HAECKEL'S PHILOSOPHY. 425 



quainted with the history of philosophy, but his utterances usually make 

 the impression on one that he has never done any serious work in this 

 line, that his knowledge is largely based on hearsay, as it were. He cer- 

 tainly seems to be ignorant of modern psychology, otherwise he could not 

 speak of it deprecatingly as he does. His criticisms may perhaps fit 

 the psychology of fifty or a hundred years ago; they surely are not apt 

 to-day. Here Haeckel appears to be fighting windmills of his own 

 making. It is also plain that he is unfamiliar with modern epistemol- 

 ogy and that a closer acquaintance with this subject would have saved 

 him from falling into error and contradiction. Haeckel is fond of 

 accusing men like Wundt, Helmholtz, Virchow, Du Bois-Eeymond and 

 others of his age, who started out as materialists and afterwards 

 abandoned the conceptions of their younger days, of cowardice or 

 senility or both. It is barely possible, however, that a deeper insight 

 into the mysteries of nature and a finer appreciation of the inadequacy 

 of the materialistic hypothesis convinced these men of the error of 

 their ways. Haeckel prides himself on having retained the courage 

 of Ms youthful convictions. I think myself that he deserves credit for 

 saying what he really believes, but the fact that he believes what he 

 believes is no sign to me that his friends are in their second childhood, 

 but that Haeckel is still in his first, so far as philosophy is concerned. 







