PREFATORY NOTE. 



IN complying with the wish of the publishers of Pro- 

 fessor Haeckel's reply to Professor Virchow, that I 

 should furnish a prefatory note expressing my own 

 opinion in respect of the subject-matter of the contro- 

 versy, Gay's homely lines, prophetic of the fate of 

 those " who in quarrels interpose," emerge from some 

 brain 1 cupboard in which they have been hidden since 

 my childish days. In fact, the hard-hitting with 

 which both the attack and the defence abound, makes 

 me think with a shudder upon the probable sufferings 

 of the unhappy man whose intervention should lead 

 two such gladiators to turn their weapons from one 

 another upon him. In my youth, I once attempted 

 to stop a street fight, and I have never forgotten the 

 brief but impressive lesson on the value of the policy 

 of non-intervention which I then received. 



But there is, happily, no need for me to place 

 myself in a position which, besides being fraught with 

 danger, would savour of presumption. Careful study 



