50 Prof. Ernst Haeckel 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 



MR. NELSON J. GATES : 



The intelligent world owes a debt of gratitude to Prof. Haeckel. It 

 is due to his labors, mainly, that the doctrine of evolution is now as well 

 established as Kepler's laws of the motions of the planetary bodies, or 

 Newton's law of gravitation. No careful student of modern scientific 

 thought now doubts that the law of cause and effect prevails through- 

 out all phenomena, whether physical or mental. Every effect is the 

 exact product of antecedent causes. Thought is as much the product 

 of the condition's under which it arises as is the formation of a crystal 

 or the growth of a tree. There is no room for supernatural interfer- 

 ence anywhere. Though the natural evolution of living forms out of 

 non-living matter has not been demonstrated as a fact of present oc- 

 currence, there is no doubt in the mind of consistent evolutionists 

 that the most primitive organisms were originally produced by spon- 

 taneous generation. Prof. Haeckel's investigations in embryology 

 constitute a most important confirmation of the Darwinian theory, 

 and entitle him to be placed in the front rank -of experimental 

 scientists. 



PROF. P. H. VAN DER WEYDE : 



Dr. Vander Weyde exhibited a series of drawings enlarged from 

 plates contained in the works of Prof. Haeckel, illustrative of human 

 evolution. The lowest form of mankind was shown to be scarcely as 

 intelligent in appearance as the higher apes, and the brain capacity of 

 the lowest races was but little superior to that of the highest non- 

 human mammals. He also explained, by the aid of a map, Prof. 

 Haeckel's theory as to the geographical distribution of the human 

 race. Dr. Van der Weyde saw no difficulty in conceiving that all 

 living things, including man, were developed from eternally existing 

 matter only the matter itself must have been living matter, not dead 

 and inert, as was formerly believed. 



DR. ROBERT G. ECCLES : 



Mr. Wakeman wholly misunderstands Mr. Spencer's position as to 

 the nature of mind or consciousness. Mr. Spencer does not regard 

 consciousness as an entity, but as a phenomenal process. Mr. Wake- 



