20 THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 



They pursue the prevailing and very useful ideal of " exact " 

 science. They accumulate facts with which some later and 

 larger mind may build, or with which they themselves may 

 build when they think the material complete. This is the 

 only difference between Professor Haeckel and most of his 

 great biological colleagues on the subject of the origin of 

 life. They think that a hypothesis framed in the present 

 state of our knowledge is bound to be insecure. If, indeed, 

 Haeckel advanced his speculation as the positive teaching 

 of biology, they would differ from him. No biologist in 

 this country has done so ; and I have shown that Sir Oliver 

 Lodge's charge of dogmatism has a basis which we must at 

 once repudiate. On the other hand, few, if any, biologists 

 would dispute that Haeckel is, from the scientific point of 

 view, one of the best-equipped in the world for such specu- 

 lations. This is an estimate of his qualifications by one of 

 the first biologists in England (in a recent letter to me) : 



Haeckel is one of the first living biologists. There are 

 not any others who have the same wide knowledge and 

 experience, and consequent " point of view." He knows 

 his zoology, botany, physiology, and pathology, also 

 geology, and has travelled, and has a keen interest in 

 and knowledge of no small degree of philology, archaeo- 

 logy, and ethnography. 



It would be difficult to conceive a higher technical equip- 

 ment for speculating on the origin and nature of life. I do 

 not wish to press the contrast to the purely physical attain- 

 ments of Sir Oliver Lodge, but he compels me to protest 

 that Haeckel is something more than " a learned biologist 

 who introduced Darwinism into Germany." Curiously 



