18 HAECKEL 



and the pen; in Michael Angelo and Kaphael it 

 guides the pencil and the brush. 



All this unfolds in Goethe, as in a vision with 

 yet half-opened eyes. 



Then the nineteenth century begins. Nature is 

 its salvation, the salvation of its most practical, 

 most real need. It must struggle for its existence, 

 like any other century, but it has new and 

 improved weapons for the struggle. All the 

 earlier ages were but poor blunderers. The 

 lightning flashed on the naked savage, and he 

 fell on his knees and prayed, powerless as he was. 

 In the eighteenth century it dawned on men's 

 minds that this might be some force of nature. 

 The nineteenth century sets its foot on the neck 

 of the demon of this force, presses him into its 

 service, plays with him. Its thoughts and words 

 flash along the lightning current, as if along new 

 nerve-tracks, that begin to circle the globe. Man 

 becomes lord of the earth, from the uppermost 

 azure down into the dark, cold abysses of the 

 ocean, from the icy pole to the burning tropical 

 desert. And at length man turns his thoughts 

 upon himself. 



Man, his arm resting on the splendid instru- 

 ments of modern research, raises his hand to his 

 brow, and turns philosopher. He becomes at once 

 more bold and more modest than ever. 



What Goethe had seen in vision rises before 

 him now in sharp, almost hard outline from his 

 own real life-work. He has succeeded in bringing 

 nature and its forces to his feet, because it was 



