124 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



serve quite as effectively as a reply to his 

 own opposition to Socialism. 



As regards Haeckel's "often quoted declara- 

 tions against" Socialism, "they have obtained 

 great favor in wide circles, only because of 

 the high authority which this famous natur- 

 alist enjoys in an entirely diflferent domain of 

 science. His biogenetic principle, discovered 

 in embryology, "introduced a grand advance 

 in that science thirty years ago. This great 

 and lasting service rendered by him has, how- 

 ever no connection whatever with the un- 

 yielding and negative position which, unfor- 

 tunately," Haeckel "persists in assuming to- 

 wards the doctrine of" Socialism. 



Haeckers complaint that Virchow could not 

 judge the merits of evolution because he was 

 not a zoologist, is well taken. But the Social- 

 ist has as good or better right to assert that 

 Haeckel was incapable of estimating the rela- 

 tionship of Socialism to Darwinism, for he cer- 

 tainly knew a good deal less about Socialism 

 than Virchow knew of zoology. 



This is precisely the trouble with Haeckel's 

 criticism of what he calls Socialism. Of the 

 theories of Karl Marx and the modern scienti- 

 fic Socialists, he knew absolutely nothing. The 

 Socialism he condemned had been abandoned 



