THE "GENERAL MORPHOLOGY" 197 



a definite plan, as a man makes machines. Now, 

 it appeared, the deeper stratum was peeping out 

 even here. Laws that had built the heavens and 

 the earth reached, by way of the Darwinian theories 

 of selection and adaptation, to the moss and palm, 

 the turtle and man. 



It was Haeckel's peculiar distinction to take up 

 this path as the right one. It was then altogether 

 new ; to-day, even in the eyes of an opponent, it 

 has at least the solid and consistent support of 

 a considerable party. In later years, apart from 

 open deserters from the free and uncompromising 

 pursuit of truth like Virchow, a school of zoologists 

 and botanists has been formed that will not re- 

 cognise in Darwinism a reduction of vital phe- 

 nomena to the simple chemico-physical laws of 

 the rest of nature. They look upon it partly as 

 inaccurate in its allegations of fact, partly as a 

 nebulous confusion, if not, as I have already said, 

 as a false mysticism or metaphysic. In the opinion 

 of these critics, whose own confused ideas very 

 often leave little to be desired in point of nebulosity, 

 and who frequently try to drive out the devil by 

 means of the devil's grandmother (a matter we 

 cannot go into here), Haeckel had made a great 

 mistake in thinking that Darwinism would solve 

 the Du Bois-Virchow problem of reducing all living 

 things to the laws of lifeless matter. Even these, 

 however, must candidly acknowledge that in doing 

 so he was the victim of his consistent and honour- 

 able inquiry. At all events he must logically have 

 seen the correct line at that time as it is recognised 



