selection, 117
Artistic gifts of Haeckel, 83-4
Asia Minor, travels in, 257
_Aspects of Nature_, 46
Association of Monists, 319
Athletic festival, Haeckel at the, 173
Atom, the, 212
_Aus Insulinde_,308
B
Bacilli, the, 206
Bacteria, the, 180
Basedow, 32
Belligemma, 258
Berlin, Haeckel’s criticism of, 30
〃 , lectures at, in 1905, 319
Berthelot, 318, 319
Björnsen, B., 318, 319
Bible, the, 126
Biogenetic law, the, 219
Bird, evolution of the, 223
Birth of Haeckel, 29
Birthday, celebration of Haeckel’s sixtieth, 297
Birthday, celebration of Haeckel’s seventieth, 314
Birthdays, real determination of, 102
Bismarck, esteem of, for Haeckel, 298
Bleek, Professor, 37
Bose, Countess, liberality of, 255
Botany, Haeckel’s early love of, 36
Braun, Alexander, 52
Bressa prize, the, 300
Bronn, 128
Bruno, Giordano, 16
Butterfly, development of the, 227
C
Calcispongiæ, the, 272
〃 , embryology of the, 273
Calumniation of Haeckel, 266, 268
Cambridge, Haeckel at, 300
Canaries, voyage to the, 240
Catastrophic theory, the, 108
Catholicism in Germany, 301
〃 , lower features of, 134
Cell, discovery of the, 56, 65
〃 , nature of the, 178
Cell-soul, the, 161
_Cell-souls and Soul-cells_, 286
Cell-state, the, 57
〃 , man as a, 160
Cell-theory, the, and Darwinism, 178
Cenogenesis, 231
Ceylon, Haeckel’s life in, 33
〃 , visit to, 258
_Challenger_ expedition, the, 287
Chromacea, the, 180
_Chrysaora_, 176
Classical studies, 35
Classification, Haeckel’s reform of, 233-4
Colombo, Haeckel at, 258
Columbus, 16, 20
Compromise, Virchow advocates, 163-171
Congresses, founding of scientific, 144
Consciousness, Virchow on, 163
Copernicus, 16
_Corals of Arabia_, the, 257
Craw-fish, study of the, 77
Creation, difficulties of, 98
Crystal, life of the, 203
Cuvier’s theory of creation, 107
_Cyanea_, 176
D
Dalmatia, visit to, 257
Darwin’s condemnation of Virchow, 311
Darwin, Haeckel’s intercourse with, 241
〃 in South America, 103
〃 on botany, 39
〃 , physiognomy of, 146
〃 , reasoning of, 117-20
〃 , theism of, 124
Darwinism accepted by Haeckel, 133
“Dead” matter, 203
Death of Haeckel’s wife, 184
_Deep-sea Medusæ_, the, 287
Degree, dissertation for the, 77
Dennert, Prof., 304
_Descent of Man_, the, 243
Design, abandonment of, 169
_Desmonema Annasethe_ the, 186
Dissection, 55
Division of labour, essay on, 249
Doctorates held by Haeckel, 24
Dogmatism, alleged, of Haeckel, 23, 218, 303
Dohrn, Anton, 59
Down, Haeckel’s visit to, 241
Dubois, Eugen, 167, 309
Du Bois-Reymond, E., 135
E
Education, Haeckel on elementary, 34
Egypt, visit to, 257
Ehrenberg, 78, 96
_Elective Affinities_, the, 45
Embryonic diagrams, Haeckel’s early, 268
Embryology, 57
〃 and evolution, 170
〃 in Haeckel’s works, 268, 280
_Embryology of the Siphonophoræ_, the, 248
Emotional character of Haeckel, 186-7
Engelmann, 173
_Erica cinerea_, search for the, 37
“Ernst Haeckel Street,” 43
Essay, Haeckel’s first, 71
_Essays on the Theory of Evolution_, 287
Evolution, internal law of, 130
〃 of species, 114
_Evolution of Man_, the, 279, 310
“Exact” scientists, 131, 132, 164
Extinct species, 107
Extinction of species, 112, 119
F
Family of Haeckel, the, 253
Filippo de Filippi, 76
Fish, nature of the, 219
