126 HAECKEL 



origin and history of humanity." Light, that is to 

 say, from the theory of the transformation of species 

 by natural selection. The words contained the 

 promise of a new twilight of the gods. In the 

 innocent days, when the Creator stood in person 

 behind each species of animal and plant, Linne had 

 seen no great innovation in his denning man as 

 a definite species, the highest species of mammal. 

 God had created the polar bear and the hippo- 

 potamus, Genesis said, as well as man. That man 

 had transgressed the command in Paradise, fallen 

 into sin, needed salvation, and so on, was another 

 matter altogether. With Darwin the innovation 

 was incalculably important. 



On his theory the various species of animals 

 had been developed from each other, without 

 a new creative act. If man was an animal species 

 in this sense, he also must have originated from 

 other animals ; and that would be bitter. The 

 phrase shows that Darwin already saw clearly, 

 and had abandoned his belief in a special creation 

 of man. But this point was bound to make more 

 bad blood than all the rest put together. God, 

 now restricted to the direct production of the first 

 living things, had lost man as well as the animals. 

 Moreover, whatever interpretation was put upon 

 the Mosaic narrative, the very source of theistic 

 belief, the Bible, was called into question. How 

 had we come to know of this story of divine 

 creations ? By the Bible, the vehicle of revelation. 

 But this Bible was the work of man, and man was 

 now well within the bounds of nature, from which 



