l62 



NATURAL SCIENCE. 



March, 



work with the recapitulation theory, is, perhaps, less of a moving 

 force in Biology now than ever he has been. 



None the less, when the history of the Biological Renaissance 

 comes to be written, the naturalist of Jena will be among the three 

 or four most conspicuous figures. Since Johannes Miiller at Berlin, 

 no teacher has turned out so brilliant a set of pupils, has founded so 

 energetic, so militant, so flexible a school. It is astonishing, but 

 only at first sight, that his school should have been so flexible and 

 the paths of his pupils so divergent. For those who have worked in 

 his laboratory and talked with him under the lindens at his fascinating 



Ernst Haeckel, from a photograph by F. Haack, Jena. 



combinations of Seminar and Kneipe, know that Haeckel is a man 

 not of one idea, but of ideas. However one may admire patient 

 empirical work, it is not patient empirical work, but patient labour 

 pointed by preconceptions, made alive by ideas, that is stimulating 

 and aggressive, moving towards new branches of investigation. He 

 is a dull man whom all speak well of, and it is dull work that evokes 

 no antagonism. For the present, we are well content to cease from 

 controversy, to let Calcareous sponges, the Gastrula, the "Plankton," 

 and Haeckelismus take care of themselves, and to join hands in cele- 

 brating the festival of Haeckel. Hoch ! Hoch ! Hoch ! 