FitzRoy, Captain, 103
_Flora Hallensis_, contribution to the, 37
Fol, 245
_For Darwin_, 230
_Force and Matter_, 201
Forms, science of, 190-2
Form-unities, 207
_Free Science and Free Teaching_, 285
Freedom of research, 75, 156
French rule in Prussia, 25
Freytag, Gustav, 21, 29
Friedenthal, 310
Frog, the, 219
〃 , evolution of the, 222
G
Galapagos Islands, Darwin in the, 116
Galileo, 16
Gandtner, 37
Gastræa, the, 276
Gastræa-theory, the, 278
Gastrula, the, 277
Gegenbaur, Karl, 62-4
Genealogical tree of organisms, 149, 152, 226
_Generelle Morphologie_, the, 188
Genius, 102
Geology, 108
〃 and evolution, 167
_Geryonidæ_, the, 177
Gill-slits in the human embryo, 269
Giltsch, Adolph, 289
Glyptodon, the, 113
Gneisenau, 29
God, Haeckel’s conception of, 133-5, 236
〃 , the new conception of, 19
Goethe, 17
〃 , evolution in works of, 238
〃 on morphology, 190-1
Goethe’s influence on Haeckel, 41-6
Gramzow, Otto, on Haeckel, 295
Greece, visit to, 257
Greeff, Richard, 244
Greek, Haeckel’s knowledge of, 36
_Green Henry_, 45
Gryptotherium, the, 113
Gude, Karl, 37
H
Haeckel abandons theology, 75, 133
〃 , æsthetic element in, 83, 185
〃 , ancestry of, 21
Haeckel and Darwin, 127, 241
〃 〃 Gegenbaur, 62
〃 〃 Müller, 69
〃 〃 Virchow, 163, 284
〃 as a physician, 80
〃 〃 traveller, 256
〃 at Down, 241
〃 at Stettin, 146
〃 , birth of, 29
〃 , boyhood of, 31-3
〃 , early education of, 34-50
〃 embraces evolution, 137
〃 , family of, 253
〃 , first marriage of, 100
〃 goes to Jena, 100
〃 , honours awarded to, 10, 298, 300
〃 in Heligoland, 69
〃 in Italy, 82
〃 in the Canaries, 240
〃 , medical training of, 76
〃 , parents of, 28
〃 , personal charm of, 146
〃 , political views of, 301
〃 , recent popularity of, 295
〃 reconstructs zoology, 181
〃 , religion of, 230
〃 , second marriage of, 253
〃 , university training of, 54
Haeckel, Councillor Karl, 29, 32
〃 , Walter, 83
_Haeckel’s Critics Answered_, 307
Heine, 21
Heligoland, the first journey to, 69
Heliosphæra, the, 141
Heliozoa, the, 258
Heredity, a theory of, 284
Hertwig, Oscar, 257
Hertwig, R., 189
Histology, 56
_History of Creation_, the, 262
History, unity of, 44
Holy Land, travels in the, 259
Horton, Dr., on Haeckel, 312
Hüffer, Hermann, 21
Humboldt, 46, 144
〃 foundation, the, 31
Huschke, Agnes, 253
Huxley on the origin of man, 180
I
Illustrations, charges against Haeckel’s, 267-8
Imagination in science, 200
Independence, Haeckel’s early sense of, 31
_Indische Reisebriefe_, the, 261
Individuality, nature of, 207, 211
〃 , stages of, 209
Infusoria, the, 78
International Congress of Freethinkers, the, 316
_Irene_, 176
Ischia, journey to, 87
Italy, appreciation of Haeckel in, 299
〃 , Haeckel’s first visit to, 82
J
Java, ape-man of, 167, 308
〃 , voyage to, 260, 308
Jena, 42
〃 , Haeckel’s first visit to, 50
_Jugend_, Haeckel number of, 315
Jump, Haeckel’s record, 173
Jurist, Haeckel as a, 22
K
Keferstein, Professor, on Darwinism, 148
Keller, Gottfried, 45
Kepler, 16
Kölliker, Albert, 56
Königsberg, Congress at, 99
Kopf, Professor, bust of Haeckel by, 299
Kükenthal, 43
_Kulturkampf_, the, 284
L
Lamprey, the, 181
Lancelet, the, 181
Lang, Professor A., on Haeckel, 300
Lange, F. A., 154
Language, evolution of, 150
