POPE AND ANTI-POPE. 321 



the title given above may stand. True, it fares with their oracular 

 allocutions and their cmathema maranathas as with like utterances at 

 Rome : though many bow their heads and blindly believe, still there 

 are not a few doubters and unbelievers, and it is almost to be feared 

 that the latter will form the majority. 



The pith of the matter in dispute between these two men it is not 

 difficult to get at : in short, it is Darwinism. Haeckel carries this 

 theory to extremes ; Virchow not only questions its legitimacy, but also 

 insists that it may have applications that would imperil the state. The 

 one wants to introduce the theory of evolution even into the schools, 

 though, indeed, without knowing exactly how ; the other would not only 

 reject it absolutely, but he even anticipates Prince Bismarck by holding 

 that Darwinism is in sympathy -with democratic socialism ; Haeckel 

 tries to prove that the tendency of Darwinism is aristocratic rather; 

 and, while Virchow sneers at the "souls of cells" and of " plastidules," 

 Haeckel counters by affirming that these views are direct logical con- 

 clusions from the principle on which Virchow has staked his whole 

 scientific existence, viz., that every cell originates from a cell {omnis 

 cellula ex cellula). 



I have already elsewhere expressed my views touching the quarrel 

 fomented by Virchow, and have become only more satisfied of their 

 correctness after reading Haeckel's pamphlet " Free Science and Free 

 Teaching." While Haeckel has laid himself open to attacks by his 

 exaggerations and by the brusqueness with which he has striven and 

 still strives to impose his exceedingly poetical fancies upon o-thers — a 

 course of conduct which he will as surely regret later, as he now rues, 

 accox'ding to his own confession, the " youthful extravagances " con- 

 tained in his " Generelle Morphologic " and in his " Natural History of 

 Creation ; " while he makes inconsiderate and yet practical demands, 

 without being clear about the possibility of their realization ; never- 

 theless on the whole he represents truly the correct basis of freedom 

 of science and of scientific teaching, so that one can without hesitation 

 agree with his conclusions in that respect. Virchow, on the other hand, 

 is the representative of the pedagogues' Philistia, which not only is 

 proud of its ignorance, where ignorance is excusable, but which coolly 

 denies everything that it does not understand, just as if it did not exist 

 at all ; and meanwhile appeals to the Church and to the police for aid 

 against the practical application of scientific doctrines in the field of 

 political action. Thus scientific research is to be free in the quiet of 

 the study so long as there is no special statute to extinguish its lamp ; 

 but when it comes to the question of teacliing science the situation is 

 altered, and such a thing is not to be permitted save under restrictions. 



Now, let us follow for a while the train of thought of Haeckel's coun- 

 ter:pamphlet. In the first chapter, entitled " Evolution and Creation," 

 he compares the two theories, which, according to him, may be held con- 

 cerning the origin of organisms, and, as I believe, of universal Nature : 



TOL. XIV. — 21 



