xxi EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION THEORIES 425 



owe the familiar phrase ' the survival of the fittest,' 5 

 and that at first sight puzzling generalisation, ' Evolu- 

 tion is an integration of matter and concomitant dissi- 

 pation of motion, during which the matter passes from 

 an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent 

 heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion 

 (energy) undergoes a parallel transformation." He 

 devoted his life to establishing this generalisation, and 

 applying it to physical, biological, psychological, and 

 social facts. As to the factors in organic evolution, he 

 emphasised the change-producing influences of environ- 

 ment and function, upheld the Lamarckian doctrine cf 

 the transmissibility of individually acquired somatic 

 modifications, and recognised that natural selection works 

 towards securing indirect equilibration by the elimination 

 of the relatively less fit variants. He did not share the 



v 



ultra-Darwinian confidence in ' the all-sufficiency of 

 Natural Selection," and the thoroughness of his 

 Lamarckian convictions may be gauged by his remark : 

 ' Either there has been inheritance of acquired char- 

 acters or there has been no evolution." 



ERNST HAECKEL, Professor of Zoology in Jena, and 

 author of a great series of monographs on Raeliolarians, 

 Sponges, Jellyfish, etc., may be well called the Darwin of 

 Germany. He has devoted his life to applying the 

 doctrine of descent, and to making it current coin among 

 the people. Owing much of his motive to Darwin, he 

 stood for a time almost alone in Germany as the cham- 



mf 



pion of a heresy. Before the publication of Darwin's 

 Descent oj Man, Haeckel was the only naturalist who had 

 recognised the import of sexual selection ; and of his 

 Natural History oj Creation Darwin writes : "If this 

 work had appeared before my essay had been written, 

 I should probably never have completed it." His most 

 important expository works are the above-mentioned 

 Naturliche Schopjungsgeschichte (1868), which has passed 

 through many editions, and his Anthropogenic (1874, 

 translated as The Evolution oj Man). These books are 

 very brilliantly written, though they offend many by 

 their aggressive impatience with theological dogma and 



