144 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



lous pedigrees of man : "On this occasion, as well 

 as with reference to my other hypotheses regard- 

 ing evolution, I protest against having any dog- 

 matic significance ascribed to them. They are 

 merely first attempts." 2 This might be con- 

 sidered a modest statement of the plain fact that 

 there is no proof for the evolution of man, but it 

 can be wrung from men like Haeckel only when 

 placed with their back to the wall. In his 

 'Weltratsel""The Riddle of the Universe" 

 Haeckel again deliberately resumes his habitual 

 attitude of dogmatism, and worst of all he was 

 taken seriously, by those at least who wished to 

 believe in his conclusions : 



In the last twenty years a considerable number of well- 

 preserved fossil skeletons of anthropoid and other apes have 

 been discovered, and amongst them are the important inter- 

 mediary forms, which constitute a series of ancestors con- 

 necting the oldest anthropoid ape with man. 8 



Coulo! a more positive dogmatism be conceived 

 on a matter on which science has absolutely noth- 

 ing to offer that can amount even to an approach 

 towards evidence. The reason for such state- 

 ments, as Kellogg admits, is mainly subjective. 

 Man must be descended from the ape, body and 

 mind, because materialistic evolution requires this, 

 and materialistic evolution must be true, because 

 else it would be necessary to admit a Creator. 

 This is the main line of subconscious, and often of 



"See Wasmann "The Problem of Evolution," p. 190. 

 "Weltratsel," p. 99; Wasmann, op. cit., p. 191. 



