THE DESCENT OF MAN 79 



on a few facts, have been regarded as definitely 

 obtained scientific results by those who have not 

 studied the matter closely, because these views 

 have been enunciated with a peculiar assurance. 



I fancy that Professor Schwalbe, if he were 

 present, would not be offended if I said : The 

 fate of Professor Schwalbe s homo primigenius has 

 given fresh confirmation to this statement. 



I recognise the value of scientific research, and 

 do not reject it in any hostile spirit, but I cannot 

 say as much for the attempt to represent the descent 

 of man from beasts as a conclusively proved fact, 

 as Haeckel has often done, on the last occasion 

 in the course of his Berlin lectures in 1905. 1 



I regret to have to say this, yet I am not opposing 

 Haeckel personally, but his assertions regarding 

 the descent of man, and my conscience compels me 

 to continue this opposition. 



I do not intend to discuss the matter further, 

 and will content myself with reading to you one 

 passage from his work entitled : The Struggle regard 

 ing Evolution, which contains his Berlin lectures. 

 On p. 99 will be found the genealogy of the primates, 

 in which is a perpendicular central line containing 

 the direct ancestors of man. Their order is as 

 follows : As man s most remote ancestor Haeckel 



1 See his work entitled Ueber unsere gegenwartige Kenntnis vom Ur- 

 sprung des Menschen (Our present Knowledge of the Origin of Man), 1899, 

 p. 22, and his Weltrdtsel (Eiddles of the Universe), p. 97. Nevertheless, 

 during the evening discussion, Haeckel s assistant, Schmidt-Jena, attempted 

 to maintain that Haeckel s genealogies were merely stated as hypotheses. 

 See Part n. of the present work. 



