MODERNBIOLOGY 5 13 



the other "natural hiws." This was not at all what Haeckel had expected. 

 Self-confident by nature and spoiled by the successes of his earlier years, he 

 was lost amongst all these developments; intensive study of detail had never 

 been his strong point, and the minute methods and detailed observations 

 of the young morphologists aroused his keen opposition. In a letter dating 

 from this period he expresses the opinion that modern morphologists in 

 general, and " Querschnittler und Anilhifdrber'' in particular, possess far less 

 "logical schooling" than the systematists of the old school. And, as always, 

 special research was followed by a waning interest in theoretical specula- 

 tions; instead of paying attention to Haeckel's watchword — either crea- 

 tion or evolution — students preferred to leave the theories to their fate 

 and to go over to practice. When, then, even Haeckel's favourite idea of 

 man's origin from the higher apes and his affinity to the gorilla and the 

 chimpanzee began to be doubted by scientific students, who found man to 

 be in anatomical respects highly isolated and traced him back direct to 

 lower mammal forms, it is not to be wondered at that the old master lost 

 patience. He was no longer capable of controlling developments, or of obey- 

 ing them; to withdraw from the struggle, which would have been the wisest 

 thing for him to do, was more than his unbounded energies could endure — 

 perhaps also he was too vain to do so — and so he continued the struggle 

 on behalf of his natural philosophy, becoming, as the years went on, more 

 and more isolated from his old friends and disciples in the world of science. 

 In compensation he gained from another quarter a new and grateful public. 

 The old political radicalism had died out towards the close of the century; 

 most of the liberal party ceased altogether from offering opposition; instead 

 the struggle was taken up with increasing success against the government 

 authority by the socialistic labour movement, which, violently persecuted 

 by Bismarck, sometimes counteracted, sometimes favoured by his successors, 

 waxed stronger and stronger, until in the revolution of November 191 8 it 

 destroyed the old social order. With youthful idealism its members embraced 

 the modern natural science; they too were enemies of the conservative State 

 Church, which was friendly to the Government and which condemned them 

 to show humble obedience to superiority. There was all the more reason, 

 then, for their being drawn together by a natural-scientific explanation of 

 the world which made progress the aim of life. To them Haeckel's monism 

 was a welcome ally; that its cosmic view was over-simplified and falsely 

 depicted it was not in their power to control, owing to their lack of special 

 studies, but its founder's ardent belief in natural science and intense hatred 

 of the State Church, combined with his oppositional attitude in politics, 

 sounded irresistibly attractive. It is against this background that Haeckel's 

 later scientific activity must be viewed in order that its influence may be 

 understood aright. 



