64 HAECKEL 



with a certain steady and unerring independence 

 of character. He made little noise, but he never 

 swerved from his aim. What he accomplished 

 with all these qualities, in many other provinces 

 besides Darwinism, cannot be told here. It may 

 be read in the history of zoology. He had, as far 

 as such a thing was possible, a restful influence 

 of the most useful character on Haeckel. If we 

 imagine what Darwinism would have become in 

 the nineteenth century in the hands of such men 

 as Gegenbaur, without Haeckel, we can appreciate 

 the difference in temperament between the two 

 men. With Gegenbaur evolution was always a 

 splendid new technical instrument that no layman 

 must touch for fear of spoiling it. With Haeckel 

 it became a devouring wave, that will one day, 

 perhaps, give its name to the century. In other 

 natures these differences might have led to open 

 conflict. But Haeckel and Gegenbaur show us 

 that, like so many of our supposed " differences," 

 they can at least live together in perfect accord 

 in the freshest years of life, each bearing fruit in 

 its kind. 



When we find Haeckel intimate in this way with 

 Gegenbaur, his senior by eight years, we realise 

 how close he was at that time to the whole of the 

 Wurtzburg circle. The two generations were not 

 yet sharply divided, as they subsequently were. 

 Most of them fought either with or against him at 

 a later date, but they belonged, at all events, to 

 the same stratum. But the split between the two 



