PREFACE, xxiii 



And if I find myself, after all, forced to reply, 

 it is in the persuasion that a longer silence will add to 

 the erroneous conclusions which my hitherto resigned 

 attitude has already given rise to ; at the same time I 

 Lelieve that, precisely by reason of the peculiar interest 

 with which I have throughout followed Yirchow's scien- 

 tific achievements, I am specially qualified to answer 

 the question, a hundred times repeated by letter or by 

 word of mouth " How is it possible that a man who 

 so long stood at the head of a party of progress in 

 science as in politics, who in political life indeed, has 

 outwardly maintained this position, has in science 

 become an instrument of the most perilous reaction ? " 



A verbal answer, which I incidentally gave in March 

 of last year at the Concordia Banquet at Vienna, was 

 reported in the daily papers in such a different sense, 

 and was in part so misunderstood or so intentionally 

 misrepresented, that I am forced at last, on that 

 account, to publish a clear and unambiguous reply. 

 The " Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung," which eagerly 

 seizes every opportunity of expressing its unconquer- 

 able aversion to the evolution theory, accused me, 

 in one of its hostile articles, of a virulent and un- 

 dignified attack on Virchow. In contradiction of this 

 misrepresentation in the Augsburg paper which was 

 copied by other journals I must expressly assert that 

 not Virchow but I myself am the person attacked, and 



