284 HAECKEL 



to the prophetic breadth of its intuition. It essays 

 to establish a theory of heredity. In dealing with 

 this deepest mystery of life psychic factors are 

 pressed into service without reserve. Not only is 

 the cell-soul put into prominence, but the cell 

 in turn is resolved into a number of smaller units, 

 the plastidules. Each plastidule is then conceived 

 as a psychic unity. The souls of the plastidules 

 are endowed with memory; that is the root of 

 heredity. They learn ; that is the psychological 

 expression of adaptation. The little work offers 

 a suggestion of a psychology of Darwinism that 

 may very well become the nucleus of the whole 

 Darwinian structure in the twentieth century. 

 But at the time it was quite obvious that a man 

 with such ideas as these was breaking with lusty 

 fist through the sacred net that spread before 

 Virchow's reserved province. The hour had come, 

 therefore, for Virchow to feel that he must expel 

 the idea of evolution from the whole field of 

 science, and not merely from embryology and 

 anthropology. 



It is very instructive to note how Virchow 

 shifted his position a little in accordance with the 

 time. In his judgment science had to make 

 peace. It had to make concessions in certain 

 directions. In 1863 he had spoken of the " ruling 

 Churches." Now, in 1877, he speaks of the 

 freedom of science in the " modern State." The 

 great Rulturkampf had set in. The Church was 

 for the time being powerless in face of the State. 

 Hence Virchow now plays off the State as the 



