218 HAECKEL 



The proper place to read of it is, as I said, the 

 second volume of the Morphology. This volume 

 has to give an account of the evolution of organic 

 forms. What is given rather casually, almost 

 Socratically, in Darwin is now developed into a 

 number of strict laws. This method of expounding 

 more or less hypothetical, new, and insecure ideas 

 in the form of laws has since been frequently 

 attacked. Some have been led by it to take the 

 ideas as so many dogmas, and even to learn 

 the laws by heart as if they were texts in Scripture. 

 Others have then laid the blame of this dogma- 

 tic interpretation on Haeckel himself. It is quite 

 true that there was the possibility of a misunder- 

 standing. People do not always think for 

 themselves, and the statement of a proposition 

 in the form of a law may prove a pitfall for them. 

 The blind learning of them by heart is always 

 mischievous. On the other hand, it might be urged 

 that the statement of the ideas in this bald way 

 affords the best opportunity for a thorough and 

 rational criticism of them, precisely because they 

 give such pregnant expression to the writer's 

 meaning. I do not find that order and strict 

 logical definitions have ever done any harm of 

 themselves, whatever it is that is put in order 

 and defined. On the contrary. People must 

 confuse order sometimes with real dogmatism. 

 Of this there is not a word in the whole book, 

 while at an important juncture the reader is 

 actually warned to be on his guard against undue 

 pressure. " In this," we read in the twentieth 



