THE SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS OF 1863 157 



Haeckel and Virchow were friendly colleagues 

 at the time. We have already said that Haeckel 

 was Virchow's assistant at Wiirtzburg. Not only 

 as a man, but especially as a scientist, Virchow 

 was then (and long afterwards) greatly admired by 

 him. The idea of the cell-state got into his 

 blood ; it was one of the bases on which he built 

 up the Darwinian theory. Though he had never 

 recognised this distinction between the mere 

 investigation of facts and philosophic reflection 

 on them, he respected Virchow as a master of 

 methodological education. What was " method " 

 at the bottom but philosophy ! Was not the 

 method that expressly excluded " miracles," that 

 sought always the natural law and the causal 

 connection and the continuous series, a 

 "philosophy"? This was the only method 

 taught under Virchow as long as Haeckel worked 

 with him. At the time the divergence of their 

 ideas was not shown more openly. The one 

 called " philosophy" what the other said was 

 "the purely objective method of investigating 

 the truth." The figure of Pilate rises up behind 

 the dilemma with his question : "What is truth?" 



However, Virchow takes Darwinism by way of 

 an example of which he approves, a point that 

 seems to be established in the province of pure 

 facts. In the Munich speech of 1877 there are 

 polite references to "Herr Haeckel." "As Herr 

 Haeckel says." "As Herr Haeckel supposes." 

 At Stettin we find Herr Haeckel described as 

 "my friend Haeckel," with whom "I quite agree," 