Lanzarote, Haeckel at, 245
_Last Link_, the, 300
_Last Words on Evolution_, the, 320
Latin, Haeckel’s knowledge of, 36
〃Law of development,” 129
Law, training for the, 23
Lawyers in Haeckel’s family, 22
Lemur, the, 181
Leydig, Frantz, 56
Lichtenstein, Professor, 71
Life, earliest forms of, 151
〃 , origin of, 124
Linné, classification of, 105
Literary production of Haeckel, 299
Lizard, evolution of the, 222
_Lizzia Elizabethæ_, the, 185
Lloyd-Morgan, Professor, 307
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 307
Loofs, Professor, 305
Love of nature in Haeckel, 31
Lyell’s reform of geology, 109
M
Macrauchenia, the, 112
Mammoth, the, 106
Man, creation of, 126
〃 , evolution of, 180-1, 279
Man’s genealogical tree, 181
Marine animals, study of, 60
Marriage, Haeckel’s first, 100
〃 〃 second, 253
Mastodon, the, 112
Materialism and idealism, 83, 154
Mathematical types of form, 214
Matter, potentialities of, 204
Mechanical embryology, 249
Medical studies of Haeckel, 72
Medusæ, the, 174, 246
Megatherium, the, 106, 112
Merseburg, 30
Messina, 90
Metaphysics, Haeckel’s views on, 304
Method, analysis of scientific, 200
Meyer, Frau, 253
Microscope, beauty in the, 92
Miklucho-Maclay, 245
Miracles in modern Italy, 134
“Missing link,” the, 308
_Mitrocoma Annæ_, the, 185
Moleschott, 83, 154
Monera, the, 179
Monism, 73, 203, 217
_Monism as a Connecting Link_, the 292
_Monograph on the Calcispongiæ_, the, 272
_Monograph on the Medusæ_, the, 185
_Monograph on the Monera_, the, 182
_Monograph on the Radiolaria_, the, 100, 138
Monophyletic theory of life, the, 158
Morphology, the science of, 190
〃 , history of, 199
Mosaic story of creation, 105, 108
Mottoes, Haeckel’s, 321
Mouth, the primitive, 275
Müller, Fritz, 230
〃 , Johannes, 65-8
〃 〃 , death of, 80
Müller-net, the, 69
Munich, Haeckel and Virchow at, 157, 283
Murray, Sir John, 259
N
Naples, Haeckel at, 87
Natural law, relativity of, 232
〃 , philosophy, 48
Natural selection, 119-120
Nature and God, 20
_Naturalist’s Voyage round the World_, 46
_Nausicaa phæacum_, the, 185
Nineteenth century, work of the, 18
Nomenclature, scientific, 185
Nucleus, the, 179
O
Oken, L., 144
〃 on embryonic development, 224
Ontogeny, 231
Optimism of early Darwinians, 166
_Origin and Evolution of the Sense-organs_, 286
_Origin of Species_, the, 122
Over-individuals, 247
_Ovi di mare_, 93
Ovum, the, 268, 273
〃 , discovery of the, 58
P
Paleontology, 149
Palingenesis, 231
Pampas, fossil remains in the, 112
Paris, Freethought Congress at, 319
Pathology, Virchow’s reform of, 57
Paulsen, Professor, 304
Peak of Teneriffe, Haeckel climbs the, 250
Pelagic sweepings, 70
_Pemmatodiscus gastrulaceus_, the, 277
Persephone-impulse, the, in Haeckel, 256
Philosophy and observation, 156
〃 and science, 202
Philosophy, Haeckel’s work in, 305
Phylogeny, 231
Physician, Haeckel as a, 80
〃 , qualities of the, 53
Pithecanthropus, the, 167, 308
Plankton, 70
_Plankton-studies_, 290
Plant or animal, priority of the, 205
Plastidules, 284
Political views of Haeckel, 301
Polyps, 175
Popular works, why written, 262
Potsdam, Haeckel’s birthplace, 30
Private teacher, Haeckel as, 100
Profession, choice of a, 53
