190 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



Haeckel certainly deserves the imputation of 

 double dealing or of faking his accounts. 



The second topic with which Dr. Schmidt-Jena 

 wished to deal concerned HaeckeFs pedigrees. 

 He remarked that on the previous evening (i.e. at 

 my third lecture, see pp. 79, 80) Father Wasmann 

 had referred to one such pedigree, and had re 

 marked that comments were superfluous. The 

 speaker begged to be allowed, nevertheless, to 

 comment on it. When Haeckel compiled his first 

 pedigrees between 1860 and 1870, he was told that 

 they were fantastic, and yet it was assumed that he 

 intended them to be taken literally. In the second 

 edition of his Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte, he 

 wrote : On this occasion, as well as with reference 

 to my other hypotheses regarding evolution, I 

 protest against having any dogmatic significance 

 ascribed to them. They are merely first attempts. 



This sentence stands in every edition of the 

 Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte, from the second to 

 the tenth; and in his other works, and especially 

 in his great book, Systematische Phylogenie (the race 

 history of living organisms), Haeckel has again and 

 again tried to protect himself against this dogmatic 

 interpretation of his pedigrees, and has repeatedly 

 insisted upon then- purely hypothetical character. 

 But these assertions on his part availed nothing ; 

 even at the present day he is charged with having 

 himself taken a dogmatic view of his pedigrees. 