Professor of Zoology, Haeckel appointed, 100
Progressive evolution, 168
Promorphology, 215
Protestant religion, character of the, 134
Protists, the, 206
Protistology, 206
Puerto del Arrecise, 250
Pupa, the, 227
R
Rabl, Professor, 311
Radiolaria, the, 93, 289
〃 , shells of the, 95
〃 , system of the, 140
Rapallo, Haeckel at, 313
Realism of Haeckel, 304
_Report on the Deep-sea Keratosa_, the, 290
_Report on the Radiolaria_, the, 289
_Riddle of the Universe_, the, 22, 291, 301-7
Ritter, Paul von, donation of, 255, 299
Riviera, marine study on the, 76
Rocks, formation of the, 109
Roederer, 25
Romance nations, religion of the, 134
Rome, Freethought Congress at, 316
Roux, Professor, 249
Russia, travels in, 259
S
Scandinavia, visit to, 257
Schiller, 42, 43
Schleiden, M. J., 47
Schleiermacher, 27-8
Schmidt, Dr., 307
School-days at Merseburg, 34
Schopenhauer on Darwinism, 132
Schwann, Theodor, 65
Scientific method, variations of, 48
_Scilla bifolia_, search for the, 51
Scotland, visit to, 257, 259
Sea-urchin, fertilisation of the, 257
Seebeck refuses Haeckel’s resignation, 254
Semon, 43
Sergi, Professor, 319
Sethe, Anna, 81, 100
〃 , Bertha, 26
〃 , Christian, 21, 22
〃 , Christoph, 21, 25
Siphonophores, the, 246
Social Democrats, the, 285, 301
Soul, unity of the, 161
Spain, Haeckel’s visit to, 252
Specialism in science, 48
Species, early difficulties about, 37-8
〃 idea of fixity of, 105
Sponge, nature of a, 271
Sponges, Haeckel’s study of the, 270
Spontaneous generation, Haeckel’s early opposition to, 77
Spontaneous generation, possibility of, 136
Stereometric structures, 215
Stephen, Sir Leslie, 307
Stettin, Congress of, 145
Stocks, animal, 211
Strauss, 83
Struggle for life, the, 119
_Studies of the Gastræa-theory_, the, 277
Sumatra, Haeckel in, 260
Superstition in Italy, 315
_System of the Medusæ_, the, 287
_System of the Siphonophoræ_, the, 249
_Systematic Phylogeny_, the, 291
T
Tadpole, the, 220
Teeth in young parrots, 223
Teneriffe, 240
Terminology created by Haeckel, 36
Theological critics of Haeckel, 298, 305
Theology, Haeckel’s rejection of, 75-6
_Tiara_, 176
Tierra del Fuego, 103
_Tissues of the Craw-fish_, the, 77
Tjibodas, 260
Training, early, of Haeckel, 32
Transformism, 111
Translations of Haeckel’s works, 294
“Travel Pictures,” 84
Travels of Haeckel, 256
Tree-frog, the, 119
U
Unicellular animals, 94, 98
Unity of nature, the, 235
Unnucleated organisms, 180
Utrecht Society of Art and Science, 248
V
Venus of Milo, the, 191
Vienna, medical studies at, 80
Villefranche, fishing at, 76
Virchow, Rudolf, 56, 72
〃 at Stettin, 153-171
〃 Haeckel’s conflict with, 74
〃 on the evolution of man, 311
_Visit to Ceylon_, the, 259
Vital force, the, 135
Vogt, 83, 154
Volger, Otto, 167
W
Wallace, A. R., and Darwin, 123
Weimar, Grand Duke of, 254
_Wonders of Life_, the, 292, 313
Works, number of Haeckel’s, 299
Worm, evolution of the, 276
Würtzburg, Haeckel at, 54
〃 , invitation to the University of, 253
Z
Zipangu, 20
Zoological Institute, the, 42
〃 philosophy, 194
〃 Station at Naples, 59
Zoology, reconstruction of, by Haeckel, 24
〃 , the old and the new, 60
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).